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Anonymous Posted 9 years ago
Grammar

Markedness

1) I am visiting them now.
2) I am visiting them next week.

Can we say that some grammatical tenses may be unmarked or marked?

I wonder whether "am visiting" in its 'pure' present continuous form used in 1) could be name as "unmarked" whereas in 2) as "marked" (by losing its 'purity' with that notion of futurity).
  

Top answer

Anonymous Can we say that some grammatical tenses may be unmarked or marked? Yes. The meaning of 'marked' is 'having an inflection', 'having an inflectional ending'.

— CalifJim

  • Anonymous Can we say that some grammatical tenses may be unmarked or marked?
  • Yes.
  • The meaning of 'marked' is 'having an inflection', 'having an inflectional ending'.
  • visit - unmarked visited, visiting - marked house - unmarked houses - marked big - unmarked bigger, biggest - marked Anonymous I wonder whether "am visiting" in its 'pure' present continuous form used in 1) could be name as "unmarked" whereas in 2) as "marked" (by losing its 'purity' with that notion of futurity).
  • Not unless you establish a new way of using 'marked' and 'unmarked' that focuses on usage rather than on the physical forms of words.
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4 Answers
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AnonymousCan we say that some grammatical tenses may be unmarked or marked?
Yes. The meaning of 'marked' is 'having an inflection', 'having an inflectional ending'.

visit - unmarked
visited, visiting - marked

house - unmarked
houses - marked

big - unmarked
bigger, biggest - marked
AnonymousI wonde
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Thank you, CJ, for the reply.
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After a little more thought on this, I think that to avoid confusion with current terminology, you might talk about tense usage in terms of "central uses" of a tense, and "peripheral uses" of a tense (instead of "unmarked" and "marked"). Then you can say "I'm using my computer (at this very moment)" is a central use of the present continuous, and "I'm using my computer (tomorrow)" is a peripheral
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CalifJimMy question is whether anything can be gained through such a classification scheme. There are usually several peripheral uses of a tense, but there is always only one central use, and the learner will eventually have to learn them all anyway.
Thank you for your favourable comment on that. I see it from the position of an non-native who's been strugglin
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