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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (1 of 13), Read 610 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang Date:
Monday, December 28, 1998 06:57 PM
Subject: Tenses in a paragraph
(Note to new readers: this is repeated in Answer Page)
As has been suggested, tenses shall not be explained in isolated sentences.
Here we try to see the temporal relations between sentences within a paragraph, first in the Present background and then the Past background. It should be noted that some of the below have been mentioned repeatedly before.
It is always a difficulty for me to express myself in English. It is double trouble for me to explain tenses with tenses. For example while we ask in an objective way:
"When we say something which is finished yesterday, what tense shall we use?"
we don't even have the past tense around this 'yesterday'!! I find many grammars feel this embarrassment, and it is already taken for granted. So please pardon me if you find I do the same way as they do.To simplify the complication, we make use of some abbreviations:
'Frame' stands for a definite past time adjunct, the definition of which has been explained on 23Dec98 around here in details.
'Present' stands for the simple present tense.
'Perfect' stands for the present perfect tense.
'Past' stands for the simple past tense.
'Pluperfect' stands for the pluperfect tense, that is, the past perfect tense.
'{Frame + Past}' stands for a sentence in which we have a Frame and the simple past tense.
Also, in some places we try to put some verbs in the capital letters, calling for attention.The following Combinations are seen frequently in the Present background, as in newspaper, magazine, etc.
Combination 1: {Frame + Past} + Past
Imitation: Yesterday I bought a ball. I painted it red.
=== The painting action in Past, denotes that it happened at the same period of the previous Past -- yesterday. Frequently seen as this combination is, it is the only one in which the Frame may have an influence to the tense of other sentences. That is to say, the Frame affects ALL the actions hereafter happened at the same period of time, until the next Past Frame. In a paragraph when we see a Past, we have to trace back to its Frame, in order to decide the timing of the action.
Example: In 1958, the lower Thames was so heavily
polluted that it was usual to find no dissolved oxygen
whatever in water for several months of the year. The
river stank, and there were no fish.
=== It is natural for us to use Past all the way to tell things happened at the same period. It is a natural rule, but most importantly, we have to recognize it as a rule. This will help justify the validity of other combinations.
Combination 2: {Frame + Past} + Perfect
Imitation: Last Friday I bought a ball. I have painted it red.
=== Both of the actions here are now finished. HAVE PAINTED says the finish happened after last Friday, and before now. The painting was not done within the day of buying. This rule has been closely examined for a long time. It is not only practical, but also is the only logical way!
It should be noted that the action of printing does not connect to either last Friday or the present moment. If it connects to last Friday, we have to use 'printed' rather than 'have printed', as is implied in Combination 1. If it connects to the present moment, then we have to say the printing is a present action: using the Simple Present.
In short, using Perfect here, we may want to say something between a definite past time and the present moment. This is quite natural and necessary. This is the natural English we are writing. It is so natural that we don't even know it is a rule anymore.
Example: Their size was conceived in Napoleon's day;
but the motorcar has killed all that.
=== If we use KILLED instead of HAS KILLED here, there will be an anachronism. The design of these roads was for horses, not for motorcars. Examples such as this are very revealing to the use of Perfect. The Perfect here is necessary: The horse roads are ruined long after Napoleon's day, and long before today. What else tense shall we use?
Example: Soon after the 1961 artichoke war, Gourvennec
formed a SICA in north Finistere and has succeeded in
imposing minimum prices on local middlemen.
=== Here are two sentences connected with 'and'. As we see, the author is careful in choosing tenses. The Past Frame will not affect the action that is right outside of the timing -- even in a compound sentence or a complex sentence. Again, here we have to use HAS SUCCEEDED, rather than SUCCEEDED. To use Past is expressing too soon an accomplishment achieved as the same time soon after SICA was formed. This is the way we choose between Perfect and Past.
Comparing the Combinations 1 and 2 above, we see that the choice between Past and Perfect is now easy to understand, even for a young student who want to see the difference. I have seen examples from children, like this: "Yesterday we went to a toy store..... We have bought many toys....."; And the teacher could not or would not detect the error, because according to the current tense theory, "We have bought many toys" can be somehow interpreted as a result in "Now we have many of them at home". That is to say, "We have bought many toys" is a good sentence if taken isolatedly, but it may be a mistake to put it in a paragraph, without further consideration.
