You'll let me know how it went.

[LarryLatham]

I was watching the movie "Fiddler on the Roof" recently with my grandchildren. In the first scene, an old woman, the town matchmaker, whose name is Yenta (I think), comes to talk to a woman with grown daughters. She tells the mother that the town butcher (a lonely man, being widowed all these years, and well-off too ) has cast his eye on her eldest daughter. She suggests that the woman invite him to dinner where they can discuss the possibility of a match.

Yenta then gets up to leave, and as she goes out the door she says, "Well, you'll let me know how it went."

Some of you insist that use of past simple tense indicates an event in past time. Can you explain it to me again, please, in the context of Yenta's utterance here?

Thank you so much.

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

Well, before round 34 begins, I'd like to point out that it can hardly be avoided. Not much in grammar can be explained, not many routine questions can be dealt with, if people constantly insist that past forms are not related to the past.

Answering the question, of course, perspective. Just as in the 2nd conditional clauses, a situation is framed so that the verb in question will be in the past at the time the speaker is thinking about, a time in the future, as they have indicated.

Note, however, that if you employ wrong tenses without so indicating, you will sound extremely odd.

I was toying with buying Mr.L's tome by the way, but the rotters at Amazon do not see fit to keep this immortal masterwork in stock.

[woodcutter]

I see that over at Amazon some bloke called Powrie recommends some super dictionaries though.

[Stephen Jones]

A bad example Larry since the answer can be framed in terms of the action being completed when the letting know happens, and one could also start to tald about backchaining in reported speech.

Incidentally, Larry, is there anyone on this forum who believes the Past Simple exclusively deals with Past Time. I rather suspect you are setting up strawmen.

Anyway lets look at the distinction between
I'll let you know how it goes.
and
I'll let you know how it went.[i/]

There are two possible explanations this way. One is to say that the speaker in the first feels the event to be closer in some way, and in the second the speaker feels it to be more remote.
The second explanation is that in the first example the subjective time frame of the speaker in the subordinate clause goes up to the point where she will let you know, whereas in the second the subjective time frame considers the action closed before that event.

how it goes<<<<<<<<<I will let you know
[how it went]<<<<<<<<I will let you know

Now. of course the two explanations are linked. After all the reason the speaker considers the time frame still open in the first sentence is probably that she considers the matter still ongoing, and feels less remote from its outcome than she does in the second.

An elephant can have both a trunk and a tail. However one shouldn't let the tail wag the dog, (or the elephant). My objection to the Grand Unification Remoteness Theory is that quite unscientifically it views time as a subset of a more general remoteness, and results in the contorted explanations you produce in the "Did you ever" thread.

[Stephen Jones]

was toying with buying Mr.L's tome by the way, but the rotters at Amazon do not see fit to keep this immortal masterwork in stock.

It's changed publisher; it's now published by Heinle www.heinle.com It's on the RSA Delta reading lists so it certainly won't be permanently out of print. We got a copy for the library, on Larry's recommendation, only a few months ago.

If you discount its fixation with finding one, and only one, core meaning for every grammatical form, it is very clear and lucid. It is particularly good at pointing out where the pedagogical syllabus actually ends up dictating our explanation of grammar instead of vice-versa - conditonals are a prime example.

Just as in the 2nd conditional clauses, a situation is framed so that the verb in question will be in the past at the time the speaker is thinking about, a time in the future, as they have indicated.

Totally confused here. In so-called 2nd conditional clauses the past tense has nothing to do with past time whatsoever. Perhaps you could elaborate.

[fluffyhamster]

I have two copies of Lewis, one on a bookshelf in the UK gathering dust , the other here on my much smaller bookshelf in Japan gathering dust.

Perhaps I could let you have either or both of them at a bargain price, woodcutter? (You might need to erase some pencilled-in swearwords and "Die Lewis die!" doodles, though).

[lolwhites]

Oh.
That again.
I think we all know where we stand by now.
The English Verb is, in my opinion, one of the few books that proposes a system for accounting for how the English verb system works in a way that is simple, elegant and not contorted. The contortions happen when people insist on linking verb form to time and end up having to resort to "past in the future", "implied future" etc... Not that I expect anyone to agree with me who doesn't already...

There are two possible explanations this way. One is to say that the speaker in the first feels the event to be closer in some way, and in the second the speaker feels it to be more remote.
The second explanation is that in the first example the subjective time frame of the speaker in the subordinate clause goes up to the point where she will let you know, whereas in the second the subjective time frame considers the action closed before that event.

Aren't these two explanations linked? In the second example, the speaker feels it to be more remote precisely because she considers the time frame closed. Put another way, the first explanation is the "wood", the second is the "trees".

[Stephen Jones]

Aren't these two explanations linked? In the second example, the speaker feels it to be more remote precisely because she considers the time frame closed. Put another way, the first explanation is the "wood", the second is the "trees".

The two explanations are obviously linked.

I think the trouble lowhites is that Lewis goes too far. He presents a clear description of the English verb system, which has been generally accepted for the last fifteen to twenty years, but then goes on to contort things anew, by attempting to rule time out altogether, or by attempting to find a unifying factor for modals apart from the structure.

[lolwhites]

Lewis is quite clear that modality is a very thorny area and he specifically states that most of them can't be narrowed down to one meaning. The example he uses is should. What one can do is narrow the range to as few as possible.

This shouldn't come as a surprise - many nouns or verbs have more than one meaning so why should modals be any different.

[Stephen Jones]

No, it's not the narrowing down of each modal to one meaning I'm talking about, it's the belief that there is somethng called 'modality' that all the modals have in common.

There was a long, fairly acerbic, discussion on this between me and Larry a year ago.

[LarryLatham]

Incidentally, Larry, is there anyone on this forum who believes the Past Simple exclusively deals with Past Time. I rather suspect you are setting up strawmen

You might be right here, Stephen. Michael Lewis and I might have made some headway in this group, at least.

Larry Latham