Pragmatics of TAM: Its Descriptive and Observational Adequacy

Abstract

The Tense-Aspect-Modality (TAM) system of English illustrates a subsystem of grammar that situates events, states, or actions in time. However, such generic conceptual framing requires a more complex description of not only the structural forms of TAM itself, but more importantly, adequate observations of pragmatic contexts in which these forms manifest themselves in social interactions. Hence, there are two issues to address: 1) the inadequate description of the TAM system in many grammar books and 2) the inadequate observation of how the system is used in real-life communicative scenarios. The former is about describing the structural properties such as the difference between the “simple past” and “present perfect”, which is not always straightforward in situating an action in time; the latter presents semantic complexities as every TAM structure must be anchored in how interlocutors interpret it in conversations, such as the meaning of “I’m reading the book” as an ongoing act or as an expression of state. This paper addresses these two ends of the grammatical spectrum and advocates for a more nuanced understanding of the form and function of TAM in English that can benefit grammarians and teachers of English (especially those who teach English as a second language). Keywords: tense-aspect-modality system, descriptive adequacy and observational adequacy, pragmatics, form and function