Questions tagged [tense-aspect-mood]
For questions about the handling of tense, aspect, and mood in constructed languages.
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Is there any conlang that implements Reichenbach's tenses?
In Reichenbach's theory of tense three time points, namely the Speech time, the Event time, and the Reference time, an abstract time point from which the event is viewed, are used to classify the ...
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Non-decomposable TAM strategies
The agglutinative language I'm most familiar with is Hungarian, and the way Hungarian handles TAM is, I think, incredibly boring: separate T-A-M markers with no allomorphs that just get concatenated ...
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How many tense subcategories are there across languages, or conceptually?
I have this:
That is 3 tenses, but a total of 4 5 4 = 13 "subcategories".
This boils down to more abstract concepts such as continuity and completeness. This is a nice table:
Could there ...
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Is it natural that "future possibility" is a separate tense?
I had some thought on how tenses work in my conlang. Eventually, I built a model and defined the tenses accordingly. But before showing that model, let be introduce the most basic tense in my conlang:
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I need help with understanding perfect, perfective, perterite, and pluperfect
After reading the definitions of perfect past, perfective past, preterite past, and pluperfect past, I am confused as to what their distinctions are. They all are past tense forms indicating a ...
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Does My Conlang, After Looking At My Grammar, Meet the Qualifications For a Legitimate IAL? [closed]
At the end of this question I will provide a link to the grammar in question.
I have created an Auxlang that I call Ulimi (because ulimi porridge is simple. It's a stupid pun). I have also got a ...
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Is Irrealis and Evidentials Compatible?
I and other people are making a collaborative conlang. It features mood/evidentiality contrast. There are 4 moods:
Indicative
Imperative
Optative
Conditional
There are also 6 evidentials:
Direct
...
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Alternatives to independent verbs for encoding desiderative meaning
English uses an independent verb to encode desiderative meaning, namely want. It normally takes an infinitival complement, although I can take a direct object as well if the subject of the infinitival ...
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Naturalness and Intuitiveness of marking tense and aspect in the negative but not affirmative
I'm wondering about the naturalness and intuitiveness of marking tense in negative clauses but not affirmative ones. I'm also wondering whether a language with this hypothetical feature would be ...
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Language with nominal TAM and no verbs: Ergative or tripartite?
I'm working on a language with nominal tense–aspect–mood (TAM), i.e. inflecting nouns instead of verbs. So, a sentence like "the woman sees the man", could be roughly translated to something like "the ...
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Constructed languages or dialects for Time travellers
Time travel is a standard trope in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Since time travel disrupts the normal perception of time time travellers may develop some linguistic means to deal with this situation.
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Are there constructed languages with a tense system inspired by Theory of Relativity?
For readers who aren't familiar with the Theory of Relativity, here is a sketch of how the Special Theory of Relativity structures space and time:
There is a point "here and now" where the observer ...
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What are the places where I can attach an indication of tense in relation to a conjugated verb action?
Info
My conlang uses verb conjugations only in the present tense. To indicate other tenses (preterite/past imperfect/subjunctive/future/etc) I use the combined phrase "sona," meaning "...
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What are the aspects of Esperanto?
By design (looking at the 16 rules of Esperanto) there is no verbal aspect in the Esperanto grammar. However, one can see an incohative aspect in the prefix ek- (e.g., mi ekridas "I burst out laughing"...
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Is there existing terminology for distinguishing multiple imperative moods?
I have found a conlang, Klyran, which has a rather interesting feature: multiple imperative moods. Quoting from the documentation:
For imperative mood there are number of suffixes that correspond ...
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Is the concept of “spatial aspect” attested in any natural language?
As described here, Aspect refers to the grammatical marking of the relation between topic and eventuality time, that is, it marking in what way the time an action actually occurs relates to the time ...
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How does mood relate to tense and aspect?
Moods are often intertwined with tense and aspect. In fact, the triad is commonly referred to in linguistics as tense-aspect-mood or just TAM. Aspect and tense are relatively straightforward, but how ...
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What is the difference between tense and aspect?
Many conlangs contain tense, some contain aspect as well or instead, and much of the recommended reading for conlangers assumes that you know what tense and aspect are and what the difference between ...
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Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?
In Describing Morphosyntax, Payne uses a number of diagrams for visually explaining aspects and what they say about actions relative to time.
Payne outlines the following, all of which occur in ...
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