Modern English Grammar

The two forms differ only in emotional saturation and emphasis, their grammatical content being absolutely identical.

H. Poutsma in his Late Modern English points out that in this expressive use the Continuous forms may be compared with the emphatic analytical forms of the Present Tense (Common Aspect). I do long > I am. longing. Similarly: I did long > I was longing. Cf. Oh, how the stars were shining! How the diamond did twinkle and glitter.

Syntagmatic connotative meanings of the Present Continuous signalled by different contexts, linguistic or situational, will be illustrated by its use in transposition where it may denote:

(1) properties or other traits ("qualitative present"), e. g.:

She is always grumbling about trifles. She is playing tennis with innate grace.

(2) repeated processes of increasing duration or activities characteristic of the subject at the given period.

This meaning is generally signalled by the immediate lexical context, adverbs of frequency and repetition, in particular, or consituation, e. g.:

"He is fond of her, I know", thought James. "Look, at the way he's always giving her things." (Galsworthy) "I'll cable at one, otherwise we may have a lot of expense. The sooner the things are done the better. I'm always regretting that I didn't". (Galsworthy) "I had Muskham down yesterday and he was jolly decent. I'm trying to take up birds". (Galsworthy) "... Yes, don't make it an autobiography. Let it go forth as fiction. And no one must know that I'm working at it"! (Gordon)

That the Present Tense and the Present Continuous may both serve this function will be seen from the following example when the two forms go parallel with identical meaning: "The rest of us have our own particular catling. I'm teaching now at one of the church schools. I also do some coaching at night, and now and then articles I write on the problems of the coloured people are accepted by the European press -- provided, that is, I don't make them too critical". (Gordon)

(3) an action anticipated or planned in the future. This use is often an effective means to express a strong determination on the part of the speaker. When we contemplate an action unfolding before our eyes, it naturally arouses certain feelings (praise, pleasure, blame, impatience, reproach, etc.), e. g.:

Brain said to his cousin: "I'm signing on as well in a way, only for life. I'm getting married."

Both stopped walking. Bert took his arm and stared: "You're not."

I'm. To Pauline. (Sillitoe)

...He could afford to control himself now.

"Daisy's leaving you."

"Nonsense."

"I am, though," she said with a visible effort.

"She's not leaving me!" Tom's words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby. (Fitzgerald)

The implication of a future action is endowed with modal force and special emotive functions in cases like the following:

Examine also the connotative value of the Present Continuous in the following example:

Fleur huddled her chin in her fur. It was easterly and cold. A voice behind her said, "Well, Fleur, am I going East?"

Wilfrid! His collar up to his ears, a cigarette between his lips, hands in pockets, eyes devouring.

"You are very silly, Wilfrid!"

"Anything you like; am I going East?" (Galsworthy)

Am I going East? comes to mean: Shall I go East? > Do you want me to go East?

4) actions anticipated or planned in the future with the implication that something must necessarily take place:

When is the action coming on? Next month? (Galsworthy)

"If you think I might risk it, Miss, I'd like to slip round to my dentist".-- Oh! What race is being run this afternoon, then, topping?" (Galsworthy)

It is important to observe the difference between I start work to-morrow and I'm starting work to-morrow. The first suggests that to-morrow is the day fixed for starting, the second that the speaker now intends to start. Verbs which refer to activities that are commonly fixed by firm decisions are more likely to be used in the Present Indefinite with the future sense, e. g.: to begin, to start, to end, to finish.

5) a future action of irregular occurrence, as in: He is playing Shuberfs to-morrow.

The use of the Present Continuous may imply, in contrast to the simple Present, that the action is sporadic, unsettled, inexplicable. In patterns of this kind a particular content of the Continuous form as contrasted to the simple Present shows more clearly; the implication is that even though there may be a recurrent activity, no explanation for it will be found. ¹

6) imperative modality. The expressive element of transposition into the Imperative is particularly strong:

He tried to brush Anthony aside. But Anthony firmly stood his ground. "I'm sorry", he said, his teeth together, "You're not going in there". (Gordon) You are not going is synonymous with Don't go! > Don't you go!

Examine also the variant meanings of the Present Continuous in the following dialogue:

"We're going after buff in the morning", he told her.

"I'm coming". she said.

"No, you're not".

"Oh, yes, I am. Mayn't I, Francis?"

"We'll put on another show for you tomorrow" Francis Macomber said.

"You are not coming", Wilson said. (Hemingway)

The pattern-value of the Present Continuous may be shown diagrammatically as follows:

Present Continuous

The primary denotative meaning

She is reading.

