Present perfect

The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and the perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like "I have left".

The forms are present because they use the present tense of the auxiliary verb have, and perfect because they use that auxiliary in combination with the past participle of the main verb. (Other perfect constructions also exist, such as the past perfect: "I had eaten.")

Analogous forms are found in some other languages and may also be described as present perfects although they often have other names such as the German Perfekt, the French passé composé and the Italian passato prossimo. They may also have different ranges of usage: in all three of the languages just mentioned, the forms in question serve as a general past tense, at least for completed actions.

In English, completed actions in many contexts are referred to using the simple past verb form rather than the present perfect.

English also has a present perfect continuous (or present perfect progressive) form, which combines present tense with both perfect aspect and continuous (progressive) aspect: "I have been eating". The action is not necessarily complete; the same is true of certain uses of the basic present perfect when the verb expresses a state or a habitual action: "I have lived here for five years."

In modern English, the auxiliary verb for forming the present perfect is always to have. A typical present perfect clause thus consists of the subject, the auxiliary have/has, and the past participle (third form) of main verb. Examples:

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