perfect tense

[Melissa T Smith]

Brian Hayden's post immediately called to mind:

Я три ночи не спал,
Я устал.
Мне бы заснуть,
Отдохнуть...
Но только я лег -
Звонок!

Is Dr. Aibolit tired because of the THREE NIGHTS of lost sleep? Does this make it an attributive quality (short adjective) rather than a result of action (past perfective verb)?

Melissa Smith
________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of FRISON Philippe <Philippe.FRISON at COE.INT>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 3:43 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] perfect tense

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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