Lingua Frakas...question re: TMA (tenses,mood & aspects)

In a message dated 2000/05/14 12:00:54 AM, Nik wrote:

>I could see this happening if the substrate language used those tenses,
>but the forms seem implausible (particularly, mito- and anci-), IMO.
    Well, of course, I am not being totally faithful to pidgin/creole
paradigms...
This is afterall an artlang. It is not totally unheard of for a substrate
language to coopt portions of the lexifier's vocabulary to describe their own
native terms.
So I am imagining one language that has a wider array of tenses trying to
communicate these ideas with others using another language that has fewer
tenses.

>First, where does _xi_ come from?
    I snagged it from Fa d'Ambu, a Portuguese creole, for 3 reasons:
1- they are very short    2- they stand out in the sentence  3- they appeal
to my sense of aesthetics
(it's pronounced /iks-ee/)

>My suggestion would be something like
>(using English words):
>
>very-long-time-finish
>long-time-finish
>finish
>was (?)
>be
>[what exactly is the distinction between "progressive" and
>"continuative"?]
    progressive is like "I will be... "... continuative is also known as
"habitual" as in "he always loses"

Thanx for your feedback...
zHANg