A critique of ‘A re-evaluation of tense in isiZulu’

Lionel Posthumus

doi:10.4102/lit.v37i1.1349

Abstract

This article is a response to Groenewald’s 2014 article, ‘A re-evaluation of tense in isiZulu’. Sub-themes identified in Groenewald’s article and explored in this exposé in the light of an array of recently published research on the topic of tense are: the suitability of the distinction between absolute and relative tense and the use of the term ‘absolute tense’; the appropriateness of defining tense in terms of deixis; the remoteness distinctions in terms of past and future tenses generally distinguished in the Bantu languages with particular reference to isiZulu; the semantic significance of the use of the so-called short and long forms of the present and past tenses of isiZulu and the naming of the individual tenses.

Highlights

Research on time and tense reckoning in literary texts should be encouraged since this is a neglected area of research in the Bantu languages
He uses the label ‘a-past tense’ to refer to this tense form. He objects to the notion that tenses are grammaticalised. His fifth proposal relates to the semantic significance of the so-called short and long forms of the present and past tenses
He claims that the morpheme -ya- that occurs in the present tense serves to confirm an event, or is an aspect ‘indicating weight’. His sixth proposal relates to the need to distinguish a present relative tense. He proposes a renaming of the two future tense forms as a ‘definite’

Summary

Introduction

Research on time and tense reckoning in literary texts should be encouraged since this is a neglected area of research in the Bantu languages. Comrie (1985:36) himself points out that the term ‘absolute tense’ is somewhat misleading because absolute time reference is impossible in that time can only be interpreted from another established time point even though the present moment (the deictic centre) is the default point from which the temporal interpretation of events can be measured.

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Results

Conclusion