Re: Pronouns Marked for Tense/Aspect/Mood

[devId roUt]:

> > >Date:  28 Apr 2003 15:47:11 -0000
> > >From:  David Palfreyman <f7385@...>
> > >Subject:  Tense Marking on Pronouns
> > >
> > > [snippage]
> > >b) Are there other languages which mark tense on pronouns?
Lenmoct can mark tense on any nominal with -ga, -cy, and -ty,
which mark past, present and future respectively.  This is usually
ommited because verb tense gives the same information, but is
used in the notorious introductory sentences and other verbless wonders.
An interesting use of this construction is the equivalent of to become,
which I will mark with a noun that could be replaced with a pronoun:

Li cemciu cil lenmen-ty.
[lI 'kEmju jIl 'lEmeNti]
She self-specific-inverse priestess-future.
She becomes (is becoming) a priestess.

This sentence looks odd to the unaccustomed eye, so I shall try to
explain it.  It literally means something like "She makes herself into a
priestess, but the verb "make" is left implied.  Since "herself" is feminine
but an object, it is marked inverse (-ciu), because masculine words
normally take the objective.

If the above sentence was in the context of a past-tense narrative, it
would be marked thus to disambiguate the tense of the absent verb:

Li-ga cemciu lenmen-ty.
She became a priestess.

The extra -ga puts the pronoun 'li' in the past, which was exactly your
question.
All tense suffixes are assumed to be from the perspective of the subject, so
-ty marks future from the point of view of "she," not from the reader's.

Hope this helps.

Jake

Reply