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From: debe@mit-vax.UUCP (Stephen Humble)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Slavic languages and sealing wax
Message-ID: <384@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 22:54:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.384
Posted: Mon Jul 15 22:54:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 09:46:55 EDT
References: <65@ucbcad.UUCP>
Reply-To: debe@mit-vax.UUCP (Stephen Humble)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 26

Astrological Sign: "No Parking"

***This is not self-referent.***

>Judy (whose article was very interesting), mentioned that
>Bulgarian has a separate tense to describe what was directly
>observed and what was not.  Sanskrit has such a mood, aspect or
>whatever you want to call it, and it had a full conjugation
>system for all three persons and numbers (singular, dual and
>plural).  Those erudite scholars of Sanskrit pointed out that
>the verb can never be used in the first person, but one
>scholar, more erudite than the rest, made up a list of
>statements in which the tense could be used.

There is a similar mood in Turkish and at least some of the other Altaic
languages. In Turkish, it's formed by suffixing -mis, to the verb stem.
(The s has a cedilla.) It's used (among other times) when the speaker is
reporting someone else's statement or making an inference. It is fairly
common since using a definite form implies that the speaker actually
saw, heard etc. the event described. It pops up when you want to say
something like 
	I guess I left my key in the house.
	Anahtarimi evde birakmis,im. 
as opposed to 
	I left my key in the house. (on purpose, I remember doing it etc.)
	Anahtarimi evde biraktim.