The grammar of the english verb phrase part 113 potx

Factual full situation: In clauses in one of the perfect tenses with a continuative reading, this term refers to that part of the full situation that has actualized in a period leading u

but it was not yet a fact at the time of the head clause situation and the speaker

leaves it vague whether Bill eventually arrived or not.)

Factual full situation: In clauses in one of the perfect tenses with a continuative

reading, this term refers to that part of the full situation that has actualized in

a period leading up to the relevant orientation time (which is the temporal

zero-point in the case of the present perfect) Thus, inMeg has been talking to

the elephant for an hour now, the temporal adverbial specifies not only the

length of the pre-present zone but also the duration of the situation time

coin-ciding with that pre-present zone The full situation may or may not include

t0and extend into the post-present If it does, it consists not only of a part that

is factual at t0but also of a ‘potential’ present and post-present part The part

that is factual at t0 is called the ‘factual full situation’ The entire situation,

including both the t0-factual part and the potential part, is called the ‘potential

full situation’

Finite clause: clause whose verb form is a finite verb form.

Finite verb form: verb form that is marked for at least one of the grammatical

categories tense, mood, person and number For example, the finite verb form

works is marked for tense (present), mood (indicative), person (third) and

number (singular) (By contrast, a verb form that is an infinitive, gerund or

participle is a nonfinite verb form.)

Focalizing when -clause: when-clause which does not specify the time of the

head clause situation (or a time to which the time of the head clause situation

is related) but expresses the speaker’s temporal focus on a time of evaluation

or observation In one subtype, thewhen-clause suggests the idea of a travelling

observing consciousness (e g.When you travel to Washington, Boston, Chicago

or New York, the same problems exist), in another, the focalizing when-clause

indicates the ‘epistemic time of evaluation’, i e the time when the conclusion

is reached that the statement made in the head clause is true (e g When you

look at the economics, this company needs a Japanese and a European partner

to make it work).

Foreground: in a narrative text, the linguistic material (sentences and clauses)

which ‘pushes forward’ the story through time (This material is said to have

a ‘foregrounding’ function.) It is the foregrounding sentences and clauses of a

story that form the ‘backbone’ of the story

Foregrounding: see foreground.

Free indirect speech: type of represented speech in which an utterance or

thought is represented in the form of an independent clause (which is not a

quotation) rather than in the form of a subclause depending on a reporting

clause (as is the case in indirect reported speech sentences like [He said] that

he was ill and had to stay at home) For example: [He let me know that he couldn’t come.] He was ill He had to stay at home In free indirect speech,

what is reported is more often a thought than an utterance: [He took her threat seriously.] She would not hesitate to carry it out The report retains some

typical characteristics of a direct speech clause Thus, it can have the form

of a direct question (i e with inversion) (e g [The constable looked at me uncomprehendingly.] Why ever did I insist on being arrested?), it can be

fol-lowed by a question tag (e g So, that was what they were going to do, was it?), etc.

Free relative clause (or headless relative clause, nominal relative clause):

rela-tive clauses without an overt antecedent (⫽ head), i e whose antecedent is incorporated into the relative pronoun itself For example: what he wanted

(which means ‘that which he wanted’) Because there is no overt noun as ante-cedent, the relative clause itself functions syntactically like a noun phrase Thus, in What he wanted was unreasonable, the free relative clause has the

nominal function of subject (This is why we can speak of ‘nominal relative clause’.)

Full situation: the complete situation (referred to in a clause) as it actualizes

in whatever possible world is being referred to The full situation should be distinguished from the predicated situation The latter is that part of the full situation (possibly all of it) about which a claim is made in the clause As is clear from Two minutes ago John was in the library (which does not exclude

that John is still there), it is the predicated situation rather than the full situa-tion that is located in time by the use of a particular tense

Full verb: see lexical verb.

Future: (a) As a noun,future can be short for ‘future tense’ or can be used as

a nontechnical term meaning ‘post-present zone’ (b) As an adjective,future is

usually linked up with post-present time reference For example,future tion means ‘post-present situation’, which is short for ‘situation whose

situa-tion time is located in the post-present zone’ Similarly, when we speak of

future time reference, we normally mean ‘reference to a time lying in, or being

coextensive with, the post-present time-zone’ Occasionally future indicates a

relation of posteriority to an orientation time other than the temporal zero-point For example, we can say that in Ten years later Bill {was to / would}

be the richest man in town, the verb form was to be or would be expresses

‘future in the past’ or (more correctly) ‘future from the past’, i e future relative

to a past orientation time.)

Future continuous: progressive form of the future tense.

Future perfect: see future perfect tense.

Future perfect tense (or future perfect): tense which is formed by combining

the future tense auxiliary will (or shall) with a perfect infinitive The future

perfect is an absolute-relative tense, because it combines an ‘absolute relation’

with a relative one:will expresses T-posteriority to the zero-point, thus

estab-lishing a post-present domain, while have V-ed expresses T-anteriority to the

pseudo-zero-point in this post-present domain This anteriority is similar either

to the relation of anteriority to t0expressed by the absolute past tense –

com-pareJohn left at five with [John will no longer be there at six because] he will

have left at five – or (more commonly) to the relation of anteriority to t0

expressed by the present perfect – compare John has already left with John

will already have left (by then) Accordingly, the semantics of the future perfect

is: ‘The situation time is located anterior to the central orientation time of a

post-present domain.’ Since that central orientation time is treated as a

pseudo-zero-point, this comes down to saying that a future perfect form creates either

a pseudo-past subdomain or a pseudo-pre-present subdomain In addition, the

future perfect can also be used as a ‘pseudo-absolute-relative’ tense, as in [He

will say that] he will have finished before 5 o’clock, where the origin of the

T-posteriority relation expressed by will is not the (real) zero-point but a

post-present pseudo-t0(viz the situation time ofwill say).

Future tense: tense whose forms combine the present tense form of one of the

auxiliarieswill or shall (the latter in the first person only) and a present

infini-tive (e g will come) The basic use of the future tense is to locate a situation

time in the present zone of the present time-sphere However, in a

post-present domain, it can also be used as a pseudo-absolute tense (e g [I will say

that] I will be absent the next day.)

Future tense auxiliary: the auxiliarywill or shall (the latter in the first person

only) when it helps to build a form of the future tense (as in It will be cold

tomorrow) or of an absolute-relative tense like the future perfect (as in He will

have left by then).

Futurish tense form: verbal expression which arguably combines future time

reference with present time reference, more specifically, which links the

post-present actualization of a situation to a particular kind of post-present state

Exam-ples of futurish tense forms are the present progressive in I’m leaving in a

minute, ‘be going to ⫹ present infinitive’ in It’s going to rain, and ‘be to ⫹

present infinitive’ in The Queen is to leave for Canada tomorrow Like future

tense forms, futurish tense forms establish a post-present temporal domain

Futurish verb form: see futurish tense form.

Futurity: see posteriority.

Generic sentence: universal sentence that predicates a typical characteristic of

a kind (species), e g Horses do not eat meat The term is also sometimes

applied to habitual sentences that predicate a typical and permanent (nontem-porary) characteristic of an individual (e g.Bill’s cat chases dogs).

Gerund: nonfinite verb form used in a gerund clause (e g [I want to avoid her] getting [upset]) See also present gerund and perfect gerund.

Gerund clause: nonfinite clause whose verb form is a gerund and which is

typically used as a nominal clause, e g.being gay in By next week, you will write an essay on being gay {in antiquity / today / in the world of tomorrow}.

As this example shows, the situation time of being gay can be interpreted as

anterior, simultaneous or posterior to the situation time of the situation re-ferred to in the head clause

Grammatical aspect: the use of a special grammatical form (more specifically:

an inflectional suffix, an auxiliary or a combination of the two, as in the Eng-lish progressive form) to express one of various meanings which have to do with how the speaker views the internal temporal structure of a situation

Grammatical auxiliary: auxiliary with a purely grammatical function, e g the

perfect tense auxiliaryhave.

Gricean Maxims: four principles of conversation, described by Grice (1975),

which are conventionally observed by cooperative speakers and hearers, and which can trigger implicatures See also Maxim of Quantity and Maxim of Re-lation

Habit: situation that is characteristic of the referent of the subject noun phrase

for an extended period of time (e g.John smokes; Bill mostly walks to work).

Because it is a characteristic, a habit is by definition a state It does not neces-sarily involve repetition (e g I used to be afraid of the dark), but a habit is

mostly a habitual-repetitive situation

Habitual: being or expressing a habit.John smokes is a ‘habitual sentence’ It

refers to a ‘habitual situation’ It has a ‘habitual meaning (interpretation)’, but

is not an instance of habitual aspect because it does not contain a special verb form grammatically marking the situation as habitual (The form smokes can

also be used with a nonhabitual interpretation, e g in the historic present.)

Habitual aspect: kind of grammatical aspect characterized by the fact that the

speaker uses a special verb form to represent a situation as a habit (i e as a situation which is characteristic of the referent of the subject NP over an ex-tended period of time) (e g.She used to come and talk to him when she had finished working).

Habitual-repetitive sentence: sentence referring to a habitual-repetitive

situa-tion

Habitual-repetitive situation: habit involving repetition, i e habitual situation

consisting of a number of similar or identical subsituations (e g.She comes to

see me every night) A habitual-repetitive situation is an example of a

hyper-situation

Habitual sentence: sentence interpreted as referring to a habitual situation.

Habitual situation: situation which is interpreted as being a habit, i e as being

characteristic of the referent of the subject NP over a certain period, e g the

situations referred to in John smokes, We’re eating outside while this spell of

good weather lasts, His dog is black See also habitual-repetitive situation,

permanent habit, temporary habit

Head (of a phrase): see phrase.

Head clause: clause which forms part of a complex sentence and on which

another clause (i e a ‘subclause’, ‘subordinate clause’, ‘dependent clause’,

‘em-bedded clause’) is syntactically dependent In John left after he had promised

he would finish the report, the matrix clause is John left This clause is the

head clause on which the subclause with had promised depends The latter

clause is itself the head clause of the subclause with would finish As this

example shows, a head clause (or ‘superordinate clause’) may or may not be

the matrix of a complex sentence

Headless relative clause (or free relative clause or nominal relative clause):

relative clause whose relative pronoun ‘contains’ a covert antecedent For

ex-ample:what he wanted (which means ‘that which he wanted’) For more

infor-mation, see free relative clause.

Heterogeneous (or nonhomogeneous): (a) Ontological feature of a telic kind of

situation: ‘not homogeneous’ For example, the verb phrase run three miles

denotes a telic situation-template; it refers to a kind of situation which is not

interpreted as homogeneous (⫽ the same all the way through); this means that

the verb phrase is only applicable to the kind of situation as a whole: there is

no part of the situation type referred to by run three miles that can also be

referred to by this (nonprogressive) verb phrase; (b) On the level of the clause,

‘heterogeneous’ is a characteristic of the actualization of a concrete situation;

John is going to run three miles is a ‘heterogeneous clause’ because it can only

be used to refer to the post-present situation as a whole: there is no part of the

future (actualization of the) situation that can be satisfactorily referred to by

the same clause As regards clauses and the actualizations they refer to, there

is a perfect correlation between the features [⫹ heterogeneous] and [⫹

bounded] Sheila drank a glass of beer refers to an actualization which is

bounded, and therefore heterogeneous, so that we can speak either of a

‘bounded sentence’ or of a ‘heterogeneous sentence’; (c) ‘Heterogeneous’ (or

‘nonhomogeneous’) can also be applied to the (actualization of) a situation: a bounded (or heterogeneous) clause refers to a bounded (or heterogeneous) situ-ation; (d) The term ‘heterogeneous’ is also applied to an Adv-time and to the adverbial indicating it: a heterogeneous Adv-time adverbial can only refer to the Adv-time as a whole, not to any smaller portion of it (e g from 1983 to 1986) The Adv-time in question is then also said to be heterogeneous.

Historic present (or historical present): use of the present tense to locate the

situation time of a bygone situation in the present in order to represent this situation vividly, as if it were actualizing here and now (e g Last night I’m having a drink at the local pub Suddenly this guy walks in and …).

Homogeneous: the opposite of ‘heterogeneous’ (a) On the level of the verb

phrase, ‘homogeneous’ is an ontological feature of a durative situation-tem-plate: it means that a kind of situation is conceptualized as ‘the same all the way through’, i e as consisting of parts which are all of the same kind as the situation-template as a whole (e g drink beer) On this level, ‘homogeneous’

can be applied both to the kind of situation (which is then always atelic) and

to the verb phrase denoting it (b) On the level of clauses, ‘homogeneous’ is an inherent feature of nonbounded (actualizations of) situations The sentenceShe drank beer can be called either a ‘homogeneous sentence’ or a ‘nonbounded

sentence’ The actualization of the situation referred to, and by extension the situation itself, can also be called ‘nonbounded’ or ‘homogeneous’ A homogen-eous clause can refer not only to (the actualization of) a situation as a whole but also to any representative part of it Thus, if John was walking truly

de-scribes what John was doing between 2 o’clock and 4, it can also be used to describe what John was doing between 2 and 3, and between 2.30 and 3, etc (c) In respect of Adv-times, homogeneity means that the Adv-time-adverbial can indicate not only the Adv-time as a whole but also portions of it For example, today is a ‘homogeneous Adv-time-adverbial’ because any part of

today, whether bygone, present or future, can be referred to as today This

explains why any of the absolute tenses is compatible with today: I had no time for breakfast today, I haven’t seen him yet today, I’m 21 today, I’m feeling queasy today, I will visit him today.

Hot news reading (or hot news interpretation): a particular usage type

(func-tional reading) of the indefinite perfect: the sentence in the present perfect is used to ‘announce’ a bygone situation, i e to present the bygone actualization

of the situation in question as very recent and as having high current signifi-cance For example: [Have you heard?] Kim Clijsters has won the US Open!.

Hypersituation: repetitive situation, i e situation whose actualization involves

the actualization of a number of similar subsituations, e g [All the time I was speaking] John was nodding assent; She stabbed him six times with her pen-knife.

Iconic sequencing: the unmarked interpretation of a sequence of two or more

bounded clauses using an absolute tense form: the situations referred to are

interpreted as actualizing in the temporal order in which they are referred to

Thus, the unmarked interpretation of Bill hit John, who hit him is that John

hit Bill first, and then Bill hit John (This unmarked interpretation can easily

be overruled by the context, as in Bill hit John, who hit him the day before,

or by pragmatic knowledge, as in The policeman arrested John, who robbed

the bank).

Illocutionary force: the illocutionary force of an utterance is the intention of

the speech act (e g promise, request, piece of advice, rebuke, etc.) performed

by the speaker by making the utterance For example,Will you help me?, Shall

I drive you there? and You will do as I say! have the illocutionary force of a

request, an offer of service and an instruction, respectively

Imperfective aspect: cover term for inchoative, progressive or egressive aspect.

Imperfective aspect is expressed by verb forms which do not refer to the

actual-ization of a situation as a whole, but only to its beginning, middle or end

In English, progressive aspect is the only kind of imperfective aspect that is

grammaticalized

Imperfective meaning: meaning conveyed by a verb form expressing

imperfec-tive aspect

Imperfective verb form: verb form which expresses imperfective aspect, i e.

which explicitly refers to only the beginning, middle or end of (the actualization

of) a situation, not to the complete situation For example, inI was writing an

essay [when Henry came in] the progressive verb form was writing refers to

the middle of the situation only (hence the possible paraphrase ‘I was in the

middle of writing an essay [when Henry came in].’)

Implicate: to express an implicature, i e to suggest that something is the case

unless there is a contextual or pragmatic indication to the contrary For

exam-ple, in clauses referring to a homogeneous situation the past tense implicates

that the actualization of the situation referred to is over at the temporal

zero-point Thus,Tim was very angry suggests that Tim is no longer angry, but this

implicature can be blocked or cancelled by the context: It is blocked (prevented

from arising) by the presence ofalready in Tim was already very angry

yester-day, and it is cancelled (explicitly denied) in Tim was very angry – in fact he

still is.

Implicature: aspect of interpretation which does not follow from the semantic

meaning of a word, constituent or construction but which either follows from

contextual information or pragmatic knowledge of the world or results from

the application of conversational principles, such as the Gricean Maxims It is