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March 2009

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Subject:
From:
MC Johnstone <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:23:21 +0300
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Cynthia Baird wrote:
> 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.
>   
Most speakers would be happy with "I will finish the project tomorrow". 
To say, "I will have finished it tomorrow" must mean that by tomorrow 
its finishing will have been yesterday, and since today is tomorrow's 
yesterday and our project is not finished, this must mean that our 
project is finished now, and we know that this is not true. I would say 
that your student is suffering from an excessive pedantry. Tomorrow is a 
long time, and in some parts of the world it never actually comes.

Mark

>  
> I know the sentence contains a future perfect, and I risk Brad's comments, but so be it.
>
>
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