I didn't write that as clearly as I could have.
Your student's difficulty with the sentence may have been precisely that, that there was no context. I've run into this in doing linguistic field work, where part of what you do is test native speaker judgment as to whether a sentence is grammatical or not. I learned that I could not simply pull a sentence from a context, present it to a native speaker in isolation, and count on a consistent response. The same sentence in context would usually be accepted by native speakers.
Sentences with expressed aspectual auxiliaries tend to be harder to interpret clearly without context than sentences with no aspectuals, and that's because we typically use them not to present new information but to provide background, whereas we use simple tenses to move plot forward, to give steps in a process, or to state theses in an argument.
I understand that textbooks have to sometimes present sentences without context, but for good language learning they should also show how particular structures are used in discourse. Grammar is not just about sentences.
So the fault with the future perfect sentence lay with the textbook writers, not providing sufficient background for interpreting the structure they were presenting.
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cynthia Baird [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: March 8, 2009 11:25 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: incorrect future perfect?
You don't understand. There was no context. There was no further information, which is why this sentence was problematic to me. There was no paragraph, no narrative, no other action. I understand the need for context and other actions. This was an isolated sentence in a textbook. The exercise was designed to teach the use of the helping verb "have." I think the textbook could have chosen a better example.
--- On Thu, 3/5/09, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: incorrect future perfect?
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, March 5, 2009, 11:07 AM
The various uses of perfect aspect typically require a context to be interpreted, or even to be judged correct or not. Part of the reason for the context-dependence of perfect aspect is that it tends to be used in background rather than foreground portions of a discourse, so in narrative it won’t typically move the plot forward and in exposition or argument it won’t be used to state major steps in the logic.
I’d have to see your sample sentence in a context to see whether it works or not. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the structure as it stands. Rather, it requires further information to be fully interpretable.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cynthia Baird
Sent: 2009-03-04 21:48
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: incorrect future perfect?
Would anyone care to comment on this sentence? It came up in a literacy textbook I have to use, and a student had real difficulty with accepting this as a logical sentence. I gave him my explanation about why I thought the sentence was problematic, but I would like to hear from some of you to know if I was right or wrong in my assessment of the sentence.
The sentence read as follows:
We will have finished the project tomorrow.
I know the sentence contains a future perfect, and I risk Brad's comments, but so be it.
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