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Ant_222 Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Past tense of "must"?

Hello, everybody
Here's the sentence that I don't quite understand:
"Only after two years did I connect this fear with anything in particular; but then I began to see that he must be looking at a special spot on the celestial vault whose position at different times corresponded to the direction of his glance-a spot roughly marked by the constellation Corona Borealis."
My question is about the form of the verb "must". Shouldn't it be "must have been"? Note that the sentence is old-style, written in 1923. The context is narrative and the person in question was no longer alive by the moment of speech.
Thanks in advance,
Anton
  

Top answer

Ant_222 Shouldn't it be "must have been"? I think so, yes, at least in today's English. Personally, I don't usually spend a lot of time trying to psychoanalyze why authors nearly 100 years ago chose this or that tense!

— CalifJim

  • Ant_222 Shouldn't it be "must have been"?
  • I think so, yes, at least in today's English.
  • Personally, I don't usually spend a lot of time trying to psychoanalyze why authors nearly 100 years ago chose this or that tense!
  • CJ
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6 Answers
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Ant_222Shouldn't it be "must have been"?
I think so, yes, at least in today's English. Personally, I don't usually spend a lot of time trying to psychoanalyze why authors nearly 100 years ago chose this or that tense!
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CalifJim Personally, I don't usually spend a lot of time trying to psychoanalyze why authors nearly 100 years ago chose this or that tense!
Hello, CJ, and thanks for the feedback. I bet you don't stumble over such things either. You are a native and  most of the things that even experienced non-natives can't digest, you find natural.
When reading old Russi
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That reminds me. Have you ever read a translation of Eugene Onegin (in English) that you found satisfactory?

CJ
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CalifJimThat reminds me.  Have you ever read a translation of Eugene Onegin (in English) that you found satisfactory?

No, and I haven't read any translations of it. I mean prose, not poetry.
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A list of all English trnalsations can be found at http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~pml1/onegin/ (one in prose and all the rest in verse). The general view is that the best is that by Johnston - Peter M Lee
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