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English usage: a concept of time
Thread poster: engtense
engtense
engtense
English
TOPIC STARTER
Reply Nov 28, 2005

Angus Woo wrote:

The logic is very simple. If the conventional English grammars indeed have missed a concept of time, then you won't be able to use English to convey that concept. It supposes to be missing, right?

The fact that you are able to tell everyone in "English" that this concept is missing simply proves that it must not be missing.


Maybe you don't know many learners have found Present Perfect a nuisance. Because grammars have missed this concept of time, even deep learners have to admit they cannot explain the tense for this concept, namely Present Perfect. Please see:
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/2_7.htm
They have kindly admitted the failure, because they don't want some honest students and would-be teachers to lose their courage and get into depression. Unaware of the time concept, one will spend a long time learning the tense without getting anything about it. When I was young, I did, to tell the truth.

If we retrieve this concept of time, explanation can be as easy as this:
"To us, in a paragraph, the use of the three tenses can be as simple as this:
-- Simple Present indicates present time.
-- Simple Past indicates past time.
-- Present Perfect indicates the time between past and present.
What else is simpler than this?" Please see:
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/AtAGlance.htm


 
Jeff Allen
Jeff Allen  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:41
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
English "tense" is a combination of Tense/Mood/Aspect Dec 26, 2005

engtense wrote:
Maybe you don't know many learners have found Present Perfect a nuisance. Because grammars have missed this concept of time, even deep learners have to admit they cannot explain the tense for this concept, namely Present Perfect. Please see:
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/2_7.htm
They have kindly admitted so because they don't want some honest students and would-be teachers to lose their courage and get into depression. Unaware of the time concept, one will spend a long time learning the tense without getting anything about it.
If we retrieve this concept of time, explanation can be as easy as this:
"To us, in a paragraph, the use of the three tenses can be as simple as this:
-- Simple Present indicates present time.
-- Simple Past indicates past time.
-- Present Perfect indicates the time between past and present.
What else is simpler than this?"
Please see:
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/AtAGlance.htm


I've read through your thread postings and the main page of your website.

The first thing is to go back to the basics of linguistic theory as taught in Linguistics courses (not just in programs for Applied Linguistics or Teaching English as a Second language).

There are 3 different components to consider: Tense / Mood / Aspect
In linguistic theory, these are referred to as TMA markers for any language, and it is important to avoid mixing them up withing a single term called "tense".
(go to a search engine and look up: tma markers tense mood aspect)

1. Tense is the notion of Time: Past, Present, Future

2. Mood, in my opinion, is the component that is poorly (or never) taught to language teachers. Off the top of my head, I recall there being 5 types of mood : Infinitive Mood, Indicative Mood , Imperative Mood, Conditional Mood, Subjunctive Mood. These are transversal and often have different elements of the others two types of markers which combine with them. To contrast the moods:
- infinitive: "to be here on time is difficult"
- indicative: "I am here"
- imperative: "come here when I tell you to do so"
- conditional mood: "If I were here when it was necessary, I wouldn't have so many problems"
- subjunctive: "it is doubtful that I could be here on time" (note: English doesn't reflect the subjunctive mood as clearly as other languages where there is a special grammatical form which is uttered/written)

3. Aspect: continuous/non-continuous

When you combine these TMA markers, then you get what language teachers often simply refer to as "tense".

I'll use the example you mention in your previous post:

engtense wrote:
If we retrieve this concept of time, explanation can be as easy as this:
"To us, in a paragraph, the use of the three tenses can be as simple as this:
-- Simple Present indicates present time.
-- Simple Past indicates past time.
-- Present Perfect indicates the time between past and present.


Actually, your examples are showing the combination of the TMA markers.
* Simple Present "tense" in English is Indicative Mood with Present Tense and usually combines with continuous aspect (ex: I am eating) whereas the non-continuous aspect creates a habitual statement void of the time factor (I eat)
* Simple Past "tense' in English is also Indicative Mood but combined with Past Tense and non-continuous aspect to give "I ate" versus the Past Progressive which gives "I was eating".
* It is not that the Present Perfect indicates a time period "between" the past and present. The Present Perfect, and all of the other Perfect vs Progressive aspect cases are simply ways of showing the "relationship" between the past and the present (or between the past and the future, or the present and the future) by way of emphasizing the continuous or non-continuous part of the formula.

I take a few of your examples in this thread:

* Last Friday I bought a ball. I have painted it red.
* Last Friday I bought a ball. I painted it red.

It is not the present perfect that determines when the painting occured, not is it possible to know when it happened, without explicitely saying so. And it is usually not even important, unless the speaker chooses to make this information known. What the present perfect allows us to do is emphasize the relationship between the past action of buying the ball and the present state of it now with regard to its color. If "I painted it red" then that could be just that I was displeased with the color and just want to say that I changed the color. But if "I have painted it red", then I might go on to explain how and why I did that, because these reasons seem important to what I am saying.

* They have worked in that factory in the past. (a finished action)
* They have worked in that factory since 2000. (an unfinished action)

These examples are missing emphatic information which express the complementary information that comes across in verbal communication:

In the example "They have worked in that factory in the past", this seems more unnatural to me as a standalone sentence. In isolation, I would say "They worked in that factory in the past."

It is not the "completed action" that is important in your example, but rather that there might be emphasis on something else in that sentence which has relevance to something at present. This can been seen by placing emphasis on "have" or on "worked" or "that" in the following:

* Yes, they _have_ worked in that factory in the past (as a contradiction to a statement that they had not done so)

* Yes, they have _worked_ in that factory in the past. (this would be a way of distinuishing working versus maybe doing something else, like managing all of the employees)

* Yes, they have worked in _that_ factory in the past. (this would emphasize that they worked and more specifically in the given factory)

So the issue is not what the Present Perfect or the Present Progressive or the Past Perfect or any other such grammatical category expresses itself with regard to time in isolation in a written sentence, but rather how the sentence (or spoken utterance) is linked to the present or future time and the related sentences or utterances around it.

It is not that English grammar is missing anything, nor that language teachers are trying to hide anything from language students. English uses many of the same "forms" to express the different concepts mentioned above. Also, English often tends to conflate a combination of TMA markers into a single word, and since some of these words represent more than one combination, it is easy to confuse them.
What has happened in the past is that language teachers without a good foundation in linguistic theory have tried to explain tense simply in terms of Time, whereas that is just one of 3 different elements in the formula. The very possible reason for this is that there are probably not any decent books on this topic that are easy to understand. I am very thankful to my university professors of French linguistics who made us read French grammar books (eg, Grammaire française, by Jacqueline Ollivier) and who explained it well during the classes. I understood the concept of TMA before doing a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language in which I also took several advanced courses in linguistic theory.
For the many years that I taught English and French language in various contexts (children, university students, business language for executives and managers, etc), I used basic drawings on the board to explain these different concepts and never had any problem for the students (of different nationalities) to learn how to use the Present Perfect in an appropriate way.

Jeff
==========================
Jeff Allen
Advisor, LINGUIST List
Paris, France
http://jeffallen.chez.tiscali.fr/about-jeffallen.htm


[Edited at 2006-01-01 11:03]


 
engtense
engtense
English
TOPIC STARTER
Reply Dec 31, 2005

Jeff wrote:


My reply: It is very wise and safe for one to adopt heavy protection, using IF, COULD, MIGHT, to express his opinion. If I can prove it otherwise, he will remind us he just focuses on IF and MIGHT, and no one will take such suppositions seriously.

One must agree, however, that "I painted it red" could also be that I was pleased with the color. How possibly does one hate the color and paint it against his own will? Tense is used to express Time, rather
... See more
Jeff wrote:


My reply: It is very wise and safe for one to adopt heavy protection, using IF, COULD, MIGHT, to express his opinion. If I can prove it otherwise, he will remind us he just focuses on IF and MIGHT, and no one will take such suppositions seriously.

One must agree, however, that "I painted it red" could also be that I was pleased with the color. How possibly does one hate the color and paint it against his own will? Tense is used to express Time, rather than feeling such as displeasure. If one painted it yesterday, no matter he likes the color or not, he uses Simple Past. Fair enough?

On the other hand, one may say "I have painted it red" and end the dialogue. It is permissible. Every grammar book is explaining the tense on this basis. If, in using this tense, you have to, as you suggest, go on saying something, why then would you stop and make a wrong example of it? Why didn't you just give a wholesome example for Present Perfect at all?

--------------------------------


My reply: To tell the truth, my main point of my new approach (in my humble website) is preaching we shall not explain tense in a standalone sentence. Rather, we shall put tenses together for revealing the time relations. When and where will one say something "in isolation", a standalone sentence? I can't think of such situations. Even in dialogue, as you say a standalone sentence, it is in time relation to another statement from other speakers.

Time comes out by contrast. Without contrast, one cannot even explain what is Yesterday, because we always have a new Yesterday. We have another new Yesterday on next weekend, for example. If so, how can one prove Yesterday is a past? See "4.10 Is Yesterday a past time?":
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/4_10.htm
What I mean is, in isolation, one cannot even explain what is past or present.

Many foreign learners don't even know "in the past" is compatible with Present Perfect. In fact, however, the two elements are compatible. On one-sentence basis (one sentence and one tense), there is even less restriction for them to stay together, which is contradictory to your opinion. That is to say, in isolation, "They have worked in that factory in the past" is quite acceptable.

By the way, do you know why there is the BIG difference in the following pair of structures?
Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past. (= a finished action)
Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past few years. (an unfinished action)
Why do two similar structures mean so differently?

--------------------------------


My reply: Are we talking of the Tense, or the Sentence? When the Sentence expresses an imperative, please don't say it is because of the Tense.

Compare:
Ex1: "COME here when I tell you to do so"
Ex2: "GO AWAY when I tell you to do so"

If as you think the tense starts the imperative, why does the same tense (Simple Present) have two different meanings in Ex1 and Ex2? It is obvious, then, the sentence says the imperative. The tense has nothing to do with the imperative.

It is more than usual that, when one thinks he is explaining the tense, he is actually explaining the sentence. It is an old tradition for learners to confuse Sentence with Tense. See also:
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/2_2.htm
Collapse


 
Jeff Allen
Jeff Allen  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:41
Multiplelanguages
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Moods as they relate to Tense Jan 1, 2006

Jeff wrote:
- imperative: "come here when I tell you to do so"


engtense wrote:
My reply: Are we talking of the Tense, or the Sentence? When the Sentence expresses an imperative, please don't say it is because of the Tense.

I was referring to the grammatical concept of Mood. Just the sentence "(You) Come here" would suffice to show the notion of the Imperative.

There are 5 types of Mood (some languages show more depending how you categorize the elements of the different Moods) within which Time (tense) and Aspect can then be represented. It is the combination of these components which determines the context, not just Tense alone.

engtense wrote:
Compare:
Ex1: "COME here when I tell you to do so"
Ex2: "GO AWAY when I tell you to do so"

If as you think the tense starts the imperative, why does the same tense (Simple Present) have two different meanings in Ex1 and Ex2? It is obvious, then, the sentence says the imperative. The tense has nothing to do with the imperative.


