# Why do Germanic languages use "have" to indicate perfect aspect?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-germanic-languages-use-have-to-indicate-perfect-aspect/988487>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 13, 2023, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-germanic-languages-use-have-to-indicate-perfect-aspect/988487 "2023-08-13T01:17:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2023, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-germanic-languages-use-have-to-indicate-perfect-aspect/988487/41 "2023-08-15T18:40:02Z")

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> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> …
> 
> This is as good a example of what I wanted to say. The main point is that in normal English, the simple past is the perfect tense and the compound past is the imperfect. “I bought …” means I did it some time in the past and it is a completed action. “I have bought…” really means I just did it and might be still shopping. I don’t know enough German to know if that is true there. …

That‘s in fact something that frequently trips up Germans speaking English. German does have a simple past called _Präteritum_: _ **ich kaufte** _=„I bought“ but it has been displaced in oral usage beginning with the 13 century in the Upper German regions (_oberdeutscher Präteritumschwund_) und arriving in the north by the 20th century, by the _Perfekt_: _ **ich habe gekauft** _=‚I have bought‘. To use the _Präteritum_ in conversation nowadays sounds pretty stilted. Which is why we Germans are apt to say things like ‚my milk teeth have fallen out fifty years ago’ in English.

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**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-germanic-languages-use-have-to-indicate-perfect-aspect/988487/42 "2023-08-15T18:59:06Z")

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By the way, (in English) “have” is not the only verb that can have an auxiliary or light or modal predicate content:  
The sun **will** rise tomorrow.  
I am **going** to watch television.  
She **took** a shower.

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2023, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-germanic-languages-use-have-to-indicate-perfect-aspect/988487/43 "2023-08-15T22:34:59Z")

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And the omnipresent « got ». Two of my francophone roommates asked me to try to explain it. It’s impossible.

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**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2023, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-germanic-languages-use-have-to-indicate-perfect-aspect/988487/44 "2023-08-17T01:05:07Z")

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> [@zimaane](#):
>
> Not sure if I consider Maigret pulp fiction…

It’s not so much that Maigret is pulp fiction, but the slightly startling (to me) fact that when Maigret interrogates the perp at the end of the tale, the latter tells his story in the passé simple.

My wife tells me that when she took a history course during a year in France, the prof related the historical events in that tense.

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