Secondary syntagmatic meanings I. Indicative Modality

(a) Generalising Present

Language is always changing.

(b) Iterative Present

"I'm always thinking of him", she said. (Maugham)

(c) Qualitative Present

What's up Brian? You're never crying, are you? (Sillitoe)

(d) past time reference

Time passes, when suddenly he is coming up again.

(e) future time reference

Tell him I'm coming up tomorrow morning.

II. Imperative Modality You are not coming with us!

THE PAST TENSE

The grammatical content of the Past Indefinite may be briefly characterised as follows: the Past Indefinite represents an action or state as relatively static in the past. The duration of the process indicated by the Past Indefinite can vary according to the immediate lexical context or special situation with no time indicators at all.

The Past Indefinite Tense refers an action to the past without telling anything about the connection with the present moment. It is primarily the tense of narration. It may denote:

1) a succession of actions in the past, e. g.:

I went up and had a bath, and dressed, and stood at my window, listening to the drone of a tractor still cutting corn, and getting a little drunk of whiffs from the honeysuckle. (Galsworthy)

2) simultaneity in action, e. g.:

When it gave you the spirit, distilled the essence, it didn't see real; and when it gave you the gross, cross-currented, contradictory surface, it didn't seem worth while (Galsworthy). He paid no attention when the young man raised his hat.

3) a special use of the Past Tense is presented by patterns like the following:

After he left the house, he recollected that he had not locked the door. That happened before I met you.

The opposition between perfect verb forms and the past tense forms occurring in such clauses is neutralised. The function of signalling "earlier time" is taken over by the words after and before.

4) repeated actions in the past. (Here belong also patterns with the Past Indefinite used to denote a permanent characteristic of a person or thing spoken).

the Past Tense is fairly common in denoting abilities, properties or habitual actions represented in speech situation as relatively static, e. g.: She played tennis with innate grace.

past actions logically connected with the present in patterns with adverbs of frequency and repetition: never, ever, always, seldom and before. The grammatical content of the Past Tense in such cases goes parallel with the Present Perfect as its stylistic synonym with a subjective element in it, e. g.: "I am a doctor, you know.-- Really? You never told me". "I don't want to argue. French and English never did get on, and never will". (Galsworthy)

It is important to remember that the adverb never in patterns with the Past Tense is often used rather to intensify negation than in the meaning of "not ever" at "no time", e. g.:

He answered never a word -- Він так й не відповів нічого.

Bill never turned his head (London)-- Біл так і не обернувся.

"So you've come back", he repeated. She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over her motionless figure. (Galsworthy) --... Ірен не глянула на нього, не сказала ні слова...

The use of the Past Tense in patterns like "Did you ever?" or "Did you ever hear of such a thing?" is virtually synonymous with "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" The two structures differ only in style, the former as highly expressive is generally used merely as emotional exclamation in expressive language.

the Past Tense is common in narration to indicate anteriority, e. g.: He thought he had lost her, then almost ran into her standing quite stilt. (Galsworthy)

there are also cases when the Past Tense is used for stylistic purposes to denote that what has hitherto been true is so still and will always remain so. Familiar examples quoted by O. Jespersen are:

Men were deceivers ever. (Shakespeare) Faint heart never won fair lady.

THE PAST CONTINUOUS (PROGRESSIVE) TENSE

The primary meaning of the Past Continuous is that of a past action shown in its progress at a given past moment, e. g.:

The door was slowly opening, and Anthony found himself gazing into a pair of pale-gray hooded eyes. (Gordon) She followed his gaze through the falling rain and saw a man and a girl coming from the large block of flats opposite her home. Now they were getting into a little motor car. (Gordon)

Verbal processes in narration may also be denoted by the Past Continuous, e. g.:

The fog was rapidly disappearing, already the moon shone quite clear on the high ground on either side. It seemed to him very far off a great throng was forming. It was menacing, shouting. It stirred, it moved, it was advancing.

Progression in time as denoted by the Past Continuous is most fluctuating and variable: from several short stretches of time to long duration, repeated actions or simultaneity or, say, increasing duration. Examples are:

Suddenly Soames said: "I can't go on like this. I tell you I can't go on like this. His eyes were shifting from side to side, like an animal's when it looks for way of escape". (Galsworthy) Jolyon gazed into his hat, his embarrassment was increasing fast; so was his admiration, his wonder, and his pity. (Galsworthy) ...But Mammy was showing her age and rheumatism was slowing her lumbering tread. (Mitchell) Here the implied context is all that exists or can be considered relevant.

