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  You may count on my doing all that is necessary on such occasions. You may count on me doing all that is necessary on such occasions.
  The possessive subject of the ing-form in the first of the two sentences is clearly disclosed as a structural adjunct of a nounal collocation. But the objective subject of the ing-form in the second sentence, by virtue of its morphological constitution, cannot be associated with a noun: this would contradict the established regularities of the categorial compatibility. The casal-type government (direct, or representative-pronominal) in the collocation being lost (or, more precisely, being non-existent), the ing-form of the collocation can only be understood as a participle. This interpretation is strongly supported by comparing half-gerund constructions with clear-cut participial constructions governed by perception verbs:
 To think of him turning sides! To see him turning
 sides! I don't like Mrs. Thomson complaining of her loneliness. - I can't listen to Mrs. Thomson complaining of her
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 loneliness. Did you ever hear of a girl playing a trombone? -Did you ever hear a girl playing a trombone?
  On the other hand, the position of the participle in the collocation is syntactically peculiar, since semantic accent in such constructions is made on the fact or event described, i.e. on the situational content of it, with the processual substance as its core. This can be demonstrated by question-tests:
  (The first half-gerund construction in the above series) > To think of what in connection with him? (The second half-gerund construction) > What don't you like about Mrs. Thomson? (The third half-gerund construction) > Which accomplishment of a girl presents a surprise for the speaker?
  Hence, the verbid under examination is rather to be interpreted as a transferred participle, or a gerundial participle, the latter term seeming to relevantly disclose the essence of the nature of this form; though the existing name "half-gerund" is as good as any other, provided the true character of the denoted element of the system is understood.
  Our final remark in connection with the undertaken observation will be addressed to linguists who, while recognising the categorial difference between the gerund and the present participle, will be inclined to analyse the half-gerund (the gerundial participle) on exactly the same basis as the full gerund, refusing to draw a demarcation line between the latter two forms and simply ascribing the occurrence of the common case subject in this construction to the limited use of the possessive case in modern English in general. As regards this interpretation, we should like to say that an appeal to the limited sphere of the English noun possessive in an attempt to prove the wholly gerundial character of the intermediary construction in question can hardly be considered of any serious consequence. True, a vast proportion of English nouns do not admit of the possessive case form, or, if they do, their possessive in the construction would create contextual ambiguity, or else some sort of stylistic ineptitude. Cf.:
  The headlines bore a flaring announcement of the strike being called off by the Amalgamated Union. (No normal possessive with the noun strike); I can't fancy their daughter entering a University college. (Ambiguity in the oral possessive: daughter's - daughters'); They were surprised at the head
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 of the family rejecting the services of the old servant. (Evading the undesirable shift of the possessive particle -'s from the head-noun to its adjunct); The notion of this woman who had had the world at her feet paying a man half a dollar to dance with her filled me with shame. (Semantic and stylistic incongruity of the clause possessive with the statement)
  However, these facts are but facts in themselves, since they only present instances when a complete gerundial construction for this or that reason either cannot exist at all, or else should be avoided on diverse reasons of usage. So, the quoted instances of gerundial participle phrases are not more demonstrative of the thesis in question than, say, the attributive uses of nouns in the common form (e.g. the inquisitor judgement, the Shakespeare Fund, a Thompson way of refusing, etc.) would be demonstrative of the possessive case "tendency" to coincide with the bare stem of the noun: the absence of the possessive nounal form as such can't be taken to testify that the "possessive case" may exist without its feature sign.
  CHAPTER XII
 FINITE VERB: INTRODUCTION
  § 1. The finite forms of the verb express the processual relations of substances and phenomena making up the situation reflected in the sentence. These forms are associated with one another in an extremely complex and intricate system. The peculiar aspect of the complexity of this system lies in the fact that, as we have stated before, the finite verb is directly connected with the structure of the sentence as a whole. Indeed, the finite verb, through the working of its categories, is immediately related to such sentence-constitutive factors as morphological forms of predication, communication purposes, subjective modality, subject-object relation, gradation of probabilities, and quite a few other factors of no lesser importance..
  As has been mentioned elsewhere, the complicated character of the system in question has given rise to a lot of controversies about the structural formation of the finite verb categories, as well as the bases of their functional semantics. It would be not an exaggeration to say that each fundamental
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 type of grammatical expression capable of being approached in terms of generalised categories in the domain of the finite verb has created a subject for a scholarly dispute. For instance, taking as an example the sphere of the categorial person and number of the verb, we are faced with the argument among grammarians about the existence or non-existence of the verbal-pronominal forms of these categories. In connection with the study of the verbal expression of time and aspect, the great controversy is going on as to the temporal or aspective nature of the verbal forms of the indefinite, continuous, perfect, and perfect-continuous series. Grammatical expression of the future tense in English is stated by some scholars as a matter-of-fact truth, while other linguists are eagerly negating any possibility of its existence as an element of grammar. The verbal voice invites its investigators to exchange mutually opposing views regarding both the content and the number of its forms. The problem of the subjunctive mood may justly be called one of the most vexed in the theory of grammar: the exposition of its structural properties, its inner divisions, as well as its correlation with the indicative mood vary literally from one linguistic author to another.
  On the face of it, one might get an impression that the morphological study of the English finite verb has amounted to interminable aimless exchange of arguments, ceaseless advances of opposing "points of view", the actual aim of which has nothing to do with the practical application of linguistic theory to life. However, the fallacy of such an impression should be brought to light immediately and uncompromisingly.
  As a matter of fact, it is the verb system that, of all the spheres of morphology, has come under the most intensive and fruitful analysis undertaken by contemporary linguistics. In the course of these studies the oppositional nature of the categorial structure of the verb was disclosed and explicitly formulated; the paradigmatic system of the expression of verbal functional semantics was described competently, though in varying technical terms, and the correlation of form and meaning in the composition of functionally relevant parts of this system was demonstrated explicitly on the copious material gathered.
  Theoretical discussions have not ceased, nor subsided. On the contrary, they continue and develop, though on an ever more solid scientific foundation; and the cumulative
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 descriptions of the English verb provide now an integral picture of its nature which the grammatical theory has never possessed before. Indeed, it is due to this advanced types of study that the structural and semantic patterning of verbal constructions successfully applied to teaching practices on all the stages of tuition has achieved so wide a scope.
  § 2. The following presentation of the categorial system of the English verb is based on oppositional criteria worked out in the course of grammatical studies of language by Soviet and foreign scholars. We do not propose to develop a description in which the many points of discussion would receive an exposition in terms of anything like detailed analysis. Our aim will rather be only to demonstrate some general principles of approach - such principles as would stimulate the student's desire to see into the inner meaningful workings of any grammatical construction which are more often than not hidden under the outer connections of its textual elements; such principles as would develop the student's ability to rely on his own resources when coming across concrete dubious cases of grammatical structure and use; such principles as, finally, would provide the student with a competence enabling him to bring his personal efforts of grammatical understanding to relevant correlation with the recognised theories, steering open-eyed among the differences of expert opinion.
  The categorial spheres to be considered in this book are known from every topical description of English grammar. They include the systems of expressing verbal person, number, time, aspect, voice, and mood. But the identification and the distribution of the actual grammatical categories of the verb recognised in our survey will not necessarily coincide with the given enumeration, which will be exposed and defended with the presentation of each particular category that is to come under study.
  CHAPTER XIII
 VERB: PERSON AND NUMBER
  § 1. The categories of person and number are closely connected with each other. Their immediate connection is conditioned by the two factors: first, by their situational semantics, referring the process denoted by the verb to the
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 subject of the situation, i.e. to its central substance (which exists in inseparable unity of "quality" reflected in the personal denotation, and "quantity" reflected in the numerical denotation); second, by their direct and immediate relation to the syntactic unit expressing the subject as the functional part of the sentence.
  Both categories are different in principle from the other categories of the finite verb, in so far as they do not convey any inherently "verbal" semantics, any constituents of meaning realised and confined strictly within the boundaries of the verbal lexeme. The nature of both of them is purely "reflective" (see Ch. III, §5).
  Indeed, the process itself, by its inner quality and logical status, cannot be "person-setting" in any consistent sense, the same as it cannot be either "singular" or "plural"; and this stands in contrast with the other properties of the process, such as its development in time, its being momentary or repeated, its being completed or incompleted, etc. Thus, both the personal and numerical semantics, though categorially expressed by the verb, cannot be characterised as process-relational, similar to the other aspects of the verbal categorial semantics. These aspects of semantics are to be understood only as substance-relational, reflected in the verb from the interpretation and grammatical featuring of the subject.
  § 2. Approached from the strictly morphemic angle, the analysis of the verbal person and number leads the grammarian to the statement of the following converging and diverging features of their forms.
  The expression of the category of person is essentially confined to the singular form of the verb in the present tense of the indicative mood and, besides, is very singularly presented in the future tense. As for the past tense, the person is alien to it, except for a trace of personal distinction in the archaic conjugation.
  In the present tense the expression of the category of person is divided into three peculiar subsystems.
  The first subsystem includes the modal verbs that have no personal inflexions: can, may, must, shall, will, ought, need, dare. So, in the formal sense, the category of person is wholly neutralised with these verbs, or, in plainer words, it is left unexpressed.
 The second subsystem is made up by the unique verbal
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 lexeme be. The expression of person by this lexeme is the direct opposite to its expression by modal verbs: if the latter do not convey the indication of person in any morphemic sense at all, the verb be has three different suppletive personal forms, namely: am for the first person singular, is for the third person singular, and are as a feature marking the finite form negatively: neither the first, nor the third person singular. It can't be taken for the specific positive mark of the second person for the simple reason that it coincides with the plural all-person (equal to none-person) marking.
  The third subsystem presents just the regular, normal expression of person with the remaining multitude of the English verbs, with each morphemic variety of them. From the formal point of view, this subsystem occupies the medial position between the first two: if the verb be is at least two-personal, the normal personal type of the verb conjugation is one-personal. Indeed, the personal mark is confined here to the third person singular -(e)s [-z, -s, -iz], the other two persons (the first and the second) remaining unmarked, e.g. comes - come, blows - blow, slops - stop, chooses - choose.
  As is known, alongside of this universal system of three sets of personal verb forms, modern English possesses another system of person-conjugation characterising elevated modes of speech (solemn addresses, sermons, poetry, etc.) and stamped with a flavour of archaism. The archaic person-conjugation has one extra feature in comparison with the common conjugation, namely, a special inflexion for the second person singular. The three described subsystems of the personal verb forms receive the following featuring:
  The modal person-conjugation is distinguished by one morphemic mark, namely, the second person: canst, may(e)st, wilt, shalt, shouldst, wouldst, ought(e)st, need(e)st, durst.
  The personal be-conjugation is complete in three explicitly marked forms, having a separate suppletive presentation for each separate person: am, art, is.
  The archaic person-conjugation of the rest of the verbs, though richer than the common system of person forms, still occupies the medial position between the modal and be-conjugation. Two of the three of its forms, the third and second persons, are positively marked, while the first person remains unmarked, e.g. comes - comest-come, blows - blowest - blow, stops - stoppest -stop, chooses - choosest - choose.
 As regards the future tense, the person finds here quite
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 another mode of expression. The features distinguishing it from the present-tense person conjugation are, first, that it marks not the third, but the first person in distinction to the remaining two; and second, that it includes in its sphere also the plural. The very principle of the person featuring is again very peculiar in the future tense as compared with the present tense, consisting not in morphemic inflexion, nor even in the simple choice of person-identifying auxiliaries, but in the oppositional use of shall - will specifically marking the first person (expressing, respectively, voluntary and non-voluntary future), which is contrasted against the oppositional use of will - shall specifically marking the second and third persons together (expressing, respectively, mere future and modal future). These distinctions, which will be described at more length further on, are characteristic only of British English.
  A trace of person distinction is presented in the past tense with the archaic form of the second person singular. The form is used but very occasionally, still it goes with the pronoun thou, being obligatory with it. Here is an example of its individualising occurrence taken from E. Hemingway: Thyself and thy horses. Until thou hadst horses thou wert with us. Now thou art another capitalist more.
  Thus, the peculiarity of the archaic past tense person-conjugation is that its only marked form is not the third person as in the present tense, nor the first person as in the British future tense, but the second person. This is what might be called "little whims of grammar"!
  § 3. Passing on to the expression of grammatical number by the English finite verb, we are faced with the interesting fact that, from the formally morphemic point of view, it is hardly featured at all.
  As a matter of fact, the more or less distinct morphemic featuring of the category of number can be seen only with the archaic forms of the unique be, both in the present tense and in the past tense. But even with this verb the featuring cannot be called quite explicit, since the opposition of the category consists in the unmarked plural form for all the persons being contrasted against the marked singular form for each separate person, each singular person thereby being distinguished by its own, specific form. It means that the expressions of person and number by the archaic conjugation of be in terms of the lexeme as a whole are formally not strictly
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 separated from each other, each singular mark conveying at once a double grammatical sense, both of person and number. Cf.: am - are; art - are; was (the first and the third persons, i.e. non-second person) - were; wast (second person) - were.
  In the common conjugation of be, the blending of the person and number forms is more profound, since the suppletive are, the same as its past tense counterpart were, not being confined to the plural sphere, penetrate the singular sphere, namely, the expression of the second person (which actually becomes non-expression because of the formal coincidence).
  As for the rest of the verbs, the blending of the morphemic expression of the two categories is complete, for the only explicit morphemic opposition in the integral categorial sphere of person and number is reduced with these verbs to the third person singular (present tense, indicative mood) being contrasted against the unmarked finite form of the verb.
  § 4. The treatment of the analysed categories on a formal basis, though fairly consistent in the technical sense, is, however, lacking an explicit functional appraisal. To fill the gap, we must take into due account not only the meaningful aspect of the described verbal forms in terms of their reference to the person-number forms of the subject, but also the functional content of the subject-substantival categories of person and number themselves.
  The semantic core of the substantival (or pronominal, for that matter) category of person is understood nowadays in terms of deictic, or indicative signification.
  The deictic function of lingual units, which has come under careful linguistic investigation of late, consists not in their expressing self-dependent and self-sufficient elements of meaning, but in pointing out entities of reality in their spatial and temporal relation to the participants of speech communication. In this light, the semantic content of the first person is the indication of the person who is speaking, but such an indication as is effected by no other individual than himself. This self-indicative role is performed lexically by the personal pronoun I. The semantic content of the second person is the indication of the individual who is listening to the first person speaking - but again such an indication as viewed and effected by the speaker. This listener-indicative function is performed by the personal pronoun you. Now,
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 the semantic content of the third person is quite different from that of either the first or second person. Whereas the latter two express the immediate participants of the communication, the third person indicates all the other entities of reality, i.e. beings, things, and phenomena not immediately included in the communicative situation, though also as viewed by the speaker, at the moment of speech. This latter kind of indication may be effected in the two alternative ways. The first is a direct one, by using words of a full meaning function, either proper, or common, with the corresponding specifications achieved with the help of indicators-determiners (articles and pronominal words of diverse linguistic standings). The second is an oblique one, by using the personal pronouns he, she, or it, depending on the gender properties of the referents. It is the second way, i.e. the personal pronominal indication of the third person referent, that immediately answers the essence of the grammatical category of person as such, i.e. the three-stage location of the referent in relation to the speaker: first, the speaker himself; second, his listener; third, the non-participant of the communication, be it a human non-participant or otherwise.
