Introduction

Summary

This introduces the reader, in brief and succinct terms, to the pillars of the edifice of thought that this book rests on. The general goal of this book-length discussion is to find a common umbrella term and notion for the four major verbal grammatical categories, aspect, tense, mood, and modality. The plan behind this set of four categories is to show that they are hierarchically interrelated, with modality forming the most complex bundle of features, and aspect the least complex, although still sharing with the rest the smallest subset of criterial features.