# Perfect and perfective aspects in passive voice in German and English



## Chigch

*Moderator note: Split from this thread**.
*



Dan2 said:


> The interpretation of the missing passive in "The car stolen was mine" is of a past passive ("that _was stolen"), the understood tense is context-dependent. For ex., in "The car stolen is always mine!" a present passive ("that is stolen") is understood_



This is exactly what I have thought. However, the passive can also be a present perfect ("noun that/which has/have been done"), besides the present and past tense. 
But my guess is that "The car stolen was mine" can only correspond to the past passive "The car that *was *stolen _was _mine", because no adverbs and no more context is there; only the past auxiliary "_was_" (the italicized one before "mine") leads us to predict that the hidden tense of the participle "*stolen*" is also a past one. 

I am, however, not sure whether sentences like "The car stolen *is *mine" are technically correct and whether it can mean "The car that *was *stolen *is *mine" or "The car that *is *stolen *is *mine". I know the latter sentence (or interpretation) is a bit awkward without an adverb like "*always*". 

I don't know whether my guess goes together with native speakers', however.


----------



## Schimmelreiter

I'd say it's perfective in any case, so _The car stolen is mine _stands for _The car that has been stolen is mine_ whereas _The car stolen was mine_ stands for _The car that had been stolen was mine._

This doesn't affect the possibility for eventive _that has been stolen _to be replaced with stative _that is stolen _and for eventive _that had been stolen _to be replaced with stative _​that was stolen._


----------



## Dan2

Chigch said:


> I am, however, not sure whether sentences like "The car stolen *is *mine" are technically correct and whether it can mean "The car that *was *stolen *is *mine" or "The car that *is *stolen *is *mine".  I know the latter sentence (or interpretation) is a bit awkward without an adverb like "*always*".


I  think that technically "The car stolen is mine" is fine, and can have  either of the two meanings you suggest, depending on context. Note that an overly  simple sentence devoid of context, like "I go", can be so vague as to  be difficult to interpret, but "I go" is unquestionably grammatical. Likewise I think the only thing "wrong" with "The car stolen is mine" is that it forces the reader to supply appropriate context.  (I guess that's what you mean by "awkward".)


Schimmelreiter said:


> I'd say it's perfective in any case, so _The car stolen is mine _stands for _The car that has been stolen is mine_ whereas _The car stolen was mine_ stands for _The car that had been stolen was mine._


It's not clear to me how broad a range of cases your "in any case" is meant to cover.  Certainly if you allow me to add context, what you say is false.  For ex., "The car stolen yesterday is/was mine" can be interpreted only as "The car that _was _stolen ..."; a perfective interpretation is impossible.  But even without further context, "The car stolen was mine" seems to me to favor a simple-past passive interpretation.

Furthermore, not only is an understood passive not limited to a perfective or pluperfect interpretation, as you suggest, but it seems not to be limited to a past interpretation _at all_. If you're not convinced by my "The car stolen is always mine", consider:
_When water is frozen, the ice produced always has volume greater than that of the unfrozen water
_Here the only natural interpretation of "the ice produced" is "the ice that _is _produced".


Schimmelreiter said:


> This doesn't affect the possibility for eventive _that has been stolen _to be replaced with stative _that is stolen _and for eventive _that had been stolen _to be replaced with stative _​that was stolen._


I'm sorry, I don't understand this comment, in particular "possibility to be replaced"; "replaced" in what sense? (If this is relevant, note that _all _of the passives I've been considering correspond to the German _werden _passive.)


----------



## Schimmelreiter

Dan2 said:


> "The car stolen yesterday is/was mine" can be interpreted only as "The car that _was _stolen ..."; a perfective interpretation is impossible.  But even without further context, "The car stolen was mine" seems to me to favor a simple-past passive interpretation.


The past tense is one way in which perfectiveness can be expressed in a relative clause in relation to the main clause. 

