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Re: time distinctions

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Thursday, August 24, 2000, 2:23
On Wed, Aug 23, 2000 at 09:17:19PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
[snip]
> The perfect marker in Mandarin is "-le" (not the same as the sentence > marker "le" at the end of sentences).
Oh cool... yeah, now that you mention it, "-le" *is* a perfective marker. Though I've always thought of it as forming a past participle than a perfect tense. I guess it can be used in both contexts? (Sorry for seeming like I'm spouting out about something I don't know... that's the trouble with knowing a language by "gut feeling" vs. a systematic study of grammar.) T