Yimas language

Sepik language spoken in Papua New Guinea

The Yimas language is spoken by the Yimas people, who populate the Sepik River Basin region of Papua New Guinea. It is a member of the Lower Sepik language family. All 250 300 speakers of Yimas live in two villages along the lower reaches of the Arafundi River, which stems from a tributary of the Sepik River known as the Karawari River. {| class="wikitable"
| wa ntut || go || ‘went more than a few days ago’
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| wa kiantut || go || ‘went a few days ago’
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| wa nan || go || ‘went yesterday’
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| wa t || go || ‘went today’
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| wa n || go || ‘going now’
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| wa wat || go || ‘usually go’
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| wa kiak || go || ‘will go tomorrow’
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| wa kt || go || ‘will go after tomorrow’
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The tense suffix follows the verb root and precedes the dative suffix (if the dative suffix is applied to the verb). In the following example, the suffix / ntuk/ indicates that the action takes place in the remote past, and is followed by the dative suffix / mpun/:

There is a significant distinction between realis and irrealis events in Yimas, which accounts for the main variation in tense suffixes. In particular, the irrealis suffix / k/ indicates "events which are located outside of the continuum of real time: they must be completely timeless, in the legendary past or in the indefinite future." The irrealis suffix is especially common in Yimas legends. Consider the sentence taken from a Yimas text:

Yimas has eight tenses for real events, which are distinguished by affixes. There are three past tenses: the near past, which is used to describe events that occurred approximately the day before; the remote past, which extends from the legendary past up to three or four days ago; and the far past, which describes events somewhere between the near and the remote past. The near past suffix is / nan/ in its most basic form. The basic remote past suffixes are / ntuk/ and / ntut/. The far past uses the remote past suffix compounded with an additional suffix / kia/ (so its suffix is / kiantuk/ or / kiantut/). The three present tenses are distinguished by aspectual differences, i. e., the level of completion of an action: the present perfective describes completed events; the present imperfective describes ongoing events; and the present habitual describes events that occur regularly, as a scheduled part of people's day. The most basic form of the present perfective suffix is / r/, although there exists much allomorphic variation. The present imperfective is indicated by the definitive prefix /na / and the suffix / nt/ in its most basic form. The basic form of the present habitual is created using the suffix / war/. The two future tenses, the near future and the remote future, distinguish between events that occur tomorrow from events that occur farther in the future. The near future suffix is / kia/, and is either accompanied by the irrealis suffix / k/ in word final position, or the present suffix / nt/ if other suffixes follow it. These suffixes must also appear in combination with the definitive prefix /na / or the modal prefix /ka /. The basic suffix for the remote future is / kr/.