TJ,

Could you expand a bit? I'm having trouble seeing the significance of 
your objection anent OE. The so-called future perfect isn't found in OE, 
but that's because OE doesn't permit multiple auxiliaries, with the 
exception of pre-modal + passive constructions.

Even so, I don't think Craig was suggesting that OE had the same range 
of functions for the perfect that ModE does, so I don't get why the 
absence of a future perfect in OE matters for the present discussion.

As to your examples, you can, of course, use the perfect to talk about 
actions that haven't yet occurred. Your second example is a better 
illustration of that.

The way I see the perfect working in ModE is that, in it's primary 
function, it works as a secondary tense. That is, it's main job is to 
signal that some even is prior to the main time of the discourse, 
whatever that time may be, and irrespective of the grammatical tense of 
the other verbs. In this function, the tense of the auxiliary is a 
secondary consideration. The perfect auxiliary doesn't even have to have 
a tense to do its job. Thus you not only have the perfect occurring with 
various modal verbs (will, would, could, etc.) but also in non-finite 
constructions, e.g., "I hope to have finished my paper by Tuesday."

The perfect also has aspectual overtones too, but that's a much more 
complicated issue, and perhaps the subject of another message. Along 
those lines, however, I will note that I find your first example 
ungrammatical. For me, the perfective aspect of "has drunk" is 
incompatible with the imperfective implication of "each morning." I 
would use a simple present there.

Karl

On 2/19/2011 8:49 AM, T. J. Ray wrote:
> Craig,
> I cut your last note where I did to capture the last sentence. Seems to
> me that
> what traditional grammar calls the present perfect and the future
> perfect may
> indeed tell someone about something that has not occurred. Look at these
> sentences and tell me what you think.
>
> I've been going through OE grammars as well as Old Norse and can't see
> the connection that has been attempted. (past perfect passive?)
>
> tj
>
> Joe has drunk two cups of coffee before he goes to work each morning.
> Joe will have drunk two cups of coffee before he goes to work tomorrow.
>
>
> On Friday 02/18/2011 at 9:15 pm, Craig Hancock wrote:
>> Karl,
>> I had the great pleasure of an Old English class and Beowulf seminar
>> (we translated the text) in a graduate program in the 70's, but that's
>> all pretty stale, so I follow these arguments from secondhand. The key
>> evidence, as I take it, is that past perfect didn't grammaticalize for
>> intransitive verbs right away. I say this, though, without direct
>> exposure to the empirical evidence.
>> Here's an interesting take from Talmy Givon: "In human language there
>> is always more than one structural means of affecting the same
>> communicative function." Within context, I think he means we sometimes
>> see it cross language, but it is often true in a single language as
>> well. We still have a number of ways to express perfect aspect, or the
>> sense of a process having been or being completed in relation to a
>> point in time. In that sense, perfect aspect in the verb phrase works
>> in harmony (sometimes redundantly) with these other processes. It
>> might be lexicalized (a verb like "finished" or "completed") or
>> expressed through time oriented subordination ("before" or "after").
>> You can't tell someone about something or report something until after
>> it occurs. And there are, as with your OE example, adverbial options.
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