The category of aspect. Different terms. Aspect and character of the verb

Prof. I. Ivanova. 2 She recognises the existence of the aspect cate-gory in English, but treats it in a peculiar way. According to Prof. Ivanova, is writing is an aspect form, namely that of the continuous aspect, but writes is not an aspect form at all, because its meaning is vague and cannot be clearly de-fined. So the author reaches the conclusion that some finite forms of the Modern English verb have the category of aspect, and are in so far "aspect-tense forms", while others have no aspect and are therefore "purely tense forms". Concerning this view it must be said that on the basic point it agrees with the view put forward above: the distinction between the type writes and the type is writing is a distinction of aspect. But Prof. Ivanova denies the existence of the common aspect. This seems rather a difference of wording than one of essence. "No aspect" seems something like another version of "common aspect". And it must be said that the idea of "common aspect" answers the facts better than does the idea of "no aspect". The difficulty of formulating the meaning of the common aspect need not worry us. That is one more case of distinction between a marked and a non-marked member of an opposition. The continuous aspect is marked both in meaning and in form (be + first participle), whereas the common aspect is non-marked both in meaning and in form; no formal characteristic of the common aspect can be given except the negative one: in contradistinction from the continu-ous aspect, it is not expressed by "be + first participle". Thus the theory of common and continuous aspect may be upheld. DIFFERENT TERMS Besides the various theories put forward with reference to the opposition writes — is writing, we must mention various terms that have been proposed to denote its members. H. Sweet used the term "definite tenses" for what we call the continuous as-pect. 1 This term cannot be said to be a happy one, as the word "tense" disguises the fact that we find here a peculiar grammatical category different from that of tense.Another term which has been used is, "expanded form", or "progressive form". The term "form" cannot be described as satis-factory since it leaves the basic grammatical question open: we might as well speak of the past form, or of the passive form, etc. As to the adjectives modifying the word form, it must be said that expanded merely gives a characteristic of the analytical structure of the form, without indicating its meaning. As to progressive, it does indicate the meaning, but is hardly preferable to the adjec-tive continuous. So we will stick to the term "continuous aspect". ASPECT AND CHARACTER OF THE VERB The problem of aspect is intimately connected with a lexicolog-ical problem, which we shall therefore have to touch upon here. If we have, for example, the sentence, A young man sat in the corner of the room, we can say, instead, A young man was sitting in the corner of the room, without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence. The same situation may be described in both ways, the only difference between them being that of stylistic colouring: the variant with the common aspect form is more matter-of-fact and "dry", whereas the one with the continuous aspect form is more descriptive.

The sentence. Classification of sentences and the main differences between phrase and sentence.

As to the general definition of tense, there seems no necessity to find a special one for the English language. The basic features of the category appear to be the same in Eng-lish as in other languages. The category of tense may, then, be de-fined as a verbal category which reflects the objective cate-gory of time and expresses on this background the relations be-tween the time of the action and the time of the utterance. In English there are the three tenses (past, present and future) represented by the forms wrote, writes, will write, or lived, lives, will live.Strangely enough, some doubts have been expressed about the existence of a future tense in English. O. Jespersen discussed this question more than once. 1 The reason why Jespersen denied the existence of a future tense in English was that the English future is expressed by the phrase "shall/will + infinitive", and the verbs shall and will which make part of the phrase pre-serve, according to Jespersen, some of their original meaning (shall an element of obligation, and will an element of voli-tion). Thus, in Jespersen's view, English has no way of express-ing "pure futurity" free from modal shades of meaning, i. e. it has no form standing on the same grammatical level as the forms of the past and present tenses.