The grammar of the english verb phrase part 48 pot

322 6. The present perfect vs the preterite in clauses without temporal adverbials Somebody has drunk out of this glass. [It is dirty.] (The existence of the referent of this glass is given information in the current world of discourse (since the speaker is pointing at it or showing it), but the situation of somebody having drunk out of it is new information.) 6.4 The present perfect vs the preterite in wh-questions Wh-questions that do not contain a time-specifying adverbial and which are introduced by a question word other than when can in principle use either the past tense or the present perfect to refer to a bygone situation. The choice of tense is determined by whether the speaker is concerned with (i. e. focuses on) THEN or NOW. 6.4.1 As in the rest of this chapter, we will only be concerned here with clauses without a time-specifying adverbial. Wh-questions introduced by when will not be dealt with here either: they will be treated in section 6.5, where the difference between the past tense and the ‘number-quantifying constitution perfect’ (see 5.19.1) in when-questions will be discussed. 6.4.2 Wh-questions introduced by why, where, who, what, how, etc. and not containing a time-specifying adverbial can in principle use either the past tense or the present perfect to refer to a bygone situation. The choice of tense is determined by the usual factors, i. e. by whether the speaker referring to the bygone situation is concerned with (i. e. focuses on) THEN or NOW (see 6.1.3). For example: How many cars have you sold? (The present perfect does not yield an indefinite reading but receives a number-quantifying constitution reading. The speaker is con- cerned with NOW, viz. with such questions as ‘How much profit has our firm made [in an implicit period leading up to now] from selling cars?’ or ‘How much commis- sion do I owe you?, etc.) How many cars did you sell? (There is actualization focus here on the specific time when the cars were sold. The speaker does not have a period up to now in mind.) As is clear from these examples, the concern with THEN or NOW actually reveals itself in the tensed proposition which these sentences presuppose. Thus, How many cars have you sold? pragmatically presupposes ‘You have sold x cars’ and asks for a specification of a value for the variable x (see 5.20.1). In contrast, How many cars did you sell? presupposes the truth of ‘You sold x cars’, which implies actualization focus on the time of the selling. 6.4 The present perfect vs the preterite in wh-questions 323 The following further illustrate these remarks: Who broke a glass? (The speaker assumes that somebody broke a glass. He is con- cerned with the question who was responsible for this. In other words, the presuppo- sition is ‘X broke a glass’ and the question asks ‘X is who?’) Who’s broken a glass? (The speaker assumes that somebody has broken a glass and is concerned with the question who is the person to be held responsible for this. Because of the meaning of the present perfect and the requirements of Grice’s Maxim of Relevance, the sentence is only acceptable if the speaker believes that all the people who might turn out to be the person who broke the glass are somehow ‘present’ and not ‘not here’. So, if a bartender utters the sentence after the pub has closed and all the customers are gone, the bartender must be assuming that one of the staff still in the pub broke the glass in question, and not one of the customers.) Who broke this glass? (The speaker assumes that the glass in question was broken. He is concerned with the question who was responsible for this.) (As is clear from the grammaticality of Who’s broken a glass?, the use of the past tense is not triggered by the definiteness of this glass: this is used because the glass is being shown; it is not through the use of the definite NP that the speaker makes it clear that he assumes familiarity with the fact that someone broke the glass.) Who has broken this glass? (As in the case of Who’s broken a glass?, the use of has broken is due to a link with the present: the speaker wants to know which person is to be held responsible for this, i. e. he is concerned with the present relevance of the bygone situation. This sentence too is only acceptable if the speaker believes that all the people who might turn out to be the person who broke the glass are somehow ‘present’.) Consider also: Why {did you punish / have you punished} Tom? (The speaker’s focus may be either on THEN or on NOW. In other words, the presupposition may be either ‘You punished Tom’ or ‘You have punished Tom’.) Why {haven’t you spoken / *didn’t you speak} to him yet? (Yet requires reference to a period leading up to now, which means that the speaker has a pre-present period in mind. In Br.E. this requires the use of the present perfect.) 