The more developed a case system is, the less is its system of verbal tenses.
Standardized
IF there is a highly developed case system, THEN the system of verbal tenses will be less developed, and vice versa. or IF there are many cases, THEN there are few tense oppositions. IF there are few cases, THEN there are many tense oppositions.
For example, in Hungarian there are 21 cases but only one past tense (opposed to present and future tenses). Ancient Greek and Georgian have weakly developed case systems but many verb tenses (according to Serebrennikov 1974: 300).So, it seems that “few cases” for Serebrennikov can be rather a lot, i.e. some 8. Conceivably, then, it is only the really big case inventories, with lots of local cases, which are meant to correlate negatively with (not-so-exuberant) tense differentiation.
For example, in Hungarian there are 21 cases but only one past tense (opposed to present and future tenses). Ancient Greek and Georgian have weakly developed case systems but many verb tenses (according to Serebrennikov 1974: 300).So, it seems that “few cases” for Serebrennikov can be rather a lot, i.e. some 8. Conceivably, then, it is only the really big case inventories, with lots of local cases, which are meant to correlate negatively with (not-so-exuberant) tense differentiation.