Author: Liang2a
Date: 03-22-12 20:52
Author: Liang2a
Date: 03-21-12 19:59
Author: coyote wrote:
Date: 03-21-12 04:57
Your level of English (very good) should not prevent you from understanding that simple sentence. Read again:
"so the interbreeding must have first occurred before the humans migrating out of Africa colonized other, more distant regions in Europe, Asia and elsewhere."
It isn't saying "interbreeding take place in Africa". It says it occurred - before - humans... colonized other distant regions...."
ie. interbreeding occurred sometime after leaving Africa and before reaching distant lands such as those in Asia.
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Liang's response:
Thanks for the compliment but I can't honestly return the encomium. Your explanation is not satisfactory. For example:
The breaking of the vase must have first occurred before Johnny leaving the house played tennis.
Anybody who knows English well will interpret this to mean that Johnny had broken the vase while he was still in the house and not leave the house first and then broke the vase in front of the house and then proceeded to play tennis.
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Author: coyote
Date: 03-22-12 02:01
Don't mean to quibble...
"The breaking of the vase must have first occurred before Johnny leaving the house played tennis."
That's not even close, my dear Mr Liang. To parallel what the article writer said, it should be rewritten as follows:
"The breaking of the vase had to have occurred before Johnny played a game on the tennis court."
So the vase-breaking (or interbreeding) occurred sometime (somewhere) between house (Africa) and tennis court (Asia).
Ok. All in good fun.
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OK, this is the last response I will make to this.
The original quote:
"so the interbreeding must have first occurred before the humans migrating out of Africa colonized other, more distant regions in Europe, Asia and elsewhere."
My example:
The breaking of the vase must have first occurred before Johnny leaving the house played tennis (at a court across town).
Anybody can see the similarity between my example and your original statement. Obviously, Johhny broke the vase before leaving the house. Therefore, by the same token and grammatical conventions and rules, the interbreeding had already taken place while humans were in the process of migrating out of Africa and not after having left Africa. Leaving is present progress and does not indicate an action that had been completed.
Yours response is even worse:
"The breaking of the vase had to have occurred before Johnny played a game on the tennis court."
You have not related the whereabouts of Johnny while the vase was being broken. You have evaded the question of where was Johhny in relation to the house and the time when the vase was broken. All you said was Johnny played a game after the vase was broken. For all anybody knows Johnny first broke the vase and then went out to play a tennis game. You certainly have not precluded the possibility that Johnny broke the vase before he left the house to play tennis. And the whole point of this "quibble" is your original statement was more likely to mean that interbreeding took place before humans left Africa. And you last statement only strengthen that interpretation. The vase was broken before Johnny played tennis equals interbreeding was done before humans migrated to other places.
I will not respond to further posts in this thread.
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