Present Perfect and Reichenbach's model of tense

Question

I recently came across the following construction in some documentation I was reading:

This document describes a solution that has been applied during the migration.

To me, this seemed utterly wrong, but I was not exactly sure why.

After reading through Michaelis's "Time and Tense", which introduced me to Reichenbach's model of tense, it seems to me that the reason comes down to the location of the reference time.

Based on the context of the situation, I understand the reference time, R, to be a completed duration occurring before the moment of utterance, S, with the event, E, not being ordered with respect to R (E,R_S).

To me using the present perfect (E_S,R), with the event and reference point being different simply does not work.

The reference point is in the past along with the event, so simple past, right?

Though I generally trust my gut in matters of tense and time, I am having doubts on this one.

What are your opinions on the matter?

Evan

Answer 1

I formulate the matter as follows.

The time phrase in a present perfect construction must not exclude the present.

The phrase during the migration is non-committal with respect to whether the migration is ongoing or has been completed. The inclusion or exclusion of the present occurs on the semantic level.

If you understand during the migration to refer to an action that has already taken place, a thing of the past, as you apparently do

The reference point is in the past along with the event, so simple past, right?

then the sentence may strike your ear as "off". If we're talking about last year's migration, tracking wildebeests or whatever, then you'd say:

The following document describes a solution that was applied during the ^{i.e. last year's} migration.

If you understand the migration to be ongoing even as it is being spoken about, this year's wildebeest migration which isn't over yet, then that sentence should sound fine to you.

The following document describes a solution that has been applied during the^{i.e. this year's still ongoing} migration.

We might look to the tense to disambiguate when the time phrase is noncommittal with respect to the reference time: the speaker is apparently talking about an ongoing migration because he has said "has been applied".

But when the time phrase clearly refers to the past, excluding the present, then the present perfect is ungrammatical:

This is an I approach I have used last semester. ^off

That is a movie I have seen when I was a kid. ^off