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Contrasts expressed in the verb phrase 1 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 2 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. 3 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). 1 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. 4 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) 2 Table 2 Tenses in the Passive Voice Tenses (Passive Voice) Past Tense Present Tense Future Tense 5 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). 6 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 3 7 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> 4