CHAPTER II THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Present Perfect Tense
1. The Meaning of the Present Perfect Tense
Grammatical rules have parts of speech. One of them is called verb main verb and auxiliary verb. Verb is the most complex part of
speech. Like many parts of speech, verb also has grammatical properties, one of those grammatical properties is Tense. According to
Marcella Frank “Tense is special verb endings or accompanying auxiliary verbs signal time
an event takes place”
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Actually, based on Marcella Frank in her book Modern English, “English has two kinds of tense-system, six-tense system and two-tense
formal system. But the one most commonly found in English text books for non-native speakers and most familiar to them is the six-
tense system. It includes past tense, present tense, future and tense and plus three perfect tense; present perfect, past perfect, future
perfect ”
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or it usually known as sixteen tenses. According to Betty S. Azar, the present perfect tense expresses the
idea that something happened or never happened before now, at an
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Marcella Frank, Modern English: a practical reference guide, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972, p. 47
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Marcella Frank, Modern English: a practical reference guide, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972, p. 52
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unspecified time in the past. The exact time happened is not important. The example situation of this, as follows:
Marry is looking for her wallet. She
can’t find it. She has lost her
wallet.
„She has lost her wallet’ means that she lost it in a short time ago,
before now, at an unspecified time in the past.
In addition, Marcella Frank said that “the present perfect tense
expresses indefinite time that begins in the past and extends to the present. It is a special kind of past time that ends with the moment of
speaking. An event may continue beyond the present moment of speaking, but the statement is not concerned with this segment of
time. ”
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2. The Form of the Present Perfect Tense
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