4B.6 *ptikhele* — the result, and the form for what you did not see
4B · Verbs in use — which form when · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar
Its main job is the one Chapter 4 gave it: a state now, arising from something earlier.
| Assyrian | English |
|---|---|
| kullokhun lipotun darsokhun? | have you all learnt your lesson? |
| shuddennet? | have you gone mad? |
| lela bshelta | it isn't cooked |
| lele telya | he isn't asleep |
| a dule lele mita | look, he isn't dead |
| ana iven khisha | I have travelled |
The part nobody tells you: it also marks hearsay
Assyrian has a quiet evidential system, and this is it. Khan calls it the indirective: the perfect can be used for a plain past event, and choosing it says "I did not witness this myself." It is what you use for a report, a rumour, or an inference.
Khan's own minimal pair makes it exact:
| Assyrian | English |
|---|---|
| khoru mtile kam khamsha dayke | his friend arrived five minutes ago (I saw it) |
| marele kat-khoru metyele kam khamsha dayke, akhchi ana len khezyu | he says his friend arrived five minutes ago, but I did not see him |
Same event, same time, different form — and the difference is only who saw it. In a story, a narrator will switch mid-sentence between the two as he moves from what a character did to what he can only be inferring:
| Assyrian | English |
|---|---|
| merre kat: khob ana tlili. tiyyele o-heyvan b-lele, khabusha khilule u-khishele | he said, "well, I went to sleep. That animal came at night, it ate the apple and went away" |
tlili "I went to sleep" — witnessed, plain past. tiyyele … khilule … khishele — the rest, which he slept through, in the perfect.
It is not compulsory: a speaker can use the plain past for reported events too. But once you know it is there, a great deal of Assyrian storytelling stops sounding like a tense mistake.
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