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Okay, so I know that traditionally it would be proper to say:

  • Ever since Nina moved to Nebraska, she has had a lot of problems with allergies.

But is it ungrammatical to say the following:

  • Ever since Nina moved to Nebraska, she is having a lot of problems with allergies.
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  • The present perfect brings up the past action with results in the present; since talks about from a point in the past up to the present.
    – Schwale
    Mar 5, 2016 at 12:17

3 Answers 3

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Ever since Nina moved to Nebraska, she has had a lot of problems with allergies.

Ever since Nina moved to Nebraska, she has been having a lot of problems with allergies.

Ever since Nina moved to Nebraska, she is having a lot of problems with allergies.

Starting with the point in time when Nina became a Nebraskan...

... she has had problems with allergies

... she has been having problems with allergies

... she is having problems with allergies

The last one should be replaced with the second one, has been having.

In typical conversation, it would be:

... she's been having

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Yes, the second example is ungrammatical, because you cannot combine "ever since" (which describes something that happened in the past) with "is having" (which describes something happening in the present).

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In the sentence

Ever since Nina moved to Nebraska, she is having a lot of problems with allergies.

moved is in the past tense and the verb phrase is having is in the present (progressive) tense.

In a sentence, the tense of each verb or verb phrase must match. For example,

Ever since Nina moved to Nebraska, she has had a lot of problems with allergies.

In this sentence, both moved and has had are in the past tense. Now the verb tenses match and the sentence makes sense.

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