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14
The categories of person and number, with the same restrictions, as those mentioned above, are naturally
found in all analytical forms containing the present indefinite tense of the auxiliaries to be and to have, or the
past indefinite tense of the auxiliary to be: (I) am reading - (he) is reading - (we, you, they) are reading; (I) am
told - (he) is told - (we, you, they) are told; (he) has come - (I, we, you, they) have come; (he) has been told - (I,
we, you, they) have been told; (he) has been reading - (I, we, you, they) have been reading.
A more regular way of expressing the categories of person and number is the use of personal pronouns. They
are indispensable when the finite verb forms in the indicative as well as the subjunctive moods have no markers
of person or number distinctions.
I stepped aside and they moved away.
They had been walking along, side by side, and she had been talking very earnestly.
If you were his own son, you could have all this.
If she were not a housemaid, she might not feel it so keenly.
The verb is always in the 3rd person singular if the subject of the predicate verb is expressed by a negative
or indefinite pronoun, by an infinitive, a gerund or a clause:
Nothing has happened. Somebody has come.
To see him at last was a real pleasure. To shut that lid seems an easy task.
Seeing is believing. Visiting their house again seems out of the question.
What she has told me frightens me*.
* For further details see § on Agreement of the Subject and Predicate.
The category of tense
§ 10. The category of tense in English (as well as in Russian) expresses the relationship between the time of
the action and the time of speaking.
The time of speaking is designated as present time and is the starting point for the whole scale of time
measuring. The time that follows the time of speaking is designated as future time; the time that precedes the
time of speaking is designated as past time. Accordingly there are three tenses in English - the present tense,
the future tense and the past tense which refer actions to present, future or past time.
Besides these three tenses there is one more tense in English, the so-called future in the past. The
peculiarity of this tense lies in the fact that the future is looked upon not from the point of view of the moment
of speaking (the present) but from the point of view of some moment in the past.
Each tense is represented by four verb forms involving such categories as aspect and perfect. Thus there are
four present tense forms: the present indefinite, the present continuous, the present perfect, the present perfect
continuous; four past tense forms: the past indefinite, the past continuous, the past perfect and the past perfect
continuous; four future tense forms: the future indefinite, the future continuous, the future perfect and the future
perfect continuous; and four future in the past tense forms: the future in the past indefinite, the future in the past
continuous, the future in the past perfect, the future in the past perfect continuous.
The category of aspect
§ 11. In general the category of aspect shows the way or manner in which an action is performed, that is
whether the action is perfective (совершенное), imperfective (несовершенное), momentary (мгновенное,
однократное), iterative (многократное, повторяющееся), inchoative (зачинательное), durative
(продолженное, длительное), etc.
In English the category of aspect is constituted by the opposition of the continuous aspect and the common
aspect.
The opposition the continuous aspect <——> the common aspect is actualized in the following contrasting
pairs of forms:
Continuous
Common
is speaking
was speaking
speaks
spoke