2007/12/01 by Bill Palmer · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Artificial intelligence #Computer science #History #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Linguistics #Modality (human–computer interaction) #Philosophy #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Psychology #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · doi:10.1353/ol.2008.0000
openalex publication_date 2007/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Torau displays a highly complex system of aspect, tense, and modal marking. One of the most complex elements of this system is the marking of imperfective aspect. Imperfective in Torau is marked by a construction employing a choice of two overt imperfective markers and the possible presence of reduplication. The range of imperfective semantics encoded by this construction varies widely, encompassing progressive, habitual, persistive, and progressive inchoative or inceptive. Which reading is given depends not only on the choice of imperfective marker and the presence or absence of reduplication, but on a complex interplay of these factors with other aspectual, modal, or tense marking, and the aspectual semantics of the verb itself. This paper teases apart each of these highly interdependent factors to determine the independent functional characteristics of each imperfective marker and of reduplication.