Search results for 'tag:Predicates tag:Past perfect' matching tags 'Predicates' and 'Past perfect'

Re: past perfect with adjective and passive past perfect

Avangi — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:33:54 GMT

Hi,
I'd say the first one is passive present perfect. Past perfect would be "He had been visited many times by visitors."

The second one is IMO also present perfect, but active voice, as you suspect, with the verb "to be," followed by the predicate adjective (past participle) married.

I believe if you say "He is going to be married to her in June," we switch back to passive voice again, using the transitive verb "to marry." That is, the minister can perform the act of marrying him to her, and we can also talk about the state of being married to her (adjective form).

In another sense, you could say that if he marries her in May, he is going to be married to her in June, speaking again of the state of being married.

- A.

Edit. Noting MrM's view on the effect of the prepositional phrase, "to her," I'm not disagreeing, but obviously committed here in my post to the other view. That is, that the phrase "to her" simply qualifies, or modifies the state of matrimony. I'll have to think some more about it.

Re: past perfect?

CalifJim — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:15:02 GMT

Mkyol
... shift "It has been a long time since I last ate" to the past.

It had been a long time since I had last eaten.

Mkyol
This is past perfect right?

Yes.

Mkyol
Is 'a long time' modifying 'been'?

No. 'modifying' is not the right word to describe that relation.

Mkyol
What's the grammatical term for that?

'a long time' is a 'subject complement' or 'predicate nominative'.

Re: Correct order in which to parse a verb?

Garnett — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 14:29:51 GMT

Mister Micawber wrote:

Future Simple (I will sit)
Future Continuous/Progressive (I will be sitting)
Future Perfect (I will have sat")
Present Simple (I sit)
Past Simple (I sat)
Past Continuous/Progressive (I was sitting)
Past Perfect (I had sat)
Past Perfect Continuous/Progressive (I had been sitting)

Any I've missed? -- See VERB FORMS

Also can you hjelp me with Moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative. -- See VERB MOODS

In Latin you use the Jussive Subjuntive for sentences like "Let them eat cake", or "Let's go to the park". What is this construction in English? This is a causative imperative (I think).

Awesome. Thanks for those references.

Mister Micawber wrote:
"The bus stop was situated outside the airport - 3rd person singular, passive (or more probably active with the linking verb be and a predicate adjective), indicative." Are you parsing "be" here, then? -- Yes

Cool. That's what I thought.

Mister Micawber wrote:
Just because "situated" is being used as a participle adjective here, doesn't mean it can't be parsed like any other verb. It is a PPP isn't it - past passive participle? -- Not if it is an adjective.

I disagree.

In "the flying machine", "flying" can be parsed (at least partially) - Active present participle.

Participle Adjective: "A form of a verb that in some languages, such as English, can function independently as an adjective, as the past participle baked in We had some baked beans, and is used with an auxiliary verb to indicate tense, aspect, or voice, as the past participle baked in the passive sentence The beans were baked too long." ~ from Dictionary.com.

Is it a verb being used as an Adjective, or an out-and-out adjective? Frfom the definition above I would argue the former.

Mister Micawber wrote:
Don't confuse form and function. It is wisest to call it simply an -ed verb form

I think that's the crux.

Have you sen my thread here?

What are your thoughts?

I believe "stood" can replace "situated" in the sentence "I was situated at the bus stop".

"Situated" is defined in the dictionary as an adjective in its own right. "Stood" is not.

It appears then, to hinge on whether "situated" is a adjective "with the linking verb be and a predicate adjective" or whether it is a "participle adjective" that could be replaced by any other participle adjective like "stood"...

Re: Correct order in which to parse a verb?

Mister Micawber — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 14:12:20 GMT

Future Simple (I will sit)
Future Continuous/Progressive (I will be sitting)
Future Perfect (I will have sat")
Present Simple (I sit)
Past Simple (I sat)
Past Continuous/Progressive (I was sitting)
Past Perfect (I had sat)
Past Perfect Continuous/Progressive (I had been sitting)

Any I've missed? -- See VERB FORMS

Also can you hjelp me with Moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative. -- See VERB MOODS

In Latin you use the Jussive Subjuntive for sentences like "Let them eat cake", or "Let's go to the park". What is this construction in English? This is a causative imperative (I think).

"The bus stop was situated outside the airport - 3rd person singular, passive (or more probably active with the linking verb be and a predicate adjective), indicative." Are you parsing "be" here, then? -- Yes

Just because "situated" is being used as a participle adjective here, doesn't mean it can't be parsed like any other verb. It is a PPP isn't it - past passive participle? -- Not if it is an adjective. Don't confuse form and function. It is wisest to call it simply an -ed verb form.

Re: Correct order in which to parse a verb?

Mister Micawber — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:37:12 GMT

They had been told what to do. - 3rd person plural, passive, indicative, past perfect (pluperfect is not usually used for English)

Let them eat cake - 2rd person singular or plural, active, imperative, present

The bus stop was situated outside the airport - 3rd person singular, passive (or more probably active with the linking verb be and a predicate adjective), indicative.

Re: Past Perfect

Jussive — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 10:15:57 GMT

Jack112 wrote:

Sorry for my lack of understanding. Could you give me a few more examples as to how to distinguish between them?

1. I have never had more girlfriends than I have now. (Correct)

2. I have never had more girlfriends than I do now. (Is this one correct as well? How do I distinguish between a main verb and an auxiliary?)

Thanks

Hi Jack. Sorry I didnât reply to this earlier but Iâve been away.

Donât worry about not understanding. English grammar is not always clear-cut and neither is the teaching of it.

What you have trouble with is auxiliaries that also have a lexical form such as âdoâ or âhaveâ. In their auxiliary form they help to create tense (bar creating questions or emphasis). They are used in conjunction with lexical verbs. As you know, lexical verbs often take complements or objects, for example:

âI have homework.â

Here âhomeworkâ is the object of the verb and, obviously, as we only have one verb (âhaveâ) in this sentence (clause), it is, therefore, being used as a lexical verb.

âI have needed homework.â

âI have always needed homeworkâ

Bar some obvious exceptions such as when the predicate is a compound, two lexical verbs donât fit together in the same clause. (Donât confuse this with infinitives, participles or gerunds.) In other words, âhaveâ has to be an auxiliary as it is followed by the lexical verb âneedâ and varies its tense. âHomeworkâ is therefore the object of the verb âneedâ. âHave neededâ is what is traditionally known as a verb phrase, a verb consisting of more than one word. One thing which you need to see is that this does not change if we replace the lexical verb âneedâ with a verb which has both a lexical and auxiliary form:

âI have done my homework.â

âI have always done my homework.â

âI have had homework.â

âI have always had homework.â

There is a second verb so âhaveâ is the auxiliary, âdoneâ and âhadâ are lexical verbs and âhomeworkâ their object.

A. âI have done more homework than I do now.â

B. âI have needed more homework than I need now.â

C. âI have had more homework than I have now.â

These three are correct. Notice the lexical verbs in the first clauses match the lexical verbs in the second: âdoneâ and âdoâ; âneededâ and âneedâ; âhadâ and âhaveâ. Notice also that we are only comparing the past to the present and, other than that, we are comparing the same thing, for example, the homework I have done compared with the homework I do.

1. âHe does more homework than I do.â

2. âHe has done more homework than I have.â

3. âHe has done more homework than I do now.â

4. âHe needs more homework than I need.â

5. âHe has needed more homework than I have.â

6. âHe has needed more homework than I need now.'

7. âHe has more homework than I have.â

8. âHe has had more homework than I have.â

9. âHe has had more homework than I have now.â

All the above are correct. (If number three compares a past completed action with a single present continuing action then it makes no sense. It only makes sense if the past perfect refers to a period of time and the present simple refers to an habitual action (as with âAâ).

Notice (above) that when we are comparing different things or people there are more grammatically correct combinations. For example, the homework he has done compared with the homework I have done:

âHe has done more homework than I have.â

This sentence is elliptical because âhaveâ cannot be a lexical verb otherwise we would be comparing the lexical forms of âhaveâ with âdoâ (âhavingâ with âdoingâ). Have, in the second clause, only makes sense as an auxiliary whose lexical verb is implied. The sentence could alternatively read:

âHe has done more homework than I have done.â

It is nonsensical to compare the homework I have done with the homework I have done and therefore the sentence âI have done more homework than I have now,â is incorrect because âhaveâ (as explained in the previous example) has to be an auxiliary and therefore (1) we are comparing two identical things and two identical people with two identical tenses (2) ânowâ is nonsensical as you canât âhave doneâ something ânowâ.

âHe has had more homework than I have.â

In this sentence, âhaveâ in the second clause could be either an auxiliary or a lexical verb. âHadâ, in the first clause, is a lexical verb (as explained at the beginning) and we can compare the lexical forms of âhadâ with âhaveâ (âhavingâ with âhavingâ; first clause, second clause):

âHe has had more homework than I have (homework)â

âHaveâ, in the second clause, also works as an auxiliary because we are comparing two different things even if they are in the same tense:

âHe has had more homework than I have (had).â

Hope thatâs helped.

Jussive

Re: Present perfect / Past perfect

miriam — Sat, 24 Jul 2004 04:18:37 GMT

Hello, Jack and Johnno

"I have never seen him drive the car before."

Johnoo said the tense used in this sentence is the present perfect of "see" (have seen), which is true. That is the main verb of the sentence. Now, "drive" has a different subject (him); as Johnno said, it is an infinitive (a bare infinitive) so it does not show tense or aspect. The use of an infinitive in this case is not necessarily related to the tense of the main verb. In the following sentences, you would/could still use "drive":
"I saw him drive his car last night."
"I'll see him drive his car tonight."
"I should see him drive his car later."
"I made him drive his car into the garage."
"I won't ever let him drive my car."

Again, "drive" is the base form of the verb and has "infinitive" meaning, if that makes sense.
In your sentence, there is another form of "drive" that would make sense: "driving". This would make your sentence a bit more specific: your focus would be on the action itself, he was already driving his car by when you saw him.

"I have never seen him drove the car before."

Yes, this sentence is incorrect for the reasons posted above. Also, the subject "him" is an objective pronoun, it will not take a conjugated verb as predicate.

You could use "drove" in a sentence with similar meaning, but the form would be different:
"I saw (that) he drove this car into the garage."

1. I was busy reading what you have said. 2. I was busy reading what you had said. 3. I was busy reading what you have had said. 4. I was busy reading what you had had said.
Before dealing with the correctness or incorrectness of each complete sentence, there is something to be said about the verb tenses you used. In sentence #1 you used the present perfect, and in #2 the past perfect. Both tenses exist in English; what we'll see in a minute is if these tenses have been used correctly.
But in sentences #3 and #4 you have used verb combinations that don't exist in English. "Have had said" is not posible, nor is "had had said". So both sentences are incorrect.

Also, I guess we all agree that you used "say" here instead of "write" or "type", as many of us do when it comes to emails, online chat or message boards.

As to the sentences themselves, #3 and #4 are incorrect because the "tenses" used in them are not really possible or meaningful verb combinations in English.
In sentence #1, the present perfect is not the best choice. Think of it this way: you cannot possibly read something before it has been written. The action of writing is prior to your reading, so if you used a verb in the past for the second action (read), you indeed need a verb in the past too for the first (say).
I'd use the simple past in that sentence:
"I was busy reading what you said."

Sentence #2 is correct (I still prefer the simple past there, but there may be contexts in which the past tense will be a better choice). The meaning of your sentence is "Someone had written/wrote something before you got busy reading it."

Miriam

Re: Could

Chameleon — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:18:29 GMT
It looks to me like the predicate doesn't agree. I guess you are right though. But first you are talking in the past perfect continuous, then you switch to present. I know it sounds right, but is it?