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A concept of time
1. After he wrote the letter, he sent it.
2. After he had sent the letter, he changed his mind.
What is the difference from the viewpoint of you system?
« Just don't believe my eye. You have just reinforced my question»
No to anybody's... There is a difference between correcting your own program and using someone another's one. In other words, think yourself. That's evident, I don't know why you are asking.
And my question: are you a subjectivist or an objectivist?
« I definitely not think of the Universe, let alone the future of the Universe. I think of the letter, not the Universe. I am afraid I cannot change to your so-called better opinion.»
I didn't write you would think of the Universe in that situation.
When you boil water, you never (or very seldom) thing about the process of the heating of the water, about convection currents in the water, about the growing bleb collaption at time before simmer, and, finally, about what happens during boiling: how tiny air blebs are inflated by vapour, tear off the teakettle walls and rush upward, being pulled by the force of Archimedes and slowed by the resistance force.
However, you caused these processes when you put the teakettle the burner...
« Different tenses, the same time. It is well explained in my tense-changing process.»
Ok. What about «I feel it» «I use my PC for desktop publishing»?
Ant_222 wrote:
<<1. After he wrote the letter, he sent it.
2. After he had sent the letter, he changed his mind.
What is the difference from the viewpoint of you system?>>
My reply:
I expect you are asking about the system of tense.
However, I prefer to put a contrast on nearly the same contents, yet with different tenses:
1. After he wrote the letter, he sent it.
2. After he had written the letter, he sent it.
The first one, <after + Simple Past>, is appeared mainly in present background. That is to say, around it there are Simple Present and Present Perfect sentences. This background is for argument or commentary. In the following examples, <after + Simple Past> works as a time frame for the main action, starting the tense-changing process:
Ex: Furthermore, he argues that by removing him from the pulpit AFTER HE WROTE THE LETTER, the Air Force determined the content of sermons, avoided presentation of sensitive issues, determined the religious needs of the Air Force.....
Ex: The editor received a building permit twelve days AFTER HE WROTE THE LETTER. The letter has recently come into the public eye and with it a media storm. Did Mr Lindenskov abuse his position Eirikur Lindenskov as editor?
Ex: "Lewis Carroll died shortly AFTER HE WROTE THE LETTER and it will be of great interest to enthusiasts al over the world. "He appears to refer to The Lost Plum Cake in the letter and that book is now a great rarity.
Ex: He is launching off on one of these long speeches again about what he did after the document was received or AFTER HE WROTE THE LETTER, and I ask that he be instructed to answer that question and not to go on into statements about what.....
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The second one, <after + Past Perfect>, is used mainly in past background, that is, in a story-writing where the writer mainly uses Simple Past to link up actions in a sequence. In past background, the subordinate action is compared with and according to its main action. With 'After', the subordinate action indicates an action finished before its main action, so uses Past Perfect. I have searched for "after he had written the letter", and here are examples for past background:
Ex: Suddenly, the fireplace exploded in flames. Before, the flames were dying out; crackly feebly in the grate. Now however, the flames raced up the brick chimney as if they were being hunted. A tall slim man with long flaxen hair stepped out of the fireplace. His face was completely blank and his appearance was immaculate from his neatly combed hair down to his polished and expensive black boots. In his hand was a piece of parchment. The edges was torn as if someone had decided to rip it apart, but at the last moment voted against it. The long fingered hands grasped the letter tightly and were bone white from the pressure.
"Hello father."
He had knows who it was the moment the fireplace had bursted into tall dangerous flames. He wondered why he did not leave the castle AFTER HE HAD WRITTEN THE LETTER. He had chosen to stay in his dormitory with the fireplace, why? Because he knew he would come and he wanted him to come. Draco had been running his whole life; from his friends, future, and family. He was tired of running; so very tired.
"Draco."
Ex: AFTER HE HAD WRITTEN THE LETTER, Rocketman had all of us sign the bottom, then gave the envelope over to Kev who was supposed to deliver it to the manager later that day. Rocketman would have done it himself if he had a license, let alone access to a car. Instead of delivering it, however, Kev just put it in the handbook and forgot about it.
The Club was losing its juice, and by October Rocketman became our fatal error. Each day he came over to our lockers to ask about our upcoming weekend plans. Finally we gave in.
“What’s going on this weekend, fellas?”
Usually we stared at the floor when he asked this question, or quickly changed the subject to Buffalo Bill-talk, but this time we decided to include Rocketman in our festivities, hoping we could teach him a lesson.
“Yeah, meet us in front of Kev’s house on Friday. Say, eight-ish,” someone said.
