Wie viele Tempora hat das Deutsche?

Resumé

This contribution deals with the question of how many tenses exist in the German language. Answers to this question range from a minimum of one up to no less than about thirteen, but the main problem is, what exactly has to be counted. One has to distinguish between tense forms and temporal functions, and standard German has about 6 forms and 6 functions. Almost every form expresses more than one function, so that about 12 pairs of form and function may be found. Such overlap is not necessary, because speakers can avoid using two forms for one function. However, since this situation is not excluded in principle, we have to accept a certain redundancy in the German tense system.