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I have a grammar exercise which is: "Time Clauses Referring to the Future. Compare the sentences, how does the meaning change when the Present Perfect is used?"

  1. Come over and see us when our guests leave.
  2. Come over and see us when our guest have left.
  3. We can go out as soon as we have had dinner.
  4. *We can go out as soon as we have dinner.

I would like to ask you what does it mean when the Present Perfect is used and what does it mean when Present Simple is used? Also it is confused to me what "*" mean in the sentence 4, because it is not explained.

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  • The asterisk (*) denotes an ungrammatical utterance.
    – user3395
    Commented Feb 21, 2019 at 1:42

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Come over and see us when our guests leave.

This sentence implies that the person is supposed to come over at the same time the guests are leaving, let's say 8 o'clock.

Come over and see us when our guest have left.

This implies that the person is supposed to come over when the guests have left, when they are no longer there. So if the guests leave at 8, the person is supposed to come anytime after 8 o'clock.

The same rule applies to the other two sentences. I don't know what * means here.

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  • An asterisk (*) usually denotes an ungrammatical utterance.
    – user3395
    Commented Feb 21, 2019 at 1:43

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