Susan Reed and Bert Cappelle have offered me substantial assistance in writing this book. I want to thank them specially. I also wish to thank the various people who have contributed to the writing of the book by commenting on an earlier draft of one or more chapters. In alphabetical order they arc: Griet Bchcydt, Use Depractere, Raphael Salkic, Elizabeth Traugott, Naoaki Wada, and Christopher Williams. | 210 5. The absolute use of the present perfect The up-to-now reading versus the continuative reading 289 The up-to-now reading versus the indefinite interpretation 291 VIII. Factors blocking the location of a situation in a period up to now 295 Introduction 295 Reference to entities that no longer exist 295 Verb of creation definite effected object NP 298 IX. Current relevance and present result 301 The present perfect and current relevance 301 The present perfect and the idea of present result 301 X. Summary 308 Abstract 211 Abstract In this chapter we discuss the present perfect tense as it is used to locate a T-bygone situation in time. As we saw in the previous chapter this is also the function of the absolute past tense but we argue that a speaker using the present perfect tense is concerned with NOW rather than with THEN see chapter 7 for a separate treatment of the choice between these two tenses. Part I sections deals with the semantics of the present perfect. We argue that the core meaning conveyed by the present perfect is The situation time is located in i. e. is contained by the pre-present time zone . This meaning is compatible with two T-readings namely the readings on which the situation time is respectively included in or coincident with a time span that is thought of as starting before and leading up to now . Compare for example I have already met that man and I have been working in the garden . In part II sections we discuss three interpretations with respect to the time of the full rather than the predicated situation referring to them as W orld -interpretations the indefinite the continuative and the up-to-now interpretations. On the indefinite reading the time of the full situation lies at some distance from t0. On the continuative reading the full situation lasts throughout the pre-present and is still continuing at t0. On the up-to-now reading the full situation fills the entire prepresent .
