EV1 Lesson 3

Page 1

The English Verb System – Contrastive Approach 1 October 19, 2018

Lesson 3 Simple or Complex VP? 1) You should have been informed earlier. (modal+perfective aspect+passive voice) 2) They can’t have been fighting again! (modal+perfective+progressive) 3) He should have been being paid. (modal+perfective +progressive+passive) 4) He decided to go. 5) I don't want to have to be forced to begin to try to make more money. (Palmer 1987: 172) Palmer (1987) establishes syntactic tests in order to distinguish these phrases formally:

TNP tests (tense, negation, passivization) TENSE or TIME? In a complex VP, will time (but not always tense !) be marked more than once? If there are two lexical verbs, both may be independently marked for time. 1) Bill seems to have seen Mary yesterday. ‘Seen’ is marked not for tense but for aspect or time. 2) Mary wants to go on holiday. Clausal subordination, but no double-time marking (!) Palmer states that adverbials of time also mark time in the same way as tense suffixes do: 1) Bill intended to come tomorrow. The problem with adverbials: 2) Bill was coming tomorrow. 3) Yesterday, Bill was coming tomorrow. These are simple VPs. However, tense is marked twice (through grammatical and lexical time marking). 4) Bill seems to like Mary. Some complex VPs are not overtly marked for time (when the situations are simultaneous). Conclusion: The T-test is not reliable since it is restricted only to certain contexts.

1


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.