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I have found the following sentence in Michael Swan's grammar book.

From his earliest childhood, he loved music.

So far as I know, present perfect is used to talk about actions that have just completed (such as "He has just/already come") or if the action is still continuing and which began in the past ("He has lived in the house for the last five years.")

On the other hand, the simple past is used to talk about completed actions in the past, such as "He saw the film yesterday," or "Columbus discovered America".

  • Why did the author use the simple past instead of present tense? Is it a grammatical rule, or usage?

If I change the sentence into present perfect and present perfect continuous,will they be grammatically wrong and unidiomatic?

From his childhood, he has loved music

from his earliest childhood, he has been loving music

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Perhaps the man is no longer alive.

From his earliest childhood, he loved music.

Now consider that we are talking about someone who is sitting next to us:

He has loved music since his earliest childhood.

From his earliest childhood, he has loved music.

From his earliest childhood, he loved music. But recently he was diagnosed with melophobia.

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    Perhaps the subject no longer has that love of music, even though he's not dead.
    – FumbleFingers
    Aug 7, 2019 at 16:48
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    melophobia- fear of music. (Nor a word I expect to ever use again.)
    – user98746
    Aug 7, 2019 at 17:14
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    @Patriot.thank you.when i read the sentence,I felt that the music lover was .no more
    – Jvlnarasimharao
    Aug 7, 2019 at 17:31
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    @JagathaVLNarasimharao Perhaps he is no longer with us: "From his earliest childhood, he loved music."
    – user98746
    Aug 7, 2019 at 17:35

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