Talk:Grammatical tense

This article has been totally Ruined!

Roidhrigh and a few others who seem to have taken it upon themselves to completely rewrite this article have totally and entirely ruined it!

This is no longer about tense. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be but almost all of the multi-language info is gone and all that's left is some horribly conflated mess that mixes up tense, aspect, and all sorts of other things. It seems to rely on a few sources that push a very closed-minded version of a tense-aspect-mood system that attempts to rename all sorts of things and fit English into some mold that is maybe based on a very narrow interpretation of french?

A few years ago this article had been similar destroyed and I spent quite a bit of time doing a total rewrite. That article was well-received and stayed stable for quite a while. It also included several minor, discussed, and agreed-upon changes that brought it inline with related articles and wikipedia consensus. Many users also spent quite a bit of their own time contributing to the language tables.

This current version has completely erased all of this community hard work yet retained the sources and such. I am tempted to revert back to the version of a few years ago and invite those who contributed to the consensus versions to redo their previous edits as well. Please comment, as going back that far seems like a rash move, but I have gone back almost 200 edits and it still is a piece of misleading junk like now.Drew.ward (talk) 03:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Move forward, not backwards. And do so with respect for your colleagues who like you have put their work into the article in good faith. There is no such thing as a grandfathered "consensus version" of two years ago. I think there is a tendency to hyperbole in your comment above for example the paragraph you removed about an English future tense was clearly doing the exact opposite of what you are claiming - it was intending to dispel the myth that English like Romance has a future tense, not to promote it. Yes, more sources is good, broad definitions are good. Multilanguage data is good. But the article clearly also has to describe how tense differs from aspect and mood, and note that tense is commonly used to refer to combinations of tense aspect and mood both in the academic literature on specific languages, and in common parlance, and also note that many languages do not have pure tenses (even the Spanish future tense has elements of modal meaning). But please do work on improving the article supporting your work with high quality sources. Comrie 1985 is probably a good place to start. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Maunus, please see my reply on the ling page regarding this 'no future in English' issue: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Linguistics#Tense. This reflects one of the big problems with the drastic changes that have been made to this article. It's changed the definition of tense and grammatical tense and seems to only focus on expressions of tense via verbal inflection which is not the way many languages (including English) grammaticalize tense.Drew.ward (talk) 16:23, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Drew, I am wondering if there is some confusion between the concept of marking "grammatical tense" (or "grammaticalised tense") and that of the marking of "syntactic tense" (e.g. the use of paraphrastic meanins of marking time)? If we take grammatical tense to refer only to grammaticalised tense (e.g. Huddleston and Pullum for English, Comrie noted above, etc. - note that Comrie based his work on IE and non-IE (e.g. Pama-Nyungan, Amerindian, etc.) languages), then there are languages that have grammatical(ised) tense, and those that don't. Syntactic marking of time relationships is another issue which of course does need mentioning. Seemingly few languages grammaticalise tense in a pure sense (i.e. a verb form that refers ONLY to past time - assuming that tense refers only to time reference), most grammaticalisations of tense also encode aspect and/or mood, and therefore it is impossible to write an article about any of these three without some reference to the other two, at the very least so as to establish the boundaries of reference. Roidhrigh 19 September 2012.

I agree Roidhrigh.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:26, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to enter the discussion halfway through, but are we taking the view in this article that (grammatical) tense must be marked by verb inflection, or can it be marked by other syntactic devices? And what about aspect - is the answer the same? I'm finding it hard to see why we say that English has only two tenses (i.e. marked by inflection on the verb), but then claim it has various aspects (which are for some reason not required to be marked by such inflection). Victor Yus (talk) 15:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The original discussion and the reason I posted here and on the linguistics talk page was that an article (this one) that used to provide a very neutral language-independent overview of tense (absolute and relative) including a limited section acknowledging that it is often conflated with aspect, the problems this results in regarding terminology, and the difference between the two, and then including a discussion of how languages express tense. It touched on some of the differences in theory which call some things tense and others not tense, but mostly left theory to a different article (there had originally been a separate more theoretical and linguistics-centric tense article), but primarily discussed the expression of tense as is congruent with the established grammars of each language. The final component was a very inclusive table that provided equivalent examples of tense throughout the range of tense-aspect-perfection for a large number of languages. The data in this table had been user contributed by speakers of these languages and revised and honed by native speakers, grammarians, and linguists over the course of a few years. The article also had relatively little changed overall in its content during this long period.

Whomever the editors are who decided to create the current version discarded all of that original content, including a multi-year multi-language community-wide consensus effort to document the topic of this article. That is more than anything what I think it such a travesty. They are also the ones who added all the very narrow single-theory based statements such as arguing that English has only two tenses and renaming English aspects to other things.

What ensued from the original two threads I'd created about this article on here and on the linguistics page (mostly on there, see the link I've left above), was a very negative very confrontational debate over theories of tense and no matter how many times I tried (and Countruthenstein) tried to get the discussion back to expression of tense rather than theory, it just stayed in the realm of theory. I doubt anyone is really interested in having an academic and civil discussion about either tense or how languages expresses it honestly, but if you decide to try, I wish you luck.Drew.ward (talk) 16:34, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Can you point to a past revision of the article that best represents how you think it should be? Would it be somewhere around here? Victor Yus (talk) 08:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Somewhere around this one seems the best compromise older. I've actually just spent the past hour or so opening and scanning through nearly every revision over the past three years. Now that I have given them a little more scrutiny, I don't think any one of them represents something I would feel comfortable simply reverting back to (including the versions I've submitted and the ones that have been the result of consensus discussions I've participated in). The reason I say this is that if you look at the article as divided into four main chunks (the introduction, the section on English, the general section on various views on and classifications of tense, and the table of examples from various languages), no single version has the best of all of these. One has a better introduction but includes edits that reduce the quality of the other sections, another may have a great multi-language section but has been changed in a negative way in the into or English section.

What I would like to see happen, and would be glad to undertake or collaborate on (so long as there is some assurance that certain other editors who seem intent on _targeting my edits aren't going to just destroy the work for the hell of it), is to scrap this current article completely but retain the various contributions made to it as a working body of information which we can use to create three separate yet related pages -- "Tense (Linguistics)", "Theories of Tense", & "Grammatical Tense".

"Tense (Linguistics)" - this would be a generalized overview article that defines tense in a way that bridges the idea of tense so that it satisfies the three primary genres on WP to which the term is referenced -- ESL/Foreign Language Education, Linguistics, and Generalized Grammar & Philology (in the Americas this would be mostly K-12 language arts, English 101 type courses in college, educational theory and practice such as is taught in teacher preparation degrees, etc; and similarly in other countries, generally applying to the way tense is defined in native grammars and teaching of grammar to native speakers of languages). It would require an introduction that provided a basic lay-speak overview and description of the concept without giving too much credence to the way it's used in any one particular genre over the others, and that introduces the point that there are varied yet related uses of the term and that even within some of these genres, that disagreement exists on how to define it. The body of this article could get a bit deeper with more specific information related to the points in the introduction with links to related pages where appropriate (including the "Grammatical Tense" and "Theories of Tense" pages). The sections dealing with the non-linguistic genre uses of tense should not be unduly coloured by linguistic theories nor should adherence to a given linguistics framework or disparities between the way linguists view tense and grammarians or educators view it be allowed to limit the discussions of tense as used in these other genres. The linguistics section should make it clear what tense is as a general linguistic concept (I would use simple wording like "temporal contrast") and clearly differentiate it from the related general concepts of aspect (which on WP includes perfection) and mood (when related to time) which are all "temporal nature" rather than "temporal contrast". There should likely be discussion of the fact that these concepts are often conflated in most texts, and that since awareness of temporal nature is required to determine temporal contrast (tense) that such confusion and difficulty separating out each concept is understandable. It could go further to describe absolute tense versus relative tense. And it should clearly place tense at a super-lexical level (getting past this idea that a given word or verb form itself "has tense" since tense is an attribute of a verbal construction / utterance, NOT of a given word within that utterance and especially not of a word (even if that word is always used to express a given tense) outside of context). Beyond this, a clear, unbiased, discussion of there being disagreement among linguists of how to define tense and whether tense includes all temporal contrast or whether it only applies to considerably more narrowly defined means of expressing temporal contrast (such as the analyses by Comrie and Trask referenced in the linguistics talk page which limit the moniker "tense" to only those situations in which temporal contrast is conveyed via morphological changes to individual verbs). This type of discussion could then link over to the related "Theories of Tense" article. This discussion (and the more detailed discussions on the theory article) should again be carefully undertaken so as to document yet not attempt to influence the reader toward or away from any single theory or framework which has been a problem in many of the linguistics and grammar articles recently (whether intentional or not).

"Theories of Tense" - this article would be the more technical one and would allow editors here on WP who subscribe to whatever given theory or framework they prefer / specialize in to describe and document the version of tense that fits with their beliefs. Aside from an introduction that remains neutral and perhaps provides some history and reasons for there being such a range of views on the topic, it could be as different from one theory-specific section as it is from the next. It should however be written in such a way that editors do not attempt to position their preferred approach as superior to or more or less acceptable than any of the others presented. Editors should also make an effort to support the quality of sections documenting approaches to tense other than their own yet refrain from attempting to limit discussion and documentation of these other approaches, whether they agree with them or not.

"Grammatical Tense" - the future form of this specific article. The "Grammatical Tense" article should be formulated in such a way that it shares some common features and references back and forth with the other "Grammatical Categories" articles including "Grammatical Aspect", "Grammatical Mood", etc. This should NOT be a theory discussion. Nor should it give greater credence to one language over another. It should simply discuss the ways that languages express temporal contrast within the framework of the languages themselves. It should, like the general tense article attempt to bridge the varied uses of the term among the genres that use it. It should aim for a middle ground but should more than anything document the means by which present, past, & future is expressed in language in general and further (via a section on the topic and a table or series of tables like the older versions had) how individual languages do this. Ideally this would be presented in such a way that linguists and non-linguists alike can draw their own conclusions from comparing and contrasting the examples given from one language to another. No specific theory or narrowing view of what tense is or isn't should limit the content of this article to only showing certain (as any specific editor may define it) "tenses" and not others. If it's the way a language conveys temporal contrast, then it belongs. If it's not (in particular if an example conveys temporal nature or non-temporal modality yet does not also convey temporal contrast), then it doesn't belong and should be omitted or removed. Moreover, the way that Grammatical Tense is discussed should be centered on how speakers of the individual languages view tense (expressing present, past, and future) in their languages regardless of whether particular linguists or editors consider such means tense or not. Debates or whether something actually IS tense should be properly discussed and documented in the "Theory of Tense" page, not on a page that's supposed to show how tense is conveyed in grammar. Whether editors consider specific means of conveying temporal contrast syntactic or semantic shouldn't matter so long as speakers of languages consider such means as valid for expressing present, past, and/or future. Again, the only things that should be excluded or exclusionarily dealt with in discussions are examples that conflate aspect, perfection, mood and such with tense without acknowledging that such combination of information is being conveyed via whatever form. An example of this would be discussions of so-called "compound tenses" like present perfect or past progressive in reference to English in which the tense of each is merely present and past with perfect and progressive referring to aspect (technically perfection and aspect). This shouldn't be seen as limiting the article but rather as providing opportunity for directing readers over to the various related pages on aspect, mood, etc.

This combination of three independent yet related articles seems like it would adequately address all of the issues raised in the various discussion threads but that it still allow for both generalized and specific discussions while keeping any particular viewpoints from eliminating or dominating others. I hope this is something that everyone could embrace. What are your thoughts?Drew.ward (talk) 16:55, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

No, that is called a POV fork and funnily enough this one simply adopts your unsupported theoretical viewpoint as the standard and relegates contrary viewpoints to the theory article. The distinction you are trying to make does not exist, and it should also not exist in wikipedia - we will have a single article to describe both the theoretical aspects of tense and how different languages employ the grammatical category of tense. The notion that tense is an aspect of an utterance not of a grammatical element is interesting but unsupported by any sources, and the way you formulate it it seems to conflate time reference with tense. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:03, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Maunus, I'm not saying that my viewpoint or any other should be what these articles are centered upon. There are obviously very different and very specific uses of this term "tense" that vary not only within linguistic circles, but also within education and grammar fields as well. If this were not the case, we would not be able to so easily find a range of applications of the term in books, on google, in classrooms, and throughout articles and discussions (not just from me) here on Wikipedia. As you guys keep pointing out to me (even though I've never argued that only one viewpoint belongs anywhere), wikipedia is an encyclopedia and documents things, it doesn't try to shape them nor does it get to pick and choose which theories or uses stay and which go. For linguists who already subscribe to a given meaning of tense, there are numerous resources beyond the limited scope of wikipedia through which they can find discussions and definitions and examples that are only related to their personally preferred version of it. Those varied more narrow concepts should be documented (and that's why I've proposed such discussions above), but utilizing or documenting one person's views over all others is not a logical choice for an encyclopedia -- especially one that covers such a range of fields, disciplines, and languages. You may not agree with such distinctions, but there's no way to realistically propose that they don't exist. The thousands of changes and revisions to this article alone (only a few of which have been at my hand) demonstrate clear evidence that we are not dealing with a single, undisputed, all-encompassing concept. The "Theories of Tense" article would provide seemingly limitless and unrestrained opportunity for discussion of whichever definition of tense you (or anyone else) prefers. Why is that not an acceptable option?Drew.ward (talk) 17:32, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

It is an absolute an non-negotiable requirement for any change to take place that you present sources in support of the notion that there is a pre-theoretical sense of semantic "tense", and that this view is shared by a majority of scholars. The wikipedia article must reflect the general literature on this topic. If you can show that in order to reflect the literature better we should adopt your classification then we have a discussion. A proposal based on no sources is a non-starter.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Here ya go Maunus www.google.com/search?q=english+tense 31 million sources enough for you to show that your view of tense is not the only one?Drew.ward (talk) 18:16, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Seriously? Are you for real Drew? Yo are the one arguing that one view of tense should have the main article. And you have not provided a single source in support of that view. And no it is not my job to trawl google for sources for you. You are not helping yourself here. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:52, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

No Maunus, I'm not. I have argued for exactly the opposite and have repeated it several times above. If you click on a few of the links that come up (provided by google with no idea what we're talking about, not by me), you'll see that the world views tense in a wide variety of ways. As I have stated time and again above, we need to ensure our articles account for that, NOT that they limit themselves to only one view of tense. And by the way, statements like "You are not helping yourself here." are starting to really piss me off! I've been dealing with nothing but childish attacks from Tjo3ya for days now. I really hope you haven't decided to lower yourself to his level too.Drew.ward (talk) 19:55, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me we ought to try to sort this article out first - ensure that it encapsulates all major views as to what tense means, and make it clear what interpretation we are making every time we use the term, and most of all trying to make it understandable to the intelligent layman. In doing that it might turn out that we do well to split off a lot of technical detail into one or more separate articles, like "Theories of tense" as Drew suggests. Victor Yus (talk) 07:34, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I had a problem with the use of the word "tense" to refer to a semantic concept on the page Tense-aspect-mood but I assured that it was being used correctly. But nobody has been able to provide a source here for this usage so I question again whether it is being used correctly. Maunus, do you think there is a problem with the Tense-aspect-mood article? Count Truthstein (talk) 14:22, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Well there are plenty, but the definition of TAM as the grammatical system encoding the representation of time, time texture and modality is reasonable. But it should be better sourced (the Bybee, Pagliucca and Perkins book seems a great place to start - probably also for this article). The article itself is just a list of languages and contains no description of the definitions or theory of TAM, which imo is what it should focus on. I don't think we need a list of TAM in different languages. The lead should be a summary of the article and the article should describe the topic.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:48, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be something of a contradiction in saying (in the TAM article intro) that Chinese has tense markers, while saying in this article that it doesn't have tense. I don't doubt that both of these statements can be sourced; but clearly the sources in question must be understanding the word "tense" differently. It leads to absurdities if we don't make clear which concept of tense we are referring to when we make statements like this. Victor Yus (talk) 07:07, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

That's the main point I've been trying to make. If we're going to have any article or articles on tense, it either needs to reflect the range of uses of the term (and especially the range of its use on Wikipedia), OR, we need to figure out a single consensus definition and usage and ensure that every usage of tense throughout WP meshes with that version. This sort of thing isn't a question of theory or linguistics, but rather of editing standards and accepted style -- particularly consistency. The alternative is as Victor points out, to specify with each appearance of tense exactly what it's referring to.Drew.ward (talk) 15:35, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

As a Wiki user with a more than average understanding of grammar and not enough time to thoroughly read this talk page, I'd like to express the wish that this article be organized so that a layperson can start reading it an understand and recognize what they learned about tense in foreign language and English class. Then get into bombastic words like "grammaticalization" (never heard of it and have no fricking idea what it means and am not motivated to read an article that includes it, but apparently more erudite grammararians than I know and use the term) and the finer points of aspect and mood. I suggest writing this from a both/and perspective: Tense means one thing to laypeople (most of the people reading this article) and another thing to grammarians. Just my two cents. Thanks for reading. DBlomgren (talk) 17:39, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Seven years later: What came of all this? Can someone summarise? --Mortense (talk) 15:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

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Will be adding content for the next month or so

Just wanted to let other users know that me and another classmate will be developing section 4.2 "syntax of tense" under "tense marking" for the next month or so for a university project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krylow426 (talk • contribs) 08:23, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

"Me and another classmate will be..." Huh? Whatever you develop, please avoid interpolating any faulty nominative case syntax. I've got my cursor poised over the undo tab as there's no auto-emendment function key. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 01:51, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Tenseless Languages merger

Currently, tenseless language is a stub, however I think it would work far better as a subsection here to the relative lack of detail justifying a separate article. In either case, I also think it would be useful to describe a bit more how some of the languages listed work without it. Specter Koen (talk) 21:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Although this suggestion was made some months ago, with no response so far, I am adding my two cents worth: I think it's a reasonable idea. The Tenseless language article hasn't expanded much since it was created in 2012 and it may work well as a subsection of this article. An expansion of how such languages work would be very welcome, whether within this article or at its current location. Any knowledgeable editors willing to oblige, or comment on the proposed merger? 175.39.67.82 (talk) 03:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 05:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Austronesian Section

The section on Austronesian seems to go into copious and unnecessary detail, and the first language they mention is covered to ridiculous degrees. This section should either be simplified or made its own article. 94.68.38.219 (talk) 09:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)