Today has felt like a series of lost opportunities, thanks to several external factors. However, I did some further work on the material I'll be presenting at the English UK conference and produced an initial PPT that I'm going to do with my students. The aim is to see how they react to a different way of seeing tenses and verb structures in English. I discussed it with Liz, one of my colleagues, and it helped me crystallize a few concepts. Interestingly, it has almost confirmed a suspicion I had that my hypothesis is very difficult for people to understand regarding their own language, yet becomes crystal clear when they think about a language acquired later in life.
I'm sorry I'm being a bit cagey: It's just that I want to get the explanation of this idea right before I discuss it. Suffice to say, it builds on some of Michael Lewis' stuff, and is apparently mirrored by Stephen Pinker in his new book, which I have yet to read.