[Grammar] can you use future perfect to refer to a past event?

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dqdqf

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Hello Teachers,

I came across a letter in a business English book that concerns an offer to a past Emirates passenger for a free flight voucher if he completes a questionaire. Here's the part that confuses me and would be grateful if you would offer me some pointers.

"As someone who has flown Emirates in the past year, you will have experienced our outstanding service to the Middle East".

I don't understand the tenses underlined. They're obviously suggesting that the person flew Emirates in the past year, but why are they using future perfect to refer to the result (outstanding service received) that's also in the past? Shouldn't it be "As someone who has flown Emirates in the past year, you have experienced our outstanding service to the Middle East"? I'm not familiar with the use of future perfect in this kind of context. I always thought future perfect is used to talk about something that will be completed before another event in the future, as in "I will have lived/been living in Hawaii for 2 years by June". Can future perfect actually be used to talk about past events? I found the following future perfect sentences online that referred to the past also, though why they chose to phrase them this way is beyond me.

"As you will have already heard, the gym will be closed today"
"You will have noticed that we no longer have a convertible."

Your help is greatly appreciated!

dq
 

5jj

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Your sentences do not contain a 'future perfect' form. 'Will' often expresses the speaker's certainty about something.

1. Luke's plane took off two hours ago, so he will be in London by now.
2. Luke's plane took off three hours ago, so he will have landed by now.


In #1, the certainty is about Luke's present location; In #2, it is about something that has happened. There is no future involved.
 

dqdqf

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Your sentences do not contain a 'future perfect' form. 'Will' often expresses the speaker's certainty about something.

1. Luke's plane took off two hours ago, so he will be in London by now.
2. Luke's plane took off three hours ago, so he will have landed by now.

In #1, the certainty is about Luke's present location; In #2, it is about something that has happened. There is no future involved.

Hi 5jj,

Thanks for you help. I kind of see what you mean, like the same way we express faith using will, as in "so and so will be our new president next year".

Hmmm...I don't know, I kind of get it and kind of don't. I think I'm still a bit confused, probably because of the structure. So "you will have experienced" is not future perfect? Because it looks like one... I don't get why it has to be written like that, are they expressing a past certainty (with regard to the outstanding service when the passenger flew) or a present certainty (regarding a past experience)? I wouldn't know when to write sentences the same way...

I didn't have any one to turn to so I posted this online. I'm very grateful for your kind help.

dq
 

cereal_chick

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The future perfect means, the described event is in the past by the time the future happens.
That's one way of putting it.

[Not a teacher]
 

5jj

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One of the ideas conveyed by 'will' is certainty. Context/co-text tells (/will tell!) us whether that certainty is about the present (1), a time before the present [the past] (2), the future (3), or a future time before a later future time (4).

1. Luke's plane took off two hours ago, so he will be in London by now.
2. Luke's plane took off three hours ago, so he will have landed by now.
.
3. X will be our new president next year.
4. I will have finished the painting by the time you get back from your mother's
(tomorrow).
 

Raymott

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It's a good point though - about whether "will have experienced" is an example of the future perfect tense. It certainly looks like it; it has the structure of the future perfect tense.

On a related note, I have argued in the past that the 'were' in "If I were rich ..." is not the past tense (it's the subjunctive of the present), even though it has the form of the past tense. I suspect that yours is a similar case. I really don't know what is correct - whether, if something is in the form of a certain tense, it is in that tense, or not.

Do we take the tense of a structure from its form or its meaning? It would be easier to talk about these things if there were a definitive answer to this.
 

5jj

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It's a good point though - about whether "will have experienced" is an example of the future perfect tense. It certainly looks like it; it has the structure of the future perfect tense.
Only if you accept that there is a future perfect tense in English. I don't.

For those who like to talk of the subjunctive in English, 'I were' is the form of the past subjunctive'; 'I be' is the form of the present subjunctive,
 

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Only if you accept that there is a future perfect tense in English. I don't.

For those who like to talk of the subjunctive in English, 'I were' is the form of the past subjunctive'; 'I be' is the form of the present subjunctive,
OK, fine. But your answer, although informative, sidesteps the question I asked.

For those who don't like to talk about the subjunctive in English, is it correct to say, "When you're referring to a hypothetical event, such as 'If I were rich ...', we use the past tense". I'm asking whether you would say that the first clause of "If I were rich, I would buy a mansion" is written in the past tense.

As far as English not being Latin, I don't have a problem with calling things tenses if they play that role in grammar. The reason for this is that I don't think it's ambiguous. If it's not a tense, then it's something without a name that behaves like a tense, even though it's written with characteristic strings of auxilaries and "helper words" or whatever people call them thes days, rather than variable word endings.
My question was probably directed more to those who call "You will have arrived by the time I get there" an example of the future perfect tense. Perhaps the opinions of such people are not worth asking for? ;)
 
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Tdol

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Do we take the tense of a structure from its form or its meaning? It would be easier to talk about these things if there were a definitive answer to this.

The disagreements about something this basic are one area where I can't help wondering whether an Academy might help, though in all probability nobody would listen. To those who think will is the future tense, it is a future perfect, albeit a special usage. To those that think there are two tenses, it is a sort of (modal) present perfect, and I am not sure how those who argue that modals aren't verbs would describe it. We're stuck with very different views of how verbs work in English, with a divide between many linguists and much teaching.

In answer, I would say that tense is structural, so we should take it from form, though that doesn't mean that there will be agreement on what that form is.
 

5jj

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For those who don't like to talk about the subjunctive in English, is it correct to say, "When you're referring to a hypothetical event, such as 'If I were rich ...', we use the past tense". I'm asking whether you would say that the first clause of "If I were rich, I would buy a mansion" is written in the past tense.
It is 'past tense (subjunctive)'. I prefer to use such terms as 'marked' or 'distancing' tense, but, if we are using traditional teminology, it must be 'past tense' - it certainly isn't 'present tense', even if it is referring to present time.

Purists insist that, in these hypothetical conditionals, we use the subjunctive form of all verbs. However, As BE is the only verb that has a recognisably different subjunctive form, and as many speakers of BrE use the indicative even with BE (except, for some, in the phrase 'if I were you'), then I question the value of mentioning the word 'subjunctive at all.

However , whether we use 'subjunctive' or not, it's 'past tense' - used for distancing in reality.
 

Raymott

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The disagreements about something this basic are one area where I can't help wondering whether an Academy might help, though in all probability nobody would listen. To those who think will is the future tense, it is a future perfect, albeit a special usage. To those that think there are two tenses, it is a sort of (modal) present perfect, and I am not sure how those who argue that modals aren't verbs would describe it. We're stuck with very different views of how verbs work in English, with a divide between many linguists and much teaching.

In answer, I would say that tense is structural, so we should take it from form, though that doesn't mean that there will be agreement on what that form is.

I’m happier with that practice than with pretending that just because English doesn’t have inflectional tenses, it doesn’t have tenses. I had no problem understanding the OPs question. OK, the future perfect might not be a “tense”. We could call it something else. But it seems that if English only has two basic tenses, there’s not much to be lost in using the term in English for constructions that most students and teachers understand as being tenses – ie. verb forms that refer to the time of action of events.

In that practice, there is a future perfect tense, it is used in OPs example, but we are left with explaining that there are uses of the future perfect tense that don’t refer to the future – which I think is preferable to maintaining that we don’t have tenses.
Leaving off the word “tense” (It’s in the future perfect, the subjunctive, etc.) is only avoiding and postponing the problem.

(I note that Swan calls them “verb forms ‘tenses’” (2005. p.5) These verb forms ‘tenses’ have specific structures and typical uses, but can be used with other meanings. The future perfect is a “verb form ‘tense’” so the correct answer to the OP’s problem is that the future perfect ‘tense’ occasionally refers to situations which do not involve completed actions in the future.
But I can’t see a future (in ESL teaching) in claiming that there’s no future perfect tense, but there is a future perfect verb form ‘tense’. Should be correcting “tense” to “ ‘tense’ “ or “verb form”.
 

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I wish we called it* the future anterior, as in French. Perfect implies complete (utterly complete) but when we say it, or use it, we're predicting that something will have happened prior to a certain time.

As for tenses not existing, I wonder about that debate. Are we saying the tenses that aren't really tenses are moods? Or something else?
 
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Raymott

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I wish we called in the future anterior, as in French. Perfect implies complete (utterly complete) but when we say it, or use it, we're predicting that something will have happened prior to a certain time.

As for tenses not existing, I wonder about that debate. Are we saying the tenses that aren't really tenses are moods? Or something else?
I think we're doing what you just did. Call something the "future anterior". Don't use a noun, and you can't get it wrong. I've done this often enough myself, by referring to something as the conditional or the subjunctve.
However, students generally don't have this degree of guile.
 

Tdol

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I’m happier with that practice than with pretending that just because English doesn’t have inflectional tenses, it doesn’t have tenses. I had no problem understanding the OPs question. OK, the future perfect might not be a “tense”. We could call it something else. But it seems that if English only has two basic tenses, there’s not much to be lost in using the term in English for constructions that most students and teachers understand as being tenses – ie. verb forms that refer to the time of action of events.

A lot of the time, there's very little difference in naming things- if you talk about the present perfect, the two-tensers consider it to be the perfect aspect of the present tense and others see it as a separate tense, but there's not that much difference. The problem is more with the future, but simply talking about future forms rather than future tenses avoids the terminology problem. When teaching will, I don't refer to it as a tense, but am happy to let learners say it is.

I think that the two-tense view, offers a more elegant and accurate view of the way verbs work in English, especially with the idea of changing them from present & past to get away from the idea that they are governed purely by time- calling the past tense the remote or distant form allows for probability, social distance as well as time. However, this view remains a minority one among teachers, learners and most speakers- linguists have failed to take the public with them on this issue, and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
 

philo2009

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Hello Teachers,

I came across a letter in a business English book that concerns an offer to a past Emirates passenger for a free flight voucher if he completes a questionaire. Here's the part that confuses me and would be grateful if you would offer me some pointers.

"As someone who has flown Emirates in the past year, you will have experienced our outstanding service to the Middle East".

I don't understand the tenses underlined. They're obviously suggesting that the person flew Emirates in the past year, but why are they using future perfect to refer to the result (outstanding service received) that's also in the past? Shouldn't it be "As someone who has flown Emirates in the past year, you have experienced our outstanding service to the Middle East"? I'm not familiar with the use of future perfect in this kind of context. I always thought future perfect is used to talk about something that will be completed before another event in the future, as in "I will have lived/been living in Hawaii for 2 years by June". Can future perfect actually be used to talk about past events? I found the following future perfect sentences online that referred to the past also, though why they chose to phrase them this way is beyond me.

"As you will have already heard, the gym will be closed today"
"You will have noticed that we no longer have a convertible."

Your help is greatly appreciated!

dq

The VP in question has the form of what is generally referred to, for the sake of analytical convenience, as the future perfect tense, but in fact is merely an instance of the use of modal 'will' to denote probability in the mind of the speaker.

In this case, that probability relates to a putative past event, and is consequently perfective in form.
 

5jj

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This discussion would probably be better in the Linguistics forum, but, we started it here, so ...
I’m happier with that practice than with pretending that just because English doesn’t have inflectional tenses, it doesn’t have tenses.
We two-tense people do believe that English has tenses - the unmarked/uninflected tense (usually known as the present simple) and the marked/inflected/distancing tense (the past simple).
[...]In that practice, there is a future perfect tense, it is used in OPs example, but we are left with explaining that there are uses of the future perfect tense that don’t refer to the future – which I think is preferable to maintaining that we don’t have tenses.
On the other hand, telling students that English has a future and a future perfect tense causes them enormous difficulties. There are several Ways of Expressing the Future in English, and the one using 'will' is not the most common in everyday English; the many constructions with 'will ...' and 'will have...' that do not refer to the future are often seen as exceptions or problems. If students learn from the start that 'will', like most of the modals, has two main clusters of meanings (sometimes labelled the deontic and epistemic), then we do not avoid and/or postpone the problem - we remove it.
[...] The future perfect is a “verb form ‘tense’” so the correct answer to the OP’s problem is that the future perfect ‘tense’ occasionally refers to situations which do not involve completed actions in the future.
It not infrequently refers to such situations. If learners know that one of the meanings of 'will' is the expression of certainty, then everything falls into place.
But I can’t see a future (in ESL teaching) in claiming that there’s no future perfect tense, but there is a future perfect verb form ‘tense’.
Is it not simpler to see that the certainty meaning of 'will' coupled with 'have + third form (past participle. naturally covers situations that are, in some languages, covered by a future perfect tense?

However many tenses one considers there to be in English, the fact is that the correlation between tense and time is often pretty weak. If learners know from the start that one tense form is used almost as a default, and the other is used to 'distance' in (1) vividness in time ( Fred walks/walked into a bar...), in probability/reality (If he goes/went to Berlin, he'll/d have to learn German) or directness (I wonder/wondered if you have/had a moment); and if they learn about the deontic and epistemic uses of the modals (not necessarily meeting those labels) then the whole English tense system becomes far more straightforward, in my opinion. This is not just a theoretical idea. This is how I introduced verb tenses to learners in the last ten years of my teaching career. My students appeared to understand it very easily.
 

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My students appeared to understand it very easily.
I have no doubt. Because your students got it consistently from someone who had these ideas arranged according to a consistent system. Your system seems to actually require English to have two only tenses, and would perhaps be beyond the majority of English teachers, let alone learners, especially if they are presented elsewhere with a plethora of tenses. You'd need to have some guarantee of continuity with your students for it to work.
Do you know of a current commonly-used grammar book for ESL learners that presents tense that way?
 

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I wouldn't call it future perfect, although I don't have any qualms about using the expression (and see little point in discussing that qualmlessness ;-) .) As raymott said originally, it is future perfect in form - but the will and the have don't belong together, although they happen to be rubbing shoulders.

As the OP said, the marketing bod is saying you have experienced [that's a fact] and therefore you will have certain expectations/confidence in the service [that's a supposition]. Similarly, Hamish might say to Dougal 'You'll have had your tea" - although his evidence would be shakier than the airline's ticketing database, so he's saying 'It's a reasonable assumption that you have had your tea, [so I won't offer you any]'. The only bit of futurity in Hamish's statement is the implicit won't.

("I haif said. Quot say they? Lat them say" as some marquis* said [approximately - they didn't much care about spelling in those days], or - as Pilate very nearly said - Quod dixi dixi. ;-))

b

PS* :oops: Not a marquis, a marischal (whatever that is - something Scottish I think). The saying is the motto of the Keith family; George (the 5th marischal) founded a college in Aberdeen in 1597 (which has the motto engraved somewhere).
 
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5jj

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Raymott: Ihave no doubt. Because your students got it consistently from someone who had these ideas arranged according to a consistent system. Your system seems to actually require English to have two only tenses,
5jj: It requires this because most serious writers on English grammar present this as the situation in English.

R:
and would perhaps be beyond the majority of English teachers, let alone learners, especially if they are presented elsewhere with a plethora of tenses.
The ignorance of many teachers of English about the facts of English grammar has always been a wonder to me. I accept it with those teachers who believe that language should be learnt communicatively, without any use of grammar rules/explanations, but if teachers are going to teach grammar, then they should do it correctly, in my opinion,

R: You'd need to have some guarantee of continuity with your students for it to work.
5jj:If a learner has been taught incorrectly, I feel under no obligation to continue with this for the sake of continuity.
R: Do you know of a current commonly-used grammar book for ESL learners that presents tense that way?
5. Unfortunately, I don't. The writers of these books seem to be be ignoring the thoughts of:
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Aitken, Rosemary (1992) Teaching Tenses, Walton-on-Thames, Thomas Nelson[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Biber, Douglas; Johansson, Stig; Leech, Geoffrey; Conrad, Susan and Finegan, Edward (1999) Longman [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Grammar of Spoken and Written English,[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Harlow: Longman[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Carter, Ronald & McCarthy, Michael (2006) Cambridge Grammar of English, Cambridge: CUP[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Chalker, Sylvia (1984) Current English Grammar, London: Macmillan[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Chalker, Sylvia and Weiner, Edmund(1993) The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, 2nd edn, Oxford: OUP[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Christophersen, Paul & Sandved Arthur O. (1969) An Advanced English Grammar, Basingstoke: Macmillan[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey K (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Cambridge: CUP[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Lewis, Michael (1985) The English Verb, Hove: LTP[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Palmer, Frank R and Greenbaum, Sidney in McArthur, Tom (1992) The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford: OUP.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey and Svartik, Jan (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London: Longman[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Yule, George (1998) Explaining English Grammar, Oxford: OUP.[/FONT]

But, "people find it extremely difficult to drop the notion of 'future tense' [...] from their mental vocabulary, and to look for other ways of talking about the grammatical realities of the Enlish verb".
[FONT=&quot]Crystal, David (2003.196)The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language (2nd edn) , Cambridge: CUP
[/FONT]
 

konungursvia

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Well some of us are losing sight of the meaning of the word 'tense' > Fr. temps > L. tempus, time.

If we accept that the distinguishing feature of the future, with respect to the present, is its later time, then any "way of referring to the future" may be regarded as a tense, by anyone who prefers this simpler definition over others like those espoused by 5jj.

Some people even call moods tenses. I don't care. As long as we know what we're talking about.
 
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