Aspect and character of the verb
The problem of aspect is intimately connected with a lexicological problem, which we shall therefore have to touch upon here. It may be well illustrated by the following series of examples. If we have, for example, the sentence, A young man sat in the corner of the room, we can say, instead, A young man was sitting in the corner of the room, without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence. The same situation may be described in both ways, the only difference between them being that of stylistic colouring: the variant with the common aspect form is more matter-of-fact and "dry", whereas the one with the continuous aspect form is more descriptive.
The absence of any actual difference in meaning in such a case is brought out in the following passage from a modern novel: Mr Bodiham was sitting in his study at the Rectory. The nineteenth-century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, admitted the light grudgingly; in spite of the brilliant July weather, the room was sombre. Brown varnished bookshelves lined the walls, filled with row upon row of those thick, heavy theological works which the second-hand booksellers generally sell by weight. The mantelpiece, the overmantel, a towering structure of spindly pillars and little shelves, were brown and varnished. The writing-desk was brown and varnished. So were the chairs, so was the door. A dark red-brown carpet with patterns covered the floor. Everything was brown in the room, and
1H. Sweet, A New English Grammar, Part I, § 288.
84 The Verb: Aspect
there was a curious brownish smell. In the midst of this brown gloom Mr Bodiham sat at his desk. (HUXLEY)
By comparing the first and the last sentence of this passage it will be seen that they tell of the same situation, but in different ways. The first sentence is clearly descriptive, and it opens a rather lengthy description of Mr Bodiham's room, its furniture, books, etc. The last sentence of the passage, on the other hand, confirms the fact that Mr Bodiham sat in his study, as if summing up the situation. So the same fact is told a second time and the difference in the stylistic qualities of the continuous and the common aspect is well brought out.
On the other hand, if we have the sentence He brought her some flowers and if we substitute was bringing for brought and say, He was bringing her some flowers, the meaning will be affected and the two facts will be different. With the common aspect form brought the sentence means that the flowers actually reached her, whereas the continuous aspect form means that he had the flowers with him but something prevented him from giving them to her. We might then say that he sat = he was sitting, whereas he brought ≠ he was bringing. What is the cause of this difference? Here we shall have to touch on a lexicological problem, without which the treatment of the continuous aspect cannot be complete. The verb sit differs from the verb bring in an important way: the verb sit denotes an action which can go on indefinitely without necessarily reaching a point where it has to stop, whereas the verb bring denotes an action which must come to an end owing to its very nature. It has now been customary for some time to call verbs of the sit type cursive, or durative, and verbs of the bring type terminative. We may then say that with cursive, or durative verbs, the difference between the common and the continuous aspect may be neutralised whereas with terminative verbs it cannot be neutralised, so that the form of the common aspect cannot be substituted for the form of the continuous aspect, and vice versa, without materially changing the meaning of the sentence. '
A final note is necessary here on the relation between the aspects of the English verb and those of the Russian verb.
1 The theory of durative and terminative verbs with reference to the English language was propounded by Prof. G. Vorontsova (see Г. Н. Воронцова, О лексическом характере глагола в английском языке. Иностранные языки в школе, 1948, № 1) and it was adopted, with some modifications, by other authors. Prof. I. Ivanova considers durativeness and terminative-ness to be grammatical characteristics of the verb (see И. П. Иванова, Вид и время в современном английском языке, стр. 63 сл.). We need not go into this question any further here. It should only by noted that a verb which is durative in its chief meaning may be terminative in a secondary meaning, and vice versa. Thus, the verb sit would be terminative in its secondary meaning 'sit down'.
Aspect and Character of the Verb
Without going into details, we may assume that the Russian verb has two aspects, the perfective and the imperfective. All other varieties of aspectual meanings are to be considered within the framework of the two basic aspects. 1 It is obvious at once that there is no direct correspondence between English and Russian aspects; for instance, the English continuous aspect is not identical with the Russian imperfective. The relation between the two systems is not so simple as all that. On the one hand, the English common aspect may correspond not only to the Russian perfective but also to the Russian imperfective aspect; thus, he wrote may correspond both to написал and to писал. On the other hand, the Russian imperfective aspect may correspond not only to the continuous but also to the common aspect in English; thus, писал may correspond both to was writing and to wrote. It follows from this that the relation between the English and the Russian aspects may be represented by the following diagram:
| English | Common | Continuous |
| Russian | Perfective | Imperfective |
On this question see В. В. Виноградов, Русский язык, 1947, стр. 493 сл.
Chapter IX
THE VERB: TENSE
While the existence of the aspect category in English is a disputed matter, the tense category is universally recognised. Nobody has ever suggested to characterise the distinction, for example, between wrote, writes, and will write as other than a tense distinction. Thus we shall not have to produce any arguments in favour of the existence of the category in Modern English. Our task will be on the one hand to define the category as such, and on the other, to find the distinctions within the category of tense, that is, to find out how many tenses there are in English and what each of them means and also to analyse the mutual relations between tense and other categories of the English verb.
GENERAL DEFINITION OF TENSE
As to the general definition of tense, there seems no necessity to find a special one for the English language. The basic features of the category appear to be the same in English as in other languages. The category of tense may, then, be defined as a verbal category which reflects the objective category of time and expresses on this background the relations between the time of the action and the time of the utterance.
The main divisions of objective time appear to be clear enough. There are three of them, past, present, and future. However, it by no means follows that tense systems of different languages are bound to be identical. On the contrary, there are wide differences in this respect.
ENGLISH TENSES
In English there are the three tenses (past, present and future) represented by the forms wrote, writes, will write, or lived, lives, will live.
Strangely enough, some doubts have been expressed about the existence of a future tense in English. O. Jespersen discussed this question more than once. 1 The reason why Jespersen denied the existence of a future tense in English was that the English future is expressed by the phrase "shall/will + infinitive", and the verbs shall and will which make part of the phrase preserve, according to Jespersen, some of their original meaning (shall an element of obligation, and will an element of volition). Thus, in Jespersen's view, English has no way of expressing "pure futurity" free from modal shades of meaning, i. e. it has no form standing on the same grammatical level as the forms of the past and present tenses.
1 See, for example, O. Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar, p. 50.
English Tenses 87
However, this reasoning is not convincing. Though the verbs shall and will may in some contexts preserve or indeed revive their original meaning of obligation or volition respectively, as a rule they are free from these shades of meaning and express mere futurity. This is especially clear in sentences where the verb will is used as an auxiliary of the future tense and where, at the same time, the meaning of volition is excluded by the context. E. g. I am so sorry, I am afraid I will have to go back to the hotel — (R. WEST) Since the verb will cannot possibly be said to preserve even the slightest shade of the meaning of volition here, it can have only one meaning — that of grammatical futurity. Of course numerous other examples might be given to illustrate this point.
It is well known that a present tense form may also be used when the action belongs to the future. This also applies to the present continuous, as in the following example: "Maroo is coming, my lad," he said, "she is coming to-morrow, and what, tell me what, do we make of that?" (BUECHNER) The adverbial modifier of time, to-morrow, makes it clear that the action expressed by the verb come in the present continuous tense actually belongs to the future. So it might also have been expressed by the future tense: Maroo will come, my lad, she will come to-morrow. But the use of the present continuous adds another shade of meaning, which would be lost if it were replaced by the future tense: Maroo's arrival to-morrow is part of a plan already fixed at the present; indeed, for all we know, she may be travelling already. Thus the future arrival is presented as a natural outcome of actions already under way, not as something that will, as it were, only begin to happen in the future.
So the three main divisions of time are represented in the English verbal system by the three tenses. Each of them may appear in the common and in the continuous aspect. Thus we get six tense-aspect forms.
Besides these six, however, there are two more, namely, the future-in-the-past and the future-continuous-in-the-past. It is common knowledge that these forms are used chiefly in subordinate clauses depending on a main clause having its predicate verb in one of the past tenses, e. g., This did not mean that she was content to live. It meant simply that even death, if it came to her here, would seem stale. (R. WEST) However, they can be found in independent clauses as well. The following passage from a novel by Huxley yields a good example of this use: It was after ten o'clock. The dancers had already dispersed and the last lights were being put out. To-morrow the tents would be struck, the dismantled merry-go-round would be packed into waggons and carted away. These are the thoughts of a young man surveying the scene of a feast which has just ended. The tenses used are three: the tense which we call past perfect
88 The Verb: Tense
to denote the action already finished by that time (the dancers had dispersed), the past continuous to denote an action going on at that very moment (the lights were being put out) and the future-in-the-past to denote an action foreseen for the future (the merry-go-round would be packed and carted away). The whole passage is of course represented speech 1 and in direct speech the tenses would have been, respectively, the present perfect, the present continuous, and the future.
The future-in-the-past and future-continuous-in-the-past do not easily fit into a system of tenses represented by a straight line running out of the past into the future. They are a deviation from this straight line: their starting point is not the present, from which the past and the future are reckoned, but the past itself. With reference to these tenses 2 it may be said that the past is a new centre of the system. The idea of temporal centres propounded by Prof. I. Ivanova as an essential element of the English tense system seems therefore fully justified in analysing the "future-in-the-past" tenses. It should be noted that in many sentences of this kind the relation between the action denoted by the verb form and the time of the utterance remains uncertain: the action may or may not have taken place already. What is certain is that it was future from the point of view of the time when the action denoted by the verb form took place.3
A different view of the English tense system has been put forward by Prof. N. Irtenyeva. According to this view, the system is divided into two halves: that of tenses centring in the present, and that of tenses centring in the past. The former would comprise the present, present perfect, future, present continuous, and present perfect continuous, whereas the latter would comprise the past, past perfect, future-in-the-past, past continuous, and past perfect continuous. The latter half is characterised by specific features: the root vowel (e.g. sang as against sing), and the suffix -d (or -t), e.g. looked, had sung, would sing, had been singing.4 This view has much to recommend it. It has the advantage of reducing the usual threefold division of tenses (past, present, and future) to a twofold
1 See Chapter XLII, p. 333.
2 And, of course, also the future-perfect-in-the-past and the future-perfect-continuous-in-the-past.
3 Prof. I Ivanova thinks the term "future-in-the-past" inappropriate and suggests for these forms the term "dependent future". It would appear that both terms will do equally well, and it is undesirable to change a term unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. We will therefore keep the term "future-in-the-past", (See В. Н. Жигадло, И. П. Иванова, Л. Л. Иофик, Современный английский язык, стр. 109.)
4 See Н. Ф. Иртеньева, Грамматика современного английского языка, стр. 77.
English Tenses 89
division (past and present) with each of the two future tenses (future and future-in-the-past) included into the past or the present system, respectively. However, the cancellation of the future as a tense in its own right would seem to require a more detailed justification.
A new theory of English tenses has been put forward by A. Korsakov. 1 He establishes a system of absolute and anterior tenses, and of static and dynamic tenses. By dynamic tenses he means what we call tenses of the continuous aspect, and by anterior tenses what we call tenses of the perfect correlation. It is the author's great merit to have collected numerous examples, including such as do not well fit into formulas generally found in grammars. The evaluation of this system in its relation to other views has yet to be worked out.
1 See A. Korsakov, The Use of Tenses in English. Lvov University Press. 1969.
Chapter X
THE VERB: THE PERFECT
BASIC QUALITIES OF THE PERFECT FORMS
The Modern English perfect forms have been the subject of a lengthy discussion which has not so far brought about a definite result. The difficulties inherent in these forms are plain enough and may best be illustrated by the present perfect. This form contains the present of the verb have and is called present perfect, yet it denotes an action which no longer takes place, and it is (almost always) translated into Russian by the past tense, e. g. has written — написал, has arrived — приехал, etc.
The position of the perfect forms in the system of the English verb is a problem which has been treated in many different ways and has occasioned much controversy. Among the various views on the essence of the perfect forms in Modern English the following three main trends should be mentioned:
1. The category of perfect is a peculiar tense category, i. e. a category which should be classed in the same list as the categories "present" and "past". This view was held, for example, by O. Jespersen. 1
2. The category of perfect is a peculiar aspect category, i. e. one which should be given a place in the list comprising "common aspect" and "continuous aspect". This view was held by a number of scholars, including Prof. G. Vorontsova.2 Those who hold this view have expressed different opinions about the particular aspect constituting the essence of the perfect forms. It has been variously defined as "retrospective", "resultative", "successive", etc.3
3. The category of perfect is neither one of tense, nor one of aspect but a specific category different from both. It should accordingly be designated by a special term and its relations to the categories of aspect and tense should be investigated. This view was expressed by Prof. A. Smirnitsky. He took the perfect to be a means of expressing the category of "time relation" (временная отнесенность).4
This wide divergence of views on the very essence of a verbal category may seem astonishing. However, its causes appear to be clear enough from the point of view of present-day linguistics. These causes fall under the following three main heads:
1 See O. Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar, p. 254 ff.
2 See Г. Н. Воронцова, Очерки по грамматике английского языка, 1960. стр. 191 сл.
3 Ibid.
4 See А. И. Смирницкий. Перфект и категория временной отнесённости. Иностранные языки в школе, 1955, № 1, 2.
Basic Qualities of the Perfect Forms 91
1. Scholars have been trying to define the basic character of this category without paying sufficient attention to the system of categories of which it is bound to make a part. As we shall see presently, considerations of the system as a whole rule out some of the proposed solutions.
2. In seeking the meaning of the category, scholars have not always been careful to distinguish between its basic meaning (the invariable) and its modifications due to influence of context.
3. In seeking the basic meaning of the category, scholars have not always drawn a clear line of distinction between the meaning of the grammatical category as such and the meanings which belong to, or are influenced by, the lexical meaning of the verb (or verbs) used in one of the perfect forms.
If we carefully eliminate these three sources of error and confusion we shall have a much better chance of arriving at a true and objective solution. Let us now consider the views expressed by different scholars in the order in which we mentioned them above.
If we are to find out whether the perfect can be a tense category, i. e. a tense among other tenses, we must consider its relations to the tenses already established and not liable to doubts about their basic character, i. e. past, present, and future. There is no real difficulty here. We need only recollect that there are in Modern English the forms 1 present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect. That present, past, and future are tense categories, is firmly established and has never been doubted by anyone. Now, if the perfect were also a tense category, the present perfect would be a union of two different tenses (the present and the perfect), the past perfect would likewise be a union of two different tenses (the past and the perfect) and the future perfect, too, would be a union of two different tenses (the future and the perfect). This is clearly impossible. If a form already belongs to a tense category (say, the present) it cannot simultaneously belong to another tense category, since two tense categories in one form would, as it were, collide and destroy each other. Hence it follows that the category of perfect cannot be a tense category. We need not consider here various views expressed by those who thought that the perfect was a tense, since their views, whatever the details may be, are shown to be untenable by the above consideration. So the view that the perfect is a special tense category has been disproved.
In order to find out whether the perfect can be an aspect category, we must consider its relations to the aspects already established,
1 We use here the non-committal term "form" to avoid any pre-judgement concerning the essence of the category in question. We will use the term in similar contexts elsewhere.
92 The Verb: The Perfect
viz. the common and the continuous aspects. 1 This problem does not present any particular difficulty, either. We need only recollect that there are in Modern English such pairs as is writing — has been writing, was writing — had been writing, will be writing — will have been writing, i. e. present continuous and present perfect continuous, past continuous and past perfect continuous, future continuous and future perfect continuous. All of these forms belong to the continuous aspect, so the difference between them cannot possibly be based on any aspect category. For example, since both was writing and had been writing belong to the continuous aspect (as distinct from wrote and had written), they cannot be said to differ from each other on an aspect line; otherwise they would at the same time belong to one aspect and to different aspects, which is obviously impossible. Hence the conclusion is unavoidable that the perfect is not an aspect. The views of those who consider the perfect to be an aspect need not therefore be discussed here in detail.
Since the perfect is neither a tense nor an aspect, it is bound to be some special grammatical category, different both from tense and from aspect. This view, though not quite explicitly stated, was first put forward by Prof. A. Smirnitsky in a posthumous article.2 It is in complete harmony with the principle of distributive analysis, though Prof. Smirnitsky did not, at the time, use the term "distributive analysis".
The essence of the grammatical category expressed by the perfect, and differing both from tense and from aspect, is hard to define and to find a name for. Prof. Smirnitsky proposed to call it "the category of time relation", which is not a very happy term, because it seems to bring us back to the old view that the perfect is a special kind of tense — a view which Prof. Smirnitsky quite rightly combated. Later it was proposed to replace his term of "time relation" by that of "correlation" (соотнесенность), which has the advantage of eliminating the undesirable term "time". This is decidedly the term to be preferred.
As to the opposition in such pairs as writes — has written, wrote — had written, will write — will have written, is writing — has been writing, was writing — had been writing, will be writing — will have been writing, Prof. Smirnitsky proposed to denote it by the correlative terms "non-perfect" and "perfect". While this
1 We are proceeding here on the assumption that the existence of these two aspects, and, indeed, of aspect as a category of the English verb has been recognised. If its existence is denied the problem presents itself in a different light (see p. 81).
2 See А. И. Смирницкий, Перфект и категория временной отнесённости. Иностранные языки в школе, 1955, № 2. See also А. И. Смирницкий, Морфология английского языка, 1959, стр. 274—316. Compare И. II. Иванова, Вид и время в современном английском языке, стр. 112—113.
Basic Qualities of the Perfect Forms 93
latter proposal may be fully accepted, the definition of the meaning of the category presents considerable difficulty. Its essence appears to be precedence: an action expressed by a perfect form precedes some moment in time. We cannot say that it always precedes another action: the present perfect form is most commonly used in sentences which contain no mention of any other action.
On the other hand, the use of a non-perfect form does not necessarily imply that the action did not precede some moment in time. It may, or it may not, have preceded it. To find this out, the reader or hearer has to take into account some other feature of the context, or, possibly, the situation, that is, an extralinguistic factor. Thus, the opposition between perfect and non-perfect forms is shown to be that between a marked and an unmarked item, the perfect forms being marked both in meaning (denoting precedence) and in morphological characteristics (have + second participle), and the non-perfect forms unmarked both in meaning (precedence not implied) and in morphological characteristics (purely negative characteristic: the collocation "have + second participle" not used). On the whole, as a general term to denote the basic meaning of the perfect the term "correlation" in the above-mentioned meaning seems quite acceptable and we propose to make use of it until a better term is found, which may take some time to happen.
If this view is taken, the system of verbal categories illustrated by the forms writes, is writing, has written, has been writing, wrote, was writing, had written, had been writing, will write, will be writing, will have written, will have been writing, — is based on three groups of notions, viz. tense:present vs. past vs. future; aspect:common vs. continuous; correlation:non-perfect vs. perfect. As is seen from this list, the latter two of the three oppositions are double (or "dichotomic"), i.e. they consist of only two items each, whereas the first (the tense opposition) is triple (or "trichotomic"), i. e. it consists of three items.
We will accept this state of things without entering into a discussion of the question whether every opposition must necessarily be dichotomic, i. e. consist of two members only.
Thus, the opposition between writes and wrote is one of tense, that between wrote and was writing one of aspect, and that between wrote and had written one of correlation. It is obvious that two oppositions may occur together; thus, between writes and was writing there are simultaneously the oppositions of tense and aspect; between wrote and will have written there are simultaneously the oppositions of tense and correlation, and between wrote and had been writing there are simultaneously the oppositions of aspect and correlation. And, finally, all three oppositions may occur together: thus, between writes and had been writing there are simultaneously the oppositions of tense, aspect, and correlation.
94 The Verb: The Perfect
If, in a system of forms, there is only one opposition, it can obviously be represented graphically on a line. If there are two oppositions, they can be represented on a plane. Now, if there are three oppositions, the system obviously cannot be represented on a plane. To represent it, we should have recourse to a three-dimensional solid, viz. a parallelepiped. Prof. A. Smirnitsky has given a sketch of such a parallelepiped in his book. 1 However, a drawing of a parallelepiped cannot give the desired degree of clarity and we will not reproduce it here.
USES OF THE PERFECT FORMS
We have accepted the definition of the basic meaning of the perfect forms as that of "precedence". However, this definition can only be the starting point for a study of the various uses of the perfect forms. Indeed, for more than one case this definition of its meaning will seem wholly inadequate, because its actual meaning in a given context will be influenced by various factors. Though a very great amount of investigation has been carried on in this field and many phenomena have by now been elucidated, it is only fair to say that a complete solution of all the problems involved in the uses and shades of meaning of the perfect forms in Modern English is not yet in sight.
Let us first, ask the question: what kinds of linguistic factors can be expected to have an influence on the use and shades of meaning of the perfect forms? We will try to answer this question in a general way, before proceeding to investigate the possible concrete cases.
These factors, then, would seem to be the following:
(1) the lexical meaning of the verb;
(2) the tense category of the form, i. e. whether it is the present perfect, past perfect, or future perfect (we cannot be certain in advance that the tense relation is irrelevant here);
(3) the syntactical context, i. e. whether the perfect form is used in a simple sentence, or the main clause, or again in a subordinate clause of a complex sentence.
To these should be added an extralinguistic factor, viz.
(4) the situation in which the perfect form is used.
Let us now consider each of these factors separately and then come to the question of their possible interaction.
(1) The meaning of the verb used can affect the meaning of the perfect form in so far as the verb may denote either an action which is apt to produce an essential change in the state of the object (e. g. He has broken the cup) or a process which can last indefinitely
1 See А. И. Смирницкий, Морфология английского языка, стр. 310.
Uses of the Perfect Forms 95
without bringing about any change (e. g. He has lived in this city since 1945), etc. With the verb break, for instance, the shade of meaning would then be the result of the action (the cup is no longer a cup but a collection of fragments), whereas with the verb live no result in this exact sense can be found; we might infer a resultative meaning only in a somewhat roundabout way, by saying that he has now so many years of life in this city behind him. Thus the meaning of result, which we indeed do find in the sentence He has broken the cup, appears to be the effect of the combined meanings of the verb as such (in whatever form) and the perfect form as such. It is quite natural that this meaning should have more than once been taken to be the meaning of the perfect category as such, which was a misconception.1
To give another example, if the verb denotes an action which brings about some new state of things, its perfect form is liable to acquire a shade of meaning which will not be found with a verb denoting an action unable to bring about a new state. We may, for instance, compare the sentences We have found the book (this implies that the book, which had been lost, is now once more in our possession) and We have searched the whole room for the book (which does not imply any new state with reference to the book). Of course many more examples of this kind might be given. The basic requirement is clear enough: we must find the meaning of the form itself, or its invariable, and not the meaning of the form as modified or coloured by the lexical meaning of the verb. If this requirement is clearly kept in mind, many errors which have been committed in defining the meaning of the form will be avoided.
(2) The possible dependence of the meaning of perfect forms on the tense category (present, past or future) is one of the most difficult problems which the theory of the perfect has had to face. It is quite natural to suppose that there ought to be an invariable meaning of the phrase "have + second participle", no matter what the tense of the verb have happens to be, and this indeed is the assumption we start from. However, it would be dangerous to consider this hypothesis as something ascertained, without undertaking an objective investigation of all the facts which may throw some light on the problem. We may, for instance, suspect that the present perfect, which denotes "precedence to the present", i. e. to the moment of speech, may prove different from the past perfect, denoting precedence to a moment in the past, or the future perfect, denoting precedence to a moment in the future: both the past and the future are, of course, themselves related in some way to the
1 This was very aptly pointed out by Prof. G. Vorontsova in her book (p. 196), where she criticised this conception of the English perfect found in several authors.
86 The Verb: The Perfect
present, which appears as the centre to which all other moments of time are referred in some way or other. One of the chief points in this sphere is the following. If an action precedes another action, and the meaning of the verb is such a one that the action can have a distinct result, the present perfect form, together with the lexical meaning of the verb (and, we should add, possibly with some element of the context) may produce the meaning of a result to be seen at the very moment the sentence is uttered, so that the speaker can point at that result with his finger, as it were. Now with the past perfect and with the future perfect things are bound to be somewhat different. The past perfect (together with the factors mentioned above) would mean that the result was there at a certain moment in the past, so that the speaker could not possibly point at it with his finger. Still less could he do that if the action he spoke about was in the future, and the future perfect (again, together with all those factors) denoted a result that would be there in the future only (that is, it would only be an expected result). 1 All this has to be carefully gone into, if we are to achieve really objective conclusions and if we are to avoid unfounded generalisations and haphazard assertions which may be disproved by examining an example or two which did not happen to be at our disposal at the moment of writing.
(3) The syntactical context in which a perfect form is used is occasionally a factor of the highest importance in determining the ultimate meaning of the sentence. To illustrate this point, let us consider a few examples: There was a half-hearted attempt at a maintenance of the properties, and then Wilbraham Hall rang with the laughter of a joke which the next day had become the common precious property of the Five Towns. (BENNETT) Overton waited quietly till he had finished. (LINDSAY) But before he had answered, she made a grimace which Mark understood. (R. WEST) The action denoted by the past perfect in these sentences is not thought of as preceding the action denoted by the past tense.
Another possibility of the context influencing the actual meaning of the sentence will be seen in the following examples. The question, How long have you been here? of course implies that the person addressed still is in the place meant by the adverb here. An answer like I have been here for half an hour would then practically mean, 'I have been here for half an hour and I still am here and may stay here for some time to come'. On the other hand, when, in G. B. Shaw's play, "Mrs Warren's Profession" (Act I), Vivie comes into the room and Mrs Warren asks her, "Where have you been, Vivie?" it is quite evident that Vivie no longer is in the place about
1 See also below (p. 111) on the modal shades of the future.
Uses of the Perfect Forms 97
which Mrs Warren is inquiring; now she is in the room with her mother and it would be pointless for Mrs Warren to ask any question about that. These two uses of the present perfect (and similar uses of the past perfect, too) have sometimes been classed under the headings "present (or past) perfect inclusive" and "present (or past) perfect exclusive". This terminology cannot be recommended, because it suggests the idea that there are two different meanings of the present (or past) perfect, which is surely wrong. The difference does not lie in the meanings of the perfect form, but depends on the situation in which the sentence is used. The same consideration applies to the present (or past) perfect continuous, which is also occasionally classified into present (or past) perfect continuous inclusive and present (or past) perfect continuous exclusive. The difference in the meaning of sentences is a very real one, as will be seen from the following examples. "Sam, you know everybody," she said, "who is that terrible man I've been talking to? His name is Campofiore." (R. WEST) I have been saving money these many months. (THACKERAY, quoted by Poutsma) Do you mean to say that lack has been playing with me all the time? That he has been urging me not to marry you because he intends to marry you himself? (SHAW) However, this is not a difference in the meaning of the verbal form itself, which is the same in all cases, but a difference depending on the situation or context. If we were to ascribe the two meanings to the form as such, we should be losing its grammatical invariable, which we are trying to determine.