I did not say that tense starts the imperative. I said that Imperative is a Mood just as much as the Indicative is a mood. All of your examples are ONLY in the Indicative mood (also referred to by some as the Declarative Mood). You do not provide examples of how Tense (Time) combines with the Imperative Mood, the Subjunctive Mood, the Conditional Mood, nor the Infinitive Mood. If you base your entire theory of Tense only on 1 (ie, the Indicative Mood) of 5 Moods, then I suggest you need to revisit the concept of Moods, and see how Tense works in conjunction with all of them.

A definition of this is provided at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood

I do not fully agree with the Wikipedia statement that the moods do not exist in English. They do exist, but rather the distinction between them has disappeared at the basic grammatical level, but can be found at other levels.

Examples of these Moods are found at that link and in good books on the topics of grammatical linguistic theory.

Jeff
==========================
Jeff Allen, PhD
Advisor, LINGUIST List
Paris, France
http://jeffallen.chez.tiscali.fr/about-jeffallen.htm


[Edited at 2006-02-25 14:42]


 
Jeff Allen
Jeff Allen  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:41
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
Tense is only a part of the communication of the message Jan 1, 2006

Jeff wrote:
IF "I painted it red" then that COULD be just that I was displeased with the color and just want to say that I changed the color. But IF "I have painted it red", then I MIGHT go on to explain how and why I did that, because these reasons seem important to what I am saying.


engtense wrote:
My reply: It is very wise and safe for one to adopt heavy protection, using IF, COULD, MIGHT, to express his opinion. If I can prove it otherwise, he will remind us he just focuses on IF and MIGHT, and no one will take such suppositions seriously.



Sorry, but language is not just a set of pure mathematical formulas which provide an end result based on a rule. There are many external, extralinguistic factors which "do" affect the choice and use of language in a conversation. IF I choose to use "if" and "might" and "could", it is because there are many external variables which enter and affect how I will express myself in a given sentence or utterance. And it is not possible to list all of the potential examples in a post.

engtense wrote:
One must agree, however, that "I painted it red" could also be that I was pleased with the color. How possibly does one hate the color and paint it against his own will?


Actually, this is very possible. Even in working environments today, employees are sometimes told to do things that they do not agree with, and even when they voice their opinion, they are still told to follow through with the order. I know many people who hate their jobs, but they continue to do them because they need to feed their families. What about hostages? And what about prisoners of war have been forced to do things against their own will? I hope that these references speak enough for themselves without having to go into details.

engtense wrote:
Tense is used to express Time, rather than feeling such as displeasure. If one painted it yesterday, no matter he likes the color or not, he uses Simple Past. Fair enough?


Actually, in order to express an action in the past, I can say any of the following:
I painted it
I have painted it
I did paint it

They all make the statement that the action was done. Choosing one example over another is a way of communicating something about "how it was done" or "why it was done" because language is used to communicate a message. The linguistic form that one chooses and uses reflects intent of the message, and the way of communicating as much as it does the basic facts of the transmitted message.

And then there are elements of emphasis that can be applied to any of those statements.
I _painted_ it
I painted _it_

I _have_ painted it
I have _painted_ it
I have painted _it_

I _did_ paint it
I did _paint_ it
I did paint _it_

These different emphatic elements provide some of the information which relates the action in its context.

engtense wrote:
On the other hand, one may say "I have painted it red" and end the dialogue. It is permissible. Every grammar book is explaining the tense on this basis. If, in using this tense, you have to, as you suggest, go on saying something, why then would you stop and make a wrong example of it? Why didn't you just give a wholesome example for Present Perfect at all?


I didn't say that you have to add something to express time, but just as other English native speakers have already stated in this thread, the use of additional words and expressions in English (especially adverbs) are one of the possible ways to set the context in a sentence/utterance.

As for examples, I was first setting out the framework of how language is organized at deep structure with regard to grammatical categories and functions, rather than just giving examples which sometimes only reveal the surface level realizations.

Jeff
==========================
Jeff Allen, PhD
Advisor, LINGUIST List
Paris, France
http://jeffallen.chez.tiscali.fr/about-jeffallen.htm



[Edited at 2006-02-25 14:44]


 
Jeff Allen
Jeff Allen  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:41
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
Tense and standalone example sentences Jan 1, 2006

Jeff wrote:
In the example "They have worked in that factory in the past", this seems more unnatural to me as a standalone sentence. In isolation, I would say "They worked in that factory in the past."


engtense wrote:
My reply: To tell the truth, my main point of my new approach (in my humble website) is preaching we shall not explain tense in a standalone sentence. Rather, we shall put tenses together for revealing the time relations. When and where will one say something "in isolation", a standalone sentence? I can't think of such situations. Even in dialogue, as you say a standalone sentence, it is in time relation to another statement from other speakers.


But in your examples, you give the impression that this sentence is the default sentence, and you provide no contextual information about what you were referring to. I can only reply to what is provided at face value, without knowing that you actually have specific contexts in mind with your examples.

engtense wrote:
Time comes out by contrast.


