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In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference.〔Fabricius-Hansen, "Tense", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', 2nd ed., 2006〕〔Bernard Comrie, ''Aspect,'' 1976:6: "the semantic concept of time reference (absolute or relative), ... may be grammaticalised in a language, i.e. a language may have a grammatical category that expresses time reference, in which case we say that the language has tenses. Some languages lack tense, i.e. do not have grammatical time reference, though probably all languages can lexicalise time reference, i.e. have temporal adverbials that locate situations in time."〕 Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. Basic tenses found in many languages include the past, present and future. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and non-past, or future and non-future. There are also tenseless languages, like Chinese, which do not have tense at all. On the other hand, some languages make finer tense distinctions, such as remote vs. recent past, or near vs. remote future. Tenses generally express time relative to the moment of speaking. In some contexts, however, their meaning may be relativised to a point in the past or future which is established in the discourse (the moment being spoken about). This is called ''relative'' (as opposed to ''absolute'') tense. Some languages have different verb forms or constructions which manifest relative tense, such as pluperfect ("past-in-the-past") and "future-in-the-past". Expressions of tense are often closely connected with expressions of the category of aspect; sometimes what are traditionally called tenses (in languages such as Latin) may in modern analysis be regarded as combinations of tense with aspect. Verbs are also often conjugated for mood, and since in many cases the three categories are not manifested separately, some languages may be described in terms of a combined tense–aspect–mood (TAM) system. ==Etymology== The English noun ''tense'' comes from Old French ''tens'' "time" (spelled ''temps'' in modern French through deliberate archaisation), from Latin ラテン語:''tempus'' "time". It is not related to the adjective ''tense'', which comes from Latin ''tensus'', the perfect passive participle of ''tendere'' "stretch". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「grammatical tense」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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