A descriptive but concise slides on tense, aspect, moodality and evidentiality for the students and teachers of Linguistics.

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LEVELS OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
ZUBAIR A. BAJWA,
ZBR141@GMAIL.COM -WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/ZUBAIR.A.BAJWA
3RD SEMESTER,
DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS,
QUAID-E-AZAM UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD
By:
5/14/2016

2. CONTENTS
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 INTRODUCTION TO GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY…
1. TENSE…
1. past
2. present
3. future
2. ASPECT..
1. perfective
2. imperfective
3. perfect
4. completive
5. inceptive
6. inchoative
7. punctual
8. progressive
9. iterative
10.habitual
difference between tense and aspect
3. MOOD
1. epistemic modality
2. deontic modality
4. EVIDENTIALITY...
References … www.facebook.com/zubair.A.bajwa

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 Grammatical category (also referred to as grammatical features) is a property of items in
grammar. It has a number of possible values. Examples of frequently encountered grammatical
categories include
• Tense (which may take values such as present, past, etc.)
• number (with values such as singular, plural)
• Gender (with values such as masculine, feminine and neuter).
INTRODUCTION TO GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY

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 In English there are three grammatical paradigms that relate to the domains of time and reality.
 Tense – expression of the time of a situation in relation to a reference point, usually
the time a clause is uttered (the present)
 Aspect – expression of the internal temporal “shape” of a situation
 Mode – expression of the speaker’s “attitude” toward the information expressed in a clause,
particularly the speaker’s commitment to the situation’s truth, likelihood, or necessity.
Domain of time and reality
Tense Aspect Mood

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The relationship between form and meaning in the TAM systems of English
Verbs may refer to
Event State
i.e. happenings
With a definite beginning and end
For example: get, come, leave, hit
i.e. state of affairs which continues over a period
And need not a definite beginning and end
For example; be, know, stay, live

6. 1.TENSE
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7. TENSE
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 Tense is the grammatical expression of relative time. Situations are often anchored in
relation to a reference point, usually the moment the clause is spoken, i.e., “now.” If we think of
time as a line, with “now” represented by a point moving from left to right, we can imagine
relative time in terms this figure.
 English verbs have three morphological forms that are usually described as “present
tense” (two forms) and “past tense”.

8. USAGE OF PRESENT TENSE
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The following examples illustrate some of the usages of the morphological present tense
 “now” (STATES)
o You know how much I love you.
o His ears are huge.
 “performative present”
o She moves the chair.
o He breaks the cup.
 “habitually over a period of time that includes ‘now’”
o His son walks to school.
o He sometimes kicks his legs when he doesn’t know what I’m
doing.
 “future, the planning of which includes ‘now’”
o Tomorrow I leave for Lahore.
o I mean he kicks them out in two weeks.
 “possible/probable conditional future situation”
o I’ll have to tell him when he comes.
o I’m taking it with me when I leave.
The grammatical “present tense” of English is often used to refer to situations that are in the future.
Future time is also part of the meaning of most of the modal auxiliaries.

9. USAGE OF PAST TENSE
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 The most common function of past tense is clearly to refer to completed situations presented as occurring before
the time of speaking, as represented in the examples:
 “before now” or “true past”
o You knew that they both had to agree. STATES
o It was rather short notice.
o We were at the last meeting.
o I told them where they could get it. ACTIONS
 “polite request for a reminder”
o What was your name again?
o Whose turn was it this time?
 “hypothetical conditional (past)”
o They knew they could not replace anybody if they gave the sack.
o If you asked for trouble, you got it.
 “hypothetical conditional (present)”
o I wouldn’t live with your father if he took drugs.
 “hypothetical conditional (future)”
o If you gave me a fiver I’d be grateful.
o I expect you could really make a mess if you tried.

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www.facebook.com/zubair.A.bajwa

11. ASPECT
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• grammatical category
• expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates to the flow of time.
• refers to the internal temporal “shape” of actions or states (Comrie 1976).
• refers to the time dimension, but is not anchored relative to a particular point in time, as is
tense.
For example, certain situations are inherently stative, others are processes, some are more dynamic
(involve change and/or movement), while some are relatively static.
 English has two constructions whose prototypical function is to adjust the aspect of
an expression.
• progressive construction
• perfect aspect construction.
Progressive construction Perfect aspect construction
Past tense I was just preparing my assignment. I had just prepared my assignment.
Present Tense I am just preparing my assignment. I have just prepared my assignment.
Future Tense I will just be preparing my assignment. I will have just prepared my assignment.
be VERB-ing
have VERB-en
• Particular kinds of situations can have their own INHERENT ASPECT

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The aspect of other clauses is determined by other factors, such as
o inherent aspect of the situation described
o syntactic context, the characteristics of the participants involved
o presence of adverbial elements, such as particles, adverbs, and prepositional phrases.
The major division in the conceptual domain of temporal shape is between perfective, imperfective, and
perfect aspects.
three major categories
Time line
Notations
Unbounded time
I
( )
x
Boundary of an action
A punctual action
Boundary of a state

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In perfective aspect a situation is viewed in its entirety, including its beginning, middle, and completion.
‘He wrote a letter.’
2.2 Imperfective
2.1 Perfective
In imperfective aspects a situation is viewed from the “inside,” as an ongoing state or process.
Habitual, progressive, and iterative aspects are all subtypes of imperfective.
‘He writes letters.’
2.3 Perfect
Perfect aspect normally describes a currently relevant state that results from the situation (normally
an action) expressed by the verb:
‘My friend has come from Dubai.’

