Bernard comrie, stephen anderson tense and aspect in eight languages of. For this reason, relatively limited attention will be paid to explaining basic concepts and surveying earlier work. Tense bernard comrie, professor of linguistics bernard. Reliable information about the coronavirus covid19 is available from the world health organization current situation, international travel. The three absolute tenses are present, past and future. Where the main clause verb is a past tense, the sequenceoftense rule. That is, aspectual scope is not confined to the verb, nor is aspect only a verbal category. The evidence comes from the observation that tense does not affect temporal relations in mandarin. According to comrie 1985, absolute tenses take the present moment as a deictic center, i. Numerous and frequentlyupdated resource results are available from this search. Bernard comrie, ray fabri, elizabeth hume, manwel mifsud, thomas stolz, martine vanhove introducing maltese linguistics.
Tense is a very well organised textbook about tense systems, and bernard comrie always makes sure to add examples from the widest possible range of languages. That is because it uses concepts or ideas that do not exist in those languages. Comrie 1976 and tense comrie 1985, which draw on data from multiple languages, and conferences on tense and aspect. Although the form driving is called a present participle, it doesnt itself have a tense. The overall scope of this work is to provide an account of tense from the viewpoint of language universals and linguistic typology, that is, to establish the range of variation that is found across languages in tense, and.
John lyons defines tense as a diectic category, which is simultaneously a property of the sentence and 1. Anyone who feels dissatisfied with this is referred to. English grammar, tenses page 9 of 38 present perfect tense i have sung the present perfect tense is a rather important tense in english, but it gives speakers of some languages a difficult time. Tense cambridge textbooks in linguistics pdf free download. An introduction to the general linguistic study of aspect. It appears from cs text that he wants to say that a grammatical category is a tense if it comrie. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology and linguistic universals, and on caucasian languages. Given the relatively liberal characterization of tense assumed here, comrie 1985 distinguishes between absolute tense, which is speech time oriented, and relative tense, which can relate to other contextually salient times. Three parameters are traditionally cited as relevant in defining tense and indentifying tense distinctions. One big topic we havent discussed at all this semester is tense and aspect, and the semantics of. Pdf this paper investigates the meanings of the tenses and the system of. It appears from cs text that he wants to say that a grammatical category is a tense if it comrie, bernard. Comrie aspect grammatical tense perfect grammar scribd.
In another words, a finite verb marked with d or without that marker could be categorized into tense, however, nonfinites can have voice and aspect and phase, but not tense joos, 1964, p. Instead, tense is expressed by the tense of to be accompanying the present participle or, if its not there like in your example, by the tense of the main verb of the sentence in your case past tense, texted. Thus dahl 1985 argues that inflectional aspect systems unlike the derivational ones of slavic languages most often are of a tripartite nature, the grammaticization of zero 237 with present and past tense only distinguished in the imperfective aspect, as for example in spanish and french. In this textbook he introduces readers to the range of variation found in tense systems across the languages of the world, bringing together a rich collection of illustrative material that student and specialist alike will find invaluable. Vajda, western washington university this collection of 16 articles exploring the structural interdependence between. In other languages absolute tenses do not just indicate anteriority or posteriority to the moment of speech, but in addition the degree of remoteness from the moment of speech. This cited by count includes citations to the following articles in scholar. Between 1977 and 1985, the role of the computer in linguistic research has changed. Tense by bernard comrie cambridge university press.
Bernard comrie defines tense as the grammaticalisation of location in time. Cambridge textbooks in linguistics general editors. Pdf from reichenbach 1947 to comrie 1985 and beyond. Once again, i rate it 4 simply because of the glossing problems not all examples are properly glossed, but the book is amazing. An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems cambridge textbooks in linguistics, by the same author, and thats exactly why i think it is a great textbook. Pdf pasttime reference, tense, and aspect past simple. Dahls tense and aspect systems henceforth tas is a comparative study of the timerelated grammatical categories of the verb in 64 typologically. This short note on discourse structure completes our article on tense and aspect. In fact, the structure of the present perfect tense is very simple. The ones marked may be different from the article in the profile.
In absoluterelative tenses, the reference point is established relative to the present moment, and a situation is located in time relative to that reference point comrie 1985. Oclcs webjunction has pulled together information and resources to assist library staff as they consider how to handle coronavirus. The overall structure of this book is very similar to aspect. Reviewed by alexander nakhimovsky colgate university, department of computer science, hamilton, ny 346, u. In this paper, i argue that tense is a discourse feature in mandarin if tense is extended to mean temporal location in general instead of grammaticalized location in time, as defined in comrie tense, 1985. Tense and aspect stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Selected papers from the 1st international conference on maltese linguistics, bremen, 1820 october, 2007. Topics covered include the relation of tense and aspect, the morphology and the semantics of aspect, and structuralist and philosophical approaches. Basic data japanese exhibits an interesting set of data involving tense morphemes. Dr comrie draws his examples particularly from english and the slavonic and romance languages, but also from arabic, chinese, welsh, greek and a variety of others.
The final endpoint imposed on an activity by past tense is not accessible to the other. Relative tenses are defined relative to an additional reference point which does not necessarily correspond with the moment of utterance comrie 1985. Comrie 1985, for example, proposes a syntactic sequenceoftense rule, which applies only where the main clause verb is past. Comries strict relative tense expresses time relative to the reference point provided by the context, without indicating where that reference point lies relative to the present time. Relative tense in relative clauses university of washington.
The role of caregivers tense and aspectual distinctions. A verb form commonly offered as an example of such a relative tense is the imperfect of classical arabic. Event structure and the perfect stanford university. This book provides a fairly accessible introduction to tense, but i think it needs to be paired with a text on aspect. This systematic account of the data is carefully integrated with a theoretical. Alternatively, bache 1995, comrie 1976, dahl 1985, 1999, and. Cambridge core psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics tense by. The grammaticization of zero university of new mexico. This indicates an ongoing state of affairs at the moment. Also, the utter lack of glossing is incredibly frustrating. Northholland 305 from reichenbach 1947 to comrie 1985 and beyond towards a theory of tense renaat declerck university of leuven, belgium received february 1986. In this textbook he introduces readers to the range of variation found in tense systems across the languages of the world, bringing together a rich collection of illustrative material. Tense is a very well organised textbook about tense systems, and bernard comrie always makes sure to add examples from the widest possible range of. University of california publications in linguistics, 19.
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