Has anyone else ever noticed how British people sometimes
throw in an extra grammatical tense when saying things like,
“It was going to have been such a lovely trip, but the boat
sank”. Or, “I would have liked to have gone, but something
came up at the last minute”.
Whereas I think Americans would probably say “I would have liked to go, but…”, or “It was going to be such a great trip…”.
In the British example, it almost sounds as if the speaker
is expressing his regret at not being able to fondly remember the activity in the future, rather than the activity itself.
Any comments? Any linguists who can explain how this
construction originated?
It’s called the “perfect” tense and most European languages have it. It is “perfect” the the sense that the action has been brought to completion in the statement. We have past perfect, present perfect, and future perfect. In each case, the action is described as complete, regardless whether the action occurred in the past, is currently occurring, or will have occurred in the future.
Since it is common to a good many languages, I would guess that its roots go pretty far back. On the other hand, in English I suspect that it is a function of education rather than location. (I doubt that you would hear the future perfect in much of the speech among the East-Enders of London.) Although it is probably slightly more prevalent among Brits than Yanks.
I think we are talking about the past perfect (pluperfect) tense here. The perfect tense is common to American English, and should present no problems. The past perfect is rarer.
Javaman, the purpose of the past perfect is to express completed action in *past time. Using the past perfect is more precise than the perfect alone. To use your example, it can mean that the speaker felt regret for not going in the past, but feels it no longer. Use of the perfect tense alone would indicate that the speaker still feels regret. The past perfect and future perfect tenses do appear to be more common among people who speak precisely. As tomndeb already mentioned, level of education probably impacts precision of usage the most.
Perfect tenses such as this are very old, existing in Old English (often called Anglo-Saxon), Old French, and Latin. Oddly enough, Ancient Greek, perhaps the most temporally precise of all languages, does not have a future perfect, and speakers are compelled to construct an awkward and uncommon periphrasis to express future completed action.
“I would have like to have gone” is more American than British. The British generally get it right. That example is wrong.
The correct form is “I would have liked to go” or “I would like to have gone.” (It doesn’t need to be put into the past, so to speak, twice.)
A notable example of a Brit getting it wrong is Elton John singing, “I would have like to’ve known you” in “Candle in the Wind,” made even more notable by the fact that it would scan so much better were it correct: “I would have liked to know you…”
It may be a little rare, and somewhat confined to more educated people.
But Americans only use it when we really are talking about things that will have happened at the point of time referred to. For instance–“By the time we arrive at X tomorrow, the meeting will have already started”. I understand the meaning of future perfect just fine. But what I was referring to in the OP was statements of regret, where the
speaker didn’t get to complete the main action of the sentence. It seems to me that the future perfect is superfluous in that case. Why say “I would have liked to have gone” when “I would have liked to go” seems to express the same thing?
You state my case exactly. But Americans do not use the
doubled future perfect more than the British. In fact, the
best example I can think of right now is from Brideshead Revisited, where Celia Ryder is complaining about the storm
that has suddenly struck during their ocean voyage, and she
says regretfully, “It was going to have been such a lovely trip”.
Could it be that the “would like to have been” or “would like to have gone” type constructions are incorrect genteelisms–i.e. someone trying, but failing, to sound precise and correct?
maralinn is incorrect. There is a distinction, subtle as it may be, between using the present infinitive (to go) and the perfect infinitive (to have gone). Modal verbs (want, wish, be able, etc) and verbs of saying and thinking are treated slightly differently than other verbs.
It’s not like putting it in the past tense twice. When you add a modal verb to a regular declaratory sentence, you need to turn the main verb into an infinitive. Infinitives preserve verbal aspect, namely progressive/repeating or completed. To have gone indicates completed aspect, but to go is progressive/repeating. When you say “I wanted to have gone,” you are referring to a completed action in a delimited time. “I wanted to go” is temporally less precise, referring to no completed action nor any specific time.
While maralinn is right that the Elton John song would have scanned better if it had been “I would have liked to know you,” but it does not adequately convey EJ’s regret. He would have liked to have known him/her, but cannot get to know him/her now because the time has passed.
So it’s a matter of aspect, not tense. Infinitives convey no tense, only aspect.