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Chapter 1. A Cognitive Grammar perspective on tense and aspect

Susanne Niemeier (University Koblenz-Landau, Germany)


1. Introduction
Cognitive Grammar (CG), belonging to the framework of Cognitive Linguistics (CL), is
founded mainly on earlier work by Langacker (1987, 1991) and is a relatively recent lin-
guistic approach. As such, it has not yet been thoroughly tested in classroom applications,
however, some first preliminary tests seem to indicate that the approach may become a
very useful tool in the foreign language classroom. Focusing on the English tense/aspect
(TA) system, this chapter will outline the theoretical basis for CGs view on tense and
aspect and also provide reasons for CGs didactic potential. In keeping with Langacker
(2008), the chapter will argue that due to the central role of meaning and function in CG
and by virtue of its usage-based nature, this theoretical model may lend itself well as a
basis for teaching and learning English tense and aspect.
Although CG is not a completely uniform approach, the theoretical description of the Eng-
lish TA system takes a prominent place within all of the various CL approaches to
grammar (e.g., Fauconnier 1994, 1997 Fauconnier and Turner 2002; Langacker 1991a,b,
2000, 2001, 2002, 2008a,b,c; Radden and Dirven 2007; Taylor 2002). All of these
frameworks have in common that they treat language as an integral facet of cognition and
regard grammatical phenomena such as TA as meaningful. A crucial role is assigned to
the notion of construal, based on the assumption that situations are not reflected directly in
linguistic forms but by means of elaborate cognitive construals.
More recently, a range of edited publications has been dedicated to CG applications to the
areas of second language acquisition and grammar instruction (e.g., Achard and Niemeier
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2004; De Knop and De Rycker 2008; Ptz, Niemeier and Dirven 2001a,b; Robinson and
Ellis 2008) in which researchers argue that due to its usage-based nature and its focus on
(conceptual) meaning, cognitive grammar may offer EFL learners a descriptively adequate
and intuitively comprehensible account of grammar.
In this contribution, I will mainly focus on Langackers foundational approach to tense
and aspect and will outline his theoretical perspective on the phenomena in question,
integrating further approaches along the line, such as Fauconnier 1994, 1997; Niemeier
and Reif 2008; Radden and Dirven 2007; as well as Tyler and Evans 2001. The main
issues to be discussed are the interaction of situation type (or lexical/inherent aspect) and
grammatical/viewpoint aspect, the explanation of apparent restrictions on the combination
of certain TA components and the role of the ground in the conceptualization of situations
expressed by tensed verbs as well as the account of non-temporal uses of tense.
It will be demonstrated how a prototype account of TA categories might render extended
or more peripheral uses which in traditional TEFL approaches tend to be treated as
exceptions plausible to the language learner. Concerning non-prototypical uses of
aspect, the focus will be on the use of the progressive with iterative processes, the use of
the progressive with involuntary sensory perception and the use of the non-progressive
with performatives. With respect to tense, the following non-temporal uses of the present
and past tenses will be discussed: the expression of actuality/reality and non-
actuality/irreality (epistemic stance), the designation of salience
(foregrounding/backgrounding), and the attenuation of speech acts (politeness
phenomena), which all seem to rely on the image schema of proximity vs. distance, be it
in a temporal or in a non-temporal way.
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Finally, I will briefly comment on the necessity of empirical research in the foreign lan-
guage classroom, outlining potential research topics and methodological procedures.

2. Basic CL assumptions
CL and as such also CG - is based on the assumption that meaning is embodied and at-
tempts to explain facts about language in terms of other properties and mechanisms of the
human mind and body. It furthermore holds that language is a reflection of human cogni-
tion and conceptualization. Based on the premise that human perceptions of the world are
always filtered through our particular physical and neurological architecture, CL argues in
a rather constructivist way that humans do not have direct access to an objective, external
reality. Rather, what we have direct access to are our own subjective conceptualizations.
Conceptualizations arise from the complex interactions of a persons rich cognitive
abilities and our species-specific interactions with the external spatial physical-social
world. Crucially, while claiming that human access to the external world is indirect and
filtered, CL also argues that our interactions with the physical-social world are
fundamental to how our cognition is shaped. Basic force dynamics, such as our
understanding of gravity or motion along a path, provide foundational schemata which
give structure to our understanding of many other domains of experience.
The primary function of language is communication, and humans, who are fundamentally
social in character, use language as a tool to interact with others. One key aspect of social
interaction involves externalizing internal conceptualizations - for instance, ideas about
entities and events that are not immediately present - in order to make them accessible to
other humans. We learn language by using it in communicative contexts. Thus, linguistic
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meaning is not referential and objective, but subjective, dynamic, flexible, encyclopaedic
and usage-based.
Since language is understood to reflect conceptualization, language is all about meaning.
Not only words and expressions but also the grammar, or morpho-syntax, of a language re-
flects conceptualization and is therefore meaningful. This is one more reason why CG may
be useful to second language pedagogy, especially because of its focus on the motivated,
meaningful connections between forms that are often ignored by other theories of
language. What is motivated and meaningful can be explained. This means furthermore
that so-called exceptions are no exceptions after all but that there are explainable reasons
why they behave in a different way than the prototypical forms. CL applications thus invite
a change of perspective in that they do not posit a clear borderline between rules and
exceptions but instead refer to language phenomena as situated within a radial network of
meaning with more prototypical instances at the core and more marginal instances on the
fringes, all of them related and explainable.
Learners should not be expected anymore to learn by heart seemingly idiosyncratic
exceptions, which they cant understand and which are therefore hard for them to
memorize, but to reconstruct them via the connections to the prototypes. Such an approach
is also believed to be helpful for the teachers as they can use the motivated connections as
explanatory tools. The main aim then is to make learners aware of the motivation behind
linguistic phenomena and to help them understand how language works, as understanding
is seen as a precondition for learning. This seems to be possible via the inherent
explanatory power of CL approaches. Furthermore, grammar and lexis are not seen as
separate from each other (as EFL textbooks until today have tried to make learners believe)
but as two poles of a continuum, thus structured by the same organizational principles.
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In the following subchapters, the above assumptions will be outlined using the English TA
system as an example.

3. Aspect
Although every single English verb is by definition always marked for aspect as well as for
tense (and also for modality) at the same time, aspect and tense will be looked at separately
in the following paragraphs. At some important points, however, the interaction between
the two subsystems will be highlighted. Assuming that grammatical units, just like lexical
ones, are meaningful in the sense that they possess a phonological and a conceptual pole
(cf. Langacker 1991b), the aspect system and the tense system also carry meaning. In
contrast to lexical units, however, grammatical units are used to express rather abstract
meanings, such as, for example, "being relevant for a time before the communicative
present" in the case of the past tense marker. These different meanings may interact and
influence each other. When we look at tense, we take an external perspective on situations
which specifies the time of a situation as well as its reality status, whereas when we look at
aspect we adopt an internal perspective, i.e. we are concerned with the internal temporal
structure of a situation (see Comrie 1976: 3), which is actually part of the situation itself.
Situations can be viewed from different perspectives and the language user can normally
choose between different ways of presenting a situation. Langacker calls a perspective a
viewing arrangement, which he sees as the overall relationship between the viewers and
the situation being viewed (Langacker 2008a: 73) and defines it as follows:
Inherent in every usage event is a presupposed viewing arrangement, pertaining
to the relationship between the conceptualizers and the situation being viewed.
The default arrangement finds the speaker and hearer together in a fixed location,
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from which they report on actual occurrences in the world around them. There
are however numerous kinds of departures from this canonical circumstance. The
departures help make it evident that the default arrangement, so easily taken for
granted, is nonetheless an essential part of the conceptual substrate supporting
the interpretation of expressions. Whether canonical or special, the viewing
arrangement has a shaping influence on the conception entertained and conse-
quently on the linguistic structure used to code it. (Langacker 2001: 16 f.)
In other words, our own perspective on the situation to be represented linguistically is inte-
grated into the upcoming representation itself, because the neutral situation i.e. speaker
and hearer conceptualizing the same situation from exactly the same perspective will be
extremely rare. The speaker encodes his/her subjectivity grammatically and the hearer
decodes it not necessarily in exactly the same way which, at least from a constructivist
point of view, is seen as an impossibility - but the speaker has at least provided the hearer
with valid hints concerning his/her subjective perspective, for example whether an action is
seen as being in progress or as completed.

