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Why does the backshifting of tenses rule not apply to this sentence?:

"I forgot what a liar he is."

Because the verb "forgot" in the main clause is past tense, shouldn't the verb in the noun clause ("is") be past tense, too?

Yet I see sentences like my example, which start with "I forgot" or "I had forgotten" and then use present-tense verbs, all the time.

JJ_Doogal
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    If you don't want to imply that he was a liar only in the past, you'll refer to what a liar he is. I forgot what a liar he is. – Yosef Baskin Mar 08 '22 at 23:03
  • I think the "backshifting of tenses rule" is something to help ESL learners. Maybe you can get better explanation at ell.stackexchange.com – GEdgar Mar 09 '22 at 02:00

1 Answers1

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Because the state of affairs referred to in the embedded clause is timeless, or continues to the present.

In such cases, but was and is are possible, depending on whether the speaker is wanting to focus on how things were at the time, or to acknowledge how things were and continue to be.

Colin Fine
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