# Девочка, горько плачущая в комнате (pres. act. part.)



## wonlon

I encountered another sentence which caused my thinking, as a continuation of my question asked before (I still want to think more thoroughly about it):

Девочка, горько _*плачущая *_в комнате, приехала из далёкой деревни.

Is it "The girl who _is_ crying" or "The girl who _was_ crying"? 

I think that if the context is not provided, it is possible to be both.

I also read a grammar book which says that if in past tense, _*плачущая *_is exhangeable with *платившая*, but if a past tense time indicator (like вчера) is present, *платившая *must be used.


----------



## Maroseika

wonlon said:


> Девочка, горько _*плачущая *_в комнате, приехала из далёкой деревни.
> 
> Is it "The girl who _is_ crying" or "The girl who _was_ crying"?
> 
> I think that if the context is not provided, it is possible to be both.



Yes, it can mean both, depending on the context.
Я знал, что девочка, плачущая в комнате, приехала из деревни. 
This is told about the past as if a speaker is still in the past.

Я знал, что девочка, плакавшая в комнате, приехала из деревни. 
This is told about the past by a speaker who is in present.



> I also read a grammar book which says that if in past tense, _*плачущая *_is exhangeable with *платившая*, but if a past tense time indicator (like вчера) is present, *платившая *must be used.


Yes, that's correct except of платившая means 'one who paid'. Past for плачущая is плакавшая.


----------



## Explorer41

And of course, she was crying in the room *after* she completed her arrival from the village -- it's true in any kind of context. (In fact, most likely she has arrived from the village long ago, and the verb phrase tells us about her constant property -- that she is from village. But maybe not -- it's not always so)


----------



## Skipper_evgeny

Плачущая generally means present tence, i. e. "is crying". Past tence "плакавшая", means "was crying"


----------



## Maroseika

Skipper_evgeny said:


> Плачущая generally means present tence, i. e. "is crying". Past tence "плакавшая", means "was crying"



The question is about semantics, not about grammar.


----------



## wonlon

Skipper_evgeny said:


> Плачущая generally means present tence, i. e. "is crying"


From my reference books, it is not so, past tense is also possible.


----------



## ahvalj

We had this discussed some months ago, with another Chinese student ;-) Since your questions develop more or less in the same way, there is a chance you study the same manual .-)

Well, the answer is that after past tense verbs both present and past participles are possible with no difference in meaning: it is a shame that such holes remain in the grammar, but unfortunately there are no signs that this can become more normalized in the foreseeable future.


----------



## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> We had this discussed some months ago...
> Well, the answer is that after past tense verbs both present and past participles are possible with no difference in meaning:



Actually we have concluded then that the difference exists: past participle marks the speaker is telling from today, i.e. both actions are equally in the past for him, while present participle means speaking as if still being in the past; the same works with two verbs as well:

Я пришел к нему прямо домой и высказал все в глаза.
Я пришел к нему домой и говорю: "Ах ты, негодяй!".


----------



## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Actually we have concluded then that the difference exists: past participle marks the speaker is telling from today, i.e. both actions are equally in the past for him, while present participle means speaking as if still being in the past; the same works with two verbs as well:
> 
> Я пришел к нему прямо домой и высказал все в глаза.
> Я пришел к нему домой и говорю: "Ах ты, негодяй!".


Well, this can in principle be discerned, indeed, but I wonder whether most people in most situations pay attention to this theoretically possible nuance. In reality, I think, even a writer can easily use both «девушка, горько плачущая» и «девочка, горько плакавшая» in the same context.


----------



## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Actually we have concluded then that the difference exists: past participle marks the speaker is telling from today, i.e. both actions are equally in the past for him, while present participle means speaking as if still being in the past; the same works with two verbs as well:
> 
> Я пришел к нему прямо домой и высказал все в глаза.
> Я пришел к нему домой и говорю: "Ах ты, негодяй!".


In extension of my previous reply. Not that I would not welcome the enrichment of the language by grammaticalizing such nuances — the problem is that in our case this distinction is purely local, not supported by the overall spirit of the grammar and by any other example. Say, with adverbial forms everything is regular: «читая, он вошёл» vs. «прочитав, он вошёл» express exactly what they have to. Only the participles (and in reality, I suppose, only the active participles, since in the passive voice the present participles are always imperfective, while the past ones almost always perfective) don't have it right, and this is the hole in the grammar not closed in the 19th century, when it was possible to do it without much effort.


----------



## Maroseika

I still believe in many cases this distinction is quite clear even without any "grammaticalization".
But what exactly you mean is a hole in Russian? Sometimes I really feel a lack of, say, Future participles (напишущий), but what hypothetical form you mean is missed here?


----------



## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> But what exactly you mean is a hole in Russian?


The hole is the overlapping sense of the present and past participles. 

Actually, we have three systems: the adverbial participles behave as they should, i. e. have a relative meaning («плача/заплакав/входя/войдя, девочка»), the personal forms (in the absence of relative tenses) are always in the past tense («девочка, которая плакала/вошла/входила»), which is also bad, but inevitable with the present resources of the verbal system, and finally the participles either exhibit no clear difference between two variants or express the subtlety you had pointed to. 

