संस्कृते विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

Tense–aspect–mood (commonly abbreviated tam) or tense–modality–aspect (abbreviated as tma) is a group of grammatical categories that are important to understanding spoken or written content, and which are marked in different ways by different languages.

TAM covers the expression of three major components of words which lead to or assist in the correct understanding of the speaker’s meaning:

Tense— the position of the state or action in time, that is, whether it is in the past, present or future.
Aspect— the extension of the state or action in time, that is, whether it is unitary (perfective), continuous or repeated (imperfective).
Mood or Modality— the reality of the state or action, that is, whether it is actual (realis), a possibility or a necessity (irrealis).