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74
categories, though it does give a representative expression to all the verbal categories taken together through
the corresponding obligatory featuring (which can be, as we know, either positive or negative). And this fact
provides us with a safe criterion of categorial identification for cases where the forms under analysis display
related semantic functions.
We have recognized in the verbal system of English two temporal categories (plus one "minor" category of
futurity option) and two aspective categories. But does this mean that the English verb is "doubly" (or "triply",
for that matter) inflected by the "grammatical category" of tense and the "grammatical category" of aspect? In
no wise.
The course of our deductions has been quite the contrary. It is just because the verb, in its one and the same,
at each time uniquely given integral form of use, manifests not one, but two expressions of time (for instance,
past and future); it is because it manifests not one, but two expressions of aspect (for instance, continuous and
perfect), that we have to recognize these expressions as categorially different. In other words, such universal
grammatical notions as "time", "tense", "aspect", "mood" and others, taken by themselves, do not automatically
presuppose any unique categorial systems. It is only the actual correlation of the corresponding grammatical
forms in a concrete, separate language that makes up a grammatical category. In particular, when certain forms
that come under the same meaningful grammatical heading are mutually exclusive, it means that they together
make up a grammatical category. This is the case with the three Russian verbal tenses. Indeed, the Russian
verbal form of the future cannot syntagmatically coexist with the present or past forms - these forms are
mutually exclusive, thereby constituting one unified category of time (tense), existing in the three categorial
forms: the present, the past, the future. In English, on the contrary, the future form of the verb can freely co-oc-
cur with the strongly marked past form, thereby making up a category radically different from the category
manifested by the system of "present-past" discrimination. And it is the same case with the forms of the
continuous and the perfect. Just because they can freely coexist in one and the same syntagmatic manifestation
of the verb, we have to infer that they enter (in the capacity of oppositional markers) essentially different
categories, though related to each other by their general aspective character.
§ 3. The aspective category of development is constituted by the opposition of the continuous forms of the
verb to the non-continuous, or indefinite forms of the verb. The marked member of the opposition is the
continuous, which is built up by the auxiliary be plus the present participle of the conjugated verb. In symbolic
notation it is represented by the formula be.i.ng. The categorial meaning of the continuous is "action in
progress"; the unmarked member of the opposition, the indefinite, leaves this meaning unspecified, i.e.
expresses the non-continuous.
The evolution of views in connection with the interpretation of the continuous forms has undergone three
stages.
The traditional analysis placed them among the tense-forms of the verb, defining them as expressing an
action going on simultaneously with some other action. This temporal interpretation of the continuous was
most consistently developed in the works of H. Sweet and 0. Jespersen. In point of fact, the continuous usually
goes with a verb which expresses a simultaneous action, but, as we have stated before, the timing of the action
is not expressed by the continuous as such - rather, the immediate time-meaning is conveyed by the syntactic
constructions, as well as the broader semantic context in which the form is used, since action in progress, by
definition, implies that it is developing at a certain time point.
The correlation of the continuous with contextual indications of time is well illustrated on examples of
complex sentences with while-clauses. Four combinations of the continuous and the indefinite are possible in
principle in these constructions (for two verbs are used here, one in the principal clause and one in the
subordinate clause, each capable of taking both forms in question), and all the four possibilities are realized in
contexts of Modern English. Cf:.
While I was typing, Mary and Tom were chatting in the adjoining room. - While I typed, Mary and Tom
were chatting in the adjoining room. - While I was typing, they chatted in the adjoining room. - While I typed,
they chatted in the adjoining room.
Clearly, the difference in meaning between the verb-entries in the cited examples cannot lie in their time
denotations, either absolutive, or relative. The time is shown by their tense-signals of the past (the past form of
the auxiliary be in the continuous, or the suffix -(e)d in the indefinite). The meaningful difference consists
exactly in the categorial semantics of the indefinite and continuous: while the latter shows the action in the very
process of its realization, the former points it out as a mere fact.
On the other hand, by virtue of its categorial semantics of action in progress (of necessity, at a definite point
of time), the continuous is usually employed in descriptions of scenes correlating a number of actions going on
simultaneously - since all of them are actualy shown in progress, at the time implied by the narration. Cf.:
Standing on the chair, I could see in through the barred window into the hall of the Ayuntamiento and in