Student Stumper 55: “Had to be” vs. “Had to have been”

QUESTION: Is “had to have been” even correct? Why can’t you just say “had to be”?

ANSWER: Actually, the original question was phrased a bit differently because someone questioned part of my video lesson on expressing certainty in the past. (See 2021 video.) The learner had never seen the structure “had to have + (past participle)” in any grammar book.
had to have been
had to have known
had to have gone
etc.

Shouldn’t those ideas be expressed with “must”?
must have been
must have known
must have gone

Those who question “had to have been” seek confirmation in trusted sources:
If it’s not in a grammar book, then it has to be wrong. (must be wrong)
If it’s not in a grammar book, then she had to have made a mistake. (must have made)

Well, if I’m wrong then so are thousands if not millions of others. But before I’m judged too harshly, let’s consider how grammar is taught and then we’ll agree on how it’s used.

First off, let’s acknowledge that grammar books must scaffold presentations. This is particularly true in a series. When teaching modals, we start with simple, clear examples. More complex structures are outside the scope of the early lessons. Books follow the same practice:
You must go to the meeting. (necessity)
That must be true. (certainty)

Semi-modals are taught soon enough because of their common use. “Have to,” in particular, is widely used in American English:
Everyone has to be at the meeting. (necessity)
There has to be a gas station around here. (certainty)
However, some semi-modals aren’t presented until the higher levels, like be supposed to and be to.

High intermediate students learn [(modal verb) + have + (past participle)] for statements about the past:
You should have been there. (past necessity)
You could have called. (past possibility)

At this point and beyond, it will be either the teacher or general exposure to English that introduces learners to “had to have (been).” YouGlish is a wonderful tool to examine how frequently speakers use this grammar and which contexts they use it in. There are currently over 2,700 search results. You can skip through the first two or three as false findings because the search results include “would have to have been.” After that, you can still click through numerous examples of “had to have been” in TED Talks, Talks at Google, interviews, documentaries, and other videos. They all express speculation about the past. People are making strong assumptions based on the known evidence.

In one video, a woman from Tarleton State University recalls a visit to a place that stored Steinway concert pianos. (Click to view. From Tarleton All-Steinway Initiative, 2016)
“I will never forget. The woman met us at the front door and we went all the way to the basement and it opened up onto a room, but the entire room was filled with Steinway Concert Grands. There had to have been at least fifty or more.”

Did she have an exact count? No. Did she have reasonable evidence to draw this conclusion? Yes. Could she also have said, “There must have been fifty or more”? Yes, but she didn’t.

Does that high number of search results suggest that “had to have been” is used only in spoken American English? The abundant results from TV and movies on Get Yarn could also lead one to draw such a conclusion. Nevertheless, while most grammar books don’t present this structure, Biber et al at least confirm that the semi-modal have to is “relatively common” in both spoken and written English (488).

A filtered online search reveals many uses of “had to have been” in the news (not to mention other searches that could be done with other past participles). Owing to the nature of assumptions and the events that draw the attention of the media, these examples often concern various crimes and tragedies, but for our purposes, we can isolate the language and discern the speculative nature of each statement. The examples are not quoted speech, but rather written sentences:

The New York Times (July 22, 2022)
“He was certain that it had to have been a deliberate part of some larger plot.”

The Weather Channel (October 1, 2022)
“You can see where the storm surge came in on the walls because there’s a line. It had to have been at least 6 to 8 feet.”

CBS Sports (October 7, 2022)
“Hodgins had to have been one of the Bills’ final cuts after the preseason he pieced together.”

For the record, there are at least two grammar books that do present “had to have been” for speculation about the past. Pamela Vittorio, the lead author, and I chose to include this structure in Next Generation 3 (2013) when we covered modal and semi-modals in Chapter 12 (124). We’re in good company because Jay Maurer also recognized “had to have been” in Unit 6 of Focus on Grammar 5, Third Edition (90).

Learners should be able to understand the grammar in context, and as shown above, there are plenty of examples you can pull from the news, TED Talks, or movie clips. Advanced students should be able to distinguish past necessity (had to go) from speculation about the past (had to have gone). To that end, I offer two short practice tasks.

Had to Be Vs. Had to Have BeenDownload

Sources:
Biber D. et al. (2007). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
Mauer, Jay. Focus on Grammar: An integrated skills approach. Pearson Longman, 2006.
Vittorio, P. and Lebedev, J. Next Generation Grammar 3. Pearson Longman, 2013.

Related Post:
Teaching Modals: What Can and Can’t Be Done (2018)

Featured image by Markus Kammermann from Pixabay