TOWARDS THE FORMAL DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOME TENSES IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH

Abstract

In this paper we compare the passé composé, the imperfect and the passé simple in french with their presumable equivalents in english: the Present Perfect, the Past Progressive and the Past simple tense. we show that the proper explanation of the similarities and differences in the us-age of these tenses has to be based on three parameters: aspectual in-struction of the tense, aspectual constraints it imposes on the ontological nature of the predicates it is combined with, and the relation between the reference point and event point.