Ideally, the impersonal forms (adverbial participles and participles) should express the relative tense (simultaneously/before/after), and a special set of personal tense forms should develop for the subordinate clauses (Imperfect/Plusquamperfect/Futurum in Praeterito to agree with the past tense in the main clause, and better so a similar system for the future). Well, so far these are dreams. Hopefully, the Chinese language (or whichever language will eventually become the language of Earth) has something like this.


----------



## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Sometimes I really feel a lack of, say, Future participles (напишущий)


Yes, I agree, «напишущий» are only avoided for stylistic reasons: there is nothing preventing their formation from the morphological viewpoint. We actually already have one — «будущий» — though it is used as an adjective. Some people, however, including the writer Бушков mentioned a week ago, widely use the conditional participles («попытавшийся бы/сказавший бы/удавшийся бы»), and this already sounds quite acceptable.


----------



## Explorer41

ahvalj said:


> The hole is the overlapping sense of the present and past participles.


By the way, why do you need this "hole" to be filled? You have some practical considerations, or you are after "pure purity"?

As I understand it, you would like the following: that an active imperfective participle, being in the past tense, expressed a process before a process messaged by a main clause with the help of an imperfective verb. Contrary to the situation we have: "собака, бежавшая по берегу, не очень ясно осознавала происходящее, поскольку была нездорова" (I gave a counter-example to my own idea, which turned to be wrong. Never mind -- it's from another thread). In this case all the clauses are past in relation to the present situation, and all the processes occured some time ago, and they occured simultaneously -- we know it because they are mixed and form the whole.

With the system you propose, two processes would be untied -- they would have nothing in common. The dog would run at one time, and it would think about the Universe at another time; and these two would be processes, not events which have results and preconditions. So why?


----------



## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> By the way, why do you need this "hole" to be filled? You have some practical considerations, or you are after "pure purity"?
> As I understand it, you would like the following: that an active imperfective participle, being in the past tense, expressed a process before a process, about which a main clause tells. Contrary to the situation we have: "собака, бежавшая по берегу, не очень ясно осознавала происходящее, поскольку была нездорова" (I gave a counter-example to my own idea, which turned to be wrong. Never mind -- it's from another thread). In this case all the clauses are past in relation to the present situation, and all the processes occured some time ago, and simultaneously as they are mixed and form the whole. With the system you propose, two processes would be untied -- they would have nothing in common. The dog would run at one time, and it would think about the things at another time. So why?


Now let's translate your example into an adverbial construction — also, pardon me my Russian: «собака, бегучи по берегу, не очень ясно осознавала...»; now let's translate into German (pardon again): »der an die Küste laufende Hund...« (present participle) — what's wrong with this agreement? You just know that both the adverbial participle and the proper participle (which are etymologically the same) agree the same way — like they do in (almost) every other language. No ambiguities, no artificial rules, nothing.


----------



## ahvalj

Actually, the Russian grammar is in more danger that I used to think, since the adverbial participles can occasionally have this ambiguity as well: «закрывая двери/закрывавши двери». What a shame to the language! Anyway, my suggestion is the normalization as proscribed above.


----------



## Explorer41

Well, if I would be obliged to use an adverb, I would say "собака, бежавши по берегу, не очень ясно осознавала окружающее", and it would mean the same, I still can't understand your point and what you are after. Unfortunately, I don't know German (let "der an ... XXXde" be a way to construct an adjectival (?) present construction (not sure what is English for "причастный оборот"), "an" being like English "while", and so I can guess its meaning, but I can't be sure), so I can't comment the second example.

By the way, in Russian, nouns made me more problems than verbs -- I didn't encounter problems with using verbs, but I had some (minor) problems with nouns.


----------



## ahvalj

LilianaB, if you are reading this thread, tell us how is it resolved in Lithuanian, a language with one million participles. Is it ambiguous like in Russian? Something like this (sorry for my Lithuanian): «aš žinojau, kad mergaitė _verkianti_ kambaryje, buvo atėjusi iš kaimo» vs. «aš žinojau, kad mergaitė _verkusi_ kambaryje, buvo atėjusi iš kaimo»? Sorry again.


----------



## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> Well, if I would be obliged to use an adverb, I would say "собака, бежавши по берегу, не очень ясно осознавала окружающее", and it would mean the same, I still can't understand your point and what you are after. Unfortunately, I don't know German (let "der an ... XXXde" be a way to construct an adjectival (?) present construction (not sure what is English for "причастный оборот"), "an" being like English "while", and so I can guess its meaning, but I can't be sure), so I can't comment the second example.
> 
> By the way, in Russian, nouns made me more problems than verbs -- I didn't encounter problems with using verbs, but I had some (minor) problems with nouns.


My point is that in imperfective participles there is no way to express precedence relative to the past, and that's bad. Since it is also absent in personal forms, this looks not so disastrous to most speakers. But looking from the perspective of some language possessing the tense agreement, this is a significant deficiency. I cannot give you examples of how it should ideally be organized since most modern European languages that have such an agreement lack past active participles. Let's wait what LilianaB says.


