The Verb. Grammatical categories.

1. Tense and aspect. Theoretical aspect.

2. Tenses in the active voice.
3. Tenses in the passive voice.
4. Types of passive constructions.
5. The use of tense-aspect forms in the passive voice.
6. The choice of the passive constructions.
7. Reasons of the frequent occurrence of the passive voice.
8. The category of mood.
9. The indicative mood.
10.The imperative mood.
11.The subjunctive mood. General notion. Synthetic forms. Analytical
forms.
12. The form of the indicative mood to express the same meaning as is ex-
pressed by the subjunctive mood.
13.Forms expressing unreality.
14.Structurally dependent use of forms.
15.Free use of forms expressing unreality.
16.Traditional use of forms expressing unreality.
17.Modal verbs.
18.Modal words.

1. Tense and aspect. Theoretical aspect.

By Raevska

Verbal forms denoting time relations are called tenses. The two concepts "time"
and "tense" should be kept clearly apart. The former is common to all languages,
the latter varies from language to language and is the linguistic expression of time
relations so far as these are indicated in any given form.

Time is universally conceived as having one dimension only, thus capable of being
represented by one straight line. The main divisions may be arranged in the follow-
ing way:

past ← present -future

Or, in other words, time is divided into two parts, the past and the future, the point
of division being the present moment, which, like a mathematical point, has no di-
mension, but is continually moving to the right in our figure. These are the primary
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divisions of time. Under each of the two divisions of infinite time we may refer to
some point as lying either before or after the main point of which we are actually
speaking. These may be referred to as the secondary divisions.

It seems practical to represent the two divisions as follows:

The Present Tense: She works and studies with enthusiasm. She is reading.

The Past Tense: They continued their way. They were speaking when I came in.

The Future Tense: I shall come to see you to-morrow. What will you be doing at
five?
By Volkova

The category of tense

The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of
time. The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time
of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the
utterance (the time of the utterance being 'now ' or the present moment). The tense
category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions
remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical
category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal ac-
tions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following
graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition):

Present Past

Future I Future II

Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that

which is traditionally described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best
regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past. Quite a lot of scholars do not recognize
the existence of future tenses, because what is described as the 'future' tense in
English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is unde-
niable that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also
occur in sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with
a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.

The Category of Aspect

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The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of
Manner of Action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continu-
ous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The realization of the category of aspect is
closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs.

There are some verbs in English that do not normally occur with progressive
aspect, even in those contexts in which the majority of verbs necessarily take the
progressive form. Among the so-called ‘non-progressive’ verbs are think, under-
stand, know, hate, love, see, taste, feel, possess, own, etc. The most striking char-
acteristic that they have in common is the fact that they are ‘stative’ - they refer to
a state of affairs, rather than to an action, event or process. It should be observed,
however, that all the ‘non-¬progressive' verbs take the progressive aspect under
particular circumstances. As the result of internal transposition verbs of non-pro-
gressive nature can be found in the Continuous form: Now I'm knowing you. Gen-
erally speaking the Continuous form has at least two semantic features - duration
(the action is always in progress) and definiteness (the action is always limited to a
definite point or period of time). In other words, the purpose of the Continuous
form is to serve as a frame which makes the process of the action more concrete
and isolated.

Aspect is a grammatical category which characterizes the way in which the action
expressed by the verb is carried out. In Russian- соверш\несовершенный вид The
imperfect aspect expresses actions without indicating a limit beyond which the ac-
tion cannot continue.

Я читал.

The perfect aspect denoted actions which are limited in their duration.

Я прочитал.

In Russian aspect is a gr. Category because it has a special meaning and a special
form to express the meaning, we often employ suffixes and prefixes.

Прыгать \ прыгнуть

In English grammarians of the past didn't find aspective distinctions in the English
verb. They rather spoke of the 4 groups of tenses, These classifications are still
found in English. Nevertheless the majority of grammarians believe that English
verb has the category of aspect.

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Aspect can be expressed lexically and grammatically.

1. Aspect can be expressed by the lexical character of the verb.

VERBS

Terminative Durative Imply a limit beyond which the action cannot go An action
can continue indefinitely

To love to catch To hate to nod

to jump

2.The category of aspect here isn't expressed formally and the meaning becomes
clear from the context. It's revealed through the opposition of 2 forms. Common
aspect as opposed to continuous aspect. Grammarians debate the number of aspects
and the inventory of aspect forms. In common linguistics the most common point
of view - 2 aspects - progressive and perfective.

Joose: there exists temporary aspect and generic aspect, the form of the continuous
aspect is marked - the discontinuous morpheme to be + ing is employed. Most
grammarians agree that the difference between the continuous and common aspect
form is not temporal.

E.g, He speaks English. He was speaking English.

He is speaking English. He spoke English

Describing the aspective distinction we should mention that the continuous aspect
has a specialized meaning. It is used to indicate incomplete actions which are in
progress at the moment or at the certain period of time. E.g. He was studying Eng-
lish at 5 o'clock yesterday. The common aspect describes events in a general way.
To prove that the context is of importance we should sum up the basic meanings of
the common aspective forms. They may denote:

- momentary actions E.g. She dropped the plane.

- recurrent actions E.g. I get up at 7 o'clock.

- Actions occupying a long period of time. E.g. He studied there for 5 years.

- actions of unlimited duration E.g. The Earth goes round the sun.

There's no direct correspondence between Russian aspect and the English aspect,
the English common aspect may correspond both to the Russian perfective and im-
perfective aspect.
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E.g. The girl played the piano well. Девушка хорошо играла на рояле.

The girl played the waltz and everybody applauded her. Девушка сыграла
вальс и ей аплодировали.

The English continuous aspect corresponds to the Russian imperfective aspect

only.

E.g. When I entered the girl was playing the piano. ...она играла...

The category of aspect. The meaning of the common and continuous aspect. Lexi-
cal and grammatical expression of aspect in English.

Aspect(A)-a gr. cat-ry, characterizes the way in which the action expressed by the
pred-te v is carried out. Russian aspects:perfective и inperfective. A=вид (я читал-
я прочитал). In the Rus. l-ge A is a gr. cat-ry, opp-tion of v f-s, in which peculiar
suffixes&prefixes ( делать-сделать). In Eng the situation is complicated. Ling-sts
still have no uniform opinion concerning the status, the number of A-s&the inven-
tory of f-s. Gram-ns of the avoided A&spoke about Ind, Cont, Perf, Perf. Cont
tenses(T). Now eng V has the gr. Cat-ry of A &A can be expressed in 2 ways:
1)Lexically: We speak about the lex. character of the v. Eng.v-s can be terminative
(imply a limit beyond which an action can’t continue (to nod, to jump)&non-termi-
nat.-durative(not imply any limit of that kind (to live). Polysemantic v-s can be ter-
min. in 1 m-g,& non-termin. in another (to see-видеть, увидеть). The.distinction
b/n dur & term is purely lex-l m-g is clear fr the context. 2)Gramat-ly: A is ex-
pressed in opp-tion of Cont&Common A f-s. Foreign ling-ts say 2 A Progres-
sive&Perfective A . Martin Joos :Generic& Temporary A. Cont is marked: marker
is discontin-s morph ( to be+ ing). The diff-ce b/n Cont&non~ is not the temporal
one. I take-I’m taking – time is the same - pr. Cont denotes an action: a)incomplete
b)in progress at the mom under consideration. (E.g.We r taking up psychology this
year). The common A describes an action in 1)a general way 2)a complete or in~ (I
did my homework yesterday). Бархудар.:´’Common A f-s r to be termed nega-
tively as non-Cont.’’ The exact m-g of Common A is determined by the context.
M-gs: 1)a momentary action (She dropped the plate) 2)recurrent actions (I get up at
7 o’clock) 3)actions occupy a period of time (He lived in Moscow) 4)unlimited du-
ration (The Volga flows into the Caspian sea) Ther’s no direct correspondence b/n
the Rus&Eng. A.En Com A=Russian perfective & inperfec A. (The girl played
играла the piano well. The girl played сыграла a waltz& everybody applauded.En
cont A = Russian inperf A. But: The girl was playing играла the piano when I en-
tered-Девушка играла, когда я вошел)

5
 By Ilyish

In analysing the morphological structure of the English verb it is essential to distin-

guish between the morphological categories of the verb as such, and the syntactic
features of the sentence (or clause) in which a form of the verb may happen to be
used. This applies especially to the category of voice and, to a certain extent, to the
categories of aspect and tense as well.

The order in which we shall consider the categories of the verb may to a certain ex-
tent be arbitrary. However, we should bear in mind that certain categories are more
closely linked together than others. Thus, it stands to reason that the categories of
aspect and tense are linked more closely than either of them is with the category of
voice. It is also plain that there is a close connection between the categories of
tense and mood. These relations will have to be borne in mind as we start to ana-
lyse the categories of the verb.

We will begin the analysis of each verbal category by examining two forms or two
sets of forms differing from each other according to that category only.

