The English Tense System

Part of a four-volume series, "The Grammar of the English Verb Phrase", this book aims to provide a grammar of tense which can be used both as an advanced reference grammar (for example by MA-level or postgraduate students of English or linguistics) and as a scientific study which can act as a basis for and stimulus to further research.

The English Tense System consists of twelve tenses. This concise little book gives an overview of each one of them and how to use them in all persons in the affirmative, negative and interrogate. Ideal for learners of the English language.

The Grammar of the English Tense System forms the first volume of a four-volume set, The Grammar of the English Verb Phrase. The other volumes, to appear over the next few years, will deal with mood and modality, aspect and voice. The book aims to provide a grammar of tense which can be used both as an advanced reference grammar (for example by MA-level or postgraduate students of English or linguistics) and as a scientific study which can act as a basis for and stimulus to further research. It provides not only a wealth of data but also a unique framework for the study of the English tense system, which achieves great predictive and explanatory power on the basis of a limited number of relatively simple rules. The framework provided allows for an analysis of the semantics of individual tenses which reflects the role of tenses not only in locating situations in time relative to speech time but also in relating situations in time relative to one another to form temporally coherent discourse. Attention is paid to the relations between tenses. On the one hand, we can identify sets of tenses linked to particular temporal areas such as the past or the future. These sets of tenses provide for the expression of a system of temporal relations in a stretch of discourse in which all the situations are located within the same temporal area. On the other hand, there are many contexts in which speakers might in theory choose between two or more tenses to locate a situation (e.g., when we choose between the past tense and the present perfect to locate a situation before speech time), and the book examines the difference that a choice of one or the other tense may make within a discourse context. The book moves from a detailed exploration of the meaning and use of individual tenses to a thorough analysis of the way in which tenses can be seen to function together as sets, and finally to a detailed examination of tenses in, and tenses interacting with, temporal adverbials. Original data is used frequently throughout the book to illustrate the theory discussed.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 1,7, University of Hamburg, language: English, abstract: Robert Binnick (1991: vii) wrote "whoever has read in one book that English has three tenses, in another that it has two, and in yet a third that is has sixteen (...) may be pardoned for some confusion and some skepticism as to the claim of linguistic scholars to know a great deal about tense". This quotation illustrates the problem of the classification of the English tense system on which the focus of this paper will be based. Although linguists' knowledge of the tense system has increased over the years, the problem is that, as Robin Lakoff wrote, they "cannot account for many ways in which tenses are used in English" (Binnick 1991: vii). Therefore, English tense(s) have not yet been understood completely. By comparing different authors and frameworks, this paper will present different approaches to the English tense system. The aim is not to provide a perfect solution to all answers but to introduce different viewpoints and to go a step beyond the common conceptualization of the English language by presenting competing theories.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The ebook contains: texts related to the field of Computer Science, specialty vocabulary translated into Romanian, vocabulary exercises and grammar exercises on the texts, English tense system and main uses of tenses, table of irregular verbs.

A series of 10 lectures on various aspects of Cognitive Linguistics as these relate to matters of language teaching and learning.

Bernard Comrie introduces readers to the range of variation found in tense systems across the languages of the world.