While New York-born Tomlinson is widely recognized as the inventor of

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Experts' Global

How to distinguish between past perfect and present continuous perfect here? I looked at "recognised" which was in simple past and hence the fight for that recognition would logically occur before it and hence went with A.

I mean, what makes us think that Mumbai-born Ayyadurai isn't already recognised?

Maxximus generis

Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that Ayyadurai began fighting to be recognized as the primary inventor of email and continues to do so; the sentence indicates that this battle has not concluded, as it mentions that Tomlinson is widely recognized as the inventor of email, meaning Ayyadurai is still not recognized as such.

• The present perfect continuous tense (marked by “has/have been”) is the correct tense to refer to actions that started in the past and continue into the present.
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• The past perfect continuous tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had/have been") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in the past and one action is in the greater past as well as continuous in nature; the helping verb "had been" is used with the action that is in the greater past and continuous in nature.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

Hope this helps.
Experts' Global

ExpertsGlobal5

Any similar official question?
There is too much of a stretch to guess the intended meaning that the fight is still on.
If it is in the past, it could very well mean that he had to fight to be "recognized" as primary inventor but not successful, hence Tomlinson is regarded as the inventor.
I am not sure how one can guess the intended meaning.

Why it is present perfect? Why cann't he fought and then stopped and hence Tomilinson is still recognized?

Present perfect continuous tense is used for actions that start in past and continue into present. Such is the meaning here.

Hope this helps. Thanks.

Maxximus, can you clarify the distinction between the present perfect and the present perfect continuous? To me they both refer to actions that started in the past and continue into the present. How are they different?