The Semantic Potencial and Functional Characteristics of the Present Tense in Albanian Language

Abstract

In the Albanian language grammar as far as synthetic present tense is regarded, the verb (run - vrapoj), has been traditionally called as an undefined tense since it rarely defines a certain moment of the action. On the other hand the analytic form of present continues (po vrapoj - I am running), deals with a certain connection between the action and the moment of speech. The real difference between the undefined action and defined action has always been considered as the main characteristic of the contravention among analytics and synthetics forms of the Albanian language. Actually, the main reason that we use the present tense of the indicative form is to show the way an action is in total accordance with the action of speech. But linguistic facts prove that the action expressed by the present instant transcends the limits of discourse, while fragment of the situation that is in the scope of the speakers at the "moment of speech", as a rule, is part of a whole situation, where the beginning and the end of the action is not affected from it. However, the Albanian language deals with the present tense of verbs just like other forms of the verbs in an attempt to limit the connection between the action and the moment of speech. This happens even in other tenses which may be sort of the same but that stand in different semantic meanings. The scope of this paper is of indicative in Albanian language, the semantic potential and functional features of its synthetic and analytic forms and linguistic interpretation issues of semantic content of this tense. Among other forms of indicative, present tense of Albanian is characterized by large semantics due to the ability of its forms to express not only time relations with the moment of speech (proper temporal semantics), but also how verbal action develops or is distributed in time (aspectual semantics). Idea of time underlies both mentioned semantics, but they stand in different linguistic planes.