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  1. You didn't tell me that you have a girlfriend.(Does it mean that he still has a girlfriend)

                         or

    You didn't tell me that you had a girlfriend.(Does it mean that he no longer has a girlfriend)

  2. I knew that you have a girlfriend.

                      or

    I knew that you had a girlfriend.

which of them is grammatically correct and why not the other one? Please explain every detail about such sentences which give confusion of tenses to the non English speakers.

P.S The person does have a girlfriend at present, as he never broke up with her.

thanks in advance :)

xyz
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1 Answers1

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They are both grammatically correct but there are differences in what is being conveyed in each case.

First, "You didn't tell me that you have a girlfriend" stresses the present state of mind of both parties, where it is important that the subject (you) has a girlfriend.

Second, "You didn't tell me that you had a girlfriend" stresses the state of mind of both parties at the time of the initial conversation.

One way of telling them apart is to think of the tone of voice in which each could be spoken, with the first example being reported in a friendly tone while the second could be interpreted in such a way that 'me' is annoyed. However, it would depend on the context of the speech for this to be entirely convincing. The two sentences could also be said to mean that 'you' currently have a girlfriend in the first case and that 'you' don't currently have a girlfriend in the second case, but not necessarily so. Therefore, whether or not the person currently has a girlfriend is not necessarily relevant.

Marc Lawson
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  • So suppose, My friend saw me while I was walking my dog in a garden. And her reaction was- Oh! You didn't tell me you had a dog. Cant she say Oh! you didn't tell me you have a dog. Are both correct in the usage? – xyz Oct 26 '16 at 13:39
  • Yes, both are correct. – Marc Lawson Oct 26 '16 at 13:54
  • But there must be a consistency in the tenses as that is what I have learnt so far. like here didn't and had . So the second sentence happens to be wrong, right? – xyz Oct 26 '16 at 14:04
  • For the sake of learning English it is certainly helpful to abide by that rule but it is by no means correct to say that tenses much match in any one sentence. The language permits mixing tenses and it can be used to convey lots of different things. In your examples, there are two events, the initial behaviour and the correction of it, and so it is possible to place emphasis on them differently. To understand this in another way, it is grammatical to say, "You continue to tell me that you had a girlfriend." – Marc Lawson Oct 26 '16 at 14:25
  • Okay I get that. But what if I used "thought" instead of didn't. I thought you have a girlfriend or I thought you had a girlfriend. The first sentence sounds to be wrong although I don't know why, if yes kindly explain.I mean are there particular words(like thought/assumed/heard etc) which always use past tense in the second half of the sentence – xyz Oct 27 '16 at 02:38
  • It's the same principle - they are both grammatically correct but the emphasis is either on the 'have' or 'had', depending on what you are trying to convey: 'thought' refers to something that happened in the past about a current and ongoing situation, ongoing then and ongoing now. – Marc Lawson Oct 27 '16 at 08:41