Jose Carillo's English Forum
English Grammar and Usage Problems => Badly Written, Badly Spoken => Topic started by: Miss Mae on November 18, 2014, 02:49:36 PM
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In your discussion with forum member Baklis on this matter, Sir (“How the present perfect differs from the present perfect progressive” (http://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6340.0)), does it mean that inserting only or just between has and stayed in the sentence “Monique has stayed here for months” would be redundant?
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No, the adverb “only” or “just” won’t be redundant if it is used to modify the verb “stayed” in that particular sentence. Instead, the sentence will now denote a value judgment on the part of the speaker or writer on the length of Monique’s stay in that place.
Specifically, by wanting to say “Monique has only stayed here for months” or “Monique has just stayed here for months,” the speaker considers Monique’s stay of a certain number of months as not that long. That’s not how those sentences would be constructed in actual practice, though. In English syntax, using the adverb “only” or “just” to modify a present perfect action reduces it to a simple past tense action—meaning that “only” or “just” makes the auxiliary verb “has” functionally unnecessary.
So, instead of saying “Monique has only stayed here for months,” the correct, idiomatic way of saying it is “Monique only stayed here for months.”
And instead of saying “Monique has just stayed here for months,” the correct, idiomatic way of saying it is “Monique just stayed here for months.”
What this means is that using the adverbs “only” and “just” does away with the present perfect tense altogether. In effect, when these adverbs are inserted in perfect tense constructions, it’s not them that become redundant but the auxiliary verb “has.”
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But I thought that the present perfect tense already denotes an action that has already started shortly before the point of utterance but just ended shortly before or up to the time of speaking. Only or just would be unnecessary then...
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An action in the present perfect tense need not have started shortly before the point of utterance. It could have started at some point in the indefinite past--not necessarily recently--and ended right before the point of utterance. That distinction in time frame must be clearly understood to avoid any confusion.
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Do you mean to say, Sir, that as long as the doer of the action exists, the present perfect tense can be used to describe the said action?