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From: gary@rochester.UUCP (Gary Cottrell)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.nlang
Subject: Natural Language Deficiencies in Hopi.
Message-ID: <2479@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 16:52:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocheste.2479
Posted: Tue Oct 23 16:52:08 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 19:04:58 EDT
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Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
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> <>
> It is well-known that the Hopi (American Indian) language only has a
> present tense, there are no past or future tenses for their verbs.
> Surely this is a language deficiency.

The same is true of AMSLAN (AMerican Sign LANguage), but whether you are
talking about the past or future is clearly communicated by setting up the
context in advance. For example, one might say "Yesterday, I see Bill.",
which is perfectly grammatical in AMSLAN. I'll bet there's something similar
in Hopi.

gary cottrell	(allegra or seismo)!rochester!gary  (UUCP)
		gary@rochester (ARPA)