The Perfect Tense and Aspect

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PERFECT TENSE
AND ASPECT
Marie-Eve Ritz
1. Introduction
In English and a number of other European languages, the perfect is a complex
morpho-syntactic construction made of an auxiliary (“have,” “be”) followed by a
past participle, as in “Jamie has eaten all the chocolate biscuits.” he auxiliary
appears in the past, present and future tenses, thus creating past, present and future
perfects. Typologically, this analytic perfect is predominantly (if not exclusively)
found in the languages of Europe (Dahl, 2000), and we ind perfect meaning
expressed formally by other means in a number of the world’s languages, although
many languages don’t have a perfect at all. Much scholarly work on perfects has
concentrated on the analytic type, with even more attention paid to the present form
of this tense as it is typically unstable and oten develops into a past perfective tense.
In this respect, standard English is an exception, as its present perfect (PP) has
escaped this general trend. he English perfect has also challenged theories attempt-
ing to capture a core meaning for all its uses, as its present tense form is subject to a
number of constraints in usage that do not apply to its past and future counterparts,
a problem oten referred to as “the present perfect puzzle” (Klein, 1992).
More generally, and as discussed in detail in Binnick (1991), the perfect has
been a problematic category for scholars across time due to the multiplicity of its
meanings/uses within a given language and to the variation in meanings/uses of
what has been labeled “perfect” across languages. In an attempt to provide a clearer
understanding of this complex semantic category, the present chapter will start by
considering typological and historical facts that need to be taken into consideration
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882 Aspect
when discussing theories of the perfect. In section 3, we investigate in more detail

theories of the perfect focusing on semantic characteristics, bearing in mind that
most of the discussions have revolved around perfects in European languages
(Germanic and Romance). In section 4, we discuss accounts of how pragmatic fac-
tors and discourse relations afect the use of the perfect, and in section 5, we con-
clude by examining the place of a perfect in a tense/aspect system more generally,
considering how it relates to categories such as the resultative and the simple past,
and also to the habitual and the prospective.
2. The Perfect in a Typological and

Diachronic Perspective
2.1. Typological and Diachronic Variation: Overview

How do we recognize a perfect? A form labeled “perfect” in one language may
have a formal equivalent in a related language, yet the two may cover a range of
diferent meanings and uses. In order to deine what the perfect is, we need to
consider how a semantic category “perfect” can be characterized, and a good start-
ing point is to examine typological research on forms encoding such meaning(s)
and functions. It is also useful to compare the perfect with other categories such
as the resultative and the simple past because they are intimately related to per-
fects both diachronically and synchronically. In this section we thus begin by
examining how typological research on the perfect has been conducted and what
its major indings are.
Cross-linguistic investigations of the perfect have been relatively rare, and
grammarians traditionally described perfects within language-speciic tense/
aspect systems. Important recent contributions to the ield include work by
Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994) and the study conducted by the EUROTYP
Tense and Aspect heme Group (Dahl, 2000). his latter project started from the
premise that a cross-linguistic category perfect could be identiied empirically,
without relying on a previously determined semantic characterization. Data were
collected in more than thirty languages in Europe using a questionnaire pro-
viding linguistic contexts designed to elicit perfects and other related categories.
Generally, results show that the perfect is frequent but also unstable, as it tends to
evolve into something else, most commonly a general past tense (Lindstedt,
2000, p. 366).
he contexts provided to informants in the various languages surveyed in the
EUROTYP project were designed in part to elicit the various meanings of the
perfect, as described in McCawley (1971, 1981) and Comrie (1976), namely:

Perfect Tense and Aspect 883
• he universal perfect or perfect of “persistent situation,” which denotes a

state holding throughout an interval, as exempliied by (1):
(1) Matilda has lived in Sydney for two years (and she still lives there).
• he existential or experiential perfect, which presents an event as having

occurred at least once in an interval starting in the past and lasting up to the
present:
(2) Dean has been to Adelaide.
• he perfect of result or stative perfect, which indicates that the result or

consequences of a past situation hold at the moment of speech:
(3) Dean has arrived (he is here).
• he perfect of recent past or “hot news” perfect:

(4) he Reserve Bank has just announced an increase in interest rates.
he central meaning of these diferent types of perfect has oten been described as
one of current relevance (CR) (McCoard, 1978), which means that a sentence in the
perfect describes a situation that is more relevant to the present than, for instance, a
clause in the simple past (SP). While the concept “relevant to the present” is too
vague and general to be of real use as such, Dahl and Hedin (2000, p. 391) propose
to view CR as a graded concept, with the perfect of result exemplifying its strongest
requirement as it denotes “continuance of result.” Indeed, perfects of result only
obtain when a telic or “change-of-state” verb is used, as exempliied by (3) above,
where the state of Dean being here as a result of having arrived is entailed by the
sentence. Dahl (2000, p. 391) proposes that grammaticalisation of the perfect
involves in part a relaxation of CR requirements.
Lindstedt (2000) contrasts CR with “current result,” a feature of resultative con-
structions. Resultatives “ . . . express a state implying a previous event (action or
process) it has resulted from.” (Nedjalkov, 2001, p. 928; see also Bybee et al., 1994, p.
54) and contrast with perfects in that they can combine with adverbs expressing
non-limited duration such as still or as before (Dahl, 1985; Nedjalkov & Jaxontov,
1988; Bybee et al., 1994; Lindstedt, 2000). Lindstedt contrasts the following two
English examples to illustrate the distinction:
(5) She is still gone.

(6) *She has still gone. (with still used in a temporal meaning)
Example (5) expresses a temporary state and thus modiication by the adverbial is
possible. However (6) denotes a diferent kind of state, if it denotes a state at all (see
section 3).
Another important diference between the resultative and the perfect is that the
meaning of the former always directly depends on the lexical meaning of the verb

884 Aspect
(Nedjalkov, 2001, p. 930), whereas the results or consequences of the latter are not
so easy to specify (see section 3 for details, and section 4 for a discussion).
Perfects oten take their origins in resultative constructions, with a shit of
meaning from current result to current relevance (see also Nicolle, this volume, for a
discussion of models of diachronic stages). his shit is characterized by an expan-
sion in the types of verbs used, from exclusively telic verbs in resultative construc-
tions, to both telic and atelic verbs in perfect constructions (Bybee et al., 1994; Dahl
and Hedin, 2000). According to Lindstedt (2000, p. 368), “A CR perfect is a perfect
in its most central, prototypical meaning.” CR perfects then gradually develop to
include experiential meaning, and thus acquire a more “tense-like” function (p. 369),
where past time reference is indeinite. Lindstedt comments that the path from expe-
riential to indeinite past tense is rare, if documented at all, which is surprising given
the “tense-like” function of this type of perfect. On the other hand, CR perfects oten
develop into (perfective) past tenses, where past time reference is clearly deinite and
where relations between events can be expressed within a narrative. hus, there is a
negative criterion for identifying perfects as well in that, “When a perfect can be
used as a narrative tense . . . it has ceased to be a perfect” (p. 371). French provides
one of the clearest example of a perfect that has become a compound past tense (the
passé composé, henceforth PC), allowing combinations with deinite past adverbials,
sequences of clauses expressing temporal progression (and more generally, express-
ing any temporal order, see de Swart, 2007) as well as allowing talk about objects and
individuals no longer in existence. hese uses are exempliied respectively in (7)–(9)
below. By contrast, canonical perfects yield ungrammatical sentences if used in the
contexts described above, as illustrated by the unacceptable translations of (7)–(9)
using the PP (at least in standard British and U.S. English):
(7) Martin est parti (PC) il y a deux jours /le premier décembre.
*Martin has let two days ago /on the irst of December.
(8) Martin s’est levé (PC) à sept heures. Ensuite, il a déjeûné (PC), puis a pris (PC) le bus
pour se rendre à son bureau et est arrivé (PC) à neuf heures.
*Martin has got up at seven. Ater that, he has eaten breakfast, then has taken the bus to
go to his oice and has arrived at nine.
(9) Napoleon a transformé (PC) Paris.
*Napoleon has transformed Paris.
While in English the PP is ungrammatical in the contexts exempliied above, the

past and future perfect both allow modiication of the event with a past temporal ad-
verbial as well as uses in narrative sequences as shown in (10) and (11) respectively:
(10) Dean had /will have arrived in Sydney the day before we let/leave for Paris /on the irst
of December.
(11) Dean had /will have got up at seven. Ater that, he had /will have eaten breakfast, then
had /will have taken the bus to go to his oice. . . .
he past and future perfect can also express permansive meaning (Binnick, 1991),
thus behave like the present perfect in such uses, as shown in (12) where the result
of Dean’s leaving is in force at the time denoted by the adverbial:

(12) At 3 o’clock Dean had /will have (already) let.
hus, there is an asymmetry between the past and future perfect on the one hand,
and the PP on the other, the latter being a typical example of a canonical perfect.
he asymmetries described above also contrast the PP with a tenseless perfect,
where deinite temporal adverbials locating the event denoted by the VP are accept-
able as well:
(13) Having missed his plane to Sydney on Monday night, Dean had no choice but to ind a
room in a nearby hotel.
Other facts a theory of the perfect needs to be able to explain include the so-called
“lifetime efects” (see also (9) above). Since Charles Darwin died some time ago, we
cannot describe any relevant consequences of any visit to Australia on his life, hence
the unacceptability of (14). On the other hand, his visit may still have consequences
for Australia, and (15) is considered to be acceptable, for example in a context where
one is listing illustrious people who have visited the country.
(14) *Charles Darwin has visited Australia.
(15) Australia has been visited by Charles Darwin.
In summary, a perfect enables a situation to become part of an extended period that

includes a reference time (the time of speech if the PP is used, or another time estab-
lished by the context in the case of past and future perfects), with the said situation
being anterior to such time. he “ater efects” of the situation are variable, and the
situation itself cannot be located temporally using a deinite locating adverbial, nor
can it be temporally related to other situations. Much scholarly work has concen-
trated on representing the complex meaning of the perfect in a precise fashion, and
we now turn to some of the important proposals made to achieve this end.
3. The Semantics of the Perfect

We begin by examining semantic representations of the perfect before turning to
characterization of its pragmatics in section 4. Such examination leads us to focus
on the question of the temporal and aspectual attributes of the perfect in section 3.1
Section 3.2 examines temporal representations of the perfect in more detail, and
section 3.3 focuses on whether there is a “perfect state,” and if so, how it can be
characterized.
3.1. Is the Perfect a Tense, an Aspect, or Both?

he question of whether the perfect is an aspect has been answered in vastly dif-
ferent ways. Contrast McCoard’s (1978, p. 11) categorical remark: “. . .we shall not
refer to the perfect as an aspectual category: in this book, the perfect is not a marker

886 Aspect
of aspect” with Huddleston’s (1988, p. 77) statement that “[p]erfect aspectual

meaning involves a situation resulting from the completion of an earlier situation,
and perfect as a grammatical category applies to one with this as its characteristic
meaning” Comrie (1976, p. 52) acknowledges his uneasiness about the question
when he states: “. . . given the traditional terminology in which the perfect is listed
as an aspect, it seems most convenient to deal with the perfect in a book on aspect,
while bearing in mind continually that it is an aspect in a rather diferent sense from
other aspects treated so far.” However Comrie also points out the similarity between
the PP and the prospective, explaining that both involve a state relating to an ante-
rior and posterior situation, respectively. he main diference between the two is
that with the prospective, “. . . unlike the perfect, it is possible to specify the time at
which the future situation will occur” (p. 64), an observation which Comrie illus-
trates with example (16):
(16) If Winterbottom’s calculations are correct, this planet is going to burn itself out
200,000,000 years from now.
We return to the parallel between PP and prospective in section 5.

McCoard’s decision was made on the grounds that neither “completion” nor
“result” are meanings that are “intrinsic” to the perfect. By contrast, Huddleston
(1988, p. 77) notes that completeness makes the perfect similar to the past tense,
but stresses that “with perfect aspect the emphasis is on the current or resultant
state, while with past tense it is on the past situation itself.” he decision whether
or not to categorize the perfect as an aspect thus depends on both what one con-
siders the semantics of this category to be, and what one’s deinition of aspect is.
hese questions are addressed throughout the present section.
With respect to tense, the view is more homogeneous, as perfects appear in the
present, past, and future tenses. heir representation thus always involves some
temporal speciication. We now turn to speciic proposals for aspectual and tempo-
ral representations of the perfect, ater providing a brief overview of the four types
of theories that have been proposed to account for the meaning of perfects.
Four major theories have been developed in order to give a representation of the
PP that could include all the types exempliied by (1)–(4). his involved
accounting for the fact that the PP conveys information about both past and present,
and each theory attempted to describe the link between past and present on the
basis of syntactic, semantic or pragmatic arguments. It is not our goal here to discuss
these theories in detail; for more information the reader is referred to McCoard
(1978) and Binnick (1991), who classify the various theories into four broad types,
namely, the “indeinite past” (ID), the “extended-now” (XN), the “embedded past”
(EP), and the “current relevance” (CR) theories. Here, we will simply note the fact
that each of these theories focuses on a particular feature of the PP and accounts for
it from a syntactic, a semantic, or a pragmatic perspective. he ID theory empha-
sises the fact that the PP does not combine with deinite past adverbials; the theory
captures an important constraint governing the use of the PP. However, this con-
straint does not uniquely characterize the PP as simple past (SP) sentences can also

contain reference to an indeinite time; furthermore, it is not enough to explain the

PP’s major semantic contribution, as deinite adverbials can be used with it as long
as they refer to a period that goes up to the moment of speech. he XN theory does
answer this latter problem and sees the requirement that the PP refer to an interval
that extends from the past to the moment of speech as most characteristic of its
meaning. he problem here has to do with the reference to an interval, as non-
stative VPs in the PP do not last throughout the interval, as exempliied by (17):
(17) Since 2008, Matilda has moved house and Dean has changed jobs.
Vlach (1993) has ofered a pragmatic solution to this problem by imposing the XN
requirement onto adverbials associated with the PP; if no XN adverbial is present in
the sentence, he assumes that it is understood. he question is then why does the PP
combine with such adverbials? he EP theory is a purely syntactic theory (Binnick
1991, p. 103), which describes the PP as a past in the scope of the present. As such, it
does not enable us to account for the variety of uses of the form, but stresses the
importance of the present over the past. CR theories also give special importance to
the present by stressing that the PP expresses the continuing relevance of a situation
that took place prior to the moment of speech (cf. McCawley, 1971, 1981; Comrie,
1976). he notion is of a pragmatic nature, and until recently, remained very general;
criticisms include the fact that other tenses also describe situations that have con-
tinuing relevance, and thus the principle of relevance fails to establish a systematic
contrast between SP and PP (see e.g., McCoard, 1978, p. 32).
A number of scholars have argued for representations that make the perfect
ambiguous or polysemous: for instance, Sandstrøm (1993) argues for two diferent
analyses depending on whether the VP used in the PP sentence denotes a state or an
event. She sees XN theories as better suited to account for sentences whose VP is
stative, whereas for her, CR theories it sentences whose VP is non-stative better.
Declerck (1991) considers that PP sentences can have an indeinite or a continuative
interpretation: in the former case, the situation denoted by the sentence does not go
up to the time of speech, whereas in the latter it includes it. hese last two rep-
resentations make the PP aspectually and temporally ambiguous. Michaelis (1994)
closely examines resultative and experiential readings of the English PP and con-
cludes with a verdict of ambiguity, arguing that constraints governing PP uses
cannot be predicted from its semantics. She views the resultative perfect as a formal
idiom. Kiparsky (2002) also concludes that resultative perfects (a category in which
he includes hot-news perfects) are distinct semantically from other types on the
basis that the resultative perfect (i) does not trigger sequence of tense like a past
tense; (ii) is not acceptable in adverbial wh-questions unless the adverbial relates to
the result state, as exempliied in (18) and (19):
(18) *Where have you found my watch?
(19) Where have you hidden my watch?
In (18), the locative where is used to ask about a place where the watch was prior to
being found, while in (19) it is used to ask about its location at present, that is, from

888 Aspect
the time it was hidden. (19) may become acceptable if we add “whenever it was lost/
before,” thus forcing an experiential reading.
Recent representations of the perfect have attempted to make either CR or XN
accounts more precise. Accounts generally difer in which aspects of the meaning of
the PP they attribute to its semantics and which they claim can be explained by
pragmatic principles. Within the domain of semantics, much of the question
revolves around whether a purely temporal representation of the perfect is ade-
quate, or whether perfect sentences denote a state. We consider these proposals in
turn, starting with temporal accounts.
3.2. Temporal Representations of the Perfect

Reichenbach (1947) was the irst to propose a temporal framework in which per-
fects could be uniquely characterized as having their event time (E) dissociated
from their reference time (R), in contrast with simple tenses. In turn, perfects in
diferent tenses are distinguished by the fact that R is either in the past of speech
time (S), co-temporal with S or posterior to it. Since Reichenbach, most representa-
tions of the perfect have incorporated at least the spirit of this characterization, with
some variations. We focus here on one of these as it will be useful for our discussion:
Klein’s (1992) substitution of R with Topic Time (TT).
Klein (1992, p. 535) deines TT as “ . . . the time span to which the claim made
on a given occasion is constrained.” Like Reichenbach, Klein represents perfects as
having their Time of Situation (TSit, corresponding to Reichenbach’s E) dissociated
from the TT. In his framework, S is labeled Time of Utterance (TU) and TT is either
before, included in, or posterior to TU when a perfect is used in the past, present
and future tenses respectively. Since Klein (p. 538) deines aspect as relating TSit to
TT, the perfect is also an aspect in his framework. However, what lies ater TSit is
labeled a “post-phase,” and the perfect is not analyzed as a stative category, so one
could argue that Klein’s representation is perhaps closer to temporal ones, to which
we turn now.
XN theorists, as explained above, take the view that the semantics of the PP is
temporal but have problems accounting for the continuative/non-continuative con-
trast, and thus the PP comes out as ambiguous in this approach.
A more recent account defending this view is that of Portner (2003), who at-
tempts to overcome the problem by following Bauer (1970), Dowty (1979), and
others in stressing the role played by the lexical aspectual class of the VP in these
two readings, as well as by the presence or absence of a for-adverbial. Firstly, Portner
remarks that stative VPs behave in the same way in other tenses, as can be seen
when they are used in embedded clauses and in larger pieces of discourse. Witness
the diference between embedded stative and embedded eventive complements
(Portner, 2003, pp. 481–482):
(20) John said that Mary was upset.
(21) John said that Mary read Middlemarch.

he main clause in each sentence introduces an eventuality that also establishes a

reference time in relation to which the embedded clause can be located.
Example (20) can mean either that Mary’s being upset (E) occurred prior to the
time when John said that she was (R), or that it coincided with this R. By contrast,
(21) can only have one reading, namely that Mary read Middlemarch prior to the R
introduced by the main clause. his observation leads Portner to formulate a “Tem-
poral Sequencing Principle” (TSP), which he summarizes as follows (p. 484):
For any tenseless clause ϕ, reference time r, and event e,
(i) if ϕ is not stative: ‖ ϕ ‖r,e implies that e precedes r; and
(ii) if ϕ is stative: ‖ ϕ ‖r,e implies that e either precedes or overlaps r. (in (ii), ‘e’
is taken to be a state)
In (i) and (ii), ‖ ϕ ‖r,e means that the clause is interpreted in relation to the reference
time r and the eventuality e. hus any tenseless clause (including embedded clauses,
as they are taken to be semantically tenseless) will be interpreted as having a non-
stative eventuality precede R and a stative one either precede or overlap R. he
same principle generally applies to sequences of sentences connected in
discourse.
Secondly, Portner points out that a continuative reading only obtains if a for-
adverbial is present in the sentence, as shown by (22) (which allows a continuative
reading) and (23) (which does not):
(22) Matilda has lived in Adelaide for ten years.

(23) Matilda has lived in Adelaide.
As Dowty (1979, p. 343) had noted, if the for-adverbial is preposed, the sentence
requires a continuative reading:
(24) For ten years, Matilda has lived in Adelaide.
Portner follows Hitzeman (1997), who ofers a syntactic explanation in which she
proposes that at Logical Form, adverbials can originate in VP and then move to IP,
leaving a trace, which makes it possible for them to lower to the VP level subse-
quently. Only if the temporal speciication represented by the adverbial is inside the
VP can it undergo “existential closure” (i.e., get bound by an existential quantiier,
cf. Diesing, 1992). hus, if the adverbial is postposed, two interpretations of the
sentence are possible. Alternatively, the adverbial can originate at the level of IP, in
which case there is no trace for it to return to. In Hitzeman’s account, this explains
why (24) can only have one reading, whereas (22) can have two interpretations.
hus, the temporal ambiguity generated by sentences such as (22) can be dismissed,
as it does not have its source in the semantics of the PP. he PP is then semantically
characterized, following Reichenbach, as denoting an eventuality that is dissociated
from its reference time like other perfects (although if the VP denotes a state, it can
overlap with R, according to the observations made above). Other phenomena are
explained through pragmatic principles (see section 4).

890 Aspect
We note for the time being that while XN theory in its diferent manifestations
has oten been described as accounting well for the incompatibility of the PP with
deinite past adverbials, it still does not explain why such incompatibility is absent
in other languages. We return to this point in section 4.
3.3. he Perfect Aspect: Is here a Perfect State?

One important question is whether the perfect denotes a state or not. hose who
argue in favor of a stative analysis of the perfect have variously used the terms
“result,” “resultant,” “consequent,” or “perfect” state (Moens, 1987; Parsons, 1990;
Kamp and Reyle, 1993; Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997; Smith, 1997; de Swart, 1998; Katz,
2003; Nishiyama and Koenig, 2004, 2006). We now examine these accounts in more
detail.
Representations of the perfect as denoting a state show variability both in
terms of how they view the nature of the state in question, and in terms of how the
state relates to the eventuality denoted by the VP. For Moens (1987), Moens and
Steedman (1988), and Smith (1997), the state denoted by a perfect is the result of
the occurrence of an eventuality. Moens (1987) and Moens and Steedman (1988)
view the perfect as an aspectual operator represented by a function, taking the
perfect of result, or stative perfect, as the most representative or prototypical of
their characterization. Perfects of result require a telic VP, and entail that the con-
sequences of the eventuality are in force now. hus (3) (“Dean has arrived”) entails
that Dean is here now, while (25) does not entail that Matilda is still at the Opera
House:
(25) Matilda has been to the Opera House.
Examples such as (3) thus provide the basis for representation of the perfect in gen-
eral, which is described as mapping the telic or culmination point into a consequent
state. Figure 31.1 below illustrates the authors’ concept of “nucleus,” which captures
the diferent phases an eventuality can have maximally; the portion denoted by the
perfect is shown with diagonal lines:
What happens if the VP is not a culmination (which corresponds to an achieve-
ment in Vendler’s classiication) as in (26) below?
(26) Dean has worked in the garden.
he perfect operator will coerce the VP into a culmination, subject to the require-
ment that the sentence make sense in context. hus, the activity “work in the gar-
den” will be coerced into an achievement, and contextual knowledge will enable a
preparatory process culmination consequent state

Figure 31.1. Moens’s (1987) and Moens and Steedman’s (1988) nucleus: Perfect denotes a
consequent state

hearer to re-interpret (26) as meaning, for example, that the task had been planned
and needed to be inished before some other activity could take place.
he theory is an interesting attempt to provide a uniied analysis of the perfect
in a dynamic framework. Criticisms have included disputing the central place given
to culminations as it is diicult to explain why (27) and (28) are acceptable in the
perfect:
(27) Dean has lived in Adelaide.
(28) he guests have complained about the bad service. (Depraetere, 1996, p. 16)
Reinterpretation of the VP as having “an inherent or intended endpoint” (i.e., a telic

point) is not obvious, yet the sentences are ine without the need for a contextual
reinterpretation along these lines. It seems that Moens (1987) is talking about a tem-
poral boundary rather than a telic point, but then it is diicult to see what the no-
tion of “consequent state” refers to if no telic point is part of the meaning of the VP.
Another criticism concerning the notion of consequent state is that it cannot
account for the fact that (29b) does not result from the event of seeing the key, as
discussed in Nishiyama and Koenig (2004, p. 106):
(29) a. I have seen the key in this room.
b. he key is in this room.
Indeed, there is no causal relation between the seeing event and the fact that the
keys are in the room, yet (29a) can be used convey the information expressed in
(29b).
Another proposal representing PP clauses as denoting a state is Kamp and
Reyle’s (1993), using Discourse Representation heory (DRT). his representation
involves the introduction of a discourse referent, s, for what they term a “result”
state (rather than “consequent” state, as they feel that the latter is possibly misrep-
resentative). More speciically, this result state is deined as starting immediately
ater (or abutting) the event denoted by the VP, and extending to and including the
moment of speech. hus, for the sentence Dean has arrived, we obtain the following
discourse representation structure (DRS) (30):
(30) [n s t x e | t=n, t ⊆ s, Dean(x), e s, e: x arrive]
where n stands for the time of speech; t for the “temporal reference point” (which is
similar to Reichenbach’s R); here, t is co-temporal with n and is a subinterval of s
(the result state denoted by the perfect VP); e s symbolises the fact that e (the
event denoted by the VP) abuts s. he event e is further speciied as involving an
argument x (here, Dean) and the predicate ‘arrive’. When the DRS is embedded into
a model, it will be true if there is a state that starts immediately ater the event, and
goes up to n while also including n. However, there is still a problem with this rep-
resentation as it does not link e and s: imagine a situation where Dean arrives, and
just as he does so, the light goes of; the event of arriving is immediately followed by
the room being pitch dark, and this lasts until now. Such a situation would make the
DRS above true; yet, this is not what a PP sentence means, and despite the fact that

892 Aspect
the results of the eventuality are quite variable, they still relate to it in some funda-
mental way.
Another proposal views the perfect as denoting a permanent state (Galton,
1984; Parsons, 1990; ter Meulen, 1995). On this view, the end of an event will always
entail the state of the event’s having occurred. For instance in Parsons (1990), the
perfect denotes a resultant state (R-state) deined as being the state of the under-
lying event denoted by the VP’s having culminated. In his framework, activities are
considered to include culminations, thus there is no need to appeal to coercions.
However, states do not culminate, and are said to simply “hold.” Parsons thus gives
two deinitions for his R-state, which he formulates as follows (31):
(31) a. e’s R-state holds at t ≡ e culminates at some time at or before t.
b. s’s R-state holds at t ≡ the period of time for which s holds terminates at or before t.
A sentence in the present perfect is represented with the following logical form,
using a neo-Davidsonian framework (32):
(32) Mary has eaten the apple.
∃e∃x(eat(e) ∧ Agent(e,Mary) ∧ heme(e,x) ∧ apple(x) ∧ Hold(R-state(e),S)
I.e., there is an event, the event is an eating, the agent is Mary, the theme is the apple,
and the event’s result state holds at the time of speech. Such a representation is dif-
ferentiated from that of a simple past sentence where e culminates before S. More-
over, the incompatibility of the PP with past adverbials is accounted for on the basis
of a logical contradiction: the time for which e’s R-state holds cannot be both S and
e.g., yesterday, which is in the past of S.
Parsons is careful to distinguish between the R-state of a culminated event,
and its “target state”: if someone throws a ball onto a roof, he explains, the “target
state” of this event is a state where the ball is on the roof. his state will last until
the ball is moved from this location. By contrast, the R-state of the same event is
the state of someone’s having thrown the ball onto the roof. hus, it will never cease
to hold.
Giorgi and Pianesi (1997, p. 92) ofer as a counterexample to Parson’s analysis
the following scenario: imagine that John wins a race on hursday, but is subse-
quently disqualiied on Friday because he is found to test positive for drugs. We can
then assert the following:
(33) On hursday John had won the race.
(34) (As for today) John has not won the race.
hus it is possible for the R-state of the event to hold on hursday, but not on Friday,
making the permanency of the R-state doubtful, in their opinion. Giorgi and Pianesi
(1997) instead view perfects as denoting a consequent state (CS) that is realized by
the means of a binary relation, thus making any CS unique and non-permanent: “A
consequent state of such an event e [i.e., a culminated event] is any connected event
the let temporal boundary of which coincides with the right temporal boundary
(culmination) of e” (p. 98).

Giorgi and Pianesi (1997, pp. 91–92) also comment that Parsons’s explanation of
the incompatibility of the PP with past adverbials is very similar to that ofered by
XN theorists: in both cases, it is due to “conlicting requirements” introduced by
two mutually exclusive temporal speciications. However, they point out that in lan-
guages such as French, as seen earlier, past adverbials are allowed. Moreover, if a
native speaker of English is presented with such a sentence and asked what it would
mean, were it acceptable, the meaning they attribute to it is one where the adverbial
“ixes the time of the event.”
he question of what an adequate representation of a perfect state might be
perhaps requires an answer to a more basic one, namely, are perfect clauses indeed
stative? Dowty (1979) pointed out that stativity tests typically give unclear results
when applied to perfects. For instance, for-adverbials combine well with stative
predicates, but do not seem to be felicitous when non-stative VPs are used in the
perfect, as shown in (35):
(35) *Matilda has inished writing the letter for an hour.
However, just like stative predicates, perfect VPs cannot be used in the progressive:
(36) *I am loving ice cream.

(37) *Matilda is having inished writing the letter. (cf. Chomsky, 1957).
Katz (2003) re-examines the question systematically and discusses the results of
“classical” stativity tests on perfect sentences. hese tests generally reveal that in
contrast to eventive predicates, stative predicates are always non-agentive, have a
“present orientation” and are temporally homogeneous. When applied to sentences
containing a VP in the perfect, Katz inds a positive result: perfect sentences exhibit
the behavior expected of stative sentences. Where results had been unclear, Katz
re-examines scope issues within the sentence. For instance, using an agentive adver-
bial such as “intentionally” in a perfect sentence is acceptable, thus suggesting that
the sentence is non-stative. However, Katz (p. 207) argues, the adverbial modiies
the event denoted by the lexical verb, not that denoted by the perfect construction,
as shown by the unacceptability of (38b):
(38) a. Hans has kissed Lin intentionally.

b. ??Hans intentionally has kissed Lin.
Katz inds that perfect clauses have a present orientation, like other stative clauses:
(39) helma believed Hans to??kiss/love Lin. (p. 209)

(40) helma believed Hans to have kissed Lin. (p. 211)
Other commonalities between stative and perfect predicates include the fact that
both have an epistemic interpretation when used as a complement of must, while
eventive predicates have a deontic interpretation:

894 Aspect
(41) a. You must love Lin.

b. You must kiss Lin.
c. You must have kissed Mary. (pp. 210–211)
Both stative and perfect predicates acquire a deontic interpretation when a future
temporal adverbial is added to the sentence (as in “You must love /have kissed Mary
by the time I call”). In addition, only statives can combine with adverbs such as still
and no longer. However, as seen in section 2, perfect VPs do not combine well with
such adverbs, whereas resultative constructions do. Here, Katz follows Parsons
(1990) in proposing that the reason for such incompatibility lies in the fact that
perfect predicates are timeless. While Katz acknowledges that there are examples
where the perfect denotes non-permanent states, perfect states are in his view usu-
ally permanent, and this fact restricts the use of certain adverbials with perfects.
here are nonetheless events which by their nature will yield non-permanent per-
fect states, a point also made by Portner (2003), and others.
he present orientation of stative and perfect predicates also results in discourse
properties that diferentiate them from eventive predicates: they do not move nar-
ration in time, but rather provide “background” information.
he temporal homogeneity of states makes them compatible with adverbials
such as for-phrases, but not with expressions like “in X time”.
If we accept that perfect clauses are stative, we still need to account for the var-
iability of the state they denote, namely a clear result of an event (especially when
telic verbs are used), or any consequence that is relevant to the topic discussed, at S
or any R. More generally, and regardless of whether an aspectual and/or temporal
analysis of the perfect is chosen, pragmatic factors also need to be taken into ac-
count, and we turn to these now.
4. The Pragmatics of the Perfect

Starting our discussion of the pragmatics of the perfect with temporal approaches,
Portner (2003) proposes that a PP sentence presupposes that the eventuality it
describes is in the Extended-Now established by the context. It also introduces a
“modal presupposition” of a relation of epistemic necessity between the general
question that is debated in the discourse (i.e., the topic), and its answer:
(42) A sentence S of the form PERFECT (ϕ) presupposes:
∃q[ANS(q) & P(p,q)] (p. 500)
In the above, p is the proposition expressed by ϕ, the property ANS is true of any ques-
tion which the speaker of sentence S is trying to answer, thus the operator P is similar
to an epistemic must. P(p,q) therefore says that the proposition p, given some conver-
sational background, is necessarily an answer to a question that is part of the current
conversation. his presupposition may result in a causal relationship being established
with material that is in the conversational background. Take for instance sentence (43):

(43) Mary has read Middlemarch.
(43) can be understood as the cause for Mary understanding Eliot’s style in a con-
text where someone is looking for an explanation of this author’s style. he rea-
soning goes as follows: it is established in the conversation that “[i]f someone
who isn’t stupid reads an author’s book, they understand her style; Mary is smart;
George Eliot wrote Middlemarch” (p. 500). By adding the proposition expressed
by “Mary has read Middlemarch,” the proposition that Mary can explain Elliot’s
style is entailed and answers the question asked. he relation here between the
reading and the understanding is one of causation, with the understanding being
a result of her reading. his causal relation obtains with resultative perfects,
where the event referred to in the sentence also provides evidence for some cur-
rent state. Alternatively, other types of relations may be established, such as evi-
dentiary ones (as in “he Earth has been hit by giant asteroids before” being used
as evidence to answer the question “is the Earth in danger of being struck by giant
asteroids?”).
Nishiyama and Koenig (2004) argue against a purely temporal semantics for
perfects on the grounds that it fails to relate the event to its reference time, and they
enrich their stative analysis using a neo-Gricean approach. hey modify Kamp and
Reyle’s (1993) representation of perfect sentences using DRT and give a diferent
deinition of what they term “perfect state.” For them, a perfect sentence introduces
(i) an eventuality (ev) whose temporal trace τ precedes a reference time r (τ (ev) ≺
r), as well as (ii) a perfect state s, overlapping with r (τ (s) ο r). he state s is a free
variable represented in the DRS as X(s), where X’s value must be inferable from an
occurrence of ev. he mechanisms for providing the pragmatic inference are based
on the informativeness or I-principle (Levinson, 2000), where a speaker chooses
the less informative utterance if there is a choice, and the hearer enriches it to
derive the most speciic information, based on world knowledge. Such information
needs to be inferable from the occurrence of the event “in normal contexts,” and
this is meant to avoid the problem arising from a representation of the perfect that
has a result state simply abutting the event, as in Kamp and Reyle (1993) (see dis-
cussion in section 3.3), and where the state can be interpreted as being unrelated to
the event.
To take an example, sentence (44) can be used to refer to the result of the event
[Ken break his leg], as well as to a conversationally implicated reading, [Ken be
behind in his work]:
(44) Ken has broken his leg. (= q)
he representation is as follows:
(45) ∃e∃s[Ken_break_his_leg (e) ∧ X(s) ∧ τ(e) ≺ n ∧ τ(s) o n]

a. Ken has broken his leg and Ken’s leg is broken. (= p)
X(s) = Ken’s_leg_be_broken (Lexically entailed resultative perfect reading)
b. Ken has broken his leg and Ken is behind in his work. (= p´)
X(s) = Ken_be_behind_in_his_work (Conversationally implicated resultative reading)

896 Aspect
Nisyiama and Koenig (2006) further sought to ind out more speciically what types
of rules speakers use to draw such inferences. To this end, they examined over 600
English perfect examples taken from a corpus of newspapers, discussions, conver-
sations, and narrative texts, thus comprising diferent genres. hey ind that the
most common types of perfect used are the entailed resultative and the continuative
perfect. As they point out, such types only require readers/hearers to draw trivial
inferences, namely the presumed persistence of a situation, a rule that applies unless
speciic information indicates otherwise (McDermott, 1982). he other functions of
the perfect in the corpus included negotiation of a topic, involving for example a
speaker asking whether the addressee has seen a movie/read a book/been to a place.
he addressee infers that the speaker wants to talk about such topics. he value of X
is the state expressed by a sentence of the type “I want to talk about topic x.” hey
ind that oten, the perfect is used to start a conversation, where no shared topic can
be presupposed (contra Portner, 2003). he last type of use of the perfect is labeled
“commonsense entailment,” and involves the hearer understanding the perfect sen-
tence as conveying evidence for, or explanation of, a situation denoted by a neigh-
boring sentence in the discourse. he value of the variable X in such cases is the
state described by another sentence, as illustrated by example (46) below:
(46) Iraq still keeps U.S. forces busy, too (=X). U.S. Air Force ighter jets have lown an
average of 1,500 missions a month over southern Iraq since 1992, in an efort to make
sure Iraq doesn’t violate a no-ly zone or attack its Shiite population. (Graf, 1995–1997,
Wall Street Journal 07.01.1996) (Nishiyama and Koenig, 2006, p. 273)
In such cases the perfect is used to establish discourse coherence.

Overall, the authors comment that an overwhelming 93.06% of their examples
require a very general default rule to assign a value to X (persistence, general expec-
tations regarding speech acts). Only a small number of instances require speciic
commonsense knowledge rules, as for example in (46) above, and the value of X in
such cases is found in an immediately preceding or following sentence. hey con-
clude that “determining the nature of the perfect state posited by theories that treat
the perfect as a stativizer is a feasible task.” In addition, the perfect serves a number
of discourse functions (introducing the value of X into the discourse, negotiating a
topic and establishing discourse coherence).
Nishiyama and Koenig’s study thus also shows properties of the perfect in dis-
course and is one of relatively few recent attempts at connecting the meaning of this
tense with the discourse context in which it occurs. Other studies that have speciically
examined use of the perfect in relation to rhetorical relations are briely outlined below.
We now turn to studies relating perfect usage to the rhetorical structure of dis-
course, following the work of Asher and Lascarides (2003). Earlier attempts at pre-
dicting temporal order focused on the aspectual nature of eventualities: for instance
Kamp and Rohrer (1983) had observed that events and states have diferent behavior
in discourse. hus, (a) and (b) in example (47), continuing the discourse ater the
irst clause, describe an eventuality that is posterior to, and overlapping with that of
the irst one, respectively:

(47) Matilda entered the building.

a. A man gave her directions to the conference room.
b. A man was standing in the hall.
In (47), (a) describes an event and the narration moves forward in time; (b) describes
a state which is understood to overlap with the event described in the irst clause.
However, this observation is too general, as there are many counterexamples. In
(48) the second clause describes a state, yet this state is understood to obtain ater
the event denoted by the irst clause:
(48) Matilda switched of the light. he room was pitch dark.
Asher and Lascarides (2003) thus proposed that the temporal order of eventualities
described in discourse is inferred from rhetorical or discourse relations, which are
viewed as types of speech acts (for more detail, see Caudal, this volume). he default
relation is that of narration, which leads to the inference of temporal progression,
and another relation, that of explanation, also leads to a similar inference. Other
relations, such as elaboration, lead to the inference of temporal inclusion of the
eventuality denoted by a clause in that denoted by the preceding clause (Caudal and
Ritz, forthcoming). he patterns are summarized below in Figure 31.2:
Given the semantics of the English PP, we expect that it will not be found in
clauses that are part of narration, result or explanation, as it is not used to express
temporal progression.
Relation Temporal inference Example
NARRATION ( , ) (e < e ) Dean came in. Matilda greeted him.
EXPLANATION ( , ) <e ) Dean fell. Matilda pushed him.
(b) (event (e ) e <e )
RESULT ( , ) (e < e ) Matilda switched off the light. The room was pitch
dark.
ELABORATION ( , ) Part-of (e , e ) Matilda cooked a great meal. She roasted some
(e e)
B/GR-F/GR ( , ) (e e) It was a stormy night. Matilda woke up suddenly..
Figure 31.2. Rhetorical relations and temporal inferences (ater Asher and Lascarides, 2003)

898 Aspect
Indeed, de Swart (2007) uses the French novel L’Étranger by Albert Camus
(narrated entirely in the PC) and its translations into English, Dutch and German as
a corpus to examine the above hypothesis. She inds that the French perfect form
can appear in clauses expressing any temporal order (precedence, inversion, over-
lap), while the English perfect never appears in narrative sequences or with any
adverbial expressing temporal progression. he Dutch translation, while not using
the perfect form or Voltooid Tegenwoordige Tijd (VTT) for all PCs, occasionally uses
it in particular when a stative or process-like VP needs to be coerced to maintain
the quantized character of the French sentence (p. 22). In German, the Perfekt alter-
nates with the Praeteritum relecting the contrast in French between PC and impar-
fait. In French, the PC advances narration with the help of other elements, such as
rhetorical structure, use of sequencing adverbials such as puis (‘then’) and connec-
tives (‘and’), as well as lexical aspect. De Swart concludes that the perfect establishes
an elaboration structure, where speech time/utterance situation is the topic. She
argues that in general terms, sentences in the present perfect are related by a rela-
tion of continuation, which is neutral with regard to temporal ordering. In French
and German, eventualities can be freely related to each other, thus narration
becomes possible. In English and Dutch, no temporal relation is possible between
eventualities, thus discourse use of the perfect is much more restricted. Accord-
ingly, and using a Reichenbachian framework, the semantics of the four perfects
examined are summarized as follows:
A. Semantics of the English PP
(i) E-R,S
(ii) Ø E@X where @ is any temporal relation, and X is either an event or a
moment other than R or S. hus in English, no temporal relation between
the event referred to in the PP and either another event or a moment
other than R or S is possible.
B. Semantics of the Dutch VTT
(i) E-R,S
(ii) Ø E@X where @ is any temporal relation, and X is an event. In Dutch, no
temporal relation between the event referred to in the PP and another
event is possible.
C. Semantics of the French PC and the German Perfekt
(i) E-R,S (p. 2278)
Given the above set of rules, how can we explain the range of constraints (or lack
thereof) that variously apply to the perfect in diferent languages? While there is no
doubt that conventions difer, are there any clues that might help explain how these
conventions come about?
Diachronic studies of perfect usage in discourse, especially using rhetorical rela-
tion analysis and their temporal inferences have also shown interesting patterns that
enable a better understanding of the processes involved in the development from

perfect meaning to past tense/preterit meaning. See Caudal (this volume) for exam-
ples from French. Ritz (2007), Ritz and Engel (2008), and Ritz (2010) look at a change
in progress in oral narratives and police media reports in Australian English where
the PP has started to acquire past tense meanings (see also Carruthers, this volume).
In oral narratives, the PP is oten used in clauses expressing temporal progression
(related typically by the rhetorical relations of narration), and is used as a narrative
PP. In the police reports, further extensions have taken place and the PP is combined
frequently with deinite locating temporal adverbials such as dates and times:
(49) At about 3.20pm yesterday a man HAS ENTERED the Eat-N-Run take away store on
Golden Four Drive, Bilinga, armed with a rile. (John Kaarsberg, Q’land Police Media,
21.12.2001) (Caudal & Ritz, in press)
he PP is also used to elaborate on events presented in the SP, thus leading to an

inference that the time of the PP event is included in that of the SP event, a type of
use that also contributes to past tense reading of the PP (Caudal & Ritz, in press).
Ritz (2010) proposes that the PP in this variety of English has two representations:
(i) that of a perfect, and (ii) that of a past tense that has E located at a R but also
another R located at S. he representation of the latter indeed requires a complex
temporal and aspectual framework: the PP is used to achieve a range of efects and
thus non-standard uses still have a strong pragmatic force. More speciically, and
following Klein’s (1992) analysis of the standard English PP, referring one event to
two distinct times is pragmatically infelicitous. In non-standard uses such as those
observed in the Australian police media reports, the use of two times is however
intentional, thus louting Grice’s maxim of quantity. A hearer/reader will accord-
ingly infer that information that the time referred to is either now or past is not
suicient, and that the present consequences or results of the event are to be inter-
preted as being the consequences of the event having occurred at a speciic past
time. A range of more speciic interpretations are then available depending on con-
text: for example, if the event is already known to have occurred at a speciic past
time, yet is presented using a PP, relevance to S can be understood to convey recent
discovery on the part of the speaker (including through inference or hearsay, leading
to evidential meaning), surprise, or present recall of a situation that had not been on
the speaker’s mind for a while (leading to indirective meaning). All of these efects
can be observed in the Australian corpus and show that PP usage is undergoing a
change in progress where a number of possible paths for development exist. What
is clear is that in a number of its uses, the Australian PP is no longer a true perfect.
he data also show that the PP in English is not immune to change. In addition,
explanations for the diferences between the English PP and that of other languages
where past adverbials are compatible with a formal equivalent of the PP that center
around diferences in the meaning of the present tense (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997;
Portner, 2003) cannot be easily supported by these indings.
Given how complex and unstable the perfect is, the question of what its role in
a given tense-aspect system of a language perhaps deserves to be addressed more
explicitly. We turn to this question now.

900 Aspect
5. Conclusion: The Place of the Perfect in

a System
he perfect, as we have seen, can be distinguished from the resultative and the
simple past, although it shares some characteristics with both: like the resultative,
the perfect can express the fact that the consequences of an event are in force at R
(although “consequences” are of a more general nature with perfects than with
resultatives). hese consequences result from the event having taken place in the
past of R, a temporal location shared with the past tense in the case of the PP
(although the said past event is made part of the present when a perfect is used and
cannot be located deinitely at a past time). Diachronically, the perfect oten de-
velops from a resultative construction and its present form oten evolves further
into a past tense. Given this instability, one might wonder what place a perfect oc-
cupies in a system once it has arisen, that is, how does a perfect relate synchronically
to other aspectuo-temporal categories?
It is clear that the meanings contributed by a perfect can be expressed in other
ways: for instance, the simple past tense in Old French was used in contexts that
gave it resultative/present relevance readings (see Caudal, forthcoming). The
English SP can also be used in such contexts. A number of scenarios are possible
when a language has a perfect: it can have a resultative, a perfect and a past tense,
with overlap between the meanings of these categories also attested. Indeed, while
there are examples of languages with a resultative that has no property of a perfect
and vice versa, examples of resultatives with perfect properties (e.g., Russian) and
perfects with resultative properties (e.g., Lithuanian) have also all been found
(Nedjalkov, 2001, p. 937). Similarly, perfects can co-exist with a past tense and retain
their canonical meaning within a given language (e.g., standard English), but as we
have seen, perfect forms can come to share properties with a past tense, the latter
ending up with more specialized uses than originally although such uses vary
(compare German, French, and Dutch, for instance). We ind perfect meaning
expressed in tenseless languages, for example in Mandarin (Li & hompson, 1981)
and Vietnamese (Do-Hurinville, 2004). As a result, it is diicult to say that the exis-
tence of any given category in a system can implicate that of a perfect or, conversely,
that the existence of a perfect can implicate that of another category.
Yet, the perfect, in establishing a connection with the present (or with a past or
future R), also participates in a set of contrasts with other categories and its role may
also be considered in terms of the contribution it makes to a iner “carving up” of a
time-sphere. As discussed in section 3, the perfect shares common aspectual char-
acteristics with the prospective, and it has been argued that the two categories are
the mirror image of each other (Comrie, 1976; Ritz, 2010). Binnick (2005, 2006) has
also shown that the perfect and the habitual used to in English share many prop-
erties, proposing that used to is an “anti present-perfect” in that “he present perfect
. . . includes the present in what is essentially a period of the past. he used to con-
struction, on the other hand, precisely excludes the present from a past period”

(Binnick, 2006, p. 42). In both cases, the present period is pragmatically determined
and starts immediately ater the end of a state of afairs or series of events in the case
of used to, or ater the end of a situation in the case of the PP. In general, with used
to, the present period contrasts with one that immediately precedes it with respect
to the situation itself (which is said to deine the preceding era), but in some cases
the implicature can be cancelled as in (50):
(50) Erik used to be a member of the Volapük League, and he still is. (Binnick, 2005, 2006,
from Harrison, n.d.; cf. Comrie, 1976, p. 29)
In (50), what distinguishes the present and preceding periods is not member-
ship in the League itself but something else—for example we could add “when he
was a university student.”
We could summarize the relations between used to, the PP and the prospective
with Figure 31.3:
In Figure 31.3, the period occupied by used to, the PP and the prospective exclude
each other, separating the present into mutually exclusive intervals of time, the pre-
present, the extended now, and the post-present respectively. Each period is vari-
ously illed (i) with a situation denoted by the VP (with used to), (ii) the results of a
situation or its post-state (with the PP) and (iii) the pre-state of a situation (with the
prospective). In the case of the universal perfect, while the state denoted by the VP
may still be in force at S as shown by examples such as “I’ve lived here for ive years
(and I still do),” one could still argue that the speaker is excluding other periods,
namely the time before ive years ago and the time ater S, thus making their asser-
tion one that is about the extended-now.
Regarding the place of the PP in relation to the SP, Mittwoch (2008) examines
closely the behaviors of the resultative and experiential perfects, arguing that the
resultative perfect is in strong competition with the SP, while the experiential per-
fect is diferent in this respect. Such competition is due to the fact that the result
state of resultative perfects is speciic since it holds at S, thus making the event it
results from also speciic, or singular. Similarly, “out of the blue” SP sentences also
share the singularity feature. On the other hand, experiential perfects oten denote
plural, non-speciic events, and share many characteristics with the SP (i.e., itera-
tive, habitual meanings, sequence-of-tense phenomena, more focus on the pastness
of the event). he competition between resultative perfect and SP leads the two
tenses to contrast precisely with respect to the presence or absence of a result state,
which alerts a hearer to the fact that the speaker using a perfect wishes to convey
Used to Present Perfect Prospective
Pre-present Extended now Post present
Figure 31.3. he place of the PP in the wider present time-sphere

902 Aspect
additional meaning to simply asserting the past occurrence of an event. Indeed,

diferences between the two types of perfect are supported by two contrasting ex-
amples, (i) data from Australian English where extensions in PP usage all concern
singular events (see section 4), and where the PP has expanded its uses; (ii) data
from Argentinian Spanish where the PP (presente perfecto) is less frequently used
than the SP (Pretérito) and seems to be specializing for an indeinite past meaning,
as shown in Rodríguez Louro (2009).
Mittwoch’s (2008) careful analysis of the resultative and experiential readings of
the perfect is useful when we try to place the perfect in a system, both synchroni-
cally and diachronically. We’ll briely summarize its main points before suggesting
avenues for further work.
Mittwoch distinguishes between strong and weak resultatives (the latter is her term
for perfect of result or resultative perfect). Strong resultatives are clear cases of resulta-
tive perfect, involving a telic VP that denotes a transition consisting of an event and a
result state (Parson’s “target state,” see section 3), as in “X has arrived in Paris” having as
a result state “X is in Paris.” Weak resultatives on the other hand are telic but do not
involve this target state, as in “Mary has read Middlemarch” (Portner, 2003), where
results are variable, as explained in section 4. Similarly, results inferred when an expe-
riential perfect is used are context dependent. Mittwoch looks in detail at the target
state of strong resultatives in order to attempt to characterize more precisely the type of
inference they represent. She shows that the result state inference is not an entailment,
as negation of the state itself does not result in a denial of the speaker’s utterance
(“Mary’s let. #No she hasn’t. She’s back,” p. 334). It is not a conversational implicature
either as it is not cancelable (“I’ve put the book back on the shelf, #but it’s not there
anymore/#and perhaps it’s still there,” p. 335). It is not a presupposition as shown by
examples (51a–c) below, where the truth of the target state “the door is locked” is not
preserved in the family of sentences traditionally used to test presupposition:
(51) a. I haven’t locked the door.
b. Have you locked the door?
c. If you have locked the door, we can go. (p. 336)
Even (52) does not work, yet the antecedent is the target state expressed by the PP
clause:
(52) If the book is on the shelf, Bill’s put it there. (p. 336)
Mittwoch (2008) concludes with the only possible type of inference let, a conven-
tional implicature, “faute de mieux” (p. 349).
Regarding the question of presupposition, another way of looking at the above
examples could be to say that the perfect clause, while not having a result state being
presupposed, is in fact presupposing some other state. In (51a–c), if we take Mittwoch’s
target state to be “the door is locked,” it seems that one presupposition is preserved,
namely that the “opposite” of the target state, i.e., “the door is not locked,” held at some
time prior to evaluation time, or S. Similarly, the second clause in (52) presupposes
“the book is not on the shelf ” at some time prior to S. he same applies to all such

verbs, so if “Dean has arrived” is true (= he is here), then he must not have been here
at some time prior to S, and so forth. hus the perfect sentence presupposes this
opposite state before S, and asserts the target state at S, signaling a change-of-state.
Since presuppositions convey information that is in the common ground (see e.g.,
Cherchia & McConnell-Ginet, 1990), a change to an opposite state will obviously
constitute new information to the hearer. he perfect is known to convey such in-
formation, as has oten been pointed out. In addition, perfects have been shown to
oten give rise to mirative meanings (de Lancey, 2001; see also section 4 and de
Haan, this volume, section 7), thus possibly extending this aspect of their meaning.
Of course, the meaning of change with strong resultative perfects is in large part
contributed by the lexical meaning of the verb, which denotes a change-of-state. Yet
this type of perfect has oten been described as “prototypical” of perfect meaning. Is
some meaning of change also expressed with perfects that do not involve a target
state, for instance experiential perfects? Consider (53):
(53) Dean has been to Adelaide.
We could argue that a change did indeed occur between Dean never having been to
Adelaide to him having had the experience of such a visit when he traveled there for
the irst time. However, the event may have taken place quite a long time ago, and
not be strictly new information. he fact that there is no current target state relating
the event to S gives the clause more of a past meaning. hus it seems that what is
important here, more than just the fact that the experience itself took place, is that
one of its consequences (e.g., Dean knowing some good places to stay) is new inso-
much as it relates to the current conversation (e.g., someone asking for advice on
where to stay in Adelaide). his may be another way in which the perfect and SP can
contrast, which would show in the case of the perfect a generalization from a spe-
ciic presupposition being replaced by an opposite state of afairs with strong resul-
tatives, to a more general notion of an inference being new relative to the present
common ground with other types of perfect. It would also it in with Dahl’s (2000)
concept of “gradual relaxation of current relevance” (see section 2). In summary, if
the perfect conveys a inherent notion of change, its contribution could be seen gen-
erally to give a hearer the following instruction: “I’m indicating a change; ind the
appropriate inference relating the information expressed in this sentence to the ques-
tion currently being debated and modify the common ground accordingly.”
Finally, a change may also be part of perfect of persistent situation, although it
seems less obvious because of the aspectual nature of the VP—there is no clear
event that can be said to mark a change. However, the perfect in such cases can also
be used to indicate a change relative to information that is in the common ground,
as, say in example (54), stating precisely that no change occurred:
(54) We’ve always done things this way.
Here, the situation itself goes back a long way into the past, but the point here is to
justify a way of doing things as still being relevant now, as a result of having been
done in a particular way over the period denoted by always. hus one could argue

904 Aspect
that the sentence is still contrasting a past state of afairs with a present one. he
speaker did not choose the present version of the sentence, which would make the
situation true at S, and the PP sentence is true in more circumstances than the pre-
sent tense sentence. Consequently, the use of the PP carries the scalar implicature
that the corresponding present tense sentence need not be true, or at least that it is
being questioned in the conversation in some way.
If we accept the points made so far in this section, the perfect enables speakers
to make quite ine-grained distinctions by excluding speciic time-periods and fo-
cusing on an extended present while singling out new information. In addition,
availability of a perfect in a language also enables speakers to “say less and mean
more” by leading their hearers to inferences about the nature of the possible conse-
quences of a situation, as discussed in section (4). In this way, the perfect is quite
distinct from both the SP and the resultative, as (i) unlike the SP it denotes the phase
of an eventuality where consequences are in force, while the SP denotes the situa-
tion itself (and occasionally implicates present relevance if there is an appropriate
context), and (ii) unlike a resultative, the perfect is not restricted in the type of result
expressed. he important role played by pragmatics in the encoding and decoding
of the meanings a perfect conveys however may also explain its notorious insta-
bility, as speakers and hearers keep extending the range of inferences to eventually
include temporal ones, thus, for instance, moving the meaning of the perfect toward
that of a past tense. Slobin (1994, p. 124) remarked that “[t]he hallmark of the perfect
is its Janus-like attention to both past process and present circumstance.” Maybe the
two-faced Janus analogy is not suicient: the perfect, rather, is the shapeshiter of
tense-aspect categories, changing and adapting its meaning to it in a given system
and to serve the communicative goals of speakers. If changeability is its very es-
sence, it is no wonder that it has been, and continues to be, a challenge to tense-
aspect theories.
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The Perfect Tense and Aspect

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BINNICK-Chapter 31-PageProof 881 December 2, 2011 10:48 PM

when discussing theories of the perfect. In section 3, we investigate in more detail

2. The Perfect in a Typological and

2.1. Typological and Diachronic Variation: Overview

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 883

• he universal perfect or perfect of “persistent situation,” which denotes a

• he existential or experiential perfect, which presents an event as having

• he perfect of result or stative perfect, which indicates that the result or

• he perfect of recent past or “hot news” perfect:

(5) She is still gone.

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While in English the PP is ungrammatical in the contexts exempliied above, the

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 885

(12) At 3 o’clock Dean had /will have (already) let.

In summary, a perfect enables a situation to become part of an extended period that

3. The Semantics of the Perfect

3.1. Is the Perfect a Tense, an Aspect, or Both?

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of aspect” with Huddleston’s (1988, p. 77) statement that “[p]erfect aspectual

We return to the parallel between PP and prospective in section 5.

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 887

contain reference to an indeinite time; furthermore, it is not enough to explain the

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3.2. Temporal Representations of the Perfect

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 889

he main clause in each sentence introduces an eventuality that also establishes a

(22) Matilda has lived in Adelaide for ten years.

(24) For ten years, Matilda has lived in Adelaide.

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3.3. he Perfect Aspect: Is here a Perfect State?

preparatory process culmination consequent state

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 891

Reinterpretation of the VP as having “an inherent or intended endpoint” (i.e., a telic

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 893

(35) *Matilda has inished writing the letter for an hour.

(36) *I am loving ice cream.

(38) a. Hans has kissed Lin intentionally.

(39) helma believed Hans to??kiss/love Lin. (p. 209)

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(41) a. You must love Lin.

4. The Pragmatics of the Perfect

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 895

(43) Mary has read Middlemarch.

(44) Ken has broken his leg. (= q)

(45) ∃e∃s[Ken_break_his_leg (e) ∧ X(s) ∧ τ(e) ≺ n ∧ τ(s) o n]

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In such cases the perfect is used to establish discourse coherence.

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Perfect Tense and Aspect 897

(47) Matilda entered the building.

Relation Temporal inference Example

NARRATION ( , ) (e < e ) Dean came in. Matilda greeted him.

EXPLANATION ( , ) <e ) Dean fell. Matilda pushed him.

(b) (event (e ) e <e )