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I think that what is behind this discussion is the difference between the imperfect tense of verbs and the perfect or some other preterite tense.
Most of the Indo-European languages I am familiar with have subtle differences in the various tenses which are used for an action which took place in some past time, whether a thousand years ago or five minutes ago. This is not well understood by English speakers who know no foreign languages, since English does not have, or use, as many past tenses.
The imperfect tense indicates a repeated or habitual action. Andava ogni settimana al ginnasio. He went [used to go] to the gym every week.
The perfect tense indicates an action which is completed, over and done with. Ich habe es ganz gegessen. I ate [have eaten] the whole thing.
There is also the pluperfect, which expresses a time prior to a past tense. I had not foreseen that result.
Different Indo-European languages have various tenses for use as a narrative past tense, or a distant past tense. These are not generally used in the spoken language.
The champion is classical Greek, which has not only the usual complement of past tenses, but also a special set called the aorist tenses, all past tenses, the subtle significance of which escapes me.
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I don't think we should use its lack of separate verb forms to dismiss English's ability to handle subtleties in tense. We do wonders with auxiliary verbs. I used to go to Paris, I had gone to Paris, I have gone to Paris, I was going to Paris and I had been going to Paris all mean quite different things.
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Can you tell me when and why Americans, especially, began using "do you have" and "have you got" instead of "have you"? (I assume "do" is related to the German word "tun".)
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Heavens, Faldage, far be it from me to denigrate the ability of English to handle verb tenses without the array of verb forms which other languages have and which, for that matter, Old English had. Modern English is probably just as good as Classical Greek for its ability to express ideas with precision, subtlety and color. It just uses different methods. These methods, however, do not lend themselves to being arranged in a nice neat table which can, with a lot of trouble, be memorized, the way we classical scholars had to memorize all those tables for Latin and Greek nouns and verbs. It is because of this that English is an easy language to learn up to a point but one of the world's most difficult languages to master. (Many native speakers never master it.) I'm sure it's the fact that it's relatively easy to learn up to a point which has made English the most popular second language on Earth and the nearest thing we have to a universal language.
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As far as that goes, the little classical Greek kids didn't learn their language from carefully crafted tables any more than modern English speaking kids learn theirs from text books. We all just do what, as the perennially MIA Xara would put it, tastes right.
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Well, you're right, of course, Faldage. Certainly little Greek and Roman children didn't learn the basics of the language out of books, although there certainly must have been a lot of little rules children would be admonished with while learning the language. After all, we have to correct children to let them know that it's 'feet', not 'foots' and that kind of thing, and later on get in the i before e except after c rule. I would imagine that parents, or tutors, spent lots of time correcting little Iphegenia or Marcus when they had the gender of something wrong, or some such. It would seem that they learned all the inflections somehow, but how to use the various tenses, moods, etc. was a more serious matter.
The trivium or first 3 of the 7 ancient liberal arts and sciences, consisted of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic. Basic grammar was learned as a child, but rhetoric and logic were learned from tutors. St. Augustine was a professional rhetor and tutor before he got religion. From him you would learn matters such as progression of tenses, when the subjunctive is needed and what tense; in Greek, the use of the middle voice (non-existent in Latin) and the Aorist tenses, etc. Logic came last, as you had to know how to express yourself before you took up how to make sense. Sure wish some of our leaders had had such an education.
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Bob is right, of course, about the way that well-to-do or patrician children learned their language. But the mass of Roman children (well, let's say Latin-speaking children anyway) probably never went near a school. And they probably mangled the Latin language about as badly as ill-educated people do the English language today.
It's actually getting worse than it was twenty years ago. I understand they don't actually teach grammar in most schools these day because it's seen as prescriptivist and therefore totally unPC. But you can imagine what it does to the quality of the English language, can't you?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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you can imagine what it does to the quality of the English language
Really. Next thing you know folks won't be using all the proper case endings on nouns, adjectives won't match their nouns in case and gender. Lawsy knows how we'll be able to understand anything anyone says.
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Lawsy knows how we'll be able to understand anything anyone says.
What makes you think we do now?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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What makes you think we do now?
Ic nat Že Žu secgest
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