In childhood, we people mostly first learn telling where things or persons are, and the ability to tell the hour comes later. Place and time remain a natural association throughout lifespan: for a thing to take place, there has to be time.
To learn to walk, we do not require anybody to describe how to move, give theory, rules, or definitions. Grammar is a standard ability as well, and there are a few words quite often in use for spatio-temporal whereabouts in English, as on, in, and to.
Humans have evolved grammars on the surface of planet Earth, and this is where we can begin. To get around in everyday life, we cognitively map on our environments. Asked for directions, whether in a village or in a town, we may talk as if we could see from above, and this mostly works. We talk like we had a map.
Human cognitive mapping
In familiar settings, we humans naturally build mind perspectives for neighborhoods or vicinity. Since the very beginning, people have lived in places that allow the horizontal plane: to sit, have meals, sleep; read, write, or paint.
Let us think about a picture we could associate with this inhabited world. Everyone is welcome to come up with ideas and pictures.
Human grammatical ability is not limited to spatial whereabouts. We could travel the world and keep our grammar unchanged. To think about the horizontal plane generally, we may think about a surface.
Such extents actually have worked for people, as natural foliage on a hike, fleece blankets, workout or yoga mats. If we add a giant umbrella and a good size basket of fruit, we can have a grammar picnic.
■GRAMMAR VISUALS have ideas. Some people would say that quotient or intelligence is in solving problems; not having difficulty with grammar yet must be intelligent too.
Granny can speak grammar from her garden hammock, and with kids ■off the record.
The Simple
Let us imagine we are on a surface or ground. The Simple Aspect can help regard what generally existed, exists, or we think that will exist {ON} a cognitive extent. We do not have to think about staying in the same place all the time.
THE PAST
We skateboarded a lot.
THE PRESENT
We work.
THE FUTURE
We will ski all winter.
The Progressive
The Progressive Aspect helps tell that something was, is, or we predict that will be IN progress, or IN its course. Our picture for this Aspect may be activity or faculty as IN an area.
THE PAST
We were sailing.
THE PRESENT
I am writing a grammar book.
THE FUTURE
They will be working.
The Perfect
We can use the Perfect Aspect to say what had taken place, has taken place, or we reason that will have taken place TO a time. The time does not have to mark the end of the state, activity, or faculty. We may compare this to a way TO a place.
THE PAST
I had studied.
THE PRESENT
He has traveled a lot.
THE FUTURE
We will have finished by then.
Cognitive variables
Cognitive variables are never options. They work together. We cannot be IN an area of a cognitive extent without being ON it.
The Simple may tell what got ON a cognitive extent when we were IN progress with something else.
We were picking strawberries when the rain came.
The Aspects
Altogether, there are four Aspects in English. We can have four prepositions to work as Aspect mapping values, ON, IN, TO, and AT. Part 2 of the grammar journey tells about the variable AT.
Whether the English is American, British or another, we humans live ON Earth, happen to be IN geographical areas, and may learn and remember ways TO places. Relating this reality and language cannot break reasonable rules.
No rule might decide if we want to say that we live somewhere, or we have lived, have been living, or we are living somewhere. Cognitive variables are up to our own choosing.
Language skill naturally needs thinking in real time, without looking up a book. A bit of logic as here can make this thinking easy. We get more time for word sense.
There is no way to predict all possible head verbs. This is why we include the infinity symbol with all Aspect patterns.
Systems or programs
We are not building a system. Systems need to be finite, and language is not a finite entity. It is impossible to calculate all phrases people can create. Every word can have more than one sense: we interpret words in context.
We are not building a program, either. Machines operate on codes that ascribe values, and we could be only arbitrary to note letters or words of natural language as values of math. Would letter A be of value 1, and letter C of value 3?
Could there be an objective 0 and 1 or alphanumeric reality for language shapes in translation?
In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which are involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence.
Ilekroć naradzaliśmy się w tej sprawie, trwale mieliśmy na widoku to, co jawi się nam największym zainteresowaniem każdego prawdziwego Amerykanina, konsolidację naszej Unii, z którą wiążemy naszą pomyślność, szczęście, spokój, a możliwie i nasze narodowe istnienie.
Feel welcome to ■the civics.
A logical set
The world obviously is not all mathematical, and we can make ourselves a human logical set.
Our core verbs (BE, HAVE, DO, WILL), time extents (PRESENT, PAST, FUTURE), and Aspects (SIMPLE, PROGRESSIVE, PERFECT), are a human logical set, where we grant the Aspects the shape of cognitive variables, ON, IN, TO, and AT.
The classics
Classic grammar guidance may advise to use the Progressive for things “happening now”, or “at a given moment”, and the Simple for matters that are more regular. We might get to associate the Progressive with words as “now” or “then”, and the Simple with words as “always” or “never”.
It is yet standard to say or write,
I am happy now;
I think I like it now;
The grammatical tense is the Present Simple.
Classic guidance may indicate there are “stative” verbs, and we can use them with the adverb “now”, but we do not use them with the Progressive; yet it would be standard to say or write,
Jack is being mad now; he is pranking.
Jake is mad angry now; his investment has not worked.
Imagery and logic
Landscapes can be pleasure as grammar visuals, yet we may keep abstract or symbolic imagery for general reference. Particular or geographic imaging might not always look adequate.
I am happy now;
I think I like it now.
When we think the matter or behavior is not the usual, or it is not of a character we associate with entire cognitive extents, the language gives us to mark it is only a part of a cognitive extent. The Aspect is the Progressive.
Jack
is being mad now.
We can learn to grant extents. To say, I am hating you — we do not mean we always hate or that we really hate at all: we do not use the variable {ON}. For thought and emotion, the variable {ON} is the norm.
Our overall picture for the variables can be simple.
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is cherished in the United States, and people are free to choose on own language styles. This means that grammar books are not to prescribe on the language, and this book does not have any such purpose. It is to encourage personal independence.
Feel welcome to some more of the picture.
4.1. The idea of travel
Grammar is a silent set with all thought, orientation in time, space, or themes and topics.
Appendix 1. The verb
We can say the infinitive on its own is person and time neutral or objective, providing ancillary time.