The General Ontology for Linguistics Description (gold) wg 4 suggested revisions (as of 3 July 2005) General suggestions Cross refs need to be supported -form/function

FutureTense locates the situation in question later than the present moment (time of speaking.)

Defined by analogy with HesternalPastTense. core:entails both NearFutureTense and PostHodiernalFutureTense.

HesternalPastTense locates the situation in question somewhere in the span beginning with the period defined culturally as 'yesterday' and extends back through some period that is considered nonremote (Comrie 1985:87-88; Dahl 1985:126).

HodiernalFutureTense locates the situation in question after the moment of utterance within the span culturally defined as 'today' (Comrie 1985: 86; Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994: 247).

HodiernalPastTense locates the situation in question before the moment of utterance within the span culturally defined as 'today' (Comrie 1985:87; Dahl 1985:125-126). Contrasts with PreHodiernalPastTense.

ImmediateFutureTense, also called 'close future', locates the situation in question shortly after the moment of utterance (Dahl 1985:121; Comrie 1985:94; Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994: 244-245).

ImmediatePastTense locates the situation in question at a time considered very recent in relation to the moment of utterance (Comrie 1985: 87).

Defined here by analogy with RecentPastTense. core:entails FutureTense and entailed by HesternalFutureTense and HodiernalFutureTense.

NonFutureTense locates the situation in question at or before the moment of utterance, and contrasts with a FutureTense (Comrie 1985: 49).

NonPastTense locates the situation in question at or after the moment of utterance, and contrasts with a past tense (Comrie 1985:48-49)..

Locates the situation in question in the future, prior to a reference time in the future.

Locates the situation in question prior to a reference time in the past. Also known as PluperfectTense.

PastTense locates the situation in question prior to the present moment, with no specification on the distance in time (Comrie 1985).

PostHodiernalFutureTense locates the situation in question after the span that is culturally defined as 'today' (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994: 247).

PreHodiernalPastTense locates the situation in question before that of a contrasting HodiernalPastTense. According to Bybee, Perkins, Pagliuca 1994: 98. this category must be defined relative to a HodiernalPastTense.

PresentTense locates the situation in question at the present moment (the time of the speech event) (Comrie 1985: 37). Changed name from AbsolutePresentTense since no other "Present" tense value is defined.

RecentPastTense locates the situation in question prior to the present moment, but by culturally and situationally defined criteria, usually within the span ranging from yesterday to a week or a few months previous (Comrie 1985:87; Dahl 1985:121-122).

RelativeFutureTense locates the situation in question after a contextually determined temporal reference point, regardless of the latter's relation to the moment of utterance. Also called FuturePerfectTense (Comrie 1985:69-71).

RelativePastTense locates the situation in question before that of a contextually determined temporal reference point (Comrie 1985: 104). Also called PastPerfectTense.

RelativePresentTense locates the situation in question simultaneously with some contextually determined temporal reference point.

A RelativeTense locates the situation in question in time relative to a time distinct from the time of speech.

RemoteFutureTense locates the situation in question at a time that is considered relatively distant. It is characteristically after the span of time culturally defined as 'tomorrow' (Dahl 1985:121; Comrie 1985:94).

RemotePastTense locates the situation in question prior to the present moment, usually more than a few days ago (Dahl 1985:121; Comrie 1985:88). Subsumes notion of PreHesternalPast tense, which locates the situation in question before that of an opposing hesternal past tense. (Bybee, Perkins, Pagliuca 1994: 98).

Designating a point in time in reference to the time of speaking only.

StillPresentTense is similar to PresentTense but carries the presupposition that an event or state held before the moment of utterance. In positive declarative clauses, still present tense asserts that the event or state holds at the moment of utterance (Comrie 1985: 54; named changed from 'StillTense').

A verbal category encoding alternations in the configurations of nominal statuses with which a verb is in particular relationships.

Any

Active

Passive

Middle

Direct

Inverse

Causative

Other

AP

Pr

Ad

Rx

Ob

Im

Pe

Rf

Pl

Rx

Rc

Dp

Nc

Sm

Pg

Pm

Np

Ac

Lc

Mc

Passive

AntiPass

Progres-sive

Agent-Deleted

Reflex-ive

Oblique

Impersonal

Personal

Refer-ential

Absolutive

NonAbsolutive

Locative

Necessitative

Periphrastic

Focus

Incorporating

An Antipassive in which the P or logical object is suppressed or overtly absent. (Klaiman 1991:232)

Associated with transitivity, when the action is performed by an agent (subject) on another participant (object), or with intransitivity. (McIntosh 1984:108)

The object of the active retains its old case-marking in the passive, the subject of the active cannot appear in the passive clause, and the passive tends to be semantically active.

