Verb as a Part of Speech in English and Ukrainian Languages

1.3. The Future Tense. The tense form “Future-in-the-past” and sequence of tenses of the English language.

The category of tense is a system of three member opposemes in the English language such as writes – wrote – will write, is writing – was writing – will be writing showing the relation of the time of the action denoted by the verb to the moment of speech. Each tense form has the common (or non-continuous) and the continuous aspect. Only in the common aspect the present and the past tenses are synthetic ones in the affirmative form. In the interrogative and in the negative forms these tenses, similar to other tense forms and tense-aspect forms, are analytical ones. In English there is a special grammatical category of tense reference (часова віднесеність) which is expressed with the help of special tense forms, known as Perfect and Perfect-Continuous forms. The special class of verb forms is created by four English tense forms of the so called “Future in the Past”. Their basic meaning is the action which is happening during the time, which was future from the point of view of the past moment that is from the point of view of the speaker who produced his\her utterance in the past.

In Ukrainian the category of tense is closely connected with the category of person and is manifested via the personal forms. The tense of the Ukrainian verb is expressed morphologically in the indicative mood. The following tense forms can be distinguished: the present tense of the synthetic character (теперішній: читаю), the past tense of the synthetic character (минулий: читав), the pluperfect past tense of the analytical character (давноминулий: був читав) and future tense of both the synthetic and the analytical character (майбутній: читатиму, буду читати). The imperative and the conditional moods do not possess the tense differentiation.

In Ukrainian the forms of present tense are characteristic only of the verbs of the imperfective aspect (пишу, думаю). In English all the verbs without exception can be used in the present tense.

According to the character of personal endings in the present tense Ukrainian verbs of the imperfective aspect (as well as the verbs of the perfective aspect with the future meaning) are subdivided into two conjugations (дієвідміни). The first conjugation (перша дієвідміна) includes the verbs, which in the third person plural have endings - уть (-ють) and in other personal forms the vocal - е (-є), e.g.: везуть – везе, везеш, веземо; читають – читає, читаємо and so on. The second conjugation includes the verbs, which in the third person plural have the endings - ать (-ять) and in other personal forms the vocal - и (-ї), e.g.: лежать – лежиш, лежить, лежимо; стоять – стоїш, стоїть, стоїмо and others.

The English language has four present tenses: Present Indefinite, Present Continuous, Present Perfect and Present Perfect Continuous. The difference between all these forms is caused by the general content of the grammar category to which they belong, that is the category of aspect or the category of time reference.

In Ukrainian we have two verb forms of the past tense: the past and the pluperfect tenses (минулий та давноминулий). The past tense is formed from the base of the infinitive with the help of the suffix - в (-л) as well as gender flexions: the zero flexion for the masculine gender, -a for the feminine gender and - o for the neuter gender. When the base of the infinitive finishes with the consonant, then the suffix - в is absent by the masculine gender (e.g.: нести – ніс, сікти – сік, везти – віз, but грати – грав). If the base of the infinitive contains the suffix -ну it is omitted in the past tense: мерзнути – мерз, сохнути – сох (except the stressed position: тягнути – тягну¢в). The Ukrainian pluperfect tense (давноминулий) is created analytically by combining the forms of the past tense form of the verb – the carrier of the lexical meaning, with the corresponding form of the past tense of the auxiliary verb бути, e.g.: ходив був, ходилабула, ходили були; пішов був, позичив був. Such forms are more often created from imperfective verbs.

In English we have two aspect forms of the past tense: the Past Indefinite and the Past Continuous tenses. Besides there are two forms of the past tense that reveal the category of tense reference: the Past Perfect and the Past Perfect Continuous.

In Ukrainian forms of the future tense are not created equally for all verbs. Verbs of the perfective aspect, which do not have forms of the present tense, form the future tense with the help of personal endings of present tense, e.g.: прочитаю, напишеш, розкажу (compare: читаю, пишеш, кажу). Verbs of the imperfective aspect have two forms of the future tense: 1) the analytical one which is created from the personal form of the future tense of the help verb бути and the infinitive of the conjugated verb, e.g.: буду працювати, будемо співати; 2) the synthetic form, which is formed by adding to the infinitive base of the conjugated verb personal endings, created from the former forms of the verb яти (иняти, йняти), e.g.: писати-му, -меш, -ме, -мемо, -мете, -муть.

In English all verbs form their future tense analytically. According to the character of the course of action in English there are four aspect-tense forms to denote the action taking place in the future, namely: Future Indefinite, Future Continuous, Future Perfect and Future Perfect Continuous. The typical feature of tense forms of the English verb is the fact that many of them render the action that happened not according to the moment of speaking but in accordance with some “center” of the corresponding tense. The peculiarity of “future-in-the-past” forms is the dependable character of their usage: these forms are usually used in complex sentences, when the so called sequence of tenses takes place.

