Have and did - which one?

[Guugu]

Hi,

when I was with a college of mine we've had discussed about the differences between "did" and "have" on a particular sentence.

The sentence is: I have not talked to him / I did not talk to him.

Which one of these are correct? The context was: We needed to talk to another college and ask him whether he's gonna provide us with some more material or not; a yes or no would have different consequences, so I tend to say it's the present prefect we need to use here in lieu of simple past. Since the event has had a consequence to the present. Furthermore, the action is important on this context and not the time.

What do you think? The college used to life in the states, probably he might be right. However, I am pretty sure this time, that this need to be past perfect.

[tiorthan]

Hi,

When I was with a colleague of mine we've had₁ discussed about₂ the differences between "did" and "have" on a particular sentence.

The sentence is: I have not talked to him / I did not talk to him.

Which one of these is correct? The context was: We needed to talk to another colleague and ask him whether he's gonna provide us with some more material or not; a yes or no would have different consequences, so I tend to say it's the present prefect we need to use here in lieu of the simple past. Since the event has had a consequence in the present. Furthermore, the action is important in this context and not the time.

What do you think? The colleague used to live in the States, he may be right. However, I am pretty sure this time, that this needs to be the present perfect.

1 - Dein Satzanfang "when ..." ist eine Zeitangabe in der Vergangenheit, daher ist hier das Simple Past notwendig.

2 - Du kannst entweder sagen "talk about" oder "have a discussion about", aber wenn du "discuss" als Verb verwendest, dann folgt kein "about".

And the answer is:

I have not talked to him,

But your explanation for it is still wrong, and your colleague is not wrong either.

a yes or no would have different consequences

That is irrelevant.

The important question here is: What does the sentence describe, the past or the present?

Why the present? Because that's what the present perfect is. The present perfect describes the state of the present as direct result of an action and the direct consequqnce of "not talking to someone" is "have not talked to someone".

That's the only reason why the present perfect is used here.

The reason why your colleague is not wrong, is that in the US dialects of the English language the simple past can be used in some instances where the present perfect would be used in other dialects. Which one is used depends on the context in which the sentence is said. It still boils down to essentially the same question (past or present?) but in a slightly different way.

[cassielfsw]

The two tenses would have slightly different connotations -- I would use the simple past if I were asking (or answering) about a specific instance -- Did you talk to him yesterday? No, I didn't talk to him yesterday.

I would use the present perfect if I were referring to a broader range of time -- Have you talked to him in the last week? No, I haven't talked to him in the last week. Have you talked to him at all? No, I haven't talked to him at all.