So we were answering a test in Minna no Nihongo Lesson 23, there’s a question where:
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けさここへ(きます・・・ ) とき、えきで しんぶんを かいました
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I answered くる since it would make sense that you would have bought the newspaper first before coming “here.”
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The problem is my instructor said the answer is きた because there’s an adverb of time 「けさ」so the verb should be in past tense. But that would not make sense since that would mean that you came first before buying the newspaper in the station.
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I protested of course and actually explained to the class that the verb before とき should not follow the adverb of time since the tense of the verb before とき only shows which event happened first.
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Long story short our instructor accepted my explanation and my answer くる but his only concern is that we cant find any example sentences in the book where there is a past adverb of time and the verb before とき is in present form.
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Can anyone confirm if my argument is correct? And can someone find example sentences in books or online that can back up my argument? Thanks.
3 comments
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Note that it’s not limited to showing the order of two events because the events can happen concurrently too.
With きた you arrived at “here”, and then you bought a newspaper at the station. This is correct e.g. if “here” is the city where you and the train station are and you came from some other city.
With くる you either bought the newspaper before you left for the place you’re at now, or on the way. I think this is better in all other cases. Either you bought the newspaper before you went to “here”, or on the way.
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar p490f has examples on how the tenses change the meaning for movement and non-movement verbs.
[Imabi](https://www.imabi.net/whentoki.htm) also has a lot of info on とき.
Ok, let me start from a bit far away. In Japanese there are 2 types of tense correlation:
* Tense of one clause is related to another.
* Tense of both clauses is related to speech time.
First type is picked when there is strong involvement/influence between two clauses. It includes goals, purposes, reasons, expectations, knowledge (like verb+ことを), emotions, interventions, potential forms, conditions, conditional forms and also temporal markers (of course, including とき). I don’t think this list is exhaustive, the main principle is that clause has more connection and influence with another clause than point of speech time. For example, we say 可愛いと思った “thought cute” with 可愛い being present tense and not 可愛かったと思った (which I suppose is also possible, but in much more rarer and specific context).
Second type is picked when such connection is more incidental. For example, general statements, relative clauses, speaker’s reasoning, unawareness or recollections. And the last one is more tricky because recollections might also include time expressions, especially relative time expressions like 昨日.
And while I would bet that it should be くる, because it’s とき clause, I’m not completely sure that it can’t be きた in some cases, taking such recollection mood.