Perfect Aspect in Chinese and English (了 and past tense)

[Altair]

I like to read linguistic papers on how Chinese treats aspect and tense, which basically means how words like 了、过、者、在 are used. One controversy that seems to reappear from time to time is whether the following types of sentence are acceptable. Native speakers seem to disagree:

昨天我写了信，可是没写完。

昨天我写了一封信，可是没写完。

The intended meaning is: "I started writing a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it." The implication for the linguistic papers is that the use of 了in this case allegedly does not indicate completion of the action, but just that the action has started.

I find both Chinese sentences somewhat strange, but what do you think?

I also find some equivalent English translations of these phrases contradictory and unsettling. For instance,

I wrote a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it.

Does this sound okay to you, or is it contradictory?

In Chinese, I think I would be happy with:

昨天我写信了，可是没写完。

昨天我要写一封信，可是没写完。

Or in English with:

I was writing a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it.

What do you think?

[Tiana]

I believe there's something like "shorthand writing" and there's also "careful writing".

(I also believe there are people who like to mix things up )

[Shelley]

I wouldn't use:

 

" I wrote a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it."

 

Wrote is past tense and implies completion.

 

I would say "I started to write a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it." implying i stopped for whatever reason.

 

Or " I tried to write a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it." implying something stopped me.

 

And you can with all of these sentences start it with " Yesterday I started to write a letter, but didn't finish it." I don't think it is right or wrong in either order just preference..

 

I don't really like "I was writing a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it. I don't think it is wrong, it just doesn't sound natural to me.

 

It feels like a reason for not finishing should be given:-

 

"I was writing a letter yesterday, but my pen ran out of ink, so i didn't finish it,

 

I am not a qualified in any way in English grammar except for the fact that I have been speaking it for all my life- I was born in Canada, lived in USA, Scotland and England so I feel I have been exposed to a few ways of speaking English, But remember this is only my opinion and may be wrong.

[hedwards]

I'm with Shelley on this, for something like a letter, I'd never say "I was writing a letter yesterday, but didn't finish it".  Letters are short enough that people typically finish them. So, the correct English would be something like "I started writing a letter yesterday, but I didn't finish it". I might however say that yesterday I was writing my book, but I didn't complete it. But even there, I'd probably say working on my book, because that's more of a process or long term task.

 

Anyways, is this an actual controversy, or is this just a case where some people are doing something that's ungrammatical or idiomatic for one reason or another? My Chinese grammar is definitely not the best, but if the intention was to say that you were writing a letter, but didn't complete it, wouldn't you say it more or less the way we do in English? As in the letter writing was happening, but the letter wasn't completed?

[Michaelyus]

This is a meaty topic! I also find "I wrote a letter yesterday but didn't finish it" a non-grammatical utterance. What's interesting for me is what Shelley picked up on with regard to the past continuous being not natural and requiring further explanation. It's not just as simple as tense agreement, as the other sentence with the explanation also has past continuous + past simple: it seems to be a slightly higher level of syntax.

 

What do people make of the following sentence?

 

I was writing a letter yesterday, but didn't get to finish it.

 

 

 

@ hedwards: This is indeed a little bit of an academic debate, not just limited to Chinese linguistics. I'm just dabbling really, but it's to do with what aspect fundamentally means, especially what the perfective is, and how it relates to event "completion" vs "termination". 

 

Also, I think I'd be more comfortable calling this perfective aspect; English's perfect verb forms are usually seen as retrospective aspects rather than perfective aspects.

 

 

I found another angle on this:

 

我昨天写了信，可是没写完。

(as above, but paired with the following)

I did some letter writing yesterday, but I didn't finish.

 

The article mentions the countability of the object as a factor in the interpretation of 了. 

 

So if we change the 信 to something uncountable in English and in Chinese, e.g.:

 

我昨天写了作业，可是没写完。

 

I did some homework yesterday, but I didn't finish.

 

Would you use the past continuous "I was doing some homework" here? Would people use "get + [infinitive]" here? 

[Shelley]

Meaty topic indeed  

 

I think that the two sentences "I did some letter writing yesterday, but I didn't finish." and "I did some homework yesterday, but I didn't finish."

don't need the "but I didn't finish" as the "some" implies incompleteness.

 

 

"I was writing a letter yesterday, but didn't get to finish it." The "get" being a collective verb behaves as the reason you could not finish your letter.

I wouldn't use this, it sounds clumsy to me,"I was writing a letter yesterday, but was unable to finish it" would be more my choice if you didn't want to say why you couldn't finish.

 

The word get/got can always be replace with specific verb. For example I got over the fence can be I climbed over the fence, I got some bread can be I bought some bread  and if you didn't buy the bread you may have borrowed, been given it or stolen it but in every case get/got can be replaced.

 

As far as I am aware English is the only language to have such a collective verb. (I may well be wrong cos I don't know all the languages of the world but this is what i have been told)

 

My Chinese is at beginner/intermediate and I construct simple sentences in Chinese and use them one after another. I find that this leads to what seems like long rambling sentences, because I would say something like  Yesterday I wrote letters. My pen ran out of ink. I did not finish writing letters. My use and understanding of connecting words is poor and something I must work at things like because, so, if and therefore etc.

 

So thank you for making me realize I must put in more effort with this and take my Chinese to a more sophisticated level and use better syntax and sentence building.

 

Any one got any tips or book suggestion for improving this aspect of my spoken Chinese?.

[hedwards]

@Shelley, got is being used there primarily because the means by which the change of possession happened isn't considered important. It's a bit like the passive voice emphasizing things other than the doer.

 

As for the collective verb, I'm not sure what you're referring to. It's not a grammatical term that I've ever encountered and the phenomenon that you appear to be referring to is simply a case of people being lazy and/or imprecise with the language. Basically all languages have some sort of a verb that speakers fall back on when they can't be bothered to use the right one. It's just the way that language works, we don't all use the correct word every time, so things like this crop up. I wouldn't consider it to be a function of English so much as the fact that some English speakers get lazy and just use a generic word to replace more precise ones when the context makes it clear.

[Shelley]

I agree with you hedwards . It's just me being fussy. I try not to use get/got because I like to make my brain work.

Maybe a better name might be catch all verb. It is actually described as a transitive verb.

The entry in my dictionary is almost one whole column. In my big dictionary its even more.

Interestingly the word set has one of the biggest entries in dictionaries.

Apologies for going off topic.

[Tiana]

Like  the PO, I'd have liked to see some comments on the Chinese sentences but since no one has stepped forward, I'll put in a word and get it going

 

Unless we take them as short hand sentences produced in casual conversations and some elements have been omitted and understood in the context, but as they stand, I don't think any of the sentences are acceptable:

 

1. 昨天我写了信，可是没写完。

2. 昨天我写了一封信，可是没写完。

The 了 in these sentences tells us that the action has been accomplished (了 is not simply a past-tense marker), so the 2nd clause actually contradicts the 1st.

 

3. 昨天我写信了，可是没写完。

The same problem as with sentence 1 and 2, even if  了 is here used in a different mode of narration.

 

4. 昨天我要写一封信，可是没写完。

This sentence has a problem in connecting the 1st clause with the 2nd. They don't relate. The least I'd do to improve it is to drop the  完 at the end.

[Michaelyus]

I'll put my my own judgements forward now.

 

I was writing a letter yesterday, but didn't get to finish it.

For me, the English with "get" is so semantically bleached that it would be something that I'd say naturally. But I'd agree in formal discourse it'd be avoided, and a more content-heavy verb would replace it.

 

Now for the Chinese:

 

昨天我写了信，可是没写完。

Seriously, I actually don't mind this too much. It's ambiguous, sure, but I don't feel it's necessarily contradictory.

 

昨天我写了一封信，可是没写完。

Not problematic at all. Certainly something I'd say. Relatively casual (I feel I'd drop 我 most of the time I'd say this).

 

昨天我写信了，可是没写完。

Odd, but I would not find it ungrammatical. It needs the right context, that's all. E.g. important covering letters that have been delayed and delayed for ages, and finally some progress.

 

昨天我要写一封信，可是没写完。

Really odd. Borderline grammaticality. I'm not sure that I'd ever say that. 

[Altair]

Thanks for the thoughts.

 

The original context I was imagining for this exchange was someone leaving a companion at home and then returning and asking what the other person had done or was doing during the absence.  If I had stayed home and written a few paragraphs of a letter, but hadn't finished, I don't think I could say: "I wrote a letter, but I didn't finish."  Saying: "I wrote a letter" seems to imply some level of completion of a finished product that is not satisfied by writing only a few paragraphs.  If you disagree, imagine the answer was "I wrote an email, but didn't finish it."  Would you still find nothing odd about stringing these two phrases together?

 

I also would not say: "I started writing a letter," because that implies too little accomplishment.  Saying it that way could mean that I maybe got pen and paper, but never wrote even the first word.

 

I could definitely say: "I wrote a few paragraphs of a letter," but this seems overly specific if the question was aimed more at finding out what type of activity I had engaged in than a full accounting of my time.

 

I find in English, if I reply to such questions with sentences such as "I read the book," "I read an email," "I wrote a poem," "I did my homework," the question of completion is always technically ambiguous; however, often there is such a strong implication of "natural completion" that I feel I could not answer in this way if I had not see the activity to completion.

 

Suppose a girl has done only half her homework and then begins to watch some TV.  Then the girl's parents return home from dinner, see her watching TV, and ask her: "Did you do your homework?  The question is technically ambiguous; but if the girl simply replies "yes," I would say that she is being so disingenuous that she is lying.  In this context "did you do your homework" is equivalent to "did you finish doing your homework."  Curiously, asking: "Did you do homework?" with an indefinite object clear means "did you do some homework?" and has no implication of finishing anything.  Also, if the question had been: "What did you do while we were away?," I think answering: "I did my homework" also has no implication of completion.

 

Whether there is a feeling of completion seems to depend on whether the object is felt to be definite and what the normal expectation is for such an activity during the time frame in question; however, the English past tense never seems to force an understanding of completion by itself.  It simply claims that an activity terminated in the past, completed or not, or that an activity or state was true at some time in the past.

 

Chinese has no past tense and is said to have markers of aspect that include markers of completion.  If I say, 我写了信, what have I completed?  If your answer is "some letter writing," then why are such short sentences so rare in Chinese without some followup clause that describes the endpoint?  If I say 我写了一封信, must this not imply a completed letter (perhaps subject to revision and expansion)?  Can half a letter be called 一封信?

 

In English, if I say: "Yesterday, I read a book, then I went out to dinner," whether the entire book is read is not important to the communication and whether I read the entire book is unaddressed and ambiguous.  I could have read only a few pages.  I could have read the entire book.

 

In Chinese, if I say: "我昨天看了一本书就出去吃饭, is it ambiguous as to whether I finished the entire book?  Could I have read only a few pages?

[cagriseda]

I am not sure but i remember a sentence about “了”。If something has started, and finished that day but goes on the other days, then we put "了” at the END OF THE sentence. If it's completely finished we put it RIGHT AFTER THE verb. Can we say so?

What is the position situation. Is it changes the meaning of the sentence according to the position on the sentence.