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September 6[edit]

Tense[edit]

Not a homework What English tense is this: "They can't have pulled this by hand"? Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 15:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Present perfect. "Have + past participle" is usually present perfect tense. --Jayron 32 15:50, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But not in this case. It's a perfect infinitive (the modal verb is the clue). "They can't" is present simple, which is the only tense used in the sentence. Henry ^Flower 16:27, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes in this case; the use of the modal verb "can't" adds the conditional mood to the sentence; moods are not tenses. --Jayron 32 16:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron, you should really stop digging (and maybe give linguistics questions a discreetly wide berth in future). At least start with Grammatical_tense#English and follow the links from there. The basics: an English verb has tense if it relates to the time and the subject; "have pulled" does not because it remains unchanged by the former (compare "couldn't have pulled") and the latter (compare "he can't have pulled", not *"he can't has pulled"). Henry ^Flower 16:44, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's right. --Jayron 32 17:10, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]