Will have been?

Question

Why “will have been” can’t be used in the following sentence? By the time you come home, dinner will be ready.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

teacherJapanWhy “will have been” can’t be used in the following sentence?

Why can't "will have been" be used in the following sentence?

teacherJapanBy the time you come home, dinner will be ready.

It can, but the meaning changes, and the meaning is much more naturally expressed another way. If my dinner will have been ready, I'm late for dinner. It is very unusual to say that without specifying a duration, as "dinner will have been ready for two hours".

CalifJim · Answer

teacherJapan
Why can't“will have been” ~~can’t~~ be used in the following sentence?
By the time you come home, dinner will be ready.

Hmm. Good question. (That means it's hard to answer.)

'by the time' sets up a situation that's like a race.

You are on your way home. The dinner is on its way to being ready. Which will happen first? Will you be home? Or will the dinner be ready?

According to this sentence, the dinner will win the race. The dinner will be ready before you are home.

Note that the person coming home is not racing against the dinner having been ready for some time. That doesn't make sense unless you say something like

By the time you come home, dinner will have been ready for six hours and will have become cold, spoiled, and inedible, so we'll wait for you to come home before we even start to make dinner.

Basically, it has to do with the meaning of "ready". In the sentence immediately above, the dinner has eventually become "unready". Note the difference:

By the time you come home, we will have eaten dinner.

It may have to do with the difference between a stative adjective (ready) and a dynamic action (to eat).

CJ

Will have been?

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