Perfect aspect
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The perfect tenses are verb tenses showing actions completed at or before a specific time.
In English, there are three simple perfect tenses, formed with conjugations of the auxiliary verb have and a verb:
- Present perfect: I have eaten, passive I have been eaten.
- Past perfect (pluperfect): I had eaten, passive I had been eaten.
- Future perfect: I will (or shall) have eaten, passive I will have been eaten.
In addition to these, we can distinguish the three perfect progressive tenses:
- Present perfect progressive: I have been eating, passive I have been being eaten.
- Past perfect progressive: I had been eating, passive I had been being eaten.
- Future perfect progressive: I will (or shall) have been eating, passive I will have been being eaten.
Obviously, the convoluted passives of these tenses are rarely used.
See also: past tense, future tense, grammatical aspect.sv:Perfekt