Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

chapter 3 that -a- marks completion of a situation’s nuclear phase. Chapter 4 proposed
that -la-, in contrast, was originally a focus marker, and appears to be coming to indicate
non-completion of the nucleus.
As shown in 5.3.1, -ka- co-occurs with completive -a-, and na- co-occurs with noncompletive
-la- in affirmative realis main-clauses. Further examples are given in (291) and
(292).
(291) Prehodiernal -ka-:
ndàkàyèndà
nda-ka-yend-a
1sg.cmpl-prehod-walk-fv
‘I walked‘ (yesterday or before) (repeated from (270))
(292) ná-ndì-lá-yèmbèl-à
posthod-1sg-noncmpl-herd-fv
‘I’ll herd’ (tomorrow or later)
On the other hand, a prehodiernal ka- prefix can occur without -a- in imperfective
contexts (see also 5.3.1.1): 15
(293) kàndìyêndà
ka-ndi-yend-a
prehod.ipfv-1sg-walk-fv
‘I was walking / I used to walk’ (repeated from (268))
Also, completive -a- is absent from prehodiernal negatives, as in (294).
(294) tàndìnàkàwâmbà
tà-ndì-nà-kà-wâmb-à
neg-1sg-pst-prehod-speak-fv
‘I didn’t speak’ (repeated from (267a))
These possible co-occurrences suggest that the functions of -ka- and na- differ from the
(non-)completion-marking roles of -a- and -la-. If they carry the same meaning, they are
redundant when they co-occur. Also, if they indicate distinct time frames, a semantic clash
would be expected if two markers were used together. Conversely, the absence of completive
-a- in negatives suggests that -ka- plays a role – not captured by past marker na-, which also
occurs in hodiernal negatives – that differs from that of completive -a- and is still required
15 na- also occurs without -la- in, for example, non-indicative clauses, but this cannot be used as evidence
either way because, as discussed in 4, verbs that are not marked for completion (-Ø-marked) also indicate
non-completion.
229