17
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between tense and aspect?
When discussing tense, aspect, and mood, it's important to distinguish a given language's grammatical markers from the abstract concepts being described. Thus, linguists use the words temporal ...
- 3,241
11
votes
Accepted
Should Auxlangs have metaphors?
Theoretically you can eliminate metaphor, yes, but you are working against human nature itself.
Certain metaphors are exceedingly common and embedded in the very grammar of many languages (although ...
- 1,512
9
votes
Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?
Well, y'know, ANADEW and all that, but...
As far as I know, there is no natural language with a grammaticalized antiperfect aspect--i.e., an aspect where the time of the action is after the reference ...
7
votes
Is there a practical lower limit to the number of morphemes required in a language?
Outside of Toki Pona, there haven't been any "majorly" successful attempts at making an oligomorphemic language — as far as I know. While derivational and inflectional morphology could be done away ...
- 1,334
6
votes
Should Auxlangs have metaphors?
Metaphors are based on shared cultural understanding. Here is one often quoted example of a metaphor from Shakespeare's As You Like It:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely ...
- 3,331
5
votes
How could a conlang enforce subjective idealism in a constructed world
You may be interested in E-Prime.
E-Prime is a version of English that excludes all forms of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions and archaic forms. This makes many objective ...
- 51
4
votes
What is the difference between tense and aspect?
The difference is that tense refers to the time an action (or state or phenomenon) happened:
I was slim.
I am fat.
I will be fatter.
while aspect refers to the way an action (or state, or phenomenon)...
- 522
4
votes
How could a conlang enforce subjective idealism in a constructed world
Basically, your question is misstated.
In our own world, languages cannot enforce philosophies. You can be a Hegelian, a Tomist, a Berkelian, or a Marxist, in any given language, from Modern English ...
- 522
3
votes
Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?
Morotuncanian has some verbal aspects that I rather doubt appear in natural languages of the primary world.
Sedative and Excitative verbal aspects. The former aspect expresses the nature of the ...
- 2,910
2
votes
Accepted
How could a conlang enforce subjective idealism in a constructed world
We can have two classes of nouns: souls, and the perceptions and ideas of souls. Ideas nouns must be inflected for who they are being perceived by: you, God, or whoever. This would have the effect of ...
- 146
1
vote
Designing realistic pragmatics, particularly with respect to answering questions
Consider the following:
"I can't answer that."
"I'd rather not say."
"I don't understand the question."
"It's not that simple."
"It depends."
All of ...
1
vote
Should Auxlangs have metaphors?
If an auxlang did not have metaphors, it would soon acquire them if the auxlang in question were used as the world's second language. I doubt that there exists any community of sapient life forms that ...
- 121
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