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Tense and aspect

423a

Past tense

Past tense forms can make a speech act more polite:

A: I wondered if you’d help me out in the garden, perhaps, like, if it’s still nice

when you come home from school? 

B: Yeah. 

(compare the more direct: I wonder if you will help me …)

A: How did you want to pay?

B: I’ll pay cash.

(compare the more direct: How do you want to pay?)

[store assistant taking customer’s personal details to order goods]

What 

was the name and address please?

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539 Glossary for any unfamiliar terms

Speech acts | 709

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Progressive aspect

Progressive aspect can also contribute to soften the directness of a speech act, and

may combine with past tense to make an utterance doubly hedged:

A: Anybody here? 

B: Mary. But no Sandra no Lisa. Not yet anyhow. 

A: I was hoping Sandra’s not in cos Roger says to me when he went, you know,

he was standing there, he says to me, ‘It’ll have to be Thursday at half past

ten.’ Well Sandra says that she couldn’t make it half past ten Thursday, so

he had to come yesterday. So 

I’m wondering if either of them are here. Or if

Sandra’s here. Mind you, it’s more likely to be Sandra than Lisa cos Lisa’s

usually here at half seven. 

B: I was going to say, the blinds were still closed and I didn’t see Sandra’s car

at all.

Perfect aspect

Perfect aspect may also occur in a softening/hedging function:

A: I’ve been wanting to ask you if you’d help me write a research proposal.

B: Sure. No problem.

[at a formal meeting]

A: The first thing I want to do is just obviously say thanks for filling in all those

exercises you did for me, the sorting things. And I say we had all the others

through in the post. So your second one will probably be waiting for me

when I get back Margaret. And thanks for bringing the other ones back

today. I just wanted to get your impressions, how you’d found doing the two

exercises. Erm, 

had you found them okay to do? Or?

B: Yeah. Interesting. 

A: They were okay, were they? 

C: Yeah. 

(compare: Did you find them okay to do?)