The nonpast tense (also spelled non-past) (
abbreviated ) is a
grammatical tense
In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found ...
that distinguishes an action as taking place in times present or future. The nonpast tense contrasts with the
past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
, which distinguishes an action as taking place prior to the moment of utterance.
The nonpast tense is observed in many languages. Due to a lack of
future tense inflectional morphology on the verb stem, many languages that are popularly conceived as having a three-way tense distinction (between past,
present
The present is the period of time that is occurring now. The present is contrasted with the past, the period of time that has already occurred; and the future, the period of time that has yet to occur.
It is sometimes represented as a hyperplan ...
, and
future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ex ...
), can in fact be understood as having a two-way past-nonpast tense distinction. For example, in English, future sentences often take present tense verb morphology, and do not contain specialized future tense verb morphology. In contrast, past tense sentences require specialized past tense morphology. Compares for instance the sentence: ''I hope he
gets''
onpast''better tomorrow'' (in which the main verb ''gets'' is conjugated in the present tense, and the future is indicated lexically through the word ''tomorrow''), and the sentence ''I hope he
got''
ast''better yesterday'' (which requires the use of a specialized past tense form, ''got'', for the main verb; use of ''gets'' is ungrammatical).
References
Grammatical tenses
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