Shun,
In case I miscommunicated, let me clarify me point. I think it would be easy to find many examples of paragraphs when a writer shifts tense, but what I no longer have examples of are comments written by teachers who mistakenly claim there is an error in 'tense shift'. Some teaches write 'tense shift' simply because a student shifts verb tense within a paragraph, and often the student had good reason for shifting the tense. However, some teachers continue to mistakenly mark such shifts as errors.
I do not look over many teachers' comments nowadays, so I do not have examples of this sort of feedback from teachers.
larry
>>> shun Tang <[log in to unmask]> - 5/21/01 2:26 AM >>>
Larry,
Unfortunately enough, you cannot provided an example. I admit examples for
English is extremely difficult. Common examples are very rare. Grammarians
searching for thousands of books without noticing examples for 'in the
past'. Teachers have trouble to find English examples, even spending half a
day in newspaper. But this is the usual way we find the 'common examples' to
convince pupils.
Shun
englishtense.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Beason" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 4:03 AM
Subject: Re: The main use of a tense
Shun,
Sadly enough, I've seen too many English teachers (K-college) who, in my
opinion, needlessly mark "tense shift" or some such comment when students
shift tenses within a paragraph--and shift for good reason, such as those
instance you & others mention.
I think part of the reason teachers mark such 'errors' is that they really
do not understand what present tense in English (much less perfect tense) is
all about.
I wish I had an example. I used to keep a couple around when teaching
English-education or grammar courses.
larry
<<< shun Tang <[log in to unmask]> 5/20 3:30a >>>
Dear Rosanne,
You wrote:
> Actually, more than one tense can be used in a paragraph, even in
> adjacent sentences,
>
My reply: No one will be so naive as to conclude that there can be only one
kind of tense in a paragraph. Or else, we will fall into again the
difficulty between Simple Past paragraph and Present Prefect paragraph.
I just explained that in the following situation:
Ex: Yesterday I saw a new department store open around my home. I bought
many things from it.
== We may not have a hectic argument on using Simple Past or Present
Perfect. In my website I call this combination as {Past Past}.
Or will you explain, in this above example, why you can use Present Perfect
(for the second sentence)? Because of Perfective aspect? Current relevance?
Resultative Perfect? Or a period up to the present? (Present Perfect relates
to more jargons than you can collect.)
On the other hand, in some situations, we can only use {Past Perfect}.
That is, the timeline of the situations demands the use of Present Perfect.
This has been explained in my humble website.
Thank you for your attention.
Shun
englishtense.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rosanne Gangi-Gaertner" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 8:24 PM
Subject: Re: The main use of a tense
> Dear Shun:
>
> Actually, more than one tense can be used in a paragraph, even in adjacent
> sentences, e.g.,
>
> "Yesterday, I saw a new department store open near my home. I'm going to
> visit it tomorow."
>
> Tense is a sentence-level phenomenon; however, I do agree with you that
> many grammar texts use too many sentences out of context and should
present
> more contextualized material.
>
> Rosanne Gangi-Gaertner
>
>
> >Ex: Yesterday I saw a new department store open around my home. I bought
> >many things from it.
> >== Simple Past is compulsory, used to connect to the time of the former
> >sentence. It is the true use of a tense. Likewise, the true use of a
brick
> >is seen in the companionship of other bricks. We may argue that a brick
can
> >be sometimes used as a hammer, or sending messages through windows or
> >holding down tarps, but at least we have to state its main use first as
you
> >do.
> >
> >Nevertheless, since using many sentences to explain a tense seems
> >troublesome, present-day grammars prefer to keep on one-sentence basis.
This
> >is convenient, but results in more troublesome than they can imagine.
They
> >obviously miss the true use of tense.
> >
> >Shun
> >englishtense.com
>
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