The Past Tense

     It seems to be semantically  simpler as it merely refers to something that happened in the past. According to Otto Jespersen’s  theory of the imaginative use of tenses,  the Past or the before Past conveys, under certain conditions, hypothetical actions, unreality, impossibility (I wish you did it. I wish You had done it yesterday. He looks as if he  had never been here). O.Espersen did not distinguish  the Subjunctive Mood (neither  Subjuncive I nor Subjunctive II).

The Future-in-the-Past Tense

     There’s no agreement as to the place the forms should/would + infinitive occupy in the system of the English language. Often, these forms are placed outside the morphological categories. Prof. Smirnitsky finds them to be an expression of the Conditional mood. Prof. Ivanova put forward the idea of two  temporal centres: the centre of the Present and that of the Past. The Future-in-the-Past is a dependent future belonging to the past. According to prof. Khaimovich  should/would are the manifestations of the category of  posteriority which is based on the oppositions shall : should, will : would. M.Y. Blokh distinguishes the category of prospective posteriority. He distinguishes two Futures: the Future-of-the-Present and the Future-of-the-Past . According to prof. Plotkin, the Future-in-the-Past is the 4 -th member of the tense paradigm  in modern English.

The Category of Aspect

     Under aspect scholars understand a mode (a phase) of an action, that is, continuity, progressiveness, completion, resultativity, instantaneousness, etc.).

     The following problems are open to discussion here:1.  Some scholars don’t recognize the existence of this category in English. They hold that aspectual relations of completeness/ incompleteness, continuity, resultativity are expressed contextually by lexico-grammatical means. The continuous and perfect  forms are treated as tenses. 2. Those who recognize it find it either  a logical  or a grammatical category. 3. Scholars who treat aspect as a logical category distinguish 5 aspects. The ingressive aspect denotes the  initial phase of an action ( He went running. He started reading.).  The durative aspect denotes a progressive action( He is eating). The terminative aspect  represents an  action as a finished whole ( It hit the target). The effective aspect denotes the final point of an action (He has done it. He came running ). The iterative  aspect denotes repeated actions  (He often gets sick. He would come here every day last month).Those who recognize aspect as  a grammatical category distinguish either 3 aspects {the imperfect aspect ( He was doing it);the perfect aspect( He has done it); the indefinite aspect( He did it)} or 2 aspects(the common and the continuous). 4. Debated is the paradigmatic meaning of the continuous form. It is interpreted as duration or limited duration (Jespersen), simultaneity (Vorontsova), continuity within certain time limits (Ilyish), development(Blokh). 5. The category of aspect penetrates other verbal categories. The categories of tense and aspect are blended, they are inseparable and should be treated jointly. This view was advanced by professors Vorontsova and Ivanova. According to professors  Barkhudarov, Smirnitsky, Ilyish  tense and aspect are two distinct categories, tense showing the time of an action and aspect showing the development of an action.

     Professors Smirnitsky, Barkhudarov,  Ilyish, Khlebnikova  find aspect to be a grammatical category based on the binary privative  opposition of two forms read::am reading ,reads:: is reading,  has read:: has been reading, etc., which represent the common aspect and the continuous aspect. M.Y. Blokh distinguished the aspectual category of development which is based on the opposition of the continuous and the noncontinuous forms. The distinction between the continuous and the noncontinuous forms can be neutralized (You are always complaining = you always complain). So, semantically,  continuous forms are redundant. But, stylistically, they are of extreme importance, as they actively participate in the creation of sentential and textual emotiveness, expressiveness, intensiveness and evaluation (positive and negative).

     The semantic content of continuous forms comes to be rather complex. We can distinguish in it the paradigmatic invariant seme of continuity and the syntagmatic semes of permanence, timelessness, futurity, emotiveness, intensiveness, expressiveness, evaluation.

     There are some factors in modern English which occasion the frequent usage of continuous forms. Important are artistic considerations, as continuous forms are more emphatic than noncontinuous forms. There is psychological explanation of the growing usage of continuous forms. The British are becoming more impulsive, forgetting about their traditional reticence (suffice it to remember about the  aggressiveness of  British  football fans). Continuous forms are more frequent in the speech of females. As a result of  semantic disagreement between the non-dynamic meaning of the verb  and the dynamic meaning of a continuous form a grammatical metaphor is being born which makes discourse more dynamic, emotive, evaluatory (I’m not listening, I’m not seeing, I’m not feeling. I’m falling in love with you again).In artistic texts authors most often impart dynamism to normally undynamic verbs (Now he was remembering everything. Is she still liking England? Loving it). Continuous forms participate in the creation of an ironic effect, which is based upon contrasts and contradictions ( You are being very charitable today). A person, normally, cannot be charitable  for a very limited period of time.

The Category of Time Relation (or Correlation)

     The debated questions within the category of correlation are: 1.the existence of this category; 2. the character of this category; 3. the paradigmatic meaning of perfect forms; 4. the interrelations  between correlation, tense and aspect.

     There are several interpretations of the perfect form. 1. According to the tense view, the perfect is a peculiar tense form (H. Sweet, O. Jespersen, M. Ganshina, G. Curme, M. Bryant, Yu. Korsakov,). It is an anterior tense which coexists with the other primary expressions of time( Present, Past and Future) (I shall have done it by 5 o’clock). 2. According to the aspect view, the perfect is an aspect (Nestfield, West, Deutschbein). It is treated as the aspect of completion or the aspect of succession. 3.According to the tense-aspect blend view, the perfect is recognized as a form of double temporal- aspective character (I. P. Ivanova). 4. According to the time correlation view, the perfect form  builds up its own category, different from tense and aspect. This is an independent category which is termed differently by different scholars { the category of time relation (A.I.Smirnitsky), the category of correlation (B.A.Ilyish),  the category of order (B.Khaimovich), the category of retrospective coordination ( M.Y. Bloch)}. Popular is the last interpretation. The category of correlation is based on the opposition of nonperfect and perfect forms( write:: have written, is writing:: has been writing). The paradigmatic meaning of a perfect form is that of precedence.  This independent grammatical category of time relation(correlation) constitutes a whole system involving aspect, tense and mood( writes – has written – has been written, etc). Tense, aspect and correlation are closely connected. They, correspondingly, represent the time of an action, its development and its precedence to another action in the present, past  or future.

     The distinctions between the members of this opposition can be neutralized (I hear :: I have heard, I forget= I have forgotten).

   A Perfect form, representing the category of correlation,  is polysemantic. It has a semantic structure constituted by the paradigmatic meaning of precedence and variable syntagmatic meanings which can be revealed combining  the contextual analysis with  the componential method {resultativity, completeness, successiveness, an implication for the future, repeatedness, retrospective conclusion (People have talked like that from time immemorial. Don’t think it has been a happy marriage).

     The meaning of the perfect depends on several factors. One of them is the meaning of the verb. Verbs  can be durative and terminative. Durative verbs denote an action that goes  on indefinitely (to go, to walk, to love, to dislike, to speak); terminative verbs denote an action reaching a limit (to come, to  close, to bring, to lose to break).

     Perfect forms can be encountered in all kinds of speech: vulgar and elevated, but they are most frequent in conversation.  Perfect forms can emphasise the attitude of the speaker  towards the people or events described ( Since the time I left you, I have lived your life. I have breathed you, I have eaten you, I have drunk you, I have wept your eyes. I. Murdoch).

The Category of Voice

     The definition of voice depends upon interpretations of this category, If voice is understood as a logical category it denotes ways of expressing relations between a verb and its subject and object. If it is a grammatical category, voice denotes grammatical ways of expressing relations between a verb and its subject and object.  Much in this category is widely discussed. Debated problems here are 1.the nature of the category; 2.the starting point of analysis; 3.the problem of transitivity; 4.the nature of the construction be + Participle II; 5.the number of voices; 6.the limits of the passive; 7. the paradigmatic  meanings of the active and of the passive voice forms..

     1.Voice is treated as a syntactic category  (H. Paul, A. Potebnya), as a morphologico-syntactic category as  it denotes the syntactic relation of an action to its subject and object by a system of morphological forms , as a purely morphological category (A.Smirnitsky, B. Ilyish,  M. Blokh, et al.).

    2. It is hard to say  what is to be paid attention to, meanings or forms.  External signs  can express different meanings. An active voice form  expresses various  relations between  a verb and its  subject and object { He shaved the customer ( activity), He shaved and went out ( reflexivity), I opened the door (activity), The door opened ( mediopassivity), They kissed ( reciprocality), I suffered a blow  (passivity)}.

         3. Under transitivity we understand the potential capacity  of a verb  to demand  an object. The nature of transitivity is obscure and it is not clear whether it is a grammatical or a lexical category.  Verbs are divided  into transitives and intransitives.  But in ME this division is not exact as transitive verbs can be used intransitively and vice versa (Why don’t you walk me home? I’d like you to dance me. You danced me splendidly).

        4. The construction to be + Participle II  is very ambiguous. Some scholars find it to be a passive structure only when it expresses an action. It is analyzed as a simple verbal predicate. When it expresses a state, it is to be interpreted as a compound nominal predicate { The door is opened ( a state). The door is being opened (an action)}. A.I. Smirnitsky, always relying upon form, considered each occurrence of to be + participle II   as a passive structure.

        5. Along with the active and the passive scholars distinguish the reflective voice( He washed himself; the medio-passive (middle) voice  (The door opened. The coat wears well. The coffee tastes well. The book sells like hotcakes.). It denotes the processes going on within the subject without affecting any object);  the reciprocal voice(They hate one another. They hugged each other ). Morphologically,  “the voice forms” underlined  absolutely resemble the active voice form. The elements “-self, each other, one another” cannot be interpreted as auxiliaries of these “voices”, as at times they are omissible and  at times they are nonomissible. These formations fall under the heading of the active voice.

        6. The verb to be is not the only auxiliary   forming the  passive voice. Passive structures are formed by means of the verbs to get, to become, to have, to go, to come {He got married. He came to be respected. I had my horse killed under me in the battle He went missing. The house got burnt). The  subject in these sentences experiences some action). V. Mathesius also includes here  the verb to suffer and  the constructions to be subject to, to be in preparation,  as the subject neither performs nor initiates an action. Most frequent is the Passive with the verb to get which comes to function as an active auxiliary in American English (The work has got done).

  The prevalent view is that voice is a verbal category based on the opposition of the active and the passive forms. This opposition is expressed by a number of different forms representing aspect, tense, mood, correlation ( read :: is read, wrote:: was written, is writing:: is being written, would write:: would be written, etc.).

     7. The paradigmatic meanings of the active and the passive forms writes:: is written are vague and admit of various interpretations. The active form denotes a subject as the agent of the action (I did it), experiencer, sufferer, patient (I’ve lost everything). We encounter actives with the reflexive meaning (I shaved), reciprocal, mediopassive meanings. The term ‘active’ appears to be unsatisfactory because of the discrepancy between the active form of the verb and its  reflexive, reciprocal, mediopassive meanings.

     Actives are structurally variable which depends on the transitivity or intransitivity of the verb {He read a book (transitive). He departed. He sleeps(intransitive). He gave her a book (ditransitive). He considers her a beauty (factitive)}. Passives are also  structurally variable {The book is read by me (transitive). She was lost in  reverie (intransitive).She was considered a beauty (factitive). She was given a book by him (ditransitive).He has never been found fault with (a passive, complicated by adverbial elements)}.

     Passives have a different communicative organization as compared with actives. The semantic roles of their constituents are different from those of active structures. V. Mathesius , analyzing the category of voice,  connects it with a functional  sentence perspective (or  communicative dynamism) under which we understand distribution of information among the elements of a sentence.  He distinguishes 3 elements in a sentence :: the performer of an action, the action itself, the goal of an action (the person or thing affected by the action). These 3 elements are placed in different perspectives: the active and the passive. A sentence has an active perspective if the action starts with  the performer with respect to the goal( I wrote a letter). A sentence has a passive perspective if we start with the goal with respect to the performer( The  letter has been written by him).The Passive is the device which makes it possible for the semantic object to perform the thematic function and for the semantic subject to perform the rhematic function ( The book was given to him by Jane (the book is the semantic object, Jane  is the semantic subject).

     Actives and passives are not  interchangeable, mutually convertible, as they have different communicative purposes, that is,  not all actives can be passivized (John likes girls. Henry studies French). In the structures He was given to that kind of thing. She has been taken ill. No love was lost between them the subject is incapable of functioning as an object of a corresponding active construction. They have different communicative purposes. Actives rhematize logical objects, passives rhematize logical subjects.

