Quote:

Originally Posted by incognittum Also, if you refer to present time as being 1,000 years, anything beyond that is future time.

Are you telling me, you don't agree to my conclusion that the present is overlapped with the future?

Quote:

Originally Posted by incognittum Also, if you refer to present time as being 1,000 years, anything beyond that is future time.

Those who embrace such supposition as yours can never explain why Yesterday is past time, because they don't know how one is aware of time. They think one has no present time in oneself, so one would "refer to present time as" out there.

Actually, no one will refer to present time as being a time out there, like 1,000 years.

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Originally Posted by incognittum I believe Future Tense, an action, can be within present time, it depends to what and how big a part of time you are referring to; a week or a month.

The more I read, the more I am sure you don't know what is tense. The word "Tense" comes from Latin 'tempus', meaning time. So, Future Tense is not "an action". You believe wrong.

You said to my example:
Ex: Today will be a rainy day.

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Originally Posted by incognittum So, here we are refering to an action that is part of a different time and will happen at some point during the "day". I am talking about a 'day' and not "today". It does not have to rain constantly to be classified as a rainy day. "Today" we would refer to a specific time, a big part of time, and an action like rain could happen during the day time, anytime. Today is 24 hours and a day can be from dawn till dusk.

Do you really believe this yourself? "Today" is not the 'day'?

If I say "John is a strange guy", would you say in a similar way that there is John and there is a guy that is strange?

Do you mean about future tense?
Because my teacher says that we can use present tense for future too.
for instance: " I am going to fly tomorrow."
It is in present tense but about future.

Muaz,
My suggestion is, here is forum for linguists and not for students. But if you think you can read linguistic dull discussions, then please read all the pages here. I am sorry if I cannot give an instant, full answer to you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by incognittum Also, if you refer to present time as being 1,000 years, anything beyond that is future time.

Maybe you wanted to say, "If there is a present time, any time beyond that is future time". But you didn't catch the meaning of "overlap". After your saying, I may also add a present time AFTER your future time:
Ex: "If there is a present time, any time beyond that is future time, and any time beyond that future time is present time".
For example, if "this week" is present time, "next week" is then future time. However, after "next week", there is "this year". This is what I mean the present time is overlapped with the future time. In other words, the two kinds of time are confused.

I didn't say there is no present time, and there is. I didn't say there is no future time, and there is. But the two kinds of time are overlapped, so cannot be a criterion to judge the Future Tense. Future Tense is then judged by uncertainty, rather than by future time.

I have said something like the following, and I think it is the main point relating to your question.

Old criterion for Future Tense is future time, and it is a wrong criterion. This old erroneous criterion will lead to the doubt of existence of Future Tense. Nowadays, some people even say there is no Future Tense.

Claiming there is the Future Tense, I therefore suggest the criterion for Future Tense should be whether certain or uncertain. If uncertain, even a present action can be described in Future Tense:
Ex: John will be in his office now.

If the action is certain, however, even a so-called future action is described in present tenses, Simple Present or Present Progressive:
Ex: We go to Europe tomorrow/next weekend.
Ex: We are going to Europe tomorrow/next weekend.
== Just because there is Future Tense "will go" that indicates an uncertainty, here we deliberately use present tenses to throw a contrast with Future Tense. Present tenses here say these actions are a certainty, even with future time expression.
Nevertheless, unfortunately, these examples have been mistaken by people as an evidence to prove against Future Tense, and they concluded there is no Future Tense.
Because their old erroneous criterion on Future Tense is future time, these examples having violated their criterion are taken as a denial to the existence of the Future Tense.

But you should read more, if you tolerate linguistic discussion. Future Tense is very complicated and here is only a small part of its use. Believe it or not, I am here proving there is Future Tense. You may give your opinions here.

I did not disagree, just simply tried to express myself in own words to see if it fits. And with "maybe" I left the statement open to other possibilities, so that anyone can draw whatever conclusions they want.


It depends on the individual how he sees the present time. If I refer to these 1,000 years as the time I was waiting for I could say it is the present time. Time can be anything; a minute, an hour or a day. It is up to me to decide how big of a piece of time I am refering to. And, right you are, that no one would refer to 1,000 years as present, because we don't live that long, but I could say that a week is present because I was waiting for this particular week to happen.
We do not have present time in self, because we exist within it.

...verb that indicates the time, such as past, present, or future, as well as whether the action or state is continued or completed.
Tense specifies whether the verb refers to action in the past, present, or future...
I said Future Tense action, not being one.

I think I tried to explain that "today" and 'day' refer to different times not that they are different. Anyway, before I must have understood what I ment, but I can't make sense of this anymore.


If future time can exist within present, as in; in two hours it will be future time and that happens within the day that someone would clasify as present then that would overlap if it can be put that way.

I tend to rush myself all the time without thoroughly thinking things over, something like; million thoughts a minute, and of course it leads to confusion. And, Mr. Shun, relax and enjoy the summer!

Incognittum,

You had written this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by incognittum Also, if you refer to present time as being 1,000 years, anything beyond that is future time.

Now you added:

Quote:

Originally Posted by incognittum It depends on the individual how he sees the present time. If I refer to these 1,000 years as the time I was waiting for I could say it is the present time. Time can be anything; a minute, an hour or a day. It is up to me to decide how big of a piece of time I am refering to.

If, and I stress again on IF, one refers to present time as being 1,000 years, I agree with you beyond that is future time. But in this case, there is no future time between 1 and 999 years. There will be no future time in next hour, nor next week, nor next month, nor next year, nor next decade, nor next ten decades.... Does this make sense?

I hope you can see what follows. This IF doesn't happen.

Of course, there is another IF, which is mine. The present time is overlapped with the future time. Therefore, there is future time both before and after 1,000 years.

And your choice is?

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Originally Posted by incognittum ...verb that indicates the time, such as past, present, or future, as well as whether the action or state is continued or completed. Tense specifies whether the verb refers to action in the past, present, or future...

What a mess about the basic terms we have here.

In "We are discussing English tense", this is how we call them:
1. the sentence is "We are discussing English tense".
2. the so-called action is the idea we have got from the sentence, whether a state or an activity.
3. the verb is "discuss".
4. the tense is the form of the verb, now "are discussing", which tells the time of the action.
5. time is past, present, and future; and no more.

Therefore, verb is NOT that indicates the time; tense is.
Time is NOT "as well as whether the action or state is....."

I know there have been many books called exactly "The English Verb", written by different authors at different times, and they talked about tense. But really "verb" is not tense that indicates the time. If you really look for verb, look up a dictionary, rather than a grammar book.

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As for the example "Today will be a rainy day", you wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by incognittum I think I tried to explain that "today" and 'day' refer to different times not that they are different.

Then I think your explanation allows that, in "John is a strange guy", John and 'guy' refer to different persons not that they are different.

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I asked: Are you telling me, you don't agree to my conclusion that the present is overlapped with the future?

Quote:

Originally Posted by incognittum If future time can exist within present, as in; in two hours it will be future time and that happens within the day that someone would clasify as present then that would overlap if it can be put that way.

So, you don't disagree.

You too have a good summer holiday!