A good starting point is Laura Michaelis' chapter on “Time and Tense” in Bas Aarts and April McMahon, eds., The Handbook of English Linguistics, Oxford, 2006. The chapter is available online here.

It should be noted, however, that technical treatments of this sort are way beyond what any ‘Master’ of the language, in the sense described at your link, is likely to be aware of. Language is ‘mastered’ by a thorough grasp not of theoria but of praxis, and even the profound and fascinating insights into language and usage which contemporary linguistics offers are, from a practical standpoint, merely ‘maxims’, understood only by those who have already achieved mastery:

Maxims are rules, the correct application of which is part of the art which they govern. The true maxims of golfing or of poetry increase our insight into golfing or poetry and may even give valuable guidance to golfers and poets; but these maxims would instantly condemn themselves to absurdity if they tried to replace the golfer's skill or the poet’s art. Maxims cannot be understood, still less applied by anyone not already possessing a good practical knowledge of the art. They derive their interest from our appreciation of the art and cannot themselves either replace or establish that appreciation.
                                                  — Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge