I need your help in understanding the rules of sequence of tenses in impersonal reporting structures. I’ll provide you with examples:

 

 

So, according to the answer keys in the Workbook Gateway B2+ by Macmillan Education, you can paraphrase it in 2 ways:

 

 

My question is: Why not “The building has been claimed to have fallen down”? Why is Present Perfect in the main clause changes into Present Simple?

 

Another example that I�m not sure about:

 

 

 

 

 

Hi, Katia,

First, I hope your students are high intermediate at least, to be learning this construction, because it isn�t very basic,

 

I would say that your answers are better, as far as transforming the original to passive. The reason for the book�s answers is that we have a standard form for passive constructions involving believed, thought, said, claimed, reported, etc. In addition, the two forms have a difference in meaning, which is what makes your answers better.

 

"The flat is reported to have damp floors" is a statement about a known or suspected situation in the flat. It isn�t talking about an incident of reporting the floors, but about a reputation.

 

"The flat was reported to have damp floors" is saying that there was an incident in which the damp floors were reported. Whether a reputation developed from that is uncertain, and not implied. 

 

The same applies to the other sentence. "The building is claimed to have fallen down" tells us that that is the rumor in the neighborhood. "The building has been claimed to have fallen down" is again talking about an incident of making that claim.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Bruce