has been working is working
3. Category of temporary perspectiveness:
Future Nonfuture
will work works
would work worked
will have worked have/has worked
will be working is working
The author's verbal system is very individual and interesting for those students and teachers who wants to expand their scientific skills in Philological, sphere and continue to research some discussible problems, namely:
l. What is the main factor of the evolution in the verbal system that can be presented in the social community?
2. Is there the future category or future tense?
Can you as a teacher find more examples to argue your discoveries and explain them to students more popularly then in the monograph by A.I. Dorodnyh, and others.
M.Y. Blokh in his A Course in Theoretical English Grammar underlines:
«Language is means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language is social by nature: it is inseparably connected with the people who are its creators and users; it grows and develops together with development society».
Grammatical time, or tense, is one of the typical functions of the finite verb. The author describing the present tense as opposed to the past tense accentuates the stylistic features and peculiarities in the linguistic circumstances, specifically «the historic present»,
If we say, «Two plus two makes four», the linguistic implication of it is «always; at the moment of speech».
If we say, «I never take his advise», we mean «at the present time».
If we say «In our millennium social formations change quicker then in the previous periods of man's history', the linguistic, temporal content of it is «in our millennium including the moment of speech»… Here worthy of note are utterances where the meaning of the past tense stands in contrast with the meaning of some adverbial phrase referring the event to the present moment.
The seeming linguistic paradox of such cases consists exactly in the fact that their two-type indications of time, one verbal-grammatical, and one adverbal-lexical, approach the same event from two opposite angles. It is the transpositional use of the present tense with the past adverbials, either included in the utterence as such, or expressed in its contectual environment. The stylistic purpose of this transposition, known under the name of the «historical present» is to create a vivid picture of the event reflected in the utterance.
e.g.: Then he turned the corner, and what do you think happens next? He faces nobody else than Mr. Greggs accompanied by his private secretary!
The «historical present» will be included in our practical part that is why we want to describe this subject in details.
The Historical Present
The English «historical present» is usually described as a way of making storytelling events more vivid.
e.g.: Last night Blackie (cat) comes with this huge dead rat in her mouth and drops it right at ray feet.
These utterence has an adverbial of time «last night» establishing the time of the event in the past, while the actions are described in the present tense. The actual time is remote from the time of utterence, but the actions described are presented as if they coincide with the time of the utterence.
e.g.: My parents worked in the field all day. And I work in the fields all day like them…
The so-called «historical present» is characteristic of popular narrative style (or fictional present or fictional narrative). In Older English, the simple present was used more widely with reference to a present event which would now be described by use of the present progressive (durative):
e.g.: I go = I'm going.
The «historical present» describes the past as if it is happening now; it conveys something of the dramatic immediacy of an eye-witness account.
e.g.: I couldn't believe it! Just as we arrived, up comes Ben and slaps me on the back as if we're life-long friends. «Come on, old pal», he says. Let me buy you a drink! I'm telling you, I nearly fainted on the spot».
A very different use of the present tense in reference to the past is that found with verbs of communication:
e.g.: The ten o'clock news says that there's to be storm. Such verbs include also verbs like understand, hear, learn which refer to the receptive end of the communication process.
e.g.: I hear that poor Mr. Simpson has gone into hospital.
These sentences would also be acceptable with the simple past or present perfective, but the implication of the present tense seems to be that although the communication event took place in the past, its result - the information communicated - is still operate.
e.g.: The Book of Genesis speaks of the terrible fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Thus, although the Book of Genesis wsa written thousands years ago, it still «sreaks» to us at the present. The notion that the past can remain in the present also explains the optional use of the present tense in sentences reffering to writers, composers, artists, etc., and their extant works.
e.g. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky draws/drew his characters from sources deep in the Russian soul.
It is something more than a figure of speech to suggest that author is still able to speak to us through his works.
The present tense can even be used, without respect to any patticular work, for general artistic characterization of the author, but biographical details of the artist's life must be normally reported through the past tense. Hence there is an interesting contrast between:
e.g.: Murasaki write/wrote of life in 11th century Japan.
cf: Murasaki wrote in 11th century Japan.
The simple present is usually used in Newspaper Headlines.
e.g.: «NO SELL-OUT» SAYS P.M.
TRADE UNIONS BACK MERGER
There is a close connection between the «historical present» of above, and the simple present as used in the «Fictional narrative». The only difference is that whereas the events narrated by means of the «historical present» are REAL, those narrated by the «fictional historical present» are IMAGINARY.
This is stylistically marked in contrast to the normal convention of the past tense for store-telling.
e.g.: The crowd swarms around the gateway, and seethes with delighted anticipation; excitement grows, as suddenly their hero makes his entrance…
A special exception in the use of the present tense in stage direction.
e.g.: Millinson enters. The girls immediately pretend to be working hard. William assures a businesslike air, picks up two folders, and makes for door.
Here the present tense is used by convention, as if to represent the idea that events of the play are being performed before our eyes as we read the script.
In his monography M.Y. Blokh debates a point how to use shall or will future and marks «The view that shall and will retain their modal meanings in all their uses was defended by such a recognized authority on English grammar of the older generation of the twentieth century linguists as O. Jespersen. In our times, quite a few scholars, among them the successors of Descriptive Linguistics, consider these verbs as part of the general set of modal verbs, «modal auxiliaries», expressing the meanings of capability, probability, permission, obligation, and the like».
The modal nature of the «shall/will + Infinitive» combinations can be shown by means of equivalent substitutions.
e.g.: He who does not work neither shall he eat.
cf.: He who does not work must not eat.
As regards the second question-the aspect of the verb in modern English - M.Y. Blokh picks up two main variants: the continuous and the perfective.
l. The continuous forms are aspective because reflecting the inherent character of the process named by verb, they do not, and cannot, denote the timing of the process. The opposition constituting the corresponding category is effected between the continuous and non-continuous forms.
2. The true nature of the perfect is temporal aspect reflected in its own opposition, which cannot be reduced to any other oppositions. The categorial member opposed to the perfect will be named «imperfect or non-perfect».
The author underlines that the aspective meanings can be inbuilt in the semantic structure of the verb and, on the other hand, the aspective meanings can also be represented in variable grammatical forms and categories. At this point of our consideration, we should differ the categorial terminology and the definitions of categories.
A category, in normal use, cannot be represented twice in one and the same word-form. The integral verb-form cannot display at once more then one expression of each of recognized verbal categories, though it does give a representive expression to all the verbal categories taken together through the corresponding obligatory featuring. So in the verbal system of English there are two temporal categories:
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