madprocess

While trying to proof an English paper into e-prime, I noticed an anomoly: I cannot form the past progressive tense!

Example from my paper:

The people from Athens have come into the woods unaware that Oberon and Titania have been fighting and that Oberon has told Puck to bewitch his wife.

In this example, the two words "have been" cause a problem. Obviously since e-prime does not use any form of "to be," how can I remedy this problem? Has anyone ever found one? I know the wikipedia article says that one does not exist, but I wonder if anyone has any workarounds.

Wildway

madprocess:

how 'bout, "have spent time fighting", "have continued fighting", "have fought without break", "have fought continuously", "have occupied themselves with fighting", "have commenced fighting", "have started fighting"...whaddya think?

-w

Weetabix

I've always found this construction troubling, and I've never found a substitute that didn't sound forced or contrived.

Has anyone else found a good alternative?

ZeroCapacity

The people from Athens have come into the woods unaware that Oberon and Titania have "were" fighting and that Oberon has told Puck to bewitch his wife.

crystalserenity101

'Have been' refers to the state of a subject or object that started in the past and continued to the present. To change 'have been' into e-prime, you can take it back to its origin.

The people from Athens have come into the woods unaware that Oberon and Titania had started and have continued fighting and that Oberon has told Puck to bewitch his wife.

Weetabix

Somehow, I still don't feel comfortable with it. The past progressive expresses an ongoing action in the past. "Have continued" doesn't express that the action had stopped by the time the people of Athens arrived. It seems to imply that the fight continued after the people's arrival.

Not picking at your suggestion, just saying it still doesn't seem to express the same thing to me.

Maybe "had fought" could express the same past action though without exactly the same sense?

crystalserenity101

I see. You are right.

'have fought' is good. Another way to solve it is to change the whole sentence structure. I don't have time right now or I would have made a new sentence of it.