A Comparative Study on the Kinds of Tenses in Books 4, 5 and 6 of Masnavi: A Corpus-computational Approach

In the present article, the frequency and percentage distribution of the kinds of tenses have been analyzed. The goal is to discover the narrative stylistics, some aspects of grammatical voices and the degree of distance from reality. The theoretical framework is based on systematic functional grammar and traditional grammar. Its corpus contains 15890 verbs, which have been selected by systematic sampling in which 16 tenses have been analyzed. The statistical findings show hat the present tense with 64% consists the most and the future tense with 3% is the least. The past tense includes 35% of the all. Aspect of the past tense is 4% and of the present is zero. Also the imperative and subjunctive is 18%. The high percentage of the present tense shows that Rumi enjoys a humanistic philosophy and he thinks of living here and now. He uses the past stories and events to explain the dispositions of the people, which results in dialogue and polyphony of the present and the past.