The grammar of the english verb phrase part 111 pdf

Glossary 763 but without including it (or part of it). Anteriority is W-anteriority if A is interpreted as anterior to B in the possible world referred to. Anteriority is T- anteriority if it is expressed by a tense form. Thus, in John was born in London and died in Glasgow, the former situation is interpreted as W-anterior to the latter, but it is not represented as T-anterior to it: the two past tense forms merely locate the times of the two situations in the past. The same is true of He said he got up early. By contrast, in He said he had got up early, the time of the getting up early is not only interpreted as W-anterior to the time of the saying but is also represented as T-anterior to it by the use of the past perfect form had got up. Argument: any of the constituents that a verb requires to be used grammatically in a normal finite clause: a subject, sometimes called the ‘external argument’ (because it does not belong to the predicate constituent), and possibly one or more ‘internal arguments’, usually called complements (e. g. a direct object). Aspect: in this work we distinguish between ‘ontological aspect’ (or ‘lexical aspect’ or ‘Aktionsart’), ‘grammatical aspect’ and ‘actualization aspect’. Out of context, the unmarked interpretation of aspect is grammatical aspect. Aspect auxiliary: the grammatical auxiliary be, which is used for building pro- gressive verb forms. (Progressive aspect is the only kind of grammatical aspect that can be systematically expressed by verb forms in English.) Aspectualizer: lexical verb like begin, start, commence, quit, stop, finish, con- tinue, go on, etc., which is placed before a nonfinite clause and which expresses the situation described by this clause as beginning, ending or ongoing. Thus, go on is an aspectualizer in Let’s go on working. Assertion (or statement): the illocutionary force of a declarative sentence. Sen- tences like I love you and I don’t love you ‘make an assertion’. Assertive clause: A clause is assertive when the message (but not necessarily the form) of the clause is that of an affirmative assertion. Otherwise (i. e. when the message is negative and / or interrogative) the clause is nonassertive. Only nonassertive clauses can contain nonassertive items (‘negative polarity items’). A negative assertion like I didn’t lift a finger to help him is assertoric (ϭ makes an assertion) but nonassertive Ϫ hence the use of the nonassertive item lift a finger. Assertive item: word or phrase (often also called ‘positive polarity item’) which can normally only be used in an assertive clause, i. e. which cannot occur (ex- cept, sometimes, echoically) within the scope of a negator or question. For example, already is an assertive item: it can be used in positive (ϭ affirmative) statements (e. g. I have already met him) and in interrogative clauses expecting 764 Glossary a positive reply (e. g. Have you already seen him?), but not in (nonechoic) negative statements (e. g. I haven’t met him {yet /*already}), nor in interroga- tive clauses that do not expect a positive reply (e. g. Have you seen him yet?). Another example is ‘far from ϩ adjective’: He {is / *isn’t} far from satisfied). Assertoric: A clause is assertoric if it realizes the illocutionary act of making an assertion. An assertoric clause is usually declarative, but there are cases in which an interrogative clause also makes an assertion: (a) if it expresses a rhetorical question, i. e. if the clause is interrogative in form but is interpreted as being declarative (e. g. Need I say more? on the interpretation ‘Surely, I needn’t say more.’) and (b) if the interrogative clause expresses a ‘yes / no- question’ (ϭ polar question) which is interpreted as an assertion followed by a question tag asking for confirmation, e. g. Is he your leader, then? Also assert- oric are so-called declarative questions, i. e. sentences that have the syntactic form (word order) of a declarative sentence but are interpreted as asking a question, e. g. You’re his father? Atelic: ontological feature, the opposite of telic. Said of a situation-template (denoted by a verb phrase) which does not represent the kind of situation referred to as telic, i. e. as tending towards a natural point of completion be- yond which the situation cannot continue. Thus, in Betty ran, the verb phrase ran is atelic (ϭ not telic). We also apply the label to the kind of situation that is not represented as telic – thus, running is an ‘atelic situation’ – and, by further extension, to clauses containing an atelic verb phrase. Atemporal when -clause: see case-specifying when-clause. Attributive noun phrase: when used in Donnellan’s (1966) sense, said of a noun phrase which has definite reference in the sense that the speaker assumes the hearer to be familiar with the expression (ϭ NP) in question, but not with the identity of the referent of the phrase. For example, when a theft has been committed, the speaker can use the NP the thief even if he does not know who committed the theft and does not assume the hearer to know that either. In other words, Donnellan (1966) applies the label ‘attributive’ to a linguistic expression which is definite in the sense that it gives a description which both the speaker and the hearer are familiar with, but which is not sufficient for either to ‘pick out’ the referent from a set of potential referents. Auxiliary: see auxiliary verb. Auxiliary verb (or auxiliary): ‘helper’ verb, i. e. a verb which has the grammati- cal function of helping the speaker to build a complex verb form (e. g. will and have in will have put). Unlike a lexical verb (or ‘full verb’), an auxiliary has little or no lexical meaning: it expresses either a grammatical notion (like ‘pas- sive’, ‘progressive’, ‘tense’) or a modal idea (like necessity, possibility, permis- Glossary 765 sion, etc.) or it has no meaning at all and is used simply because an auxiliary is required in certain contexts. (This is true of the ‘periphrastic auxiliary’ do, as in “I don’t like it. Do you?” Ϫ “Yes, I do.”) Morphosyntactically, an auxil- iary differs from a lexical verb in that it has the NICE-properties, i. e. it does not trigger do-support in clauses that are negative, interrogative, used in code or involving emphasis on the verb. Background: in a narrative text, the linguistic material which refers to durative and descriptive situations and which provides subsidiary information about the foreground. (This material is then said to have a ‘backgrounding’ function. This means that it does not ‘push forward’ the story.) Backshifting: (1) change of tense forms when there is a shift from a present time-sphere temporal domain to a past time-sphere temporal domain. For ex- ample, Has he done it? is ‘backshifted’ to had he done it in indirect reported speech after a verb in the past tense: I wondered if he had done it. The speaker can also use backshifting for various other reasons, e. g. for tentativeness: {Will / would} you please help me? However, the term is especially used in connection with past represented speech. In this book it refers to the phenome- non that a present time-sphere tense or an absolute past tense in the ‘original’ direct speech utterance seems to be adapted into, respectively, a corresponding past time-sphere tense or a past perfect as a natural result of the fact that the situation time which was ‘originally’ T-related to the temporal zero-point is now T-related to the central orientation time of a past domain. (Backshifting is thus a semantically motivated phenomenon, viz. the use of past time-sphere tenses in a past domain) rather than a purely formal operation.) Compare, for example, The shop {is / will be / has been / will have been / was} closed and They said that the shop {was / would be / had been / would have been / had been} closed. (2) See modal backshifting. Basic orientation time: the time of orientation in the structure of a tense from which the temporal relations expressed by the tense begin to be computed. In most cases the basic orientation time is the temporal zero-point (t 0 ) (e. g. He has done it), but there are cases in which it is a post-present binding orientation time which is treated as if it were t 0 (e. g. [If Jim does it] he will have to admit to his wife that he has done it). In both examples, the present perfect form has done locates the time of the situation of Jim’s doing it before the basic orienta- tion time. In the first example the basic orientation time is t 0 ; in the second it is a pseudo-zero-point, viz. the post-present situation time (ϭ the time of ad- mitting) which is treated as if it were t 0 . (See also Pseudo-t 0 -System.) ‘Before now’ interpretation: one of the two T-interpretations of the present perfect, namely ‘The situation time is included in the pre-present and covers a portion of the pre-present that is not adjacent to t 0 ’, as in I’ve never seen 766 Glossary that girl before. This T-interpretation corresponds to the inclusion sense of the containment relation (between the pre-present zone and the situation time) that is part of the core meaning of the present perfect. Bifunctional temporal adverbial: temporal adverbial that functions at the same time as a time-specifying adverbial and as a duration adverbial. In other words, it specifies both the temporal location of the situation time and the length of the corresponding full situation, as in I was there from six to eight. Binding (or temporal binding or temporal subordination): the phenomenon that a situation time is T-related to another situation time (or another orienta- tion time) within a temporal domain. For example, in Meg had seen Jill, the situation time of had seen is bound by (or ‘temporally subordinated to’) an orientation time which is not explicitly referred to but forms part of a past temporal domain. (Strictly speaking, it is only situation times that can be bound, but by extension we can also apply the label to the situation itself. In this way we can say that in Sue knew that Meg had seen Jill the situation of knowing is the ‘binding situation’, while the situation of Meg seeing Jill is the ‘bound situation’.) Binding orientation time: orientation time that serves as the starting point of a temporal relation expressed by a relative tense. Thus, in Meg said that she had seen Jill, the situation time of Meg’s speaking is a binding situation time be- cause the time of her seeing Jill (ϭ the ‘bound situation’) is represented as T- anterior to it by the past perfect tense. Block (an implicature): prevent an implicature from arising. See implicate. Bound: see bound situation time. Bound situation time: situation time that is T-related to (or ‘temporally subor- dinated to’ or ‘temporally bound by’) an orientation time in a domain. Thus, in Meg said that she had bought a bike, the situation time of the situation of buying is bound by (more specifically: represented as T-anterior to) the situa- tion time of the situation of Meg’s speaking (which is the ‘binding situation’). Bounded: said of a particular instance of actualization of a situation, namely if the actualizing situation is either linguistically represented or W-interpreted as reaching a terminal point, i. e. as coming to an end. Thus, the clause John read the letter represents the situation of John reading the letter as having come to an end, unlike the clause John was reading the letter, which does not tell us whether John actually finished reading the letter or not. The term is also applied to clauses and sentences that represent (the actualization of) a situation as bounded. Boundedness: the quality of being bounded. Glossary 767 Bounding constituent: constituent (of a clause) which adds the idea of a tempo- ral right boundary, thus rendering the clause L-bounded, e. g. the object argu- ment in He read a poem, the duration adverbial in We worked for six hours or the bifunctional temporal adverbial in Jane was in her study from two to five. Bygone: preceding the temporal zero-point, i. e. located in the past zone or in the pre-present zone. For example, both He did it and He has done it represent the actualization of the situation referred to as bygone. We speak of a ‘bygone situation’ as well as of a ‘bygone time’. A further distinction is made between ‘T-bygone’ (ϭ linguistically represented as bygone by a tense) and ‘W-bygone’ (ϭ what is bygone in the actual world but is not necessarily represented as bygone by a tense form). Cancel (an implicature): deny that a suggested interpretation is correct. See im- plicate. Case-specifying when -clause (or atemporal when -clause): when-clause which does not specify a time but describes the case(s) in which the head clause situation actualizes (i. e. the case(s) in which the head clause proposition is true). For example, Children are orphans when their parents are dead. Central orientation time: the one orientation time in a temporal domain that is not T-bound by any other orientation time in the domain but is directly related to the temporal zero-point. In most cases the central orientation time is the situation time of the clause which establishes the domain by using an absolute tense (e. g. knew in I knew that Tom hadn’t seen the film yet and would want to go and see it). When an absolute-relative tense is used (e. g. He will have left by tonight) the central orientation time is the orientation time (here ‘contained’ in the post-present Adv-time specified by tonight) to which the situation time is temporally subordinated. Central time of orientation: see central orientation time. Clause: linguistic expression with a syntactic structure. A prototypical clause consists of a noun phrase functioning as subject and a verb phrase (and option- ally some other constituents) functioning as predicate. Cleft (or cleft construction, cleft sentence, it -cleft): specificational sentence of the form ‘It (or occasionally this or that) ϩ be ϩ focused constituent ϩ wh- clause’ in which the wh-clause expresses the variable to which a value (ex- pressed by the focused constituent) is given, e. g. It was John who did it. (This is interpreted as ‘the x who did it was: John’.) Apart from a wh-clause, the variable may also be expressed by a that-clause (e. g. It was John that did it) or, provided the value is an indication of duration, a since-clause (e. g. It’s three weeks since he left). In the latter case we speak of a since-cleft. 768 Glossary Cleft construction: see cleft. Cleft sentence: see cleft. Closed condition: a condition which the speaker assumes to be fulfilled in the actual world (e. g. If, as you say, you can’t accompany me tonight, [I’ll have to look for someone else]) or which he assumes to be going to be fulfilled in a future possible world (e. g. If, as you say, he will come here himself tomorrow, [there is no point in phoning him now]). Clauses expressing a closed condition are typically echoic. Code: the use of an auxiliary as pro-form for an entire verb phrase (as in John will not be sleeping, but I will). Co-extensive interpretation: one of the two T-interpretations of the present perfect, namely ‘the situation time is co-extensive with the pre-present and therefore leads up to t 0 ’, as in I’ve been thinking about you. This T-interpreta- tion corresponds to the coincidence sense of the containment relation (between the pre-present zone and the situation time) that is part of the core meaning of the present perfect. Coincidence: one form of containment relation (the other being inclusion). Co- incidence may be the containment relation between the time of the full situation and a situation time which is strictly simultaneous with the former, as in John left at five o’clock). It may also be the containment relation between an Adv- time (ϭ adverbially specified time) and a situation time, as in John left at five o’clock, or between an Adv-time and an orientation time to which the situation time is T-related, as in At five o’clock John had already left. Common Adv-time: in a complex sentence involving a head clause and an adverbial when-clause, the Adv-time of the head clause is interpreted as coin- ciding with the Adv-time of the when-clause. (This coincidence relation is due to the semantics of when, which means ‘at a / the time at which’.) The term ‘common Adv-time’ is used to refer to these two coinciding Adv-times. Complement (or verb complement): a VP-internal argument of a verb, such as a direct object (e. g. [I hit] him), indirect object (e. g. [I gave] him [a kite]), subject complement (e. g. [Bill is] ill), object complement (e. g. [We called him] a fool), prepositional object (e. g. [I looked] into the question [carefully]). Complement clause: clause functioning as complement of a verb, such as that he was ill in He said that he was ill. Complex relation (or complex T-relation): temporal relation of the sort ex- pressed by a complex relative tense. For example, the conditional perfect (would have V-ed) expresses T-anteriority to an orientation time which is itself Glossary 769 T-posterior to some other orientation time in a past domain. The combination of T-posteriority and T-anteriority is a ‘complex relation’. Complex relative tense: tense expressing two or more temporal relations at once within the same temporal domain. Examples are the conditional perfect (e. g. would have left) and some nameless tenses with (very unusual) forms such as would have been going to leave or would be going to have left. Complex sentence: sentence minimally consisting of one head clause and one subclause. A complex sentence may involve several subclauses, some of which function as head clauses supporting other subclauses. For example, in John left after I had told him that his shirt was dirty, the clause after I had told him is at the same time a subclause depending on John left (which is the ‘matrix’) and the head clause on which depends the subclause that his shirt was dirty. Complex T-relation: see complex relation Compound sentence: sentence consisting of two or more coordinate clauses (ϭ clauses of equal rank), in other words, sentence in which none of the constitu- ent clauses is syntactically subordinate to another, e. g. I will trim the hedge and you will mow the lawn. Conditional: As a noun, this term is short for either ‘conditional sentence’ (i. e. a combination of a conditional clause and a head clause) or ‘conditional tense’. Conditional perfect: see conditional perfect tense Conditional perfect tense (or conditional perfect): complex relative tense whose forms are built by combining the auxiliary would with the perfect infinitive (have V-ed) of the main verb. The semantics of this tense is: ‘The situation time is T-anterior to an orientation time which is itself T-posterior to some orientation time in a past domain or in a past or pseudo-past subdomain.’ For example: [Bill {promised / had promised}] that he would have finished the job by the end of the day. Conditional sentence: combination of a conditional clause and a head clause (e. g. I won’t be sad if she dies). Conditional tense: relative tense whose tense forms are a combination of the auxiliary would and the present infinitive of the main verb. The semantics of this tense is: ‘The situation time is T-posterior to an orientation time that forms part of a past domain, (e. g. [He promised] he would do it), or of a past subdomain (e. g. [He admitted that he had promised] he would do it)orofa pseudo-past subdomain (e. g. [Don’t always make promises. Sooner or later you will regret that you promised] you would do something)’. Conjugated verb (form): verb (form) showing conjugation. Synonym: finite verb (form). . noun phrase which has definite reference in the sense that the speaker assumes the hearer to be familiar with the expression (ϭ NP) in question, but not with the identity of the referent of the phrase. . corresponds to the inclusion sense of the containment relation (between the pre-present zone and the situation time) that is part of the core meaning of the present perfect. Bifunctional temporal adverbial:. corresponds to the coincidence sense of the containment relation (between the pre-present zone and the situation time) that is part of the core meaning of the present perfect. Coincidence: one form of containment