The grammar of the english verb phrase part 85 pps

11.3 The manipulation of temporal focus for a specific purpose 581 11.3 The manipulation of temporal focus for a specific purpose A shift of temporal focus from the present to the past can result in an implicature of nonapplicability at t 0 . For example, when the verb form used expresses posteriority, a shift of temporal focus to the past suggests that what was foreseen at some past time is no longer foreseen: I was going to go to Cuba this summer is naturally understood as implying ‘but I am no longer going to do so’. (Given the salience of the present moment, there is an assumption that if an intention is still valid it will be located in the present. The use of the past form of be going to locates the intention in the past and implicates that the intention is no longer valid.) 11.3.1 One of the possibilities inherent in the English tense system is that the speaker may sometimes ‘ shift the temporal focus’ from the present to the past in order to suggest that a situation no longer holds (or may no longer hold) at t 0 . The following observations illustrate this. As pointed out in 7.10, we can use the present tense of be going to to refer to an arrangement about the post-present that is valid at t 0 : The shop is going to be closed tomorrow. (The decision to close the shop must have been taken before t 0 , but the tense form does not refer to that time. The speaker just informs the hearer of the present existence of the decision.) However, the speaker can also say: The shop was going to be closed tomorrow. Out of context, this sentence strongly suggests that the decision made in the past is suspended at t 0 . The speaker now uses was going to, which expresses T-posteriority in a past domain (see 9.6.3). However, as is clear from tomor- row, the actualization of the situation is to be interpreted as W-posterior to t 0 . Other things being equal, statements about the post-present are more easily linked to t 0 than to a past time. By using was going to instead of is going to, the speaker adopts a marked temporal focus: he relates the post-present situa- tion (of the shop being closed) to the past time when the decision was made rather than to the present time at which the decision should normally be valid. The only reason why it could be relevant for him to do so is that his belief in the present validity of the decision is suspended at t 0 . By using was going to the speaker not only avoids having to commit himself to a positive assertion concerning the post-present actualization of the situation referred to but also suggests that he cannot represent the arrangement as currently existing. This produces the implicature that the decision is no longer valid at t 0 . 582 11. Tense choice determined by temporal focus It is important to see that what we observe in such sentences is a shift of temporal focus, not a shift of temporal perspective. A shift of perspective would mean that the past tense was understood as referring to a situation which actually belonged to a nonpast zone. This is not what we observe here. What we observe is that the focus is placed on the pastness of the decision rather than on its present relevance. A shift of temporal focus from the present to the past (i. e. the use of a past tense when the present tense is possible in terms of pure reference) can invoke a past point of view (which may belong to the speaker at some past time or to some other person). For example, a passenger in a car may say to the driver There was a beautiful farm just back there, meaning ‘we’ve just passed a beautiful farm’. Clearly the farm is still in the same place, but the passenger, by referring only to that part of the full situation of the farm’s being there which is located in the past (presumably at the time of the car’s passing it), invokes his point of view when he saw it. (If, instead, he said There is a beautiful farm just back there, he would no longer be simply referring to his experience of the farm but would be implying that the existence of the farm has some current relevance as yet unexplained.) 11.3.2 Perhaps the main reason for shifting the temporal focus from the pres- ent to the past is that the speaker wishes to represent a situation which encom- passes both present and past from the past point of view of someone else. (As is well-known, a hearer or reader more easily identifies and empathizes with someone (such as a character in a story) if the events are told from that person’s point of view.) Compare, for example, the following sets of examples: (7) The hill is very steep. The capital lies in the middle of the forest. The man only speaks Russian. (8) They had difficulty in climbing, for the hill was very steep. They were brought to the capital, which lay in the middle of the forest. The police found they couldn’t interview the man yesterday because he only spoke Russian. In the sentences in (7) the speaker assumes a present temporal focus. He locates the situation times at t 0 and in doing so represents