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For example, "I have gone to the cinema" implies both that a previous action happened ("I went to the cinema") and that a current state resulted ("I am now in the cinema"). This differs from the simple "I went to the cinema", which implies only that an action happened, with no relevance to the present. The form "I have gone" is referred to as a Present Perfect , meaning present tense, perfect aspect. (It is considered present tense, not past tense, since the resulting state is in the present.)

Note: The perfect aspect is not the same as the .

In English , the perfect aspect can be combined with any simple tense (past, present or future), yielding perfect tenses that are formed using the conjugations of the auxiliary verb ''have'' and a verb:

  • '' I have been eaten.

  • '' I had been eaten.

  • '' I will have been eaten.


In addition to these, we can distinguish the three perfect Progressive tenses:

  • '' I have been being eaten.

  • '' I had been being eaten.

  • '' I will have been being eaten.


The perfect aspect can also be combined with various Modal Auxiliary Verb s, such as ''would'', ''should'', ''could'', ''may'' or ''might'':

  • '' I would have been eaten.

  • ''should-perfect'': I should have eaten, Passive I '''should have been eaten'''.


Progressives can likewise be formed from these:

  • '' I would have been being eaten.

  • ''should-perfect I should have been being eaten.


The various perfect progressive passives are a fairly recent addition to English, and some speakers still find them questionable or even ungrammatical.


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