The English Sentence

Week # 3
A quick review of verb phrases

Institute of English and American Studies

University of Debrecen
Instructor: Éva Kardos
 A quick review of verb
phrases
The structure of today’s lecture:
1. The verb paradigm
2. Tenses in English
3. Aspects in English: Grammatical vs. lexical aspect
4. Aspects across languages
5. Mood
6. Future, modality, and will
 The verb paradigm
Verbs have a number of inflectional forms that are required
or permitted depending on what grammatical environment
they appear in. Consider (1) and (2).
(1) Peter has been to China.
(2) Mary often cooked beef.
Q: How are the verb forms been and cooked different in (1)
and (2)? Hint: Is there any other verb form that can replace
been and cooked?
 The verb paradigm
The set of inflectional forms of a variable lexeme is called its
paradigm. In English verbal paradigms are quite simple
given that this language is morphologically poor compared
to languages like Hungarian.

The table on the next slide illustrates the paradigm for the
verb start.
 The verb paradigm
Verbs carrying tense preterite Mary started early today.
3rd singular present Mary starts early every
day.
plain present The boys start early
every day.
Tenseless forms plain form I hope Mary will start
early tomorrow.
gerund-participle Mary is starting early
tomorrow.
Past participle Mary has started early
today.
 The verb paradigm
Verbs carrying tense are also associated with agreement
information, i.e. person and number.
Tenseless forms appear in various environments. Here are
some examples:
(3) a. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
b. I have written three e-mails this morning.
c. My new book will be published next month.
 The verb paradigm
Q: The verbs in (4) and (5) look similar, but they have very
different grammatical properties. What kind of evidence do
we have for this claim?

(4) John started school yesterday.

(5) John has started school.
 Tenses in English
In English there is a basic contrast between past tense
forms and non-past tense forms. We have morphological
evidence for this:
(6) a. I love Bill.
b. I loved Bill.
Tense is associated with the verb and it has to do with the
location in time of the situation described by a given clause.
 Tenses in Hungarian
Hungarian also makes a two-way distinction between past tense
and non-past tense:
(7) a. János szeret egy lány-t.
John loves a girl-ACC
'John loves a girl.'
b. János szeretett egy lány-t.
John loved a girl-ACC
'John loved a girl.'
 Aspects in English:
Grammatical aspect
There is another temporal category that we need to discuss. In addition
to tense, sentences are also associated with specific grammatical
aspectual information. This aspectual category is also referred to as
viewpoint aspect (Smith 1991). Consider (8).
(8) a. John ran to the forest. (past tense, perfective aspect)
b. John was running to the forest. (past tense, imperfective
aspect (progressive aspect))
The progressive aspect is expressed by a periphrastic structure, a
common strategy to encode various meanings in English.
 Aspects in English:
Lexical aspect
VPs are also associated with specific lexical (situation) aspectual
information. In English this information is calculated from the semantics of
the components of the VP (i.e. the verb and its argument(s)). Consider (9),
where the verb and its internal argument form an atelic (unbounded) or a
telic (bounded) predicates depending on the semantics of the object.
(9) a. John drank beer for 10 minutes/*in 10 minutes.
(drink + unbounded NP give rise to an atelic reading)
b. John drank a bottle of beer/a beer/two beers in 10 minutes / ??/*for
10 minutes.
(drink + bounded NP give rise to a telic reading)
 Aspects in English:
Lexical aspect
Other examples illustrating the same pattern:
(10) a. John wrote poems for 10 minutes/*in 10 minutes.
b. John wrote a poem in 10 minutes / ??for 10 minutes.
In contrast, certain verbs will not be interpreted telically in the
presence of bounded object NPs.
(11) a. John pushed a cart/carts for 10 minutes/*in 10 minutes.
b. John hit the door/doors with a hammer for 10 minutes/*in
10 minutes.
 Aspects in English:
Lexical aspect
Another inner aspectual property is durativity. Whether or
not the eventuality expressed by the VP is durative or
punctual also depends on the semantics of the internal
argument. Consider (12).
(12) a. The settler will cross the border in 10 days.
(after)
b. The settler will cross the desert in 10 days.
(after/during)
Beavers (2012, 47: 2.43)
 Aspects in English:
Lexical aspect
A third aspectual property is whether an eventuality
expressed by the VP is stative or dynamic.
(13) a. John is cooking in the kitchen. (this dynamic
predicate is compatible
with the progressive)
b. *John is having blue eyes. (stative predicates
are not
compatible with the
progressive)
 Aspects in English:
Lexical aspect
Overall, then, verbal predicates fall into the following
classes based on their situation aspectual properties. The
classification on the following slide is from Vendler
(1957/1967).
 Aspects in English:
Lexical aspect
dynamic telic durative
accomplishment + + +
s
achievements + + -
activities + - +
states - - +
 Aspects in English:
Lexical aspect
Some more evidence for these classes:
The imperfective paradox
(14) a. John was building a house. (14a) does not entail
(14b)
b. John built a house. This is
an accomplishment.
(15) a. John was pushing a cart. (15a) entails (15b)
b. John pushed a cart. This is
an activity.
 Aspects across languages
We assume that languages usually have both aspectual categories in
their inventory of functional categories, but they have different
means to express grammatical and lexical aspect.
Slavic languages, for example, express the perfective-imperfective
distinction with perfective and imperfective verbs.
Recall that English, by contrast, uses a periphrastic structure to
express progressive events.
Hungarian relies on word order when it comes to the expression of
perfective versus progressive events in the case of particle verbs.
 Aspects across languages
(16) a. Kati be-futott a konyhá-ba.
Kati.NOM PRT-ran the kitchen-to
'Kati ran to the kitchen.'
b. Kati futott be a konyhá-ba, amikor
….
Kati.NOM ran PRT the kitchen-to,
when
'Kati was running to the kitchen, when …'
 Aspects across languages
The calculation of telic readings is similar in languages like German, Dutch,
Spanish and Italian to what we can see in English. However, Mandarin
Chinese, Vietnamese, Malagasy and Hungarian, among many other languages,
have been shown to have special telicity markers in their inventory of
grammatical morphemes.
(17) John cleaned the room. English
(18) János ki-takarította a szobá-t. Hungarian
János.NOM PRT-clean the room-ACC
'János cleaned the room.'
 Modality
Mood is a grammatical category associated with the
semantic dimension of modality. Modality is concerned with
the contrasts factual vs. non-factual and asserted vs.
non-asserted and is expressed by a variety of linguistic
devices.
(19) a. It’s possible that Susan knows the answer.
b. Perhaps Susan knows the answer.
c. Susan may know the answer.
 Modality
This section of today’s lecture focuses on how verbs (more
precisely, modal auxiliaries) express modality.
Meanings expressed by modal auxiliaries fall into three
groups: epistemic, deontic, and dynamic.
 Modality
Epistemic modality: It expresses meanings regarding
what is necessary or possible given our knowledge of the
world.
(20) a. She may be ill.
b. He must have overslept.
c. The storm should be over soon.
 Modality
Deontic modality: It expresses meanings regarding what is
required or permitted.
(21) a. He must apologize.
b. She may take as many as she needs.
c. We should call the police.
 Modality
Many examples are ambiguous, allowing either kind of
interpretation for the modal:
(22) You must be very tactful.
(i) I have evidence that leads me to believe you’re tactful.
(epistemic)
(ii) There is an obligation or need for you to be very tactful.
(deontic)
 Modality
Dynamic interpretations: It is also possible for some
modal auxiliaries to express some kind of property of a
person or other entity participating in the situation
described by a given sentence.
(23) a. She can speak five languages.
b. I’ve asked him to help us but he won’t.
 Modality
A couple of ambiguous examples:
(24) a. You can’t be serious. (epistemic or dynamic)
b. She can drive. (deontic or dynamic)
 Future, modality, and will
Some languages have a three-term tense system contrasting
past, present and future. English is not one of them: it has
no future tense. It does have several ways of talking about
future time, and the most basic one does involve the
auxiliary will. Nonetheless, will belongs grammatically and
semantically with the auxiliaries that mark mood rather
than with the various markers of tense.
 Future, modality, and will
The close association between will and modality is
illustrated with the following set of contrasts:
(25) a. She beat him in under an hour. (this expresses a
fact)
b. She will beat him in under an hour. (this is a
prediction)
(26) a. That is the plumber. (presented as a fact)
b. That will be the plumber. (situation located in
present time)