A verbal category that reflects the objective category of time is

Grammatical categories of verbs

Category of tense

4. The category of tense

The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being ‘now ‘ or the present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition):

Present Past

Future I Future II

Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is traditionally described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past. Quite a lot of scholars do not recognize the existence of future tenses, because what is described as the ‘future’ tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is undeniable that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.

Category of voice

The category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice. The realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:

1. Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;

2.Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;

3. Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the room;

5.Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;

6. Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk, to jump.

We cannot, however, speak of different voices, because all these meanings are not expressed morphologically.

The Category of Aspect

The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of Manner of Action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The realization of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs.

The category of tense of the verb.

It’s necessary to distinguish between the lexical denotations of time and grammatical time proper. Time and space are the basic forms of the existence of matter. Time is independent of human perception, but it is reflected in it and finds its expression in the language. Lexical denotations of time can be of 2 types: absolutive and non-absolute.

Absolutive ones refer an action to the present, past, or future from the point of view of the present moment. Non-absolute ones give no orientation towards the present. Absolutive: “now, yesterday, in a couple of days”. Non-absolute can be of 2 types: 1) relative (show that an event precedes or follows another one, e.g. “after that, before that”), 2) factual (directly state the time of an event, e.g. “in 1066”).

Grammatical time: only the most abstract, temporal meanings are conveyed through the category of tense in the forms of the finite verb. Ilyish defines the category of tense as a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time and expresses relations between the time of the action and that of the utterance.

There are different views on the system of tenses.

1) The Traditional approach is based on the philosophical concept of time. Accordingly, 3 main divisions of time are represented by 3 tenses: the Past, the Pres., and the Fut., so there are 3 tense-forms in this system (lived-lives-will live). These forms show the time of the action from the point of view of the moment of speech, and that is the absolute use of tenses. It can be compared with absolutive lexical expressions of time, which are also present. This use is contrasted to the relative use of tenses. In that case the time of the action is referred to another moment in the past or future, it is used to express priority, simultaneity, or relative future (the sequence of tenses). Many linguists don’t include the future in the system of tenses. Otto Esperson doesn’t include it as he claims that there is no grammatical form of the future, which stands on the same grammatical footing with the forms of the present and the past. The combination shall/will+the infinitive cannot be treated as a grammatical (analytical) form of the future since the first element in this combination – shall/will – is not devoid of lexical meaning.

2) According to the theory of the splitting functions, there should be splitting between auxiliary and notional. And auxiliary must have grammatical meaning only, and notional is the bearer of lexical meaning. Shall/will aren’t devoid of lexical meaning (Esperson). Shall has traces of the meaning of obligation, will – volition => the combination is a “modal phrase” (Esperson) or a “free WC”, which cannot be placed on the same footing with grammatical forms of the Pres. and the Past. Barkhudarov doesn’t include the Future tense in the system of English tenses either. To substantiate his point of view he analyzed the form of the Future-in-the-Past and he pointed out the fact that it expresses the future time and the past time at once. 2 nd feature of the grammatical category – opposite members are usually mutually excluding => 2 opposite grammatical meanings of the same grammatical category cannot coexist in one grammatical form. And Fut. in the Past has both => the Future doesn’t belong elsewhere in the system of tenses.

There are non-productive markers, too – e.g. sound interchange or suppletion. Blokh gives another reason for singling out this opposition. It is the fact that only the present and the past forms use the aux. “do” to form interrogative and negative constructions. In Blokh’s view, there are 2 temporal categories: primary time and prospective time. He thinks that the modal character of the Future tense cannot be denied because a future action can only be foreseen, anticipated, desired or planned. It isn’t a genuine feature of reality. Still, the English Future form differs from the modal constructions with the same verbs (shall/will). He claims that as a rule “shall” and “will” are free from modal shades of meaning and express near futurity (будущность). E.g. “I’m afraid I will have to go back to the hotel”. Will – combined with “have to” + “I’m afraid” => no meaning of volition.

