Comparison of English present perfect and German Perfekt

Abstract

This paper compares the English Present Perfect tense and the German Perfekt tense from the perspective of their uses and typical grammatical environments. The analysis considers both theoretical grammar manuals in the two languages as well as results of the analysis of data gained from German translations of English books and film dialogues. The paper employs Comrie's division of Perfect types, namely the continuative, the experiential, the resultative and the recent past functions, arguing that the only point where English and German partly overlap is the resultative use of the Perfect. The paper further mentions different motivations for tense distributions in both languages.