Absolutive and Non-Absolutive Time Denotation

All lexical expressions of time are traditionally divided into “present-oriented” or absolutive expressions of time which distribute human time perception into the spheres of the present, past, future.

E.G. last week, tomorrow, yesterday are absolutive denotations as they are connected with the time orientation which is the present moment.

The non-absolutive time denotation is not connected with the present moment, but correlates the events in terms of their precedence, simultaneousness or futurity.

E.G. at the same time, after 2 days, some time later

Such denotations are called relative.

In case of factual time denotation is related with the astronomical or historical time marking.

E.G. The Middle Ages, during the WW1, in 1986

As the category of objective time is a very complicated one, there are lingual devices of different nature and status to reflect it adequately. Moreover, in utterances or sentences time denotation of the situation / event / situational events is usually performed by different means to give a detailed characterization of the temporal features of the event described: the finite verb forms signify more generalized characteristics of the reflected processes, the lexical means convey more detailed descriptions.

E.G. I saw him.

I saw him yesterday at 7 p.m.

It is advisable to realize that in the literary text the verb forms are mainly relative, as the time of the text is viewed as preceding the real time of the text creation. In addition, the author usually chooses the departing point in the past which becomes central for the narration.

As for the general character of verb-forms functioning the distinction between real /absolutive and relative/non-absolutive time denotation is not of much importance, as the same verb tenses-forms are used to express both absolutive and non-absolutive time.

The application of the principle of oppositions to the verb-forms results in the recognition of two possibilities concerning temporal categories that are accepted in the theory of English grammar at present.

a) the opposition of the present and past tenses, the past tense being the marked member of the opposition this category is called the category of primary time, this one is absolutive.

b) The opposition between future tenses and no future tenses with the future tenses forms regarded as the strong member of the opposition. Blokh M.Ya. calls this temporal category of relative character the category of prospective time or “prospect” for short.

Reference with the moment of speech is relevant for the verb forms expressing dynamic character of actions. There are verb-forms which focus more, on the characterization of actions not so much in their dynamism as on the detailed description of the action in a particular temporal sphere.

e.g. She loved the circles they moved in now. She had met Sarah’s father and brother socially on several occasions and it still seemed unbelievable to her that Sarah had so easily tossed away what she herself had struggled for.

The departing point is located in the past. The forms “had met”, “had tossed”, “had struggled” are not dynamic, they give detailed characterization of the actions expressed with the forms “seemed”, “moved” which indicate the moments in the past.

It is worthy to note that another means of indication of the departing point is the lexical one “now”, the lexical meaning of which is that of the present moment or period. Certain contradiction observed in the example is of a different character in the sentence.

e.g.. Yesterday when I walk along the street I suddenly bump into her.

These cases are the examples of the grammatical phenomena called transposition. By transposition we mean the use a grammatical form in an unusual surrounding. Two types of transposition 1) regular and 2) stylistic are distinguished in grammar. Regular transpositions are stylistically neutral and do not lead to synonyms.

In addition to the three conventionally distinguished spheres of the Past, Present, Future tense-forms are united into 4 basic tense-forms groups:

Simple / Indefinite /

Progressive / Continuous /

Perfect

Perfect Progressive

/The recognition of these groups seems logical enough as well as is convenient for teaching purposes./

Such tense form has the basic grammatical meaning and a number of secondary grammatical meanings.

e.g.. The group of simple has the basic grammatical meaning of the general characterization of action at some period / moment of time in the present, past or future.

The continuous verb forms express actions in the their processuality;

e.g. the actions are viewed as developing at a definite moment / period of time regardless their beginning or ending.

4.2 Problematic Cases in the English Tense System

The place of the perfect forms in the system of the English verb causes heated discussions due to the two major unsolved problems:

1) whether these are the tense or aspectual form

2) the basic grammatical meaning of the Perfect forms

H. Sweet, H.Poatsma consider Perfect to be tense forms with the meaning of resultiveness which is contradictory as it predetermines the aspectual meaning.

Г.Воронцов, Б.Ильиш define Perfect forms as grammatical forms of resulting meaning with focus on the retrospective character of perfect.

