For a endless present tense without an adverb, what about "two and two IS
four"?  It seems to me that the simple present tense is endless unless we
give some indication to the contrary.  The indication, however, may reside
in common knowledge about the circumstnces described.

On Sun, 27 May 2001, shun Tang wrote:

> Dear Jeff,
>
> You are right in dealing with an endless thing.
>
> You wrote:
> > Like this:  "I will remain in Missouri endlessly."
> >
> My reply: Can't you see, 'endlessly' is something about the future,
> something we are not certain, so we put in another tense, not in Simple
> Present? But this is the common way we treat something including the future.
> Simple Present can guarantee nothing about the future.
> By the way, you cannot imply to us it is 'endlessly' if you skip the time
> adverb.
>
> On the other hand as we are talking about the Simple Present tense, even
> without the adverb 'endlessly', Simple Present can denote endless present
> time, as Patricia imagines. This no one can believe. The world is changing,
> everything will have an end. But Patricia wants to convince people that, by
> using Simple Present, we have already an endless thing at hand.
>
> A mother says, "My baby eats 5 bottles of milk every day." Because she uses
> Simple Present, according to Patricia, the baby eats the amount of milk, for
> the rest of his endless life. Where do we go wrong? How many times we use
> Simple Present in one day? How many times we check if it is endless? Would
> Patricia tell us how to check?
>
> Shun
> englishtense.com
> =================
>
>
>
> <But how to define 'endless'? How
> <do native English speakers predict the action is endless?
>
> Shun,
>
> Like this:  "I will remain in Missouri endlessly."  You get the prediction
> of "forever," and you get the bonus of a hint about how fond I am of the
> prospect of forever in Missouri. It begins in the verb (particularly the
> auxiliary) and completes its specificity in an adverb.
>
> Jeff Glauner
> Associate Professor of English
> Park University, Box 1303
> 8700 River Park Drive
> Parkville MO 64152
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.park.edu/jglauner/index.htm
>
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