On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 06:03:03PM -0800, Gary Shannon wrote:
> Which of these are the same tenses and which are
> different ways of expressing the same tense, and what
> tenses are they anyway?
>
A couple notes: different languages have different sets of tenses, and even
where they have "the same" tense, they often differ in how it is used.
Also, "be" and "run" are different types of verbs; a clause expressing
the sort of identifying relationship expressed by "be" is called a "copula"
and varies widely in how it is represented in other languages. It is not
always a verb at all.
But from the English perspective, these pairs are the same tense:
> I am stubborn and I run.
Simple present.
> I am being stubborn and I am running.
Present progressive.
> I will be stobborn and I will run.
Simple future.
> I was stubborn and I ran.
Simple past.
> I was being stubborn and I was running.
Past progressive.
> I had been stubborn and I had run.
Past perfect (also called pluperfect).
> I will have been stubborn for ...
Future perfect.
> I would have been stubborn but ...
Past conditional.
> I will be being stubborn and I will be running.
Future progressive.
> I will have been being stubborn and I will have been
> running for ...
Future perfect progressive.
These two are not the same tense:
> I have been stubborn and I have been running.
"I have been" is the present perfect; it corresponds to "I have run".
"I have been running" is the present perfect progressive; it corresponds
to "I have been being [stubborn]."
And I'm not sure what this one is called. Past perfect
subjunctive, maybe?
> I should have been stubborn and I should have run.
-Mark