You see,this happened a few months ago,but it’s still going on right now,and it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we’re talking about when we talk about love.
—Raymond Carver,1981.
Introduction1
Chapter2
2.1Basic Phenomena and Descriptive
Frameworks5
Temporal Relations15
3.2Logical and Computational
Approaches29
Chapter4
4.1Basic Phenomena and Descriptive
Frameworks45
The Frame Problem from a Natural
Language Point of View53
vi Draft Contents
5.3Nixon Diamonds55
5.5Shooting Problems60
Conclusion63
Further Reading:65
References67
viii Draft Preface 1984,1994have noticed that these event types seem to be rather useful in reasoning about practical action in the world,of the kind that reliably gets you around in a rapidly changing real world.
Nor is model theory necessarily the?rst priority.Soundness,at least,is an important property for any knowledge representation.But,having noticed that the arithmetic of real numbers appears to provide a basis for grounding temporal representations in the continuum,the linguist or arti?cial intelligence builder is likely to take the soundness of this component of the model for granted,as they do most of the time for ordinary arithmetic calculation,and to want to press on to develop on that basis equally sound proof-theoretic representations that are suf?ciently rich to represent and support inferences about action in the world.
The title of these notes(which is of course adapted from that of the story by Raymond Carver from which the epigraph is taken)is intended to suggest that the so-called temporal semantics of natural language is not primarily to do with time at all.Instead,the formal devices we need are those related to representation of causality and goal-directed action.Chapters1to4of the book review these questions and develop a variant of the situation or event calculus of McCarthy,Hayes,Kowalski and others which I will call the Dy-namic Event Calculus.Chapter5(which at the time of this draft remains in more preliminary form)then broadens the discussion to defend this proposal in comparison with some alternatives that have been proposed by arti?cial in-telligence researchers,and attempts to counter some criticisms that have been mounted against modal systems in general and the situation/event calculi in particular.A brief conclusion returns to broader concerns with linguistics and human cognition.
These draft lecture notes represent work in progress.Early versions of some parts of chapters1to3appeared in different forms as Steedman1995,1997.I am grateful to Matthew Stone and Charlie Ortiz for advice and help with the axioms,and to Johan van Benthem,Pat Hayes,Stephen Isard,David Israel, Mark Johnson,Alex Lascarides,Alice ter Meulen,Marc Moens,Jong Park, Len Schubert,Rich Thomason,Bonnie Webber,and Michael White for advice and criticism at a number of stages.They are not to blame for any errors that remain.Support was provided in part by NSF grant no.IRI95-04372,DARPA grant no.N660001-94-C-6043,and ARO grant no.DAAH04-94-G0426.
Chapter1
2Draft,Chapter1 tical aspects of our being in the world of a kind that physics does not discuss. In particular,it is confounded with notions of teleology that are explicitly ex-cluded from even the most informal and common-sense varieties of physics. On the assumption that linguistic categories are fairly directly related to un-derlying conceptual categories(for how else could children learn them),it is to the linguists that we must turn for insights into the precise nature of this ontology.
In this connection it may seem surprising that the present paper is con?ned to analyses of English temporal categories.However,it will soon be apparent that we cannot analyse the categories of English without appealing to notions of underlying meaning that are closely related to a level of knowledge about events that is independent of the idiosyncracies of any particular language. The paper returns brie?y to the question of the universality of this semantics in the conclusion.
Because of this psychological grounding of the natural semantics of tempo-rality,a certain caution is appropriate in assessing the relevance to linguistic in-quiry of systems of logic and computational theory that trade under names like “Tense Logic”.Such logics frequently come with very minimal ontologies,re-stricted to states and Newtonian instants,or to the simplest kind of interval,and similarly minimal,purely temporal,relations among them.Their authors are usually careful to stress that their systems do not re?ect linguistic usage.Their raison d’?e tre is analogous to that of Peano’s axioms in arithmetic—that is,to characterise the metamathematical properties of physical time.Such concerns are not necessarily those of the working linguist or computational linguist, who is mainly interested in performing inference.One does not calculate via proofs in Peano arithmetic.
Many properties of natural language semantics,particularly those involving the notion of discourse context,are most directly modelled by dynamic pro-cesses.Since computer programs are a very direct expression of procedures, many of the logical frameworks that we shall?nd most useful draw upon ideas from computer science and studies in arti?cial intelligence as frequently as from the declarative logical tradition itself.In particular,many recent for-malisms invoke the computer scientist’s concept of a side-effect or update to a database,in order to talk about the changing context of reference,includ-ing the temporal variety.This move introduces notions of non-monotonicity, of a kind discussed by Thomason1997.We shall combine this notion with the modal logicians’device of an accessibility relation,de?ning a structure on models,where models are databases,or partial models,in what has come to
Introduction3 be called dynamic logic.
In developing an account of this very diverse and ramifying literature,it will sometimes be necessary to concentrate on one of these approaches,and there may be a danger of temporarily losing sight of the others.Nevertheless,they will meet up again as the book proceeds,for linguists,computer scientists and logicians are linked in this venture like mountaineers roped together during a climb.Sometimes the lead is taken by one,and sometimes another,but progress will in future,as in the past,only be made by the team as a whole.
Chapter2
6Draft,Chapter2
rather unusual contexts.
(3)a.#I have breathed
b.#Einstein has visited New York
It is because categories like the perfect are not purely temporal that it is usual
to distinguish them from the tenses proper as“aspects”.Another aspect whose
meaning is not purely temporal is the progressive or imperfective.The pred-
ication that it makes concerning the core event is a subtle one.While the progressive clearly states that some event is ongoing at the time under discus-
sion,it is not necessarily the event that is actually mentioned.Thus in a,below,
there seems to be a“factive entailment”to the effect that an event of writing
actually occurred.But in b,there is no such entailment concerning an event
of writing a sonnet,for b is true even if the author was interrupted before he
could complete the action.
(4)a.Keats was writing Keats wrote
b.Keats was writing a sonnet Keats wrote a sonnet
Dowty1979named this rather surprising property of the progressive the“im-
perfective paradox”,and we shall return to it below.It re?ects the fact that
events like Keats writing,unlike those like Keats writing a sonnet,are what
White1994calls downward entailing,which we can de?ne as follows:
(5)A propositionφholding of an interval t is downward entailing if it entails thatφalso
holds of all subintervals of t down to some reasonable minimum size.
The imperfective paradox is the?rst sign that we must distinguish various
types or sorts of core event in natural language temporal ontology.
The key insight into this system is usually attributed to Vendler1967,though
there are precedents in work by Jesperson,Kenny and many earlier authorities
including Aristotle.Vendler’s taxonomy was importantly re?ned by Verkuyl
1972,1989,and Dowty1979,1982,and further extended by Hinrichs1985,
1986,Bach1986,Moens1987,Smith1991,Krifka1989,1992,Jackendoff
1991,and White1994.The following brief summary draws heavily on their
work.
Vendler’s original observation was that a number of simple grammatical
tests could be fairly unambiguously applied to distinguish a number of distinct
aspectual categories.The term“aspectual”here refers to the intrinsic temporal
pro?le of a proposition,and such categories are to be distinguished from the
sentential aspects,the perfect and the progressive.For this reason they are of-
ten referred to under the German term Aktionsarten,or action-types.Vendler
Temporal Ontology7 talked of his categorisation as a categorisation of verbs,but Verkuyl and Dowty argued that it was properly viewed as a classi?cation of the propositions con-veyed by verbs and their arguments and adjuncts—that is,of propositions con-cerning events and states.
We will consider just four tests used by Vendler and those who followed, although there are others.The?rst is compatibility with adverbials like for
?fteen minutes.The second is compatibility with adverbials like in?fteen minutes and the related construction It took(him)?fteen minutes to....The third is the entailment arising from the progressive.The fourth is compatibility with the perfect.
Vendler identi?ed a category of event such as arriving,reaching the top
or?nishing a sonnet,which he called achievements.These events are char-acterised by being instantaneous,and by resulting in a distinct change in the state of the world.They can be detected by the fact that they combine happily with in-adverbials,do not combine with for-adverbials,do not carry a factive entailment under the progressive,and combine happily with the perfect.
(6)a.Keats?nished the sonnet in?fteen minutes.
b.#Keats?nished the sonnet for?fteen minutes.
c.Keats is?nishing the sonnet(Keats will have?nished the sonnet).
d.Keats has?nished the sonnet.
Achievements are to be contrasted with a category of events like walking, climbing and writing,which Vendler called activities.Activities are extended
in time,and do not seem to result in any very distinct change in the state of the world.They can be detected by the fact that they combine with for-adverbials but not with in-adverbials,that the progressive does carry a factive entailment, and that they are distinctly odd with the perfect.1
(7)a.Keats wrote for?fteen minutes.
b.#Keats wrote in?fteen minutes.
c.Keats is writing(Keats will have written).
d.#Keats has written.
Both of these categories are to be contrasted with a third category of event such as writing a sonnet or?ying to Paris.Vendler called such events accom-plishments.They super?cially have the same test pro?le as achievements:
8Draft,Chapter2
(8)a.Keats wrote In Disgust of Vulgar Superstition in?fteen minutes.
b.#Keats wrote the sonnet for?fteen minutes.
c.Keats is writing the sonnet(Keats will have written the sonnet).
d.Keats has written the sonnet
(See Garrod1954,p.532for some historical background to this example). However,accomplishments differ from achievements in being extended in time,like activities.As a consequence,they differ in entailments when com-bined with in-adverbials and progressives.In8a and c it is part of the event (namely the writing)that respectively takes?fteen minutes and is reported as in progress.It is precisely not part of?nishing itself that takes?fteen minutes in6a,or is in progress in6c.It is some other event.In fact it is presumably an event of writing,since the overall entailments of the two pairs of sentences are very similar.Because of this relation,both Verkuyl and Dowty proposed that accomplishments should be regarded as composites of an activity and a culminating achievement.
Vendler also identi?ed a class of states.States are characterised syntacti-cally by being almost the only propositions that can be expressed in English by simple present tense.(The exceptions are performatives like the following, which in all other respects are archetypal achievements):
(9)I name this ship the Nice Work If You Can Get It.
States differ from events in that they lack de?nite bounds,and are inherently non-dynamic.(The latter characterization will be fomally substantiated later.) Some lexical concepts are states,notably those expressibly using the copula, as in a,below.The progressives and perfects considered above,as well as certain predications of habitual action,are also archetypal states,as in b,c, and d:
(10)a.Keats is a genius.
b.Keats is looking into Chapman’s Homer.
c.I have lost my watch.
d.I work for the union.
It should be stressed that any claim that an event like Keats writing is in-trinsically an activity is no more than a convenient shorthand.It is true that in most contexts the following sentence is odd.
(11)Keats wrote in?fteen minutes.
However,as Dowty pointed out for a related example,in a discourse context in which the speaker and the hearer both believe that Keats is in the habit of
Temporal Ontology9 writing a sonnet to time every Sunday,and the speaker knows that on the par-ticular Sunday under discussion—say23rd December1816,cf.Garrod1954, p.532—Keats took?fteen minutes at it,then the utterance is felicitous.Such examples show that aspectual categories like activity and accomplishment are ways of viewing a happening,rather than intrinsic properties of verbs and the associated propositions,or of objective reality and the external world.
The fact that the same form of words can convey more than one aspectual category,provided contextual knowledge supports this view of the passage of events,is the?rst clue to an explanation for the imperfective paradox.The semantics of the progressive must demand an activity as the only event type that it can map onto the corresponding progressive states.When combined with an accomplishment,as in example8c,it must?rst turn it into an activity, by decomposing the accomplishment into its components,and discarding the culminating achievement.When combined with an achievement,as in6c,it must?rst turn it into an accomplishment,identifying an associated activity from the knowledge base and the context.Then the original achievement can be discarded,Such an account would explain the fact that in normal contexts examples6c and8c hold of identical situations.
Events can turn into activities by turning into an iteration of the core event.
(12)Chapman sliced the onion(into rings)
Such iterations may themselves iterate(as in slicing onions),and in the pro-gressive may be predicated of a time at which one is not performing the core event at all:
(13)I am slicing the onions
Such iterated ativities are investigated by Karlin1988.A similar transition to a habitual state can occur if,to extend an earlier example,Keats not only writes sonnets to time,but also regularly manages it in?fteen minutes or less.Under these circumstances he can say the following on an occasion on which he is not writing at all:
(14)I am writing a sonnet in?fteen minutes(these days).
There is more to NPs like the onions and a sonnet in the above examples than may meet the eye.Verkuyl and Dowty also pointed out that some sim-ilar protean shifts in aspectual category of the event conveyed by a sentence depended upon the semantic type of the nominal categories involved as ar-guments of the verb,Thus Chapman arriving is an archetypal achievement, which happens to be resistant to combination with a for-adverbial,because the
10
Draft,Chapter 2CONSEQUENT
PROGRESSIVE
HABITUAL
ACTIVITY ACCOMPLISHMENT ACHIEVEMENT POINT LEXICAL -> constate
perfect:
progressive:+activity
iterate +a c h i e v e m e n t -acheivement p r o
g r e s s i v e :
-> p r o g s t a
t e STATES
EVENTS
+ t e l i c - t e l i c -composite +composite -c o n s t a t e +c o n s t a t e
iterate Figure 2.1:A scheme of aspectual coercion (adapted from Moens and Steed-
man 1988)
state that it gives rise to seems to preclude iteration,as shown by a,below.But
visitors arriving is necessarily an iteration,as in b.
(15)a.#Chapman arrived all night.
b.Visitors arrived all night.
Such aspectual changes,which include several further varieties that cannot
be considered here,2may compose inde?nitely,especially under the in?uence
of stacked adverbial modi?ers,as in
(16)It took me two years to play the “Minute Waltz”in less than sixty seconds for one
hour without stopping.
The complexities of this kind of aspectual type-shift or “coercion”are very
thoroughly explored by the authors already cited.Accordingly we will pass
over further details here,merely offering the chart shown in ?gure 2.1,by way
of an informal summary.The chart divides the aspectual categories into states
and events,the latter being subdivided into four sorts,based on two features
Temporal Ontology11
//////////////////
preparation consequent
event
Figure2.2:The event nucleus(adapted from Moens and Steedman1988)
representing the semantic properties of telicity,or association with a particular change of state,and decomposability.The latter property is often referred to as“durativity”,but it is really to do with decomposition into sub-events,rather than temporal extent.To Vendler’s three event categories we follow Miller and Johnson-Laird1976in adding a fourth,atomic atelic,category,here called a point.(They are what Smith1991calls“semelfactives”).These authors sug-gest that events like stumbling and breathing a sigh of relief may be basic concepts of this type,but the real signi?cance of the category is to act as a way-station,where the internal structure of an event is“frozen”on the way to being iterated or turned into a consequent state by the perfect.Arrows indi-cate permissible type-transitions,with annotations indicating the nature of the aspectual change.Some of these,like iteration,are“free”,provided that the knowledge base supports the change.Others,like the transition to a conse-quent state(constate)or a progressive state(progstate),can only occur under the in?uence of a particular lexical item or construction,such as the perfect or the progressive.Such restrictions are indicated by bold-face annotations.A more extensive system of coercions and lexically-based restrictions has been developed by Pustejovsky1991.
Whether free or lexically determined,these type-changes appear to re?ect a knowledge representation in which events of all kinds are associated with a preparation,or activity that brings the event about,and a consequent,or ensuing state,in a tripartite data-structure proposed by Moens1987that can be viewed as in?gure2.2.This structure,or“nucleus”can be regarded as composed of the types described in?gure2.1.Thus the preparation is an activity,the consequent is the same kind of state that the perfect gives rise to, while the event itself is an achievement.(The nucleus itself is therefore closely related to the category of accomplishments).Each of these components may itself be compound.Thus the preparation may be an iteration of some kind,the consequent state may identify a chain of consequences,and the core event may itself be a complex event,such as an accomplishment.The tripartite nucleus has been adopted and used extensively in the DRT theory of Aktionsarten of Kamp and Reyle1993,p.557-570et seq.,Blackburn et al.,1993,and Gagnon
12Draft,Chapter2 and Lapalme1995.
2.2Logical and Computational Approaches.
So much for the natural history of temporal ontology:how do we formalise this quite complex ontology?Simplifying somewhat,two basic approaches can be distinguished in this voluminous literature.
The?rst approach is to attempt to de?ne the neo-Vendlerian ontology via quanti?cation over more or less classical Priorian instants,or their dual,in-tervals.Bennett and Partee1972,Taylor,1977,Cresswell1974,Dowty1979, Hein¨a m¨a ki1974,Bach1980,Galton1984,and the computational work of McDermott1982,Allen1984,Crouch and Pulman1993,and McCarty1994. are of this kind.
This approach was extremely important in opening up the territory to in-clude temporally extended events,which had largely been ignored in the situation calculus and modal-logic based approaches(see the discussion be-low).However,the recursive structure of events that follows from the on-tology illustrated in?gure2.1,and in particular the problems of granularity and non-continuity in iterated events,mean that some of the de?nitions of for-adverbials and related categories in Dowty’s treatment can be criticised,as he himself has pointed out(Dowty,1979,preface to second edition).
The second approach is to take certain types of events themselves as prim-itive,without any appeal to notions like truth of a predicate over an interval or set of instants.Such events involve a temporal extension,which for con-nected continuous events is an interval(or equivalently a pair of points,but modi?ers like“slowly”are predications of the event rather than the interval that it occupies.This then opens up the further possibility of de?ning rela-tions between event-sorts in terms of various lattices and sort hierarchies.The algebraic event-based approach was pioneered by Kamp1979,1983,and char-acterises the work of Bach1986,Link1987,Hinrichs1985,1986,ter Meulen 1984,1986,Dowty1986,Krifka1990,Eberle1990and White1993,1994, and builds upon Carlson’s1977,Link’s1983and Landman’s1991accounts of the ontology of entities.The work of Davidson,as developed in Parsons 1990,and of Jackendoff1991as formalised by Zwarts and Verkuyl1994,can also be seen as belonging to this school.
The latter approach can be seen as a logical continuation of the earlier work, for Dowty1979had observed the parallel betweeen the telic/atelic distinction in the event domain,and the count/mass distinction in the entity domain.Not
Temporal Ontology13 only is the downward-entailing property characteristic of both activities and mass terms:the involvement of mass or count terms as arguments can also determine the event type of a proposition,as in the following minimal pair.
(17)a.Chapman drank beer(for an hour/#in an hour).
b.Chapman drank two pints of beer(#for an hour/in an hour)
The technicalities involved in these different accounts are considerable,and somewhat orthogonal to the present concerns.We will pass over them here, referring the interested reader to Dowty,Krifka,Link and others cited above, and to White1994,ch.2for a recent comprehensive review and one of the few extensive computational implementations of a system of this kind.
Chapter3
16Draft,Chapter
3
I saw John I have seen John Simple Past Present Perfect E R E,R S E R,S
I had seen John
Past Perfect
S Figure 3.1:Past vs.Perfect (from Reichenbach 1947)
the tense system could be understood as a predication not over two times,
“now”and “then”,but rather over three underlying times.These times he
called S ,(speech point),R ,(reference point),and E (event point).E can be
thought of as the temporal extension of the proposition itself—essentially the
Davidsonian e ,or its modern equivalent,generalised to cope with the kind of
ontological questions that concerned us in the last chapter,as for example in
work discussed earlier by Parsons 1990and Schein 1993.S can,as its name
suggests,be thought of as the speaker’s time of utterance,(although we shall
see that it must be generalised to cover embedded times of utterance and nar-
rative point-of-view).Reichenbach’s real innovation was the reference point,
which can be identi?ed with the notion “the time (or situation,or context)that
we are talking about”.It is easiest to convey the idea by example.Reichen-
bach offers the diagrams in Figure 3.1,in which the arrow indicates the ?ow
of time,to show the distinctions between the past perfect,the simple past (or
preterit)and the present perfect (all of which he includes under the heading of
“tenses of verbs”).The important insight here is that the simple past is used to
make a statement about a past time,whereas the perfect is used to make a state-
ment about the present,as was noted earlier in connection with the “present
relevance”property of examples like 1.
As Isard and Longuet-Higgins 1973have pointed out,this claim is consis-
tent with the observation that past tense,unlike the perfect,demands that the
past reference point be explicitly established,either by a modi?er,such as a
when clause,or by the preceding discourse.Thus a,below,is inappropriate
as the ?rst utterance of a discourse,except to the extent that the reader ac-
commodates a temporal referent,in Lewis’1979sense of that term—that is,
introduces an appropriate individual in the database,as one often must at the
beginning of a modern novel.But b is appropriate,on the assumption that the
hearer can identify the time in the when clause:
(1)a.#Chapman breathed a sigh of relief
b.When Nixon was elected,Chapman breathed a sigh of relief
Temporal Relations17
(In many North American dialects of English,the past tense does double duty
for the perfect.I am assuming that this reading is excluded in this case by the
most readily accessible aspectual category of breathing a sigh of relief.)
The fact that the discourse can establish the“anchor”for the reference point
has led a number of authors,including McCawley1971,Partee1973,1984,Is-
ard1974,B¨a uerle1979,Hinrichs1985,Webber1988,Song and Cohen1988,
and others to identify tense,and by implication R,as“pronominal”or other-
wise anaphoric in character.
We should distinguish this referent-setting function of such adverbials from
the aspect-setting function that we encountered in chapter2,concerning Ak-tionsarten.The adverbials like in?fteen minutes and for?fteen minutes were
there predicated over the event point E.In the cases to hand,they are predi-
cated over R.Many of the adverbials that relate two propositions temporally, particularly when clauses,do so by identifying or predicating a relation over
the reference points of the two clauses,via what Reichenbach called the“po-sitional use of the reference point”.The following are all cases of this kind.
(2)a.In ten minutes,I looked at my watch.
b.When Chapman arrived,the band was playing Nice Work If You Can Get It.
c.After Einstein arrived in Princeton,he may have visited Philadelphia.
We return to the anaphoric role of tense in chapter4.
With the bene?t of the discussion in earlier chapters,we can go a little further than Reichenbach,and say that the predication which the perfect makes
about the reference point,present or past,is that the consequent state that is contingent upon the propositional referent E holds at the reference point R. Reichenbach extended his account of tense and the perfect to the progres-
sives and futurates,including habituals,and to sequence of tenses in compound sentences.Some of the details of his original presentation are unclear or in-correct.For example,the exact relation of E and R in the past progressive is unclear,possibly because of a typographical error.The account of the futurates
does not correctly separate the respective contributions of tense and modality.
The account of sequence of tense in compound sentences omits any discussion
of examples with subordinate complements requiring more than one S and/or
R,such as He will think that he has won.He similarly seems to have failed
to notice that there is a second“narrative”pluperfect,involving an embedded
past tense,relative to a past speech point,distinct from the true past perfect.It
is the only realisation that English affords for the past tense of indirect speech,
or oratio obliqua,exempli?ed in examples like the following:
18Draft,Chapter3
I saw John Simple Past E,R S
Present Simple Future
S, R, E S
I win!I go
R,E Figure3.2:The tenses
(3)I had arrived in Vermilion Sands three months earlier.A retired pilot,I was painfully
coming to terms with a broken leg and the prospect of never?ying again....
This pluperfect cannot be the past tense of a perfect,as perfects like#I have
arrived in Vermilion Sands three months ago are infelicitous(for reasons dis-
cussed by Moens and the present author1988).It is rather a past tense of
a past tense,identifying the proposition I arrived in Vermilion Sands three
months before now as uttered by a narrator with their own now.(Most of Re-ichenbach’s own examples of the pluperfect are in fact of this other kind).
For these and other reasons the following account is something of a re-construction of Reichenbach’s theory.(See Hornstein1977,1990,Enc?
1981,1987,Kamp and Rohrer1983,Caenepeel1989,Smith1991,Ch.5, Spejewsky1994,Palmer et al.1993,and Crouch and Pulman1993,for related proposals.See also the discussions of Lascarides and Asher1993b,and Kamp
and Reyle1993,below).
According to this view,English and presumably other languages can be
seen as having three tenses in the narrow sense of the term—the familiar past,
present,and future tenses,in all of which the Reference point R and the event
point E coincide.The past tense is,as we have seen,one in which the pair R E
precedes S.The present tense(which we noted earlier is in English restricted
as far as events go to performative acts like naming and promising)is one in
which all three coincide.The true future tense in English(as opposed to other languages)is realised by the syntactic present tense,as in I go to London(next Tuesday)and is symmetric to the past tense,with the pair R E later than S,
as in Figure3.2(cf.Hornstein1977,1990).Here I depart from Reichenbach
himself,and Bennett and Partee1972,who regarded the future as not merely
the mirror image of the past tense,but as combining the characteristics of a
tense and a futurate aspect,mirroring the perfect.Smith1991,p.246also
regards what is here called the simple future as having a present reference
point.Nevertheless,the claim that it is a pure tense,with R co-temporal with
E,is supported by the observation that the futurate is anaphoric,like the past,
感官动词和使役动词 默认分类2010-05-28 23:14:26 阅读46 评论0 字号：大中小订阅 使役动词，比如let make have就是3个比较重要的 have sb to do 没有这个用法的 只有have sb doing.听凭某人做某事 have sb do 让某人做某事 have sth done 让某事被完成（就是让别人做） 另外： 使役动词 1.使役动词是表示使、令、让、帮、叫等意义的不完全及物动词,主要有make(使,令), let(让), help(帮助), have(叫)等。 2.使役动词后接受词,再接原形不定词作受词补语。 He made me laugh. 他使我发笑。 I let him go. 我让他走开。 I helped him repair the car. 我帮他修理汽车。 Please have him come here. 请叫他到这里来。 3.使役动词还可以接过去分词作受词补语。 I have my hair cut every month. 我每个月理发。 4.使役动词的被动语态的受词补语用不定词,不用原形不定词。 (主)He made me laugh. 他使我笑了。 (被)I was made to laugh by him. 我被他逗笑了。 使役动词有以下用法： a. have somebody do sth让某人去做某事 ??i had him arrange for a car. b. have somebody doing sth.让某人持续做某事。 ??he had us laughing all through lunch. 注意：用于否定名时，表示“允许” i won't have you running around in the house. 我不允许你在家里到处乱跑。 ******** 小议“使役动词”的用法 1. have sb do 让某人干某事 e.g:What would you have me do? have sb/sth doing 让某人或某事处于某种状态，听任 e.g: I won't have women working in our company. The two cheats had the light burning all night long. have sth done 让别人干某事，遭受到 e.g:you 'd better have your teeth pulled out. He had his pocket picked. notes: "done"这个动作不是主语发出来的。 2.make sb do sth 让某人干某事 e.g:They made me repeat the story. What makes the grass grow?
