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groupe verbal > prétérit temporel + marqueur de temps
The
Phantom George Olesen and Graham
Nolan Created by Lee Falk
24.10.2004
-ED n'est que le symbole du prétérit.
Si les verbes réguliers prennent régulièrement -ed au prétérit ( -ed est leur signe commun, distinctif) : loved, killed, played, danced, tried
qui ont chacun leur propre forme prétérit : fought, saw, sang, went, cut, said, met, taken, wrote, ate, brought
Prétérit passif : auxiliaire be conjugué au prétérit + participe passé
la mise en passé
L'énonciateur utilise souvent le prétérit temporel pour relater, raconter des événements, réels ou imaginaires, qu'il présente comme révolus, historiques. Les faits sont ponctualisés, historicisés, mis à distance, en perspective.
Il s'agit parfois d'exorciser "les démons du passé". Ce qui est mis au passé ne reviendra plus :
Good afternoon. Yesterday, December 13, at around 8:30pm Baghdad time, United States military forces captured [ prétérit actif ] Saddam Hussein alive. He was found [ prétérit passif ] near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit, in a swift raid conducted without casualties. And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions.
A dark and painful era
is over:
Ces événements sont souvent inscrits dans une chronologie (concordance des temps grammaticaux = tous les verbes sont au prétérit), avec parfois un marquage temporel précis (adverbes / marqueurs de temps passé).
Ce qui est présenté comme passé n'est pas nécessairement éloigné dans le temps chronologique : - l'énonciateur rapporte des faits qui, pour lui, ne relèvent plus de l'information "qui tombe", même s'ils sont très récents. - l'événement vient de se produire, mais l'énonciateur le date précisément (today, this morning, a few minutes ago). Les circonstances comptent tout autant que l'événement lui-même > voir notamment les dépêches de Reuters, toutes rédigées au prétérit.
Exemple : même s'ils ont été sans doute imprimés le jour même (22.11.1963), les premiers articles sur l'assassinat du 35ème président des Etats-Unis, John F. Kennedy, n'informent probablement qu'un certain nombre de lecteurs (les autres ont déjà appris la nouvelle par la radio et la télévision). En écrivant le chapô de l'article ci-dessous, rédigé le jour de l'assassinat et publié le lendemain (et sans doute aussi le jour-même), le journaliste du quotidien new-yorkais Daily News sait qu'une partie de son lectorat est déjà au courant. Dès les premières lignes, il emploie le prétérit pour rappeler les faits, les inscrire dans l'espace et le temps, leur donner une dimension historique. L'article publié le lendemain - 23 novembre - prend place dans un numéro spécial, qui a déjà valeur de commémoration :
Dallas, Tex., Nov 22 - President Kennedy was mortally wounded by a rifle bullet at 12:31 P. M. (1:31 P.M. New York time) today as he rode in an open convertible limousine leading a motorcade through the streets of Dallas; He died in Parkland Hospital 29 minutes later. Gov. John Connally of Texas was gravely wounded by the same assassin while seated directly in front of the President. The President Is Assassinated As Dallas Multitude Hails Him, Daily News, Saturday, November 23 (date du n° spécial), 1963, p. 3.
A l'inverse, les témoins de l'assassinat n'avaient d'autre choix que d'utiliser le present perfect : Kennedy / The President has been shot! [ present perfect passif ] Equivalent dans un film de Samuel Fuller, Pickup on South Street (1953) ! Un policier découvre un cadavre, décroche le téléphone : A woman has been shot! [ present perfect passif ]
-> voir Present Perfect > Breaking the latest news
prétérit temporel + marqueurs de temps passé
Les verbes au prétérit temporel ( ≠ prétérit modal / hypothétique ) s'emploient souvent avec des marqueurs de temps.
Ces marqueurs sont soit :
- adverbes : today, yesterday, later - groupes nominaux : the other day - groupes prépositionnels : in recent years, on that hot July afternoon, over the last two weeks, - propositions : Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, ...
Ces marqueurs chronologiques cadrent, encadrent, pointent un passé plus ou moins proche, plus ou moins précis :
now [ valeur > passé > à ce point / stade, alors / désormais ], today, the other day, this morning, recently, in recent months, in recent years, over the years, yesterday, in the early hours of yesterday, the next day, at the weekend, just over two weeks ago, one hour ago, years ago, just over a year ago, just a few months ago, almost two centuries ago, less than two weeks ago, a year a half ago, THIRTY years ago this fall, EXACTLY four years ago this month, Not long ago, A couple of years ago, EARLY in the morning, a year ago today, earlier this month, earlier Friday, earlier, three years earlier later, three days later, in the late summer of 1985, in the winter of 1860,
late last year, last Monday, last night, last winter, a while back, once, once upon a time, at the time, one day, on that hot July afternoon, on this day in 1980, on January 23 1968, as early as January 2006, last September, on Friday, on the night of July 10, 2005, In January, At 3:50 a.m Tuesday, At 7:28 a.m. on April 25, 2007, afterward, Throughout their contentious debate on Wednesday, Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners,
in the past, in the past three days, for most of the past few years, in the last three months of 2003,
Over the past year (+ present perfect ) ne doit pas être confondu avec last year (+ prétérit). Over the past year annonce un bilan qui court jusqu'au moment / présent de l'énonciation. Ce marqueur de temps s'emploie donc avec le present perfect. Over the past year se traduit par : ces douze derniers mois (et non pas : l'an dernier).
Over the past year, consumer confidence has deteriorated [ present perfect ] significantly. Worsening problems in housing, harder-to-get credit, financial turmoil on Wall Street and lofty energy prices have put [ present perfect ] people in a much more gloomy mind-set. Last April, confidence stood [ prétérit ] at 85.4. The index is based on results from the international polling firm Ipsos. Confidence Falls to New Low , By AP, NYT, April 11, 2008, Filed at 3:20 a.m. ET, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Consumer-Confidence.html
De même, ne pas confondre :
last week [ la semaine dernière, période close, révolue ] + prétérit et this last week [ cette semaine ] + present perfect "I haven't felt [ present perfect ] too good this last week [ cette semaine / ces derniers jours ] ." Michael Barrymore interview, O, 29 [ Sunday ].12.2002.
Dans cet entretien, réalisé en fin de semaine et publié le dimanche, le comique britannique déchu fait le bilan de la semaine, période non révolue à l'instant où il parle. Le bilan est l'une des deux valeurs du present perfect, la seconde étant l'information "qui tombe", soit dans la conversation, soit aux informations.
Autres exemples : in the last two years [ depuis deux ans / ces vingt-quatre derniers mois ] the past week [ cette semaine / la semaine qui vient de s'écouler ] + present perfect
By his words and demeanor, Mr. Steel could be mistaken for a midlevel policy wonk — someone hoping to let a little sunlight disinfect the dark corners of the financial world. In fact, he is a former vice chairman at Goldman Sachs, the big investment bank. And in the last two years [ depuis deux ans / vingt-quatre mois ], Mr. Steel has been [ present perfect > traduction > est ] co-chairman of one commission that claimed heavy-handed regulation was stanching financial innovation and another that argued that hedge funds could police themselves. Wall Streeter Converts to a Fan of Regulation, NYT, 15.4.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/business/15steel.html
Punctured Merrill Lynch, which was founded during Woodrow Wilson’s administration,
agreed to be bought for a bargain-basement
price, while Lehman Brothers, which dates back to John Tyler’s presidency,
simply collapsed. It appears to be the government’s biggest fiscal intervention since the Great Depression, designed to get the financial markets working again and keep a credit freeze from sending the economy into a deep recession.
Bubblenomics,
NYT, 21.9.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/weekinreview/21leonhardt.html
for pendant / pour (valeur temporelle) + prétérit
≠
for depuis + present perfect
for + durée + prétérit for (pour valeur temporelle / pendant / durant) Avec for, l'énonciateur compte, dénombre, quantifie, recense. A l'inverse de during, cette préposition est suivie d'un quantificateur : for many..., for most of..., for five..., quantificateur indéfini et sous-entendu Ø, etc.
for [ Ø ] years, for [ pendant ] many years, for [ pendant ] three years, for [ pendant ] most of the last five years, for much of the 1990s, for [ pour ] the first time in three years this month, for [ pour ] the second time in less than 12 hours, for [ pour ] the first time in nearly a decade, for [ pour ] the first time since 1971,
Ne pas confondre for (pour valeur temporelle / pendant / durant) + prétérit avec for (depuis) + present perfect
during + période + prétérit during (durant / pendant / au cours) est un marqueur souvent "historicisant". L'énonciateur nomme / cadre / recadre / souligne / se focalise sur une période bien définie, jugée ou supposée connue, importante, décisive :
In 1993 [ cadrage temporel ], during the last big wave of foreclosures in New York City [ recadrage > gros plan ], nearly 6,200 buildings (residential, commercial and mixed-use) began the foreclosure process. In 2007, the Furman Center estimated that at least 38,000 people facing a foreclosure in New York City were renters. Even Renters Aren’t Safe, NYT, 13.4.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/realestate/13cover.html
During the presidency of Bill Clinton, During the three weeks prior to his assassination on February 21, during the war, during World War II, during the press conference, during October, during the 1990s, during the 1940s and ’50s, during the 1970s, during the same period, during midday Mass last week, during a midnight raid during a class discussion about the outrage prompted by the pope’s remark DURING Wednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia, During a six-day visit to Washington and New York, during the eighth round
during + quantificateur ( during 12 days at the station ) est considéré comme incorrect.
