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Ok, It is hard to identify the boundary between "present" & "past".

You say a sentence & a few seconds later that sentence was in the past.

You say "I like music" to me at this moment. Then, a few seconds later, in order to report the saying, should I say:

She says she likes music.

or

She said she liked music.

I think all sentences "She says ..." don't make sense because at the time you say it that sentence was in the past.

But, in textbook, they do have example "She says she likes music.".

so, Is the sentence "she says...." always illogical because at the time you say it the time was past and it was in the past?

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    Your point about the illogicality of "she says..." depends on your interpreting the verb "says" as denoting the physical action of speaking, which must occur at a time. But there is a looser sense of "says" whereby it does not denote a physical action. For example, the Declaration of Independence says all men are born equal, even though (1) it can't physically speak, and (2) if it did speak, it actually would utter "all men are created equal" since that is the actual wording. If you allow that "says" has this (and other) looser senses, you can escape your worry about tense.
    – Silenus
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 12:17
  • You could also explain the present tense use of "says" as involving something like generic or habitual aspect: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitual_aspect.
    – Silenus
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 12:19
  • "She says she likes music" could be interpreted as "She pretends to like music" but "She said she liked music" may be interpreted as "She liked it before but may not like it now.".
    – O_huck
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 12:43
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    A habit is referred to as in present, since the cultural-logic (rather than the philosophical one) suggests that it is something belonging to the present you. Such as "I like sports." not "I liked sports" where the second sentence will most certainly be misunderstood, as I said above, as you are someone who liked the sports in some distant past.
    – O_huck
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 12:44
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    You might as well extend this argument to say that all present tense verbs are illogical. By the time you use them, the event already happened.
    – Laurel
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 15:05

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"She says she likes music" would very rarely be used for example when a translator reports what a french speaking woman is saying right now. She says in French "I like music" and the English translator says "She says she likes music".

Normally it means: "She would say that she likes music whenever you ask her and sometimes even if you don't ask". If someone states "she says she likes music" instead of "she likes music" it means the person saying this is not convinced that she likes music. That may be either a neutral statement, or it may indicate the person things she is making it up.

"She told me she likes music" is different - it means she said it once, to me in person. "She says she likes music" doesn't mean she ever told me that she likes music, I might have heard this second hand from people who know here better.

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