# Norwegian: preteritum/perfektum



## Huffameg

Hei, 

eg har ein ven som påstår at det ikkje finst reglar for når ein nyttar preteritum og når ein nyttar perfektum på norsk. Eg er ute av stand til å rekonstruere ein slik regel, men eg tykkjer likevel det er vanskeleg å skulle akseptere at ein slik regel ikkje finst i det heile. 

Er det nokon av dykk som veit noko?


----------



## Magb

Forskjellen sies vanligvis å være at preteritum framhever ei handling i fortida som en avsluttet prosess, mens perfektum framhever de nåtidige konsekvensene av handlinga. Det klassiske eksempelet er "å spise". "Jeg spiste" sier ganske enkelt at du spiste på et ubestemt tidspunkt i fortida. Det kan være fem minutter siden, eller fem år siden. "Jeg har spist", derimot, vil nesten alltid bety at du spiste forholdsvis nylig, og at konsekvensene fortsatt er merkbare. (Med andre ord: du er fortsatt mett.)


----------



## kirsitn

Vanskelig spørsmål, og jeg vet heller ikke om noen absolutt regel, men eksemplene jeg kommer på tyder på at det i alle fall skilles mellom tidsrom som har utstrekning i tid og tidspunkt som er mer spesifikke;

Spørsmål som "Hva gjorde du i går/i fjor/forrige mandag?" krever preteritum, mens "Hva har du gjort siden i går/siden i fjor/de siste årene/siden sist?" krever perfektum.

"Hva har du gjort i dag?" stemmer ikke helt overens med "Hva gjorde du i går?", men man kan vel tolke det som at spørsmålet egentlig er en forkortelse av "Hva har du gjort i løpet av dagen i dag?" som er en form for tidsintervall.


----------



## Wilma_Sweden

På svenska fungerar det ungefär likadant: Om man specificerar en tidpunkt eller ett tidsintervall som har passerat när man talar, så blir det preteritum:
Vad gjorde du igår/förra julen/klockan fem/i morse/i somras/för fem minuter sedan.

Om man specificerar ett tidsintervall som fortfarande pågår när man talar, blir det perfekt:
Vad har du gjort idag/i sommar/den senaste timmen.

/Wilma


----------



## Cúrcuma

I hope I follow the right thread and I´m not too brave. If I understood correctly, you´re looking for a rule that sets when the preteritum is used and when the perfektum. In spanish we use 
Pretérito perfecto compuesto: I have done, Jeg har gjort, when the time in which the action is set is not finished, like today, this week, this year.

Pretérito perfecto simple: I did, Jeg gjorde, when the time of the action is finished, yesterday, last week, last year, once, 

I hope I was of any help. 
Ha det bra!


----------



## Linguanne

It is good to be brave when it comes to learning languages, Cúrcuma! So carry on being bold and brave - that's the only way to gain and learn from experience, don't you think?

The Spanish way of constructing (correct) sentences in past tenses is very neat and sound - and I have actually used it to try and figure out grammar in other languages (the concept of past tenses in yiddish, to be more precise. A fellow student using _his_ Italian skills supported my theory, but we were both ruled out by our (highly skilled) teacher.)... 

The thing is that Spanish and the other Romanic (or is it Latin?) languages are grammatically quite different from the Germanic languages. It is quite ingenious of you _(i.e., the Spanish speakers)_ to use _one_ past tense for completed actions, and reserve the other one for actions stretching over a longer period. ("I was singing a song when the dog started howling" translates roughly as _Cantaba una cancíon quando el perro empezó (well, ---howling---)_, right?) You can't do that in any of the Scandinavian languages, I'm afraid. Would have made it much simpler to learn Norwegian, Swedish or Danish if you could, perhaps?


----------



## Vikingo

Linguanne said:


> It is good to be brave when it comes to learning languages, Cúrcuma! So carry on being bold and brave - that's the only way to gain and learn from experience, don't you think?


 
That's the spirit!

What Cúrcuma did, though, was compare the Spanish "pretérito perfecto compuesto" with the "pretérito simple/indefinido". His conclusions seem accurate and very parallel to the distinction between "har spist" and "spiste", in this context. They are also in accord with what has been said by other people in this thread so far.

What you did in your post, however, was to compare the "pretérito simple/indefinido" with the "preterito imperfecto". That's another story . In Norwegian, the distinction between the (Spanish) imperfecto and the indefinido are blurred, unless we use modal verbs or rephrase the sentence.

Take care


----------



## Wilma_Sweden

Vikingo said:


> What you did in your post, however, was to compare the "pretérito simple/indefinido" with the "preterito imperfecto". That's another story . In Norwegian, the distinction between the (Spanish) imperfecto and the indefinido are blurred, unless we use modal verbs or rephrase the sentence.


I disagree - I saw, clearly, a comparison between pretérito perfecto compuesto and pretérito perfecto simple, which is not the same as indefinido. I don't know whether we would go too far off-topic by launching into a comparison between Spanish and Scandinavian tenses, so for now I'll just side with Cúrcuma. 

/Wilma


----------



## Vikingo

Wilma_Sweden said:


> I disagree - I saw, clearly, a comparison between pretérito perfecto compuesto and pretérito perfecto simple, which is not the same as indefinido.


 
Here are the Norwegian tenses in question, along with their Spanish counterparts:

Tense 1:
N: Presens perfektum: Jeg har spist.
S: Pretérito perfecto (compuesto) / pretérito perfecto actual / antepresente: He comido.

Tense 2:
N: Preteritum: Jeg spiste.
S: Pretérito perfecto simple / pretérito indefinido / pretérito perfecto absoluto: Comí.

Tense 3:
N: Preteritum or rephrasing: Jeg spiste, jeg holdt på å spise, jeg var i ferd med å spise, jeg brukte å spise.
S: Pretérito imperfecto / copretérito: Comía.

The names of the Spanish tenses depend on what grammar you're reading and where it's from .

My claim was that Cúrcuma compared tenses 1 and 2 above, while Linguanne unfortunately misunderstood her intentions and thought she compared tenses 2 and 3. I'm very unsure about what you're claiming, though, so feel free to send a PM or something as we're getting off topic.

On a related note, I do remember that once the Norwegian tense "preteritum" was called "imperfektum". Then it appeared to change one year, but hardly anyone noticed. So it's taken me around 30 years to find out how they're both equally good (or bad) .

Take care!


----------



## Wilma_Sweden

My previous comment was based on a misunderstanding. It is clear that we're comparing tenses 1 and 2 as in your above post. Tense 3 would be less applicable to the contexts discussed.

Having said that, it's impossible to discuss past tenses in Spanish_ in general_ without involving all three of them.

/Wilma


----------

