Re: where do so many tenses come from?


"*** T. Winter" <***.Winter@xxxxxx> wrote...

"Nathan" <ntspam2@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Ruud Harmsen wrote:
...
AFAIK it is not possible in English, i.e. present tense + future
adverb is ungrammatical in English. (Unlike in Dutch, which makes it a
well-known pitfall for us.)

I have a date tomorrow night.
I'm giving a speech next week.
My daughter starts school this coming fall.

Yes, Ruud was a bit strong. But only the third falls in the category.
In the first sentence you have the date now, but it is a date for
tomorrow, there is no sense using a future tense here. But the second
would be "I give a speech next week" in Dutch. In Dutch, even for
future purposes, the present tense is normally used. In English there
is a tendency to use auxiliary verbs in those cases.

But, not a future auxiliary. In English, there is a tendency, often a
requirement, to use the continuous "is ...ing" in many cases where Dutch
uses the simple verb. This has nothing to do with whether the event is
located in the present or the future.

How about:
"I hear that next week"?

Yep, I can't imagine that one occuring in normal English without some sort
of future tense being used -- most common would be "I'll be hearing that
next week", I think.

John.


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