Linguistic construal of time lies at the center of language and language use; it is also one of the cognitive foundations of culture. The focus of the papers in this volume is on historical developments of genetically different aspect and tense systems across continents.

• Development of Tense and Aspect Systems
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Introduction
  • 1.General introduction
  • 2.From space to time
    • 2.1Lexical aspect
    • 2.2Developments of aspect and tense in Indo-European
    • 2.3Aspect in medieval Slavic
  • 3.Remarks on tense systems
  • 4.The present volume
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• The history of tense and aspect in the Sogeram family
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Proto-Sogeram tense-aspect system
    • 2.1Synthetic forms
    • 2.2Serial verb constructions
  • 3.Innovations
    • 3.1Gants innovations
    • 3.2Kursav innovations
    • 3.3Aisi innovations
    • 3.4Mum innovations
    • 3.5Sirva innovations
    • 3.6Apalɨ innovations
    • 3.7Manat innovations
    • 3.8Nend innovations
    • 3.9Mand innovations
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Generalizations about source constructions
    • 4.2Generalizations about target constructions
    • 4.3What we do not see
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Development of aspect markers in Arandic languages, with notes on associated motion
  • 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
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Kisikongo (Bantu, H16a) present-future isomorphism
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Definitions and methodology
    • 2.1Concepts and definitions
    • 2.2Methodology
      • 2.2.1Data sources
      • 2.2.2Corpus queries
  • 3.Grammars vs. corpus data: A diachronic assessment of the Kisikongo Present and Future constructions
    • 3.1Mid-17th-century Kisikongo
      • Simple present Ø-R-a6.As one reviewer pointed out, our construction labels, i.e. simple present, present imperfective and future, do not neatly reflect the uses of each construction. For example, the present imperfective Ø-R-ang-a is attested only with habitual meaning in the 17th-century data, whereas in the same period the simple present Ø-R-a covers multiple other imperfective categories such as progressive and generic aspect. However, we do use these labels to make it easier for the reader to track the different constructions throughout the article, and by extension throughout time. Moreover, as the meaning and use of the constructions change over time, it is impossible to provide function-based names that fully hold for the three time periods.
      • Present imperfective Ø-R-ang-a
      • Future ku-R-a
      • Summary
    • 3.2Late-19th- and early-20th-century Kisikongo
      • Simple present Ø-R-a
      • Present imperfective Ø-R-ang-a
      • Future Ø-R-a
      • Summary
    • 3.3Late-20th- and early-21st-century Kisikongo
      • Simple present Ø-R-a
      • Present imperfective Ø-R-ang-a
      • Future Ø-R-a
      • Summary
    • 3.4Overview and discussion
  • 4.Reconstructing paradigmatic change
    • 4.1The polysemy hypothesis
    • 4.2The homonymy hypothesis
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix.Map of the Kikongo Language Cluster
• Historical change in the Japanese tense-aspect system
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Modern Japanese tense-aspect
    • 2.1 -Te i-
    • 2.2 -Ta
    • 2.3 -(Ur)u
    • 2.4Peripheral forms, aktionsarten and lexical aspect
    • 2.5Some points of discussion
  • 3.Late Old Japanese tense-aspect1.A note on transcription of historical examples: We have chosen to transcribe examples based on historical phonology instead of graphematics (the writing system) or the Modern Japanese phonology. This entails that the same grapheme (kana) may represent different phonemes at different periods of time. The transcription here is based on Rothaug (1991).Potentially contentious issues are solved as follows. The so-called 8-vowel contrast of Old Japanese is represented as /a/, /ye/, /e/, /i/, /wi/, /wo/, /o/, and /u/ in the tradition of Unger (1975). The phonemic change of Old Japanese /p/ (Modern Japanese /h/) is assumed to have taken place as follows: In onset position: /p/ > (8th CE) /f/ > (17th CE) /h/. In medial position: /p/ > (8th CE) /f/ > (11th/12th CE) /w/, 0 before /u/ > (13th CE) /y/ before /e/ > (17th CE) 0 before /e/, /o/ (cf. Rothaug 1991: 86–87). Note that Frellesvig (2010: 176) suggests a later shift from /p/ to /f/ in onset position, but an earlier shift from /p/ to /w/ in medial position.
    • 3.1Overview
    • 3.2 -keri vs. -ki/si/sika
    • 3.3 -(a)m-
    • 3.4 -(ur)u
    • 3.5Forms ending on -ari vs. -t-/-n-
  • 4.Changes
    • 4.1Change within aspect: -tari (-Ta), -(ur)u
    • 4.2From aspect to tense: -t-, -tari (-Ta)
    • 4.3From tense to modality: -(a)m- (-(y)oo), -tari (-Ta)
    • 4.4Demise of forms: -t/-n-, -ki, -keri, -eri
    • 4.5Emergence of a new aspectual form: -Te i-
  • 5.Generalizations and conclusion
    • 5.1Paths of grammaticalization8.Note that there have been two previous attempts to represent the grammaticalization paths of Japanese tense/aspect markers, one by Goto (2001) and one by Watanabe (2005), which is supposed to integrate findings from other languages as well. There is some overlap with both, but also some divergences. For example, Goto (2001) posits that perfective proceeds perfect, and in order to be consistent with this order, has to claim that tari >Ta has no perfective usage. Watanabe (2005) claims that -Te wi- already grammaticalized in the Heian period as a marker of resultative, which is not generally accepted in more recent research.
    • 5.2Category climbing
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Primary references
• Continuity and change in the aspect systems of Vedic and Latin
  • 1.Introductory remarks
  • 2.Two approaches to aspectual semantics
    • 2.1Aspect as a relation between temporal parameters – A neo-Reichenbachian approach
    • 2.2Aspectual categories as partitive operators – Altshuler (2014)
  • 3.Chronological stages of Vedic and Latin
  • 4.Outline of the Early Vedic aspect system
  • 5.Outline of the Early Latin aspect system
  • 6.Interim summary: The Early Vedic and Early Latin aspectual systems compared
  • 7.The development of the Vedic past tense system according to Dahl (2015)
  • 8.An alternative account of the development of the Vedic past tense system
  • 9.The development of the Latin aspect system in a time-relational perspective
  • 10.An alternative approach to the development of the Latin aspect system
  • 11.Summary
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Index