The grammar of the english verb phrase part 45 doc

‘Current relevance’ and ‘present result’The present perfect tense implies ‘current relevance’: the bygone situation is considered as being relevant at t0.. However, current relevance doe

IX ‘Current relevance’ and ‘present result’

The present perfect tense implies ‘current relevance’: the bygone situation is considered

as being relevant at t0 Current relevance is equivalent to ‘concern with NOW’, which

is what distinguishes the present perfect from the preterite (which implies ‘concern with THEN’) However, current relevance does not necessarily mean that the speaker is concerned with a present result of the bygone situation

5.36 The present perfect and current relevance

5.36.1 According to one linguistic tradition, the most important, or even only,

semantic difference between the present perfect and the past tense is that the

former expresses ‘current relevance’ (i e the bygone situation is still relevant

at t0) while the past tense does not As noted in 1.21.6 and 2.10.1, this claim

then usually leads to the further claim that the present perfect is not a tense

but an aspect: ‘current relevance’ is said to be equivalent to ‘perfect aspect’ In

2.10 the claim that there is no such thing as a present perfect tense has been

rejected However, we do subscribe to the view that the present perfect tense

implies current relevance In our opinion, current relevance is equivalent to

‘concern with NOW’, which is what distinguishes the present perfect from the

preterite (which implies ‘concern with THEN’)

5.36.2 On the other hand, we distance ourselves from those linguists who

narrow current relevance down to ‘resultativeness’, i e who claim that what

distinguishes the present perfect from the preterite is that only the former

repre-sents the bygone situation as having yielded a result which is still holding at

t0 It will be shown in 5.37 that, except in the ‘hot news’ use of the perfect,

the idea of a present resultant state is only an implicature of the present perfect,

which arises in some contexts, but not in others On some W-interpretations,

such as the up-to-now readings, the implicature does not arise at all

5.37 The present perfect and the idea of present result

5.37.1 It has sometimes been claimed that a sentence in the present perfect

is, or at least can be, used to express a present result This may or may not be

correct, depending on the meaning that is assigned to ‘present result’ Compare:

I’ve locked up the shop.(resultative reading: ‘The shop is locked up.’)

[I’ve taken a lot of responsibility in my first job already I’ve taken the takings to

the bank, I’ve dealt with difficult customers and] I’ve locked up the shop.(This does

not suggest that the shop is locked up now.)

Clearly, these examples are different as regards what is meant by ‘present re-sult’ However, it is not possible to state flatly that the first implies a present result and the second does not What we can say is that the first suggests that the immediate effect on the world produced by the situation of locking up the shop still holds at t0, whereas the second does not, but it is difficult to rule out entirely some sort of understanding of present result in the second example,

e g ‘I am seen as a responsible employee’, ‘I have shown that I am very capa-ble’, etc These examples show that (as noted in 5.32.4) we must distinguish between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ results A direct result is the resultant state that inevitably comes about when a situation is completed: the completion of the action of locking up the shop automatically (and immediately) produces the state of the shop being locked up (This need not be a lasting result, but it

is there immediately after the locking up.) Anindirect resultis not an imme-diate and automatic result, but one which is linked with the preceding action because the link in question is in keeping with the meaning of the sentence and the context in which it is used That it is not an inevitable (automatic, natural) result is clear from the second example above, which allows the reading in which the present result is ‘My colleagues consider me over-zealous and there-fore dislike me’

5.37.2 A direct result obtains as soon as the situation producing it is finished Roughly speaking, and allowing for the fact that what counts as ‘recent’ in one situation may be far from recent in another (compare, for example, recency in connection with the birth and death of stars with recency in connection with locking a door), the chance that the direct result still holds at t0 decreases according as the lapse of time between the bygone situation and the present becomes greater This is true irrespective of whether we use the present perfect

or the past tense Thus both I’ve just locked the door and I locked the door a minute ago implicate that the door is locked now However, neither I have recently locked the door [but you never have] nor I locked the door a year ago

invite this interpretation, because the distance between the situation and t0is sufficiently long for it to be possible (in fact, likely) that the temporary direct result has been undone by the actualization of another situation

5.37.3 The past tense does not implicate that the direct result produced by the past situation is still holding at t0 because the past is felt to be separated from the present Thus, I locked the door does not suggest anything that is

relevant to the present However, the same is not true of I have locked the door, which locates the situation in a period leading up to t0 As we saw in 5.1.2, unless an adverbial or context indicates otherwise, the pre-present is conceptualized as the shortest time span leading up to now that makes sense (i e that is in keeping with the semantics and pragmatics of the sentence and its context) This means that in I have locked the door the present perfect

implicates recency, which in its turn implicates that the direct result is still

holding at t0 This explains why I have locked the door implicates ‘The door

is locked’, whereas I locked the door does not.

5.37.4 Of the three W-types of sentences in the present perfect, only the ones

receiving an indefinite reading can implicate a present direct result, and even

then the ‘experiential use’ of the indefinite perfect (see 5.13.1) forms an

excep-tion Thus, none of the following examples implicates the persistence of a

direct result:

Have you ever been to Japan?(indefinite reading of the experiential usage type)

I’ve been waiting for you for the last ten minutes.(continuative reading)

[“What have you been doing?”] ⫺ “I’ve been digging the vegetable patch.”

(non-quantificational constitution reading; note that, out of context, I’ve dug the vegetable

patch would be interpreted as nonexperiential indefinite and hence as referring to a

direct result.)

Fourteen years have passed since then.(duration-quantifying constitution reading)

So far I’ve had three jobs [and none of them lasted a month].(number-quantifying

constitution reading)

5.37.5 The fact that a present perfect sentence yielding an indefinite reading

can implicate the persistence of the direct result entails that such a sentence

can be used as an indirect way of conveying a message about the present

A parcel has arrived for Gordon.(message: ‘There is a parcel for Gordon.’)

He has learnt to type.(message: ‘He can type.’)

They’ve cut off the electricity.(message: ‘We don’t have any electricity.’)

I’ve been to the hairdresser’s.(message: ‘My hair is done.’)

I’ve finished my homework.(message: ‘My homework is done.’)

She’s been bitten by a goat.(This implicates that the injury is current, i e that it is

not healed yet.) (Compare with She was bitten by a goat, which implicates that the

injury is healed or in some other way no longer exists ⫺ perhaps she is dead ⫺ or

that even if the injury is not healed it is no longer causing trouble.)

5.37.6 The idea of a direct result is not incompatible with the implicature

that there are also indirect results Thus, the message ‘My hair is done’

(impli-cated by I’ve been to the hairdresser’s) can be evoked to trigger other

inter-pretations, such as ‘My hair looks nice now’, ‘I don’t need to have my hair

done for some time’, etc Similarly, saying I’ve finished my homework may be

an indirect way of asking ‘Can I go out to play now?’ There can even be

contexts in which the importance of the present direct result is downgraded in

favour of the importance of an indirect present result For example, She has

closed the door, whose default implicature is clearly ‘The door is closed’, can

be used in contexts that do not invite the interpretation ‘The door is closed’ as

a direct result communicated by the utterance This is the case, e g if the door has just been painted Then the primary result the speaker wants to convey by

She has closed the door is likely to be ‘The door is probably now stuck to the

door-frame (and the new paint will be a mess when we open the door again)’ rather than simply ‘The door is closed’

5.37.7 In some present perfect sentences there is an idea of indirect result without there being an idea of direct result Such sentences too can be used as

an indirect way of conveying a message about the present:

This gate has often been locked in the past, but now nobody bothers to do so

any more

This gatehas been locked in the past, but now nobody bothers to do so any more.

This gatehas often been locked, but now nobody bothers to do so any more.

None of these sentences carries the direct result implicature ‘The gate is now locked’ because that implicature is blocked byin the past and/or cancelled by

the but-clause However, in a suitable context an indirect result implicature

like ‘The sheep may be all over the road’ can arise, in the same way asI haven’t had breakfast can implicate ‘I can’t go to work yet.’ Similarly, the sentence

Your boy has fallen off the swing

can be used to explain the existence of a present indirect result, e g that there’s

a very loud wailing coming from the direction of the swings, or that several people are currently grouped round the swing, etc It is not really possible to tell what the direct result is

5.37.8 It should be clear now that, contrary to what is sometimes claimed in the linguistic literature, the idea of ‘present result’ does not form part of the semantics of the present perfect (As noted in 2.15.1, the semantics of a tense

is the temporal structure it realizes.) It is true, though, that ‘current relevance’ follows from the fact that the situation is located in the pre-present rather than

in the past, and that that current relevance meaning is most readily interpreted

as result, if that is possible The latter statement ⫺ the present perfect implies

a result if the context allows it⫺ means that the idea of a present result is no more than a cancellable implicature of the (indefinite) present perfect The implicature results from the fact that the choice of the present perfect means that the speaker is concerned with the present relevance of the bygone situa-tion The idea of present result represents the most salient form of present relevance, and will therefore suggest itself unless there is some contextual or pragmatic factor ruling it out or rendering it unlikely It is in keeping with this that the implicature of a direct present result arises only when the lapse of time between the bygone situation and the present is relatively short, so that, failing any indication to the contrary, the speaker can assume that the direct result which the bygone situation has produced is still holding

The ‘relative shortness’ of the lapse of time between the bygone situation

and t0 may of course be different according to the pragmatics of the sentence

and its context which determine the kind of interpretation that is assigned to

the sentence involving the indefinite present perfect:

I haven’t had breakfast yet (The speaker may be referring to a present indirect

result: his message may be ‘I cannot leave for the office yet; I need to have breakfast

first’ This resultative interpretation of the indefinite perfect is partly determined by

our pragmatic knowledge that breakfast is eaten every day If breakfast was eaten,

say, once a week, the fact that the speaker has not had breakfast yet today would

not necessarily lead to the conclusion that today he cannot leave for the office

with-out having breakfast first.)

