WHY IS THIS CORRECT?

Question

SORRY. SORRY.I POSTED EARLIER BUT THE WRONG SENTENCE, COULD SOMEBODY SAY WHY THIS FOLLOWING SENTENCE BELOW IN BOLD TYPE IS CORRECT DESPITE THE FACT THAT TENSES ARE NOT MATCHING?I.E: STAIRCASE GIVES AS IT RECEIVED.Could somebody kindly breakdown this sentence to its component parts please i.e; clauses etc and say how it has been strung together etc., in terms of grammar theory. Why is it still correct despite the fact that GIVES and RECEIVED are in two tenses?I posted this earlier but posted a wrong sentence.HERE is the correct one (in BOLD).Thank you very much in advance:The staircase gives several burps as it received her weight on her climb to the upper landing.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

AnonymousThe staircase gives several burps as it received her weight on her climb to the upper landing.

In my opinion, it's not correct.

"As" can have two different meanings here:
(1) two things happen at the same time -
He gives a sigh as he looks at his grades.
He gave a sigh as he looked at his grades.

(2) It can mean "since" or "because." Take an umbrella, as it's supposed to rain.
He gives a sigh, as he left his homework at home.
He walks slowly, as he lost a leg in the war.

This is the only reason I can see for using two tenses in this sort of sentence.
But your example sentence seems clearly to be of the first type - that is, simultaneous actions.

Sometimes we shift tenses in a narrative style, but not for things which happen simultaneously.
And they always go in the opposite direction from your example, past to present:
He walked slowly down the hall. Suddenly a door flies open!

Anonymous · Answer

Avangi, it is interesting, but you are wrong.

This sentence is correct. You will find it is so by checking any online grammar checker including Microsoft word, which does not highlight it as wrong.

Now you might say online grammar checkers are wrong sometimes, but they cannot all be wrong at the same time!

Why the sentence is correct is that there is something called past continuous. ..(..the staircase burped as it received..) is past continues. i.e. something happened, but it still continues to happen.

Therefore, with the word ‘as’, the action (received) continues, and therefore gives is still a correct tense to use with received..

As is used here to convey the sense (even as)

If there is no past continuous we would never be able to say :

The girl smiles as the man blew a kiss to her from the scaffolding. She sees the man fixing the last picture onto the wall.

Here it means,

The girl smiles,(even as) the man blew a kiss to her from the scaffolding; past continuous.

If there is no past continuous, we would have to say ‘She smiled as the man blew her a kiss from the scaffolding. She saw the man fixing the last picture onto the wall.’

How stilted would that be, because we wouldn’t be able to get across the idea that the something is going on -- the girl smiling -- EVEN AS THEMAN CONTINUES to do some work – not AFTER the man had done it already.

You might say, then how about ‘the girl smiles as the man blows a kiss to her.’ Isn’t that the only correct form?

But that in turn cannot convey the idea that the girl smiled AFTER the man blew her a kiss (WHILE he is working on the scaffolding) ! That would be quite ridiculous isn’t it, if grammar restricts us in this way?

That’s why past continuous exists, and why this sentence is right.
Thanks.

BarbaraPA · Answer

I think the original is wrong as well.

She [past] as he [past]
She smiled as he nodded.
She [past] as he [was continuous]
She smiled as he was sleeping (silly, but whatever)

She [present] as he [present]
She smiles as he winks at her.
She [present] as he [is continuous]
She winks as he is addressing her.

Not the combination presented in the original. I'm with Avangi.

Khoff · Answer

Anonymous, the sentences you give as examples of past continuous are not correct, and they are not examples of past continuous. Past continuous takes the form "were/was + ____ing."

Anonymousthere is something called past continuous. ..(..the staircase burped as it received..) is past continues. i.e. something happened, but it still continues to happen.

Anonymous
If there is no past continuous we would never be able to say :
The girl smiles as the man blew a kiss to her from the scaffolding.

In fact, we don't say "The girl smiles as the man blew a kiss to her." "The girl was smiling as the man blew a kiss to her" would be a correct example of past continuous.

Mister Micawber · Answer

And there is nothing resembling a past continuous verb form in the originals anyway.  Colombo really needs to get that raincoat drycleaned.

Khoff · Answer

Mister MicawberColombo really needs to get that raincoat drycleaned.

Huh? How did Columbo get into this discussion?

Avangi · Answer

Hi, Anon.
I'm afraid you have me there. I'm not even comfortable with the examples you offer as axiomatic.

The girl smiled even as the man walks away.

I've never tried an online grammar checker. I'll have to "study into it."

I guess if I read this, it might not upset me. But if someone asked me if it's correct, I'd say "No."

May the switch work in both directions?

The girl smiles even as the man walked away. Neither one seems right to me.

I appreciate your bringing this up. I was really puzzled by the original post, and wasn't sure what justification the poster had in mind.

I've always been aware that some verbs describe an event while others describe a process, or condition or state.

My understanding of the continuous/progressive tenses is that they apply to both types of verbs. I suspect these things vary with different languages. I've been taught that in English, the continuous tenses require a specific form.
The girl is smiling, even as the man walked away.
The girl was smiling even as the man walks away.
The girl smiles, even as the man was walking away.
The girl smiled, even as the man is walking away.

My understanding of tenses doesn't support any of these.

The man died as the rain fell. These are both simple past tense.
the man was dying as the rain was falling. These are both past continuous tense.

There's no difference in meaning between "the rain fell" and "the rain was falling," but that's the nature of the verb, not the tense.
However, "The man died" is an event, while "The man was dying" is a process. The continuous tense changes the meaning.

You can mix and match:
The man died as the rain was falling.
The man was dying as the rain fell.
But this is all past tense. You can switch it all to present, and it's still fine by me.

The problem comes when you try to mix past and present in an "as" sentence. I can't get my mind around it.

Avangi · Answer

Mister Micawberthere is nothing resembling a past continuous verb form in the originals

The gentleman's definition of "continuous" differs from ours. But he's quite consistent.
Do any of his examples (eg the smiling girl and the walking man) seem correct to you - independent of his explanation?

Rgdz, - A.

Avangi · Answer

Anonymous She sees the man fixing the last picture onto the wall.

This one works for me (with "sees" and with "saw") because the present participle has no tense (fixing). The time of the fixing derives from the main clause, "She sees/saw the man."

But if you say, "I saw them constructing the Empire State Building," a native speaker would not take that to mean that you saw the entire multi-year process.

The difference is in the verb, not in the tense.
Switch to "watched," and switch to the infinitive: "I watched them construct the Empire State Building." This could imply that you stayed for the whole show.

The same thing is true of your picture example. "She sees him fixing the last picture onto the wall."
Whether or not he finished the job is immaterial.
Switch to "watches" and the infinitive: "She watches him fix the last picture onto the wall."
To a native speaker, this means she watched the whole process.

- A.

Anonymous · Answer

Dear Khoff et al, I'm the same anonymous who wrote earlier.
With all due respect to you, I think I'm still right!
A compound sentence is composed of at least two independent clauses. It does not require a dependent clause. The clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction (with or without a comma), a correlative conjunction (with or without a comma), or a semicolon that functions as a conjunction.
Here, ‘as it received her weight on her climb to the upper landing' is one clause.
‘The staircase gives' is another clause. Both are joined by the coordinative conjunction ‘as'.
Now the question is can a past tense action be coupled together with a present tense action, with the coordinating conjunction ‘as.'
Yes - the staircase ‘gives' is present continuous.
It ‘received' her weight is past.
You join these two clauses together to convey something more complex than saying merely ‘it burps while she walks.'
You join these two clauses together to convey: staircase burps, and continues to burp, BECAUSE she walked. (PAST tense.)
This is why I brought the case of the man on the scaffold blowing kisses.
"The girl smiles as the man blew a kiss to her from the scaffolding, " I wrote.
Here, the ‘girl smiles' is one clause, and ‘man blew her a kiss etc.,' is another.
But the man "BLEW" her a kiss from the scaffolding. The girl saw the man fixing the last picture onto the wall, also.
It is necessary here to say that the man BLEW her a kiss; as he has already done what he had done i.e.: blown her a kiss, and fixed the picture to the wall. It is one separate clause (concept if you will), and the girl smiles is quite another. But it is necessary for the writer to say that the girl smiles - and continues to smile - even AFTER the man has blown her a kiss, rather than saying simply that she smiles WHILE he kisses/blows a kiss.
What other coordinating conjunction would you use here other than ‘as' unless you want to convolute the sentence beyond reasonable shape, or make it sound so stilted that it sounds, well, like a grammar lesson? Incidentally, this is probably why no grammar checker highlights this sentence as wrong.
Thanks.

WHY IS THIS CORRECT?

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