  As we see, the category of person taken as a whole is, as it were, inherently linguistic, the significative purpose of it being confined to indications centering around the production of speech.
  Let us now appraise the category of number represented in the forms of personal pronouns, i.e. the lexemic units of language specially destined to serve the speaker-listener lingual relation.
  One does not have to make great exploratory efforts in order to realise that the grammatical number of the personal pronouns is extremely peculiar, in no wise resembling the number of ordinary substantive words. As a matter of fact, the number of a substantive normally expresses either the singularity or plurality of its referent ("one - more than one", or, in oppositional appraisal, "plural - non-plural"), the quality of the referents, as a rule, not being re-interpreted with the change of the number (the many exceptions to this rule lie beyond the purpose of our present discussion). For instance, when speaking about a few powder-compacts, I have in mind just several pieces of them of absolutely the same nature. Or when referring to a team of eleven football-players, I mean exactly so many members of this sporting group. With the personal pronouns, though, it is "different,
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 and the cardinal feature of the difference is the heterogeneity of the plural personal pronominal meaning.
  Indeed, the first person plural does not indicate the plurality of the "ego", it can't mean several I's. What it denotes in fact, is the speaker plus some other person or persons belonging, from the point of view of the utterance content, to the same background. The second person plural is essentially different from the first person plural in so far as it does not necessarily express, but is only capable of expressing similar semantics. Thus, it denotes either more than one listener (and this is the ordinary, general meaning of the plural as such, not represented in the first person); or, similar to the first person, one actual listener plus some other person or persons belonging to the same background in the speaker's situational estimation; or, again specifically different from the first person, more than one actual listener plus some other person or persons of the corresponding interpretation. Turning to the third person plural, one might feel inclined to think that it would wholly coincide with the plural of an ordinary substantive name. On closer observation, however, we note a fundamental difference here also. Indeed, the plural of the third person is not the substantive plural proper, but the deictic, indicative, pronominal plural; it is expressed through the intermediary reference to the direct name of the denoted entity, and so may either be related to the singular he-pronoun, or the she-рrоnоun, or the it-pronoun, or to any possible combination of them according to the nature of the plural object of denotation.
  The only inference that can be made from the given description is that in the personal pronouns the expression of the plural is very much blended with the expression of the person, and what is taken to be three persons in the singular and plural, essentially presents a set of six different forms of blended person-number nature, each distinguished by its own individuality. Therefore, in the strictly categorial light, we have here a system not of three, but of six persons.
  Returning now to the analysed personal and numerical forms of the finite verb, the first conclusion to be drawn on the ground of the undertaken analysis is, that their intermixed character, determined on the formal basis, answers in general the mixed character of the expression of person and number by the pronominal subject name of the predicative construction. The second conclusion to be drawn, however, is that the described formal person-number system of
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 the finite verb is extremely and very singularly deficient. In fact, what in this connection the regular verb-form does express morphemically, is only the oppositional identification of the third person singular (to leave alone the particular British English mode of expressing the person in the future).
  A question naturally arises: What is the actual relevance of this deficient system in terms of the English language? Can one point out any functional, rational significance of it, if taken by itself?
  The answer to this question can evidently be only in the negative: in no wise. There cannot be any functional relevance in such a system, if taken by itself. But in language it does not exist by itself.
  § 5. As soon as we take into consideration the functional side of the analysed forms, we discover at once that these forms exist in unity with the personal-numerical forms of the subject. This unity is of such a nature that the universal and true indicator of person and number of the subject of the verb will be the subject itself, however trivial this statement may sound. Essentially, though, there is not a trace of triviality in the formula, bearing in mind, on the one hand, the substantive character of the expressed categorial meanings, and on the other, the analytical basis of the English grammatical structure. The combination of the English finite verb with the subject is obligatory not only in the general syntactic sense, but also in the categorial sense of expressing the subject-person of the process.
  An objection to this thesis can be made on the ground that in the text the actual occurrence of the subject with the finite verb is not always observed. Moreover, the absence of the subject in constructions of living colloquial English is, in general, not an unusual feature. Observing textual materials, we may come across cases of subject-wanting predicative units used not only singly, as part of curt question-response exchange, but also in a continual chain of speech. Here is an example of a chain of this type taken from E. Hemingway:
 "No one shot from cars," said Wilson coldly. "I mean chase them from cars."
  "Wouldn't ordinarily," Wilson said. "Seemed sporting enough to me though while we were doing it. Taking more
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 chance driving that way across the plain full of holes and one thing and another than hunting on foot. Buffalo could have charged us each time we shot if he liked. Gave him every chance. Wouldn't mention it to any one though. It's illegal if that's what you mean."
  However, examples like this cannot be taken for a disproof of the obligatory connection between the verb and its subject, because the corresponding subject-nouns, possibly together with some other accompanying words, are zeroed on certain syntactico-stylistical principles (brevity of expression in familiar style, concentration on the main informative parts of the communication, individual speech habits, etc.). Thus, the distinct zero-representation of the subject does give expression to the verbal person-number category even in conditions of an outwardly gaping void in place of the subject in this or that concrete syntactic construction used in the text. Due to the said zero-representation, we can easily reconstruct the implied person indications in the cited passage: "I wouldn't ordinarily"; "It seemed sporting enough"; "It was taking more chance driving that way"; "We gave him every chance"; "I wouldn't mention it to any one".
  Quite naturally, the non-use of the subject in an actual utterance may occasionally lead to a referential misunderstanding or lack of understanding, and such situations are reflected in literary works by writers - observers of human speech as well as of human nature. A vivid illustration of this type of speech informative deficiency can be seen in one of K. Mansfield's stories:
 "Fried or boiled?" asked the bold voice.
  Fried or boiled? Josephine and Constantia were quite bewildered for the moment. They could hardly take it in.
  "Fried or boiled what, Kate?" asked Josephine, trying to begin to concentrate.
 Kate gave a loud sniff. "Fish."
  "Well, why didn't you say so immediately?" Josephine reproached her gently. "How could you expect us to understand, Kate? There are a great many things in this world, you know, which are fried or boiled."
  The referential gap in Kate's utterance gave cause to her bewildered listener for a just reproach. But such lack of positive information in an utterance is not to be confused with the non-expression of a grammatical category. In this
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 connection, the textual zeroing of the subject-pronoun may be likened to the textual zeroing of different constituents of classical analytical verb-forms, such as the continuous, the perfect, and others: no zeroing can deprive these forms of their grammatical, categorial status.
  Now, it would be too strong to state that the combination of the subject-pronoun with the finite verb in English has become an analytical person-number form in the full sense of this notion. The English subject-pronoun, unlike the French conjoint subject-pronoun (e.g. Je vous remercie - "I thank you"; but: mon mari et moi - "my husband and I"), still retains its self-positional syntactic character, and the personal pronominal words, without a change of their nominative form, are used in various notional functions in sentences, building up different positional sentence-parts both in the role of head-word and in the role of adjunct-word. What we do see in this combination is, probably, a very specific semi-analytical expression of a reflective grammatical category through an obligatory syntagmatic relation of the two lexemes: the lexeme-reflector of the category and the lexeme-originator of the category. This mode of grammatical expression can be called "junctional". Its opposite, i.e. the expression of the categorial content by means of a normal morphemic or word-morphemic procedure, can be, by way of contrast, tentatively called "native". Thus, from the point of view of the expression of a category either through the actual morphemic composition of a word, or through its being obligatorily referred to another word in a syntagmatic string, the corresponding grammatical forms will be classed into native and junctional. About the person-numerical forms of the finite verb in question we shall say that in the ordinary case of the third person singular present indicative, the person and number of the verb are expressed natively, while in most of the other paradigmatic locations they are expressed junctionally, through the obligatory reference of the verb-form to its subject.
