L'Expression du temps relatif en kirundi (bantou, JD62)
The expression of the relative tense in Kirundi

Summary/Abstract: In Kirundi, as in other languages of the world, the relative tense is expressed through a subordinate clause and concerns simultaneity, anteriority and posteriority. The purpose of this article is to show that in Kirundi, these possibilities of expressing of the relative tense depend on several factors, such as grammatical mode, time, aspect and lexical meaning of the verb of the main sentence, as well as the type of subordination conjunction. The description of the relative tense in Kirundi was made on the basis of subordinate clauses (temporal circumstantial or non-circumstantial) in conjunctive, relative, subjunctive, and subsequent mode. Taking into account the main verb, the application of the different factors in different sentence constructions shows that the modes considered in the subordinate clause do not all allow the same possibilities of expressing of the relative time.

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