GROUP ASSIGNMENT
ROLES, CASE, GENDER, MOOD, ASPECT, TENSE, AND VOICE IN SYNTAX
SUBJECT SYNTAX
Lecturer: Yulia Ramadhiyanti, M. Pd.
Written by:
Name of
Group Members 6:
v Adil
Riyana
v Ardila
v Fitria
v Muharani
v Siti
Teriyani
v Veronika
Liyanti
v Yustina
Meri
Class : A Afternoon
Semester : 4 ( Genap )
Study Program : English Study Program
INSTITUT KEGURUAN DAN
ILMU PENDIDIKAN
PERSATUAN GURU REPUBLIK
INDONESIA
PONTIANAK
2014
11. Roles
11.1 Roles,
grammar and meaning
Why discuss roles? The first
part of the reply is that concepts such as Agent, Patient, Instrument and so on
are regularly used in accounts of the active and passive constructions, of
prepositions in English and of prepositions and case suffixes in other languages,
and with respect to various syntactic structures. It is essential to understand
the difficulties in defining roles and to be aware of what counts as good
practice in this area of grammar. The second part of the reply is that the
concept of roles has never failed to elicit an immediate interested response
from students. To use a colloquial phrase, it rings a bell and deserves to be
explored. The third part of the reply is that roles are used in descriptions of
many languages other than English.
Let us look briefly at some
examples illustrating how we can put roles to work. They can be used in the
analysis of constructions that have the same syntactic structure but different
sets of roles. Consider (1) and (2).
(1) a.
Memo ate the spaghetti.
b. Memo liked lasagna.
(2) a.
evi made Harriet her friend. (evi does something to Harriet)
b. evi made Harriet some food.
(evi does something for Harriet)
In the situation denoted by
(1a), Memo is involved in an action, but not in the situation denoted by (1b); he
has different roles, although in both Memo is the subject. In the situation described by
(2a), evi does something to Harriet, whereas in (2b) evi does something for
Harriet. Again, Harriet plays different roles although Harriet is the
indirect object in both examples – indirect object as defined at the end of
Chapter 8.
NPs can be conjoined, as shown
in (3). Certain restrictions apply, and examples that break the restrictions
sound odd, such as (3a, b).
(3) a.
The quiche and I were cooking.
b. Erika made her mother an
omelette and the kitchen a mess.
In (3a), I refers to an Agent, but the quiche does not.
In (3b), her mother refers
to the recipient of the omelette, but the kitchen certainly does not refer to a
recipient. Coordinated NPs must have the same role.
11.2 Criteria
for roles
A major question is how we decide how many roles are
needed in the analysis of a given language. The central point is that, while
intuitions may be the starting point of the analysis, the central criteria are grammatical
(syntactic or morphological) or question–answer pairs such as those used below.
A participant role that is not supported by grammatical criteria is suspicious.
We do not deny appeal to intuitions nor the fact that for a given language some
speakers will agree some of the time about some intuitions. But intuitions are
not infallible, are not always shared and do need to be justified by evidence.
Another important point that must be mentioned here
is that grammatical evidence allows only very general distinctions of meaning
to be made. We will find ourselves working with very general roles, but the
interpretation of any given clause combines information from the syntactic
structure, including roles, information from the lexical verb and information
from the lexical nouns inserted into a given structure.
Examples (13)–(15) introduce other roles.
(13) Hartfield House is in Surrey.
(14) Mr Knightley rode to Kingston.
(15) Eleanor and Marianne travelled from Shropshire.
In (13), Surrey has the role of Place; it denotes the
location of Hartfield House. In (14), Kingston has the role of Goal, in that it denotes
the goal of Mr Knightley’s journey, while in (15) Shropshire denotes the starting point, or source,
of the journey and has the role of Source. Compare the examples in (16) and
(17).
(16) Frank gave a piano to Jane Fairfax.
(17) Jane Fairfax received a piano from Frank.
Example (16), like (14), contains the preposition to. Like (14), it
describes movement, in the sense that the piano moves from a shop or warehouse
to beside Jane Fairfax. This parallel is captured by assigning Jane Fairfax the
role of Goal. Of course, the movement of a possession to its owner is not
exactly the same as the movement of a person or vehicle to a destination, but
this does not require different roles. Different interpretations will result
from the different lexical verbs and lexical nouns.
Similarly, the analogy between
(15) and (17) leads us to assign the role of Source to Frank in (17). The
sentence presents the piano as starting its journey from Frank (whether that is
literally true or not), just as Eleanor and Marianne started their journey from
Shropshire. The important element in the analysis is not just that we can
unpack the meanings of the sentences in each pair and discover parallels, but
the occurrence of the same preposition in (14) and (16), and in (15) and (17).
Important too is the fact that in many languages the equivalents of (14) and
(16), and (15) and (17), contain the same preposition or case affix.
11.3 Roles and
role-players
We said above that grammatical criteria establish
very broad categories. We have already seen that grammatical patterns in
English establish a very general role of Patient; the differences in meaning
that led analysts to propose the roles of Result and Theme arise from the
meaning of specific lexical verbs and should be handled in the lexical entries
for these verbs. We now look again at the role of Agent, invoking the concept
of prototype that was so useful in the discussion of word classes in
Chapter 4 and distinguishing clearly between roles
and role-players.
It has long been demonstrated
that the most reliable and general criteria for Agents – answering questions
such as What does X
do? or What
is X doing?,
completing WH clefts – What
X does is __ and occurring in the progressive – lead to a very
general concept of Agent. Prototypical Agents are human beings acting of their
own volition, initiating an action, carrying it out using their own energy and
producing an effect on something. Jim
in (25) is a prototypical Agent.
(25) Jim was happily chopping logs.
Prototypical Agents allow clauses to be continued by be at it and to
contain adverbs such as enthusiastically
or masterfully,
as in (26a) and (26b).
(26) a. Jim
was chopping logs when Margaret left and was still at it when she got back.
b. Jim was enthusiastically
chopping logs.
Some Agents meet the general criteria outlined above
but achieve some goal by exerting their will-power. Consider the examples in
(27).
(27) a.
Captain Oates died in order to save his comrades.
b. The fugitive lay motionless
in order to avoid discovery.
Verbs such as die and lie do not denote actions but can be put into the
imperative, which is not a test for actions but is a test for volition: Die a hero’s death for Sparta! and
Lie still or they will
see you! An adverb such as accidentally signals that an action is not
voluntary, but it can occur in
imperative sentences and the latter can be given an interpretation.
Thus, Kick the
defender accidentally can be taken as an instruction to kick the defender but to
make it look accidental.
Consider the sentences in (33).
(33) a.
Catriona opened the door with this key.
b. The visas are with the
passports.
c. Sally went to the party with
Andrew.
d. Alan made the loaf with
strong white flour.
e. The builders made the wall
with concrete blocks.
The one noun that obviously denotes an instrument is key in (33a). In the
situation described by (33b), the visas and the passports are in the same place
– the passports are used as an orientation point for stating the whereabouts of
the visas. In the situation described by (33c), Sally and Andrew are in the
same place; they are together as they make their way to the party and they are
together at the party. In the situations described by (33d) and (33e), the
flour and the concrete blocks are perforce in the same place as the loaf and
the wall, since the latter two are made out of the former. The examples in (33)
have in common the notion of being in the same place, for which the term
Comitative (= accompanying) is commonly used.
11.4 Problems
with Patients: planting roses
We finish this chapter with a well-known and
much-discussed set of examples that bear directly on participant roles and the
question of whether they relate only to the objective world of the physicist or
whether they also relate to the world as conceived and perceived by ordinary
speakers of human languages. The examples are in (34).
(34) a. The
gardener planted roses in the garden.
b. The gardener planted the
garden with roses.
Examples (34a) and (34b) are not identical in
meaning. Example (34b) is true if the gardener filled the garden with rose
bushes, whereas (34a) leaves it open whether the rose bushes are all over the
garden or only in one part of it. If (34b) is true, (34a) is true; if (34a) is
true, (34b) might or might not be true depending on the details of a particular
event of planting.
The differences in meaning
accompany differences in syntax; the latter make it clear that we are dealing
with two different constructions. (See Chapter 3 on constructions.)
• There are differences in word order: (34a) planted roses garden vs
(34b) planted garden
roses.
• Garden
is preceded by a preposition in (34a) but not (34b); roses is preceded by
a preposition in (34b) but not (34a).
• The preposition in (34a) is in, but in (34b) it
is with.
• Roses
is the direct object of planted in (34a) – (34a) can be made passive,
Roses
were planted in the garden by the gardener. In (34b) the direct
object
is garden;
witness the passive The
garden was planted with roses by the
gardener.
It was suggested at one time that the difference
between the sentences merely had to do with whether the focus was on the roses
or on the garden. Three facts make this view untenable. There is the contrast
in meaning; the differences in syntax set out in (i)–(iv) above indicate
clearly that different constructions are involved. The differences extend to
other constructions, as shown by (35) and (36).
(35) a. It
was roses that the gardener planted in the garden.
b. It is the garden that the
gardener planted with roses.
(36) a.
Roses are certain to be planted in the garden by the gardener.
b. The garden is certain to be
planted with roses by the gardener.
The (a) examples all have the same ambiguous meaning;
they leave it open whether the roses fill the entire garden or are confined to
one part of it. The (b) examples all have the interpretation that the garden is
filled with roses. The crucial point is that the grammatical criteria show that
in (34a) roses is
the direct object; they are presented as being directly operated on by the
gardener. In (34b), the garden is presented as being directly operated on by
the gardener. In terms of role, roses
in (34a) is Patient and garden in (34b) is Patient. Normally, the Patient
in a clause is interpreted as being completely affected by the action; the roses are completely
affected in (34a), but this tells us nothing about the garden.
12 Grammar and semantics: case, gender,
mood
12.1
Introduction
Syntax is of interest (as is morphology too) because
without syntax human beings would be unable to construct complex messages
conveying information about complex situations, proposals or ideas. We touched
on the relationship between grammar and semantics in Chapter 4 on word classes;
it turned out that the differences between the major classes of words are
central to the use of language. It was not so much the contrast between
reference to people, places and things and reference to actions and states as
the acts that speakers carry out with different classes of words – referring,
predicating and modifying.
One set of criteria for
recognizing word classes has to do with morphosyntactic properties; in many
languages, nouns have suffixes that signal case, while verbs have suffixes that
signal person and number (as described in Chapter 5 on the lexicon and in
Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage). In many languages, verbs also have suffixes
that signal other information that is semantically central. The verb suffixes
of Latin, for example, carry information about tense, aspect, mood and voice,
‘grammatical categories’ which we are about to introduce.
As we saw when we explored word
classes in Chapter 4, many languages have a much richer system of noun and verb
suffixes (inflectional morphology) than English, whose inflectional morphology
is pretty sparse. Much of the work that is done by suffixes in Latin, say, is
done by syntactic constructions in English and falls into the scope of this
book on two counts, being syntactic and being central to the connections
between grammar and meaning.
12.2 Case
As explained in Chapter 11 on roles, the traditional
concept of case has been extended to take in the relationships between verb and
nouns in clauses and the ways in which these relationships are signalled. In
some languages, the relations are marked by affixes added to the verb, but
these would still come under the modern concept of CASE. (It will be helpful to
use capital letters when referring to the modern extended concept and small
letters when referring to the traditional concept or to affixes or, as in
English, to prepositions.) CASE is relevant to English; the relations between
verb and nouns in clauses are signalled by position and by the presence or
absence of prepositions. In the basic active declarative construction (see
Chapter 3), the subject is to the left of the verb, with no preposition, and
the direct object is to the right of the verb, with no preposition. In the
indirect object construction, the indirect object is immediately to the right
of the verb and followed by the direct object.
All other nouns in a clause are
connected to the verb by a preposition. (Note that this does not mean that all
prepositions signal verb–noun relations. They can also signal noun–noun
relations, as in the
vase on the
table, and adjective–noun relations, as in rich in minerals.)
The key question is to what extent any constant meaning attaches to a given
preposition wherever it occurs (and, for languages such as Latin and Russian,
the extent to which a constant meaning attaches to a given case suffix). This
question is discussed in Chapter 11 on roles.
12.3 Gender
In Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage, we mentioned that
Latin nouns fall into various classes called ‘genders’ and that they are
misleadingly named ‘masculine gender’, ‘feminine gender’ and ‘neuter gender’.
The different classes of noun are grammatically important because which class a
noun belongs to determines which case suffixes it takes and which case suffixes
any modifying adjectives take. This is exemplified in (1)–(3) in Chapter 9.
English nouns fall into classes that are more closely linked to natural gender.
There is a major split between animate and inanimate nouns, linked to the use
of it as
opposed to he and
she. The
animate nouns split into male and female, which governs the use of he as opposed to she.
The labels ‘masculine’ and so
on applied to classes of Latin noun can be seen as not entirely arbitrary if we
take into account the fact that nouns denoting women, in whatever capacity, are
typically female: mater
(mother), filia (daughter),
femina (woman)
are feminine; pater (father),
filius (son),
vir (man)
are masculine; servus is
‘male slave’, serva is
‘female slave’ and so on. Neuter nouns appear at first sight to offer no
generalisation, but an important one can be made: no nouns denoting animate
beings are neuter. That generalisation does not apply as neatly to
Indo-European languages as a whole, but it remains true that relatively few
neuter nouns denote animate beings. The ones that are usually mentioned are the
neuter German nouns Kind
(child), Weib
(woman), Madchen
(girl), Fraulein
(young woman), Tier
(animal), Pferd
(horse),
Krokodil
(crocodile).
Current thinking on gender is
that there is always a semantic core to gender systems, but the degree of
semantic justification can vary from almost complete to very little. There are
languages, such as the Bantu language Luganda, spoken in areas of Uganda and
Kenya, which have classes of nouns based on such properties as whether they
denote humans, animals, round objects, thin rigid objects, thin flexible
objects, and so on. There are many nouns that fit the pattern, but the language
has a general class into which go all new or borrowed nouns. Work on the
Australian language Dyirbal (North Queensland) has shown that the working of a
gender system might require knowledge of a society’s myths. In Dyirbal myth,
the moon and the sun are husband and wife; the words for moon and husband are
together in one class and the words for wife and sun are together in another
class. Nouns to do with fire and light go in the same class as the noun for
sun. The satin bird brought fire from the clutches of the rainbow snake, and
the noun denoting the bird is in the same class as the words for sun and fire.
The bite of the hairy mary grub has the same effect as bad sunburn, and the
noun denoting that grub is also in the same class as the noun for sun.
12.4 Mood
Throughout this book we have described speakers using
syntax in order to talk about situations, adopting different perspectives on a
given situation. This was a central part of the discussion of roles in Chapter
11 and continues to be a central part of mood, tense, aspect and voice. It
would be very pleasing and appropriate if ‘mood’ as a technical term in grammar
derived from or was historically associated with ‘mood’ as a term applied to
psychological states. Unfortunately it is not, since the latter is cognate with
a German word and the former derives from the Latin word which has also
survived in Modern English as ‘mode’. The central point is that speakers have
different modes of presenting situations.
12.4.1
Statements, questions, commands
1.
Speakers can make statements about situations – This is happening, That happened.
They can ask questions about situations and about participants in
situations – Is this
happening?, Did
that happen?
They can require or request that a particular situation be created or not
created – Do this,
don’t do that.
2.
They can present situations as factual – This happened, This did happen.
They can present situations as possible – This might happen.
They can present situations as necessary – This has to happen, That must happen.
3.
They can state their authority for making a statement –
Evidently, she has
decided to change jobs, I know for a fact that this plane is unsafe.
4.
They can present situations as the objects of wishes,
hopes, fears – I wish
he had better manners, She’s
afraid he’s going to make a fool of himself.
In Chapter 3 on constructions we looked at two of the
constructions in (1), the declarative construction and the yes–no interrogative
construction. There we described the arrangements of words into phrases and the
syntactic differences between the two; here we are interested in the uses to
which speakers put the constructions, and add the imperative construction which
can be used to issue instructions and requests. (But in many situations,
speakers do not use the imperative; see the exercises at the end of the
chapter.)
The examples in (3) are not normally discussed under
the heading of mood, but the concept of mood should be extended to take them
in. One reason is that the distinction between making a statement, asking a
question and issuing a command is not sufficient, because speakers make
assertions with different degrees of certainty and authority. In English, these
degrees are signalled by means of adverbs such as evidently or apparently, and by phrases such as for a fact. There is
some controversy as to whether a given speaker makes a stronger assertion by
means of That’s
the guy who attacked
the policemen or That
must be the guy who attacked the policemen.
An earlier view was that the
former was the stronger assertion, but another, more recent, view is that the
former is neutral and that it is the speaker who utters must be who
expresses the stronger commitment to the proposition [THAT GUY ATTACK THE
POLICEMEN]. A second reason for extending the discussion is that there are
languages, such as Turkish, in which degrees of certainty are obligatorily
expressed; speakers who have seen an event with their own eyes must use one set
of verb forms while speakers who have not witnessed it but merely heard about
it from others must use another set of verb forms.
12.4.2
Subjunctive mood
Any general investigation of mood must deal with the
business of speakers making assertions with different degrees of certainty or
authority, but the topic is not of central concern here. We are going to focus
on (4) and (2) above. The examples in (4) relate to what is called the
subjunctive mood. It is unfortunate that ‘mood’ is applied to this concept,
although it is a very old usage and difficult to change. It also has some
justification because it is connected with the mode in which speakers choose to
present a situation. The term ‘subjunctive mood’ relates to special sets of
verb forms. English used to have such forms; indeed, in a sense it still does
have them, but they have fallen into disuse and are now almost archaic. They
occur in examples such as If
I were in such difficulties,I would take to my bed, where were occurs with the
singular subject. Most speakers and writers nowadays use was. Another
example, even more unusual, is be
in If this
be true, the plan should be abandoned.
The subjunctive forms were used
in order to present a situation as remote from reality – the speaker being in
difficulties – or as possibly remote from reality – this being true. The
technical term is ‘non-factual’. Why the mysterious term ‘subjunctive’? The
examples just given involve subjunctive forms in subordinate clauses – if I were in such difficulties and
if this be true.
Subordinate clauses were said to be ‘subjoined’ to the main clause in a
sentence, or to be ‘subjuncts’. Hence ‘subjunctive’. This brings us back to (4.)
and the presentation of situations as the objects of hopes, fears and wishes.
To present a situation thus, speakers have to construct a main clause
containing a verb such as hope
or wish with
a subordinate complement clause expressing the hoped-for situation. This type
of construction has disappeared from English but is found in French, as shown
in (3).
(3) French
a. Sa fille est première en
tout
His daughter is first in
everything
b. Il veut que sa fille soit
première en tout
He wants that his daughter is
first in everything
The relevant contrast is between est (is) in (3a) and
soit (is)
in (3b). In the latter, the speaker states that someone has a wish – il veut (he wants) –
and states the content of the wish by means of the complement clause que sa fille soit premiere en tout (that
his daughter is first in everything). The wished-for situation does not exist
at the moment, and this is signaled both by the verb veut and by the subjunctive mood. Est in (3a) is said
to be in the indicative mood. The speaker indicates or refers to a situation
which does exist.
12.4.3
Epistemic and deontic modality
The presentation of situations as possible or
necessary, point (2.) above, is achieved in English by modal verbs. The
essential distinction in this area is between epistemic and deontic modality.
‘Epistemic’
derives from the Greek episteme
(knowledge), and epistemic modality relates to the way (the mode) in
which speakers know a situation; do they know that it exists, do they consider
it as merely possible or do they treat it as necessarily existing (although
they have not seen it themselves) on the basis of evidence?
‘Deontic’ derives from the
Greek verb deo (tie).
Deontic modality relates to whether speakers present a situation as possible
because permission has been given, or as necessary because circumstances
require it, for example because someone with authority has issued a command or
because the situation is such that other actions are ruled out. Epistemic
possibility is expressed by could,
may or might, as in (4).
(4) She
could/might/may be in the library (= It is possible that she is in the library)
May
is neutral but might
and could express
more remote possibility. Note that can is not excluded in principle from expressing
epistemic possibility but occurs very rarely with this interpretation. In
addition to asserting that propositions are epistemically possible, speakers
assert that they are epistemically not possible, as in (5).
(5) She
may/might not be in her room just now (= It is possible that she is not in her
room)
Can/could and may/might derive
historically from different verbs and diverge in meaning to the extent that can and could can be used to
refer to physical or mental ability, whereas may and might cannot. Example (6a) is quite different in
meaning from (6b).
(6) a.
Margaret can/could multiply large numbers in her head (= is/ was able to)
b. Margaret may/might multiply
large numbers in her head (= it is possible that Margaret will multiply large
numbers in her head if you ask her nicely)
When negated, can and could behave very differently from may and might. Example (7)
expresses a stronger commitment to the impossibility of a situation. The gloss
is ‘it is not possible that such and such’, as opposed to ‘it is possible that
not such and such’ for (5).
(7) She
can’t be in her room just now. (= It is not possible that she is in her room
just now.)
Speakers may also present situations as epistemically
necessary, that is, they can convey the message ‘I conclude from the evidence
that this event happened/is going to happen’. Must is typically used, as in (8).
(8) That
must be the worst joke I’ve ever heard.
Speakers also use have to and have got to, which express necessity but are not
modal verbs because they do not have the typical syntax of modal verbs: That’s got to be the worst joke
I’ve ever heard. Many examples of epistemic necessity can be glossed
by means of I conclude
that, as in (9), which could be uttered as the speaker looks at
piles of empty beer cans.
(9) You
must spend a lot of money on beer. [= I conclude that you spend …]
Speakers can also conclude that something is
necessarily not the case. They
can’t be going to tell us used to be the standard British English
construction, but They
mustn’t be going to tell us is the regular construction for speakers
of Scottish English and speakers of American English and is moving into
standard English English.
Deontic possibility has to do
with giving or withholding permission. Grammar books used to assert that may is used in this
sense, but the bulk of speakers both in the UK and in North America use can. Permission can
be given to do something or not to do something; the latter is typically
expressed by verbs other than may.
Having permission not to do something is equivalent to not being obliged to do
something, and the typical expressions are, for example, You don’t have to come to work
tomorrow and You
don’t need to come to work tomorrow. In contrast, not having
permission to do something is expressed by may not [the standard story] or can’t/cannot: You may not/can’t/cannot hand
in your dissertation late.
Deontic necessity is expressed
by must, have to and have got to. The
typical account in grammars of English is that must expresses an obligation placed on individuals
by themselves (I must
read that new novel because I enjoyed all her other novels) as opposed to an obligation
placed on individuals by
others or by circumstances (I have to read that novel because there’s
an obligatory question
on it in the exam,
or I have to go to the dentist because the toothache keeps waking me up). This analysis of must and
have to does not fit the facts of usage. Speakers recognise have got
to as expressing obligations placed on individuals by others or by
circumstances. Have to is neutral, and must is peripheral for
many speakers (as opposed to writers).
As mentioned in the paragraph following example (8) above, have
and have got to are used for the expression of epistemic modality.
