Hardship
(Hardship or difficulties?)
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1) Have you got any relatives in Bukhara OR Do you have any relatives Is there any difference and which variant is better? Why?

2) He turned suddenly and splashed my trousers with paint. The man apologized to me, but the damage had already been done.

Is that true that we can use passive infinitive only in present situations? And only after modal verb like can,must,will...? OR can we somehow use there `was done` instead of `have been done`?

Question

Hardship
(Hardship or difficulties?)
-----------------------------
1) Have you got any relatives in Bukhara OR Do you have any relatives >> Is there any difference and which variant is better? Why?

2) He turned suddenly and splashed my trousers with paint. The man apologized to me, but the damage had already been done.

Is that true that we can use passive infinitive only in present situations? And only after modal verb like can,must,will...? OR can we somehow use there `was done` instead of `have been done`?

Answer

(Difficulties)

1) "Do you have any relatives" is more correct. "Have got" is used often, but more commonly in contractions, and isn't totally correct (but people use it all the time): an answer to this question might be "Yes, I've got relatives in Bukhara."

2)"...but the damage was done" would be fine.  As to your question - passive infinitive is "to be + infinitive," and is only used in present situations.  However, "had been done" is past perfect, and refers to an event happening in a particular time frame.  You can replace it with "was done" because that is also in past tense, but simple past.  When using "had been done," emphasis is placed on the fact that the damage was done before the man apologized (See how both events happened in the past? First the man splashed paint, then he apologized.) whereas using "was done" just points the damage already being done in the past.

I hope that makes sense!

Answers · 2

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