4. The verb: tense and aspect.

The essence of tense as a grammatical category of the verb.

The immediate expression of grammatical time, or "tense" (Lat. tempus), is one of the typical functions of the finite verb. It is typical because the meaning of process, inherently embedded in the verbal lexeme, finds its complete realization only if presented in certain time conditions. That is why the expression or non-expression of grammatical time, together with the expression or non-expression of grammatical mood in person-form presentation, constitutes the basis of the verbal category of finitude, i.e. the basis of the division of all the forms of the verb into finite and non-finite.

The question about the number of tenses in Modern English.

In English there are the three tenses (past, present and future) represented by the forms wrote, writes, will write, or lived, lives, will live. And each of them may appear in the common and in the continuous aspect. Thus we get six tense-aspect forms.

The Reichenbachian system of tenses and aspects.

The hypothesis we will develop here is that tenses instantiate relationships between events. According to this proposal, the logical form of a tense contains terms referring to particular events, e and s (the speech event), and a term introducing a relationship of temporal precedence between them. Consider the following case, where a past verbal form appears:

a. John ate an apple.

This representation can be extended also to present and future tenses. Let us now consider compound tenses: a. John has eaten an apple. b. John had eaten an apple. c. John will have eaten an apple.

To correctly represent the meaning of these tenses, a more complex system seems to be required. The presence of only two points could not distinguish the simple forms from the ones given in (45). Focusing on this problem, Reichenbach (1947) proposed and discussed a theory of tenses based on three temporal primitive entities: one, denoted by 5, is an indexical referring to the utterance time — that is, the speech time; E denotes the time of the event e instantiated by the predicate of the clause and is, therefore, called the event time. Finally, another point, R, is introduced, which is called the reference time. When he introduced it, Reichenbach developed an idea originally proposed by Jespersen (1924), showing that R is required to account satisfactorily for the semantics of perfect tenses. Tenses order the three temporal points. For example, the meaning of the present tense could be represented as S = R = E, or, as proposed by Reichenbach, S,R,E, (where the comma represents temporal overlapping), whereas the meaning of the present perfect can be represented as E_R,S; simple past – E, R_S; past perfect – E_R_S.

Tenses instantiate relationships between events.

Reichenbach (1947) and his followers:

S (speech time); R (reference time); E (event time); coincidence ‘,’; precedence ‘_ ’

Present: S, R, E; Simple past: E, R_S; Present Perfect: E_R, S;Past Perfect: E_R_S.

The anaphoric theory of tenses.

Anaphoric - анафорический(относящийся к предшествующему отрезку текста)

Before discussing anaphoric uses of pronouns and tenses, we need to consider what the analog in the tense system is to non pronominal term phrases. Tenses, like pronouns, do not describe or name what they refer to. When a pronoun is not used deictically, it is used in connection with some full term phrase, which may be a proper name, a definite description, or some quantified term phrase.

ANAPHORIC PRONOUNS AND TENSES WITH SPECIFIC ANTECEDENTS.

In sentence (9), the pronoun it is used anaphorically to refer back to the object referred to by the car; whether the pronoun should here be viewed as a bound variable bound by the definite-description operator or whether it should be viewed as a "pronoun of laziness" going proxy for a repetition of the same phrase, or ambiguously as either, I leave open here. (9) Sam took the car yesterday and Sheila took it today.

`In any case, there are comparable uses of tenses, where the time is specified in one clause and the tense of a subsequent clause refers to the same time. (10) Sheila had a party last Friday and Sam got drunk.

The antecedent may be a time-clause, as in (11). (11) When Susan walked in, Peter left.

Sentence (11) presents at least two choices of analysis; to view both tenses as pronoun-like is to regard (11) as parallel to archaic forms like (12): (12) He who stole my cow, he will suffer the penalties.

A more natural form is (13), with no pronouns, but sentences like (13) are themselves problematical to analyze. (13) Whoever stole my cow will suffer the penalties.

Sentence (11) could be viewed as more like (13) than (12), with the time-clause providing a descriptive specification of the time for the main clause and both tense morphemes redundant except insofar as they indicate that the time described was in the past rather than the present or future. In either case the logical form of (11), as of both (12) and (13), would seem to be most simply represented as involving a definite-description operator connecting identical variables in the two clauses.

Lexical and grammatical aspect.

Aspect is a term that has been used in linguistics to refer to (at least) 2 distinct domains of study. We can refer to these 2 domains respectively as inner and outer aspect (Travis: 1991), situation and viewpoint (Smith: 1991), or lexical and grammatical aspect.

The (sub)event structure of a predicate is the domain of inner aspect. A predicate that describes an event as having an endpoint is a telic predicate; a predicate that describes an event as lacking an endpoint is an atelic predicate. a. Jerome drank a bottle of beer last night.

This sentence describes an event that is interpreted as having an endpoint. The endpoint of the event corresponds to the moment when the bottle of beer is finished. Jerome drank beer last night. This is example of an atelic predicate (event as lacking an endpoint).

An important property of English inner aspect is that the nature of the internal argument affects the interpretation of the event described by the predicate. In (a) the internal argument denotes a specific quantity of beer, and in (b) – doesn’t denote a specific quantity of beer.

Vendler (1957), Dowty (1977): all events are subdivided into

1. States (be, know, like) (atelic)

2. Activities (work, paint, eat) (atelic)

3. Accomplishments (paint a house, eat an apple) (telic)

4. Achievements (die, arrive, win) (telic)

Outer aspect

Giorgi and Pianesi (1997): T2: E_R perfect, R_E prospective, (R, E) neutral, Progressive (R E), perfect (?)

Outer aspect has morphological manifestations that inner aspect does not. And it is not affected by the nature of the internal argument. a. Jerome was drinking a bottle of beer (when I left the bar). b. Jerome was drinking beer (when I left the bar).

The verb is in the progressive form; ing appears on the verb, and the auxiliary be is required. Neither sentence informs of whether the event described has an endpoint or not, irrespective of the nature of the internal argument.