Augment (was Re: German ge- ptcpl cognates?)

[Vidhyanath Rao]

"Ross Clark" <r.clark at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

> It is also a feature of Bickerton's prototypical Creole verb
> system: an unmarked non-stative verb is interpreted as past;
> to make a present you add the non-punctual aspect marker.

Bybee et al do talk about creoles, with the conclusion that it supports
them: Zero forms are perfective limited to the past on dynamic verbs,
but present on statives, a feature also found in some non-creole
languages.

The problem here may be the definitions of the terms `perfective' and
`simple past'. Bybee et al follow the definition of Comrie, with a nod
to the modifications proposed by Dahl: A form that is limited to past
events considered as a whole is classified as a perfective and not a
past. It does not matter if such forms have no non-past versions.

In English, for example, we use the same form in both
    She sang the whole song
    She sang to him every day.
We can also say
    I knew it even before you told me.
without any implication that my knowing whatever it is is over. In
Tamil, to say ``I gave it to him'', one says
    avanukk- atai koDutten.
where `koDutten' stands for `gave'. But
    avanukk- atai koDutten, a:na:l avan atai vangikk- koLLavillai
means ``I offered it to him, but he did not accept it.'' The form used
for neutral statements and narration can still have habitual, past state
or connative meanings. If a form is used for past and narration is
excluded from these three, it should be classified as a perfective, not
as a simple past.