- •Lecture 4 topic: the verb
- •The verb : its general characteristics. The main verbal subdivisions.
- •4.1.1. General characteristics of the verb as a part of speech
- •4.1.2 The main verbal subdivisions
- •4.2.The main verbal properties: valency, transitivity, objectivity, predicativity.
- •4.3. The main verbal categories and oppositions.
- •The main verbal oppositions
- •4.4. The problem of the category of aspect. The Interrelation of the categories of tense and aspect
- •Interrelation between the category of aspect and the category of tense
- •The general characteristics of the verbal forms
- •4.5.General characteristics of the category of voice. The problem of the number of voices. Peculiarities of English passive constructions.
- •The opposition on the category of Voice
- •. ₪ The point to clarify:
- •5. Can all English verbs be characterized from the point of the category of Voice? The Problem of the Middle Voice
- •The main points of views towards the Middle Voice
- •4.6. The problem of the number of mood in English. The problem of the Imperative Mood. The problems of the Subjunctive Mood
- •Appendix 1 The general characteristics of the verbal forms
4.4. The problem of the category of aspect. The Interrelation of the categories of tense and aspect
THE CATEGORY OF ASPECT — grammatical category which reflects the inherent mode of the realisation of the process irrespective of its timing.
The problem of category of aspect is determined by the fact that linguists don’t have unanimous opinion on this point.
Some of them (Kerm, Krazing, Poutman) see under this category “the indication towards the course of the action”. The typical features of this indication are
the beginning of the action
the end of the action
the recurrence of the action
However according to this definition , aspect cannot been seen as grammatical category being characterized my lexical means.
The positive side of this point of view —attention to the aspect character of the verb, the possibility of defining processual limit.
As the result the division into limitive-non –limitive verbs
There are two tendencies towards the defining of the category of aspect.
1) tendency presented in foreign linguistics (two aspect oppositions )
—relatively the moment of speaking
—relatively some other time points – centres taken in the past or future
2) tendency presented in Russian linguistics (the category of aspect is taken in the interrelation with the category of tense)
THE CATEGORY OF TENSE — grammatical category denoting the correspondence between the time described in the situation and the moment of speaking taken as the starting point or some other time taken as the starting point.
The moment of speaking taken as the starting point is known as the absolute time
The absolute time expresses the degree the time of the described situation correlates to the moment of speaking. It indicates when the action takes place either at the moment of speaking or earlier or after it.
Usually we distinguish three main correlations
Present tense — the action takes places at the moment of speaking
Past tense — the action proceeds the moment of speaking
Future tense — the action follows the moment of speaking
The forms that correspond to the moment of speaking are seen as INDEPENDENT TENSE FORMS
The forms that can’t correspond to the moment of speaking are seen as DEPENDANT TENSE FORMS
INDEPENDENT TENSE FORM (all Simple + all present forms)
DEPENDANT TENSE FORMS ( all the rest)
TIME |
Indefinite |
Continuous |
Perfect |
Perfect Continuous |
Present |
INDEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
INDEPENDENT |
INDEPENDENT |
Past |
INDEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
Future |
INDEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
Future-in-the-Past |
DEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
DEPENDENT |
Some other time taken as the starting point known as the relative time (the taxis)
The taxis expresses the degree the time of the described situation correlates not to the moment of speaking but to some other time or action. It may be expressed mostly by the verbals. Usually we distinguish the following taxis correlations:
simultaneous actions (while reading the book I enjoyed it a lot)
prior actions (having read the book I wrote a composition onto it)
Mostly detailed the interrelation between the category of aspect and the category of tense is described by I.P. Ivanova . She considers time to be seen as permanent verbal characteristics and aspect should be seen as the permanent characteristics of a verbal form.
There are four aspect groups in English (Simple, Continuous, Perfect, Perfect Continuous).
The first group (Indefinite) – corresponds to the moment of speaking , so can be seen as pure tense form.
The second group (Continuous) expresses the processual contents of the action.
The third group (Perfect) expresses the processual limit of the action
The fourth group (perfect Continuous) expresses both the processual contents which leads to the processual limit of the action.