4.2 Problematic Cases in the English Tense System

The place of the perfect forms in the system of the English verb causes heated discussions due to the two major unsolved problems:

1. whether these are the tense or aspectual form

2. the basic grammatical meaning of the Perfect forms

H. Sweet, H.Poatsma consider Perfect to be tense forms with the meaning of resultiveness which is contradictory as it predetermines the aspectual meaning.

Г.Воронцов, Б.Ильиш define Perfect forms as grammatical forms of resulting meaning with focus on the retrospective character of perfect.

A. Smirnitsky considered Perfect to be a special category of temporal correlation with the basic meaning of precedence such point of view deprives perfect of time orientation obligatory to tense-forms.

Morokhovskay E.Ya. stresses the absence of invariant characteristics of the Perfect, as the Present Perfect is devoid of the meaning of precedence and focuses on the resultiveness of the action. In her opinion, the past Perfect does not signify any time distination and does not express any manner of action. So, this form is relative, it signifies precedence of an action, as this form it is conditioned by the context.

The Future Perfect form is referred to some point of time in the future, thus being relative in character similarly to the Past Perfect form.

So the Perfect forms in English do not make up a systemic grouping.

2. The Problem of Futurity

The discussion connected with the combinations of “shall/will + Infinitive” is two-sided: part of the controversy concerns the possible modality associated with “shall” and “will”, on the other hand ,there are objections as to the inclusion of these forms into the temporal spheres due to their relative meaning, which is compatible with the general meaning of prospective time.

O. Jespersen defended the view that ‘shall’ and ‘will’ retained their modal meanings in all their uses.

L.S.Barkhudarov objected, stating that however well-grounded this idea seems, the distributional and contextual factors prove the otherwise.

CF: He’ll do it tomorrow.

He will do it tomorrow.

Nevertheless, the problem remains resolved only partly.

Summing up: Tense as a verbal category reflects the objective category of time and expresses the temporal relations between the process, action or state and the moment of speaking or a moment in the past or future.

[ For further study of the problems see SCHEME 1]

P A R T 2

Projects

1. Lexico-Grammatical Field of Temporality

2. Analytical Tendencies in the System of English Tenses

3. The Category of Finitude (Finiteness)

Study questions

1. Provide examples to explain the following statement:

“In the sentence the finite verbs perform the function of the verb-predicate, expressing the processual categorical features of predication, that is the combination of such characteristics as time, aspect, voice and mood”.

2. Study the problems connected with the verb functioning and offer possible solutions:

a) the interaction of two verbal categories in a single form namely the categories of tense and aspect;

b) the existence and thus consequent confusion of grammatical, lexical, syntactical means of denoting the manner of action of the English verb;

c) the parallel existence of synthetic and analytical forms of the English verb.

PART 3

Sentence Parsing

1. Identify predication lines to divide the sentence into constituent parts.

2. Make a scheme to show the relations between sentence parts.

3. Define the constituents of each sentence.

1. He didn’t know when he had made the decision to give the money to her, but after the fight, realizing that he couldn’t help anybody any more, he also realized he couldn’t let this woman lose everything she owned. (Eidson Th. All God’s Children. – Dutton, 1997. – P.261)

2. The captain led the way, his mind racing through a maze of possibilities that all led to the same conclusion; if the high-priority cargo pallet they were supposed to be hauling to Denver was still sitting on the ramp at Miami Airport, his little upstart airline was in deep trouble. (Nance J. Medusa’s Child. – Doubleday, 1997. -P.305)

3. Vivian , you say you don’t know what is inside your bag but the FBI tells me they’ve been searching for a package of some sort which contains hazardous material that came through Miami while we were there. (Nance J. Medusa’s Child. – Doubleday, 1997. -P.322)

4. There’s certainly an element of hypocrisy in businessmen’s denunciations of government intervention in the economy; their hostility to government appears to vanish whenever their profits are at stake, as corporate executives tend to resolve their apparent contradictions between their beliefs and their practices by denying that government policies that assist private company accumulation – either directly or indirectly – actually represent government intervention (Skocpol Th., Cambell J. American Society and Politics. – McGraw-Hill, 1995. – P.251)

5. For instance, some researchers have found that the ability of citizen groups to influence city hall and overcome the resistance of political and business elites is enhanced if city officials are chosen through ward-based rather than at-large elections; popular influence is also enhanced when local business leaders are concerned less with local than regional or national economic problems (Skocpol Th., Cambell J. American Society and Politics. – McGraw-Hill, 1995. – P.7).