# 到着している...消さなくてはならない



## Tony100000

Someone is watching TV about some crime that had happened hours ago. That person started to speculate something:


> 警察は　事件発生から 平均１７分で到着*している*。それまでに　犯人は姿を消さ*なくてはならない*。
> Police arrived 17 minutes after the incident occurence. Until that moment, the criminal must have been hiding.



I tried to translate it, but I'm not sure if I'm correct. The person uses "している" and "なくてはならない" which express Present, but the action ocurred in the Past. I'm a bit confused about this.


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## DaylightDelight

I think the speaker is using the present tense because he/she is speaking as he/she is watching TV.
And this している describes a habitual fact;
 On average the police force usually arrives in 17 minutes.  The culprit has to disappear by then.


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## frequency

Police arrived
"The police arrive"



Tony100000 said:


> The person uses "している"


This している is interchangeable with する. So this している isn't the present progressive.

平均
He is not talking about the crime scene you're watching. He's talking about the average time the police use to arrive.



Tony100000 said:


> "なくてはならない"


Try "must leave".


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## karlalou

> The person uses "している" and "なくてはならない" which express Present, but the action ocurred in the Past. I'm a bit confused about this.


Do you mean that the tense suddenly change to present in the middle of past tense?

This している is talking about a statistics based on past events, so していた might work, but, in Japanese, we often describes a past event as a present fact or a present state:
彼はここで怪我をした and 彼はここで怪我をしている mean the same.
私はもう食事を済ませた and 私はもう食事を済ませている mean the same.
We are very much ready to take this kind of shift in tense, from a narrative talking about what's happened in past tense to a logical speculation in present tense.

This なくてはならない is, on the other hand, talking about a thing to do from now, so, I think, there's not much choice but it should be in present tense.


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## frequency

The TV announcement suddenly does


karlalou said:


> this kind of shift in tense


Yes, in order to say the police (on the TV program, maybe the policemen in the police station somewhere) averagely arrive at the scene in 17 minutes.

The present tenses are used in the OP. It does not indicate any specified/individual case. It says how they usually come quickly so he must leave soon. 
But


> 彼はここで怪我をした and 彼はここで怪我をしている
> 私はもう食事を済ませた and 私はもう食事を済ませている


They're specified/individual cases.


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## karlalou

> The present tenses are used in the OP. It does not indicate any specified/individual case. It says how they usually come quickly so he must leave soon.
> But
> 彼はここで怪我をした and 彼はここで怪我をしている
> 私はもう食事を済ませた and 私はもう食事を済ませている
> They're specified/individual cases.


What a unique perspective.
I'm afraid specified or individual is nothing to do with tense. 

The shift in tense happened because the part is about something the speaker consider as a present fact, and している particular as a present state. 

The things are that even though the number, "average 17 min." is based on past events, we can describe a past event as a present fact or state, and this is the point I made in my previous post because the OP's question seems to be about this.

It's not because it's about the police. It's not because it's about an unspecified something.

In the following case, past or present both work fine:
どこでも２，３日くらいでできてい*た*んだから、ここでもそれくらいでできるだろう。
どこでも２，３日くらいでできてい*る*んだから、ここでもそれくらいでできるだろう。
These are about ordering binding files or dry cleaning or alterations, or anything else. There's no significant difference in degree of specificness or individualness from the OP's case.


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## Flaminius

姿を消さなくてはならない
Japanese often uses non-past for a general, logical, or hypothetical statement.  In this context, the detective is inferring how what happened happened (whodunnit).  The murder, or whatever the crime is, has already happened and belongs to the realm of the past.  Yet, when one recounts the event in terms of assumptions and conclusions, one usually speaks using non-past forms.  I think I am not so far away from *Frequency*'s position.  Another example of non-past forms for the past is an always true statement about the deceased:
エドワード8世は、エリザベス2世の伯父である。

平均17分で到着している
This is more difficult to interpret without context.  In general, _teiru_-forms are preferred over the citation forms when the speaker wants to emphasize the custom, trend, or the tendency is a recent one.


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## frequency

karlalou said:


> どこでも２，３日くらいでできてい*た*んだから、ここでもそれくらいでできるだろう。
> どこでも２，３日くらいでできてい*る*んだから、ここでもそれくらいでできるだろう。
> These are about ordering binding files or dry cleaning or alterations, or anything else. There's no significant difference in degree of specificness or individualness


そうだよ！
ただ、ＯＰで　「警察は事件発生から 平均１７分で到着*していた*。」にすると、「今までそうしていた」のように聞こえるよ。


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## animelover

Flaminius said:
			
		

> This is more difficult to interpret without context.



The quote is from Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal, Episode 21, 遊馬vsお掃除ロボット オボミ. A man commits theft with the aid of public service cleaning robots he can turn into evil mode with a remote control. On their escape, one of the robots goes amiss. The main protagonist, Yuuma, finds the robot, befriends it and names it Obomi. Some time later, the criminal commits another theft and Obomi vanishes during the night from Yuuma's house, being called to action by the remote control. The next day, Yuuma is shown footage of the robbery by his sister Akari, recognizes Obomi and intends to save it from the criminal's evil clutches. Astral, a "spirit" from supposedly another world that only he can see, gives him advice on how to locate the criminal's hideout and says the sentence of the question.

The scene with Astral, Yuuma and his sister Akari, a freelancer journalist, proceeds as follows:


アストラル*「警察は事件発生から平均１７分で到着している。それまでに　犯人は姿を消さなくてはならない。」*
…
遊馬「それって…」
アストラル「犯行現場から17分の移動圏内を特定し、それがすべてまじわる箇所に犯人の潜伏地点がある可能性が高い。」


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## Flaminius

The text seems to say that this man committed theft a few times. The police have responded to the crimes within 17 minutes on average.  So this figure is not a general statistics on every crime in the city.  The preference of 到着している over 到着する matches the specific phrame of reference in the text.


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## SoLaTiDoberman

The speaker generalized the pattern, which seems the repeating "fact,"
so they adopted the present tense to refer the pattern/fact which would last from the past to the future.

*
「警察は事件発生から平均１７分で到着している。それまでに　犯人は姿を消さなくてはならない。」*

＝「*（これまでのこの犯人による事件を振り返ると）*警察は事件発生から平均17分で*到着していた。*それまでに犯人は姿を消さなくては*ならなかった。おそらくこれから起きる同一犯による事件においても*警察は平均17分で*到着するであろうし、*それまでに犯人は姿を消さなくては*ならないだろう。*」


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## frequency

karlalou said:


> 彼はここで怪我をした and 彼はここで怪我をしている


Good catch, karla! This shift from past to present makes sense. I thought that the TV programme was a documentary one such as 警察２４時

 
and the announcement was used in a fictional simulation.

Actually, it was a specified/individual crime scene where the police took about 17 minutes to arrive. The 17 minutes is still their time to take usually. And you know the characters are _now_ analyzing the flow by reviewing the scene―it's the past event.

What the characters are doing is "taking it (past event) back to the present".


SoLaTiDoberman said:


> ＝「*（これまでのこの犯人による事件を振り返ると）*警察は事件発生から平均17分で*到着していた。*それまでに犯人は姿を消さなくては*ならなかった。*


So the shift from this していた to している is reasonable because they're analyzing the scene to make a hypothesis. For these reasons, "なくてはならない" is in the present tense at the same time. This している is a bit special usage, a difficult one.
 (Cross-post with Doberman)


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## karlalou

It's just showing whichever, specific or not, it works.
It was presented as OP's version of context.


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