The problem of aspect is intimately connected with a lexicological problem, which

we shall therefore have to touch upon here. It may be well illustrated by the fol-
lowing series of examples. If we have, for example, the sentence, A young man sat
in the corner of the room, we can say, instead, A young man was sitting in the cor-
ner of the room, without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence. The same sit-
uation may be described in both ways, the only difference between them being that
of stylistic colouring: the variant with the common aspect form is more matter-of-
fact and "dry", whereas the one with the continuous aspect form is more descrip-
tive.

The absence of any actual difference in meaning in such a case is brought out in
the following passage from a modern novel: Mr Bodiham was sitting in his study
at the Rectory. The nineteenth-century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, ad-
mitted the light grudgingly; in spite of the brilliant July weather, the room was
sombre. Brown varnished bookshelves lined the walls, filled with row upon row of
those thick, heavy theological works which the second-hand booksellers generally
sell by weight. The mantelpiece, the overmantel, a towering structure of spindly
pillars and little shelves, were brown and varnished. The writing-desk was brown
and varnished. So were the chairs, so was the door. A dark red-brown carpet with

6
patterns covered the floor. Everything was brown in the room, andthere was a curi-
ous brownish smell. In the midst of this brown gloom Mr Bodiham sat at his desk.
(HUXLEY)

By comparing the first and the last sentence of this passage it will be seen that they
tell of the same situation, but in different ways. The first sentence is clearly de-
scriptive, and it opens a rather lengthy description of Mr Bodiham's room, its furni-
ture, books, etc. The last sentence of the passage, on the other hand, confirms the
fact that Mr Bodiham sat in his study, as if summing up the situation. So the same
fact is told a second time and the difference in the stylistic qualities of the continu-
ous and the common aspect is well brought out.

On the other hand, if we have the sentence He brought her some flowers and if we
substitute was bringing for brought and say, He was bringing her some flowers, the
meaning will be affected and the two facts will be different. With the common as-
pect form brought the sentence means that the flowers actually reached her,
whereas the continuous aspect form means that he had the flowers with him but
something prevented him from giving them to her. We might then say that he sat =
he was sitting, whereas he brought ≠ he was bringing. What is the cause of this dif-
ference? Here we shall have to touch on a lexicological problem, without which
the treatment of the continuous aspect cannot be complete. The verb sit differs
from the verb bring in an important way: the verb sit denotes an action which can
go on indefinitely without necessarily reaching a point where it has to stop,
whereas the verb bring denotes an action which must come to an end owing to its
very nature. It has now been customary for some time to call verbs of the sit type
cursive, or durative, and verbs of the bring type terminative. We may then say that
with cursive, or durative verbs, the difference between the common and the contin-
uous aspect may be neutralised whereas with terminative verbs it cannot be neu-
tralised, so that the form of the common aspect cannot be substituted for the form
of the continuous aspect, and vice versa, without materially changing the meaning
of the sentence. '

While the existence of the aspect category in English is a disputed matter, the tense
category is universally recognised. Nobody has ever suggested to characterise the
distinction, for example, between wrote, writes, and will write as other than a tense
distinction. Thus we shall not have to produce any arguments in favour of the ex-
istence of the category in Modern English. Our task will be on the one hand to de-
fine the category as such, and on the other, to find the distinctions within the cate-
gory of tense, that is, to find out how many tenses there are in English and what

7
each of them means and also to analyse the mutual relations between tense and
other categories of the English verb.

2. Tenses in the active voice.

By Raevska

The active voice shows that the action is performed by its subject, that the subject
is the doer of the action. I wrote a letter.
By Korbina

The active voice has no special means of formation. It is recognized by contrast

with the passive voice, which is composed of the auxiliary verb to be and participle
II. Thus the passive verb forms are analytical, the tense of the auxiliary verb to be
varies according to the sense. The notional verb (participle II) remains unchanged
and provides the whole analytical form with its passive meaning.

The active voice is widely used with all kinds of verbs, both transitive and intransi-
tive. The meaning of the active voice depends on the type of verb and the syntacti-
cal pattern of the sentence.

1. The active voice of transitive verbs presents an action as directed from the sub-
ject and passing over to the object, that is from the doer (agent) of the action to its
receiver.

John made a boat for his brother. They are building a new railway. We are talking
about the new film.

One of the characteristic features of English is that verbs which were originally in-
transitive may function as transitive verbs without changing their morphological
structure, with or without changing their lexical meaning.

They ran the distance in five minutes. Frank will run your house. James stood the
lamp on the table.

2. The active voice of intransitive verbs shows that the action, directed from the
subject, does not pass over to any object, and thus the verb only characterizes the
subject as the doer of the action.

He came here yesterday. The boy can run very fast. You acted wisely. He slept
eight hours.

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3. The form of the active voice of some transitive verbs, often accompanied by an
adverbial modifier, does not indicate that the subject denotes the doer of the action.
This specific use of the transitive verb is easily recognized from the meaning of the
subject, which is a noun denoting a non-person, and by the absence of a direct ob-
ject after a monotransitive, non-preposi-tional verb. In such cases the verb is used
in the medial voice.

The bell rang. The door opened. The newspaper sells well. The novel reads easily.
Glass breaks easily. The place was filling up. It said on the radio (in the article)
that the weather forecast is favourable.
By blokh

The integral categorial presentation of non-passivised verbs fully coincides with

that of passivised verbs used in the active voice (cf. takes — goes, is taking — is
going, has taken — has gone, etc.). The active voice as the weak member of the
categorial opposition is characterised in general not by the "active" meaning as
such (i.e. necessarily featuring the subject as the doer of the action), but by the ex-
tensive non-passive meaning of a very wide range of actual significations, some of
them approaching by their process-direction characteristics those of non-passivised
verbs (cf. The door opens inside the room; The magazine doesn't sell well). Third,
the demarcation line between the passivised and non-passivised sets is by no
means rigid, and the verbs of the non-passivised order may migrate into the passiv-
ised order in various contextual conditions (cf. The bed has not been slept in; The
house seems not to have been lived in for a long time).

3. Tenses in the passive voice.

By Raevska

The passive voice shows that the subject is acted upon, that it is the recipient of the
action. A letter was written by me.

Verbs in the passive voice may acquire almost all the aspect, tense and perfect
forms that occur in the active voice, except for the future continuous and perfect
continuous forms.

4. Types of passive constructions.

By Raevska

Passive constructions play an important part in the English verb-system. Modern

English, especially in its later periods, has developed the use of passive formations
to a very great extent.
9
The passive voice is known to be expressed by analytic combinations of the auxil-
iary verb be with the past participle of the notional verb.

Another passive, formed with get as auxiliary and the past participle, seems to be
increasing in frequency, though grammarians are at present not agreed as to its sta-
tus.

The verb get can function in a manner very similar with be, e. g.: My dress got
caught on a nail. He got struck by a stone.

To get seems closer to the true passive auxiliary to be in patterns like the follow-
ing: She got blamed for everything. She gets teased by the other children. He gets
punished regularly. But with all the similarity of the two verbs used in such pat-
terns get is unlike be in the primary paradigm. We can say, for instance, He gets
punished regularly, but we shall hardly attest Gets he punished regularly?

It should be noted that to get is often used in preference to the verb to be because
the true passive would not be clearly distinguishable from combinations of the full
predicator be and participial adjective complements.

Compare to be married and to get married. As is known, to be married can have

two meanings: «одружитися» and «бути одруженим» while to get married is un-
ambiguous: it can mean only "to arrive at the married state".

The group to become + past participle expresses primarily state, e. g.: 1) The um-
brella is not a possession lightly to be lost. Yet lost it becomes although it should
not. 2) I have become very sunburnt.

Syntactic structures with the direct passive have a high frequency value but there
are certain restrictions in their use conditioned by the grammatical organisation of
the sentence:

a) the passive construction is impossible, for instance, when the direct object is
expressed, a reflexive pronoun or a noun with a possessive pronoun referring to the
same person as the subject of the sentence, as in: He hurt himself. Peter hurt his
arm.

b) there are no passive forms in such phrasal verbs as, for instance, to take part,
to take courage, to take flight, to take alarm, to lose heart, to take heart and still
others.

Certain phrases of this sort, however, admit of a passive construction, e. g.: to lose
sight of, to take care, to take responsibility, to pay attention and some others, e. g:

10
No responsibility is taken for the loss of personal property (hotel notice).

Attention must be paid to the results of the first experiment.

Such things should not be lost sight of.

There are a number of verbs which take two objects — a direct and an indirect ob-
ject. The following are most frequent among them: to allow, to ask, to award, to
give, to grant, to leave, to offer, to promise, to send, to show, to teach, to tell.

These verbs admit of two passive constructions:

a) A book was given to him (the direct primary passive)

b) He was given a book (the indirect secondary passive)

The indirect (secondary) passive is not infrequent in verb-phrases with the verb to
give, such as: to give credit, to give command, to give a chance, to give a choice,
to give an explanation, to give an opportunity, to give orders, to give shelter, and
the like.

He was given a good to chance to argue.

She is given an opportunity to go to the south in summer.

Suppose, you are given a choice. What would you prefer?

Next come constructions with the so-called prepositional or tertiary-passive. The

subject of the passive construction corresponds to the prepositional object. This
"detached" preposition retains its place after the verb. Familiar examples are:

He was sent for and taken care of.

She could not bear being read to any longer.

He is not to be relied upon.

The prepositional passive is not used with verbs which take two objects, direct and
prepositional: to explain something to somebody, to point out, to announce, to ded-
icate, to devote, to say, to suggest, to propose, etc. They can have only a direct
construction, e. g.: The difficulty was explained to them. The mistake to the rule
was pointed out to the man. A new-plan was suggested to us.

The prepositional passive is not very frequent in occurrence. Its use is common
with rather a limited number of verbs, such as:

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1) verbs of saying: to speak about (of, to), to talk about (of), to comment on, etc., e.
g.: The new play was much spoken of.

2) verbs expressing scorn or contempt: to frown at, to laugh at, to mock at, to
jeer at, to sneer at, etc., e. g.: This idea was first jeered at. He could not understand
why his words were laughed at.

3) a miscellaneous group of verbs, such as: to look at, to look upon (on), to
look after, to look for, to approve (disapprove) of, to account for, to send for, to
rely on, to think of, e. g.: He was sent for and taken care of. Here is Irene to be
thought of.

Observe, however, that the passive construction with the "retained" object (or "re-
maining accusative") has limits and is impossible with particular verbs or particu-
lar objects, e. g.: we can say "something was fetched me", but scarcely "I was
fetched something". On the other hand, "The trouble was spared me" is not so nat-
ural as " I was spared the trouble". Possibilities are sometimes ever more limited;
e. g.: we cannot say either "I was cost nothing" or "Nothing was cost me."

Passive constructions are often referred to as stilted, indirect and cold, impersonal
and evasive. To give its critics their due, the passive, when in large doses, can in-
deed be ponderous stuffy and bulkier than the active. With all this it is used over
and over by best stylists in prose open to none of the preceding objections. This is
because it can be most important and useful to shift the centre of communication
creating, according to circumstances, varied and effective sentences.
By Korbina

The passive voice in English may be found with different types of verbs (mostly
transitive) in various verb phrases; monotransitive (non-prepositional and preposi-
tional) and ditransitive. The subject of the passive construction may correspond to
a direct, an indirect object, or to a preposi-tional object in the active construction.
Accordingly we discriminate a direct passive construction, an indirect passive con-
struction, and a preposi-tional passive construction.

Monotransitive verbs are numerous and almost all of them can form a direct pas-
sive construction. These are the verbs: to take, to do, to make, to build, to discuss,
to translate, to hate, to love, to meet and a lot of others.

A new railway is being built near our town.

“A Farewell to Arms” was published in 1929.

12
You will be met at the station.

Phrasal transitive verbs, that is, such verbs as to blow up, to bring in, to bring up,
to carry out, to put on, to see off, to turn down, etc. are also often used in the pas-
sive voice.

The plan was successfully carried out.

The boats are being brought in.

Originally intransitive verbs may form a direct passive construction, as in these ex-
amples:

This distance has never been run in five minutes before.

He thought of the lives, that had been lived here for nearly two centuries.

In the vast majority of cases, English transitive verb + object corresponds to the
same type in Russian. There are a number of transitive verbs in English, however,
which correspond to Russian verbs followed by an indirect or a prepositional ob-
ject, or sometimes an adverbial modifier. These verbs are:

To answer To approach To assist To address To admire To affect To attend To be-

lieve To contradict To enjoy To enter to follow to help to influence to join to need
to obey to speak to succeed to threaten to trust to watch

Sentences with these verbs are rendered in Russian by means of the indefinite per-
sonal constructions with the verb in the active voice, or if the doer of the action is
mentioned of a personal construction with the verb in the active voice.

We are not trusted, David, but who cares if we are not innocent. The British bicy-
cle was much admired. In the spring of 1925 Hemingway was approached by two
Americans.

Нам не доверяют... Этим английским велосипедом восхищались. Весной 1925

года к Хемингуэю подошли два американца.

A direct passive construction is used in the sentences of the type:

J. F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960.

The woman was called Brome.

We were kept busy most of the time.

The walls were painted blue.*

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He is said (believed, known, reported) to be in town.

He was seen to enter the museum.

He was seen leaving the museum.*

3. The direct passive of verbs of speech, mental activity, and perception is used in
complex sentences with the formal subject it.

It was suggested

It was reported that he was still in town.

It was said

It was believed

It was known

It was settled that we should meet once more.

5. The use of tense-aspect forms in the passive voice.

By Korbina

verbs in the passive voice may acquire almost all the aspect, tense and perfect
forms that occur in the active voice, except for the future continuous and perfect
continuous forms.

The examples below illustrate the use of the passive voice in different aspect, tense
and perfect forms.

Common aspect, non-perfect Students are examined twice a year. They were ex-
amined in June. They will be examined next Friday.

Continuous aspect, non-perfect Don’t be noisy! Students are being examined. The
students were being examined when the Professor came.

Common aspect, perfect Our students have already been examined. They had been
examined by 2 o’clock. Everybody will have been examined by 3 o’clock.

6. The choice of the passive constructions.

By Raevska

The choice of the passive construction is often due to the fact that the agent is un-
known or the speaker prefers not to speak of him. Sometimes the agent is dropped

14
altogether when it is unknown, well knows or unimportant. Only the passive makes
this economy possible.

7. Reasons of the frequent occurrence of the passive voice.

By Raevska

To sum up in brief, the frequency value of passive constructions in English is due

to a number of reasons. Emphasis will be laid on the following:

a) There are, in fact, no means in English to avoid the indication of the doer of
the action in active constructions.

In other languages there are special uses of the active without indicating the agent.
Such are, for instance, indefinite-personal sentences in Russian and Ukrainian with
the predicate-verb in the 3rd person plural but without exact relevance to the doer
of the action.

The indefinite pronoun one and occasionally the personal pronouns we, you and
they, as well as the noun people, may be used in this meaning. But for some reason
or other the use of such sentence-patterns seems to be restricted, and English in-
stead often shows here a marked preference of passive constructions.

b) Variation in the use of different types of passive turns existing in English

lends variety to speech. Although some of them are somewhat restricted in use,
they still contribute to the frequency value of the passive in general.

*The Reasons for frequent use of Passive Voice

Main - it makes possible to change word order in a sentence.

It's been discovered that the end position is connected with new info, end position
is the most strongly stressed in a Sentence: e/g The boy wrote a letter A litter was
written by the boy

1st Sent: the center of communication is a letter, the info is new

2nd Sent: centre is "by the boy"

These Sentences are parallel, can be used in different communicative situation.

In majority of English passive Sentences the doer of the action isn't mentioned. It
happens because the doer isn't known or can't be easily stated.

e/g The house was broken into and a few things were stolen. Sometimes the
doer isn't mentioned because it's self-evident e/g He was elected an MP
15
When the "by-phrase" is absent, the listener's attention is shifted to other parts of
the Sentence. e.g Roger was invited to dinner.

Other reasons:

There are several passive constructions in English

Many Verbs in English take a direct object and the direct Constructions is widely
used.

8. The category of mood.

By blokh

The category of mood, undoubtedly, is the most controversial category of the verb.
On the face of it, the principles of its analysis, the nomenclature, the relation to
other categories, in particular, to tenses, all this has received and is receiving dif-
ferent presentations and appraisals with different authors. Very significant in con-
nection with the theoretical standing of the category are the following words by B.
A. Ilyish: "The category of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so
many discussions, and has been treated in so many different ways, that it seems
hardly possible to arrive at any more or less convincing and universally acceptable
conclusion concerning it"
By Iliysh

The category of mood expresses the character of connection between the process
denoted by the verb and the actual reality, either presenting the process as a fact
that really happened, happens or will happen, or treating it as an imaginary phe-
nomenon, i.e. the subject of a hypothesis, speculation, desire. It follows from this
that the functional opposition underlying the category as a whole is constituted by
the forms of oblique mood meaning, i.e. those of unreality, contrasted against the
forms of direct mood meaning, i.e. those of reality, the former making up the
strong member, the latter, the weak member of the opposition. What is, though, the
formal sign of this categorial opposition? What kind of morphological change
makes up the material basis of the functional semantics of the oppositional contrast
of forms? The answer to this question, evidently, can be obtained as a result of an
observation of the relevant language data in the light of the two correlated presen-
tations of the category, namely, a formal presentation and a functional presenta-
tion. The formal description of the category has its source in the traditional school
grammar. It is through the observation of immediate differences in changeable
forms that the mood distinctions of the verb were indicated by the forefathers of

16
modern sophisticated descriptions of the English grammatical structure. These dif-
ferences, similar to the categorial forms of person, number, and time, are most
clearly pronounced with the unique verb be.

Namely, it is first and foremost with the verb be that the pure infinitive stem in the
construction of the verbal form of desired or hypothetical action is made promi-
nent. "Be it as you wish", "So be it", "Be what may", "The powers that be", "The
insistence that the accused be present" — such and like constructions, though char-
acterised by a certain bookish flavour, bear indisputable testimony to the fact that
the verb be has a special finite oblique mood form, different from the direct indica-
tive. Together with the isolated, notional be, as well as the linking be, in the capac-
ity of the same mood form come also the passive manifestations of verbs with be in
a morphologically bound position, cf.: The stipulation that the deal be made with-
out delay, the demand that the matter be examined carefully, etc. Semantical obser-
vation of the constructions with the analysed verbal form shows that within the
general meaning of desired or hypothetical action, it signifies different attitudes to-
wards the process denoted by the verb and the situation denoted by the construc-
tion built up around it, namely, besides desire, also supposition, speculation, sug-
gestion, recommendation, inducement of various degrees of insistence including
commands.

