Bunpro Sentence Question: "今の姿がトム..."

Japanese
#1

I have a question about how this sentence works in general…

“今の姿がトムかどうか分からないけど、多分トムだったと思う。”
With translation:
“I am not sure whether that (figure) was Tom or not, but it was probably Tom.”

What I’m really confused about is that 今の… in the second part of the sentence, “トムだった” talks about 姿 in the past tense. And the English translation renders “今の姿がトムかどうか” as “whether that (figure) was Tom or not”… So how can we be talking about 今の姿? I’m assuming there’s a nuance or usage to 今の here that I’m not getting… Any ideas?

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#2

My non-grammatical but instinctual answer is that the 今の姿 is like the memory that is still lingering in the mind because it happened very recently, therefore it’s still “now”. Just my contextual hunch though.

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#3

I think here the 今の functions just like the english “just now” as in the thing that just occured quite recently. I have seen it in phrases like、

  • 今の話 -->the story you just told (told just now)
  • 今の音 → the sound from just now
  • 今の人 -->the person who was here just now (a moment ago)
  • 今の姿 -->the appearance/figure from just now (a moment ago)

I’m not sure if there is a better or more grammatical explanation, but this is kind of what I instinctually feel when I hear these kinds of phrases. Perhaps the

fox

@JamesBunpro

can swoop in and offer a more accurate explanation.

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#4

I think the question has already been answered but I’ll give some more details as I have been summoned by the dunkgnome.

今 can also be used for things in the very close past or very near future.

Here are the relevant definitions from the digital 大辞泉:

３ ごく近い未来。もうすぐに。やがて。じきに。「今終わるから待っていてくれ」「今行きます」
４ ごく近い過去。少し前に。いましがた。さっき。「今の人は誰かしら」「今帰ったところだ」

If we take a look at a couple of the example sentences here we can see that English also uses the word ‘now’ in similar ways sometimes.

今行きます
I will go now.

‘I will go’ is future tense here in English, meaning the speaker is not ‘going now’ but is about to go. (Side note: In English, we do actually also say “I’m coming!” to mean we will be leaving soon, even if we are not actually in the process of going somewhere, which would perhaps be confusing if you think the “present progressive” (-ing) form here has to mean something actually happening this second.)

今帰ったところだ
I got home (just) now.

As already noted by the gnome, here 今 is like ‘just now’. The speaker isn’t going home now but has gotten home already. You can actually see this use in a phrase I reckon you already know: ただいま (只今).

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