Language Creation

So, despite being a dual major Computer Engineering and Philosophy, I've always wanted to create my own language.  This has been true since the time I realized that there was more than one language.  I never really knew what kind, how it would work, any of the details. I just knew that I wanted to make one.

For the last 6+ years I've been writing down ideas, exploring concepts, and generally trying to figure out what I could add to the already massive set of languages in existence.  I've narrowed it down a good bit, and my current goal is to create a language which incorporates the best aspects of both natural and predicate languages.  Given the scope of such a project, I doubt I'll ever finish, but I have every intention of continuing regardless.

I'll postpone an overview of my ideas to some later date.  For today, I wanted to post an absolutely great article I found online.  In it, Lojban speakers debate the need for a 4th tense.

Currently, most languages have 3 tenses: the past, the present, and the future.  This corresponds to the Newtonian concept of time, which is that either A happened before B and could have caused it, or vice versa, or they happened simultaneously.  It is this third possibility, the idea of present, which is incomplete in light of newer physical models.  Due to light speed, there is a certain correlation between time and distance such that some event at time X and location Y could not possibly effect an event at time X+x and location Y+y.

here is an example from the article:
"Suppose you are wondering who murdered Ishtar. If you are told that one month prior to the murder, Thshpck broadcast an offer of three megacredits to anyone who'd kill Ishtar, you might decide to check out the local guns for hire. But if you were also told that the broadcast took place a light-year away from the murder, you could immediately dismiss the broadcast as causally irrelevant to the murder."

To create a very specific language, you can either add this tense, or you can separate the ideas of time and causality.  Personally, I'm looking into the second option, since it seems more comprehensive.

Here is the webpage:
http://www.lojban.org/files/papers/4thtense