Thus the meaning of result, which we indeed do find in the sentence He has broken the cup, appears to be the effect of the combined meanings of the verb as such (in whatever form) and the perfect form as such. It is quite natural that this meaning should have more than once been taken to be the meaning of the perfect category as such, which was a misconception [21, p.92] .give another example, if the verb denotes an action which brings about some new state of things, its perfect form is liable to acquire a shade of meaning which will not be found with a verb denoting an action unable to bring about a new state. We may, for instance, compare the sentences: have found the book. (this implies that the book, which had been lost, is now once more in our possession) .have searched the whole room for the book. (which does not imply any new state with reference to the book) [25, p.86] .course many more examples of this kind might be given. The basic requirement is clear enough: we must find the meaning of the form itself, or its invariable, and not the meaning of the form as modified or coloured by the lexical meaning of the verb. If this requirement is clearly kept in mind, many errors which have been committed in defining the meaning of the form will be avoided [25, p.88].
. The possible dependence of the meaning of perfect forms on the tense category (present, past or future) is one of the most difficult problems which the theory of the perfect has had to face. It is quite natural to suppose that there ought to be an invariable meaning of the phrase have + second participle raquo ;, no matter what the tense of the verb have happens to be, and this indeed is the assumption we start from. However, it would be dangerous to consider this hypothesis as something ascertained, without undertaking an objective investigation of all the facts which may throw some light on the problem. We may, for instance, suspect that the present perfect, which denotes precedence to the present raquo ;, ie to the moment of speech, may prove different from the past perfect, denoting precedence to a moment in the past, or the future perfect, denoting precedence to a moment in the future: both the past and the future are, of course, themselves related in some way to the present, which appears as the centre to which all other moments of time are referred in some way or other. One of the chief points in this sphere is the following. If an action precedes another action, and the meaning of the verb is such a one that the action can have a distinct result, the present perfect form, together with the lexical meaning of the verb (and, we should add, possibly with some element of the context) may produce the meaning of a result to be soon at the very moment the sentence is uttered, so that the speaker can point at that result with his finger, as it were. Now with the past perfect and with the future perfect things are bound to be somewhat different. The past perfect (together with the factors mentioned above) would mean that the result was there at a certain moment in the past, so that the speaker could not possibly point at it with his finger. Still less could he do that if the action he spoke about was in the future, and the future perfect (again, together with all those factors) denoted a result that would be there in the future only (that is, it would only be an expected result). All this has to be carefully gone into, if we are to achieve really objective conclusions and if we are to avoid unfounded generalizations and haphazard assertions which may be disproved by examining an example or two which did not happen to be at our disposal at the moment of writing [25, p. 97].
. The syntactical context in which a perfect form is used is occasionally a factor of the highest importance in determining the ultimate meaning of the sentence. To illustrate this point, let us consider a few examples: There was a half-hearted attempt at a maintenance of the properties, and then Wilbraham Hall rang with the laughter of a joke which the next day had become the common precious property of the Five Towns [21, p.105]. Overton waited quietly till he had finished. [21, p.105] .But before he had answered, she made a grimace which Mark understood [21, p.105]. The action denoted by the past perfect in these sentences is not thought of as preceding the action denoted by the past tense.possibility of the context influencing the actual meaning of the sentence will be seen in the following examples: question: long have you been here ? (of course implies that the person addressed still is in the place meant by the adverb here.) answer like: have been here for half an hour. (would then practically mean, I have been here for half an hour and I still am here and may stay here for some time to come raquo ;.) [25, p.103]. On the other hand, when, in GB Shaw s play, Mrs. Warren s Pro...
