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processes.
As for the limitive verbs, their standing with the category of development and its oppositional reductions is
quite the reverse. Due to the very aspective quality of limitiveness, these verbs, first, are not often used in the
continuous form in general, finding no frequent cause for it; but second, in cases when the informative purpose
does demand the expression of an action in progress, the continuous with these verbs is quite obligatory and
normally cannot undergo reduction under any conditions. It cannot be reduced, for otherwise the limitive
meaning of the verb would prevail,, and the informative purpose would not be realized. Cf.:
The plane was just touching down when we arrived at the airfield. The patient was sitting up in his bed, his
eyes riveted on the trees beyond the window.
The linguistic paradox of these uses is that the continuous aspect with limitive verbs neutralizes the
expression of their lexical aspect, turning them for the nonce into unlimitive verbs. And this is one of the many
manifestations of grammatical relevance of lexemic categories.
§ 6. In connection with the problem of the aspective category of development, we must consider the forms
of the verb built up with the help of the auxiliary do. These forms, entering the verbal system of the indefinite,
have been described under different headings.
Namely, the auxiliary do, first, is presented in grammars as a means of building up interrogative
constructions when the verb is used in the indefinite aspect. Second, the auxiliary do is described as a means of
building up negative constructions with the indefinite form of the verb. Third, it is shown as a means of forming
emphatic constructions of both affirmative declarative and affirmative imperative communicative types, with
the indefinite form of the verb. Fourth, it is interpreted as a means of forming elliptical constructions with the
indefinite form of the verb.
L.S. Barkhudarov was the first scholar who paid attention to the lack of accuracy, and probably linguistic
adequacy, in these definitions. Indeed, the misinterpretation of the defined phenomena consists here in the fact
that the do-forms are presented immediately as parts of the corresponding syntactic constructions, whereas
actually they are parts of the corresponding verb-forms of the indefinite aspect. Let us compare the following
sentences in pairs:
Fred pulled her hand to his heart. - -Did Fred pull her hand to his heart? You want me to hold a smile. - -
You don't want me to hold a smile. In dreams people change into somebody else. -
- In dreams people do
change into somebody else. Ask him into the drawing-room. - - Do ask him into the drawing-room. Mike liked
the show immensely, and Kitty liked it too. - - Mike liked the show immensely, and so did Kitty.
On the face of the comparison, we see only the construction-forming function of the analysed auxiliary, the
cited formulations being seemingly vindicated both by the structural and the functional difference between the
sentences: the right-hand constituent utterances in each of the given pairs has its respective do-addition. How-
ever, let us relate these right-hand utterances to another kind of categorial counterparts:
Did Fred pull her hand to his heart? - - Will Fred pull her hand to his heart? You don't want me to hold a
smile. -
- You won't want me to hold a smile. In dreams people do change into somebody else.-
-In dreams
people will change into somebody else. Mike liked the show immensely, and so did Kitty.- -Mike will like the
show immensely, and so will Kitty.
Observing the structure of the latter series of constructional pairs, we see at once that their constituent
sentences are built up on one and the same syntactic principle of a special treatment of the morphological
auxiliary element. And here lies the necessary correction of the interpretation of do-forms. As a matter of fact,
do-fonns should be first of all described as the variant analytical indefinite forms of the verb that are effected to
share the various constructional functions with the other analytical forms of the verb placing their respective
auxiliaries in accented and otherwise individualized positions. This presentation, while meeting the demands of
adequate description, at the same time is very convenient for explaining the formation of the syntactic
constructional categories on the unified basis of the role of analytical forms of the verb. Namely, the formation
of interrogative constructions will be explained simply as a universal word-order procedure of partial inversion
(placing the auxiliary before the subject for all the categorial forms of the verb); the formation of the
corresponding negative will be described as the use of the negative particle with the analytical auxiliary for all
the categorial forms of the verb; the formation of the corresponding emphatic constructions will be described as
the accent of the analytical auxiliaries, including the indefinite auxiliary; the formation of the corresponding
reduced constructions will be explained on the lines of the representative use of the auxiliaries in general
(which won't mar the substitute role of do).
For the sake of terminological consistency the analytical form in question might be called the "marked