Re: can't have been (followed by nationality)

Huynguyen — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:20:30 GMT

Hi Jingtian,
In my opinion, your guess is right. This type of sentence is used to express the degrees of certainty. In the first conversation, two speakers are discussing the girl they have met somewhere else before, so they use the presnt perfect tense here. And in the second conversation, two speakers are discussing the girl who is (maybe) at the same place with them. I mean with the presence of the girl while they are discussing her. So they use the present tense here.

But someone told me that a person might change his/her nationality, therefore, "She can't have been Danish. She must have been Swedish" actually meant that it was impossible that she was Danish then and it was certain that she was Swedish then.

I dont quite understand you here. It's sure that when the speaker use this type of sentence, he/she, basing on some clues (in this situation I think it must be the appearance of the girl), believes that it is impossible for the girl to have been Danish, but Swedish.

Also, the phrase "cant/counldnt have + p.p." is used to express that the speaker is 99% sure of his/her statement ; and the phrase "must have + p.p." is only 95% sure (according to Understanding and Using English Grammar)

P/S: Please correct me if I'm wrong

Search results for 'tag:Present tenses tag:Using English' matching tags 'Present tenses' and 'Using English'

Re: can't have been (followed by nationality)