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>>I would say "tense" or "subjunctive" refers to verb forms <<
Bingley, I wouldn't agree, although I'm open to persuasion!
I'd say a tense refers to a time relative to the here and now (past, present, future) and also to a 'length of time' of action (simple, continuous - this is what you called aspect way back in your first post). Tense is a way of translating time into verbal categories.
The form of a verb is more than its tense - it is a combination of tense, voice, mood and person (at least! There may be more I have forgotten.) 'You go', 'Do you go?' and 'Go!' are all second person present tense, but they are indicative, interrogative and imperative respectively, and they are all different forms.
'Person' of a verb clearly translates the 'doer' or subject into a verbal category.
'Voice' translates whether the subject is acting or being acted upon.
'Mood' I find a bit more complex. No-one so far has mentioned conditional - is this the same as subjunctive in English? I don't think so. Perhaps indicative is 'likely actually to happen', conditional is 'might happen' and subjunctive is 'unlikely to happen'. Maybe mood is degrees of likeliness? (Interrogative would then be 'of unknown likelihood' or 'trying to find out likelihood'. Not sure where this leaves imperatives, though?)
When I start tryng to work out mood, I end up with sentences like those below. I know they are different, I know what they mean / imply in terms of whether something is going to happen, might happen / is totally hypothetical, but I don't know what mood all these verbs are in.
If I don't eat, I am hungry.
If I don't eat, I will be hungry.
If I didn't eat, I would be hungry.
If I were not to eat, I would be hungry.
...I am now way out of my depth!
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tenses
william 07/16/2000 6:00 PM ![]()
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Re: time
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Re: widdershins
paulb 09/21/2000 8:41 AM ![]()
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Re: tenses
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Re: adjectives
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