I came across the following example from the textbook Advanced Grammar in Use by Martin Hewings.  To say that we think a past situation actually happened, we use will have + past participle:  As it was cloudy, few people will have seen last night’s lunar eclipse.   Why isn't the past simple or past perfect used in the aforementioned example?  As it was cloudy, few people saw last night’s lunar eclipse.
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Non-na­tive speak­ers of­ten get con­fused about what the var­i­ous tens­es  and as­pects mean in English. With in­put from some of the folk here I've put to­geth­er a di­a­gram that I hope will pro­vide some clar­i­ty on the mat­ter.  I of­fer it as the first an­swer to this ques­tion. Con­sid­er it a liv­ing doc­u­ment. In­put is wel­come, and good sug­ges­tions will be  in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the di­a­gram.    No­ta bene: What this is not is a dis­cus­sion of whether there are  more than two tens­es in English. , to which this ques­tion is not in­tend­ed to sup­ply ar­gu­ments one way or the oth­er.  Here, the aim is to pro­vide an overview of what con­struc­tions English-speak­ing peo­ple use for con­vey­ing in­for­ma­tion about ac­tions re­fer­ring to past, present, and fu­ture, and to pro­vide it first and fore­most to pre­cise­ly the peo­ple who are like­ly to use "tense" as a catch-all term in their search, rather than to lin­guists who know bet­ter.  Break­ing News There is now an ex­cel­lent ELU blog ar­ti­cle ti­tled  . It is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed read­ing.
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I have read an interesting book yesterday and underlined the new words which are simple but effective.    Present perfect tense specifies an action that has recently finished. The above sentence is present perfect if I am using have (I believe).  But in my book have is given as error and the sentence is corrected by removing have. I believe by removing have we are changing the tense to simple present. But simple present does not indicates an activity that is finished.  I am not sure why have is error in the above sentence. Please suggest.
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There are several reasons proposed for the collapse of the bridge.   Is this present simple tense or the present perfect tense? I thought it might be the latter since there is a retrospective aspect to the sentence. However, I am quite unsure.
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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 is a sentence I read:       The engines that had stopped half an hour ago were in action again.   In my opinion, ago in the above sentence is used incorrectly. It should be replaced by before or earlier:     The engines that had stopped half an hour before were in action again.   The engines that had stopped half an hour earlier were in action again.   I think ago can only used in the past tense rather than past perfect tense.  Here is a correct sentence, making the correct use of ago as follows:     The engines that stopped half an hour ago are in action again.   Is this thinking correct?
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A few days back, I asked a question - why in reported speech is the present perfect tense sometimes not back shifted to the past perfect tense ? For example:     He said that he has painted the door.   Someone said - "if the situation is still relevant and the results of it can be seen, heard or felt then the present perfect tenses are not back shifted to past perfect tenses." And this was all about indirect speech, and I totally agree with what was said.  Now let's take a case which is not indirect speech. For example:     1) He noticed that he has finished painting the house.   My question is, is this sentence correct under the condition that finishing the painting has some present relevance ?     2) The president learned that the earthquake has caused havoc across   the country.   My question is, is this sentence correct under the condition that the earthquake has recently come and the effects of it can still be seen ?     3) I realized that he has left his wallet.      4) It was unclear that she has painted the door.   Are these 4 sentences correct or do I need to use 'had' in place of 'has' ?
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Here's my problem:  I've been confused about the placement of adverbs in present/past perfect phrases. For example, which sentence would sound better:     "We had been slowly drifting down the river when a bear attacked."      or      "We had slowly been drifting down the river when a bear attacked."   Personally, I'd go with the former, and this led me to believe that if the sentence contains both "had been" and a verb, the adverb should be placed after "had been"--if the adverb is indeed modifying the verb.  This, however, led to me to think of other uses of the present/past perfect, where another verb isn't present. The is the best example I could formulate:     "He has always been an academic and a charitable person."   See, right there, always--an adverb of frequency--was placed in between has and been.  Does this mean only adverbs of frequency (e.g., always, usually, etc.) should be placed in between such constructs?  A final example to put this topic over the edge is "He had been either sick or exhausted." Now, if you were to move "either" in between "had been," would the sentence be grammatically incorrect? I've noticed that the former is used more frequently, but the sandwiched version doesn't sound wrong either.  Thanks!
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A) He was arrested by police. b) He had been arrested by police.  In newspaper reporter want to tell about past event that has already happened.  In above statements Reporter conveyed same meaning, that police have arrested criminal and he is still in there custody.  I am aware that above sentence are In past Tense i.e. former is in simple past and later is in Past perfect. And also in Passive voice  My question is that why reporter purposely used was and had been in sentence? instead of that he could have used Present perfect. e.g he has been arrested by police.  Also Some times reporters does not use simple past before using past perfect.  e.g. He had been arrested by police when I was reached on the spot.
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I read a sentence in an exam:     There is no child who did not bring his parents to the picnic.    I think that the sentence does not have tense-agreement. Why is is used instead of was? Please explain it to me.
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When one uses simple past tense for some action, does it imply that the action is complete?  For instance, when you say “I wrote my article yesterday,” does this imply that at this moment you have a finished article or not? So it’s      I wrote a bit of my article yesterday, but I still have to finish it.   vs.      I started and finished writing my article yesterday and now I have a finished work, so I can publish it.   What about present perfect? Does it imply completeness? If you say “I have watched this film,” does this mean that you have actually watched it from start to end?  If both these tenses imply that the action was completed, do I have to use past continuous to emphasize the incompleteness of action? For instance, “I was watching this film,” so that the implied meaning is that I started watching it, but it’s not certain that I finished it.
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I noticed that my American friends tend to use the past perfect form when they use the verb mention in its past form, almost despite of the context of the sentence. I hear them say  "you had mentioned" a lot more often even in situations where the use of simple past would have been perfectly fine. Have you noticed it too and is it one of those unwritten rules, or is there a more formal explanation to it?  It seems like there was more verbs like that, but I am having a hard time remembering it now. If I do, I will edit the post and likely change the title to accommodate other verbs.
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I hope someone, once and for all, can clarify (with examples) the difference in usage of will vs. would vs. would have vs. will have.
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Consider the following sentence with a first conditional:          If it rains tomorrow, I will go to the cinema.      All the examples of first conditionals that I found use "will" instead of "would." Is it possible to replace "will" with "would" while retaining the same exact meaning, i.e.,          If it rains tomorrow, I would go to the cinema.      Or, would I have to put the inflected verb in preterite form (as mentioned in ), like this:          If it rained tomorrow, I would go to the cinema.      [Edit 1: I clarified that I want to retain the same meaning among these examples.]  [Edit 2: Corrected silly mistake where the first example was the same as the second example.]
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I was told that if an action is completed once in the past, the simple past is used. Ex:  I saw that movie.  If the action is completed more than once, the present perfect tense must be used. Ex:  I have seen that movie twelve times.    So, "I have seen that movie twelve times on Tuesday." is correct and "I saw that movie twelve times on Tuesday." is incorrect?
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What is the difference in meaning between the two examples below?   When she returned home from office, she was shocked to see that her husband and daughter were missing. (Simple Past)  When she returned home from office, she was shocked to see that her husband and daughter had been missing. (Past Perfect)    FIRST QUESTION: For me example #1 gives only idea of Status of her missing husband and daughter and example #2 gives idea of completed action/situation of missing husband and daughter before she reached home. Is this right? SECOND QUESTION: Is example #2 past perfect or past perfect continuous?
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I saw a sentence  She hoped to have done  Or a sentence, created with the same structure. I don'tunderstand how it works. Then I saw a full version of it:  She hoped that she had done  So, it's like a combination of Past Simple(hoped) + Past Perfect(had done) but combining them we can't have Past Perfect, we have  only perfect infinitive.  When I later saw  She can't have done  I didn't understand it, too. Since then I've been trying to create a full version of it which would be clear for me. I tried  It can't be possible that she has done - I was told it was incorrect  It can't be true that she has done - I was told it was incorrect, too  I also have such variants:  It can't be real that she has done  There can't be a possibility that she has done it  There can't be a probability that she has done it  Is there any sentence among those I wrote which can be equaled to "She can't have done"?
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In my English classes, I was taught that never should not be used with past forms, only with present perfect forms; this is also what I read in a grammar book I bought some years ago. (I bought the book in the USA; I guess the book is about American English grammar, but I don't have any reason to believe there is any difference between American, and British English in this case.)  Is it correct to use never with the past tense?     I never said that.        I have never said that.