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Gururaj_pare Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

'seem to bother' vrs 'seem to have bothered'

How are these two sentenses different?

1) It did not seem to bother him
2) It did not seem to have bothered him
  

Top answer

1) His ankle injury did not seem to bother him. [sometime in the past] 2) His ankle injury did not seem to have bothered him by 7PM yesterday, when the match was supposed to take place. [sometime in the past, leading up to a given reference moment in the past] ------- The lighting was also not too good but that did not seem to have bothered the music lovers who enjoyed themselves despite the lapses.

— Marius Hancu

  • 1) His ankle injury did not seem to bother him.
  • [sometime in the past] 2) His ankle injury did not seem to have bothered him by 7PM yesterday, when the match was supposed to take place.
  • [sometime in the past, leading up to a given reference moment in the past] ------- The lighting was also not too good but that did not seem to have bothered the music lovers who enjoyed themselves despite the lapses.
  • ID=31062&nav=next ------ [by the reference time of the observation, the music lovers hadn't been disturbed by the quality of the lighting, however we don't know how they felt later on about it]
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4 Answers
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1) His ankle injury did not seem to bother him. [sometime in the past]
2) His ankle injury did not seem to have bothered him by 7PM yesterday, when the match was supposed to take place. [sometime in the past, leading up to a given reference moment in the past]

-------
The lighting was also not too good but that did not seem to have
bothered
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I could be wrong, but can we use 'have' with definite past time?
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JuniorWinI could be wrong, but can we use 'have' with definite past time?

"have" is creating a "prefect" verb, something/a process which leads to a given time, in the past, present, or the future
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JuniorWinI could be wrong, but can we use 'have' with definite past time?

yes. this is a "prefect tense" which can appear in the future too.

suggest reading ALL this:

http://tinyurl.com/h7lar

and check the example there:

-- At this mee
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