[YG Conlang Archives] > [katanda group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
> >There are times when we need to modify the modality of an utterance, Can a machine interlingua make a rigid distinction between the propositional content of an utterance, and the speaker's attitude towards that content? English conveys speaker attitude mainly through prosodic features, which do not in general exist in the written form. Unfortunately, it's the written form of the language which we want to translate. I think it would be unwieldy for an interlingua to have extra 'tags' on words or sentences, indicating attutide. Partly because there is a truely vast number of possible attitudes, most of them only making sense within a particular culture. Here's a few broad types of attitude. The list seems extendable indefinitely with subtle modulations: She kissed you [amusement] She kissed you [disbelief] She kissed you [uncirtain disbelief] She kissed you [admiration] She kissed you [envy] She kissed you [uninterest] She kissed you [dismissive] She kissed you [wanting to believe, but not] She kissed you [questioning, expecting a negative answer] Could the interlingua have an optional 'prepositional clause' (or an adverbial) to indicate speaker attitude? This would involve creating an indefinitely extendable set of nouns (from verbs) describing emotion and attitude. These words could of course be used elsewhere in sentences, to talk about emotions, without conveying them.