Thus, the analysed form-type presents the mood of attitudes. Traditionally it is

called "subjunctive", or in more modern terminological nomination, "subjunctive
one". Since the term "subjunctive" is also used to cover the oblique mood system
as a whole, some sort of terminological specification is to be introduced that would
give a semantic alternative to the purely formal "subjunctive one" designation.
Taking into account the semantics of the form-type in question, we suggest that it
should be named the "spective" mood, employing just the Latin base for the notion
of "attitudes". So, what we are describing now, is the spective form of the subjunc-
tive mood, or, in keeping with the usual working linguistic parlance, simply the
spective mood, in its pure, classical manifestation.

Going on with our analysis, we must consider now the imperative form of the verb,
traditionally referred to as a separate, imperative mood.

In accord with the formal principles of analysis, it is easy to see that the verbal im-
perative morphemically coincides with the spective mood, since it presents the
same infinitive stem, though in relation to the second person only. Turning to the
semantics of the imperative, we note here as constitutive the meaning of attitudes
of the general spective description. This concerns the forms both of be and the

17
other verbs, cf.: Be on your guard! Be off! Do be careful with the papers! Don't be
blue! Do as I ask you! Put down the address, will you? About turn!

As is known, the imperative mood is analysed in certain grammatical treatises as

semantically direct mood, in this sense being likened to the indicative [Ganshina,
Vasilevskaya, 200]. This kind of interpretation, though, is hardly convincing. The
imperative form displays every property of a form of attitudes, which can easily be
shown by means of equivalent transformations. Cf.:

Be off! → I demand that you be off. Do be careful with the papers! → My request
is that you do be careful with the papers. Do as I ask you! → I insist that you do as
I ask you. About turn! → I command that you turn about. Observations of the ma-
terials undertaken on the com-parative functional basis have led linguists to the
identification of a number of construction types rendering the same semantics as is
expressed by the spective mood forms demonstrated above. These generalised ex-
pressions of attitudes may be classed into the following three groups.

The first construction type of attitude series is formed by the combination

may/might + Infinitive. It is used to express wish, desire, hope in the contextual
syntactic conditions similar to those of the morphemic (native) spective forms. Cf.:

May it be as you wish! May it all happen as you desire! May success attend you. I
hope that he may be safe. Let's pray that everything might still turn to the good, af-
ter all. May our friendship live long.

The second construction type of attitude series is formed by the combination

should + Infinitive. It is used in various subordinate predicative units to express
supposition, speculation, suggestion, recommendation, inducements of different
kinds and degrees of intensity. Cf.:

Whatever they should say of the project, it must be considered seriously. It has
been arranged that the delegation should be received by the President of the Feder-
ation. Orders were given that the searching group should start out at once.

The third construction type of the same series is formed by the combination let +
Objective Substantive+Infinitive. It is used to express inducement (i.e. an appeal to
commit an action) in relation to all the persons, but preferably to the first person
plural and third person both numbers. The notional homonym let, naturally, is not
taken into account. Cf.:

18
Let's agree to end this wait-and-see policy. Now don't let's be hearing any more of
this. Let him repeat the accusation in Tim's presence. Let our military forces be ca-
pable and ready. Let me try to convince them myself.

All the three types of constructions are characterised by a high frequency occur-
rence, by uniformity of structure, by regularity of correspondence to the "pure", na-
tive morphemic spective form of the verb. For that matter, taken as a whole, they
are more universal stylistically than the pure spective form, in so far as they are
less bound by conventions of usage and have a wider range of expressive connota-
tions of various kinds. These qualities show that the described constructions may
safely be identified as functional equivalents of the pure spective mood. Since they
specialise, within the general spective mood meaning, in semantic destination, the
specialisation being determined by the semantic type of their modal markers, we
propose to unite them under the tentative heading of the "modal" spective mood
forms, or, by way of the usual working contraction, the modal spective mood, as
contrasted against the "pure" spective expressed by native morphemic means (mor-
phemic zeroing).
By Raevska

It is a well-known fact that the problem of the category of mood, i. e. the distinc-
tion between the real and the unreal expressed by the corresponding forms of the
verb, is one of the most controversial problems of English theoretical grammar.
The main theoretical difficulty is due (1) to the coexistence in Modern English of
both synthetical and analytical forms of the verb with the same grammatical mean-
ing of irreality and (2) to the fact that there are verbal forms homonymous with the
Past Indefinite and Past Perfect of the Indicative Mood which are employed to ex-
press irreality. Another difficulty consists in distinguishing the analytical forms of
the Subjunctive with the auxiliaries should, would, may (might), which are devoid
of any lexical meaning, from the homonymous verb groups in which these verbs
have preserved their lexical meaning.

The number of moods in English is also one of the still unsettled problems. Older
prescriptive grammar, besides the three commonly known moods, recognised a
fourth —the Infinitive Mood. Many authors of English scientific grammars divide
the Subjunctive Mood into several moods, such as the Subjunctive proper (ex-
pressed by the synthetic forms), the Conditional Mood (expressed by the combina-
tions of should and would plus infinitive in the principal clause), the Permissive
and Compulsive Moods (expressed by the combinations of the infinitive with other
modal verbs: see the selections from Sweet's grammar). The notion of the Condi-

19
tional Mood has become quite popular with some Soviet grammarians who some-
times add two more "Oblique" Moods, the Suppositional and Subjunctive II, the
principle of division being based on the tendency to ascribe to each of the forms of
the subjunctive a specific grammatical meaning.

Mood, closely related to the problem of modality, is generally defined as a gram-

matical category expressing the relation of the action to reality as stated by the
speaker. The distinction between the real and the unreal, expressed by the corre-
sponding forms of the verb, is one of the disputable problems of English grammar.

The analysis of the category made by some grammarians is based largely on the
historical and comparative considerations and often worked out along notional
lines.

Thus, for instance, M. Deutschbein in his System der neuenglischen Syntax distin-
guishes 4 main moods: der Rogitativus, der Оptatіvus, der Voluntativus, der Ex-
pectativus. As submoods he mentions: der Indikativus, der Irrealіs, der Pоtentіalіs,
der Konzessivus, der Nezessarius, der Permissivus, der Dubitativus, etc.

We could probably tabulate even a more detailed, if not exhaustive, scheme of all
the varieties of subjective modality in English. Such a scheme would be based on
the attitudes of the speaker's mind, i. e. on the fact that the contents of the commu-
nication can be related modally to the subject as, for instance, asserted (Indicative
Mood); as intensifying the assertion (Emphatic Mood); as compelled (Compulsive
Mood); as permitted (Permissive Mood); as desired (Optative Mood), as ability
(Potential Mood), etc., etc. But such a tabulated survey would, indeed, become too
complicated.

Grammarians are not agreed as to the forms of the Subjunctive Mood. Some of
them recognise only synthetic forms (O. Jespersen, for instance), others include
here also verb-phrases of analytical structure with all modal verbs.

O. Jespersen criticises M. Deutschbein pointing out that it would be possible to

subdivide the given scheme further into two groups: the first with 11 moods, con-
taining an element of will, the second with 9 moods, containing no element of will.
There are indeed many "moods" if one leaves the safe ground of verbal forms actu-
ally found in a language.

The most common view is that in Modern English there are three moods, Indica-
tive, Subjunctive and Imperative which keep distinct in English in the same clear
way as in many other languages.

20
  Patterns with the appended will you express a less categorical command,
sometimes a request. A request or invitation may be formulated with won't
you. Emphasis may be produced by putting the intensifying do. It is a col-
ourful emphatic form, encouraging if the intonation pattern is a drop be-
tween level tones, exasperated if there is tone movement on the last syllable.
The forms with let differ in their functions according to person, between al-
most purely hortatory in the first person plural (Let's begin now) and various
shades of the permissive and optative in other persons, as in: Let her help
you! Let him study regularly! Let them repeat the experiment!

In patterning the verb let seems to be rather on the borders of grammar and lexis;
marginal as an operator, it can be followed by the infinitive, but negates by the use
of don't and is followed by an object placed between it and the lexical verb, e. g.:

Oh, don't let's have it again! (Galsworthy)

The use of the auxiliary do in negative forms with the auxiliary verb let in collo-
quial English is not infrequent.

Considered in function, "mood" may cover various semantic spheres. Form and
function, however, are not always clearly distinct. As we shall further see, the In-
dicative Mood may be transposed into the sphere of the Imperative, as in: You will
leave this house at once... You will wait here, and you'll be careful!
By Dolgina

The category of Mood expresses modality, i.e. the relation of an action or state to
reality and can be realized by only a predicative verb.

The category of Mood is constituted by the 6 categorial forms in English. They are
as follows: 1) the Indicative Mood, 2) the Imperative Mood, 3) Subjunctive I, 4)
Subjunctive II, 5) the Conditional Mood, 6) the Suppositional Mood.

The Oblique Moods as the realizations of the category of Mood are associ-
ated with the category of Tense with the exception of Subjunctive I (which has no
tenses). This means that they have systems of tenses of their own: Present Subjunc-
tive II, Past Subjunctive II, Present Conditional, Past Conditional, Present Supposi-
tional, Past Suppositional.

9. The indicative mood.

By Blokh

21
The use of the indicative mood shows that the speaker represents the action as real.
Two additional remarks are necessary here.

(1) The mention of the speaker (or writer) who represents the action as real is
most essential. If we limited ourselves to saying that the indicative mood is used to
represent real actions, we should arrive at the absurd conclusion that whatever has
been stated by anybody (in speech or in writing) in a sentence with its predicate
verb in the indicative mood is therefore necessarily true. We should then ignore the
possibility of the speaker either being mistaken or else telling a deliberate lie. The
point is that grammar (and indeed linguistics as a whole) does not deal with the ul-
timate truth or untruth of a statement with its predicate verb in the indicative (or,
for that matter, in any other) mood. What is essential from the grammatical point
of view is the meaning of the category as used by the author of this or that sen-
tence. Besides, what are we to make of statements with their predicate verb in the
indicative mood found in works of fiction? In what sense could we say, for in-
stance, that the sentence David Copperfield married Dora or the sentence Soames
Forsyte divorced his first wife, Irene represent "real facts", since we are aware that
the men and women mentioned in these sentences never existed "in real life"? This
is more evident still for such nursery rhyme sentences as, The cow jumped over the
moon. This peculiarity of the category of mood should be always firmly kept in
mind.

(2) Some doubt about the meaning of the indicative mood may arise if we take
into account its use in conditional sentences such as the following: I will speak to
him if I meet him.

It may be argued that the action denoted by the verb in the indicative mood (in the
subordinate clauses as well as in the main clauses) is not here represented as a fact
but merely as a possibility (I may meet him, and I may not, etc.). However, this
does not affect the meaning of the grammatical form as such. The conditional
meaning is expressed by the conjunction, and of course it does alter the modal
meaning of the sentence, but the meaning of the verb form as such remains what it
was. As to the predicate verb of the main clause, which expresses the action bound
to follow the fulfilment of the condition laid down in the subordinate clause, it is
no more uncertain than an action belonging to the future generally is. This brings
us to the question of a peculiar modal character of the future indicative, as distinct
from the present or past indicative. In the sentence If he was there I did not see him
the action of the main clause is stated as certain, in spite of the fact that the subor-
dinate clause is introduced by if and, consequently, its action is hypothetical. The
meaning of the main clause cannot be affected by this, apparently because the past
22
has a firmer meaning of reality than the future. On the whole, then, the hypothetical
meaning attached to clauses introduced by if is no objection to the meaning of the
indicative as a verbal category.
By Raevska

The forms comprised in the Indicative Mood are used to present predication as re-
ality, as a fact. The predication need not necessarily be true but the speaker pre-
sents it as being so. It is not relevant for the purpose of our grammatical analysis to
account for the ultimate truth or untruth of a statement with its predicate expressed
by a verb. This cannot affect the meaning of the grammatical form as such. In
terms of grammar, it is important to identify the function of the category in the
given utterance.
By Dolgina

The Indicative Mood shows that the action or state denoted by the predicative verb
is viewed by the speaker as an actual fact of the present, past, or future either in the
form of a statement, negation, or a question. For example: My children go to
school. They are having dinner now. Their father has not come yet. Does he usu-
ally come late? He won't work on Sunday.

The category of Mood in the form of the Indicative is indissolubly connected with
the category of Tense and the categories of Aspect, Taxis and Voice. This results
in the system of 11 grammatical tenses of the Indicative Mood: Present Simple (In-
definite), Past Simple (Indefinite), Future Simple (Indefinite), Present Perfect, Past
Perfect, Future Perfect, Present Continuous, Past Continuous, Future Continuous,
Present Perfect Continuous, Past Perfect Continuous.

10.The Imperative mood.

By Iliysh

The imperative mood in English is represented by one form only, viz. come, with-
out any suffix or ending.

It differs from all other moods in several important points. It has no person, num-
ber, tense, or aspect distinctions, and, which is the main thing, it is limited in its
use to one type of sentence only, viz. imperative sentences. Most usually a verb in
the imperative has no pronoun acting as subject. However, the pronoun may be
used in emotional speech, as in the following example: "But, Tessie—" he pleaded,
going towards her. "You leave me alone!" she cried out loudly. (E. CALDWELL)
These are essential peculiarities distinguishing the imperative, and they have given
23
rise to doubts as to whether the imperative can be numbered among the moods at
all. This of course depends on what we mean by mood. If we accept the definition
of mood given above (p. 99) there would seem to be no ground to deny that the im-
perative is a mood. The definition does not say anything about the possibility of
using a form belonging to a modal category in one or more types of sentences: that
syntactical problem is not a problem of defining mood. If we were to define mood
(and, indeed, the other verbal categories) in terms of syntactical use, and to men-
tion the ability of being used in various types of sentences as prerequisite for a cat-
egory to be acknowledged as mood, things would indeed be different and the im-
perative would have to go. Such a view is possible but it has not so far been devel-
oped by any scholar and until that is convincingly done there ap-pears no ground to
exclude the imperative.

A serious difficulty connected with the imperative is the absence of any specific
morphological characteristics: with all verbs, including the verb be, it coincides
with the infinitive, and in all verbs, except be, it also coincides with the present in-
dicative apart from the 3rd person singular. Even the absence of a subject pronoun
you, which would be its syntactical characteristic, is not a reliable feature at all, as
sentences like You sit here! occur often enough.

Meaning alone may not seem sufficient ground for establishing a grammatical cat-
egory. Thus, no fully convincing solution of the problem has yet been found.
By Raevska

The Imperative, like the Indicative, has the same form as the base of the verb; the
same is true of the Present Indicative (except the third person singular) and of the
whole of the Present Subjunctive. These forms will exemplify paradigmatic ho-
monymy in English morphology.

The Imperative Mood serves to express requests which in different contexts may
range from categorical order or command to entreaties. The necessary meaning is
generally signalled by the context and intonation. The Imperative Mood proper is
used only in the second persons singular and plural. This form is used in address to
one or more persons, ordering or instructing them to carry out the "action" of the
verb.

The grammatical subject of the Imperative Mood is not formally indicated but,
when occasion demands, this is generally done by using the pronoun before or af-
ter the verb. Verb-patterns with pronouns have special affective connotation with
fine shades of emotional distinctions, such as: intensity or emphasis, anger, annoy-

24
ance, impatience or scorn, etc.: (1) She has been quite a success, and don't you for-
get it! (2) You sit still over there! (3) Come along everybody. (4) Don't you go tell-
ing Mother about it! (5) And don't you be forgetting about it.
By Dolgina

The Imperative Mood shows the speaker's urge to make a person fulful an action
expressed in the form of a command or request. For example: Stand up! Go out!
Be quiet and listen to me! Don't make a noise.

11.The subjunctive mood. . General notion. Synthetic forms. Analytical

forms.
By Raevska

The formal mark of the Subjunctive is the absence of inflection for the third person
singular except in the verb to be, where it has full conjugation. In point of fact, in
Modern English the Subjunctive is almost out of use. The only regular survival of
the "non-past" Subjunctive will be found in elevated prose, in slogans, in a number
of standardised phrases, mostly of a formula character which function as sense-
units and practically do not serve as substitution frames in the ordinary way of
grammatical forms, e. g.: So be it. Long live peace and friendship among nations!
Come what may! Be what may! Suffice it to say. In other sentence-patterns the
non-past Subjunctive is optional and can alternate with the Indicative. This alterna-
tion however is not indifferent to style, the Subjunctive being decidedly more ref-
erential and more formal than the Indicative verb.

In the non-past Subjunctive is very seldom used, the Past Subjunctive is so much
more restricted that in present-day English belongs only to the verb to be. The only
Past Subjunctive form is were and even this is distinctive only in the first and third
persons singular. We generally find it in patterns with subordinate clauses denoting
either rejected hypothesis or unfulfilled wishes, e. g.: I wish I were a child. If I
were you... As if he were with us.

It is interesting to note that with the use of inversion for hypothesis the Subjunctive
is obligatory. This is fairly common in formal referential English, e. g., Were he to
come to-morrow we should invite him to the conference.

