Дипломная работа: Stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English

e.g.: «NO SELL-OUT» SAYS P.M.

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There is a close connection between the «historical present» of above, and the simple present as used in the «Fictional narrative» . The only difference is that whereas the events narrated by means of the «historical present» are REAL , those narrated by the «fictional historical present» are IMAGINARY.

This is stylistically marked in contrast to the normal convention of the past tense for store-telling.

e.g.: The crowd swarms around the gateway, and seethes with delighted anticipation; excitement grows , as suddenly their hero makes his entrance…

A special exception in the use of the present tense in stage direction.

e.g.: Millinson enters . The girls immediately pretend to be working hard. William assures a businesslike air, picks up two folders, and makes for door.

Here the present tense is used by convention, as if to represent the idea that events of the play are being performed before our eyes as we read the script.

In his monography M.Y. Blokh debates a point how to use shall or will future and marks «The view that shall and will retain their modal meanings in all their uses was defended by such a recognized authority on English grammar of the older generation of the twentieth century linguists as O. Jespersen . In our times, quite a few scholars, among them the successors of Descriptive Linguistics, consider these verbs as part of the general set of modal verbs, «modal auxiliaries», expressing the meanings of capability, probability, permission, obligation, and the like».

The modal nature of the «shall/will + Infinitive» combinations can be shown by means of equivalent substitutions .

e.g.: He who does not work neither shall he eat .

cf.: He who does not work must not eat .

As regards the second question-the aspect of the verb in modern English – M.Y. Blokh picks up two main variants: the continuous and the perfective.

l. The continuous forms are aspective because reflecting the inherent character of the process named by verb, they do not, and cannot, denote the timing of the process. The opposition constituting the corresponding category is effected between the continuous and non-continuous forms .

2. The true nature of the perfect is temporal aspect reflected in its own opposition, which cannot be reduced to any other oppositions. The categorial member opposed to the perfect will be named «imperfect or non-perfect» .

The author underlines that the aspective meanings can be inbuilt in the semantic structure of the verb and, on the other hand, the aspective meanings can also be represented in variable grammatical forms and categories. At this point of our consideration, we should differ the categorial terminology and the definitions of categories .

A category, in normal use, cannot be represented twice in one and the same word-form. The integral verb-form cannot display at once more then one expression of each of recognized verbal categories, though it does give a representive expression to all the verbal categories taken together through the corresponding obligatory featuring. So in the verbal system of English there are two temporal categories:

– the past tense as a direct retrospective evaluation of the time of the process;

– the future tense – the timing of % he process in a prospective evaluation.

There are two aspective categories:

– the continuous aspect;

– the perfect aspect.

N.Y. Blokh describes the aspective categories backed on the works of H. Sweet and O. Jespersen. On the ground that aspective category is constituted by the opposition of the continuous forms of the verb to the non-continuous forms, they present some sentences with while-clauses:

1. While I was typing, Mary and Tom were chatting in the adjoining room.

2. While I typed , Mary and Tom were chatting in the adjoining room.

3. While I was typing , Wary and Tom chatted in the adjoining room.

4. While I typed , they chatted in the adjoining room.

We have to feel the difference in semantic connotations. The meaningful difference consists exactly in the categorial semantics of the indefinite and comtinuous: while the latter shows the action in the very process of its realization, the former points it out as a mere fact…The stylistic potential of the continuous aspect is in its possibility to create a number of actions going on simultaneously in descriptions of scenes implied by the narration .

e.g.: Standing on the chair, I could see in through the barred window into the hall of the Ayuntamiento and in there it was as it had been before. The priest was standing , and those who were left were kneeling in a half circle around him and they were all praying . Pablo was sitting on the big table in front of the Mayor's chair with his shotgun slung over his back.»