Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Verb Phrase in English Trantescu
The Verb Phrase in English Trantescu
The author
5
6
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................... 5
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH VERB PHRASE ….. 13
1.1. Definition ……………………………………………… 13
1.2. Classification of verbs ………………………………… 13
CHAPTER 2
AN OVERVIEW OF THE GRAMMATICAL
CATEGORIES OF THE VERB ............................................... 37
2.1. The categories of person and number ............................. 37
2.2. The category of tense ....................................................... 38
2.3. The category of aspect .................................................... 41
2.3.1. The perfective vs. non-perfective / imperfective ............. 42
2.3.2. The progressive (or continuous) vs. simple aspect …...... 42
2.3.3. Verbs which are not normally used in the continuous/
progressive aspect …..………………………….………. 42
2.3.3.1. Dynamic (activity / action) verbs ………………………. 43
2.3.3.2. State (stative) verbs ......................................................... 43
2.4. Voice ............................................................................... 49
2.5. Mood .................................................................................50
CHAPTER 3
THE INDICATIVE MOOD.
THE TENSE - ASPECT SYSTEM IN ENGLISH ………….. 53
3.1. The Present Tense ……………………………………… 53
3.1.1. The Present Tense Simple …………………………...… 53
3.1.2. The Present Tense Continuous (Progressive) …..……… 59
3.2. The Past Tense …………………………………….....… 65
3.2.1. The Past Tense Simple ……………………………...… 65
3.2.2. The Past Tense Continuous/Progressive ………...…...… 71
7
3.3. The Perfect Tenses ........................................................... 76
3.3.1. The Present Perfect ………………………...………...… 76
3.3.1.1. The Present Perfect Simple ……………...………...… 76
3.3.1.2. The Present Perfect Continuous/ Progressive ………..… 84
3.4. The Past Perfect ………………………..….………...… 87
3.4.1. The Past Perfect Tense Simple ……………….……...… 87
3.4.2. The Past Perfect Progressive/Continuous …………...… 91
3.5. Means of Expressing Future Reference ……………...… 94
3.5.1. The Future Tense Simple (Shall / Will Future) …..…… 94
3.5.2. The Future Continuous/ Progressive ………………….. 97
3.5.3. The Future Perfect …………………………………...… 99
3.5.3.1. The Future Perfect Simple …………………………...… 99
3.5.3.2. The Future Perfect Progressive ……………………...… 102
3.5.4. Other means of expressing futurity …………..……...… 103
3.6. Future Actions Seen from Past Perspective
(Future in the Past) ......................................................... 107
3.7. Tense and aspect use across registers and dialects .......... 109
3.7.1. Tense use across registers ………….………………...… 109
3.7.2. Perfect and Progressive Aspect
across registers and dialects ............................................ 110
CHAPTER 4
THE GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF VOICE ................ 113
4.1. Introduction ………….…………..………………....… 113
4.2. Language levels of the passive transformation ……… 114
4.2.1. The morphological level (the form of the verb) ….…… 115
4.2.2. The syntactic level ………………………………..…… 118
4.2.3. Passive-like causatives …………………………...…… 120
4.2.4. Classes of verbs used in passive constructions ……...… 120
4.2.4.1. Transitive verbs ………………………………..….…… 120
4.2.4.2. Intransitive verbs …………………..…………..….…… 123
4.2.4.3. Complex verbs ………………………….……..….…… 124
8
4.2.4.4. Passivals (Pseudo-Passives) …………………..….…… 126
4.3.1. Passive voice in legal language ……………………… 127
4.3.2. Passive voice across registers ………………….….…… 128
CHAPTER 5
THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD .................................................. 131
5.1. Indicative versus Subjunctive ......................................... 131
5.2. The forms of the Subjunctive ………………....….…… 133
5.2.1. The Synthetic Subjunctive ............................................... 133
5.2.1.1. The Present Subjunctive .................................................. 133
5.2.1.2. The Past Subjunctive ....................................................... 136
5.2.1.3. The Perfect Subjunctive .................................................. 138
5.2.2. The Analytic(al) Subjunctive ........................................... 140
5.2.2.1. Should .............................................................................. 140
5.2.2.2. May / Might .................................................................... 144
5.2.2.3. Will / Would .................................................................... 146
5.2.2.4. Can / Could .................................................................... 147
5.3. The distribution of the Conditional Mood
in various registers ........................................................... 147
5.4. The distribution of Subjunctive forms
in subordinate clauses ...................................................... 149
CHAPTER 6
THE IMPERATIVE MOOD .................................................... 151
6.1. Imperative sentences (Commands) .................................. 151
6.1.1. Commands without a subject ........................................... 151
6.1.2. Commands with subject ................................................... 152
6. 1. 3. Commands with LET ....................................................... 152
6. 1.4. Negative commands ......................................................... 153
6.1.5. Persuasive commands ...................................................... 154
6.1.6. Other constructions having the value of a command ....... 154
6.2. The form and function of Imperative Clauses ................. 154
9
6.3. The use of the Imperative Mood in different registers
... 155
CHAPTER 7
MODALITY AND MODAL VERBS ........................................ 157
7. 1. Formal characteristics ...................................................... 158
7. 2. Semantic characteristics ................................................... 159
7. 2.1. Ability .............................................................................. 162
7.2.2. Permission ........................................................................ 164
7.2.3. Obligation ........................................................................ 166
7.2.4. Possibility ........................................................................ 172
7.2.5. Probability ........................................................................ 177
7.2.6. Volition, Willingness ....................................................... 180
7.2.7. Habit ................................................................................ 182
7.2.8. Dare ................................................................................ 185
7.3. Pragmatic values of modal verbs .................................... 187
7.4. Modal and semi-modals across registers ......................... 187
7.4.1. The distribution of modal and semi -modal verbs ........... 187
7.4.2. Extrinsic versus intrinsic uses of modals
in different registers ......................................................... 190
CHAPTER 8
THE NON-FINITE FORMS OF THE VERB ………….…… 193
8. 1. The Infinitive ................................................................... 193
8.1. 1. The forms of the Infinitive .............................................. 193
8. 1.2. The grammatical categories of the Infinitive ................... 196
8.1.2.1 The category of aspect ..................................................... 196
8.1.2.2. The category of voice ...................................................... 197
8.1.3. The subject of the Infinitive ............................................. 198
8.1.4. The syntactic functions of the Infinitive .......................... 199
8.1.4.1. Subject ............................................................................. 199
10
8.1.4.2. Predicative (Subject Complement) ................................. 204
8.1 4.3. Attribute ........................................................................... 205
8.1.4.4. Object ............................................................................... 206
8.1.4.5. Adverbial Modifier .......................................................... 210
8.1.4.5.1. Adverbial Modifier of Purpose ..................................... 210
8.1.4.5.2. Adverbial Modifier of Result ....................................... 211
8.1.4.5.3. Adverbial Modifier of Condition .................................. 212
8.1.4.5.4. Adverbial Modifier of Comparison .............................. 212
8.1.4.5.5. Adverbial Modifier of Exception ................................. 212
8.1.5. The Infinitive in parenthetic constructions ...................... 213
8.1.6. Grammatical patterns of post-predicate infinitive clauses 213
8. 2. The –ing Forms ................................................................ 214
8. 2. 1. The Gerund ...................................................................... 215
8.2.1.1. The features of the Gerund .............................................. 215
8.2.1.2. The grammatical categories of the Gerund ..................... 216
8.2.1.3. The subject of the Gerund ............................................... 217
8.2.1.4. The syntactic functions of the Gerund ....... ..................... 219
8. 2. 2. The Participle ................................................................... 227
8.2.2.1. The grammatical categories of the Present Participle …. 227
8.2.2.2. The syntactic functions of the Present Participle ............ 228
8.3. The Past Participle .......................................................... 235
8.3.1. The uses of the Past Participle......................................... 236
8.3.2. The syntactic functions of the Past Participle .................. 236
8.4. Complex Constructions .................................................. 241
8.5. Non-finite clauses across registers .................................. 241
11
12
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH VERB PHRASE
1.1. Definition
Linguists define the verb as the part of speech which expresses
actions or states perceived as processes. This semantic definition
must be completed with morphological and syntactic criteria. From
the morphological point of view, the verb has forms according to the
grammatical categories of person, number, mood, tense, aspect and
voice. A finite verb discharges the function of predicate (syntactic
criterion).
A verb phrase may consist of a main verb alone, or a main verb
plus any modal and/or auxiliary verbs. The main verb always comes
last in the verb phrase (Carter at al., 2011):
He may have studied the subject before.
According to Quirk et al. (1979: 72-73), the verb phrase can be
simple and complex. It is simple when it consists of only one verb
which may be in the Imperative Mood, the Present Tense Simple or
Past Tense Simple:
He studied hard last year.
The verb phrase is complex when it consists of two or more
verbs, as in:
She must have studied hard.
1.2. Classification of verbs
Further we shall approach the classification of verbs, taking into
account various criteria: form, lexical meaning and
complementation.
13
A. In accordance with the criterion of form, verbs may be
classified taking into consideration their morphological structure and
their base forms.
Classification of verbs according to their morphological structure
According to their morphological structure verbs fall into:
One-word verbs:
a) Simple verbs: verbs which cannot be further subdivided into
other morphological elements, e.g. get, read, study, swim, work;
b) Compound verbs: verbs formed of two or more morphological
elements written together, e.g. babysit, broadcast, underline,
blackmail, spotlight;
c) Derivative verbs, i.e. verbs formed by means of affixes
(prefixes and suffixes): discourage, enlighten, encourage, misprint,
amplify, symbolize.
Verbal derivational prefixes usually do not modify the word
class, that is, a verb-forming prefix is attached to a verb base to form
a new verb with another meaning:
move- remove
do- undo
Unlike prefixes, suffixes usually change the word category:
black- blacken
category- categorize
The productivity of an affix can be assessed by considering the
totality of words formed with it. Uncommon verbs formed with an
affix are likely to be new coinages or older coinages which have
become obsolete.
In their corpus-based book, Longman Grammar of Spoken and
Written English (L.G.S.W.E), Biber et al. (1999: 403) have studied
the frequency of affixes in a linguistic corpus consisting of different
registers. The research showed that the prefix re- and the suffix -ize
14
are the most productive, both in terms of the total number of verb
lexemes formed, and in terms of the number of relatively rare words.
There is a great similarity between conversation and academic
register concerning the frequency of derivational affixes.
The prefix re- is utterly productive in academic prose and news.
The most productive suffixes in conversation and academic style
are:
-ize: familiarize
-ate: differentiate
-ify: simplify
-en: awaken
The authors also mention that all these four frequent suffixes are
used to form verbs meaning ‘become’ or ‘cause to be’.
The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999)
describes the actual use of grammatical characteristics in various
registers of English: conversation, fiction, news, and academic prose.
The LGSWE adopts a corpus-based approach, i.e. the
grammatical descriptions are based on the patterns of structure and
use found in an impressive collection of spoken and written text,
stored electronically, and which can be searched by computer.
The book complements other grammatical descriptions by
investigating the linguistic structures actually used by the speakers
and writers in the last part of the twentieth century.
This is a proof that structure in use are not independent aspects
in a language; analysis of both is necessary to understand how
English grammar really works in the everyday communicative
activities of speakers and writers.
d) Conversion or zero derivation refers to the derivational
process by which a word belonging to a word class is changed into
another word class, without the addition of an affix.
- a large number of nouns can be converted to verbs: to book, to
paper, to park, to service, to process, to water. Most nouns
15
representing various parts of the body can be used as verbs: to head,
to elbow, to eye, to face.
- adjectives may also be converted to verbs: to clean, to dirty, to wet.
Multi-word verbs:
A multi-word verb is a lexical verb which may be combined with
a particle, with a preposition or with a particle and a preposition
functioning as a verb with a unitary meaning. Grammarians divided
multi-word verbs into three categories: phrasal verbs, prepositional
verbs, phrasal-prepositional verbs.
16
There is also a large number of phrasal verbs whose idiomatic
meaning cannot be inferred from the individual meanings of the
(base) verb and the adverbial particle.
The meaning of the phrasal verb is opaque. The particle changes
the meaning of the base verb to such an extent, that we have to learn
their meanings as a single unit, almost without association with the
base verb: to carry on (= to continue), make up (= to invent), to
show up (= to appear, arrive).
Phrasal verbs are quite common in informal English. In formal
language, they are sometimes replaced by one-word verbs (if there is
a synonym):
He was warned not to give away any information. (= reveal)
Some phrasal verbs are polysemantic and, depending on the
context, they can have a literal or an idiomatic meaning (Murar,
2010: 14). For instance, bring up:
Bring the fridge up. (the phrasal verb has a literal meaning,
i.e. carry the fridge up)
He brought his nephew up as his own child. (the phrasal
verb has an idiomatic meaning: ‘to raise’, ‘to educate’)
2. Syntactic issues of transitive phrasal verbs:
When the direct object is expressed by a noun, the object is
placed either before or after the adverbial particle):
He let Peter down again.
He let down Peter again.
The verb and particle may be separated by a short noun phrase. If
the direct object is expressed by a long noun phrase, the particle
comes immediately after the verb (the object is placed after verb +
adverbial particle):
They turned down very important European projects.
17
When the direct object is expressed by a pronoun, the adverbial
particle is placed after the object, i.e. a pronoun object always comes
before the adverbial particle:
He let him down again.
In their book, which is a corpus- based approach to English
grammar, Biber et al (1999: 409-413) also discuss phrasal verbs from
the frequency perspective. The large majority of phrasal verbs are
activity verbs and there are only few common phrasal verbs from the
fields of mental, communication, occurrence, and aspectual verbs.
Intransitive phrasal verbs are frequent in conversation and fiction,
but appear rarely in the academic register.
Transitive phrasal verbs are more evenly spread across registers.
The scholars give the following examples: put on, make up, find out,
carry out, take up, set up, point out.
The most encountered combinations (base verb + adverbial
particle) are:
take + apart, back, down, in, off, on, out, over, up
get + along, around, away, back, down, in, off, on, out,
through, up
come + about, across, along, around, back, down, in, off,
on, out, over, up
put + across, away, back, down, forward, in, off, on, out,
over, through, up
go + about, along, down, in, off, on, out, over, through,
up
b) Prepositional verbs
There are verbs which take an obligatory preposition (e.g. look
at, look after, listen to, wait for, take after, dream at, think of, etc.).
The verb and the preposition express a single idea.
He takes after his father. (= resembles)
18
The noun phrase following the preposition is termed
Prepositional Object. In fact, the purpose of the preposition is to
connect the NP, i.e. the object to the verb. With prepositional verbs,
the objects are always placed after the preposition, for instance:
Listen to the record.
Listen to it.
I’m waiting for the teacher.
I’m waiting for him.
In some cases, phrasal verbs with objects look identical to
prepositional verbs. But we can notice the difference when we use a
pronoun as an object. (Murar, 2010: 16). For instance, run down:
He ran down his own friend. / He ran him down. (phrasal verb)
He ran down the hill. / He ran down it. (prepositional verb)
There are two major structural patterns for prepositional verbs
(Biber et al, 1999: 413-415):
Pattern 1: NP + verb + preposition + NP
He asked for permission.
Pattern 2: NP + verb+ NP + preposition + NP
He based his idea on his vast experience.
Prepositional verbs are especially common in fiction.
Prepositional verbs have a higher frequency than phrasal verbs. The
fact that they are relatively common in academic register proves that
they do not have the same informal nuances as the phrasal verbs.
The same authors (ibid, 416) established which are the most
frequent prepositional verbs:
the verb look at is the most common in all registers
say to NP +quote is very common in conversation
think of- in fiction
19
depend on, be based on – academic prose.
c) Phrasal - Prepositional verbs are combinations consisting of
three items: a base verb, an adverbial particle, and a preposition (e.g.
look forward to, look down on, catch up with, put up with, run out of,
stand up for, etc.). The adverbial particle changes the meaning of the
base verb and the preposition links the Noun Phrase Object to the
verb. Both the particle and the preposition come immediately after
the verb. Phrasal - prepositional verbs are quite common in informal
English. In formal English, single-word verbs are preferred.
I get on with my neighbours very well. (= to have a good,
friendly relationship with);
I can’t put up with his behaviour any longer (=tolerate);
d) Idiomatic expressions
These are combinations of a verb + other parts of speech,
especially nouns, e.g. give way (= yield), make haste (= hurry,
hasten), make fun of / poke fun at (= ridicule), etc. In these
expressions, the verb itself has a diminished lexical value, while the
main semantic load is carried by the Nominal Phrase (Murar, 2010:
17).
20
2. The Past Tense Form (V-ed): lived, ate, read, studied, slept,
ran, walked.
3. The Past Participle Form (V-en): lived, eaten, read, studied,
slept, run, walked.
4. The –(e)s form: is added to the base for the 3rd person singular
Simple Present Tense: lives, eats, reads, studies, sleeps, runs, walks.
5. The –ing form, also called the form for the Present Participle.
It is formed by adding –ing to the base: living, eating, reading,
studying, sleeping, running, walking.
The conjugation of the English verb is based on the first three
forms (they are the dictionary forms of the English verbs): live –
lived - lived; swim – swam - swum. Depending on how they form the
Past Tense and the Past Participle, the English verbs are either
regular (live) or irregular (swim).
Regular verbs: Verbs like live which have the Past Tense and
the Past Participle in –ed are called regular: Regular means that we
can predict all the verb forms of the English verb once we know the
base form and the rule of forming the Past Tense and the Past
Participle by adding –ed to the base. Most English verbs are regular.
There is a general tendency to regularization, especially in American
English. All new verbs that are coined or borrowed from other
languages adopt this pattern, for example xerox – xeroxes - xeroxed,
xeroxing.
Irregular verbs: Verbs like eat, read, sleep, run, swim are
irregular in that we cannot predict their form for Past Tense and Past
Participle according to the rule. For an irregular verb, we must learn
the three forms (the base form, the Past Tense and the Past
Participle) individually. The irregular verbs form a small but very
important group of verbs from the point of their frequency in the
lexicon.
22
1) The negative of a verb phrase which contains an auxiliary is
formed by adding the negative particle not after the auxiliary:
Affirmative: Jean is reading now.
Negative: Jean is not reading now.
Affirmative: Jean could read when she was five.
Negative: Jean could not read when she was five.
Main verbs need the auxiliary do to form the negative:
Affirmative: Jean reads every day.
Negative: Jean does not read every day.
2) Auxiliaries admit inversion (the word order of subject and
verb in the sentence is changed; the auxiliary is placed before the
subject):
Interrogative sentences:
Affirmative: Jean is reading now.
Interrogative: Is Jean reading now?
Affirmative: Jean could read when she was five
Negative: Could Jean read when she was five?
Main verbs require the use of the operator do in order to form
this inversion:
Affirmative: Jean reads every day
Negative: Does Jean read every day?
For emphasis:
I have seldom seen such a mean woman. → Seldom have I
seen such a mean woman.
If the verb phrase is expressed by a main verb alone, then we
need the auxiliary do to perform the emphasis:
Mary knew very little about the subject. → Little did Mary
know about the subject.
23
3) Auxiliaries can be contracted in speech and in informal
writing. Contraction is a short form of a word, when we spell and
pronounce it. The contraction is added to the end of a word and is
marked in writing by an apostrophe (’).
All auxiliaries can be contracted when used in the negative:
usually not is spelled n’t and is added to the auxiliary:
Jean is not reading now. → Jean isn’t reading now.
Jean could read when she was five. → Jean couldn’t read
when she was five.
There are no negative contracted forms for am and may: In tag
questions and in informal register, aren’t is used as a contraction for
am I not: Aren’t I smart?
In informal English, in negative sentences we can choose
between the contraction of the verb or contraction of not:
She’s not reading. or She isn’t reading.
He’ll not miss the chance. or He won’t miss the chance.
Be (am, are, is), have (has, had), will (would) can be contracted
in the affirmative. The word which precedes the contraction is
usually a personal pronoun:
I’m working.
I’ve seen everything.
I’ll open the window.
Had and would have the same contracted form: ’d
I’d seen everything. (= had)
He’d buy the car if he had enough money. (= would)
Is and has use the same contraction: ’s
He’s working. (= is)
He’s worked a lot this week. (= has)
24
Contracted forms are enclitic, so they cannot occur at the
beginning or end of a sentence:
I haven’t been to Paris, but he has. (has can’t be
contracted)
4) Emphasis: In conversation, special emphasis is often placed
on auxiliary verbs. This emphasis can give some emotional force to
the whole utterance or it can make the difference between true and
false, or between present and past (Murar, 2010: 23).
These are the facts, you must believe me.
Normally, we use the weak forms [məst]. But if we want to
stress the fact that I am not lying, we place special emphasis on the
auxiliaries by using the strong forms [mʌst].
5) Auxiliaries can function as substitutes for main verbs when
we want to avoid repeating the previous verb. These reduced
constructions are used in:
short answers:
‘Is she cooking dinner?’
‘Yes, she is (cooking dinner). / ‘No, she isn’t.
‘Can she read now?’
‘Yes, she can (read)’/ ‘No, she can’t.
‘You’ll be a doctor next year’.
‘Yes, I will.’
Main verbs in the Present Tense Simple and Past Tense Simple
require the use of do as their substitute:
‘Mike lives here.’ ‘Yes, he certainly does.’
additions to remarks (ibid: 24):
The addition may be affirmative and the patterns are:
so + auxiliary + subject or subject +auxiliary + too
25
Pamela could dance and so could her brother. (could
replaces the verb phrase could dance)
Pamela could dance and her brother could too.
Main verbs which have no auxiliary in their composition need
the use of do as their substitute:
Pamela danced and so did her brother.
For negative additions, the patterns are:
neither / nor + auxiliary + subject
subject + auxiliary negative+ either
Pamela couldn’t dance and neither could her brother.
Pamela couldn’t dance and her brother couldn’t either.
26
John is studying.
