Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
G.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University
Institute of Postgraduate Education
Department of English Philology
STYLISTIC POTENTIAL OF TENSE-ASPECT VERBAL FORMS IN MODERN ENGLISH
Content
Introduction
1. Theoretical background of the research of stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms
1.1 Perspective of the research
1.2 The analysis of the stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English by foreign linguists
1.3 The analysis of the stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English by home linguists
2.The analysis of stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English
2.1 The types of transpositions of verbal forms as stylistic means in the category of tense
2.2 The types of transpositions of verbal forms as stylistic means in the category of aspect
3.Methodological recommendations for teaching of tense-aspect verbal forms in English language using their stylistic potential
Conclusion
Literature
Introduction
More and more linguists and specialists in study of literature attract their attention to problems of Stylistics and Stylistics itself is divided into some special disciplines which tend to differentiate. But at the same time as well as in any other science we can observe the integration of the processes that is the intensification of different parts of knowledge and appearance of new modern synthetic sections. New problems have been involved in the sphere of stylistic researches, a lot of data and programs have been studied and new aspects of language factors and features have been discovered. Our interest in these points is the first reasonof the appearance of our paper.
From the point of our view English Grammar is the most difficult subject for study not only for students but everyone who wants to be a professional philologist. That why the second reasonfor writing of our paper is the complications of the descriptions of some difficult grammar areas especially «verb-section» in the frames of simplicity.
The verb as a party of speech is the most capacious grammar category. In verbal word with all variety of its denotations, meanings and stylistic potentials there are combinations with different grammar forms, organic connections and associations with tenses and aspect, which characterize all verbal system in the whole. So the third reasonof our paper is to analyze some verbal factors and features on the «brighter grammar» level with taking into our consideration some interrelations between grammar forms, their functional content and stylistic potential in contexts.
It will be very important to mark that General Morphology (non-stylistic) treats morphemes and grammatical meanings expressed by them in language in general, without regard to their stylistic value. Stylistic Morphology, on the contrary, is interested in grammatical forms and grammatical meanings in the stylistic sphere, explicitly or implicitly comparing them with the neutral forms common for all sublanguages.
The nature, the essence of stylistic phenomena is radically different in cases where morpheme, word, phrase themselves are analyzed as chosen out of the paradigm from the cases when we try to explain the effect produced by given patterns of the combining units in speech and text. When we use the form «aren't»
instead of «have not or am / is / are not», the sentence «John here?»
instead of «Is John here?», or one meaning instead of another all could also employ. This is what illustrates the paradigmatic branch of Stylistics.
In the utterances: I ask you / I pray you / I beseech you –
we can observe the interrelation between the meanings that is «pray»
is stronger than «ask»; «beseech»
is the strongest of all three. They are the systematic branch of Stylistics.
Stylistic morphology, both paradigmatic and systematic, has not yet been given full attention, especially with regard to English language. It is the fourth reason
for our paper.
Thus, in the paper we turn our attention to the stylistic meanings associated with tenses and aspect having already dealt with their grammar forms.
Topicalityof our problem includes some point. The role of some scholars in development of Stylistics is very high especially in Stylistic Grammar but in the whole, not specifically: Palmer, Hornby, Quirk, Yule, Skrebnev, Block and others. There are only a few monographs devoted to Stylistic Morphology as a specific researches. In our days the interest in this problem increases because we can see some questions and problems which are not studied enough, namely:
- connotations of tense-aspect verbal system conveyed by verbal forms in different contextual situations including transpositions and emotional expressiveness;
- lexico-grammatical categories in the peripheral field of aspect and expantion them in the light of stylistic potential;
- idiomatic constructions with different meanings in contexts;
- how to use morphological means of Stylistics and expend their stylistic potential;
- the deep work with tense-aspect verbal forms the main aim of which is to help students understand contexts of English authors more intensive and intensive.
These grammatical problems are very important, especially on the pedagogical level in the frames of student’s study, and they were presented by Rayevska N.M., Morokhovskiei A.N., Efimov L.P. and others.
Innovation.
We present new types of tables, diagrams descriptions, illustrative material to reach the high level of students knowledge and to elicit their enthusiast in further investigations. New examples from the original literature quoted from Dickens, Collins, Austen and other authors not only confirm the grammatical investments of name scholars in solution of practical value of Stylistic grammar for real seminar studies. In our paper we actualize the topic problem by showing that the general research area-stylistic potential of English verb – is important, central, interesting, problematic.
Tense-
aspect verbal form are used to express subtle stylistic nuances and impretions in spoken English, in distributions of light and shade of verbal paints; with the purposes to go over from one style to another.
The why the topic of our paper is determined as «stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English».
The object of our study
is «The Tense-Aspect verbal form as many aspectual factor in Theoretical English Grammar».
The subject of our study
is «Stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English».
Language Level:
Tense-Aspect verbal forms as constructive grammar means for two types of transpositions and some expression from the peripheral field in the frames of Spoken English.
Language material:
Original text, dictionaries, thesauruses, monographs, history sources, theoretical grammar textbooks by English, Ukrainian and Russian authors, some pieces of information from Internet, a lot of material from Foreign Philology Faculty of G.S. Scovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University (lectures, books, English Language Encyclopedia), newspapers, journals.
Theoretical Value:
The central interest in our paper is connected with very specifical but important for real understanding of spoken English problems
in the frames of Theoretical English Grammar, connected with tense-aspect verbal forms, their features, constructions and behavior in specific environment. Analyzing tense-aspect verbal forms from these positions we have marked connotative aspect and emotional overtones as important semantic components of spoken English that is stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal form.
All these ideas are based on principle which are related by Theoretical English Grammar on the university level.
Practical value:
The discussion of the tense-aspect verbal forms and their stylistic potential in modern English has been made concrete by the use of illustrative examples in the practical part of our paper, quotations from the original literature, tables, diagrams, comparison with Ukrainian and Russian.
Main methods for researching of our topic problem:
Methods of scientific research used in our paper have been connected with the general trends in the science of language, namely:
– critical and contextological analysis of some original texts with the aim to present the samples and the cases of practice of stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English;
– the historical approach that is retrospective exposure of native and world experience;
– eliciting facts, samples and generalization them in borders of the positive and real practice;
– philological observations using especially two types of transpositions and principles of the peripheral field so that to expand the borders of the traditional Theoretical English Grammar and obtain some cases to wide students knowledge;
In the light of our philosophy and philological observations, critical and contextological analysis of some original contexts our results were obtained on the edge of some linguistic sciences: Stylistics
(Decoding), Functional Grammar, Syntax, Functional and Communicative Linguistics, Theory of Interpretation of Text, Theory of Contextual Situation
and other.
At the end our paper, there are some ideas for teachers
to help them of exercises and activities for students.
Further Reading List
has been given for teachers who wants to expand their language skills by the way of additional investigations.
1.Theoretical background of the research of stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms
1.1
Perspective of the research
Interest in our main problem, how it originated, how it works and develops, has existed in remote ages. Chronologically at once we pay our special attention to individuals, whose contribution to the subject – Stylistic Potential of Tense-Aspect Verbal Forms in Modern English –
has been well-known. In Table 1 that we have completed for students we present some names of philologist, titles of their works, years who began to research this problem many years ago up to now. [38; 43; 47]
Our short overview we begin with William Lily
(1468–1522) who wrote «A short Introduction of Grammar»
and was the first between others in this sphere. Then in 1580 «A Treatise for Declining Verb»
was written by Claudius Holyband
(1580). After that William Bullokar
(1530–1609) created the first grammar of English «Pamphlet for Grammar»
in 1586, a short sketch based on Lily’s Lating Grammar.
Naturally in this years the struggle for national grammar and language began and John Wallis
(1616–1703) wrote Gramatica Liguae Anglicanae
(1649) for foreign students that was held in high esteem but has only produced since the eighteenth century. John Walker’s Ryming Dictionary of the English Language
(1732–1807) is used in works on stylistic problems
by our contemporary scholars. Next was Lindley Murray
(1745–1826) who published his English Grammar,
adapted to the different classes of learners, and became the best-known scholar with the nickname «Father of English Grammar».
In 1853 year Macel Claude Victor Andre
(1793–1875) published his major work Language as a Means of Mental Culture and International Communication,
written in English, where he showed his position that «impression» – stylistic background of grammar
– should always precede «expression». Then a Grammar of Spoken English
with a lot of stylistic features
was presented by Palmer Harold
(1923). His friend who became effectively Palmer’s «crown prince» – Hornby Albert
(1898–1979) – developed ideas and projects in his pedagogical grammar Guide to Pattens and Usage in English
(1954) where the author put the concept of «grammar time» on the first place: what type of grammar time we need to use for expressing of definite temporal relationship, positions and states.
In this time Eckersley C.E.
(1893–1967) wrote Brighter Grammar
(1953) were he tried to approach English grammar in the same «scientific» way and to show that it is not a collection of dull, dead words but a living thing.
A lot of works on Linguistics which are used by Russian and Ukrainian scholars were written by Ottor Jesprsen
(1860–1943), especially his monumental Modern English Grammar
(1909–1949); The Philosophy of Grammar
(1924), Efficiency in Linguistic Change
(1943) and others. Edward Sapir wrote in a Danish newspaper:
«Your (Jespersen’s) work has always seemed to me to be distinguished by its blend of exact knowledge, keenness of analysis, ease and lucidity of STYLE,
and by an imaginative warmth that is certainly not common in scientific writing» [43; 95].
The reality can be seen in the three kilos of paper of A Comprehensive Grammar of English Language
(1985) written by Randolph Quirk
and his team. In our paper we will exploit Chapter 4 «The Semantics of the Verbal Phrase».
We have completed Table 1
for those students who wish to continue their researches this problem in the historical frames.
Throughout of centuries English Scholar created the system of the Morphology Grammar where English verbal forms as the basis of Grammar have gradually been presented, studied and researched as a great stylistic potential.
Being placed in unusual syntagmatic environmentwhich change their canonized grammatical characteristics and combinability, English Verbs acquire stylistic significant.
1.2 The analysis of the stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English by foreign linguists
The motivation for Gearge Yuri’s
classic work Explaing English Grammar
is to describe and explain the basic forms of the present and past tenses, perfect and progressive aspects and main structures of the English verb complex. Drawing on his experiment we want to add some interesting points from his ideas.
According to G. Yuri’s system [32; 54–84] in order to describe the different forms of a verb, we need to talk about tense
, which often has to do with the location of a situation in time, and aspect
, which characterizes the way in which that situation is perceived or experienced. The author affirms that English has two distinct tense forms, present and past tenses
, and two distinct forms for aspect, perfect and progressive aspects
, which are marked on the verb. Giving unusual table with the basic structure of English verb forms G. Yuri underlines that the sense of team «tense»
in English is not based on simple distinctions in time.
e.g.
And today I woke
with splitting headache.
Tomorrow I fly to London for a big meeting.
Yesterday the land tells me my rent's going up.
The present form here ties the situation described closely to the situation of utterance. The past tense form makes the situation described more remote from the situation of utterance. Situation in the future
are treated differently they are inherently non-factual
. The author means that the verb form that is traditionally called «future tense»
is actually expressed vie a modal verb
which indicates the relative possibility of the event.
If we look inside the situation we shall talk about aspect
[32; 63–68]. Aspect
is divided by author into two parts:
1.
Lexical aspect
(stative and dynamic verbs);
2.
Grammatical:
– progressive
viewed from the inside in progress;
– perfect
viewed from outside in retrospect.
Tense is the location of a situation, aspect – the inside of a situation.
In parts «Meaning in Contexts»
[32; 68–72] Yuri G. shows how to use the stylistic potential of tense and aspect in the practical approach. There is a major qualitative difference between studying the components of English Verb and studying how to use them basically. When we construct a piece of connected speech or writing, whether in monologue or dialogue, we are constantly tapping the lexical and grammatical resources of English verb to find of making our composition and particular effect. More clearly Peter Verdonk
marks in his «Stylistics», Oxford, 2002:
«Style involves a choice of form without a change of message.
It includes the motives for choice and its effect. If all differences in form are correlated with differences in meaning, then the style of a piece of writing is simply its meaning. The work may stand out because of its meaning, or the author may be exceptionally skilled in finding the right words for his meaning and we take pleasure in his art, but the wrong choice would have meant something less – they would not conveyed the meaning» [40; 7–8].
Describing how to use deferent styles in a magazine article, news reports, academic writing, narratives, spoken discuses and others Yuri G. gives some easy explanations:
– information that is treated as part of the «background»
will tend to be expressed in the past tease
;
– information that is current concern, in the «foreground»
will be expressed in the present tense
;
– background scene-stting, particularly in stories, is often expressed in the past progressive
;
– ongoing current situations are described in the present progressive
;
– viewing recent changes from the current situation is typically expressed by perfect aspect
.
Following the description of basic verbal forms, Yuri G. conveys not only specific features of verbal forms and structures according to tenses and aspects, but includes a piece of information on how meanings of verbal forms can be shaped bf context and communicative purpose – stylistic potential of verbal forms.
Written in a clear style and natural, intelligible language [38; 41] «A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language»
is presented by Randolph Quirk
and his team in 1986. «In the fourth chapter we examine the semantics of the verb phrase, and in particular of the finite verb phrase», wrote Quirk R. [29; 175]. Some points from this interesting material about time, tense and aspect will be very useful for discussion in our paper. The authors give us a lot of tables and diagrams, examples with the main aim to explain verbal system clearly and lucidly. Beginning from the present tense the authors line down that on the semantic level of interpretation «present»
is the most general and unmarked category.
e.g.: John spends
a lot of money. (true for past, present, future)
cf.: John spent
a lot of money. (true for past only)
The authors prefer to follow those grammarians who have treated «tense»
only as a category realized by verb inflection
, and in their Grammar they do not talk about «future» [29; 176] as a formal category but they do say about expressing the semantic category of future time
. We can add the same points of view given by T.A. Rastorguieva and L.S. Barkhudarov.
[31; 28]
e.g.:
Today is
Monday, and tomorrow is
Tuesday.
What are
you doing tomorrow?
The semantic categories of past, present, future apply not so much to time, as to happenings which take place in time, and which are denoted by verbs.
e.g.:
Mary hoped
for success. (refers to «a past hope of Mary)
Peter knows
a great deal. (refers to Peter’s present knowledge)
The home team will be
defeated
, (refers to «a future defeat of the home»)
The authors shall distinguish different categories under the title of situation types
that is they talk of dynamic
(count) and stative (noncount) meaning
rather then dynamic and stative verbs. This is because one verb may shift from one category to another, for example,
– the stative meaning of «have» is «possess»;
– the dynamic meaning of «have» is «eat».
e.g.:
The chair has
beautiful carved legs quite frequently. (has=possess, that is «having carved legs» is a state)
We have dinner
at Maxim’s quite frequently.
(have dinner= eat, that is «having dinner» is an event)
All these verbs are divided into dynamic
and stative verbs
, which are presented in two tables. We mean, that these two tables are not convenient for teaching and studying and we have replaced and reconstructed them according to our require (Tables 2–3).
Meanings of the simple present tense
with reference to present
time
can be divided into:
l. The state present
, or so-called «eternal truths» or «timeless present»:
e.g.:
Honestly is
the best policy.
Two and three is
five.
2. The instantaneous present
implies that event has little or no duration and is completed approximately at the moment of speech:
– commentaries, demonstrations, special exclamatory sentences, performatives.
e.g.:
Black passes
the ball to Fernanders…
Here comes
the winner!
3. Special non present
uses of the present tense:
– the so-called historical present
with stylistic effect
, which conveys something of the dramatic immediacy of an eye-witness account. It is found with verbs of communication: say, tell, etc
, and the result – the information communicated – is still operative.
e.g.:
The Bible speaks…
Historical present describes the past as if it is
happening now.
4. The simple present in fictional narrative:
the events narrated by means of the historical present are real,
but narrated by fictional «historical present»
are imaginary
. It is the stylistic effect.
e.g.: Millinson enters
. The girls immediately pretend
to be working hard… (we can present the event of the play before our eyes)
Meanings of the past tense
with reference to past time
(Table 3) combine two features:
a) the event / state must take place in the past with the gap between its completion and the present moment;
b) the speaker or writer must have in mind a definite time at which the event / state took place («last week, in 1932, several weeks ago, etc) but stylistically
the past tense itself means the definite past time
.
e.g.: Did
you lock
the front door? – an immediate situation.
Byron died
in Grees. – historical statements.
Rome was not built
in a day. – presupposing.
The habitual
and state meanings
can be paraphrased
by means of «used to»
(transference, transposition, transmission) used to live
e.g.: In those days we – in the counry.
lived
Meanings of the past tense
with reference to the present
and future time
:
– the phenomenon «backshift»
(Did you say you have / had
no money?)
– the attitudinal past
(Do/Did
you want to see me now?)
– the hypothetical past
(if-clauses, expectations – «I wish I had
a memory like yours».)
To adhere to the main point from «A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language» it is essential to exhibit some facts from chapter «Perfective and progressive ASPECT
.»
[29; 31]. The term «aspect»
refers to a grammatical category which reflects the way in which the verb action is regarded and experienced with
respect
to
t i m e
. The two aspect constructions of English: perfective
and the progressive,
can be seen as realizing a basic contrast if aspect between the action viewed as complete
(perfective)
, and the action viewed as incomplete,
i.e. progressive.
The morphological realization of tense and syntactic realization of aspect are very closely connected. Quirk R. marks that approximately 10% of finite verb phrases are
only perfective.
Perfective aspect
indicates ANTERIOR TIME
– time preceding whatever time orientation is signaled by tense or by other elements of the sentence or its context
.
We may now focus on the difference between two constructions:
1. State leading up to the present:
e.g.: That house has been
empty for ages. – the state continues at least up to the present.
cf.: That house was empty for ages.-but now it has been sold.
2. Identifinite events in a period leading up to the present:
e.g.: Have
ever been
to Florence? – the indefinite past.
cf.: Did
you go to florence? – last summer! – we have to imagine the definite past.
3. Habit event (recurrent) in a period leading up to the present:
e.g.
:
Mr Terry has sung
in this choir ever since he was boy. – the period identified must continue up to the present.
cf.:
The journal was published every month from 1850 to 1888. – the definite past.
Progressive aspect
stylistically more frequent in conversations
than in scientific discourse. A count of a large number of verb constructions has indicated that less then 5% of
verb phrases are progressive, whereas 95% are nonprogressive [32; 29].
The meaning of the progressive can be separated into 3 components:
1. The happening has duration:
Joan is singing well.
2. The happening has limited duration:
Joan was singing
well.
3. Incompletion –
thehappening is not necessary complete:
e.g.;
Joan was reading
the novel yesterday evening.
According
to the chapter the progressive aspect can be divided into:
1. Stative progressive:
e.g.:
We are living
in the country. – temporal residence.
cf.: We live in the country.-permanent residence.
2. Event progressive:
e.g.: The referee is/was blowing
of whistle. – repeated blowing.
cf.: The referee slows his whistle. – only one time!
3. Habit progressive:
e.g.: At that time she was having
regular singing lessons.
Whenever Isee her, she’s
working
in the garden.
The «temporal frame»
of the present progressive is normally «now»
, recurrent or imaginary,
inaccordance with the interpretation of the habitual, the historical, the fiction meanings.
The authors give a piece of information about the perfective progressive
meaning that the features of the progressive and the perfective aspects are combined
in the same phrase. This problem will be debated by Ukrainian and Russian scientists.
R. Quirk and his team give a lot of information about time, tense and aspect; the tables in which English verbs are divided into stative and dynamic types; difficult theme as «aspect» is presented in clear and lucid language. There are some problems which are debated up to now, for example, «the reality of the perfective progressive».
1.3 The analysis of the stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English by home linguists
N.N. Rayevska
[3; 30]is awell-known Ukrainian (Kiev) scholar who specialized in the study of English language and wrote two monographs:
1. The Essays on Stylistic Grammar of Modern English (1976) [3]
2. Modern English Grammar(1976) [30]
These monographs introduce the results of N.N. Rayevska’s philological observations which convey theoretical grammar problems of verbal system and their stylistic possibilities and potentialities. All these features are very useful for insight into writer's context and understanding of their artists' intentions. In Modern English Grammar
N.N. Rayevska accentuates:
«A major question in learning the grammar of the English verb is therefore to look for the difference of distribution various context, liguistic or situational, where each verb – form occurs»
[30; 137]. The result according to these points can be seen in Table 4–8.
The results according to the functional and semantic transpositions can be seen in Tables 9–10.
Some words about trabsposition itself.
Transposition
is a divergense between the traditional usage of a neutral word and its situational (stylistic)
usage.
Transposition of verbs
is more varied than other parts of speech. It is explained by a greater number of grammatical categories the meanings of which may be transposed. One of peculiar features of English tense forms is their polysemantism:
thesame form may realize various meanings in spoken English and other styles.
Deviation from the general meaning makes verbs stylistically coloured
.
Twotypes of transposition are presented in our table: functional and semantic –
whereinherent resources and devices of – English verbs create and establish a lot of subtle meaningful nuances by means of Morphology.
N.N. Rayevska
throws light upon the nature of the functional and semantic peripheral field of the verbal voice and marks off it in her diagram where paradigmatic verbal forms and language units of the other levels are unified and consolidated together in the functional-semantic field of the voices hip. As innovation we have completed Table 11 «The
Stylistic Potential of Peripheral Elements of the Passive Voice in Modern Enflish»
and mean that it will enrich the verbal system and help and stimulate students’ intensification of its usage in the frames of Theoretical English Grammar.
Presenting the functional-semantic field of the aspectual system of the English Verb
the author lines down the categores of the aspect and tense as organically correlated: the
form of the aspect is the form of the tense
(asin Quirk’s system) but she means there are two types of the aspect in English Grammar which are itroduced as the oppositions:
l. the common aspect
(speaks, spoke, will speak);
2. the continuous
aspect
(is speaking, was speaking)
N.N. Rayevska puts forward several interesting and stimulating ideas for the further philological observations that according to her point of view are very productive and prospective:
1. Development of grammat co-ideomatical structures.
2. Morphological correlations of interlevel units and inclusion them in the peripheral field of verbal forms.
3. The Phrasiological System in its unity with garammatical functioning.
4. Paculiarities of lexical combinability and realization of tense-aspect forms in the community of their syntactical structures and others (a lot of ideas!)
The field arragement of tense-aspect: system for philological observations expands the frames of the traditional English Grammar and helps to reveal a lot. of stylistic colours and their shades.
In her turn the author of Stylistics of Modern English
(Stylistic Decoding), I.V. Arnold
writes:
«Stylistic potential is possibility to add an idiomatic power
to the language and express various subtle distinctions of thoughts and meanings». [4, 124]
The author divides transposition into two types and distribute this material into two groups, Table 1.4
that have been complited by our team as visual material for studatns:
1. Transposition with emotional expressiveness.
2. Transposition with functional-stylistic character.
In our practical part-the second part of our paper – we give a lot of examples from original literature using this table and presenting some connotations of tense-aspect system conveyed by verbal forms:
– historical presence;
- continuous verbal forms;
– echo-questions;
– popular language;
– modal verbs, particles, idioms;
– repetitions of grammar forms;
– archaic verbal forms.
Two types of transposition [Table 1.4] described by I.V. Arnold are used in our practical part with the aim to expand the frames of their usage as obvious and visuial examples from English original literature.
Y.M. Skrebnev
in his book Fundamentals of English Stylistics
(lines down that «Stylistic Morphology, both paradigmatic and syntagmatic, has not yet been given full attention, especially with regard to English that has very few inflections, and most grammatical meanings are expressed analytically».
[33; 84]The author puts in the forefront the problems of synonymy and transposition:
– variability of verbal forms;
– morphological difference between verbal forms;
– abolishing the morphlogical differentiations between Subjunctive II of the verb «to be»
and the past indicative;
– «ungrammatical» usage of verbal forms;
– «praesens historicum» and others.
Y.M. Skrebnev represents Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Morphology
as means of the sylistic stocks. The author treats practically all the essentials of stylistics, gives numerous samples of text analysis, teaches the students to interpret and find adequate verbal account for stylistic impressions.
Satisfactory results in the philological training of students can be achieved only on condition that students have firmly, mastered the basic principles if every linguistic disciplin, stylistics included.
In the next monograph «English Stylistics»
written by A.N. Morokhovskei
it is accentuated that Stylistics is a synthetico – linguisitic subject and the language is researched as the system with a lot of elements that united into:
1. Expression means on all linguistic levels.
2. STYLISTIC DEVICES ON ALL COLLOQUIAL LEVELS.
3. Functional correlations with a society and environment.
In chapter «Stylistic usage of the verbal means
» the author underlines that all stylistic possibilities of English verbs are very rich if we take into account a variety of verbal forms vebals and their range of meanings, tinges and nuances. The author considers that the tense-aspect forms can be presented in the contexts by the ways of making and creating their syntactic correlations (intercommunications) between forms, structures, constructions and grammar categories. And it is not disputed because the – verbal formations and» arragements are the main dynamic means and devices of stylistic expressions in
literary, puplicistic and colloquial styles.
In this monograph these are a lot of interesting facts from different connotations in the grammatical, semantic and polysemantic realisations.
e.g. Douglas: Cris is doing all right, Basil.
Greff: Is that true? Are
you doing
all right, Cris?
In the question we can catch of feel either ironic or warm intonation but not duration expressed by the continuous tense. The forms of the present indefinite and present continuous are used for the transmission of facts, actions, events which have illsion of the Result but not duration as in following:
e.g.: Thanks for breakfast. I’m catching
the train home. We can mart; that the modality of the obligation is shown by means of the continuous tense.
1. The categories of the English voice
also can be in the role of stylistic means and devices:
e.g.: Since to love is better to be loved
. It is the structure with antithesis.
2. e.g.: I did help
him.
«did»
is «still, nevertheless, however».
e.g.: They did go
.
«did» is «the last, finally
, in the end».
The emphatic «DO»
is a strong stylistic feature that in its correlation with the verbal predicate creats the emphatic expression.
3. Implicit agent in scientific style is used in the introduction of the facts.
e.g.: It is understood / mentioned / assumed / believed / known…
For students we have completed two tables (13,14) with interesting facts and examples:
– how to use stylistic potential of the Imperetive mood;
– semantic and stylistic peculiarities expressed by the forms of the Subjunctive mood.
In monograph Stylistics of English Language
the authors show that the diapason of stylistic devices is very high. We have marked only s some of them but very expressive categories of time, voice and mood. All these means can be used only in context. We consider that the subject «The Theory of Context» must be included in the syllabus for students from the foriegn language faculties. Our tables (13–14) which were completed for students as HOs on the Theoretical Grammar will help them to realise this garammatical material in practical frames.
In his very scientific monograph «Modification of Verbal Forms in Modern English» A.I. Dorodnyh
analises a lot of works written by outstanding philologists, native and foreign, and gives his own system of English verb, as follows:
1. Category of time: Past Nonpast
worked works
was working is working
2. Category of temporary retrospectiveness:
Perfect Nonperfect
has worked works
had worked worked
will have worked will work
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:
– the past tense
as a direct retrospective evaluation of the time of the process;
– the future tense
– the timing of % he process in a prospective evaluation.
There are two aspective categories:
– the continuous aspect;
– the perfect aspect.
N.Y. Blokh describes the aspective categories backed on the works of H. Sweet and O. Jespersen.
On the ground that aspective category is constituted by the opposition of the continuous forms of the verb to the non-continuous forms, they present some sentences with while-clauses:
1. While I was typing,
Mary and Tom were chatting
in the adjoining room.
2. While I typed
, Mary and Tom were chatting in the adjoining room.
3. While I was typing
, Wary and Tom chatted
in the adjoining room.
4. While I typed
, they chatted
in the adjoining room.
We have to feel the difference in semantic connotations. The meaningful difference consists exactly in the categorial semantics of the indefinite and comtinuous: while the latter shows the action in the very process of its realization, the former points it out as a mere fact…The stylistic potential
of the continuous aspect is in its possibility to create a number of actions going on simultaneously in descriptions of scenes implied by the narration
.
e.g.: Standing on the chair, I could see in through the barred window into the hall of the Ayuntamiento and in there it was
as it had been
before. The priest was standing
, and those who were left were kneeling
in a half circle around him and they were
all praying
. Pablo was sitting
on the big table in front of the Mayor's chair with his shotgun slung over his back.»
(E. Hemingway., p. 154)
In his A Course in Theoretical English Grammar M.Y. Blakh
describes and explains the category of retrospective coordination
(the perfect aspect) that has been interpreted in linguistic literature in four different ways. In Table 15 «The Perfect Aspect»
(The History of the Problem) we present a piece of information about the authors, foreign and native), who presented the perfect aspect as a problem. We present 5 subdivisions according to the ways of the grammatical interpretations:
1. «The tense view».
2. «The aspect view».
3. «The tense-aspect blend view».
4. «The time correlation view».
5. «The strict categorial view» by M.Y. Blokh.
This table is very convenient for students who wants to get post-graduated education and continue their philological observations in the frames of Theoretical English Grammar.
Grammatical material from the textbook written by M.Y. Blokh is very visual and inportant for students. There is no doubt that its numerous particular propeties, as well as its fundamental qualities as a whole, will be further exposed, clarified in the course of continued linguistic research.
I.B. Khlebnikova
in her book «Essentials of English Morphlogy»
underlines that the items selected for study in this book represent the most debatable parts of English Morphology.
It concerns, first of all, the grammatical categories of the verb.
The author marks that «the verb is a two-face Janus»: when it is viewed as the carrier of some generalized, abstract grammatical meaning, it belongs to morphology; when it is viewed from the point of view of the position it occupies in relation to different word-classes, it belongs to syntax. Taking into account all these we can find a lot of reasons to present «the third face of our Janus-verb» – stylistic features
that are included in our research. The author in chapter IV «The General Organization of Morphlogical Forms» presents «Structural1 Principles of Organization» – The Macrosystem of the English Verb», organized in the table (Table 16)
. Being guided by Ukrainian, Russian, American and European linguistic schools – A. Hill, B. Strangle, O. Jespersen, L. Barkhudarov, G. CURME, G.N. Vorontsova and others – I.B. Khlebnikova expoands the characteristic features of an analitical forms of English verb. They are nine. Between them we can find the descriptions of:
- an auxiliary as a verb which has no lexical meaning of its plus infinitive, participle I, II;
- a collocations as indivisible in grammatical sense, though its components are separate words; it is idiomatic in grammar sense;
- auxiliary verbs realized the «present-past» dichotomy:
have
done – had
done;
is
speaking – was
speaking;
shall
do – should
do;
- verb as the whole macrosystem and in the central – microsystem of tense-aspect
;
- the abbreviation of the auxiliary component in colloquial speech:
I’ve done it, and etc.
The author presents the Microsystem and defines that the distinctive features of tense comes first since it is tense, and not aspect, that presents the frame of the system, though opinions may differ on this score (cf.: traditional Russian term «aspect-tense system of Russian verb»).
In her debates with O. Jespersen who denied the existence of future tense as a grammatical tense in English and it was repeated in more modern publications (By Barkhudarov, 1975) the author writes «the most exact approximation of the real, notional time will be the division into past, present and future,
if the linguistic material admits such a differentiation
».
The paradigm of tense-aspect in English, from the point of the author's view, is based upon temporal divisions (both proper and relative), forming a frame into which aspect differentiation is included within the range of different temporal points. Special attention was given to perfectnees.
Perfectness
is the most enduring and essential category, acting in all microsystems (Table 17).
Describing stylistical features
of the present, past and future tenses she marks that the present tense
is widely used in narrations
taking place within the sphere of the moment of speech, especially in plays and dialogues; «historical present»; permanent qualities, etc. The main sphere of the use of the past tense
is the narration in the past, the representation of a chain of events which happened before the present' time. The complete parallelism of the future I and the future 11 and their purely grammatical meaning is exhibited an any contexts. The following sentences can be represented by both future tenses.
e.g.: Then I will drive this pilum through you.
(He said he would drive that pikum through him).
I shall not bother about them.
(He said he would not bother about them).
We would give the descriptions of some terms according to I.B. Khlebnikova:
transposition
– the transference of some past actions
into the range of the another axis of orientation – the present tense
which is the initual point of temporal opposition.
neutralization
– the future action
is expressed by the present Indefinite or Continuous
.
oppositions
– represent an event on the plane of content of morphological forms which is reflected on the plane of expression
.
e.g.: Mr. X arrives at London airport tomorrow
.
I am taking
the girl to London next week
.
(neutralization)
The author gives definitions of abstract grammatical categories which find expression in the tense-aspect microsystem (active). There are three in number: tense, temporal relativity (perfect-ness) and aspect (durative)
.
We agree with the author that «the items selected for study here represent the most debatable parts of morphology. It concerns, first of all, the grammatical categories of the verb». Before presenting some facts at lecture a teacher have to transfer them according to the student's understanding.
Stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms can be presented only in conditions of an utterance. An utterance is expressed by means of words and sentences. I.P. Verkhowskaya in her monograph «Tense-Aspect forms in English Complexs Sentence»
conveys some results of her research work in the frames of the complex sentences (18290 examples). The author presents three tenses: Present, Past, Future Indefinite
and shows how to use them according to the Sequences of Tenses. She pays her special attention to how to use the Present and Past Perfect and completes specific qualification in the frames of the complex sentence.
At the same time of discussion on a question about stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in Modern English we, the teachers, have to expand the students’ skill in the sphere of grammatical usage of these forms in utterances. In this case we can elicit a lot of examples given by I.P. Verkhovskaya in her monograph.
«Practical Stylistics of English»
written by L.P. Efimov is an attempt to supply the student of English Stylistics with a practical appendix to the lecture and seminar course of stylystic study. The f purpose of this book is to aid the teaching process by which a student becomes aware of the richness and variety of English stylistic means of communication. The author writes that the central notion of Morphologicai Stylistics
is the notion of transposition
: a divergence between the traditional usage of a neutral word and its situational (stylistic) usage. Transposition of verb is even more varied than that of nouns. It is explained by a greater number of grammatical categories the meanings of which may be transposed. Mast expressive are tense forms, mood and voice forms. One of peculiar features of English tense forms is their polysemantism
: the same form may realize various meanings in speech
. Deviation from the general meaning makes verbs stylistically coloured.
e.g.: (Present continuous as future time.)
Pete is staring
a new life tomorrow.
(The present continuous introduces the negative connotations of irritation, regret, sadness and others)
John is
constantly grumbling
.
There is a rule that verbs of sense perception and mental activity
are not used in the continuous tense forms. This rule is often broken intentionally or subconsciously. In both cases verbal forms convey additional stylistic meanings of subjective modality:
e.g.: I an seeing you = I am not blind.
e.g.: I am understanding
you = You need not go into further details.
I am feeling
your touch = So tender you are, etc.
The author marks that «historical present» brightens the narration, raises its emotional tension, expresses intrigue, makes the continuity of events visual and graphic.
e.g.: It was yesterday and looked this way. The perpetrator comes
to his victim, takes
a long dagger out of his inner pocket and stabs
the poor man right into. – his belly without saying a word…
Transposition is not the only way to make expressive. A good many verbal forms are expressive in themselves, for example, the imperative mood
.
e.g.: Just come to me now – «may contextually imply love or hate, threat of warning, promise or desire.
The wide range of subjunctive mood forms
offers a good stylistic choice of synonymous ways to verbalize one and the same idea.
e.g.: It is time for me to go (stylistically neutral)
It is time that I went (bookish and obsolescent)
In many contexts passive verbal forma are more expressive.
e.g.: A round table occupied the centre of the room,
cf: The centre of the room was occupied
by a round table.
e.g.: They answered him nothing=He was answered
nothing.
All these notes are very important for our paper: they give some additional features to our subject but it is not enough for leaning in the frames of stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms.
Thus, the pedagogical quest has long been to find ways of developing a student’s knowledge about grammar which are both enlivening and rewarding, and it continues to be an important goal of contemporary educational linguistics. The field of grammar is often divided into two domains: morphology and syntax. In our case we have examined some points from transformational relations that were involved in tense-aspect formations of the morphological level. Different kind of transformations depend on the purpose of communication and can be treated only in the contexts.
In this case we can say about stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms of modern English.
Interactions between grammar and stylistics are of the essence of language and probably the most significant point to notice in studing of a language in general. A special interest attaches to the correlation between meanings expressed by grammatical forms and their stylistic meanings to which in our paper we repeatedly draw our attention.
2. The analysis of stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in modern English
The main aim of the second part is to research and pick out some interesting examples from original English literature according to two tables (4, 12) that is two types of grammatical transpositions and aspectuality in the frames of the peripheral field. Our purpose is to confirm the central principles included in these tables and to present a lot of samples to enrich the Theoretical Grammar with new visual and practical material that gives real jerk to teachers to complete students’ seminars on this subject more interesting and productive.
The main methords which have been used in our research paper are:
– philological observations;
– revealind some samples, examples, facts from original literature of English authors and generalization;
– contextolpgical analysis of some contexts; description some important fact in considerable details.
Our results were obtained on the edge of some liguistic sciences:
Sty1istics, Functional Grammar, Syntax, Functional and Communicative Linguistics, The Theory of Interpretation of Texts, The Theory of Contextual Situation and others.
The application of these methods makes it possible to establish the concrete system in the frames of this students can observe stylistic potential of verbal forms in real environment and circumstances. The given gu tations from different sources serve to show how the two types of transpositions and aspectuality in the frames of peripheral field have been variously used by different English writers.
Stylistic Potential of Tense-Aspectual forms of English Verbs
2.1
The types of transpositions of verbal forms as stylistic came in the category of tense
Transposition with functional-stylistic characters expressed by verbal forms.
Archaisms
are words which were once common but now are (Table 1.4)
replaced by synonyms. When the author consider the grammatical system of English verbs as an adaotive system has to mark some, thing historical important in narrative, description or poetry they use archaic verbal forms
. N.M. Rayevska characterizes: «The archaic variant forms are used for stylistic purposes
to create the atmosphere of elevated speech in pictorical language, in poetry or in proverbial saying». (29, p. 55) There are only some forms: Table «Archaic Forms of the Auxiliaries».
The forms given in the tables above are those of modern standard English. One may also come across archaic forms, mainly in. poetry or texts where an archaic effect is intended.
| Forms
|
Grammatical characteristics
|
Verbs
|
| dost [dΛst], [dəst] | Present indefinite, 2nd person singular | to do |
| doth, doeth (dΛØ), [dəØ] | Present indefinite, 3rd person singular | |
| didst [didst] | Past indefinite, 2nd person singular | |
| art| [a:t], [ət] | Present indefinite, 2nd person singular | to be |
wast [wost], [wəst], wert [wə:t], [wət] |
Past indefinite, 2nd person singular | |
| hast [hæst], [həst], [əst], [st] | Present indefinite, 2nd person singular | to have |
| hath [hæØ], [həØ], [əØ] | Present indefinite, 3rd person singular | |
| hadst [hædst], [hədst], [ədst] | Past indefinite, 2nd person singular |
|
| shall [ƒælt], [ƒəlt], [ƒlt] | Present indefinite, 2nd person singular | shall |
| shouldst, shouldest (ƒudst) | Past indefinite, 2nd person singular |
|
| wilt [wilt], [əlt], [|it] | Present indefinite, 2nd person singular | will |
| wouldst, wouldest [wudst] | Past indefinite, 2nd person singular |
We can add some more examples:
Saith
= says; Modal verbs:
endeth
= ends; canst, needest, mayest.
knoweth
= knows;
spake
= spoke;
throve
= thrived;
bare
= bore
art
= is;
stretchest, coverest fwalketh, maketh, layeth, gettest, didst, stiteth, beginneth, heareth
and others.
e.g.:
Byron, George Noel GORDON, Lord -1788–1824.
«…For it hath
been by sorrow nursed,
And ach’d in sleepless silence long;
And now 'tis doom'd to know the worst,
And break at once-or yield to song.»
(G.G. Byron.
My soul is dark.
17, p. 16.)
«…Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
Chopp’d by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
But the sap lasts, – and still the seed we find
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North;
So shall a better spring lees bitter fruit bring forth.»
(G.G. Byron, From Childe Harold’s Piligrimage
, 17, p. 211)
«…Thou stand’st
along unrevall’d, till the fire
To come, in which all empires shall expire!»
(G.G. Byron, Moscow!
, 17, p. 214)
«…The river glideth
at his own free will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!»
(W. Wordsworth‑1770–1850, Westminster Bridge
, 17, p. 32)
e.g.: TO-MORROW
«Where art
thou, beloved To-morrow?
When young and old, and strong and weak,
rich and poor, trough joy and sorrow,
Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,-
In thy place-ah! well-A0DAY1
We find the thing we fled-To-day.»
(P.B. Shelly, 1792–1816
,17, p. 57)
«O heart of man! canst
thou not be Blithe as the air is, and as free?»
(H.W. Longfellow, 1807–1892
,17, p. 142)
«Old Yew, which graspest
at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.»
(A. Tennyson, 1809–1892
, 1/, p. 182)
«The Spanish people will rise again as they have always risen before against tyranny.
The dead do not need to rise. They are a part of the earth now and the earth can never be conquered. For the earth endures forever. It will outlive all systems of tyranny».
(B. Hemingway, 1899–1961
,19,67)
«…Doubting Charley! Who trust nobody and believes nothing.
But even Charley can’t deny that Sam’s dead. He’s dead.
When thou know’st
how dry a cinder this world is:»
(R. Hill
, published in 2002, l, p. 62)
A lot of Shakespearisms are used in Modern English which are described by A.V. Kunin
in his book The Course of Phraseology of Modern English». A.N. Morokhovsky
lines out some phraseological units as arkhaisms; be at accord with somebody
= agree to smb.;
play upon advantage
= to deceive;
at adventure
= at random;
at fortune’s alms
= as charity of a fate;
all and some
= separately and together.
Numerous archaisms can be found in Shakespeare, but it should be taken into consideration that what appear to us today as archaisms in the works of Shakespeare, are in fact examples of everyday language of Shakespeare’s time.
The use of archaic variant forms in fiction, for instance, in historical novels, serves to characterize the speech of those times, reproduce its atmosphere, its «couleur historique» (historic colour). As we have researched numerous archaic forms can be found in poetry XVII–XIX, XX centuries: G.G. Byron, W. Wordsworth, P. Shelly, H.W. Longfellow, A. Tennyson; in prose written by E. Hemingway, R. Hill and others. For those students who want to continue to research this aspect of Linguistics there are a lot of unresolved points.
2. Popular language as a free and easy every-day speech
Acceding to Table 12 «Transposition with functional-stylistic characters» the next aspect of our analysis is «Popular language as a free-and-easy every-day speech
».
I.V. Arnold writes in her monograph that authors use this phenomenon for stylistic purposes
Ain’t
is a nonstandard contraction commonly (esp in AmE) in place of am not, is not, are not, have not
. Aren’t I
is widely used, especially in BrE, whereas ain’t I
, usually considered nonstandard
, is somewhat more current in AmE. Amn’t I
is mainly Scottish and Irish.
e.g. «Dear Mr. Pascoe,
Cambridge! St Godric’s College! The Quaestor’s Lodging!
Ain’t I
the swell then? Ain’t
Home Office commercial for the rehabilitating power of the British penal system?» [Hill Reginal; 1; 13].
There are some illustrations from M. Twain:
e.g. «You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
, but that ain’t
no matter…» [10; 21].
e.g. «Stuff! Stealing cattle and such things ain’t
robbery, it’s burglaty», says Tom Sawyer. «We ain’t
burglars. That ain’t
no sort of style…» [10; 21].
e.g. «Well, I knows
what I’s
gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears
it agin» [10, p. 17].
e.g. «Why couldn’t you said that before?» [10; 22].
e.g. «You git me that money to-morrow- I want it.
– I hain’t
dot no money.
– It’s a lie. Judge Thatcher’s got it. You git it. I want it.
– I hain’t
got no money, I tell you…» [10; 35].
Note: hain’t
= h a v e n o t, h a s n o t
.
e.g. «It ain’t
my fault I warn’t
born a duke, it ain’t
your fault you warn’t
born a king – so what’s the use to worry?…» [10; 150].
e.g. «The duke done
(has done)
it, and Jim and me was
(sing) pretty glad to see it» [10; 150].
Note: warn’t
= will not in the past tense.
e.g. «So, things
I, I’ll go and search them (?) rooms… But I see I couldn’t do nothing without a candle, and I dasn’t
light one, of course» [10, p. 207].
Ch. Dickens used a lot of the some examples in his novel «Our Mutual Friend»
e.g. «But what you may call the Fates ordered him into it again? Which is rumness, ain’t
?…» [5; 422].
e.g. «Mr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his head (with his daughter’s help), exactly as if he had just had a Fight. – «Warn’t
it steamer?» he pauses to ask her. – «Yes, father». [5; 424].
e.g. «– Hear me out! «cried Wegg.» – I knew you was
a – going to say so. But along I bore the anxiety, and alone I’ll bear the blame!»… [5; 468].
All these quotations present themselves the low colloquial sublanguage.
These dialogues (above) may not be exactly like others. Writers prefer to paint their personages in words. A detailed analysis of these non-grammatical speech patterns show that they are elements of a system, which is not deprived of rationality. Substandard English is used by millions of people in English speaking counties. It is a conspicuous indicator of low language culture and educational level. Being introduced into books, it becomes a picturesque means
of protagonist’s characterization.
3. Modal verbs and verbal forms with the modal meanings are very important for us to present and use a lot of subtle stylistic connotations in our speech.
The simple modals, such can
, may
, must
, will
, should
have SINGLE forms, whereas the more complex structures known as PERIPHRASTIC MODALS
are formed with the verbs be
and have
, as in be able to
(can, could);
be allowed to
(may, might);
be going to
(will, would);
be supposed to
(shall, should) – (meant, expected, obliged);
have (got) to
(must);
to be to
(have to according to the plan). [G. Yule. Explaining Grammar, 31, p. 86].
e.g. «Some books are to
tasted, others to be
swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be
read in parts; others to be
read but not curiously; and some few to be
read wholly, and with diligence and attention».
[F. Bacon, 46; 156].
«I wonder», said he (Wickham), at the next opportunity of speaking, whether he is
likely to be
in this country much longer.»
[Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice
, 4; 81].
«One of them at any rate: I (Shirley) do not bargain for less: and she is to
appear in some such fashion as this. I am to
be walking by myself on deck, rather late of an August evening, watching and being watched by full harvest-moon…»
[Ch. Bronte, Shirley
, 11; 145].
«Might she only follow her own judgment, she thought she should be able to
find, perhaps a harsh, but effectual cure for her sufferings». [11; 242].
«I asked to be allowed to
look at the note of terms which his respectable patron had drawn up for my inspection.» [W. Collins, The Woman in White
, 2; 10].
«Why blame it all, we’ve got to
do it. Don’t I tell you it’s in the books?»
[M. Twain, 10, p. 21].
«Would you stop complaining about things? We’re supposed to
do our best and we should be able to
finish this work before the boss has to
start screaming at us again. If you could just concentrate on getting finished, we might be allowed to
leave early this afternoon. You know he’s not going to
let us leave early if we can’t get the work done.
[G. Yule. 31; 86].
Stylistic Potential of the Periphrastic modals in Context
| Modal forms
|
Meanings
|
Examples
|
| be able to
|
It is used to convey each of the different kinds of «potential». Difference is in the past tense: the implication is that the actual event took place. Note: can
|
a) We could repair the old car. b) We were able to repair the old car. |
| be allowed to
|
«Permission» as a root modality is clearly appropriate when be allowed to
Its interpretation differs from might
|
a) Will we be allowed to light the fire? b) Oh, no. You won’t be allowed to play with matches. a) They might have a break after lunch. b) They were allowed to have a break after lunch. |
| have (got) to
|
There is no past form of «must». Expressions of past necessity are generally presented via the form have to
In the present tense have to
As uncontrollable external source that compels an action. More typically found in informal speech have got to
It does not occur with other modal forms. Mustn’t
|
a) When I was in school, we had to wear school uniform. b) He was really dig, he had to be over 7 feet tall. a) Do we really have to go this meeting? b) Yes, and we will have to present our report. a) Excuse me, but I have to sneeze. a) They’ve got to try harder next time. a) You mustn’t drink beer. b) You don’t have to drink beer. |
be going to
(the immediacy) |
It is not used to express the «willingness» associated with «will». The future action is related to the present and will occur soon after the time of speaking. The action with be going to
CF: I’m gonna be sick (the reduced form of casual speech shown); I will be sick (if I eat any more of this ice cream). |
a) I’m going to finish these exercises. b) And I’ll get round to the others later. a) Close your eyes, I’m going to give you surprise. b) Watch out! The monster is going to get you. |
| be supposed to
|
It is used with a function similar to should
The social obligations are weaker than those marked by should
|
a) You’re supposed to be studying, not watching TV. b) I’m not supposed to be laughing about it but it’s very funny. |
Random Quirk
[28, p. 137] gives classifying them as: some interesting information about the «The verb of intermediate function»:
1. Central Modals
:
can, could, may, might, shall, should, will/’ll, would/’d, must.
2. Marginal Modals
:
dare, need, ought to, used to.
3. Modal Idioms
:
Had better, would rather / sooner, be to, have got to.
4. Semi-auxiliaries
:
have to, be about to, be able to, be bound to,
be going to, be obliged to, be supposed to,
be willing to.
e.g. «One had better (best) do smith» – [25, v. 2; 119].
«If you want to feel good and live a long life you had better
take a half-hour walk each day, preferably at a brisk pace». [3; 262].
«You had better
ask us about the perfect diet in a perfect environment and how to maintain your good health longer if you take the effective doses of vitamins A, C, E, plus selenium, glutathione, cysteine, and bioflavonoids» [3; 266].
«One o’clock has just struck. I am considering whether I had better
wait here for the arrival of the messenger from London, or slip away quietly, and watch for him outside the long gate». [W. Collins, The Woman in White
, 2; 238].
«Or, perhaps – NO! it is quite revolting enough to feel that third conjecture stir ring in my mind. I would rather
not see it confronting me in plane black and white». [2; 228].
«By whatever other circumstance the day may be marked. It is not the day, Lavinia, on which I will allow
a child of mine to pounce
upon me. I beg – nay, command! – that you will not pounce». [Ch. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
, 5; 430].
«I had not spoken hitherto, and I would
much rather
nor have spoken now. But the expression of distress in Laura’s face when she turned it towards me… left me no other alternative than to give my option…» [W. Collins, 2; 218].
«Many of these visitor were consumptive, who had yet to learn that the bracing alpine air would sooner for their health…» [The Sunday Times, Culture, June 27, 2004, p. 42].
«The one virtue of our electoral system is supposed
to be that it enables the people to «kick the rascals out» at election time…» [The Week, 30 Oct. 2004, p. 34].
I.V. Arnold
points at modal particles just, only
but K.N. Kachalova
, [24, p. 303–305] includes too, also, as well, either, else, even, alone, ever, simply, merely
. They can express the additional shades (connotations) in context.
e.g. «There was something hidden, beyond a doubt, under the mere surface-brutality of the words which her husband had just
addressed to her». [2; 224].
«That was the very thing I was thinking just
now, «said Stickly-Prickly.» I think scales are a tremendous improvement on prickles – to say nothing of being able to
swim…» [The Children’s Treasury of Humour
, 12; 42].
«How strange! «cried Elizabeth.» How abominable! – I wonder that the very pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just
to you!» [J. Austen, Pride and Prejudice
, 4; 85].
«But I tell you, honestly, if you want to see me swim away, you’ve only
got to drop me into the water». [12; 39].
«June 19th
. – I had only
got as far as the top of stairs when the locking of Laura’s door suggested to me the precaution of also locking my own door, and keeping the key safety about me while I was out of my room». [W. Collins, 2; 272].
Periphrastic modals are used to communicate a lot of connotations and subtle shades and tinges. This process of activation of periphrastic modals by relating them to our speaking and writing expands possibilities and potentialities of texts and discourses in the frame of their contexts. They convey the identities, knowledge, emotions, abilities, beliefs, and assumptions of the writer (speaker) and reader (hearer); association and the relationships holding between them. The most striking instances of periphrastic modals presented above give us additional material for the practical course in the frames of the theoretical English grammar.
Stylistic transpositions of special connotative value in expressive language conveyed by verbal forms. (Table 1.4.)
l. The Historical Present.
e.g. «Habits of writing and reading in Anglo-Saxon England were
indeed largely confined
to monastic centers; but from the twelfth century onwards the production and consumption of manuscript material increased
greatly, and some vernacular works of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries survive
in numerous copies.» [The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature, 20; 3].
«Such verse (alliterative) continued
to be written in English, as we shall see, to the end of the Middle Ages and it has bee revived
in modern times by poets such as W.H. Auden; but its principles, derived from a common Germanic tradition of oral poetry, present
difficulties to the reader of Chaucer, Pope, or Tennyson. [20; 4].
«The evolution of Homo sapiens, being with the same physical characteristics that we possess, was
a long and complex process that is still imperfectly understood. The earliest evidence for the existence of Australopithecus, or «southern ape», dates
from approximately 2 million years ago and comes
from the temperate regions of Africa and western Asia (now known as the Middle East)». [Civilization of the World, 21; 4].
NOTE:
The so-called «historical present» occurs in historical information, in rather mannered and formal prose of an old-fashioned tone, and furthermore it is common in colloquial spoken narrative, especially at points of particular excitement. The time reference is unequivocally past.[Quirk R., 28; 1457].
2. Colloquial spoken narratives with the «historical present» as characteristic of popular narrative style.
e.g. «It was
on the Merritt Parkway just south of New Haven. I was driving
along, half asleep, my mind miles away, and suddenly there was
a screeching of brakes and I catch
sight of a car that had been overtaking
me apparently. Well, he doesn’t
. He pulls
in behind me instead, and it’s
then that I notice
a police car parked
on the side». [Quirk R., 28; 1457].
«I hand
the first book to my math. Perhaps it is
grammar, perhaps a history or geography. I take
a last drawning, look
at the page as I give
it into her hand, and start
off aloud at a racing pace while I have got
it fresh. I trip over word Mr. Murdstone looks
up. I trip
over another word. Miss Murdstone looks
up.[Ch. Dickens, 29; 141].
«She has escaped from my Asylum!»
I cannot say
with truth that the terrible inference which those words suggested
flashed
upon me like a new revelation. Some of the strange questions put
to me by the woman in white, after my ill-considered promise to leave her free to act as she pleased
, had suggested
the conclusion either that she was
naturally flighty unsettled
, or that some resent shock of terror had disturbed
the balance of her faculties. But the idea of absolute insanity, which we all associate
with the wery name of an Asylum, had
, I can
honestly declare
, never occured
to me, in connection with her.»
[W. Collins, The Woman in White
, 2; 21–22].
«Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were
bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was
spick-and-span new. All their furniture was
new, all their friends were
new, all their servants were
new, their plate was
new… This evening the Veneerings give
a
banquet. Eleven leaves
in the Twemlow; fouteen in company all told. Four pigeon-breated retainers in plain clothes stand
in line the hall… Mrs. Veneering welcomes
her sweet Mr. Twemlow. Mr. Vereening we1coms
his dearTwemlow…» [Ch Dickens, 5; 7].
«The poetry of Shakespeare was
inspiration: indeed, he is not
so much an imitator, as instrument of nature; and it is not
so just to say that he speaks
from her, as that she speaks
through him». [Hazlitt, 14; 1].
«Shakespear’s imagination, by identifying itself with the strongest characters in the most trying circumstances, grapp1ed
at once with nature, and trampled
the littleness of art under his feet: the rapid changes of situations, the wide range of the universe, gave
him life and spirit, and afforded
full scope to his genius… The author seems
all the time to be thinking
of his verses, and not of his subject, – not of what his characters would feel
, but of what he shall say
; and as it must happen in all such cases, he always puts
in their mouths those things which they would be
the last to think of, and which it shews
the greatest ingenuity in him to fink out.» [14; 256].
«I was sitting
at the bus stop the other day and this woman was sitting
across from me and I see
this caterpillar drop
behind her and start
squiggling its way up to her and I’m just like, «Should I tell her or should I not?» I sat
there for five minutes a and watched
it get
up to her shoe and I decided
I can’t tell
her. I’ve got to see
what happens
». [G.YULE, 31; 72].
«This is
the only point, I flatter
myself, on which we do not agree
. I had hope
that our sentiments coincoded
in every particular, but I must
so far differ
from you as to think
our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish». [J. Austen, 4; 29].
Another illustrative example:
«He holds
«There was
«Hold off! unhand me, grey-bread loon!» Fftsoons his hand dropt
He holds
The Wedding-Guest stood
And listens
The Mariner hath
The Wedding-Guest sat
He cannot
And thus spake
The bright-eyed Mariner. |
PRESENT
PAST
PAST
PRESENT
PAST
PRESENT
PRESENT
PAST
PRESENT
PAST
|
| [Coleridge S.T., The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 36; 40–41] |
NOTE:
These three verses show no less than seven shifts of tense, backwards and forwards, from simple present to simple past.
The change of the tense-forms with one and the same time reference is a most effective stylistic devices
in expressive language. The historical present describes the past as if it is happening now: it conveys something of the dramatic immediacy of an eye-witness account. The phenomenon of present/past tense alternation is common in informal spoken narrative, conversations and letter writings.
3. Echo Utterances
In the discourse function echo utterances are either questions
or exclamations
.
1 Recapitulatory echo questions
:
a) a yes-no questions
or questions which repeat part or all message:
e.g. A: The Browns are emigrating.
B: Emigrating?
e.g. A: Switch the light off, please.
B: Switch the LIGHT OFF?
or
Switch the LIGHT OFF, did you say
?
(to make the meaning explicit)
b) a wh-echo
questions which indicates, by wh-words, which part of the previous utterance the speaker did not hear or understand;
e.g. A: It cost five dollars.
B: How much did it cost?
or
How much did you say
it cost?
I (after wh-element only)
e.g. A: Switch the light off.
B: Switch WHAT off?
e.g. A: His son is a macro engineer.
B: His son is a WHAT
?
NOTE: What
may replace a verb:
e.g.: She sat there and WHAT
ted?
Stylistic
purpose:
to express irony
, incredulity, or merely fill a conversational gap.
c) questions
about questions:
e.g.: A: Have you borrow my PEN?
B: (Have I) borrow your PEN?
(a yes-no question about wh-question;
a wh-question about a yes-no question;
a wh-question about a wh-question)
2 Explicatory echo
questions
They are always
WH-questions
, which ask for the clarification, rather than the repetition.
e.g.: A: Take a look at this!
B: Take a look at WHAT
?
e.g. A: He’s missed the bus again.
B: WHO’s missed the bus?
e.g. A: Oh, dear, I’ve lost the letter.
B: WHICH letter I have you lost?
(do you mean
you have lost?)
not «did»
3.
Echo exclamations:
the form of utterance to be repeated may be declarative
, interrogative
, imperative
, or even exclamative
.
Stylistic purpose:
to express astonishment, amazement, confusion, wonderment, consternation.
e.g.: A: I’m going to London for a holiday.
B: To
LON
don! That not my idea of a rest.
e.g.: A: Open the door, please.
B: Open the DOOR
! Do you take me for a doorman?
Note
: In the frame of our research we give follow examples from quoted literature, namely:
Examples from Jane Austen
. Pride and Prejudice:
e.g.: Jane: I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I did not0 expect such a compliment.
Elizabeth: Did not you?
I did for you.
e.g.: Mr. Bennet. The person of whom I speak is gentleman and a stranger.
Mrs. Bennet’s eyes sparkled.-A gentleman and a stranger!
It is Mr. Singly, I am sure. [4; 63]
e.g.: (Mr. Bingley) What think you of books? said he, smiling.
Jane. Books-Oh!
no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings! [4; 97].
e.g.: Mrs. Bennet. I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was not for the entail, I should not mind it.
Mr. Bennet. What
should not you mind?
Mrs. Bennet. I should not mind anything at all. [4; 135]
e.g.: Lady Catherine. Has your governess left you?
Miss Bennet. We never had any governess.
Lady Catherine. No governess
. How was that possible?
Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have quite a slave to your education. [4; 168].
e.g.: (Colonel Fitzwilliam) «We are speaking of musik, madam,» said he, when to longer able to avoid a reply. Lady Catherine. Of music!
Then pray speak aloud. It is all subjects my delight…[4; 176]
Examples from Wilkie Collins. The Women in White
.
e.g.: The Count. Gently, Percival-gently! Are you insensible to the virtue of Lady Clyde?
Sir Percival. That for the
virtue of Lady Clyde!
I believe in nothing about her but her money… [2; 298]
e.g.: Mr. Fairlie…. Inexpressibly relieved, I am sure, to hear that nobody is dead. Anybody ill? «…Anybody ill?
»– I repeated (Frederick)…[2; 315]
e.g.: «Where are you going? He (Sir Percival) said to Lady Glade.
«To Marian's room,» she answered.
«It may spare you a disappointment», remarked Sir Percival, «if I tell you at once that you will not find her there.»
«Not find her there!»
«No. She left the house yesterday morning with Fosco and his wife.» [2; 342]
Examples from Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend
.
e.g. «Are my feathers so very much rumpled? said Eugene, coolly going up to the looking-glass. «They are rather out of sorts. But consider. Such a night for plumage!
«Such a
night?
repeated Mortimer. «What became of you in the morning?» [5; 167]
e.g.: «Now, Lammle, «said fascination Fledge by, calmly feeling for his whisker, «it won’t do. I won’t be led into a discussion. I can’t manage a discussion. But I can manage to hold my tongue.»
«Can?
«Mr. Lammle fell back upon propitiation.» I should think you could! Why, when these fellows of our acquaintance drink, and you drink with them, the more talkative they get, the more silent you get. The more they let out, the more you keep in». [5; 252].
Echo utterances are recapitulatory echo questions, explicatory echo questions and echo exclamations. They repeat as a whole or in part what has been said by another speaker. They may take the form of any utterance or partial utterance in the language. The stylistic purpose
is to express irony, sarcasm, incredulity, doubt, astonishment, amazement, confusion, wonder, or merely to fill in a conversational gap.
STYLISTIC POTENTIAL OF THE CONTINUOUS TENSE
1. Expression of anger or irritation with adverbs such «always, every time, continually, constantly, forever»:
e.g. «I am astonished, «said Miss Bingley,» that my fattier should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!
«It out to be good, «he replied,» it has been the work of many generations».
«And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are ALWAYS buying
books.»
«I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.» «Neglect!.»
[Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice
. 4; 38].
e.g. «Indeed, «replied Elizabeth,» I am heartily sorry for him; but he has other feelings, which will probably soon drive away his regard for mee. You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?»
«Blame you! Oh, no.»
«But you are ALWAYS blaming
me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham?» «No…»[J. Austen, 4; 227].
NOTE:
In combination with always, continually, or forever, the progressive loses its semantic component of «temporariness» The speaker seems to suggest that «buying books» or «blaming me» are an irritating or deplorable habits.
e.g.: He is CONTINUALLY complaining
about the noise Bill is ALWAYS
/CONTINUALLY / FOREVER working
late at office.
[R. Quirk, 28; 199, 543].
2. Future arising from present arrangement, plan, programme:
e.g.: «A fine evening, Miss Peecher», said the master.
«A fine evening, Mr. Headstone», said Miss Peecher. «Are you taking walk?»
«Hexam and I are going to take a long walk».
[Ch. Dickens. Our Mutual Friend
, 5; 206].
e.g.: He (Sir Percival) stopped, and appeared to notice, for the first time, that we were in our walking costume. «Have you just come in?» he asked, «or were just going out?»
«We are
all thinking
of going to the lake this morning», said Laura. «But if you have any other arrangement to propose»
«No, no», he answered hastily. «My arrangement can wait…» [W. Collins, 2; 203].
e.g.: «If you think I might risk it, Miss, I’d like to slip round to my dentist.» – Oh! what race is being run this afternoon, then, topping?» [Galsworthy, 29; 145].
e.g.: Brain said to his cousin, «I’m signing on
as well in a way, only for life.» I’m getting
married».
Both stopped walking. Bert took his arm and stared,
«You’re not.
»
«I’m.
To Pauline.[Sillitoe, 29; 144].
e.g. «I am going
forwards, said the stranger, for Frankfort – and shall be back at Strasburg this day month…» –
«Its a long journey, Sir, replied the master of inn-unless a man has great business.»
[Laurence Sterne. Selected Prose and Letters
, 21; 171].
e.g. «Right ho! Then brinh me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the pod green Homburg. I’m going
into the Park to do pastoral dances».
[The Book of English Humor, 16; 85].
3. Imperative modality
e.g. He tried to brush Anthony aside. But Ahthony firmly stood his ground. «I’m sorry,» he said, his teeth together,
«You’re not going in
there». (Gordon)
NOTE:
You are not going
is SYNONYMOUS
with Don’t go! = Don’t you go!
[N.M. Rayevska, 29; l45].
e.g. «We’re going after buff in the morning», he told her.
«I’m coming», she said.
«No, you’re not
».
«Oh, yes, I am. Mayn’t I, Francis?»
«We’ll put on another show for you tomorrow», Francis Macomber said.
«You are not coining
», Wilson said.
[Hemingway, 29; 145].
There are a lot of the subtle meaning associated with the progressive aspect. Syntagmatic connotative meanings of the Present Continuous signalled by different context, linguistic or situational, may denote: expression of anger or irritation; future arising from present, arrangement, plan and programme; the imperative modality and other expressive elements. We used literary texts to illustrate how various features of the continuous tense can be used in spoken English.
Transposition of grammatical forms will lead to their synonymic encounter:
- the Past Tense and the Historical Present;
- the Future Tense and the Present Tense;
– verb-forms of the Imperative and the Present Tense, and others.
2.2
The types of transpositions of verbal forms as stylistic means in the category of aspect
1. Iterative
aspect
a)
USE + TO infinitive:
may denote not only repeated action in the past but permanent state in the remote past:
e.g.: «I had a look at Brane yesterday; he’s changed a good deal from when I used to know him. I was one of the first to give him briefs».
[Galsworthy, 29; 133]
e.g.: There used to be
a cinema here before the war. Life is not so easy here as it used to be.
[Hornby A.S., 45; 153]
e.g. «The workshops have been shut up half-an-hour or more in Adam Bede’s timber yoard which used to be
Jonathan Bridge’s».
[Eliot, 29; 133]
e.g. «There used to be
an old apple tree in the garden. Oh, did there?»
[C.E. Eckersley, 3v; 255]
NOTE:
«used to V» is used by 39 from 42 of Englishmen.
[A.I. Dorodnykh, 8; 148]
It is important to mark that in this situations in Spoken English used to V
is practised with verbs: to be (to exist), to grow, to know, to love, to hate, to work, to belong, to own.
e.g. «I had a look at Brane yesterday; he’s changed a good deal from when I used to know
him.»
[Galsworthy, 3; 109]
e.g «Michael went up to Fleur in the room she used to have
as a little dirl- a single room, so that he had been sleeping elsewhere.»
[Galsworthy. 29; 133]
b) Would + V – infinitive as an action in the past:
e.g. «Catherine, weak-spirifed, irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance, had been always affronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and bare less, would scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while Meryton was within a walk of Long-bourn, they would be going there for ever».
[J. Austen. Pride and Prejudice
, 4; 216]
e.g. «Sometimes Strickland
would go down to the reef and come back wit a basket of small, coloured fish that Ata would fry in coconut, or with a lobster…»
[S. Maugham, 3; 111]
e.g. «Stimulated in course of time by the sight of so many successes, he would make another sally
, make another loop, would all but have his foot on opposite pavement, would see or imagine something coming, and would stagger back again. There he would stand making spasmodic preparations as if for a great leap, and at last would decide on a start at precisely the wrong moment, and would be roared at by drivers, and would shrink back once more, and stand in the old spot shivering, with the whole of the proceedings to go through again».
[Ch. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
, 5; 505]
The historical past tense of «will» is «would», often reduced in speech to «d
. The combination of remoteness and likelihood as the conceptual basis of would
generally leads to an interpretation of some event as being distant in time or possibility from the moment of speaking. The remoteness element in would
, combined with the epistemic interpretation (deductions or conclusions made by the speaker) is an interpretation of the past habitual behavior.
c) Iterative aspect expressed by Verb + ON and ON / OVER and OVER AGAIN / TIME and TIME AGAIN.
e.g. «Remembering Mr. Dawson’s caution to me, I subjected Mrs. Rublle to a severe scrutiny at certain intervals for the next three or four days. I over and over again
entered the room softly and suddenly, but I never found her out in any «suspicious action.»
[W. Collins. The Woman in White
, 2; 329]
e.g. «She had hovered for a little while in the near neighborhood of her abandoned dwelling, and had sold, and knitted and sold, and gone on. In the pleasant towns of. Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines her figure came time and time again
to be quite well known for some short weeks, and then again passed on.»
[C. Dockens. 5; 477]
e.g. On and on
stormed the loud applause. He has gone through all that over and over again. «You could have let that rom time and time again», says she. (Mansfield) [29; 134]
e.g. It was easy to talk on and on
.
Men did the same job over and over
.
[49, l002, 1025]
d) Syntactic reduplication:
e.g. «Hear the sledges with the bells-Silver bells! What a world a merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle
,
In the icy air of night! [E.A. Po. The Bells, 9; 58]
NOTE:
The frequentive character of the action (tinkle)
is intensified by syntactic reduplication.
e.g. «He talks, talks, talks about protecting women, and when the time comes for him to do some protecting, where is he?» [Mitchell, 29; 134].
The important components of the peripheral field of aspect are the ways of actions which find their positions in such verbal patterns as Verb + on and on
/
over and over again
/
time and time again
and syntactic reduplications.
2. Inchoative Aspect
a) the model COME + TO VERB:
some activity or state which has been gradually approached and has now set in:
e.g.: I came to like
the child. He came to like
poetry. Poetry came to be
his gratest interest.
e.g. «…I don’t believe «Da» was beautiful, when I came to think
of it, and Mademoiselle’s almost ugly». [Galsworthy, 9; 130]
The modal COME + TO VERB
can be presented as perfective or terminative meanings:
e.g. «Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give
their – personal invitation for the long-expected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed for the following Tuesday».
[J. Austen. Pride and Prejudice,
4; 90]
e.g. «While the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend
the day with them.» [4; 84]
e.g. «It’s gone now», said Betty.» I shall be stranger than I was afore. Many thanks to ye, my dear, and when you come to be
as old as I am, may others do as much for you». [4; 102]
b)
Gome + to Vinf = Get + To Vinf
(in spoken English indicating that some activity or state has just set in)
e.g. How do I get to know you better?
She got to think.
The children didn't like living in the country when, they first moved from London, but they’re getting to like it
(becoming fond of it).
[45; l63]
He’s getting to be
(is becoming) quite a good pianist.
He soon got to know
(learnt) the wisdom of being patient.
c)
Take + to – V ing = the ingressive character of an action or the beginning of a habit:
e.g. «Then he took to walking
(addicted) along the street which he must pass through to get to the shop and he would stand at the corner on the other side as she went along.» (Maugham)
[29; 131]
e.g. «He forced himself at last to finish the magazine/and from the steamer library he culled several volumes of poetry. But they could not hold him, and once more he took to walking.
» (J. London)
[3; 115]
d)
Fall + to – V ing implies a sudden beginning of the activity:
e.g. «He started to take off his shoes, but fell to staring
at the white plaster wall opposite him, broken by long streams of dirty brown where rain had leaked through the roof». (J. Galsworthy) [3; 80]
e.g. «Peggotty fell to kissing
the keyhole as she could not kiss me». (Ch. Dickens) [3; 25]
e.g.: «…One of the volumes was a Swinburne. He lay in bed, glancing through its pages, until suddenly he became aware that he was reading with interest. He finished the stanza, attempted to read on, then came back to it. He reasted the book face downward on his breast and fell to thinking». (J. London)
[3; ll6]
e) Phraseological units with verbs BREAK, BURST, FALL, PUT can be used as impression:
e.g. «It just shows a lot o’good you can do when you stick up for your kids», Ada remarked before breaking into a laugh
when Johnny clomped into the house that night». [A. Sillitoe, 3; ll8]
e.g. «It is hard to burst into laughter
at in ray moments of sentiment, as if my soul was like myself, old and over-grown. Observe, dear lady, what a light is dying on the trees! Does it penetrate your heart, as it penetrates1 mine?» [W. Collins. 2; 257]
e.g. «She burst into tears
as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could not speak another word.» [J. Austen. 4; 278]
e.g. «From there one could look down at the river winding among poplars and willows… Birds broke into song
». [J. Galsworthy, 3; 118]
Inchoative Aspect (ingressive aspect) expresses a focus on the onset of situations and is associated with verbs like begin
and start.
Correlation between morphological, grammatical and semantic means can be found in the frames of the peripheral field of aspect, mood and modality.
3. Patterns with the emphatic DO
Patterns with the emphatic DO
may be used to express various emotions, such as: insistence, assurance, affirmation of reply to a question in the affirmative or agreement with what has been said, sympathy, surprise, indignation, irony, mild reproach, admonition
and others.
Examples from W. Collins. The Woman in White
:
«Have you forgotten the letter he wrote to her at the beginning of her illness? It was shown to you, you read it yourself, and you ought to remember it». – «I do
ember it». [3; 344]
«You are heartily welcome, sir, to any think I can tell you», answered Mrs. Clements. She stopped and looked at me wistfully. – «But I do
wish,» said the poor woman, «you could have told me a little more about Anne, sir.» [3; 429]
«I am sorry to hear her mother say so.»
«Her mother does
say so. How do you know she is dead?»
«I am not at liberty to say how I know it-but I do
know it». [3; 438]
«How could I? I was too terrified to move or speak.»
«But when you did
move-when you came out – ?»
«I run back here, to tell you what had happened.» [3; 252]
Examples from Austen J. Pride and Prejudice
:
«Certainly, «replied Elizabeth – «there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do
divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can-But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without.» [4; 58]
«You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? But I will not be alarmed though your sister does
play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others.» [4; 177]
«After a few minutes reflect ion, however, she continued -» I do
remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of his resentments, of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition must be dreadful.» [4; 84]
The main function of DO
is a syntactical function. The second purpose of DO
– using is to express the subtle shades of subjective modal meanings which we can found only in the speech context or situation.
For foreign students there are not always easy to render the precise effect of the emphatic auxiliary DO
in all the variety of its idiosyncratic use.
4. Actions of Single Occurrence:
a)
momentaneous actions of single occurrence:
e.g. «Young Lolyon shot
at him a penetrationg glance
.»
[Galsworthy, 10; 35]
«He made a start
towards at the moment as if he had some other farewell words to say; but she only hurried off the faster, and Mr. Tarley followed as in duty bound».
[Ch. Dickens, 5; 48]
«When his hammer tried to take a bite
out of his thumb he swore with such awful care and deliberation for five minutes that Vera went into the other room until his vocabulary gave under the passing of time».
[A. Silitoe, 3; 119], [29; 134–135]
b)
single actions of some short duration:
e.g. «He did not give it a thought
». (Galsworthy)
«She gave
him a little hurried kiss
». (K. Mansfield) «…Then her meaning flashed across his clever brain and he gave her a thought
.» (S. Maugham)
Examples from W. Collins. The Woman in White
:
e.g. «The line outside took a sudden turn
to the left, ran on straight for a hundred yards or so, and then took
another sharp turn
to the right to join the high-road.» [2; 239]
e.g. «I collected myself sufficiently to make a sign
in the affirmative.» [2; 241]
e.g. «The discovery – I don't know why – gave
me such a shock
, that I was perfectly incapable of speaking to her for the moment.» [2; 249]
The stylistic range of such «phrasal» verbs is very wide. Their dynamic character and the possibility of attaching various kind of attributes to the nominal element makes them particularly suitable for use in descriptive pictorial language, as compared to corresponding simple verbs. Highly expressive in meanings these «metaphors» have contributed significantly to the development of emotional and affective means in present-day English.
5.
Progressive (Durative) Aspect:
T h e d u r a t i v e (progressive) character of the action does not find its expression only in the progressive (continuous) tense-forms of the English verb.
The idea of duration may be also conveyed by verbs used to indicate their continuing perspectives and treated as aspectual verbs (or aspectualizers
– (31, p. 223). These verbs do not denote separate actions, their occurrence with complement verbs cannot be interpreted as two actions in sequence.
Progressive aspect can be conveyed by such verbs:
STAND / STAY / LIE / CONTINUE / GO ON / KEEP
(on) + V-ing.
e.g. «I stood looking
down it, uncertain which way to take next, and while I looked I saw on one thorny branch some fragments of fringe from a woman’s shawl»
(W. Collins, The Woman in White, 2, p. 260)
«Nobody shall see me, but I will keep hearing of
your voice, if anything happens.» [2; 253]
e.g. «Sloppy stayed staring
at the pattern of the paper on the wall, untill the Secretary and Mrs. Boffin came back together».
[Ch. Dickens, 5; 306]
e.g. «He went to the door, stood looking
down at the lock, and said, «Thanks for a great weekend. I had the best time of my life.»
[H. Reginald. Death’s Jest-Book, 1; 115]
e.g. «This was cynicism so patent, that all the Forsyte in Soames rejected it; and yet it would keep coming
back.
«She stood looking
at herself reflected in it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept passing
through her nerves.» (J. Galsworthy)[3; 113]
NOTE:
V-ing
means: the period of time/ongoing events or activity and process.
In present-day English, especially in spoken English, these verb-phrases are found more frequently: scarcity in morphological devices to indicate aspect in English has necessitated the development of the conventional practices.
The analysis of the distributional meaning of tense-aspect verbal forms in present-day English, brief as it is, will remind us of the constitutional value of syntactic morphology whose subject matter is «grammar in context».
Variations in the use of the tense-aspect verbal forms, their potential polysemy and transpositions conditioned by the mode of the speaker’s representation of the verbal idea are a source of constant linguistic interest. Different tense-aspect forms are not yet finally and absolutely fixed. Making for greater subtle-ties and finer shades in expressing the speaker’s subjective attitude to the utterance functional shifts are really taking place.
3. Methodological recommendations for teaching of tense-aspect verbal forms in English language using their stylistic potential
At the end of our paper we shall give some ideas for teachers to help them think steps, exercises and activities for students’ practical studies.
1 step:
to research and use the pedagogical literature.
Many rules are considerably more complex than can be done, and linguistics are still researching areas of language. According to Michael Swan, an author not only of textbooks but also of one of the most widely-used pedagogic grammar, suggests anumber of measures of a good rule (1994). These include «simplisity», «truth», «clarity», and «relevance»
. From this point of view Raymond Murphy
in his «Essential Grammar in Use»
(elementary, intermediate courses) gives a lot of simple descriptions how to use and study the present perfect tense, for example, Units 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21 from entermediate course. «Longman Advanced Grammar» (Reference and Practice)
written by L.G. Alexander
and his «Longman English Grammar»
begin at about the level of the Cambridge First Certificate, build up to the level of the Cambridge Advanced Examination and culminate at the level of the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency, This Grammar has three aims:
1. To serve as an advances «text decoder», ising the analysis of syntax as the key to understanding difficult text.
2. To provide practice
in advanced point of grammar
.
3. To serve as an advanced reference grammar
, where citations are to be found in context
, and not
just quoted
at sentence-level in isolation from their source
.
For example, Unit 19, p. 84. The text «Alaska’s dirty dollars» is presented as difference between the present perfect tense and the past simple tense which are used here. And we suggest to all teachers of grammar to represent stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms only in the frames of context.
Every teacher can elicit a lot of ideas for presenting and practicing tenses in English from book written by Rosemary Aitken «Teaching Tenses»
. In this book there are a lot of answers on teacher questions, namely:
1. How to organize a tense for teaching: the main problems.
2. How to prepare to teach a tense: CASSIAL
:
Choose, Analyse, Sequence, Select, Identify context, Auxiliary material, Leaner error = CASSIAL. They are basic steps which it is helpful to follow in planning a tense for teaching purposes
. For example: the present perfect
is described through the analysis (table, questions to draw the target, notes), meaning and function (for uncompleted action, for action which took place in the past, etc), suggested context, learner error: meaning and function.
Thus, teachers can find and use these books for supplementing of supporting their classroom teaching.
On page 236 we can find a lot of interesting activities presented
by Penny Ur in book
«Grammar Practice Activities»
: we are saying about how to understand and use the present perfect through communicated methodology: use of present perfect to present current news (materials, procedure, variantions, communicative context from a pile of English-language newspapers); «find someone who…» (tables, a set of cards with «ever-never»); «what has / have happened (two pictures showing situation before and after accounting for moods (set of photoes); I have lived here changes) for/since (to describe a past state or process extending into the present, etc.: a lot of communicative ideas.
Another interesting material we can suggest to teachers from «Play Games With English» 1,2,3, plus,
systematically and selectively, for example, we can find the structures and language points in the second book «She’s packed her suitcase», p. 32,42,76, and in the third book – «I’ve lost my keys», p. 16,46. These exercises are given in visual pictures and students like to use them in their grammar study.
In «Explaining English grammar»
George Yule presents a lot of exercises on difference between perfect and progressive aspects:
«A number of exercise types can be found to practice progressive aspect, with verb that have both durative and stative aspect, for example» «What on earth is (s) he doing?», p. 79; «Why are they smiling?"(photograph with two old men), and others.
The teacher must be the researcher in the grammar ocean. Only in this case working with different pedagogical literature according to the specific grammar task and aim sistematically and selectively he or she can produce and present English grammar brightly and clearly and will be loved by students.
1.1.
Throughout of centuries English Scholar created the system of the Morphology Grammar where English verbal forms as the basis of Grammar have gradually been presented, studied and researched as a great stylistic potential.
Being placed in unusual syntagmatic environmentwhich change their canonized grammatical characteristics and combinability, English Verbs acquire stylistic significant.
1.2.
Following the description of basic verbal forms, Yuri G. conveys not only specific features of verbal forms and structures according to tenses and aspects, but includes a piece of information on how meanings of verbal forms can be shaped bf context and communicative purpose – stylistic potential of verbal forms.
1.3.
R. Quirk and his team give a lot of information about time, tense and aspect; the tables in which English verbs are divided into stative and dynamic types; difficult theme as «aspect» is presented in clear and lucid language. There are some problems which are debated up to now, for example, «the reality of the perfective progressive».
1.4.
N.N. Rayevska puts forward several interesting and stimulating ideas for the further philological observations that according to her point of view are very productive and prospective:
1. Development of grammat co-ideomatical structures.
2. Morphological correlations of interlevel units and inclusion them in the peripheral field of verbal forms.
3. The Phrasiological System in its unity with garammatical functioning.
4. Paculiarities of lexical combinability and realization of tense-aspect forms in the community of their syntactical structures and others (a lot of ideas!)
1.5.
Two types of transposition [Table 1.4] described by I.V. Arnold are used in our practical part with the aim to expand the frames of their usage as obvious and visuial examples from English original literature.
1.6.
Satisfactory results in the philological training of students can be achieved only on condition that students have firmly, mastered the basic principles if every linguistic disciplin, stylistics included.
1.7.
In monograph Stylistics of English Language
the authors show that the diapason of stylistic devices is very high. We have marked only s some of them but very expressive categories of time, voice and mood. All these means can be used only in context. We consider that the subject «The Theory of Context» must be included in the syllabus for students from the foriegn language faculties. Our tables (13–14) which were completed for students as HOs on the Theoretical Grammar will help them to realise this garammatical material in practical frames.
1.8.
Grammatical material from the textbook written by M.Y. Blokh is very visual and inportant for students. There is no doubt that its numerous particular propeties, as well as its fundamental qualities as a whole, will be further exposed, clarified in the course of continued linguistic research.
1.9.
We agree with the author that «the items selected for study here represent the most debatable parts of morphology. It concerns, first of all, the grammatical categories of the verb». Before presenting some facts at lecture a teacher have to transfer them according to the student's understanding.
1.10.
At the same time of discussion on a question about stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms in Modern English we, the teachers, have to expand the students’ skill in the sphere of grammatical usage of these forms in utterances. In this case we can elicit a lot of examples given by I.P. Verkhovskaya in her monograph.
1.11.
All these notes are very important for our paper: they give some additional features to our subject but it is not enough for leaning in the frames of stylistic potential of tense-aspect verbal forms.
2.1.
The use of archaic variant forms in fiction, for instance, in historical novels, serves to characterize the speech of the times, to reproduce its atmosphere, its «couleur historique» (historical colour). Numerous archaic forms can be found in poetry (XVII–XVIII c) written by W. Shakespeare, P.B. Shelly, G.G. Byron, W. Wordsworth, etc; in Bible, but it should be taken into our consideration that what appear to us today as archaic forms in Shakespeare’s times are in fact examples of their everyday language.
2.2.
All these quotations present themselves the low colloquial sublanguage.
These dialogues (above) may not be exactly like one’s. Writers prefer to paint their personages in words. A detailed analysis of these non-grammatical speech patterns show that they are elements of a system, which is not deprived of rationality. Substandard English is used by millions of people in English speaking counties. It is a conspicuous indicator of low language culture and educational level. Being introduced into books, it becomes a picturesque means
of protagonist’s characterization.
2.3.
Periphrastic modals are used to communicate a lot of connotations and subtle shades and tinges. This process of activation of periphrastic modals by relating them to our speaking and writing expands possibilities and potentialities of texts and discourses in the fraim of their contexts. They convey the identities, knowledge, emotions, abilities, beliefs, and assumptions of the writer (speaker) and reader (hearer); association and the relationships holding between them. The most striking instances of periphrastic modals presented above give us additional material for the practical course in the fraims of the theoretical English grammar.
2.4.
The change of the tense-forms with one and the same time reference is a most effective stylistic devices
in expressive language. The historical present describes the past as if it is happening now: it conveys something of the dramatic immediacy of an eye-witness account. The phenomenon of present/past tense alternation is common in informal spoken narrative, conversations and letter writings.
2.5.
Echo utterances are recapitulatory echo questions, explicatory echo questions and echo exclamations. They repeat as a whole or in part what has been said by another speaker. They may take the form of any utterance or partial utterance in the language. The stylistic purpose
is to express irony, sarcasm, incredulity, doubt, astonishment, amazement, confusion, wonder, or merely to fill in a conversational gap.
2.6.
There are a lot of the subtle meaning associated with the progressive aspect. Syntagmatic connotative meanings of the Present Continuous signaled by different context, linguistic or situational, may denote: expression of anger or irritation; future arising from present, arrangement, plan and programme; the imperative modality and other expressive elements. We used literary texts to illustrate how various features of the progressive aspect can be used in spoken English.
Transposition of grammatical forms will lead to their synonymic encounter:
- the Past Tense and the Historical Present;
- the Future Tense and the Present Tense;
- verb-forms of the Imperative and the Present Tense, and others.
2.7.
The historical past tense of «will» is «would», often reduced in speech to «d
. The combination of remoteness and likelihood as the conceptual basis of would
generally leads to an interpretation of some event as being distant in time or possibility from the moment of speaking. The remoteness element in would
, combined with the epistemic interpretation (deductions or conclusions made by the speaker) is am interpretation of past habitual behavior.
2.8.
The important components of the peripheral field of aspect are the ways of actions which find their positions in such verbal patterns as Verb + on and on/over and over again/time and time again
and syntactic reduplications.
2.9.
Inchoative Aspect (ingressive aspect) expresses a focus on the onset of situations and is associated with verbs like begin
and start.
Correlation between morphological and semantic means can be found in the frames of the peripheral field of aspect, mood and modality.
2.10.
The main function of DO
is a syntactical function. The second purpose of DO
– using is to express the subtle shades of subjective modal meanings which we can found only in the speech context or situation.
For foreign students there are not always easy to render the precise effect of the emphatic auxiliary DO
in all the variety of its idiosyncratic use.
2.11.
The stylistic range of such «phrasal» verbs is very wide. Their dynamic character and the possibility of attaching various kind of attributes to the nominal element makes them particularly suitable for use in descriptive pictorial language, as compared to corresponding simple verbs. Highly expressive in meanings these «metaphors» have contributed significantly to the development of emotional and affective means in present-day English.
2.12.
In present-day English, especially in spoken English, these verb-phrases are found more frequently: scarcity in morphological devices to indicate aspect in English has necessitated the development of the conventional practices.
2.13.
The analysis of the distributional meaning of tense-aspect verbal forms in present-day English, brief as it is, will remind us of the constitutional value of syntactic morphology whose subject matter is «grammar in context».
Variations in the use of the tense-aspect verbal forms, their potential polysemy and transpositions conditioned by the mode of the speaker’s representation of the verbal idea are a source of constant linguistic interest. Different tense-aspect forms are not yet finaly and absolutely fixed. Making for greater subtle-ties and finer shades in expressing the speaker’s subjective attitude to the utterance functional shifts are really taking place.
3.1.
The teacher must be the researcher in the grammar ocean. Only in this case working with different pedagogical literature according to the specific grammar task and aim sistematically and selectively he or she can produce and present English grammar brightly and clearly and will be loved by students.
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