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

Meanings of the past tense with reference to the present and future time :

– the phenomenon «backshift» (Did you say you have / had no money?)

– the attitudinal past (Do/Did you want to see me now?)

– the hypothetical past (if-clauses, expectations – «I wish I had a memory like yours».)

To adhere to the main point from «A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language» it is essential to exhibit some facts from chapter «Perfective and progressive ASPECT .» [29; 31]. The term «aspect» refers to a grammatical category which reflects the way in which the verb action is regarded and experienced with respect to t i m e . The two aspect constructions of English: perfective and the progressive, can be seen as realizing a basic contrast if aspect between the action viewed as complete (perfective) , and the action viewed as incomplete, i.e. progressive. The morphological realization of tense and syntactic realization of aspect are very closely connected. Quirk R. marks that approximately 10% of finite verb phrases are only perfective. Perfective aspect indicates ANTERIOR TIME – time preceding whatever time orientation is signaled by tense or by other elements of the sentence or its context .

We may now focus on the difference between two constructions:

1. State leading up to the present:

e.g.: That house has been empty for ages. – the state continues at least up to the present.

cf.: That house was empty for ages.-but now it has been sold.

2. Identifinite events in a period leading up to the present:

e.g.: Have ever been to Florence? – the indefinite past.

cf.: Did you go to florence? – last summer! – we have to imagine the definite past.

3. Habit event (recurrent) in a period leading up to the present:

e.g. : Mr Terry has sung in this choir ever since he was boy. – the period identified must continue up to the present.

cf.: The journal was published every month from 1850 to 1888. – the definite past.

Progressive aspect stylistically more frequent in conversations than in scientific discourse. A count of a large number of verb constructions has indicated that less then 5% of verb phrases are progressive, whereas 95% are nonprogressive [32; 29].

The meaning of the progressive can be separated into 3 components:

1. The happening has duration: Joan is singing well.

2. The happening has limited duration: Joan was singing well.

3. Incompletion – thehappening is not necessary complete:

e.g.; Joan was reading the novel yesterday evening.

According to the chapter the progressive aspect can be divided into:

1. Stative progressive:

e.g.: We are living in the country. – temporal residence.

cf.: We live in the country.-permanent residence.

2. Event progressive:

e.g.: The referee is/was blowing of whistle. – repeated blowing.

cf.: The referee slows his whistle. – only one time!

3. Habit progressive: