Understanding Categories of Tense and Aspect in Grammar

Categories of Tense and Aspect

The Grammatical Category of Tense Tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, that indicates when the situation takes place. In languages which have tense, it is usually indicated by a verb or modal verb. Since not all natural languages have tense, it is important to emphasize that a language does not have tense does not mean that the speakers of that language cannot distinguish between past and present events. What it means is that such distinctions are lexicalized, grammaticalized. rather than

It is as if in English there were a grammatically correct tenseless sentence such as: It be raining (now/yesterday/tomorrow) which could be used in place of: It is raining (now) It was raining [yesterday) It will be raining (tomorrow)

Tense involves, not just temporal reference, but deictic temporal reference: i.e., that it involves reference to a point or interval of time which is determined in relation to the moment of utterance. Standard dictionary definitions are misleading or defective in that they do not make explicit the essentially deictic character of tense.

Dictionary definitions of tense are usually defective in other respects also: First of all, they tend to be typologically restricted in that they make tense a morphological or more especially, an inflectional category of the verb. Secondly, the defect of most standard dictionary definitions derives from the assumption that all tense- systems in natural languages are three-term systems based on the grammaticalization of past, present and future. There are in principle many different ways in which distinctions of deictic temporal reference might be grammaticalized. Most natural-language tense-systems are, in fact, basically dichotomous, rather than trichotomous.

Absolute and Relative Tense John? uncle died (last week) John? uncle had died (the previous week) The form diedrefers absolutely (in this sense of 'absolutely ) to past time: i.e., to a point (or interval) of time that precedes the moment of utterance. The pluperfect (or past-perfect) form had died refers to a point or period of time that is past in relation to a contextually given time which, in this instance, is itself past in relation to the moment of utterance: in other words, the pluperfect (in certain of its uses) refers to a past-in-the-past.

Tense and Modal In English, and more strikingly in many other languages, there are uses of the past tense and of the future tense that are modal, rather than temporal. As far as what is traditionally classified as the future tense in English is concerned, grammarians are nowadays divided on the issue whether it is basically a tense.

The so called future tense is formed periphrastically with will and 'shall'. Morphologically and syntactically 'will' and shall are comparable with the modal auxiliaries. It is probably fair to say that contemporary linguistically sophisticated and authoritative accounts of the tense- system of modern English are evenly divided on the question whether the so called future tense (with 'will' and 'shall') is basically temporal or modal. But whatever view individual linguists take on this issue, they will all agree that there are many uses of the so called future, in English and many other languages, that are clearly modal rather than temporal.

THE GRAMMATICA L CATEGORY OF ASPECT Traditionally, what is identified as aspect (in a wide variety of languages throughout the world) was subsumed under the term tense. For example, the Latin, French or English forms cantabat, chantait, was singing were classified as forms of the imperfect; and the imperfect was described as one of a set of tenses which differed from language to language, but included such other so called tenses as the simple past, the perfect, the present, the future and the future perfect.

Tense and Aspect The definition of aspect is, if anything, even more controversial than is that of tense. But some parts of the difference between tense and aspect are clear enough and nowadays undisputed.

whereas tense is a deictic category, aspect is not

was singing differs from is singing (deictically) in tense, but not in aspect; conversely, was singing differs from sang in aspect, but not in tense.

Aspect: Controversial The definition of aspect in general linguistic theory is controversial. One point of controversy is whether it is basically a temporal category or not. Aspect is the category which results from the grammaticalization of the internal temporal constituency for contour of situations (actions, events, states)

Aspect, then, is a grammatical category. Unlike tense, however, it is intrinsically connected with the verb or, more generally, with the predicate. 'He is singing 'He was singing The two clauses have the same propositional content.

Tense and Aspect The notions that are most commonly invoked in discussions of aspect are: duration, punctuality, completion, frequency and inception. Tense places temporal references along a conceptual timeline. This differs from aspect, which encodes how a situation or action occurs in time rather than when. Typical tenses are present, past, and future. Some languages only have grammatical expression of time through aspect; others have neither tense nor aspect.

Tense and Aspect In many languages grammatical forms conflate tense and aspect, and in many traditional approaches to grammar both are labeled "tense". In general linguistic approaches, however, aspect and tense are treated as complementary ways of encoding time; they, along with mood, are simply called "tense- aspect-mood"