perfect tense

[Brian Hayden]

Dear SEELANGers,

Mr. Gladner's post reminded me of something that I always wondered about.
Until someone pointed out to me that Я устал was a sentence consisting of
subject + perfective verb, I had always assumed that it was a copular
sentence --  subject + predicate adjective, with «устал» not being the past
tense of a verb, but rather the short form of the adjective усталый. That
leads me to this question: is there any case in modern Russian in which Я
устал is, всё-таки, a present tense subject + predicate adjective sentence,
and not a subject + perfective past tense verb?

Sincerely,

Brian Hayden

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 3:43 AM, FRISON Philippe <Philippe.FRISON at coe.int>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> It would be of interest to give the way such nuances are expressed in
> Russian
> for example as it has only three tenses and two aspects to render the 16
> tenses of the French language.
>
> What about : вчера вечером я был уставшим (grammatical option)
>
> - Вчера вечером чувствовался утомленным (lexical option)
>
> Any other ideas and/or corrections ?
>
> Philippe Frison
> (Strasbourg, France)
>
>
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] De la part de Paul B. Gallagher
> Envoyé : jeudi 11 septembre 2014 09:32
> À : SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Objet : Re: [SEELANGS] perfect tense
>
> Terry Moran wrote:
>
> > Frank -
> >
> > It's fine, but as a fully paid-up pedant I can't resist pointing out
> >  that (a) я устал is the (only) past tense of a perfective verb, not
> > the perfect tense (which doesn't exist in Russian); and (b) none of
> > the ways I can think of to say вчера вечером я устал in English is in
> > the perfect tense either: /I was tired/ (imperfect of /to be/), /I
> > got tired /(simple past/preterite of /to get/). You can contrive a
> > perfect tense, but only in more complex contexts: /I've been as tired
> > as this before, but only once/ (perfect tense of /to be/).
>
> Concur in all respects.
>
> As a general rule, the English present perfect disallows specific
> statements of time:
>         *I have eaten yesterday.
>         *I have eaten at noon.
> Even when the past event has present relevance, you can't say (in
> response to an offer of food):
>         *No, thanks, I've eaten two hours ago [so I'm full now].
> You have to substitute the simple past:
>         No, thanks, I ate two hours ago [so I'm full now].
>
> By "specific" time statement I mean one that denotes a point in time or
> an interval so short as to be practically indivisible. The present
> perfect does accept ranges, provided they include the present moment:
>         I have eaten /in the past hour/.
>         I have eaten /already/.
>         I've /just/ eaten.
>         *I have eaten yesterday. [excludes present]
>         I have eaten today. [includes present]
>
> The rules are somewhat laxer for the past perfect:
>         I had eaten the day before.
>         [excludes time frame of past context]
>
> But neither Russian past tense (pf./impf.) is subject to this
> English-language constraint, so the query sentence is fine.
>
> Another practical consideration in English is that the verb "to tire" is
> not much used, though it is still grammatically possible:
>         I had tired. => I was tired.
>         I have tired. => I am tired.
>         I tired. => I got/became tired.
>
> The timing (pastness) of the exhaustion process is much less important
> than the resulting state of affairs at the time of the narrative.
> Similarly:
>         He had died. => He was dead.
>         He has died. => He is dead.
>
> But this practice varies from verb to verb:
>         He has fallen in love. <=> He is in love.
>         He has learned English. => He knows English.
>
> It's also subject to dialect variation: the following substitutions are
> more common in American than in British:
>         ?He has gone. => He is gone.
>         ?He has come. => He is here.
>
> --
> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
> --
> Paul B. Gallagher
> pbg translations, inc.
> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
> http://pbg-translations.com
>
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