Michel Paladian:

The translation of the Present Perfect (French, Armenian, English, Russian, German) and the position of the Past participle

Each language has its specificities. These last appear especially when analyse approaches study of various occurrences, downstream from the observed phenomena. On the basis of there, the work of the typologist, when it comes to deal with general problems, changes it into a fortuitous assembly of convergences and divergences of the facts of speech, that from a primarily diachronic point of view, without true answer. However, as already Humboldt wrote (1995: 56), “the diversity of languages is not a diversity of sound and sign, but a diversity of vision of the world (Ihre Verschiedenheit ist nicht eine von Schallen und Zeichen. Sonden eine der Weltansichte Selbt). Indeed, the language is generally thought like simply sign; however, it would be appropriate, while keeping the communicative dimension, to regard it as a work of spirit (Werk des Gedankens).

In a general way, the position of the past participle (in different Perfects) translates an analytic vision of time; it illustrates a setting in scene a posteriori of the time and of the space, of actants and circonstants.

The past participle presents (except for the passive construction) the event under an aoristic aspect (beginning and end known) and a relation of anteriority compared to the intervals of the auxiliary references: the window of monstration looks on one side to the past (this window can be moved on the line of time - towards the before(the adjective) or towards the after(the verb), brought closer or far away from the moment of speech ); on other side the window looks on the present (situation resulting from the event).

German Perfektum joined together in only one window the various stops on the line of time, giving the priority to the logic of objective time (the escape of time): posed before separatly the auxiliary (which corresponds sometimes on the final terminal of participle temporal reference), German gradually unrolls “ the carpet of time “, finishing by logical beginning; German lexiconizes rather. Independently of the observed event, the intra-linguistic logic would like (it is the case in any account) which we pose before the origin of event. The French syntagm tries precisely to juxtapose (in spite of logic of objective time) a present (the auxiliary) with a past (the participle). By doing this, the French syntagm privileges the dating, sees the Present perfect like a time, what explains obviously the slip towards the Preterit, when the context is not given.

Armenian comprises two past participles. Thus the values of Present perfect are realized by three forms:

a) A preterit which has slipped today towards the values of a Present perfect, a past coming to finish in the space of the speech moment.

b) A Present perfect (varakatar nerka) formed on the past participle I, which retains still its verbal values.

c) A Present perfect (harakatar nerka) formed on the past participle II, which has adjectival value. Displacement on the line of time and diathesis are semantically interdependent; it is an important fact for each translation. Thus, the syntagm ergel em (it happened to me to sing) can be used, in Eastern Armenian without object and semantically to deviate, whereas the form ergeci (I sung) require on object and does not deviate semantically. But even the object presence, the semantisms differ because of prolongation to the moment of speech.

For the translation of German Past participle, it seems to us that German joins together the three values of the Armenian Past participle: it marks sometimes the after (varakatar nerka) sometimes the before (harakatar nerka) and sometimes, the usual Present perfect I (prolongation in the present). The Armenian verbal system went all things considered further in the exophrastie (the term is of G.Guillaume), in propositional expension from a semantic core.