Present perfect tense

[Triostar]

Can anyone advise?

I know that the present perfect tense is have/had plus past participle eg

I have gone to the shops
I have worked really hard on the pitch
He has painted the fence.

What tense is

He has gone running

?

I think its not presnt perfect as it is running not ran, but also not present progressive due to has rather than am/is/are.

Thanks!

[Triostar]

Or is it the gone that make it past perfect?

[AnnoyingMildew]

Perfect Present is to describe past actions that continue into the present. So the above sentences (though not grammatically incorrect) feel a little incomplete as they don't bring the action into the present.

More complete sentences are:

I have gone to the shops on my own since I was 12.
I have worked really hard on the pitch that I am presenting today.
He has painted the fence every August since we moved in.

[GrapefruitTsunami]

"He has gone running" is present perfect continuous.

Have/has + past participle is present perfect.

Had + past participle is past perfect.

[upinaballoon]

Are past perfect and present perfect terms which are used in the UK National Curriculum nowadays? (Not necessarily, I think, because there are different education systems in different countries.)
I don't think I was taught the tenses in England 70 years ago so I call 'I have walked' the perfect tense and 'I had walked' the pluperfect, because of having once learned some Latin.

[aitchteeaitch]

I was taught the terms for all these tenses in the 70's, but I had something of a mental block and could not remember their names for the life of me. Still can't.

All the umpteen options for 'to go' are still with me, but ask me what the tenses are actually called and I'm stuffed.

[BlindurErBóklausMaður]

@Triostar

Or is it the gone that make it past perfect?

Past Perfect is:
Had + past participle and is used to put things in chronological order in the past. Usually found with a past simple in the same sentence.
"I went out after I had finished my work"

Present Perfect is:
Have + past participle and is used in two main ways:

1. Indefinite past time:
   I have been to America.
   When? It's not specified.
   Compare to " I went to America last year" (past simple= definite past time)
   
2. something which began in the past and isn't finished in the present.
   " I have lived here for 10 years"
   
   "I have been studying" is present perfect continuous, which is used to focus attention on the length of the action rather than its completion. (I have read the book/I have been reading the book- in the first example the book is finished, in the second, we don't know if it's finished, and it's not important, we are just explaining what we were doing)
   
   Neither present or past perfect are tenses in the true meaning of the word, (a tense has changes applied to its base form, so in English, only the present simple and the past simple are technically tenses, but everyone calls the others tenses as well for simplicity. They're actually aspects.

[Triostar]

Thats great, thanks all for the input.

[Waitingfordoggo]

My first thought was perfect progressive (or continuous).

But I think that would be something like ‘he has been running regularly since he was a teenager’. It describes something that started in the past and is still happening.

But your example is different because it doesn’t have ‘be’.

So now I’m puzzled and I’m going to spend a bit more time thinking about it!

[GrumpySock]

It is still Present perfect.

Compare. He has gone running vs he has been cooking. The last is PP Continuous.

[Waitingfordoggo]

@Triostar

Or is it the gone that make it past perfect?

Or actually is it present perfect?

Have + past participle.

These examples ‘feel’ similar.

[Waitingfordoggo]

Crossed post with @GrumpySock

[upinaballoon]

I used to run along the sea front every morning.
In those days I was running along the sea-front every morning.
In those days I ran along the sea-front every morning.

I know I've moved to the imperfect tense but when I learned French and Latin, there would always have been these three possible translations of the one word in those two other languages. Does English just have loads of options more than some other languages?

[Gudday]

Hello! I’m late to this but am an English teacher in Italy stuck in bed with a broken leg and have signed up to mumsnet for entertainment 😂

This is indeed present perfect: “have/has gone”, but “running” is in this case not a part of the verb tense, but instead belongs to a category of verb patterns called gerunds/infinitives.

The gerund is when we substitute the infinitive to-verb with the verb-ing form, and is used in various ways.

For example, it is used to turn a verb into a noun, when the sentence or preceding verb requires a noun:
”I love (what/noun?)” - “I love swimming”
”(What?) is banned on the premises” - “Smoking is banned on the premises”

Another time where gerund comes into play is when we use static or dynamic verbs. A static verb describes a state, and applies when we talk about feelings, thoughts (these being states of mind), possession, measurements and weights, appearance etc.
Static verbs cannot be used in the continuous form.
“She is owning the house” - “She owns the house”
“I am loving chocolate” - “I love chocolate”
(grr McDonald’s “I’m loving it” 🤬. Always drove me nuts that one)

Some verbs can be static or dynamic, but usually the meaning changes:
”The cat weighs 5kg” and “She is weighing the tomatoes”
We learn these over a lifetime through usage.

Your example belongs to what we call the verb pattern category. Some verbs are used in the gerund form in some contexts, depending on their function in the sentence (in this case running is used in the gerund). Some verb patterns are so for no reason (development of the language over time) for the reason being that it changes the meaning of the verb or the sentence, and some are simply idiomatic.

this page should help: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/verb-patterns-verb-infinitive-or-verb-ing

ps please don’t execute me for errors in orthography, capitals, spelling etc. sometimes even a bed-ridden English teacher can’t be fuggered/may have the old brain fog, plus am on mobile and quickly approaching middle age with the accompanying etceteras. My apologies if bleach is thus needed for the old peepers :)

[Elvanseshortage]

I have a PhD in Applied Linguistics and I teach English grammar at postgraduate level. As other people have already said, it’s present perfect continuous. There are no gerunds in that example.

[Gudday]

Me again, just wanted to clarify on your particular example and meaning changes with verb patterns.

Compare
“He has gone running”
”He has gone to run with the boys”

In the first sentence, the emphasis is more on where he is/ why he is not here.
The second sentence placed emphasis on the activity he is doing, not so much on him not being here.

Also, running, being a gerund, is now a noun by himself, answering the “what” element.
If we use a to-verb, this cannot be used usually by itself, and requires more information, thus turning it into a noun (/infinitive) phrase. -“to run with the boys”.

this may help:

https://promova.com/english-grammar/infinitive-phrase#

[Gudday]

@Elvanseshortage

I have a PhD in Applied Linguistics and I teach English grammar at postgraduate level. As other people have already said, it’s present perfect continuous. There are no gerunds in that example.

Present perfect continuous is formed with the verb ‘be’
Present continuous: he is running
present perfect continuous: he has been running

Present perfect continuous:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/it/grammatica/grammatica-britannico/present-perfect-continuous-i-have-been-working


What is a Gerund?
https://teacherblog.ef.com/grammar-recap-intro-to-gerunds-and-infinitives/#

[Elvanseshortage]

@Gudday i am embarrassed and I have to apologise. I really regret my snootily mentioning my PhD and experience lecturing in exactly this area. I was wrong and you are right. My excuse is that I am very tired today and I tend to have a knee jerk reaction to native speakers who think they understand the present perfect and gerunds (but whose knowledge is usually worse than non native speakers- this is my specific research area). So I didn’t actually read carefully. Sorry again.

[Gudday]

@Elvanseshortage

@Gudday i am embarrassed and I have to apologise. I really regret my snootily mentioning my PhD and experience lecturing in exactly this area. I was wrong and you are right. My excuse is that I am very tired today and I tend to have a knee jerk reaction to native speakers who think they understand the present perfect and gerunds (but whose knowledge is usually worse than non native speakers- this is my specific research area). So I didn’t actually read carefully. Sorry again.

@Elvanseshortage thanks so much and no problem at all, I appreciate you :)

[Gudday]

@Gudday

Hello! I’m late to this but am an English teacher in Italy stuck in bed with a broken leg and have signed up to mumsnet for entertainment 😂

This is indeed present perfect: “have/has gone”, but “running” is in this case not a part of the verb tense, but instead belongs to a category of verb patterns called gerunds/infinitives.

The gerund is when we substitute the infinitive to-verb with the verb-ing form, and is used in various ways.

For example, it is used to turn a verb into a noun, when the sentence or preceding verb requires a noun:
”I love (what/noun?)” - “I love swimming”
”(What?) is banned on the premises” - “Smoking is banned on the premises”

Another time where gerund comes into play is when we use static or dynamic verbs. A static verb describes a state, and applies when we talk about feelings, thoughts (these being states of mind), possession, measurements and weights, appearance etc.
Static verbs cannot be used in the continuous form.
“She is owning the house” - “She owns the house”
“I am loving chocolate” - “I love chocolate”
(grr McDonald’s “I’m loving it” 🤬. Always drove me nuts that one)

Some verbs can be static or dynamic, but usually the meaning changes:
”The cat weighs 5kg” and “She is weighing the tomatoes”
We learn these over a lifetime through usage.

Your example belongs to what we call the verb pattern category. Some verbs are used in the gerund form in some contexts, depending on their function in the sentence (in this case running is used in the gerund). Some verb patterns are so for no reason (development of the language over time) for the reason being that it changes the meaning of the verb or the sentence, and some are simply idiomatic.

this page should help: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/verb-patterns-verb-infinitive-or-verb-ing

ps please don’t execute me for errors in orthography, capitals, spelling etc. sometimes even a bed-ridden English teacher can’t be fuggered/may have the old brain fog, plus am on mobile and quickly approaching middle age with the accompanying etceteras. My apologies if bleach is thus needed for the old peepers :)

To clear up my own sloppy explanations in case I confused anyone, this part:


Another time where gerund comes into play is when we use static or dynamic verbs. A static verb describes a state, and applies when we talk about feelings, thoughts (these being states of mind), possession, measurements and weights, appearance etc.
Static verbs cannot be used in the continuous form.
“She is owning the house” - “She owns the house”
“I am loving chocolate” - “I love chocolate”
(grr McDonald’s “I’m loving it” 🤬. Always drove me nuts that one)

Some verbs can be static or dynamic, but usually the meaning changes:
”The cat weighs 5kg” and “She is weighing the tomatoes”
We learn these over a lifetime through usage.


This probably confused matters, because the above is talking about which verbs can be used in the continuous tense, when the core of the original explanation focused on gerunds.
It always comes up as another sub-category example of verb patterns, into which falls the gerund/infinitive, static/dynamic verbs, etc.

I guess I threw it in because it is again talking about the -ING form (which can be used for the gerund or the continuous), and always comes up with students when teaching about this dark corner of grammar - "But why "-ing", isn't that continuous? Why is it now used as a noun? etc etc." I thought I'd mention it along with the various ways the -ing form shows up, and sorry to all for the confusion!