Rs.200]— ‘26 MAR 1993 TENSE AND ASPECT IN INDIAN LANGUAGES Editors B. Lakshmi Bai Aditi Mukherjee Centre of Advanced Study in Linguistics Osmania University, Hyderabad and Booklinks Corporation HyderabadFirst Published : 1993 Copyright © Centre of Advanced Study in Linguistics, 1993 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any. form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording’ or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Head, Department of Linguistics, Osmania University, Hyderabad-500 007. Pudes7 M3 124+96%3 1S B N: 81-85194-16-5 Rs, 200/- Published for and on behalf of the Centre of Advanced Study in Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, Osmania University Hyderabad, by K.B. Satyanarayana Proprietor Booklinks Corporation Narayanaguda HYDERABAD-500 029 oF : < VAC Laser Set at: AS Sita Composers Pvt. Delhi -. 110052. Printed at : D.K. Fine Art Press, Delhi-110052 PRINTED IN INDIACONTENTS Foreword 1. BERNARD COMRIE Towards a General Theory of Tense 2. H.S. ANANTHANARAYANA iw ww kt The Meaning of Tenses and Moods in the Indian Tradition 3. JEAN AITCHISON] Tense and Aspect in Child Language, Pidgins and Creoles 222 MV. OREBDNAR Gcacetaaccd cca ses Tenses and Aspects in Pidgin-creoles: A Case Study of Naga-Pidgin Compared with Assamese, Sema-Naga, Halbi, Sadari and Bazaari Hindi 3: OANFORD BOtBB VER ee On the Development of Synthetic Conjugations in the South-Central Dravidian Aspectual Systems 6. K.A.JAYASEELAN, Infinitivals in Malayalam : Some Preliminary Observations 7. K.V. TIRUMALESH : Tense, Aspect-and Finiteness in Kannada 6. b. VIAVANARAYANA ee Location of Time with Special Reference to Telugu OMe ISRAG A Study of Tense and Aspect in Tamil and Kuvi 10. K.V. SUBBA RAO, ANJU SAXENA and NS ERAMODIN ee Tense and Aspect in Tibeto-Burman 11. ADITI MUKHERJEE, RAMAKANT AGNIHOTRI and A.L.KHANNA sisi English Tenses and the Indian Learners CONTRIBUTORS eeeFOREWORD The present volume consists of eleven selected papers presented to a National Seminar on Tense and Aspect in Indian Languages, organised by the Department of Linguistics at Os- mania University, or January 11-12, 1985. The seminar was directed by Prof. Bh. Krishnamurti. Although the publication of the volume has been consider- ably delayed due to unforeseen bottlenecks, we believe that the papers have not lost their relevance especially keeping in view the fact that very little information is available on the subject concerning Indian Languages. The first four papers in the volume deal with general theoreti- cal issues related to Tense and Aspect. In the first paper, Ber- nard Comrie presents the theoretical backdrop, teasing apart and reformulating the notions of Tense and Aspect. Making use of symbolization formulated by Reichenbach, he has presented the relationship between time on the one hand and the Tenses on the other, leading to categorizations which are extremely use- ful for researchers in the field. The following paper by HS. Ananthanarayana brings into focus the traditional Indian treat- ment of Tense and Moods which many modern linguists may not be familiar with. Jean Aitchison and M.V. Sreedhar’s papers comment on Tense and Aspect in relation to the processes of pidginization and pidgin languages respectively. Jean Aitchison provides an added perspective from child language development. The rest of the papers deal with Tense and Aspect in different languages or language families. Sanford B. Steever and K.V. Subbarao ef al. provide a historical perspective to Tense and Aspect in South-Central Dravidian and Tibeto Burman language families respectively. K.A. Jayaseelan and K.V. Tirumalesh make observations on Tense and Aspect in Malayalam and Kannada in the GB framework. B. Vijayanarayana’s paper uses Reichenbach’s three time points to locate the time of the event with respect to different tenses in Telugu. M. Israel compares the Tense and Aspect sys- tems in a tribal (i.e. Kuvi) and a non-tribal language (i.e. Tamil). In the last paper, Aditi Mukherjee et al. give possible explana- tions for the problems faced by Indian learners in acquiring English tenses. EditorsEe aN ee aay ee ney perme COL fae eeeTOWARDS A GENERAL THEORY OF TENSE " Bernard Comrie University of Southern California Preliminary Remarks The aim of my contribution is to present the outline of a general theory of tense, a theory that will, first, be sensitive to the range of variation found in tense systems across the lan- guages of the world, and that will, secondly, be of some interest as a formal linguistic object, in particular in so far as it contains the possible tense systems that are predicted to be possible in human language.’ The theory that I will outline will in fact be very tightly constrained, but in order to provide some plausibility for so constrained a theory it will first be necessary for me to outline a few preliminaries, in particular to delimit the notion of tense from other adjacent linguistic phenomena. The most crucial distinction to be made here is that between tense and aspect. My approach to aspect is expounded in Com- rie (1976), and it is not my intention here to summarize the whole of that work, but rather to concentrate on my ideas on tense. Both tense and aspect are concerned with time. Moreover, in many languages the formal encoding of tense is not separate from the formal encoding of aspect (and sometimes that of mood). Nonetheless, the conceptual distinction between tense and aspect is essential. Let us imagine that we want to talk about the temporal properties of some situation - I will use the term ‘situation’ to subsume all of event, action, state, process. On the one hand, we might be interested in the internal tem- poral constituency of a situation, for instance whether it is instantaneous or durative, whether it is internally totally homo- geneous (as with a state) or whether there are internal changes (as with a process). This I shall call aspect, i.e. aspect is con- cerned with the internal temporal constituency of a situation. On the other hand, we might be interested in locating the situation2 Bernard Comrie on the time line, relative to some already established time point, as being simultaneous with, prior to, or subsequent to the al- ready established time point. This I shall call tense. Thus, by my definition, tense is concerned with the localization of situa- tions in time. Put even more succinctly, aspect is situation-in- ternal, tense is situation-external. I wish, however, to place a further restriction on the ap- plicability of the term tense. I will restrict the use of this term to grammatical categories of the language under discussion. In particular, this is necessary in order to distinguish tense as a grammatical phenomenon from other ways of localizing situa- tions in time. These include lexical means (such as the time ad- verbs today, yesterday, tomorrow), and also freely constructed adverbial phrases of time (such as five days ago, when the earth ‘was still young). We can now establish a definition of tense that incorporates both a notional component (localization in’ time) and a formal component (grammaticalization): tense is the grammaticalized expression of localization in time. Before proceeding to the theory of tense itself, there are a few more preliminaries that need to be discussed, relating to the more general question of how one should define the mean- ing of a grammatical category. Although this is an important problem with ramifications going far beyond the definition of tense alone, it is important to discuss some of these general problems briefly, if only to avoid misunderstandings that can arise if these preliminaries are not taken into account. In this paper, as in my work on semantics more generally, I am going to make a crucial distinction between meaning and interpretation. The meaning of a linguistic element, whether grammatical category. or lexical item, is what needs to be Specified in the linguistic description of the language in ques- tion. In context, however, meanings are normally given more specific interpretations, which involve the interaction of the lin- guistic meaning with particular features of the context. Some of the most interesting work in bridging the gap between meaning and interpretation has been carried out within the framework of conversational implicatures inaugurated by H.-P. Grice (see, for instance, Grice 1975); Grice uses the term conversational im- Plicature to indicate those parts of the interpretation of an utterance c { 4 ; PMB ek ace DE Led.Towards a General Theory of Tense 3 that are not part of its meaning, but which derive from features of the context. I will illustrate the meaning-interpretation distinction with an example from the English tense system, namely the question of the meaning versus the interpretation of the future perfect in a sentence like I will have finished this work by tomorrow. Let us suppose that a cooperative speaker of English has uttered this sentence. What time reference will we assign to his finishing the work in question? Under normal circumstances, the ut. terance would be interpreted to mean that the speaker has not yet finished the work, but will finish the work in the timespan between the present moment and some future timepoint, here specified as tomorrow. Does this therefore mean that the mean- ing of the English future perfect includes future time reference, ie.-reference to a point in time subsequent to the present mo- ment? The answer is that it does not. We can easily construct other utterances in other contexts where the future perfect does not imply a time reference subsequent to the present moment, as in the following examples: (i) Arthur will have finished his work by tomorrow-indeed he may already have finished it - in this ex- ample, the final addition allows explicitly that the time reference of the situation may be located prior to the present moment; (ii) by tomorrow, a million people will have visited this. exhibition - where, presumably, the time reference encompasses both a large number of visits in the past in addition to those that will take place between the present moment and tomorrow. Thus, the Precise time reference interpretation of the future perfect is sen- sitive to changing features of context. All of these can, however, be subsumed under a single meaning: the future perfect locates a situation in time prior to a reference point which is itself sub- sequent to the present moment. The individual context-bound interpretations are simply special cases of this overall meaning. One of the aims of semantics, as of any other scientific en- deavor, is to provide the most general account of a given range of phenomena, and therefore it is clearly a sought-after goal to establish a single general meaning for a srammatical categcry, as was done above for the future perfect. However, it will some- times be the case that no such single meaning is forthcoming. As my secondary preliminary point on the definition of linguis- tic elements, therefore, I will specify that it is to be allowed as4 Bernard Comrie a logical possibility that a given tense, just like any other lin- guistic element, may turn out to have two or more meanings. In the discussion of the so-called future tense in English, and in many other languages, there is considerable controversy sur- rounding whether this should be considered primarily a tense (with future time reference as its basic meaning) or primarily a mood (with prediction as its basic meaning). One possible solution to this dilemma is to claim that the one grammatical category in fact has both meanings. I am not, incidentally, arguing that this is the correct analysis for the future in English, I wish only to allow this as a logical possibility. And I must confess that, while I find some attempts to assign a single meaning to the English future very ingenious, I have not to date found any of them convincing. As the third and last preliminary concerning definitions of meanings of linguistic elements, I want to distinguish between definitions in terms of necessary-and-sufficient conditions and definitions in terms of prototypes. A definition in terms of necessary-and-sufficient conditions sets up rigid criteria that must be satisfied if a given object is to be considered to satisfy that definition. For instance, the definition of Past tense as refer- ting to a point in time prior to the present moment is a good instance of a definition in terms of necessary-and-sufficient con- ditions; if a time point is located prior to the present moment, it satisfies the definition, and it makes no difference how far removed from the present moment that time point is. If a time point is at or subsequent to the present moment, then it fails to satisfy the definition, no matter how close to. the present mo- ment (and therefore to the most recent past time moment) it may be. By contrast, a prototype definition identifies the most typical instance of a given category, and other items may be assigned to that category in differing degrees depending on how closely they fit the prototype, but without there being any clear cut-off point between elements satisfying the definition and those not satisfying it. Outside tense, the most famous example of the validity of prototype definitions is in color terminology, where clear prototypes exist for such concepts as red and purple, but no set of necessary-and-sufficient conditions can establish a valid cut-off point between them (Berlin & Kay 1969). In definingTowards a General Theory of Tense 5 tenses, there are some instances where prototype definitions are required. For instance, in the West African language Bamileke- Dschang, there are several past tenses distinguished in terms of remoteness from the present moment. One of these has as its prototype reference to a time point a year or so-ago. The ques- tion then arises how speakers of Bamileke-Dschang refer to situations that are more remote than a few days but not so remote as a year ago. If the tenses were given definitions in terms of necessary-and-sufficient conditions, there would be a major problem here. But these tenses are in fact given defini- tions_in. terms of prototypes, and events more remote than-a couple of days but less remote than a year can be referred to by either tense, depending:on the speaker’s subjective assess- ment of the remoteness of the situation in question - and. of course use of the less remote tense is more likely for events that are less remote, but without any clear cut-off point. Thus over- all, both kinds of definition are required, those in terms of neces- sary-and-sufficient conditions, and those in terms of prototypes. After these preliminaries, we may now turn to the core of our task, namely the construction of a general theory of tense. Tense and Deixis Since we are concerned with localizing situations in time, one thing we will need to do is to consider the various ways in which an event might be localized in time. One problem here is that time does not itself present us with any obvious landmarks. While some religions and philosophies maintain that time has a beginning or an end, these events, even if ac- cepted, are so remote in time from most of our concerns that they do not provide a reasonable reference point relative to which we could locate those situations that are of immediate concern to us. It is therefore necessary for any language that has tense categories to establish an arbitrary reference point, a deictic center, relative to which situations can be located. By ‘arbitrary’ here, I mean arbitrary in relation to the structure of time - though not necessarily, of course, arbitrary in relation to the pragmatics of human concerns. In fact, languages of the world with tense systems seem to be remarkably economical in their choice of such reference points, allowing only two pos- sibilities: on the one had, the reference point may be the present6 Bernard Comrie moment, the here-and-now, and tenses which use the present moment as their reference point may be referred to, following the traditional terminology, as absolute tenses. On the other hand, the reference point for a tense may be some other time point that is provided by the context and is not necessarily the Present moment; tenses which use such contextually given or floating reference points are referred to as relative tenses. Logi- cally, one could of course think up other possibilities for the Teference point of a tense system. - for instance, the reference Point could be a golden age in the history of the culture of « Speech community - but as far as. am aware such other logical Possibilities are not in fact utilized in the tense systems of natural languages. In what follows, we-will examine absolute. and relative tense systems. Absolute Tense In order to define a tense, in addition to a reference point, we also need a set of relations between this reference point and Point (symbolized before), or subsequent to the reference point (symbolized_after), or simultaneous with that reference point (symbolized simul). In dealing with absolute tenses, wher. the reference point is the present moment, this gives the three tenses that have formed much of the traditional lore of grammar at the situation is prior to the present moment, we have past tense: and where the situation is subsequent to the present moment, we have future tense. In fact, it is more convenient if we have a more symbolic representation in Place of these prose state- ments, and I will borrow some symbolization from the Philosopher Hans Reichenbach for this purpose, namely the symbol S (an abbreviation for ‘speech time’) to represent the present moment, and the symbol E (an abbreviation for ‘event time’) to represent the situation (see further Reichenbach 1947). We can now symbolize the three basic absolute tenses as fol- lows: present tense as E simul S; past tense E before S; future tense as E after S. While these symbolizations can be regarded simply as convenient abbreviations of the prose statements sini eae ee enTowards a General Theory of Tense 7 given earlier, it will become clear, when-we look at more com- Plex tenses later on, that they serve a function beyond this, since the formalism is constrained in a way that seems to be parallel to the constraints on tense systems in natural language. Two points in this characterization of the absolute tenses re- quire further comment, lest they appear to be unduly naive, namely the characterization of future tense and that of present tense. In the recent discussion of the tense systems of a number of languages, including English, it has been observed that what . are traditionally called future tenses are often at least as much moods as tenses: although in English the future tense is some. times required where there is future time reference (in par- ticular, for referring to unscheduled situations, such as it will rain tomorrow), there are Many future ‘situations than can be referred to by using the so-called present (in particular, scheduled situations, such as the train leaves tomorrow), while the so-called future tense is often used without future time refer- ence, as in Brenda will be there already, with present time refer- ence. In carrying out analyses of individual languages, it is therefore important to ensure that the distinction between what appear to be present and future tenses is indeed a distinction of this kind, rather than a semantic distinction of mood within an overall tense category of nonpast, a distinction which hap- pens to receive localization in time as its interpretation in certain circumstances. However, since our present concern is with the general theory of tense, rather than with the analysis of any Particular language, what is important is rather whether it i¢ possible for a natural language to have a future tense. And in. deed some languages which have been investigated in detail from this perspective do turn out to have well-defined future tenses, for instance the Papuan language Hua, analyzed in detail by Haiman (1980: 140-144). Turning now to the present tense, the problem is slightly dif- ferent. The definition given above of present tense requires localization of the situation in precisely the same time space as the present moment. It is, however, rare for a situation to be exactly contemporaneous with the Present moment: an example of a situation of this kind would be a performative speech act, in Austin’s sense (Austin 1962), such as I promise to leave, where8 Bernard Comrie the act of my promising is exactly equivalent to the linguistic expression of this act. More usually, however, situations over- lap, rather than being contemporaneous with, the present mo- ment, so that Charles is singing refers to an act of singing by Charles that includes, but is not testricted to, the. present mo- ment. Note incidentally that the temporal distinction between these two sentences, I Promise to leave and Charles is singing, is one of aspect, not of tense, and therefore outside the scope of our present considerations. We may therefore slightly redefine the relation ‘simul’: it indicates not that the situation is simul- taneous with the present moment, but rather that the situation includes the present moment. This might still seem to fail to account for the habitual use of the present tense, as in Dora drinks tea, since, as has been often observed, this sentence can be true even if Dora is not in fact drinking tea at the Present moment. But this observation, while true, turns out to be irrelevant. The sentence in question refers not to an act of tea-drinking, but rather to a habit of tea- drinking, i.e. it says that Dora has a certain habit. Moreover, the time during which Dora has this habit includes the present moment: at the present moment, Dora may not be drinking tea, but she does still have the habit of drinking tea, therefore this use of the present tense satisfies our definition, and it is not necessary to set up special tenses (as opposed to aspects or moods) for ‘actual present’ and ‘habitual present’. In fact, our definition of present tense also covers omnitemporal situations Such as water boils at 100° Celsius - if water has this property at all points in time, then it necessarily has this property at’ the Present moment. Although many accounts of tense in general, and of the tense systems of individual languages, make refer. ence to special omnitemporal tenses, I have yet to see a really convincing example of such a grammatical category as a distinct tense. As the final point in this discussion of absolute tense, it should be noted that some languages have distinct tenses that combine reference to different time points. In the Bantu lan- guage Luganda, for instance, there is a special ‘still’ tense, which has as its meaning both that the situation in question took place in the past and that it holds at the Present moment, functioning in the same way as the English lexical item still (Ashton et al.,Towards a General Theory of Tense 9 1954: 229, 230). More accurately, as with the English lexical item still, the past time reference is a presupposition, while only the present time reference is an assertion: thus negation, as in English Edward is not still here, denies only that Edward is here at the present moment, and leaves unaffected that he was here at some time in the past. Relative Tense We may now turn to relative tense, whose defining feature is that the reference point is determined by the context, and is not necessarily identical with the present moment. In English, finite verb forms have, at least as Part of their meaning, absolute time reference, i.e. are related to the present moment. Many nonfinite verb forms, however, have relative tense as their meaning, i.e. their time reference is determined relative to some time point given by the context. This is true, for instance, of Participles used in place of subordinate clauses, and I will use such examples to illustrate relative tense. Let us consider an English sentence like the police burst in and arrested the man sitting on the sofa. What is the time reference of the present participle sitting? Infact, it has a number of possible interpretations. Perhaps the most obvious is that its time refer. ence is simultaneous with that of arrested, ie. the sentence is synonymous with the police burst in and arrested the man who was sitting on the sofa. In this case, the time reference of the participle is simultaneous with that of the main clause verb (which hap- pens to have past time reference). Another possible interpreta- tion is that the man is at present sitting on the sofa, and we are referring to an earlier arrest; this interpretation can be forced by adding the adverb now to the participle, to give the police burst in and arrested the man now sitting on the sofa. But there are seven more possible interpretations, which become clear if more context is added, as in the following: when I entered this room a week ago, there was a man on that sofa, and, believe it or not, two days later at a party downtown the police burst in and arrested the man sitting on the sofa, in which the broader context indicates that sitting is to be interpreted as contemporaneous with the time at which the speaker entered the room. Is there something common to all of these interpretations? Yes. In all of them, the time reference of the present participle is simultaneous with that10 Bernard Comrie of a contextually given reference point: in the first interpreta~ tion, with the time reference of the main clause verb; in the second interpretation, with the present moment, which is of course given in any speech situation; in the third interpretation, with the immediately preceding situation. Thus the present par- ticiple in English indicates simultaneity with a contextually given reference point. Following Reichenbach (1947), we may represent such a con- textually given reference point as R (an abbreviation for ‘refer- ence time’). The English present participle is then an instance of a relative present tense, which receives the symbolization E simul R, i.e. the situation is simultaneous with (more accurately, encompasses) the contextually given reference point. In like manner we can define the relative past tense, E before R, as with the English perfect participle in those having washed their hands may eat; and the relative future tense, which in English requires the expression about to Verb, as in those about to eat must wash their hands. In each case, the time reference of the participle is related to a contextually given reference point. In the exemplification of relative tenses above using the ex- ample the police burst in and arrested the man sitting on the sofa, it was noted that one possible interpretation for this sentence is that the contextually given reference point is, in fact, the present moment. This might-seem to conflate the notions of ab- solute tense and relative tense, given that the characteristic of absolute tense is that the reference point is the present moment. There is, however, a crucial distinction. For an absolute tense, the reference point must be the present moment. For a relative tense, the reference point can be any contextually given refer-. ence point, and since the present moment is always given in any context, it is always possible, though never necessary, for a relative tense to take the present moment as its reference point, while the present moment is necessarily the reference point for an absolute tense. In English and many European languages, relative tenses are found primarily among the nonfinite forms. There is, however, no reason why relative tenses should not also function as finite verbs in main clauses, and indeed in Comrie (1976) I argued that this is the case with the so-called Perfect and Imperfect in Classical Arabic. I do not wish to repeat the argument here, butTowards a General Theory of Tense u would only point to the possibility of relative tenses playing a more important role in the tense system of a language than is the case in English. Absolute-relative Tense . In discussing relative tenses, mention is often made of such English tenses as the pluperfect and the future perfect. These do indeed involve an element of relative tense, but, as I will try to show, they also involve an element of absolute tense, and I will refer to tenses of this kind as absolute-relative tenses. The pluperfect may serve as an introduction to this domain. Con- Sider the sentence when Frances arrived, George had already left. What is the time reference of the pluperfect had left in this ex- ample? George’s departure is being located prior to a contex- tually given reference point, but crucially this contextually given reference point must itself be located in the Past - in the example given, the most likely candidate for the reference point is the time of Frances’s arrival. In terms of the symbolism introduced above, we may symbolize the pluperfect as E before R before S, ie. the situation is located before a contextually given refer ence point and this reference point is in turn located before the Present moment. Note that such tenses are distinct both from absolute tenses (which make no reference to a contextually given reference point) and from relative tenses (which make no explicit reference to the present moment). Rather, they combine features of both kinds of tense: the contextually given reference point is related to the present moment (an element of absolute tense), but the situation is related to a contextually given refer- ence point (an element of relative tense). Given that the pluperfect localizes a situation before a refer- ence point that is itself in the past, it follows that any situation referred to by a pluperfect verb form is itself in the past. One might therefore ask whether it is always possible to replace an absolute-relative tense by an absolute tense in this way. The answer is that it is not, as can be seen from a consideration of the future perfect, as in the example considered in my prelimi- nary remarks, Arthur will have finished this work by tomorrow - indeed he may already have finished it. The future perfect will have finished localizes the event of Arthur's finishing the work at a point in time prior to a contextually given reference point, this12 Bernard Comrie reference point itself being in the future. In this particular example, the reference point is given by the time adverb tomorrow. In terms of our symbolization, the future perfect is E before R after §, ie. the situation is located before a contextually given refer- ence point which is itself located after the present moment. There is no unequivocal way of reducing this to an absolute tense. It is possible that Arthur’s finishing the work may be located in the absolute future, but it is also possible that Arthur has already finished his work, or indeed that he is finishing it at this very moment. All that is required is the particular con- figuration of E, R, and S given in the formula for the future perfect. It is important to recognize that this does not mean that the future perfect is ‘three. ways ambiguous’. It has just a single semantic representation, and this representation happens to en- compass the three classes of interpretation mentioned. The formalism discussed for absolute-relative tenses allows the construction of a number of other tenses. For instance, one can construct the representation E after R after S, i.e. a situation in the future relative to a contextually given reference point in the future, as in the expression will be about to leave in Harriet will be about to leave when Irving returns. One can also construct a future in the past, as E after R before S, which corresponds to temporal uses of the so-called conditional in examples like Janet's father left home; she would never see him again, where would see refers to a situation subsequent to the reference point estab- lished by Janet's father’s departure, itself in the past. It is even possible to construct formulae with more than one reference point, as in temporal uses of the so-called conditional perfect. Consider the following example: Lawrence left for the front; by the time he returned, his house would have been burnt to the ground. What is the time reference of would have been burnt? The situa- tion of the burning of Lawrence's house is located prior to a first contextually given reference point, namely the time of his return; but this reference point is itself located subsequent to a second contextually given reference point, namely Lawrence's departure; and this second reference point is itself located in the past (prior to the present moment). Thus the overall repre- sentation here i: before Ri after R2 before S. Thus the overall notion of absolute-relative tense must allow for tenses with a multiple number of reference points.Towards a General Theory of Tense 13 Tense Formulae We may summarize the discussion so far by attempting to draw together the various kinds of formulae permitted for tense representations. Each representation necessarily involves the time of the situation, E. This may be related directly to the present moment, in absolute tenses, by a formula of the type E rel S, where rel stands for any of the relations discussed above @e. simul, before, after). However, S is not a necessary part of a formula, since in a relative tense the only relation is between the situation and a contextually given reference point, ie. E rel R. Since both § and R are optional, both may be placed in paren- theses in the summary formula or schema incorporating all pos- sibilities. If both R and § are present, as in the absolute-relative tenses, then it must be the case that the situation is directly related to the contextually given reference point and the con- textually given reference point is in turn related to the present moment - no other arrangement of the three time points is per- mitted. Thus absolute-relative tenses have the general schema Erel R rel S, If we now insert parentheses, this gives the overall representation E (rel R) (rel S). We must also bear in mind the possibility of more than one reference point, a possibility that can be captured by placing a superscript n on the second term in the formula, i.e. the discussion so far can be summarized succinctly in the following schema: E (rel R)S (rel $). We have already seen how including both the contextually given reference point and the present moment gives us abso- lute-relative tenses, while omitting the reference point gives us absolute tenses and omitting the present moment gives us rela- tive tenses. But the schema also allows us to omit both of these, ie. to haye a formula which is simply_E. Is this not a disad- vantage of the system? On the contrary; this is simply the rep- resentation of tense in a language which has no grammatical category of tense, such as Burmese: the grammar of Burmese does not localize situations relative either to the present moment of relative to a contextually given reference point. Degrees of Remoteness In order to complete our general theory, it will be necessary to introduce one more parameter. A number of languages have14 Bernard Comrie grammatical distinctions that relate to the temporal distance be= tween two time points, and not simply to whether the one is before or after the other. These may be labeled ‘degrees of remoteness’. In studying degrees of remoteness, it is important to, ensure that the degree of remoteness distinction is really a difference of meaning, rather than one of interpretation that fol- lows from contextual factors. In English, it will often be the case that the perfect (e.g. Karen has broken her arm) will be interpreted as less remote than the simple past (e.g. Karen broke her arm), which will in turn be interpreted as less remote than the pluper- fect (e.g. Karen had broken her arm). But the apparent lesser remoteness of the perfect is a conversational implicature drawn on the basis of the feature of current relevance present in the meaning of the perfect - this will often result in reference to the closer past, but not necessarily so: contrast the perfect in the Roman Empire has fallen with the past in Karen broke her arm two minutes ago. Likewise, the apparent greater remoteness of .the pluperfect is a conversational