Курсовая работа: Structural-semantic and functional features of the category of voice in languages of different system

A counting for the modal meanings of the combinations under analysis, traditional grammar gives the following rules: shall + Infinitive with the first person, will + Infinitve with the second and the third persons express modal meanings, the most typical of which are intention or desire part for I will and promise or command on the part of the speaker for you shall, he will. Both rules apply to refined British English. In American English with all the persons, shall as expressing modality.

However, the cited description, though distinguished by elegant simplicity, cannot be taken as fully agreeing with the existing lingual practice. The main feature of this description contradicted by practice is the British use of will the first person without distinctly pronounced modal connotations. Cf.:

I will call for you and your young man at seven o’clock. When we wake I will take him up and carry him back. I will let you know on Wednesday what expenses have been necessary. If you wait there on Thursday evening between seven and eight I will come if I can.

That the combinations of will with the infinitive in the above examples do express the future time, admits of no disputes. Furthermore, these combinations, seemingly, are charged with modal connotations in no higher degree than the corresponding combination of shall with the infinitive. Cf.:

Haven’t time, I shall miss my train. I shall be happy to carry it to the House of Lords, if necessary. You never kow what may happen I shan’t have a minute’s peace.

Granted our semantic institutions about the exemplified, uses are true, the question then arises what is the real difference if any, between the two British first person expressions of the future, on with shall the other one with will? Or are they actually just semantic doublets, i.e. units of complete synonymy, bound if by the paradigmatic relation of the alternation?

Observing combinations with will instylisticall neutral collocations the first step of our study we note the adverbial of time used with this construction. The environmental expressions, as well as implications, of future time do testify that from this point of view there is no difference between will and shall both of them eqully conveying the idea of the future action expressed by the adjoining infinitive.

As our next step of inferences, nothing the types of the infinitive environmental semantics of will in contrast to the contextual background of shall, we state that the first person will – future express an option does not at all imply that the speaker actually wishes to perform the action or else that he is determined to perform it, possibly in defiance of some contrary force. The exposition of the action shows it as being not bound or by any special influence except the speaker’s option; this is exhaustive characteristic. In keeping with this, the form of the will- future in question may be tentatively called in "voluntary future".

On other hand, comparing the environmental characteristics of shall with the corresponding environmental background of will it is easy to see that, as different from will the first person shall expresses of future process that will be realized without the will of the speaker, irrespective of his choice. Inform of the first person future should be referred to as the non-voluntary i.e. as the weak member of the corresponding opposition.

Further observation of the relevant textual data show that some verbs constituting a typical environment of the non-voluntary shall-future occur also with the voluntary will, but in a different meaning, namely in the meaning of an active action the performance of which is freely chosen by the speaker of. Your arrival cannot have been announced to his majesty. I will see about it.

At the final stage of our study the disclosed characteristics of the two first-person futures are checked on the lines of transformal analysis. The method will consist not in free structural manipulations with the analyzed constructions, but in the textual search for the respective changes of the auxiliaries depending on the changes in the infinitival environment.

Applying these procedures to the texts, we note that when the construction of the voluntary will – future is expanded a syntactic part re-modeling the whole collocation into one expressing an indunatary action, the auxiliary will is automatically replaced by shall. In particular, it happens when the expanding elements convey the meaning of supposition or uncertainty. Cf.:

Give me a goddess’s work to do, and I shall do it. ® I don’t know what shall do with Barbara. Oh, the only very well, very well. I will write another prescription. ® I shall perhaps write to your mother.

Thus, we conclude that within the system of the English future tense a peculiar minor category is expressed which affects only the forms of the first person. The category is constituted by the opposition of the forms will+Infintive and shall+Infinitive expressing respectively the voluntary future and the non-voluntary future.

The future in the second and third persons, formed by the indiscriminate auxiliary will does not express this category, which is dependent on the semantics of the persons: normally it would be irrelevant to indicate in an obligatory way the aspect of futurity option otherwise than with first person, i.e. the person of self.

This category is neutralized in the contracted form –‘ll, which is of necessity indifferent to the expression of the futurity opposition. As is known, the traditional analysis of the contracted future states that –‘ll stands for will, not for shall. However, this view is not supported by textual data. Indeed, bearing in mind the results of our study, it is easy to demonstrate that the contracted forms of the future may be traced both to will and to shall.