Be + -en form (past participle) of a main verb forms the passive
voice of that verb:
The book was read.
Be + to-infinitive of a main verb is used as a modal auxiliary to
express an order, a command:
You are to leave before noon.
Have can be used as:
1. Main verb: As a main verb, have expresses different
meanings:
State meaning: ‘to possess’, ‘to own’:
He has a new fancy car.
A semantic distinction is made between: dynamic verbs, i.e.
verbs which express activities and state verbs, i.e. verbs which
express states. This distinction has an important role in the
morphological behaviour of the verbs, since state verbs do not occur
in progressive forms or in passive constructions.
There is an alternative to this form of have when it means ‘to
possess’: have got (have got is Present Perfect in form but its
meaning is Present Simple):
He’s got a new fancy car.
Have forms the interrogative and negative in either of the two
ways:
a) according to the rule for main verbs, i.e. with the auxiliary
do:
He doesn’t have any friends here.
b) as an auxiliary with inversion (only in British English):
He hasn’t any friends here.
27
Dynamic/action meanings, such as ‘take’, ‘eat’, ‘receive’,
‘experience’, etc. The interrogative and negative are always formed
with the auxiliary do, according to the rule for main verbs.
How many meals do you have a day?
We’re having an English class now.
They were having lunch.
2. Auxiliary verb:
Have + the past participle of a main verb is used to form the
perfective aspect, i.e.: The Present Perfect, The Past Perfect, The
Future Perfect, The Perfect Infinitive, The Perfect Participle, The
Perfect Gerund.
They have just come.
In Spoken English, the weak forms [həv], [həz], [həd], or the
contracted forms [‘ve, ‘s, ‘d] are used.
Have + to-infinitive of main verbs expresses the modal value of
obligation and provides all the tenses and forms that the defective
modal verb must has not (past, future). In this case, the strong forms
are used and they are never contracted:
I have to be at my office at 7 o’clock.
Have is contracted only when got is added to it:
I’ve got to be there.
The interrogative and negative forms are made according to the
rules for main verbs, i.e. with do:
Did you have to be there at 7 o’clock?
When got is added to have, the interrogative and negative forms
are made according to auxiliary verbs (without do):
I haven’t got to study tomorrow.
When followed by an object in the Accusative + a base verb
(short infinitive) have has a causative meaning = ‘make’:
28
I’ll have my engine checked tomorrow.
Have + object + Present Participle of main verbs means:
a) ‘cause’, ‘make’:
He had us studying very hard. (= made us study)
b) ‘permit’, ‘allow’ in negative sentences:
I won’t have you finishing so late.
Have + object + Past Participle of main verbs has a causative
meaning: ‘to cause someone to do something’, or ‘to cause
something to be done’:
I had my fence painted. (= I caused, i.e. employed someone
to paint it).
The interrogative and negative of Present and Past Simple are
formed with the auxiliary do:
Did you have your fence painted?
Do can be used as:
1. Main verb. As a main verb, do means: ‘to perform’, ‘to carry
out’.
What are you doing there?
As a main verb, do forms the interrogative and negative in the
Present and Past Simple with the auxiliary do (did):
What did you do there?
I didn’t do my homework.
Do can combine with a NP to form idioms:
Do+ a bit, the job, the car, the dishes, time, some work, your
hair.
I must go and do the car.
29
We can notice that do has minimal lexical content, referring only
to the performance of an activity that is relevant to the object noun
phrase (Biber et al.,1999: 430)
2. Auxiliary verb:
Do / did + the base form of the main verb is used to form the
negative of the main verb in the Present and Past Simple:
He wants to read.
He doesn’t want to read.
He wanted to read.
He didn’t want to read.
Do / did + the base form of the main verb is used to form
inversion:
a) in interrogative sentences:
He wants to read.
Does he want to read?
He wanted to read.
Did he want to read?
b) When a negative or restrictive adverb is placed in initial
position (at the beginning of a clause) for emphasis.
Little does she know about linguistics.
Do / did + the short Infinitive of the main verb is used to add
special emphasis to the verb (to stress the action expressed by the
verb) in the Present and Past Simple. Do / did are stressed in speech:
I did go here! Don’t you remember?
Do is also used in an imperative sentence for emphasis:
Do read the letter and don’t waste our time!
Most frequent verbs that occur with emphatic do are: have, get,
know, go, look, say, want, come, feel, see, think, make, like, need,
take, tell, work, believe, happen, hope, seem, occur (ibid.: 434).
30
c) As a substitute for a verb, functioning as a pro-verb when we
want to avoid repeating the verb:
Meg promised she would come and she did.
It is frequently used in short answers:
‘Do you like reading?’
‘Yes, I do.’
The pro-verb do is very frequently used in conversation,
relatively common in fiction and rarely found in journalistic and
academic prose (ibid: 432).
31
You must study.
B. PERFECTIVE TYPE: A form of the auxiliary have is followed
by a verb in the Past Participle:
He has studied.
C. PROGRESSIVE type: the auxiliary be is followed by a verb in
the Present Participle:
He is studying.
D. PASSIVE type: the verb be is followed by a verb in the Past
Participle:
This subject is studied at our university.
These four basic patterns may also combine with each other to
form more complex verb phrases (longer strings of verbs in one
single phrase). The order of the auxiliaries is a fixed one
(alphabetical order): (A) + (B) + (C) + (D) (Murar, 2010:32).
Quirk et al. (1979: 73) provide the types of combinations. Some
of these are:
AB: He must have checked.
AC: He must be checking.
AD: He must be checked.
BC: He has been checking.
In these chains, the complex verb phrase types are telescoped
into one another, i.e. combinations of the basic types form structures
where the head of the first is the auxiliary of the second (ibid.: 73-74)
The lexical meaning is contained in the last word: the main verb.
But the grammatical categories of person, number, or tense are
rendered by the first auxiliary (it is the first auxiliary that makes the
verbal group finite).
32
The first auxiliary in a verb phrase is called the operator. It
performs several important operations: negation, inversion,
substitution.
33
He is smoking. (intransitive V)
He is smoking a cigar. (transitive V)
3. Linking verbs (or copula(r) verbs)
A linking verb connects two Nominal Phrases: the subject of a
sentence to its predicative. The subject complement is usually a noun
or an adjective which completes the meaning of the subject. The
most common linking verb is be which is practically devoid of
meaning and only serves to link the subject with the subject
complement:
Roger is polite.
Roger is a doctor.
The other copula verbs are not entirely devoid of meaning.
The class of copulative verbs can be subcategorized into:
a) (+existential) (Verbs of state/Being): be, feel, lie, stand, stay,
sound, smell, taste.
He felt dizzy.
The doctor stood firm: he must avoid the sweets.
The cake tastes delicious.
It sounds interesting.
b) (+aspectual) (Verbs of Remaining): continue, hold, keep, remain,
rest:
Jane kept silent, in spite of all our questions.
He remained the same honest man.
c) (+inchoative) (Verbs of Becoming or Resulting Verbs): become,
come, fall, get, grow, go, make, run, turn:
His daughter became a teacher.
He’ s growing old.
She will make an excellent wife.
This river ran dry in August.
34
He turned pale.
I went mad when I heard that.
d) (+appearance) (Verbs of Seeming/Appearing): appear, look,
loom, seem.
He looked so sad.
The threat of misery looms large in Janet’s mind.
It seems a nice place.
Being completely devoid of lexical meaning, the verb be
displays the largest number of possible combinations, with any part
of speech that can have a nominal function, i.e. with a noun, an
adjective or a past participle, a pronoun, a numeral, an infinitive, a
gerund.
He is a doctor/incompetent/impressed.
This book is mine.
They were only four.
To succeed is to try.
His pleasure was reading old books.
Almost all copulatives combine with adjectives: appear,
become, continue, fall, feel, get, go, grow, lie, hold, look, keep,
remain, run, seem, stay, turn.
The function of connecting the subject with the subject
complement may be performed not only by a verb which has lost
its lexical meaning, but also by a verb of full meaning:
The sun rose red. = The sun was red when it rose. (The verb
rose performs here the role of a link – verb connecting the
subject sun with the subject complement red.)
Compare the following (Murar et al., 2010: 81):
The sun shone brightly (Verb + Adverbial Modifier of
Manner).
35
The sun shone bright and hot (Verb + Subject Complement).
The sun rose brightly and unclouded above the mountains
(Verb + Adverbial Modifier of Manner +Subject Complement).
Biber et al. (1999: 437-450) discuss the register distribution of
link verbs and common predicative adjectives.
The copula be is the most frequent verb taking an adjectival
complement and the pattern is more common in academic prose and
fiction. This linking verb displays all the possible combinations. The
verbs become, get, look, and feel are the next four most common
linking verb which take an adjectival complement.
Sensory copula verbs (feel., taste, smell) are present especially in
fiction.
The copular verb look is very common in fiction and relatively
common in informal style. It usually takes the adjective nice as
subject complement.
Seem is the most frequent in fiction, combining with adjectives
to express personal opinions.
Remain, keep, and stay express continuation of a certain state. Of
these verbs, the most common is remain, often encountered in
academic prose and journalistic style. Remain is associated with
static adjectives: constant, intact, low, open, closed, etc.
The resulting verb become is utterly frequent in academic
register and relatively common in fictional style, but rarely
encountered in informal English, in conversation. On the contrary,
get is very common in conversation. It is also common in fiction
register and has a number of uses, expressing an experience, a
change to a new state.
The link verbs be, seem, and appear can take a larger range of
valency patterns than the other link verbs. The complement of these
verbs can be an Adjectival Phrase, a Noun Phrase, Prepositional
Phrase, or complement clause.
She is a doctor.
36
This seems a good reason.
Peter seemed in charge.
This seems to prove the facts. (To Infinitive Clause)
The problem was that he rejected the proposal. (That
Clause, Predicative Clause)
CHAPTER 2
AN OVERVIEW OF THE GRAMMATICAL
CATEGORIES OF THE VERB
37
He is always telling lies. (is = finite verb form; telling = non-
finite verb form: Present Participle).
The finite forms of the verb in English are: the Indicative, the
Imperative, the Subjunctive and the Conditional.
The non-finite forms of the verb are represented by the
Infinitive, the -ing forms (Present Participle, Gerund) and Past
Participle. The non-finite forms lack the categories of person,
number, and tense. Syntactically, they cannot form the predicate in a
sentence; they occur on their own only in subordinate /dependent
clauses (called non-finite clauses, i.e. clauses without a finite verb):
Having been stung by the bees, he hates these insects.
2.1. The categories of person and number
The English verb has only one formal marker for these
categories, namely the -s for the 3rd person singular Present Tense,
Indicative Mood:
He studies in the library every Monday.
Since English has evolved from a highly inflected language to
almost an isolating one, these two categories (of person, number) are
usually identified by means of the subject (unlike Romanian where
the category of person can be identified by means of specific
endings: studiez, studiezi, studiază, studiem, etc.). Thus, the presence
of the subject is compulsory in English.
I / you study.
The category of person, namely 1 st pers. vs 2nd person is
identified by means of the subjects I vs. you.
