CONTEXTUAL EXPLICATION OF ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE FORMS OF TENSE FORMS AND THEIR METHODS FOR TEACHING
Keywords:
languages, Tonhauser, however, remote past, immediate past, present, immediate future.Abstract
While the article Distinguishing between the absolute and relative tense paradigms and defining tense in the Bantu languages with reference to Zulu focuses on the distinction between absolute and relative tense and defining tense (with reference to the Bantu languages) tense as a verbal category is distinguished from both time and aspect. The semantic distinction between the absolute and relative tense paradigms of Zulu (and other Bantu languages) is represented schematically as a relation between utterance time, reference time (topic time in Klein’s terms) and the eventuality. The options of defining absolute and relative tense separately or supplying an encompassing definition for both absolute and relative tenses are considered. Defining tense using an encompassing definition is preferred because that results in a single definition for tense.
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