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The professor is talking about some rules related to databases. He makes the statement

That means I cannot add this tuple to the solution. Because if I do, it will be introducing a duplicate.

Does "it will be introducing a duplicate" produce more emphasis than "it will introduce a duplicate"? or it is just a personal expression habit?

Please don't be bothered by the term "tuple", just a computer science way to say a row in a table.

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  • @Cascabel thanks for your reply, and what does "ELL" stands for?
    – user95043
    May 5, 2019 at 2:28

2 Answers 2

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As detailed here, future continuous is used to describe an ongoing activity that is expected to take place in the future. The usage in the lecture does not match this pattern; inserting the tuple is an instantaneous action.

I would not call it incorrect English, though. It seems to be a way to emphasize a point, and it is common among some speakers. It may be a personal preference as you suggest.

A somewhat more proper way of describing the hypothetical result of inserting the tuple (which, as the professor states, is not possible) would be using a proper counterfactual conditional statement:

That means I cannot add this tuple to the solution. Because if I did, it would introduce a duplicate.

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There are two possibilities here as to why the professor says this.

1) Judging from his accent, I would say his English is influenced by the style used in India (and environs). The progressive tenses (is, was, will be + "-ing" form) are used more frequently in that brand of English than in others.

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2) (Picky point, but ...) he may have meant "introducing" not as a part of the future progressive verb tense, but the gerund form of "introduce", which acts like a noun in the sentence. In other words, he is saying that adding that tuple will be the same as the introduction of a duplicate. He is setting up an equivalence between adding the tuple and the introduction of a duplicate, so, yes, it is more explicit and emphatic.

The words are exactly the same as the future progressive, but if that was what was in his mind when he spoke, it would explain his phrasing.

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