METHOD Flashcards
CASE 2: future
Alternative approach: scope defined SEMANTICALLY
> Future
> How should we define the object? Interest in future tenses? Future events?
> Potential Issue?
English: PAST PRESENT FUTURE
Bininj Gun-wok: PAST NON-PAST
OPTIONS?
A typology of future tenses across languages
o What are their forms? What contexts do they cover?
A typology of the expression of future events
o By what tenses are they expressed? By what strategies other than tense?
many fine - state a DEFINITION which is EXPLICIT, UNAMBIGUOUS and CONCEPTUALLY SOUND
ways of defining properties - BROAD
Semasiological vs onomasiological
Semasiological, from Greek σῆμα sema ‘sign’
• Starts from FORM or signifier.
Onomasiological, ὀνομά onoma ‘name (of something)’
• Starts from MEANING or signified.
A common confusion between TWO senses of the term “future” (Haspelmath 2010)
o Descriptive category – future in individual languages
- For the purpose of language description.
- Has to reflect the coherence of each language as a system
o Comparative concept – future in context of a typological study
- For the purpose of cross-linguistic comparison.
- Does not have to reflect any logic, Other than the interests and goals of the researcher.
“Comparative concepts are defined by typologists in such a way that they allow them to capture interesting generalizations, or simply salient different language types. Thus, comparative concepts cannot be right or wrong or at least not in the same way as descriptive categories […]. … They can only be more or less productive.” (Haspelmath 2010:678)
o
