Leech and Svartvik (1992) state in the introduction to their Communicative Grammar of English that “the conventional way of presenting English Grammar in terms of structure […] has a certain drawback in itself”. In their opinion “notions of time may be dealt with in as many as four different places: under the tense of the verb, under time adverbs, under prepositional phrases denoting time and under temporal conjunctions and clauses” (Leech & Svartvik, 1992, p. 4). For my comparison, I chose those grammars that, like the CING, function as a reference, and, possibly, pedagogical (textbook) grammar (e.g., Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985; Biber, Johansson, & Leech, 1999; Huddleston & Pullum, 2005; Carter & McCarthy 2006), grammars with authentic example material from
language corpora (Leech & Svartvik, 1992; Biber, Conrad, & Leech, 2002; Carter & McCarthy, 2006), and grammars that have been written with the advanced English language student in view (Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990; Leech & Svartvik, 1992; Hewings, 2005; Biber, Conrad, & Leech, 2002; Sammon, 2002; Huddleston & Pullum, 2005; Carter & McCarthy, 2006). Second, I consulted more comprehensive grammar works that draw on the history of language (Greenbaum, 1996) and open new perspectives in the description of English grammar (Mukherjee, 2002; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002) in order to assess those aspects of the CING content aimed specifically at linguists.
In her in-depth discussion of tense and aspect in language learning, Bardovi-Harlig distinguishes between the grammatical aspect and the lexical aspect (2000, p.213), both of which she considers relevant for acquisition. The grammars I reviewed all integrated tense and aspect in the topic area of “verb phrase.” In Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Swartvik’s (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, tense and aspect appear in the chapter “The semantics of the verb phrase” under the heading “Time, tense and the verb,” which follows their introduction to verbs and auxiliaries (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Swartvik, 1985, pp. 96ff). This arrangement of grammatical categories reflects the relation between the morphology of verbs (e.g., “The past form and the –ed participle” [Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Swartvik, 1985, p. 100]) and their tense and aspect.
The same topics and chapter structure, although a less detailed and extensive treatment of the topics, can be found in A Student’s Grammar of the English Language (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1990). Greenbaum explains the relevance of the structures of verb phrases (finite and non-finite verb phrases) for the description of tense and aspect (Greenbaum, 1996, pp.253-254ff): English has only two tenses “if tense is reflected by verb inflection” and only two aspects, which “are expressed by a combination of an auxiliary and a following verb” (Greenbaum, 1996, p.253). In this grammar Greenbaum discusses the relevant morphological representation of Tense and Aspect in the verb long before proceeding to the semantic meanings of both verb phrase structures whereby, the reader can be expected to have covered how to form the simple past or present perfect correctly in the verb phrase.
Biber, Conrad, and Leech (2002) take a comparable approach, explaining that tense can appear in finite verb phrases (which “can be marked for tense” Biber et al., 2002, p.150) and aspect in non-finite verb phrases, while both are two of “six major kinds of variation in the structure of verb phrases” (Biber et al., p.149). The authors go on to discuss the meaning and usage of the different tenses and aspects (Biber et al., pp.156-162) in more detail, pointing out that “tense can be used to mark past and present and refer to future time. Aspect
adds time meanings to those expressed by tense. Aspect answers the question ‘Is the event/state described by the verb completed, or is it continuing?’” (Biber et al., 2002, p.156).
Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 2005), on the other hand, begin by presenting “inflectional categories of the verb” from a morphological point of view (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, p.74), dividing verbs into lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs. In their description, “only lexical verbs can carry verb inflection to more complex and notional uses [e.g., backshift in the simple past] of both structures” (see Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, pp. 86 and 151). Their approach also differs from the other grammar works in that they identify the simple past and the present perfect as past tenses, while the other grammarians agree that the simple past is a tense and the present perfect an aspect. Given that the CING also operates from this assumption, I will bracket this part of Huddleston and Pullum’s (2002, 2005) presentation in the following discussion.
In contrast to this detailed approach, Leech and Svartvik (1992) include their descriptions of tense and aspect in the “Meanings expressed by the verb phrase” section of their “Time, tense and aspect” chapter (Leech & Svartvik 1992, p. 65) and only subsequently provide definitions of tense (“the correspondence between the form of the verb and our concept of time [past, present and future]”) and aspect (“concerns the manner in which a verbal action is experienced or regarded, for example as complete or in progress”) (Leech & Svartivk, 1992, p. 400).
Sammon’s Exploring English Grammar (2002), Murphy’s English Grammar in Use (2000), and Hewings’ Advanced Grammar in Use (2005) all take different approaches to describing tense and aspect. Sammon presents the most in-depth approach, with a definition of tense and aspect in his third chapter “Tense and aspect: The progressive,” followed by an overview of the simple past and present perfect in the fourth chapter, “Tense and aspect: The perfective.” The overview is divided into normal pattern (usages and verb types involved in the perfective aspect) and exceptions (Sammon, 2002, p. 47). This if followed by nine pages of exercises on the different aspects of the chapter’s content. Similar to Leech and Svartvik (1992), Sammon’s focus remains on the meaning and usage of the grammar structures in question, as is reflected in the amount of exercises included in the work. (Among the grammars analyzed here, only Sammon, Murphy, and Hewings provide exercises).
Murphy (2000) and Hewings (2005) provide less extensive but concise and clear descriptions along with examples. They discuss tense and aspect in their chapter “Tenses,” but do not
provide definitions or information on their morphological representation.15 These grammars concentrate on usage and give a rather superficial linguistic description of the grammar compared to the approaches discussed above.
Of the grammars surveyed above, the CING’s approach to describing tense and aspect compares best to that of Sammon (2002) in structure and content. In both works, the chapter titles include the topic terminologies (“Tense and aspect: The perfective” [Sammon, 2002]
and “Tense/Aspect” in the CING). Furthermore, both works present the reader with occasional information on other languages (see Sammon, 2002 and CING “Tense/Aspect - Perfect forms – Preliminaries”), as well as with various exercise materials (without comprehension in Sammon’s work) in each chapter.
For those who use grammars for revision or as a reference, the topic allocation in Murphy, Hewings, and the CING appears most clear and explicit, in comparison to more thorough or linguistic approaches (e.g., Biber, Conrad, & Leech, 2002; Quirk et al., 1985; Greenbaum, 1996), where tense and aspect are often “hidden” under chapter names that do not directly relate to them (e.g., “The semantics of the verb phrase” in Greenbaum, 1996). Despite this clarity of content structure, the CING fails to provide learners with definitions of the terms “tense” and “aspect” in its content pages, where they are included in other grammar works. Instead, the CING relegates the definitions of both terms to its Glossary.
The CING Sitemap (Figure 17) on the present perfect and simple past seems to present a clear content structure, with the category “Tense/Aspect” representing the top level. However, under “Tense/Aspect” the user can then choose between continuous forms, perfect forms and (among others) perfect continuous forms on the second level.
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Figure 17: CING Sitemap on Tense/Aspect
The category title “Perfect Forms” is likely to direct a user in need of information on the present perfect to the correct topic pages, but none of the other sub-chapter headings refer directly to the simple past.
Thus it could appear to users that the simple past only has a very few rules and uses whereas the present perfect is much more complex.
I will now take a closer look at the CING’s simple past and present perfect materials to establish how complete and clear they are, and how they compare to other grammar works.