tense marked prepositions

[potetjp]

Dear Claire,
This is somehow related to your question.
In some Tagalog adverbial expressions of time, the preposition _sa_  becomes
a prefix - but this is only a matter of spelling convention - and expresses
a future orientation; it is contrasted with _ka_ , which expresses a past
orientation .
e.g. 1) _Magbábáyad siyá sa-maka-limá._ "He will/would pay in five days."
/ will or would pay / 3ps. / [future in] - [times] - five /

e.g. 2) _Nagbáyad siyá ka-maka-limá._  "He paid / had paid five days ago /
before /earlier." [Hyphening is mine.]
/ has or had paid / 3ps / [ago] - [times] - five /

I addressed this problem in
Jean-Paul G. Potet
_An adverbial-to-verbal morpheme transfer in Classical Tagalog_
pp. 1-46 (40-42 in particular) in _Lingua_, vol. 86, # 1, January 1992,
North-Holland - Amstersdam.

Outside expressions of time, _sa_ has no time orientation. Neither does it
provide any spatial orientation.
e.g. 3)  Ibinigáy nang abugádo ang papél sa  klerk. "The lawyer gave/had
given the paper to the clerk."
e.g. 4) Kinúha nang abugádo ang papél sa klerk. "The lawyer took the/had
taken the paper from the clerk."

I addressed this other problem in
Jean-Paul G. Potet
_Transference in Tagalog_
pp. 67-109 in Cahiers de Linguistique - Asie Orientale (C.L.A.O), vol. XVII,
# 1, juin 1988
(EHESS, CRLAO, 54 bd. Raspail, 75270 PARIS CEDEX 06. E-mail:  crlao at ehess.fr

Best regards
Jean-Paul