Re: THEORY: Temporal Auxiliaries, Aspectual Auxiliaries, Modal Auxiliaries

Hello again, Ray, and the list.
Thanks for writing, Ray.
I got timed-out, late yesterday afternoon/early last evening,
before I finished my question(s) in response to your response;
so herewith I resume.

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Ray Brown <ray.brown@F...> wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 5, 2005, at 06:07 , Tom Chappell wrote:
>  [snip]
> > N9) In my original question 8), is the "content word" always or
> > almost always one that could best be, or would have to be,
translated
> > as a deverbal noun or deverbal adjective, if not a verb, in any
> > language in which the entire phrase existed as a non-analytic
lexical
> > verb?
>
> Sorry - I do not really understand the question - altho _deverbal_
is
> clearly wrong.
Yes, you are right. The question should be re-read with "verbal" in
place of "deverbal".

An example is the "verbnoun" in each of your Welsh examples above.
You seem to have indicated that it is to be thought of as a gerund.
For instance you translated "ganu" as "singing".

My question was, in Korean or other languages in which some (say)
English content-verb (like "studied") has to
be translated by a light-verb-and-content-word combination,
say "kongpu-lul ha-yess-ta";

John-i   [yenge-lul  kongpu-lul]VNP ha-yess-ta
John-Nom English-Acc study-Acc      do-Pst-Dc

`John studied English.'

when we re-translate "kongpu-lul ha-yess-ta" back into (in this case)
English, does the content-word (in this case "kongpu-lul") always
correspond to a verbal noun or verbal adjective?  (In this
case, "kongpu-lul" translates as the verbal noun "study", as in "the
study of English".)

> [snip]
> > Classically, then, many uses of English verbs are "infinite" forms
> > of the verb in question, although we are not taught to regard them
> > as "infinitives".
> > Mostly we think of non-tensed, non-"aspected" verbs when we think
> > of "infinite" verbs in English.
> > This is probably incorrect,
>
> The term 'infinite' is incorrect.
> We talk about about non-finite verbs.
?
"non-finite" is different from "infinite"?
Why?

> [snip]
> > N10) Can anyone give me examples of Tensed Infinite Verbs?
> > I prefer multiple different forms in the same natural language,
for
> > multiple different languages; but any example at all will count as
> > a contribution.
>
> You mean:
> amare = to love
> amavisse = to have loved.
> amari = to be loved
> amatus esse = to have been loved
> ??
Yes!  Thanks, very much.

> [snip]
> > and Voice specified.  In fact, I am not sure how much sense it
> > makes to call anything with an unspecified voice a Verb.
As your example below makes clear, the above comment was not correct.
I think I was thinking of the remark about Vocal Auxiliaries
near N13 below, and mentally "lost track" of it; the above comment was
my first attempt to "get back on track."
Consider I didn't mean to say it.

> You'll have problems Chinese and other
> Sino-Tibetan languages then   :)
>
> ta1   xie3le    xin4
> he  write-PERF letter = he wrote the letter
>
> xin4 xie3le = the letter was written
Looks like you're right.

> [snip]
> > I conjecture that the idea of a "Voice" auxiliary -- an auxiliary
> > verb in an aux&lex construction whose main purpose for inclusion
> > was to carry the marking-for-voice that wasn't
> > going to be carried on
> > the main verb -- doesn't even make sense.
>
> Do you indeed? I do not see for the life of me
> why it does not make sense.
Well, I could tell you why I thought so, but it would probably not be
an economical use of space, since you prove below that it can happen.

This, by the way, is the guess I meant to make,
and the question I meant to ask.
Thanks for answering it with a counter-example.

> > N13) Does anyone know of, or can anyone come up with, a proof or
> > disproof?
>
> I can come up with a disproof - its called Welsh    :)
>
> The auxuliary is 'cael' (get, receive)
> is used with the good ol' verbnoun
> (indifferent as to voice!)
>
> Rhoedd ffilm newydd yn cael      ei dangos neithiwr
> Was    film   new   YN receiving its showing last-night
> = A new film was being shown last night
>
> Roedd yr arian wedi   cael     ei gasglu     ganddo fe.
> Was  the money after receiving its collecting with him
> = The money had been collected by him
Nice one.  Ta.

> > NOMINALS VS VERBALS]
> > Some linguists have proposed that the fundamental division between
> > Nominals and Verbals is this:
> Which linguists?
I think Tomasello might be one, and I think Jackendoff might be
another.

Tomasello, Michael.
The psychology professor from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig.
(2003) Constructing a Language:
A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition.
Harvard University Press.

Foundations of Language:
Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution
by Ray Jackendoff.
Oxford University Press(2002)
Professor of Linguistics.
Chair, Linguistics Program,.
Brandeis University.

And I could be wrong about either or both of them.
Then again I could be right.

>
> > Nominals denote whatever must be bounded in Space;
> > Verbals denote whatever must be bounded in Time.
>
> Umm - no place for God then.
Just means that if you want to talk about "God" in the abstract,
sometimes some of the things you want to say about "God", would be
better said if you could refer to "God" with some word or phrase that
wasn't nominal nor verbal.

If we say "God wrestled with Jacob at Peniel", that "binds" God to
Peniel for the purposes of that sentence.  Of course, in a larger
sense of the word "bind", it doesn't "bind" God at all, not in space,
nor in any other way.  But the choice of whether to refer to a
particular concept in a nominal way or a verbal way sometimes is
conditioned -- so some say -- on whether we mean during that
utterance more to pin down its placement or more its timing.

> Besides I thought modern physics held that
> time is dependent upon space.
That's news to me.
It's more that space and time are capable of mixing,
and which angle is "space" and which is "time"
depends on how fast you are traveling.
If you and I are not going at the same speed in the same direction,
what I think of as "time"
will look like a mix of "time" and "space" to you;
and what you think of as "time"
will look like a mix of "time" and "space" to me.
But, always, "time-like intervals" --
intervals in which the "time" component
is dominant over the "space" component --
will appear "time-like" to both of us;
likewise, "space-like intervals"
will appear "space-like" to both of us.
A "time-like" interval can be traversed at under /c/;
a "space-like" interval cannot.

Thanks.

> MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
I think it can be done.  I hope it will be done.

-----

Tom H.C. in MI

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