Low-certainty modals not future tenses cause increased psychological discounting in English relative to Dutch.

This study investigates the kinds and functions of tenses used in the English for Nusantara textbook for Grade VII Junior High School (SMP/MTs). The research aims to identify which tenses appear in the textbook and to analyze how their functions are presented in relation to students’ learning needs under the Kurikulum Merdeka. This study employs a descriptive qualitative method with content analysis techniques. The data consist of sentences containing verb tenses collected from all chapters of the textbook. The analysis is based on grammatical theories proposed by Swan and supported by Hermann Ebbinghaus’s theories of the Forgetting Curve and Spacing Effect. The findings reveal that five types of tenses are used in the textbook: Simple Present Tense, Present Continuous Tense, Present Perfect Tense, Simple Past Tense, and Simple Future Tense. Among these, the Simple Present Tense is the most dominant and is presented with relatively complete functions, while other tenses appear with limited frequency and incomplete functional coverage. This uneven distribution indicates that the textbook does not yet provide sufficient and balanced exposure to all tense forms, which may affect students’ long-term retention and mastery of English grammar. Therefore, it is recommended that future textbook development distribute tense usage more evenly to support effective grammatical learning.

This paper investigates future forms in Jordanian Arabic (JA), particularly the temporal particles raħ and ra:yiħ as well as participle agentive NPs that appear to reveal universal characteristics in hinting at futurity while occurring in distinct syntactic and pragmatic contexts. The data consists of examples containing various future forms in JA given by the researchers and judged for their grammaticality by five faculty members. These examples were analyzed qualitatively relying on Chomsky’s Minimalist Program and Government theory. Similarities and differences between JA and its Arabic H variety, Standard Arabic (SA), are exemplified as well as those found compared to English. The findings show that there are some similarities and differences between futurity in JA and English in terms of raising and modality. raħ and ra:yiħ represent the similar English case; gonna and going expressing futurity. These Arabic and English items (raħ ‘gonna’, ra:yiħ ‘going’) are lexically derived from the verb “go”. They carry future tense, behave as a raising verb and c-select an infinitival clause. This paper shows that the particle raħ acts as a raising verb. It shows evidence that this particle underwent a grammaticalization process out of the participle NP ra:yiħ which shows identity in deep structure and similarity in its phonetic form. The study contributes to understanding the syntax of future in Arabic vernacular.

The aim of this paper is to present a critical reflection on some of the proposals found in the literature regarding modal uses of the future tense in Spanish, specifically to account for the non-prospective semantics of conjectural, concessive, and mirative future interpretations, in light of data from European Spanish. We aim to argue in favor of a specific theoretical position, which holds that the study of this phenomenon should begin with the formal consideration of epistemic future as an operator. Its temporal meaning is to be explained based on the temporal semantics characteristic of modal auxiliaries with epistemic interpretation. This approach is further supported by the atemporal nature of other inferential auxiliaries and particles in various languages. Additionally, we present data related to both lexical and grammatical aspect, which support our hypothesis and facilitate the study of epistemic futures in relation to other phenomena that are not strictly temporal.

The Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) suggests that action sentences comprehension is based on embodied mental simulation. In studies of English, aspect markers and tense has been shown to influence ACE; however, their effects remain unclear in Mandarin. This study utilized Mandarin action sentences with single objects and employed the classic sentence sensibility judgment paradigm to investigate the ACE for concrete and abstract action sentences under different aspect marker (Experiment 1 and 2) or future tense (Experiment 3) conditions across three experiments. The results showed that ACE occurred for both concrete and abstract action sentences in the progressive aspect, perfective aspect, and future tense. Action simulation during sentence comprehension was unaffected by the type of aspect markers and future tense or the concreteness/abstractness of the sentences. These findings suggest that the comprehension of Mandarin action sentences relies on the mental simulation of verbs. Moreover, aspect markers and future tense in Mandarin do not influence the mental simulation process, and Mandarin action sentences comprehension may be centered around the mental simulation of the verb.

