Tense

Question

Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s by 3 PM tomorrow.why not useVeeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s at 3 PM tomorrow.what is the difference between the two?

Drew.ward · Accepted Answer

aerohnVeeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s by 3 PM tomorrow.
why not use

Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s at 3 PM tomorrow.

what is the difference between the two?

Perfection is used to express completion of a verb. These sentences have perfected verbs and are in the future tense. Perfected verbs convey the information '(the verb used) is completed as of a point in time'. When perfected verbs are used in the present tense it means that the verb is completed 'as of now' (the time at which you are saying/writing that sentence) and a specific time phrases are not allowed. When perfected verbs are used in the past tense it means that the verb is completed 'as of a specific time in the past' (you must specify that past time). When perfected verbs are used in the future tense, it means that 'as of a specific time in the future this verb shall be completed'. As with the past tense, you must specify that future time.

Because the focus of perfected forms is the time at which the verb is completed and not the time at which the verb is occurring, the specific time phrase used will deal more with that time at which the verb is completed than anything else.

For future tense usage, the preposition 'by' is used with a future time. This signifies a time by which the verb shall be completed. It doesn't mean the verb happens at that time. Instead it means that the verb occurs sometime before that time, but is completed and in the case of your examples, no longer occurring after that time.

So your sentence should be:

Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother's by 3PM tomorrow.

BillJ · Answer

drew.wardThese sentences have perfected verbs and are in the future tense

There is NO future tense in English. You're being silly again, aren't you?

BillJ

CalifJim · Answer

aerohnVeeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s by 3 PM tomorrow.
Why not use
Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s at 3 PM tomorrow.
What is the difference between the two?

Why not at? Because you're communicating the wrong meaning. Here's one way of looking at it.

By using by we indicate that the the taking of chairs happens at any time between now and 3 pm tomorrow.

The use of at with a specific time strikes most native speakers as an indication of an exact time, so by using at the speaker very likely wants to indicate that the taking happens exactly at 3 pm tomorrow. But that's not the intention of the sentence, so by is used.

Generally speaking, if you want to indicate an exact time, use will take instead of will have taken and use at instead of by:

V. will take these chairs to his grandmother's at 3 pm tomorrow.

CJ

Drew.ward · Answer

BillJ
drew.wardThese sentences have perfected verbs and are in the future tense
There is NO future tense in English. You're being silly again, aren't you?

BillJ

You're joking right?

I would ask you what you're doing tomorrow but apparently that's not possible in your English. Or, is it?

Why on earth would you think there is no future tense in English (or any language for that matter)???

BarbaraPA · Answer

There is no future tense in English. Bill is quite right. That does not mean we are unable to communicate things that will happen in the future, but you cannot inflect a verb to show future.

If you want to discuss this further, please start a new thread in the linguistics forum.

Further discussion of this subject in this thread will be deleted and the thread will be locked.

I hope the original poster received an answer that was understood.

Drew.ward · Answer

CalifJim
aerohnVeeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s by 3 PM tomorrow.Why not useVeeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s at 3 PM tomorrow.What is the difference between the two?
Why not at? Because you're communicating the wrong meaning. Here's one way of looking at it.

By using by we indicate that the the taking of chairs happens at any time between now and 3 pm tomorrow.

Jim, "by 3 pm tomorrow" doesn't actually indicate that the verb happens at any time between now and 3 pm tomorrow. It IS generally accepted that you can assume the that verb occurs within that timeframe, but that information is not actually presented in the example sentence. Perfected forms allow for indicating the time of completion of the verb but don't allow for other information such as when the verb started or how long it occurred for. That sort of information can be added via additional phrases or clauses, but without those, that information is not available.

"Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s by 3 PM tomorrow."

The original poster's example conveys only the following information:

1. Veeraraghavan takes chairs. 2. He takes those chairs to his grandmother. 3. From 3 pm tomorrow on, he is not taking those chairs. 4. Those chairs are taken to his grandmother before 3 pm (and that could be 2:59:59:59 pm for all we know, the exact information is not available only that it is before 3 pm).

CalifJimThe use of at with a specific time strikes most native speakers as an indication of an exact time, so by using at the speaker very likely wants to indicate that the taking happens exactly at 3 pm tomorrow. But that's not the intention of the sentence, so by is used.

Generally speaking, if you want to indicate an exact time, use will take instead of will have taken and use at instead of by:

V. will take these chairs to his grandmother's at 3 pm tomorrow.

CJ

The tense, aspect, and perfection used in the original sentence "Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s by 3 PM tomorrow." is ideal for expressing the information conveyed with it. The focus of this type of sentence is to draw attention to the time by which the verb is completed. For that information "by" is the correct preposition.

Your version "V. will take these chairs to his grandmother's at 3 pm tomorrow." is a perfectly good sentence, but it's expressing a different set of information and has a different focus. It tells when the verb 'take' occurs yet gives no information about when that verb is finished.

As I said above, the various combinations of tense, aspect, and perfection are not about what the sentence DOES tell us, but rather what it CAN tell us.

As to the original poster's question regarding which preposition is correct with the example sentences provided, "by" is the only correct option.

--Drew

Bob Collins · Answer

I agree completely with CalifJim, with this small addition:

the working of the second (at) question is difficult because it does try to indicate when the chairs will be delivered. When you state: "Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s at 3 PM tomorrow." it sounds like you're actually intending to say, "Veeraraghavan will take these chairs to his grandmother’s at 3 PM tomorrow," indicating when his grandmother may expect him to arrive with the chairs.

Beyond exactly correct grammar is the issue of understandability. In writing, you should first consider your audience and their reception of the message you're trying to deliver to them. The first, incorrect, usage of the sentence in question has a very good chance of leaving your audience unsure, and possibly confused, about your message. In technical and business writing especially, your first duty is to make sure your message is clear, understandable, and unambiguous.

Drew.ward · Answer

Hi Bob,

You and CJ both have focussed on how the sentence would need to be constructed in order to use 'at' and I agree with what you've both said about that ( that is should be ...will take...at 3pm...), but I don't think the original poster's question is 'how do I change this sentence to use at' but rather "do I use 'by' or 'at' with this sentence?".

When a verb is in the form used in "Veeraraghavan will have taken these chairs to his grandmother’s by 3 PM tomorrow." by is the correct preposition because the time 'by which the verb is completed" is the information that those forms convey.

-------------------------------------

Isn't that what Aerohn is asking? Why use 'by' but not 'at'?

--drew

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