present perfect tense and past perfect tense.... different usage??

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Anonymous

#402038 Wed, 08 Aug 07 04:55 PM

Hello... I would like to ask a few questions about present perfect and past perfect tense..

do we use past perfect tense when we are mentioning something that happened before a past action only?? or is there any other circumstances which require us to use past perfect tense??

When we are describing an incident, do we use past perfect tense??

Note this sentence : ( adapted from an english essay reference book )

"of course, there HAVE BEEN isolated cases in the past when the indicriminate use of the cane by a handful of teachers HAS resulted in physical injury"

Why was present perfect used here when this sentence is mentioning something in the past??

Thank you...

Shannon

Anonymous

Essays, Past perfect, Tenses, Present perfect

CalifJim

#402184 Thu, 09 Aug 07 03:28 AM

The implication is that these isolated cases are on an imaginary list of things that are relevant to the current conversation. You can think of the present perfect as a kind of "diary tense". If you say, "The use of the cane has resulted in physical injury", you mean that the occurrence of such an incident is written down somewhere (in an imaginary diary). When it happened is not important. So, if knowing that it has happened (that it is 'recorded somewhere') is important in the conversation, you use the present perfect tense. If you just want to say that it happened, use the simple past.

CJ