A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

§S.l The present tense 45

The salient interpretation of [i] is perfective: there is a single act of promising

which is perfonned by uttering the sentence. The act of promising and the utter­

ing of the sentence thus occupy the same brief period of time (two or three

seconds).

But [ii] cannot under any normal circumstances be interpreted in tenns of a sin­

gle act of mowing the lawn at the time of speaking. It takes much longer to

mow a lawn than to utter a sentence, so the present time cannot be the time of

the situation considered as a totality. The natural interpretation, then, is an

imperfective one: we take the sentence to describe a state of affairs where Sue

regularly or habitually mows the lawn. This state - like that in [30b] - holds at

the time of speaking, but began before then and will (presumably) continue

after it.

To talk about a single act of mowing the lawn while it is going on we would
nonnally use the progressive aspect version: Sue is mowing the lawn. Here the
progressive picks out a point within the total duration of the act, which means the
interpretation is an imperfective one.

(b) Future time, I: the futurate

The present tense is often used for situations located in future time. In main clauses

this is restricted to cases where it can be assumed that we have present knowledge

of a future event, as in:

[32] The next high tide iJ. at 4 o'clock. The sun rises tomorrow at 6. 10.

ii Exams start next week. We arrive home two days before Easter.

This construction is called the futurate. The future time is usually specified by a

time adjunct, marked here by double underlining. The two most common cases

involve:

recurrent events in nature whose time can be calculated scientifically (as in [i));

events that are arranged or scheduled in advance (as in [ii)).

(c) Future time, 11: subordinate clauses

The present tense is used with future time reference without the above restrictions

in certain types of subordinate clause. Three cases of this kind are illustrated

in [33]:

[33] Please bring the washing in if [it rains].

11 I'll give it to you befo re [I leave].

1Il I hope [you are fe eling better soon].

The underlined verbs are present tense but clearly make future time references.

In [i] the subordinate clause is complement within a conditional adjunct;

In [ii] it is complement within a temporal adjunct;

In [iii] it is complement of the verb hope.