How can Present Perfective and Past Perfect differ?

[Turama]

My conlang, At'ik, has three tenses, i.e. past (-a), present (-0) and future (-nu), and several aspects, e.g. habitual (-0), perfective (-ta) and continuous (-pi).

How which different meanings can I give the Present Perfective and Past Perfective? The only one which came into my mind is the remoteness. -ata would mean a more remote past, -ta would mean a more recent past. Though how could I 'spice' it up a little?

Also how propable is it that habitual is the default (unmarked) aspect if it can be differentiated with a conitinuous/progressive? Well, English has it as its default aspect kind of, but what is with more synthetical languages in regards to their verbal system. Because at least to me, it seems that speakers would make the most used marker/aspect a null-morpheme and it seems that a continuous is much more used than the habitual. However I also may be just overanalyzing it.

[WeepingElf]

Two things you ought to know:

1. Perfective and perfect are different things; don't use them interchangingly. Perfective is an aspect which views the event expressed by a verb as a single entity, as opposed to imperfective which views it as an ongoing process. Perfect means different things in various languages, but in English, it refers to a state resulting from an event. John has come is perfect, and it means that he has arrived and is now there. John came at high noon is perfective, and does not imply that he is still there, nor the opposite.

2. There is no present perfective. The event either has happened (past perfective) or not happened yet (future perfective).

[Travis B.]

I thought what was being referred to was the tendency for the perfective in some languages (e.g. Semitic languages) to turn into a past tense (and the imperfective to turn into a non-past tense).

Also, there is such a thing as a present perfective; e.g. Hindi has this. It just happens that Slavic languages tend to not distinguish perfectivity in the present tense.

[Turama]

Two things you ought to know:

1. Perfective and perfect are different things; don't use them interchangingly.

Your right. It was a typo, though.

2. There is no present perfective. The event either has happened (past perfective) or not happened yet (future perfective).

I meant the morphological Present Perfective, as it consist out of a present suffix (***-0***) and a perfective suffix (***-ta***) and not the semantical (do I use this term right?) one.

Also, there is such a thing as a present perfective; e.g. Hindi has this. It just happens that Slavic languages tend to not distinguish perfectivity in the present tense.

I'm not arguing whether there can be a present perfective as morphology and semantics are different things, thus even if it wouldn't make sense in a semantical sense it doesn't mean it can't have it morphologically. But my question was which differences could arise between a Present Perfective and a Past Perfective.

[hwhatting]

How which different meanings can I give the Present Perfective and Past Perfective? The only one which came into my mind is the remoteness. -ata would mean a more remote past, -ta would mean a more recent past.

You seem to think that a "present perfective" would be some kind of past tense, That ain't necessarily so. In most Slavic languages, the present tense forms of perfective verbs have future tense value, plus are used for potential events and atemporally / gnomically (e.g. in proverbs). What these uses have in common is that in the Slavic aspect system, the perfective aspect cannot be used for events that are currently ongoing or habitual, but only for what is called "non-actual". Originally, Slavic had a past - nonpast split, so events in the past were covered by the past tense, and the present perfective mostly came to denote future events. (In those Slavic languages which developed that way, the imperfective verbs developed a separate future tense, morphologically different from the present tense, probably to reduce the functional load on the imperfective present tense.)
As your language has a morphological past, present, and future tense, I'd expect the present perfective mostly to have potential and gnomic uses, and perhaps some uses in subordinated clauses (e.g. "if he does that, I'll kill him" could be "if he do-PRES.PERF that, I kill-FUT.PERF him.")

Also how propable is it that habitual is the default (unmarked) aspect if it can be differentiated with a conitinuous/progressive?

You already mentioned English, and in other languages I know (mostly European IE) the unmarked present tense can be used for habitual actions. If you want to be on the safe site, don't limit the zero-derived category to habitual, but make it a grab bag for everything that's not progressive or perfective.

[Travis B.]

To my knowledge, the whole perfective-is-past, imperfective-is-non-past thing comes from Semitic, where indeed this change occurred, and early on enough that this one Akkadian grammar I am reading calls the perfective the "preterite".

(Of course I am shamelessly stealing this one for Xanínə, where the Alla perfective became the Xanínə past and the Alla imperfective became the Xanínə non-past.)

[Pole, the]

You seem to think that a "present perfective" would be some kind of past tense, That ain't necessarily so. In most Slavic languages, the present tense forms of perfective verbs have future tense value, plus are used for potential events and atemporally / gnomically (e.g. in proverbs).

Interestingly, it seems like Polish present imperfective can be irregularly used in the perfective meaning, especially in those atemporal situations, e.g. in phrases like "wtedy wkraczam" and then I enter, "wtedy zjadam" and then I eat.

When transformed into past or future, the perfective aspect would be used ("wtedy wkroczyłem", "wtedy wkroczę", …).

[So Haleza Grise]

To my knowledge, the whole perfective-is-past, imperfective-is-non-past thing comes from Semitic, where indeed this change occurred, and early on enough that this one Akkadian grammar I am reading calls the perfective the "preterite".

(Of course I am shamelessly stealing this one for Xanínə, where the Alla perfective became the Xanínə past and the Alla imperfective became the Xanínə non-past.)

I don't know if the confusion is due to a specific language or family. Confusion between tense and aspect happens regularly in a lot of languages.

In languages like English, the primary distinction is that of tense, and aspect exists as a secondary distinction. In languages like Russian, the primary distinction is aspect. It's natural that aspect and tense get confused cross-linguistically; some features just have a tendency to clump together. For example, many languages conflate "imperative" with "future" even though on an abstract level they are quite distinct (and many languages don't; Australian languages tend not to, for example).

"I have eaten" becomes "I ate" in meaning readily: look at the Romance languages for one example - an original perfective is eclipsing the role of the simple past.

[mèþru]

English "I eat" is present perfective.
If habitual and present are unmarked, then something "I eat on a regular basis" would be the standard form of the verb. This is rather odd, as people say things like that much less than "I eat" or "I am eating" (progressive). (Progressive and continuous are merged in English and linguists often use one or the other for English, so I assumed you meant both).

[Travis B.]

English "I eat" is present perfective.
If habitual and present are unmarked, then something "I eat on a regular basis" would be the standard form of the verb. This is rather odd, as people say things like that much less than "I eat" or "I am eating" (progressive). (Progressive and continuous are merged in English and linguists often use one or the other for English, so I assumed you meant both).

Umm English "I eat" is clearly present habitual. What analysis of English refers to it having a clear perfective aspect, unless by "perfective" one means "not progressive or habitual or gnomic or stative", and for that matter the only aspects available in English in the present are the progressive and the habitual/gnomic/stative.

Please come back when you understand perfectivity.

[Chengjiang]

English "I eat" is present perfective.
If habitual and present are unmarked, then something "I eat on a regular basis" would be the standard form of the verb. This is rather odd, as people say things like that much less than "I eat" or "I am eating" (progressive). (Progressive and continuous are merged in English and linguists often use one or the other for English, so I assumed you meant both).

The form lacking a progressive marking doesn't make it perfective. "I eat" in no way refers to a unitary action. Consider how it's actually used, e.g. "I eat a high-protein diet". It's clearly present habitual.

[mèþru]

You are right about "I eat" being wrong. I have seen perfective in the sense of "not progressive or habitual or gnomic or stative" a lot in descriptions of English on Wikipedia. Apparently, minus one for Wikipedia.

[Chengjiang]

mèþru, please keep in mind that semantically there can't be such a thing as a present perfective. As WeepingElf pointed out, a perfective is a form that treats an event as a unit viewed from the outside, whereas events in the present are necessarily viewed as ongoing or recurring in some fashion. It's conceivable that a verb form in a language that marked a verb with morphology or auxiliaries indicating present and perfective could be analyzed as morphologically or syntactically present perfective, especially if there is a distinct grammatically marked future tense from the present tense and the perfective form is also marked (unlike English's unmarked-for-aspect verb forms), but inevitably it would actually mean something else. Come to think of it, I can't think of any cases of a language having a verb form whose marking is definitely present (and not just non-past) and definitely perfective (and not gnomic, stative, or any other such thing) at the same time. Is anyone aware of one?

[mèþru]

I was trying to make a counterpoint and failed spectacularly. I give up my case and now have to redesign agefaqeg verbs (I made present perfective the default form).

[Chengjiang]

I was trying to make a counterpoint and failed spectacularly. I give up my case and now have to redesign agefaqeg verbs (I made present perfective the default form).

You may not actually have to do much. If, for example, you were basing this part of the verb system on how you were understanding English and the "present perfective" has a zero morpheme for aspect, then you wouldn't have to change any morphology. It just wouldn't normally be called a present perfective.

[mèþru]

There actually is an imperfective aspect. It is used to cover imperfective type of aspect not covered by progressive, continuous, and delimitative. Habituals are in that category. The "present perfective" is definitely not the habitual, so I'm not sure about what it translates to. There are seven tenses: past, hypothetical past, present, hypothetical present, future, hypothetical future, and unknown (for verbs that have unknown time periods). All of them had a "perfective."

[Chengjiang]

There actually is an imperfective aspect. It is used to cover imperfective type of aspect not covered by progressive, continuous, and delimitative. Habituals are in that category. The "present perfective" is definitely not the habitual, so I'm not sure about what it translates to. There are seven tenses: past, hypothetical past, present, hypothetical present, future, hypothetical future, and unknown (for verbs that have unknown time periods). All of them had a "perfective."

I'm not completely sure, but from this description it sounds like your "present perfective" is actually a present progressive. Would it be used to translate "I am going"?

[mèþru]

That's what I used it for, but I want to keep the perfective to some degree.

[Travis B.]

The fundamental dichotomy w.r.t. perfectivity is whether or not an event is treated as a unitary, indivisible moment in time; if it is, then the aspect is perfective, otherwise it is imperfective.

Progressive/continuous, habitual, and frequentative/iterative aspects are all subsets of imperfective aspect.

Stative and gnomic aspects exist outside this dichotomy, and languages may lump them in with imperfective or perfective aspects in a language-specific manner (e.g. English does not distinguish them from the habitual aspect, whereas various Semitic languages have lumped the stative in with the perfective aspect).

[zompist]

It's difficult to have a present perfective, because the present is so short. If an action is going on right now we are apt to think of it as ongoing or unfinished. I can think of a couple of contexts though:

* Performatives, e.g. "I pronounce you man and wife" or "The chair recognizes the senator from Ohio." The action is instantaneous and accomplished by the very utterance, so these are semantically perfective.

* A narrative which is narrated in present tense. ("A horse and a hippopotamus walk into a bar.")

[Salmoneus]

It's difficult to have a present perfective, because the present is so short. If an action is going on right now we are apt to think of it as ongoing or unfinished. I can think of a couple of contexts though:

* Performatives, e.g. "I pronounce you man and wife" or "The chair recognizes the senator from Ohio." The action is instantaneous and accomplished by the very utterance, so these are semantically perfective.

* A narrative which is narrated in present tense. ("A horse and a hippopotamus walk into a bar.")

Thanks, someone had to post this, and it's usually me...
There's also arguably the case of present-tense narration. Saying "...and then I take your bishop with my knight" isn't actually performing the move in chess, but can be said while the action is actually happening in the present, and treats the event as a unitary moment rather than an ongoing process with a relevant duration.

[Travis B.]

Another example of a present perfective I can think of is statements that are specified to apply at a specific time, e.g. "The tortoise meets the hare at 10 a.m."

So yeah, Engtlish does have a present perfective, but it is limited in use and is not morphologically distinguished from the habitual/gnomic/stative.

[hwhatting]

It's difficult to have a present perfective, because the present is so short. If an action is going on right now we are apt to think of it as ongoing or unfinished. I can think of a couple of contexts though:

* Performatives, e.g. "I pronounce you man and wife" or "The chair recognizes the senator from Ohio." The action is instantaneous and accomplished by the very utterance, so these are semantically perfective.

* A narrative which is narrated in present tense. ("A horse and a hippopotamus walk into a bar.")

Interestingly, Russian uses the imperfective aspect in both these cases.

[Chengjiang]

It's difficult to have a present perfective, because the present is so short. If an action is going on right now we are apt to think of it as ongoing or unfinished. I can think of a couple of contexts though:

* Performatives, e.g. "I pronounce you man and wife" or "The chair recognizes the senator from Ohio." The action is instantaneous and accomplished by the very utterance, so these are semantically perfective.

* A narrative which is narrated in present tense. ("A horse and a hippopotamus walk into a bar.")

Interestingly, Russian uses the imperfective aspect in both these cases.

Well, yes, and although I don't have a exhaustive range of experience with diverse verb systems I rather suspect languages generally won't have a dedicated present perfective for this narrow range of purposes. zompist is correct in saying that technically there are exceptions to the "no semantic present perfectives" principle I stated above.

[hwhatting]

Well, yes, and although I don't have a exhaustive range of experience with diverse verb systems I rather suspect languages generally won't have a dedicated present perfective for this narrow range of purposes. zompist is correct in saying that technically there are exceptions to the "no semantic present perfectives" principle I stated above.

I remarked this because Russian does have what is formally a perfective present tense, which it also uses for gnomic purposes, as in proverbs (as I said before, its main use is as a future tense). So I think the fact that Russian could use the perfective present for such uses but doesn't is significant.