Present Simple

1. Present:
• generic, habitual
• instantaneous
• atemporal
2. Past
3. Future

1
Instantaneous Simple Present
marked use of the perfective viewpoint

• performative verbs:
I agree. I hereby declare…
• perception predicates:
I see the moon.
• running commentaries and demonstrations
I add two cups of flour and fold in gently
Here comes the bus.

2
Past value

• informal
‘Well, anyways, there I am, having a good time,
and all of a sudden a bunch of fellows dressed as
French cops come up and start pushing me
around. So when they push me, I push them. It
wasn’t more than about half a minute when one of
these palookas suddenly pulls out a young carving
knife and sticks me in the wish-bone with it. Good
and hard it sticks me, and it got me plenty sore.
And I says to myself, what the hell?’
3
• narrative (novels)
I walk along the gravel path that divides the back
lawn, neatly, like a hair parting. It has rained
during the night; the grass to either side is damp,
the air humid. I open the white picket gate and
continue, past the front lawn and towards the
front gate. In the driveway, one of the Guardians
assigned to our household is washing the car.
(M.Atwood, The Handmaid’s tale)

4
Mrs Veneering has just succeeded in waking Lady
Tippins from a snore, by dexterously shunting a train
of plates and dishes at her knuckles across the table;
when everybody but Mortimer himself becomes
aware that the [butler] is, in a ghostly manner,
offering him a folded paper. Mortimer, in spite of all
the arts of the [butler], placidly refreshes himself
with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious of
the Document which engrosses the general
attention, until Lady Tippins (who has a habit of
waking totally insensible), having remembered
where she is, and recovered a perception of
surrounding objects, says:… […]
Mortimer… requested to see the messenger who
had brought the paper. He was a boy of about
fifteen. Mortimer looked at the boy…
(C.Dickens, Our Mutual Friend)

5
• headlines, captions, commentaries, synopses, stage
directions, captions, illustrations, recipes, history
books etc.
• atemporal

6
7
 A large tree pierces a
house in the
Washington suburb of
Kensington, Maryland,
on March 2.

A zebra stands in the sun

as the temperature drops
at the Tierpark zoo in
Berlin on Friday, March 2. 8
RAINA: I am sorry I frightened you. (She takes up the
pistol and hands it to him) Pray take it to protect
yourself against me.
MAN (grinning wearily at the sarcasm as he takes the
pistol.) No use, dear young lady: there’s nothing in it.
It’s not loaded.
(G.B.Shaw)

9
Cornelia Funke: Inkheart
Meggie loves books. So does her father, Mo, a
bookbinder, although he has never read aloud to her.
They live quietly until the night a stranger knocks at
their door. He has come with a warning that forces
Mo to reveal an extraordinary secret…

10
Season 1
1. Instinct: With a body in her car and nowhere
to run, Sarah is forced to continue her con
and earn ‘Beth’ a second chance on the force.
2. Variation under Nature: Sarah’s fake detective
ruse stretches thin when the cops find the
body she buried.
3. Sarah’s hunt for answers is interrupted by a
trip to the suburbs. Alison’s paranoia has
boiled over, putting all the Orphans at risk.

11
• April 17, 1775 – The first shots of the Revolutionary
War are fired at Lexington, Massachusetts.
• April 23, 1775 – The Provincial Congress of
Massachusetts orders the mobilization of 13,600
troops.
• May 10, 1775 – The Continental Army is officially
formed.

12
• with verbs of communication

a. I hear you're in London.

b. Letters were written, he tells me, which had to be
seen to be believed.

13
Future value
• obligatory time Av
• high degree of certainty: calendar, cyclic events,
scheduled events

This year Easter falls on April 8th .

14
• subordinate clauses: time and conditional

I will bring it to you when I have it.

If I find it, you will be the first to know.

15
a. The Red Sox play the Yankees tomorrow.
b. *The Red Sox defeat the Yankees tomorrow.
c. The Red Sox will defeat the Yankees tomorrow.

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