Open AccessDiscursive role of past tenses : a text analysis
Author(s) -
Gašper Ilc
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
acta neophilologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2350-417X
pISSN - 0567-784X
DOI - 10.4312/an.35.1-2.127-136
Subject(s) - narrative , linguistics , perspective (graphical) , meaning (existential) , simple past , history , present tense , event (particle physics) , function (biology) , literature , computer science , philosophy , epistemology , art , verb , artificial intelligence , physics , quantum mechanics , evolutionary biology , biology
The article discusses the meaning and usage of the principal past tense forms in English from a discursive perspective. Analysing short excerpts from a fictional narrative, the author argues that English past tenses in narratives have, besides their primary temporal-aspectual function, an impor tant role in marking the type and the prominence of the past event or situation within a textual complex.