Sociological Linguistics

[Nik Taylor]

"Patrick C. Ryan" wrote:

> Yes, it makes Kakiutl more expressive.

In that aspect.  But overall is it more expressive?  That's a subjective
decision.  I know nothing of that lang in specific, but there are surely
other areas where it is *less* expressive, more ambiguous.  Say it
lacked a plural (I don't know if it does), would it be more or less
expressive overall?  It depends on which you consider more important,
number or visibility?

> Now one can say in English: 'I saw Susie'. What is the equivalent literal
> translation in Mandarin?

There's a morpheme in Mandarin that indicates perfect aspect, that is
used.  Even if it lacked that, one could say something like "earlier" or
"in the past".  Most concepts are expressible in all languages, it's
just a matter of how easily one can state it.  One can say "You, me, and
some other people" in English to express the Bislama "yumifala", it's
just that Bislama gramaticalizes it, and makes it mandatory, whereas in
English it is optional, and rarely actually spelled out.  To use another
example, in Spanish "la vi" can mean "I saw her" or "I saw it",
ambiguous relative to English, but you can also have "las vi" for "I saw
them (fem.)", which could not be interpreted as "I saw the men" (Vi a
los hombres) or "I saw the cars" (Vi los carros), but could mean "I saw
the women" (Vi a las mujeres) or "I saw the tables" (Vi las mesas), less
ambigous than English.  Is it overall less expressive or more
expressive?  Well, that's a judgement call.  I'd say that, overall,
they're roughly equal.

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