THE INTERPRETATION OF TENSE AND ASPECT IN PRAGMATICS

AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Rizka Hartati
(0601-26-81318-025)

I.

INTRODUCTION
The analysis of tense and aspects, which are considered as the elements in

constructing meaning, becomes obviously important to discuss in the study of

pragmatics and discourse analysis. A great deal of attention has recently been paid
to the relationship between tense-aspect choices and overall discourse constraints.
By examining natural data, discourse analysts are able to observe regular
correlations between discourse types and the predominance of certain tense and
aspect choices in the clause (McCarthy, 1991, p.59).
Rodrigues and Lopes (1992) state that tense, grammatical, and aspect are
very important clues in the process of temporal interpretation of sentences and
discourse. They all play a role in the listeners reconstruction of the events and
situations a speaker has chosen to describe, in what point that the speaker want to
focus of the certain elements of the message.
Tense and aspect are grammatical categories in a large number of
languages. They vary notoriously from language to language and are traditional
stumbling-blocks for learners (McCarthy, 1991, p.62). The form of the verb in
languages which have these categories usually indicates two main types of
information: time relations and aspectual differences. Time relations have to do
with locating an event in time. The usual distinction is between past, present, and
future. Aspectual differences have to do with the temporal distribution of an event,
for instance its completion or non-completion, continuation, or momentariness
(Baker, 1992, p 98). In some languages, the tense and aspect system, or parts of it,
may be highly developed with several fine distinctions in temporal location and
distribution.

Bahasa Indonesia, in which consists of only aspect without tense, has its
own rules to set the temporal situations in which the situations occur. Ihsan (2011)
asserts that in Bahasa Indonesia there is no verb changing to see the time where
the situations happen like what English does. And it is interesting to see these
tense and aspect differences between Bahasa Indonesia and English.
This paper highlights some basic theories toward tense and aspect in
English as well as Bahasa Indonesia: (1) tense and aspect definitions; (2) the role
of tense and aspect in certain texts; and (3) tense and aspect between English and
Bahasa Indonesia, which hopefully can help the learners of English to understand
more about tense and aspect, especially in pragmatics and discourse analysis
contexts.
II. CONTENT
II.1 Tense and aspect definitions
The terms of tense and aspect are described as follows (Wikipedia, 2013):
Tense: the grammatical system which locates a situational in time
(past/present/future)
David walks to school (present tense)
David walked to school (past tense)
David will walk to school tomorrow (future tense)
There are three tense of English: past, present and future. However some still
argue whether future belongs to the tense or not since the expression of future
time does not involve any inflection of the verb. The future, for instance -- can be
made in a number of ways, by using the modal auxiliary will, or the semiauxiliary be going to:
David is going to walk to school tomorrow.
In sentences, tenses interact with the grammatical concept of aspect which
describes as follows:
Aspect: a grammatical system which gives information about the temporal
structure of a situation or the speakers view of this:

[1] David fell in love on his eighteenth birthday

[2] David has fallen in love
[3] David is falling in love
In [1], the verb fell tells us that David fell in love in the past, and specifically on
his eighteenth birthday. This is a simple past tense verb.
In [2] also, the action took place in the past, but it is implied that it took place
quite recently. Furthermore, it is implied that is still relevant at the time of
speaking -- David has fallen in love, and that's why he's behaving strangely. It is
worth noting that we cannot say *David has fallen in love on his eighteenth
birthday. The auxiliary has here encodes what is known as perfective aspect, and
the auxiliary itself is known as the perfective auxiliary.
In [3], the action of falling in love is still in progress -- David is falling in love at
the time of speaking. For this reason, we call it progressive aspect, and the
auxiliary is called the progressive auxiliary.
Aspect always includes tense. In [2] and [3] above, the aspectual auxiliaries are in
the present tense, but they could also be in the past tense:
David had fallen in love -- Perfective Aspect, Past Tense
David was falling in love -- Progressive Aspect, Past Tense
In short, there are four aspects which follow the tenses in English:
1. The Progressive (or continuous) Aspect views the action in the process of
happening, being in the middle of things and not having completed it.
Mom is cooking dinner in the kitchen at the moment
(She is still doing it and not finished)
2. The Perfect Aspect views the action as having been completed before another
point in time. The action is finished but may influence what follows it.
Mark has already seen this film
(The action is completed. It may influence our choice of what film to see
since we dont want Mark to see it again)

3. The Perfect-Progressive Aspect combines the qualities of the previous two. It

views the action as an ongoing one that has been going on until a certain point in
time and having been completed up to that point. They may influence what
follows.
By 2005, Dona had been dieting rather seriously and subsequently lost a lot
of weight.
(Dona was in an ongoing process that was completed in 2005. This
influenced what followed the loss of weight]
4. The Simple (or Zero) Aspect does not relate to the flow of time and merely
states whether or not the action occurs.
Dona works in London
(Simple factual statement)
II.2 The role of tense and aspect in certain texts
Hot news text
Zydatiss (1986) as cited in McCarthy (1991, p.59) introduces the first type of
approach which looked at a number of text types in English where present perfect
is either dominant or in regular contrast with past simple. One of those three
functions of present perfect that he introduced was conveying hot news.
The hot news text are mostly found in broadcast and written news reports, but
are also common in everyday speech. For example:
A British firm has landed a huge shipping contract in Brazil. The deal
was signed at a meeting today in London.
This choice of tense and aspect in above sentences illustrate the present perfect
usage. In hot news text, present perfect regularly contrast with past simple in the
same text, where the topicalising sentence uses present perfect, while the details
of the narrative are in past simple.
Academic text

Tense and aspect choices have also been related to discourse segments in
academic writing. As well as in hot news text, academic text also follows the
usage of present perfect in writing scientific article. For instance, regularly use
past simple in abstract section, and shift to predominantly present perfect in
introduction section, at the end of which there is a shift back to past simple where
the discourse begins its narrative of the particular research experiment reported
(McCarthy, 1991, p.60).
Narrative text
Stories, jokes, and anecdote become the examples of narrative text. Schiffrins
(1981) as cited in McCarthy (1991, p.59) state that data shows regular correlation
between discourse segments and tense aspect choices. She noted how the
speaker switched from the past to the present and from the historical
present tense to continuous aspect to emphasize particular stages in
the narrative. The term of historic present is describes as follows:

Historic present is the using of present tense to describe actions

and events in the past. It is also sometimes accompanied by
changes from simple to progressive aspect where the time
sequence seems to be broken and a particularly strong focus is
given to action.
Here the illustration of the shift to the present continuous for emphatic purposes in
the recounting of a ghost story:
A: Not all that long since, perhaps ten years ago, this friend of mine, her son was
in hospital, and hed had a serious accident and he was unconscious for a long
time... anyway, she went to see him one day and she said Has anybody been
to see you?, and he says No, but a right nice young lady came to see me, he
said, she was lovely, she stood at the foot of my bed, you know, she. . . had a
little word with me. Well eventually he came home, and theyd a lot of the
family in the house, and Emma, this friend of mine, brought these photographs
out, of the family through the years, and, passing them round, and hes
looking at them and he said Oh! Thats that young lady that came to see me
when I was in bed. Shed died when he was born . . . so.
B: Good God.
A: Hed never seen her.
B: No . . . heavens. (In McCarthy 1991:61)

From this example it can be deduced that the choice of tense and aspect is not just
a matter of precise location in time but also a sign of the speaker/writers
intentions to foreground certain elements:
The tenses and aspects do not seem so much strictly bound to time
as to issues such as the senders purpose, the focus on different
elements of the message, and the projection of a shared
framework within which the receiver will understand the
message. (McCarthy 1991:62)
The role of the hearer/reader will be to interpret these sentences by establishing
temporal assumptions/presuppositions and capturing inferences based on tense
and aspect choice (Carmona, 2001).
II.3 Tense and aspect between English and Bahasa Indonesia
Tense and aspect vary notoriously from language to language. English is the
example of language that has both tense and aspect, in contrast with Bahasa
Indonesia which only has aspect without having tense. And sometimes this
difference between English-Bahasa Indonesia makes the learners of English get
confused in learning English.
The previous discussions have already explained briefly about the English
tense and aspect. Now it turns to the explanation about the role of aspect in
Bahasa Indonesia which is different in English.
There is no verb changing in Bahasa Indonesia to state the time in which the
situations happen (Ihsan, 20011, p. 39). Bahasa Indonesia uses the temporal aspect
like kemarin, sekarang, besok, to state the time without any changing of the verb.
Moreover, the expression of aspect in Bahasa Indonesia relies mainly on aspect
markers like sudah, akan, pernah, sedang, Most of these markers indicate not
only an aspect, but also a modality (Djajasudarma, 1993: 22) as cited in Resmini
(2012).
This paper provides some explanations of certain aspect markers which
relying on another grammatical aspect like modality to understand tense and
aspect differences between English-Indonesia. Those aspect markers include:
sudah, telah

Some of these markers are not only aspectual, but also modal; whether they
express mainly aspect or modality depends on the context. The example of this
flexibility is provided by the marker sudah.
(1) Liana sudah berangkat
Liana has left
(2) Aku sudah tua, tenagaku sudah berkurang
I am already old, my strength has already lessened
In example (1), sudah indicate perfect aspect, in example (2) sudah marks a
stative verb and the aspect can be labeled as completion.
On the other hand, the preverbal marker telah indicates a perfect aspect,
but (as opposed to sudah), it does not convey modality. Furthermore, the essential
feature of telah is an explicit neutrality of the speaker, who presents himself as
objective and unconcerned by the event (Grange, 2010). Compare the following
examples:
(1) Gunung Merapi meletus kemarin
Mount Merapi erupted yesterday
(2) Gunung merapi telah meletus