implicature based on the fact that it requires localization of the situation prior to a reference point in the past, ie. two degrees of pastness rather than just one as in the case of the simple past. But if cach relation of pastness is small, then the situation referred to by the pluperfect can in fact be quite recent, as in prior to your return ten seconds ago, she had already left ten seconds earlier. In a number of languages, however, there are clear instances of degrees of remoteness which are part of the meaning of gram- matical categories, and not merely conversational implicatures. While degrees of remoteness are rare (thoug’: not unknown) in the tense systems of European languages, in many other parts of the world their occurrence is widespread, reaching perhaps the highest degree of incidence in sub-Saharan Africa. In general, languages with prolific systems or degrees of remote- ness are spoken in parts of the world which are the least well described linguistically, and many of the generalizations that can be made about restrictions on possible degrees of remote- ness systems are necessarily speculative. Nonetheless, some generalizations can be made (see fuzther Dahl 1984). One very frequent distinction is that between an immediate and a non-immediate situation, for instance between immediate past and non-immediate past or between immediate future andTowards a General Theory of Tense 15 non-immediate future. Even in English, expressions on the bor- derline of grammaticalization serve to indicate these distinc- tions, with the immediate past construction to have just Verbed, as in Monica has just left, and the immediate future construction to be about to Verb, as in Ned is about to leave. In the past, the most frequent distinction is that between a past tense for events earlier on today, and a past tense for situa- tions yesterday or earlier. In fact, virtually every language with a remoteness distinction in the past has this as one of its cut-off points. Those with a taste for latin nomenclature might call these the hodiernal past and prehodiernal past, respectively. Beyond this, it is not clear at present what precise generaliza- tions can be made, and certainly languages differ as to whether they prefer to make more distinctions among very recent events (e.g. with an immediate/non-immediate distinction in addition to the today/before-today distinction in the past) or among more distant events (e.g. with special tenses for events a few days ago versus a year ago, or even a year ago versus longer ago). In the future, some languages have their basic cut-off point today versus after today, while others prefer to group today and tomorrow together versus situations located after tomor- row. Further research ‘on a lager number and wider range of languages is needed before clear generalizations can be made in this area. One important distinction among degrees of remoteness sys- tems concerns the rigidity of the cut-off points, since both rigid and fluid cut-off points are found. Moreover, both kinds of cut- off point may be found in the same language; Haya, a Bantu language of south-western Tanzania, provides interesting evidence here.’ Haya has three past tenses, one for situations earlier on today (hodiernal), one for situations yesterday (hester- nal), and one for earlier situations (prehesternal). These cut-off points are absolutely rigid, so that it is, for instance, ungram- matical to combine the yesterday past tense with the time ad- verb meaning ‘today’ or ‘the day before yesterday’. In the future, there is a two-way distinction. The more distant future tense is used for situations located after tomorrow, and this cut- off point is also rigid: it is ungrammatical to collocate this tense with the adverb meaning ‘tomorrow’. However, the closer fu- ture tense, while usually referring to today’s and tomorrow’s16 Bernard Comrie events, can be used to refer to objectively more remote situa- tions, if it is desired to present them as subjectively closer. Thus one important factor to consider in the study of a tense system involving degrees of remoteness is the extent to which cut-off points are set rigidly, objectively versus the extent to which they can be manipulated subjectively. One question which always arises in a discussion of degrees of remoteness is: what is the richest system possible in terms of the number of distinctions made? There is a danger of this discussion becoming anecdotal, but I hope I will nonetheless be forgiven for mentioning the richest systems known to me. If one looks at the overall tense system, including degrees of remoteness in both past and future, then the record seems to be held by Bamileke-Dschang, a member of the Dschang dialect cluster in West Africa (Hyman, 1980). Bamileke-Dschang has a symmetrical system of five past and five future tenses. The meanings of the past tenses are, in ascending order of remote- ness: just now, earlier today, yesterday, within the last few days, a year or more ago. The future tenses have the same meanings but in the opposite direction. If, however, one looks only in one temporal direction, with at least a six-way distinction: earlier today, within the last few days, a week ago, from a week to a year ago, from one to ten years ago, more remote past (Hymes, 1975). It is even possible that Kiksht may subdivide the first of these with a distinction between situations that have just taken place and those that took place earlier on today, although the evidence here is unclear. It may well be the case that there is no absolute limit that can be placed on the number of distinc- tions in terms of degrees of remoteness, although the likelihood of a system decreases rapidly as the number of distinctions increases. What is, however, clear is that the formalism outlined above for describing absolute, relative, and absolute-relative tenses will need to be enriched, so that the relations ‘before’ and ‘after’ can not only be stated but also quantified; for some languages clearly have grammatical distinctions corresponding to how much before or after.Towards a General Theory of Tense 17 Conclusions In principle, the various parameters discussed in this presen- tation can be combined in order to produce even more compli- cated tenses, and indeed there is some evidence that such apparently complex meanings are encoded grammatically in some languages. In Bamileke-Dschang, for instance, the tenses can be used with relative time reference, and it is quite possible to combine tenses such that the second defines a time point relative to the time point defined by the first. Thus, the third future tense refers to tomorrow’s situations. The second future tense refers to situations later on today (or, in relative time ref- erence, later on the same day). The sequence of third future and second future therefore locates a situation ‘later on tomorrow’ (i.e. tomorrow, but later on than some contextually given refer- ence point). But while quite complex representations can be built up using the various individual parameters discussed in this presentation, it should be noted that these parameters are themselves few in number and extremely simple, being built up out of only three time points (the present moment, a contex- tually given reference point, and the time of the situation), three relations (simultaneity, anteriority, and posteriority), plus the quantification of these relations. In this presentation, it has been possible for me only to sketch the outline of a general theory of tense, although I hope that these remarks have been sufficiently explicit and coherent to provide an idea of my thoughts on these matters and a framework that will both be useful as a research tool and be suitable as a starting point for studies that encompass other lan- guages and lead to refinement, or even rejection, of some of my ideas. I am very conscious of the fact that, at a conference held in India on tense and aspect in Indian languages, I have not made any specific reference to the languages of India. But I believe it would only have been presumptuous of me to do so, especially as we are now in an era when, quite properly, the major research on languages of India is being carried out in India by Indian scholars. If my ideas can serve as a catalyst in this process, I shall be more than pleased.18 Bernard Comrie Notes 1, Since other commitments prevented me from attending the Seminar on Tense and ‘Aspect in Indian languages in person, I am grateful to Dr. Jean Aitchison for reading my paper for me and for communicating to me not only ‘her own reactions but also those of other participants. I am grateful to all those who participated in the discussion session on my paper and to the organizers of the Seminar, in particular Professor Bh. Krishnamurti, for providing me with the opportunity to present my work to this forum. 2. Information on Haya is from Emest R. Byarushengo (University of Southern California). References Ashton, E.0., Mulira, EM.K,, Ndawula, E.G.M,, and Tucker, A.N. 1954. A Luganda Grammar. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Austin,J. 1962. How to do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Berlin, Brent and Kay, Paul. 1969. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolu- tion, Berkeley: University of California Press. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dahl, Osten 1984. ‘Temporal distance: remoteness distinctions in tense-aspect systems’. In Brian Butterworth, Bernard Comrie, and Osten Dahl (eds.) Explanations for Language Universals. Berlin: Mouton 105-122. Grice, H.P. 1975. ‘Logic and Conversation’. In Peter Cole and Jerrold Morgan (eds.) Speech Acts (Syntax and semantics, 3). New York: Academic Press. 41-58. Haiman, John. 1980. Hua: a Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Hyman, Larry M. 1980. ‘Relative time reference in the Bamileke tense system’. Studies in African Linguistics 11: 227-237. Hymes, Dell. 1975. ‘From space to time in tenses in Kiksht’. International Journal of American Linguistics 41: 313-329. Reichenbach, Hans. 1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: The Free Press & London: Collier- Macmillan. jTHE MEANING OF TENSES AND MOODS IN THE INDIAN TRADITION HS. Ananthanarayana Osmania University A finite verb in Sanskrit is characterised by the grammatical categories of voice, tense-aspect, mood, person, and number. While the categories of number and, to some extent, person are found associated also with the nouns (which include pronouns), the former three categories distinguish the verb from the noun in Sanskrit. Voice specifies the relation of the subject to the action ex- pressed by a verb. There are two voices in Sanskrit: parasmai padam ‘Active’ (lit. ‘a word for others’) indicating that the subject performs the action expressed by the verb for the benefit of others, for example, yajati ‘worships’, and atmane padam ‘Middle’ (lit. ‘a word for oneself’) indicating that the subject performs the action for his own benefit (kartrabhipraye kriya-phale), for ex- ample, yajate ‘id’. As the forms show, the distinction is brought out by the endings, ti in one case and fe in the other. Tense is a category specifying the time of the action. Com- bined with the tense, there is another category in Sanskrit, referred to by the term aspect. Aspect reflects the status of the action rather than its time relationship. Sanskrit shows a six way distinction in tense-aspect category: vartamdna ‘Present’, anadyatana ‘Imperfect’ (lit.. ‘not today’), paroksa ‘Perfect’ (lit. “beyond the ken of the speaker’), adyatana ‘Aorist’ (lit. ‘recent’), bhavisyat ‘Future’, and sariketa ‘Conditional’? The Imperfect in- dicates an action going on in the past while the Perfect indicates a completed action. Aorist expresses a special kind of past time in as much as it is used for describing an action which has just recently been completed (e.g. rid asdu stiryo agat ‘yonder sun has risen’). The Perfect is distinguished from both the Imperfect and the Aorist in the stem formation by reduplication as well as in PRE oC Pune-6.") ‘\ cine at20 HLS. Ananthanarayana possessing a special series of personal endings (e.g. jaghdna navatir néva ‘(Indra) killed 810 Vrtras’). In contrast to the term vartamana ‘concurrent’, they may be referred together by the cover term atita ‘what is over’ and the Future by the term anagata ‘not yet arrived’. The Conditional is related to the Future in the same way as the Imperfect is to the Present. Mood is a category that reflects the attitude of the speaker, and the verb in Sanskrit differentiates three moods: Indicative indicating that the speaker presents the matter with assurance (e.g. gdcchati pratistham ‘he attains stability’), Imperative indicat- ing that the speaker commands or requests some action (e.g. 4gne ndya supdtha rayé asman ‘lead us, O Agni, on the good road, for wealth’), and Optative suggesting some sort of volition (e.g. vaydm syima pdtayo rayindm ‘may we become masters of wealth’). In the Vedic language, there were two more moods, viz. Subjunctive indicating uncertainty (e.g. pari no. hélo vdrunasya vrjyah “may the wrath of Varuna avoid us’) and Injuc- tive expressing a wish (e.g. pari tvesdsya durmatir mahi gat ’ let the great malevolence of the impetuous one avoid us’).’ Neither the Indicative nor the Imperative has a modal sign. They are however distinguished by different sets of personal endings. The Optative has a modal sign of ya/i distributed before the personal endings. Finally, the verb in Sanskrit is inflected for number, such as ekavacana ‘singular’, dvivacana ‘dual’, and bahuvacana ‘plural’, and for person, such as prathama ‘third’, madhyama ‘second’, and uttama ‘first’. The number-person category is selected by the speaker. The voice category is in many instances bound to the root; in other cases, they are entirely optional and only rarely do they convey a distinct meaning. Since the morphology of Sanskrit verbs is well described and is readily available, I do not wish to elaborate here on this. I would be interested, in this paper, in focussing on the defini- tions and meanings of tense and mood by the Indian gram- marians and philosophers of language. For this purpose, I will be examining primarily the two well known treatises on the subject in the Paninian tradition, viz. Vaiyakaranabhiisana (VB) of Kaundabhatta and Paramalaghumarijtisa (PLM) of Nagegabhatta.* Both of them have followed, in general, the grammatical theories of Bhartrhari and make their comments based on theThe Meaning of Tenses and Moods in the Indian Tradition 21 rules of Panini. However, the two writers further developed the theories of meaning and as a result of their interaction with the schools of Nyaya and Mimamsa, they have adopted the navyanyaya style of expression. They discuss the semantic theories of the schools of Nyaya, Mimamsa, and of course, Vyakarana, and demonstrate the superiority of the views held by the grammarians. A finite verb, according to Panini, is analysed as having a root (P.3.1.91 dhatoh) to which is added Ia (P.3.4.69 lah karmani ca bhave cakarmakebhyah). La is a metasymbol and includes. ten members: LAT, LIT, LUT, LRT, LET, LOT, LAN, LIN, LUN and LRN. These endings do not occur in actual utterances. The en- dings actually :used are ti ‘3rd person sg. present’, f ‘3rd person sg. imperfect’, etc. They are however considered by Panini.as adesa ‘replacement’ of the I-members (P.3.4.78 _ tip- tasjhi...idoahimahin). Thus, all the verbal endings are subsumed under the single symbol I, to which Panini assigns the general meanings kartr ‘agent’, karman ‘object’, and bhava ‘action’. Fur- ther, when the meaning is that of ‘agent’, another suffix sap, known to Sanskrit students by the term vikarana, is introduced before La (p.3.1.68 kartari Sap). The l-members are distinguished by the use of markers. The final markers T and N distinguish primary endings from secondary endings (i.e. fi, etc. from t, etc.). The vowels following L distinguish tenses and moods. The function of L is to group together all the different endings. The capacity to denote a meaning actually resides in the replace- ments although for grammatical purposes it is assumed to exist in the l-members. This position is clarified by Nagesa, quoting the Bhasya : uccarita eva Sabdo'r thapratyayako nanuccaritah iti ... tadadegatinam artho nirupyate (PLM p. 138) “it is only the actually uttered word that expresses meaning, not the non-uttered one”. This is based on the paribhasa rule of Panini that a replacement has the same meaning as that which it replaces (P.1.1.56 sthanivad adego’ nalvidhau). Definition of Time In the view of grammarians, kala ‘time is understood as noth- ing but action (vastutah kalo natiriktah kim tu kriyaiva), because time has no reference to anything outside the domain of action (vyiparasantanatiriktakalasyanabhyupagamat). Order in time is the22 HLS. Ananthanarayana ,order of the different moments of action. There is an activity for every stage of time and thus kala itself may be called ‘vyapara ‘activity’ (Vakyapadiya 3.9.12 kala eva hi vigvatma vyapara iti kathyate). The Mahabhasya on P.2.2.5 (kalah parimdnina) defines kala as that by which the development and decay of material objects are indicated (yena miirtanam upacayascapacayasca laksyate tam kalam ityahuh). Kala is also defined as kriyaparicchedakah ‘the measurer of action’. Kala is differentiated as adyatana ‘pertaining to today’, and anadyatana ‘exclusive of today’ (kdlastavad adyatananadyatanab- hedena dvividhah) and this distinction is_relevant both in the domain of bhiita ‘Past’ and of bhavisyat ‘Future’ (dvividho’pi bhutabhavisyadripah). Nagesa distinguishes time into afita ‘gone’, vartamana ‘concurrent’, and andgata ‘not yet come’ (PLM p. 149 kalacatitavartamanagatatma). The Meaning of Tenses Discussing lakaras, Nagesa states that they indicate three mean- ings, namely, karta ‘agent’, kalah ‘time’, and sanikhyd ‘number’ (PLM p. 146 lakarasya karta kalah sankhyaceti trayo'rthah). Ot these, the grammarians emphasise the meaning of kartd ‘agent’ (PLM p. 146 karteti patanjalak). The philosophers of the Bhatta school of Mimamsa emphasize vyapara ‘activity’ as the meaning of lakara (PLM p. 146 kartrsthane vyaparah iti bhattah) and the logicians think that yatna ‘effort’ is the primary meaning (PLM P. 146 yatna iti naiyayikah). He further adds that in the case of LIN, LOT, and LET, the meaning that is expressed is only that of sankhya ‘number’ (PLM Pp. 149 sankhya ca kevalarthah). LAT is to be understood as having reference to the present (P.3.2.123 vartamane lat). Presentness is further defined as being characterized by an action which has begun but not ended (var. famanatoam ca_prarabdhaparisamaptakriyopalaksitatoam) or being the property of being a time other than past and future (bhiutab- havisyadbhinnakalatvam va). The commentary on Nagega’s defini- tion of presentness explains that it is the time which is the locus of action denoted by each root, beginning with the first action and ending with the final action (PLM p- 141 tattad dhatuvacya adyakriyam adaya caramakriyaparyantadhikaranibhutah kalah var- tamanatvena vyavahriyate). Thus the form pacati ‘he cooks’ refers to the activity beginning with putting a pot on the stove andThe Meaning of Tenses and Moods in the Indian Tradition 23 ending in taking it down (adhi$rayanadyadhahsrayanantavyapite... lat prayogah). It appears that ‘activity’ which is concurrent with time is emphasized here than time itself. A thing is said to be properly defined if its definition is devoid of the two faults, viz. ativyapti ‘overapplication’ and avyapti “underapplication’. It may be seen that this principle is followed in defining LIT. It is understood to refer to an action which has taken place in the past (bhiite), exclusive of today (anadyatane), and which is not witnessed by the speaker (P.3.2.115. parokse lit). Here each of the conditioning factors is relevant. If the term bhiite is not included in the definition of LIT, then the definition would also apply to future exclusive of today. If the second term, anadyatane, is dropped, then. the definition would also apply to past pertaining to today. If the term: parokse is not included, then it would apply also to past witnessed by the speaker. Thus, to exclude these instances and to precisely define LIT, all the three modifiers are found neces- sary. And Kaundabhatta clarifies by stating that LIT is not used to mean past pertaining to today, future exclusive of today, and also past which is witnessed by the speaker (tenddyatane bhite’nadyatane bhavisyati bhite’pyaparokse ca na litprayogah). The word paroksa ‘unperceived’ is understood in two ways. The older grammarians’ view which Kaundabhatta follows is that this term should be taken as qualifying the meaning of the root, i.e. ‘action’. Nagesa follows the view of the Neogram- marians who take it as qualifying the means of action (PLM p. 143 paroksatoam ca karake vigesanam, na tu kriydyam). It is true that though action as a whole cannot be percieved, each part of it is separately perceptible. Every action is made of many small parts (eg. the action of cooking is comprised of putting the pot on the fire, pouring water in it, taking it down, etc.) that take place in a temporal order. Thus the whole group of activities cannot be perceived together, because it does not exist at one time. The Bhasya holds the same view that when imper- ceptibility of an action is meant it does not refer to the whole action since the parts can be perceived. Therefore, the term parokse may be said to be a relevant conditioning factor in the definition of LIT. The terms adyatana and paroksa are understood in different ways. The term adyatana means day accompanied by half of the24 HLS. Ananthanarayana night that is past plus half of the night yet to come (gatardtrer nisithad urdhoam agamiratrer nisithatpiiroo yavankalah so'dyatana Padenocyate), or one-third of the night that is past plus one-third of the night yet to come, or from sunrise to sunrise. Similarly, Paroksa could mean any of the following: one hundred years 380, one thousand years ago, two or three days ago, even hid- den by a wall, etc. (Bhasya on P.3.2.115). What is implied then is that paroksa refers to what is not witnessed by the speaker and time as such is not a relevant factor here. LUT is understood as ‘something that is going to happen tomorrow’ (Svo bhavinyarte). Future (P.3.33 bhavisyati...) here ex- cludes today on the strength of Panini’s rule anadyatane lut. The term Svah should not be taken literally to mean only ‘tomorrow’. Kaundabhatta therefore..has paraphrased it with the term anadyatane ‘exclusive of today’. LRT expresses ‘future’ in general (bhavisyatsamanyah). Panini’s rule which introduces LRT in the sense of remaining cases (P.3.3.13 Int Sese ca) expresses future i ther day, and others. -Fu- LAN denotes the past (bhilte) that happened yesterday (hyah). Hyah is glossed as anadyatane ‘not inclusive of today’ which is taken from Panini’s rule 3.2.111 anadyatane lai LUMI refers to ‘past in general’ (bhiltamdtre; PLM p. 154 counterpositive of consequent absence at the present time (vidyamanadhoamsapratiyogitoam bhiitatoam), Since this property has to belong to action and not to that which is the locus of that action, it would be appropriate to state that pastness is characterised by an action which is counterpositive of the con- Sequent absence existing in the present. In this regard, Nagega is clear. He states: bhutatoam ca vartaminadhvamsapratiyogik- riyopalaksitatuam (PLM p. 145). LRN’ means ‘when there is’ (Satyam). The words bhiite ‘in the Past’ and bhavini ‘in the future’ are to be understood as meaning ‘in the instances where there is the relationship of cause and effect’ (hetuhetumadbhavadis- thalah). That is, LRN will be. used when the import is that in receThe Meaning of Tenses and Moods in the Indian Tradition 25 the instances where there is the relationship of cause and effect (hetuhetumadbhave) and it is understood that the action does not take place (kriyaya anispattau Samyamaniyam), The Meaning of Moods LET is employed to mean ‘injunction’, ete. (vidhyadau). Tt oc curs in the Vedic language (PLM P. 150 letastu chandasyeva Prayogal)) and is taken as equivalent of LIN (P.3.4.7 linarthe let), Vidhi means ‘inducing a subordinate Person such as a servany (hrtyadernikrstasya pravartanam). "The word ‘etc’. includes nimantrana ‘summons’, amantrana ‘permission’, adhista “respect- ful command’, i 3s LIN has the meaning ‘instigatiowi’, etc, Although Panini’s rule Ras six meanings for LIN such as vidht ‘injunction’, nimantrana ‘invitation’, amantrana ‘permission’, adhista ‘respectful command’, — sampragna ‘inquiry’, — prarthana ‘request’, basic meaning. Pravartana is defined ae the property conducive to activity (pravrtyanukizlo dharma), i. being ‘the means of Renieving the desired result" (sta sadhanatoam). Therefore, Kaundabhatta concludes, rather Tightly, that istasadhanatoa is the What Denotes Time? While discussing ‘the meaning of LAT, Kaundabhatta raises the question of the denotation of ‘time’, He refers to two views both of which have port in the Bhasya. According to one view, time is denoted by the l- markers while according to the26 HS. Ananthanarayana other, time is cosignified by the l-members (kalah kim dyotyo va vacyo va). The latter view is further. understood either as $aktyadhayakatva “being that which brings out the power’, or tatparyagrahakatve “being the conveyer of intention’. In the first case, the root itself denotes all aspects of an action including time in general (kalasamanyam dhatoarthah) and LAT etc. help to specify which particular aspect of time is in question. After elaborately discussing the pros and cons of each of the alterna- tive. views, Kaundabhatta puts forward his view that ‘co- signifierness’ of l-members is the established view (tasmad dyotakatvam eveti niriidhah panthah). This indeed is the view of the grammarians. Notes 1. Some writers include also a Pluperfect made from the Perfect with prefixed augment (e.g. W.D. Whitney, T. Burrow), and a Periphrastic Future (e.g. W.D. Whitney, M.R. Kale). Conditional is listed by some (e.g. M.R. Kale) among the moods. The Pluperfect is found only in the Veda and the Periphrastic Future only in the post-Vedic literature. 2. Some (e.g. T. Burrow) include a Precative, its use being confined to the expression of.a wish. 3. Cf. T. Burrow, The Sanskrit Language (London: Faber and Faber) and W.D. Whitney, Sanskrit Grammar (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). 4. Kaundabhatta (early part of the 17th century) was the son of Bhattoji Diksita’s brother Rangoji who himself was a well known Vedanta writer. He is known to have written seven works, all of them dealing with Nya@ya and Vyakarana. He also has shown his mastery over Mimamsa and Vedanta in his discussion of the views of other sastras. The Vaiyakaranabhiisana is a commentary on the Vaiyakaranasiddhantachandrika of his uncle Bhattoji. The discussion of the meaning of tenses and moods forms the content of the chapter Lakararthanirnaya. Thave relied primarily on the translation and notes of this section by Dr. Jayash- ree A. Gune and published by the Deccan College, Pune (1978). ‘Nagega (18th century) too wrote many original works and commentaries. ‘The Mafijiisa is one of his original treatise. This work is found in three versions, viz. Brhat, Laghu, and Paramalaghu. So far as the treatment of Ladesa is con- cérned, Nagesa has almost followed the line of Kaundabhatta. I have used the edition of this. work published by M.S. University, Baroda (1961). 5, The unmarked quotations are from the section Lakarirthanirnaya of Kaundabhatta’s Vaiyakaranabhizsana.TENSE AND ASPECT IN CHILD LANGUAGE, PIDGINS AND CREOLES Jean Aitchison London School of Economics Some linguists have argued that language universals can be identified more easily in developing language situations than in full languages. In particular, it has been claimed that pidgins, creoles and child-language reveal features of ‘core: grammar’ which are not necessarily evident in full languages. In this Paper, I shall. discuss this claim with reference to tense and aspect. In brief, are there universals of tense and aspect which reveal themselves in pidgins, creoles, and child language? 1.1. Definitions: Pidgins and Creoles It is important to clarify the terms ‘pidgin’ and ‘creole’, since there is a certain amount of disagreement in the literature. The following are perhaps the most widely accepted definitions: (i) a PIDGIN is a subsidiary or auxiliary language. used for communication by groups of people who have no common lan- guage (Todd, 1984). Such a system is based on a full language, but it is simpler (more regular) and impoverished (having fewer resources) in comparison to the language from which it is derived. However, a true pidgin is not just a reduced version Of a full language: it has conventional rules of its own which cannot be predicted from the base language. : (ii) a CREOLE is a pidgin which has become someone’s first language (Todd, 1984). In spite of these widely accepted definitions, there are séveral potential sources of confusion: first, the term ‘pidgin’ is sporadi- cally used to refer to broken language or jargon which lacks regular rules. Second, the word ‘creole’ is intermittently used in the sense of ‘language mixture’. Third, language systems are sometimes given the label ‘pidgin’ when they are neither28 Jean Aitchison pidgins nor creoles. For example, so-called Naga Pidgin, spoken in Nagaland, is neither a pidgin, nor a creole: ‘Nagamese’ is a simplified language system which has been labeled a ‘creoloid’ (Ferguson, in press). Similarly, the impoverished varieties of In- dian English, such as Butler English, Boxwallah English, Baboo English, labeled ‘pidgins’ by Schuchardt (1891 = 1980), are per- haps better called ‘minimal Ppidgins’ (MihIhausler, 1978) or ‘semi-pidgins’ (S.K. Verma, personal communication). 1.2. DEFINITIONS: TENSE AND ASPECT. The terms ‘tense’, and ‘aspect’ are used in different ways by different writers. For the purpose of this paper, I accept Comrie’s broad distinction between the two: tense, he suggests, ‘is concerned with the localization of situations in time’, whereas aspect ‘is concerned with the internal temporal constituency of a situation’ (Comrie, this volume). Rather than attempting to define these further (on which see Comrie, 1976, 1985; Dahl, 1985; Hopper, 1982; Chung and Timberlake, 1985), I shall in this paper attempt to interpret and evaluate other people’s claims about what these involve in relation to pidgins, creoles and child language. The dimensions with which I will be particularly concerned are ‘pastness’ and ‘tuturity’ (traditionally tense), and ‘perfective’, ‘durative’, ‘stative’ (traditionally aspect). 2. Universals of Tense and Aspect : Types of Claim Various types of claim are found about possible universals of tense and aspect in pidgins, creoles and child language. In Particular, the following have received a considerable amount of attention in recent years: (i) Claims that certain tense and aspect distinctions are universal and innate. (ii) Claims that tense and aspect are realized in a fixed linear order in the surface structure. Gii) Claims concerning the relative priority of tense and aspect. These claims vary in scope. Some have been made about creoles alone, others about child language alone. A few have encompassed both child language and creoles. None, perhaps surprisingly, has been based on pidgins. This appears to be due to the common assumption that pidgins represent second languageTense and Aspect in Child Language 29 learning by adults, whereas creoles represent first language ac- quisition by children. Adults, it is assumed, are exposed to Pidgins after adolescence, and so learn them beyond the sup- posed ‘critical period’ for language acquisition. Pidgins there- fore cannot, it is claimed, represent innate or ‘natural’ features of language. These assumptions are possibly unjustified (Aitchision, 1983; Goodman, 1985), though it is irrelevant to dis- cuss them further here. From the point of view of this paper, they simply limit the data which need to be considered. The claim that certain tense and aspect distinctions are universal and innate has been made in relation to both creoles and child language. The claim about the surface order of tense and aspect has been restricted to creoles. Claims about the rela- tive priority of aspect and tense, on the other hand, have been confined to child language. There has not (to my knowledge) been any general claim of this type made for creoles, though Valdman (1983) has pointed out that, in the verbal system of French creoles, aspectual categories have priority over temporal ones. By ‘priority’, Valdman appears to mean that there are more non-temporal distinctions (such as completive, durative) marked than temporal ones in most French creoles. 3. Claims Relating to Tense and Aspect in Creoles Creoles, it has been claimed, tend to have three verbal par- ticles: a past tense marker, a potential mood marker, and a dura- tive aspect marker, and these normally occur in a fixed surface order: tense, mood, aspect, verb (Muysken, 1980). Early attempts to explain the phenomena were mainly historical, arguing that these features can be traced-back to a Portuguese-based pidgin which was widely spoken along the world’s trading routes in the 16th and 17th century. More recent attempts have tried to link them to universalist theories. Bickerton (1981, 1984) argues for the existence of a linguistic ‘bioprogram’, a genetic blueprint for language which inevitably emerges whenever a creole is formed. All creoles, he claims, mark three basic distinctions: (+/- ANTERIOR], [+/- IRREALIS], [+/- NONPUNCTUAL], and these can be linked ultimately to universal features of human perception. Woisetschlaeger (1977, reported in Muysken, 1980) Suggests that the auxiliary is constrained by universal principles, ‘The TMA Ordering Priniciple’, and ‘The Verbal Hierarchy30 Jean Aitchison Hypothesis’ which have the effect of specifying that there are two possible orderings of the elements-in the auxiliary: TENSE - MOOD - ASPECT - VERB (VO languages) ‘VERB - ASPECT - MOOD - TENSE (OV languages). There are a number of problems with the claim that the above represents a ‘universal’ or even ‘classical’ pattern. First, it is ofter'unclear' why: a verbal particle received a particular categorization, since tense and aspect overlap (pastness and completion tend to be conflated), and so do tense and mood (futurity and intentionality may be inseparable) (Chung and Timberlake, 1985). This leaves only durativty /iterativity as rela- tively independent, though even here there are some problems, since durativity/iterativity overlaps with habituality which merges with futurity in some creoles (Taylor, 1971). In a number of cases, in seems that the categorization into tense, mood, or aspect has been made either to fit in with preconceived ideas, or because the English ‘translation suggests a particular interpretation. For example, in Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea), there are two ways of referring to a past/completed act: (1) mi bin kaikai i - been - eat (2) mi kaikai pinis I - eat- finish bin is usually classified as a tense marker, and pinis as an aspec- tual one, and in some places this classification is justified. But in others it is not, since some areas prefer one, and others the other when referring to events that have happened. In this case, it may be impossible to try and separate out the past tense from so-called perfective aspect with which it is inherently correlated. A second problem is that verbal particles tend to be optional and variable in creoles. Creoles tend to omit redundant particles in the early stages of development, and rely on context, which means that it is rare to find strings of them in the same sentence. As the system develops, there is a tendency for these variable and optional particles to become categorical, at which point several may be found together. However, this means that we are discussing a situation which occurs at a relatively late stage in creole development, by which time a number of other intrud- ing factors may need to be taken into consideration.