The perfect tense or aspect (

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

or ) is a

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descrip ...

form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. An example of a perfect construction is ''I have made dinner.'' Although this gives information about a prior action (the speaker's making of the dinner), the focus is likely to be on the present consequences of that action (the fact that the dinner is now ready). The word ''perfect'' in this sense means "completed" (from Latin ''perfectum'', which is the perfect passive

participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

of the verb ''perficere'' "to complete"). In traditional

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

and

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

grammar, the perfect tense is a particular, conjugated-verb form. Modern analyses view the perfect constructions of these languages as combining elements of grammatical tense (such as time reference) and

grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference ...

. The Greek perfect tense is contrasted with the

aorist Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by th ...

and the

imperfect The imperfect (abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to w ...

tenses and specifically refers to completed events with present consequences; its meaning is thus similar to that of the English construction, "have/has (done something)". The Latin perfect tense is contrasted only with the imperfect tense (used for past incomplete actions or states) and is thus used to mean both "have/has done something" and "did something" (the

preterite The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pa ...

use). Other related forms are the

pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time ...

, denoting an event prior to a past time of reference, and the

future perfect The future perfect is a verb form or construction used to describe an event that is expected or planned to happen before a time of reference in the future, such as ''will have finished'' in the English sentence "I will have finished by tomorrow. ...

, for an event prior to a future time of reference. In the grammar of some modern languages, particularly of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, the ''perfect'' may be analyzed as an aspect that is independent of tense – the form that is traditionally just called the perfect ("I have done") is then called the

present perfect 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. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like " ...

, while the form traditionally called the pluperfect ("I had done") is called the past perfect. (There are also additional forms such as future perfect, conditional perfect, and so on.) The formation of the perfect in English, using forms of an

auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb (abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...

(''have'') together with the

past participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived fro ...

of the main verb, is paralleled in a number of other modern European languages. The perfect can be denoted by the

glossing abbreviation This article lists common abbreviations for grammatical terms that are used in linguistic interlinear glossing of oral languages in English. The list provides conventional glosses as established by standard inventories of glossing abbreviations su ...

or . It should not be confused with the

perfective The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...

aspect (), which refers to the viewing of an action as a single (but not necessarily prior) event. To avoid confusion with the perfective, the perfect is occasionally called the retrospective ().

As an aspect

In some analyses, the ''perfect'' is identified as one of the

s. In the perfect aspect, the event being referred to is viewed as already completed at the time of reference. It should not be confused with the

perfective aspect The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...

, which marks a situation as a single event ''without internal structure'', and does not imply prior occurrence or present relevance as the perfect aspect does. The perfect also contrasts with the

prospective aspect In linguistics, the prospective aspect ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical aspect describing an event that occurs subsequent to a given reference time.Matthews, P. H. (1997) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University P ...

, which encodes the present relevance or anticipation of a future event. While the perfect is a relatively uniform category cross-linguistically, its relation to the experiential and resultative aspects is complex – the latter two are not simply restricted cases of the perfect.Dahl, 1985, p. 190. The perfect is not necessarily incompatible with other grammatical aspects. In English, for example, it can be combined with the progressive (continuous) aspect, wherein an event is viewed as temporary and ongoing. A form such as the present perfect progressive ''I have been working'' combines the meanings expressed by the two aspects – viewing my working as an ongoing process, but one which is now completed (or, as in ''I have been working for two hours'', restricting attention to the completed portion of that process). If perfect is viewed as an aspect, then the verb forms traditionally called just "perfect" (as in Greek or – in appropriate contexts – in Latin) in fact combine the perfect aspect with present tense (the event occurred prior to the time of speech). The pluperfect and future perfect forms combine perfect aspect with past and future tense respectively. This analysis is reflected more explicitly in the terminology commonly used in modern English grammars, which refer to

past perfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...

and

(as well as some other constructions such as conditional perfect). However, not all uses of "perfect" verb forms necessarily express this "perfect aspect" – sometimes they are simply used as expressions of

past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...

, that is, as

s. This applies to some uses of the Latin perfect, and also (for example) to the modern German ''Perfekt''.

Types

In English, several uses of the perfect aspect have been recognized: * Resultative perfect (referring to a state in the present which is the result or endpoint of an event in the past): :: "I have lost my pen-knife" (message: I still don't have it) * Continuative perfect (past situations continuing into present): :: "I have always guided him" * Anterior perfect (completed past situations, but with relevance to the present): :: "It has rained" (implication: the streets are wet now) * Experiential perfect (stating that a given situation has occurred at least once in a period of time leading up to the present time): :: "Bill has been to America" :: "I have seen that film three times now" * Universal perfect (stating that a given situation has been going on continuously during a period leading up to the present time): :: "The meaning of the Perfect has been debated for 200 years" In other languages other uses of the perfect are found: * Perfect of present state (stating that a present situation holds as a result of something that has happened recently): :: (Swahili) 'he is tired' (lit. 'he has become tired') :: (Swahili) 'he is standing' (lit. 'he has stood up'). This can be considered to be the same as resultative perfect. * Perfect of very recent past: :: (Alicante Spanish) '(An hour ago) I was walking in the forest. Suddenly I stepped on a snake. It bit me in the leg.' (lit. 'I have stepped on a snake ... it has bitten me'). * Evidential or inferential perfect (a statement that something must have happened because of the evidence available): :: (Swedish) 'The thief evidently got in through this window' (literally, 'has got in') * Reportative perfect (referring to an event which the speaker has heard about but not personally witnessed). This is common in languages such as Turkish, Persian, Georgian, and Bulgarian: :: (Turkish) 'They say I was/am ill' (literally, 'I have been ill')

Discontinuous past

In some languages a type of tense has been noted with exactly the opposite implication to a perfect. This type of tense is known as discontinuous past. Thus if a sentence such as "I have put the book on the table" implies that it is still on the table, so a discontinuous past sentence "I put the book on the table" in these languages would imply that the book is no longer on the table.

Construction with auxiliaries

A number of modern European languages exhibit a parallel type of perfect (or perfect-like) construction, formed with an

in combination with the

of the main verb. The auxiliary may be a verb meaning ''have'' (as in the English ''I have won'') or a verb meaning ''be'' (as in the French , "I (have) arrived", literally "I am arrived"). The ''have''-perfect developed from a construction where the verb meaning ''have'' denoted possession, and the past participle was an

adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the m ...

modifying the

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...

, as in ''I have the work done''. This came to be reanalyzed, with the object becoming the object of the main verb, and the participle becoming a dependent of the ''have'' verb, as in ''I have done the work.'' The construction could then be generalized to be used also with

intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...

s. A vestige of the original interpretation is preserved in some languages in the form of

inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...

on the participle to agree with the gender and number of the object. The ''be''-perfect developed similarly, from a construction where the verb meaning ''be'' was an ordinary copula and the participle expressed a resultative state of the subject. It is consequently used mostly with verbs that denote a change in the state or location of the subject, and in some languages the participle inflects to agree with the gender and number of the subject. Languages that use these constructions can generally inflect the auxiliary to produce different verb forms for the perfect aspect: the

or past perfect is produced with the auxiliary in the past tense, the

with the auxiliary in the future tense, and so on. These include non-finite forms such as perfect infinitives. (More possible forms and examples are given under below.) 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

), as in French and German. The use of auxiliaries and meaning of the constructions in various languages are described below. * English uses ''have'' as the auxiliary; the use of ''be'' with some intransitive verbs (as in ''I am come''; ''he is gone'') is archaic. For more details see the section on below. * German uses ("have") as the auxiliary with most verbs, and ("be") with some intransitives, including the copula itself. The German "present perfect" construction is called the (perfect), and for most verbs is the usual past tense for colloquial speech and dialects. For details, see

German verbs German verbs may be classified as either ''weak'', with a dental consonant inflection, or ''strong'', showing a vowel gradation (ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and ano ...

. Other

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

have similar constructions, such as the of Swedish and the (compound past) of

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People ...

. * French uses ("have") as the auxiliary with most verbs, but uses ("be") with

reflexive verb In grammar, a reflexive verb is, loosely, a verb whose direct object is the same as its subject; for example, "I wash myself". More generally, a reflexive verb has the same semantic agent and patient (typically represented syntactically by the s ...

s and with a certain number of intransitive verbs. The past participle is inflected to agree in

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...

and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

with the subject when is used, and with a direct object when is used, but then only when the object precedes the verb (which is normally the case with

personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...

s and in some relative and

interrogative clause An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its declarative counterpart "Hannah is ...

s). The construction with "present perfect" form is called the (compound past) and is the usual past tense for completed events, corresponding to both the English present perfect and to the

simple past The simple past, past simple or past indefinite, sometimes called the preterite, is the basic form of the past tense in Modern English. It is used principally to describe events in the past, although it also has some other uses. Regular English ...

. For more details see . * Italian uses ("have") and ("be") as auxiliaries, distributed in much the same way as and in French. The participle agrees with the subject when is used, and with a preceding pronoun direct object when is used. The present perfect is often used also for completed events where English would use the simple past. For details see

Italian grammar Italian grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the Italian language. Italian words can be divided into the following lexical categories: articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and in ...

. * Spanish uses ("have") as the auxiliary with all verbs. The "present perfect" form is called the and is used similarly to the English present perfect. While ("to be") was used as an auxiliary verb in a similar sense to modern French and Italian, this use disappeared by the 18th century. See Spanish verbs.

Celtic languages The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edwar ...

(except Cornish and Breton) have a somewhat different type of perfect construction, where a word meaning "after" is used together with a verbal noun. This is described under Welsh grammar and Irish conjugation. By analogy with this construction, sentences of the form ''I'm after eating'' (meaning "I have eaten") are used in

Irish English Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Irela ...

. Middle Cornish and Middle Breton used a perfective particle ''re'' with the preterite to express a present perfect sense, although this has largely fallen out of use in the modern languages, being replaced with periphrastic formations using the verbs "to be" or "to have" with a past participle.

In particular languages

Proto-Indo-European

In reconstructions of the

Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

(PIE), the verb form that has traditionally been called "perfect" in fact signified stative aspect (a current state of being). The name was assigned based on similarity to the Greek or Latin perfect tense, before the stative nature of the form was fully recognized. For details of its formation, see

Proto-Indo-European verbs Proto-Indo-European verbs reflect a complex system of morphology, more complicated than the substantive, with verbs categorized according to their aspect, using multiple grammatical moods and voices, and being conjugated according to person, n ...

Ancient Greek

The

perfect developed from the PIE perfect (stative) form; in both cases the stem is typically formed by

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Ed ...

. In Greek, however, it took on a true "perfect" meaning, indicating an action with a permanent result. The effect of the action is seen in the resulting state; this state may belong to either the subject or the

. The meaning is therefore similar to the English present perfect, although usage of the Greek perfect is rather narrower than in English. Greek also has a

and a (compound)

, although their use is rare. Other verb forms used in Ancient Greek to refer to past circumstances were the

, which was used simply to report past events (for example in narrative), and the

. For details of the formation and use of the Greek perfect, see

Ancient Greek verbs Ancient Greek verbs have four moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative), three voices ( active, middle and passive), as well as three persons (first, second and third) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). * In the indi ...

(see also ). For the (compound) perfect found in modern Greek, see Modern Greek verbs.

Latin

the PIE aorist merged with the perfect. Consequently, the Latin perfect tense serves both as a true perfect (meaning, for example, ''I have done''), and as a simple

, merely reporting a past event (''I did''). It contrasts with the

, which denotes uncompleted past actions or states. Latin also has pluperfect and future perfect forms. For details of how all of these forms are made, see

Latin conjugation In terms of linguistics and grammar, conjugation has two basic meanings. One meaning is the creation of derived forms of a verb from basic forms, or principal parts. It may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, mood, aspect, voice, or ot ...

English

The

perfect is made with a form of the

''have'' together with the past

of the main verb. The auxiliary is inflected for tense and mood, and can also appear in non-finite forms (infinitive, participle or gerund), thus giving rise to a number of constructions which combine the perfect aspect with other verbal properties: *''I have eaten''; ''he has eaten'' (

, generally denoting something that took place prior to the present moment) *''I had eaten'' (

, something that took place prior to a moment in the past) *''I will have eaten'' (

, something to take place prior to a moment in the future) *''I would have eaten'' ( conditional perfect, something conceived as taking place in hypothetical past circumstances) *''...that he have eaten...'' (present perfect subjunctive, a rarely used form; see

English subjunctive While the English language lacks distinct inflections for mood, an English subjunctive is recognized in most grammars. Definition and scope of the concept vary widely across the literature, but it is generally associated with the description of ...

) *''(to) have eaten'' (perfect infinitive) *''having eaten'' (perfect gerund or participle) The perfect can also be combined with another aspect that is marked in English – the progressive (or continuous) aspect. In perfect progressive (or perfect continuous) constructions, the perfect auxiliary (a form of ''have'') is followed by the past participle ''been'' (from ''be'', the auxiliary of the progressive aspect), which in turn is followed by the present participle of the main verb. As before, the perfect auxiliary can appear in various tenses, moods and non-finite forms: *''I have been eating''; ''he has been eating'' ( present perfect progressive) *''I had been eating'' (

past perfect progressive This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of ...

) * etc. The perfect aspect (or perfect progressive) can also be combined with marking for the

passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...

. Perfect passive forms can be constructed by replacing the participle of the main verb with the corresponding participle of ''be'' followed by the past participle of the main verb: ''it has been eaten''; ''it will have been eaten''; ''it has been being eaten''. Perfect progressive passives, as in the last example, therefore involve two consecutive participles of the auxiliary verb ''be''; these constructions are rarely used. The implications of the present perfect (that something occurred prior to the present moment) are similar to those of the

. The simple past is generally used when the occurrence has a specific past time frame – either explicitly stated (''I wrote a book in 1995''; ''the water boiled a minute ago''), or implied by the context (for example, in the narration of a sequence of events). The present perfect, on the other hand, is used when the assumed time frame lasts up until the present moment: ''I have written two novels'' (in my lifetime; I am still alive); ''You have done no work this morning'' (it is still the morning). It is often used to draw attention to the consequences rather than the action: ''I've built a tree-house'' (the time of building is not important; the focus is on the result, the present existence of the tree-house).Present Perfect. Guide to Grammar and Writing.
/ref> Perfect progressive forms are used mainly to refer to an action continuing up to (or nearly up to) the time of reference, again with emphasis on its consequences (''we were tired because we had been running''), or its duration (''we have been working for ten hours/since 7 o'clock''). They may express interrupted activities (''I had been writing a novel when she came to talk to me''). The perfect infinitive (without ''to'' in most cases) can be used after modal verbs with various meanings, chiefly to express

modality Modality may refer to: Humanities * Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations * Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales * Modalitie ...

with regard to past events: ''you should have done that''; ''she might have seen it''. With ''would'' (and sometimes ''should'' and ''could'') it forms a contrary-to-fact past conditional ( conditional perfect), as in ''she would/could have done it if she had tried''.Conditional Verb Forms. Guide to Grammar and Writing.
/ref> (These verb forms might not be considered to be truly in the perfect aspect.) For more information on such constructions, see

English modal verbs The English modal verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality (properties such as possibility, obligation, etc.). They can be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participl ...

(particularly the sections on the individual modals). For more details on the usage of the various perfect constructions in English, see

Uses of English verb forms This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of s ...

References

External links

Greek tenses
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perfect (Grammar) Grammatical aspects it:Passato prossimo