TAM Of If-conditionals In Marine Engineering English

This paper is a report of a computer-aided investigation into the Tense-Aspect-Modal system of the finite verb phrases in the if-conditionals in Marine Engineering English. With an overview of the literature, especially of the latest researches on the English verb system, a simple TAM framework is proposed in which the marked and unmarked TAM forms are incontrast. A systematic description of the gross frequencies and the distribution of the TAMforms is given after the encoded files are processed with computer programs.The features of MEE in contrast to the other five corpora in terms of TAM forms in the if-conditionals are obtained based on the results of Chi-square tests, and examples are cited from the running texts of MEE to interpret the semantics of the TAM forms. It is concluded that, though no restrictions exist in the use of TAM forms, the unmarked forms considerably prevails the marked forms in Tense and Aspect. Modals rarely occur in the if-clauses, but they are strikingly popular in their matrix clauses. The chi-square tests show that, of all the five other corpora, Nautical English is the most similar to and Maritime Treaty English is the most different from MEE in the choice of TAM forms in the if-conditionals.Therefore, it is proposed that different implications of the TAM forms be emphasized in teaching and testing and that priority be given to the simple but most frequently used forms.