|
Tenses: |
|
There are two tenses, past and non-past. |
| Past
Tense: |
|
There
are two past tense allomorphs: -test which are phonologically conditioned.
Unlike the other tenses in this language, the verb in the past tense
is not inflected for person and number. -t occurs with the verb
root which ends in a vowel.
|
| aRe-t
|
‘brought’
|
pit-et |
‘broke’ |
| ske-t |
‘saw’ |
ba d-et
|
‘ran’ |
| pRa-t |
‘spoke’ |
silith-et |
‘read’ |
| utu-t |
jumped’
|
 alta:th-et |
‘advised’ |
| pi-t
|
‘drank’ |
su-et |
‘slept’ |
|
|
| There
are three verbs, viz., bo ‘go’, maRi ‘die’ and ha´ ‘be’, which have
irregular past tense formations. Their past tense forms are go ‘went’,
mu ‘died’ and hua ‘was’ respectively. |
| Non-past
Tense: |
|
The non-past tense has three allomorphs. -u:,
-en, and -a:l which are morphologically conditioned. -u:
occurs with first person masculine singular. |
| mo
za:zi-u:-s |
‘I
am walking, I will walk’ |
| mo
bi-u:-s |
‘I
am going, I will go’ |
| masa
ski-u :-s |
‘I
am looking, I will look’ |
masa
sili hi-u
:-s
|
‘I
am reading, I will read’ |
|
|
| en
occurs with first person plural. |
|
ba za:z-en-es |
‘we are walking, we will walk’
|
|
basa ua-en-es
|
‘we are knowing,
we will know’ |
|
basa aRi-en-es |
‘we are bringing, we will bring’ |
|
|
| -a:l
occurs elsewhere. This suffix is used both as non-past and non-past
progressive. |
| so
paRi bi-a:l-e |
'he
goes there, he is going there’ |
| sasa
ski-a:li |
‘she
sees, she is seeing’ |
| te
bi-a:l-en |
‘they
go, they are going’ |
| sosa
sinaRa ski-a:l-e |
‘he
sees the child, he is seeing the child’ |
| tisa
ski-a:l-e |
‘you
see, you are seeing’ |
|
|
| The
non-past tense has two more allomorphs - and -n in the non-past progressive
which occurs with first person singular and plural respectively. |
| Aspects: |
|
Aspect’ refers to time which is not a specific point as the tense
but it refers to duration, perfection, recurrence, etc., of time.
There are three aspects in this language, viz., perfective, progressive
and habitual. |
| Perfective: |
| Perfective
is an aspect which refers to an action or event completed with reference
to a specific time but is relevant in some way to the action or event
of the specific time. It may be divided into nonparty perfective and
past perfective. The non-past perfective is formed with the non-past
tense of the verb and the past perfective is formed with the past
tense of the verb. |
| The
present perfective is formed by the morpheme -a. |
| miya
di-a-ha |
‘I
have given’ |
| miya
gi-a-ha |
‘I
have gone’ |
miya
Rit i-a-ha |
‘I
have seen’ |
| miya
kRum kRumi-a-ha |
‘I
have done the work’ |
| soya
olok
zbRithi-a-ha |
‘he
has written a story’ |
| soy
badi-a-ha |
‘he
has run’ |
|
|
| The
past perfective is formed by adding -a:v to the verb. |
| soya
badi-a:v
|
‘he
had run’ |
| miya
hamo ya:Rato thi-a:v |
‘I
had done this before’ |
|
|
| Progressive: |
|
The progressive refers to an action in progress, i.e., an action
which takes place over a period of time. The non-past progressive
and the past progressive are expressed by three different morphemes
in this language. The present progressive is expressed by the morpheme
-a:ha and -a:l and the past progressive is expressed by the morpheme
-a:hua. Again the present progressive -a:ha occurs in the person
and the structure of the form is as this:
|