(doctor to patient) Have you had a cold? (This implies a relevant period of only a

few weeks, because it is common for a person to have a cold at least once a year

and because the effect of a cold does not last longer than a few weeks.)

(doctor to patient) Have you had malaria? (The question may relate either to a

relatively short period leading up to now or to a period which is as long as it is

possible for the question to be asked about, namely the addressee’s lifetime In both

cases the speaker is considering the possibility of a present result, viz that the illness

might be currently affecting the addressee or might affect the addressee again in

the future.)

(doctor to patient) Have you had rubella? (This is a ‘present result’ question for

which the relevant period of occurrence of the questioned present perfect situation

is the addressee’s life, since the most obvious interpretation of the question ⫺ namely

that it is asked in order to ascertain the addressee’s current immunity to rubella ⫺

involves the assumption that an occurrence at any time in the addressee’s life is

rel-evant.)

All this is in keeping with what was said in 5.1.2, viz that when the pre-present

period remains implicit (unspecified), it is normally interpreted as the shortest

time span leading up to now that is in keeping with the semantics and

pragmat-ics of the sentence and its context

5.37.9 In the previous subsections we have spoken about ‘direct’ and

‘indi-rect’ present results Let us now have a closer look at the factors determining

which of these two kinds of result is implicated on an indefinite perfect

inter-pretation

(a) If the situation referred to in the present perfect is represented as telic and

bounded, the direct present result which may be communicated by the

choice of the indefinite present perfect concerns the state of affairs that

comes about when the situation is completed:

I have written a book.(message: ‘There now exists a book of which I am the

au-thor.’)

Ian has shut the window.(message: ‘The window is shut now.’)

I have learned to drive.(message: ‘I can drive.’)

This does not mean, however, that the direct result is necessarily the most salient or most relevant present result in the given context (see 5.37.6) More-over, there are examples of bounded telic sentences in the present perfect where there is no clear idea of direct present result For example, although I have written a book has ‘there exists a book by me’ as direct result (because it has

an ‘effected entity’ as direct object), it is not clear what the direct present result

is ofI have run a mile, though this sentence too is telic and bounded.

(b) If the situation referred to is not represented as telic or/and is not repre-sented as bounded, the idea of a present result can only be suggested by the context or the pragmatics of the situation In other words, it is not a direct result but an indirect one:

John has been in the cellar.(atelic) (This sentence may, according to context, sug-gest ‘So he must be dirty’, ‘So he must be cold’, ‘So he must have found out our secret’, etc.)

I have been writing a book.(telic but not bounded) (This sentence may, according

to context, suggest ‘That’s why I am so tired’, ‘That’s why I haven’t been to the pub much recently’, etc ⫺ see also section 5.26.3 above.)

There is no suggestion of a direct result here Any resultative reading that may

be selected is a context-dependent indirect result reading

5.37.10 The implicature of a present result does not arise when the bygone situation is explicitly represented as broken off before t0 and as no longer belonging to the speaker’s world of thinking:

I have, until recently, been a contributing member to SPLC for several years, and

until recently, Ihave been proud of that association [(…) Unfortunately, the SPLC’s

new focus is detracting from our solid reputation, and if it does not change soon, I fear that the damage to an excellent organization will be permanent.] (www) 5.37.11 In a literary (or semi-archaic) register, the verb go allows the direct

present result to be expressed not only byhave gone but also by be gone:

{Jill has gone / Jill is gone}

[Today it is fruitless to seek Matthews’s own views on the future,] for he is gone

from the bungalow and not likely to be back for some time (www) Now that Sharon is gone, we’ll have to appoint a new secretary (is gone ⫽ ‘is no longer with us’)

[Christmas in Panama this year is a season of genuine Thanksgiving.] Noriega is gone [Things are on the mend and there remains a widespread sense of gratitude

to Uncle Sam for making a new start possible.] (COB-S) (⫽ The Noriega regime

is over.)

It should also be noted that unlike has gone, which denotes a movement and

implicates a resultant state, be gone normally directly denotes a present state

(without referring to a movement producing it) The only normal

inter-pretations are therefore ‘be away’, ‘no longer be at a (contextually given)

place’, ‘have disappeared’, or ‘be over’, ‘be dead’ This explains why we cannot

say *Jill is gone home (whereas we can say Jill has gone home) In other words,

be gone normally expresses a pure state, without reference to movement.