When has he bought/did he buy?

[Rachel Adams]

What do you mean?

I asked if it was a mistake to use 'where' with the present perfect.

 

[teechar]

I asked if it was a mistake to use 'where' with the present perfect.

What do you think? And why might you think so? How about other question words?

 

[Rachel Adams]

That depends on ...




... context.

Yes, I know. I am not asking about it again. Teechar asked me so I explained what my question was about.

 

[Rachel Adams]

What do you think? And why might you think so? How about other question words?

I wish there was a list of them but everything depends bon context:shock:

 

[teechar]

Try to find present perfect sentences starting with "where", "why", "how", "who", "whom", "whose", "what" and "which". I guarantee you they exist.

 

[Yankee]

Both sentences are wrong. Number one is grammatically incorrect. Number two uses the tense incorrectly.

Please explain what is "grammatically incorrect" in #1.

 

[GoesStation]

Number one is grammatically incorrect.

Please explain what is "grammatically incorrect" in #1.

I was responding to the original version of post #1. Sentence #1 read:

When did your brother bought his motorbike?

You corrected the error after I posted my response.

 

[Rachel Adams]

Try to find present perfect sentences starting with "where", "why", "how", "who", "whom", "whose", "what" and "which". I guarantee you they exist.

I meant in short questions. For example with 'how'. As in 'How has she become so successful?'

 

[Rachel Adams]

Sometimes we use "when"-questions in the present perfect to imply that something never happened or to express disbelief in something's having happened.

When has your brother ridden his motorbike?

That sentence conveys that he speaker thinks "your brother" has never ridden his motorbike. It asks for a single time of his having ridden it to be specified.

A: My brother has ridden his motorbike.
B: He has? When?

Thus, When has your brother ridden his motorbike? is much different from When did your brother ride his motorbike?, which asks for a set of occasions.

[strike]When has your brother bought his motorbike?[/strike] is nonsense because one cannot do something to make something already one's own become one's own.

95% of explanations on this forum are never mentioned in our textbooks.:shock: Thank you. That's an interesting nuance.

 

[teechar]

I agree that context is king; it's not about the length of the sentence.

 

[emsr2d2]

95% of explanations on this forum are never mentioned in our textbooks.:shock: Thank you. That's an interesting nuance.

That might be because textbooks teach you grammar. They don't teach you conversational English.