Mount Merapi has erupted

(3) Gunung merapi sudah meletus

Mount Merapi has already erupted

In (2), with telah, the way of recounting the event is detached and impersonal. On
the other hand, in (3) the marker sudah leads to interpret that the speaker knew
this eruption would happen, or was probable, or assumed that the addressee would
expect this event too. Considering these examples from a pragmatics perspective,
one could imagine that (1) is a hearsay account; (2) is quoted from a journalist
report; while (3) could be asserted by a volcanologist or a farmer living nearby the
volcano and capable of reading some warning signs.
semakin, terus, masih, tetap
These markers indicate an imperfective aspect which is defined as a
grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure,

such as progressive or ongoing process (Wikipedia, 2013). The examples are as

follow:
(1) Bensin semakin mahal
Gasoline is getting more expensive
(2) Semakin pergi ke luar negeri, semakin cinta negeri ini
The more (I) go abroad, the more (I) love this country
In example (1) semakin (also known as kian, makin) conveys a gradual aspect to
stative verbs, meanwhile (2) semakin conveys dynamic verb which leads to an
iterative interpretation: the event is repeated with a growing intensity.
The preverbal markers terus, masih, tetap express broadly a continuative
aspect: an event is presented as lasting longer than expected. There are syntactic
differences in their use: terus marks dynamic processes, masih is normally applied
to states, or series of processes described as a state of affairs, while tetap can be
used with any kind of process. The illustrations are as follow:
(1) Dia terus mengejekku
He/she keeps mocking me
(2) Andi masih capek, Andi masih bekerja di Bogor
Andi is still tired, he stills works in Bogor
sedang, tengah, lagi
These markers indicate the imperfective aspect. They are compatible with a
past reference as in the example:
(1) Tia sedang membaca ketika ia dipanggil

Tia was reading when she was called

Besides marking dynamic verbs, sedang in Bahasa Indonesia can mark stative
verbs, and is also compatible with the iterative aspect (express the repetition of an
event), like the examples (2) and (3) below:
(2) Tia sedang/lagi/tengah sedih
Tia is sad
(3) Sarah sedang mencium-cium anak perempuannya
Sarah is/was kissing her baby daughter again and again

III. CONCLUSION

The analysis of tense and aspect in pragmatics and discourse analysis

contributes to the understanding about the intended meaning of what the speaker
says. The choice of verbal aspect may not just be a matter of location in time but
also a sign of the addressers intentions to highlight different elements of the
message. The role of the addressee is to establish temporal assumptions and draw
the necessary inferences in order to interpret the utterances or sentences. It is clear
then why analyzing tense and aspect in discourse and pragmatics context is
merely important to discuss. Meanwhile, tense and aspect differences among
languages also brings the language learners to another aspect to be considered in
constructing as well as interpreting the meaning between languages, such as
English-Indonesian, in which the learners need to be more analytic in interpreting
the intended meaning in pragmatics and discourse context.
IV. REFERENCES
Baker, M. (1992). In other words: A coursebook on translation. London:
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Carmona, M. R. (2001). Aspect variation in narrative: A discourse approach. Elia
Journal 2, (pp. 225-237). Retrieved on December 11th, 2013 from
http://institucional.us.es/revistas/elia/2/17rivas.pdf
Grange, P. (2010). Aspect in Indonesian: Free marker versus affixed or clitic
markers. Proceeding of the International workshop on TAM and evidentiality
in Indonesian language. Retrieved on December 13th, 2013 from
http://repository.tufs.ac.jp/bitstream/10108/64519/1/Proceedings_TAM06.pdf
Ihsan, D. (2011). Pragmatik, analisis wacana, dan guru bahasa. Palembang:
Universitas Sriwijaya.
McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse analysis for language teachers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Resmini, N. (2012). Unsur semantic dan jenis makna. Retrieved on December
13th,
2013
from
http://file.upi.edu/Direktori/DUALMODES/KEBAHASAAN_I/BBM_8.pdf
Rodrigues, I. P. & Lopes, J. G. (1992). Temporal structure of discourse. Paper
presented at Coling, Nantes, 23-28 August (pp. 331-337). Retrieved on
December 11th, 2013 from http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/C/C92/C92-1052.pdf

Wikipedia. (2013). Grammatical aspect. Retrieved on December 11th, 2013 from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect
Wikipedia. (2013). Imperfective aspect. Retrieved on December 11th, 2013 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperfective_aspect

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