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 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/