Teacher Discussion Forums

fluffyhamster wrote:

Xui wrote:Why must we condense many implications into one sentence, actually one word: SINCE?[/size]

Because it is important and necessary to ponder many implications if we ever want to arrive at an accurate and widely acceptable and useful description of the language.

SINCE.

Ah! This may be easier for you: In the same paragraph , actions finished within Last Friday use Simple Past. Those finished without Last Friday use Present Perfect. Those unfinished now use Simple Present. It this better? Nothing you write is easy to understand, often because the thinking that unde...

"I have been sick since 1990." has the tendency to be read as a universal, BUT IT IS NOT THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC OF THAT STRUCTURE. ==================== In my understanding, it is. As I have explained, however, you may put more sentences to say what you really want to imply. Why must we condens...

Xui, just try, for once, to answer a direct question that has been put to you: Question: Xui, where have you lived, and for how long in each place, since you were a baby? ============================ It is a good question. * After I was born, I have lived in three different places, one for 8 years,...

fluffyhamster wrote:As I say, the most important thing is "now".
======================

Yes, I agree. Without NOW, we don't even have LAST Friday! Right?
But I am afraid you don't understand what I mean here.

This is an adverb: Lovely. Do you see any time frame here? This is a time adverbial: Last Friday. Can you not see a time frame or time span here? I don't think so! How can I explain more? You tell me! In the same paragraph, actions finished within the time frame or span of Last Friday, will all hav...

This is my eyesight:

fluffyhamster wrote:That would appear to make you about 33 then, Xui - same age as me. Some people were telling me they thought you were an elderly (and senile) old man, but I always knew you had too much energy to be quite that old!

But my eyesight is very bad now.

I'm not convinced that in saying e.g. "I've lived in HK since 2001", that the speaker doesn't still live in HK. That being said, however, if we use e.g. a for... "time frame", only the context will tell us whether somebody still lives there or not ................. ================= You have a keen...

Xui, just try, for once, to answer a direct question that has been put to you: Question: Xui, where have you lived, and for how long in each place, since you were a baby? ============================ It is a good question. After I was born, I have lived in three different places, one for 8 years, a...

Doctor: Well, let's see..., here it says that you haven't been sick since 1990. Patient (astounded) I have (*)! I'll let you fill in the ellipted language (*). ========================== I had better switch the doctor if he did not ask me further exactly when it happened. But if I was sick in April...

IAI.pdf has two analyses to the same I have been sick since 1990. ============================ (2) a. I have been sick since 1990. b. 1990__________NOW (=utterance time) On the U-perfect reading, (2a) is understood to mean that there is a sickness eventuality that holds throughout the named interva...