Question for semanticists/philologists: When somebody croaks, why

[karlschneider]

is it always reported as "Joe Blow HAS died"? (my emphasis)...
I mean, why the "has"?
<grumble>

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. Mostly, I've seen "Joe Blow passed away on..."

Or "...the victim died at..." - I've never seen any published statement with the "has" in there. It is incorrect, after all.



http://kucinichforpresident.com - Kucinich Is The One
http://cronus.com/prayer - One of Kucinich's speeches

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13 - cute little buttons
http://bushspeaks.com - sardonic political toons
http://cronus.com - enlightening and educational liberal fun

Conceptual Guerilla

[OrdinaryTa]

2. It's a Different Tense

I don't know the name of the tenses, but "died" is simple past tense, and "has died" may be called the "recent past tense". (That is not the correct term.) The simple past tense of "to be" is "was". But the recent past tense is "has been".

The simple past tense doesn't indicate when something happened. "Caesar conquered the Gauls" doesn't tell you if it happened last week or 20 centuries ago. But "Caesar has conquered the Gauls" definitely sounds recent.

[On the Road]

3. I Think It's Not So Much a Grammatical Question

of which tense is correct as it is a question of tone. "Buddy Ebsen died" is a little jarring for an evening news report. It also sounds incomplete, like offhand conversation rather than a news item, although you could say "Buddy Ebsen died TODAY."

"Buddy Ebsen HAS died" sounds a little softer, which is appropriate for this kind of news item.

As far as grammar goes, "has died" is Present Pefect Continuous, which can be used for <1> action in the past continuing until now ("they have been talking for an hour") or, in this case, <2> an action occurring recently.

"Died," on the other hand, is simple past tense, which is broader -- it indicates something that happened any time in the past.

BTW, a good summary of English verb tenses (which I had to look up) is at http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. What those other people said

The "has died" indicates a more recent past than "died" if you don't have a time word in there.

Compare:

My team won the championship. (Without a time word, it could have been twenty years ago.)
My team has won the championship. (It happened pretty recently, most likely the same day.)

[Tigermoose]

5. It is a passive sentence.

Passive sentences are used to soften impact or responsibility for an action. In this case, Joe Blow has died, it makes it sounds as if death is something that happened to Joe, rather than be something Joe actively did.

[blondeatlast]

8. Beat me to it. But you are right on.

From an ex-English teacher and sporadic proofreader/editor.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

6. It's called the present perfect.

1) Action that began in the past and leads up to and includes the present.

2) Habitual or continued action started in the past and continuing into the present.

Potential grammatical explanation (coming from the perspective that grammar is descriptive and not prescriptive): Buddy Ebson was old. His death was most likely an ongoing process. Heck, death itself is an ongoing process, each day drawing us closer.

It would, of course, be accurate to say that he died. That's the simple past, action done, over, completed. If someone were killed ina car crash and died immediately, I'd say the simple past would be more applicable.

[Mairead]

7. It's a participial form

will have died
will die
dies
is dying
died
has died
had died


are the basic forms (there are others). We can substitute any verb for 'die', e.g.

will have sung
will sing
sings
is singing
sang
has sung
had sung


'has done' refers to an action completed before the moment of speech, the 'now', and is called the 'past perfect' (perfected=finished). 'had done' refers to an action completed before some previous event (e.g. 'he had posted before the thread was locked'), and is called the 'past pluperfect' (pluperfect=REALLY finished)

'did' is simple past

'is doing' is present progressive, referring to an action that began in the past and is not yet completed.

'does' is simple present, usually used for habitual actions, not for something actually going on at the moment ('I post whenever I can')

'will do' is simple future ('I will post this')

'will have done' is future perfect (or possibly pluperfect, I can't really remember), referring to an action that will be completed before some future time ('I will have posted this by the time the song I'm listening to completes')



Participles can sometimes be distinguised by vowel and possibly morphic change, if they're old words that still keep their archaic form (sing=present, sang=past, sung=participle, fly flew flown, do did done, draw drew drawn, bite bit bitten). Others (die died died, buy bought bought, make made made) have a participial form that looks just like the past form. A few are really confusing and have a participial form that looks like the present form (run ran run) or have no visible difference between the three forms at all (hit hit hit).


Hope that helps