Languages & Linguistics
Present Perfect Tense
The present perfect tense is a grammatical form used to indicate that an action or state was completed at some point in the past, but the exact time is not specified or is considered to have relevance to the present moment. It is formed by using the auxiliary verb "have" or "has" followed by the past participle of the main verb.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
11 Key excerpts on "Present Perfect Tense"
eBook - PDF- Martin J. Endley(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Information Age Publishing(Publisher)
As the following examples indicate, do will generally accept progressive marking quite happily: (75) a. She’s doing her homework. b. She’s doing very well in school. c. She was doing the laundry when the electricity failed. Primary be also permits progressive marking: (76) a. You are being foolish. b. The twins were being charming. Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Present and Past Perfect The perfect aspect in English is formed with the auxiliary have plus the -en participle of a main verb. A prototypical perfect construction will have the following form: (77) Sub. + have + V-en Traditionally, the participle has been called the past participle. As with the (so-called) present participle, this is a rather misleading label. I will fol- low linguistic convention in referring to it instead as the -en participle, even though the actual form the participle takes varies (e.g., talked, written, sung). Again, it is the auxiliary verb that carries the tense. Compare a present per- fect verb with its past perfect counterpart: (78) a. Julie has talked all night. b. Julie had talked all night. As many EFL teachers will no doubt testify, the perfect aspect can be especially troublesome for DUEs. The problem is partly a lack of familiarity, since many languages do not have a comparable form. But the problems 252 Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar run deeper than this. Perfect aspect is conceptually difficult in that it com- bines a reference to more than one time frame. I want to explore this in greater detail. The main function of the present perfect is to refer to a situation that began in the past but which has “current relevance” for the speaker or hearer, either because the situation itself is continuing into the present or because the effects of the situation are still being felt. Consider the two examples in (79): (79) a. The professor has talked for the last hour! b.
eBook - ePub- (Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Collins(Publisher)
perfect aspect .I have been a teacher for four years.He had lived in Lincoln for a year before coming to Omaha.Javier has helped out before.Sarina and Sindar had found their apartment by then.The two aspects of the verb can be joined so that we can talk about the duration and the completion of an action in the same verb phrase. See pp. 39 –69 for more on tense and aspect.I have been studying French for four years.I had been living in Topeka for four years when I met him.Paula has been helping us this week.Present and past simple tenses
Simple tenses show moments in time, states that do not depend on time, and habitual or repetitive actions.It tastes good.Julie keeps a diary.Adrian went home at midnight.She heard a strange noise in the night.Raja usually walks to school.The present simple and the past simple tenses of regular verbs are formed by using the base form of the verb. See pp. 47 –48 and 55–56.Continuous forms
Continuous forms show that something lasted or continued over a period of time.It is raining hard this morning.It was raining when we came out of school yesterday.I’m having dinner. Can I call you back?He was listening to the radio when he heard the news.The present continuous and the past continuous are formed from either the present or the past tense of the verb be + the present participle (or -ing form) of the main verb. See pp. 49 –50 and 57–58.Perfect forms
The present perfect shows that an action is completed but that it still has some importance in the present time.With verbs that indicate states rather than actions, the present perfect shows that a state or condition began in the past and continues in the present.Ken has walked all the way from the train station. (…and he’s tired.)He has never visited me. (…and I’m feeling neglected.)She has missed the train. (That’s why she’s not here.)Ken has felt ill all morning. (…he still feels ill.)He has never believed
eBook - ePub- Geoffrey N. Leech(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
he had written, etc.) signifying ‘past in the past’. My main goal, in this chapter, is to show how the Perfect is distinguished in meaning from the Past, first of all concentrating on the Present Perfect Tense. To begin with, it is worth making the point that Present Perfect and Simple Past are not mutually exclusive choices: there are many situations where either of these tenses would be suitable.At its most general, the Perfect Aspect is used for an earlier happening which is seen in relation to a later event or time as a reference point: in one word, the Perfect represents ‘beforeness’, or ANTERIORITY . Thus the Present Perfect means ‘past-time-related-to-present-time’.Present Perfect Tense 54The Present Perfect, as distinct from the Simple Past Tense, is often described as referring to ‘past with present relevance’, or ‘past involving the present’. There is a great deal of truth in this description, but on its own it is too vague to tell us exactly when and when not to use the Present Perfect. There are actually two distinct ways in which a past event may be related to the present by means of the Perfect: (a) it may involve a time period lasting up to the Present, and (b) it may have results persisting at the present time. Moreover, we can distinguish not just two, but four different uses of the Present Perfect, one of them occurring with ‘state verbs’ and three with ‘event verbs’. We begin with the ‘state’ use, which is conceptually the best starting point, although it will turn out that the fourth use (resultative) is the most common (see §§59 , 60 ).a. The construction have got appears to be the Perfect form of the main verb get. Although it is possible to use it in this way (as in Sam’s got meaner in the last couple of years), it is more likely that have got is interpreted as a ‘state present’ equivalent to have (We’ve got plenty of fruit = We have plenty of fruit
eBook - ePub- (Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Collins(Publisher)
Introduction to tenseWe use verbs to talk about actions and states. Verb tenses allow us to talk about the time when the action or state takes place. All main verbs have two simple tenses, the present simple and the past simple .
In these tenses the verb is used on its own without any auxiliary verbs.present simple past simple I walk I walked she sings she sang they come they came you bring you brought English verbs also have present and continuous forms . In these forms the main verb is accompanied by one or both of the auxiliary verbs be (see pp. 122-126) and have (see pp. 172-178). See pp. 38-68 for more on tense.Aspect
There are two ways of expressing aspect in English – the continuous and the perfect forms.• The term aspect is used to talk about continuing actions compared with completed actions or states. Simple tenses do not have aspect.continuing actions I am walking I was walking she is singing she was singing they are coming they were coming you are bringing you were bringing
We use these forms when we want to talk about:completed actions I have walked I had walked she has sung she had sung they have come they had come you have brought you had brought – the continuous nature of an action (using a form of the auxiliary be + -ing ). This is called the continuous aspect .I am still studying French.He was living in London all that year.James is helping out with the children this week.Sara and Scott were looking for a new flat at the time.– the fact that an action has been completed (using a form of the auxiliary have + a past participle, usually -ed ). This is called the perfect aspect .The two aspects of the verb can be joined so that we can talk about the duration and the completion of an action in the same verb phrase. See pp. 40-68 for more on tense and aspect.I have been a teacher for four years.He had lived in London for a year before coming to Sussex.James has helped out before.Sara and Scott had found their flat by then.
eBook - PDFThe Expressivity of Grammar
Grammatical Devices Expressing Emotion across Time
- Axel Hübler(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
5.6. The use of the present perfect in the history of English It is not until the Old English combination habban + second participle acquired the modern word order (I have my work done - I have done my work) 14 that we can justly speak of a compound verb form in the sense of the modern present perfect. It happens for the first time in Early Middle English that the constructions with habban are purposefully used besides present and past: we habbad oft gesaed and git secgad; a sense develops for a new time-level on equal footing with present and past and, according to Hoffmann [1934, A.H.], one is now allowed to speak of a tense present perfect. (Rainer 1989: 2, translation A.H.) 75 114 The present perfect But it is this origin that supports the cognitive understanding of the present perfect, which, in turn, warrants my view that the use of a present perfect amounts to an appropriation of a past event for current communicative purposes. Langacker (1990 and 1991) - though ultimately assigning a tense/aspect function to the verb form (cf. 1991: 211) - delineates a cline of possessivity attached to the verb have that ranges from describing a relationship of direct physical control (e.g., I have a shovel) via a metaphorical reading in terms of social control (e.g., I have certain privileges) to uses (e.g., We have a lot of coyotes around here) in which the possessor does not appear to manifest any kind of potency vis-ä-vis the entity possessed (1990: 338). Such considerations have led me to hypothesize that the linguistic category of possession has an abstract basis (i.e., a schematic characterization applicable to all class members) with respect to which ownership, part/whole, and kinship relations constitute special, prototypical cases. What all possessives share, I believe, is that one entity (the possessor) is used as a reference point (R) for purposes of establishing mental contact with another, the target (T).
- Johan Elsness(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Throughout the time covered by our corpus there is thus a clear and consistent difference in the frequency of the present perfect, not only between given and new time, but also according as the new time is single or the first in a sequence. The present perfect has always been a verb form used above all to refer to time that is outside any sequence of reference times dominating the linguistic context. 284 The perfect and the preterite in the history of English Table 4.12. Main verb forms according to contextual function of temporal reference: new time. Non-past-referring verb phrases excluded. Vertical percentages, and percent-ages of sums as proportions of all constructions in each period/variety. Ratios between the present perfect and the preterite. Statistical significance of present perfect/preterite distribution compared with preceding period. (a) Reference to first new time in sequence Old English Early MidEng 1350-1400 1550-1600 η % η % η % η % Present perfect 0 0.0 2 6.1 3 5.8 15 31.9 Preterite 32 82.1 24 72.7 39 75.0 30 63.8 All 39 3.9 33 3.6 52 5.7 47 5.5 Perf.:pret. 0.0000 0.0833 0.0769 0.5000 b 1750-1800BrE 1750-1800AmE CONTBrE CONTAmE η % η % η % η % Present perfect 15 18.8 13 22.4 44 25.7 22 13.7 Preterite 57 71.3 39 67.2 100 58.5 128 79.5 All 80 9.1 58 6.8 171 9.1 161 10.1 Perf.:pret. 0.2632 0.3333 0.4400 0.1719 (b) Reference to single new time Old English Early MidEng 1350-1400 1550-1600 η % η % η % η % Present perfect 4 3.6 38 23.5 58 28.9 83 40.5 Preterite 84 76.4 62 38.3 73 36.3 74 36.1 All 110 11.1 162 17.7 201 22.2 205 23.9 Perf.:pret. 0.0476 0.6129 c 0.7945 1.1216 1750-1800BrE 1750-1800AmE CONTBrE CONTAmE η % η % η % η % Present perfect 111 34.6 136 43.6 250 43.5 106 28.9 Preterite 104 32.4 89 28.5 195 33.9 162 44.1 All 321 36.5 312 36.5 575 30.5 367 23.1 Perf.:pret. 1.0673 1.5281 1.2821 0.6543 c Contextual analysis 285 Given time 100%-f Old English 1350-1400 1750-1800BrE CONTBrE Figure 4.3.
eBook - ePubThe Grammaticalization of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality
A Functional Perspective
- Kees Hengeveld, Heiko Narrog, Hella Olbertz, Kees Hengeveld, Heiko Narrog, Hella Olbertz(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Section 2.1.5 ).2.1.1Adjectival constructions
Adjectival constructions with ‘have’ are attested in the earliest stages of Romance and Germanic languages. The past participle is a deverbal adjective which functions as object complement (with ‘have’). ‘Have’ is a full verb, with a possessive meaning:Adjectival constructions are still common in modern languages:As ‘have’ allows using adjectives as object complement, adjectives with the copula are subjects complements.113 Past participles can be used in such structures with a passive meaning:However, there is no direct ungrammaticalized forerunner of the ‘be’ perfects in Latin, since the ‘be’ construction with past participle was already a perfect in the passive or with deponent verbs. In Old High German, in contrast, such active adjectival constructions seem to have existed, with a possible alternation between ‘be’ and ‘become’ (Leiss 1992: 160).2.1.2Resultative114The next stage can already be considered a perfect. The resultative expresses a present state as the result of a previous action (or a past state as the result of a previous action, when the auxiliary is in a past tense). The main feature is that the grammatical subject of ‘have’ or ‘be’ has to be the semantic subject of the verb in the past participle.(i)With ‘have’, this means that the agent has to be mentioned, whereas there is no need for this in adjectival constructions, which only express a property of the object. This means that, in contrast to (10), (13) is a perfect.Whereas in (10) it can be either the driver or somebody else who turned the headlights on, in (13), in the perfect, the grammatical subject necessarily refers to the driver. Thus, the participle is no longer an object complement, and the lexical meaning of ‘have’ has faded. The subject (le conducteur ) and the object (les phares ) are the subject and the object of the verbe allumer
eBook - PDFThe Grammar of the English Tense System
A Comprehensive Analysis
- Susan Reed, Bert Cappelle(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
In other words, the present perfect implies that the speaker’s ‘temporal focus’ is on the pre-present time zone, whereas the past tense puts the tempo-ral focus on the past time-sphere. Whether the speaker is concerned with NOW or THEN can be clear from the way the sentence is used in context or from particular constituents of the sentence. In this chapter we will not deal with the impact of particu-lar types of temporal adverbials but will examine the relevance of ‘actualization focus’ and the impact of definite noun phrases and of question words. 6.1.1 This chapter is about the factors that determine the choice between the past tense and the present perfect when the clause does not contain a temporal adverbial and refers to a ‘bygone situation’, i. e. a situation that is wholly anterior to t 0 . We will first deal with the past tense versus the ‘indefinite perfect’ ( the use of the present perfect in clauses receiving an ‘indefinite’ (see 5.4.1) interpretation), and then in section 6.5 with the past tense versus a ‘number-quantifying constitution perfect’ (see 5.19.1) in when -questions. The other readings of the present perfect are not relevant because none of them can appear in a formal environment (without a time-specifying adverbial) in which the past tense can also be used. In other words, while we can contrast I’ve seen him with I saw him and When have I lied to you? with When did I lie to you? , we cannot contrast with past tense clauses such present perfect clauses as re-ceive a ‘continuative reading’ (see 5.7), an ‘unmarked up-to-now reading’ (see 5.18), a ‘nonquantificational constitution reading’ (see 5.19.1) or a ‘duration-specifying constitution reading’ (see 5.19.1). For ease of reference, in connection with the present perfect the term ‘bygone situation’ will only be used to refer to the indefinite reading, except in 6.5, where we discuss the use of when -questions receiving a number-quantifying constitution reading.
