Re: time distinctions

From: "H. S. Teoh"

> On Fri, Aug 25, 2000 at 08:17:16PM -0700, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
> [snip]
> > English's experiential perfect "have you (ever)...?" translates as
V-guo:
> > Ni3 qu4guo (le) Fa4guo2 mei2you3?  "Have you (ever) been to France?
>
> FYI, some subdialects of Mandarin (yes, there *are* such things, gasp!)
> actually prefer guo2 to le2 to mark the past tense as well as perfect. One
> of my housemates habitually ask, "Ni3 che1 guo2 fan4 mei2?" for "Did you
> eat yet?"; but personally I would use guo2 for what you call the
> "experiential perfect".
This usage is common. Still, I tend to attach a perfective sense to it,
albeit not always necessarily experiential. To cite the hackneyed phrase
(especially when gauging the Chinese ability of foreigners),  "Ni3 chi1guo
fan4 mei2 a?" certainly carries the notion in English of "Djeet?", but I
rather prefer to think of it as "Have you eaten yet?" (and not, in this
context, as "Have you ever eaten before?"). How 'bout this example: Say I
happen to see a friend of mine walking out of a movie theatre where the
marquee reads 'Slasher 12', I run up and ask him: "Ni3 kan4le nei4bu4
dian4ying4 mei2?!" "Did you see that film?!" I can't see "-guo" working in
this situation. *But*, if I were meeting a co-worker in the office in a
following morning, say after a weekend, and someone mentioned they saw
'Slasher 12' over the weekend, then I would say "Ni3 kan4guo nei4bu4
dian4ying4 mei2?! Hao3 kong3bu4 ei!" "It still captures the meaining of
"Didja see that film?!" but the context is different, and doesn't
necessarily mean "Have you seen that film?", since we know that film *was*
seen over the weekend and we're not asking about an experience. Yes, there
is overlap, but usage doesn't always coincide.

> You're right in the progressive aspect to -zhe. I think it might be
> closest to think of it as a participle. Using the same example you used:
> Ta1 ku1zhe zou3le       He/she left, crying.
> Ta1 ku1zhe zou3         He/she leaves, crying.
>
> Using another example:
> Ta1men2 zou3zhe   tan2
> [they]  [walking] [chat]
> "They chat [while] walking", or "They, walking, are chatting."
In the second example, I'd be more inclined to say:

Tamen bian1 zou3 bian1 tan2. (Hokkien) In1 lu2 giaN5 lu2 kai1 gang2.
They were walking and chatting.

In the first example, "She was crying and leaving" sounds a little weird to
my ear, but I guess it could work? (Hokkien: I1 lu2 hao2 lu2 giaN5  ?)

> As to why you haven't heard -zhe being used: probably because it isn't
> used very much. In my experience, it occurs mainly in dramatic or poetic
> settings.
Well, yes. My point here was that this is hyped as a major grammar point in
first year Chinese texts for English speakers (like, a whole lesson) and
then once you hit the streets, it's non-existent.

> For me, I wouldn't use -zhe to indicate progressive aspect; I'd explicitly
> say something like "wo3 jen4jai4 tan2 jing2" - I am playing the piano.
> Literally, "I[wo3] am-currently[jen4jai4] play[tan2] piano[jing2]".
I don't know if this qualifies as aspect (I mean, I just don't *know*). That
feels more like an adverb to me. And you can truncate it to just "zai4": Wo3
zai4 tan2 qin2. Then the fun comes in for foreigners comes in, 'cause "zai4"
also means "again", of course. You have to rely completely on sentence
context and intonation to determine whether:

Wo3 zai4 tan2 qin2.

means "I'm playing the piano" or "I'm playing (I'll play) the piano again."
I guess for 'again', there's a little more stress on the "zai4", while for
just "it's happening", the "zai4" is lighter. It's fairly easy to
distinguish when listening, but I'd be hard pressed to describe the
difference. Natch, other dialects don't exhibit this particular ambiguity.

Kou