ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the categories associated with the primary auxiliaries and the primary paradigm. It involves primary paradigms and the categories. The grammatical categories in terms of which the forms of the paradigm are to be analysed and the semantic features associated with these categories cut right across word division in these forms. Tense appears to have three distinct functions, first to mark purely temporal relations of past and present time, secondly in the sequence of tenses that is mainly relevant for reported speech and thirdly to mark 'unreality', particularly in conditional clauses and wishes. The traditional statement of tense in terms of present, past and future, exemplified by I take, I took and I shall take, has no place in the analysis presented here. The most important function of tense is to indicate past and present time. Phase is best seen as the marker of a complex set of time relations.