3.1 Interaction of situation type and grammatical aspect
Following Langackers work on aspect as well as Radden and Dirven 2007 and Niemeier
and Reif 2008, this section on aspect will outline a theory of aspect that takes into account
both lexical (or inherent) aspect and grammatical aspect, assuming that lexis and grammar
interact with each other on a conceptual level during communication, as already mentioned
above.
In contrast to non-aspectual languages, for instance German, Swedish, or Danish, every
single verb in English has to be marked for aspect
1
. English also differs from other
aspectual languages, such as for example Slavic languages, in which aspect is an important
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formal category marking imperfective and perfective construals of situations (see
Schmiedtov and Flecken 2008), whereas English only has a clearly marked progressive
aspect, but no special marker for the contrasting element in the pair. Although there is no
wide-spread agreement about the existence of a non-progressive aspect in English, I will
assume in this chapter (following Radden and Dirven 2007: 177-196) that there is a cross-
wise aspectual contrast in English, affecting both processes and states which are, according
to Langacker, subtypes of situations.
According to Radden and Dirven (2007: 47), the term situation is to be understood in the
sense of events that happen or states that things are in, although the distinction between
events (which I prefer to call processes) and states is not always a clear-cut one, as will be
discussed below. Processes can further be subdivided into durative and punctual processes,
and states can be subdivided into permanent and transitory states.
Starting with prototypical scenarios, situations can thus be classified into two categories
according to their inherent temporal structure: they either refer to inherently unbounded
situations (which Langacker calls imperfective, 2008: 147) or to inherently bounded
situations (which Langacker calls perfective, ibid.). However, as will be discussed
below, categorisation is flexible and subject to subtle conceptual influence from a variety
of sources (Langacker 2008: 148).
Inherently unbounded situations are internally homogeneous and insusceptible to change.
They are not expected to come to an end. This is not the same as saying that they will
never end and they must of course have had a beginning at some point in time, it is just
that the verb itself excludes them [i.e., the beginning and the end, SN] from what it puts
onstage for focused viewing (Langacker 2008: 147). Such situations can either be
permanent states, such as <BE BRITISH>, which - according to our commonsensical
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world knowledge - is normally not going to change throughout the lifetime of a person, or
they can be potentially transient states, such as <LIVE IN LONDON>, for which a change
cannot be ruled out, but is neither probable nor predictable and is thus not part of our
viewing frame.
By contrast, inherently bounded situations are internally heterogeneous and susceptible to
change, because they allow internal development and are expected to come to an end at
some point. Inherently bounded situations can either have explicit boundaries, such as
<BUILD A SNOWMAN> which is by definition over once the snowman is finished
2
, or
they can have implicit boundaries, such as <WANDER ABOUT THE PARK>, a process
which, although it does not have a fixed endpoint, is very unlikely to last forever.
As already mentioned above, our world knowledge provides us with an intuitive
understanding of the default readings of situations, due to which the prototypical
interpretations of situations like those outlined above develop naturally. We may, however,
not want to focus on the prototypical perspective but indicate that we see a given situation
differently or want the hearer to see it differently. This is where grammatical aspect comes
into play.
Grammatical aspect, i.e. the use of either the non-progressive or the progressive form,
interacts with lexical aspect in that it offers the speaker a means to construe an idealized
situation in different ways. Depending on the type of situation, i.e., whether it is inherently
bounded or unbounded, and depending on whether it is construed as a single situation or as
a repeated situation, grammatical aspect can have different conceptual effects. If we
compare the following two sentences:
(1) a. Nick built a snowman.
b. Nick was building a snowman.
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We see that they both refer to the same idealized situation, i.e. <BUILD A SNOWMAN>,
an inherently bounded situation with explicit boundaries. However, this situation is
realized differently in (1a) and (1b) as far as grammatical aspect is concerned. (1a) is the
default mode, as the situation as such is inherently bounded, thus involving change through
time, and because its beginning (initial boundary) and endpoint (final boundary) are part of
the mental representation. At some point in time, Nick starts to roll the snowballs that are
then stacked up one upon another and decorated with a hat, a scarf, a broom and so on in
order to become the finished snowman in the end.
While the non-progressive aspect in (1a) expresses that the situation is viewed in its
entirety and that both its beginning and its endpoint fall within the scope of predication, the
use of the progressive aspect in (1b) has the effect of unbounding the situation
3
. The higher
order schematic conception of an inherently bounded situation here functions as a base
which provides the possibility of defocusing the boundaries (cf. Langacker 2000: 227;
Schmiedtov and Flecken 2008). Another notable difference between (1a) and (1b)
consists in the fact that while the situation in (1a) is perceived as being complete in itself
and is thus not susceptible to change anymore, the situation in (1b) is construed as being in
progress and is thus (at least potentially) susceptible to change (cf. Williams 2002: 88).
We find the same principle at work if we look at inherently bounded situations with
implicit boundaries, such as in (2a,b):
(2) a. We wandered about the park at night.
b. We were wandering about the park at night.
The only difference between the snowman example and the park example is that the
boundaries of the situation <BUILD A SNOWMAN> are explicit, while the boundaries of
<WANDER ABOUT THE PARK> remain implicit. A walk in the park starts at some
point in time and needs to end at some point in time It is conceptualized as some kind of
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bounded episode, irrespective of whether a natural endpoint is discernible (Langacker
2001: 13). There is no change in state or any internal structuring involved (cf. also Klein
1994, 1995), so we are not dealing with a prototypical example of an inherently unbounded
situation here. Whereas in (2a) we speak about a completed instance of the situation
<WANDER ABOUT THE PARK>, in (2b) we zoom into the situation, defocus its
boundaries and focus instead on its middle part, i.e., its ongoingness.
As pointed out above, the use of the progressive aspect unbounds inherently bounded
situations. If we turn to inherently unbounded situations, it becomes obvious that the
progressive needs to have a different effect on them as in these cases there is no need to
unbound an already unbounded situation anymore.
(3) a. My best friend lives in London.
b. My best friend is living in London.
Example (3) shows that inherently unbounded situations such as (3a) are construed as
lasting states that are not susceptible to change when used in the default mode, i.e., with
the non-progressive aspect
4
. When used with the progressive as in (3b), however, implicit
boundaries are added to the situation and it is no longer seen as a lasting, but instead as a
temporary state, i.e. construed as having implicit boundaries and as being susceptible to
change. Instead of defocusing the boundaries - as it does with inherently bounded
situations as in (1b) and (2b) the progressive aspect with inherently unbounded situations
imposes boundaries.
Such a conversion from an indefinitely lasting state to a temporary state is often visible in
the description of characters or of peoples behaviour:
(4) a. You are arrogant.
b. You are being arrogant.
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When we utter a sentence like (4a), we are referring to a characteristic quality of a person
or to a persons general style of behaviour, whereas when we use (4b), we are referring to
the current, temporary behaviour of a person, independent of their normal behaviour and
character. They may not be arrogant at all, but in this one special moment they are acting
as if they were.
In other words, we are dealing here with a cross-wise aspectual contrast (cf. also Radden
and Dirven (2007: chapter 8), i.e. the progressive changing the default boundary situation,
a view which differs slightly from Langackers view. Langacker claims that the overall
effect of a progressive is () to convert a perfective process into an imperfective one
(2008: 155), which coincides with the defocusing of boundaries for inherently bounded
situations. However, he does not mention the cross-wise effect, namely that the progressive
can impose boundaries on an inherently unbounded situation but analyzes this latter
phenomenon differently: he claims that when an imperfective verb is construed as referring
to a bounded episode/temporary state, the progressive only admissible with perfectives
can be used because the normally imperfective verb in that case relates to a (non-
prototypical) perfective instance. Opposing these two views may seem akin to a chicken-
or-the-egg question, i.e. what came first: the concept that influenced the form or the form
that influenced the concept? I would like to interpret this potential dilemma rather as either
speaker- or hearer-oriented: for the speaker, the concept comes first and needs to be
expressed accordingly, i.e. seeing a situation as unbounded/imperfective may trigger the
use of the progressive, whereas for the hearer, the form used helps him/her to interpret the
concept/meaning that the speaker wants to get across
5
.
To sum up, the non-progressive and the progressive aspect have an effect on the construal
of a situation, indicating how the internal constitution of a situation is viewed. With
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inherently bounded situations, the non-progressive aspect construes the situation as
complete in itself, including its boundaries, i.e. its starting point and its endpoint, as in (1a)
and (2a). The progressive aspect, by contrast, has the effect of defocusing the boundaries
of the situation by zooming in on the situation (cf. Langacker 2000: 228) and thus
construing it as ongoing, as in (1b) and (2b).
With inherently unbounded situations, the non-progressive construes the situation as
continuing indefinitely, as in (3a) and (4a). The progressive, by contrast, imposes implicit
temporal boundaries on the situation, as in (3b) and (4b), seeing it as potentially
susceptible to external change and thus focusing on its temporariness and its possible
transition to adjacent states.
Although no extensive study containing empirical proof that such a CG approach on aspect
is effective in the foreign language classroom has been published so far, some preliminary
results seem to indicate that the approach may work, at least to a certain extent
6
. Making
learners aware of the meaning behind the aspectual system of English a major source for
errors at least for German learners of English, but presumably not only for these learners
may help avoid some of their errors, as they would not have to learn rules by heart and
then simply reproduce them (or forget them) but instead starting from scratch and
understanding what aspect is about and how a grasp of the aspectual system enables them
to fine-tune their utterances and express their own perspectives, thereby potentially also
changing the learners notion of grammar as an opaque end in itself. The boundaries (or
lack of these) are/is quite easily visualizable (cf. Niemeier 2008, Niemeier and Reif 2008),
thus enabling double coding, and the learners are not inhibited by rules with exceptions but
can handle the language more freely and more creatively.

