Aspect and tense

Testyal · Post by **Testyal** » 19 Sep 2011 18:00

This tends to be the first thing I focus on when conjugating verbs. What I want to know is, what aspects and tenses do you use in your langs, or do you have a crazy system? Show us all how you conjugate them!

Chagen · Post by **Chagen** » 19 Sep 2011 18:48

Hoo boy. Demonos has complicated verbs:

All verbs end in "-eng".

Alright, first here is Conjugation. I'll be using "Kunaeng"--"To love"

Spoiler:

There are three more tenses, but I won't elaborate on them.

Now, you can do alot more to Demonos verbs. They can have markers added to them. They are added to the front, and they get COMPLICATED.

Let's use "Zateng"--"to run", this time:

Spoiler:

....Yeah.

Post by **Micamo** » 19 Sep 2011 19:22

Hoo boy.

Midhera verbs take aspects according to what aspectuality class the verb falls into:

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Aspectuality Classes:

STATIVE - Passive quality "be angry, sit, lie down"
	*Be in the state.
ORIENTIVE - For actions with direction, but no movement on the part of the agent "stretch, turn, face, throw"
	Face a definite target.
	Face nowhere in particular; Face away.
	Turn to an original state after a change of direction.
MOTION - Traveling movement "swim, run, fly"
	Go straight to the target
	Go to the target, then come back to the start point
	Return to the start point from the target.
	Go to the target, but making side trips or dawdling
	Not make it to the target, get lost along the way
SUCCESSIVE - Punctual actions "chop, lick, stab"
	Perform once.
	Perform again.
	Perform multiple times in quick, steady succession.
	Perform multiple times in a disonnected, unorderly way.
	Finally perform the action after a long wait.
	Perform the action for the last time.
CONVERSIVE - Goals "build, read (a whole book), eat (a meal), search"
	Succeed.
	Attempt, but get distracted or procrastinate.
	Attempt, but be interrupted.
	Attempt, but get frustrated in the midst and give up.
	Attempt, but fail.
OPERATIVE - Processes "read (as an activity), sleep, snack"
	*Perform the activity for a time.
	*Perform the activity on a regular basis.
	Have experience in performing the activity.
	Be busy with the activity, having no time for distractions.
	*Be away from the current spatial reference frame performing the activity.
	*Be obsessed with, spend all your time doing the activity.
	*Enjoy the activity.
	*Dislike the activity.

Those aspects marked with an asterisk also take a subaspect, here:

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SUBSITUATIONS (*)
	Stative - Perform the activity/be in the state
	Inceptive - Start the activity/Transition into state
	Cessative - Stop the activity/Leave state
	Pausative - Pause the activity
	Resumptive - Resume the activity

The position of the aspect and subaspect markers in the verb template depend on the aspectuality class of the verb.

As for tense, Midhera has two simultaneous tense systems: A relative tense and an absolute tense. The relative system is a simple Anterior/Simultaneous/Posterior system that's combined with the switch-reference markers. The absolute system is more complex:

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Present
Past:
	Immediate
	Recent
	Remote
	Ancestral
Future:
	Immediate
	Upcoming (Counterpart to recent)
	Remote

Finally, related to tense, Midhera has an optional set of markers indicating the time of day the event being described took place.

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At sunrise
During the day
At Sunset
After dark

(Note this is relative to the amount of daylight, which varies widely in the Midh homeland. Whether 7 AM is "Day" or "Sunrise" or even "After Dark" depends on the time of year. The "sunrise" and "sunset" stages can also last longer than the days and nights do.)

Chagen · Post by **Chagen** » 19 Sep 2011 19:23

Jesus Christ

And I thought mine was complicated. But yours has a lot of really cool ideas.

eldin raigmore · Post by **eldin raigmore** » 19 Sep 2011 19:43

testyal1 wrote:This tends to be the first thing I focus on when conjugating verbs. What I want to know is, what aspects and tenses do you use in your langs, or do you have a crazy system? Show us all how you conjugate them!

I haven't worked out Adpihi's aspects yet.

It's voices are merely:

(unmarked)
reflexive
reciprocal

or at least that's what I think at the moment.

The only moods/modes/modalities I've worked out so far are "independent" vs "conjunctive".
Surely it's going to have an interrogative one and an imperative one; and I expect it also to have a protatic conditional one and an apodotic conditional one. And, I haven't decided yet which are realis and which irrealis; maybe it will have more of each.

However it's got lots of tenses, if you count degrees-of-remoteness as tense.

It has 13 pasts and 13 futures and 1 present.

The degree-of-remoteness is made up of two parts; a "unit of time", and an expression of "how many of those units".

