Limba Engleză Contemporană Contemporană (Morfologia Lb. Engleze) - Anul 1, Sem. 2 –
I.
What is Morphology?
In linguistics, morphology (/mɔːˈfɒlədʒi/) is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems1, root words2, prefixes, and suffixes. 1
In languages with very little inflection, such as English language and Chinese, the stem is usually not distinct from the "normal" form of the word (the lemma3, citation or dictionary form). However, in other languages, stems may rarely or never occur on their own. For example, the English verb stem run is indistinguishable from its present tense form (except in the third person singular). However, the equivalent Spanish verb stem corr- never appears as such because it is cited with the infinitive inflection (correr) and always appears in actual speech as a nonfinite (infinitive or participle) or conjugated form. Such morphemes that cannot occur on their own in this way are usually referred to as bound bo und morphemes. In computational linguistics, a stem is the part of the word that never changes even when morphologically inflected, and a lemma is the base form of the word. For example, given the word "produced", its lemma (linguistics) is "produce", but the stem is "produc" because there are words such as production. 2
A root, or a root word, is a word that does not have a prefix (in front of the word) or a suffix (at the end of a word). The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family (root is then called base word), which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of root morphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe the word minus its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, chatters has the inflectional root or lemma chatter, but the lexical root chat. Inflectional roots are often called stems, and a root in the stricter sense may be thought of as a monomorphemic stem. The root of a word is unit of meaning (morpheme) and, as such, it is an abstraction, though it can usually be represented in writing as a word would be. For example, it can be said that the root of the English verb form running is run, or the root of the Spanish superlative adjective amplísimo is ampli-, since those words are clearly derived from the root forms by b y simple suffixes that do not alter the roots in any way. In particular, English has very little inflection and a 1
tendency to have words that are identical to their roots. But more complicated inflection, as well as other processes, can obscure the root; for example, the root of mice is mouse (still a valid word), and the root of interrupt is, arguably, rupt, which is not a word in English and only appears in derivational forms (such as disrupt, corrupt, rupture, etc.). et c.). The root rupt is written as if it were a word, but it's not. 3
In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural lemmas or lemmata) is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of words (headword). In English, for example, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme4, with run as the lemma. Lexeme, in this context, refers to the set of all the forms that have the same meaning, and lemma refers to the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme. In lexicography, this unit is usually also the citation form or headword by which it is indexed. Lemmas have special significance in highly inflected languages such as Arabic, Turkish and Russian. The process of determining the lemma for a given word is called lemmatisation. 4
A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning that exists regardless of the number of inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain. It is a basic unit of meaning, and the headwords of a dictionary are all lexemes. Put more technically, a lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as run. A related concept is the lemma (or citation form), which is a particular form of a lexeme that is chosen by convention to represent a canonical form of a lexeme. Stem is the part of the word that never changes even when morphologically inflected; a lemma is the base form of the word. For example, from "produced", the lemma is "produce", but the stem is "produc-". This is because there are words such as production. Lemmas, being a subset of lexemes, are likewise used in dictionaries as the headwords, and other forms of a lexeme are often listed later in the entry if they are not common conjugations of that word. The lexemes of a language are often composed of smaller units with individual meaning called morphemes, according to root morpheme + derivational morphemes + desinence (not necessarily in this order), where: The root morpheme is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot cann ot be reduced to smaller constituents. The derivational morphemes carry only derivational information. The desinence is composed of all inflectional morphemes, and carries only inflectional information. The compound root morpheme + derivational morphemes is often called the stem. The decomposition stem + desinence can then be used to study inflection.
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tendency to have words that are identical to their roots. But more complicated inflection, as well as other processes, can obscure the root; for example, the root of mice is mouse (still a valid word), and the root of interrupt is, arguably, rupt, which is not a word in English and only appears in derivational forms (such as disrupt, corrupt, rupture, etc.). et c.). The root rupt is written as if it were a word, but it's not. 3
In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural lemmas or lemmata) is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of words (headword). In English, for example, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme4, with run as the lemma. Lexeme, in this context, refers to the set of all the forms that have the same meaning, and lemma refers to the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme. In lexicography, this unit is usually also the citation form or headword by which it is indexed. Lemmas have special significance in highly inflected languages such as Arabic, Turkish and Russian. The process of determining the lemma for a given word is called lemmatisation. 4
A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning that exists regardless of the number of inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain. It is a basic unit of meaning, and the headwords of a dictionary are all lexemes. Put more technically, a lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as run. A related concept is the lemma (or citation form), which is a particular form of a lexeme that is chosen by convention to represent a canonical form of a lexeme. Stem is the part of the word that never changes even when morphologically inflected; a lemma is the base form of the word. For example, from "produced", the lemma is "produce", but the stem is "produc-". This is because there are words such as production. Lemmas, being a subset of lexemes, are likewise used in dictionaries as the headwords, and other forms of a lexeme are often listed later in the entry if they are not common conjugations of that word. The lexemes of a language are often composed of smaller units with individual meaning called morphemes, according to root morpheme + derivational morphemes + desinence (not necessarily in this order), where: The root morpheme is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot cann ot be reduced to smaller constituents. The derivational morphemes carry only derivational information. The desinence is composed of all inflectional morphemes, and carries only inflectional information. The compound root morpheme + derivational morphemes is often called the stem. The decomposition stem + desinence can then be used to study inflection.
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Morphology also looks at parts of speech, intonation and stress, and the ways context can change a word's pronunciation and meaning. Morphology differs from morphological typology, which is the classification of languages based on their use of words and lexicology, which is the study of words and how h ow they make up a language's vocabulary. The rules understood by a speaker reflect specific patterns or regularities in the way words are formed from smaller units in the language they are using and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word formation within and across languages and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages.
II.
Categorii lexicale şi gramaticale.
Morfologie derivaţională vs. morfologie inflexionară. Definiţia D efiniţia morfemului.
1. Morphemes In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language. In other words, it is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word, by definition, is freestanding. When it stands by itself, it is considered a root because it has a meaning of its own (e.g. the morpheme cat) and when it depends on another morpheme to express an idea, it is an affix because it has a grammatical function (e.g. the – s in cats to indicate that it is plural). Every word comprises one or more morphemes. Every morpheme can be classified as either free or bound. These categories are mutually exclusive, and as such, a given morpheme will belong to exactly one of them. Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog) and can appear with other lexemes (e.g. town hall, doghouse). Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly prefixes and suffixes. Examples of suffixes are -tion, -ation, -ible, -ing, etc. Bound morphemes that are not affixes are called cranberry morphemes. Bound morphemes can be further classified as derivational or o r inflectional. 1) Derivational morphemes Derivational morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the semantic meaning or part of speech of the affected word. For example, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) (happ y) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a derivational morpheme, for it inverts the
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meaning of the word formed by the root kind. Generally the affixes used with root word are the bound morphemes. 2) Inflectional morphemes Inflectional morphemes modify a verb's tense, aspect, mood, person, or number, or a noun's, pronoun's or adjective's number, gender or case, without affecting the word's meaning or class (part of speech). Examples of applying inflectional morphemes to words are adding -s to the root dog to form dogs and adding -ed to wait to form waited. An inflectional morpheme changes the form of a word. wo rd. In English, there are eight inflections.
Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation but are semantically identical. For example, in English, the plural marker -(e)s of regular nouns can be pronounced /z/, /-s/, or /- ɪz, -əz/, depending on the final sound of the noun's singular form. Zero morphemes/null morphemes. Generally these types of morphemes have no visible changes. For instance the singular form of sheep is "sheep" and its plural is also "sheep". The intended meaning is thus derived from the co-occurring determiner (e.g. "some-" or "a-"). Content morphemes express a concrete meaning or content, while function morphemes have more of a grammatical role. For example, the morphemes fast and sad can be considered content morphemes. On the other hand, the suffix – ed ed belongs to the function morphemes given that it has the grammatical function of indicating past tense. Although these categories seem very clear and intuitive, the idea behind it can be harder to grasp given that they overlap with each other. Examples of an ambiguous situation are the preposition over and the determiner your, which seem to have a concrete meaning, but are considered function morphemes because their role is to connect ideas grammatically. A general rule to follow to determine the category of a morpheme is: Content morphemes include free morphemes that are nouns, adverbs, adjective, and verbs. It also includes bound morphemes that are bound roots and derivational affixes. Function morphemes can be free morphemes that are prepositions, pronouns, determiners, and conjunctions. Additionally, they can be bound morphemes that are inflectional affixes. Roots are composed of only one morpheme, while stems can be composed of more than one morpheme. Any additional affixes are considered morphemes. An example of this is the word quirkiness. The root is quirk, but the stem is quirky which has two morphemes. Moreover, there exist pairs of affixes that have the same phonological form, but have different meaning. For example, the suffix – er er can be derivative (e.g. sell ⇒ seller) or inflectional (e.g. small ⇒ smaller). These types of morphemes are called homophonous.
Some words might seem to be composed of multiple morphemes, but in fact they are not. This is why one has to consider form and meaning when identifying morphemes. For example, 4
the word relate might seem to be composed of two morphemes, re- (prefix) and the word late, but this is not correct. These morphemes have no relationship with the definitions relevant to the word like ―feel sympathy‖, ―narrate‖, or ―being connected by blood or marriage‖. Furthermore, the length of the words does not determine if it has multiple morphemes or not. To demonstrate, the word Madagascar is long and it might seem to have morphemes like mad, gas, and car, but it does not. Conversely, small words can have multiple morphemes (e.g. dogs).
2. Parts of speech/Lexical categories English words have been classified into eight or nine parts of speech (lexical class/category): 1) Noun (names) a word or lexical item denoting any abstract (abstract noun: e.g. home) or concrete entity (concrete noun: e.g. house); a person ( police officer , Michael ), place (coastline, London), thing (necktie, television), idea (happiness), or quality (bravery). Nouns can also be classified as count nouns or non-count nouns; some can belong to either category. The most common part of the speech; they are called naming words. 2) Pronoun (replaces) a substitute for a noun or noun phrase (them, he). Pronouns make sentences shorter and clearer since they replace nouns. 3) Adjective (describes, limits) a modifier of a noun or pronoun (big, brave). Adjectives make the meaning of another word (noun) more precise. 4) Verb (states action or being) a word denoting an action (walk ), occurrence (happen), or state of being (be). Without a verb a group of words cannot be a clause or sentence. 5) Adverb (describes, limits) a modifier of an adjective, verb, or other adverb (very, quite). Adverbs make your writing more precise. 6) Preposition (relates) a word that relates words to each other in a phrase or sentence and aids in syntactic context (in, of ). Prepositions show the relationship between a noun or a pronoun with another word in the sentence. 7) Conjunction (connects) a syntactic connector; links words, phrases, or clauses ( and, but ). Conjunctions connect words or group of words 8) Interjection (expresses feelings and emotions) an emotional greeting or exclamation ( Huzzah, Alas). Interjections express strong feelings and emotions. 9) Article (describes, limits) a grammatical marker of definiteness (the) or indefiniteness (a, an). Not always listed among the parts of speech. Sometimes determiner (a broader class) is used instead. 5
The notion of a lexeme is very central to morphology, and thus, many other notions can be defined in terms of it. For example, the difference between inflection and derivation can be stated in terms of lexemes: Inflectional rules relate a lexeme to its forms. Derivational rules relate a lexeme to another lexeme.
Given the notion of a lexeme, it is possible to distinguish two kinds of morphological rules. Some morphological rules relate to different forms of the same lexeme; while other rules relate to different lexemes. Rules of the first kind are inflectional rules, while those of the second kind are rules of word formation. The generation of the English plural dogs from dog is an inflectional rule, while compound phrases and words like dog catcher or dishwasher are examples of word formation. Informally, word formation rules form "new" words (more accurately, new lexemes), while inflection rules yield variant forms of the "same" word (lexeme). Word formation is a process, as we have said, where one combines two complete words, whereas with inflection you can combine a suffix with some verb to change its form to subject of the sentence. For example: in the present indefinite, we use ‗go‘ with subject I/we/you/they and plural nouns, whereas for third person singular pronouns (he/she/it) and singular nouns we use ‗goes‘. So this ‗-es‘ is an inflectional marker and is used to match with its subject. A further difference is that in word formation, the resultant word may differ from its source word‘s grammatical category whereas in the process of inflection the word never changes its grammatical category. There is a further distinction between two kinds of morphological word formation: derivation and compounding. Compounding is a process of word formation that involves combining complete word forms into a single compound form. Dog catcher, therefore, is a compound, as both dog and catcher are complete word forms in their own right but are subsequently treated as parts of one form. Derivation involves affixing bound (i.e. nonindependent) forms to existing lexemes, whereby the addition of the affix derives a new lexeme. The word independent, for example, is derived from the word dependent by using the prefix in-, while dependent itself is derived from the verb depend. An important difference between inflection and word formation is that inflected word forms of lexemes are organized into paradigms, which are defined by the requirements of syntactic rules, whereas the rules of word formation are not restricted by any corresponding requirements of syntax. Inflection is therefore said to be relevant to syntax, and word formation is not. The part of morphology that covers the relationship between syntax and morphology is called "morphosyntax" and concerns itself with inflection and paradigms but not with word formation or compounding. 6
One of the largest sources of complexity in morphology is that this one-to-one correspondence between meaning and form scarcely applies to every case in the language. In English, there are word form pairs like ox/oxen, goose/geese, and sheep/sheep, where the difference between the singular and the plural is signaled in a way that departs from the regular pattern, or is not signaled at all. Even cases regarded as regular, such as -s, are not so simple; the -s in dogs is not pronounced the same way as the -s in cats; and, in plurals such as dishes, a vowel is added before the -s. These cases, where the same distinction is effected by alternative forms of a "word", constitute allomorphy. In morpheme-based morphology, word forms are analyzed as arrangements of morphemes. A morpheme is defined as the minimal meaningful unit of a language. In a word such as independently, the morphemes are said to be in-, depend, -ent, and ly; depend is the root and the other morphemes are, in this case, derivational affixes. In words such as dogs, dog is the root and the -s is an inflectional morpheme. In its simplest and most naïve form, this way of analyzing word forms, called "item-and-arrangement", treats words as if they were made of morphemes put after each other ("concatenated") like beads on a string. Lexeme-based morphology usually takes what is called an item-and-process approach. Instead of analyzing a word form as a set of morphemes arranged in sequence, a word form is said to be the result of applying rules that alter a word-form or stem in order to produce a new one. An inflectional rule takes a stem, changes it as is required by the rule, and outputs a word form; a derivational rule takes a stem, changes it as per its own requirements, and outputs a derived stem; a compounding rule takes word forms, and similarly outputs a compound stem. In linguistics, morphological derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happiness and unhappy from the root word happy, or determination from determine. It often involves the addition of a morpheme in the form of an affix, such as -ness, un-, and -ation in the preceding examples.
3. Derivational morphology Derivational morphology often involves the addition of a derivational suffix or other affix. Such an affix usually applies to words of one lexical category (part of speech) and changes them into words of another such category. For example, the English derivational suffix -ly changes adjectives into adverbs (slow → slowly). However, derivational affixes do not necessarily alter the lexical category; they may merely change the meaning of the base, while leaving the category unchanged. A prefix (write → rewrite; lord → over -lord) will rarely change lexical category in English. The prefix un- applies to adjectives (healthy → unhealthy) and some verbs (do → undo), but rarely to nouns. A few exceptions are the derivational prefixes en- and be-. Derivation can also occur without any change of form, for example telephone (noun) and to telephone. This is known as conversion, or zero derivation. 7
Derivation that results in a noun may be called nominalization. This may involve the use of an affix (as with happy → happiness, employ → employee), or may occur via conversion (as with the derivation of the noun run from the verb to run). In contrast, such that result in a verb may be called verbalization (as with from the noun butter into the verb to butter). Derivational patterns differ in the degree to which they can be called productive. A productive pattern or affix is one that is commonly used to produce novel forms. For example, the negating prefix un- is more productive in English than the alternative in-; both of them occur in established words (such as unusual and inaccessible), but faced with a new word which does not have an established negation, a native speaker is more likely to create a novel form with unthan with in-. The same thing happens with suffixes. For example, if comparing two words Thatcherite and Thatcherist, the analysis shows that both suffixes -ite and -ist are productive and can be added to proper names, moreover, both derived adjectives are established and have the same meaning. But the suffix -ist is more productive and, thus, can be found more often in word formation not only from proper names.
4. Inflection Derivation can be contrasted with inflection (which means the formation of grammatical variants of the same word, as with determine/determines/determining/determined) in that derivation produces a new word (a distinct lexeme), whereas inflection produces grammatical variants of the same word. Generally speaking, inflection applies in more or less regular patterns to all members of a part of speech (for example, nearly every English verb adds -s for the third person singular present tense), while derivation follows less consistent patterns (for example, the nominalizing suffix -ity can be used with the adjectives modern and dense, but not with open or strong). However, it is important to note that derivations and inflections can share homonyms, that being, morphemes that have the same sound, but not the same meaning. For example, when the affix er, is added to an adjective, as in small-er, it acts as an inflection, but when added to a verb, as in cook-er, it acts as a derivation. In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, and mood. The inflection of verbs is also called conjugation, and one can refer to the inflection of nouns, adjectives and pronouns as declension. The inflected form of a word often contains both one or more free morphemes (a unit of meaning which can stand by itself as a word), and one or more bound morphemes (a unit of meaning which cannot stand alone as a word). For example, the English word cars is a noun that is inflected for number, specifically to express the plural; the content morpheme car is unbound because it could stand alone as a word, while the suffix -s is bound because it cannot stand alone as a word. These two morphemes together form the inflected word cars. 8
Words that are never subject to inflection are said to be invariant; for example, the English verb must is an invariant item: it never takes a suffix or changes form to signify a different grammatical category. Its categories can be determined only from its context. Requiring the forms or inflections of more than one word in a sentence to be compatible with each other according to the rules of the language is known as concord5 or agreement. For example, in "the choir sings", "choir" is a singular noun, so "sing" is constrained in the present tense to use the third person singular suffix "s".
5. Agreement 5
Agreement or concord (abbreviated agr) happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates. It is an instance of inflection, and usually involves making the value of some grammatical category (such as gender or person) "agree" between varied words or parts of the sentence. The agreement based on overt grammatical categories as above is formal agreement, in contrast to notional agreement, which is based on meaning. For instance, in American English the phrase The United Nations is treated as singular for purposes of agreement even though it is formally plural. Agreement generally involves matching the value of some grammatical category between different constituents of a sentence (or sometimes between sentences, as in some cases where a pronoun is required to agree with its antecedent or referent). Types of agreement: Person; agreement based on grammatical person is found mostly between verb and subject. Number; agreement based on grammatical number can occur between verb and subject. Again as with person, there is agreement in number between pronouns (or their corresponding possessives) and antecedents. Agreement also occurs between nouns and their modifiers, in some situations. In English this is not such a common feature, although there are certain determiners that occur specifically with singular or plural nouns only (One big car vs. Two big cars, Much great work vs. Many great works). Gender; in languages in which grammatical gender plays a significant role, there is often agreement in gender between a noun and its modifiers. There is also agreement in gender between pronouns and antecedents. Examples of this can be found in English (although English pronouns principally follow natural gender rather than grammatical gender): ‗The man reached his destination vs. The ship reached her/its destination‘. Case; in languages that have a system of cases, there is often agreement by case between a noun and its modifiers. Case agreement is not a significant feature of English (only personal pronouns and the pronoun who have any case marking). Agreement between such pronouns can sometimes be observed: Who came first – he or his brother? vs. Whom did you see – him or his brother?
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There is also a tense agreement. Sequence of tenses (also known as agreement of tenses, succession of tenses and tense harmony) is a set of grammatical rules of a particular language, governing the agreement between the tenses of verbs in related clauses or sentences. A typical context in which rules of sequence of tenses apply is that of indirect speech. If, at some past time, someone spoke a sentence in a particular tense (say the present tense), and that act of speaking is now being reported, the tense used in the clause that corresponds to the words spoken may or may not be the same as the tense that was used by the original speaker. In some languages the tense tends to be "shifted back", so that what was originally spoken in the present tense is reported using the past tense (since what was in the present at the time of the original sentence is in the past relative to the time of reporting). English is one of the languages in which this often occurs. For example, if someone said "I need a drink", this may be reported in the form "She said she needed a drink", with the tense of the verb need changed from present to past. The "shifting back" of tense as described in the previous paragraph may be called backshifting or an attracted sequence of tenses. In languages and contexts where such a shift does not occur, there may be said by contrast to be a natural sequence. In English, an attracted sequence of tenses (backshifting) is often used in indirect speech and similar contexts. The attracted sequence can be summarized as follows: If the main verb of a sentence is in the past tense, then other verbs must also express a past viewpoint, except when a general truth is being expressed. In some cases, though, a natural sequence of tenses is more appropriate. The rule for writers following the natural sequence of tenses can be expressed as follows: imagine yourself at the point in time denoted by the main verb, and use the tense for the subordinate verb that you would have used at that time. Thus the tense used in the indirect speech remains the same as it was in the words as originally spoken. This is normal when the main verb is in the present or future tense (as opposed to past tense or conditional mood). However it is also possible to use the natural sequence even if the main verb is past or conditional. This option is more likely to be used when the circumstance being expressed remains equally true now as it did when the speech act took place, and especially if the person reporting the words agrees that they are true or valid. In conclusion, Modern English does not have a particularly large amount of agreement, although it is present. All regular verbs (and nearly all irregular ones) in English agree in the third-person singular of the present indicative by adding a suffix of either -s or -es. The latter is generally used after stems ending in the sibilants sh, ch, ss or zz (e.g. he rushes, it lurches, she amasses, it buzzes.) There are not many irregularities in this formation: to have, to go and to do render has, goes and does. The highly irregular verb to be is the only verb with more agreement than this in the present tense.
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In English, defective verbs generally show no agreement for person or number, they include the modal verbs: can, may, shall, will, must, should, ought. Languages that have some degree of inflection are synthetic languages. These can be highly inflected (such as Latin, Greek, Spanish, Biblical Hebrew, and Sanskrit), or weakly inflected (such as English). Languages that are so inflected that a sentence can consist of a single highly inflected word (such as many American Indian languages) are called polysynthetic languages. Languages in which each inflection conveys only a single grammatical category, such as Finnish, are known as agglutinative languages, while languages in which a single inflection can convey multiple grammatical roles (such as both nominative case and plural, as in Latin and German) are called fusional. Languages such as Mandarin Chinese that never use inflections are called analytic or isolating. When a given word class is subject to inflection in a particular language, there are generally one or more standard patterns of inflection (the paradigms described below) that words in that class may follow. Words which follow such a standard pattern are said to be regular; those that inflect differently are called irregular. For instance, many languages that feature verb inflection have both regular verbs and irregular verbs. Other types of irregular inflected form include irregular plurals, such as the English mice, children and women (see English plural), and irregular comparative and superlative forms of adjectives or adverbs, such as the English better and best (which correspond to the positive form good or well). Irregularities can have four basic causes: 1) euphony — where regular inflection would result in forms that sound esthetically unpleasing or are difficult to pronounce (far → farther or further); 2) principal parts — These are generally considered to have been formed independently of one another, so the student must memorize them when learning a new word. 3) strong vs. weak inflection — Sometimes two inflection systems exist, conventionally classified as "strong" and "weak." For instance, English and German have weak verbs that form the past tense and past participle by adding an ending (English jump → jumped, German machen → machte) and strong verbs that change vowel, and in some cases form the past participle by adding -en (English swim → swam, swum, German schwimmen → schwamm, geschwommen). 4) suppletion — The "irregular" form was originally derived from a different root. The comparative and superlative forms of good in many languages display this phenomenon. A class of words with similar inflection rules is called an inflectional paradigm. Typically the similar rules amount to a unique set of affixes.
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Inflecting a noun, pronoun, adjective or determiner is known as declining it. The affixes may express number, case, or gender. Inflecting a verb is called conjugating it. The affixes may express tense, mood, voice, or aspect. An organized list of the inflected forms of a given lexeme or root word, is called its declension if it is a noun, or its conjugation if it is a verb.
6. Inflectional morphology Languages that add inflectional morphemes to words are sometimes called inflectional languages, which is a synonym for inflected languages. Morphemes may be added in several different ways: 1) Affixation, or simply adding morphemes onto the word without changing the root, 2) Reduplication, doubling all or part of a word to change its meaning, 3) Alternation, exchanging one sound for another in the root (usually vowel sounds, as in the ablaut process found in Germanic strong verbs and the umlaut often found in nouns, among others). 4) Suprasegmental variations, such as of stress, pitch or tone, where no sounds are added or changed but the intonation and relative strength of each sound is altered regularly. Affixing includes prefixing (adding before the base), and suffixing (adding after the base), as well as the much less common infixing6 (inside) and circumfixing (a combination of prefix and suffix). Inflection is most typically realized by adding an inflectional morpheme (that is, affixation) to the base form (either the root or a stem). 6
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word). It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. English has almost no true infixes (as opposed to tmesis7), and those it does have are marginal. A few are heard in colloquial speech, and a few more are found in technical terminology. 7 Tmesis, the use of a lexical word rather than an affix, is sometimes considered a type of infixation. These are the so-called 'expletive infixes', as in fan-fucking-tastic and abso-bloodylutely. Since these are not affixes, they are commonly disqualified from being considered infixes. Sequences of adfixes (prefixes or suffixes) do not result in infixes: An infix must be internal to a word stem. Thus the word originally, formed by adding the suffix -ly to original, does not turn the suffix -al into an infix. There is simply a sequence of two suffixes, origin-al-ly. In order for -al- to be considered an infix, it would have to have been inserted in the non-existent word *originly. An interfix joins a compound word, as in speed-o-meter. Old English was a moderately inflected language, using an extensive case system similar to that of modern Icelandic or German. Middle and Modern English lost progressively more of the 12
Old English inflectional system. Modern English is considered a weakly inflected language, since its nouns have only vestiges of inflection (plurals, the pronouns), and its regular verbs have only four forms: an inflected form for the past indicative and subjunctive (looked), an inflected form for the third-person-singular present indicative (looks), an inflected form for the present participle (looking), and an uninflected form for everything else (look). While the English possessive indicator 's (as in "Jane's book") is a remnant of the Old English genitive case suffix, it is now considered not a suffix but a clitic.
7. Conclusion To sum up, inflection and derivation are the two main processes of word formation. They are two kinds of morpho-syntactic operation. Inflectional operations create forms that are fully grounded and able to be integrated into discourse, whereas derivational operations create stems that are not necessarily fully grounded and which may still require inflectional operations before they can be integrated into discourse. Inflectional operations Lexical Do not change the lexical category of category the word. Location Tend to occur outside derivational affixes. Type of Contribute syntactically conditioned meaning information, such as number, gender, or aspect. Affixes used Occur with all or most members of a class of stems. Productivity May be used to coin new words of the same type. Grounding Create forms that are fully-grounded and able to be integrated into discourse.
Derivational operations Often change the lexical category of the word Tend to occur next to the root Contribute lexical meaning Are restricted to some, but not all members of a class of stems May eventually lose their meaning and usually cannot be used to coin new terms Create forms that are not necessarily fully grounded and may require inflectional operations before they can be integrated into discourse
III.
Categoria numărului. Opoziţiile singular - plural şi numărabil-nenumărabil. Reflexe morfosintactice ale categoriei
de număr. Substantive colective. Morfologia substantivelor defective. Recategorizarea substantivelor nenumărabile. Substantivele ―pluralia tantum‖.
1. Grammatical category A grammatical category is a property of items within the grammar of a language; it has a number of possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive within a given category. Examples of frequently encountered grammatical categories 13
include tense (which may take values such as present, past, etc.), number (with values such as singular, plural, and sometimes dual), and gender (with values such as masculine, feminine and neuter). Although terminology is not always consistent, a distinction should be made between these grammatical categories (tense, number, etc.) and lexical categories, which are closely synonymous with the traditional parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.), or more generally syntactic categories. Grammatical categories are also referred to as (grammatical) features. A given constituent of an expression can normally take only one value from a particular category. For example, a noun or noun phrase cannot be both singular and plural, since these are both values of the category of number. It can, however, be both plural and feminine, since these represent different categories (number and gender). Categories may be marked on words by means of inflection. In English, for example, the number of a noun is usually marked by leaving the noun uninflected if it is singular, and by adding the suffix -s if it is plural (although some nouns have irregular plural forms). On other occasions, a category may not be marked overtly on the item to which it pertains, being manifested only through other grammatical features of the sentence, often by way of grammatical agreement. Examples: The bird can sing. The birds can sing. The sheep is running. The sheep are running. The bird is singing. The birds are singing.
2. Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two", or "three or more"). In many languages, including English, the number categories are singular and plural. Grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. As an example, consider the English sentences below: ‚That apple on the table is fresh.‘ ‚Those two apples on the table are fresh.‘ The number of apples is marked on the noun — "apple" singular number (one item) vs. "apples" plural number (more than one item) — on the demonstrative, "that/those", and on the verb, "is/are". In the second sentence, all this information is redundant, since quantity is already indicated by the numeral "two". A language has grammatical number when its nouns are subdivided into morphological classes according to the quantity they express, such that: Every noun belongs to a unique number class (nouns are partitioned into disjoint classes by number).
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Noun modifiers (such as adjectives) and verbs may also have different forms for each number class and be inflected to match the number of the nouns to which they refer (number is an agreement category). This is partly the case in English: every noun is either singular or plural (a few forms, such as "fish", can be either, according to context), and at least some modifiers of nouns — namely the demonstratives, the personal pronouns, the articles, and verbs — are inflected to agree with the number of the nouns to which they refer: "this car" and "these cars" are correct, while "*this cars" or "*these car" are ungrammatical and, therefore, incorrect. However adjectives are not inflected, and most verb forms do not distinguish between singular and plural. Only count nouns can be freely used in the singular and in the plural. Mass nouns, like "milk", "silverware", and "wisdom", are normally used in only the singular form. (In some cases, a normally mass noun X may be used as a count noun to collect several distinct kinds of X into an enumerable group; for example, a cheesemaker might speak of goat, sheep, and cow milk as milks.) Many languages distinguish between count nouns and mass nouns. English is typical of most world languages, in distinguishing only between singular and plural number. The plural form of a noun is usually created by adding the suffix -(e)s. The pronouns have irregular plurals, as in "I" versus "we", perhaps because they are ancient and frequently used words. English verbs distinguish singular from plural number in the third person present tense ("He goes" versus "They go"). English treats zero with the plural number. Old English did contain dual grammatical numbers.
3. Forming the plural The plural morpheme in English is suffixed to the end of most nouns. Regular English plurals fall into three classes, depending upon the sound that ends the singular form: Where a singular noun ends in a sibilant sound — /s/, /z/, / ʃ /, /ʒ/, /t ʃ / or /dʒ/ — the plural is formed by adding /ɪz/ or /əz/ (in some transcription systems, this is abbreviated as / ᵻ/). The spelling adds -es, or -s if the singular already ends in – e. When the singular form ends in a voiceless consonant (other than a sibilant) — /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/ (sometimes) or /θ/— the plural is formed by adding /s/. The spelling adds – s. For all other words (i.e. words ending in vowels or voiced non-sibilants) the regular plural adds /z/, represented orthographically by – s. Phonologically, these rules are sufficient to describe most English plurals. However, certain complications arise in the spelling of certain plurals, as described below. With nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant, the plural in many cases is spelled by adding -es (pronounced /z/). However many nouns of foreign origin, including almost all Italian loanwords, add only – s. Nouns ending in a y preceded by a consonant usually drop the y and add ies (pronounced /iz/, or /aiz/ in words where the y is pronounced /ai/). Words ending in quy also follow this pattern: soliloquy - soliloquies. However, nouns of this type which are proper nouns (particularly names of people) form their plurals by simply adding -s: the two Kennedys, there are three Harrys in our office. With place names this rule is not always adhered to: Germanys and Germanies are both used, and
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Sicilies and Scillies are the standard plurals of Sicily and Scilly. Nor does the rule apply to words that are merely capitalized common nouns: P&O Ferries (from ferry). Other exceptions include lay-bys and stand-bys. Words ending in a y preceded by a vowel form their plurals by adding – s. In Old and Middle English voiceless fricatives /f/, /θ/ mutated to voiced fri catives before a voiced ending. In some words this voicing survives in the modern English plural. In the case of /f/ changing to /v/, the mutation is indicated in the orthography as well; also, a silent e is added in this case if the singular does not already end with – e. In addition, there is one word where /s/ is voiced in the plural: house – houses /haʊzᵻz/. Many nouns ending in /f/ or /θ/ (including all words where /f/ is represented orthographically by gh or ph) nevertheless retain the voiceless consonant. There are many other less regular ways of forming plurals, usually stemming from older forms of English or from foreign borrowings. The majority of English compound nouns have one basic term, or head, with which they end. These are nouns and are pluralized in typical fashion. Some compounds have one head with which they begin. These heads are also nouns and the head usually pluralizes, leaving the second, usually a post-positive adjective, term unchanged. It is common in informal speech to pluralize the last word instead, like most English nouns, but in edited prose aimed at educated people, they are not recommended. For compounds of three or more words that have a head (or a term functioning as a head) with an irregular plural form, only that term is pluralized: man-about-town, men-about-town. With a few extended compounds, both terms may be pluralized — again, with an alternative (which may be more prevalent, e.g. heads of state).
4. Types of number a. Singular versus plural In most languages with grammatical number, nouns, and sometimes other parts of speech, have two forms, the singular, for one instance of a concept, and the plural, for more than one instance. Usually, the singular is the unmarked form of a word, and the plural is obtained by inflecting the singular. This is the case in English: car/cars, box/boxes, man/men. There may be exceptional nouns whose plural is identical to the singular: one sheep/two sheep. The plural, in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. Plural of nouns typically denote a quantity other than the default quantity represented by a noun, which is generally one (the form that represents this default quantity is said to be of singular number). Most commonly, therefore, plurals are used to denote two or more of something, although they may also denote more than fractional, zero or negative amounts. An example of a plural is the English word cats, which corresponds to the singular cat. Words of other types, such as verbs, adjectives and pronouns, also frequently have distinct plural forms, which are used in agreement with the number of their associated nouns. 16
Some languages also have a dual (denoting exactly two of something) or other systems of number categories. However, in English and many other languages, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers, except for possible remnants of the dual in pronouns such as both and either. Certain nouns do not form plurals. A large class of such nouns in many languages is that of uncountable nouns, representing mass or abstract concepts such as air, information, physics. However, many nouns of this type also have countable meanings or other contexts in which a plural can be used; for example water can take a plural when it means water from a particular source (different waters make for different beers) and in expressions like by the waters of Babylon. There are also nouns found exclusively or almost exclusively in the plural, such as the English scissors. Occasionally, a plural form can pull double duty as the singular form (or vice versa), as has happened with the word "data".
b. Singulative versus collective Some languages differentiate between an unmarked form, the collective, which is indifferent in respect to number, and a marked form for single entities, called the singulative in this context. For example, in Welsh, moch ("pigs") is a basic form, whereas a suffix is added to form mochyn ("pig"). It is the collective form which is more basic, and it is used as an adjectival modifier, e.g. cig moch ("pig meat", "pork"). The collective form is therefore similar in many respects to an English mass noun like "rice", which in fact refers to a collection of items which are logically countable. However, English has no productive process of forming singulative nouns (just phrases such as "a grain of rice"). Therefore, English cannot be said to have a singulative number. In linguistics, singulative number and collective number (abbreviated sgv and col) are terms used when the grammatical number for multiple items is the unmarked form of a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item. When a language using a collectivesingulative system does mark plural number overtly, that form is called the plurative. This is the opposite of the more common singular – plural pattern, where a noun is unmarked when it represents one item, and is marked to represent more than one item.
5. Collective nouns A collective noun is a word that designates a group of objects or beings regarded as a whole, such as "flock", "team", or "corporation". Although many languages treat collective nouns as singular, in others they may be interpreted as plural. In British English, phrases such as the committee are meeting are common (the so-called agreement in sensu "in meaning"; with the meaning of a noun, rather than with its form). The use of this type of construction varies with dialect and level of formality. In some cases, the number marking on a verb with a collective subject may express the degree of collectivity of action:
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The committee are discussing the matter (the individual members are discussing the matter), but the committee has decided on the matter (the committee has acted as an
indivisible body).
The crowd is tearing down the fences (a crowd is doing something as a unit), but the crowd are cheering wildly (many individual members of the crowd are doing the same
thing independently of each other). In linguistics, a collective noun is a word which refers to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are mundane and are not specific to one specific kind, such as the word "group," which may apply to "people" in the phrase "a group of people" but may also correctly refer to "dogs," in the phrase "a group of dogs." Other collective nouns are specific to one kind, especially terms of venery, which are words for specific groups of animals. For example, "pride" as a term of venery always refers to lions, never to dogs or cows. Morphological derivation accounts for many collective words. Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way. As with all derived words, derivational collectives often differ semantically from the original words, acquiring new connotations and even new denotations. The English endings -age and -ade often signify a collective. Sometimes, the relationship is easily recognizable: baggage, drainage, blockade. However, even though the etymology is plain to see, the derived words take on a distinct meaning. In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example, "the team is in the dressing room" (formal agreement) refers to the team as an ensemble, while "the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals. That is also British English practice with names of countries and cities in sports contexts; for example, "Germany have won the competition.", "Madrid have lost three consecutive matches.", etc. In American English, collective nouns almost invariably take singular verb forms (formal agreement). In cases that a metonymic shift would be otherwise revealed nearby, the whole sentence may be recast to avoid the metonymy. (For example, "The team are fighting among themselves" may become "the team members are fighting among themselves" or simply "The team is fighting."). The tradition of using "terms of venery" or "nouns of assembly," collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals," stems from an English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages. The fashion of a consciously developed hunting language came to England from France. It is marked by an extensive proliferation of specialist vocabulary, applying different names to the same feature in different animals. The elements can be shown to have already been part of French and English hunting terminology by the beginning of the 14th century. In the course of the 14th century, it became a courtly fashion to extend the vocabulary, and by the 15th century, the tendency had reached exaggerated proportions. 18
Even in their original context of medieval venery, the terms were of the nature of kennings, intended as a mark of erudition of the gentlemen able to use them correctly rather than for practical communication.[citation needed] The popularity of the terms in the modern period has resulted in the addition of numerous lighthearted, humorous or facetious collective nouns.
6. Countable nouns In linguistics, a count noun (also countable noun) is a noun that can be modified by a numeral and that occurs in both singular and plural forms, and that co-occurs with quantificational determiners like every, each, several, etc. A mass noun has none of these properties. It can't be modified by a numeral, occur in singular/plural, or co-occur with quantificational determiners. Below are examples of all the properties of count nouns holding for the count noun chair , but not for the mass noun furniture. Occurrence in plural/singular. There is a chair in the room. There are chairs in the room. There is a furniture in the room. (incorrect) There are furnitures in the room. (incorrect) Co-occurrence with count determiners Every chair is man made. There are several chairs in the room. Every furniture is man made. (incorrect) There are several furnitures in the room. (incorrect) Some determiners can be used with both mass and count nouns, including "some", "a lot (of)", "no". Others cannot: "few" and "many" are used with count items, "little" and "much" with mass. (On the other hand, "fewer" is reserved for count and "less" for mass (see Fewer vs. less), but "more" is the proper comparative for both "many" and "much".).
The concept of a "mass noun" is a grammatical concept and is not based on the innate nature of the object to which that noun refers. For example, "seven chairs" and "some furniture" could refer to exactly the same objects, with "seven chairs" referring to them as a collection of individual objects but with "some furniture" referring to them as a single undifferentiated unit. However, some abstract phenomena like "fun" and "hope" have properties which make it difficult to refer to them with a count noun. Classifiers are sometimes used as count nouns preceding mass nouns, in order to redirect the speaker's focus away from the mass nature. For example, "There's some furniture in the room" can be restated, with a change of focus, to "There are some pieces of furniture in the room"; and "let's have some fun" can be refocused as "Let's have a bit of fun".
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In English, some nouns are used most frequently as mass nouns, with or without a classifier (as in "Waiter, I'll have some coffee" or "Waiter, I'll have a cup of coffee"), but also less frequently as count nouns (as in "Waiter, we'll have three coffees.").
7. Defective nouns: Plurale tantum – Singulare tantum A plurale tantum (Latin for "plural only", plural form: pluralia tantum) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. In a less strict usage of the term, it can also refer to nouns whose singular form is rarely used. In English, pluralia tantum are typically words which denote objects that function as pairs or sets (spectacles, trousers, pants, scissors, clothes, electronics, bagpipes, genitals). In English, some plurale tantum nouns have a singular form, used only attributively. Phrases such as "trouser presses" and "scissor kick" contain the singular form, but it is considered nonstandard to say "a trouser" or "a scissor" on their own. That accords with the strong preference for singular nouns in attributive positions in English, but some words are used in the plural form even as attributive nouns (such as "clothes peg", "glasses case"). In English, a word may have definitions which are pluralia tantum. The noun "glasses" (corrective lenses to improve eyesight) is plurale tantum. The word "glass" (a container for drinks) may be singular or plural. In most forms of English, quantifying a plurale tantum noun requires a measure word: "one pair of scissors" instead of "one scissors". Some words, such as "brain" and "intestine", can be used as either pluralia tantum or as count nouns. The term for a noun which appears only in the singular form is singulare tantum (plural: singularia tantum) like the English words "information", "dust", and "wealth". Singulare tantum is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "Gram. A word having only a singular form; esp. a non-count noun." Such nouns may refer to a unique singular object (essentially a Proper Noun), but more often than not, they refer to uncountable nouns, either mass nouns (referring to a substance which cannot be counted as distinct objects like "milk") or collective nouns (referring to objects which may in principle be counted but are referred to as one like Arabic tut "strawberry"). Given that they do not have a number distinction, they may appear as singulare tantum in one language but as plurale tantum in another. Compare English "water" to Hebrew plurale tantum mayim. In English, such words are almost always mass nouns. Some uncountable nouns can be alternatively used as count nouns when meaning "a type of", and the plural means "more than one type of". For example, strength is uncountable in Strength is power, but it can be used as a countable noun to mean type of strength as in My strengths are in physics and chemistry. Some words, especially proper nouns such as the name of an individual, are nearly always in the singular form because there is only one example of what that noun means.
