From the book : English Grammar and Exercises by L. R. H. Chapman, book 4:  "must is a defective verb, with only this one part, which is used to speak about the present time or a near future, as in these sentences: I must answer this letter at once; I must get up early tomorrow."  But then it is used in the both following examples with the past tense.  I really don't understand. Could you explain, please?  "After dinner Mr. Drew told the girls that he must leave  the hotel for a few hours." (The Haunted Bridge by Carolyn Keene)  "The chimes of a clock warned Nancy that she must return  to the car to meet her father. "  (The Message in the Hollow Oak by Carolyn Keene)
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I have seen uses of must that appear to be in the simple past tense. Sometimes these seem grammatical, but sometimes not. Examples that help illustrate my confusion:     He knew he must go to New York - sounds fine to me.      He went to New York because he must - sounds questionable.      Because he must go to New York, he bought plane tickets - sounds completely ungrammatical.      He must go to New York - grammatical, but with no other verbs to provide context, can't interpret this as being past-tense.   My question: is this past-tense use of must ever acceptable? Is it only acceptable in certain contexts - if so, what are those contexts and why?  (Note - I'm not looking for had to. Have is a different verb, so had to expresses the same meaning as the past tense of must, but it itself is not the past tense of must.)
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I have noted that in books/articles dealing with history, "would have" is often used. E.g.:     Many of the tools used by Woodland people would have been familiar to   their Archaic ancestors.      Such spears (made of yew or spruce) would have been thrusting weapons   not javelins, due to their poor piercing power as a projectile so   would have required the hunters to ambush their prey.   Is this usage related to likelihood/uncertainty? Would it change the meaning if I rephrase the first sentence and used "by Woodland people were likely familiar.."?  Or what if I use simply "past simple" tense in the other example?
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I have seen this sentence in an article on bbc, which is about how people lived thousands of years ago. &quot;When this Neolithic home was built, it would have had a cosy roof of turf..&quot; When I read it, I got confused. Because the fact seems as a simple past situation or guessing/assumption about something in the past. it simply gives information about a past event, eg &quot;when I was a child, I had a blue toy car. I have been making a lot of research on whether or not this structure &quot;would+have+past participle&quot; could be used instead of the simple past or &quot;must+have+past participle&quot;, but I could not find any satisfying explanation. Almost all grammer contents cover this structure is used when we imagine the opposite of what actually happened in the past eg. &quot;referring to a missed opportunity&quot; (eg. &quot;if you had come to the party, you would have seen Tom.&quot;), But, in this case of this sentence, &quot;type 3 conditional&quot; is irrelevant. It is not an if sentence,  It simply gives information about how this house was like or was probably like when it was built long ago. Just like it would be If and old lady would want to tell about &quot;how she was like when she was a child years ago. she would simply say &quot;when I was a child, I had long curly hair.**. So &quot;when I was a child, I would have had long curly hair.&quot; would be wrong. So, my question is: 1-Does this structure &quot;would+have+past participle&quot; completely replace simple past sentences? or can be it be used instead of simple past? 2- If this structure was simply used because the author was not %100 sure about the fact as it was a long long time ago -so he wanted to make a guess or assumption, why did he not simply use &quot;must+have+past participle&quot; or &quot;it was likely that blah blah&quot; which must be used for guessing or assumptions about past happenings. Would it not have made more sense if it was like: &quot;When this Neolithic home was built, it must have had a cosy roof of turf.
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Possible Duplicate:          As a English non-native speaker it is difficult for me to understand when I must use present perfect or past simple because in my official language there isn't the present perfect tense. I know that present perfect is related to something that happened in the past but its result is important now. But for instance:        The message has been sent.   The message was sent.      Please help me point me out any examples/contexts where I should use 1. instead of 2.
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What is the difference between "should" and "must"?  e.g. "They should have called the police." Can I use "must" in that sentence or not?  e.g. "You should read his new book." How about this sentence?
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I am struggling to decide the correct tense / verb usage where one wishes to express some past plan for the then future:      We agreed that, when xyz happens, we would do abc.     We agreed that, when xyz happened, we would do abc.  Something else?   According to , the second form is correct because one must use  with clauses that begin with time expressions (such as "when").  This assessment is somewhat supported by , which suggests that the past tense must be used since xyz has already occurred and is now in the past.  However, to my mind, the second form doesn't quite convey the same contingency that abc would not be done until xyz happened; whereas the use of the present tense in the first form better conveys that contingency.  Are grammatical constructs of this sort known by some formal name?  What do authorities on English (especially British English) have to say on the matter (citations would be most welcome)?
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I am now reading  book and have noticed a couple of cases of weird (for non-native speaker) future tense usages.   The point of the kata is to train your fingers and your brain. I'll do a kata or two every day, often as part of settling to work. I might do it in Java, or in Ruby, or in Clojure, or in some other language for which I want to maintain my skills.`   The phrase about doing a kata or two every day looks perfect for Present Simple. Why does the authoer use Future Simple instead?   However, a professional also knows that there will be times when he will fail, his risk calculations will be wrong, his abilities will fall short; he'll look in the mirror and see an arrogant fool smiling back at him.   Shouldn't we use Present Simple after when/if in this kind of cases? I am especially curious about this case as sometimes I forget to switch to Present Simple after if/when and I thought it is a critical error (which I didn't expect to see in a book).
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Ok, so as an English teacher, I know that in the present and past perfect tenses, the auxiliary verb have is followed by the past participle form of the verb. Using most verbs, I find that this is true for all sentences I have heard. However, on several instances, I have run into a native speaker using the past form of the verb (drank) where the grammar calls for the past participle (drunk). For example: &quot;I hadn't drank any coffee before I lived in Italy.&quot; According to grammar norms, this sentence should be: &quot;I hadn't drunk any coffee...&quot; More and more, I noticed that people tend to use drank instead of drunk after perfect aspect constructions. This construction was used across all communities of practice and wasn't subject to dialect boundaries. According to results from , have drank and have drunk are clear, with the standard have drunk being 4x more prevalent than have drank. However, with an instance rate of about 200,000 for the non-standard form, that is nothing to scoff at. However, the opposite was true with the negative form haven't drank vs. haven't drunk with the non-standard being almost twice as prevalent. EDIT: As for the dialect variant idea, I have researched into the various dialectal changes involving the past participle. Most constructions involving the variant are indicated to be dialectal or just plain bad grammar. However, when I started hearing it from people from the UK, this is when I started asking questions. Looking into it further, I have found some linguistic research papers involving corpora and frequency analyses of this phenomena and have found that there is definitely a shift among non-standard verbs to use the past instead of the participle for perfect aspect. At least according to the BNC and COCA. This is usually with germanic-root words such as bid/bade/bid, drink/drank/drunk, bit/bit/bitten.     So, my question, then, is whether or not there is some sort of construction that is the exception for this particular situation, i.e. some construction where perfect tense does not use past participle after the aux. verb, or if this is simply some crazy, non-standard phenomenon with the verb drink in the perfect tense.
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Note: this post is different to , which just cites part from somewhere else, without any further analysis and thinking. Furthermore, none of the answers to that post answers my question - the situations where &quot;will (going to) be doing&quot; is more appropriate.   I will be participating in IELTS test next Tuesday afternoon.  In an online class, the teacher says the following at the beginning of the lesson.  I will be using NotePod (pointed out by red rectangle) to write relevant points we talk about today.   I guess &quot;will be using&quot; is more appropriate than &quot;will use&quot; there, right?  A  explains  This &quot;tense&quot; is used for reporting a scheduled activity with special focus on its timing— as if one is standing in the future and experiencing the flow of the time. The focus is on the temporary, ongoing, or repetitive nature of the activity.   I understand the grammar rules of those verb tenses and the difference between this group  I am going to drive home tomorrow.   I am going to be driving home tomorrow.  The former is just convey my activity in the near future while the latter probably makes an implication that &quot;don't disturb me as I am driving in that time&quot; However, in the following situations, I don't see the difference between 2 verb tenses.  Welcome back to this class. Today's lesson is for the IELTS students who are going to be taking the IELTS test. it's for everybody to be honest with you. this lesson is useful for anybody who needs to do some writing.   who are going to take the IELTS test ...
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There is a place in Bram Stoker’s Dracula where I can’t quite parse the grammar:     8 May. — I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too   diffuse. But now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for   there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot   but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come. It   may be that this strange night existence is telling on me, but would that   that were all!   I understand the meaning of the text in bold (it’s equivalent to if only that was all!), but I don’t understand the grammar being used. What kind of construct is this?
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I saw the sentence like     Donald Trump to run for president next month.   in the newspaper on the internet.  But I don't know why we have to use to instead of will.  Is there any rule I don't know?  Can anyone tell me the reason why we should use to in the news?
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Example sentence:     I had a little time before the train came.   Would you please explain to me why it is correct to use "the" before "train"? My teacher told me that "the" is used before objects well-known to both speakers and that if a noun is used for the first time we shoud use "a".   But in this example the speaker uses "train" for the first time. Moreover we don't know about this train, so we must use "a train", not "the train". But it was a native speaker who said it; what exactly did he mean to say?
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The shops are open only until 5.30. they will be closed by now.   The shops are open only by 5.30. they will be closed by now.  Greetings  Would you kindly tell me the differences that are in the sentences?  I mean the difference between UNTIL 5.30 and by 5.30.  In addition, I wonder the reason why it has been used the tense future, that is  they will be closed by now. !   (I am learning English. would you possibly elaborate your explanations in details readily?)  I think I'll be wait by/until thursday before making a decision.  which one and WHY?    Thank you so much, but my last question:  Are these the acceptable reasons for your previous arguments about that you did not agree with "by 5.30"?, because when we use the following sentence as if the shops are closed twice- for example: once at 3 o'clock and the other one at 7 o'clock or after 5.30  The shops are only open by 5.30. They will be closed by now. ................. As a preposition of time “by” means “on or before”.  She should be here by Sunday.  This means she ought to be here e,g. on Friday or Saturday but definitely not later than Sunday. Use “by” when you refer to a deadline.  “Until” means “up to a particular time but no sooner than that."  The shops are open only until 5.30.  They will not close sooner than 5.30.
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I know using the bare infinitive after verbs such as hear, see, watch, etc. conveys  a different meaning from using the present participle (verb+ing):        I watched him climbing over the fence ( Climbing wasn't finished at the moment of speaking)   I watched him climb over the fence ( Climbing was finished at the moment of speaking)       I noticed the majority of the Grammar books use past tense to explain the aforementioned difference. Personally, I think that is quite rational because the bare infinitive implies a completed or finished occurrence. This means that event belongs to the past. However, I have a problem conceiving similar sentences in the present tense. For example:   .   The questions is:     If the bare infinitive implies a completed action, then why should we use the present tense to talk about that event? (the event is in the past).      We can say that:      An uneasy feeling came over me as I watched him walk towards the revolving doors     Added info 1  If you think my "climbing" examples are irrelevant, you can check Cambridge Advanced Grammar In Use, page 60, Unit 30, Section D or just check this     Added info 2  My question is from the logical point of view. I think the act of "seeing" is instantly. Therefore, it is not rational to say "see" a "completed process" but, "saw" a "completed process".
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This questions concerns the singular or plural form of the word "need". It might concern the property of the word "need" under different circumstances, which consequently affects whether it can inflect normally. Under which circumstance is it considered a catenative verb and which auxiliary verb?  I found both "need" and "needs" have many search results in terms of the phrase "one need/needs only".  For example:     1.Should one have any doubts about this proposition, one need only look to the perplexing case of Army Specialist Michael New.       2.But one needs only look at Ronsard to realise how much Catullus influenced him.   One is singular, should not need be changed to "needs" as well? Can anyone help me with this problem?
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Remember is one of the verbs which we always put to + infinitive after it:     I always remember to do my homework.   But actually not always. This sentence is an exact example of what I mean:     Do you remember visiting Church of the Holy Sepulchre?   or     Do you remember to visit Church of the Holy Sepulchre?   I think the first sentence explains the meaning of your visiting to the church I really ask if you can remember that visit you made.  But think about the second sentence, it really asks if you remember to do what I've advised you (visiting the church)  I think it depends on meaning. I have to say that the first sentence is more accurate, which gives the meaning clearly.
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Where did you go last night?   Where went you last night?   Is there a reason we say the first of the previous two sentences as opposed to the last one?   I know the second sentence is ungrammatical. I was just wondering if there was more of a rule than just "asking questions in the simple past needs 'did' + verb in the present tense."