The aorist and the perfect in Albanian*

The Albanian aorist may refer to a complete accomplishment of a process in the past but also to the accomplishment of a recent process (just like the perfect); it also expresses future reference, condition, and is the tense of maxims (gnomic aorist). Although the perfect has mainly the typical function of a resultative, it is to some extent compatible with definite markers of time. It also has a secondary metalinguistic function. The two tenses are in complementary distribution in narratives and discourse, and, rather than partially replacing the aorist, the perfect has its own development alongside the aorist which retains most of its original functions.