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Non-finite verbs (verbids) 5 глава
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The described system of the British future is by far more complicated than the expression of the future tense in the other national variants of English, in particular, in American English, where the future form of the first person is functionally equal with the other persons. In British English a possible tendency to a similar levelled expression of the future is actively counteracted by the two structural factors. The first is the existence of the two functionally differing contractions of the future auxiliaries in the negative form, i. e. shan't and won't, which imperatively support the survival of shall in the first person against the levelled positive (affirmative) contraction -' ll. The second is the use of the future tense in interrogative sentences, where with the first person only shall is normally used. Indeed, it is quite natural that a genuine question directed by the speaker to
himself, i.e. a question showing doubt or speculation, is to be asked about an action of non-wilful, involuntary order, and not otherwise. Cf.:
What shall we be shown next? Shall I be able to master shorthand professionally? The question was, should I see Beatrice again before her departure?
The semantics of the first person futurity question is such that even the infinitives of essentially volition-governed actions are transferred here to the plane of non-volition, subordinating themselves to the general implication of doubt, hesitation, uncertainty. Cf.:
What shall I answer to an offer like that? How shall we tackle the matter if we are left to rely on our own judgment?
Thus, the vitality of the discriminate shall/will future, characteristic of careful English speech, is supported by logically vindicated intra-lingual factors. Moreover, the whole system of Modern British future with its mobile inter-action of the two auxiliaries is a product of recent language development, not a relict of the older periods of its history. It is this subtly regulated and still unfinished system that gave cause to H. W. Fowler for his significant statement: ".. of the English of the English shall and will are the shibboleth."*
§ 8. Apart from shall/will + Infinitive construction, there is another construction in English which has a potent appeal for being analysed within the framework of the general problem of the future tense. This is the combination of the predicator be going with the infinitive. Indeed, the high frequency occurrence of this construction in contexts conveying the idea of an immediate future action can't but draw a very close attention on the part of a linguistic observer.
The combination may denote a sheer intention (either the speaker's or some other person's) to perform the action expressed by the infinitive, thus entering into the vast set of "classical" modal constructions. E.g.:
I am going to ask you a few more questions about the mysterious disappearance of the document, Mr. Gregg. He looked across at my desk and I thought for a moment he was going to give me the treatment, too.
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* Fowler H. W. Л Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Ldn., 1941, p. 729,
But these simple modal uses of be going are countered by cases where the direct meaning of intention rendered by the predicator stands in contradiction with its environmental implications and is subdued by them. Cf.:
You are trying to frighten me. But you are not going to frighten me any more (L. Hellman). I did not know how I was going to get out of the room (D. du Maurier).
Moreover, the construction, despite its primary meaning of intention, presupposing a human subject, is not infrequently used with non-human subjects and even in impersonal sentences. Cf.:
She knew what she was doing, and she was sure it was going to be worth doing (W. Saroyan). There's going to be a contest over Ezra Grolley's estate (E. Gardner).
Because of these properties it would appear tempting to class the construction in question as a specific tense form, namely, the tense form of "immediate future", analogous to the French futur immédiat (e.g. Le spectacle va cornmencer — The show is going to begin).
Still, on closer consideration, we notice that the non-intention uses of the predicator be going are not indifferent stylistically. Far from being neutral, they more often than not display emotional colouring mixed with semantic connotations of oblique modality.
For instance, when the girl from the first of the above examples appreciates something as "going to be worth doing", she is expressing her assurance of its being so. When one labels the rain as "never going to stop", one clearly expresses one's annoyance at the bad state of the weather. When a future event is introduced by the formula "there to be going to be", as is the case in the second of the cited examples, the speaker clearly implies his foresight of it, or his anticipation of it, or, possibly, a warning to beware of it, or else some other modal connotation of a like nature. Thus, on the whole, the non-intention uses of the construction be going + Infinitive cannot be rationally divided into modal and non-modal, on the analogy of the construction shall/will + Infinitive. Its broader combinability is based on semantic transposition and can be likened to broader uses of the modal collocation be about, also of basically intention semantics.
§ 9. The oppositional basis of the category of prospective time is neutralised in certain uses, in keeping with the general regularities of oppositional reductions. The process of neutralisation is connected with the shifting of the forms of primary time (present and past) from the sphere of absolute tenses into the sphere of relative tenses.
One of the typical cases of the neutralisation in question consists in using a non-future temporal form to express a future action which is to take place according to some plan or arrangement. Cf.:
The government meets in emergency session today over the question of continued violations of the cease-fire. I hear your sister is soon arriving from Paris? Naturally I would like to know when he's coming. Etc.
This case of oppositional reduction is optional, the equivalent reconstruction of the correlated member of the opposition is nearly always possible (with the respective changes of connotations and style). Cf.:
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... → The government will meet in emergency session.... →Your sister will soon arrive from Paris?... → When will he be coming"?
Another type of neutralisation of the prospective time opposition is observed in modal verbs and modal word combinations. The basic peculiarity of these units bearing on (he expression of time is, that the prospective implication is inherently in-built in their semantics, which reflects not the action as such, but the attitude towards the action expressed by the infinitive. For that reason, the present verb-form of these units actually renders the idea of the future (and, respectively, the past verb-form, the idea of the future-in-the-past). Cf.:
There's no saying what may happen next. At any rate, the woman was sure to come later in the day. But you have to present the report before Sunday, there's no alternative.
Sometimes the explicit expression of the future is necessary even with modal collocations. To make up for the lacking categorial forms, special modal substitutes have been developed in language, some of which have received the status of suppletive units (see above, Ch. III). Cf.:
But do not make plans with David. You will not be able to carry them out. Things will have to go one way or the other.
Alongside of the above and very different from them, there is still another typical case of neutralisation of the analysed categorial opposition, which is strictly obligatory. It occurs in clauses of time and condition whose verb-predicate expresses a future action. Cf.:
If things turn out as has been arranged, the triumph will be all ours. I repeated my request to notify me at once whenever the messenger arrived.
The latter type of neutralisation is syntactically conditioned. In point of fact, the neutralisation consists here in the primary tenses shifting from the sphere of absolutive time into the sphere of relative time, since they become dependent not on their immediate orientation towards the moment of speech, but on the relation to another time level, namely, the time level presented in the governing clause of the corresponding complex sentence.
This kind of neutralising relative use of absolutive tense forms occupies a restricted position in the integral tense system of English. In Russian, the syntactic relative use of tenses is, on the contrary, widely spread. In particular, this refers to the presentation of reported speech in the plane of the past, where the Russian present tense is changed into the tense of simultaneity, the past tense is changed into the tense of priority, and the future tense is changed into the tense of prospected posteriority. Cf.:
(1) Он сказал, что изучает немецкий язык. (2) Он сказал, что изучал немецкий язык. (3) Он сказал, что будет изучать немецкий язык.
In English, the primary tenses in similar syntactic conditions retain their absolutive nature and are used in keeping with their direct, unchangeable meanings. Compare the respective translations of the examples cited above:
(1) He said that he was learning German (then). (2) He said that he had learned German (before). (3) He said that he would learn German (in the time to come).
It doesn't follow from this that the rule of sequence of tenses in English complex sentences formulated by traditional grammar should be rejected as false. Sequence of tenses is an important feature of all narration, for, depending on the continual consecutive course of actual events in reality, they are presented in the text in definite successions ordered
against a common general background. However, what should be stressed here, is that the tense-shift involved in the translation of the present-plane direct information into the past-plane reported information is not a formal, but essentially a meaningful procedure.
CHAPTER XV
VERB: ASPECT
§ 1. The aspective meaning of the verb, as different from its temporal meaning, reflects the inherent mode of the realisation of the process irrespective of its timing.
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As we have already seen, the aspective meaning can be in-built in the semantic structure of the verb, forming an invariable, derivative category. In English, the various lexical aspective meanings have been generalised by the verb in its subclass division into limitive and unlimitive sets. On the whole, this division is loose, the demarcation line between the sets is easily trespassed both ways. In spite of their want of rigour, however, the aspective verbal subclasses are grammatically relevant in so far as they are not indifferent to the choice of the aspective grammatical forms of the verb. In Russian, the aspective division of verbs into perfective and imperfective is, on the contrary, very strict. Although the Russian category of aspect is derivative, it presents one of the most typical features of the grammatical structure of the verb, governing its tense system both formally and semantically.
