THE AMBIGUITY OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT

This study examines grammatical and discourse-pragmatic reflexes of th e existential and resultative readings of the English present perfect. I present both negative and positive arguments in favor of the claim that the present perfect is ambiguous (rather than vague) with respect to these readings. In particular, I argue that the resultative presen t-perfect represents a formal idiom: a morphosyntactic form characteri zed by idiosyncratic constraints upon grammar, meaning and use. Certai n constraints upon the resultative present-perfect, in particular that which prevents it from denoting a pragmatically presupposed event pro position, can be MOTIVATED with respect to a discourse-pragmatic oppos ition involving the preterite. However, such constraints cannot be PRE DICTED from functional oppositions or any general semantic principles. Finally, I suggest that mastery of aspectual grammar crucially entail s knowledge of such idiomatic form-meaning pairings.