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Allexx66 Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Present perfect tense

There are two sentences "Who broke the window?" and "Who has broken the window?" What's the subtle difference in meaning ?

Regards,

Alex
  

Top answer

Hi Alex, A warm welcome from one newby to another! With your question, I would say most people would just use simple past; simply, the window has already been broken. The act of breaking is done.

— Dimsumexpress

  • Hi Alex, A warm welcome from one newby to another!
  • With your question, I would say most people would just use simple past; simply, the window has already been broken.
  • The act of breaking is done.
  • I believe present perfect is an overkill.
  • That's how I see it.
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3 Answers
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Hi Alex,

A warm welcome from one newby to another!

With your question, I would say most people would just use simple past; simply, the window has already been broken. The act of breaking is done. I believe present perfect is an overkill. That's how I see it.
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"Who broke the window?" probably puts the action further in the past. If you come home from work and see a broken window, you would probably ask: What happened? Who broke it? On the other hand, if you are sitting on the sofa and you hear your window being broken, you would probably jump up and yell: "Who has broken the window?"
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sentence number one "who broke the window" contains a primary form of a verb, the preterite "broke". The second sentence contains a secondary form, the past participle "broken", plus the auxiliary "have".

Sentences that use the aux have and the past participle are normally considered to be "perfect", which is a form of past tense, and the senteces that use only the preterite form of a
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