Tense and aspect markers in Bena

5.1 Tense and aspect markers in Bena

4 In the analysis presented here, four present tense forms are recognised in Bena. The general present here labelled PRES is used for present progressive and present time reference which is not marked for aspect. The habitual HAB expresses situations which take place regularly or repeatedly in some way. The persistive PER refers to a situation that began at an earlier time and continues to hold. The anterior ANT is characterised by present relevance, describing situations which live on or whose consequences live on. In the text corpus, two levels of past tense can be recognised: near P1 and far P2. Each of these two tenses has an imperfective P1.IPFV and P2.IPFV and a perfective P1 and P2 form. The perfective forms can be used as auxiliaries and combined with a main verb in an aspect-marked present tense to create a compound form, such as P2.ANT far past anterior. Two levels of future tense can also be seen in Bena: near F1 and far F2. The consecutive CNS is a dependent verb form which takes its time reference from that of a preceding verb. In narrative texts, the consecutive most commonly has a far past reference. The labels CNS.S consecutive subjunctive and CNS.S.I consecutive subjunctive imperfective refer to functionally similar forms which likewise take their time reference from the framework established by a preceding verb. Both these forms must follow the connective neke ‘then’ in order to be understood as consecutives, as formally they are subjunctives SUBJ and SUBJ.IPFV and are understood as such in the absence of neke. Bena also has an imperative IMP, which can likewise be marked with the imperfective suffix IMP.IPFV. In the case of the consecutive, subjunctive and imperative, the label “imperfective” simply reflects the formal presence of the morpheme -ag which in past tense forms has an imperfective function, rather than a functional analysis. The function of this morpheme in these verb forms is as yet unclear. A further type of subjunctive found in the corpus is the subjunctive itive SUBJ.ITV. Finally, the label “conditional” CND does not represent a distinct verb form, but is used to show the function of clauses which contain connectives such as wone ‘if’, ngana ‘if’ and nde ‘even’. The combination of one of these connectives plus an anterior or subjunctive verb form creates a conditional clause.

5.2 Foreground