This also applies to this grammar, even though it aims to be a linguistic study as well as a grammar. As a linguistic study, the book is an exploration of how one framework can account for tense in English, rather than a comparative study of other analyses or a comparison of our analysis with the analyses of other authors. | I. The basic meaning and use of the absolute present tense 175 situation that lasts for a longer time is very real and is no doubt the one that most people would indicate when asked to indicate what temporal information is conveyed by such a sentence. This shows that there is a considerable input of pragmatics even when we process the temporal information of very basic sentences something we have already pointed out in . Since an absolute present tense form expresses no more than that the situation time coincides with t0 and since the situation time may be either the time of the full situation if the situation is punctual or a punctual subinterval of the full situation if the situation is conceived of as homogeneous the present tense does not say anything about the length of the actualization of the full situation in the real world. It can therefore be used irrespective of whether the full situation is viewed as punctual or durative. Here comes the winner The situation time is punctual while the full situation has a certain limited duration. The sentence is therefore treated as homogeneous. It s drizzling. The full situation is durative and represented as homogeneous the situation time is punctual because it coincides with t0. He works as a history teacher at the local boys school. The full situation is a permanent habit. Our teacher speaks Swedish fluently. The full situation is a permanent ability which is a kind of characteristic state. I like every kind of perfume. The full situation is a permanent characteristic. The full situation is interpreted as having maximal duration in universal sentences expressing an eternal truth see The sun sets in the west. Ice melts at zero degrees Centigrade. Paris lies on the Seine. 176 3. The absolute use of the present tense II. The present tense as part of the Special Present Time-sphere System In English it is possible in well-defined contexts to use the set of present timesphere tenses to refer to situations