Mention should be made about a surprising reversion which has taken place during
the last twenty years in the partial revival of specifically subjunctive forms of
verbs. The Subjunctive Mood was used extensively in Old English, as in classical
Latin and Modern German. As is known, since the Middle English period, how-
ever, it has been slowly dying out, its place being taken by compound verb-forms
25
with auxiliaries (should, might, etc.). The only really firmly established subjunc-
tive form surviving in English in the nineteen-thirties was were; it was (and still is
normal for standard English to use were and not was in a "closed conditional
clause", as in If he were here, we should certainly be able to see him (he is not
here). There were other subjunctive survivals in sporadic use (as in if it be so), but
these all sounded a trifle literary and affected. During and after the war, however,
as Ch. Barber1 points out, subjunctive forms increased in frequency, especially in
the written language; this seems to have begun in the language of administration,
and spread from there to the literary language. The forms used are third-person sin-
gular ones without inflexion, as in I insist that he do it; it was essential that he
make a choice (where do is used instead of does or shall do, and make instead of
should make). Sentences of this type (especially the first) are also sometimes heard
in speech. It is extremely unlikely, however, that there is going to be any serious
long-term revival of the subjunctive forms; the present development is probably
only a passing tendency. If it has any long-term significance, this is likely to be not
a revival of the subjunctive, but an eroding away of the third-singular inflexion; by
accustoming people to forms like he do and he make these usages may prepare the
way for the ultimate disappearance of he does and he makes. This, after all, would
be the natural continuation of the historical process; in the present simple all in-
flexions, except the third singular -s, have been lost and it would be quite natural to
expect the process to continue, to have only one form all through the tense (7 walk,
you walk, he walk, we walk, they walk).
by Dolgina

Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, the Conditional Mood, and the Suppositional Mood
are usually termed as the Oblique Moods. Their general function is to show an ac-
tion or a state as a wish, purpose, doubt, condition, or supposition, problematic or
contrary to reality. For example: The order is that he stay with us. Long live the
Queen! (Subjunctive I) She looks as though she were ill. I wish it wasn't raining. It
is high time we had dinner. (Subjunctive II) / wish you would mind your own busi-
ness. I would prefer not to be interviewed on the subject. (Conditional Mood) He
suggests we should go to the theatre. It is necessary you should stay with us. (Sup-
positional Mood)
By Blokh

Consider the forms of the subjunctive referring to the past order of the verb. The
approach based on the purely morphemic principles leads us here also to the identi-
fication of the specific form of the conjugated be as the only native manifestation
of the categorial expression of unreal process. E.g.:
26
Oh, that he were together with us now! If I were in your place, I'd only be happy. If
it were in my power, I wouldn't hesitate to interfere.

As is the case with be in the present subjunctive (spective), the sphere of its past
subjunctive use is not confined to its notional and linking functions, but is automat-
ically extended to the broad imperfect system of the passive voice, as well as the
imperfect system of the present continuous. Cf.:

If he were given the same advice by an outsider, he would no doubt profit by it;
with the relatives it might be the other way about, I'm afraid. I'd repeat that you
were right from the start, even though Jim himself were putting down each word I
say against him.

Unfortunately, the cited case types practically exhaust the native past subjunctive
distinctions of be, since with the past subjunctive, unlike the present, it is only the
first and third persons singular that have the suppletive marking feature were. The
rest of the forms coincide with the past indicative. Moreover, the discriminate per-
sonal finite was more and more penetrates into the subjunctive, thus liquidating the
scarce remnants of differences between the subjunctive and the indicative of the
past order as a whole. Cf.: If he was as open-hearted as you are, it would make all
the difference.

Thus, from here on we have to go beyond the morphemic principle of analysis and
look for other discriminative marks of the subjunctive elsewhere. Luckily, we don't
have to wander very far in search of them, but discover them in the explicitly dis-
tinctive, strikingly significant correlation of the aspective forms of retrospective
coordination. These are clearly taken to signify the time of the imaginary process,
namely, imperfect for the absolute and relative present, perfect for the absolute and
relative past. Thereby, in union with the past verbal forms as such, the perfect-im-
perfect retrospective coordination system is made to mark the past subjunctive in
universal contradistinction to the past and present indicative. This feature is all the
more important, since it is employed not only in the structures patterned by the
subjunctive were and those used in similar environ-mental conditions, but also in
the further would — should-structures, in which the feature of the past is compli-
cated by the feature of the posteriority, also reformed semantically. Cf.:

I'm sure if she tried, she would manage to master riding not later than by the au-
tumn, for all her unsporting habits

(simultaneity — posteriority in the present). I was sure

27
if she tried, she would manage it by the next autumn (simultaneity — posteriority
in the past). How much embarrassment should I have been spared if only I had
known the truth before! (priority of the two events in the present). I couldn't
keep from saying that I should have been spared much embarrassment if only I had
known the truth before (priority of the two events in the past).

The sought-for universal mark of the subjunctive, the "unknown quantity" which
we have undertaken to find is, then, the tense-retrospect shift noted in a prelimi-
nary way above, while handling the forms of the present (i.e. spective) subjunctive.
The differential mark is unmistakable, both delimiting the present and past sub-
junctive in their different functional spheres (the present and the past verbal forms
as such), and distinguishing the subjunctive as a whole from the indicative as a
whole (the tense-retrospect shift taken in its entirety). The mark is ex-plicit not by
virtue of the grammatical system being just so many ready-made, presunmovable
sets of units and forms; it is explicit due to something very important existing in
addition to the static correlations and interdependencies making up the base of the
system. What renders it not only distinct, but absolutely essential, is the paradig-
matic relations in dynamics of language functioning. It is this dynamic life of para-
digmatic connections in the course of speech production and perception that turns
the latent structural differences, if small and insignificant in themselves, into regu-
lar and accurate means of expression. The tense-retrospect shift analysed within
the framework of the latent system is almost imperceptible, almost entirely hidden
under the cover of morphemic identity. But this identity proves ephemeral the very
moment the process of speech begins. The paradigmatic connections all come into
life as if by magic; the different treatments of absolutive and relative tenses sharply
contrast one against the other; the imperfect and perfect indicative antagonise those
of the subjunctive; the tense-retrospect shift manifests its working in explicit struc-
tural formations of contexts and environments, not allowing grammatical misun-
derstandings between the participants of lingual communication.

Thus, having abandoned the exhausted formal approach in the traditional sense in
order to seek the subjunctive distinctions on the functional lines, we return to for-
mality all the same, though existing on a broader, dynamic, but none the less real
basis.

As for the functional side of it, not yet looked into with the past subjunctive, it evi-
dently differs considerably from that which we have seen in the system of the pre-
sent subjunctive. The present subjunctive is a system of verbal forms expressing a
hypothetical action appraised in various attitudes, namely, as an object of desire,

28
wish, consideration, etc. The two parallel sets of manifestations of the present sub-
junctive, i.e. the pure spective and the modal spective, stand in variant functional
inter-relations, conveying essentially identical basic semantics and partially com-
plementing each other on the connotative and structural lines. As different from
this, the past subjunctive is not a mood of attitudes. Rather, it is a mood of reason-
ing by the rule of contraries, the contraries being situations of reality opposed to
the corresponding situations of unreality, i.e. opposed to the reflections of the same
situations placed by an effort of thinking in different, imaginary connections with
one another. Furthermore, the past subjunctive, unlike the present subjunctive, is
not a system of two variant sets of forms, though, incidentally, it does present two
sets of forms constituting a system. The difference is, that the systemic sets of the
past subjunctive are functional invariants, semantically complementing each other
in the construction of complex sentences reflecting the causal-conditional relations
of events. The subjunctive past unposterior is called by some gram-marians "sub-
junctive two". Since we have reserved the term "subjunctive" for denoting the
mood of unreality as a whole, another functional name should be chosen for this
particular form-type of the subjunctive. "Spective" can't be used here for the simple
reason that the analysed mood form differs in principle from the spective in so far
as its main functions, with the exception of a few construction-types, do not ex-
press attitudes. So, to find an appropriate functional name for the mood form in
question, we must consider the actual semantic role served by it in syntactic con-
structions.

We have already stated that the most typical use of the past unposterior subjunctive
is connected with the expression of unreal actions in conditional clauses (see ex-
amples cited above). Further observations of texts show that, in principle, in all the
other cases of its use the idea of unreal condition is, if not directly expressed, then
implied by way of "subtext". These are constructions of concession and compari-
son, expressions of urgency, expressions of wish introduced independently and in
object clauses. Let us examine them separately.
By Ilyish

The term "subjunctive" itself cannot be called a very lucky one: its actual motiva-
tion by the referent phenomena has long been lost so that at present it is neither
formal, nor functional. The mood system of unreality designated by the name "sub-
junctive" might as well be called "conjunctive", another meaningless term, but
stressing the unity of English with other Germanic languages. We have chosen the

29
name "subjunctive", though, as a tribute to the purely English grammatical tradi-
tion. As for its unmotivated character, with a name of the most general order it
might be considered as its asset, after all.

12.The form of the indicative mood to express the same meaning as is ex-
pressed by the subjunctive mood.
By Ilyish

We have emphasised that, underlying the unity of the whole system, is the one in-
tegral form of the subjunctive standing in opposition to the one integral form of the
indicative. The formal mark of the opposition is the tense-retrospect shift in the
subjunctive, the latter being the strong member of the opposition. The shift consists
in the perfect aspect being opposed to the imperfect aspect, both turned into the rel-
ative substitutes for the absolutive past and present tenses of the indicative. The
shift has been brought about historically, as has been rightly demonstrated by
scholars, due to the semantic nature of the subjunctive, since, from the point of
view of semantics, it is rather a mood of meditation and imagination.

