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I know that we should use present simple when talking about general truth like The Sun rises in the east. However, if I add a time frame for it, will it still be used for present simple?

For example:

  1. In the past, The Sun rises in the east.

  2. In the future, The Sun rises in the east.

  3. She said the Sun rises in the east.

Zelin
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    In the past, the Sun *rose* in the east. In the future, the Sun *will rise* in the east. Using present simple for these is ungrammatical. For "she said the Sun rises in the east," you have a choice of simple past or simple present. – Peter Shor Aug 11 '23 at 15:24
  • @FumbleFingers After seeing your linked Q/A I was going to agree with the duplicate target except that this question also has a future example, which that one doesn't cover. There's also this: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/291719/can-i-use-a-future-tense-to-express-the-future-general-truth?rq=1 but it's only about the future. If only something could be a duplicate of more than one question! – Quack E. Duck Aug 12 '23 at 04:16
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    @QuackE.Duck: I think that linked "future general truth" question is a bit silly. General truths are timeless, which means OP's examples #1 and #2 here aren't just syntactically invalid - they're semantically nonsensical. – FumbleFingers Aug 12 '23 at 11:36
  • @FumbleFingers That could make an insightful answer to the question, then! Although, while the boiling-point temperature example in the other question may be silly, it seems like it might be possible to come up with a real situation where the future "general truth" differs from the present one. What about, "In the present, 8k screens are the highest resolution. In the future, 16k screens will be the highest resolution."? – Quack E. Duck Aug 12 '23 at 16:22
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    @QuackE.Duck: Screen resolutions aren't "universal truths". If you're gonna use present simple when talking about general truth, you can't meaningfully restrict your assertion to some specific time-frame (whether past or future). – FumbleFingers Aug 12 '23 at 16:38

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