The subject of the study is the functioning of tense-aspect forms of the verb in E. G. Vodolazkin's novel "Chagin" in the context of their stylistic and narrative significance. The analysis covers the distribution of tense and aspect forms in the author's narrative and in the speech of characters, as well as their participation in structuring the chronotope, expressing modality, and subjective perspective. It examines the features of verbal strategies that reflect the cognitive organization of images: reflexivity, volitional orientation, directive, and mediative. Attention is given to the connection between grammatical category and narrative function, as well as the role of the tense-aspect system in shaping the writer's idiolect. The object of analysis is the novel as a linguistic and narrative whole in which the aspects and tenses of the verb serve not only a structural function but also a poetic-semantic one. The research is based on corpus methods (automatic morphological tagging, frequency and contextual analysis) and relies on the principles of systemic-functional linguistics and aspectology. The material consists of the complete text of the novel, processed using the pymorphy2 library. The novelty of the study lies in the description of the systemic relationship between the tense-aspect characteristics of verbs and types of narrative subjectivity in the material of a literary text viewed as a cohesive linguistic structure. Stable differences have been established in the tense-aspect strategies of characters that reflect their cognitive attitudes, speech behavior features, and modal functions within the narrative system. It is shown that the imperfective aspect in the past tense correlates with retrospective chronotopics, modeling a lasting background of memory and internal experience, while the perfective aspect performs the function of event marking, fixing the completeness of action and structural nodes of the narrative. The present tense is interpreted as a means of actualizing memory, creating the effect of "experienced" past and reducing the distance between the event and its subjective perception. The future tense is regarded as a grammatical indicator of intentionality, volitional orientation, and prospective vision of character speech. The method applied combines quantitative procedures with functional-contextual analysis, allowing for the tracing of the interaction between grammatical form, stylistic organization, and the poetics of the narrative in their interrelation.

The aim of the study is to develop a set of exercises aimed at forming the skills for using aspectual forms of the Russian verb among Francophone students taking into account typical interference errors. The article examines the functional features of the category of aspect in the Russian verb in comparison with aspectual means of the French language. The work analyzes the distribution of functions of the Imperfective Aspect (IA) and the Perfective Aspect (PA) in expressing duration, result, and background action, as well as their interrelation with the French verb tenses imparfait, passé composé, futur simple, and futur composé. A separate area of aspectual difficulty is described, related to the neutral past meaning of IA verbs without explicit reference to the result, which lacks a direct functional equivalent in the French verb system. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the systematization of interference errors made by Francophones and the construction of a set of exercises structured according to the identified areas of aspectual risk. The analysis revealed the main mechanisms of interference: the transfer of temporal correlations of the French verb to aspectual oppositions of the Russian verb, the confusion of future tense forms, and the misunderstanding of the semantics of the past IA. A set of exercises is proposed, including: an orientation and preparatory stage with contrastive tasks for distinguishing process, result, and background action; an imitation and training stage with exercises for practicing prefixed PA verbs in the past and future tenses; and an automatization and productive stage with communicative exercises aimed at selecting the correct aspectual form in coherent speech. The proposed set of exercises is considered a means of reducing the frequency of interference errors and transitioning from the formal distinction of aspectual forms to their meaningful and partially automated use in communicative situations.

The aim of the article was to analyse Slovene translation equivalents of the Italian imminential periphrasis stare per + infinitive in the Italian Slovenian parallel corpus ISPAC. From a structural point of view, personal verb forms prevail among the Slovene translation equivalents of the Italian periphrasis, followed by constructions with auxiliary verbs accompanied by the infinitive (or supine), constructions with a dependent clause or constructions with a prepositional or noun phrase; some translation equivalents also include other lexical elements that contribute additional actional and temporal nuance. The majority of Slovene translation equivalents can be considered quasi-imminential – they include verbal forms (past or present imperfectives) or verbs (e.g., pripravljati se ‘to prepare’) indicating the preparatory phase of an action, constructions with intentional verbs (e.g., hoteti ‘to want’ or nameravati ‘to have intention’), verbal forms with prospective semantics (the future tense) and, more rarely, constructions with the incoative verb začeti ‘to begin’. More rarely, one can speak of imminentiality (temporal proximity) itself – most often the equivalents in this category include the aforementioned translation possibilities accompanied by lexical elements indicating temporal proximity (imminence), e.g., vsak čas ‘any minute’, kmalu ‘soon’, že ‘already’, skoraj (že) ‘almost’, or the imminential constructions such as biti (že) na tem ‘to be about to’ + dependent clause or biti (tik) pred ‘to be (just) before’ + noun. In some cases, however, the Slovenian translation equivalents deviate from the imminential semantics of the Italian periphrasis, indicating the attainment of the punctual phase or the unfolding of the durative phase of an action.

