Re: future past

Sally wrote:

<<It may be written on the pavement there (which is just a fancy
blown-up image of my calendar), but the Ice Age might have come upon us.  :)>>


Ah, so *that's* where Radiohead got that lyric...

Something about future tenses has always bothered me conceptually.   The 
future
tense is always very different from the past tense.   If something happened 
in the
past, you simply say it.   That is, you can tell someone what happened, and 
it's no
more controversial then running your hand through your hair.   By saying that
something is *going* to happen though you're making a claim.   At least in 
English.
I can't conceptualize any kind of future tense (will, go, immediate, 
whatever) where
using it renders a simple statement.   What I'm getting at is that it seems 
that the
future tense is not a tense, but, perforce, a tense coupled with an aspect.   
Is this just
English?   Are there natural languages where you can just say something like, 
"He's
walking down the street, tomorrow", and it's no more interesting than if 
you're
relating something that happened yesterday?   After all, we're equidistant 
from the
future and the past (i.e., we'll never see the future or the past, only the 
present).
Perhaps it's that the present and past assume knowledge.   But what if you're 
wrong
about the past or present?   You tell a friend, "My mother's at store right 
now", but
really she's at the post office at the moment of speaking.   How is that any 
different
from saying, "It'll rain tomorrow", when it doesn't?   Take my quote down 
there.   There
are a number of ways to read it, but at least one way of reading it gives a 
simple
statement of fact.   Its truth doesn't rely on a given outcome, since it's 
either (a) impossible
to determine the outcome, or (b) incommunicable.   Also, it's an opinion.   
The truth
of the statement can never be determined.   All these facts free my brain 
from the
traditional volitional/prognostic/causative reading of the future.   I don't 
know why,
but it seems to.   It seems like that should be possible for any old future 
statement,
even, "I'm going to go to the store tomorrow", but it doesn't seem to work.   
I can't
grok it, man.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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