"Are nouns ever a closed class?", is this construction correct?

Question

When I came across this question, the construction used for the question itself surprised me:

Are nouns ever a closed class?

Why the verb is in present tense? Does it make sense? Shouldn't be used the present perfect or past simple?

Were nouns ever a closed class?

Have nouns ever been a closed class?

Don't these last questions are more gramatically correct?

Moreover, What's the meaning of 'Ever'? Can be replaced with 'always'? I don't think that makes any sense. Could be replaced with 'at any time'? But then why the time used is the present simple?

Answer 1

"Ever", here, means "in any single example" (alguna vez in your native Spanish). That's the key. "Are nouns a closed class in at least one language?" is another way to exactly express the same question.

In the following two examples, "ever" means "at any single point in time": "Were nouns ever..." suggests that nouns are not now, but might have been in the past a closed class. "Have nouns ever been..." can mean the same as the last example. The next idea is more complicated. It can also mean something slightly broader, like "I don't know of any examples, but in the past or present are there any examples where nouns are a closed class in any language?" Alguna vez works for all these examples.

Note: a participle is an adjective that comes from a verb. It is coincidentally the same as the verb form used in forming the English perfect aspect (just like Spanish). "The door will look closed tomorrow" and "the closed door will fall tomorrow" clearly show it is an adjective (compare "the door will look red tomorrow", "the red door will fall tomorrow").

Answer 2

Why the verb is in present tense? Does it make sense?

Let us see:

Are nouns ever a closed class?

Counter question:

Are you an educated person?

Past participles are named that way because they are used to construct various past tenses: perfect, past perfect, past perfect progressive, etc.. Also, they describe a state, whereas he present participle ("...-ing") describes something going on right now:

the driving person (is doing that right now)
the driven distance (is a lasting property of that distance)

Still, that doesn't mean that everything expressed by a past participle has to have happened in the past. Past participles are used like adjectives, signifying properties of nouns. This is a well-known fact.

Of course, the sentence means something different in past tense and in present tense:

Are nouns ever a closed class?

This means about: are there any conceivable circumstances under which nouns are a closed class?

Were nouns ever a closed class?
Have nouns ever been a closed class?

These are similar and would imply that the membership in the collection of all things able of being a "closed class" could change over time. Even if nouns nowadays are not in this group they might have been so in the past.

Notice my own example would change its meaning when put in perfect tense:

This is a well-known fact.
Most people know that.

This has been a well-known fact.
People used to know that but today it is forgotten.

Answer 3

First, unlike the other answers, I don't believe that closed is functioning as a verb in this sentence, but an adjective.

Secondly, using the present has a slightly different meaning from the past or perfect.

Are nouns ever a closed class?

is asking "Does it ever occur, anywhere, that nouns are a closed class?" In principle this could be within a restricted domain such as a single language, but the cooccurrence of "ever" with a present makes that unlikely: I would interpret as asking about languages in general, and over all time.

Have nouns ever been/were nouns ever a closed class?

This could be universal like the other one, but it could also be about a particular language or languages: "Has there been a time when nouns were a closed class?"

Answer 4

"Closed" is a participle modifying "class"; the main verb of the sentence is "are." Since the participle "closed" is itself past tense, there is no need to make the main verb "are" past tense also.

This may be more obvious if you reword the sentence to use a relative clause:

Are nouns (currently) ever a class that has been closed (in the past)?

(In this particular sentence, there is the further complication that "closed" is really being used, not as a participle, but as a technical term; regardless, "are" is correct either way.)