Knowledge base · Part XIV — Tense, Aspect, Mood, and Modality · this topic as a network
109. Tenselessness and the Time-Reference System
How does a language without grammatical tense express temporal location?
The absence of a tense category
Does the language have a grammatical tense category marked on verbs?
Ainu lacks the grammatical category of tense, and past, present, and future tenses are not morphologically marked on the verb (Refsing 1986: 46, 191, Satō 2008: 365, 9, Nakagawa 2024: 124). The verbal system contains no affix marking tense, making no distinction comparable to present versus past in English (Shibatani 1990). In Southwestern Hokkaido Ainu, verbs possess no pure tense markers (Bugaeva 2012: 492–493, Bugaeva 2014). Because the language does not locate utterances on a linear time concept, forms like oman signify only the verbal concept in connection with person without inherently expressing past or present tense (Refsing 1986). Simple verb forms refer to events irrespective of their time in relation to the time of utterance (Shibatani 1990). Consequently, verbs such as apkas can be translated with either present or past tense meaning depending on the actual situation and context (Satō 2008: 18). Since verbs do not inflect for tense, whether a relative clause refers to present or future or past action is determined by context (Satō 2008: 169). In Hokkaido Ainu, marking past, present, and future is not obligatory, and tense often cannot be determined from the verb form alone (Satō 2008: 184). In Sakhalin Ainu, no form actively indicates tense, and the bare verb form can express that the action is certain, whether in the present or in the past (Murasaki 2025: 23). In that variety, the zero auxiliary verb φ expresses past tense or habitual action, signifying 'did, always does' (Murasaki 2025: 93).
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The tenselessness debate and the status of a
Is the language debated as having covert tense or being radically tenseless?
Kindaichi asserts that the Ainu language makes no temporal distinctions and expresses everything in the past tense (reported in Refsing 1986). By contrast, Chiri argues for Sakhalin Ainu that only non-stative verbs require translation as past tense when isolated in direct mood, whereas stative verbs should be translated as present progressive (reported in Refsing 1986). In the Saru and Chitose dialects of Southwestern Hokkaido, the auxiliary verbs a and aan basically express past tense in terms of tense (Yoshikawa 2022: 19.5).
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Temporal adverbs and discourse anchoring
How do temporal adverbs and discourse context anchor time reference?
In Ainu, temporal relations relative to the speech time can be indicated through time adverbs, expressions of volition or necessity for the future, sentence-final phrases for the present, and forms expressing completion for the past (Nakagawa 2024: 434). Points in time can be directly expressed using adverbs that indicate temporal relations, such as numan 'yesterday' or nisatta 'tomorrow' (Nakagawa 2024: 434). Without such adverbs as numan 'yesterday' or nisatta 'tomorrow', the same clause can be understood as either future or past depending on context (Nakagawa 2024: 435). In Southwestern Hokkaido Ainu, lexical expressions of temporal deixis such as tane and tan-ukuran do not undergo a deictic shift in semi-direct reported discourse (Bugaeva 2008). In the Shizunai dialect of Southwestern Hokkaido, the morpheme nisa is not found (Refsing 1986: 46). In Sakhalin Ainu, a bare verb can be used together with a past time adverb to state a fact that occurred in the past, and bare verbs can also express habitual actions (Murasaki 2025: 23). In Hokkaido Ainu, the adverb tane centers on 'right now' but encompasses a relatively wide span of 'now', including a little before and a little after the present (Satō 2008: 186). The Hokkaido adverb tap appears to be used only for immediate past events occurring a little before the present (Satō 2008: 186). It appears in the fixed expressions tap oro wano and tap oro wa un with the meaning 'after that', referring to a time after a reference point in the past (Satō 2008: 186). Furthermore, tap combines with other adverbs in forms such as tap tane, tap tanto, and tap núman to express meanings like 'just now', 'having just ... today', or 'just yesterday' (Satō 2008: 186). Among other Hokkaido temporal expressions, the adverb ésir means 'a little while ago' or 'just before' (Satō 2008: 186). The adverb teta means 'the other day' (Satō 2008: 186). The temporal noun and adverb teeta means 'long ago' or 'in the past' (Satō 2008: 186). In addition, the temporal adverb tanto means 'today' (Satō 2008: 187), núman means 'yesterday' (Satō 2008: 187), and nisatta means 'tomorrow' (Satō 2008: 187).
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Aspect and completion forms as temporal anchors
How do aspectual and evidential forms contribute to temporal interpretation?
The Ainu verb lexicon has no morphological distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects (Yoshikawa 2022: 19.2). To express that an event has already occurred before a certain reference point, auxiliaries such as a and nisa or auxiliary verb constructions such as wa isam and wa okere can be used (Nakagawa 2024: 436). The auxiliary nisa indicates that an event has already been realized, thereby indicating relative past when anchored to the speech time (Nakagawa 2024: 436). Forms such as a, nisa, and wa okere are fundamentally aspectual rather than temporal; they express past time only when used in clauses oriented to the present speech time, and in other contexts they do not necessarily refer to past events (Nakagawa 2024: 436).
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Prospective and future reference
How does the language express future reference without a future tense?
Future events that have not yet occurred can be expressed by auxiliary-like forms expressing volition or necessity, such as kusu ne or kus ne 'intend to', oasi 'will surely', etokus 'intend to / seem about to', and etokoyki 'be preparing to' (Nakagawa 2024: 435).
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