Chapter 9 - LOT publications

Accounts of SLI in Afrikaans
phonological form of Afrikaans personal and possessive pronouns
cannot be derived in terms of a default grammatical rule, all children
need to memorise the correct phonological form of these pronouns.
The fourth prediction relates to the phonological realisation of tense. As
mentioned in section 3.3.1.5, tense is not phonologically indicated on
(the vast majority of) main verbs in Afrikaans. The present tense form of
the main verb is the same as the infinitival form. 169 Past tense can be
indicated by using any of the following:
(i) The temporal auxiliary het and the past participial form of the main
(ii)
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verb, as can be seen in (183) below.
The past tense form of the modal auxiliary/-ies and the infinitival
form of the main verb, as in sou slaap ‘would have slept’ and sou
moes kon slaap ‘would have had to be able to sleep’.
(iii) The past tense form of the modal auxiliary/-ies, the temporal
auxiliary het and the past participial form of the main verb, as in sou
geslaap het ‘would have slept’ and sou moes kon geslaap het ‘would have
had to be able to sleep’.
(iv) The present tense form of the modal auxiliary, the temporal
auxiliary het and the past participial form of the main verb, as in sal
geslaap het ‘would have slept’ and the less common sal moet kan
geslaap het ‘would have had to be able to sleep’.
(v)
The present tense form of the main verb, which is phonologically
identical to the infinitival form, in contexts where past tense is
denoted by an AdvP, as can be seen in (184).
(183)
Toe ons daar gekom het, het hulle geslaap
when we there come-PAST PART did did they sleep-PAST PART
‘When we came there, they slept’
(184)
Toe ons daar kom, slaap hulle
when we there come sleep they
‘When we came there, they slept’
Note that (183) and (184), which are paraphrases of each other, can both
also be paraphrased as (185) and (186).
169 Compare slaap ‘sleep’ and verkies om te slaap ‘prefer(s) to sleep’.