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This dissertation is a comprehensive analysis of voice constructions in Kanakanavu, a critically endangered Formosan language (Austronesian language of Taiwan) spoken in the Namasia District of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. The data considered for the analysis are mainly drawn from a corpus of spontaneous speech produced by contemporary speakers, which are complemented by elicited data and a verb database constructed by the author. The Kanakanavu voice system has been treated in various previous studies, but there is a general lack of consensus regarding several of its fundamental properties. The language has been analyzed as exhibiting a two-way, three-way or even four-way/Philippine-type voice distinction; it also remains unclear how voice interacts with tense-aspect-mood marking on the one hand, and transitivity and grammatical relations on the other. By investigating the morphosyntactic, semantic and discourse-pragmatic properties of voice, this dissertation (i) establishes a framework for describing and representing Kanakanavu natural discourse data, (ii) analyzes the morphological and syntactic foundations of Kanakanavu voice and (iii) explores the functional-typological implications of Kanakanavu voice constructions both within and beyond the Austronesian language family.It is argued that Kanakanavu exhibits a binary voice distinction in its verbal-clause morphosyntax.The structural opposition --- between what are labelled "agent voice" and "patient voice" --- is evidenced in two specific patterns of interaction between voice marking and tense-aspect-mood marking: while agent-voice verbs always involve separate exponents for voice and tense-aspect-mood, patient-voice verbs are consistently marked by voice markers that also serve a tense-aspect-marking or mood-marking function. The finding regarding the number of voice distinctions is in line with those found in some recent analyses of Kanakanavu voice, but it is motivated by typologically informed analyses of verbal tense-aspect-mood marking in the language based on detailed examinations of how different verb forms are used in spontaneous speech.At the syntactic level, voice alternation in Kanakanavu is argued to be essentially a transitivity-alternation phenomenon, leading to the analysis of the agent-voice construction as the intransitive construction (involving only one core argument), and the patient-voice construction as the transitive construction (involving two core arguments). The analysis is based on the observation from natural discourse that the patient-voice construction is always used for expressing transitive situations, while the agent-voice construction is the default construction for forming (i) basic intransitive clauses and (ii) clauses involving syntactically demoted and discourse-functionally backgrounded patients. The finding suggests that the Kanakanavu verbal clause exhibits ergativity, which is in line with many analyses of Formosan and Philippine languages where voice interacts closely with transitivity. It is, however, further shown that Kanakanavu exhibits differential (pronominal) agent marking in its patient-voice construction. This is a typologically and areally unusual phenomenon within the larger Western Austronesian context, which has been generally overlooked in previous studies on the language despite having been identified early on by Tsuchida (1976).

This study presents the outcomes of a short linguistic fieldwork on a Bantu lect Ihanzu (F31B) that is spoken in the north central Tanzania. According to the Ethnologue database Isanzu is a threatened language (6b) because of the relatively small number of speakers (26 000) and the low intergenerational transmission. Data collection aimed at basic description of phonetics and morphology. Method used to achieve this goal consists of translational elicitation of the 207-item Swadesh list, H. Batibo’s questionnaire on Bantu morphosyntax as well as of recording and transcribing narratives (fairy tales and “Pear story”). The analyses of data show that Isanzu possess typical for Eastern Bantu languages verbal morphology that includes the following slots (with encoding morphemes) within verbal phrase: 1) negation [sha/shanga]; 2) subject marker [n, u, o, k, m, a/e, noun class markers]; 3) tense-aspect-mood marker 1 [e ‘present’, a ‘past’, ka ‘narrative past’, o ‘future’]; 4) extension 1 [(k)i ‘reflexive/reciprocal’]; 5) object marker [ni, ko, mo, ke, wa, wa, nominal markers]; 6) root; 7) extension 2 [i ‘applicative’, w ‘passive’, z ‘causative’, ag ‘durative’, ek/ik ‘stative’]; 8) tense-aspect-mood marker 2 [ire ‘perfective’]; 9) final vowel [a ‘indicative’, e ‘subjunctive / optative / perfective’]., Note: This talk has not gone through a process of peer review, and findings should therefore be treated as preliminary and subject to change. -Acknowledgement and citation: Beletskiy, Stanislav. 2022. An Overview of Verbal Morphology of Ihanzu (Bantu, Tanzania). Talk Given at Rift Valley Webinar Series 30/11/2022.

This paper proposes a Complexity Covariance Hypothesis, whereby linguistic complexity covaries with cultural and socio-political complexity, and argues for an Evolutionary Inference Principle, in accordance with which, in domains where linguistic complexity correlates positively with cultural/socio-political complexity, simpler linguistic structures are evolutionarily prior to their more complex counterparts. Applying this methodology in a case study, the covariance of linguistic and cultural/socio-political complexity is examined by means of a cross-linguistic survey of tense–aspect–mood (TAM) marking in a worldwide sample of 868 languages. A novel empirical finding emerges: all else being equal, languages from small language families tend to have optional TAM marking, while languages from large language families are more likely to exhibit obligatory TAM marking. Since optional TAM marking is simpler than obligatory TAM marking, it can, therefore, be inferred that optional TAM marking is evolutionarily prior to obligatory TAM marking: a living fossil. In conclusion, it is argued that the presence of obligatory TAM marking, correlated with the more highly grammaticalized expression of thematic-role assignment, is a reflection of a deeper property of grammatical organization, namely, the grammaticalization of predication. Thus, it is suggested that the development of agriculture and resulting demographic expansions, resulting in the emergence of large language families, are a driving force in the evolution of predication in human language. 1. Introduction 2. Language-family size 3. Tense–aspect–mood marking 4. The relationship between tense–aspect–mood marking and language-family 5. The evolution of predication 6. Conclusion

Sem resumo

Mesqan is a South Ethio-Semitic tongue which is mainly worn in day-to-day message by a people of 179,737 communities in the Gurage Zone, Ethiopia, whose linguistic skin was not well expressed. The inner aspire of this paper is to offer a complete account of tense, aspect, mood and aktionsart structures of the Mesqan tongue. The paper is expressive in character, as the lessons are mostly worried with telling what is really being in the tongue, and mostly rely on main linguistic facts. The linguistic facts, i.e. the elicited grammatical facts regarding tense, aspect, mood and aktionsart, were composed from local speakers of the tongue during 12 months of fieldwork mannered among 2011 and 2012 in four Mesqan villages and in Butajira, the managerial hub of the Mesqan Woreda. The perfective aspect in the tongue emphasizes the endpoint of the oral state with dynamic verbs, but the imperfective aspect relates with the lexical semantics of the verb, which can be practical when their purposes with stative and dynamic verbs are evaluated. Concerning tense, the past and the non-past tense in the tongue are distinguished by assisting verbs and a verb in the imperfective aspect is able to happen with states in the past and in the non-past, i.e. present or future. Future time can also be uttered by an anticipated act throughout the grouping of the future. In addition, an action happening in the past and still around in the tongue is marked by a zero morpheme in the present perfect. Concerning mood, the language has agent-oriented moods that are articulated by verb inflection, and speaker-oriented moods that are articulated by a periphrastic structure. Regarding aktionsart that denotes a specific phase in a verbal condition, like period, regularity, etc. Mesqan has two aktionsarten which are noticeable by periphrastic structures, that is the progressive and the prospective.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the fundamental grammaticalization and degrammat(icalizat)ion processes observable in the restructuring of the tense/aspect/mood systems of the West Iranian languages during their historical development. Their core aspectual systems will be presented as consisting of three categories: Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect. Special attention will be paid to the rise of the analytic Perfect in Middle Persian and its further development in Early New Persian and other West Iranian languages. It will be shown that the degrammation of the copula played a significant role in the formation of compound temporal (Perfect, Pluperfect) and modal categories (Evidential, Conjectural) in New Persian, Kurdish, Balochi and Tajik. The Evidential mode of New Persian is based on the analytic Perfect rafte ast ‘he is gone’ and it is found in all the three aspectual categories (Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect) and both voices. It is usually claimed that it developed in the Iranian languages probably under Turkic influence. We intend to address the contentious issue of syntactic borrowing in terms of language contact in another paper.

