Re: CHAT: relative tense

Boudewijn Rempt wrote:

> Fabian <rhialto@...> wrote:
> > I'm told that Mandarin Chinese doesn't mark tense unless necessary for
> > comprehension, so a glossed sentence might read:
> >
> > year 1939 Hitler invade Poland.
> 1939 nian Hitlar dasuan Poland (if I'm correct - it's been a decade since I
> studied Chinese),
For "invade", I'd opt for "qin1lu"e4". "Dasuan" isn't ringing any bells
except for "plan" (da3suan4) and "garlic" (da4suan1).

but there's a nice particle, -le, that can be added to a verb
> to add a
> 'perfective' meaning (or a host of other meanings [1]). It's a bit of stumbling block for people
> learning Chinese - they tend to put -le after each and every non-present verb...
Since there's a good deal of overlap, at least translation-wise, between
a simple past and the Chinese perfective, it's an understandable
pitfall.

Kou