Download Contrasts expressed in the verb phrase

Contrasts expressed in the verb phrase
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What is a verb/verb phrase?
Every word/lexeme has five characteristics (Trask 1999b:304):
1.1 Discourse function/syntactic role/grammatical function
A verb/verb phrase only functions as a predicate.
He reads “The Sun” every day. Having read the newspaper he writes letters
every morning.
1.2 Inflection
show, shows, showed, shown, showing
1.3 Derivation
build  building (noun), learn  learned // (adjective),
surprise  surprising (adjective)
1.4 Meaning
Lexical verbs denote actions, processes or states and serve to establish the
relationship between the participants in an action, process or state. See also
point 4 in the handout entitled “Verb classes: sub-categorisation of verbs”.
1.5 A fairly consistent phonological shape
separate // verb   // adjective,
record // verb   // noun
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Distinction 1
I study in Brighton but my grandfather studied in Manchester.
In English two tense forms can be distinguished, namely the Present Tense and the
Past Tense.
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Distinction 2
I live in London but now I am living in Exeter.
I work as a locksmith but so far I have worked as a turner. I have been working for the
Brown and Son Company for thirteen years.
3.1 An action can be thought of as an unanalysable one, the verb form refers to an
action as a simple fact. This idea is designated by the Common/Perfective
Aspect: I live, I work.
3.2 The perfect form, which has several functions but most typically expresses a state
resulting from an earlier event. For example, the perfect form She had finished
the wine most obviously means ‘There was no wine then because she drank the
last of it earlier’. Apart from the fact that the Perfect Aspect can represent a
state of affairs resulting from an earlier event, it can also have other uses, e. g.
an action began in the past (time) and continues up to the present (point of
time): I have worked.
3.3 An action or an event can be viewed as one having an internal structure.
Imperfective Aspect applies to this approach. Examples I am living and I have
been working show Continuous/Progressive Aspect (the event is viewed as
extending over time).
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Table 1 Correlation between aspects and tenses (based on Trask 1999a and Trask 1999b)
Aspects
Perfective
Imperfective
(Inchoative)
(Conclusive)
(Punctual)
Perfect
(=form)
Progressive/Continuous (Habitual) (Iterative) (Durative)
Tenses (Active
Voice)
Past Tense
Present Tense
Future Tense
Simple
Continuous
Perfect
Perfect
Continuous
showed
was/were
had shown
had been
showing
showing
show, shows
is showing
have/has shown have/has been
showing
There are no distinct verb forms expressing future time. Instead
auxiliaries shall and will, be going to and other semi-auxiliaries, Present
Continuous and Simple Present are used to denote future time.
Aspect must be carefully distinguished from tense, even though the formal expression
of the two categories is deeply intertwined in the English language.
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Distinction 3
Dr Black treats Mr White. Mr White is treated by an otorhinolaryngologist.
In both sentences Mr White is the patient that is the one bearing the semantic role of
the entity which is directly affected by the action of the verb treat. Voice is the
grammatical category which expresses the relationship between, on the one hand, the
participant (semantic) roles of the NP arguments of a verb and, on the other hand, the
grammatical (syntactic) relations borne by those same NPs (Trask 1999b:299).
semantic agent (performer)
Dr Black
syntactic subject
semantic patient
Mr White
syntactic subject
action
treats
verb phrase
verb phrase
is treated
verb phrase
semantic patient
Mr White.
syntactic direct object
semantic agent
by an otorhinolaryngologist.
agentive adverbial (Biber et al. 1999:778)
oblique object (Trask 1999b:299)
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Table 2 Tenses in the Passive Voice
Tenses (Passive
Voice)
Past Tense
Present Tense
Future Tense
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Simple
Continuous
Perfect
Perfect
Continuous
was/were shown was/were being had been shown had been being
shown
shown
am/is/are shown am/is/are being have/has been
have/has been
shown
shown
being shown
There are no distinct verb forms expressing future time. Instead
auxiliaries shall and will, be going to and semi-auxiliaries, Present
Continuous and Simple Present are used to denote future time.
