Tense, Aspect and Modality in South Asian Languages

Although there has been extensive linguistic research into Tense, Aspect, and Modality (TAM) in South Asian languages, much of this work has been influenced, either directly or indirectly, by our understanding of these notions as attested in certain European languages, primarily English. Indeed, a substantial amount of linguistic investigation in this field relies on the translation of language data from South Asian languages into English. As a result, very little innovatory research has been carried out in this field. To take one example, the participial form "khaayaa", from the Hindi/Urdu verb "khaanaa" meaning "to eat", has been inaccurately categorized as a marker of "past tense" in all major grammars of Hindi and Urdu. It is crucial to note that this participial form denotes the perfective aspect, rather than the past tense. The perfective participial by default (a perfective aspect denotes completion of action prior to the time of speech) gives the past tense reading. Similarly, the taa suffix in the imperfective form khaataa of the aforementioned verb khaanaa “to eat” has been erroneously considered as a marker of habitual aspect. These are just a couple of the many instances that require a careful and comprehensive investigation. There is a significant amount of work that still has to be accomplished in the field of tense, aspect, and modality. This pertains primarily to the complex predicational traits displayed by languages spoken in South Asia. In order to address this need, we are coordinating an international meeting of linguists at INALCO in Paris in November 2024. We invite applications for paper presentations reporting original research on any topic in this field, without any limitations on study methods or linguistic framework. The main purpose of this meeting is to address the analysis of Tense, Aspect, and Modality in South Asian languages specifically. We are also willing to consider, however, submissions that present ground-breaking research on these topics covering new data from any world language, as long as these contribute to the generation of knowledge and the advancement of research in this area. The meeting will cover various topics, including but not limited to, the representation and historical development of TAM elements in South Asian Languages, different types of habituality, various types of perfectivity and imperfectivity, different types of iterativity, and V-V constructs and TAM markers in South Asian languages.