Re: Past Tenses in Western Europe

In article <dl3enp$mi$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> "Neeraj Mathur" <neemathur@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> How comparable is the
> German development - I'd be grateful if somebody could summarise it for me -
> to the Romance ones? What other languages does this extend to - is it in
> Dutch?

There is some summary in Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterite>,
it tells about the two German usages (south and north), French and Italian.
The situation in Dutch is the same as the situation in Northern Germany
described on that page. (In Dutch "preterite" is "onvoltooid verleden tijd"
or "incompleted past tense" and "present perfect" is "voltooid tegenwoordige
tijd" or "completed present tense". In addition there are two more.
To summarise (first letter 'v' = "voltooid", 'o' = "onvoltooid"; second
letter 'v' = "verleden", 't' = "tegenwoordige":
vvt: Ik had gezien (I had seen)
ovt: Ik zag (I saw)
vtt: Ik heb gezien (I have seen)
ott: Ik zie (I see)
All four tenses are still common in Dutch. And in addition we have also
four future tenses, also all four still common.)

Apparently you have been talking with Germans from Southern Germany.
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