Riassunto esame Lingua e traduzione inglese, prof. Guido, libro consigliato Mediating Cultures, Guido

PSYCHOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Present Perfect is conventionally translated into Italian as Passato Prossimo: Italian emphasizes a

past perspective on the period of time considered, thus overlooking the duration of the process into

the present time.

2.3 VERB SYNTAX: PRESENT SIMPLE AND PRESENT PERFECT

We will ascribe (attribuire qc a qn) Verb Syntax to the Interpersonal Function of language.

2.3.1 Present Simple: Inflectional Node and Movements

An English Verb Phrase is normally introduced by three “person”, both in the singular and the plural,

which cannot be omitted. These persons represent the syntactic categories through which the

semantic notion of the Logical Subject of a sentence is often linguistically actualised. The three

person are: Singular Plural

st

1 person: I we

nd

2 person: You you

rd

3 person: he/she/it they

Between a “Person” and the Verb Phrase that the Person introduces there must be syntactic

agreement (accordo). In the Affirmative form of the Present Simple, agreement is signalled by an –

rd

s ending that is added to the verb at the 3 person singular. In the Present Simple, English only has

rd

one ending and this is the 3 person singular ending –s. Endings like this are called inflections

and they encode grammatical properties. The –s ending signals that the verb is in the Present Tense

and for this reason it is called present tense inflection, encoding the semantic notion of present

time. The verb-forms for the other persons in the Present Simple are all the same and are defined as

base-forms. The verb to be is an exception because in the Present Tense singular it has different

forms for the three persons (am, are, is). rd

The verb to have follows the general rule of the base-form for all the persons except for the 3

person singular which has totally different form: has. In this case, they are simply lexical verbs and

they are also the main verbs in the sequence of clauses (proposizioni). In the English Present-

Simple Affirmative form, a main verb is always Finite (the Finite Operator, in Halliday’s Terms)

which means that it carries the inflection for Tense (mood). Chomsky claims that in the mind of a

native speaker of English, this Finite Verb is part of a cognitive mechanism which assumes that

sentences (s) contain a node that he labels (etichetta) as I (short form for Inflection). This I-node

controls two things: the Verb Tense and the Agreement between Subjects and Verbs. The subject of

a clause is often represented by a noun and conventionally labelled as Noun Phrase (NP). Likewise,

a Verb is labelled as Verb Phrase (VP).

S

NP I

VP [+Tense, +present]

[+ Agr]

She works

In Generative Grammar, an Affirmative sentence represents a basic form conveying the full potential

of its semantic meaning. Negative and Interrogative forms respectively deny, or doubt the process

expressed by the Verb. The syntactic rule to form a correct sentence is a transformational rule,

which consists in inserting the “dummy” auxiliary do. The insertion of do is called do-support and

the negative particle not is a Specifier (spec) that can also be cliticized onto the auxiliary in order to

obtain a contracted form. The word “dummy” indicates that the auxiliary do loses its original meaning

as a lexical verb and it is used only as a tense-marker, emphasizing the change of perspective from

affirmative to negative. The Present Tense inflection is carried by do, which in this case

represents the I-node of the sentence:

S

NP I VP

[+Tense, +present] spec V

[+ Agr]

She does not work

rd

The do-form is the base-form of the auxiliary, whereas the 3 person singular does is the only one that has a

marked inflection. The Present Simple Interrogative form needs another transformational rule, called

Subject-auxiliary inversion movement, according to which the auxiliary do must be fronted. The

transformational rule justifying this Subject-auxiliary inversion movement consists in inserting do before the

main verb in the Affirmative form in order to achieve an assertive emphasis and then inverting it with the

Subject to add a questioning stress. S

NP I

VP [+Tense, +present]

[+ Agr]

does She work?

The Negative Interrogative form has a double emphasis due to the insertion of the negative

Specifier not. The Negative Interrogative form has two different versions: the non-contracted or full

form (do I not work?) in which only the auxiliary do is fronted and the contracted form in which both

the auxiliary do and the Specifier not, cliticized onto do ( don’t I work?).

The Interrogative and Negative Interrogative forms in the Present-Simple of to be and to have

(have got) obviously do not need the do-support, yet they follow the general “interrogative” rule of the

subject-verb inversion movement. The necessary addition of got makes no difference to the sense of

this verb. Have can be conjugated with the auxiliary do to indicate habitual actions (do you have..?).

2.3.2 Present Perfect: Finite Operator/ Non-Finite Predicator

To form the English Present Perfect is necessary the so-called aspectual auxiliary. The aspectual

auxiliary, which is used to signal the presence of the Perfect (or Perfective) Aspect in the Verb

Phrase, is have. The Present Perfect is thus formed by the Present Simple of have followed by the

Past Participle of the Main Verb (I/you/we/they have worked; he/she/it has worked).