Purpose This longitudinal study investigated the emergence of English tense marking in young (Spanish–English) dual language learners (DLLs) over 4 consecutive academic semesters, addressing the need for longitudinal data on typical acquisition trajectories of English in DLL preschoolers. Method Language sample analysis was conducted on 139 English narrative retells elicited from 39 preschool-age (Spanish–English) DLLs (range = 39–65 months). Growth curve models captured within- and between-individual change in tense-marking accuracy over time. Tense-marking accuracy was indexed by the finite verb morphology composite and by 2 specifically developed adaptations. Individual tense markers were systematically described in terms of overall accuracy and specific error patterns. Results Tense-marking accuracy exhibited significant growth over time for each composite. Initially, irregular past-tense accuracy was higher than regular past-tense accuracy; over time, however, regular past-tense marking outpaced accuracy on irregular verbs. Conclusions These findings suggest that young DLLs can achieve high tense-marking accuracy assuming 2 years of immersive exposure to English. Monitoring the growth in tense-marking accuracy over time and considering productive tense-marking errors as partially correct more precisely captured the emergence of English tense marking in this population with highly variable expressive language skills. Supplemental Materials https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5176942

This study investigated intermediate-level Chinese EFL learners` ability to use three tense-aspect categories in English: simple past, present perfect, and past perfect. Participants (N = 142) were asked to complete three types of controlled tasks: multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and translation, and then to provide an explanation for their answers through group discussions. The findings indicate that although the learners were well acquainted with the tense-aspect forms, they were not able to use them appropriately; past perfect was the most difficult category for both low-intermediate and upper-intermediate learners; they tended to overuse the simple past form when describing events that occurred in the past but their influence has lasted to the present; they often used the present perfect form in sentences containing definite temporal adverbials; and finally, they applied the perfective aspect to the verbs whose lexical aspects import punctuality. These lead to the conclusion that Chinese EFL learners are disposed to rely on L1 translation, tense-aspect consistency in adjacent discourse, and local lexical cues such as temporal adverbials in order to facilitate their understanding of the intricate usage of the English tense-aspect system.

The PERFECT constitutes a puzzling category for typologists, historical linguists and formal semanticists alike. Is it a tense? Is it an aspect? Which grammatical forms qualify as PERFECTS? What is the core of the PERFECT meaning? This short paper suggests that progress can be made if we start using the wealth of digitized language data that has become available to uncover the semantics of the PERFECT through its contextual usages across languages.

This paper presents a descriptive account of some grammatical categories in gbahù dialect of the Ìgbò language, one of the three major languages of Nigeria, West Africa. The purpose of this study is to show how these grammatical categories operate in gbahù dialect. These grammatical categories (functors) are Tense, Aspect, Negation and Agreement. The study reveals that both Tense and Aspect exist as functional categories in gbahù dialect, contrary to earlier works on Ìgbò which claimed that Aspect rather than Tense is explicitly marked in Ìgbò. The -lV suffix clearly instantiates past tense in different constructions in gbahù. The study further reveals the existence of the E-/Aprefix as a default agreement marker which occurs only in negative constructions.Keywords: gbahù, tense, aspect, negation

This article presents the findings of a cross-linguistic survey of tense. In an areally and genetically balanced sample, 318 languages were investigated for whether they have tense and, if so, how they partition the timeline with respect to the deictic centre. Three quarters of the languages have tense: the majority partition the timeline into three sections: before, during and after the deictic centre (effectively past, present and future tense). Those languages with only two tenses most commonly have future/nonfuture tense. Interestingly, a group of languages have only one tense, the majority of them the future. This might indicate that there is a stronger motivation for the future tense to grammaticalize than for other tenses, mirroring a real/unreal world divide: real world events are easier to characterize through aspect than events that are yet to happen, which might create a need for a device that locates an event in future time.