Combination 3: {Frame + Past} + Present
Imitation: Last Friday we bought a little dog. We call it Hero.
=== The Present sentence denotes that today we still call it Hero. Judging from the paragraph, it is far too early to say that in the Present sentence, we are talking permanence, general truth, or habitual action. The action, which is the content of the sentence, is simply unfinished at present. Actions as long as "The earth moves around the sun", or as short as "I now put the turkey into the oven" can be all expressed in Present, provided that they are not finished at the moment of speaking. The tinges of permanency or demonstration come from the sentences, rather than from the tense.Example: From 1955 to 1958, a Royal commission on
Common Land made a thorough review of commons and
their report is a fascinating document of considerable
social and historical interest.
=== Their report still IS now. The Past Frame can not affect the action outside of the span of the Frame.
Combination 4: {Frame + Perfect} + Perfect
Imitation: He has lived here since 1970. He has visited the Ocean Park twice.
=== This is an interesting combination. Here are two different kinds of Perfect in neighbor. The former is an unfinished action, starting from 1970. The latter is something he has done some time before. The interesting point is that, even if we maintain the second sentence may have the sense of 'since 1970', it doesn't matter. Even if we repeat the Frame, we still have the same tense: He has visited the Ocean Park twice since 1970. However, judging from all types of combinations, we prefer to say that a Perfect Frame has no influence to other sentences.
Example: The weather has been beautiful ever since
last Thursday; but, there has been a white frost every
morning.
=== The timing of 'ever since last Thursday' can be continuously uninterrupted, whereas 'every morning' cannot. 'Every morning' is an Indefinite Time Adjunct. Its meaning is subjected to the tense of the sentence: every morning of the past few days. Here we may assume the author wrote his diary at nights, not in the mornings.
Example: "I have heard from him regularly for the
past six months. I have often wished to tell you; but
I was afraid you might misunderstand me, and -- my
courage failed me."
=== See also 'often' here. HAVE OFTEN WISHED is a finished case now. Such adjuncts as often, always, never, constantly, etc., are also Indefinite Time Adjuncts. We do not use Perfect to describe something often, something always, etc. Rather, it is the other way around. The wishing has often been in the past.
If we say "Man has always been a fighter", we may very probably say, because of the Perfect, that it is not the case now. It is usually followed by a contrast with today's situation: it may be worse today, or it may be better. It is quite different to "Man is always a fighter", in which the fighting period is not over yet: today man still is.
Combination 5: {Frame + Perfect} + Present
Example: In just over a decade, 3000km of large
pipelines for oil have been laid in Europe and more
are under construction.
=== Though there are two actions and two kinds of tenses in this compound sentence, they are actually referring to the same thing which is not yet finished. Here it is clear that the Perfect Frame has no influence to the other sentence.
Example: Since the war the figure has risen from 3.4
to 13 per cent, and is now comparable with British,
German and American levels.
=================
Similar examples for these combinations can be amply found daily in newspaper and magazine. Essay with Present background is made up from these combinations at random. There is not much secret in them. When we have to explain tenses in paragraph, we eventually find these categories, in a natural way.
Now we may try to combine these five combinations into one paragraph:
Combination X: {Frame + Past} + Perfect + Past + Present
=== In this imitative paragraph, the Perfect "I have bought a hat" and the Past "I bought a hat" have exactly the same meaning, expressing finished action. (We know that the two buying examples are not likely put together in the same paragraph. This is solely for the sake of illustration.) But the Past has a structural meaning: it happened at the same period of the {Frame + Past}. Whereas, the Perfect denotes that a finish happens after the timing of the Frame. That is to say, if isolated, the Perfect equals to the Past in every possible meaning. Within a paragraph, however, the two tenses have a clear-cut difference.
The Present in this combination denotes something which is not yet finished now.
Below are a few examples for the combination X, in which we have Past, Perfect, and Present:
Example: They obtained legislation in 1966 and soon
afterwards set up the LVR Park Authority. It now owns
or occupies around 1040 ha of land and water and has
brought into use 160 ha of water.