On the other hand, the aspective meaning can also be represented in variable grammatical categories. Aspective grammatical change is wholly alien to the Russian language, but it forms one of the basic features of the categorial structure of the English verb.
Two systems of verbal forms, in the past grammatical tradition analysed under the indiscriminate heading of the "temporal inflexion", i. e. synthetic inflexion proper and analytical composition as its equivalent, should be evaluated in this light: the continuous forms and the perfect forms.
The aspective or non-aspective identification of the forms in question will, in the long run, be dependent on whether or not they express the direct, immediate time of the action denoted by the verb, since a general connection between the
aspective and temporal verbal semantics is indisputable.
The continuous verbal forms analysed on the principles of oppositional approach admit of only one interpretation, and that is aspective. The continuous forms are aspective because, reflecting the inherent character of the process performed by the verb, they do not, and cannot, denote the timing of the process. The opposition constituting the corresponding category is effected between the continuous and the non-continuous (indefinite) verbal forms. The categorial meaning discloses the nature of development of the verbal action, on which ground the suggested name for the category as a whole will be "development". As is the case with the other categories, its expression is combined with other categorial expressions in one and the same verb-form, involving also the category that features the perfect. Thus, to be consistent in our judgments, we must identify, within the framework of the manifestations of the category of development, not only the perfect continuous forms, but also the perfect indefinite forms (i.e. non-continuous).
The perfect, as different from the continuous, does reflect a kind of timing, though in a purely relative way. Namely, it coordinates two times, locating one of them in retrospect towards the other. Should the grammatical meaning of the perfect have been exhausted by this function, it ought to have been placed into one and the same categorial system with the future, forming the integral category of time coordination (correspondingly, prospective and retrospective). In reality, though, it cannot be done, because the perfect expresses not only time in relative retrospect, but also the very connection of a prior process with a time-limit reflected in a subsequent event. Thus, the perfect forms of the verb display a mixed, intermediary character, which places them apart both from the relative posterior tense and the aspective development. The true nature of the perfect is temporal aspect reflected in its own opposition, which cannot be reduced to any other opposition of the otherwise recognised verbal categories. The suggested name for this category will be "retrospective coordination", or, contractedly, "retrospect". The categorial member opposed to the perfect, for the sake of terminological consistency, will be named "imperfect" (non-perfect). As an independent category, the retrospective coordination is manifested in the integral verb-form together with the manifestations of other categories, among them the
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aspective category of development. Thus, alongside of the forms of perfect continuous and perfect indefinite, the verb distinguishes also the forms of imperfect continuous and imperfect indefinite.
§ 2. At this point of our considerations, we should like once again to call the reader's attention to the difference between the categorial terminology and the definitions of categories.
A category, in normal use, cannot be represented twice in one and the same word-form. It follows from this that the integral verb-form cannot display at once more than one expression of each of the recognised verbal categories, though it does give a representative expression to all the verbal categories taken together through the corresponding obligatory featuring (which can be, as we know, either positive or negative). And this fact provides us with a safe criterion of categorial identification for cases where the forms under analysis display related semantic functions.
We have recognised in the verbal system of English two temporal categories (plus one "minor" category of futurity option) and two aspective categories. But does this mean that the English verb is "doubly" (or "triply", for that matter) inflected by the "grammatical category" of tense and the "grammatical category" of aspect? In no wise.
The course of our deductions has been quite the contrary. It is just because the verb, in its one and the same, at each time uniquely given integral form of use, manifests not one, but two expressions of time (for instance, past and future); it is because it manifests not one, but two expressions of aspect (for instance, continuous and perfect), that we have to recognise these expressions as categorially different. In other words, such universal grammatical notions as "time", "tense", "aspect", "mood" and others, taken by themselves, do not automatically presuppose any unique categorial systems. It is only the actual correlation of the corresponding grammatical forms in a concrete, separate language that makes up a grammatical category. In particular, when certain forms that come under the same meaningful grammatical heading are mutually exclusive, it means that they together make up a grammatical category. This is the case with the three Russian verbal tenses. Indeed, the Russian verbal form of the future cannot syntagmatically coexist with the present or past forms — these forms are mutually exclusive, thereby constituting
one unified category of time (tense), existing in the three categorial forms: the present, the past, the future. In English, on the contrary, the future form of the verb can freely re-occur with the strongly marked past form, thereby making up a category radically different from the category manifested by the system of "present — past" discrimination. And it is the same case with the forms of the continuous and the perfect. Just because they can freely coexist in one and the same syntagmatic manifestation of the verb, we have to infer that they enter (in the capacity of oppositional markers) essentially different categories, though related to each other by their general aspective character.
§ 3. The aspective category of development is constituted by the opposition of the continuous forms of the verb to the non-continuous, or indefinite forms of the verb. The marked member of the opposition is the continuous, which is built up by the auxiliary be plus the present participle of the conjugated verb. In symbolic notation it is represented by the formula be...ing. The categorial meaning of the continuous is "action in progress"; the unmarked member of the opposition, the indefinite, leaves this meaning unspecified, i.e. expresses the non-continuous.
The evolution of views in connection with the interpretation of the continuous forms has undergone three stages.
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The traditional analysis placed them among the tense-forms of the verb, defining them as expressing an action going on simultaneously with some other action. This temporal interpretation of the continuous was most consistently developed in the works of H. Sweet and O. Jespersen. In point of fact, the continuous usually goes with a verb which expresses a simultaneous action, but, as we have stated before, the timing of the action is not expressed by the continuous as such — rather, the immediate time-meaning is conveyed by the syntactic constructions, as well as the broader semantic context in which the form is used, since action in progress, by definition, implies that it is developing at a certain time point.
The correlation of the continuous with contextual indications of time is well illustrated on examples of complex sentences with while -clauses. Four combinations of the continuous and the indefinite are possible in principle in these constructions (for two verbs are used here, one in the principal clause and one in the subordinate clause, each capable
of taking both forms in question), and all the four possibilities are realised in contexts of Modern English. Cf.:
While I was typing, Mary and Tom were chatting in the
adjoining room.----- While I typed, Mary and Tom were
chatting in the adjoining room.-------- While I was typing,
they chatted in the adjoining room.----- While I typed, they
chatted in the adjoining room.
Clearly, the difference in meaning between the verb-entries in the cited examples cannot lie in their time denotations, either absolutive, or relative. The time is shown by their tense-signals of the past (the past form of the auxiliary be in the continuous, or the suffix -{e)d in the indefinite). The meaningful difference consists exactly in the categorial semantics of the indefinite and continuous: while the latter shows the action in the very process of its realisation, the former points it out as a mere fact.
On the other hand, by virtue of its categorial semantics of action in progress (of necessity, at a definite point of time), the continuous is usually employed in descriptions of scenes correlating a number of actions going on simultaneously — since all of them are actually shown in progress, at the time implied by the narration. Cf.:
Standing on the chair, I could see in through the barred window into the hall of the Ayuntamiento and in there it was as it had been before. The priest was standing, and those who were left were kneeling in a half circle around him and they were all praying. Pablo was sitting on the big table in front of the Mayor's chair with his shotgun slung over his back. His legs were hanging down from the table and he was rolling a cigarette. Cuatro Dedos was sitting in the Mayor's chair with his feet on the table and he was smoking a cigarette. All the guards were sitting in different chairs of the administration, holding their guns. The key to the big door was on the table beside Pablo (E. Hemingway).
But if the actions are not progressive by themselves (i.e. if they are not shown as progressive), the description, naturally, will go without the continuous forms of the corresponding verbs. E. g.:
Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval Maidan, and a long sallow hospital. Houses belonging to Eurasians stand on the high ground by the railway station. Beyond the railway — which runs parallel to the river — the land sinks,
then rises again rather steeply. On the second rise is laid out the little civil station, and viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be a totally different place (E. M. Forster).
A further demonstration of the essentially non-temporal meaning of the continuous is its regular use in combination with the perfect, i.e. its use in the verb-form perfect continuous. Surely, the very idea of perfect is alien to simultaneity, so the continuous combined with the perfect in one and the same manifestation of the verb can only be understood as expressing aspectuality, i.e. action in progress.
Thus, the consideration of the temporal element in the continuous shows that its referring an action to a definite time-point, or its expressing simultaneity irrespective of absolutive time, is in itself an aspective, not a temporal factor.
