Can either "is gone" or "has gone" be used to refer to someone who has died? I know "is gone" is common, but I wonder if "has gone" carries the same meaning.
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The be-perfect interpretation is discussed at Is it acceptable to use 'is become' instead of 'has become'?, but this is perhaps better analysed as the participial adjective usage. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 02 '16 at 13:58
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2Does this answer your question? "She is gone" versus "she has gone" – Otter Jan 30 '21 at 13:52
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The OED highlights a quotation under go, (v.) 23. intr. a. In various phrases referring to a person's death, with the implicit notion of departing this world for an afterlife.:
His eyes stare. He has gone to the great recording studio in the sky.
-- 1992 S. Tharoor Show Business (1995) ii. 94
So "has gone" does indeed carry the same meaning.
Frangipanes
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The death part seems more given by the great recording studio in the sky than by the has gone itself. Do you have more examples? – Helmar Sep 02 '16 at 12:33
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@Helmar It's the only example I could find. You mean as in the simple "She is gone/she has gone"? I think they both make grammatical sense and the death bit is implied by context. And anyway, the whole "gone" thing is meant to imply that they have "gone" to an afterlife of some sort, of which "the great recording studio in the sky" is a metaphor. – Frangipanes Sep 02 '16 at 12:39
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has gone to join the celestial choir or has gone to push up the daisies or has gone to kick the bucket or ... – David Handelman Sep 02 '16 at 20:23
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The answer is yes.
The word "gone" is the past participle of the verb "go." It is also used as an adjective.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gone
You only use has/have or had when using he Present Perfect Tense [has, have] or Past Perfect Tense [had].
He has gone. = the verb phrase "has gone" is in the Present Perfect to express an action (his dying) at no definite time in the past. When you say, "He has gone." you are referring to the fact he died some time ago (in the past).
He is gone. = without going too much into linking verbs, "is" is a linking verb linking the adjective "gone" (using one of the definitions for gone as an adjective) to describe the subject as "no longer living."
Edwin Ashworth
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Arch Denton
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This is only partly true. Go (as well as (be)come and a few other verbs) used to quite regularly use be as their auxiliary, and there are remnants of this still. He is gone is one such remnant. It's not as cut-and-dried as, for example, the difference between “He is dead” and “He has died”. Sometimes you'll even still hear people affecting Ye Olde-Fashionèd Stile saying things like, “He is gone to the shops”. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 02 '16 at 15:23