1 Why {have you been / were you} waiting for me? (If the speaker uses the present perfect why have you been waiting, the presupposition ‘You have been waiting for me’ receives either a continuative or an up-to-now reading. These readings involve the location of the situation in a period leading up to t 0 . This means that they are unavailable if the past tense is used. A speaker who uses the past tense form were waiting has a past vantage time in mind, i. e. a bygone time conceived of as cut off from the present.) [And if Lord Douglas is so distressed about the loss incurred by the Scottish service,] why has BEA been so reluctant to allow any other airlines an opportunity to provide 1. In Am. E. the past tense is acceptable: Why didn’t you speak to him yet? 324 6. The present perfect vs the preterite in clauses without temporal adverbials service? (LOB) (The intended interpretation of the presupposition is probably contin- uative. Anyhow, the speaker does not focus on a specific past time.) [The Prince stared at it and said: “The Princess has taken the trouble to wear a tiara.] Why have you not done so?” (LOB) (The speaker is concerned with the present result of the bygone action of putting on special headgear. The time when it was put on is irrelevant.) Why have you come here? (LOB) (focus on NOW: ‘You’ve come here. Why?’ is interpreted as ‘You’re here. Why?’) 6.4.3 The following are examples with how: How did John do in Africa? (This is interpreted as ‘How did John do when he was in Africa?’. It is presupposed that John was in Africa, which implies that he is no longer there.) Well, how has he done in Africa himself? (LOB) (One likely interpretation is that the referent of he is still in Africa (ϭ continuative reading of the presupposition). If the situation is seen as a situation that is just over (ϭ indefinite reading of the presupposition), the speaker may also be concerned with its present result.) 6.4.4 Examples with where: [Five minutes ago this room was full of people.] Where have they all gone? (focus on now : ‘Where are they now?’) [“Where is Mary?” Ϫ “She left half an hour ago.”] Ϫ “Where did she go?” Ϫ [“To her mother’s.”] (focus on the time when the addressee saw Mary leave) However, Br. E. normally uses Where have you been? rather than Where were you? when addressing a person who has just come back from somewhere. This is a typical example of the use of the present perfect to trigger a ‘nonquantifica- tional constitution reading’ (see 5.19.1). [I’ve been waiting for over an hour, cruising around on my own in the car, then I knew you must return sometime.] Where have you been? (LOB) Compare: Where have you been? (presupposes ‘You haven’t been here.’, ‘You’ve been some- where else.’) Where did you go? (presupposes ‘You went somewhere.’) Although Where have you been? need not at all imply that the speaker feels negatively about the absence, if the speaker is annoyed or has been worried by the absence, then Where have you been? is more likely than Where did you go?. 6.4.5 The following are examples with what illustrating how both the preter- ite and the present perfect can be found in direct and indirect what-questions, depending on the usual factors determining the choice between these tenses. In 6.4 The present perfect vs the preterite in wh-questions 325 all the examples that choice is in keeping with whether the speaker is concerned with THEN or NOW: [There a UNO army of Africans, bossed by an Indian, has been in charge for months.] And what has it made of the Congo? (LOB) (ϭ What’s the present state of the Congo resulting from that UNO action?) Your statement that the German people knew what happened to the Jews is wrong. (LOB) (Both knew and happened locate their situation at a time which is seen as cut off from the present.) Certainly [the film] ‘A bout de Souffle’ is extremely exciting, especially if you can forget what has come since. (LOB) (The present perfect is obligatory because since refers to a period leading up to now and has come refers to a hypersituation filling this period.) I now turn to the question of overspill, in respect of which it is very difficult to discover what has been happening. (LOB) (The presupposition ‘Something has been happening’ is intended to be interpreted as continuative.) Dr Edgar H. Schein’s article ‘The Chinese Indoctrination Process for Prisoners of War’ gives a generalized picture of what happened to the average soldier from cap- ture to repatriation. (LOB) (focus on what happened then ) The reader is now in possession of all the facts needed to determine what has hap- pened to the aliens, [and I hope not to be pointing out the obvious if I explain that the clue is in the apparent speeding-up of their television broadcasts.] (LOB) (There is current relevance here. The present perfect functions as the perfect of a narrative present. That is, the point that the narrative has reached is identified with the read- er’s ‘now’ in order to place the reader inside the story, and the present perfect thus invites the reader to locate the aliens’ experience in the period leading up to ‘now’, rather than, as the preterite would indicate, locating their experience in the past time- sphere, separate from the reader’s here and now.) [The proceedings opened with Colleano’s giving me a summary of the case. From our point of view this was mere camouflage;] but it is necessary to repeat it here for the purpose of clarifying what happened subsequently. (LOB) (The past tense has to be used because of the presence of the time-specifying adverb subsequently, which refers to a past time.) [Do come and sit down, Celia.] And what have you done with your friend? (LOB) (present relevance) In some cases there does not seem to be an obvious reason why the speaker chooses a past or pre-present focus: [It is now five years since his first play, ‘The Quare Fellow’, was produced, three years since ‘Borstal Boy’ was published and ‘The Hostage’ was put on.] What has happened to the play, ‘Richard’s Cork Leg’, begun 18 months ago and due for pres- entation at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, last spring? It was never finished. What happened to the new book partially tape-recorded by his publishers in March of last year? (LOB) 326 6. The present perfect vs the preterite in clauses without temporal adverbials 6.5 The present perfect vs the preterite in when-questions 6.5.1 As noted in 4.6.2, when-questions referring to a single bygone situation cannot make use of an indefinite present perfect: When {did she leave / *has she left}? (direct question) I wonder when the accident {happened / *has happened}. (indirect question) The reason for the obligatory use of the preterite is that the use of when? with reference to a single given situation reveals that the speaker is not concerned with NOW but with THEN. When? asks for the identification of the time of actualization of a particular situation whose actualization is presupposed. (Thus, When did John hit Jane? carries the presupposition ‘John hit Jane’.) Since NOW is a time that is by definition given, when? presupposes that the time asked for is not the present. The use of when? in a clause referring to a single bygone situation thus automatically means that there is actualization focus, hence that the temporal focus is on the past time of actualization of the bygone situation. In other words, When? is incompatible with an indefinite perfect. (In fact, the very reason why we speak of ‘indefinite perfect’ is that the time of actualization remains indefinite and that the speaker is not concerned with it.) 6.5.2 On the other hand, we use the present perfect, not the preterite, in sentences like the following, in which the present perfect is the perfect version of the ‘timeless’ (or rather, omnitemporal) use of the present tense: When have I done enough? [When I have worked seven hours, seven and a half, eight …?] (www) When have you achieved “rapport”? [When you model and the customer follows, you have achieved a high degree of “rapport”.] (www) [One of the dilemmas facing a prospective buyer involves the number of homes that should be seen before making a final buying decision. Some people are not content until they have seen every home on the market in their price range.] How do you know when you have seen enough homes in order to make an offer on a certain home with the confidence that it is the right one for you? (www) When have I mastered the clarinet? (www) In every case the meaning of the when-question is something like ‘At what point on its progress along a scale of increasing approximation to Y does X count as Y?’ 6.5.3 There is another use of when that goes with the present perfect. In this use, which involves the number-quantifying constitution type of present per- fect, the speaker asks the addressee to look back over the pre-present Ϫ usually the question is in the second person and the pre-present is the period of the 6.5 The present perfect vs the preterite in when-questions 327 addressee’s life Ϫ and asks for the/an occasion or occasions on which a situa- tion has actualized. These when-questions do not ask for temporal locations but for instances of experience in a period up to now. Usually they seem to ask too what characterized the ‘occasion’ or context of the situation. A typical context for such when-questions is a list of questions about one individual’s experiences. In other cases, though, the speaker is interested in one particular situation-type (experience) and how that situation-type has been experienced by various people Ϫ see the last two of the following examples. [What makes you happy? In looking over your life, where and] when have you been the happiest? [Where were you, and what were you doing?] (www) [Another area to explore is the expert’s past history as a witness.] Where and when has she testified, and how often? [Has it been more for plaintiffs or the defence? (…) Has he ever served the opponent before, or been represented by that firm?] (www) When have you successfully executed a project within a tight time-frame and with a limited budget? [Do I enjoy making decisions? What steps do I take when making decisions? Do I have leadership potential?] When have I demonstrated this potential? [What are some examples of my ability to motivate others? Do I enjoy making decisions that affect other people?] When have I done this and what were the results? (www) When have you found yourself losing the sense of God’s presence in prayer? [Have you found out why? What was the lesson you learned, if any? (…)] When have you most felt that you had lost touch with God? When have you felt most intimate with God? [How have these moments affected your prayers?] (www) When have you been asked to produce your birth certificate for any purpose? (www) When have you experienced Stendhal syndrome? [Or rather, to what piece of art or music? (…) When have you felt like your entire existence was swallowed by some- thing you either looked into or listened to? [How, exactly did you feel it happen?] (www) Occasionally the past tense can be found in when-questions of this type: [What motivates you? Make four lists:] When were you happiest? When were you unhappiest? When did you feel successful? When did you feel unsuccessful? (www) [The following exercise may help you to recognize what personal strengths make you more self-responsible. First answer the following questions by writing down a key word or phrase that will help you to remember specific situations.] When did you resist buying something under pressure? When have you disagreed with some- thing in a discussion or argument, [or when you were on a committee, even though there was pressure to conform?] When have you rejected a drink, drug, or food when you felt pressure to take it, but you really didn’t want it? When did you successfully resist manipulation to do something that you really didn’t want to do? [In each case, there was probably some characteristic of your personality that led to your choice.] (www) (In this stretch of discourse the speaker apparently does not 328 6. The present perfect vs the preterite in clauses without temporal adverbials distinguish between the present perfect and the past tense in when-clauses inquiring about someone’s experience.) Such when-questions in the preterite most often follow one or more clauses in the preterite: [It does not matter] when, who you were working for, what you were doing, etc. When were you happiest? [Think of all of the elements that made you happy.] (www) [Consider opportunities you had to respond to God’s love.] When were you success- ful? When did you miss opportunities? (www) How did you create that opportunity? When were you successful in selling a concept to people who initially opposed you? How did you convince them? (www) In these examples the when-question each time concerns one or more bygone occasions which have already been referred to in the past tense. It is natural that the past tense should be used in such a when-question. However, the kind of when-question treated in this section (6.5.3) only al- lows the past tense if the speaker presupposes actualization of the situation of which instances are sought. Thus, in the last examples the past tense is possible because, although the when-question looks for instances rather than precise times of presupposed situations, it can be taken for granted that there has been a time which fits the description ‘the time when you were happiest’ or ‘the time when you were successful’. If this condition is not satisfied, the past tense is hardly acceptable. This is the case in the following example, which hardly allows the idea that actualization is presupposed of the situation of which instances are sought: [Another area to explore is the expert’s past history as a witness.] ?? Where and when did she testify, and how often? This is clearly odd in the context of the original example (given above), namely guidance for the treatment of experts in general in court cases, because it is unlikely that one can presuppose that every possible expert will already have testified at some time. (Note that the expert does not refer to a specific expert: the speaker is talking of experts in general.) The second reason why the past tense is odd in the above example is that the speaker’s concern is with present experience rather than past actualization. In fact, the latter factor is sufficient in itself, as appears from the following example, in which the second clause makes it clear that the speaker does as- sume that all his addressees have experienced Stendhal syndrome: When {have you experienced / ?? did you experience} Stendhal syndrome? [Or rather, to what piece of art or music?] (…) When {have you felt / ?? did you feel} like your entire existence was swallowed by something you either looked into or listened to? [How, exactly did you feel it happen?] (www) . presupposes the truth of ‘You sold x cars’, which implies actualization focus on the time of the selling. 6.4 The present perfect vs the preterite in wh-questions 323 The following further illustrate these. utters the sentence after the pub has closed and all the customers are gone, the bartender must be assuming that one of the staff still in the pub broke the glass in question, and not one of the. time-specifying adverbial can in principle use either the past tense or the present perfect to refer to a bygone situation. The choice of tense is determined by the usual factors, i. e. by whether the speaker