eBook - ePub- Laura A. Michaelis(Author)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
5: INTERPRETATIONS OF THE PRESENT PERFECT
I’ve had a wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it. (Groucho Marx)In Chapter 3 , we examined a truth-functional analysis of the PrP in which the auxiliary is a sentential operator (Have) that scopes a context-free past-tense sentence. The truth of the resulting proposition is evaluated for the present interval. For example, (5.1) is represented as in (5.2):(5.1) Harry has finished.(5.2) Pres (w, i) [Have [lwlj Past (w, j) (Harry finish)]]In (5.2), the context variables of the past-tense operator have been abstracted, so that the (past) tense in the scope of the perfect operator Have is context free: the time i—the reference point with respect to which anteriority is computed—is not anchored to the time of the utterance event. By contrast, the tense operator immediately scoping Have is context sensitive: it is anchored to the time of the utterance event. I argued in Chapter 1 that the perfect performs a stativizing function: a perfect-form sentence allows the speaker to encode the occurrence of an event at a time t–1 by asserting that a contingent state obtains at time t. Accordingly, (5.1) represents a present-tense stative predication: the state is that of Harry’s having finished (Herweg 1991a, 1991b).As we saw earlier, the representation given in (5.2) is interpreted in accordance with truth conditions requiring that the argument proposition be true somewhere within a present-contiguous interval or “extended now”:(5.3) Have (A) is true in M relative to (w, i) iff there is a subinterval j of i such that A is true in M relative to (w, j). (Richards 1982)By contrast, in the definition of the tense operator Past, the intervals i and j are interpreted as instants: the time of evaluation i does not include the time j, at which the argument proposition holds. Richards’ definition of Past
eBook - ePubTense in English
Its Structure and Use in Discourse
- Renaat Declerck(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
at school is derived from something like ‘during the time while I was at school’.)36 . See Rigter (1980d: 146), who argues that the basic meaning of the present perfect is that it locates the situation before the ‘focal episode’ (i.e. the time focussed on), which in this case is t0 . Similarly, Papp (1985:103) writes that the present perfect ‘describes the present in an indirect way, i.e. the time of the action/state that we name precedes present, the time that we describe. (Present fact, pre-present state/action.)’37 . For example, the question Is John in the house? may be answered by either No, he left or (more commonly) by No, he has left. In the former case the speaker focusses on the situation itself, which belongs to the past; in the latter case he focusses on the present state of affairs that has been produced by the past situation. Similarly, the difference between I lost my umbrella and I have lost my umbrella is that in the former case the speaker is concerned with aspects of the situation itself (especially with the place and time at which it might have occurred), whereas in the latter case it is the resulting state of affairs that is uppermost in his mind (see below).38 . This timespan continuing up to t0 is sometimes referred to as an ‘extended now’ (see e.g. Bennett and Partee 1978; McCoard 1978; Saurer 1981:126; Dowty 1982:27).39 . As we saw in section 1, this is because the speaker is primarily thinking of NOW when he is referring to the past situation. If this is not the case (for whatever reason), the situation is located in the past time-sphere (i.e. it is located THEN rather than ‘before NOW’).40 . The Maxim involved is probably that of Relation (Relevance). As noted before, it is a fact that (other things being equal) statements about the present are appreciated as more relevant than statements about the past. For this reason the implicit pre-present TE will be interpreted as lying as close to t0
eBook - PDF- Alfred Schopf(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
Ill Present Perfect TenseSs TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED FUNCTIONAL ACCOUNT Richard Matthews O. Introduction There is nothing so elusive as graimiatical meaning, and the meaning of the Present Perfect Tenses is no exception. However, scroe attempt to arrive at it needs to be made if we are to be able to examine the effects of collocation with temporal adverbials or to explain the non-occurrence of certain classes of predicates in English Present Perfect (PresPerf) and Present Perfect Progressive (PresPerfProg). This paper^ has developed out of difficulties I encountered in establishing readings of non-finite perfect forms, viz. Perfect Infinitive and Perfect Progressive Infinitive as complements of Modal Auxiliaries. If one wishes to ascertain whether modal and non—mocial forms differ semantical ly in ways that are not accountable for entirely in terms of the modal vs. non-modal distinction, then one has to have a clear idea of what the semantic function of perfect forms 2 is. This is not exactly straightforward when the standard accounts in 1 The original version of this was presented in a project meeting on 18 July, 1985. In revising it for print, which has involved a great deal of re-working, I have referred to a wider range of accounts of the Perfect and also taken account of the new presentation of tense and aspect in Quirk et al. 1985, which I had not had an opportunity of consulting earlier. 2 The well-attested neutralization of the co-occurrence restriction with Per-fect and Past tense forms in modalized predications: John has helped Mary already/before now *yesterday/*in those days John helped Mary (AmE) *already/*before now yesterday/in those days John may have helped Mary already/before now yesterday/in those days suggests that both 'indefinite past'readings (associated with finite Perfects) and 'definite past' readings (associated with Past tenses) can be ascribed to non-finite Perfects.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
