Re: Further language development Q's

> "Telebistan lan egiten dut
> Telebista-n lan egin-ten du-t
> Television-LOC work make-(simple? I forget...)
> pres.transitive.3rd.ABS-1st.ERG
>
> "Simple present"? Would that be equivalent to the English progressive,
> since
> the English "present" is actually a habitual aspect? Or maybe something
> totally different?
>
In basque, the auxilliary tends to mark tense (past vs non-past), mode
(there are subjunctive, conditional, possibilitative etc auxilliaries),
and person agreement (with Actor, Patient and Recipient), and the main
verb form (the infinitive) takes aspect markers. I think, but I haven't
practiced in a while (a few days, but I haven't been learning that long)
so I might be getting confused, that "egiten" is the "simple" form
(whose proper name I can't remember... corresponding roughly when used
with a present tense auxilliary to the english simple present tense).
Another example is the ending -ko, which is often analysed as a future
tense marker, but which I was reading (an argument by Larry Trask I
believe) is actually more like "unrealised" (it can occur with past
tense auxilliaries etc). An example of this is:

joango zara
joan-go zara
go-FUT/UNREALISED pres.intrans.2nd
you will go

I find the way the TAM information is split between the main verb and
auxilliary quite interesting in Basque. :)

I just looked it up in a basque grammar online... the aspect markers a
verb can take are:
perfective
imperfective
unrealized
However, there is also an (explicitly) progressive construction
involving the use of a word "ari" which I counted as a progressive
marking along the same lines as those listed above, even though it is a
construction rather than a single suffix on the main verb as is the case
with the other three.. so I guess I started thinking of the imperfective
marking as mainly habitual in nature, thus giving rise to the confusion
over what to call it (I couldn't decide whether to call it "simple" or
not by analogy with the English simple present tense... it would have
been easier to label it habitual or something anyway even if it wasn't
in fact an imperfective marker).
 The Basque verbal system in its entirety is really amazing.... I've
never learned any other language which has so much TAM information and
person agreement compulsarily marked.

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