Temporal reference in a genuinely tenseless language: the case of Hausa  

Oleh:

Mucha, Anne

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: Proceedings of the 22nd Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, held at University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, May 18-20, 2012, page 188–207.
Topik: Temporal Reference; Modality; Hausa; Tenseless Languages
Fulltext: 188-207.pdf (177.83KB)

Isi artikel

In this paper, we provide an analysis of temporality in Hausa (Chadic, Afro-Asiatic). By testing the hypothesis of covert tense (Matthewson 2006) against empirical data, we show that Hausa is genuinely tenseless in the sense that the grammar does not restrict the relation between reference time and utterance time. Rather, temporal reference is pragmatically inferred from aspectual and contextual information. We also argue that future time reference in Hausa is realized as a combination of a modal operator and a prospective aspect, thus involving the modal meaning components of intention and prediction as well as event time shifting.

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