Re: Inmediateness

Gerald Koenig wrote:

> >Some postings ago, there where a little discution of how tense is used to
> >mean urgency
> >
> >For example in English:
> >  I'm out of here. (meaning "I will leave at once").
>
> Hi Carlos, I wrote that, more on the subject of the discrepancy between
> formal tense structure and what is meant, semantics. Idiomatic
> expression.  I think "about to" do something has some sense of urgency
> in english although it can also be looked at as pure tense. I see
> urgency as an attitude toward an event.
Really? I have always considered "about to X" and "going to X" as examples
of a little talked of aspect in English, the prospective.  For me, the present
prospective (e.g., "I'm going to go to the store") bears the same relationship
to the simple future ("I will go to the store")  as  the present perfect does for
the simple past.  I also think there's a difference between "about to X" (which
does have this sense of immediacy, as if one were "about to walk out the door,
when the phone rang", or something) and "going to go" (which is more or less
ambiguous, or having a further nonimmediate tone).  So, I would think that
it's a combination of aspect and tense, rather than just tense. What do others
think?


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre;
But al that he myghte of his freendes hente,
On bookes and on lernynge he it spente"
    _Canterbury Tales_, Chaucer (Gen. Prol. 298-300)
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