Talk:Grammatical tense/multilingual sources

With a view to writing a good, universal article on grammatical tense:
 * 1) Use the to-do list to plan what's needed.
 * 2) Glean information from WP and other sources and bundle it below where it seems to fit best.
 * 3) Reduce down those gleanings into concise info and examples of tense.

Does anyone have or can get hold of [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/12557.ctl Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca (1994). The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago.] ?
 * I've reserved it at the library. Meanwhile, I got hold of Brisard, D'Hondt, Mortelmans (2004) Language and Revolution, Language and Time (see bibliography below). Brisard is one of the leading researchers of tense and temporality in the Cognitive Linguistics framework. Haven't read it yet.

A draft introduction

 * Any thoughts on this?

Tense is a feature of grammar that tags discourse with information about the timing of what is spoken about (technically, this is temporal deixis). All natural languages have the capacity to mark discourse for time. In most languages, the verb, as an essential part of sentence construction, carries the tense marker. There is some overlap between the concept of tense and aspect, which describes the flow of time (completed and incomplete action) rather than point in time.

There is a distinction between absolute and relative tense. Absolute tense relates the time of an event to the now of the discourse (often defining past, present or future time). Relative tense relates the time of an event to the time of another event that is not the now of discourse. This is particularly common in historical narrative. It is also possible to have a hybrid of absolute and relative tenses: a discourse may relate the now to a fiducial event (absolute) and relate that time with that of another event (relative).

Although all languages have the capacity to mark the time of events, not all languages use tense in its most strict definition. All languages can use context and various temporal adverbs to mark time, but this is not a strict grammatical marking of tense.
 * Looks very good in general. The starting sentence seems a bit dense to me (the 'tagging discourse' wording is technically correct but I think it's too difficult for the lead in of an encyclopedia article).
 * The statement about the verb carrying the tense marker holds only for inflectional languages (see Nafaanra below, where the verb doesn't carry the tense particle). The generalisation here seems to be that it is always somewhere near to the verb (though I'm not perfectly sure that this generalisation holds).
 * I have some problems with the last paragraph. Earlier, tense is defined rather broadly (and rightfully so, IMO) as something marking the timing of what is spoken about. Therefore, the 'in its most strict definition' seems to be out of place here. It sounds a bit too much as if the context/adverb method is 'not the real thing' as opposed to strict grammatical marking. However, no language uses only 'strict grammatical marking' to mark tense; every language uses a combination of the two methods (in fact, I think we're talking about a rather artificial distinction here). That is the reason that I find Tense (linguistics) a better title for this article.
 * Hope you don't take offence at me commenting from the sidelines. I didn't touch the text myself yet because I like your style (and because it takes me &mdash;not being a native English speaker&mdash; too much time to produce something that flows smoothly).   &mdash; mark ✎ 12:23, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * No, that's good, Mark. I found that quite difficult to write. It is something that is difficult to put into words. I agree with you that we should keep the definition broad. However, I have some difficulty relating aspect here (I've included a little comment on how the two differ: what do you think?). Rather than talking about a 'strict' definition, which is the wrong path, perhaps there should be section headed 'Morphosyntactic tense'. I just hope we can think of a better name. Gareth Hughes 13:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I think the reference to aspect is good. You already mentioned that there is some overlap; I think it should be made clear that in many languages, de distinction is really fuzzy (and perhaps only artificial) if you look at it from a morphosyntactical point of view (case in point: the Gbe languages, see also below). Maybe the historical background of the distinction (e.g. Indo-European linguistics) should be mentioned, in order to make clear why such a semantically clear distinction is not so clear-cut at all grammatically in many other languages. But maybe that would only obscure the issue; T/A remains a widely used distinction anyway.
 * I'm not sure what you mean with 'Morphosyntactic tense' section. Isn't that the same as saying that marking tense involves both syntax and morphology? By the way, I came across some interesting cases where tense is dealt with by tonal contrasts only. Would that qualify as morphosyntactical? See the Alur examples below; if I remember right, Nobiin shows something similar as well (I'll look it up).  &mdash; mark ✎ 14:47, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Alur (Nilo-Saharan > Western Nilotic, spoken in Congo DRC & Uganda):
 * makʉ to take (Mid Mid)
 * à-mákʉ̀ I took (Low High Low)
 * á-màkʉ́ I will take (High Low Low)

Thank you once more for sifting through my thoughts. You made the increadibly important distinction between a semantic view of tense (deixis) and a grammatical view of tense (inflexions and particles). Semantically, tense is limited to the 'when' of discourse, allowing aspect to cover the temporal 'how'. However, grammatically, tense is really based on a language's own mechanisms for temporal deixis. Protosemitic had a two-tense system, which operated as aspects semantically, but grammatically 'done' and 'doing' were the sense of time. In general, we should, therefore, start with the broad definition of tense as all temporal deixis, and then discuss how the term is used semantically and grammatically. As tones are essential in some languages, tone marking should be treated as just as valid as any other kind of tense marking. It's really helpful to have an example of this, thanks. Gareth Hughes 15:22, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's another go

Tense is the way in which language talks about the timing of particular events. In general, it is the way that language refers to events that are in the past or future, or happening in the present. The tagging of time references to discourse is technically temporal deixis. All natural languages have the capacity to mark discourse for time. However, different languages use different grammatical methods of tagging these time references to sentences, and, hence, the nature of tense can be elusive.

There is a distinction between absolute and relative tense. Absolute tense relates the time of an event to the now of the discourse (often defining past, present or future time). Relative tense relates the time of an event to the time of another event that is not the now of discourse. This is particularly common in historical narrative. It is also possible to have a hybrid of absolute and relative tenses: a discourse may relate the now to a fiducial event (absolute) and relate that time with that of another event (relative).

Often there is a divergence between the way a language marks time semantically and grammatically. An English example of this is I am going to eat the cake tomorrow. Semantically, this phrase is talking about the future. However, am is grammatically in the present tense, and it is the use of be going to and tomorrow that mark that future time is intended.

There is some overlap between the concept of tense and aspect, which describes the flow of time (completed and incomplete action) rather than point in time. This distinction exists more on the semantic level: grammatically, many languages mark tense and aspect in similar ways. In Latin [replace this example with something less Indo-European], for example amavi means 'I have loved' (perfect tense: present time and completed aspect) and amaveram means 'I had loved' (pluperfect tense: past time and completed aspect).


 * That looks good to me; the third paragraph is very elucidating in particular. The first paragraph is slightly technical, but I think it's needed for this subject, perhaps. I don't have much to input at this point, aside from the fact that I don't see a need for Latin to be replaced with another language. There will be plenty of other sources later on in the article, and indo-european languages are nigh-on ideal for displaying the blending between aspect and tense.


 * One other point is that I think a clarification of what tense isn't may be required in the introduction; namely that many may be under the impression that tense implies something along the lines of inflection or the like (based, in fact, on an English bias, I believe).


 * I apologise for just barging in here. I'll be happy to help you work on the article in the near future, but for now I can only give you my thoughts. --Wytukaze 22:19, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Towards a definition

 * Temporal deixis (semantic feature of referring to time).
 * Non-morphosyntactic temporal deixis (time reference is inferred only by context).
 * Temporal adverbs used for clarification.
 * Morphosyntactic temporal deixis (time reference is grammatically marked).
 * Syntactic temporal deixis (a grammatical particle marks time referrences).
 * Morphological temporal deixis (one or more words carry the time reference marker).

Often blurred kinds of temporal deixis:
 * 1) Tense (major temporal reference).
 * 2) Absolute tense (reference to the 'now' of the utterance).
 * 3) Relative tense (reference to the 'then' of narrative).
 * 4) Hybrid tense (reference to the 'then' of narrative in reference to the 'now' of utterance).
 * 5) 'Temporal contouring' (the 'viewpoint' and 'kind of action')
 * 6) Aspect (grammatical coding - aspectuality is additional encoding) (perfective/imperfective) ('viewpoint')
 * 7) Aktionsart (lexical coding - words have encoded aspectuality) (stative/dynamic) ('kind of action')

From Laal language
Immediately before the verb, a particle may be placed to indicate forms other than a simple present tense; such particles include ná (pl. ní) marking future tense, taá:/teé: (pl. tií:) marking continuous action, wáa: (pl. wíi:) marking motion, náa: (pl. níi:) being apparently a combination of ná and wáa:, mà (pl. mì) meaning "must", mɨ́ marking reported speech (apparently an evidential), mɨ́nà (pl. mínì) expressing intention, kò marking habitual action, ɓə́l or ga (pl. gi) marking incomplete action, and wó (always accompanied by ʔàle after the verb) meaning "maybe".

Copula and existential verbs
The copula (positive and negative) is irregular in the present tense:

Example: zämmidi nähä "you are my brother".

The past tense ("he was", etc.) is expressed by the verb näbbär conjugated regularly in the perfect; "he was not" etc. is with annäbär. The future tense is expressed by the imperfect of hono: yəhonu "he will be", etc. The negative future tense is likewise expressed by tihon. The present copula in subordinate clauses is expressed by the subordinate perfect of honä, eg: däffär yähonä tädi-goy yalfu "he who is courageous will go with me.

"It is he", etc. can be expressed by adding an element -tt between the pronoun and the copula: eg kʷa-ttə-n "it is he".

The existential verb "be at", "exist" in the present is:

In the past and future, it is expressed just like the copula, with näbbärä and honä. In subordinate clauses the present is expressed with -allä conjugated in the perfect (negative -lellä), eg: bämeda yalləmi säbočč araš näm "the people who are in the field are farmers".

The possessive verb "he has" etc. is expressed with the existential verb yino "it is" (agreeing with the object possessed) plus object suffix pronouns (ie "it is to him" etc.)

Verbs
A Soddo verb may have anywhere from one to four consonants, or may be a compound with balo "say" (eg bək'k' balo "appear".) In the former case, they fall into three "conjugations" differing in their vowels and in gemination of the imperfect, illustrated for a three-consonant verb:
 * säbbäro, imperfect yəsäbru
 * tikkälo, imperfect yətikkəlu
 * č'affäro, imperfect yəč'affəru

Derived stems can be formed in several ways:
 * reduplicative: eg gäddälo "kill" > gədaddälo. This form has a wide variety of meanings, mostly intensifying the verb in some way.
 * passive/reflexive/intransitive tä- prefix: eg käffälo "pay" > tä-käffälo "be paid". A reciprocal action can be expressed by this prefix attached to a transitive verb with the vowel a after the first radical, or a reduplicative form, eg tä-gäddäl-mun or tä-gdaddäl-mun "they killed each other".
 * causative or transitive of intransitive verbs a-: eg säkkäro "be drunk" > a-säkkäro "get someone drunk"; näddädo "burn (intr.)" > a-näddädo "burn (tr.)".
 * causative of transitive or passive verbs at- (+ -i-): eg käddäno "cover" > at-kiddäno "cause to cover" or "cause to be covered". Added to the -a- form, it expresses reciprocity and adjutative (helping): atgaddälo "cause to kill one other" or help to kill".
 * Some verbs are formed with initial ən- or tän-; the only derived stem from these is the a- stem, with a- replacing ə- or tä-. Eg ənkrättäto "be bent" > ankrättäto "bend".

There are two tenses, perfect (past) and imperfect (non-past); each has distinct forms for main versus subordinate clauses, and positive versus negative. There are also distinct jussive, imperative, and impersonal forms.

Perfect
The form with suffixed -m is used in subordinate clauses to connect verbs not otherwise connected, in a way analogous to Japanese -te; it can be translated as "and", as a gerund, or as a resultative. The perfect in -m followed by näbbär forms the pluperfect.

The negative perfect is formed by prefixing al-, with vowel change; for the conjugations mentioned above, the resulting forms are al-säfärä, al-täkkälä, and al-č'afärä.

Examples: ge aräššo "he built a house"; banätäw k'ən awänna-m bämida tonnaw "having put butter on the top of his head, he sat outside".

Imperfect
Like the perfect, the subordinate forms can take the suffix -m to express a series of non-past actions. This can be combined with näbbär to express a habitual past action.

