What are you doing for today

What are you going to do/doing

Senior Member

Is this sentence possible in everyday conversation: «What are you doing today?» when asking about the plans for today. I’d say «What are you going to do today?». But I’d like to know if you would say «What are you doing today?»

Sparky Malarky

Moderator

Senior Member

Thank you, Sparky. I heard this from a native. I thought I heard wrong.

bennymix

Senior Member

‘What are you doing today?’ IS often asking about the future (an hr. or even ten), as opposed to ‘right at the moment.’

I think the reason is that the present is sometimes considered to be a SPAN of time (up to a day, perhaps) including the present moment. Hence I can say, this morning, to my wife, «I am picking up the kid from school at noon today for her doctor’s appointment.»

Parla

Member Emeritus

In fact, Hboo, we even use this apparent present to talk about times more in the future than later today.

«What are you doing next Tuesday? Can we meet for lunch?» That use is common and correct.

Or: «In November, I’m going to Europe.» Perfectly correct, and much more common than «I’ll go to Europe».

bennymix

Senior Member

fivejedjon

Senior Member

I fly to Prague next Thursday.
I’m flying to Prague next Thursday.
I’m going to fly to Prague next Thursday.
I‘ll fly to Prague next Thursday.
I‘ll be flying to Prague next Thursday.

bennymix

Senior Member

I think I’d prefer to say there is a future tense for verbs in English, but it’s expressed by jerry rigging [improvising with] the auxilliaries, rather than with internal changes or suffixes added to the stem.

And this idea is not very special; there are rough analogies in the case of French for the passé composé.

fivejedjon

Senior Member

bennymix

Senior Member

*or «shall» if you want to be picky.

fivejedjon

Senior Member

Few modern grammarians think of that as the future tense. There are a number of reasons for this. To summarise some of the main ones:

It seems illogical to pick this one as ‘the future tense’ when there are at least four other common ways of expressing the future in English. Some of these are more commonly used than will, especially in speech and less formal writing.

‘Pure’ futurity seems to be one of the less common meanings conveyed by will. It is probably more commonly used for present certainty about present and future situations and present volition.

Most of the modals can express some idea of futurity. With will, the speaker’s certainty of the situation is greater than with other modals. That is just a matter of degree.

Many learners who have been taught that will is used for the future tense often use it inappropriately to render in English what may be expressed in their own language by an inflected future tense.

Writers who reject the idea of a future tense in English include: Biber et al (1999.456), Carter and McCarthy (2006.629), Huddleston and Pullum (2002.208), Leech (2004.56), Palmer (1975.35-6), Quirk et al (1985.176) and Yule (1998.58).

bennymix

Senior Member

Well, you will have to define your terms, fivejed, such as ‘tense’ and ‘future tense’ in making your claim, A future tense does not exist in English.

There is no dispute about this basic point of fact: [##] future actions (for lack of a better term, connected with ‘verb’) are NOT morphologically marked in[on] the verb, in English. There is, for example, no suffix tacked onto a basic verb form, as in French.

Now, does ‘tense,’ according to you mean, [set of] ‘morphologically marked’ forms of a verb indicating a distinction regarding time?

If so, your initial claim is not a very interesting one; it’s one that does not say anything of substance, further than the original agreed statement of fact [##].

It may well be that there is, in some sense, no future tense in English, but first basic matters would have to be clarified. Then, despite the chorus of agreement among several major authorities, better arguments should be presented by fivejed (and Pullum, etc.) than the ones above, which, like some of their antecedents in Pullum, seem rather flimsy. I know this is expressed curtly, but consider it offered in a friendly way.

fivejedjon

Senior Member

It does mean [set of] ‘morphologically unmarked/marked’ forms of a verb. In English, time is only one of the functions of tense. Others include directness and reality.

I have yet to see any solid arguments for selecting will, one of the nine core modals, as the English ‘future tense’. Most traditional grammarians, from Bullokar (1586.24) onwards wrote of an English future tense. However, even back in the days before the present progressive and the BE going to ways of expressing the future were not used, some grammarians did not agree. Wallis (1653.91) and Gildon/Brightland (1711 [1746.104]) held that there were but two tenses.

By the 1960s, most grammarians were analysing English in its own terms, not those originally set out by writers describing Sanskrit, Greek and Latin There are stiil writers who speak of of an English future tense, for example, Sinclair et al (1990.255) and Declerck et al (2006.25), but they now appear to be in a minority.

There is, as you say, a ‘chorus of agreement among several major authorities’ I’d say ‘most’ rather than ‘several’. Do you really think that all the arguments put forward by all the writers I’ve mentioned can be dismissed as ‘flimsy’?

bennymix

Senior Member

I’m not sure you’re proposed a definition of ‘tense’ and ‘future tense’ that would permit evaluation of your claim, A future tense does not exist in English.

Lacking that, it’s a bit like arguing about how many kinds of rabbits there are, without ever defining what a rabbit is.

«Will» in «He will go to school soon,» is a standard, common and routine marker of a future event.

«Will» whatever its other meanings, has here been emptied of them— conscripted, so to say, in service of marking a time distinction (the process known as grammaticalization).

As you’ve indicated, there are several noted linguists, e.g. Declerck (2006), who are out of the Pullum/Quirk consensus, and propose three of more tenses in English.

fivejedjon

Senior Member

I haven’t attempted to define these terms precisely. There is a limit to how much can be submitted in a thread such as this. Actually, of course, in scientific terms it is virtually impossible to prove the non-existence of anything, be it a god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or an English future tense. The onus is surely on those who believe that these things do exist to prove their case.

To these concepts of vivid/less vivid, actual (present, general)/ time-distanced, direct/less direct, real/less real, we can add notions of limitedness of duration, retrospection, prediction and various modal ideas with the help of other words We cannot in English, by verb-inflection alone, indicate futurity. Futurity is often indicated by context, reinforced by inflection, auxiliary verbs, adverbs, etc. Thus we may (to over-simplify) indicate certainty/volition by will, possibility/permission by may, present arrangement by the present progressive, present evidence by BE going to, to mention just a few of the possibilities. To single out any one way of indicating futurity as being a clear equivalent of the unmarked form (and claim that that is predominantly for talking about present-time situations) or the marked form (and claim that that is predominantly for talking about past-time situations) would need rather more real evidence than most supporters of a past/present/future tense system offer.

My own view is that the idea of a future tense in English is not supported by the evidence of the language itself. More importantly, to me as a teacher, telling learners that there is a future tense in English frequently leads to the production of unnatural English.

English Pronunciation Study: What did you do Today?

In this Ben Franklin exercise, you’ll study real English conversation. We’ll study everything we hear. Try this on your own to improve your listening comprehension and pronunciation!

Video Text:

In this American English pronunciation exercise, we’re going to study some conversation. Today it’s going to be a Ben Franklin exercise, where we analyze the speech together. Today’s topic: what did you do today?

Great. Let’s get started.

>> Tom, what did you do today?

Tom, what did you do today? Lots of interesting things happening here. I noticed first of all that I’ve dropped the T here: what did, what did, what did you do? I’m also noticing I’m getting more of a J sound here, j-ou, j-ou. Whuh-dih-jou, dih-jou. So the D and the Y here are combining to make the J sound. So we have wuh-dih-jou, what did you [3x]. Tom, what did you do today? The other thing I notice is that the T here is really more of a flap sound, a D, do duh-, do duh-, do today, this is most definitely a schwa, so we’re reducing this unstressed syllable to be the schwa. Today, today, do today, to today. Tom, what did you do today?

>> Tom, what did you do today?
>> Today? >> Today.
>> Today I woke up…

Now here we have ‘today’ three times. Always, the first syllable is reduced to the schwa sound, but I’m noticing that these T’s are all True T’s, and not Flap T’s. That’s because they are beginning sentences. So, we’re not going to reduce that to a Flap T. In the case up here, ‘do today’, it came, the T in ‘today’, came in between a vowel, ‘do’, the OO vowel, and the schwa sound. And that’s why we made this a flap sound. But here we’re beginning a sentence, so we’re going to go ahead and give it the True T sound—though we will most definitely reduce to the schwa. Today.

>> Today? >> Today. [3x]
>> Tom, what did you do today?
>> Today? >> Today.
>> Today I woke up…

Everything was very connected there, and I know that when we have something ending in a vowel or diphthong sound, and the next word beginning in a vowel or diphthong sound, that we want that to really glide together, today I [3x]. And anytime we have a word that begins with a vowel, we want to say, hmm, does the word before end in a consonant sound? It does. It ends in the K consonant sound, woke up, woke up. So, to help us link, we can almost think of it as beginning the next word, wo-kup, woke up. Today I woke up.

>> Today? >> Today.
>> Today I woke up, and I went for a run.

And I went for a run. Tom dropped the D here, connected this word ‘and’ to ‘I’, ‘and I’ [3x]. This was the schwa sound, so he’s reduced ‘and’. And I, and I, and I went for a run. For a, for a. Tom reduced the vowel in the word ‘for’ to the schwa. And we’ve connected these two function words together, for a, for a, for a, this is also a schwa. For a, for a, for a run, for a run, and I went for a run. Can you pick out the two stressed words here? Went, run. Those are the words that have the most shape in the voice. The most length: and I went for a run. And I went for a run. Again, he’s got the intonation going up here at the end, because, comma, he’s giving us a list here. And there’s more information about to come.

>> Today I woke up,
and I went for a run. [3x]
And, um, then I just worked.

And, um… Now here, Tom did pronounce the D, he linked it to the next word, beginning with a vowel, which is just this thought-word that we say when we’re thinking, and um, and um. Again, the intonation of the voice is going up at the end, and um, signaling, comma, not a period, more information coming.

And, um, [3x]
then I just worked.

…and I went for a run.
And, um, then I just worked. [3x]
>> So, where do you run?

So, where do you run? Now, this is a question, but did you notice the intonation went down at the end? Run, run. That’s because it’s a question that cannot be answered with just ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Yes/no questions go up in pitch at the end. All other questions tend to go down in pitch at the end. Where do you run? Do you hear the stressed words in that question? Where, run. So, where do you run? Longer words, more up/down shape of the voice. Where, run. So where do you run?

>> So, where do you run? [3x]
>> I run in Fort Greene Park.

What do you hear as being the stressed syllables there?

>> I run in Fort Greene Park. [3x]

I run in Fort Greene Park. I hear da-da-da-DAA-DAA-DAA. Definitely I hear ‘Fort’, ‘Greene’, and ‘Park’ all being longer, all having that shape in the voice. I run in Fort Greene Park. Also, ‘I’ is a little more stressed than ‘run in’. I, I, DA-da-da, DA-da-da, I run in, I run in, run in, run in. So those two words are really linked together because we have and ending consonant and a beginning vowel. Run in, run in, I run in, I run in Fort Greene Park.

>> I run in Fort Greene Park. [3x]
In Brooklyn.

In Brooklyn. Brooklyn, a two syllable word. One of the syllables will be stressed. What do you hear as being stressed? Brooklyn, Brooklyn. Definitely it’s that first syllable. Brook-, Brook-, Brooklyn, Brooklyn.

>> In Brooklyn. [3x]
>> So, what are you doing after this?

So, what are you doing after this? How was I able to say so many words quickly, but still be clear? First of all, I’m dramatically reducing the word ‘are’ to the schwa-R sound, er, er. That means the T here is now coming between two vowel sounds, and I’m making that a flap T sound, which sounds like the D between vowels. What are [3x]. Also the word ‘you’ is unstressed, so it’s going to be in that same line, what are you [4x], very fast, quite flat, lower in volume. What are you doing? Now here we have a stressed word, do-, doing. Doing, what are you doing? Do you hear how the syllable ‘do’ sticks out of that phrase more than anything else? What are you doing? [2x] After this. Another stressed word here. So what are you doing after this? [2x]

>> So, what are you doing after this? [3x]
>> After this, nothing.

>> After this, nothing. [3x]
>> No plans. >> No plans.

Nothing reduces in this phrase. I’m really hearing this as two different stressed words. They’re both one syllable, no plans. No plans.

>> No plans. >> No plans. [3x]
>> Should we get dinner? >> Yeah.

Should we get dinner? One of the things that I notice is that I’m dropping the D sound: should we, should we. Should we get [3x]. That’s helping me say this less-important word even faster. Should we get dinner?

>> Should we get dinner? [3x]

I notice that the T here is a Stop T, I don’t release it. It’s not ‘get dinner’, it’s get, get, get, get dinner, get dinner. Should we get dinner?

>> Should we get dinner? [3x]

Do you notice, in this question my voice does go up in pitch at the end. Dinner, dinner. That’s because this is a yes/no question. Pitch goes up. Should we get dinner? Yeah. As you probably know, a more casual way to say ‘yes’. Should we get dinner? Yeah.

>> Should we get dinner?
>> Yeah.

Working this way with any video or audio clip can help improve your listening comprehension and your pronunciation.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.