----------



## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> (let "der an ... XXXde" be a way to construct an adjectival (?) present construction (not sure what is English for "причастный оборот"), "an" being like English "while", and so I can guess its meaning, but I can't be sure),


»der an die Küste laufende Hund...« = "the по the Берегу бегущий Пёс..."; »der Hund« is "the Пёс", »an die Küste« = "по the Берегу", »laufende« = «бегущий»


----------



## Explorer41

ahvalj said:


> Actually, the Russian grammar is in more danger that I used to think, since the adverbial participles can occasionally have this ambiguity as well: «закрывая двери/закрывавши двери». What a shame to the language! Anyway, my suggestion is the normalization as proscribed above.


This discussion made me think that one can't look at the Russian verbal system from the same positions as at the English or Italian one. This is because the Russain verbal system is very influenced by the aspect category (especially the perfective aspect which doesn't exist in English nor in French, and they need some special verbs when they really need some features of the meaning of the Russian perfective aspect). For example, the meanings of subordinate clauses depend on whether perfective or imperfective verbs/participles/verbal adverbs are employed.


----------



## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> This discussion made me think that one can't look at the Russian verbal system from the same positions as at the English or Italian one. This is because the Russain verbal system is very influenced by the aspect category (especially the perfective aspect which doesn't exist in English nor in French, and they need some special verbs when they really need some features of the meaning of the Russian perfective aspect). For example, the meanings of subordinate clauses depend on whether perfective or imperfective verbs/participles/verbal adverbs are employed.


That's the Stockholm syndrome. Bulgarian and Macedonian have aspects even better developed, yet they have tense agreement and a rich system of tenses that continues and extends the ancient Slavic one. However, there is no perfection in this world, and they lack proper participles to use in the constructions we are discussing.


----------



## Explorer41

ahvalj said:


> My point is that in imperfective participles there is no way to express precedence relative to the past, and that's bad. Since it is also absent in personal forms, this looks not so disastrous to most speakers.


Well, I believe there is no sense in a precedence of one process to another, expressed in one single sentence. The processes, occuring at different times, will be unrelated to each other (at least, in the Russian system it is quite so). What you wish to express can be well said as: "Собака бежала по берегу. Через какое-то время она уже плохо осознавала окружающее", which sounds absurd, but well, let it be.

However, there is a full sense in expressing a precedence of an event to a process: "собака, набегавшись по берегу, не вполне осознавала, где она находится". This is because it is a feature of events to have results and preconditions.


----------



## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> Well, I believe there is no sense in a precedence of one process to another, expressed in one single sentence. The processes, occuring at different times, will be unrelated to each other (at least, in the Russian system it is quite so). What you wish to express can be well said as: "Собака бежала по берегу. Через какое-то время она уже плохо осознавала окружающее", which sounds absurd, but well, let it be.
> 
> However, there is a full sense in expressing a precedence of an event to a process: "собака, набегавшись по берегу, не вполне осознавала, где она находится". This is because it is a feature of events to have results and preconditions.


You had chosen an example that obscures the situation, Let's return to the original phrase: «Девочка, горько _*плачущая *_в комнате, приехала из далёкой деревни».

Now, how it should be. 

First of all, the tense agreement: "had come from a remote village" instead of our current "came from a remote village". But English is ambiguous as well since it does not distinguish between past perfect (a resultative state) and past in the past (a simple preceding action).

Second, «плачущая» is perfectly OK, my concern is that «плакавшая» is equally possible there. This does not allow to distinguish between the English "the girl that cried/was crying" (at the time of narration) and "the girl that had cried" (some time before). In Russian it is completely impossible by grammatical means, we need to incert clumsy additional words.


----------



## Explorer41

ahvalj said:


> You had chosen an example that obscures the situation, Let's return to the original phrase: «Девочка, горько плачущая в комнате, приехала из далёкой деревни».


I don't see, in what way does it obscure the situation. OK, let's proceed with the original phrase.

First, there are two (no, even three) places in it where we need to agree tenses -- I state that just to avoid confusion.

*1)*
the tense agreement between the verbal clause and adjectival one. Here everything is just clear, because the verbal phrase is perfective: the girl has come from a remote village and cried after it (most likely long after it). It could be as well "Девочка, плачущая в комнате, уедет из деревни" (here "приедет" would be strange) or "Девочка, плачущая в комнате, уезжает из деревни" (imperfective and simultaneous). This tense agreement doesn't depend on "плачущая"/"плакавшая", it depends on the verbal clause instead.

*2)*
the relation between the time of crying and the time of narration or between the time of crying and the time of a process expressed by some inserted main clause (like in *Maroseika*'s example) -- it is that you're speaking of. It is straitforward when we talk about processes: the process of crying takes place in the time of the process expressed by an attached main clause (let's attach it for convienence of thought). Here we can't express the meaning of "had cried", of course.

It is almost as well straitforward when we talk about events: an event would be able to occur either before or after the process expressed by the attached main clause: "я знал, что девочка, проплакавшая все глаза, приехала из далёкой деревни". Here the meaning of "had cried" gets expressed (in this particular example we have a trouble, because there are not many different perfective verbs for "плакать", but anyway). It is another point that we don't have future-tense perfect active participles... alas! Though we can somehow live without them. "Я знал, что девочка, которая проплачет все глаза, приехала из деревни".

*3)*
the relation between the time of the new main clause we have attached, and the time of an event, expressed by the verbal clause we had before (which talked about coming). It turns out to be expressed mostly in the same way as the relation of the #2. This correspondance restricts us, of course, and we have to carefully choose which clause will be main.

============

By the way, what advantages do have Bulgarians? Let's consider this: "девочка, которая неустанно плакала в комнате, приехала из деревни" or this: "мы увидели девочку, которая неустанно плакала в комнате".



ahvalj said:


> My point is that in imperfective participles there is no way to express precedence relative to the past, and that's bad.


Are you really sure this feature is needed and must-have? Can you provide en example (I mean, a situation + a phrase), where this feature would be really benefactory and needed (one process precedes another process in time, and all that gets expressed in one sentence)?

Are you sure there are many such examples -- many enough so that the feature would not be an excess mess and noise? I mean, every grammatical category make some problems for speakers, because a speaker needs to make a choice every time he is in a situation associated with that category -- some grammatical categories may create more problems than solve.


----------



## ahvalj

(0) Why are we discussing this in English? There seem to be no readers but us, and I am not so fluent in English to easily decipher such long posts.

(1) С точки зрения любой логики, правильно ли, чтобы две различные грамматические формы (плачущая/плакавшая) выражали бы то же самое? Причём всего лишь по недосмотру авторов грамматик.

(2) Замечания вот уже которого участника форума в духе «а оно тебе надо?» не оставляют возможности для обоснованного ответа. Мне нужна возможность выражать более тонкие оттенки значений, но я никак не могу поделиться этим своим желанием с другими. В конце концов, Тарзану хватало одной формы в каждой части речи, «Тарзан видеть тигр». Ведь бездонный внутренний мир всё равно не выразить языковыми средствами...

(3) Ваши примеры с передачей оттенков то и дело включают в себя какое-то контекстное крючкотворство. Не говоря уже о том, что вместо простых и ясных временных форм приходится прибегать к каким-то полулексическим ужимкам и прыжкам, что будет, когда контекст не предоставит возможности прибегнуть к таковым? Когда у нас есть соответствующие уникальные формы, мы можем быть свободны в средствах выражения («я тебя в твоей не знала славе» — весь Гомер так устроен, и это мощно и красиво), а когда подобных форм нет, приходится втискивать речь в строгие рамки («балу люби муму» — кто на ком стоит?).


----------



## wonlon

Hi, my dear Russian friends, actually I am following this thread. But I don't have things to say yet, so don't know how to show my presence. It is even better if you discuss it in Chinese .

My major concern is whether present active participle, given the past context, is exchangeable with past active participle. I think the answer is yes, with nuances between them not yet grammaticalized.

But I think my question in the last thread is left unsolved, since I am still left puzzled.


wonlon said:


> I have been studying _active participles_ these few days.
> 
> I met this example in my grammar reference book, it demonstrates the interchange between _active participles_ and _subordinate clauses of который_.
> 
> i. Компания, *производящ**ая* эти приборы, *появилась *на рынке два года назад.
> ii. Компания,* котор**ая** производит* эти приборы, *появилась *на рынке два года назад.
> 
> The grammar book explains that the present active participle "denotes an action which is *simultaneous*
> with the action or state denoted by the main verb".
> 
> Then I wonder why sentence ii. is not *котор**ая** производи**ла*, since the main verb *"появилась" *is in past tense.
> 
> But then if the company_ now produces (present tense)_ the equipment, and it _appeared_ 2 years ago (_past tense_). What participle should I put here?
> 
> Компания, *_____________*эти приборы, *появилась *на рынке два года назад.



I am still puzzled whether what my grammar book said ("denotes an action which is *simultaneous* with the action or state denoted by the main verb") is valid or not. I haven't heard what *ahvalj* said, if *ahvalj* you see this, can you say your view here or there?


----------



## Syline

wonlon said:


> I am still puzzled whether what my grammar book said ("denotes an action which is *simultaneous* with the action or state denoted by the main verb") is valid or not.


No, it is not. Can't you see for yourself that the phrase "the present active participle denotes an action which is simultaneous with the action or state denoted by the main verb" conflicts with the example "Компания, производящая эти приборы, появилась на рынке два года назад"? 
Company appeared two years ago (action in the past, past tense) and produces these devices now (action in the present, present tense). The actions are not simultaneous, right? 

So, if we talk about time correlation between two actions... action denoted by the present active participle *can precede*, *can be simultaneous* and *can follow* the action denoted by the main verb.


----------



## Maroseika

wonlon said:


> I am still puzzled whether what my grammar book said ("denotes an action which is *simultaneous* with the action or state denoted by the main verb") is valid or not.



