When was the last time, “I has been eated the grapes,” exited the mouth of a long-time native English speaker? It has probably been awhile since that last happened. Why is that? English has a plethora of verb tenses, and many of them can be quite complex given either their subtle differences, or the irregular nature of the verb itself. Well then, why do English speakers need all these verb forms? Does it even make that much of a difference? Why can’t, “I has been eated the grapes,” just be culturally accepted as a normal way to express the earlier eating of these luscious fruits of the vineyard? “Just because that’s the way it is,” is not a satisfactory answer. The subtleties of verb tense reach beyond the initial structure of the verb phrase, affecting not only the temporal aspects of the verbal string, but also the mood and overall message of the sentence as a whole.
Just as most would recognize that, “I has been eated the grapes,” is incorrect, the differences between, “I have eaten the grapes,” and, “I have been eating the grapes,” are noticeable. People may not be able to pinpoint what exactly these differences mean, but most would agree that the two statements are different. The nuance lies within the difference between the present perfect tense, and the present perfect progressive tense. The first sentence could imply that the grapes have been eaten, and the action has finished at some undetermined time in the past, making it the present perfect tense (Uchiyama). Present perfect progressive differentiates in that the action of eating grapes started in the past, and has continued up to this point (Uchiyama). These differences are crucial in defining the differences between the varying forms of present tense, be it simple, p...
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...s, allows for as much clarification as is necessary. It’s because of these many forms and uses for verbs that sentences like, “I has been eated the grapes,” just don’t make sense. There are enough verb tenses and supporting modals available that these random pairings of tenses are simply unnecessary. Even though these verbal nuances may be hard for non-native speakers to pick up on at first, once fully developed, it allows for greater expression, clarity, and uniformity in speech.
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This is inconsistent with the fact that each of those differences reject the statement about time. He admits to this contradiction defending that any attempt to explain why there are difference in time is strictly due to the fact that we need to detail the order in which those events occurred (past, present, or future). The description of the “different times” raises the purpose of the past, present, or future and in turn will lead to a “vicious infinite regress” (Christensen, 1974). The vicious infinite regress is invoked because in order to explain why the alternative appeal to the differences in time, doesn’t go through that effort again, we must first be able to explain why each apply consecutively and then explain why that sequence appeals to the differences in time, which has no end to clarification. In McTaggart’s The Nature of Existence he explains how he no longer goes against the circulatory doubts, which is arguable in itself because he has come begin to treat the differences in tenses as unpretentious and inexpressible concepts, arguing that the tenses don’t need to be explained at all. McTaggart now claims that despite his inability to describe what the time differences mean, we can now apply them without additional scrutiny. This still leads to
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Amy Tan is somewhat a genius. She understands that communication is relative and not solely dependent on predefined syntax. Obviously she does not want to jeopardize her credibility as a professional, thus dew to the somewhat unconventional position of the paper, Amy presents the information as an opinion based on personal experience. Upon completing the introduction of this passage, the reader has concluded the following passage will most likely be the author's opinion on the English language; and is not to be analyzed with the same scrutiny as a research paper.
Throughout the essay, Berry logically progresses from stating the problem of the consumer’s ignorance and the manipulative food industry that plays into that ignorance, to stating his solution where consumers can take part in the agricultural process and alter how they think about eating in order to take pleasure in it. He effectively uses appeals to emotion and common values to convince the reader that this is an important issue and make her realize that she needs to wake up and change what she is doing. By using appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos, Berry creates a strong argument to make his point and get people to change how they attain and eat food.
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In English, as Comrie 1976) puts it, “finite verb forms have absolute tense and nonfinite verb forms have relative tense” (p. 2). Now, as one of the absolute verb, the past tense plays an important role in narrative fiction. In this sense, the narrative is viewed as taken place in the past time, and it is narrated at ‘here and now’ retrospectively by the past ‘tense’. Of course, it does not mean we have any narratives other than the past ones; otherwise, a narrative, as Rimmon-Kenan (2002) puts it, can be told either from the past tense, present tense, and /or simultaneously. The point, however, is that the events at ‘fabula’/story’ level have been experienced, by definition, in the past time, whether it occurred in some real world or a fictional one. In this respect, even those events that are supposed to take place in the future time in the science fiction novels, for example, are also narrated as if they had occurred in the past time. In fact, narrative as such is narrated through the past tense. However, there is a difference between a past tense which relates to a specific endpoint in the past time, and a past tense that relates to no specific past time; in fact, the difference is between ‘he went’, and ‘he was
"Linguistics 201: First Language Acquisition." Linguistics 201: First Language Acquisition. Western Washington University, n.d. Web. 8 Sep. 2013. .
Standard English uses a conjugated verb called a copula (to be, to have) in a number of different sentences. In AAVE this verb is often not included. Here are some examples:
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. An Introduction to Language. 8th ed. Boston: Thomson, 2007.
Curzan, Anne and Adams, Michael. How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006
An important linguistic change was also in syntax. Syntax governs the structure of a sentence, as well as the structure of verbs. Auxiliary verbs came into use, for example the use of do and have which extended the capability of expression for verbs. The subtle differences between I walk, I do walk, and I am walking are not available in many other languages. This improvement assisted English in differentiating itself from other languages.