Why is 'have' English's main perfect auxiliary?

The Wikipedia page for the perfect aspect says the following regarding the origin of the verb 'have' as the English auxiliary for the the aspect:

The have-perfect developed from a construction whereby the verb meaning have denoted possession, and the past participle was an adjective modifying the object, as in I have the work done.^{[citation needed]} This came to be reanalysed, with the object becoming the object of the main verb, and the participle becoming a dependent of the have verb, as in I have done the work. The construction could then be generalised to be used also with intransitive verbs.

This theory sounds vaguely plausible and I cannot find an adequate explanation elsewhere. However, this claim has no Wikipedia citation (as marked on the page).

Is this the reason 'have' is used as the auxiliary?

If so, can you find a reliable source?

Solution 1:

I think there are really two separate questions here:

• How did have become a perfect auxiliary in the first place?
• Why is have the main perfect auxiliary?

It's important to make the distinction because they have different answers in different time periods. You seem to be asking the former question, judging from your question body.

Wikipedia seems to be accurate according to this section from Trask's Historical Linguistics:

The English perfect therefore results from the reanalysis of an original stative construction, in this case accompanied by a shift in meaning. A sentence of the form 'I have him bound' originally meant 'I have him in my possession, in a tied-up state', but this could readily be, and was, reinterpreted as meaning 'I have tied him up'. The participle, formerly a modifier of the object NP, with which it necessarily agreed, was reanalysed as part of the verb form and lost its agreement; as part of the same process, the verb have, originally the main verb in the sentence and bearing its usual meaning of ‘possess’, was reanalysed as an auxiliary expressing perfective aspect, the function it still has today.

This change happened in Old English.

The paper Pieces of the be Perfect in German and Older English answers the latter question. It's actually interesting to note that have and be had a long fight, stretching from Middle English to Early Modern English:

have first started showing up with verbs that used to exclusively take be during the ME period, around 1300, but didn’t completely replace be until ca. 1900.