A question about sequence of tenses(czyli następstwo czasów)
2008-09-19 @ 16:48:02
You have a basic sentence 'She was a beautiful lady' and you start changing it.

'Cindy was a beautifil lady' said the photographer.
The photographer said Cindy was a beautiful lady.
Jill heard the photographer had said Cindy ... a beautiful lady.

The obvious problem is about a word(or words) to put in the place of dots. Should it be said in Past Perfect as well as the prevoius part of the sentence(then: '...Cindy had been a beautiful lady') or is there some other counstruction to use? Because the first option would destroy the sense(that she 'was', not 'is' beautiful). I'm not asking about paraphrases.

(I know that's not a perfect example, most people would probably say 'Jill heard the director said...' and there would be no problem but I'm asking in general)

http://www.shared-visions.com/explore/english/chart2.gif
Comments

kasiulka
Ohh, IDK. Don't ask me. Ask someone who speak english, native or something.. :D
allaround
Thank you very much :D
kasiulka
lol :D
allaround
hehe :D
I guess there are no natives here :P
kasiulka
Hehehe. I don't even know this section. Wait. I will check in siuda. I would ask my bf (coz he is native) but he's not available these days :(What's that section? I didn't find in my grammar book. I have an idea. You can ask on chat or something -> http://www.englishbaby.com/ Here is a portal to learn English. I recommend u to sign up. I'm there :D
allaround
Haha baybe later ;D At the moment I don't care that much for my English, it's only kinda hobby ;) I won't study it or go abroad. And I have some important stuff to study :/
allaround
What kind of grammar book do you have?

Btw. it's just 'sequence of tenses'. I don't know other name of it.
kasiulka
As I said: siuda.
Well.. its not there :D
Btw. I love english!! :D
allaround
Well, I like it very much but don't love :P
kasiulka
With me is like that: I want to know perfect english, not polish.. :D
allaround
I accept my knowledge of Polish and English but there's some other language I'd like to leanr ;)
colourful-twig
According to me,

Jill heard the photographer had said Cindy had been a beautiful lady.

If we use Past Perfect and Past Perfect Cont. Tense, we have no opportunity for changing them for anything else. So the meaning is be the same and the sentence should be correct. But anyway it's little muddled:)
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