Shun,
The following book in the area of Philosophy of Language may be if interest to you!
Peter Ludlow, Semantics, Tense, and Time: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language. (1999) A Bradford Book (MIT Press) 264pp.
0-262-12219-7
I quote from the publisher's prospectus:
"In this book Peter Ludlow uses the metaphysics of time as a case study and focuses on the dispute between A-theorists and B-theorists about the nature of time. According to B-theorists, there is no genuine change, but a permanent sequence of events ordered by an earlier-than/later-than relation. According to the version of the A-theory adopted by Ludlow (a position sometimes called "presentism"), there are no past or future events or times; what makes something past or future is how the world stands right now.
"Ludlow argues that each metaphysical picture is tied to a paticular semantical theory of tense and that the dispute can be adjudicated on semantical grounds. A presentism-compatible semantics, he claims, is superior to a B-theory semantics in a number of respects, including its abilities to handle the indexical nature of temporal discourse and to account for facts about language acquisition. Along the way, Ludlow develops a conception of "E-type" temporal anaphora that can account for both temporal anaphora and complex tenses without reference to past and future events. His view has philosophical consquences for theories of logic, self-knowledge, and memory. As for linguistic consequences, Ludlow suggests that the very idea of grammatical tense may have to be dispensed with and replaced with some combination of aspect, modality, and evidentiality.
I think that there is a confusion about the parts of grammar called syntax (including morphology) and semantics. There is no way to deny that there is a syntactic phenomenon called tense: we see it in the forms of the verbs, such as shall (present form) and should (past form). No one would claim that these forms have very much to do with time in most uses. Depending on the verb, we may ignore time, noticing that the changes are often of aspect, modality, and evidentiality. Thus present perfect usually refers to the perfective aspect, not to the present time! The words "present action" are not talking about tense at all, so what is so hard about defining them, that is not difficult for any semantical terms? What is your philosophical stance? You are not asking semanticists. We are not philosophers of language. I think you're asking the wrong people. We can only give naive answers, which it seems you cannot be satisfied with. I suggest you ask the philosophers.
Bruce
>>> [log in to unmask] 06/14/01 10:54PM >>>
Subject: How to define a 'present action'?
A present action seems to be very basic knowledge, but it is most puzzling.
May someone kindly tell me, how to define a present action?
Shun
englishtense.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Layton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2001 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: Grammar and Literature -- Help Please
> At 09:02 PM 6/14/01 -0400, you wrote:
> >>>>
> Geoff, I was under the impression that not all grammarians believed that
> grammar instruction will improve writing, and that many of those who were
> "consumed" with the belief were reacting to the NCTE anti-grammar stance.
> At least I don't have to defend it as writing process, which I know will
> get me in trouble with the masses.
>
> I wanted to change that "consumed" line, but failed to do so. I guess I
> was trying to get across the point that many people (like me), who think
> grammar is important, can't quite accept the "anti-grammar" position, even
> though years of research and in my case personal experience tell us
> otherwise. Peraps quixotically, I do want to defend grammar as being
> helpful to the writing process, all the while not getting myself in
trouble
> with "the masses."
>
> I have found that the only way to connect grammar with writing is to
> de-emphasize the definitions and teach instead the usage and usage in a
> very particular way - namely, having my students learn how writers create
> meaning. It seems to me that writers create meaning - and, similarly,
> readers create meaning from writing - only by using grammatical
> constructions that can be taught, but do not necessarily have to be named
> and analyzed. To continue with the tool analogy, you don't have to know
> that a drill is called a drill in order to use it, although if you use one
> enough you'll probably want to find out.
>
> This is where I have come up with what I call my "sentence stuffing" idea
> (I'm working on a book!) that requires students to use specific
grammatical
> constructs to create meaning - again, the "crying baby" sentence is the
one
> I start with. Once a student gets going, all of a sudden dependent
> clauses, prepositional phrases, appositives, adjectives and adverbs are
> flying all over the place - all used correctly even by the most marginal
> students.
>
> I now have hope that English teachers, just like the Washington
> politicians, can finally stop our bickering and have a bipartisan
agreement
> on the value of grammar!
>
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>
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