In any case, _the car stolen _is "short" for _the car having been stolen _(perfectiveness). It is *not *short for _the car being stolen _(concurrence).

Pursuant to the grammatical rules of the British variant, _having been stolen + just/recently/lately etc._ may be rendered as a relative clause in the present perfect tense: _that has just/recently/lately been stolen._ Americans, as far as I know, tend to use the past tense here in order to express the perfectiveness of the relative clause in relation to the main clause. 

Pursuant to grammar rules on both shores of the Atlantic, _having been stolen yesterday/five days ago/last weekend/on 3 January 2014 _may be rendered as a relative clause in the past tense: _that was stolen __yesterday/five days ago/last weekend/on 3 January 2014_. The past tense is used here to express the perfectiveness of the relative clause in relation to the main clause.






Dan2 said:


> _When water is frozen, the ice produced always has volume greater than that of the unfrozen water
> _Here the only natural interpretation of "the ice produced" is "the ice that _is _produced".


_the ice produced_ is short for _the ice having been produced_. Without having been produced, ice is in no position to have any, let alone greater, volume. So _the ice produced_ may be rendered as _the ice that has been produced _or, depending on context, as _the ice that was produced yesterday_ (see above re past tense, with certain temporal adverbials, conveying the perfectiveness of the relative clause in relation to the main clause).

The eventive _the ice that has been produced_ may be replaced with the stative _the ice that is produced_ (see what I wrote in #17 re _eventive vs stative_).

The eventive passive voice is of course possible for a sequence of events: 
_The ice that is produced (then, i.e. once produced) __has volume greater than that of the unfrozen water.
_This may well be a _natural interpretation _of _the ice produced_, implying a sequence of events in which the greater volume comes after the production of ice, but it's not a _grammatical analysis _of _the ice produced_.

I believe the expression_ past participle_ is itself indicative of the perfectiveness ("pastness") it expresses. It is clearly different from the _present participle_, which expresses concurrence. The only exception is the eventive passive voice, where the past participle has got nothing perfective about it. It is perfective, though, in the stative passive voice. 

And the past participle is perfective when used attributively, which this post is about.


----------



## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> I'd say it's perfective in any case, so _The car stolen is mine _stands for _The car that has been stolen is mine_


_Has been stolen _is perfect not perfective. Those are completely different aspects which German does not distinguish but English distinguishes very scrupulously. Perfective is _was stolen_.



Schimmelreiter said:


> The eventive _the ice that has been produced_ may be replaced with the stative _the ice that is produced_ (see what I wrote in #17 re _eventive vs stative_).


I agree with Dan that you seem to confuse the stative vs. eventive distinction of German passive voices with the aspect distinction between present and present perfect in English.

I would even say that _has been produced _has more of a stative connotation than_ is produced_ (_=wird produziert_ not_ ist produziert_ as Dan remarked).


----------



## Schimmelreiter

Bernd, my point is that the attributive past participle does not convey concurrence. Is or isn't this true?


I used _perfective _in the sense of _vorzeitig_ (cf. _participium perfecti_).
I used _concurrent_ in the sense of _gleichzeitig.

_Of the difference there is between _perfect_ and _perfective_, I am well aware (provided my use of _perfective _is admissible ).

_He came recently_ is perfective. Are you saying _He has come recently _is not?


PS
Please advise, unless my use of _perfective _and _concurrent_ is admissible, as to what, in English grammar, the notions of _vorzeitig_ and _gleichzeitig_ are called.


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> _Has been stolen _is perfect not perfective. Those are completely different aspects which German does not distinguish but English distinguishes very scrupulously. Perfective is _was stolen_.


 I am surprised that you classify  "was stolen" as having a perfective aspect per definition, as *Simple Past* in English (and the Scandinavian languages) is normally aspect neutral.  In most cases it is impossible to decide if an action expressed in Simple Past was of a durative/repetitive  character or a single, completed action. In the sentence "they ate well at the hotel" both interpretations are possible. It is usually the context, or som additional words in the sentence that give us the clue. Sometimes the verb itself suggests a typically perfective or imperfective action (for example *break *vs *sleep*), but the tense itself  does not say us anything about the aspect.


