UNIVERSITATEA SPIRU HARET

BUCUREŞTI

FACULTATEA DE LIMBI ŞI LITERATURI

STRĂINE

LUCRARE DE DISERTAŢIE

TEMPORAL FEATURES OF TIME

ADVERBS AND THEIR

INTERACTION WITH ENGLISH

TENSES

COORDONATOR ŞTIINŢIFIC,

PROFESOR DR. ILINCA CRĂINICEANU

MASTERAND,

ANCA MAGDALENA PIRNĂ

CONTENTS

The Importance of Grammar in Teaching a Foreign

Language…………………………………………… 3

Chapter 1: The Category of Tense……………….. 9

1.1. What is “tense”?...................................... 9

1.2. Expressions of 'tense'………………….. 16

1.3. The status of 'tense' as a feature……… 18

1.4. The values of feature 'tense'………….. 19

Chapter 2: The Classification of Temporal Adverbs

……………………………………………………….. 21

2.1. Definition………………………………… 21

2.2. The classification of temporal

adverbials……………………………………………. 23

Chapter 3: The Category of Aspect……………….. 35

3.1. The Definition of Aspect………………... 35

3.2. Features of the Aspect…………………… 37

Conclusions………………………………………….. 43

References…………………………………………… 45

2

THE IMPORTANCE OF GRAMMAR

IN TEACHING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Grammar is seen as the process of choosing

forms and constructing language in response to

communicative demands. It essentially involves the

learner’s creative response to context and

circumstance. Someone’s knowledge of grammar

implies knowledge of how to recognize structures

when spoken, how to identify them when written, how

to understand them in context and how to produce

meaningful sentences.

Grammar should be taught using all four

language skills so that the students should/would be

able to produce structures for oral and written

communication, but at the same time to comprehend

structures while listening or reading. The instructor

will design a variety of activities directed to both form

and communication. This diversity will enable

students to concentrate in turn on increasing the level

of language accuracy or developing fluency in

English.

3

In the communicative competence model, the

purpose of learning grammar is to increase awareness

that grammar is a part of the language. It is

important that traditional ways of teaching grammar

should not be entirely eliminated but the instructor

will teach grammar structures in relation to specific

communication task that students need to complete.

As far as the teacher’s role is concerned,

perhaps the most important component is the way in

which he/she presents the new items of grammar. This

is the key for a successful grammar lesson because

presentation - the stage at which students are

introduced to the form, meaning and use of a new

piece of language - strongly influences pupils’

performance.

Nowadays communication is the main goal for a

learner who decides to take up studying a foreign

language. Few choose to make this endeavour only for

literature’s sake, to develop their capability of

reading an author in the original or for other reasons,

such as to broaden their experience or to expand their

view of the world.

A modern learner needs to have the ability to

encode and decode information in a direct way as one

4

faces a variety of communicative situations. In this

context, the role of foreign language education has

become extremely important and teachers should be

able to instruct students in this respect. This means

that the language instructor should know and use the

best methods and techniques in order to provide

successful training.

It is obvious that at present the general focus is

primarily on fluency rather than correctness,

especially in every day conversation where little

grammar is taken into consideration. Nevertheless,

grammar remains central to the teaching and

learning of languages as the ideal combination would

be both a good flux of communication and accuracy.

Up to now, two major tendencies have

influenced the practice of teaching foreign languages.

The former leads to the view of treating grammar as a

set of word forms and rules. After explaining the

rules, the teacher prepares a series of drills designed

to give the pupils some practice with the already

learnt structures. The immediate results are

sometimes boredom because of the lack of variety as

well as dissatisfaction because of the possibility of

making errors when students try to use the language

5

in the context. On the other hand, some teachers

choose not to teach grammar at all. They believe that

the acquisition of the target language is done as in the

case of pupils’ first language, so no overt grammar

instruction is necessary. They assume that the

students will absorb the grammar rules as they use

the language in communication activities. This

approach deprives students of active understanding of

the way in which the language they know works.

The latter tendency mentioned above was a part

of what is called the Communicative Approach or

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT),

developed in the 1970s. It was based on the belief that

grammatical knowledge is merely one component of

what theorists called communicative competence.

Communicative competence involves knowing how to

use the grammar and vocabulary of the language to

achieve communicative goals, and knowing how to do

this in a socially appropriate way. Two schools of

thought tried to attain this objective, but the one led

by N.S. Prahbu, a teacher of English in southern

India, is considered today radical as studying the

rules of grammar is not a waste a time and many

6

specialists state the fact that grammar is an essential

resource in using language communicatively.