Then Now
PAST PRESENT FUTURE
X X X
Temporal axis
Unlike other languages, where there is only one term for both
concepts (extralinguistic and linguistic), cf.. Romanian timp, French.
temps, English grammatical terminology has two terms: time for the
extralinguistic concept and tense for the linguistic notion, i.e. for the
verbal forms.
In English, there is little morhological indication of tense. The
Present Tense is actually the base form of the verb, except in the
third person where -s is added, and the Past Tense is realized by
adding -(e)d.
The correlation between tense and time is not straightforward,
according to Wales (2001: 389), since there are only two tenses in
English, but three main distinctions past, present and future.
As Lyons (1977) notices tense is a deictic category since
temporal reference is settled in relation to the speker’s now or then
in the discourse situation.
39
In fictional register where the world of the fiction intersects with
the world of narration, and also the world of the reader, temporal
relations are very complex (Wales, 2001: 389).
The grammatical category of tense relates the time of an event to
the moment when the utterance is produced about the respective
event (Ștefănescu, 1988: 320). Since the category of tense is
obviously dependent both upon the speaker (i.e. the person who
produces the utterance) and upon the time of the communication,
tense is a deictic category.
Deictic is a term which subsumes those items of the language
which refer to the personal, temporal or locational characteristics of
the situation within which an utterance takes place, whose meaning
is thus relative to the situational context: personal pronouns (I, you),
demonsratives, place and temporal adverbials.
Ștefănescu (1988: 226) and Murar (2010: 38-39) adopt
Reichenbach’s (1947) tense theory, according to which three
concepts are necessary for the temporal characterization of an event:
1. The speech time (ST): it is the time when the utterance is
produced, i.e. when the communication takes place (the NOW of the
deictic system).
2. The event time (ET): it is the time at which the event takes
place.
3. The reference time (RT): it is the time represented on the
temporal axis (present, past, future) specified in the sentence. A
sentence specifies the reference time by the combination of tense
inflections and time adverbs.
Taking the three divisions of time on the temporal axis as
reference points, events may be viewed in two ways: as being either
simultaneous with the reference points (i.e. they are performed at
these reference points) or perfected / completed before these
reference points.
If the reference point of time is PRESENT (symbolized by the
deictic adverb now), events can be expressed by means of two forms:
40
- events simultaneous with the present moment (i.e. performed at the
present moment) are expressed by the Present Tense;
- events completed before the present moment are expressed by the
Present Perfect Tense.
If the reference point of time is PAST (marked by the deictic
adverb then) events can be expressed by means of two forms:
- events simultaneous with the past moment (i.e. performed at the
past moment) are expressed by the Past Tense;
- events perfected before the past moment are expressed by the Past
Perfect.
If the reference point of time is FUTURE, events can be
expressed by means of two forms:
- events simultaneous with the future moment (performed at the
future moment) are expressed by the Future Tense or by other
means expressing futurity.
- events finished before the future moment are expressed by the
Future Perfect.
English tenses are verbal constructions expressing points of time
combined with the category of aspect.
Biber et al. (2005: 156) make a review of the category of tense:
41
Aspect is the grammatical category applied to verbs referring to
different perspectives of viewing the temporal constraints of an event
(Wales, 2001:31). It is the manner in which an action is perceived, or
experienced by the speaker or writer (Paidos, 2001: 7) In English,
aspect is concerned mainly with how the speaker perceives the
duration of events, and how different events relate to one another in
time.
Wales (2001:31) states that we can separate the two categories:
tense and aspect.
In time, the distinction between tense and aspect has become
blurred. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999: 110) consider that
if the natural distinction between the two categories, tense, which
relates to time and aspect, which is based on the internal structure of
the action occurring at any time, are treated separately at first, the
system that results from their subsequent combination is easier to
notice, and hence, easier to study.
Unlike tense, aspect is a non-deictic category.
English is marked formally for two aspects: perfect(ive) aspect
and progressive (continuous) aspect.
44
Be is used in the progressive aspect with certain adjectives such
as kind, obstinate, rude, polite, absurd, silly, stupid etc. to indicate
temporary behaviour. We can notice the difference:
John is a polite boy. (the simple aspect is used to express a
permanent state/quality/behaviour)
John is being a polite boy today. (the progressive aspect
expresses a temporary quality, state/behaviour)
Have is used in the continuous aspect when it does not mean ‘to
possess, to own’, when it is semantically recategorized. Compare:
I have a new bike.
I am having lunch.
They are having an English class.
In the last two sentences have is an activity verb.
45
Perception verbs (see, hear) may ocurr in the progressive forms
when they change their basic meaning and are used with other
meanings: they are no longer verbs of inert perception, expressing a
deliberate action Notice the difference:
46
c) Verbs of inert (involuntary) cognition (verbs of thinking,
referring to the activity of the mind): believe, consider, doubt,
forget, expect, guess, imagine, know, mean, realize, remember,
suppose, think, understand:
I think it is a very difficult subject.
‘Do you understand what this means?’ ‘No, I don’t
understand a word.
By inert or involuntary we understand an action happening
without conscious control or intention.
Some state verb of thinking (think, expect, consider, imagine) are
recategorized as activity verbs. In this case they can be used in the
progressive aspect:
I think he is an intelligent student. (think ‘it is my opinion’;
verb of inert, involuntary cognition, expressing a passive state of
mind)
I’m thinking of my problems. (think ‘ponder, reflect’
[activity verb]
I don’t consider him an intelligent man. (it’s my opinion)
I’m considering leaving the region for good. (consider
‘think of, reflect’).
Peter expected his brother to be a responsible man. (expect
‘think, believe’).
Peter is expecting guests (expect =‘wait for’)
47
He hates Roger Thorpe.
She wanted to leave at once.
I love him.
Verbs denoting feelings can be used in the progressive aspect if
they express temporary actions: (e.g., at a party, show, etc.):
‘Are you enjoying the wedding’?
‘I’m loving every minute.’
In their corpus -based grammar, Biber et. al (2005: 165-166)
synthetize the use of aspect across the registers and dialects as
follows:
There are two aspects in English: perfect and progressive and
they can be combined with Present, Past and Future.
Perfect aspect ‘points back’ to a previous time, and usually
indicates that the circumstance, or its result, continued up to a
given time.
Perfect aspect is most common in fiction register and news.
British newspapers use perfect aspect much more than American
newspapers.
Perfect aspect verbs are often used with time adverbials that
make the time reference clear. Past perfect is often used in
dependent clauses, and the main clause makes the time reference
explicit.
Progressive aspect signals an event in progress in the present or
one in the future that is quite certain.
Continuous aspect is more frequently used in spoken English,
and American English conversation uses the progressive forms
far more than British English conversation.
Surprisingly, the most common verbs in continuous aspect
include both dynamic and stative verbs.
48
The following chart (Celce-Murcia & Lars-Freeman, 1999: 110)
lists the three tenses along the vertical axis. The four aspects –
simple (sometimes called zero aspect), perfect, progressive, and their
combination, perfect progressive – are placed along the horizontal
axis. We illustrate the tense - aspect combinations with the irregular
verb eat and the regular verb study.
Future will eat will have eaten will be eating will have been
will study will have will be studying eating
studied will have been
studying
2.4. Voice is the grammatical category that concerns not only the
verb phrase but also other constituents of the sentence.
Voice expresses the relationship between the verb (the predicate)
on the one hand and the subject and object of the verb, on the other.
There are two voices in English: The Active and the Passive.
49
In the Active Voice, the grammatical subject and the agent / doer
of the action are identical:
Mary read the book.
Mike gave me a bunch of flowers.
The Active Voice shows that the grammatical subject (Mary,
Mike) performs the action (the grammatical subject is the agent, or
doer of the action). The grammatical subject is also the logical
subject of the sentence.
The previous examples changed into the Passive Voice become:
The book was read by Mary.
I was given a bunch of flowers.
A bunch of flowers was given to me.
We notice that the grammatical subject (the book, I, a bunch of
flowers) is the goal/ recipient, receiver, or undergoer of the action.
The grammatical subject is no longer the logical subject of the
sentence. The by-phrase (by Mary,) indicates the agent, the real doer
of the action, the logical subject.
It is obvious that in a passive sentence the emphasis is on the
action itself, not on the doer.
This grammatical category will be treated in extenso in a
separate chapter.
50
There are grammarians who distinguish four finite moods: the
Indicative, the Subjunctive, the Conditional and the Imperative (Leon
Levițchi, Alice Bădescu).
Some grammar books (see Carter and McCarthy, 2006: 911)
distinguish three moods:
1. Indicative expressing a factual meaning: Margaret studied here
four years.
2. Imperative expressing a directive meaning: Let’s study!
3. Subjunctive expressing a non-factual meaning: We insist that he
study Chemistry.
Other grammars limit the number of moods to only two: the
Indicative and the Subjunctive.
According to modern grammarians, the Conditional should be
analysed as a type of the Subjunctive on account of its form and
meaning. From the point of view of its form, the Conditional is
identical with some forms of the Analytical Subjunctive (it is formed
with the auxiliaries should and would); in point of meaning, just like
the Subjunctive, the Conditional expresses hypothetical values.
In our book we shall deal with three moods: the Indicative, the
Subjunctive and the Imperative. The conditional Mood will be
analysed as a subtype of the Analytical Subjunctive.
The Indicative and the Subjunctive are seen as the two basic
propositional modalities of English (Murar, 2010: 129).
The Indicative Mood is the mood of assertion, it presents the
action as real (or in close relation to reality) or as factual (i.e. as
existing in fact). It is the most common form and involves all the
categories: person, number, tense, aspect, modality and voice. The
tenses of the Indicative Mood cover all the divisions of time on the
temporal axis: past, present or future (as we will discuss them in the
next chapter).
The Subjunctive Mood is non-assertive, it presents non-factual,
hypothetical situations. By using the Subjunctive, the speaker sees
the action not as a real one, but as a hypothetical, possible, probable,
51
necessary action. Unlike the Indicative, the Subjunctive lacks deictic
temporal orientation.
The category of mood will be further dealt with in the chapter
The Subjunctive Mood.
52
53
CHAPTER 3
THE INDICATIVE MOOD. THE TENSE - ASPECT
SYSTEM IN ENGLISH
57
apologize, admit, deny, hope regret, thank etc. Syntactically,
they usually occur in the 1st person:
I apologize for all.
I hope you’ll be well soon.
3. The Present Simple is used with state verbs (verbs which cannot
be used in the progressive aspect):
I love you.
She knows all the facts.
In conclusion, the Present Simple has different values (generic,
habitual, instantaneous) which all have as a basic meaning the fact
that the event covers the present moment.
The Present Simple can indicate other temporal values: it can be
used to refer to the future and to the past.
make-making
hate-hating
60
see-seeing
If the verb of one syllable has a single vowel and ends in a single
consonant, this consonant is doubled:
run-running
put-putting
refer-referring
begin-beginning
study-studying
try-trying
61
Time markers (adverbs of time) are optional with the Present
Continuous because the tense itself is understood to mean ‘right
now’. These adverbials of time can be: now, right now, just now, at
the (present) moment:
62
He lives in London, but this month he is staying in New York.
