V. VERB QUALITIES - UW-Parkside: Help for Personal Homepages

Perfect Aspect
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As a main verb, have indicates possession of some thing or quality. As an auxiliary, it
combines with the past participle to form a structure called the perfect. Like the
progressive, the perfect is technically a verb aspect but often referred to as a tense.
Unlike the ing-participle, the en-participle (past participle) does not confuse us by serving as
a gerund. It makes up for this by being involved in both perfect aspect and passive voice.
The perfect aspect has a form of have as a primary auxiliary, followed by a past participle.
The have is the real key to recognizing the perfect. When have is the only verb, it is the main
verb and (loosely) denotes possession. If have is part of a string of verbs, then it is an
auxiliary and it is signally the perfect.
The tense of a perfect verb phrase is actually determined by the auxiliary in front of it,
assuming there is no modal to confuse matters. Sentence (1) below is in the present
perfect because have is a present tense form, even though we are talking about things from
the past. The past perfect equivalent would have the past tense had as in sentence (2).
(1) I have often walked down this street before.
(2) I had often walked down this street before.
Once again, we see that the English tense-aspect system does not have a very exact
relationship with real time. The perfect implies that the action was already completed
(“perfected”) at the time specified by the tense. The present perfect in sentence (1) means
that as of the time we are speaking we had already at some previous time walked down this
street. The past perfect in sentence (2) would suggest that at some point in the past
(specified by the context) we had already finished frequent walks down that street.
As with the past progressive, the notion of a present perfect formed by a past participle is
confusing for some students. Try to remember that a predicate has only one tense/modal
element. Another potent source of confusion in using the perfect arises from our habit of
contractive have to ‘ve. When we do this after modal auxiliaries, the resulting sounds can
lose contact with the original auxilary verb, so that students wind up writing sentences like (3)
and (4):
(3) *I mighta known that would happen.
(4) *I could of told you that.
EXERCISE 5.06: Perfect–Give the tense and aspect (if any) of the
following sentences:
1) What a fine mess you’ve made of things, Ollie!
2) Tom had a notion that shoes are black.
3) I had never seen such gall.
4) I was trapped in my house with a killer rabbit.
5) Gwendolyn has been given a lollipop.
6) Tom had lust in his heart.
7) That poor man had given his love to too many women.
8) Tom had lusted after Gwendolyn.
9) Arthur has a canker sore.
10) Alfred is in love with Edith.