The reason for choosing this topic is related to

the frequent occurrence of time adverbs in many

language structures and to the fact that the usage of

these involves other grammatical issues. In this

respect, dealing with time adverbs does not imply only

a classification of these ones. It also involves

modalities of understanding/making up the English

tenses.

Throughout my pedagogical career so far I

have noticed that pupils have difficulties when

encountering time adverbs, not as much when they

recognize them as being included in a certain

sentence, but especially when they try to integrate

such adverbs into sentences of their own.

This paper provides a theoretical basis for the

topic as well as a practical one. Of course,

grammarians and linguists dedicate a quite vast area

of their works to this type of adverbs and their

interaction with the English tenses, so the theory

comprised here does not bring novel/novelty elements,

although I have striven to make some comparisons

and to illustrate their differences in opinion when

7

there was the case. Additionally, the bibliography I

have consulted helped me find a more thorough

insight into the communicative approach and into the

relation between fluency and accuracy.

8

CHAPTER 1: THE CATEGORY OF

TENSE

1.1. What is “tense”?

Generally tense is defined as representing the

chronological order of events in time as perceived by

the speaker at the moment of speaking, speech time

(ST). Tense is a deictic category, i.e. the moment

NOW is central, past time or future time representing

DIRECTIONS whose ORIENTATIONS depends on

ST. ST/NOW is a central point on the temporal axis of

orientation according to which we interpret the

ordering of events/states. All accounts of tense make

interpretation sensitive to tense. Events can develop

simultaneously with ST (at relation) or sequentially to

it (before/ after relations).Tense is a functional

category that expresses a temporal relation to the

orientation point (ST) locating in time the situation

talked about.

Tense represents the grammaticalisation of

location in time. In order to define tense and identify

9

tense distinctions, three parameters are traditionally

cited as being relevant: (a) the location of the deictic

centre (either at the present moment - in the so-called

'absolute tenses', or at a different point in time - in the

so-called 'relative tenses'); (b) the location of the

situation with respect to the deictic centre (i.e. prior

to, subsequent to, or simultaneous with the deictic

centre); and (c) the distance in time at which the

situation referred to is located from the deictic centre.

In what it concerns the category of tense, the term

'situation' is understood as an event, process or state,

without taking into account its internal temporal

contour. The internal temporal contour of the

situation provides the conceptual basis for the notion

of aspect. This conceptualisation of time, which

appears to be adequate for an account of tense in

human language including all time location

distinctions found in natural language, can be

represented diagrammatically as follows:

10

The diagram represents time as a straight line,

with the past represented conventionally to the left

and the future to the right. The present moment is

represented by a point on that line, labelled S

(mnemonic for 'speech time'). Several things are

intentionally left unspecified. One of them is whether

the time line is bounded at either the left or the right,

including whether it bends to form a circle. While this

is an important philosophical issue, it does not seem to

be relevant for the grammaticalisation of time.

Similarly, conceptualisations of time as cyclic are

found in all cultures, but on a macroscopic scale

which does not have a bearing on tense distinctions.

Furthermore, the diagram does not represent the flow

of time - that is, it does not indicate whether S (or,

11

Ego) moves along a stationary time line, or whether

time flows past a stationary reference point S (or,

Ego). This is another important philosophical

question, but again it does not seem to play a role in

the analysis of tense as a linguistic category. However,

many of these culture-specific conceptualisations of

time are metaphors that are important sources of

time expressions across languages.

The basic orientation point for temporal-deictic

distinctions is represented by the speech situation S

projected onto the time line; that means this is always

the primary point of reference (R0). One of the extra-

linguistic presuppositions for an utterance is

constituted by the speaker's consciousness of the

relation of the speech situation S to the reported

situation E (mnemonic for 'event') along the time line.

A past situation is therefore located in the time before

and not including the present moment, a future

situation (a prediction, imposition, or an instance of

pre-planning) is located in the time after the present

moment, and a present situation, whether continuing

or repetitive, is located in the time that includes the

present moment, regardless of whether it

encompasses a shorter or longer stretch of time. This

12

concept of time, which relates a situation to the time

line, is essential to the linguistic category of tense.

It is interesting to note that a further parameter

that could theoretically be posited for tense

distinctions - that of a specific location in time, or a

specific time lapse - does not seem to be

grammaticalised as tense. In those cultures which

care about, and are able to capture, very precise

location in time and very fine distinctions of time,

these are usually expressed using existing

grammatical patterns and the appropriate lexical

items which may be combined with mathematical

expressions in order to gain precision (e.g. 10.45 am

on Friday, 9 June 2006; nanosecond; 10-6 seconds). On

the other hand, in cultures which lack the technology

to capture precise temporal locations, or attach little

value to precision in temporal location, such precision

may not be attainable even lexically.

In grammar, tense is a verbal category which

relates the time of a narrated event to the time of the

speech event. In many languages the concept of time

is expressed not by the verb but by other parts of

speech (temporal adverbials or even nouns, for

example). Time is frequently perceived as a

13

continuum with three main divisions: past, present,

and future. The past and future times are defined in

relation to the present time (now). Past tense refers to

any time before the present time, and future tense

refers to any time after the present. Not all languages

perceive this relationship as a linear one, nor do these

categories characterize all possible times. Tense, then,

is a grammatical expression of time reference. The

correlation between tense and time is not necessarily

one-to-one; languages do not recognize as many

oppositions of tense as they have conceptions of time.

The English language has past, present, and future

times, but only a past and a nonpast opposition of

tense.

past: Mary drank milk.

present: Mary is drinking milk.

future: Mary will drink milk.

Grammatical tense may not equal real time:

They are going to the cinema tonight.

14

That will be $5.00, please. (At a grocery

check-out line.)

In the first sentence, the verb form that usually

indicates present time is here used to indicate future

time. In the second sentence, the verb form usually

indicating future time is here used to indicate present

time. Generally, the past form of the verb refers to

past time, to a narrated event prior to the speech

event. However, in English the grammatical category

of tense relates to the ontological concept of time in a

binary opposition: past versus nonpast. Nonpast tense

is considered “unmarked” for tense and thus can

comprise present, future and even past times. With

the exception of some problematic modal

constructions—such as would in “John said he would

go tomorrow,” in which would is grammatically a past

tense of will but is used to indicate future time—the

past tense indicates only past time and is thus said to

be “marked” with respect to tense. Other

grammatical categories, such as mood and aspect,

may add another dimension to the time reference,

further specifying the action as definite or indefinite,

completed or not completed, lasting or nonlasting.

15

1.2. Expressions of 'tense'

Linguistically, location in time can be achieved

in many different ways ranging from purely lexical

to grammatical. Lexically composite expressions

involve slotting time specifications into the positions

of a syntactic expression, e.g. the English five

minutes after John left, 10-45 seconds after the Big

Bang, the day before yesterday, last year. This set is

potentially infinite in a language that has linguistic

means for measuring time intervals. Lexical items

include items such as: the English now, today,

yesterday. The range of time distinctions captured

through single lexical items is necessarily smaller

than that which is possible using lexically composite

expressions, as it depends on the stock of items listed

in the lexicon in the given language. Grammatical

categories represent the set of grammaticalised

expressions of location in time, that is the set of

tenses in the given language. This set is the smallest

of the three, with a finite number of synchronically

listed items (tense values).

16

In order to be regarded as a (grammaticalised)

tense, the expression of location in time has to be

integrated into the grammatical system of the

language. In contrast, a lexicalised expression of the

location in time indicates its integration into the

lexicon of the language, but does not entail any

necessary consequences for the language's

grammatical structure. Grammaticalisation, as

opposed to lexicalisation, of the location in time,

correlates with two parameters: obligatory

expression and morphological boundness. The very

rough rule is that a tense is grammaticalised if its

morphological expression is obligatory even if the

information carried by the exponent is redundant.

For example, in the English sentence Last year I

bought a new car "the choice of a tense other than

the simple past would make the sentence anomalous,

although the information that the event took place in

the past is expressed unambiguously by last year".

Morphological boundness is perhaps a slightly more

problematic criterion, which is not necessary in

itself.

17

Tense is typically a morphological category of

the verb, or verbal complex, and it can be expressed

either by verbal inflection (on the main verb or the

auxiliary - as in English), or by grammatical words

adjacent to the verb. It can also be analysed as a

grammatical category of the clause.

1.3. The status of 'tense' as a feature

Tense is often assumed to be a 'morphosyntactic

category' or 'morphosyntactic feature'. Tense is one

of the most frequently cited examples of a

prototypical inflectional category, seen as having

relevance to syntax.