63
As compared to the Present Simple with future time reference,
the anticipated event rendered by the Present Progressive is less
certain; the plan or arrangement may be changed. The Present
Continuous is used when the future action is the result of a personal
arrangement of the subject, while the Present Simple is used when
the future activity is regarded as part of a settled programme,
timetable, schedule, etc.
The difference between the Present Progressive and the Present
Simple can be seen in the following sentences:
64
I don’t like to listen to the music when I’m studying
She seems so nice if she is smiling.
65
The choice of verb form may depend entirely on the speaker’s
perception. The speaker may wish to take a synoptic view, a view of
an action or series of actions as a whole, in which case he/she
chooses the Present Simple. In describing a scientific experiment, a
researcher is more likely to use the sipmple aspect: he/she is
interested in his acts or in phenomena as elements in a chain of
events.
If the speaker is more concerned with drawing attention to the
fact that an activity is in progress or in a state of incompletion he/she
chooses the progressive form:
In each case the actions or phenomena are the same, but the
speaker looks at them differently (Leech, 1978, apud Murar, 2010:
59).
c) Another contrast is complete action versus incomplete action.
The Present Continuous indicates that the action is not
complete and, thus, it is again distinguished from the Present
Simple. This difference between complete and incomplete
actions is illustrated by event verbs (become, fall, get, go, stop)
which express a transition from one state to another.
The train stops. (The Present Simple indicates that the vehicle
arrived at a state of rest) [+complete].
The train is stopping. (The Present Continuous indicates that the
vehicle is only slowing down (in order to stop) [-complete].
68
- the Past Simple is used for an action whose time is not given
but which took place in a period of time now finished:
69
2. The Past Tense Simple expresses habitual, repeated past
actions, i.e. actions that regularly happened in the past but no
longer happen. The past simple is usually accompanied by an
adverbial of frequency such as always, never, often, frequently,
regularly:
I often studied in the morning when I was young.
Repeated actions in the past may also be rendered by means of
modal verbs used to + Infinitive or would + Infinitive.
Used to + infinitive is used for:
a) Past habit: with dynamic verbs it expresses repeated actions in
the past, i.e. a past habit which contrasts with the present. A
time expression is not necessary:
I used to drink a lot of coffee, but now I drink only green tea.
When I was young I used to go fishing every summer.
70
She would sit for hours in her arm-chair watching soap-
operas.
Peter would talk on the phone for minutes whenever he had
some spare time.
Would is typical of narrative style (mainly used in writing), but
used to is more characteristic of informal English.
According to Celce-Murcia et al. (1999, apud Murar, 2010: 68),
when used to and would occur together, used to tends to frame the
discourse, and would serves to elaborate (the topic):
When we were children, we used to play in the garden for
hours. We would stop only when we were called for dinner.
3. The Present Tense Simple is changed into the Past Tense Simple
in Reported Speech after a Past Tense in the main clause:
71
The effect of the Past Tense in a question such as Did you want
to talk to me? is to make the inquiry indirect and therefore more
polite than a question with the Present Tense: Do you want to talk to
me? The Present Tense in this case would seem rather brusque and
demanding (Leech, 1978: 15)
b) The Past Simple with the value of the Past Perfect
The Past Simple may occur instead of the Past Perfect in clauses
of time introduced by conjunctions like after (indicating the priority
of the action in time to the action of the main clause):
The particular past moment (which is the time of reference for the
verb in the past progressive) can be explicit or can be implicit.
a) The particular past moment is rendered explicitly by an
adverbial of time or by a clause:
- an adverbial of definite time: at 6 o’clock, at that time, all day, this
time yesterday/ last year, etc.
When she heard the bell, she went to open. But nobody was
there.
74
3. The past progressive is used to express a frequently repeated
action in the past, an irritating habit. The adverbs of
frequency used in this case are: always, forever, continually,
all the time, etc.
75
I was packing to leave town, the next day, but something
went wrong and I could not leave.
More frequently the form going to is used for unfulfilled plans:
Melinda was going to invite Beth, but her parents rejected
the idea.
The Past Simple versus the Past Continuous
The sentence with the Past Simple implies that the event actually
took place (death,), while in the second sentence with the Past
Progressive, the event did not take place if it was interrupted:
Mary was dying when the doctor giving that medicine saved her.
76
She wrote twenty e-mails in the afternoon.
c) The Past Simple sees the event as fulfilled, with no room for
change; the Past Progressive indicates that an event has
already begun and extends the event in time and, thus, a
change or interruption is possible (Murar, 2010):
Form: It is formed of the Present Tense of the auxiliary have and the
Past Participle of the main verb: I have studied, etc.
78
I have studied a lot.
I have met Eric.
But the Present Perfect is also used in the Temporal Clause if the
action expressed is still going on, i.e. if the two actions are parallel
(with verbs such as be, live, stay):
80
I’ve known all these good people since I’ve lived in this
town.
I. Resultative Value
The present perfect is used to express an action which was completed
in the past but which still has present significance, its effect being
felt in the present. The value of the present perfect is called
resultative because, although no longer continuing in the present
moment, the verbal form stresses the result, the effect of the action at
the present time.
81
With this value, the present perfect does not need adverbials (it is
used without any time adverbials), since we are not interested when
the action happened, we are interested only in the fact that the past
action has some effect at the present time, has present relevance:
b) Indefinite time
The Present Perfect is used for a temporally indefinite action while
the Past Tense for a definite action. When using the Present Perfect,
the time of the action is not given and it is not important. We are
especially interested in the result. The Past Tense is used when our
interest falls not only on the occurrence but also on the moment of
the event (when there is specific indication of past time in the
sentence).
Have you seen the movie? (it is still running on the cinema)
Did you see the movie? (it is not running any longer)
The period / length of time that has elapsed before the present time
is indicated by an adverbial phrase introduced by since (when the
starting point is given), for (when the duration is given), all, long:
86
The present perfect is used in the subordinate clause if the verb
denotes an action begun in the past and continued into the present.
Compare:
87
There are contextual situations in which both verbal forms are
possible but with some slight shades of different meaning:
I’ve worked on this project since last year. (I’ve just finished
it)
I’ve been working on this project since last year (I haven’t
finished it - I’m still working)
They’ve built a new resort. (The work is finished)
They’ve been building a new resort. (They are still working)
Form: It is formed with the Past Tense of the auxiliary have and
the Past Participle of the main verb: I had studied, etc.
89
a) an adverbial phrase of time: before, already, adverbial phrases
introduced by the prepositions by, until.
The adverbs already, just, hardly, scarcely, no sooner are often used
with the Past Perfect to show that the action expressed by the Past
Perfect simple is completed immediately before the other past action
expressed by the Past Tense:
When The Titanic hit an iceberg the passengers had just gone
to bed.
I had scarcely got into the room when it started to rain.
I had hardly/just got into the house when the phone rang.
They had no sooner entered the house than they started to
argue.
2. The Past Perfect Simple expresses a past action that took place
over a period of time. The action began before a given past moment
or past action and continued up to that past moment or action. The
Past Perfect Simple is used with this continuative value for those
verbs which cannot be used in the continuous aspect.
In this case, this tense is associated with two time markers:
91
a time marker introduced by for or since to show the
length/period of time or the starting point of time
a time marker to express the past point of time / action
The divers came across a wreck that had lain on the seabed for
over 200 years.
I had been in this town for five years when the accident
happened.
92
Direct speech:
‘I’ve seen Mary. I told her everything yesterday’.
Indirect speech:
Elizabeth said she had seen Mary. She added that she had told
her everything the day before.
When this tense is used with this Continuative value, two time
markers are required:
93
- an expression of time (a prepositional phrase) introduced by for
or since usually accompanies the Past Perfect Progressive.
- the past point of time or activity before which the action expressed
by the verb in the Past Perfect progressive takes place. This past
point of time may be indicated by:
i. an adverbial phrase introduced by the preposition by:
How long had you been working on your project when your
funds were increased?
She had been studying Chemistry for 15 years when she met
her husband.
94
usually occurs with this value in Adverbial Clauses of Cause
or Reason:
She was exhausted because she had been studying hard all
day.
95
Future with intention: a form which expresses a future action
which will be accomplished by the speaker in accordance with
his wishes. The Future Simple, Be Going To- form and Present
Continuous can be used in this way.
Future without intention: a verbal form which merely states that
a certain action will happen (The Present Simple and Future
Progressive)
96
This verbal form is tinged with modal values due to modal
auxiliaries will and shall, that is why it is not so common, other
means of expressing future reference being preferred. Besides future
reference, shall and will can acquire modal value when used in other
persons than specified above, or when used in some special
constructions (interrogative, negative).
It seems that the double function of shall and will as ‘future
auxiliaries’ and as ‘modal auxiliaries’ lies in the very nature of
futurity. We cannot be as certain of future happenings as we are of
events past and present and for this reason even the most confident
prognostication must indicate something of the speaker’s attitude and
so, be tinged with modality (Leech, 1978: 52).
‘Somebody is knocking.’
‘I’ll go to see who it is.’
Time markers to indicate the given future time are expressed by:
- an adverbial phrase denoting a point of time: at 2 o’clock, this
time tomorrow / next year etc.:
99
This is relevant if we compare the Future Simple and the Future
Progressive.
in affirmative sentences: unlike the Future Simple which
expresses the speaker’s intention of a future action, the
Future Progressive does not express intention:
When will you come again? (is a question about the listener’s
intentions)
When will you be coming again? (simply asks the interlocutor
to specify the time of his next visit)
‘Will you bring the books here?’
‘Yes, of course’
Will you be bringing the books here?
‘No, I think I will move them upstairs’.
100
in negative sentences: the Future Simple expresses refusal,
while the Future Continuous merely states that a certain
action will not take place:
Form: It consists of the future tense of the auxiliary have + the Past
Participle of the main verb:
101
The verb in the future perfect is used with a reference point (a time
marker) to indicate the future moment / action before which this
future action is seen as accomplished. The future moment from
which the action is viewed as completed may be indicated by means
of:
- an adverbial phrase introduced by the prepositions by, before, in:
2. Continuative use
With verbs which cannot be used in the progressive forms, the
Future Perfect Simple expresses an action started before a given
future moment and still going on at that future moment.
102
By the end of the month I will have been in London for 6
months.
With all perfect tenses (Present Perfect, Past Perfect, Future Perfect)
the adverb already emphasizes that the action expressed by the verb
is completed immediately before another reference point:
103
I had already studied for the exam when my brother came.
(expressed reference point: a past action - came)
I will already have studied for the exam when my brother
comes. (expressed reference point: a future action - come)
Use:
It expresses an action started before a certain future moment or
future action and still going on at that future moment or action and
maybe after.
Two time markers are usually required with this verbal form:
- a time marker introduced by the preposition for to indicate the
length of time (duration) of the activity
- a time marker which expresses the reference point (a given future
moment). The given future moment can be rendered by:
a) an adverbial phrase usually containing the word by:
By the end of the summer we will have been living in
London for ten years.
By five o’clock I will have been studying for 3 hours.
104
b) a subordinate Clause of Time (with the verb in the present
tense):
When my father retires he will have been working in the
same company for 37 years.
a) Be Going To
105
Prediction, i.e. the speaker’s feeling of strong probability, (the
future fulfilment of present cause). The going to – form
expresses a future action which appears inevitable due to present
causes or circumstances. The construction is used without a time
expression but usually refers to the near or immediate future.
The construction is found both with animate and inanimate [+
animate] subjects.
b) Be To + Infinitive
The construction has the following values:
107
pre-destined future (a future action which is bound to
happen):
If he is to become famous.
c) Be about to + Infinitive
The construction expresses an imminent future. It may be seen as
an equivalent to the be going to – form and Present Progressive.
The construction is used with animate and inanimate subjects. Time
markers are usually not required since the construction itself means
‘soon’, ‘right away’.
108
I am leaving for Paris tonight.
a) Would + Infinitive
109
The teacher was to defend his thesis that day.
They were packing because they were leaving the next day.
110
‘I will be meeting him tomorrow.’ → She said he would be
meeting him the next day.
He asked me whether I would come back soon.
He hoped that by his return Janet would have forgiven him.
111
There are various meanings expressed by present and
past tense:
Present tense verbs often refer to present time, expressing
a present state or a habitual action;
Present tense has also past or future value;
Past tense especially refers to past time, but it is
sometimes used to mark present time.
Future time is usually marked with modal verbs.
112
BE conversation: Have you read it yet?
113
CHAPTER 4
THE GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF VOICE
4.1. Introduction
Voice is the grammatical category which expresses the
relationship between the verb (the predicate) on the one hand and the
subject and object of the verb, on the other. Voice gives information
about the roles of different participants (agent or recipient) in an
event (Carter, 2006: 929). There are two voices in English: the active
and the passive voice.
Choice of voice represents one of several ways of organizing
the content of clauses.
The active voice is the most common and unmarked form of
voice, typically chosen to state something about the agent of an
action, the agent being expressed as the grammatical subject and
naturally begins the action (ibid.: 793). So, when the verb is in the
active voice, the grammatical subject and the agent / doer of the
action are the same:
115
4.2.1. The morphological level (the form of the verb)
The passive form of the verb phrase consists of the auxiliary be (or
get in some cases) followed by the Past Participle of the main verb.
The auxiliary (be / get) marks the categories of person, number, tense
aspect and mood. Finite forms as well as non-finite forms have the
grammatical category of voice. A verb has forms corresponding to
the active voice for all the tenses of the Indicative Mood, simple
aspect.
c) With other verbs, the passive with the auxiliary get indicates
involvement of the grammatical subject in the action.
Compare:
be-passive get-passive
A: Was he hurt? A: Did he get hurt?
B: No, he wasn’t hurt. B: No, he didn’t get hurt.
119
Those castles were built in the Middle Age.
The money was left here.
Carter and McCarthy (2006: 799) also take into account the
following situations when the agent is omitted:
120
-anticipatory it which makes forward reference to a complement
clause, and may be used to denote impersonal agency:
He lacks courage.
Jane resembles her grandma.
With some verbs, the passive is not possible when they refer to
states, but it is possible when they express an activity:
123
-the indirect object becomes the subject of the passive construction:
124
a) There are intransitive verbs such as live, sleep, sit
accompanied by a prepositional object (prep. + NP) which can
be used in the passive. The nominal element (NP) of the
prepositional object becomes the subject while the preposition
is retained by the verb.
Nobody has slept in this bed. → The bed has not been slept in.
Some prepositional verbs (look into, go into, arrive at) accept the
passive only when they have an abstract, figurative use. Notice the
difference:
Phrasal verbs:
125
They put off the wedding. → The wedding was put off.
126
(2) Great care was taken of his books (noun within the VP as
subject)
There are certain transitive verbs, such as: read, sell, peel, iron,
wash, etc. that can be used in the active voice, but with a passive
meaning.
The novel sold well.
Passivization is achieved only at the syntactic level without
affecting the morphology structure of the verb. The direct object
becomes the grammatical subject without a change of the verb into
the passive.
127
John came back yesterday and was immediately visited by his
close friends.
instead of: John came back yesterday and his close friends
immediately visited him.
129
of the clause , i.e. the agent, is placed at the end, where it does not
hold up the processing of the rest of the clause.
Principle 3: the long passive is preferred to place initial
stress on an element of the clause which is the topic, or theme, of the
discourse.
The same linguists (idem: 174) emphasize some major
aspects concerning the category of voice:
There are three types pf passive voice verb phrases : short
pasives, long and get-passives.
Unlike, active voice, passive voice reduces the importance
of the agent of the action and permits the receiver of the
action to become the subject of the sentence.
Passive voice is most common in the expository registers,
where agents are often unknown and irrelevant. In
academic prose, passives often relate to scientific methods
or logical relations. In news, passives often report
negative events.
Get-passives are rare and used almost exclusively in
informal style.
There are some verbs which usually occur as passives ( be
born, be based on) other verbs rarely are used in the
passive voice ( hate, like, want)
Voice and aspect combinations are possible; the perfect
passive is moderately common and the progressive
passive is rare.
130
131
CHAPTER 5
THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
132
2. [- real], i.e. not real, non-factual, hypothetical, possible, probable,
necessary, desirable, etc. (the Subjunctive Mood)
The Indicative Mood is the mood of assertion, it presents the
action as real (or in close relation to reality) or as factual (i.e. as
existing in fact). It is the most frequent form and involves all he
choices of person, number, tense, aspect, modality and voice. The
tenses of the Indicative Mood cover all the divisions of time on the
temporal axis: past, present or future. (see the third chapter).
The Subjunctive Mood is non-assertive, it denotes non-
factual, hypothetical situations. By using the Subjunctive, the
speaker considers the action not as real (as existing in reality) but as
hypothetical (as existing in his/her mind as a possibility, necessity,
supposition, doubt, wish, purpose, etc.). Unlike the Indicative, the
Subjunctive lacks deictic temporal orientation, i.e. it is not actualized
in time.
The Synthetic Subjunctive has three forms: The Present
Subjunctive, The Past Subjunctive and the Perfect Subjunctive.
Actually, the Subjunctive lacks deictic temporal orientation, i.e. it is
not actualized in time. So, these forms are improperly called tenses
since they do not mark temporal distinctions as the Indicative Mood
does. The so-called ‘tenses’ of the Subjunctive are used to indicate
remoteness from reality in various degrees. The Present and Past
Subjunctive are both used for present time reference with the
difference that the Present Subjunctive expresses a greater degree of
probability than the Past Subjunctive (which expresses doubt, and is
more remote from reality).
Uses:
134
The Present Subjunctive occurs in both independent sentences and
subordinate clauses:
oaths, curses:
135
It is / was important that he finish quickly.
136
The examples below are taken from the corpus based
grammar book written by Biber et al. (2005: 261):
I told her she could stay with me until she found a place, but
she insisted that she pay her own way. (FICTION)
The way in which we work, whether it be in an office or on
the factory floor, has undergone a major transformation in the past
decade. (NEWS)
Form: It has the same form with the Past Tense, e.g. studied. The
Past Subjunctive has preserved a form distinct from the Past Tense
Indicative only in the verb be, which has a unique form for all
persons: were. Yet, in informal language there is a tendency to
replace the invariable subjunctive form were with was in the 1st and
3rd person sg, so as to follow the paradigm of the Past Tense
Indicative.
It expresses a hypothetical meaning, an unreal event, contrary to the
present reality.
3) Conditional Clauses:
The Past Subjunctive is employed in Conditional Clauses of unreal
condition which refers to the present or future to express an
imaginary, situation contrary to present fact (Type2 Conditional
Clause):
138
If I were you, I wouldn’t sell my house.
If you studied more, you would get better results.
139
The Past Subjunctive is used in both the formal and informal style.
1) Object Clauses: After the verbs wish, would rather, the Perfect
Subjunctive expresses regret about a past situation or about an
action which did not take place in the past:
If you had studied more, you would have passed the exam.
5.2.2.1. Should
The modal-auxiliary should occurs in:
141
1) Independent sentences or main clauses:
to form the Present/Perfect Conditional in the 1 st person
singular and plural (British English, formal style):
2) Subordinate clauses:
Subject clauses:
After the construction It is + adjective (advisable, essential,
desirable, important, recommendable, necessary, etc.) the Analytic
Subjunctive with should occurs as an alternative to the Synthetic
Subjunctive present or to for-to infinitive:
Object clauses:
After verbs expressing command, decision, order, suggestion like
agree, command, demand, insist, order, propose, recommend,
suggest, etc. the Analytic Subjunctive with should is an alternative to
the Present Synthetic Subjunctive:
143
Object + infinitive structure: The captain ordered them to leave.
Possessive + -ing form: The captain insisted on their leaving.
.
Attributive-appositive clauses.
The subjunctive with should occurs after abstract nouns such as
demand, desire, intention, idea, order, proposal, reason, request,
suggestion, wish, etc.
Conditional clauses:
The Analytic Subjunctive with should occurs in conditional clauses
as an alternative to the Present Tense Indicative Mood (Conditional
Clause Type1), or to the Past Synthetic Subjunctive (Conditional
Clause Type 2) in order to express a higher degree of doubt, more
uncertainty (an action less likely to happen):
Type 1: If he calls, tell him I will call him back. (Indicative Mood)
If he should call, tell him I will call him back. (Subjunctive
with should = If he happens to call/ If by any chance he calls.)
or: Should he call, tell him I will call him back.
144
b) Clauses of negative purpose introduced by so that (+ negative
verb, pronoun), lest, for fear, in case (+ an affirmative verb):
146
He may have promised to study harder, but I don’t think he
will.
3) Subordinate clauses:
Helen has just given him the money so that he will pay the
fee.
She gave me the money so that I would buy the dictionary.
Thus, in 1., you might or might not believe me, and in 2., the
temperature may or may not fall below 22 degrees. These
clauses do not commit themselves to the truth or falsehood of
the proposition they contain.
149
In 4., it is clear that I cannot correct this, and in 5, that he
did not have a coin.
150
A conditional clause can soften the suggestion or
command (a strategy of politeness). It suggests that the action
is the hearer’s choice.
151
SUBORDINATE Synthetic S. Analytic S. Main Clause Subord. conj.
CLAUSE Pres Past Perf Modal- Constr. (that
so that
152
CHAPTER 6
THE IMPERATIVE MOOD
The Imperative is not only a verbal form, but also a type of the
sentence whose function is to express orders, commands, or requests.
Thus, from the functional point of view, the Imperative is opposed to
the declarative pattern not to the Indicative Mood (Murar, 2010:
129).
The Imperative Mood must be analysed within the framework of
the Imperative Sentences.
153
or if one changes the command into a question or a statement:
Will you sign here?
Would you mind signing here?
I wonder whether you would mind signing here.
Play the tape again, will you? (will you in final position
gives the imperative sentence the aspect of a tag question).
