Tense

[electricland]

And they say English is hard.

I read somewhere, once upon a time, that we actually only have 2 tenses in English, present and past, and all else is a creation of the same arbitrary Latin-obsessed Victorian pedants that forbade the split infinitive. Can't remember where, though, and I may be putting the estimate a little low. Perhaps some of the language geeks out there can shed some light? I have to admit, we sure do make our auxiliary verbs do a lot of work:

I had gone
I went
I was going
I am going
I go
I will go
I will have gone
I would go
I would have gone
Would you prefer that I go?

(Not a fair example of course, "go" is irregular. Like every second English verb isn't.)

Comments

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhh!!!!

*phhhflxxt* (Sound of brain exploding)

bring on the geeks!

[mrs-cake.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want to take the term "tense" literally, EVERY language has only 3 of them. It all depends on lazyness. Some languages have preserved the Latin morphology, i.e. they don't need auxilliary verbs, they have suffixes marking the tense, see, e.g. French and Spanish (and even those have some auxilliaries for greater variety and more headaches for the foreign language student).

Let's face it, the English grammar is degenerated. Too lazy to learn all the endings and multiple ways of verbal inflexion, they now use the infinitive only and manage semantic differences by a combination (e.g. "would have been" going!) of aux verbs. Which, I think, is a pretty damn cool idea.

Oh, and as the by the way: progressive forms (was going, had been going, am going, will be going) are variants of ASPECT, not tense. Conditionals (would go, would've gone) are forms of Modus, or MOOD, not tense.

Morphologically, then, English has two MARKED tenses, PRESENT and PAST, to wit "go, went". (The past participle (gone) is a book all to itself). Grammatically, like every other language, English can refer to PRESENT, PAST, and FUTURE (go, went, will go).

I don't know if it helps but I'm having great fun with this! :)

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

I think this is amusing in a sort of vast cosmic way, because at this point English is sort of a ballistic shot of words, which, thrown together with somewhat arbitrary grammar, make sense. For example, in my previous sentance I sacrificed the word "Some" because I wanted to use "Somewhat", which then conveys the meaning appropriately anyway.

<3 English, but perhaps German and French and Spanish and Japanese are easier to learn.

[talisker.livejournal.com]

German and French

French is a serious pain in the ass, as you'll spend more time learning exceptions than rules.

German grammar will give you nightmares. If you think english is annoying with verb tenses, avoid german like the plague. Oh, and german has 3 genders to spice things up. So basically, the ending of a word depends on the case (another fun little concept to make your brain asplode) and the gender. Of course, there are no correlations betweeen word genders in french (which I know) and german (which I was tryin to learn). It's a nutso language, I tell you!

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

Whoops. Still getting the hang of gmail.

Yes, but the thing is that both are limitlessly easier than English,
especially with an English base. You can make yourself understood
relatively quickly, though you'll get laughed at a lot. And of course
there's nothing in common with 'em! German isn't latin base. It's
Crazy Base.

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

I will have been going

[talisker.livejournal.com]

I'd say the opposite. It's easier to get yourself understood in english, just because english is so free-form.

oi!

[mrs-cake.livejournal.com]

I will not have my native language slandered like this. German grammar isn't HALF as difficult as French, thankyouverymuch. I'll admit that the der, die, das differences are a pain in the beehind.

HOWEVER, and here's where we have the ultimative up on both Spanish and French: We don't have a subjunctive. Which, you'll admit, is by far the most superfluous, ridiculous, difficult grammatical form evah.

Thank you, thank you.

Re: oi!

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

Hee. I find that if you mumble in German you're actually totally understandable. I don't know what the subjunctive _is_, truth be told, though I'm sure I use it.

Re: oi!

[mrs-cake.livejournal.com]

hehehe, that's cool. I don't think anyone should have to know what the subjunctive is. ;)

My colleagues are trying to make me teach them German words - the more colourful ones, of course - and I find it's amazing what they can achieve when they put on an Austrian-German accent, rather like the Monty Pythons. Whereas their words don't mean a THING, it sure sounds German for some reason. :)

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

Did you write this from work? At 12:38 a.m.?

oy.

I forgot to call you when I was done with my show at 12:30! I hope you didn't miss the bus.. I didn't see you on the 1:10.

Back when Woody Allen was still funny...

[oblomova.livejournal.com]

...he wrote a piece called "The Kugelmass Episode," wherein a nebbishy (natch) professor at City College found out about a machine that could send him into any work of literature. He was having a grand time with Madame Bovary, until she took a trip back to NYC with him and her raging discontent ruined everything.

Anyway, by the end of the story, he was ready to make another stab at it, only this time he wanted to visit "Portnoy's Complaint." (I know: messy!) Anyway, there was a glitch, he was accidentally sent into a Spanish grammar book instead, and when last seen "he was running for his life over a barren, rocky terrain as the word 'tener' -- a large and hairy irregular verb -- raced after him on its spindly legs."

That's how I remember 'tener' from Spanish classes, too.

Re: bring on the geeks!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Oh dear heaven. Colour me humble (and ignorant).

[electricland.livejournal.com]

you really don't want to know how late I stayed! No more of that, I hope. I took a taxi home. At least I had time at the cottage to decompress!

Re: Back when Woody Allen was still funny...

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Yikes! What a horrid fate!

Re: bring on the geeks!

[mrs-cake.livejournal.com]

Nah, don't worry. You don't have to know this useless shit unless you studied English grammar. I couldn't apply any of it to German! :)

I surprise meself though, with the amount of fun I have with this stuff. Something decidedly wrong with me brain, I guess!