¹ Modern English Grammar 4.1.1 (Heidelberg, 1931). Cf. Philosophy of Grammar 256 (New York, 1924).

² Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, English translation by F. L. Pogson, Time and Free Will ch. 2 (London and New York, 1910).

³ Our Knowledge of the External World 114, 116, 125, 126 (Chicago and London, 1914).

⁴ Space, Time, and Deity vol. 1, ch. 1 (London, 1920).

⁵ The authors of the following statements repeat Jespersen's view : ‘ It is hardly necessary to observe that a present in the strict sense of the word is a purely imaginary point of time: that which we call the present necessarily including a portion of both the past and the future'—H. Poutsma, Mood and Tense of the English Verb 2.2.a (Groningen, 1922). ‘Time being represented by a straight line (Jespersen, Tid og Tempus), we may set up the following scheme of the time spheres ... ‘—ibid. 2.6. ‘A Point on the time-line to the left of the point “now” marks a past moment ; a point to the right of the point “now” marks a future moment. Present time means nothing other than a combination of past and future time'— Harold E. Palmer, A Grammar of Spoken English 146 (Cambridge, England, 1927). The position of Aage Brusendorff is curious. He says: ‘To him [the grammarian) the present is not a point of no extension ... no grammatical time indicates merely a point : time is always a length.......Then, suddenly, she was clinging to him, and his arms went about her. From this and similar instances, it is obvious that the use of the expanded tenses does not imply duration; the two actions above are clearly instantaneous and simultaneous: it is the relativity of the action, her share in it as regarded from his point of view, that has entailed the use of the expanded form'—The Relative Aspect of the Verb in English, A Grammatical Miscellany Offered to Otto Jespersen on His Seventieth Birthday 226, 229 (Copenhagen and London, 1980). His first statement is correct; but the proper way to disprove the claim that the peculiar function of the expanded form is to express duration is to show that the simple form also expresses duration.

⁶ MEG 4.2.1.1; cf. PG 258-9.

⁷ Cf. Jespersen: ‘If the present tense is used, it is because they [certain sentences] are valid now; the linguistic tense-expression says nothing about the length of duration before or after the zero-point’ MEG 4.2.1.2. Nor, I insist, does the linguistic tense-expression say anything about the zero-point.

'If “present time” is defined as is done here, it is applicable even to intermittent occurrences like the following: I get up every morning at seven (even when spoken in the evening). If we represent each act of getting up (at seven) by a dot, and the present moment by O, we get the following figure, which shows that the condition for using the present tense is fulfilled:

......O . . ., etc.'

PG 259. The dots to the right of O in the diagram—a spatial representation again!— represent the future, which certainly does not exist now; those to the left, if they do not exist, have existed.

⁸ Henry Sweet, A New English Grammar 2.§2223-4 (Oxford, 1903).

⁹ Jespersen, MEG 4.12.5.4. Cf. PG 279: ‘It is a natural consequence of the use of the expanded tenses to form a time-frame round something else that they often denote a transitory as contrasted with a permanent state which for its expression requires the corresponding unexpanded tense. The expanded form makes us think of the time-limits, within which something happens, while the simple form indicates no time-limit.‘

¹⁰ Brusendorff, Relative Aspect 229.

¹¹ Sweet, NEGr. 2.§2219. Italics mine.

¹² H. Poutsma, The Characters of the English Verb and the Expanded Form 48 (Groningen, 1921). Italics mine.

¹³ Jespersen, MEG 4.5.4.1-2.

¹⁴ NEGr. 2.§2225.

¹⁵ Poutsma, Expanded Form 50.

¹⁶ In the following statements this distinction is not made : ‘ In the above scheme there is no place for what is called the perfect tense in English grammars. This is owing to the fact that this tense in its primary application expresses a blending of two elements, viz. it states (a) that the action or state referred to belongs to the past time-sphere, (b) that this action or state produced a result belonging to the present time-sphere. ... It follows that, in using the perfect tense, the speaker thinks distinctly of both the present and the past'—Poutsma, Mood and Tense 2.8.a. ‘The Perfect ... is itself a kind of present tense, and serves to connect the present time with the past. This is done in two ways: first the perfect is a retrospective present, which looks upon the present state as a result of what has happened in the past; and second the perfect is an inclusive present, which speaks of a state that is continued from the past into the present time . . . ‘—Jespersen, MEG 4.4.1.

¹⁷ Sweet, NEGr. 2.§2213.

¹⁸ Compare the second quotation in footnote 7.

¹⁹‘In using the present tense in speaking of future events one disregards, as it were, the uncertainty always connected with prophesying, and speaks of something, not indeed as really taking place now, but simply as certain. ... It is therefore impossible to say, for instance, To-morrow it rains-, the present tense implies more certainty than is possible in speaking of such a thing as the weather‘—Jespersen, MEG 4.2.4.1. But : How much do you want to bet that it rains tomorrow?. The certainty, or confidence, is with the speaker, whether or not external conditions seem to warrant it; certainty is not a condition of the events but of the speaker.

²⁰ The choice between repetition and continuity depends upon the vocabulary, e.g. He smokes cigarettes. The sun always shines on the British Empire.

²¹ Compare the following statements : ‘ It is evident that an occurrence of which wre speak in the present must be incomplete at the time, for if it were completed, it would no longer be present'—Sweet, NEGr. l.§281. ‘This element of incompletion (at that time) is very important if we want to understand the expanded tenses, even if it is not equally manifest in all cases. But it should be noted that it is not exactly the period of time that is incomplete, but the action or state indicated by the verb itself'—Jespersen, MEG 4.12.5.2. I object that although incompletion is a condition which may be logically deduced, it is not what is being stated.

²²‘The addition of such words [as always, again, just] is no doubt responsible for the sense of duration (always, &c), iteration (again), or instantaneousness (just) often being considered as denoted by the expanded tenses. But note the fact that such sentences as he always does so and he is always doing so are conveying quite different shades of sense. In using the first way of speech we intend to state that the man does so under all circumstances, while the second phrase is used to denote his doing so under special circumstances. It is really a case of a thing being done simultaneously with other happenings . .. ‘—Brusendorff, Relative Aspect 233. This distinction is approximately correct; the perverse concluding remark illustrates a disguised description of a neglected relationship—time. Cf. footnote 5.

²³ Compare C. T. Onions: ‘Observe that the Simple Tenses coincide partly with the Continuous Tenses, i.e., they may be used to denote the same act or state. Thus one may say I live at Oxford or I am living at Oxford, indifferently, if one means that Oxford is one's present place of abode. But if one wishes to denote a habit, one generally says I live at Oxford in winter, not I am living at Oxford in winter.‘—An Advanced English Syntax §134.b (London and New York, 1911).

²⁴ Shelley, Letters, quoted by Jespersen, MEG 4.12.7.3, who adds: ‘—the implication is obvious’.

²⁵ Wilde, quoted by Jespersen, ibid. 4.13.1.2.

²⁶ Ibid. 4.12.5.5.

²⁷ Jane Austen, Persuasion, quoted by Brusendorff, Relative Aspect 239, where other examples can be found. See also the observation quoted in footnote 22.