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8. Uncountable nouns In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, or non-count noun is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete subsets. Non-count nouns are distinguished from count nouns. Given that different languages have different grammatical features, the actual test for which nouns are mass nouns may vary between languages. In English, mass nouns are characterized by the fact that they cannot be directly modified by a numeral without specifying a unit of measurement, and that they cannot combine with an indefinite article (a or an). Thus, the mass noun "water" is quantified as "20 litres of water" while the count noun "chair" is quantified as "20 chairs". However, both mass and count nouns can be quantified in relative terms without unit specification (e.g., "so much water," "so many chairs"). Some mass nouns can be used in English in the plural to mean "more than one instance (or example) of a certain sort of entity" — for example, "Many cleaning agents today are technically not soaps, but detergents." In such cases they no longer play the role of mass nouns, but (syntactically) they are treated as count nouns. In English (and in many other languages), there is a tendency for nouns referring to liquids (water , juice), powders ( sugar , sand ), or substances (metal , wood ) to be used in mass syntax, and for nouns referring to objects or people to be count nouns. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, however; mass nouns such as furniture and cutlery, which represent more easily quantified objects, show that the mass/count distinction should be thought of as a property of the terms themselves, rather than as a property of their referents. For another illustration of the principle that the count/non-count distinction lies not in an object but rather in the expression that refers to it, consider the English words "fruit" and "vegetables". The objects that these words describe are, objectively speaking, similar (that is, they're all edible plant parts); yet the word "fruit" is (usually) non-count, whereas "vegetables" is a plural count form. One can see that the difference is in the language, not in the reality of the objects. Meanwhile, German has a general word for "vegetables" that, like English "fruit", is (usually) non-count: das Gemüse. British English has a slang word for "vegetables" that acts the same way: "veg" [rhymes with "edge"]. Many English nouns can be used in either mass or count syntax, and in these cases, they take on cumulative reference when used as mass nouns. For example, one may say that "there's apple in this sauce," and then apple has cumulative reference, and, hence, is used as a mass noun. The names of animals, such as "chicken", "fox" or "lamb" are count when referring to the animals themselves, but are mass when referring to their meat, fur, or other substances produced by them. (e.g., "I'm cooking chicken tonight" or "This coat is made of fox.") Conversely, "fire" is frequently used as a mass noun, but "a fire" refers to a discrete entity. Substance terms like "water" which are frequently used as mass nouns, can be used as count nouns to denote arbitrary units of a substance ("Two waters please") or of several types/varieties ("waters of the world"). One may say that mass nouns that are used as count nouns are "countified" and that count ones that are used as mass nouns are "massified". However, this may confuse syntax and semantics, 21
by presupposing that words which denote substances are mass nouns by default. According to many accounts, nouns do not have a lexical specification for mass-count status, and instead are specified as such only when used in a sentence. Nouns differ in the extent to which they can be used flexibly, depending largely on their meanings and the context of use. For example, the count noun "house" is difficult to use as mass (though clearly possible), and the mass noun "cutlery" is most frequently used as mass, despite the fact that it denotes objects, and has count equivalents in other languages: Bad: *There is house on the road. (Bad even if the situation of war is considered) Bad: *There is a cutlery on the table. (Bad even if just one fork is on the table) Good: You get a lot of house for your money since the recession. Good: Spanish cutlery is my favorite. (type / kind reading)
There is often confusion about the two different concepts of collective noun and mass noun. Generally, collective nouns are not mass nouns, but rather are a special subset of count nouns. However, the term "collective noun" is often used to mean "mass noun" (even in some dictionaries), because users conflate two different kinds of verb number invariability: (a) that seen with mass nouns such as "water" or "furniture", with which only singular verb forms are used because the constituent matter is grammatically nondiscrete (although it may ["water"] or may not ["furniture"] be etically nondiscrete); and (b) that seen with collective nouns, which is the result of the metonymical shift between the group and its (both grammatically and etically) discrete constituents. Some words, including "mathematics" and "physics", have developed true mass-noun senses despite having grown from count-noun roots.
IV.
Categoria determinării.
Clase de determinanţi. Caracteristicile elementelor deictice. Valorile descripţiilor demonstrative. Valorile descripţiilor definite. Funcţiile generice ale articolelor. Valorile descripţiilor indefinite.
Determiners. Introduction. Definitions . A determiner (also called determinative) is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context (i.e. whether the noun is referring to a definite or indefinite element of a class, to a closer or more distant element, to an element belonging to a specified person or thing, to a particular number or quantity, etc.). In short, common kinds of determiners include: 1) demonstratives (this and that) 2) definite and indefinite articles (like the English the and a or an) 3) possessive determiners (my and their) 4) quantifiers (many, few and several) 5) numerals 22
6) distributive determiners (each, any) 7) interrogative determiners (which) Most determiners have been traditionally classed either along with adjectives or with pronouns, and this still occurs: for example, demonstrative and possessive determiners are sometimes described as demonstrative adjectives and possessive adjectives or as (adjectival) demonstrative pronouns and (adjectival) possessive pronouns respectively. However, modern theorists of grammar prefer to distinguish determiners as a separate word class from adjectives, which are simple modifiers of nouns, expressing attributes of the thing referred to. X-bar theory contends that every noun has a corresponding determiner (or specifier). In a case where a noun does not have an explicit determiner (as in physics uses mathematics), X-bar theory hypothesizes the presence of a zero article, or zero determiner. Noun phrases that contain only a noun and do not have a determiner present are known as bare noun phrases. Determiners may be subcategorized as predeterminers, central determiners and postdeterminers, based on the order in which they can occur. For example, "all my seventeen very young children" uses one of each. "My all seventeen very young children" is ungrammatical because a central determiner cannot precede a predeterminer.
Classification of determiners The following is a more detailed classification of determiners used in English, including both words and phrases:
1) Demonstrative Demonstratives are words like this and that , used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning depending on a particular frame of its reference: spatial deixis (using the context of the physical surroundings of the speaker and sometimes the listener); intra-discourse reference - so called "discourse deixis" (including abstract concepts) or anaphora, where the meaning is dependent on something other than the relative physical location of the speaker, for example whether something is currently being said or was said earlier. Demonstrative words include demonstrative adjectives or demonstrative determiners, which qualify nouns (as in ‗Put that coat on‘), and demonstrative pronouns, which stand independently (as in ‗Put that on‘). The demonstratives in English are: this, that , these, those, and the archaic yon and yonder , along with this one or that one as substitutes for the pronoun use of this or that . Many languages, such as English and Chinese, make a two-way distinction between demonstratives. Typically, one set of demonstratives is proximal, indicating objects close to the speaker (En. this), and the other series is distal, indicating objects further removed from the speaker (En. that ). Other languages, like Turkish, Nandi, Spanish, Portuguese, Armenian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Georgian, Basque and Japanese make a three-way distinction. Typically there is a
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distinction between proximal or first person (objects near to the speaker), medial or second person (objects near to the addressee), and distal or third person (objects far from both). a . D e m o n s t r a t i v e a d j e c t iv e s a n d p r o n o u n s
It is relatively common for a language to distinguish between demonstrative determiners or demonstrative adjectives (also called determinative demonstratives, adjectival demonstratives, or adjectival demonstrative pronouns) and demonstrative pronouns (sometimes called independent demonstratives, substantival demonstratives, independent demonstrative pronouns, or substantival demonstrative pronouns). In other words, a demonstrative adjective functions as a regular adjective (modifying a noun), while the demonstrative pronouns is used as a pronoun (replacing a noun). For example: A demonstrative determiner modifies a noun: This apple is good. I like those houses. A demonstrative pronoun stands on its own, replacing rather than modifying a noun: This is good. I like those. There are five demonstrative pronouns in English: this, that , these, those, and the less common yon or yonder (the latter is usually employed as a demonstrative adjective; even so it is rarely used in most dialects of English, although it persists in some dialects such as Southern American English.)
b. Demonstrative adverbs
Many languages have sets of demonstrative adverbs that are closely related to the demonstrative pronouns in a language. For example, corresponding to the demonstrative pronoun that are the adverbs such as then (= "at that time"), there (= "at that place"), thither (= "to that place"), thence (= "from that place"); equivalent adverbs corresponding to the demonstrative pronoun this are now, here, hither, hence. A similar relationship exists between the interrogative pronoun what and the interrogative adverbs when, where, whither, whence. c. Deixis
In linguistics, deixis (/ˈdaɪksᵻs/) refers to words and phrases, such as ―me‖ or ―here‖, that cannot be fully understood without additional contextual information -- in this case, the identity of the speaker (―me‖) and the speaker's location (―here‖). Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed, but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place. Words or phrases that require contextual information to convey any meaning – for example, English pronouns – are deictic. Deixis is closely related to anaphora, as will be further explained below.
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Traditional categories of deixis:
Possibly the most common categories of contextual information referred to by deixis are those of: person, place, and time - what Fillmore calls the ―major grammaticalized types‖ of deixis. 1. Person
Person deixis concerns itself with the grammatical persons involved in an utterance: (1) those directly involved (e.g. the speaker, the addressee); (2) those not directly involved (e.g. over-hearers — those who hear the utterance, but who are not being directly addressed); (3) those mentioned in the utterance. In English, the distinctions are generally indicated by pronouns. The following examples show how. (The person deictic terms are in italics, a signaling notation that will continue through this article.) I am going to the movies. Would you like to have dinner? They tried to hurt me, but she came to the rescue. In languages (like English) with gendered pronouns, the third-person masculine pronoun has traditionally been used as a default when using "it" is inappropriate but the gender of its antecedent is unknown or inapplicable. For example: To each his own. In English, it is often now common to use the third-person plural, even when the antecedent is singular: To each their own. 2. Place
Place deixis, also known as space deixis, concerns itself with the spatial locations relevant to an utterance. Similarly to person deixis, the locations may be either those of the speaker and addressee or those of persons or objects being referred to. The most salient English examples are the adverbs “here” and “there” and the demonstratives “this” and “that” - although those are far from being the only deictic words. Some examples: I enjoy living in this city. Here is where we will place the statue. She was sitting over there. Unless otherwise specified, place deictic terms are generally understood to be relative to the location of the speaker, as in ‗The shop is across the street .‘ where ―across the street ‖ is understood to mean ―across the street from where I am right now .‖ It is interesting to note that alt hough ―here‖ and ―there‖ are often used to refer to locations near to and far from the speaker, respectively, ―there‖ can also refer to the location of the addressee, if they are not in the same location as the speaker. So, although ‗ Here is a good spot; 25
it is too sunny over there.‘ exemplifies the former usage, ‗How is the weather there?‘ is an example of the latter. Deictic projection: In some contexts, spatial deixis is used metaphorically rather than physically, i.e. the speaker is not speaking as the deictic centre. For example: ‗I am coming home now.‘ The above utterance would generally be considered as the speaker's expression of his/her going home, yet it appears to be perfectly normal for one to project his physical presence to his home rather than away from home. Here is another common example: ‗I am not here, please leave a message.‘ Despite its common usage to address people who call with no one answering the phone, the here here is semantically contradictory to one's absence. Nevertheless, this is considered normal for most people as speakers have to project themselves as answering the phone when in fact they are not physically. Languages usually show at least a two-way referential distinction in their deictic system: proximal, i.e. near or closer to the speaker; and distal, i.e. far from the speaker and/or closer to the addressee. English exemplifies this with such pairs as this and that , here and there, etc. In other languages, the distinction is three-way: proximal, i.e. near the speaker; medial, i.e. near the addressee; and distal, i.e. far from both. This is the case in a few Romance languages and in Serbo-Croatian, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Filipino, and Turkish. The archaic English forms yon and yonder (still preserved in some regional dialects) once represented a distal category that has now been subsumed by the formerly medial "there". 3. Time
Time, or temporal deixis concerns itself with the various times involved in and referred to in an utterance. This includes time adverbs like "now", "then", " soon", and so forth, and also different tenses. A good example is the word tomorrow, which denotes the consecutive next day after every day. The "tomorrow" of a day last year was a different day from the "tomorrow" of a day next week. Time adverbs can be relative to the time when an utterance is made ("encoding time", or ET) or when the utterance is heard ("decoding time", or DT). Although these are frequently the same time, they can differ, as in the case of prerecorded broadcasts or correspondence. For example, if one were to write: ‗It is raining now, but I hope when you read this it will be sunny.‘ The ET and DT would be different, with the former deictic term concerning ET and the latter the DT. Tenses are generally separated into absolute (deictic) and relative tenses. So, for example, simple English past tense is absolute, such as in: ‗He went .‘, whereas the pluperfect (past perfect) is relative to some other deictically specified time, as in : ‗He had gone.‘.
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4. Discourse
Discourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse that contains the utterance — including the utterance itself. For example, in: ‗This is a great story.‘, ―this‖ refers to an upcoming portion of the discourse, and in: ‗That was an amazing account .‘, ―that ‖ refers to a prior portion of the discourse. Distinction must be made between discourse deixis and anaphora, which is when an expression makes reference to the same referent as a prior term, as in: ‗Matthew is an incredible athlete; he came in first in the race.‘ It is possible for an expression to be both deictic and anaphoric at the same time. In his example: ‗I was born in London, and I have lived here/there all my life.‘ ―here‖ or ―there‖ function anaphorically in their reference to London, and deictically in that the choice between ―here‖ or ―there‖ indicates whether the speaker is or is not currently in London. The rule of thumb to distinguish the two phenomena is as follows: when an expression refers to another linguistic expression or a piece of discourse, it is discourse deictic. When that expression refers to the same item as a prior linguistic expression, it is anaphoric. 5. Social
Social deixis concerns the social information that is encoded within various expressions, such as relative social status and familiarity. Two major forms of it are the so-called T – V distinctions and honorifics. a. T – V distinction T –V distinctions, named for the Latin ―tu‖ and ―vos‖ (singular and plural versions of ―you‖) are the name given to the phenomenon when a language has two different second-person pronouns. The varying usage of these pronouns indicates something about formality, familiarity, and/or solidarity between the interactants. So, for example, the T form might be used when speaking to a friend or social equal, whereas the V form would be used speaking to a stranger or social superior. This phenomenon is common in European languages. b. Honorifics Honorifics are a much more complex form of social deixis than T – V distinctions, though they encode similar types of social information. They can involve words being marked with various morphemes as well as nearly entirely different lexicons being used based on the social status of the interactants. This type of social deixis is found in a variety of languages, but is especially common in South and East Asia. 6. Anaphoric reference
Generally speaking, anaphora refers to the way in which a word or phrase relates to other text:
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An exophoric reference refers to language outside of the text in which the reference is An exophoric found. A homophoric reference is a generic phrase that obtains a specific meaning through knowledge of its context. For example, the meaning of the phrase "the Queen" may may be determined by the country in which it is spoken. Because there are many Queens throughout the world, the location of the speaker provides the extra information that allows an individual Queen to be identified. An endophoric An endophoric reference refers to something inside of the text in which the reference is found. An anaphoric An anaphoric reference, when reference, when opposed to cataphora, refers to something within a text that has been previously identified. For example, in "Susan dropped the plate. It shattered loudly" the the word "it" refers refers to the phrase "the plate" . A cataphoric reference refers to something within a text that has not yet been identified. For example, in "He was very cold. David promptly put on his coat" the the identity of the "he" is unknown until the individual is also referred to as "David" . o
o
o
Deictic center
A deictic center, sometimes referred to as an origo, is a set of theoretical points that a deictic expression is ‗anchored‘ to, such that the evaluation of the meaning of the expression leads one to the relevant point. As deictic expressions are frequently egocentric, the center often consists of the speaker at the time and place of the utterance, and additionally, the place in the discourse and relevant social factors. However, deictic expressions can also be used in such a way that the deictic center is transferred to other participants in the exchange, or to persons / places / etc. being described in a narrative. So, for example, in the sentence: ‗I am standing here now.‘ the deictic center is simply the person at the time and place of speaking. But say two people are talking on the phone long-distance, from London to New York. The Londoner can say: ‗We are going to New York next week.‘ in which case the deictic center is in London, or they can equally validly say: ‗We are coming to New York next week.‘ in which case the deictic center is in New York. Similarly, when telling a story about abo ut someone, the deictic center is likely to switch to them. So then in the sentence: ‗He then ran twenty feet to the left.‘ it is understood that the center is with the person being spoken of, and thus, "to the left" refers not to the speaker‘s left, but to the object of the story‘s left, that is, the person referred to as 'he' at the time immediately before he ran twenty feet. Usages of deixis
It is helpful to distinguish between two usages of deixis, gestural and symbolic, as well as non-deictic usages of frequently deictic words. Gestural deixis refers, broadly, to deictic 28
expressions whose understanding requires some sort of audio-visual information. A simple example is when an object is pointed at and referred to as ―this‖ or ―that‖. However, the category can include other types of information than pointing, such as direction of gaze, tone of voice, and so on. Symbolic usage, by contrast, requires generally only basic spatio-temporal knowledge of the utterance. So, for example ‗I broke this finger.‘ requires being able to see which finger is being held up, whereas ‗I love this city.‘ requires only knowledge of the current location. In a similar vein, ‗I went to this city one time …‘ is a non-deictic usage of "this", which does not reference anything specific. Rather, it is used as an indefinite an indefinite article, much article, much the way "a" could be used in its place. Deixis and indexicality
The terms deixis and indexicality are frequently used almost interchangeably, and both deal with essentially the same idea: contextually dependent references. However, the two terms have different histories and traditions. In the past, deixis was associated specifically with spatiotemporal reference, whereas indexicality was used more broadly. broadl y. More importantly, each is associated with a different field of study; deixis is associated with linguistics, whereas indexicality is associated with philosophy.
2) Articles In English, there are the definite article the and the indefinite articles a and an. Use of the definite article implies that the speaker assumes the listener knows the identity of the noun's referent (because it is obvious, because it is common knowledge, or because it was mentioned in the same sentence or an earlier sentence). Use of an indefinite article implies that the speaker assumes the listener does not have to be told the identity of the referent. In some noun phrases, no article is used. a) Definite determ iners , which imply that the referent of the resulting noun phrase is defined specifically: The definite article the. The demonstratives this and that, with respective plural forms these and those. Possessives, including those corresponding to pronouns – my, my, your, his, her, its, our, their, whose – and and the Saxon genitives formed from other nouns, pronouns and noun phrases (one's, everybody's, Mary's, a boy's, the man we saw yesterday's). These can be made more emphatic with the addition of own or very own. Interrogatives which, what (these can be followed by b y -ever for emphasis). Relative determiners: which (quite formal and archaic, as in He acquired two dogs and three cats, which animals were then...); also whichever and whatever (which are of the type that form clauses with no antecedent: I'll take whatever money they've got).
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b)
: Indefinite determiners The indefinite article a or an (the latter is used when followed by a vowel sound). The word some, pronounced [s(ə)m] (see Weak and strong forms in English), used as an equivalent of the indefinite article with plural and a nd non-count nouns (a partitive). p artitive). The strong form of some, pronounced [sʌm], as in Some people prefer dry wine; this can also be used with singular count nouns (There's some man at the door). For words such as certain and other see below. The word any, often used in negative and interrogative contexts in place of the article-equivalent some (and sometimes also with singular count nouns). It can also be used to express alternative (see below).
3) Possessive determiners constitute a sub-class of determiners which modify a noun by attributing possession (or other sense of belonging) to someone or something. They are also known as possessive adjectives,[1] although the latter term is sometimes used with a wider meaning. meanin g. Examples in English include possessive forms of the personal pronouns, namely my, your, his, her, its, our and their, but excluding those forms such as mine and ours that are used as possessive pronouns but not as determiners. Possessive determiners may also be taken to include in clude possessive forms made from nouns, from other oth er pronouns and from noun phrases, such as John's, the girl's, somebody's, the king of Spain's, when used to modify a following noun. In many languages, possessive determiners are subject to agreement with the noun they modify, as in the French mon, ma, mes, respectively the masculine singular, feminine singular and plural forms corresponding to the English my. Comparison with determiners and adjectives[edit] adjectives[edit] Possessive determiners (possessive adjectives) have features of both determiners both determiners and and adjectives: adjectives: Possessive determiners, as used in English and some other languages, imply the definite the definite article. For article. For example, my car implies implies th e car car that belongs to me/is used by me. (However, "This is the car I have" implies that it is the only car you have, whereas "This is my car" does not imply that to the same extent. When applied to relatives other than parents or spouse, there is no implication of uniqueness – "my "my brother" can mean equally well "one of my brothers" as "the one brother I have".) It is not correct to precede possessives with an article (*the my car ) or (in today's English) other definite determiner such as a demonstrative (*this my car ), ), although they can combine with quantifiers in the same ways that the can (all my cars, my three cars, etc.; see English see English determiners). determiners). This is not the case in all languages; for example in Italian in Italian the possessive is usually preceded by another determiner such as an article, as in la mia macchina ("my car", literally "the my car"). Possessive determiners may be modified with an adverb, an adverb, as as adjectives are, although not as freely or as commonly as is the case with adjectives. Such modification is generally limited to such adverbs as more, less, or as much ... as (comparative) or mostly (superlative), (superlative), for example in This is more my team than your team, This is less
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my team than your team, This is as much my team as your team, and This is mostly my team.
Possessive determiners in English[edit] The basic pronominal possessive determiners in modern English are my, your, his, her, its, our, their and whose[9] (as in Whose coat is this? and the man whose car was stolen). As noted above, they indicate definiteness, like the definite article the. Archaic forms include thy and mine/thine (for my/thy before a vowel). For details, see English personal pronouns. Other possessive determiners (although they may not always be classed as such, though they play the same role in syntax) are the words and phrases formed by attaching the clitic -'s (or sometimes just an apostrophe after -s) to other pronouns, to nouns and to noun phrases (sometimes called determiner phrases). Examples include Jane's, heaven's, the boy's, Jesus', the soldiers', those men's, the king of England's, one's, somebody's. In English, In English, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns nouns and most pronouns, most pronouns, as as well as some noun some noun phrases. phrases. These can play the roles ofdeterminers ofdeterminers (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns. Nouns, noun phrases and some pronouns generally form a possessive with the suffix the suffix -'s (or in some cases just by adding an apostrophe to an existing -s). This form is sometimes called the Saxon genitive, reflecting the suffix's derivation from a genitive a genitive case ending in Old in Old English, [1] or Anglo-Saxon. Anglo-Saxon. Personal pronouns, pronouns, however, have irregular possessives, and most of them have different forms for possessive determiners and possessive pronouns, such as my and mine or your and and yours. Possessives are one of the means by which genitive which genitive constructions are formed in modern English, the other principal one being the use of the preposition of . It is sometimes stated that the possessives represent a grammatical case, case, called the genitive or possessive possessive case, case, though some linguists do not accept this view, regarding the -'s ending, variously, as a phrasal affix, phrasal affix, an an edge affix or a clitic, a clitic, rather rather than as a case ending. Unlike with other noun phrases which only have a single possessive form, personal form, personal pronouns in English have two possessive forms: possessive forms: possessive determiners (used to form noun phrases such as "her success") success") and possessive and possessive pronouns (used in place of nouns as in "I prefer hers", and also in predicative expressions as in "the success was hers"). In most cases these are different from each other. For example, the pronoun I has possessive determiner my and possessive pronoun mine; you has your and and yours; he has his for both; she has her and and hers; it has has its for both (though rarely used as a possessive pronoun); we has our and and ours; they has their and and theirs. The archaic thou has thy and thine. For a full table and further details, see see English personal pronouns. Note that possessive its has no apostrophe, although it is sometimes written with one in error or by people peop le who are making no attempt to abide by this standard, by b y confusion with the common possessive ending -'s and the contraction the contraction it's used for it is and it has. Possessive its was originally
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formed with an apostrophe in the 17th century, but this was dropped in the early 19th century, presumably to make it more similar to the other personal pronoun possessives.[6] The interrogative and relative pronoun who has the possessive whose. In its relative use, whose can also refer to inanimate antecedents, but its interrogative use always refers to persons.[7] Other pronouns that form possessives (mainly indefinite pronouns) do so in the same way as nouns, with -'s, for example one's, somebody's (and somebody else's). Certain pronouns, such as the demonstratives this, that , these, those, do not have possessive forms. English possessives play two principal roles in syntax: the role of possessive determiners (more popularly called possessive adjectives; see Possessive: Terminology) standing before a noun, as in my house or John's two sisters; the role of possessive pronouns (although they may not always be called that), standing independently in place of a noun, as in mine is large; they prefer John's. As determiners[edit] Possessive noun phrases such as "John's" can be used as determiners. When a form corresponding to a personal pronoun is used as a possessive determiner, the correct form must be used, as described above (my rather than mine, etc.). Possessive determiners are not used in combination with articles or other definite determiners. For example, it is not correct to say * the my hat , *a my hat or *this my hat ; an alternative is provided in the last two cases by the "double genitive" as described in the following section – a hat of mine (also one of my hats), this hat of mine. Possessive determiners can nonetheless be combined with certain quantifiers, as in my six hats (which differs in meaning from six of my hats). See English determiners for more details. A possessive adjective can be intensified with the word own, which can itself be either an adjective or a pronoun: my own (bed), John's own (bed). In some expressions the possessive has itself taken on the role of a noun modifier, as in cow's milk (used rather than cow milk ). It then no longer functions as a determiner; adjectives and determiners can be placed before it, as in the warm cow's milk , where idiomatically the and warm now refer to the milk, not to the cow. Possessive relationships can also be expressed periphrastically, by preceding the noun or noun phrase with the preposition of , although possessives are usually more idiomatic where a true relationship of possession is involved. Some examples: the child's bag might also be expressed as the bag of the child our cats' mother might be expressed as the mother of our cats the system's failure might be expressed as the failure of the system Another alternative in the last case may be the system failure, using system as a noun adjunct rather than a possessive. As pronouns[edit]
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Possessives can also play the role of nouns or pronouns; namely they can stand alone as a noun phrase, without qualifying a noun. In this role they can function as the subject orobject of verbs, or as a complement of prepositions. When a form corresponding to a personal pronoun is used in this role, the correct form must be used, as described above (mine rather than my, etc.). Examples: I'll do my work, and you do yours . (here yours is a possessive pronoun, meaning "your work", and standing as the object of the verb do) My car is old, Mary's is new. (here Mary's means "Mary's car" and stands as the subject of its clause) Your house is nice, but I prefer to stay in mine . (here mine means "my house", and is the complement of the preposition in) Double genitive[edit]
See also: Pleonasm § Types of syntactic pleonasm that hard heart of thine ("Venus and Adonis" line 500) this extreme exactness of his (Sterne, "Tristram Shandy", chapter 1.IV) that poor mother of mine (Thackery, "Barry Lyndon", chapter I) Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby’s is a Friend of Mine, and frequent uses of the title Friend of Mine a picture of the king’s (that is, a picture owned by the king, as distinct from a picture of the king – a picture in which the king is portrayed)[8]
Some writers regard this as a questionable usage,[9] although it has a history in careful English. "Moreover, in some sentences the double genitive offers the only way to express what is meant. There is no substitute for it in a sentence such as That’s the only friend of yours that I’ve ever met , since sentences such as That’s your only friend that I’ve ever met and That’s your only friend, whom I’ve ever met are not grammatical."[10] "[T]he construction is confined to human referents: compare a friend of the Gallery / no fault of the Gallery. "[11] Some object to the name, as the "of" clause is not a genitive. Alternative names are "post-genitive",[12] "cumulative genitive", "pleonastic genitive",[13][14] "double possessive" and "oblique genitive".[15] The Oxford English Dictionary says that this usage was "Originally partitive, but subseq[uently became a] ... simple possessive ... or as equivalent to an appositive phrase ...".[16] In predicative expressions[edit] When they are used as predicative expressions, as in this is mine and that pen is John's, the intended sense may be either that of a pronoun or of a predicate adjective; however their form (mine, yours, etc.) in this case is the same as that used in other sentences for possessive pronouns. Use of whose [edit] The following sentences illustrate the uses of whose: As the possessive of interrogative who: Whose pen is this? Whose do you prefer? For
whose good is this being done?
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As the possessive of relative who (normally only as determiner, not pronoun): This is the man whose pen we broke. That is the woman in whose garden you woke up. As the possessive of relative which (again, normally only as determiner): It is an idea whose time has come (alternatively ...of which the time has come).
Semantics[edit] Possessives, as well as their synonymous constructions with of , express a range of relationships that are not limited strictly to possession in the sense of ownership. Some discussion of such relationships can be found at Possession (linguistics) and at Possessive: Semantics. Some points as they relate specifically to English are discussed below. Actions[edit] When possessives are used with a verbal noun or other noun expressing an action, the possessive may represent either the doer of the action (the subject of the corresponding verb) or the undergoer of the action (the object of the verb). The same applies to of phrases. When a possessive and an of phrase are used with the same action noun, the former generally represents the subject and the latter the object. For example: Fred’s dancing (or the dancing of Fred ) – Fred is the dancer (only possible meaning with this verb) the proposal's rejection or the rejection of the proposal – the proposal is rejected Fred's rejection of the proposal – Fred is the rejecter, the proposal is rejected Time periods[edit] Time periods are sometimes put into possessive form, to express the duration of or time associated with the modified noun:
the Hundred Years' War a day's pay two weeks' notice The paraphrase with of is often un-idiomatic or ambiguous in these cases.
Expressing for [edit] Sometimes the possessive expresses who the thing is for, rather than to whom it belongs:
women's shoes children's literature
These cases would be paraphrased with for rather than of ( shoes for women). Appositive genitive[edit] Sometimes genitive constructions are used to express a noun in apposition to the main one, as in the Isle of Man, the problem of drug abuse. This may be occasionally be done with a possessive (as in Dublin’s fair city, for the fair city of Dublin), but this is a rare usage.
4) Quantifiers, which quantify a noun: Basic words indicating a large or small quantity: much/many, little/few, and their comparative and superlative forms more, most, less/fewer, least/fewest. Where two forms are given, the first is used with non-count nouns and the second with count
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nouns (although in colloquial English less and least are frequently also used with count nouns). The basic forms can be modified with adverbs, especially very, too and so (and not can also be added). Note that unmodified much is quite rarely used in affirmative statements in colloquial English. Phrases expressing similar meanings to the above: a lot of, lots of, plenty of, a great deal of, tons of, etc. Many such phrases can alternatively be analyzed as nouns followed by a preposition, but their treatment as phrasal determiners is supported by the fact that the resulting noun phrase takes the number of the following noun, not the noun in the phrase (a lot of people would take a plural verb, even though lot is singular). Words and phrases expressing some unspecified or probably quite small amount: a few/a little (learners often confuse these with few/little), several, a couple of, a bit of, a number of etc. Cardinal numbers: zero (quite rare as determiner), one, two, etc. In some analyses these may not be treated as determiners.[1] Other phrases expressing precise quantity: a pair of, five litres of, etc. Words and phrases expressing multiples or fractions: half, half of, double, twice, three times, twice as much, etc. Those like double and half (without of) are generally used in combination with definite determiners (see Combinations of determiners below). Words expressing maximum, sufficient or zero quantity: all, both, enough, sufficient, no. Note that many of these quantifiers can be modified by adverbs and adverbial phrases such as almost, over, more than, less than, when the meaning is appropriate. Words that enumerate over a group or class, or indicate alternatives: each, every (note that every can be modified by adverbs such as almost and practically, whereas each generally cannot. However, also note every other, which refers to each second member in a series.) any (as in any dream will do; see also under indefinite determiners above), either, neither In linguistics and grammar, a quantifier is a type of determiner, such as all, some, many, few, a lot, and no, (but not numerals)[clarification needed] that indicates quantity. Quantification is also used in logic, where it is a formula constructor that produces new formulas from old ones. Natural languages' determiners have been argued[citation needed] to correspond to logical quantifiers at the semantic level. All known human languages make use of quantification (Wiese 2004). For example, in English: Every glass in my recent order was chipped. Some of the people standing across the river have white armbands. Most of the people I talked to didn't have a clue who the candidates were. A lot of people are smart.
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The words in italics are quantifiers. There exists no simple way of reformulating any one of these expressions as a conjunction or disjunction of sentences, each a simple predicate of an individual such as That wine glass was chipped . These examples also suggest that the construction of quantified expressions in natural language can be syntactically very complicated. Fortunately, for mathematical assertions, the quantification process is syntactically more straightforward. The study of quantification in natural languages is much more difficult than the corresponding problem for formal languages. This comes in part from the fact that the grammatical structure of natural language sentences may conceal the logical structure. Moreover, mathematical conventions strictly specify the range of validity for formal language quantifiers; for natural language, specifying the range of validity requires dealing with non-trivial semantic problems.
5) Personal determiners: The words you and we/us, in phrases like we teachers; you guys can be analysed as determiners.[2][3] Examples: "As all we teachers know . . ." "Us girls must stick together. " (informal) These examples can be contrasted with a similar but different use of pronouns in an appositional construction, where the use of other pronouns is also permitted but the pronouns cannot be preceded by the (pre-) determiner "all".[2] Examples: "I/we, the undersigned, . . . , " "We, the undersigned, . . . , " but not All we, the undersigned, . . ."
6) Other cases: The words such and exclamative what (these are followed by an indefinite article when used with a singular noun, as in such a treat, what a disaster!) Noun phrases used as determiners, such as this colour, what size and how many (as in I like this colour furniture; What size shoes do you take?; How many candles are there?) Words such as same, other, certain, different, only, which serve a determining function, but are grammatically more likely to be classed simply as adjectives, in that they generally require another determiner to complete the phrase (although they still come before other adjectives). Note that the indefinite article in combination with other is written as the single word another.
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7) Zero determiner In some contexts a complete noun phrase can exist without any determiner (or with "zero determiner"). The main types of such cases are:
with plural or uncountable nouns used to refer to a concept or members of a class generally: cars are useful (but the cars when specific cars are being referred to); happiness is contagious (but the happiness when specific happiness is referred to, as in the happiness that laughter engenders...). with plural or uncountable nouns used to refer to some unspecified amount of something: there are cats in the kitchen; I noticed water on the floor (here it is also possible to use some cats, some water). with many proper names: Tom Smith, Birmingham, Italy, Jupiter. with singular common nouns in some common expressions: smiling from ear to ear, leaving town today.
Combinations of determiners Determiners can be used in certain combinations. Common examples are listed below: A definite determiner can be followed by certain quantifiers ( the many problems, these three things, my very few faults). The words all and both can be followed by a definite determiner (all the green apples, both the boys), which can also be followed by a quantifier as above (all the many outstanding issues). The word all can be followed by a cardinal number (all three things). The word some can be followed by a cardinal number ( some eight packets, meaning "approximately eight"). Words and phrases expressing fractions and multiples, such as half , double, twice, three times, etc. can be followed by a definite determiner: half a minute, double the risk ,twice my age, three times my salary, three-quarters the diameter , etc. The words such and exclamative what can be followed by an indefinite article (as mentioned in the section above). The word many can be used with the indefinite article and a singular noun ( many a night , many an awkward moment ). The words each and every can be followed by a cardinal number or other expression of definite quantity (each two seats, every five grams of flour ). To specify a quantity within a definite class (as opposed to a definite class of a given quantity), it is often possible to use a quantifier in pronoun form (often identical to the determiner form), followed by of and a definite determiner. For example, three of the mice, few of my enemies, none of these pictures, much of John's information. An alternative construction with possessives is to place of and the pronoun form of the possessive after the noun: few enemies of mine, much information of John's.
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As with other parts of speech, it is often possible to connect determiners of the same type with the conjunctions and and or : his and her children, two or three beans.
Determiners and adjectives In traditional English grammar, determiners were not considered a separate part of speech – most of them would have been classed as adjectives. However there are certain differences between determiners and ordinary adjectives (although the boundary is not always entirely clear). Determiners take the place (or can take the place) of articles in noun phrases, whereas adjectives do not. For example, my house (not *the my house), but the big house. Adjectives can generally be used in combination without restriction, whereas only certain combinations of determiners are allowable (see section above). For example, a big green book is grammatical, but * every his book is not. Most adjectives can be used alone in predicative complement position, as in he is happy; determiners cannot (*he is the is not a grammatical sentence), except where the same words are used as pronouns (the problem is this). Most adjectives have comparative and superlative forms (happier, happiest; more beautiful, most beautiful ), whereas determiners generally are not (except much/many, few,little). Determiners often have corresponding pronouns, while adjectives do not. Adjectives can modify singular or plural nouns, while determiners are sometimes restricted to one or the other (as with much and many). When determiners and adjectives (or other modifiers) occur in the same noun phrase, the determiner generally comes first: the big book , not *big the book . However there are certain exceptions when the determiner is the indefinite article a(n): that article normally comes after an adjective modified with so, as, too or how. For example: It was so terrible a disease that... (alternatively: ...such a terrible disease that...)
V.
He was as rude a man as I have ever met. That was too good an opportunity to miss. I know how good a swimmer she is.
Categoria aspectului.
Opoziţia aspectuală gramaticalizată perfectiv-imperfectiv. Tipurile de situaţii aspectuale şi structura lor temporală (stări, activităţi şi evenimente). Caracteristicile generale ale aspectului progresiv. Recategorizări aspectuale.
1. Aspect. Definition Aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to any flow of time during ("I helped him"). Imperfective aspect is
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used for situations conceived as existing continuously or repetitively as time flows ("I was helping him"; "I used to help people"). Further distinctions can be made, for example, to distinguish states and ongoing actions (continuous and progressive aspects) from repetitive actions (habitual aspect). Certain aspectual distinctions express a relation in time between the event and the time of reference. This is the case with the perfect aspect, which indicates that an event occurred prior to (but has continuing relevance at) the time of reference: "I have eaten"; "I had eaten"; "I will have eaten". Different languages make different grammatical aspectual distinctions; some (such as Standard German) do not make any. The marking of aspect is often conflated with the marking of tense and mood (see tense – aspect – mood). Grammatical aspect is distinguished from lexical aspect8 or aktionsart, which is an inherent feature of verbs or verb phrases and is determined by the nature of the situation that the verb describes. 8
The lexical aspect or aktionsart (German pronunciation: [ʔakˈtsi oːnsʔa:t], plural aktionsarten [ʔakˈtsi oːnsʔa:tn ) of a verb is a part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. Any event, state, process, or action which a verb expresses — collectively, any eventuality — may also be said to have the same lexical aspect. Lexical aspect is distinguished from grammatical aspect: lexical aspect is an inherent property of a (semantic) eventuality, whereas grammatical aspect is a property of a (syntactic or morphological) realization. Lexical aspect is invariant, while grammatical aspect can be changed according to the whims of the speaker. For example, eat an apple differs from sit in that there is a natural endpoint or conclusion to eating an apple. There is a time at which the eating is finished, completed, or all done. By contrast, sitting cannot merely stop: unless we add more details, it makes less sense to say that someone "finished" sitting than it does to say they "stopped" sitting. This is a distinction of lexical aspect between the two verbs. Verbs that have natural endpoints are called "telic" (from Ancient Greek telos, end); those without are called "atelic". Zeno Vendler (1957) classified verbs into four categories: those that express "activity", "accomplishment", "achievement" and "state". Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from achievements and states in that the former allow the use of continuous and progressive aspects. Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from each other by boundedness: activities do not have a terminal point (a point before which the activity cannot be said to have taken place, and after which the activity cannot continue – for example "John drew a circle") whereas accomplishments do. Of achievements and states, achievements are instantaneous whereas states are durative. Achievements and accomplishments are distinguished from one another in that achievements take place immediately (such as in "recognize" or "find") whereas accomplishments approach an endpoint incrementally (as in "paint a picture" or "build a house").
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In his discussion of lexical aspect, Bernard Comrie (1976) included the category semelfactive or punctual events such as "sneeze". His divisions of the categories are as follows: states, activities, and accomplishments are durative, while semelfactives and achievements are punctual. Of the durative verbs, states are unique as they involve no change, and activities are atelic (that is, have no "terminal point") whereas accomplishments are telic. Of the punctual verbs, semelfactives are atelic, and achievements are telic. The following table shows examples of lexical aspect in English that involve change (an example of a State is 'know').
Definiie. În limba englez aspectul este categoria gramatical specific verbului, care se refer la felul în care este reprezentat aciunea exprimat de verb: ca având durat sau nu, ca fiind terminat sau nu. Exist dou contraste în limba englez : durativ - non-durativ (denumit de obicei continuu - non-continuu) i perfectiv - non-perfectiv. În primul opoziia este între o aciune care are o anumit durat, este în desf urare într-un anumit moment sau într-o anumit perioad de timp i este raportat la momentul de referin now, then etc. i între o aciune pentru care o asemenea informaie nu este important. Comparai: John is reading an English newspaper (now). John citete un ziar englezesc (acum), cu: John reads English newspaper (every day). John citete un ziar englezesc (în fiecare zi). În al doilea aciunea este între aciuni vzute ca terminate în momentul vorbirii: I have read an interesting article on pollution. Am citit un articol interesant despre poluare. i între aciuni despre care nu se d o asemenea informaie: I have been reading since 10 o‘clock. Pentru a analiza contrastul durativ - non-durativ i perfectiv - non-perfectiv în limba englez trebuie pornit de la sensul lexical al verbelor*: A) Verbe care exprim activiti în limba englez (activity verbs) sunt de dou feluri: - verbe de activitate durativ (exprimând aciuni a cror svâr ire necesit o anumit durat de timp): eat, dress, drink, read, walk etc.
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- verbe de activitate non-durativ, care exprim aciuni momentane, f durat, fiind încheiate aproape în acelai timp cu efectuarea lor: catsh, hit, kick, slam, slap, snap etc. Not: Adeseori sensul non-durativ al unor verbe este semnalat de prezen a unor particule adverbiale ca down, out, up, care le deosebesc de verbele de activitate durativ. Comparai: sit - sit down stand - stand up drink - drink up pick - pick up La rândul lor, verbele de activitate durativ se împart în: - verbe care nu implic nici un scop: rub, run, walk etc. - verbe care implic atingerea unui scop: iron a shirt, make a dress, read a book, write an essay. B) Pe lâng verbele care definesc activiti (durative sau non-durative) exist i verbe care denumesc stri. Acestea sunt durative, deoarece exprim existena unor fapte pe o perioad îndelungat de timp: be clever, be able, know how, exist, live.
