(Luận văn thạc sĩ) a contrastive analysis of tense aspect combinations in english and the vietnamese equivalents ( with possible applications to teaching and learning english)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES.
----------------**0**----------------

BÙI VĂN TỰ

A Contrastive Analysis of Tense-Aspect Combinations in English
and the Vietnamese Equivalents (with Possible Applications to
Teaching and Learning English)
(Phân tích đối chiếu sự kết hợp Thời-Thể trong tiếng Anh và tương
đương trong tiếng Việt với ứng dụng trong dạy và học tiếng Anh)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15

HANOI - 2009


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES.
----------------**0**----------------

BÙI VĂN TỰ

A Contrastive Analysis of Tense-Aspect Combinations in English
and the Vietnamese Equivalents (with Possible Applications to
Teaching and Learning English)

(Phân tích đối chiếu sự kết hợp Thời-Thể trong tiếng Anh và tương
đương trong tiếng Việt với ứng dụng trong dạy và học tiếng Anh)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Nguyễn Hương Giang, M.A.

HANOI - 2009


iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………………….

i.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………….

ii.

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………….

iii.

TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………

iv.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. ………………………………………………………………

v.

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

vi.

PART 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….

1

1. Rationale…………………………………………………………………………………..

1

2. Hypotheses………………………………………………………………………………..

1

3. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………………...

1

4. Significance of the study………………………………………………………………….

2

5. Methods of the study……………………………………………………………………...

2

6. Design of the study………………………………………………………………………..

3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………………….

5

Chapter 1: Theoretical background………………………………………………………

5

1.1. Time in language……………………………………………………………………….

5

1.1.1. Diagrammatic representation of properties of time. …………………………………

6

1.1.2. Deixis and Temporal Reference………………………………………………………

6

1.2. Tense and Aspect in English: A general outline………………………………………

7

1.2.1. Tense in English………………………………………………………………………

8

1.2.1.1. Definitions of tense. ………………………………………………………………..

8

1.2.1.2. Classifications of tense……………………………………………………………..

8

1.2.2. Aspect in English……………………………………………………………………...

9

1.2.2.1. Definitions of tense………………………………………………………………….

10

1.2.2.2. Classifications of tense……………………………………………………………...

10

1.3. Tense-aspect combinations in English..........................................................................

12

1.3.1. Present simple………………………………………………………………………..

13


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1.3.2. Present Progressive. ………………………………………………………………….

14

1.3.3. Present Perfect ……………………………………………………………………….

14

1.3.4. Present Perfect Progressive …………………………………………………………

15

1.3.5. Past simple……………………………………………………………………………

16

1.3.6. Past Progressive………………………………………………………………………

17

1.3.7. Past Perfect…………………………………………………………………………..

18

1.3.8. Past Perfect Progressive. ……………………………………………………………..

19

Expressions to future time in English. …………………………………………….

20

1.4.

Chapter 2: The Expressions of the Equivalents to Tense and Aspect in Vietnamese.

22

2.1. Literature review of the equivalents to Tense-Aspect System in Vietnamese. ………

22

2.1.1. Vietnamese- an isolating language. ………………………………………………….

22

2.1.2. The equivalents to tenses in Vietnamese. …………………………………………….

23

2.1.3. The equivalents to aspect in Vietnamese. ……………………………………………

23

2.1.4. The use of tense - aspect markers in Vietnamese. ……………………………………

24

2.2. Examples of English Tense-Aspect combinations to the Vietnamese equivalents.

25

Chapter 3: An empirical study. …………………………………………………………..

28

3.1. Subjects…………………………………………………………………………………

28

3.2. Hypotheses ……………………………………………………………………………..

29

3.3. Instruments……………………………………………………………………………..

29

3.4. Research design and procedures ………………………………………………………

30

3.5. Results and discussion…………………………………………………………………

31

PART 3. CONCLUSION. …………………………………………………………………

40

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………

41

APPENDIX………………………………………………………………………………….

I


vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
C.A …………………………………........

contrative analysis.

E A……………………………………….

error analysis

ET .............................................................

event time

IL...............................................................

interlanguage

INF……………………………………….

infinitive

L1 ..............................................................

the first language

L2 ..............................................................

the second language

MT.............................................................. mother tongue
NP............................................................... noun phrase
PP ..............................................................

prepositional phrase

RT............................................................... reference time
ST ..............................................................

speech-act time

SLA............................................................

second language acquisition

T………………………………………….

time line

TL............................................................... target language
VP............................................................... verb phrase


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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure1: Diagrammatic representation of time as a time line
Figure2: Diagrammatic representation of “Mrs Lan cooked”.
Figure 3: Diagrammatic representation of a situation in the past which is referred to from the
speech-act time
Figure 4: Present tense
Figure 5: Past tense
Figure 6: Present simple
Figure 7: Present progressive
Figure 8: Present perfect
Figure 9: Present perfect progressive
Figure 10: Past simple.
Figure 11: Past progressive
Figure 12: Past perfect
Figure 13: Past perfect progressive
Table 1: Percentages of subjects’ options for items 1, 4, 7 and 15.
Table 2: Percentages of subjects’ options for items 5 and 12.
Table 3: Percentages of subjects’ options for items 6, 8, 10, 11.
Table 4: Percentages of subjects’ choices for items 2, 3, 9, 13 and 14.

