The grammar of the english verb phrase part 34 doc

Whichever interpretation is selected in connection with the time of the full situation, the semantics of the present perfect is always ‘The situation time is located in the pre-present z

Figure 5.3 Representation of the up-to-now reading.

Figure 5.4 Representation of the continuative reading.

interpretations Whichever interpretation is selected in connection with the time of the full situation, the semantics of the present perfect is always ‘The situation time is located in the pre-present zone’, i e ‘The pre-present zone contains the situation time’ As noted in 5.2.3, this leads to two possible T-interpretations, viz ‘situation time wholly before t0’ (⫽ ‘the time of the predi-cated situation is included in the pre-present’) and ‘situation time up to t0’ (⫽

‘the time of the predicated situation is co-extensive with the pre-present’) Each

of the three context-dependent W-interpretations has to fit in with one of these 5.4.4 The following is a summary of what has been said so far about the

temporal W-interpretations:

(a) Theindefinite reading implies that the time of the full situation (and hence

the situation time) is located at some indefinite time in the course of the pre-present and does not include (or coincide with) the terminal point

of the pre-present, which lies right before t0 This is the W-reading that corresponds with the T-interpretation ‘The situation time is included in the pre-present’

The indefinite reading means that the full situation is interpreted as W-bounded and thus the predicated situation time is the same as the full situation (i e the predicated situation occupies the same interval as the full situation) and is interpreted as over at t0 This is true not only if the present perfect form is nonstative and nonprogressive, as in He has played football, but also if the

present perfect form is stative, as in I’ve been happy, or progressive, as in I’ve

sometimes been watching a film on TV [when Bill suddenly rang at my door]

(where the situation functions as ‘background’ situation for a W-bounding

in-tervening or interrupting situation⫺ see section (d) of 5.3.2)

(b) Thecontinuative interpretation is an instance of the T-interpretation ‘The

situation time is co-extensive with the pre-present’ The full situation is

W-interpreted as longer than the situation time and hence as still

actualiz-ing at t0:Sharon has lived here since she was born implies that Sharon still

lives here (However, as far as the tense structure is concerned, the

situa-tion time does not include t0 The continuative W-interpretation is

ren-dered possible by the fact that the situation time can be shorter than the

time of the full situation, because live here is a homogeneous (atelic) verb

phrase The continuative interpretation itself is triggered by factors other

than the tense structure, such as the progressive form and/or the presence

of an adverbial likesince 1995 or for two weeks now, etc.).

(c) The up-to-now reading is another instance of the T-interpretation ‘The

situation time coincides with the pre-present’ This time the situation time

is interpreted as also being the time of the full situation The speaker makes

a statement (or asks a question) about the entire (subjectively

conceptual-ized) pre-present zone (which does not include t0)

5.4.5 In sum, the three interpretations of present perfect clauses are

W-inter-pretations concerning the location of the time of the full situation relative to

t0 They can be distinguished on the basis of the features given in Figure 5.5.5

For a good understanding of Figure 5.5, the following things should be

noted:

(a) On the up-to-now reading, the time of the full situation is definite by

virtue of being adjacent to t0 As we will see in 5.4.7, the situation is often

a ‘hypersituation’ consisting of a number of ‘subsituations’ (e g We’ve

been telling our customers that we would give them any information they

might need) In that case the times of the subsituations except the last one

are indefinite, but the time of the hypersituation as a whole is definite

5 Note that we treat the so-called ‘hot news’, ‘experiential’, and ‘resultative’ interpretations

of some clauses in the present perfect as usage types of the indefinite interpretation ⫺

see 5.13 ⫺5 and 5.37 Thus, the ‘resultative’ interpretation of a present perfect sentence

likeNow she has gone to Singapore is an indefinite reading, in spite of the presence of

the definite time adverbnow The interpretation is indefinite because the location of the

situation time in the pre-present is indefinite, i e the time when she went to Singapore

is indefinite The semantics of the present perfect is all about the temporal location of a

situation time in the pre-present, not about the temporal location of a result, if any.

Figure 5.5 The features of the W-interpretations of the present perfect.

(b) In a sentence receiving a continuative reading (e g.We’ve been working since 9), the full situation is not represented as L-bounded and is not usually

inter-preted as W-bounded, as the full situation may easily extend beyond t0 How-ever, the full situation is interpreted as W-bounded if the context makes it clear that the full situation includes t0but does not extend beyond it This possibility, though, is more theoretical than real, because it is pragmatically very unlikely (Moreover, it is not easy to determine what ‘full situation’ means on a continuative interpretation In section 5.7 we will make a distinc-tion between the ‘factual full situation’, which is that part of the situation up

to and including t0, and the ‘potential full situation’, which is the full

situa-tion including the potential porsitua-tion which continues into the post-present Needless to say, the former is interpreted as W-bounded⫺ with t0as the pro-visional endpoint reached⫺ whereas the latter is not.)

