The Grammatical category of aspect in the history of English

Old English. The verb in Old English has the following categories: person, number, tense and mood. These 4 grammatical categories were supplemented by some other ways of expressing grammatical meanings. One of the less happy grammatical categories is that of aspect. Here the distinction between imperfective aspect, expressing an action in its duration without indicating its beginning or its end. and the perfective aspect which expressed an action in its completion, where its beginning and its end can be traced. To express it the verbs with different prefixes arc used. The most "grammatical" of all is the prefix 3e-(writan—3ewritan, bindan— 3ebindan). The verbs with the prefix 3e- denoted a completed action whereas the verbs without this prefix denoted an action with no indication as to the completion of the action.

Middle English. All types of verbs existing in Old English - strong, weak, preterite-present and irregular were preserved in Middle English. In each type we find changes, but the proportional value of the weak ones is greater and continues to grow. There was a tendency when the former strong became weak and vice versa ['vaisi ve:se- навпаки ]. The Old English prefix 3e- reduced to y-.The problem of aspect is a disputable one. The Old English prefix 3e-, which rendered some aspective meanings now was falling into disuse (невикористання), and was actually limited to the participle of the verb. A new form - the continuous was rising, but in Middle English it was considered an ungrammatical form of the verb, and it was not allowed into the good literary English (of the type of Russian я поемши, не спамши). We may observe that even more complicated forms of the Continuous, such as Perfect continuous may be found in late Middle English.

Early New English. The continuous aspect, the first instances of which were used in Middle English is occasionally used in the texts of this period, though not is a system. In other cases, however, we may see it yet it becomes recognized as correct and included into the norm much later(XVI-XVIIc.). Ex.: What's he that now is going out of door?(Romeo and Juliet)

They are coming to the play; I must be idle:

Get you a place (Hamlet).

One may also observe some regularities in the use of the forms of the verb to use as semi-auxiliary or auxiliary - for it is grammaticalized here - of past (iterative - to express the repeated action in the past or past action that is no longer performed). Ex.: Elis eyes are humbler than they used to be. (King Hengry V)

This structure in Early New English was almost paradigmatically full, so it is possible to say that there were some prerequisites (передумови) for formation of yet another grammatical category specifying the aspective characteristics of the action which in the long run proved almost irrelevant and remained only as a cast-iron grammatical phrase. Occasionally, the same meaning is also rendered by combination would - inf. but/the verb would preserves more of its lexical meaning, modal meaning.

Date: 2016-08-30; view: 914; Нарушение авторских прав