Visualizing time and tense

11-13 minutes

Unit 2: Time, tense and aspect

Learning outcomes

By the end of this unit you should:

 know the relationship between time and tense

 know the relationship between tense and aspect
 have practicised identifying instants and intervals

Activity 1: Tense

Read the following passage to answer these questions.

1. According to linguists, how many tenses are there?

2. What three factors can tense be applied to?
3. What is the example for the first factor.
4. Why is past tense used for the second factor.
5. Why is past tense used for the third factor.
6. How many tenses are commonly taught in English textbooks?

English verb tense refers to the time when an action or state occurs. Linguists, led
by Lewis (1986), refer to only two tenses: present and past. Tense can be applied
to three factors, namely time, reality and register. Present tense is used for actions
and states that are close while past tense is used for actions and states that are
remote. When focussing on time, we can use present tense to refer to present
actions (e.g. I study every day.) and past tense to refer to past actions (e.g.
I studied last night). When referring to reality, present tense is used to describe
reality (e.g. I am busy while past tense is used to describe hypothetical actions or
states (e.g. I wish I wasn't so busy). When used for register, we can use present
tense to show a neutral register (e.g. Can you help me?) or a past tense for a more
polite register (e.g. Could you help me?). In every instance of usage of past or
present tenses, one of these three factors applies. Tense is, therefore, not simply
about time.

Textbooks for English language teaching used in school curricula worldwide,

however, tend to focus on the time factor. One of the reasons is to make it easier to
understand. Many textbooks state that there are three verb tenses: past, present
and future. Each of these tenses has four forms, creating a total of twelve tenses.
However, this classification is pedagogic rather than linguistic. For teachers, it is
easier to explain tenses using this classification.

Reference

Lewis, M. (1986) The English Verb: An Exploration of Structure and Meaning.

Hove: Language Teaching Publications.

Activity 2: Tense and aspect

Read the following passage to answer these questions.

1. Do Japanese and English have the same number of tenses?

2. What is the formal term that means "fabric of time"?
3. What three concepts are included in "fabric of time"?
4. What are the three ways to express aspect in English?
5. Which two ways to express aspect cannot be used together?

Tense is used to refer to a point in time. This point is either before the moment of
speaking, at the same time as the moment of speaking or after the moment of
speaking. Languages refer to tenses differently. Some languages have multiple
tenses, some three tenses, some have two tenses. For example, English has
present and past tenses while Japanese has past and non-past tenses. Most
Chinese languages are tenseless, but even these tenseless languages have words
to indicate time.

European linguists tended to use the word "tense" to describe not only the point in
time of verb actions or states, but also to express additional information, such as
the aspect and modality. To disambiguate the usage of tense, we will use tense to
refer to only two time periods and "grammatical tense" to refer to the twelve tenses
commonly taught to learners of English. While tense refers to a location in time,
aspect refers to the "fabric of time", that is single block of time, a continuous flow of
time or a repetitive occurance.

There are three ways to express aspect in English, namely: simple, progressive
and perfect. Simple and progessive cannot occur simultaneously, but perfect can
occur with either simple of progressive. This results in four possible permuations as
shown below. All the examples are given in present forms, but they can be used in
both past and future forms.
 1. present simple: e.g. I read every day.
2. present progressive (or continuous): e.g. I am reading now.
3. present perfect simple: e.g. I have read War and Peace.
4. present perfect progressive: e.g. I have been reading for ten minutes so far.

Courtesy of Collins ELT

Activity 3: Tense, modality and aspect

Read the following passage on tense, modality and aspect. Then, answer the
questions below.

Tense is usually used to refer to the state of either past or present forms. Modality,
or more precisely linguistic modality is defined by Wikipedia as " a system of
linguistic options that allows for expressing a speaker's general intentions ... as well
as the speaker's belief as to whether the proposition expressed is true, obligatory,
desirable, or actual." Aspect refers to the fabric of time, specifically to whether the
time is seen as a single block, a continuous flow or a repetitive occurance. Both
modality and aspect are somewhat subjective, which means that two people
judging the same sentence may understand the meaning of the sentence
differently. Despite this, in most instances the intended meaning of the sentence
can be deduced using its contextual information.

Modality is commonly shown using modal verbs. Modal verbs have multiple
meanings, which makes understanding them complicated. Some modal verbs and
their respective meanings are listed below.

1. can: ability (present), e.g. I can swim well.

2. could: ability (past), e.g. I could swim well when I was at school.
3. can: permission, e.g. My father said I can drive his car anytime.
4. can: permission, e.g. My father said I could drive his car anytime.
5. must: obligation, e.g. You must study hard to gain a high score.
6. must: likelihood, e.g. He must have done that.
7. can: likelihood, e.g. He could have done that.
8. can: likelihood, e.g. He may have done that.

As you can see different modal verbs realize different meanings. Similiar meanings
can be realized by different modal verbs.

When a modal verb is used in a simple sentence, those sentences are modalised;
but when no modal verb is used, the sentences are tensed.
Courtesy of ISL Collective

Activity 4: Tense matrix

Study the following table to understand the syntax of different tenses and the
names of the different tenses. In this table, all examples are in active voice and use
the irregular verb "swim".

Simple Progressive Perfect simple Perfect progressive

Present She swims. She is swimming. She has swum. She has been swimming.
Past She swam. She was swimming. She had swum. She had been swimming.
She will She will be She will have She will have been
Future
swim. swimming. swum. swimming.

Activity 5: Finite vs. non-finite verbs

Read the following passage to understand how to differentiate finite from non-finite
verbs.

Verbs may carry tense or they may not carry tense. Verbs that carry a tense are
finite. Verbs that cannot carry a tense are non-finite. There are some simple checks
that you can use to confirm whether verb is finite or not. The verb should conjugate
to form present, past and future forms. In present forms, the verb should show
agreement with the subject. In English singular and plural subjects necessite
changes in the form of the verb, which is most commonly realized by adding the
suffix -s when the grammatical subject is third-person singular, e.g. he, she or it.

Conversely, non-finite verbs do not change form when the tense shifts and in
present tenses do not agree with the grammatical subject.

Let's practise identifying the finiteness of verbs. Identify which verbs in the following
sentences are finite.

1. The man ate spaghetti.

2. The boy wanted to eat spaghetti.
3. The girl liked eating spaghetti.
4. The grandfather was eating spaghetti and drinking coffee.

In the first sentence, the verb is "ate". We can check the tense by changing the
sentence to present and future forms, (The man eats spaghetti, The man will eat
spaghetti). The tense can change. In the present form, we can also notice that "eat"
changes to "eats". Thus, this verb is finite.
In the second sentence, the verbs are "wanted" and "eat". We can check the tense
by changing the sentence to present and future forms, (The man wants to eat
spaghetti, The man will want to eat). The tense of "wanted" can change, but "eat"
does not. The sentence (The boy wanted to ate spaghetti) is not possible and so
"eat" is non-finite. In the present form, we can also notice that "wanted" changes to
"wants". Thus, "wanted" is finite, but "eat" is non-finite.

In the third sentence, the verb "liked" can change form and in present simple tense
becomes "likes" and so "liked" is finite. However, "eating" does not change and is,
therefore, non-finite.

In the fourth sentence, there are two verbs "was eating" and "drinking". The
auxiliary verb in the second verb group is elided (omitted), but the long form of the
sentence is: (The grandfather was eating spaghetti and [was] drinking coffee.)
When the tense is changed to present both forms change from "was" to "is", and so
both are finite.

Activity 6: Labelling verbs

Decide whether each of the underlined verbs is finite or non-finite. For the finite
verbs decide the grammatical tense of its verb group. Share your ideas in the
discussion forum on ELMS

1. There was torrential rain yesterday.

2. I wanted to check my tomato plants but decided not to.
3. The weather forecast reported that it will rain for 24 hours.
4. By next week, my tomato patch will have turned into a pond.
5. I have been trying to grow tomatoes for three years, but without much
success.
6. I started growing tomatoes because my friend said it was simple.

Activity 7: Understanding tenses 

Watch and listen to a short explanation (3 min 50 sec) of tense, modality and
aspect.

Knowledge and application

Activity 8: Labelling tenses

Select an article from an online newspaper or news site. Highlight the first twenty
finite verbs in the article. Label each verb with the name of its grammatical tense.
Submit your work in pdf format via ELMS
Review

Make sure you can explain the differences between the following simple English:

1. close vs. remote (for three factors)

2. tense vs. aspect
3. modality vs. simple
4. progressive vs. simple
5. perfect vs. non-perfect
6. finite vs. non-finite

Running count: 21 of 70 time-and-tense-related concepts covered so far.