This article expands on an earlier post that dealt with the notion of “aspect.” This post goes further in discussing the difference between the three aspects (simple, progressive, and perfect) and focuses particularly on the perfect aspect and use of the present perfect verb form.
The Simple Aspect
The simple aspect is often concerned with what feels like an unchanging or inactive state (“I live in this brown house”; “I know her”; “We always had a dog”) or with actions that repeat in an unlimited sort of way in the present, past, or future (“I usually get up at seven”; “We always went to the beach in the summers”). Alternatively, the simple aspect often looks at an action as a single complete package happening at one specific point in time (“I sent her a text this morning”; “We left around eight”; “Here comes Durant now…he shoots…he scores!”).
The Progressive Aspect
Use of the progressive aspect signals that the action of the verb has some duration and is ongoing, either at the time of speaking or at some other point in time. The action is viewed from a point between its beginning and its end. The progressive aspect is concerned with change. It demonstrates an awareness or acceptance that an action or situation has its limits in time (“We’re working in the other office while the construction is going on”; “They’re having a big sale this week”). The action may be happening now (“I’m writing”), but this currently ongoing action is seen as something that will come to an end at some point. Another action may have been happening at two o’clock in the morning (“I was sleeping”), but it was going to come to an end at some point. The progressive is also concerned with newness, some change from what was before (“I got a new job, and I’m making more money now.”).
The Perfect Aspect
The perfect aspect is another thing altogether. The perfect aspect allows the speaker to refer to an action or state that occurred earlier in time without moving the time focus away from the one that is currently set.
So what does that mean?
First, it must be said that marking of time is extremely important in spoken and written English. We mark the time of an action by use of time expressions such as “yesterday,” “now,” “Friday” and “tomorrow,” and we also mark time by our choice of tense (past or present) in the verb.
It could be said that the present is our default point in time when we speak. We don’t feel a great need to mark the present time except with the use of one of the present tense forms. We can say “I have a headache” without generally feeling the need to say “I have a headache now” or I have a headache at present.” Just using the present tense “have” is enough to say that we’re talking about the present. The time indicator would only be said for emphasis and contrast, i.e., “I didn’t have a headache before, but I have one now.” With the present progressive form, it’s fairly common to add a time reference, such as “now” or “nowadays,” but only when we wish to emphasize, for example, the newness of an action (“I’m taking a course in French now”) or the possibility of change in the future (“Women are wearing their skirts longer these days”).
Again, besides these exceptions used for emphasis, it’s typically unnecessary to indicate time in the present beyond the use of a present tense form. In general, If we wish to move the time focus away from the present, then we usually feel the need to put in a special time expression to signal that fact, in addition to changing the verb tense. In other words, if we are switching our focus to the past (and away from the default), we not only use the past tense, we use a time expression like “yesterday,” or “two years ago,” or “this morning.” In fact, it’s somewhat rare to just start talking about an action in the past without putting in such a time expression or without having the time of the action already indicated by some other means. Using a time expression like this is like putting in a flag that says “We’re here now in the past. This is the time I want to talk about. This is the new default.” Once the time flag has been planted, so to speak, we no longer need to keep marking the time in this way for things that happen within this new time frame–we just simply continue to use the past tense. The past time is now the default time.
Similarly, when we want to move our time focus to the future, we not only use a device like “be going to” or “will” with the verb, we usually add a time expression like “tomorrow” or “next Friday”-–a sort of “We’re-in-the-future-now” flag.
All of this discussion about flags is to try to explain that the perfect aspect is used when we want to mention something that happened or began BEFORE the established time focus, and yet we don’t want to move our focus away from that marked point in time. We want to stay focused there. This is most easily seen with what is typically called the past perfect form. If we say “I didn’t play in the game yesterday because I had injured my ankle,” the time flag is set at the time that the game was played–yesterday–and the injury occurred sometime before that set time. It’s sort of like it occurred in the past of the past. This particular sports discussion will probably continue to be focused on the things that happened in the game “yesterday,” and the simple past form will continue to be used until another flag is planted: maybe something like, “When did you injure your ankle?” (moving the flag even further into the past) OR “How is your ankle now? Does it still hurt?” (moving the flag back to the present).
Simple Past form vs. Present Perfect form
One of the trickiest things for English language learners, with regard to the use of tense and aspect, is understanding the difference between use of the simple past form and use of the present perfect form. It’s not so confusing when we’re talking about something that began in the past and continues right up to or into the present time, as in “I have lived in this city all my life.” But it is more difficult to understand why we might say “He has left” instead of “He left.” Or “I’ve stayed in that hotel many times” instead of “I stayed in that hotel many times.” All of these sentences refer to actions occurring and completed in the PAST. Why would we ever use a so-called PRESENT tense?
Well, to be perfectly honest, some English speakers don’t use the present perfect when an action occurs completely within the past. They understand the meaning when someone uses the present perfect but they don’t make the distinction themselves. Some English speakers make the distinction but don’t make it consistently for this type of meaning. Most English speakers will use the present perfect when the meaning is of the type discussed earlier; that is, they will say “I have lived here all my life” when they are still living in a place. They use the present perfect consistently for this type of meaning because changing to the simple past (“I lived here all my life”) carries the meaning that they don’t live here anymore. This is an important distinction for most people, obviously. Some English speakers will omit the auxiliary verb “have” but switch to the perfect progressive for this meaning: “I been living here all my life.” This usage, even though it omits the auxiliary, still constitutes use of the perfect aspect.
For many speakers, however, the distinction between the simple past and the present perfect is an important one for all meanings, and it relates to the flag discussion above. Using the present perfect allows the speaker to refer to an event (or series of events) that took place in the past without changing the time frame to the past. In other words, it doesn’t move the flag. It sort of says: “This thing happened at some point before now, but I’m still talking about things in the present. My focus of attention remains in the present. I’m not really talking about the past right now.” Let’s say that a person, currently in the United States, makes the statement “I have been to Italy three times.” Using the present perfect allows this person to stay in the present and say things like “I really love Italy, and the food is wonderful. I don’t speak Italian well, but I do try to study it sometimes.” On the other hand, they can use their initial statement as an introduction to the topic of their experiences in Italy and now put in a time marker to switch the time focus to the past: “The first time I went was ten years ago. It was fantastic. I spent two weeks in Rome and then we traveled all over.” Now notice how the verbs all change to simple past now that the “flag” has been moved.
Use of the present perfect where the meaning refers to an action or state that began in the past but continues into or right up to the present is quite consistent on the part of English speakers. There is more variation in the use of the present perfect when it refers to completed actions or states in the past. Yet the distinction described above in the use of the simple past versus the present perfect still remains strong, especially in writing, and serves a useful purpose in discourse.