US civics update: the why and how

I keep the John Carter layout because it is very legible: words are divided as to help get around within the text, where you could say the n-dash is "interstate". The civics are worthwhile in themselves, plus they can do great for the grammatical articles and syntax, hence the update: for grammar today. ■More

10.3. Form Relativity practice

The grain of sand did one hour of thinking about composite things a day, and appreciated the activity as emotionally valid. As the 60 minutes were not immaterial, the faculty the grain of sand employed during the time couldn't be immaterial either, it concluded. ■More

10.2. The relative Progressive

Our cognitive variables and frames for grammatical time may complement one another: Modal verbs close their frames with auxiliary HAVE, whereas real-time frames open with the same auxiliary. We remember, cognitive variables and frames are not parameters. ■More

10.1. Grammar Unreal or Real time

No group and no Government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt | If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success… ― Calvin Coolidge ■More

Chapter 10. Form relativity galore

If we guess or suppose, Past forms refer to the Present, and Present forms refer to the Future. It is only the anchored Past to remain in the grammatical Past. The matter is similar in many languages: if I was, si j’étais, gdybym był/a, если бы я был/а, wäre ich.
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9.4. Modal Relativity practice

The westerly wind could perceive something indivisible and intermediate about time. Well, there always would be a present moment to be the only present. This only present wouldn't be anywhere else but where we are ourselves, and we always say "here", for such a place.. ■More

9.3. Detail on Modal structures

The natural economy and efficiency of human minds for language continues to show with Modal expression. Ancillary time can be only hypothetical in questions, and it would be theory twice, with Modal Contingency. The language standard avoids forms as "Mustn't you have..." ■More

9.2. Theory time and the Modal Net

Real-time cognitive frames close on time extents. Modal frames close on objects of thought. It must be that theory time is not the same as real time to human minds, and Modal frames will keep the value {IN}, but they will not mark values {TO} or {AT}, those for a span of time. ■More

9.1. Auxiliary HAVE and Modal syntax

Let us now say there shows a theory fruit that has a stalk. Our Modal frame can be open. We might say, the use for the stalk is an open matter, and altogether, when we know it is, we can make some more of a reasonable theory. Not even theoretical physics would go on without data. ■More

Chapter 9. To tell the fashion in valuable time

Modal verbs do not narrate the real time. Their manner is relative to real time, as they mediate between the grammatical Time and Aspect. Their Past forms may tell the probability is lower today, the same as that it was lower yesterday. We develop Modal cognitive frames. ■More

8.2. Practice for all grammatical Aspects

3. The bumblebee had wished for the whole meal opportunity since Friday last. 4. The katydid wanted a new aureate bib, to match his figured bib of old. 7. The butterfly kissed the bee in the midst of her phiz, when he saw the golden grit. 9. Glow worms respected in varicolor, flexing... ■More

8.1. Earthling basic cognitive variable

In thousands of years, people to think what there is {ON} a map, have not denied plausibility for places {IN} areas, routes {TO} places, as well as locations {AT} them. Early childhood learning to walk has gotten along with learning to talk. The pragmatics cannot break a reasonable rule. ■More

Chapter 8. A Progressive and Perfect regard

When the reference for time is singular, the cognitive time frame is closed, and the variable can be {ON} or {IN}. All Perfect tenses make a dual time reference and their time frame is open. The cognitive variables are {TO} or {AT}, to highlight a time span or dynamism. ■More

7.1. Practce for the heart and mind

“You seem to be this most daily of creatures”, said the butterfly. The dayfly agreed. “Nothing that has become can be truly eternal anyway, as it had a beginning", it said. "The forever more is what anybody cares”, the butterfly remarked. “I sure also have become.” ■More

Chapter 7. Time in the mind and heart

Some 200 years ago, there were no words or phrases as spatialization or a cognitive variable, but there were language uses as here: The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated — President James Madison. ■More

6.5. Grammatical target time and frame

His parents gave up on kindergarten. When Ms. Duncan suggested playing the musical chairs, Art threw in three left hand gloves. One of them belonged to Ms. Duncan. Despite the early predilection for challenge, he chose himself a chairborne job. The chair allowed one person exactly. ■More

6.4. More practice: the frame, variable, and form

2. The hedgehog hid the apples from the bird in a good jar with a lid. 3. The rabbit strew the cashews for the jabiru, and went on making his debut callaloo. 8. The mountain cat usually sat on his mat, to chat with the standpat spat — on habits and repast. ■More

6.3. Exercises: the Aspect and the frame

1. The motmot had completely befallen for a piece of fresh stollen. 2. The skylark found nothing to outbid the bit of cosmos with a squid. 5. The golden frog behind the chilidog overslept and wept. 8. The spotted redshank bachelorette bewailed, and reset her buret for the bouncing bet. ■More

6.2. Aspect variable and time frame

Madame Règle is not a systematic person at all. Her choice on scarves sure depends on some totally unpredictable factor, just as the exact time for lunch, for which you might want to assume the broad time frame of about sixty minutes to commence or not to happen altogether. ■More

6.1. Our linguistic gravitation

Time extents, Present or Past, do not depend on the Aspect, Simple or Perfect. To express own thought well, we need the cognitive ground and time frame. The matter can be easy as with gravitation: when we have the ground, we close the frame. ■More

Chapter 6. To choose own path in time

There are no universal principles to design between the Present Perfect and the Past Simple. We may learn many grammar rules, and yet we are always going to need own resolves in real-time contexts. An idea as a cognitive time frame can prove very helpful and real-time efficient. ■More

5.3. Practice: real syntax and more words

We can tell abbreviated “is” from “has” only by their contexts, as both get shortened to ’s. Abbreviated verb forms are much in use in American English. We learn telling them, continuing the practice with symbolic cues, mapping variables, and target grammatical time, plus a few irregular verbs. ■More

5.2. Practice: symbolic cues and real syntax

We exercise the target grammatical time with symbolic cues, gather language patterns from pieces, and then figure on pieces from symbolic cues. All along, we form the answers in our minds solely: this is where thinking habits take shape, for learning to hold. ■More

5.1. The language logic so far

We can reason, the Aspect makes one type of logic, because we cannot be {IN} an area of a cognitive map, without being {ON} a cognitive ground; likewise, we can never work the Past or Future without our Present, but we may prefer to affirm or deny in distinct logic. ■More

4.2. Practice: mapping the Aspect

Imagination is an ability to envision, to form an image. Without such ability, we would be unable to prefigure on things. We may begin with mind maps for our physical whereabouts, our every day, and our lives, gradually to move from thought about place into that about time. ■More

4.1. The idea of travel in grammar

Language is not a predetermined reality. Beginning to read a book or to watch a movie, we may wonder what there is going to be; somewhere around the middle, we may look back to what has happened, and think about things accomplished at the end. Our thought has grammar. ■More

Chapter 4. Aspect cognitive variables

Humans naturally build mind perspectives for neighborhoods or vicinity, in familiar settings. Since the very beginning, people have lived in places that allow the horizontal plane: to sit, have meals, sleep; read, write, or paint. Human grammar has evolved on planet Earth. ■More

3.4. Practice for the shape of time

Metalanguage is the style to talk about language, as about nouns, verbs, or tenses. Most of us know metalanguage from school or individual study; we only may not be used to the specialist term, “meta-language”. To get along at school, we need to be metalinguistic. ■More

3.3. The big chart for three persons and paths

It is good to make a big picture, to integrate own ability. We put together the Aspect — the Simple, Progressive, and Perfect — with all personal pronouns, and in all three fields of time, the Future, Present, and Past. This way we know all there is for us to gather, before we take to practice. ■More

3.2. The person ‘you’

The pronoun 'you" has evolved into the same shape for the singular and plural in English. The development needs not mean contestation. We people simply each are own self. We couldn't swap bodies, for example. Imagine Aristotle as he chats with Plato after parachuting. ■More

3.1. Field and river, the grammatical Aspect

There is no single landscape all people reasonably could be advised always to bear in mind. With life, grammar, and landscapes as well, we need to regard and decide the Aspect on our own. The Latin aspectus meant "a seeing, looking at". ■More

Chapter 3. Time is like a river: verb patterns

Everyday language has phrases as a flow of time, a course of events: we people happen to have such impressions about life. Grammatical patterns for words and time may look a lot to think about at first, and this is why we begin with a good glimpse. ■More

2.1. More words in the Fields

Verbs give us three fields and — three forms of the verb. Forms are not the same as fields. We begin with simple practice on forms first and second, consciously to choose focus on the shape of the verb or the field. We exercises in mind, to strengthen good habits for thought. ■More

Chapter 2. The future needs the present

We can predict the future only to an extent, because it all the time takes on form or becomes — in our Present, — and there is always more than one factor to human reality. We can use Present grammatical forms in English to talk about the future, and “will” is one of such words. ■More

1.2. Mind practice: thinking on purpose

Silent thought is a great friend of language skill. We do not know a language really, if it does not belong with that inner competence. It is with practice that the brain together with mind makes associations for work on language trace features solely. ■More

1.1. Fields of Time: basic practice

We may think about mountains, oceans, or the cosmos as well, because the exercise is to imagine language form in fields generally. Language learning does not need limitation. The simple exercises are to help flexible habits that can work in advanced language skill. ■More

Chapter 1. We can plan on time as in fields

The way we people use language can show some of that human and intellectual skill altogether, of the human inner logic generally — to organize own thought, speech, and writing Grammatical time can work as in fields we name the Past, Present, and Future. ■ More

Language form, as with cats and dogs

Different languages have different ways to name objects of thought. We can say a dog in English; in German ein Hund, in French un chien, in Greek σκυλος, and in Russian собака — whereas at the same time and in all languages, a picture of a cat is not a cat. ■More

Books and grammar method information

The method and the books reflect on the author’s own language acquisition and learning to include graduated university studies, philology, American English. The grammar began as Teresa Pelka's spontaneous invention when she was a child, in early 1970s. ■More

Part 2. Towards the time frame

"Future in the Past” or “Unreal Past”? The Simple against the Perfect, and the Simple versus the Progressive, we make out a time frame. Devices as the Modal Net and Form Relativity may render the Conditional or Sequence of tenses redundant, for “unreal” grammar to work in real time. ■More