The SYSTEM has been locked. vs 'State' of the system or 'action'

[Sureshvemuri]

I cannot understand this ----
"The SYSTEM has been locked"- Does this mean the "state" of the system or "action".
"state"= The state of the SYSTEM. (be in that nature)
"action"= Some one did some thing with the SYSTEM.

Can anyone help me in this?

Thanks,
Suresh

[Ralf]

Hi Suresh,

I'd say it could be both. It seems more likely that an action or someone locked the system, though.
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[Yankee]

Hi Suresh

As a stand-alone sentence, "The system has been locked" will most likely be interpretted to mean that "someone has locked the system" -- i.e. an action.
However, the use of the present perfect also suggests that the result of that action (i.e. the state of being locked) still exists.

To simply refer to the current state, you could say "The system is locked".
However, if you add information about "for how long" or "since when", then you could use the present perfect to describe how long a state has existed up to now, for example:
"The system has been locked since yesterday afternoon".
.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, and native speaker of American English

[Sureshvemuri]

Thanks for your time and reply to make me understand this.
I think, such type of statements/sentences should be interpretted based on the situation/context. We can not tell the exact meaning without understanding/seeing the context. That is what I understand.
Thanks again.

Suresh