Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.ai,net.nlang Subject: Re: natural language deficiencies? Message-ID: <1163@dciem.UUCP> Date: Thu, 25-Oct-84 17:20:23 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1163 Posted: Thu Oct 25 17:20:23 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 25-Oct-84 18:51:54 EDT References: <801@aplvax.UUCP> Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 20 ============ 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. ============ If I remember correctly, Whorf pointed out that the Hopi don't really have verbs. Rather, they differentiate between events that last longer than a cloud (nouns) and shorter events (verbs). Presumably they also distinguish between events you know about (past+present[which is now past because you are talking about it]) and events you don't know about (counterfactuals and/or future). Does anyone know more directly about this? The nature of the Hopi verb/noun tense/factual distinction is interesting because Whorf used the non-distinction between noun and verb to argue that the Hopi probably see the world in a different way. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt