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Originally Posted by HaraKiriBlade  I know this is not my thread, but I have to thank Rewboss for clarifying some of the subtle differences between different tense forms in English, especially the difference between "going to" and present progressive.
The professor at my Linguistics class told us the same thing: there are only two tenses in English, and those are past and present. But why? modals have innate tenses and some of them have future tense in them, don't they? Sure, English has no verb inflection for future tense but does it really mean there's no future tense in English? is it an establish fact among linguists? |
There are no facts here; there are only viewpoints.
If English verbs used a -will suffix for future tense, all linguists would proclaim an English future tense. The mere fact that the word "will" is separate is simply a matter of construction.