Bette seems ---- from the shock of her divorce very quickly ----?
a) to have recovered / hasn't she
b) being recovered / does it
c) having recovered / didn't she
d) to be recovered / did it
e) recovered / doesn't she

Dear native friends,
A discussion on this question (http://www.dilforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18097) aroused a couple of extra questions: What is the answer? What can be the alternatives, if there is any?

PS: Please feel free to write either in the discussion thread or in this immediate one.

Bette seems ---- from the shock of her divorce very quickly, ----?

a) to have recovered / hasn’t she
e) recovered / doesn’t she

The two answer choices above are the only ones that could conceivably work here. Of the two, answer A is the only one that actually works.

When adding a tag to a phrase like “She seems to have recovered”, there are two possible choices: “doesn’t she” (tagging on “seems”) and “hasn’t she” (tagging on “to have recovered”, which implies “has recovered”). So that takes care of answer A: it definitely works.

As for answer E, it’s very close. It is possible, of course, to say “She seems recovered”, which is effectively short for “She seems to be recovered”. In both cases, “recovered” is adjectival and not verbal in character, and that is why answer E doesn’t work: the adverbial phrase “very quickly” doesn’t work together with “She seems (to be) recovered”, because that would mean “She seems very quickly”, which can’t be said. So, although the tag “doesn’t she” works fine in answer E, the lone “recovered” doesn’t fit into the sentence, and so answer E doesn’t work.

PS—I’ve posted this in the other thread as well.