The present article investigates German grammars for foreign learners in a linguistic and didactic perspective. In the introductory part, criteria for scientific and didactic adequacy are elaborated. The main part consists in the analysis of five recent and widespread grammars for different language levels, pertaining to three case studies: nominal gender, prepositions with dative/accusative government, future tenses. It is shown that these grammars display only a partial scientific adequacy in so far important rules are not mentioned. From a didactic point of view the most important shortcoming is a lack of systematicity as single rules are being listed without showing their interconnections. Moreover, a number of rules are difficult to put in practice because they require prior grammatical knowledge. At last, there is no sensible progression between grammars for beginners and grammars for advanced learners.

This paper examined aspects in O̩gba and English languages with the aim of identifying the areas of similarities and differences between the aspectual systems in both languages. The Contrastive Analysis Theory (CA) was adopted for the study. The study employed the descriptive survey design. The data were gathered through the use of the unstructured elicitation oral interview method and the intuitive knowledge of the researchers as L1 and L2 speakers of O̩gba and English respectively. The methods of data analysis employed were the descriptive technique of morpheme-to-morpheme glossing and the contrastive method of data analysis. The study found out that whereas there are three types of perfective aspects (present, past and future) in the English language, there is only one type which is the past perfect in the O̩gba language. It was observed that both languages have two types of imperfective aspects (durative/progressive and habitual). It was also affirmed that both languages marked duration through the combination of the auxiliary verb and affixation. However, whereas the O̩gba language uses prefixation, the English language uses suffixation. This study recommends that English language teachers within O̩gba speech communities should focus on the present and future perfect tenses when teaching tense and aspect in the English language.

The article presents a comprehensive study of a specific dialectal system – the Kamchik dialect – aiming to identify its typical features and the peculiarities of their functioning. The study examines the behavior of the phonemes /*ě/, /х/, and /в/. Based on the analysed texts, the dialect demonstrates a high degree of preservation of [х] in various positions – wordinitial, medial, and final – alongside minimal losses of [х] and hypercorrective changes linked to consonantal variability. The stabilisation of the phoneme /х/ in the Kamchik dialect is facilitated by its role in the formbuilding morphemes of aorist and imperfect verbs, as well as by influence from other Slavic languages. In contrast, the phoneme /в/ exhibits greater dynamism, with notable cases where the loss of etymological [в] is accompanied by the emergence of non-etymological, secondary [в]. The analysis of the pronoun system of the Kamchik dialect demonstrates its most significant features and the diversity of phonetic and phonomorphological variants characteristic of Bulgarian dialectal types that contribute to this microsystem. For the formation of the future tense, the Kamchik dialect employs variable forms of the future particle. The most frequent pattern involves the formative ша (ш), whereas the Thracian variant жа is rarely used, and the ще variant is gradually falling out of use. A comparison of lexical maps from the Bulgarian Dialect Atlas of Outer Territories (BDAOТ) and the Atlas of Bulgarian Dialects (ABG) indicates that the Kamchik dialect shares more lexical features with the dialects of the Maritsa and Sakar regions in the metropole. This accounts for the presence of lexical doublets in the analysed dialect. Overall, the Kamchik dialect has preserved a greater number of original Bulgarian lexemes compared to other Bessarabian Bulgarian dialects, while the highest number of borrowings from Ukrainian and Russian is observed in the lexico-semantic domain of “clothing”.

This study analyzes the effectiveness of storytelling in iproving students’ understanding of English Grammar, particulary verb tenses (simple present, simple past, and simple future tense). Using a quantitative approach with a quasiexperimental design, this study involved seventhgrade students at SMP Bina Bangsa Mandiri 2. The learning moel applied was storytelling-Based Grammar Learning, with the narrative “Squirrel’s Dream House” as the core material. Data collection instruments include written tests (post-test), classroom observations, and retelling assignments. The result of the analysis showed that more than 70% of students experienced a significant increase in their understanding of verb tenses after the implementation of storytelling-based learning. In addition, this method proved to be effective in creasing students’ confidence in speaking, vocabulary acquisition, and classroom participation. These findings indicate that storytelling provides a framework for grammar learning that is not only meaningful and engaging, but also highly contextual, successfully bridging the gap between abstract grammar rules and real communication needs. Therefore, storytelling is recommended as an effective, enjoyable, and holistic grammar teaching strategy, especially in the context of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom.