A. Smirnitsky considered Perfect to be a special category of temporal correlation with the basic meaning of precedence such point of view deprives perfect of time orientation obligatory to tense-forms.

Morokhovskay E.Ya. stresses the absence of invariant characteristics of the Perfect, as the Present Perfect is devoid of the meaning of precedence and focuses on the resultiveness of the action. In her opinion, the past Perfect does not signify any time distination and does not express any manner of action. So, this form is relative, it signifies precedence of an action, as this form it is conditioned by the context.

The Future Perfect form is referred to some point of time in the future, thus being relative in character similarly to the Past Perfect form.

So the Perfect forms in English do not make up a systemic grouping.

The Problem of Futurity

The discussion connected with the combinations of “shall/will + Infinitive” is two-sided: part of the controversy concerns the possible modality associated with “shall” and “will”, on the other hand ,there are objections as to the inclusion of these forms into the temporal spheres due to their relative meaning, which is compatible with the general meaning of prospective time.

O. Jespersen defended the view that ‘shall’ and ‘will’ retained their modal meanings in all their uses.

L.S.Barkhudarov objected, stating that however well-grounded this idea seems, the distributional and contextual factors prove the otherwise.

CF: He’ll do it tomorrow.

He will do it tomorrow.

Nevertheless, the problem remains resolved only partly.

Summing up: Tense as a verbal category reflects the objective category of time and expresses the temporal relations between the process, action or state and the moment of speaking or a moment in the past or future.

[ For further study of the problems see SCHEME 1]

P A R T 2

Projects

1. Lexico-Grammatical Field of Temporality

2. Analytical Tendencies in the System of English Tenses

3. The Category of Finitude (Finiteness)

Study questions

1. Provide examples to explain the following statement:

“In the sentence the finite verbs perform the function of the verb-predicate, expressing the processual categorical features of predication, that is the combination of such characteristics as time, aspect, voice and mood”.

2. Study the problems connected with the verb functioning and offer possible solutions:

a) the interaction of two verbal categories in a single form namely the categories of tense and aspect;

b) the existence and thus consequent confusion of grammatical, lexical, syntactical means of denoting the manner of action of the English verb;

c) the parallel existence of synthetic and analytical forms of the English verb.

PART 3

Sentence Parsing

1) Identify predication lines to divide the sentence into constituent parts.

2) Make a scheme to show the relations between sentence parts.

3) Define the constituents of each sentence.

1. He didn’t know when he had made the decision to give the money to her, but after the fight, realizing that he couldn’t help anybody any more, he also realized he couldn’t let this woman lose everything she owned. (Eidson Th. All God’s Children. – Dutton, 1997. – P.261)

2. The captain led the way, his mind racing through a maze of possibilities that all led to the same conclusion; if the high-priority cargo pallet they were supposed to be hauling to Denver was still sitting on the ramp at Miami Airport, his little upstart airline was in deep trouble. (Nance J. Medusa’s Child. – Doubleday, 1997. -P.305)

3. Vivian , you say you don’t know what is inside your bag but the FBI tells me they’ve been searching for a package of some sort which contains hazardous material that came through Miami while we were there. (Nance J. Medusa’s Child. – Doubleday, 1997. -P.322)

4. There’s certainly an element of hypocrisy in businessmen’s denunciations of government intervention in the economy; their hostility to government appears to vanish whenever their profits are at stake, as corporate executives tend to resolve their apparent contradictions between their beliefs and their practices by denying that government policies that assist private company accumulation – either directly or indirectly – actually represent government intervention (Skocpol Th., Cambell J. American Society and Politics. – McGraw-Hill, 1995. – P.251)

5. For instance, some researchers have found that the ability of citizen groups to influence city hall and overcome the resistance of political and business elites is enhanced if city officials are chosen through ward-based rather than at-large elections; popular influence is also enhanced when local business leaders are concerned less with local than regional or national economic problems (Skocpol Th., Cambell J. American Society and Politics. – McGraw-Hill, 1995. – P.7).