Tense, Aspect and Mood in Kastananna
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Date
2012-09
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This thesis is concerned with the tense, aspect and mood system of Kastanafiiia.
Kastanafiiia is an Ehtio-Semitic language. Kastanafiiia verbs employ various
consonantal and vowel patterning to express the grammatical categories aspect and
mood. Kastanafiiia verbs show a clear aspectual distinction between perfective and
imperfective aspects. The variation is indicated by the morphological shape of the verb
bases and agreement markers. In addition to aspect, Kastananna can distinguish
between past and non-past tense. Tense, as a grammatical category, can only be
indicated in the perfect, in prospective aktionsart and in the imperfective aspect In the
perfective aspect there is no special marker for tense. In Kastananna, a perfect is
formed by attaching the converb marker -m to a verb in the perfective aspect
Kastananna has a periphrastic construction which denotes specific temporal readings
of a situation. There are two morphologically recognized mood categories, namely the
imperative and the jussive. The imperative and jussive of triradical verbs have an
identical pattem However, affirmative imperative and jussive can be distinguished by
different subject markers. Kastanafiiia, like the other Northern Gurage languages,
distinguishes affirmative main-clause verbs in the indicative mood from subordinate,
negative and non-indicative verbs by means of morphological main verb markers. The
main verb markers encompass a set of suffixes, which are morphosyntactic
conditioned.
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Tense Aspect