Has been dead/has died problem?

起因: 电影The HELP大约有一句台词,He got there , only to find he had died.
于是查了一下has/had died其时是省略了(recently), die是个瞬间动词,如果用完成时则表示刚刚去世不久.

Anonymous:

My father [ has been dead/ has died ] for two years.

The correct answer is has been dead.. but why has died is incorrect?

REPLY

AlpheccaStars:

Anon:
You can write:
My father has been dying for two years. (i.e. He has a fatal disease and is very sick, and the doctors say he has not much time to live.)

You can also write:
My father has died. (He died recently.)

I have studied grammar for two years.

Dying is a one-time event. It cannot happen for two years.
Studying grammar can occur over two years. It takes a long time to learn grammar.

To be dead means not to be alive. Someone can be dead for a very long time.

Yankee:

Hi Anon

When you say "My father has been dead for two years", that means that your father died two years ago. The word 'dead' is an adjective that describes a state.

Saying "My father has died for two years" doesn't make sense because that would basically mean that your father has died more than one time. It sounds like you mean that your father died repeatedly/many times during the last two years. But people only die once.