[Grammar] Your wife seems to have been a beauty when young

[kadioguy]

1. Your wife seems to have been a beauty when young.

Does it mean this:
Your wife seemed to be a beauty in her younger days, and she is still a beauty now.

Or it mean this:
Your wife seemed to be a beauty in her younger days, but she is no longer a beauty now.
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2. Those people seemed never to have been to the beach before.

Does it mean this:
Those people had never been to the beach before.

Thanks!

 

[Rover_KE]

1. It means Your wife seemed to have been a beauty in her younger days, but she is no longer a beauty now.

2. No. it means It appeared that/looked like those people had never been to the beach before.

 

[kadioguy]

In PEU third edition 455.3, it says:
We use the present perfect especially to say that a finished action or event is connected with the present in some way. If we say that something has happened, we are thinking about the past and the present at the same time.

"...to have been a beauty when young" is present perfect, so why is't it mean Your wife seemed to a beauty in her younger days, and she is still a beauty now?

Thanks!

 

[kadioguy]

Does it mean that 'Your wife seems a beauty when young' is from then till now, not 'Your wife seems a beauty' is from when she is young till now?

 

[GoesStation]

1. Your wife seems to have been a beauty when young.

Does it mean this:
Your wife seemed to be a beauty in her younger days, and she is still a beauty now.

Or it mean this:
Your wife seemed to be a beauty in her younger days, but she is no longer a beauty now.

Neither. The writer is observing that, when the wife was younger, she was beautiful. She may or may not be beautiful now, but the reader would guess she probably isn't - otherwise, why would the writer contrast the earlier and present times?

2. Those people seemed never to have been to the beach before.

Does it mean this:
Those people had never been to the beach before.

No. It means that it appears they had never been. If the writer were certain, s/he would not have used "seemed".