Talking about always
 |
| Water boils at 100°C |
The title of this guide is slightly misleading. In fact, the tense forms analysed below do not refer to time at all. They refer to events which speakers sees as timeless insofar as they are not concerned to communicate anything to do with time at all. A better title might have been Talking about whenever but even that misleadingly suggests some link to a time. Consider, for example:
- I like Handel's music
- Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius
- John lives in Paris
- I see what you mean
In none of these cases is the verb marked for time in the same
way that, for example, we add -ed or make other changes to
denote a past tense. In the past simple, in English, the verb
is not marked for person (as they all take the same form) but it is
marked for time.
The present simple is different: it is marked for person (only the
third person singular, in fact) but, crucially, it is not marked for
time.
Even when a time marker is used with present simple forms, there is
still fundamentally no time marking because the speaker is concerned
with the state or event, not when it happens. So for example,
we could also have:
- I usually like Handel's music
- Water always boils at 100 degrees Celsius at a pressure of 1 bar
- John currently lives in Paris
- I see, now, what you mean
Again, in all these examples, the speaker is viewing the event or state as a fact regardless of when it occurs. There is no sense of relating the event or state to any other time or event. It is simply a statement of a timeless fact. That is why the simple present in English is called an absolute tense.
A clear example of the timeless nature of the simple present
tense in English is seen when we consider abilities which people
possess. For example:
Joshua plays the accordion
in which there is no sense of time at all. The speaker is
merely stating a fact about Joshua.
Semantics also plays a role in this issue. Compare. for
example:
I tell you that is the wrong part
in which the speaker is declaring a timeless fact. However,
tell is polysemous, having two closely connected meanings
so:
She is telling us what happened this morning
in which the verb means recount or relate and is
used in a different sense.
Other verbs show their polysemous nature, too:
A: Is that her brother?
B: I think so
where the verb means believe and cannot be limited by time
so we do not hear:
*I am thinking so
or
*I think so this week
but we do hear:
I'm thinking about it
where the verb means contemplate or ponder not
believe.
Other mental and verbal process verbs operate similarly and include
believe, suggest, say, propose, aver, opine, avow, state, claim,
declare, swear, profess and so on. They are used
timelessly in statements of fact and have no reference to a time
frame or duration.
The forms of choice are quite straightforward and parallelled in many languages. Some, such as the use of will and if are not parallelled, however.
 |
The teaching issue |
| misleading |
There is an obvious teaching issue here because, if it is true
that the forms above are unmarked for time, telling learners that
the name of the tense is the simple
present will lead them to believe that it is a tense used to
talk about the present. That is, unfortunately, not true and
the misunderstanding leads to a good deal of error.
Lewis (1968:68) goes so far as to suggest that terms such as
the simple present need to be
replaced by the basic form but,
while the suggestion is well founded and logical, it seems doomed
not to be implemented because many teachers, course books and grammars for students
are wedded to the use of the term and unlikely to change any time soon.
The misnaming of the form does, however, lead to a good deal of
poor teaching and no little teacher-induced error. One
website, which shall remain nameless to spare the writer's blushes,
avers, for example, that:
The bird flies
is a present reference because "it is happening now".
It is doing no such thing, of course, and, in any case, it is
difficult to imagine when anyone would say such a thing.
 |
Events |
|
It rains a lot here It is always raining here |
For example:
| The meaning I want to convey | Form of choice | Aspect |
| I want to say that an event occurs in past present and future | Water
boils at 100°C whenever you heat it |
simple |
| Water
will boil at 100°C always: not referring to the future (the sense is almost that water chooses to boil) |
||
| I want to say that an event always continues | The
sea is getting rough when the gales arrive predictably |
progressive |
| The
sea gets rough when the gales arrive predictably |
 |
States |
| Jellyfish have painful stings |
States are only expressed in the simple aspect.
| The meaning I want to convey | Form of choice | Aspect |
| I want to say that a physical state is permanent | The Milky Way measures 100,000
light years across and that is unlikely to change soon |
simple |
| I want to say that a mental state is permanent | She appears illiterate not at any particular time |
continuous |
The verbal processes which occur when describing permanent states are generally relational and are of two sorts:
- Attributive
This function characterises or assigns membership of a class to a thing or person. For example:
Elephants are mammals
Velvet feels soft
Iron appears in the third row of the periodic table, next to cobalt
Tigers look dangerous - Relational
This function describes things in relation to other things. For example:
My house stands next to the supermarket.
The head office remains in London.
He is the second son.
The sorts of verbs used for attributive purposes are generally known as copular verbs (new tab).
 |
Habits |
| She smokes a lot |
Habits are only expressed in the simple aspect.
| The meaning I want to convey | Form of choice | Aspect |
| I want to say that a state is habitual | He lies in bed all day on Sunday that is a state not an event as such |
continuous |
| I want to say that an event is habitual | She laughs loudly not at any particular time |
simple |
| I want to say that a response is habitual | When threatened, snakes strike but only then |
simple |
 |
The so-called zero conditional |
| If you mix white and red, you get pink |
is not a conditional because the word if can be replaced
with something like when or whenever.
In effect, the form is akin to the habitual response described
above.
It is not helpful to tell learners that it is a conditional because:
- It isn't.
- In other languages, special verb forms (often a subjunctive) are used for real conditionals and won't be used for this habitual response idea.
- Other languages will reserve the conjunction if for real conditionals only and prefer a conjunction translatable as when for this idea.
- It encourages conceptual misunderstanding and the
understanding of subordination vs. coordination, in particular.
If you work hard, you succeed
is not quite the same as:
When you work hard you succeed
or
Work hard and you succeed. - The form frequently appears in the past and is, similarly,
not conditional because the clauses do not have a relationship
of contingency but one of time. For example:
If my father was a little drunk, his accent got stronger and stronger
If I offended her, I always apologised
It is unhelpful to consider this as a form of conditional because learners may confuse it with true conditional sentences such as:
If I offended her, I would apologise
(but I don't think I did).
Reference:
Lewis, M, 1968, The English Verb: An exploration of Structure
and Meaning, Hove: Language Teaching Publications