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> I am surprised that you classify "was stolen" as having a perfective aspect per definition, as *Simple Past* in English (and the Scandinavian languages) is normally aspect neutral. In most cases it is impossible to decide if an action expressed in Simple Past was of a durative/repetitive character or a single, completed action. In the sentence "they ate well at the hotel" both interpretations are possible. It is usually the context, or som additional words in the sentence that give us the clue. Sometimes the verb itself suggests a typically perfective or imperfective action (for example *break *vs *sleep*), but the tense itself does not say us anything about the aspect.


Not completely aspect neutral because you have the opposition _was stolen_ and _was being stolen_. But that doesn't matter. I didn't mean to say that _was stolen_ was always perfective but that *if* you want to express perfective meaning, you use simple past and not present perfect. This does not preclude that the simple past might also be applicable to other aspects.


----------



## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> Bernd, my point is that the attributive past participle does not convey concurrence. Is or isn't this true?
> 
> 
> I used _perfective _in the sense of _vorzeitig_ (cf. _participium perfecti_).
> I used _concurrent_ in the sense of _gleichzeitig.
> 
> _Of the difference there is between _perfect_ and _perfective_, I am well aware (provided my use of _perfective _is admissible ).
> 
> _He came recently_ is perfective. Are you saying _He has come recently _is not?
> 
> 
> PS
> Please advise, unless my use of _perfective _and _concurrent_ is admissible, as to what, in English grammar, the notions of _vorzeitig_ and _gleichzeitig_ are called.


My point, and if I understood to correctly also Dan's, is that the English ppl. has an aspect connotation (=perfect) but no tense connotation. In my mind you are mislead by your instincts as a German speaker by jumping straight to the question of _contemporaneity (Gleichzeitigkeit), anteriority (Vorzeitigkeit)_ and _posteriority (Nachzeitigkeit) _because German does not separate aspects from tenses. In English there is a conceptual separation between the two although of course there is some degree of interdependence.


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> Not completely aspect neutral because you have the opposition _was stolen_ and _was being stolen_. But that doesn't matter. I didn't mean to say that _was stolen_ was always perfective but that *if* you want to express perfective meaning, you use simple past and not present perfect. This does not preclude that the simple past might also be applicable to other aspects.



Does it mean that English Present Perfect has an imperfective aspect?


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> Does it mean that English Present Perfect has an imperfective aspect?


English has no imperfective aspect. It has two orthogonal aspect distinctions _progressive_ vs. _non-progressive_ (the latter includes _habitual _and _perfective_) and _perfect_ vs. _non-perfect_.

Languages with _imperfective _contrast _progressive_ and _habitual _on ones side with _perfective _on the other side.


----------



## bearded

Would the following sentence be correct in English?  While the cruel beating adult is laughing, the poor beaten boy is crying aloud.  If it is correct, then it seems to me that 'beaten' means 'being beaten' (concurrent in SR's language) and not 'that was beaten' (perfective according to SR's terms).  Languages like Ancient Greek possessed a passive present participle,  modern languages must sometimes use past participle for this function, if my example is correct.


----------



## berndf

I understand simply "beaten" neither as "being beather" nor as "that was beaten" but as "that has been beaten". So, it is not perfective but perfect.

BTW: The sentence sounds odd because of the porgressive in the second clause (_the poor beaten boy is crying aloud_), but that is a different matter.


----------



## bearded

berndf said:


> I understand simply "beaten" neither as "being beather" nor as "that was beaten" but as "that has been beaten". So, it is not perfective but perfect.


 Actually, in my example I tried to describe two *contemporary* actions (one active: beating, one passive: being beaten): the poor boy does not cry _after_ he was beaten, but _while_ he is being beaten (er heult nicht nachdem er geschlagen wurde, sondern waehrend er geschlagen wird).  My point is that in some cases, the English (and possibly also the German) past participle *does* convey ''concurrence'' - according to SR's definition, but contrary to his opinion.


----------



## berndf

bearded man said:


> Actually, in my example I tried to describe two *contemporary* actions (one active: beat, one passive: be beaten): the poor boy does not cry _after_ he was beaten, but _while_ he is being beaten (er heult nicht nachdem er geschlagen wurde, sondern waehrend er geschlagen wird). My point is that in some cases, the English (and possibly also the German) past participle *does* convey ''concurrence'' - according to SR's definition, but contrary to his opinion.


I agree with Dan's opinion in #3 that the past participle, contrary to what its name suggests, does not have an unambiguous tempus connotation. The only unambiguous characteristics of the adjectival use (i.e. when not part of a periphrastic verb form) are 1)_ passive voice _and 2) _perfect aspect_, i.e. 1) the referent of the attributed noun is the patient of the action and 2) the property described by the adjective is the state the patient is in as a result of the action (which may have been completed or may be ongoing) and not the event of being subjected to the action itself.


----------



## bearded

@ berndf
> ...the action which may have been completed or may be ongoing <
To me, if the action is ongoing, there is no perfect(ive) aspect in that participle. It just takes the place and the function of a (in modern western languages non-existing) present passive participle.  Ancient-Greek example: philoùmenos = that is being loved.


----------



## berndf

I would prefer, if you didn't use _perfect(ive)._ The similarity of the terms _perfect _and _perfective _is most unfortunate but the these aspects are really _very _different and mixing they creates an unmanagable confusion.

What the perfect aspect describes is the state of _having been beaten_ and not the action of _being beaten_, irrespective of point in time. The only context where it loses its perfect aspect is in the passive voice where the aspect is determined by the form of the auxiliary verb (_the boy is/is being/has been beaten_).


----------



## Kevin Beach

Regardless of the various analyses in subsequent posts, I can't help feeling that the passage quote in the OP contains a misplaced adjectival participle. It should be "stolen car", not "car stolen".

In that case, it can just as easily be "The stolen car _is_ mine" or "The stolen car _was_ mine", because "stolen" could refer to a theft either in the past or in the present. However, if the speaker was talking of previous ownership, then he/she would say "The Stolen car had been mine".


----------



## Dan2

Kevin Beach said:


> I can't help feeling that the passage quote in the OP contains a misplaced adjectival participle. It should be "stolen car", not "car stolen".


An editor concerned with "style" might call _stolen _"misplaced" in this sentence, and I would agree with you if your claim were simply that "car stolen" is less common or less expected than "stolen car".  However I find the sentence fully _grammatical_; what's under discussion here is how to interpret "stolen", _given _this word order (whether or not you feel the word order is optimal).  You may find less to object to in this construction if we substitute other words:
_The solution offered (by the the opposition) was widely criticized._  (Even without the "by" phrase, I prefer "solution offered" to "offered solution".)
_When water is frozen, the ice produced is ..._ (Repeated from post 3; I wouldn't say "produced ice" here.)

In any case, this is _not _a typical WRF "what is the best way to phrase this?" discussion! 

I also wanted to say that I find bearded man's "beaten" sentence in post 12 difficult to interpret for reasons unrelated to the issues under discussion here.  If I understand properly what he wishes to investigate, I'd suggest considering the word "affected" in the alternative sentence,
_While legislators postpone discussing possible modifications to the existing law, affected citizens are suffering._


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> I would prefer, if you didn't use _perfect(ive)._ The similarity of the terms _perfect _and _perfective _is most unfortunate but the these aspects are really _very _different and mixing they creates an unmanagable confusion.
> 
> What the perfect aspect describes is the state of _having been beaten_ and not the action of _being beaten_, irrespective of point in time. The only context where it loses its perfect aspect is in the passive voice where the aspect is determined by the form of the auxiliary verb (_the boy is/is being/has been beaten_).


is it really possible to separate the concept of "Perfect-ness" and "perfective-ness" so strictly as you do? Isn't the action described by the means of a Perfect tense also perfective in most cases?


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> is it really possible to separate the concept of "Perfect-ness" and "perfective-ness" so strictly as you do? Isn't the action described by the means of a Perfect tense also perfective in most cases?


I won't see how. "He finished" describes an atomic event in time (it occurred and then is was over), i.e. _perfective_, while "He has finished" describes an event as having lasting consequences, i.e. _perfect_.


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> I won't see how. "He finished" describes an atomic event in time (it occurred and then is was over), i.e. _perfective_, while "He has finished" describes an event as having lasting consequences, i.e. _perfect_.



From the point of view of classification used in the Slavic languages both belong to the same class of perfectiveness, and their meaning is the same. Any lasting consequences are yet to be seen in future.


----------



## berndf

To my knowledge, modern Slavic languages have no perfect aspect.


----------



## myšlenka

Ben Jamin said:


> Isn't the action described by the means of a Perfect tense also perfective in most cases?


 Perfect aspect and perfective aspect can be marked independently of each other which suggests that they should be strictly separated. If the perfect aspect in English is translated to perfective aspect in Slavic languages, it only means that Slavic languages are unable to express the meaning of the perfect aspect within their tense/aspect systems.


----------



## jasio

berndf said:


> To my knowledge, modern Slavic languages have no perfect aspect.



Meaning expressing current consequences of past actions?

What about: "Czy już zjadłeś obiad?" ('Have you eaten dinner yet?')? In fact it's not a question about eating as such, it's a question if you're still hungry or free to do something. Grammatically, past tense of perfective verb is used, but semantically it's perfect, if I understand correctly your opinion.


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> "He finished" describes an atomic event in time (it occurred and then is was over), i.e. _perfective ..._


But "*The* *Romans ate flat bread*" does not. 
Both verbs are grammatically the same. The *logically *inferred perfective meaning of "he finished" has nothing to do with the tense.
At the same time both "He finished the work with the car yesterday" and "He has finished the work with the car" mean that the car is ready, and that there is no more work to do.


----------



## bearded

berndf said:


> I would prefer, if you didn't use _perfect(ive)._ The similarity of the terms _perfect _and _perfective _is most unfortunate but the these aspects are really _very _different and mixing they creates an unmanagable confusion.
> 
> What the perfect aspect describes is the state of _having been beaten_ and not the action of _being beaten_, irrespective of point in time. The only context where it loses its perfect aspect is in the passive voice where the aspect is determined by the form of the auxiliary verb (_the boy is/is being/has been beaten_).


Having read the discussion about perfective and perfect aspects, I would now like to go back to my example in #12. From my point of view, if it is true that the participle 'beaten' in it is equivalent to 'being beaten' (a past participle having the function of a present passive participle), then the discussion on whether the aspect is perfect or perfective is meaningless, and that is why I wrote perfect(ive). My intention was by no means to increase confusion, but rather to show that both perfect and perfective refer to the past, and I see no reason to see a 'perfect/perfective aspect' in an action that is taking place in the present.


----------



## berndf

jasio said:


> Meaning expressing current consequences of past actions?
> 
> What about: "Czy już zjadłeś obiad?" ('Have you eaten dinner yet?')? In fact it's not a question about eating as such, it's a question if you're still hungry or free to do something. Grammatically, past tense of perfective verb is used, but semantically it's perfect, if I understand correctly your opinion.


There is no grammatical marking that this is what what you meant. It can only be deduced pragmatically. That is the difference to languages with perfect aspect marking, as Myšlenka explained.


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> There is no grammatical marking that this is what what you meant. It can only be deduced pragmatically. That is the difference to languages with perfect aspect marking, as Myšlenka explained.


In the same way there is no grammatical marking of perfectiveness in English Simple Past, see post #26.


----------



## myšlenka

Ben Jamin said:


> At the same time both "He finished the work with the car yesterday" and "He has finished the work with the car" mean that the car is ready, and that there is no more work to do.


What are you trying to demonstrate with this example?


----------



## Chigch

I understand this to be illustrating that tense is irrelevant with perfectiveness in English.
Note that both sentences can convey perfectiveness or completeness of the action, regardless of the tense, the present perfect and the simple past.


----------



## Chigch

Or, you can understand like this: Perfectiveness in English (and probably in other languages as well) has to do more with the lexical properties of verbs than with the grammatical things, say, tense.

I finished/have finished my job. vs. I love/respect Marry.

In the former sentence, there is an endpoint with the action, hence perfective, whereas in the latter there is no endpoint, hence imperfective.


----------



## Ben Jamin

myšlenka said:


> What are you trying to demonstrate with this example?


It refers to the text above: "The *logically inferred *perfective meaning of "he finished" has nothing to do with the tense."
The same applies to the verb in sentence in present perfect.
Perfectiveness is *logically inferred* in English, not expressed by grammatical means. It is partly inferred from the lexical meaning, and partly from the context.
This is in contrast to imperfectiveness which is coupled to the grammatical form of the "continuous tense".


----------



## jasio

myšlenka said:


> Perfect aspect and perfective aspect can be marked independently of each other which suggests that they should be strictly separated. If the perfect aspect in English is translated to perfective aspect in Slavic languages, it only means that Slavic languages are unable to express the meaning of the perfect aspect within their tense/aspect systems.





berndf said:


> There is no grammatical marking that this is what what you meant. It can only be deduced pragmatically. That is the difference to languages with perfect aspect marking, as Myšlenka explained.



Well... it depends, on what did you (and myšlenka) exactly mean when writing "express".  

I've heard than in Eskimo languages there are dozens words meaning various types of snow and ice. I *cannot* express their meaning, primarily because I'm not able to distinguish among them and secondly, I do not have words or phrases precise enough neither in Polish nor any other language I speak. On the other hand, they have quite a bunch of words for seals, which allow them to name a pray including sex, age, weight etc. I *cannot* express it either, but if I were a naval biologist, I *would* probably be able to do so - I would just need to use more than one word, that's all. 

Returning to the original perfect/perfective aspect: if we want to *express* a perfect aspect, we use perfective verbs. We can *express* it, although perhaps we cannot *differentiate* between perfective*+*perfect and perfective*-*perfect using grammatical tools only. To judge it, a minimal pair would be handy, so that we could think, how to express the difference in a Slavic language. 

BTW, is perfect a subset of perfective, or is it something entirely separate? I'm apparently missing something, and my thinking seems to be bound by my mother tongue, so I would be grateful for examples.


----------



## Ben Jamin

jasio said:


> Well... it depends, on what did you (and myšlenka) exactly mean when writing "express".
> 
> I've heard than in Eskimo languages there are dozens words meaning various types of snow and ice. I *cannot* express their meaning, primarily because I'm not able to distinguish among them and secondly, I do not have words or phrases precise enough neither in Polish nor any other language I speak. On the other hand, they have quite a bunch of words for seals, which allow them to name a pray including sex, age, weight etc. I *cannot* express it either, but if I were a naval biologist, I *would* probably be able to do so - I would just need to use more than one word, that's all.
> 
> Returning to the original perfect/perfective aspect: if we want to *express* a perfect aspect, we use perfective verbs. We can *express* it, although perhaps we cannot *differentiate* between perfective*+*perfect and perfective*-*perfect using grammatical tools only. To judge it, a minimal pair would be handy, so that we could think, how to express the difference in a Slavic language.
> 
> BTW, is perfect a subset of perfective, or is it something entirely separate? I'm apparently missing something, and my thinking seems to be bound by my mother tongue, so I would be grateful for examples.


*From Wikipedia:* "_The *perfect* is a verb form found in certain languages. The *exact meaning of the term differs depending on which language is being described,* but in principle the perfect is used to indicate that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the present time (or other time under consideration), often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself._ "

_"The perfective aspect (abbreviated PFV), sometimes called the aoristic aspect,[1] is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole—a unit without internal structure.
The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms variously called "aorist", "preterite", and "simple past". Although the essence of the perfective is an event seen as a whole, most languages which have a perfective use it for various similar semantic roles, such as momentary events and the onsets or completions of events, all of which are single points in time and thus have no internal structure. Other languages instead have separate momentane, inchoative, or cessative aspects for those roles, with or without a general perfective.
The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect, which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing or habitual actions), and from the prospective aspect, which describes impending action.
Aspects such as the perfective should not be confused with tense; perfective aspect can apply to events situated in the past, present, or future."
_
_"English has neither a simple perfective nor imperfective aspect; see imperfective and perfective for some basic English equivalents of this distinction."_


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> It refers to the text above: "The *logically inferred *perfective meaning of "he finished" has nothing to do with the tense."
> The same applies to the verb in sentence in present perfect.
> Perfectiveness is *logically inferred* in English, not expressed by grammatical means. It is partly inferred from the lexical meaning, and partly from the context.
> This is in contrast to imperfectiveness which is coupled to the grammatical form of the "continuous tense".


Yes, I accept, there is no verb form in English marked for perfectiveness; nor is there any form marked form imperfectiveness: The continuous form expresses progressiveness, not imperfectiveness.

On the other hand, there are verb forms *strictly *marked form perfectness and the mere non-usage of the grammaticalized aspects in English (perfectness and progressiveness) make the unmarked, simple, verb forms “lean” towards one of the complementary aspects: Present tense towards the habitual aspect (_he lies=he is a habitual liar_ in contrast to _he is lying=he is currently lying_) and the simple past towards the perfective aspect. But I accept, this tendency can easily be offset by context.

In German (to return to the topic of the thread), aspect marking has gone a different route: In colloquial language and most non-literary registers of standard language the perfect verb form has de-facto replaced the simple past except for a very limited number of verbs (_haben, sein_,_ werden, _modals and maybe a hand full of others). As a consequence, German perfect verb forms have lost their perfect meaning and the present perfect expresses pastness and the past perfect expresses anteriority in the past (i.e. tense and not aspect). In most registers of the language, grammatical aspect marking has therefore disappeared altogether (except some periphrastic continuous forms like _Ich bin dabei, meine Koffer zu packen_). As a consequence of the rareness of the simple past, it has assumed a very strong perfective meaning in the registers where it is still used for other that the few mentioned verbs: If you say _er beendete gestern die Arbeit an dem Wagen_ instead of _er hat die Arbeit an dem Wagen beendet _it is clear that the statement is about the action of him finishing his work (packing up his tools, washing his hands, etc) and not a about the any posterior state of the car not being worked on.


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> 1.
> Yes, I accept, there is no verb form in English marked for perfectiveness; nor is there any form marked form imperfectiveness: ...



It seems that we agree on that.



berndf said:


> 2.
> ...The continuous form expresses progressiveness, not imperfectiveness.



Can't an action be progressive and imperfective at the same time? 
Progressiveness is actually one of the features of the imperfective aspect. I can't see how these two can be in conflict.




berndf said:


> 3.
> On the other hand, there are verb forms* strictly *marked form perfectness ...



How do you explain that both 1. and 3. can be true?



berndf said:


> ...and the mere non-usage of the grammaticalized aspects in English (perfectness and progressiveness) make the unmarked, simple, verb forms “lean” towards one of the complementary aspects:


Actually the classification of an action expressed by means of a Simple past in English depends on the lexical meaning itself, context, use of additional qualifiers and syntax of the sentence. The Slavic verbs are very clearly marked lexically as perfective or imperfective. The Germanic verbs are also marked, but not so clearly, and there are many verbs aspect neutral. 
Examples:  
"He understood everything what the teacher said" can  be both perfective and imperfective. 
"He understood everything what the teacher had said" is rather perfective, but can be also understood in an imperfective way.
"He understood everything what the teacher was saying" is imperfective
"He suddenly understood everything what the teacher had said" is perfective.

"He killed the wolf yesterday" is clearly perfective
"He killed wolves as a pastime when he was young" is imperfective.


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> Can't an action be progressive and imperfective at the same time?


A car can be red and loud at the same time. This doesn't mean that _red_ and _loud_ mean the same.


Ben Jamin said:


> Progressiveness is actually one of the features of the imperfective aspect. I can't see how these two can be in conflict.


_Habitual _is another feature of _imperfective_ but is in explicit opposition to _continuous_ (see my example above) which expresses progressiveness in English.


Ben Jamin said:


> How do you explain that both 1. and 3. can be true?


Where is the problem. 1. is about perfectiveness and 3. about perfectness.



Ben Jamin said:


> "He killed the wolf yesterday" is clearly perfective
> "He killed wolves as a pastime when he was young" is imperfective.


Two things:
1) You see, imperfective is totally alien to Germanic language event as concept, let alone as grammatical category. He understand notions like _progressive _and _habitual _but not imperfective. The correct usage of the French imperfect is e.g. still a major problem for me despite all my studies in grammar theory.

2) The sentence "He killed wolves as a pastime when he was young" is possible but unusual. You would prefer a form that is marked to habitualness here: "He used to kill wolves as a pastime when he was young". Hence, the simple past "leans" towards a perfective interpretation.


----------



## myšlenka

jasio said:


> Well... it depends, on what did you (and myšlenka) exactly mean when writing "express".


If you look at what I wrote, I said that the Slavic languages cannot express the perfect aspect *within their tense/aspect systems*. It is in other words not an inherent part of the Slavic system, but that does not mean that Slavic speakers are unable to express the general meaning in some way or the other.



jasio said:


> BTW, is perfect a subset of perfective, or is it something entirely separate? I'm apparently missing something, and my thinking seems to be bound by my mother tongue, so I would be grateful for examples.


They are different aspects and not sub-aspects of each other. The perfect has a flavour of anteriority so it is in some sense the past of a temporal reference point. The perfective on the other hand is not anchored in time the same way. Check out Spanish if you want to see a language which distinguishes both perfect/non-perfect and perfective/imperfective.


----------



## Chigch

> the past of a temporal reference point.



Did you mean that the reference time is the past, not the present?


----------



## myšlenka

Chigch said:


> Did you mean that the reference time is the past, not the present?


The time of reference for the perfect aspect can be the past, the present or the future. Maybe some languages uses an even more fine-grained system, but the point is that the perfect marks anteriority to this time of reference.


----------



## berndf

myšlenka said:


> ...the perfect marks anteriority to this time of reference.


Careful. The perfect aspect as such does not mark anteriority. It is an aspect not a tense. In German, the perfect verb forms morphed into a tense expressing anteriority. But this is not true for English. If we want to analyse the difference in usage between German and English, as we are trying to to in this thread, we should respect the conceptual difference between aspect and tense.


----------



## Chigch

> but the point is that the perfect marks anteriority to this time of reference.



I am not sure if I understand what you mean by this.
I guess you wanted to say that the event time (the time at which the action/event happens) is anterior to/precedes the reference time, didn't you?

Anyway, the perfect aspect in English expresses state, not time (though it is related with time); it is a matter of aspect, not a matter of tense, as said in the previous post.


----------

