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Why don't you come this evening? She ________________ that evening [SUGGESTED]

The answer is: suggested coming/that I/we come

Why can't it be: 'suggested I came'- because the passive tense changes time??

John
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  • "came" is past tense, so it sounds like she's suggesting that something happened a particular way in the past. – Max Williams Jun 23 '16 at 07:37
  • The verb to come isn't transitive, so it cannot have a passive form. She suggested is active. Active and passive are voices, not tenses. The transformation of an active voice sentence to a passive voice sentence does not "change time", as represented by verb tense. Perhaps you could rephrase your question. – deadrat Jun 23 '16 at 07:41
  • I learnt that in reported speech we change one tense to the past and there 'come' doesn't change to 'came' Why is this? @deadrat – John Jun 23 '16 at 07:56
  • Ah, I see. You might want to get rid of the references to and the tags about voice. The answer to your question is that the time sense is carried by the auxiliary verb do, past tense did, so Why don't you come this evening is reported in the past as She asked why you didn't come that evening. – deadrat Jun 23 '16 at 08:23
  • Thanks but I still don't quite understand. Could You write it in the easier way @deadrat? reported in the past hmm...when she asked why you didn't come; isn't it an invitation that I could still accept? ehh its too complicated for me :P – John Jun 23 '16 at 08:47
  • I tried; see my answer below. I hope it helps more than hurts. (It is complicated and all the more frustrating for the fact that native speakers don't have to think about it.) – deadrat Jun 23 '16 at 20:34
  • 'She suggested that I come that evening.' would IMO be fairly rare in the UK. 'She suggested that I should come that evening.' is quite acceptable to almost everybody, but 'She suggested that I came that evening.' is probably more common in conversation in the UK. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 25 '16 at 21:50

1 Answers1

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OK, ignore my comment; it's wrong. Let's examine a case in the present tense for which it's easy to change the verb tense in reported speech. (This is called back shifting.)

[1a]: Mary asks herself, "Why am I here now?"
[1b]: Mary asked herself why she was there then.

[1b] is reported speech, that is, it's about a past event. You can tell because it uses the past tense asked. Notice the shifts that have to be made:

  • The first person (I) has to become the third person (she) because the first person in reported speech refers to the reporter, not Mary.
  • The report has moved from the original speech, so here has to become there.
  • Then has to replace now because the current time is the time of the report, not the time of Mary's question to herself.
  • Finally, the report must replace Mary's present tense (am) with the past tense (was) because at the time of the report Mary has finished talking to herself.

Now why can't we do the same thing with the sentence

[2a] Mary asks John, "Why don't you come to the party this evening?"

The reason is that this is a question about a future event, even though the verb form (do come) is the present tense. This is different from [1a] in which Mary is asking herself a question about her current situation. In [2a] the party isn't going on currently. We have to wait for the coming evening for it to start. If you transpose this into a past report, it doesn't work:

*[2b]: Mary asked him why he didn't come to the party that evening.

This has Mary asking John about his absence from a party that's already taken place because the simple past (did come) refers to a completed event There are two ways to convey the meaning:

[2c]: Mary asked him to come to the party that evening.
[2d]: Mary asked that he come to the party that evening.

(Suggested is an appropriate alternative to asked. And if Mary asked in the morning, and the report is in the afternoon prior to the party, you may say "this evening".)

In [2c] there's an infinitive (to come), and in [2d] there's a verb in the subjunctive mood (he come), which is used for complement clauses following verbs of requesting, suggesting, or demanding. Neither of these usages allows a past tense form, i.e., both to came and "asked that he came" are ungrammatical.

deadrat
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  • Thanks for Your in-depth answer. It brightened it in my mind :) Is there some English grammar website telling more about the [2d] usage for me to read more about this? – John Jun 24 '16 at 09:07
  • Start here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1066/when-should-i-use-the-subjunctive-mood There are two schools of thought. The first is "the glass is really full; it just looks half empty" which says that certain constructs like requests and commands take the subjunctive mood, although the verb forms are different from the indicative mood (used for most declarative statements) in a few cases. The second is "the glass is really empty; it just looks like it has a little something in it" which says that the very few differing verb forms don't justify calling them a full mood. [con't.]-> – deadrat Jun 24 '16 at 18:15
  • <-[con't.] You can find both views in the answers at the link I gave above. Some of the answers may be too technical for you, but give them a try. There are useful links to sources that give copious examples. Many subjunctives are trapped in idiomatic usages (God forbid!, Let it be), and many usages of the subjunctive are being replaced with the indicative, especially in informal speech. If my cite above isn't helpful, let me know, and I'll try to find a better one. – deadrat Jun 24 '16 at 18:22