The grammar of the english verb phrase part 111 pdf

Glossary 763
but without including it (or part of it). Anteriority is W-anteriority if A is
interpreted as anterior to B in the possible world referred to. Anteriority is T-
anteriority if it is expressed by a tense form. Thus, in John was born in London
and died in Glasgow, the former situation is interpreted as W-anterior to the
latter, but it is not represented as T-anterior to it: the two past tense forms
merely locate the times of the two situations in the past. The same is true of
He said he got up early. By contrast, in He said he had got up early, the time
of the getting up early is not only interpreted as W-anterior to the time of the
saying but is also represented as T-anterior to it by the use of the past perfect
form had got up.
Argument: any of the constituents that a verb requires to be used grammatically
in a normal finite clause: a subject, sometimes called the ‘external argument’
(because it does not belong to the predicate constituent), and possibly one or
more ‘internal arguments’, usually called complements (e. g. a direct object).
Aspect: in this work we distinguish between ‘ontological aspect’ (or ‘lexical
aspect’ or ‘Aktionsart’), ‘grammatical aspect’ and ‘actualization aspect’. Out
of context, the unmarked interpretation of aspect is grammatical aspect.
Aspect auxiliary: the grammatical auxiliary be, which is used for building pro-
gressive verb forms. (Progressive aspect is the only kind of grammatical aspect
that can be systematically expressed by verb forms in English.)
Aspectualizer: lexical verb like begin, start, commence, quit, stop, finish, con-
tinue, go on, etc., which is placed before a nonfinite clause and which expresses
the situation described by this clause as beginning, ending or ongoing. Thus,
go on is an aspectualizer in Let’s go on working.
Assertion (or statement): the illocutionary force of a declarative sentence. Sen-
tences like I love you and I don’t love you ‘make an assertion’.
Assertive clause: A clause is assertive when the message (but not necessarily
the form) of the clause is that of an affirmative assertion. Otherwise (i. e. when
the message is negative and / or interrogative) the clause is nonassertive. Only
nonassertive clauses can contain nonassertive items (‘negative polarity items’).

A negative assertion like I didn’t lift a finger to help him is assertoric (ϭ makes
an assertion) but nonassertive Ϫ hence the use of the nonassertive item lift
a finger.
Assertive item: word or phrase (often also called ‘positive polarity item’) which
can normally only be used in an assertive clause, i. e. which cannot occur (ex-
cept, sometimes, echoically) within the scope of a negator or question. For
example, already is an assertive item: it can be used in positive (ϭ affirmative)
statements (e. g. I have already met him) and in interrogative clauses expecting
764 Glossary
a positive reply (e. g. Have you already seen him?), but not in (nonechoic)
negative statements (e. g. I haven’t met him {yet /*already}), nor in interroga-
tive clauses that do not expect a positive reply (e. g. Have you seen him yet?).
Another example is ‘far from ϩ adjective’: He {is / *isn’t} far from satisfied).
Assertoric: A clause is assertoric if it realizes the illocutionary act of making
an assertion. An assertoric clause is usually declarative, but there are cases in
which an interrogative clause also makes an assertion: (a) if it expresses a
rhetorical question, i. e. if the clause is interrogative in form but is interpreted
as being declarative (e. g. Need I say more? on the interpretation ‘Surely, I
needn’t say more.’) and (b) if the interrogative clause expresses a ‘yes / no-
question’ (ϭ polar question) which is interpreted as an assertion followed by
a question tag asking for confirmation, e. g. Is he your leader, then? Also assert-
oric are so-called declarative questions, i. e. sentences that have the syntactic
form (word order) of a declarative sentence but are interpreted as asking a
question, e. g. You’re his father?
Atelic: ontological feature, the opposite of telic. Said of a situation-template
(denoted by a verb phrase) which does not represent the kind of situation
referred to as telic, i. e. as tending towards a natural point of completion be-
yond which the situation cannot continue. Thus, in Betty ran, the verb phrase
ran is atelic (ϭ not telic). We also apply the label to the kind of situation that
is not represented as telic – thus, running is an ‘atelic situation’ – and, by

further extension, to clauses containing an atelic verb phrase.
Atemporal
when
-clause: see case-specifying when-clause.
Attributive noun phrase: when used in Donnellan’s (1966) sense, said of a noun
phrase which has definite reference in the sense that the speaker assumes the
hearer to be familiar with the expression (ϭ NP) in question, but not with the
identity of the referent of the phrase. For example, when a theft has been
committed, the speaker can use the NP the thief even if he does not know who
committed the theft and does not assume the hearer to know that either. In
other words, Donnellan (1966) applies the label ‘attributive’ to a linguistic
expression which is definite in the sense that it gives a description which both
the speaker and the hearer are familiar with, but which is not sufficient for
either to ‘pick out’ the referent from a set of potential referents.
Auxiliary: see auxiliary verb.
Auxiliary verb (or auxiliary): ‘helper’ verb, i. e. a verb which has the grammati-
cal function of helping the speaker to build a complex verb form (e. g. will and
have in will have put). Unlike a lexical verb (or ‘full verb’), an auxiliary has
little or no lexical meaning: it expresses either a grammatical notion (like ‘pas-
sive’, ‘progressive’, ‘tense’) or a modal idea (like necessity, possibility, permis-
Glossary 765
sion, etc.) or it has no meaning at all and is used simply because an auxiliary
is required in certain contexts. (This is true of the ‘periphrastic auxiliary’ do,
as in “I don’t like it. Do you?” Ϫ “Yes, I do.”) Morphosyntactically, an auxil-
iary differs from a lexical verb in that it has the NICE-properties, i. e. it does
not trigger do-support in clauses that are negative, interrogative, used in code
or involving emphasis on the verb.
Background: in a narrative text, the linguistic material which refers to durative
and descriptive situations and which provides subsidiary information about the
foreground. (This material is then said to have a ‘backgrounding’ function.

This means that it does not ‘push forward’ the story.)
Backshifting: (1) change of tense forms when there is a shift from a present
time-sphere temporal domain to a past time-sphere temporal domain. For ex-
ample, Has he done it? is ‘backshifted’ to had he done it in indirect reported
speech after a verb in the past tense: I wondered if he had done it. The speaker
can also use backshifting for various other reasons, e. g. for tentativeness:
{Will / would} you please help me? However, the term is especially used in
connection with past represented speech. In this book it refers to the phenome-
non that a present time-sphere tense or an absolute past tense in the ‘original’
direct speech utterance seems to be adapted into, respectively, a corresponding
past time-sphere tense or a past perfect as a natural result of the fact that the
situation time which was ‘originally’ T-related to the temporal zero-point is
now T-related to the central orientation time of a past domain. (Backshifting
is thus a semantically motivated phenomenon, viz. the use of past time-sphere
tenses in a past domain) rather than a purely formal operation.) Compare, for
example, The shop {is / will be / has been / will have been / was} closed and
They said that the shop {was / would be / had been / would have been / had
been} closed. (2) See modal backshifting.
Basic orientation time: the time of orientation in the structure of a tense from
which the temporal relations expressed by the tense begin to be computed. In
most cases the basic orientation time is the temporal zero-point (t
0
) (e. g. He
has done it), but there are cases in which it is a post-present binding orientation
time which is treated as if it were t
0
(e. g. [If Jim does it] he will have to admit
to his wife that he has done it). In both examples, the present perfect form has
done locates the time of the situation of Jim’s doing it before the basic orienta-
tion time. In the first example the basic orientation time is t

0
; in the second it
is a pseudo-zero-point, viz. the post-present situation time (ϭ the time of ad-
mitting) which is treated as if it were t
0
. (See also Pseudo-t
0
-System.)
‘Before now’ interpretation: one of the two T-interpretations of the present
perfect, namely ‘The situation time is included in the pre-present and covers a
portion of the pre-present that is not adjacent to t
0
’, as in I’ve never seen
766 Glossary
that girl before. This T-interpretation corresponds to the inclusion sense of the
containment relation (between the pre-present zone and the situation time) that
is part of the core meaning of the present perfect.
Bifunctional temporal adverbial: temporal adverbial that functions at the same
time as a time-specifying adverbial and as a duration adverbial. In other words,
it specifies both the temporal location of the situation time and the length of
the corresponding full situation, as in I was there from six to eight.
Binding (or temporal binding or temporal subordination): the phenomenon
that a situation time is T-related to another situation time (or another orienta-
tion time) within a temporal domain. For example, in Meg had seen Jill, the
situation time of had seen is bound by (or ‘temporally subordinated to’) an
orientation time which is not explicitly referred to but forms part of a past
temporal domain. (Strictly speaking, it is only situation times that can be
bound, but by extension we can also apply the label to the situation itself. In
this way we can say that in Sue knew that Meg had seen Jill the situation of
knowing is the ‘binding situation’, while the situation of Meg seeing Jill is the

‘bound situation’.)
Binding orientation time: orientation time that serves as the starting point of a
temporal relation expressed by a relative tense. Thus, in Meg said that she had
seen Jill, the situation time of Meg’s speaking is a binding situation time be-
cause the time of her seeing Jill (ϭ the ‘bound situation’) is represented as T-
anterior to it by the past perfect tense.
Block (an implicature): prevent an implicature from arising. See implicate.
Bound: see bound situation time.
Bound situation time: situation time that is T-related to (or ‘temporally subor-
dinated to’ or ‘temporally bound by’) an orientation time in a domain. Thus,
in Meg said that she had bought a bike, the situation time of the situation of
buying is bound by (more specifically: represented as T-anterior to) the situa-
tion time of the situation of Meg’s speaking (which is the ‘binding situation’).
Bounded: said of a particular instance of actualization of a situation, namely
if the actualizing situation is either linguistically represented or W-interpreted
as reaching a terminal point, i. e. as coming to an end. Thus, the clause John
read the letter represents the situation of John reading the letter as having
come to an end, unlike the clause John was reading the letter, which does not
tell us whether John actually finished reading the letter or not. The term is
also applied to clauses and sentences that represent (the actualization of) a
situation as bounded.
Boundedness: the quality of being bounded.
Glossary 767
Bounding constituent: constituent (of a clause) which adds the idea of a tempo-
ral right boundary, thus rendering the clause L-bounded, e. g. the object argu-
ment in He read a poem, the duration adverbial in We worked for six hours
or the bifunctional temporal adverbial in Jane was in her study from two
to five.
Bygone: preceding the temporal zero-point, i. e. located in the past zone or in
the pre-present zone. For example, both He did it and He has done it represent

the actualization of the situation referred to as bygone. We speak of a ‘bygone
situation’ as well as of a ‘bygone time’. A further distinction is made between
‘T-bygone’ (ϭ linguistically represented as bygone by a tense) and ‘W-bygone’
(ϭ what is bygone in the actual world but is not necessarily represented as
bygone by a tense form).
Cancel (an implicature): deny that a suggested interpretation is correct. See im-
plicate.
Case-specifying
when
-clause (or atemporal
when
-clause): when-clause which
does not specify a time but describes the case(s) in which the head clause
situation actualizes (i. e. the case(s) in which the head clause proposition is
true). For example, Children are orphans when their parents are dead.
Central orientation time: the one orientation time in a temporal domain that
is not T-bound by any other orientation time in the domain but is directly
related to the temporal zero-point. In most cases the central orientation time
is the situation time of the clause which establishes the domain by using an
absolute tense (e. g. knew in I knew that Tom hadn’t seen the film yet and
would want to go and see it). When an absolute-relative tense is used (e. g. He
will have left by tonight) the central orientation time is the orientation time
(here ‘contained’ in the post-present Adv-time specified by tonight) to which
the situation time is temporally subordinated.
Central time of orientation: see central orientation time.
Clause: linguistic expression with a syntactic structure. A prototypical clause
consists of a noun phrase functioning as subject and a verb phrase (and option-
ally some other constituents) functioning as predicate.
Cleft (or cleft construction, cleft sentence,
it

-cleft): specificational sentence of
the form ‘It (or occasionally this or that) ϩ be ϩ focused constituent ϩ wh-
clause’ in which the wh-clause expresses the variable to which a value (ex-
pressed by the focused constituent) is given, e. g. It was
John
who did it. (This
is interpreted as ‘the x who did it was: John’.) Apart from a wh-clause, the
variable may also be expressed by a that-clause (e. g. It was John that did it)
or, provided the value is an indication of duration, a since-clause (e. g. It’s three
weeks since he left). In the latter case we speak of a since-cleft.
768 Glossary
Cleft construction: see cleft.
Cleft sentence: see cleft.
Closed condition: a condition which the speaker assumes to be fulfilled in the
actual world (e. g. If, as you say, you can’t accompany me tonight, [I’ll have to
look for someone else]) or which he assumes to be going to be fulfilled in a
future possible world (e. g. If, as you say, he will come here himself tomorrow,
[there is no point in phoning him now]). Clauses expressing a closed condition
are typically echoic.
Code: the use of an auxiliary as pro-form for an entire verb phrase (as in John
will not be sleeping, but I will).
Co-extensive interpretation: one of the two T-interpretations of the present
perfect, namely ‘the situation time is co-extensive with the pre-present and
therefore leads up to t
0
’, as in I’ve been thinking about you. This T-interpreta-
tion corresponds to the coincidence sense of the containment relation (between
the pre-present zone and the situation time) that is part of the core meaning of
the present perfect.
Coincidence: one form of containment relation (the other being inclusion). Co-

incidence may be the containment relation between the time of the full situation
and a situation time which is strictly simultaneous with the former, as in John
left at five o’clock). It may also be the containment relation between an Adv-
time (ϭ adverbially specified time) and a situation time, as in John left at five
o’clock, or between an Adv-time and an orientation time to which the situation
time is T-related, as in At five o’clock John had already left.
Common Adv-time: in a complex sentence involving a head clause and an
adverbial when-clause, the Adv-time of the head clause is interpreted as coin-
ciding with the Adv-time of the when-clause. (This coincidence relation is due
to the semantics of when, which means ‘at a / the time at which’.) The term
‘common Adv-time’ is used to refer to these two coinciding Adv-times.
Complement (or verb complement): a VP-internal argument of a verb, such as
a direct object (e. g. [I hit] him), indirect object (e. g. [I gave] him [a kite]),
subject complement (e. g. [Bill is] ill), object complement (e. g. [We called him]
a fool), prepositional object (e. g. [I looked] into the question [carefully]).
Complement clause: clause functioning as complement of a verb, such as that
he was ill in He said that he was ill.
Complex relation (or complex T-relation): temporal relation of the sort ex-
pressed by a complex relative tense. For example, the conditional perfect
(would have V-ed) expresses T-anteriority to an orientation time which is itself
Glossary 769
T-posterior to some other orientation time in a past domain. The combination
of T-posteriority and T-anteriority is a ‘complex relation’.
Complex relative tense: tense expressing two or more temporal relations at
once within the same temporal domain. Examples are the conditional perfect
(e. g. would have left) and some nameless tenses with (very unusual) forms
such as would have been going to leave or would be going to have left.
Complex sentence: sentence minimally consisting of one head clause and one
subclause. A complex sentence may involve several subclauses, some of which
function as head clauses supporting other subclauses. For example, in John left

after I had told him that his shirt was dirty, the clause after I had told him is
at the same time a subclause depending on John left (which is the ‘matrix’)
and the head clause on which depends the subclause that his shirt was dirty.
Complex T-relation: see complex relation
Compound sentence: sentence consisting of two or more coordinate clauses (ϭ
clauses of equal rank), in other words, sentence in which none of the constitu-
ent clauses is syntactically subordinate to another, e. g. I will trim the hedge
and you will mow the lawn.
Conditional: As a noun, this term is short for either ‘conditional sentence’ (i. e.
a combination of a conditional clause and a head clause) or ‘conditional tense’.
Conditional perfect: see conditional perfect tense
Conditional perfect tense (or conditional perfect): complex relative tense whose
forms are built by combining the auxiliary would with the perfect infinitive
(have V-ed) of the main verb. The semantics of this tense is: ‘The situation
time is T-anterior to an orientation time which is itself T-posterior to some
orientation time in a past domain or in a past or pseudo-past subdomain.’ For
example: [Bill {promised / had promised}] that he would have finished the job
by the end of the day.
Conditional sentence: combination of a conditional clause and a head clause
(e. g. I won’t be sad if she dies).
Conditional tense: relative tense whose tense forms are a combination of the
auxiliary would and the present infinitive of the main verb. The semantics of
this tense is: ‘The situation time is T-posterior to an orientation time that forms
part of a past domain, (e. g. [He promised] he would do it), or of a past
subdomain (e. g. [He admitted that he had promised] he would do it)orofa
pseudo-past subdomain (e. g. [Don’t always make promises. Sooner or later
you will regret that you promised] you would do something)’.
Conjugated verb (form): verb (form) showing conjugation. Synonym: finite
verb (form).