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Thepresent perfect is a grammatical combination of thepresent tense andperfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences.[1] The term is used particularly in the context ofEnglish grammar to refer to forms like "I have finished". The forms arepresent because they use the present tense of theauxiliary verbhave, andperfect because they use that auxiliary in combination with thepast participle of the main verb. (Other perfect constructions also exist, such as thepast perfect: "I had eaten.")
Analogous forms are found in some other languages, and they may also be described as present perfect; they often have other names such as the GermanPerfekt, the Frenchpassé composé and the Italianpassato 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 thesimple past verb form rather than the present perfect. English also has apresent perfect continuous (or present perfect progressive) form, which combines present tense with both perfect aspect andcontinuous (progressive)aspect: "I have been eating". The action is not necessarily complete; and 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."
In modern English, theauxiliary verb used to form the present perfect is alwaysto have. A typical present perfect clause thus consists of thesubject, the auxiliaryhave/has, and thepast participle (third form) of main verb. Examples:
Early Modern English used bothto have andto be as perfect auxiliaries. The usage differs in thatto have expressed emphasis in the process of the action that was completed, whereasto be put the emphasis in the final state after the action is completed. Examples of the second can be found in older texts:
In many other European languages, the equivalent ofto have (e.g. Germanhaben, Frenchavoir, Italianavere) is used to form the present perfect (or their equivalent of the present perfect) for most or all verbs. However, the equivalent ofto be (e.g. Germansein, Frenchêtre, Italianessere) 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 taketo be as an auxiliary areintransitive verbs denoting motion or change of state (e.g.to arrive, to go, to fall).
For more details, seePerfect construction with auxiliaries.
The present perfect in English is used chiefly for completed past actions or events when it is understood that it is the present result of the events that is focused upon, rather than the moment of completion. No particular past time frame is specified for the action/event. When a past time frame (a point of time in the past, or period of time which ended in the past) is specified for the event, explicitly or implicitly, thesimple past is used rather than the present perfect.
The tense may be said to be a sort of mixture of present and past. It always implies a strong connection with the present and is used chiefly in conversations, letters, newspapers and TV and radio reports.[2]
It can also be used for ongoing or habitual situations continuing up to the present time (generally not completed, but the present time may be the moment of completion). That usage describes for how long or since when something has been the case, normally based on time expressions withfor orsince (such asfor two years,since 1995). Then, thepresent perfect continuous form is often used, if a continuing action is being described.
For examples, seeUses of English verb forms § Present perfect as well as the sections of that article relating to the simple past, present perfect continuous, and other perfect forms.
Modern German has lost its perfect aspect in the present tense. The present perfect form implies the perfective aspect and colloquially usually replaces the simple past (except in the verbsein 'to be'), but the simple past still is frequently used in non-colloquial and/or narrativeregisters.
The present perfect form is often called in German the "conversational past" while the simple past is often called the "narrative past".
In Standard German, thesein-vs-haben distinction includes the intransitive-+-motion idea forsein ('to be') usage but is independent of the reflexive-voice difference when forming thePerfekt.
French has no present perfect aspect. However, it has a grammatical form that is constructed in the same way as is the present perfect in English, Spanish, and Portuguese by using a conjugated form of (usually)avoir 'to have' plus a past participle. The termpassé composé (literally 'compound past') is the standard name for this form, which hasperfective aspect rather thanperfect aspect. The French simple past form, which also conveys perfective aspect, is analogous to the German simple past in that it has been largely displaced by the compound past and relegated to narrative usage.
In standard French, a verb that is usedreflexively takesêtre ('to be') rather thanavoir ('to have') as auxiliary in compound past tenses (passé composé,plus-que-parfait,passé antérieur,futur antérieur). In addition, a small set of about 20 non-reflexive verbs also useêtre as auxiliary (some students memorize these using the acrostic mnemonicDR & MRS VAN DER TRAMP).
The Spanish present perfect form conveys a true perfect aspect. Standard Spanish is like modern English in thathaber is always the auxiliary regardless of the reflexive voice and regardless of the verb in question:
Yo he comido ('I have eaten')
Ellos han ido ('They have gone')
Él ha jugado ('He has played')
Spanish differs from French, German, and English in that itshave word,haber, serves only as auxiliary in the modern language; it does not denote possession ('I have a car'), which is handled by the verbtener ('Tengo un coche').
In some forms of Spanish, such as theRio Platense Spanish spoken in Argentina and Uruguay, the present perfect is rarely used: the simple past replaces it. InCastilian Spanish, however, the present perfect is normal when talking about events that occur "today".
For example, to refer to "this morning", in Spain one would say,[Yo] mehe levantado tarde y [eso] no meha dado tiempo de desayunar ('Ihave woken up late and ithas given me not time to-eat-breakfast'), instead of[Yo] melevanté tarde y [eso] no medio tiempo de desayunar ('Iwoke up late and itgave me not time to-eat-breakfast'). With no context, listeners from Spain would assume that the latter occurred yesterday or a long time ago. For the same reason, speakers of Castilian Spanish use the present perfect to talk about the immediate past (events having occurred only a few moments ago), such as¿Qué has dicho? No te he oído rather than¿Qué dijiste? No te oí. ('What did you say? I couldn't hear you.')
The Portuguese present perfect form conveys a true perfect aspect. Modern Portuguese differs from Spanish in that the auxiliary used is normallyter (Spanishtener) rather thanhaver (Spanishhaber). Furthermore, the meaning of the present perfect is different from that in Spanish in that it implies aniterative aspect.[3]: pp. 80–81 Eu tenho comido translates to 'I have been eating' rather than 'I have eaten'. (However, other tenses are still as in Spanish:eu tinha comido means 'I had eaten' in modern Portuguese, like Spanishyo había comido.)
The perfect aspect may be indicated lexically by using the simple past form of the verb, preceded byjá ('already'):Eu já comi (lit.: 'I already ate') connotes 'I have already eaten'.
E.g.:Ele já foi, como sabem, duas vezes candidato ao Prémio Sakharov, que é atribuído anualmente por este Parlamento.
'He has, as you know, already been nominated twice for the Sakharov Prize, which this Parliament awards each year.'
The wordperfect in the tense name comes from a Latin root referring to completion, rather than to perfection in the sense of "having no flaws". (In fact this "flawless" sense ofperfect evolved by extension from the former sense, because something being created is finished when it no longer has any flaws.) Perfect tenses are named thus because they refer to actions that are finished with respect to the present (or some other time under consideration); for example, "I have eaten all the bread" refers to an action which is, as of now, completed. However, as seen above, not all uses of present perfect constructions involve an idea of completion.
In the grammar of languages such as Latin and Ancient Greek, the form most closely corresponding to the English present perfect is known simply as theperfect. For more information see the articlePerfect (grammar).