We have given a brief introduction to case, gender, mood, aspect, tense and voice. For initial elementary discussions, it is convenient to put the six topics into six pigeonholes; but, as with the other concepts in this book, which keep turning up in their own chapter and in other chapters, these six grammatical categories cannot be kept neatly apart. Tense and aspect are closely connected in every language which has both (some languages are reputed to have aspectual distinctions but no tense system), and in English and other languages tense and mood interact. The pairs of sentences in (36)–(37) are distinguished in that the (a) examples have what looks like present tense while the (b) examples have what looks like past tense.

The past-tense forms do not relate to past time. In their basic uses, present tense relates to present time, which is close to speaker and hearer, and past tense relates to past time, which is more remote from speaker and hearer. In (36b) and (37b), the apparent past-tense forms have nothing to with past time but present a situation as remote from reality. Examples (36a) and (37a) present the situations as much closer to reality. Example (38a) presents the situation of Fiona getting a job as something that should have happened some time ago, that is, the concept of past time is relevant, but also as a situation that is remote from current reality. Note that this construction is only for the presentation of situations as remote; present tense is not possible, as the incorrectness of (38b) shows.

Tense, aspect and mood apart, further investigation of this area of grammar would soon reveal that the old dichotomy of transitive and intransitive is insufficient and has to be replaced by a scale of transitivity in which tense, aspect, mood, case and voice all play a part.

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المزيد