Is it of much use?

[Paul B. Gallagher]

John Dingley wrote:

> I'd like to weigh in on the Present Perfect vs. Preterite in English.
> There are differences in British and American use. In British English
> the Preterite never has present relevance but in American English it
> can. So, Anne Marie Devlin's well-known example "I've just cut my
> finger", with the Present Perfect, is always used in British English
> if present relevance is to be conveyed. However, in American English
> one would normally say "I just cut my finger" (with the Preterite),
> even when wishing to express present relevance. An example: Little
> British Billy slices open his finger and mobiles his mother and says:
> "Mummy, mummy, I cut my finger". His mother ignores him, because
> there is no present relevance. Little American Billy cellphones his
> mother and says the same. His mother calls 911.

It's more complicated than that, too.

1) The simple past ("preterite") usage you describe is more common in 
the spoken language than in writing, the latter being what economists 
would call a "lagging indicator." Conversely, the spoken language is the 
cutting edge of linguistic change -- if you want to hear the very 
latest, put down your book and start listening to conversation.

2) The simple past usage is more typical when there was an expectation 
of the event ("So, did you ever marry that girl you were dating?") than 
when the speaker is inquiring about present status ("So, are you married 
now?"). It's as if the speaker is resuming a past-tense narrative after 
a hiatus.

3) Françoise Rosset rightly points out that adverbs of time can often 
influence the result. For example, "for 30 years" admits only the 
present perfect if the span includes the present, but it admits the 
simple past or past perfect if the span ends in the past; similarly, 
explicit statements of the time of occurrence ("last week") are famously 
incompatible with the present perfect, but compatible with the past 
perfect for the reason in (5) below.

4) Certain verbs of sensation or emotion behave differently: "I 
smell(ed) a rat" are perfectly normal, but "I have smelled a rat" is 
quite peculiar. But the main difference here is their aversion to 
progressives: "I am/have been loving Mary."

5) The past perfect is available in contexts where it "shouldn't" be 
based on analogy to the present perfect. For example, if we take a 
present-tense narrative that contains some simple past tenses (as for 
example when little Billy cut his finger) and transpose it into the 
past, the simple past tenses become past perfects even though perfect 
"shouldn't" be right, because we have no simple superpast tense for use 
in a past-tense narrative.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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