Tense in Burmese

B URMESE
F INITE V ERB P HRASE O PERATORS :
T ENSE OR MODALITY ?
Mathias Jenny
Department of General Linguistics, University of Zurich
[email protected]
BASIC FACTS ABOUT BURMESE
› Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman
› Only official language of Burma (Myanmar), ca. 45 million speakers
› Oldest documents 11th century
› Indian script
› 3-4 tones, no final consonants
› Strictly verb-final syntax
› Isolating with agglutinating tendencies
1
THE VERBAL SENTENCE IN BURMESE
PrVOpn Vn
Periph. ARGn
dJenÁ
c>k
mcj,kiu
di.né
ŋa =ká mi ̃̀ =ko
today
I =SBJ
PoVOpn
FVO
SP
Tpj
e\p.
\p
r
xJ,
m
l.,
thaʔ
pyɔ̀
pyá
yá
̀
ʔõu
mə=
là
you =OBJ pile.up
speak show OBL again FVO= Q
‘Do I have to tell you [this story] again today?’
2
THE VERBAL PREDICATE IN BURMESE
(PRVOP)
V
(POVOP)
FVO
ASPECT
(any lexical VERB
MODALITY
tɛ
DIRECTIONALITY
MANNER
OTHER NOTIONS:
V ALONG, HELP V, V
AFTER , LET V
or SERIAL VERB
CONSTRUCTION)
MANNER
mɛ
NON-FUTURE
FUTURE
DIRECTIONALITY
pi
ASPECT
phù NEG
PLURALITY
POLITENESS
NEWSIT
nɛ́
PROH
Ø
IMPER
3
THE FINITE VERB PHRASE OPERATORS (FVO)
Basic form
Attributive
Nominalised
Clitic
Function
tɛ
tɛ́
ta
θə=
NON-FUTURE
mɛ
mɛ́
hma
mə=
FUTURE
pə=
NEWSIT
pi
phù
tɛ́, mɛ́
ta, hma
NEGATION
nɛ́
PROHIBITIVE
Ø
IMPERATIVE
4
EXAMPLES OF THE MAIN FVOS
(1) a. ʨənɔ thəmi ̃̀ sà tɛ.
1m
rice
b. ʨənɔ thəmi ̃̀ sà mɛ.
eat FVO
1m
‘I eat rice.’ / ‘I ate rice.’
c. ʨənɔ thəmi ̃̀ sà pì
1m
rice
eat finish NSIT
‘I have eaten rice.’
e. thəmi ̃̀ mə=sà
rice
nɛ́!
NEG=eat PROH
‘Don’t eat!’
pi.
rice
eat FVO
‘I will eat rice.’
d. ʨənɔ thəmi ̃̀ mə=sà
1m
rice
phù.
NEG=eat NEG
‘I don’t/didn’t/will not eat rice.’
f. thəmi ̃̀ sà (pa) Ø!
rice
eat (POL) Ø
‘Eat!’
5
THE MARKERS tɛ AND mɛ
Indigenous Burmese Grammars on tɛ (LB θi, ʔí) and pi:
θi, ʔí and pi cannot be used on their own as present tense or
past tense verbal suffixes. The [temporal] meaning of the
sentence depends on the temporal phrases in the same sentence
to distinguish past and present meanings.
(Myanmar Language Commission 2005:15)
6
Indigenous Burmese Grammars on mɛ (LB myi, ʔã)́
an.gtjk.lkiuVänj,eq.sk.,lu·,
ʔənagaʔ-kalá ko hɲũ̀ θɔ̀ zəgà-lõù
‘word indicating future time’
(Myanmar Language Commission 1999:242)
7
Western Scholars’ explanations
Judson (1852):
θi, simply assertive, as θwà θi, he goes.
ʔí, same as θi.
ʔã,́ future, as θwà ʔã,́ he will go.
myi, future.
8
Anna J. Allott (1965)
AFFIRMATIVE-ASSERTIVE-REALIZED
tɛ
AFFIRMATIVE-ASSERTIVE-UNREALIZED
mɛ
9
John Okell (1969)
tɛ:
Verb-sentence marker. Non-future; translatable by English past
or present tenses in general narrative and descriptive statements.
mɛ:
Verb-sentence marker. Future, or assumptive; hence translatable
by ‘shall, will, going to, may, must, would’.
10
Comrie (1985) based on Okell (1969)
The main function of mɛ is not time reference, as
“[i]t can be used with present or past time reference provided
the reference is not restricted to our actual world, i.e. provided
there is a modal value to the particle”
(2) məʨì.θì
sà phù
tamarinds eat
mɛ thĩ
EXPER FVO
think
tɛ.
FVO
‘I think he must have eaten tamarinds before.’
11
Justin Watkins (2005)
Yanson, Vittrant:
tɛ =
REALIS, mɛ
=
IRREALIS
FVO express modality
Gärtner:
Burmese does have tense. The marker mɛ marks
FUTURE
but can
also be used to express EPISTEMIC MODALITY.
12
Definitions
FUTURE:
“Prediction on the part of the speaker that the
situation in the proposition, which refers to an event
taking place after the moment of speech, will hold.”
(Bybee et al. 1994:244)
IRREALIS: Non-actual events, unrealised events, events distant
from the present reality:
Negative, future, imperative, counterfactual, etc.
(Bybee et al. 1994:236ff, Bybee 1998)
13
SOME MORE BURMESE DATA
1. tɛ
(3) ʔəwuʔ ɕɔ
ne tɛ.
clothes wash stay
PRESENT
FVO
‘I am washing my clothes.’
(4) di
mənɛʔ
this morning
̀
tõu
ká ʨənɔ sa
TEMP ABL
1m
pó
text send
tɛ.
PAST
FVO
‘I sent (you) an e-mail this morning.’
14
(5) ʨənɔ θu thɛʔ
1m
3
COMP
ʔəθɛʔ ʨì
age
big
tɛ.
GENERAL
STATEMENT
FVO
‘I am older than he.’
(6) khəlè twe né tãì
child
PL
ʨãù
tɛʔ
day every school go.up
tɛ.
HABITUAL
FVO
‘The children go to school every day.’
15
PAST-COUNTERFACTUAL
(7) ʨənɔ mẽì .má yu ʨhĩ yĩ
1m
woman take DES
COND
yu laiʔ
ta
ʨa
pi.
take FOLLOW
FVO:NML long NSIT
‘If I wanted to get married, I would have married long time ago.’
FUTURE-REFERENCE
(8) mənɛʔ.phyã ʨənɔ ʔà tɛ.
tomorrow
1m
free
FVO
‘I am free tomorrow.’
(8´) *mənɛʔ.phyã ʨənɔ ʔà mɛ.
16
(9) mənɛʔ.phyã mè-səya ɕí
tomorrow
θè tɛ.
ask-thing exist still
(*mɛ)
FVO
‘I’ll still have questions tomorrow.’
BUT:
(10) mənɛʔ.phyã ʨənɔ ʔəlouʔ θwà mɛ.
tomorrow
1m
work
go
FVO
‘I am going to work tomorrow.’
(10´) *mənɛʔ.phyã ʨənɔ ʔəlouʔ θwà tɛ.
17
2. mɛ
FUTURE
(11) mənɛʔ.phyã mè-səya ɕí
tomorrow
̀ mɛ.
ʔõu
ask-thing exist again FVO
‘I’ll have more (new) questions tomorrow.’
RELATIVE FUTURE
(12) mi ̃̀ məné
ká la
2
yesterday
ABL
come
mɛ (ló)
thĩ
tɛ.
FVO (SUB)
think
FVO
‘I thought you would come yesterday.’
18
SPECULATIVE
̀ ká ʨənɔ ʔəθɛʔ shɛ́.ŋà lauʔ
(13) ho tõu
that
TEMP ABL
1m
age
ɕí
fifteen as.much.as exist
mɛ thĩ
FVO
think
tɛ.
FVO
‘Back then I was/must have been about fifteen, I guess.’
(14) θu nãi.ŋã ʨhà
3
yauʔ phù
country other arrive
mɛ
EXPER FVO
thĩ
tɛ.
think
FVO
thĩ
tɛ.
think
FVO
‘I think that he has been abroad before.’
(14´) θu nãi.ŋã ʨhà
3
yauʔ phù
country other arrive
tɛ
EXPER FVO
19
IS mɛ AN IRREALIS MARKER? FACTS ABOUT tɛ AND mɛ:
1. tɛ occurs in counterfactual expressions
2. mɛ in future contexts does not confer a notion of uncertainty
3. mɛ can be used in relative-temporal contexts
4. mɛ is optional in assumptive contexts, but obligatory in future contexts
5. mɛ does not indicate epistemic modality on its own; mɛ can be used to
express epistemic modality together with some overt modal expression (‘I
think’, ‘certainly’)
6. mɛ is not used in IMPERATIVE and OPTATIVE contexts
7. mɛ is not used to mark deontic modality
8. both tɛ and mɛ occur in negative contexts (attributive, nominalised clauses)
20
- mɛ does not occur in all events that can be labelled
IRREALIS,
but it
can be used to express a personal (subjective) prediction about the
truth of the proposition
-
FUTURE
tense is inherently PREDICTIVE
21
→
mɛ is basically a future tense marker;
the use as epistemic modal marker (assumptive) is derived from
the exploitation of the predictiveness of future markers
→
tɛ marks non-future situations, i.e. situations that do not require a
prediction about the truth value of the proposition
22
DEVELOPMENT FROM FUTURE TO ASSUMPTIVE OR ASSUMPTIVE TO FUTURE?
Deontic Modality → Future:
English:
Greek:
will (‘want to V’ > ‘will V’)
θa (< θelo ina ‘want that’)
Romance: V + ‘have’ (‘have to V’ > ‘will V’)
Deontic Modality → Epistemic modality
German, English, Thai, ...
23
Future → Epistemic Modality
German, Romance languages, etc.
*Epistemic Modality → Future
Subjectivisation as unidirectional process
24
Conclusion:
• Burmese does have obligatory tense marking with a FUTURE vs.
NON-FUTURE distinction in verbal predicates in main clauses
• The FUTURE marker can be used to express a personal
prediction/assumption in modal contexts (epistemic modality)
• The NON-FUTURE marker is used in past and present contexts,
irrespective of the realisation of the event described in the
proposition
• The NON-FUTURE marker can be used in some contexts with future
reference (very restricted)
25
REFERENCES
Allott, Anna (1965) Categories for the description of the verbal syntagma in Burmese.
In Lingua 15, 283-309.
Bernot, Denise (1980) Le prédicat en Birman parlé. Paris: SELAF.
Bybee, Joan (1998) “Irrealis” as a grammatical category. In Anthropological Linguistics
40:2. 257-271.
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins and William Pagliuca (1994) The evolution of grammar.
Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: UCP.
Comrie, Bernard (1985). Tense. Cambridge: University Press.
Ebert, Karen H. (1994) The structure of Kiranti languages. Zurich: ASAS.
Gärtner, Uta (2005) Is the Myanmar language really tenseless? In Justin Watkins (ed.)
Studies in Burmese linguistics. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 105-124.
26
Heine, Bernd and Tania Kuteva (2002) World lexicon of grammaticalization.
Cambridge: CUP.
Jenny, Mathias (forthcoming). Modality in Burmese: ‘may’ or ‘must’ - grammatical
uses of yá ‘get’. (to appear in JSEALS 1)
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27
Okell, John and Anna Allott (2001) Burmese/Myanmar dictionary of grammatical
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28
Vittrant, Alice (2005) Burmese as a modality-prominent language. In Justin Watkins
(ed.) Studies in Burmese linguistics. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 143-161.
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