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A concept of time
Ant_222 wrote:
<<Tense-wise connection are connectionse by means of tense, connections between tenses, if you want.>>
<<No, it's just that in a paragraph of sentences some tenses may BE connected. I didn't say they can DO something...>>
My reply:
You must have some examples to show how to do "tense-wise connection". May I see them now? Or is it just empty talk?
«When you said the following, where was your example?»
The comment I whereto I was replying concerned that example, so you could have kept track. I guess we should't argue about this stupoid problem. Whenever you are not sure, just ask.
«You must have some examples to show how to do "tense-wise connection". May I see them now? Or is it just empty talk?»
Again, my example is your example. The one about the oil-fire. I'll post again for the emergency case ;)
«Hemel Hempstead, England - Firefighters USED chemical foam to extinguish part of the inferno raging Monday after explosions at a fuel depot north of London, [[[[while]]]] a huge oily smoke cloud from the blaze DRIFTED OVER northern France and HEADED TOWARD Spain.»
The tense of the main clause is Past Simple. Due to a connection the same tense is used in the subordinate (while-) clause. Subordinate clauses are connected, so are their tenses.
<<The comment I whereto I was replying concerned that example, so you could have kept track. I guess we should't argue about this stupoid problem. Whenever you are not sure, just ask.>>
My reply:
So you may call me 'failed'?
OK, as I say, I will do the same. Please get a good track about all the past examples in this thread. Don't fail!! Whenever you are not sure, just ask, and I will call you 'failed'.
«So you may call me 'failed'?»
I didn't call you so. I said you fail too often in understainding simple things.
«Please get a good track about all the past examples in this thread»
So, instead of explaining me your point as clear as possible you want me to have difficultioes in understanding you? Is that you purpose?
...Do you want to discuss the subject or are you going to keep nitpicking about secondary things? I guess you are no longer interested.
<<I didn't call you so. I said you fail too often in understainding simple things.>>
Yes, I remember that. I will repeat that.
«Yes, I remember that. I will repeat that.»
So rancorous of you...
And, I guess, I won't give you a chance to repeat that seriously.
Let's turn back to the discussion.
I am afraid this is the way you handle discussion: with vagueness.
I have reminded you of this before:
<<By the way, you have repeatedly claimed that there is an answer in another web page, without explaining anything. I suggest you should not do this again, at least to me. I don't know what you want me to see.>>
I don't care if you vaguely call me fail or not. But you have expressed yourself in a way that no discussion can be maintained. I stop wasting each other's time.
Oh, fine!
From how you react, that's definately a deadly sin. Instead of asking me what page I mean you cease discussion.
I have no idea what page you mean whereto I referred but didn't give a link.
Recently I refered to two forums:
www.englishforums.com
and a thread at
http://www.proz.com/topic/39405?start=15&float=
Also, I mentioned the Internet Grammar of English:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/frames/contents.htm
In all cases I did provide the links.
«I don't care if you vaguely call me fail or not...»
LOL, it was you who kept repeating "I fail...". When I wrote that you failed too often, I was based on your own words. I said that so as you stopped looking through the tiny slit of your theory and contemlated things as they are. You wouldn't have failed then.
I am pretty sure you realized no one here is goind to be mislead by you and just found an occasion to abandon the vain attempts to confuse people through speculation. Professional linguists at proz.com did right that they had stoped the discuiison first, right after realising you had been teaching them the sofist way.
Soon you'll write in your book and at forums: "I have asked learners from all over the world to explain the tense but they failed to do that because they all used the conventional grammar and its one-sentence basis..." and bla-bla-bla about your "simplicity" and "Perfect Time".
No I know it's all a lie and no competent English speakers ever shared your views.
However much you promote and advertise you theory, it won't become any better and will remain useless and not working.
Until your approach successfully explains incorrect examples and fails to explain correct ones, it will be worth nothing.
You may keep trying to prove anything by means of speculation but it won't stand the tests of logic and practice. Even if it's just a way for self-affiration, it's wrong a way.
«Since' itself is ambiguous. 'Since 7.00' can mean from 7.00 till now or at some time between 7.00 and now. … These two meanings
are clearly distinguished in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.»
Indeed,
1. Our family has owned this castle since 1678.
2. I have met him [once or twice] since Tim's last birthday.
The first sentence expresses an action that lasts uninterruptedly since 1678 till now (Mittwoch's first meaning), whereas the second tells of one or two actions that just took place in the period from Tim's last birthday to Now (Mittwoch's second meaning).
But I'm sure it's not "since" that has two possible meanings but rather it's the Present Perfect tense. In both cases the period in question is from some moment in the past till now but:
— the action of the first sentnce occupies all that period.
— the action(s) of the second sentence are just located therein.
So, I contend that the construction:
since + <adverbial indicator of time>
_always_ denotes a time period starting at the moment indicated by the <indicator>, never referring to a single moment in this period.
Only the different meanings of the verbs "to meet" and "to own" help us understand which kind action is meant in each sentence.
<<1. Our family has owned this castle since 1678.
2. I have met him [once or twice] since Tim's last birthday.>>
My reply:
With examples of different Since-clauses, I am afraid you don't understand what they and I are talking about when we say "Since ITSELF". We are talking of the same Since.
However, you are correct. "Since 1687" is clearly different from "since Tim's last birthday", so you may have proven Mittwoch's saying.
«With examples of different Since-clauses, I am afraid you don't understand what they and I are talking about when we say "Since ITSELF". We are talking of the same Since.»
No, I clearly understand that. And, as I have written above, "since" always denotes a whole time period ending Now, though the action in question may occupy it wholly or just lie therein...
«However, you are correct. "Since 1687" is clearly different from "since Tim's last birthday"»
I didn't say they are different. I am sure they are qualitively equal, both meaning a time period from a moment in the past to Now.
«...so you may have proven Mittwoch's saying»
No, it's the other way round: I don't agree with him.
Ant_222, you have displayed your talent again. I get nothing but vagueness.
At first, you clearly said you agree with Mittwoch's:
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«Since' itself is ambiguous. 'Since 7.00' can mean from 7.00 till now or at some time between 7.00 and now. … These two meanings are clearly distinguished in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.»
Indeed,
1. Our family has owned this castle since 1678.
2. I have met him [once or twice] since Tim's last birthday.
The first sentence expresses an action that lasts uninterruptedly since 1678 till now (Mittwoch's first meaning), whereas the second tells of one or two actions that just took place in the period from Tim's last birthday to Now (Mittwoch's second meaning).
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Now you say:
<<No, it's the other way round: I don't agree with him.>>
Since I don't know whether you "indeed" with him or "don't agree with him", it is difficult to continue.
Present Perfect Puzzle
I searched for Perfect Time for Present Perfect and I saw this:
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1. The Puzzle Illustrated
In English, the present perfect, unlike future, past, and non-finite perfects, cannot be modified by so-called 'positional' adverbials (Comrie 1976, McCoard 1978, a.o.). This phenomenon is known as the present perfect puzzle (Klein 1992).
(1) a. *Alicia has danced on Monday / yesterday / at 10 o’clock.
b. Alicia will have danced on Monday / at 10 o’clock.
c. Alicia had danced on Monday / yesterday / at 10 o’clock.
d. Alicia must have danced on Monday / yesterday / at 10 o’clock.
The prohibition against positional adverbials in the present perfect is not found in German (as seen in (2)), Dutch, Icelandic, or Italian. ... The puzzle has proved rather difficult to solve (see Dowty 1979, Klein Giorgi and Pianesi 1998, Kiparsky 2002, Katz 2003, Portner 2003, a.o.). Lack space of prevents us from discussing the previous accounts in any detail. We can only note that none are without problems, and hence we consider the puzzle still unresolved.
== http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~pancheva/Pancheva&vonStechow(2004).pdf
====================
I think it is not true that Present Perfect cannot stay with "positional time adverbials". The tense can stay with a lot of time adverbials with prepositions:
Ex: They have worked here in the past three years/ within the past four months/ during the past two weeks /etc.
So, it is not a Present Perfect Puzzle. Rather, it is a puzzle of "positional adverbials". What are they? How to define "positional adverbials"?
The link above is broken. It should have been the whole line of the following:
"http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~pancheva/Pancheva&vonStechow(2004).pdf"
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