Tense, Aspect, or Both?
because it is insignificant in Arawak, but because the morphemes in Arawak used to en- code tense and aspect seem to represent combinations of both.
As is done by Comrie 1985 and others cf. Grimes 1975; Reichenbach 1947, for the purposes of this discussion I will assume that time can be represented as a straight line. On
this line is a point labeled “S” which represents the moment of speech the present. The portion of the line to the left of the moment of speech represents the past, and the portion
to the right represents the future Figure 25.
—————————————————- |—————————————————— past
S future
present Figure 25. Representation of Time
Following Comrie and many others, I will also assume there are basically two ways one can relate a situation generic for state, action, event, etc. to the time line. One can speak
of locating a situation somewhere on the time line with respect to some other point on the time line, such as the moment of speech, or one can speak of the internal temporal contour
of the situation, apart from its location on the time line. Comrie refers to the former as “tense” and the latter as “aspect.” Tense, then, always has to do with whether a situation
is before, simultaneous with, or after some point on the line. Aspect, on the other hand, has to do with questions such as duration, completion, or non-completion.
Many utterances place the “situation” they are about somewhere on the time line with respect to the moment of speech S.
In Arawak, the tense particles bi ‘immediate past’, bona ‘intermediate past’, and koba ‘distant past’ do exactly that. They place the situation on the time line with respect to the moment of speech.
Other utterances, however, seem to place situations on the time line with respect to some other point or span on the line specified by the context of the utterance.
Comrie following others such as Reichenbach 1947 therefore proposes that a second point is needed on the time line which he calls “reference point” and labels ‘R’. Utterances
which position themselves on the time line with respect to the moment of speech S are said to have “absolute tense,” whereas those which position themselves with respect to a
reference point R are said to have “relative tense” with respect to the event E.
235 relative present:
E simul R —————————————- |————————— |—————————————-
R S
E Figure 26. Relative Present in the Past
Even in English, relative tense does not function just among clauses within a single sen- tence. For example, Grimes 1975:76 points out that a sentence in the English historical
present such as 236
First he goes and finds the girl, then he shows her the ring. can either be a blow-by-blow description of something happening at the time of speaking,
or of something that happened in the past but “told so as to create an air of immediacy.” 5.1 TenseAspect Suffixes and Particles
103
As will be shown in later sections, the Arawak verb suffixes all indicate relative tense ac- cording to the above definition. That is, in Arawak the context established by the discourse
sets up a reference point on the time line, and the suffixes locate a situation E with re- spect to that point R, not with respect to the point of speech S. The tense particles, on
the other hand, are absolute tense particles, and locate events with regard to ‘S’.
Relative tense necessitates having to deal with the discourse context in which an utter- ance is found and therefore complicates trying to isolate the components of meaning in
these suffixes. Fortunately, it is possible to skirt this problem to some extent. Isolated ut- terances in Arawak seem to assume that the reference point on the time line for the utter-
ance is in the same location as the point of speech. This means that in isolated utterances the distinction between relative and absolute tense disappears.
Assuming that tense and aspect are distinguishable from each other and neutralizing for the mo- ment the distinction between absolute and relative tense, it is possible to investigate the compo-
nents of meaning in the Arawak verb suffixes in Figure 24. Although there are additional overtones in the meanings of the affixes, it appears that they can all be characterized by the intersection of a
set of tense features and aspect features Figure 27. Each of the affixes says something about the lo- cation of a situation with respect to a point on the time line. Each of the affixes also views the situa-
tion either from the outside as a whole, with no indication of internal composition, or from inside as a situation which is in some sense in progress. This difference in the way of looking at the situation
corresponds quite well with the aspects Comrie 1976 labels the perfective and the imperfective. With regard to the perfective aspect, he says:
The whole of the situation is presented as a single unanalyzable whole, with begin- ning, middle, and end rolled into one; no attempt is made to divide this situation
up into the various individual phases that make up the action. Comrie 1976:3
With regard to the imperfective aspect, he says it is concerned with the internal temporal structure of a situation, viewing a situation from within Comrie 1976:24. He further
notes that it can include subdivisions such as habitual, continuous, and progressive.
