talks as though he knows/knew a lot

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1. He talks as though he knows a lot.

2. He talks as though he knew a lot.

I think both sentences are correct, but I don't know the difference in meaning between them.

Could somebody please tell me whether I am correct to say that both sentences are correct and, if so, what is the difference in meaning?

Thanks in advance.

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Unless the guy's dead, I would opt for "knows" a lot. But really, either works.

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@tanguatlay,

The first is stylistically better because of tense agreement. The second could mean "he used to know but is now out of date", but this meaning is contrastive to the first sentence. Note that "meaning" is generally context dependent and cannot always be assigned to a single sentence in its own right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_holism

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@Ceili,

Quote:

Unless the guy's dead,

I think that you just threw that in because you vaguely remember some old grammar saw from your school days, right, Ceili?

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@fresco,

1. He talks as though he knows a lot.

2. He talks as though he knew a lot.

Quote:

The first is stylistically better because of tense agreement.

If meaning is context dependent, Fresco, and I agree it is, how could it ever be "stylistically better" to opt for something, tense agreement, that doesn't exist as any rule of grammar in the English language?

Could 'as though' not be synonymous with 'as if'?

1 Reply

@JTT,

There's English and there's English. A non-native speaker is asking for advice about possibly semantic equivalents. Both are grammatical so the advice is based on a native speaker's style not grammar.

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@fresco,

Quote:

Both are grammatical so the advice is based on a native speaker's style not grammar.

But what I'm saying is that there's no use suggesting tense agreement has anything to do with style. Style can't override meaning. The notion of style that you're suggesting, tense agreement, is a fatuous concept because it doesn't exist in language.

We say and write in order to express meaning. Because tenses do sometimes "agree" doesn't mean that this is a rule or a stylistic consideration.

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@JTT,

Sorry, but I agree with Ceili who has "opts" for number 1. I'm calling that " style". If we want to be academic we could start talking about "grammar" as a native speaker's gut feeling, rather than "grammar" as pedagogic rule structure, but this hardly seems appropriate in this instance.

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@fresco,

I didn't ever suggest that there isn't such a thing as individual preference. Of course there is, and it's pretty hard to argue against any individual native speaker's preference.

But you're drifting away from the point I was/am making. There is no such thing in the English language that forces us to have tense agreement. If that was the case, then there would be many things that couldn't be expressed. That's all I was/am talking about.

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@tanguatlay,

tanguatlay wrote:

1. He talks as though he knows a lot.
2. He talks as though he knew a lot.

I remember reading in a grammar book that the first sentence means that he actually knows a lot of what he is talking about. The grammarian says that the second sentence means he knows scarcely anything he is talking about.

Has the writer misled me?

Thanks again.

2 Replies

@tanguatlay,

Quote:

as though he knew a lot

Could be he forgot a lot. Mr. Green

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They mean the same thing, that the guy is a know-it-all. The second implies he's forgotten more than he knows at the present. Or at least that's my take on it.

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@tanguatlay,

Quote:

I remember reading in a grammar book that the first sentence means that he actually knows a lot of what he is talking about. The grammarian says that the second sentence means he knows scarcely anything he is talking about.

Has the writer misled me?

Yes and no. As Fresco mentioned, context is everything. That particular grammarian had a certain situation in mind that led him/her to believe what you were told. Ceili also has a context in mind that leads her to believe what she believes.

Certainly a person could utter either one and have the same feeling as to whether he knows a lot. That feeling could be that he indeed knows a lot or said very sarcastically, it could mean he knows little.

1 Reply

@JTT,

As an afterthought this is a typical example of how contrastive analysis has little to do with real life "semantic flow". The second sentence is superficially (tense change) contrasted with the first, and hence is dependent on the first for its possible semantic difference. Hence the tense change is merely a poorly considered pedagogic device in the construction of a traditional grammatical reference book. (I should have perhaps clarified this previously)

1 Reply

1. He talks as though he knows a lot.

2. He talked as though he knew a lot.

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

Hence the tense change is merely a poorly considered pedagogic device in the construction of a traditional grammatical reference book. (I should have perhaps clarified this previously)

I'm not sure what the point is that you are trying to make, Fresco. Let me speculate a bit and you can correct me.

If it is that a traditional [your italics] grammatical reference book suggests some measure of validity that is outside and unsupported by what the language actually dictates, then I would have to say that's preposterous and that that traditional grammatical reference book is of no value.

I say this because, if that same book cannot explain the difference between the two sentences in any better a fashion than to fall back to a nonexistent rule, then that book truly is trash.

Reviewing what you've written in this thread, you stated outright that the one with 'tense agreement' is better, stylistically.

You went on to say that both are grammatical. Again, I must ask; how can it be better to opt for a style that is artificial, ie. it does not exist in the English language, rather than opting for the meaning/nuance intended by the speaker/writer?

Isn't traditional grammar [is that the same as prescriptive grammar in your mind?] all about being concise?

1 Reply

@PUNKEY,

If you are able to explain why you've chosen these, Punkey, then you should do so. If you are unable to explain why then you should consider that you are mistaken.

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@JTT,

I am simply making the point that contrastive analysis is artificial. In the absence of any context, the first sentence (which I describe with the phrase "tense agreement") is preferable to the second in expressing an overt meaning, because it is the less ambiguous of the two. But since the second sentence could have the same meaning as the first, the pedagogical (prescriptive grammarian) would be wrong in his assessment that these are not semantically equivalent. In that sense there is a difference between advisory rules and prescriptive rules for the foreign learner which is not always made clear.

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

I am simply making the point that contrastive analysis is artificial. In the absence of any context, the first sentence (which I describe with the phrase "tense agreement") is preferable to the second in expressing an overt meaning, because it is the less ambiguous of the two.

Who might this sentence be preferable to? And why do you keep bringing up "tense agreement", Fresco? It's a non-issue, an old canard that has no place in descriptions of language save to tell those that have been misled by it that it doesn't exist.

Quote:

But since the second sentence could have the same meaning as the first, the pedagogical (prescriptive grammarian) would be wrong in his assessment that these are not semantically equivalent. In that sense there is a difference between advisory rules and prescriptive rules for the foreign learner which is not always made clear.

Again, what is the point of a prescriptive rule [that hardly sounds pedagogical to me] that has no place in a description of language and how it works. To me that's the equivalent of saying that EFLs need to learn that the Earth is flat if they are to properly understand how language works.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

To me that's the equivalent of saying that EFLs need to learn that the Earth is flat if they are to properly understand how language works.

No doubt Ph.D theses are being written right now on "how languages work".
In my experience, very little of academic linguistics filters through to the world of EFL.

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talks as though he knows/knew a lot

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