Re: Necessary Components of a Language

On 4/24/07, MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com <MorphemeAddict@...> wrote:
> In a message dated 4/23/2007 7:33:02 PM Central Daylight Time,
> jimhenry1973@GMAIL.COM writes:
> > 4. A way of indicating the sense in which a sentence is
> > intended (mood or mode, roughly speaking - is it a
> > question, statement, command, performative...?)
> In many languages this is marked only by inflection.  The words themselves
> are exactly the same.
The two sentences seem to be in contradiction, unless
you mean "words" in the abstract sense in which e.g.
"devi", "devu" and "devas" are all the same word?

I am aware of several ways that languages mark mode or
mood:

1. inflection (typically of the main verb) (e.g. E-o "-u", "-us" endings)
2. stand-alone grammatical particles (e.g. E-o "cxu")
3. word order (e.g. English or French VSO-inversion for questions)
4. stress and intonation (e.g. final rising tone for questions
in English)

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry

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