Can the て-form be used as a た-form substitute?

Question

I've been reading manga by myself for some time, and I've been noticing sentences where the て-form takes the role of a past tense marker (that is, the role of the た-form). At first I was letting it slide, but it keeps appearing in more and more cases and it's bugging me.

To put you an example, this is the most recent case I've stumbled upon (it's a girl talking about her experiences after visiting a game center):

パンチングゲームしてたら、プロボクサーがパンチの打{う}ち方{かた}を教{おし}えてくれて！それで打{う}ったらすごい気{き}持{も}ちよくて！

I'm far from being an expert, but given the usage of the 〜たら conditional and the fact that she is talking about past experiences... wouldn't be more correct to use the た-form and say:

パンチングゲームしてたら、プロボクサーがパンチの打{う}ち方{かた}を教{おし}えてくれた！それで打{う}ったらすごい気{き}持{も}ちよかった！

One possibility I thought of, is that she's using the て-form as a conjunctive form that would eventually lead to a final verb that would genuinely be in the た-form. Like, for example:

…を教{おし}えてくれて、それで彼{かれ}の顔{かお}を打{う}った！

But she stops talking (a friend replies to her), she doesn't say more things about her visit to the game center, that final verb in the た-form doesn't appear. And it doesn't appear either in the other cases I've come across.

So... I don't know anymore, I hope you could help me!

Answer 1

Your intuition is mostly on point.

One possibility I thought of, is that she's using the て-form as a conjunctive form that would eventually lead to a final verb that would genuinely be in the た-form.

This is the general idea behind ending sentences with the て form - that there is some omitted remainder of the sentence, left out because it was obvious to the listener, irrelevant, or for some other reason. That said, in practice, it's not always true. Sometimes people just end sentences like that.

The second and third examples in this answer are also worth looking at, but to address your post specifically:

パンチングゲームしてたら、プロボクサーがパンチの[打]{う}ち[方]{かた}を[教]{おし}えてくれて！

This is less of an omission and more of the train of thought that she is trying to express not really being over. The next sentence is pretty much a continuation of the same idea. It may help to think of this more as a pause in speech than the actual definitive end of her sentence.

それで[打]{う}ったらすごい[気]{き}[持]{も}ちよくて！

The sentence is not really over in the strictly grammatical sense, but there's no real way to know where it was going from here, if anywhere at all. I suspect the mangaka just wrote it this way to reflect a common speech pattern.

Note that this pattern can also be used to explain something, like:

Aさん：なんで遅刻しましたか？

Bさん：大雨のせいで交通事故があって。。。

In this case, the idea is that the sentence would have ended with "遅刻しました。" but the speaker didn't feel the need to say that, given the context.

Additionally, it can also be used to give the other person a chance to interject with an acknowledgement that they are listening, such as うんうん or そうか, like:

Aさん：昨日暑すぎて早く家帰りたいと思ってね

Bさん：うんうん

Aさん：でも実際帰ったら、冷房が壊れて家もめっちゃ暑かった！大変だったよ！

Answer 2

The constant use of the て ending is common among some younger people to try to sound casual or tough. The first て usage would be grammatical (if there were a comma instead of an exclamation point), while the second is not. ヤンキーっぽい. ゲーセンの子のマネをしないように。 For your last example, instead of それで (consequently), I would use それから.