shun said:
Jwschang,
I guess you may have confused a few things. But I sincerely hope I am wrong.
You wrote:
> I define the Present Perfect tense as expressing
> an action that is already COMPLETED at the
> present time, OR an action BEGUN earlier
> and spanning a period to the present time.
>
My reply: Please recongnize that "an action that is already COMPLETED at the present time" is a past action, for example:
Ex: I met John on the street.
== The meeting is already COMPLETED at the present time.
(See my reply per (4) below.)
Also please be reminded that "an action BEGUN earlier and spanning a period to the present time" is a present action:(It is a present action but not ONLY that; it tells how long since.)
Ex: I live in Hong Kong. (Do you say:"I live in HK for two years"? In Chinese or some other language, yes; in English or some other language, no.)
== The living "BEGUN earlier and spanning a period to the present time", as I could not live here suddenly, and it must have begun earlier.
That is to say, you haved described Present Perfect as itself indicating either Simple Past or Simple Present. Through your merciful (Why "merciful"? I guess it could take away some of the confusion or pain of the Perfect tenses? It's an apt word to use here, though.) description, IMHO it seems that the three tenses are interchangeable, without a guideline to tell them apart.
You wrote:
> "Last week" is a point of time in the past,
> so no problem here. "For the past week"
> is a span of time that goes on still, so is
> considered incompatible with the idea of
> "completed" action.
>
My reply: Though in your message I see no restriction about tenses whatsoever, please be reminded of one common rule: Present Perfect doesn't stay with past time expression:(I have not heard of this rule, at least not in the way that you have put it as "past time expression". Correct rule would be: Past Perfect goes with Simple Past: I had eaten when he arrived.)
Ex: *I have visited there last week.
Therefore, perhaps for this reason, you didn't give illustrating examples for "for the past week":
Ex: I have visited there for the past week. (You have given an excellent example of what I didn't see necessary to give. It fits exactly my definition of the Present Perfect.)
== No matter how you describe "for the past week", it is still a past time expression and is supposed not to stay with Present Perfect. ("For the past week" refers to a period begun in the past, not JUST a simplified "past time expression".) Grammar writers cannot handle this, and this is the exact reason why they have to hide the Past Family away. (Why do you say "hide"? We still use them, and we don't have to follow what CERTAIN books or grammarians say. That is why even grammarians do not agree on everything among themselves.) What then is your opinion?
No, I have not confused anything. (See also my comments in red, alongside what you wrote.)
1. English is not the same as, say, Chinese. In Chinese, we express an action in the past by using an additional word equivalent to "already", to say I ate or I have eaten. So, in Chinese, there is no difference between the Simple Past and the Present Perfect.
2. Past and Present tell WHEN an action happened/happens. Continuous and Perfect tell whether the action is on-going or completed/begun earlier, at that time indicated by Past or Present.
3. However, English tenses are not as "straight-forward" as described in (2) above, WHICH IS NOT UNIQUE to English (see (5) below). For example, the Present Continuous expresses an on-going action now, or an action INTENDED (like future tense), expected or about to happen.
4. Do you not see any difference between "I ate my lunch" and "I have eaten my lunch"? The latter has an emphasis of "already" (which the former does not have) without having to use that word, which in Chinese we use for any past action or completed action. Of course, one can say past is past, or completed is completed, what is there to emphasise anymore. Some people are blunt (or straight-forward) in their words, others are subtle. I'm sure you have heard of innuendoes and "reading between the lines".
5. Chinese does not use tenses. Tone, intonation and accent are an important part of communicating in Chinese. So, we can say perhaps that when words or structures are less complex, other aspects of speech take over some of these functions.
6. In centuries past, when a court minister or official speaks to the Emperor, sometimes the entire message had to be expressed in a quartet, and no more. So, words carry meanings within a context. A word for word dissection or analysis is not always applicable.
7. English used to be much more inflected in the past compared to now. For example, nouns used to be different between the subject form and the object form.
My humble opinion is:
(a) We need not make too much of what you rightly see as difficulties, lack of guidelines, or even confusion. Ordinary Chinese people (and this is not meant to sound chauvinistic) are among the most practical of people (we have philosophers too, no doubt), and are more concerned with the practicalities of making a living, which includes learning a foreign language; the ordinary person is not interested in linguistics, and has no need to be.
(b) We must try to make learning English as simple as possible. This is of course not so easy, partly because of the vast number of books and oft times differing views. Some books are good and practical, some are inadequate, some confusing and IMO unnecessarily academic. That's why we have learners asking "Who is the ultimate authority?". Certainly not me or you, nor (if I may say so) Ronbee nor TDOL, etc.
(c) For doing or learning anything, I find the 80/20 Pareto Principle very true: 80% of the value is in 20% of the content. We can leave the rest alone because we hardly need or use them.
(d) I think you write excellent English (if I may say so) and I have enjoyed talking to you. :wink: