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Linguistics question

BrianX said:
It's kind of worth noting that some Indo-European languages tend to treat verb tense as optional, prefering to use aspect for most things...
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I'm not familiar with the use of the word "aspect" in that context...can you give some examples?
 
BrianX said:
It's kind of worth noting that some Indo-European languages tend to treat verb tense as optional, prefering to use aspect for most things...
Click to expand...

I'm not following your comment. I am familiar with a number of Indo-European languages (including some that use aspect). Aspect has a different function than tense, so I don't understand how one can prefer to use one over the other without changing an intended meaning. The purpose of tense is to identify a position in time of an occurrence, the purpose of aspect is to define the duration or flow of that occurrence.
 
aggle-rithm said:
I'm not familiar with the use of the word "aspect" in that context...can you give some examples?
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An approximation to aspect in English can be understood when considering the difference between saying "I will run to the store" and "I will be running to the store." The former simply relates to an activity in the future while the latter views that future event as flowing or having a duration. While "I will be running" is not a common construction in English, some languages regularly use this aspect and it is expressed as a conjugation (a specific verb ending carrying this meaning). Events can be viewed with differing aspect in the past, future or present.
 
Perpetual Student said:
An approximation to aspect in English can be understood when considering the difference between saying "I will run to the store" and "I will be running to the store." The former simply relates to an activity in the future while the latter views that future event as flowing or having a duration. While "I will be running" is not a common construction in English, some languages regularly use this aspect and it is expressed as a conjugation (a specific verb ending carrying this meaning). Events can be viewed with differing aspect in the past, future or present.
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No wonder I had trouble with this concept...it's difficult to express in English without sounding clunky.

"At some point, I will be running to the store" would be the way I'd say it, or "I will be in the process of running to the store".
 
aggle-rithm said:
No wonder I had trouble with this concept...it's difficult to express in English without sounding clunky.

"At some point, I will be running to the store" would be the way I'd say it, or "I will be in the process of running to the store".
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It should not be misunderstood that English cannot express aspect. It simply does not do so with simple verb inflection, as some languages do. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of covering this topic: LINK
 
It is interesting that one can spot a foreign speaker who may otherwise have no accent, when he misuses an expression like "I will be running to the store."
 
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Perpetual Student said:
It is interesting that one can spot a foreign speaker who may otherwise have no accent, when he misuses an expression like "I will be running to the store."
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A long time ago I saw a movie on TV about a black WWII veteran who refused to accept the Medal of Honor. When asked why, he related a story of being shot by his fellow soldiers after he had taken out a whole German unit. He said the American who shot him first asked, "You made all this?" and gestured to the dead Germans, then he shot him.

The phrase "you made all this" clued authorities in to the fact that this was not a native English speaker. Using the word "made" instead of "did" suggested that he was a German trained to pose as an American soldier and wreak havoc behind enemy lines.

I don't remember the name of the movie, but that part was memorable to me.
 
aggle-rithm said:
A long time ago I saw a movie on TV about a black WWII veteran who refused to accept the Medal of Honor. When asked why, he related a story of being shot by his fellow soldiers after he had taken out a whole German unit. He said the American who shot him first asked, "You made all this?" and gestured to the dead Germans, then he shot him.

The phrase "you made all this" clued authorities in to the fact that this was not a native English speaker. Using the word "made" instead of "did" suggested that he was a German trained to pose as an American soldier and wreak havoc behind enemy lines.

I don't remember the name of the movie, but that part was memorable to me.
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That's really interesting; if you remember the name of that movie, please let me know.
I am acquainted with a woman born in Germany who came to the US as a teenager. She has totally rid herself of any trace of an accent. Recently in a restaurant, instead of saying she wanted eggs "over easy" she ordered her eggs "over soft." After seeing the hesitation of the waiter, she realized her idiomatic error and looked at me for help.
The most difficult thing to learn in a new language are these kinds of subtle idiomatic usages.
I know that foreigners, who are otherwise fluent, can be exposed by a misuse of aspect in languages that freely use aspect by means of inflection. Aspect is considered the most difficult thing to use idiomatically for a non-native speaker. I have been bilingual all my life (one of the languages having an inflected grammatical aspect), so I can easily spot those who are not native speakers when they use aspect inappropriately.
 
Perpetual Student said:
That's really interesting; if you remember the name of that movie, please let me know.
I am acquainted with a woman born in Germany who came to the US as a teenager. She has totally rid herself of any trace of an accent. Recently in a restaurant, instead of saying she wanted eggs "over easy" she ordered her eggs "over soft." After seeing the hesitation of the waiter, she realized her idiomatic error and looked at me for help.
The most difficult thing to learn in a new language are these kinds of subtle idiomatic usages.
I know that foreigners, who are otherwise fluent, can be exposed by a misuse of aspect in languages that freely use aspect by means of inflection. Aspect is considered the most difficult thing to use idiomatically for a non-native speaker. I have been bilingual all my life (one of the languages having an inflected grammatical aspect), so I can easily spot those who are not native speakers when they use aspect inappropriately.
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Hell, first time in the States, at a diner I asked for "take away" chicken - took 10mins explaining that this was the same as chicken "to go".

Who is the foreigner in this instance?

In Britain or Australia, "to go" would have been understood.

In the US, "take away" was incomprehendable...
 
This was from the BBC today:

Language universality idea tested with biology method
A long-standing idea that human languages share universal features that are dictated by human brain structure has been cast into doubt.

A study reported in Nature has borrowed methods from evolutionary biology to trace the development of grammar in several language families.

The results suggest that features shared across language families evolved independently in each lineage.

The authors say cultural evolution, not the brain, drives language development.

At the heart of both studies is a method based on what are known as phylogenetic studies.
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And just to muddy the waters, I can't resist bringing up Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." From the Wikipedia article: "Jaynes asserts that until roughly the times written about in Homer's Iliad, humans did not generally have the self-awareness characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today."

So, if the nature of consciousness changed, what did that do to language?
 
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