The grammar of the english verb phrase part 75 pptx

To begin with, in 4a⫺b the head clause in the future tense is each time positive while the relative clause in the past perfect is each time negative.. In 6a⫺b the present perfect has stu

The use of the past perfect in (4a⫺b) versus the use of the present perfect

in (5a⫺b) is accompanied by further differences between the two types of

sen-tences To begin with, in (4a⫺b) the head clause in the future tense is each

time positive while the relative clause in the past perfect is each time negative

It follows that there can be a contrast in interpretation between the future

actualization of the head clause situation and the nonactualization of the same

kind of situation in a period leading up to the beginning of that future

actual-ization In (5a⫺b) both clauses are positive, so that there is no sense of contrast

between actualization and earlier nonactualization

Secondly, the tenses in (4a⫺b) and (5a⫺b) reveal a difference of ‘temporal

focus’ (see 11.1.1) In both (4a⫺b) and (5a⫺b) the speaker makes a prediction

and in doing so expresses his own point of view concerning the future The

fact that in (5a⫺b) he focuses on (i e is primarily concerned with) the

post-present time of the resultant state expressed by the post-present perfect form is in

keeping with this: the time focused on is the same time as the time about which

a prediction is made The only point of view that is taken in these sentences is

therefore that of the speaker In (4a⫺b), by contrast, the past perfect reveals a

temporal focus on the pseudo-past orientation time to which the situation

re-ferred to in the past perfect is anterior This means that, apart from expressing

his own point of view about the post-present (by making a prediction), the

speaker also assumes the temporal standpoint, and hence the point of view (see

11.3.2), of the person(s) participating in the post-present situation Thus, in

(4a) [If you join our club, you will know a lot about people that you had never

dreamed of meeting before] the speaker expresses not only his own point of

view (in that he makes a prediction) but also the viewpoint of an imagined

‘having-joined-the-club addressee’ potentially sayingI hadn’t dreamed of

meet-ing these people before (⫽ before I met them after joinmeet-ing the club) (Of course,

this does not mean that the speaker actually attributes such a thought or

utter-ance to the club-joiner; it just means that the speaker predicts that this thought

could be entertained in the world envisaged from the point of view that the

club-joiner would have in the predicted post-present world.)

9.27.3 Let us now have a look at the following examples:

(6a) In future he will never again speak about a subject that he {has / *had} not

studied in detail

(6b) In future he will always speak about a subject that he {has / *had} studied

in detail

(6c) In future he will (always) speak about a subject that he {has / had} never

spoken about before

(6d) In future he will never again speak about a subject that he {has /?had} never

spoken about before

In (6a⫺b) the present perfect (has studied) has to be used because there is a

resultative link to be communicated: the intended readings are as follows:

‘He will never again speak about a subject that he is not familiar with as a result of having studied it in detail.’

‘He will always speak about a subject that he knows well as a result of having studied it in detail.’

In (6c) both the present perfect (has spoken) and the past perfect (had spoken)

are in principle possible because there are two interpretations that make sense, viz the following:

(6⬘) ‘He will always speak about a subject that is new because it will (each time) be the case that he has not spoken about it yet.’

(6⬙) ‘He will take up the habit of speaking about a subject that he had not spoken about (before taking up the habit in question).’

The former interpretation requires the present perfect formhas spoken in (6c)

and implies that there are various subjects that will be treated.14Interpretation (6c⬙) is conveyed by the past perfect had spoken On this reading, the situation

time of the situation of not speaking about the subject is located before the beginning of the post-present habitual situation The implication now is that

it is the same subject that will be treated on the various future occasions of speaking It follows that the resultative idea ‘Each instance of speaking will concern a new subject’ is absent here

In (6d) the former type of interpretation (viz ‘He will never again speak about a subject that is new’) makes sense, but the latter kind of interpretation (‘He will never again take up the habit of speaking about a subject that he had never spoken about (before taking up the habit)’) is more complex and appar-ently more difficult to process and contextualize Hence the lower acceptability

of the past perfect

9.27.4 One of the corner-stones of the above analysis is the observation that

in order to relate a situation time to the central orientation time of a post-present domain we use the same tenses as we use to relate a situation time to

t0 This means that the use of the present perfect vs the past perfect in the

above examples should not be affected if we replace the future tense in the head clause by the present tense This prediction appears to be borne out, as

we see when we consider the examples in (7), which are quite similar to the

14 In this case the post-present situation is of the repetitive (or habitual) kind It consists

of a number of subsituations, each of which can be described in terms of ‘He will speak about a subject that is new because he has not spoken about it before’ (Semantically this is similar to what we observe inEach time he speaks about a subject in future, he will not have spoken about it before.)

examples given so far, except that the head clause refers to the present, and

not to the post-present:

(7a) Thanks to this club I now know a lot about people that I {had / *have} never

dreamed of meeting before

(7b) [Our local pressure group is achieving results and the interest is gathering

mo-mentum.] Individuals who {had / *have} never considered taking part in public

debate are now being attracted to the success of certain ventures

(7c) Through this hole in the curtain you can see the audience that {have / *had}

come to see the play.(The past perfect is unacceptable because there is to be a

resultative link.)

(7d) He is again telling that joke which he {has / *had} already told several times.

(idem)

(7e) He never speaks about a subject that he {has / *had} not studied in detail.

(idem)

(7f) He always speaks about a subject that he {has / *had} studied in detail.

(7g) This year he (always) lectures on a subject that he {has / had} never spoken

about before

(7h) This year he never lectures on a subject that he {has / ?had} never spoken

about before

These sentences (and their interpretations) run completely parallel to what we

have observed in connection with the examples in (2)⫺(6) For example, in

(7g) (which runs parallel to (6c)), the present perfect yields reading (7g⬘), while

the past perfect yields reading (7g⬙) These interpretations resemble (6c⬘) and

(6c⬙) in that the former implies that the subjects treated are each time different,

whereas the latter implies that the speaker each time deals with the same

sub-ject

(7g⬘) ‘This year he always lectures on a subject that is new because it is (each time)

the case that he has not lectured on it yet.’

(7g⬙) ‘This year he has taken up the habit of lecturing on a subject that he had not

lectured on (before taking up the habit in question).’

Similarly, in (7h) the present perfect suggests the interpretation ‘This year he

never lectures on a subject that is new’, whereas the past perfect suggests the

(somewhat less accessible and less plausible) interpretation ‘This year he never

takes up the habit of lecturing on a subject that he had never lectured on

(before taking up the habit)’

The following are attested examples similar to the ones in (7) combining a

past perfect with a present tense:

(stage direction) The procession music, which had been allowed to fade out, is

brought up by the opening of the study door (JUMP) (This is to be read as ‘At this

point, the music which had, prior to the interval immediately preceding now, which was without music, been allowed to fade out, comes gradually back.’ This implies that it is not until the music comes back ‘up’ that we realize that there has been an interval with no music, precisely because the music faded out rather than being cut off in an intrusive way, and we have been absorbed in the drama and not noticed its absence.)

Food for the party is now being cooked in the English style ⫺ after team manager

Walter Winterbottomhad gone into the hotel kitchen to instruct the chef (TCIE) (This can only make sense if read as ‘Food for the party is now being cooked in the English style They began doing so after team manager Walter Winterbottom had gone into the hotel kitchen to instruct the chef.’)

9.27.5 It should be clear, then, that the possibility of using a past perfect in

a subclause depending on a head clause locating its situation time in the present

or post-present depends on the possibility of treating the beginning of the pres-ent or post-prespres-ent situation as a time that is past with respect to the rest of the situation We have observed that this possibility is excluded if there is a resultative link between the two situations This does not mean, however, that

it is always available when there is not such a link In fact, when there is no link of result (or, more generally, relevance) between the two situations we often have to use the past tense or present perfect to refer to the anterior situation because ‘anteriority to t0or to a pseudo-t0’ is unmarked with respect

to ‘anteriority to an unspecified orientation time that is anterior to t0 or to a pseudo-t0’ The latter option is only selected if there is some positive reason to

do so

He is now reading the book that I {gave / have given / *had given} him.

He will be reading the book that I {gave / have given / *had given} him.

The clearest examples in which the past perfect is used are those in which the past tense will not be used because the conditions for using a perfect form are satisfied, and in which the perfect form in question cannot be a present perfect because the meaning of this tense is incompatible with the context Compare: (8a) His popularity is so immense that some people who {had / *have} never been

to the opera now go regularly, just to hear him sing

(8b) His popularity is so immense that I predict that some people who {had / have}

neverbeen to the opera will go regularly, just to hear him sing.

In both cases a perfect form is called for becausenever is interpreted as ‘never

in a time span leading up to [some orientation time]’ As noted in connection with the present perfect, it is typically one of the perfect tenses that is used to locate a situation time in such a time span If we use the present perfect, the situation time is located in a time span that leads up to t0 (as inI have never been to the opera) In (8a) this use of the present tense is unacceptable because

the meaning of have never been to the opera clashes with the statement that

the people in question now go to listen to ‘him’ regularly in a short period,

which implies that these people have already been to the opera In (8b), on the

other hand, the present perfect is not impossible because we can interpretnever

as ‘never up to t0’, which does not clash with the idea of a future habit

How-ever, the present perfect is not possible if never is to be interpreted as ‘never

up to then’

It follows that a past perfect of this kind will never receive a continuative

interpretation: in this reading the situation continues into the relevant

orienta-tion time rather than coming to an end at the (past) time when the situaorienta-tion

holding at the relevant orientation time began to hold Compare:

People who have lived in London for many years will regularly attend these

meet-ings

People whohad lived in London for many years will regularly attend these meetings.

In the former example, have lived receives a continuative interpretation: the

people in question will still be living in London when they attend the meetings

In the second example, by contrast, had lived is interpreted as an indefinite

past perfect: the people in question will no longer be living in London at the

time when they attend the meetings

9.27.6 In conclusion, we can say that an explanation has been offered for the

observation that a subclause depending on a head clause in the present or

future tense may sometimes use the past perfect instead of the present perfect

The explanation is that the past perfect functions as an instruction to look for

a suitable past orientation time, to which the situation time can be interpreted

as being anterior If the head clause refers to the present or the post-present

and there is no contextually given past orientation time, it is the beginning of

the head-clause situation that is interpreted as being the past or pseudo-past

orientation time in question (Self-evidently this is only possible if the head

clause situation has a certain duration, so that its beginning can be seen as past

with respect to the rest of the situation In many cases it is of the habitual kind.)

V Direct and indirect binding

When a subclause is temporally subordinated to its own head clause, we speak of

‘direct binding’ When a subclause is not T-bound by its own head clause but by a syntactically higher clause which T-binds that head clause, we speak of ‘indirect bind-ing’ Indirect binding is subject to severe constraints

9.28.1 In section 8.21.1 it was pointed out that, when two clauses follow each other, the situation time of the second clause may or may not be bound

by (i e temporally subordinated to) the situation time of the first clause If its situation time is not bound by it, it is related to t0, which means that the tense form used establishes a new temporal domain The two possibilities (binding

or shifting the domain) are illustrated by the following sentences:

The woman has told her friends once or twice that she was afraid to go home

because her husband would perhaps be drunk and knock her about (All the sub-clause situation times are temporally subordinated.)

John has been expelled from the club because he has behaved badly (shift of do-main)

When the situation time is T-bound in a past domain, there are sometimes two possibilities as to the choice of binding time Compare the following, in which the past perfect forms in the head clauses are the past counterparts of the present perfects in the head clauses of the preceding examples:

[The police knew that] the girlhad told her friends once or twice that she was afraid

to go home because her husbandwould perhaps be drunk and knock her about.

[Mary knew that] John had been expelled from the club because he had behaved

badly

The first of these examples illustrates what we will call direct binding: the situation time of each subclause is temporally subordinated to the situation time of its own head clause (⫽ syntactically superordinate clause) This means that the situation time ofshe was afraid is represented as T-simultaneous with

the situation time of the first that-clause (whose verb is had told), which is

itself represented as T-anterior to the situation time of the matrix clause (⫽ the highest clause in the syntactic tree structure, which in this case is the clause establishing the domain) The fact that the situation of the second that-clause

(⫽ the being afraid) is also interpreted as W-anterior to that of the matrix clause is not expressed by its tense form (was afraid) In the second example,

temporal subordination happens differently: here not only the situation time

of the that-clause but also the situation time of the (more deeply embedded)

because-clause is represented as T-anterior to the situation time of the matrix

clause There is therefore no expression of the T-relation between the situation

times of the two subclauses This means that only the that-clause is bound

directly (i e bound by its own head clause) The because-clause is bound

indirectly (i e its situation time is temporally subordinated to the situation

time of a clause which is not its own head clause) This kind of tense structure

is shown by Figure 9.16 (The wavy line represents the W-simultaneity relation

that is not linguistically expressed.)

Figure 9.16 The tense structure of Mary knew that John had been expelled from the

club because he had behaved badly.

9.28.2 As appears from the following examples, there are constraints on both

direct and indirect binding:

(9a) We expected that Elsie would still be in bed when we {arrived / *would

arrive} (W-posterior reading; only direct binding is possible: the binding

ori-entation time has to be the situation time of would be, not that of expected.)

(9b) We hoped that the kidnappers would release the girl after the ransom {had

been paid / *would have been paid} (Only direct binding is allowed: the

binding situation time has to be the situation time of would release, not the

situation time of hoped.)15

(10a) [She was determined to buy the house.] She had fallen in love with it the

moment shesaw it (W-simultaneous reading; saw effects direct binding.)

15 Remember that the conditional tense expresses one T-relation, which is, however,

‘com-plex’ in that it combines the idea ‘The situation time is anterior to an orientation time’

and ‘That orientation time is posterior to another orientation time in a past domain’

(see 9.7).