Tense, Aspect and Modality in Nepali and Manipuri

Tikaram Poudel

ISBN 10: 3895861863 / ISBN 13: 9783895861864

Published by LINCOM publishers 0, 2007

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tense, Aspect and Modality in Nepali and Manipuri
• Publisher: LINCOM publishers 0
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3895861863
• ISBN 13: 9783895861864
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: New
• Book Type: book

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Synopsis

This work explores the morpho-syntax and semantics of tense, aspect and modality in Nepali and Manipuri. We show that a sentence in natural language consists of a proposition, the element of modality and temporal reference. The proposition consists of the verb and its arguments. The notion of modality encodes different attitudes and judgments of the speaker. The temporal reference refers to whether the action is completed or on going and whether the state or the action is prior, simultaneous or posterior to the speech time. Traditionally moods and modal verbs were considered to be the subdivisions of modality. We show that modality is rather a semantic notion with its subdivisions of realis and irrealis. Not only moods and modal verbs, but also inherently modality verbs, express this modal contrast. Declarative mood is the default way of expressing realis modality, on the other hand, irrealis modality, the marked category, is expressed by nondeclarative in Nepali and irrealis in Manipuri. Modal verbs express different sorts of modality such as epistemic and deontic. Modality verbs cast different modal senses on their complements.