Perfect aspect

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The perfect aspect is a grammatical aspect, which refers to a state resulting from a previous action (also described as a previous action with relevance to a particular time, or a previous action viewed from the perspective of a later time).

For example, "I have gone to the cinema" implies both that a previous action happened ("I went to the cinema") and that a current state resulted ("I am now in the cinema"). This differs from the simple "I went to the cinema", which implies only that an action happened, with no relevance to the present. The form "I have gone" is referred to as a present perfect, meaning present tense, perfect aspect. (It is considered present tense, not past tense, since the resulting state is in the present.)

Note: The perfect aspect is not the same as the perfective aspect. See .

In English, the perfect aspect can be combined with any simple tense (past, present or future), yielding perfect tenses that are formed using the conjugations of the auxiliary verb have and a verb:

• Present perfect: I have eaten, passive I have been eaten.
• Past perfect (pluperfect): I had eaten, passive I had been eaten.
• Future perfect: I will (or shall) have eaten, passive I will have been eaten.

In addition to these, we can distinguish the three perfect progressive tenses:

• Present perfect progressive: I have been eating, passive I have been being eaten.
• Past perfect progressive: I had been eating, passive I had been being eaten.
• Future perfect progressive: I will (or shall) have been eating, passive I will have been being eaten.

The perfect aspect can also be combined with various modal auxiliary verbs, such as would, should, could, may or might:

• Conditional perfect: I would have eaten, passive I would have been eaten.
• should-perfect: I should have eaten, passive I should have been eaten.

Progressives can likewise be formed from these:

• Conditional perfect progressive: I would have been eating, passive I would have been being eaten.
• should-perfect progressive: I should have been eating, passive I should have been being eaten.

The various perfect progressive passives are a fairly recent addition to English, and some speakers still find them questionable or even ungrammatical.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

See also

• Future tense
• Grammatical aspect
• Imperfect tense
• Past tense

External links

• [Present Perfect Tense]
• [Complete descriptions of the English Tenses]
• [Grammar Tutorials] - a column overview of the English tenses

 

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