--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "aquila_grande"
<aquila_grande@...> wrote:
>
> In Norwegian the perfect is used in the following instances:
>
> -When an action, process or property in the past extends into the
> present. Ex: I har arbeidet som lærer i to år: - I have worked as
a
> teacher in 2 years, and still do.
>
> -When an action in the past makes neccessary some action or
> attention from the listener. Ex: The horse has run away from his
> hedge. (The listener has to go out to bring it back)
>
> Is this the same way it is used in Swedish and Danish?
I used to work with cmputer science, data base,representation
languages etc. From that perspective, the definition is pretty
straightforward:
Assume you have a database (ie your head) of all simple facts in the
past (represented as sentences in simple present with a time stamp).
Now, if someone presents you with a new sentence, it's true under
following circumstances:
If it's in imperfect : for some given time Ta (established in the
new sentence) there exists an identical (except for tense) sentence
in the database with time stamp Ta.
See Ta as a constant.
If it's in perfect : for some time Tx there exists an identical
(except for tense) sentence in the database with time stamp Tx.
See Tx as a variable bound by an existential quantifier.
Torsten