Highly Selected Examples

[shuntang]

Stephen,

This is not intimate message:

I have long noticed a kind of tense-changing process: telling the time of an action will have to change its tense. If on one-sentence basis, the basic meanings of Simple Past, Present Perfect, and Simple Present are no more than the following four simple rules:

(a) Simple Present action indicates a present action (=continuity):
Ex: I live in Hong Kong.
(b) Present Perfect action indicates a past action (=finish):
Ex: I have lived in Japan.
BUT: If we state a definite past time, tenses have to be changed:
(c) Present Perfect action indicates a present action (=continuity):
Ex: I have lived in HK since 2000/in the past three years.
(d) Simple Past action indicates a past action (=finish):
Ex: I lived in Japan in 1976/five years ago.

These few rules seem simple, but they can cover all the patterns of the three tenses. Conceptually, they are far better than all the things grammar writers have ever written, for they have to ignore the family of "in the past three years" and I don’t.

Any objection to this my new find?

Shun Tang

[LarryLatham]

Yes.

I think you need to take a deep breath, Shuntang, and step back (metaphorically speaking, of course) and take a long and careful look at these sentences again and what you are saying about them.

Larry Latham

[shuntang]

Yes.

I think you need to take a deep breath, Shuntang, and step back (metaphorically speaking, of course) and take a long and careful look at these sentences again and what you are saying about them.

Larry Latham

I guess it is the best idea you can suggest about English tense, Larry.

[LarryLatham]

I guess so, Shungtang.

Larry Latham

[shuntang]

From the thread "More questions about English tense usage".

Could you go back over your posts and explain them more clearly to me?

I guess it is a wide and difficult question and if you try a more specific question, I will meet them more appropriately. I recap the whole thing here and hope I come across your question with luck. I typed the following within a short time and hope you can excuse my typos.

It has been long known to many English learners that we could not tell the difference between Simple Past and Present Perfect. (Last time I asked the difference here and for a few days there was no response at all. I then had to fill the thread with my own answers. See the thread "Simple Past and Present Perfect" in this forum.) When I was young, however, I didn't believe this. I knew Present Perfect, it was piece of cake. At the very least, I might resort to the 'Golden Rule': Present Perfect doesn't stay with past time expression.

I only had to believe the difficulty when I had to explain the two tenses to students after their schools, especially impossible when there were no time adverbials in the sentences. I didn't want to cheat because one of them was my kid sister. I then REALLY consulted English grammar books. I was frightened by the fact I found.

In order to tell the two tenses apart, most grammar writers have to hide away the family -- which I call the Past Family -- of past time adverbial IN THE PAST XX YEARS (such as in the past, in the past year, in the past two months, during the past three decades, over the past four weeks, for the past few years, etc.) These past time adverbials stay with Present Perfect:
Ex: He has worked here for the past few years.
(See the thread of "The Past Family" below, which has been pushed down very behind now.)
Intentionally or unintentionally avoiding them, grammarians may easily attain a false conclusion: "Present Perfect doesn't stay with past time expression". The falsity is based on young students' trust in them. It is neither study nor research at all. Frankly, it is cheating. I then also found out, other than this 'Golden Rule', there was no other objective rule at all in English tenses for teachers to lead the students. I was deeply frustrated.

How about Simple Present? It is actually another nightmare. To explain it, all grammar books will not show you these everyday examples:
Ex1: Recent polls show Bush’s standing with the public has weakened as Americans.....
Ex2: Several groups, including the National Abortion Federation and the Center for Reproductive Rights, plan to challenge the measure in court as soon as it is signed into law.
Ex3: The reality remains that Tung [Hong Kong Governor] will be at the helm until and unless Beijing leaders think otherwise.
Ex4: 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.
These examples convey the practical use of the tense. But grammarians have seen there is a trouble: they can't put them in their grammar books. As these very common examples should be no longer said in Simple Present some days, weeks, or years later, they may be in a wrong tense by the time the book publishes. Therefore, grammar writers want to keep them off their books. As a result, grammar writers forcefully help teachers to explain Simple Present by not reporting them whatsoever.

Instead, they carefully select examples that may be very probably still valid in Simple Present -- as long as the book exists:
Exa: Birds sing.
Exb: The earth revolves around the sun.
Exc: Babies cry a lot.
Exd: Wood floats in water.
Exe: I love you.
Now with these carefully selected examples, they may even claim Simple Present is to tell Habit or Permanency, which can no way corroborate those common examples above. As I have found out later, the confusion between Simple Past and Present Perfect leads to the confusion of Simple Present. A lie is made to support another lie.

OK, how about Future Tense? My goodness, we don't even know if English has such a tense or not. Actually, most grammarians will hide away the problems of the three tenses -- Simple Present, Present Perfect, and Simple Past -- so that everything seems alright, but they would admit Future Tense is a problem. They have given the most extensive discussions about the tense, and yet they still finally admit they don't know whether we have Future Tense or not. (Please see the thread "Do we have Future Tense?")

At this stage, one may truly ask, do we get anything about any tense at all?

There must have been something very wrong about the explanation about tenses, I said to myself. Since then, I have been keeping an eye on English tenses. In the long run, I found out many rules in this area, nearly half of them have been posted to the thread "Simple Past and Present Perfect", as mentioned above. My ideas were so many and so new that some persons obviously noticed.

Shuntang,
I've been following these threads you've created in the past week with great interest, but I have to ask you a question.....Or are you just having fun talking to yourself ? I wouldn't blame you, it looks like fun.
The reason I ask is simply because I've never seen anyone on this forum someone get so involved with their own ideas. It's almost as if you love reading your own postings.

The reason I had to post many new ideas at once was that the errors in tenses did not come from just one misjudgment. In order to explain these four rules:
(a) Simple Present action indicates a present action (=continuity):
Ex: I live in Hong Kong.
(b) Present Perfect action indicates a past action (=finish):
Ex: I have lived in Japan.
BUT: If we state a Definite Past Time Adverbial, tenses have to be changed:
(c) Present Perfect action indicates a present action (=continuity):
Ex: I have lived in HK since 2000/in the past three years.
(d) Simple Past action indicates a past action (=finish):
Ex: I lived in Japan in 1976/five years ago.
I had to explain also many other points, such as what is "Definite Past Time Adverbial". As here, because I understand Simple Past comes from Present Perfect, and Present Perfect comes from Simple Present, I have given my promises: Whatever you say to Present Perfect can be said word for word again to either Simple Past or Simple Present. I have kept my promise here, there, and everywhere.

Even so, there was no way to see between Simple Past and Present Perfect if we didn't know the real use of tenses: to tell the time relations between actions. Therefore, as I had to put there also, we had to explain English tenses by the paragraph. (See the thread "Simple Past and Present Perfect".) In order to get some feedback, I challenged any different opinion against any of my rules. Unfortunately, there wasn't then, and there isn't now. While I have denied many of their opinions, they don't want to deny anything about my findings. This renders me speechless, literally.

I didn't post my findings to Future Tense and Progressive Tense, though I have talked about them at length in other forums. I won't put all the eggs in one basket.

Already, Stephen has forgot my posts totally and asked about my promise.
[quote="Stephen Jones in the thread "More questions about English tense usage""]

As I have promised, on one-sentence basis, what you say to Present Perfect can be said word for word again to either Simple Past or Simple Present. Both Simple Past and Present Perfect are "experiential":
Ex: I did/have done my homework on the bus before But now Daddy drives me to school in the Merc, I've got time to do it at home.

Er, what language are we talking about here Shuntang? And while you're at it could you tell us what language you've written it in?[/quote]
This is why I now review one of my posts here, and hope it rings the bell.

I also explained to Larry about the Time of a paragraph of sentences. If at the beginning of a paragraph we mention the time of LAST WEEK for example, we will very likely not repeat the time again, even in the whole paragraph. But all the tenses in the paragraph shall be objectively timed by LAST WEEK:
Simple Past: a finish within LAST WEEK.
Present Perfect: a finish outside LAST WEEK.
Simple Present: a continuity outside LAST WEEK.
Therefore, I argued, we shall not cut up one sentence as all persons do, and ask what is the time of the tense:
Ex: I live in Hong Kong.
== Larry maintains that, according to "The English Verb", tenses are not used to tell Time. Tenses are used to tell Remoteness, which has no objective definitions. As in examples such as this, he argued, we don't see the time of Simple Present.
Finally, Larry had to conclude for our shuttles of discussions (See within this thread, pages before.):

So far, however, you haven't made a single good argument. Try again. We'll be here.

This time agin, Larry has to teach readers not to see anything from my postings (See the thread "More questions about English tense usage".):

Shun Tang does not seem to be asking for help, Sally. If you read a number of his posts in this and other threads, you begin to feel that he is looking for an assembly in which to postulate and then justify his (rather...unorthodox, I'm afraid) views on English grammar with obfuscation.

Larry, why can't you let people see for themselves objectively?

Even unnecessarily, I want to make clear my old confusion above: "There must have been something very wrong about the explanation about tenses, I said to myself". Now I have found out: tenses are used to tell the time relations between sentences. Therefore, it is very wrong for us not to use a paragraph of sentences to explain tenses. On one-sentence basis, the tense doesn't function well. While we thought we were talking about the TENSE, all the time we were actually talking about the SENTENCE, as they did to the following example mentioned in one quotation above:
Ex: I did/have done my homework on the bus before.
== It is actually the SENTENCE, not the TENSE, that provides the experiential essence.

That is to say, even without the tenses, we can still see the experiential meaning:
Ex: I (do) my homework on the bus before.

Shun

[Sally Olsen]

Wow, this is going to take me a long time to read but thanks for writing everything in one place Shun Tang and I will check back with the other threads you suggested. It is great what you are all doing and I just can't imagine the time that you put into this. It is neat that you can check all your posts and put them together.

Did you have a specific grammar book Shun Tang?

Are you teaching from a national textbook?

Do you explain all this to the students in your own language?

If you learn a rule, do you learn the rule in your own language and then translate in your mind to English? Does the rule have some examples in your own language so you can see how you would naturally use it and then does it explain how English is the same or different?

[shuntang]

Sally,

I am afraid I have to avoid some personal matters. A few questions like "If you learn a rule, do you learn the rule in your own language and then translate in your mind to English?" cannot be clinically checked by myself. Frankly, it is out of my capability. Even I did spend a lot of time in studying English tenses, I am still very weak in many other parts of speech.

On the other hand, I remember I have answered something about grammar references. Actually, I was affected greatly by the late great grammarian Otto Jespensen, who claimed to have located REAL examples from various readings. Therefore, I located examples of my own. Unfortunately, I frequently met the Past Family (such as "in the past xx years") and didn't understand why these past time adverbials could stay with Present Perfect. However, when I consulted grammar books in the libraries, I found out the embarrassment that all grammarians have to avoid them. Shocked, I threw away all theories and, believing I could find my own REAL examples, tried to find my own methods to explain tenses.

Shun

[Lorikeet]

Thanks for the long post, Shuntang. It actually made more sense to see your theory all in one place.

[shuntang]

Thank you too, for your time in reading.

[shuntang]

RULES ARE SIMPLE AND USEFUL

We have two kinds of time: past and present, but we have to share these to three kinds of tenses -- Simple Past, Present Perfect, and Simple Present. As three can not be well divided by two, there is a problem of sharing. Actually, all the new theories or jargons are created for solving this division point. If there is no Present Perfect, I bet anything that we all conclude simply and most important correctly:
-- Simple Present expresses present time.
-- Simple Past expresses past time.
Yes, English tense should have been that simple. Actually, these are my principal concepts in using tense, quite different to other erudite explanations grammar writers have usually adopted.

But there is Present Perfect, and grammar writers want to find some time for it. That is the trouble. Unable to cut TWO timings into THREE shares, some ingenious grammarians intend to kick Present Perfect Tense out of the nomination of tense. They regard Present Perfect as Aspect (Perfective Aspect), which they claim doesn’t talk about Time, so it is not a tense. This is why we have ‘aspect’ and many other similar jargons. As can be seen or proven, however, even equipped with lots of jargons and theories, grammarians cannot explain well Present Perfect. And therefore they have always been playing hide-and-seek with young students and even children, who have to use tense in every sentence. More theories and jargons are constantly being generated whenever needed. Their purpose is the same, to create enough confusions that, between past and present, students can vaguely figure out the third kind of time.

Unfortunately, Present Perfect is a tense, telling some kind of time, especially with since and for, so it is not an aspect. The term 'aspect' in English has now become so popular and vague that any person who has an opinion to Present Perfect, would call his or her opinion an aspect. Nowadays, everyone has his own say to Perfective Aspect.

