[Lingtyp] R: Non-present lexemes

[Christian Lehmann]

Dear Tom,

the semantic property you are interested in may be shared by the 
perfective aspect of more languages. Another one is Cabecar (Chibchan). 
Similarly as in Russian (salvo errore), the perfective most of the time 
refers to past events, but reference to future events is possible. It 
seems that such a behavior of an aspect morpheme is not quite the same 
as the semantics of temporal adverbs that have been adduced. These 
latter do refer to points or periods of time, whereas the perfective 
views the event in question in its entirety, including the boundaries of 
its extension in time. This is straightforwardly possible for past 
events, but requires additional interpretive effort for future events. 
What I am saying is that the perfective aspect may not quite meet the 
requirement of your initial quest about "time reference".

Best,
Christian
-- 

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.: 	+49/361/2113417
E-Post: 	christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
Web: 	https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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