Do other languages have an “irreversible aspect”? The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are InWhat is permansive aspect?How do languages with imperfect aspect typically convey distinctions between habitual, iterative, and progressive aspects?What aspect or feature do “over TIME” constructions have?Why does English have progressive aspect but German does not?Can every language express any lexical aspect?Grammatical Aspect and Lexical AspectDoes English have [ inchoative aspect ]?Is the obligatory omission of tense/aspect/mood marking in polar interrogatives common?habitual aspect in englishAre there any languages which inflect the noun for morphosyntactic categories normally reserved for verbs (e.g. tense, aspect, etc.)?

Falsification in Math vs Science

How can I fix this gap between bookcases I made?

Realistic Alternatives to Dust: What Else Could Feed a Plankton Bloom?

Could JWST stay at L2 "forever"?

Manuscript was "unsubmitted" because the manuscript was deposited in Arxiv Preprints

What does "rabbited" mean/imply in this sentence?

The difference between dialogue marks

How can I create a character who can assume the widest possible range of creature sizes?

Why isn't airport relocation done gradually?

What does "sndry explns" mean in one of the Hitchhiker's guide books?

How to answer pointed "are you quitting" questioning when I don't want them to suspect

What is the motivation for a law requiring 2 parties to consent for recording a conversation

Are there any other methods to apply to solving simultaneous equations?

On the insanity of kings as an argument against Monarchy

JSON.serialize: is it possible to suppress null values of a map?

Pristine Bit Checking

Why don't Unix/Linux systems traverse through directories until they find the required version of a linked library?

How to reverse every other sublist of a list?

Why do UK politicians seemingly ignore opinion polls on Brexit?

What is a mixture ratio of propellant?

Why could you hear an Amstrad CPC working?

Patience, young "Padovan"

Dual Citizen. Exited the US on Italian passport recently

Inflated grade on resume at previous job, might former employer tell new employer?



Do other languages have an “irreversible aspect”?



The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are InWhat is permansive aspect?How do languages with imperfect aspect typically convey distinctions between habitual, iterative, and progressive aspects?What aspect or feature do “over TIME” constructions have?Why does English have progressive aspect but German does not?Can every language express any lexical aspect?Grammatical Aspect and Lexical AspectDoes English have [ inchoative aspect ]?Is the obligatory omission of tense/aspect/mood marking in polar interrogatives common?habitual aspect in englishAre there any languages which inflect the noun for morphosyntactic categories normally reserved for verbs (e.g. tense, aspect, etc.)?










9















Like many languages, Lingála combines tense, aspect, and mood into a single TAM marking. Three of these TAMs pertain to the past:




  • a-kɛnd-ákí "he left earlier today" (hodiernal/recent past)


  • a-kɛnd-áká "he left a long time ago" (distant past)


  • a-kɛnd-á "he left, and he's never coming back" ("irreversible aspect")

This third of these, sometimes called the "irreversible", "ultimate", or "dead" TAM, describes an action that's happened and now can never be reversed. According to one native speaker, responding to a-kɛnd-á with "so when will he be coming back?" is a breach of conversational maxims and will get you a lot of blank stares.



I've never come across this aspect in other languages, and so I'm curious: are there other languages that have a specific grammatical marking for this meaning? And if so, is there a standard or commonly accepted name for it?




P.S. I'm ignoring vowel harmony in the examples for simplicity. What I'm actually interested in is the meaning.










share|improve this question



















  • 1





    Is not it related to telicity ?

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 21:35











  • @amegnunsen It could be, potentially! I'd say it's telic in that the action is done: but there's an additional "…and it's done for good" aspect to it. If you'd call that some form of telicity, that would make a good answer!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:43






  • 1





    There is something like that in Tuareg, it is called by some linguists "accompli résultatif" (resultive perfective) or "préterit intensif" (intensive preterit).

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 23:01















9















Like many languages, Lingála combines tense, aspect, and mood into a single TAM marking. Three of these TAMs pertain to the past:




  • a-kɛnd-ákí "he left earlier today" (hodiernal/recent past)


  • a-kɛnd-áká "he left a long time ago" (distant past)


  • a-kɛnd-á "he left, and he's never coming back" ("irreversible aspect")

This third of these, sometimes called the "irreversible", "ultimate", or "dead" TAM, describes an action that's happened and now can never be reversed. According to one native speaker, responding to a-kɛnd-á with "so when will he be coming back?" is a breach of conversational maxims and will get you a lot of blank stares.



I've never come across this aspect in other languages, and so I'm curious: are there other languages that have a specific grammatical marking for this meaning? And if so, is there a standard or commonly accepted name for it?




P.S. I'm ignoring vowel harmony in the examples for simplicity. What I'm actually interested in is the meaning.










share|improve this question



















  • 1





    Is not it related to telicity ?

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 21:35











  • @amegnunsen It could be, potentially! I'd say it's telic in that the action is done: but there's an additional "…and it's done for good" aspect to it. If you'd call that some form of telicity, that would make a good answer!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:43






  • 1





    There is something like that in Tuareg, it is called by some linguists "accompli résultatif" (resultive perfective) or "préterit intensif" (intensive preterit).

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 23:01













9












9








9








Like many languages, Lingála combines tense, aspect, and mood into a single TAM marking. Three of these TAMs pertain to the past:




  • a-kɛnd-ákí "he left earlier today" (hodiernal/recent past)


  • a-kɛnd-áká "he left a long time ago" (distant past)


  • a-kɛnd-á "he left, and he's never coming back" ("irreversible aspect")

This third of these, sometimes called the "irreversible", "ultimate", or "dead" TAM, describes an action that's happened and now can never be reversed. According to one native speaker, responding to a-kɛnd-á with "so when will he be coming back?" is a breach of conversational maxims and will get you a lot of blank stares.



I've never come across this aspect in other languages, and so I'm curious: are there other languages that have a specific grammatical marking for this meaning? And if so, is there a standard or commonly accepted name for it?




P.S. I'm ignoring vowel harmony in the examples for simplicity. What I'm actually interested in is the meaning.










share|improve this question
















Like many languages, Lingála combines tense, aspect, and mood into a single TAM marking. Three of these TAMs pertain to the past:




  • a-kɛnd-ákí "he left earlier today" (hodiernal/recent past)


  • a-kɛnd-áká "he left a long time ago" (distant past)


  • a-kɛnd-á "he left, and he's never coming back" ("irreversible aspect")

This third of these, sometimes called the "irreversible", "ultimate", or "dead" TAM, describes an action that's happened and now can never be reversed. According to one native speaker, responding to a-kɛnd-á with "so when will he be coming back?" is a breach of conversational maxims and will get you a lot of blank stares.



I've never come across this aspect in other languages, and so I'm curious: are there other languages that have a specific grammatical marking for this meaning? And if so, is there a standard or commonly accepted name for it?




P.S. I'm ignoring vowel harmony in the examples for simplicity. What I'm actually interested in is the meaning.







morphology list-of-languages aspect tense-aspect-mood bantu






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited yesterday







Draconis

















asked Apr 5 at 19:36









DraconisDraconis

12.9k12054




12.9k12054







  • 1





    Is not it related to telicity ?

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 21:35











  • @amegnunsen It could be, potentially! I'd say it's telic in that the action is done: but there's an additional "…and it's done for good" aspect to it. If you'd call that some form of telicity, that would make a good answer!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:43






  • 1





    There is something like that in Tuareg, it is called by some linguists "accompli résultatif" (resultive perfective) or "préterit intensif" (intensive preterit).

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 23:01












  • 1





    Is not it related to telicity ?

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 21:35











  • @amegnunsen It could be, potentially! I'd say it's telic in that the action is done: but there's an additional "…and it's done for good" aspect to it. If you'd call that some form of telicity, that would make a good answer!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:43






  • 1





    There is something like that in Tuareg, it is called by some linguists "accompli résultatif" (resultive perfective) or "préterit intensif" (intensive preterit).

    – amegnunsen
    Apr 5 at 23:01







1




1





Is not it related to telicity ?

– amegnunsen
Apr 5 at 21:35





Is not it related to telicity ?

– amegnunsen
Apr 5 at 21:35













@amegnunsen It could be, potentially! I'd say it's telic in that the action is done: but there's an additional "…and it's done for good" aspect to it. If you'd call that some form of telicity, that would make a good answer!

– Draconis
Apr 5 at 21:43





@amegnunsen It could be, potentially! I'd say it's telic in that the action is done: but there's an additional "…and it's done for good" aspect to it. If you'd call that some form of telicity, that would make a good answer!

– Draconis
Apr 5 at 21:43




1




1





There is something like that in Tuareg, it is called by some linguists "accompli résultatif" (resultive perfective) or "préterit intensif" (intensive preterit).

