Talk:Latin tenses (semantics)

Rating

The rating of this article was Start class but recently changed by FloridaMan21 to grade B. In my view, it does not merit a B. The author's division of Latin tenses into "Primary", "Secondary Future", "Secondary Present", "Secondary Past" and "Tertiary", which the article adopts, appears to be entirely his own invention and not found in any authority on Latin. No reference is given for this division. The tenses agam 'I will do' or 'I will be doing' and ago 'I am doing' are both classified as both "Primary" and as "Secondary Present" for some reason; this is certainly not based on the terminology of any standard textbook. All the Latin examples and translations are copied wholesale from the article Latin tenses. Kanjuzi (talk) 17:05, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I have reviewed the article once more and determined it is in the Start-C class range. I see @Kanjuzi that you are very involved in language-related articles so I highly respect your opinion. Thank you for your observation. FloridaMan21 (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@FloridaMan21, Kanjuzi and I have previously discussed about these three topics, so he knows that what he is saying is not true. For a detailed response to each criticism, see the sections below.

However, given the timing of the grade lowering, I assume Kanjuzi did this as a reaction to the fact that the formal article on Latin tenses was graded C by a reviewer and that he thinks that the formal article is better than this one. Instead of improving the other article based on the reviewer's suggestions, which is something he and I could do cooperatively, he came here and lowered the grade.

The timing also implies that he did not like my suggestions on the talk page of what to do in reaction to the harsh review. Moreover, I know for a fact that he did not like my attempt to include the formal theory into Latin tenses, as suggested by the reviewer, because he reverted them and asked me not to mess with 'his article'.

I do not know how to react to this. Is there a way in Wikipedia to stimulate cooperation and lower tension and competition? I would be available to cooperate with Kanjuzi in improving the theoretical part of his article, if he is willing. I can leave that article alone, if he prefers. But I would like him to stop making false claims about me and this article to lower its grading. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 08:34, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Kanjuzi's criticism 1: double classification of 'am doing'

@Kanjuzi made the following criticism: The tenses agam 'I will do' or 'I will be doing' and ago 'I am doing' are both classified as both "Primary" and as "Secondary Present" for some reason; this is certainly not based on the terminology of any standard textbook.

@FloridaMan21, there is no claim in this article that the paradigm ["am doing", "is doing", "are doing"] is called both 'present' and 'present-in-present'. The claim is that these wordings can be 'used' either with a 'present meaning' or witth a 'present-in-present meaning'. The reason for the terminological confusion lies in the fact that Kanjuzi is only familiar with the formal theory of tense whereby Latin verbs and periphrases are called 'present', 'furture', 'imperfect', 'perfect'...

In most formal descriptions, the English paradigm ["am travelling", "is travelling", "are travelling"] is called 'present continuous' and it is said to be either (1) 'used' with 'present meaning' or (2) 'used' with 'future meaning' given that we can say both (1) "I am travelling now. I'll call you guys when I arrive." (present) or (2) "Sorry, I won't be able to join you guys because I am travelling on the weekend." (future).

In a functional theory, the 'uses' of a paradigm (a.k.a. 'functions') are what gets a name, not the paradigm. In functional descriptions, one says that there are different ways to represent a future action in English ("am travelling", "will travel", "shall travel"...) and there are different ways to represent a present action in English ("am travelling", "have been travelling"...). The fact that "am travelling" appears both in the 'future meaning' section and in the 'present meaning' section is due to the fact that the wording "am travelling" can be used to mean either 'future' or 'present'. It is not the name of the paradigm.

This is the reason why "agam" (am doing) is presented as an example of both "primary" and "secondary" tenses in this article. Saying this only means that "agam" (am doing) can be used both to indicate what is going on now (primary present) or what is going on while we are doing something else (secondary present). The secondary present carries a "simultaneity" feature of the secondary event. If we put the sentece "The alarm is still ringing as I am leaving the building." to the past, we will have "The alarm was still ringing as I left the building." because "is ringing" can construe either a primary or a secondary tense whereas "was ringing" usually construes a secondary tense and "rang" usually construes a primary tense. (Notice: 'usually') There is no classification of wordings for meanings outside of examples, outside of a context of discourse or outside of a context of situation.

The functional theory of tense has been applied to the description of Latin. For instance, researchers such as Aerts (since 2018) in his articles and Guerreira (2021) in his grammar book (both cited in the article) have been applying the functional theory of tense to the analysis of Latin texts. They are using the terms "absolute" and "relative" which are older versions of the terms "primary" and "secondary" in general linguistics as discussed in books reporting comparative studies on tense in the last 10-15 years (including Latin).

