The Category of Aspect

§ 218. The category of aspect is a system of two-member opposemes such as works — is working, has worked — has been working, to work — to be working showing the character of the action, i. e. whether the action is taken in its progress,

¹ See Б А. И л ь и ш, op. cit., p. 165; also Г. Н. В о р о н ц о в а, op. cit., p. 191.

in its development ('continuous') or it is simply stated, its nature being unspecified ('non-continuous').

§ 219. The problem of aspect is controversial in English grammar. There is but little consensus of opinion about this category in Modern English.

One meets with different lines of approach to English aspect, which can be briefly summarized as follows:

1. Aspect is interpreted as a category of semantics rather
than that of grammar.

2. Aspect is not recognized at all as a category of Modern
English grammar.

3. Aspect is blended with tense and regarded as an inal­
ienable part of the tense-aspect system.

4. Aspect and tense are recognized as two distinct gram­
matical categories.

Typical of the first line are the views advanced by M. Deut-schbein ^!, A. G. Kennedy ², G. Curme ³ and some other gram­marians.

Thus according to Kennedy the Modern English aspect system comprises:

1) The 'terminate'aspect representing an action as a whole,
as in He went to town.

2) The 'ingressive' aspect which points to the beginning
of the action as in He b e g a n to work.

3) The" 'effective' aspect showing the conclusion of an
action. She ceased speaking.

4) The 'durative' aspect presenting an action as contin­
uous, as in Wheat g г о w s in Canada. He i s walking
along the street.

5) The 'iterative' aspect, Each night the old man would
walk to town.

It is self-evident that this classification has nothing to do with grammar, being based exclusively upon semantic principles.

Those who do not recognize the existence of aspect in Modern English ⁴ treat the 'continuous' forms as tense forms

¹ M Deutschbein Die Einteilung der Aktionsarten. Enghsche
Studien, Bd. 54, 1920.

² A. Q Kennedy Current English. Boston, N. Y., 1935, p. 303, 304.

³ G Curme, op cit, p 373.

⁴ H. Sweet, op cit , pt I, 283, O. Jespersen. A Modern English
Grammar en Historical Principles. 1949, IV, 12, 1.2, 12.5.4.

(termed 'progressive', 'expanded', 'long', 'durative', or 'relative' tense forms) expressing actions simultaneous with some other actions or situations.

Our objections to this point of view are as follows:

1. The forms wrote — was writing are opposed not as
tense forms. Both of them express the same tense — the past.

2. The idea of simultaneity does not go very well with
the 'perfect continuous' forms which are a necessary part of
the system of 'continuous' forms.

3. Even the 'non-perfect continuous' forms may be used
without special indications of simultaneity.

E. g. Once in his early life, surprised reading by a night-light, he had said fatuously, "/ was just turn­ing over the leaves, Mum". (J. Galsworthy). I'm s t а у i n g with his sister — who married my cousin. (J. Galsworthy).

4. Simultaneous actions are very often expressed by the
non-continuous forms of the verb.

E. g. Her voice pursued him as he walked up and ,dэwn. (J. Galsworthy).

5. Sentences like

Moonlight was frosting the dew, and an old sun­dial t h r e w a long shadow. (Ib.).

Soames passed into the corner where side by side hung his real Goya and the copy of the fresco "La Vendimia". (J. Gals­worthy).

And next to it w a s h a n g i n g the copy of "La Ven­dimia". (Ib.). show that the continuous and the non-contin­uous forms may express exactly the same relation of the action to time.

All this bears testimony to the fact that the category expressed by the opposition of the continuous and the non-continuous forms is not that of tense.

Likewise we disagree with those who, though recognizing aspect as a grammatical category, think, nevertheless, that it cannot be severed from tense *.

¹ See, for instance, И. П. Иванова, op. oil., also В. Н. Ж и-г а д л о, И. П. И в а н о в а, Л. Л. И о ф и к, op. cit., р. 92.

¹ t; As we know, in actual speech all the grammatical meanings

of a word always go together in a bunch ¹. Thus in tells we find a) present tense, b) active voice, c) indicative mood, d) singular n ir m b e r, etc.

i, It does not follow, however, that we are unable to separate

the category of mood from the category of tense or the cat­egory of voice from that of aspect.

By opposing tells to told and will tell we single out the
category of tense; by contrasting tells with is telling we bring
r to light the category of aspect. Thus aspect is as closely con-

nected with tense, as it is with voice, order, mood, person, number, etc.

It is perhaps, less closely connected with tense than with order since in the infinitive we find aspect linked with order but not with tense. Cf. to write — to be writing, to have writ­ten — to have been writing.

At any rate, the infinitive proves that aspect can be and is separated from tense.

Consequently, we follow the views advanced by B. A. Ilyish ², A. I. Smirnitsky ³, V. N. Yartseva ⁴, and some other linguists and treat tense and aspect as different gram­matical categories. 4

§ 220. The categories of tense and aspect characterize an
action from different points of view. The tense of a verb shows
1 the time of the action, while the aspect of a verb deals with

the development of the action.

The term aspect describes to some extent the contents
of the category. It really shows what aspect of the action
is considered: whether the action is taken in its progress or
without that specification. Was writing presents the action
in its progress, in its continuity (the 'continuous' aspect),
wrote may present the same action without indications of
continuity, on the one hand, or accomplishment, on
j the other, though both may be gathered from the con-

i text, e. g. / wrote to him yesterday. I often wrote to him

: last year.

*See § 21.

² Б А. Ильи ш, op. cit., p. 162.

³ А. И. С м и p н и ц к и и, op. cit., p. 316.

⁴ В. Н. Ярцева. Длительные времена и проблемы вида «Уч.
Зап. ЛГУ», 1940, № 58.

§ 221. With regard to the category of aspect verbs divide into those that have aspect opposites and those that have not. The latter are united by the oblique, or lexico-grammatical, or potential meaning of 'non-continuous aspect'. As usual, the neutralization of 'aspect' opposemes depends on the lexical meanings of the corresponding verbs.

Here is a brief enumeration of some groups of verbs usually having no aspect opposites.

a) Verbs presenting diverse relations as actions —
belong, contain, consist, date, possess, resemble, result, suffice,
etc.

b) Certain link-verbs (mostly those of 'seeming') such
as appear, look, prove, seem, turn out, etc.

The 'actions' denoted by the two groups have little or no dynamic force. This is at the bottom of their not being used with the 'continuous' meaning.

c) Verbs of 'physical perceptions' (see, hear, feel, smell)
denoting constant properties viewed as actions.

d) Verbs of 'mental perceptions' (believe, dislike, dis­
trust, hate, hope, know, like, trust, understand, etc.). which
are likewise, verbs of weak dynamic force.

4) 'Point-action' verbs denoting instantaneous acts of very short duration, unless such acts are repeated (burst, jump, drop, pick up, etc.).

Sometimes, however, the potential meanings are actual­ized by the use of a 'continuous aspect' opposite showing the progress of the action at a given moment or during a cer­tain period and stressing its temporary, transient nature, as in She was not hating him any more at that crucial moment. (Ruck); You are not seeing him to advantage now. (Daily Worker).

THE FINITES

§ 222. Besides those properties that characterize the verb as a whole, the finites possess certain features not shared by the verbids.

1. The grammatical categories of mood, tense, person,
number and posteriority.

2. Grammatical cornbinability (The boy plays. The boys
play.).

3. The function of the predicate.

§ 223. As already mentioned (§ 187), the finites form three systems called 'moods': the 'indicative' mood, the 'subjunctive' mood, and the 'imperative' mood. The correla­tion of these systems constitutes the category of mood.

The features of the finites enumerated above fully mani­fest themselves only in the indicative mood system. Therefore it is expedient to begin the analysis of the finites with the category of mood, and then discuss their properties within the frame of each mood system.

The Category of Mood

§ 224. Mood is the grammatical category of the verb re­flecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker's point of view.