This is not a universal. There are many languages which have a default time, per the Tense/Mood/Aspect markers that are used. The absence of TMA markers is the present. The presence of TMA markers sets the time among other things. See the links I've already provided above on TMA for more details and examples. There is no need to repost here what can be found at other web sites that have been provided.

engtense wrote:
Without contrast, one cannot even explain what is Yesterday, because we always have a new Yesterday. We have another new Yesterday on next weekend, for example. If so, how can one prove Yesterday is a past? See "4.10 Is Yesterday a past time?":
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/4_10.htm


I read over your page on "Yesterday" and it honestly doesn't seem to matter to me. Yesterday is simply a delta of -1 with respect to the referential point in time, irrespective of whether it is in reference to today as time at present, or in the past, or in the future.

You say that people have debated this in forums and can't explain it. My questions are the following:
1. What forums?
2. Are they native speakers of English?
3. What is their background in studying language and teaching languages?

All of these questions are very pertinent because if you ask my sister with a Masters in Psychology, or my father with a degree in Biology, both native speakers of English, to explain the notion of time in English, they simply do not care. They never need to explain it to anyone, and they don't need to teach it to anyone either. They just use it. And if someone indicates that the statement doesn't make sense, they negotiate the misunderstanding and provide an utterance that makes more sense.

These types of discussions about Tense (Time) and Grammar only interest us "word-lovers" in the world who focus on "language" for studies, as a job or as a passion. The rest of the world doesn't really care about the details.

Yet what I have seen in the thread above, there are many different "word-lover" types of people on this site (natived English speakers and advanced English non-native speakers) who like language, and who like to know how it works. And they have been able to describe how it works in their postings in this thread. This doesn't seem to line up with your statements that people in other forums can't explain it.

engtense wrote:
Many foreign learners don't even know "in the past" is compatible with Present Perfect. In fact, however, the two elements are compatible.


Maybe your language learners, but not mine. I just explain that the so-called Present Perfect is a bridge between the present and the past. And obviously it is possible for "in the past" to be compatible with such a bridge.

engtense wrote:
By the way, do you know why there is the BIG difference in the following pair of structures?
Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past. (= a finished action)
Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past few years. (an unfinished action)
Why do two similar structures mean so differently?


On this set of examples, I have to state that you are incorrect.

Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past.
You say it is : = a finished action
This has a underlying semantic value of +past and -continuous. This means that the action took place in the past and was completed in the past.

Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past few years.
You say it is : an unfinished action

This has a underlying semantic value of (+past and +continuous) or ((+past and +continuous) AND (-past and -continuous).
This means that either it is a reference to a continuous action in the past or it is a reference to now and that the action has continued up to now and has finished.

So it is simply "ambiguous" as a standalone sentence. That is all I am saying.

Also, "in the past few years" doesn't sound very "native English" to me, at least not American English. It would be more natural to say "during the past few years" in that context. This is the notion set forth in grammatical analysis where any sentence can be +/- grammatical and +/- acceptable.

What do other native English speakers in this forum think about this?

As you only give sentences in isolation, it is hard to determine the acceptability of them with regard to what you are talking about. You seem to be trying to convey an underlying thesis in this thread, but do not state it explicitely and only use examples here and there without specifically stating what you are getting at. It is like a guessing game.

When I got to the end of your "Yesterday in the past" page on your web site, I think I finally figured it out. Your main thesis seem to be in simple terms: it is not possible to determine the underlying tense without having at least 2 full sentences/phrases which each both contain a full verb phrase (thus 2 full verb phrases are necessary).

It would be easier to follow your thoughts if you stated your thesis first and then provided examples to demonstrate it.

Jeff
==========================
Jeff Allen, PhD
Advisor, LINGUIST List
Paris, France
http://jeffallen.chez.tiscali.fr/about-jeffallen.htm


[Edited at 2006-02-25 15:14]


 
Jeff Allen
Jeff Allen  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:41
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
examples of grammatical versus acceptable Jan 2, 2006

engtense wrote:
Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past. (a finished action)
(...)
(b) Present Perfect action indicates a past action (a finished action):
Ex: I have lived in Japan.
(...)
(c) Present Perfect action indicates a present action (an unfinished action =a):
Ex: I have lived in Hong Kong since 2002/in the past three years.


Marina Meier wrote:
all these sentences are ungrammatical.


PCovs wrote:
Excuse me, but talking to a learner of the English language you cannot simply say that these sentences are 'ungrammatical' without explaining.

I suppose you are suggesting that the sentences are for some reason not grammatically correct? If this is the case, I think you should at least try to explain why.


This is where it is necessary to make a distinction between +/- grammatical and +/- acceptable, as I briefly mentioned in a post above. I recall that books written about theoretical syntax (eg, Transformational Syntax (1981) and Transformational Grammar (1988) by Andrew Radford, and those about Government and Binding Theory in the 1990s) use such a distinction to show when sentence can be grammatical yet be unacceptable. Also when a sentence can sound ungrammatical and yet be acceptable, as in "I don't eat nothing at lunch" because it is possibly ungrammatical for speakers of one area or group but not necessarily for speakers of another dialect, region, social class, or other group.

- Ungrammaticality is always shown by an asterisk symbol (*) which precedes the sentence

- Unacceptability, I believe, has been shown by different symbols. All of my syntax books are in boxes up in the attic, so I cannot check on that usage right now, but I recall possibly seeing it expressed by a question mark (?) which precedes the sentence


Now back to the examples by engtense that Marina said are ungrammatical:

Ex: I have lived in Japan.

To me, the sentence is + grammatical and +acceptable
(and it could be found in a context with emphasis where a person would say "I _have_ lived in Japan" as a way to negate a statement by someone else who says they have not lived there)

Ex: They have worked in that factory in the past.

To me, the sentence is + grammatical and +acceptable
(same as above, it could be found in a context with emphasis where a person would say "They _have_ worked in that factory in the past", although the emphatic part is not necessary)

Ex: I have lived in Hong Kong since 2002.

To me, this sentence is + grammatical and +acceptable

Ex: I have lived in Hong Kong in the past three years.

To me, this sentence is + grammatical and +acceptable
but this example deserves an explanation. It is possible to say:
"I have lived in Hong Kong in the past three years" if there was a "short" period of time in the past 3 years when I lived in HK, but it does not appear to be obvious to the person I am talking to.
Note: this type of usage of "in the past X months/years/period of time" is used in US tax forms where one is asked to prove if they have resided inside or outside of the country for any X period of time in the last Y period of time. "In" and "during" could be used interchangeably.

This underlying meaning is not to be confused with:
Ex: I have lived in Hong Kong during/for the past three years.

This means that I have resided in HK for a period of 3 years (approximately or exactly) up until now. It is ambiguous as a standalone sentence as to whether I am still living in HK or if I will no longer be living in HK starting tomorrow.

Jeff


 
engtense
engtense
English
TOPIC STARTER
The Introduction of The Past Family Jan 3, 2006

Jeff wrote:

 
engtense
engtense
English
TOPIC STARTER
The Introduction of The Past Family Jan 4, 2006

Some quotes in my previous post didn't show up. I now repost and, I hope, follow the code in this forum.

Jeff wrote:
Also, "in the past few years" doesn't sound very "native English" to me, at least not American English. It would be more natural to say "during the past few years" in that context. This is the notion set forth in grammatical analysis where any sentence can be +/- grammatical and +/- acceptable.


My reply:
On a searching engine I have just searched exact match for "in the past few years", and it happened there were 4,050,000 matches. Please try the following link:
http://www.google.com/search?q="in%20the%20past%20few%20years"

In contrast, your suggestion "during the past few years" has only 4110,000 matches. But I will not go so far as to say it is not natural English.

So, how can "in the past few years" be less native English than "during the past few years"? However, I am not surprised at all if any foreign learner embraces such opinion, if one may see the following explanation.

---------------------------------
The Introduction of The Past Family

What I call the Past Family is a group of past time adverbials that contain the telltale adjective 'past', fulfilling the role as PAST time expressions, such as in the past, in the past year, in the past two months, during the past three decades, over the past four weeks, within the past six years, for the past few centuries, etc. They are as past as you can define what is past. But to our surprise, these past time adverbials stay with Present Perfect:
Ex: Over the past two centuries, researchers have found bones and artifacts showing humans like us existed millions of years ago.
Ex: Stocks have fallen in the past few minutes.
Ex: Look at the crashes that he has had to deal within the past few years.
Ex: I've also suffered from insomnia off and on the past few nights.
Ex: This has been my favorite CD for the past few years.
== To add more surprise to us, because these examples violate the 'GOLDEN RULE' that Simple Past can, and Present Perfect cannot, stay with past time adverbials, grammar writers have to hide the Past Family away from the grammar books.....
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/2_4.htm

The way grammars treat the Past Family has made many victims of foreign learners, even deep learners. A couple years ago, I posted email to some universities to remind teachers to take notice of the phenomenon of these past time adverbials (like "in the past few years") that are avoided by grammar books. I was pleased that there were some famous learners visiting my temporary website and talked to me like this:
You have some very interesting questions here. I am cc-ing my response to my former student Dr. Isaiah Yoo, now teaching at MIT, who in fact wrote a dissertation on precisely this difficult problem. I hope he'll respond to you, since he knows much more about this issue than I do.

Good luck. English is certainly a difficult language!

Pamela Munro
Professor, Linguistics, UCLA


There were also some other readers who posted their position titles:
First, a little background on me: I was a teacher of ESL in the US and EFL in London for 12 years before I became a lexicographer. I then worked for Longman in the UK and Random House in the US, and am now an independent consultant, with clients including Heinle & Heinle and Collins.
-- Wendalyn Nichols


Our discussions are recorded in the following disused forum:
http://www.englishtense.com/xuight/index.htm

In many discussion forums, foreign learners who haven't taken notice of this group of time adverbials will regard "in the past few years" as not native English. Many of them did wonder whether such structure exists or not. However, no English native speaker whatsoever has suspected this structure at all, because the Past Family are frequently used, though grammars would not talk about them.
For example, see the following link to a discussion, in which the German moderator wrongly thought that, in my examples, "in the past three years" is not compatible with Present Perfect:
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/board/ftopic1481.html
Then an English native speaker soon posted to remind him: ".....most of your corrections are overzealous". But the German moderator didn't believe him.

In the following page, I have explained why conventional grammars have to hide away the Past Family and their process in explaining tense:
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/AtAGlance.htm

Simply put, their process is so weak that they have to hide evidence, so as to reinforce their suppositions. They hide not only the Past Family, but also many other examples too.

Grammars have first agreed that Tense is used to express Time. But they regard Simple Present as Timeless. Present Perfect is used when the Time is not important or mentioned. One may think Simple Past is used because he is displeased with the color of the ball. Also, because they cannot define what is Future Time, they conclude there is no future tense. As I have pointed out, grammars have totally failed to connect Tense to Time at all.

Good luck with your study.

-----------------------------------
After your few posts above and before I post my reply, you added one more message.

- Ungrammaticality is always shown by an asterisk symbol (*) which precedes the sentence


My reply:
I know this tradition. And this is why I was confused when you put many asterisks here and there:
Actually, your examples are showing the combination of the TMA markers.
* Simple Present "tense" in English is Indicative Mood with Present Tense and usually combines with continuous aspect (ex: I am eating) whereas the non-continuous aspect creates a habitual statement void of the time factor (I eat)
* Simple Past "tense' in English is also Indicative Mood but combined with Past Tense and non-continuous aspect to give "I ate" versus the Past Progressive which gives "I was eating".
* It is not that the Present Perfect indicates a time period "between" the past and present. The Present Perfect, and all of the other Perfect vs Progressive aspect cases are simply ways of showing the "relationship" between the past and the present (or between the past and the future, or the present and the future) by way of emphasizing the continuous or non-continuous part of the formula.

I take a few of your examples in this thread:

* Last Friday I bought a ball. I have painted it red.
* Last Friday I bought a ball. I painted it red.


To tell the truth, I was quite confused by the asterisks you have put on. I don't know exactly what do you want to indicate -- whether they are ungrammatical or important? Or what?

-------------------------------------
Most important, now you have added a new perspective to the example. You wrote:
Ex: I have lived in Hong Kong in the past three years.
To me, this sentence is + grammatical and +acceptable but this example deserves an explanation.


My reply:
I often search "English tense forum" and visit some of them. Therefore I know the German forum and our present forum here.

In many forums, before my posts, some foreign learners did at first think that "I have lived in Hong Kong in the past three years" is not 'native English', as you did in an earlier post here and the German moderator did in another forum. I have expected someone here will remind you very soon, as they did remind the German moderator. Now it is a good thing for you to admit the example is both grammatical and acceptable.

Decades ago, I wrote in letters to remind some universities that grammars have avoided to explain the Past Family (like "in the past few years"). It is not righteous to do so. There is no excuse to do so. In many discussion forums, I have asked or challenged readers whether they can produce any grammar book that has talked about the Past Family. They could produce none. Last year, in translating my Chinese version into English (see my humble website), I emailed and asked famous publication companies, again, to introduce any grammar book that has explained the Past Family. But there was still no such book. Therefore I have written the following in the cover back of my book:
This book is the first attempt to fathom the use of the Past Family, a widely used group of past time adverbials containing the adjective 'past' (not 'last'), such as in the past, in the past year, for the past two days, over the past three decades. They stay with the present perfect tense. But because grammars want to reinforce the 'golden rule' that the present perfect doesn't stay with past time adverbials, the Past Family have been deliberately 'forgotten' for many decades. Many learners don't even know this concealment. With the new approach, now we are setting them free. And their freedom will mean a lot to the explanation of English tense.


Please don't think the avoidance of the Past Family is misdemeanor. If grammars will, as they should, talk of "I have lived in Hong Kong in the past three years", the 'golden rule' that Present Perfect doesn't stay with past time adverbials will collapse. I don't know yet there is another rule formulated in the explanation in English tense, do you?

---------------------------
To me, this sentence is + grammatical and +acceptable
but this example deserves an explanation. It is possible to say:
"I have lived in Hong Kong in the past three years" if there was a "short" period of time in the past 3 years when I lived in HK, but it does not appear to be obvious to the person I am talking to.
Note: this type of usage of "in the past X months/years/period of time" is used in US tax forms where one is asked to prove if they have resided inside or outside of the country for any X period of time in the last Y period of time. "In" and "during" could be used interchangeably.


My reply:
You have done it again: you say the example "does not appear to be obvious", but you will not give a wholesome example.

I am very much perplexed by your reasoning. At first you have said it is not "native English.....at least not American English". Now you say it is both grammatical and acceptable, and is furthermore used in US tax forms.

In what way shall I discuss with such confusion?

1. If it is not "native English", how can it be grammatical and acceptable?

2. If it is not American English, how can it appear in US tax forms? Are you sure it will not be used in other US publications?

Now you may see how far grammars will hurt foreign learners, by avoiding to talk about the Past Family! It will be very difficult if you want to patch these two loopholes. It is much easier to admit that, after your earlier posts, you have a further fresh knowledge about the pattern "in the past xx years".


 
engtense
engtense
English
TOPIC STARTER
Reply Jan 5, 2006

Jeff wrote:
Actually, your examples are showing the combination of the TMA markers.
* Simple Present "tense" in English is Indicative Mood with Present Tense and usually combines with continuous aspect (ex: I am eating) whereas the non-continuous aspect creates a HABITUAL STATEMENT void of the time factor (I eat)


My reply: I assume that, though preceded by an asterisk, your statement here indicates a point that is important, rather than ungrammatical.

My humble opinion is, just because there is HABIT that we will repeat regularly, we have to use Time to specify a case of it, so every case can be specific. Therefore, yesterday's "I eat" will be not confused with today's "I eat", even their contents are the same. It follows that everything last year can also be separated from everything this year. Time makes the separation possible. Simple Present is thus used to link a HABIT to the present time we speak or write. Other tenses linked the HABIT to the other time.

Simply put, if we now discuss "I eat", then it is referring to the present discussion. So, how can we say it is "void of time factor"? It starts when you have posted it, and ends when we will finish the discussion.

1. If "I eat" is void of time factor, can you tell me the time of "I ate/have eaten"? You can't. If the past part of the habit "I ate/have eaten" is not HABITUAL STATEMENT, do we have a Habit at all? I don't think so. Therefore, "I ate/have eaten" are still habitual statements, and void of the time factor.
2. When in a writing whose time is clear, shall we cut out one sentence "I eat" and claim it is void of time? Is this fair? It simply hides away the time and claim there is no time factor. I don't think it is righteous to do so.

It is common sense that in newspaper, news has its timing -- the date it is published. Therefore the things said in newspapers are not "void of time factor". But because of such explanation as yours, grammars have to skip examples in newspapers:
Ex: The 30 new candidates COME from around the world, from Australia to Zagreb, Vietnam to Venice, and on the whole follow John Paul's conservative bent.
Ex: "As we CLEAR AWAY the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality," Bush said during a national prayer service with other political leaders.....
Ex: Three hospitals ACKNOWLEDGE putting discharged homeless patients into taxicabs and sending them to the downtown skid row area, the Los Angeles Times reported.
See more examples in "2.3 Highly selected examples":
http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/2_3.htm
== They are news I have collected in the past. Compared with today, they are in a wrong tense. But we have to explain them, rather than to ignore them. They each are correct Simple Present examples if compared with the day they were published.

However, grammars writers find it embarrassing to put these examples in their books, because, by the time the grammar is printed, these news examples are in wrong tenses. Therefore, they want to skip these news examples. Instead, they have collected examples of so-called Habitual Actions that can be safely put in Simple Present, AS LONG AS THE GRAMMAR BOOK EXISTS:
Ex: I eat.
Ex: Birds sing.
Ex: The earth revolves around the sun.
Ex: Babies cry a lot.
Ex: Wood floats in water.
Ex: I love you.
Ex: Tommy goes to school every day.
== Some of them are not really habitual actions, but who cares? No students will ask anyway. Is one's eating "I eat" really a habit? Of course not. Strictly, it is a necessity, rather than a habit. However, anything in Simple Present that comes to grammarians' eye is Habit. Their true criterion for Simple Present statements is, they are safe in using Simple Present, AS LONG AS THE GRAMMAR BOOK EXISTS. News examples are out of the question, and out of grammar books. Avoidance of examples is everywhere in the conventional way in explaining tense.

------------------------------
As for your Continuous Aspect (ex: I am eating) above, I discussed with many English native teachers and they had to admit finally that something in progression now can be said in Simple Past. That is to say, to their surprise, Simple Past can be used to say something in present progression. The wonders happened in several forums.

One of my recent discussion examples is this:
In Hong Kong, these days there are riots and protests against WTO. Korean farmer protesters and local policemen got hurt and a few was sent to hospital. The local news has engaged most of the time and obscured other news around the world. Only this morning was I aware the oil-fire in the UK is a big news. In the morning news, TV said the fire has not yet stopped and firemen are using chemical foam to fight with it. I rushed to my computer and clicked to news area. However, on the internet, why do they use Simple Past to report it, as follows?

Ex: "British Oil-Fire Cloud Spreads to France
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
Hemel Hempstead, England - Firefighters USED CHEMICAL FOAM to extinguish part of the inferno raging Monday after explosions at a fuel depot north of London, while a huge oily smoke cloud from THE BLAZE DRIFTED OVER northern France and HEADED toward Spain."

By the time I read this, I know the fire has not stopped and they ARE USING CHEMICAL FOAM, the smoke IS DRIFTING OVER to other countries, and IS HEADING to other countries. So, why does the reporter use Simple Past to describe something "in the action" RIGHT NOW? Are you pretty sure that it is not possible for us to use Simple Past to say something in progression now?

To tell the truth, it is possible. But people are seldom aware of it. The problem is, can you think of any explanation?

== I talked to readers in another forum.

Here is the situation: If one goes to yahoo and sees the news, they are mostly expressed in Simple Past. However, can the news updates cease everything simultaneously, by using Simple Past? Of course not. When the news is updated and published, something must be still going on. Therefore, it is very easy to prove writers use Simple Past to say something that is still going on.

A reporter will not wait for the end of the happening and then report. In the internet epoch, even a happening will last a couple of hours, reporters use Simple Past to describe the on-going process:
Iraqis Vote for 1st Full-Term Parliament
By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis voted in a historic parliamentary election Thursday, with strong turnout reported in Sunni Arab areas that had shunned balloting last January, bolstering U.S. hopes of calming the insurgency enough to begin withdrawing its troops.

Some preliminary returns were expected late Thursday, but final returns could take days, if not weeks.

I have to note that, by the time I posted this, the vote had just begun and was far from finishing. The news title is in Simple Present, though the contents are in Simple Past.

The final returns has not yet appeared, by the time the news publishes. However, the reporter, BASSEM MROUE this time, uses Simple Past "were expected", rather than Simple Present 'are expected'.

I ask the readers there, "Did you say we cannot use Simple Past to say the present progressive thing?"

I stress that I didn't say news writers will not use Simple Present at all. They do. But this is where news statements in Simple Past are puzzling. As they mostly use Simple Past to describe the news, why do they sometimes use Simple Present at all, as in the following quote?
"WTO Negotiators Reach List-Minute Deal
By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer
12 minutes ago

HONG KONG - Trade negotiators REACHED a breakthrough Sunday on a list-minute deal, likely averting a collapse in talks that could have seriously crippled the World Trade Organization's ability to promote global free trade.

The demonstrators CHANTED "Sink WTO" as trade ministers from around the globe wrapped up six days of negotiations at a World Trade Organization meeting. The protesters CLAIM that the WTO's attempts to open up markets benefit big companies and the rich at the expense of ordinary workers and the poor."


I explained, "As I live in Hong Kong, I know about the protest against WTO. I clearly know they farmers are still in the protests, and are chanting anti-WTO slogans now, but why does the reporter use Simple Past CHANTED? On the other hand, why does he use Simple Present CLAIM?"