Given this extensive explanation, I would like us to close this discussion (a) because this is neither a 'double classification' of uses nor a 'double naming' of uses and (b) because there is the article Latin tenses where we already name the paradigms and list the uses of each paradigm. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 10:57, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I would say "The alarm was still ringing as I was leaving the building" is the past version of the sentence you cite. Here the two actions are coextensive in time. (Of course it is also possible to say "The alarm was still ringing when I left the building", where "when I left" describes a punctual moment in time.) – I am very glad you have closed the discussion. Kanjuzi (talk) 20:50, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Kanjuzi's criticism 2: example and translation copy

@Kanjuzi criticised that All the Latin examples and translations are copied wholesale from the article Latin tenses..

@FloridaMan21, not all examples and translations were copied from Latin tenses, though many examples were. Some examples were searched in a corpus and added to the secondary and tertiary tense sections because there weren't any in the other article.

There is a good reason for using similar examples both here and in Latin tenses. Whoever is learning Latin or doing comparative studies between different languages can find both the overall organisation of uses in this article (semantics) and the overall organisation of verb paradigms in Latin tenses (forms and uses) and they will profit from the fact that the majority of examples occur in both articles. This means the article would not become any better if I open "PHI Concordance" website, search for other examples there to replace the ones already here.

I understand that Kanjuzi did a lot of work collecting examples and selecting translations, a work that I did not have to do. This means that this article profited from his. If there is any way to credit Kanjuzi for the examples and translations that he did, I would like to do this. However, it is false that this article is in any sense a copy of Latin tenses. You can very well check it out and you will see how the two articles are differet and you will notice that they serve different purposes.

@FloridaMan21, what should be done in this case? Replacement of examples due to authoral disputes or Kanjuzi's crediting for his previous work in the talk page? Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 11:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Kanjuzi's criticism 3: no citation of theory and application to Latin

@Kanjuzi criticised that The author's division of Latin tenses into "Primary", "Secondary Future", "Secondary Present", "Secondary Past" and "Tertiary", which the article adopts, appears to be entirely his own invention and not found in any authority on Latin. No reference is given for this division..

@FloridaMan21, this is not the case.

There are two compatible functional theories of semantic tense in linguistics. In an older functional theory, there are 'absolute tenses' (future, present, past) and there are 'relative tenses' ('priority', 'simultaneity', 'posteriority'). There is a more modern functional theory, where the absolute tense is called 'primary tense' and each degree of distantiation from the current situation gets a larger number: 'secondary tense', 'tertiary tense'... This is a Linguistic Theory irrespectively of language! It's a theory of whichever language, not theory of Latin language. And it provides a way of organising examples found in formal grammars based on the uses. Both the old version and the new version of the theory are cited in the article. In particular, I cite Halliday's introduction to functional grammar (2014) where the theory is fully explained, I inform the page where tense is described and I quote the text (Citation XII).

So it is false that the division of examples is entirely my invention. Kanjuzi is aware of this because we have discussed about this. The fact that he never read any of the quoted books where these terms happen does not imply that the terms do not exist. By the way, the terms "past-in-past" and "past-in-future" are used in the third paragraph of the article about Grammatical tense, which shows that authors of that article are using the modern terms of the functional linguistic theory.

Again, this is simply the new way researchers are referring to chained tenses when describing verb use. With corpora, we are able to find and describe less frequent linguistic phenomena such as tertiary and quaternary tenses. Since saying 'relative-to-relativie-to-relative-to-absolute tense' is less practical than saying 'quaternary tense', researchers are now preferring the latter term. It is simply that.

Moreover, the functioal theory has been applied to the description of Latin in both articles and grammar books as I have abundantly cited. So it is not true that these terms are not found in any authority on Latin. Kanjuzi knows that too because we already discussed about this.

@FloridaMan21, do you see the need of more citations where these terms appear? Which terms? Just tell me and I will provide the reference both in general linguistics and in Latin descriptions. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 15:17, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

"Tertiary tense" might well be a suitable description of the first tense in Caesar's sentence "the bridge had been broken earlier (fuerat interruptus) but had now been repaired (erat refectus)". However, there doesn't seem to be any author who actually uses the term "tertiary" with reference to this Latin tense, so it difficult to give any reference. Kanjuzi (talk) 21:20, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

If "present in the past" is a standard description found in reputable authorities for the tense "I was doing (at that time)", there needs to be a reference. It sounds very odd to me! Similarly for expressions such as "past in past", "past in present" etc. Which authorities use these terms?

It is unclear why you have placed habet subōrnātum in a different group from cognitum habeō. They are exactly the same tense in Latin.

It is unclear why you have put nātus fuit 'was born' in the group described as "had done". The exact meaning of this tense is debated by scholars, and it is not known whether it has roughly the same meaning as a pluperfect. Is "had done" a suitable description of the meaning? Kanjuzi (talk) 21:57, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Aerts applied the functional theory to Latin in multiple articles, but he explained the theory and the terminology in his doctor thesis "Latin tense and aspect in 3D: a corpus-based, systemic functional description of the narrative tenses in the language of Livy and Gregory of Tours". Check Page 53. He lists and defines the new terms there. In particular, he adapts Halliday's terms (which he is citing) from 'past-in-past' to 'past-before-past' and 'future-in-past' to 'future-after-past'. Since he is citing Halliday and places his work in Systemic Functional Linguistics (the subarea of functional linguistics that uses the new vocabulary), I prefer to use the original terms of the field instead of the ones in his thesis. The original terms are used by him and others in functional descriptions of Latin and functional comparisons of Latin to other languages.

Again, 'past-in-past', 'present-in-past' and 'future-in-past' are not new terms. They are popping up since early concordance-tool-assisted corpus studies in the nineties, but the corpus studies applying them to Latin are recent. These studies happened in the last 15 years.

As for the example nātus fuit ('had been born'), you are right that the translation to 'was born' was not good for a grammar article, especially so in the section about 'past-in-past' (which is the typical meaning of a pluperfect verb such as fēcerat ('had made')). In English, it is quite common to use a simple past when the primary past event is elided: for instance, after reducing 'Sophocles had been born before Euripides was born' to 'Sophocles had been born before Euripides', in English we tend to simplify the tense to 'Sophocles was born before Euripides'. This is why I did the first translation the way I did (which is fine for a book). But you are right. It is confusing in grammar description. For this reason, I have changed it. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 08:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it means "Sophocles had been born before Euripides"; that's slightly different, since it moves the viewpoint into the past. Out of interest, I know that Halliday doesn't discuss Latin, but how does he treat the English tense "used to", e.g. "there used to be a statue of him in the forum" or "I used to play the trumpet"? Does he call it a primary or a secondary tense? Certainly in French il y avait autrefois... or German früher gab es... the meaning seems to be primary, just a simple past tense referring to a remote time. I imagine that when Caesar arrived at the bridge, his chief engineer would have told him pons interruptus fuit 'the bridge was previously in a broken state'. Changing this statement to a past context Caesar wrote: pons interruptus fuerat 'the bridge had previously been in a broken state'. If the first tense is primary, the second one is secondary, not tertiary. Kanjuzi (talk) 09:28, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

That's a very interesting question. In English, the periphrasis "used to" may be one of multiple things in different clauses.

It may be the most common form of the primary past:

I used to have a guitar. (past possession)

I have a guitar. (present possession)

It may be a past habit as opposed to a past action:

I used to have an icecream every day after work. (past habit)

I have an icecream every day after work. (present habit)

I had an ice cream yesterday. (past action)

I am having an ice cream. (present action)

To apply this theory, one has to map the whole variation and then determine the wording contrasts that correlate to meaning contrasts. It is by finding these correlations between grammatical and semantic oppositions that we can determine whether a process is present, past or future. The meaning contrast is in the wording contrast, not in the wording. This is why this theory is good for people doing corpus research. We can search for all clauses where 'have' is a main verb meaning 'eat' and check when each option is selected.

Now let's go to your example in Latin. Let's pick out all clauses for that main verb in Caesar's texts and let's examine them (two were left out!):

(1a) qua re cognita, Vercingetorix omnibus interruptīs ejus flūminis pontibus ab alterā flūminis parte iter facere coepit.

(1b) [eae] praemissae ā Domitiō ex oppidō, pontem flūminis interrumpēbant

(1c) ac summās ripās flūminis superāvit, pontīsque ambōs, quōs C. Fabius fēcerat, ūnō diē interrūpit.

(2a) subito vī ventōrum et aquae magnitūdine pōns est interruptus et reliqua multitūdō equitum interclūsa.

(2b) pōns, quī fuerat tempestate interruptus, paene erat refectus.

(3a) [is] conloquia militum interrumpit

(3b) quorum mediam orationem interrumpunt subito undique tela immissa

The main verb represents in Group 1 a human action of destroying, in Group 2 a natural happening of getting ruined, and in Group 3 the interpersonal act of interrupting each other. Let's concentrate on the first two:

The subject of (1a) is "Vencingetōrix" whereas the subject of (1b) is "eae". This means that "interruptīs" opposes "praemissae" textually in the sense of active vs passive voice. In this sense, we should expect "interruptō", "interrumpēbat" and "interūpit" for a human subject and "interruptus", "interrumpēbātur" and "interruptus est" for a bridge as subject. All of these forms are simple past, but they differ. "Interruptō" and "interruptus" are used in a first clause of a temporal sequence whereas the other verbs are used in the second clause. "Interrumpēbat" / "interrumpēbātur" are used (according to Aerts) when a story-internal character is shocked with what is happening and "interrūpī" / "interruptus est" otherwise.

When it comes to Group 2, we see natural happenings. Here grammar works differently because the natural entity is always dative and the material entity is always nominative. Like for most deponent verbs, the textual subject of the clause is usually determined by word order. This means that (2a) has a more active feeling than (2b). Wordings such as "vī ventōrum" instead of "ventīs" also contribute to this more active meaning. The word order is "est interruptus" and "fuerat... interruptus". I do not know enough about Caesar's word order to decide whether this is due to the fact that this is a natural happening or whether Caesar also uses this word order for passive actions. Finally, since the events are concatenated to others, "est interruptus" is the primary tense 'past' and "fuerat interruptus" is the tertiary tense 'past-in-past-in-past'. It is hard to argue otherwise for this system. But maybe with more evidence for other verbs, one could. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 20:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

–"the natural entity is always dative"? What do you mean? vī and tempestāte are both ablative, not dative.

–"(2a) has a more active feeling than (2b)": This is just your imagination with no basis in reality.

–The "o" in Vercingetorix is short.

–fuerat interruptus is probably not a tertiary tense. If erat refectus is taken as meaning 'it was at that time in a rebuilt state' (which is a primary tense) then fuerat interruptus would mean 'it had earlier on been in a broken state' (which is a secondary tense). If on the other hand erat refectus is taken as an action ('it had been repaired a few days earlier'), then the two verbs are secondary and tertiary respectively. But since paene 'almost' is added, I would guess that the first option, that it refers to the state the bridge was in at the time of Caesar's arrival, is the correct one, since it would make no sense to say 'the bridge had almost been rebuilt a few days earlier'. But in any case, whether it is secondary or tertiary is irrelevant. It is not permitted on Wikipedia to make these decisions yourself: Wikipedia is supposed to be a summary of the views of established scholars, not your own personal ideas, and no scholar has yet written on this problem. Kanjuzi (talk) 08:28, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry. It's my German background. We only have 'dative'. I mean 'ablative'. You are right. 77.191.188.156 (talk) 10:35, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Notice: the example "pōns... paene erat refectus." ('the bridge was almost rebuilt.') is a strong candidate for a past state description (which would change the previous interpretation). It is hard to argue that it is a past-in-past action given the paene ('almost') modifier. If it is a primary past, not a secondary past, the other tense would be a 'past-in-past' event. If this is the case, we would have to rely on periphrasis combination rules, not on tense alone, to explain "fuerat". Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 21:23, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Now I understand your point. Very nice!

If the word order fuerat interruptus means 'had been previously broken', the translation would be 'the bridge, which had been broken due to the heavy rain, was almost repaired'. This would bypass the need for a periphrasis combination rule. Nice! One would need much more evidence to claim that this is what is happening here. Two examples are not enough, but your idea is very plausible. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 21:41, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this (see my answer to the previous point): the meaning of fuerat interruptus is probably 'had previously been in a broken condition' as you say, which would make it secondary. I also agree that two examples are not enough. But the verb natus fuit is a tricky one. Is natus adjectival? (i.e. does it mean 'he was already born'?) If so, the tense is primary. Kanjuzi (talk) 08:35, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Kanjuzi's Criticism 4: same periphrasis and two uses?

Kanjuzi pointed out that It is unclear why you have placed 'habet subōrnātum' in a different group from 'cognitum habeō'. They are exactly the same tense in Latin.

Indeed, the current text may leave this unclear for the readers. Here is the explanation.

In Latin, a statement such as Gallia divīsa est in partēs trēs ('Gaul has three parts') represents a present state, which is not necessarily the result of any past happening as in 'got devided' nor any past action as in 'was devided by someone'.

A statement such as Horolōgium in triclīniō subōrnātum est ('A clock is located in the dining room') - simple translation of 'triclīniō' for clarity - is one of this kind, whereby a present state is described. Here comes [Is] horolōgium in triclīniō... habet subōrnātum, ('[He] keeps a clock located in the dining room'). This is a statement about present location control without any location change. This means that the difference between subōrnātum est and habet subōrnātum is one of transitivity interpretation (process as state vs process as state control), not a difference in tense. Both are present processes.

As for cognitum habeō ('I have learned'), this is indeed a past event. However, it is not simply a past event. It is 'past-in-present' because it relates that past event to the current process of thinking in arbitror ('I think'). This may be one of the reasons why cognitum habeō ('I have learned') was selected instead of cognōvī ('I learned').

So, in conclusion, the two examples are plaeced in different sections because those are two different uses of the periphrastic paradigm "[past participle] + habeō". What you are calling 'the same tense' is the same periphrasis, the same paradigm. This article is organised according to the uses. So the same periphrasis happened in two different sections because the article has use sections, not periphrasis sections. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 09:53, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

The participle subornatum doesn't mean 'located', and there is no reason to think that it is adjectival here, so the basis of your argument is wrong. If we translate it more accurately as 'he has set up (a clock)' you can see that it is exactly the same tense as cognitum habeo 'I have learned'. There is no reason to split the two into different sections. Kanjuzi (talk) 10:48, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you notice the difference between?

(1) He has set up a clock in the dining room.

(2) He has a clock set up in the dining room.

In the first, we represent the action. In the second, we represent the state control. In neither case, we are dealing with an adjective or with a relative clause. In the text, Trimalchion (if I remember well) is not the one who set up the clock there. No one is talking about the setting up of the clock. No one is talking about what took place, whether the triclinio was built around the clock or the clock was built in the triclinio. The text is about the reason why he keeps a clock there. So the tense of 'controlling' is present. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 15:59, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to add two other points.

A. You are claiming that subōrnātum habet is a past event like subōrnāvit, which would make the two wordings interchangeable. Even if that would be true (which I disagree), subōrnātum habet would not end up in the same section as cognitum habeō because cognitum habeō is used with a 'past-in-present' meaning in the example. In turn, subōrnātum habet cannot be 'past-in-present' because there is no present event for the clock 'setting up' to be related to.

B. The opposition between erat subōrnātum and habet subōrnātum lies in the transitivity interpretation. This is something that will only make sense to you if you read about experiential meaning. A good chapter about this is Chapter 5 of Halliaday's introduction to functional grammar. It is very general and very clear. The examples are in English. Aerts's thesis makes a very brief description of this metafunction on Page 26 and he applies the theory to the examples. Once an interpretation is fixed, there is still voice. This means that 'erat' vs 'habet' can also function as alternative voice auxialiries. Here are a few funny examples of this taken from Satyricon:

(1) in quībus haec erant scripta XXX

(2) in quō erat scriptum XXX

(3) quārum altera, sī bene meminī, hoc habēbat īnscriptum XXX

(4) canis ingēns, catēna vinctus, in pariete erat pictus superque quadrātā litterā scriptum XXX

The first three examples relate a surface to some text carved in them. In Examples (1) and (2), the text was carved in the surface. In Example (3), the surface had something carved in. In Example (4), the dog was depicted in the surface and had something carved above in square letters. Notice that no one is talking about the action of carving letters and depicting things in surfaces. They are describing the surfaces and their properties. So the time is primary past for all these examples, despite the fact that the same wordings could be used to represent the actions of carving and depicting.

Notice, however, that Petron usually inserts erat/habēbat before the main verb when he represents states such as these and inserts the main verb before the auxiliaries when he represents events such as the actions of carving and depicting. This means that there is also a reason for word order to be different for habet subōrnātum ('present' material state) and cognitum habeō ('past-in-present' mental event), at least for Petron.

Repeating the conclusion of the Criticism 1, the fact that the same periphrasis appears in two section is not a problem (a) because this is neither a 'double classification' of uses nor a 'double naming' of uses and (b) because there is the article Latin tenses where we already name the paradigms and list the uses of each paradigm. We do not need another section here for all potential meanings resulting from the combination of a participle and habet. There is one for that in the other article. Here we are doing a different section for each use. Daniel Couto Vale (talk) 17:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I am not claiming that subornatum habet is a past event. I am claiming that the use of the tense here is exactly the same as in cognitum habeo. They should not be separated into different sections. The word for dining room is triclinium, by the way. Kanjuzi (talk) 07:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

That example you give, canis ingens in pariete erat pictus, is another good one. Obviously someone had earlier on painted the picture, so in that sense it describes an action; from another point of view it is a description of the current state of the wall. But it really makes no sense to divide these into two different categories of secondary and primary, since it has both meanings at the same time. Kanjuzi (talk) 10:52, 12 August 2024 (UTC)