Examples: ahoññ gäbäya nalfu "today we shall go to the market"; yəgädəl məss "the man who kills"; mas tənäsa-m yibara wawt'a tək'ärsi "she picks up the sleeping mats and begins to remove the dung."

It can be augmented by -ən, with no obvious change in meaning.

Examples: ahoññ yəmät'a timäsəl "it does not seem that he will come today"; ädahʷan t-aykäfəl alläfo "he left without paying his debt".

From Bench language
Verbs with monosyllabic roots can have three different forms of their active stems: the singular imperative, which is just the root; the past stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by adding -k (with changes to the preceding consonant); and the future stem, usually identical to the root but sometimes formed by changing the tone from 3 to 4 or from 1 to 5. Some have causative (formed by adding -as3 or -s1, and changing tone 3 to 4) and passive (formed by adding -n3, -t, or -k1 to the causative) forms. Verbal nouns are formed from the stem, sometimes with tone change or addition or -t.

Verbs with polysyllabic roots have at least two forms, one with an intransitive or passive meaning and one with a transitive or causative meaning; the former ends in -n3, the latter in -as3. A passive may be formed by ending in -as3n3. Verbal nouns are formed by taking the bare stem without -n3 or -as3.

Compound verbs are formed with mak2 "say" or mas2 "cause to say", a formation common among Ethiopian languages.

The primary tenses are simple past (formed from the past stem), future (future stem plus -ns3-), present perfect (from present participle stem); negative (future stem plus -arg4-.) Eg: ham3 > han3k'u2e3 "he went"; ham4sm3su2e3 "he will go"; han3k'n4su2e3 "he has gone".

There are four corresponding participles: past (formed from the past stem), present perfect (formed from the past stem with the suffix -ns4-, -ng4, or -ank'4-), imperfect (formed from the future stem with the stative suffix -ag3-), and negative (formed from the future stem with the negative suffix -arg4- or -u2- or a person/number marker.)

The order of affixes is: root - (tense) - (negative) - (foc. pn.) - person/number - marker.

From Gbe languages

 * 1) Gbe languages do not possess an inflection system: the Gbe languages make extensive use of a rich system of tense/aspect markers.
 * 2) The constituent order of Gbe clauses is generally Subject Verb Object, except in the imperfective tense and some related constructions according to Aboh (2004).

The Gbe languages do not lend much support to the traditional distinction between tense and aspect. The only tense that is expressed by a simple morphological marker in Gbe languages is the future tense. The future marker is ná or a, as can be seen from the examples below. Other tenses are arrived at by means of special time adverbs or by inference from the context, and this is where the tense/aspect distinction becomes blurred. For example, what is sometimes referred to as perfective aspect in Gbe blends with the notion of past tense since it expresses an event with a definite endpoint, located in the past (see example sentences below).
 * ŋútsu á a ɸlè xéxí  (man DET FUT buy umbrella)    the man will buy an umbrella   (Ewegbe, future marker)
 * ŋútsu á ɸlè xéxí  (man DET buy-PERF umbrella)   the man bought an umbrella   (Ewegbe, perfective)

Tense and aspect
Tense and aspect in Nafaanra are generally encoded in two places: in preverbal particles and on the verb form. Nafaanra has past, recent past, and future tenses and continuative aspect. In a simple sentence, the order of the various constituents can be rendered as follows: SUBJECT • (NEGATION) • (TENSE) • (ASPECT) • VERB. When the negative suffix -n is present, no fusing of preverbal particles takes place. Nafaanra additionally expresses some tense/aspect matters by use of certain time adverbs and auxiliary verbs.

Past tense is marked by the preverbal particle ná (high tone, as opposed to the low tone continuative particle). Future tense is marked by the particle wè. Simple sentences without a preverbal tense particle are interpreted as recent past (sometimes called immediate). If aspect marking is absent, simple sentences are generally interpreted as completive. (Example sentences adapted from Jordan 1978:85-87.)
 * kòfí ná sɛ́  (Kofi PAST go-completive)   Kofi went &mdash; PAST
 * kòfí wè sɛ́  (Kofi FUTURE go-completive)   Kofi will go &mdash; FUTURE
 * kòfí sɛ́  (Kofi go-completive)   Kofi just went &mdash; RECENT PAST (no marking)

Continuative aspect (sometimes called progressive) denotes an action that is ongoing or repetitive. Continuative aspect is usually marked both by a preverbal particle nà (low tone) and by a change of the verb form. The verb sɛ́ ‘go’ used in the sentences below has the continuative form síé. In sentences where both past tense particle ná and continuative particle nà are present, they combine to give the fused particle náà. In sentences in the recent past tense, the preverbal continuative particle is omitted and continuative aspect is shown only on the verb.
 * kòfí náà síé  (Kofi PAST CONT go- CONT )   Kofi was going &mdash; CONT + PAST
 * kòfí wè nà síé  (Kofi FUT CONT go- CONT )   Kofi will be going &mdash; CONT + FUTURE
 * kòfí síé  (Kofi go- CONT )   Kofi is going &mdash; CONT + RECENT PAST

Two classes of verbs can be differentiated on the basis of their behaviour in aspectually marked sentences. One class of verbs has two aspectually distinct forms, as seen in the above example sentences. Another class of verbs does not distinguish aspect &mdash; one and the same form shows up in both completive and continuative aspect. In sentences in the recent past tense, this gives rise to ambiguity since the preverbal continuative particle is omitted there. Thus, the sentence kòfí blú can be interpreted in the following two ways:
 * kòfí blú  (Kofi swim- CONT )   Kofi is swimming &mdash; CONT + RECENT PAST
 * kòfí blú  (Kofi swim-completive)   Kofi just swam &mdash; RECENT PAST (no marking)

Considerable fusion takes place between pronominal subjects and the preverbal particles. For example, ná ‘ PAST ’ fuses with pé ‘they’ to produce prá sɛ́ (they- PAST go-completive) ‘they went’ and wè ‘ FUTURE ’ fuses with pé in píè sɛ́ (they- FUTURE go-completive) ‘they will go’.

Reference:
 * Jordan, Dean L. (1978) 'Nafaara tense-aspect in the folk tale', in Joseph Grimes (ed.), Papers on discourse. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 84-90.

Tense-aspect system in Hindi
Lienhard regards tenses (at least in Hindi) as secondary phenomena that relate originally aspect carrying forms to time domains. "A tense" originates "by a kind of linear interpretation of a localized aspect".

Compare the general non-specific or with in principle stressing that the action concerns somebody else than the doer, and the more sudden
 * gâ.ri caltî hai "the train gone is" 'the train goes'
 * gâ.rî caltî thî "the train gone was" 'the train went'
 * gâ.rî cal dî "train went gave" 'the train left',
 * gâ.rî cal pa.rî "train went fell (preterite of 'fall')" 'the train began to move'.

Japanese adjective and verb tense
Comparison of the adjective shiroi='white' and the verb kamu='bite':
 * Present or unmarked tense
 * shiro-i = am/are/is white < CJ shiroshi
 * kam-u = I/you/he/she/they bite
 * After-noun-clause form
 * shiro-i N = a/the white N < CJ shiroki
 * kam-u N = a/the N that bites
 * Past tense or perfect aspect
 * shiro-katta = was/were white < shiroku-atta (morphologically: white-existed)
 * kan-da = I/you/she/they bit < kam-ta
 * After-negation form in the unmarked tense
 * shiro-ku nai = white not (nai is adjective in unmarked tense)
 * kam-a nai = do/does not bite
 * And-form (adverbialisation)
 * shiroku-te kuroi = am/are/is white and black
 * kan-de taberu = bite and eat

Te-forms of adjective and verb in polite requests:
 * shiroku-natte kudasai (natte < naru+te = become) = become white, please
 * shiroku-shite kudasai (shite < suru+te = do/make) = make ? white, please

Noun tense in Potawatomi
From Hockett, CF (1958). A course in modern linguistics. New York: Macmillan.


 * nkašt@s - I am happy
 * nk@šats@p@n - I was once happy
 * nos' - my father
 * nosp'@n - my dead father
 * ntšiman - my canoe
 * ntšimanp@n - my former canoe (lost or stolen)