The Hidden Evidence: The Past Family

[Casiopea]

Cas explained:

Well, not necessarily. Just because a given speaker, native or non-native, feels there is no difference between, say, "I ate" and "I have eaten" doesn't prove they are the same. That is, the similarity is apparent only. Both actions ended, finished, are over. They seem similar, don't they, but they aren't.

Jws added:

Agreed. I may see no difference, someone else may see or mean a difference.

That's a very good point. Consider,

Alex: Have you eaten yet today?
Sam: Yes. I ate today.

'have eaten' and 'ate' appear to be synonymous. :D

Jws,

1. I think most (all??, including scientific ones?) definitions will have limitations. If we apply the Pareto Principle, it may be good enough that the definition covers the main gist; I think it cannot be completely comprehensive. Exceptions, specific contexts, etc will have to be dealt with by qualification, illustrations, etc.

Ain't that the gawd's honest truth! However, the present definition hasn't come close to covering the 'gist', as Shun's examples attest to.

Jws:

2. Trouble is, many students like "clear" rules, so the teacher is hard-pressed on this, to avoid confusing the student.

Yup. Been there, done that! Teachers, like books, don't have all the answers. That's why it's often a good idea to tell students as much as we know. Tell students, "Hey, here's the gist so far." Problem is, the present definitions don't get the gist right.

Jws:

3. I try to keep it simple (where possible) and "stupid". If the learner can first learn to use the language WITH mistakes but generally correctly, then the refinement comes later and gradually. Some educators may disagree with this viewpoint, like saying old habits die hard.

I agree. Learn as you go. Learning is but a process.

Cas :D

Originally Posted by RonBee

He was a big-short person: 4 feet tall and 310 pounds.

:D

Big shot, head cheese, top dog, head honcho, numero uno, what else?

Originally Posted by Casiopea

Jws,

Ain't that the gawd's honest truth! However, the present definition hasn't come close to covering the 'gist', as Shun's examples attest to.
Cas :D

Shall we continue discussing definitions under a fresh topic/new thread? This thread has got kind of long, and the original heading's not appropriate to what's here. :P

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by jwschang

Big shot, head cheese, top dog, head honcho, numero uno, what else?

Red 5

[shun]

Cas explained:

Well, not necessarily. Just because a given speaker, native or non-native, feels there is no difference between, say, "I ate" and "I have eaten" doesn't prove they are the same. That is, the similarity is apparent only. Both actions ended, finished, are over. They seem similar, don't they, but they aren't.

Do we eat dinner? Yes, we do, always do. But how come we sometimes say "I ate / have eaten dinner"? I don't eat dinner anymore? No, I will keep eating dinner every day. But why do we sometimes say "I ate / have eaten dinner"? I can't figure how to explain it. Would you help?

[shun]

Shun wrote:

I doubt that. "For the past week" is a member of the Past Family, which are compatible with Present Perfect:
Ex: They have stayed in this hotel for the past week.
== The structure is perfectly alright.

Cas answered:

Yes. It's perfectly fine. :P Have you checked the verb's semantic structure? The use of the participle 'stayed' is synonymous with 'been', meaning existed, which expresses continuity in the past, and the reason it's compatible with 'for the past week'.

My reply: I guess you missed my point. But it is because my bad expression. What I wanted to say is, "for the past week" is a past time expression, why shall it stay with Present Perfect?

[Tdol]

For the past\last week is an unfinished time period that began 7 days ago and continues up to the present. It is not the same as 'last week', which is finished.

[shun]

Thank you Tdol.
You wrote:

For the past\last week is an unfinished time period that began 7 days ago and continues up to the present. It is not the same as 'last week', which is finished.

My reply: I hope people here can understand this: I agree to you that it is an unfinished time. I know very well.
But please answer a straight question: Is it a past time adverbial or not? If it has an adjective 'past', how can we say it is a present or future time adverbial? I myself cannot do it, so do all other grammar writers. And therefore all grammar writers will not talk about examples like I have posted at first:
Ex1: I have seen him in the past few days.
It is because we all know Present Perfect cannot stay with past time adverbials:
Ex2: *I have seen him yesterday.

If you can help explain "in the past few years" is a present or future adverbial, then you will have helped me, and many grammar writers, and most of all, many students. If not, we can only keep cheating our students reluctantly and helplessly. :eggface:

Do you know what the situation now is? Because "in the past few years" looks clearly like a past time adverbial, many students in Asia are using Simple Past to say it:
Ex3: ?I saw him in the past few days.
== We don't even have a grammar book to explain to them. Even worse, many Asia teachers themselves mostly use Ex3. They are bad. But whose fault it is? :?

Is it very hard to understand what I am saying and begging? :agrue:

[Casiopea]

Shun:

I guess you missed my point. But it is because my bad expression. What I wanted to say is, "for the past week" is a past time expression, why shall it stay with Present Perfect?

Well, there's more to a sentence than its parts. We need to look at how the parts function together and as a whole.

Your example sentences are fabulous! Truly. They appear to buck the general rule. But, and here's a hurdle we need to overcome, just because a given sentence doesn't appear to satisfy the rule, doesn't necessarily mean the rule is faulty. That is, it may be a case of 'hidden evidence' that we, the reader, not the rule writer, have overlooked. For example, guess what's hidden in:

:D I have seen him in the past week.

We know the sentence above doesn't fit the rule we're given; that rule being something like, 'past time expressions', specifically adverials, are incompatible with Present Perfect verbs. In other words, don't use adverbs expressing Past time to modify have -ed/-en verbs.

:( I have seen him yesterday.


But, we hear native speakers using adverbs like "in the past" to modify have -ed/-en verbs,

:D I have seen him in the past week.

so we wonder, "What's with that? Who's the authority here? The rule writers or the native speakers? Who do I trust? How can I learn English if people keep changing the rules? It's frustrating!

Well, the answer is always hidden in the question asked. The original question was something like "Why do they hide...?" If we take another look at one our example sentences, say

:D I have seen him in the past week.

we'll notice that (1) it's grammatical, and (2) that if it's grammatical there must be (a) something wrong with the rule and/or (b) something wrong with the way we are analysing the sentence.

Let's give the rule writer the benefit of the doubt for the present time since s/he has way more knowledge about the topic than we have put together at the present moment. So, let's assume the rule is correct. If so, then, the problem with,

:D I have seen him in the past week.

has to do with the way in which we are analysing the sentence. Which brings me back to my previous statement that 'the answer is always hidden in the question.'

If 'in the past week' is grammatical in a sentence with a Present Perfect verb, and yet cannot modify a Present Perfect verb, then it has to be modifying something, something that's hidden. What could be hidden? Adverbs modify verbs. So what verbal form could be missing? Oh wait, doesn't the verb 'see' take a present participle? Yes. It does. I studied that when I was learning English verbs. Ok, so let's add a participle and see what happens:

:D I have seen him jogging in the past week.

Aha! "in the past" modifies "jogging", a non-Perfect form. Unbelievable! The rule is correct. It stands unchanged. It was my original analysis that was off. I placed too much focus on the verb and no focus at all on the sentence's structure.

So, is 'in the past week' still an exception to the rule? No. It fits the rule quite nicely. It would be nice, however, if rules such as the one you found were followed by examples like the ones you've provided, Shun.

We need to move on to another example. Test our analyses. That's what this is all about, right? We're investigating language in use.

Cas :D

[shun]

Cas,

I do believe I have to wear a smiling icon to hide my face if I have to explain the thing in the class as you did.

I have answered this your example:
Ex: I have seen him jogging in the past week. (grammatical)
If we can do this, we can also explain:
Ex: I have seen him jogging yesterday. (grammatical)
However, this grammatical example enables us to say:
Ex: I have seen him yesterday. (ungrammatical)
== Therefore I don't think the analysis is a good one.

You wrote:

:P I have seen him in the past week.
We know the sentence above doesn't fit the rule we're given; that rule being something like, 'past time expressions', specifically adverials, are incompatible with Present Perfect verbs. In other words, don't use adverbs expressing Past time to modify have -ed/-en verbs.

My reply: The example does fit what I call the Past Family. It is a past time, even I don't know how to explain it can stay with Present Perfect, neither do grammar writers. If a time which has the djective 'past' and is still not past, then what is past?
"I have seen him in the past week" is a past time and stays with Present Perfect. I agree the action is not past, but the time is past. Why? To me, it is compatible, because a present action can be started in the past, that's why. In other words, we do use adverbs expressing Past time to modify have -ed/-en verbs.