Pour en savoir plus :
Si certains marqueurs de temps délimitent un segment plus ou moins précis dans le passé :
yesterday fifty years ago About two years ago, on Saturday, February 28, 1953 at five minutes before 10 on Saturday night at the weekend
May 30, 2007
Today is Wednesday, May 30, the 150th day of 2007. There are 215 days left in the year.
when a rumor that the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge was [ prétérit ] in imminent danger of collapsing triggered [ prétérit ] a stampede.
and plunged [ prétérit ] into the Walker River near the California-Nevada border.
Today in History - May 30, NYT,
30.5.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-History.html
d'autres marqueurs renvoient à une période imprécise, voire à un passé mythique :
once upon a time one time two years after her divorce a while back for [ pour ] the second time in the beginning
Le prétérit peut également s'employer sans marqueur de temps.
énoncés au prétérit actif / passif + marqueurs de temps passé
Prince Charles last night became the first member of the royal family to set foot on Iranian soil since the Islamic revolution 25 years ago, as he embarked on a surprise tour of the region which will culminate with a walk around the earthquake-stricken town of Bam. Prince Charles seeks to boost troop morale in Basra, G, 9.2.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1143994,00.html
On this day in 1980 John Lennon was murdered [ Prétérit passif : BE auxiliaire + participe passé ]. Past notes, web frontpage, G, 8.12.2003.
In the beginning, God
created the heaven and the earth. The first book of Moses called GENESIS, Old Testament, Holy Bible, I:1-3.
Lewis and Clark were sent
by President Thomas Jefferson 200 years ago to navigate and map
the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, Two Centuries Later, Indians Retell the Past: Tribes Scarred by a Hidden History, NYT/Le Monde, p. 1, 29/30.6.2003.
An American soldier was killed,
and two others were injured, in Baghdad
yesterday Another US soldier is killed by Iraq grenade attack, GI, p. 11, 20.6.2003.
Three weeks before the Conservative Party Conference
in October 1984, Secret History, Channel 4, 9pm, T/T2, p. 28, 15.5.2003.
Fifty years ago, on Saturday, February 28, 1953,
two young scientists walked into the Eagle,
a dingy pub in Cambridge, England, Double Helix Leaps Fom Lab to Real Life, NYT/Le Monde, 9/10.3.2003.
Once upon a time,
on the edge of the big wood, there
lived a little girl called Little Red Riding
Hood. Little Red Riding Hood, retold by Jonathan Langley, London, PictureLions, HarperCollins, 1993.
Two years after her divorce, Karen (…) decided she was ready to meet someone new.
Once upon a time (only a century ago), New View of the Universe: Only One Among Many, NYT/Le Monde, p. 6, 10/11.11.2002.
On the night of january 31, 1953,
a deep low
pressure over the North Sea combined with
high tides High anxiety, GE2, p. 12, 9.10.2002.
A while back, I was invited to a fashion show in Paris. What is it with US girls moaning about British men?, GE2, p. 7., 23.8.2002.
Last month
I
discovered
the truth about being a black woman in post-apartheid South Africa. A woman’s world, GE, pp. 8-9, 7-3-2002.
Ten years ago today Britain was ejected [ Prétérit passif : BE auxiliaire + participe passé ] from Europe’s exchange-rate mechanism. The silver lining on Black Wednesday, T, p. 5, Business pullout, 16.9.2002.
In 1774, a British journalist wrote a sketch about American tourists in London 200 years in the future. What Britannia taught Bush, GE2, p. 4, 20.9.2002.
Large areas of central and northern England and Wales trembled just before 1am yesterday as an earthquake rumbled more than five miles below the neat lawns and flower beds of a street in Dudley, West Midlands. Tremors shake awake middle England, GE, p. 5, 24.9.2002.
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last year
+ prétérit (
