can’t have past participle – English Grammar Profiler

In the English Grammar Profile, C1 point 188 in the category of MODALITY is defined as:

PAST NEGATIVE, ‘can’t’ or ‘cannot have’ + ‘-ed’ to make deductions.

It means that if we cannot have fired those torpedoes, someone else did.

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A search in iWeb:

1 CA N’T HAVE HELPED 61

2 CA N’T HAVE FAILED 53 3 CA N’T HAVE ESCAPED 46 4 CA N’T HAVE GONE 39 5 CA N’T HAVE MISSED 37 6 CA N’T HAVE HURT 33 7 CA N’T HAVE HAPPENED 19 8 CA N’T HAVE CHANGED 17

9 CA N’T HAVE MADE 17