[Grammar] she has moved to London for 20 years.

[Son Ho]

Could you please tell me if the second and third sentences have the same meaning as sentence 1?

1. She moved to London 20 years ago.
2. She has moved to London for 20 years.
3. She has lived in London for 20 years.

 

[GoesStation]

1. She moved to London 20 years ago.
2. She has moved to London for 20 years.
3. She has lived in London for 20 years.

1: If today is May 5th, 2021, she moved to London around May 5th, 2001.
2: She recently moved to London and expects to live there for twenty years; i.e., until around 2041.
3: If you add up all the years she's lived in London, you get twenty.

Most listeners would understand this to mean the same thing as number one, but they wouldn't be certain.

 

[tedmc]

"moved to London for 20 years" sounds ambiguous to me. It doesn't say what she moved to London for. It may mean she moved to London with the intention of living there for 20 years. It could also mean the process of moving took 20 years, which does not make sense of course. If you mean the former, just say "She moved to London to live for 20 years".

 

[GoesStation]

"moved to London for 20 years" sounds ambiguous to me. It doesn't say what she moved to London for. It may mean she moved to London with the intention of living there for 20 years. It could also mean the process of moving took 20 years, which does not make sense of course.

It's unambiguous. Your first understanding is correct.

 

[Son Ho]

How about the three following sentences? I think sentence 1 has the same meaning as sentence 3 and sentence 2 doesn't make sense, does it?

1. When did your father buy that car?
2. How long has you father buy that car?
3. How long has your father had that car?

 

[5jj]

#1 and #3 do not have the same meaning. The first is asking about a date in past time, the second about a period of past time extending from the past up to the present.
#2 is not grammatical.

 

[emsr2d2]

I find "She moved to London for 20 years" a very odd sentence indeed. I won't call it ambiguous because that suggests that there are a couple of things it could mean. For me, it's meaningless. No one moves somewhere with the express intention of staying there for 20 years. It works with shorter time periods, such as when you're relocating temporarily for work:

Mark is moving to New York for six months to set up the new office.
My friends are moving to The Gambia for three years. Sarah's been posted to the embassy there.

 

[emsr2d2]

How about the three following sentences? I think sentence 1 has the same meaning as sentence 3 and sentence 2 doesn't make sense, does it?

1. When did your father buy that car?
2. How long ago [STRIKE]has[/STRIKE] did your father buy that car?
3. How long has your father had that car?

Note my changes above, making sentence 2 grammatically correct. As 5jj said, they all have different meanings.

 

[jutfrank]

I think we should be careful not to confuse different kinds of meaning here.

Sentences 1 and 3 in post #1 have different sentence meaning, as do sentences 1 and 3 in post #5. However, in both sets of sentences, 1 and 3 are likely to have the same speaker meaning. I think it's this speaker meaning that Son Ho is really asking about.

This is why I think it's important that members don't make up their own sentences and then ask us what they mean.