#1 (permalink) Wed May 18, 2011 16:49 pm Tense agreement in the future tense |
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Sorry, this is a way too long story.
I understand that the following sentense is incorrect in tense agreement:
"I said that I will go there after I have lunch."
I would correct it like this:
"I said that I would go there after I had lunch."
Now, that was an exercise to see that I am making tense agreement in a correct manner. Now is the turn of future tense agreement. What I want to express are:
1. I will answer (in the future) something. 2. Something that I will say is the fact that is true in present, which is: "I love her."
Then I am tempted to say like this: "If someone asks to me, I will answer I love her."
That wasn't hard. Now another one.
1. I will declare (in the future) something. 2. Something that I will say is the fact that will eventually become true in the future, which is: "the city will be mine."
Then: "I will declare that the city will be mine," though this sentence makes me unable to judge which of the two events would come first, that is, the city might become mine before at some point I will be able to declare. To make the distinction clear, I might have to augment the sentence, e.g., "I will declare within a month that the city will be mine as soon as the mayor dies."
However, It looks like some composite meaning cannot be always conveyed wholly in a simple sentence. For instance, imagine that I want to say the followings:
1. I will declare something. 2. At the time of declaring, something MUST be EXACTLY "the city is mine", which is not true now (assume it is not mine yet), but I know (or strongly believe) that it will be definitely true at the time of declaring in the future (whenever it will be).
Almost certainly, I cannot say: "I will declare that the city is mine" because then it becomes that the city is already mine at the time of writing the sentense. All I can do best is to say: "I will declare that the city will be mine", which does not exactly convery what I intented. What I will say must be exactly "the city is mine." Moreover, what if it must be exactly "the city became mine", having past tense? I cannot say: "I will declare that the city became mine" because of the same reason.
My conclusion is that the sentences like this involves two or more events in the future unable to give exact points in the timeline, and it is not possible to distinguish which one comes first or happens together as we are saying they just happen in the future. We cannot say no more than this just with this one simple sentence.
One might suggest something like this: "The city is not mine now. However, one day, I will be able to declare that the city became mine."
Any opinions? I appreciate any kind of explanation. |
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Francium25 New Member
Joined: 13 Dec 2010 Posts: 5
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