It is completely wrong. No temporal connection between the actions denoted by the main verb and participle or the main and subordinal verbs. They can be in any tenses you need according only to the sense of the sentence.


----------



## wonlon

Syline said:


> No, it is not. Can't you see for yourself that the phrase "the present active participle denotes an action which is simultaneous with the action or state denoted by the main verb" conflicts with the example "Компания, производящая эти приборы, появилась на рынке два года назад"?
> Company appeared two years ago (action in the past, past tense) and produces these devices now (action in the present, present tense). The actions are not simultaneous, right?
> 
> So, if we talk about time correlation between two actions... action denoted by the present active participle *can precede*, *can be simultaneous* and *can follow* the action denoted by the main verb.



Though from what I encountered in my short history of learning Russian, I think you are right. But I think the book writer (one of which Terence Wade) should have a point when he wrote this down. Otherwise, he who was doing serious academic work, would not have written so.

I am still wondering why .


----------



## Explorer41

wonlon said:


> Hi, my dear Russian friends, actually I am following this thread. But I don't have things to say yet, so don't know how to show my presence. It is even better if you discuss it in Chinese .


It would be hard  . As for me, I can't write anything in Chinese but 現在我昨天看見過的怪人在我的房間了 (it took me a hour to compose, and I'm not sure if it's correct, most likely not  ).


wonlon said:


> Though from what I encountered in my short history of learning Russian, I think you are right. But I think the book writer (one of which Terence Wade) should have a point when he wrote this down. Otherwise, he who was doing serious academic work, would not have written so.
> 
> I am still wondering why .


Meseems I have understood it now, "откуда ноги растут". Indeed, all we have to do is to use a common logic, referring to times of actions from the time of narration and using a common sense to define how the times of actions in subordinate clauses relate to each other, as *Maroseika* explained. The real question is what is a common logic. I have three points to note, but they don't explain how to understand and use Russian subordinate clauses, they only say to what one needs to pay attention.
1) first, one needs to pay attention to aspects of clauses. They really impact meanings of clauses, therefore they impact the logic to use;
2) second, when two processes are mentioned, and both occur in the past, they are most likely to occur at the same time (unless something in the sentence or its context makes us to think otherwise). That's why that statement from your grammar book;
3) third, the time of narration is not a fixed point as well, as *Maroseika* already said.


----------



## Explorer41

ahvalj said:


> (0) Why are we discussing this in English? There seem to be no readers but us, and I am not so fluent in English to easily decipher such long posts.


Please excuse me my really bad English! When I hasten to speak, it becomes almost unreadable 


ahvalj said:


> Замечания вот уже которого участника форума в духе «а оно тебе надо?» не оставляют возможности для обоснованного ответа. Мне нужна возможность выражать более тонкие оттенки значений, но я никак не могу поделиться этим своим желанием с другими. В конце концов, Тарзану хватало одной формы в каждой части речи, «Тарзан видеть тигр». Ведь бездонный внутренний мир всё равно не выразить языковыми средствами...


Вот здесь я полностью согласен, не выразить. Отсюда и вопросы в духе "а оно тебе надо?" Если у нас есть "фича" (прошу прощения за жаргон) для быстрого выражения одной мысли, то десять других мыслей всё равно требуют чуть более долгих конструкций (и грамотного использования контекста). Наиболее удобный язык для выражения тонких оттенков -- это, в конце концов, всегда родной (ну, может быть, в каких-то случаях -- язык, с которым человек успел сродниться позже, пожить в его среде и полностью им проникнуться). Предпочтения, для чего иметь быстрые способы выражения, и для чего не иметь, могут быть индивидуальны (и зависеть от родного языка).

И конечно, даже родного языка часто "не хватает". Разным людям "не хватает" по-разному. Совершенства нет, как Вы заметили выше. Но мне иногда кажется, что если речь идёт о художественной литературе и поэзии (те области, где выражение оттенков мысли и чувства наиболее важно), то мастерство поэта и должно в сильнейшей степени восхищать, когда поэт преодолевает языковые заслоны и показывает, что его мысль красива в выражении даже на том языке, где десять других выражений той же мысли были бы не слишком красивыми или даже уродливыми. Видя такое, читатель чувствует, что сама природа мысли поэта делает её красивой... Нет, это не моя убеждённость, просто мысль такая мелькала. Мы не ищем лёгких путей! ;-)

Так или иначе, я не вижу, как предлагаемая Вами грамматическая деталь могла бы улучшить выражение оттенков в общем случае. Она могла бы прижиться в языке и изменить какие-нибудь другие его части, но я не уверен, что язык стал бы лучше (или хуже).

Вывод такой: даже если бы мы могли изменять родной язык по своему желанию, всё равно пришлось бы подходить к подобным изменениям с осторожностью: одно лечишь, другое калечишь, это всегда так -- что-нибудь другое обязательно изменилось бы тоже, и изменился бы разум, перед которым встала бы задача всегда различать дополнительную грамматическую категорию, и так дальше... Язык, развивавшийся путём мелких изменений вот уже сколько лет, конечно, имеет свою логику и свои преимущества.

