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Article published In:
Development of tense and aspect systems
Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović
[Journal of Historical Linguistics 10:2] 2020
► pp. 209–250

Development of aspect markers in Arandic languages, with notes on associated motion

| Australian National University

Languages of the Arandic subgroup of Pama-Nyungan languages of Australia have developed markers of aspect from a variety of sources, including verb phrases with stance auxiliaries and reduplicated forms. Other origins involve nominalised verb forms and the refunctionalisation of tense suffixes. Some unusual diachronic developments have to do with interactions between aspectual markers and those of the highly developed verbal category of associated motion. There are shifts in both directions – from aspectual to associated motion values as well as extension of associated motion to aspectual meanings. All the posited diachronic changes are inferred by means of reconstruction, since there is virtually no corpus of documents from which changes in real time can be traced.

Keywords: associated motion, attenuative, continuous, habitual, nominalisation, reduplication
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and overview
    • 1.1Variety of sources of aspect marking
    • 1.2Aims, methods, and limitations
    • 1.3Associated motion
    • 1.4The Arandic languages and their literature
    • 1.5Arandic phonology and orthography
    • 1.6Arandic verb structure and verbal categories
    • 1.7Nominalisation in Arandic languages
    • 1.8Overview of the paper
  • 2.Aspect markers from periphrastic constructions
    • 2.1Aranda *-rle ane- continuous
    • 2.2Kaytetye *-rre ane- imperfective
    • 2.3Aranda *-rle ape-: From associated motion to aspect
    • 2.4Kaytetye *rre ape- along
    • 2.5Aranda *-rle iwe- do.quick
  • 3.Associated motion markers derived from periphrastic phrases
  • 4.Reduplicated aspectuals
    • 4.1Aspectual forms from reduplicated structures
    • 4.2Aranda frequentative: -pe plus reduplication
    • 4.3Aranda attenuative: Reduplication plus -lpe
    • 4.4Kaytetye all.along from reduplicated participle plus motion verb
    • 4.5Kaytetye once.along from attenuative reduplication
    • 4.6The elaboration of a sub-paradigm
  • 5.Sources of final inflections with aspect values
    • 5.1Final inflections marking past tense plus other values
    • 5.2Past habitual from agent nominalisation
    • 5.3Residual past markers: Refunctionalisation
    • 5.4Non-past aspectual contrast?
    • 5.5Generic -rle from non-finite simultaneous marker
    • 5.6Alyawarr and E Anmatyerr progressive/present from subordinate clause
  • 6.Summary and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.18016.koc
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