<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear all,</div><div><br></div><div>As I read Tom's most interesting inquiry, I was reminded of a short term-paper of a student of mine, where he addressed the TMA system of Macedonian (his mother tongue), with special focus on the aorist. This is presumably not a tense marker in itself but an aspect marker: however, it seems never to be used in present contexts, whereas it rather freely occurs in both past- and future-referring ones. So it may be particularly relevant to Tom's question, especially in that it is not a lexical item but a grammatical form.</div><div><br></div><div>Before writing this, I have decided to double-check with my student. Below are my question and his reply; however, I want to emphasize that I have no first-hand knowledge of the language, nor can I cite any published work that supports the claims below. So these claims should be carefully checked.</div><div><br></div><div><b>_____</b><br></div><div><i>I have a question. To judge from your squib, it would appear that the Macedonian aorist can denote events occurring in the past or the future, but never in present-tense contexts. But of course there might be more to the semantic of this form that could be covered in a couple of pages. So I am wondering if indeed the aorist can never denote present events -- or maybe generic/atemporal ones?</i><div><i><span style="color:black;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;background-color:white">_____</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color:black;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;background-color:white">
</span></i><div><i>I don't think it can be. I've been trying to think of a present
tense or atemporal usage of the aorist, but I struggle to think of any.</i></div><i>
</i><div><i>The aorist expresses some sort of perfect-like meaning, not exactly
sure what. When used with a past meaning, it seems to just function as
some kind of preterite. When used with a future meaning, it generally
has the implication of something being "imminent", like it is a
guarranteed and unavoidable event (or a strong promise or threat).</i></div><i>
</i><div><i>It only occurs with perfective verbs, which have a very limited
usage in the present to begin with. Perfective verbs may be used to
refer to habitual events when paired with kje (ex. "sekoj pat koga <b>kje </b>go<b> vidam</b>" - "every time I see him"), but not paired with the aorist, so *"...koga <b>kje</b> go <b>vidov</b>"
is not possible and requires an imperfect instead, even if the verb is
perfective (which is actually unusual for the imperfect, as it otherwise
occurs with imperfective verbs).</i></div><i>
</i><div><i><br aria-hidden="true"></i>
</div><i>
</i><div><i>In short, I haven't been able to think of a way to use the aorist with present or generic/atemporal meaning.</i></div><div><i><b>_____</b><br></i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>Hope this helps, all best,</div><div>Riccardo<br></div>
</div>
</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Tom Koss <<a href="mailto:Tom.Koss@uantwerpen.be">Tom.Koss@uantwerpen.be</a>> escreveu no dia sexta, 2/12/2022 à(s) 12:15:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg327404180963798615">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dear all, <u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’m looking for any kind of linguistic item (TMA markers, particles, adverbials etc.) that can convey both past- and future-time reference but that do not appear in present contexts.
<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">The items I’m looking for do not have to be “non-present tense” markers in the strict sense, i.e., bound morphemes which have non-present time reference as their core meaning - even though this would be most interesting
of course. They can also be more loosely connected to the verb phrase, have additional, more specific meanings, and/or be compatible with other tense markers.<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">The only criterion is that the items in question allow for both past and future interpretations of the clauses they appear in (the choice between the two depending on non-linguistic or grammatical context), while a
present interpretation is generally <b>not</b> possible. I would also be interested in languages where the expression of a certain grammatical category is similar in the past and future tense(s), while the present tense behaves differently
in some way (see e.g. the Awa Pit example below).<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">Below are a few examples for the phenomenon I am referring to:<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<ul style="margin-bottom:0cm">
<li style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">Nez Perce (Sahaptian) has a lexeme
</span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB"><i>watiisx
</i></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">‘one day away’ that can mean ‘tomorrow’ or ‘yesterday’, depending on the tense marking in the respective clause (Deal 2010: 120). The same thing seems to happen with the lexeme
</span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB"><i>kel
</i></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">in Hindi (Indo-Aryan)
</span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size:11pt">(Kachru 1997: 95)</span></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB"> and with
</span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB"><i>ejo
</i></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">in Kinyarwanda (Bantu)
</span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size:11pt">(Nkusi 1995: 580)</span></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">. All three languages have separate lexemes meaning ‘today’.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span><u></u></span></li><li style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">The lexeme
</span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB"><i>hibajata</i></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB"> in Jarawara (Arawá) is interpreted as ‘later today’ in the absence of
tense marking, and as </span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size:11pt">‘just now’ in combination with the immediate past marker
</span></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB"><i>-ra
</i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size:11pt">(Dixon 2004: 224). There are no examples given where it is translated as ‘right now’ or ‘at this moment’.</span><span><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span><u></u></span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">Awa Pit (Barbacoan) has several strategies to mark clausal negation. One of them, the
</span><span lang="EN-GB"><a><span style="font-size:11pt">negative suffix
</span></a></span><span><i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">-ma</span></i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">, indicates past-time reference in the absence
of tense marking, and future-time reference in combination with the future marker
</span><i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">-ni </span>
</i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">(Curnow 1997: 332/33)</span></span><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">. In my assessment, it cannot combine with the imperfective suffix
</span><i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">-mtu</span></i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">,</span><i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">
</span></i><span style="font-size:11pt" lang="EN-GB">which is the default marker to express present-time reference in the language.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span><u></u></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">If you can think of similar examples in languages you are familiar with, I would be very interested in knowing more about them, so as to get a better idea about how common such items
with non-present semantics are cross-linguistically, and what their distribution might be. So far, I have mostly found them in the Americas.
<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many thanks in advance!<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-GB">Best wishes,<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span><span lang="EN-GB"><span>Tom Koss<u></u> <u></u></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;text-align:justify">
<span lang="EN-US">PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp<u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<br>
</div>
</div>
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</div></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.<br></div>University of Liège</div><div dir="ltr">
Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature et traduction</div><div dir="ltr">Research group <i>Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues</i></div><div>F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)</div><div><i></i></div></div></div>