Presently Perfect

The Present Perfect Indicative is very common in English. It is used to replace the Simple Past Indicative when dealing with ideas or events that have occurred at some indefinite time in the past. Here's a construction of it using the verb to see:

MODERN ENGLISH SYNTAX
Present Perfect Indicative: to see

1. I have seen


2. You have seen


3. He/She/It has seen


4. We have seen


5. You have seen


6. They have seen

Examples:


1. I have seen the movie. (This is at some indefinite time in the past.)

2. I saw the movie (yesterday). (This is at a definite time so it is in Simple Past Indicative.)

3. I see the movie (now). (This is occurring right now in the present.)



There is also a rare tense in modern English called the Present Perfect Subjunctive. In many Indo-European languages like Italian, French, and Spanish, this is a very prevalent tense, but in English, it has almost disappeared, and what little remains is almost never subjoined (put into subjunctive mood) thus the Present Perfect Indicative prevails in most cases. Here's a conjugation of the verb to see in Present Perfect Subjunctive:



Present Perfect Subjunctive: to see

1. I have seen


2. You have seen


3. He/She/It have seen


4. We have seen


5. You have seen


6. They have seen

Negated Example: He have not seen

Notice that the only difference is in 3rd person singular wherein the infinitive form reigns supreme over the conjugated form "has". This construction is seldom ever used by native speakers even when it is supposed to be constructed in this way under normative grammatical rules. Here are some situations using several different past participles:

Examples:

1. I pray that he have seen the glory of God. (One could put the modals "may/might" before the verb have to take this out of the subjunctive mood.)

2. It is important that the candidate have worked with children before.

3. If he so much as have laid a finger on her, I will kill him. (The idiom "so much as" is sandwiched between "he have". Notice how this construction may sound off kilter without the idiom, but with the idiom, it sounds very awkward trying to say "he so much as has".)

4. It is necessary that a person have graduated from high school before being allowed to attend college classes.

In the end, this is the English Present Perfect. I hope that this might have helped some of you who were a little leery about this part of speech. Maybe this will help those of you understand how to say it in French and Spanish.