The two dimensions of present (Present Simple) and past (past participle) indicate that the period of

time considered is the present, but it also includes the past. The auxiliary have is the Finite Verb

that marks the Tense (present) and represents the I-Node of the sentence. The form of the Main

Verb is a Past Participle, which means that it is a Non-Finite Verb which can only signal the Perfect

(completed) Aspect of the process. The Not-finite form of the Main verb is defined Predicator in

Halliday’s Functional Grammar. The Tense of the Present-perfect form is Present, a finite verb-form

focusing on the present time of the Speaker’s perception of the process. The Aspect that introduces

the duration of the process that began in the past is instead represented by the Non-finite form of

the Past Participle. For the Negative form it is necessary to insert the negative Specifier not

between the auxiliary verb have and the main verb (contracted version Haven’t/hasn’t).

The Interrogative form shows a Subject-auxiliary inversion movement. Have precedes the subject.

The Interrogative Negative has 2 forms:

Full one there’s only a subject-auxiliary inversion movement;

♦ Cliticized the Specifier not is fronted together with the auxiliary verb and cliticized onto it.

♦

The present perfect forms of to be and to have follow the same syntactic rules of the other verbs.

However their past participle are irregular (been/had). The grammar rules that allow semantics to

be actualised into Pragmatics have been defined as Syntax.

2.4. VERB PRAGMATICS: PRESENT SIMPKE AND PERFECT IN DISCOURSE

2.4.2 Pragmatic Functions of Tense and Aspects

Pragmatics concerns communication and it focuses on the kind of message that a Speaker intends to

communicate to his/her Listener. To achieve their communicative goals Speakers often manipulate

language to produce their intended effects. Such language manipulation occurs unconsciously, but

also in some cases consciously. The studies that explores the mechanisms of language manipulation

is called Critical Discourse Analysis (field in Pragmatic).

Their sense implications, or connotations are automatically understood by most native members of a

speech community and they are part of the socio-linguistic schemata that members of the

community have developed over time by communicating with each other within native socio-cultural

contexts of interaction. If on the one hand the social-semiotic schemata informing the syntactic

code of that community, on the other hand, the socio-linguistic schemata represent the cognitive-

pragmatic code by which members of that community use the syntax of their language to

communicate their meanings.

Present Simple semantically represents mere facts. That is why it is the Tense and Aspect

dimension that can best express in discourse the mere presentation of factual truths in their plan

nakedness, without any subjective comment (even without any affective involvement) from the

Speaker. The pragmatic function of the Present Simple is primarily that of expressing objective facts

with the Speaker’s intervention and involvement reduced to the minimum.

a. when we use the Present Perfect, we focus on the experience that the Subject has

built so far, not simply on the relevance of that past experience on the present; and

because this experience has been built up to the current time, in the Present Perfect

form two temporal-experiential components co-exist: present and past;

b. when we use the Present Simple, we focus objectively on a present fact, with no

direct emotional involvement of the Speaker in the experience.

MODULE 5

TIME- SEQUENCE: PAST SIMPLE AND PERFECT

2.5 SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS OF THE PAST SIMPLE

2.5.1 Past Simple: Syntax

The Past Simple in regular verbs is formed by adding –ed to the Infinitive without to. There are,

however, some exceptions:

a. verbs ending in e add –d only (love-loved);

b. verbs ending in y following a consonant, change the y into I before adding –ed (carry-

carried);

c. but y following a vowel does not change (obey-obeyed).

In the Affirmative conjugation, the same form is used for all persons.

The Past-Simple Negative form of regular and irregular verbs is formed by using the past tense of

the “dummy” auxiliary “do”: did followed by not and the Infinitive without to.

The auxiliary did represents the Finite Operator that carries the Past Tense inflection and it

represents the I-Node of the sentence [-present], whereas the Infinitive of the Main Verb represents

the Non-Finite Predicator. S

NP I VP

[+Tense, -present] spec V

[+ Agr]

She did not work

Finite Operator Non-Finite Predicator

The Past Simple Interrogative of regular and irregular verbs is formed with did+ Subject+ Infinitive

without to. The transformational rule, called Subject-auxiliary inversion movement, requires the

auxiliary did to be fronted (to precede the Subject in order to add a special emphasis to the

Interrogative form (I did work; Did I work?).

The Negative Interrogative has 2 variations: (a) full one, with a simple Subject-auxiliary

inversion and (b) a cliticized one, with the Subject-auxiliary/negative Specifier inversion.

The Past Simple of to have displays the same base-form for all the persons, had, with no help from

the dummy auxiliary do. Also the Past Simple of the verb to be does not need the dummy auxiliary

do but to be has in the Past Tense singular different forms for the three persons.

2.5.2 Past Simple: Semantics

The English Past Simple is used for ac