I am doing some passive exercises and I can not understand why
It is said that she was the greatest singer of all time.
was made to
She is said to have been the greatest singer of all time.
I am aware that it may be something about "It + passive + that - clause" and/or "subject + passive + to - infinitive" format. But I can not wrap my mind around why "was" was changed to "have been".
It is said that she was the greatest singer of all time.
[Past tense: was - she is no longer a singer or she has passed away].
It is said that she is the greatest singer of all time. [Present tense: she is still a singer].
Those sentences can also be said like this.
She is said to have been the greatest singer of all time. [past: she no longer is a singer or has passed away]
She is said to be the greatest singer of all time. [present, still singing]
to be = present infinitive to have been= past infinitive
That is because the "to" needs to be followed by a verb that is not inflected for tense, which means the verb "was" cannot be used. So the only way to express past tense in that sentence is to employ the present perfect.
To have been is the past infinitive of be.
(It is usually called a "perfect infinitive", but I believe that is a misnomer: there is nothing of the special meaning of the present perfect - present relevance - in it, it is simply past relative to the matrix clause that contains the infinitive.)
