He (has) defended four people in court this week.

[Tarheel]

@Marika33 All of those sentences are possible. (See below.)

Bob: What did you do yesterday evening?
Ron: I taught her to play the piano.
Bob: You taught her to play the piano in one evening?
Ron: No, of course not! We worked on some basic things.

 

[jutfrank]

1. I painted a wall in my room for forty minutes.
2. I trained my dog to give paw for forty minutes.
3. I taught Marika to play the piano for forty minutes.

There's nothing wrong with these sentences. They all answer the question What did you do yesterday? The time phrase for forty minutes, which expresses duration, shows clearly that the verbs are to be interpreted as atelic. That means that a listener will interpret that you didn't finish the task in each case.

4. I painted a wall in my room.
5. I trained my dog to give paw.
6. I taught her to play the piano.

These are different. Since these sentences do not have duration time phrases, interpretation will depend on contextual cues. It may be interpreted that the tasks were finished and it may not. It depends on the context. If you want to explore this further, and usefully, we'd need to clarify the context.

Note that without any context at all, there is a natural telicity in the verb aspect. If you say I painted a wall in my room with no other contextual cues, the interpretation that you completed the task is heavily biased. In semantics, this is called a telic interpretation. However (and this is very important!), in the right context, this telic interpretation may be overridden. It's very complicated.

I reckon that words and sentences in the English language have meaning.

You're right but that's only half of the picture. Words and sentences naturally have what we call word meaning and sentence meaning. These often conflict with what we call speaker meaning, which is the meaning that the speaker wants to communicate. So it's possible that a speaker can say a sentence where the words mean one thing but the meaning that a listener understands is completely the opposite thing. Of course, speaker meaning is much more important as this is the goal of interpretation.

 

[Marika33]

These are different. Since these sentences do not have duration time phrases, interpretation will depend on contextual cues. It may be interpreted that the tasks were finished and it may not. It depends on the context. If you want to explore this further, and usefully, we'd need to clarify the context.

Note that without any context at all, there is a natural telicity in the verb aspect. If you say I painted a wall in my room with no other contextual cues, the interpretation that you completed the task is heavily biased. In semantics, this is called a telic interpretation. However (and this is very important!), in the right context, this telic interpretation may be overridden. It's very complicated.

Thanks! Very interesting, and yeah, a bit complicated.

1. Yesterday I painted a wall in my room for forty minutes.
2. Yesterday I trained my dog to give paw for forty minutes.
3. Yesterday I taught her to play the piano for forty minutes.

There's nothing wrong with these sentences. They all answer the question What did you do yesterday? The time phrase for forty minutes, which expresses duration, shows clearly that the verbs are to be interpreted as atelic. That means that a listener will interpret that you didn't finish the task in each case.

I guess that if you said that all three of these sentences are correct and that the time phrase for forty minutes, which expresses duration, shows clearly that the verbs are to be interpreted as atelic, then these sentences (below), which include periods of time (which is similar to duration), are also correct, natural and will be interpreted as atelic?

4. Yesterday I painted a wall in my room from 12:20 to 13:00.
5. Yesterday I trained my dog to give paw from 12:20 to 13:00.
6. Yesterday I taught her to play the piano from 12:20 to 13:00.

 

[jutfrank]

Yes.

 

[Marika33]

By analogy with defending four people in court, does this sentence also give no indication of the outcome/successful result?

This week I have trained four dogs to give paw.

This suggests to me that the dogs have been successfully trained. I have been training four dogs to give paw does not convey this suggestion.

I've been thinking about this reply (above) of 5jj lately. I asked him in #15:

OK, so if this happened, say, last week, that should be "I was training four dogs to give paw", correct?

This week I have trained four dogs to give paw. (= the dogs have been successfully trained)
This week I have been training four dogs to give paw. (= does not convey the suggestion above)

Last week I trained four dogs to give paw. (= the dogs were successfully trained)
Last week I was training four dogs to give paw. (= does not convey the suggestion above)

He never answered. I suspect it might be because it doesn't work that way. But why?

I mean if 5jj states that "I have been training" — the perfect continuous form — does not convey the suggestion that the perfect simple form does (that the dogs have been successfully trained). Why not use the past continuous instead of the past simple so that the final sentence does not convey the suggestion that the past simple (if used) would have conveyed (exactly the same way 5jj did with the perfect simple vs the perfect continuous in #13)?

 

[Piscean]

Please reply with helpful comments only, having first understood my question.

We can manage without snide comments, thank you.

 

[Tarheel]

@Piscean I think you mean "snide". (Thankfully, I can't see it )