I want to know the difference between present perfect continuous and present perfect in negative sentences. My textbook says (namely, English Grammar In Use, 2nd edition) 'use simple for negative sentences'. Surprisingly, it does not explain the reason. After some googling I found that continuous forms are also used, but I couldn't get the precise distinction. Please help.
Learn English – perfect continuous or simple perfect in negative sentences
continuous-aspectnegationpresent-perfect
Related Solutions
This is a difficult area of English for foreign learners, and I’m afraid you’re not going to understand it fully from a few answers here. Very briefly, you use the present perfect continuous form to talk about events in the recent past, particularly activities that have not been completed. The form is often found with the prepositions ‘for’ and ‘since’, as in ‘He’s been speaking for a very long time’ or ‘I’ve been working non-stop since this morning’.
Here are a few examples contrasting the present perfect with the present perfect continuous:
'I’ve done my homework' (it’s finished) / 'I’ve been doing my homework' (it’s not finished)
‘I’ve drunk my coffee' (it’s all gone) / ‘I’ve been drinking my coffee’ (there’s some left)
‘It’s rained every day since the weekend’ (repeated rain) / ‘It’s been raining all day’ (continuous rain)
Your own examples don’t really illustrate the use very well. You wouldn’t say ‘I have learned English language in the past few weeks’, because that suggests you’ve finished your studies and you don’t need to do any more. That’s unrealistic. No one learns English in a few weeks. I think these two examples might show the difference more clearly:
‘I have been studying English for two years’ (I’m still studying it)
'I have studied English, but I don’t speak it very well' (I studied it at some time in the past, but am not studying it any more)
As Barrie and Elf said, your intuition is correct. The basis of the error is a subtle one, as with most matters affecting simple past versus present perfect in English, but maybe you can it explain it to the student along the following lines (which you’ll need to adapt to whatever you’ve told them about this tense).
- The context doesn’t justify an experiential use of the present perfect. These uses make good answers to Have you ever questions (Have you ever swum with dolphins? seen a shark when surfing? eaten snake?). If I ask you, in a deposition, say, Have you ever been aware of the contents of an 43-101 report before reading it?, you could answer: Yes, I've been aware of the information the report contained even before reading it, meaning that at some vague point in the past you had awareness prior to reading. That is crucially different from what your student wants to say: that (s)he was aware at a specific time, just before a particular showing of a film.
- Nor is a resultant state perfect (present perfect of result) appropriate. When these combine with predicates that denote nonpunctual events (know the answer, believe the rumour, study French; as opposed to punctual burst the balloon, reach the summit), they usually mark the onset of the attained state (I’ve known the answer for five minutes / since you walked in the door), or indicate overlapping intervals (I’ve known the answer for the whole time you’ve been talking). They are infelicitous with phrases the mark other time points (e.g., the endpoint I’ve known the answer until you walked in, or a midpoint, Having figured it out five minutes ago, I’ve known the answer when you started explaining). The problem with the student’s sentence is that, in I have been aware before watching, the before clause highlights that awareness preceded watching, so an overlap reading is inappropriate and an onset reading is impossible.
The basic idea is, run through the list of uses you’ve given your students for present perfect and explain why none is apt here.
Best Answer
Your textbook is oversimplifying things at best or just plain wrong at worst. To understand which to use in a negative sentence, you need to understand the difference between them in a positive sentence.
The point here is that the action I'm speaking of is completed. At some unspecified point in the past, the woman I'm speaking of traveled to various opera houses and sang at all of them. Though she may no longer be singing, or no longer singing at multiple venues, this statement doesn't rule out those possibilities. Either fact is simply not relevant to my statement, I'm only talking about the performances she's previously given. Even though the actions I'm referring to are in the past, it is different from using the past tense in that regard.
This sentence has a similar meaning to the one above, but with some added implications. The singer may no longer be singing at opera houses (preferring other venues), may not be singing at all, or may even be dead. Regardless, that part of her life is behind her.
Again, the meaning is similar to the first example I gave, but the implications are the opposite of the example above. Just as the name implies, present perfect continuous indicates that the activity is continuous, starting at some point in the past (either specified or unspecified) and continuing up until now. In my example, she has been moving between opera houses and giving performances, and is still in the process of touring around.
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So now let me actually answer your question about negative sentences. In short, the differences in the meanings conveyed are the same.
Again, this is referring to an action that is complete and the future of her singing career is not the focus of discussion. This would be suitable in a statement such as: "She has not sung at many opera houses, but I always buy tickets when she does." My actions (buying tickets) are in the present tense. Using the future tense would not be natural here, since I am not making any comment on what she may or may not be doing in the future.
(Actually, you could use the future tense for buying, which would give a slightly different implied meaning to the first half of the sentence but I'm employing a little simplification of my own to avoid getting overly confusing. The future tense of 'buy' would only be wrong paired with the past tense example below.)
For the sake of completion, here's the negative example in past tense:
Again, her singing career (at least in opera houses) is over. In "She did not sing at many opera houses, but I always bought tickets when she did" my actions are unsurprisingly in the past tense as well, since I'm referring to a time grounded in the past.
The number of performances she has been giving of late has been fairly low, and that is still the case.
"She has not been singing at many opera houses, but I always buy tickets when she does." "She has not been singing at many opera houses, but I will always buy tickets when she does."
My actions don't sound awkward in either the present tense or the future tense, since this a situation being continued. That allows you to speak of it in the present or project it into the future without sounding bizarre.
[You could also say that you have been buying tickets to either the present perfect or present perfect continuous examples, but that didn't sound like it would help to highlight the differences between them.]