In the sentences He listens attentively; Listen attentively; You would have listened attentively if you had been interested, we deal with the same action of listening, but in the first sentence the speaker presents the action as taking place in reality, whereas in the second sen­tence the speaker urges the listener to perform the action, and in the third sentence the speaker presents the action as imaginary.

These different relations of the action to reality are ex­pressed by different mood-forms of the verb: listens, listen, would have listened.

§ 225. There is no unity of opinion concerning the cate­gory of mood in English. Thus A. I. Smirnitsky, O. S. Akhma-nova, M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya find six moods in Modern English ('indicative', 'imperative', 'subjunctive Г, 'subjunctive 1Г, 'conditional' and 'suppositional'), B. A. Ilyish, L. P. Vinokurova, V. N. Zhigadlo, I. P. Iva-nova, L. L. lofik find only three moods — 'indicative', 'imperative' and 'subjunctive'. The latter, according to B. A. Ilyish appears in two forms — the conditional and the subjunctive. L. S. Barkhudarov and D. A. Shteling distinguish only the 'indicative' and the 'subjunctive' mood. The latter is subdivided into 'subjunctive Г and 'subjunctive II'. The 'imperative' and the 'conjunctive' are treated as forms outside the category of mood.

G. N. Vorontsova distinguishes four moods in English: 1) 'indicative', 2) 'optative', represented in three varieties

('imperative', 'desiderative', 'subjunctive'), 3) 'specula­tive', found in two varieties ('dubitative' and 'irrealis') and 4) 'presumptive'.

In general the raumber of English moods in different theo­ries varies from two to seventeen.

In this book the indicative, imperative and subjunctive moods are considered.

§ 226. The difficulty of distinguishing other moods from the indicative in English is connected with the fact that, barring be, they do not contain a single form which is not used in the indicative mood. At the same time the indicative mood contains many forms not used in other moods. The subjunctive mood is richer in forms than the imperative mood.

So the meaning of the three moods are distinguished in the language structure not so much by the opposition of individual forms (as is the case in the opposemes of other categories), as by the opposition of the systems of forms each mood possesses. By way of illustration let us compare the synthetic forms of the lexeme have in the three moods.

 

Indicative	Subjunctive	Imperative
have, has, had	have, had	have

This is why it is difficult to represent the category of mood in opposemes, like other categories.

In speech, the meanings of the three moods are distin­guished not so much by the forms of the verbs, as by their distribution.

Cf. When I need a thing, I g о and buy it. We insist that he g о and buy it. G о and buy it.

§ 227. One of the most important differences between the indicative and the other moods is that the meaning of 'tense' d >es not go with the meanings of subjunctive mood and imperative mood. 'Tense' reflects the real time of a real action. The imperative and subjunctive moods represent the

action not as real, but as desired or imagined, and the notions of real time are discarded ¹.

§ 228. The meaning of 'perfect order' does not go with the meaning of imperative mood because one cannot require of anyone to fulfil an action preceding the request. But it is easy to imagine a preceding action. Therefore the system of the subjunctive mood includes opposemes of order.

Aspect and voice opposemes are characteristic of the sys­tems of all moods, but the 'passive' and 'continuous' members of the opposemes are very rarely used in the imperative mood. There are person opposemes (though not systematically used) of only one type in the subjunctive mood system (should go — would go) and none in the imperative mood. The num­ber opposeme was — were is sometimes realized in the sub­junctive mood (colloquial). Opposemes of the category of posteriority (shall go — should go; will go — would gff) are typical only of the indicative mood.

The system of opposemes of each moed can roughly be represented as follows:

 

 

Opposemes	Moods
Indica­tive	Subjunc­tive	Impera­tive
write — be writing (aspect) write — be written (voice) wrote — had written (order) should write — would write (per­son) was — were (number) writes — wrote — will write (tense) shall write — should write (po­steriority)	+	«;	(±>

¹ H. Kufner writes: "In itself, the combined structure "if" + + ... could, might, should, would is void of any time signalling content and is compatible with contextual or situational clues specifying future, present or past chronology" (The Grammatical Structures of English and German. Chicago, 1963, p. 30).