{"id":10,"date":"2007-12-27T19:59:19","date_gmt":"2007-12-28T03:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/?p=10"},"modified":"2012-11-09T11:28:47","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T19:28:47","slug":"tenseaspect-and-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Tense\/Aspect and Narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

The question about verb “tense” in narrative comes up again and again. I will write more about this in the future, but the following article proposes some very interesting tentative explanations:<\/p>\n

Hiroshi Nara, “Tense Alternation in Written Narrative Texts in Japanese<\/a>” (PDF)<\/p>\n

Here is my brief summary of his findings:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Sentences that orient readers or provide evaluations are non-past if within the “extended” present of narration, and past if not; non-past slows narrative and heightens focus on the scene.<\/li>\n
  2. Sentences that introduce complications or declare are non-past or past in the same cases as above; non-past used for habitual behavior and past for preparing for a narrative peak.<\/li>\n
  3. Sentences that provide abstracts or codas are non-past.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If that makes little sense, please take a look at Nara’s clear explanation. Also note that the precise functioning of tense\/aspect in Japanese-language narratives is still a matter of some debate.<\/p>\n

    Professor Nara recently published a related piece, “Aspect and Discourse in Tense-Switching<\/a>” (PDF).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The question about verb “tense” in narrative comes up again and again. I will write more about this in the future, but the following article proposes some very interesting tentative explanations: Hiroshi Nara, “Tense Alternation in Written Narrative Texts in Japanese” (PDF) Here is my brief summary of his findings: Sentences that orient readers or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-narrative","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/tmack\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}