German Tense/Aspect

[Terra]

Can someone please explain the German Präteritum, Perfekt, and Pluperfekt in simple terms?
1) Are the first two the same except that the former is formal and the latter colloquial?
2) What does each actually convey? Is it the past tense? Or is it the perfective aspect? Or is it both?

[WeepingElf]

Although German is my native language, I find this question not easy to answer.

Of course, all the German past tense forms are cognates of the English ones, and a few centuries ago, each had the same meaning as the corresponding English one. But since then, the perfect has expanded its domain, and in colloquial German, it has almost completely ousted the Präteritum and become the general-purpose past tense.

In contemporary German, the Präteritum is essentially imperfective, much like the English past progressive: Wer ließ die Hunde raus? = 'Who was letting the dogs out?', and asks for a specification of the time when the dogs were let out, e.g. Wer ließ die Hunde raus, während ich auf der Toilette war? 'Who was letting the dogs out while I was to the toilet?' A simple, perfective 'Who let the dogs out?' would be translated as Wer hat die Hunde rausgelassen?

The pluperfect marks anteriority in relation to another event in the past: Als die Berliner Mauer fiel, hatte er bereits Zuflucht in der Prager Botschaft genommen. 'When the Berlin Wall came down, he had already found refuge in the Prague embassy.'

[Terra]

So, how similar is the Perkect to the English perfect? (As in "The man has let the dog out."?) Does it have the meaning of being relevant to the present like in English?

Als die Berliner Mauer fiel, hatte er bereits Zuflucht in der Prager Botschaft genommen.

Would colloquial German replace the Präteritum with the Perfekt here? (If so, I assume it would retain the past meaning? Using the perfect in English would imply that the wall hasn't fallen yet.)

[Ser]

I don't know German, but this has been discussed on the forum and on IRC quite a number of times in the past, and what I remember from those discussions was reaching a consensus that, besides the general element of register, there's some important individual and regional variation.

Saxon-influenced northern varieties have been said to seem more comfortable using the Präteritum in informal registers; Jipí/Guitarplayer, who however comes from the centre of Germany (Hesse), has said he pretty much just uses it in the most common verbs only; and our resident Swiss, Inversion, says he practically never uses the Präteritum in speech at all.

I don't remember any discussion on what the aspects involved actually are, and WeepingElf's comment on the Präteritum as (first and foremost???) an imperfective in comtemporary German is very interesting... Is using the Präteritum as an aorist (past tense perfective) starting to sound old-fashioned? That's the first use that usually gets taught to students... What about using it with a habitual aspect? (Dodd et al.'s Modern German Grammar gives the example Jeden Samstag machten wir eine Wanderung 'Every Saturday we would go for a walk.'

Interestingly, this same book says the Perfekt can be used as a future tense (presumably with the "anterior" aspect found in English "he will have done"), and not only after nachdem 'after', but even as the sentence's main verb. It gives the example Bis morgen habe ich es geschafft 'I will have done it by tomorrow.' (Would Bis morgen werde ich es geschaffen haben mean the same thing?)



As far as I know, the Pluperfekt is a straightforward equivalent of the English pluperfect / the Spanish pluscuamperfecto, i.e. "he had done", él había hecho.

[Jipí]

Jipí/Guitarplayer, who however comes from the centre of Germany (Hesse), has said he pretty much just uses it in the most common verbs only

I said that I've never really paid attention to this, but I wouldn't be surprised if this actually applied to me. AFAIK it applies to a bunch of Central German dialect regions – the part of Hesse I grew up in is traditionally on the northern border of Central German dialects, the area itself is historically Low-German speaking. I have no problem using at least the preterite forms of the auxiliaries, modals, and inquit verbs in the informal spoken register.

It gives the example Bis morgen habe ich es geschafft 'I will have done it by tomorrow.' (Would Bis morgen werde ich es geschaffen haben mean the same thing?)

Yes, they're equivalent to me.

[ObsequiousNewt]

Also, what's the distinction between subjunctive I and II?

[Jipí]

Also, what's the distinction between subjunctive I and II?

The everyday language prefers subjunctive II or paraphrase with würde + inf. and the bare infinitive in "dass" clauses when the status as reported speech is clear from context. In formal language, OTOH, the difference is between indirect speech and reporting hearsay.

[hwhatting]

I don't know German, but this has been discussed on the forum and on IRC quite a number of times in the past, and what I remember from those discussions was reaching a consensus that, besides the general element of register, there's some important individual and regional variation.

Indeed, it has been discussed before. Terra, are you going to repeat the question every year? I don't think we resident Germans will come up with any better explanations.

[Terra]

Indeed, it has been discussed before. Terra, are you going to repeat the question every year? I don't think we resident Germans will come up with any better explanations. ;-)

1) Nah, I won't repeat it anymore.
2) I don't remember that I asked it before.
3) I know/understand verbs and what their tenses/aspects/etc mean better more now than I did a year and a half ago.
4) Can somebody answer my question about the sentence with the Berlin Wall?

[vec]

I think there's a general upfuckery going on with tenses in many European languages right now.

Icelandic is fast getting rid of its simple present in favor of the progressive, German is getting rid of it's past tense and God only knows what the Soviets are doing.

[Terra]

Icelandic is fast getting rid of its simple present in favor of the progressive, German is getting rid of it's past tense and God only knows what the Soviets are doing.

May I ask, what does the Icelandic progressive look like (compared to the simple present)? Do you have an idea of what's spurring the loss (if anything at all)?

[vec]

Present:
ég syng, við syngjum
þú syngur, þið syngið
hann/hún það syngur, þeir/þær/þau syngja

Progressive present:

vera 'be' + inf.

er að syngja, erum að syngja
ert að syngja, eruð að syngja
eru að syngja, eru að syngja

The first step was that certain nondurative verbs such as skilja 'understand' that traditonally could not be progressive (being nondurative and all) expanded to allow the progressive, but in a habitual meaning. As that has gained acceptance over the past ten-twenty years, it's started spreading to other verbs that usually were not progressive; and use of the progressive present has continued to expand to include various non-progressive meanings. It's quite interesting. I'm willing to bet that by the end of the century, most verbs except auxiluaries will have lost their simple present in spoken language.

[hwhatting]

Als die Berliner Mauer fiel, hatte er bereits Zuflucht in der Prager Botschaft genommen.

Would colloquial German replace the Präteritum with the Perfekt here? (If so, I assume it would retain the past meaning? Using the perfect in English would imply that the wall hasn't fallen yet.)

As has been said elsewhere, there is a regional diffrerence.
Als die Berliner Mauer gefallen ist, hatte er etc.. - I wouldn't say it that way, but I could imagine it being said in the Southern dialects where the past tense has been replaced by the perfect. The meaning would be identical to the sentence with the simple past. What mostly would feel wrong here is the register - bereits instead of schon and Zuflucht nehmen instead of fliehen belong to a more literary register where I'd expect the simple past in the dependent clause.

[linguoboy]

May I ask, what does the Icelandic progressive look like (compared to the simple present)? Do you have an idea of what's spurring the loss (if anything at all)?

I don't know that it's best to look at these things teleologically, but I can think of two factors: (1) morphological leveling and (2) foreign influence. A fair number of Icelandic exhibit vocalic alternations in the present tense, e.g. ég tala "I speak" but við tölum "we speak". Thus, replacing them with forms of vera + INF is a kind of morphological simplification. And virtually all Icelanders speak or at least read English, which makes much more use of the progressive construction, and this can't help but have some influence how they speak.

[vec]

May I ask, what does the Icelandic progressive look like (compared to the simple present)? Do you have an idea of what's spurring the loss (if anything at all)?

I don't know that it's best to look at these things teleologically, but I can think of two factors: (1) morphological leveling and (2) foreign influence. A fair number of Icelandic exhibit vocalic alternations in the present tense, e.g. ég tala "I speak" but við tölum "we speak". Thus, replacing them with forms of vera + INF is a kind of morphological simplification. And virtually all Icelanders speak or at least read English, which makes much more use of the progressive construction, and this can't help but have some influence how they speak.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that new usage such as "ég er ekki að skilja þetta" are basically translations of "I'm not getting this". English is almost certainly the main catalyst for this change but it's interesting to note where usage between the two languages differs and how the Icelandic development has taken a life of its own. I'll find some examples when I get home.

[Terra]

I don't know that it's best to look at these things teleologically, but I can think of two factors: (1) morphological leveling and (2) foreign influence. A fair number of Icelandic exhibit vocalic alternations in the present tense, e.g. ég tala "I speak" but við tölum "we speak". Thus, replacing them with forms of vera + INF is a kind of morphological simplification. And virtually all Icelanders speak or at least read English, which makes much more use of the progressive construction, and this can't help but have some influence how they speak.

I know that language can change for no reason at all. I indeed was wondering about English influence.