An Analytic Study of the Grammatical Tenses in Lari
An Analytic Study of the Grammatical Tenses in Lari Language
(Mahinnaz Mirdehghan (Corresponding Author)
Department of Linguistics, Shahid Beheshti University Evin, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Grammatical tense, as the time of action occurrence, locates a situation in time to indicate when the situation takes place, which in many languages is indicated in three basic categories of past, present and future. The present study is aimed to analyze the tense system in Lari language, a language of Larestan Township in the Southern part of Iran, which is also spoken by more than a million people in other parts of Iran, Oman and the UAE. Based on a contrastive-descriptive methodology, the research illustrates the tense system of Lari in comparison to that of English and in case in Persian. Following a brief explanation of Lari tenses, their applicability and features are explained comparatively in English and Lari via tables. Finally, differences and similarities among the two languages are demonstrated together with the unique features of Lari. The results illustrate Lari’s specific features in past, non-past, and especially future tenses. Keywords: Lari language, Grammatical tense, English, descriptive- contrastive methodology, Persian. 1. Introduction Tense is considered among the most significant aspects of the verbs. Khayampur (2005, p. 79) defines tense as “an aspect of the verb that shows the time an action happens. Shafayi (1984, p. 74) says “the tense has been made when the man has paid attention to the verb, and then the grammatical tense was created”. Quirk et al (1985) distinguish between the time and the tense. In their view ‘time is as a line on which a tense like the present one is located’ (p. 175). Moreover, they specify two levels of differentiation for tense. The first one is ‘referential level’ in which we have present, past and the future. Anything ahead of present moment is in the future and anything behind it is in the past. However, in the ‘semantic level’, for example, International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2013), 124-134 125 the present tense is the most general and unmarked category, e.g. ‘Albatrosses are large birds’ is a generic statement applicable to present, past and the future (ibid). By grammatical tense, we mean the name with which verbs are called, e.g. [ræftæm] (I went) is the present simple (Anvari & Givi, 2007, p. 46). Farshidvard (2004), defining the tense as a verb characteristic, states that “the verb is divided into three categories based on the tense: the past like [ræftæm] (I went), present like [mirævæm] (I go), and the future such as [xâhæm ræft] ’I will go‘(p. 379). Taleghani (1975, p. 39) has the same definition of this category stating that the verbs have three divisions including the past, the present, and the future. Ehrlich and Murphy (1980) define the tense as “the time showing the action or the state” and add “there are six tenses in English including the Present, Past Perfect, the Past, the Present Perfect, the Future, and the Future Perfect (p. 50). It should be noted that “especial verb endings or accompanying auxiliary verbs often signal the time an event takes place” (Frank, 1993). The present research is aimed to study the tense system in Lari. Divided as a ‘definitely endangered language’ by the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, Lari is one of the 14 Iranian Endangered Languages1 which are to be preserved through research and analysis, raising awareness, supporting projects and most importantly disseminating information such as books and articles. ‘Education through mother tongue’, furthermore, is one of the UNESCO’s five programs in addressing particular aspects of language; consequently, it seems of high significance to provide the teachers with descriptive materials of endangered languages (e.g., Lari) in order to develop an appropriate educational syllabus design. Therefore, we have strived to analyze one of the morphological features of Lari in this paper to describe it as a language in danger and also prepare the materials for applied linguists. In doing so, at the first point the tenses in Persian and English are examined, which are then compared to that of Lari. The similarities and differences are demonstrated consequently within the study, together with the unique characteristics of Lari’s tense in comparison to Persian and English
درگستره تاریخی لارستان که بنا به اساطیر گذشته ای به قدمت تبار قوم آریا دارد زبانی رایج است که تنها میراث دار - و تقریبا مشابه - زبانی است که زمانی مردم عصرساسانیان به آن کتیبه ها نوشته ؛ شعر ها سروده و کتابها ی بزرگ تالیف کرده اند . اینک نیز در خاستگاه و مهد اولیه آن ما دراین گستره تاریخی لارستان با همان کهن واژه های ناب زندگی می کنیم و با آن عواطف و احساس خود را بیان می کنیم .