Ebook: On the three verbal suffixes - mi, - Xei, - mahei in Sibe Manchu: aspect and the structure of temporal deixis

Tokyo: Tokyo University, 「東 京 大 学 言 語 学 論 集」30(2010.9). — 93-113 p.In the present paper, the function of three verbal suffixes, -mi, -Xei, -mahei, is discussed. Formerly, it was argued that Sibe Manchu has a grammatical tense distinction of past vs. non-past. However, this paper provides some evidence that Sibe Manchu has no tense distinction but distinguishes between actual (-Xei, -mahei) and non-actual (-mi) situations, arguing that although Sibe Manchu makes no grammaticalised tense distinction, the choice of aspect is related to speech time (ST).