Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hater Depot]

To help my girlfriend prepare for the TOEFL I'd like a clear grammatical explanation for why this sentence is talking about stars in general, rather then one specific star:

A star that has used up its energy and has lost its heat becomes a black dwarf.


I explained that if it were 'had' then it would indeed be talking about just one star, and then 'becomes' would be changed to 'became', but I just couldn't do well enough. Can someone please help?

[Bibbitybop]

has = present tense

had = past tense


Too simple of an explanation?

[faster]

EDIT: My answer was irrelevant because I didn't read the question carefully and have a giant tumor in my brain shaped like Regis Philbin.

[Woden]

Present tense is used to talk about 'the eternal present' - so it could be used to talk about a state or a quality that is permanent. Using it here refers to such a state, as it is referring to the conditions of all stars.

The sentence also uses the indefinite article so could not be referring to a specific star, I would say that the article is more important in respect of your question. The question of tense is more concerned with just that, time. If it were to read 'had' it could still refer to 'stars in general' but stars in the past.

[kiwiliz]

Yes, I would say it is more the use of the indefinatle atricle. 'The star' is more specific than 'a star'

[Woland]

[Privateer]

[plokiju]

I'd say the indefinite article helps reinforce the generality of the statement. You could easily change "a star" to "any star" and it has the same meaning. As opposed to "a dog bit me" where it was some random dog rather than a specific one.

The present tense of "to become", though, should be enough to say that it is a general statement about stars. If this isn't enough to satisfy your girlfriend then she's looking for some easy explantion that probably isn't there.

It could be because from the context we know that this is true about every star that has lost its heat (or will lose its heat for that matter) and intuitively know it's a general statement. I think for the "a man walks into a bar" tense we'd need additional sentences to confirm it. This statement though is so simple and plain that we can tell it isn't a story. If someone just said something like "A man hikes the mountain" we would ask when or something else because to our ears it just doesn't sound complete.

I think that tense may actually be gramatically incorrect but allowable for storytelling. I know that technically "To boldly go" is gramatically incorrect but sounds better or more dramatic than "to go boldly.. where no man has gone before." Poetic license that may drive strict grammaticians bonkers.

[Pak Yu Man]

That's a TOFEL question? lol.

A black dwarf is a theoretical star. I don't think astronomers have found one yet.

[Hater Depot]

Thanks everybody, that was great.