Tense and Aspect

Tense and aspect present states and events from different perspectives. Tense presents events from an external perspective–in relation to a topic time. Aspect presents events from an internal perspective–in relation to the temporal contour of an event. The tense and aspect perspectives are independent, and languages vary in which perspective they encode grammatically via a verbal affix or auxiliary verb. Many languages, such as English, have grammatical markers for both tense and aspect.

Grammatical Aspect

English uses the progressive to express an event from the imperfective aspect perspective. Compare the following sentences.

      Mary left.

      Mary was leaving.

The verbs in both sentences are in the past tense, but the first sentence takes a perfective aspect perspective while the sentence with the progressive takes an imperfective aspect perspective. The perfective aspect presents events from the outside. From an external perspective, we cannot see what else may have taken place during Mary’s leaving. So even though Mary may have spent an hour leaving, the perfective aspect presents an undifferentiated, completed event.

The imperfective aspect presents events from the inside. It enables speakers to peer inside events and express what was taking place during Mary’s leaving. The perfective/imperfective distinction does not reflect a feature of the actual event. It encodes the viewpoint of the speaker on the event, whether the speaker wishes to present the event from an internal (imperfective) or external (perfective) perspective. The independence of tense and aspect provides a test for grammatical aspect in languages. The sentences above are in the past tense and differ by aspect. The following sentences are in the future tense and differ by aspect.

      John will leave.

      John will be leaving.

Unlike English, many languages only mark aspect grammatically and lack grammatical markers of tense. Such languages suggest that not all languages have a tense projection in their grammar. The Mayan language K’iche’ marks distinctions between imperfective, perfective and potential events.

K’iche’ uses the imperfective to express imperfective or habitual events. The imperfective is not associated with any tense as seen in the following examples (Larsen 1988: 163). These examples also show how K’iche’ uses adverbial phrases to encode tense lexically.

      k+0+chakun-ik                   aree   ri   x+in+ook          uloq

      IMPERF+3ABS+work-IV when the PERF+1ABS+enter hither

      ‘S/he was working when I came in.’

      k+0+chakun                 chwe’q

      IMPERF+3ABS+work tomorrow

      ‘S/he will work tomorrow.’

Larsen claims that the perfective aspect is only found with adverbial expressions of past time, and ‘can never be used in non-past contexts’ (Larsen 1988: 167). The perfective is found in conditional contexts where it does not have a simple past tense interpretation (Norman 1976: 53).

      wa ta         x+0+u+taa                         rii ama’s

      if   irrealis PERF+3ABS+3ERG+hear the Tom

      ‘If Tom had heard it.’

Larsen states that the potential forms are limited to specific contexts, such as following the adverbial particle raj ‘soon, almost’ (Larsen 1988: 173). The potential forms are also used to express deontic modality.

      raj ch+in+b’ee-k

      soon POT+1ABS+go-IV

      ‘I’m going soon’

The Imperfective Paradox

Dowty (1979: 133) draws attention to a major difference between activities and accomplishments in the progressive, e.g.,

1. John was pushing a cart      [entails]                 John pushed a cart

2. John was drawing a circle  [does not entail]    John drew a circle

Accomplishment verbs are telic, they describe activities that normally lead to a result

      Yet the result is not accomplished when the phrase appears in the progressive aspect

How do we account for the feeling that John was engaged in a bringing-a-circle-into-existence activity and yet might not have brought a circle into existence? This is the ‘imperfective paradox’. We could just as easily say that he was bringing a triangle into existence.

      John was drawing a horse =? John was drawing a unicorn.

Could try an approach that relies on the intentions of the agent (he intends to draw a circle)

Non-sentient agents create a problem:

      The drought is destroying the crops.

      The river is undercutting its banks.

Formally, we want a theory that derives the meaning of [PROG φ] from the meaning of φ, i.e. compositionally. In the case of accomplishments however, the progressive meaning requires access to the parts of the accomplishment. If an accomplishment verb is represented as

[ψ CAUSE [BECOME χ]], PROG [ψ CAUSE [BECOME χ]] must entail ψ but not entail [BECOME χ] even though [ψ CAUSE [BECOME χ]] entails both ψ and [BECOME χ].

Although most achievement verbs do not occur in the progressing (??John was finding his keys), the few that do create the same problems as the accomplishment verbs:

      John was falling asleep     [does not entail]    John fell asleep

      Mary was dying                [does not entail]    Mary died

The paradox occurs in part because semantic theories link the truth of an atomic sentence to a moment in time rather than an interval of time. An interval is not simply a set of moments, otherwise the expressions would be equivalent, e.g., ∀t [t ∈ one week → AT(t, φ)].

This notion works for stative predicates, e.g., John lived in Boston for years.

But not for activities, e.g., John spent an hour working on his tax return.

      He might have taken a break for five minutes

The truth of the sentence is relative to the interval, not necessarily every moment on the interval.

Possible Worlds

Dowty resorts to the use of possible worlds to spell out the connection between drawing a circle and the resulting circle. In other words the circle is a possible outcome of John’s activity. This approach implies that the progressive is not solely an aspectual operator, but rather a mixed modal-aspectual operator. Dowty proposes the following analysis:

[PROG φ] is true at <I, w> iff there is an interval I’ such that I ⊂ I’ and I is not a final subinterval for I’ and there is a world w’ for which φ is true at <I’, w’>, and w is exactly like w’ at all times preceding and including I.

            ¬ ψ is true                                      I’                                 ψ is true

      w’ ------------------|-]-------------[----------------]---------------[-|------------]-------->

                                                                  I          |

      w ----------------------------------[----------------]--------------------------------------->

                                          PROG [BECOME ψ] is true

The two lines labeled w and w’ represent, respectively, the course of time in the actual world and in some possible world. The dotted line connecting the two time lines indicates the point up to which w and w’ are exactly alike.

      This analysis does not require ψ to be true at any time in the actual world w (although it does not exclude this possibility), but it does require that some initial subinterval of the coming about of ψ be ‘actualized’. It also requires that there be a time in the past in the actual world at which ¬ ψ was true.

Dowty’s truth condition relative to possible worlds entails that the following sentences are both true.

      The coin is coming up heads.

      The coin is coming up tails.

Evidently, an even stronger condition is needed. Dowty offers a suggestion from David Lewis that the truth be relative to the set of worlds in which the “natural course of events” takes place. That is to say, all the worlds in which nothing untoward disrupts the natural inertia of the event. Dowty suggests enriching the logic with a set of inertia worlds which are exactly like the given world up to the time in question and in which the future course of events after this time develops in ways most compatible with the past course of events.

Dowty’s final attempt at the truth conditions for [PROG φ] is thus:

      [PROG φ] is true at <I, w> iff for some interval I’ such that I ⊂ I’ and I is not a final subinterval for I’, and for all w’ such that w’ ∈ Inertial World(<I, w>), φ is true at <I’, w’>.

Compare

      John was watching television when Bill entered the room.

      John was watching television when he fell asleep.

The sentences show that the real entailment from progressives is the possibility that John

continue the watching, not that it actually continues.

Tense Systems

Although it is common to distinguish between three tenses, few languages have distinct inflections for all three tenses (Chung & Timberlake 1985). Lithuanian is one language with a tripartite tense system.

Lithuanian (Dambriunas, Klimas & Schmalstieg 1966)

      Past                       Present                        Future

      jìs skaĩt-ė             jìs skaĩt-o                   jìs skait-s

      he read-3s.Past      he read-3s.Present      he read-3s.Future

      ‘He read.’             ‘He reads.’                 ‘He will read.’

Languages with bipartite tense systems are much more common. Bipartite tense systems are derived by associating the present tense with either the past or future tenses. Languages with a past/nonpast tense system use the same marker for present and future tense. Finnish is an example of a language with a past/nonpast tense system.

Finnish

      Past                             Present/Future

      me laula-imme            me laula-mme

      we sing-1p.Past          we sing-1p.Non-past

      ‘We were singing.’    ‘We sing/are singing/will sing.’

A bipartite tense system can also be achieved by associating the past and present tenses. This results in a future/nonfuture system. Kusaiean provides an example of this type of tense system.

Kusaiean (Lee 1975)

      Past/Present                                        Future (certain)                 Future (probable)

      Sepe el mas ekweyah/ingena              Sepe el ac misac               Sepe el fah misac

      Sepe subj. sick yesterday/now            Sepe subj. Fut.Cert die     Sepe subj. Fut.Prob die

      ‘Sepe was/is sick yesterday/now.’     ‘Sepe will surely die.’      ‘Sepe will probably die.’

Relative Tense

Relative tense refers to a time established by some feature of the discourse context other than an overt tense or aspect marker. Relative tense is usually found in narrative contexts. In Russian, for example, an event reported in indirect discourse must occur in the present tense, e.g.,

Chung and Timberlake 1985:211

      Ja spros-il počemu u nego trjasuts-ja ruki.

      I ask-PAST why to him tremble-PRES hands.

      “I asked him why his hands are = were shaking.”

The phenomenon of relative tense suggests that tense does not refer to speech time in a direct manner. Another possibility is that present tense is an open variable that can be bound by the discourse.

Jordanian Arabic provides an example of relative aspect. Jordanian Arabic has different verb inflections for perfective and imperfective aspect. The imperfective verb forms inherit their aspectual interpretations from other parts of sentences:

Al Shboul 2007:129-131

      xaalid rah yu-drus fil-maktabeh

      Khalid FUT 3MAS-study.IMP in-library

      ‘He will study in the library’

      kaan yu-drus

      be.PAST 3MAS-study.IMP

      ‘He was studying/used to study’

      mumkin yu-drus

      might 3MAS-study.IMP

      ‘He might study’

      biddu yu-drus

      3MAS-want.IMP to 3MAS-study.IMP

      ‘He wants to study’

Finiteness

Finiteness is a property of root clauses. What this property actually corresponds to is difficult to pin down. Tense is said to code finiteness, but languages that lack grammatical tense (Chinese, K’iche’ Maya) also have simple declarative sentences. The following examples illustrate non-finite clauses in English:

18a. I heard Marcia playing jazz.

    b. He wanted Marcia to give Peter a piano lesson.

    c. Don’t let that cat scratch the furniture.

Kearns claims that finiteness is associated with the property of being a potential truth-value bearer. This analysis does not say how to treat the semantic content of non-finite clauses. Klein (1994:3) associates finiteness with the assertion made by an utterance, and says that tense, like aspect, imposes a temporal constraint on the assertion.

One possibility would be to treat non-finite clauses as open propositions. Just as the sentence ‘Marcia gave Peter’ is incomplete because it lacks an argument, the sentence ‘Marcia give Peter a piano lesson’ can be considered incomplete because it lacks a tense argument. In this analysis, finiteness can be analyzed as a type of argument binding, making tense a predicate argument.

Kearns, like many linguists, identifies finiteness with tense. This identification produces a puzzle for languages like Chinese which lack syntactic tense but nevertheless assert truth values. How can we extend the notion of finiteness to aspect marking languages? One possibility would be to treat aspect as a predicate argument equivalent to the tense argument.

Smith and Erbaugh (2005) surveyed six articles in three major Chinese publications and found that only 49 of the total of 7,640 characters were aspect morphemes. This works out to an average of one aspectual morpheme every 14 clauses, or 7% of clauses. They provide the following example from a fictional Chinese narrative:

(31) Fictional narrative

     a. Ta hao rongyi ququ zhezhe de huichu shou lai, E1

        He with difficulty turn turn twist twist DE pull out hand come

     b. shou li jiu you yige xiaoxiao de changfang bao, kuilyu se de, S

        hand in just have a small small rectangular package sunflower green DE

     c. yi jing    di gei Si Taitai. E2

        one movement give to Si Mrs.

     [‘With difficult twists and turns he pulled his hand out of his clothing. It held a small rectangular package of sunflower green. In one movement, he handed it to his wife.’]

This example shows that however we define finiteness, it can be equated with the overt realization of aspect.

9.4 The Formal Representation of Simple Tenses

Tense expressions can be translated into logic as operators akin to the modality operators we examined earlier:

21a. Clive loves Marcia          Pres LOVE(c,m)

    b. Fido bit Benny                 Past BITE(f,b)

    c. Benny will kick Fido       Fut KICK(b,f)

We can give these tense operators a reference to times represented below by the variable t:

22a. ‘Pres LOVE(c,m)’ is true at t* iff

        ‘LOVE(c,m)’ is true at t*

    b. ‘Past BITE(f,b)’ is true at t* iff

         ∃t(t < t* & ‘BITE(f,b)’ is true at t)

     c. ‘Fut KICK(b,f)’ is true at t* iff

          ∃t(t* < t & ‘KICK(b,f)’ is true at t)

The variable t* represents the time of speech. The symbol ‘<’ indicates a precedence relation between two times. The expression t < t* indicates the event time precedes the time of speech. This analysis treats times as individuals that can be referred to by variables. The definitions for Past and Fut quantify over the time variable.

Temporal adverbs help to delimit the interval of time between the past event and the moment of speech. As we saw above, the interval must be open when used with the present perfect.

                              |........................................................................>

                                   interval for today

                                                                                         now

      past ————|———————|——————–——|————>future

                          today                     ∣..............................................>

                                                mail comes      aftertime of event

                                                                              result state

      The mail has come today.

State predicates have a continuing state reading in the present perfect:

35a. I have stayed in today.

    b. Sheila has worked in the library since December.

    c. The door has been open for ten minutes.

The state expressed by these predicates fills up the interval denoted by the temporal adverb:

                                    state of staying in

                              |........................................................................>

                                   interval for today

                                                                                         now

      past ————|———————|——————–——|————>future

                          today

            I have stayed in today.

There is a similarity between the way events interact with temporal adverbs and the way count nouns have with measures. Both specify discrete measures–time intervals for events and discrete objects for count nouns. State predicates and mass nouns likewise display a certain similarity in that both refer to nondiscrete measures of time intervals and masses respectively.

Universal and Existential Readings

The continuing state reading for state predicates is due to the presence of a temporal adverb. Without the adverb, the state of affairs is understood to be completely in the past:

37a. They have lived here since 1985.

        Donna has had a job at Romero’s this year.

    b. They have lived here.

        Donna has had a job at Romero’s.

The difference between a state filling the interval denoted by an adverbial and a state partly filling an interval can be analyzed in terms of universal and existential quantification over the times in the interval.

38. They have lived here since the war.

      a. existential:

          [The t: SINCE THE WAR(t)] [∃t’: IN(t’,t) they live here at t’

          For some time t’, such that t’ is in the interval t which is since the war, they live here at t’

      b. universal:

          [The t: SINCE THE WAR(t)] [∀t’: IN(t’,t) they live here at t’

          For all times t’, such that t’ is in the interval t which is since the war, they live here at t’

9.5 Definite and Indefinite Reference to Times

The present perfect is more compatible with indefinite time intervals relative to the simple past which is more compatible with a definite past interval:

39a. Q: What did you do after dinner?

        A: *I have watched the news.

    b. Q: What did you do after dinner?

        A: I watched the news.

    c. I’ve never met a man that I didn’t like.

    d. I’ve never met a man that I haven’t liked.

These contrasts are similar to the contrast between definite and indefinite Nps:

41a. Have you ridden a bike?

    b. Have you ridden the bike?

The definiteness contrast between the past tense and the present perfect may be translated into logic as the difference between a definite point in time and an indefinite interval of time:

44a. Bill didn’t read Moby Dick.

        [The time t] ~ READ (b,m) at t

     b. Bill hasn’t read Moby Dick.

          ~ ∃ (t < t* & READ (b,m) at t)

         ‘There is no past time at which Bill read Moby Dick.’

Barbara Partee (1973) pointed out a problem with the traditional analysis for the simple past tense with the following sentence:

45a. I turned off the stove.

    b. ∃t (t < t* & I turn off the stove at t)

    c. I didn’t turn off the stove.

    d. ∃t (t < t* & ~ (I turn off the stove at t))

        ‘For some time t such that t is earlier than now, I didn’t turn off the stove at t.’

    e. ~ ∃t (t < t* & I turn off the stove at t)

        ‘There is no time t such that t is earlier than now and I turned off the stove at t.’

The traditional analysis for the simple past tense (45b) is straightforward for affirmative sentences (45a), but seems unsuitable for negative sentences (45c). The analysis in (45d) is true iff there is any past time at which the speaker didn’t turn off the stove, e.g. 12:34:56.789 GMT. The analysis in (45e) is true if the speaker has never turned off the stove. The traditional analysis assigned an indefinite existential interpretation to the simple past tense rather than a definite analysis.

An alternative analysis treats time variables as referring pronouns rather than as existentially bound variables:

46a. He’ll never make it.

    b. I left your mail on your desk.

    c. The plumber came and he’ll send a quote.

    d. Everyone came to dinner last night and Jones got tipsy.

