Re: tense marking and typology

>From: Joe Mondello" <Rugpretzel@...>"
>Subject:      Re: tense marking and typology
>Status: R
>
>(Re. tense marked by word order)
>
>In my old, mostly monosyllabic  euroclone siniuz, word order marked tense.
>the standard (present tense) word order was SVO, and in other word orders
>(specifically when O preceded S) case inflections marked PoSes.  Where there
>is normally no O the reflexive pronoun 'se' is used as a placeholder:
>(I don't remember many concrete examples or words so I will reConlang a bit
>of it)
1
>SVO     Present Aorist (?)
2
>VOS     Future
3
>VSO     Past
4
>OVS     Present progressive
5
>OSV     Future Progressive
6
>VOS     Past progressive
>
Pretty ingenious, I think. There are the expected number of tenses
given three different objects to permute; 3x2x1=6. Just one more object
would yield 12 tenses, still not anywhere near enough for a fleshed out
tense system. Maybe adding some "quasi cases" beyond the dative just
for the purpose of increasing the options would do it. Two more "quasi
cases" would yield 6x5x4x2x1=240 tenses, probably enough. BTW, vector
tense is not _that_ boring, even though it is linear.

Jerry
------------------
NGL exists
humor not marked.


>This is all making me nostalgic for those long ago days, about 9 months and 5
>conlangs ago.  I really should settle down.
>
>Pacs Precs (Siniuz for, IIRC, "Peace, within reason")
>Joe Mondello
>