English Tenses With Different Terminological Conventions English Language Essay

There is a general consensus that clip is the cardinal construct that encapsulates tense. Harmonizing to Angela Downing & A ; Philip Locke ( 2002 ) , tense is the lingual look of clip dealingss when these are realised by verb signifiers. John Seely ( 2007 ) gives a somewhat broader definition and provinces that a tense is “ a signifier of the verb phrase which gives information about facet and clip ” . This definition brings the impression of facet to surface and suggests that facet is portion of the tense system. However, many argue that tense and facet should be considered apart. Harmonizing to James R ( 1994 ) tense is used when mentioning to ‘when ‘ something happened or was the instance. Aspect is used to mention to factors such as the ‘duration ‘ or ‘completeness ‘ of events and provinces personal businesss ( James R, 1994 ) . Huddleston suggests that the term facet is used to bespeak how the talker views the state of affairs described in the clause with regard non to its location in clip but to its temporal construction or belongingss. This suggests that clip is still the cardinal focal point in the aspectual system and, therefore, implies the possibility of meeting overlapping readings in specifying the tense system.

It is really of import to distinguish between the two constructs Perfective and Perfect. Perfective tense is more concerned with semantic realisation of the verb whereas perfect is seen as a grammatical class and one type of the past tense ( Huddleston & A ; Geoffrey, 2005 ) . Though the two footings are originally linked to the same construct of ‘completeness ‘ , it is best to see them independent of each other. The cardinal differentiation is that of past clip. The perfect is a affair of apportioning the whole state of affairs or portion of it in the past clip. The perfect tense is sing the state of affairs as a complete whole that does non needfully addresses the past clip. In He will read the book, for case, the book-reading state of affairs is perfective though the clip is in the hereafter. This differentiation can be of great significance in specifying and depicting the utilizations of the primary tenses: the present and the preterite, in both chief and low-level clauses.

We Will Write a Custom Essay Specifically
For You For Only $13.90/page!


order now

The present tense is fundamentally used to speak about state of affairss that include the present clip mentions. The simple nowadays is used for commentary and presentation, where the action or event is viewed as busying the present minute ( Howard Jackson, 1990 ) . The usage of the simple nowadays is described by Geoffrey as whether it is unrestrictive, instantaneous or accustomed ( Geoffrey n.leech, 1987 ) . The unrestrictive usage is so called because it places no restriction on the extension of the province into past and future clip. This includes speaking about facts and general truths, and this can be seen illustrations like, ‘Honesty is the best policy ‘ , ‘Hydrogen is the lightest component ‘ , and ‘He gets up early ‘ . Howard Jackson ( 1990 ) believes that this is the most extended usage of such mention and he refers to them as ‘timeless ‘ provinces, events or actions.

The instantaneous usage of the simple present contrasts with the unrestrictive usage in that it occurs with verbs showing ‘events ‘ , non ‘states ; . The state/event differentiation is semantically cardinal in contrasting between the map of the instantaneous and the unrestrictive utilizations. Harmonizing to Howard Jackson, a province is uniform and missing in defined bounds. An event, on the other manus, has a beginning and an terminal ( Howard, 1990 ) . Therefore the instantaneous usage is restricted to events instead than provinces. In athletics commentaries, for illustration, the observer says: Napier passes the ball to Attwater. In this instance the event likely does non take topographic point precisely at the blink of an eye when it is mentioned. The Habitual, or the iterative usage, combines the unrestrictive and instantaneous utilizations of the simple nowadays as it represents a series of single events which as a whole brand up a province stretching back into the past and frontward into the hereafter, as in the illustration, She walks to work.

More normally actions and events taking topographic point in present clip are expressed by the present imperfect, where the action or event is viewed as taking topographic point over a period of clip which includes the present minute, or being in advancement at the minute of speech production. As it takes merely few seconds to express a sentence, the usage of the present tense is of course restricted to the perfective reading of the clip mention. Imperfective reading is seen as a progressive facet of the present clip. The present progressive facet, in relation to the present tense, is by and large used when we talk about actions that are go oning at the minute of address. It can be used, besides, in depicting accustomed actions like: ‘You are imbibing excessively much ‘ ; in state of affairss when we want to underscore the present minute as in ‘I am working at the minute as a constabulary officer ‘ ; and in depicting tendencies or developments that include a progressive alteration as in ‘The small town is bettering ‘ ( Collins Cobuild, 1990 ) .

Beside the present clip, the usage present tense can be extended to the past clip mention and to future clip mention. In certain types of narrative, particularly in informal manner, the present tense is used alternatively of the preterite for past clip events, even in discourses that have begun in the preterite. The usage traditionally known by the term ‘historic nowadays ‘ is best evident in story-telling where the audience or the reader of the narrative tend to conceive of as if the events of the narrative are go oning at the present clip, for illustration: “ … at that minute comes a courier from the Head Office, stating me the foreman wants to see me in a haste… ” ( Geoffrey, 1987 ) .

Using the present tense to speak about the hereafter can be described through being either in a chief or a low-level clause. In chief clauses we use the present tense to mention to the hereafter merely on “ instances where it can be assumed that we have present cognition of a future event ” ( Huddleston, 2005:45 ) , as in: Exams start following hebdomad. The most common instances for such building involve two cardinal readings. One is when events are arranged or scheduled in progress as in the old illustration. The 2nd is evident when frequent or perennial events whose clip can be calculated scientifically, for illustration The Sun rises tomorrow at 5:50. In both instances the future clip is specified by an adjunct which is ‘next hebdomad ‘ in the first illustration and “ at 5:50 ” in the 2nd 1. On the other manus, the present tense with future clip mention is used in certain types of subsidiary clause stand foring certain grammatical maps. If we consider the undermentioned illustrations:

one Please convey the lavation in if it rains.

two I ‘ll give it to you before I leave.

three I hope you are experiencing better shortly.

In ( I ) the subsidiary clause is complement within a conditional adjunct, in ( two ) it is complement within a temporal adjunct and in ( three ) it is complement of the verb hope.

Preterit

The 2nd primary tense, the preterite, is chiefly used to turn up the state of affairs, or portion of it, in past clip. Unlike the present tense, the preterite does non use the perfective/imperfective readings. It perfectively denotes a individual act of action located as a whole in past clip ( Huddleston, 2005 ) . With the preterite, furthermore, the difference between ‘state ‘ and ‘event ‘ is less important than it is with the present tense. The past tense applies merely to completed events and “ there is nil in the past corresponding to an indefinitely extended present province ” ( Geoffrey, 1987:13 ) . There is, nevertheless, a differentiation to be drawn between the unitary yesteryear and the accustomed yesteryear. The unitary yesteryear describes an event in a individual point in the past as in He was born in 1985, whereas the accustomed yesteryear describes a perennial event in the past as in In those yearss I enjoyed a game of tennis.

Although doing a mention to past clip is the cardinal usage of the preterite, a preterite does non ever signal past clip ( Huddleston, 2005 ) . This is obvious when the preterite signifier is used in the subsidiary clauses. The semantic map of the preterite in the dependent clauses is ‘hypothetical ‘ . In a the complex building It would be better if I took them to school following hebdomad the preterite signifier took but the clip is future.

States, events and actions in the yesteryear which are viewed as holding no connexion with the present but are located at a definite point in past clip, are expressed by the simple past verb signifier. To state that a state of affairs is located at a point in yesteryear does non connote that it had no continuance, but that the period of clip is non under focal point. If it is under focal point, so the past imperfect is used ( Jackson, 1990 ) .

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *