Acabar de .....
I have often wondered about this and so I am going to ask. Remember there is no such thing as a dumb question. Well perhaps here comes one.
Acabar de + infinitive verb = to have just (algo). The implication is that the action of the infinitve verb is in the very near past yet the verb (acabar) is generally (?) used in the present. I.e. acabo de ..., acabas de ....., acaba de ....., acabamos de ...., acaban de .....
My question is only about "acabar de", not about acabar as a stand-alone verb: Is the construction "acabar de" like a defective verb in that it is only used in a limited number of tenses, i.e. the present? Or can it be used in all tenses? For example would saying this be okay? Acabé de venderlo cuando recibí una oferta mejor. Would that work when talking about an action that happened a substantial period of time ago?
Or, in the future tense? I will have just completed school when I am getting married. Acabaré de terminar con mi educación cuando me casaré.
7 Answers
Hi Gringo,
I think I see where you´re coming from, which, would appear to be having been exposed to the verb acabar solely in the context ¨I just did something¨
I just did that. Acabo de hacer eso.
I just finished my semester. Acabo de terminar mi semestre.
(or as would fit me, as of today, Acabo de asistir mi primera clase del semestre)
So, I think there are really two parts to your question, which I´ll come back an answer with an edit, as soon as I´m done helping my helper on something for 5 minutes here.
more to follow...
.... and we´re back.
So, you asked if it was what grammar people sometimes call a defective verb, which is a verb that is, for whatever reason (at least normally) not conjugated in all voices, tenses, or moods.
For example, it makes no real sense to say, I rain. Lluevo. Yes, you can find it in a chart (at least in Spanish, but definitely not in all languages) but for all normal intents and purposes, it does not exist. Similarly, when used in the sense of ¨there is¨ or ¨there are¨ (vs as a helping verb) there is no first or second person form of haber. There is only hay. It is a defective verb. It happens a lot with modals too. There is no subjunctive voice for ¨would¨ in English, because pretty much it´s whole job is to indicate subjunctive or conditional.
Anyway, I digress. Acabar is NoT a defective verb for two reasons.
1) It actually has the meaning ¨to end¨ or ¨to finish¨ or ¨to be used up¨. All of those can happen in pretty much any voice, tense, or mood, so that alone means it is not defective across the board.
2) I believe it is also not truly defective in the more limited sense of ¨just did¨ or ¨just finished¨
Here, I´m slightly less sure, so take it with at least a small grain of salt, and of course, as always, any conflicting native response of course gets the nod.
You had mentioned the phrase.
Acabé de venderlo cuando recibí una oferta mejor.
I don´t know it with authority, but believe that to be perfectly normal use of the preterite of acabar for a point in time or sequence of events.
I´ve also seen the preterite of acabar in the 3rd person (acabó, or se acabó) used for ¨to run out¨ of something.
And I´m pretty sure I´ve seen it used as a phrasal with another verb to mean, somewhat similarly ¨I ended up doing¨
I didn´t know the answer, so I ended up on this forum. No lo sabía la respuesta, entonces acabé en este foro.
I cannot think of a way to use "acabar de" in the imperfect since the sentiment is a recently completed action.
Hmmmm, tricky.
OK, well, I used my brain, indirectly (which is as good as I can do here), by googling (and linguee-ing) ¨acababa de¨ and it shows up, a LoT.
I´m going to paste in a few examples from Linguee (which of course, since it derives from humans of various skills, could be crap, but, it gives a jumping off point o ponder, or to let more experienced people correct us.
.
Autumn had just begun and we were preparing everything we needed for the last few tasks of the year at sea.
Acababa de empezar el otoño y andábamos preparando cuanto necesitábamos para las últimas faenas del año en la mar. .
That check was in the pocket of the shirt he had just given away.
Ese cheque estaba en el bolsillo de la camisa que acababa de regalar.
Personally, I´d have used those in preterite, but, I don´t know what I´m doing, and, I suspect for a native there this a subtle difference. (much like verbs that could sometimes be subjunctive or indicative, but one ends up revealing something different about the speakers mindset of opinion than the other)
Parting thought - there are a fair number of situations where we might used the present-perfect form of the past in English, but Spanish would use a simple past, either preterite or imperfekt, and this would this would seem to be one.
(partial phrases)
... suggested a setting or situation where something had just happened
... sugerían un escenario o situación donde algo acababa de ocurrir.
...
If I understand what you're asking, yes acabar de + inf does work in one other tense as it does in the present.
This is the imperfect tense and I believe this is the only other tense that retains the meaning of 'just' or the immediacy (is that a word?) of a completed action.
In both these tenses acabar de + inf focuses on the recent termination of an action that sets the scene for something else to occur (present) or that sets the scene on which something else occurred (imperfect).
Eg:
Acabamos de nadar. We have just finished swimming.
Acabábamos de nadar. We had just finished swimming.
Unfortunately that doesn't work in the future tense.
Rogspax. Very interesting. I see references to the use of "acababa de" used in the since of a action that is interrupted by another action that is in the preterite. Which is similar to the pattern of a continuing action in the past that is interrupted, with the continuing action in the imperfect and the interrupting action in the preterite.
Very interesting as acababa de llegar y se mató. To have just arrived and died. To me this is a completed action in the past followed closely by another completed action in the past.
I have no idea, but I do know that "acabar" always makes me think of Admiral Ackbar. I even remember it by thinking of him helping to "finish/end" the Death Star. Your question is likely a trap.
- He had just
- He will have just
- He had had just
- He will have had just
- He would have had just
- He could have had just
I think you can also say it in conjunction with a verb: Acaba de venderlo= he just sold it
If it is anything like the English equivalent then I think that there are just as many uses in Spanish as in English.
I'm not completely sure what you are asking, but I will try to explain "acabar de" as best as I can.
Acabar literally means to end, so when used as "acabar de + verbo infinitivo", you're saying that you just finished doing something or that it just finished doing something. For this reason, when conjugated, it's in present tense. The action is implied to be past because that's what you're saying, but acabar is conjugated acabo, acabas, acaba, etc, because it is now that you just finished doing something. There isn't a need to put it in past tense, because the "sentido" is already "del pasado". Entiendes?
So if you are saying that it only works in the present and imperfect then it is indeed a defective construction. - gringojrf
Not really because the verb works in all tense, it's just that it's only in those two tenses that you get the sense of 'just'.
There are other verbs that give a certain meaning in just one or so of their tenses, eg. saber, generally means to know but in the preterite tense it has the flavour of 'finding out, but that doesn't make it a defective verb just because you don't get that particular nuance in any other of its tenses.
