Perfect present tense & principal parts

[Kendall]

First question:

I’m having a hard time grasping the concept of present perfect tense. I don’t understand what is meant by in the past but connected with present time. How are simple past and present perfect different? Maybe the best thing is to ask what is the difference in meaning between these two sentences.

He wrote a letter.
He has written a letter.

Second question:

What is the importance of the three principal parts? Is it just to know the correct verb to use with/without helpers? With most verbs I don’t and my son doesn’t have trouble using the correct part in a sentence. Isn’t voice, tense, etc what are important in terms of understanding what verbs are doing in sentences?

I have’t totally exhausted Harvey’s in answer to the second question so that may be clear in the book.

Thanks in advance,
Kendall

[Lene in CO]

Good question, sometimes that is very hard to see.

For the sakes of making it VERY clear, I am going to simplify your sentences to read

1. He wrote
2. He has written

Sentence 1. He wrote is simple past, as you know. It is taking place in the past and there is no indication of a completion of the action. We simply know that he wrote.

Sentence 2. He has written indicates that he is done doing so, the action is completed in the past, but is connected to the present in that the helping verb "has" is present tense 3rd person singular.

The principal parts, 3 in English, 4 in Latin, provide you with the three unique forms of each verb whcih allows you to construct all possible tenses using those verbs (clearly you need helping verbs in many tenses).

Lene