Two other youths, oblique-eyed, dark-haired, rather sly-faced, like the two little boys, were talking together and lolling against the wall; and a short, elderly, clean-shaven man in corduroys, seated in the window, was conning a battered journal. (Galsworthy) Compare also:

a) She was playing the piano from eleven to twelve this morning. b) She played the piano from eleven to twelve this morning.

What matters in the choice of the verb-form, as always in language, is the speaker's view of matters.

To sum up, continuous forms may either indicate that an activity is incomplete or not as yet completed, or else may be noncommittal regarding the completion of the specified activity.

A special interest attaches to its stylistic transposition where it comes to represent:

future action when that future moment is viewed from the past. This is often the case in patterns with the free reported speech. The primary meaning of the verb-form comes to be neutralised by the situational context, e. g.: At last, my dear, I thought you were never coming.

with adverbs of frequency and repetition the Past Continuous will generally denote habitual actions, abilities, properties and other characteristic traits, e. g.: Annette was always running up to town for one thing or another, so that he had Fleur to himself almost as much as he could wish. (Galsworthy) '

Instances are not few when patterning with such adverbs becomes an effective stylistic device to express various emotions: annoyance, irritation, displeasure, anger, amusement, praise, etc. The expressive element is often intensified by some other indicators of the given context, e. g.:

His car bumped something slightly, and came to a stand. That fellow Riggs was always bumping something. (Galsworthy)

The emotive factors determine and modify patterns of grammatical structure in unnumerable ways. Attention has been repeatedly drawn to the fact that they may affect not only the choice of vocabulary but the character of such metaphors as occur in the use of grammatical forms. The Continuous Tenses of the present-day English are most dynamic in this respect. More and more they are used with special functions of different modal force. The stylistic range of their application in expressive language has become surprisingly wide.

c) we also know such transpositions when the Past Continuous is endowed with special emotive functions and comes to express rather the intention of doing something than the action itself. In such patterns of "implied negation" the connection between the subject and predicate is not to be taken in a direct or positive sense. The meaning is thus negative, that of an unrealised intention to do something (suppositional modality), e. g.: "I suppose you were too busy to come to the station".

He coloured crimson. "I was coming, of course", he said, "but something stopped me" ¹.

'I was coming' means: "I intended to come" (but I did not) ².

Like in other cases, the opposition "real -- unreal" comes to be neutralised here by contextual indication.

Here he was not surprised to meet Stener just coming out, looking very pale and distraught. At the sight of Cowperwood he actually blanched.

"Why, hello, Frank", he exclaimed, sheepishly, "where do you come from?".

"What's up, George?" asked Cowperwood. "I thought you were coming into Broad Street".

"So I was", returned Stener, foolishly, "but I thought I would get off at West Philadelphia and change my clothes. I've a tot of things to tend to yet this afternoon. I was coming in to see you". After Cowperwood's urgent telegram this was silly but the young banker let it pass. (Dreiser).

Cf. Russian: открывал, да не открыл, выбирал, да не выбрал. Ukrainian: розкривав, та не розкрив; вибирав, та не вибрав.

Closely related to this is the analogous modal use of the Present Perfect Continuous, e. g.: Mr. S. lands at Southampton tonight. He has always been coming. This time he has come.

THE PERFECT TENSES

The category of time relevance in English is based on the binary opposition "non-perfective:: perfective"; the former is known to be unmarked, the latter possesses a special grammatical meaning. This is to suggest that the action denoted by the unmarked form is not correlated with some other moment of time or some other action whereas the perfect form is characterised by a special current relevance.

Grammarians differ greatly in defining the linguistic nature of the Perfect Tenses in English. That the category of Perfect is a tense category is sometimes denied. Reference is often made to the specific aspective essence of these verbal forms defined as resultative, retrospective, successive, etc.

A. I. Smirnitsky's³ viewpoint presents a special point of interest. His basic assumption is that the Perfect Tenses express the category of "time relation" presented by the regular opposition of all

Perfect forms to all non-Perfect forms, such as works:: has worked; worked:: had worked; will work:: will have worked, etc. The corresponding relative terms adopted by A. Smirnitsky for these grammatical contrasts are "non-perfect" and "perfect".

The unmarked non-Perfect forms do not refer to a special current relevance whereas the marked Perfect forms express priority.

A. I. Smirnitsky presents a logical system of the correlation between the Indefinite, the Continuous, the Perfect and the Perfect Continuous forms graphically as a parallelepiped on whose three dimensions he placed: 1) the category of tense (the Present, the Past and the Future), 2) the category of aspect (the Common and the Continuous) and 3) category of time relation (the non-Perfect and the Perfect forms).

Somewhat similar views on the categories of the English verb are held by the American scholar M. Joos ¹.

In treating the Indefinite, the Continuous, the Perfect and the Perfect Continuous forms M. Joos, like Prof. Smirnitsky, marks out three different verb categories which he calls "tense", "aspect" and "phrase".

Other grammarians advocate the view according to which the category of Perfect is a peculiar tense category, i. e. a category included in the verb paradigm along with the categories "present" and "past" ². According to G. Vorontsova ³ the category of Perfect is a peculiar aspect category and as such must be included in the regular grammatical contrasts of "common" and "continuous" aspects.

The divergency of the linguistic approaches to the identification of the Perfect Tenses in English is indeed striking.

The question much debated nowadays is how define the invariable meaning of these grammatical forms.

What should not escape our notice is that the shift from tense to aspect which is so specific in the functional relationships of English verb-forms cannot be studied in isolation from the distributional meaning of the Perfect Tenses.

One more question primary in importance is that the grammatical content of the Perfect Tenses cannot be studied without a considerable reference to the lexical character of the verb and variations of denotative and connotative meaning resulting from the use of Perfect forms in different syntactical environment, large patterns, in particular.

The occurrence of the Perfect Tenses in different syntactic environments will show variations of their basic grammatical content. Instances are not few when the context comes to be explicit enough to neutralise the opposition between the Perfect Tenses and the preterit verb-forms.

The current relevance as marked by the Perfect Tenses must reasonably be referred to as their basic meaning.

Observations on the difference of distribution, in the kind of context, linguistic or situational, where each perfect form occurs, give every reason to say that the resultative meaning and the meaning of completeness do not exhaust the aspective content of the Perfect Tenses with all their multiple polysemantic essence in present-day English.

What needs further investigations as grammar learning advances is the study of the dependence of the meaning of Perfect forms on the tense category (present, past and future) and its distributional meaning in cases when the application of the verb-form seems to go far beyond the strict limits of the system. The fact is, that we occasionally find such varied uses of the Perfect Tenses that they may bring to considerable linguistic changes of the meaning of the form itself. It is also interesting to note that considerable variations in their patterning sometimes appear a matter of stylistic preference. There are important treatments of their distributional value presented by А. Коrsаkоv in one of his work-papers «Перфектно-поширені форми та вираження часових відношень в англійській мові».

It will not be superfluous to point out that there is a good deal of difference between the use of the Past and Perfect Tenses in English and some other languages. The Perfect Tense is often used in other languages where the Past Tense is required in English. This is the case when attention is drawn to the time at which an action or event took place in the past; hence especially in questions beginning with when? (Sometimes with where?), and in sentences with adverbial adjuncts answering such questions, e. g.:

When (where) did you see him last? (Cf. Where have you been all the time?). Two aeroplanes were shot down yesterday. I received his letter a week ago. His father was born in Ireland. Did you come by tram or by bus?

The Present Perfect Tense usually denotes an action that falls within the time-sphere of the present. Its uses are mainly three: (a) the Continuative Perfect; (b) the Resultative Perfect; (c) the Perfect of Experience.

The Continuative Perfect often corresponds to a Present Tense in other languages; English shares with some other languages the use of the Resultative Perfect, which denotes a past action connected, through its result, with the present moment, e. g.:

We have bought a new car. ... (Cf. We bought a new car last week). Look what you've done. Ten years have passed since we first met.

We have a use intermediate between the Continuative and the Resultative Perfect when the reference is to a period of time that is not yet over, e. g.: I've been to the pictures twice this week.

(But: I went to the pictures twice last week).

To indicate completed activities in the immediate past the Perfect Tense with the adverb just may be used, e. g.: George has just gone out. It has just struck twelve.

In spoken English I've got is often equivalent to I have: Guess what I've got in my pocket.

In a sentence like He's got (= obtained) what he wants, however, we have to do with a Resultative Perfect.

The Perfect of Experience expresses what has happened, once or more than once, within the speaker's or writer's experience. It is not unknown in other languages, at least in head-clauses, though an adjunct expressing repetition is usually added. Similar adjuncts may be added in English, e. g.: (1) I have sat for hours on the river bank on a. fine summer's day, waiting for a fish to bite. (2) When I have asked him the way, I have invariably received a polite answer.

Like the Present Tense, the Present Perfect may neutralise its primary meaning in subordinate clauses dependent on the main clause expressing or implying future time, e. g.: Wait till I've finished my work. As soon as I have copied the text, I shall give it to you. The Past Perfect (Pluperfect) answers partly to the Past Tense, partly to the Perfect. It seems to represent a shifting back of these tenses into the (more distant) past¹.

One more important point must not be left unmentioned here. We mean the use of the verbal forms which in present-day English go parallel with the Present Perfect and Past Perfect as to their structure but differ essentially in their grammatical content and stylistic value. These are patterns with the participle II separated from the auxiliary have as in: I have all my work done. We have it all thought out, don't worry. Patterns of this kind are often referred to as intensified forms of the Perfect Tenses (Present or Past), the so-called "Conclusive Perfect". According to O. J e s p e r s e n, for instance, they hardly differ from the perfect forms and serve only to emphasise the present state much stronger than the Perfect does.

There is, indeed, a suggestion of effort implied in such forms which makes them forcible and highly expressive. But separation from the auxiliary verb imparts such a clear cut adjectival character to the participle that such patterns denote not so much an action as a. state. A verbal form comes to function as an intensive statal passive.

Colloquial English abounds in patterns like the following: You had it memorised all through in the morning, but I feel you're forgetting it again. When you came, I had my plans already made. Attention will be drawn here to the grammatical ambiguity which may result from the use of such forms in different contexts. This ambiguity is generally resolved by the immediate lexical context.

The descriptive character of the participle isolated from the auxiliary have has made possible the following uses of the verb-phrase:

a) patterns grammatically synonymous with the Perfect Tenses (Present or Past), e. g.:

I have it memorised to perfection. Cf.: I have memorised it... I had it memorised to perfection. Cf.: I had memorised it...

b) patterns grammatically synonymous with statal passive. These may be referred to as "statal passive of intensity", e. g.:

They have all their opponents beaten.

c) patterns with the full force of the present or past tense, causative in their meaning, e. g.:

I have my suits made to order. I had my suits made to order.

Instances are not few when the Present Perfect is used with reference to simultaneous actions. Here we find patterns like the following: Haven't you had the window open since I have been out?

It is interesting to note that in contexts with reference to habitual use there is a potential ambiguity. Take the following sentence for illustration: Every time I have seen her she has been reading. This may have two possible meanings: either that on each occasion she was actually reading or that on each occasion she had previously been reading. The ambiguity arises from the fact that the Perfect may imply either the overall period of time that we are speaking about or, in addition, each repeated period. The overall period of time is clearly shown by Every time I have seen her to be one that began in the past and continues up to the present moment. But the successive periods of time that are to be related to these points of time may either be periods that simply overlap these points of time or they may be periods that began before and continue up to the given points of time.

In most cases a sentence-pattern with whenever or every time followed by Perfect tense-forms in both clauses is obviously interpreted in the first of the two senses, the Perfect being taken with reference only to the overall period of time, activity on each occasion overlapping the points of time. The other sense will generally be indicated by some special situational context.

Next we come to the use of the Past Perfect Tense. It will as well be seen here that the syntax of the verb bears an intimate relation to its morphology because the grammatical content of this verb-form is also greatly conditioned by the syntactical arrangements in which it occurs.

Observed in different patterns of syntactic environment the Past Perfect will show a considerable variation in its grammatical meaning.

It is important to emphasise the following:

a) in a great many cases the Past Perfect Tense serves to connect grammatically two past actions, one of which is prior in time. Examples are not far to seek:

Dinny spun round to the window. Dark had fallen and if it hadn't she couldn't have seen. (Galsworthy)

Sometimes it is possible to use the simple Past Tense for both actions in analogous arrangements; the difference will be one of emphasis. The Past Perfect emphasises the priority of time. In its stylistic value it is slightly more formal.

Thus, for instance, the following two sentences appear to be interchangeable: I had studied French before I started English. I studied French before I started Greek. Textbooks often say that 'had studied' implies that Compare the Ukrainian: Як гукнеш, так і відгукнеться. Що посієш, те й пожнеш.

Similarly in Russian: Как аукнется, так и откликнется. Что посеешь, то и пожнешь.

Closely related to this is the use of the Future Tense applied to lifeless things to denote power or capacity, e. g.: (1) The hall will seat two hundred. (2) That will do. (3) That won't do.

b) the activity essentially characteristic of the subject, very often with some approval, disapproval or reproach. The necessary meaning is usually signalled by the context, e. g.:

"Very true, child; but what's to be done? People will talk, there's no preventing it." (Sheridan)

"Doctors!" said James, coming down sharp on his words; "I've had all the doctors in London for one or another of us. There's no satisfaction to be got out of them; they'll tell you anything. There's Swithin, now. What good have they done him? There he is, he's bigger than ever; he's enormous; they can't get his weight down. Look at him!" (Galsworthy)