Grammar Guy: Taking on Present Perfect Tense
By Andy Eichel

From the Desk of the Grammar Guy:

For this letter I am going to swerve away from punctuation-related issues and deal with a topic that, quite frankly, frustrates me. Wait, I should clarify: the way that this subject is misused frustrates me to no end. I am talking about Present Perfect.

I can already sense your consternation as you try to figure this out. You are probably able to deal with “present,” but then the “perfect” ruins it for most people. To put it simply, “perfect” is usually defined as meaning complete. This, however, doesn’t really help us out because Present Perfect is a verb tense used in a number of unique situations, and most of them deal with incomplete actions. Therefore, we will ignore that for now and move on.

To form the Present Perfect we take have/has + the past participle form of the verb (verb 3). From that we get have seen, have jumped, or have drunk. Still with me? Good. There is where it gets a bit trickier. There are 5 main reasons/situations for which we use Present perfect. These are, of course, flexible categories, which is also part of the confusion surrounding this tense.

First, we have the sense of completion. For example, I have finished my homework. The time is not specified and it is not important – it is in the past, most likely the recent past. It is, therefore, still slightly connected with the present and not completely in the past. Second, we use it for time not mentioned. This can be viewed in Have you seen that new movie? Since the time is not specified we must insert the adverb ever, which means any time BEFORE now, i.e., the past. However, in Modern English this is most often turned into Did you see that new movie? This would be proper if we through in a definite adverb for past time, such as yesterday. Third, we use Present Perfect to describe finished events connected with the present. A good example would be I can’t go because I have broken my leg. The actual act of breaking happened in the past, but it affects what the speaker is doing now. Again, this is often replaced with Simple Past.

The fourth use of Present Perfect is for continuation and repetition to now. I have written six letters since noon shows us a good use of this tense. We have a specific number (6) and time (noon), but the adverb since shows us that it is still ongoing: the action started in the past and continues. We would not normally use Present Continuous because the number limits our idea: I have been writing six letters since noon just doesn’t sound right. Finally, and this is the easy one, we use Present Perfect alongside indefinite adverbials of time. These most commonly include never, ever, yet, already, and just: I have not seen that new film yet or Thanks, but I have already eaten lunch. If we were to use more definite phrases, like yesterday, we would need to use the Simple Past.

There are, unfortunately, a number of monkey wrenches in this outline. For example, we can say I have already eaten this morning because we have used this, which tells the reader that it is still morning. However, modern lingo has us saying I already ate this morning: we have lost the auxiliary and the past participle. Generally speaking, American English does this more frequently than, say, British English. This is one of the main reasons why there is so much confusion and misuse when Present Perfect is involved.