В общем и целом, моя позиция в том, что я не уверен в объективности благ, которые Вы сулите через изменение языка. Это, наверное, скорее дело вкуса.


----------



## wonlon

Explorer41 said:


> It would be hard  . As for me, I can't write anything in Chinese but 現在我昨天看見過的怪人在我的房間了 (it took me a hour to compose, and I'm not sure if it's correct, most likely not  ).


昨天*我*看見過的怪人*現在*在我房間了。
You should move "now" (現在) to the latter clause. This is the only major problem. So your sentence is overall good.
Sometimes "的" is not needed to express "my", to sound more natural.



Explorer41 said:


> 2) second, when two processes are mentioned, and both occur in the past, they are most likely to occur at the same time (unless something in the sentence or its context makes us to think otherwise). That's why that statement from your grammar book;



I wonder if other rules are also wrong in my grammar books and have to be verified by Russians, as well. Oh, no.


----------



## Explorer41

wonlon said:


> 昨天*我*看見過的怪人*現在*在我房間了。
> You should move "now" (現在) to the latter clause. This is the only major problem. So your sentence is overall good.
> Sometimes "的" is not needed to express "my", to sound more natural.


Thank you very much for your input! 
(it was my very first Chinese sentence I ever wrote ::-] )


----------



## ahvalj

wonlon said:


> My major concern is whether present active participle, given the past context, is exchangeable with past active participle. I think the answer is yes, with nuances between them not yet grammaticalized.
> I am still puzzled whether what my grammar book said ("denotes an action which is *simultaneous* with the action or state denoted by the main verb") is valid or not. I haven't heard what *ahvalj* said, if *ahvalj* you see this, can you say your view here or there?


I readdress you to the comments #7-9 of this thread. Practically, for a foreign student and for many of the native speakers they are interchangeable. I regard this as a deficiency in the grammar, while some other participants disagree. The present participles indeed express actions and states simultaneous to those of the main verb («я вижу/видел/буду видеть девочку, плачущую в автомате, кутаясь в зябкое пальтецо»). The problems arise with the past participles, which after past tense verbs do the same while in principle they shouldn't.


----------



## ahvalj

By the way, all we are discussing here is applicable to the passive imperfective participles as well: «я не видел заголовка _читаемой_ им книги»/«я не видел заголовка _читавшейся_ им книги». Here, the past passive participle from an imperfective verb behaves as a synonym of the present participle.


----------



## Syline

ahvalj said:


> The present participles indeed express actions and states simultaneous to those of the main verb («я вижу/видел/буду видеть девочку, плачущую в автомате, кутаясь в зябкое пальтецо»).


Not always. Even your example, if we shorten it, "я видел девочку, плачущую в автомате" can be interpreted in two ways:
1) both actions are simultaneous and take place in the past (I saw the girl when she was crying)
2) the first action takes place in the past and the second one denoted by PAP - in the present (I've already seen the girl who is now crying in the pay-phone)


----------



## ahvalj

Syline said:


> Not always. Even your example, if we shorten it, "я видел девочку, плачущую в автомате" can be interpreted in two ways:
> 1) both actions are simultaneous and take place in the past (I saw the girl when she was crying)
> 2) the first action takes place in the past and the second one denoted by PAP - in the present (I've already seen the girl who is now crying in the pay-phone)


OK, this second meaning, as far as I know, is not specifically covered in any language — there are not so many participles in the languages of this planet. So, we may regard it as a very particular case.


----------



## wonlon

I refer back to my example in thread #27.

i. Компания, *производящ**ая* эти приборы, *появилась *на рынке два года назад.

This sentence seems to mean:
1.  The company which *produces *(_present tense_) this equipment appeared in the market two years ago.

rather than:
2. The company which *produced *_(past tense) _this equipment appeared in the market two years ago _(past tense)_.

But actually, both 1 and 2 are not simultaneous. the company has to appear *first, then* go on to produce the equipment.

Then the rule about "simultaneous" is not valid, right?


----------



## Syline

wonlon, if the book implies that only simultaneity of actions is possible with PAP then this rule is not valid.


----------



## wonlon

Syline said:


> wonlon, if the book implies that only simultaneity of actions is possible with PAP then this rule is not valid.



Actually, different books said different things. 
_A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, Terence Wade_ mentions only PAP means simultaneous action with the main verb.

_Grammar book 1 in Chinese_ mentions about i) simultaneity, and also PAP's use to show ii) habitual actions, ability.
But in ii) it avoids its examples to use past tense in the main verb, e.g.
Часто улыбающиеся люди меньше болеют.
Мой друзья, интересующиеся искусством, часто бывают в Третьяковсакой галерее.

_Grammar book 2 in Chinese _mentions about i) simultaneity, and also ii) universal truth, habitual actions.
Its many examples in ii) also avoid use of past tense in the main verb.

So I tend to think that use ii) is limited to main verbs in present tense.


----------



## Maroseika

wonlon said:


> _Grammar book 1 in Chinese_ mentions about i) simultaneity, and also PAP's use to show ii) habitual actions, ability.
> But in ii) it avoids its examples to use past tense in the main verb, e.g.
> Часто улыбающиеся люди меньше болеют.


Люди, часто болевшие в детстве, живут меньше.



> Мой друзья, интересующиеся искусством, часто бывают в Третьяковской галерее.


Мой друзья, никогда не интересовавшиеся искусством, теперь часто бывают в Третьяковской галерее.

So, looks like no temporal connection between the two actions.


----------



## Syline

wonlon said:


> So I tend to think that use ii) is limited to main verbs in present tense.


No, we can equally say: 

Мои друзья, интересующиеся искусством (habitual actions, ability), посетили (past) вчера Третьяковскую галерею. 
Мои друзья, интересующиеся искусством (habitual actions, ability), завтра пойдут (future) в Третьяковскую галерею.


----------



## wonlon

Maroseika said:


> Люди, часто болевшие в детстве, живут меньше.
> 
> 
> Мой друзья, никогда не интересовавшиеся искусством, теперь часто бывают в Третьяковской галерее.
> 
> So, looks like no temporal connection between the two actions.



mmm... I mean the main verb, not the participle.


----------



## Maroseika

wonlon said:


> mmm... I mean the main verb, not the participle.



Main verb - what?
Люди, часто болеющие в детстве, всегда жили меньше / проживут меньше.

In brief, you may use any combination of two verbs you only want and need.


----------



## Syline

Your grammar books mentioning "habitual actions, ability and universal truth" meant only PAP, without any relation to the main verb.


----------



## wonlon

Syline said:


> No, we can equally say:
> 
> Мои друзья, интересующиеся искусством (habitual actions, ability), посетили (past) вчера Третьяковскую галерею.
> Мои друзья, интересующиеся искусством (habitual actions, ability), завтра пойдут (future) в Третьяковскую галерею.



I see. And now I think that the crux of the problem is that my grammar books have over-drawn my attention to the PAP's use in simultaneity with main verb. They mention far less in it other usages._
The New Penguin Russian Course_ says the simplest thing and avoid all controversies. It says that PAPs in Russian corresponds to -ing verb forms in such sentences as "The man read_ing_ the newspaper is a spy."


----------



## wonlon

OK. But see this (which I just read), which is about imperfective passive participle, quite similar to the present active participle discussed here:

_A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, Terence Wade_:

The imperfective passive denotes an action which is simultaneous with the action of the main verb. The main verb may be in the present, past or future tense of either aspect.




Он писал статьюо *предмете*,

Он написал статьюо *предмете*,

Он пишет статьюо *предмете*,
*изучаемом   *всеми учениками
Он будет писать статьюо *предмете*,

Он напишет статьюо *предмете*,




(‘He was writing/wrote/is writing/will be writing/will write an article about a subject *studied *by all pupils’.)

I think what is meant by "simultaneous" is only understood by those grammarians. They should have a clear mind when they write. But I can just wonder, wonder, and wonder why they say simultaneous.


----------



## Explorer41

wonlon said:


> I think what is meant by "simultaneous" is only understood by those grammarians.


No, no. I understand it as well ;-) . In my opinion, they just omitted the word "by default". Of course, the topic of time correlations between actions expressed in different clauses is very complex and, I think, needs a book or two (or three  ) to be covered more or less thoroughly; and that grammarians had to write _at least something_ on the topic. So they just have described the meanings "by default", and finished with it. As for the omitted words "by default"... They are often implied in such books  . Oh, it is so...

By the way, in the example you wrote above, the action of "изучаемый" is not tied to any particular time. It is just said, that all the pupils have to study the subject, no matter when they are at school.


wonlon said:


> I wonder if other rules are also wrong in my grammar books and have to be verified by Russians, as well. Oh, no.


Я думаю, когда очередной грамматический вопрос окажется слишком большим и сложным, чтобы быть описанным в одной главе, то Ваши книги опять расскажут только об отдельных, случайно выбранных его сторонах. И снова Вам придётся удивляться и переспрашивать 

Грамматика русского языка (да, наверное, и любого человеческого) на самом деле слишком сложна, чтобы быть целиком описанной в одной книге. Цель таких учебных книг, по моему разумению, заключается всего лишь в том, чтобы читатель мог получить начальное знакомство с языком. Едва освоившись с основными ориентирами, дальше читатель должен узнавать язык сам - через его использование, примерно как это делают дети.


----------



## Syline

Explorer41 said:


> By the way, in the example you wrote above, the action of "изучаемый" is not tied to any particular time. It is just said, that all the pupils have to study the subject, no matter when they are at school.


Yes, it is what we can call "universal truth". "Изучаемый" isn't tied to any particular time and at that it is tied to all times. Thus, the action denoted by the main verb is automatically simultaneous to the action denoted by imperfective passive participle. But such is this particular example.


----------



## Maroseika

wonlon said:


> The imperfective passive denotes an action which is simultaneous with the action of the main verb. The main verb may be in the present, past or future tense of either aspect




This is wrong. What kind of simalteneity is meant, for example, in this case?:

Он напишет статью о предмете, изучаемом всеми учениками.

He will write it in the future, while the subject is being studied now.


----------



## wonlon

Maroseika said:


> This is wrong. What kind of simalteneity is meant, for example, in this case?:
> 
> Он напишет статью о предмете, изучаемом всеми учениками.
> 
> He will write it in the future, while the subject is being studied now.



I think the simultaneity is what *Syline* has said.
But I am still not absolutely sure what the grammarians mean, they say something which sometimes only they themselves know.


----------



## ahvalj

wonlon said:


> I refer back to my example in thread #27.
> 
> i. Компания, *производящ**ая* эти приборы, *появилась *на рынке два года назад.
> 
> This sentence seems to mean:
> 1.  The company which *produces *(_present tense_) this equipment appeared in the market two years ago.
> 
> rather than:
> 2. The company which *produced *_(past tense) _this equipment appeared in the market two years ago _(past tense)_.
> 
> But actually, both 1 and 2 are not simultaneous. the company has to appear *first, then* go on to produce the equipment.
> 
> Then the rule about "simultaneous" is not valid, right?


Correct is the first variant. For the second, there will be a past participle («компания, производившая/произведшая/изготовлявшая/изготовившая»). Here, everything goes as it should. The problem, as far as I can judge, arises *only* with the tense agreement, when the participle is in a subordinate clause, while the main clause is in the past tense.


----------



## ahvalj

wonlon said:


> Actually, different books said different things.
> _A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, Terence Wade_ mentions only PAP means simultaneous action with the main verb.
> 
> _Grammar book 1 in Chinese_ mentions about i) simultaneity, and also PAP's use to show ii) habitual actions, ability.
> But in ii) it avoids its examples to use past tense in the main verb, e.g.
> Часто улыбающиеся люди меньше болеют.
> Мой друзья, интересующиеся искусством, часто бывают в Третьяковсакой галерее.
> 
> _Grammar book 2 in Chinese _mentions about i) simultaneity, and also ii) universal truth, habitual actions.
> Its many examples in ii) also avoid use of past tense in the main verb.
> 
> So I tend to think that use ii) is limited to main verbs in present tense.


I think this explanation is not didactic. Much easier is to memorize that the participle is an adjectival form of the respective tense, and as such expresses everything this tense does. So, there is no special meaning the present or past participle has — its usage just reflects the usage of the generating tense form, simply in another syntactic surrounding (I would prefer the relative meaning of the participle, but in Russian it is does not work). There seems to be only one case when a special meaning emerges — the one we are trying to discuss in this thread, and that's why I insist that it is the deficiency that had to be corrected a long time ago by the grammarians.


----------



## ahvalj

wonlon said:


> OK. But see this (which I just read), which is about imperfective passive participle, quite similar to the present active participle discussed here:
> 
> _A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, Terence Wade_:
> 
> The imperfective passive denotes an action which is simultaneous with the action of the main verb. The main verb may be in the present, past or future tense of either aspect.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Он писал статьюо *предмете*,
> Он написал статьюо *предмете*,
> Он пишет статьюо *предмете*,*изучаемом   *всеми ученикамиОн будет писать статьюо *предмете*,
> Он напишет статьюо *предмете*,
> 
> 
> 
> (‘He was writing/wrote/is writing/will be writing/will write an article about a subject *studied *by all pupils’.)
> 
> I think what is meant by "simultaneous" is only understood by those grammarians. They should have a clear mind when they write. But I can just wonder, wonder, and wonder why they say simultaneous.


I can only wonder why do you wonder — for a Russian speaker they _are_ simultaneous. On one hand there is a topic studied by all the pupils — and here the participle is indeed simultaneous («все ученики изучают предмет/предмет, который изучают все ученики/предмет изучается всеми учениками/предмет, изучаемый всеми учениками/предмет, изучающийся всеми учениками»). Then we have this placed into a subordinate clause, and since Russian has no tense agreement, the tense in the subordinate clause remains unchanged, whichever situation in the main clause would be (the same with the personal forms: «он пишет/писал/будет писать статью о предмете, который изучают все ученики»). Then, if the main clause is in the past, two variants are possible: (1) the simultaneous action still continues — then the present tense in the subordinate clause is kept («он писал статью о предмете, который изучают все ученики/изучаемом всеми учениками»), and (2) the simultaneous action does not take place anymore — then the past tense appears («он писал стаью о предемете, который изучали все ученики/изучавшемся всеми учениками»). In many cases, however, it is not clear or not relevant, if this action still continues, and this is the reason of the confusion we are discussing several days («я знал, что девочка, плачущая/которая плачет/плакавшая/которая плакала в комнате, приехала из деревни»). 

Now, the conclusion. As you see, *me and many of us were wrong here* — both the participle and the personal constructions are indeed identical, and the problem with the choice of the present or past tense we are discussing is not specific to the participles. As I had written in the previous post, the participle simply follows the usage of its maternal personal form (and so do the adverbial participles).


----------



## wonlon

Hi, let me digest it, see if I have follow-up questions.


----------

