Re: Chevraqis: a sketch

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> > > I'm using "reportive" to mean something that the speaker has witnessed,
> > > or a "fundamental truth" (generally religious, sometimes used in
> > > discussing math or philosphy).
> >
> > I think that would be the "gnomic aorist" then, which has been discussed
> > (very thoroughly!) on the Elfling list? (I don't expect you to know this
> > Yoon, but perhaps the other guys both on Elfling and Conlang know.)
> > Though it also sounds like an "evidential". I think you can read about
> > those in the LCK, which I think you said you had. Perhaps "experienced
> > aorist" or "perceptive aorist"? :)
>
> Hmm.  Can something be both evidential and "gnomic aorist"?  Must look
> this up.
It sure can.  You combine well nigh any set of meanings into a given affix. That
does not mean, however, that the two *functions* are semantically combined;
it's just the way they're encoded that is combined.

An aside:
My friend likes to joke about my conlanging interests by creating languages
that, for example, have a word that implies all knowledge and argumentation
in Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_ (for the uninitiated, it's <po>) .  Another example
of his, called _Cardboard_  by outsiders, has every word phonologically be /piz/ ('peas'),
every word written <cardboard>, and every word means "Are those real?". Another,
which he calls Doenitz, tries to capture the feeling of a Nürnburg rally.  Needless to say,
this is a very cynical man we're talking about here.  :)

(No, he does not subscribe to National Socialism.)

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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