Scott writes:

Unless the linguist's assumption is that the speaker are not using these 
past /perfect tense
expressions consciously. I would teach present perfect as indicating
continuing or repeated or incomplete action..

But how about 'Sir, I've finished.'?

and

how about the essential semantic feature of 'relevance to the present 
moment' as in the above and which explains the difference between the simple 
past in 'When I was a boy, I visited.France, Germany and Spain.' and the 
present perfect in 'So far, I have visited France, Germany and Spain.'

I'll explore this issue more when I give a summary of the responses to my 20 
sentences.

Ron Sheen

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