Thread: sequence of tenses

Strange...I called my brother, who is an English major, and he said it was a gerund too, but he can't explain why. This is truly an odd topic. I hate things that can't be explained...

Well, this one is pretty foggy, which is why I missed the first time around and then had to break open my grammar book.

I think the bottom line is that the phrase does not function as the subject, object, or an object of a preposition.

Originally Posted by saibot

Yes, that also makes it a gerund. But in the first sentence, the first clause describes the means by which he performed the second clause. He used the first to do the second. I dont know if that makes sense.

Let me use a simplified variant of the sentence: "He said it illustrating..."
Of course he used illustrating to confirm what he was saying but illustrating per se isn't the means by which he performed the action of saing, these are two actions.

Would it be easier to use Russian to clarify?

Particple: иллюстрирующий (иллюстрирующая картина = an illustrating pitcure)

Gerund: Иллюстрирая (иллюстрирая картинами... = Illustrating with pictures...)

It's a gerund folks...

scotcher, I agree witcha, I am glad I picked the right country to be born in! OTOH we have to struggle with all those verbal prefixes....

>President Putin has recently said that Russian companies pay

In American English you cannot say this, you have to say "recently said." I think it's got to do with the present perfect emphasizing a current result (a past action that - or whose result - carries over into the present), but "recently" does the reverse (forcing the focus back in time, out of the present), so the two are in opposition and hence make no sense. OTOH I know that BrE uses the present perfect more than we do here, so maybe that's ok on your side of the world. On the third hand, I would go with whatever scotcher says.

http://www.world-english.org/englishtenses.htm

kv - the gerund is иллюстрируя -- remember the ova/uj alternation.

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Would it be easier to use Russian to clarify?

Particple: иллюстрирующий (иллюстрирующая картина = an illustrating pitcure)

Gerund: Иллюстрирая (иллюстрирая картинами... = Illustrating with pictures...)

It's a gerund folks...

I agree with kalinka.

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Would it be easier to use Russian to clarify?

Particple: иллюстрирующий (иллюстрирующая картина = an illustrating pitcure)

Gerund: Иллюстрирая (иллюстрирая картинами... = Illustrating with pictures...)

It's a gerund folks...

I don't think it's a good idea. Compare the following sentences:
I did that by illustrating... - Я делал это, иллюстрируя...
I did that illustrating... - Я делал это, иллюстрируя...
The Russian translations are the same but in the first English sentence illustrating behaves like a noun while in the second it's a participle. Also look at some examples that I took from here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/ ... rbals.html (they
define gerund and participles and these examples are under participles):
Smiling, she hugged the panting dog
Removing his coat, Jack rushed to the river.

Originally Posted by Annet

''President Putin has recently said, that Russian companies pay too big dividend, illustrating it with RAO EES and Sibneft’s examples. ''
Thanks in advance.

You could also say, "President Putin recently stated that dividends paid by Russian companies are too large. Examples of such are RAO EES and Sibneft's."

Saying 'had recently said' isn't really a correct way of speaking. Neither is 'has recently said'. 'Has' is more of a present tense form. While writing a sentence, paragraph, paper, etc, you should always stick with the past tense, if that is how you started it out. In writing classes, we have always been told not to switch between the present and past tenses, to stay in one tense.

How I worded the sentence uses the past tense only, besides "are" for Russian companies. This is because they are still continuing to do so.

I hope you understand what I mean.