We have here Subjunctive mood which however coincides with the form of Past
Indefinite of Indicative mood.

The combinations such as:

1. Should (with all persons) with Infinitive without particle to;

2. Were (with all persons) with Infinitive with particle to. are used along with
Past Indefinite in order to underline a small possibility of realization of a fact in fu-
ture.

Ex. If I should see him tomorrow, I should ask him about it.

If I were to see him tomorrow, I should ask him about it.

(Если бы я увидел его завтра, я спросил бы его об этом.)

In subordinate clauses there used sometimes combinations of would with Infini-

tive. In this case the verb would is not an auxiliary verb but serves to show a re-
quest.

Ex. We should be obliged if you would acknowledge receipt of this letter. (Мы
были бы обязаны, если бы Вы подтвердили (были любезны подтвердить)
получение этого письма).
By Raevska
30
The Imperative Mood may take over the function of the Subjunctive Mood, e. g.:

Say what you will, I shall have my own way. Say what you would, I should have
my own way. Cf. Кажи що хочеш, я тобі не повірю.

Were can alternate with the Indicative verb-form. There is a growing tendency in
Modern English to replace it by was, especially in non-formal style and in conver-
sation. Compare:

Formal style Non-formal style

My father suggested that My father suggested that

my cousin stay with us. my cousin might stay with

If I were healthier, I us.

would travel more fre- If I was healthier, I

quently. would...

13.Forms expressing unreality.

Forms used to express unreality:

The Subjunctive mood is used in conditional Sentences to express an unreal condi-

tion (=subordinate clause) and an unreal consequence (=principal clause).

1.Unreal condition referring to the present or future the Past Subjunctive of the
verb to be is in the subordinate clause, in the principal clause we find analytical
subjunctive (would, should + Infinitive) [would/should], (were...)

#:The world would be healthier if every chemist's shop in England were demol-
ished.

Unreal condition referring to the future can also be expressed by the Past Subj of
the verb to be+ infinitive of the notional verb or the analytical subj with the mood
auxiliary should for all persons.

#:If I were to offer my home, they were probably be accepted.

If you should send me to a difficult spot with this man alone, I'd feel secure.

If there's should in the subordinate clause, we often find the Indicative or Impera-
tive Mood in the principal clause.

31
#:If any of your family should come to my house, I shall be delighted to welcome
them.

2. Unreal condition referring to the past the Past Perfect of the Indicative mood is
used in the subordinate clause, in the principal clause we find should/would + Per-
fect Infinitive ( have done) [Past Perfect], (should/would have done)

#:If I had consulted my own interests, I should have come here.

3.Unreal Condition is often used with might/could. They fully retain their modal
meaning and they don't form analytical subjunctive, (modal verb+Infinitive)

#:If she were still waiting, she might be restless.

By Iliysh

The verbs should and would are auxiliaries expressing unreality (whatever system
of moods we may adopt after all). But the question is less clear with the verb may
when used in such sentences as Come closer that I may hear what you say (and, of
course, the form might if the main clause has a predicate verb in a past tense). Is
the group may hear some mood form of the verb hear, or is it a free combination of
two verbs, thus belonging entirely to the field of syntax, not morphology? The
same question may be asked about the verb may in such sentences as May you be
happy! where it is part of a group used to express a wish, and is perhaps a mood
auxiliary. We ought to seek an objective criterion which would enable us to arrive
at a convincing conclusion.

We would thus get either four moods (if possibility, unreal condition, and conse-
quence of unreal condition are each taken separately), or three moods (if any two
of these are taken together), or two moods (if they are all three taken together un-
der the heading of "non-real action"). The choice between these variants will re-
main arbitrary and is unlikely ever to be determined by means of any objective
data. If, on the other hand, we start from the means of expressing moods (both syn-
thetical and analytic .

As we see, the subjunctive form under analysis in its various uses does express the
unreality of an action which constitutes a condition for the corresponding conse-
quence. Provided our observation is true, and the considered subjunctive uses are
essentially those of stipulation, the appropriate explanatory term for this form of
the subjunctive would be "stipulative". Thus, the subjunctive form-type which is
referred to on the structural basis as the past unposterior, on the functional basis
will be referred to as stipulative.al) we are likely to get something like this system.

32
 14.Structurally dependent use of forms.
By Blokh

The formal description of the category has its source in the traditional school gram-
mar. It is through the observation of immediate differences in changeable forms
that the mood distinctions of the verb were indicated by the forefathers of modern
sophisticated descriptions of the English grammatical structure. These differences,
similar to the categorial forms of person, number, and time, are most clearly pro-
nounced with the unique verb be.

Namely, it is first and foremost with the verb be that the pure infinitive stem in the
construction of the verbal form of desired or hypothetical action is made promi-
nent. "Be it as you wish", "So be it", "Be what may", "The powers that be", "The
insistence that the accused be present" — such and like constructions, though char-
acterised by a certain bookish flavour, bear indisputable testimony to the fact that
the verb be has a special finite oblique mood form, different from the direct indica-
tive. Together with the isolated, notional be, as well as the linking be, in the capac-
ity of the same mood form come also the passive manifestations of verbs with be in
a morphologically bound position, cf.: The stipulation that the deal be made with-
out delay, the demand that the matter be examined carefully, etc.

By way of correlation with the oblique be, the infinitive stem of the other verbs is
clearly seen as constituting the same form of the considered verbal mood. Not only
constructions featuring the third person singular without its categorial mark -(e)s,
but also constructions of other personal forms of the verb are ordered under this
heading. Thus, we distinguish the indicated mood form of the verb in sentences
like "Happen what may", "God forgive us", "Long live our friendship", "It is im-
portant that he arrive here as soon as possible", and also "The agreement stipulates
that the goods pass customs free", "It is recommended that the elections start on
Monday", "My orders are that the guards draw up", etc.

Semantical observation of the constructions with the analysed verbal form shows
that within the general meaning of desired or hypothetical action, it signifies differ-
ent attitudes towards the process denoted by the verb and the situation denoted by
the construction built up around it, namely, besides desire, also supposition, specu-
lation, suggestion, recommendation, inducement of various degrees of insistence
including commands.

Thus, the analysed form-type presents the mood of attitudes. Traditionally it is

called "subjunctive", or in more modern terminological nomination, "subjunctive
one". Since the term "subjunctive" is also used to cover the oblique mood system
33
as a whole, some sort of terminological specification is to be introduced that would
give a semantic alternative to the purely formal "subjunctive one" designation.
Taking into account the semantics of the form-type in question, we suggest that it
should be named the "spective" mood, employing just the Latin base for the notion
of "attitudes". So, what we are describing now, is the spective form of the subjunc-
tive mood, or, in keeping with the usual working linguistic parlance, simply the
spective mood, in its pure, classical manifestation.

Going on with our analysis, we must consider now the imperative form of the verb,
traditionally referred to as a separate, imperative mood.

In accord with the formal principles of analysis, it is easy to see that the verbal im-
perative morphemically coincides with the spective mood, since it presents the
same infinitive stem, though in relation to the second person only. Turning to the
semantics of the imperative, we note here as constitutive the meaning of attitudes
of the general spective description. This concerns the forms both of be and the
other verbs, cf.: Be on your guard! Be off! Do be careful with the papers! Don't be
blue! Do as I ask you! Put down the address, will you? About turn!

As is known, the imperative mood is analysed in certain grammatical treatises as

semantically direct mood, in this sense being likened to the indicative [Ganshina,
Vasilevskaya, 200]. This kind of interpretation, though, is hardly convincing. The
imperative form displays every property of a form of attitudes, which can easily be
shown by means of equivalent transformations. Cf.:

Be off! → I demand that you be off. Do be careful with the papers! → My request
is that you do be careful with the papers. Do as I ask you! → I insist that you do as
I ask you. About turn! → I command that you turn about.

Let us take it for demonstrated, then, that the imperative verbal forms may be
looked upon as a variety of the spective, i.e. its particular, if very important, mani-
festation.*

At this stage of study we must pay attention to how time is expressed with the ana-
lysed form. In doing so we should have in mind that, since the expression of verbal
time is categorial, a consideration of it does not necessarily break off with the for-
mal principle of observation. In this connection, first, we note that the infinitive
stem taken for the building up of the spective is just the present-tense stem of the
integral conjugation of the verb. The spective be, the irregular (suppletive) for-
mation, is the only exception from this correlation (though, as we have seen, it
does give the general pattern for the mood identification in cases other than the

34
third person singular). Second, we observe that constructions with the spective,
though expressed by the present-stem of the verb, can be transferred into the past
plane context. Cf.:

It was recommended that the elections start on Monday. My orders were that the
guards draw up. The agreement stipulated that the goods pass customs free

15.Free use of forms expressing unreality.

The subjunctive, the integral mood of unreality, presents the two sets of forms ac-
cording to the structural division of verbal tenses into the present and the past.
These form-sets constitute the two corresponding functional subsystems of the sub-
junctive, namely, the spective, the mood of attitudes, and the conditional, the mood
of appraising causal-conditional relations of processes. Each of these, in its turn,
falls into two systemic sub-sets, so that on the immediately working level of
presentation we have the four subjunctive form-types identified on the basis of the
strict correlation between their structure and their function: the pure spective, the
modal spective, the stipulative conditional, the consective conditional.

For the sake of simplifying the working terminology and bearing in mind the exist-
ing practice, the non-modal forms of the subjunctive can be called, respectively,
subjunctive one (spective), subjunctive two (stipulative), subjunctive three (con-
sective); against this background, the modal spective can simply be referred to as
the modal subjunctive, which will exactly correspond to its functional nature in
distinction to the three "pure" subjunctive forms.

The described system is not finished in terms of the historical development of lan-
guage; on the contrary, it is in the state of making and change. Its actual manifesta-
tions are complicated by neutralisations of formal contrasts (such as, for instance,
between the past indicative and the past subjunctive in reported speech); by neu-
tralisations of semantic contrasts (such as, for instance, between the considerative
modal spective and the desiderative modal spective); by fluctuating uses of the
auxiliaries (would — should); by fluctuating uses of the finite be in the singular
(were — was); etc. Our task in the objective study of language, as well as in lan-
guage teaching, is to accurately register these phenomena, to explain their mecha-
nism and systemic implications, to show the relevant tendencies of usage in terms
of varying syntactic environments, topical contexts, stylistic preferences.

16.Traditional use of forms expressing unreality.

As we see, the subjunctive form-type in question in the bulk of its uses essentially
expresses an unreal consequential action dependent on an unreal stipulating action.
35
In grammars which accept the idea of this form being a variety of the verbal mood
of unreality, it is commonly called "conditional". However, the cited material tends
to show that the term in this use is evidently inadequate and misleading. In keeping
with the demonstrated functional nature of the analysed verbal form it would be
appropriate, relying on the Latin etymology, to name it "consective". "Consective"
in function, "past posterior" in structure — the two names will go together similar
to the previously advanced pair "stipulative" — "past unposterior" for the related
form of the subjunctive.

Thus, the functions of the two past form-types of the subjunctive are really differ-
ent from each other on the semantic lines. On the other hand, this difference is of
such a kind that the forms complement each other within one embedding syntactic
construction, at the same time being manifestations of the basic integral mood of
unreality. This allows us to unite both analysed form-types under one heading, op-
posed not only structurally, but also functionally to the heading of the spective
mood. And the appropriate term for this united system of the past-tense subjunctive
will be "conditional". Indeed, the name had to be rejected as the designation of the
consequential (con-sective) form of the subjunctive taken separately, but it will be
very helpful in showing the actual unity of the forms not only on the ground of
their structure (i.e. the past tense order), but also from the point of view of their se-
mantico-syntactic destination.

The conditional system of the subjunctive having received its characterisation in

functional terms, the simplified "numbering" terminology may also be of use for
practical teaching purposes. Since the purely formal name for the stipulative mood-
form, now in more or less common use, is "subjunctive two", it would stand to rea-
son to introduce the term "subjunctive three" for the consective form of the sub-
junctive. "Subjunctive three" will then finish the set of numbering names for the
three pure forms of the mood of unreality, the "modal spective" being left out of
the set due to its non-pure and heterogeneous character.

17.MODAL VERBS
By Raevska

There are nine modal verbs in Modern English: must, can/could, may/might,
shall/should, will/would, dare, need, ought and let. A large variety of their use is
one of the most striking aspects of the present-day English grammar.

The multiplicity of ways in which modal verbs may be combined in actual usage
permits a very large number of patterns to be built in present-day English. From a

36
historical point of view it is interesting to note that many of them are of quite re-
cent development.

On different linguistic occasions a modal verb may perform three different func-
tions: a) it may be used in its original sense, b) it may do the duty of a purely auxil-
iary in analytical verbal forms correlated with the corresponding simple ones
within the limits of the given grammatical category (the Future Tense and the Sub-
junctive Mood), c) it may weaken its lexical meaning when used in modal phrases
expressing supposition, certainty or uncertainty as to the action expressed by the
notional verb.

Modal verbs may function as a) "fully lexical" verbs expressing ability, possibility,
permission, power, admonition, duty, obligation, need, will or readiness to do
something associated with the activity of the subject, e. g.: One must do one's duty.
Can she speak English? May I come in? b) modal auxiliaries of weakened predica-
tion: will/would, can/could, may/might, must and ought In this latter case they
weaken their original meaning and come to express supposition, logical inference,
certainty or uncertainty with regard to the action expressed by the notional verb.
By Dolgina

Modal verbs are used to express the speaker's attitude towards the action or state
denoted by the infinitive they are grammatically associated with, that is they show
actions denoted by infinitives as obligatory, necessary, advisable, desirable, possi-
ble, impossible, uncertain, etc. They are: must, can (could), may (might), ought,
shall, will, should, would, be, have, need, dare.

Modals are called defective verbs since most of them lack the non-finite forms and
cannot be used in the analytical patterns such as perfect, continuous, passive as
well as future tense forms. The exceptions are: be, have, need and dare. Besides,
modals do not take the -(e)s suffix in the first person singular. Such verbs as be and
have are characterized by the special forms of their own: The train is to arrive in an
hour. The boy has to go to school.

Modals normally take infinitives without to with the exception of ought, be, have
and sometimes dare and need.

Modals do not require any auxiliary to form questions and negative sentences ex-
cept for the verb have. Do your children have to wear a uniform at school? Does
she have to get up early tomorrow?

According to the meaning modals can be classified into several groups: 1) verbs
expressing obligation, necessity — must, have to, be to, shall, should, ought to; 2)
37
verbs denoting supposition, possibility, certainty/uncertainty — must, may(might),
can(could), should, ought to, will, 3) verbs expressing ability — can(could), 4)
verbs expressing permission, requests, offers, invitations — may/

might, will/would, can/could, 5) verbs denoting willingness — will, would.

18.MODAL WORDS

The distinction between modal words and adverbs is, as we saw in our general sur-
vey of parts of speech, based on two criteria: (1) their meaning: modal words ex-
press the speaker's view concerning the reality of the action expressed in the sen-
tence, (2) their syntactical function: they are not adverbial modifiers but parenthe-
ses, whether we take a parenthesis to be a special part of the sentence or whether
we say that it stands outside its structure. The latter problem is one that we will dis-
cuss in Syntax.1

We must emphasise that this view is far from being the only one possible: one
might argue that the meaning of an adverb as a part of speech might be described
in such a way as to include what we call modal words, and to mention the function
of parenthesis among the syntactical functions of adverbs. Where clear objective
morphological criteria fail there will always be room for different interpretations.
We will not argue this point any further but start on the assumption that modal
words do constitute a separate part of speech.

Modal words have been variously classified into groups accord-ing to their mean-
ing: those expressing certainty, such as certainly, surely, undoubtedly; those ex-
pressing doubt, such as perhaps, maybe, possibly, etc. The number of types varies
greatly with different authors. We need not go into this question here, as this is a
lexicological, rather than a grammatical, problem. From the grammatical viewpoint
it is sufficient to state that all modal words express some kind of attitude of the
speaker concerning the reality of the action expressed in the sentence.

In the vast majority of cases the modal word indicates the speaker's attitude to-
wards the whole thought expressed in the sentence (or clause), e.g. Look, there are
those doves again. The one is really quite a bright red, isn't it? (R. WEST) She is a
delicate little thing, perhaps nobody but me knows how delicate. (LAWRENCE)

If the modal word in each of the sentences is eliminated the whole thought will
lose the modal colouring imparted to it by the modal word, and will appear to be
stated as a fact, without any specific mention of the speaker's attitude.

38
However, occasionally a modal word may refer to some one word or phrase only,
and have no connection with the rest of the sentence. It may, for example, refer to a
secondary part of the sentence, as in the following example: No one expected his
arrival, except Rose presumably. (LINKLATER)

A modal word can also make up a sentence by itself. This hap-pens when it is used
to answer a general question, that is, a question admitting of a yes- or no-answer.
Certainly, perhaps, maybe, etc. may be used in this way. In these cases, then,
modal words are the main part of the sentence. This brings them close together
with the sentence words yes and no. ' However, they differ from the sentence
words in that the modal words can also be used as parentheses in a sentence. Thus,
the question, Are you coming? may equally be answered, Certainly I am, or Cer-
tainly. The sentence words yes and no cannot be used as parentheses. Whether the
answer is Yes, or Yes, I am, the yes is a sentence in both variants.

It might be possible to argue that if the answer to the question Are you coming? is
Certainly, the word certainly is a parenthesis, and the rest of the answer, / am, is
"understood". While such a view cannot be disproved, it seems unnatural and far-
fetched, and we will prefer the view that Certainly in this case is a sentence.

The problem of modal words is connected with the very diffi-cult problem of mo-
dality as a whole. This has been treated repeatedly by various scholars both with
reference to English and to Russian and in a wider context of general linguistics as
well.2 We will not investigate here all the aspects of the problem. We will only
mention that there are various means of expressing modality — modal words,
modal verbs (can, must, etc.) and the category of mood. Since two of them or even
all three may be used simultaneously, it is evident that there may be several layers
of modality in a sentence. A great variety of combinations is possible here.

39