To be 'relevant to syntax' means being involved

in either syntactic agreement or government. In many

familiar languages the feature 'tense' encodes regular

semantic distinctions and is an unquestionable

inflectional category. However, it is not required by

syntax through the mechanisms of either agreement

or government: syntax is not sensitive to the tense

18

value of the verb. Therefore, the familiar instances of

the feature 'tense' are morphosemantic, but not

morphosyntactic. Thus, tense is typically a

morphosemantic feature. In a dependency approach

to syntax, which implies asymmetrical marking, it can

be argued that tense, aspect, mood and polarity are

primarily features of the verb.

1.4. The values of feature 'tense'

One of the parameters that is often regarded as

contributing to tense distinctions is the distance in

time at which the situation referred to is located from

the reference point. In languages which code different

degrees of remoteness, these are usually labelled as

different tenses. Since temporal distance is relevant

only with respect to the parameters of 'before' and

'after', we find distinctions of temporal distance only

among past tenses and future tenses. Although the

degrees of remoteness are usually referred to as

tenses, alternatively, this parameter could be seen as

19

an expression of a different category, say 'remoteness'

or 'distance', which is orthogonal to the category of

tense. The tense system of a language results from a

selection of the following distinctions identified with

the three semantic primitives: the time of speech (S),

the time of the event (E), and the reference point (R).

To sum up, tense meanings that are possible in human

language result from the possible arrangements on

the time axis of the three primitives (S,E,R) plus the

multiplications of this set. Tense values are

grammaticalisations of particular tense meanings or

distinctions.

20

CHAPTER 2: THE CLASSIFICATION

OF TEMPORAL ADVERBS

2.1. Definition

Adverbs represent the part of speech or word

class that is primarily used to modify a verb, adjective

or other adverb. Adverbs can also modify

prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses and can

also complete sentences. Adverbs are traditionally

regarded as one of the parts of speech, although the

wide variety of the functions performed by words

classed as adverbs means that it is hard to treat them

as a single uniform category.

Adverbs typically add information about time

(rarely, frequently, tomorrow etc.), manner (slowly,

quickly, willingly) or place (here, there, everywhere) in

addition to a wide range of other meanings.

An adverb that modifies an adjective (quite sad)

or another adverb (very carelessly) appears

immediately in front of the word it modifies. An

adverb that modifies a verb is generally more flexible:

21

it may appear before or after the verb it modifies

(softly sang or sang softly), or it may appear at the

beginning of the sentence (Softly she sang to the

baby). The position of the adverb may have an effect

on the meaning of the sentence. As a general

principle, shorter adverbial phrases precede longer

adverbial phrases, regardless of content. In the

following sentence, an adverb of time precedes an

adverb of frequency because it is shorter (and

simpler): Dad takes a brisk walk before breakfast every

day of his life. A second principle: among similar

adverbial phrases of kind (manner, place, frequency,

etc.), the more specific adverbial phrase comes first:

She promised to meet him for lunch next Tuesday.

Bringing an adverbial modifier to the beginning of the

sentence can place special emphasis on that modifier.

This is particularly useful with adverbs of manner:

Slowly, ever so carefully, Jesse filled the coffee cup up

to the brim, even above the brim.

In what it concerns temporal adverbials, they

help us locate in time certain situations and they also

have a great contribution to the aspectual

interpretation of the sentence. Temporal adverbials

22

also called time adverbs describe when the action of a

verb is carried out.

2.2. The classification of temporal

adverbials

Temporal adverbials can be classified as it

follows:

A) locating adverbials (Smith, 1978/1991)

or frame adverbials (Bennett & Hall

Partee, 1972);

B) duration adverbials;

C) completive adverbials (Smith, 1991)

or containers;

D) frequency adverbials.

A) Locating adverbials/Frame adverbials refer to

intervals of time which are used to bound or frame

the temporal locations of events or of Reference Time

(Bennett&Partee, 1978). There are two types of such

adverbials: interval – large intervals of time, and point

– small intervals of time. The interval referred to by

such adverbials is called the frame interval. Since

23

interval frame adverbials refer to large intervals of

time, these intervals typically temporally contain not

only the event(s) of the sentence containing the

adverbial, but also, by default, the events of the

succeeding sentences, until some new frame-interval is

established. The frame-intervals referred to by point

frame do not generally have this property because of

their small size. Frame adverbials mirror the three

possible temporal relations just like tense:

simultaneity, anteriority and posteriority. According

to the time of orientation they indicate, frame

adverbials are grouped into three classes:

a) deictic adverbials which are oriented to the

time of utterance and which are represented by the

expressions such as: now, today, last Thursday, last

month, this week, tomorrow, next month, the day after

tomorrow, a year ago etc. The adverbials in this class

refer to some specific time span which is related to

some other specific time span (ST), but most of them

give only the maximal boundaries of the time span(s)

in question (Klein, 1992). They are also known as

anchored adverbials.

