It would be difficult to separate cause and effect here. A culture where interrupting people was taboo in the first place might develop a similar syntax.
Speaking of rigor, I’ve come to love Spanish’s subjunctive mood because I can inject doubt into a statement by changing a single syllable, whereas in English I need to mess about with cumbersome disclaimers to say the same thing. Also, if I’m making a subjective value judgment, I can clearly indicate that it’s a fact about me, not a fact about the world.
True. It might be possible by seeing how language changes over time in comparison to what evidence of cultural change we have, but it might also be a lot of speculation. In either case though, the frame of the language still arises such that it is significantly different, and you have to work your way through the frame before you can feel comfortable communicating in the language.
It would be difficult to separate cause and effect here. A culture where interrupting people was taboo in the first place might develop a similar syntax.
Speaking of rigor, I’ve come to love Spanish’s subjunctive mood because I can inject doubt into a statement by changing a single syllable, whereas in English I need to mess about with cumbersome disclaimers to say the same thing. Also, if I’m making a subjective value judgment, I can clearly indicate that it’s a fact about me, not a fact about the world.
True. It might be possible by seeing how language changes over time in comparison to what evidence of cultural change we have, but it might also be a lot of speculation. In either case though, the frame of the language still arises such that it is significantly different, and you have to work your way through the frame before you can feel comfortable communicating in the language.