  This truth, not incapable of inviting an objection on the part of the learned, noteworthily has been exposed from time immemorial in practical grammar books, where the actual conjugation of the verb is commonly given in the form of pronoun-verb combinations: I read, you read, he reads, we read, you read, they read.
  In point of fact, the English finite verb presented without its person-subject is grammatically almost meaningless. The
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 presence of the two you's in practical tables of examples like the one above, in our opinion, is also justified by the inner structure of language. Indeed, since you is part of the person-number system, and not only of the person system, it should be but natural to take it in the two different, though mutually complementing interpretations - one for each of the two series of pronouns in question, i.e. the singular series and the plural series. In the light of this approach, the archaic form thou plus the verb should be understood as a specific variant of the second person singular with its respective stylistic connotations.
  § 6. The exposition of the verbal categories of person and number presented here helps conveniently explain some special cases of the subject-verb categorial relations. The bulk of these cases have been treated by traditional grammar in terms of "agreement in sense", or "notional concord". We refer to the grammatical agreement of the verb not with the categorial form of the subject expressed morphemically, but with the actual personal-numerical interpretation of the denoted referent.
  Here belong, in the first place, combinations of the finite verb with collective nouns. According as they are meant by the speaker either to reflect the plural composition of the subject, or, on the contrary, to render its integral, single-unit quality, the verb is used either in the plural, or in the singular. E.g.:
 The government were definitely against the bill introduced
 by the opposing liberal party. The newly appointed
 government has gathered for its first session.
  In the second place, we see here predicative constructions whose subject is made imperatively plural by a numeral attribute. Still, the corresponding verb-form is used to treat it both ways: either as an ordinary plural which fulfils its function in immediate keeping with its factual plural referent, or as an integrating name, whose plural grammatical form and constituent composition give only a measure to the subject-matter of denotation. Cf.:
 Three years have elapsed since we saw him last.
 Three years is a long time to wait.'
  In the third place, under the considered heading come constructions whose subject is expressed by a coordinative
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 group of nouns, the verb being given an option of treating it either as a plural or as a singular. E.g.:
  My heart and soul belongs to this small nation in its desperate struggle for survival. My emotional self and rational self have been at variance about the attitude adopted by Jane.
  The same rule of "agreement in sense" is operative in relative clauses, where the finite verb directly reflects the categories of the nounal antecedent of the clause-introductory relative pronoun-subject. Cf.:
 I who am practically unacquainted with the formal theory
 of games can hardly suggest an alternative solution.- Your
 words show the courage and the truth that I have always felt was in your heart.
  On the face of it, the cited examples might seem to testify to the analysed verbal categories being altogether self-sufficient, capable, as it were, even of "bossing" the subject as to its referential content. However, the inner regularities underlying the outer arrangement of grammatical connections are necessarily of a contrary nature: it is the subject that induces the verb, through its inflexion, however scanty it may be, to help express the substantival meaning not represented in the immediate substantival form. That this is so and not otherwise, can be seen on examples where the subject seeks the needed formal assistance from other quarters than the verbal, in particular, having recourse to determiners. Cf.: A full thirty miles was covered in less than half an hour; the car could be safely relied on.
  Thus, the role of the verb in such and like cases comes at most to that of a grammatical intermediary.
  From the functional point of view, the direct opposite to the shown categorial connections is represented by instances of dialectal and colloquial person-number neutralisation. Cf.:
  "Ah! It's pity you never was trained to use your reason, miss" (B. Shaw). "He's been in his room all day," the landlady said downstairs. "I guess he don't feel well" (E. Hemingway). "What are they going to do to me?" Johnny said. - "Nothing," I said. "They ain't going to do nothing to you" (W. Saroyan).
 Such and similar oppositional neutralisations of the
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 surviving verbal person-number indicators, on their part, clearly emphasise the significance of the junctional aspect of the two inter-connected categories reflected in the verbal lexeme from the substantival subject.
 CHAPTER XIV VERB: TENSE
  § 1. The immediate expression of grammatical time, or "tense" (Lat. tempus), is one of the typical functions of the finite verb. It is typical because the meaning of process, inherently embedded in the verbal lexeme, finds its complete realisation only if presented in certain time conditions. That is why the expression or non-expression of grammatical time, together with the expression or non-expression of grammatical mood in person-form presentation, constitutes the basis of the verbal category of finitude, i.e. the basis of the division of all the forms of the verb into finite and non-finite.
  When speaking of the expression of time by the verb, it is necessary to strictly distinguish between the general notion of time, the lexical denotation of time, and the grammatical time proper, or grammatical temporality.
  The dialectical-materialist notion of time exposes it as the universal form of the continual consecutive change of phenomena. Time, as well as space are the basic forms of the existence of matter, they both are inalienable properties of reality and as such are absolutely independent of human perception. On the other hand, like other objective factors of the universe, time is reflected by man through his perceptions and intellect, and finds its expression in his language.
  It is but natural that time as the universal form of consecutive change of things should be appraised by the individual in reference to the moment of his immediate perception of the outward reality. This moment of immediate perception, or "present moment", which is continually shifting in time, and the linguistic content of which is the "moment of speech", serves as the demarcation line between the past and the future. All the lexical expressions of time, according as they refer or do not refer the denoted points or periods of time, directly or obliquely, to this moment, are divided into "present-oriented", or "absolutive" expressions of time, and "non-present-oriented", "non-absolutive" expressions of time.
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  The absolutive time denotation, in compliance with the experience gained by man in the course of his cognitive activity, distributes the intellective perception of time among three spheres: the sphere of the present, with the present moment included within its framework; the sphere of the past, which precedes the sphere of the present by way of retrospect; the sphere of the future, which follows the sphere of the present by way of prospect.
  Thus, words and phrases like now, last week, in our century, in the past, in the years to come, very soon, yesterday, in a couple of days, giving a temporal characteristic to an event from the point of view of its orientation in reference to the present moment, are absolutive names of time.
  The non-absolutive time denotation does not characterise an event in terms of orientation towards the present. This kind of denotation may be either "relative" or "factual".
  The relative expression of time correlates two or more events showing some of them either as preceding the others, or following the others, or happening at one and the same time with them. Here belong such words and phrases as after that, before that, at one and the same time with, some time later, at an interval of a day or two, at different times, etc.
  The factual expression of time either directly states the astronomical time of an event, or else conveys this meaning in terms of historical landmarks. Under this heading should be listed such words and phrases as in the year 1066, during the time of the First World War, at the epoch of Napoleon, at the early period of civilisation, etc.
  In the context of real speech the above types of time naming are used in combination with one another, so that the denoted event receives many-sided and very exact characterisation regarding its temporal status.
  Of all the temporal meanings conveyed by such detailing lexical denotation of time, the finite verb generalises in its categorial forms only the most abstract significations, taking them as dynamic characteristics of the reflected process. The fundamental divisions both of absolutive time and of non-absolutive relative time find in the verb a specific presentation, idiomatically different from one language to another. The form of this presentation is dependent, the same as with the expression of other grammatical meanings, on the concrete semantic features chosen by a language as a basis
 138
 
 for the functional differentiation within the verb lexeme. And it is the verbal expression of abstract, grammatical time that forms the necessary background for the adverbial contextual time denotation in an utterance; without the verbal background serving as a universal temporal "polariser" and "leader", this marking of time would be utterly inadequate. Indeed, what informative content should the following passage convey with all its lexical indications of time {in the morning, in the afternoon, as usual, never, ever), if it were deprived of the general indications of time achieved through the forms of the verb - the unit of the lexicon which the German grammarians very significantly call "Zeitwort" - the "time-word":
  My own birthday passed without ceremony. I worked as usual in the morning and in the afternoon went for a walk in the solitary woods behind my house. I have never been able to discover what it is that gives these woods their mysterious attractiveness. They are like no woods I have ever known (S. Maugham).
  In Modern English, the grammatical expression of verbal time, i.e. tense, is effected in two correlated stages. At the first stage, the process receives an absolutive time characteristic by means of opposing the past tense to the present tense. The marked member of this opposition is the past form. At the second stage, the process receives a non-absolutive relative time characteristic by means of opposing the forms of the future tense to the forms of no future marking. Since the two stages of the verbal time denotation are expressed separately, by their own oppositional forms, and, besides, have essentially different orientation characteristics (the first stage being absolutive, the second stage, relative), it stands to reason to recognise in the system of the English verb not one, but two temporal categories. Both of them answer the question: "What is the timing of the process?" But the first category, having the past tense as its strong member, expresses a direct retrospective evaluation of the time of the process, fixing the process either in the past or not in the past; the second category, whose strong member is the future tense, gives the timing of the process a prospective evaluation, fixing it either in the future (i.e. in the prospective posterior), or not in the future. As a result of the combined working of the two categories, the time of the event reflected in the utterance finds its adequate location in the
 139
 
 temporal context, showing all the distinctive properties of the lingual presentation of time mentioned above.
  In accord with the oppositional marking of the two temporal categories under analysis, we shall call the first of them the category of "primary time", and the second, the category of "prospective time", or, contractedly, "prospect".
  § 2. The category of primary time, as has just been stated, provides for the absolutive expression of the time of the process denoted by the verb, i.e. such an expression of it as gives its evaluation, in the long run, in reference to the moment of speech. The formal sign of the opposition constituting this category is, with regular verbs, the dental suffix -(e)d [-d, -t, -id], and with irregular verbs, phonemic interchanges of more or less individual specifications. The suffix marks the verbal form of the past time (the past tense), leaving the opposite form unmarked. Thus, the opposition is to be rendered by the formula "the past tense - the present tense", the latter member representing the non-past tense, according to the accepted oppositional interpretation.
  The specific feature of the category of primary time is, that it divides all the tense forms of the English verb into two temporal planes: the plane of the present and the plane of the past, which affects also the future forms. Very important in this respect is the structural nature of the expression of the category: the category of primary time is the only verbal category of immanent order which is expressed by inflexional forms. These inflexional forms of the past and present coexist in the same verb-entry of speech with the other, analytical modes of various categorial expression, including the future. Hence, the English verb acquires the two futures: on the one hand, the future of the present, i.e. as prospected from the present; on the other hand, the future of the past, i.e. as prospected from the past. The following example will be illustrative of the whole four-member correlation:
 Jill returns from her driving class at five o'clock.
 At five Jill returned from her driving class. I know that
 Jill will return from her driving class at five o'clock.
 I knew that at five Jill would return from her driving class.
  An additional reason for identifying the verbal past-present time system as a separate grammatical category is provided by the fact that this system is specifically marked by the do-forms of the indefinite aspect with their various,
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 but inherently correlated functions. These forms, found in the interrogative constructions (Does he believe the whole story?), in the negative constructions (He doesn't believe the story), in the elliptical response constructions and elsewhere, are confined only to the category of primary time, i.e. the verbal past and present, not coming into contact with the expression of the future.
  § 3. The fact that the present tense is the unmarked member of the opposition explains a very wide range of its meanings exceeding by far the indication of the "moment of speech" chosen for the identification of primary temporality. Indeed, the present time may be understood as literally the moment of speaking, the zero-point of all subjective estimation of time made by the speaker. The meaning of the present with this connotation will be conveyed by such phrases as at this very moment, or this instant, or exactly now, or some other phrase like that. But an utterance like "now while I am speaking" breaks the notion of the zero time proper, since the speaking process is not a momentary, but a durative event. Furthermore, the present will still be the present if we relate it to such vast periods of time as this month, this year, in our epoch, in the present millennium, etc. The denoted stretch of time may be prolonged by a collocation like that beyond any definite limit. Still furthermore, in utterances of general truths as, for instance, "Two plus two makes four", or "The sun is a star", or "Handsome is that handsome does", the idea of time as such is almost suppressed, the implication of constancy, unchangeability of the truth at all times being made prominent. The present tense as the verbal form of generalised meaning covers all these denotations, showing the present time in relation to the process as inclusive of the moment of speech, incorporating this moment within its definite or indefinite stretch and opposed to the past time.
  Thus, if we say, "Two plus two makes four", the linguistic implication of it is "always, and so at the moment of speech". If we say, "I never take his advice", we mean linguistically "at no time in terms of the current state of my attitude towards him, and so at the present moment". If we say, "In our millennium social formations change quicker than in the previous periods of man's history", the linguistic temporal content of it is "in our millennium, that is, in the millennium including the moment of speech". This meaning is the invariant of the present, developed from its categorial
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 opposition to the past, and it penetrates the uses of the finite verb in all its forms, including the perfect, the future, the continuous.
  Indeed, if the Radio carries the news, "The two suspected terrorists have been taken into custody by the police", the implication of the moment of speech refers to the direct influence or after-effects of the event announced. Similarly, the statement "You will be informed about the decision later in the day" describes the event, which, although it has not yet happened, is prospected into the future from the present, i.e. the prospection itself incorporates the moment of speech. As for the present continuous, its relevance for the present moment is self-evident.
  Thus, the analysed meaning of the verbal present arises as a result of its immediate contrast with the past form which shows the exclusion of the action from the plane of the present and so the action itself as capable of being perceived only in temporal retrospect. Again, this latter meaning of the disconnection from the present penetrates all the verbal forms of the past, including the perfect, the future, the continuous. Due to the marked character of the past verbal form, the said quality of its meaning does not require special demonstration.
  Worthy of note, however, 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. Cf.: Today again I spoke to Mr. Jones on the matter, and again he failed to see the urgency of it.
  The seeming linguistic paradox of such cases consists exactly in the fact that their two-type indications of time, one verbal-grammatical, and one adverbial-lexical, approach the same event from two opposite angles. But there is nothing irrational here. As a matter of fact, the utterances present instances of two-plane temporal evaluation of the event described: the verb-form shows the process as past and gone, i.e. physically disconnected from the present; as for the adverbial modifier, it presents the past event as a particular happening, belonging to a more general time situation which is stretched out up to the present moment inclusive, and possibly past the present moment into the future.
  A case directly opposite to the one shown above is seen in the transpositional use of the present tense of the verb with the past adverbials, either included in the utterance as such, or else expressed in its contextual environment. E.g.:
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  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 stylistic purpose of this transposition, known under the name of the "historic present" (Lat. praesens historicum) is to create a vivid picture of the event reflected in the utterance. This is achieved in strict accord with the functional meaning of the verbal present, sharply contrasted against the general background of the past plane of the utterance content.
  § 4. The combinations of the verbs shall and will with the infinitive have of late become subject of renewed discussion. The controversial point about them is, whether these combinations really constitute, together with the forms of the past and present, the categorial expression of verbal tense, or are just modal phrases, whose expression of the future time does not differ in essence from the general future orientation of other combinations of modal verbs with the infinitive. The view that shall and will retain their modal meanings in all their uses was defended by such a recognised 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.
  A well-grounded objection against the inclusion of the construction shall/will + Infinitive in the tense system of the verb on the same basis as the forms of the present and past has been advanced by L. S. Barkhudarov [Бархударов, (2), 126 и сл.]. His objection consists in the demonstration of the double marking of this would-be tense form by one and the same category: the combinations in question can express at once both the future time and the past time (the form "future-in-the-past"), which hardly makes any sense in terms of a grammatical category. Indeed, the principle of the identification of any grammatical category demands that the forms of the category in normal use should be mutually exclusive. The category is constituted by the opposition of its forms, not by their co-position!
  However, reconsidering the status of the construction shall/will + Infinitive in the light of oppositional approach,
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 we see that, far from comparing with the past-present verbal forms as the third member-form of the category of primary time, it marks its own grammatical category, namely, that of prospective time (prospect). The meaningful contrast underlying the category of prospective time is between an after-action and a non-after-action. The after-action, or the "future", having its shall/will-feature, constitutes the marked member of the opposition.
  The category of prospect is also temporal, in so far as it is immediately connected with the expression of processual time, like the category of primary time. But the semantic basis of the category of prospect is different in principle from that of the category of primary time: while the primary time is absolutive, i. e. present-oriented, the prospective time is purely relative; it means that the future form of the verb only shows that the denoted process is prospected as an after-action relative to some other action or state or event, the timing of which marks the zero-level for it. The two times are presented, as it were, in prospective coordination: one is shown as prospected for the future, the future being relative to the primary time, either present or past. As a result, the expression of the future receives the two mutually complementary manifestations: one manifestation for the present time-plane of the verb, the other manifestation for the past time-plane of the verb. In other words, the process of the verb is characterised by the category of prospect irrespective of its primary time characteristic, or rather, as an addition to this characteristic, and this is quite similar to all the other categories capable of entering the sphere of verbal time, e.g. the category of development (continuous in opposition), the category of retrospective coordination (perfect in opposition), the category of voice (passive in opposition): the respective forms of all these categories also have the past and present versions, to which, in due course, are added the future and non-future versions. Consider the following examples:
  (1) I was making a road and all the coolies struck. (2) None of us doubted in the least that Aunt Emma would soon be marvelling again at Eustace's challenging success. (3) The next thing she wrote she sent to a magazine, and for many weeks worried about what would happen to it. (4) She did not protest, for she had given up the struggle. (5) Felix knew that they would have settled the dispute by the time he could be ready to have his say. (6) He was being watched, shadowed,
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 chased by that despicable gang of hirelings. (7) But would little Jonny be *being looked after properly? The nurse was so young and inexperienced!
  The oppositional content of the exemplified cases of finite verb-forms will, in the chosen order of sequence, be presented as follows: the past non-future continuous non-perfect non-passive (1); the past future continuous non-perfect non-passive (2) the past future non-continuous non-perfect non-passive (3); the past non-future non-continuous perfect non-passive (4); the past future non-continuous perfect non-passive (5); the past non-future continuous non-perfect passive (6); the past future continuous non-perfect passive (7) - the latter form not in practical use.
  As we have already stated before, the future tenses reject the do-forms of the indefinite aspect, which are confined to the expression of the present and past verbal times only. This fact serves as a supplementary ground for the identification of the expression of prospect as a separate grammatical category.
  Of course, it would be an ill turn to grammar if one tried to introduce the above circumstantial terminology with all its pedantic strings of "non's" into the elementary teaching of language. The stringed categorial "non"-terms are apparently too redundant to be recommended for ordinary use even at an advanced level of linguistic training. What is achieved by this kind of terminology, however, is a comprehensive indication of the categorial status of verb-forms under analysis in a compact, terse presentation. Thus, whenever a presentation like that is called for, the terms will be quite in their place.
  § 5. In analysing the English future tenses, the modal factor, naturally, should be thoroughly taken into consideration. A certain modal colouring of the meaning of the English future cannot be denied, especially in the verbal form of the first person. But then, as is widely known, the expression of the future in other languages is not disconnected from modal semantics either; and this is conditioned by the mere fact that the future action, as different from the present or past action, cannot be looked upon as a genuine feature of reality. Indeed, it is only foreseen, or anticipated, or planned, or desired, or otherwise prospected for the time to come. In this quality, the Russian future tense does not differ in principle
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 from the verbal future of other languages, including English, Suffice it to give a couple of examples chosen at random:
  Я буду рассказывать тебе интересные истории. Расскажу о страшных кометах, о битве воздушных кораблей, о гибели прекрасной страны по ту сторону гор. Тебе не будет скучно любить меня (А. Толстой). Немедленно на берег. Найдешь генерала Иолшина, скажешь: путь свободен. Пусть строит дорогу для артиллерии (Б. Васильев).
  The future forms of the verbs in the first of the above Russian examples clearly express promise (i. e. a future action conveyed as a promise); those in the second example render a command.
  Moreover, in the system of the Russian tenses there is a specialised modal form of analytical future expressing intention (the combination of the verb стать with the imperfective infinitive). E. g.: Что же вы теперь хотите делать? - Тебя это не касается, что я стану делать. Я план обдумываю. (А. Толстой).
  Within the framework of the universal meaningful features of the verbal future, the future of the English verb is highly specific in so far as its auxiliaries in their very immediate etymology are words of obligation and volition, and the survival of the respective connotations in them is backed by the inherent quality of the future as such. Still, on the whole, the English categorial future differs distinctly from the modal constructions with the same predicator verbs.
  § 6. In the clear-cut modal uses of the verbs shall and will the idea of the future either is not expressed at all, or else is only rendered by way of textual connotation, the central semantic accent being laid on the expression of obligation, necessity, inevitability, promise, intention, desire. These meanings may be easily seen both on the examples of ready phraseological citation, and genuine everyday conversation exchanges. Cf.:
  He who does not work neither shall he eat (phraseological citation). "I want a nice hot curry, do you hear?" - "All right, Mr. Crackenthorpe, you shall have it" (everyday speech). None are so deaf as those who will not hear (phraseological citation). Nobody's allowed to touch a thing - I won't have a woman near the place (everyday speech).
  The modal nature of the shall/will + Infinitive 146
 
 combinations in the cited examples can be shown by means of equivalent substitutions:
  ... > He who does not work must not eat, either. ... > All right, Mr. Crackenthorpe, I promise to have it cooked. ... > None are so deaf as those who do not want to hear. ... > I intend not to allow a woman to come near the
 place.
  Accounting for the modal meanings of the combinations under analysis, traditional grammar gives the following rules: shall + Infinitive with the first person, will + Infinitive with the second and third persons express pure future; the reverse combinations express modal meanings, the most typical of which are intention or desire for I will and promise or command on the part of the speaker for you shall, he shall. Both rules apply to refined British English. In American English will is described as expressing pure future with all the persons, shall as expressing modality.
  However, the cited description, though distinguished by elegant simplicity, cannot be taken as fully agreeing with the existing lingual practice. The main feature of this description contradicted by practice is the British use of will with the first person without distinctly pronounced modal connotations (making due allowance for the general connection of the future tense with modality, of which we have spoken before). Cf.:
  I will call for you and your young man at seven o'clock (J. Galsworthy). When we wake I will take him up and carry him back (R. Kipling). I will let you know on Wednesday what expenses have been necessary (A. Christie). If you wait there on Thursday evening between seven and eight I will come if I can (H. С Merriman).
  That the combinations of will with the infinitive in the above examples do express the future time, admits of no dispute. Furthermore, these combinations, seemingly, are charged with modal connotations in no higher degree than the corresponding combinations of shall with the infinitive. Cf.:
  Haven't time; I shall miss my train (A. Bennett). I shall be happy to carry it to the House of Lords, if necessary (J. Galsworthy). You never know what may happen. I shan't have a minute's peace (M. Dickens).
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 Granted our semantic intuitions about the exemplified
 uses are true, the question then arises: what is the real difference, if any, between the two British first person expressions of the future, one with shall, the other one with will? Or are they actually just semantic doublets, i.e. units of complete synonymy, bound by the paradigmatic relation of free alternation?
  A solution to this problem is to be found on the basis of syntactic distributional and transformational analysis backed by a consideration of the original meanings of both auxiliaries.
  § 7. Observing combinations with will in stylistically neutral collocations, as the first step of our study we note the adverbials of time used with this construction. The environmental expressions, as well as implications, of future time do testify that from this point of view there is no difference between will and shall, both of them equally conveying the idea of the future action expressed by the adjoining infinitive.
  As our next step of inferences, noting the types of the infinitive-environmental semantics of will in contrast to the contextual background of shall, we state that the first person will-future expresses an action which is to be performed by the speaker for choice, of his own accord. But this meaning of free option does not at all imply that the speaker actually wishes to perform the action, or else that he is determined to perform it, possibly in defiance of some contrary force. The exposition of the action shows it as being not bound by any extraneous circumstances or by any special influence except the speaker's option; this is its exhaustive characteristic. In keeping with this, the form of the will-future in question may be tentatively called the "voluntary future".
  On the other hand, comparing the environmental characteristics of shall with the corresponding environmental background of will, it is easy to see that, as different from will, the first person shall expresses a future process that will be realised without the will of the speaker, irrespective of his choice. In accord with the exposed meaning, the shall-form of the first person future should be referred to as the "non-voluntary", i.e. as the weak member of the corresponding opposition.
  Further observations of the relevant textual data show that some verbs constituting a typical environment of the
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 non-voluntary shall-future (i.e. verbs inherently alien to the expression of voluntary actions) occur also with the voluntary will, but in a different meaning, namely, in the meaning of an active action the performance of which is freely chosen by the speaker. Cf.: Your arrival cannot have been announced to his Majesty. I will see about it (B. Shaw).
  In the given example the verb see has the active meaning of ensuring something, of intentionally arranging matters connected with something, etc.
  Likewise, a number of verbs of the voluntary will-environmental features (i.e. verbs presupposing the actor's free will in performing the action) combine also with the non-voluntary shall, but in the meaning of an action that will take place irrespective of the will of the speaker. Cf.: I'm very sorry, madam, but I'm going to faint. I shall go off, madam, if I don't have something (K. Mansfield).
  Thus, the would-be same verbs are in fact either homonyms, or else lexico-semantic variants of the corresponding lexemes of the maximally differing characteristics.
  At the final stage of our study the disclosed characteristics of the two first-person futures are checked on the lines of transformational analysis. The method will consist not in free structural manipulations with the analysed constructions, but in the textual search for the respective changes of the auxiliaries depending on the changes in the infinitival environments.
  Applying these procedures to the texts, we note that when the construction of the voluntary will-future is expanded (complicated) by a syntactic part re-modelling the whole collocation into one expressing an involuntary action, the auxiliary will is automatically replaced by shall. In particular, it happens when the expanding elements convey the meaning of supposition or Uncertainty. Cf.:
  Give me a goddess's work to do; and I will do it (B. Shaw). > I don't know what I shall do with Barbara (B. Shaw). Oh, very well, very well: I will write another prescription (B. Shaw). > I shall perhaps write to your mother (K. Mansfield).
  Thus, we conclude that within'the system of the English future tense a peculiar minor category is expressed which affects only the forms of the first person. The category is constituted by the opposition of the forms will + Infinitive and shall + Infinitive expressing, respectively, the voluntary
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 future and the non-voluntary future. Accordingly, this category may tentatively be called the "category of futurity option".
  The future in the second and third persons, formed by the indiscriminate auxiliary will, does not express this category, which is dependent on the semantics of the persons: normally it would be irrelevant to indicate in an obligatory way the aspect of futurity option otherwise than with the first person, i.e. the person of self.
  This category is neutralised in the contracted form -'ll, which is of necessity indifferent to the expression of futurity option. As is known, the traditional analysis of the contracted future states that -'ll stands for will, not for shall. However, this view is not supported by textual data. Indeed, bearing in mind the results of our study, it is easy to demonstrate that the contracted forms of the future may be traced both to will and to shall. Cf.:
  I'll marry you then, Archie, if you really want it (M. Dickens). > I will marry you. I'll have to think about it (M. Dickens). > I shall have to think about it.
  From the evidence afforded by the historical studies of the language we know that the English contracted form of the future -'ll has actually originated from the auxiliary will. So, in Modern English an interesting process of redistribution of the future forms has taken place, based apparently on the contamination will > 'll <- shall. As a result, the form -'ll in the first person expresses not the same "pure" future as is expressed by the indiscriminate will in the second and third persons.
  The described system of the British future is by far more complicated than the expression of the future tense in the other national variants of English, in particular, in American English, where the future form of the first person is functionally equal with the other persons. In British English a possible tendency to a similar levelled expression of the future is actively counteracted by the two structural factors. The first is the existence of the two functionally differing contractions of the future auxiliaries in the negative form, i. e. shan't and won't, which imperatively support the survival of shall in the first person against the levelled positive (affirmative) contraction -'ll. The second is the use of the future tense in interrogative sentences, where with the first person only shall is normally used. Indeed, it is quite natural that a genuine question directed by the speaker to
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 himself, i.e. a question showing doubt or speculation, is to be asked about an action of non-wilful, involuntary order, and not otherwise. Cf.:
  What shall we be shown next? Shall I be able to master shorthand professionally? The question was, should I see Beatrice again before her departure?
  The semantics of the first person futurity question is such that even the infinitives of essentially volition-governed actions are transferred here to the plane of non-volition, subordinating themselves to the general implication of doubt, hesitation, uncertainty. Cf.:
  What shall I answer to an offer like that? How shall we tackle the matter if we are left to rely on our own judgment?
  Thus, the vitality of the discriminate shall/will future, characteristic of careful English speech, is supported by logically vindicated intra-lingual factors. Moreover, the whole system of Modern British future with its mobile inter-action of the two auxiliaries is a product of recent language development, not a relict of the older periods of its history. It is this subtly regulated and still unfinished system that gave cause to H. W. Fowler for his significant statement: ".. of the English of the English shall and will are the shibboleth."*
  § 8. Apart from shall/will + Infinitive construction, there is another construction in English which has a potent appeal for being analysed within the framework of the general problem of the future tense. This is the combination of the predicator be going with the infinitive. Indeed, the high frequency occurrence of this construction in contexts conveying the idea of an immediate future action can't but draw a very close attention on the part of a linguistic observer.
  The combination may denote a sheer intention (either the speaker's or some other person's) to perform the action expressed by the infinitive, thus entering into the vast set of "classical" modal constructions. E.g.:
  I am going to ask you a few more questions about the mysterious disappearance of the document, Mr. Gregg. He looked across at my desk and I thought for a moment he was going to give me the treatment, too.
  * Fowler H. W. Л Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Ldn., 1941, p. 729,
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  But these simple modal uses of be going are countered by cases where the direct meaning of intention rendered by the predicator stands in contradiction with its environmental implications and is subdued by them. Cf.:
  You are trying to frighten me. But you are not going to frighten me any more (L. Hellman). I did not know how I was going to get out of the room (D. du Maurier).
  Moreover, the construction, despite its primary meaning of intention, presupposing a human subject, is not infrequently used with non-human subjects and even in impersonal sentences. Cf.:
  She knew what she was doing, and she was sure it was going to be worth doing (W. Saroyan). There's going to be a contest over Ezra Grolley's estate (E. Gardner).
  Because of these properties it would appear tempting to class the construction in question as a specific tense form, namely, the tense form of "immediate future", analogous to the French futur immediat (e.g. Le spectacle va cornmencer - The show is going to begin).
  Still, on closer consideration, we notice that the non-intention uses of the predicator be going are not indifferent stylistically. Far from being neutral, they more often than not display emotional colouring mixed with semantic connotations of oblique modality.
  For instance, when the girl from the first of the above examples appreciates something as "going to be worth doing", she is expressing her assurance of its being so. When one labels the rain as "never going to stop", one clearly expresses one's annoyance at the bad state of the weather. When a future event is introduced by the formula "there to be going to be", as is the case in the second of the cited examples, the speaker clearly implies his foresight of it, or his anticipation of it, or, possibly, a warning to beware of it, or else some other modal connotation of a like nature. Thus, on the whole, the non-intention uses of the construction be going + Infinitive cannot be rationally divided into modal and non-modal, on the analogy of the construction shall/will + Infinitive. Its broader combinability is based on semantic transposition and can be likened to broader uses of the modal collocation be about, also of basically intention semantics.
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  § 9. The oppositional basis of the category of prospective time is neutralised in certain uses, in keeping with the general regularities of oppositional reductions. The process of neutralisation is connected with the shifting of the forms of primary time (present and past) from the sphere of absolute tenses into the sphere of relative tenses.
  One of the typical cases of the neutralisation in question consists in using a non-future temporal form to express a future action which is to take place according to some plan or arrangement. Cf.:
  The government meets in emergency session today over the question of continued violations of the cease-fire. I hear your sister is soon arriving from Paris? Naturally I would like to know when he's coming. Etc.
  This case of oppositional reduction is optional, the equivalent reconstruction of the correlated member of the opposition is nearly always possible (with the respective changes of connotations and style). Cf.:
  ... > The government will meet in emergency session. ... > Your sister will soon arrive from Paris? ... > When will he be coming"?
  Another type of neutralisation of the prospective time opposition is observed in modal verbs and modal word combinations. The basic peculiarity of these units bearing on (he expression of time is, that the prospective implication is inherently in-built in their semantics, which reflects not the action as such, but the attitude towards the action expressed by the infinitive. For that reason, the present verb-form of these units actually renders the idea of the future (and, respectively, the past verb-form, the idea of the future-in-the-past). Cf.:
  There's no saying what may happen next. At any rate, the woman was sure to come later in the day. But you have to present the report before Sunday, there's no alternative.
  Sometimes the explicit expression of the future is necessary even with modal collocations. To make up for the lacking categorial forms, special modal substitutes have been developed in language, some of which have received the status of suppletive units (see above, Ch. III). Cf.:
  But do not make plans with David. You will not be able to carry them out. Things will have to go one way or the other.
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  Alongside of the above and very different from them, there is still another typical case of neutralisation of the analysed categorial opposition, which is strictly obligatory. It occurs in clauses of time and condition whose verb-predicate expresses a future action. Cf.:
  If things turn out as has been arranged, the triumph will be all ours. I repeated my request to notify me at once whenever the messenger arrived.
  The latter type of neutralisation is syntactically conditioned. In point of fact, the neutralisation consists here in the primary tenses shifting from the sphere of absolutive time into the sphere of relative time, since they become dependent not on their immediate orientation towards the moment of speech, but on the relation to another time level, namely, the time level presented in the governing clause of the corresponding complex sentence.
  This kind of neutralising relative use of absolutive tense forms occupies a restricted position in the integral tense system of English. In Russian, the syntactic relative use of tenses is, on the contrary, widely spread. In particular, this refers to the presentation of reported speech in the plane of the past, where the Russian present tense is changed into the tense of simultaneity, the past tense is changed into the tense of priority, and the future tense is changed into the tense of prospected posteriority. Cf.:
  (1) Он сказал, что изучает немецкий язык. (2) Он сказал, что изучал немецкий язык. (3) Он сказал, что будет изучать немецкий язык.
  In English, the primary tenses in similar syntactic conditions retain their absolutive nature and are used in keeping with their direct, unchangeable meanings. Compare the respective translations of the examples cited above:
  (1) He said that he was learning German (then). (2) He said that he had learned German (before). (3) He said that he would learn German (in the time to come).
  It doesn't follow from this that the rule of sequence of tenses in English complex sentences formulated by traditional grammar should be rejected as false. Sequence of tenses is an important feature of all narration, for, depending on the continual consecutive course of actual events in reality, they are presented in the text in definite successions ordered
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 against a common general background. However, what should be stressed here, is that the tense-shift involved in the translation of the present-plane direct information into the past-plane reported information is not a formal, but essentially a meaningful procedure.
 CHAPTER XV
 VERB: ASPECT
  § 1. The aspective meaning of the verb, as different from its temporal meaning, reflects the inherent mode of the realisation of the process irrespective of its timing.
  As we have already seen, the aspective meaning can be in-built in the semantic structure of the verb, forming an invariable, derivative category. In English, the various lexical aspective meanings have been generalised by the verb in its subclass division into limitive and unlimitive sets. On the whole, this division is loose, the demarcation line between the sets is easily trespassed both ways. In spite of their want of rigour, however, the aspective verbal subclasses are grammatically relevant in so far as they are not indifferent to the choice of the aspective grammatical forms of the verb. In Russian, the aspective division of verbs into perfective and imperfective is, on the contrary, very strict. Although the Russian category of aspect is derivative, it presents one of the most typical features of the grammatical structure of the verb, governing its tense system both formally and semantically.
  On the other hand, the aspective meaning can also be represented in variable grammatical categories. Aspective grammatical change is wholly alien to the Russian language, but it forms one of the basic features of the categorial structure of the English verb.
  Two systems of verbal forms, in the past grammatical tradition analysed under the indiscriminate heading of the "temporal inflexion", i. e. synthetic inflexion proper and analytical composition as its equivalent, should be evaluated in this light: the continuous forms and the perfect forms.
  The aspective or non-aspective identification of the forms in question will, in the long run, be dependent on whether or not they express the direct, immediate time of the action denoted by the verb, since a general connection between the
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 aspective and temporal verbal semantics is indisputable.
  The continuous verbal forms analysed on the principles of oppositional approach admit of only one interpretation, and that is aspective. The continuous forms are aspective because, reflecting the inherent character of the process performed by the verb, they do not, and cannot, denote the timing of the process. The opposition constituting the corresponding category is effected between the continuous and the non-continuous (indefinite) verbal forms. The categorial meaning discloses the nature of development of the verbal action, on which ground the suggested name for the category as a whole will be "development". As is the case with the other categories, its expression is combined with other categorial expressions in one and the same verb-form, involving also the category that features the perfect. Thus, to be consistent in our judgments, we must identify, within the framework of the manifestations of the category of development, not only the perfect continuous forms, but also the perfect indefinite forms (i.e. non-continuous).
  The perfect, as different from the continuous, does reflect a kind of timing, though in a purely relative way. Namely, it coordinates two times, locating one of them in retrospect towards the other. Should the grammatical meaning of the perfect have been exhausted by this function, it ought to have been placed into one and the same categorial system with the future, forming the integral category of time coordination (correspondingly, prospective and retrospective). In reality, though, it cannot be done, because the perfect expresses not only time in relative retrospect, but also the very connection of a prior process with a time-limit reflected in a subsequent event. Thus, the perfect forms of the verb display a mixed, intermediary character, which places them apart both from the relative posterior tense and the aspective development. The true nature of the perfect is temporal aspect reflected in its own opposition, which cannot be reduced to any other opposition of the otherwise recognised verbal categories. The suggested name for this category will be "retrospective coordination", or, contractedly, "retrospect". The categorial member opposed to the perfect, for the sake of terminological consistency, will be named "imperfect" (non-perfect). As an independent category, the retrospective coordination is manifested in the integral verb-form together with the manifestations of other categories, among them the
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