牛津、剑桥大学关于时态：英语中只有两种时态（tense）

我们先来复习一下tense：

tense[tens]adj.紧张的, 拉紧的v.(使)紧张, (使)拉紧n.[语法]时态

事实上，英语中有两个tense：

1、           源自拉丁语tendere的过去分词 [拉紧]

2、           源自拉丁语tempus[时间]。

所谓的“时态”实际上就是指利用动词的变化来表达“时间”概念。从这个角度来看问题，英语中只有两种时态——现在和过去。

英语中并没有大家经常听说的“将来时态”，大家所遇到的所谓的将来时态实际上都是利用辅助性动词（现在式、过去式）再加上非限定动词（分词或不定式）构成。这并不是真正意义上的“时态”。

换句话说，英语中并没有复杂的时态问题。如果您能坚持先读懂英语文章再钻研语法，您一定不会再被那些用中文描述的“时态”所干扰，您的英语学习一定是既轻松又快乐。

下面的内容请大概地读一读：

Observations:

·         "English . . . has only one inflectional form to express time: the past tense marker (typically -ed), as in walked, jumped, and saw. There is therefore a two-way tense contrast in English: I walk vs. I walked--present tense vs past tense.

present tense  现在时（现在式）

past tense  过去时（过去式）

不论您是说“时”和“式”实际上都是同一个东西。中国的孩子没有学到真正的英语却反而被那些伪英语语法概念给弄糊涂了。

English has no future tense ending, but uses a wide range of other techniques to express future time (such as will/shall, be going to, be about to, and future adverbs).

The linguistic facts are uncontroversial.

uncontroversial没有争议的(un+controversial)

controversial[7kCntrE5vE:FEl]adj.争论的, 争议的(contro+vers+i+al)

contro-是contra-的变化：

contra-表示“反对, 相反”之义

vers, vert表“转”，请复习universe, university, conversation, advertizement。

However, people find it extremely difficult to drop the notion of 'future tense' (and related notions, such as imperfect, future perfect, and pluperfect tenses) from their mental vocabulary, and to look for other ways of talking about the grammatical realities of the English verb."
(David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003)

让人们从头脑中抛弃“将来时态”这个概念非常困难，对于中国的那些所谓的“英语专家”和“教授”来说就更难。真的是“蜀道之难,难于上青天！”

"Some grammarians define a tense as an inflection of the verb--a change of meaning you achieve by altering the form of the verb. So the past tense of win is won.

In this sense, English has only two tenses, present and past.

But for everyday use--especially for those who are studying foreign languages--this strict definition of tense is not very helpful.

There is a broader use of the word [tense]: a form of the verb phrase which gives information about aspect and time."
(John Seely, Grammar for Teachers. Oxpecker, 2007)

"Traditionally, tense is defined in terms of time. But labels such as past, present, and future tense are misleading, since the relationship between the tenses is more complicated than the labels suggest.

Past and present tenses can be used in some circumstances to refer to future time (e.g. If he came tomorrow . . ., If he comes tomorrow . . .), present tenses can refer to the past (as in newspaper headlines, e.g. Minister resigns . . ., and in colloquial narrative, e.g. So she comes up to me and says . . .), and so on."
(Sylvia Chalker and Edmund Weiner, Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1994)

·         Tense and Aspect
"Traditional grammarians and modern linguists have approached this complicated area of languages with slightly different terminological conventions.

What many traditional grammarians label as various kinds of 'tense,' modern linguists split into two different ideas, namely:

namely[5neimli]adv.即, 也就是（name+ly）

Tense, which is strictly to do with WHEN something happened or was the case;

Aspect, which is concerned with factors such as the DURATION or COMPLETENESS of events and states of affairs.

duration[djuE5reiFEn]n.持续; 持久; 持续时间; 延续性,期限[间]; 存在时间(dur+ation)

源自 拉丁语 dūtus, dūrāre的过去分词 [延续]

completeness[kEm5pli:tnis]n.完全［整、备］性(complete+ness)

complete[kEm5pli:t]adj.全部的, 完全的, 完成的vt.完成, 使完善(com+plete)

For English, this difference of terminology comes out mainly in relation to the perfect and the progressive, which many traditional grammarians would treat as part of the system of tense, but modern linguists treat as belonging to the system of aspect."
(James R. Hurford, Grammar: A Student's Guide. Cambridge University Press, 1994)

"Tense and aspect have risen to some prominence within linguistics in recent decades as various theories have taken first the verb and then the inflectional system associated with it to be the central component of the clause.

This has manifested itself most obviously in syntax and morphology, but the effort to understand the meaning and use of time-related expressions has coincidentally played a significant role in the development of new theories of semantics and pragmatics, and those theories, in turn, have prompted further research into tense and aspect. . . .

"Almost every area of linguistics, with the exception of phonetics and phonology, has its own approach to tense and aspect.

Not only do morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics differ in their terminology and methodology, but each area has its own distinct Problematik--they naturally seek to answer quite different questions where tense and aspect are concerned."
(Robert I. Binnick, "Introduction." The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. Oxford University Press, 2012)