Re:The Swedish phoneme notorious for having a dedicated IPA ...
by yorwba on Thursday November 21, 2019 @07:53AM
(#21593548)
What I meant by "not a general past marker" is that you can't in general use positive 有 where you can use negative 没（有） to talk about the past. For example, you wouldn't say 我有看这本书。 to express you've read that book, but instead 我看了这本书。 Even in constructions like 有……过 the 有 is optional, so I'd say the past aspect is carried by 过.
On the other hand, maybe that is a shortening of an originally obligatory two-part expression similar to Jespersen's cycle, famously observed in the appearance of "pas" and ongoing disappearance of "ne" in French "ne ... pas". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jespersen%27s_Cycle
> E.g. 我没告诉你。 "I didn't tell you."
This is the same sentence as 我没有告诉你, also fully idiomatic. The past sense is coming from the 有.
> But Mandarin doesn't use 有 as a general past marker, only the negation 没
This is plainly incorrect. 有 is used as a general past marker. It just isn't obligatory in positive-polarity sentences. Here are some things Chinese people have said to me:
你在中国 有看见过 美国没有的水果吗？("Have you seen any fruits in China that America doesn't have?")
我有吗 ("Did I?")