So how big is a language? Consider the example of a single English verb, say take. (We will leave aside the question whether take in take medicine, take time, take a shower etc. are or are not the same word!) This may be either finite or non-finite; lets just consider the finite forms to start with. If the verb is finite, it selects either temporality (primary tense) or modality; but there are three primary tenses, past (took), present (takes) or future (will take) and a large number of possible modalities. To simplify the illustration we will recognize just 24 of these, organized in four systems: value: low/median/high (e.g. may will must); orientation: away from/to speaker (e.g. may can); direction: neutral/oblique (e.g. may might); type: probability/obligation (e.g. that may take time/you may go). This gives us 27 possible forms. But each of these may be either positive or negative (e.g. took/didnt take); and each of these polarities may be either unmarked (e.g. took, didnt take) or marked (e.g. did take, did not take); 4 x 27 = 108. Each of these may be active or passive in voice, and there are two kinds of passive, neutral/mutative (e.g. took, was taken, got taken); 3 x 108 = 324. Then, each of these may select any of twelve secondary tenses, built up serially by shifting the point in time taken as reference (e.g. took, had taken, had been going to take, had been going to be taking); 12 x 324 = 3,888.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 06:01:22 +0000
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