View source for Comrie's (1985) theory of tense

==Absolute and relative tense==
According to Comrie (1985), [[absolute tense]]s take the present moment as a deictic center, i.e. the time of utterance. The three [[absolute tense]]s are 'present', 'past' and 'future'. [[Relative tense]]s are defined relative to an additional reference point which does not (necessarily) correspond with the moment of utterance (Comrie 1985:122f). In [[absolute-relative tense]]s, the "reference point is established relative to the present moment, and a situation is located in time relative to that reference point" (Comrie 1985:125).

==Representation of temporal reference==
Comrie adopts Reichenbach’s (1947) primitives 'S' (time of speech), 'E' (time of event) and 'R' (reference point). Unlike Reichenbach, he uses three ordering relations: ‘simul’, ‘before’ and ‘after’ (Comrie 1985:122). Absolute tenses express a relation between S and E. The reference point R only plays a role in the expression of absolute-relative tenses. 

Tenses express two types of temporal relations: (i) between R and S, and (ii) between R and E. It is important to note that the relative position of E and S is not specified (Comrie 1985: 125).

{| border="1"
|-
!	!! Schema	!!Tense		!!Example
|-
|1.	||E simul S	||present tense		||I promise you to pay you 10 pounds
|-
|2.		||E before S	||past tense ||		Five minutes ago John was in the garden.
|-
|3.	||E after S	||future tense		||I will become 30 next week
|-
|4.	||E before R before S		||past perfect	||John left for the front. By the time he would return, the fields would have been burnt to stubble.
|-
|5.	||E before R after S	||future perfect	||In a fortnight I will have left the town.
|-
|6.	||E after R before S	||future in the past	||I never thought he would write the best exam.
|-
|7.	||E after R after S	||future in the future		||I will be going to buy the book.
|}
					
				

A distinction between the English Simple Past and the Present Perfect is not made, so "[i]n terms of location in time, [...] the perfect is not distinct from the past" (Comrie 1985: 78).

==Literature==
* Comrie, Bernard (1985). ''Tense''. Cambridge: CUP. 

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[[Category:Tense]]