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Comment by sedatk | Hacker News Reader

Sure, I don't disagree that it has multi-dimensionality in terms of semantics. But, it signifies time. When you use "gossip tense" on a verb by itself, it always signifies that something happened in the past, there is no ambiguity about it. How is that this kind of unmistakable representation of time escapes from being a tense is a mystery to me. I'd love to be corrected if I'm missing anything.

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You're correct that it conveys some temporal information. You're incorrect that that makes it a tense. The imperative mood in English ("Go do this!") can be said to convey a future act. After all, you can't order someone to have done something in the past, or to be doing something right now. But that doesn't mean we refer to it as the "imperative tense".

If you look up the definition of grammatical mood on Wikipedia, along with tense and aspect, can you explain why you think this meets the definition of a tense and not a mood?

"Keep at it!", "Hold the line!" appear to be orders to be doing something right now.

They're orders to continue a present activity into the future.

Is the continuation not an activity in the present time, or that starts in the present time? Characterizing this as being in the futures seems to be an incorrect boundary case.

They're definitely orders about the future. "Keep at it" has the present as context, "hold the line" is a bit ambiguous, "don't let it happen again" has the past as context, but they're all talking about the future.

I didn't say it doesn't act as a mood. I'm saying that it acts as a tense, and therefore I can name it as such, as how grammar forefathers named "present perfect tense" in English despite all the objections from HN about "perfect" being an aspect. :)

It really depends on whether you take the term tense to refer to a semantic category or just a set of constructions (surface forms).

You can call anything whatever you want, that doesn't make it correct.

It coveys "the" temporal information in the sentence and it is always past. E.g. A children's story only contains this nothing else.

Imperative also conveys "the" temporal information in the clause and it is always past.

I said "the" because you said "it conveys 'some' temporal information".

"some" and "the" are not mutually exclusive. If I say there's some cake in the kitchen, that doesn't mean it's not the only cake in the kitchen.

Ok i see that you are being deliberately obtuse. Because by saying some, you meant time aspect was not primary. Which is wrong.

Anyway, I have put a bit more information about this tense up in the discussion.

> Because by saying some, you meant time aspect was not primary.

No I didn't and I was not being deliberately obtuse. That's not what "some" means here. Pretend I used no word instead of "some" — it would have had the same meaning. I get the impression from your grammar that you are not a native English speaker. That's fine, but then you may not have a complete grasp on something like this.

If you remove "some" and change it to mean that it is the "only" thing that conveys temporal information how does your initial argument hold? It is a tense, and all grammar books I have and see agrees that it is a tense. I am not a native speaker but I understand enough, but I get the impression that you are not a native Turkish speaker, That's fine, but then you may not have a complete grasp on something like this

> If you remove "some" and change it to mean that it is the "only" thing that conveys temporal information

That wouldn't be changing the meaning. I'm not continuing this conversation because 1) I don't want to argue about the subtleties of English grammar with someone who is not a native speaker, and 2) I don't want to argue about linguistics with someone who doesn't know linguistics (as proven by your pointing to "grammar books" for evidence that it's a tense).

(HN doesn't want me to continue with this nonsense deeper, so adding here). Just to note, it is not only grammar books, there are several papers about it as well, you could see it if you actually bothered understanding the nuances of it. So I am wondering are you an expert in linguistics and Turkic languages? Do you have a real source that supports your thesis? My guess is you are not, so indeed there is no need for further discussion.

"Don't do that" can refer to the past, though it's unnatural to use a past tense verb.

But it can be explicit in Dutch:

Reed dan ook niet zo hard.

(drove then also not so fast)

You are thinking in western grouping of tenses on a verb conjugation of a different language. It is not the mood that is not inferred here. It is the property of the verb. Verb itself can be used to communicate the same information with a single word "Gitmisim" just as valid ("I apparently went there"). So where is the tense of a single word if it does not have tense in it? How do turkish people communicate without a tense using a single word just with the mood?

I'm not entirely following your argument. If your point is that it's a "single word", that doesn't really matter. That's just because Turkish is a synthetic language (uses morphology to convey info instead of separate words). Latin is famously a synthetic language and it still has concepts of mood, tense, and aspect.

Frankly, you don't have to take my word for it. I suggest doing some research on how mood and tense work in linguistics. It's not clear to me that you understand what these terms actually mean. Maybe I'm wrong.

I think you are also giving yourself too much credit on the separability of tense and mood and if it does not fit into your mental model you are discarding all other options. You can do the same research yourself. Mood and tense are not always separable as you might think. Morphology is a red herring here. It clearly transmits the essential time information and also adds mood no-confirm structure on top. Hence if you don't consider that as a tense, then I have the same suspicion about your knowledge and obviously I might be also wrong.

I am not suggesting that you cannot convey both mood and tense information with the same pattern. I agree with that, and I already made that point in my English imperative example. I also agree that moods can restrict which tenses you can express, sometimes restricting it to only one possible tense (as with Turkish inferential).

The point I am making, is that by the definition of mood, "inferential" simply has to be a mood. The point of using it is to suggest a particular relationship with reality ("I didn't see this, but I heard it second-hand"). That's modality, i.e. mood. It also happens to restrict the temporality of the verb to the past.

> It clearly transmits the essential time information and also adds mood no-confirm structure on top.

What you seem to be referring to here is the actual vocal pattern that you attach to a verb root to signify gossip. Of course, word endings can convey both tense and mood, just as they can convey both gender and number. But they are still separate concepts.

The inferential mood (your "gossip tense") is more related to mood (signals a particular relationship to truth or reality) than tense (signifies a relationship to time).

Why isn't it the case with the use of the term "present perfect tense" in English then, despite "perfect" being an aspect, not even a tense? How is present perfect closer to a tense, but this one closer to a mood? What's the difference?

Well, "present perfect" would refer to a specific construction that has both tense (vs. past perfect) and aspect (vs. present continuous).

But as per my other comment, if you're just listing all the constructions an English word can take for your students to memorise, you can just call them all tenses and be done with it.

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