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Question

How can one explain the tense, aspect and voice  in this one verb?"positioned"-Agatha

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

You cannot explain aspect or voice or tense-- there is not enough context.  It could be simple or perfect aspect, active or passive voice, simple past, or just an adjective.  All you can say is that it is the -ed form of the verb.

Justafreak · Answer

What if you put it in this context:

... they most also certainly positioned....

And what about this?

..it appears not to have been in his interest:

is this the present perfect continous form? The passive voice? Root modality?

Andriy Lapin · Answer

Greetings, Agatha,

Justafreak... they most also certainly positioned..

- the sentence is barely understandable, to be honest. Please correct and finish it - then it will be easier to help you.

Justafreak..it appears not to have been in his interest:

- not to have been is a perfective active infinitive. To non-finite verb phrases like this no tense or modality characteristics apply, let alone root modality.

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

Justafreak · Answer

Well, non finite verb phrase, how is that? In my grammarbook it is said that every verb-phrase consisting of several verbs, the first will always be finite and the rest non-finite. Can you please explain what makes this a non-finite verb phrase?

Thanks..

Yes, the sentence was not very good, I did a mistake. Sorry. The sentence was suppose to be:

Verner and his family most certainly also benefited.

Andriy Lapin · Answer

Agatha,

JustafreakIn my grammarbook it is said that every verb-phrase consisting of several verbs, the first will always be finite and the rest non-finite.

-

When I was a schoolboy, I once noticed that my English teacher made a mistake on the blackboard: she wrote 'the nineth of September' on it. When I paid her attention to this blunder, she gave me a knock-down argument supporting her poor spelling skills, namely, she almost threw at me a grammarbook in which the same mistake was present. It was the moment I realised that information should be obtained from reliable sources and not from would-be grammarians who often confuse students with their ignorance.

Verb phrases may be either finite or non-finite. In a finite verb phrase the first or only verb is finite. A verb is finite if it displays tense; that is, the distinction between present and past:

1. What stops the Prime Minister or government from passing discriminatory legislation?

2. He added that the car stopped almost immediately and the young man, who was in a "terrible state," told him he had hit two people.

In [1] stops is a finite verb phrase consisting solely of a finite verb in the present tense, and in [2] stopped is likewise a finite verb phrase but this time the finite verb is in the past tense.

The following sentence contains more than one verb, but only the first one in the verb phrase is finite:

Everything else has been stopped.

The three non-finite verb forms are an infinitive (to stop), an -ing participle (stopping), and an -ed participle (stopped).

If a non-finite verb is the first or only verb in the verb phrase, the phrase is a non-finite verb phrase:

It appears not to have been in his interest. (a to-infinitive is the first verb in the verb phrase);

Thank you for this correction, Agatha:

Verner and his family most certainly also benefited.

As you can now see, this verb phrase is finite, past, active, simple (talking about aspect), not marked for modality, not marked for negation, and, finally, declarative (concerning mood, also known as finite clause type).

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

Justafreak · Answer

Lol, what a teacher you had

Well, I fineally get it all, you helped me put together the last pieces, now I understand the larger picture of verb-phrases, got it into a system.

What a thrill to fineally understand it, I have worked with it for some time now, at one point it was all just a mess in my head.

Thank you!

Andriy Lapin · Answer

You are welcome, Agatha.

Don't hesitate to ask again.

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

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