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Perfect Forms

Learn about the perfective aspect and how it is used with the present and past tenses. Explore the differences between the past and present perfect, especially when the main verb is dynamic. Discover the various uses of the perfect aspect, such as indicating a resultant situation, experience, persistent situation, or recent past event.

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Perfect Forms

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  1. Perfect Forms Lecture 15

  2. The perfective aspect • An earlier action or state has relevance at a later reference point, or point of orientation. • perfective aspect + present tense ("Present Perfect") → the reference point is identical with the speech moment (John has bought a new car). • perfective aspect + past tense ("Past Perfect") → the reference point is earlier than the speech moment (John had bought a new car when I met him last week).

  3. Differences b/n the Past and the Present Perfect if the main verb is dynamic:

  4. It follows that only the Past can co-occur with definite past time expressions (adverbials) such as last week/month/year, in the 60s, before he died, etc. • Both the Past and the Past perfect can co-occur with adverbials expressing duration, however: cf. John lived in Paris for 20 years and John has lived in Paris for 20 years.

  5. Perfect → it makes an explicit reference to the relation b/n an implied resultant situation and a previous situation that brought about it 1. Perfect of Result. It indicates the persistence of a previous situation at some fixed moment of time: He has retired as chairman of the historical society. 2. Perfect of Experience. It indicates that a situation has taken place at least once in the previous period of time: She has written a novel before.

  6. Perfect 3. Perfect of Persistent Situation. It reports a situation that started in the past and persists into the present: He has taught German since 1985. 4. Perfect of Recent Past. It denotes a previous situation specified by means of the adverbs ‘recently’, ‘just’, etc. They have just left.

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