The "units of time" are:

a year;
a "severalth" of a year that is "several" days; (I'm going to call this "a fortnight" subsequently in this post)
a day;
a "severalth" of a day. (I'm going to call this "an hour" subsequently in this post)

(What "several" means varies with dialect, genre, and register; and depends largely on what "few" means. It could mean, for instance, "two more than a few", or "a few and a few more", or "a few fews".)

The expression of "how many" is;

within one unit-of-time from now;
within two, but not within one;
within a few, but not within two;
not within a few.

(What "few" means varies with dialect, genre, and register. It means at least three in this context; it could mean, for instance, "three or four", or "three to five", or "three to six", or "three to nine".)

So the tenses are:

more than a few years ago
within the last few years (but more than two years ago)
last year (but more than a year ago)
earlier this year (but more than a few "fortnights" ago)
within the last few "fortnights" (but more than two "fortnights" ago)
last "fortnight" (but more than a "fortnight" ago)
earlier this "fortnight" (but more than a few days ago)
within the last few days (but before yesterday)
yesterday
earlier today (but more than a few "hours" ago)
within the last few "hours" but not within the last two
more than one but less than two "hours" ago
less than an "hour" ago
present
less than an "hour" from now
more than one but less than two "hours" from now
within the next few "hours" but not within the next two
later today (but more than a few "hours" from now)
tomorrow
within the next few days (but after tomorrow)
later this "fortnight" (but more than a few days from now)
next "fortnight" (but more than a "fortnight" from now)
within the next few "fortnights" (but more than two "fortnights" from now)
later this year (but more than a few "fortnights" from now)
next year (but more than a year from now)
within the next few years (but more than two years from now)
more than a few years from now

Conjunctive clauses have relative tense instead of (or in addition too?) absolute tense. I haven't worked out yet how that would interact with degrees-of-remoteness.
I'm thinking maybe it won't; instead, it may interact with the aspect of both the conjunctive-clause verb and the anchor-clause verb. There might be 18 tense-aspect combinations of the conjunctive clause if the anchor clause is durative; five of which count only if the conjunctive clause is punctive, the other thirteen only if the conjunctive clause is also durative.

conjunctive clause both begins and ends before anchor clause begins.
conjunctive clause begins before anchor clause begins, but ends just as anchor clause begins.
conjunctive clause begins before anchor clause begins, but ends after anchor clause begins but before anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins before anchor clause begins, but ends just as anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins before anchor clause begins, but ends after anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins just as anchor clause begins but ends before anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins just as anchor clause begins and ends just as anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins just as anchor clause begins but ends after anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins after anchor clause begins but before anchor clause ends; and conjunctive clause ends after anchor clause begins but before anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins after anchor clause begins but before anchor clause ends; but conjunctive clause ends just as anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins after anchor clause begins but before anchor clause ends; but conjunctive clause ends after anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins just as anchor clause ends, but ends after anchor clause ends.
conjunctive clause begins and ends after anchor clause ends.

And there'd be another five if the conjunctive clause is durative but the anchor clause is punctive; and three if they're both punctive.

As for conjugating the verbs;
Verbs have a prefix that tells something about the persons and genders of the participant(s).
(I call this "order", after what Algonquianists call what happens to verbs in the languages they study, although I don't think it's a prefix in them, or at least not in all of them.)
The "order" prefix means one of the following ten things;

no participants
one participant and it's first-or-second-person and animate.
one participant and it's third-person and animate.
one participant and it's third-person and inanimate.
two or more participants and they're both first-or-second-person and animate.
two or more participants and they're all third-person and animate.
two or more participants and they're all third-person and inanimate.
two or more participants and they're all animate; at least one is first-or-second-person and at least one is third-person.
two or more participants and they're all third-person; at least one is animate and at least one is inanimate.
two or more participants; at least one is first-or-second-person and at least one is third-person; and at least one is animate and at least one is inanimate.

Conjunctive verbs will also have a switch-reference marker; two if they're transitive or bivalent.
I've discussed these elsewhere.
One relates the subject or agent of the marked clause to some participant of the anchor clause;
the other relates the object or patient of the marked clause to some participant of the anchor clause.

Verbs have polypersonal agreement suffixes that agree with the gender and number and person of agent and patient.

Post by **Salmoneus** » 19 Sep 2011 20:01

Rawàng Ata has no tenses. It also has no aspects.

Chagen · Post by **Chagen** » 19 Sep 2011 20:27

You guys are insane. I could never imagine coming up with a language that complicated...

But hey, different strokes for different folks.

Post by **Micamo** » 19 Sep 2011 20:28

Eh, I didn't come up with the Midhera aspect system so much as steal it from the Athabaskan family. Plus I've been working on this thing for over a year now.

Chagen · Post by **Chagen** » 19 Sep 2011 20:30

Eh, I'm not just one for extremely complicated, highly-detailed aspect/tense systems like that.

'Tis what happens when you grow up speaking a natlang that doesn't even have a morphological future tense.

Ollock · Post by **Ollock** » 19 Sep 2011 20:39

The latest Conlangery (Conlangery #16: Tense) was planned to be a discussion about tense and aspect, but ended up being mostly about tense. Turns out, tense can get very complicated. I suggest you guys check it out.

/shamelessselfpromotion

Testyal · Post by **Testyal** » 19 Sep 2011 21:21

Tense is awesome, but aspect is my preferred subject, to be honest.

míkl · Post by **míkl** » 19 Sep 2011 21:54

Mesogzen is rather simple with tense marked with adverbs (mainly words like "yesterday" or "tomorrow" are used) and a simple perfective/imperfective aspect distinction.

thaen · Post by **thaen** » 20 Sep 2011 00:47

I'm in awe of some of your systems...In one of mine, much of the aspects will be monosyllabic affixes separated by hyphens and be affected by ablaut along with the verb...

For example:

at́rám by itself is static, but when it is dynamic, it has the prefix di- attached, giving di-at́rám. For the punctual aspect, the suffix -ag is attached, giving di-at́rám-ag. For habitual aspect, -āg is attached. Giving di-at́rám-āg.

This is not the entire system, obviously, but it's really all I have now.

Post by **Trailsend** » 20 Sep 2011 02:17

Feayran doesn't morphologically mark tense (unless you count incorporating specific time-roots as locative arguments), but it does mark aspect.

ian9113 · Post by **ian9113** » 20 Sep 2011 02:44

Šaupė doesn't inflect for aspect, only tense, of which it has Present, Past, Past Frequentive, and Future. But the verb takes on a lot of other information, such as person, mood, voice, modality, causality, etc etc. The tenses are inflected by changes to the vowels in a verb when possible, otherwise a suffix is used indicating the tense. (Typical verb is skėr(a), "to cut", with verb tenses skėra, skoru, skrodu, skiri respectively). The infinitive is only used when distinction is specifically required from the present tense, in which case the suffixe -iňis is used, (i.e. skėriňis).

Sankon · Post by **Sankon** » 20 Sep 2011 23:22

Trailsend wrote:Feayran doesn't morphologically mark tense (unless you count incorporating specific time-roots as locative arguments), but it does mark aspect.

I just want to tell you how amazingly awesome that is and that I'm gonna steal it.

Hope you don't mind. :-P

Post by **Trailsend** » 21 Sep 2011 01:31

Sankon wrote:
Trailsend wrote:Feayran doesn't morphologically mark tense (unless you count incorporating specific time-roots as locative arguments), but it does mark aspect.
I just want to tell you how amazingly awesome that is and that I'm gonna steal it.

Hope you don't mind. :-P

Thanks! No problem. Do I get a footnote? I love footnotes! :-D

Sankon · Post by **Sankon** » 21 Sep 2011 01:38

Trailsend wrote:
Sankon wrote:
Trailsend wrote:Feayran doesn't morphologically mark tense (unless you count incorporating specific time-roots as locative arguments), but it does mark aspect.
I just want to tell you how amazingly awesome that is and that I'm gonna steal it.

Hope you don't mind. :-P
Thanks! No problem. Do I get a footnote? I love footnotes! :-D

If I ever publish a proper grammar, you'll be a footnote. 8-)

Post by **Trailsend** » 21 Sep 2011 02:17

Whee!

taylorS · Post by **taylorS** » 21 Sep 2011 05:19

My English descendant Mekoshan has 2 tenses (Past and Non-Past) and 3 aspects (Perfective, Imperfective, and Retrospective). The Perfective Aspect has no tense contrast.

The Perfective or Aorist is derived from the merging of the English Preterite and Present Perfect.

aavsdaf "I stopped"
aa-v-sdaf
1SG-AOR-stop

aasayi "I saw it"
aa-sa-i
1SG.NOM-see.AOR-3SG.N.ACC

The Imperfective Non-Past or Present form differs depending on if the verb is an action verb on one hand or a stative or experiential verb on the other. The former is derived from the English Present Progressive, the later is formed from the English Simple Present.

Active verbs in both tenses of the Imperfective aspect obligatorily have a "dynamic" suffix "-n" derived from the English "-ing"

aasdafn "I am stopping/I stop"
aa-sdaf-n
1SG-stop-DYN

aano "I know"
aa-no
1SG-know

The Past Imperfective or Imperfect is derived from the English Past Progressive.

aavosdafn "I was stopping"
aa-vo-sdaf-n
1SG-PST-stop-DYN

The Non-Past and Past Retrospective, or Perfect and Pluperfect, are derived from the English Progressive Perfect.

aavęsdaf "I have stopped"
aa-vę-sdaf
1SG-PRF-stop

aadbęsdaf "I had stopped"
aa-dbę-sdaf
1SG-PRF.PST-stop

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