From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Tue Nov 26 12:31:36 EST 1991
Article 1509 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf
Message-ID: <5685@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 22 Nov 91 21:23:25 GMT
References: <1991Nov4.202823.1328@news.larc.nasa.gov> <431@trwacs.UUCP> <91309.175700MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET> <1991Nov6.163441.3770@psych.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 20

In article <1991Nov6.163441.3770@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <91309.175700MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET> MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET
> writes:
>>Note carefully.  Modern English does not contain an absolute
>>future tense.  Modern English can form a future concept only
>>with the help of auxiliary verbs.
>>
>>Should the academic world conclude that causal reasoning is
>>impossible in Modern English? :-)

>You might be interested in a battle which raged through the journal
>_Cognitiion_ a few years ago about whether the lack of a subjunctive
>mood in Chinese means that the Chinese are unable to accomplish
>certain kinds of conditional reasoning. (Of course it doesn't, but I
>was astounded to scholars consider this as a real possibility).

I heard this claim about 10 years ago and have since wondered
just how well-founded it was.  Can you tell me how the Chinese
manage to express the required ideas?  (I'm looking for an 
answer like the one for English (that we use auxiliary verbs).)


