The 3rd lecture

Verb

English verb performs a very important function – predication. Predication is the feature, which allows to refer the sentence to some point of time and reality. It is manifested with the help of verb grammatical categories.

The grammatical category of tense is a universally accepted category, as far as distinction between wrote, writes and will write only tense distinction

Tense is the verbal category which reflects the objective category of time and expresses on this background the relations between the time of the action and the time of the utterance.

The main divisions of objective time: past, present, and future. Some linguists express doubts about the existence of the future tense in the English language. They claim that “will” and “shall” are the characteristics of modality and there are no ways to express pure futurity. However, this reason is not convincing. The verb “will” can have this shade of meaning. There’s no any modality in sentences like that. For example, there is another factor, which proves that there is future: we can use other tenses to express it.

So the three main divisions of time are represented in the English verbal system by the three tenses. Each of them may appear in the common and in the continuous aspect. Thus we get six tense-aspect forms.

The verb: the perfect. Basic qualities of the perfect forms

Modern English perfect forms have been the subject of lengthy discussion. The difficulties:

1) this form contains the present of the verb have and is called present perfect

2) yet it denotes an action which no longer takes place, and it is (almost always) translated into Russian by the past tense, e.g. has written – написал, has arrived – приехал.

Three main trends should be mentioned:

· The category of perfect is a peculiar tense category

· The category of perfect is a peculiar aspect category

· The category of perfect is neither one of tense, nor one of aspect but a specific category different from both

1) If we agree that perfect is a tense category then we will also agree that the present perfect is a union of two different tenses – this is clearly impossible

2) In English there are two aspects (continuous and non-continuous) Perfect forms clearly don’t have any opposition typical for aspect

Since the perfect is neither a tense nor an aspect, it is bound to be some special grammatical category, different both from tense and from aspect. It is natural to conclude that perfect tense is a special grammatical category.

àAspect refers to the manner, in which a verb’s action is distributed through time and space. On the other hand, tense points out the location of an event in the continuum of events. Not all languages have special inflections or special words to mark aspect.

We can divide between continuous and non-continuous aspects. The non-continuous aspect refers to a situation, which is prolonged over a low period of time or a situation that occurs frequently during an extended period of time. An example of non-continuous aspect in the past tense is the neighbor’s dog used to wake me up by barking every morning.

Continuous aspect which is a progressive aspect emphasizes that an action is in progress. It can also refer to the situation, when the action started in the past and still continues.

So, aspects forms in the English language are contrasted with each other on two oppositions:

1) meaning – progressive and non-progressive

2) form – verb <-> be+Ving

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