Paralelling the decline in use of the perfect is a redefinition of the past perfect. I hear, and read, students using the past perfect as a remote past, so you'll find contrasts like This morning I went to the gym. vs. Last weekend I had gone to the gym. In the latter usage there is no event mentioned in the discourse that going to the gym occurred before. It simply marks an earlier past than the simple past and doesn't require a clause to compare with. Lot's of languages do this, and I just read a paper by one of our doctoral grads, Audrey Mbeje, arguing that the choice among such tenses in her language Xhosa is subject to the speaker's sense of immediate relevance. English appears to be changing. Herb -----Original Message----- From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Johanna Rubba Sent: Sun 2/17/2008 1:44 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Context matters - continued I agree with Brad's insertion of past perfect into the quoted paragraph. It seems to me that, in general, use of perfect tenses is slowly declining, although this is a completely subjective impression. I hear students say things like "I ate lunch already" instead of "I have eaten lunch already," indicating decline in use of the present perfect as well as the past perfect. Maybe there has always been variation in these uses, maybe not. Perhaps Herb can enlighten us on this point. Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Linguistics Linguistics Minor Advisor English Dept. Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184 Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596 Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 E-mail: [log in to unmask] URL: 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/ 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/