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"Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

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Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#11

Post by episteme »

paleotrope wrote: post #6
thaumasiotes wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figured they were going for a distinction between words and phrases, where it's true that "yesterday" is an opaque lexical item while "next week" is a compositional phrase. But they seem to just be buffoons: > Mayan languages express future and past days with great ease and expanse, both into the past and towards the future. To name past and future days in my Kaqchik’el Mayan language, for example, we construct the…

How about a fortnight ago?

Yeah, or next month, next year, next decade..

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#12

Post by bloak »

paleotrope wrote: post #8
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, it's cooler of it's agglutinative.

"Ago" is kind of agglutinative. In english it isn't used by itself. It's pretty much a suffix even though by convention it is it's own word.

It's more like a preposition that exceptionally comes after the noun phrase instead of before it. (Is there another thing like that in English? I can't think of one, though there's one in German: entlang)

Etymologically it's a past participle: three days agone (gone) => three days ago

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#13

Post by jeroenhd »

paleotrope wrote: post #4

"It is noteworthy to point out that in Spanish or English, there are no expressions of time that go any further than two days into the past or the future;" I'll think about this more next week.

The distinction between the use of "ago" and compositional words that this text makes doesn't make much sense to me, but I do find the lack of a common word for "the day before yesterday" and "the day after tomorrow" quite jarring when my native language has a common word for it.

Ereyesterday and overmorrow are perfect equivalents found in some dictionaries, but they're not exactly common.

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#14

Post by Quekid5 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #13
paleotrope wrote: post #4

"It is noteworthy to point out that in Spanish or English, there are no expressions of time that go any further than two days into the past or the future;" I'll think about this more next week.

The distinction between the use of "ago" and compositional words that this text makes doesn't make much sense to me, but I do find the lack of a common word for "the day before yesterday" and "the day after tomorrow" quite jarring when my native language has a common word for it. Ereyesterday and overmorrow are perfect equivalents found in some dictionaries, but they're not exactly common.

Yesteryear is also one I've actually heard used. (But again, not exactly common.)

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#15

Post by thaumasiotes »

bloak wrote: post #12
paleotrope wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ago" is kind of agglutinative. In english it isn't used by itself. It's pretty much a suffix even though by convention it is it's own word.

It's more like a preposition that exceptionally comes after the noun phrase instead of before it. (Is there another thing like that in English? I can't think of one, though there's one in German: entlang) Etymologically it's a past participle: three days agone (gone) => three days ago

> It's more like a preposition that exceptionally comes after the noun phrase instead of before it. (Is there another thing like that in English? I can't think of one, though there's one in German: entlang)

There are some similar constructions:

- Three days hence. (archaic)

- Three days later.

- Three days beforehand.

- Three days afterwards.

I failed to think of one that didn't have to do with time.

You could think of "three days later" as being supposed to have a complement supplied to later, as in "three days later [than that]", but interestingly enough this isn't possible for "beforehand" or "afterwards".

---

postscript: I think this can be conflated with a general syntactic possibility in English. I can describe an establishment as being "one floor up" from some other contextually-determined establishment, or, as with later, I can make that relationship explicit by saying "one floor up from [wherever]". This is also similar to the bog-standard measurement construction that gets you phrases like "three feet tall".

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#16

Post by bryanrasmussen »

paleotrope wrote: post #4

"It is noteworthy to point out that in Spanish or English, there are no expressions of time that go any further than two days into the past or the future;" I'll think about this more next week.

I believe expressions in this case means words that refer to the concept, they are however wrong because I will be thinking about it in a fortnight.

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#17

Post by OJFord »

Quekid5 wrote: post #14
jeroenhd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction between the use of "ago" and compositional words that this text makes doesn't make much sense to me, but I do find the lack of a common word for "the day before yesterday" and "the day after tomorrow" quite jarring when my native language has a common word for it. Ereyesterday and overmorrow are perfect equivalents found in some dictionaries, but they're not exactly common.

Yesteryear is also one I've actually heard used. (But again, not exactly common.)

For abstract times gone by though right? I've never heard it used to mean specifically 'last year'. (And in fact typically much more than just one year ago, not including it.)

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#18

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

baxtr wrote: post #10
paleotrope wrote: post #4

"It is noteworthy to point out that in Spanish or English, there are no expressions of time that go any further than two days into the past or the future;" I'll think about this more next week.

You’ll forgot about it in 2 days.

I think the distinction is that "2 days" is a composite which could also be constructed as "5 days", "91 days", etc.

There's no specific single word that cannot be modified which means exactly "2 days", like "uebermorgen" which specifically means "the day after tomorrow". You cannot have "5 uebermorgen", for contrast.

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#19

Post by flohofwoe »

jeroenhd wrote: post #13
paleotrope wrote: post #4

"It is noteworthy to point out that in Spanish or English, there are no expressions of time that go any further than two days into the past or the future;" I'll think about this more next week.

The distinction between the use of "ago" and compositional words that this text makes doesn't make much sense to me, but I do find the lack of a common word for "the day before yesterday" and "the day after tomorrow" quite jarring when my native language has a common word for it. Ereyesterday and overmorrow are perfect equivalents found in some dictionaries, but they're not exactly common.

Theoretically, in German you can stack the prefix, but it's also not exactly common (everybody would know what you mean though).

Vorvorgestern... would be the day before the day before yesterday.

Überübermorgen... the day after the day after tomorrow.

Instead you'd simply say the German equivalent of '3 days ago', or 'in 3 days'.

The simple vorgestern and übermorgen are absolutely in common use though.

Re: "Nik": The Mesoamerican Representation of Zero (2021)

#20

Post by amelius »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #18
baxtr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll forgot about it in 2 days.

I think the distinction is that "2 days" is a composite which could also be constructed as "5 days", "91 days", etc. There's no specific single word that cannot be modified which means exactly "2 days", like "uebermorgen" which specifically means "the day after tomorrow". You cannot have "5 uebermorgen", for contrast.

ueber-ueber-ueber-ueber-morgen?
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