Chapter 112The 'Appearance' Continuative: siran, siri…, and kane an

112.1 The continuative field in overview

Four constructions complement the progressive kor an and the resultative wa an described in Chapter 110 (The Existential-Aspect System: kor an Progressive and wa an Resultative-Perfect): the appearance-based continuative built on siran (sir-an, 'appearance-exist'); the merged durative kane an; the resultative variant hine an; and the Tokachi–Ishikari pair kan an / tek an. Each recruits the existential verb an ‘exist (singular)’ as its second predicate. Yoshikawa groups all of them with kor an and wa an under the cover term 「存在型アスペクト」, existential aspectual forms — constructions that may express aspectual meanings without constituting a grammatical aspect category in the strict sense Yoshikawa (2022); Nakagawa (2024: 446–449). None of them is distributed uniformly across dialects, and the forms centred on the sensory noun sir ‘appearance, visible state, land’ straddle the boundary between the aspect system and the nominalization-plus-copula evidential paradigm treated in Chapter 120 (The Nominalization-plus-Copula Evidential Schema).

112.2 siran — the appearance-based continuative

The noun sir ‘appearance, visible state, land’ is the source both of the evidential formal noun sir-i and of the existential-aspectual predicate sir-an 'appearance-exist'. As the second predicate in a pair-verb chain, sir-an replaces the plain existential an and adds a perceptual dimension: the state or action named by the first verb is not merely ongoing but visibly so, its appearance persisting for the observer Nakagawa (2024: 434–435); Dal Corso (2018: 304, 326–327).

Nakagawa frames this function as the third of four temporal-reference strategies available in the tenseless system. Where a time adverb places an event on the timeline and a prospective form such as kusu ne points to the future, clause-final siri anchors an action unfolding visibly in front of the speaker — 「現在まさに目の前で行われている行為」 Nakagawa (2024: 434–435). The form is not a tense marker; the present-ongoing temporal reading follows from the evidential value, because if the speaker is currently perceiving the event, the event is current.

Structurally, sir-an occupies the position of the existential in the pair-verb frame: a lexical verb is linked to it by a simultaneous conjunction, most commonly kor, the same conjunction that builds kor an. The resulting contrast is between V kor an (action in progress) and V kor sir-an (action in progress, visibly apparent). Person agreement follows the pair-verb pattern: both the lexical verb and the existential component of sir-an carry the subject index Nakagawa (2024: 442).

In attested usage, sir-an frequently appears embedded before the inferential evidential ruwe ne, forming a double-evidential stack: the visual state is packaged as an ongoing scene and then reframed as an established fact. Dal Corso reads sir-an in this position as the indirect visual evidential in his eight-form system, the form that applies when the scene is accessible but the speaker treats the evidence as somewhat less immediately processed than under the direct-perception siri ne Dal Corso (2018: 304, 326–327).

112.3 The aspect–evidential boundary

The overlap between the continuative reading of siran and the evidential functions of siri ne and siri an is a recognized analytical difficulty. Nakagawa treats the present-ongoing reading under temporal-reference strategy 3 without assigning it to the aspect system proper Nakagawa (2024: 434–435). Yoshikawa, whose existential aspectual forms group includes kor an, wa an, kane an, and hine an, does not list siran among them; the progressive reading is a pragmatic inference from the evidential value rather than an independent category Yoshikawa (2022). Dal Corso reads siri an as one of eight evidential forms — the indirect visual counterpart to the direct-perception siri ne — organized by the parameters of source reliability and event accessibility Dal Corso (2018: 304, 313–315).

These framings are not contradictory; they describe the same construction from different angles. The present chapter treats siran / siri ne as a form that licenses a continuative reading through its evidential value, while locating it primarily in the evidential paradigm. The direct-perception evidential siri ne and the indirect visual siri an receive their full treatment in Chapter 122 (siri ne — the Direct-Perception / Situational Evidential). The stacking pattern kor an siri ne — attested in Nakagawa's corpus of Saru Ainu — supplies the most transparent diagnostics: the progressive marks the action as in progress, the situational evidential marks the speaker as currently witnessing it, and the scope order (aspect inside, evidential outside) is fixed Nakagawa (2024: 393). When sir-an fills the existential slot itself, the visual dimension is encoded in the existential predicate rather than in a separate closing evidential, and the form sits at the intersection of the two systems ‹contested›.

112.4 kane an — the merged durative

kane an is a pair verb of the same structural type as kor an and wa an: a lexical verb is linked to the existential an by the simultaneous conjunction kane. Its aspectual behaviour differs in that it is unconstrained by verb class: it accepts action verbs (progressive reading) and change-of-state verbs (resultative reading) equally, merging the two values into a single durative continuative Nakagawa (2024: 446–447); Yoshikawa (2022); Satō (2006: 84–85). Chiri's classic label for it is 持続態 durative, set against 進行態 progressive (kor an) and 完了態 perfective (wa isam / wa okere) in his three-way aspect classification Chiri (1942: 503–504); Takahashi (2022).

