I have to agree with Bob Yates that this statement of Geoff Layton's is disturbing. Geoff Layton: > The recent posts on verb tenses, as well as the one just > preceding, made me realize all over again what a difficult, but gloriously > unpredictable this language of ours is. I think that the group has shown > that no one really ever masters it. The present perfect tense-aspect construction is one of the more difficult points of English grammar to understand and explain in a metalinguistic sense; that is, being able to articulate the principles that determine its use has proven challenging even to advanced linguistic theorists (though progress has been made). But this is not the same thing as the ability to use these principles subconsciously--adult speakers of English do this unproblematically. As Bob points out, there must be principles that determine (and therefore predict) its use, or we would all be casting around using incorrect tense/aspects a lot of the time. We don't. If children are having trouble using this construction in their writing, I would look for sources other than unpredictability of the construction. When do children master this construction in speech? To what extent is this a problem of learning the structure of written language and principles for structuring coherent written texts, rather than subconsciously mastering the rules for use of present perfect? It also disturbs me for someone to express the belief that 'no one really ever masters' the English language. One must, again, be very careful about whether one is speaking of metalinguistic or linguistic abilities--abilities to explain how the language works vs. abilities to just function in it. In the latter sense, all native speakers 'master' the language to the extent that their environment allows. In the former sense, however--being able to explain every detail of English gramar--well, linguists have been working on that for some time now, and a great deal is known. Yet a great deal remains to be uncovered. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics English Department, California Polytechnic State University One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-259 • E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/