(Givon 1988:419)

6.14.4 AnticausativeVoice:

An intransitive verb is derived from a basically transitive one with the direct object of the transitive verb corresponding to the subject of the intransitive.

(Siewierska 1988:267)

6.14.5 AntipassiveVoice:

Derives an intransitive verb from a transitive stem whereby the original agent (only) is cross-referrenced by the absolutive markers on the verb and the original patient, if it appears, is in an oblique phrase. (England 1983:110)

Expressing the causation of an action.

Action denotes physical/mental disposition of subject. (Siewierska 1988:257)

Signals that the action proceeds in an ontologically salient way, i.e. that salience is assigned to nominals based on their referen'ts relative real-world capacities to control situations. (Klaiman 1991:32)

Blocks the P or logical object (basic absolutive) nominal from being assigned Focus salience. Topic salience is available for assignment to various arguments, including the P, but Focus salience is always assigned to A, and is therefore inaccessible to P or any other nominal.

(Klaiman 1991:236)

6.14.10 ImpersonalPassiveVoice:

A Passive that alters the mapping of a nominal to the Subject relation in a basic intransitive structure. (Klaiman 1991:23)

Blocks the P or logical object (basic absolutive) nominal from being assigned Focus salience. This correlates with the P's morphosyntactic downgrading, whereby it becomes insusceptible to any informational salience assignment. (Klaiman 1991:236)

Signals when actions proceed from ontologically less salient to more salient participants

(Klaiman 1991:32)

6.14.13 LexicalCausativeVoice:

Causatives which use a lexeme as a causative marker.(Nedjalkov, Otaina & Xolodovic 1995:61)

An oblique locative nominal assumes the subject relation. (Klaiman 1991:17)

Associated with reflexivity and with borrowed verbal roots that would be semantically more compatible with active voice.

(McIntosh 1984:108)

6.14.16 MorphologicalCausativeVoice:

Causatives which use a morpheme on the verb as a causative marker.

(Nedjalkov, Otaina & Xolodovic 1995:62)

6.14.17 NecessitativePassiveVoice:

A passive in Irish in which the preposition "with" is used, and a semantic meaning of necessity is added. (Noonan 1994:280)

Involves demotion of the non-topical obviate-agent from subjecthood. (Givon 1994:24)

An Antipassive in which the P or logical object is overtly downgraded. (Klaiman 1991:232)

Object of action belongs to. Moves into, or moves from sphere of subject.

(Siewierska 1988:257)

6.14.21 ObliquePassiveVoice:

A Passive in which a basic Oblique nominal assumes the Subject relation in a corresponding nonbasic configuration. Can include locative passives, benefactive passives and instrumental passives. (Klaiman 1991:23)

Associated with actions performed on the subject by an unspecified agent.

(McIntosh 1984:108)

6.14.23 PeriphrasticPersonalPassiveVoice:

A personal passive construction in which the copular verb 'be' is used. (Siewierska 1988:244)

A Passive in which the argument mapped to Object in a basic structural configuration assumes the Subject relation in a corresponding nonbasic configuration. (Klaiman 1991:23)

Results of action occur to subject.(Siewierska 1988:257)

If the agent is more topical than the patient, the direct-active clause is used. If norm is reversed and the patient is more topical, the inverse clause is used. (Givon 1994:23)

A passive in Irish in which the preposition "at" is used, and a semantic meaning of progressive tense is found.

(Noonan 1994:280)

6.14.28 PromotionalInverseVoice:

Involves promotion of the topical proximate-patient to subjecthood. (Givon 1994:24)

Referents of plural subject do action to one another. (Siewierska 1988:257)

core:entails assignment of the absolutive to certain kinds of arguments other than the logical subjects (A) and objects (P), including the dative, benefactive, malefactive, and possessor. (Klaiman 1991:239)

Subjects perform action to self. (Siewierska 1988:257)

A Passive construction which contains reflexive markings. (Siewierska 1988:257)