2. Aspect vs. Tense Aspect is often confused with the closely related concept of tense, because they both convey information about time. While tense relates the time of referent to some other time, commonly the speech event, aspect conveys other temporal information, such as duration, completion, or frequency, as it relates to the time of action. Thus tense refers to temporally when while aspect refers to temporally how. Aspect can be said to describe the texture of the time in which a situation occurs, such as a single point of time, a continuous range of time, a sequence of discrete points in time, etc., whereas tense indicates its location in time. For example, consider the following sentences: "I eat", "I am eating", "I have eaten", and "I have been eating". All are in the present tense, as they describe the present situation, yet each conveys different information or points of view as to how the action pertains to the present. As such, they differ in aspect. The Germanic languages combine the concept of aspect with the concept of tense. Although English largely separates tense and aspect formally, its aspects (neutral, progressive, perfect, progressive perfect, and [in the past tense] habitual) do not correspond very closely to the distinction of perfective vs. imperfective that is found in most languages with aspect. Furthermore, the separation of tense and aspect in English is not maintained rigidly. One instance of this is the alternation, in some forms of English, between sentences such as "Have you eaten yet?" and "Did you eat yet?". Another is in the pluperfect ("I had eaten"), which sometimes represents the combination of past tense and perfect ("I was full because I had already eaten"), but sometimes simply represents a past action that is anterior to another past action ("A little while after I had eaten, my friend arrived"). (The latter situation is often represented in other languages by a simple perfective tense. Formal Spanish and French use a past anterior tense in cases such as this.) 41
Like tense, aspect is a way that verbs represent time. However, rather than locating an event or state in time, the way tense does, aspect describes "the internal temporal constituency of a situation", or in other words, aspect is a way "of conceiving the flow of the process itself". English aspectual distinctions in the past tense include "I went, I used to go, I was going, I had gone"; in the present tense "I lose, I am losing, I have lost, I have been losing, I am going to lose"; and with the future modal "I will see, I will be seeing, I will have seen, I am going to see". What distinguishes these aspects within each tense is not (necessarily) when the event occurs, but how the time in which it occurs is viewed: as complete, ongoing, consequential, planned, etc. The English tense – aspect system has two morphologically distinct tenses, present and past. No marker of a future tense exists on the verb in English; the futurity of an event may be expressed through the use of the auxiliary verbs "will" and "shall", by a present form plus an adverb, as in "tomorrow we go to New York City", or by some other means. Past is distinguished from present – future, in contrast, with internal modifications of the verb. These two tenses may be modified further for progressive aspect (also called continuous aspect), for the perfect, or for both. These two aspectual forms are also referred to as BE +ING[9] and HAVE +EN,[10] respectively, which avoids what may be unfamiliar terminology. Aspects of the present tense: Present simple (not progressive, not perfect): "I eat" Present progressive (progressive, not perfect): "I am eating" Present perfect (not progressive, perfect): "I have eaten" Present perfect progressive (progressive, perfect): "I have been eating" (While many elementary discussions of English grammar classify the present perfect as a past tense, it relates the action to the present time. One cannot say of someone now deceased that he "has eaten" or "has been eating". The present auxiliary implies that he is in some way present (alive), even if the action denoted is completed (perfect) or partially completed (progressive perfect).) Aspects of the past tense: Past simple (not progressive, not perfect): "I ate" Past progressive (progressive, not perfect): "I was eating" Past perfect (not progressive, perfect): "I had eaten" Past perfect progressive (progressive, perfect): "I had been eating" Aspects can also be marked on non-finite forms of the verb: "(to) be eating" (infinitive with progressive aspect), "(to) have eaten" (infinitive with perfect aspect), "having eaten" (present participle or gerund with perfect aspect), etc. The perfect infinitive can further be governed by modal verbs to express various meanings, mostly combining modality with past reference: "I should have eaten" etc. In particular, the modals will and shall and their subjunctive forms would and should are used to combine future or hypothetical reference with aspectual meaning: Aspects of the future tense: Simple future, simple conditional: "I will eat", "I would eat" Future progressive, conditional progressive: "I will be eating", "I would be eating"
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Future perfect, conditional perfect: "I will have eaten", "I would have eaten" Future perfect progressive, conditional perfect progressive: "I will have been eating", "I would have been eating" The uses of the progressive and perfect aspects are quite complex. They may refer to the viewpoint of the speaker: ‗ I was walking down the road when I met Michael Jackson's lawyer. (Speaker viewpoint in middle of action)‘. ‗ I have traveled widely, but I have never been to Moscow. (Speaker viewpoint at end of action)‘. But they can have other illocutionary forces or additional modal components: You are being stupid now. (You are doing it deliberately) You are not having chocolate with your sausages! (I forbid it) I am having lunch with Mike tomorrow. (It is decided) English expresses some other aspectual distinctions with other constructions. Used to + VERB is a past habitual, as in "I used to go to school," and going to / gonna + VERB is a prospective, a future situation highlighting current intention or expectation, as in "I'm going to go to school next year."
3. Perfective and imperfective aspect The most fundamental aspectual distinction, represented in many languages, is between perfective aspect and imperfective aspect. It semantically corresponds to the distinction between the morphological forms known respectively as the aorist and imperfect in Greek, the preterite and imperfect in Spanish, the simple past (passé simple) and imperfect in French, and the perfect and imperfect in Latin (from the Latin "perfectus", meaning "completed"). Essentially, the perfective aspect looks at an event as a complete action, while the imperfective aspect views an event as the process of unfolding or a repeated or habitual event (thus corresponding to the progressive/continuous aspect for events of short-term duration and to habitual aspect for longer terms). For events of short durations in the past, the distinction often coincides with the distinction in the English language between the simple past "X-ed," as compared to the progressive "was X-ing" (compare "I wrote the letters this morning" (i.e. finished writing the letters: an action completed) and "I was writing letters this morning"). In describing longer time periods, English needs context to maintain the distinction between the habitual ("I called him often in the past" - a habit that has no point of completion) and perfective ("I called him once" - an action completed), although the construct "used to" marks both habitual aspect and past tense and can be used if the aspectual distinction otherwise is not clear. Sometimes, English has a lexical distinction where other languages may use the distinction in grammatical aspect. For example, the English verbs "to know" (the state of knowing) and "to find out" (knowing viewed as a "completed action") correspond to the imperfect and perfect of the French verb "savoir" and the Spanish equivalent "saber."
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The opposite aspect is the perfective (in Ancient Greek, generally called the aorist), which views a situation as a simple whole, without interior composition. (This is not the same as the perfect.) Unlike most other tense – aspect category oppositions, it is typical for a language not to choose either perfective or imperfective as being generally marked and the other as being generally unmarked. In narrative, one of the uses of the imperfective is to set the background scene ("It was midnight. The room was dark. The rain was beating down. Water was streaming in through a broken window. A gun lay on the table."), with the perfective describing foregrounded actions within that scene ("Suddenly, a man burst into the room, ran over to the table, and grabbed the gun."). English does not have these aspects. However, the background-action contrast provides a decent approximation in English: "John was reading when I entered." Here 'entered' presents "the totality of the situation referred to [...]: the whole of the situation is presented as a single unanalysable whole, with beginning, middle, and end all rolled into one; no attempt is made to divide this situation up into the various individual phases that make up the action of entry." This is the essence of the perfective aspect: an event presented as an unanalyzed whole. 'Was reading', however, is different. Besides being the background to 'entered', the form 'reading' presents "an internal portion of John's reading, [with] no explicit reference to the beginning or to the end of his reading."[4] This is the essence of the imperfective aspect. Or, to continue the quotation, "the perfective looks at the situation from the outside, without necessarily distinguishing any of the internal structure of the situation, whereas the imperfective looks at the situation from inside, and as such is crucially concerned with the internal structure of the situation, since it can both look backwards towards the start of the situation, and look forwards to the end of the situation, and indeed it is equally appropriate if the situation is one that lasts through all time, without any beginning and without any end." This is why, within the past tense, perfective verbs are typically translated into English as simple past, like 'entered', whereas imperfective verbs are typically translated as 'was reading', 'used to read', and the like. (In English, it is easiest to illustrate aspect in the past tense. However, any tense is possible: Present "John is reading as I enter", future "John will be reading when I enter", etc.: In each tense, the aspectual distinction is the same.) This aspectual distinction is not inherent to the events themselves, but is decided by how the speaker views them or wishes to present them. The very same event may be described as perfective in one clause, and then imperfective in the next. For example, "John read that book yesterday; while he was reading it, the postman came," where the two forms of 'to read' refer to the same thing. In 'John read that book yesterday', however, John's reading is presented as a complete event, without further subdivision into successive temporal phases; while in 'while he was reading it', this event is opened up, so that the
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speaker is now in the middle of the situation of John's reading, as it is in the middle of this reading that the postman arrives. The perfective and imperfective need not occur together in the same utterance; indeed they more often do not. However, it is difficult to describe them in English without an explicit contrast like "John was reading when I entered." i.
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect (abbreviated pfv), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe an action viewed as a simple whole — a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms variously called "aorist", "preterite", and "simple past". Although the essence of the perfective is an event seen as a whole, most languages which have a perfective use it for various similar semantic roles, such as momentary events and the onsets or completions of events, all of which are single points in time and thus have no internal structure. Other languages instead have separate momentane, inchoative, or cessative aspects for those roles, with or without a general perfective. Use of a perfective aspect, however, does not imply a punctiliar or short-lived action. It simply "presents an occurrence in summary, viewed as a whole from the outside, without regard for the internal make-up of the occurrence." The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect, which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing or habitual actions), and from the prospective aspect, which describes impending or anticipated action. Aspects such as the perfective should not be confused with tense; perfective aspect can apply to events situated in the past, present, or future. English has neither a simple perfective nor imperfective aspect; see imperfective and perfective for some basic English equivalents of this distinction. Perfective vs. perfect
The terms perfective and perfect are confused or interchanged in many grammatical descriptions. A perfect is a grammatical form used to describe a past event with present relevance, or a present state resulting from a past situation. For example, "I have come to the cinema" implies both that I went to the cinema and that I am now in the cinema; "I have been to France" conveys that this is a part of my experience as of now; and "I have lost my wallet" implies that this loss is troublesome at the present moment. As English has a perfect, the distinction can be illustrated with the simple past standing in for the perfective. A perfect construction like "I've eaten" conveys the continued significance of that action, with implications such as "I'm full" or "you've missed dinner" depending on context. As such, it is ungrammatical to assign it a time in the past, such as "I've eaten yesterday". A perfective construction, however, has no such inherent implication of continued relevance, and as such "I ate yesterday" is perfectly grammatical; indeed, in languages which have a perfective, that is precisely the aspect which is used for such simple past events. 45
Because of the common confusion of the terms perfect and perfective, various authors have tried to replace one or the other. Some use the Greek term 'aorist' for perfective, though this has the problem that it is commonly understood to mean specifically the past perfective. Others have replaced the perfect with anterior, though this can be ambiguous for those familiar with languages which have a true anterior tense. Less ambiguous is replacing 'perfect' with retrospective or resultative. ii.
Imperfective aspect
The imperfective (abbreviated ipfv or more ambiguously impv) is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with interior composition. The imperfective is used in language to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a general imperfective, others have distinct aspects for one or more of its various roles, such as progressive, habitual, and iterative aspects. English is an example of a language with no general imperfective. The English progressive is used to describe ongoing events such as "The rain was beating down". Habitual situations do not have their own verb form (in most dialects), but the construction "used to" conveys past habitual action, as in "I used to ski". Unlike in languages with a general imperfective, in English the simple past tense can be used for situations presented as ongoing, such as "The rain beat down continuously through the night". 1) Progressive (imperfective) aspect
The continuous and progressive aspects (abbreviated cont and prog) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be", spirit) in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects. In the grammars of many languages the two terms are used interchangeably. This is the case with English: a construction such as "He is washing" may be described either as present continuous or as present progressive. However, there are certain languages for which two different aspects are distinguished. In Chinese, for example, progressive aspect denotes a current action, as in "he is getting dressed", while continuous aspect denotes a current state, as in "he is wearing fine clothes". The progressive aspect expresses the dynamic quality of actions that are in progress while the continuous aspect expresses the state of the subject that is continuing the action. For instance, "Tom is reading" can express dynamic activity: "Tom is reading a book" - i.e. right now (progressive aspect), or Tom's current state: "Tom is reading for a degree" - i.e. Tom is a student (continuous aspect). The aspect can often be ambiguous; "Tom is reading Ulysses" may describe his current activity (it's in his hand), or the state of having started, but not yet finished, the book (it's in his bag). The continuous aspect is constructed by using a form of the copula, "to be", together with the present participle (marked with the suffix -ing). It is generally used for actions that are occurring at the time in question, and does not focus on the larger time-scale. For example, the sentence 46
"Andrew was playing tennis when Jane called him." indicates what Andrew was doing when Jane called him, but does not indicate for how long Andrew played, nor how often he plays; for that, the simple past would suffice: "Andrew played tennis three hours every day for several years." The perfect continuous (have been doing), as a special case, sometimes implies that the action being described was interrupted at the time in question, and does not clarify whether the action resumed. For example, "Andrew had been playing tennis when Jane called him." may sometimes suggest that Jane's calling him interrupted his tennis-playing (whereas in the former example, it was possible that he simply ignored her call), and leaves open the possibility that what she told him required such urgent action that he forfeited his match and left. But the perfect continuous need not imply interruptedness, as in "I have been running for 30 minutes, but I'll stop soon." Salikoko Mufwene contrasts the effect of the progressive form on the meanings of action verbs versus those of lexically stative verbs: [I]t converts events expected to be punctual into longer-lasting, even if transient, states of affairs [e.g., "Nancy is writing a letter"]; it [con]versely converts those states of affairs expected to last long (lexical statives) to shorter-lasting / transient states of affairs [e.g., "Tom is living with us"]; and it simply presents those verbs whose denotations are neutral with regard to duration as in process / in (transient) duration [e.g., "The wall is cracking"], though duration is most expected of statives. Form. Timpurile aspectului continuu se formeaz dintr-un timp al verbului be i participiul prezent (forma în -ing) a verbului de conjugat. Întrebuinarea aspectului continuu a) Folosirea aspectului continuu cu verbele de activitate durativ f scop arat c aciunile denumite de verbe sunt în desf urare pe axa prezentului, a trecutului sau a viitorului: They are walking în the park now. He was swimming în the lake at this time yesterday. b) Cu verbele de activitate durativ care implic atingerea unui scop, folosirea aspectului continuu arat c scopul nu a fost atins, aciunea nu a fost terminat: He is reading a book now. Citete o carte acum (Nu a terminat-o).She was ironing a shirt. Ea clca o cma. c) Verbele de activitate non-durativ arat o aciune reperat atunci când sunt folosite la aspectul continuu: He is kicking. D din picioare. d) Verbele care exprim o stare arat c aceast stare este limitat atunci când sunt folosite la aspectul continuu: I live in Bra ov (that‘s where my house is). I‘m living in Bucharest this year. Anul acesta locuiesc în Bucureti. Întrebuinrile aspectului continuu la diverse timpuri sunt cele enumerate la &1.10.6. Diferenele de la un timp la altul constau în momentul în care are loc aciunea i în momentul de referin.
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Traducerea formelor aspectului continuu în limba român : Verbul românesc nu are o categorie marcat formal pentru redarea contrastului aspectual continuu-noncontinuu. Ideea de desf urare sau durat limitat a aciunii este redat în limba român cu ajutorul adverbelor de timp: He is teaching now. Pred/Are or acum. He is teaching arithmetic this year. Pred aritmetica anul acesta. Singura form verbal din limba român care exprim, ca i aspectul continuu din limba englez, o aciune neterminat la un moment dat, sau de durat limitat, este imperfectul i acesta este folosit de obicei pentru traducerea lui Past Tense continuu în limba român: She was working in the garden when I arrivied. Muncea în gr din când am sosit. Mai dificil îns este traducerea imperfectului în limba englez , deoarece exist tendina de a folosi Past Tense Continuous i atunci când imperfectul românesc are alt valoare, cea de aciune repetat în trecut pentru care limba englez folosete Past Tense Simple: Român: Munceam în gr din când m duceam la bunici. Englez: I worked the garden when I went to my grandparents. 2) Habitual (imperfective) aspect
As its name suggests, the habitual aspect specifies an action as occurring habitually: the subject performs the action usually, ordinarily, or customarily. Standard English has two habitual aspectual forms in the past tense. One is illustrated by the sentence "I used to go there frequently". The "used to [infinitive]" construction always refers to the habitual aspect when the infinitive is a non-stative verb; in contrast, when "used to" is used with a stative verb, the aspect can be interpreted as stative (that is, it indicates an ongoing, unchanging state, as in "I used to know that"), although Comrie classifies this too as habitual. "Used to ..." can be used with or without an indicator of temporal location in the past ("We used to do that", "We used to do that in 1974"); but the time indicator cannot be too specific, for example "We used to do that at 3pm yesterday" is not grammatical. The second way that habituality is expressed in the past is by using the auxiliary verb "would", as in "Last summer we would go there every day." This usage requires a lexical indication of when the action occurred; by itself the sentence "We would go there" does not express habituality, while "We used to go there" does even though it does not specify when. As with "used to", "would" also has other uses in English that do not indicate habituality: in "In January 1986 I knew I would graduate in four months", it indicates the future viewed from a past perspective; in "I would go if I felt better", it indicates the conditional mood. English can also indicate habituality in a time-unspecific way, referring generically to the past, present, and future, by using the auxiliary "will" as in "He will make that mistake all the time, won't he?". As with "used to" and "would", the auxiliary "will" has other uses as well: as an indicator of future time ("The sun will rise tomorrow at 6:14"), and as a modal verb indicating volition ("At this moment I will not tolerate dissent"). Habitual aspect is frequently expressed in unmarked form in English, as in "I walked to work every day for ten years", "I walk to work every day", and "I will walk to work every day after I get well". 48
The habitual and progressive aspects can be combined in English, as in "He used to be playing." 3) Iterative (imperfective) aspect
The iterative aspect is a grammatical aspect that expresses the repetition of an event. Reduplication may be used for iterative aspect: (he was) taking and taking , (he was) taking and taking, and finally took all of it .
4. Lexical vs. grammatical aspect There is a distinction between grammatical aspect, as described here, and lexical aspect. Lexical aspect is an inherent property of a verb or verb-complement phrase, and is not marked formally. The distinctions made as part of lexical aspect are different from those of grammatical aspect. Typical distinctions are between states ("I owned"), activities ("I shopped"), accomplishments ("I painted a picture"), achievements ("I bought"), and punctual, or semelfactive, events ("I sneezed"). These distinctions are often relevant syntactically. For example, states and activities, but not usually achievements, can be used in English with a prepositional for-phrase describing a time duration: "I had a car for five hours", "I shopped for five hours", but not "*I bought a car for five hours". Lexical aspect is sometimes called Aktionsart, especially by German and Slavic linguists. One of the factors in situation aspect is telicity. Telicity might be considered a kind of lexical aspect, except that it is typically not a property of a verb in isolation, but rather a property of an entire verb phrase. Achievements, accomplishments and semelfactives have telic situation aspect, while states and activities have atelic situation aspect. The other factor in situation aspect is duration, which is also a property of a verb phrase. Accomplishments, states, and activities have duration, while achievements and semelfactives do not.
5. Types of aspect 1) Simple "Simple" forms of verbs are those appearing in constructions not marked for either progressive or perfect aspect (I go, I don't go, I went, I will go, etc., but not I'm going or I have gone). Simple constructions normally denote a single action (perfective aspect), as in Brutus killed Caesar, a repeated action (habitual aspect), as in I go to school, or a relatively permanent state, as in We live in Dallas. They may also denote a temporary state (imperfective aspect), in the case of stative verbs that do not use progressive forms. 2) Progressive The progressive or continuous aspect is used to denote a temporary action or state that began at a previous time and continues into the present time (or other time of reference). It is expressed 49
using a form of the auxiliary verb to be (conjugated appropriately for tense etc.) together with the present participle (-ing form) of the main verb: I am reading; Were you shouting?; He will be sitting over there. Certain stative verbs make limited use of progressive aspect. Their nonprogressive forms (simple or nonprogressive perfect constructions) are used in many situations even when expressing a temporary state. The main types are described below. The copular verb to be does not normally use progressive forms (I am happy, not *I am being happy). However its progressive aspect is used in appropriate situations when the verb expresses the passive voice (We are being followed), and when it has the meaning of "behave" or "act as" (You are being very naughty; He's being a pest). The verb to have does not use progressive forms when it expresses possession, broadly understood (I have a brother, not *I'm having a brother), but it does use them in its active meanings (I'm having a party; She's having a baby; He was having a problem starting his car). See also have got below. Other verbs expressing a state of possession or similar, such as possess, own, belong and owe, also do not normally use progressive forms. Verbs of mental state, sense perception and similar (know, believe, want, think, see, hear, need, etc.) are generally used without progressive aspect, although some of them can be used in the progressive to imply an ongoing, often temporary situation (I am feeling lonely), or an activity (I am thinking about a problem). Verbs denoting positional state normally do use the progressive if the state is temporary: He is standing in the corner. (Compare permanent state: London stands on the banks of the Thames.).
3) Perfect The perfect aspect is used to denote the circumstance of an action's being complete at a certain time. It is expressed using a form of the auxiliary verb have (appropriately conjugated for tense etc.) together with the past participle of the main verb: She has eaten it; We had left; When will you have finished? Perfect forms can also be used to refer to states or habitual actions, even if not complete, if the focus is on the time period before the point of reference (We had lived there for five years). If such a circumstance is temporary, the perfect is often combined with progressive aspect. The implications of the present perfect (that something occurred prior to the present moment) are similar to those of the simple past, although the two forms are generally not used interchangeably – the simple past is used when the time frame of reference is in the past, while the present perfect is used when it extends to the present. By using nonfinite forms of the auxiliary have, perfect aspect can also be marked on infinitives (as in should have left and expect to have finished working), and on participles and gerunds (as in having seen the doctor).
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4) Perfect progressive The perfect and progressive (continuous) aspects can be combined, usually in referring to the completed portion of a continuing action or temporary state: I have been working for eight hours. Here a form of the verb have (denoting the perfect) is used together with been (the past participle of be, denoting the progressive) and the present participle of the main verb. In the case of the stative verbs, which do not use progressive aspect (see the above section on the progressive), the plain perfect form is normally used in place of the perfect progressive: I've been here for half an hour (not *I've been being here...).
VI.
Categoria timpului.
Noţiunea de axă de orientare. Noţiunile de Timpul Vorbirii, Timpul de Referinţă şi Timpul de Eveniment.
1. Categoria timpului Categoria gramatical a timpului (Tense), categorie specific verbelor, se refer la ordinea evenimentelor în timp, aa cum este perceput aceasta de vorbitor în momentul vorbirii. Momentul în care are loc actul de vorbire este momentul prezent (now). Fa de acest moment care constituie axa de referin a prezentului, unele evenimente sunt: a) anterioare, când ele au loc înainte de momentul vorbirii (evenimentele sunt amintite de vorbitor): Present Perfect ; b) posterioare fa de momentul vorbirii (evenimentele fiind anticipate de vorbitor, deoarece vor avea loc dup momentul vorbirii): Future; c) simultane cu momentul vorbirii (având loc în acelai timp) Present . Considerând momentul vorbirii punctul prezent, vorbitorul îi poate aminti un eveniment care a avut loc la un moment anterior momentului vorbirii ( then). În raport cu acest moment amintit then, care natere axei de referin a trecutului, alte evenimente pot fi: a) anterioare momentului trecut then: Past Perfect ; b) simultane cu then: Past Tense; c) posterioare: Future in the Past . De asemenea, in momentul vorbirii (now), vorbitorul poate anticipa anumite evenimente (posterioare momentului vorbirii). În raport cu un anume eveniment posterior momentului prezent (axa de referin a viitorului), alte evenimente pot fi: a) anterioare: Future Perfect ; b) simultane: Future; c) posterioare: engleza nu are marc formal pentru aceste evenimente. 51
pag: 009
În analiza timpului, trebuie astfel luate în considera ie trei elemente: a) momentul vorbirii; b) momentul (svâr irii) aciunii; c) axa sau momentul de referin. a) Momentul vorbirii este momentul în care enunul este pronunat de vorbitor: now. b) Momentul aciunii este momentul în care a avut loc aciunea sau starea: now, then, tomorrow etc.
c) Momentul de referin reprezint axa pe care se plaseaz vorbitorul în perceperea evenimentului: axa prezentului, axa trecutului, axa viitorului. În funcie de cele trei elemente - momentul vorbirii, momentul aciunii i momentul de referin limba englez cunoate urmtorul sistem de timpuri: - pe axa prezentului: Present, Present Perfect, Future; - pe axa trecutului: Past tense, Past Perfect, Future in the Past ; - pe axa viitorului: Future, Future Perfect *
2. Definitions: What is Tense? In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. Basic tenses found in many languages include the past, present, and future. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and nonpast, or future and nonfuture. There are also tenseless languages, like Chinese, which do not have tense at all. On the other hand, some languages make finer tense distinctions, such as remote vs. recent past, or near vs. remote future. Tenses generally express time relative to the moment of speaking. In some contexts, however, their meaning may be relativized to a point in the past or future which is established in the discourse (the moment being spoken about). This is called relative (as opposed to absolute) tense. Some languages have different verb forms or constructions which manifest relative tense, such as pluperfect ("past-in-the-past") and "future-in-the-past". The English noun tense comes from Old French tens "time" (spelled temps in modern French through deliberate archaisation), from Latin tempus "time". It is not related to the adjective tense, which comes from Latin tensus, the perfect passive participle of tendere "stretch". In modern linguistic theory, tense is understood as a category that expresses (grammaticalizes) time reference; namely one which, using grammatical means, places a state or action in time. Nonetheless, in many descriptions of languages, particularly in traditional European grammar, the term "tense" is applied to series of verb forms or constructions that express not merely position in time, but also additional properties of the state or action – particularly aspectual or modal properties. 52
Tense is normally indicated by the use of a particular verb form – either an inflected form of the main verb, or a multi-word construction, or both in combination. Inflection may involve the use of affixes, such as the -ed ending that marks the past tense of English regular verbs, but can also entail stem modifications, such as ablaut, as found in the strong verbs in English and other Germanic languages, or reduplication. Multi-word tense constructions often involve auxiliary verbs or clitics.
3. Types of times 1) Time of utterance In linguistics, TUTT (always written as uppercase T plus uppercase UTT in subscript) is an abbreviation for the time of utterance, the primary temporal reference in establishing tense. Grammatical tense represents the contrast between two measurements along the timeline of an utterance, with one of those measurements being the time of utterance TUTT (the time at which the actual utterance is made). TUTT is always the primary point of reference for tense. There are three additional references to which TUTT can be contrasted: TAST — the time of assertion, TCOM — the time of completion, and TEVL — the time of evaluation; these are secondary references. The type used for the secondary reference is determined by aspect and type of utterance. 2) Time of assertion In linguistics, TAST (always written as uppercase T plus uppercase AST in subscript) is an abbreviation for the time of assertion, a secondary temporal reference in establishing tense. TAST is the time at which the action of a verb takes place. It can be a single point in time (in the non-durational aspects) such as in English ―I had dinner at 5pm.‖ Or, it can be a range of time (in the durational aspects) such as ―I was eating dinner from 5 till 7.‖ 3) Time of completion In linguistics, TCOM (always written as uppercase T plus uppercase COM in subscript) is an abbreviation for the time of completion, a secondary temporal reference in establishing tense. TCOM is the point in time at which a verb is completed. T COM is used with perfected forms. In perfected non-durational aspects it represents the time by which a verb is finished, as in English ―I have eaten dinner.‖ In perfected durational aspects it represents either the time at which a verb is finished, or more normally, a time up to which the verb is completed (but that it may continue beyond); this meaning of interrupting the verb is the more standard use of this form and allows the duration of the verb to be measured up to a given point (TCOM). Consider ―I had been eating for 2 hours by 7pm,‖ in which an action (eating) has a duration, of which two hours of it is completed as of 7pm. 4) Time of evaluation In linguistics, TEVL (always written as uppercase T plus uppercase EVL in subscript) is an abbreviation for the time of evaluation, a secondary temporal reference in establishing tense. It 53
is used determining tense of generalizations and habitual truths. In these types of utterances, there is no specific verb occurrence to observe (and thus no assertion). Instead, the purpose of such utterances is to merely inform. In these utterances, a generalization or an habitual truth is attested as true (or questioned for trueness in interrogative forms). The earliest point at which these attestations can be evaluated as true or not serves as the secondary temporal reference for such constructions.
4. Relative and absolute tense Relative tense and absolute tense are distinct possible uses of the grammatical category of tense. Absolute tense means the grammatical expression of time reference (usually past, present or future) relative to "now" – the moment of speaking. In the case of relative tense, the time reference is construed relative to a different point in time, the moment being considered in the context. In other words, the reference point (or center of deixis) is the moment of discourse or narration in the case of absolute tense, or a different moment in the case of relative tense. A further distinction has also been made between "strict relative" tense, which merely expresses time relative to the reference point, and "absolute-relative tense" (such as pluperfect), which expresses time relative the reference point while also placing the reference point in time relative to the present moment. A relative past tense is sometimes called an anterior tense, while a relative future tense may be called a posterior tense.
1. Absolute tense In the case of absolute tense, the grammatical expression of time reference is made relative to the present moment. It has been pointed out that the term is somewhat misleading, since this kind of time reference is not truly absolute, but is relative to the moment of speaking. Most simple sentences in tensed languages exhibit absolute tense. For example, if Jane says "John went to the party", the use of the past tense (went) implies that the event (John's going) took place at a time which is in the past relative to the moment of Jane's uttering the sentence. In some cases, the operation of sequence of tenses in indirect speech serves to preserve absolute tense. For example, if Jane says "I like chocolate", and Julie later reports that "Jane said that she liked chocolate", Julie's conversion of the present tense like into the past liked implies a reference to past time relative to the time at which Julie is speaking – the center of deixis is moved from the time of Jane's original utterance to that of Julie's current utterance. As will be seen below, however, this principle does not hold in all languages, and does not always apply even in English. 2. Relative tense i.
Strict relative tense
Comrie's strict relative tense expresses time relative to the reference point provided by the context, without indicating where that reference point lies relative to the present time. 54
An example of a normally absolute tense being used relatively, in English, is provided by indirect speech placed in the future. If Tom says "John will say that he paid for the chocolate", the past tense paid refers to a past time relative to the moment of John's expected utterance, and not necessarily to a past time relative to the moment of Tom's present utterance. The same is found in some languages even in past indirect speech (where English tends to preserve absolute tense or use absolute-relative tense, as described in the previous and following sections). In Russian, for example, the sentence "Jane said that she liked chocolate" would take the grammatical form "Jane said that she likes chocolate" (see Indirect speech → Russian), where "likes" refers to the present at the time of Jane's reported utterance, and not necessarily the present at the time at which the utterance is reported. ii.
Ab so lute-relative tense
Comrie's absolute-relative tense combines the functions of absolute tense and strict relative tense. It reflects both the position in time of the reference point relative to the moment of speaking, and the position in time of the described situation relative to the reference point. Common tenses of this type are the pluperfect and the future perfect. These both place the situation in the past relative to the reference point (they are anterior tenses), but in addition they place the reference point in the past and in the future, respectively, relative to the time of speaking. For example, "John had left" implies that the reference point is in the past relative to the time of speaking, and that John's leaving occurred before that point. "John will have left" is similar, except that the reference point is in the future relative to the time of speaking. In the case of the future-in-the-past, the reference point is in the past, but the action is placed in the future relative to that point (it can be considered a posterior tense). An example is found in "John would later return to the party" (although the modal auxiliary would can also have other meanings). Absolute-relative tense is used in indirect speech in some instances. If Julie says "Jane said that John had left", the use of had left places John's leaving in the past relative to the (past) reference point, namely the time of Jane's reported utterance. Similarly, "Jane said that John would leave" places John's leaving in the future relative to the (past) time of Jane's utterance. (This does not apply in all languages or even in all cases in English). Relative tense can alternatively be analyzed in terms of the grammatical category of aspect. While a form that places the action in the past relative to the reference point may be called an anterior tense, it may alternatively be regarded as manifesting perfect (or retrospective) aspect[citation needed]. Similarly, a form that places the action in the future relative to the reference point may be regarded as having either posterior tense or prospective aspect. It is common to regard English perfect forms as combinations of perfect aspect with absolute tense. One reason for this is that, particularly with the present perfect, the use of such forms does not merely place the action in past time, but also implies relevance to the time under consideration. Thus the present perfect is taken to combine present tense with perfect aspect; the pluperfect (now usually called the past perfect in the case of English) is taken to combine past 55
tense with perfect aspect; and the future perfect is taken to combine future tense with perfect aspect. Nonetheless, some authors use the term anterior to refer to the perfect, and consider it under the heading of (relative) tense. Joan Bybee remarks that "[anterior] seems to resemble a tense more than an aspect, since it does not affect the internal temporal contours of the situation.
3. Types of tenses 1) Present Present tense is used, in principle, to refer to circumstances that exist at the present time (or over a period that includes the present time). However the same forms are quite often also used to refer to future circumstances, as in "He's coming tomorrow" (hence this tense is sometimes referred to as present-future or nonpast). For certain grammatical contexts where the present tense is the standard way to refer to the future, see conditional sentences and dependent clauses below. It is also possible for the present tense to be used when referring to no particular real time (as when telling a story), or when recounting past events (the historical present, particularly common in headline language). The present perfect intrinsically refers to past events, although it can be considered to denote primarily the resulting present situation rather than the events themselves. The present tense has two moods, indicative and subjunctive; when no mood is specified, it is often the indicative that is meant. In a present indicative construction, the finite verb appears in its base form, or in its -s form if its subject is third-person singular. (The verb be has the forms am, is, are, while the modal verbs do not add -s for third-person singular.) For the present subjunctive, see English subjunctive. (The present subjunctive has no particular relationship with present time, and is sometimes simply called the subjunctive, without specifying the tense.). 2) Past Past tense forms express circumstances existing at some time in the past, although they also have certain uses in referring to hypothetical situations (as in some conditional sentences, dependent clauses and expressions of wish). They are formed using the finite verb in its preterite (simple past) form. Certain uses of the past tense may be referred to as subjunctives; however the only distinction in verb conjugation between the past indicative and past subjunctive is the possible use of were in the subjunctive in place of was. 3) Future English is sometimes described as having a future tense, although since future time is not specifically expressed by verb inflection, some grammarians identify only two tenses (present or present-future, and past). The English "future" usually refers to a periphrastic form involving the auxiliary verb will (or sometimes shall when used with a first-person subject; see shall and will). There also exist other ways of referring to future circumstances, including the going to construction, and the use of present tense forms. 4) Future-in-the-past 56
A "future-in-the-past" tense (or form) is sometimes referred to. This takes essentially the same form as the conditional, that is, it is made using the auxiliary would (or sometimes should in the first person; see shall and will). This form has a future-in-the-past meaning in sentences such as She knew that she would win the game. Here the sentence as a whole refers to some particular past time, but would win refers to a time in the future relative to that past time.
VII.
Clasificarea adverbelor de timp.
Valorile timpului prezent din engleză. Valorile timpului trecut din engleză. Valorile timpului present perfect din engleză. Valorile timpului past perfect din engleză. Mijloace de redare a timpului viitor în limba engleză.
Adverbele de timp (Adverbs of Time). Adverbele de timp indic: - momentul aciunii: now, nowadays, today, then; - succesiunea în timp: afterwards, before, eventually, formerly, previosly, soon; - durata: lately, recently, since, still, yet; - frecvena: definit: weekly, three times a day; nedefinit: often, usually, seldom, once in a while.
1. Adverbs An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, noun phrase, clause, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?. This function is called the adverbial function, and may be realised by single words (adverbs) or by multi-word expressions (adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses). Putting an adverb that tells us when at the end of a sentence is a neutral position, but these adverbs can be put in other positions to give a different emphasis. All adverbs that tell us when can be placed at the beginning of the sentence to emphasize the time element. Some can also be put before the main verb in formal writing, while others cannot occupy that position.
i.
ADVERBS THAT TELL US FOR HOW LONG Adverbs that tell us for how long are also usually placed at the end of the sentence. EXAMPLES She stayed in the Bears' house all day. My mother lived in France for a year. I have been going to this school since 1996. In these adverbial phrases that tell us for how long, for is always followed by an expression of duration, while since is always followed by an expression of a point in time. EXAMPLES I stayed in Switzerland for three days.
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I am going on vacation for a week . I have been riding horses for several years. The French monarchy lasted for several centuries. I have not seen you since Monday. Jim has been working here since 1997. There has not been a more exciting discovery since last century.
ii.
ADVERBS THAT TELL US HOW OFTEN Adverbs that tell us how often express the frequency of an action. They are usually placed before the main verb but after auxiliary verbs (such as be, have, may, & must ). The only exception is when the main verb is "to be", in which case the adverb goes after the main verb. EXAMPLES I often eat vegetarian food. He never drinks milk. You must always fasten your seat belt. I am seldom late. He rarely lies. Many adverbs that express frequency can also be placed at either the beginning or the end of the sentence, although some cannot be. When they are placed in these alternate positions, the meaning of the adverb is much stronger.
Some other adverbs that tell us how often express the exact number of times an action happens or happened. These adverbs are usually placed at the end of the sentence. EXAMPLES This magazine is published monthly. He visits his mother once a week . I work five days a week .
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I saw the movie seven times. Yet is used in questions and in negative sentences to indicate that something that has not happened or may not have happened but is expected to happen. It is placed at the end of the sentence or after not . Still expresses continuity. In positive sentences it is placed before the main verb and after auxiliary verbs such as be, have, might, will . If the main verb isto be, then place still after it rather than before. In questions, still goes before the main verb.
iii.
ORDER OF ADVERBS OF TIME If you need to use more than one adverb of time in a sentence, use them in this order: 1: how long 2: how often 3: when EXAMPLES 1 + 2 : I work (1) for five hours (2) every day 2 + 3 : The magazine was published (2) weekly (3) last year. 1 + 3 : I was abroad (1) for two months (3) last year. 1 + 2 + 3 : She worked in a hospital (1) for two days (2) every week (3) last year.
2. Tenses a. Present tense The present tense is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in present time. The term "present tense" is usually used in descriptions of specific languages to refer to a particular grammatical form or set of forms; these may have a variety of uses, not all of which will necessarily refer to present time. For example, in the English sentence My train leaves tomorrow morning, the verb form leaves is said to be in the present tense, even though in this particular context it refers to an event in future time. Similarly, in the historical present, the present tense is used to narrate events that occurred in the past. 1.5.4. Întrebuinare. Prezentul simplu are mai multe întrebuinri: 1) Prezentul generic (Generic Simple Present) exprim aciuni generale care au loc într-un interval de timp nespecificat, dar care include momentul vorbirii: The Earth moves round the Sun. Birds fly. Three and three make six. Adverbele de frecven tipice pentru propoziiile generice sunt: always, never, regularly, ever: Wood always floats on water. 2) Prezentul simplu este folosit pentru aciuni obinuite, repetate (Habitual Simple Present), care au loc într-o perioad de timp general sau specific, menionat prin adverbe sau locuiuni adverbiale de timp ca: on Mondays, in summer, every day sau adverbe sau locuiuni adverbiale de frecven ca: often, frequently, seldom, rarely, occasionally, sometimes, once a week/month/year: I go to school every day. I usually watch TV in the evening.
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Not: Prezentul simplu desemnând aciuni repetate este apropiat de prezentul generic deoarece nici el nu individualizeaz evenimentele sau specific momentul aciunii. Deosebirea între cele dou folosiri ale prezentului simplu este urm toarea: în propoziii care conin aciuni repetate subiectul este individualizat, pe când în cele generice subiectul este general: I go skiing in winter. Water boils al 100° Centigrade. A doctor works hard. 3) Prezentul instantaneu (Instantaneous Simple Present) se refer la aciuni care sunt vzute ca având loc în întregime în momentul vorbirii. Aceast întrebuinare a prezentului simplu se întâlnete în: a) comentarii: The goal-keeper misses the ball and one more goal is scored. Portarul nu prinde mingea i se marcheaz înc un gol. b) demonstraii: I now mix the butter with the cocoa. Acum amestec untul cu cacao. c) exclamaii: Here comes our teacher! Iat (c) vine profesorul nostru! 4) Folosirea prezentului simplu cu alte valori temporale A) Prezentul cu valoare de viitor este întrebuinat în propoziii principale: a) pentru exprimarea datei: Tomorrow is December 21st. Mâine este 21 decembrie. Tomorrow is Saturday. Mâine este sâmb. b) pentru redarea unor aciuni planificate, unor aranjamente pentru viitor, conform unui orar sau program stabilit (de exemplu în excursii organizate), mai ales cu verbe de mi care ca: go, come, leave, return sau verbe ca begin, start, end, finish: We leave Bucharest at eight. We arrive in Predeal at ten. Plecam din Bucure ti la ora 8. Sosim la Predeal la ora 10. B) Prezentul cu valoare de viitor este întrebuinat i în propoziii subordonate: a) de timp, introduse în when, after, before, as soon as: We‘ll get home before it gets dark. Vom ajunge acas înainte s se întunece. b) condiionale, introduse de if, unless, provided, in case: If it rains on Sunday, I‘ll repair my bicycle. Dac o s plou duminic, am s-mi repar bicicleta. C) Prezentul cu valoare de trecut se folosete: a) în naraiuni, pentru înviorarea povestirii (prezentul istoric): One day, the little boy goes to the woods. There he finds a buried treasure. b) cu verbe ca tell, hear, learn, write, pentru a sublinia efectul prezent al unei comunicri trecute: He tells me that have won the competition. Îmi spune c ai câtigat concursul.
b. Past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to place an action or situation in past time. In languages which have a past tense, it thus provides a grammatical means of indicating that the event being referred to took place in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs sang, went and was. The "past time" to which the past tense refers generally means the past relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is employed (as in some instances of indirect speech) it may mean the past relative to some other time being under discussion. A 60
language's past tense may also have other uses besides referring to past time; for example, in English and certain other languages, the past tense is sometimes used in referring to hypothetical situations, such as in condition clauses like If you loved me ..., where the past tense loved is used even though there may be no connection with past time. In English, the past tense (or preterite) is one of the inflected forms of a verb. The past tense of regular verbs is made by adding -d or -ed to the base form of the verb, while those of irregular verbs are formed in various ways (such as see→saw, go→went, be→was/were). With regular and some irregular verbs, the past tense form also serves as a past participle. Întrebuinare. Past Tense simplu este folosit pentru a exprima: 1) o aciune svâr iti încheiat într-un moment trecut: a) Momentul în care a avut loc aciunea este de obicei menionat prin adverbe de timp ca: two hours ago (acum dou ore), yesterday (ieri), last week (s ptmâna trecut), in 1970 (în 1970) etc.: I went to the opera last night. Am fost la oper asear . Despre acest moment se pot cere informaii prin întrebri începând cu when, what time, how long ago. b) Aciunea este svâr it i încheiat într-un anume moment trecut, chiar dac acesta nu este menionat, el putând fi dedus din context. (În schimb se poate specifica locul aciunii): He shook his head and said no. Ddu din cap dezaprobator i spuse nu. I met him outside museum. M-am întâlnit cu el în faa muzeului. c) Aciunea este svâr iti încheiat într-un moment trecut care este precizat ca rezultat al unei întrebri i unui r spuns la Present Perfect. A: Have you seen this film? B:Yes, I have. I saw it last week. A:Ai vzut acest film? B: Da, l-am v zut. L-am vzut s ptmâna trecut. Not: În acest context (c), Past Tense are o funcie anaforic, referindu-se la un eveniment deja introdus în vorbire i deci cunoscut: I have been to Constana. I visited the Aquarium and walked down the pier. 2) o aciune repetat în trecut, care se traduce de obicei prin imperfect în limba român : I often visited him. Îl vizitam adesea. Past Tense simplu nu se folosete niciodat cu valoare generic sau instantanee, ca Present Tense simplu.
