The article deals with the analysis of functional and semantic properties of the present perfect in the late Middle English and early New English periods. The possibility of using the perfect in past-time contexts as well as with exact past-time adverbials in texts of the given periods is viewed as a display of specific features of its semantics at this stage of development. As a consequence, a perfective component of the perfect is treated not as a case of functional confusion between the perfect and preterite, but rather as a stable meaning, which reveals itself and further on anchors in particular pragmatic contexts.