Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

In short, according to Botne & Kershner, aspect situates perspective time (“the vantage
point determined by Ego”) within a phase selected from the verb’s inherent situation type
structure.
By this definition, -a- and -la-/-Ø- partly qualify as aspectual, because they situate perspective
time with respect to a situation’s nucleus, specifically, nuclear completion. On the
other hand, they do not necessarily select a temporal phase as a “focal frame”. Perspective
time is for all intents and purposes punctual, as is nuclear completion itself. Prehodiernal
-ka- and posthodiernal na- do not have any aspect-like characteristics; they are tenses,
because they invoke dissociated temporal domains. In 7.2.1, -na- was analyzed as a past
marker, although in the affirmative it does seem to have some aspectual function, as well:
in opposition to completive -a-, it situates perspective time with respect to the “contentful”
phase of a situation’s event structure.
In this section, I take a working definition of aspect similar to that of Klein (1994) and
Botne & Kershner (2008), in which aspect selects a phase, or topic time, from the situation’s
event structure. Further perspective times and situations may be introduced within this
phase, e.g. ‘while I was scrubbing the sticky glass, the tea kettle whistled’. I have argued in
previous chapters that Totela does not have clear cases of perfective marking. In contrast,
some markers and constructions do have imperfective and other aspectual functions. In
this section, I discuss markers which have clear aspectual functions, such as prehodiernal
imperfective ka-, as well as forms and constructions that fulfill functions often considered by
the literature to be examples of aspect. As a result, this section sometimes takes a form-tofunction
approach (describing the usage domains and interpretive possibilities of forms that
seem to have some aspectual function) and sometimes function-to-form (indicating some of
the forms and constructions used to express particular meanings). I mix approaches in this
way for the sake of completeness; it does not reflect a theoretical stance.
7.3.1 Prehodiernal imperfective ka-
The ka- imperfective marker is prefixed to the subject marker, 4 along with a special tone
pattern surfacing as a penultimate H, often with plateauing (see appendix C). It is distinguished
from prehodiernal -ka-, which co-occurs with completive -a- in the affirmative, in its
tone pattern and pre-SM position. It surfaces with H tone in negated (424) and subordinate
(423) clauses.
(422) kàtùhúpúlà (or kàtùhùpúlà)
kà-tù-húpúl-à
prehod.ipfv-2pl-think-fv
‘we used to think’ (ZT2009Elic58)
4 Larry Hyman (p.c.) speculates that this form, like many in Bantu, may have grammaticalized from an
earlier periphrastic form, e.g. ‘I was’ + ‘I walk’. The pre-SM position speaks for such an origin, as new
material tends to grammaticalize at the edges of words.
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