“Future Perfect Continuous”
Our time perceptions are affected by languages we speak
When learning English as a foreign language, I was fascinated with such grammatical tenses as “Past Continuous,” or “Present Indefinite,” or how about “Future Perfect Continuous”! “What a beautiful country this land of English speaking people must be,” I thought as a second grader, “where Future is not only Perfect but everlasting!”
Grammatical Tenses are Language-Based Time Dimensions
When we refer to objects or events, we describe their actions relative to their positioning in time: past, present, or future. We do so by using grammatical tenses. For example, “I am reading” describes an action of reading that is taking place at the time the message is being communicated. Definitely straightforward. Not really. There is nothing definite, straight, or forward about the concept of time. Whether you ask physicists, neuroscientists, or linguists, there will be no straightforward, or even agreed on, response.
How many Times are there
Prior to the 20th century, physicists believed that characteristics or parameters of time were uniform across the universe. Modern physics no longer holds that view. Likewise, linguists can demonstrate multiple characteristics of time experienced and expressed by speakers of different languages.
The past-present-future triumvirate is not a common perception of time across all human languages. Some languages view time in binary terms. For example, some languages describe time in terms of either past or the non-past; for other binary-time languages (for example, Greenlandic), time is perceived as either future or the non-future.
There are also languages that have a much wider variety of time dimensions than the past-present-future range. For example, certain languages have a more granular perception of the past. Past can be recent or remote; thus having two pasts. There can also be a third past: “the today past” — something that already happened today. How about a fourth dimension of past used in one of the Amazonian languages: a historical past (indicative of events that are now deemed as historical).
Certain languages distinguish those time dimensions that are ongoing or recurring. Others “measure” time by a characteristic of completion. Some languages view time in the context of chronological sequencing between events, to distinguish which one occurred first.
There are even fake dimensions of time, or what is referred to as “fake tenses.” Fake tenses refer to actions that could take place in the future if certain conditions are favorable.
With such a variety of grammatical time dimensions, there is at least one that seems to be missing: a “psychological present.” Some neuroscientists and psychologists posed a question whether “now” can be measured. And they measured it. And they concluded that “now” lasts between 2 and 3 seconds (more on that here).
Some dimensions are diminishing
Languages, as any complex adaptive system, tend to strive towards simplicity — in order to maintain efficiency. Thus, such time dimensions as Future Perfect Continuous are diminishing in their usage. Rarely do we construct such complex sentences as “Next year, our family will have been living in this house for 50 years.”
Some of these grammatical tenses may be giving a way to more simple expressions of communication and may no longer be taught to children. But I do hope that somewhere there is a child who discovers this mysterious Future Perfect Continuous tense and thinks of a land, where future is perfect and ageless.
