The category of tense

2.5 The category of tense

Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. In English, this is a property of a verb form, and expresses only time-related information.

Tense, along with mood, voice and person, are four ways in which verb forms are frequently characterized, in languages where those categories apply. There are languages (mostly isolating languages, like Chinese) where tense is not expressed anywhere in the verb or any auxiliaries, but only as adverbs of time, when needed for comprehension; in the same condition, grammatical tense in certain languages can be expressed optionally (such as Vietnamese), for example, «sinh» meaning «birth» and «sanh» meaning «birthed»; and there are also languages (such as Russian) where verbs indicate aspect in addition to or instead of tense.

The exact number of tenses in a language is often a matter of some debate, since many languages include the state of certainty of the information, the frequency of the event, whether it is ongoing or finished, and even whether the information was directly experienced or gleaned from hearsay, as moods or tenses of a verb. Some grammarians consider these to be separate tenses, and some do not.

Tenses cannot be easily mapped from one language into another. While all languages have a «default» tense with a name usually translated as «present tense» (or «simple present»), the actual meaning of this tense may vary considerably.

English tenses

Viewed in the strictest linguistic sense, English has only two tenses: nonpast tense and past tense, which are shown with the verb endings – Ø and – ed.

The following chart shows how T/M/A (tense/modal/aspect) is expressed in English:

Tense Modal Aspect Verb

Perfect Progressive

– Ø (nonpast)

– ed (past) Ø (none)

will (future) Ø (none)

have – en (perfect) Ø (none)

be – ing (progressive) do

Since will is a modal auxiliary, it cannot co-occur with other modals like can, may, and must. Only aspects can be used in infinitives. Some linguists consider will a future marker and give English two more tenses, future tense and future-in-past tense, which are shown by will and would respectively. Also, in nonlinguistic language study, aspects and mode are viewed as tenses.

Tense, aspect, and mood

The distinction between grammatical tense, aspect, and mood is fuzzy and at times controversial. The English continuous temporal constructions express an aspect as well as a tense, and some therefore consider that aspect to be separate from tense in English. In Spanish the traditional verb tenses are also combinations of aspectual and temporal information.

Going even further, there's an ongoing dispute among modern English grammarians (see English grammar) regarding whether tense can only refer to inflected forms. In Germanic languages there are very few tenses (often only two) formed strictly by inflection, and one school contends that all complex or periphrastic time-formations are aspects rather than tenses.

The abbreviation TAM, T/A/M or TMA is sometimes found when dealing with verbal morphemes that combine tense, aspect and mood information.

In some languages, tense and other TAM information may be marked on a noun, rather than a verb. This is called nominal TAM.

Classification of tenses

Tenses can be broadly classified as:

Absolute: indicates time in relationship to the time of the utterance (i.e. «now»). For example, «I am sitting down», the tense is indicated in relation to the present moment.

Relative: in relationship to some other time, other than the time of utterance, e.g. «While strolling through the shops, she saw a nice dress in the window». Here, the «saw» is relative to the time of the «strolling». The relationship between the time of «strolling» and the time of utterance is not clearly specified.

Absolute-relative: indicates time in relationship to some other event, whose time in turn is relative to the time of utterance. (Thus, in absolute-relative tense, the time of the verb is indirectly related to the time of the utterance; in absolute tense, it is directly related; in relative tense, its relationship to the time of utterance is left unspecified.) For example, «When I walked through the park, I saw a bird.» Here, «saw» is present relative to the «walked», and «walked» is past relative to the time of the utterance, thus «saw» is in absolute-relative tense.

Moving on from this, tenses can be quite finely distinguished from one another, although no language will express simply all of these distinctions. As we will see, some of these tenses in fact involve elements of modality (e.g. predictive and not-yet tenses), but they are difficult to classify clearly as either tenses or moods.

Many languages define tense not just in terms of past/future/present, but also in terms of how far into the past or future they are. Thus they introduce concepts of closeness or remoteness, or tenses that are relevant to the measurement of time into days (hodiernal or hesternal tenses).

Some languages also distinguish not just between past, present, and future, but also nonpast, nonpresent, nonfuture. Each of these latter tenses incorporates two of the former, without specifying which.

Some tenses:

Absolute tenses

Future tenses. Some languages have different future tenses to indicate how far into the future we are talking about. Some of these include:

Close future tense: in the near future, soon

Hodiernal future tense: sometime today

Post-hodiernal future tense: sometime after today

Remote future tense: in the more distant future

Predictive future tense: a future tense which expresses a prediction rather than an intention, i.e. «I predict he will lose the election, although I want him to win». As such, it is really more of a mood than a tense. (Its tenseness rather than modality lies in the fact that you can predict the future, but not the past.)

Nonfuture tense: refers to either the present or the past, but does not clearly specify which. Contrasts with future.

Nonpast tense: refers to either the present or the future, but does not clearly specify which. Contrasts with past.

Not-yet tense: has not happened in present or past (nonfuture), but often with the implication that it is expected to happen in the future. (As such, is both a tense and a modality). In English, it is expressed with «not yet», hence its name.

Past tenses. Some languages have different past tenses to indicate how far into the past we are talking about.

Hesternal past tense: yesterday or early, but not remote

Hodiernal past tense: sometime earlier today

Immediate past tense: very recent past tense, e.g. in the last minute or two

Recent past tense: in the last few days/weeks/months (exact definition varies)

Remote past tense: more than a few days/weeks/months ago (exact definition varies)

Nonrecent past tense: not recent past tense, contrasting with recent past tense

Nonremote past tense: not remote past tense, contrasting with remote past tense

Prehesternal past tense: before hesternal past tense

Prehodiernal past tense: before hodiernal past tense

Preterit: past tense not marked for aspect or modality

Present tense

Still tense: indicates a situation held to be the case, at or immediately before the utterance

Absolute-relative tenses

future perfect tense: will have completed by some time in the future, will occur before some time in the future

Future-in-future tense: at some time in the future, will still be in the future

Future-in-past tense: at some time in the future, will be in the past

Future-perfect-in-past tense: will be completed by some time which is in the future of some time in the past, eg., Sally went to work; by the time she should be home, the burglary would have been completed.

Past perfect tense: at some time in the past, was already in the past

Relative tenses

Relative future tense: is in the future of some unspecified time

Relative nonfuture tense: is in the past or present of some unspecified time

Relative nonpast tense: is in the present or future of some unspecified time

Relative past tense: is in the past of some unspecified time

Relative present tense: is in the present of some unspecified time