Processes Objectively Belonging to Present Time

Examples of verbal processes whose duration increases from several instants to infinite:

1. "See, he is opening his eyes" (Miss Yonge); 2. "Stand still."" I am standing still" (I. Shaw); 3. He's just coming," I said, seeing the waiter treading his way through the tables (W. S. Maugham); 4. "I want to go to bed. I'm simply dropping" (A. Berkley); 5. "You are having an excit­ing day" (A. Kingsley); 6. "Fine day. Very fine May we're having" (H. Wal­pole); 7. "We're to be married, remember, I'm carrying your child" (A. Maltz); 8." You're growing quite a young man" (Ch. Dickens); 9. "My seventies are flying so fast" (I. Stone); 10. The members of the delega­tion all favoured the speedy elimination of barriers which are standing in the way of big scale trade with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries (D. Worker); 11. Half the world is starving or undernourished (D. Worker); 12. Like the rest of the planets it is rushing through space at so many thousand of miles a minute (H. G. Wells)¹.

Concrete Processes Actual at the Moment of Speaking. Concrete pro­cesses actual at the moment of speaking and denoted by verbs in the Present Dynamic make about 60% of all the uses of the tense. Examples:

1. "You're still bleeding, for Chrissake. You better put something on it" (J. Salinger); 2. "Why is the dog barking?" —"She's freezing to death" (J. Updike); 3. "But you're still hurting my arm" (M. Arlen); 4. "I hope I'm not interrupting you" (J. Updike); 5. "Gosh, you're look­ing stunning" (A. Kingsley); 6. " Is she sleeping?" Kate whispered <W. Faulkner); 7." Is it still snowing?" (W. S. Gray); 8. "Oh, if you knew how she's suffering! I can't bear it" (W. S. Maugham); 9. "Come on, son, the coach is waiting" (H. Smith).

Abstract Processes. As in the case of Absolute Static tenses, the Pres­ent Dynamic of abstract verbal processes is used to characterize their subject. But while the former characterizes it by pointing out some feature or relationship represented as relatively static, the latter does it by pointing out an action or state (continuous or repeated) per­formed by the subject (Model II) or a feature or relationship represented as changing (Model III).

Examples of Abstract Processes (Model II):

1. "She doesn't care about money," said Dinny coldly. "Oh, non­sense! Money's only being able to do what you want to do" (G. Galsworthy) (The ability of money to buy is represented in the process of its realiza­tion at any moment of time it is being used); 2. "Sonny, it's a long hill we colored are climbing. We got to live through while we're doing it" (A. Maltz); 3. "Tell me, how's Michael conducting himself?" —"Oh, wonderfully. He's the brightest of the lot" (A. Kingsley); 4. "I'm like a lost soul in this great city. I promised Louisa to spend six weeks with her, we hadn't seen one another since 1912, but I'm counting the days till I can get back to Paris" (W. S. Maugham); 5. "She's a publisher. Only she's not doing so hot, because her brother's a drunkard and he spends all their dough" (J. Salinger); 6. "I left Charlie in the switch-house before the tea-break. I'm helping him this week and he'll be won­dering where I've gone to" (H. Smith); 7. Schoolmasters didn't make grammar. The ordinary users of a language make it, speakers, writers, you and I. At least we are helping to change it (L. Strong); 8. These plants are manufacturing products requiring precise, effective methods (C. Herb); 9. Some readers prefer to get their history through imagi­native literature. Since such persons are reading for knowledge, they demand strict adherence to the known facts (W. Blair); 10. "She's run­ning with the University boys, that's what she's doing" (J. London); 11. "Gimme the pieces. I'm saving them" (J. Salinger) (The speaker wants to have the broken pieces of a gramophone record); 12. "But isn't that stealing?" —"No more stealing than the State is stealing in making people pay money for space in which to park their own cars" (J. Updike); 13. "They're watching you day and night" (A. Maltz); 14. A man like that, a writer. Well, he works for months and, perhaps, years on a book, and there is not a word put down. What I mean is that his mind is work­ing (Sh. Anderson); 15. "I'm working a forty-eight to sixty hour week. I walked into that job three years ago and now I'm second motor me­chanic" (A. Maltz).

Examples of Abstract Processes (Model III):

l."You Englishmen spoil the Coloureds. Some are even going to the universities" (G. Gordon); 2. "I'm alive now, all of me's alive. I'm feeling things I'd forgotten, the nerve's regenerating. It hurts some­times ... I don't care" (J. Braine); 3. He's growing so fast. He was just a baby when you last saw him, wasn't he?" (A. Kingsley); 4."I suppose you're leading a simply terrible life, now that you're a widower" (S. Lew­is); 5. "We have found out," the chairman said loudly, "that you are not living with your wife" (I. Shaw); 6." You want to close our shop?" — "It's not making money" (I. Stone); 7. "You'll have to train up, for I'm ploughing and chopping wood and breaking colts these days" (J. Lon­don); 8. Such a lot of college men seem to have misused their advantag­es. One of the best mathematicians of the class of '91 Is selling lottery tickets in Belize" (O'Henry); 9. "You said you liked the song of the skylark the best. He is still singing, but it will not be for long, so you had better come soon" (A. Munthe); 10." It seems to me that she's spend­ing a good deal for dresses of late." —"Well, she's going out more" (W. S. Maugham); 11."I have a memorandum of some of the loans which are still standing on their books" (Th. Dreiser); 12. "What's happened to them?" —"Some have been dismissed; the others are working again all right" (J. Galsworthy).

The Present Dynamic to Refer to Objectively Inclusive Processes An­terior to the Moment of Speaking. In about 1.2% of its uses the Present Dynamic refers to processes which include the moment of speaking and lie to the left from it. In such cases it is usually combined with all day,

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all this time, as long as, a long time, lately, since, so far, to this day, and so on. Examples:

1. "Mom, I got hay fever or something, my nose is running all day" (D. Carter); 2. "All this time, while you are eloquent and unreasonable, my tea is getting cold, and so is yours" (Ch. Dickens); 3. "All I can say : is I never heard her sing half so well as long as I am coming here" (J. Joyce); 4. "Isn't Dick being rather a long time?"—"He is, rather."—"He's been gone ages" (K- Mansfield); 5. "Say, you're getting quite chummy lately" (S. Lewis); 6."I suppose that you know that Mrs. Hundt is taking quite a lot of stuff (liquor) lately?" (G. Gordon); 7."It seems to me that you're trying to run things with a pretty high hand of late" (Th. Dreiser); 8. "He's always thin, but he's looking much less 'tucked up' since his marriage" (J. Galsworthy); 9. "So how's the old man treating you since we left?" (A. Saxton); 10. "It sounds to me an unpleasant business, but it is obviously doing you good, so far" (R. Macaulay); 11. So far the British team is winning the battle against the terrific heat in Rome (D. Worker); 12. The subway lines have paid and are paying to this day more than 6% (Th. Dreiser)¹.