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2012/9/24 And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email>
> > The "polymorphism" approach may be more economic and easy,
> > but having different words would be more precise.
>
> Why would it be more precise?
Maybe it does not apply to Xorban,
but imagine a language with the sentence
{I} {like} {dog} {eat} {chocolate} .
Depending on the language syntax,
it could be interpreted as
"I like dogs. I eat chocolate." ,
or
"I like (a) dog(s) eating chocolate." .
Other options are
"I like dogs. Dogs eat chocolate." ,
"I like dogs. Eat chocolate!" ,
"I like that dogs eat chocolate." ,
etc.
Naturally you can be unambiguous using specifiers
or delimiters. Having different words with different slots
would only avoid the need for many of them.
However, I'm not saying that this is the best option.
I'm just exploring possibilities.
As I said before, Xorban looks like an object-oriented
programming language to me, so it will be nice if
I can also identify the OO concept of polymorphism in it.
> > By the way, mood markers for the main verb could do this job as well.
>
> For example?
Rigorously speaking, I guess that most of them should rather be called
"modality markers", but I don't know if the distinction between "modality"
and "mood" would be necessary. The word "would" is said to mark the
epistemic modality of a verb in English, but the corresponding tense
in Portuguese (and other languages) is said to be in the "conditional mood".
So, the distinction may depend on the language grammar.
PS: I just found a reference about it:
http://ilit.umbc.edu/MargePub/MoodandModal.pdf
The point is that we could define particles similar to the modal verbs
"would", "might", "must", etc. in order to express anything that
otherwise would be expressed by means of verbs being the objects
of other verbs.
Common moods are
* indicative: expresses facts, events that actually happen;
* subjunctive: expresses hypothesis, opinion, emotion, desiring, etc.;
* imperative: expresses commands, prohibitions, requests, etc.
Other moods are described in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood
Instead of a subjunctive mood marker, we could have individual markers
for hypothesis, opinion, emotion, desiring, etc.
Defining some more markers corresponding to English's modal verbs
and the remaining expressions of the most common moods,
we would probably have little need for verbs being the argument of other verbs.
"I like to swim." -> "I swim-{pleasure}."
It's not very strange if you think that they say
"ich schwimme gern" (or something similar) in German.
But we should be more careful with complex sentences:
"I know how to not want to like to swim."
"I know how to not want to swim-{pleasure}."
"I know how to not {swim-{pleasure}}-{desire}."
"I know how {{swim-{pleasure}}-{desire}}-{negation}}."
"{{{swim-{pleasure}}-{desire}}-{negation}}}-{ability}-I."
If we avoid the delimiters by stating that markers at the right
are always more comprehensive, this sentence would sound
like this in a Xorban-like phonology:
CCCVV-CCVV-CCVV-CCVV-CCVV
The multiple VV variables would be more useful if the subject
of each verb changes:
"I want you to suggest that he starts liking to swim."