Tense

Revision as of 12:51, 16 January 2010

Tense is a category used in the grammatical description of verbs (along with aspect and mood), referring primarily to the way the grammar marks the time at which the action denoted by the verb took place. It can be broadly classified as:

• absolute tense: indicates time in relationship to the time of the utterance (i.e. "now").
• relative tense: in relationship to some other time, other than the time of utterance.

Natural language

In the UNLarium framework, the attribute tense is represented by the following hierarchy, where lower levels subsume upper levels:

General tenses

General tenses, such as simple past or simple future in English, are indicated by the uppermost level of the corresponding branch.

English

simple past = PAS

simple future = FUT

Relative and absolute-relative tenses are indicated by combining absolute and relative tags through "&"

English:

past perfect (= past of the past): PAS&RPT

future perfect (= past of the future): FUT&RPT

French:

passé antérieur (= past of the past): PAS&RPT

future antérieur (= past of the future): FUT&RPT

Tense, mood and aspect

Tense, mood and aspect can be conjoined with "&":

aorist: PAS&PFV

imperfect (past imperfect): PAS&NPFV

present perfect: PRS&PFC

Simple and compound tenses

The difference between simple and compound forms must be informed only if they represent different alternatives for the same tense. Compounds are indicated through the attribute "CPW":

French

passé simple: PAS

passé composé: PAS&CPW

Examples

List of grammatical tenses:

• English tenses
• French tenses

UNL

In UNL, tense is to be represented as attributes indicating the actual time of the event.
The corresponding values for the attribute tense are the following:

The UNL representation should indicate the time rather than the grammatical tense of a form.

There is no simple one-to-one relationship between tense forms and time. In English, for instance, the present (grammatical tense) may be used to represent the future (time)

I’m going home tomorrow = go.@future.@recent (and not go.@present)

@present is used to indicate an action at the present, and not habits, routines and statements

I'm in Frankfurt. = @present

I always come to school by cycle. = no tense information

The sun sets in the Occident. = no tense information

Tense values may be combined.

I'm going home tomorrow = go.@future.@recent

I had been there = @past.@anterior

Examples

List of grammatical tenses:

• English tenses
• French tenses