When did we start using "have" to mark past tense?
October 20, 2023 9:21 PM Subscribe
In a discussion about language I realized how strange it is to use "have" to mark past tense, in a sentence such as "I have built a house". Modern English, German and French do it, but this way of marking past tense was not part of the Indo-European language from which they all have developed. Somewhere along the way, people started using "have" as a way of expressing past tense - when did this happen? Could you recommend some articles to read about this topic?
You're wrong in that this is actually quite an old formation. I don't know for sure about PIE but Attic Greek, for example, definitely had a perfect form, and in the perfect and pluperfect middle-passive voice even had a periphrastic form analogous to our "have built." (I believe Latin took a slightly different approach.)
Somewhere along the way, people started using "have" as a way of expressing past tense
Well...not quite! The simple past is just "built." Remember that "have built" is called the present perfect (as against "had built," which is past perfect). "Have" (or "had") plus past participle are used to denote aspect, that is, roughly, the relationship of the action to the point of time of the statement. The present perfect refers to an action begun in the past and completed in the "present" of the sentence; the past perfect to an action begun in the past and completed in the more recent "past" of the sentence. "I have died," as opposed to "I died," is ultimately about the endpoint in the present of an action in the past. The distinction isn't felt very strongly in modern English, but that's what it is.
posted by praemunire at 10:54 PM on October 20, 2023 [21 favorites]
Somewhere along the way, people started using "have" as a way of expressing past tense
Well...not quite! The simple past is just "built." Remember that "have built" is called the present perfect (as against "had built," which is past perfect). "Have" (or "had") plus past participle are used to denote aspect, that is, roughly, the relationship of the action to the point of time of the statement. The present perfect refers to an action begun in the past and completed in the "present" of the sentence; the past perfect to an action begun in the past and completed in the more recent "past" of the sentence. "I have died," as opposed to "I died," is ultimately about the endpoint in the present of an action in the past. The distinction isn't felt very strongly in modern English, but that's what it is.
posted by praemunire at 10:54 PM on October 20, 2023 [21 favorites]
I found this discussion as well, by searching for “compound past tense historical linguistics”: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/27252/where-did-the-use-of-the-two-auxiliaries-in-the-romance-languages-come-from
posted by music for skeletons at 10:55 PM on October 20, 2023
posted by music for skeletons at 10:55 PM on October 20, 2023
The perfect in IE seems to have developed from abstracting the idea of possession. E.g. in Cicero there's a line in ea provincia pecunias magnas collocatas habent, "they have a lot of money invested in that province." It's only a short step semantically to "they have invested a lot of money in that province." See also in agentofselection's link, litterās scriptās habeō "I have (written letters)" > "I (have written) letters."
The perfect has several meanings in English-- one is to mark a change in state that's relevant somehow. E.g. if someone offers you a meal you can say "I've eaten", which has a hidden implication-- you've eaten and you're still full, so you can't eat more.
But perfects to tend to turn into past tenses over the centuries-- it's happened in French and German.
Simple verbs often get conscripted into other grammatical roles. The Chinese perfect/perfective particle le comes from the verb liao 'finish'.
posted by zompist at 11:45 PM on October 20, 2023 [11 favorites]
The perfect has several meanings in English-- one is to mark a change in state that's relevant somehow. E.g. if someone offers you a meal you can say "I've eaten", which has a hidden implication-- you've eaten and you're still full, so you can't eat more.
But perfects to tend to turn into past tenses over the centuries-- it's happened in French and German.
Simple verbs often get conscripted into other grammatical roles. The Chinese perfect/perfective particle le comes from the verb liao 'finish'.
posted by zompist at 11:45 PM on October 20, 2023 [11 favorites]
The use of the verb have to denote the past tense and the word go to mark the future tense are a nicely matched pair.
There are two forces at work in the evolution of language. One is speed and the other is clarity.
The longer words are in use the more they evolve to be easier to pronounce so that we can speak more quickly. Going to is often said as gonna or gunna. Similarly the word probably is evolving to become prolly. However if we want to be sure to be understood, we have to enunciate all our consonants very clearly. But imagine pronouncing all the consonants in a word like thought! Over the centuries the word has evolved so that many English speakers pronounce it the same way as the word tot. The H's are not aspirated at all, and you've never heard the gh pronounced at all unless you studied Middle English.
But when you talk quickly or you are not facing your listener, or you are some distance away dropping the consonants and the vowel shifts make it hard to understand. The usual solution to this is to throw another word into your statement to create emphasis of the important part.
I'm going to switch languages for a moment, since the example I want to use is so perfect a way to show that evolution. Once upon a time many centuries ago to express the concept today, a person living in the area that became France would say hoc die which is Latin for this day. But hard C followed by a D requires a bit more work so the C got dropped, turning into the word hodie. H's at the beginning of words often get dropped too, lost in an inhalation, so it would be pronounced almost as just a D. Once it is just dee you've lost the word hoc (this) entirely and there is lots of room to quibble about deadlines.