With my four rules, now we can dispense with jargons, so it is most suitable and understandable to young students:
(a) Simple Present action indicates a present action (=continuity):
Ex: I live in Hong Kong.
(b) Present Perfect action indicates a past action (=finish):
Ex: I have lived in Japan.
BUT: If we state a Definite Past Time Adverbial, tenses have to be changed:
(c) Present Perfect action indicates a present action (=continuity):
Ex: I have lived in HK since 2000/in the past three years.
(d) Simple Past action indicates a past action (=finish):
Ex: I lived in Japan in 1976/five years ago.
Most of all, now we clearly share Time past and present for the three tenses.

These rules also remind students of the importance and function of Definite Past Time Adverbial. Now our rules don’t need to avoid the Past Family. To be frank, as far as I know, I don’t hide away any problems I cannot explain, or else I don’t need to do the research myself.

These rules are very useful, too. As “The English Verb” claims that tenses are not used to tell time, people will be very probably misled and think that tense will really have nothing to do with time:

You can end the sentence any way you want: "...since 1988" is one way, but you also could end it, "...twice before", or "..., but I don't anymore", or any number of ways.

(See the discussions between Larry and me, in this thread, pages before.)
I pointed out that we actually cannot end it with YESTERDAY, LAST YEAR/MONTH/WEEK, IN 1998/2000/etc. I knew this because I have the four simple rules in hand. Our discussions were quite valuable, at least meaningful. Therefore I was surprised when at the end he didn’t see at all my effort put into it:

So far, however, you haven't made a single good argument. Try again. We'll be here.

It is interesting that, during our discussion, Larry kept telling me “You miss the point”. “Again, you miss the point”. And only later I found out that it was because he thought Simple Present doesn’t express time, so that if I ‘miss’ the point once, he can keep saying that “You miss the point.” He can repeat it again and again in Simple Present, as long as he didn’t feel it is ‘remote’.

Shun

[Sally Olsen]

I am sorry that I don't have time right at the moment to really give all your postings the time they deserve and after the students exams will dig in and see what I can do.

So far I understand Shun Tang that you were trying your best to understand English and particularly the verbs so that you could teach children, including your young sister. You don't want these students to be confused so you are trying to find something that is easy to tell them so they won't make mistakes. I think we are all trying to do that.

I think Otto Jespersen had a good idea about studying from live examples because that is what the students see in authentic materials. I think it is good idea for you too and for the students. I imagine all the people who study grammar want to understand and they are all trying their hardest to understand and explain. Some explain in a way that I might understand and some explain in a way that you might understand so we have lots of ways to get to the problem. If you don't understand anyone, you just have to keep trying in our own way, as you have done.

It seems as if you want a firm rule or set of rules to pass on to your students so they won't get into trouble. That sure would be nice but in my experience of living, nothing is firm and particularly the English language. That just makes it more exciting because you can study it for years and not know it completely which gives a linguist a good job and teachers some room to grow. It sure would be boring if we knew everything and then just tried to help our students know everything.

After the exams, I am going to try to put the other's post's together from these and other threads and see what I can learn about this area. Would you have time to do that Larry? I know it is a lot to ask.

Does anyone remember a woman from Pakistan or India who used to post on this thread? Are her posts available still?

[LarryLatham]

Nicely put, Sally.

I'm afraid I don't understand your request of me. Can you elaborate?

Don't remember a woman from India or Pakistan.

Larry Latham

[Lorikeet]

I'm not sure what Sally is requesting, but I know that although I read all of these threads, I do seem to have some trouble following them. It's my own personal failing, having difficulty following the abstract, I'm afraid. I decided not to go beyond an M.A. in Linguistics way back in time for this very reason. I was always much more interested in the practical applications than the theory, although I realize that the theoretical underpinnings are important for the practical applications. So when new ideas of how verbs can be viewed and categorized emerge, I always want to think about how I can synthesize the ideas into a better presentation for my students.

At this time, I haven't been able to synthesize anything yet . I have always explained to my students that they shouldn't take the rules that any teacher tells them as absolute truth; that there are so many "exceptions" to rules. I explain that rules are just our way of trying to make sense out of something that wasn't created with a plan in mind, but just developed in its own way as a result of historical language influences and common usage. I tell them language is always changing, and some of the things we think are "wrong" today may be "right" in ten or twenty years. However, I know they need common "rules" to help them out. So I keep reading these posts, figuring eventually something may make sense . (Well really, lots of parts of posts make sense, but I haven't really gotten the big picture yet. Maybe that's what Sally was talking about....and maybe it wasn't ).

