The English noun tense comes from Old French tens "time" (spelled temps in modern French through deliberate archaization), from 展开

Not all languages have tense: tenseless languages include Chinese and Dyirbal. Some languages have all three basic tenses (the past 展开

In linguistics, a tenseless language is a language that does not have a grammatical category of tense. Tenseless languages can and do … 展开

• Sequence of tenses
• Spatial tense 展开

In modern linguistic theory, tense is understood as a category that expresses (grammaticalizes) time reference; namely one which, using grammatical means, places a state or action in … 展开

Morphology of tense
Tense is normally indicated by the use of a particular verb form – either an inflected form of the main verb, or a multi-word construction, … 展开

The study of modern languages has been greatly influenced by the grammar of the Classical languages, since early grammarians, often monks, had no other reference point to describe their language. Latin terminology is often used to describe modern languages, … 展开