In
those days when I studied on the subject of English tenses, there was no Internet, but I still managed to get a
few free copies of language journals mailed from countries over the world. In an issue of ELT Journal, by Oxford
University Press in association with The British Council, Vol. 38 No.4, a P.S. Tregidgo posted a serious, scholarly
article titled "How far have we got with the present perfect?" And judging from the contents of
the article, we have no doubt that the scholar THINKS he doesn't get much out of the tense. He ended the article
by concluding, "Meanwhile, one thing seems to me to be pretty clear. Whatever the grammarians may say about
it, the problem of the English present perfect remains very much alive and kicking!" The present perfect tense would actually have no problems
whatsoever if there were not its twin brother, the past tense. People get the same things whether you say "I
have seen wolves in that forest" Or "I saw wolves in that forest." They also get enough
information whether you say "I bought a hat" or "I have bought a hat." Anyway,
even if we detect a slight difference between the two tenses, we would soon give it up, because we have to neutralize
them in indirect speech as in "John said he had seen wolves in that forest." There is no room
for you to tell whether the past perfect tense here could have come from the present perfect tense or the past
tense. Despite of the alive and kicking situation as above, grammars
have to set a line between the twins and say something like "the present perfect is past with current relevance",
indicating the past action, or its result, have some relation with the present time. In A Grammar of Contemporary
English, Quirk et al. go so far as to say, "Peter has injured his ankle and it's still bad" is
a logical sentence, whereas "Peter has injured his ankle but it's better" is not logical and should
be avoided. The implication here may be that, since we use the present perfect tense to describe the injure, we
indicate he still has the bad result, and the ankle shall not be better now. Will you go along with that? You have
to because they are notable grammarians. (By the way, I fancy their grammars.) However, different to Peter, I have
injured my wrist before and fortunately it's much better now. The biggest fallacy of the above theory of current relevance
is that they simply skip the past tense. Does the past which is expressed by the past tense have no current relevance
at all? I doubt that. It is unfair to say, for example, that "John injured his leg badly last week and
it was cut off in the hospital" has nothing to do with the present time. If you see result or current
relevance in a present perfect sentence, why can't you see result or current relevance in a past tense sentence?
Believe it or not, anything you say about the pastness of the present perfect tense will eventually fits to that
of the simple past tense like a glove. Both of them can say the same thing of the same time [see A question about tense (11): A new difficulty]. It is therefore small wonder that many students find the
present perfect tense difficult to learn. Students are not really confused by the present perfect tense; they are
confused when, suddenly, in his mind there comes the past tense. Don't blame the students. A scholar doesn't get
much from the tense either. Recently, a kind linguist, who is an American, returned
the following (part of) message to me about the two tenses: "Let me know what you think of all this. The
topic interests me a lot, because I teach English to German speakers, and they often have a hard time differentiating
between these two tenses. My husband, who is German, has been trying to figure out the difference for many years!"
You may well retort, "What about those past time
adjuncts such as 'yesterday'? We cannot match the present perfect tense with a past time adjunct, right?"
Yes, according to the rules of current English grammar, you are quite right, and it is also quite right that you
are just giving the exact explanation why grammars put away many past time adjuncts, [see A question about tenses (1): An elusive time adjunct]. Yes, by hiding away many past time adjuncts for the present perfect, grammars can finally
draw a clear line between the two tenses. Don't you think that grammarians are very helpful to us? Shun Tang
A question about tenses (6): The twin brothers
Many years!! Why don't we admit that it is beyond our young student's ability to see the difference? When will we see that the twins have the same meaning!!!
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