Could you explain the difference here?

Question

The 1 one is ok the 2 one is not correct. Can you explain why? I am sorry to have been there yesterday.I am to have been there yesterday.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

It seems a little unusual. Why are you sorry?
Do you possibly mean, "I am/was sorry not to have been there yesterday"?
Were you in fact there, or were you not?

I believe the second one should be "I was to have been there yesterday."
Again, the natural implication is that you were not there.

These are not easy structures!

- A.

Ticce · Answer

AvangiIt seems a little unusual. Why are you sorry?

I am sorry because I had been asked not to go there but I went.

AvangiDo you possibly mean, "I am/was sorry not to have been there yesterday"?
Were you in fact there, or were you not?

Yes, I was there.

What I am trying to find out is

Let's alter the context a bit. Let's imagine that we are students and we have come to an english class and we have been waiting for the teacher for 2 hours and he is not coming. Then one would say

The lesson should have lasted for two hours.
I was just trying to find more constructions which could fit here. What I wanted to keep is "the sence of PERFECT CONTINOUS" which implies that an action has been started and is still in progress.

This is why I took into considiration this one

I am to have been...... It seemed to me that here we have this connection with both the past and the present.

We could say - The lesson is to have lasted for 2 hours.

However, I see that this is not a correct sentence instead I am advised to avoid - I am.

But if we use - Past Simple here - I was then we break this connection between the past and the present.

The lessons was supposed to last for 2 hours. or The lesson was to have lasted for 2 hours.

Theses sentences don't give the idea that 2 hours are still actual and we are virtually still within these 2 hours. It feels that these 2 hours were gone some time ago before now. But if I want to express that they are still slipping away and we are witnessing how the time is flying right now.

It is similar to

I have been waiting for you for 2 hours and I was waiting for you for 2 hours.

I am advised to use the second one and it seems that the first one is not possible for this sentence

PS: I am not sure if you understood my concerns but I tried to put them straightfoward.

CalifJim · Answer

X - the present moment
...... the passage of time (left to right)
{expected duration}
[actual duration]
(optional word)

____________________________

..............................X.......................{ lesson }......
"The lesson <two hours>

is to last

(for) two hours."

[ ? ]

....{ lesson }...........X........................
<two hours> "The lesson

was to have lasted

(for) two hours."

................[ wait X]...........................

<two hours>
"I have been waiting

for you

for two hours."

......[ wait ]..........X.............................
<two hours>
"I waited for you
for two hours."
_____________________________________

You can say "I have waited" instead of "I have been waiting", but then you fail to suggest the details of the waiting action -- the pacing up and down, the frustration.

You might say "I was waiting" instead of "I waited", but then you suggest that perhaps some event then occurred while you were waiting, and if you don't let us know what this event was, we may feel that your story is somehow incomplete.

CJ

Ticce · Answer

CalifJim [ ? ]
....{ lesson }...........X........................
"The lesson
was to have lasted
(for) two hours."

To me, this sentence means that some time ago the lesson was supposed to last for two hours.

For example, yesterday the lesson was supposed to last for two hours.

But I want to connect the 2 hours with the present

...............{ lesson }X........................ (Exactly the way we do it by means of Present Perfect, an action has been started and is still in progress)

I don't feel this sentence invite us to realize that there is no pause between NOW and 2 hours of waiting.

In other words. It is 12.00 PM now and we are still waiting for the teacher to come and have been waiting for him for 2 hours starting from 10 AM.

But this sentence - (The lesson was to have lasted.) - makes me feel as if we waited for two hours and there was another period of time between now and the last minute of our waiting.

For instance, we started to wait at 8AM and finished at 10AM and now it is 12 PM. It means that there was an interval between 10AM and 12PM.

But if I want to say that the lesson has been put on hold for 2 hours and is still not in progress (as a result we have been waiting for 2 hours and are still waiting), do I need to use the same construction? The lesson was to have lasted for 2 hours already?

Ticce · Answer

One more try

How to make this

CalifJim....{ lesson }...........X........................
"The lesson
was to have lasted
(for) two hours."

have the same construction as this
CalifJim................[ wait X]...........................

"I have been waiting
for you
for two hours."

May be it is more clear now.....

CalifJim · Answer

TicceHow to make this
CalifJim....{ lesson }...........X........................
"The lesson
was to have lasted
(for) two hours."
have the same construction as this
CalifJim................[ wait X]...........................

"I have been waiting
for you
for two hours."
You can't because "is to" is an idiom that doesn't have a perfect form. There is no form "has been to", so there is no "The lesson has been to have lasted two hours". It's impossible in English.

The reason there are no other forms except present and past is probably because the reference is only to expectations about events -- not to actual events.

Nevertheless, supposing that someone enters the room and asks what you're waiting for, you can still say:
We have been waiting for the lesson to begin. It was to have lasted two hours.

You have to rely on that first sentence with have been waiting (as well as the present reality of the situation itself) to do the work of connecting the situation with present time.

Then you've simply moved the lesson time closer to the present thus:

[ ??? ]

..................{ lesson X}......................
"The lesson
was to have lasted
(for) two hours."

-- not through the grammatical device of a present perfect tense, but through the obvious nature of the situation itself.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

Ticcethis sentence - (The lesson was to have lasted.) - makes me feel as if we waited for two hours and there was another period of time between now and the last minute of our waiting.

I understand. As explained in my previous post, "was to have lasted" does not absolutely have to refer to a situation in which there is a gap of time between the last moment of the waiting and the present moment. So, though it may make you feel as if there was another period of time between the waiting and present time, you may have to suppress this feeling, because that feeling is not always correct. The expectation about the duration of the lesson is movable, and the listener can make the determination of whether there is a time gap or not based on the reality of the situation he finds himself in at the time the sentence is spoken.

CJ

Ticce · Answer

Thank you Jim. This is what I have been looking for. No one could have explained it properly except you.
Then another thing which I don't find logical is the usage of PERFECT INVINITIVE.

Why shall we say -

The lesson was to have lasted

Why can't we say

The lesson was to last

If both are possible then what is the difference between them?

CalifJim · Answer

By way of finishing up the last discussion, if you're willing to give up the idiom "is to", "was to", etc., you can say:

We've been expecting the lesson to begin for two hours.
___________

TicceIf both are possible then what is the difference between them?

Oof! Hard question. The difference is so subtle that even we native speakers have difficulty characterizing it. I'm going to draw two diagrams that are almost exactly the same, and I don't know if I can get my point across or not.

X - the present moment
...... the passage of time (left to right)
{expected duration}
[actual duration]
(optional word)
R - reference point (in the past)

____________________________

[ ? ]

....{ lesson }...........X........................
<two hours> "The lesson

was to have lasted

(for) two hours."

[ ? ]

... R { lesson }...........X........................

<two hours> "The lesson

was to last

(for) two hours."

To my ear, the first one (was to have lasted) has no secondary time reference. Everything relates to present time. The second one (was to last) assumes a secondary past time reference.

In other words, you can use the second one when you're retelling the story of what happened and you are already casting your story in the past. As you listen to the story, you are reliving the events of the story as if they were happening again. All the uses of "was to" in the following text are looking forward from that past reference time. It's the past-time analog to "The lesson is to last two hours".

As teachers in training, we were assigned the task of preparing a history lesson for a class of 50 English students. The requirements regarding the lesson were given: The lesson was to contain material about Napoleon, George Washington, and Queen Elizabeth I. The lesson was to be accompanied by visual images of these historic figures. The lesson was to allow time for students to ask questions. The lesson was to last two hours. ... ...

But in concentrating on the results later, in talking to a friend:

-- Everything went wrong. In the middle of the lesson a fire broke out on another floor of the building and we all had to leave and reschedule the lesson for another day.
-- How awful! What kind of lesson was it?
-- It was to have been a history lesson. The lesson was to have lasted two hours and to have contained material about Napoleon and other historic figures.

Thus, one element of the perfect infinitive in this construction is to suggest that the expectation set up by "was to" was not fulfilled. As far as I know, this element is not an absolutely necessary requirement for the use of the perfect infinitive with "was to", but it is common.

CJ

Avangi · Answer

TicceThe lesson was to have lasted

Why can't we say

The lesson was to last

The perfect form implies that the action was completed.

With the second example, the completion is optional.
Originally, the lesson was to last for two hours, but the schedule has now been revised.
(Perhaps the lesson had not yet been given, at the time of writing.)

With the first example, a native speaker would probably take it to mean that during a particular "giving" of the lesson, the duration was either extended or shortened.
The lesson was to have lasted only an hour, but the instructor seemed to be having fun, and kept going for another 30 minutes.

Could you explain the difference here?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions