The category of tense

The category of tense is a system of three member opposemes in the English language such as writes – wrote – will write, is writing – was writing – will be writing showing the relation of the time of the action denoted by the verb to the moment of speech.

In Ukrainian the category of tense is closely connected with the category of person and is manifested via the personal forms. The tense of the Ukrainian verb is expressed morphologically in the indicative mood. The following tense forms can be distinguished: the present tense of the synthetic character (теперішній: читаю), the past tense of the synthetic character (минулий: читав), the pluperfect past tense of the analytical character (давноминулий: був читав) and future tense of both the synthetic and the analytical character (майбутній: читатиму, буду читати). The imperative and the conditional moods do not possess the tense differentiation.

The time of the action or the event can be expressed lexically with the help of such words as yesterday, next week, now, a year ago, at half past seven, on the fifth of March, in 1999, etc. It can also be shown grammatically by means of the category of tense.

The difference between the lexical and the grammatical expression of time is somewhat similar to the difference between the lexical and the grammatical expression of number:

a) Lexically it is possible to name any definite moment or period of time: a century, a year, a day, a minute. The grammatical meaning of “tense” is an abstraction from only three particular tenses: the present, the past and the future.

b) Lexically a period of time is named directly (e.g. on Sunday). The grammatical indication of time is indirect: it is not time that a verb like asked names, but an action that took place before the moment of speech.

c) As usual, the grammatical meaning of “tense” is relative. Writes denotes a “present” action because it is contrasted with wrote denoting a “past” action and with will write naming a “future” action. Writing does not indicate the time of the action because it has no tense opposites. Can has only a “past tense” opposite, so it cannot refer to the past, but it may refer to the present or future (* can do it yesterday is impossible, but can do it today, tomorrow is normal).

The correlation of time and tense is connected with the problem of the absolute and relative use of tense grammemes.

We say that some tense is absolute if it shows the time of the action in relation to the present moment (the moment of speech). This is the case in the Ukrainian sentences:

Він працює на фірмі. Він працював на фірмі. Він буде працювати на фірмі.

The same in English, e.g.:

He works in a firm. He worked in a firm. He will work in a firm.

Quite often tense reflects the time of an action not with regard to the moment of speech but to some other moment in the past or in the future, indicated by the tense of another verb, e.g.:

Він сказав (скаже), що він працює на фірмі (працював, буде працювати на фірмі).

Here the tenses of the principal clauses сказав (скаже) are used absolutely, while all the tenses of the subordinate clauses are used relatively. For example, the present tense of працює does not refer to the present time but to the time of the action сказав in the first case and скаже in the second case.

In English such a relative use of tenses is also possible with regard to some future moment, e.g.:

He will say that he works (worked, will work) in a firm.

But, as a rule, this is impossible with regard to a moment in the past, as in He said that he works (will work, worked) in a firm. Instead an English speaking person should use He said that he worked (would work, had worked) in a firm. The point here is that in English tenses, as a rule, are used absolutely, that is with regard to the moment of speech [24; 142–146].

Such linguists as B. KhaimovichandB. Rogovskaya besides the category of tense differentiate two more verb categories: 1) the category of posterioirity, and 2) the category of order.

The category of posteriority (слідування) is the system of two-member opposemes, like shall come and should come, will be writing and would be writing, showing whether an action is posterior with regard to the moment of speech or to some moment in the past.

As we know, a “past tense” verb denotes an action prior to the moment of speech and a “future tense” verb names a posterior action with regard to the moment of speech. When priority or posteriority is expressed in relation to the moment of speech, we call it absolute. But there may be relative priority or posteriority, with regard to some other moment. A form like had written, for instance, expresses an action prior to some moment in the past, that is it expresses relative priority. The form should enter expresses posteriority with regard to some past moment that is it expresses relative posteriority.

This category is not distinguished by all linguists since the issues presented here are very often discussed within the category of tense (sequence of tenses of the English language) [24; 146–147].

The category of order (time correlation) (категорія часової співвіднесеності) is a system of two-member opposemes, such as writes – has written, wrote – had written, writing – having written, to be written – to have been written, etc. showing whether an action is viewed as prior to (“perfect”), or irrespective of (“non-perfect”), other actions or situations. The interpretation of this category also belongs to controversial problems of the English grammar [24; 130].

Summing up the main points concerning the category of tense expression in the contrasted languages, the following should be stated.

The grammatical category of tense expresses the relation of the action or state to the moment of speaking. In both languages it is closely connected with the category of aspect and is expressed by the majority of forms.

In Ukrainian the verb has the forms of the present tense (роблю), the future tense (two forms: робитиму, буду робити), the past tense (робив) and the pluperfect tense (давноминулий) (був робив). From these forms the present, past and future of the type робитиму are synthetic ones and the composite future tense is the analytical one.

In English the verb has three main tenses: the present, the past and the future. Each tense form has the common (or non-continuous) and the continuous aspect. Only in the common aspect the present and the past tenses are synthetic ones in the affirmative form. In the interrogative and in the negative forms these tenses, similar to other tense forms and tense-aspect forms, are analytical ones.

According to the Russian linguist A.I. Smirnitskyj in English there is a special grammatical category of the tense reference (часова віднесеність) which is expressed with the help of special tense forms, known as Perfect and Perfect-Continuous forms. This category is by itself the mediate (опосередкований) complex form of the tense reference. The reference to some tense is complicated by the fact that by this it is pointed out to the antecedence/precedence (передування) to some event or phenomena. Unlike this imperfect forms are the categorical forms of the immediate, simple tense reference (безпосередня, проста часова віднесеність).

The special class of verb forms is created by four English tense forms of the so called “Future in the Past”. Their basic meaning is the action which is happening during the time, which was future from the point of view of the past moment that is from the point of view of the speaker who produced his utterance in the past. So this tense denoting is also to some extent a relative one [5; 78].