The grammar of the english verb phrase part 54 ppt

As is clear from Ten minutes ago John was in the library which does not exclude the possibility that John is still there, it is the predicated situation rather than the full situation th

I Introduction

In chapter 2 and elsewhere a number of concepts and definitions have been introduced Since these are essential to a good understanding of what follows,

we will start by summarizing them (and in some cases elaborating on them) 8.1 Full situation vs predicated situation

8.1.1 We have defined the full situation as the complete situation as it actualized in the past, has actualized (or has been actualizing) in the pre-pres-ent, is actualizing at t0 or is expected to actualize in the post-present The predicated situationis that part of the full situation (possibly all of it) about which a claim is made in the clause As is clear from Ten minutes ago John was in the library (which does not exclude the possibility that John is still

there), it is the predicated situation rather than the full situation that is located

in time by the use of the tense form ⫺ see 2.12.1

8.1.2 In connection with the ‘continuative W-interpretation’ (see 5.6) of the present perfect, we have distinguished further between thefactual full situa-tionand thepotential full situation(see 5.7) The factual full situation is that part of the full situation (possibly all of it) that leads up to and includes

t0 The potential full situation is the full situation including that part, if any, that follows t0 Thus, in John has been sleeping for seven hours now, the

factual full situation covers a seven-hour period reaching up to (and including)

t0.1Since John may keep on sleeping after t0, there is also an idea of a potential full situation whose length is unpredictable at t0 However, the potential part

of a full situation (referred to by a ‘continuative present perfect’ ⫺ see 5.6) is not linguistically referred to: it can only be inferred Thus, the above sentence

John has been sleeping for seven hours now only asserts the factual (part of

the) full situation, and the duration adverbial indicates the length of this factual part only That John will probably go on sleeping for some (short or long) time after t0is a pragmatic inference based on our knowledge that it would be

an exceptional coincidence if John woke up at the precise moment when the sentence was uttered (i e at t0)

This distinction between a factual and a potential part of the full situation

is not only necessary in connection with ‘continuative perfects’ but is also perti-nent to present tense sentences likeJohn is sleeping, because the full situation

is durative and has a potential part (since it can extend into the future) while

1 Since, in the present perfect, the situation time can lead up to t 0 but cannot include it (see 5.2.1), the predicated situation differs from the factual full situation in that it does not include t

the predicated situation, which coincides with t0, is punctual The distinction

may also apply to sentences in the past tense, provided the ‘implicature of

discontinuation’ (⫽ the suggestion that the situation is over at t0⫺ see 4.3) is

cancelled, as inFive minutes ago John was in the kitchen ⫺ he is probably still

there In this case the full situation may possibly extend beyond t0 and thus

have a potential part

As far as reference to the post-present is concerned, there is no distinction

to be made between ‘factual’ and ‘potential’ full situation because there is no

part of the full situation that includes t0 (and is therefore factual): the entire

full situation lies in the post-present

In the present chapter we will not need to refer explicitly to the distinction

factual vs potential, because only factual situations are relevant to the

discus-sion We will therefore simply speak of ‘full situation’ This term will always

have to be interpreted as ‘factual (part of the) full situation’ (As a matter of

fact, in this chapter, which is concerned with temporal domains and relative

uses of tenses, the notion of ‘full situation’ will hardly ever need to be referred

to Much more important will be the notion of ‘predicated situation’, since

relative tenses express a relation between a situation time (⫽ the time of a

predicated situation) and another orientation time⫺ see 8.1.3.)

8.1.3 The distinction between ‘full situation’ and ‘predicated situation’ leads

to a further distinction between the ‘time of the full situation’ and the

‘time of the predicated situation’ (or situation time) It is the situation

time rather than the time of the full situation that is located in time by the

tense form used⫺ see 2.12.1

(on the telephone) [You can come at three if you like.] I’ll be at home (It is possible

that the full situation of the speaker being at home has already started ⫺ i e the

speaker is at home and the full situation of his being at home will still be continuing

at three However, the statement I’ll be at home does not represent the time of the

predicated situation as coinciding with t 0 It represents it as coinciding with the time

indicated by at three.)

8.1.4 The predicated situation can only form a proper subpart of the full

situation if it is representative of the latter, i e if the full situation is

repre-sented as homogeneous A situation is reprerepre-sented ashomogeneousif the verb

phrase representing it can be used not only to refer to the full situation but

also to refer to parts of that situation (see 1.36.4) This is the case in each of

the following examples:

John said he was ill (The time taken up by John’s utterance is much shorter than

the time of the full situation of his being ill Still, the sentence is fine, even on the

reading in which the being ill is taken to be represented as T-simultaneous (i e as

coinciding ⫺ see 2.17) with the saying, because he was ill represents the full situation

as homogeneous, which means that the time of the predicated situation can be a

proper subinterval of the time of the full situation, and can therefore coincide with the time of saying.)

John said that at that very moment he {was reading / *read} a book (The time of saying is much shorter than the time of reading the book The that-clause is fine in the progressive because be reading a book is a homogeneous VP The sentence is ungrammatical with he read a book because this clause is nonhomogeneous.2In this case the time of the predicated situation (⫽ the situation time of he read a book) cannot coincide with the time of saying because it cannot be a proper subinterval of the time of the full situation of reading a book: this renders read a book unacceptable because reading a book takes up considerably more time than saying something.)

The artist whistled while she worked.(Both clauses are homogeneous.)

At 5 p.m I was at home.(homogeneous)

At the time I walked to work.(The sentence is interpreted as ‘at that time I was in the habit of walking to work’, which is a homogeneous situation.)

At 5 p.m I was walking.(atelic VP ⫹ progressive aspect J homogeneous clause)

At 5 p.m I was walking home.(telic VP ⫹ progressive aspect J homogeneous clause)

When the full situation is not (represented as) homogeneous, the predicated situation cannot be a subpart of the full situation (A proper subpart of a nonhomogeneous situation cannot be representative of the whole situation) Instead, when the actualization of a situation is represented as nonhomoge-neous, the predicated situation coincides with the full situation The following examples represent the situation as heterogeneous (nonhomogeneous):

I wrote two letters this morning.(The sentence can only refer to the situation as a whole, not to any portion of it.)

John ran around the lake before breakfast.(id.)

John was in his office until 8 p.m.(Idem: there is no portion of ‘being in one’s office until 8’ that is itself an instance of ‘being in one’s office until 8’ In this case it is the until-phrase that renders the sentence bounded and hence nonhomogeneous.)

8.1.5 The distinction between homogeneous and nonhomogeneous (hetero-geneous) situations coincides with the distinction betweenL-nonbounded(i e not linguistically represented as bounded) and L-bounded (⫽ linguistically represented as bounded) situations ⫺ see 1.44.2 As explained in 1.44.1, a situation is L-bounded if it is represented as reaching a terminal point Thus,

John ran a mile represents its situation as bounded because it combines a

telic VP (implying an inherent terminal point) with nonprogressive (perfective) aspect: the situation is referred to as a whole (from beginning to end), and therefore as reaching the inherent terminal point The sentence John will run

2 A clause representing a telic situation as bounded (by using a nonprogressive verb form)

is automatically heterogeneous ( ⫽ nonhomogeneous) ⫺ see 1.45.

for two hours represents its (atelic) situation as L-bounded in the

not-yet-fac-tual-at-t0 world referred to because the duration adverbial involves reference

to a terminal point and the nonprogressive aspect refers to the post-present

situation as a whole

The reader should keep in mind that, because L-boundedness is not a

char-acteristic of the situation referred to (which is something extralinguistic) but

