John,
Perfect, in this sense, goes back to the Latin "perfectum" meaning
"completed", "finished". Perfect aspects are generally used describe
events that are complete as of some specified time, like the time of
speaking or some other time indicated perhaps by an adverbial
construction. Linguistically, we separate tenses (past, present) from
aspects (perfect, progressive). Semantically, tenses refer to the time
of sentence relative to the time of its discourse and aspects deal with
how we view an event in its time-frame, as completed, ongoing, habitual,
etc. Structurally, in Germanic languages at least, tense is marked as a
suffix (walk/walked) or a vowel change (run/ran) while aspect is marked
periphrastically, with "have" plus past participle or "be" plus present
participle. Pragmatically the two are also used differently in
different discourses. In narrative, for example, simple tense forms are
used to carry plot forward, and, if the plot is in the past tense, as it
frequently is, then present may be used for narrator's voice. Aspect,
on the other hand, is used to lay out background information, setting.
This works quite consistently in narrative prose. In other genres
things work a little differently, but there are still clearly distinct
pragmatic behaviors for tenses and aspects.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Crow, John T
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 2:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Perfect Tenses
Can anybody out there tell me how perfect tenses came to be called
"perfect"? Obviously it has nothing to do with flawlessnes, so I am
curious
about the origin of this term.
Thanks,
John
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