Grammar question that needs answering (1 Viewer)

[Tyler Beridge]

I need help in understanding the following grammatical terms:

a) imperfect
b) future
c) perfect
d) pluperfect
e) future perfect
f) indictative mood
g) subjective mood
h) imperative mood
i) gerund
j) supine
k) inflection
l) declension

An example on what each of these terms mean is appreciated.

 

[Dheiner]

Try here:
Grammar

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Tyler Beridge wrote (post #1):

a) imperfect ((past) action/state not bounded by time) "Sylvie was having the time of her life all summer." Or "Lisa used to bathe in the nude in Crystal Lake." (I wonder why she doesn't any more?) As opposed to "John killed his girlfriend.", an action which is over and done with. (The Greeks called this the aorist aspect.)
b) future (action/state to come) "I shall return!" Speakers are as likely as not to say "I'm going to come back." as use the "real" future tense these days.
c) perfect (action/state extending from the past and still in effect for the present) "Has little Bobby done his homework yet?"
d) pluperfect (action/state extending from the farther past but still in effect for a more immediate past tense) "Joe said he knew he had made a boo-boo when he saw the first part of the picture." [not used in colloquial English]
e) future perfect (action/state indicating completion of action at or posterior to the time of a future event) "When daddy comes home, I will (shall) have cleaned up my room. (Or else!)" [definitely not used in colloquial English; or in writing much either!]
Note: d) and e) involve sequences of tenses, which modern English doesn't do very well. (Which is to say nobody talks like that.)
f) indic[t]ative mood (speaker imparts (or seeks) information) "I eat too much, therefore I'm fat." (or progressive aspect "I'm eating so fast, I'm getting indigestion.") "Where do we go from here?"
g) subj[un]ctive mood (speaker gives indirect commands to third parties) "The club's only requirement is that each member take the time to fill out the forms correctly." "Somebody say something!" (Nowadays this has the force of an imperative, though, in origin, it's not.)
This survives mostly in frozen expressions in modern English: "So be it!" , "Long live the king/queen!" , "Far be it from me . . ." , "God damn it!", "So help me (God)", "Heaven forbid!", "(God) bless you." (and, though some will dispute it, I believe: " Fuck you" is parallel to that. (Guess who the subject of that one would be!)) Notice any trend???
h) imperative mood (direct command to another person(s)) "Go away!"
i) gerund [-ing derivation of a verb used as a noun or verb complement] "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." "Breaking up is hard to do.", etc.
j) supine (not relevant for modern English; I think with respect to English this refers to the to-infinitive phrase used purposively: "He got up (in order) to go to the bathroom.", but I'm not sure.)
k) inflection involves changing---usually with an affix (pre-, in-, or postfix)---a noun or pronoun or (in some languages) adjective, depending on how it used in the clause (otherwise known as its "case"). As they used to teach it in schools (slavishly to Latin, where the concept is more appropriate):

man the subjective case (subject of verb) "The man who gave me the ice cream is wearing a trench coat, mommy. Why?"
man's the possessive case "The ice cream man's trench coat flew open in the wind, and that's not all that was flappin'."
to/for the man "dative" case (indirect object of verb or indirect beneficiary of the action): "Mommy gave the ice cream man in the trenchcoat a dirty look."
man the objective case (direct object of verb) : "I like the man who gave me the ice cream."
[Repeat for the plural men and men's]. The plural "ending" spelled , but actually pronounced [s], [z], or [Iz], depending on what it is added to (respective examples are: goats, moods, and wishes) is also an "inflexion". (Some nouns "inflect" by changing internally: man : men or have anomolous endings, e.g., child : children.)

Note that pronouns preserve old "cases" better in English than any noun: e.g., he (subjective), him (objective), his (possessive), and (to/for) him ("dative").

l) declension involves changing---usually with an affix (pre-, in-, or postfix)--- a "verb" to show such features as number and/or person of subject, tense or aspect of event or state, and the like.

Technically the tense formations in English (and all other Germanic languages, for that matter) aren't "declension", but the markers: root vowel change---some verbs "decline" by changing internally: sink : sank : sunk; or have anomolous tense formations, e.g., bring : brought : brought---or addition of -(e)d (e.g., leaped) or -t (e.g., leapt) are tense markers not directly affecting person or number. In fact, English has only one verbal inflexion left (and that is dying): the third-person singular morpheme (meaning unit), spelled , but actually pronounced [s], [z], or [Iz], depending on what it is added to (respective examples are: eats, goes, and flushes). It used to have others, of course: e.g., shalt, maketh, (thou) dost.

Why the query? No English textbook?

 

[Eric_L]

a) imperfect - me, right now
b) future - any time later than right now
c) perfect - my wife (according to her)
d) pluperfect - a person with a perfect hairlip
e) future perfect - my daughter
f) indictative mood - when I'm horney
g) subjective mood - when my wife is horney
h) imperative mood - when my wife is NOT horney
i) gerund - a small furry animal
j) supine - a variation of evergreen tree
k) inflection - when cousins with southern accents marry
l) declension - right after sex, that brief period when I am not horney.

 

[Yee-Ming]

The moment I read the first post and before scrolling any further, my first thought was "where's Rex, he'll know this". Glad to see I was absolutely right...

 

[Tyler Beridge]

Rex, the reason I ask this question had to do with the fact that, for me, it is very difficult to grasp terms which I am not familar with. I never heard of these grammatical terms until I took Spanish in college a few years back. My English teachers for some reason focused more on reading than understanding English grammar. This of course explains why I am almost ignorant about what is, say, an imperfect before taking Spanish.

I am glad that you replied, as I have a better understanding these terms than previously. These are not terms one will hear in everyday speech, but one is not surprised that most English speakers are quite ignorant of what they mean.

 

[andrew markworthy]

You're title question is wrong - shouldn't it be 'Grammar question what needs answering?'

Very nice work, Rex; I guess I'll have to find something else to occupy my lunchbreak now. :frowning:

 

[John Thomas]

catenative: a part of the verb phrase which is not among the auxiliaries, but it is followed by another verb which functions as the main verb in the verb phrase. Catenatives may have aspectual meanings, denoting the start, unfolding, or end of an action (e.g., stop running, get to like, continue to read), or modal meanings such as certainty and usuality (seem to like, appear to be, tend to occur). Finally, the catenative get may be a marker of the passive voice (get married, get paid), thus serving the same function as the grammatical auxiliary be. Unlike auxiliaries, catenatives require do-insertion (or the support of another finite operator) in negative and interrogative sentences.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

I forgot to point out with regard to the subjunctive that there is also a past subjunctive which is used chiefly for contrafactual ("irrealis") or hypothetical propositions.

(a) "If I were you, I'd be looking for a better job." [You're not looking.]
(b) "If (it were) not for Columbus, none of us would be here today." [We're here.]
(c) "Should you decide not to attend [ = if you decide not to attend], let us know."

Note that the subjunctive as a dead category is constantly being replaced by "something else". In colloquial English, most speakers (of American dialects, anyway) would probably say "If I was you, . . ." in (a) above. Since, in all verbs except the verb to be, the past subjunctive forms look exactly like the past indicative forms, by analogy speakers have come to substitute the past indicative was for subjunctive form were (which happens for historical reasons to look exactly like the plural indicative form) in most colloquial usage. Speakers barely any longer have a sense of there being a separate "subjunctive" category, since almost all the forms have been syncretized (made to look" (i.e., sound) just like each other) over the generations.

Past subjunctive in reported speech:

"Leila asked whether (if) I were coming to her party Saturday." (doubt) Even most "purists" avoid this. A person would follow up the narrative most likely with "I told her I didn't know if I was coming or not." rather than saying ". . . I didn't know if [= whether] I were coming or not." The latter should be "correct" to express the doubt, hypotheticality, and indirect speech the context presents, but, again, almost nobody even writes like this any more, much less talks that way.

Instead, avoidance techniques are used, mostly such as these:

(1) use of the indicative instead. One hears this in "jock speak" (sports-announcer jargon) all the time, e.g., "If Bennett reaches the 38-yard line, they make first down" (said after a play in football where Bennett has not rushed to the 38-yard line and his team has had to punt).
(2) The "would've"-construction. "If the state would've sent [= had sent] me my check, I could've paid the rent on time." This construction is gaining ground on the traditional past subjunctive (much to the chagrin of the purists, but they could take heart in realizing would is, in origin, just the past subjunctive of will, just as should is that of shall, and so on).

Much of this repeats what I already said herehttp://hometheaterforum.com/htforum/showthread.php?&postid=1202377#post1202377, although I had forgotten about it until today.

Tyler Beridge wrote (post #6):

There's little to wonder about here. The problem lies in the traditional way "English grammar" has been taught. It's not an accident that all the terms in your list are of Latin origin. In the West, grammar has been traditionally taught as if Latin were the "perfect language" and any language that departed from the Latin-French model is somehow "defective". (With respect to English in particular, this is the legacy of 1000 years of Norman rule or influence in Britain.) Categories (such as supine) that don't fit actual English grammar have been forced on young minds in formal educational settings for generations. Hence, you are made to feel inadequate if you somehow don't "get it".

I went on about this here and here. Read it, if you're interested.