'Have you eaten?' and 'Did you eat?'

[pscotto at MTHOLYOKE.EDU]

Just quickly: I have often found it helpful to think of the perfective 
as embedded in an implicit narrative sequence. "[So then] I called 
home."

Peter Scotto
Mount Holyoke College

Quoting Ralph Cleminson <Ralph.Cleminson at PORT.AC.UK>:

> In the abstract, I would be inclined to agree: ?? ??????? ?????? = Did
> you phone home [ever]?, but ?? ????????? ?????? = Have you phoned home
> [just now]?  However, this is one of those occasions when it all depends
> on context.  If one is speaking about a specific occasion in the past,
> then ?? ????????? ?????? is certainly Did you phone home [then]?,
> whereas if you want to know whether the action has been performed at
> all, but in the immediate past, then Have you phoned home? is ?? ???????
> ????? [??????]?  In other words, the perfect illustration of what we
> always tell our students, that aspect is not the same as tense.
>
> But surely the name of the aspect is ??/???????????, not ??/???????????,
> the latter being only the p.p.p. of ??????????
>
>
>
>
>>>> <xmas at UKR.NET> 08/09/08 7:15 PM >>>
> Dear John,    Can you check you examples?     If I were asked I would
> translate them quite to the opposite --      ?? ??????? ?????? [Vy
> zvonili domoj?] (nesovershonny, imperfect, ) =  Did you phone home?
> ?? ????????? ?????? [Vy pozvonili domoj?] (sovershonny, perfective) =
> Have you phoned home?    > The distinction between 'Have you eaten?' and
> 'Did you eat?' is very much alive and well in most varieties > of
> British English. Indeed, I used to refer to this distinction when
> teaching the difference between    > imperfective and perfective
> questions in Russian:
>
>> ?? ??????? ?????? [Vy zvonili domoj?] = Have you phoned home?
>> ?? ????????? ?????? [Vy pozvonili domoj?] = Did you phone home?
>
>> John Dunn.
>
> With best regards,
> Maria
>
> --
> Mariya M. Dmytriyeva
> Fulbright Scholar,
> California State University, Northridge
> Linguistics Program, 2007-2009
>
>
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