Hi, I tried to translate a sentence into Swedish but it turned out to be difficult since I wasn't sure about the English version in the first place.
What is the right form when I'm trying to combine the sentence "He had spoken" with "must".
Like
"He speaks" + "must" = "He must speak"
"He spoke" + "must" = "He had to speak"
"He has spoken" + "must" = "He must have spoken".
But when the tense is "HAD spoken, HAD taken, HAD been", how do I form the phrase?
Thanks so much in advance!
2006-10-26 03:17:13 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Dollhaus, you're right. It seems like English language cannot form such sentence unless my sentence is rephrased. "He had to have spoken" sounds the closest one could get. :) "He must have spoken" means sth different.
"He must have spoken" doesn't define when the action stopped in the past whereas - if there was a tense with "He must had spoken" (which doesn't make sense apparently), it would indicate that the action of speaking stopped in the past before sth else happened.
In Finnish, there is a tense that says "hänen oli täytynyt puhua" = He had to have spoken, or "He had must spoken" if roughly translated. It doesn't make sense in English, though.
But indeed, "he must have spoken" is not derived from "had spoken" and thus it cannot mean the same. Thanks for all the comments so far!
2006-10-26 06:25:14 · update #1
According to strict grammar rules, we cannot use must at all when we talk about the past. We have to use "have to" structure (in this case, "He had to have spoken"). Check the first link in the sources.
However, we CAN use must when we express the idea about certainty (not about personal obligation or necessity), and also when we speak about that certainty in the past. But when we do so, we use present perfect tense ("He must have been speaking about it because..."). Check the other two links.
The real spoken language has naturally more freedoms and "must" and "have to" can be used also in unorthodox ways, but some things just don't work (like "Must had spoken").
Ja terveisiä kollegalle, jos kerran fyysikko olet :)
2006-10-26 21:29:49 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No one English tense gets you there. If your action must (pun intended) be in the past perfect, you have to use a different construction. Best I can think of:
He had to have spoken.
Don't know Swedish - there may be a verb form that does this direct, or you may find Swedish does not support the had + perfect infinitive construction.
2006-10-26 10:56:46 · answer #2 · answered by dollhaus 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He must have spoken
2006-10-26 11:02:37 · answer #3 · answered by DispatchGirl 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't know if this will help. I write a bit of poety, and my son-in-law showed me that you can type on your address bar "sentences" and "verb conjugation" and it will give you a whole lesson on grammar. I was blown away. His specialty in school was languages.
2006-10-26 10:52:00 · answer #4 · answered by noface 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It would have to be "He must HAVE spoken"
2006-10-26 10:26:13 · answer #5 · answered by eliz_esc 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Maybe this will help...it is a translation site...just type in what you want translated...
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
2006-10-26 10:27:22 · answer #6 · answered by fairly smart 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He must have spoken.
He must have taken.
He must have been.
2006-10-26 10:28:16 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