5.4.6 We cannot exaggerate the importance of the statement that the distinc-tion between ‘continuative perfect’, ‘up-to-now perfect’ and ‘indefinite perfect’

is a matter of temporal W-interpretation rather than of tense-structural ambi-guity, i e that it is not true that the present perfect can express three different tense structures There is only one present perfect tense, and its semantics (⫽ tense structure) is always ‘The situation time is contained in the pre-present’

It follows that, if for ease of reference we speak of a ‘continuative perfect’,

we really mean a ‘perfect in a clause receiving a continuative W-interpretation’ Similarly, the terms ‘indefinite perfect’ and ‘up-to-now perfect’ are short-hand for ‘present perfect in a clause receiving an indefinite reading’ and ‘pres-ent perfect in a clause receiving an up-to-now interpretation’, respectively And

when we speak of ‘continuative / indefinite / up-to-now meaning’, we are

actually using ‘meaning’ in the sense of ‘interpretation’ The readings in

ques-tion are W-interpretaques-tions, which can be provoked or excluded by the

seman-tics or pragmaseman-tics of the linguistic or extralinguistic context Let us illustrate

this briefly in connection with the continuative interpretation:

(a) The continuative reading of He has been working in the garden since 8

o’clock is due to the following factors The use of the progressive form

suggests that the situation time is only some ‘middle part’ of the time of a

larger homogeneous full situation That middle part is interpreted as

coin-ciding with the period leading up to t0 specified by the time-specifying

adverbial Since the time of the full situation is longer than the situation

time, and the latter leads up to t0, the full situation is naturally interpreted

as including t0(which is the time point adjacent to the terminal point of

the pre-present zone and of the situation time), and often as extending

beyond it

(b) In examples likeI have been taller than my mother since I was twelve the

continuative reading of the head clause is the only one that makes sense

This is due to pragmatic factors Firstly, the referent of the subject is the

speaker, who must be alive at t0 since he is speaking at t0 Secondly, as a

rule, once you are taller than your mother you remain taller than her (at

least in the world as we know it) It follows that the speaker must still be

taller than his mother at t0 The addressee will therefore assign a

continua-tive interpretation to the head clause of the sentence

(c) In examples like I’ve sung in the choir for as long as I can remember, the

duration adverbial refers to a period including t0and indicates the duration

of the ‘factual full situation’ (i e the full situation as it has actualized over

a period reaching up to and including t0 ⫺ see 5.7).6 In doing so the

duration adverbial triggers a continuative interpretation (The

precondi-tion for the continuative reading⫺ that the situation be homogeneous, in

other words that the situation time can be a proper subpart of the time of

the full situation ⫺ is satisfied because I’ve sung in the choir refers to a

permanent habit: as noted in 1.23.3, a habit is a kind of state; a state that

is not represented as restricted in time by an adverbial likeuntil five or for

two hours is by definition L-nonbounded and therefore homogeneous.)

6 Since this reading means that the full situation includes the entire pre-present zone plus

t 0 , the duration adverbial indirectly also specifies the length of the pre-present zone

(which has the same duration except that it does not include t 0 ) In 2.22.3 we have

named such adverbials which specify not only duration but also time ‘bifunctional

tem-poral adverbials’.

It may also be noted that in the discussion here we are only concerned with the

continuative reading ofI’ve sung in the choir for as long as I can remember The

up-to-now reading is disregarded.

(d) The same is true of examples like She’s known him for many years now.

The adverbial for many years now indicates a period which includes t0 Like any duration adverbial, it specifies the time of the full situation, which therefore also includes t0 The result is a continuative interpretation Apart from cases like the above ones, in which a continuative reading is invited

by an adverbial and/or the progressive form and/or pragmatic factors, a continu-ative interpretation will not suggest itself, because the semantic structure of the present perfect does not itself invite such a reading The idea ‘The pre-present contains the situation time’ does not by itself suggest that the situation time is only part of the full situation (which is a precondition for a continuative interpretation) In fact, there is nothing in the semantics of the present perfect that provides information about whether the time of the full situation extends into a time-zone, or time-zones, other than the pre-present zone in which the situation time is located This is clear from a comparison of the following examples: the examples in (1) all invite a continuative reading, whereas the examples in (2), which are the same as the examples in (1) except that they are stripped of the progressive form and/or the time-specifying adverbial, all re-ceive an indefinite interpretation:

(1) I have been working in the garden since 8 o’clock.(single continuative dynamic situation)

Mr Whorf has been our sales representative for 21 years.(continuative state)

He’s been going to that shop for as long as I can remember.(continuative habit:

‘He’s had the habit of going to that shop for as long as I can remember’)

Bridget has sung in the church choir for 15 years.(continuative habit)

(2) I have worked in the garden.(indefinite reading)

Mr Whorf has been our sales representative.(indefinite reading)

He’s gone to that shop.(indefinite reading)

Bridget has sung in the church choir.(indefinite reading)

The only clue as to the temporal interpretation of the sentences in (2) is the semantics of the present perfect: the situation time is contained in the pre-present Since the pre-present leads up to t0but does not include t0, and since there is no indication that the situation time is only part of the time of the full situation, these sentences naturally receive a noncontinuative interpretation (i e the situation time does not include t0and is the time of the full situation) That the noncontinuative interpretation in question is an indefinite one rather than an up-to-now reading follows from the fact that a nonprogressive form

is used⫺ see 5.25⫺29

5.4.7 As we will see in 5.17⫺19, there are various kinds of up-to-now read-ing We are going to introduce them in a nutshell here because we need the terms for a good understanding of the subsections of 5.5 The various kinds of up-to-now reading all have in common that the full situation is taken to cover

the entire pre-present, i e the full situation leads up to t0in such a way that

it does not include t0and that there is no significant interval between the end

of the full situation and t0

One type of up-to-now reading is the ‘constitution reading’ Here the

speaker looks back on the pre-present to ‘measure it’ or to see how this period

has been filled ‘situationwise’ The speaker thus focuses on the situational

con-stitution of the pre-present zone and not only on the temporal location of a

situation in that zone On the constitution reading the pre-present may be filled

either by one full situation which actualizes throughout the pre-present period

(but without including t0) or by a number of full situations which (possibly in

combination with gaps) form a ‘hypersituation’ which coincides with the

pre-present but does not include t0 In the latter case, the number of constituting

subsituations may be zero, one or more.)

There are three subtypes of constitution reading, all of which are

‘specifica-tional’ (see 5.20):

(a) The speaker may be concerned with the nature of the situation that is

conceived of as having lasted throughout the pre-present without including

t0 (e g.What have you been doing?; Where have you been?) In that case

there is a ‘nonquantificational constitution’ interpretation

(b) The speaker may be concerned with the length of the pre-present zone and

indicate this by a bounded present perfect sentence referring to a

duration-specifying situation (e g Nearly a year has gone by since then) In that

case there is a ‘duration-quantifying constitution’ interpretation

(c) The speaker may also be concerned with how many times a specific

situa-tion (or kind of situasitua-tion) has actualized in the course of the pre-present

(e g.How many times have you met him in the past week?) In that case

there is a ‘number-quantifying constitution’ interpretation

An up-to-now reading which is not a constitution reading, because it is not

‘specificational’ (see 5.20), will be called an ‘unmarked up-to-now’ reading

An example is You’ve been thinking of something else all the time I’ve been

talking to you about this machine.

The label ‘quantificational constitution reading’ will be used as a

cover-term for duration-quantifying constitution readings and

number-quanti-fying constitution readings

W-interpretations

5.5.1 The need for distinguishing between three different W-interpretations

of present perfect clauses is particularly clear from the fact that one and the

same present perfect form is sometimes compatible with each of the three inter-pretations This is true ofhave been, which can be used in three kinds of

(W-interpretation-determining) context Compare the following:

[How much longer will I have to wait?] Ihave been here since five a.m (continua-tive reading)

[Oh, there you are!] Wherehave you been all this time? (up-to-now reading) Have you ever been in Singapore at New Year? (indefinite reading of the subtype

‘perfect of experience’ ⫺ see 5.13.1)

The American president has been in Beijing today (Nothing in the sentence repre-sents the situation as bounded Out of context, both a continuative and an indefinite interpretation are possible.)

The American presidenthas been in Beijing today [Now he is on his way to

Shang-hai.](The second sentence rules out the continuative interpretation of the first.)

The American presidenthas been in Beijing all day today [Now he is on his way to

Shanghai.] (The second sentence again rules out the continuative interpretation of the first The presence of all day enforces the up-to-now reading.)

Similarly, the present perfect formhave been waiting can be used in three kinds

of (disambiguating) context:

I’ve been waiting for her for nearly half an hour now (continuative reading)

[Oh, there she is!] I’ve been waiting for her (up-to-now reading)

[This isn’t the first time I’ve waited for her In fact, she’s often gone on business trips and] every time I’ve been waiting for her when she’s arrived back (indefinite reading)

5.5.2 The threefold interpretive distinction has a few grammatical correlates Firstly, some temporal adverbials are compatible with one or two of the read-ings only For example:

From childhood she’s had a timid character (continuative reading only)

I’ve hated her eversince (I was a child) (continuative reading only)

Has sheever been in a foul temper? (indefinite interpretation only)

[I’ve been away for two hours, and] all this time you’ve been sitting there doing

nothing!(indefinite and continuative readings excluded)

Where have you been {within / in} the last four days? (continuative reading ex-cluded)

Where have you beenfor the last four days? (indefinite and continuative readings ex-cluded)

I’ve killed three people in the past.(indefinite interpretation only; this can only mean that there has been an occasion in the past on which I killed three people: the