c. Present perfect The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and the perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The forms are present because they use the present tense of the auxiliary verb have, and perfect because they use that auxiliary in combination with the past participle of the main verb. English also has a present perfect continuous (or present perfect progressive) form, which combines present tense with both perfect aspect and continuous (progressive) aspect: "I have been eating". The action is not necessarily complete; the same is true of certain uses of the basic 61
present perfect when the verb expresses a state or a habitual action: "I have lived here for five years." The present perfect in English is used chiefly for completed past actions or events when it is understood that it is the present result of the events that is focused upon, rather than the moment of completion. No particular past time frame is specified for the action/event. When a past time frame (a point of time in the past, or period of time which ended in the past) is specified for the event, explicitly or implicitly, the simple past is used rather than the present perfect. The tense may be said to be a sort of mixture of present and past. It always implies a strong connection with the present and is used chiefly in conversations, letters, newspapers and TV and radio reports. It can also be used for ongoing or habitual situations continuing up to the present time (generally not completed, but the present time may be the moment of completion). That usage describes for how long or since when something has been the case, normally based on time expressions with "for" or "since" (such as for two years, since 1995). Then, the present perfect continuous form is often used, if a continuing action is being described. Întrebuinare. 1) Present Perfect este folosit, la fel ca i Past Tense, pentru a desemna un eveniment anterior momentului vorbirii. Deosebirea între cele dou timpuri este în axa pe care se plaseaz vorbitorul: axa prezentului (Present Perfect) sau axa trecutului (Past Tense); i în natura evenimentului descris: a) nedefinit (Present Perfect) i b) definit, unic (Past Tense): a) I‘ve seen Mary. b) I saw her at the conference. 2) Folosirea lui Present Perfect este asociat cu adverbe care exprim o perioad de timp deschis, neterminat: today, this week, this month etc. I‘ve been to the theatre this week. pe când folosirea lui Past Tense este asociat cu adverbe care exprim o perioad de timp închis, terminat: I went to the theatre last week. 3) Present Perfect este uneori folosit cu valoare de Past Tense, pentru a exprima o aciune vâr it în trecut i terminat recent sau chiar înaintea momentului vorbirii: He has come. A sosit. Aceast întrebuinare a lui Present Perfect este adeseori marcat de adverbe de timp ca just (tocmai), already (deja), up to now, so far (pân acum), lately, recently (în ultima vreme): He has just phoned. Tocmai a telefonat. 4) Past Tense este folosit pentru evenimente care au avut loc în trecut i ai cror autori nu mai exist în prezent, pe când la Present Perfect, evenimentele au avut loc în trecut, dar autorii sau efectele evenimentelor mai existi în prezent. 5) Present Perfect este folosit i pentru a exprima o aciune început în trecut i care continui în momentul vorbirii. 6) Present Perfect poate exprima o aciune caracteristic, repetat în trecut, prezent i poate i în viitor: He has performed in public. A interpretat în public. Aceast întrebuinare este marcat de adverbe de frecven ca: often (adesea), always 62
(totdeauna), never (niciodat), sometimes (uneori) etc.: He has often performed in public. 7) În propoziii subordonate temporale sau condiionale, Present Perfect este folosit pentru a reda o aciune anterioar aciunii din propoziia principal, când aceasta este exprimat printr-un verb la imperativ, indicativ prezent sau viitor: Ring me up when you have finished. Telefoneaz-mi când ai terminat. He will help me if he has finished his own work. M va ajuta daci va fi terminat treaba lui.
d. Past perfect The past perfect is a type of verb form, treated as one of the tenses of certain languages, used in referring to something that occurred earlier than the time being considered, when the time being considered is already in the past. The meaning of the pluperfect is equivalent to that of English verb forms such as "(we) had arrived" or "(they) had written". In English grammar, the equivalent of the pluperfect (a form such as "had written") is now often called the past perfect, since it combines past tense with perfect aspect. Întrebuinare. Mai-mult-ca-perfectul este întrebuin at pentru a exprima: 1) o aciune trecut, încheiat înaintea unui moment trecut: I had finished my lessons by ten o‘clock yesterday. Îmi terminasem leciile înainte de ora 10 ieri. 2) o aciune trecut, încheiat înaintea altei aciuni trecute: When Doris got to the theatre, the show had (already) started. 3) o aciune trecut, încheiat imediat înaintea unei alte aciuni trecute. 4) o aciune trecut, svâr it într-o perioad de timp anterioar unei alte aciuni trecute, dar ajungând pân la aceasta (cu compliniri adverbiale începând cu for sau since): He had been in the classroom for two minutes when the teacher came in. e. Future tense In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French aimera, meaning "will love", derived from the verb aimer ("love"). English does not have a future tense formed by verb inflection in this way, although it has a number of ways to express the future, particularly the construction with the auxiliary verb will or shall or is/am/are going to and grammarians differ in whether they describe such constructions as representing a future tense in English. The "future" expressed by the future tense usually means the future relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is used it may mean the future relative to some other point in time under consideration. Future tense can be denoted by the glossing abbreviation fut. The form of the will/shall future described above is frequently called the simple future (or future simple). Other constructions provide additional auxiliaries that express particular aspects: the future progressive (or future continuous) as in "He will be working"; the future perfect as in "We will have finished"; and the future perfect progressive as in "I will have been practicing." 63
For detail on these, see the relevant sections of Uses of English verb forms. (For more on expressions of relative tense, such as the future perfect, see also the section above.) Several other English constructions commonly refer to the future: Present tense forms, as in "The train leaves at 5," or, "My cousins arrive tomorrow." Since these grammatical forms are used more canonically to refer to present situations, they are not generally described as future tense; in sentences like those just given they may be described as "present tense with future meaning". Use of the present tense (rather than forms with will) is mandatory in some subordinate clauses referring to the future, such as "If I feel better next week, ..." and "As soon as they arrive, ...". For more details see the sections on the simple present, present progressive and dependent clauses in the article on English verb forms. The going-to future, e.g., "John is going to leave tonight." The construction with a finite form of the copula verb be together with the toinfinitive, e.g., "John is to leave tonight". (With the zero copula of newspaper headline style, this becomes simply "John to leave tonight".) For details see am to. The construction with to be about to, e.g., "John is about to leave", referring to the expected immediate future. (A number of lexical expressions with similar meaning also exist, such as to be on the point of (doing something).) Use of modal verbs with future meaning, to combine the expression of future time with certain modality: "I must do this" (also mun in Northern English dialect); "We should help him"; "I can get out of here"; "We may win"; "You might succeed". The same modal verbs are also often used with present rather than future reference. For details of their meanings and usage, see English modal verbs. The various ways of expressing the future carry different meanings, implying not just futurity but also aspect (the way an action or state takes place in time) and/or modality (the attitude of the speaker toward the action or state).[2][4] The precise interpretation must be based on the context. In particular there is sometimes a distinction in usage between the will/shall future and the going-to future (although in some contexts they are interchangeable).
VIII.
Verbele modale şi noţiunea de modalitate. Proprietăţile morfo-sintactice ale verbelor modale. Sensurile circumstanţiale şi epistemice ale verbelor modale (can, could, may, might, must, will, would, shall, should, ought to, dare, need).
Modul (Mood) Definiie. Modul este categoria gramatical specific verbului care arat felul în care vorbitorul consider aciunea din punctul de vedere al posibilitii de îndeplinire a ei în realitate. Pentru redarea acestui raport al aciunii cu realitatea, limba englez dispune de dou moduri marcate formal: indicativul (aciune real) i subjonctivul (aciune posibil sau presupus). 64
Not: Unele gramatici menioneaz i modurile condiional i imperativ. În aceast lucrare formele de condiional (prezent i trecut) sunt tratate în cadrul modului subjonctiv i &1.13.12). datorit formei identice cu unele forme ale sunjonctivului analitic i funciei similare (aciune posibil sau presupus, în acest caz condiionat de îndeplinirea unei altei aciuni). Formele folosite pentru exprimarea unei aciuni poruncite (aa-numitul mod imperativ) sunt analizate în cadrul capitolului Felurile propoziiilor, Propoziia imperativ. Dup categoria gramatical a persoanei i a posibilit ii de a forma predicatul unei propoziii, formele verbale în limba englez se împart în personale (indicativul i subjonctivul) i nepersonale (infinitivul, participiul i Gerund-ul).
1. Moods 1) Indicative Indicative mood, in English, refers to finite verb forms that are not marked as subjunctive and are not imperatives or conditionals. They are the verbs typically found in the main clauses of declarative sentences and questions formed from them, as well as in most dependent clauses (except for those that use the subjunctive). The information that a form is indicative is often omitted when referring to it: the simple present indicative is usually referred to as just the simple present, etc. (unless some contrast of moods, such as between indicative and subjunctive, is pertinent to the topic). A realis mood is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Most languages have a single realis mood called the indicative mood, although some languages have additional realis moods, for example to express different levels of certainty. By contrast, an irrealis mood is used to express something that is not known to be the case in reality. An example of the contrast between realis and irrealis moods is seen in the English sentences "He works" and "It is necessary that he work". In the first sentence works is a present indicative (realis) form of the verb, and is used to make a direct assertion about the real world. In the second sentence work is in the subjunctive mood, which is an irrealis mood – here that he work does not express (necessarily) a fact about the real world, but refers to what would be a desirable state of affairs. However, since mood is a grammatical category, referring to the form a verb takes rather than its meaning in a given instance, a given language may use realis forms for a number of purposes other than their principal one of making direct factual statements. For example, many languages use indicative verb forms to ask questions (this is sometimes called interrogative mood) and in various other situations where the meaning is in fact of the irrealis type (as in the English "I hope it works", where the indicative works is used even though it refers to a desired
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rather than real state of affairs). The indicative might therefore be defined as the mood used in all instances where a given language does not specifically require the use of some other mood.
2) Subjunctive Certain types of clause, mostly dependent clauses, use a verb form identified with the subjunctive mood. The present subjunctive takes a form identical to the bare infinitive, as in It is necessary that he be restrained. There is also a past subjunctive, distinct from the indicative only in the possible use of were in place of was in certain situations: If I were you, ... The subjunctive in English is used to form sentences that do not describe known objective facts. These include statements about one's state of mind, such as opinion, belief, purpose, intention, or desire. It contrasts with the indicative mood, which is used for statements of fact, such as He speaks English. In Modern English, the subjunctive form of a verb often looks identical to the indicative form, and thus subjunctives are not a very visible grammatical feature of English. For most verbs, the only distinct subjunctive form is found in the third person singular of the present tense, where the subjunctive lacks the -s ending: It is necessary that he see a doctor (contrasted with the indicative he sees). However, the verb be has not only a distinct present subjunctive (be, as in I suggest that he be removed) but also a past subjunctive were (as in If he were rich, …). These two tenses of the subjunctive have no particular connection in meaning with present and past time. Terminology varies; sometimes what is called the present subjunctive here is referred to simply as the subjunctive, and the form were may be treated just as an alternative irrealis form of was rather than a past subjunctive. Another case where present subjunctive forms are distinguished from indicatives is when they are negated: compare I recommend that they not enter the competition (subjunctive) with I hope that they do not enter the competition (indicative). English has present subjunctive and past subjunctive forms, which can be compared with the corresponding present indicative and past indicative forms (the familiar present and past tense forms of verbs). The distinction between present and past is one of tense; the distinction between indicative and subjunctive is one of mood. Note that these terms are used here merely as names for forms that verbs take; the use of present and past forms is not limited to referring to present and past time. (Sometimes the term subjunctive is used only to refer to what is called here the present subjunctive.). The present subjunctive is identical to the bare infinitive (and imperative) of the verb in all forms. This means that, for almost all verbs, the present subjunctive differs from the present indicative only in the third person singular form, which lacks the ending -s in the subjunctive. The two moods are also fully distinguished when negated. Present subjunctive forms are negated by placing the word not before them. The past subjunctive exists as a distinct form only for the verb be, which has the form were throughout. In the past tense, there is no difference between the two moods as regards manner of negation: I was not; (that) I were not. Verbs other than be are described as lacking a past 66
subjunctive, or possibly as having a past subjunctive identical in form to the past indicative: (that) I owned; (that) I did not own. Certain subjunctives (particularly were) can also be distinguished from indicatives by the possibility of inversion with the subject. The English modal verbs do not have present subjunctive forms, except for synonyms such as be able to as a subjunctive corresponding to the indicative modal can. However would, should, could and might can in some contexts be regarded as past subjunctives of will, shall, can and may respectively. (They may also be described simply as the past forms of the latter modals, or as modals or auxiliaries in their own right.). The auxiliary should is used to make another compound form that might be regarded as a subjunctive, and, in any case, it is frequently used as an alternative to the simple present subjunctive. The main use of the English present subjunctive, called the mandative or jussive subjunctive, occurs in that clauses (declarative content clauses; the word that is sometimes omitted in informal and conversational usage) expressing a circumstance which is desired, demanded, recommended, necessary, or similar. Such a clause may be dependent on verbs like insist, suggest, demand, prefer, adjectives like necessary, desirable, or nouns like recommendation, necessity; it may be part of the expression in order that… (or some formal uses of so that…); it may also stand independently as the subject of a clause or as a predicative expression. The form is called the present subjunctive because it resembles the present indicative in form, not because it need refer to the present time.[citation needed] In fact this form can equally well be used in sentences referring to past, future or hypothetical time (the time frame is normally expressed in the verb of the main clause). Examples: I insist (that) he leave now. We asked that it be done yesterday. It might be desirable that you not publish the story. I support the recommendation that they not be punished. I braked in order that the car stay on the road. That he appear in court is a necessary condition for his being granted bail. A present subjunctive verb form is sometimes found in a main clause, with the force of a wish or a third person imperative (and such forms can alternatively be analyzed as imperatives). This is most common nowadays in established phrases, such as (God) bless you, God save the Queen, heaven forbid, peace be with you, truth be told, so be it, suffice it to say, long live…, woe betide… It is used more broadly in some archaic or literary English. An equivalent construction is that with may and subject-verb inversion: May God bless you etc.
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As noted in the sections above, some clauses containing subjunctive verb forms, or other constructions that have the function of subjunctives, may exhibit subject – auxiliary inversion (an auxiliary or copular verb changes places with the subject of the clause). The most common example of this is in condition clauses, where inversion is accompanied by the omission of the conjunction if. Inversion with should: Should you feel hungry, … (equivalent to If you (should) feel hungry) Inversion with were as simple past subjunctive: Were you here, … (equivalent to If you were here, …). Inversion with were in compound forms of the past subjunctive: Were he to shoot, … (equivalent to If he were to shoot, i.e. If he shot) Inversion with had in the pluperfect, referring to usually counterfactual conditions in the past: Had he written, … (equivalent to If he had written) Inversion with were in compound forms of the pluperfect subjunctive: Were he to have lied, … (equivalent to If he were to have lied).
3) Imperative The imperative is a grammatical mood that forms commands or requests, including the giving of prohibition or permission, or any other kind of advice or exhortation. An example of a verb in the imperative mood is be in the English sentence "Please be quiet". Imperatives of this type imply a second-person subject (you); some languages also have firstand third-person imperatives, with the meaning of "let's (do something)" or "let him/her/them (do something)" (these forms may alternatively be called cohortative and jussive). Imperative mood can be denoted by the glossing abbreviation imp. It is one of the irrealis moods. An independent clause in the imperative mood uses the base form of the verb, usually with no subject (although the subject you can be added for emphasis). Negation uses do-support (i.e. do not or don't). For example: Now eat your dinner. You go and stand over there! Don't ever say that word again.
Sentences of this type are used to give an instruction or order. When they are used to make requests, the word please (or other linguistic device) is often added for politeness: Please pass the salt . First person imperatives (cohortatives) can be formed with let us (usually contracted to let's), as in "Let's go". Third person imperatives (jussives) are sometimes formed similarly, with let, as in "Let him be released". It is also possible to use do-support in affirmative imperatives, for emphasis or (sometimes) politeness: "Do be quiet!"; "Do help yourself!". 68
4) Conditional The conditional mood (abbreviated cond) is a grammatical mood used to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It thus refers to a distinct verb form that expresses a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event, that is contingent on another set of circumstances. The conditional mood is generally found in the independent clause (apodosis) of a conditional sentence, namely the clause that expresses the result of the condition, rather than the dependent clause (protasis) expressing the condition. The protasis will often use a different verb form, depending on the grammatical rules of the language in question, such as a past tense form or the subjunctive mood. This is exemplified by the English sentence "If you loved me you would support me" – here the conditional would support appears in the apodosis, while the protasis (the condition clause) uses instead the simple past form loved. Not every conditional sentence involves the conditional mood (and some languages do not have a conditional mood at all). For example, in the sentence "If I win, he will be disappointed", the conditional circumstance is expressed using the future marker will. Also a conditional verb form may have other uses besides expressing conditionality; for example the English would construction may also be used for past habitual action ("When I was young I would happily walk three miles to school every day"), or with future-in-the-past meaning. English does not have an inflective (morphological) conditional mood, except in as much as the modal verbs could, might, should and would may in some contexts be regarded as conditional forms of can, may, shall and will respectively. What is called the English conditional mood (or just the conditional) is formed periphrastically using the modal verb would in combination with the bare infinitive of the main verb. (Occasionally should is used in place of would with a first person subject. English has three types of conditional sentences, which may be described as factual ("conditional 0": "When I feel well, I sing"), predictive ("conditional I": "If I feel well, I will sing"), and counterfactual ("conditional II" or "conditional III": "If I felt well, I would sing" or "If I had felt well, I would have sung"). As in many other languages, it is only the counterfactual type that causes the conditional mood to be used. a. Zero co nd itional
"Zero conditional" refers to conditional sentences that express a factual implication, rather than describing a hypothetical situation or potential future circumstance (see Types of conditional sentence). The term is used particularly when both clauses are in the present tense; however such sentences can be formulated with a variety of tenses/moods, as appropriate to the situation. b. First cond itional
"First conditional" or "conditional I" refers to a pattern used in predictive conditional sentences, i.e. those that concern consequences of a probable future event.
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In the basic first conditional pattern, the condition is expressed using the present tense (having future meaning in this context), and the consequence using the future construction with will (or shall). The use of present tense in dependent clauses with future time reference is not confined to condition clauses; it also occurs in various temporal and relative clauses (as soon as he arrives; take the first train that comes; etc.). The condition can also be expressed using the modal verb should. This form can be used to make an inverted condition clause without a conjunction. Otherwise, the condition clause in a first conditional pattern is not normally formed with a modal verb, other than can. However, there are certain situations (often involving polite expressions) where will, would and could may be used in such clauses. In colloquial English, an imperative may be used with the meaning of a condition clause, as in "go eastwards a mile and you'll see it" (meaning "if you go eastwards a mile, you will see it"). Although the consequence in first conditional sentences is usually expressed using the will (or shall) future (usually the simple future, though future progressive, future perfect and future perfect progressive are used as appropriate), other variations are also possible – it may take the form of an imperative, it may use another modal verb that can have future meaning, or it may be expressed as a deduction about present or past time (consequent on a possible future event). c. Second con ditional
"Second conditional" or "conditional II" refers to a pattern used to describe hypothetical, typically counterfactual situations with a present or future time frame (for past time frames the third conditional is used). In the normal form of the second conditional, the condition clause is in the past tense (although it does not have past meaning), and the consequence is expressed using the conditional construction with the auxiliary would. The past tense (simple past or past progressive) of the condition clause is historically the past subjunctive. In modern English this is identical to the past indicative, except in the first and third persons singular of the verb be, where the indicative is was and the subjunctive were; was is sometimes used as a colloquialism (were otherwise preferred), although the phrase if I were you is common in colloquial language. When were is the verb of the condition clause, it can be used to make an inverted condition clause without a conjunction. If the condition clause uses the past tense of another verb, it may be replaced by the auxiliary construction were to + infinitive (particularly if it has hypothetical future reference); if this is done, then inversion can be applied here too: If I were rich, ... / If I were to be rich, ... / Were I (to be) rich, ... If I flew, ... / If I were to fly, ... / Were I to fly, ... Another possible pattern is if it weren't for... (inverted form: were it not for ...), which means something like "in the absence of ...". For the possible use of would or could in the condition clause as well, see Use of will and would in condition clauses below. 70
The conditional construction of the main clause is usually the simple conditional; sometimes the conditional progressive (e.g. would be waiting) is used. Occasionally, with a first person subject, the auxiliary would is replaced by should (similarly to the way will is replaced by shall). Also, would may be replaced by another appropriate modal: could, should, might. When referring to hypothetical future circumstance, there may be little difference in meaning between the first and second conditional (factual vs. counterfactual, realis vs. irrealis). The following two sentences have similar meaning, although the second (with the second conditional) implies less likelihood that the condition will be fulfilled: If you leave now, you will still catch your train. If you left now, you would still catch your train. d. Third con ditional
"Third conditional" or "conditional III" is a pattern used to refer to hypothetical situations in a past time frame, generally counterfactual (or at least presented as counterfactual). It is possible for the usual auxiliary construction to be replaced with were to have + past participle. That used, the above examples can be written as such: If you were to have called me, I would have come. Would he have succeeded if I were to have helped him? The condition clause can undergo inversion, with omission of the conjunction: Had you called me, I would have come. / Were you to have called me, I would have come. Would he have succeeded had I helped him? / Would he have succeeded were I to have helped him? Another possible pattern (similar to that mentioned under the second conditional) is if it hadn't been for... (inverted form: had it not been for ...), which means something like "in the absence of ...", with past reference. e. Mixed con ditional
"Mixed conditional" usually refers to a mixture of the second and third conditionals (the counterfactual patterns). Here either the condition or the consequence, but not both, has a past time reference. When the condition refers to the past, but the consequence to the present, the condition clause is in the past perfect (as with the third conditional), while the main clause is in the conditional mood as in the second conditional (i.e. simple conditional or conditional progressive, but not conditional perfect). If you had done your job properly, we wouldn't be in this mess now. If I hadn't married Kelly, I wouldn't be living in Scotland now. When the consequence refers to the past, but the condition is not expressed as being limited to the past, the condition clause is expressed as in the second conditional (past, but not past perfect), while the main clause is in the conditional perfect as in the third conditional: If we were soldiers, we wouldn't have done it like that.
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Other variations on the respective clause patterns are possible, as used accordingly in the second and third conditionals.
2. Modal verbs A modal verb (also modal, modal auxiliary verb, or modal auxiliary) is a type of verb that is used to indicate modality – that is: likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation. English has the modal verbs can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, and also (depending on classification adopted) ought (to), dare, need, had (better), used (to). These do not add -s for the third-person singular, and they do not form infinitives or participles; the only inflection they undergo is that to a certain extent could, might, should and would function as preterites (past tenses) of can, may, shall and will respectively. A modal verb can serve as the finite verb introducing a verb catena, as in he might have been injured then. These generally express some form of modality (possibility, obligation, etc.), although will and would (and sometimes shall and should) can serve – among their other uses – to express future time reference and conditional mood, as described elsewhere on this page.
Verbele modale (Modal Verbs) Verbele modale exprim atitudinea vorbitorului fa de enun, aciunea din cadrul acestuia fiind zut ca posibil, probabil, necesar , obligatorie, de dorit etc.: It might rain later. S-a putea s plou mai târziu. You must meet him at the station. Trebuie s -l atepi la gar . Din punct de vedere al caracteristicilor formale, verbele modale englezeti se împart în: 1) verbe noionale exprimând modalitatea (want, wish, order, oblige, advise, intend, mean, prefer, etc.) care se comport ca celelalte verbe noionale: He wants to see the play. Vrea s vad piesa. Don‘t oblige him to do this. Nu-l obliga s fac asta. 2) verbe modale defective (Defective Modal Verbs) (can/could, may/might, must, have to, shall/should, will/would, ought to, be to, used to, need, dare), care exprim de asemenea modalitatea, dar care din punct de vedere formal, prezint anumite caracteristici. Not: Termenul de verbe modale folosit pe parcursul lucr rii se refer la verbele modale defective. Caracteristicile verbelor modale. Verbele modale au urmtoarele caracterisitici: a) sunt defective, adic le lipsesc anumite forme verbale. În consecin, nu pot fi conjugate la toate modurile i timpurile. Formele pe care le au verbele modale pot fi folosite pentru redarea mai multor timpuri i moduri. Can, may, must, need i dare, de exemplu, exprim indicativul prezent: I can help you. Dac ele sunt îns urmate de un adverb de timp viitor, aciunea exprimat de verbul la infinitiv se refer la un moment viitor: I can only help you next week. Am s te pot ajuta abia s ptmâna viitoare. Formele aparent trecute ale verbelor modale au valori: - de Past Tense, condiional i subjonctiv (could, would, might): I could skate when I was a child. tiam patinez când eram copil. I could help you if you wanted me to. A putea s te 72
ajut dac ai dori. She lent him the camera so that he could take photos on the trip. I-am împrumutat aparatul de fotografiat ca fac fotografii în excursie. Not: Might poate fi folosit cu valoare de Past Tense doar în vorbirea indirect: She said you might go. - de condiional i subjonctiv (should): I should like to come tomorrow if you don‘t mind. A dori s vin mâine, dac nu te deranjeaz. He demanded we should come the next day. A cerut s venim a doua zi. - la unele forme care le lipsesc, verbele modale sunt înlocuite de perifraze modale, de anumite construcii cu sens modal (Modal Equivalents): can - be able to; must - have to; may be allowed to/permitted to: Present: You may go now. Poi / Ai voie s pleci acum. Past Tense: He was allowed go to. I s-a permis / dat voie s plece. Past Perfect: He had been allowed to go out and play before they left. I se permisese s ias afar s se joace înainte ca ei s plece. b) nu primesc s la persoana a III-a singular (cu excepia lui be to i have to): He must see this play. Trebuie s vad aceast pies. c) formeaz interogativul i negativul f ajutorul auxiliarului do/did (cu excepia lui have to): Must you do this ? Trebuie s faci asta ? She cannot swim. Nu tie s înoate, dar: Do you have to type that report ? Trebuie s dactilografiezi raportul ? d) sunt urmate de infinitivul scurt al verbelor no ionale (cu excepia lui be to, have to, ought to): She can cook. tie s gteasc, dar: He has to get up early every day. Trebuie s se scoale devreme în fiecare zi. Când sunt urmate de infinitivul prezent, verbele modaqle se refer la o aciune prezent sau viitoare: He might be there now. S-ar putea ca el s fie acolo acum. She might come later. Ea s-ar putea s vin mai târziu. Când sunt urmate de infinitivul prezent, verbele modale se refer la o acf iune prezent sau viitoare: He might be there now. S-ar putea ca el s fie acolo acum. She might come later. ea s-ar putea s vin mai târziu. Când sunt urmate de infinitivul perfect, aciunea exprimat de verbul noional are un caracter trecut, de anterioritate: He might have been here before we arrived. S-ar putea s fi fost aici înainte s sosim noi. e) pe plan sintactic, verbele modale defective alctuiesc un predicat verbal compus împreun cu un alt verb la infinitiv: You can buy a TV-set in instalments. Po i s cumperi un televizor în rate. În cadrul predicatului verbal compus, verbele modale îndeplinesc o funcie dubl: - funcia gramatical de marc a timpului: He can skate now. tie s patineze acum. He could skate when he was a child. tia s patineze când era copil. - funcia lexical de exprimare a modalitii: She can type. tie s bat la main. You needn‘t type this. Nu este nevoie s bai asta la ma in.
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i.
Function of mo dal verbs
A modal auxiliary verb gives information about the function of the main verb that it governs. Modals have a wide variety of communicative functions, but these functions can generally be related to a scale ranging from possibility ("may") to necessity ("must"), in terms of one of the following types of modality: epistemic modality, concerned with the theoretical possibility of propositions being true or not true (including likelihood and certainty) deontic modality, concerned with possibility and necessity in terms of freedom to act (including permission and duty) dynamic modality, which may be distinguished from deontic modality, in that with dynamic modality, the conditioning factors are internal – the subject's own ability or willingness to act The following sentences illustrate epistemic and deontic uses of the English modal verb must: epistemic: You must be starving. ("It is necessarily the case that you are starving.") deontic: You must leave now. ("You are required to leave now.") An ambiguous case is You must speak Spanish. The primary meaning would be the deontic meaning ("You are required to speak Spanish.") but this may be intended epistemically ("It is surely the case that you speak Spanish.") Epistemic modals can be analyzed as raising verbs, while deontic modals can be analyzed as control verbs. Epistemic usages of modals tend to develop from deontic usages. For example, the inferred certainty sense of English must developed after the strong obligation sense; the probabilistic sense of should developed after the weak obligation sense; and the possibility senses of may and can developed later than the permission or ability sense. Two typical sequences of evolution of modal meanings are: internal mental ability → internal ability → root possibility (internal or external ability) → permission and epistemic possibility obligation → probability The verbs in the following list all have the following characteristics: They are auxiliary verbs, which means they allow subject-auxiliary inversion and can take the negation not, i.e. They function as auxiliary verbs: they modify the meaning of another verb, which they govern. This verb generally appears as a bare infinitive, although in some definitions a modal verb can also govern the to-infinitive (as in the case of ought). They do not inflect, except insofar as some of them come in present – past (present – preterite) pairs. They do not add the ending -(e)s in the third-person singular (the present-tense modals therefore follow the preterite-present paradigm).
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They have the syntactic properties associated with auxiliary verbs in English, principally that they can undergo subject – auxiliary inversion (in questions, for example) and can be negated by the appending of not after the verb. They convey functional meaning, They are defective insofar as they cannot be inflected, nor do they appear in nonfinite form (i.e. not as infinitives, gerunds, or participles), They are nevertheless always finite and thus appear as the root verb in their clause. They subcategorize for an infinitive, i.e. they take an infinitive as their complement. The verbs/expressions dare, ought to, had better, and need not behave like modal auxiliaries to a large extent, although they are not productive (in linguistics, the extent commonly or frequently used) in the role to the same extent as those listed here. Furthermore, there are numerous other verbs that can be viewed as modal verbs insofar as they clearly express modality in the same way that the verbs in this list do, e.g. appear, have to, seem, etc. In the strict sense, though, these other verbs do not qualify as modal verbs in English because they do not allow subject-auxiliary inversion, nor do they allow negation with not. If, however, one defines modal verb entirely in terms of meaning contribution, then these other verbs would also be modals and so the list here would have to be greatly expanded.
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ii.
Defectiveness
Modals in English form a very distinctive class of verbs. They are auxiliary verbs like be, do, and have, but they are defective insofar as they cannot be inflected like these other auxiliary verbs, e.g. have → has vs. should → *shoulds, do → did vs. may → *mayed, etc. In clauses that contain two or more verbs, any modal that is present appears as the left-most verb in the verb catena (= chain of verbs). What this means is that the modal verb is always finite (although it is, as stated, never inflected). In the syntactic structure of the clause, the modal verb is the clause root. This trait of modal auxiliaries has motivated the designation defective, that is, modal auxiliaries are defective in English because they are so limited in their form and distribution. One can note further in this area that English modal auxiliaries are quite unlike modal verbs in closely related languages. In German, for instance, modals can occur as non-finite verbs, which means they can be subordinate to other verbs in verb catenae; they need not appear as the clause root. iii.
Other mo dals
The verbs listed below mostly share the above features, but with certain differences. They are sometimes, but not always, categorized as modal verbs. They may also be called "semimodals". The verb ought differs from the principal modals only in that it governs a to-infinitive rather than a bare infinitive (compare he should go with he ought to go). The verbs dare and need can be used as modals, often in the negative (Dare he fight?; You dare not do that.; You need not go.), although they are more commonly found in constructions where they appear as ordinary inflected verbs (He dares to fight; You don't need to go). There is also a dialect verb, nearly obsolete but sometimes heard in Appalachia and the Deep South of the United States: darest, which means "dare not", as in "You darest do that." The verb had in the expression had better behaves like a modal verb, hence had better (considered as a compound verb) is sometimes classed as a modal or semimodal. The verb used in the expression used to (do something) can behave as a modal, but is more often used with do-support than with auxiliary-verb syntax: Did she used to do it? (or Did she use to do it?) and She didn't used to do it (or She didn't use to do it)[a] are more common than Used she to do it? and She used not (usedn't) to do it. Other English auxiliaries appear in a variety of different forms and are not regarded as modal verbs. These are: be, used as an auxiliary in passive voice and continuous aspect constructions; it follows auxiliary-verb syntax even when used as a copula, and in auxiliary-like formations such as be going to, is to and be about to; have, used as an auxiliary in perfect aspect constructions, including the idiom have got (to); it is also used in have to, which has modal meaning, but here (as when denoting possession) have only rarely follows auxiliary-verb syntax (see also must below);
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do; .
iv. R e p l ac e m e n t s f o r d e f e c t i v e f o r m s As noted above, English modal verbs are defective in that they do not have infinitive, participle, imperative or (standard) subjunctive forms, and in some cases past forms. However in many cases there exist equivalent expressions that carry the same meaning as the modal, and can be used to supply the missing forms. In particular: The modals can and could , in their meanings expressing ability, can be replaced by am/is/are able to and was/were able to. Additional forms can thus be supplied: the infinitive (to) be able to, the subjunctive and (rarely) imperative be able to, and the participles being able to and been able to. The modals may and might , in their meanings expressing permission, can be replaced by am/is/are allowed to and was/were allowed to. The modal must in most meanings can be replaced by have/has to. This supplies the past and past participle form had to, and other forms (to) have to, having to. When will or shall expresses the future, the expression am/is/are going to has similar meaning. This can supply other forms: was/were going to, (to) be going to, being/been going to. The modals should and ought to might be replaced by am/is/are supposed to, thus supplying the forms was/were supposed to, (to) be supposed to, being/been supposed to.
3. Usage of specific verbs a. Can and could The modal verb can expresses possibility in either a dynamic, deontic or epistemic sense, that is, in terms of innate ability, permissibility, or possible circumstance. For example: I can speak English means "I am able to speak English" or "I know how to speak English". You can smoke here means "you may (are permitted to) smoke here" (in formal English may or might is sometimes considered more correct than can or could in these senses). There can be strong rivalry between siblings means that such rivalry is possible.
b. May and might The verb may expresses possibility in either an epistemic or deontic sense, that is, in terms of possible circumstance or permissibility. For example: The mouse may be dead means that it is possible that the mouse is dead. You may leave the room means that the listener is permitted to leave the room. In expressing possible circumstance, may can have future as well as present reference (he may arrive means that it is possible that he will arrive; I may go to the mall means that I am considering going to the mall).
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May (or might ) can also express irrelevance in spite of certain or likely truth: He may be taller than I am, but he is certainly not stronger could mean "While it is (or may be) true that he
is taller than I am, that does not make a difference, as he is certainly not stronger." The meaning of the negated form depends on the usage of the modal. When possibility is indicated, the negation effectively applies to the main verb rather than the modal: That may/might not be means "That may/might not-be", i.e. "That may fail to be true". But when permission is being expressed, the negation applies to the modal or entire verb phrase: You may not go now means "You are not permitted to go now".
c. Shall & Should The verb shall is used in some varieties of English in place of will, indicating futurity, when the subject is first person (I shall, we shall). With second- and third-person subjects, shall indicates an order, command or prophecy: Cinderella, you shall go to the ball! It is often used in writing laws and specifications: Those convicted of violating this law shall be imprisoned for a term of not less than three years; The electronics assembly shall be able to operate within a normal temperature range. Shall is sometimes used in questions (in the first, or possibly third, person) to ask for advice or confirmation of a suggestion: Shall I read now?; What shall we wear? Should is sometimes used as a first-person equivalent for would (in its conditional and "future-in-the-past" uses), in the same way that shall can replace will. Should is also used to form a replacement for the present subjunctive in some varieties of English, and also in some conditional sentences with hypothetical future reference – see English subjunctive and English conditional sentences. Should is often used to describe an expected or recommended behavior or circumstance. It can be used to give advice or to describe normative behavior, though without such strong obligatory force as must or have to. Thus You should never lie describes a social or ethical norm. It can also express what will happen according to theory or expectations: This should work. The negative forms are shall not and should not , contracted to shan't and shouldn't . The negation effectively applies to the main verb rather than the auxiliary: you should not do this implies not merely that there is no need to do it, but that there is a need not to do it. d. Will and would The modal will is often used to express futurity (The next meeting will be held on Thursday). Since this is an expression of time rather than modality, constructions with will (or sometimes shall) are often referred to as the future tense of English, and forms like will do, will be doing, will have done and will have been doing are often called the simple future, future progressive (or future continuous), future perfect, and future perfect progressive (continuous). With first-person subjects (I, we), in varieties where shall is used for simple expression of futurity, the use of will indicates particular willingness or determination. Future events are also sometimes referred to using the present tense, or using the going to construction. 78
Will as a modal also has a number of different uses: It can express habitual aspect; for example, he will make mistakes may mean that he frequently makes mistakes (here the word will is usually stressed somewhat, and often expresses annoyance). It can express strong probability with present time reference, as in That will be John
at the door.
It can be used to give an order, as in You will do it right now. The preterite form would is used in some conditional sentences, and as a past form of future will as described above under Past forms. (It is sometimes replaced by should in the first person in the same way that will is replaced by shall.) Other uses of would include: Expression of politeness, as in I would like... (for "I want") and Would you (be so kind as to) do this? (for "Please do this"). Expression of habitual aspect in past time, as in Back then, I would eat early and would walk to school. Both will and would can be used with the perfect infinitive (will have, would have), either to form the future perfect and conditional perfect forms already referred to, or to express perfect aspect in their other meanings (e.g. there will have been an arrest order, expressing strong probability). The negated forms are will not (contracted to won't) and would not (contracted to wouldn't). In the modal meanings of will the negation is effectively applied to the main verb phrase and not to the modality (e.g. when expressing an order, you will not do it expresses an order not to do it, rather than just the absence of an order to do it).
e. Must and had to The modal must expresses obligation or necessity: You must use this form; We must try to escape. It can also express a confident assumption (the epistemic rather than deontic use), such as in It must be here somewhere. An alternative to must is the expression had to (in the present tense sometimes have got to), which is often more idiomatic in informal English when referring to obligation. This also provides other forms in which must is defective and enables simple negation. When used with the perfect infinitive (i.e. with have and the past participle), must expresses only assumption: Sue must have left means that the speaker confidently assumes that Sue has left. To express obligation or necessity in the past, had to or some other synonym must be used. The formal negation of must is must not (contracted to mustn't). However the negation effectively applies to the main verb, not the modality: You must not do this means that you are required not to do it, not just that you are not required to do it. To express the lack of requirement or obligation, the negative of have to or need (see below) can be used: You don't have to do it; You needn't do it. The above negative forms are not usually used in the sense of confident assumption; here it is common to use can't to express confidence that something is not the case (as in It can't be here or, with the perfect, Sue can't have left). 79
Mustn't can nonetheless be used as a simple negative of must in tag questions and other questions expressing doubt: We must do it, mustn't we? Mustn't he be in the operating room by this stage?
f. Ought to and had better Ought is used with meanings similar to those of should expressing expectation or requirement. The principal grammatical difference is that ought is used with the to-infinitive rather than the bare infinitive, hence we should go is equivalent to we ought to go. Because of this difference of syntax, ought is sometimes excluded from the class of modal verbs, or is classed as a semimodal. The reduced pronunciation of ought to is sometimes given the eye dialect spelling oughta. Ought can be used with perfect infinitives in the same way as should (but again with the insertion of to): you ought to have done that earlier. The negated form is ought not or oughtn't, equivalent in meaning to shouldn't (but again used with to). The expression had better has similar meaning to should and ought when expressing recommended or expedient behavior: I had better get down to work (it can also be used to give instructions with the implication of a threat: you had better give me the money or else). The had of this expression is similar to a modal: it governs the bare infinitive, it is defective in that it is not replaceable by any other form of the verb have, and it behaves syntactically as an auxiliary verb. For this reason the expression had better, considered as a kind of compound verb, is sometimes classed along with the modals or as a semimodal. The had of had better can be contracted to 'd, or in some informal usage (especially American) can be omitted. The expression can be used with a perfect infinitive: you'd better have finished that report by tomorrow. There is a negative form hadn't better, used mainly in questions: Hadn't we better start now? It is more common for the infinitive to be negated by means of not after better: You'd better not do that (meaning that you are strongly advised not to do that). g. Dare and need The verbs dare and need can be used both as modals and as ordinary conjugated (non-modal) verbs. As non-modal verbs they can take a to-infinitive as their complement (I dared to answer her; He needs to clean that), although dare may also take a bare infinitive (He didn't dare go). In their uses as modals they govern a bare infinitive, and are usually restricted to questions and negative sentences. Examples of the modal use of dare, followed by equivalents using non-modal dare where appropriate: Dare he do it? ("Does he dare to do it?") I daren't (or dare not or dasn't) try ("I don't dare to try") How dare you!; How dare he! (idiomatic expressions of outrage)
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I dare say (another idiomatic expression, here exceptionally without negation or question syntax) The modal use of need is close in meaning to must expressing necessity or obligation. The negated form need not (needn't) differs in meaning from must not, however; it expresses lack of necessity, whereas must not expresses prohibition. Examples: Need I continue? ("Do I need to continue? Must I continue?") You needn't water the grass ("You don't have to water the grass"; compare the different meaning of You mustn't water...) Modal need can also be used with the perfect infinitive: Need I have done that? It is most commonly used here in the negative, to denote that something that was done was (from the present perspective) not in fact necessary: You needn't have left that tip.
h. Used to The verbal expression used to expresses past states or past habitual actions, usually with the implication that they are no longer so. It is followed by the infinitive (that is, the full expression consists of the verb used plus the to-infinitive). Thus the statement I used to go to college means that the speaker formerly habitually went to college, and normally implies that this is no longer the case. While used to does not express modality, it has some similarities with modal auxiliaries in that it is invariant and defective in form and can follow auxiliary-verb syntax: it is possible to form questions like Used he to come here? and negatives like He used not (rarely usedn't) to come here. More common, however, (though not the most formal style) is the syntax that treats used as a past tense of an ordinary verb, and forms questions and negatives using did: Did he use(d) to come here? He didn't use(d) to come here. Note the difference in pronunciation between the ordinary verb use /juːz/ and its past form used /juːzd/ (as in scissors are used to cut paper), and the verb forms described here: /juːst/. The verbal use of used to should not be confused with the adjectival use of the same expression, meaning "familiar with", as in I am used to this, we must get used to the cold. When the adjectival form is followed by a verb, the gerund is used: I am used to going to college in the mornings.
IX.
Bibliografie
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