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The Classification of the English Tense System:A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
For the course
Description and Analysis of English: Pedagogical Gramma
Supervised by Professor Guohua Chen
代写英语论文English Language Teaching Department
Beijing Foreign Studies University
Beijing
December 2009
Declaration about the Originality of the Thesis
I declare that this thesis dissertation is the result of an independent research I have made under the supervision of my supervisor. It does not contain any published or unpublished works or research results by other individuals or institutions apart from those that have been referenced in the form of references or notes. All individuals and institutions that have made contributions to my research have been acknowledged in the Acknowledgement. I am fully aware that I myself will bear all the legal responsibility arising from violation of the above declaration.

17-12-2009
 Abstract

Whether English has a future tense has long been a debatable issue, especially in the field of English language teaching. English of the present day not only has a tense for each of the natural time divisions,—present, past, and future,—but has other tenses to correspond with those of highly inflected languages, such as Latin and Greek. Most people who learn English are led to believe that there are sixteen different types of tense. However, besides the confusion it might cause in language acquisition, the most obvious problem with this classification of the tense system is that it failed to explain why the present and past tense could be used to express future time. Even since the beginning of this century, linguistics has been questioning the existence of “future tense” in the English language. They share the https://www.51lunwen.org/englishpaper.htmlcommon view that the English language can show only two tenses: the present and the past. The difference between the sixteen tense system and the two tense system lies on the distinction of the definition of the tense. This paper has three aims. First, it makes a distinction between the two types of the classification of the tense system, introducing the different definitions of tense provided by each. Second, it helps to reinforce a two tense system on the basis of redefining the term “tense”. Third, it studies the ways in which futurity is expressed in English.

Key Words: Tense, Two tense system, Aspect

Contents

Declaration about the Originality of the Thesis ii
Abstract iii

1 Introduction 1
  
2 The Sixteen Tense System 1
  
3 The Two Tense System 4
3.1 The Definition and Classification of Tense 4
3.2 The Present Tense 6
3.2.1 The Simple Present Tense with Reference to Present Time 6
3.2.2 The Simple Present Tense with Reference to Past Time  9
3.3 The Past Tense 11
3.3.1 The Past Tense with Reference to Past Time 11
3.3.2 The Past Tense with Reference to Present Time 14
  
4 Aspect 15
4.1 The Definition of Aspect 15
4.2 The Classification of Aspect 16
4.2.1 Progressive Aspect 15
4.2.2 Perfective aspect 16
  
5 How Future is Expressed 17
5.1 The Simple Present  17
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