[Grammar] ...continues... VS ...has continued...

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CFRB

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Is it possible to replace "continues" with "has continued" in the following sentences?

- "Peter Sagan (Cannondale) continues to ride a smart race. He is the break of nine riders and so is set to pick up maximum points at the intermediate sprint after 208km."

- "
Occupation in the Sājūr basin started in the Lower Palaeolithic period and continues until today."

- "(...)
the Annual International Symposium that was initiated in December 1991 and continues until today".


I quite often come across sentences like these and usually it is "continues" which is used. I'm just wondering if "has continued" would be gramatically correct.
 

bhaisahab

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Is it possible to replace "continues" with "has continued" in the following sentences?

- "Peter Sagan (Cannondale) continues to ride a smart race. He is the break of nine riders and so is set to pick up maximum points at the intermediate sprint after 208km."

- "
Occupation in the Sājūr basin started in the Lower Palaeolithic period and continues until today."

- "(...)
the Annual International Symposium that was initiated in December 1991 and continues until today".


I quite often come across sentences like these and usually it is "continues" which is used. I'm just wondering if "has continued" would be gramatically correct.

It would be grammatically correct but it would have a different meaning.
 

CFRB

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What meaning would these sentences have with "has continued"? Totally different?

Please consider these:

"Although Russia promised at the EU-Russia summit last year to remove the discrimination, the situation has continued until now"

"
Some immigration has continued up until the present day"

"Koeneke had released the source code and, as a result, development on the game has continued
up until today"


So when do we use "continues" and "has continued"? And what's the exact difference?



 
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bhaisahab

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- "Occupation in the Sājūr basin started in the Lower Palaeolithic period and continues until today."

- "(...)
the Annual International Symposium that was initiated in December 1991 and continues until today".
If you replaced "continued" with "has continued" in these examples, it would suggest that the situation referred to ends today.

 

CFRB

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Aaa, I see.... It's a bit more clear for me now. But would you please elaborate a little more on these three:


"Although Russia promised at the EU-Russia summit last year to remove the discrimination, the situation has continued until now"

"
Some immigration has continued up until the present day"

"Koeneke had released the source code and, as a result, development on the game has continued
up until today"


Do they mean that discrimination, immigration and development end now/the present day/today?
 

Rover_KE

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We cannot tell. There is some ambiguity.
 

CFRB

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We cannot tell. There is some ambiguity.

Exactly.... :-(
Does it mean you need a broader context for these sentences? Or just these sentences are, err.... inherently, ambiguous and open for interpetation?
 

bhaisahab

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Exactly.... :-(
Does it mean you need a broader context for these sentences? Or just these sentences are, err.... inherently, ambiguous and open for interpetation?

Without further context they are ambiguous.
 

CFRB

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First of all, I'm terribly sorry for such a long post but all my learning problems with this started a couple of days ago and continue/have continued (?) until today. That's why the broad context supplied here is so, well... broad.


(context for the 1st sentence):


"The EU Brings Its First WTO Case Against Russia"


The EU today launched a challenge to Russia’s so-called “recycling fee” on vehicles by requesting consultations in the World Trade Organisation.
The EU has repeatedly raised the issue of the fee in bilateral talks with Moscow but this has not brought any concrete solution. This leaves the EU no choice but to resort to the WTO's dispute settlement procedures.
“The European Commission has pursued every diplomatic channel for almost one year now to find a solution with our Russian partners on this matter but to no avail. The fee is incompatible with the WTO's most basic rule prohibiting discrimination against and among imports,” said EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. “It is severely hampering trade in a sector which is key for the European economy. We expect Russia to engage in WTO consultations with us to find a solution to this problem quickly."
Russia introduced the fee on 1 September 2012, just days after joining the WTO. The fee is levied on cars, trucks, buses and other motor vehicles. For cars, it ranges from about €420 to €2700 for a "new" vehicle and from €2600 to €17200 for a vehicle older than three years. For some vehicles, such as certain mining trucks, the fee is as high as €147700.
While the fee is imposed on all imports from the EU, vehicles produced in Russia are exempted. An exemption is also available for vehicles imported from Kazakhstan and Belarus forming a customs union with Russia.
The fee has a severe impact on EU vehicle exports to Russia that represent €10 billion annually. It concerns almost exclusively imports and – according to Russia’s own estimates – results in an additional €1.3 billion in annual revenue flowing to the Russian government. Although Russia promised at the EU-Russia summit last year to remove the discrimination, the situation has continued until now. The EU hopes WTO consultations will result in a satisfactory solution. If no such solution can be found within 60 days, the EU may ask the WTO to set up a Panel to rule on the legality of Russia’s measures.




(for the 2nd):


Nearly all of the Ethiopian Beta Israel community today lives in Israel, comprising more than 121,000 people. Most of this population are the descendants and the immigrants who immigrated to Israel during two massive waves of immigration mounted by the Israeli government—"Operation Moses" (1984) and during "Operation Solomon" (1991). Civil war and famine in Ethiopia prompted the Israeli government to mount these dramatic rescue operations. The rescues were within the context of Israel's national mission to gather Diaspora Jews and bring them to the Jewish homeland. Some immigration has continued up until the present day. Today 81,000 Ethiopian Israelis were born in Ethiopia, while 38,500 or 32% of the community are native born Israelis.




(and for the 3rd):


Moria didn’t arrive until 1981. Koeneke had played Rogue for the first time in 1980, but when his network administrator deleted all games from the university computer in an attempt to improve productivity (yeah, right), Koeneke took matters into his own hands. In a valiant effort to stave off withdrawal, Koeneke decided to write his own version of Rogue from scratch ... with improvements. From 1981 to 1986, Koeneke developed his game, adding a town, allowing the character to buy items with gold, providing the player with an end goal (killing the Balrog at the bottom of the dungeon), increasing the size of the levels, and giving the player the option to ascend as well as descend. All levels are randomly generated and, once you leave a level, it disappears -- a new level will be generated when you revisit. Koeneke developed the notion of species, allowing a letter to stand for an entire class of monster rather than an individual type, and the use of color-coding to differentiate variants of a species. There were more traps, the addition of spells, a random character generator -- in short, Moria was a computer literate D&D addict’s wet dream.
Once he started distributing Moria among his friends and acquaintances, it quickly became a hit on bulletin boards and network systems all over the world. Koeneke even received mail from behind the Iron Curtain asking for copies. In 1985, Koeneke finally graduated and, after entering the work force, left Moria behind him.
Moria took on a life of its own, however. Koeneke had released the source code and, as a result, development on the game has continued up until today. But though Moria still has a committed group of players, its successor, Angband, has a far more active fan base, and has carried the torch lit by Koeneke into the nineties.
 

jabber

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Honestly, either is fine and gets the same point across without confusion in the given context. They are interchangeable.
 

CFRB

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Thank you jabber, thank you very much!
 
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