The grammar of the english verb phrase part 67 potx

9.6.6 Both would and was to can be used to represent a situation that is posterior to a past orientation time as a past fact rather than as something that was expected at the past bindin

Although speaker B is clearly being uncooperative in his first response, he

cannot actually be said to contradict himself with his second response

9.6.5 Parallel to the use of the present tense ofbe to for official arrangements

regarding the future (see 7.15), the past tense ofbe to can be used to refer to a

past official arrangement concerning the actualization of a posterior situation:

[There were a lot of plainclothes policemen in the hotel] where the conference was

to take place.

[In the afternoon the Princess left for New Zealand,] where shewas to join her

hus-band

9.6.6 Both would and was to can be used to represent a situation that is

posterior to a past orientation time as a past fact (rather than as something

that was expected at the past binding orientation time) That is, was to and

would can express that a situation which did not actualize before or at the

past binding orientation time did actualize later (but still in the past)

[In that year they moved to Heathfield,] where they {were to / would} spend the

most difficult years of their lives

Ten years later, Percy {would / was to} be the most popular actor in London.

[Soon after that war ended,] another one {would / was to} begin.

[He entered Parliament at the age of 31.] Five years later he {would / was to} be

the youngest Prime Minister the country had ever had

Neither form is common in this function in spoken English Both are formal

and typical of narrative style.2The following are authentic examples:

[J P., as he was fondly referred to by those who knew him well, first came to this

University as an instructor in pomology.] Later he was to be professor of plant

physiology and plant physiologist in the Agriculture Experiment Station (www)

[Lorena Rosalee Encinas was born on September 4, 1922, in Nogales, Arizona (…)]

Nearly two years later, shewould have a little brother, named Louis Jesus, to whom

she would be completely devoted She would protect him all her life, even at the

expense of her own freedom (www)

Later hewas to be famous and honoured through the Caribbean; he was to be a hero

of the people [But when I first met him he was still a struggling masseur.] (www)

[It was not Harriet Jacob’s nature to give up without a fight.] Born into slavery,

Harriet Jacobswould thwart repeated sexual advancements made by her master for

years, then run away to the North Shewould later publish an account of her

an-guished life in her autobiography,Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (www)

9.6.7 There is a special use of was to and was going to in conditional

if-clauses depending on a head clause in the past tense The auxiliaries represent

2 This use ofwould is more common in Am E texts than in Br E ones.

456 9 Temporal subordination in the various time-zones

the possible posterior actualization of theif-clause situation as a goal envisaged

at some past orientation time (See 7.11 for the description of a parallel use of

is to and is going to.)

I knew I had to work hard if I {was to / was going to} keep my job

The conditional clause here refers to a goal envisaged at some past orientation time (In formal registers, was to is more likely than was going to and in

informal registerswas going to is more likely than was to) The following are

some attested examples:

Tass news agency said Mr Aziz was told that if Iraqwas to avoid the worst, it must

now openly declare and show by its actions that it was pulling out and freeing hostages (www)

[After making the decision to run she realized] there was a lot of work to do if she

was going to succeed at being elected the County Surveyor (www)

Mr Lee said that if China was to play a role in South-East Asia it would have to

establish its business credibility (www) [She had nothing but the clothes on her back,] if shewas going to make it in New

York, she was going to need every bit of Providence that came her way (www) [Mam was frail and George, who was now her main support, moved his house from

40 Plasterton Gardens in Cardiff to a bungalow in King George V Drive, overlooking Heath Park, where he continues to live.] This was necessary if Mamwas to continue

the active life, which was the only kind she knew [The stairs of the old house defeated her.] (www)

[The only problem was that they didn’t have the lightbulbs, the truck to take them there or any of the other logistics required to make it happen]⫺ and they needed

to leave in 48 hours if theywere going to get there on time! (www)

Sir Bert said on Tuesday that there would have to be a ‘considerable improvement’

if Englandwere to win the European Championship in a year’s time (www)

9.6.8 From a tense-structural point of view, the past tense of futurish tense forms discussed in 9.6.1⫺6 resembles the conditional tense in that it expresses

no temporal information other than that the bound situation time is T-poste-rior to a binding orientation time forming part of a past domain (i e a domain whose central orientation time is located in the past time-sphere ⫺ see 8.36) (The fact that I was going to ring you and He was about to do something stupid implicate nonactualization does not alter this: the speaker anyhow has

the time of (potential) actualization in mind, and this time (⫽ the situation time of the situation denoted by the infinitive phrase) is posterior to the binding orientation time in a past domain.) These forms expressing T-posteriority therefore do not express the actual W-relation between its situation time and

t0 This W-relation can therefore be indicated by a time-specifying adverbial:

He told me (yesterday) that William {would / was going to} be there {later that

day / now / tomorrow}

D The T-relation expressed by the conditional perfect tense

9.7 The conditional perfect tense

In its purely temporal (nonmodal) use, the conditional perfect tense expresses

a complex T-relation in a past domain: it represents its situation time as

anterior to an orientation time which is itself posterior to some orientation

time in a past domain

Bill promised that hewould have finished by the end of the day.

The finishing is interpreted as anterior to the end of the day, which is

W-posterior to the time when Bill made his promise The conditional tense

com-bines anteriority and posteriority in one two-part T-relation: the finishing is

directly related to the promising, but by means of a complex T-relation The

point where the T-relation ‘bends’ is the end of the day See Figure 9.4

Figure 9.4 The tense structure of Bill had promised that he would have finished (by

the end of the day).

The following are similar to the above example:

[I knew that I should try and see the manager at 4 p.m at the latest, because] at 5

p.m he would have left.(At 5 p.m specifies the ‘bending point’ to which the

manag-er’s leaving is anterior.)

[I knew that the manager would no longer be available at 6 p.m because] hewould

have left at 5 p.m (On the most plausible interpretation, at 5 p.m specifies the

situation time, i e the time of the manager’s leaving.)

The manager would have left at 5 p.m (ambiguous: at 5 p.m may specify either

the situation time (⫽ ‘5 p.m would be the time when he left’) or the orientation

458 9 Temporal subordination in the various time-zones

time to which the situation time is anterior (⫽ ‘At 5 p.m the manager would already have left’); in the later case the bending point is not made explicit in the sentence but must be retrieved from the context.)

[You’ve hardly done anything since yesterday.] I thought youwould have finished

by now (www)

II Temporal relations in a pre-present domain

A ppresent domain can only be expanded if the ppresent situation can be re-interpreted as if it were a past situation In subclauses this will generally prove to be impossible if the full situation of the head clause is interpreted as continuative and unusual if the situation time is interpreted as recent (i e close to t0, as in the ‘hot news’ use of the indefinite perfect)

If a pre-present domain is expanded (by relative tenses), it is always expanded as if

it were a past domain This means that we use the past perfect to express T-anteriority, the relative past tense to express T-simultaneity and the conditional tense (or the past tense of a ‘futurish form’ like be going to) to express T-posteriority.

9.8 The relevance of the W-interpretation of the

present perfect clause

9.8.1 A pre-present domain is a temporal domain that is established by a

present perfect tense form which locates its situation time in the pre-present

zone of the present time-sphere This situation time functions as central

orien-tation time of the pre-present domain that is established The pre-present zone,

which is one of the four absolute zones, is a period conceived of as starting

before t0 and leading up to t0 (without including t0) The period in question

may be an Adv-time (i e a period specified by a time-specifying adverbial like

since then) or an unspecified mentally conceived period As we have seen in

5.2, the semantics of the present perfect is: ‘The situation time is located in the

pre-present’ However, the situation time can, according to context, be

inter-preted either as lying entirely before t0 (in which case we get an ‘indefinite

perfect interpretation’, e g.I have already met him) or as filling the entire

pre-present period (i e as leading up to t0) In the former case (i e when the

situation time lies entirely before t0), the full situation is interpreted as also

lying entirely before t0 In the latter case (i e when the situation time is

co-extensive with the pre-present) there are two possibilities as to the W-relation

between the situation time and the time of the full situation: (a) the two can

coincide, in which case they fill the entire pre-present but do not include t0(⫽

the ‘up-to-now reading’, e g Where have you been?), or (b) the time of the

full situation may be interpreted as longer than the situation time, so that it

includes t0(⫽ the ‘continuative reading’, e g He’s known that for years).

There are thus three possibilities as to the W-location of the full situation

relative to t For convenience we transfer the names of these three readings of

460 9 Temporal subordination in the various time-zones

a sentence in the present perfect to the tense form itself and speak of the

‘indefinite perfect’, the ‘up-to-now perfect’ and the ‘continuative perfect’

How-ever, it was stressed in 5.4.6 that these three labels actually refer to W-inter-pretations (of clauses) which are not due to the perfect tense alone

In sum, we distinguish between three temporal W-interpretations of present perfect clauses, all of which fit in with the same tense structure, viz ‘The pre-present zone contains the situation time’ (‘Contain’ can mean either ‘include’

or ‘coincide with’⫺ see 2.16.2 and 2.21.1.) When the situation time is included

in the pre-present, it does not lead up to t0, and we get an indefinite interpreta-tion When the situation time is co-extensive with the pre-present, it does lead

up to t0 (without including it) and we get either an up-to-now reading or a continuative reading (depending on the nonverbal part of the clause or its context) Because of the fundamental difference between these temporal inter-pretations, the domains which they establish are not expanded in the same way It is therefore necessary to treat the readings separately

9.8.2 The following are the general conclusions we will arrive at below: (a) If a pre-present domain is expanded (by relative tenses), it is always ex-panded as if it were a past domain This means that we use the past perfect

to express T-anteriority, the relative past tense to express T-simultaneity and the conditional tense (or the past tense of a ‘futurish form’ like be going to) to express T-posteriority.

(b) A pre-present domain can only be expanded if the pre-present situation can be re-interpreted as if it were a past situation In subclauses this will generally prove to be impossible if the full situation of the head clause is interpreted as continuative and unusual if the situation time is interpreted

as recent (i e close to t0, as in the ‘hot news’ ⫺ see 5.14 ⫺ use of the indefinite perfect)

9.9 T-relations in a domain established by an

indefinite perfect

A domain established by an indefinite perfect can be expanded if the situation referred

to is not recent, i e if the ‘bygone-ness’ of the situation is more salient than its closeness

to t0 When an indefinite perfect domain is expanded, it is treated exactly like a past domain Each situation time that is inserted into this ‘pseudo-past’ domain functions

as the central orientation time of a ‘pseudo-past subdomain’ For example:Have you ever told anyone that you felt guilty when you had kissed Gordon? (Have told

estab-lishes a pre-present domain, which is treated as a pseudo-past domain.Felt expresses

T-simultaneity with the situation time ofhave told and establishes a pseudo-past

subdo-main.Had kissed expresses T-anteriority in that subdomain.)

9.9.1 As noted in 4.7.3, an indefinite present perfect is normally only used to

introduce a ‘bygone’ situation into the discourse (i e to establish a domain in

the pre-present zone), not to go on speaking about it after this has happened

In order to do that we normally switch to the past tense When this switch

happens in a subclause, as inI have occasionally thought that I was going mad,

we notice a shift of perspective: the pre-present domain is expanded as if it

were a past domain As a matter of fact, this is the only way in which a

pre-present domain can be expanded: the tenses used to expand a pre-pre-present

do-main are always the same as are used to express T-relations in a past dodo-main

In other words, the central orientation time of an expanded pre-present domain

is treated as if it were the central orientation time of a past domain This is

further illustrated by the following example:

On one occasion I’ve even drawn the curtains across a window through which a

journalistwas peeping.

The present perfect in the head clause locates its situation time (which is taken

to be the time of the full situation⫺ see 5.4.1) at some indefinite time within

the pre-present zone (As is criterial of an indefinite perfect reading, the

situa-tion time is interpreted as lying completely before t0.) The relative clause

intro-duces another situation time into the pre-present domain, but in doing so

cre-ates a ‘pseudo-past subdomain’ In other words, there is a ‘shift of temporal

perspective’ (see 8.22): the pre-present domain is treated as if it were a past

one This means that the tense used to express T-simultaneity in the relative

clause is the relative past tense The tense structure of the above example can

therefore be represented as in Figure 9.5 (The vertical dashed line in this figure

represents the shift of temporal perspective; the dotted line indicates the

pseudo-past subdomain.)

9.9.2 It is very important to remember in any discussion about the expansion

of pre-present domains that a pre-present domain established by a present

per-fect does not always have to be expanded and in fact often cannot be ⫺ see

9.9.6 below The only point made in 9.9.1, therefore, is that if a pre-present

domain is expanded, it is expanded as if it were a past domain

9.9.3 The following are further examples illustrating the shift of temporal

perspective which takes place when an indefinite pre-present domain is

ex-panded (As noted before, ‘indefinite pre-present domain’ is short for