rather of a particular kind of linguistic representation of a situation, we have

adopted the habit of applying the label ‘L-bounded’ not only to (actualizations

of) situations that are represented as L-bounded by the clauses referring to

them but also to clauses which represent (the actualization of) a situation as

L-bounded⫺ see 1.44.1

8.2 Orientation time & situation time

8.2.1 We call any time functioning as the origin of a temporal relation

ex-pressed by a tense form a time of orientation (or orientation time) As

noted in 2.14, there are five types of orientation time: t0, situation times,

(other-wise unspecified) orientation times ‘contained’ in an Adv-time, orientation

times that are ‘implicit’ in the meaning of a temporal conjunction, and

‘unspec-ified’ orientation times

(a) In sentences likeI left yesterday, the orientation time to which the time of

the predicated situation is T-related is t0 Tenses that T-relate the time of

a predicated situation directly to t0 are called absolute tenses (see 2.44.)

(b) InJohn said that Bill had left, the past tense form said locates the time of

its predicated situation anterior to t0, whereas the past perfect form had

left locates its situation time anterior to the time when John spoke This

shows how a situation time can itself be the orientation time to which

another situation time is T-related In fact, since the time of a predicated

situation can always serve as the origin of a temporal relation, any

situa-tion time is at least a potential orientasitua-tion time.3

John stayed in the kitchen after he had finished his dinner (t 0 functions as the

orientation time to which the situation time of John staying in the kitchen is

repre-sented as anterior, and this situation time is the orientation time to which the

situation time of John finishing his dinner is represented as anterior.)

(c) A third type of orientation time is an (otherwise unspecified) time

‘con-tained in’ anAdv-time(⫽ a time indicated by a time adverbial), as in At

3 This is why in earlier work we referred to a situation time as a ‘situation-time of

orienta-tion’ (abbreviated to ‘TO sit ’ in Declerck (1991) and to ‘STO’ in Declerck (1997) and

Declerck & Reed (2001)).

that time Bill had (already) left the room (In section 2.23.1 we went into

the special way in which a time adverbial indicates an orientation time by

‘containing’ it in terms of either inclusion or coincidence.) (d) An orientation time may also be implicit in the semantic structure of a temporal conjunction For example:

I will be exhausted {before / when / by the time that} this jobis finished.

Here the situation time of the job being finished is represented as T-simulta-neous with the implicit orientation time in the temporal structure of before

(which means ‘before the time that’ ⫺ see 14.2.1) or when (which means ‘at

the time that’⫺ see 13.1.2) or by the time that (where the implicit orientation

time is overtly lexicalized asthe time).

(e) When we use Bill had left in isolation, we interpret the time of the

predi-cated situation as anterior to an ‘unspecified orientation time’ which is understood as being anterior to t0 An orientation time isunspecified if

it is neither t0nor the time of a predicated situation nor a time contained

in an Adv-time nor an orientation time that is ‘implicit’ in the semantic structure of a temporal conjunction For a good understanding ofBill had left, the unspecified orientation time to which Bill’s leaving is T-anterior

will have to be recoverable from the context

8.2.2 As noted in 8.1.4, the situation time (⫽ the time of the predicated situa-tion) can only be a subinterval of the time of the full situation if the situation

is represented as homogeneous Thus, inAt 7 p.m John was still in the library

the situation time is a punctual time coinciding with the punctual Adv-time (see 2.23) specified byat 7 p.m., but still implies that the full situation of John’s

being in the library started before 7 p.m It is therefore important to distinguish carefully between ‘the time of the predicated situation’ (⫽ situation time), which is a T-concept (i e a concept relevant to the description of the tense system), and ‘the time of the full situation’, which is a W-concept (i e a concept which has to do with the interpretation of situations and temporal relations in the actual world or in whatever alternative world is being referred to) A tense temporally locates a situation time and does not say anything about whether that situation time is the time of the full situation or not 8.3 Temporal relations expressed by tenses: T-relations

A tense form can relate a situation time to an orientation time in three dif-ferent ways:

(a) T-simultaneity: the tense represents the situation time as simultaneous with

the orientation time It is in keeping with the distinction between ‘situation

time’ and ‘time of the full situation’ that T-simultaneity is defined as a

relation ofstrict coincidence

(b) T-anteriority: the tense represents the situation time that is temporally

‘bound’ (see 2.49) as preceding the ‘binding’ orientation time in either of

two ways Either the situation time lies completely before the orientation

time, as in [He claimed that] I had locked the door, or it begins before the

orientation time and leads up to it (without including it), as in [By the

time Gertie and I went to Iceland,] we had been friends for years.

(c) T-posteriority: the tense represents the bound situation time as following

the binding orientation time in either of two ways Either the situation

time lies completely after the binding orientation time, as in [I promised]

I would do it the next day, or it begins immediately after the binding

orientation time, as in [He said that] from then onwards he would call

me Jim.

We refer to a temporal relation expressed by a tense form as atense relation

(orT-relation)

8.4 Temporal relations not expressed by tenses:

W-relations

8.4.1 A situation may be interpreted as simultaneous, anterior or posterior

to another situation without this being expressed by a tense form In that case

the temporal relation in question is not a tense relation but simply a relation

that is inferred (for reasons referred to in 8.4.2) to exist in the real world (or

in whatever alternative world is being referred to) We refer to such temporal

relations asworld-relations(orW-relations)

When they had first visited the house, they hadn’t noticed the wet patch on the

ceiling of the kitchen.(The past perfect tenses each locate their situation time

ante-rior to an (unspecified) past orientation time The relation of W-simultaneity that is

understood to exist between the two situations is not expressed by the tense forms.)

Johntold me he wrote Jim a letter (The past tense forms merely locate their

situa-tion times in the past The use of the nonprogressive form wrote means that the

durative situation of John writing Jim a letter is referred to in its entirety Since the

VP is telic, this means that the writing is represented as finished ⫺ see 1.39.1⫺2.

Pragmatic knowledge tells us that this interpretation requires that the writing should

be understood as W-anterior to the telling.)

The distinction between ‘T-’ and ‘W-’ will not only be applied to relations but

also to temporal interpretations: a ‘T-interpretation’ is a temporal reading

which is based on the semantics of the chosen tense only; a ‘W-interpretation’

also takes into account such elements as temporal adverbials, context, situation

of speaking, knowledge of the world and pragmatic principles such as the Gricean Maxims of conversation

8.4.2 Unlike simultaneity expressed by a tense form (T-simultaneity), W-si-multaneity is not a semantic relation but a pragmatic one In other words, while T-simultaneity forms part of the semantics of certain tenses, W-simulta-neity is to be inferred from various factors, including the context and/or prag-matic knowledge It follows (a) that W-simultaneity is a question of pragprag-matic

interpretation rather than linguistic representation only, and (b) that

W-simul-taneity is a less rigid temporal relation than T-simulW-simul-taneity: whereas the latter

is equivalent to coincidence, what counts as W-simultaneity can, according to context, be coincidence, overlap or inclusion In other words, two time in-tervals are W-simultaneous the moment they have one point of time in common (see 2.18.2) This is illustrated by the following:

Jim was in London yesterday I saw him there

The two sentences here use an absolute past tense form, each creating a domain

of its own The two past domains are interpreted as W-simultaneous with each other In this case the most natural interpretation of the W-simultaneity is that

of inclusion: the situation of Jim being in London temporally included the situation of my seeing him there

8.5 The two ‘time-spheres’

In English, the use of tenses implies a division of time into two (rather than three) distinct ‘time-spheres’: the present time-sphere and the past time-sphere (see 2.33 for arguments supporting this claim) The present time-sphere is conceived of as a time span of indefinite length which includes the temporal zero-point (t0) The past time-sphereis conceived of as a time span of indefi-nite length which lies wholly before t0and is disconnected from t0 The abso-lute tense locating a situation time in the past time-sphere is the past tense (preterite) (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 )

8.6 Present time-sphere zones

The zero-time (t0) is taken to divide the present time-sphere into three time-zones(orzones) The portion of the present time-sphere that precedes t0(and leads up to it) is the ‘pre-present zone’; the portion that coincides with t is the