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Re: TYPOLOGY: (conlangs and natlangs): "Tense-Prominent" vs "Aspect-Prominent"

From:Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Date:Thursday, August 17, 2006, 8:47
>How about your conlangs? Would you say they are: >1. Very Tense-Prominent but not very Aspect-Prominent? >2. Very Aspect-Prominent but not very Tense-Prominent? >3. Or that they are both quite Tense-Prominent and quite Aspect-Prominent? >3a. Nevertheless, rather more Tense-Prominent than Aspect-Prominent? >3b. Nevertheless, rather more Aspect-Prominent than Tense-Prominent? >3c. About equally Aspect-Prominent as Tense-Prominent? >4. Would you say they are neither very Tense-Prominent nor very Aspect- >Prominent? >4a. Nevertheless, rather more Tense-Prominent than Aspect-Prominent? >4b. Nevertheless, rather more Aspect-Prominent than Tense-Prominent? >4c. About equally Aspect-Prominent as Tense-Prominent? > >
My latest conlang has mood as its dominant category. All events are first categorized for mood (realis vs irrealis), with the future classified as irrealis. Evidentiality is almost as extensive, with all realis events then taking evidentiality marking as well as all future (irrealis) events (this distinguishes them from other types of irrealis). There is restricted evidentiality in the future to inferential, hearsay, and other indirect evidential forms. Aspect is marked somewhat unsystematically by a combination of forms in the (serial) verbal complex which perform other duties, as well as optionally by adverbs. Tense is not directly marked normally, although past/present and future are separable since they take different mood markers (the future is classified as irrealis remember). However, in the visual evidence category there are two evidentials, one which marks present tense (ie the action is happening right now and you can directly observe it), and one that marks past tense. So we have: -Realis --Non-Visual Evidentiality (past and present not distinguished) --Visual Evidentiality (past and present distinguished) -Irrealis --Non-Visual Evidentiality (future) --No Evidentiality Marking (other irrealis) As we can see, all verbs are marked for mood, most are marked for evidentiality, and only some are marked for tense. Aspect is the least grammaticalized, often being marked by serialized verbs which also have other meanings: /fe Ski:K da Kahk/ CLS:woman sing do stand-realis-vis.evid She stood singing = She used to sing Here, along with the verb "do" which generally co-occurs with sing anyway, we have a posture verb "stand" added. The posture verb adds an aspect of stativity or habituality to the action, although this is not its only possible function (it still retains its meaning "stand", and could just be interpreted as a postural specification).