Hi,everyone.Can you help me find any indicator or time word that make us chose one tense over the other?(Taken from a textbook)
1.Look! Somebody(drop)their wallet on the pavement.
2.John looks tired.I don't think he(sleep)very well recently.
According to the text,the answers are:
1.has dropped 2.has been sleeping
Can I say in 1,it's pps because of the verb"Look!" or the verb"drop" tends to be shorter here ? and in 2, ppc because of "recently",but it comes with both.It's really confusing.
Present perfect or present perfect continuous?
Posted by Alex80 · May 28, 2015 · 2 replies
2 Replies
1. Could be dropped or has dropped. It depends on speaker perception. Has dropped is probably more likely because it expresses a past event with a present result (the wallet is there now), but if the speaker wants to see it just as a completed past event, s/he'll choose dropped.
2. has been sleeping is most likely. It combines the perfect (past event with present result ...so he's always really tired during the day) and the progressive (= an on-going action - every night for the past few weeks). But again - it depends on speaker perception. If they just want to focus on the past event/present result they might say hasn't slept, or if they just want to focus on the on-going action might say isn't sleeping very well. That would be more likely without recently, but is a possibility.
As always, grammar is meaning. The different forms express different meanings and the speaker will choose the form which expresses the meaning s/he wants to convey - which will always depend on how s/he perceives the event.
Good answer.