Search results for 'tag:Present tenses tag:Modal auxiliaries' matching tags 'Present tenses' and 'Modal auxiliaries'

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:28:49 GMT

Milky wrote:
He has to go and

He must go.>

Well, I guess that would be part of the mastering part of the language - i.e. the complex part. It's easy for anyone to claim that English is not complex, or is much simpler than many other languages, if he/she avoids talking about mastering the language.

I am not avoiding talking about mastering English. I am just being pragmatic and concentrating on what I consider essential. I don't mind it at all if your ideas about the difficulty of English differ from mine and I fully understand that should is an important modal for some of your students. By all means, teach them what is important to them.

What surprises me is the fact that because the English modal auxiliaries have a number of rare or otherwise exceptional uses, they must be very difficult for nonnative learners of English. It never seems to cross these people's minds that modals or other verbs have similar uses in other languages as well. Such uses are by no means unique to English. In other words, similar difficulties exist in other languages.

It would come as a big surprise for a Swede if he were told that will never means to want. This is because the corresponding verb in Swedish is the most common word meaning to want. Its present tense is spelled vill. And as the German wollen is of the same etymological origin, Germans have no problems with associating volition or desire with will.

Mastering all the complexities and nuances of a verb is difficult in all languages. Complexities and nuances are not an exclusivity of English. What makes English easier than some other languages, in my opinion, is its simple morphology.

CB

Re: future tense

Dawnstorm — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:38:45 GMT

Inchoateknowledge wrote:
What does (simple) future tense mean in this sentence?

The grammarian (it is a grammarian, isn't it?) you're quoting would probably tell you that there is no future tense. Many linguists claim English has only two tenses: Past and Non-past (sometimes called present). Like Marius Hancu said, the grammarian might tell you its about "intention"; will is a modal auxiliary, therefore "will go" is not the future tense of "go". Instead, it's present tense with modified "mood".

Whether English expresses future through tense or not is a controversial question. Your quote doesn't support the existence of a future tense, so - in this context - "future tense" would be a meaningless term.

Thomson/Martinet, in A Practical English Grammar, for example, say:

There is no future tense in modern English, but for convenience we often use the term 'future simple' to describe the form will/shall + bare infinitive.

This is not uncontested. It's a purely terminological debate, though, depending on the definition of tense. Whether there is a future tense or not has no bearing at all at your language proficiency, if you know how to express the future in English. There are other terminological debates: for example, I've heard linguists say there's no passive voice in English, and that the distinction between present participle and gerund cannot be sustained. Different ways to look at language yield different vocabulary to talk about it.

Re: may, might and could - what's the difference

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:40:36 GMT

One such grammatical distinction causing much confusion is the use of the modal auxiliaries âmayâ and âmightâ. When used in the present tense, the two modals are almost transposable, as the difference between the two is merely a very small degree of certainty. However, it has become common practice to use both words in the past tense as though they have the same meaning. In the past tense, may indicates doubt for whether the verb of the clause was carried out and might denotes that the doer had the opportunity to perform an action, but did not. For example, a statement such as If they hadnât been so brave, I may not have been rescued, could seem reasonable to some native English speakers, however, the speaker was rescued, and therefore might in place of may would be grammatically correct. Conversely, the use of the auxiliary might in a statement such as If I had worn a prettier dress last night, I might have attracted a nice man, the auxiliary may would have made more grammatical sense, as it is not certain that a prettier dress would have resulted in the attraction of a nice man.

Re: How many tenses in English?

paco2004 — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 11:43:35 GMT

Hello

Here is some information I got online

Future Tense in Old English

And now finally a few irregular verbs, which used several diffefrent stems for their tenses. These verbs are very important in Old English and are met very often in the texts: wesan (to be), bÃ©on (to be), gÃ¡n (to go), dÃ³n (to do), willan (will). Mind that there was no future tense in the Old English language, and the future action was expressed by the Present forms, just sometimes using verbs of modality, willan (lit. "to wish to do") or sculan (lit. "to have to do").

English Tenses and Aspects

The English verbs are inflected for two tenses: present (walk(s)) and past (walked). In other words, tense is indicated by morphological marking: zero/-s for present tense and -ed for regular past tense. Tense is not necessarily straightforwardly related to what TIME the event represented by the verb takes place. For instance, the simple present tense can be used to refer to various times, as it is used for (1) events which happen regularly or habitually: He smokes, drinks, betrays people and has no guilt whatsoever. (2) timeless truths: The sun rises in the east. (3) present events: I declare the meeting open. Bremner passes the ball to Lorimer. (4) historic present, especially in literary English but also in oral narrative. It recalls or recounts the past as vivivdly as if it were present: He just walks into the room and sits down in front of the fire without saying a word to anyone. (5) events that are expected to happen in the future: When he returns to Manhattan 1000 years later, it has been destroyed and rebuilt three times.

2. What about time then?

We can, of course, situate events in time, but this is not only done by means of grammatical tense. The two tenses, past and present, combine with the aspects discussed below to indicate how the event is viewed in relation to time. In the time-line perspective, we can talk about the past, present and future time. To take an example, English, unlike many other languages, does not have a separate verb form for the future. Consequently, there is no future tense in English, even though there are, of course, many different ways in which we can talk about the future time: (1) The parcel will arrive tomorrow. (modal auxiliary will) (2) The parcel is going to arrive tomorrow. (be going to) (3) The parcel is arriving tomorrow. (present progressive) (4) The parcel arrives tomorrow. (simple present) (5) The parcel will be arriving tomorrow. (modal auxiliary will + progressive aspect)

paco

Re: Tense is used for more than just time.

Roro — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 03:08:04 GMT

Hi milky. (Have you given up our discussion on modal auxiliaries?)

Tense is used for more than just time

I think it's a good point. Quine once said:

Our ordinary language shows a tiresome bias in its treatment of time. Relations of date are exalted grammatically (..). This bias is of itself an inelegance, or breach of theoretical simplicity. Moreover, the form it takes ??that of requiring that every verb form show a tense??is peculialy productive of needless complications, since it demands lip service to time even when time is farthest from our thoughts.
(Quine1960:170)

Seems you shares your view with Quine, don't you?

I can understand now Quine's statement. Granted that his and your point make good sense, I'd give your examples different descriptions.

Exapmle 1: this usage of simple present tense is similar to its usge for .
(Have you ever seen any scenarios which are not written in simple present tense?)

Exapmle 2: Future tense. These sentences describe events which will take place in some future world.

(I'm not so sure: Have I missed your point ..?)

Re: Question on using the word 'better'

taiwandave — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 10:29:50 GMT

I checked in a new book, "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language", which is intended as a rival to Quirk. Following is an excerpt concerning "had better". I don't understand most of it, but presumably Pemmican & Miriam will. I was surprised to see that dropping the "had", as in, "You better go now," is considered by these authors to be acceptable usage!

HAD BETTER/BEST

These are idioms containing the auxiliary âhadâ:

I had better tell them.
I hadn't better tell them.
Had I better tell them?

"Had" has the reduced form 'd, but the reduction can go one stage further, with "had" dropping altogether, and only the âbetterâ remaining: "You better go now." The "had" does not have a past time meaning: in [the above examples] we are concerned with what is the best course of action now, not at some time in the past. This weakens the relationship of the "had" to non-idiomatic "have", and it is questionable whether it should be regarded synchronically as a form of âhaveâ or as a distinct lexeme.

If we take âhadâ as a form of âhaveâ, it will have property [M], preterite with modal remoteness rather than past time meaning. If we take it as a distinct lexeme, we will say that it has been properly reanalyzed as a present tense form (like âmustâ and âoughtâ), and it will have property [J], no agreement. In either case, it has only primary forms, , and takes only a bare infinitival complement, . On these grounds it undoubtedly should be included among the non-central members of the modal auxiliary class.

Re: I have to go now.

pemmican — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 13:47:38 GMT

Just change it into "I must go" - then it's easier to analyze:

"go" here is the full verb that is in its infinitive and follows the modal auxiliary must - without to!

I have to go:

"have to" is the substitute form for "must", "go" again is the full verb in its infinitive.
"Have to" here is a fixed expression, and therefore "to" is actually part of the following infinitive form of the full verb, not a preposition. If it was a preposition, usually a Gerund would have to follow (as eg. in "I look forward to seeing you).

To complete the analysis:

"I" is the subject of the sentence, it's a personal pronoun.
"have to go" is the predicate of the sentence which includes the inflected present tense form of "have" and the infinitive form of the full verb with "to".
"now" is an adverbial of time.

Hope that helped