# Swedish: Past Tense vs. Perfect



## kilton

Hello.

In my Swedish reading it's starting to seem more and more like the Perfect tense is more common than the Past tense. I'm regularly seeing the Perfect tense used in Swedish where I would use the Past tense in English. For example, yesterday someone says "Vad har hänt i Egypten?". In English I would tend to say "What happened in Egypt?" rather than "What has happened in Egypt?"

Taking this particular verb as an example, I did some unscientific Googling of the Past & Perfect forms on Google.com and Google.se. On Google.com "What happened" has 4x as many hits as "What has happened". On Google.se however, "Vad har hant" has 3x as many hits as "Var hände".

So my question is -- is the Perfect preferred in Swedish in the general case? Or only with certain verbs? Or only particular types of sentences? Etc.

Thanks!


----------



## Chris Corbyn

We don't tend to expressly write "has" in that expression in English I should point out.  We'd say "What's happened".  Did you try that?   I get 178,000,000 results for that on Google vs 130,000,000 for "What happened".

(I don't know any Swedish, but just that I'd add this)


----------



## kilton

Hey Chris,

If you Google "What's happened" with the quotes (so that only those exact two words in sequence match) it's only 2 million hits.

This may be different in America vs. England but I don't know that I've ever heard anyone say "What's happened" -- I would always say "What happened".


----------



## AutumnOwl

In Swedish "har + a verb" is used for something that is/has happened but has not finished yet, as for the example with Egypt the situation is not yet over. When using "hände", often what happened is over or you don't know how things are.


----------



## kilton

Thanks AutumnOwl. I'm trying to think of the closest English equivalent. Maybe "What has been happening"?


----------



## Tjahzi

Indeed, Swedish still fully retains the aspectual distinction in the past tense. And since, as cocuyo says, the situation in Egypt is still to be considered ongoing (or maybe one should say, by the speaker considered) the past imperfect is preferable. 

(For the record, Swedish does indeed preserve this distinction, but German it has lost a lot of ground in German and, as you say, also some in English.)


----------



## mosletha

Litt OT, men kan ein skriva "vad är hänt" på svensk istaden for "vad har hänt"?


----------



## Tjahzi

Nej, till skillnad från tyska och norska så är verbet alltid _ha_.

Also, I have some additional comments regarding Google searches. When I try (from Google.se), _Vad har h*ä*nt_ gets me 2 290 000 hits and _Va*d* hände_ gives me 3 200 000 hits. (Mind the spelling.)


----------



## cocuyo

It might be noted, that in Swedish, colloquially we often prefer to use a different way of saying it with two sentences, one with a reflexive pronoun: "Vad är det som har hänt?" or "Vad var det som hände?". The first of those options has over five million hits on Google.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Tjahzi said:


> And since, as cocuyo says, the situation in Egypt is still to be considered ongoing (or maybe one should say, by the speaker considered) the *past imperfect* is preferable.


Why do you use the expression *past imperfect?* I have never seen it in print. Did you find it in an English grammar? Actually the English simple past is neutral in its perfective vs imperfective aspect. I believe the same is the case with the Swedish past tense (preteritum).


----------



## enion

Is the verb "ha" in present perfect in (I'm guessing) informal speech ever omitted, leaving just the supine? I'm pretty sure I noticed this before but I might be making it up...

LIke in "fast du aldrig sagt ett ord" << "sagt" is supine, isn't it?


----------



## cocuyo

#11 That verb (ha) is frequently omitted in informal speech, and it is often omitted in more formal texts too. Journalists do it wholesale.


----------



## Ben Jamin

cocuyo said:


> #11 That verb (ha) is frequently omitted in informal speech, and it is often omitted in more formal texts too. Journalists do it wholesale.


 But only in subordinate clauses, not in the main clause, isn't it so?


----------



## cocuyo

Ben Jamin said:


> But only in subordinate clauses, not in the main clause, isn't it so?



I think I committed an error in my previous post. 

The auxiliary verb is almost never excluded in speech. And as Ben Jamin points out, in texts, it is omitted in secondary clauses.


----------



## Tjahzi

Ben Jamin said:


> Why do you use the expression *past imperfect?* I have never seen it in print. Did you find it in an English grammar? Actually the English simple past is neutral in its perfective vs imperfective aspect. I believe the same is the case with the Swedish past tense (preteritum).


Good point.

Well, I grew up learning that there was "presens", "imperfekt" and "perfekt", and when I had finally learned those, I was told that "imperfekt" was in fact "preteritum", a term which I was not eager to adopt. After all, to me, it seemed like there was just "now" and "various forms of past" anyway. However, as I later on in life have gained an interest in these subjects, I've more or less come to adopt (or at least understand) the old definition. As such, the above was an attempt to revive one of these old terms in order to explain the situation of an incomplete vs complete action in the past. However, neither am I very pleased with the result.

Having studied some Slavic languages, I'm inclined to draw some parallels. Technically, it seems to me that Swedish preterite should correspond to the past tense of Slavic imperfective verbs (_покупал_-, _kupował_-). However, the fact that both perfective and imperfective Swedish verbs can be used in both perfect and preterite is problematic. If we take the pair _säga/prata_ (which could be said to be one of few true "aspectual pairs" found in Swedish). The imperfective _prata_ in the perfect "tense" _- (har) pratat_ does not in anyway equal the imperfect/preterite of the perfective säga - _sa_. 
Sometimes, I'm tempted to consider preterite to be "present perfect" (after all, it's formed with a modal verb in the present tense and they describe an action that is completed), then, the "past imperfect" would be pluperfect. Then again, the Slavic "present perfect(ive)" indicates future rather than past, so our preterite falls in between again. 
To sum up, I'm neither satisfied with our system nor my attempt to describe it. Could this be the difference between grammatical and lexical aspect, or perhaps telicity? Or just one big concoction of various rudimentary TAM-related nuances. (As a Slavic speaker, maybe you could help my shed some light on the subject? )

I wish we had a Slavic-like system.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Tjahzi said:


> Good point.
> 
> Well, I grew up learning that there was "presens", "imperfekt" and "perfekt", and when I had finally learned those, I was told that "imperfekt" was in fact "preteritum", a term which I was not eager to adopt. After all, to me, it seemed like there was just "now" and "various forms of past" anyway. However, as I later on in life have gained an interest in these subjects, I've more or less come to adopt (or at least understand) the old definition. As such, the above was an attempt to revive one of these old terms in order to explain the situation of an incomplete vs complete action in the past. However, neither am I very pleased with the result.
> 
> Having studied some Slavic languages, I'm inclined to draw some parallels. Technically, it seems to me that Swedish preterite should correspond to the past tense of Slavic imperfective verbs (_покупал_-, _kupował_-). However, the fact that both perfective and imperfective Swedish verbs can be used in both perfect and preterite is problematic. If we take the pair _säga/prata_ (which could be said to be one of few true "aspectual pairs" found in Swedish). The imperfective _prata_ in the perfect "tense" _- (har) pratat_ does not in anyway equal the imperfect/preterite of the perfective säga - _sa_.
> Sometimes, I'm tempted to consider preterite to be "present perfect" (after all, it's formed with a modal verb in the present tense and they describe an action that is completed), then, the "past imperfect" would be pluperfect. Then again, the Slavic "present perfect(ive)" indicates future rather than past, so our preterite falls in between again.
> To sum up, I'm neither satisfied with our system nor my attempt to describe it. Could this be the difference between grammatical and lexical aspect, or perhaps telicity? Or just one big concoction of various rudimentary TAM-related nuances. (As a Slavic speaker, maybe you could help my shed some light on the subject? )
> 
> I wish we had a Slavic-like system.


The Slavic verb system (practically all Slavic languages except Bulgarian) has only to true tenses: present and past. Each action (99,9%) can be described using a verb which is either perfective or imperfective. It is the verb itself that has the aspect, it is a so called lexical aspect. 
The imperfective verbs can express present and past actions, the perfective verbs only past and future.

