jutfrank
VIP Member
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2014
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- England
- Current Location
- England
When two or more tenses/aspects in an utterance are grammatical and sound natural, is is pointless to try to explain why a speaker used one and not the other(s).
I can't agree with that. I think that's exactly what you have to do.
We have no way of knowing how the speaker viewed the situation at the moment of speaking.
But we do—the aspect that is chosen tells us precisely that.