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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Langfocus channel and my name is Paul.
Today we'll be talking about languages without verb tenses.
Languages without verb tenses? How is that possible?
Speakers of English and other indo-european languages,
and I guess other languages too, might take it for granted that the basic features of their language must be present in other languages as
well But that's not always the case
One example of this is verb tense using a particular form of a verb to show the time period of an action past
Present or future as they exist on a timeline in English we basically have these three tenses present tense is
Represented by the simple verb stem like play for example with regular verbs the past tense is
represented by the stem plus the inflection edie like played and
The simple future tense is formed by placing the modal auxiliary verb will before the infinitive which is based on the verb stem
- - for example we'll play some linguists might argue that this future form is not actually a verb tense
We'll come back to that later
But some languages don't have verb tenses meaning they don't have different verb
Conjugations to show periods of time this is true of many Creole languages for example of Indonesian and Malaysian of Chinese of many Native American
Languages and a lot more. Here's an example from Indonesian. Here's the verb meaning pay in the past present and future
Mumbai odda the form of the verb is exactly the same in all three tenses
And this might sound strange to you how can they clearly communicate without being able to say when an action takes place?
Well first of all it's normally not that hard to guess from context. Just to illustrate
Let's take the English word put which is the same in the present tense and past tense I?
Put my keys on the table
So as that sentence of present tense or past tense in the middle of a story taking place in the past it would probably be
Past tense, but if someone were describing that action as part of their daily after work routine, then it would probably be present tense
Context can clarify the time of an action aside from general context. There are other ways of indicating when an action takes place
First there are words and expressions that indicate a specific time that the action takes place like today yesterday
Next week last year etc second there are adverbs that indicate aspect for example
Sudha Mumbai er which basically means already paid
Sedan Mumbai er which means in the process of paying masse Mumbai er which means still paying these adverbs show aspect
What's the difference between tense and aspect as I mentioned before temps indicates the time period of an action past present or future?
Aspect deals with the way actions unfold in relation to the time line rather than where they occur on the time line
Sudha shows that an action is completed with a focus on the result of the action. We could call this perfect aspect
sadang marks the imperfective aspect
Showing that an action is in progress, but the action is not necessarily in the present tense Massey. Also marks the imperfective aspect
Showing that an action is continuing but with an emphasis on the fact that it's not yet finished
These are just three of the many aspect markers in Indonesian another language without tenses is Mandarin Chinese
I mentioned this in my video comparing Chinese and Japanese, but unfortunately I messed up my explanation a little bit
Here's the present tense sentence. I gave in that video watch
Yourself this means I go to school the verb Chi is the same no matter what period of time it takes place in
But there are words that can be placed before or after the verb which show aspect
What should I should I sell this means? I went to school la
Indicates the perfective aspect viewing an action in its entirety including its completion at a point in time
This is often thought of as a past tense marker, but in certain contexts it can be used with future events for example
Warming can cheela funky need a deal. Wha this means I'll call you after I've had a meal tomorrow
time can also be indicated with time related vocabulary
So again, what cheerless you so this means yesterday? I went to school. You can see that
We've added the word for yesterday in this sentence
We actually still need the perfective aspect marker because the verb here is an action verb with a definite start and finish
But in some sentences the perfective aspect marker is not needed for example, so what you see you see this means yesterday
I rested here. There's no aspect marker and the only indication of time is the word meaning yesterday
Here's a sentence with a different aspect marker. What's that? She she saw the Lu Xiang this means?
I'm on the way to school. This word sad shows imperfective aspect
Indicating an action that is in progress and again not necessarily in the present and this part at the end here means on the road
These are two common aspect markers in Mandarin, but there are others
The main thing to notice with the Indonesian and Mandarin examples is that the verb itself is not conjugated
You simply place a different word an aspect marker next to the verb it's actually very common for languages to not have tense
But I've never heard of a language that doesn't have aspect in many languages tense and aspect
combined together to form various verb
conjugations and many people really don't distinguish between the two concepts for example in English we have the present tense as in I work and
We have another form I'm working which is in the present tense, but with progressive aspect
And we have I have worked which is in the present tense
but with perfect aspect
Showing a connection between a past event and the present people tend to think of all of these different verb constructions as tenses
But strictly speaking there is more than just tense there there are certain languages that do have tenses
But not all of them in particular. It's quite common for languages to show no distinction between present tense and future tense
This is the case with Japanese for example
Which has two tenses past and non past
so cool today must could mean I eat Japanese food in the general sense or
I'll eat Japanese food in a specific case in the future
It's normally not hard to tell the difference based on context
And there's another form day you do or Tomas which represents a continuing action or continuing state
Incorporating uses of both progressive as well as perfect aspect
People often think this is strictly a present tense form but it can also be used for future actions for example
Nice your name. I got a lot well kinda
They say go to state or not they change it on a night
This sentence means I can't believe that around this time next week. I'll already be living in Canada here
You can see that the verb say katsu stay to is in the toyota form
Representing progressive aspect, but the action takes place in the future many linguists would even argue that English has no future tense
That's because there are no inflections on the main verb to show future tense
But it's shown instead using a modal auxiliary specifically will
modal auxiliaries in general indicate likelihood ability permission and obligation will does express future action
But syntactically it works like a modal auxiliary
And there's also the construction going to which can be placed in front of the main verb to indicate the future
Semantically speaking English can express the meaning of the future tense using these constructions, but grammatically they're not really future tense
But again most people tend to think of that as the future tense in English
Indeed many of the verb forms that we tend to think of as tenses include elements other than tense
Take French for instance which is usually thought to have 14 tenses 7 simple tenses and 7 compound tenses
But the 7 compound tenses contain an element of aspect
Shown through the use of auxiliary verbs and the conditional and subjunctive forms show distinctions in mood the conditional form
Suggests that one action is dependent upon another and the subjunctive form
indicates desire or probability
These are moods and even though they have separate verb forms and are often referred to as separate tenses
They really express both tense and mood so verb tenses may work differently in different languages and some languages may lack
grammatical verb tense entirely
But that doesn't mean that they can't express those different time periods in other ways whether from
Context from the use of time expressions like tomorrow from the use of aspect or from the use of modal auxiliaries
When some people hear that there are languages with no verb tense
They imagine that the speakers of these languages have no
Understanding of time that they can't plan for the future or that they can't remember the past or something like that
But that's not the case at all
We're all humans after all and we all find ways to communicate the same basic things the question of the day does your language have
special verb forms to express past present and future
Does your language contain a large number of tenses that?
incorporate aspect and mood if you're not quite sure
Maybe look it up and find out a little bit about it and tell us in the comments down below be sure to follow
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