This book proposes that subjective expression shapes grammatical and lexical patterning in American English conversation. Analyses of structural and functional properties of English conversational utterances indicate that the most frequent combinations of subject, tense, and verb type are those that are used by speakers to personalize their contributions, not to present unmediated descriptions of the world.

Thinking and speaking about time is ridden with puzzles and paradoxes. How do human beings conceptualize time? Why, for example, does the availability of tense vary in different languages? How do the lines of information from tense, aspect, temporal adverbs, and context interact in the mind? Does time describe events? If real time does not flow, where do the concepts of the past, present and future come from? Are they basic concepts or are they composed out of more primitive constituents?

McGraw-Hill's Essential ESL Grammar does more than cover the basics of English; it pays special attention to those irksome subjects that trouble even native English speakers.
Mark Lester, bestselling author of the most widely used college grammar text in the country, has developed an innovative method to help you conquer tricky subjects such as articles, tense, verb complements, word order, and more.

Time and Modality is a unique work of reference; not only does it unite studies which explore the syntax and semantics of tense or modality but it is the first book of its kind to embrace the interaction of tense and modality within a coherent generative model. Various topics are covered in this volume: among them are the counterfactual uses of conditionals, modals, and past tense; the irrealis use of perfective aspect; a special English subjunctive; the interaction of tense assignment and the definition of an event; the modal verb as a causative verb; the interaction of modality, tense, and aktionsart; the contrast between deontic and epistemic modal with respect to tense interpretation; the syntax of epistemic modals; the long-awaited definition of generic and habitual sentence; and the introduction of intensionality in copular clauses.

Although every article deals with English to some degree, two chapters compare the syntax and semantics of tense and modality in Spanish vs English. The authors also investigate Slavic, Germanic, Afro-Asiatic, Oriental, Amerindian Languages and Hungarian.

Regardless of its origin in terms of diachronic level and comparative linguistics, a verb form needs to be studied in texts, not in isolation but in connection with all its associated linguistic markers. Which modern tense should be used to translate it can be determined only when its function in the text has been understood.