Understanding Foundations of Grammar
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englishteacher551
- Posts: 43
- Joined: Mon Mar 04, 2019 11:05 pm
Understanding Foundations of Grammar
Hello Everyone,
I have completely formulated the opinions/arguments in this post from my career and experience as a langauge teacher and avid language learner. I very much invite and welcome your feedback!
Have you ever wondered why the English language has so many different tenses?
"Tense" coming from old French is "tens" (modern French "temps") and Latin "tensus" is a participle of the verb "tendere" which means to stretch.
So if we put those two together, we could conceive of "tense" in English grammar as the practice of "stretching time".
So why in the world is the English language so focused on the concept of stretching time?
The answer: the construction of grammatical concepts in English is driven by the needs of the culture to explicate concepts/ideas/thoughts/theories and create technologies which have been central to the establishment of the culture's identity.
In this case, Anglo-Saxon culture (i.e. a mix of cultures from what is today known as Great Britain and modern Germany), has for centuries been a successful seafaring, imperialist culture with the goal of spreading their influence through colonization of foreign lands.
Why has colonization been so important to English speaking cultures? The answer to this question still reverberates today in regards to American imperialism and the widespread American military presence around the world.
The answer is that when we English speaking cultures (America today and moreso Great Britain in the past, especially with the creation of the British East India Company - the world's first corporation which also had a standing army), have colonized other parts of the world and established a dominant presence in such areas, this has made the procurement of the desirable, valuable resources from those places much easier to attain and control. Such resources have thus enriched the lives of those connected to the colonial cultures in their home countries.
The fast and easy procurement of valuable resources is the motivation.
Which resources am I referring to?
Today for the American empire it is of course oil, petroleum, natural gas, plants harvested for medicinal use and of course all the rare earth minerals (e.g. graphite, coltan, platinum, indium) so necessary for the construction and manufacture of all the technological innovations and creations we so enjoy and take for granted today (e.g. smartphones and PCs), just to name a few.
In the past with the British East India Company, it was the control and trade of various spices, herbs, food preservatives (like salt), valuable earth minerals like gold and silver (though gold and silver are still actively sought after today for the same reasons as noted above), just to name a few.
So what does this have to do with English grammar and our cultural obsession with time?
For Great Britain and America to have become such dominant imperialistic cultures, we have needed to employ the very best technology in all of our colonial endeavours.
Whether it's been navigating the high seas with advanced ships, submarines and now aircraft carriers, developing weapons such as guns and tanks which can shoot deadly projectiles or a variety of flying objects such as planes, jets and drones, employing the scientific method is absolutely necessary in the development of each said technology.
Conclusion: in order to effectively employ the scientific method, explain it, teach it and continually use it in all such imperialist ventures such methodology often must be explained in terms of cause and effect to painstakingly minute details.
And we must be able to explain cause and effect such that we are able to:
-separate and isolate events which happen only once, such as the D-Day invasion and how so many ships and soldiers were able to coordinate such a large scale attack (e.g. this would probably entail the use of continuous tenses)
vs. those events which happen often or repeatedly such as tracking the timing of earth's revolutions around the sun so we could accurately create a predictable calendar for farming and agricultural purposes (e.g. this would entail the use of simple tenses)
vs. those technologies such as computers in manufacturing which have made thousands of people's jobs and livelihoods redundant due to automation, just look at the Mercedes Benz factory in Germany which is almost completely run by machines.... How long until we see self driving cars or cars with no steering wheels? (e.g. this would entail the use of perfect tenses)
This is the philospophical perspective I adopt when teach grammatical concepts in English.
The reason for tense usage in English is apparent: it is 100% necessary and applicable to the development of new technologies via the scientific method which change our lives in fundamental ways.
What do you all think?
How does your language compare? Is there an obsession and focus on speaking in various time-references?
Why or why not?
Interested to hear your responses!
Best,
Alex
I have completely formulated the opinions/arguments in this post from my career and experience as a langauge teacher and avid language learner. I very much invite and welcome your feedback!
Have you ever wondered why the English language has so many different tenses?
"Tense" coming from old French is "tens" (modern French "temps") and Latin "tensus" is a participle of the verb "tendere" which means to stretch.
So if we put those two together, we could conceive of "tense" in English grammar as the practice of "stretching time".
So why in the world is the English language so focused on the concept of stretching time?
The answer: the construction of grammatical concepts in English is driven by the needs of the culture to explicate concepts/ideas/thoughts/theories and create technologies which have been central to the establishment of the culture's identity.
In this case, Anglo-Saxon culture (i.e. a mix of cultures from what is today known as Great Britain and modern Germany), has for centuries been a successful seafaring, imperialist culture with the goal of spreading their influence through colonization of foreign lands.
Why has colonization been so important to English speaking cultures? The answer to this question still reverberates today in regards to American imperialism and the widespread American military presence around the world.
The answer is that when we English speaking cultures (America today and moreso Great Britain in the past, especially with the creation of the British East India Company - the world's first corporation which also had a standing army), have colonized other parts of the world and established a dominant presence in such areas, this has made the procurement of the desirable, valuable resources from those places much easier to attain and control. Such resources have thus enriched the lives of those connected to the colonial cultures in their home countries.
The fast and easy procurement of valuable resources is the motivation.
Which resources am I referring to?
Today for the American empire it is of course oil, petroleum, natural gas, plants harvested for medicinal use and of course all the rare earth minerals (e.g. graphite, coltan, platinum, indium) so necessary for the construction and manufacture of all the technological innovations and creations we so enjoy and take for granted today (e.g. smartphones and PCs), just to name a few.
In the past with the British East India Company, it was the control and trade of various spices, herbs, food preservatives (like salt), valuable earth minerals like gold and silver (though gold and silver are still actively sought after today for the same reasons as noted above), just to name a few.
So what does this have to do with English grammar and our cultural obsession with time?
For Great Britain and America to have become such dominant imperialistic cultures, we have needed to employ the very best technology in all of our colonial endeavours.
Whether it's been navigating the high seas with advanced ships, submarines and now aircraft carriers, developing weapons such as guns and tanks which can shoot deadly projectiles or a variety of flying objects such as planes, jets and drones, employing the scientific method is absolutely necessary in the development of each said technology.
Conclusion: in order to effectively employ the scientific method, explain it, teach it and continually use it in all such imperialist ventures such methodology often must be explained in terms of cause and effect to painstakingly minute details.
And we must be able to explain cause and effect such that we are able to:
-separate and isolate events which happen only once, such as the D-Day invasion and how so many ships and soldiers were able to coordinate such a large scale attack (e.g. this would probably entail the use of continuous tenses)
vs. those events which happen often or repeatedly such as tracking the timing of earth's revolutions around the sun so we could accurately create a predictable calendar for farming and agricultural purposes (e.g. this would entail the use of simple tenses)
vs. those technologies such as computers in manufacturing which have made thousands of people's jobs and livelihoods redundant due to automation, just look at the Mercedes Benz factory in Germany which is almost completely run by machines.... How long until we see self driving cars or cars with no steering wheels? (e.g. this would entail the use of perfect tenses)
This is the philospophical perspective I adopt when teach grammatical concepts in English.
The reason for tense usage in English is apparent: it is 100% necessary and applicable to the development of new technologies via the scientific method which change our lives in fundamental ways.
What do you all think?
How does your language compare? Is there an obsession and focus on speaking in various time-references?
Why or why not?
Interested to hear your responses!
Best,
Alex