ACTIONALITY, ASPECT, TENSE, AND COUNTERFACTUALITY IN KUBAN KABARDIAN.

This paper presents fieldwork data on the interaction of actionality, aspect, and tense in counterfactual conditional clauses in the Kuban dialect of Kabardian, a polysynthetic Northwest Caucasian language. Kabardian shows non-trivial similarities to Romance languages in its use of the Imperfective Past suffix as a marker of counterfactuality - alone or as part of the complex Pluperfect marker where the Imperfect attaches to the Preterite (perfective past). I show that the choice between several types of marking in counterfactual protases (the plain Imperfect, the Pluperfect and the simple Preterite) primarily depends on actional class and viewpoint aspect: perfective counterfactuals employ either the Pluperfect or the Preterite, while imperfective counterfactuals require the Imperfect, which is in line with the more general distribution of these tenseaspect forms. Theoretical implications of tense-aspect marking in Kuban Kabardian counterfactual conditionals are also briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]