Chapters 3 to 5 address, respectively, the present tense, the past tense and the present perfect, and Chapter 6 examines some of the differences between the past tense and the present perfect. In Chapter 7 we take a look at the fourth absolute tense, the future tense, and also at other verb forms that can locate a situation time in the future. | IV. T-relations in a post-present domain 511 The use of the past perfect in 4a b versus the use of the present perfect in 5a b is accompanied by further differences between the two types of sentences. To begin with in 4a b the head clause in the future tense is each time positive while the relative clause in the past perfect is each time negative. It follows that there can be a contrast in interpretation between the future actualization of the head clause situation and the nonactualization of the same kind of situation in a period leading up to the beginning of that future actualization. In 5a b both clauses are positive so that there is no sense of contrast between actualization and earlier nonactualization. Secondly the tenses in 4a b and 5a b reveal a difference of temporal focus see . In both 4a b and 5a b the speaker makes a prediction and in doing so expresses his own point of view concerning the future. The fact that in 5a b he focuses on i. e. is primarily concerned with the postpresent time of the resultant state expressed by the present perfect form is in keeping with this the time focused on is the same time as the time about which a prediction is made. The only point of view that is taken in these sentences is therefore that of the speaker. In 4a b by contrast the past perfect reveals a temporal focus on the pseudo-past orientation time to which the situation referred to in the past perfect is anterior. This means that apart from expressing his own point of view about the post-present by making a prediction the speaker also assumes the temporal standpoint and hence the point of view see of the person s participating in the post-present situation. Thus in 4a If you join our club you will know a lot about people that you had never dreamed of meeting before the speaker expresses not only his own point of view in that he makes a prediction but also the viewpoint of an imagined having-joined-the-club addressee potentially saying I hadn t .
