> Brad,

 If I am asked "Where is this kettle?" and I answer "By the fridge", it
would seem according to your lights that "By the fridge" is not a sentence
on its own unless it has such a context around it (as here the question).
That is perfectly true, but it does not at all mean that "By the fridge"
because of that fact can never be a sentence, or, better, an informative
statement. 

Similarly with '"Someone had committed the murder", for if one heard (as in
the case of a murder many years before where the police had been grossly
complacent and precipitately given up their inquiries), one might
justifiably and sarcastically say "Someone had committed the murder;  the
police had no right to close the case!"  So you cannot put "Not a sentence"
by it as if sentencehood was completely ruled out.  So one must agree with
Scott's last remark.

Certainly, if one is teaching students how various grammatical units can
contribute to a a complete sentence, 'by the fridge' would be described as
merely a prepositional phrase, adjectival or adverbial as the case may be,
but in the elliptical interchange of everyday speech one can rely on memory
to fill in what one leaves out.  But "Someone had committed the murder" has
all that a grammatical sentence requires:  subject and predicate, and their
respective parts.  If you are going to add the requirement that nothing is a
sentence unless its meaning can stand without a context, you will rule out
all sentences.  Even "Where is this kettle?" is ambiguous on its own --
someone might have just said "That's an odd kettle of fish!"

Yours,

Edmond


Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
England

Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/
Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256


> 
> Scott,
>  
> This will make a lot more sense if you will set to 'color & graphics' rather
> than 'plain text'.
>  
> From: Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Whodunit?
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Monday, July 28, 2008
> .
> Someone committed the murder.       Good.
> Who committed the murder?             Good.
> Bill committed the murder.                Good.
> We finally discovered who committed the murder. Good.
>  
> Someone had committed the murder. Not a sentence.
> Who had committed the murder?       Not
> Bill had committed the murder.          Not
> We finally discovered who had committed the murder. Not
>  
> It is misleading to give examples of "how to form the past perfect" beginning
> with a capital letter and ending with a period or a question mark. This is an
> example of how to form the past perfect:
>  
> someone had committed the murder
>  
> The lack of punctuation helps make it clear that it is a fragment and not a
> sentence. 
>  
> Someone ran the race.         Good.
> Who ran the race?               Good.         
> Bill ran the race.                  Good.        
> We finally discovered who ran the race. Good.
> 
> Someone had run the race.  Not a sentence.
> Who had run the race?        Not
> Bill had run the race.           Not
> We finally discovered who had run the race. Not
>  
> For each of these, it seems to me that extra information is needed from
> context to make the "past perfect" sentences make sense. Absolutely true,
> noting that they are not sentences as they stand. The past tense sentences
> stand on their own. True.  So if it has the "had", then it is the past
> perfect, Not true. A past tense verb cannot be made into a past perfect verb
> by putting 'had' in front of it. "Call me a taxi. O.K., you're a taxi." It
> doesn't work that way. but in isolation lacks full comprehensibility. True.
>  Otherwise, it is simple past. True.  I'm not sure that I understand the full
> import of your question. 
>  
> My understanding was that, except for those verbs with an "-en" (e.g., eaten)
> marker,  "-ed" marked verbs could be either simple past or, with the "had"
> marker, past perfect. Markers notwithstanding, all past perfect verbs have the
> word 'had' in front of the past participle but all verbs with the word 'had'
> in front are not past perfect verbs. Read any newspaper. They are littered
> with the word 'had' in front of past tense verbs. The past tense marker and
> the perfect marker are different.  "Committed" (in the example) by itself
> would be past tense, Indeed it is. and "had committed" would be past perfect.
> No. Negative. Not so. Without an indication of timing sequence, either in the
> sentence or compelled by context, there is no past perfect.
>  
> Refrain: You can't make a past tense verb into a past perfect verb by putting
> "had" in front of it.
>  
> Scott
>  
> Many thanks, Scott, for your willingness to kick this around.
>  
> .brad.09aug08. 
>  
> ~~~~~~~~~
>  
> On 7/28/2008, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is "committed" a past tense verb, like this?
>  
> We finally discovered who committed the murder.
>  
> Or is "committed" a past perfect verb, like this?
>  
> We finally discovered who had committed the murder.
>  
> .brad.28july08. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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