1

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study.
English is the most popular language in the world. In Vietnam, English has been more and
more important since Vietnam became an official member of the World Trade
Organization. That is why every Vietnamese desires to master this language to
communicate with the rest of the world, which seems to be far from easy for all
Vietnamese learners of English as a foreign language.
To communicate effectively in English, it involves many aspects in which grammar is one
of the basic and central points. This M.A thesis focuses on the acquisition of the English
Tense-Aspect combinations by Vietnamese learners, with the primary aim to what extent it
is possible to achieve competence in the field of Tense and Aspect of English and their
combinations.
Pursuing this aim the paper concentrates on three major aspects: firstly, a general
introduction of time and a general outline of Tense and Aspect are presented; secondly, an
overview of the English Tense-Aspect combinations is shown, which will be contrasted
with the Vietnamese equivalents; thirdly, an empirical research of error analysis is
conducted to find out how the Vietnamese high-school learners deal with the Tense and
Aspect system in English in general and the present progressive in particular.

2. Hypotheses.
In this thesis, two research hypotheses are formulated as followed:
1. The English Tense-Aspect combinations, especially the present progressive may
not properly be acquired by the Vietnamese high school learners of English
2. Interference of the first language is significant in the foreign language
acquisition of the present progressive of English.
3. Scope of the study
Both a primary research and the secondary one are conducted to meet the target of the

thesis. In the primary research, the author draws out a general outline of tense and aspect
system in English and the Vietnamese equivalents. Though there exist many opinions of
linguists and grammarians in terms of tense- aspect systems in English, the author follows


2

the ones in which English has two tenses: present and past tenses. Therefore, there is no
future tense mentioned in the study, but a various expressions to future time are shown.
For the secondary research, an empirical study is investigated on the errors of applying the
English tense-aspect system in written tests. This study does not cover all areas discussed
in the primary research but only focuses on the present progressive - one of the verb forms
frequently employed in both written and spoken forms in English.

4. Significance of the study.
Learning a foreign language is different from learning our native language. Each language
has its own features in terms of phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Fromkin
(1990, p. 68) states that “Learning a second language differs qualitatively from learning a
first language because of various factors: psychological, physical and sociological. They
must be considered in addition to the linguistic structure of the second language and how
it differs from the native language.” The question is why foreign language learning and
teaching raise so many problems. Many linguists and methodologists suppose that the main
cause is in the differences between the languages in which the characteristic features are
highly complex, productive and arbitrary. As Corder (1973, p. 102) suggests: "Contrastive
comparison of the mother tongue of the learner and the second language will offer an
account of the differences between L1 and L2 or predict learning problems or learning
items"
In fact, English and Vietnamese have their own structures. Vietnamese is typically
classified as an isolating language in which all the words are invariable and grammatical
relationships are shown through the use of word order. English, on the other hand, is

classified as partially synthetic and analytical. Thus, learning English is so hard for
Vietnamese learners.
Since Vietnamese learners, especially high school students at my school - Quỳnh Côi high
school in Thaibinh province, are confusingly using English tense and aspect systems when
they speak English in the class or making quite a lot of mistakes in the written tests. It is
my hope that this thesis plays an important role in helping the Vietnamese high school
learners systematize this kind of linguistic resources, and acquire a good knowledge of
English and Vietnamese grammar, which can help them use English more correctly.

5. Methodology of the study.


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The major method of this research is contrastive analysis. The theoretical background for
the study is the comprehension of language learning as a cognitive process. For this aim,
the English Tense-Aspect combinations and the Vietnamese equivalents are analyzed
contrastively so as to find out the similarities and the differences in which transfer from the
first language knowledge may be used to comprehend and produce linguistic structures in
the foreign language acquisition process.
To prove whether the hypotheses can be maintained or should be rejected, an empirical
research study is carried out by assessing students’ written tests. A deductive method is
used to find out the sources of errors which help teachers of English at high schools teach
English more effectively.
* Why Contrastive Analysis (C.A)?
Linguists and language teachers are aware of the importance of C.A. O’grady et al (1991,
p. 72) says: “..seeking to improve the second language teaching methodologies, early
researchers came to believe that by comparing and contrasting the learner’s native
language with the second language, new insights could be gained into the language
learning process.”. James (1980, p. 204) states that “C.A is a linguistic enterprise aimed at

producing inverted (i.e. contrastive) two valued typologies (a C.A is always concerned
with a pair of languages) and founded on the assumption that languages can be
compared.”
We know that the real purpose of C.A of the two languages is to find out the differences
and the similarities in phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The errors and
difficulties occurring in the language acquisition may be caused by the negative
interference from the first language. Therefore, one way to help learners overcome the
difficulties is to study the differences and the similarities carefully.
Ellis, Rod (1994, p. 17-38) asserts the importance of C.A:
“…the essential source for errors is in the contrastive analysis (C.A) assumed to be
transfer from the mother tongue (MT) of the learner towards the target language
(TL). Thus, interference from L1 towards a second or foreign language was
assumed to take place whenever the habits of the learner’s MT differed from those
of the TL.”
Clearly, the aim of C.A is to predict learner difficulties and make the research results
available for language teaching so as to affect study programs and learning outcomes
positively. Besides, C.A provides an important impetus to the genesis of other theories and
research approaches in second language acquisition, such as error analysis (E.A). In EA,


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learner language is analyzed first and then attempts are made to find explanations for the
errors, which might include differences between the MT and the TL of the learner. Thus
the contrastive approach is incorporated into error analysis as an explanatory element, but
it is not the only possibility to explain learner errors and it is not employed to predict
errors. EA pursues the same intention as CA, that is to provide feedback for language
teaching, and additionally seeks to attain insight into how languages are acquired.
In short, C.A is an effective method for language teachers. We-the English teachers should
pay attention to the points where there are structural differences between the languages,

predicting the difficulties the learners may face. We also make the learners aware of the
contrast so that they will understand the causes of the errors and avoid committing them.

6. Design of the study.
The thesis has three main parts as follows:
The first part - Introduction composes of the rationale, the hypothesis, the scope, the
significance, the methodology and the design of the study.
The second part – Development includes three chapters. Chapter 1 shows the theoretical
background of English tense and aspect system. In chapter 2, the author presents the
English Tense-Aspect combinations which will be contrasted with the Vietnamese
equivalents; In chapter 3, an empirical research of error analysis is conducted to find out
how the Vietnamese high-school learners deal with the present progressive – one of the
verb forms frequently used in written and spoken forms of English. Then some conclusions
and implications for instruction strategies are drawn in the last part of the study.


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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Theoretical background.
1.1.

Time in language.

There are many time definitions and it seems to be difficult to find out the best one. “Time
is a component of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations
of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects.” (the free
Ancyclopedia) or according to the West’s Ancyclopedia of

American law, “time is

referred as a non-spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible
succession from the past through the present to the future.” Even A. Einstein had his own
opinion about time when he supposed that “The only reason for time is that everything
does not happen at once”.
In short, time is a crucial concept of humans, since everything we experience is in some
way related to time, even though we often do not perceive time intentionally. The
expression of time in languages is universal, whereas the means of expressing time are
language specific. Therefore, the acquisition of a foreign language always involves the
acquisition of different linguistic means to express time.

1.1.1. Diagrammatic representation of properties of time.
Time can diagrammatically be represented as a straight time line, on which events,
processes and states are located in temporal relation to each other. Accordingly, if an event
happened in the past relative to a fixed point on the time line, which might be referred to as
a reference point, it would be placed left to the reference point, and if an event is to occur
subsequently to the reference point it is placed to the right of it. The concept of the time
line can thus be seen as representing the frontal axis in the description of space. The
conceptualization of passing of time can be compared with movement in space.
Represented in a diagrammatic manner, a time line would look the following way:
time line (t)

PAST

PRESENT

FUTURE

Figure1: Diagrammatic representation of time as a time line

The utterance “Mrs Lan cooked”, for example, is therefore to be placed left to the present
moment to which it priorily happened.


6

t
Mrs Lan cook

now

Figure2: Diagrammatic representation of “Mrs Lan cooked”.

Besides, the diagrammatic representation of time as a time line makes the infinity of past
and future time as well as the continuity of time visible. A fourth property of time should
be mentioned here – density, as Bennet & Michael (1981, p. 46) suppose that “time is
dense, …given any two moments of time, there exists another moments that lies between
them.”
Nevertheless, time is a purely mental concept of humans to make the environment
measurable. Klein (1984, 82) says: “Time and space are the basic categories of our
experience and our cognition, and without them, no well-coordinated collective action,
hence no human society, would be possible.”

1.1.2. Deixis and Temporal Reference
A central concept in the expression of time is deixis. It relates time, place and person
references of an utterance directly to the situation in which the utterance is made.
Consequently, the meaning of such references depends on the context. Deictic information
of an utterance can be made lexically such as the personal and locational information in the
sentence “I met him there” (A. Thomson & A. Martinet, 1991, p.281), or it can be made
grammatically as in the tense of the verb. Therefore a more complex definition of deixis is

provided by Jaszczolt (2002, p.115):
“Deixis is the phenomenon of encoding contextual information by means of lexical
items or grammatical distinctions to provide this information only when paired
with this context. In other words, it means lexicalizing or grammaticalizing
contextual information, that is making it into obligatory grammatical or lexical
distinctions.”
Almost all linguists and grammarians declare that tenses are used to locate situations in
time, therefore, tenses are deictic categories that occur in most sentences.
It is important at this point to clarify that tense is not directly related to physical time,
rather it is a grammatical category that expresses temporal relations. Hence, in the sentence
like “The sun rises in the east” (L.G. Alexander, 1988, p.162), the finite verb does not
express a temporal relationship between the time of utterance and a certain point of time,


7

“rises” is therefore is not deictic, it is temporal, or “The earth goes round the sun” (L.G.
Alexander, 1988, p.162) can be related to from any point of time and would always be true,
such utterances are called eternal truths, an other example for this would be the statement
such as “one and two makes three.” (L.G. Alexander, 1988, p.162)
Three more concepts have to be introduced at this point, since they stand in direct relation
to deixis: event time, reference time and speech act time. These concepts derive from
Reichenbach’s seminal work on temporal logic and allow for a global description of
English tenses. First, event time (ET): event time is the time at which an eventuality takes
place. Second, reference time (RT): reference time at which a situation is evaluated, i.e.
assuming that there are different levels of time, a past level on which a situation occurred
and a present level, two possibilities arise to evaluate the past situation, either on the past
level itself, or on the present level, which is precisely the difference of the simple past and
the present perfect of the English language. And third, speech-act time (ST): speech-act
time is the point of time at which a utterance is made. ET and RT can refer to punctual

situations and similarly to durative situations, the point of speech however is usually
conceptualized as a punctual situation on the time line.
The relationship between RT and ST defines the prototypical meaning of simple tenses. In
the case of relative tenses, however, the relation ship between ET, RT, and ST states the
meaning of the tenses.
The example “Mrs Lan cooked” can diagrammatically be represented as follows:
t
ET, RT

ST

Figure 3: Diagrammatic representation of a situation in the past which is
referred to from the speech-act time
Here, “Mrs Lan cooked” is an eventuality that happened and was evaluated in the past and
is referred to from ST.

1.2 Tense and Aspect in English: A General Outline
There are several ways of expressing time in speech. B.Comrie (1985, p.18) distinguishes
lexically composite expressions, lexical items and grammatical categories. Lexically
composite expressions are adverbials, such as “a minute ago, last century, last year, last
week, etc.” This kind of expressions is highly productive, so there is an almost infinite
number of adverbials. Lexical items are adverbs like “today, tomorrow, yesterday, now,
then, etc.” which present a finite number of lexically expressed time references. Lexical


8

expressions of time are non-obligatory. The grammatical expressions of time are tense and
aspect. In this study, tense and aspect system ought to be the main concern.
1.2.1 Tense in English.

1.2.1.1 Definitions of tense.
A lot of linguists and grammarians suppose that tense is a grammatical category referring
to the location of a situation in time. B.Comrie (1985, p. 36) defines tenses as
“grammaticalised expressions of time”. However, there are languages that do not
grammaticalize time as tenses, such as Vietnamese or Chinese and these languages are
called tenseless. In English, tenses are grammaticalized and formed by morphological
marking of the verb and are obligatory in use. The morphological boundness and
obligatory use differentiate grammaticalized expressions of time from

lexicalized

expressions, since they are optional in use and adverbials are formed syntactically. Since
tenses are obligatory in use, finite verb constructions almost always indicate time
reference.
The fact that tenses are a grammaticalized category requiring morphological marking,
implies that time references which are not morphologically marked cannot be called tenses.
As a result, English has only two tenses, present and past, since they derive from a
morphological word formation of the base verb. According to Crystal (1992), future is “a
periphrastic expression of time reference, i.e. future time reference is conveyed through
syntactic means such as separate words, to express the same grammatical relationship as
inflections”. English future is formed periphrastically and has a modal character, it cannot
be considered as a proper tense. In this thesis, it is important to have the objections against
an English future tense in mind though English has many ways of referring to past, present
and future time.

1.2.1.2. Classifications of tense.
1.2.1.2.1. Present tense Vs Past tense.
As already mentioned, tense is a deictic category, or as Comrie (1985, p. 39) puts it “tense
relates the time of the situation referred to some other time, usually to the moment of

speaking,”, nevertheless, there are differences among tenses regarding their deictic center.
In past tense ET is prior to ST, and in present tense ET and ST are not distinguishable, they
form one single point on the time line. Diagrammatically past, present can be represented
the following way:


9

t
ET, RT, ST
Figure 4: Present tense

t
ET, RT

ST

Figure 5: Past tense

These diagrams show explicitly that the deictic center in simple tenses is the present
moment, to which every event is related to. Examples to illustrate the simple tenses are:
- Present simple tense: The exhibition opens on January 1st and closes on January
30th
- Past simple tense: I knew it was dangerous to get there.
(L.G. Alexander, 1988, p. 168)
The deictic center in present tense needs some further remarks. It is very unlikely that ET,
RT and ST coincide. B.Comrie (1985) brought only one type of situation forward that
matches this picture exactly, performative speech acts”. Crystal (1992, p.176) defines
performative speech acts as “actions that are orally performed in the moment of
speaking”. To execute this sort of speech act, performative verbs have to be used, such as

apologize, promise, despise etc. Hence the sentence “I name this ship Titanic” Crystal
(1992, p.187) is a performative action when uttered, since the momentary event of naming
the ship happens simultaneously to the utterance.
1.2.2 Aspect – definitions and classifications.
1.2.2.1 Definitions.
A further grammatical category expressing time in language is aspect. Many formulations
can be found in the literature describing the subject of aspect, each emphasizing a different
detail. Leech et al (1971, p. 145) describe aspect as “the way we view an action or state, in
terms of the passing of time.” Quirk et al (1993, 105) propose the following definition:
“Aspect refers to a grammatical category which reflects the way in which the verb action
is regarded or experienced with respect to time.”. B.Comrie (1976, p. 88) classifies
“aspects as different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation”.
What these definitions have in common is the subjective point of view that is attributed to
the articulation of aspect, yet only one mentions that aspect is a grammaticalized form of


10

time reference and one refers to the internal temporal structure. It seems that aspect is a
field of great discontinuity.
The author of this thesis followed Comrie’s definition of aspect because it set aspect apart
from tense. Tense, as mentioned earlier, is a deictic category, whereas aspect is not deictic.
However, both tense and aspect are concerned with time. The difference between the
temporal relations of tense and aspect is that tense relates the reference time of a situation
to the time of utterance, which is usually the deictic center, whereas aspect relates the time
of reference to the event time. For that reason Comrie (1976, p. 64) refers to tense as
“situation external time”, as it relates eventualities to the present moment or another point
of reference, and to aspect as “situation internal time”, since it is concerned with the
internal temporal constituency of eventualities, and not with its relation to a reference
point.

1.2.2.2 Classification of Aspect.
As to the subjective point of view that aspect conveys and that aspect is a grammatical
category, these are only partial truths, since aspect can also be expressed lexically. There
are languages that do not express aspect grammatically but through lexical means and
others use both, lexical and grammatical aspect. Moreover, lexical aspect, is independent
from the speaker’s point of view in which the aspectual meaning is inherent to the meaning
of the verb, although the choice of the verb is the speaker’s. In the range of this thesis, the
research focuses on the grammatical aspect. A clear distinction between grammatical and
lexical aspect should be shown in the further studies relating to the tense and aspect system
1.2.2.2.1 Perfective Aspect Vs Imperfective Aspect.
Grammatical aspect is usually expressed through morphological inflection. The
prototypical representation of grammatical aspect occurs in many languages, where verbs
can take different forms according to the characteristics of the situations they refer to. The
traditional distinction made between perfective and imperfective aspect, is “overtly and
morphologically marked.” (Binnick,1991, p. 204). Besides, the perfective aspect of a verb
is the marked, whereas verbs that are non-perfective are the unmarked member of the
opposition.
Regarding the meaning of the two aspects, according to Comrie (1985, p. 192), “the
perfective aspect takes a position outside of the situation from which the writer/ speaker
retrospectively views an eventuality as an entity”; therefore no distinction is made into
possible phases of the eventuality. Conversely, the imperfective aspect views eventualities


11

from inside and is concerned with the internal temporal structure of the situation, since it
can both look backwards the start of the situation, and look forwards to the end of the
situation, and indeed is equally appropriate if the situation is one that lasts through all time,
without any beginning and without end.

Hence it can be said that the imperfective aspect focuses only on a certain point of time
inside a situation,not considering the beginning or the end of a situation. The temporal
relationships between ET and RT in the two aspects are distinct, the perfective aspect
locates ET within RT, while ET and RT in the imperfective aspect are overlapping.
Comrie (1985, p. 194) points out that “the meaning of the perfective aspect does not
indicate that situations are not durative, but that it is just the effect of viewing a situation
from the outside which makes a situation seem punctual”. Furthermore, Comrie states that
the outside viewpoint denotes a “complete” situation, not a “completed” situation,
indicating a completed situation would put too much emphasis on the termination of the
situation, but the completion of a situation is only one possible meaning of a situation.
Contrasting the lack of reference to the internal temporal structure of a situation of the
perfective aspect, the imperfective aspect gives explicit reference toward the internal
temporal structuring of a situation. However, the distinction of perfective and imperfective
aspect does not affect the compatibility of the two, they may co-occur within the same verb
phrase and not contradict each other. In case of a co-occurrence the semantic features of
imperfective and perfective aspect supplement each other. English examples are the
present perfect progressive and the past perfect progressive, since the progressive aspect
contains an imperfective notion and the perfect aspect may include perfective notion, as in
the following sentences:
- Present perfect progressive: It has been raining hard these days in the mountainous
areas.
- Past perfect progressive: It was the old man, who had been going for miles under the
rain.
(Nguyễn Văn Ân, 2003, p. 347)


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1.2.2.2.2 Progressive Aspect Vs Non-progressive Aspect.
The English progressive, as it derived from a spatial location, which developed into

temporal location, expresses an activity in progress and duration of a situation, but it may
also convey other meaning than that. Leech (1971, p. 180) summarizes the meaning of the
progressive aspect as “being used to indicate duration, limited duration, lack of certainty
about the completion of a situation and the enclosure of an event with a temporal frame”,
additionally he denotes the use of the progressive aspect to refer to inexorable situations
emphasizing the persistence of situations.
Examples for the various uses are:
- Duration: They are demanding that richer countries cut back their carbon emissions
to compensate. (Vietnam Business Forum, Vol 7, June 6-12, 2009)
This example also illustrates that the process which is going on is not considered to be
finished in the near future, rather temporal boundaries are left indistinct.
- Limited duration: We are very sensible and talking about this as we should have done
last year. (Vietnam Business Forum, Vol 7, June 6-12, 2009)
Here the current state of being sensible is emphasized, indicating that it is only temporary
state and additionally contrasted with the characteristic manner of “not being sensible in
the past”.
- Temporal frame: He looked briefly at his son as he said the last few words, conscious
that the boy was watching everything. (L.G. Alexander, 1988, p. 187)
In this case the father's telling of the last words is framed by the consistent activity by his
son of watching him.
Leech (1971, p. 201) takes the following examples to illustrate the duration of situations “I
am raising my arm” and “The house is falling down”, which in contrast to the nonprogressive form of the sentences indicates an ongoing process of the situation and not
sudden eventualities. Furthermore, he points out the contrast between unrestricted duration
conveyed by the use of the simple forms and the limited duration conveyed by the use of
the progressive aspect. The following example “I live in Wimbledon” (L.G. Alexander,
1988, p.163) denotes a permanent state, and “I am living in Wimbledon” (L.G. Alexander,
1988, p. 167) denotes a temporary state.
An often quoted example to illustrate the incompletion that occurs with the use of the
progressive aspect, is the difference between the sentences “The man drowned” (Tom
Hutchinson,1997, p. 28) and “The man was drowning”, of which the former indicates that

“the man died”, which is not necessarily the case in the latter sentence, since it just implies


13

that the man was in the process of drowning at a certain point of time in the past, whereas
this process could have been stopped at a later point in the past. Another example for the
incompletion of a situation would be the discrimination of the following sentences: “I
read a book that evening” (Tom Hutchinson,1997, p. 16) indicates a completion of the
process of my reading a book and that I actually reached the end of the book, whereas “I
was reading a book that evening” (Tom Hutchinson,1997, p. 32)

does not indicate

completion.

1.3. Tense-aspect combinations in English.
In English, tenses are grammaticalized and formed by morphological marking of the verb
and are obligatory in use. The English system of grammatical time references can be
described in mathematical terms as an addition of tense and aspect. Each grammatical form
of locating an eventuality in time consists of a tense and either none, one or two aspects.
The table below shows us the overview of the tense-aspect combinations in English.

Aspect

Simple

Progressive

Perfect

Perfect

Tense
Present

progressive
Present simple

Present

Past simple

Past

Present perfect

Present perfect

progressive

progressive

Past progressive Past perfect

Past

perfect

progressive

1.3.1. Present simple.
According to B. Comrie (1976, p. 165), the basic meaning of present simple is “the
location of a situation at the present time”, hence ET, RT and ST are located
simultaneously in time as the fingure below:
t
ET, RT, ST
Figure 6: Present simple
The simple present has multiple uses. According to Celce-Murcia (1999, p. 166-234),
there are some basic uses as follows:
-

Habitual actions in the present:
He walks to school every day [14;234]

-

General timeless truths


14

Water freezes at zero degree centigrade. [17;234]
-

Expresse future when scheduled events are involved, usually with a future

time

adverbial:

I have a meeting next Monday.[3;235]
-

Present event or action (usually in demonstrations, procedures, etc.)
Now I add three eggs to the mixture.[15;166]

-

In the subordinate clauses of time or condition when the main clause contain a
future-time verb:
After he finishes work, he’ll do the errands.[22;171]

-

Present speech acts where the action is accomplished in the speaking of it:
I resign from the commission.[19;234]

1.3.2. Present Progressive.
The meaning of the present progressive is to express a situation in progress at the present
moment, viewing the situation from a point of view inside the situation. This is the reason
why Kirsten (1987, p. 74) calls the present progressive “an experiential form contrasting
the factual form of the simple present”. The present progressive can be represented in the
following way:

(

)
ST, RT

t

ET

Figure 7: Present progressive
As mentioned the progressive aspect can be used to express “durativity, limited durativity
and incompletion of a situation, and it can provide a frame for another situation.”
Celce-Murcia (1999, p. 236-237) presents the basic uses of the present progressive such as:
- Activities in progress:
He is working at the moment. [8;236]
- Extended present (action will end and therefore lacks the permanence of the
simple present):
I am studying geology at the University of Colorado. [11;236]
- A temporary situation:
Phillips is living with his aunt.[15;236]
- Expresses future when events are planned; usually with future-time adverbials:
She is coming tomorrow.[17;236]


15

- Emotional comment on present habit (usually co-occurring with frequency
adverbs always or forever):
He’s always coming late.[22;236]
- A change in progress:
It is getting darker and darker.[2;237]
1.3.3. Present Perfect
Combining present tense with perfect aspect results in a past situation which is being
related to the present moment as the reference point. The relation ET < (RT = ST) can also
be presented in a diagram:

t
ET

RT, ST

Figure 8: Present perfect
Contrasting the past simple, where RT = ET, the present perfect takes the present state of
affairs as starting point for a retrospective view on a past event. The exact location of ET in
the past, however, is indefinite, if the position of ET was definite the simple past would be
required. According to L.G. Alexander (1988, p. 172-174), the present perfect is used in
such cases as:
- A situation that began at a prior point in time and continues into the present:
This has helped the competent and motivated Vietnamese resources acquire solid
skills and in-depth knowledge. (Vietnam business forum, vol 7, 2009)
- An action occurring or not occurring at an unspecified prior time that has
current relevance:
She has already seen that movie.[12, 172]
- A recently completed action (often with “just”)
He has just finished his homework. [23;172]
- An action that happened over a prior time period and that is completed at the
moment of speaking:
The value of the Johnson’s house has doubled in the last four years.[26;173]
- With verbs in subordinate clauses of time or condition:
She won’t be satisfied until she has finished another chapter.[5;274]


16

1.3.4. Present Perfect Progressive .
The present perfect progressive overlaps with the present perfect in that it refers to a

situation in the past from the present moment, yet the present perfect progressive focuses
mainly on the situation being in progress in the past and does not make any reference as to
the result of the situation. A diagrammatic representation of the present perfect progressive
could hence look as the following:
(

)
ET

t
RT, ST

Figure 9: Present perfect progressive

The present perfect progressive is, according to Comrie (1985, p. 159), usually used with
“activity verbs and can thus be viewed as the opposite of the resultative perfect”.
Nevertheless, the present perfect progressive can also be used with achievement and
accomplishment verbs if emphasis is put on the situation itself and not on the ongoing
process of the situation. The use of the present perfect progressive is sometimes similar to
the use of the present perfect. According to A. Thomson et al. (1991, p. 296-297)
-

A situation that began in the past (recent or distant) and continues up to the
present and possibly into the future time:
I’ve been waiting for an hour and he still hasn’t turned up.[2;296]

-

An action in progress that is not completed:
I have been reading that book.[4;296]

-

An evaluative comment on something observed over a period of time in the past
prior to some other past event or time:
You have been drinking again![11;296]

-

A state that changes over time:
The students have been getting better and better.[17;297]

1.3.5. Past simple
The basic meaning of the past simple is the location of a situation prior to the moment of
speaking so as to express past time reference. It is important that there is a temporal gap
between the moment in which the utterance is made and the past situation which is referred
to. This is usually the reason to interpret situations, described in the past tense, as
completed and thus perfective.


17

t
ET, RT

ST

Figure 10: Past simple.

According to Kirsten (1987, p. 210), the past simple is often used in such situations as

narrations where it is employed to describe subjective experiences and situations in a vivid
way or for example the setting of a situation. Thus the simple past can in narratives be used
to convey background information for the actual events of a narration. Kirsten (1987, p.
212 )puts forward the following example: “when Peter walked with me, I asked him some
questions…..”
The simple past tense can also be used to refer to present situations, such as the utterance
of a present wish. Here the simple past signals a distance between the requester and his
request, making the request more polite, since in this way it is easier for the person being
asked a favor to deny it. Or it can be used to express an unreal situation in the present, such
as in the sentence “If I were rich, I would spend the rest of my life holidaying.” (Tom
Hutchinson, 1997, p. 29)
Celce-Murcia (1999, p. 242-245) adds more uses of the past simple as the following:
- The event can be remote in time:
The Brazilian team won the World cup in 1994.
- A definite single completed event in the past:
I attended a meeting of that committee last week. [4;243]
-

Habitual or repeated action or event in the past:

It snowed almost every weekend last winter.[9;243]
-

An event with duration that applied in the past with the implication that it
no longer applies in the present:

Professor Nelson taught at Yale for 30 years.[18;245]
-

With states in the past:

He appeared to be a creative genius.[20;245]

1.3.6. Past Progressive.
The past progressive is used when it shall be expressed that a situation was in progress in
the past. It is used to stress the durativity and the ongoing process of a situation in the past,
but does not make an explicit statement about the (in)completion of the situation, but due


18

to the fact that neither the beginning nor the end of the situation taken into contemplation,
it appears to be atelic and incomplete. A diagrammatic representation could be like this:

(

)
RT

t

ET

ST

Figure 11: Past progressive
Following the views of L.G. Alexander (1988, p. 170-171), there are some basic rules of
the past progressive as follows:
- An action in progress at a specific point of time in the past:
They were playing football at 3.00 p.m. yesterday. [20; 170]

- Past action simultaneous with some other events that are usually stated in
the simple past:
Karen was washing her hair when the phone rang. [22;170]
- Repetition or iteration of some ongoing past action:
Jake was coughing all night long. [2;171]
- Social distancing which comes from the past and the tentativeness of the
progressive aspect:
I was hoping you could lend me $10. [4;171]

1.3.7. Past Perfect.
The past perfect is used to locate a situation prior to a reference point in the past, a
diagrammatic representation would be:
t
ET

RT

ST

Figure 12: Past perfect

The past perfect has similarities with two other past time references, the present perfect and
the simple past; it is similar to the present perfect in that is may provide a retrospective
view on a situation in the past, the difference being that ET is prior to RT, and it is similar
to the simple past in that there is a temporal gap between RT and ST. Because of this
similarities, the past progressive may be substituted by the simple past if there is a
temporal gap between ET and RT, the temporal gap is often described by temporal adverbs


19

and prepositional phrases (PP), such as “once, on an earlier day, many years before, etc”,
or by conjuncts like “as soon as, when, before, after”.
For examples:
He had left before I could offer him a ride. (Nguyễn Văn Ân, p. 467)
After he had finished his dinner, he phoned me. (Nguyễn Văn Ân, p. 467)
- The past perfect may also be used with the same temporal references like the present
perfect, when it provides a retrospective view on a past situation, such as “just, already,
ever” and with prepositional phrases including “till, by, since, for” such as in the
following example:
Her husband had just finished the day's work at his butcher's shop and they were
settling down to supper. (A. Thomson & A. Martinet, 1991, p. 301)
- When the past perfect is used for retrospection it may display causal relationships and
give explanations on the source (event time) of a past situation (reference time) in which
case it might be possible that the causal situation might continue up to the moment of the
situation at RT.
- The past perfect can be used in indirect speech when it is applied to the backward
information expressed in the simple past or the present perfect. Such the sentence as
“Have you finished the letter? said Marry” can be interpreted as “Marry wanted to know
whether I had finished the letter” (A. Thomson & A. Martinet, 1991, p. 304)
- The past perfect may express the unreal past situations, where a hypothetical situation in
the past is presented and a temporal reference is made prior to this situation.
I wish I had not failed the driving license exam yesterday (Nguyễn Văn Ân, p. 469)

1.3.8. Past Perfect Progressive.
The past perfect progressive expresses the same temporal reference as the past perfect,
however, emphasis is put on the durative quality of ET. When there is a temporal gap
between ET and RT, ET is implied to be atelic, this feature is used to provide background
information on a situation narrated in present perfect.
(

)
ET

t
RT

ST

Figure 13: Past perfect progressive
Celce-Murcia (1999, p. 120) shows the rules of the past perfect progressive as follows:
- An action or habit taking place over a period of time in the past prior to some
other past event or time: