Lecture 8. The Finite Verb: Categories

1.1. The Finite Verb: Tense

The expression of grammatical time/tense (Lat. tempus) constitutes the basis of the verbal category of finitude (the division of all the forms of the verb into finite and non-finite). The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time.

The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being ‘now’' or the present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions.

In Modern English, the grammatical expression of verbal tense is effected in two stages:

1. the process receives an absolutive time characteristic by means of opposing the past tense to the present tense. The marked member of this opposition is the past form (retrospective evaluation of the time of the process)

2. At the second stage, the process receives a non-absolutive relative time characteristic by means of opposing the forms of the future tense (strong member) to the forms of no future marking (prospective eva,uation of the time of the process).

Therefore two temporal categories are distinguished: 1) the category of primary time, 2) the category of prospective time.

1) The category of primary time.

The formal sign of the opposition constituting this category is, with regular verbs, the dental suffix -(e)d [-d, -t, -id], and with irregular verbs, phonemic interchanges . Thus, the opposition is expressed by the formula

THE PAST TENSE (past) –––––VS.––––– THE PRESENT TENSE (non-past)

The structural nature of the expression of the category of primary time is the only immanent verbal category expressed by inflexional forms. These inflexional forms (the past and present) coexist with the other, analytical modes of categorial expression, including the future.

Hence, the English verb acquires the two futures:

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PRESENT Jill returns from her driving class at five o'clock.		PAST At five Jill returned from her driving class. I know that.
FUTURE I (the future of the present prospected from the present) Jill will return from her driving class at five o'clock.		FUTURE II (the future of the past prospected from the past) I knew that at five Jill would return from her driving class.

This system is marked by the do-forms of the indefinite aspect found in the interrogative constructions (Does he believe the whole story?), in the negative constructions (He doesn't believe the story), in the elliptical response constructions and elsewhere and confined only to the category of primary time (the verbal past and present not the future).

The existence of future tenses is not universally recognized since what is described as the ‘future’ tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is undeniable that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.

Although the future of the English verb is highly specific as its auxiliaries in their etymology are words of obligation and volition on the whole, the English categorial future differs distinctly from the modal constructions with the same predicator verbs.