English: Random Question (Double Perfect) (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

English: Random Question (Double Perfect)
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Serpent
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Message 25 of 35

17 March 2014 at 5:50pm | IP Logged

"had have done" sounds wrong, but "had have come" and "had have left" is okay?

Edited by Serpent on 17 March 2014 at 5:55pm
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tarvos
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Message 26 of 35

17 March 2014 at 5:52pm | IP Logged

It's all just weird and wrong to me.
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Serpent
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Message 27 of 35

17 March 2014 at 5:55pm | IP Logged

To me as well. I was asking about Gemuse's perception.
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Gemuse
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Message 28 of 35

17 March 2014 at 6:36pm | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

"had have done" sounds wrong, but "had have come" and "had have left"
is okay?

Nope all sound wrong.

Edited by Gemuse on 17 March 2014 at 6:37pm
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Serpent
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Message 29 of 35

17 March 2014 at 6:58pm | IP Logged

Well those with come and leave are from the link you're swearing by, saying double perfect is non-standard but legit. This is double perfect.
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michaelyus
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Message 30 of 35

17 March 2014 at 7:07pm | IP Logged

Quote:

Q(i) Suppose I take out the conditionals, are the following sentences correct?

7. I did not have had to correct them.
8. I did not have needed to correct them.
9. I did not have had needed to correct.

All wrong, and to my ears, quite garish and confusing. It sounds like the person really
does not know whether he was under obligation to correct them or not.

Why? It's down to the misnegation of the auxiliary, and the subsequent confusion of the
auxiliary "have" (with a voiced /v/) with the modal verb "to have to" (with a devoiced
/f/). For me, it then has the effect of really messing with the "when" of the
situation, and how relevant the situation is to the present, and where the focus of my
attention with respect to timespan should be.

If 7. is the simple past, it should be "I did not have to correct them". If it is the
present perfect, it should be "I have not had to correct them". If it is the past
perfect, it should be "I had not had to correct them".

8. "I did not need to..." vs "I have not needed to..." vs "I had not needed to..."

9. Refer to 8. It sounds like the past perfect version of 8. is being attempted, but
with misnegation.

Gemuse, what you mention with respect to 10. and 11. is interesting, because the
distinction you're referring to is something that people who use the double perfect
distinguish from the normal past perfect.

Let me quote something from a study on British English. This is from The Verb Phrase
in English: Investigating Recent Language Change with Corpora, published in 2013.

Quote:

The modal remoteness use presents a further complication, namely the occurrence of the
so-called 'double perfect', or variants thereof...

... In this use, there seems to be a counteracting tendency towards a more complex,
expanded verbal group (with infinitival have variously preceded by had,
'd, or sometimes would). Such forms are often considered non-standard but
may now be spreading into standard usage [...] ; they are rare in DCPSE (with only one
example each in LLC and ICE-GB) but seem to quite common in the BNC (where they also
occur in clausal complements of wish, e.g. I wish they had have
attended, the Tories

... The occurrence of these 'expanded' verbal groups seems to be due to the frequent
association of the perfect infinitive with the meaning of modal remoteness, and a pull
toward parallelism between the protasis and apodosis of the remote conditional... In
fact, such usages are not completely new in English, being attested from as early as
the fifteenth century...

In summary, examples from both British and American sources support the suggestion of
Leech... that the area of meaning involving modal remoteness and past time is one of
instability and possible ongoing change in Present-Day English.

All in all, it means that the use of double perfect, especially in conditionals in the
colloquial register, is increasing. (I omitted the copious examples, but they were all
conditionals!)

As a cross-linguistic comparison, it appears that German has a similar situation. This
is taken from the chapter New Perspectives on Double Perfect Constructions in
German from the 2011 work "Tense Across Languages".

Quote:

Er hat bereits bei der ersten Zwischenzeit rund zwei Minuten verloren gehabt.

Again it is not accepted as standard, called derogatively the Hausfrauenperfekt,
and was supposed to be linked to the lack of preterite / simple past in southern German
dialects and so the lack of the pluperfect / past perfect. But it also occurs in
northern parts of Germany, so ...? And the double perfect is distinguishing itself from
the pluperfect in terms of distribution: double perfect is more common in main clauses,
whereas the pluperfect tends to be used in subordinate clauses.

Coming back to English: for what it's worth, I believe I do use the double perfect in
my colloquial speech, but rather sparingly. It's always hard identifying patterns in
your own speech though; idiolectal studies are really difficult.

What do you all think of these?
12. If he had have done a lot more revision, he would have attained C1.
13. She said that I'd have earned a lot more money if I hadn't had been so lazy.

Edited by michaelyus on 18 March 2014 at 11:55am
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Serpent
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Message 31 of 35

17 March 2014 at 7:51pm | IP Logged

I think it's important to know what rules you are breaking.
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Gemuse
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Message 32 of 35

17 March 2014 at 8:32pm | IP Logged

michaelyus wrote:

Quote:

Q(i) Suppose I take out the conditionals, are the following
sentences correct?

7. I did not have had to correct them.
8. I did not have needed to correct them.
9. I did not have had needed to correct.

Thanks for the detailed post!

Regarding 7, it is fine without the negation?

14. "You are right, I did have had to correct them!"

Quote:

Gemuse, what you mention with respect to 10. and 11. is interesting, because the
distinction you're referring to is something that people who use the double perfect
distinguish from the normal past perfect.

Must be the brain making some transitive inference ([had] + [have had]).

Quote:

All in all, it means that the use of double perfect, especially in conditionals in the
colloquial register, is increasing. (I omitted the copious examples, but they were all
conditionals!)

Sweet :D

Quote:

What do you all think of these?
12. If he had have done a lot more revision, he would have attained C1.
13. She said that I'd have earned a lot more money if I hadn't had been so lazy.

Both sound perfectly fine to me.

12b. If he would have done a lot more revision, he would have attained C1.

It might also interest you that 12 and 12b seem to give different vibes in my head.
For 12, the vibe is like I do not care about the "he" dude. For 12b, its like I am a
bit more involved with the "he" dude.

Serpent wrote:

Well those with come and leave are from the link you're swearing by,
saying double perfect is non-standard but legit. This is double perfect.

You are right. I need to see it in context. By themselves, the phrases seem weird, in
full sentences, in certain contexts they sound perfectly fine:
15.If it had have come yesterday he would surely have told her.
16.I wish he had not have left.

Although, I must say, whether the constructs sound legit or not depends very much on
the situation, eg
15b. It had have come yesterday.
16b. He had have left.
seem spectacularly wrong to me.

While "It had come yesterday." and "He had left." seem perfectly fine.

Edited by Gemuse on 17 March 2014 at 8:32pm

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