I challenge you vs I am challenging you (2025)

Hi! I would like to ask a question.

1. "I challenge you to beat me in this game"
2. "We hold these truths to be self-evident"

In all of these examples, we have the present simple and not the present continuous. And a lot of native speakers use it in those sentences.
Why do these examples use the present simple ? Aren't they happening for us to use the present continuous ?

Could anyone explain ?
Many Thanks!

I challenge you is like I dare you or I promise, etc. It’s a sort of declaration, which explains the simple aspect.

And the other one is without doubt a declaration, since you’ve taken it from the US Declaratin of Independence.

1. This is a performative verb (as are the other two examples @lingobingo gives). The action is performed simply by uttering the verb. To my knowledge, these are always in the present simple.
Performative verb - Wikipedia

2. This is present simple because it’s a general fact. We generally hold these truths to be self-evident, it’s not just something that applies to this moment in time (however broadly that’s defined).

The present simple is used for things that continue to be true across time (including now). They need not be events that are happening now. Typical uses are with mental states:

I like chocolate ice-cream.
I know some Malay.

These are true even when I'm in bed asleep. In contrast, the present continuous is used for when I'm doing it now. So 'we hold these truths' is of that first kind: they held those truths to be self-evident even while they were eating breakfast, or asleep, or arguing about a card game, not thinking about those truths.

lingobingo said:

I challenge you is like I dare you or I promise, etc. It’s a sort of declaration, which explains the simple aspect.

And the other one is without doubt a declaration, since you’ve taken it from the US Declaratin of Independence.

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If I don't get your explanation wrong, could I use the present simple to make the following declaration ?

I play the PS5 24 hours now

Here, I'm saying the sentence to my little brother that starting from when I say that sentence untill whenever, I play the PS5 for 24 hours.

Is that correct ? I'm stating that from the time I say the sentence untill whenever, I play the PS5.

lingobingo said:

You have got it wrong. I don’t even know what that sentence means! But it would make no sense in the simple aspect unless you were describing something you do regularly/habitually, so you couldn’t add “now”. See the explanation in #4 for how the simple present is used.

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I'm sorry. I think I would need your further explanation about how I challenge you is correct when used to describe something happening now. Because in that situation I would usually expect the present continuous.

Could you tell me what declarations really are that we could use them with the present simple and what they mean ?

As in : I challenge you to play this game. If it's happening at the moment, it should be the present continuous to me. And if it's a declaration, then why is saying "I play the PS5 for 2 hours now" to declare that starting from the moment I speak it , I play it for 24 hours ?

I still don't understand the concept. I'm sorry.

Peter Thompson said:

I'm sorry. I think I would need your further explanation about how I challenge you is correct when used to describe something happening now. Because in that situation I would usually expect the present continuous.

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It’s not a

or

of what’s happening now, for which you would use the progressive aspect. Neither is it a use of the present tense to denote a habitual action. Neither is it a constative statement, about something that may be either true or false. It’s a performative statement – as explained, with further examples, in the Wikipedia article linked to in #3.

You have more than enough information in this thread to understand this really not very difficult concept.

Peter Thompson said:

As in : I challenge you to play this game. If it's happening at the moment, it should be the present continuous to me.

Click to expand...

It is not continuous. A thing that happens now can happen at one moment, or it can be happening across a longer time.

I am reading a book. It starts like this: I open the book. Then I begin to read. The 'reading' continues. But 'open' happens at just one time, and so does 'begin'. They don't continue to happen.

The present continuous tense is not for something that happens now. It is for something that takes time, including now. If I challenge you, it happens at one moment, then is finished. (The challenge is still open - you can think about it, and that takes time - but 'I challenge' happens just at the time when I said it, not also the time you think about it.)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”
“Hold” is a stative verb in this sense, like many (or all?) verbs reporting opinions. In other words, the English language presumes that opinions are permanent.
I think that…
I believe that …
I love chips.

As others have said, “I challenge you” is performative. The verb does not report the action, it IS the action.