     According to the character of the agent,  we distinguish different passives: passives  with an explicit agent( It is when men are ruled by women), passives with a non-existent agent ( He was lost in reverie), with an implicit agent which is easily restorable( Woman was made while Adam slept). The agents can be missing when they are unknown or when they are of generic reference( Dostoevsky is commonly regarded as a prophetic writer).

     The formations he is arrived, he is gone, I am finished are not passives, these are perfect forms of intransitive verbs. They were very frequent in Shakespeare’s time. In modern English they are stylistically marked (When she opened the door he was gone!). In American English they are of frequent currency.

     There are some factors determining the use of passives in ME. The prevalent factor is the functional sentence perspective. The Passive is used to rhematize the logical subject (The letter has been written by me).  The widest sphere of the application of passives is scientific writings where impersonal presentation of the subject matter is preferable. There is no agent, or the agent is indefinite. Attention is focused on the data described (Methods of purifying water are given much attention to). The vagueness of the agent in any functional style accounts for the frequency of passives (Good things which have long been enjoyed are not easily given up).

     The Passive is on the increase in present day English. We find various structural and semantic varieties of passives in all functional styles. The use of the Passive reflects the realities  of the bureaucratic social structure where it is impossible to assign  responsibility to a concrete  individual.  The Passive is so outrageously spread in all styles that there arise  protests on the part of writers. Stylists find the Active strong and vigorous and the Passive  weak and colourless.  

      The Category of Mood

     The category of mood falls under a wide notion of modality, which is an indispensable attribute of each sentence. It expresses the attitude of a speaker towards a happening, whether he finds it a fact or a non-fact, that is imaginary, hypothetical or desirable. Modality is expressed  phonetically ( by stress and intonation), lexically (by modal words), lexico-grammatically ( by modal  verbs), grammatically ( by corresponding forms of verbs, the oppositions of which constitute the category of mood), syntactically ( by certain sub- clauses). The category of mood in  present day English has given rise to many discussions.  Interpretations of this category vary from scholar to scholar, reflecting their grammatical, logical, semantical or psychological orientations.  The category is confusing because of the contrast between its semantic intricacy and scantiness of its inflections.

     Debated problems within this category are: the character of the category, the starting point of analysis, the number of moods, the existence of the Imperative  Mood, the existence of the  Subjunctive Mood, the nature of the forms should/ would + infinitive.

     Mood is understood as a morphologico- semantical phenomenon (O. Jespersen). According to prof. R. Long, mood is  a semantico- syntactical phenomenon as it  expresses distinctions between the actual and the hypothetical and partly distinctions between clause patterns.  He distinguishes    the indicative, the subjunctive, the infinitive, the gerundial and the participial moods. Mood is understood even as  a psychological phenomenon (e.g. “Mood expresses images of the twilight world of imagination”). A.I. Smirnitsky, B.A.Ilyish  and M.Y.Bloch understand mood as a purely morphological category.

     It is questionable whether it is forms which are to be systematized according to their meanings, or modal meanings which are to be classified according to their forms. But all attempts to systematize meanings and forms fail. There’s no scheme that would be universally acceptable. There are so many semantic implications and psychological connotations that the category of mood has always been the stumbling block for notionalists and formalists alike.

     It is difficult to  analyse the category of mood  as there is no correspondence between meaning and form. One and the same meaning can be expressed variously. The meaning of supposition, for example, is expressed in several ways (I suggest our going there. I suggest that we should go there. I suggest that we go there). The concessive meaning can also be expressed by different means [(Whatever it be ( can be, could be,  may be, might be, should be, is )]. One and the same external sign can express different meanings.  Were can be found in I wish he were here.If he were to come, I should be pleased. He wondered whether she were in Spain. Suppose he were here? It is as if he were ill. Had done can be seen in two semantically different structures: I wish you had done it. I said he had done it.

     Proceeding from meaning scholars distinguish 16  Moods( The Hypothetical Mood, the Optative Mood, the Permissive Mood, the Suppositional Mood, the Indicative Mood, The Imperative Mood, the Voluntative Mood, the Potential Mood, the Compulsory Mood, the Conditional Mood, The Irrealis, etc.).

     Proceeding from form, A.I. Smirnitsky  distinguished  6 Moods: