# Aspects and Verb Types



## Myuu

Hello everyone,

I have questions regarding tenses in Japanese.

Let's say a boy and a girl are talking, and the boy is filling the girl in on details about an errand he wants her to do. The girl wants to say she understands what she has to do. Would she say...
分かります
分かりました
分かっています

Or are all acceptable, and you can choose whichever one, much like how in English we can reply with "I understand" or "Understood"?
I'm guessing that the first two are OK, but not 分かっています because that would mean that she already understood the errand before the boy told her about it?

Also, in this convo (which was taken from Kakuko Shoji's "Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow") 
A: おいしいって*言ってた*から昨日あのレストランに*行った*けど休みだったわよ。
B: だから、月曜日は閉まっているって*言った*のに。。。

I understand what is being said, but I don't get why the tenses are the way they are. For example, how would A and B's sentence be different if they said: 
A: おいしいって*言った*から昨日あのレストランに*行ってた*けど休みだったわよ。
B: だから、月曜日は閉まっているって*言ってた*のに。。。

In A's case, I'm guessing 行ってた is no good because that would mean she was in the state of being in the restaurant at some point, but all she did was go to it. Eh, I don't know, and I don't get the rest either.

Might as well add this too...
B: だから、月曜日は*閉まる*って言ったのに。。。
Does this change the sentence to mean that the restaurant WILL close on Monday? Isn't that technically the same thing as saying on Mondays it is in the state of being closed? 

I'm probably overcomplicating things.

With that said, any help would be great. ^_^


----------



## Ocham

I can answer only a part of your questions.

分かります unnatural. Sounds like you say "I know what you mean."
分かりました sounds most natural in this context.
分かっています sounds a bit rude. Sounds as if you said "I know, I know."

The following conversation is most natural.
A: おいしいって*言った*から昨日あのレストランに*行った*けど休みだったわ(よ) 。
B: だから、月曜日は閉まって(い)るって*言った*のに。。。
おいしいって*言った*から is literally put into "I heard you say ..." 
おいしいって*言ってた*から is literally put into "I heard you saying ..."


----------



## Myuu

Hi Ocham! Thanks for answering some of my questions. So the use of 言う is pretty much the same as in English... 

These next questions are not directed solely at you so please don't feel pressured to answer. 
What about a sentence like:
レポートを書くのは２時間かかっていた
I think someone told me this was wrong and that it should be かかった instead. I don't really understand why though.


----------



## L.chan

hello,
This is my first post on the Japanese forum.

Concerning : レポートを書くのは２時間かかっていた
the use of the ていた form indicates a description whereas here this sentence is insisting on the result "the report took two hours to write".

you would use the ていた form as in 私は電車を待っていた。 "I was waiting for the train", which is descriptive and after which you would likely expect something to happen (そして雨が降り出した). I think in most cases, you can substitute the ていた form for the "was -ing" form in English, although that may not be limitative. 
So to put it simply, レポートを書くのは２時間かかっていた would be as if you were trying to say "it was taking me 2 hours to write this report", which I don't really see how would make sense.



I hope it helps.


----------



## Myuu

Thank you, L.chan! 
Description versus result. I never thought of it that way!

Is it true that, depending on the context, these sentences can mean two different things?

春子は辞書を読んでいる。
Haruko is (now) reading the dictionary.
Haruko has read the dictionary.

その人を殺している。
He is killing that person.
He has killed that person. 

If the second English translation (using "has") is possible, then what about 読んである and　殺してある? Why aren't those forms used instead to express that?

I'd like to know what the difference are between these sentences:
１．ボールが落ちる
A. The ball will fall
B. The ball falls 

２．ボールが落ちた
A. The ball fell 

３．ボールが落ちている
A. The ball is falling
B. The ball has fallen (and is on the ground now) 

４．ボールが落ちていた
A. The ball was falling
B. The ball had fallen (and was on the ground)? 

Are my interpretations correct?

I think I understand the ている-form now but I'm not sure about the ていた-form. 
For example, A and B are talking, and A tells B that he knows B eavesdropped on a conversation A was having a few days ago. Upon hearing this, B says, "あ、ばれてた" 
Why doesn't he say ばれた? What's the difference between the two here? 

Also, in a manga I was reading, there was a fight between two people and one finished the match with a powerful punch. It was clear that the fight was over, so one of the people watching said, "勝負があったな" which in English would translate to something like "There was a fight, huh." But that just doesn't make sense here...so I'm thinking there's something I don't know about when it comes to this た-form. What does the simple past in Japanese REALLY express?


----------



## Flaminius

Hello *Myuu*,

First of all, you questions are not about tenses but aspects, of Japanese verbs.  The latter means distinctions of how actions are carried out whereas the former means distinctions as to when actions take place (past, present, future, etc.).  For instance, the English perfect, formed with conjugations of _to have_, is an aspect, even if "perfect tense" is often heard.  We should stick to the term "aspect" when discussing Japanese verbs because the Japanese aspects are quite different from English aspects or Japanese tenses.



Myuu said:


> Let's say a boy and a girl are talking, and the boy is filling the girl in on details about an errand he wants her to do. The girl wants to say she understands what she has to do. Would she say...
> 分かります
> 分かりました
> 分かっています


This is rather an irregular verb.  分かる (polite suffixed form being 分かります) is a stative verb, which "indicates a present/future state with their present tense, and the shite-iru form is _usually_ impossible (Captain Haddock)."  It sounds out of place as an answer to a detailed instruction because it basically means, "I have the competence to understand you."

分かりました indicates that an understanding happened (which Japanese assumes as happening instantenously for its grammar's sake).  Before the moment of understanding, the girl did not know anything about the boy's plan.  After the moment, she is fully informed.  This is the most appropriate choice for your needs here.

分かっています presents the state that the girl understands the boy's plan as a continuation from sometime in the past.  In more concrete terms, she already understood the plan (perhaps by doing her own researches) before the boy told her about it.  An implication here is that the boy's explanation is not appreciated at all.



> Also, in this convo (which was taken from Kakuko Shoji's "Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow")
> A: おいしいって*言ってた*から昨日あのレストランに*行った*けど休みだったわよ。
> B: だから、月曜日は閉まっているって*言った*のに。。。


The _-teiru_ form of 言う cannot express a continuing action but it can be a repeated action. B may have recommended the restaurant to A a few times.  In an extended usage, 言っている (I think) can mean "to assert strongly" even if the action takes place only once.  Replacement by 言った is also acceptable in this context.

行った denotes simply that one took a certain action.  As the fact that the restaurant was closed is not a result of A going there, it is best described as an independent action; thus 行った is the correct form.  行っている would mean either that A went there several times or that A is still there.  Both interpretations are impossible in this context.

閉まっている is Monday's state resulting from someone (probably the owner) closing the place.  閉まる is not wrong but I don't hear it as much as 閉まっている.  If 閉まる is an action that takes place on Monday, one can question when on Monday the place closes.  Perhaps this ambiguity makes 閉まる avoided.   In contrast 閉まっている is a state that covers the entire Monday.

言った is the only correct choice for 言ったのに.  I don't have a definitive answer as to why 言っていたのに is wrong but it may be that 言っている in sense of "to assert strongly" is impossible as an action by the speaker.



Myuu said:


> What about a sentence like:
> レポートを書くのは２時間かかっていた
> I think someone told me this was wrong and that it should be かかった instead. I don't really understand why though.


The best interpretation of かかっていた here is that writing the report had already taken 2 hours and the report was not yet finished.  If that is the case, a more natural Japanese sentence is as follows (but still, it's not a very common formulation):
レポートを書くのに、もう2時間かかっていた。

If we are discussing a finished report and how long it took you, then:
レポートを書くのに、2時間かかった。


----------



## Myuu

Wow, thank you for the in-depth explanation, Flaminius! 
I suppose the topic title should be changed to "Aspects," or "Tense/Aspect" instead? 

I understand everything you said, but I am still a little bit confused about the ていた form. Why is it that かかっていた here means that the report was not yet finished?

I posted this situation in my last post but I want to bring it up again:

"For example, A and B are talking, and A tells B that he knows B eavesdropped on a conversation A was having a few days ago. Upon hearing this, B says, "あ、ばれてた" 
 Why doesn't he say ばれた? What's the difference between the two here?" 

I thought ばれてた was used instead of ばれた because the eavesdropping happened a few days ago, so quite a bit of time has passed. If A found B right when he was doing the eavesdropping, then B could say "ばれた," right? But it seems the usage of かかっていた with the sentence about the report has nothing to do with the amount of time that passed. Same with 言っていた, which as you say can be used when you want to assert strongly.

It just looks like it's a different case with every verb, but there has to be some kind of pattern or thinking that leads to a certain interpretation. Could someone maybe...enlighten me on what it is? Unless it really is just something you have to memorize for every verb.


----------



## Flaminius

Hello,
I am trying to catch up with you (writing on the blackboard, "I should do homework in time" 100 times).  


Myuu said:


> 春子は辞書を読んでいる。
> Haruko is (now) reading the dictionary.
> Haruko has read the dictionary.
> 
> その人を殺している。
> He is killing that person.
> He has killed that person.


Both 読んでいる and 殺している can be interpreted in two ways.  The more common interpretation, however, is "is reading" for 読んでいる and "has killed" for 殺している.  I am thinking that not only the verbs but also their objects (direct and indirect and whatnot...) should be factored in for determining the exact aspect.  Of course, context should have some power too.


> If the second English translation (using "has") is possible, then what about 読んである and　殺してある? Why aren't those forms used instead to express that?


It is true that the _-tearu_ construction can express something akin to the English "has" but note that the subjects for the sentences in this construction are the direct objects, i.e., 辞書 and その人.  Another point to be considered is that ある is for non-human subjects.  So その人は殺してある comes across very weird.  Perhaps slightly less human  direct objects can use ある (e.g., その魚はもう殺してある) but the above sentence sounds wrong as much as *屋根の上に人がある.



> I'd like to know what the difference are between these sentences:
> １．ボールが落ちる
> A. The ball will fall
> B. The ball falls
> Both are possible.  In fact the difference is not very important in Japanese (sorry for those who translate into languages that have a future tense) since _-ru_ encodes perfective aspect, which is good for immediate future and habitual present.
> ２．ボールが落ちた
> A. The ball fell
> Yes.
> ３．ボールが落ちている
> A. The ball is falling
> B. The ball has fallen (and is on the ground now)
> 
> ４．ボールが落ちていた
> A. The ball was falling
> B. The ball had fallen (and was on the ground)?


The _-teiru_ form of _ochiru_ is never an on-going status.  As noted earlier by *L.chan*, the _-teiru_ form is similar to the English progressive (be V-ing) but different.  Progressive describes an action that is unfolding towards completion which is not always expected in a definite point in time.  In contrast, what I term tentatively as the Japanese continuative (using the _-teiru_ form) is a snapshot of an action which is the same as the whole.  To wade through this abstraction, a good question is if one can do the same action  as one is doing without first doing something else.

If "to walk" is to alternately move one's feet forward, someone who has done one instance of walking can do another instance of walking without doing anything in-between.  This makes continuative interpretation possible for 歩いている.  This is not the case of 落ちる, which is to reach a goal by unassisted downward movement (sorry for much theorising again ).  In order to repeat the action of 落ちる, the fallen object should be brought upwards first.  Thus, a different action intercedes between two instances of 落ちる.  The same accounts for 行っている being always resultative.  行く is to depart from a place to reach a destination.

If one needs to express something is in the process of falling, one can say 落ちていく or 落ちてくる depending on one's locatin relative to the falling object.  It's a bit tricky thing to determine what exactly the aspect of this construction, but since いく and くる entails the destination where the action should terminate, I tend to think it is progressive wherein an action unfolds towards the destination.

I realise the test of interceding action may not be 100% sure.  For instance, 殺している is clearly an on-going action in the following sentence:
化学物質が地球を殺している。

This is unexpected from what we have said so far.  Killing something cannot be repeated without reviving the killed thing first.  I find myself tergiversating again, but the Earth may be too big for chemical toxins to destroy it momentarily, so the act of 殺す here can be conceived as taking some time.  If an action "takes time" (from the point of the Japanese language, that is) to reach a goal, maybe the encoded aspect is progressive.  (Or am I treating it as a convenient dust bin?  )



> I think I understand the ている-form now but I'm not sure about the ていた-form.
> For example, A and B are talking, and A tells B that he knows B eavesdropped on a conversation A was having a few days ago. Upon hearing this, B says, "あ、ばれてた"
> Why doesn't he say ばれた? What's the difference between the two here?


There isn't much anomaly in ばれる, believe me.  Let's apply the test.  As ばれる is for a secret to become known, the secret must be first hidden away for the same action to take place once again.  The aspect for the _teiru_ form is, therefore, resultative.  Here, it means a disclosed state.

In order to account for the _-ta_, which is the marker of past tense,  we first understand that tense is NOT an objective sense of time but more relative to the consciousness of the speaker.  For instance, "What was your name again?" does not mean the interlocutor has changed her name and the speaker wants to know her older name.  It instead signifies that the speaker is coming from a point in the past when he first came to know the interlocutor's name.  Going back to that point in time expresses that the speaker is aware he has been introduced to her and it is his fault that he cannot remember her name now.

The same point applies to ばれてた.  By virtue of _-ta_, the speaker, B, goes back in time to when he eavesdropped the interlocutor, A.  Even at that time, A knew that B was around with Dumbo's ears.  If A came to know about B's eavesdropping after it took place, ばれた? is a more appropriate reaction from B.



> Also, in a manga I was reading, there was a fight between two people and one finished the match with a powerful punch. It was clear that the fight was over, so one of the people watching said, "勝負があったな" which in English would translate to something like "There was a fight, huh." But that just doesn't make sense here...so I'm thinking there's something I don't know about when it comes to this た-form. What does the simple past in Japanese REALLY express?


This is more about an idiom than about た-forms.  勝負 here is not a fight but its results; one of the contestants becoming the winner, and the other, the loser.  I am not sure if I can explain 勝負がある neatly but there is a parallel expression 勝負がつく (for a game/match/fight to come to the results).  If the fight runs its own course, completely ceases, or is no more, then it in its entirety belongs to the past, albeit an immediate one.  This justifies the use of _-ta_, which is past tense and perfective aspect at the same time.

Edit:
An illustration of how the meaning of a verb influences aspectual interpretation follows.  溺れる in Japanese is defined thus:
泳げないために、水中で死にそうになる。また、死ぬ。

Note that if you are suffering in water even for one moment, Japanese can rightfully apply 溺れる.  It can repeat or continue itself without an interceding action such as to be pulled out of water or brought back to life with a miracle.  This is very different from the English _to drown_, which means "to die in water."  溺ている, therefore, is usually continuative as in 溺ている子供を助る. If the incident needs to be described as a single action without internal structure (how it started, how the child suffered etc.), 溺れた子供を助ける is possible too.  Contrast it with the weird English sentence below:
?He saved a child who drowned.


----------



## Flaminius

Myuu said:


> Why is it that かかっていた here means that the report was not yet finished?


I hope I explained in the last post how it is NOT that ていた is a remote past and た is an immediate past.  Further questions are always welcome, nonetheless. 

The function of ていた is an uncompleted state in the past.  If comparison with English helps, もう2時間かかっていた is similar to "has been taking two hours already."


----------



## Myuu

Whew, I had to read this a couple of times until it sank in.  Thank you so much, Flaminius. This truly helped me understand aspects better. 



> The function of ていた is an uncompleted state in the past.


This threw me off a little. Do you mean this just for かかっていた or in general? 
Doesn't 落ちていた for example refer to something that is complete (the ball which has completed the downward movement and is on the floor now)? Although 落ちる as you said takes on a resultative meaning, and かかる can be a repeated action. So ていた is an uncompleted state in the past for verbs that can be repeated?

My understanding of かかる is this now: It is a repeated action, so if at some point in the past something was in the process of taking time, 時間がかかっている, the person describes this using かかっていた, that it WAS taking time (and therefore wasn't completed). Is this right?

So it has nothing to do with being more into the past...I've heard it explained that way so many times, for some reason. Thank you for clearing that up for me. ^_^


----------



## Flaminius

I feel with my perhaps-not-so-accurate native intuition that 落ちていた is also an uncompleted action as long as it stays on the floor.  In order for the action to complete, something should happen that undo the resultant state such as the pet dog taking it away or the speaker simply forgetting that fact that the ball fell to the floor from the table.


> My understanding of かかる is this now: It is a repeated action, so if at some point in the past something was in the process of taking time, 時間がかかっている, the person describes this using かかっていた, that it WAS taking time (and therefore wasn't completed). Is this right?


I agree with your analysis of かかっていた.  It has the continuative sense.

As we have discussed for a few posts above, there are verbs whose ている forms can be both resultative and continuative.  Other verbs can get only one of the two interpretations.  I tend to think that ている encodes uncompleted actions (imperfective aspect in the technical jargon) and both resultative and continuative are subcategories of the imperfective aspect.  Interpretation of ている can be limited by the type of the verb.  An aspect required of a verb according to its meaning is called lexical aspect.  An aspect expressed by a change of verb forms is called grammatical aspect.  What we have been saying in this thread boils down to this:
The lexical aspects take precedence over the grammatical aspects by making certain conjugations impossible for a verb or limiting the aspectual interpretation of a conjugation.


----------

