The Use of Perfect Tense in Oral Discourse Among Senior High School Teachers

Perfect verb tense is used to present an action that is completed, finished or perfected. The formula is expressed by using any of the auxiliary verbs – have, has or had – paired with the past participle of the main verb. This linguistic analysis is focused on the teachers’ use of perfect tense in oral discourse. It specifically monitored the teachers’ use of perfect tense in their deliberation of subject matters. The findings revealed that the teachers use perfect tense to present a very recently completed action, signal prior completed event, an action completed at the moment of speaking, an action in progress that is not yet completed, a subordinate clause of time or condition, an action completed in the past prior to some other past event or time, future action that will be completed prior to a specific future event, a yes-no question, wh-structure, noun clause as subject noun clause as object, complementation and clitization.