The Slavic perfect

There are Czech verb forms of the type m´am uklizeno ‘I have tidied-up’, which match the structure of the English (present) perfect far better than the (per-fective) preterite forms dealt with in the previous paragraph. These forms are subsumed under the name Slavic perfect of transitive verbs³⁶. As alluded to by the name, this structure is not possible for intransitive verbs. Apart from that, the structural and semantic similarities between the Slavic and the English

32The main verb in vidˇel jsem ho (vˇcera) ‘I saw him (yesterday)’ is imperfective. The perfective version of the utterance isuvidˇel jsem ho (vˇcera)‘I caught sight of him (yesterday)’.

33“Das l-Partizip, im Deutschen so genannt nach dem fast immer enthaltenen Laut l, wird manchmal nicht ganz treffend auch Partizip des Pr¨ateritums oder Partizip Aktiv genannt;

tschechisch heißt espˇr´ıˇcest´ı ˇcinn´e” [Frei1997, p.223].

34Czech original: “sloˇzen´e pr´eteritum, ovˇsem na jin´e b´azi neˇz v rom´ansk´ych a germ´ansk´ych jazyc´ıch (aktivn´ı participium +

”b´yt“)”.

35Vidˇel jsemcan only be uttered felicitously by a man, i.e. ifjsem‘I am’ refers to the speaker himself. The female form is vidˇela jsem.

36“[S]trukturelles Pendant der deutschen Perfektklammer haben + Partizip II [. . . ], das sogenannteslavische Perfekt der transitiven Verben” [ˇSenkeˇr´ık2000, p.70].

perfect are striking enough to justify further exploration.

Just like in English, the Slavic markerperfconsists of a form ofhave (Czech m´ıt) and a participle of the main verb. In both languages this participle dou-bles as a building block for the passive forms of verbs³⁷. Furthermore, perfect infinitives are possible in both languages, e.g. to have cooked and m´ıt uvaˇreno are structurally the same. A direct consequence of this is the fact that perf combines freely with the category tense:

1. Katrin m´a koupen´y nov´y klav´ır.³⁸ (present)

‘Katrin has bought a new piano.’

2. Katrin mˇela koupen´y nov´y klav´ır. (past)

‘Katrin had bought a new piano.’

3. Katrin bude m´ıt koupen´y nov´y klav´ır. (future)

‘Katrin will have bought a new piano.’

Contrary to the participle of the English perfect, the participle of the Slavic perfect is in agreement (concerning case, gender and number) with the object, that is if an object³⁹ is present. In the examples above, the-´y of the participle is

37In both languages the auxiliary for the passive voice isbe (Czechb´yt). The passive voice is rare in Czech, though.

38“Katrin hat ein neues Klavier gekauft. (Das Klavier, das sie gekauft hat, ist neu.)”

[ˇSenkeˇr´ık2000, p.71].

39This is evocative of the concord of the past participle in French perfects. The rules are different, though. In French, the main difficulty is not how to change the participle ending but to decide whether it is necessary to alter it at all. Theaccord du participe pass´eis a complex phenomenon of French grammar (including non-perfect verb forms), cf. Stefan Gutwin’s algorithm [Gutwin1996, p.116]. The following example illustrates that the concord of the past participle in French – at least for avoir-verbs and reflexive constructions – depends on the syntactic position of the direct object, cf. [Gutwin1996, p.13]: j’ai cass´e la tasse (no concord, direct object after verb phrase) vs.la tasse que j’ai cass´ee, where -´ehas become-´ee because the feminine tasse precedes the relative clause containing the participle. Gutwin speaks of a principal arbitrariness of theaccord du participe pass´e because the function of the participle and the valence of the verb are the same in the two examples above: “grunds¨atzliche Arbitrarit¨at desaccord du participe pass´e in verbaler Funktion [. . . ]. Weder die Funktion des Partizips noch die Valenz des Verbs ¨andern sich durch die Inversion:J’ai cass´e la tasse. / La tasse que j’ai cass´ee. Dennoch gilt, daß eine Angleichung des Partizips nur bei Voranstellung des direkten Objekt stattfindet” [ibid.]. Another difference between the concord in Slavic and French perfects is the distance between the words that are in agreement. In Czech they are

accusative masculine singular because klav´ır is accusative masculine singular. If no object is present, the default ending (-o) is neuter singular, e.g.m´am uvaˇreno

‘I have cooked’ (‘dinner is ready’). Even if no object is present, the verb still has to be transitive.

For transitive verbs the semantic opposition between past tense and present perfect is – to some extent – comparable to that between preterite and perfect in Czech. An utterance such as ‘You have arranged/fixed up/furnished the/that flat nicely’⁴⁰ can be translated as follows:

1. Hezkyjste [you are] ten byt zaˇr´ıdili [l-participle]. (perfective preterite) 2. Hezkym´ate[you have] ten bytzaˇr´ızen´y [passive participle]. (Slavic perfect) The first translation is rather about the past action of furnishing (‘You furnished the flat nicely’), whereas the second translation is rather about the present result (‘You have a nicely furnished flat’). The difference between the two verb forms can be summarized as follows:

Im Gegensatz zum Gebrauch des perfektiven Pr¨ateritums themati-siert der tschechische Sprecher nicht die durch das Partizip bezeich-nete Handlung, sondern er hebt den aktuellen Nachzustand hervor und bleibt dabei als ein potentielles passives Agens im Hintergrund.

Das slavische Perfekt [. . . ] steht damit auf dem Wege zwischen ei-ner Aktiv-Konstruktion und deren Passiv-Transformation. Es scheint zweitrangig zu sein, wer⁴¹ die Handlung durchgef¨uhrt hat, es geht vielmehr um das Resultat der Handlung, also darum, wie die aktuelle

adjacent, whereas in French the congruence is mediated via the inserted relative pronounque, cf. the notions of “Nah-Kongruenz” and “Fern-Kongruenz” [Weinreich1982, p.41]. Czech examples of “Fern-Kongruenz” mediated via a relative pronoun can be constructed. The point is that in French word order is the decisive factor.

40This example (

”Sch¨on habt ihr die Wohnung eingerichtet“[, fand Mutter]) and the Czech translations are taken from [ˇSenkeˇr´ık2000, p.71].

41Just like in English, there is a continuum of verb forms that range from stressing who did the cooking to the mere existence of a ready-to-be-eaten meal:j´a jsem vaˇrilimperfective, masculine [im-perfective preterite,j´astressed in intonation] ‘It is me who has cooked’,uvaˇrilperfective, masculine

jsem ‘I have cooked’ [perfective preterite],m´am uvaˇrenoperfective, neuter[Slavic perfect], ‘I have cooked’, je uvaˇrenoperfective, neuter [(it) is + passive participle] ‘dinner is ready’, literally ‘it is cooked’.

Konfiguration der Realit¨at aussieht. Ein Abschluss kann erschlossen werden [Senkeˇˇ r´ık2000, p.71].

The most striking similarity between English and Czech in the context of the Slavic (present) perfect is its incompatibility with past-time markers such as vˇcera ‘yesterday’: *vˇcera m´am uvaˇreno is at least as ungrammatical as *I have cooked yesterday.⁴²

How does the Slavic perfect interact with perfective verbal aspect? All passive participles in the perfect constructions above are perfective, i.e. derived from per-fective infinitives: uklizeno <uklidit⁴³ ‘tidy up’, uvaˇreno < uvaˇrit⁴⁴ ‘cook (sth.

through)’, koupen´y < koupit⁴⁵ ‘buy’, zaˇr´ızen´y < zaˇr´ıdit⁴⁶ ‘furnish (sth.)’. Im-perfective passive participles (e.g.vidˇen´y above) “can refer to a type or category of thing, rather than the result of an action, e.g. vaˇren´e nudle ‘boiled noodles’

[. . . ]” [Naughton 2005, p.161]. Consequently, imperfective passive partici-ples are semantically incompatible with the resultative meaning of the Slavic perfect. The Slavic perfect of an imperfective main verb would be considered ungrammtical: *m´am vaˇreno.

The auxiliariesm´ıt ‘have’ andb´yt ‘be’ are imperfective. Normally⁴⁷, they do not have perfective partners. They can be made iterative⁴⁸ by infixation: m´ıt

‘have’>m´ıvat⁴⁹‘have often, tend to have’ andb´yt ‘be’>b´yvat⁵⁰‘be often, tend to be’. Contrary to the preterite, which does not allow for its auxiliaryb´yt to take

42The Czech sentence is probably even more ungrammatical than its English counterpart because its meaning is much closer to the reading*I have something as cooked yesterday, i.e.

the auxiliary’s original meaning of possession has not yet been subdued much. Compared to the English perfect, which is fully grammaticalised, the Czech perfect can be seen as a perfect in statu nascendi, cf. the evolutionary stages of possessive perfects on p.90.

43Imperfective partner: ukl´ızet.

44Imperfective partner: vaˇrit.

45Imperfective partner: kupovat.

46Imperfective partner: zaˇrizovat.

47There is a perfective pob´yt ‘stay’ but it is used as the perfective partner of b´yt ‘be’

only if an emotional colouring is wanted. B´yt belongs to a group of imperfective verbs “f¨ur die beim normalen, sachlichen Gebrauch keine perfektive Entsprechung zur Verf¨ugung steht, weil diese Entsprechung emotional ist und ohne Emotionalit¨at nicht verwendet werden kann”

[Frei1998, p.499].

48These ‘frequentatives’ behave like imperfective verbs. “In the past these verbs mean ‘used to do’.” [Naughton2005, p.166].

49There is an emotionally coloured ‘second-order’ iterative form: m´ıv´avat.

50Ditto: b´yv´avat.

these iterative forms, the Slavic perfect can be combined with the iterative forms of m´ıt ‘have’, e.g. m´ıvala uvaˇreno v ˇsest ‘she used to have lunch/dinner ready at six’, literally: ‘she had^iterative cooked^perfective at six’. Even for the non-iterative mˇela uvaˇreno the literal English translation she had cooked enforces a pre-past reading because referring to the before-past is the prototypical function of the English past perfect. Combining the past perfect with a past time adverbial is borderline ungrammatical: ^?she had cooked at six, cf. “The past perfect is not used simply to say that something happened some time ago” [Swan 2005b, p.398]. In German this is possible (um sechs hatte sie gekocht); even a double perfect is possible (um sechs hatte sie (schon) gekocht gehabt).

There are marginal uses of the English past perfect which do not necessarily refer to the pre-past. Being embedded in a past tense sentence seems necessary, though. Firstly, in utterances such as “It was the first time that I had heard her sing” [Swan 2005b, p.425] the past perfect is mandatory. This sentence can be transposed to the present (It is the first time that I have heard her sing), where a present perfect is mandatory. In the Czech, French and German translations the perfect is not mandatory. That is the reason why the structure ‘first/second . . . that . . . +perf’ is perceived as unnatural by some EFL learners. Secondly, in an utterance such as “He went out before I had finished my sentence. (=

. . . before the moment when I had completed my sentence” [Swan 2005b, p.84]

the past perfect refers – strictly speaking – to the after-past because the event point E of finishing is later than the reference point R, which is established by the past tense of went. This posterior past reading (R < E < S) of the past perfect is exceptional⁵¹. It is also possible in German (er ging hinaus, bevor ich meinen Satz beendet hatte) but not mandatory (er ging hinaus, bevor ich meinen Satz beendete). In both languages this use of the past perfect “emphasise[s] the idea of completion” [ibid.].

51“Note that in sentences like the last, a past perfect tense can refer to a time later than the action of the main verb. This is unusual” [Swan2005b, p.84, his italics].