logical language - Developers

Thus, using the word tree for example, while there might be many trees present in terms of number, the MONADIC implies they form
only one embodiment of whatever particular Configuration category is manifested. Using the AGGREGATIVE configuration as an
example, the MONADIC would mean there is only one AGGREGATIVE set of trees, i.e., one forest.
At this point, it should be noted in regard to Perspective that Ithkuil makes no distinction between “count” and “non-count” (or
“mass”) nouns. In languages such as English, nouns differ between those that can be counted and pluralized (e.g., one apple, four
boys, several nations), and those which cannot be counted or pluralized (e.g., water, sand, plastic, air, laughter). All nouns are
countable in Ithkuil in that all nouns can exist as contextual monads. As a result, English translations of certain Ithkuil nouns must often
be “contextual” rather than literal, employing various conventions to put the noun in a numerical and pluralizable context, e.g., ‘some
dirt,’ ‘the air here’ or ‘a puff of air’ rather than “a dirt” or “an air.”
With verbs, the MONADIC superficially corresponds in a very approximate fashion with Western present tense categories except in a
habitual sense. As noted above, the bounded embodiment conveyed by the MONADIC means that the act, state, or event is temporally
contiguous and accessible from the point of view of the present context. It would be used to describes an act, state, or event which:
takes place entirely in the present context
started in the accessible past and has continued on into the present context
starts within the present context and continues on into an accessible future
started in an inaccessible past, but only the portion taking place in the present context is being addressed or is under consideration
or relevant within the context of the utterance
starts within the present context and may continue into an inaccessible future, but only the portion taking place in the present
context is being addressed or is under consideration or relevant within the context of the utterance
started in an inaccessible past and will continue into an inaccessible future, but only the portion taking place in the present context
is being addressed or is under consideration or relevant within the context of the utterance
By “accessible past” or “accessible future” is meant a past or future where the speaker was (or will be) spatially present at the time and
the time elapsed between then and “now” is psychologically contiguous, i.e., the speaker views the passage of time from then till now
as one continuous temporal flow of moments, not as disconnected memories, disconnected predictions, or historical reports.
Conversely, “inaccessible” would mean a past or future where the speaker was not or will not be present or which he/she knows only
from memory, reports, or predictions. Examples: LISTEN
aklál
‘a river;
a river flows’
3.3.2 U The Unbounded
u’t’ak’ařš
‘constellation;
a constellation shines (in the night sky) ’
vyarl
‘a set of benefits;
a set of benefits is in effect’
The UNBOUNDED signifies “unbounded embodiment” of a particular configurative entity, meaning that the noun or verb manifests
itself as not being contained within an uninterrupted boundary, i.e., in contextually “disconnected” manifestations. For nouns, the term
“plural” has been avoided so as not to imply that the member nouns are not being referred to quantitatively per se, but rather as a nonmonadic
(i.e., non-unified) manifestation of a configurative set. While the most convenient translation into English would be to use the
plural, e.g., trees, groves, lumps of dirt, a semantically (if not morphologically) more accurate rendering would be ‘a tree here, a tree
there,’ ‘this grove and another and another…,’ ‘dirt-lump after dirt-lump after dirt-lump….’
For verbs, “unbounded embodiment” means that the psychological temporal boundary of an act, state, or event is not accessible from
the present context. This would apply to an act, state, or event which:
occurs entirely in the inaccessible past
will occur entirely in the inaccessible future (if used with the PROSPECTIVE aspect - see Section 5.10.2)
may be occurring in the present context but started in an inaccessible past, and the portion occurring in the present context cannot
be understood without taking into account that past portion