Timeline for Use of Present Perfect in this case [duplicate]
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| Mar 1, 2021 at 8:25 | history | closed |
KillingTime fev Davo Justin Mari-Lou A |
Duplicate of Must present perfect tense be used if the action takes place more than once?, Present Perfect Tense - Specific phrase | |
| Feb 7, 2021 at 18:10 | comment | added | Tinfoil Hat | The use of the present perfect here suggests that he may or may not love her again after "now": I have loved her in the past, but at the moment I don't. [Maybe I will again, maybe I won't, but all we know is "now"]. | |
| Feb 7, 2021 at 17:41 | answer | added | Uhtred Ragnarsson | timeline score: 0 | |
| Feb 7, 2021 at 17:18 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Again, distancing. English uses hedging devices (eg "Could you just shut the window, please, John./?" (full stop is acceptable here) is a polite request/instruction rather than a question). Trying to reconcile this usage of 'could [you]' to others is extremely hard. | |
| Feb 7, 2021 at 17:08 | comment | added | Shoe | A possible interpretation is to regard the past as divided into different periods. And in one or more of those periods he loved his wife but not in all of them. It is similar to the difference between "I lived in New York in the past" (implying in all of the past) and "I have lived in New York in the past" (implying in one or more periods in the past). | |
| Feb 7, 2021 at 17:06 | review | Close votes | |||
| Mar 1, 2021 at 8:25 | |||||
| Feb 7, 2021 at 16:51 | comment | added | Helen | Thank you! Yes, I understand that present perfect is about the way something relates to the present. I'm just confused with the idea of contrasting their relationship in the past and the present situation. I thought that is what is implied here. And if so then present perfect doesn't seem to fit... Like if he said "I loved her, but now everything is different. Now she is only the wife" - and actually that is what makes the joke here. May be in this case it would have been better to say "I used to love her" | |
| Feb 7, 2021 at 16:45 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Does this answer your question? Present Perfect Tense - Specific phrase Stoney B's answer contains 'the present perfect doesn't signify that "something happened in the past and [is] still happening in the present"; it signifies that the past event establishes [informs; relates to] a present state'. I'd say that it is chosen here to show the continuing reasonably good (if not perfect) relationship. "I did once love her" is far more distancing. | |
| Feb 7, 2021 at 16:38 | history | asked | Helen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |