An English grammatical question?

Question

look at the following sentenses, please :

I'm tired because I've been running.
Why is the grass wet ? Has it been raining ?
You don't understand because you haven't been listening.

Would you tell me what would differ in meaning if we use Tobe instead of has/have ?

here is what i mean with Tobe:

I'm tired because I WAS running.
Why is the grass wet ? Was it raining ?
You don't understand because you were not listening.

many thanks in advanced

Answer 1

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Present Perfect - HAVE BEEN / HAS BEEN
We use the Present Perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html

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Simple Past - WAS
Use the Simple Past to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past.
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/simplepast.html

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Answer 2

Contextually the meanings of the sentences, replacing To Have for To Be, do not change very drammatically.
Using the Past Participle (Have been, has been, haven't been), means the action has happened in the past- a long while ago.
Using the Simple Past tense with the verb To Be just means it has just happened. They would change the usage rules if a time determinant were used.
Ex: I'm tired because I've been running for two hours. (you could use To Be here)
I'm tired because I was running a few minutes ago. (you could not use Past Participle here)
Although either or is correct- the meanings are still being conveyed. Verb usage is determined mostly by context, so if those sentences were part of a longer paragraph, all the verb tenses should match.

Answer 3

Actually your question is not a have vs. be question, because your have examples also used "be":
...I've _been_ running.

So, actually, your question is about what the difference in meaning is if we use have or not.

There are many linguistic theories about this, but one of my favorites was developed by William Bull in about 1960, and I use it frequently when I teach my ESL students and give presentations on this topic.

Many grammar books use timelines to diagram grammar. Bull uses three timelines instead, called "time axes" to diagram the entire discourse that the verb in question is part of. Each timeline has three times, and each of those times has certain verb forms associated with it. Native speakers tend to only use verb forms that belong to the same axis in the same story.

It's perhaps a little too complicated to go into here, but there is a very good description in this article:
Helping Students Make Appropriate English Verb Tense-Aspect Choices
D Larsen-Freeman, T Kuehn, M Haccius - TESOL JOURNAL, 2002
Also, see Chapter 9 of The Grammar Book by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman.

The Bull system predicts that the "have" forms of the sentences you presented will be preferred by native speakers. The other sentences are possible, but they represent a shift to another axis, and are therefore less common.

I have to emphasize that this decision is not made at the sentence level. Many grammar rules only talk about sentences, but it's pretty clear that sentence-level rules don't work very well for explaining things like this. You have to look at how the verb in question fits into the overall context.

Answer 4

"I'm tired because I've been running.
Why is the grass wet ? Has it been raining ?
You don't understand because you haven't been listening."

FORM: Present Perfect Continuous: [HAS / HAVE] + [BEEN] + [VERB+ing]

Note:***We use the Present Perfect Continuous to show that something started in the past and has continued up until now.

Examples:
They have been talking for the last hour.
She has been working at that company for three years.
James has been teaching at the University since June.

LOOK: all your sentences take this form:
[HAS / HAVE] + [BEEN] + [VERB+ing]

have been running,
has been raining,
have not been listening.

Therefore, it is really Present Perfect Continuous.

There is continuation, which means:
You were running before, until now, and you are still running.
It has been raining before, until now, and it is still raining.
You were not listening before, and you are still not listening.
____________________________________________________

"I'm tired because I WAS running.
Why is the grass wet ? Was it raining ?
You don't understand because you were not listening."

FORM: Past Continuous. [WAS / WERE] + [VERB+ing]

Examples:
I was studying when she called.
I was carefully picking up the snake when it bit me.

LOOK: All your sentences take this form
[WAS / WERE] + [VERB+ing]

was running
was raining
were not listening

Therefore, it is really past continuous.

In this case:
It is over and done with. No more action is taken as of now.

Answer 5

The only grammatical difference I can see is that using To Be seems like the long finished past while using the has/have form is more of a continuing action or just finished. I have been running but I just got back or I was running earlier today. Does that make sense?

Answer 6

I'm tired because I WAS running.... would mean --- You were doing it in the past. It's not sure whether the action was finished or not.

I'm tired because I've been running ... would mean --- You want to say how long you have been doing it. (You started in the past and it continues up to the present).

Similarly other questions also can be answered...

I hope this helps...

Answer 7

The first part used the present perfect progressive form of the verb - has/ have verb+ing. In the second part, the verbs were changed into the past progressive form - was/were verb+ing.

Out of curiosity, what is Tobe?

Answer 8

you can not say ( I'm tired because I've been running ) because it is a paasive sentence without any object. but (I'm tired because I WAS running ) is a rghit as of continuous acting in past
othe sentence are the same, it means there is no object for your passive sentence and it is wrong but in second paragraph you said some continuous acting in past which is accurate

Answer 9

Grammatically, all your sentences are correct. Semantically, each pair means the same. Using one configuration over another is a matter of personal preference.

Answer 10

"Was" is simple past tense, an action or event was completed in the past with no reference to time (start, duration, or end).

"Has been" is past perfect tense: an action began, continued and ended within a specific (though variable) time frame.

Compare:

"Were you in college?" -> The person did(n't) attend college, true or false.
"Have you been to college?" -> The person attended and graduated from college at some point in the past.