Tense: Tense
| Values: | Fut | Past | Pres |
In Zaar, the tense features are expressed together with aspect, mood, person and number features in a word functioning as a preverbal clitic tagged as an AUX. Zaar has one fure tense and three past tenses, denoted Imm (immediate past), Rec (recent past), and Rem (remote past).
Fut: Future tense
Examples
- dzàŋ làːdì má ɬǐː Kində báː ?// “On Tuesday, we’ll go to Kində no?”
Past: Past tense
In Zaar, the universal feature “past tense” subsumes three different past tenses. These are specified by “PastType” features:
- Imm Immediate: denotes a process that took place earlier on the same day as the speech time locus. The inflection follows the pattern “pronoun + yi”
- Rec Recent: denotes a process that took place the day before the speech time locus. The inflection follows the pattern “pronoun + náː”
- Remt Remote: denotes a process that took place two days or more before the speech time locus. The inflection follows the pattern “pronoun + ta”
Examples
-
máː yí wum éy ɗa áy yǎː wulíː “(this morning) I heard him saying it” (Immediate Past)
-
tòː yâːn mənáːyáː wu tu &// “Well that’s why (yesterday) I said…” (Recent Past)
-
káy káː yel ɗan mətá ɬə á Kullây kwǎː mətá ɲol teː Zwàl // “Well you see as I went to see Kulla, see, I followed Zwal way. (Remote Past)
Pres: Present tense
The universal feature “present” corresponds to non-past events, usually tagged as “Aorist” in grammars. This TAM is morphologically unmarked (lemma = ø). It is used where TAM values are backgrounded, and in narration where they are contextually recoverable.
Examples
-
kóː kə yé wuriː ?// “Or how do you see it?”
-
myáː mandá mə tawséy =tə mə́n sòːséy // “I began to pity him really.”
Tense in other languages: [ab] [abq] [aqz] [arr] [axm] [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [cy] [el] [en] [es] [fi] [fr] [ga] [gn] [gub] [ha] [hu] [hy] [it] [jaa] [ka] [ky] [naq] [nmf] [oge] [pcm] [ps] [qpm] [ruc] [ru] [sah] [say] [sl] [sv] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl] [xmf]