[riverkid]

Originally Posted by shun

In the news, it is when we needed to use Past Perfect now, which indicates things happened before a past case.

You will have to provide examples, Shun. In the one example that you gave before, Past Perfect would have been grammatically inappropriate.

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Are you aware such explanation tortures many students? What is "significant enough"? There is not such a standard to judge that. We use tense to express Time, not such Meaning as any "significance". People don't know how to use time to explain Present Perfect, so that they take up a theory of Current Relevance". Can't other tenses express a SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH consequence? Every tense can do so!


I'm well aware that the reasons for language are immensely difficult to grasp and that you, as a native Japanese speaker cannot 'feel' this distinction. But to deny that it exists is silly for that's exactly how ENLs use it all the time. Each speaker unconsciously decides whether to use the PP or the simple past depending on the situation.

You say/said that we use tense to express Time rather than certain social nuances. That's completely false, Shun. Let me give you some examples.

We can use past tense FORM to be more polite, more deferential.

"Did you want something to eat?"

By using 'did' instead of 'do', it's a softer question.

"If she were here, I'd tell her that I loved her."

'were' doesn't refer to any past time.



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The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language - page 145

"One respect in which a past situation may be connected with now is that it is close in time to now. It is clear ... that it does not have to be recent, but there is nevertheless a significant correlation between the present perfect and recency, whereas the simple preterite [past tense] is quite indifferent to [this difference in time]. The present perfect is therefore the one most frequently used in news announcements.

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I'd suggest that you get ahold of a copy of the CGEL and read starting page 139. It's all about the perfect. Then come back and we can talk.


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Look at most of the news, and you see they contradict you. As they often say the time first, so they use Simple Past and then, much later, Present Perfect.

I explained that issue specifically, Shun. Read my posting again and the CGEL and then we can talk.

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What kind of argument is this? Of course, not every sentence uses Simple Past. And again, not every sentence uses Simple Present. However, do you think that things said in Simple Present or Simple Past have no importance? It is nonsensical.

Taken within the context I put it in, it makes perfect sense. We can tell that because it reflects English usage. As I said there are semantc reason for its use and there are semantic reasons that preclude its use.