Hi Richard,
> What's happened to the 'Plus Perfekt', or whatever they call the
> pluperfect tense?
>
> > Literal translations are not always correct.
I was talking about the three basic forms of the verb and the
usual names associated with them. Plusquamperfekt is formed
with the third form of the verb plus Präteritum of haben or sein. It
goes under the same logic as Perfekt. Okay, even more so for
the Berliner - they tend to use Plusquamperfekt instead of
Perfekt. Bad for them.
>
> These terms are Latin in German dress. Literal translation is
fairly
> safe here, for in English we similarly have Latin in English
dress,
Yes, I am aware of this.
> which is a bit more evolved. 'Preterite' is however rather a rare
> term in English. Translation problems arise when 'simple
language'
> or native terms are used.
I agree. And Germans do use native terms for everything.
Augenblick, not Moment, Eingebung, not Inspiration, ausbeuten,
not exploit. The fact that I had learned English before German
got me into many embarrassing situations here - I mean that
people could hardly understand what I wanted to say.
My latest experience was with the word inertia. I said Inertion
and got some puzzled looks in response. This word is not to be
found in a dictionary, yet I suppose this is the word used by
Germans in a specific scientific context. The only native word in
German, which expresses something similar to inertia is
Trägheit. Yet I wanted to say something like "you are doing
something by inertia, out of habit". In such a case you have to
first interpret what you want to say and then translate. E.g., say
Gewohnheit, not Inertion. A native word saves your life.
While a foreign word may be used in a common context in
English (inertia is not the best example), in German there is
strict differentiation between a scientific and non-scientific
context. So if you are a foreigner who is not acquainted with a
corresponding expression in German (which probably exists for
what I wanted to say, but not to my knowledge) and if you are
forced to think of a translation, you have to avoid foreign words.
My English does help me enormously in reading scientific texts
in German, just as it helps me enormously in Latin.
> I'd say it's not good if the German 'imperfect', as we call it in our
> schools, is being called the 'praeterit' (or similar). I thought the
> German perfect now included the meaning of the simple past.
Präteritum is now only Erzähltempus in written texts, archaically
sounding at that. The press prefers Perfekt. The Perfekt has
taken on the functions of Präteritum, except for some verb forms
like the Präteritum of sein, haben, wissen, denken, etc., which
still appear in their Präteritalformen war, hatte, wusste, dachte,
without risking to sound unusual. The same applies for the
perfect of modal verbs. You hardly ever hear "Ich habe es nicht
machen können." If you do, it would mean something slightly
different. For example, "ich habe es lange nicht machen können,
aber ich kann es schon". This is similar to the English
reference to facts of life in perfect tenses, rather than to the
actual time and place, etc. If you do hear Päteritum of other
verbs in spoken German, it would be to express an action in
process, similar to the English continuous tenses.
I find this topic very interesting, although I am not sure I am so
well prepared theoretically to be able to connect it with
Sprachgeschichte or any other specifically linguistic topics. The
latter is comparatively new to me. By now I have relied on my
ear and actual experiences.
Eva