Pronouns refer to a definite person identified from the nonlinguistic context. The simple past tense, as in (46b), similarly refers to a definite time identified from the general context. The antecedent of a pronoun can also be identified from a previous clause (46c), just as the past time can be specified by a previous clause (46d). An antecedent tense can be referred to by means of a referentially dependent pro-form, then:

Floyd passed by Mary yesterday and he spoke to her then.

9.6 Reichenbach’s Analysis of Tense

Reichenbach (1947) analyzed tense and perfect have in terms of three points in time–Speech time (S), Event time (E), and Reference time (R). Speech time is similar to Kearns’ t*–the time of speech. Event time refers to the time at which the expressed event actually took place. Reference time refers to the temporal perspective from which the event is being referenced. In the simple past and future tenses reference time is the same as event time.

53a. simple past tense

        John left.

        E=R < S

                    Event                    Now

      past <——|———————|——————> future

                    E=R                      S

    b. simple future tense

        John will leave.

        S < E=R

                    Now                     Event

      past <——|———————|——————> future

                       S                        E=R

54a. present perfect

        John has left.

        E < R=S

                    Event                    Now

      past <——|———————|——————> future

                       E                        R=S

55. past perfect

      Tom got there by noon, but Molly had left at 10:30.

      E < R < S

                       E                        R                  S = Now

      past <——|———————|——————|———> future

                    10:30                    by noon

              Molly leaves         Tom arrives

57. future perfect

      The car can’t get to the station until three, but Leda will have arrived at noon.

      S < E < R

                  S = Now                E                  R

      past <——|———————|——————|———> future

                                                 noon                 3:00

                                           Leda arrives     The car arrives

There is a problem in determining whether the temporal adverb specifies event time or reference time. In (55), the adverbial specifies event time–the time Molly leaves. In the following sentence, the adverbial phrase specifies reference time:

56. That evening the campers had already left.

Kearns claims that this difference follows the difference between the perfect tense and the perfect aspect. With the perfect aspect, as in (56), the temporal phrase specifies reference time. With the perfect tense (55 and 57) the temporal adverbs marks event time. The aspectual future perfect is shown in the following sentence:

58. Leda will have left at 10:30 – you will have to come before 9:00 if you want to see her.

The relation between speech time and event time can vary in the future perfect. Kearns provides the following example:

60. Loney says he’s going out there, but the tide will have washed any clues away.

      R = the time of Loney’s arrival at the beach

      S < E < R  The high tide is still to come, but will peak before Loney comes.

      E < S < R  The high tide peaked two hours ago.

      E = S < R  The tide is full now.

This suggests that the future perfect does not specify a relation between speech time and event time. Kearns suggests using a branching diagram for the future perfect:

      S

61. > R

      E

Discussion question (Frawley 1992)

1. Consider the following sentence from Japanese (Soga 1983:51):

samuku na-ru to yuki ga hut-ta.

cold become-PRES when snow SUBJ fall-PAST

When it became cold, it snowed.

Explain why na ‘become’ is in the present tense.

Kearns (172)

A. Use the tense operators Pres, Past and Fut to translate the following sentences into predicate logic.

1. Everyone likes icecream.

2. Jenny had met Claudia (already).

3. Some letters will have been destroyed.

4. Delia thinks Minnie is going to be sick.

E. Are the following sentences compatible with the idea that the present perfect, in contrast with the simple past tense, makes indefinite reference to times?

1. I haven’t turned off the stove.

2. I haven’t seen your dog.

3. I haven’t seen the Grand Canyon.

4. I haven’t had breakfast.

J. Analyze the scopal ambiguity of the sentence:

      The pope will always be a Catholic.

References

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Bennett, Michael & Partee, Barbara H. 1972. Toward the logic of tense and aspect in English.

Bybee, Joan. 1985. Morphology. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Chung, Sandra & Alan Timberlake. 1985. Tense, aspect, and mood. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, III: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, pp. 202-258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Dambriunas, Leonardas, Antanas Klimas & William Schmalstieg. 1966. An Introduction to Modern Lithuanian. Brooklyn, NY: Franciscan Fathers Press.

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Partee, Barbara (Ed.). 1976. Montague Grammar. New York: Academic Press.

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