Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Linguistic Typology and Language Universals, language: English, abstract: As Martin Haase points out, the term ‘tense’ in any given language can hardly be isolated. In a broader context, it usually consists of an interwoven system, the so-called Tense-Aspect-Modality (TAM). English and Romanian are no exception. Haase states that “it is far from simple to attribute TAM-categories clearly to either tense, aspect or mood, since most categories contain a temporal as well as an aspectual or modal meaning.” (Haase, 1994:135). In order not to go beyond the intended scope of this analysis, I will thus straightforwardly compare English and Romanian past tenses, thereby avoiding a detailed discussion on the inner TAM workings of each language, as this could easily fill entire books on its own. Nonetheless, when absolutely necessary, I will include mood and aspect since both of them cannot be entirely ignored in an analysis about time-related utterances. My main concern, however, is to illustrate the general differences of the tense systems rather than to consider all the exceptions that follow in their wake. Thus, before explaining the construction of the main past tenses, I will provide a short overview and definition of the terms tense, aspect and mood in the English and Romanian language.

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Despite a history of hundreds of years of research analysing aspects of English grammar, there are still open problems which continue to baffle language researchers today. Such ‘grammar mysteries’ arise for a number of reasons: because the language is changing; because different speakers of the language adhere to distinct norms and thus introduce and maintain variation in the system; because there are differences between the grammar of spoken and written English. This book illuminates some of the complexities of the subject, the areas where new discoveries await and why it matters. Through a series of accessible and engaging case studies on various aspects of grammar, from multiple negation to possession, the authors present grammar as an intellectual challenge. This book brings out into the open questions about language usage to which we still do not have good answers in a bid to make variation overt and to revel in the mystery of the English language. Both aimed at the interested general reader and the beginning student of English language and linguistics, this is a fresh take on grammar.