(1) I phone her tonight. (2) I’m phoning her tonight. (The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language) (1) and (2) are all possible expressions: (1) as a schedule or plan, (2) could be used in the same objects of (1), “but this is not limited to them: it could be that I have simply formed … Read more
I am reading ‘Middlemarch’ at the moment. Some situations are not strictly continuous but allow for gaps, and the concept of ‘in progress at Tr’ is perfectly consistent with Tr actually coinciding with such a gap, as in the example. . . . Thus in the example it is the situation with gaps included that … Read more
“I have never been dating.” I heard some non-native speaker said it. For me it should be just Present Perfect (“I have never dated.”) Because my grammar book says that an absence of some action in the past up to now calls for Present Perfect. And “I have never done it” sounds better to me, … Read more
If he had been standing near the house when the wall collapsed, it would have killed him. If he had stood near the house when the wall collapsed, it would have killed him. Does the second sentence sound jarring, or it is fully legitimate? Do I alway have to put one clause in the continious … Read more
