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75
there it was as it had been before. The priest was standing, and those who were left were kneeling in a half
circle around him and they were all praying. Pablo was sitting on the big table in front of the Mayor's chair with
his shotgun slung over his back. His legs were hanging down from the table and he was rolling a cigarette.
Cuatro Dedos was sitting in the Mayor's chair with his feet on the table and he was smoking a cigarette. All the
guards were sitting in different chairs of the administration, holding their guns. The key to the big door was on
the table beside Pablo (E. Hemingway).
But if the actions are not progressive by themselves (i.e. if they are not shown as progressive), the
description, naturally, will go without the continuous forms of the corresponding verbs. E.g.:
Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval Maidan, and a long sallow hospital. Houses belonging to
Eurasians stand on the high ground by the railway station. Beyond the railway - which runs parallel to the river-
the land sinks, then rises again rather steeply. On the second rise is laid out the little civil station, and viewed
hence Chandrapore appears to be a totally different place (E.M. Forster).
A further demonstration of the essentially non-temporal meaning of the continuous is its regular use in
combination with the perfect, i.e. its use in the verb-form perfect continuous. Surely, the very idea of perfect is
alien to simultaneity, so the continuous combined with the perfect in one and the same manifestation of the verb
can only be understood as expressing aspectuality, i.e. action in progress.
Thus, the consideration of the temporal element in the continuous shows that its referring an action to a
definite time-point, or its expressing simultaneity irrespective of absolutive time, is in itself an aspective, not a
temporal factor.
At the second stage of the interpretation of the continuous, the form was understood as rendering a blend of
temporal and aspective meanings - the same as the other forms of the verb obliquely connected with the factor
of time, i.e. the indefinite and the perfect. This view was developed by I.P. Ivanova.
The combined temporal-aspective interpretation of the continuous, in general, should be appraised as an
essential step forward, because, first, it introduced on an explicit, comprehensively grounded basis the idea of
aspective meanings in the grammatical system of English; second, it demonstrated the actual connection of time
and aspect in the integral categorial semantics of the verb. In fact, it presented a thesis that proved to be crucial
for the subsequent demonstration, at the next stage of analysis, of the essence of the form on a strictly
oppositional foundation.
This latter phase of study, initiated in the works of A.I. Smirnit-sky, V.N. Yartseva and B.A. Ilyish, was
developed further by B.S. Khaimovich and B.I. Rogovskaya and exposed in its most comprehensive form by
L.S. Barkhudarov.
Probably the final touch contributing to the presentation of the category of development at this third stage
of study should be still more explicit demonstration of its opposition working beyond the correlation of the
continuous non-perfect form with the indefinite non-perfect form. In the expositions hitherto advanced the two
series of forms - continuous and perfect - have been shown, as it were, too emphatically in the light of their
mutual contrast against the primitive indefinite, the perfect continuous form, which has been placed somewhat
separately, being rather interpreted as a "peculiarly modified" perfect than a "peculiarly modified" continuous.
In reality, though, the perfect continuous is equally both perfect and continuous, the respective markings
belonging to different, though related, categorial characteristics.
§ 4. The category .of development, unlike the categories of person, number, and time, has a verbid
representation, namely, it is represented in the infinitive. This fact, for its part, testifies to another than temporal
nature of the continuous.
With the infinitive, the category of development, naturally, expresses the same meaningful contrast between
action in progress and action not in progress as with the finite forms of the verb. Cf:.
Kezia and her grandmother were taking their siesta together. -
- It was but natural for Kezia and her
grandmother to be taking their siesta together. What are you complaining about? - - Is there really anything for
you to be complaining about?
But in addition to this purely categorial distinction, the form of the continuous infinitive has a tendency to
acquire quite a special meaning in combination with modal verbs, namely that of probability. This meaning is
aspectual in a broader sense than the "inner character" of action: the aspectuality amounts here to an outer
appraisal of the denoted process. Cf:.
Paul must watt for you, you needn't be in a hurry. Paul must be waiting for us, so let's hurry up.
The first of the two sentences expresses Paul's obligation to wait, whereas the second sentence renders the
speaker's supposition of the fact.