| Thus
the total stock of forms marking differnt aspects in Mundari may be
summarised as below: |
|
Ę
|
:
Indeterminate non-completive.
|
|
ja
|
: Non-completive
durative determinative as well as completive discontinuative
non- resultative determinative.
|
|
aka
|
: Non-Completive
progressive determinative and completive resultative
determinative.
|
|
ke
|
: Completive
indeterminative and completive interruptive non-resultative
determinative.
|
|
le
|
: Completive
prioritative non-resultative determinative.
|
|
|
| Among the above,
only /aka/ and /ke/ may be termed as tightly bound suffixes. /ja/
is a particle, an indefinite demonstrative, as discussed above. /le/
is a postposition (non-root), which modifies the meaning by standing
for priority, it is loosely bound. |
| 2.4.2.4.
Tense-markers: |
| There is non specific
tense-marker in Mundari, Hawever, the concept of time dimension in
past, present and furture in there. It is interesting to find Mundari
employing aspect markers themselves as tense markers. The aspect markers
are ont used alone, but at the same time as soonb as they are suffixed
to the verb stem, they stand for one or other tense as well. This
is the double function of the aspect marker. |
| /tan/ the ‘definite
present’ marker may first appear to be the only tense-marker
in Mundari. But not only it behaves differently from other aspect-tense
markers, as will be seen later, it can be deemed as particle. |
| The distribution
of the different aspect markers as tensemarkers may be noted in the
following manner: |
|
Present
tense
|
:
Non-completive determinative progressive ascomtinuative
present.
|
|
|
Non-completive
determinative durative as indefinite present.
|
|
Past tense
|
: Completive
indeterminative as aorist, completive perfective
resultative determinative as perfect tense.
|
|
|
Completive
prioritative non-resultative determinativeas anterior
past.
|
|
|
Completive
interruptive non-resultative determinativeas impcomplete
past.
|
|
|
Completive
discontinuative non-resultativedeterminative as
indefinative past.
|
|
|
| In the present tense,
the non-completive indeterminative is used as an action going on or
an event continuing at the present time as well. Apart from habit,
universal truth etc. the regular recurring actions or events are also
expressed by this. |
| /tan/is used for
the definite present and is very frequent. |
| This form however
is a particle, which is evident from the fact that in the phrase it
takes the object before itself, i.e., in between the root and /tan/,
while all other tenses take the object after them. /tan/, therefore,
is not tightly bound to the root. It is not an aspect marker. The
formation of /tan/, can be explained by /ta/ ‘to continue, to
stay’ used statically + /n/, the demonstrative, which has nothing
to do with transitive or intransitive, therefore, /tan/ as definite
present is used with both of the roots. /tan/ as a particle , therefore,
literally means ‘this (subject) staying or continuing’. |
Future tense has
no marker at all and the simple copula added to the root as in the
case of indeterminate present denotes the simple future. However,
it takes the postposition for anterior future, e.g., om-le-koai ‘I shall give it to them’. Sometimes a phrase /sidate/may
be taken before the verb phrase
|
