The perfect construction: [have [PERF4 [V]]]
Finally, we turn to the perfect construction, in which PERF4 represents the ‘past’ or perfect participial morphology (e.g.-ed in fixed), which gives rise to an ATEMPORAL RELATION. The perfect auxiliary have imposes its PROCESS profile upon this construction, giving rise to the perfect construction [have [PERF4 [V]]] (e.g. have fixed), which can then function as clausal head. As we have seen, the perfect construction encodes an event as ‘completed’ with respect to a given reference point in time. Compare example (6a), which is in the present perfect, with (6b), which is in the simple past.
The difference between these two examples is clear: while example (6a) might be used in a context where the gas men have just left, example (6b) locates the event at a more distant point in time. Langacker (1991: 212) therefore suggests that the function of the perfect is to encode current relevance. In considering how the perfect auxiliary have is linked to other senses of the same verb, Langacker compares it to examples like (7).
This example illustrates the content meaning of lexical have. Prototypically, lexical have encodes a relationship of POSSESSION, but in example (7) it also evokes two other salient aspects of meaning. Firstly, example (7) makes reference to a spatial reference point, where the spatial location of the object (a lot of windy weather) is interpreted on the basis of the spatial location of the subject (we), which is salient because it makes reference to a human or a group of humans and thus serves as a spatial reference point. Secondly, this type of construction also encodes what Langacker calls potential relevance, in the sense that the construction does not necessarily describe any current relation between the subject and the object (we could utter (7) on a calm sunny day, for example) but describes a relation that is a potential (if not an actual) aspect of the subject’s experience.
On the basis of a comparison of the perfect auxiliary have with lexical have in constructions like (7), Langacker identifies the semantics of auxiliary have as evoking (1) a temporal (rather than spatial) reference point, and (2) current (rather than potential) relevance. These semantic properties of auxiliary have are related to the spatial reference point and the potential relevance that lexical have evokes in (7). Of course, the perfect construction does not always occur in the present tense, as it does in (7). This is illustrated by example (8), which is in the past perfect.
It is important to emphasise that ‘current relevance’ is not restricted to the present tense (the time of speaking). Instead, this term is understood relative to the temporal reference point that is evoked by the construction or provided by the context. In other words, whether the temporal reference point is in the past, present or future, the completed event is construed as ‘currently relevant’ relative to that temporal reference point (recall our discussion of tense and aspect from the perspective of Mental Spaces Theory in Chapter 11). In order to illustrate this point, observe that the perfect construction is often used in contexts where the relevance of the completed event to some immediately pre ceding or following event is emphasised. This is illustrated by the contrast between (9a) and (9b).
Turning to the ‘division of labour’ between the component parts of the perfect construction [have [PERF4 ]], we can observe that perfect participle morpheme PERF4 , like the other instances of PERF, imposes its profile as an ATEMPORAL RELATION on the content verb. Unlike the passive PERF3 , it does not impose a TR-LM reversal. Instead, Langacker characterises the meaning of PERF4 as temporal anteriority. It is important not to confuse this with past tense, which also makes reference to past time: as we have seen, the perfect construction can occur in the present tense. Regardless of its tense properties, the perfect construction construes an event as completed and furthermore emphasises the event’s completion. In (9a), for example, it is the end stage of the fixing event that is salient in relation to the temporal reference point (when the sun came out). In this respect, Langacker argues that PERF4 shares a further aspect of its meaning with the other instances of PERF, which is that all four variants emphasise the terminal stage of an event.
Although we have discussed the passive, progressive and perfect constructions individually in this section, it is important to emphasise that these are not separate or unrelated constructions in the sense that they all form part of a network of verb-string constructions that may display greater or lesser complexity. As we saw in Table 18.2 and example (3), for example, it is possible for all three constructions to co-occur in one complex construction, where their properties are closely interwoven.
As the discussion in this section illustrates, while auxiliary verbs are recognised in Cognitive Grammar as having distinct properties from content verbs, they are not sharply distinguished from content verbs. Both auxiliary and content verbs are represented as PROCESSES, but differ with respect to their relative schematicity or specificity at the semantic pole. According to Langacker, the prototypical English auxiliary verb is do, which is maximally schematic. Unlike the other auxiliary verbs discussed in this section, do does not contribute any meaning to the construction beyond imposing its profile as a schematic PROCESS. This explains the distribution of this verb, which, as we saw in Chapter 14, occurs only when the sentence lacks another auxiliary or modal verb licensed to participate in question or negation constructions, or when the speaker wants to emphasise the truth of a statement.
