Tense, Aspect, Modality (Master S2 Class)

Basic information

Description

The course aims to provide an overview of the related notions of tense, aspect and modality, both at the theoretical level, by examining formalization proposals by various researchers (such as Z. Vendler, H. Reichenbach, C. Smith, B. Comrie, W. Klein…), and at the practical level, by examining how tense, aspect and modality are realized in several languages. The languages studied will include English, Mandarin Chinese and French, as they have different ways of realizing these concepts, both grammatically and lexically. At the end of the semester, an application of the relevant linguistic concepts and formalisms to the teaching of French as a foreign language will be discussed.

Prerequisites

The course relies on basic linguistic notions such as those acquired during the 1st semester of the Master’s programme. It is accessible to both French and English speakers. It is not necessary to know Mandarin Chinese.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this course, students should be able to:

  • Determine what belongs to tense, aspect and/or modality among the grammatical and lexical phenomena of French, English and Mandarin Chinese.
  • Extrapolate this knowledge to the analysis of other languages on which they are working.
  • Have reference material for making pedagogical choices in the teaching of these phenomena in a foreign language.