The past tense indicates
that the time of action mentioned by the verb started before the
time of the speech act. It is marked by adding the suffix -lo
to the verb.
|
| ne an colo |
‘I ate rice’ |
| hala damlo |
‘he went’ |
|
netum gari penchi va lo |
‘we came in a cart’
|
| mantuchi la valo |
‘when did he come’
|
When the time adverb
indicates the time of action, then -lo is optional.
|
| tumi ne bajar dam(lo) |
| ‘I went to the market
yesterday’ |
tumi la vo pithi(lo) |
| ‘he killed the bird
yesterday’ |
Present
|
The present tense
indicates that the action mentioned by the verb takes place at
the time of the speech act. It also indicates the state at the
time of the speech act. The present tense has no marker.
|
| hadak methan do |
‘there is adog’ |
| la kitap tok |
‘he writes a book’ |
| pini la iskul dun |
‘he goes to school today’ |
|
The action that takes
place habitually is also not marked.
|
| monit an co |
‘man eats rice’ |
| cayno
bap cove |
‘the cow/bull eats grass’ |
|
That the action
mentioned by the verb started before the time of the speech act
but is continued at the time of speech act is expressed by
adding -lo to the verb.
|
| ne an colo |
‘I eat rice’ |
| la vo pithilo |
‘he kills the bird’ |
|
When the time adverb is
present, -lo is optionally added.
|
| pini la iskul dun(lo) |
‘he goes to school today’ |
|
Future |
The future indicates
that the action mentioned by the verb takes place after the time
of the speech act. In future, two aspectual distinctions are
made, viz., definite and dubitative. The former is marked by
suffixing -po and the latter by suffixing -ji to
the verb. The definite future indicates that the action is to be
definitely performed and the dubitative indicates that the
action is intended to be performed after the time of speech act.
|
