CHAPTER 3. THE VERB AND ITS GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES 5 страница
The other reason for the controversy of opinions about the scope of the category of mood is the fact that the grammatical category of the mood is a component of the functional-semantic category of modality - a complex and heterogeneous category, which includes other means of expressing various modal meanings. One of the regular means of expressing a whole range of modal meanings are modal verbs which express such meanings as ability, possibility, potentiality, necessity, obligation, supposition etc. Some authors include the combinations of modal verbs with Infinitive into the system of grammatical moods and in this case the number of moods grows considerably. Thus, the system of moods presented by Max Deutchbein includes 4 moods: Cogitativus, Optativus, Yoluntativus and Expectativus with 4 submoods in each. His 'submoods' include the combinations of may+ Inf (may go) which he calls The Permissive Mood, can +Inf. which is called The Potential Mood [Deutchbein 1926, p. 112]. As we can see, the problem here is the differentiation between the morphological category of the mood and other means of expressing modality. If we include all the modal verbs with Infinitives into the grammatical category of mood the number of moods may exceed sixteen.
There is no space and no need to enumerate all the possible classifications of moods. In our interpretation and classification of moods we shall follow the classification system of moods presented by A.I.Smirnitsky. It appears to be the most consistent because it is meaning-oriented and it also takes into consideration the difference between an analytical form and a free syntactic combination. His system of moods includes six moods: the Indicative, the Imperative, Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, the Conditional Mood and the Suppositional mood. Since the forms of mood differ semantically in the way
they present the action (as real, unreal or hypothetical) it is possible to place the forms of moods in accordance with this scale.
| The action is presented as:
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| real | hypothetical
| unreal | |
| The type of mood
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| Indicative | Imperative | Subjunctive I Suppositional | Subjunctive II Conditional |
The position of the Imperative mood on the one hand and Subjunctive I and Suppositional on the other show that they occupy different points on the reality/ unreality scale: the Imperative Mood is closer to the Indicative whereas Subjunctive I and Suppositional - to unreality.
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Let us analyze the system of English moods briefly. The opposition constituting the category of mood in English can be characterized as privative polynominal - each form has a formal and a semantic marker of its own. The Indicative mood presents the action as real from the speaker's point of view (whether the action really corresponds to the state of things in reality is another matter). It is the most frequently used type of mood and it has the greatest number of forms. The forms of the Indicative mood are used in two communicative types of sentences: declarative and interrogative. The borderline between the Indicative mood and other moods is not absolutely rigid. We have already seen that the forms of the Future tense contain the meaning of prediction which brings them close to the Suppositional mood which specializes in the expression of hypothetical actions. The comparison of such sentences as "If he turns up tell him to -wait for me" and "Should he turn up tell him to wait for me" shows that both the verbal forms present the action as hypothetical but differ in the degree of certainty which is higher in the case of Present Indefinite Indicative.
The Imperative mood is used to express inducement to action, which means that the speaker considers the action as desirable. Yet the action is not yet real because inducement refers to the future even if this future is just a blink away from the present moment. The use of the Imperative mood is restricted to only one communicative type of sentences - imperative sentences. This restriction gave grounds for some scholars to suppose that it is a syntactic rather than a morphological phenomenon - they speak about the imperative communicative type of the sentence [HpxeHbeBa 1956, 112-113].
The forms of the Imperative mood do not vary as much as the forms of the Indicative - the usual form of the Imperative coincides with the forms of the Simple Infinitive without 'to', the negative forms are built with the help of the auxiliary do. Occasionally we come across the forms of the Continuous Imperative like "Don't be talking*." and also the Perfect Imperative, e.g. "Have done with it\". The reference to the future in the Perfect Imperative does not disappear, however. The perfect forms express not a prior action (otherwise why induce the hearer to do something?) but rather the impatience of the speaker to have this action done.
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The forms of the Imperative mood are occasionally transposed into the sphere of the Indicative mood. E.g. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone (M. Atwood). As we can see, the Imperative mood in this sentence loses the meaning of inducement and expresses the meaning of condition which is verified by the possibility to transform the sentence, cf. If you laugh the world laughs with you... (compare also with the Russian: Foeopu, umo xoueuib, x me6e ecepaeno ne noeepto).
The traditional Oblique moods embrace four moods: Subjunctive II and Conditional which present the action as contradicting reality and Subjunctive I and the Suppositional which present the action as hypothetical, desirable or possible. The forms of Subjunctive II are homonymous to the Past forms of the verb. The non-perfect forms are used to denote an action which contradicts the state of things in the present ( / wish the boat had a different name), and perfect forms denote an action which is contrary to the state of things in the past (/ wish I had given the boat a different name). This use of the time correlation forms to express purely temporal meanings manifests the interaction between the grammatical categories of tense and time correlation. Subjunctive II is used in the following types of sentences:
- in simple sentences to express an unreal wish or desire: If only he were free! "(J. Galsworthy);
- in subject clauses after the principal clause of 'it's time' type, e.g. It's time I turned over a new leaf (D. du Maurier). The presentation of the action as contradicting the real state of things becomes especially vivid when we compare the use of Subjunctive II and the Infinitive after the 'it's time' clause. Followed by the Infinitive the sentence expresses a desirable action which probably has more chances to be fulfilled whereas the Subjunctive is used when the desired action cannot be fulfilled for some reasons;
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- in predicative clauses introduced by the conjunctions as if, as though, e.g. You look as if you had a toothache (O. Wilde). The role of the conjunctions as if, as though in such sentences is very great, they serve as signals of turning from the real state of things to unreal. This is the only type of predicative clauses which introduce actions presented by the speaker as unreal. The semantics of these conjunctions adds the meaning of comparison to such sentences and they should be distinguished from adverbial clauses of comparison,which are introduced by the same conjunctions but differ by the type of predicates in the principal clause. E.g. He looked as if he were angry — a predicative clause; He looked at me as if he wanted to say something - an adverbial clause.
- in object clauses after the verb wish in the principal clause, e.g. / wish I had your talent (I. Shaw).- Such sentences express a wish contrary to reality, something that cannot be realized. This contradiction to the real state of things becomes especially explicit in the process of translating the '-wish' sentences into Russian where this idea is expressed not by the form of the Subjunctive mood, but by negation, e.g. }Kajib, nmo y menx Hem Bawezo majianma. In some contexts the meaning of unreality after the verb wish becomes somewhat weakened, especially in the cases when the subordinate clause contains the modal verb will in the form of Subjunctive II. Such sentences usually express a tentative request, e.g. "/ wish you'dpoint her out to me" "There, over there" (W. Wool/);
- in adverbial clauses of comparison, concession and condition, e.g. Then she buried her face in her hands, as if some inexorable mechanism had started (J. Fowles).
The Conditional mood is built with the help of the auxiliary verbs should/would and the Infinitive of the notional verb. As in the case of Subjunctive II, the non-perfect and perfect forms of the Infinitive have a temporal meaning rather than the meaning of priority. The Conditional mood expresses an unreal action which is the consequence of an unreal condition. Therefore it is usually used in the principal clause of a complex sentence with the subordinate clause of unreal condition or concession which has the predicate' in the form of Subjunctive II, e.g. If she could have been compressed to about three quarters of her real width, she would have been very attractive (K. Amis). The Conditional mood also occurs in the structure of simple sentences with implied condition, e.g. // would be a mistake to do so.
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Occasionally the Conditional and Subjunctive II are used to express a tentative request or advice. E.g. "If I were you ", says Paul, " I'd tell you to get the next boat to St Antoine and get the next plane out to Barbados and get the hell back home" (M.Atwood). The conversation takes place on one of the islands in the Caribbean between a Canadian journalist and a local man. Shifting himself from the real into the possible world the man gives the lady very tentative advice to leave the place as staying there becomes dangerous because of a possible coup. A few lines later he repeats his advice putting it more bluntly in the form of the Imperative Mood: "Take the plane, lady" (idem.) •
The other two moods - Subjunctive I and the Suppositional mood are different in form but very similar in meaning and contexts of use. The forms of Subjunctive I are homonymous to the forms of the Infinitive without the particle to . The Suppositional mood is built with the help of the auxiliary should. Both are used to express an action which the speaker presents as hypothetical, possible, desirable etc. Both are used in the same type of clauses: subject clauses of the it's necessary (desirable, possible etc.) type (It's necessary that we go (should go) there); object clauses after the verbs suggest, propose, demand, fear (I suggest that we do (should do) it immediately); adverbial clauses of purpose, concession and condition (Whatever the reason be (should be) the fact remains). The only difference between these two moods is their use in the simple sentence where only Subjunctive I is used, e.g. Long live friendship and peace!
A question arises: if these two moods appear to be doublets, why do they coexist in the language? The difference between them appears to be regional -the forms of the Suppositional moods are common in the British variant of the English language whereas Subjunctive I is used in the American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand variants of English. In the American variant of the English language the construction "I suggest that we do it" is quite common whereas the construction with should is felt to be 'bookish' or 'British' [Jacobsson 1975, 222]. This regional differentiation is the result of the historical development of the English language. The forms of Subjunctive I were commonly used on the British Isles - the language of W.Shakespeare is rich in the use of these forms ( e.g. "Shall I send my daughter Kate to you:" "I prey you do" (The Taming of the Shrew"), but later gave way to the Suppositional mood in accordance with the general tendency of the English language towards the use of analytical forms. Now the forms of Subjunctive I are considered in British English as obsolete, almost extinct [Sweet 1898, 109], Some authors express an opinion that the forms of Subjunctive I will soon disappear completely from the language except the well established phrases like God bless you!. But in the other variants of the English language these forms came to stay and were never ousted by the analytical forms, probably due to their simplicity and convenience.
Nowadays, much under the pressure of the American variant of the language, the forms of Subjunctive I undergo the process of reintroduction into the British variant of English and occur quite frequently. The language purists call such cases Americanisms but then there are quite a lot of such 'Americanisms' in the language of W.Shakespeare as we have already mentioned.
7. The grammatical category of voice is a complicated category and its study involves a number of grammatical problems, such as the problem of transitivity, derivational morphology, the actual division of the sentence, discourse arrangement etc. It occupies a very special place in the verbal categories. Its specificity lies in the fact that, unlike the other verbal categories, the change of voice is accompanied by the reconstruction of the whole sentence.
It is a grammatical category which involves the relations between the action, its doer and its object (the semantic level) and between the predicate, subject and object of the sentence (syntactic level). There exist numerous interpretations of this category given by different scholars. Some consider that
voice reflects the relations between the action and the object, others - as the relations between the subject and the object of the action, still others - as a grammatical category which shows whether the action is or is not directed at the subject of the sentence. The comparison of these different interpretations shows that the difference between them lies not in the essence but in the focus of the linguist's attention.
In fact the category of voice reflects the relations between the two structures of the sentence; the surface, or syntactic structure and the deep, or semantic structure. This interpretation of the essence of this category was first given by a group of Leningrad scholars headed by Professor A. A. Kholodovich and it seems very convincing. They undertook the study of this category on the material of several languages. In their study of voice they differentiate the relations between the units of the syntactic level: the syntactic subject and object and the units of the semantic level: the semantic subject and object, or the agent and the recipient of the action. The scheme of the relations between these two levels was called the diateze and voice is defined as the grammatically marked diateze, i.e. the regular indication of the relations between the units of the syntactic and the semantic levels of the sentence by the form of the verb [ripoSjieMBi xeopmi rpaMMaTHHectcoro sanora 1978]. This interpretation appears to be quite adequate as it points out the morphological character of the voice and its correlation to the syntactic and semantic structures of the sentence, thus binding morphology, syntax and semantics together.
The category of voice is constituted by the binary privative opposition Passive :: Non-passive. The formal marker of the Passive voice is the auxiliary be and the morpheme of PII. In colloquial speech get is also used, e.g. He got arrested. Get is most often used in colloquial speech to imply that the subject of the sentence suffers adversely as a result of the action, e.g. My friend got fired. Even when the subject does not suffer adversely the get-passive suggests that the subject has been truly affected by the action, e.g. My friend got promoted last week [Berk 1999, 118].
In terms of diateze the form of the active voice marks the parallelism between the syntactic and semantic structures of the sentence. E.g., in the sentence They asked no questions the syntactic subject they corresponds to the semantic subject, or the agent of the action and the syntactic object questions -to the semantic object, or the recipient of the action. In the sentence No questions were asked the Passive voice marks the absence of such parallelism: the syntactic subject questions corresponds to the semantic object and the semantic subject they is not represented in the syntactic structure of the sentence.
The meaning of the Active voice is rather wide and indefinite and therefore best defined negatively as 'non-passive'. The forms of the active voice can manifest that:
- the action is directed at.the object (which is the case with transitive verbs), e.g. He loved a crowd, he wanted to see smart people and be seen (S. Maugham);
- the action is not directed at an object (with intransitive verbs), e.g. He stumbled about the room cursing breathlessly (D. Lodge);
- the subject of the sentence is both the agent and the recipient of the action ( the so-called reflexive meaning), e.g. He cut himself while shaving. He dressed quickly and went out.
- the subject and object of the sentence are both agents and recipients of the action (the so-called reciprocal meaning), e.g. They blamed each other. They kissed and parted.
- the meaning of an agent is ascribed to the object (the so-called middle voice), e.g. The book sold in two million copies. The cloth washes well This use of the Active voice is referred to as pseudo-passive [Berk 1999, 122] and the cases of pseudo-passive are numerous. E.g. // was rubbish, but annoying! the sort of rubbish that wouldn 't sell! As every Forsyte knows, rubbish that sells is not rubbish at all - far from it (J. Galsworthy). I cannot, of course, tell Stew that nothing is doing (S. Turow).
These examples can, in fact, be treated as cases of neutralization. The role of neutralizers is fulfilled by the subjects of the sentence - their semantics suggests that their referents can only be the recipients of the actions denoted by the verbs with which they combine, but not agents. Similar cases of neutralization occur in the sphere of non-finite forms, e.g. The house is to let. The house wanted doing up (J. Galsworthy). Many sentences were pronounced in that darkened room and the prisoners often needed cheering (R. Kipling).
The ability of the verb to build a passive form is related to the transitivity of a verb. But there exist quite a few questions related to transitivity. First, there is no one-to-one correspondence between a verb's transitivity and its ability to passivize. Passive transforms are possible only from transitive verbs, but not all transitive verbs can passivize. The ability of the verb to passivize is determined by three interrelated factors: the semantics of the transitive verb, the degree of agentiveness in the subject and the degree to which the object is affected by the action. Verbs denoting concrete physical actions passivize most easily: the subjects in the sentences with such verbs denote active agents and objects are affected by the action, e.g. Jack built this house - This house was built by Jack. With verbs of sense perception the subject denotes not an active agent but an experiencer of the action and the object is not affected by the action. Some of such verbs can passivize and some cannot, e.g. No one saw the accident - The accident was seen, but No one smelled the smoke - * The smoke was not smelled. The verbs of liking and disliking can passivize (Everyone admires her - She is admired by -everyone), whereas the verbs of wanting and desire usually resist passivization (I want this coat - * The coat is wanted ). The verb want is used in the Passive but with a different meaning, e.g. Ben Laden wanted dead or alive (a newspaper headline).
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