Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello again people

I know that you may be sick and tired of talking about the English aspects, but I really wanted something simple to understand and to have as my background when teaching.

May I say that English has three aspects, namely: simple, progressive (or continuos) and perfect ?

José
[/i]

Those are just the aspects formed by the use or non-use of auxiliary verbs.

The fullest descripion of what an aspect is that I have found is:

http://www.rick.harrison.net/langlab/aspect.html

You might find this site a little weird since it essentially deals with the creation of artificial languages, it is nevertheless, a very good explaination of what aspect is, and you should be able to find all the aspects of English in it.

Well, Jose and Andy, I had a look at the site Andy suggested, and while it seems learned, and probably has much to recommend it, I'll also have to be critical of it for it's inconsistencies (and wonder if those don't cast suspicion on the veracity of some of the ideas expressed). For example the site says, near the beginning:

Aspect refers to the internal temporal constituency of an event, or the manner in which a verb's action is distributed through the time-space continuum.

Sounds great! But then several paragraphs down it says:

Unlike most aspects, the perfect does not tell us anything about the internal temporal constituency of a situation.

One has to wonder, then about the correctness of the first statement. Does it or doesn't it? If it sometimes does and sometimes doesn't, then why cite it as a definition of aspect?

Jose, here is my understanding. Simple does not refer to aspect, but rather to tense. The others are aspects all right. The way I understand it, English has two tenses: Present Simple and Past Simple. They are marked by their use solo...that is, no auxiliaries appear with them in the verb phrase. All other verb forms, I believe, are aspects, and are marked by the appearance of auxiliaries in the verb phrase. Aspects do express, if I understand them correctly, the temporal elements of events or situations alluded to in verbs. What is important to realize is that tenses do not.

These are not easy concepts to be tossed off in a quick post at Dave's ESL Cafe, and then dismissed as "having been covered". It takes weeks, or months, sometimes even years of study and reflection before one can feel comfortable with them. Mostly, I believe, this is because of all the "crap" you hear and read in textbooks, in classrooms, and in cyberspace. What is apparent is that a lot of people don't know much about it. It is confusing, and you must try to be clear in your own mind, which is not easy under the circumstances.

Larry Latham

Larry,

Sounds great! But then several paragraphs down it says:

Quote:
Unlike most aspects, the perfect does not tell us anything about the internal temporal constituency of a situation.

The very next line was,

"Linguists are not unanimous in classifying the perfect as an aspect rather than as a tense."

It is the very fact that the perfect does not refer to the internal temporal constituency of an event that makes some linguists think that it is not an aspect.

OK, Andy,

Point taken, and I hasten to add that I do not consider myself either a linguist or an expert in this area. Moreover, I'm grateful to you for supplying this web address for us to peruse. But, for a teacher or a student, you must admit it is very confusing to read a paper which first defines aspect and then sometime later says perfect aspect does not conform to the definition.

Larry Latham

Yes, it is confusing Larry, and Mr Harrrison goes on to add to the confusion with this quote:

Because the term "perfect" is likely to be confused with "perfective," and because its counterpart is called "prospective," I would suggest that "retrospective" is a better name for this verb form.

In which he avoids telling us if he considers the perfect to be an aspect, a tense or sth else. He goes on to use the expression "the retrospective verb form" for the rest of the discussion before comparing it to the prospective "be about to" which he also refers to as "a verb form". This marrs an otherwise excellent article.

Having said that, I'm going to use the phrase "verb form" but I will explicitly tell you that I am using it to avoid using the terms aspect and tense. If you are sitting on the fense you should say so.

I also take issue that "be about to" and "be on the" point of are counterparts to the perfect since they always connect the present to the very next moment, whereas the perfect may connect the present to any past event.

I have to say, though that "retrospective" does seem to better describe what the perfect does and although I still use the word "perfect" since they mostly already know it, I use the word "retrospective" the tell my students how it works.

It makes me wonder how on earth the verb form ever got to be called "perfect" which to me implies that this verb form is so good that it can't be any better! What a terrible insult to all other verb forms!

Yes, I agree, Andy. Michael Lewis did propose an alternative (and much better) naming system for English verb forms in The English Verb, but I sincerely doubt it will take hold. The current names have too much currency in use despite being downright confusing and misleading. I, like you, use other terminology to describe the functions and meanings of various forms, but have little success in getting students to adopt the names. It would be kind of pointless anyway, because they will go on to other teachers in another classes and be back to square one. We'll just have to make the best of a poor situation, I guess.

Larry Latham

Larry,

Jose, here is my understanding. Simple does not refer to aspect, but rather to tense. The others are aspects all right. The way I understand it, English has two tenses: Present Simple and Past Simple. They are marked by their use solo...that is, no auxiliaries appear with them in the verb phrase. All other verb forms, I believe, are aspects, and are marked by the appearance of auxiliaries in the verb phrase. Aspects do express, if I understand them correctly, the temporal elements of events or situations alluded to in verbs. What is important to realize is that tenses do not.

