Is it of much use?
Emily Saunders
emilka at MAC.COM
Thu Mar 8 17:02:03 UTC 2012
In discussing Russian aspect with some students the other night and
the verb "to read" in particular, it came up that the presence of
other words in the sentence (inclusion of the object, time adjectives,
etc.) affects the aspectual meaning of the English verb to a large
extent.
For instance
He read - is a statement that the action occurred - он читал
He read the book - is necessarily perfective - it implies he finished
the book - Он прочитал книгу.
BUT
He read HIS book last night.... -- isn't quite so clear cut as to
whether the book was finished and most likely it wasn't.
The proposed system could be a useful aid for those studying English
-- and in classifying present perfect as a form of the present tense
-- for Russian learners in particular. But I don't think that the
English verb tense system by itself can match the Russian aspectual
one without a lot of qualifiers.
My rough two cents,
Emily Saunders
On 08.03.2012, at 7:33, anne marie devlin wrote:
> I agree with you John that it seems difficult to regard 'I have
> read' as a present tense. However, it is known as the present
> perfect. Like all aspects it is multifunctional. One function is
> sometimes known as the hot news perfect where you report something
> which has just happened, the results of which are visible/felt in
> the present. Examples such as 'I've just cut my finger' are often
> given. It can also link the past with the present e.g. I've worked
> here for 3 years. Other functions don't seem to have a logical
> connection to the present - 'I've already seen the film'.
>
> alternatively, it may be known as a present tense because of the
> form - have instead of had. Although, the form may be similar to
> other European languages - 'j'ai lu', it does perform a very
> different function - certainly from French. In Russian and French
> 'i've worked here since 1994' is realised in the present tense.
>
> It is notoriously difficult. There is a movement known as English
> for International communication (or English as a lingua franca)
> which is proposing that a simplified version of English be taught.
> One of its recommendations is to forget the perfect aspect as it is
> not needed for complete comprehension.
>
> It would be interesting to know how others approach the teaching of
> Russian aspect which is also notoriously difficult. Native-like use
> is very rarely acquired. Double imperfective verbs of motion anyone?
>
> AM
>
>> Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 15:02:32 +0000
>> From: John.Dunn at GLASGOW.AC.UK
>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Is it of much use?
>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>>
>> Thank you, Anne Marie, for this helpful clarification. I agree that
>> it makes sense to describe the English verb in terms of tense +
>> aspect, but where I have difficulty is in interpreting 'I have
>> read' as a present tense. It does, after all, correspond more or
>> less closely to past tense forms in other European languages (j'ai
>> lu, ich habe gelesen, я (про)читал, and I would hazard a guess that
>> most native speakers who are unfamiliar with this model would class
>> it as a form of past tense. This is what I mean by being 'at odds
>> with my own intuitive understanding'. I can see that this model is
>> nice and schematic and that it might have advantages for learners
>> (though it does make it hard to account for 'I have been reading'),
>> but whether it describes what is really happening with the English
>> verb is perhaps less certain. Having said that, however, I am not
>> sure that I want to propose an alternative!
>>
>> John Dunn.
>>
>> P.S. On second thoughts I have nothing pressing to do this
>> afternoon, so let's go for it. The problem, as I see it, is that
>> the English verb is a form of three-dimensional chess: unlike its
>> equivalent in most other languages, it does not content itself with
>> either one (tense or aspect) or two (tense and aspect) categories,
>> but has three distinct categories, which I shall call tense, aspect
>> and series (pinching and adapting a term from Georgian grammar).
>>
>> Tense: Present (I do; I am doing; I have done*), Past (I did etc.),
>> Future (I'll do etc.)
>> Aspect: Non-Perfect (I do; I am doing; I did; I'll do), Perfect (I
>> have done; I have been doing; I had done; I'll have done)
>> Series: Simple (I do; I did; I have done; I'll have done),
>> Continuous (I am doing; I was doing; I have been doing; I'll have
>> been doing**)
>>
>> I haven't listed all the forms for reach category, but I hope you
>> can see from the selective list how each category interacts with
>> the other two. In particular, each tense and aspect has separate
>> forms for the two series. According to this model each verb form
>> can be identified by indicating all three categories:
>> I do is Present tense, Non-Perfect aspect, Simple series
>> I was doing is Past tense, Non-Perfect aspect, Continuous series
>> I'll have done is Future tense, Perfect aspect, Simple series
>> I have been doing is Present tense, Perfect aspect, Continuous series
>>
>> I would feel quite pleased with myself, but I am sure that someone
>> must have got here long before I did (and someone else must have
>> rejected it). The next question, though, is why on earth we need
>> all these different forms.
>>
>> *You will see that model makes 'I have done' present. There is, it
>> seems, no escape.
>>
>> **As in: by next July I'll have been living in Bologna for six years.
>> ________________________________________
>> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures
>> list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of anne marie devlin [anne_mariedevlin at HOTMAIL.COM
>> ]
>> Sent: 08 March 2012 12:41
>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Is it of much use?
>>
>> Dear Konstantin (+ John),
>> the proposed model is basically a separation of tense and aspect.
>> The tense refers to the basic times when an action/state happens
>> i.e past present and future and the aspects refer to what I always
>> refer to as additional information.
>> An example could be the verb to read.
>>
>> In the present tense there are 3 aspects: I read, I am reading and
>> I have read. I read is the simple and refers to habitual use. I am
>> reading is continuous/progressive which is now or temporary and the
>> really difficult is the perfect aspect which can refer to result or
>> experience. this can also be developed to I have been reading which
>> can often answer the question 'how long?'
>>
>> In the past this is realised as I read (red), I was reading and I
>> had read with the aspectual meaning being comparative.
>>
>> I the future it would be I will read, I will be reading and I will
>> have read.
>>
>> I think it's a useful model and I often present it as tense + extra
>> information.
>>
>> Regards
>> AM
>>
>>
>>> Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 11:17:26 +0000
>>> From: John.Dunn at GLASGOW.AC.UK
>>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Is it of much use?
>>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>>>
>>> Konstantin,
>>>
>>> It might be helpful if you could illustrate this scheme using a
>>> real verb. Though I am old enough to have been given a reasonably
>>> formal grounding in English grammar at school, one part of the
>>> system that was never properly explained to us was the tense
>>> system of the verb, perhaps because the model that underlay the
>>> grammar that we were taught was more appropriate for Latin than
>>> for English. I mention this because one consequence of my
>>> ignorance is that whenever I come across an account of the English
>>> tense system intended for foreign learners, I find the terminology
>>> rather mystifying and often at odds with my own intuitive
>>> understanding.
>>>
>>> John Dunn.
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures
>>> list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Goloviznin Konstantin [kottcoos at GMAIL.COM
>>> ]
>>> Sent: 08 March 2012 11:18
>>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>>> Subject: [SEELANGS] Is it of much use?
>>>
>>> Hello Seelangers,
>>>
>>> I think this should be of some interest or even more... Some
>>> linguist
>>> (= teacher of English from Saint-Petersburg) has proposed a system
>>> of
>>> English tenses. Instead of these he uses three times (=Past,
>>> Present,
>>> Future) and three + 1 types of actions: one-time actions (=simple
>>> tenses), processes or long-time actions (=progerssive ), results (=
>>> perfects) + long-time results (= progressive perfects). That is, in
>>> every of Past, Present, Future you can have three + 1 type of
>>> actions.
>>>
>>> I see it real simpification in understanding what English tenses
>>> really are. From another hand this classifier is universal because
>>> of
>>> applicable to any language (for Russian as example).
>>>
>>> And from the third hand, I consider a methodic having this
>>> classifier
>>> in as a real hit, but others see it a miss.
>>>
>>> Looking forward to your posts, Konstantin.
>>>
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