"A man with seven wives" need not be a polygimist.

Consider a true case where you could meet "a man with seven wives".

My wife is a member of a group of ladies that decided to take a trip to France. Each of the seven ladies was married (to different husbands).
Most of those husbands were busy working, or otherwise not interested in the trip. However, the husband of one of the ladies, and their unmarried daughter, did accompany them. He acted as their driver, assist them with luggage, make arrangements, etc. while they visited various attractions. In the evening, he joined them at dinner with all nine sharing a table.

Now, if you were to have come in during such a dinner, you could have met a man with seven wives and a daughter.

[quote=Wacky]Considering the suggestion that the wives are not present --
I do not see that suggestion to be in conflict with "a man with seven wives" because that statement can be referring to a property of the man which is independent of the location of said wives.[/quote]
The man might have seven wives, they are just not actually with him when we meet him. Okay, that seems reasonable.

[quote=Wacky]However, I think that it conflicts with "Each wife had seven sacks" because that statement reports an observation that could not have been made were they not present.[/quote]
So the fact that they have seven sacks can [b]only[/b] be gleaned by direct observation rather than by (as Paul said) hearsay?

Can the man not tell us that the seven wives he has (who are not present) each have seven sacks? After all, we were prepared to believe him when he said he had seven wives who just did not happen to be with him at this moment. Can we not believe him when he tells us that they each have seven sacks? Surely we can.

Now let's move on to this lucky fellow dining with seven women (and an unmarried daughter).

If the man we meet while going to St. Ives is with seven women who are married, whether or not they are married to him, then he has seven wives (with him). But, if the women are not there, and we are still to presume that he has seven wives, then surely he must be married to them. Otherwise there is no sense in which he has seven wives. So, either he is a polygamist who is married to seven women, or the seven wives are with him. Or both. He could be a polygamist who has his wives with him.

Whether or not this allows you to suppose that because polygamy is illegal in Britain (which is where St. Ives is) he therefore cannot be a polygamist and therefore the seven wives must be with him, is a different matter altogether. But it does narrow it down to one of only two options. Hope this helps.

Numbers,

Ah, the nuances of the English language!

I think that we might agree that "with" can mean "in the company of" or "in the possession of (a relationship to)" whereas "had" can mean only the latter.
(Unless you choose the euphemistic meaning of "had" (or is that the "biblical" meaning of "with") :}

Not quite.

When my girlfriend was a young girl she owned a dog. She no longer owns a dog. So I can say that she had a dog. Even though she no longer has a dog.

When I met my girlfriend from work this evening she was carrying a red handbag. That handbag is now in the wardrobe upstairs while my girlfriend is sitting downstairs laughing at me typing this silly message. So I can say (of our meeting earlier this evening) that she had (with her) a red handbag. Even though she still owns it, but it is not actually in her hand at this moment.

If we put these two together we get that "had" means "was at one time (not necessarily the present) in possession of, but may or may not at this moment be in physical possession of, but either may or may not still own.

So we get that "a man with seven wives" can mean he is in the company of seven married women (to whom he may or may not be married), or it can mean he is married to seven different women (who may or may not be in his company).

And we also get that these seven women either are or at one time were in possession of seven sacks, which they may or may not have either owned or been in physical possession of when the meeting on the road to St. Ives took place, and which they may or may not still actually own irrespective of whether they actually have them in their possession right now.

Does that make it any clearer? :-) LoL

I agree that "had", being the past tense of 'to have', means (in this context) that, at some point in the past, that the wives were in possession of the respective sacks. However, if this time was not that of the meeting, but rather some time prior thereto, then I think that we would not say "they had the sacks", but rather "they had had the sacks".

Further, failing to use that language "had had", I think that each "wife had seven sacks" implies that the possession (or possibly simply ownership) was true at the time of reference namely the time of the meeting.

NB: I'm still undecided as to whether I am willing to accept ownership without possession for this case.

Your GF "had a dog" implies that as of the present, she previously possessed the dog.
Your GF "had a red handbag" (earlier this evening) implies the current possession as of a previous (to the present) time.

There are three times involved. The present, the time of the encounter, and the time of possession.
If the three are the same, then we use "has".
If either is in the past, but there are only two distinct times, then "had" is appropriate.
However, if the three times are distinct, then "had had" would be used.

okay, as long as we can agree that "could" and "should" are not the same thing. You "could" say it like that but it is in my view extremely bad English.

I would rather re-cast a whole paragraph than end up with a double-verb construction like that, but I know folks who talk like that and think nothing of it. And please don't ever get me started on double negatives.

[QUOTE=Numbers]please don't ever get me started on double negatives.[/QUOTE]

No, I would not never do that :)

But should we also take into account that that the author was restricted by the "rules" of poetry and had to restrict the constructs to those that met the meter and rhyme?

Which means that a single "had", by the "rules of poetry", could, but does not necessarily stand for the double-had I so abhor. And therefore it means, or can mean, any of the meanings I earlier suggested it might have.

You've tied yourself in knots by first suggesting that "we would rather say had had" and now suggesting that a poet would reconstruct had had by writing a single had.

I think we are in basic agreement that whatever the guy meant when he wrote it, no single answer to the question is going to be acceptable to more than three people at once. It's English, Jim, but not as we know it.

What about people like the fictional charactor Al on the show Quantum Leap? Didn't he have 5 wives? Heh.

[QUOTE=Numbers]Which means that a single "had", by the "rules of poetry", could, but does not necessarily stand for the double-had I so abhor.[/QUOTE]
Numbers would eradicate the pluperfect from the English language! :shock:

Those who do not know what "pluperfect" means should look it up. Check on the meaning of the phrase "modal verb" while you are there.

Here endeth today's polemic on the subject of the grammar of English verbs.


Paul

[QUOTE=Numbers]okay, as long as we can agree that "could" and "should" are not the same thing. You "could" say it like that but it is in my view extremely bad English.

I would rather re-cast a whole paragraph than end up with a double-verb construction like that, but I know folks who talk like that and think nothing of it. And please don't ever get me started on double negatives.[/QUOTE]

Given that English is a language with only 2 tenses, doubling of verbs is utterly vital to the language. Avoidance of the verb 'have' to denote posession is a far better aim.