paranoia grammaticale!
27. Feb, 2012 
3 Comments
Sono quasi arrivata alla “paranoia” grammaticale! Potete però spiegarmi la scelta grammaticale di Charlotte Booth a pag. 52 del numero si SU di febbraio 2012: “But since Justin arrived he stays with him or in ….”. Non dovrebbe essere “he has been staying – he has stayed”, cioè duration form? Trattandosi di tanta scrittrice e di una bambina che parla non aggiungo altro – per deferenza. Ma rimango perplessa. Chiedo lumi. Grazie. Cri
Abbiamo chiesto a Charlotte Booth di risponderti personalmente. Ecco la sua risposta:
Dear Cristina, thanks for the message. In this context the continuous form would not be appropriate as that indicates that he has never left his side, whereas I wanted to indicate, as a general situation, that he is with Justin more than the other boy.
This gives us two alternatives:
1) as you suggested “he has stayed” indicating an action started in the past which is true today or,
2) he stays (present tense) to indicate a general situation which started when Justin arrived home
The meaning of the sentence is the same with either alternative, and is a case of personal choice.
I hope this answers your question. Charlotte
Thank you so much Charlotte for your reply and thank you to all the Speak Up Blog Staff!
Your explanation is very interesting and points out once again to which extent the language can be moulded to cater to the different meanings. Well, I won’t disclose it to my students though as they’d get puzzled! But I will ponder on it! Definitely.
Let me quote L. Carroll to this purpose: “Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves!”
With warmest regards.
Cristina
scusami Cristina, vorrei solo sapere se vengono pubblicate tutte le lettere, dato che ho scritto un po’ di tempo fa ma sul blog non è comparsa né la mia domanda né, ovviamente, alcuna risposta…
grazie
Caro Claudio,
al più presto risponderemmo alla tua domanda su questo blog.
Speak Up staff