Re: THEORY: Temporal Auxiliaries, Aspectual Auxiliaries, Modal Auxiliaries

Ray Brown wrote:

>>--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, # 1 <salut_vous_autre@H...> wrote:
>[snip]
>>>In French:
>>>
>>>J'aurais mangé = I'd have eaten
>>>
>>>The auxiliary "avoir" caries Past Tense, Perfective Aspect, and
>>>Conditionnal
>>>Mode
>
>No - the French forms with _avoir_ (or _être_, see below) are not so clear
>cut. Consider _j'ai mangé_; it may mean:
>- I ate - simple past indicative
>- I have eaten - present perfect indicative.
>
Yeah I know that fact, it's true since the "simple past" got out of usage in
French because that tense where only for progressive past but now, the
"composite past" carries progressive past and perfect past

>The past perfect is _j'avais mangé_ "I had eaten".
>
>With _j'ai mangé_ all we can say, I think, is that the auxiliary carries
>the mood (indicative). If the phrase is understood with the perfect
>meaning, the the auxiliary may be considered as also carrying the tense
>(present), while the participle carries the aspect (perfect). If however it
>means "I ate" then we must surely say that the auxiliary & participle form
>a composite past tense.
>
>Just to confuse things, the simple past in English and the French composite
>past tense does have a perfective meaning. But as Trask says:
>"NOTE: be careful not to confuse perfective aspect with perfect aspect;
>they are entirely distinct."
>
I'd like to know in what they are different.

I'm sorry, I use these terms but never thought they might mean different
things...

>>>
>>>But this is the only only one I can think of since the other French
>>>examples
>>>I know carry only 2 of them with the third represented by a zero
>>>marking,
>>>like "J'aurai mangé" = "I'll have eaten" that carries future tense
>>>and
>>>perfect aspect and in which the indicative mood is implied but not
>>>marked
>
>I agree with perfect aspect and, possibly, future tense. Also with
>_j'aurais mangé_ the aspect is perfect, not perfective. But we have to
>remember that _j'aurais_ is the past form of _j'aurai_ (it has the same
>endings as the imperfect tense),
"j'aurais" et "j'aurai" are not even at the same mode. May you explain how
they could could be forms differienced only by tense?

>and is used not only in conditions but also to express the "shifted future"
>just as "would" is used in English:
>il dit qu'il l'aura mangé  --> il a dit qu'il l'aurait mangé
>he says he will eat it     --> he said  he would eat it.
>
I'd rather translate "il dit qu'il l'aura mangé" as "he says he will have
eaten it" and "il a dit qu'il l'aurait mangé" as "he said he would have
eaten it",

The equivalents for "he says he will eat it" and "he said he would eat it"
would rather be "il dit qu'il va le manger" and "il a dit qu'il le
mangerais"

In that case of "shifted future with will-would changing it's made by using
"simple futur with "will" and "present conditionnal" with would

>I will say no more than that it could be argued that the stem aur- denotes
>_irrealis_ mood  :)
>
Isn't indicative realis?

Because "I will have eaten", "j'aurai mangé"("future antérieur",
perfect(ive?) future) is indicative and realis because it is a fact, I
anounce that I will have eaten at some moment

For subjonctive, yes, aur- is on an irrealis conjugation but since it is
also for simple futur it can't be said that it marks that it is irrealis

>[snip]
>>(It occurred to me after my original post that the participle used in
>>French's passe' compose' might be not an active participle but a past
>>participle.
>
>It is in fact the _perfect passive_ participle.
>
The name is really the "past participle" but I think that it is only perfect
but not passive

Like in "j'ai mangé", "mangé" is not passive because it has a passive form:
"j'ai été mangé"

>>English's participles are best distinguished as passive
>>vs. active, but I don't know that that's true for French.)
>
>Exactly the same. If however French uses the perfect _active_ participle
>then the auxiliary _must_ be être and not avoir; also the participle must
>agree with the subject:
>je suis venu = I came; I have come
>
>If I were female, then I should write _je suis venue_.
>
I don't think it has anything to do with activeness-passiveness, it is
simply that some verbs take the "être" auxiliary but the majority "avoir",
"venir" simply is one of those who takes "être"

But that part of the post is the one I'm the less sure of.. I've never read
about a distinction of English participles as active or passive, I've always
tought that a participle is active unless being used with "been" like
"eaten"-"been eaten"

>>>The situations in which one tense, or one aspect, or one mood,
>>>is "marked by zero", or "unmarked", makes questions such as this one
>>>yet more interesting, and answering them yet more complicated; or at
>>>least I think so.
>
>Not really per_se. The problems with interpreting the French examples are
>however interesting, as I have shown above  ;)
>
I hope I've not comited to much mistakes in what I said...

- Max

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