BackgroundThe production of verbal tenses is impaired in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), as shown by several studies focusing on time reference and using sentence completion tasks. However, there is currently a limited understanding of how tense is produced in discourse with this disease. Discourse is interesting as it involves building a mental representation of the event to be narrated with its temporal framework and translating this framework into language using tense. A shift from the present perspective to the time of the event is required. This may be particularly difficult for people with AD, who also show an alteration in mental time travel capacity, which is linked to episodic memory, semantic memory and temporality.ObjectiveThis study has two aims: (1) to investigate the influence of the temporal framework on tense production in French-speaking people with AD, and (2) to determine whether abilities in temporality, episodic memory and semantic memory predict tense marking in discourse among this population.MethodsTense production was assessed using a storytelling-in-sequence task administered to 21 people with biologically probable AD (age: 71.95; % female: 57) and a control group.ResultsThe results showed that people with AD produced more verb forms in the present tense in the non-present conditions than in the control group, especially in the future condition. Temporality and semantic memory predict future tense production in this disease.ConclusionsThis study suggests that studying time reference in AD provides information about the ability to mentally travel through time in this population.

This study investigates the development of sentential negation in heritage Southern Levantine Arabic and the factors that affect this development. Southern Levantine (SL) heritage speakers (age range 6 to 24 years old) completed a narrative production task, an experimental production (elicitation) task, and an acceptability judgment task to probe speakers’ accuracy in negating verbal predicates (past, present, and future tense), prepositional predicates, and polarity items. The results show that heritage speakers display the native speaker’s syntactic distribution of the negative markers in the context of verbal predicates. Despite their younger age, the performance of SL heritage speakers from age 6 to 24 in the current study matches that of their Egyptian counterparts from age 19 to 23 in their full grasp of negation in these contexts (see Albirini & Benmamoun 2015 for Egyptian). The results, however, indicate that SL heritage speakers are the least accurate in deploying the negator miš in the context of future marker and prepositional predicates, departing from Egyptian results. Furthermore, heritage speakers display unexpectedly high accuracy on polarity items and negative imperatives compared to Egyptian heritage data in Albirini & Benmamoun (2015) .

This study investigated structural variation in tense usage between Nigerian English (ICE-Nigeria) and Standard British English (BNC) through a corpus-based comparative approach. Using data drawn from both spoken and written genres in the two corpora, the analysis combined quantitative frequency counts with qualitative examination of concordance lines to identify patterns in the present, past, and future tenses. The present tense emerged as the most frequent in both varieties, but Nigerian English demonstrated an extended functional range for the progressive aspect, including its use with stative verbs and for habitual actions. In the past tense, both varieties exhibited similar proportions of regular and irregular forms, but Nigerian English showed higher use of the past continuous and past perfect, suggesting a preference for explicit temporal sequencing. For the future tense, both corpora favoured will, though Nigerian English retained more frequent use of shall, reflecting formal register tendencies. These findings were interpreted within Kachru’s World Englishes framework, highlighting Nigerian English as a nativised variety shaped by indigenous language influence, sociocultural norms, and historical contact with British English. The study argued that these patterns were systematic rather than erroneous, underscoring the legitimacy of Nigerian English as a distinct variety. The results had implications for English language teaching in Nigeria, advocating for pedagogical approaches that recognised local usage patterns while maintaining international intelligibility. The research demonstrated the value of corpus-based methods in capturing grammatical variation and called for further comparative studies across African Englishes to deepen understanding of tense usage in World Englishes.

Background: This study explores the role of linguistic labels expressed by patients during Motion-assisted Multi-modal Memory Desensitisation and Reconsolidation (3MDR) therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Labels represent a patient's key emotional, cognitive, and physical reactions to images associated with traumatic experiences. By analyzing labels, the goal is to provide insights into their progress throughout the therapeutic process. Methods: Data were collected from 6 patients who underwent 3MDR therapy across 6 sessions. A total of 1060 labels associated with trauma-related images were analyzed, with 91.3% of the data included after excluding irrelevant or ambiguous responses. Patient-generated labels were categorized and analyzed based on emotional tone, somatosensory processes, verb tense, and word count. The Friedman test was used to perform the statistical analysis. In case of significance, further comparisons were performed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: The linguistic analysis revealed observable trends in patient progress. Use of present verb tense increased, indicating a shift towards present-moment awareness. Sentence word count also steadily increased, reflecting patients' improved ability to articulate their emotions. Results of positive and negative emotional tone, past and future verb tense usage, somatosensory processes, and single words were not significant, suggesting that further exploration of these aspects with a larger dataset could give further insights into their importance. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that linguistic analysis of patient-generated labels during 3MDR therapy can offer valuable insights into patient progress. The findings suggest that as therapy progresses, patients become more expressive and articulate, and are able to live more in the present. Further research with larger datasets is recommended to better understand the role of language in PTSD therapy and its potential for predicting therapeutic outcomes.