b) The second class is that of anaphoric

adverbials which include time expressions that relate

24

to a previously established time: until, till, in the

morning, on Monday, at night, early, before, in a

fortnight, at breakfast, three months later, in June,

already etc. These also deal only with the maximal

boundary of the time span in question.

c) Referential adverbials refer to a time

established by clock or calendar: at four, April 9, in

1976 etc.

The last two classes are unanchored; these

adverbials are not anchored to the time of utterance,

but to another orientation point.

Regarding their form, frame adverbials can be:

a) simple including expressions such as:

now, yesterday, tomorrow;

b) complex exhibiting two types of

complexity. Firstly, they consist of two

or several concatenated adverbs such

as: tomorrow evening, yesterday

morning at eight o’clock being taken as

single units in temporal interpretation

and establishing the interval of time

within which the described action is

asserted to have taken place.

25

E.g.: Sally came to me last Friday

morning.

In this example, the complex adverbial

in conjunction with the tense

morpheme specifies RT/ET. Secondly,

complex adverbials may be made of a

preposition and a nominal. In this

case, the whole group forms one

constituent syntactically, but each part

of the group has different functions

semantically, the preposition creating

a relation between the time of the

situation (ET) and the RT, and the

adverb together with Tense specifying

the RT.

E.g.: Grandma finished knitting the

pullover before last Wednesday.

B) Duration adverbials are used to say that: a)

an event or a situation is continuing, stopping or is not

happening at the moment (E.g.: He still lives in New

York. / They couldn’t stand it anymore. / It isn’t dark

yet.). “Still” is used to say that a situation continues to

exist up to a particular time in the past, present or

26

future. “Still” is put in front of the main verb and

after the verb when the main verb is “to be”(E.g.: We

were still waiting for the elections results. / My family

still live in China. / You will still get tickets if you hurry.

/ Laura’s mother died, but his father is still alive.). In

negative sentences, “still” can be used after the

subject and before the verb group in order to express

surprise or impatience (E.g.: They still haven’t given

us the keys. / She still didn’t say a word. / It was well

after midnight and he still wouldn’t leave.) “Still” can

be used in the beginning of a clause with the similar

meaning of “after all” or “nevertheless” (E.g.: Still,

she is my sister, so I’ll have to help her. / Still, it’s not

too bad. We didn’t lose all the money.) ; b) something

has happened sooner than it was expected to happen.

In this case “already” is put in front of the main verb,

excepting the situation when the main verb is “to be”

and “already” is placed after the verb (E.g.: She had

already bought the drinks. / I have already met them. /

The guests were already coming in. / John was already

in bed.). “Already” can also be used to emphasize that

something is the case, for example when someone else

does not know or is not sure (E.g.: I am already aware

of that problem.). “Already” is not normally used in

27

negative sentences, but can be used in negative

if/clauses (E.g.: Show it to him if he hasn’t already seen

it.). “Already” can be put either in the beginning or in

the end of a clause for emphasis (E.g.: Already he was

calculating the profit he could make. / I’ve done it

already.); c) “Yet” is used in the end if negative

sentences and questions to say that something has not

happened or had not happened up to a particular

time, but is or was expected to happen later. (E.g.: We

haven’t got the tickets yet. / Have you joined the

literature club yet?). It can also be used in the

beginning of clause having the similar meaning to

“but” (E.g.: I don’t miss her, yet I do often wonder

where she went.); d) “Any longer” and “anymore” are

used in the end of the negative clauses to show that

the past situation has ended and does not exist now or

will not exist in the future (E.g.: I wanted the job, but I

couldn’t wait any longer. / He’s not going to play

anymore.) In formal English, we can use an

affirmative clause with “no longer” or “no more”.

They are placed at the end of a clause or in front of

the main verb (E.g.: He could stand the pain no more. /

He no longer wanted to buy it.)

28

Duration adverbials also include expressions

like: for five years, since 2001, all the evening, at noon,

half a day, a few weeks, always, all night long,

throughout, from Monday to Friday etc.

This type of adverbials indicates the duration of

the described event (the length of time that is asserted

to take being specified) and locate a situation in time.

This means that duration adverbials have aspectual

value, being compatible with atelic sentences and odd

with the telic ones.

Whenever the situation type features and the

adverbial features are compatible, the standard

interpretation of the adverbial is to locate the

situation within the stated interval. Whenever telic

events occur in the context of duration adverbials,

there is a clash between the aspectual properties of

the situation type and the aspectual properties of the

adverbials.

Taking into account Moens’s ideas, De Swart

says that the contextual reinterpretation is possible by

coercion, a process that would yield an eventuality of

the appropriate type, which then can combine with

the durative adverbial to result in a bounded process.

Instantaneous atelic eventualities (semelfactives) in

29

the scope of durative adverbials and durative telic

verb constellations are reinterpreted as atelic/durative

in the context of durationals. The felicity of an

aspectual reinterpretation strongly depends on the

linguistic context and knowledge of the world.

Since is an indefinite adverb. The inclusive since

adverb is a duration adverb that shows sensitivity to

the aspectual make-up of the situation type,

measuring the entire time span of both homogenous

(states and activities) and non-homogenous (events)

eventualities, occurring exclusively with the present

perfect tense:

I have been in London since Tuesday.

In what it concerns the other duration adverbs,

we cannot talk about a sensitivity of theirs to the

aspectual feature of the eventuality as they occur with

both homogenous and non-homogenous eventualities.

C) Completive adverbials / Containers are also

known as adverbials of the interval (Smith, 1991)

including expressions such as: in four days, within

three hours etc. They are used in order to locate a

situation/eventuality at an interval during which the

event is completed. Completive adverbials are telic,

30

being compatible with telic eventualities and odd to

atelics as the following examples show:

Bill drew a rabbit in twenty seconds.

Jill wrote an article in five minutes.

Jennifer believed in Santa in half an hour.

The interval within which the situation

occurred or took place is denoted by containers which

are well formed with events. The situation in the last

example is an atelic one, imposing an ingressive

interpretation to the entire sentence, the adverbial

referring to an interval elapsed before the beginning

of the situation and not to an interval during which

the situation occurs. The last example may be

reinterpreted as telic in the context of the completive

adverbial, ascribing a natural point to the eventuality.

A possible reading for this could be:

After half an hour, Jennifer began to believe in

Santa.

In what it concerns the sentence “Jennifer

believed in Santa in half an hour.”, the eventuality is

taken as inchoative which is an achievement and has

the ingressive interpretation that standardly occurs

for achievements.

31

D) Frequency adverbials are used to tell how

often something occurs or is done. Adverbs of

frequency are often used with the present simple

because they indicate repeated or routine activities.

For example, They often go out for dinner. Here are

some of the frequency adverbials: always, often,

frequently, seldom, rarely, usually, sometimes, never,

on Wednesday, every year/century/summer, whenever,

daily, monthly etc. With words like daily, monthly,

weekly we know exactly how often something happen

as they describe definite frequency. On the other

hand, words like often, seldom, usually, always give us

an idea about frequency but they don't tell us exactly

and they describe indefinite frequency.

Adverbs of definite frequency, like all adverbs

of definite time, typically go in END position.

Most companies pay taxes yearly.

The manager checks the toilets daily.

Sometimes, usually for reasons of emphasis or

style, some adverbs of definite frequency may go at

the FRONT.

32

Every day, more than five thousand people die on

our roads.

Adverbs of indefinite frequency mainly go in

MID position in the sentence. They go before the

main verb (except the main verb "to be"):

We usually go shopping on Saturday.

I have often done that.

She is always late.

Occasionally, sometimes, often, frequently and

usually can also go at the beginning or end of a

sentence:

Sometimes they come and stay with us.

I play tennis occasionally.

Frequency adverbials provide the information

that contributes to the temporal location of a

situation (Smith, 1991). They indicate the

recurrent pattern of situations within the reference

interval and reinforce the notion of repetition:

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He is late to school every day.

We never went to the zoo in winter.

These sentences express a series of individual

events, which taken as a whole create a habitual state.

34

CHAPTER 3: THE CATEGORY OF

ASPECT

3.1. The Definition of Aspect

In English, verbs have different forms to

indicate continuousness, completeness, and time.

Time can be expressed by tense whether present, past

or future. On the other hand, continuousness can be

expressed by the progressive aspect of the verb

whereas completeness can be expressed by the

perfective aspect of the verb. Aspect is related to 'the

manner' in which the verb is considered "complete"

or "in progress."

Huddleston and Pullum (2002) define tense as "

a system where the basic or characteristic meaning of

the terms is to locate the situation, or part of it, at

some point or period of time." On the other hand,

they define aspect as "a system where the basic

meanings have to do with the internal temporal

constituency of the situation." In fact, the features of

tense and aspect are interrelated.

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Freed (1976) defined ‘Aspect’ as ‘a notion of

Time, distinct from Tense, that refers to the internal

temporal structure of events and activities named by

various linguistic forms….. in terms of such things as

inception, duration, completion..’. The definition

suggests that Tense and Aspect, as functional

categories that delimit the lexical category Verb,

‘merge/interconnect’ in more ways than one. The two

categories are not only related morpho-syntactically

(Aspect like Tense is realized by verb inflections and

auxiliaries) but also ‘semantically’. The definition says

that both Aspect and Tense partake of the notion

‘Time’ but in distinct ways. The verbal category of

Aspect and the verbal category of Tense are tightly

related as they both pertain to the domain of time.

Let‘s consider the following pair of sentences:

Mary wrote a letter.

Mary was writing a letter (when the doorbell rang

at five o’clock).

Both sentences describe a situation of “Mary

writing a letter”. The difference between the sentences

in is not in terms of Tense (both are in the past tense)

but in terms of Aspect. The first sentence presents the

situation as a whole, as completed, as closed, while the

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second one presents only some internal phases/stages

in the development of the situation; we do not know

for sure when Mary began writing the letter or

whether she finished writing it – we only know that

her writing was unfolding in Time when the doorbell

rang/at five o’clock.

3.2. Features of the Aspect

Aspect predicates about the size of a situation

(the whole of it or only parts of it) while the

contribution of Tense is to locate that situation in

time. Both Tense and Aspect pertain to the domain of

Time as situations, irrespective of their size, occur in

time.

On the other hand, aspect is not a deictic

category, but rather informs us about the contour or

quality of the event/state as viewed by the speaker at a

given moment in time (reference point). The term

‘aspect ’ was imported into the Western grammatical

tradition from the study of Slavic grammar in the

early nineteenth century, it being a loan translation

from the Slavic term ‘vid ’ which is etymologically

cognate with the words ‘view ’and ‘vision ’, hence the

37

term viewpoint aspect has been widely adopted in

current literature.(Smith 1991). In traditional

grammars, the notion ‘Aspect’ is restricted mostly to

the perfective -imperfective distinction expressed by

inflectional morphemes on the verb or by special

function morphemes within a verbal complex. The

perfective provides a holistic, summarizing or unifying

view upon the situation described in the sentence,

while the imperfective is concerned with the temporal

constituency of a situation which is presented as

divided up into internal phases, there being no concern

for the whole situation. In Comrie’s own words

“another way of explaining the difference between

perfective and imperfective meaning is to say that the

perfective looks at the situation from outside, without

necessarily distinguishing any of the internal

structure of the situation, whereas the imperfective

looks at the situation from inside, and as such is

crucially concerned with the internal structure of the

situation, since it can look backwards toward the start

of the situation and look forwards to the end of the

situation, and indeed is equally appropriate if the

situation is one that lasts through all time, without

any beginning and without any end”. In English, the

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opposition perfective–imperfective has not been fully

grammaticized, but the opposition non-progressive –

progressive is compatible with it. Progressive aspect is

signalled by distinct morphological marking: be – ing

(E.g. He is/was singing). Perfective aspect (also called

“simple / indefinite aspect”) is rendered by the simple

temporal form of the verb with no distinct

morphological marking (E.g.: He sang).

In current literature, the “modern” concept of

“Aspect” reflects a “double life”. It is still used to

refer to the presentation of events through

grammaticized viewpoints such as the perfective and

imperfective, (‘viewpoint/grammatical’ aspect), but

lately the use of the term has broadened to include the

inherent temporal structuring of the situations

themselves, the internal event structure or

Aktionsart; this is known in current literature as

‘situation-type aspect’ . The term ‘situation-type

aspect’1 (Smith, 1991) will be employed to refer to the

classification of verbal expressions into states,

activities, accomplishments, achievements (introduced

by Vendler, 1957/1967) and semelfactives (introduced

by Smith 1991)

1

39

The situation types differ in the temporal

properties of dynamism, durativity and telicity

(boundedness). These are the temporal properties of

the situation types:

a) states are static, durative: love Susan,

know the answer, live in London, be

widespread, enjoy life;

b) activities are dynamic, durative, atelic:

laugh, stroll/walk in the park, push a

cart, drink beer, swim, run;

c) accomplishments are dynamic, durative

and telic: build a house, walk to school,

learn French, drink a bottle of beer,

smoke a cigarette;

d) Achievements are dynamic, telic,

instantaneous: win the race, reach the

top, find a watch, recognize a friend,

discover a treasure, arrive, leave;

e) Semelfactives are dynamic, atelic,

instantaneous: tap, cough, knock, hit,

flap a wing, hiccup, slam/bang the door,

kick the ball.

