Download A Structural Account of English Tenseless Clausal

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‫گۆڤارى زانکۆ بۆ زانستە مرۆڤایەتییەکان‬
A Structural Account of English Tenseless Clausal Constructions
pp. (1-8)
A. Prof. Dr. Himdad Abdul-Qahhar Muhammad A. I. Salih Ibrahim Ahmed
Salahadin University-Erbil
University of Raparin
College of Basic Education
Faculty of Education
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
This paper is an attempt to present a new classification for clausal constructions in English language,
namely tenseless constructions. Moreover, it provides a structural account for this issue. It groups infinitive
clauses, participle clauses, verbless clauses, and subjunctive that-clauses under the term „tenseless‟ due to the
absence of tense indicator in their structures. On this basis, the dichotomy of finite vs. non-finite is an imperfect
classification as it excludes verbless and subjunctive that-clauses. Thus, the dichotomy of tensed vs. tenseless
clauses is a better alternative since tenselessness is the feature which is common among all other clausal
constructions other than tensed clauses. The focus of the paper is on the tenseless clausal constructions, and it
consists of four sections: infinitive clauses, participle clauses, verbless clauses, and subjunctive that-clauses. The
paper ends with the conclusions achieved throughout the study. One of the conclusions is that tenseless clauses
are subordinate, and their structure is usually determined by the main-clause verb.
Keywords: tenseless constructions , finite clauses , that-clauses
1. Infinitive Clauses
nfinitive clauses are said to be a common type of tenseless clausal constructions. It is so
called because the clause is introduced by an infinitive, with or without „to‟, and the
clause totally depends on the type of the infinitive. Hence, infinitive clauses fall into two
subtypes: to-infinitive clauses and bare infinitive clauses (namely infinitive clauses without
„to‟). Of the two subtypes, the to-infinitive clause attracts greater attention as it has many
more occurrences and uses than the bare infinitive clause.
The to-infinitive clause may occur with or without subject, and it can be classified with
respect to time. Of this, Declerk (2006: 17) mentions present infinitive (to do) and perfect
infinitive (to have done). The former expresses simultaneity to the time of the action while the
latter expresses anteriority.
(1) John seems to be happy.
(2) John seems to have been happy.
With respect to (1), the to-infinitive clause tells us that John‟s happiness simultaneously
coincides with his presence in the contextual time of the main clause. In (2), his happiness has
happened before the given situation.
One of the related issues to to-infinitive clauses is control. In talking about control the
focus is on the to-infinitive clause without subject because, when the subject is present in the
to-infinitive clause, there is nothing to be controlled by the controller in the main clause.
Cook and Newson (2007: 87) claim that a semantic-syntactic subject is implied while this
implied subject is absent phonologically since it is not pronounced. This phonologically
empty subject is known as PRO. In the example below, the controller of the empty pronoun
PRO is „she‟.
(3) She attempted PRO to start the car.
According to Crystal (2003: 107), there is a relationship between PRO and the NP to
which PRO refers, this relationship is called reference. Cook and Newson (2007: 89) argue
that the reference of PRO is determined by the verb in the main clause. Thus, verbs like „ask‟
and „persuade‟ are known as object control verbs because their object is the controller.
Conversely, verbs like „promise‟ and „pledge‟ are subject control verbs since their subject is
the controller. It follows that sentence (4) involves object control while (5) involves subject
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control. From this perspective, subject control and object control are regarded as two types of
control on the condition that there is an antecedent (i.e. a controller) in the main clause.
Briefly speaking, control is the reference, PRO is controlled by either the subject or the
object, which are called controllers and they occur in the main clause.
(4) I asked himi PROi to root out corruption in the company.
(5) Ii promised him PROi to root out corruption in the company.
Another phenomenon which is closely related to to-infinitive clauses is raising. Like
control, raising occurs when verbs such as seem and appear occur in the complex sentence.
These verbs, as mentioned in Trask (1993: 228), are called raising verbs. The presence of
these verbs leads to raising from the to-infinitive clause to the main clause. Thus, raising can
be defined as the movement of the subject from the to-infinitive clause to the main clause
under the conditions of having certain verbs (raising verbs). In such a condition , the subject
position of the main clause will be vacant and possible to be filled by the moved subject.
(6) Kate appears to be angry.
What sentence (6) claims is that the person who is angry is Kate, hence Kate is not the
semantic subject of the verb „appear‟. Rather, she is the semantic subject of „to be angry‟, and
it is seen in the main clause due to raising.
Now, let‟s turn our consideration to bare infinitive clauses. The occurrence of this subtype
is very restricted because, as Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999: 640-1) claim, the
presence of a small set of verbs in the main clause produces the bare infinitive clause. The
verbs include: make, see, hear, feel, let, have, help, observe, and watch. One should bear in
mind that when the verb is help, the infinitive may be bare or may occur with „to‟ (Ibid.: 661).
(7) They helped us (to) clean the house.
The structure of the bare infinitive clause may be very simple, even it may consist of only
one word (the bare stem alone) as in (8) below. The clause can also be extended by adding
some optional element such as an NP or an AdvP as in (9). The italicised units in the
examples are bare infinitive clauses.
(8) I made him leave.
(9) I made him leave the house / leave quickly.
Like to-infinitive clauses, the bare ones can occur with or without subject as in (10) and
(11) (Greenbaum, 1996: 329):
(10) We had her want to go to the restaurant.
(11) I think it helps support our style of policing structure.
Concerning the example sentence (10), a question may arise: whether „her‟ is the direct
object of the complex sentence or not. The answer to the question is that it cannot be the
direct object since it is a part of the subordinate clause (bare infinitive clause) in that it
becomes the subject of the clause, and the bare infinitive clause with its subject together
become a clausal complement to the verb of the main clause (Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman, 1999: 641). As for the form of this subject, van Gelderen (2002: 136) affirms that it
has to be accusative rather than nominative even though it functions as the subject.
At the end of this section, we test the claim of infinitive clauses‟ tenselessness. All the
above mentioned examples (1-11) are complex sentences, the sentences (1,2,6, and 11) are
present, and (3,4,5,7,8,9, and 10) are past, when taking the whole complex sentences into
consideration. Contrastively, when taking only the infinitive clauses (the italicised written
parts), the tense distinction is neutralised in that they carry no tense. Thus, one concludes that
infinitive clauses are tenseless.
2. Participle Clauses
Participle clauses, like infinitive clauses, are introduced by a verb form. Different from
infinitive clauses, the verb form is not an infinitive; it is a participle form. Therefore, the
clause is called „participle clause‟. It is commonly said that there exist two types of participle
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clauses: present participle and past participle. To Declerk (2006: 17), these two labels are not
quite felicitous as the terms past and present are tense distinctions while participle clauses are
tenseless. The researcher totally agrees with Declerk‟s view because participle clauses carry
no indication of tense as can be seen in the following examples. Whatever tense the whole
complex sentence has, the participle clause (the italicized part) is invariably tenseless.
(12a) I know the man talking to my brother.
(present)
(12b) I knew the man talking to my brother.
(past)
(13a) An article prepared by my teacher will appear next week.
(present)
(13b) An article prepared by my teacher appeared last week.
(past)
Depending on such examples, and following Quirk et al. (1985: 1263-4), the researcher
prefers using the terms –ing participle clause and –ed participle clause instead of present
participle and past participle clauses, respectively. Sometimes, the -ed participle clause may
be labelled –en clause, as mentioned in Downing and Locke (2006: 71), because the term –ed
participle verb form is equivalent to –en verb form.
van Gelderen (2002: 136) claims that one of the functions that participle clauses can have
is being adverbial. On this basis, when the participle clause is an adverbial in the sentence
structure, it can also be called adverbial clause because its existence in the sentence is
optional. To put it in other words, removing the participle clause in the sentence structure has
no influence on the meaning of the sentence as can be seen is (14) and (15) below.
(14) Driving very fast, he terrified everyone in the road.
(15) Nominated as president, he is now in power.
