Tense, aspect and modality

Abstract

This chapter will be primarily concerned with the semantics of the tense inflections and of certain aspectual and modal catenatives; in addition we will consider, in the light of this semantic discussion and of what has already been said about the grammar, the nature of tense, aspect and mood/modality as general linguistic categories. Tense We begin with the inflectional category of tense, examining in turn the various uses of the present and past tenses in English. 1.1 Present tense The following uses of the present tense may be distinguished: (a) Present time situations i Kim lives in Berlin ii Kim plays defensively forward iii Kim washes her hair with Zoom shampoo The primary use of the present tense is to locate the situation in present time – where ‘situation’ is to be understood as a general term covering states, actions, processes or whatever is described in the clause, and present time is the time of the utterance. Situations can be classified as either static (states of affairs, relations, etc.) or dynamic (actions, processes, events, etc.). Static situations will be understood to extend beyond the moment of utterance: Kim's living in Berlin, for example, has much greater duration than an utterance of (li). Dynamic situations are by contrast understood to be effectively simultaneous with the utterance: (ii), for example, might be used in a running commentary on a cricket match.