[Grammar] ever lived/has ever lived

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kadioguy

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She's one of the greatest writers who ever lived.
It was one of the largest animals that has ever lived.

http://learnersdictionary.com/definition/live

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1. Do 'ever lived' and 'has/have ever lived' mean the same thing?
2. Are they interchangeable?
 

Tdol

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With the first sentence, I would use has ever lived because she is still alive, but don't think that the past tense is an error.
 

kadioguy

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With the first sentence, I would use has ever lived because she is still alive, but don't think that the past tense is an error.
How do we know that she is still alive?
Is it possible that she is dead?
 

Tdol

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Without further context, She's suggests that she is alive. This is an issue with trying to force meanings out of decontextualised standalone sentences. The logical conclusion from your sentence is that she's alive. If this were a text about Jane Austen that used the present tense, things could be different, but without a name and a context, the logical position is to assume she's alive.
 
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kadioguy

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This is an issue with trying to force meanings out of decontextualised standalone sentences.
Pardon me, but does the sentence mean the following?

... force meanings out of decontextualised standalone sentences.
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[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]force something ↔ out of somebody
phrasal verb[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]
to make someone tell you something by asking them many times, threatening them etc[/FONT]
I wasn’t going to tell Matt but he forced it out of me.
https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/force-out-of

If this were a text about Jane Austen that used the present tense, things could be different ...

Do you mean If
this were a text about a famous person such as Jane Austen, we could use the present tense although she is dead?

...but with a name and a context, the logical position is to assume she's alive.


Do you mean If there were
a name and a context in my example, the logical position would be to assume she's alive?

PS - If I ask a question about your responses
 
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GoesStation

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kadioguy

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With the first sentence, I would use has ever lived because she is still alive, but don't think that the past tense is an error.
So with the second sentence, you would use ever lived because it is dead, but don't think that the present tense is an error. Right?
 

kadioguy

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