The expression of ‘already’ in Sàꞌán Sàvǐ ñà ñuù Xnúvíkó

Abstract This paper describes the uses of the adverbial particle tsàà , often translated as ‘already’, in Sàꞌán Sàvǐ ñà ñuù Xnúvíkó (Mixtepec Mixtec). The semantics of this expression overlap with those in previous descriptions of ‘already’ expressions and pattern similarly to so-called iamitives. Uses include marking change of state or that a state still holds in stative predicates, telic readings with dynamic predicates in their perfective forms, atelic readings with other aspects, and focus-marking-like uses in discourse. In addition, the paper introduces the negative form ntsǎîn ‘not yet’ and the syntactic structure neg + V = kà ‘not anymore, no longer’; as well as two very common constructions: (tá/tiémpù) tsàà na’á ‘before, long ago’ and tsàà yachi ‘almost’.