Abstract Future and conditional tenses had two different forms in Old Catalan: the so-called analytical forms, characterized by pronominal mesoclisis (cantarlo he) and the so-called synthetic forms, which could appear alone (cantaré) or with proclitic (lo cantaré) or enclitic pronouns (cantaré-lo). The distribution of the two constructions was conditioned by the restrictions of clitic placement in the Middle Ages (Sentí/Bouzouita 2022; Torres-Latorre 2023 a, 2023 b; Torres-Latorre/Sentí 2023), and also by some morphosyntactic characteristics of the verbal form, mainly verbal syncope and rhizotonic verbs (Torres-Latorre submitted). In this paper, we tackle the role of the type of pronoun and the number of pronouns in this variation. The results show that there is no significant difference between adverbial and non-adverbial pronouns, although pronoun hi shows a slight tendency in favour of the synthetic construction.

This article presents a comprehensive study of a specific dialectal system – the Kamchik dialect – with the aim of identifying its characteristic features and the peculiarities of their functioning. A typological investigation is carried out across the phonetic-phonological, morphological, and lexical subsystems of this mixed-type vernacular spoken by Bulgarian settlers. The analysis is conducted in comparison with the Bulgari-an dialect continuum in the metropole, the standard Bulgarian language, and the dia-lects and standard languages of other Slavic peoples. The study of the pronominal system in the Kamchik dialect highlights its most salient features and reveals a diversity of phonetic and phonomorphological variants characteristic of the Bulgarian dialectal types involved in shaping this microsystem. Regarding the expression of future tense, the dialect employs multiple particle forms. The most frequently attested form uses the marker ша (sha, sh), while the Thracian variant жа (zha) appears only sporadically, and the ште (shte) variant is gradually falling out of use.

This article deals with Tenses in Text Book of Senior High School : A Semantic Analysis. The objective of this article is to find out what functions of tenses in the English Textbook 1st year “TALK ACTIVE”. The article used the qualitative research to carry out the study. In discussing about functions of tenses, the theory of Sukma Setiabudhi (1958) was used to analyze the data. The result shows that in the curriculum, there are four kinds of tenses, they are: (1) simple present tense, (2) simple past tense,(3) simple future tense, and (4) present perfect tense. Meanwhile, in the English Textbook 1st year “Talk Active”, there are nine kinds of tenses, they are (1) Simple Present Tense (2) Simple Past Tense (3) Simple Future Tense, (4) Present Continuous Tense (5) Past Continuous Tense (6) Present Perfect Tense (7) Past Perfect Tense, (8) Present Perfect Continuous Tense (9) Past Perfect Continuous Tense. It is evident that there is a significant inconsistency between the materials presented in the textbook and the syllabus. This disparity is causing unnecessary confusion for both the teacher and the students. The teacher is unable to teach tenses mentioned in the curriculum but not explained in the textbook, which is unacceptable. It is imperative that the materials are synchronized to ensure a seamless learning experience.

Mastering advanced English grammar can be particularly challenging for young learners, especially when it comes to complex tenses. These difficulties often lead to low engagement and limited retention when taught using traditional methods. This study aims to improve the understanding of the Future Perfect Tense and Future Perfect Continuous Tense among elementary school students through the use of an educational game titled “Future Time Travelers.” The research was conducted at SD Negeri 064037, Medan Tembung. Given the abstract and complex nature of these grammatical structures, young learners often struggle to grasp them through conventional teaching methods. Therefore, this study introduced an interactive, game-based learning approach that integrates storytelling, time-travel missions, and visual aids to contextualize the use of these tenses in a fun and engaging way. Using a classroom action research method, data were gathered through pretests, posttests, teacher observations, and student reflections. The results showed a significant improvement in students’ comprehension and ability to apply both tenses correctly in sentence construction. The educational game not only enhanced their grammatical skills but also increased their motivation and participation during English lessons. This research highlights the effectiveness of game-based learning in making advanced grammar more accessible and enjoyable for young learners.