Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-pkt8n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-16T16:29:05.086Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The English ‘Perfect’ reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Gero Bauer
Affiliation:
Department of English, University of Vienna

Extract

In an article in this Journal (Specification and English tenses) Crystal has pointed out the hitherto neglected role that adverbial determiners may play in giving unambiguous indication of time where the verbal tense-form itself is not specific enough: ‘It is [in such cases] not a question of tense-form alone giving the relevant distinguishing indication of time, as has been traditionally assumed, but of tense-form with or without adverbial specification which gives unambiguous indication’ (Crystal, 1966: 5). Adverbials may thus become ‘non-omissible determiners’ (a term borrowed by Crystal from Ivić, 1962).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bodelsen, C. A. (1964). Essays and Papers presented on his seventieth birthday. Copenhagen: The Nature Method Centre.Google Scholar
Bryan, W. F. (1936). The preterite and the perfect tense in present-day English. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 35. 363382.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. (1966). Specification and English tenses. JL 2. 134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dietrich, G. (1955). Erweiterte Form, Präteritum und Perfektum im Englischen. Eine Aspekt- und Tempusstudie. Munich: Hueber.Google Scholar
Garey, H. B. (1957). Verbal aspect in French. Lg. 33. 91110.Google Scholar
Hockett, C. F. (1958). A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivić, M. (1962). The grammatical category of non-omissible determiners. Lingua 2. 199204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, O. (repr. 1954). A Modern English Grammar on historical principles. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Joos, M. (1964). The English Verb. Form and Meanings. Madison & Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Koziol, H. (1958). Zum Gebrauch des Present Perfect und des Past Tense. Die Neueren Sprachen 7. 497506.Google Scholar
Kruisinga, E. (1931). A Handbook of Present-day English. Part II: English Accidence and Syntax. 3 vols, 5th edn.Groningen: Noordhoff.Google Scholar
Kuryłowicz, J. (1964). The Inflectional Categories of Indo-European. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Martinet, A. (1958). La notion de neutralisation dans la morphologie et le lexique.Travaux. de l'institut de linguistique, vol. 2, Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Nickel, G. (1965). Sprachlicher Kontext und Wortbedeutung im Englischen. Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 46. 8496.Google Scholar
Nickel, G. (1966). Die Expanded Form im Altenglischen. Vorkommen, Funktion und Herkunft der Umschreibung beon/wesan+Partizip Präsens. Kieler Beiträge zur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 3. Neumünster: Wachholtz.Google Scholar
Ota, A. (1963). Tense and Aspect of Present-day American English. Tokyo: Kenkyusha.Google Scholar
Palmer, F. R. (1965). A Linguistic Study of the English Verb. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Schopf, A. (1969). Die sogenannten Verben ohne Verlaufsform im Englischen. Linguistische Berichte 4. 2842.Google Scholar
Sørensen, H. S. (1964). On the Semantic Unity of the Perfect Tense. English Studies presented to R. W. Zandvoort on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.Google Scholar
Strang, B. H. M. (1968). Modern English Structure. 2nd edn.London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Twaddell, W. F. (1960). The English Verb Auxiliaries. Providence, R. L: Brown UP.Google Scholar
Vachek, J. (1964). The Linguistic School of Prague. An Introduction to its Theory and Practice. Bloomington and London: Indiana UP.Google Scholar
Zandvoort, R. W. (1932). On the perfect of experience. English Studies 14. 1120, 7679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zandvoort, R. W. (1966). A Handbook of English Grammar. 4th edn.London: Longmans.Google Scholar