TAM Flashcards
What’s TAM
Tense, Aspect, Mood; Three grammatical categories closely associated with the portrayal of events and interact with morphology in complex ways
Tense
expresses time of an event in relation to a reference point
Aspect
how events are internally structured/viewed (perfect v. imperfect)
Mood
pragmatic function of sentence; expresses a speech act (what a speaker hopes to accomplish with utterance)
What’s the difference between absolute and relative tense?
Absolute is relative to time of utterance and relative is relative to the event being referenced (Tomorrow when you ask him, Brian will say that he SHAVED that morning.)
Give an example of another type of past referenced in other languages
Remote or mythic past, distant past, recent past, immediate past
TAM: Perfective
Aspect: Construes event as a single, complete whole
TAM: Imperfective
Aspect: construes an event without a clear beginning or end (portrays different internal structures)
TAM: Habitual
Aspect: Imperfect; Event occurs regularly (ex. I used to go to the bakery)
TAM: Progressive
Aspect: Imperfect: Event is ongoing (ex. I am going to the bakery)
TAM: Phasal Aspects
Iterative, durative, semelfactive, frequentative, inceptive, Inchoactive, completive, momentaneous, continuative
TAM: Iterative
Phasal aspect: repeated action on a single occasion
TAM: durative
Phasal aspect: for a long time
TAM: semelfactive
Phasal aspect: do just once
TAM: frequentative
Phasal aspect: do unusually often
