# Is there a tendency toward compound past?



## Diaspora

Do you think there is a tendency toward discarding the simple past in Indo-European languages in favor of compound past? Why, is there some kind of a relationship?

Languages that have discarded the simple past in speech and or writing: 
French, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Belarussian.

Languages that perserve distinction between simple past and compound past:
Spanish, Poruguese, English, Swedish, Danish, Norweigen, Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian.

Languages in transition (compound past dominates but simple past is still sometimes used):
German, Dutch, Italian, Serbocroatian, Romanian.


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## Amante_de_limbi

Are you referring to using "I have seen you" instead of "I saw you"?


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## Hulalessar

Diaspora said:


> Languages that have discarded the simple past in speech and or writing
> 
> French, Russian...


 
French has certainly discarded the _passé simple_ in speech. However, whilst Russian has only one verb form to express the past, it is surely a simple rather than a compound tense.


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## OBrasilo

- Hulalessar: Technically, it's a compound, it's just, that the auxiliary verb used for it, is _быть_, which means _to be_. It just so happens, that that particular verb is nearly always omitted in Russian. On the other hand, Polish indeed formed a new simple past by re-analizing the compound (reversed, at that) as a new verbal contruction, such as: _widział jestem_ -> _widziałem_.


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## Frank06

Hi,

Interesting question, but I want to start with a remark about *Dutch *.



Diaspora said:


> Do you think there is a tendency toward discarding the simple past in Indo-European languages in favor of compound past? [...]
> Languages in transition (compound past dominates but simple past is still sometimes used):
> ... Dutch ...


Still sometimes? Both the 'simple past' (OVT, ik speelde, ik sprak) and the 'compound past' (VTT, ik heb gespeeld, ik heb gesproken) have quite different functions. I fail to see how Dutch would be 'in transition'.

On the other hand, could it be that of any kind of auxiliaries, e.g. to express past and remote past (plusquamperfectum), future, modality, etc., could have come into play too? I mean, one periphrastic construction (e.g. to express the past) triggering other similar constructions (modal auxiliary + infinite verb)? Just wondering aloud.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Diaspora

The Polish past is a compound past because of historical reasons, aorist and imperfect were dropped, the origin of the current Polish past is the reanalyzed Perfect which was compound, same as in Russian, even though it's now manifasted as simple.

Passe Simple (Franch), Passato Remoto (Italian), Aorist/Imperfect (Serbocroatian), Prateritum (German) are all becoming rarer. I don't know what's more common in Dutch.

http://books.google.com/books?id=B0...yj6dUF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2


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## sokol

It is true that many Indoeuropean languages abandoned simple past and use constructions with auxiliaries.

This is the case in many German dialects too: Bavarian/Austrian and Alemannian/Swabian completely have abandoned simple past, and in German standard language simple and compound past do not really differ in meaning anymore (there are plenty of threads about this topic in German forum ).

Also I think to remember that in Northern Italy there is a similar tendency, and then of course Slovenian has abandoned aorist and imperfect (except for Resia dialect) while both still are used in Croatian/Serbian but not by all speakers, and not consistently (again, plenty of threads about this in Other Slavic Languages forum. )

As all those languages abandoning simple past (those mentioned so far) are geographically neighbours this could be an area linguistic phenomenon which needn't have anything to do with internal IE developments (it might even have spread to Non-IE languages, or even have had its origin there).

That just as preliminary thoughts about that topic.  Unfortunately I don't know if linguists have researched this phenomenon already, on a comparative basis (there has been plenty of research centred on the individual languages).


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## brian

In Italy it depends on the region, but I guess you could say that standard Italian for most people does not include much _passato remoto_. For example, I can't really remember ever hearing _fu_ or _andai_ in conversation... except......

...when speaking with Tuscans. Tuscany is notorious for using _passato remoto_ for things occurring as recently as last week. Same goes for Sicily and some other southern regions.


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## Diaspora

I've also noticed that British English prefers the Present Perfect while American/Canadian English prefers the Simple Past in many cases.
(ex. Have you finished vs. Did you finish). And Brits avoid contractions, and use the verb "have" much more than "got".


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## jmx

In the discussion for Romance languages, a contrast between "passé simple" and "passé composé" types of tense does not complete the picture; there is also the "imparfait" type tense, which is a variant of past that seems to be quite alive and well at least in the languages I know (Spanish, Catalan and French).


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## Diaspora

http://alphalinguistica.sns.it/QLL/QLL95/PMBMSSimpleCompound.pdf


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## Sepia

Diaspora said:


> Do you think there is a tendency toward discarding the simple past in Indo-European languages in favor of compound past? Why, is there some kind of a relationship?
> 
> Languages that have discarded the simple past in speech and or writing:
> French, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Belarussian.
> 
> Languages that perserve distinction between simple past and compound past:
> Spanish, Poruguese, English, Swedish, Danish, Norweigen, Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian.
> 
> Languages in transition (compound past dominates but simple past is still sometimes used):
> German, Dutch, Italian, Serbocroatian, Romanian.


 

I don't know which people you are listening to - it doesn't seem to me that the French have discarded the passé simple, neither in speach nor in writing. Actually folks have be been telling me for some 30-35 years it were on the way out, but I don't see it happening.


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## berndf

Sepia said:


> I don't know which people you are listening to - it doesn't seem to me that the French have discarded the passé simple, neither in speach nor in writing. Actually folks have be been telling me for some 30-35 years it were on the way out, but I don't see it happening.


