MrPedantic  +  99219 Sat, 14 May 05 12:07 PM JTT: 3. We've already discussed this – yesterday. In the initial example from the CGEL and in the Blair example, the CGEL states; "In {the example} the 'already' indicates that I'm concerned with the occurrence of the situation of our discussing it within a time-span up to now and cancels the normally excluding effect of 'yesterday' ... " It seems strange that the 'already' should cancel 'yesterday', which at that point has not yet been 'uttered'. If I may rephrase the CGEL (which is in any case merely a Cambridge publication, and so presumably outranked by the Oxford-educated Mr Blair in Just The Trout's view): "In {the example} the 'already' indicates that I was at that point concerned with the occurrence of the situation of our discussing it within a time-span up to now. But it was then refined and effectively cancelled by 'yesterday' ... " ("The occurrence of the situation of our discussing it within a time-span up to now"?? I've often wondered whether the style of the CGEL does its claim to be an authority on the use of English any great favours.) I thought by the way the Blair example was supposed to come from a newspaper, not the CGEL. MrP MrPedantic Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004 Veteran Member 12,592 ...opella forensis / adducit febris...

	abbie1948  +  99242 Sat, 14 May 05 02:29 PM It seems to me that this discussion would now be better in the linguistics discussion forum, as it now seems to be getting over-complicated for a simple explanation of the use of present perfect. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder whether some of it needs to go to a moderated forum!! abbie1948 Joined on Thu, Mar 24 2005 England Senior Member 2,657 Hope that helps. Abbie Present Perfect

	Roro  +  99323 Sat, 14 May 05 05:08 PM To senthilvelann. Thank you very much for your information, but, ... I think.... it's one thing to classify examples (and to give appropreate labels for them). A construction of a theory about them --- related to another matters. Isn't it...? Roro Joined on Mon, Apr 11 2005 Regular Member 581 Constructions

	milky  +  106142 Mon, 06 Jun 05 08:44 PM I find a problem with the explanation "is important to now". Would anyone speak about anything that wasn't important to the now of the conversation? milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought". Conversations

	Roro  +  106151 Mon, 06 Jun 05 09:55 PM Hello, milky ! Sure ! We can depict some , completely distinct from current world, using past tense, for example. Could you tell us where ... or who said this phrase "is important to now" ? (I ask you because ... maybe I said ...?) Good day! Roro Tenses, Past Tenses

	Roro  +  106170 Tue, 07 Jun 05 12:21 AM ... that is, we can use past tense without any traces of senses in the past ... (when I said we can depict some past world I was thinking roughly such things ...) Roro Tenses, Past Tenses