Using the past tense to talk about the future

Guest   Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:25 pm GMT
'I knew you were meeting her tomorrow'

Isn't it strange that English allows this kind of construction with the past tense being used to refer to a future event. I imagine this could be a bit confusing for some learners.
Guest   Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:27 pm GMT
This is not talking about the future with the past tense. It is talking about an intention that someone had in the past to perform an action in the future.
greg   Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:46 pm GMT
Mais peut-être que l'anglais peut recourir à cette sorte de syntaxe : <j'ai fini dans une semaine>, où le passé composé exprime paradoxalement une action future.
Guest   Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:58 pm GMT
Josh

I gave an example in my original post, didn't I? Anyway talk of the future can only ever express an intention in any context, since until it's happened there's still a chance it might not happen.

I'm not sure that I agree with guest's assertion that it is an intention someone had in the past to perform an action in the future either. My original statement implies they still intended it in the present, it's just that if I said this sentence I would be reconfirming something I understood earlier.

Anyway comparing English to Geman, I don't think such a construction is possible in German. The progressive doesn't exist in Standard German, so it would be sent into the simple past I guess

'Ich wusste, dass du dich mit ihr morgen traffst'. It's ridiculous in this language. I think it would be 'Ich wusste, dass du dich mit ihr morgen triffst', maybe 'treffen wirst', but never in the past tense.

As such English seems a bit illogical in this respect.
Guest   Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:04 am GMT
Sometimes it is used for literary effect.

"Tomorrow, when the war began"
furrykef   Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:20 am GMT
"Tomorrow, when the war began" is a very unusual example, though. I rarely ever encounter things like that, and I even had to google it to make sure it was a real example (it's a book title).
Guest   Wed Dec 05, 2007 4:20 am GMT
<<'I knew you were meeting her tomorrow'>>

I wonder if this really something else masquerading as a past continuious tense?

In this case you can say "I knew you were to meet her tommorrow" without changing the meaning much.

Compare it with with a classic example of the past continuous:

"We were meeting with the parents when the cieling fell in."

Here you can't change it to "to meet" without radically changing the meaning.