=== Here SET UP has a Frame to refer to: soon after 1966. Again, if we use BROUGHT instead of HAS BROUGHT, it will be an action finished fast too soon after 1966. Since the reading here is published in 1977, we calculate that the Perfect action happened and finished after 1966 and before 1977.Example: "Abbot Daniel died so long as eight years
since, without sickness or any pain. I am not his
successor. I have only been abbot since last year. He
was succeeded by Peter Martin."
=== In the middle of an essay when you see a Past such as WAS SUCCEEDED here, you may trace back to its Frame.Example: "You have described that episode remarkably
well, splendidly. That is exactly how it was."
=== Without Frame, there is little restriction for the first Past appearing. See "A New Paragraph" (not in this page).Example: Perry and Horn were convicted of first-degree
murder. But family members have also sued Hit Man's
publisher, claiming the company is liable for the murders
because it provided the blue-print.
=== Without Frame, the first Past serves as a time reference, controlling and affecting the sentences which follow.Example: The Rothschild debate symbolized a dilemma
which has begun to face Britain, the United States, and
other advanced countries. In short, why do we support
science?Example: The creation of the World Wildlife Fund in 1961
-- a British initiative -- was an event of historical importance.
W.W.F. has become a crusade to protect, to preserve and
to cherish man's priceless wildlife heritage. It is a supreme
example of the right kind of international cooperation and
goodwill.Example: Between 1957 and 1971, 1500 cinemas closed,
and annual cinema attendances fell from 411 to 175 million.
They have since picked up slightly, and in 1975 audiences
were back at 181 million, but high inflation has bought new
problem, and the French industry is ill-suited to cope with
this kind of crisis.THE PAST-TENSE BACKGROUND
We take it for granted that we all have seen some stories (in English) before. A story is a Past background, in which we use mainly the past tense to state a sequence of happenings.
If we observe things from a paragraph, or from the whole article, we may easily see that Past background has a clear difference to the Present one, but the former may be sometimes embedded into the latter, and vice versa. For example we may in Present background relate a short case story; in Past background we may put in a dialogue.
In a story, all happenings are recognized as finished by now, so they are naturally described in Past throughout the book. In such a background, we use Past continuously to describe happenings in sequence or happenings at the same time. So we may see, there is a whole structural difference between two backgrounds, in relation to the past tense.The Pluperfect tense
Apart from Past, in story book there is now another frequently used tense: Pluperfect, which is used to state a retrospective comparison:
Example: The children went on to stage 3 in a hurry. At stage 2 they had lost nearly fifteen minutes.
In this example, Pluperfect is used to retrospect an action happened before its previous Past action. Here, HAD LOST happens and finishes before WENT. The duty of the Pluperfect is to carry out this kind of comparison. In every page of a story book we easily see the elements of this comparison.
THE RULES OF COMPARISON OF TENSE
Pluperfect is not some meanings from Past or Perfect projected into the past. Again, it is a structural factor in story book to help express the temporal relations between sentences. To explain the tense with a single sentence is inexcusable. I have studied this tense very intensively, and found out there are two major Rules.
RULE 1: To decide the use of tense, an action (that is, the content of a sentence) is compared with its precedent Past action.
Example: She grew tired and fell asleep.
=== FELL happened after, or at the same time of GREW.Example: The children went on to stage 3 in a hurry. At
stage 2 they had lost nearly fifteen minutes.
=== Here, HAD LOST happened and finished before WENT.Example: There he found a girl, who sat weeping. She
had had a quarrel with her boy, now he had run off and
left her.Goldmund sat beside her...
=== Sometimes we may have rather a long series of Pluperfects, each comparing with the same precedent Past.
RULE 2: If in the sentence there is an adverbial clause, it compares with the main clause, no matter it is in front of or behind the main clause. In this case, if the adverbial clause precedes the main clause, Rule 2 violates Rule 1. And that is the reason why there seems to be no rule at all. Some examples for Rules 2:
Example: Finally we came down to a very fine farm-house.
But before we got it, we overtook the owner of the farm.
=== GOT in the time clause is compared with the main action OVERTOOK, not with its precedent CAME. GOT happened later than OVERTOOK, so there is no retrospection here.
All kinds of subordinate clauses are complied to this rule:
Example: In the first night Dr McNab, who had not
slept at all, sat at a table by the window, writing in his
notebook the brief details of what had happened.
=== Two retrospection here. One comes between, and another next to the main clause. The Pluperfect actions in subordinate clauses finished before the 'main' action.Example: One of Kenneth's fellow pupils, who later
rose to the rank of First Archivist of the Glass Bead
Game, maintained that Kenneth on the whole had
been a merry boy.
=== ROSE happened 'later' than MAINTAINED. HAD BEEN is an action retrospective to MAINTAINED.Example: From one spot I saw this morning Hindhead,
Blackdown Hill, Donnington Hill, over which I went
to go on the South Downs.
Example: At last -- I had already given up hope -- he
broke through the magic wall.
Example: Dan stared across the table until I re-established
eye contact.
Tense in report speech
Now we may explain easily that in "John said that Mary had bought a new hat", in reported speech, we use the Pluperfect as showing a comparison of tenses. 'Had bought' throws a comparison with 'said', which is the action in the main clause.But in Present background, however, we may even keep Present, Perfect, and Past as they ought to be even within past-tensed reported formation:
Example: Catherine Bertini, the World Food Program's
executive director, pointed out that this emergency
does not present the same conditions of a long-term
involvement.
Example: When UNICEF announced last week that
a million Iraqi children have suffered from malnutrition
under seven years of the embargo, Saddam acted to
make their plight worse.
=== {Frame + Past} + {Frame + Perfect} + {Frame + Past}
Example: John told me that he saw Niagara Falls
yesterday.
This violation of 'Back-shift' is frequently seen in commentary, a Present background, where Rules of comparison are not obligatory.
Two exceptions
Two exceptions of the comparison of tense: In passive voiced or negative sentences, it is not easy to see exactly what the 'action' is, and we therefore have a hard time to see a comparison objectively. As a whole, nevertheless, the Rules can be applied to them accordingly by the author who knows the flow of the story.===================
Some examples for both Rule 1 and 2 at once:
Example: One morning, soon after daybreak, Goldmund
woke and lay awhile thinking. The images of a dream
surrounded him, but without any sequence or meaning
in them. He had dreamt of Narziss and of his mother,
and still saw their shapes clearly before him. When he
had shaken off these lingering figments he perceived
a strange new light in the room... He jumped out
of bed and ran to look out.
=== Here in fact only HAD DREAMT is a retrospective action.
Notice that the sequence of actions:
SAW =- HAD SHAKEN =- PERCEIVED
is originally in successive order. With HAD SHAKEN being put in adverbial clause, the action is then compared with its main clause, and becomes also a retrospection.
Example: At the upper Juba valley towns of Bardera
and Buaale, where the floods had begun to subside,
the U.N. last week managed to land some planeloads
of supplies at local airstrips, from which dinghies
with outboard motors established lifelines to nearby
villages.Example: Then there was the old man who came
round every few months playing a penny whistle and
begging. He was known as "One-eyed Peg-leg"
because he had lost an eye and part of a leg fighting
before Sebastopol...
Laura once heard old Peg-leg telling a neighbor
about the loss of his living member. After a hit
with a cannon-ball he had lain for twenty-four
hours unattended on the battlefield. Then a surgeon
had come and, without much ado, had sawn off the
shattered portion. "And didn't I just holler," he said....
BEFORE AND AFTER
There are two special kinds of adverbial clauses. Before-clause and after-clause, because of their obvious meanings, tell explicitly their time relations with the main clauses. The action in before-clause happens AFTER its main action (as in He read it before he sang); the one in after-clause finishes BEFORE the main action (as in He sang after he had read it). Therefore the tenses within these clauses are heavily restricted.
That is to say, in before-clause, we use only Past as in:
Example: Finally we came down to a very fine farm-house.
But before we got it, we overtook the owner of the farm.
In after-clause, we have Pluperfect only:
Example: "Fine words! Fine words!" said Uncle Tom after
he [the guest] had gone.
Example: But the little girl, after she had slept enough,
went on and on in the woods.
This is an important phenomenon of the Past background, but it is not told in most of the grammars.
