Non-spatial setting in Awara.

This article describes the ways tense, aspect, mood, and modality are marked in the Finisterre-Huon Papuan language Awara. Awara uses verbal suffixes for all of these, as well as employing multi-verb constructions for four aspectual distinctions. Two past tenses, the present tense, and one future tense are marked. Distinguishing between the present tense suffix and the homophonous imperfective aspect suffix is a thorny issue in Awara morphology. The suffixes marking mood and modality belong to two classes of irrealis suffixes, which are similar in form to irrealis suffixes of other Finisterre-Huon languages. Awara is noteworthy for a grammatical distinction between static and dynamic verb classes, realized in different forms of imperfective aspectual suffixes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]