Re: CHAT: relative tense

dunn patrick w wrote:

>Is there any natural language that has a relative verb tense?  For
>instance, if 'eho means "speak"
>
>ne'eho might mean "I speak now."
>to'eho might mean "I spoke/will speak sometime within the forseeable
>future/past"
>ke'eho might mean "I spoke/will speak sometime within the historical
>future/past"
>
>In other words, not differentiating for past or future, but for distance
>form the present.

Comrie (in his Tense, Cambridge University Press), says not - there are very few
languages with metrical distinctions in their tense systems (long ago, fairly
long ago, recent past, present, forseeable future, distant future), but they
seem to exist - but there are no languages that don't make a distiction in
direction, but do make a distinction in distance.

I think the universal is, direction first (most often past vs. present/future),
and distance second.


As an aside - I've just subscribed to the list after lurking on my wife's
account for a while. My own primary conlang, Denden, has a metrical distinction
in tense, with four degrees in the past and two into the future. On the other
hand, the languages I'm a specialist in (Sino-Tibetan languages of the
Himalaya), don't have much of a tense distinction - though extremely complicated
agreement systems. Does anyone know of a conlang that has object agreement
incorporated into the verb?

Example:

1,2, 3 first, second, third person
s, d, p singular, dual, plural
S, O subject, object

I eat_1sS_3sO an apple
I eat_1sS_3dO two apples
We (three) eat_1pS_3pO three apples

Boudewijn Rempt

boud@rempt.xs4all.nl
www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt