3 ms·

There is a standard analysis of English in generative grammar where verbs and tense are are seperate nodes at deep structure [0], and we get inflected verbs thr

There is a standard analysis of English in generative grammar where verbs and tense are are seperate nodes at deep structure [0], and we get inflected verbs through some form of V-T movement [0]. Under this analysis, English clearly has a future tense. It just gets pronounced as its own word (will) instead instead of being involved in V-T movement. A more popular analysis is to replace "T" with "I", and do everything I talked about above. (The question here is really if other features share a d structure node with tense or if they all have their own functional nodes. I haven't seen a clear argument either way) Edit: not clearly. There are still some additional assumptions to make with no clear evidence either way (notably, the category of "will"), and the definition of "tense" is a amnigous. [0] English's rules for V-T movemement are relativly complicated compared to most languages

foldr 8y ago
>There is a standard analysis of English in generative grammar where verbs and tense are are seperate nodes at deep structure Yes, there is. >Under this analysis, English clearly has a future tense. No, this does not follow. You can just as easily (and more correctly) analyze "will" as a modal auxiliary like "can" or "would". Supposing it's true that "will" is the daughter of I/T/whatever, it doesn't follow that the I/T/whatever head has to have a future tense feature. You could argue, and some people have, that at some level, the interpretation of "will" involves future tense in some semantic sense, which conceivably might be realized as a feature on a head somewhere in the inflectional spine of the tree. But that tense feature would not have the same kind of straightforward syntactic and morphological motivation as e.g. the +past feature does in English. In the context of a general audience, this isn't a notion of "tense" that's relevant. After all, in this highly abstract sense, even a language such as Chinese might have tense. FWIW I have a PhD in (generative) syntax. I'm don't think that any generative syntactician addressing a general audience would describe English as having a future tense.
- gizmo686 8y ago
  I just have an undergrad degree in linguistics. I am looking at this question from the perspective of x-bar theory, and defining "tense" as as a feature of the syntactic catagory that populates the populates the "T" node at deep structure (or a feature of the I catagory). [0]. As I alluded to in my comment, I have never seen a convincing arguement in either direction for wheather "will" is a T or a V; and this was an active discussion in my syntax class about 3 years ago where the proffesor (a syntaxtician) had also said that she never saw a compelling arguement either way. If you know of one, please sharer. Edit: I think you edited your post after I responded. I would argue that all languages have the same featureset (including tense) at d structure, but that is going far afield. Edit2: there is also a notion of tense at the sementic level. And English seems to offer a gramaticalized way of providing the sementic future tense, regardless of how you look at the corresponding syntax/morphology. If we accept that "will" is a syntactic "T" and carries a sementic meaning of "future" then how is it unreasonable to call it a future tense? Sure, there are debatable parts to the above assumptions, but it is a stretch to say that no analysis has future tense. Heck, there is a universal grammar analysis that would say English (and Chinese) has all the tenses, and the only question is which ones surface as distinct pronounciations. [0] This leads to a notationally weird case where "to" is a tense with a -tense feature.
  - foldr 8y ago
    Putting "will" in T doesn't mean that T necessarily has to bear a future tense feature. It could e.g. have a present tense feature.
    - gizmo686 8y ago
      Are you getting at the distinction between "will" being the T and "will" being the daughter of T? Regardless, under either analysis "will" would have just as much claim to being a tense as "run" has to being a verb. You can still argue over wheather there is a syntactic feature of future tense (which is a different question) which I have never seen a solid arguement for either way.
      - foldr 8y ago
        >Regardless, under either analysis "will" would have just as much claim to being a tense as "run" has to being a verb. If you're punning on "tense" to refer to a lexical category, then sure. But we're talking about tense in the sense of past, present and future. In many textbook analyses, lots of things go in T. For example, "can" and "might" go in T. It doesn't follow that, say, "I might go to the store" and "I can go to the store" have a different tense.
        gizmo686 8y ago
        I would say that "I can/might go to the store" go to the store having different tenses is what we mean when we say "can" and "might" are lexixally T. Even restricting ourselves to the syntactic features, I have still never seen an arguement for or against English having a syntactic future tense feature that did not come down to UG, or a disagreement about which model is simpler, and neither side is convoluted enough for me to confidently invoke Occam's razor.
        foldr 8y ago
        The two sentences have different words occupying the "T" head, but they don't have different tenses. What you're saying is just a pun on "tense".

foldr 8y ago

>There is a standard analysis of English in generative grammar where verbs and tense are are seperate nodes at deep structure Yes, there is. >Under this analysis, English clearly has a future tense. No, this does not follow. You can just as easily (and more correctly) analyze "will" as a modal auxiliary like "can" or "would". Supposing it's true that "will" is the daughter of I/T/whatever, it doesn't follow that the I/T/whatever head has to have a future tense feature. You could argue, and some people have, that at some level, the interpretation of "will" involves future tense in some semantic sense, which conceivably might be realized as a feature on a head somewhere in the inflectional spine of the tree. But that tense feature would not have the same kind of straightforward syntactic and morphological motivation as e.g. the +past feature does in English. In the context of a general audience, this isn't a notion of "tense" that's relevant. After all, in this highly abstract sense, even a language such as Chinese might have tense. FWIW I have a PhD in (generative) syntax. I'm don't think that any generative syntactician addressing a general audience would describe English as having a future tense.

gizmo686 8y ago
I just have an undergrad degree in linguistics. I am looking at this question from the perspective of x-bar theory, and defining "tense" as as a feature of the syntactic catagory that populates the populates the "T" node at deep structure (or a feature of the I catagory). [0]. As I alluded to in my comment, I have never seen a convincing arguement in either direction for wheather "will" is a T or a V; and this was an active discussion in my syntax class about 3 years ago where the proffesor (a syntaxtician) had also said that she never saw a compelling arguement either way. If you know of one, please sharer. Edit: I think you edited your post after I responded. I would argue that all languages have the same featureset (including tense) at d structure, but that is going far afield. Edit2: there is also a notion of tense at the sementic level. And English seems to offer a gramaticalized way of providing the sementic future tense, regardless of how you look at the corresponding syntax/morphology. If we accept that "will" is a syntactic "T" and carries a sementic meaning of "future" then how is it unreasonable to call it a future tense? Sure, there are debatable parts to the above assumptions, but it is a stretch to say that no analysis has future tense. Heck, there is a universal grammar analysis that would say English (and Chinese) has all the tenses, and the only question is which ones surface as distinct pronounciations. [0] This leads to a notationally weird case where "to" is a tense with a -tense feature.
- foldr 8y ago
  Putting "will" in T doesn't mean that T necessarily has to bear a future tense feature. It could e.g. have a present tense feature.
  - gizmo686 8y ago
    Are you getting at the distinction between "will" being the T and "will" being the daughter of T? Regardless, under either analysis "will" would have just as much claim to being a tense as "run" has to being a verb. You can still argue over wheather there is a syntactic feature of future tense (which is a different question) which I have never seen a solid arguement for either way.
    - foldr 8y ago
      >Regardless, under either analysis "will" would have just as much claim to being a tense as "run" has to being a verb. If you're punning on "tense" to refer to a lexical category, then sure. But we're talking about tense in the sense of past, present and future. In many textbook analyses, lots of things go in T. For example, "can" and "might" go in T. It doesn't follow that, say, "I might go to the store" and "I can go to the store" have a different tense.
      - gizmo686 8y ago
        I would say that "I can/might go to the store" go to the store having different tenses is what we mean when we say "can" and "might" are lexixally T. Even restricting ourselves to the syntactic features, I have still never seen an arguement for or against English having a syntactic future tense feature that did not come down to UG, or a disagreement about which model is simpler, and neither side is convoluted enough for me to confidently invoke Occam's razor.
        foldr 8y ago
        The two sentences have different words occupying the "T" head, but they don't have different tenses. What you're saying is just a pun on "tense".