[Sally Olsen]

I found myself getting a glimmer of understanding from going through these posts but of course, with the backing and forthing it is a little hard to follow. I'm with Lorikeet and I think this must be in the same category as Math. I can do it when pressed and for awhile but then it slips away.

But it seems to me that Larry and others have put down some very good things to help us to explain to students what is happening with verbs. I have seen many other posts with other parts of speech although haven't had time to really work on it. I guess I am asking for a beginner's course on this, written not from the grammarians point of view, but from the point of view of teaching it to students. What do you say exactly to explain the ideas? How do you get them to make sense of it? I know some of it is first language specific but there are a lot of commonalities.

If we could all contribute to a book it would be all the better.
If we could get someone to pay for the writing and printing of the book it would be perfect.

[shuntang]

YOU HAVE MISSED SOMETHING

Sally,

A few days ago I saw a documentary on television. Most of the scenes made my heart beating fast.

During the second world war, Japanese soldiers forced western POWs and some Asians to build a railway across the jungles. POWs were constantly beaten and given little to eat. While in interview, a survived old POW says on screen, with his eyes wet, “Only one thing kept me living on.....” He managed to speak, “Hatred.” We can’t see hatred, but it is there.

All of the POWs were so skeletal and had to carry overweight. A retired Japanese officer, who was then on duty in building the railway, explains that western POWs were so thin because they were not accustomed to eat rice. Now, Sally, would you go so far as to claim the film is about different kinds of nutrients, and leave alone the moral issue here? How to explain the Asian forced labor in the film who were also skinny? In case you don’t know, as the film doesn’t clearly say, Asians eat rice. The reason why the film doesn’t talk about the nutrients is clear enough. Nutrients are not the issue here. The issue is something you don’t understand, because you can’t see it.

It seems as if you want a firm rule or set of rules to pass on to your students so they won't get into trouble. That sure would be nice but in my experience of living, nothing is firm and particularly the English language.

Is that what we want, a firm rule or set of rules? I am quite disappointed at your compromising view to what happens in English tense. It is far more than grammatical problems. Frankly, the problem of English tense has become a moral issue now. We really cannot collectively hide away past time adverbials for Present Perfect and then claim that Present Perfect doesn’t stay with past time adverbials. We shouldn’t have done that at all. Do you know what I mean? Such academic thing can’t even work out in Hong Kong, but I cannot say for other countries. The issue is not merely the rules. It is something you don’t understand, because you can’t see it.

Again, we cannot do this: forsake the most common Simple-Present examples in today’s newspapers (and in our conversation), choose highly selected examples, and claim a special use for Simple Present to be the common use, just for the convenience of publication. I am not really talking about a firm rule of set of rules. It is something you don’t understand, because you can’t see it.

Any rules depending on highly selected evidences, or on hiding away evidences, are not rules at all, no matter how firm or not firm they are. Much more than that, it is now an issue whether righteous or not. Today, in writing, most Asian people use only Simple Past for the Past Family (such as “in the past xx years”), because they follow strictly the ‘golden rule’ that Present Perfect doesn’t stay with past time expressions. English native speakers in Hong Kong mercifully and gracefully pardon us, for they understand “Your language doesn’t have the metal exercise of using Present Perfect.” Sally you can never see the joke here.

You have missed something important. It is about rules we cannot make. It is about something we cannot morally do. It is something you don’t understand, and probably never will.

If the whole thing is like Future Tense, which is only about rules whether firm or not firm, I really don’t care. I would not have spent decades on the lonely research. However, if the whole thing is between cheating and education, it is everyone’s business.

A sense of morality kept the old man going on the study.

Shun Tang

============
Another anecdote: The former Secretary of Finance in Hong Kong bought a new car weeks before he announced a tax raise on new cars. Under pressure of persisting public opinions, even though he had immediately paid a sum double the tax to public charity, after more than a year he finally had to resign before the would-be prosecution. Were we talking about how much the price of a car? No. It is something you will probably never understand, because it is invisible.