Resumen En mazahua, lengua Otomangue, el proclítico que codifica tiempo, aspecto, modo (TAM) y persona se realiza como morfema cero. Este morfema cero se indexa en la palabra verbal de diferentes oraciones gramaticales. Los contextos gramaticales en donde el proclítico TAM y de persona se realiza como morfema cero son: básicamente en tercera persona, tiempo-aspecto perfecto; este sentido tempo-aspectual está enfatizado por clíticos de aspecto puntual. Igualmente, el morfema cero coaparece con verbos en los que se prenasaliza o se palataliza el primer segmento del radical verbal. Desde una perspectiva pragmática, la referencia del sujeto gramatical y de los rasgos TAM se recupera en el contexto discursivo; la relación gramatical sujeto está expresada en diferentes recursos lingüísticos, esto es, frases nominales y clíticos (pronominales, demostrativos y plurales). La realización del proclítico TAM y de persona como morfema cero está relacionada con la estructura de la información. La referencia corresponde al estatus informativo tópico. Abstract In Mazahua, a language from the Otomanguean language family of Mexico, the proclitic encoding tense-aspect-modd (TAM) and person becomes a zero morpheme. This zero Morpheme appears indexed in the verb word of different grammatical sentences. The grammatical contexts where the proclitic TAM and person is performed as a zero morpheme are: third person, perfect time-aspect; this aspectual sense is emphasized by punctual clitic aspects. Likewise, the zero morpheme appears with verbs where the first segment of the verbal radical is nasalized or palatalized. From a pragmatic perspective, the references to the grammatical subject and TAM features are recovered in the discursive context. The subject, a grammatical relation, is encoded in different linguistic resources such as nominal phrases and clitics (pronominal, demonstrative and plural). The meaning of zero grammatical morphemes is related to the structure of the information. The reference encoded by a proclitic corresponds to the topical information status. Résumé En mazahua, langue Ottomane, le proclitique qui codifie mode, temp et aspect (MTA) et la personne est effectué comme morphème zéro. Ce morphème zéro est présent dans le mot verbal de phrases différentes. Les contextes grammaticaux où le proclitique MTA et de personne se produisent en tant que morphème zéro sont : à la troisième personne, temps-aspect- parfait- ; le trait tempo-aspectuel est caractérisé par des clitiques ponctuels. Egalement, le morphème zéro apparait avec des verbes où il y a une pre-nasalisation ou une palatalisation du premier segment du radical verbal. Depuis une perspective pragmatique, la référence du sujet grammatical et des traits MTAS est mise en évidence dans le contexte discursif; le rapport grammatical sujet s´exprime à travers de différents ressources linguistiques, c´est-à-dire, des phrases nominales et clitiques (pronominaux, démonstratifs, et pluriels). La réalisation du proclitique MTA et de personne en tant que morphème zéro est liée avec la structure de l´information. La référence correspond au statut informatif topique.

Nearly every – no, every – Greek grammar and course book, even the most comprehensive (in English, at any rate), gives a very skimpy, perfunctory and unhelpful account — insofar as it gives any account at all – of what ‘aspect’ is and how exactly it is related to verb tense and time (which tend to be conflated). Most of the books and articles on the subject of the aspect of the Greek verb are accessible only to the professional philologist, and can't therefore be easily applied by non-specialists to the understanding of the actual usage of Greek writers or to the imitation of their usage when translating into their language. This article sets out to remedy this situation by giving a clear and (within limits) comprehensive explanation of aspect as it applies to the Greek verb.

This paper sets forth a theoretical framework in relation to metarepresentation and evidentiality in Spanish, supported by an empirical analysis of tense/mood contrast expressions. More specifically, we describe how metarepresentational and evidential content are expressed and interpreted in if‐conditional and although-concessive clauses. We also report original experimental data from a written, multiple choice interpretation task in L2 Spanish; and from an L1 task in Spanish with a set of conditional and concessive utterances in which indicative and subjunctive moods alternate. Our global results show that the ability to efficiently integrate linguistic and non‐linguistic cues is particularly costly for non‐native speakers. Yet native speakers also reveal, to a different degree, effects suggestive of processing difficulties related to syntax/discourse interface.

This paper proposes a compositional temporal analysis of restrictions on perfective aspect in morphological present tense contexts in matrix and (certain) embedded clauses in Serbian. The main idea is that the availability of perfective aspect depends on the duration of the time interval with respect to which the event is ordered. This time interval is further determined by the interplay of temporal and aspectual components higher in the structure. Moreover, it is shown that the observed restrictions on perfective aspect in Serbian are, to a large extent, parallel to restrictions on non-progressive, episodic, non-stative, non-generic predicates in English. Following the assumption that these predicates contain a perfective component (Kamp and Reyle, 1993; Smith, 1991; Cowper, 1998; Wurmbrand, 2014, inter alia), the proposed analysis allows for the unification of Aspect in Serbian and the abovementioned predicates in English.