These are not easy concepts to be tossed off in a quick post at Dave's ESL Cafe, and then dismissed as "having been covered". It takes weeks, or months, sometimes even years of study and reflection before one can feel comfortable with them. Mostly, I believe, this is because of all the "crap" you hear and read in textbooks, in classrooms, and in cyberspace. What is apparent is that a lot of people don't know much about it. It is confusing, and you must try to be clear in your own mind, which is not easy under the circumstances.

I think I've got a doublefold problem as I am a foreigner, teaching foreigners who also go to "regular" schools (high school...) and them they are on every day basis told that will is the future simple, the present perfect is used when one does not show or its is not important to know when given event has occured... and they dismiss a very brillant discussion about the present perfect, for instance, by teaching a very simplistic aspect of the phenomenum, I've even seen in a textbook (the one that I have to work with, by the way) how to teach the subjunctive future of English when it would be much more worthwhile comparing how English performance to make up for this tense that doesn't exist in English (but it's largely used in Portuguese) and them it would make people aware of the differences of learning a foreign language.

I know it's hard work but just following some threads here (and after being schocked when I was told that there's no future tense in here) I think that I am being able, finally, that English is very different to my mother tongue from its very bottom.

José
[/quote]

I know absolutely nothing about Portugese, Jose, except that it's spoken by some great people (and some stunningly beautiful women ). So I can't really imagine all that you're facing with respect to the differences between your native language and English. But I certainly can relate to your complaints about the textbooks you are forced to use. I have complaints too.

I guess in fairness, we'll all have to realize that many of the new ideas we have about the way English works are exactly that: new ideas. Researchers have learned a great deal about English, in just the last few years, from their new abilities to manipulate the language and real examples of its use with computers. Many of the people who have written textbooks did not have the knowledge that has come to us from our new tools. Much of the misleading information about English grammar has come from traditional sources, and has been passed around for decades. Some of it is not exactly wrong, but sure is confusing. Some of it is, unfortunately, just plain wrong, but has been accepted for years by teachers and students of the language.

You're not alone in your frustrations, Jose. But I know you sometimes must feel alone in your classroom!

Larry Latham

I don't know Portugeee but if it is like Spanish in its use of the Future Tense then you can safely tell your students to use "will" to translate the Future Tense. Doesn't work the other way round unfortunately.

Incidentally, it's "future subjunctive" not "subjunctive future". my mind has gone blank on when you would use it in Spanish though.

Stephen - Future Subjunctive has all but disappeared from modern Spanish, though it might still appear in very formal texts (e.g. legal) and remains in a few stock phrases e.g. Donde fueres, haz lo que vieres.

I'm a bit dubious about telling Spanish-speaking students that will is a direct equivalent of their Future Tense (which, incidentally, has about as much to do with future time as will does), as there are situations where you can use will in English but the Present in Spanish e.g. when offering to do something, and I don't think it's good practise to encourage students to think in their own language and transfer into L2. I know they'll do that anyway at lower levels, but it's something they need to be weaned off.

Dear llolwhites,
Why is it people don't pay attention to detail on this forum.

where you can use will in English but the Present in Spanish

which comes directly after my post

ou can safely tell your students to use "will" to translate the Future Tense. Doesn't work the other way round unfortunately.

Note also that I am not recommending it, simply saying that it is not going to lead to a disaster.

As for L2 use, I find it most useful at the upper-intermediate or even advanced levels, where you can refer to the L2 to make the difference clear. Matter of teaching style thougn.

Metamorfose wrote:Hello again people

I know that you may be sick and tired of talking about the English aspects, but I really wanted something simple to understand and to have as my background when teaching.

May I say that English has three aspects, namely: simple, progressive (or continuos) and perfect ?

José
[/i]

At the moment, English is viewed as having two tenses: Present & Past. Some textbooks label Future as a tense (i.e. Future tense), but that's done more so for the sake of convenience than clarity. That is, technically, 'will' expresses modality, an aspect of time.

Modality & Tense interact
Future: I will eat

Modality & Aspect interact
Future Progressive: I will be eating
Future Perfect: I will have eaten

The term 'aspect' is somewhat fuzzy. Not only is it used to refer to non-tense verb forms (i.e. Perfect & Progressive), it's also used lexically to refer to the aspectual nature of certain verbs (e.g. I walk = present tense, but it's also expresses a habitual aspect).

In terms of general verb categories, though, Tense and Aspect interact. Tense refers to a single verb form, whereas Aspect refers to two or more verb forms, like this,

Tense (One verb)
Present: I eat
Past: I ate

Aspect (Two or more verbs: Tense & Aspect interact)
Present Progressive: I am eating
Past Progressive: I was eating

Present Perfect: I have eaten
Present Perfect Progressive: I have been eating

Past Perfect: I had eaten
Past Perfect Progressive: I had been eating

Modality & Tense interact
Future: I will eat

Modality & Aspect interact
Future Progressive: I will be eating
Future Perfect: I will have eaten

Hope that helps.