Tense and aspect
Tense and aspect
How English grammar allows us to locate events in time (tense), in relation to the time of speaking or writing, and about grammatical signals regarding the sender’s notions of how an event is distributed in time (aspect);
Example (6.1), from an article 1 by Andrew O’Hagan, shows tense and aspect being used together to convey meaning.
(6.1) “When I told people I was spending time with farmers, they’d say: how can you stand it, they just complain all day and they’ve always got their hand out.”
Told is the past simple form of the verb tell. The first word in the two-part labels that I will use always represents tense, so told is a past tense form. The second component denotes aspect, and simple means that neither of the special aspectual meanings to be discussed later is involved. Other tenses and aspects are going to be introduced soon. The past simple indicates that he “told people …” before the time when he wrote the material quoted in (6.1).
Moving on in (6.1),was spending is in a form called past progressive. When tense is marked in a verb group, it goes on the first element in the sequence. The form was (in contrast to am) is what makes was spending past. Progressive aspect is marked by the combination of the auxiliary BE (be, am, is, are, was or were) in front of the verb and the suffix -ing on the verb.
The forms for the verb groups in the two clauses how can you stand it, they just complain all day are present simple. The time benchmark(s) against which events are located as past, present and future switch(es) now to the time(s) when the people said what they said about farmers. The verb group have … got, in they’ve always got their hand out, is in a form known as present perfect
6.1 Tense
The first element in the two-part labels indicates tense and the second indicates aspect.
Preliminaries
The forms that encode tense and aspect are the explicit markers listed below, or they are indicated by default through the unmarked forms of verbs (see, look, can, for instance). Auxiliary verbs: WILL, HAVE, BE irregular forms of verbs, for example saw, seen, thought, blew, blown, is, am, are, was, cut, would.
The following inflectional suffixes: past tense, usually written –ed . Present tense, when the subject is singular non-sender and non -addressee, usually written -s, for example goes, sees. Progressive -ing, for example am singing, was emergin. Past participle -(e)n or -ed, for example has seen, have helped
Aspect
Tense is about inflectional pointers to the position of events relative to the time of utterance. Tense is deictic; aspect is not deictic. Once you
have thought yourself into the present, past or future: aspect is about grammatical resources for encoding the time profiles of states and events within an interval of time.
Habituality and simple aspect
The adverb nowadays triggers habitual interpretations of present tense clauses, for instances:
a. She loves music nowadays. (state)
b. He drinks decaffeinated coffee nowadays. (activity)
c. Little Maurice brushes his teeth by himself nowadays (accomplishment)
d. The clown pops the balloon nowadays. (achievement)
Habitual interpretations are available even without nowadays. Past tense and future tense examples first; then a different generalisation that has to be made with regard to states; finally the interpretation of present tense examples without nowadays.
How English grammar allows us to locate events in time (tense), in relation to the time of speaking or writing, and about grammatical signals regarding the sender’s notions of how an event is distributed in time (aspect);
Example (6.1), from an article 1 by Andrew O’Hagan, shows tense and aspect being used together to convey meaning.
(6.1) “When I told people I was spending time with farmers, they’d say: how can you stand it, they just complain all day and they’ve always got their hand out.”
Told is the past simple form of the verb tell. The first word in the two-part labels that I will use always represents tense, so told is a past tense form. The second component denotes aspect, and simple means that neither of the special aspectual meanings to be discussed later is involved. Other tenses and aspects are going to be introduced soon. The past simple indicates that he “told people …” before the time when he wrote the material quoted in (6.1).
Moving on in (6.1),was spending is in a form called past progressive. When tense is marked in a verb group, it goes on the first element in the sequence. The form was (in contrast to am) is what makes was spending past. Progressive aspect is marked by the combination of the auxiliary BE (be, am, is, are, was or were) in front of the verb and the suffix -ing on the verb.
The forms for the verb groups in the two clauses how can you stand it, they just complain all day are present simple. The time benchmark(s) against which events are located as past, present and future switch(es) now to the time(s) when the people said what they said about farmers. The verb group have … got, in they’ve always got their hand out, is in a form known as present perfect
6.1 Tense
The first element in the two-part labels indicates tense and the second indicates aspect.
Preliminaries
The forms that encode tense and aspect are the explicit markers listed below, or they are indicated by default through the unmarked forms of verbs (see, look, can, for instance). Auxiliary verbs: WILL, HAVE, BE irregular forms of verbs, for example saw, seen, thought, blew, blown, is, am, are, was, cut, would.
The following inflectional suffixes: past tense, usually written –ed . Present tense, when the subject is singular non-sender and non -addressee, usually written -s, for example goes, sees. Progressive -ing, for example am singing, was emergin. Past participle -(e)n or -ed, for example has seen, have helped
Aspect
Tense is about inflectional pointers to the position of events relative to the time of utterance. Tense is deictic; aspect is not deictic. Once you
have thought yourself into the present, past or future: aspect is about grammatical resources for encoding the time profiles of states and events within an interval of time.
Habituality and simple aspect
The adverb nowadays triggers habitual interpretations of present tense clauses, for instances:
a. She loves music nowadays. (state)
b. He drinks decaffeinated coffee nowadays. (activity)
c. Little Maurice brushes his teeth by himself nowadays (accomplishment)
d. The clown pops the balloon nowadays. (achievement)
Habitual interpretations are available even without nowadays. Past tense and future tense examples first; then a different generalisation that has to be made with regard to states; finally the interpretation of present tense examples without nowadays.
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