Re: Categorizing certain Japanese verbs

Jim Beard wrote:
Bart Mathias wrote:

Jim Beard wrote:

pef23 wrote:
I also have to disagree that these verbs cannot be used in non-past.
My girlfriend used to always tell me "sonna ni ippai tabechau to
futoru yo!"

The general issue here is the meaning of "past." Japanese like
English has a perfect tense, for completed action, but the
completion may be in the past, (hypothesized to be) in the future,
or conditional (past, present, or future). This is the -ta particle,
with the add-on ra to form the -tara ending for conditional quite
common.

The perfective sense of た is mighty near consensus, and etymologically,
it ought to be true.

But for the last 20 or 30 years, I have found the evidence unconvincing.
Its behaviour (vs. the "imperfective/present/tenseless" form) in
relative clauses, where た clearly marks priority in *time*, seems to
argue contrariwise.


May I ask for elaboration and explanation of the meaning of the above?
I apologize for not keeping up with this forum and your earlier writings,
which might allow me to understand exactly what you mean, but my English
is not too terrible and I cannot fathom your intended meaning.

Put differently, I may have expressed myself poorly or incompletely, but
if you mean what I think you mean, I am not sure we are in disagreement.
But I may be wrong. Examples, please.

Indeed, rereading what you wrote, it seems we may only disagree on a
minor(?) matter of terminology. Do you consider English "did," "went,"
etc. to be "perfect tense"?

I have always understood dubbing forms with た as 完了 as saying -ta is
a matter of aspect, not tense, and in effect roughly equating them with
English "has done," "has gone," etc., rather then "did" and "went." In
fact, I'm sure I've read similar things in English.

And on second consideration, there was no real point to mentioning
relative clauses. I think that came from the fact that an article I once
read showing that Japanese verb forms show relative tense, where English
showed absolute tense, was one of the things that convinced me Japanese
-ta was no more "perfective" than English "past tense" is.

That is, I was thinking of things like 読んだ本をあげる, which only says
that at the time of giving (future relative to the time of speech), the
reading will be a matter of the past. (By a fluke, that Japanese can be
translated in *written* English as "I'll give you the books I read," but
it's
ambiguous between to pronunciations of "read.")

But spurred by your "I am not sure we are in disagreement," I gave it
further thought, and see that "read" in "I read that book yesterday"
would normally be understood not only as past, but also as *completed*
reading from beginning to end, so perhaps that is what you mean by
"perfect tense," a sort of blending of tense and aspect.

Reconsidering the issue also made me realize I don't see the connection
between your remark and pef23's. I might have just as thread-
meaningfully quibbled over your "the -ta particle, with the
add-on ra."

Bart
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: I need some help from native speakers of Japanese
    ... Probably this Ray is a linguist, who needs Japanese translation only to ... example with clear meaning. ... I appreciated your translation of that post into English. ... It's impossible to tranlate a sentense without ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • group of questions
    ... Japanese have built up, and now I`m going to ask them all at once. ... mention`s meaning being `casually say` in ... kyouryuu ni no kyoumi is ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • group of questions
    ... Japanese have built up, and now I`m going to ask them all at once. ... mention`s meaning being `casually say` in ... kyouryuu ni no kyoumi is ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • Re: intrinsic advantage of Latin alphabet over bopomofo (for Chinese)??
    ... Oliver> Japanese use of them is a bit more stretched: ... If any word in the Japanese language that has approximately the meaning ... of "one*" can be represented by the same Kanji (and I believe this is ... I never claimed that Chinese or even Japanese *is* actually written ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: past participle and get+past participle
    ... gilevgi spake thusly: ... Steady state. ... Straightforward present tense: Let us start now. ...
    (alt.usage.english)