Editing Grammatical tense (section)

{{Short description|Expression of time reference in grammar}}
{{More citations needed|date=October 2016|talk=References by section}}
{{Grammatical categories}}
In [[grammar]], '''tense''' is a [[grammatical category|category]] that expresses time reference.<ref name="Fabricius-Hansen"/><ref name="Comrie">{{cite book |last1=Comrie |first1=Bernard |title=Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics) |date=1976 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0521290456 |page=6|quote="the semantic concept of time reference (absolute or relative), ... may be grammaticalized in a language, i.e. a language may have a grammatical category that expresses time reference, in which case we say that the language has tenses. Some languages lack tense, i.e. do not have grammatical time reference, though probably all languages can lexicalize time reference, i.e. have temporal adverbials that locate situations in time."}}</ref> Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of [[verb]]s, particularly in their [[grammatical conjugation|conjugation]] patterns.

The main tenses found in many languages include the [[past tense|past]], [[present tense|present]], and [[future tense|future]]. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and [[nonpast]], or future and [[Nonfuture tense|nonfuture]]. There are also tenseless languages, like most of the [[Varieties of Chinese|Chinese languages]], though they can possess a future and [[Nonfuture tense|nonfuture]] system typical of Sino-Tibetan languages.<ref name="Huang">{{cite book |last1=Huang |first1=Nick |editor-last=Tao |editor-first=Hongyin |title=Proceedings of the 27th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics |chapter=On syntactic tense in Mandarin Chinese |date=2015 |publisher=UCLA |location=Los Angeles |pages=406–423 |volume=2 |url=http://ling.umd.edu/~znhuang/materials/NACCL27%20proceedings-nhuang-vAug15.pdf |access-date=2017-01-08 |archive-date=2017-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011015548/http://ling.umd.edu/~znhuang/materials/NACCL27%20proceedings-nhuang-vAug15.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> In recent work [[Maria Bittner]] and [[Judith Tonhauser]] have described the different ways in which tenseless languages nonetheless mark time.<ref name="Bittner">{{cite book |last1=Bittner |first1=Maria |title=Temporality: Universals and Variation |date=2014 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=9781405190404}}</ref><ref name="Tonhauser">{{cite journal |last1=Tonhauser |first1=Judith |title=Cross-Linguistic Temporal Reference |journal=Annual Review of Linguistics |date=January 2015 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=129–154 |doi=10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-124923 |language=en |issn=2333-9683|doi-access=free }}</ref> On the other hand, some languages make finer tense distinctions, such as remote vs recent past, or near vs remote future.

Tenses generally express time relative to the [[TUTT (linguistics)|moment of speaking]]. In some contexts, however, their meaning may be relativized to a point in the past or future which is established in the discourse (the moment being spoken about). This is called [[Relative and absolute tense|''relative'']] (as opposed to ''absolute'') tense. Some languages have different verb forms or constructions which manifest relative tense, such as [[pluperfect]] ("past-in-the-past") and "[[future-in-the-past]]".

Expressions of tense are often closely connected with expressions of the category of [[grammatical aspect|aspect]]; sometimes what are traditionally called tenses (in languages such as [[Latin]]) may in modern analysis be regarded as combinations of tense with aspect. Verbs are also often conjugated for [[grammatical mood|mood]], and since in many cases the three categories are not manifested separately, some languages may be described in terms of a combined [[tense–aspect–mood]] (TAM) system.