Tense and Aspect
Table of Contents
In English grammar, Tense is defined as, “Any of the forms of a verb which distinguish when an action or state of being occurs or exists”. Strictly speaking, English only has two tenses that are present tense and past tense. For example “I clean” is the present tense and “I cleaned” is the past tense. In this way, tense refers to the location of an event and time, relative to some other time usually the time of speaking. In other words, we use present and past tense to indicate when an event or situation happens. Tense is actually to show when and where situations happen. We generally find out the difference between present and past tense by morphological change, a change in how we form a word for example:
Speak(present tense), Spoke (past tense)
Flow(present tense), flew (past tense)
Arise(present tense), Arose (past tense)
In the English language, there is no future tense instead we use the modal auxiliaries will, shall the present tense and some other forms to express the future.
Difference between time and tense
Tense is the location of an event and time or when something happens. With the definition, we might think that they always use the present tense to talk about the present time and the past tense to talk about past time. Time and tense are not overlapping concepts. Though tense is related to time, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the two. Tense is a grammatical category: rather than with “reality”, it has to do with how events are placed, seen, and referred to along the past-present-future timeline. Thus, a present tense does not always refer to present time, nor a past tense to past time. Actually, the present and past tenses can refer to all three segments of the timeline (past, present, and future). For example, the present tense may be used to speak about a future event.
For Example
The World Cup starts next week.
Sometimes past tense can refer to the present time.
For Example
Did you tell him you are busy?
Some sentences are stated in the present tense but talk about past events.
For Example
It’s time you changed your car.
Some sentences are stated in past tense but talk about future events.
For Example
If I had more money, I would buy a new car.
Aspect
Aspect is a grammatical category that reflects the perspective from which an action/situation is seen: as complete, in progress, having duration, beginning, ending, or being repeated. English has two aspects, progressive (also called continuous) and perfect (ive). Verbs that are not marked for aspect (the majority of them are not) are said to have simple aspects.
Simple aspect
With the simple aspect, there is no indication of how the event occurs or how it is viewed by the speaker that is why some people say that there is in fact no aspect of tense.
Progressive Aspect
It is used by the speaker to indicate that a situation is in progress. The present progressive is formed by the present tense of the verb be + the -ing form of the lexical verb, and the past progressive by was/were + the -ing form of the lexical verb.
For Example
I am speaking.
I’m going to bed very late these days.
We are studying German this year.
Past progressive examples:
I was speaking.
I was sleeping when I hear a strange noise.
Perfect Aspect
The perfective aspect is used to refer to a state or action which has taken place before the time of speaking, as well as to a state or action (or series of actions) occurring in a period of time we imagine as continuing until the present or until a certain moment in the past (until now or until then), or that has just ended. Remember: the events and situations referred to by the perfective aspect have some relevance to the time of speaking (the present in the case of the present perfective, the past in the case of the past perfective, the future in the case of the future perfective). The perfective aspect is also used to indicate the completeness of action, to see events as a whole
For Example
I have often spent my holidays in South America. (present perfect aspect)
She had just found a solution to the problem. (past perfect aspect)
1. Present time schedule for future
The sun rises at 7.00 am.
We have scheduled it that at 7am the sun rises.
If we say that If we say “John has dehydration tomorrow” we can not schedule time for it here.
2. Futurity and subordinate futurity
I want to reach home before Oliver gets up.
It shows futurity and we call it futurity or subordinate clause.
3. Past tense situation
John ate ice cream at Macdonald's.
This sentence means John is not eating now and it is a past-tense situation.
4. Past time schedule for future
The laptop was going to be held on Friday.
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