But on the other hand, we shall not forget the rule in the Present background: time clauses (including after-clause and before-clause) can be taken as Frame, as in:
Example: "I thought of him very much after I went to bed."
The conclusion we get from this contrast is that in after-clause, we have either Pluperfect or Past, depending on Past background or Present background respectively. There is little room for confusion.Now we may help explain the saying of the following grammar:
"In some contexts the simple past and the past perfect are interchangeable,
e.g. I ate my lunch after my wife came/had come home from her shopping.
Here the conjunction 'after' is sufficient specification to indicate that the arrival from the shopping expedition had taken place before the eating, so that the extra time indication by means of the past perfect becomes redundant."
The quotation is selected from a notable grammar. Some other grammars have accepted this and repeated similar saying. Looking back to our conclusion, however, we insist that the Pluperfect is not redundant at all. From different tenses in after-clause we witness different backgrounds. Also, the Simple Past and the Past Perfect are nowhere interchangeable.
In before-clause, however, there should be no Pluperfect available, no matter the background.Shun Tang
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (2 of 13), Read 510 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang ([email protected]) Date:
Wednesday, January 13, 1999 07:55 AM Subject: Three kinds of time adjuncts
Time indicators can be sorted into three groups: (1)Indefinite time adjuncts, (2)Definite past time adjuncts, and (3)Indefinite past time adjuncts. We put them together here in a page for comparison.
(1)Indefinite Time Adjuncts are always, often, never, now, today, this morning, etc. They contain no sense of pastness, and can be combined with any tense: the Past, the Perfect, the Present, and the Future. Most important, their meanings are subjected to the tense and that is why we call them indefinite adjuncts. Please compare (a) and (b):
(a) "I saw him there yesterday."
=== We have to choose the tense to fit to the timing of YESTERDAY. It is because of YESTERDAY that we use the Simple Past tense.
(b) "I have always wanted to tell you the truth."
=== We may say this when the other side knew the truth from elsewhere. Now the wanting was in the past. We change the timing of ALWAYS, an indefinite time adjunct, to fit to the tense. It is not because of the timing of ALWAYS that we use the Present Perfect tense.
Note: In Past background, NOW is so affected that it simply is the pronoun of the previous past time: "In 1976 people started to annoy at this situation. .....Now they suggested something had to be done."
(2) Definite Past Time Adjuncts are those past time adjuncts in which there is a definite past date stated: year, month, week, day, hour, or minute. They are such as: in the past few/four/ten years, since 1960, in 1960, for the past few months, two weeks ago, during last few days, yesterday, etc. We have to choose tense to fit to the timing of these adjuncts. Their existence in the sentence controls the tense, like the example (a) above. Only can this kind of adjuncts give a time frame to the whole happening, or the whole paragraph. And because we have to refer to this group of adjuncts frequently, we may simply call them Frame, which term is originally adopted from Jespersen.
(3) Indefinite Past Time Adjuncts are those past time adjuncts without a definite past date stated. They are such as in the past, before, previously, recently, lately, until now, so far, yet, just, and already. They are not so many in number. They have a sense of pastness, so they are seldom put in a Simple Present or Future tensed sentence. Still, there are marginal cases such as: "We are already looking into the situation."
Obviously, Indefinite Past Time Adjuncts have a great difference with Definite Past Time Adjuncts (Frame). Please compare:
Ex: He has studied the subject in the past. (Perfect = Finished action)
Ex: He has studied the subject in the past ten years. (Frame + Perfect = Unfinished action)Since general grammars avoid collecting "in the past" also, we may put some more examples here for this adjunct:
Ex: In the past, university scientists have been responsible for drawing attention to the side-effects of drugs and pesticides.
Ex: As with Archimedes and his cry of "Eureka!", that is the way in which many major breakthroughs in physics have come in the past.
Ex: The French, who have never in the past been great savers, are at last taking private saving much more seriously.
Ex: In the past, fiscal policies have often been put into effect without sufficient account of their long-term impact on the environment.To me, the temporal difference between (c) and (d):
(c) He has studied the subject in the past.
(d) He studied the subject in the past.
is the same between "I have bought a hat" and "I bought a hat".Shun
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (3 of 13), Read 453 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang ([email protected]) Date:
Saturday, January 23, 1999 05:56 AM
Subject: The Present Progressive tense: A new aspect
I have fitted the three tenses -- Past, Perfect, Present -- into two timings: past and present. But I don't have a better idea for other tenses. Still, we are looking into the Present Progressive tense.
It seems that, in conversation, we use the Present Progressive tense just to add and tell the progressive aspect of an action. For example, compare the Present Simple and the Present Progressive in the following dialogue:
John said to his father: "Dad, I go to the library."
Father in the bathroom: "What?"
John repeated louder: "I am going to the library."
Father: "OK"
I think both tenses are quite acceptable, and John indeed repeated the same idea.
But if we collect numerous examples from various readings, we may find a lot of sentences have something interesting in common. When I collected data by paragraph, I noticed that around the Present Progressive tense, there was often the telltale word: new. In many cases, the two elements even stayed closely in one sentence. To highlight this phenomenon, I tried to collect the following examples from one single issue of TIME magazine (8Dec97):
Ex: More toys are coming. Thrustmaster will release a new steering wheel early next year... (p.4)
Ex: But techies are starting to accept that junk E-mail may be here to stay. The problem: new technology makes it impossible to distinguish between mail you want and spam you don't. (p.4)
Ex: The notion is resonating in art circles, which are still trying to understand the impact of so much new technology. (p.8)
Ex: A new version of Windows CE is coming on stream, one that improves multitasking... (p.14)
Ex: Whatever the reasons, new buyers are getting great deals. (p.15)
Ex: Still, the arts are flourishing, cultural exports are an international hit, and people are exploring new horizons of the world. (p.30)
Ex: One important new area to watch, however, will be Alwaleed's political ambitions. Saudi Arabia is not a happy country. It is experiencing increasing economic and political strains because of stagnation caused in part by an elderly and autocratic leadership. (p.37)
Ex: He chairs a new board committee that is reviewing the company's approach to such vital matters as fuel economy and greenhouse gases. (p.40)
Ex: A year older and still bemused by his good fortune, Ambrose is following up his 1996 breakthrough with three volumes, two new and one newish. (p.52)
Ex: Professional journals have been lavish in their praise of the new format and industry analysts are predicting explosive growth. (p.56)
Could it be coincidental? I predict you will soon notice this phenomenon if you want to. I therefore assume that the Present Progressive tense is used to describe the new aspect of a reported situation.In these examples, since the factor is an adjective, rather than an time adjunct, and that sometimes the adjective is not in the same progressive-tensed sentence, the possibility that we may confuse tense with sentence is ruled out. Furthermore, many other examples without the adjective can easily be recognized also as new trend at the time the magazine was published:
Ex: In many Third World countries, population is still growing at a rapid rate under conditions of abject poverty. (p.1)
Ex: The U.S. is continuing to build up its forces, mainly air power, in the gulf region but shows no eagerness to use them. (p.26)
Ex: Because by helping a country's work force, we're also developing an industry's next generation of leaders. (p.41)
Ex: But now the same micronutrients are being taken in megadoses -- in effect, as drugs -- to prevent or treat a broad range of illnesses, including ... (p.45)
Likewise, we know that some countries practice democracy, but I may say that, at best, Hong Kong is just practicing it. Upstairs, I would say "we are looking into the Present Progressive tense." But if we look more closely into the Present Simple tense, I would not use the progressive.
On 19Jan99, a reader asked: What is the difference between (1) and (2)?
(1) He eats porridge for breakfast every day.
(2) He is eating porridge for breakfast every day (now).
Duncan said that (2) is wrong, since "habitual action takes the present simple". But I think this explanation doesn't hold water anymore. "Every day" as an Indefinite Time Adjunct [see above] can be combined with any tense, including the Present Progressive. The sentence is quite normal. Whether an action is habitual or not, has nothing to do with merely the Present Simple tense.
In (1), the habit (which is worked out by "every day" of the sentence) is not finished. The present tense denotes a present action. Sound weird?
In (2) we may, for example, report the situation of a person who has undergone an operation, and now he is improving very slowly.In Past background, however, the Past Progressive tense still comes from Tense Comparison.
