Semantics

150 BASIC SEMANTICS
is grammaticalized via tense and lexicalized as shown by a wide variety
of adverbs. Tense is addressed to as a deictic system and most grammatical
tense systems help the speaker to distinguish between past, present, and
future. These are the basic tenses. We can also speak about complex tenses
like the pluperfect.
The way of organizing tense systems in most languages is vectorial,
that is, the grammatical terms indicate the direction along the time-line
from speaking time to event time.
Tenses can be divided into primary or absolute tenses. Primary tenses
encode event time directly relative to time of speaking, and secondary or
relative tenses, on the other hand, encode event time relative to a secondary
reference time. This in turn, is located relative to speaking time, thus making
the relation between event time and speaking time an indirect one.
Saeed explains how it is difficult to discuss time without, simultaneously,
discussing aspect, because in many languages, including English, aspect
and tense interact in subtle ways. These features are marked on verbs in
similar ways, often sharing composite endings. He further explains, how
aspect systems allow speakers to relate situations and time, but instead of
fixing situations in time relative to the act of speaking, like tense does,
aspect allows speakers to view an event in various ways. As complete or
incomplete, as so short as to involve almost no time, as something stretched
over a perceptible period, or as something repeated over a period.
Aspect
While tense serves to locate an event in time, aspect either encodes
a particular way of conceptualizing an event or conveys information
about the way the event unfolds through time. It is also important to
distinguish between aspect as a semantic phenomenon and aspect
markers in a language which may have various semantic functions. In
addition, a lexical verb may also encode aspectual information as part
of its meaning, independently of any grammatical marker; this may
affect the way the meaning of a verb interacts with the meanings of
aspectual markers.
Basic aspectual features
In lesson 3 we saw that not all linguists agree on the dimensions and
parameters which define states of affairs or events. However, boundness
(or telicity) and duration are the most commonly agreed definitional
features related to time.