Now when you are talking about today, and today is important as tomorrow is not soon enough, you need to stress that, so the speakers of early evolving French started using the phrase au jour before the word odie. This brings us to the word aujourd'hui which is the contemporary word for today in French, which literally means on the day of this day.
But we are not done yet. It's a long word and it tends to get shortened in casual speech to something that sounds like zwee (The J in the word jour is soft.) So it's back to being a word you might miss hearing in a stream of rapid fire instructions. And that means that many French speakers are adding the words au jour back to the beginning again, and what they are saying is au jour d'aujourd'hui when they want to be certain nobody can claim they didn't know they couldn't do it tomorrow. They are literally saying on the day on the day of this day.
That's the same process by which we added have to denote the past tense and go to denote present tense. Having something indicates a completed action because an action has to be completed before you can have an object, and Going somewhere indicates an incomplete action because if you are going somewhere you haven't gotten there yet.
The evidence of these changes comes from written legal documents, because those are the ones that were archived by the various authorities. They were stored in vaults and not consulted very often so they didn't get read to death, and they got passed down from generation to generation over centuries. Muniment rooms were found in castles and universities and churches and great houses. They were basically the forerunners of libraries. A muniment was originally a title deed, but all important loose papers became muniments, and it made sense that bound accounts would be stored with the loose papers so they began to be considered muniments too.
The legal records would include written testimony of what people did or didn't do for court cases so they provide lots of examples of the changes in tense and the evolution of the new tenses.
Not only did the word have evolve to denote the past tense, but it also evolved to denote compulsion - "I have to stop writing such long responses," is letting people know that I have a situation here and I am stuck with it.
To provide clarity when using the word going to indicate the near future we sometimes use the word will. "I will write a long response," versus "I am going to write a long response." But back in the day the world will meant to desire something and the word want meant to lack it. When you say "I will," during your wedding vows you are not promising to do anything. You are consenting. "Thy will be done," is an archaic phrase you may have heard, where will means the Lord is to get whatever He wants. Another use is when someone writes a Last Will and Testament - they are writing down what they want to happen. But in "A Christmas Carol" Scrooge is shown two figures at the feet of The Ghost of Christmas Future, Ignorance and Want. In that case Want stood for poverty and neediness.
It was the evolution of the word will to denote the future tense, that made it lose its original meaning of desiring something. People started using the word want instead to make it clear that they were not committing to doing something in the future. I will get a new featherbed turned into I want a new featherbed. If you are old enough you might remember hearing that you should conjugate the verb will in the past tense as "I shall, you will, he will, we shall...." The reason for this was because saying "I will go home..." carried an implication that you would do it whether anyone liked it or not. It was too assertive. Instead you used the word should which is another word for compulsion, like have. But should implies that there is an external compulsion, and it might be a moral one. The compulsion implied by the word have is closer to a necessity. I have to finish writing this response so I can get breakfast.
We use fewer words for compulsion now, and use them less - Must, should, etc. because we have changed from a strongly hierarchical society where Obedience was the first and most important virtue. It all comes down to cultural changes. It's fascinating stuff to me.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:15 AM on October 21, 2023 [25 favorites]
There are two forces at work in the evolution of language. One is speed and the other is clarity.
The longer words are in use the more they evolve to be easier to pronounce so that we can speak more quickly. Going to is often said as gonna or gunna. Similarly the word probably is evolving to become prolly. However if we want to be sure to be understood, we have to enunciate all our consonants very clearly. But imagine pronouncing all the consonants in a word like thought! Over the centuries the word has evolved so that many English speakers pronounce it the same way as the word tot. The H's are not aspirated at all, and you've never heard the gh pronounced at all unless you studied Middle English.
But when you talk quickly or you are not facing your listener, or you are some distance away dropping the consonants and the vowel shifts make it hard to understand. The usual solution to this is to throw another word into your statement to create emphasis of the important part.
I'm going to switch languages for a moment, since the example I want to use is so perfect a way to show that evolution. Once upon a time many centuries ago to express the concept today, a person living in the area that became France would say hoc die which is Latin for this day. But hard C followed by a D requires a bit more work so the C got dropped, turning into the word hodie. H's at the beginning of words often get dropped too, lost in an inhalation, so it would be pronounced almost as just a D. Once it is just dee you've lost the word hoc (this) entirely and there is lots of room to quibble about deadlines.
Now when you are talking about today, and today is important as tomorrow is not soon enough, you need to stress that, so the speakers of early evolving French started using the phrase au jour before the word odie. This brings us to the word aujourd'hui which is the contemporary word for today in French, which literally means on the day of this day.
But we are not done yet. It's a long word and it tends to get shortened in casual speech to something that sounds like zwee (The J in the word jour is soft.) So it's back to being a word you might miss hearing in a stream of rapid fire instructions. And that means that many French speakers are adding the words au jour back to the beginning again, and what they are saying is au jour d'aujourd'hui when they want to be certain nobody can claim they didn't know they couldn't do it tomorrow. They are literally saying on the day on the day of this day.
That's the same process by which we added have to denote the past tense and go to denote present tense. Having something indicates a completed action because an action has to be completed before you can have an object, and Going somewhere indicates an incomplete action because if you are going somewhere you haven't gotten there yet.