Distinction 4
(i) A: Do you go shopping with Jill? B: I wish I went.
(ii) Jim goes shopping with Jill.
(iii) Jim, go shopping with Jill.
In the conversation in (i) the action is not claimed to be carried out, rather it is
enquired about by speaker A and expressed as a wish by speaker B. So the proposition
of both sentences have nothing to do with reality. It applies to example (iii), too, in
which the speaker’s will is expressed. In contrast, the proposition in (ii) corresponds
with the situation it is uttered in. So in English there are four moods. A mood is a
grammatical category which expresses the degree or kind of reality of a proposition as
perceived by the speaker (Trask 1999b:174-5).
5.1 Declarative mood/indicative mood (Budai 1986:45)
5.2 Interrogative mood (<http://papyr.com/…>, Trask 1999a:192)
5.3 Imperative mood
5.4 Subjunctive mood
Mood distinctions appear to be universally present in languages but in present-day
English it is more common to use a modal auxiliary (Budai 1986:46).
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Distinction 5
A: How old are you? B: I am 19. C: 19, too and my sister is 22.
In the conversation above the different forms of the verb be refer to different persons:
second person and first person and finally third person respectively. What is a person
in the descriptive English grammar? Am refers to the speaker, are (above) refers to the
addressee/listener/hearer,
and is refers to somebody
the speaker
or something else. So in
a conversational situation
somebody or
there are three participant:
something else
(the topic)
the addressee
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Distinction 6
I am much older than him but we are true friends.
The verb are stands in marked contrast to am because the first verb incorporate
singularity while the second plurality. Thus number is a characteristic feature of verbs
although in English number is only signalled in the third person, indicative mood,
active voice, simple present tense:
He goes on a hike on the seashore almost every Sunday while his friends usually go
trekking in the mountains then.
Table 3 The finite forms of take (Huddleston 1993:77)
Number
Singular
Plural
Person
1st
2nd
3rd
1st
2nd
3rd
Mood
Indicative/Declarative
Subjunctive
Imperative
Past Tense Present Tense Past Tense Present Tense
Present
tense
took
take
took
take
took
take
took
take
take
took
takes
took
take
took
take
took
take
took
take
took
take
take
took
take
took
take
As is shown in the table above, the traditional paradigm (conjugation system) for the
English verb take is rather poor therefore the simultaneous use of personal pronouns as
subject and the verb form as predicate is of the utmost importance.
Bibliography
Biber et al. 1999
Biber, Douglas et al. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow : Longman : [Pearson Education
Limited], 1999. xxviii, 1204 p. : ill. ; 24.8 cm ISBN 0-582-23725-4
Budai 1986
Budai László. English syntax : theory and practice. 2. kiad. Budapest : Tankönyvkiadó, 1986. 640 p. : ill. ; 20 cm
(Tanuljunk nyelveket!, ISSN 0133-1094) ISBN 963-17-9558-6
Huddleston 1993
Huddleston, Rodney. Introduction to the grammar of English. Reprinted. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press,
1993, ©1984. xv, 483 p. : ill. ; 22.6 cm (Cambridge textbooks in linguistics) ISBN 0-521-29704-4
Trask 1999a
Trask, R. L. Key concepts in language and linguistics. Reprinted. London ; New York : Routledge, 1999. xviii, 178 p. ;
19.8 cm (Key concepts, ISSN ---) ISBN 0-415-15742-0
Trask 1999b
Trask, R. L. A dictionary of grammatical terms and linguistics. Reprinted. London ; New York : Routledge, 1999. xv,
335 p. : ill. ; 21.7 cm ISBN 0-435-08628-0
Webliography
<http://sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAVerbLinguistics.htm>
<http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/engl_126/ph_verb.htm>
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