Of course it cannot be said that the analysis here given exhausts all possible uses and applications of the perfect forms in Modern English. We should always bear in mind that extensions of uses are possible which may sometimes go beyond the strict limits of the system. Thus, we occasionally find the present perfect used in complex sentences both in the main and in the subordinate clause — a use which does not quite fit in with the definition of the meaning of the form. E. g. I've sometimes wondered if I haven't seemed a little too frank and free with you, if you might not have thought I had "gone gay", considering our friendship was so far from intimate. (R. WEST) We shall best understand this use if we substitute the past tense for the present perfect. The sentence then would run like this: I have sometimes wondered if I hadn't seemed a little too frank and free with you... An important shade of meaning of the original sentence has been lost in this variant, viz. that of an experience summed up and ready at the time of speaking. With the past tense, the sentence merely deals with events of a past time unconnected with the present, whereas with the present perfect there is the additional meaning of all those past events being alive in the speaker's mind.
4 Б. A. Ильиш
98 The Verb: The Perfect
Other examples might of course be found in which there is some peculiarity or other in the use of a perfect form. In the course of time, if such varied uses accumulate, they may indeed bring about a modification of the meaning of the form itself. This, however, lies beyond the scope of our present study.
The three verbal categories considered so far — aspect, tense, and correlation — belong together in the sense that the three express facets of the action closely connected, and could therefore even occasionally be confused and mistaken for each other. There is also some connection, though of a looser kind, between these three and some other verbal categories which we will now consider, notably that of mood and that of voice. We will in each case point out the connections as we come upon them.
Chapter XI
THE VERB: MOOD
The category of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions, and has been treated in so many different ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less convincing and universally acceptable conclusion concerning it. Indeed, the only points in the sphere of mood which have not so far been disputed seem to be these: (a) there is a category of mood in Modern English, (b) there are at least two moods in the modern English verb, one of which is the indicative. As to the number of the other moods and as to their meanings and the names they ought to be given, opinions to-day are as far apart as ever. It is to be hoped that the new methods of objective linguistic investigation will do much to improve this state of things. Meanwhile we shall have to try to get at the roots of this divergence of views and to establish at least the starting points of an objective investigation. We shall have to begin with a definition of the category. Various definitions have been given of the category of mood. One of them (by Academician V. Vinogradov) is this: "Mood expresses the relation of the action to reality, as stated by the speaker." 1 This definition seems plausible on the whole, though the words "relation of the action to reality" may not be clear enough. What is meant here is that different moods express different degrees of reality of an action, viz. one mood represents it as actually taking (or having taken) place, while another represents it as merely conditional or desired, etc.
It should be noted at once that there are other ways of indicating the reality or possibility of an action, besides the verbal category of mood, viz. modal verbs (may, can, must, etc.), and modal words (perhaps, probably, etc.), which do not concern us here. All these phenomena fall under the very wide notion of modality, which is not confined to grammar but includes some parts of lexicology and of phonetics (intonation) as well.
In proceeding now to an analysis of moods in English, let us first state the main division, which has been universally recognised. This is the division of moods into the one which represents an action as real, i. e. as actually taking place (the indicative) as against that or those which represent it as non-real, i. e. as merely imaginary, conditional, etc.
THE INDICATIVE
The use of the indicative mood shows that the speaker represents the action as real.
1 See В. В. Виноградов, Русский язык, стр. 581. 4*
100 The Verb: Mood
Two additional remarks are necessary here.
(1) The mention of the speaker (or writer) who represents the action as real is most essential. If we limited ourselves to saying that the indicative mood is used to represent real actions, we should arrive at the absurd conclusion that whatever has been stated by anybody (in speech or in writing) in a sentence with its predicate verb in the indicative mood is therefore necessarily true. We should then ignore the possibility of the speaker either being mistaken or else telling a deliberate lie. The point is that grammar (and indeed linguistics as a whole) does not deal with the ultimate truth or untruth of a statement with its predicate verb in the indicative (or, for that matter, in any other) mood. What is essential from the grammatical point of view is the meaning of the category as used by the author of this or that sentence. Besides, what are we to make of statements with their predicate verb in the indicative mood found in works of fiction? In what sense could we say, for instance, that the sentence David Copperfield married Dora or the sentence Soames Forsyte divorced his first wife, Irene represent "real facts", since we are aware that the men and women mentioned in these sentences never existed "in real life"? This is more evident still for such nursery rhyme sentences as, The cow jumped over the moon. This peculiarity of the category of mood should be always firmly kept in mind.
(2) Some doubt about the meaning of the indicative mood may arise if we take into account its use in conditional sentences such as the following: I will speak to him if I meet him.
It may be argued that the action denoted by the verb in the indicative mood (in the subordinate clauses as well as in the main clauses) is not here represented as a fact but merely as a possibility (I may meet him, and I may not, etc.). However, this does not affect the meaning of the grammatical form as such. The conditional meaning is expressed by the conjunction, and of course it does alter the modal meaning of the sentence, but the meaning of the verb form as such remains what it was. As to the predicate verb of the main clause, which expresses the action bound to follow the fulfilment of the condition laid down in the subordinate clause, it is no more uncertain than an action belonging to the future generally is. This brings us to the question of a peculiar modal character of the future indicative, as distinct from the present or past indicative. In the sentence If he was there I did not see him the action of the main clause is stated as certain, in spite of the fact that the subordinate clause is introduced by if and, consequently, its action is hypothetical. The meaning of the main clause cannot be affected by this, apparently because the past has a firmer meaning of reality than the future.
The Imperative 101
On the whole, then, the hypothetical meaning attached to clauses introduced by if is no objection to the meaning of the indicative as a verbal category. 1
THE IMPERATIVE
The imperative mood in English is represented by one form only, viz. come(!), without any suffix or ending.2
It differs from all other moods in several important points. It has no person, number, tense, or aspect distinctions, and, which is the main thing, it is limited in its use to one type of sentence only, viz. imperative sentences. Most usually a verb in the imperative has no pronoun acting as subject. However, the pronoun may be used in emotional speech, as in the following example: "But, Tessie—" he pleaded, going towards her. "You leave me alone!" she cried out loudly. (E. CALDWELL) These are essential peculiarities distinguishing the imperative, and they have given rise to doubts as to whether the imperative can be numbered among the moods at all. This of course depends on what we mean by mood. If we accept the definition of mood given above (p. 99) there would seem to be no ground to deny that the imperative is a mood. The definition does not say anything about the possibility of using a form belonging to a modal category in one or more types of sentences: that syntactical problem is not a problem of defining mood. If we were to define mood (and, indeed, the other verbal categories) in terms of syntactical use, and to mention the ability of being used in various types of sentences as prerequisite for a category to be acknowledged as mood, things would indeed be different and the imperative would have to go. Such a view is possible but it has not so far been developed by any scholar and until that is convincingly done there appears no ground to exclude the imperative.
A serious difficulty connected with the imperative is the absence of any specific morphological characteristics: with all verbs, including the verb be, it coincides with the infinitive, and in all verbs, except be, it also coincides with the present indicative apart from the 3rd person singular. Even the absence of a subject pronoun you, which would be its syntactical characteristic, is not a reliable feature at all, as sentences like You sit here! occur often enough.
1 We will consider some other cases of modal shades possible for the indicative later on (see p. 111).
2 There seems to be only one case of what might be called the perfect imperative, namely, the form have done (!) of the verb do. It has to a great extent been lexicalised and it now means, 'stop immediately'. The order is, as it were, that the action should already be finished by the time the order is uttered. This is quite an isolated case, and of course there is no perfect imperative in the English verb system as a whole.
102 The Verb: Mood
Meaning alone may not seem sufficient ground for establishing a grammatical category. Thus, no fully convincing solution of the problem has yet been found.
THE OTHER MOODS
Now we come to a very difficult set of problems, namely those connected with the subjunctive, conditional, or whatever other name we may choose to give these moods.
The chief difficulty analysis has to face here is the absence of a straightforward mutual relation between meaning and form. Sometimes the same external series of signs will have two (or more) different meanings depending on factors lying outside the form itself, and outside the meaning of the verb; sometimes, again, the same modal meaning will be expressed by two different series of external signs.
The first of these two points may be illustrated by the sequence we should come, which means one thing in the sentence I think we should come here again to-morrow (here we should come is equivalent to we ought to come); it means another thing in the sentence If we knew that he wants us we should come to see him (here we should come denotes a conditional action, i. e. an action depending on certain conditions), and it means another thing again in the sentence How queer that we should come at the very moment when you were talking about us! (here we should come denotes an action which has actually taken place and which is considered as an object for comment). In a similar way, several meanings may be found in the sequence he would come in different contexts.
The second of the two points may be illustrated by comparing the two sentences, I suggest that he go and I suggest that he should go, and we will for the present neglect the fact that the first of the two variants is more typical of American, and the second of British English.
It is quite clear, then, that we shall arrive at different systems of English moods, according as we make our classification depend on the meaning (in that case one should come will find its place under one heading, and the other should come under another, whereas (he) go and (he) should go will find their place under the same heading) or on form (in that case he should come will fall under one heading, no matter in what context it may be used, while (he) go and (he) should go will fall under different headings).
This difficulty appears to be one of the main sources of that wide divergence of views which strikes every reader of English grammars when he reaches the chapter on moods.
The Other Moods 103
It is natural to suppose that a satisfactory solution may be found by combining the two approaches (that based on meaning and that based on form) in some way or other. But here again we are faced with difficulties when we try to determine the exact way in which they should be combined. Shall we start with criteria based on meaning and first establish the main categories on this principle, and then subdivide each of these categories according to formal criteria, and in this way arrive at the final smallest units in the sphere of mood? Or shall we proceed in the opposite way and start with formal divisions, etc.? All these are questions which can only be answered in a more or less arbitrary way, so that a really binding solution cannot be expected on these lines. Whatever system of moods we may happen to arrive at, it will always be possible for somebody else to say that a different solution is also conceivable and perhaps better than the one we have proposed. 1
Matters are still further complicated by two phenomena where we are faced with a choice between polysemy and homonymy. One of these concerns forms like lived, knew, etc. Such forms appear in two types of contexts, of which one may be exemplified by the sentences, He lived here five years ago, or I knew it all along, and the other by the sentences, If he lived here he would come at once, от, If I knew his address I should write to him.
In sentences of the first type the form obviously is the past tense of the indicative mood. The second type admits of two interpretations: either the forms lived, knew, etc. are the same forms of the past indicative that were used in the first type, but they have acquired another meaning in this particular context, or else the forms lived, knew, etc. are forms of some other mood, which only happen to be homonymous with forms of the past indicative but are basically different. 2
The other question concerns forms like (I) should go, (he) would go. These are also used in different contexts, as may be seen from the following sentences: I said I should go at once, I should go if I knew the place, Whom should I meet but him, etc.
The question which arises here is this: is the group (he) would go in both cases the same form, with its meaning changed according to the syntactic context, so that one context favours the temporal meaning ("future-in-the-past") and the other a modal meaning (a mood of some sort, differing from the indicative; we will not go now into details about what mood this should be), or are they
1 It may be noted here that similar difficulties, though perhaps on a smaller scale, are to be found in analysing moods in Russian. See, for example, В. В. Виноградов, Русский язык, стр. 584 сл.
2 In this discussion we treat merely of the present state of things, not of its origins.
104 The Verb: Mood
homonyms, that is, two basically different forms which happen to coincide in sound? 1
The problem of polysemy or homonymy with reference to such forms as knew, lived, or should come, would come, and the like is a very hard one to solve. It is surely no accident that the solutions proposed for it have been so widely varied.2
Having, then, before us this great accumulation of difficulties and of problems to which contradictory solutions have been proposed without any one author being able to prove his point in such a way that everybody would have to admit his having proved it, we must now approach this question: what way of analysing the category of mood in Modern English shall we choose if we are to achieve objectively valid results, so far as this is at all possible?
There is another peculiar complication in the analysis of mood. The question is, what verbs are auxiliaries of mood in Modern English? The verbs should and would are auxiliaries expressing unreality (whatever system of moods we may adopt after all). But the question is less clear with the verb may when used in such sentences as Come closer that I may hear what you say (and, of course, the form might if the main clause has a predicate verb in a past tense). Is the group may hear some mood form of the verb hear, or is it a free combination of two verbs, thus belonging entirely to the field of syntax, not morphology? The same question may be asked about the verb may in such sentences as May you be happy! where it is part of a group used to express a wish, and is perhaps a mood auxiliary. We ought to seek an objective criterion which would enable us to arrive at a convincing conclusion.
Last of all, a question arises concerning the forms traditionally named the imperative mood, i. e. forms like come in the sentence Come here, please/ or do not be in the sentence Do not be angry with him, please! The usual view that they are mood forms has recently been attacked on the ground that their use in sentences is rather different from that of other mood forms.3
All these considerations, varied as they are, make the problem of mood in Modern English extremely difficult to solve and they seem to show in advance that no universally acceptable solution can be hoped for in a near future. Those proposed so far have been extremely unlike each other. Owing to the difference of approach to moods, grammarians have been vacillating between two extremes — 3 moods (indicative, subjunctive and imperative), put forward by
1 Here, too, it should be kept in mind that we are dealing merely with the present state of things, not with its historical origins.
2 We may note in passing that quite similar difficulties of choice between polysemy and homonymy are met with in the sphere of lexicology (note the discussions on such words as head, hand, board, etc.).
3 See above, p. 101.
The Other Moods 105
| many grammarians, and 16 moods, as proposed by M. Deutschbein. 1 Between these extremes there are intermediate views, such as that of Prof. A. Smirnitsky, who proposed a system of 6 moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive I, subjunctive II, suppositional, and conditional),2 and who was followed in this respect by M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya. 3 The problem of English moods was also investigated by Prof. G. Vorontsova 4 and by a number of other scholars. In view of this extreme variety of opinions and of the fact that each one of them has something to be said in its favour (the only one, perhaps, which appears to be quite arbitrary and indefensible is that of M. Deutschbein) it would be quite futile for us here either to assert that any one of those systems is the right one, or to propose yet another, and try to defend it against all possible objections which might be raised. We will therefore content ourselves with pointing out the main possible approaches and trying to assess their relative force and their weak points. If we start from the meanings of the mood forms (leaving aside the meaning of reality, denoted by the indicative), we obtain (with some possible variations of detail) the following headings: | |
| Meaning | Means of Expression |
| Inducement (order, request, prayer, and the like) | come (!) (no ending, no auxiliary, and usually without subject, 2nd person only) |
| Possibility (action thought of as conditionally possible, or as purpose of another action, etc.) | (1) (he) come (no ending, no auxiliary) (2) should come (should for all persons) (3) may come (?) |
| Unreal condition | came, had come (same as past or past perfect indicative), used in subordinate clauses |
| Consequence of unreal condition | should come (1st person) would come (2nd and 3rd person) |
| We would thus get either four moods (if possibility, unreal condition, and consequence of unreal condition are each taken | |
| 1 M. Deutschbein, System der neuenglischen Syntax, S. 112 ff. 2 See Русско-английский словарь, под общим руководством проф. А. И. Смирницкого, 1948, стр. 979; А. И. Смирницкий, Морфология английского языка, 1959, стр. 341—352. 3 M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya, English Grammar, 7th ed., 1951, P. 161 ff. 4 Г. Н. Воронцова, Очерки по грамматике английского языка, 1960, стр. 240 сл. |
106 The Verb: Mood
| separately), or three moods (if any two of these are taken together), or two moods (if they are all three taken together under the heading of "non-real action"). The choice between these variants will remain arbitrary and is unlikely ever to be determined by means of any objective data. If, on the other hand, we start from the means of expressing moods (both synthetical and analytical) we are likely to get something like this system: | |
| Means of Expression come (!) (no ending, no auxiliary, and usually without subject) (he) come (no ending in any person, no auxiliary) came, had come should come (for all persons) should come (1st person) would come (2nd and 3rd person ) may come (?) | Meaning Inducement Possibility Unreal condition Unlikely condition Matter for assessment 1 Consequence of unreal condition Wish or purpose |
In this way we should obtain a different system, comprising six moods, with the following meanings: (1) Inducement (2) Possibility (3) Unreal condition (4) Unlikely condition (5) Consequence of unreal condition (6) Wish or purpose Much additional light could probably be thrown on the whole vexed question by strict application of modern exact methods of lan Наши рекомендации |