Editing Talk:Suzumiya Haruhi:Volume7 Chapter 4 (section)

== Inchworm tense frame ==

Or, "I'll be in the moment in a moment."

I find a strict present tense construction for Kyon's narration to be very unnatural and awkward-sounding to my mind's ear. Mulling this over, I concluded that my own internal mental discourse tends to move like an inchworm, alternating between present tense framing and immediate past framing. Consider this version of the opening scene:

:The second morning, I was awakened by my little sister who came to shut off my alarm. (RP=recent past)

:It's noisy, isnt it Shami? (P=present)

:My sister picked up a curled-up Shamisen, hugging him close, and then put that pile of fur on my nose, asking, 

:"It's breakfast~~. Are you gonna eat~?" (RP to P)

:This voice, which belongs to a tone-deaf person who constantly practices singing in order to get good at it, irritates my brain more than the alarm did. (P)

:"I'm eating." 

:I brushed away the claws my sister was playing with and picked myself up. (RP)

I'm going to proceed on this basis for the moment.--[[User:Nutcase|Nutcase]] 09:35, 14 February 2007 (PST)

:Don't forget that the entire story is in past narrative, so it's common for tense to jump about especially when dialog is concerned. [[User:Smidge204|Smidge204]] 10:03, 14 February 2007 (PST)

::True. The time framing has been set up by the author in the interest of playfulness rather than ease of understanding and ease of translation - but it's not perversely complicated. The editing guidelines suggest defaulting to both present and past tenses, and they're both "right." Maybe this will be a way to express the underlying "truth" that's a little easier to use.--[[User:Nutcase|Nutcase]] 13:21, 14 February 2007 (PST)