Re:Prophetic Perfect Tense
by chipsrafferty on Thursday September 28, 2023 @07:34AM
(#37688121)
Yeah, yours sound less prophetic because you don't speak as if it is obviously going to happen. You add things like "for I see it in your future", "even though [it hasn't happened yet]", "just you wait", "you just don't know it yet", "get ready"
I think it should be “you are already failed”.
It seems to work better on verbs that have a different form for “I failed” and “I have failed” which “fail” does not.
Try “you are already fallen at the first hurdle”.
Re:Prophetic Perfect Tense
by denton-scratch on Thursday September 28, 2023 @10:17AM
(#37689941)
I think these are not examples; each of your examples is of a failure that (implicitly) has already occurred, but the protagonist hasn't realised it yet.
Re:Prophetic Perfect Tense
by roywiggins on Thursday September 28, 2023 @12:35PM
(#37692059)
"Ten years from now, OpenAI has become a trillion-dollar company: LLMs ate all other software." seems like it would be a modern sort of prophesy in this mode. It's a "I can see it; I'm having a vision of what will-have-had-happened, I'm just narrating it for you" sort of thing.
I recommend Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations[0] for even more advanced tenses, such as future semiconditionally modified subinverted plagal past subjunctive intentional.
Ah, you've already failed the diet, for I see a donut in your future!
The cat has knocked over the vase, even though it sits there innocently. Just you wait, its paw is twitching!
You've already laughed at my joke, you just don't know it yet. Get ready to chuckle.
The socks are lost, the moment you buy them.
EDIT: hmmm it seems a lot more profound in the Biblical examples