Non-finite verbs.

As the verbals (infinitive, gerund, and participle) make up a part of the English verb system, they have some features in common with the finite forms, and in so far as they are singled out of the forms of the verb, they must have some peculiarities of their own.

Verbals have no category of number,mood and person.

The infinitive possessesthe category of aspect, i.e. the distinction between the common and the continuous aspect.

· To speak – to be speaking

· To have spoken – to have been speaking

He seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot – the continuous infinitive gives more prominence to the idea of the continuity, which is obviously much stringer than the mere statement.

With the gerund andthe participle things are different. They exhibit no such distinction (no continuous forms). Occasionally, a continuous participle is found: The younger Miss Thorpes being also dancing, Catherine was left to the mercy of Mrs Thorpe and Mrs Allen, between whom she now remained а a continuous Participle I is at least potentially a part of the morphological system of the English verb. But this use appears to be obsolete (archaic).

The categories of tense, aspect and phase (time-correlation).

3. The category of voice

The category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice. The realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:

4. The category of tense

The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being «now» or the present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition):

Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is traditionally described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past. Quite a lot of scholars do not recognize the existence of future tenses, because what is described as the ‘future’ tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is undeniable that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.

5. The Category of Aspect

The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of Manner of Action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The realization of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs.

The grammatical category of 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.

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.

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

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.)

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.

LECTURE 6: THE VERB

Syntacticfeatures. The most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be modified by adverbs. The second important syntactic criterion is the ability of the verb to perform the syntactic function of the predicate. However, this criterion is not absolute because only finite forms can perform this function while non-finite forms can be used in any function but predicate. And finally, any verb in the form of the infinitive can be combined with a modal verb.

2. Classifications of English verbs

According to different principles of classification, classifications can be morphological, lexical-morphological, syntactical and functional.

B.Lexical-morphological classification is based on the implicit grammatical meanings of the verb. According to the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity verbs fall into transitive and intransitive. According to the implicit grammatical meaning of stativeness/non-stativeness verbs fall into stative and dynamic. According to the implicit grammatical meaning of terminativeness/non-terminativeness verbs fall into terminative and durative. This classification is closely connected with the categories of Aspect and Phase.

C. Syntactic classifications. According to the nature of predication (primary and secondary) all verbs fall into finite and non-finite. According to syntagmatic properties (valency) verbs can be ofobligatory and optional valency, and thus they may have some directionality or be devoid of any directionality. In this way, verbs fall into the verbs of directed (to see, to take, etc.) and non-directed action (to arrive, to drizzle, etc.)

D. Functionalclassification. According to their functional significance verbs can be notional (with the full lexical meaning), semi-notional (modal verbs, link-verbs), auxiliaries.

3. The category of voice

The form of the verb may show whether the agent expressed by the subject is the doer of the action or the recipient of the action (John broke the vase—the vase was broken). The objective relations between the action and the subject or object of the action find their expression in language as the grammatical category of voice. Therefore, the category of voice reflects the objective relations between the action itself and the subject or object of the action. The category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice. The realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:

1. Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;

2. Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;

3. Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the room;

4. Verbs of a double nature, neither of the meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively:to drive home—to drive a car;

5. Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;

6. Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk, to jump.

Some scholars admit the existence of Middle, Reflexive and Reciprocal voices.

«Reflexive Voice»: He dressed; He washed—the subject is both the agent and the recipient of the action at the same time. It is always possible to use a reflexive pronoun in this case: He washed himself.

«Reciprocal voice”: They met; They kissed— it is always possible to use a reciprocal pronoun here: They kissed each other.
We cannot, however, speak of different voices, because all these meanings are not expressed morphologically.

4. The category of tense

The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being «now» or the present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition)

Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is traditionally described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past. Quite a lot of scholars do not recognize the existence of future tenses, because what is described as the ‘future’ tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is undeniable (неоспоримый) that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.

5. The Category of Aspect

The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of Manner of Action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The realization of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs.