verb tense: property referring to the way the grammar marks (via affixes and/or suppletion) the time at which the action denoted by the verb took place. (http://www.isocat.org/datcat/DC-4964) Tense is a grammatical category, typically marked on the verb, that deictically refers to the time of the event or state denoted by the verb in relation to some other temporal reference point. (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsTense.htm 17.11.06)