Form the evidence afforted by the historical studies of the language we know that the English contracted form of the future –ll has actually originated from the auxiliary will. So, in Modern English an interesting process of redistribution of the forms ha staken place, based apparently on the contamination will –‘ll –shall. As a result, the form –‘ll in the first person expresses not the same "pure" future as it the expresses by the indiscriminate will in the second and third persons.

The described system of the British future is by for more complicated than the expression of the future tense in the other notional variants of English in particular, in American English where the future form of the first person is functionally equal with the other persons. In British English a possible tendency to a similar leveled expression of the future is actively counteractions of the future auxiliarities in the negative form, i.e. shan’t and survival of shall in the first person against the leveled positive contraction –ll’. The second is the use of the future tense in interrogative sentences where the first person only shall is normally used. Indeed it is quite natural that a genuine question directed by the speaker to himself, i.e. a question directed by the speaker to himself, i.e. a question showing doubt or speculation, is to be asked about an action of non-wilful, involuntary order, and not otherwise. Cf.: what shall we be shown next? Shall I be able to master shorthand professionally? The question was, should I see Beatrice again before her departure.

The semantics of the first person futurity question is such that even the infinitives of essentially volution governed actions are transferred here to the plane of non-volution, subordinating themselves to the general implication of doubt, hesitation, and uncertainty.

Apart from shall/will+Infinitive construction, there is another construction in English which the framework of the general problem of the future tense. This is the combination of the predicator be going with the infinitive. Indeed, the high frequency occurrence of this construction in contexts conveying the idea of an immediate future action can’t but draw a vey close attention on the part of a linguistic observer.

The combination may denote a sheer intention to perform the action expressed by the infinitive thus entering into the vast set of "classical" modal constructions.

I’m going to ask you a few more questions about the mysterious disappearance of the document. Mr.Greff. he looked across at my desk and I thought for a moment he was going to give me the treatment too.

But these simple modal uses of be going are countered by cases the direct meaning of intention rendered by the predicator stands in contradiction with its environmental implications and is subdued by them. Cf.: You are trying to frighten me. But are not going to frighten me any more (L.Helman). I did not know now I was going to get out of the room (D.du.Mawren).

Moreover, the construction dispute its primary meaning of intention presupposing a human subject is not infrequently used with non-human subjects is not infrequently asked used with non0human subjects and even in impersonal sentences. Cf.: She knew what she was doing and she was sure going to be the worth doing (W.Sarayan). There is going to be a contest over Ezra Grolley’s estate (E.Gardener).

Because of these properties it would appear tempting to class the construction in question as a specific tense form, namely, the tense form of "immediate future", analogous to the French future immadiat (Le spectacle va carn mencer).

Still, on closer consideration, we notice that non-intention cases of the predicator be going are not indifferent stylistically. Far from being neutral, they more often than not display emotional coloring mixed with semantic connotations of oblique modality.

For instance, when the girl from the first of the above examples appreciates something as "going to be worth doing; she is expressing her assurance of its being so. When one labels the rain as "never going to stop" one clearly expresses one’s annoyance at the bad state of the weather. When a future event is introduced by the formula "there to be going to be", as is the case in the second of the cited examples, the speaker clearly implies his foresight of a like nature. Thus, on the whole, the non-intention uses of the construction be going+Infinitive cannot be rationally divided into modal and non-modal, on the analogy of the construction shall/will+Infinitive . It broader combinability is based on semantic transposition and can be likened to broader uses of the modal collocation be about, also of basically intention semantics.

The oppositional basis of the category of perspective time is neutralized in certain uses, in keeping with the general regularities of oppositional reductions. The process of neutralization is connected with the shifting of the forms of primary time (present and past) from the sphere of absolute tenses into the sphere of relative tenses.

One of the typical cases of the neutralization in question consists in using a non-future temporal form to express a future action which is to take place according to some plan or arrangement. Cf.: The government meets in emergency session today over the question of continued violations of the cease-fire. I hear your sister is soon arriving from Paris? Naturally I would like to know when he’s coming, etc.