The purpose of this paper is to describe and provide an explanation for the unusual tense combination of the main clause predicate following tuwaci ‘looking’ converbial clause in Written Manchu.
In 〈Manwen Laotang 滿文老檔〉, which reflects early Written Manchu, past and non-past events are generally distinguished by the presence or absence of the suffix -HA. However, even when describing past events, examples in which the past tense marker -HA is not combined are frequently found in the main predicate that follows the tuwaci converbial clause. After investigating 〈Ilan gurun i bithe (三國志)〉, it was confirmed that the nonpast tense was generally used in the main clause predicate in the case where the subject of the tuwaci clause was the third person. This can be understood as a strategy in which the author intentionally uses the non-past tense to convey the situation vividly, as if taking the perspective of the third person character. On the other hand, examples in which -HA is combined with the main clause predicate also appears. In this case, if the subject of the tuwaci clause is the first person, it can be seen that it was used in the past tense, aligned to the general Written Manchu tense system. Contrarily, if the subject is the third person, we found a restriction that -HA combines only with telic verbs. This means that in this position, there is no distinction between the past and the non-past tense according to the presence or absence of -HA.