9XqdvarsGMU.txt

Speaker 1:          00:00          Be sure to subscribe to Lang Focus and click the notification button. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Lange Focus Channel and my name is Paul. Today we'll be talking about languages without verb tenses, languages without verb tenses, how's 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 and 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 ed 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 minus two for example, we'll play.

Speaker 1:          01:02          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 have 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 Outta the form of the verb is exactly the same and 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 it was that sentence, present tense or past tense in the middle of a story taking place.

Speaker 1:          01:53          In the past it would probably be past tense, but if someone were describing that action as part of their daily after work routine than 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 through our words and expressions that indicate a specific time that the action takes place like today, yesterday, next week, last year, et cetera. Second, there are adverbs that indicate aspect. For example, so the mum Biota, which basically means already paid sit dung, Mumbai Iota, which means in the process of paying Massey Mumbia, which means still paying these adverbs show aspect. What's the difference between tensen 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 timeline rather than where they occur.

Speaker 1:          02:47          On the timeline. Suda shows that an action is completed with the focus on the result of the action. We could call this perfect aspect, sit down marks the imperfection of aspect showing that an is in progress, but the action is not necessarily in the present tense. Massey also marks the imperfect of 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 him. That video will achieve. She sell. This means I go to school. The verb she 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.

Speaker 1:          03:39          Well, it should I share. This means I went to school, 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, this means I'll call you after I've had a meal tomorrow. Time can also be indicated with time-related vocabulary, so let him what? Chyna. 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 let's will coc. This means yesterday I arrested here. There's no aspect marker and the only indication of time is the word meaning yesterday.

Speaker 1:          04:37          Here's a sentence with a different aspect marker. Well, sad. She she, I saw the Lou Shannon. This means I'm on the way to school. This word that shows in perfective 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 and mandarin, but there are others. The main thing to notice with the Indonesian and Mandarin examples is that the verb itself has not conjugated. You simply place a different word and aspect marker next to the verb. It's actually very common for languages to not have tents, but I've never heard of a language that doesn't have aspect in many languages. Tencent 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.

Speaker 1:          05:39          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 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 Tay you do, or t Mohs, 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, the sentence means I can't believe that around this time next week I'll already be living in Canada.

Speaker 1:          06:37          Here you can see that the verb say [inaudible] is in the Teo to 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 and general indicate likelihood ability, permission and obligation. We'll 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, indicate the future. Semantically speaking, English can express the meaning of the future tense using these constructions, but grammatically they're not really a 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 tents.

Speaker 1:          07:30          Take French for instance, which is usually thought to have 14 tenses, seven simple tenses and seven compound tenses. But the seven compound tenses contain an element of aspect. Show them 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 tents 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 imagined 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.

Speaker 1:          08:31          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 Lang, focus on facebook and instagram. And once again, thank you to all of my amazing patrion supporters, especially these wonderful people right here on the screen for their monthly pledges. Thank you for watching and have a nice day.

Speaker 2:          09:21          Okay.