Gretchen,
I don't really blame your students for considering "I have shopped" or other present perfect verb phrases as past tense.  The perfect tense is often very subtle in effect and purpose (ask any non-native speaker of English), and often can be switched easily with past tense with no substantive change at all in meaning. 

 In fact, sometimes the textbook definition of why there is a perfect tense is misleading.  I think we sometimes use perfect tense for emphasis, rather than just for merely indicating completion of an act relative to a certain point in time/  For example, when my daughter says "I HAVE cleaned my room!", she seems of all things to place the primary 'verbness' of the sentence on the auxilliary verb, rather than the main verb, simply so she can emphasize that-- durn i-- she really did do what she was told.  "I cleaned the room" is not much different in terms of content or whether she completed the act or not, but she's more emphatic, believe me, in the perfect mode of operation.

BTW,  the only way I can help my college students understand that "have shopped" really isn't past tense is to compare it with a sentence using "had shopped".  

larry



-------------------------------
Larry Beason
Director of Composition
Dept. of English, Univ. of South Alabama
Mobile, AL 36688
334-460-7861
-------------------------------

>>> Gretchen Lee <[log in to unmask]> - 4/2/01 5:56 PM >>>

Larry,
..... They insist that "I have shopped" is a past tense
because it is a completed action.  Future perfect makes them crazier - "how
can you have a completed action in the future??!!"

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