The so called future tense has two forms: the perfective actions are expressed using the present form of the perfective verbs, the imperfective actions using a perifrastic construction consisting of the auxiliary verb to be, and the an old past participle or the infinitive of an imperfective verb.
Complicated? 
Lets take an example of Polish:
Infinitive: pić – imperfective (to drink)
Infinitive: wypić – perfective (to drink up)
*Present:* piję (I drink)
*Past: *
piłem - I was drinking, I drank (habitually)
Wypiłem – I drank up
*Future:*
wypiję – perfective I shall drink up
będę pił (będę pić) – imperfective I will drink, I will be drinking, I will have drunk
This is the system in a simplified form. 
When a Slavic speaker comes over a verb in simple past in English (or in preteritum in Swedish or Norwegian) he is usually uncertain if the verb should be translated as perfective or imperfective, but there is no way, one must be chosen. Both simple present and preteritum are ambiguous in this respect, they have no perfective aspect marker. The context can help:
I drank a glass of water -perfective
I drank milk when I was young - imperfective.
The same will be valid expressed in a Scandinavian language.
There is, however, another way of indicating aspect: lexical aspect.
This phenomenon is usually not addressed by English or Scandinavian grammarians, but it exists: the Germanic verbs have also lexical aspect, some of them can even be arranged in aspectual pairs:
Example: drink/drink up, sleep/fall asleep, 
Other verbs are either strongly pefective: to be born, to die, to kill, to fall, to put, to appear, or strongly imperfective: to understand, to think, to stay, 
Other verbs can be ambiguous. 
The difference between the Slavic and the Anglo-Scandinavian lexical aspect is that the latter is not put into a system, and the speakers are not aware of it.

Taking all this into consideration, it is a surprise that you regard the Swedish preteritum as purely imperfective.


----------



## Tjahzi

Ehm, did you read my post? 

I _am_ familiar with the Slavic aspect system. I do _not_ consider Swedish preterite to be purely imperfective.

My problem is that I'm not satisfied with the current definition, nor am I able to come up with one of my own that I find adequate. (Also, for the record, I dismissed my above labeling of perterite as "past imperfective".) As such, I turned to you, as a Slavic speaker, assuming you know Swedish well enough/Swedish and Norwegian are similar enough, in order to maybe get some input on how to view the Scandinavian tense/aspect system. 

In short, my question was not in regards to Slavic languages, but to Swedish (and Norwegian). Or, is it so that you are perfectly satisfied with current terminology?


----------



## Ben Jamin

Tjahzi said:


> Ehm, did you read my post?
> 
> I _am_ familiar with the Slavic aspect system. I do _not_ consider Swedish preterite to be purely imperfective.
> 
> My problem is that I'm not satisfied with the current definition, nor am I able to come up with one of my own that I find adequate. (Also, for the record, I dismissed my above labeling of perterite as "past imperfective".) As such, I turned to you, as a Slavic speaker, assuming you know Swedish well enough/Swedish and Norwegian are similar enough, in order to maybe get some input on how to view the Scandinavian tense/aspect system.
> 
> In short, my question was not in regards to Slavic languages, but to Swedish (and Norwegian). Or, is it so that you are perfectly satisfied with current terminology?


 Well. I misinterpreted your question. I am not a linguist, so it is difficult for me to judge the correctness of the grammar terminology. The Slavic and the Germanic languages have verb systems that are quite different. In the Slavic languages the perfective aspect is central, in the Germanic the aspect of time sequence is more important. I have been familiar with the English tense names from time immemorial, and I think that they are not confusing. The present perfect renders the function well, I think. It would be better maybe to use the same name in the Scandinavic languages, as the morfology is practically identical, and function very similar.  It would be may be better if the name was changed from perfektum to something meaning the same as present perfect "presens perfektum/fullført nåtid".
The simple past is also a good name (simple = not compound). Preteritum, which means simple past, on the other hand, is more difficult to grasp, as it is nor self explanatory for native Scandinavian speakers. If anybody would consider changing the name, I would propose "preteritum indefinitum/ubestemt fortid".


----------



## hanne

<Please stay on topic: What's the difference in usage of "vad hände" and "vad har hänt" when used in Swedish. Thanks.>


----------



## Tjahzi

Sorry hanne. However, I must stress, in order to understand and explain that difference, we must understand and explain the parts. Finding adequate definitions is a part of that work.

(I'll come back to the subject.)


----------

