"conceive (of)"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Dec 9, 2008, at 5:22 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "conceive (of)"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My terminology may be somewhat antiquated, given that it's grammatical
> terminology from fifty years ago, itself based on English "grammar"
> from possibly fifty years before then. Perhaps nummbering would be
> more transparent:
>
> 1) I act
> 2) I acted
> 3) I have acted
>
> But it seems to me that there was once wide variation in the
> terminology and a person was forever having to translate the
> terminology that he was reading or hearing into the terminology to
> which he was accustomed on the basis of the example(s) provided...

2) has different labels in English -- "past", "simple past",
"preterite", "imperfect" -- but never, in my experience, "present
perfect" (for English).

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org