17
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between tense and aspect?
When discussing tense, aspect, and mood, it's important to distinguish a given language's grammatical markers from the abstract concepts being described. Thus, linguists use the words temporal ...
- 3,391
10
votes
How does mood relate to tense and aspect?
(For tense and aspect in general, see this answer)
I'll summarize what Mark Rosenfelder says in Advanced Language Construction, pp. 146-156 (some of which referring back to Mood and Modality, F.R....
- 1,562
9
votes
Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?
Well, y'know, ANADEW and all that, but...
As far as I know, there is no natural language with a grammaticalized antiperfect aspect--i.e., an aspect where the time of the action is after the reference ...
8
votes
Accepted
What are the aspects of Esperanto?
Whoever told you Esperanto lacks verbal aspect was lying to you. Yes, aspect isn't mentioned in the 16 Rules. However, this clearly doesn't mean Esperanto completely lacks aspect -- the 16 Rules are ...
- 3,391
7
votes
Accepted
Is it natural that "future possibility" is a separate tense?
Instead of "tautological", the usual name for that in linguistics is gnomic aspect. Lingála, for example, has this type of marking.
Similarly, your "historical" marking is usually ...
- 4,016
7
votes
Accepted
Is there existing terminology for distinguishing multiple imperative moods?
I don't think there is any really reliable cross-linguistic labelling system that would include all of these. There are terms for most of them, but they're often used for only a few languages, and ...
- 3,720
7
votes
Is the concept of “spatial aspect” attested in any natural language?
I don't know of any languages where spatial marking is thoroughly compulsory in the same way aspect often is, however I do know of some potentially interesting cases of spatial marking. A lot of ...
- 2,357
5
votes
What is the difference between tense and aspect?
The difference is that tense refers to the time an action (or state or phenomenon) happened:
I was slim.
I am fat.
I will be fatter.
while aspect refers to the way an action (or state, or phenomenon)...
- 542
5
votes
Accepted
I need help with understanding perfect, perfective, perterite, and pluperfect
All the times you mention are in the past, but many languages, including English, care about more specific aspects of this past.
In a nutshell, preterite past describes things that happened, perfect ...
- 614
4
votes
I need help with understanding perfect, perfective, perterite, and pluperfect
The most important thing to recognize is that many of these terms are language-specific. The word "preterite" is mainly used in describing Germanic languages, for example; in Ancient Greek, ...
- 4,016
4
votes
Accepted
Is Irrealis and Evidentials Compatible?
The most prototypical evidentials are a class of verbal affixes. They are not commonly tenses or moods of their own (though they can be). As such, they are not structurally incompatible with the ...
- 1,562
4
votes
Accepted
Alternatives to independent verbs for encoding desiderative meaning
Quite a few languages have desiderative as an affix within the verbal system (whether it is analysed as an affix or a full mood being irrelevant here). Japanese and Sanskrit do, for example. It is ...
- 1,562
3
votes
Accepted
What are the places where I can attach an indication of tense in relation to a conjugated verb action?
Since it’s your conlang, you can put it wherever you think is best—but my inclination would be immediately adjacent to the verb it applies to. Your sentence structure seems to be VSO, so ...
- 1,082
3
votes
Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?
Morotuncanian has some verbal aspects that I rather doubt appear in natural languages of the primary world.
Sedative and Excitative verbal aspects. The former aspect expresses the nature of the ...
- 3,245
3
votes
Is Irrealis and Evidentials Compatible?
Remember that "grammar is born hungry" (attr. to W. Annis). While evidentials probably won't mix with the conditional mood in an additive fashion, they may produce other non-combinatorial ...
- 1,423
3
votes
Accepted
Are there constructed languages with a tense system inspired by Theory of Relativity?
I think you are looking for the constructed language called Lojban
According to an earlier reference to its grammar,
Technical note for readers conversant with relativity theory: The Lojban time ...
- 251
3
votes
What are the places where I can attach an indication of tense in relation to a conjugated verb action?
The most prominent positions in a sentence are the beginning and end, and so those positions are frequently used to indicate the information structure of a sentence. A word carrying grammatical ...
- 3,720
3
votes
Accepted
Constructed languages or dialects for Time travellers
Ted Chang wrote "Story of Your Life" which was the basis for the movie Arrival. I thought both the book and the visual representation in the film were excellent examples of languages based on a ...
- 146
3
votes
Is it natural that "future possibility" is a separate tense?
To address the "future possibility": Spanish subjunctive mood is used to describe possibilities, attitudes or wishes. Historically, future subjunctive was very much alive, but has almost ...
- 1,239
2
votes
Accepted
How many tense subcategories are there across languages, or conceptually?
There are a lot of different things you can mark on a verb, including tense (setting a sort of temporal reference point), aspect (the relationship of the action to that reference point), mood (the ...
- 4,016
2
votes
How many tense subcategories are there across languages, or conceptually?
Actually, there can be a lot more tenses than the usual three, and also languages with no tense at all or only two tenses (past and non-past or, more rarely, future and non-future) exist. The ...
- 11k
2
votes
Constructed languages or dialects for Time travellers
You might want to explore the use of Gallifreyan in Doctor Who as he is a member of time-travelling people called the Gallifreyans. He always has a confused sense of time on his show.
It appears that ...
- 251
2
votes
Language with nominal TAM and no verbs: Ergative or tripartite?
In your example:
Then, the actual translation for "the woman sees the man" would be
"the womans sight the man". And that's the problem: "sight" and "man"
are both unmarked nouns, leading to ...
- 741
1
vote
Is Irrealis and Evidentials Compatible?
I think it could be argued that some of your evidentials may be compatible with some of your moods.
Expressing something hoped hoped for or wished for (optative) seems it might pair nicely with the ...
- 3,245
1
vote
Constructed languages or dialects for Time travellers
That's a tough one. All languages (previously) in existence are in essence linear, because they are phonetic representations of human experience. Even when describing the past or the future, language ...
- 171
1
vote
What are the places where I can attach an indication of tense in relation to a conjugated verb action?
The past tense marker you constructed, sonasato, is a rather long element. Applying the rule "short before long" this would indicate that you put it even after the objects, like
Sepyew eu bítõe ...
- 11k
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