Completion Without Past Time
Separate completion from the time at which it matters.
How It Works
An active completive often reports a past event without another time context. A future reference point can instead locate completion after speaking. Compare Gobe da ƙarfe tara, mun gama aiki with the same clause introduced by jiya ‘yesterday’. English changes from ‘will have finished’ to ‘had finished’.
Stative verbs can express established conditions holding now. Na san sunanki means ‘I know your name’; it need not report past learning. A performative completive performs an act through speaking, such as thanking someone.
Subject agreement and plain-versus-relative marking still apply. Focused or relativized completive events require corresponding relative forms. Lexical choice matters: so ‘want, like’ and several uses of ji commonly take continuative frames. Present-state completives do not establish a rule for every stative verb.
Examples (4)
- Gobe da ƙarfe tara, mun gama aiki.
Tomorrow by nine o’clock, we will have finished work.
Completion is evaluated at a future reference point.
- Na san sunanki.
I know your name, addressing a woman.
The completive expresses an established present state.
- Mun gode da taimakonku.
We thank you for your help.
The utterance performs the thanking.
- Jiya da ƙarfe tara, mun gama aiki.
Yesterday by nine o’clock, we had finished work.
A past reference point permits the past-perfect interpretation.
How It Connects
Learn This First
Recognize completion and inherited attached singular or plural possessors before interpreting lexical states and present performatives such as knowing a listener’s name or thanking listeners for their help.
- Completed Actions After Focus
Recognize completion and inherited attached singular or plural possessors before interpreting lexical states and present performatives such as knowing a listener’s name or thanking listeners for their help.
Level 3 - -mu / -ku / -suOur, Your and Their
Recognize completion and inherited attached singular or plural possessors before interpreting lexical states and present performatives such as knowing a listener’s name or thanking listeners for their help.
Level 2
Related Patterns
- na / ta / sunCompleted Actions
Introduces basic completive marking.
Level 1 - States in an Ongoing Frame
Explains continuative state predicates.
Level 5 - gani / sani / bariCommon Verbs Outside the Grades
Provides san before a noun object.
Level 3 - kafin / bayanBefore and After
Orders events relative to other events.
Level 4
Words in This Pattern
Practice Completion Without Past Time in Bubblegum
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