Re: Perfect/imperfect vs Past/present/future

In a message dated 07/1/02 11:51:26 PM, nihilsum@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

<< I need to do some reading up on the differences between languages that see
verbs in terms of past/present/future, and those (like the Semitic
languages) that use only a perfect/imperfect distinction. There was a brief
blurb about it on a site mentioned here which gave some examples of Arabic
verb conjugations. It didn't really go into detail on how the
perfect/imperfect system works.
I'm thinking of using such a system in an upcoming project, but I need to
know how it works.
Any info you could point me to would be appreciated. >>

    Arabic?  Far as I knew, the past/present/future distinction was more
important.  So you could have /ana aDhab/ "I go/I am going", /ana Dahabtu/ "I
went/I have gone/I was going", and /ana sa?aDhab/ "I will go/I will be
going".  What did they say?
    A good language to look at (there may be a better one, but this is one
that I know of) is Russian.  They have complementary verbs, so that each (or
most) verbal idea(s) have two versions: the imperfective version and the
perfective version.  In the imperfective, you can conjugate for the present
/ya piSu/ (I'm writing), the past /ya pisal/ (I was writing) and the future
/ya budu pisat'/ (I will be writing).  Then in the perfective you change the
verb somehow (there are various strategies; with this one you add the prefix
/na-/), and you get /ya napiSu/ (I have written), /ya napisal/ (I had
written), and maybe a form for the future?  Something like that.  I totally
forgot most of my Russian (I didn't like it that much), but I do remember
that that system was rather interesting.

-David

"fawiT, Gug&g, tSagZil-a-Gariz, waj min DidZejsat wazid..."
"Soft, driven, slow and mad, like some new language..."
                    -Jim Morrison