My previous studies of the replacement of the imperfect subjunctive by the present subjunctive conclude with the proposal of a reorganised paradigm in which the original temporal distinction between past and present is replaced by an aspectual distinction, i.e. by an opposition between the accomplished and the unaccomplished. This change is interpreted as a type of regrammation in which new grammatical content is ascribed to an existing grammatical expression. In the present article, I propose to study how this regrammation conforms to the reorganisations of the temporal and modal paradigms of Modern French by testing the changes of the TAM paradigms as an instance of connecting grammaticalisation.

For years, investigators have studied the use of tense by children with specific language impairment (SLI). This review article provides a summary of research on the use of other time-related grammatical forms by these children.The literature on children's use of grammatical and lexical aspect, modal verbs and temporal adverbs is reviewed. Findings from children with SLI acquiring a range of different languages are considered.Grammatical aspect and lexical aspect appear to be special weaknesses in children with SLI and problems with lexical aspect may also have an adverse effect on these children's ability to use past tense morphology. Although children with SLI are below age level in their use of modal verbs and temporal adverbs, the available evidence suggests that these weaknesses are no greater than these children's more general limitations with language.The evidence thus far indicates that time-related notions further on the morphosyntactic end of the language continuum (aspect) are more problematic for these children than those time-related notions (modals, temporal adverbs) that include a pragmatic and/or semantic component. In some languages, aspect may prove to be a useful clinical marker of this disorder.

In this work, an integral formal treatment of Basque verb tense, aspect and mood will be provided.; Lan honetan trataera formal bateratu bat aurkeztuko da euskal aditz joka-tuaren tempus, aspektu eta moduarentzat.

This book brings together a series of contributions to the study of the grammaticalization of tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality from a functional perspective. All contributions share the aim to uncover the functional motivations behind the processes of grammaticalization under discussion, but they do so from different points of view.

This dissertation offers a grammatical description and analysis of Manda (N.11), a Bantu language spoken along Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in southern Tanzania. The study focuses on the “wider” TAM domain, i.e. on how tense, aspect, mood but also modality and negation are expressed in the language, offering a description of the form and function of the various markers employed. In addition, this work sets out to unravel the historical background of these markers and the diachronic processes of change - particularly grammaticalization - through which they have evolved. As Manda is a basically undescribed language, the thesis also includes a brief socio-historical account - focusing on the issues of contact - as well as a grammar sketch describing the fundamentals of the language. This study draws on a combination of methods consisting of both more prototypical field work as well as methods facilitating grammatical reconstruction. The vast bulk of the Manda data have been collected in the field. Hypotheses of change – but also of retention – are based on the synchronic variation found in this data, in comparison to the data of existing older sources as well as from neighboring languages. Furthermore, the Manda data has been compared to Proto-Bantu reconstructions and cross-Bantu as well as cross-linguistic generalizations on functional and formal change. The study shows that Manda in many ways adheres to the general traits of an (Eastern) Bantu language. Fundamentally, the language is highly agglutinative, with e.g. an elaborate noun class system and a rich set of both prefixes and affixes on the verbal word, marking nominal indexation, derivations as well as TAM. With regard to TAM, the study argues that much of the synthetic linguistic material found in Manda can be traced to Proto-Bantu and thus most likely is inherited. In contrast, many innovations and indications of ongoing change are displayed in the periphrastic constructions of the language. These include a set of auxiliary constructions used for expressing aspect, modality but also (non-standard) negation, a borrowed persistive marker and two particles being employed as standard negators.

In this collective volume, some of the leading experts in the field explore aspects of linguistic variation and change in one of the core areas of Ancient Greek grammar: tense, aspect, and modality.

The present paper aims at accounting for the Spanish Imperfecto, Perfecto, Pluscuamperfecto and the Indefinido by applying three binary tense oppositions: Present vs Past, Synchronous vs Posterior and Imperfect(ive) vs Perfect(ive). For the sixteen Spanish tense forms under analysis a binary approach leads to covering twelve of them. Their relation with the preterital forms outside the range of the three oppositions is accounted for by two surgical operations: (a) the notion of Imperfect(ive) is severed from the notion of ongoing progress by restricting it to underinformation about completion and by seeing continuous tense forms as involving a more complex semantics; (b) the notion of (non-)stative is strictly severed from interference of information coming from the arguments of a verb. These theoretical moves make the way free for a formal-semantic insight into the interaction of Spanish tense and aspect. It also paves the way for a principled distinction between completion and anteriority. Restricted to tense forms pertaining to the past, our analysis sheds light on the struggle for survival of tense forms outside the binary system.

Background Morphosyntax has been well researched in specific language impairment (SLI) and there is general agreement that children with SLI have particular difficulties with tense-marking. Less well researched is the role that aspect plays in the difficulties found in tense-marking, especially as tense and aspect are often confounded in English. Initial investigation of the understanding of aspect in preschool children with SLI suggests that they are less sensitive to aspect and its interaction with tense than typically developing (TD) children. It is unclear, however, what is the developmental trajectory of their understanding of aspect and its interaction with tense and whether these difficulties are still found in older children and adolescents with SLI. Aims To investigate comprehension of the grammatical aspect contrast between completed events using the simple past tense -ed/irregular (perfective grammatical aspect) and ongoing events using the past progressive (imperfective grammatical aspect). The role of lexical aspect was also investigated through the balanced use of verbs that were inherently telic (i.e. have a natural end-point) and verbs that required the addition of prepositional phrase for a telic interpretation when used in the perfective aspect condition. Methods & Procedures A sentence–picture matching task was administered to 10 participants with SLI (aged 12;10–16;8 years) and 30 language ability matched TD children who were split into three groups (mean ages: 5;10, 7;4 and 9;2). Outcomes & Results Adult-like performance was found by all groups on the perfective aspect condition, but only by the oldest group of TD children on the imperfective aspect condition. The performance of the group with SLI was consistent with their much younger language ability matched TD children in their understanding of the progressive -ing when used to describe ongoing events that have taken place in the past. The lexical aspect of the telicity of the verbs was not found to have any significant effect on performance. Conclusions & Implications Although further investigation of the understanding of aspect (both comprehension and production) is needed, the results have implications for therapy. The past progressive -ing construction is important, particularly for providing context and background information in narratives, but it is not explicitly taught in schools. Therefore, some focus on the temporal nature of tense-marking in therapy may be beneficial to individuals with SLI in understanding the temporal nature of events and how aspect interacts with tense.

Young monolingual children typically demonstrate frequent tense shifting during narrative development, whereas older children maintain a consistent narration tense. Therefore, inconsistent tense usage in older children could be an indication of overall limited language skills. However, information regarding tense use in bilinguals has been lacking. This study examines the frequency of tense shifting in the English and Spanish of kindergarten- to third-grade Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs). In addition, it investigates whether the amount of shifting is dependent on children’s relative proficiency in each language, and whether the use of regular and irregular verbs affects tense shifting. The main results of the study are that tense shifting for ELLs occurs mainly in English, grade level does not affect tense shifting, and relative proficiency in first language (L1) and second language (L2) is the critical variable for tense shifting.

D. Ayoun (2013), The Second Language Acquisition of French Tense, Aspect, Mood and Modality. reviewed by Anita Thomas. J. W. Schwieter (Ed.). (2013), Innovative Research and Practices in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism. reviewed by Larissa Buss. S. Galligani, S. Wachs et C. Weber, dirs. (2013), École et langues. Des difficultés en contextes. reviewed by James Archibald. S. Jarvis & M. Daller (Eds.). (2013), Vocabulary Knowledge: Human Ratings and Automated Measures. reviewed by Michael P.H. Rodgers.

How does grammar represent simultaneity? More precisely, how do grammatical representations of sentences indicate that two events or situations are located at the same time? This is a question of central importance for the theory of tense and aspect, and one to which Hamida Demirdache and Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (Nat. Lang. Linguist. Theory, doi:10.1007/s11049-014-9231-2, 2014) (D&UE) propose some provocative new answers. Their empirical focus is the semantics of perfective, imperfective, and progressive aspect in French and Spanish, with special attention to the temporal semantics of modal verbs, but their account has broader implications for the theory of simultaneous time reference and the imperfective/perfective distinction in general.

In the Surinamese creole language Sranan, verbs in finite clauses that lack overt TMA-marking are often considered to be ambiguous between past and present interpretations (depending on the lexical aspect of the verb involved) or analyzed as having a perfective value. We claim that these verbs are in fact zero-marked, and we investigate the various uses of this zero expression in relation to context and lexical aspect on the basis of corpus data and native speaker elicitations. It is shown that existing analyses do not cover and unify all the various uses of the construction. We propose, as an alternative, to regard the zero form as present perfective marker, whereby tense and aspect are conceived of as fundamentally epistemic categories, in line with Langacker (1991). This combination of present tense and perfective aspect, which is regarded as infelicitous in typological studies of tense and aspect (cf. the ‘present perfective paradox’, Malchukov 2009), gives rise to the various interpretations associated with zero. However, in all of its uses, zero still indicates that, at the most basic level, a situation belongs to the speaker’s conception of ‘immediate reality’ (her domain of ‘inclusion’). This basic ‘presentness’ distinguishes zero from the past-tense marker ben, which implies dissociation.

This study examines the production of tense and aspect of Cypriot Greek adults diagnosed with Down Syndrome and children with typical language development. Despite the evidently low IQ scores, and comparatively lower MLU scores, the performance of Cypriot Greek adults with Down Syndrome with tense and aspect is almost at ceiling with 95.7% accuracy for tense and 97.2% for aspect. These results suggest that at least certain aspects of the Down Syndrome grammatical system (e.g. inflectional marking) can be (fully) acquired. It was observed that both groups have developed three coping strategies, when not using a verb as targeted or expected; they either (i) use an alternative feature value, (ii) omit the entire verb, or quite rarely (iii) omit the inflectional suffix. Inconsistencies in the results across different languages suggest that cross-linguistic differences potentially related to the inflectional system of each language might be responsible for the different realization of problematic performance. Keywords: Down Syndrome; language development; inflectional marking; tense; aspect

Temporality in Thai and other Southeast Asian languages has traditionally been analyzed as based on pre-established European notions of tense and aspect, thus yielding problematic analyses. This paper offers an alternative way of analyzing and explaining temporality in Thai in its own terms. It focuses on the basic motion verbs paj and maa and shows that they can specify states of affairs in different domains, such as space, time, and attributes. Their usage relies on the close association of linguistic and pragmatic contexts. In the domain of time, Thai paj and maa display characteristics of both tense and aspect, showing that tense/aspect systems are substantially more diverse than has traditionally been assumed. The concept of reference plays an important role even in a tenseless language such as Thai.

This paper argues for a constructionist approach to viewpoint Aspect by exploring the idea that it does not exert any altering force on the situation-aspect properties of predicates. The proposal is developed by analyzing the syntax and semantics of the imperfective, which has been attributed a coercer role in the literature as a de-telicizer and de-stativizer in the progressive, and as a de-eventivizer in the so-called ability (or attitudinal) and habitual readings. This paper proposes a unified semantics for the imperfective, preserving the properties of eventualities throughout the derivation. The paper argues that the semantics of viewpoint aspect is encoded in a series of functional heads containing interval-ordering predicates and quantifiers. This richer structure allows us to account for a greater amount of phenomena, such as the perfective nature of the individual instantiations of the event within a habitual construction or the nonculminating reading of perfective accomplishments in Spanish. This paper hypothesizes that nonculminating accomplishments have an underlying structure corresponding to the perfective progressive. As a consequence, the progressive becomes disentangled from imperfectivity and is given a novel analysis. The proposed syntax is argued to have a corresponding explicit morphology in languages such as Spanish and a nondifferentiating one in languages such as English; however, the syntax-semantics underlying both of these languages is argued to be the same.

Klein (1994) points out that within the treatment of the temporal semantics of English that he proposes, there is no need to maintain the traditional distinction between perfect aspect and anterior tense. An analysis of the semantics of perfect aspect in terms of placing the topic time in the post-time of the event under description can account for the anterior tense readings of the pluperfect as well. In this article, I argue that “Klein’s Conjecture” appears more problematic once extended to other languages, drawing on evidence from Japanese, Kituba, Kalaallisut, Korean, and Yucatec Maya. Languages such as Japanese have expressions of anterior tense that do not fit Klein’s analysis of perfect aspect (topic time after event time), while others—e.g., Yucatec Maya—have expressions that fit Klein’s analysis, but do not have anterior tense readings. The additions to Klein’s theory necessary so it can accommodate the new evidence comprise a revised viewpoint aspect component that distinguishes not only relations between topic and event time, but also relations between topic time and the runtimes of states preceding and following the event in a causal chain, as well as an updated tense module that distinguishes relations between topic time and perspective times in addition to relations between topic time and utterance time.

The paper deals with English and Chhulung* tense and aspect systems. Tense and aspect are important components in grammar of any language. This paper focuses on the differences between English and Chhulung tense and aspect systems and analyzes the EFL problems of Chhulung learners of English in learning English tense and aspect. Journal of NELTA, Vol. 17 No. 1-2, December 2012, Page 61-69 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/nelta.v17i1-2.8093

Part 1 of Tense in Adjuncts presents a compositional analysis of tense in relative clauses (RCs). The languages under investigation are English, Russian, and Japanese. We introduce the syntax and semantics of tense and the theory of feature transmission under variable binding, which mediates between syntax/semantics and morphology. In sequence of tense languages such as English, the morphology of the tense in a RC will be licensed by a non-local tense if the RC is embedded under will. In other constructions, the RC tense is licensed by a local tense. In non-sequence of tense languages, the tense in the RC is also determined by a local tense. The paper says which factors are responsible for the tense distribution in the different languages under consideration.

The purpose of this paper investigate the general definition of Tense and the concepts about Aspect. I consider the correlation between the lexical and the grammatical aspect. Tense is an inflection type of a verb that indicates the time, tense is grammatical categories. Tense has the current tense and the past tense in English. If we recognize aspect as a grammatical category, that the subject of in description will be confined to the grammatical expression. In contrast, when considered as a category of meaning, lexical and grammatical representation is the expression target. Therefore, aspect is stated as a grammatical category. Specially, the aspect of English, there is only a progressive tense and perfect tense. In this case, the progressive aspect is progressive tense and the perfect aspect is perfect tense. Chapter 2, I investigate the definition of the tense of many scholars and define the usage of each tense. In Chapter 3, I exhibit the definition of the Aspect. Aspect is grammatical and semantic one. Tense and Aspect is a simple grammar category, but they have a various spectrum. Therefore, As the definition of the Tense and Aspect becomes clear it will be helpful to students who are received English education. In addition, the definition about tense and aspect needs in variety of areas, more research is needed.

The present corpus study aims to investigate the semantics of the perfective and the imperfective aspects in Xhosa. In a large number of studies that investigate tense and aspect in the Nguni languages, the observations are mostly based on invented, context-free sentences, which do not necessarily reflect the complex semantics of these two categories. The data in the present study come from corpora, thus making it possible to test the study’s hypothesis with examples from natural language use. At the same time, the instances that cannot be accounted for by this hypothesis provide evidence that can be used for its improvement. The present study tests the hypothesis that the perfective aspect denotes an eventuality that is conceived of as bounded or as an indivisible whole, and that the imperfective aspect represents an eventuality as durative or iterated. The data collected in this study consist of recent past perfective and imperfective verbs that are tested for their ability to hold true at more than one point in time. The underlying assumption is that, unlike durative and iterated ones, bounded events cannot hold true at more than one point in time. The results show that the perfective/imperfective opposition in Xhosa correlates to a large extent with the view of an eventuality as bounded. However, a significant number of the verbs analysed cannot be accounted for by this explanation. The choice of aspect in these cases points toward other factors, such as factuality, number of occurrences, information structure, and sequencing of eventualities.Keywords: grammatical aspect, boundaries, Xhosa

This article reports on the development of a particular TAM (tense, aspect, modality) sequence in L2 French (FL2): aller+infinitive. Studies of the acquisition of FL2 regularly point to the frequency of the structure “aller+ infinitive” in the learners’ interlanguage from a relatively early acquisitional stage onwards. The sequence in question is nonetheless often too readily iden- tified with the futur périphrastique or futur proche, which leads researchers to assume that the futur périphrastique is productive at an early stage of the acquisitional process, even much sooner than the futur simple and approxi- mately at the same developmental stage as the emergence of the passé composé. In this study we analyze the quantitative development of the sequence aller + infinitive in the oral productions of three groups of Dutch-speaking lear- ners of FL2, as well as the semantic value(s) expressed by this sequence. Does it really (only) express the future, from an early acquisitional stage onwards? The FL2 data are also compared to the oral productions of a native speaker bench- mark group.