Ex: John entered the room. Mary was reading a book.
=== The action of reading happens before the entering, but is not finished.
Shun Tang
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (4 of 13), Read 436 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Jack Wilkerson Date:
Sunday, January 24, 1999 03:02 AM No. 1 "He eats porridge for breakfast."
No. 2. "He is eating porridge for breakfast everyday."
Please be assured, No. 1 describes an habitual action. No. 2 is NOT English.
Jack
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (5 of 13), Read 442 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang Date:
Sunday, January 24, 1999 05:19 AM On 1/24/99 3:02:44 AM, Jack Wilkerson wrote:
>No. 1 "He eats porridge for
>breakfast."
>No. 2. "He is eating porridge
>for breakfast everyday."
>
>Please be assured, No. 1
>describes an habitual action.
>No. 2 is NOT English.
>
>Jack
>
Dear Jack,
Before we discuss further about two tenses, I want to make sure that in (1), did you forget to type up something?
Also, I want some other native English speakers to help: Can we say "He is eating porridge for breakfast every day."? I mean, we are not asking whether it is often or infrequent. Is it right or wrong?
For example, Alan has said:
======================
What about, e.g.,
He'S always GETTING angry.
Present progressive denoting
habitual action, no?
======================
Shun
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (6 of 13), Read 442 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Steve Campsall Date:
Sunday, January 24, 1999 08:40 AM "He is eating porridge for breakfast everyday."
This - be assured (!) - is surely fine English. It is simply a statement of a continuing fact.
"Yes, doctor, as you advised, I make sure that young Alec is eating porridge for breakfast every day."
Steve
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (7 of 13), Read 431 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang Date:
Monday, January 25, 1999 02:53 AM Habitual action again?
If the Simple Present tense expresses habitual action, what tense do we use to show non-habitual action? The answer is, also the Present Simple tense.
If the Present Simple tense expresses permanency, what tense do we use to describe non-permanency? The answer is, again, the Present Simple tense.
Do we use the Present Simple around here? Are all of them permanency? How can we have so many permanency emerging in every few seconds we speak or write?
What is the point we insist that the Present Simple tense express habitual action? So that other tenses cannot express habitual actions? So that we don't need the use of sentence?
We cannot answer any of these avoidance questions, but we like to repeat our habitual saying: "The Present Simple tense expresses habitual action".If we still insist to connect the Present Simple with habitual action, we have to say clearly that the present-tensed sentence expresses a present habit. This is the minimum requirement. (See A question about tenses (12): Sentence vs tense)
For obvious reasons which I have explained before, "in the past four/ten/few years" is not reported in grammars books (in relation of tense), but can we say this adjunct is NOT English?
The same thing happens here. Since grammars wrongly conclude that the Present Simple tense is used for habitual action as in (1), we shall not be surprised if we seldom see examples of (2) in grammar books:
(1) He eats porridge for breakfast every day.
(2) He is eating porridge for breakfast every day.
Nevertheless, Otto Jespersen did not avoid the explanation for the sentence (2):
"The expanded tenses [the progressive tenses] may be used in
speaking of habitual occurrences, if the 'framing' is repeated
each time: "I am (was) writing every morning at the time
when he usually comes (came)."
--- A MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR on Historical Principles,
third volume, p.182.
No matter his explanation, the example sentence here can not be taken as wrong, correct? Jesperen's condition "if the 'framing' is repeated each time" only endorses my theory that we shall explain tense by paragraph (more than one sentence).
My concept is well explained above: we use the Present Progressive to talk about some new trend nowadays. In Hong Kong, we are talking how bad the economic condition is every day. It's true. What's wrong with the tense? If the condition is deteriorating, I am also eating porridge for breakfast every day!! New trend, new habit, but no mistake.Lastly, without 'every day', merely "He eats porridge for breakfast" may not express habit at all. Please see Combination 3 above.
Shun
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (8 of 13), Read 424 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Bertha Wise Date:
Monday, January 25, 1999 03:18 AM Shun,
If you go to the former site, your messages are still there in the Academic Discussion. You could cut and paste from there to here if need be.
Bertha
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (9 of 13), Read 420 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang ([email protected]) Date:
Monday, January 25, 1999 10:31 AM On 1/25/99 3:18:23 AM, Bertha Wise wrote:
>Shun,
>
>If you go to the former site,
>your messages are still there
>in the Academic Discussion.
>You could cut and paste from
>there to here if need be.
>
>Bertha
>
Dear Bertha,
When I click the bookmark of the old website (http://www.go-ed.com:8080/~3/), it comes to here automatically.
What shall I do?
Shun
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (10 of 13), Read 421 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Bertha Wise Date:
Monday, January 25, 1999 11:37 AM Instead of clicking the bookmark, type in the address or use the one that is in your location (Netscape) or address (Internet Explorer) drop down menu. Do that after you have already logged into this new location. It should take you to the welcome page, where you will find the Conferences column on the left. It works for me. Hope it works for you.
Bertha
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (11 of 13), Read 429 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang Date:
Monday, January 25, 1999 03:27 PM Dear Bertha,
I will try later on.
Thank you very much.
Shun
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (12 of 13), Read 412 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Jack Wilkerson Date:
Tuesday, January 26, 1999 01:56 AM Shun
Your continuing posts regarding tenses are most interesting. I hope I have grasped your central point: that at least some English tense forms require adjuncts to express shades of meaning, often shades of meaning that have been heretofore mistakenly ascribed to the forms themselves.
Your conclusion is related to why I rephrased your example of some posts back: "He eats porridge for breakfast [every day]." My point was that the simple present tense here expresses habitual action by itself without an adjunct [I believe you call them "frames" after Jesperson.] On the other hand, the present progressive does not by itself express habitual action.
The examples that you and Steve cite give me pause. When I study them, I get the same feeling as I do when I gaze at optical illusions: at one moment they look acceptable; at the next they seem to have a foreign flavor. Certainly, an elision such as"He's" makes them more acceptable to my ear. However, elisions don't change grammar.
In any case, I don't know that discussion of grammar has much bearing on whether the progressive form used in this way is idiomatic English. I have wondered if the words "is eating" (reporting a present action) are not at war with the words "every day" (which extend the report to the past and perhaps the future. At any rate, the sentence caught Duncan's attention( BrE) and mine( AmE). I presented the two sentences to my wife (BrE) with no prejudicial explanation, and she immediately declared the "is eating" version unacceptable. I hope we have further commentary.
I apologize, Shun, for my dogmatism in my first post (the "be assured " remark). I should know by now what a careful scholar you are and that you would not use a model sentence without ample citations in your possession..
Jack
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About tense: Tenses in a paragraph (13 of 13), Read 421 times Conf:
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION From:
Shun Tang Date:
Tuesday, January 26, 1999 09:42 AM Dear Jack,
I did apologize for my unwanted manners, but I don't think you should for any discussion. I also want to have further commentary. I learn English from discussing with people. I truly thank you for talking to me.
You are right. I do call Frame kind of after Jesperson. Or simply, a time Frame for us to choose the tense.
As I said, the group of Indefinite Time Adjuncts are very interesting. I notice that they can stay with any tense. Very recently I put the following comparison also to the Website related to Hong Kong University:
==========================
It should be noted that not all time adjuncts affect the tense in the sentence.
For example, please compare:
(1) I told him YESTERDAY.
=== The tense changes to fit the meaning of the time adjunct.
(2) I have ALWAYS wanted to tell you, but she would not let me.
=== The meaning of the time adjunct changes to fit the tense.
We cannot say that because ALWAYS (Indefinite Time Adjunct) indicates permanency, so we cannot use the present perfect tense.
==========================
In the same grammar book of Jespersen's above, I have spotted another example (at p.193):
(Goldsm 657) what sort of things are you saying to your cousin
Constance this evening? -- I have been saying no soft things.
=== Jespersen didn't explain the time adjunct. Again, 'this evening' is an indefinite time adjunct, which can be combined with the Present Progressive.
Please visualize this presumed situation: Wife cooking in the kitchen came into the dinning room, and just heard something strange between her husband and his cousin. She might ask, "What sort of things are you saying to your cousin Constance this evening?"
"I have been saying no soft things" may be the answer from the husband.
But I am not sure if I am right or not.
Regards,
Shun