Certain aspects of grammar (big discussion!)

[Karutoshika]

So, I'm back to designing conlangs after some time doing something better with my life. And I have a few questions
I did my research obviously, but I am still not sure and would like to hear your opinions guys.

1. What is the point for having grammatical future tense in a language? I have designed my previous conlang to have only "past" and "not-past" grammatical tense. With Future expressed with perfect form of verbs. Essentially "perfect verb + non-past tense" = future, because otherwise it would be past (since the verb is perfect).
Just in case clarification:
imperfect past = i was doing
perfect past = i did
imperfect non-past = i am doing
perfect non-past = i will do
As you can see the only thing that is missing is the explicit "I will be doing", but frankly I don't see it as being THAT important since it is possible to express in other ways.

2. Is there a reason to differentiate between locative and temporal cases if the language marks "location", "origin" and "destination" for words. So, is there a reason to have "from place", "to place", "at place" and "from time", "to time", "at time" or would it be better to have a generic cases for "from", "to", "at" and use them for both: locations and time. Any reason to choose one approach over the other?

3. What consequences does adding different versions of "to be" has? Specifically marking animacy like in Japanese aru/iru (to exist). And permanency as in Spanish ser/estar (to be).

4. Is there a reason to have grammar based passive voice?
Similar results could be achieved with:
I(subj) eat(verb) = I'm eating
I(obj) eat(verb) = I'm being eaten
But I realize it is not the same thing.

5. Is there a reason to have more conditionals other than "if" and "when"?
Japanese has lots of them. But to me it seems that it is possible can create a sentence that would mean the same thing by simply using specific verbs/nouns and if/when conditionals only.

I will add a couple more questions later

[linguoboy]

As you can see the only thing that is missing is the explicit "I will be doing", but frankly I don't see it as being THAT important since it is possible to express in other ways.

It's possible to express any TAM distinction in other ways. The simplest method (and you won't find any shortage of languages which work this way) is just to use temporal adverbs, e.g. "I now eat", "I earlier eat", "I soon eat", etc. The "point", then, is having a way of making this distinction that is grammaticalised, no more nor less.

[zompist]

The general answer is "Yes, you can do whatever you want." If you've read the LCK you're aware of how other natural languages do things. If there is no morphological way to do something, it can be done lexically. Some specific comments:

1. What is the point for having grammatical future tense in a language? I have designed my previous conlang to have only "past" and "not-past" grammatical tense.

Which, morphologically, is what English has. Calling one particular modal construction the "future tense" is a bit of Latinolatry.

2. Is there a reason to differentiate between locative and temporal cases if the language marks "location", "origin" and "destination" for words. So, is there a reason to have "from place", "to place", "at place" and "from time", "to time", "at time" or would it be better to have a generic cases for "from", "to", "at" and use them for both: locations and time.

The SPACE IS TIME metaphor is so common that it would be a bit weird not to have it. What's perhaps more interesting is that humans don't all agree on what direction time flows, so don't just copy the English idea that time is ahead of us.

[linguoboy]

2. Is there a reason to differentiate between locative and temporal cases if the language marks "location", "origin" and "destination" for words. So, is there a reason to have "from place", "to place", "at place" and "from time", "to time", "at time" or would it be better to have a generic cases for "from", "to", "at" and use them for both: locations and time.

The SPACE IS TIME metaphor is so common that it would be a bit weird not to have it. What's perhaps more interesting is that humans don't all agree on what direction time flows, so don't just copy the English idea that time is ahead of us.

The one clear benefit I can see is that it would allow deictics to do double duty. So PROX.LOC would mean "here" whereas PROX.TEMP would be "now".

That's not much benefit compared to the cost of maintaining an additional set of case forms, but then we all know that languages aren't overly concerned with such cost-benefit analyses. (If they were, they wouldn't preserve multiple distinct declensions to little or no conceivable gain.) I can easily see a language with such a distinction and a multiplicity of declension class herding all of its common time words into just one of these, thereby lessening the actual burden of memory. (Irish doesn't something like this insofar as the rare plural ending -(an)ta is particularly characteristic of temporal nouns, many of which have an alternative [and presumably older] plural form surviving only after numerals.)

[Atrulfal]

The SPACE IS TIME metaphor is so common that it would be a bit weird not to have it. What's perhaps more interesting is that humans don't all agree on what direction time flows, so don't just copy the English idea that time is ahead of us.

There was a South Native American tribe, if I remember correctly, that had no conception of time.

Edit: Found it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-13452711

[linguoboy]

The SPACE IS TIME metaphor is so common that it would be a bit weird not to have it. What's perhaps more interesting is that humans don't all agree on what direction time flows, so don't just copy the English idea that time is ahead of us.

There was a South Native American tribe, if I remember correctly, that had no conception of time.

That's nothing: recently I was reading about a North American tribe that had no concept of citation.

(Not sure what I did with the reference. I think I left it under my book about a language with no word for irony.)

[Atrulfal]

The SPACE IS TIME metaphor is so common that it would be a bit weird not to have it. What's perhaps more interesting is that humans don't all agree on what direction time flows, so don't just copy the English idea that time is ahead of us.

There was a South Native American tribe, if I remember correctly, that had no conception of time.

That's nothing: recently I was reading about a North American tribe that had no concept of citation.

(Not sure what I did with the reference. I think I left it under my book about a language with no word for irony.)

Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean?

[Matrix]

He's asking for you to cite your claim, in a very sarcastic way.

[linguoboy]

He's asking for you to cite your claim, in a very sarcastic way.

At first I thought this might be another garbled reference to the Pirahã, but after Googling a bit, I think this might instead be a garbled reference to the Amondawa. Sadly, my institution no longer provides access to the original scholarly article, but I did find an excellent summary of it. Money quote:

Nevertheless, we feel reasonably confident in making two assertions. First, Amondawa speakers are able to (and regularly do) talk about events in the past and future, and to temporally relate events to each other. Second, such temporal expressions appear not to be derived from the Amondawa lexical and constructional inventory for expressing spatial location and motion.

So it's not at all true to say they have "no conception of time" (and, in fact, Chris Sinha, one of the authors of the study, strongly cautions against making such a generalisation). They just don't seem to make use of the SPACE IS TIME metaphor Zompist mentions as being nigh-universal. (In fact, before the description of Amondawa was published, it was widely thought to be universal.) As a result, they lack a robust vocabulary for discussing time in anything resembling an abstract way. But they understand relative chronology just fine. Even though they can't tell you their ages, progression through the various stages of life is so salient to them that individuals adopt new names as they reach each one. Utterly fascinating.

[Karutoshika]

The general answer is "Yes, you can do whatever you want." If you've read the LCK you're aware of how other natural languages do things. If there is no morphological way to do something, it can be done lexically. Some specific comments:

Might not be a bad idea to re-read that again. Pt's been some years since I read it last time.

The SPACE IS TIME metaphor is so common that it would be a bit weird not to have it. What's perhaps more interesting is that humans don't all agree on what direction time flows, so don't just copy the English idea that time is ahead of us.

Frankly, I don't see how that can be related to grammar, though?

The one clear benefit I can see is that it would allow deictics to do double duty. So PROX.LOC would mean "here" whereas PROX.TEMP would be "now".

Oh, that is a good point!

Other questions, anyone?

[zompist]

The SPACE IS TIME metaphor is so common that it would be a bit weird not to have it. What's perhaps more interesting is that humans don't all agree on what direction time flows, so don't just copy the English idea that time is ahead of us.

Frankly, I don't see how that can be related to grammar, though?

Adpositions and cases are part of grammar. Say you want to use your locative cases to express "before summer", "during summer", "after summer". The middle one seems straightforward*-- use the same case you'd use for "in the city". But does "before summer" correspond with "to the city" or "from the city"?

* Though I can't help remembering that Esperanto uses the dative for this!

[Atrulfal]

He's asking for you to cite your claim, in a very sarcastic way.

If so, then why did he have to be so rude with me for absolutely no reason? Besides, I left the reference at my original post.

[linguoboy]

He's asking for you to cite your claim, in a very sarcastic way.

If so, then why did he have to be so rude with me for absolutely no reason?

I apologise. It was intended to be more humourous than rude and it's entirely my fault that it didn't come off that way.

Besides, I left the reference at my original post.

Indeed, you did (four hours after I posted my off-colour response).

In general, tracking down and reading the original article is best practice in these matters. When dealing with something reported by the Beeb, it's essential. As Language Log never tires of reminding us, what passes for science journalism on that site is nothing short of appalling.