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Park sang joon Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

The tense of a subordinate clause different than that of a main clause

Trucking company Move-All noted that the slow economy results in less freight being moved, and therefore reduced revenues for the company.

I'd like to know whether in the subordinate clause, the reason that the present tense is used is that the less freight being moved and reduced revenues for the company continuously occur even now.

Thank you in advance for your help.
  

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16 Answers
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park sang joonTrucking company Move-All noted that the slow economy results in less freight being moved, and therefore reduced revenues for the company.
I'd like to know whether in the subordinate clause, the reason that the present tense is used is that the less freight being moved and reduced revenues for the company continuously occur even now.Thank you in advance
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Thank you, Mr.Jim for your detailed and elaborate answer.

No, that's not the reason. The subordinate part doesn't say anything about anything happening continuously now. It's simply portrayed as a universal truth that this always happens, in the opinion of the speaker
I see.

Then, if a subordinate clause says about something happening continuously now, eve
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park sang joonThen, if a subordinate clause says something about something happening continuously now, even though a the main clause uses the past present, can we use the present tense in the subordinate clause?
It seems to me that
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Thank you, Mr.Jim, for your valuable answer and correction of errors. Emotion: smile
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It's too late but I got to be curios of several thins about your correction.
I'm so sorry for my tardy questions, Mr.Jim. Emotion: sad
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park sang joon1) Can't I use the verb "say" as an intransitive verb as in #1?
No. "say about .." is not possible in English, but you can use "talk about" or "mention".

CJ
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park sang joonEven though I was saying about said "one main clause" ..., should I have used a definite article as in #4?
Yes. I recommend "the" in this specific case, because we know which main clause we are talking about. It is the main clause that goes with the subordinate clause mentioned earlie
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Thank you, Mr.Jim, for your precise answers. Emotion: smile
I'm unfamiliar with to using "talk about" so, how about "tell about/tell of"?
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park sang joonusing "talk about" ... how about "tell about/tell of"
We can "talk about" the weather, politics, what we did last week, who we saw, etc.
We can "tell somebody about" those things as well.
We cannot "say about" those things, and we cannot "say somebody" about them either.

In summary,

say about - No.
tal
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