the situations from his own temporal standpoint. In the sentences in (8), in contrast, the fact that the speaker prefers to use a past tense means that he wants to assume the temporal standpoint (and hence the narrative point of view) of the relevant participants 11.3 The manipulation of temporal focus for a specific purpose 583 in the events: he wants to express that it was they who observed then and there that the situation referred to in the subclause was actualizing. (Note that the past tense forms do not represent a shift of focus or a marked focus: in a past tense context, using the past tense represents the unmarked choice of focus.) The same comment also applies to You will have difficulty in climbing, for the hill will be very steep, where the choice of will be reveals that the speaker wants to represent the steepness of the hill from the future point of view of the climbing addressee. 11.3.3 That the speaker is sometimes free to choose a particular temporal focus is further illustrated by sentences like the following, which involve a modal auxiliary or semi-auxiliary: (9) The man had to be lying. What he told us could not be the truth. (10) The man must have been lying. What he told us cannot have been the truth. Each of the clauses in these examples expresses a conclusion which is presented as the only possible interpretation or explanation of some situation. In (9), this conclusion is represented as one that was arrived at in the past and concerned a situation that was then actualizing; the speaker therefore assumes the temporal standpoint of the person drawing the conclusion, i. e. he locates the time of the situation of drawing a conclusion in the past (cf. had to, could not) and repre- sents the time of the situation that is being interpreted (evaluated) as simulta- neous with this (cf. be lying, be the truth). In other words, the clauses in (9) are instances of ‘ free indirect speech’ (see 9.6.2). In (10), in contrast, the speaker expresses his own present conviction that a situation must have held in the past; he therefore locates the conclusion in the present zone (cf. must, cannot) and represents the situation interpreted as anterior to it (cf. have been lying, have been the truth). In other words, in both examples the temporal focus resides with what we might call the ‘ evaluation time’ (i. e. the time when the inference is made), but this time is a past interval in (9) and a present one in (10). This means that the speaker has a choice of possibilities: he can put the temporal focus on his own t 0 , in which case must have been lying and cannot have been [the truth] express what he himself considers to be true at t 0 , or he can shift the focus to the past time of evaluation, in which case had to be lying and could not be [the truth] express the point of view of the experi- encing consciousness (which may be the speaker himself) drawing these conclu- sions in the past. 11.3.4 There is a similar difference between a past focus (past evaluation of a situation that was then actualizing) and a present focus (present evaluation of a past situation) in pairs like the following: 584 11. Tense choice determined by temporal focus (a) He {seemed / appeared / happened}tobe a reliable worker. (b) He {seems / appears / happens}tohave been a reliable worker. (a) What Gordon did was warn the headmaster. (b) What Gordon did is warn the headmaster. (a) It was Bill who made the news public. (b) It is Bill who made the news public. (a) It was {true / a fact} that the population was starving. (b) It is {true / a fact} that the population was starving. (a) It was {interesting / puzzling} that the dogs did not bark. (b) It is {interesting / puzzling} that the dogs did not bark. In each of the (b) examples the speaker uses the present tense in the head clause to express his own current evaluation of the subclause situation. In the (a) exam- ples he uses the preterite to express how the subclause situation was appreciated in the past. The function of the tense of the head clause is thus to place the tempo- ral focus on the time that is to be interpreted as the time at which the subclause situation is evaluated. (If the sentences were not used in isolation, these contrasts between present and past would have to be seen as a contrast between a tense- pattern that would represent unmarked temporal focus if the temporal focus were already on the present and one that would represent unmarked temporal focus if the temporal focus were already on the past.) 11.3.5 Examples involving an alternation of a present focus and a post-present focus are also available: (a) It is John who will be appointed. (b) It will be John who is appointed. (a) It is a fact that these weapons will soon be obsolete. (b) For a rapidly growing majority of people, it will soon be a fact that if they can’t find you on the Internet, you don’t exist. (www) In the (b) sentences, the head clause refers to a post-present evaluation time. The subclauses refer to situations that will be evaluated at those times and which are therefore simultaneous with these times. (Since the head clause estab- lishes a post-present domain, the subclause uses the present tense to express T- simultaneity Ϫ see 9.20.1.) In the (a) examples, the head clause expresses that the relevant evaluation time is the present. (Since the head clause does not establish a post-present domain, the subclause has to do so.) These (a) senten- ces therefore express a present conclusion concerning the post-present actual- ization of the situation referred to in the subclause. 11.4 Summary 585 In the following example the situation to be evaluated is represented as T-anterior to the post-present evaluation time: 2 If there is a strike tomorrow, we’ll have worked in vain yesterday. This sentence involves a shift of temporal focus entailing a marked focus be- cause the conclusion expressed in the head clause, which is actually reached at t 0 , is represented as a post-present conclusion. That is, the situation time of the head clause situation is represented as T-anterior to a post-present orienta- tion time, although it could also have been expressed as anterior to t 0 . (In the latter case the sentence would have been If there is a strike tomorrow, we worked in vain yesterday.) This kind of shift of temporal focus from t 0 to some post-present evaluation time is also illustrated by the following examples: [Sadly, on this issue, he was simply out of his depth. …] He will not have been the first commentator on events several thousand miles away to have been misled. (www) [Boots’ decision to drop its UK media agency OMD UK as a consequence of lumping all its marketing services requirements into WPP, prompted a senior source at the client to admit “they sacked the wrong agency”.] The source will not have been the first senior marketer to express private frustration at being pressured into changing shops because of international considerations. (www) 11.4 Summary 11.4.1 The temporal focus of a speaker is the time on which, through a par- ticular tense choice, he focuses in the use of any given clause. In connection with absolute tenses, temporal focus can be defined as the phenomenon that the speaker draws attention to a particular kind of time Ϫ past, pre-present, present or post-present Ϫ by locating a situation time in the corresponding ‘absolute zone’. This means that temporal focus is recoverable from the tense alone. In the case of relative tenses, temporal focus is also reflected in the tense chosen. However, a relative tense involves (at least) two orientation times: the situation time and the time of orientation by which the situation time is bound in a relation of simultaneity, anteriority of posteriority. The temporal focus may be on the situation time or the binding time, so that (except when the 2. Imagine the following setting for this sentence: Yesterday it was Saturday, but the workers of a particular firm worked all the same because they were behind schedule and wanted to catch up. Today, however, they hear on the radio that there may be a strike tomorrow in one of their supply companies. If the strike goes through, they will soon be unable to continue working and will be behind schedule again. Under these circum- stances, one of the workers might remark If there’s a strike tomorrow, we’ll have worked in vain yesterday. 586 11. Tense choice determined by temporal focus relation between the two is T-simultaneity), we rely on adverbials and other contextual factors as well as tense to ascertain more exactly where the temporal focus is located. 11.4.2 We can talk of marked and unmarked temporal focus when the speaker has a choice as to which tense to use to refer to a situation. As far as absolute tenses go, this amounts to a choice as to the time-zone in which the situation is located, that is, a choice as to the relation between the situation time and t 0 . There are two major factors in deciding on tense choice when a choice exists between two or more absolute tenses. On the one hand, if the discourse is ‘about’ a particular time-zone Ϫ if other situations in the surround- ing discourse are located in a particular zone Ϫ then, all other things being equal, the unmarked choice for a situation which is to be introduced into the discourse is location in the same time-zone. On the other hand, if the time of the full situation includes t 0 but also extends into one or more other time- zones, then, all other things being equal, it is more relevant to represent the situation as located at t 0 . When the time of the full situation does extend over the present time-zone and some other time-zone(s), then, these two influences on tense choice for absolute tenses compete. For example, if Meg is staying in my house now and will still be here for the next few days, then out of context, it is more informative to tell an addressee Meg is here than to tell the addressee Meg will be here. However, if I am talking about events that will take place in my home tomorrow (for example “We’re going to have a barbecue”) it is more informative to say “Meg will be here” than “Meg is here”. 11.4.3 When it comes to relative tenses, markedness has to do, not with the choice of where the situation is located relative to t 0 , but rather with the choice of where it is located relative to the binding time. Just as, in the case of absolute tenses, simultaneity with t 0 Ϫ i. e. location in the present Ϫ is the unmarked option where it is possible (albeit with the competing factor of the temporal location of the current discourse), so in the case of relative tenses, T-simultane- ity with the situation time of the head clause is the unmarked option where it is possible. In some cases, though, there may be a choice between expressing simultaneity with the head clause situation time and expressing a different relation to a different time, to which the situation time is indirectly bound. 11.4.4 A shift of temporal focus from the present to the past (i. e. the use of a past tense when the present tense is possible in terms of pure reference) invokes a past point of view (which may belong to the speaker at some past time or to some other person). For example, a passenger in a car may say to the driver There was a beautiful farm just back there, meaning ‘we’ve just passed a beautiful farm’. Clearly the farm is still in the same place, but the passenger, by referring only to that part of the full situation of the farm’s being 11.4 Summary 587 there which is located in the past (presumably at the time of the car’s passing it), invokes his point of view when he saw it. (If, instead, he said There is a beautiful farm just back there, he would no longer be simply referring to his experience of the farm but would be implying that the existence of the farm has some current relevance as yet unexplained.) 11.4.5 This shifting of the temporal focus from the present to the past can, however, result in an implicature of nonapplicability at t 0 . For example, when the verb form used expresses posteriority, a shift of temporal focus to the past suggests that what was foreseen at some past time is no longer foreseen: I was going to go to Cuba this summer is naturally understood as implying ‘but I am no longer going to do so’. (Given the salience of the present moment, there is an assumption that if an intention is still valid it will be located in the present. The use of the past form of be going to locates the intention in the past and implicates that the intention is no longer valid.) 11.4.6 The fact that a shift of temporal focus from the present to the past calls up a past point of view is also used in narrative to present the observation and/or an evaluation of past situations as belonging to some person located at the time of actualization of the situations: the addressee sees past situations from the point of view of a narrated character (who may be the current speaker as he was at a past time, or may be someone else). This is most evident in free indirect speech. For example, a modal judgement about a past situation may be presented as taking place at the past time of the situation (thus giving the point of view of a represented character or the narrator ‘then’) or it may be represented as taking place in the present (thus giving the point of view of the narrator ‘now’). Compare: The goblins were advancing. There had to be at least a thousand of them and The goblins were advancing. There must have been at least a thousand of them. Here, the epistemic necessity of the goblins numbering at least a thousand exists both at the past time at which the narra- tive events take place and at the present time of narration. The past tense form had (to be) places the addressee at the viewpoint of someone experiencing the advance of the goblins. The present tense must (have been) simply gives the rather more prosaic ‘after the event’ evaluation of the narrator. 11.4.7 As well as a shift of temporal focus from the present to the past, it is possible, in certain sentence types, to have a shift of temporal focus from the present to the future when the full situation observed or evaluated is (or can be conceived as being) in the future as well as the present. This explains why a speaker can choose between It will be your sister who wins the first prize and It is your sister who will win the first prize. The speaker focusses on the post-present in the head clause of the first example and on the present in the head clause of the second. . places the addressee at the viewpoint of someone experiencing the advance of the goblins. The present tense must (have been) simply gives the rather more prosaic ‘after the event’ evaluation of the. in climbing, for the hill will be very steep, where the choice of will be reveals that the speaker wants to represent the steepness of the hill from the future point of view of the climbing addressee. 11.3.3. temporal standpoint of the person drawing the conclusion, i. e. he locates the time of the situation of drawing a conclusion in the past (cf. had to, could not) and repre- sents the time of the situation