In a recent post, Jamie suggests that the AmE use of “Did you eat yet?” may be based on the English that was in use prior to the arrival/implementation of the present perfect. If that is so, would we be justified in calling “Did you eat yet?” a fossilised form?
I didn’t say that “Did you eat yet?” was based on English that was in use prior to the arrival or implementation of the present perfect. I said that it might be that the simple past was used for the meaning it conveys prior to the time the present perfect was used for it, or that the simple past and the present perfect might have existed side by side with the same meaning for centuries. Considering that all of the languages that combined to form English had their own present perfect tense, it’s highly unlikely that English never had one.
Nice try in attempting to place a derogative moniker on that American use of the simple past, but it doesn’t fit the description of a fossilized form, because it’s still productive and new sentences are constantly formed using the same tense for the same purpose, just as is done in German, Dutch or Swedish.
A fossilized form is generally one of those errors in individual speech that can’t be eradicated. An example would be the case of a guy who has been saying “when I gonna” instead of “if” for so long that it’s almost impossible to get him to stop.
You’re right there.
“It wasn’t until the Old English combination habban + second participle acquired to modern word order (I have my work done → I have done my work) that we can justly speak of a compound verb form in the sense of the modern present perfect.” (Hubler 1998)
Calm down, Jamie. I agree that we cannot call it a fossilized form, but ask then why certain “older” forms used in Indian English, for example, have been termed fossilized forms by many. Also, if “Did you eat yet?” cannot be seen as a fossilized forms, are we suggesting that AmE speakers never had the BrE present perfect use as the target language item? Are we saying that AmE speakers did not fossilize “Did you eat yet?” on the way to learning/accepting the use of the BrE present perfect?
I wonder if “fossilized” is polysemous in the world of linguistics. Here is an example different from the one you mention above.
There it seems frozen forms and fossilized forms are used synonymously.
Because they began as foreign speakers’ mistakes.
You’ve got everything backwards. The English first brought to America WAS some kind of British English. Americans weren’t speaking caveman gibberish that was later replaced by language the British gave them.
You’re also acting as if that one sentence, “Did you eat yet?”, is the only time Americans use the simple past when prescriptive grammarians would call for the present perfect, but in spoken language Americans use the simple past in MANY situations, not just in that phrase.
Jamie, can you post a few forms that you think are fossilized in Indian English?
In reference to this comment you made last month:
“Their grammar and vocabulary problems are fossilized, and they use odd forms like “was been go” no matter who they’re trying to talk to or how formal or international they want to be.”
Indeed you do, but it’s the above example and others such as “I didn’t do it yet”, “I already did it”, etc., that I’m interested in at the moment.