Page 139 - Costellazioni 6

GÜNTER RADDEN, Meaningful Grammar

Grammatical forms:
(4c) I teach English to international students.
(4d) I taught Spanish to 3–6 year olds.

Lexico-grammatical forms:
(4e) I will teach square dancing this year.
(4f) I am going to miss my teacher.

The notions of time in sentences (4a) and (4b) are expressed as lexical
forms. The expressions every day and from 8am to 12am provide specific
information about the days and hours when the situation described
occurs. Due to the Simple Present, the time expressions in these sen-
tences refer to habitual occurrences of a situation.
The notions of time in sentences (4c) and (4d) are expressed
grammatically as tenses: The Present and Past Tenses in English are
formed morphologically: The Present Tense is marked by the third
person singular -s, and the Past Tense is marked by the suffix -ed. As
grammatical forms, tenses provide highly general temporal informa-
tion: The Present Tense in (4c) indicates that I teach English habitually
but it doesn’t inform us about the time when I started teaching, how
often I teach, if I am teaching now, etc. The Past Tense in (4d) indicates
that I taught Spanish at some time before the present moment but it
does not inform us about the time when the situation began, when it
ended, and how long it lasted.
The notions of future time in sentences (4e) and (4f) are ex-
pressed by lexico-grammatical forms. The lexical origins of will and
be going to can still be recognized, but their function as future markers
is clearly grammatical. Other languages such as Latin also use a gram-
matical form for all its tenses, including the future. Thus, I will teach
translates in Latin as docebo, where the suffix -b(i) indicates future time.
The Latin formation of the future is motivated by the overall morpho-
logical paradigm of tenses.
English has a mixed pattern of tenses. The Present and Past Tens-
es are formed morphologically, but the Future Tense is formed lexi-
co-grammatically. This has led some grammarians to claim that En-
glish has only two tenses: the Present and the Past. This decision, of
course, depends on one’s definition of tense. A greater challenge

137