On the effects of over-simplified rules

[Andrew Patterson]

Happy New Year!

[Andrew Patterson]

I said before that the reported speach example COULD be interpreted from a temporal point of view, or from a more general remoteness interpretation. I still stand by that. We can either report the actual words or acknowlege that those words happened before the time of reporting. On reflection, however, there are times when backshift cannot be interpreted on a purely temporal basis, and that is where there is no change of time, but there is a change of remoteness.

The present tense is not in fact the most proximal tense: that distinction goes to the imperative. It is as if the imperative is more immediate than now. It is not of course physically possible to have sth more temporally immediate than now, but from a psychological point of view, we can increase the level of urgency.

By backshifting with reported speach, I have determined that there are 11 levels of remoteness:

1. The imperative - this backshifts to "to+infinitive."
2. The Present subjunctive - This has the form of the imperative but doesn't backshift. Normally that fact would put it more immediate than the form above it, but it always occurs with another tense and idea and I just feel that it is less urgent.
3. To+infinitive - As an infinitive it is more immediate than the present simple/continuous, it is strongly purposeful and doesn't backshift.
4. Present simple/continuous, proximal modals - backshifts to past tense.
5. Remote modals used in the present tense - clearly refer to the present tense only, but certainly more remote than proximal modals - don't backshift.
6. Past subjunctive - uses the form of the past tense, but clearly refers to the present - doesn't backshift.
7. Present perfect. Already has some connection to the past, and backshifts to past perfect ie backshifts further than the present simple or continuous.
8. Remote modals used in the past sense. - don't backshift, the fact that they can be used in the present makes them more proximal than the past simple.
9. Past simple/continuous - already in the past - backshifts to past perfect.
10. Past perfect - used to talk about things that happen before other things that happen in the past. Doesn't backshift because it is as grammatically remote as you can get. There's nowhere to backshift to.
11. New paragraph, chapter, etc. Completely changes the topic. Can be used as a device to talk about what happened before the past perfect.

[LarryLatham]

Andy, you clearly are a logical thinker, and sometimes I marvel at the detail with which you approach your subject. In this case, perhaps though, you have gone too far. What you propose, an eleven-level description of remoteness, looks to me like a daunting kind of analysis for most teachers, let alone struggling students. And I'm afraid I'd have to question the accuracy of your proposals, as well.

Let's take your ideas about imperative forms, for instance. You have stated that they imply a heightened urgency, and indeed, you are not alone there, as many people, including teachers, would concur. But while I can agree that certain imperative expressions do most certainly convey a sense of urgency ("Run! Fire!"), I believe that is due to the urgency of the topic or the context rather than of the verb form. Where is the urgency, for example, in the following imperative forms:

Break two eggs and beat vigorously with a fork...

Eat while it's hot. Don't wait for me.

Press button to start.

Push to open.

The main characteristic of imperative forms is not urgency, or "more immediacy than now". I believe you've fallen into the trap, as have so very many, of seeing verb form choice as exclusively a matter of perceived timing of events under discussion. Imperative verb forms don't have any intrinsic timing built in to them. Any "urgency" or any other sense of timing comes from the context in which an utterance is made. "Push to open" can be paraphrased as, "At any time when it is desired to open this door, please push on it."

Larry Latham

[Stephen Jones]

Only one of your sentences above could be construed by the speaker as a remote fact, and that one contains the past simple tense verb. The other sentence, though "remote" in the sense of far away, could not be interpreted as a fact, as it hasn't happened.

Which can be said much more simply as "we use the Past Simple because it's in the past".

you might read that copy of The English Verb reposing in your staff room once again. Lewis explains it in a way that is crystal clear to me, and should be to anyone else who pauses just a moment to reflect.

I have actually just finished it for the first time. I had ordered it for the library on your recommendation and until then refrained from commenting too much on Lewis's theories since I didn't know how much I was hearing was Lewis's own theory and how much yours or other's interpretation.

I am afraid to say Larry, that when Lewis goes on to talk about simple fact, and the core meaning of all modals, and even such Pattersonisms as the "factual future" I don't find him crystal clear at all; in fact I find what he writes to be almost total gobbledygook.

To be frank, I think his excessive reductionism is the reason so many reject most of the excellent explanations he gives.

To go back to the particular example. The reason we use the past simple in the sentence
The tidal wave swept my copy of "The English Verb" away only a second ago.
is because of the time frame.

Now what we must remember, as Lewis, Gabrielatos and Metal 56 all say, is that the choice of tense in English is not based on the objective time scheme but the subjective one of the speaker. That is to say the point of time from which we look back or forward is that in the subjective judgement of the speaker. If the speaker uses the phrase "a second ago" he is clearly placing the action in a time frame that has already concluded, and thus the past simple becomes mandatory. An waffling about plain facts is just window-dressing.

Incidentally, I don't understand what on earth Andrew is on about with his eleven levels of remoteness either.

[fluffyhamster]

I must say, Dr Jones, that I am a little disappointed that you didn't crack out your bullwhip on me. So, I'm still not buying that in He says/said//he's/was coming tomorrow, that there's a huge amount we can consistently read into is vs was. It just seems far too small a word to have much import, and either could be followed by, "but..." (fill in the rest for yourself). Then, there are a large range of more elaborate phrases (He said he will try to/might come...) that would expand on the basic sentence.

Consider also that "is" is probably the more likely (re. tomorrow), and that "was" would sound odd following "says": ?He says he was coming tomorrow.(...)

[LarryLatham]

Which can be said much more simply as "we use the Past Simple because it's in the past".

Ho, Ho, Ho, Stephen. But then, you'd still be in the awkward position of having to explain why past simple is commonly used on occasions like: "Pardon me, what was your name again?"

You are after simplicity, and I quite agree that simplicity is desirable. So let me propose my own simple version:

Past simple tense is selected when the user wants to state a fact about which he feels remote, for any reason.

Larry Latham

[Andrew Patterson]

Larry, it is usually the case with me that what I write in this forum very rarely finds its way into my lessons in the form that I wrote it. What I'm doing here is making a tenative analysis of levels of remoteness so that I can get it clear in my own head and hopefully other teachers can gain insight too by reading what I'm writing and I can gain insight by reading what others write too. (Hope that doesn't sound patronising )

My analysis here is very tentative, particularly since not everything backshifts. There are a few tenses in the list that may be in the wrong place, others such as remote modals and the past simple might in fact have the same level of remoteness. I'm not sure, for instance, whether the fact that something CAN'T backshift because no backshifted form exists is relevent here or not.
All the students need to know is what backshifts and when. I will then use my own tone of voice to convey whatever sense is needed elicit, etc and check with questions for understanding.

I can see now that "urgency" was the wrong word to use with regard to the imperative. I do think that the imperative is the most proximal form however, and the past perfect the most remote. One of the problems with remoteness theory is that there are cases when the remoteness can be used in a temporal sense only such as the past perfect, and other times when it can only be used in a psychological sense eg the subjunctive. There is still another temoral sense in addition to the other remote senses anyway because a statement is either in the past present or future since English does not have an aorist (timeless tense.) Then there are cases where the remoteness can be either temporal or psychological. I have suggested that in such cases the degree of remoteness may change in an absolute sense.

We use levels of non-temporal remoteness for various different reasons, urgency can be one of them, but formality is another. We use formality in social contexts so that people are not perceived to be too forward, etc, but when reading instructions, there is no social context because you can't have a social relationship with a piece of paper. All the reader wants to know is what to do, and all the instructions need to do is convey the information in the quickest and clearest possible way. The time that the instructions are acted upon is up to the reader. I note that your paraphrase conveyed the same information but was still more formal (read remote.)

Lastly, as if this wasn't complicated enough, my analysis only refered to tense paradigms so is actually an oversimplification, remoteness can also be affected by the use of "please" and "thank you", use of direct or indirect questions, choice of words. Some remoteness is grammatical and some is pragmatic.

The bottom line, we don't teach everything anyway. These things are learnt by using the language and by the students making judgements about what is appropiate. We should never be so arrogant as teachers to believe that we have taught everything that the student knows or does with regard to language. Language is a human instinct afterall.

[LarryLatham]

We should never be so arrogant as teachers to believe that we have taught everything that the student knows or does with regard to language. Language is a human instinct afterall.

I could not agree with you more here, Andy. Language is indeed a human instinct, or so Steven Pinker says. And there is no value at all in teachers believing we can teach everything.

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

I agree with the hamster, we can't read much into "he said he was/is coming", I suspect the main difference may be in the level of formality (remember El Chievo anyone?). And although "remoteness" may be said to emcompass formality and politeness, we do not need the concept, and nor is the past tense the only way to achieve indirectness, which is the reason for the effect.

Since this thread is a right pickle anyway, let me chuck this in too. Dr.Pinker tells us that "walked" and "liked" probably used to be 'walk did' and 'like did' at one stage. If that is so, doesn't it suggest a purely past tense birth?

[fluffyhamster]

I agree with the hamster, we can't read much into "he said he was/is coming", I suspect the main difference may be in the level of formality (remember El Chievo anyone?). And although "remoteness" may be said to emcompass formality and politeness, we do not need the concept, and nor is the past tense the only way to achieve indirectness, which is the reason for the effect.

I'm not saying that Dr Jones's argument isn't interesting or without its merits, but I do think that making such fine distinctions runs the risk of creating a grammar that is too refined (rarified?) to be of much pedagogical use (especially when there are other, clearer lexical items to be had that achieve much the same functional effect e.g. modals denoting degree of likelihood).

[LarryLatham]

I don't really get your point, Fluffy, because Stephen Jones' argument seems to be quite simple, and proper. He says that selection of verb form with respect to timing is not based on any objective third party view of the elements of timing for the event, but rather on the speaker's subjective, psychological view.

How else could it be? We already know that time, as we experience it, involves a stream coming out of the future and flowing into the past. There is no reality in the concept of NOW, since before you can even say the word, that moment is already in the past. Nevertheless, speakers do conceive of a "present time", which is an entirely psychological concept. Moreover, it defies definition, since it could encompass anything from a few moments in one context, to the last few centuries and the next few, in the context of a conversation about planetary evolution, for example.

But, though Stephen is right when he insists that most verb tense selections have something to do with the speaker's view of the timing of an event, his assertions are true only because he is focusing on the most common speech events, and not on the basic fundamental distinction of Past Simple Tense, which is that it identifies an event seen by the speaker as factual, and remote (in any sense). The observation that the most common reason an event might be remote is because it has already happened is mundane. Other reasons exist, and they (as well as those due to timing) are all explainable with the concept of "remote facts." Clinging to timing as an explanation for verb selection, however, leaves too many examples of real language data confusing and puzzling in the eyes of students and teachers alike. Why make it hard? Especially when clarity is so easy?

Larry Latham

Uh, oh, and BTW woodcutter, Steven Pinker's discussion of walked and liked being probably new forms of archaic walk-did and like-did were in a section of his book devoted exclusively to pronunciation. He was talking about the pronunciation of the -ed suffix.

[fluffyhamster]

Larry, my point is that what is being claimed here regarding the choice of tense (and not even of the reporting verb) is a bit too subjective to be pushed too hard if at all in our teaching (as opposed to simply our discussion). Remoteness may be a useful, unifying concept elsewhere in a syllabus, but I don't think it is as applicable in the examples that SJ gave (for reasons that I won't continue repeating); SJ's argument isn't so much simple or complex, as (t0 me and, it seems, woodcutter) not especially convincing.

I mean, if somebody said to me, "I'm coming tomorrow" and I had reason to suspect he wasn't actually intending to come, there are many ways (and, it must be said, many more clearer ways) I could express that beyond a supposed choice between is "versus" was (and I myself might well plump more for "He said he's coming, but I doubt if he actually will").

If a significant portion of our time in the classroom were spent on such supposed differences, I doubt if our students would end up being able to express themselves very well at all (and please don't say, "Nobody is suggesting we only teach this, and not other modals etc", because you do seem to want me to take what's been said seriously, otherwise, why would you have posted again? It's in the nature of reasoned debate and argument to take up what appear to be diametrically opposed and incompatible views, although in actual speech/in person, compromize would be more the order of the day and things less dwelt upon at such length).

BTW I'm not sure who this was addressed to exactly: "Clinging to timing as an explanation for verb selection, however, leaves too many examples of real language data confusing and puzzling in the eyes of students and teachers alike. Why make it hard? Especially when clarity is so easy?" I haven't mentioned "timing" much if at all, nor remotness, because I haven't seen the need for theorizing when so many other functional exponents abound to help the student make sense.

[Stephen Jones]

Your explanation isn't clear at all Larry. It fails totally to explain why we use the Past Simple to describe events that are factual and remote in some cases, and not events that are factual and remote in others.

The sentence
"Haley's comet passes by the earth again in 170 years" is factual (though my chronology may be wonky) and remote, both in time and emotionally as I will be dead and couldn 't care if the whole Andromeda galaxy crashed into our planet in 170 years' time.

Secondly, Lewis uses "fact" to distinguish between the Simple form and forms affected by aspect or mode. Certainly the reason we use the Present Simple in the above sentence is because the arrival of Haley's Comet is seen as a fact and not a predition (we would use 'will'). or an prior arrangement (we would use the present simple), or an intention or a deduction based on a present stimulus (we would use 'going to' in both cases). I think he messes things up when in defence of some kind of core mystical meaning of modality he tries to claim the "John can't speak Chinese" is not factual while "John doesn't speak Chinese" is , but that is another matter.

Ho, Ho, Ho, Stephen. But then, you'd still be in the awkward position of having to explain why past simple is commonly used on occasions like: "Pardon me, what was your name again?"

I didn't say that temporality was the only criterion for the use of the Past Simple and it is simplistic to accuse me of it. I am stating that the use of the Past Simple can best be considered as governed by temporality or by remoteness.

Incidnetally, you can explain that example by reference to temporality. The speaker is pretending that the person has already said his name before, so as not to appear to be rudely drawing attention to the fact that he didnt't.

But, I have to say this again, it is you and Lewis who are spoiling things by looking for one single explanation. There is no need for there to be one simple explanation, and it complicates things no end when you try and squeeze everything into that simple explanation.

The Past (Simple, Continous or Perfect) is used when the time scheme in which the action took place is considered by the speaker to be completed. "A second ago" is completed and you can't use a present tense there, not even when you want to use the Present Simple as a narrative device to give immediacy.
Let's take this example.
Well, I was sitting in the bar last Tuesday, when in comes this guy called Fluffy Hamster.
Last Tuesday is objectively finished, but when you use the present simple here you are indicating that you now consider yourself to be trasnported to last Tuesday which becomes ypur present point of reference. However there is no way you can do this with the phrase "one second ago", and because of this you must use a past tense.

I don't understand Fluffy's claim that I am making a fine distincition. We either backshift or we don't, and when there is no temporal reason for it, remoteness is the explanation.

[fluffyhamster]

I don't understand Fluffy's claim that I am making a fine distincition. We either backshift or we don't, and when there is no temporal reason for it, remoteness is the explanation.

Remoteness might be one possible explanation, but is it the only explanation? Maybe there just won't be a convincing explanation for every little thing we observe and then care to ponder...

[Stephen Jones]

I mean, if somebody said to me, "I'm coming tomorrow" and I had reason to suspect he wasn't actually intending to come, there are many ways (and, it must be said, many more clearer ways) I could express that beyond a supposed choice between is "versus" was (and I myself might well plump more for "He said he's coming, but I doubt if he actually will").

Where on earth do you get the idea from that the difference between
He said he's coming
and
He said he was coming
has anything to do with whether he's actually coming or not? The only difference between the two is the amount of interest the reporter, or the person the reporter is speaking to, has in the other person's coming.
If Gordon Brown announced that he was doubling the salaries of EFL teachers with silly noms de plume then most of the world would report it as
Tne Chancellor said he was increasing salaries for ...... but you would no doubt report it as The Chancellor said he is increasing ....."