Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I

caeruleancentaur wrote:

>In your various conlangs how do you express the concepts:
>1. to have just
>and
>2. to be about to
Charlie,

The Rhean simple past tense is "somewhat" perfective, in that it's used for
completed actions even when they've only just happened. So one way to
express number 1 is with the past tense plus an adverb like |alta| "just now":

Alta des'tais'.
just-now leave-3SG:PAST
"(She)'s just left". or "(She) just left."

But there are also three forms which are (kinda inaccurately, I guess)
called the past, present and future participles.

http://suzsoiz.free.fr/rhean/gramverbs.htm#participles

On their own they work as adjectives:

des'tov - (... who has) just left
des'tar - (... who is) in the middle of leaving
des'ti - (... who is) about to leave

des'tov lekuz'ad
leave-PTP train
"the train that just left"

Combined with the verb anc'ek, these form compound tenses with more specific
tense/aspect info:

http://suzsoiz.free.fr/rhean/gramverbs.htm#compound

Any of the participles can be used with any tense of anc'ek, so you can get
forms like
|des'tov anyere| "(he) will have just left", |des'ti anas'em| "I was about
to leave" etc.

M