It is obvious that adverbial clauses normally begin with a subordinator, but the participle
clause functioning as an adverbial clause can occur without a subordinator. Or, they may
occur without subject. On such grounds, Greenbaum (1996: 337) asserts that when the
participle clause occurs without a subordinator, its meaning is vague in relation to the main
clause. For example, the –ing participle clause in (14) could be temporal after introducing it
with after „after driving very fast, …‟ or it may be causal by using because of „because of
driving very fast, …‟. As for the missing subject, it is understood as identical to the subject of
the main clause. Thus, the sentence (14) is interpreted as „He drove/was driving very fast, …‟,
and that of (15) as „He was nominated as president, …‟. Now, one can see that lacking subject
does not produce any ambiguity since the position of the missing subject can be filled by the
subject of the main clause while lacking a subordinator causes ambiguity in that it makes the
meaning of the participle clause obscure.
As already mentioned, –ing participles appear with and without subject. When they occur
as the complement and with subject, the form of the subject determines its case. Quirk et al.
(1985: 1194) indicate that when the subject is a pronoun with a personal reference, it normally
appears in objective case. The genitive case is also possible in formal contexts, but it is rare
when the pronoun has a non-personal reference or when the subject is not a pronoun.
(16) We look forward to you/your becoming our neighbour.
children
(17) I hate the ?
children’s
quarrelling.
it
(18) I look forward to
getting warmer in spring.
? its
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Participle clauses, both –ing and –ed participles, can function as a post-modifier of a noun
phrase. In doing so, they correspond to a relative clause whose relative pronoun is subject.
wrote
was writing
(19a) The person who
writes
reports is my colleague.
is writing
will write
will be writing
(19b) The person writing reports is my colleague.
was (being) repaired
(20) The car that
is (being) repaired
by that mechanic is mine.
will be repaired
(20b) The car (being) repaired by that mechanic is mine.
Although –ing participles and –ed participles are similar in relation to the above feature,
namely post-modification, there is a difference between the two in determining the aspect of
the action. Further look at the example sentences (19) and (20) shows that in (19a) six
different verb forms exist with simple and progressive aspects, but all of them have only one
form in (19b) which is „writing‟. Thus, the aspectual contrast is neutralised when –ing
participle clauses post-modify noun phrases. Conversely, –ed participle clauses indicate
aspectual contrast, for example, the progressive version of (20a) has a progressive equivalent
in (20b), which appears with „being‟. Taking the simple aspect into account, the aspect
marker „being‟ does not appear (Ibid.: 1263-5).
Finally, what is concluded in considering participle clauses is that they are tenseless
subordinate clauses to another superordinate tensed clause. This statement can be proved by
dealing with the examples (12-20) above as the participle clauses occur with present and past
superordinate clauses but they themselves carry no tense. Moreover, –ed participle clauses
usually correspond to sentences with the passive voice.
3. Verbless Clauses
As the title suggests, this kind of clauses is different from the other two types discussed
before. Infinitive clauses and participle clauses are introduced by a verb while verbless
clauses have no verb element in their structure whatsoever. The term “clause” is a two-fold
term in that it may simply refer to a simple sentence, or to a part in a complex sentence. The
status of the verbless construction depends on how it occurs: alone or being a part of a
complex sentence. In both situations, it is explicitly tenseless since it lacks the tense indicator
element. Yet, it can be implied that it is implicitly tensed when it can stand alone, even though
the verb is absent because the pragmatic context determines its tense as being present. The
implied tense is always expected to be the present tense. The structure can appear in an
imperative, a question, or an exclamative form.
Before going into the detail of verbless clauses, a question arises. Is it possible for a
construction without a verb to be a clause? Or, to put it in other words, is a verbless
construction a clause? The question is certainly answered positively in that it can be proved
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syntactically and semantically. From a syntactic point of view, Quirk et al. (1985: 992) assert
that verbless constructions are recognised as clauses as they put “. . . because we can analyse
their internal structure into the same functional elements that we distinguish in finite clauses.”
The part in italics in (21a) is the verbless structure which is equivalent to the finite
subordinate clause in (21b).
(21a) Although [conj] always [A] helpful [Cs], he was not liked.
(21b) Although [conj] he [S] was [V] always [A] helpful [Cs], he was not liked.
Semantically, Miller (2002: 85) affirms that verbless constructions are clauses on the
ground that they express propositions. Moreover, Newson (2006: 288) adds that the basic
proposition of the clause is not expressed by the verb, it is expressed by the other elements
such as predicate and its arguments. Depending on these views, the present paper adopts the
term „verbless clauses‟ in a general sense to refer to any meaningful construction which lacks
the verb element.
Downing and Locke (2006: 195) define „verbless clause‟ as the term referring to “ellipted
clauses which lack one or more structural elements . . . ”. It is clear that their definition
focuses on the structure of verbless clauses. One of the missing elements is always the verb as
the term itself suggests. They (Ibid.) present a number of examples standing alone (not being
a part of a complex sentence) and refer to them as verbless clauses. These verbless clauses
can take question tags, the verbless clause may carry the force of question or exclamation
subject to intonation (rising or falling) when the tag is absent. Here are some examples of
these kinds of verbless clauses:
(22) In London, isn‟t he?
(23) What a waste of time!
(24) Sure?
(25) Fantastic!
In addition to the structures above, some aphoristic sentences which are usually common
in proverbs, and some block language expressions in which no verb is needed belong to
verbless constructions in that an element or more are ellipted. The element which usually
appears to be ellipted is the verb BE because of its low information value (Quirk et al., 1985:
843-5). The examples in (26), which are proverbs, may implicitly carry the present tense
because the past tense is not used when paraphrasing proverbs as they are not limited to a
certain time. In other words, proverbs belong to tenseless expressions. Similarly, the block
language expressions in (27) can bear an underlying present tense due to their contextual use,
i.e., their pragmatic interpretation tells us that they should be present not past. Once more,
they are explicitly tenseless.
(26a) No work, no money.
(26b) In for a penny, in for a pound.
(26c) Out of sight, out of mind.
(27a) No entry (= there is no entry)
(27b) Entrance (= here is the entrance)
(27c) For Sale (= this is for sale)
Cappelle (2005: 239-43) asserts that particles, which usually occur with verbs, can alone
become verbless clauses. This is normal when the particle is used in a directive way. The
particle can appear with or without a noun phrase. Below is the summary of the situations in
which a particle can be regarded as a verbless clause:
A. Verbless directives without an NP
This type consists of only an emphatic particle. The following two examples show that this
type can be seen as a shortened version of a structure consisting of a light verb „get‟ and a
particle together functioning as an imperative sentence.
(28) Out! (= Get out!)
(29) In!
(= Get in!)
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B. Verbless directives with an NP
There is a syntactic difference between this type and the first one since there is an NP
preceding the particle, and the form of the NP has to be a bare noun as in (30a). The
difference is restricted only in syntactic structure because, pragmatically, both types have the
same illocutionary force.
(30a) Hands up! (= Put your hands up!)
Hands off! (= Keep your hands off!)
(30b) *Your hands up/off!
One should bear in mind that it is a mistake to generalise all noun-particle combinations as
verbless directives with an NP. For instance, hands down, or head on are idiomatic
expressions and they have special meanings.
C. Verbless directives with a PP
This type, too, has the sense of coerciveness in common with the other two types.
Semantically, it is usually (not always) related to a „Let‟s-directive‟. For example, the
example (31) can be paraphrased as „Let‟s get on with the show‟ while (32) cannot have any
correspondence to „Let‟s get off with her head‟ because it cannot be considered elliptical as it
is the case with (31).
(31) On with the show!
(32) Off with her head!
Once again, all the directives above can have an implicit present tense since they appear as
imperative sentences, and imperatives are always present on the basis of their pragmatic
interpretation.
So far, verbless clauses have been discussed and exemplified as independent clauses that
can stand alone. Henceforth, we shall confine ourselves to verbless clauses that appear
subordinate to another clause with which they are found.
As shown before, one of the missing elements is invariably the verb. In addition to the
verb, other elements can be absent in the structure of the verbless clause. Other missing
elements could be subject, a subordinator, or both. Concerning this, Quirk et al. (1985: 996)
postulate that the missing subject can be recovered from the context in that it is identical to
the subject of the other clause. But when the subject is available, only the verb is supposed to
be recovered.
(33) Whether right or wrong, he usually speaks furiously. (=whether she is right or wrong)
(34) Here he fought, a pistol in each hand.
(= a pistol was in each hand)
Among the seven sentence structures, there are two structures, namely SVC and SVA
whose verb constituent is typically BE. Having said the missing verb is a form of BE, a
correspondence can be found between these two sentence structures and verbless clauses with
or without subject or a subordinator (Ibid.). The following two example sentences show that
the italicised verbless clause in (35) corresponds to SVC structure, and that of (36)
corresponds to SVA structure.
(35) We can meet again tomorrow, if necessary. (= if it is necessary: SVC)
(36) Jane sat in the front seat, her hands in her lap. (= her hands are in her lap: SVA)
As we saw, verbless clauses correspond to the two sentence structures SVC and SVA. In
relation to this, Greenbaum and Nelson (2009: 20) claim that the SVOC and SVOA sentence
structures parallel to the SVC and SVA structures, respectively. Thus, one can find a verbless
clause in SVOC and SVOA structures. It is obvious that the object in SVOC and SVOA is
originally the subject of SVC and SVA, but this subject becomes the object of the larger
sentence after the process of mixing. As the following examples demonstrate, the verb BE
exists in (37) while it is omitted in (38) after putting the small sentence into the other.
(37a) Tom is tall.
(Tom is the subject) SVC
(37b) Tom is outside.
(Tom is the subject) SVA
(38a) I consider Tom tall.
(Tom is the object)
SVOC
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(38b) I require Tom outside.
(Tom is the object)
SVOA
Here, we can prove that verbless clauses can be found in SVOC and SVOA sentence
structures. As for the name of this kind of verbless clauses, as cited in Newson (2006: 288),
the term „small clauses‟ is adopted. He also adds that the structure of the small clause totally
depends on the preceding verb to which the small clause becomes a complement. Consider
the following:
(39) I consider him a liar / untrustworthy / *in the garden.
(40) I ordered him out of the room / *a fool / *foolish.
What the above examples claim is that the verb „consider‟ takes a small clause including
an NP, an AdjP, but not a PP. On the contrary, the verb „order‟ takes a small clause including
a PP, but not an NP or an AdjP.
4. Subjunctive that-Clauses
This type of tenseless clausal construction is a clause which is introduced by that and
carries a subjunctive mood. The subjunctive that-clause, like other tenseless clauses, is a
subordinate clause. According to Quirk and Greenbaum (1973: 51), the verb form in this kind
of construction is always the base form. On this basis, the distinction in person, number, and
tense is absent all the time. They also show the subjunctive that-clause can be placed after
volitional verbs such as demand, insist, command, recommend, suggest, propose, order, etc.
They (Ibid.: 355-6) add that in addition to volitional verbs, volitional adjectives can also
accept a subjunctive that-clause. It follows that the modal aspect of the predicate of the main
clause determines the structure of the subordinate clause. Here, volitional predicates require a
specific kind of subordinate tenseless clause, i.e., a subjunctive that-clause.
(41a) They insist that John sign up for counselors.
(41b) They insisted that they sign up for a counselor.
keen
(42) He was
that they/he be present.
insistent
Here, the complex sentence of (41a) is present and that of (41b) is past while the
subjunctive that-clauses have no indication of tense in that the verb form is the base in both
sentences. Thus, this holds true that the subjunctive that-clause is a tenseless construction. As
for (42), it is obvious that the verb form has to be the base even if it is BE.
Regarding negative subjunctive that-clauses, as stated by Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman (1999: 632-3), the negation element appears before the base verb form, and the
dummy operator DO is not permissible as can be seen in (43b) below.
(43a) We demand(ed) that he not make the telephone call.
do
(43b) *We demand(ed) that he
not make the telephone call.
does
It is well-known that using subjunctive that-clauses is not common in present-day English.
Of this, Radford (2004: 478) confirms that this construction is generally avoided since,
sociolinguistically speaking, it is excessively formal.
5. Conclusions
1-Three different types of clauses: non-finite clauses, verbless clauses, and subjunctive thatclauses can be grouped together under one cover term, namely tenseless clauses.
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2-Tenseless clauses are usually subordinate in that they occur in complex sentences; their
structure is usually determined by the main-clause verb.
3-Even though verbless clauses have no verb element in their structure, they are considered
tenseless because lacking the verb implies the absence of tense. Additionally, verbless clauses
that can appear alone independently are explicitly tenseless, but there is an implicit present
tense when they are considered pragmatically.
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