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American moves
Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:45 pm
by metal56
For American English speakers wanting to express the same meanings as below, is the past simple an option?
I’ve lived here since 2001.
I haven’t seen John for the last two days.
I’ve had a headache all day.
I’ve lived here for 6 years.
The taxi has arrived.
I’ve cut my finger.
I’ve seen three films this week.
Have you ever ridden a camel?
I haven’t prepared the lesson yet.
I’ve never read “War and Peace”
I''ve known him since I was
born.
I've had three wives since then.
He has broken the record which has stood since the 1964 Olympics.
She has won three events so far.
They have killed eleven people in the last two weeks?
They've come and they've brought little Garry with them!
............
(Borrowed from the lovely MollyB, a great student.)
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:05 pm
by revel
deleted
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 7:48 pm
by lolwhites
I've posed this question to American colleaguea on several occasions, and I get the feeling that age comes into play. In my experience, younger speakers seem more likely to say the two forms are interchangeable, while older speakers are more likely to consider it uneducated.
One colleague in his fifties put Did you eat yet? on a par with You done good in terms of acceptablility.
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:06 pm
by metal56
NB I’ve lived here since 2001. That's why I'm sad to be leaving.
Again, you speak from a personal point of view, Revel, but I was asking about such use in American English in general. Do you think your view matches that of the majority of AmE speakers?
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:10 pm
by metal56
I've posed this question to American colleaguea on several occasions, and I get the feeling that age comes into play. In my experience, younger speakers seem more likely to say the two forms are interchangeable, while older speakers are more likely to consider it uneducated.
That's interesting, because many observers say that the present perfect (especially for
recent indefinite past) has been on the decline for the past 20 to 25 years in AmE.
Re: American moves
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:19 am
by jotham
Some of these that I
didn't okay might be said by some American dialect speakers, but probably isn't said by most educated Americans.
metal56 wrote:For American English speakers wanting to express the same meanings as below, is the past simple an option?
I’ve lived here since 2001.
I haven’t seen John for the last two days.
I’ve had a headache all day. Maybe ok.
I’ve lived here for 6 years.
The taxi has arrived. OK
I’ve cut my finger. OK
I’ve seen three films this week. OK
Have you ever ridden a camel?
I haven’t prepared the lesson yet.
I’ve never read “War and Peace” OK
I''ve known him since I was
born.
I've had three wives since then.
He has broken the record which has stood since the 1964 Olympics.
She has won three events so far. OK
They have killed eleven people in the last two weeks? OK
They've come and they've brought little Garry with them! OK
............
(Borrowed from the lovely MollyB, a great student.)
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:10 am
by revel
deleted
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:43 am
by revel
deleted
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:50 am
by metal56
What I was trying to explain, though, was that the present perfect is a present, not a past, tense, and that those same sentences placed in the past tense would have a different time frame and possibly a different meaning in context
.
Yes, Revel, I think we all know the grammar explanations.
I stand by my guns, though, in asserting that the simple past is preterit, that is, it’s over and done with and can not be modified, while the present perfect is present and leaves the listener the option of focusing on when you began the activity or the actuality of the activity in the present moment.
That "can not" sounds a bit prescriptive. In standard AmE, the past simple is often modified to allow it to express
recent indefinite past.
e.g.
Did you see Star Wars
yet?
Such use has been noted and discussed in many academic texts, but not one researcher has been able to say for sure whether the use goes beyond the
recent indefinite past form or not. That's why I asked the question above.
But don't go into an old-aged panic. This is still the case in most situations:
“If the reference is determined to being wholly in the past, either through a temporal specifier given in the same clause or when it is given in the preceding context, the preterite is the standard verb form in both varieties. If, on the other hand, the reference is to time which extends from the past up until the deictic zero-point, the present perfect is usually preferred in both varieties.”
From: The Perfect and the Preterite in Contemporary and Earlier English. By Johan Elsness.
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:59 am
by metal56
Revel, maybe a better reply to the thread question would have been "I don't know". You could have saved us the prescriptive grammar lesson.
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:22 pm
by lolwhites
metal56 wrote:I've posed this question to American colleaguea on several occasions, and I get the feeling that age comes into play. In my experience, younger speakers seem more likely to say the two forms are interchangeable, while older speakers are more likely to consider it uneducated.
That's interesting, because many observers say that the present perfect (especially for
recent indefinite past) has been on the decline for the past 20 to 25 years in AmE.
But bear in mind that I've only spoken to a handful of people and they weren't all from the same area. One speaker (mid 50s) was from New York and had lived in France for over 20 years, while one younger speaker (late 20s) was from Arkansas and has only been here for a couple of years. So generation might not be the only factor here.
I remember when
High Fidelity was made into a movie set in New York rather than London, the phrase
I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet became
I haven't seen Evil Dead II yet i.e. they changed the movie, not the tense or aspect of the verb
see.
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:46 pm
by metal56
the phrase I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet became I haven't seen Evil Dead II yet i.e. they changed the movie, not the tense or aspect of the verb see.
Playing safe? Global market and all that?
Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:00 pm
by lolwhites
Maybe, though presumably if you hear it it's because you've already paid to watch the film (or some broadcaster has paid for the rights to transmit it on a TV channel you can get). Might also be that the phrase I haven't seen ... yet didn't cause the scriptwriter to raise his/her eyebrows high enough to merit making a change (though Reservoir Dogs did, apparently).
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:15 am
by metal56
Maybe, though presumably if you hear it it's because you've already paid to watch the film (or some broadcaster has paid for the rights to transmit it on a TV channel you can get).
But then you may tell others about the film. Free marketing.
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 12:04 pm
by lolwhites
You mean like "You gotta watch this film man! The lead character uses the present perfect with
yet to refer to an unrealised experience"?