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2.4 Completive
COMPLETIVE ASPECT expresses the completion of an action. Sometimes completive and
inceptive are called phasal aspects, because they refer to different temporal “phases” of the action
described by the verb:
She finished working.
2.5 Inceptive
Inceptive aspect expresses the starting phase of an action:
She began to work.
The phasal aspects are mostly
expressed in English via lexical verbs
such as finish, stop, start, begin,
commence, and perhaps keep on plus
a clausal Object.
2.6 Inchoative
Inchoative aspect describes the event of entering into a state:
Inchoation is expressed by
become, fall, get, turn, grow, and
wax.
‘She got tired.’

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PUNCTUAL actions are those which have no internal temporal structure because they
occur in an instant in time.
2.7 Punctual
‘He sneezed.’x
2.8 Progressive
PROGRESSIVE (or continuative) aspect is a subtype of imperfective. Actions in progressive aspect are
ongoing, dynamic processes. They prototypically involve movement and change.
He is writing letters.
Progressive aspect is directly expressed in English via the progressive construction
2.9 Iterative
ITERATIVE ASPECT is when a punctual action takes place several times in succession.
And you’re coughing all night, keeping everybody awake?
I was coughing at work.

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2.10 Habitual
 HABITUAL ASPECT asserts that a certain action, such as Waldo walking to school, regularly takes place
from time to time. It does not assert that an instance of the action is taking place at the time of
speaking, or any other specific reference time, though it may incidentally.
‘He walks to school.’
• Habitual is the default aspect expressed by the simple “present tense” for dynamic verbs in English.

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Time
Tense Aspect
Past
Present
Future
Perfect Perfective Imperfective
Phasal Non-Phasal
Inceptive Completive Inchoative
PuntualNon-Punctual
Progressive Gnomic
Continuative Repetitive
Iterative Habitual
HIERARCHICAL REPRESENTATION

18. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TENSE AND ASPECT
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Tense Aspect
 Both convey information about time
 relates the time of referent to some other
time, commonly the speech event
 aspect conveys other temporal information,
such as duration, completion, or frequency, as
it relates to the time of action.
 refers to temporally when  aspect refers to temporally how
 tense indicates its location in time.  describe the texture of the time in which
a situation occurs, such as a single point
of time, a continuous range of time, a
sequence of discrete points in time, etc.,
For example, "I eat", "I am eating", "I have eaten", and "I have been eating". All are in the present
tense, yet each conveys different information or points of view as to how the action relate to the
present. They differ in aspect.

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3. MODALITY

20. MODALITY
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 MODALITY is a complex conceptual domain that covers a wide range of possible speaker’s
attitudes or orientations toward a situation. These include the speaker’s belief in the reality,
necessity, or likelihood of the situation described.
 In English, modality is expressed most directly by the modal auxiliaries.
 Two subdivisions within modality
describes the speaker’s perception as to how “real” a situation is, or how confident the speaker is in
the truth of the assertion.
1. EPISTEMIC MODALITY
describes the speaker’s perception as to how “necessary” a situation is.
2. DEONTIC MODALITY

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 Most of the modal auxiliaries in English have both epistemic and deontic functions, though some tend
to express one more than the other. Here is a selection of examples of each modal auxiliary,
functioning to express a variety of modal notions:
Epistemic modality
Possibility: I might borrow Slumbat’s car this weekend.
It might rain tonight.
They may just want to ask us some questions.
Probability: They should be here by 3:00.
Prediction: They will be here at 6:00 pm.
Ability: Mariela can sing the alto part to the Hallelujah chorus.
Contingent/conditional: I could make spaghetti, if you make a salad.
Give her that gift and she would be in seventh heaven.
Assumption: They must be worried about you.
That ought to be enough curry for this recipe.
The output has to equal the input.

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Deontic Modality
Permission: You can go now.
The defendant may be seated.
Suggestion: You might just send her a card.
Slight obligation: I should eat more green vegetables.
You’d better pick somebody else.
Stronger obligation: They ought to be more polite to her family.
Insistence: He must stop chewing his fingernails.
They have to submit the application by next Tuesday.
You’d BETTER get over here right now!

23. HIERARCHY OF MODALITY
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Modality
Epistemic Actuality
Evdiential Validational Conditional Deontic Hypothetical Optative
Direct Hearsay inferential
Sure Unsure
strong Medium Weak

24. 4. EVIDENTIALITY
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25. EVIDENTIALITY
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 Deals with how speakers let hearers know how they obtained the information expressed in a
clause.
 People have different attitudes toward knowledge partially because they obtain knowledge
from different sources
 evidentiality is closely tied to tense, aspect, and mode.
For example, we are more likely to be sure of past actions than future actions, the completion of
perfective actions than of actions still in process, realis assertions than irrealis assertions.
The encoding into a language of the source of information being communicated, for
example to distinguish hearsay from something actually witnessed.
 All languages have some means of specifying the source of information. European languages
(such as Germanic and Romance languages) often indicate evidential-type information through modal
verbs or other lexical words (adverbials) (English: reportedly) or phrases (English: it seems to
me).
I hear that, I see that, I think that, as I hear, as I can see, as far as I understand, they say, it is
said, it seems, it seems to me that, it looks like, it appears that, it turns out that, alleged,
stated, allegedly, reportedly, obviously, etc.
Examples

26. REFERENCES
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 What is a grammatical category? - SIL.org
 http://www-
01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsAGrammaticalCategory.htm
 Payne, E. Thomas. (2011). Time and Reality: Understanding English Grammar. London,
Cambridge University Press.
 Binnick, Robert I. 2006. Aspect and aspectuality. The Handbook of English Linguistics,
ed.Bas Aarts & A. M. S. McMahon, 244–68. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
 Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related
Problems (Reprinted with corrections 1978, 1981) (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics).
Cambridge University Press. 1985. Tense (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge
University Press.

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FOR YOUR PATIENCE

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NO QUESTION IS ALSO NOT A BAD IDEA!