tense

[youandcorey]

Do you agree that these are all correct?

1. When ( ) to England?

a. has he been
b. has he gone
c. did he go


Although the verb tenses are different, are they all correct? Why?

Thank you for your kind help!

Corey

[5jj]

1. When ( ) to England?

a. has he been.....b. has he gone......c. did he go

Although the verb tenses are different, are they all correct? Why?

Given the right context, almost any tense/aspect is possible. We say what we want to say at the moment of speaking. There are no absolute rules in language. The 'rules' you find in grammar books are what grammarians have noted to be the most common usages. "When have he goed", for example, is unacceptable because no speaker of standard English varieties ever says it, not because some authority has decreed that it is wrong.

Your sentences represent some such ideas as:

1. On what occasions in his life has he visited England?
2. On what occasions in his life has he left this country to travel to England?
3. On what occasion in the past did he make a journey to (or possibly 'emigrate to') England.

Context is essential.

ps. Please use a smaller font, as most of us do.

[youandcorey]

Fivejedjon,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree with them, but what I'm really hoping to find is the grammatical reasoning as to why they are considered standard English today.

[5jj]

Given the ideas that I suggested in my last post, there is no reason to consider that they are not standard English, though I have to admit that b is less likely than a.