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The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. [1] The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like "I have finished".
The basic (present) perfect form, with the auxiliary in the present tense, may specifically carry the meaning of perfect aspect, as in English; however in some languages it is used more generally as a past tense (or preterite), as in French and German. The use of auxiliaries and meaning of the constructions in various languages are described below.
Present perfect progressive (progressive, perfect): "I have been eating" (While many elementary discussions of English grammar classify the present perfect as a past tense, it relates the action to the present time. One cannot say of someone now deceased that they "have eaten" or "have been eating". The present auxiliary implies that they are ...
Proto-Indo-European verbs had present, perfect , imperfect and aorist forms – these can be considered as representing two tenses (present and past) with different aspects. Most languages in the Indo-European family have developed systems either with two morphological tenses (present or "non-past", and past) or with three (present, past and ...
The simple present is the most commonly used verb form in English, accounting for more than half of verbs in spoken English. [1] It is called "simple" because its basic form consists of a single word (like write or writes), in contrast with other present tense forms such as the present progressive (is writing) and present perfect (has written).
The simple present or present simple is a form that combines present tense with "simple" (neither perfect nor progressive) aspect. In the indicative mood it consists of the base form of the verb, or the -s form when the subject is third-person singular (the verb be uses the forms am, is, are).
The terms perfective and perfect should not be confused. A perfect tense (abbreviated PERF or PRF) is a grammatical form used to describe a past event with present relevance, or a present state resulting from a past situation. For example, "I have put it on the table" implies both that I put the object on the table and that it is still there ...
Apart from what are called the simple present (write, writes) and simple past (wrote), there are also continuous (progressive) forms (am/is/are/was/were writing), perfect forms (have/has/had written, and the perfect continuous have/has/had been writing), future forms (will write, will be writing, will have written, will have been writing), and ...