一、从句是如何出题的？ 1. 时态 2. 考连接词 3. 考语言顺序 二、学好从句的两个基本条件 1. 时态 2. 从句的三个必须:①必须是句子；②必须有连接词；③必须是陈述句 三、状语从句、宾语从句、定语从句重点 1.如何判断何种从句 2. 从句的时态 3. 从句的连接词与扩展 4. 经典单选、从句与选词、长句子分析 四、如何判断三种从句 1. 状语从句无先行词 2. 宾语(表语)从句无先行词有动词或词组 3. 定语从句先行词多为名词或代词 一、When引导的定语从句与时间状语从句的区分 1. when的译法不同。在时间状语中，when 翻译成“当……的时候” I want to be a teacher when I grow up. 当我长大的时候，我要做一名老师。在定语从句中，when不翻译。I won't forget the day when he says he loves me. 我不会忘记他说爱我的那一天。 2. 在时间状语中，when从句前面或后面是句子；定语从句中，when 从句不能位于句首，且通常when前为表示时间的名词day、year等。 3. when在从句的作用不同。在时间状语从句中，when是连词，只起连接主句和从句的作用，不做从句的任何成分。不过when引导的时间状语从句修饰主句的谓语，做主句的时间状语。 在定语从句中，when是关系副词，在从句中代替先行词做从句的时间状语，修饰从句的谓语。 例1 I will always remember the days when I lived with my
grandparents in the country. 例2 I always remember the days in the country when I see the photo of my grandparents. 点评：例1意为“我会永远记得跟我祖父母一起住在乡下的那些日子”，其中when 引导的是一个定语从句, 修饰the days, when在从句中作时间状语。例2意为“当我看到祖父母的照片时，总是会想起在乡下的那些日子”，其中when 引导的从句并不修饰前面的名词the country，因此可判定为时间状语从句。 例1中的when可用in which替代，即从句可改为...in which I lived with my grandparents in the country. 例2中从句前有名词，但根据句意可 知并不是从句所修饰的对象，也不能用“介词+ which”来替代。 二、判断关系代词与关系副词 方法一：用关系代词，还是关系副词完全取决于从句中的谓语动词。及物动词后面无宾语，就必须要求用关系代词；而不及物动词则要求用关系副词。例如： This is the mountain village where I stayed last year. 这是我去年呆过的山村。 I'll never forget the days when I worked together with you. 我永远不会忘记与你共事的日子。 判断改错： 1. This is the mountain village where I visited last year. 2. I will never forget the days when I spent in the countryside. 3. This is the mountain village （which）I visited last year.
when和while用法区别专项练习 讲解三例句： 1. The girls are dancing while the boys are singing. 2. Kangkang’s mother is cooking when he gets home. 3. When/While Kangkang’s mother is cooking, he gets home. 一、用when或者while填空 Margo was talking on the phone, her sister walked in. we visited the school, the children were playing games. · Sarah was at the barber’s, I was going to class. I saw Carlos, he was wearing a green shirt. Allen was cleaning his room, the phone rang. Rita bought her new dog; it was wearing a little coat. 7. He was driving along ________ suddenly a woman appeared. 8. _____ Jake was waiting at the door, an old woman called to him. 9. He was reading a book ______suddenly the telephone rang. 10. ______ it began to rain, they were playing chess. [ 二、用所给动词适当形式填空 11. While Jake __________ (look) for customers, he _______ (see) a woman. 12. They __________ (play) football on the playground when it _____ (begin) to rain. 13. A strange box ________ (arrive) while we _________ (talk). 14. John ____________ (sleep) when someone __________ (steal) his car. 15. Father still (sleep) when I (get) up yesterday morning. 16. Grandma (cook) breakfast while I (wash) my face this morning. 17. Mother (sweep) the floor when I (leave) home. ~ 18. I (read) a history book when someone (knock ) at the door. 19. Mary and Alice are busy (do) their homework. 20. The teacher asked us (keep) the windows closed. 21. I followed it (see) where it was going. 22. The students (play) basketball on the playground from 3 to 4 yesterday afternoon. / 三、完成下面句子，词数不限 1.飞机在伦敦起飞时正在下雨。 It when the plane in London. 2.你记得汶川大地震时你在做什么吗 Do you remember what you when Wenchuan Earthquake . 3.当铃声想起的时候，我们正在操场上玩得很开心。 We on the playground when the bell . 4.当妈妈下班回家时，你在做什么 % when Mum from work 5.当我在做作业时，有人敲门。 I was doing my homework, someone
感官动词 1.see, hear, listen to, watch, notice等词，后接宾语，再接省略to的动词不定式或ing形式。前者表全过程，后者表正在进行。句中有频率词时，以上的词也常跟动词原形。 注释:省略to的动词不定式--to do是动词不定式，省略了to,剩下do，其形式和动词原形是一样的，但说法不同。 see sb do sth 看到某人做了某事 see sb doing sth 看到某人在做某事 hear sb do sth 听到某人做了某事 hear sb doing sth 听到某人在做某事 以此类推... I heard someone knocking at the door when I fell asleep. (我入睡时有人正敲门,强调当时正在敲门) I heard someone knock at the door three times. (听到有人敲门的全过程) I often watch my classmates play volleyball after school. (此处有频率词often) （了解）若以上词用于被动语态，须将省略的to还原： see sb do sth----sb be seen to do sth hear sb do sth----sb be seen to do sth 以此类推... We saw him go into the restaurant. → He was seen to go into the restaurant. I hear the boy cry every day. → The boy is heard to cry every day. 2.感官动词look, sound, smell, taste, feel可当系动词，后接形容词。 He looks angry. His explanation sounds reasonable. The cakes smell nice.
Period____8______ in Unit ___6_________ （Period_____20_____Week 4-6）Subject _Grammar (B) Teaching aims To use the Past Continuous Tense with while and when correctly Teaching interesting points of this class: The differences of when and while in Past Continuous Tense Teaching steps: I. Cooperation and intercourse 1. Check the preparation 2. Discuss in groups II. Question and explanation Check the exercises on page 101, and explain the differences between when and while. when和while的区别是： when只能用于一般时态 while可以用于进行时态 when conj. 在...的时候, 当…的时候 when 在绝大多数情况下，所引导的从句中，应该使用非延续性动词（也叫瞬间动词） 例如：I'll call you when I get there. 我一到那里就给你打电话 I was about to go out when the telephone rang.我刚要出门，电话铃就响了。 但是，when 却可以be 连用。 例如：I lived in this village when I was a boy. 当我还是个孩子的时候我住在这个村庄里。 When I was young, I was sick all the time. 在我小时候我总是生病 while 当...的时候 While he was eating, I asked him to lend me $2. 当他正在吃饭时,我请他借给我二美元。While I read, she sang. 我看书时，她在唱歌。 while 的这种用法一般都和延续性动词连用 while 可以表示“对比‘，这样用有的语法书认为是并列连词 Some people like coffee, while others like tea. 有些人喜欢咖啡, 而有些人喜欢茶。 as 当...之时，一边......一边....... I slipped on the ice as I ran home. 我跑回家时在冰上滑了一跤 He dropped the glass as he stood up. 他站起来时，把杯子摔了。 She sang As she worked. 她一边工作一边唱歌。 III. Rumination and evaluation when, as, while这三个词都可以引出时间状语从句，它们的差别是：when 从句表示某时刻或一段时间as 从句表示进展过程，while 只表示一段时间 When he left the house, I was sitting in the garden. 当他离开家时，我正在院子里坐着。 When he arrived home, it was just nine o'clock.
英语中感官动词的用法 一、感官动词 1、感官动词(及物动词)有：see/notice/look at/watch/observe/listen to/hear/feel(Vt)/taste(Vt)/smell(Vt) 2、连缀动词(含感官不及物动词) be/get/become/feel/look/sound/smell/taste/keep/stay/seem/ appear/grow/turn/prove/remain/go/run 二、具体用法： 1、see, hear, smell, taste, feel,这五个动词均可作连系动词，后面接形容词作表语，说明主语所处的状态。其意思分别为"看/听/闻/尝/摸起来……"。除look之外，其它几个动词的主语往往是物，而不是人。 例如：These flowers smell very sweet.这些花闻起来很香。 The tomatoes feel very soft.这些西红柿摸起来很软。 2、这些动词后面也可接介词like短语，like后面常用名词。 例如：Her idea sounds like fun.她的主意听起来很有趣。 3、这五个感官动词也可作实义动词,除look(当"看起来……"讲时)只能作不及物动词外,其余四个既可作及物动词也可作不及物动词,此时作为实义动词讲时其主语一般为人。 例如:She smelt the meat.她闻了闻那块肉。 I felt in my pocket for cigarettes.我用手在口袋里摸香烟。 4、taste, smell作不及物动词时,可用于"t aste / smell + of +名词"结构,意为"有……味道/气味"。 例如:The air in the room smells of earth.房间里的空气有股泥土味。 5、它们(sound除外)可以直接作名词,与have或take构成短语。 例如：May I have a taste of the mooncakes?我可以尝一口这月饼吗？taste有品位、味道的意思。 例如：I don’t like the taste of the garlic.我不喜欢大蒜的味道。 She dresses in poor taste.她穿着没有品位。 look有外观，特色的意思，例：The place has a European look.此地具有欧洲特色。 feel有感觉，感受的意思，watch有手表，观察的意思。例：My watch is expensive.我的手表很贵。 6、其中look, sound, feel还能构成"look / sound / feel + as if +从句"结构，意为"看起来/听起来/感觉好像……"。 例如：It looks as if our class is going to win.看来我们班好像要获胜了。 7、感官动词+do与+doing的区别： see, watch, observe, notice, look at, hear, listen to, smell, taste, feel + do表示动作的完整性，真实性；+doing 表示动作的连续性，进行性。 I saw him work in the garden yesterday.昨天我看见他在花园里干活了。(强调"我看见了"
过去进行时过去进行时表示过去某一时刻或者某段时间正在进行或发生的动作，常和表过去的时间状语连用，如： 1. I was doing my homework at this time yesterday. 昨天的这个时候我正在做作业。 2. They were waiting for you yesterday. 他们昨天一直在等你。 3. He was cooking in the kitchen at 12 o'clock yesterday. 昨天12点，他正在厨房烧饭。 过去进行时的构成： 肯定形式：主语+was/were+V-ing 否定形式：主语+was not (wasn't)/were not (weren't)+V-ing 疑问形式：Was/Were+主语+V-ing。 基本用法： 1. 过去进行时表示过去某一段时间或某一时刻正在进行的动作。常与之连用的时间状语有，at that time/moment, (at) this time yesterday (last night/Sunday/week…), at+点钟+yesterday (last night / Sunday…)，when sb. did sth.等时间状语从句，如： 1）What were you doing at 7p.m. yesterday? 昨天晚上七点你在干什么？ 2）I first met Mary three years ago. She was working at a radio shop at the time. 我第一次遇到玛丽是在三年前，当时她在一家无线电商店工作。 3）I was cooking when she knocked at the door. 她敲门时我正在做饭。 2. when后通常用表示暂短性动词，while后通常用表示持续性动词，而while所引导的状语从句中，谓语动词常用进行时态，如： When the car exploded I was walking past it. = While I was walking past the car it exploded. 3. when用作并列连词时，主句常用进行时态，从句则用一般过去时，表示主句动作发生的过程中，另一个意想不到的动作发生了。如： I was walking in the street when someone called me. 我正在街上走时突然有人喊我。 4. when作并列连词，表示“（这时）突然”之意时，第一个并列分句用过去进行时，when引导的并列分句用一般过去时。如：
WHEN与WHILE用法区别 when, while这三个词都有"当……时候"之意，但用法有所不同，使用时要特别注意。 ①when意为"在……时刻或时期"，它可兼指"时间点"与"时间段"，所引导的从句的动词既可以是终止性动词，也可是持续性动词。如： When I got home, he was having supper.我到家时，他正在吃饭。 When I was young, I liked dancing.我年轻时喜欢跳舞。 ②while只指"时间段"，不指"时间点"，从句的动词只限于持续性动词。如：While I slept, a thief broke in.在我睡觉时,盗贼闯了进来。 辨析 ①when从句与主句动作先后发生时，不能与while互换。如： When he has finished his work, he takes a short rest.每当他做完工作后，总要稍稍休息一下。(when = after) When I got to the cinema, the film had already begun.当我到电影院时，电影已经开始了。(when=before) ②when从句动词为终止性动词时，不能由while替换。如： When he came yesterday, we were playing basketball.昨天他来时，我们正在打篮球。 ③当从句的谓语是表动作的延续性动词时，when, while才有可能互相替代。如：While / When we were still laughing, the teacher came in.正当我们仍在大声嬉笑时，老师进来了。 ④当从句的谓语动词是终止性动词，而且主句的谓语动词也是终止性动词 时,when可和as通用，而且用as比用when在时间上更为紧凑，有"正当这时"的含义。如： He came just as (or when) I reached the door.我刚到门那儿，他就来了。 ⑤从句的谓语动词如表示状态时，通常用while。如： We must strike while the iron is hot.我们应该趁热打铁。 ⑥while和when都可以用作并列连词。
歌手：John Barrowman Guess we been talking too long[1] We know what we need Separately... You say the honeymoon's over I don't wanna push But what about us? It's ringing in my head It's not what you say It's what you have said So, What about us? What about love? What about saying That we'll never give up? Don't want to blame ya But we're in danger So... What about us? Guess we been trying too hard We misunderstood What's good for us I'm tired emotionally inside Night after night We fight till we cry I don't know what's wrong or right? Is every word you say What's really on your mind? So... What about us? What about love? What about saying That we'll never give up? Don't want to blame ya But we're in danger So... What about us? When we love... we lie When we talk... we hide Maybe I'm searching blind I'm worn out Confused What are we to you? What do we doing... ? What do we doing? What about us? What about love? What about saying That we'll never give up? Don't want to blame ya But we're in danger So... What about us? What about love? That's the one thing we never discuss Don't want to blame ya But we're in danger So... What about us?
1.感官动词用法之一：see, hear, listen to, watch, notice等词，后接宾语，再接动词原形或ing形式。前者表全过程，后者表正在进行。句中有频率词时，以上的词也常跟动词原形。 I heard someone knocking at the door when I fell asleep. (我入睡时有人正敲门) I heard someone knock at the door three times. (听的是全过程) I often watch my classmates play volleyball after school.(此处有频率词often) 若以上词用于被动语态，后面原有动词原形改为带to不定式： We saw him go into the restaurant. →He was seen to go into the restaurant. I hear the boy cry every day. →The boy is heard to cry every day. 2.感官动词用法之二：look, sound, smell, taste, feel可当系动词，后接形容词： He looks angry. It sounds good. The flowers smell beautiful. The sweets taste sweet. The silk feels soft. I felt tired. They all looked tired. 这些动词都不用于被动语态。如：The sweets are tasted sweet.是个病句。注意：如果加介词like,则后不可接形容词，而接名词或代词：
过去进行时 过去进行时表示过去某一时刻或者某段时间正在进行或发生的动作，常和表过去的时间状语连用，如： 1. I was doing my homework at this time yesterday. 昨天的这个时候我正在做作业。 2. They were waiting for you yesterday. 他们昨天一直在等你。 3. He was cooking in the kitchen at 12 o'clock yesterday. 昨天12点，他正在厨房烧饭。 过去进行时的构成： 肯定形式：主语+was/were+V-ing 否定形式：主语+was not (wasn't)/were not (weren't)+V-ing 疑问形式：Was/Were+主语+V-ing。 基本用法： 1. 过去进行时表示过去某一段时间或某一时刻正在进行的动作。常与之连用的时间状语有，at that time/moment, (at) this time yesterday (last night/Sunday/week…), at+点钟+yesterday (last night / Sunday…)，when sb. did sth.等时间状语从句，如： 1）What were you doing at 7p.m. yesterday? 昨天晚上七点你在干什么？ 2）I first met Mary three years ago. She was working at a radio shop at the time. 我第一次遇到玛丽是在三年前，当时她在一家无线电商店工作。 3）I was cooking when she knocked at the door. 她敲门时我正在做饭。 2. when后通常用表示暂短性动词，while后通常用表示持续性动词，而while所引导的状语从句中，谓语动词常用进行时态，如： When the car exploded I was walking past it. = While I was walking past the car it exploded. 3. when用作并列连词时，主句常用进行时态，从句则用一般过去时，表示主句动作发生的过程中，另一个意想不到的动作发生了。如： I was walking in the street when someone called me. 我正在街上走时突然有人喊我。 4. when作并列连词，表示“（这时）突然”之意时，第一个并列分句用过去进行时，when引导的并列分句用一般过去时。如： 1）I was taking a walk when I met him. 我正在散步，突然遇见了他。 2）We were playing outside when it began to rain. 我们正在外边玩，这时下起雨来了。 过去进行时和一般过去时的用法比较： 1）过去进行时表示过去正在进行的动作，而一般过去时则表示一个完整的动作。 例如：They were writing letters to their friends last night. 昨晚他们在写信给他们的朋友。（没有说明信是否写完） They wrote letters to their friends last night.
