What tense to use?

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Egyptian2007

#492098 Sun, 23 Mar 08 10:54 AM

When the first part of a sentence is written in the past tense, do all verbs in the remaining text have to be in the same tense, or can I use the present tense as well? And if both are correct, what then is the difference? Could you please check the following example.

Thanks

One senior deputy head from school (D) attributed this lack of influence to her view that the activities of the TEU are centrally controlled by the District office. This idea was confirmed by one teacher from school (B) who claimed that the TEU only implements what the District office dictates to it. He also indicated that inspection committees make regular visits to the TEU in order to make sure that the instructions are fully implemented

Egyptian2007

Joined on Tue, Jan 2 2007

Junior Member (90)

Pharao

Verbs, Tenses, Present Tenses, Past Tenses

Ant_222

#492113 Sun, 23 Mar 08 12:16 PM

«When the first part of a sentence is written in the past tense, do all verbs in the remaining text have to be in the same tense, or can I use the present tense as well?»

It's too general a question, so the only possible answer is: "It depends."

I think it's OK to omit tense-shifting in your exampe as long as the statements (in case they're true) are meant to be actual not only at the moment of speech, but also at the moment the intended audience reads the text...

Ant_222

Joined on Sun, May 21 2006

Podolsk, Russia

Contributing Member (1,584)

Verbs, Tenses, Present Tenses, Past Tenses

Mister Micawber

#492114 Sun, 23 Mar 08 12:18 PM

.
Both can be used, but not necessarily in the same sentence. Here:

One senior deputy head from school (D) attributed this lack of influence to her view that the activities of the TEU are (the control remains at present) centrally controlled by the District office. This idea was confirmed by one teacher from school (B) who claimed that the TEU only implements (the TEU still implements now) what the District office dictates (the District office still dictates now, at the time of writing) to it. He also indicated that inspection committees make (they continue to make visits, now and in the foreseeable future) regular visits to the TEU in order to make sure that the instructions are (are implemented any time) fully implemented.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (22,688)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

Tenses

Egyptian2007

#492120 Sun, 23 Mar 08 12:40 PM

That's very enlightening. Thanks very much.

Egyptian2007

Tenses

Clive

#492122 Sun, 23 Mar 08 12:42 PM

Hi guys,

Permit me to offer for your consideration a much simpler example of these two tenses in a single sentence.

Last year I lived in China but now I live in Canada.

Best wishes, Clive

Clive

Joined on Thu, Oct 28 2004

Canada

Veteran Member (22,568)

El tango argentino es un pensamiento triste que se puede bailar (The tango argentino is a sad thought which can be danced) Enrique Santos Discépolo

Verbs, Tenses, Present Tenses, Past Tenses

Ant_222

#492126 Sun, 23 Mar 08 12:55 PM

Religion was, is, and will be a prime force in the formation of culture

Ant_222

Tenses

Kaos

#492163 Sun, 23 Mar 08 04:19 PM

I guess what the original poster wanted to know was that "is it valid to use two different tenses in the same context"?

Clive
Last year I lived in China, but now I live in Canada.

This seems intuitive because you are stating two things happening at different times and the tense shifting is important for the topic.

Egyptian2007
He also indicated that inspection committees make regular visits to the TEU in order to make sure that the instructions are fully implemented

This sentense is a bit tricky. For non-native English speaker like me, I would have questioned how could "he" pointed out about the visits when the the activities (seems to) only taking place now.

Kaos

Joined on Thu, Jun 1 2006

fr0m a k@0tic VV0rld

Junior Member (63)

Tenses

RayH

#492179 Sun, 23 Mar 08 05:24 PM

First I will say that I don't think that a native speaker would find this unclear or grammatically incorrect. That said I will attempt to point out why I think it was written as it was and defer to the grammarians out there to supply all the gory details as to why I'm right or wrong.

One senior deputy head from school (D) attributed [she did this at some point in the past] this lack of influence to her view that the activities of the TEU are [the activities in question continue into the future] centrally controlled by the District office. This idea was confirmed by one teacher from school (B) who claimed that the TEU only implements what the District office dictates to it. He also indicated that inspection committees make regular visits to the TEU in order to make sure that the instructions are fully implemented [in these last two sentences the implementation of the dictates and the inspections are happening now and continue into the foreseeable future]

RayH

Joined on Sat, Mar 22 2008

CA, USA

Regular Member (796)

Native speaker of U. S. English. Not a grammar expert.

Tenses

Egyptian2007

#492344 Mon, 24 Mar 08 10:46 AM

I think you are right, RayH. The reason why I used the past tense when I referred to my interviewees is that the interviews took place in the past (two years ago). I got only confused when I attempted to translate the rest of the sentence. I undertook these interviews in Arabic and the tense my interviewees used was present because they were talking about things that were happening at the time of the interviews. However, I have no reason to believe that these things are not taking place in the present time. All I wanted to know was to make sure that, apart from translation, there is nothing grammatically wrong with the paragraph.

Thanks everybody

Egyptian2007

Tenses, Past Tenses, Paragraphs, Interviews, Translation