английский / English grammar / Miller J. - An introduction to English syntax (Edinburgh University Press, 2001, 206 p)

entity undergoing some process, that is to a Patient. The vase was/got broken and This candidate was elected are answers to questions such as What happened to the vase? and What happened to this candidate? Does the subject noun phrase in a middle clause denote a Patient? The sentence His novels sell very well has been said to present the books as ‘selling themselves’, and this analysis seems to be on the right track. There is no contradiction between two examples referring to the same novel such as This novel reads very well and It is a pity that nobody reads this novel nowadays. It is quite possible to say These cars sold very quickly last week and then add in spite of the inept performance of our new sales staff. The expert knitter or tailor who declares This wool knitted up without any trouble and The cloth was cutting beautifully is not taking credit but giving it to the wool and the cloth.

Example (35b) above was uttered in a television documentary dealing with the River Mersey. The interviewer had been talking to various people about the initial part of the cleaning-up programme, namely the enforcement of legislation to stop factories discharging noxious materials into the river. Thereafter, the river had simply to be left to, as it were, get on with the task of removing the poisons already in the water, and it was in this context that (35b) was uttered.

The person uttering (35d) was attributing blame to the bomb, which refused to respond to the guiding signals and crashed, killing civilians. Example (35c) was uttered by a participant in equestrian cross-country trials, and the burden of the message was that the course permitted accurate jumping of the obstacles and good times for the circuits of the course.

In the light of the above, what role can we assign to the referents of subject noun phrases in middle clauses – Agent or Patient, or some other role? The ‘middle’ construction is so-called because it is felt to be intermediate between the active and passive constructions Part of the in-between-ness of the construction lies in the question of role, but the problem can be solved if we recognise that, like so many concepts in linguistic analysis, central prototype instances have to be distinguished from peripheral instances. The subject noun phrases in (35a–d) do not refer to prototypical Agents; the referents are not human, do not exercise will-power and do not have goals and intentions. Nonetheless, they are not presented as Patients.

A solution that resolves the contradictions is to regard the subject nouns in the middle construction as Neutral (between Agent and Patient) but as controlling the situations. The cars, by their qualities, determine the rate at which people buy them; the river Mersey, with the powers of cleansing and rejuvenation inherent in clean, flowing water, determines how long it will be before the pollutants are removed

altogether; the course, with its fences of a certain height and width, and its obstacles and the state of the ground, determines how successful the horses and riders will be. Finally, the strong impression was given by the spokesman who uttered (35d) that it was the bomb’s fault that civilians were killed.

13.5 Conclusion

We have given a brief introduction to case, gender, mood, aspect, tense and voice. For initial elementary discussions, it is convenient to put the six topics into six pigeonholes; but, as with the other concepts in this book, which keep turning up in their own chapter and in other chapters, these six grammatical categories cannot be kept neatly apart. Tense and aspect are closely connected in every language which has both (some languages are reputed to have aspectual distinctions but no tense system), and in English and other languages tense and mood interact. The pairs of sentences in (36)–(37) are distinguished in that the (a) examples have what looks like present tense while the (b) examples have what looks like past tense.

(36)a. Fiona may be here by 5 o’clock.

b.Fiona might be here by 5 o’clock.

(37)a. If Fiona is here by 5 o’clock, we can go to the party.

b.If Fiona was/were here by 5 o’clock, we could go to the party.

The past-tense forms do not relate to past time. In their basic uses, present tense relates to present time, which is close to speaker and hearer, and past tense relates to past time, which is more remote from speaker and hearer. In (36b) and (37b), the apparent past-tense forms have nothing to with past time but present a situation as remote from reality. Examples (36a) and (37a) present the situations as much closer to reality. Example (38a) presents the situation of Fiona getting a job as something that should have happened some time ago, that is, the concept of past time is relevant, but also as a situation that is remote from current reality. Note that this construction is only for the presentation of situations as remote; present tense is not possible, as the incorrectness of (38b) shows.

(38)a. It’s high time Fiona got a job. b. *It’s high time Fiona gets a job.

Tense, aspect and mood apart, further investigation of this area of grammar would soon reveal that the old dichotomy of transitive and intransitive (see Chapter 3) is insufficient and has to be replaced by a

scale of transitivity in which tense, aspect, mood, case and voice all play a part.

Summary

Aspect and tense have to do with situations and time. Aspect, as in wrote vs was writing, signals whether an situation is presented as completed or as ongoing, i.e. as having reached its boundary in time or as occupying a period of time. Tense has to do with speakers locating a situation in time

– past time as in She wrote, present time as in She is writing or future time as in She will write. One controversy is whether it is legitimate to recognise a future tense. Reference to future time is often achieved by means of a verb such as will or go combined with another verb, whereas speakers refer to present and past time by means of a single verb. Voice also relates to situations, not to time but to which participants in a situation are presented to the hearer/reader and which participants are presented as central. Speakers use active clauses to present Agents and Patients as central and passive clauses to exclude Agents: Susan wrote the letter yesterday vs The letter was written yesterday. The middle construction allows speakers to present the non-agent participant as central and as controlling the situation. In The door won’t unlock, the door is presented as controlling the actions of the other participants by its refusal to unlock. The problem lies not in the clumsiness of the human participant but in some property of the door’s lock.

Exercises

1. The dog was chasing the cat is a clause denoting an activity. It entails the same clause but with the Simple Past form of the verb, The dog chased the cat. That is, whenever the former is true, so is the latter. This entailment does not apply to clauses denoting accomplishments: Jane was crossing the street does not entail Jane crossed the street. The latter is true only if Jane reached the other side, but the progressive leaves it open whether she did or did not reach the other side: Jane was crossing the street and in fact reached the other side vs Jane was crossing the street when she was run down by a fully laden timber lorry.

Examine the pairs of clauses below. Which clauses with the verb in the progressive entail the corresponding clause with the verb in the simple past?

1.(a) Harriet was talking to Emma.

(b)Harriet talked to Emma.

2.(a) The beaver was building a dam.

(b)The beaver built a dam.

3.(a) Anne Elliott was studying Italian.

(b)Anne Elliott studied Italian.

4.(a) Mr Knightley was riding to Kingston.

(b)Mr Knightley rode to Kingston.

5.(a) Mr Knightley was riding towards Kingston.

(b)Mr Knightley rode towards Kingston.

6.(a) The girls were walking in the gardens.

(b)The girls walked in the gardens.

7.(a) They were drinking a bottle of Mr Weston’s good wine.

(b)They drank a bottle of Mr Weston’s good wine.

8.(a) They were drinking bottles of Mr Weston’s good wine.

(b)They drank bottles of Mr Weston’s good wine.

2.Which of the following clauses contain stative verbs? (Apply the tests: Can they be used to answer the question What happened? Can they be fitted into a WH cleft: What she did was break the glass with a hammer vs What she did was know all the answers ? The latter is at the very least peculiar. Does the verb occur easily in the Progressive? She was writing her report vs *She was knowing the details of the case.)

1.Mr Dashwood died at a very awkward time.

2.Mrs Dashwood believed that her stepson would be generous.

3.Eleanor thought that her mother was mistaken.

4.Eleanor thought about the problem and found a solution.

5.Mr Woodhouse heard a strange noise.

6.Mr Woodhouse listened to the strange noise.

7.Anne understood the words of the Italian songs.

8.She saw the storm approaching.

9.She saw how to solve the problem.

10.She saw (= received) the unexpected guests in the hall.

3.Future time is referred to by will, shall and be going to. Consider the sentences below. Are any of them unacceptable? Are there differences of meaning between be going to and will – that is, are there pairs of examples that would be used in different circumstances?

1.(a) She’s going to sack all the senior managers (if they don’t improve their performance).

(b)She’ll sack all the senior managers (if they don’t improve their performance).

2.(a) Will I shut the window?

(b)Am I going to shut the window?

3.(a) Will you shut the window please?

(b)Shall you shut the window please?

(c)Are you going to shut the window please?

4.A and B walking to the cinema. A says:

(a)Hurry up! The film is just going to start.

(b)Hurry up! The film will just start.

5.A: where’s Fiona?

6. An owl swooped on the rabbit from up in the beech tree.

7 More accountants would make a difference to my income.

8.Would more accountants make a difference to my income?

9.This gritter spread less salt than that one.