Tense and aspect morphology in the Zhuokeji rGyalrong verb

P. Suihkonen & L. Whaley (eds.) Typology of Languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia. Amsterdam: Benjamins., 2014

Khorchin, a Mongolian dialect spoken in eastern Inner Mongolia, has a tense-aspect system slightly simpler than Middle Mongol and considerably simpler than Central Mongolian dialects (Khalkha, Chakhar). While it can express the time stability of ongoing events with many nuances, present habitual and generic events are not distinguished. The existence of a present perfect category is doubtful, but in any case it doesn't extend to the past as participlecopula-combinations are impossible. Evidentiality was lost in the central verbal system, but a non-obligatory quotative/hearsay marker exists. This article is an attempt to fit these phenomena into a coherent system of tense, aspect and related notions and to explore some of its diachronic implications.

Previous studies have been inconsistent in describing tense and/or aspect (T/A) systems in Luguru language and do not satisfactorily explain the differences of the morphological norms that mark T/A in the language. This study aims to describe the T/A system of Luguru as it is used in the verb system, particularly in the Morogoro Region of Tanzania. The study applied the Linear Approach in the analysis of T/A. In this approach, tenses are considered as expression of the relationship between speech time and another interval of interest called reference time and event time and Also tense meaning is represented as a sequence of the three time points namely; past, present and future time. Group discussions , questionnaire and interview were employed to collect primary data, from adult native speakers of the language in Matombo and Mgeta wards of Morogoro Rural District. The tools were employed because they correspond to the linear approach and that they are benched in the attitude of the language users. Data were analyzed by the identification of various T/A formatives so as to describe the distinction between them and the classification of morphological forms of tense and aspect in Luguru constructions which was done using linear approach. The study revealed four tense categories marked in the verbal morphology (i.e. remote past, recent past, present and future tenses) and four aspect categories , namely habitual, progressive, perfect and persistent. However, some T/A formatives depend on the three auxiliaries tsaa, maa and-gh'ali to complete their meaning. The study also reveals the prevalence of the difference between absolute and relative perfect marking and a high degree of interaction between tense and aspect.

Bochum: Brockmeyer, 2011. — 204 pp. (Diversitas Linguarum, 30), 2011

This collection of articles originated in a series of presentations given at the conference “Morphosyntax of Caucasian Languages” held in December 2006 at the Collège de France (Paris).

Languages

Variation across languages has always fascinated linguists, but in the past, cross-linguistic variation has mostly been investigated in form-related subdisciplines (phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax) [...]

2017

This study presents a corpus-based analysis of the sentential particle lia 俩in Xining Mandarin (Qinghai province, northwest China), which functions both as a future tense marker and as an atemporal marker of affirmative mood. Applying the notion of “aspectually sensitive tenses” (de Swart, 1998), the distribution of lia is explained in terms of the selectional restrictions that lia places upon the aspectual class of its complement. In particular, it is argued that lia functions as a future tense marker with dynamic situations, but as a marker of affirmative mood with stative situations.

Linguistica Silesiana 44/1, 2023

Presented paper deals with the morphological category of aspect in Cantonese. Given the lack of a morphological category of tense in Cantonese, aspect holds a particular position in this system, as it is the sole morphological means expressing temporal relations. The aim of the paper is to present the functioning of the various aspects of Cantonese, both perfective and imperfective, based on the theoretical framework presented beforehand, which draws on the previous achievements of linguists in this field. The second section presents what specific morphological means are used to express the category of aspect in Cantonese, which is then followed by a brief discussion of the relation between resultative verb compounds and the perfective aspect. The last, and by far the largest section, presents corpus material which exemplifies the use of different aspect markers. The paper is an attempt to respond to the hitherto lack of consensus among Sinologists about the number as well as the types of aspects that occur in Cantonese.

1983

This study deals with the cross-linguistic interpretation of aspect and tense in natural languages which have superficially disparate morphological structure. It is argued that in Yao, Chea (Bantu languages) and English, where aspect for instance, is not as systematically grarnmaticalized as it is in Slavic, the interpretation of aspect and tense must be one which construes them as theoretical (conceptual) categories. We assume essentially that both aspect and tense are characterized by temporal primitives which are often though riot invariably, denoted by morphological markers. "Verbal aspect" in Slavic for example, is effectively defined by the temporal stretch encoded in (or signalled by) a productive system of afuixal marking. The temporal stretch is characteristically completive, inceptive, resumptive, durative, continuative, punctual, iterative etc. These aspectual time schemata have affinities with those assumed by philosophers and linguists like Vendler (1957), Ken...

Cadernos de Etnolinguística, 2022

This paper provides a first analysis of the tense-aspect system of Yawarana (yar), a Cariban language spoken in Amazonas State in Venezuela. The data analyzed stems from a documentation collection consisting of recordings of 13 of about 30 known conversational speakers of Yawarana. The inflectional morphology of Yawarana is relatively simple in comparison to nearby Cariban languages, with many fewer person prefixes, fewer inflectional suffixes, and no splits in alignment; in compensation, syntactic collocations with auxiliaries, clitics, and particles play a larger role in creating tense-aspect distinctions. Main clause verbs in Yawarana have a single suffix slot for inflectional tense-aspect morphology, the same slot that holds all category-changing derivational morphology. The inventory of inflectional suffixes in this slot includes three past tense suffixes, two that are identical to synchronic nominalizers (-sapë,-jpë) and one to an adverbializer (-se). This paper illustrates problems encountered in determining whether each of these forms primarily encodes tense or aspect. Crucial to answering this question is an examination of how the meaning of a given tense-aspect suffix combines with the inherent lexical aspect (especially telic vs. states) of different verbs. Examining all examples of these suffixes in our text corpus, we conclude that the suffix-se encodes past perfective,-jpë encodes past tense with no aspectual value, and-sapë is heterogeneous, with a perfect reading on lexical verbs and a simple past tense reading on the copula. Further, the two past tense forms of the copular auxiliary (one with-jpë, the other with-sapë) are specialized to occur in different constructions, chi-jpë with the progressive and wej-sapë with all other compound tense-aspects.

This paper presents a synchronic description of the aspect system of a little-studied dialect group within the Sinitic or Chinese group of languages. 1 This is the Min dialect group or Min supergroup (cf. Wurm et al. 1988) whose speakers are concentrated in Fujian province, also being found in the eastern parts of both Guangdong province and Hainan island in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and in Taiwan, Republic of China. First, background information on the Min dialect group is presented, followed by an outline of the phonology of the prestige dialect of the Southern Min group-Min-Xiamen or Amoy Hokkien. The main part of the paper discusses the syntactic strategies used to encode aspect in Min-Xiamen as well as the morphological form and meaning of these markers, contrasting them with the aspect system of Mandarin Chinese and speculating on diachronic relationships.

Time is a basic concept that exists independently of human language. Temporal information is encoded in human languages by two related, yet distinct, linguistic categories: tense and aspect. While tense and aspect are both temporal notions, they are different in nature. While tense and aspect are both temporal notions, they are different in nature. Tense is deictic in that it indicates the temporal location of a situation, i.e., its occurrence in relation to a specific reference time. Aspect, in contrast, is non-deictic in that it is related to the temporal shape of a situation, i.e., its internal temporal structure and ways of presentation, independent of its temporal location. While, as noted, time is a cognitive concept based on common human experience, expressions of temporal information may vary across languages. For example, while Romance languages like French and Spanish focus on when an action happens rather than its temporal distance and length, the plotting of action, so important in tense languages, is not important in an aspect language like Chinese, which is concerned with whether the action is completed or not, whether the action is in progress or not.