- 22 Feb 2008
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Sorry to point out this, but your statement like "I had supposed the main verbs of the two examples you gave, i.e. 作っていたところです and 作っているところでした both mean "was just cooking"" shows that you actually don't (or maybe it could be already "didn't" now) understand the tense issue in the topic.However I don't have other questions on tense at the moment.
Actually, there is no "main verb of the sentence" in those two examples. 作っていた and 作っている are both "the main verb of the modifying clause", and it doesn't express the tense, as you might already realize. The main predicate of the sentence is the copula です and でした, respectively, and the tense of the sentence is decided by these words. (And I believe this is an answer to your question in your another thread.)
Actually, it's not so complicated. This is just a variation of "the relative tense in a modifying clause" just like 冷えたスイカ, after all. Again, it seems to me that your confusion is mostly from your understanding of this tense issue.I apologize that ~ようとしたところ has taken so much time. I'm aware that wasn't what I set out to ask in this thread. I didn't expect it to be a subject so complicated.