How would you define the future time?

[MrPedantic]

Originally Posted by shun

My reply: I will choose #2.

And what about here: which one would you choose?

1. "What do you do at the weekend?" "I write letters of complaint to the President of the United States of America."

2. "What do you do at the weekend?" "I am writing letters of complaint to the President of the United States of America."

All the best,

MrP

[shun]

You're the greatest avoider. I am afraid I can never get the definition of the present time from you.

[sandhya.sha]

Originally Posted by shun

Then it follows that the next millisecond is also the future time.

Then where is the present time?
Is the present time just this one millisecond, not even the second one? If so, who can notice any present time at all?

I suppose we should not go too much into a philosophical debate as to what is present, past and future.

As kids, we all learnt that yesterday is past, today is present, and tomorrow is future, in our 'Tense' classes. so why don't we concentrate on that? Probably the query was about the usage of future tense, or the way you can express future time.

You can use 'will' for indicating a future action, anything that is going to happen after sometime (definitely not in this millisecond ) My brther will go to Australia tomorrow.

There are other ways to expresst eh future sense.

1. going to - My brother is going to Australia tomorrow.
2. goes - My brother goes to Australia tomorrow.
3. is to - My brother is to go to Australia tomorrow.

At present (in this millisecond, to be exact) I remember only this much. Please contribute to this list.

[sandhya.sha]

Originally Posted by shun

You're the greatest avoider. I am afraid I can never get the definition of the present time from you.

First of all, let us get this clear. It is not the Present Time we discuss in grammar, but the Present Tense. Tenses of verbs. If you use the present tense of a verb, e.g study, it is used in many contexts - not just in the present time. Let us see the follwoing examples:

1. My sister studies in that school.
2. My uncles comes tomorrow.

In the first sentence, my sister is studying in that school not just at this moment, but the whole day, whole week , whole year. It is a regular activity.
In the second sentence, my uncle will come the next day. Here the verb 'come' is followed by tomorrow (which is definitely the future time) to make it a future activity.

So, you see, the present form of the verb 'study' is used in many contexts, to express different time of actions.

To clarify your doubt, let me explain it further.
When you say present time, it can have many divisions or categories.

• Aeons
• Eras
• Centuries
• Decades
• Years
• Months
• Weeks
• Days
• Minutes
• Seconds
• Milliseconds

can you get more such divisions?
So, in each of these divisions, you can have the Past time, Present time, and Future time.
For example, Last year, This year, Next year
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
So, what is past time, present time, and future time according to this? isn't it very philosophical?
So , when you talk of present time, first decide to which division of time it belongs. is it a year, month, week, day, minute, second or millisecond.

By the way, what was the situation that prompted you to find out the definition of present time? could you give the context, please?

[Tdol]

Originally Posted by shun

My reply: If we should be able to "use the present to talk about past, present or future time", are you sure we cannot use the past or the future to talk about the present? If we really can, what a mess in time expression.

You're changing the argument and ignoring what I said. I quite clearly stated that I was questioning your view of tense, not the adverbs, and we can use the tenses in the way I have described.

Originally Posted by shun

Actually, we don't use the present second to talk about the past second.
Also, we don't use Today to talk about Yesterday.

We can use 'now' in the past- in narratives, it is common enough to see things like 'now he was really scared', so we can use a present adverb to talk about the past.

[shun]

Originally Posted by Tdol

You're changing the argument and ignoring what I said. I quite clearly stated that I was questioning your view of tense, not the adverbs, and we can use the tenses in the way I have described.

My reply: I am afraid you have been confused and indeed changed my question from Time to Tense. I am asking of the definition of "the present time", not the present tense. I can get the idea of the present tense from anywhere.

Also, I was not talking simply about adverbs. Rather, I am talking about "time adverbs", actually Time itself. If I don't use time adverbs, how can I refer to time at all?
Can we talk about various Presidents without mentioning their names? I don't think so. But if I mention their names, will you say I have changed to the subject of nouns?

If we are allowed to use names to refer to Presidents, we may use time adverbs to speak of different kinds of time, as Sandhya.sha also did around here.

[MrPedantic]

Originally Posted by shun

You're the greatest avoider. I am afraid I can never get the definition of the present time from you.

Hello Shun

Sandhya.sha has put it much better than I could. We are talking about the present tense, not the present time. "Present tense" is a convenient label, not a description.

I don't deny that "present time" is a very interesting subject, in a philosophical or scientific context; but my answers are intended to relate only to the "present tense".

All the best,

MrP

[shun]

Originally Posted by Sandhya.sha

As kids, we all learnt that yesterday is past, today is present, and tomorrow is future, in our 'Tense' classes. so why don't we concentrate on that?

My reply: So why do we concentrate on that? Why will we use any tense with 'Today'? Are you using only Simple Present with Today?

Because there are past part, present part, and future part of Today in Today alone, we may use any tense with Today. Are you aware of that? After all, we are not kids anymore.

Also, why have they made up so many tenses? Aren't three tenses enough to express three kinds of time: past, present, and future? Obviously, what we have learnt as kids is not enough.

Also, why don't people around here concentrate on that? Why will they use Meanings like Habit to explain the present?

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

Originally Posted by Sandhya.sha

First of all, let us get this clear. It is not the Present Time we discuss in grammar, but the Present Tense.

My reply: First of all, let us get this clear: I am asking about the present time. You may skip this thread, but you shall not change my subject to match your favorite.

[shun]

Originally Posted by Sandhya.sha

To clarify your doubt, let me explain it further.
When you say present time, it can have many divisions or categories.
Aeons
Eras
Centuries
Decades
Years
Months
Weeks
Days
Minutes
Seconds
Milliseconds

My reply: After all, you know about the subject of time. However, my doubt is, they each have past, present, and past parts in itself, so where is the present part? How to define the present part of them?

[sandhya.sha]

Originally Posted by shun

My reply: After all, you know about the subject of time. However, my doubt is, they each have past, present, and past parts in itself, so where is the present part? How to define the present part of them?

I believe you are still confused as to what the so-called "Present" is.
May be the following type of sentence confuses you:
"It happened today".
Generally, today is the 'Present'. Here it refers to something that happened in the earlier part of 'today'. Today is grammatically the "Present". However, as I explained before a day also can have divisions. So, in the evening you refer to something that happened in the morning as a past event. Anything that happened before this particular moment is the past.

What if you say, "It happens today" ? It denotes the future time (not the future tense).