The dialectal picture divides into two patterns. In Saru and Chitose, kane an is marked: alongside its durative value it carries a nuance of remarkable or unexpected situation. This nuance connects it to the standalone auxiliary kane (Nakagawa 2024: 309–310 table 74), which Tamura characterizes as marking an unanticipated action or state and Satō as encoding degree — a semantic base that grammaticalizes toward simultaneity in some contexts Nakagawa (2024: 309–310, 446–447); Takahashi (2022). In Shizunai and Samani, kane an carries no such nuance and functions as the plain imperfective, replacing both kor an and wa an without selectional constraint on verb class Nakagawa (2024: 447); Satō (2006: 84–85) ‹contested›.

The aspect-neutral character of kane an in Saru is visible within a single clause chain: the form can take a resultative reading on one conjunct and a progressive reading on the next.

Person agreement follows the pair-verb pattern: both the lexical verb and an carry the subject index, and the plural existential oka replaces an with a plural subject (kane oka), parallel to kor oka and wa oka Nakagawa (2024: 441, 446).

112.5 hine an, kan an, and tek an — further dialect variants

hine an uses the sequential-temporal conjunction hine in the existential-aspectual construction and functions as a resultative like wa an: the conjunction encodes that the situation has come to obtain as a result of the lexical verb's action. Yoshikawa lists it among the Saru–Chitose existential aspectual forms; Chiri's gloss '…hine an = be …-ing' applies the durative label to it Yoshikawa (2022); Chiri (1942: 503–504).

kan an is the Tokachi and Ishikari counterpart of Saru–Chitose kane an: it merges progressive and resultative values into a single durative continuative. The form's aspectual centre of gravity differs between the two dialects: Tokachi usage leans progressive, Ishikari usage leans resultative Nakagawa (2024: 448); Takahashi (2022).

tek an (Tokachi) covers the resultative of change verbs, corresponding to Saru wa an in selectional behaviour. Nakagawa traces a connection to the Saru auxiliary tek 'do briefly / suddenly', which shows how the same root grammaticalizes along different paths in different dialect communities — as a momentary-action auxiliary in Saru, as a resultative pair-verb connector in Tokachi Nakagawa (2024: 448–449) ‹speculative›.

112.6 The Tokachi first-person restriction on kor an

Tokachi presents a distributional constraint on kor an that elevates kan an into a distinct functional role. In Tokachi, kor an cannot take a first-person subject: where another dialect would say ku=nukar kor ku=an 'I am watching', Tokachi requires ku=nukar kan ku=an with kan an. Takahashi's hypothesis is that kor an encodes the speaker's observation of an event, a meaning that clashes with a first-person subject who is themselves the agent; the construction is therefore confined to second- and third-person subjects in this dialect. No equivalent restriction has been documented for Saru, Chitose, or any other Hokkaido variety Takahashi (2022) ‹contested›.

Takahashi invokes a cross-linguistic parallel with Shuri Ryūkyūan, where the progressive equivalent likewise bars first-person agents; the Tokachi restriction is thus positioned as an instance of a typologically attested pattern rather than an isolated anomaly Takahashi (2022). The further question — whether the restriction reflects a residual connection between kor an and the visual-evidential domain, such that first-person use is blocked because first persons cannot be their own external observers — remains open in the sources ‹speculative›.

112.7 Grammaticalization and the degree of aspect

All the forms in this chapter share a grammaticalization path: a conjunction (kane, hine, kan, tek) or a sensory noun (sir) links a lexical verb to the existential an, and the compound develops an ongoing-state reading from the literal meaning 'the state of V-ing exists' (Bybee et al. 1994). This is the same path as kor an and wa an in Chapter 110 (The Existential-Aspect System: kor an Progressive and wa an Resultative-Perfect); the cross-dialect variation concerns which conjunction is recruited and whether the result merges or maintains the progressive / resultative distinction.

Yoshikawa's assessment is that none of these forms has reached obligatory grammatical aspect: the existential an retains semantic content, person marking is overt on both predicates, and the construction is optional. They are 'forms that may express aspectual meanings but are not grammatical aspectual forms' Yoshikawa (2022). The cross-dialectal evidence supports this. The Shizunai–Samani kane an, which has lost the remarkable-situation nuance retained in Saru and Chitose, appears to be at a more advanced stage: the form is more bleached, its selectional freedom more complete. Different dialect communities have therefore travelled different distances along a single grammaticalization trajectory ‹corpus-suggested›. The phasal, iterative, and habitual extensions of the aspect system are treated in Chapter 113 (Phasal, Iterative, and Habitual Aspect).