Future in Jowshaqani, the form and function
Journal Title: Journal of Researches in Linguistics - Year 2021, Vol 13, Issue 1
Abstract
Abstract While most new Iranian languages do not have a separate construction to express the future time, Jowshaqani a central Iranian language in northern Isfahan shows a triple construction for future time: a near future referring to immediate future and future certainty, a distant future referring to remote future and future possibility, which is also used for optative and irrealis, as well as a construction for a future imperative. Apart from describing the forms and uses of the future, this article also examines the historical evolution of the future construction in Jowshaqani, and how the new uses are developed for the older ones. The study of the form and function of the future tense in Jowshaqani shows that the new uses of the future tense has as optative, irrealis, and imperative meanings which can be analyzedin terms of the relation of the future tense with modality. For expressing near future, the aspect has been an important factor in the development of such a near future construction. Keywords: future, Jowshaqani, Iranian languages, tense, modality Introduction Future tense is defined as locating a situation at a time subsequent to the present moment. The focal use of future is regarded as a prediction referring to an event taking place after the moment of speech. In languages which distinguish different degrees of remoteness in the future, there is a near and a distant future. Some languages have a basic modal distinction between realis and irrealis, where realis refers to situations that are actually taking place, while irrealis is used for more hypothetical situations, including predictions about the future. There are pairs of future forms which, in addition to expressing prediction, bear an indication of how convinced the speaker is that the event will come about; these uses are defined as future certainty and future possibility. Two other commonly occurring modal uses of futures develop out of the prediction sense. One of these is the imperative use of futures in which a prediction is used in an indirect speech act with the force of an imperative, the second is often referred to as expressing probability. This use is also a prediction, though it is a prediction about a state of affairs at present time. The major lexical sources for future are the following: 1. An auxiliary verb with the original meaning of 'want' or 'desire', 2. A construction meaning 'movement towards a goal' (such as English be going to), which contains a movement verb in a progressive or imperfective aspect, 3. A verb meaning 'to owe' or 'to be obliged', or more commonly a construction with a copula or possession verb, and a non- finite main verb, such as English to have to or to be to. In addition to describing the forms and uses of the future in Jowshaqani, this article examines the historical evolution of the future, and how the new uses are developed for the future. Materials and Methods This article examines the functions and expression properties of future tense forms in the Jowshaqani, a central Iranian language spoken in the small town of Jowshaqan, 100 km north of Isfahan city. The data used in this article are taken from the corpus of Jowshaqani provided as a project of documentation of the language (Taheri, 2017) and has been archived in the Endangered Languages Documentation Program (ELDP) at the SOAS, University of London. The corpus contains audio and video recordings of Jowshaqani, some of which have been transcribed and have a Persian translation. The audio, video and text files of the corpus are numbered from 0001 to 0082 and the references given to this corpus in the article refer to the number of these files. Discussion of results and Conclusion While most New Iranian languages do not have a specific structure for the future and in the past-nonpast system, but they mostly use the imperfect present to express the future. In a group of the central Iranian languages, we notice that either the old form of the future has been retained or new constructions have been formed to express the future. Jowshaqani is a central Iranian language that has a triple construction for the future, also seen in a number of other central languages of Iran, such as Abyanai: near future, far future, and imperative future. The near future is formed by adding the prefix ba- to the imperfect present of the verb, itself is formed by a- (att- in verbs beginning with the vowel): ba-attam ‘I will come’. The main use of the near future is to express an event that will take place in the immediate or near future, and the speaker is confident in predicting what will happen. It is also used to denote the narrative future. The far future is a periphrastic construction formed by komi or kom before the past stem of the main verb: komi šoam ‘I will go’, but inflected ergatively in transitive verbs: kom-ešun pâ ‘they will cook’. The most common use of the far future is to express the distant and generally uncertain events in the future. It is also used to express irrealis and optative modality. komi or kom is a remnant of Middle Persian and Parthian kām that was used as an auxiliary verb to express the intention. The development of kām shows grammaticalization of a word which originally meant ‘desire’, then becomes an auxiliary verb in Parthian and Middle Persian to express the intention. This step is the most important step in the process of creating the future from the words meaning ‘desire’. The imperative future is formed by infixing -ešâ- between the present stem and the ending. It is used only for the second person singular and plural. The main use of the future tense is to command or order something to be done in the future. The study of the form and function of the future tense in Jowshaqani shows that the new uses that future tense has as optative, irrealis, and Imperative, can be analyzed based on the relation of the future tense with modality.
Authors and Affiliations
EsfandiarTaheri Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of foreign languages, University of Isfahan. Iran e. taheri@fgn. ui. ac. ir
Keywords
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- EP ID EP705262
- DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.22108/jrl.2021.130414.1599
- Views 126
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