40

From this perspective, Smith (1991) defines

‘Aspect’ as ’the semantic domain of temporal

structures of situations: ‘Both viewpoint (or

grammatical) aspect and situation type aspect convey

information about temporal factors such as beginning,

end and duration, hence they interact in language.’

The aspectual meaning of a sentence is a composite of

the information from both components. Situation-

type aspect and viewpoint aspect or grammatical

aspect are realized differently in the grammar of a

language; they differ in their linguistic expression:

a) viewpoint/grammatical aspect is signalled

by a grammatical morpheme; it is therefore

distinguished as an overt category;

b) situation-type aspect (eventuality type) is

signalled by a constellation of lexical

morphemes. Situation/eventuality types are

distinguished at the level of the verb

constellation (i.e. the verb and its arguments

(subject and objects)) and the sentence. The

situation types play a role in the grammar of

a language, although they lack explicit

morphological markers (Smith, 1991). Since

situation types are not `grammaticized` by

41

contrasting morphemes (i.e. have no single

grammatical marker), situation type aspect

could be taken to exemplify the notion of a

covert category. Situation types play a role in

the grammar of a language, although they

lack explicit morphological markers. (Smith,

1991).

CONCLUSIONS

42

The goals of language instruction include

teaching students to use language accurately,

meaningfully, and appropriately, so grammar is a

necessity which cannot be ignored.

Among the grammatical points, the topics of

tense and aspect as well as of time adverbs may be

considered difficult as they cover a vast area. Despite

the high degree of complexity, this issue can be

integrated successfully in the educational process as

long as the teacher takes into account wider

developments in the field of language teaching and

looks at language primarily as a means of

communication and places the learner in the centre of

all classroom processes. In the past teachers tended to

concentrate on how learners spoke and wrote instead

of focusing on what they wanted to express. This is a

result of a constant preoccupation with accuracy, that

is why trainers used to correct any mistake.

Nowadays our opinion is that learners need to

experiment with language when trying to

communicate, and this involves taking risks. Most

linguists agree now that errors are not only inevitable

but even a desirable part of the learning process. This

view does not excuse errors but it does serve as a

43

reminder that we should give credit to fluency, for

successful communication, as well as for accuracy.

In the three chapters of my paper I have tried

to make a theoretical overview of the categories of

tense and aspect and of the temporal adverbials. The

first chapter deals with the Category of Tense, more

specifically with its definition(s), expressions, with its

status as a feature and with the values of feature

tense. Chapter 2 “The Classification of Temporal

Adverbs” defines and classifies temporal adverbials.

The last chapter “The Category of Aspect” presents

definitions of the aspect as well as some of its features.

Anyway, the theoretical and practical training

of the teacher, his/her knowledge about the

developments in second language acquisition, in

applied linguistics etc. represent essential elements

that are relevant in the educational process.

REFERENCES

44

Elements of English Morphology, Ilinca

Crăiniceanu, Editura Fundaţiei România

de Mâine, Bucureşti, 2007;

Elements of English Sentence Semantics,

Alexandra Cornilescu, Editura

Universităţii Bucureşti, Bucureşti, 1986ş

The Parameter of Aspect, Carlota Smith,

Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht,

1991;

Toward the Logic of Tense and Aspect in

English, Michael Bennett & Barbara Hall

Partee, Bloomington: Indiana University

Linguistics Club, 1978;

Tense, Bernard Comrie, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1985;

Tense, Time Adverbs, and Compositional

Semantic Theory, David Dowty,

Linguistics and Philosophy, 1982;

Aspect Shift and Coercion, Henriette De

Swart, 1998;

The Cambridge Grammar of the English

Language, Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey

K. Pullum, Cambridge University Press,

2002;

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The Philosophical Review, Verbs and

Times, Zeno Vendler, Duke University

Press, 1957.

46