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CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter contains the description of the theoretical framework of relevent theories concerning by the students in learning present perfect tense.
A. Tense
Definition of English Tense
One of The important things in learning grammar is tense. Marella Frank defines, “tense is special verb ending or accompanying auxiliary verb signal
the time an event takes place”
1
Almost all verbs can show the differences between the present, past and future time by changing in the verb form. From
this, can be also defined as „tenses is an actual usage, refers consistently only to grammatical forms
2
. So time, as Lyons say, tense is “grammaticalizes the relationships which held between the time up the situation that is being
describe and the temporal zero point of the deictic context”
3
Based on the explanation above, the writer can conclude that tense is a verb form or series of verb Forms used to express a time relation. Tenses may
also indicate whether an action, activity or state is past, present or future.
1
Marcella Frank, Modern English A Practical Reference Guide, London, Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1992, p.47.
2
Julia M. Burks and George E. Wishorn, Let’s write English New York Little
educational publishing inc, 1880, p.192
3
Renat Declerck. Tense in English. Its Strucutre and Use in Discourse. London: Routledge, 1994, p.7
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B. Kinds of Tense
Based on Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English defines, “from structural point of view, English verbs are inflected for only two tense:
present and past”
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In her book “Modern English: A Practical Reference Guide” Marcella Frank points out,
“there are three past tenses and two future tenses. Note further that the past perfect is tied in time to the past tense, the present perfect
to the present tense, and the future perfect to the future tense”.
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So, if simple and compound tense are mixed together, there are twelve kinds of tenses. They are: simple present, simple past, simple future, present
progressive, past progressive, future progressive, present perfect, past prefect, future perfect, present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive, and future
perfect progressive.
C. Present Prefect Tense
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