as when while 的区别和用法 as when while的用法 一、as的意思是“正当……时候”,它既可表示一个具体的时间点，也可以表示一段时间。as可表示主句和从句的动作同时发生或同时持续，即“点点重合”“线线重合”；又可表示一个动作发生在另一个动作的持续过程中，即“点线重合”， 但不能表示两个动作一前一后发生。如果主句和从句的谓语动词都表示持续性的动作，二者均可用进行时，也可以一个用进行时，一个用一般时或者都用一般时。 1、As I got on the bus，he got off. 我上车，他下车。（点点重合）两个动作都是非延续性的 2、He was writing as I was reading. 我看书时，他在写字。（线线重合）两个动作都是延续性的 3、The students were talking as the teacher came in. 老师进来时，学生们正在讲话。（点线重合）前一个动作是延续性的，而后一个动作时非延续性的 二、while的意思是“在……同时（at the same time that )”“在……期间(for as long as, during the time that）”。从while的本身词义来看，它只能表示一段时间，不能表示具体的时间点。在时间上可以是“线线重合”或“点线重合”，但不能表示“点点重合”。例如： 1、He was watching TV while she was cooking. 她做饭时，他在看电视。（线线重合） 2、He was waiting for me while I was working. 我工作的时候，他正等着我。（线线重合） 3、He asked me a question while I was speaking. 我在讲话时，他问了我一个问题。（点线重合）
what about表示建议，征求意见,怎么样？ words that you say when you suggest something · I'm thirsty--what about a drink? 我渴了——来一杯，怎么样？ I want a drink.what about you？ 我要来一杯，你呢 how about表示“…怎么样” what do you think of · How about doing it now? 现在来做怎么样？ 一般来讲，应该没有什么大的区别。 I think it is good，how about you？ 我觉得这很好，你觉得怎么样呢 ..
The iron and steel industry is very important to our life. 编辑本段典型例题 The League secretary and monitor ___ asked to make a speech at the meeting. A. is B. was C. are D. were 答案B. 注：先从时态上考虑。这是过去发生的事情应用过去时，先排除A.，C.。本题易误选D，因为The League secretary and monitor 好像是两个人，但仔细辨别， monitor 前没有the，在英语中，当一人兼数职时只在第一个职务前加定冠词。后面的职务用and 相连。这样本题主语为一个人，所以应选B。 2 主谓一致中的靠近原则 1) 当there be 句型的主语是一系列事物时，谓语应与最邻近的主语保持一致。There is a pen, a knife and several books on the desk.. There are twenty boy-students and twenty-three girl-students in the class. 2）当either… or… 与neither… nor，连接两个主语时，谓语动词与最邻近的主语保持一致。如果句子是由here, there引导，而主语又不止一个时，谓语通常也和最邻近的主语一致。 Either you or she is to go. Here is a pen, a few envelopes and some paper for you. 3 谓语动词与前面的主语一致 当主语后面跟有with, together with, like, except, but, no less than, as well as 等词引起的短语时，谓语动词与前面的主语一致。 The teacher together with some students is visiting the factory. He as well as I wants to go boating. 4 .谓语需用单数 1）代词each和由every, some, no, any等构成的复合代词作主语，或主语中含有each, every, 谓语需用单数。 Each of us has a tape-recorder. There is something wrong with my watch. 2）当主语是一本书或一条格言时，谓语动词常用单数。 The Arabian Night is a book known to lovers of English. 《天方夜谭》是英语爱好者熟悉的一本好书。 3）表示金钱，时间，价格或度量衡的复合名词作主语时，通常把这些名词看作一个整体，谓语一般用单数。(用复数也可，意思不变。)
when，while，as引导时间状语从句的区别 when，while，as显然都可以引导时间状语从句，但用法区别非常大。 一、when可以和延续性动词连用，也可以和短暂性动词连用；而while和as只能和延续性动词连用。 ①Why do you want a new job when youve got such a good one already？（get 为短暂性动词）你已经找到如此好的工作，为何还想再找新的？ ②Sorry，I was out when you called me．（call为短暂性动词）对不起，你打电话时我刚好外出了。 ③Strike while the iron is hot．（is为延续性动词，表示一种持续的状态）趁热打铁。 ④The students took notes as they listened．（listen为延续性动词）学生们边听课边做笔记。 二、when从句的谓语动词可以在主句谓语动作之前、之后或同时发生；while 和as从句的谓语动作必须是和主句谓语动作同时发生。 1．从句动作在主句动作前发生，只用when。 ①When he had finished his homework，he took a short rest．（finished先发生）当他完成作业后，他休息了一会儿。 ②When I got to the airport，the guests had left．（got to后发生）当我赶到飞机场时，客人们已经离开了。 2．从句动作和主句动作同时发生，且从句动作为延续性动词时，when，while，as都可使用。 ①When ／While ／As we were dancing，a stranger came in．（dance为延续性动词）当我们跳舞时，一位陌生人走了进来。 ②When ／While ／As she was making a phonecall，I was writing a letter．（make为延续性动词）当她在打电话时，我正在写信。 3．当主句、从句动作同时进行，从句动作的时间概念淡化，而主要表示主句动作发生的背景或条件时，只能用as。这时，as常表示“随着……”；“一边……，一边……”之意。 ①As the time went on，the weather got worse．（as表示“随着……”之意） ②The atmosphere gets thinner and thinner as the height increases．随着高度的增加，大气越来越稀薄。 ③As years go by，China is getting stronger and richer．随着时间一年一年过去，中国变得越来越富强了。 ④The little girls sang as they went．小姑娘们一边走，一边唱。 ⑤The sad mother sat on the roadside，shouting as she was crying．伤心的妈妈坐在路边，边哭边叫。 4．在将来时从句中，常用when，且从句须用一般时代替将来时。 ①You shall borrow the book when I have finished reading it．在我读完这本书后，你可以借阅。 ②When the manager comes here for a visit next week，Ill talk with him about this．下周，经理来这参观时，我会和他谈谈此事。 三、when用于表示“一……就……”的句型中（指过去的事情）。 sb．had hardly（＝scarcely）done sth．when．．．＝Hardly ／Scarcely had sb．done sth．when．．．
Emily Osment - what about me the city is sleepin’ but i’m still awake i’m dreamin’ i’m thinkin’ what happened today is it right? i fall into the night the flashbacks, the pictures, the letters and songs, the memories, the heart that you carved on the wall it’s a shame. now that nothing’s the same now the bridges are burned and we’re lost in the wind it’s time that we sing chorus swell what about you? what about me? what about fairy tale endings? were you just pretending to be? i’m wondering. what if we tried? what if i cried? what if it’s better tomorrow? what if i followed your eyes? i’m wondering, what about me?
you said it. you meant it. you hung up the phone. the talking in circles, it set it in stone. you were gone. we were wrong all along. now the past is the past, and the bruises may fade; these scars are here to stay. what about you? what about me? what about fairy tale endings? were you just pretending to be? i’m wondering. what if we tried? what if i cried? what if it’s better tomorrow? what if i followed your eyes? i’m wondering, what about me? stay away you stayed away i’m not afraid anymore what about you? what about me? what about fairy tale endings? were you just pretending to be? i’m wondering.