Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Having no tense: as, a tenseless verb.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Lacking grammatical tense

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

tense +‎ -less

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Examples

  • I've modeled this system partly on what I know of the pecularities of the Mandarin verb which is also tenseless.

    New pdf on Indo-European verbs 2010

  • Adding to my previous explanation of a tenseless conjugation in Common Proto-Indo-European PIE, I notice that by comparing the sigmatic aorist marked in *-s- with the experiential marker guo in Mandarin, a tenseless language, we start to see how it's possible for a number of dialects that have all grammaticized tense can still all derive, strangely enough, from a completely tenseless language.

    Archive 2009-08-01 2009

  • The more I ponder on an underlying tenseless, two-dimensional system for PIE verbs, the more I see many advantages to it as well as some unexpected quirks.

    Archive 2009-09-01 2009

  • Notice that my theory suggests that Anatolian-Tocharian dialects were developing tense out of a tenseless system, making the former progressive marker *-i a present tense marker.

    Archive 2009-09-01 2009

  • An experiential form, parallel to Mandarin guo 过, can easily yield explicit past tense "sigmatic aorists" in Core IE dialects, while forming special 3ps sigmatic past forms for an originally tenseless hi-class as evidenced by Anatolian and Tocharian.

    Archive 2009-09-01 2009

  • Notice that my theory suggests that Anatolian-Tocharian dialects were developing tense out of a tenseless system, making the former progressive marker *-i a present tense marker.

    The PIE *to-participle in my subjective-objective model 2009

  • The more I ponder on an underlying tenseless, two-dimensional system for PIE verbs, the more I see many advantages to it as well as some unexpected quirks.

    More on a PIE subjective-objective model 2009

  • More on the fascinating subject of Chinese aspects can be read here if one wants to explore the implications of a tenseless language further.

    Archive 2009-08-01 2009

  • The so-called hic-et-nunc *-i is never used in the negative mood eg: *h₁ésti "It is."/*ne h₁ést "It's not" - the secondary endings were thus by current definition tenseless.

    The PIE *to-participle in my subjective-objective model 2009

  • Adding to my previous explanation of a tenseless conjugation in Common Proto-Indo-European PIE, I notice that by comparing the sigmatic aorist marked in *-s- with the experiential marker guo in Mandarin, a tenseless language, we start to see how it's possible for a number of dialects that have all grammaticized tense can still all derive, strangely enough, from a completely tenseless language.

    Looking for a simple origin to Hittite's hi-class preterite 2009

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