On many Fridays during the warmer seasons, we camped back in the Hampton Woods, which was really just an excuse for us to drink our hearts out and talk about how awesome college promised to be. On this particular Friday, Spencer’s sister dropped him off with a box of Genesee Pounders. Kev brought the hot dogs and radio, I brought the vodka, and Rocketman brought a bag full of those miniature, cocktail-size bottles of liquor, which he stole from his grandma’s basement. The others carried tents and sleeping bags.
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Of course, one cannot expect the contrast above will always be clear enough everywhere. Didn't some will even use Simple Present with Yesterday: "It is required yesterday"?
<<Ok. What about «I feel it» «I use my PC for desktop publishing»? >>
My reply:
Simple Present expresses present action. They are present actions.
Ant_222 wrote:
<<I didn't write you would think of the Universe in that situation.
When you boil water, you never (or very seldom) thing about the process of the heating of the water, about convection currents in the water, about the growing bleb collaption at time before simmer, and, finally, about what happens during boiling: how tiny air blebs are inflated by vapour, tear off the teakettle walls and rush upward, being pulled by the force of Archimedes and slowed by the resistance force.
However, you caused these processes when you put the teakettle the burner...>>
My reply:
To be fair, these processes are handled or expressed by the sentences. Simple Present says they are processes at the present time. I will not confuse a sentence with a tense. In my book I claim I have resurrected the function of the sentence. Indeed I have.
As I said, whether the universe or the letter is expressed by the sentence. The tense only expresses the time.
It is required post haste.
<<It is required post haste.>>
My reply: "It is required posted haste" is quite grammatical. But now 'Yesterday' is not linked.
It is a long tradition for grammars to confuse a sentence with a tense. Since the tense doesn't exist without the sentence, it is always arguable if a Meaning is expressed by the sentence or the tense. We therefore need to use the following method to explain tenses. Past, Perfect, Present below are Simple Past, Present Perfect, and Simple Present respectively.:
Combination X: <in 1970 + Past> + Perfect + Present + Past
== As a rule, we use Past to say a completion within a definite past time frame, here in 1970. Perfect is used to say also a completion, yet outside -- either before or after -- the time frame. Present also indicates a happening outside the time frame, but "not yet finished now". The latter Past is to indicate a completion in the same time frame of 1970. Though being separated, two Past actions can be regarded as a series of actions that has to be put in a smooth flow.
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/3_3_8.htm
Putting tenses together in this way, we may explain a tense without its sentence. Now as we can see, no meanings whatsoever are needed to explain tenses. This method can prove that Meanings such as Habit, Current Relevancy, Permanency, Timeless, Universal, Result, whatever-it-is, are incurred by the sentence.
Those who claim a tense expresses a meaning, without mentioning the work of the sentence, are not telling the truth.
«My reply: "It is required posted haste" is quite grammatical.»
No, it's not correct! LOL! «Post haste» is «post haste» and
«It's required yesterday» equals to «It's required post haste».
«Of course, one cannot expect the contrast above will always be clear enough everywhere. Didn't some will even use Simple Present with Yesterday: "It is required yesterday"?»
Hmmm. Don't understand the last sentence.
«I feel it», «I use my PC for desktop publishing»
You wrote that they are both present actions. But actually they differ. The last phrase can be siad even when I don't work at the PC at the moment...
«Since the tense doesn't exist without the sentence, it is always arguable if a Meaning is expressed by the sentence or the tense.»
The meaning is derived from their combination.
«Perfect is used to say also a completion, yet outside -- either before or after -- the time frame.»
How do you know the current time frame? And can you give examples of Past Perfect with both after- and before the time frame actions.
Ant_222 wrote:
<<No, it's not correct! LOL! «Post haste» is «post haste» and
«It's required yesterday» equals to «It's required post haste».>>
My reply:
It was Geoff_One who said "It is required post haste".
I thought he wanted to say "It is required posted haste".
But the normal structure is "It is required to post haste".
I failed to analyze "It is required post haste". Please tell me more about this structure. Thank you in advance.
Ant_222 wrote:
<<«I feel it», «I use my PC for desktop publishing»
You wrote that they are both present actions. But actually they differ. The last phrase can be siad even when I don't work at the PC at the moment...>>
My reply:
Who has laid down the condition that the present action must be doing at the moment of speaking? Different present actions can be of different lengths. Why must they be of the same length of time?
Even Present Progressive "I am walking one mile every day" can be said when I don't walk at the moment. Why must then Simple Present be said when one is working on it?
A long present action has its reasonable time of rest. "I use my PC for desktop publishing" can of course be said when I don't work at the PC at the moment. So too is "I feel it", if it is long enough:
- A blind man is learning to feel to read. As he says "I feel it", he can feel to read for the rest of his life. Would you say "I feel it" must be said when he is feeling it? When he is resting, he cannot tell others that he feels it?
- One doesn't feel the love of God until he believes in Him. Now he feels it. But will it be necessarily said when one is feeling it? No rest is permitted here? When he feels sad or hurt, does it prove he doesn't feel the love of God?
What I am saying is, to argue that a present action is the one we are doing it at the moment of speaking, is not correct.
I said: "Since the tense doesn't exist without the sentence, it is always arguable if a Meaning is expressed by the sentence or the tense."
Ant_222 wrote:
<<The meaning is derived from their combination.>>
My reply:
Many languages don't have tense but can express meanings. That is to say, meaning is expressed by the sentence, rather than by the tense. It is not from the combination of the two, of course.
«I failed to analyze "It is required post haste". Please tell me more about this structure. Thank you in advance.»
"Post haste" means "as fast as possible" (lat.). Therefore, «It is required as fast as possible».
«Who has laid down the condition that the present action must be doing at the moment of speaking? Different present actions can be of different lengths. Why must they be of the same length of time?»
I didn't mean the difference in length. I ment that in time. The first action took place at the moment of speach, in distinct from the second. That is, the second wasn't literally present. Ok.
«What I am saying is, to argue that a present action is the one we are doing it at the moment of speaking, is not correct.»
It's only a 'mnemonic' to unite a number of periodical actions inro one 'action'. This unification allows to say "I go to school" to denote all visits of school as one action. When a part of the visits is in the future and a part in the past, the unified action is a present one, and we use Simple Present (and rarely progressive). That happens due to the consideratin of a set of periodically happening actions as a whole.
«Many languages don't have tense but can express meanings. That is to say, meaning is expressed by the sentence, rather than by the tense. It is not from the combination of the two, of course.»
Hmm. Name a language that don't have tense. And, if a language doesn't have tense, then it must be expressing time through something other than tense, right?
I don't get your distiction between tense and sentence. A huge majority of sentences have verbs, and the latters, in their turn, have tenses. So, tense is part of sentence. How can you divide sentence into (sentence wothout tense, which you call "sentence") and tense? And furthermore, dividing meaning into (meaning without time — you call it "meaning") and time is unnatiral as well.
And I ask you again, how does one determine the time frame? In the common grammar there are actions and there are their times (often relative to the moment of spech or to the times of other actions). In your sysrem you introduce the time frame. What is it?
<<"Post haste" means "as fast as possible" (lat.). Therefore, «It is required as fast as possible». >>
My reply:
Thank you for telling me that. I didn't know about the usage.
I said: Perfect is used to say also a completion, yet outside -- either before or after -- the time frame.
Ant_222 wrote:
<<How do you know the current time frame? And can you give examples of Past Perfect with both after- and before the time frame actions.>>
My reply:
Please heed that I have specially noted "Perfect" there means Present Perfect, not Past Perfect:
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Past, Perfect, Present below are Simple Past, Present Perfect, and Simple Present respectively:
Combination X: <in 1970 + Past> + Perfect + Present + Past
== As a rule, we use Past to say a completion within a definite past time frame, here in 1970. Perfect is used to say also a completion, yet outside -- either before or after -- the time frame. Present also indicates a happening outside the time frame, but "not yet finished now". The latter Past is to indicate a completion in the same time frame of 1970. Though being separated, two Past actions can be regarded as a series of actions that has to be put in a smooth flow.
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/3_3_8.htm
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But you ask for Past Perfect, a tense I didn't mention in the Combination. Also, did I say "current time frame"? I didn't.
The so-called time frame is like "in 1970", which indicates a definite past time. It works as a time frame, a time reference for other actions to judge the time relations to it. As in the Combination above, Perfect and Present are chosen depending on this time reference. I call it a time frame because a series of actions can happen within it (in 1970).
By "a series of actions", I mean a kind of time relation I have noticed between many Simple Past actions. Please see more in "3.2.1 Only can Simple Past link up a series of actions":
== http://www.englishtense.com/newapproach/3_2_1.htm
On the other hand, the moment you speak or the date you write is regarded as the present time. It cannot be called a time frame because there cannot be a series of actions happening at the present time.
I said: Of course, one cannot expect the contrast above will always be clear enough everywhere. Didn't some will even use Simple Present with Yesterday: "It is required yesterday"?
Ant_222 wrote:
<<Hmmm. Don't understand the last sentence.>>
My reply:
It was a typo. I should have said it without 'will': Didn't some even use Simple Present with Yesterday: "It is required yesterday"?
What I meant is, you please don't expect you will find "After he wrote..." ONLY in present background, and "After he had written..." ONLY in past background. Why? Because some will even deliberately use Simple Present with Yesterday, which violates the common agreement that we use Simple Past with Yesterday.
Thank you for pointing out my mistake.
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