Tense, aspect, mood and voice

Time and event structure

Tense places a situation relative to a reference point, often speech time; aspect presents how the situation unfolds or is viewed. A perfective view treats an event as a whole, while an imperfective view can present it internally, habitually or as ongoing according to a language’s system. “Past” and “perfective” are therefore not interchangeable. A form translated by an English past can also encode aspect, modality or discourse sequence. First inspect the language-specific paradigm and constructions, then choose an English rendering.

WALS documents several expression strategies: Anywa has a past prefix in one cited form, Harar Oromo an imperfective suffix, and Loniu uses separate preverbal words for present and stative meanings. These are modern comparanda. The lesson is structural, not a prescription that each ancient language must have tense or aspect affixes. A tense–aspect label on a single form is only as secure as the attested contrast from which it was inferred.

Mood and modality

Mood is a grammatical contrast associated with clause types or speaker stance, such as indicative, imperative, subjunctive or irrealis in languages that have those categories. Modality covers notions such as possibility, obligation and likelihood; it may be expressed by verbal forms, particles, auxiliaries or syntax. A mood label from a traditional grammar may bundle several uses. Do not assume that an “irrealis” form simply means future or that a subjunctive always denotes uncertainty. Write down the clause type and construction that licenses a particular reading.

Voice and valency

Voice changes how participants map to grammatical relations. In a prototypical passive, the active patient can become a grammatical subject and the active agent can be omitted or expressed obliquely. WALS compares Swahili active and passive clauses where the verb changes form and the food, rather than the cook, is the subject of the passive. Some languages use an auxiliary plus participle; others have additional voice-like constructions, including antipassives or middles. Do not label a participle “passive” merely because an English translation uses “was.” Check agreement, argument marking and the language’s own paradigm.

Valency is the number and arrangement of arguments licensed by a predicate. Causatives, applicatives and passives can alter it, but their behavior is language-specific. A learner must ask both what morphology is present and which participant has become syntactically central.

Nonfinite forms

An infinitive or participle can have verbal arguments while behaving in some respects like a noun or adjective. Ancient Greek genitive absolutes, as described by Smyth, combine a genitive noun or pronoun with a participle outside the main clause’s construction; their temporal, causal or concessive reading depends on context. This is a syntax-and-meaning relation, not a single invariant English conjunction. Similar English translations of a Latin ablative absolute should not cause the two languages’ case systems to be conflated.

Practice

Take a verbal form that an edition translates as an English past passive. Separate the evidence for tense, aspect, mood and voice in four lines. Then inspect the surrounding clause for its arguments and temporal reference. Mark any value supplied by the translator rather than overtly distinguished in the original.