Do/does/did is not used in questions 1. with forms of to be : Is he happy? Were they swimming? 2. with perfect and past perfect auxiliaries : Have you seen him? Had it already begun? 3. sometimes with have/has/had when the verb is in the

I thought have was needed before spread to keep a single tense. That would be a good solution: They have appeared on message boards and in blogs and have spread by word of mouth. There are no dependent clauses here, by

Please help me how to use 'if' clause.. how if the clause is in present or past tense, or in present or past perfect tense.. Many thanks for ur kind help :)

"I saw that Jane came by yesterday." In this sentence "came" is the lexical verb of a subordinate clause hence it must show its relation to time, which in this case is past tense. "That" shows us that this is a

" I saw Jane come by yesterday. " In this sentence "come" is a bare infinitive. Time is established by the verb "saw" which is in past tense form. " I saw that Jane came by yesterday. " In this sentence

doesn’t have to be ““If it had not been for” have to is such a strong expression! No. Actually, it doesn't absolutely have to be If it had not been for . The substitute clause If it weren't for is often used instead, even though it's

I was looking through one of my grammar-test books and encountered such a sentence: Celia has just phoned to ask if YOU HAVE FINISHED your part of the project yet. Shouldn't it be HAD YOU FINISHED instead of the above? It is reported speech,

"If you knew what I had gone through, you would surely pity me." Don't listen to these people. You can change it to "have" because only the first verb has to be in the subjunctive mood. The verb "knew" is

The problem you are having is that the felt goes with she and the convicted goes with her son , and so you can not say She felt convicted by the media... As a result you have to put her son into a subordinate something (clause, whatever) to keep

I thought it was in the opposite direction from where you were headed. The sequence of tenses takes precedence. Backshifts are nearly mandatory after verbs of knowing and thinking in the past. That is, once you've got thought or knew (or a