购买的

[陳德聰]

Sorry Shelley I was not directing my comments at you, I hope you didn't take my mentioning tense/aspect the wrong way. I am very much in the same boat as you in my confusion over OP asking about tense (though really it's about aspect) and then saying it's not about tense, and then returning to saying it is about tense again (though really really, it's about aspect).

[Pedroski]

{Just to be clear:

tense = (French) temps = (Latin) tempus = time

 

aspect = from PP of adspicere = ad + specere (related to 'spectacles') = to + look = from what direction you look at something (here: on a timeline)}

 

I didn't think of 在 as an aspect marker for continuous action. I need to digest that one a bit. Spanish uses 'estar = 在' like this, but would not call 'estar' an aspect marker. Do you think the continuous aspect in English is a result of using '-ing' or using 'am', or the combination of both?

 

【我正在看的书太好看。El libro que estoy leyendo es muy buena lectura. The book which I am reading is a very good read. Whereas Spanish and Chinese have this choice of 'be = 是， ser' or 'be in = 在，estar', English just has 'be', which has to make do for various functions. 】

 

I would not agree that 要 is an aspect marker. It simply says 'I want buy'. The logical fact that if you want it, desire it, you normally don't already have it could lead you to suppose this is a Future Tense statement. But my 'want' is right now, and as of yet unfulfilled.

[陳德聰]

要 does not just mean want. I think you might want to look up some threads on here where that's already been covered.

As for your Spanish comparison...

 

I think perhaps your understanding of aspect is a bit lacking. [estoy leyendo] is a present progressive (aspect) construction, where estoy has present inflection (tense) and leyendo is the present participle. Crucially, "estoy" which has present inflection is used for the present progressive, but it doesn't carry the aspect. It carries the tense. So to answer your question about English, yes a combination of both.

 

Mandarin, unlike Spanish and English, doesn't inflect verbs. So it uses markers like 在 instead. But Mandarin doesn't mark tense on verbs at all, which hopefully is not shocking to you at this point in your studies. 在 has nothing to do with tense. You can be 在吃-ing in the past, present, or future. It only speaks to the progressive nature of the action.

 

As for 要... You can disagree all you like that doesn't really change the way things are.

[Pedroski]

Perhaps you can elucidate then: Where on the timeline does 要 place me? Forward looking back? In the past looking forward?

[陳德聰]

On the reference point looking forward.

[Pedroski]

我要买的鞋子没有。This '要‘ is an aspect marker? Not a word with a meaning? ’我要睡觉。‘的‘要’ is a particle or a word with a meaning?

[陳德聰]

Lemme quote myself.

actions that have been completed (了) or are in progress (在) or are approaching (将/要)

要 does not just mean want.

 

Let me know where I said that 要 is not a word with a meaning. Just as 在 does not ONLY mean "to be at/in", 要 does not just mean "want".

 

I would translate 我要买的鞋子没了 as "The shoes I was gonna buy are gone." and 我要睡觉 as "I am gonna go to sleep." so I'm not sure what you're getting at? Aspect markers are not the same as "particle" and definitely are not devoid of "meaning", whatever that would entail.

[陳德聰]

I feel like I'm speaking in an echo chamber.

[anonymoose]

昨晚弟弟想跟我一起玩儿，我正在看的书太好看了，我让他一个人去了。

[Shelley]

@ 陳德聰

Its okay, I just find it really frustrating trying to understand Chinese grammar see my topic http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/45747-grammar-terminology/ ,it seems I go forward one step and backwards 2.

 

I thought I understood what the OP was asking but I don't know how to explain it.  I think if English is your native language this sort of thing is understood without knowing the reasons why.

 

I wonder if English is the OP's first language, I am inclined not to think so (I may be wrong) or this question would not have arisen.

[陳德聰]

Tense: when something happens (typically past, present, future). Aspect: how something happens in relation to time (typically at a point in time, across time, leading up to a time, starting from a time and going onward, etc.)

[Shelley]

Thank you for that explanation.

 

Even when i learnt french I never learnt these terms because I think being in Quebec, I learnt french almost the same way i learnt English, by using it and having some lessons at school. I think I learnt more french playing baseball with my friends than I did in class

[Pedroski]

First of all, I would like to say, I don't want to go too far. I don't want to cause trouble with the moderators by going too far off topic. I need a forum where I can get help on points of the Chinese language. This is not a linguistics forum. So this will be my last contribution on this topic. I will gladly continue the discussion by email with anyone who is interested.

 

I have never looked closely at aspect before. I never had cause to do this. Now I have looked, I find, there is no such thing as 'aspect'. Aspect is one of those fuzzy vaguely defined notions,  which are found in learned tomes on grammar, as if it were God's own law. I heard long ago that aspect relates to how we view things on a timeline. That is rubbish. I will try to put this as succinctly as I can.

 

The words we call verbs, in their unqualified state, have a fundamental default condition which I will call 'durative state'. The other condition, to which some verbs tend more easily, I will term 'event', is short term.

 

Durative state:

 

I like apples. 我喜欢苹果。'like' is not Present Tense, it is timeless, yesterday, today, tomorrow.

I am big. 我高。Chinese, cleverly, simply apposes these two words, the latter describing the former. The statement is timeless.

 

The primordial example of durative state is 'I am'.

 

'I am big.' = Yesterday I was big, today I am big, tomorrow I will be big.

 

The so-called 'Present Continuous Aspect' can only be called an 'Aspect' if it can be contrasted with another 'Aspect', to whit, the Perfective Aspect.

 

The Present Continuous Aspect.

 

In 'I am eating', 'eating' can be one of two things, which sadly in English are written exactly the same. 'eating' is a gerund, a noun, or 'eating' is a gerundive, an adjective.

 

Consider how we accept 'big/fat/ugly' '高/胖/丑‘ in 'I am big/fat/ugly' as a description of 'I' Also consider the durative state nature of 'am'. The simplest explanation for 'I am eating' is 'eating' is a gerundive, an adjective descriptor of 'I'. It is hard to see how 'I' could be the noun 'eating'.

 

The durative nature of the 'Present Continuous' comes solely from the durative nature of 'am'.

 

The very same durative nature is found in '我在看的书‘ or ’我要买的房子‘ ’在' or '要' are durative in their default state, as are many other verbs. They are not aspect particles. There is no such animal.

 

The Perfective Aspect.

 

If you begin to learn Spanish, you will be surprised to find that Spanish has two Past Tenses: Pretérito Imperfecto and Pretérito Perfecto Simple. Why would a language need two Past Tenses? Spanish is a highly contrived language, based on Latin with many Moorish words. Latin too has the Imperfect and Perfect Past Tenses.

 

Around 1600 years ago, there was no 'Present Perfect Tense' such as 'I have eaten'. Not in Old English, not in any Germanic Languages, not in Latin or Greek. The scribes must have been at a loss to translate Latin and Greek texts with their two forms, Imperfect and Perfect, of Past Tense, so they invented a language device, 'The Present Perfect'. Within about 100 years, this form of Past Tense became popular all over Europe. It even backfired into Latin and Greek, which really had no need of it.

 

What is lovingly known as The Present Perfective Aspect is simply the scribes answer to the dilemma of representing the Perfect Past Tense, as opposed to the Imperfect Past Tense. It is the Perfect Past Tense. The durative state nature of 'have' in 'I have eaten' indicates the complete achievement or possession of this state of 'eaten'. 'eaten' itself is a Participle, so-called because it 'partakes' of the nature of a noun and an adjective.

 

The Present Perfective in no way always indicates an achieved state, as the following example from the internet shows:

 

"Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges."
(Ernie Pyle, "This Dreadful Masterpiece," December 1940)

 

The best, the Chinese way, to indicate the time of the matter under discussion, if it be needed, is to specifically mention the time referred to, as above, with 'Someday when'.

 

The 'Present Tense' in English is almost never used to refer to 'now'.

 

We use the so-called 'Historical Present Tense' to talk about the past. ' Historical Present Tense' is a fine example of the neat paradoxes grammarians shamelessly talk themselves into. (“Just give it a fancy name, no one will notice the contradiction in terms!”)

 

(Ophelia in Act One, scene 1 of Hamlet by William Shakespeare)

"He took me by the wrist and held me hard; ('took' and 'held' locate this in the past)
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face, ..”

 

We can also use the Present Tense to talk about the future: 'He arrives at 2 o'clock.'

[陳德聰]

Well, good luck with that.

 

I wasn't aware the existence of grammatical aspect, which is evidenced cross-linguistically, could be controversial. To me that's like saying "there's no such thing as grammatical tense". I don't know where you're looking.

 

But if your question is about why 买 here isn't presented as 在买 or 要买, and the answer is directly tied to grammatical aspect, without which you literally are at a loss for how to understand the situation, I find it so weird that your response is "I don't understand aspect, therefore(?) aspect doesn't exist."

[Shelley]

Well it seems to me that much the like the Worm Ouroboros, this topic has gone round and round and is now holding its tail in its mouth.

 

If you think that this forum is not for discussing the Chinese language, when you find one that you think is, it might be interesting to hear what it is.