ASPECT Perfective
Imperfective Future
-fa -bia
TENSE Present
-ka -bo
Past -›
-ja Figure 27. Tense and Aspect of Verb Suffixes
Just characterizing the Arawak verb suffixes in terms of tense and aspect features does not tell how they should be used nor how they translate into another language, like English, in a
consistent and straightforward way. Tense and aspect in some of the forms interact with the type of situation described by the verb to give a composite meaning slightly different from
what one might expect. For example -ka ‘present perfective’ relates a stative or event verb to the relative present. Its aspect views the situation from the outside as a completed whole
without regard to internal composition. When this affix is applied to stative verbs, it expresses a situation which, in English, would be translated by the present tense.
3
104 Aspectual Particles and the Contribution of Discourse to Arawak Syntax
3
From this point onward in this chapter, the tenseaspect suffix glosses will reflect the analysis in Figure 27.
237 a. Alokosia-ka de.
thirsty-PRES.PERF I
‘I am thirsty.’ b. Khareme-ka
no. black-PRES.PERF
it ‘It is black.’
c. Bahy loko-ka-i.
house in-PRES.PERF-he
‘He is in the house.’ d. Kawa-ka-i.
absent-PRES.PERF-he ‘He is gone.’
If one applies the same -ka suffix to an event verb, however, the meaning one gets says something about both the past and the present. The participants of such a verb are in the
relative present, in the state of having completed the action of the verb; and the effects of the verb, if any, are still true. In that sense, it is in the present tense. On the other hand,
since the event is now complete, the time span for that action must, of necessity, have taken place in the past. For a verb such as ka ‘bathe’, where the states before e.g. dirty
and after e.g. clean can be viewed as different, the Arawak present perfective can be translated in a straightforward way by the English present perfective.
238 Da-ka-ka.
I-bathe-PRES.PERF ‘I have bathed.’
However, the English translation of the Arawak present perfective of an event verb such as yjin
‘to weep’, where a change of state is less clearly evident, almost makes it seem as if -ka is a past tense suffix. That is, in most situations where it occurs, it is more naturally trans-
lated by the English past tense. 239
Th-yja-ka. she-weep-PRES.PERF
‘She wept.’
Nevertheless, for Arawak, what is in focus is that, at the relative present moment, the person is in the state of having done the action of weeping.
The suffixes labeled ‘Imperfective’ in Figure 27 also deserve some comments. As was men- tioned above, each of these suffixes views the situation from the inside—that is, from the middle
of the action of the situation. This, again, interacts with the type of situation being described, as well as with the tense of the situation. The present imperfective suffix -bo views the action ex-
pressed by an event verb from the inside in the present. This gives a continuous meaning.
240 Da-dalhida-bo.
he-run-PRES.IMPF ‘He is running.’
5.1 TenseAspect Suffixes and Particles 105
However, when this suffix is applied to a stative verb, where no action is inherent in the verb itself, it gets the progressive meaning of being in the state expressed by the verb,
where that state is intensifying.
241 Alokosia-bo
de. thirsty-PRES.IMPF
I ‘I am getting thirstier and thirstier.’
This latter meaning is close to that which is expressed by the future imperfective suffix -bia
. If this suffix is applied to a stative verb, it has an inchoative meaning. The state ex- pressed by the verb is not present yet, but will be coming or is in the process of coming
into existence. 242
Alokosia-bia de.
thirsty-FUT.IMPF I
‘I am gettingwill be getting thirsty.’ The use of this suffix does not imply, however, that the state expressed by the verb will
ever be reached as -fa ‘future perfective’ does. This is true when it is used with event verbs also. In fact, the uncertainty of the outcome of the situation expressed by the verb
allows this aspecttense to be exploited to express the concept of ‘in order to’ in Arawak.
243 Ly-nekhebo-bo
minkho, li-sikin-n-bia bokolho-ho
ly-sa-be myn.
he-work-PRES.IMPF very he-give-SUB-FUT.IMPF
cloth-NGEN his-child-PL to
‘He is working hard in order to give his children clothes.’