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Inchoactive in Jpn? (was: "Anticipatory" Tense)

From:M.E.S. <suomenkieli@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 5, 2002, 12:32
--- Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> replied:

< It was my understanding that "inchoative" was
"becoming", and that's how I've been using it in my
language. >

> This is correct - the inchoative aspect (also called > by some 'inceptive' or 'ingessive') notes "becoming"
> or "starting", e.g. Japanese: hanasu "to talk" - > hanashidasu "to start to talk" furu "rain" - > furidasu "to start to rain"
Really!? I never knew that this phenomenon of Japanese verbs would be considered a tense! I just lumped it, mentally, as a Japanese-language characteristic as some of the other following examples: kaku - "write" kakinaosu - "rewrite" ukeru - "receive" ireru - "put (in)" ukeireru - "intake" wakarimasu - "understand, know" wakarikanemasu - "not know, not understand" Are you sure about the above as being classified a verb tense? Also, doesn't _hanashidasu_ really refer to something more like _to speak up (suddenly)_, whereas _hanashihajimeru_ would be better suited to _to start to speak_ ?? M.E.S. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/

Replies

Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>
Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>