ESL General English Grammar Questions

ESL General English Grammar Questionshttp://www.englishforums.com/English/EslGeneralEnglishGrammar-Questions/Forum12.htmAsk your questions on grammar and get your sentence checked. We answer lots of different types of general English grammar questions here. <font color=red>DO NOT post paragraphs and compositions here. Post them in our <a href="http://www.englishforums.com/English/EssayReportCompositionWriting/Forum9.htm"><b>Essay, Report and Composition Writing Forum</b></a>.</font>enXMOD (Build: 3615.39139)Re: Durational aspect of progressive tenseshttp://www.englishforums.com/English/DurationalAspectProgressive-Tenses/gpgxg/post.htm#576815Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:35:04 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:576815CalifJim0http://www.englishforums.com/English/DurationalAspectProgressive-Tenses/gpgxg/post.htm#576815http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments12-576815.xmlJohn was sleeping when I walked in. At the moment of the action "I walked in", John was seen to be asleep. Here there is no information about how long John slept, so there's nothing here involving duration or temporariness, except insofar as we know (outside of language) that sleeping takes some finite amount of time and does not last forever. What was noticed was the part of the sleeping that was "in midstream", i.e., neither the beginning (falling asleep) nor the ending (waking). John had been sleeping when I walked in. At the moment of the action "I walked in", something was noticed which indicated that either "John was actually asleep" or "John, though awake, looked as if he had...Re: Durational aspect of progressive tenseshttp://www.englishforums.com/English/DurationalAspectProgressive-Tenses/gpgxg/post.htm#576810Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:35:04 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:576810CalifJim1http://www.englishforums.com/English/DurationalAspectProgressive-Tenses/gpgxg/post.htm#576810http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments12-576810.xmlWhen you read that this or that tense "denotes a temporary action" or "denotes a sudden action" or "denotes duration" or "denotes a habitual activity" or any other of a number of impressionistic descriptions, you are reading poetry, in effect. These are only the suggestions of educators who are attempting to give the "flavor" of these tenses to those who, not being native speakers, have no idea what sort of information is conveyed by the use of one tense or another. These efforts are rather like those of a sighted person trying to describe a rainbow to a blind man. You may even have noticed that the descriptions tend to vary from one teacher to another, and they are not universally...Durational aspect of progressive tenseshttp://www.englishforums.com/English/DurationalAspectProgressive-Tenses/gpgxg/post.htmMon, 25 May 2009 06:35:04 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:576799Anonymous2http://www.englishforums.com/English/DurationalAspectProgressive-Tenses/gpgxg/post.htmhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/comments12-576799.xmlHi, I was told that a present or past progressive tense like "is sleeping" or "was sleeping" denotes a temporary action or activity and the present perfect or past perfect progressive is used to indicate duration. I don't understand why a present progressive is one that denotes a temporary action and I don't particularily see clearly why a present perfect tense is the one that emphasizes (denotes strongly?) the element duration and a present progressive tense is not, if I interpreted what was told correctly. Both of the two pairs in mixed tenses below seem to denote duration , not temporary actions per se. eg, John was sleeping when I walked in. John had been sleeping when I walked in. John is sleeping now....