21.3873, Disc: Languages without Past Tense and the Concept of Past Time

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-3873. Sun Oct 03 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.3873, Disc: Languages without Past Tense and the Concept of Past Time

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1)
Date: 27-Sep-2010
From: Harriet Taber < harriet.taber at gmail.com >
Subject: Languages without Past Tense and the Concept of Past Time
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2010 21:24:24
From: Harriet Taber [harriet.taber at gmail.com]
Subject: Languages without Past Tense and the Concept of Past Time

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I learned in Cultural Anthropology class (taught by a cultural 
anthropologist) today that: 

1. Many human languages have no way of encoding the concept of 
past time (e.g., no past tense, no adverbs denoting previous time), 
2. Speakers of such languages have no 'linguistic concept of past time,' 
and 
3. As a consequence of this lexical gap, the speakers of these 
languages have absolutely no concept of past time.  
(These averred facts were related to practices of ancestor worship.)  

The professor, when asked who precisely we are talking about, said 
that the above 3 claims are true of 'indigenous languages' and their 
speakers; when asked which indigenous languages, he replied 'Native 
American languages,' and, when pushed, 'Native American languages 
in the Southwest,' and, when pushed still further, 'Apache.' As an 
afterthought, he also added, 'and the languages of Papua New 
Guinea.' 

I know that a grammar may refer to past time using aspect morphemes 
(e.g., perfective), but I am not aware of any human language that does 
not have a way to refer to past time (claim 1); I am also not aware of 
any human beings that do not understand the concept of past time 
(claim 3) no matter how their grammar and lexicon work.
  
Can a linguist who specializes in an Apache language or any of the 
languages in Papua New Guinea please confirm, disconfirm, and 
explain what this professor might be talking about? 

Eagerly awaiting your reply! 


Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics
                     Syntax




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