The grammar of the english verb phrase part 23 pps

Firstly, all the tenses make use of an inflectional tense morpheme which expresses either past or nonpast.17There is no inflectional future tense morpheme in English: the future tense is

IV The present and past time-spheres

2.33 The conceptualization of ‘time-spheres’

English tenses appear to reflect a mental division of time into past and nonpast The main evidence for this is that all tenses carry either a past or a nonpast (present) tense morpheme There is no future tense morpheme We will represent this division of time

as involving two time-spheres: a past time-sphere and a present time-sphere

In English, the use of tenses implies a conceptual division of time into two

‘time-spheres’: thepresent time-sphereand thepast time-sphere (Note that

a time-sphere is a length of time and should not be visualized as something

spherical (round).)

The claim that English speakers conceptualize linguistic time as divided into

two, not three (viz past, present and future), time-spheres is based on several

observations Firstly, all the tenses make use of an inflectional tense morpheme

which expresses either past or nonpast.17There is no inflectional future tense

morpheme in English: the future tense is formed with the help of the present

tense form of an auxiliary (will), i e a ‘free’ morpheme rather than a ‘bound’

one Thus,will do (which realizes ‘PRESENT ⫹ will ⫹ do’) contains a present

tense inflectional morpheme, andwould do (which expresses ‘PAST ⫹ will ⫹

do’) contains a past tense inflectional morpheme Secondly, it is in keeping with

this that the future tense use ofshall and will has developed from their use as

forms expressing present nonepistemic modality (more specifically, some kind

of volition) Thirdly, in order to temporally relate a situation time to a future

situation time, English uses the same tense system as it uses to temporally relate

a situation time to t0: compareI am ill with [Next time, he will pretend that]

he is ill, and He has left with [I will do it when] he has left (see 7.6.2) This

means that English treats a future situation time which functions as a starting

point for the temporal location of other situation times as a ‘pseudo-t0’ This

accords perfectly with the view that the post-present is a portion (‘zone’⫺ see

2.35) of the present time-sphere (Note that this argument is not refuted by the

observation that the present tense can also refer to the past, viz in the ‘historic

present’ use The point is that in [Next time, he will pretend that] he is ill and

[I will do it when] he has left, the forms is and have left cannot be replaced

with will be and will have left, respectively, while a historic present form can

17 If the tense form consists of more than one verb form, the tense morpheme is always to

be found in the first auxiliary (the so-called ‘operator’ of the tense form).

always be replaced by a past tense form This means that the use of the present tense with future time reference is normal and obligatory in the above exam-ples, whereas the use of the present tense with past time reference is special and optional.)

2.34 Defining the time-spheres

The past time-sphere lies wholly before t0, while the present time-sphere includes t0 and extends either side of it for an indefinite amount of time

2.34.1 The past time-sphere is conceived of as a timespan of indefinite length which lies wholly before t0 and is disconnected from t0 The absolute tense locating a situation time in the past time-sphere is the preterite (past tense) (As explained in 2.41, an absolute tense is a tense that relates a situation time directly to t0and not to another orientation time.)

I left the house around midnight (Left locates its situation time in the past time-sphere, which is defined in direct relation to t 0 )

2.34.2 The present time-sphere (ornonpast time-sphere) is conceived of

as a timespan of indefinite length which includes t0

2.35 Present time-sphere zones

The present time-sphere is conceived of here as containing the present zone, which coincides with t0, the pre-present zone, which leads up to t0, and the post-present zone, which begins immediately after t0 To locate a situation in one of these zones, we use the present tense, the present perfect or the future tense (or a futurish tense) respec-tively

The zero-time (t0) is taken to divide the present time-sphere into three zones The portion of the present time-sphere that precedes t0 is the pre-present zone; the portion that coincides with t0is thepresent zone; and the portion that follows t0is thepost-present zone(or ‘future zone’) It should be stressed that these three zones follow each other without overlap This means that the post-present starts from t but does not include it, and that the pre-present

leads up to t0but does not include it (In 5.2 it will be shown that the latter

claim does not run counter to the observation that the present perfect receives

a ‘continuative’ interpretation inWe’ve been living here for six weeks now.)

To locate situations in these three zones we use the present perfect, the

present tense and the future tense (or a ‘futurish form’⫺ see 2.9), respectively

Each of these tenses shows present (nonpast) morphology

Ihave already spoken to John (Have spoken is a present perfect tense form locating

its situation time somewhere in the pre-present zone.)

Iam very happy with her (Am locates its situation time at t 0 )

I {will / am going to} be there tomorrow (Not only will be but also am going to

be locates the situation time in the post-present As noted in 2.13, the situation time

is the time of the actualization of the predicated situation, not the time of

anticipa-tion of that actualizaanticipa-tion.)

2.36 Visual representation of time-spheres and zones

The linguistic conceptualization of time in terms of time-spheres and zones can

be represented as in Figure 2.1 In this diagram the time line is represented as

consisting of two time-spheres The dotted line in the middle of the time line

is meant to represent the fact that there is felt to be a break between the two

time-spheres (There is a slight but hard to avoid technical problem with this

diagram: it makes the pre-present look as though it is more recent, i e closer

to t0, than the past That this impression is false is stressed in 2.39.)

Figure 2.1 Linguistic conceptualization of the time line in English.

2.37 Absolute zones

The past time-sphere is conceived of as consisting of a single zone (the past time-zone)

To locate a situation in the past time-zone we use the past tense The four zones (pre-present, present and post-present plus past) that are defined in direct relation to t are

called the ‘absolute’ zones The tenses used to locate situations in these absolute zones are referred to as ‘absolute tenses’

Whereas the present time-sphere is automatically divided into three zones by

t0, the past time-sphere consists of a single time-zone, which is defined as lying completely before t0and as disconnected from t0 The past time-sphere and the three present time-sphere zones together constitute the set ofabsolute zones (or absolute time-zones), i e the four time-zones that are defined in direct relation to t0 (Note that ‘zone’ is equivalent to ‘time-sphere’ where the past is concerned and equivalent to ‘portion of the time-sphere’ where the pre-present, present and post-present are concerned.) (To a layman, the use of ‘time-zone’

to refer to t0 may seem odd, because t0 is conceived of as punctual, but the concept ‘punctual interval’ is well-established in the literature on tense.)

2.38 Past vs pre-present

Situation times that precede t0can in principle be located either in the pre-present zone

or in the past time-sphere, but the choice depends on whether the speaker’s ‘temporal focus’ is on the present or on the past

There is a generally accepted intuition that the use of the present perfect in English implies that the speaker is somehow concerned with the present (see 5.1.3) In our tense model this is reflected in the claim that the time of a situation referred to by a present perfect is not located in the past, but rather

in the ‘pre-present’ Situation times that precede t0 can in principle be located either in the pre-present zone or in the past time-sphere, but the choice depends

on whether the speaker’s ‘temporal focus’ (see 11.1) is on the present or on the past This explains why the present perfect is incompatible with adverbials like

yesterday, two weeks ago, etc., which place the temporal focus on the past.

The choice of temporal focus is more important than the notion of ‘current relevance’, because only the former has to do with the location of the predi-cated situation in time Since tense is the grammaticalization of locating a situation in time by means of a verb form (see 2.1), adverbials of past time are incompatible with the present perfect, even if there is an idea of current rele-vance This is clear from the following examples:

[I know what Paris looks like.] Ihave visited it several times.

[I know what Paris looks like.] I {visited / *have visited} it several times two years

ago.18

2.38.1 To avoid any misunderstanding, we would like to point out that a

situation can be viewed as past even when it is represented as contained in an

Adv-time (⫽ adverbially indicated time interval) that also includes t0, as in I

had a copious breakfast today In this case the speaker has the situation time

(which here coincides with the time of the full situation) in mind, which is a

past situation time, even though it is included in a larger Adv-time which also

includes t0 Here, as in other cases, the tense form does not relate the situation

time to the Adv-time, but rather to an orientation time (in this case: t0, since

had is an absolute past tense form).

2.39 The length of the time-spheres and zones

The present zone coincides with t0 and is thus punctual However, the length of the other zones is purely a matter of how they are conceptualized on a given occasion (CompareThe elephant has just arrived with The Asian elephant has been worshipped for centuries.) The interval between a past situation and t0does not determine whether the situation is located in a past time-zone or in a pre-present time-zone (Compare

The elephant has just arrived and The elephant arrived just a moment ago.)

Except for the present zone, which is by definition conceived of as punctual

(see 2.35), the length of the time-spheres and the zones cannot be defined in

terms of objective time Everything depends on how the speaker conceptualizes

time For example, the pre-present can be conceived of either as very short

(e g.I have just seen him) or as stretching indefinitely far back (e g The earth

has existed for billions of years), while the past time-sphere may be conceived

of as distant from t0(e g.Things were different in ancient Rome) or as almost

reaching up to it (e g The phone rang a minute ago) It follows that one and

the same situation can often be conceptualized either as lying in the past

time-sphere or as lying in the pre-present (compareI met Ann just now with I have

just met Ann) This is in keeping with the observation (made in 2.36) that the

past time-sphere is not conceptualized as more distant from t0 than the

pre-18 The constraint that the present perfect is incompatible with a past temporal focus is

typical of English It does not hold for other Germanic languages, like Dutch and

Ger-man Thus, the German and Dutch equivalents of *I have seen him yesterday are

per-fectly grammatical:Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen; Ik heb hem gisteren gezien.

present zone (The past time-sphere is conceived of asseparated from the

pres-ent time-sphere, whereas the pre-prespres-ent zone forms part of it, but the actual distance between the situation time and t0is immaterial to this conceptualiza-tion.)

2.40 Present time-sphere tenses vs past time-sphere tenses

The past tense, the past perfect, the conditional tense, and the conditional perfect typically locate situation times in the past time-sphere The present tense, the present perfect, the future tense and the future perfect typically locate situation times in the present time-sphere

There are four tenses that typically represent a situation time as belonging to the past time-sphere We call them the past (time-sphere) tenses: the past tense, the past perfect, the conditional tense (realized as ‘would ⫹ infinitive’)

and the conditional perfect (realized as ‘would have ⫹ past participle’) These

tenses all involve a past tense inflectional morpheme

The other four tenses typically represent a situation time as lying in the present time-sphere We call them thepresent (time-sphere) tenses: the pres-ent tense, the prespres-ent perfect, the future tense and the future perfect These tenses all involve a present tense inflectional morpheme

V Temporal domains

2.41 Absolute tenses vs relative tenses

We have seen that an absolute tense relates a situation time directly to t0, whereas a relative tense relates a situation time to an orientation time other than t0

2.41.1 Anabsolute tenserelates a situation time directly to t0 English has

four absolute tenses: the present tense, the absolute past tense,19 the present

perfect and the future tense They locate the situation time in the present, past,

pre-present and post-present time-zone, respectively

A relative tenserelates a situation time to an orientation time other than

t0, i e to another situation time, an unspecified orientation time (see 2.14.c), an

(otherwise unspecified) time contained in an Adv-time (see 2.14.d) or an implicit

orientation time (see 2.14.e) Thus, the past perfect is a relative tense, because it

relates its situation time as anterior to an orientation time which is not t0 For

example, inJohn said he had worked hard, the past perfect represents the

situa-tion time ofhad worked hard as T-anterior to the situation time of said The

rela-tive tense does not itself relate the time of working to t0, even though we can

usually deduce that the working, as well as being T-anterior to the time of John’s

saying, is also W-anterior to t0 (However, this is not always the case, witness the

fact that the situation referred to byhad cleaned is interpreted as W-posterior to

t0inHe said he would do it tomorrow after he had cleaned the floor.)

2.41.2 While the four absolute tenses are always realized by the four forms

referred to above, it will be argued below that the same forms may sometimes

also have the function typical of relative tenses This occurs either (in one case,

that of the past tense) because there are two homonymous tenses or (in a

second case, namely when a post-present domain is expanded) because the

semantics of the set of absolute tenses is ‘hijacked’ for use in a relative manner

A temporal domain consists of various orientation times (situation times or not) which are temporally related to one another Only the orientation time which establishes the

19 It will be argued in 2.44 that English has two past tenses: an absolute one and a

rela-tive one.