This time, I was discussing with English native teachers in the forum hosted by BBC news. For a while, they even could not explain the tenses used in news updates on internet!! I was allowed to post the whole news in the forum, but my counterparts could only say, "By looking at the tense of the news, I don't know whether the oil-fire has stopped or not. It is ambiguous." I then asked them how to use tense so that it is not ambiguous. And the examples they had tried turned out no any better at all. Their examples were legitimate on one-sentence basis (one sentence and one tense), but were at a mess when being put together. As I pointed out, news is not written in THEIR way.

In forums, readers finally had to accept my explanation, which is based on the rules I have stated in my humbly published book.

What do I want to say here? First, I want to remind readers not to jump to the conclusion that we don't use Simple Past to say something in progress at the present. Most news writers do, and conventional grammars fail to explain the phenomenon. Secondly, as for the concept of Continuous Aspect, it disappears in a paragraph of sentences. (I held on Aspect Theory for a long time and had to drop it finally, as is mentioned in my book.) English users use tenses because of the whole paragraph, but the conventional approach explains tenses on the one-sentence basis. The two things just don't match.


 
Jeff Allen
Jeff Allen  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:41
Multiplelanguages
+ ...
I will reply to these rebuttal statements on tense Jan 12, 2006

I've been working recently on some urgent projects with imminent deadlines. My silence is not intentional. I'll reply to these last few messages once I find time.

Jeff
http://jeffallen.chez.tiscali.fr/jeffallen-selected-pubs.html

Note added 25 Feb: I've still not forgotten. Many other projects to finish that put money in the bank and food on
... See more
I've been working recently on some urgent projects with imminent deadlines. My silence is not intentional. I'll reply to these last few messages once I find time.

Jeff
http://jeffallen.chez.tiscali.fr/jeffallen-selected-pubs.html

Note added 25 Feb: I've still not forgotten. Many other projects to finish that put money in the bank and food on the table to attend to. But I will be back to reply to the statements above.

[Edited at 2006-02-25 14:37]
Collapse


 
Anton Shepel (X)
Anton Shepel (X)
Local time: 15:41
English
Discussion dead? Jan 17, 2007

Hi, Engtense!

Sorry for finding you here...

In forums, readers finally had to accept my explanation, which is based on the rules I have stated in my humbly published book.


Can you point a discussion wherein native speakers or just people with a deep knowledge of English agreed with your system?

Well, I tried to discuss it at Antimoon here and here, though without success. The latter discussion has grown enormously huge — 580 forum pages, but still hasn't progressed beyond senseless speculations.

Hemel Hempstead, England - Firefighters USED [1] CHEMICAL FOAM to extinguish part of the inferno raging Monday after explosions at a fuel depot north of London, while a huge oily smoke cloud from THE BLAZE DRIFTED [2.1] OVER northern France and HEADED [2.2] toward Spain.


My view on it. I can think of two explanations:

First. Everything is quite simple. The article was supposed to be read after the fire is extiguished. Though this is unlikely.

Second. Whether they are still fighting with fire or not, it's a fact that they applied chemical foam onto it. Maybe they'll appliy it once more. Therefore the Past Simple was used. Even if they were still attacking the fire with foam at the moment the news was being written, the past simple could be used as well. In this case it would mean that they _began_ to use chemical foam to... When they began using foam it became impossible to go back in time and make this statement false. Then follows a while-clause, which is also in the Past Simple because it expresses what was happening simultaneously with the action of the main clause. That's it.

So, what does your system state about this? Does it just say Past Simple can be used to express present actions without an explanation in which situations such use is possible and how to distinguish them from those in which it doesn't work?

In forums, readers finally had to accept my explanation, which is based on the rules I have stated in my humbly published book.


Ok. Can you give a link to one of the mentioned discussions (except for one at your own site)? I don't remember you being agreed with at Antimoon...

The demonstrators CHANTED [1] "Sink WTO" as trade ministers from around the globe wrapped up six days of negotiations at a World Trade Organization meeting. The protesters CLAIM [2] that the WTO's attempts to open up markets benefit big companies and the rich at the expense of ordinary workers and the poor.


[1] — note the structure is similar to that of the oil-fire example.

[2] - that's their current opinion. As long as the conflict is actual, this setnence will be actual too. But that's not the only reason for the Present Simple. This tense effectively emphasizes the event's actuality, irregardless of whether it is complete or on-going.

This book is the first attempt to fathom the use of the Past Family, a widely used group of past time adverbials containing the adjective 'past' (not 'last'), such as in the past, in the past year, for the past two days, over the past three decades. They stay with the present perfect tense. But because grammars want to reinforce the 'golden rule' that the present perfect doesn't stay with past time adverbials, the Past Family have been deliberately 'forgotten' for many decades. Many learners don't even know this concealment. With the new approach, now we are setting them free. And their freedom will mean a lot to the explanation of English tense.


Don't you think that "past" in this context is interchangeable with "last"?

As to the «golden rule», why should grammarians endevour hard toward "reonforcing" it? A very simple explanation of this "paradox" is the following.

"Yesterday", "in 1997" and such denote a time interval which is entirely in the past. That is, its starting and ending moments (an interval can be defined by its start and end, right?) are both located in the past.

Phrases like "in the past N years", "recenlty", "lately" and the like refer to a half-open time interval. Its left end (beginning) is in the past whereas the righ end thereof coincides with Now, the present moment, the constantly shifting border between the past and the furure.

Future is not known to us, wherefore we keep such intervals open (not ended, not closed) until comes a moment when the interval closes and we know for sure it won't open again (for we can't go back in time) and can be treated as closed without a risk to mistake.


 
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