TENSE-ASPECTS: DURATION, ETC.

283.By tense-aspect we understand distinctions of time independent of any reference to past, present, or future. Thus the duration of an occurrence is independent of the relation of the time of the occurrence to the time when we are speaking or of which we are speaking. The distinction of duration between fell and lay in he fell down, and he lay there nearly an hour, or between to laugh and to burst out laughing has, of course, nothing to do with grammar, because it is not shown by any grammatical forms, but by the meaning of the words themselves. But in some languages such distinctions of meaning are shown by inflection. [...] In English the definite perfect I have been seeing generally expresses duration, as in I have been writing letters all day compared with I have written only one letter today. I have been writing is, therefore, a long tense. I have written, on the other hand, is neutral as regards duration, being sometimes a short, sometimes a long tense. Long tenses may be either continuous or recurrent, denoting repetition, habit, etc. Thus we have a continuous present in he lives in the country, a recurrent present in he goes to Germany twice a year. The absolute duration of an occurrence is often disregarded in language, an occurrence of considerable length being often put on a level with one that is quite short or even instantaneous. This is generally the case when a succession of occurrences are narrated. Thus in describing a journey, we passed through..., we stopped a minute..., we stopped three days..., we set out for... are all regarded simply as points in a series. [...] We may call them point-tenses.

284.There are many other tense-aspects of more special meaning. [...] In English we have an immediate future formed with the auxiliary go, as in I am afraid it is going to rain, compared with I am afraid it will rain tomorrow.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 602