From: dalmatia@eburg.com
Date: Fri May 08 1998 - 11:02:01 EDT
Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> The present tense is an ASPECT: there's more than a temporal frame of
> reference involved in it, there's also the imperfective or durative aspect.
This approach generates a lot of fleas that distract from clarity as
they bite on your aspect concerns.
The present tense is DUAL ASPECT, my friend.
It is obviously PERFECT [past tense], for in the present, things
simply are what they are.
It is obviously IMPERFECT [future tense] because these very same
things simply do what they do, even if all they are doing is just
existing.
The present SPANS time, you see, whereas the ARCH of the present spans
no time at all... Yet generates it.
These are crucial considerations, and go WAY deep.
George Blaisdell
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