The grammar of the english verb phrase part 25 pdf

VI. Summary 161 VI. Summary 2.51 The basic terminology of tense We started this chapter with some basic terminology and definitions. These included terms such as ‘tense’, ‘temporal zero-time’, ‘orientation time’, etc. Below we review the definitions that have been given. 2.51.1 A tense is the pairing of a particular verbal form with a meaning, the meaning being the specification of the temporal location of a situation. A tense relates the temporal location of a situation to the temporal zero-point (see below), which is usually speech time, or to some other known time which is itself related either directly or indirectly to the temporal zero-point. A tense form may be an inflected main verb or a main verb plus one or more auxilia- ries. Thus, in the future tense, the form ‘will ϩ present infinitive’ is paired with the meaning (here slightly simplified) ‘location after speech time’. 2.51.2 Every tense expresses a tense structure. A tense structure is a blueprint for one particular way of locating a situation in time. The structure expresses the temporal relation between a situation time (see below) and a ‘known’ time, which we call an orientation time. If the orientation time is not speech time, the tense structure also characterizes the orientation time by reference to its ultimate (not necessarily direct) relation to speech time. For example, the past perfect locates a situation time prior to an orientation time which in turn either (a) directly precedes speech time or (b) is ultimately related to a time that precedes speech time. We will only consider the simpler case of (a) here. In Meg announced that the elephant had arrived the time of Meg’s announcement provides the orientation time before which the elephant’s arrival took place, and that orientation time itself precedes (ϭ is past relative to) speech time. 2.51.3 Any time that can provide the known time required for the expression of the temporal relation(s) encoded in a tense form is an orientation time. There are five types of orientation time: t 0 , situation times, ‘unspecified’ orien- tation times (which are recoverable from the context), (otherwise unspecified) orientation times contained in an Adv-time, and ‘implicit’ orientation times (ϭ times which are implicit in the structure of temporal conjunctions). An example of the last can be found in I left before the elephant had arrived. Before is analysed as meaning ‘before the time at which’. This means that our example is paraphrasable ‘I left before the time at which the elephant had (already) arrived’. This in turn means that the time of the elephant’s arrival is analysed, not as located posterior to my leaving, but as located anterior to an implicit time that is W-posterior to the time of my leaving. It is thus located prior to an implicit orientation time Ϫ the time that is explicit in the paraphrase ‘before the time at which’ Ϫ rather than prior to a situation time. 162 2. Towards a theory of tense and time 2.51.4 The temporal zero-point (t 0 ) is the time from which all the temporal relations expressed by a tense ultimately take their starting point. It is usually speech time. Although the temporal zero-point is nearly always speech time, in certain contexts it is possible for the speaker to choose the decoding time as t 0 . (For example, this is the case when a road sign reads You are now entering Washington County). Whether t 0 is the encoding time or the decoding time, English treats it as a point (rather than an interval). Thus durative situations cannot be located in their entirety at t 0 . 2.52 What counts as a tense? 2.52.1 We have examined various issues in connection with the number of tenses in English. We have seen that every tense ultimately involves the relation of a situation time to the temporal zero-point. Because nonfinite verbs (such as the gerund riding or the perfect infinitive having ridden) carry no indication of their (ultimate) temporal relation to t 0 , they cannot be said to be tense forms. However, a situation denoted by a nonfinite clause is interpreted as temporally related to some other time in the context (as simultaneous with it, for example, in the case of a present participle, or as anterior to it, for example, in the case of a past participle). 2.52.2 Sometimes, too, there is confusion about whether we can talk of ‘pro- gressive tenses’. There are no progressive tenses Ϫ progressivity has to do with aspect, not tense. However, there are progressive verb forms when progressive aspect combines with a tensed form. 2.52.3 Another debate about the number of tenses that exist in English con- cerns the fact that the only temporal information that is encoded in verbal inflections is past vs present, or nonpast. For example, likes and will are mor- phologically present, or nonpast, and liked and would are morphologically past. Thus, on the view that tenses must be distinguished by inflectional mor- phemes, English has only two tenses: past and present. There is also a view that the fact that English has two temporal perspectives, past and present (re- flected in the morphological facts) supports the two-tense analysis. However, we have argued above that there is no a priori reason why complex (multi- word) forms should not be considered to be tense forms, and the fact that English has two temporal perspectives reflects (or is reflected in) the fact that it has two sets of tenses, not that it only has two tenses. 