Bob wrote:
<<A future time is also a time that has not yet past. But you are still stuck on the problem of defining "past time" because it relies on your doubtful notion of "present time".>>
My reply:
Remarkable observation. This is exactly what I have been sticking to. How about this: what you say here is a must!! Why can't we take it as a norm or necessity? I have found out that, in explaining time, what displeases you above is actually essential:
1. Present time is a time that has not yet past.
2. Future time is also a time that has not yet past.
3. Present time relies on past time.
4. Past time relies on present time.
All we have to do is find a theory to explain it.
As for #1 and #2, I have noticed an old theory that can explain that. Old English has claimed that we have only two kinds of time: past and non-past. If we curtail the time to the utmost, between the shortest passing instant and the shortest coming instant, there is nothing!! Therefore, we can judge only two kinds of time. One is past, and the other is non-past that includes present and future. Present time and future time are overlapped, both contrasting with the past. Isn't my whole thread pointing to this theory?
Please note that present-day English tenses have come from old English. Only the old claim (we have only past and non-past) explains old tenses English has been using up to the present.
-----------------------
As for #3 and #4, isn't it a fact the present and the past are in a constant contrast?
Didn't I repeat this: without past there is no present, and without present there is no past? The secret then is, one has to explain the two kinds of time at once. One cannot explain present time alone, or past time alone.
My annoying and insurmountable questions to readers here depend on the fact they usually explain present time or past time one by one. When I deliberately focused on one kind of time, they were puzzled to an unbearable degree. How could I find out this? I have at first noticed that Present Perfect is used because of a contrast with Simple Present, and vice versa. One cannot explain Simple Present alone, or Present Perfect alone. This explains why English users can write English (using many tenses at once in a text) but cannot explain any English tense because they explain tense one by one on one-sentence basis.
My questions are pointing out that we shall explain tenses at least by two sentences, to form a contrast of time.
I don't think it is illogical if two things have to be explained at once. Many things that are existed in contrast have to be explicated this way.
A computer is counted just by I/0, for example. I and 0 have to be explained by contrast and at the same time. You cannot explain only one of them alone.
Male and female are also constantly in contrast and had better be explained at the same time. Explaining only one of them will result in as you say "it relies on doubtful notion of" the other.
If you cannot read a foreign dictionary totally, it is not because each word is not definable, but because each word "relies on doubtful notion of" many others. In situations like this, explaining many of them at once is of most importance, especially to an outsider. Simply put, different concepts of time have to be explained at the same time.
------------------------
In short, future time is overlapped with present time, both contrasting with the past time. The three kinds of time can be explained at once.
englishtense.com