conditional sentence, modal auxiliary, etc. One of the english grammar in which Indonesian students tend to make error id “tense”. Here the writer will discuss
about tense.
C. Tense
1. Definition of Tense
The word ‘tense’ is derived ultimately from the Latin word ‘tempus’ meaning ‘time’.
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Tense is a form of verb used to indicate the time. In discussing tense and time A.S Hornby states that “the words ‘time’ and ‘tense’ must not be
confused. The word time stands for a concept with which all mankind is familiar, divided into past, present and future. The word tense stands for a verb form or
series of verb forms used to express a time relation. Tenses may indicate wheater an action, activity, or state.”
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Tense commonly refers to the time of the situation which relates to the situation of utterance or at the moment at the speaking. For example, the
commenest tenses found in languages are present, past and future: a situation described in the present tense is related as simultaneous with the moment of
speaking Jhon is singing; the situation described in the past as related prior to the moment of the speaking Jhon was singing; while the situation described in
the future as relates subsequent to the moment of speaking Jhon will singing. Since tense refers to the time of the situation which relates to the situation
of the utterances, it can be described as ‘deictic’.
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In other words, deictic refers to an interval or period of the time which contains the moment of utterance. It can be
expressed by some words: yesterday, now and tomorrow. English verbs have only two simple tenses, the tenses called the simple present e.g he writes and the
simple past e.g he wrote. The English tense that would be discussed are simple present, present
17
Jhon Lyons, Linguistic Semantic an Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995, p.
312.
18
A.S. Hornby, Guide to Patterns and Usage in English, London: Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 78.
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Bernard Comrie, Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect Related Problem, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 2.
continuous and simple past.
2. Kinds of Tense
