Nominal TAM is the indication of tense–aspect–mood by inflecting

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

 a noun, rather than a verb. In clausal nominal TAM, the noun indicates TAM information about the clause

Clause

In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...

.

Whether or not a particular language can best be understood as having clausal nominal TAM can be controversial, and there are various borderline cases. A language that can indicate tense by attaching a verbal clitic

Clitic

In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...

 to a noun (such as the -ll clitic in English) is not generally regarded as using nominal TAM.

Examples of clausal nominal TAM

Various languages have been shown to have clausal nominal TAM. In the Niger-Congo language Supyire, the form of the first person and second pronouns reflects whether the clause has declarative or non-declarative mood. In the /Gui language of Botswana, subject pronouns reflect the imperative or non-imperative mood of the clause (while the verb itself does not). In the Chamicuro language of Peru, the definite article accompanying the subject or object of a clause indicates either past or non-past tense. In the Pitta Pitta language of Australia, the mandatory case marking system differs depending on the tense of the clause. Other languages exhibiting clausal nominal TAM include Lardil (Australia), Gurnu (Australia), Yag Dii (Cameroon), Sahidic Coptic (Egypt), Gusiilay (Niger-Congo), Iai (Oceania), Tigak (Oceania), and Guaymi (Panama and Costa Rica).

Verbal clitics

Although verbal clitics such as -ll in English are attached to nouns and indicate TAM information, they are not really examples of nominal TAM because they are clitic

Clitic

In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...

s rather than inflection

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

s and therefore not part of the noun at all. This is easily seen in sentences where the clitic is attached to another part of speech, such as "The one you want'll be in the shed".

Another way to tell the difference is to consider the following hypothetical dialogue:

• "I thought you said that she read the book."
• "No, I said she will read the book." [as opposed to] "No, I said she'll read the book." [wrong in this context]

The speaker cannot emphasise the future time by placing voice stress on she'll, and so instead uses the expanded phrase she will. This is characteristic of clitics as opposed to inflections (i.e. clitics cannot be emphasised by placing voice stress on the word to which they are attached).

The significance of this can be seen by comparison with a second hypothetical dialogue, using the English negative suffix -n't (which is best understood as an inflection rather than a clitic):

• "I thought you said that it is a good book."
• "No, I said it is not a good book." [or] "No, I said it isn't a good book." [equally correct]

In this case the speaker could choose to say isn't rather than is not. Even though the stress then falls on the syllable IS, the meaning of the sentence is understood as emphasising the NOT. This indicates that isn't is one inflected word rather than a word with a clitic attached.