The category of voice is the system of two member opposemes (loves – is loved, loving – being loved, to love – to be loved, has loved – has been loved, etc.) which show whether the action is represented as issuing from the subject (the active voice) or as experienced by its object (the passive voice).

In Modern Ukrainian there are two voices differentiated: active and passive. The separate group includes reflexive verbs with the postfix - ся (голитися, гніватися). The passive voice can also be formed by the passive participle and non-personal form of participle ending in -но, -то (товариство організоване, товариство організовано). In Ukrainian the category of voice is characteristic only of transitive verbs.

According to Yu.O. Zhluktenko, the issue concerning forms of the voice expression in the system of English and Ukrainian verb cannot be considered a finally solved problem. The majority of grammars express the opinion that the English language has three voices: 1) the active voice, which shows that the object or the person, expressed by the subject, performs the action; 2) the passive voice, which shows that the action of the predicate is directed towards the person or the object, expressed by the subject, but this action is not performed by them; 3) the reflexive voice, which shows that the action is centered upon the doer of the action himself/herself. Other linguist express their own opinions concerning the number of voices in each language but the two voices (active and passive) are differentiated undoubtedly.

In English the passive state of the verb is formed by combining of the help verb “ to be” in the corresponding tense form with the Participle II of the main verb, which expresses its lexical meaning: He was invited. The peculiarity of such a passive construction is that it renders two different meanings: a) the meaning of the state passiveness (пасив стану), e.g.: The house is built “будинок (є) збудований”, b) the meaning of the passiveness of the action (пасив дії) – “будинок будується”.

Thus in Ukrainian the passiveness of the state is expressed analytically. This form is built by combining the help verb бути in the corresponding tense with the past participle of the verb, expressing the lexical meaning: був розроблений, був побудований. This form is created only by verbs of the perfective aspect. They also create a widely used construction with the passive meaning with non-personal indeclinable forms in -но, -то, e.g.: будинок було збудовано, статтю було опрацьовано, роботу буде розпочато and others. The passiveness of the action is rendered in Ukrainian in a synthetic way – by the verb forms with the suffix -ся: програма затверджується, школа перебудовується.

The Ukrainian language forms characteristically the passive state mainly from the verbs which have the direct transitive meaning (прямо-перехідне значення), that is they transform the direct object of the active state construction into the subject of the passive construction: вони будують хату – хатабудується ними.

A special and very characteristic feature of the modern English language is the fact that it uses all the meanings of the verb transitiveness to form the passive: the direct transitiveness, the indirect transitiveness without the preposition and the indirect transitiveness with the preposition.

The reflexive voice (state). The meaning of reflexiveness is rendered in English with the help of combining the transitive verb with the reflexive pronoun of the corresponding person and number, e.g.: he hides himself (він ховається). In grammars of the English language this combination is considered to be the analytical form of the reflexive state of the verb.

Among the forms of the reflexive state in English there are differentiated two main cases:

1) the proper reflexive meaning of such forms (власно зворотне значення) if they show that the subject has as the object of its action itself, e.g.: I dress myself (я одягаюся), we wash ourselves (ми вмиваємося) etc. With the verbs that render regular, often repeated actions, the pronoun can be absent: I dress, we wash.

2) the medium-reflexive meaning (середнє-зворотне значення) of these forms when they show that the action is not transferred upon some other object or person, but is closed upon the subject itself, is centered upon it, e.g.: stretch oneself (простягтися), enjoy oneself (одержувати задоволення), worry oneself (турбуватися).

In Ukrainian the reflexive state is formed in a synthetic way. The affix -ся, which is added to transitive verbs, has become abstract to such an extent that it has almost lost its former pronoun meaning себе (compare: кусався and кусав себе). Ukrainian verbs of the reflexive (or as they are sometimes called of the reflexive-medium state) are also subdivided according to their meaning into several groups.

Mood is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker’s point of view. In the sentences He listens attentively; Listen attentively; You would have listened attentively if you had been interested, we deal with the same action of listening, but in the first sentence the speaker presents the action as the one taking place in reality, whereas in the second sentence the speaker urges the listener to perform the action, and in the third sentence the speaker presents the action as imaginary. The meaning of the three moods is distinguished in the language structure not so much by the opposition of individual forms (as in the case in the opposemes of other categories), as by the opposition of the systems of forms each mood possesses:

Thus, the category of mood reveals the relation of the denoted action (позначувана дія) to reality. In both languages there are verb forms of the Indicative mood (дійсний), the Imperative mood (наказовий) and the Conditional mood (умовний).

The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it is the most developed system including all the categories of the verb. Semantically it is a fact mood. It serves to present an action as a fact of reality. It is the “most objective” or the “least subjective” of all the moods. It conveys minimum personal attitude to the fact.

All the forms of the Indicative mood in English and Ukrainian have already been considered by us previously, when we dwelled upon the categories of person, number, tense and state. The characteristic feature of the Indicative mood is its connection with the category of tense: it is expressed by the forms of the present, past and future tenses.

The imperative mood represents an action as a command, urging, or request to one’s interlocutor. It is a direct expression of one’s will. Therefore it is much more “subjective” than the indicative mood. Its modal meaning is very strong and distinct.

The imperative mood is morphologically the least developed of all moods. In fact, the grammeme write, know, search, do, etc. is the only one regularly met in speech. The “continuous” and “passive” opposites of this grammeme (be writing, be searhing, etc.; be known, be warned, etc.) are very rare.

Ukrainian verb forms of the imperative mood similar to English ones also render the order, wish, appeal, demand, request or some other types of inducement (спонукання) to perform some action.

In Ukrainian forms of the imperative mood are built from the base of the present tense: a) for the second person singular with the ending - и (пиши, іди) or without endings (сядь, встань, читай); b) for the first person plural with the ending - імо (несімо, ходімо) or - мо (читаймо, станьмо); c) for the second person plural by means of adding the endings - іть (несіть, ідіть) or - те (читайте, станьте).

Thus in the modern English language the system of forms of the imperative mood is much simpler than in Ukrainian. But in both languages there are present analytical forms of the imperative mood, compare: Let him come, Let us go, Нехай вони прийдуть (приходять). Хай живе Україна!

Probably the only thing linguists are unanimous about with regard to the conditional mood is that it represents action as a “non-fact”, as something imaginary, desirable, problematic, contrary to reality.

In modern Ukrainian the conditional mood is formed analytically by the way of adding the particle би (after the vocal б) to the form of the past tense or the infinitive of the conjugated verb читав би, прочитала б, погуляти б.

The characteristic feature of the whole analytical form of the conditional mood in Ukrainian is its atemporal (позачасовий) meaning. The form писав би can be easily referred to any time (the present, past or future), being joined with any adverb of time: сьогодні, завтра, зараз, учора.

In English meanings of the conditional and unreal action are rendered by the following verb forms:

1) the outdated synthetic forms: be, have (take and other forms of the third person without the ending - s as the forms of the so called Present Subjunctive); were (for all the persons as the Past Subjunctive form);

2) forms of the indicative mood – the past tense of the common aspect (Past Indefinite) and Past Perfect that in certain syntactical conditions acquire the meaning of the unreal action;

3) analytical forms of the conditional mood, built by using the auxiliary verbs should and would and different forms of the infinitive of notional verbs;

4) combinations of modal verbs may (might), can (could) with infinitives of notional verbs, which acquire the meaning of the unreal action depending on the type of the sentence. But in these combinations modal verbs do not lose completely their lexical meaning as it happened with should and would that have acquired a totally grammatical meaning.

Synthetic forms of the conditional mood in English are outdated ones, and are used mainly in writing, whereas analytical forms are spread in all spheres of language use.

Unlike Ukrainian, the English conditional mood can express the category of tense: analytical forms should/would + Indefinite Infinitive and the form of the past time (Past Indefinite), used with the meaning of the unreal action, point towards the action that could happen in the present or future. Analytical forms should/would + Perfect infinitive and Past Perfect, used with the meaning of the unreal action, serve to denote the action that could have happened in the past. In both languages forms of the conditional mood have the category of state, compare: були б запрошені, be done/ were done, should be done, as well as the category of aspect, e.g.: читав би, прочитав би, should be going.

The conditional mood is the category which is closely connected with the structure of the complex sentence.

Что делает отдел по эксплуатации и сопровождению ИС? Отвечает за сохранность данных (расписания копирования, копирование и пр.)...

Система охраняемых территорий в США Изучение особо охраняемых природных территорий(ООПТ) США представляет особый интерес по многим причинам...

Что способствует осуществлению желаний? Стопроцентная, непоколебимая уверенность в своем...

ЧТО И КАК ПИСАЛИ О МОДЕ В ЖУРНАЛАХ НАЧАЛА XX ВЕКА Первый номер журнала «Аполлон» за 1909 г. начинался, по сути, с программного заявления редакции журнала...

Не нашли то, что искали? Воспользуйтесь поиском гугл на сайте: