Perfect & Simple Past in Romances

From: m_iacomi
Message: 26432
Date: 2003-10-14

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:

> A lesser difference is that the German/Romance perfect can function
> as a simple past tense (e.g in spoken French, Northern Italian or
> Southern German), whereas the Greek perfect is at least
> theoretically always distinguished in meaning from a simple past -
> it refers to a completed action whose consequences are being
> described in the present. There are many instances where simple
> past and perfect appear interchangeable in Greek, but many others
> where they are not. This is not the situation in Southern German
> or spoken French, where the perfect has replaced the simple past.

At least in spoken French, the past perfect (passé composé) has
been given a clear _stylistical_ preference over the simple past
(passé simple), the latter being used for (literary) narratives
or with some stylish purpose in conversation; but as verbs, in
principle, they still can be interchanged if one disregards the
style part (which is of course correlated with simple past becoming
slightly obsolete and perceived with some archaic flavour in banal
daily conversations).
The same holds in Daco-Romanian, where daily use of simple past
is deprecated everywhere but in Oltenia (that's why its' use is
ordinarily perceived as a regional feature) and for narratives
(mostly written); but in principle, the verbal equivalence with
the past perfect (composed) helds firm [these verbal times are
called properly "perfect simplu" and "perfect compus", making
clear that they refer to a similar action timeline]. In Aromanian
the equivalence exists and the simple past is not deprecated.
Mostly the same is the situation in Italian, where the simple
past, while undoubtedly being prefered for narratives, is still
colloquially used without pain. But in Italian these times are not
fully equivalent, though the difference is small; their names are
suggestive: "passato remoto" (`remote past`) for the simple past
and "passato prossimo" (`near past`) for the composed form.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi