[Lingtyp] Co-expression of future and past

[Rik De Busser]

Hi Lauren,

Bunun (Austronesian, Taiwan) has a root qabas, which can both refer to a
distant past ('in the old days') and in certain derivations to the far
future. Examples:

Qabas 'in the old days'
Maisna-qabas 'FROM-far.past' > 'from a very long ago (till the point of
reference)'
Sau-qabas-qabas 'UNTIL-RED-far.future' > 'forever'

Best,
Rik

-- 
Rik De Busser
Associate Professor & Chair

Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Chengchi University
No. 64 Sec. 2 ZhiNan Road, Wenshan District
Taipei City 11605 Taiwan R.O.C.

T: +886 (2) 2939 3091 ext. 67662 / 88174
ORCID: 0000-0003-2750-3364
www.rdbusser.com



On Tue, 11 Dec 2018, 22:21 Lauren Reed <lauren.reed at anu.edu.au wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> My colleague Alan Rumsey and I are working on a small sign language in
> Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea. The language has a marker which
> appears to express either remote future or remote past. This co-expression
> is attributed by users to the fact that both far future and far past events
> occur many sleep-wake cycles from now.
>
> I am interested in hearing of any other examples you may be aware of where
> languages overtly mark both future and past with the same marker (whether
> this be remote or not).
>
> Best regards
> Lauren
>
> *---*
> *Lauren Reed*
>
> *Australian National University *
> *laurenwreed.com <http://laurenwreed.com>*
> *+61 438 583 808*
>
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