[net.nlang] Tenses and Aspects in English and its relatives

mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (10/23/83)

The discussion of tenses and aspects (durative, perfective, etc) reminds
me of an incident that occurred two weeks ago. I was having dinner with
a German, two Englishmen, two Frenchmen, a US person (what's an appropriate
term that differentiates such a person from Canadians and Mexicans?), and
two other Canadians (one French-speaking). At one end of the table
were the German, two English and one Frenchman, all talking German.
At the other, the other Frenchman and the two other Canadians, talking
French. In the middle, me listening to both conversations and contributing
in English to each, and next to me the US person, understanding nothing.
It was fun, but what blew my mind was an incident that happened in the
middle of the meal. The Frenchman talking German was having difficulty
expressing a concept, so they told him to try it in French (all being
French-speaking). He still had difficulty, so he called across to
his compatriot that he wanted a French lesson. When he couldn't get
across what he wanted to say, I suggested he try it in English -- and
THEN he was able to express what he wanted.
  The question was how to express the future completion of a hypothetical
action not yet begun. Something like "If I should have been living in
Russia, my children would have returned speaking Russian." (I don't think
that's exactly it, but something like). The point isn't whether the
notion can or cannot be expressed in French or German, but that this
educated Frenchman (and his friend) found it easier to get across the
idea in English, which was neither his native language nor the
language in which the conversation was being conducted.
  Is English really so much more versatile than its closest relatives
among major languages? Was this just an aberration? Is the aspect structure
of English better developed than that of French or German?

Martin Taylor

dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (10/24/83)

Martin:
A USperson is correctly called an American. Not to be confused
with a Namerican, which sounds the same but quite clearly includes
Canadians and Mexicans as well. :-)

Dave Sherman
-- 
 {cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!dave

walsh@ihuxi.UUCP (10/26/83)

I don't know about that phrase in particular, but I asked a German
professor about expressing ideas in the future in German vs. English.
She said that English is more future-oriented and therefore future ideas
are probably more easily expressed in English than in German (she doesn't
know French). For example, in English we would say "I will go to the
store tomorrow", but in German she would say "I go to the store tomorrow".
It is possible to say "I will go to the store tomorrow" in German, but it
is not the accepted way of expressing that idea. The meaning gets across,
but perhaps not as succinctly as in English.

                                      B. Walsh

riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (10/28/83)

I think that the German and English ways of dealing with the future are
more similar than people realize.  German has two different means of
expressing the future, one a bit colloquial and imprecise, the other a
bit more formal and exact:

    Morgen gehe ich nach Hause.
    ("I go home tomorrow.")

    Morgen werde ich nach Hause gehen.
    ("I will/shall go home tomorrow.")

I maintain that the kind of English I speak makes exactly this distinction:

    I'm going home tomorrow.

    I'll go home tomorrow.

The confusion has to do with the fact that English makes a separate distinc-
tion that German does not, between "I'm going" and "I go".  Although you'll
see the latter labelled as "present tense" in a lot of archaic grammars of
English, in fact it expresses habitual action and has nothing to do with
tense.  When we truly want to express present tense, we say "I'm going,"
and we frequently use this present tense form to express the future, just as
the Germans do, by throwing in a word like "tomorrow" to make things clear.

Of course, English does have a third form of expressing future tense which
German lacks, but Spanish has:

    I'm going to go home tomorrow.

Are there any native speakers of German on the net who'd care to comment?
----
Prentiss Riddle
{ihnp4,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP

brat@gatech.UUCP (11/01/83)

The same is somewhat true in Spanish, but not at all in French.
They usually don't use the future tense, although one exists, in Spanish.
(Well, it is not an unknown tense, nor is it archaic, but most of the
time in spoken Spanish, it's implied as you said it was in German.)
   In French, even more than in English, the future tense is used constantly.
We say, "I will get a loaf of bread when I go to the store."  The
French say, "I will get a loaf of bread when I will go to the store."
(You see? They use the future both times.)
                            Steven

-- 
Steven L. Goldberg

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