Search results for 'tag:Simple past tag:Stative verbs' matching tags 'Simple past' and 'Stative verbs'

Re: Present Perfect (americans)

Diamondrg — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:40:10 GMT

Hi, YSchneider. I am not a native speaker and this is indeed a tough grammar point for non-native speakers.

Here is an extract from CGEL*:

Did you lock the front door? [5]

in a domestic situation where it is known that the front door is locked at bedtime every night. In that case, [5] is more or less equivalent to Did you
lock the front door at bedtime? (Incidentally, in [5], "the" in "the front door" is another case of situational definiteness; cfS.Uff.)

--

The ATTITUDINAL PAST, used with verbs expressing volition or mental state, reflects the tentative attitude of the speaker, rather than past time.
In the following pairs, both the present and past tenses refer to a present state of mind, but the latter is somewhat more polite:

Do/Did you want to see me now?
I wonder/wondered if you could help us.

--

Where did you put my purse ? [ 1 ]
Where have you put my purse? [2]

The purpose of both of these questions may be to find the purse; but in [1] the speaker seems to ask the addressee to remember a past action; while in [2] the speaker apparently concentrates on the purse's present whereabouts. There are many such cases.

--

Leaving aside such virtual equivalences, we may now focus on the difference between the two constructions, contrasting the meanings of the simple past given in 4.14 with the following meanings of the simple present perfective:

(a) STATE LEADING UP TO THE PRESENT

That house has been empty for ages.
Have you known my sister for long?

(b) INDEFINITE EVENT(S) IN A PERIOD LEADING UP TO THE PRESENT

Have you (ever) been to Florence?
All our children have had measles.

(c) HABIT (ie recurrent event) IN A PERIOD LEADING UP TO THE PRESENT

Mr Terry has sung in this choir ever since he was a boy.
The province has suffered from disastrous floods throughout its history.

Of these meanings, (a) corresponds to the 'state past' use of the simple past, but differs from it in specifying that the state continues at least up to the present moment (cf: That house was empty for ages - but now it's been sold); (b) corresponds to the 'event past', but differs from it in that the past time in question is indefinite rather than definite (cf: Did you go to Florence (last summer) ?); (c) corresponds to the 'habitual past', but, as with (a), the period identified must continue up to the present.

Note In AmE there is a tendency to use the past tense in preference to the present perfective, especially for the indefinite past; eg: Did you ever go to Florence ? (c/4.13 Note lb], 4.22 Note [a ]).

--

Have you seen the Javanese Art Exhibition? [yet]
Did you see the Javanese Art Exhibition? [when it was here]

The first of these implies that the Exhibition is still open; the second that the Exhibition has finished. From this concern with a period still existing at the present time, it is only a short step to the second implication often associated with the present perfective, viz that the event is recent. The simple present perfective is often used to report a piece of news:

_., , > the news? The president has resigned.

Because of this connotation of recency, B's reply in the following exchange must be considered absurdly inappropriate:

A: Has the postman left any letters? B: Yes, he did six months ago.

Since postmen in general deliver letters daily, the implicit time zone in this case would be no longer than a day.

[Note] In AmE, the simple past is often preferred to the present perfective for the variants of the indefinite past discussed in this section. Compare [6 ], for example, with Did the children come home yet? <esp AmE). Other AmE examples are: I just came back; You told me already; and without an adverb: /*m tired -1 had a long day.

* A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Quirk et al.]

Re: Martha has lived in Europe and Asia when she was little

Goodman — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:59:43 GMT

Amy,

Thank you for taking the time for the detailed explanation. I understand and in principle agree with almost everything you said. However, there is still some kind of glitch in our thoughts interpreting that particular sentence. Either my head is so thick that the signals from you can not penetrate, or I learned my English with the wrong book. we are still far apart from agreeing. So I searched for the answers. Keep in mind this is the questioned sentence.

<<She [had lived] in Europe and Asia with her family [when she was a little girl] >>

I am not advocating the use of past perfect. Rather proposing if it would be a more logical choice at the beginning. Of course a simple past would do the job but that was not the question. This is what I found:

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/pastperfect01.html

The past perfect can serve the same purpose as conjunctions of time such as when, after and before:

My proposed sentence in debate:

When she (had) finished her work she left the office.
After Jimmy (had) arrived, the party became really good.
Before he retired my father (had) worked in the post office.

Notice that it is not normally necessary to use the past perfect in these situations, but it is quite common to do so, especially with the conjunction when, which has several different meanings and may need to be clarified.

By using a combination of these conjunctions and different tenses we can not only explain ourselves more precisely, but also be less repetitive.

As with most verb tenses, the past perfect has both a simple and a continuous form:

I had talked to all of the candidates by lunchtime.
I had been talking so much that I was starting to go hoarse.

While the simple form is used to stress the fact that the action was finished (i.e. there were no more candidates to talk to), the continuous form stresses the continuation of the activity (i.e. I would (probably) talk some more).

Another difference is that we tend to use the past perfect simple to speak about situations that lasted a long time, or were permanent, while the past perfect continuous is for more temporary or short-term situations or actions:

By that time the Moors had lived in southern Spain for over 700 years.
I had only been living in London for a week when I found a job.

There are also some verbs (called stative verbs) that are not usually used in the continuous form, even though that tense would seem to be more appropriate.

We also use the past perfect tense with verb

Despites all the words said and used in the exchanges of this discussion, I do appreacite all the responses sincerely!

Re: Can you say: near past + recent past weeks ??

Goodman — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:49:21 GMT

Liat,

Let's not "muddy" up the water on present perfect by starting another debate on "Mr." vs. "Mr". Event the experts have varying opinions. I understand that you have probably an image that my English is not quite native, which is ok. I take no offense. Debates are based on what you know and how you see about certain things which is the case here. Is there anything wrong with "debatable"?

Now back to the present perfect questions about using "ago" and "past time", The rule of thumb the Iâve learned is this:

Present perfect tense goes with âsinceâ and âforâ, much like a an elegant carriage goes with horses. Of course, we can put a couple of âdonkeysâ in front of the carriage, much like using âagoâ and âyesterday, or âpast few weeksâ with present perfect.

The carriage still moves along, but not very gracefully. Here is some write-ups about present prefect use with prepositional and time phrases. Perhaps it may be helpful for some.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2527/presentperfect.html

Simple Past

1. The simple past is used to talk about completed actions in the past

2. The simple past is often used with expressions that refer to points of time in the past

4 o'clock/2.12/the end of year/Christmas

Tuesday/19th March/the 21st/New Year's Day

January/1999/the 1990s/summer

no prepositions

yesterday/yesterday morning/last Monday/next April/a few days ago/ the day before yesterday/when I was young

Present perfect simple

3. Present perfect is used to talk about a present situation which is a result of something that happened at an unspecified time in the past.
Therefore we do not use specific time expression such as yesterday, last week, etc.

8. Stative verbs + for and since

The present perfect simple is often used with for and since and stative verbs to talk about things that began in the past and have continued up to now.

I have known about the plans to spin off this service from the company. (And I know now.)

Re: Present Perfect Progressive

HSS — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 02:35:54 GMT

Ant_222 wrote:
...your explanation through active and passive attributes. I don't know why you need this classification. Maybe it's correct, but I don't like it.

Hi, Ant_222.

It is not "active and passive attributes," but "active and static attributes." Perhaps I should have used the words "dynamic" instead of "active," and "stative" instead of "static." (I'm not a grammarian! I'm a cosmetic and food chemist, and interpreter. :-)) I looked at the present perfect continuous because the generic present perfect could be understood easily if you look at it through the verb's dynamic or statitive attribute.

Take this with a dynamic verb for example:

[1] Pete and we have signed the contract that states we hire him from April this year to March next year. We can't cancel it and hire another for his job. There is no article that allows us to cancel it before April.

[2] Pete and we signed the contract that stated we would hire him from April this year to March next year, but we have cancelled the contract, and now we are hiring another soon.

In [1] Pete and 'we' came to an agreement that 'we' are going to hire him, and the agreement is still valid. You can 'feel' it from 'have signed.' Here a supportive context is provided. However, in [2] the simple past gives you an impression that the speaker is not in the same time frame any more. The agreement could still be good, it could not any more.

With the present perfect the present is affected.

Now, with a stative verb ...

[3] This vast land has belonged to a local tribe. They use it mostly for growing their own food sources.

[4] This vast land belonged to a local tribe, but you now see a motorway running through it, and highrises springing up.

In [3] the land is still theirs, and [4] connotes the land is not theirs any more.

Here with the present perfect the present is directly affected. The word "affected" may not be too appropriate, but the land still belongs to them --- same environment.

Both dynamic verbs and stative verbs in the present perfect give you an impression that the present is still affected, or connected.

I've tried to look at the present perfect continuous in the same fashion, thiking the word 'raining' has both the dynamic attribute --- (of rain) to fall --- and the statitive attribute --- -ing (state of continuing), thus, either raining done but the present affected, or still raining (and, yes, the present affected).

Hiro

Sendai, Japan

Re: tense choice

MrPedantic — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:34:57 GMT

Paco2004 wrote:
If the sultan had been more powerful and pro-British, the government would have been forced by Nov, 1914 to acknowledge that its policy failed.

I think I would still use "had failed" here; but a stative verb in the simple past would be fine:

1. If the sultan had been more powerful and pro-British, the government would have been forced by Nov. 1914 to acknowledge that its policy stank.

2. If the sultan had been more powerful and pro-British, the government would have been forced by Nov. 1914 to acknowledge that its policy showed no sign of convincing the nomadic tribesmen that a peaceful agricultural existence was the best option.

MrP

Re: tenses

paco2004 — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 06:33:56 GMT

Hello Tallulah and Clive

Thank you for the clear answers. I was wrong to think "a period ago" couldn't go with the simple past tense of stative verbs. Many people use sentences like "I stayed/live there several years ago". So, now I understand "I knew her five years ago" is also a correct sentence.

The use of "know someone" in the sense of "have sex with someone" is a new knowledge to me. I read my E-J dictionary but it says only that "know someone well" sometimes implies "carnally know someone". It is quite interesting, because the verb "shiru", our language's counterpart to "know", has not such a meaning.

Anyway, I'd like to say again, Thank you.

paco

Re: tenses

Clive — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 05:17:50 GMT

Hi Paco,

Here are some comments.

(1) (x) I knew her five years ago.
This is wrong. "Five years ago" is a point-time adverbial and so it can't go with a stative verb "know". It sounds OK to me. My understanding is that you have lost contact with her, thus you don't know her now, you don't have a relationship now..
(2) (o) I've known her for five years.
This is right. It means we got acquainted with each other five years ago and still now we keep an intimate relationship. Sounds fine. The term 'intimate relationship' is one you need to be careful with, though!
(3) (o) I knew her for five years, but we lost touch two years ago.
This is right. As the state of my knowing her is now a past event, we can describe it in simple past tense. Yes. It could be rewritten like below.
"I had known her for five years, but we lost touch two years ago." Yes.

You also say that ...I thought previously "know someone" could be a dynamic verb Well, I know you are interested in the history of language, its development and archaic expressions. So, I want to point out an archaic usage of 'know someone' that is extremely dynamic, at least if you do it right.

'Tom went into Mary's bedroom and knew her' is an archaic way of saying they had sex. The Christian Bible, in the Old Testament, is full of this usage. It's not even that long ago that people spoke of 'carnal knowledge'. In Britain, people would be (perhaps still are) charged with the crime of 'unlawful carnal knowledge' (of a minor, for example, to be more serious).

So, as I said, 'to know' has a dynamic history!

It makes you think again about some of the well-known sayings about knowledge, eg

'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'

or 'It's not what you know, it's who you know'.

Anyway, good luck with your pursuit of knowledge.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: tenses

paco2004 — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 01:42:00 GMT

Hello guys

I come to feel I have misunderstood the usage of "know". I thought previously "know someone" could be a dynamic verb to mean "get acquainted with someone", but now I understand "know someone" can be only a stative verb to mean "be acquainted with someone" or "keep a relationship with someone". So let me confirm on this occasion whether my current understanding is right or not.

(1) (x) I knew her five years ago.
This is wrong. "Five years ago" is a point-time adverbial and so it can't go with a stative verb "know".
(2) (o) I've known her for five years.
This is right. It means we got acquainted with each other five years ago and still now we keep an intimate relationship.
(3) (o) I knew her for five years, but we lost touch two years ago.
This is right. As the state of my knowing her is now a past event, we can describe it in simple past tense. It could be rewritten like below.
"I had known her for five years, but we lost touch two years ago."

Is this understanding of mine right?

paco

Re: Where have you been?

paco2004 — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 21:31:06 GMT

Hello Mowgli

Mowgli wrote:
I would prefer past simple "Where were you?" because B isnÂ´t abroad or away any more, they couldnÂ´t have this conversation otherwise.

To me, "I went to Malta for a 3 week holiday" sounds natural as the answer. I interpret A might ask "Where have you been?" because A doesn't know when B came back exactly. The use of present perfect tense is convenient when one cannot be sure when the past event happened. But, as for B, of course B knows well the time when B self returned (it might be three days ago, for example), and the use of the simple past in the answer suggests B has already a feeling the visit to Malta was a mere past event.

Mowgli wrote:
Compare present perfect in these sentences: I have lost my key. (I still don't have it.) She has been in Malta for two years. She is still there. However: x She has been to Malta. (She isnÂ´t there anymore. ?)

You are right. "Have been a place" (without "for a period")) is saying simply "have a past experience of staying the place". On the other hand, "have been a place for a period" is saying "have a past experience of staying the place and the experience is still continuing"). As you said, "I have lost my key" implies "I don't have the key", and "I have been there" (without a for-phrase) implies "I am not there now". The difference in the implication between "have lost something" and "have been somewhere" comes from the difference in the aspect nature between the verb "lose" and "be"; "lose" is a dynamic verb and "be" is a stative verb.

When present perfect tense applies to dynamic verbs, the sentence connotes the result of the action still exists. But if there are any word like 'ever', 'never', 'once', 'often', 'before', etc, the sentence is just saying a past experience. The time adverbial plays an important role in the meaning of the present perfect sentence. "I have lost my wallet yesterday" implies "I haven't still found it and I am worrying about it". But "I have my wallet several times" means just "I had several experiences of losing my wallet in the past". The time adverbial is also important in the present perfect sentence using a stative verb. "I have stayed here for two days" implies the state is still continuing. But "I have stayed in the hotel twice in my life" means "I" have two past experiences of staying in the hotel. Messy? Yes, to us learners, the present perfect sentences are really messy and tough to take the exact meaning.

paco

Re: I wish I knew

ripley — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:28:38 GMT

Hi Jim, I'm very pleased to know I got it right about "could" and "would"; what about my introduction. Am I right when I say:

Hi Jim, thanks for your reply. Please, tell me if I got it rightI can use the simple past (which is actually a past subjunctive) only with verbs with an imperfective aspect ( love, live, have, be), that is stative verbs or verbs which express habitual actions (It's not very simple to distinguish these two categories for me...)

Therefore I cannot say I wish I bought ( because the verb buy has perfective aspect; and what's more many people could understand I wish I had bought..)

Thanks a lot bye. Rip. : D