NEW SANCTIONS The United Nations Security council voted to impose the most punishing sanctions yet on North Korea.
Question: what does “yet” function in the sentence? Grammatically and semantically?
1 Answer
It's an adverb and, in this sense, it means "thus far".
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But as i know, that yet is used with present perfect. How it is possible to indicate the meaning of “thus far” of past tense “voted” ?– user59167Jan 5, 2018 at 23:46
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Well, it could have been written in the present perfect above, but the implicit clause above is "...to impose [what are] the most punishing sanctions yet on North Korea," i.e., "they are the most punishing sanctions thus far on North Korea."– NickJan 6, 2018 at 0:02
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"The most severe punishment is yet to come." Here it means "at this time".– NickJan 6, 2018 at 0:05
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Perhaps some further examples will help. You might think of yet with the meaning as of now. Usain Bolt ran the fastest time ever recorded at the time he ran it (as of then). As of now (or "thus far," or "so far"), it is still the fastest time that has ever been recorded, so nobody has broken the record yet. Maybe that helps a bit?– BobRodesJan 6, 2018 at 1:38