6.1.2. Commands with subject
It is implied in the meaning of a command that the omitted
subject of the imperative verb is the 2 nd person pronoun you. This is
intuitively clear, but it is also confirmed by the occurrence of you as
subject of the following disjunctive question: Be polite, will you! and
by the occurrence of yourself as object: Help yourself!
There is, however, a type of command in which the subject you
is overt. You indicates:
- the speaker’s annoyance (these commands are usually
admonitory in tone)
You shut up!
- a differentiation: to single out two or more distinct persons.
You lay the table, Jane, and you bring the drinks, Peter!
A third person subject is also possible: an indefinite pronoun
when the imperative is addressed to any person in the group.
Somebody help him!
Everybody hand in the papers!
157
Imperatives are frequently used in spoken English since
speakers often try to direct the activity of listeners. Similarly,
fiction texts use imperatives in dialogue fragments, but, of
course, their frequency is low as compared to conversation.
It is more surprising that the written informative registers
need imperatives. In fact, imperatives are more frequent than
questions in news and academic writing, presumably because
writers can use them as a strategy to manipulate the reaction
and behaviour of the reader (Biber et al., 2002: 255). For
example:
For full details of performances, talks, workshops,
contact the Third Eye Centre. (NEWS)
Biber et al. (1999: 221-222) concluded that specification of
the subject and the use of softening devices are generally rare:
less than 20% of all imperatives in conversation and fiction
have such characteristics. The most common modifications are
an overt subject you and a final vocative.
Surprisingly, these modifications are slightly more
frequent in fiction than in conversation and are rare in news
and academic prose, where the imperative is addressed to the
general reader and does not demand any favours. The low
proportion in spoken language is due to the informal situations
and the intimate relationship between the interlocutors.
Disjunctive questions, please, and do are rare in conversation
and fiction. The main difference between the two registers is
the higher frequency of just in conversation.
158
CHAPTER 7
MODALITY AND MODAL VERBS
159
The modal verbs are a special group of verbal forms which were
originally Past Tenses but now have the meaning of the Present
Tense: can, may, dare, shall were Past Indicatives; will, must, ought
were Past Subjunctives (Murar, 2010: 147).
As we have already stated, they are a limited number of verbal
forms (a closed-system) which share the same formal characteristics.
7. 1. Formal characteristics
1) The modal verbs are uninflected: they don’t add -s for the 3rd
person singular, i.e. all persons have the same form, probably due to
their being felt as subjunctives:
160
not always indicate past time: time reference is sometimes
inferred by context.
7. 2. Semantic characteristics
The modal verbs form a system of items specialized for
expressing the speaker’s attitude towards the action of the utterance:
the action can be considered as: possible, obligatory, probable, etc.
The modals are also used for requests, offers, suggestions as
strategies of politeness or to express our wishes and intentions.
Modals are polysemantic words: each modal verb has at least
two semantic values, a semantic property also reflected by the syntax
of these verbs.
Modals and semi-modals are grouped into three main categories
according to their main meanings:
1. ability/permission/possibility: can, could, may, might;
2. obligation /necessity: must, should, had better, have got
to, need to, ought to, be supposed to;
3. volition/prediction: will, would, shall, be going to.
Each modal can have two different types of meaning,
namely intrinsic (deontic) and extrinsic (epistemic).
Intrinsic or deontic (root, primary) modality refers to actions
that humans or other agents directly control: ability, permission,
obligation, volition, intention:
162
The negative of epistemic must is can’t. It expresses a negative
deduction:
The following tables are relevant for the semantic deontic and
epistemic values of modal verbs and for their syntactic behaviour
(Croitoru, 2002: 49-50):
Syntactic characteristics
Deontic value Epistemic value
a) They are not used in the a) They can be used in the
Perfective and in the Perfective and in the
Progressive Aspect: Progressive Aspect
You may leave now. He can’t have behaved like
(permission) that. He is very polite.
163
*He can be swimming. (impossibility, negative
(ability) deduction)
b) The subject must be animate: b) There is no selection restriction
*The fruit must fall from the on the subject:
tree. (obligation) The fruit must have fallen from
the tree. (certainty)
c) They have Past Tense forms: c) The forms might, could, would
might, could, would are Subjunctives, not past
They asked if they might equivalents:
leave. I wish he might succeed.
She wishes he could be there.
7. 2.1. Ability
The modal verbs can / could express the deontic concept of
ability, i.e. physical or mental ability to perform a certain activity.
Can + present infinitive is used for present and future actions.
165
The missing forms of can / could are supplied by the appropriate
periphrastic forms of be able / unable to:
He said he had fallen ill and hadn’t been able to get out of
bed.
7.2.2. Permission
This concept is expressed by may / might and can / could.
Asking and giving permission is a matter of politeness, so the
forms we use vary in different situations and registers. Can / could is
used in less formal situations (in a familiar environment). may /
might express permission in a formal register.
a) Informal requests for permission:
Might and could imply respect, that is why they are more natural
in questions, in requests for permission than in giving it:
167
a) present reference: may not, cannot, or by the stronger modal
must not (prohibition): May I leave now? No, you may not. / No, you
must not.
b) past reference, i.e. permission in the past is expressed by might,
could only in Reported Speech after a past reporting verb:
7.2.3. Obligation
Obligation is expressed by the following modal verbs: must,
need, shall, should, ought to.
Must expresses:
1) Present/future time reference. Several distinctions can be made
within the concept of obligation:
a) internal versus external obligation:
- internal obligation, i.e. obligation imposed by the speaker, or
derived from the speaker’s conviction or point of view is expressed
168
by must. Must conveys a personal feeling of duty, urgent obligation,
strong advice.
- external obligation, i.e. external authority, circumstances,
regulations, orders issued by someone else. It is expressed by have
to:
It needs to be repaired.
I need another smart dress for the party.
170
b) As a modal verb, need has no -s in the 3rd person singular; it
forms interrogative and negative without do; it has no perfect or
future forms; it is followed by the short infinitive of a main verb; it
occurs only in interrogative and negative sentences.
1) Need + present infinitive expresses:
Present / future time reference: in interrogative sentences
must and need are quite similar in meaning, but the use of
need instead of must shows that the speaker expects a
negative answer:
171
He didn’t need to take the test. (it was unnecessary for him
to take the test and probably he didn’t).
You don’t look too well: you should go to the doctor. (direct
personal statement).
Children ought not to spend too many hours in front of a
computer. (impersonal statement).
172
1) Shall in the 2nd and 3rd persons (it has future time reference).
The construction is chiefly used in formal style (official regulations,
legal language):
7.2.4. Possibility
The epistemic concept of possibility is expressed by may / might,
can / could.
1) present or future time reference:
a) affirmative sentences: may is used to denote factual possibility
(i.e. the actual chances of something happening), while can is used
to denote a more general, theoretical possibility (Murar, 2010: 160)
Compare:
177
In certain contexts may denotes the fact that the possibility of the
past action still exists, while might expresses the idea that a past
action was possible but was not accomplished:
‘Can they have missed the flight?’ ‘Yes, they may have.’
Could he have told a lie?
- negative:
In the negative, the meanings between might not and could not
differ:
You might not have read the letter yesterday (= perhaps you
didn’t read it).
You couldn’t have read the letter yesterday (negative
deduction about a past event).
178
You couldn’t have seen Jim yesterday. He is out of town.
(negative deduction about a past event)
c) nouns: possibility:
7.2.5. Probability
The extrinsic modality concept of probability, supposition,
likelihood, assumption, logical deduction, i.e. what we deduce or
conclude to be the most likely interpretation of a situation or a state–
is expressed by must, ought to, will, would.
179
The children must be studying in the library.
He has high grades. He must be a very good student.
They must be having a party.
She must have left. It’s very late. (= I suppose she left).
Joan must have missed the bus.
MUST
180
Must for obligation can be used in all types of sentences:
affirmative, interrogative and negative. Must for deduction
can be used in the affirmative only.
That will be the man we are looking for. (= That is probably the
man we are looking for).
181
Will + perfect infinitive expresses a present supposition about a
past situation:
b) adverbs: probably
182
Improbability can be expressed by shouldn’t, oughtn’t to, or it is
improbable / unlikely that:
183
d) with a 2nd and 3rd person will expresses obstinate
determination, insistence (strong volition). It has present
time reference and it is always stressed:
She would have her way and refused to listen to our advice.
Shall used in the 2nd and 3rd persons expresses speaker’s volition,
determination:
He shall graduate.
7.2.7. Habit
The concept of habit which refers to a habitual, repeated action or
state (i.e. what is characteristic under certain circumstances) is
expressed by will, would, used to.
Will + present infinitive is used with present time reference. It
expresses present repeated, habitual actions or specific, predictable
behaviour. The construction is used when we wish to emphasize the
characteristics of the performer rather than the action performed.
With this value will is used especially in the 3rd person (ibid.: 171)
She will sit there for hours posting on Facebook.
Children will be children.
As the construction with will is normal for the 3rd person, the
Present Tense Simple is used when reference is made to the other
persons:
b) a state that existed in the past (to contrast a past and present
state). Would may not be used as an alternative. Would cannot
be used for states, but only for past repeated actions:
Tom was used to training hard so that was not a problem for
him. (= was accustomed to…)
Ellen dare not have shown up if the bride hadn’t invited her.
The following table is very relevant for the multiple semantic values
of the modal verbs (Murar, 2010: 176)
MODAL VERBS
MODAL Ability Permission Obligation Possibility Deduction Volition
CAN X X X
COULD X X X
MAY X X
MIGHT X X
MUST X X
SHALL X X
SHOULD X X
OUGHT X X
WILL X X
WOULD X X
189
the complex relationship between modality and mood, and modality
and aspect (idem).
190
On the contrary, semi-modals tend to be more common in
American English (especially have to and be going to.
Modals expressing permission/possibility and
volition/prediction are considerably more common than
those marking obligation/necessity.
Most modals display strikingly different distributions
across registers.
Can and could are common in all types of registers.
May is very common in academic style, but rare in conversation.
Must and should are relatively common in academic register.
Will and would are frequent in all registers.
Be going to (including the form gonna) is the most common
semi-modal in spoken English. The same is true for have to.
The semi-modals bad better, have got to, and used to are also
relatively common in conversation.
It is interesting that British English is more innovative now than
American English regarding the use of semi-modals. Thus, the more
recent had better and have got to also transcribed gotta are more
frequent in spoken British English:
191
He had to deal forcefully with Britain’s Martin Brundle.
(NEWS)
Some reflex actions have to be learnt. (ACAD)
The researchers warn that they will have to treat many more
patients before they can report a cure. (NEWS)
I’m gonna have to stay. (CONV)
These two will need to rest for a good long time. (FICT)
I thought, perhaps, you might be going to be married.
(FICT)
193
194
195
CHAPTER 8
THE NON-FINITE FORMS OF THE VERB
8. 1. The Infinitive
8.1. 1.The forms of the Infinitive:
1) The Infinitive, the base form of the verb, names the action or
the state expressed by it, with no reference to person, number, tense
or mood. The Infinitive occurs in two forms:
The Long Infinitive / the to-Infinitive (the verbal form
preceded by the particle to) is generally used after verbs of
full lexical meaning:
196
She likes to study alone.
I can’t swim.
When these verbs are in the passive, they are followed by the to-
Infinitive in the Nominative with Infinitive construction:
197
Mary was heard to come.
I’d like to collect the last data and finish the project.
3) The Implicit Infinitive: the particle to is used alone, and the verb
is omitted if the latter is clearly understood from the context. The
Implicit Infinitive is used in spoken English to avoid the unnecessary
repetition of the verb. It mainly occurs after such verbs as hope, tell,
want, wish as well as after some semi-modal verbs such as ought to,
used to:
He invited the woman although I had told him not to.
‘Did you attend the optional course?’ ‘No, I wanted to, but I
didn’t have the time.’
198
The particle to is deleted when like, want are used in subordinate
clauses:
Chose what you like.
200
The Passive Infinitive may vary with the Active Infinitive after
certain constructions with be:
Be + Long Infinitive:
201
2) The subject of the Infinitive is retained in two patterns:
a) As a NP in the nominative (the Nominative + Infinitive
construction):
b) As a NP in the accusative:
The Accusative + Infinitive construction:
202
To eat fruit is healthy.
To run in the park in the morning has remained his pleasure.
He seems to be lying.
Do you happen to know the name of that king?
204
Verbs such as appear to, seem to, happen to, come to, get to, fail to,
tend to, followed by a lexical verb make up catenative verb phrases.
Catenative is a term referring to a lexical verb which governs the
non-finite form of another lexical verb, as with try in She tried to
escape. (Crystal, 1999: 50). In generative grammar such
constructions are known as control and raising constructions
(Cornilescu, 2012).
These verbs have meanings which are similar to some of the modal
verbs or meanings similar to those indicated by aspect choices. Yet,
they behave like lexical verbs in that they form their complex forms
with auxiliary do, be and have.
The catenative verbs express modal meanings, indicating whether
something is probable or certain, or aspectual meanings, indicating
whether something is completed (Murar, 2010).
The catenative verbs can be deleted without any major change to the
meaning:
Do you happen to know the name of that king? The sentence can
be rephrased as Do you know the name of that king?
He is sure to succeed.
205
He is unlikely to come.
207
The alternative construction is a that-clause with Subjunctive:
208
The Infinitive retains the preposition which would have occurred in
the relative clause:
8.1.4.4. Object
The Infinitive discharges the function of Direct Object after
certain transitive verbs:
a) Transitive verbs followed by an Infinitive only: afford, fail,
manage, prepare, threaten:
He threatened to resign.
We managed to finish the project.
Note: When the verbs see, feel indicate mental not physical
perceptions they cannot be followed by an Accusative + Infinitive,
but by a that clause (Murar, 2010: 192):
He made me laugh.
He tried to get me to agree.
212
They arranged for us to stay in this hotel.
We cannot wait for him to change his mind.
b) The subject of the finite verb is the object of the Infinitive (the
Infinitive has a passive meaning):
214
c) The subject of the finite verb is (at the same time) the
prepositional object of the Infinitive:
The bank was too wet to sit on.
215
Tom did nothing but sleep all day.
216
Heavy fighting with government troops was expected to break
out soon. (NEWS)
Hire a Daily Mirror van and wait for him to arrive. (CONV)
8. 2. 1. The Gerund
In some grammar books (see Carter & McCarthy, 2006: 905;
Swan, 2009), the term ‘Gerund’ refers only to the verb form ending
in –ing which functions as a noun (also termed verbal noun or –ing
noun):
b) Verbal characteristics:
A Gerund may be determined by an adverb, and it may
take an object if the verb is transitive:
219
The Indefinite Gerund (whether active or passive) expresses an
action simultaneous with the finite verb (which may be in the
present, past, future).
- with certain types of NPs which cannot take the ’s: inanimate
nouns, demonstrative pronouns, compound constructions, the formal
subject there, etc.:
2) Predicative
3) Premodifier
4) Object
The Gerund is used as a direct object after many transitive verbs.
These transitive verbs also take the Infinitive as object or a that-
clause. They fall into the following classes:
223
a) Transitive verbs followed by the Gerund only: avoid, enjoy,
escape, excuse, fancy, forgive, can’t help, keep (continue), risk,
can’t bear / stand:
The students admitted having studied very little for the exam.
The students admitted that they had studied very little for the
exam.
When the verbs begin, start are used in the continuous aspect, the
Infinitive is preferred (to avoid the repetition of –ing):
224
It’s starting to rain.
When love, like, prefer are used in the Conditional (would love /
like / prefer) the verbs are followed by the Infinitive:
226
The Gerund is the more common construction, in this
case, the grammatical subject of the finite verb being at
the same time the logical object of the Gerund:
5) Prepositional Object
The prepositional context is the most characteristic environment
for Gerund complements, being the only context that they do not
have in common with Infinitives or that-clauses. Unlike other types
of complements (Infinitives or that-clauses), Gerunds behave like
NPs with respect to prepositions, i.e. the preposition is not deleted
before Gerunds and NPs (Murar, 2010: 208).
227
He succeeded in changing her mind.
I am looking forward to going in Spain.
Some verbs like: aim at, decide on, long for can be followed by
either a preposition + Gerund or by an Infinitive:
A few adjectives like afraid of, ashamed of, delighted at, pleased
at, sorry for, surprised at etc. can be followed by a preposition +
Gerund or by an Infinitive / that-cause:
6) Prepositional Attribute.
The Gerund is used after nouns with preposition: difficulty in,
doubt about, objection to, opportunity of, pleasure of, cause for,
reason for, thought of:
228
I have no objection to his participating in the project.
I had the great pleasure of working together.
7) Adverbial Modifier
a) Adverbial Modifier of Time:
The Gerund is preceded by the prepositions after, before, on:
According to Carter & McCarthy (2006: 31), the verb in the –ing
form is many times more frequent in written than in spoken English.
In informal register there is a strong preference for a full finite
clause.
b) Adverbial Modifier of Manner:
The Gerund is preceded by the prepositions by, in, without:
229
d) Adverbial Modifier of Concession:
The Gerund is preceded by the prepositions in spite of, despite:
8. 2. 2. The Participle
There are two participle forms in English: the –Ing Participle or
Present Participle which expresses a progressive action or state
(with an active meaning) and the Past Participle which denotes an
action as a result (with a passive meaning).
I am studying.
He was working.
2) Noun Modifier
As a noun modifier (attribute), equivalent to a relative attributive
clause, the Participle can occur either before or after the noun it
determines:
a) Before the noun as premodifier: If the Participle has no other
determination (e.g. object or adverbial) it occurs before the noun.
When the Present Participle is used as an attribute, it usually
expresses a characteristic feature of the thing referred to by the noun:
When you get there, please, look carefully at the girl sitting in
the front line. = …who is sitting /…who will be sitting).
The –ing Participle Clause need not carry the meaning of the
continuous aspect:
3) Complex constructions
a) The Nominative + Participle construction: The Nominative
with the Participle consists of a NP in the Nominative case and a
Participle. It is actually a passive construction, similar to the
Nominative with the Infinitive construction from which it differs in
that it implies an event in progress, an incomplete action or state.
Syntactically, the construction discharges the function of a Complex
232
Subject. The Nominative with the Participle is required by the
following verbs:
- Verbs of physical perception: hear, notice, observe, see in the
passive voice):
I saw her cross the street. – (complete action: from one side to
another)
233
I saw her crossing the street – (incomplete action: on the way
to the other side).
4) Adverbial Modifier
This function is expressed by the Participle alone or by an
Absolute Participial Construction. The Absolute Participial
Construction contains a Participle which stands in predicate relation
to a noun / pronoun in the Nominative case, but the NP is not the
subject of the sentence. The Absolute Participial Construction is
quite common in literary English.
Greenbaum and Quirk (1990: 327) define this type of construction
as non-finite adverbial clause that have an overt subject but are not
introduced by a subordinator, so termed because they are not
explicitly bound to the matrix clause syntactically.
No further discussion arising, the meeting was brought to a
close.
234
According to the above mentioned linguists, adverbial participle
clauses without a subordinator are supplementive clauses: they do
not signal specific logical relations, but such relations are generally
clear from the context. The formal explicitness of supplementive
clauses allows considerable flexibility in what we may wish them to
express. According to the context, we may want to imply temporal,
conditional, causal, concessive relations.
Participial constructions have the following functions:
Having got their grades, the students left the class. (= When they
had got their grades, they left the class)
235
While I was studying in the library I met a high school
colleague.
The temporal clause can be reduced to:
While studying in the library I met a high school colleague.
Studying in the library, I met a high school colleague.
Opening the door, the thief took all he could find. = The thief
opened the door and took all he could find.
237
- With certain verbs, when the subject of the participle is the
indefinite pronoun one:
Judging from the facts, he seems to be a good man.
- In certain stereotyped phrases: roughly speaking, generally
speaking, strictly speaking, judging by appearances:
The sentence makes it appear that the brick was waiting for the
bus, which is nonsensical. The correct form is:
239
shrink, sink. When used as attributes, the Past Participle of these
verbs ends in –en: drunken, molten, rotten, shaven, shrunken,
sunken.
2) Complex Object:
240
The construction consisting in a NP in the Accusative and a Past
Participle has the syntactic function of a complex object. The
construction is required after the following verbs:
a) Verbs of physical perception see, hear, feel:
He left me amazed.
I want this project carried out.
experience sufferings:
Have/get + NP Acc. + Past Participle can be used informally to
replace a passive verb (usually one referring to some misfortune):
Her money was stolen before she had the chance to buy the
PC.
The sentence can be rephrased:
She had her money stolen before she had the chance to buy
the PC.
I got my leg hurt in the conflict.
3) Adverbial Modifier:
The Past Participle construction is used to reduce an adverbial
clause. This function can be expressed by a Past Participle alone or
by an Absolute Participial Construction (the Past Participle is
preceded by a NP functioning as its subject).
a) Adverbial Modifier of Time:
The Past Participle is usually preceded by the conjunctions when,
until, once:
242
When interrogated during the inquest, he kept silent.
243
There are three types of Adverbial Modifiers of Manner: i.
proper; ii. of comparison; iii. of attending circumstances
i. proper:
244
station.
Accusative + Past - Absolute Nominative
Participle + Past Participle
I want this finished - His work finished, he
at once. went for a walk with
his friends.
245
It is important to specify the states after the formulae in the
equation. (ACAD)
CONV: keep, start, go, stop, see NP, remember, think, get
NP, sit
FICT: keep, see NP, go, start, stop, begin, hear NP, come,
spend, remember, think, get NP, sit, feel NP, stand/stood
NEWS: start, keep, begin, see, NP, go, spend, come, stop, be
accused of
ACAD: be used for, involve, be achieved by/with
News and academic prose have more specialized verbs that control
ing-clauses:
246
Most adjectives that control ing-clauses express a personal feeling or
attitude, or some evaluation of the message in the ing-clause:
247
248
BIBLIOGRAPHY
251