Jeff,

You wrote:
> A single brick is essential to a brick building, but it is not useful
(except for
> sending messages through windows or holding down tarps) unless it is in
the
> companionship of mortar and other bricks.
>
My reply: This is a most sensible example. Likewise, a tense is essential to
a sentence, but it is not useful unless it is in the companionship of other
tenses/sentences. Tenses are used to connect the time between sentenceS,
which I call paragraph. It is a fault to analyze a tense by way of a single
sentence, as most present-day grammars do.

Present Perfect in one single sentence "I have bought many things" may have
implied a lot of meanings. We may spend days to explore its usage and
implications, pondering how it is different to Simple Past "I bought many
things". It is, however, like counting the use of a single brick.
But there is no such thing in a paragraph (more than one sentence):
Ex: Yesterday I saw a new department store open around my home. I bought
many things from it.
== Simple Past is compulsory, used to connect to the time of the former
sentence. It is the true use of a tense. Likewise, the true use of a brick
is seen in the companionship of other bricks. We may argue that a brick can
be sometimes used as a hammer, or sending messages through windows or
holding down tarps, but at least we have to state its main use first as you
do.

Nevertheless, since using many sentences to explain a tense seems
troublesome, present-day grammars prefer to keep on one-sentence basis. This
is convenient, but results in more troublesome than they can imagine. They
obviously miss the true use of tense.

Shun
englishtense.com



----- Original Message -----
From: "Glauner, Jeff" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 12:27 AM
Subject: Re: Verbs, tense, and existence


> Jennifer,
>
> When you are studying grammar in this way, it is often more useful to
think
> in terms of phrases (subject, predicate, verb phrase, complement, object,
> modifier, and others) than words.  Of course, these phrases are often just
> single words; but it is the phrase, more than the word, that provides the
> force behind effective sentence building.  Beyond the sentence, it is
often
> the cohesion among phrases throughout the text that makes for powerful
> construction.  A single brick is essential to a brick building, but it is
> not useful (except for sending messages through windows or holding down
> tarps) unless it is in the companionship of mortar and other bricks.
>
> And before anyone calls me heretic, let me assert that I am speaking
> relatively.  I know the impact of the perfect word.  It is second only to
> that of "the well-turned phrase."
>
> 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
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jennifer Rabinowitz [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 10:45 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Verbs, tense, and existence
>
>
> Brock,
> In the process of trying to learn more about English grammar, I, like
> you, have gravitated towards trying to discern more about how language
> works and why.  Learning about the rules of English grammar do not, in
> themselves, satisfy my wish to understanding why the rules are as they
> are.  There seems to be a larger, superimposed, organic structure or
> system of meaning--which your wonderings speak to directly.   I really
> have had such a tough time trying to learn grammar from the ground up,
> that is, from a rule-oriented perspective!  What is more to the point, I
> believe, is to try to understanding the nature of the relationship
> between words, and between words and thought, and then again between
> words and physical reality--the dynamic between these things, that is.
> I believe your comments, which I find so imaginative, are along the same
> track of thinking.
>
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>
>

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