An Analysis of the German Perfekt  

Oleh:

Klein, Wolfgang

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language (ada di JSTOR) vol. 76 no. 2 (1999), page 358-382.
Fulltext: Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 358-382.pdf (598.73KB)

Isi artikel

The German Perfekt has two quite different temporal readings, as illustrated by the two possible continuations of the sentence Peter hat gearbeitet in i, ii, respectively: (i) Peter hat gearbeitet und ist muide. Peter has worked and is tired. (ii) Peter hat gearbeitet und wollte nicht gestort werden. Peter has worked and wanted not to be disturbed. The first reading essentially corresponds to the English present perfect; the second can take a temporal adverbial with past time reference ('yesterday at five', 'when the phone rang', and so on), and an English translation would require a past tense ('Peter worked/was working'). This article shows that the Perfekt has a uniform temporal meaning that results systematically from the interaction of its three components-finiteness marking, auxiliary and past participle-and that the two readings are the consequence of a structural ambiguity. This analysis also predicts the properties of other participle constructions, in particular the passive in German.* Der Alte folgte der Leiche und die Sohne, Albert ver- mocht's nicht. Man fiirchtete fur Lottens Leben. Hand- werker trugen ihn. Kein Geistlicher hat ihn begleitet. Goethe, Werthers Leiden-

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