A concept of time

engtense   Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:19 am GMT
I said to Geoff_One: Now you have taught us yesterday can be an absolute or relative time. But how to see whether it is past time or not, please?

Ant_222 answered me for Geoff_One:
<<Yesterday is the day preceding to some other day. It is relative since it is calculated relatively to some given day. But in most cases yesterday implies the day preceding to today (to the day that was/will be 'today' at the moment of speach), allowing for us to know the "absolute" day meant by yesterday. But yesterday and today are relative because their values are changing with time.>>

My reply: Ant_222, are you Geoff_One himself? Have you consulted Geof_One with the term 'relative'? However, if you prepare to bring up the following conclusion, you don't need to explain anything at all.
engtense   Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:20 am GMT
Ant_222 wrote:
<<How to define if it is past time or not. Well, from context it is always clear what day 'yesterday' (that particular entry of 'yesterday') refers to. IT CAN BE A PAST, PRESENT OR FUTURE DAY.>>

My reply: Now you agree Yesterday can be a future day.
Damian 11/10/05 12:05 BS   Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:04 am GMT
Time travel would be the one bit of science fiction I'd love to become a reality. If it ever does, I'd be torn between a trip to the future or a trip to the past. Either way, I'd insist on coming back to the lovely "here and now"...and the same location. But would that "here and now" be the exact split second in which you went forward or backward in time? H G Wells style.

The future would look to be more adventurous I reckon, but on the other hand a trip back to famous secenes in history would be fun and less of a challenge because you'd know more or less what to look out for, who you'd like to meet up with and who to dodge away from. My first choice would be to have dinner with Marie, Queen of Scots.
Geoff_One   Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:31 am GMT
<< My reply: Now you agree Yesterday can be a future day. >>

A relative Yesterday can be a future day.

Absolute Yesterday can not be a future day.

This is for all intents and purposes.
Guest   Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:58 pm GMT
Damian,

<<Time travel would be the one bit of science fiction.....>>

But we are not talking about fiction here.
engtense   Tue Oct 11, 2005 4:02 pm GMT
Geoff_One wrote:
<<A relative Yesterday can be a future day.
Absolute Yesterday can not be a future day.
This is for all intents and purposes. >>

My reply: But please, how will you define between a relative Yesterday and an absolute Yesterday?

You seemed to ignore the confusion I asked about in the previous page: Did you want to say the yesterday of last weekend, and the yesterday of next weekend, are relative, so they are not past time? Or what?

I may also now suggest a good yesterday is a future day, and a bad yesterday is not a future day. But how to define good and bad? I have just jumped from the topic whether past and present, to another topic whether good or bad. Is this already a solution? I really don't think so, because we don't know how to define whether good or bad.

And your problem now is, we don't know how to define whether relative or absolute.
Damian   Tue Oct 11, 2005 4:05 pm GMT
**But we are not talking about fiction here**

But Mr Guest......fiction may become fact one day, who knows! It has before.......loads of pie in the sky ideas have become reality later!
engtense   Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:28 pm GMT
Ant_222 answered me for Geoff_One:
<<Yesterday is the day preceding to some other day. It is relative since it is calculated relatively to some given day. But in most cases yesterday implies the day preceding to today (to the day that was/will be 'today' at the moment of speach), allowing for us to know the "absolute" day meant by yesterday. But yesterday and today are relative because their values are changing with time.>>

My reply: Did you want to say the yesterday of last weekend, and the yesterday of next weekend, are relative, so they are not past time? Or what? Please?
Ant_222   Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:38 pm GMT
«Ant_222, are you Geoff_One himself?»
Of course, No.

«My reply: Now you agree Yesterday can be a future day.»

'Yesterday' is a variable. What I mean by 'yesterday' today was 'today' yesterday.

On any given day the variable 'yesterday' refers to the day before the given day (that is, to the past). Tomorrow it will refer to today and the variable 'today' will refer to tomorrow.

In the future 'yesterday' can refer to a future day:
On 10.10.2009 'yesterday' will refer to 10.09.2009. But the 9th of October will be in the past on the 10th of October.

Thus, at any given moment 'yesterday' refers to the past, 'tomorrow' refers to the future, and 'today' refers to the present.

And the answer to your question «Is Yesterday a past time?» will be the following:

If you mean its current value, then it is a past time. But its future values (except for tomorrow's value, wich equals 'today') refer to future days.

«But please, how will you define between a relative Yesterday and an absolute Yesterday?»

I am not Geoff_One, but I'd like to aswer.
The relativeness of 'yesterday' means that the value of this variable is calculated via the value of the variable 'today' by taking its antecedent value.

The absolute value can be obtained by dereferencing 'yesterday':

Ex.: Yesterday he told me: «I bought it yesterday».

The first 'yesterday' "lives" in the prsent environment. Therefore, it refers to <one day ago> (relative to the moment of speech). The second 'yesterday' lives in yesterday's environment and refers to <two (1+1) days ago>.

Ex: I hope, tomorrow I will tell you: "Let's forget about yesterday".

Here 'yesterday' refers to today, or, rather, to the day that was 'today' at the moment of speech. (1-1=0='today'). The explanation is analogous.
Ant_222   Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:44 pm GMT
«My reply: Did you want to say the yesterday of last weekend, and the yesterday of next weekend, are relative, so they are not past time? Or what? Please?"

"Yesterday of next weekend" is not yesterday (of today). This is rather the value of 'yesterday' that this variable will assume on the next weekend. At that time 'yesterday' will be a past time.
Achab   Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:55 am GMT
Hi englishtense,

by the bits and pieces I read on your website, the book "A New Approach to English Tense" seems very interesting. Too bad you provide us only with those samples. By displaying the whole text of the chapters you would turn your website into a content-rich one, pretty much among the best out there dealing with the English language, alongside antimoon.com, worldwidewords.org, and the like.


Best wishes,
Achab
engtense   Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:18 pm GMT
Ant_222 wrote:
'Yesterday' is a variable. What I mean by 'yesterday' today was 'today' yesterday.

My reply: People should read how we here explain just a simple time: Yesterday.

When we all know that Yesterday is a definite past time, some can twist and say it can be a future day. I can never believe this.

This is what we have got from the old approach of explanation.

Whenever we cannot explain time, we will instantly create new terms: relative, absolute, variable, value.

As long as a student doesn't understand, we survive. This is the present-day philosophy of explaining tense.

Oh, we may still accuse the student of managing not to understand us!!
engtense   Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:29 pm GMT
<< Too bad you provide us only with those samples.>>

I don't think I have listed the examples only. I have explained how and why we have the tense-changing process:
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/1_3.htm

I have displayed the three categories of time adverbials:
(a) Definite Past Time Adverbials
(b) Indefinite Past Time Adverbials
(c) Indefinite Time Adverbials
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/3_1_7.htm
They are as important as the tense-changing process itself.

In the former part of this thread, I have explained and proven why we have the future tense. Did you ever see a grammar will display so many contents on the web? However, I may consider to put all the materials on Internet.
Achab   Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:38 pm GMT
englishtense,

notice that I said 'samples', not 'examples'. I acknowledge the content of the book samples in your website is not made of examples only, but of extensive explanations as well. Still, it’s not the whole thing. By adding to your website all the materials that are in your book, you would turn englishtense.com from an averagely content-rich website into an outstandingly content-rich one.

This is, of course, what *I* believe and would do if I were you. I’m fine if you think otherwise.

Now I’m starting to read your postings in this thread, your ideas on English tenses are very thought-provoking.


Wishes,
Achab
engtense   Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:20 pm GMT
Achab,

Thank you for you opinion.

TANG Shun