The original meaning of have and have got to was and is deontic,
that is, some action is necessary because circumstances make it so. The use of
these verbs in examples such as That has to be the worst joke I’ve ever heard
is more recent. Similarly, the use of ought and should has
changed. Their original meaning is one of moral obligation, as in He should
help his friends, not laugh at them. Another use, possibly derived from the
moral-obligation interpretation, is exemplified in The computer desk
should hold together now that I’ve put in extra screws. A moral obligation
is weaker and more easily avoided than an obligation imposed by
circumstances, and this difference between ought and should on
the one hand and have and have got to on the other is reflected
in the epistemic uses. Speakers who say That book should be in the library
draw conclusions from whatever evidence is available to them, such as
patterns of book-borrowing or the fact that they returned the book to the
library just twenty minutes before. But they draw a much weaker conclusion than
speakers who say the book must be in the library. The latter statement
indicates that no other conclusion is possible, whereas should leaves
room for the conclusion to be wrong.
13
Grammar and semantics: aspect, tense,
voice
13.1 Aspect
13.1.1
Stative and dynamic verbs and clauses
we established a connection
between specific lexical items and particular constructions. A similar
connection exists between specific lexical verbs and aspect, and we begin by
looking at the relevant classes of verbs. Analysts distinguish between lexical
aspect, the different lexical classes of verbs, and grammatical aspect, the
information encoded in the grammars of languages. It is unfortunate that
‘aspect’ has become ambiguous, but the usage is probably here to stay. An
alternative would be to employ the German term ‘Aktionsart’ (action type) for
the lexical classes, as is the practice in work on Slavic languages, and to
confine ‘aspect’ to grammar. The major distinction splitting verbs into two
major lexical classes is between stative and non-stative (or dynamic) verbs.
Stative verbs are not difficult to recognise. Consider the examples in (1).
(1) a. What happened? They went home.
b. What happened? *They
knew his parents.
c. What happened? *They
were very cold.
If a clause can be used to answer the question What happened?, it
contains a non-stative (dynamic) verb. If a clause cannot be so used, it
contains a stative verb. The second clause in (1a) contains went, which is
dynamic and relates to an action. Knew
in (1b) and were
in (1c) both relate to states and are not dynamic but stative.
Stative verbs exclude adverbs such as quickly; *They quickly knew his parents is not acceptable and
*They were quickly very cold is
only acceptable if the interpretation is ‘they quickly became cold’. Stative
verbs occur either not at all in the Progressive (to be discussed below) or
only occasionally. Example (2) is unacceptable, and (3a, b), actual examples
uttered by native speakers of English, are very rare. Stative verbs occur
either not at all in the Progressive (to be discussed below) or only
occasionally. Example (2) is unacceptable, and (3a, b), actual examples uttered
by native speakers of English, are very rare.
(2) *We are knowing this theory.
(3) a.
They’re believing everything you say. [RARE]
b. You’ll soon be owning all
the land round here. [RARE]
Stative verbs do not occur in the WH cleft
construction. This consists of, for example, What she did was followed by a clause. Example (4)
is acceptable while (5a, b) are not.
(4) What she did was e-mail all her friends.
(5) a. *What she did was know this theory.
b. *What she did was be
very cold.
c. *What she did was own
all the land round here.
From the above, it is clear that whether a particular
lexical verb takes the Progressive or not is a weakish criterion for stative
verbs, but that occurrence in the WH cleft construction and occurrence in
clauses answering the question What happened? are
reliable criteria.
13.1.2
Activities, achievements and accomplishments
In many languages, the different clause structures are
signalled by differences in the shape of the verb. The three classes of dynamic
verbs divide into two groups. The first is that of activity verbs, which denote
situations that are seen as going on in the same kind of way over a period of
time and as having no built-in boundary; they allow phrases such as for hours. Examples
are in (6) and should be contrasted with (7).
(6) a.
Harriet talked to Emma for hours.
b. The dog chased the cat
for days.
(7) a. Harriet told Emma the whole story.
b. The dog caught the cat.
What do we mean by ‘built-in boundary’? We are not concerned with the fact that there
are natural limitations on activities, that human beings run out of energy and
concentration and become hungry and thirsty.
The important point is that in
the situation described by (7a) the event of telling a story comes to an end
when the end of the story is reached. The situation described by (6a) has no
built-in boundary; there is no point at which the event of talking comes to an
end and a new event starts. The talking presumably ends when Harriet or Emma
has had enough or they are interrupted, but the clause tells us nothing about
that.
Similarly, the event described
by (7b) comes to an end when the dog has trapped the cat; the event described
by (6b) has no built-in boundary. The difference is brought out by the kinds of
adverbs that can be added; (6a, b) allow adverbs such as for hours that
accord with an activity being stretched out over time. They exclude adverbs
such as in twenty
minutes which
relate to an event reaching its final boundary and being completed. In
contrast, (7a, b) allow adverbs such as in twenty minutes but exclude adverbs such as for hours – Harriet told Emma the whole
story in twenty minutes is fine, but the following examples are peculiar:
*Harriet told Emma the
whole story for twenty minutes and *Harriet talked to Emma in twenty minutes.
Example (7b) is an instance of
an achievement verb. Achievements often have to do with the beginning or end of
an event and are conceived of as having no duration. They might be described as
being all boundary. Other achievement verbs are wink, knock,
stab, as in
Mrs Jennings winked at
Eleanor. The
other class of verbs that have a built-in boundary are called accomplishments.
They related to situations with two components, an activity phase and then a closing phase. Examples
of accomplishment verbs/clauses
are given in (8).
(8) a. The beaver built a dam.
b. Anne played the tune on
the piano.
In the situations described by (8a, b), there is an
activity phase in which the beaver collects materials, say, and builds the dam
higher and higher, and an activity phase in which Anne plays the main body of
the tune.
These events are brought to a
close by the beaver putting the final log or branch in place and Anne playing
the final note. One difference between accomplishment and achievement verbs is
worth pointing out. Both types can occur in the Progressive, but with different
interpretations. The
beaver was building the dam presents one event of building as
ongoing; Mrs Jennings
was winking at Eleanor is most straightforwardly taken as presenting
not one event of winking but several events.
13.1.3
Grammatical aspect in English: Progressive and Simple aspect
Putting stative verbs on one side, we can say that
English verbs occur in the Progressive or Simple forms. The Progressive is a
syntactic construction consisting of be plus the participle in -ing. The Simple
form consists of just the verb stem plus the suffixes whose central or
prototypical forms are -s
or -ed.
Examples are given in (9)–(11).
(9) a. Jane was playing the piano. ACTIVITY
b. Jane played the piano.
(10) a. Tess was knocking at the door. ACHIEVEMENT
b. Tess knocked at the
door.
(11) a. Frank Churchill was crossing the street.
ACCOMPLISHMENT
b. Frank Churchill crossed
the street.
All the above examples present events as taking place
in past time. (Tense and time will be discussed below.) Presented with such
examples out of context, native speakers of English take the Progressive
examples of ACTIVITY or ACCOMPLISHMENT verbs to present a single event as
ongoing. They take the examples with the Simple form as presenting a single
completed event. This is not the only possible interpretation of the Simple
form in the past tense, for adverbs such as every day or four or five times a day can be added to examples such as
(9b), (10b) and (11b), giving them a habitual interpretation. That is, they
present an event as happening regularly over a long period of time, as a habit.
Consider now the examples in (12)–(14).
(12) a. Jane is visiting Emma. ACTIVITY
b. Jane visits Emma.
(13) a. Tess is knocking at the door. ACHIEVEMENT
b. Tess knocks at the
door.
(14) a. Frank Churchill is crossing the street.
ACCOMPLISHMENT
b. Frank Churchill crosses
the street.
The examples with the Progressive forms, like the
ones in (9)–(11), are interpreted as presenting a single event as ongoing. (In
the case of the achievement verb in (13), the knocks are repeated, but it is
possible to interpret the series of repeated knocks as a single event. For
present purposes, we concentrate on (12) and (14).)
13.2 Tense in
English
Traditional grammars of English
talk of past, present and future tense. past and present tense go together,
since they are both formed from verb stems plus the suffixes -s and -ed. The traditional
future tense is formed from the auxiliary verbs shall and will plus the verb stem (although many speakers do
not use shall).
That is, the traditional future tense is a syntactic construction but the past
and present tenses are single words. This grammatical difference should make us
suspect that the ‘future tense’ is not a tense at all but has some other
meaning.
It turns out that the will construction
does not just place an event in future time but in many cases signals the
intention of the speaker; will
derives historically from a verb that was equivalent to want or intend and can still
be used with this meaning. In examples with first-person subjects, such as I’ll return the book tomorrow and
I’ll meet you at the
airport, the speaker’s intention is part of the message. In examples
with thirdperson animate subjects, such as She’ll be in London tomorrow or He’ll hand in the essay on Friday,
the speaker may be talking about the third person’s intentions but may just be
making a prediction about a future event. In examples with third-person
inanimate subjects, it is difficult to find a reference to intentions; The snow will arrive tomorrow is
simply a prediction.
The complex interpretation of
the ‘future tense’ construction is not unique to English. In many Indo-European
languages, speakers and writers typically refer to future time with verbs of
movement. Many instances of a future tense derive historically from verbs of
obligation (French) or from verbs of volition (Bulgarian, Modern Greek). Some
Native American languages in North America have sets of verb forms that are
used for presenting situations as remote from reality (as unreal or irrealis).
These forms are also used for referring to situations set in future time. We
talk of future events in terms of intentions and obligations because future
time, unlike past and present time, cannot be inspected.
Even where verbs of movement
are used, as in I’m
going to take the weekend off and start afresh on Monday, there is a strong element
of intention. Where future events are presented by means of present-tense
verbs, the events to must be part of a schedule or plan that would only fail to
operate in most unusual circumstances. Consider (15).
