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§ 7. The category of retrospective coordination (retrospect) is con-
stituted by the opposition of the perfect forms of the verb to the 
non-perfect, or imperfect forms. The marked member of the oppo-
sition is the perfect, which is built up by the auxiliary have in com-
bination with the past participle of the conjugated verb. In sym-
bolic notation it is expressed by the formula have ... en. 
The functional meaning of the category has been interpreted in lin-
guistic literature in four different ways, each contributing to the 
evolution of the general theory of retrospective coordination. 
The first comprehensively represented grammatical exposition of 
the perfect verbal form was the "tense view": by this view the per-
fect is approached as a peculiar tense form. The tense view of the 
perfect is presented in the works of H. Sweet, G. Curme, M. Bryant 
and J. R. Aiken, and some other foreign scholars. In the Soviet lin-
guistic literature this view was consistently developed by N. F. 
Irtenyeva. The tense interpretation of the perfect was also endorsed 
by the well-known course of English Grammar by M. A. Ganshina 
and N. M. Vasilevskaya. 
The difference between the perfect and non-perfect forms of the 
verb, according to the tense interpretation of the perfect, consists in 
the fact that the perfect denotes a secondary temporal characteristic 
of the action. Namely, it shows that the denoted action precedes 
some other action or situation in the present, past, or future. This 
secondary tense quality of the perfect, in the context of the "tense 
view", is naturally contrasted against the secondary tense quality of 
the 

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cantinuous, which latter, according to N. F. Irtenyeva, intensely 
expresses simultaneity of the denoted action with some other ac-
tion in the present, past, or future. 
The idea of the perfect conveying a secondary time characteristic 
of the action is quite a sound one, because it shows that the perfect, 
in fact, coexists with the other, primary expression of time. What 
else, if not a secondary time meaning of priority, is rendered by the 
perfect forms in the following example: Grandfather has taken his 
morning stroll and now is having a rest on the veranda. 
The situation is easily translated into the past with the time correla-
tion intact: → Grandfather had taken his morning stroll and was 
having a rest on the veranda. 
With the future, the correlation is not so clearly pronounced. How-
ever, the reason for it lies not in the deficiency of the perfect as a 
secondary tense, but in the nature of the future time plane, which 
exists only as a prospective plane, thereby to a degree levelling the 
expression of differing timings of actions. Making allowance for 
the unavoidable prospective temporal neutralisations, the perfec-
tive priority expressed in the given situation can be clearly con-
veyed even in its future translations, extended by the exposition of 
the corresponding connotations: 
→ By the time he will be having a rest on the veranda, Grandfather 
will surely have taken his morning stroll. → Grandfather will have 
a rest on the veranda only after he has taken his morning stroll. 
Laying emphasis on the temporal function of the perfect, the "tense 
view", though, fails to expose with the necessary distinctness its 
aspective function, by which the action is shown as successively or 
"transmissively" connected with a certain time limit. Besides, the 
purely oppositional nature of the form is not disclosed by this ap-
proach either, thus leaving the categorial status of the perfect unde-
fined. 
The second grammatical interpretation of the perfect was the "as-
pect view": according to this interpretation the perfect is ap-
proached as an aspective form of the verb. The aspect view is pre-
sented in the works of M. Deutschbein, E.A. Sonnenschein, A. S. 
West, and other foreign scholars. In the Soviet linguistic literature 
the aspective interpretation of the perfect was comprehensively de-
veloped by G. N. Vorontsova. This subtle observer of intricate in-
terdependencies of language masterly demonstrated the idea of the 

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successive connection of two events expressed by the perfect, 
prominence given by the form to the transference or "transmission" 
of the accessories of a pre-situation to a post-situation. The great 
merit of G. N. Vorontsova's explanation of the aspective nature of 
the perfect lies in the fact that the resultative meaning ascribed by 
some scholars to the perfect as its determining grammatical func-
tion is understood in her conception within a more general destina-
tion of this form, namely as a particular manifestation of its trans-
missive functional semantics. 
Indeed, if we compare the two following verbal situations, we shall 
easily notice that the first of them expresses result, while the sec-
ond presents a connection of a past event with a later one in a 
broad sense, the general inclusion of the posterior situation in the 
sphere of influence of the anterior situation: 
The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever.