Tense structure

Question

What is the correct tense structure of simple present perfect and simple past perfect?

Are these sentences correctly structured?

1. I have a car which has speakers in it.(present perfect).

Does present perfect need to have two events which are happening in present ?

2. I have had a busy weekend.

I am not sure if this is present or past perfect.

3. I had a car which was of black colour. (Past perfect).

4. I had had enough of her attitude. ( past perfect) .

Why does the word had occur twice in sentence 4?

Answer 1

Perfect tenses have the following active forms:

Present Perfect: "have + past participle of a verb" or "has + past participle of a verb"

Past Perfect: "had + past participle of a verb"

Future Perfect: "shall have + past participle of a verb" or "will have + past participle of a verb"

They have the following passive forms:

Present Perfect: "have + been + past participle of a verb" or "has + been past participle of a verb"

Past Perfect: "had + been + past participle of a verb"

Future Perfect: "shall have + been past participle of a verb" or "will have + been past participle of a verb"

You are mixing up the use of "have" as a modal or auxiliary verb to change the tense of the verb indicated by the past participle associated with it and the use of "have" as an independent verb meaning to "possess." When we want to use a perfect form of "have" as the independent verb, we end up with some form of "have" as an auxiliary of the past participle "had."

Present Perfect: "have had" or "has had"

Past Perfect: "had had"

Future Perfect: "shall have had" or "will have had"

Present Perfect: "have been had" or "has been had"

Past Perfect: "had been had"

Future Perfect: "shall have been had" or "will have been had"

Answer 2

The present perfect has the form

(subject) have (past participle of verb) (rest of sentence)

For example

I have eaten a hot dog.

There must by the "have+participle" structure

I have a car [...]

This is the simple present tense. The word "have" is the main verb here.

[...] which has speakers in it

This clause is also simple present. There is no past participle

I have had a busy weekend.

This is present perfect. The structure is "have" + the past participle of have (which is "had")

I had a car which was of black colour.

This is simple past. The past tense of "have" is "had". There is no participle, so it isn't a perfect tence

I had had enough of her attitude.

This is past perfect. The present tence would be "have enough", the present perfect would be "have had enough", and the past perfect is "had had enough".

It looks weird because

1. "Have" can be both a main verb meaning ownership, and it can be an auxiliary verb forming the perfect.
2. The past tense form of have is "had" and the past participle of "have" is also "had".

In fact the past perfect is quite rare, and "I had had..." is even rarer, because it sounds weird.