– amegnunsen
Apr 5 at 23:01





There is something like that in Tuareg, it is called by some linguists "accompli résultatif" (resultive perfective) or "préterit intensif" (intensive preterit).

– amegnunsen
Apr 5 at 23:01










1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















4














I have not heard of such a thing, but I have heard of similar things in other Bantu languages. Generally, when you investigate the pragmatics and semantics of a Bantu language's tense system, you will find many subtle conditions of usage, for example "when you say it this way, you are disputing someone else's claim", or "you say it this way if you want to know where the thing went to". The things that inflectional categories encode are not at all limited to classical utterance-time etc. Neo-Reichenbachian distinctions. Sometimes the distinctions are common enough that we invent special terms (e.g. "perstitive" or "persistive", which has only recently spread outside Bantu). I have heard of this being described as "present grounded in distant past" for Lingala, and perhaps Michael Meeuwis (who works on Lingala tense) has an analysis and terminology to go with it. I just located an instance in Nurse's book Tense and Aspect in Bantu p. 113 where he calls this the "anterior" aspect, P2 tense.



A strategy that I don't entirely disagree with is to assume that the Neo-Reichenbachian approach is somewhat reasonable, and try to figure out what kind of aspect this could be, for example "perfective", and see if that predicts anything else. I would especially focus on the question of defeasibility in deciding whether a certain property is part of the literal meaning of the form.






share|improve this answer

























  • Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for a copy of Nurse's book now, but: what does "P2" mean here? "Past tense #2"?

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:47











  • P2 is "degree 2 past" with P1 being most recent. Lingala has only two degrees, AFAIK.

    – user6726
    Apr 5 at 22:08











  • Interesting, thanks!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 22:27











Your Answer








StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "312"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);

else
createEditor();

);

function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);



);













draft saved

draft discarded


















StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flinguistics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f31083%2fdo-other-languages-have-an-irreversible-aspect%23new-answer', 'question_page');

);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown

























1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes








1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









4














I have not heard of such a thing, but I have heard of similar things in other Bantu languages. Generally, when you investigate the pragmatics and semantics of a Bantu language's tense system, you will find many subtle conditions of usage, for example "when you say it this way, you are disputing someone else's claim", or "you say it this way if you want to know where the thing went to". The things that inflectional categories encode are not at all limited to classical utterance-time etc. Neo-Reichenbachian distinctions. Sometimes the distinctions are common enough that we invent special terms (e.g. "perstitive" or "persistive", which has only recently spread outside Bantu). I have heard of this being described as "present grounded in distant past" for Lingala, and perhaps Michael Meeuwis (who works on Lingala tense) has an analysis and terminology to go with it. I just located an instance in Nurse's book Tense and Aspect in Bantu p. 113 where he calls this the "anterior" aspect, P2 tense.



A strategy that I don't entirely disagree with is to assume that the Neo-Reichenbachian approach is somewhat reasonable, and try to figure out what kind of aspect this could be, for example "perfective", and see if that predicts anything else. I would especially focus on the question of defeasibility in deciding whether a certain property is part of the literal meaning of the form.






share|improve this answer

























  • Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for a copy of Nurse's book now, but: what does "P2" mean here? "Past tense #2"?

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:47











  • P2 is "degree 2 past" with P1 being most recent. Lingala has only two degrees, AFAIK.

    – user6726
    Apr 5 at 22:08











  • Interesting, thanks!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 22:27















4














I have not heard of such a thing, but I have heard of similar things in other Bantu languages. Generally, when you investigate the pragmatics and semantics of a Bantu language's tense system, you will find many subtle conditions of usage, for example "when you say it this way, you are disputing someone else's claim", or "you say it this way if you want to know where the thing went to". The things that inflectional categories encode are not at all limited to classical utterance-time etc. Neo-Reichenbachian distinctions. Sometimes the distinctions are common enough that we invent special terms (e.g. "perstitive" or "persistive", which has only recently spread outside Bantu). I have heard of this being described as "present grounded in distant past" for Lingala, and perhaps Michael Meeuwis (who works on Lingala tense) has an analysis and terminology to go with it. I just located an instance in Nurse's book Tense and Aspect in Bantu p. 113 where he calls this the "anterior" aspect, P2 tense.



A strategy that I don't entirely disagree with is to assume that the Neo-Reichenbachian approach is somewhat reasonable, and try to figure out what kind of aspect this could be, for example "perfective", and see if that predicts anything else. I would especially focus on the question of defeasibility in deciding whether a certain property is part of the literal meaning of the form.






share|improve this answer

























  • Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for a copy of Nurse's book now, but: what does "P2" mean here? "Past tense #2"?

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:47











  • P2 is "degree 2 past" with P1 being most recent. Lingala has only two degrees, AFAIK.

    – user6726
    Apr 5 at 22:08











  • Interesting, thanks!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 22:27













4












4








4







I have not heard of such a thing, but I have heard of similar things in other Bantu languages. Generally, when you investigate the pragmatics and semantics of a Bantu language's tense system, you will find many subtle conditions of usage, for example "when you say it this way, you are disputing someone else's claim", or "you say it this way if you want to know where the thing went to". The things that inflectional categories encode are not at all limited to classical utterance-time etc. Neo-Reichenbachian distinctions. Sometimes the distinctions are common enough that we invent special terms (e.g. "perstitive" or "persistive", which has only recently spread outside Bantu). I have heard of this being described as "present grounded in distant past" for Lingala, and perhaps Michael Meeuwis (who works on Lingala tense) has an analysis and terminology to go with it. I just located an instance in Nurse's book Tense and Aspect in Bantu p. 113 where he calls this the "anterior" aspect, P2 tense.



A strategy that I don't entirely disagree with is to assume that the Neo-Reichenbachian approach is somewhat reasonable, and try to figure out what kind of aspect this could be, for example "perfective", and see if that predicts anything else. I would especially focus on the question of defeasibility in deciding whether a certain property is part of the literal meaning of the form.






share|improve this answer















I have not heard of such a thing, but I have heard of similar things in other Bantu languages. Generally, when you investigate the pragmatics and semantics of a Bantu language's tense system, you will find many subtle conditions of usage, for example "when you say it this way, you are disputing someone else's claim", or "you say it this way if you want to know where the thing went to". The things that inflectional categories encode are not at all limited to classical utterance-time etc. Neo-Reichenbachian distinctions. Sometimes the distinctions are common enough that we invent special terms (e.g. "perstitive" or "persistive", which has only recently spread outside Bantu). I have heard of this being described as "present grounded in distant past" for Lingala, and perhaps Michael Meeuwis (who works on Lingala tense) has an analysis and terminology to go with it. I just located an instance in Nurse's book Tense and Aspect in Bantu p. 113 where he calls this the "anterior" aspect, P2 tense.



A strategy that I don't entirely disagree with is to assume that the Neo-Reichenbachian approach is somewhat reasonable, and try to figure out what kind of aspect this could be, for example "perfective", and see if that predicts anything else. I would especially focus on the question of defeasibility in deciding whether a certain property is part of the literal meaning of the form.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited Apr 5 at 21:27

























answered Apr 5 at 20:17









user6726user6726

36k12471




36k12471












  • Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for a copy of Nurse's book now, but: what does "P2" mean here? "Past tense #2"?

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:47











  • P2 is "degree 2 past" with P1 being most recent. Lingala has only two degrees, AFAIK.

    – user6726
    Apr 5 at 22:08











  • Interesting, thanks!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 22:27

















  • Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for a copy of Nurse's book now, but: what does "P2" mean here? "Past tense #2"?

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 21:47











  • P2 is "degree 2 past" with P1 being most recent. Lingala has only two degrees, AFAIK.

    – user6726
    Apr 5 at 22:08











  • Interesting, thanks!

    – Draconis
    Apr 5 at 22:27
















Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for a copy of Nurse's book now, but: what does "P2" mean here? "Past tense #2"?

– Draconis
Apr 5 at 21:47





Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm looking for a copy of Nurse's book now, but: what does "P2" mean here? "Past tense #2"?

– Draconis
Apr 5 at 21:47













P2 is "degree 2 past" with P1 being most recent. Lingala has only two degrees, AFAIK.

– user6726
Apr 5 at 22:08





P2 is "degree 2 past" with P1 being most recent. Lingala has only two degrees, AFAIK.

– user6726
Apr 5 at 22:08













Interesting, thanks!

– Draconis
Apr 5 at 22:27





Interesting, thanks!

– Draconis
Apr 5 at 22:27

















draft saved

draft discarded
















































Thanks for contributing an answer to Linguistics Stack Exchange!


  • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

But avoid


  • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

  • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.

To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




draft saved


draft discarded














StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flinguistics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f31083%2fdo-other-languages-have-an-irreversible-aspect%23new-answer', 'question_page');

);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown





















































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown

































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown







Popular posts from this blog

Sum ergo cogito? 1 nng

三茅街道4182Guuntc Dn precexpngmageondP