PRESENT PERFECT

Present Perfect

The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and the perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like "I have left".

The forms are present because they use the present tense of the auxiliary verb have, and perfect because they use that auxiliary in combination with the past participle of the main verb. (Other perfect constructions also exist, such as the past perfect: "I had eaten.")

Analogous forms are found in some other languages and may also be described as present perfects although they often have other names such as the German Perfekt, the French passé composé and the Italian passato prossimo. They may also have different ranges of usage: in all three of the languages just mentioned, the forms in question serve as a general past tense, at least for completed actions.

In English, completed actions in many contexts are referred to using the simple past verb form rather than the present perfect.

English also has a present perfect continuous (or present perfect progressive) form, which combines present tense with both perfect aspect and continuous (progressive) aspect: "I have been eating". The action is not necessarily complete; the same is true of certain uses of the basic present perfect when the verb expresses a state or a habitual action: "I have lived here for five years."

Auxiliaries

In modern English, the auxiliary verb for forming the present perfect is always to have. A typical present perfect clause thus consists of the subject, the auxiliary have/has, and the past participle (third form) of main verb. Examples:

·         I have done so much in my life.

·         You have gone to school.

·         He has already arrived in Catalonia.

·         He has had child after child... (The Mask of Anarchy, Percy Shelley)

·         Lovely tales that we have heard or read... (Endymion (poem), John Keats)

Early Modern English used both to have and to be as perfect auxiliaries. The usage differs in that to have expressed emphasis in the process of the action that was completed, whereas to be put the emphasis in the final state, after the action is completed. Examples of the second can be found in older texts:

·         Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you. (The Tragedy of Coriolanus, Shakespeare)

·         Vext the dim sea: I am become a name... (Ulysses, Tennyson)

·         I am become Time, destroyer of worlds. (Bhagavad Gita)

·         Pillars are fallen at thy feet... (Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage, Lydia Maria Child)

·         I am come in sorrow. (Lord Jim, Conrad)

·         I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not (John 5:43, The Bible)

In many other European languages, the equivalent of to have (e.g. German haben, French avoir, Italian avere) is used to form the present perfect (or their equivalent of the present perfect) for most or all verbs. However, the equivalent of to be (e.g. German sein, French être, Italian essere) serves as the auxiliary for other verbs in some languages, such as German, Dutch, Danish (but not Swedish or Norwegian), French, and Italian (but not Spanish or Portuguese). Generally, the verbs that take to be as auxiliary are intransitive verbs denoting motion or change of state (e.g. to arrive, to go, to fall).

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