(15) a.
Real play Valencia next Sunday.
b. I leave for Paris next week.
Speakers who utter (15a) or (15b) place the football
match and the departure for Paris in present time because the events are known,
arranged and regarded as inevitable. They are in the speaker’s present time. In
contrast, (16) in most contexts is impossible because, outside the world of
James Bond films, human beings cannot control volcanoes.
13.3 The
English Perfect
Example : The snow has blocked the track. Analysts
have found it difficult to classify the Perfect as an aspect or a tense. It has
two constituents, has or
have and a
past participle, here blocked.
The Perfect has been defined as focusing upon the presently accessible consequences
of a past event, rather than upon the past event per se; this is summed up in
the traditional formula that the Perfect has current relevance. The Perfect in
standard written English has four major uses, exemplified in (18).
(18) a. I have written up my thesis. resultative
b. The Minister has (just)
arrived. hot news/recent past
c. I’ve been at work for
six hours. extended now/persistent situation
d. Have you ever visited
Doubtful Sound?
Yes, I have been there. experiential/indefinite
anterior Examples (18a–d) go from the most accessible to the least accessible
consequences. The speaker who utters (18a) has the finished thesis to show (on
disk or in paper form). If (18b) is uttered, the listeners know that the
Minister is there with them. The speaker who utters (18c) is saying ‘I started work six hours ago and as
you can see I am still here, mission unaccomplished’. The consequences of these
three examples are visible, as are the consequences of (17), another
resultative. The consequences of (18d) are not so obvious. The question is
about a possible visit at an unspecified time in the past, hence the term
‘indefinite anterior’. The answer, Yes, I have been there, does not specify a time but
merely contains an assertion that a visit to Doubtful Sound took place. The
consequences might be that the speaker can provide information about how to get
to Doubtful Sound, or has happy memories of the landscape and sea, or still has
lumps from the bites of the amazingly vicious sandflies.
13.4 Voice
The category of voice has to do with the different
constructions available for taking an event or state and presenting it from
different perspectives. Suppose we take a situation in which someone attacked
someone else. We can to choose to keep all the participants out of our report
by using (20).
(20) There was an attack yesterday.
13.4.1 The
passive
We can choose to mention the person(s) attacked, the
Patient(s), but to leave out the attacker(s).
(21) Emma and Harriet were attacked yesterday. If we
want to make sure that our addressee gets all the details, we mention the Agent
and the Patient, and we have a choice of construction, as in (22).
(22) a. Emma and Harriet were attacked by those
ruffians.
b. Those ruffians attacked
Emma and Harriet yesterday.
Example (20) is an instance of what is called the
existential construction, so-called because speakers use it to talk about the
existence of people, things, ideas and whole events. We say nothing more about
it here. We pass on to two of the three major constructions that are our
concern. Consider the passive in (21). This is the main use of the passive both
in speech and in writing: to mention only the Patient and to omit the Agent.
From passives such as (21), listeners can infer an Agent, and adverbs can be inserted,
such as deliberately in
(23), which bring the Agent very close without actually mentioning who played
that role. (23) The vase was smashed deliberately. Examples (21) and (23) are
instances of the ‘short passive’, while (22a) is an example of the ‘long
passive’. Even in the long passive, the Agent noun is in an optional
prepositional phrase and is presented as peripheral.
13.4.2 The
middle
The third major construction in English is the
middle. Typical middles listed in grammars of English are given in (34). They
have to do with permanent properties of entities.
(34) a. This sweater washes well.
b. This book reads well.
Many middles have what is called as ‘episodic’
interpretation, that is, they denote a single episode or event. Examples are in
(35).
(35) a. These cars sold very quickly last week.
b. It will take years for
the Mersey to clean.
c. The course is jumping
well.
d. One bomb didn’t guide
and crashed.
Example (35a) refers to a single event of selling;
(35b) refers to a single, albeit lengthy, cleaning event; (35c) refers to a
property of a particular course at a particular period of time; and (35d)
refers to a single event of a bomb failing to guide and crashing. Some analysts
see the middle construction as having a strong resemblance to the passive, but
there is little justification for this view. The obvious point to make is that
English middle clauses and English passive clauses share no syntactic
properties; middles can only contain one noun phrase and the verb is active,
whereas passives can contain a subject noun phrase and a second noun phrase
preceded by by,
as noted above. The middle construction has no auxiliary verb, whereas the
passive has the auxiliary verbs be
or get.
Type of participant is denoted
by the subject noun phrase in middle clauses is in passive clauses. In passive
clauses, the subject noun phrase refers to an entity undergoing some process,
that is to a Patient
Example :
- The vase was/got
broken and
- This candidate was elected
To answer these questions
- What happened to the vase? and
- What happened to this
candidate?
In the example above, Does the subject noun phrase in a
middle clause denote a Patient.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar