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I've recently spotted the following sentence and it got me thinking:

It's believed to have served as...

What kind of grammatical structure is this? Why is present perfect being used here? Would it be correct to use present simple instead, as in:

It's believed to serve as...

?

gotube
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InStitches
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    It's not really "present perfect". Yes, "to have" + past participle is the typical marker of the perfect aspect, but "to have" (as used here) is an infinitive and thus has no tense. The only finite (tensed) verb in this sentence is "is" (which is contracted). "To serve" (in the second sentence) is also an infinitive and thus untensed. – MarcInManhattan Feb 11 '22 at 20:38
  • Makes sense, thanks – InStitches Feb 12 '22 at 13:12
  • For whoever finds this question in the future - I think my confusion was partly because of problems with understanding present perfect in general. I found this post to be very helpful: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/13255/canonical-post-2-what-is-the-perfect-and-how-should-i-use-it – InStitches Feb 13 '22 at 14:20

1 Answers1

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The tense denotes the fact that it is presently believed to have been used a certain way in the past.

This is quite a common construction - for example, when archaeology turns up certain items from the past, we can only make assumptions about what they were used for. So we make assumptions and form beliefs in the present about their past use.

Astralbee
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  • Thanks! Is the fact that it's an assumption the decisive factor to use present perfect here? Is it called somehow? (I've heard about subjunctive moods and it also kinda reminds the 3rd conditional).

    Also, if I were to change it to active voice - "I believe it has served as" vs "I believe it served as" - would I go with the first or the second option?

     – InStitches Feb 11 '22 at 12:16
  • The correct answers depend on context and the assumptions you are making about that context. If you don't give some context, or example context as was done in Astralbee's response, any answer you get may be based on different assumptions and give you the wrong conclusions. These differences are subtle and greatly depend on the specifics of the situation and what you want to say about the situation. – Vegawatcher Feb 11 '22 at 18:58
  • I believe the context given by Astralbee is correct. Let's say that the full sentence is "It's believed to have served as a vessel" and next to it is a picture of some old, archaeological finding. As per my last follow-up question (and assuming I'm an archaeologist who just made a discovery) should I say "I believe it has served as a vessel" or "I believe it served as a vessel"? If it's the latter, then why a perfect tense is used in the original, passive phrase? Also, would that be AE/BE specific? – InStitches Feb 12 '22 at 13:21