VERB: TENSE

§ 1. The immediate expression of grammatical time, or "tense" (Lat. tempus), is one of the typical functions of the finite verb. It is typical because the meaning of process, inherently embedded in the verbal lexeme, finds its complete realization only if presented in cer­tain time conditions. That is why the expression or non-expression of grammatical time, together with the expression or non-expression of grammatical mood in person-form presentation, constitutes the basis of the verbal category of finitude, i.e. the basis of the division of all the forms of the verb into finite and non-finite.

When speaking of the expression of time by the verb, it is nec­essary to strictly distinguish between the general notion of time, the lexical denotation of time, and the grammatical time proper, or grammatical temporality.

The philosophical notion of time exposes it as the universal form of the continual consecutive change of phenomena. Time, as well as space are the basic forms of the existence of matter, they both are inalienable properties of reality and as such are absolutely indepen­dent of human perception. On the other hand, like other objective factors of the universe, time is reflected by man through his percep­tions and intellect, and finds its expression in his language.

It is but natural that time as the universal form of consecutive change of things should be appraised by the individual in reference to the moment of his immediate perception of the outward reality. This moment of immediate perception, or "present moment", which is continually shifting in time, and the linguistic content of which is the "moment of speech", serves as the demarcation line between the past and the future. All the lexical expressions of time, according as they refer or do not refer the denoted points or periods of time, di­rectly or obliquely, to this moment, are divided into "present-ori­ented", or "absolutive" expressions of time, and "non-present-ori­ented", "non-absolutive" expressions of time.

The absolutive time denotation, in compliance with the experience gained by man in the course of his cognitive activity, distributes the intellective perception of time among three spheres: the sphere of the present, with the present moment included within its framework; the sphere of the past, which precedes the sphere of the present by way of retrospect; the sphere of the future, which follows the sphere of the present by way of prospect.

Thus, words and phrases like now, last week, in our century, in the past, in the years to come, very soon, yesterday, in a couple of days, giving a temporal characteristic to an event from the point of view of its orientation in reference to the present, moment, are absolutive names of time.

The non-absolutive time denotation does not characterize an event in terms of orientation forwards the present. This kind of de­notation may be either "relative" or "factual".

The relative expression of time correlates two or more events showing some of them either as preceding the others, or following the others, or happening at one and the same time with them. Here belong such words and phrases as after that, before that, at one and the same time with, some time later, at an interval of a day or two, at different limes, etc.

The factual expression of time either directly states the astro­nomical time of an event, or else conveys this meaning in terms of historical landmarks. Under this heading should be listed such words and phrases as in the year 1066, during the time of the First World War, at the epoch of Napoleon, at the early period of civi­lization, etc.

In the context of real speech the above types of time naming are used in combination with one another, so that the denoted event receives many-sided and very exact characterization regarding its temporal status.

Of all the temporal meanings conveyed by such detailing lexical denotation of time, the finite verb generalizes in its categorial forms only the most abstract significations, taking them as dynamic charac­teristics of the reflected process. The fundamental divisions both of absolutive time and of non-absolutive relative time find in the verb a specific presentation, idiomatically different from one language to an­other. The form of this presentation is dependent, the same as with the expression of other grammatical meanings, on the concrete se­mantic features chosen by a language as a basis for the functional differentiation within the verb lexeme. And it is the verbal expression of abstract, grammatical time that forms the necessary background for the adverbial contextual time denotation in an utterance; without the verbal background serving as a universal temporal "polarizer" and "leader", this marking of time would be utterly inadequate.

Indeed, what informative content should the following passage convey with all its lexical indications of time (in the morning, in the afternoon, as usual, never, ever), if it were deprived of the general indications of time achieved through the forms of the verb - the unit of the lexicon which the German grammarians very significantly call "Zeitwort" - the "time-word":

My own birthday passed without ceremony. I worked as usual in the morning and in the afternoon, went for a walk in the solitary woods behind my house. I have never been able to discover what it is that gives these woods their mysterious attractiveness. They are like no woods I have ever known (S. Maugham).

In Modern English, the grammatical expression of verbal time, i.e. tense, is effected in two correlated stages. At the first stage, the process receives an absolutive time characteristic by means of op­posing the past tense to the present tense. The marked member of this opposition is the past form. At the second stage, the process re­ceives a non-absolutive relative time characteristic by means of op­posing the forms of the future tense to the forms of no future marking, Since the two stages of the verbal time denotation are ex­pressed separately, by their own oppositional forms, and, besides, have essentially different orientation characteristics (the first stage being absolutive, the second stage, relative), it stands to reason to recognize in the system of the English verb not one, but two tempo­ral categories. Both of them answer the question: "What is the tim­ing of the process?" But the first category, having the past tense as its strong member, expresses a direct retrospective evaluation of the time of the process, fixing the process either in the past or not in the past; the second category, whose strong member is the future tense, gives the timing of the process a prospective evaluation, fixing it either in the future (i.e. in the prospective posterior), or not in the future. As a result of the combined working of the two cate­gories, the time of the event reflected in the utterance finds its ade­quate location in the temporal context, showing all the distinctive properties of the lingual presentation of time mentioned above.

According to the oppositional marking of the two temporal cate­gories under analysis, we shall call the first of them the category of "primary time", and the second, the category of "prospective time", or, contractedly, "prospect".

§ 2. The category of primary time, as has just been stated, pro­vides for the absolutive expression of the time of the process de­noted by the verb, i.e. such an expression of it as gives its evalua­tion, in the long run, in reference to the moment of speech. The formal sign of the opposition constituting this category is, with regu­lar verbs, the dental suffix -(e)d [-d, -t, -id], and with irregular verbs, phonemic interchanges of more or less individual specifications. The suffix marks the verbal form of the past time (the past tense), leaving the opposite form unmarked. Thus, the opposition is to be rendered by the formula "the past tense-the present tense", the latter member representing the non-past tense, according to the ac­cepted oppositional interpretation

The specific feature of the category of primary time is that it di­vides all the tense forms of the English verb into two temporal planes: the plane of the present and the plane of the past, which affects also the future forms. Very important in this respect is the structural nature of the expression of the category: the category of primary time is the only verbal category of immanent order which is expressed by inflexional forms. These inflexional forms of the past and present coexist in the same verb-entry of speech with the other, analytical modes of various categorial expression, including the future. Hence, the English verb acquires the two futures: on the one hand, the future of the present, i.e. as prospected from the present; on the other hand, the future of the past, i.e. as prospected from the past. The following example will be illustrative of the whole four-member correlation:

Jill returns from her driving class at five o'clock.- -At five Jill returned from her driving class. I know that Jill will return from her driving class at five o'clock. - -1 knew that at five Jill would return from her driving class.

An additional reason for identifying the verbal past-present time system as a separate grammatical category is provided by the fact that this system is specifically marked by the do -forms of the indefi­nite aspect with their various, but inherently correlated functions. These forms, found in the interrogative constructions (Does he be­lieve the whole story?), in the negative constructions (He doesn't be­lieve the story), in the elliptical response constructions and elsewhere, are confined only to the category of primary time, i.e. the verbal past and present, not coming into contact with the expression of the future.

§ 3. The fact that the present tense is the unmarked member of the opposition explains a very wide range of its meanings exceeding by far the indication of the "moment of speech" chosen for the identification of primary temporality. Indeed, the present time may be understood as literally the moment of speaking,.the zero-point of all subjective estimation of time made by the speaker. The meaning of the present with this connotation will be conveyed by such phrases as at this very moment, or this instant, or exactly now, or some other phrase like that. But an utterance like "now while I am speaking" breaks the notion of the zero time proper, since the speaking process is not a momentary, but a durative event. Further­more, the present will still be the present if we relate it to such vast periods of time as this month, this year, in our epoch, in the present millennium, etc. The denoted stretch of time may be pro­longed by a collocation like that beyond any definite limit. Still fur­thermore, in utterances of general truths as, for instance, "Two plus two makes four", or "The sun is a star", or "Handsome is that handsome does", the idea of time as such is almost suppressed, the implication of constancy, unchangeability of the truth at all times being made prominent. The present tense as the verbal form of gen­eralized meaning covers all these denotations, showing the present time in relation to the process as inclusive of the moment of speech, incorporating this moment within its definite or indefinite stretch and opposed to the past time.

Thus, if we say, "Two plus two makes four", the linguistic im­plication of it is "always, and so at the moment of speech". If we say, "I never take his advice", we mean linguistically "at no time in terms of the current state of my attitude towards him, and so at the present moment". If we say, "In our millennium social formations change quicker than in the previous periods of man's history", the linguistic temporal content of it is "in our millennium, that is, in the millennium including the moment of speech". This meaning is the invariant of the present, developed from its categorial opposition to the past, and it penetrates the uses of the finite verb in all its forms, including the perfect, the future, the continuous.

Indeed, if the radio carries the news, "The two suspected ter­rorists have been taken into custody by the police", the implication of the moment of speech refers to the direct influence or after-ef­fects of the event announced. Similarly, the statement "You will be informed about the decision later in the day" describes the event, which, although it has not yet happened, is prospected into the fu­ture from the present, i.e. the prospection itself incorporates the moment of speech. As for the present continuous, its relevance for the present moment is self-evident.

Thus, the analysed meaning of the verbal present arises as a re­sult of its immediate contrast with the past form which shows the exclusion of the action from the plane of the present and so the ac­tion itself as capable of being perceived only in temporal retrospect. Again, this latter meaning of the disconnection from the present penetrates all the verbal forms of the past, including the perfect, the future, the continuous. Due to the marked character of the past ver­bal form, the said quality of its meaning does not require special demonstration.

Worthy of note, however, 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. Cf.:

Today again I spoke to Mr. Jones on the matter, and again he failed to see the urgency of it.

The seeming linguistic paradox of such cases consists exactly in the fact that their two-type indications of time, one verbal-grammati­cal, and one adverbial-lexical, approach the same event from two op­posite angles. But there is nothing irrational here. As a matter of fact, the utterances present instances of two-plane temporal evalua­tion of the event described: the verb-form shows the process as past and gone, i.e. physically disconnected from the present; as, for the adverbial modifier, it presents the past event as a particular'happen­ing, belonging to a more general time situation which is stretched out up to the present moment inclusive, and possibly past the pre­sent moment into the future.

A case directly opposite to the one shown above is seen in the transpositional use of the present tense of the verb with the past adverbials, either included in the utterance as such, or else expressed in its contextual environment. E.g.:

Then he turned the corner, and what do you think happens next? He faces nobody eke than Mr. Greggs accompanied by his private secretary!

The stylistic purpose of this transposition, known under the name of the "historic present" (Lat. praesens historicum) is to create a vivid picture of the event reflected in the utterance. This is achieved in strict accord with the functional meaning of the verbal, present, sharply contrasted against the general background of the past plane of the utterance content.

§ 4. The combinations of the verbs shall and will with the infinitive have of late become subject of renewed discussion. The controversial point about them is whether these combinations really constitute, together with the forms of the past and present, the categorial expression of verbal tense, or are just modal phrases, whose expression of the future time does not differ in essence from the general future orientation of other combinations of modal verbs with the infinitive. 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.

A well-grounded objection against the inclusion of the construc­tion shall/will + Infinitive in the tense system of the verb on the same basis as the forms of the present and past has been advanced by L. S. Barkhudarov [Бархударов, 1975, 126 ff.j. His objection con­sists in the demonstration of the double marking of this would-be tense form by one and the same category: the combinations in question can express at once both the future time and the past time (the form "future-in-the-past"), which hardly makes any sense in terms of a grammatical category. Indeed, the principle of the identifi­cation of any grammatical category demands that the forms of the category in normal use should be mutually exclusive. The category is constituted by the opposition of its forms, not by their co-position!

However, reconsidering the status of the construction shall/will + Infinitive in the light of oppositional approach, we see that far from comparing with the past-present verbal forms as the third member-form of the category of primary time it marks its own grammatical category, namely, that of prospective time (prospect). The meaningful contrast underlying the category of prospective time is between an after-action and a non-after-action. The after-action, or the "future", having its shall/will- feature, constitutes the marked member of the opposition.

The category of prospect is also temporal, in so far as it is im­mediately connected with the expression of processual time, like the category of primary time. But the semantic basis of the category of prospect is different in principle from that of the category of primary time: while the primary time is absolutive, i.e. present-oriented, the prospective time is purely relative; it means that the future form of the verb only shows that the denoted process is prospected as an after-action relative to some other action or state or event, the tim­ing of which marks the zero-level for it. The two times are pre­sented, as it were, in prospective coordination: one is shown as prospected for the future, the future being relative to the primary time, either present or past. As a result, the expression of the future receives the two mutually complementary manifestations: one mani­festation for the present time-plane of the verb, the other manifesta­tion for the past time-plane of the verb. In other words, the process of the verb is characterized by the category of prospect irrespective of its primary time characteristic, or rather, as an addition to this characteristic, and this is quite similar to all the other categories ca­pable of entering the sphere of verbal time, e.g. the category of de­velopment (continuous in opposition), the category of retrospective coordination (perfect in opposition), the category of voice (passive in opposition): the respective forms of all these categories also have the past and present versions, to which, in due course, are added the future and non-future versions. Consider the following examples:

(1) I was making a road and all the coolies struck. (2) None of us doubted in the least that Aunt Emma would soon be marvelling again at Eustace's challenging success. (3) Тhе next thing she wrote she sent to a magazine, and for many weeks worried about what would happen to it. (4) She did not protest, for she had given up the struggle. (5) Felix knew that they would have settled the dispute by the time he could be ready to have his say. (6) He was being watched, shadowed, chased by that despicable gang of hirelings. (7) But would little Johnny be 'being looked after properly? The nurse was so young and inexperienced!

The oppositional content of the exemplified cases of finite verb-forms will, in the chosen order of sequence, be presented as follows: the past non-future continuous non-perfect non-passive (1); the past future continuous non-perfect non-passive (2); the past future non-continuous non-perfect non-passive (3); the past non-future non-con­tinuous perfect non-passive (4); the past future non-continuous per­fect non-passive (5); the past non-future continuous non-perfect pas­sive (6); the past future continuous non-perfect passive (7)-the lat­ter form, not in practical use.

As we have already stated before, the future tenses reject the do -forms of the indefinite aspect, which are confined to the expres­sion of the present and past verbal times only. This fact serves as a supplementary ground for the identification of the expression of prospect as a separate grammatical category.

Of course, it would be an ill turn to grammar if one tried to introduce the above circumstantial terminology with all its pedantic strings of "non's" into the elementary teaching of language. The stringed categorial "non "-terms are apparently too redundant to be recommended for ordinary use even at an advanced level of linguis­tic training. What is achieved by this kind of terminology, however, is a comprehensive indication of the categorial status of verb-forms under analysis in a compact, terse presentation. Thus, whenever a presentation like that is called for, the terms will be quite in their place.

§ 5. In analysing the English future tenses, the modal factor, naturally, should be thoroughly taken into consideration. A certain modal colouring of the meaning of the English future cannot be de­nied, especially in the verbal form of the first person. But then, as is widely known, the expression of the future in other languages is not disconnected from modal semantics either; and this is condi­tioned by the mere fact that the future action, as different from the present or past action, cannot be looked upon as a genuine feature of reality. Indeed, it is only foreseen, or anticipated, or planned, or desired, or otherwise prospected for the time to come. In this qual­ity, the Russian future tense does not differ in principle from the verbal future of other languages, including English. Suffice it to give a couple of examples chosen at random:

Я буду рассказывать тебе интересные истории. Расскажу о страшных кометах, о битве воздушных кораблей, о гибели прекрасной страны по ту сторону гор. Тебе не будет скучно любить меня (А. Толстой). Немедленно на берег. Найдешь ге­нерала Иолшина, скажешь: путь свободен. Пусть строит дорогу для артиллерии (Б. Васильев).

The future forms of the verbs in the first of the above Russian examples ciearly express promise (i.e. a future action conveyed as a promise); those in the second example render a command.

Moreover, in the system of the Russian tenses there is a spe­cialized modal form of analytical future expressing intention (the combination of the verb стать with the imperfective infinitive). E.g.: Что же вы теперь хотите делать?-Тебя это не касается, что я стану делать. Я план обдумываю (А. Толстой).

Within the framework of the universal meaningful features of the verbal future, the future of the English verb is highly specific in so far as its auxiliaries in their very immediate etymology are words of obligation and volition, and the survival of the respective connota­tions in them is backed by the inherent quality of the future as such. Still, on the whole, the English categorial future differs dis­tinctly from the modal constructions with the same predicator verbs.

§ 6. In the clear-cut modal uses of the verbs shall and will the idea of the future either is not expressed at all, or else is only rendered by way of textual connotation, the central semantic accent be­ing laid on the expression of obligation, necessity, inevitability, promise, intention, desire. These meanings may be easily seen both on the examples of ready phraseological citation, and in genuine ev­eryday conversation exchanges. Cf.:

He who does not work neither shall he eat (phraseological cita­tion). "I want a nice hot curry, do you hear?" - "All right, Mr. Crackcnthorpe» you shall have it" (everyday speech). None are so deaf as those who will not hear (phraseological citation). Nobody's allowed to touch a thing-I won't have a woman near the place (everyday speech).

The modal nature of the shall/will + Infinitive combinations in the cited examples can be shown by means of equivalent substitu­tions:

... → He who does not work must not eat, either.... → All right, Mr. Crackenthorpe, I promise to have it cooked.... → None are so deaf as those who do not want to hear.... → I intend not to allow a woman to come near the place.

Accounting for the modal meanings of the combinations under analysis, traditional grammar gives the following rules: shall + In­finitive with the first person, will + Infinitive with the second and third persons express pure future; the reverse combinations express modal meanings, the most typical of which are intention or desire for I will and promise or command on the part of the speaker for you shall, he shall. Both rules apply to refined British English. In American English will is described as expressing pure future with all the persons, shall as expressing modality.

However, the cited description, though distinguished by elegant simplicity, cannot be taken as fully agreeing with the existing lingual practice. The main feature of this description contradicted by practice is the British use of will with the first person without distinctly pro­nounced modal connotations (making due allowance for the general connection of the future tense with modality, of which we have spo­ken before). Cf.:

I will call for you and your young man at seven o'clock (J. Galsworthy). When we wake I will take him up and carry him back (R. Kipling). I will let you know on Wednesday what expenses have been necessary (A. Christie). If you wait there on Thursday evening between seven and eight I will come if I can (H.C. Merriman).

That the combinations of will with the infinitive in the above ex­amples do express the future time, admits of no dispute. Further­more, these combinations, seemingly, are charged with modal conno­tations in no higher degree than the corresponding combinations of shall with the infinitive. Cf:.

Haven't time; I shall miss my train (A. Bennett). I shall be happy to carry it to the House of Lords, if necessary (J. Galswor­thy). You never know what may happen. I shan't have a minute's peace (M. Dickens).

Granted our semantic intuitions about the exemplified uses are true, the question then arises: what is the real difference, if any, between the two British first person expressions of the future, one with shall, the other one with will Or are they actually just se­mantic doublets, i.e. units of complete synonymy, bound by the paradigmatic relation of free alternation?

A solution to this problem is to be found on the basis of syn­tactic distributional and transformational analysis backed by a consid­eration of the original meanings of both auxiliaries.

§ 7. Observing combinations with will in stylistically neutral collocations, as the first step of our study we note the adverbials of time used with this construction. The environmental expressions, as well as implications, of future time do testify that from this point of view there is no difference between will and shall, both of them equally conveying the idea of the future action expressed by the ad­joining infinitive.

As our next step of inferences, noting the types of the infinitive- environmental semantics of will in contrast to the contextual back­ground of shall, we state that the first person will- future expresses an action which is to be performed by the speaker for choice, of his own accord. But this meaning of free option does not at all imply that the speaker actually wishes to perform the action, or else that he is determined to perform it, possibly in defiance of some contrary force. The exposition of the action shows it as being not bound by any extraneous circumstances or by any special influence except the speaker's option; this is its exhaustive characteristic. In keeping with this, the form of the will -future in question may be tentatively called the "voluntary future".

On the other hand, comparing the environmental characteristics of shall with the corresponding environmental background of will, it is easy to see that, as different from will, the first person shall expresses a future process that will be realized without the will of the speaker, irrespective of his choice. In accordance with the exposed meaning, the shall- tormof the first person future should be referred to as the "non-voluntary", i.e. as the weak member of the corre-sponding opposition.

Further observations of the relevant textual data show that some verbs constituting a typical environment of the non-voluntary shall- future (i.e. verbs inherently alien to the expression of voluntary ac­tions) occur also with the voluntary will, but in a different meaning, namely, in the meaning of an active action the performance of which is freely chosen by the speaker. Cf.:

Your arrival cannot have been announced to his Majesty. I will see about it (B. Shaw).

In the given example the verb see has the active meaning of en­suring something, of intentionally arranging matters connected with something, etc.

Likewise, a number of verbs of the voluntary will -environmental features (i.e. verbs presupposing the actor's free will in performing the action) combine also with the non-voluntary shall, but in the meaning of an action that will take place irrespective of the will of the speaker. Cf.:

I'm very sorry, madam, but I'm going to faint. I shall go off, madam, if I don't have something (K. Mansfield).

Thus, the would-be same verbs are in fact either homonyms, or else lexico-semantic variants of the corresponding lexemes of the maximally differing characteristics.

At the final stage of our study the disclosed characteristics of the two first-person futures are checked on the lines of transformational analysis. The method will consist not in free structural manipulations with the analysed constructions, but in the textual search for the re­spective changes of the auxiliaries depending on the changes in the infinitival environments.

Applying these procedures to the texts, we note that when the construction of the voluntary will -future is expanded (complicated) by a syntactic part re-modelling the whole collocation into one express­ing an involuntary action, the auxiliary will is automatically replaced by shall. In particular, it happens when the expanding elements con­vey the meaning of supposition or uncertainty. Cf.:

Give me a goddess's work to do; and I will do it (B. Shaw). → I don't know what I shall do with Barbara (B. Shaw). Oh, very well, very well: I will write another prescription (B. Shaw). → I shall perhaps write to your mother (K. Mansfield).

Thus, we conclude that within the system of the English future tense a peculiar minor category is expressed which affects only the forms of the first person. The category is constituted by the opposi­tion of the forms will + Infinitive and shall + Infinitive expressing, respectively, the voluntary future and the non-voluntary future. Ac­cordingly, this category may tentatively be called the "category of futurity option".

The future in the second and third persons, formed by the indis­criminate auxiliary will, does not express this category, which is de­pendent on the semantics of the persons: normally it would be irrel­evant to indicate in an obligatory way the aspect of futurity option otherwise than with the first person, i.e. the person of self.

This category is neutralized in the contracted form -'II, which is of necessity indifferent to the expression of futurity option. As is known, the traditional analysis of the contracted future states that -'II stands for will, not for shall. However, this view is not supported by textual data. Indeed, bearing in mind the results of our study, it is easy to demonstrate that the contracted forms of the future may be traced both to will and to shall. Cf.:

I'll marry you then, Archie, if you really want it (M. Dickens). → I will marry you. I'll have to think about it (M. Dickens). → I shall have to think about it.

From the evidence afforded by the historical studies of the lan­guage we know that the English contracted form of the future -'ll has actually originated from the auxiliary will. So, in Modern English an interesting process of redistribution of the future forms has taken place, based apparently on the cbntamination will → 'll ← shall. As a result, the form -' ll in the first person expresses not the same "pure" future as is expressed by the indiscriminate will in the sec­ond and third persons.

The described system of the British future is by far more com­plicated than the expression of the future tense in the other national variants of English, in particular, in American English, where the future form of the first person is functionally equal with the other persons. In British English a possible tendency to a similar levelled expression of the future is actively counteracted by the two structural factors. The first is the existence of the two functionally differing contractions of the future auxiliaries in the negative form, i.e. shan't and won't, which imperatively support the survival of shall in the first person against the levelled positive (affirmative) contraction -'ll. The second is the use of the future tense in interrogative sentences, where with the first person only shall is normally used. Indeed, it is quite natural that a genuine question directed by the speaker to himself, i.e. a question showing doubt or speculation, is to be asked about an action of non-willful involuntary order, and not otherwise. Cf.

What shall we be shown next? Shall I be able to master short­hand professionally? The question was, should I see Beatrice again before her departure?

The semantics of the first person futurity question is such that even the infinitives of essentially volition-governed actions are trans­ferred here to the plane of non-volition, subordinating themselves to the general implication of doubt, hesitation, uncertainty. Cf.:

What shall I answer to an offer like that? How shall we tackle the matter if we are left to rely on our own judgment?

Thus, the vitality of the discriminate shall/win future, characteris­tic of careful English speech, is supported by logically vindicated intra-lingual factors. Moreover, the whole system of Modem British future with its mobile inter-action of the two auxiliaries is a product of recent language development, not a relict of the older periods of its history. It is this subtly regulated and still unfinished system that gave cause to H.W. Fowler for his significant statement: "... of the English of the English shall and will are the shibboleth."*

* Fowler H.W. A Dictionary of Modem English Usage. Ldn., 1941, p. 729.

§ 8. Apart from shall/will + Infinitive construction, there is an­other construction in English which has a potent appeal for being analysed within the framework of the general problem of the future tense. This is the combination of the predicator be going with the infinitive. Indeed, the high frequency occurrence of this construction in contexts conveying the idea of an immediate future action cannot but draw a very dose attention on the part of a linguistic observer.

The combination may denote a sheer intention (either the speaker's or some other person's) to perform the action expressed by the infinitive, thus entering into the vast set of "classical" modal constructions. E.g:.

I am going to ask you a few more questions about the mysteri­ous disappearance of the document, Mr. Gregg. He looked across at my desk and I thought for a moment he was going to give me the treatment, too.

But these simple modal uses of be going are countered by cases where the direct meaning of intention rendered by the predicator stands in contradiction with its environmental implications and is subdued by them. Cf.:

You are trying to frighten me. But you are not going to frighten me any more (L. Hellman). I did not know how I was going to get out of the room. (D. du Maurier).

Moreover, the construction, despite its primary meaning of inten­tion, presupposing a human subject, is not infrequently used with non-human subjects and even in impersonal sentences. Cf.:

She knew what she was doing, and she was sure it was going to be worth doing (W. Saroyan). There's going to be a contest over Ezra Grolley’s estate (E. Gardner).

Because of these properties it would appear tempting to class the construction in question as a specific tense form, namely, the tense form of "immediate future", analogous to the French futur immediat (e.g. Le spectacle va commencer- The show is going to begin).

Still, on closer consideration, we notice that the non-intention uses of the predicator be going are not indifferent stylistically. Far from being neutral, they more often than not display emotional colouring mixed with semantic connotations of oblique modality.

For instance, when the girl from the first of the above examples appreciates something as "going to be worth doing", she is express­ing her assurance of its being so. When one labels the rain as "never going to stop", one clearly expresses one's annoyance at the bad state of the weather. When a future event is introduced by the formula "there to be going to be", as is the case in the second of the cited examples, the speaker clearly implies his foresight of it, or his anticipation of it, or, possibly, a warning to beware of it, or else some other modal connotation of a like nature. Thus, on the whole, the non-intention uses of the construction be going + Infinitive can­not be rationally divided into modal and non-modal, on the analogy of the construction shall/will + Infinitive. Its broader combinability is based on semantic transposition and can be likened to broader uses of the modal collocation be about, also of basically intention seman­tics.

§ 9. The oppositional basis of the category of prospective time is neutralized in certain uses, in keeping with the general regularities of oppositional reductions. The process of neutralization is connected with the shifting of the forms of primary time (present and past) from the sphere of absolute tenses into the sphere of relative tenses.

One of the typical cases of the neutralization in question consists in using a non-future temporal form to express a future action which is to take place according to some plan or arrangement. Cf:.

The government meets in emergency session today over the question of continued violations of the cease-fire. I hear your sister is soon arriving from Paris? Naturally I would like to know when he's coming. Etc.

This case of oppositional reduction is optional, the equivalent re­construction of the correlated member of the opposition is nearly al­ways possible (with the respective changes of connotations and style). Cf.:

... → The government will meet in emergency session.... → Your sister will soon arrive from Paris?... → When will he be coming?

Another type of neutralization of the prospective time opposition is observed in modal verbs and modal word combinations. The basic peculiarity of these units bearing on the expression of time is, that the prospective implication is inherently in-built in their semantics, which reflects not the action as such, but the attitude towards the action expressed by the infinitive. For that reason, the present verb-form of these units actually renders the idea of the future (and, re­spectively, the past verb-form, the idea of the future-in-the-past). Cf:.

There's no saying what may happen next. At any rate, the woman was sure to come later in the day. But you have to present the report before Sunday, there's no alternative.

Sometimes the explicit expression of the future is necessary even with modal collocations. To make up for the lacking catcgorial forms, special modal substitutes have been developed in language, some of which have received the status of suppletive units (see above, Ch. III). Cf:.

But do not make plans with David. You will not be able to carry them out. Things will have to go one way or the other.

Alongside the above and very different from them, there is still another typical case of neutralization of the analysed categorial oppo­sition, which is strictly obligatory. It occurs in clauses of time and condition whose verb-predicate expresses a future action. Cf:.

If things turn out as has been arranged, the triumph will be all ours. I repeated my request to notify me at once whenever the messenger arrived.

The latter type of neutralization is syntactically conditioned. In point of fact, the neutralization consists here in the primary tenses shifting from the sphere of absolutive time into the sphere of rela­tive time, since they become dependent not on their immediate ori­entation towards the moment of speech, but on the relation to an­other time level, namely, the time level presented in the governing clause of the corresponding complex sentence.

This kind of neutralizing relative use of absolutive tense forms occupies a restricted position in the integral tense system of English. In Russian, the syntactic relative use of tenses is, on the contrary, widely spread. In particular, this refers to the presentation of re­ported speech in the plane of the past, where the Russian present tense is changed into the tense of simultaneity, the past tense is changed into the tense of priority, and the future tense is changed into the tense of prospected posteriority. Cf:.

(1) Он сказал, что изучает немецкий язык. (2) Он сказал, что изучал немецкий язык. (3) Он сказал, что будет изучать немецкий язык.

In English, the primary tenses in similar syntactic conditions re­tain their absolutive nature and are used in keeping with their direct, unchangeable meanings. Compare the respective translations of the examples cited above:

(1) He said that he was learning German (then). (2) He said that he had learned German (before). (3) He said that he would learn German (in the time to come).

It does not follow from this that the rule of sequence of tenses in English complex sentences formulated by traditional grammar should be rejected as false. Sequence of tenses is an important fea­ture of all narration, for, depending on the continual consecutive course of actual events in reality, they are presented in the text in definite successions ordered against a common general background. However, what should be stressed here is that the tense-shift in­volved in the translation of the present-plane direct information into the past-plane reported information is not a formal, but essentially a meaningful procedure.

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