Tense
The future and the past can only be assessed from the present time. In his article, Aspect, tense, mood, Timberlake (2007) views tense as an aspect that creates a linkage from the “here-and-now” of speech and the second period “-here’ termed contextual occasion. Through the use of temporal verbs, one can possibly localize the view to the instance of contextual occasion. Tense is divided into four operators namely; the past, present, future, and distal. The past is a situation where the outcome of an event is known with certainty and is considered as the catalyst of a situation that is happening at the moment. Past tense is used by liminal predicates. The present represents the situation happening at a particular interval of time. It also describes the moments immediately preceding and immediately following the action in time (Timberlake, 2007). It is usually used by processes or activities. The future suggests an action that will take place at a time later than the present, that is, here and now. The events can only be suggested and anticipated as there is no surety of the action taking place. It is used by liminal predicates. The distal depicts a situation that happens in another alternate world but is measured by an interval of time.
The future tense also shows modality in its contextual form; hence, it shows the possibility of the events happening at a later period. The possibilities, however, are not static and are bound to change from the original future predicted. This shows that the future can only be projected; therefore, there are alternatives to the said future (Timberlake, 2007). The past is, however, intact as it cannot be changed. The difference in intervals of time between past and future depicts a parallel relationship between the two. When a speaker and an addressee start from the point of here and now accessing the past and future, an interval between the time of speech and the contextual event is constructed. However, the tenses can have a symbiotic relationship as they show the path the occasion takes from the past to the future, not only bounded by time. The future tense is expressed in the modal form in describing the contextual event. There is a possibility that the event will occur beyond the interval of now and then time. The tense is also used to show an event that is not factual, that is hypothetical. This is made possible by perfects. Perfects in both past and future can locate an event internally; that is, the location of an event in the past, present, or future in the contextual text of the occasion happening in the past or future. For example, past perfect depict history in the past. This shows a time where a person is referring to a future event or fate. Future perfect shows the past in future events that happen. These tenses are referred to as relative tense as they allow for the specific statements of the time that an event occurs.
There are relations between the past and present, such as the historical present where a past occasion is relived in a livid time without any time distance contextually. The recent past occurs when an event is not completed or occasions that happen within a day. The past used in recent past shows events that have been disconnected from the interval of time. Tense is also different in direct and indirect speech. Indirect speech is characterized by verbs of speech. The speaker decides to use verbs relating to a third party while in a direct speech, the speaker exercises control over the occasion and use pronouns and verbs of the internal speaker.
Mood and Modality
As stated by Timberlake (2007), modality involves how individual develop awareness and speak about the earth as it is and what is should be. Various alternatives are formulated and evaluated in the perspective of an authority which could be the speaker or other participants or situation (Timberlake, 2007). There are distinct instances through which an incident can be viewed as being less of certain or real. For this reason, there have been a prevalence of distinct tastes of modality in language. The three core realms of modality include epistemology, obligation and contingency. Epistemology relates to the knowledge of the speaker and its possibilities and the degree of certainty. The role of the speaker is to convey the message from another speaker in contextual form and also act as the speaker. The speaker here claims authority over the knowledge. Questions are a common feature in this realm. Epistemology allows interrogative discussion through questions asked by the audience as the speaker surrenders the authority over all and allows for the audience to correct a deficit. Epistemology operates between the realms of the uncertainty of questions and certainty of answers to bring forth evidentially of a subject.
Obligation modal can be viewed as permissions and obligations invoked by the speaker in order to share the burden of changing the world. This invokes both authority and alternate choices. The directive modals report the facts of imperatives. They can issue a command or permit while others violative, which implies the speaker takes responsibility for the changes. The obligation also shows the authority of permission. Where responsibility is ranted to a proxy authority, others express regret and appreciation, according to the speaker. This type of modal shifts authority forms one person to another while still maintaining the” so be it” context of the occasion. This second modality shows a situation may not hold, but the will of the proxy authority will make the event to continue.
Contingency is the circumstantial modal, where one situation is responsible for the other happening. The conditions can be potential or iterative. Potential conditions are often involved with realis mood as the events are more likely to occur based on another outcome (Timberlake, 2007). The iterative conditions are used with the irreal is mood as to where the degree of events happening is hypothetical. The events can be imagined but are not real. There are also circumstances which show is polarized to one side while giving conditions of how the world is subject to change called counterfactual. Indicative modality entirely excludes alternatives while committing itself that one event is the only that will take place. There are also more restricted models such as modals that express apprehension of events while others express imminent actions such as “A dog nearly bite me.” Apprehension mood shows the extent of under stability of a particular event that is in the past and present.
