perfect

  • In English grammar, the ‘perfect’ aspect is often incorrectly called a tense.
  • It indicates an action or circumstance that occurred before the time we are considering.  (perfect = complete)
  • Our attention is often focused on the result instead of what happened earlier.
  • The verb phrase/construction contains a form of ‘HAVE’ plus a past participle. 

STILL + present perfect simple negative ‘still haven’t found’

B2 English Grammar Profile point 61 in the category of PAST is defined as: negative form of the present perfect simple with ‘still’ to emphasise that something that was expected to happen continues not to happen. An iWeb search for: still have|has _xx _vvn 1 STILL HAVE N’T FOUND 1847 2 STILL HAVE N’T GOTTEN […]

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BECAUSE + past perfect simple

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 59 in the category of PAST is defined: past perfect simple AFTER ‘BECAUSE’ giving explanatory information. Here are examples of past perfect simple used to give explanations. Someone even wiped away tears because she had done it,  she had connected them to information differently, she helped them see something they couldn’t unsee. TED Vicky called because her husband had suddenly collapsed in the hallway of their home. TED     A search in iWeb for because _P had _VVN 1 BECAUSE I HAD HEARD

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present perfect simple questions + increasing range of verbs

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 51 in the category of PAST and present perfect simple is defined as: question form with an increasing range of verbs. For example: How much sleep have they actually lost? TED Looking for variable-length questions on iWeb is always a hard task.  Here is only one set pattern that finds some.  Note that we

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present perfect simple passive affirmative

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 27 in the category of PASSIVES is defined as:   present perfect simple passive affirmative Here’s an example from englishclass101.com: Traditionally, these meetings have been held Wednesday at noon, every other week. Here are 50 head verbs that go in the present perfect simple passive affirmative verb phrase from the iWeb corpus. 1

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BE + *WN word ending

After ‘BE’, a word ending with ‘wn’ is usually past participle. Some exceptions are ‘known’ (where it might be an adjective) ‘down’, ‘brown’, ‘well-known’ and ‘unknown’. 1 IS KNOWN  377649 Unfortunately, that is what is known as a conflict of interest. listen 2 ARE KNOWN  143646 3 IS (VBZ) SHOWN (VVN) 130843 4 BEEN SHOWN 110513 It has not been shown to the court‘s satisfaction  that these particular Africans fit that description.

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Don’t you think ? | Haven’t you heard ?

These constructions allow for the formation of negative questions by adding the negative contractions (“don’t” or “doesn’t” for “do,” and “haven’t” or “hasn’t” for “have”) before the subject and the base form or past participle of the main verb. This structure is particularly useful for seeking confirmation or clarification when expressing negation.

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MUST HAVE + past participle

In the English Grammar Profile, there are essentially the same two points in the category of Modality at B2 for the same form. Point 144 is defined as: DEDUCTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS: perfect form of ‘must’ to make deductions about the past. and point 166: PAST AFFIRMATIVE must have’ + ‘-ed’. For example: He had come such a long way, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could

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