2.52.4 A related issue concerns the question whether English has a future tense. A sentence that locates the actualization of a situation in the future is always ‘modal’ inasmuch as the actualization is by definition not-yet-factual at t 0 and involves a (to varying degrees) subjective judgement about the likelihood VI. Summary 163 of the future situation’s actualizing. However, in many cases, ‘will ϩ present infinitive’ is used primarily to express the future temporal location of the situa- tion referred to. We have argued that the fact that this can be the main purpose of the form justifies its status as a tense form. In addition, we argue that for every tense structure that can be expressed, we can talk of a matching tense. Thus, because the form ‘will ϩ present infinitive’ (e. g. [Meg] will like [the elephant]) expresses a structure which for the moment we can simplify as ‘situ- ation time posterior to speech time’ and the present tense form (e. g. [Meg] likes [the elephant]) expresses the structure (again, temporarily simplified) ‘sit- uation time simultaneous with speech time’ we claim that these are two dif- ferent tenses. 2.52.5 We distinguish between ‘pure future’ uses of will, ‘prediction’ uses of will, and ‘predictability’ uses of will, according to the degree of subjectivity involved in the use of the form. (Predictability will takes a future time as the evaluation time for a statement about (usually) the present or the past. For example, Don’t worry, he will have taken a taxi home is equivalent to ‘It will become clear when we know the facts that he {has taken / took} a taxi home’.) All are instances of future tense. However, we have seen that there are other forms which have future time reference which require a more complex analy- sis. 2.52.6 Some forms in English have dual time reference: forms such as be about to, or the present progressive in I’m leaving in a minute, or, in some of its uses, be going to, evoke both the time of an implied present state (which is one from which a future outcome can be predicted) and the time of a future situation. (It is the actualization of the future situation which is the outcome predictable from the present state.) Only the future situation Ϫ the one associ- ated with the lexical verb Ϫ is actually referred to. Such verb forms establish a future domain but are not future tense forms. We call them futurish forms. ‘Be going to ϩ verb’ is a future tense form if it has pure future time reference and is a futurish form if it also implies a present state. (There is no clear cut- off point between the two uses.) 2.52.7 Finally, in our discussion of what counts as a tense we have considered the case of the present perfect. Some authors consider that the English present perfect is not a separate tense, but is rather a combination of another tense (present or past) and an aspectual meaning component, viz. ‘current relevance’. However, we analyse the present perfect as having a tense structure different from that of the present tense or the past tense and consider it to be a tense in its own right. The present perfect locates a situation in the pre-present ‘zone’ (see 2.57.2) while the past tense locates it in the past zone. The claim that the present perfect has a different temporal structure from the past tense is sup- ported by the fact that the two tenses behave differently with certain adverbs. 164 2. Towards a theory of tense and time (In chapter 6 it will be shown that certain adverbs connected to the present combine with the present perfect but not with the past tense, and past time- reference adverbs dissociated from the present combine with the past tense but not with the present perfect.) 2.53 Full situation and predicated situation A very important distinction that we have made is that between the ‘full situa- tion’ and the ‘predicated situation’. When a clause is uttered, the full situation is the complete situation that the speaker implies (or the hearer infers) has actualized, is actualizing or will actualize, however long it turns out to be or to have been. The predicated situation is the part of the full situation which is actually located in time by the tense used. The predicated situation Ϫ the linguistically indicated situation Ϫ and the full situation Ϫ which is often in- ferred Ϫ may coincide with one another, or the predicated situation may be shorter than the full situation. It is the time of the actualization of the predi- cated situation that we have in mind when we speak of situation time in con- nection with tenses. (For example, when we say that a tense relates a situation time to an orientation time.) 2.54 What is (and is not) expressed by tenses Here we have discussed absolute and relative tenses, semantically expressed and pragmatically implied temporal relations, and special uses of tenses. 2.54.1 As we have seen, the semantics of a tense are found in the structure of temporal relations that it represents. The tense structure may simply specify a relation between the situation time and t 0 . Such tenses are absolute tenses. An example is the past tense in Meg jumped when this sentence is used in isolation. Other tenses express tense structures which specify the relation of the situation time to an orientation time other than t 0 . These are relative tenses. An example is the past perfect in She had just seen the elephant. 2.54.2 An absolute tense establishes a ‘temporal domain’ (see further below), and relative tenses expand a temporal domain that has already been estab- lished. (In fact, as well as pure absolute tenses and relative tenses, English has absolute-relative tenses, such as the one used in By Friday, the elephant will have arrived. These both establish a temporal domain and express a temporal relation within it.) 2.54.3 Although relative tenses do not relate a situation time directly to t 0 , their structure does specify the temporal nature of the temporal domain in VI. Summary 165 which the situation time is located, and the nature of the temporal domain (past or post-present, for example) is determined by the location relative to t 0 of the orientation time that establishes the domain. For example, the tense structure of the past perfect specifies that the situation time is located anterior to an orientation time which is in a domain established by a past orientation time Ϫ i. e. a past domain. 2.54.4 As an example of the way a temporal domain is established and ex- panded, consider the two-sentence text Meg jumped. She had just seen the elephant. Here, the past tense form jumped establishes a past temporal domain. The tense structure of the past perfect sees to it that had seen is interpreted as locating the situation time of the second clause anterior to the situation time of the first clause, and this means that the second clause expands the temporal domain established by jumped by relating a new situation time to the one that is already in the domain. 2.54.5 We have stressed that the temporal relations established by tenses (T-relations) must be distinguished from those established by inferencing from the linguistic and nonlinguistic context (W-relations). For example, in Meg went to the doctor. She felt ill., we have an absolute past tense in each sentence and these tense forms do not express a temporal relation between the two situations. However, our knowledge of the world leads us to infer that Meg went to the doctor because she felt ill and that therefore the situation described in the second sentence began before and continued during the situation de- scribed in the first sentence. A third type of temporal relation is that which holds between the time indicated by a temporal adverbial and a situation time. This will be called an Adv-time relation. We may also note the temporal rela- tion between the time of the full situation and the time of the predicated situa- tion (the situation time). The former contains the latter either in terms of inclusion or in terms of coincidence. When a situation is nonhomogeneous (bounded), the time of the full situation coincides with the situation time; when the situation is homogeneous (nonbounded), the time of the full situation may coincide with or include the situation time. 2.54.6 A situation time may be T-related to an orientation time in one of three different ways: it may be located simultaneous to, posterior to or anterior to the orientation time. The T-relation of simultaneity is always one of strict coincidence, not overlap or inclusion. When T-simultaneity is expressed be- tween the situation times of clauses which refer to situations which are as- sumed to differ in length, we should remember that it is the time of the predi- cated situation, not the time of the full situation, that is involved in T-relations. Thus in Meg said that she felt ill, we argue that the second past tense is a relative past tense expressing T-simultaneity in a past domain (see below), and that the T-simultaneity holds between the punctual situation time of the com- 166 2. Towards a theory of tense and time plement clause and the punctual situation time of the head clause, even though the implied full situation of she felt ill is durative. When a situation is located anterior to an orientation time it may be located at a certain distance before the orientation time or it may lead right up to the orientation time. In the same way, a situation located posterior to an orientation time may be located some time after the orientation time or may start immediately after it. 2.54.7 As we have seen, T-relations are temporal relations expressed by tenses, between the times of predicated situations (i. e. situation times) and orientation times. W-relations are temporal relations, inferred from contextual information, between the times of full situations and orientation times. W- simultaneity occurs when any point of one full situation coincides in time with any point of another full situation: strict coincidence of the times of the entire situations is not necessary. 