25 A sense of time and world
-
Sihwei Chen
Abstract
Tense marking is used to express the location of situations within time; aspect marking expresses how situations unfold through time, and modal elements concern all kinds of possible situations that are different from the actual world. This chapter highlights the range of variation in the systems of tense, aspect, and modality in North American languages. Our survey shows that North American languages possess a range of different tense systems: the languages often appear to be tenseless, but may also contain optional tenses, multiple tenses, or even silent tenses. Most of the languages are rich in their aspects, and the inventory of aspectual distinctions they mark is diverse. Modal systems tend to lexicalize modal flavour (e. g., using different words for inferences as opposed to obligations), rather than encoding modal strength. The study of these phenomena in the languages indigenous to North America has contributed greatly to our understanding of language typology and has motivated in-depth semantic studies. The study of these languages has also shed light on properties which are shared across languages, but which in other languages are not obvious on the surface.
Abstract
Tense marking is used to express the location of situations within time; aspect marking expresses how situations unfold through time, and modal elements concern all kinds of possible situations that are different from the actual world. This chapter highlights the range of variation in the systems of tense, aspect, and modality in North American languages. Our survey shows that North American languages possess a range of different tense systems: the languages often appear to be tenseless, but may also contain optional tenses, multiple tenses, or even silent tenses. Most of the languages are rich in their aspects, and the inventory of aspectual distinctions they mark is diverse. Modal systems tend to lexicalize modal flavour (e. g., using different words for inferences as opposed to obligations), rather than encoding modal strength. The study of these phenomena in the languages indigenous to North America has contributed greatly to our understanding of language typology and has motivated in-depth semantic studies. The study of these languages has also shed light on properties which are shared across languages, but which in other languages are not obvious on the surface.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Table of contents VII
- List of North American families, languages, and dialects XIII
- Maps XLI
-
I Sounds and sound structure
- 1 Acoustic phonetics 1
- 2 Articulatory phonetics 39
- 3 Tone 63
- 4 Segmental phonology 89
- 5 Prosodic morphology 109
- 6 Word prosody 135
- 7 Prosody beyond the word 155
-
II Words
- 8 What is a word? 183
- 9 Word classes 205
-
III Sentences
- 10 Syntax within the clause 247
- 11 Negatives 267
- 12 Questions and requests in North American languages 283
- 13 Information structure 305
- 14 Clause-combining: Relative clauses 323
- 15 Clause combining: Syntax of subordination and complementation 345
- 16 Switch-reference and event cohesion 363
-
IV Discourse
- 17 Verbal art 385
- 18 Conversation structure 421
-
V Meaning
- 19 Lexicalization and lexical meaning 453
- 20 Lexicography 479
- 21 Evidentiality 497
- 22 Pluractionality and distributivity 511
- 23 Mass and count nouns 527
- 24 Sense of place: Space, landscape, and orientation 547
- 25 A sense of time and world 577
- 26 Pragmatics 599
-
VI Languages over space and time
- 27 Languages as dynamic systems: How grammar can emerge 619
- 28 Language contact and linguistic areas 647
- 29 Language classification 669
- 30 Archival-based sociolinguistic variation 689
- 31 Community-based sociolinguistic variation 701
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Table of contents VII
- List of North American families, languages, and dialects XIII
- Maps XLI
-
I Sounds and sound structure
- 1 Acoustic phonetics 1
- 2 Articulatory phonetics 39
- 3 Tone 63
- 4 Segmental phonology 89
- 5 Prosodic morphology 109
- 6 Word prosody 135
- 7 Prosody beyond the word 155
-
II Words
- 8 What is a word? 183
- 9 Word classes 205
-
III Sentences
- 10 Syntax within the clause 247
- 11 Negatives 267
- 12 Questions and requests in North American languages 283
- 13 Information structure 305
- 14 Clause-combining: Relative clauses 323
- 15 Clause combining: Syntax of subordination and complementation 345
- 16 Switch-reference and event cohesion 363
-
IV Discourse
- 17 Verbal art 385
- 18 Conversation structure 421
-
V Meaning
- 19 Lexicalization and lexical meaning 453
- 20 Lexicography 479
- 21 Evidentiality 497
- 22 Pluractionality and distributivity 511
- 23 Mass and count nouns 527
- 24 Sense of place: Space, landscape, and orientation 547
- 25 A sense of time and world 577
- 26 Pragmatics 599
-
VI Languages over space and time
- 27 Languages as dynamic systems: How grammar can emerge 619
- 28 Language contact and linguistic areas 647
- 29 Language classification 669
- 30 Archival-based sociolinguistic variation 689
- 31 Community-based sociolinguistic variation 701
