Summary 3.12.1 The meaning of the absolute present tense is that the situation time coincides with t0.. 3.12.2 In English it is possible⫺ in well-defined contexts ⫺ to use the set of pre
Trang 1II The present tense as part of the ‘Special Present Time-sphere System’ 189
often yields a ‘continuative’ interpretation, i e the reading that the full
situa-tion is still continuing at t0 This is the case, for example, in sentences likeHe
has been sleeping since he’s been here or I have been afraid ever since I came
to live here However, it will be noted in 12.11.5, that the present tense can
sometimes be found instead of the present perfect if the speaker focuses on the
present continuation of a (permanent or temporary) habit whose beginning is
specified by thesince-construction.
[It was a daunting experience but a good boost for my learning process.] Since then
Iam a little more relaxed in front of the crowds (www) (since then ⫽ ‘since and
because of that experience’; Compare: Since then I’ve been a little more relaxed…)
[I am by origin catholic but also went through the born-again stage with the
Assem-bly of God for 2 years.] Since then I am back to being a catholic but with many
different beliefs (www) (Compare: {From that time onwards / For the last three
years} I {have been / *am} back to being a catholic.)
It should be noted, however, that not all native speakers find the use of the
present tense with asince-adverbial grammatical.
Trang 2190 3 The absolute use of the present tense
III Summary
3.12.1 The meaning of the absolute present tense is that the situation time coincides with t0 Since t0 is a point, the situation time is a point If the full situation is punctual, the situation time coincides with the time of the full situation and the full situation is located at t0 If the full situation is durative and homogeneous (i e nonbounded), then the situation time (i e the time of the predicated situation) is a punctual subinterval of the time of the full situa-tion and that punctual subinterval is located at t0.I live here locates a punctual
subinterval of the full situation, which is the (homogeneous) state of ‘living here’, at t0 If the full situation is durative and heterogeneous, we cannot locate the situation time at t0 This is because, when the clause refers to a durative heterogeneous situation, the situation time and the time of the full situation coincide Obviously, a durative situation time cannot coincide with a point (and as we have seen in chapters 1 and 2, tense-indicated simultaneity is a relation of exact coincidence) I’m making a wheelchair at the moment and I use a wheelchair are both impeccable because they locate a punctual situation
time at t0 That the situation time is punctual is due to the fact that the durative (actualizations of the) situations (of being in the process of a making a wheelchair or of being in the habit of using a wheelchair) are homogeneous However, *I make a wheelchair at the moment, which refers to a heterogeneous
(bounded) situation is not acceptable, because the situation time cannot be represented as punctual
3.12.2 In English it is possible⫺ in well-defined contexts ⫺ to use the set of present time-sphere tenses to refer to situations that are understood to actualize
in the past, the pre-present or the post-present One special use of present time-sphere tenses is what is commonly called the ‘historic present’ The historic present represents the location of the situation time of a past situation as if it were in the present, for dramatic effect (The historic present can only be used when it is evident that the actual location of the situation time is in the past) For example So there we were, and Tommy goes “Oooh, that’s nice”…
Al-though we talk of the historic ‘present’, the present tense in this use is indeed part of a set of tenses used to locate a situation or a set of situations in the past time-sphere as though they were in the present time-sphere For example,
inSo there we were, and Tommy has still not seen anything he likes, and the shops are about to close …, it is the present perfect has (not) seen which sets
up the use of the ‘Special Present Time-sphere System’: the present tense are (about to) occurs as a continuation of the use of this system When a present
time-sphere tense form inaugurates the use of the Special Present Time-sphere Tense System, it effects a ‘shift of temporal perspective’ (see 2.20)
Trang 3III Summary 191
3.12.3 There are some cases in which the speaker can use the present tense
to refer to a past situation because this situation is somehow made visible in
the present Captions underneath a photograph representing a historical
situa-tion (e g.The Queen visits Saint Mary’s college in 1991) form a typical
exam-ple ‘Replay comment’ in the present tense forms another
3.12.4 In a few very clearly defined contexts, the present tense may be used
when it is not important to give explicit information about the temporal
loca-tion of a situaloca-tion Newspaper headlines provide an illustraloca-tion:Israel strikes
back.
3.12.5 When news has recently been received, the source of the news (e g
the telling or the hearing) can be referred to with the help of a verb in the
nonprogressive present tense:I hear you’re going to buy a new car.
3.12.6 The present tense has some common uses to refer to the post-present
As regards the nonprogressive present, we have discussed wh-questions
sug-gesting an action or asking advice about a future action (What do we do now?)
and clauses referring to a post-present situation which is seen as predetermined
(The funeral is on Friday) As regards the progressive present, we have seen
that it can be used to represent a situation as resulting from a present plan or
arrangement (I’m having dinner with them tonight).
There are four constraints on the use of the present tense with post-present
time reference Informally, these are:
(a) It must be clear from the context that the reference is to the future and
not the present
(b) The nonprogressive present cannot be used for post-present situations that
are not predetermined (*It rains tomorrow).
(c) The progressive present can only refer to post-present situations that are
intentional and have a human agent (The dog’s going to the vet tomorrow
means ‘I’m taking the dog to the vet tomorrow’)
(d) There may be constraints on the interpretation of a present tense form
referring to the future when that form is used in combination with an
epistemic modal adverb likeperhaps, possibly, probably, etc In such cases
it may be unclear whether the judgement implicit in the adverb is
attribut-able to the subject referent or to the speaker
3.12.7 The head clause of asince-adverbial referring to a ‘period up to t0’ is
usually in the present perfect But occasional examples can be found in which
the the present tense is used In that case there is special focus on the present
continuation of the situation that leads up to now For example: Since then I
am a little more relaxed in front of the crowds (www) However, not all native
speakers judge this use of the present tense grammatical
Trang 54 The absolute past tense
4.2 Bygone situations: ‘W-bygone’vs ‘T-bygone’ 196
4.4 The nonprogressive pastvs the progressive past 199
II Uses of the absolute past tense 200 4.5 Concern with THEN is clear from the context 200 4.6 The past tense used to focus on the ‘when?’ of the situation 201 4.7 The past tense used for ‘actualization focus’ 204 4.8 The past tense contrasting what is W-bygone with what is not 206
Trang 6194 4 The absolute past tense
Abstract
In this chapter we continue our description of
the meaning and use of the four ‘absolute’ tenses
in English, i e the tenses that relate the time of
the situation referred to directly to the temporal
zero-point (which is usually the time of speech)
One such tense, the absolute present tense, was
dealt with in chapter 3; in the present chapter,
we discuss the absolute past tense
The absolute past tense is used to represent a
situation as actualizing at a specific past time
Contrary to the present perfect (see chapter 5),
the past tense is used when the speaker is not
thinking of the present We argue that this does
not necessarily mean that, in the extralinguistic
world, the situation referred to is completely over at the temporal zero-point, although there
is usually a strong suggestion (technically, an
‘implicature’) that it is completely over The rule that the past tense is used when the speaker is concerned with THEN rather than with NOW implies that the past tense has to be used when the speaker focuses on a particular past time at which the situation actualized or on another aspect of the past situation
A comparison between the past tense and the present perfect, both of which can be used to refer to a ‘bygone’ situation, is reserved for chapter 6
Trang 7I Introduction 195
I Introduction
4.1 The semantics of the absolute past tense
The semantics of the absolute past tense is its tense structure: the situation time is located in the past time-sphere (The past tense itself does not give information as to where exactly the situation time is located in the past time-sphere.) The absolute past tense always establishes a past domain
The absolute past tense is used to locate a situation time in the past
sphere and in doing so create a past domain As noted in 2.10.2, the past
time-sphere is conceived of as disconnected from the present time-time-sphere (which
comprises the pre-present, the (punctual) present, and the post-present) The
fact that the speaker locates the situation time in the past rather than in the
pre-present therefore means that he is not thinking of t0 when he utters his
sentence That is, he is not concerned with NOW but rather with THEN, i e
with a specific past time, which may be either definite, as in I met him last
week, or indefinite, as in We don’t know when this pyramid was built
(‘Indefi-nite’ means ‘not assumed to be identifiable to the hearer’.) It follows that using
the past tense is the rule when the speaker is primarily concerned with the past
situation itself rather than with its possible relation to the present
It is important to see that for an adequate (interpretable) use of the past
tense it is not necessary that the ‘anchor time’ THEN should be definite (in
the sense that the hearer is assumed to know exactly which time it is) All that
is necessary is that an anchor time (⫽ a THEN) should be given or be
retriev-able Whether or not that anchor time is definite is irrelevant For example,
There was a princess who felt very lonely is not fully interpretable in isolation
because there is no specific past time to anchor the situation time to ButOnce
upon a time there was a princess who felt very lonely is fully interpretable
becauseonce upon a time, which has indefinite reference, provides the anchor
time Similarly, adverbials like one day, one sunny morning, a long time ago,
etc are fully indefinite but license the use of the past tense because they refer
to a specific past time