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aodtohan
Joined: 09 Jan 2010
Posts: 28
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 Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:14 am Post subject: Help on a specific verb tense form |
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Hi everyone, was hoping I could get some help on this:
From the sentence:
"He HAS BEEN RAISED from the dead."
As I try to figure out the specific verb tense in this sentence, I've come to the conclusion that uses the PRESENT PERFECT tense. But what about the past participle 'RAISED'?
Was trying to review my notes and I haven't seen any forms that match it: has + 1st past participle + 2nd past participle. The closest I see is the present continuous perfect form (with verb+'ing' instead of verb+ed).
I would really appreciate your help on this one.
To, me this sentence communicates that the action/state which started in the past and is still true at the present time of speaking. |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:34 am Post subject: |
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| "be raised" is the passive voice, like "be seen", "be employed" etc. Often but not always followed by the preposition "by" to indicate the agent of the passive voice. In this case the passive voice is in the present perfect tense. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:41 am Post subject: |
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It's present perfect passive; compare He was raised from the dead (simple past passive). The BE in each case can perhaps be viewed as "interrupting" (or rather, expanding) whatever canonical active form is apparently an alternative (e.g. He has raised himself, and many others, from the dead!).
You can get some idea of the structure/composition of such verb phrases from sites like the following: http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/terms.html (e.g. scroll down to 'verb phrase'), or by reading grammarians such as Geoffrey Leech (who seems quite good on this sort of stuff). |
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yangyoseop
Joined: 30 Mar 2010
Posts: 47
Location: #1 Sandra Bullock fan in Tallahassee, FL
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:19 am Post subject: |
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| Oh auxiliary verbs... so confusing, especially for ESL students to learn. Even harder to teach. |
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aodtohan
Joined: 09 Jan 2010
Posts: 28
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:22 am Post subject: |
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Thank for your replies fellows.
Thus, this sentence exhibits the PRESENT PERFECT tense in PASSIVE form.
(1) Would it be safe to say that this sentence form STILL communicates that the action/state which started in the past and is still true at the present time of speaking?
(2) Apsara, fluffyhamster: Thank you for pointing out that the use of BE + VERB+'ed' indicates a passive form. However, the sample sentence uses '... BEEN RAISED' (not 'be raised'). Doesnt this make a significant difference in (a) the meaning of the sentence? (b) isn't use of 'BEEN' (rather than 'be') also significant? |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 9:11 am Post subject: |
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| "has been" is the present perfect form of the verb "to be". Any form of the verb "to be" plus a past participle means the passive is being used (<- like just there, where I used it in the present continuous form). |
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Mr_Monkey
Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 12:36 pm Post subject: |
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The present perfect is not a tense; it is an aspect.
I'd also suggest that the OP be careful not to confuse participial adjectives and passives using past participles. |
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Cool Teacher
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 930
Location: Here, There and Everywhere! :D
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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Hi el dooderinos! 
One phrase so often overlookes is "I was born". It is the passive voice because the way it used never is "She bore her baby". Doesn't happen. 
Try a substitution to understand "HAS BEEN RAISED".
When do you use: "She has been born" or "She had been born" or "She was born"? |
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Mr_Monkey
Joined: 11 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Umm *cough*here*cough*. |
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Mr_Monkey
Joined: 11 Mar 2009
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Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Cool Teacher wrote: |
Hi el dooderinos!
One phrase so often overlookes is "I was born". It is the passive voice because the way it used never is "She bore her baby". Doesn't happen.
Try a substitution to understand "HAS BEEN RAISED".
When do you use: "She has been born" or "She had been born" or "She was born"? |
Here is a nice example.
"bear S/O a son" is an unusual and largely written expression, but it is used. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:22 am Post subject: |
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| aodtohan wrote: |
| 1) Would it be safe to say that this sentence form STILL communicates that the action/state which started in the past and is still true at the present time of speaking? |
Yes, I think so. Personally though I'm not sure that this sort of explanation is of such use (to non-native students) say as concentrating primarily on the "experiential" aspect of present perfect immediately followed up with some simple past expansion of the context: (Looking at some photos) A: Oh, you've been to France! B: Yes, about ten years ago I taught English in Paris for a few months. (In other words, maybe leave any apparent choice between present perfect and past simple to real users to make in authentic texts, that the students can absorb through processes of acquisition rather than through conscious and potentially too forced learning. Jack Richards has an interesting paper on the functional overlap of these two forms and how (not) to teach them in his book The Context of Language Teaching).
| Quote: |
| (2) Apsara, fluffyhamster: Thank you for pointing out that the use of BE + VERB+'ed' indicates a passive form. However, the sample sentence uses '... BEEN RAISED' (not 'be raised'). Doesnt this make a significant difference in (a) the meaning of the sentence? (b) isn't use of 'BEEN' (rather than 'be') also significant? |
I used BE simply to indicate that there is a lemma (=an accepted but rather abstracted, dictionary head entry-word/citation form that underlies other, all apparently derived forms) that indeed can take various forms (BE: been, being, am, are, is, was, were). The fact that it becomes 'been' is to do with that it follows a form of HAVE (i.e. 'been' is the past participle of 'be'), but obviously 'been' isn't any old past participle (it is often an auxiliary form rather than a main/lexical/verb-phrase-final verb), meaning that there is usually something following it to which it adds constructionally and semantically, though we will need to look at each specific context to determine exactly what that 'been' say (and every other item each in its turn) is adding: compare He has been raised (has=present tense/+perfect aspect; BEen=+passive voice; raised=main verb, past participle form; overall construction is thus "Present perfect passive") with He has been raising (has=present tense/+perfect aspect; BEen=+progressive aspect; raising=main verb, -ing form/"present" participle; overall construction is thus "Present perfect progressive") and ?He has been being raised (has=present tense/+perfect aspect; BEen=+progressive aspect; BEing=+passive voice; raised=main verb, past participle form; overall construction is thus "Present perfect progressive passive"). (I picked present perfect progressive passive so there'd be two forms of BE side by side to dissect; my analyses and labels may be wrong and/or slightly too complex - and I would by the way welcome being told if so, because there doesn't seem to ever be any let alone enough discussion about this sort of stuff! - but there's no escaping the fact that longer constructions can become hard to understand!). Anyway, the simple answer I guess to your second question is that 'been' in 'He has been raised' looks both backwards ("linearly speaking" i.e. in "online, ongoing production" terms), to (helping form) present perfect aspect, whilst also looking ahead to (helping form) the passive voice; 'has' just by itself (i.e. in 'He has raised') meanwhile only "looks forward" to form present perfect ("~ active"), and 'He is raised' would be simple present passive "pure and simple". Which all sort of restates my earlier post where I said 'The BE in each case can perhaps be viewed as "interrupting" (or rather, expanding) whatever canonical active form is apparently an alternative'.
| Apsara wrote: |
| "has been" is the present perfect form of the verb "to be". |
That's one way to look at it, and quite a good, very serviceable way probably for most, but I myself like I say would possibly prefer to treat HAVE as "simply" adding perfect aspect (and the rest of the verb phrase may, "it almost goes without saying" , not involve BE at all   ), and then treat BE as adding (helping add) whatever (see above guff!). I mean, as we all know, and Mr_Monkey has reminded us, 'present perfect is not a tense; it is an aspect', and BE helps form aspects and "voices" rather than tenses proper (unless we are talking about the copula), right? |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 5:41 am Post subject: |
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| I was just trying to keep it simple for someone who is still just on the basics of English grammar, so I deliberately avoided all mentions of aspects, lemmas, and copulas. There is definitely such a thing as "too much information" sometimes! |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:52 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah, too much info can definitely be a bad thing sometimes, and I really quite like (=really don't mind! ) your take on things, Apsara! I just thought that here would be as good a place as any to raise a few other points (namely, the labelling of potentially two instances of BE in the same verb phrase) that I've sort of wimped out of before (in previous threads discussing relatively complex verb phrases) and/or left to grammar glossaries like the one linked to above to only indirectly address. |
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starteacher
Joined: 25 Feb 2009
Posts: 237
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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Now I know why my students HATE grammar. Now imagine being a High School JTE trying to explain all that in Japanese  Better her than me. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't think anyone was suggesting that the discussion on this thread should be how the language involved actually be presented to students, but that's not to say that none of the points made here wouldn't help rather than hinder any newer teacher attempting to more confidently develop reasonably sound methods and activities...and if you don't like much of what's been said (even my stuff about how to teach Present perfect generally), what do you reckon people should be doing instead then, Starteacher? |
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