0

In the statements given below, since the activity is happening in the past, I thought past perfect tense would be used, but 'have/has' feels more natural to me. Please clarify the usage of has/have and had in the given context

During the 18th century, Indian culture had started to show signs of exhaustion. During this time, artists have maintained their artform's cultural continuity, and even local traditions have continued to evolve, but the culture as a whole has remained traditionalist. 

During the 18th century, Indian culture had started to show signs of exhaustion. During this time, artists had maintained their artform's cultural continuity, and even local traditions had continued to evolve, but the culture as a whole had remained traditionalist. 

P.S: I tried to find a similar question on the forum but to no avail, if there exists a similar solved question please provide me with the link, so that I can delete this question asap.

Edit: I tested both these statements using a grammar checker, both statements were showing no errors this is even more confusing to me.

harsh garg
  • 35
  • 6
  • 1
    You can never use present perfect with a finished past time frame. It's a ***present tense***. – gotube Sep 11 '21 at 05:46
  • 1
    "During this time, artists have maintained..." implies a time period that is still continuing. – Kate Bunting Sep 11 '21 at 08:23
  • But with the context of previous sentence , During this time will will mean the 18th century, which is still is in past. So I now believe that this statement can't take present tense auxiliary verbs and are altogether meaningless with has/have. Please clarify, if I am missing something here. – harsh garg Sep 11 '21 at 10:51

1 Answers1

2

Which grammar checker did you use? Machine-based grammar checkers don't always catch all mistakes.

The first paragraph you gave (with "have/has") is ungrammatical and unnatural, especially since the first sentence is still in the past tense.

It's possible to use the present tense to vividly describe things that happened in the past, as if the reader is experiencing them right now -- but this is an advanced use of the present tense which I would usually not recommend.

As for the second paragraph you gave, it's more grammatical, although (without further context) I don't know why you'd use the past perfect instead of the simple past tense. Check out these questions about the past perfect:

Sabrina
  • 528
  • 2
  • 10
  • I used Quillbot as the Grammar Checker. – harsh garg Sep 11 '21 at 01:01
  • I've never used QuillBot so I can't comment more specifically on its accuracy, unfortunately. – Sabrina Sep 11 '21 at 01:05
  • do you recommend any grammar checker bot, though I understand none of them is foolproof, but it would be better to have one which is at least a bit more reliable – harsh garg Sep 11 '21 at 02:23
  • you might want to create a separate question for that, or even ask on a different but related SE (writing.stackexchange.com maybe?) instead – Sabrina Sep 11 '21 at 22:22