Tense-Aspect-Modality

in Discourse
STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH
 What is Tense-Aspect-Modality (TAM) System?

 TAM is the grammatical system of language that covers the expression of:

TENSE (location in time/ past, present, future)

ASPECT (fabric of time- a single block of time, continuous flow of time,
or repetitive occurrences)
MOOD or MODALITY (degree or necessity, obligation, probability, and
ability)

 The concept of TAM in discourse, both spoken and written is considered

complicated as they tend to occur together in discourse. The following
discussion will explain the analysis on the usage of TAM system in discourse.
Various perspectives on the usage of Tam are given by some scholars.
To help us understand the uses of the tense-aspect-
modality (TAM) system in English discourse, the
early work of:

• William Bull (1960) > The Bull framework

• Chafe’s Observations on Tenses in Discourse
• Labov’s Structure for Narrative
• Historical Present Tense and Tense Shifting
 A limitation of sentence-based accounts of English tense, aspect,
and modality- even if well contextualized- is that such accounts
fail to capture the fact that certain tenses, aspect, and modality
combination tend to occur together in discourse whereas others
do not.
TAM is important because “tense-aspect-modality is one of the major
devices coding the connectedness/coherence of sentences in their
wider discourse context”

> How are Tense and Aspect used in language?

> Users systematically jump around from tense to tense.
> Native speakers intermingle a variety of tenses and aspect when
communicating.
 Use of TAM in Discourse

A. I have a splitting headache that I’ve had for two hours. I'm going to take some
aspirin.

B. I have a splitting headache that I had for two hours; I will take some aspirin.

1st ex. We find the present tense in the first clause, present perfect in the second clause and be going
to with a present tense be in the final clause; that is, the tenses have an orientation to the present
throughout the sequence.

2nd ex. Where the unmotivated tense-switching from present to past to future result in the relative
incoherence of the second narrative (i.e. the simple past had is used where the present perfect have
had is preferred).
 Similar observations can be made about samples of discourse concerning events reported
in past time.

C. The little girl cried her heart out. She had lost her teddy bear and was convinced she wasn’t ever going
to find him. ( possible sub: “would never” or “wasn’t ever going to” )

 1st clause SIMPLE PAST, 2nd clause PAST PERFECT, 3rd clause BE going to FUTURE but with a PAST TENSE BE;
that is, a past orientation is maintained throughout the episode.
 Again, if we make unmotivated changes in the tenses used in the narrative as in D below, this changes may well have
negative consequences for the flow of the discourse.

D. The little girl cries her heart out. She lost her teddy bear and is convinced she won’t ever find him.

The version D of the past narrative is comprehensible and not obviously incoherent, but it comes out
sounding somewhat disjointed and awkward when compared to C, because one does not normally jump
from present tense to past tense to future tense in a short piece of discourse.
 The Bull Framework
William Bull, an outstanding Spanish linguist, firstly proposed a framework to describe tense in Spanish;
however he intended that the system be very general and applicable to any language. His framework posits
four axes of orientation, or points of view, with respect on time: future, present, past and hypothetical.

future
perfect
past simple simple
perfect past future
past future

present
perfect

simple present
(moment of speech)

Would you like something to eat? A. No thanks. I've already eaten.

B. No thanks. I already ate.
Bull forces us to make a conceptual shift and to think in terms of viewing the tense-aspect system
as a resource for taking different temporal perspectives on actions, events and states of affairs.

Would you like something to eat?

(a) No thanks. I've already eaten.

(b) No thanks. I already ate.

Another example that suggests Bull is correct to take us away from a linear perspective on tense and
aspect to a three-or four-tiered system is to consider the future perfect, which asks the listener to step
into the future and look back. It is quiet possible, as the ff. example shows, for an event/action
described with a future perfect (1) to have occurred before one described with the simple past (2):

1. He will have finished all the work months ago. [ You don’t know John the way I do]
2. I saw John at the market yesterday.

Based on his semantic framework, each “tense” of any language can then be placed in the appropriate
slot on the appropriate axis.
 The Bull Framework

Basic axis time

Axis of A time before the A time after the
corresponding to the
orientation basic axis time basic axis time
moment of reference

Future By 5:00, he will have finished He { will } Upon completion of this work,
all the chores. { is going to } he
eat dinner at 5:00. {will }
Watch tv.
{is going to}
(future perfect) (simple future) (no distinct form use
simple future)

Present He has played golf since 1960. He plays golf. He is going to play golf next
Sunday.
(present perfect) (simple present) (future of the present)

Note: Will may be used as a

formal substitute

Past When he left to play golf he had
finished all his chores.
(past perfect)
He played golf on Saturday Having finish his golf game, he
afternoon. went out to dinner with his golf
buddies.
(simple past) or
Having finish his golf game, he
would go out to dinner.
(=habitual)
E. John will (possible substitution: is going to) travel to Europe this summer. Before
doing that he will have completed his B.S in Math. When he returns to the States, he
will begin graduate work in management.

 From future to future perfect, and the text once again ends with future
 In the subordinate clause beginning with “when” the tense is “present” but the
whole sentence still expresses future time.
 Will is more formal and interaction be going to has more interactive immediacy
 the ability of be going to to inflect for present tense and the greater relative ease of
combining will to future axis and of be going to to present axis is indeed valid
despite the area of overlap.

 Perfect aspect signals the “before time” in each axis ,(called “prior” time)

 Progressive aspect is a truly independent aspectual form that can express notions such as
duration, noncompletion, or iteration in combination with all the tense aspect modality
forms in table 9.1
 14 Distinct tense-aspect combination in English
instead of the traditional 12:

Bull System Forms Bull Forms plus Progressive Aspect

will V (will talk) will be V -ing (will be talking)

will have V+ en (will have talked) will have been V -ing (will have been talking)

V -pres (talk (s) ) Be -pres V -ing (is/ are/ am talking)

have V+ -en (have/has talked) have been V -ing (has/has been talking)

Be -pres going to V (is/ am/ are going to talk) Be -pres going to be V -ing (is/am/are going to be
talking)
V -past (talked)
Be -past V -ing (was/were talking)
had V + -en (had talked)
had been V -ing (had been talking)
 The Bull Framework VS. Previous Accounts

 Bull framework permits an analysis that is like traditional accounts such as

Jespersen’s (19240), in that meaning has priority over form and also that is
retains much of the traditional grammatical terminology for describing the
tenses.
 Bull’s system, however, is considerably more complex in that not just one but
three parallel time lines are used to illustrate and explicate the tense system-
tense, in any language, is a grammatical system that uses notions of time to
reflect the user’s perspective on events.
 Bull’s system begins to account for tense sequences in discourse as well as
accounting for tense in isolated sentences, and teacher can refer to the axis to
show students how tenses should relate to each other in discourse; that is,
students should perhaps learn the tenses one axis at a time rather than one form
at a time.
 Bull’s framework also more sophisticated and subtle than the usual structural
account of the English tense-aspect system in that it shows clearly how the
so-called perfect aspect consistently function as a marker of “ a time before”
with respect to the basic English tense in each of the three axes, with the result
that the progressive appears to be a more flexible and genuine marker of aspect
than the perfect English because it interacts with each form in Bull’s matrix
to signal duration, noncompletion, or iteration and is not restricted to
“a time before.”
 Chafe’s Observation on Tenses in Discourse
F. Discourse Sequence Chafe’s Tense Analysis

a. I went to a concert last night. a. Past

b. They played Beethoven’s second. b. Past
c. You don’t hear that very often. c. Generic
d. I enjoyed it. d. Past
e. Next Friday I’m going to another concert e. Future
f. They’re playing something by Stravinsky f. Future

 When a tense or time has been established in a piece of discourse, this tense must be maintained unless:

1. A “generic” tense (usually the simple present) is used for a comment or aside as in (c) above and temporarily
suspends the past tense requirement followed in (a) (b) (d)

2. A new explicit time marker- or a clearly implied shift – is introduced into the discourse, which terminates the
old tense and replaces it with another, as happens with “Next Friday” initiating clause (c) with a subsequent new
tense in (e) and (f).
 The following is an authentic example of the simple present used to
provide background in oral narrative to provide evaluation and
express speaker stance (line 2 and 3) in between two past-tense
forms that are the foreground and represent the main story line
(lines 1 and 4)

G. “ Skiing over a cliff”

1. So my front skis bent down
2. Interestingly enough, when something like this happens
3. all these thoughts flash in your mind
4. I managed to flash my whole life in front of me.
 Labov’s Structure for Narrative
Six Element of Narrative Description of Element
(the abstract) who and what the narrative is about
• Orientation the background for the narrative
• Complicating action the conflict or problem in the story
(evaluation) asides or comments from the narrator
• Result or resolution the outcome of the narrative
(coda) an epilogue or the moral of the story

A simple constructed example of this narrative sequence follows:

abst: This is about, a witch, and a princess.

orient: Once upon a time there was a handsome prince.
compl: A wicked witch turned him into a frog.
eval: That’s not nice, is it?
resol: A beautiful princess broke the witch’s spell by kissing the frog.
coda: The prince and princess lived happily ever after.
Historical Present

 It uses the present tense to relate a past event and is very common in oral
narrative.

 Labov, Schiffrin, Wolfson and Baquedano-Lopez have all examined the role
of the historical present tense.

 It is different from the backgrounding use of the present tense discussed in

texts F and G above in that it refers to a specific event in the past, not a
background statement or evaluation, and is a stylistic device employed
by the speaker to accomplish any of several things.
 Historical Present Tense and Tense Shifting
H. “Driving home”
1. So Dad decides that he’s gonna pass these cars
historical present tense

past progressive
{ 2.
3.
4.
5.
And, uh, he pulls out in the other lane
And starts passing them.
And all of a sudden we see this big truck, you know, this truck coming for us.
And, uh, this guy was going pretty fast
past perfect 6. And we had passed one car
7. And there’s no way we can get over
simple or progressive
{ 8.
9.
10.
And this trucker’s coming
And he’s just sort of bearing down on us honking his horn
He wasn’t slowing down.
present tense { 11.
12.
So you know it gets to the point where you’re halfway past the second car
And it becomes apparent that we might hit this truck.
past progressive 13. You, know my mom was sitting in the front seat
14. And my sister and I are in the back seat.
historical present { 15. And all of a sudden we see this truck

{
16. And thought for sure we were gonna hit it.
past tense 17. And I went “Well this is it,” you know
18. And my sister and I started yelling
19. And we ducked.
 Historical present and Backgrounding present can occur in the same
episode since lines 11 and 12 above are arguably backgrounding present,
given the pronominal shifts from previous references to he (=dad) or we /us
(=family) to the line 11 reference to you (= whoever is trying to pass a line of
cars on a road).

 Examples such as the above demonstrate that tense shifts in authentic oral
narrative are extremely complex.

 As Baquedano-Lopez points out, they can mark boundaries between elements

within the narrative itself, but they also can function much more locally to
mark contrasts such as [main story vs. speaker aside], [agent x vs. agent y], or
[narrative story line vs. reported speech/thought]
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