perfect, and in some instances, there is little temporal difference between
the past and the present perfect.
Morphologically, English has two aspects: the perfective and the progres-
sive. These two aspects work together with tense to yield various temporal
sequences. The perfective is formed with either a present or past tense form
of the auxiliary
have in conjunction with an -
ed participle. The present per-
fect is used to indicate an event that started at some time in the past but
continues to the present (and possibly into the future). In the example
below, the
verb phrase have made indicates that the progress defined in the
sentence began in the early fifties and has continued until the present.
In many ways, then, we
have made progress since the early fifties.
(BNC C9S 63)
In the next example, the verb phrase
has produced indicates that from its
inception until the present, vaccine research has not resulted in many
useful vaccines.
Vaccine research
has produced few
hopeful candidates, and although
millions of dollars are poured into research, an effective vaccine is years
away.
(CIC)
The events in these two sentences would begin at points (a) and (b) on
Figure 6.6 and continue until the present.
190
INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Present
(a) early fifties
(b) beginning of vaccine research
Past
Future
(c) were not famous
(e)
working & receiving
(d)
not arrested,
shot,
made
(f)
was reading
FIGURE
6.6
Aspect in English.
The past perfect is also used to describe an event that occurred in the
past, but the event ended prior to beginning of some other event. The
example below contains a past tense verb (
were) in the first clause followed
by three instances of the past perfect. In the first clause, the women are
described as having not been famous at one particular time in the past.
The three past perfect verbs in the second clause describe activities (e.g.
making pornographic movies) that had not happened during a period
ending with the assertion of the women not being famous.
English words: Structure and meaning
191
The women were not particularly famous, and none
had been arrested
for subversive activities, or
[had] been shot
for spying, or
had made
pornographic movies, or anything.
(ICE-GB W2F-009-139)
The events in this sentence are located in Figure 6.6 at point (c), when the
women were famous, and during the periods of time beginning at (d): a
period during which the women had not been shot or arrested, or made
pornographic movies.
In Contemporary English, the past perfect is being replaced by the sim-
ple past. For instance, in the example below, the act of arriving concluded
prior to the start of the conversation. However, instead of
had arrived being
used
in the first clause, the simple past tense form
arrived is used instead.
Shortly after I arrived, there arose a new topic for conversation.
(BNC A0F 774)
The reason that the past perfective verb form is unnecessary is that the
temporal sequence
is conveyed by the adverbial Shortly after.
In other cases, there simply is not a real difference between the present
perfect and the past. In the example below, there would be little differ-
ence in meaning between the simple past tense verb
left and the present
perfect
has left:
Uh, ya know everybody just
left the room.
(CIC)
... everybody
has just
left the room.
Again, the time sequence is conveyed by the adverbial
just, making the
verb form redundant.
The progressive aspect is formed with a present or past tense form of
the verb
be followed by an -
ing participle. This aspect describes an ongoing
event that began in either the past or the present. The example below con-
tains two present progressive verb forms that indicate that the working
and receiving described in the two sentences are ongoing activities in the
present.
Doug
is working on a graphic display of housing sales. He
is receiving a
considerable amount of help from Terry.
(CIC)
These activities are located at point (e) in Figure 6.6. In the next example,
the act of reading is similarly an ongoing activity. However, while this
activity
was ongoing when it occurred, it is now over.
That’s funny cos I
was reading somewhere that historically if you said
someone has left his coat you could mean male or female
(ICE-GB S1A-006-217)
This activity began at point (f) in Figure 6.6.
The perfective and progressive aspects are not mutually exclusive. They
can be combined to produce varying time frames. In the example below,
the act of listening began in the past, lasted for three days, and is over (the
perfective interpretation). However, the use of the progressive aspect on
listening emphasizes the ongoing nature of the listening.
I
have been listening to ‘Shepherd Moons’ for three days straight
(BNC ED7 1769)
Had only the perfective been used, as in the example below,
the ongoing
nature of the listening would not have been as apparent.
I
have listened to ‘Shepherd Moons’ for three days straight
However, the difference in meaning between the perfective/progressive
and perfective versions of the sentence is subtle.
192
INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Summary
Words in English have a particular structure: all have a base to which
various kinds of prefixes and suffixes can be attached. English has
many derivational prefixes and suffixes. These affixes can change the
meaning of a word (e.g.
happy/
unhappy) or its part of speech (e.g.
happy
[adjective]/
happiness [noun]). English also has a small number of inflec-
tions: -
ed to mark the past tense on regular verbs, for instance, or -
est to
create the superlative form of an adjective. Unlike derivational affixes,
inflections do not change the meaning
or part of speech of a word, but
instead mark various grammatical relations.
There are various ways to study the meaning of words. Both lexicog-
raphers and semanticists have done extensive work in the area of lexi-
cal semantics. Lexicographers have developed a methodology for deter-
mining the meaning of words for purposes of creating dictionaries.
Semanticists have developed various theories designed to study the
meaning of words.
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