Notes:

It is a commonplace in grammar that the relationship between form and meaning is complex.

Thus in all languages there are cases where one grammatical form seems to require a

description in terms of several meanings, and, conversely, cases where there are several

competing expressions for a given meaning (though variation of form tends always to lead to

some variation of meaning, cf. e.g. Bolinger 1977). One example is the simple present tense

in English, which - among other things - may be used to express a strictly present situation

(/know her very well), a future situation (He leaves for Rome tomorrow), a past situation (In

1939 Hitler invades Poland), an occupation (Jack teaches linguistics), a habit (Jill smokes fat

cigars), an eternal truth (The sun rises in the east), or serve as a performative (I promise to

help her). Conversely, there are in English a number of possible ways of expressing a future

situation, each with a subtle additional shade of meaning: e.g. the simple present (He leaves

for Rome tomorrow), the present progressive (I am seeing her next week), WILL + infinitive

(I'll do it again if I get the chance), BE going to + infinitive (She is going to visit her parents),

etc. (Carl Bache: The study of aspect, tense, and action : towards a theory of the semantics of

grammatical categories - 2., rev. ed. - Frankfurt am Main ; Berlin ; Bern ; New York ; Paris ;

Wien :Lang, 1997: 133)