In my usual manner, I was able to make two separate observations into one confusion. You're right: OE did not have the perfect as we do today. What I was saying was that I'm a bit slow on connecting the current perfect structures has having OE roots. By the way, your 4th paragraph is a fine statement about the perfect. tj On Saturday 02/19/2011 at 11:52 am, Karl Hagen wrote: > 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 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/