The evidence of these changes comes from written legal documents, because those are the ones that were archived by the various authorities. They were stored in vaults and not consulted very often so they didn't get read to death, and they got passed down from generation to generation over centuries. Muniment rooms were found in castles and universities and churches and great houses. They were basically the forerunners of libraries. A muniment was originally a title deed, but all important loose papers became muniments, and it made sense that bound accounts would be stored with the loose papers so they began to be considered muniments too.
The legal records would include written testimony of what people did or didn't do for court cases so they provide lots of examples of the changes in tense and the evolution of the new tenses.
Not only did the word have evolve to denote the past tense, but it also evolved to denote compulsion - "I have to stop writing such long responses," is letting people know that I have a situation here and I am stuck with it.
To provide clarity when using the word going to indicate the near future we sometimes use the word will. "I will write a long response," versus "I am going to write a long response." But back in the day the world will meant to desire something and the word want meant to lack it. When you say "I will," during your wedding vows you are not promising to do anything. You are consenting. "Thy will be done," is an archaic phrase you may have heard, where will means the Lord is to get whatever He wants. Another use is when someone writes a Last Will and Testament - they are writing down what they want to happen. But in "A Christmas Carol" Scrooge is shown two figures at the feet of The Ghost of Christmas Future, Ignorance and Want. In that case Want stood for poverty and neediness.
It was the evolution of the word will to denote the future tense, that made it lose its original meaning of desiring something. People started using the word want instead to make it clear that they were not committing to doing something in the future. I will get a new featherbed turned into I want a new featherbed. If you are old enough you might remember hearing that you should conjugate the verb will in the past tense as "I shall, you will, he will, we shall...." The reason for this was because saying "I will go home..." carried an implication that you would do it whether anyone liked it or not. It was too assertive. Instead you used the word should which is another word for compulsion, like have. But should implies that there is an external compulsion, and it might be a moral one. The compulsion implied by the word have is closer to a necessity. I have to finish writing this response so I can get breakfast.
We use fewer words for compulsion now, and use them less - Must, should, etc. because we have changed from a strongly hierarchical society where Obedience was the first and most important virtue. It all comes down to cultural changes. It's fascinating stuff to me.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:15 AM on October 21, 2023 [25 favorites]
I think there is a general tendency for fusional synthetic languages (where the grammar involves prefixes/suffixes) to evolve toward analytical languages (where just a few overloaded words do all the work). Using will (=want) for future tense, and perfect aspect + have for past tense is a natural way to go. It saves time and effort, and as you noted English is not an exception. So it's not really that strange.
posted by jabah at 8:33 AM on October 21, 2023
posted by jabah at 8:33 AM on October 21, 2023
Stack exchange has something that directly answers your question and includes citations.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 11:11 AM on October 21, 2023
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 11:11 AM on October 21, 2023
Zompist has the most accurate answer here.
/linguist
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
/linguist
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
"I have built a house" does indeed usually convey that the construction has recently ended. But it is also used to emphasize a positive that challenges an explicit (or, sometimes, implied) negative:
"None of us has had to build their own house."
"I have built a house."
In that usage there is no recency conveyed. The action of building could have happened years ago.
posted by yclipse at 3:10 AM on October 22, 2023
"None of us has had to build their own house."
"I have built a house."
In that usage there is no recency conveyed. The action of building could have happened years ago.
posted by yclipse at 3:10 AM on October 22, 2023
Response by poster: Well, I knew Metafilter was the right place to ask. I have been gone for a few days and I apologize for not replying earlier. Now I have read all the comments and links - thank you!
If I understand correctly, the scientific consensus is that this particular use of "to have" originated either in late Latin (from which it spread to Germanic languages) or in early Germanic (from which it spread to late Latin and then to Romance languages like French and Italian).
I like the effect that something too familiar can appear strange if you look closely at it long enough. I was struck by how weird it is to use "have" for this purpose, and I'm still wondering what other verbs could have been used for the same purpose.
I'm also wondering if the -b- in the Latin imperfect (amabam) and future (amabo) originally comes from habeo, which later fused with the verb stem. Do you have any recommendations about what I should read if I want to learn whether this is true or false?
posted by Termite at 10:30 PM on October 26, 2023
If I understand correctly, the scientific consensus is that this particular use of "to have" originated either in late Latin (from which it spread to Germanic languages) or in early Germanic (from which it spread to late Latin and then to Romance languages like French and Italian).
I like the effect that something too familiar can appear strange if you look closely at it long enough. I was struck by how weird it is to use "have" for this purpose, and I'm still wondering what other verbs could have been used for the same purpose.
I'm also wondering if the -b- in the Latin imperfect (amabam) and future (amabo) originally comes from habeo, which later fused with the verb stem. Do you have any recommendations about what I should read if I want to learn whether this is true or false?
posted by Termite at 10:30 PM on October 26, 2023
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There's a nice little answer to someone asking a similar question here:
https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/44698/history-of-perfect-tenses
posted by agentofselection at 9:57 PM on October 20, 2023 [4 favorites]