Re: CHAT: The Conlang Instinct

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>Am 12/10 13:55  John Cowan yscrifef:
>xxx
>> I have no reading difficulties, but I often confuse left/right and east/west.


>I mastered east/west after I learnt that facing north spells W.E. (west.
>east.)  I have never mastered left/right.  To this day I still look for
>the L made by the index finger and the thumb of the left hand.
Andrew, or John, if you can answer this it will help me with vector tense
design options.

Suppose that past is left and future is right.

If I say, "It happened 6 hours left of now" does that take a lot of
extra time to process for you? Is it evident that it means "It happened
6 hours ago"? If "left of now" is a word, which it is, <vomu>, would it
come to mean <ago> or would it always take time to analyze as
<left-of-now>?  And even harder, how about <demu> which means "right of
now" or  <future ago> or "after now"?
In other words do you think the derivation of the words based on
directionality would drop out and they would become just time words or
would their origin as space analogs continually be a drag on
conceptualization for you?
Sorry if this question is not to the point, I have a quite definite
sense of right and left and I'm not sure I'm walking in your moccassins.

Jerry

Honesty is such a lonely word---Billy Joel

>
>- andrew.
>--
>Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz
>
>                      "Piskie, Piskie, say Amen
>                   Doon on your knees and up agen."
>
>                    "Presbie, Presbie, dinna bend;
>                   Sit ye doon on mon's chief end."
>                               - Attributions unknown.
>