At the second stage of the interpretation of the continuous, the form was understood as rendering a blend of temporal and aspective meanings — the same as the other forms of the verb obliquely connected with the factor of time, i.e. the indefinite and the perfect. This view was developed by I. P. Ivanova.
The combined temporal-aspective interpretation of the continuous, in general, should be appraised as an essential step forward, because, first, it introduced on an explicit, comprehensively grounded basis the idea of aspective meanings in the grammatical system of English; second, it demonstrated the actual connection of time and aspect in the integral categorial semantics of the verb. In fact, it presented a thesis that proved to be crucial for the subsequent demonstration, at the next stage of analysis, of the essence of the form on a strictly oppositional foundation.
This latter phase of study, initiated in the works of A. I.Smirnitsky, V. N. Yartseva and B. A. Ilyish, was developed further by B. S. Khaimovich and B. I. Rogovskaya and exposed in its most comprehensive form by L. S. Barkhudarov.
Probably the final touch contributing to the presentation of the category of development at this third stage of study should be still more explicit demonstration of its opposition working beyond the correlation of the continuous non-perfect form with the indefinite non-perfect form. In the expositions hitherto advanced the two series of forms — continuous and perfect — have been shown, as it were, too emphatically in the light of their mutual contrast against the
primitive indefinite, the perfect continuous form, which has been placed somewhat separately, being rather interpreted as a "peculiarly modified" perfect than a "peculiarly modified'' continuous. In reality, though, the perfect continuous is equally both perfect and continuous, the respective markings belonging to different, though related, categorial characteristics.
§ 4. The category of development, unlike the categories of person, number, and time, has a verbid representation, namely, it is represented in the infinitive. This fact, for its part, testifies to another than temporal nature of the continuous.
With the infinitive, the category of development, naturally, expresses the same meaningful contrast between action in progress and action not in progress as with the finite forms of the verb. Cf.:
Kezia and her grandmother were taking their siesta together. It was but natural for Kezia and her grandmother
to be taking their siesta together. What are you complaining about?——Is there really anything for you to be complaining about?
But in addition to this purely categorial distinction, the form of the continuous infinitive has a tendency to acquire quite a special meaning in combination with modal verbs, namely that of probability. This meaning is aspectual in a broader sense than the "inner character" of action: the aspectuality amounts here to an outer appraisal of the denoted process. Cf.:
Paul must wait for you, you needn't be in a hurry. Paul must be waiting for us, so let's hurry up.
The first of the two sentences expresses Paul's obligation to wait, whereas the second sentence renders the speaker's supposition of the fact.
The general meaning of probability is varied by different additional shades depending on the semantic type of the modal verb and the corresponding contextual conditions, such as uncertainty, incredulity, surprise, etc. Cf.:
But can she be taking Moyra's words so personally? If the flight went smoothly, they may be approaching the West Coast. You must be losing money over this job.
The action of the continuous infinitive of probability,
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in accord with the type of the modal verb and the context, may refer not only to the plane of the present, but also to the plane of the future. Cf.: Ann must be coming soon, you'd better have things put in order.
The gerund and the participle do not distinguish the category of development as such, but the traces of progressive meaning are inherent in these forms, especially in the present participle, which itself is one of the markers of the category (in combination with the categorial auxiliary). In particular, these traces are easily disclosed in various syntactic participial complexes. Cf.:
The girl looked straight into my face, smiling enigmatically. → The girl was smiling enigmatically as she looked straight into my face. We heard the leaves above our heads rustling in the wind. →We heard how the leaves above our heads were rustling in the wind.
However, it should be noted, that the said traces of meaning are still traces, and they are more often than not subdued and neutralised.
§ 5. The opposition of the category of development undergoes various reductions, in keeping with the general regularities of the grammatical forms functioning in speech, as well as of their paradigmatic combinability.
The easiest and most regular neutralisational relations in the sphere continuous — indefinite are observed in connection with the subclass division of verbs into limitive and unlimitive, and within the unlimitive into actional and statal.
Namely, the unlimitive verbs are very easily neutralised in cases where the continuity of action is rendered by means other than aspective. Cf.:
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