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

M.Y. Blokh in his A Course in Theoretical English Grammar underlines:

«Language is means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language is social by nature: it is inseparably connected with the people who are its creators and users; it grows and develops together with development society».

Grammatical time, or tense, is one of the typical functions of the finite verb. The author describing the present tense as opposed to the past tense accentuates the stylistic features and peculiarities in the linguistic circumstances, specifically «the historic present»,

If we say, «Two plus two makes four», the linguistic implication of it is «always; at the moment of speech».

If we say, «I never take his advise», we mean «at the present time».

If we say «In our millennium social formations change quicker then in the previous periods of man's history’, the linguistic, temporal content of it is «in our millennium including the moment of speech»… Here worthy of note are utterances where the meaning of the past tense stands in contrast with the meaning of some adverbial phrase referring the event to the present moment.

The seeming linguistic paradox of such cases consists exactly in the fact that their two-type indications of time, one verbal-grammatical , and one adverbal-lexical , approach the same event from two opposite angles. It is the transpositional use of the present tense with the past adverbials , either included in the utterence as such, or expressed in its contectual environment. The stylistic purpose of this transposition, known under the name of the «historical present» is to create a vivid picture of the event reflected in the utterance.

e.g.: Then he turned the corner, and what do you think happens next ? He faces nobody else than Mr. Greggs accompanied by his private secretary!

The «historical present» will be included in our practical part that is why we want to describe this subject in details.

The Historical Present

The English «historical present» is usually described as a way of making storytelling events more vivid.

e.g.: Last night Blackie (cat) comes with this huge dead rat in her mouth and drops it right at ray feet.

These utterence has an adverbial of time «last night» establishing the time of the event in the past , while the actions are described in the present tense. The actual time is remote from the time of utterence, but the actions described are presented as if they coincide with the time of the utterence.

e.g.: My parents worked in the field all day. And I work in the fields all day like them…

The so-called «historical present» is characteristic of popular narrative style (or fictional present or fictional narrative). In Older English, the simple present was used more widely with reference to a present event which would now be described by use of the present progressive (durative):

e.g.: I go = I’m going.

The «historical present» describes the past as if it is happening now; it conveys something of the dramatic immediacy of an eye-witness account.

e.g.: I couldn’t believe it! Just as we arrived , up comes Ben and slaps me on the back as if we’re life-long friends. «Come on, old pal», he says . Let me buy you a drink! I’m telling you, I nearly fainted on the spot».

A very different use of the present tense in reference to the past is that found with verbs of communication :

e.g.: The ten o’clock news says that there's to be storm. Such verbs include also verbs like understand, hear, learn which refer to the receptive end of the communication process.

e.g.: I hear that poor Mr. Simpson has gone into hospital.

These sentences would also be acceptable with the simple past or present perfective, but the implication of the present tense seems to be that although the communication event took place in the past, its result – the information communicated – is still operate.

e.g.: The Book of Genesis speaks of the terrible fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Thus, although the Book of Genesis wsa written thousands years ago, it still «sreaks» to us at the present. The notion that the past can remain in the present also explains the optional use of the present tense in sentences reffering to writers, composers, artists, etc., and their extant works.

e.g. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky draws/drew his characters from sources deep in the Russian soul.

It is something more than a figure of speech to suggest that author is still able to speak to us through his works.

The present tense can even be used, without respect to any patticular work, for general artistic characterization of the author, but biographical details of the artist's life must be normally reported through the past tense. Hence there is an interesting contrast between:

e.g.: Murasaki write/wrote of life in 11th century Japan.

cf: Murasaki wrote in 11th century Japan .