Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Pardon me for sticking my nose in this thread, but the -yor- affix is a
present tense. There is no other to my knowledge.

If you want to buy a ticket at the bus station you say:

        Ankara-ya gitmek istiyorum

        to Ankara   go     I want (am wanting)

When you're on the bus you say:

        Ankara-ya gitiyorum

        to Ankara   I go  (am going)

The -yor- is applicable to both stative and event verbs, so it is not
analogous to the "present continuous" in English.


Ian

>Thank you. But I am not convinced about Turkish: just to rename the
>Turkish present tense (from its morpheme) "Suffix-yor" does not stop
>it being a morphologically marked present tense. Now one might argue
>that the marking has functions other than present e.g. continuous, and
>I don't know Turkish deeply enough to argue that one. (On one side,
>-du/-di is simple past tense and -yor-du is continuous past or
>imperfective; on the other hand, there is no separate non-continuous
>present tense in Turkish). I have to suspect Dahl or Olsen of forced
>interpretation here.