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3.2 Iterative processes
As already mentioned above, accounts of aspect in textbook and other learner grammars
usually present aspect
7
in terms of rules and exceptions to these rules. In contrast to this,
CG argues that what are traditionally called exceptions are not exceptions at all, but
rather non-prototypical uses of aspect which are meaningful and therefore explainable. In
this subchapter, three apparent deviations will be explained, namely the use of the
progressive with iterative processes, the use of the progressive with verbs of involuntary
sensory perception and the use of the non-progressive with performatives.
Starting with iterative processes (such as kick, hop, knock etc.), at first sight they seem to
be prototypical members of the class of inherently bounded situations, as the processes that
they describe are clearly delimited in time. Still, such verbs do not normally allow the
progressive aspect. If we compare the following two sentences
(5) a. Daria kicked her little brother.
b. Daria was kicking her little brother.
it is obvious that they describe different scenarios. In (5a), the protagonist kicked her
brother only once, whereas in (5b), she gave him several kicks. We cannot use the
progressive to refer to a single kick because the process is too short to zoom into: in other
words, it does not allow an internal perspective. With the inherently bounded situation
<KICK>, we have a starting point as well as an endpoint, but as these two nearly coincide
temporally, the process itself does not have any duration. Using the progressive with
inherently bounded situations means defocusing the situations starting point as well as its
endpoint, which in the case of such punctual, short processes like <KICK> leaves actually
nothing to view. Still, the progressive can of course be found with such verbs, such as in
(5b), only the interpretation then changes to that of an iterative, repetitive process. When
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we use the progressive with such minimal-duration verbs, we conceptually extend the
situations duration in order to be able to zoom into the middle phase between the starting
point and the end point, which then results in an interpretation of repetitive short actions.
We therefore interpret sentences such as (5b) as referring to a succession of short processes
such as kicking or hopping, which are, according to Langacker (2008a: 156), construed as
constituting a single overall event of bounded duration which then highlights and zooms
into the internal duration of the situation, defocusing the beginning and the endpoint of the
sisters tantrum. If such a series of short, punctual processes were filmed and replayed in
slow motion, also a single kick could be referred to as She is kicking her brother as the
duration of that process would then be long enough to zoom into (cf. also Niemeier 2008:
317f.).
To sum up, we are not dealing with an exception or a deviation here, but instead with a
semantic mismatch, i.e. with meaning inconsistencies between verbs denoting short
processes and the concept of unboundedness. If there is no middle phase between the
boundaries to zoom into, unbounding is not possible. It becomes possible again if we
reconstruct the overall situation as consisting of several repeated sub-processes. If our
learners are already familiar with the notion of a situations boundaries, it is quite easy
for them to discover why short, bounded, non-prototypical processes have to be treated
differently from prototypical bounded situations. However, this claim is still waiting for
empirical validation.

3.3 Verbs of involuntary sensory perception
The second apparent deviation to be discussed is closely related to the first one. Verbs of
involuntary sensory perception (see, hear, feel, smell, taste) generally describe very brief
15

processes and the majority of EFL textbooks and grammars lists them as exceptions
because they do not take the progressive aspect. Again, CG argues that these verbs are no
exceptions but that they do not necessarily invite an internal perspectivization due to their
brevity, just as described above for verbs like kick, hop, nod, and the like. If we verbalize a
perception such as <SEE A FLASH> or <HEAR A GUNSHOT>, then these processes will
be over before we will have had the time to contemplate or describe them, i.e. the
processes lack duration and their onsets and offsets nearly coincide. In this respect, verbs
of punctual involuntary sensory perception behave in a similar way as the verbs for short
processes described in 3.2. In contrast to these, however, verbs of involuntary sensory
perception do not allow an iterative interpretation as this would represent a semantic
incompatibility if something is involuntary, it cannot be repeated at will because by
definition ones will is not involved. If such processes are repeated, then we are dealing
with voluntary sensory perception (watch/observe/look at the fireworks; listen to gunshots
during a battle, etc.) and the verbs for voluntary sensory perceptions behave like any other
inherently bounded verbs.
However, verbs of involuntary sensory perception can nevertheless be used with the
progressive aspect in two respects. On the one hand, the processes being involuntarily
perceived may have some kind of extension, i.e. may not be punctual such as <SEE A
FLASH> or <HEAR A GUNSHOT>, in which case they are treated like any other
bounded situation which has a duration we can zoom into for unbounding it. Although one
might argue that such situations do not possess a long duration, according to Langacker,
stability and duration are relative and what matters is whether a situation is construed as
stable for the purpose at hand and whether this stability endures through the stretch of time
considered relevant (2008a: 149). If a sensation is presented as constant for the brief
temporal interval in question, it can be unbounded and used as an imperfective, as in I
16

was feeling some pain in my left knee this morning this is largely dependent on whether
the object noun accompanying the verb in question invites a punctual interpretation (e.g.,
flash, gunshot) or not (e.g., light, music, pain).
On the other hand, we find uses such as
(6) She is seeing Peter tonight.
In this example, <SEE> metonymically stands for <MEET>. <MEET> is a prototypical
inherently bounded verb, encompassing various sub-processes (e.g., going to a bar, seeing
Peter there, walking towards him, greeting him, having a drink with him, etc.) and
therefore having a certain duration which can be zoomed into. If verbs of involuntary
perception are not being used in their basic, prototypical sense but in more marginal,
mostly metonymically motivated senses which no longer focus on the actual sensory
perception in question but rather on the complete scenario, they gain duration and can
therefore semantically accept an inner perspectivization, which in turn allows the
progressive aspect. The sensory perception then just serves as a metonymic link.

3.4 Performatives
The third apparent deviation relates to the use of non-progressives with performatives.
Performatives explicitly name speech acts (promise, admit, swear, pronounce, sentence,
apologize, etc.) and the speaker is always the subject. They are always bounded and are
always uttered in the present tense as uttering them coincides with the notion of doing
them, therefore we not only need to look at the un/boundedness of such situations but also
at the notion of the present tense, which has been described as the most complex tense in
the English tense system (Langacker 2001).
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When we use the present tense, our speech time should temporally coincide with the
situation time, but with a vast majority of situations, this is not possible. A situation such
as <READ A BOOK> usually takes a lot longer than uttering the sentence *My son reads
a book and therefore the preconditions for the use of the simple present are violated.
Although <READ> is an inherently bounded situation, it cannot be framed as bounded
when used in the present tense as it does not comprise both of the necessary boundaries
the starting point is included but the end point has not yet been reached. Radden and
Dirven (2007: 208) state that the conceptual boundaries of most events do not neatly
coincide with the temporal boundaries of uttering the speech act describing the event,
therefore the simple present cannot normally be used to describe bounded situations
happening in the present time.
If we use a performative speech act such as I promise to write the paper next week, we
get around the above-mentioned dilemma, as this sentence does not describe a situation but
IS the promise itself, i.e., by uttering the sentence the speaker performs the act of
promising. This means that there is temporal identity between the utterance of the speech
act on the one hand and performing the act of promising on the other hand. Therefore,
situation time and speech time completely coincide. The verb promise is bounded and as
the whole utterance contains the promise, the starting point of the event as well as the
endpoint fall within our viewing arrangement. In Langackers terms (2001: 26),
performatives not only tolerate but actually require the present tense. The reason is that a
performative represents a special viewing arrangement in which the process put onstage
and profiled is the speech event itself.
Performatives furthermore lack an epistemic problem that may arise with the use of the
present tense, namely that of speaker knowledge if we want to speak about a situation we
first of all have to identify it in order to be able describe it, and such processing may take
18

some time so that the action is frequently well underway before we can start talking about
it. This means that on top of the missing endpoint, there is also a temporal incongruency
relative to the starting point of the situation. This problem does not exist with
performatives because the speaker performs the action intentionally, which means that
there is no need for him/her to first identify the action, as it is known to him anyway.
Thus, also with respect to performatives we are not dealing with an exception, as the
explanatory potential of the CG view on aspect is able to also cater for this non-
prototypical aspectual use. This makes it, as already mentioned several times, a good tool
for the EFL classroom, allowing the learners to learn by discovery. If the basic aspects
(boundaries) are known to the learners, they can extend these in order to explain more
marginal aspectual uses. It is obvious, however, that especially in a discussion of
performatives in a foreign language classroom. Tense and aspect cannot be treated
separately from each other but their interaction needs to be highlighted, i.e., we have to opt
for an integrated approach.

4. Tense
Tense is our grammaticalized conceptualization of time. The description of this
grammatical phenomenon needs to begin with a reminder that tense, aspect and modality
are essentially non-separable issues and are only separated here for practical reasons. Our
human experience only allows us to experience the present time directly, as the past has
already happened and can only be accessed by recall, although it can have reality status.
The future has not yet happened and therefore can neither be experienced directly nor does
it have reality status. Cognitive linguists are divided into two camps concerning the idea of
how many tenses English has: Langacker
8
strongly argues for only two tenses, the present
19

and the past, which according to him both have reality status and are morphologically
marked on the verb, whereas the future for him belongs to the modal system, because it has
no reality status and is non-inflectional. Also Taylor (2002: 394) states that English has
only two tenses. Radden and Dirven, on the other hand, maintain that English has three
tenses: the present, the past and the future, although they admit that
our projection of events into the future always involves a certain amount of
uncertainty () Future situations are therefore very much subject to peoples
imagination. As a result, English has a number of future tense forms expressing
shades of (un)certainty about a future situation (Radden and Dirven 2007: 224).
Expressions such as peoples imagination and (un)certainty, however, can also be seen
as arguments for shifting verb constructions relating to the future to the realm of what
Langacker (2008a: 306) calls conceived reality, namely modality. It is also interesting to
note that according to Radden and Dirven (2007: 227), those future forms with the highest
degree of certainty are what they call the planned future (Im getting married next
month) and the scheduled future (My train leaves at six), both of which use present tense
morphology. Furthermore, on a conceptual level it can be argued that only the present and
the past tenses are used to signal relevance time for situations that are construed as having
reality status, i.e., situations located in factual reality. This is why the present chapter will
follow Langackers assumption that there are only two tenses in English and that future
time is expressed by modality
9
.

4.1 Speech time, relevance time and situation time
Langacker as well as Taylor subsume tense under the keyword grounding, as the term
ground is used in CG to indicate the speech event, its participants (speaker and hearer),
20

their interaction, and the immediate circumstances (notably, the time and place of
speaking) (Langacker 2008a: 259). Tense situates the profiled relationship of an utterance
with respect to the speakers current conception of reality. We live in current reality,
therefore the base of the tense system is the present moment of speech, or speech time.
In Radden and Dirvens terms, speech time offers an anchor to locate the occurrence of
situations in time (2007: 202).
In a CG analysis of tense, three different components interact. The first component is the
present moment of speech, or speech time. It is the moment in time at which a
communicative instance is produced. If we speak about today, the present moment of
speech is part of the time region indicated by this lexical item. Similarly, if we speak about
yesterday or tomorrow, these lexical items are still interpreted in relation to the speech
time, i.e. to the present moment of speech, although they do not include the present
moment of speech time but refer to time intervals before or beyond speech time.
The second component is the time span which the proposition of the utterance is set
relevant for by the speaker, i.e., relevance time. The relevant time span for a proposition
such as we were snowed in yesterday is past time, more precisely yesterday, as indicated
by the grammatical past tense marker were and the temporal adverb yesterday.
The third component in the relation between tense and time is the time at which a situation,
i.e. a process or a state, is instantiated, i.e., situation time
10
. Relevance time can correspond
exactly to situation time, as in
(7) We were snowed in yesterday.
It can also comprise only a temporal section of situation time, as in example (8) below; or
it can be different from situation time, as in the newspaper headline Snowstorm cuts off
21

villages. Although the situation took place a day before the headline appeared, i.e., in the
past, and was remedied since, the newspaper headline wants to present it as being relevant
to its readers present in order to motivate potential readers to buy the newspaper and read
the article. In the article itself, the past tense is then used, making relevance time
equivalent to situation time.
Tense does not locate the processes or states themselves on the time axis, but it rather
allows the speaker to select a time span that is relevant for what he/she wants to say. This
becomes clear when taking a closer look at the already mentioned example (8):
(8) Emily and Charlotte came home to see her, but she was dead
(BNC: FNY 448)
Relevance time as well as situation time of the first part of the sentence are clearly in the
past, but for the second part of the sentence, relevance time is in the past, whereas situation
time encompasses not only the past but also the present, as the deceased remains dead also
at the present moment, i.e. the situation still applies at speech time. In other words, the past
tense in was dead does not primarily fulfil the function of locating the state of <BE
DEAD> in past time, but instead it expresses that the relevant time span for what the
speaker is saying lies somewhere in past time (= relevance time), whereas the state of the
persons being dead comprises both past and present time (= situation time). In this
example then, relevance time only includes a part of situation time, namely the relevant
time stretch which lies in the past.



22

4.2 Simple tenses
Radden and Dirven call the simple tenses deictic times as they relate to speech time, the
only moment that is available to us in our perception of time (2007: 204). They go on to
explain that as speech time is always in the present but situation time may be in the past -
the use of the present tense always locates a situation at or around or including speech
time, whereas the past tense locates a situation at a time earlier than speech time. The
simple tenses furthermore give information about the reality status of a situation. Whereas
the present tense gives information about the immediate reality of a situation, the past tense
gives information about what Radden and Dirven call known reality (ibid.) and what
Langacker calls conceived reality (2008a: 301), arguing that our knowledge about reality
is partial and also not necessary infallibly accurate, and therefore can only be a part of
factual reality. What we consider as known by us we frequently simply embrace () as
established knowledge. For a particular conceptualizer, C, this constitutes conceived
reality. It is what C accepts as being real (ibid.). In the following two sub-chapters, the
two tenses with reality status will be briefly characterized.

4.2.1 Present tense
Notwithstanding its name, the simple present is actually one of the most complex tenses of
English grammar
11
. Langacker (1991: 242) relates the present tense with immediate
reality and argues that speech time and reference time exactly co-occur in canonical uses
of the present tense. What makes the present tense so complex is that such a co-occurrence
is not frequently found. Instead, there is a range of non-present uses of the present tense,
where what is being coded linguistically is not the actual occurrence of events, but their
virtual occurrence as part of a non-canonical viewing arrangement (Langacker 2001: 30).
23

The true present tense is not frequently used. As already described above, bounded
events happening in the present at the time of speaking are generally too long to exactly
coincide with the utterance itself (apart from very few instances such as the balloon
pops). We are not only dealing with a durational problem here, but also with an epistemic
one. Not only does the utterance need to cover the whole event, but a speaker also
generally needs to first observe a situation in order to identify it and to be able to talk about
it which takes even more time away from the small time frame provided by the utterance.
This is why bounded situations in the present generally take the progressive aspect, which
gets rid of the boundaries that would otherwise not fit into the small time frame. The
zooming-in effect then profiles only that portion of the homogeneous state of affairs that is
valid at speech time, such as in He is reading a book. On the other hand, many uses of
the simple present tense do not refer to speech time, but to either the future, or the past, or
to so-called timeless situations or eternal truths. As Langacker (2001) argues, these
latter ones are extended uses of the true present. For him, the present tense indicates
that a full instantiation of the profiled process occurs and precisely coincides with the time
of speaking (2001: 22).
This also accounts for imperfective/unbounded situations such as He resembles his
grandfather. Such a resemblance is valid without boundaries and is therefore
imperfective. It is true at any time, thus also for the moment of speaking, and in using the
simple present, that portion of the resemblance is highlighted that is in focus at speech
time: since an imperfective process is internally homogeneous and not characterized in
terms of bounding, any subpart singled out for profiling will itself constitute a valid
instance of the process type in question (Langacker 2001: 23).
24

A further use of the simple present is to be observed in the narration of demonstrations,
such as in cooking programmes on television: I put a tablespoon of butter in the pan. It
melts quickly. Now I put the fillet in. I cook it at low temperature for five minutes"
(Langackers example, 2001: 28). Although saying these sentences needs a lot less time
than the preparations and the five minutes of cooking, Langacker claims that the simple
present is not used here for the description of actual situations but is instead to be seen as
reading off entries from a list or scenario, i.e., refer to the virtual occurrence of the
situation which then again coincides with the time of speaking.
A similar explanation can be given for the so-called scheduled future use of the present
tense (My train leaves at six). Here again, we are referring to the representation of this
situation on a virtual schedule in our minds and not to the actual situation. Such scheduled
future uses generally incorporate a precise time expression (at six) and do not work for
situations that cannot be scheduled (*I fall ill next week). Although a virtual schedule
belongs to the future, it is stable and reliable also at the present moment of speaking and
can thus be regarded as a representation of an anticipated actual event and as a virtual
occurrence of that situation which coincides temporally with the moment of speaking
(following Langacker 2001: 31f.). The same virtual reading applies to stage directions as
well as to the use of the historical present, where past situations are retold using the simple
present. In this latter case, a past situation is virtually replayed, and the use of the present
tense underlines its salience, its still being vividly recalled by the experiencer. In this
context, Langacker speaks of event representations. Even when these correspond in
some fashion to actual events, the represented events are the ones directly coded
linguistically and profiled by the present tense verb (Langacker 2001: 33).
25

A last related non-prototypical use of the simple present concerns so-called eternal truths
and timeless situations, such as The kangaroo is a marsupial. This utterance does not
refer to any specific kangaroo, but again to a virtual instance of a kangaroo. This virtual
situations belongs to an open-ended set of actual instantiations, distributed throughout the
time span during which the generalization holds (Langacker 2001: 33). The use of the
present tense indicates that the speaker is referring to a sub-part of this eternal truth at the
moment of speaking. The same is true for habituals (I drive to work every morning), where
the utterance does not refer to any actual instance of driving I may even be uttering this
sentence on a weekend when I am not driving to work but to a virtual instance of driving.
Again, we are not dealing with exceptions in the case of the simple present but with
explainable meaning extensions. Using such explanations in foreign language instruction
may make learners aware of the meaning relations between the different uses of this tense
and may help them understand and, as a consequence, use this tense more correctly.
However, there are no empirical data whatsoever available which might indicate that such
an approach would actually work. It needs to be tested in a longitudinal study, first
introducing the prototypical use of the simple present and then by and by introducing the
non-prototypical uses, always referring back to the basic meaning of the simple present.

4.2.2 Past tense
While the present tense, as shown above, locates a situation exactly at the time of speaking,
the past tense morpheme imposes an immediate scope prior to the speech event
(Langacker 2001: 22) and in contrast to the present tense is not limited concerning the
length of the profiled process. It conveys distance from the speech event (Taylor 2002:
394) and refers to facts. A sequence of past tense verbs is often used in narratives, and the
26

individual events are interpreted as successive, i.e., the first situation evoked by a past
tense locates the narration in the past and the following situations are interpreted to follow
this first situation in sequential order. As all of these situations are seen as completed, they
are interpreted as successive. If they co-occurred, the progressive aspect needs to be used
for the background situation.
Langacker (1991: 242) relates the past tense with non-immediate reality, however, as
will be pointed out below, this is only the prototypical, temporal use of the past tense. The
past tense is conventionally also used to signal less commitment to the reality of a
situation, i.e., to signal epistemic distance. Furthermore, it is frequently used to indicate
intimacy, salience, or politeness. In all of these cases it does not refer to non-immediate
reality but to non-temporal events. As the different uses of the past tense morphology are
outlined in detail in sub-chapter 4.4.3, this short paragraph shall suffice here.

4.3 Complex tenses
All other tense forms apart from the present tense and the past tense are complex tenses
(Radden and Dirven 2007: 204ff.) which serve to locate anterior or posterior situations
relative to a reference time. Anterior times are expressed as perfect tenses stating that
something happened at an earlier time than reference time; posterior times belonging to
futurity - are expressed by prospective forms, generally consisting of grammaticalized
lexical items such as going to or be about to, stating that something may happen at a later
time than at reference time.
Anterior times are the present perfect and the past perfect
12
. They have in common that a
situation is seen as located before relevance time. In the case of the present perfect, only
27

one time sphere is alluded to, namely the present time, as the relation profiled goes from
event time to speech time:
(9) Ive broken my leg, so it is difficult for me to go shopping right now.
Speech time is right now, i.e., in the present, whereas the breaking of the leg happened in
the past. Using the present perfect indicates that the past event of breaking the leg is seen
from the perspective of speech time as presently being an obstacle concerning everyday
life routines. The present relevance of the anterior situation is highlighted, which is why it
can be seen as part of the overall situation and can therefore be said to have not only a
temporal but also an aspectual meaning (cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 206f.) insofar as the
left boundary of the inherently bounded situation <GO SHOPPING> is extended into the
past so as to also include the anterior situation. This is not possible for past perfects:
(10) I had broken my leg, so it was difficult for me to go shopping during the weeks
following the accident.
This sentence can only understood in a purely temporal sense speech time is in the
present, relevance time is in the past and situation time is before relevance time. The use of
the past perfect relates the situation time to the relevance time.
Although perfect tenses are dealt with by Radden and Dirven (2007) in their chapter on
tense, this view is not unanimously shared. Langacker, for example, treats the perfect not
as a grounding element but as a grounded structure because in contrast to tense and
modals, the perfect (have + -ed) is optional and not obligatory in a verb and can only
appear in non-finite clauses from which tense and modals are excluded (2008a: 300).
Complex tenses may be visualized by referring to Mental Space Theory (see below) as this
helps to show the interaction between the different time spheres quite clearly. Learners can
28

be trained to focus on the three elements of speech time, relevance time and situation time
and with their help, decode temporal structures without being confused.

4.4 Tense and Mental Space Theory
In the following sub-chapters, Langackers as well as Radden and Dirvens understanding
of tense will be combined with insights from Fauconniers (1994, 1997) and Fauconnier
and Turners (2002) Mental Space Theory in order to generate a synthesized CG view on
tense.
The basic idea of Fauconniers model is that when discourse participants interact, they
mentally construct small conceptual packets, called mental spaces (cf. Fauconnier 1998:
252). These mental spaces contain elements, i.e., conceptual information on the things or
persons we talk about, as well as information on the reality status of the situation and its
relevance time.

4.4.1 Temporal use of tense morphemes
The mental space that serves as the basis or starting point of an interaction is called the
base space. Importantly, mental space theory makes a clear distinction between base space
and all other mental spaces. Base space is the situation at speech time, the here and now,
in which the speaker is the deictic centre. It serves as an anchor for expressing both the
reality status and the temporal relevance of any situation that is being communicated and it
contains conceptual information on the things or persons talked about, the space and time
of the interaction (speech time) as well as information about the interaction context. All of
this is normally taken for granted and will therefore not necessarily be verbalized
29

explicitly. The status of things or persons in the discourse is expressed by the determiner
system and is known as reference; the status of situations and their relevance time is
expressed by the tense, aspect and modality systems.
A new mental space can be set up or an already established space can be referred back to at
any moment in the discourse. Most mental spaces are opened implicitly, but this can also
be done in a more explicit way. Such explicit space builders can, for example, be time
adverbials, such as the adverb yesterday in example (7) above (We were snowed in
yesterday), or a temporal expression such as in 1992, or the first clause in the sequence
of two or more clauses in a narrative context such as in example (8) above (Emily and
Charlotte came home to see her, but she was dead). All these space builders denote the
temporal setting serving as a situations background and an interaction partner implicitly
understands that base space has been left and a new space has been opened up.
Other explicit space builders, referring to the reality status of a situation, are expressions
such as Possibly or Nick believes that. Grammatical markers for tense and aspect, to
which modality can be added, are not explicit space builders themselves, but provide the
interaction partner with clues concerning the space that is relevant at that point (cf.
Fauconnier 1994: 33). Fauconnier gives the nice example of In 1929, the lady with white
hair was blonde (1994: 29), where 1929 builds up a new mental time space in the
conversation, namely in the past. If this sentence is followed by a past tense, we stay in the
mental time space of 1929, whereas if the sentence is followed by a present tense, we shift
back to base space (now). Should this sentence be followed by a conditional (you would
have enjoyed meeting her then), we shift to a counterfactual space which provides us with
information about the reality status of a situation, which in that case would be located in
non-reality.
30

Grammatical tenses and aspects and their combinations serve to indicate relative
relations between spaces and crucially, to keep track of the discourse position of the
participants which space is in focus , which one serves as base and what shifts are
taking place. (Fauconnier 1994: xl, emphasis in original).
The reality status of a situation can be indicated either by means of tense forms which
will be described in more detail in the next sub-chapter - or by modal verbs.
To sum up, situations set relevant for base space are referred to by the use of the present
tense and are always located in reality. Mental spaces can be opened from base space for
situations whose relevance time is anterior to speech time and which are therefore
expressed by the past tense, or else whose relevance time is posterior to speech time and
which are therefore expressed by the will-form.

4.4.2 Non-temporal uses of tense morphemes
Besides the temporal use of tense morphemes, we find a number of non-temporal uses of
tense morphemes, related to the expression of actuality/reality versus non-
actuality/irreality, to the notion of intimacy, to the designation of salience, and to the
attenuation of speech acts, which will all be described in the following sub-chapters. The
temporal use of tense morphemes does not primarily mean locating situations in time, but
rather indicating which time span is relevant for what we are saying, i.e., the temporal use
of tense and other morphemes is already much more subtle than what has usually been
understood by temporal meaning. Furthermore, the same morphological forms can also
be used to encode non-temporal meanings. In the same way that we can open, starting from
base space, further reality spaces with past, present or future relevance time, we can also
open up other mental spaces, as, for instance, potentiality space. One kind of potentiality
31

space is modality space, others are hypotheticality space or counterfactuality space. Still
further possible spaces are, amongst others, interactive spaces such as narrative space or
politeness space.

4.4.1 Hypotheticality/counterfactuality space
In an assertive speech act, the reality status of a situation is taken for granted and therefore
not explicitly marked. However, if we are dealing with a speech act based in non-reality, a
hypothetical space is opened up which needs to be marked explicitly. In such a case, we
are dealing with either noncounterfactual hypotheticality or counterfactual hypotheticality,
both of which are marked by using past tense morphology.
When we speak about a situation where we cannot assert its reality status, we open up a
hypothetical space. A hypothetical space can be created by means of the space builder if in
combination with a set of tense forms that indicate epistemic as well as temporal relevance.
The possibility that a hypothetical situation will become real is still given, for example in
the immediate future (11a) or in the more remote future (11b). In terms of their reality
status, the first two situations in example (11) are located either in the fuzzy area between
the reality of base space and hypothetical space (11a) or close to the reality of base space,
but already outside it (11b). If we are dealing with an even higher degree of
hypotheticality, such as in (11c), where it is highly unlikely but not yet impossible - that
the person in question will show up, the epistemic distance is greater. And if the epistemic
distance to the reality of base space becomes still greater, we are dealing with
counterfactuality (11d), defined by Fauconnier and Turner as forced incompatibility
between spaces (2002: 230). A counterfactual hypothetical statement indicates that it is
impossible for the situation to happen. The statements in (11c) and (11d) do not differ
32

concerning the events described or with respect to their times of occurrence, they only
differ in the extent of their epistemic distance to base space. At the same time as the reality
status of the situation changes, different relevance times are involved, illustrated by the use
of the adverbs right now, straight away, then:
(11) (a) If he is German, as you claim, lets talk to him right now.
(b) If he shows up, lets ask him straight away.
(c) If he showed up, we would ask him then.
(d) If he had shown up, we could have asked him then.
English past tense morphology clearly signals distance in two different, but related ways: it
can either refer to temporal distance in base space or it can refer to epistemic distance in
hypothetical spaces. These two uses are closely related, the latter one may also be seen as a
metaphorical extension of the former one (EPISTEMIC DISTANCE IS TEMPORAL DISTANCE).
Both uses can best be understood in their relation to the double function of base space, i.e.,
its reality status function and its relevance time function. (11d) illustrates how the
interaction between temporal and epistemic relevance is expressed grammatically: since
the situation is located in temporal as well as epistemic distance from the base, what is
traditionally called a double backshift takes place grammatically, as can be seen by the
use of the past perfect in had shown up.
In the above example (11), the tense morphemes in both clauses coincide but this need not
be the case. In example (12) below, again accessing counterfactual hypothetical space, the
person talked about does not know, and in (12b) the male protagonist has not told the truth.
Although situation time in (12a) is present time, the past tense is used to express epistemic
distance vis--vis the base. This example shows that past tense morphology cannot only be
used to indicate relevance time that is located anterior to (and thus at a distance from) the
base, but also to express epistemic distance from the base. The same applies to (12b),
33

where situation time is in the past and where the situation itself is construed as a
counterfactual one, therefore the past perfect is used, indicating temporal as well as
epistemic distance from the base.
(12) a. If only he knew! (BNC: AEB 3109)
b. If he had told her the truth, she would not have believed him.
(BNC: HR8 858)
Every speaker has many grammatical options at hand to communicate his/her thoughts,
while from the hearers perspective, tense and aspect marking allows us to reconstruct the
reality and time spaces set up from base space (Fauconnier 1997: 78) and the relations
between them. Tense in English and most other tensed languages is a matter of reality
status as well as temporal relevance concerning the external" reality and temporal
location of speech time, information on which is kept available in mental spaces. Base
space is the anchor for two functions, i.e., speech time and reality status, and as such it can
serve two different roles, namely a temporal and/or an epistemic one.

4.4.2 Narrative space
As already briefly mentioned, another type of space that can be opened up from base space
is narrative space. Narrations deal with past events but frequently - especially in very lively
oral narrations the present time can be used (cf. sub-chapter 4.2.1), such as in the
narrative discourse in example (13):
(13) Erm, Im just sitting in front of the car last night and erm
(BNC: KC2 3048)
Here, the narrative space allows a conflict between situation time, which is past time, and
relevance time, which is presented as if it were present time. However, no hearer will have
34

a problem to understand that the situation is in the past although the present tense is being
used, because he will follow the speaker from base space, i.e., from the here and now,
into narrative space which is per se located in the past. The fact that the present is being
used signals that the speaker is mentally reliving the events of last night and is
foregrounding them
13
, which is why they still have an impact at speech time. This impact
is not only felt by the speaker but also by the hearer as he is drawn into the situation as if
he had been present as an onlooker. Instead of creating distance a function of the past
tense the use of the present tense creates closeness. If such closeness is aimed at, the use
of the past tense is not possible.

4.4.3 Politeness space
In example (14), the reverse can be observed: situation time is the present time, as the
question is asked at that precise moment, but, according to Tyler and Evans (2001: 95) we
conventionally understand that the use of past tense does not place the desire to ask the
question in the past, but rather that it attenuates and so makes such requests less face-
threatening and hence more polite, i.e., for reasons of politeness the speaker presents the
utterances relevance time as non-present time, which has the effect that the request seems
to be less urgent so that the hearer may feel less imposed upon and thus less face-
threatened. Using the past tense in requests, suggestions, invitations, commands and
reprimands is conventionally interpreted as polite, mitigating the amount of imposition on
the addressee. By moving from base space to politeness space, the speaker signals a
cognitive, non-temporal distance between him-/herself and the hearer and by using past
tense morphology, the speaker signals this distance also grammatically.
(14) I wanted to ask you something. (BNC: HTN 2787)
35

This perspective on the functions of tense morphology ties in well with Tyler and Evans
approach of pragmatic strengthening. They argue that
...due to the way in which we actually experience the notions of intimacy, salience,
actuality, and politeness, namely in terms of proximal-distal spatial relations, and the
fact that time-reference is experienced in terms of analogous spatial relations, in
certain situations tense morphemes which canonically signal time-reference can
implicate a non-temporal relation. Through usage-based conventionalization, i.e.,
pragmatic strengthening, a conventional time-meaning can become associated with a
particular tense morpheme (Tyler and Evans 2001: 65)
According to Tyler and Evans, non-temporal meaning extensions associated with tense are
explainable by the polysemy of tense morphology. By entrenchment, i.e., by pragmatic
strengthening, tense morphemes have become associated with non-temporal meanings. The
concept of intimacy, for example, in its basic meaning refers to physical intimacy, but in an
extended meaning we can also either feel close or feel distant to somebody who is not
necessarily spatially close or spatially distant to us. Therefore, we may talk in the past
tense of people we do not feel close to. When we start telling a love story from our past,
we may say things like We met in Brisbane. He was an architect even though this
former lover may well still be alive and still be an architect, but by using the past tense
morphology, we distance ourselves from this specific episode of our life.
The concept of salience is explainable in quite a similar way, as what is physically closer
to us is more salient and vice versa, which is why we can speak metaphorically of issues
closer at hand or about distant rumours. Combining these insights with the use of tense
morphology, we can foreground important facts and make them more salient by using the
present tense and we can background less important facts by using the past tense. This is in
line with certain uses of the present tense for lively narratives, the historical present and
other non-canonical uses (cf. sub-chapter 4.2.1). As Tyler and Evans argue, the use of the
36

present tense to make a particular event more real would seem to be related to the use of
the present tense to denote greater salience and hence importance in terms of information
structure (2001: 93).
To sum up, tense morphology cannot only be used to symbolize temporal relevance, but it
can furthermore be used to express epistemic relevance, salience and attenuation in certain
contexts. Both the temporal and the non-temporal uses of tense forms can be ascribed to a
common conceptual basis, the proximal/distal
14
(or immediacy/non-immediacy) schema
(cf. Langacker 1991: 249). This means that while the present tense is always used to
express proximity/immediacy be it temporal, epistemic, narrative or formal
proximity/immediacy , the past tense always indicates distance/non-immediacy. In other
words: in a very iconic way, more form is more meaning, i.e., the addition of the past tense
morpheme signals more distance, either with respect to relevance time, reality status,
backgrounding or social commitment. Seen in such a simplified way, an understanding of
the notions of tense and tense morphology may be facilitated for ESL learners.

5. Conclusion
The teaching of tense and aspect, two of the most error-prone areas for ESL learners,
could presumably profit very much from a CG approach with its focus on the
meaningfulness of grammar. Such an approach enables teachers to begin with prototypical
instances on the basis of which their learners can understand the admittedly abstract
meaning of specific grammatical phenomena. In later lessons, these teachers can then
gradually introduce non-prototypical instances of the phenomenon in question. It is
important that learners are made aware of the fact that these more marginal instances are
always related to the basic meaning, i.e., that for example the proximity vs. distance
37

meanings of the tenses are to be found in the use of the ed morpheme in temporal
relations, but also in other areas, as discussed above. Combining Langackers approach to
tense with Mental Space Theory allows learners to trace the thought processes behind an
utterance, ideally as a model for their own future utterances in the foreign language.
Learners should start in the here-and-now, i.e., in base space, and work their way up to
other mental spaces, while detecting the meanings of and the relations between the various
tense and aspect uses. Concerning the teaching of aspect, the notion of boundaries may
come in helpful, especially when introduced via the teaching of mass and count nouns
(see also Niemeier 2008).
Researchers from Langacker to Tyler and Evans in various publications have repeatedly
argued that the CG approach is useful for teaching, but there is a dire lack of empirical
data and therefore, we have no proof so far that such an approach may indeed work. The
main obstacle for doing empirical research in this area is presumably the need for
longitudinal studies. Intuitively, it seems relatively useless to teach and evaluate a discrete
CG-based lesson on, say, the use of the non-progressive after verbs of involuntary
sensory perception in an otherwise traditional foreign language classroom and still
expect valid results.
Tense and aspect are present from the very beginning of ESL learning, not necessarily in
an explicit way but at least in the teachers language. As soon as learners start producing
their own utterances, they will use verbs and therefore also tense and aspect. If these
learners are then given explanations concerning these grammatical areas, this information
should already conform to CG beliefs, because otherwise later CG-related explanations do
not make a lot of sense to the learners as they might be very different to what they learnt
before and would then be difficult to integrate into their interlanguage hypotheses. In
38

other words, CG-oriented foreign language instruction should ideally begin with the very
first lesson in the foreign language because only then can it unfold its full potential.
As a second difficulty involved, for an empirical study to be fruitful and valid, we do not
only need a test group, but also a control group, which means that a second class would
have to be taught in a different, more traditional way so that the results of these two
groups could then be reliably compared at certain points during the study, which may well
cover several years. Such ideal research scenarios are hard to find, therefore it seems
much more realistic to use smaller test items than tense or aspect in their totality and
to restrict the time for the studies. The results found will not be as positive as they might
be under ideal test conditions, but if they are indeed positive even under less-than-optimal
circumstances, this may already pave the way towards a rethinking of grammar learning
and teaching in the direction of CG-based instruction.
However, as already mentioned at various points throughout this article, even tests on
smaller items are missing although there is no lack of research questions. It would be
interesting, for example, to find out whether CG-based instruction is equally well suited
for every learning style, whether visualizations of grammatical phenomena are perceived
as helpful, which kind of visualization works best
15
, how to introduce topics and which
terminology to use in the classroom at various levels, or whether the learners error rate
after CG-based instruction is lower and if it is, in which areas (analysis of utterances,
closed exercises, half-open exercises and open exercises such as free text production).
Research results on these and related questions are urgently needed if the CG approach
wants to be accepted in regular textbooks and teacher trainings. It may well be worth the
time and effort.

39

Acknowledgement
I wish to thank Fred Thompson (University Koblenz-Landau, Germany) for having
checked my English. All remaining flaws are, as usual, my own responsibility.



1. It may be mainly due to this difference that aspect errors are the most frequent errors German learners
of English commit, cf. also Niemeier and Reif 2008. German verbs do not need to be marked for aspect,
as aspect is either indicated in various optional lexical ways or omitted altogether. Therefore, many
German learners of English tacitly assume that aspect is not an obligatory category in English. Most
EFL textbooks used in Germany do not explain this to them either.
2. At this point the bounded situation <BUILD A SNOWMAN> would turn into the inherently unbounded
situation <BE A SNOWMAN>, a potentially transient state because it is not expected to last forever,
but only until the weather gets warmer.
3. This process is called a defocusing of boundaries by Schmiedtov and Flecken (2008), i.e., both the
initial and the final boundaries of the situation are not gone, but excluded from the speakers focus.
4. In textbook grammars and other learner grammars, learners are generally confronted with a list of
state verbs and are usually told that these verbs cannot take the progressive aspect (for more details
see Niemeier 2008). Such a list is supposed to be learnt by heart, which is not exactly a useful learning
strategy.
5. For EFL purposes, working with the concept of the cross-wise aspectual contrast has proven to be a lot
more fruitful as learners can relate to it far better than they can to Langackers interpretation. The
concept of boundaries along with the idea that the progressive changes the default setting of the
boundaries of a verbs meaning is apparently easier to understand than the concept of (im)perfectivity
(personal experience).
6. A PhD thesis is currently underway (Monika Reif, University Koblenz-Landau) which tests the
effectiveness of a CG approach to tense and aspect vis--vis a traditional textbook approach to tense
and aspect with first-semester English majors of a German university. Preliminary results have been
presented at various conferences, but have not yet been published. Generally speaking, the approach
seems to be working better than the traditional one, although not necessarily for all kinds of learners.
The learners seem to especially appreciate the explanatory power of the approach and the visualizations
used in the CG materials. One has to keep in mind, however, that these learners studied English at
school for at least 9 years before starting their studies and have thus grown up with the traditional
approach, which sometimes makes it very hard to switch over to a quite different approach. In an ideal
case, CG explanations would be introduced right from the very beginning of English learning,
accompanied by a longitudinal study. Doing research at school level, however, is enormously difficult
at least in Germany, as it is a very time-consuming and often impossible process to get hold of the
various permissions needed (school administration, school director, parents of all children involved,
etc.).
7. I.e., if they present aspect at all, because it is generally integrated into the chapters on tense, frequently
without even making use of the term aspect.
8. In his 1991a publication (p. 332) Langacker still speaks about the future tense whereas from his
1991b publication onwards he seems to have changed his views.
40


9. This is why the present contribution will not talk about the various types of future. Radden and Dirven
(2007: 225ff.) differentiate the following kinds of future: predicted future (Well have some sunshine),
matter-of-course future (Ill be seeing you), intentional future (Im going to get married), contingent
future (Its going to rain), planned future (Im getting married next month), scheduled future (My train
leaves at six) and background future (If I see him, Ill send him home).
10. Radden and Dirven (2007: 202 ff.) use event time here, but I have decided to follow Niemeier and
Reif (2008) who use situation time because in this context a situation can refer either to a process or
to a state and in our view, it is conceptually somewhat difficult to subsume states under events, a term
which tends to have a more processual character. A similar problem occurs with Langackers
terminology where process is used as a cover term for both processes and states.
11. See also sub-chapter 3.4 on performatives.
12. If the future was treated as a tense, we would also have to mention the future perfect here (I will have
passed my driving license by the time I turn 18). If the future is not considered to be a tense, then we are
dealing with a combination of modality and the auxiliary have + -ed.
13. Cf. Tyler and Evans (2001: 72) who also maintain that past tense signals background and supporting
status and present tense signals foreground status.
14. Tyler and Evans account for the fact that time is associated with the spatial concepts of proximity and
distance by referring to the experiential correlation between the two concepts. When we speak, we are
in the here-and-now, which functions as our deictic center: We cannot help but experience the present
moment in terms of our immediate physical surroundings and our sensory perceptions of them ()
Traversing a certain distance inevitably correlates with the elapse of a certain amount of time. Thus,
elements of the spatial domain, such as movement from one location to another and distance, have
become strongly associated with the elapse of time (2001: 81f.). In other words, the concepts of space
and time are so intertwined in human cognition that they are frequently co-activated, which is
amongst other phenomena visible in the non-temporal use of temporal morphology, when we speak
about the past tense as signaling distance (a spatial concept) in various ways.
15. A preliminary result of Reifs PhD research (see also endnote 6) is that learners preferred cartoon-like
pictures to Langacker-style diagrams, which they found more difficult to interpret.


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