Re: time distinctions

On Wed, 23 Aug 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> 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?
It indicates that the event mentioned in the sentence is complete, without
particularly stating that it is in the past.  Most complete events
*are* in the past, in the nature of things, but it's possible to
refer to complete events in the present or even the future as well.

> (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.)
Sure.  If you're interested, grab Li & Thompson's _Mandarin Chinese:
A Functional Reference Grammar_, which gives a great treatment ofa
Chinese-as-spoken grammar.  It uses pinyin exclusively, which makes
it accessible to people who can't read Chinese (like me).

The Lojban reference grammar is modeled after it.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
"[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]"
        --Eric Raymond