I have been living in French speaking countries for 20 year. And I have *not once *heard "il fut" from a native speaker in a colloquial conversation. And many (educated) native speakers confirmed to me that if you did you would hear something like "Tu peux pas parler normalement?".


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## Grop

The use of French passé simple is discussed in this fr-en thread. I would say it has almost disappeared from speech, but it is still useful in writing narration.


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## Sepia

berndf said:


> I have been living in French speaking countries for 20 year. And I have *not once *heard "il fut" from a native speaker in a colloquial conversation. And many (educated) native speakers confirmed to me that if you did you would hear something like "Tu peux pas parler normalement?".


 

Is that a regional or a "niche" thing? I have heard it used in normal speach, in Bruxelles as well as in Paris, and hear it regularly watching the cop shows on television. (When I initially started learning French I actually hoped I could sneak around learning the passé simple properly ... )


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## Pedro y La Torre

Sepia said:


> Is that a regional or a "niche" thing? I have heard it used in normal speach, in Bruxelles as well as in Paris, and hear it regularly watching the cop shows on television. (When I initially started learning French I actually hoped I could sneak around learning the passé simple properly ... )



I disagree, in my experience the passé simple is almost never used. You might hear "ce fut" once in a while, but otherwise it is practically never spoken.


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## dary

If I've understood the question correctly, I would say the *opposite *of what has been mentioned is the tendency in Spanish, because in Latin America (= over 90% of Spanish speakers) and even in some parts of Spain the simple past is used *instead *of the compound past in sentences like some of those mentioned above.


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## Sepia

I just browsed through a few French language martial arts forums - they are usually pretty much down to earth in their way of communicating. And guess what? I see people using the passé simple. 
So do the cops in my favorite cop show "PJ Saint Martin".

So if somebody never heard anyone use that tense in colloquial speach - maybe they only hear what they want to hear.


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## Epilio

dary said:


> If I've understood the question correctly, I would say the *opposite *of what has been mentioned is the tendency in Spanish, because in Latin America (= over 90% of Spanish speakers) and even in some parts of Spain the simple past is used *instead *of the compound past in sentences like some of those mentioned above.



That's right. Most of Spanish speakers use the simple past. In Spain is utilized in the North, above all in Galicia and Asturias I would say, given the fact that their vernacular languages, which don't have compound past, influenced the Spanish spoken in those regions.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Sepia said:


> So if somebody never heard anyone use that tense in colloquial speach - maybe they only hear what they want to hear.



In everyday speech I've really never heard it, even at the university I attend, it's never used (unless reading from a novel or something of the like).



Sepia said:


> And guess what? I see people using the passé simple.
> So do the cops in my favorite cop show "PJ Saint Martin".



I don't want to question your level of French but you've surely heard wrong. I am here with several native French speakers and they've just confirmed they have never heard le passé simple on television shows (especially on a show like P.J.).


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## Jocaste

Sepia said:


> So if somebody never heard anyone use that tense in colloquial speach - maybe they only hear what they want to hear.



Hi Sepia,

I think I am able to hear French perfectly well and I can assure you that no one ever uses the passé simple in a conversation. it is just too formal. Anyone hearing this would immediately say "pourquoi tu parles comme ça?".
You can definitely find the passé simple in novels, to tell a story etc but in a speech, listen to our ministers and president if you want, it's rather a formal register (sometimes) and even there, it's never used.


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## Erick404

I find this somewhat intriguing - why did the compound tenses become so common, if the speaker usually must pronounce 2 or 3 extra syllables?

In Portuguese, only the simple past (Pretérito Perfeito) is used; our compound tense in fact means something else: doing the verb's action many times.
_Tentei - *I tried / I have tried
*Tenho tentado - *I have been trying

*_I'm not sure, but I think that a Portuguese composed past tense, like in English or French, was used during the Medieval age, but it didn't survive.

Anyway, when it comes to the Past Perfect / Plus quam perfectum / Pretérito-mais-que-perfeito / call as you like it, we use only compound forms in spoken language, even having a single verb form. But it is still employed in literature, as the simple past of other languages.


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## Diaspora

In Serbo-Croatian the situation is opposite our Perfect developed into Simple Past even though it takes more to say it. While the Aorist (similiar to original simple past) and the Imperfect are becoming rarer but not extinct. We can only speculate why we see this move toward compound past in many languages (ex. French, German, Italian, Serbo-Croatian). I can't imagine speaking English without such distinction!


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## TitTornade

Erick404 said:


> I find this somewhat intriguing - why did the compound tenses become so common, if the speaker usually must pronounce 2 or 3 extra syllables?


 
Hello,
In French, simple past is not used in speech because it is considered to be too complicated and too ugly to hear. Moreover you need to know *six different forms* for each verb.
Je mangeai
Tu mangeas
Il, elle mangea
Nous mangeâmes
Vous mangeâtes
Ils, elles mangèrent

In compound past, you just need to know *one form *for the verb and to conjugate "avoir" or "être" in the present tense...
J'ai mangé
Tu as mangé
Il, elle a mangé
Nous avons mangé
Vous avez mangé
Ils, elles ont mangé

Here is the economy: not on the syllabe number but on the difficulties  

By the way, the imperfect is a simple past tense that is always used in speech... So the tendency in French is to *keep* and *forget* the simple past tenses


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