Re: Universal grammar

In article <1161093724.915199.54370@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Peter
T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A long time ago, in the early 1970s, a fellow had a book with a kind of
universal grammar, describing what is common to language specific
grammars. For example, it would classify the tense of verbs according to
point of time and temporal direction: past, present, future, thus giving
nine possibilities, noting that Turkish(?) is one of the few languages
having the "future future" tense.

What book might this have been? Are there similar, more contemporary
references?

Not the four-volume set edited by Joseph Greenberg *Universals of Human
Language* published by Stanford UP in 1978?

There have been plenty of works along these lines. You might look up
Bernard Comrie.

Thank you for the references. It does not as such make any difference if
it is the original book. But the story above goes back to some of the
years 1972-75, so unless there is some earlier edition of the book you
mention, it is not the one.

--
Hans Aberg
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Universal grammar
    ... universal grammar, describing what is common to language specific ... it would classify the tense of verbs according to ... Language* published by Stanford UP in 1978? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Universal grammar
    ... universal grammar, describing what is common to language specific ... it would classify the tense of verbs according to ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: AI Knowledge Structure
    ... It's based on 6th grade grammar, really, and 6th grade grammar is a bloody mess. ... Eg "tense" is a morphological concept, and "time" is a semantic one. ... We also use verb phrases, ... relying on what we express in language as an index of what we know is problematic. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: Universal grammar
    ... universal grammar, describing what is common to language specific ... it would classify the tense of verbs according to ... I am a native Turkish speaker and it's not clear to me what is meant by this ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Turkish tense question
    ... Jack Campin - bogus address wrote: passage about childhood memories and the nature of the Turkish ... a special tense that allows us to distinguish hearsay from what we ... gel-mish he reportedly came ...
    (sci.lang)