Should have and shouldn't

Question

The sentence is : 'You should have listened to me, pet, shouldn't you?'

You should have is past tense and shouldn't you is present tense how does this make sense? The last part should have beeen 'shouldn't have you'. Am I right? Past tense should follow past tense?

Answer 1

"Should" is modal and doesn't have a proper system of tense. It may have developed from the preterite form of "shall", but we don't speak anglosaxon, so lets ignore that.

So "should" doesn't indicate tense, but the perfective "have listened" does indicate an action in the past.

"Should you?" is the correct tag question for a statement "You shouldn't...." The sentence is correct, and changing it to "shouldn't have you" would be incorrect.

Answer 2

Here is the correct usage.

You should have listened to me, pet, shouldn't you have?

I can’t give some abstract reasoning for this, just providing information.