2.55 Special uses of tenses 2.55.1 We have pointed out that some uses of tenses either are or appear to be at odds with the core meaning of the tense. To begin with, there are ‘modal’ uses of tense. Past tenses (including the past perfect and the conditional tense) can be used to express tentativeness or unreality. The tentativeness may be social, as in I thought you might like this book, or it may concern the likelihood of actualization of a situation, as in If you wanted to, you could write a book. Both tentativeness and unreality are standardly expressed by past tenses in conditional sentences, as in the counterfactual If I were President, I would cancel third world debt and the tentative It would be a great help if she gave me the recipe. 2.55.2 The second special use of tenses that we mentioned involves a shift of temporal perspective. When the temporal location of a situation is obvious from the context, it is sometimes possible for a speaker to represent the situa- tion as lying in one time-zone whilst apparently locating it in another time- zone. In that way, by relying on the hearer to establish the temporal location from the context, the speaker combines correct time reference with the conno- tations of location in a different time-zone. For example, The train leaves at eight represents a post-present situation as if it is already the case, thus empha- sizing that the future is in this case seen as already fixed. 2.55.3 An apparently special use of the present tense is found in ‘universal’ sentences, which refer to a state which holds at all times. Such sentences may cite universal truths or they may refer to permanent characteristics (including habits). For example: Elephants never forget. However, these are actually not special uses of the present tense, since characteristics are states and hence VI. Summary 167 homogeneous situations and the present tense thus locates a punctual situation time Ϫ which represents the time of a representative punctual section of the full situation Ϫ simultaneous with speech-time, in accordance with the meaning of the present tense (viz. ‘The situation time is T-simultaneous with the zero- point’). 2.56 Types of temporal adverbials 2.56.1 We have distinguished three types of adverbial that give temporal in- formation. Time-specifying adverbials (e. g. at six o’clock) temporally locate an orientation time (which may be a situation time) by specifying a particular time (an Adv-time) which may be punctual or durative and which contains (i. e. coincides with or includes) the orientation time. Pure duration adverbials (e. g. for six hours) specify the length of time occupied by a full situation, but do not locate it in time. Bifunctional adverbials (e. g. from six to eight) both temporally locate a situation time and specify the length of the corresponding full situation. Thus in Meg watched the elephant from six to eight, the temporal adverbial locates the situation time (the time of the predicated situation) at the time indicated by ‘from six to eight’ and measures the (time of the) full situa- tion (as taking up two hours). To sum up: time-specifying adverbials locate orientation times (including situation times), pure duration adverbials measure the length of the time of a full situation, and bifunctional adverbials simulta- neously locate a situation time and specify the length of the corresponding full situation time. Below we review what has been said about the first two of these types of temporal adverbial. 2.56.2 As we have seen, a time indicated by a time-specifying adverbial (ϭ an Adv-time) ‘contains’ the situation time (or other orientation time) whose temporal location it specifies. The situation time may be shorter than the Adv- time (i. e. it is included in it) or it may be exactly the same length (i. e. it coincides with it). In either case we can speak of Adv-time-simultaneity. Adv- time-simultaneity is unlike W-simultaneity in that it is linguistically expressed and it is unlike T-simultaneity in that it is not expressed by a tense and it allows for a relation of proper inclusion as well as one of strict coincidence, though it does not allow for mere overlap. When there is more than one Adv- time in a clause, the relation between the Adv-times is also one of Adv-time- simultaneity Ϫ i. e. proper inclusion or coincidence. 2.56.3 When the Adv-time is punctual, the situation time, in order to be in- cluded in the Adv-time, must of necessity be punctual. A durative situation can be represented as ‘Adv-time-simultaneous’ with a punctual Adv-time provided that the situation is homogeneous (ϭ nonbounded). (The situation time is then . also note the temporal rela- tion between the time of the full situation and the time of the predicated situa- tion (the situation time). The former contains the latter either in terms of inclusion. we review the definitions that have been given. 2.51.1 A tense is the pairing of a particular verbal form with a meaning, the meaning being the specification of the temporal location of a situation length of the corresponding full situation. Thus in Meg watched the elephant from six to eight, the temporal adverbial locates the situation time (the time of the predicated situation) at the time