[請益] 論壇中，外國網友說的I don't believe...

[scju (QQ)]

各位好，請教一下

在論壇上看到有人貼出一則新聞，想探討裡面的say為何用現在式：

The tourists at the centre of a storm after leaving rubbish on Takapuna Beach
and abusing a local woman have spoken exclusively to the Herald.

Among their counter-claims, they say one of their children was assaulted at
the beach and denied fleeing restaurants without paying for their meals.
---------
網友Tdol回應：

You can use the present when narrating past events as a way of making the
story seem more lively, often switching from the present to the past, as the
person does here with "denied".

------------
網友jutfrank回應：

I'm not convinced that the change of tense within the sentence was completely
deliberate. I don't believe that the writer was trying to make the narrative
more lively. It may have been the result of a lack of attention.

I feel that the sentence would be improved by keeping the present tense for
the second verb phrase ("deny" instead of "denied").
---------

看到jutfrank說的內容，我想：把原本應該是「過去式」改為「現在式」，
才會讓敘述更生動，所以jutfrank說：

I don't believe that the writer was trying to make the narrative
more lively. It may have been the result of a lack of attention.

那這兩句話應該是指，jutfrank認為作者並沒有刻意要這樣做，可能只是疏忽。
換句話說，我認為jutfrank言下之意是，把「過去式」改成「現在式」的舉動
只是作者的無心。

所以我說：
So do you think the writer should have meant to write "said" instead of "say"?

但jutfrank回應：

No, I didn't mean that.

It's very common in this kind of journalism to use the present tense form of
the reporting verb "say". I was just entertaining the possibility that the
change from present to past in that sentence was not a completely conscious
decision.

這我就不理解了，為何jutfrank卻是指把「現在式」改成「過去式」是無心？

他又補充：I meant that the change to the past tense could have been the result of a
lack of attention.

實在不太懂這邏輯，我就說：

Shouldn't the present tense make the narrative more lively? You didn't
believe that the writer was trying to make the narrative more lively. If the
writer was not trying to make the narrative more lively, he or she should
have used the past tense in all sentences, shouldn't he or she? If so, it was
the present tense that could have been the result of a lack of attention.

而他回：Never mind.

https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/268001-Tenses-usage-in-news-reports

所以想請教，不曉得我哪邊搞錯了jutfrank的邏輯？

謝謝！

整理一下我的立論：

1.把原本應該是「過去式」改為「現在式」，會讓敘述更生動。
2.jutfrank說，不相信作者是刻意要讓敘述更生動，可能只是出自無心。
3.根據上述，不就是jutfrank認為那個現在式的say可能只是作者無意寫出來的嗎？

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※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Eng-Class/M.1547608226.A.25B.html
※ 編輯: scju (111.248.150.145), 01/16/2019 11:11:47
→ kaifrankwind: 因為jutfrank覺得say現在式就ok了啊…
→ kaifrankwind: 所以他才覺得稍後的deny可以維持現在式就好
→ kaifrankwind: 現在式的say是先出現的，所以是現在式要不要改，而
→ kaifrankwind: 不是過去式要不要改
感謝K大，我回在後面的文章。
※ 編輯: scju (111.248.150.145), 01/16/2019 12:30:34