Examples of Increasing Distance Between the End of the Verbal Process and the Process of Reference

1. When he rose they saw he had been sitting on a circular inflated rubber cushion (M. Mitchell); 2. "This morning he told me that he had been dreaming (that night) about the mountains of Nebraska" (W. S. Maugham); 3. The woman announced that during the week of July 3d to 10th she and her husband had been camping on the east shore of Big Bittern (Th. Dreiser) (It was now August); 4. This truly was the beau­tiful, the exquisite Sondra whom months before he had met at his un­cle's and concerning whose social activities during the preceding summer he had been reading in the papers (Th. Dreiser) (It was now November); 5. There was a knight from Hungary who had received wounds in a tour­nament seven years before. He had been fighting with Sir Alphagus (Th. White); 6. She told him about the pneumonia of Neville as a child; how they had been staying in Cornwall, miles from a doctor and without Mr. Hilary (R. Macaulay) (Neville now was a woman of forty-three); 7. The wind had been blowing millions of years before there were any boats at all (J. Cary).

Inclusive and Exclusive Processes (See pp. 44—45).

THE BEFOREPAST DYNAMIC AND CURRENT RELEVANCE

The Beforepast Dynamic is used independently of whether or not a process denoted by a verb in this tense has any current relevance at the time when the process of reference takes place.

Examples of Currently Relevant Processes: 1. Dorothy came in and, seeing her red, swollen eyes, talked for a little in her gentle way of trivial things. Kitty knew that Dorothy thought she had been crying on account of Walter (W. S. Maugham); 2. I'd just written that when he did come. I saw he had been drinking (J. Lindsay); 3. Everything (in the room she had just entered) was ruddy, shadowy, and indistinct to her, the more so since she had just been lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled (H. G. Wells); 4. We crossed the river and I saw that it was running high. It had been raining in the mountains (E. Heming­way); 5. One day he had been sent on an errand to a large coal company's office. It had been snowing and thawing and the streets were sloppy (Th. Dreiser); 6. He needed information. Perhaps somebody inside the camp was in telephone communication with a functioning headquarters, or had been listening to the radio (I. Shaw); 7. It was presently clear to every one that Mary had been seeing a play called "Wings of Europe" and reading a posthumous work by D. H. Lawrence called "Apocalypse" (H. Walpole); 8. Caldwell disarmed his impudence by agreeing. He had been teaching long enough to keep a step or two ahead of them (J. Up­dike); 9. "I just wanted to have a word with you two," Bevill had said. He had been thinking things out (C. P. Snow).

Examples of Currently Irrelevant Processes: I. Roger recognized her as the Mrs. Maybrick who had been dancing with David Stratton (A. Berk­ley); 2. The dean's wife finished darning the towels and went up to say good-night to her parents... Her lips had been moving, her eyebrows working, as she darned the towels (S. Lewis); 3. He explored his limbs, and discovered that several of his buttons were gone and his coat turned over his head. ...He remembered that he had been looking for loose stones to raise his piece of shelter wall (H. G. Wells); 4. Suddenly he leaped to his feet; at once she put into his hand a revolver, his own revolver, which had been hanging on a rail, but loaded this time (J. Con­rad); 5. Leonard looked at his watch. "Time to go back, I'm afraid." ...She turned back reluctantly. While they had been sitting there on the seat above the road she had felt part of life again. Going back was like admitting that what Leonard said was true (D. Cusack); 6. The sidelights turned bright. I fled from my seat. I brushed my shoulders wildly and on the cold street was startled by the real faces, which seem­ed meagre and phantasmal after the great glowing planetary faces I had been watching on the screen (J. Updike); 7. And then I saw that his coat was also mine. But not the one I had been wearing in Le Mans (D. du Maurier); 8. "Wait a bit" — here he picked up a spade that was lying where a gardener had been working (S. Leacock); 9. All was well, after all; he had been worrying unnecessarily (M. Mitchell).

SIMULTANEOUS VERBAL PROCESSES

1. The fury of which she had been incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scolding my cheek (Ch. Bronte); 2. He spoke in a sharp, dry voice. After a few moments she realized she had been noticing how he looked, rather than listening to what he said (A. Saxton); 3. The car was spluttering and heaving — it had been spluttering for a minute, I think, before I noticed it, for I had been examining Pyle's innocent question: "Are you playing straight?" (G. Greene); 4. He stuck his sword in the ground, as if it was a pitchfork, and stood patiently. He had, indeed, only been working with a quiet patience of a farm hand. He had not been trying to hurt his opponent (Th. White); 5. On the corner, two cops who had been dancing and clapping their hands against the cold, now waited hostilely with arms folded (A. Saxton); 6. And it seemed to Clyde, who had been ob­serving and listening to all this with awe, that this younger man might be the one to aid him (Th. Dreiser); 7. Joseph had for a long while been sitting there and thinking, and had been stroking the ears of the dog (E. James); 8. Michael's right hand was numb. One of the bullets had struck the bolt of the rifle Michael had been carrying (I. Shaw).

SEQUENT VERBAL PROCESSES

1. It seems they had come in the carriage and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the rooms upstairs (Ch. Bronte); 2. Eliza, who had come softly upstairs to put out the lights and had been standing

for a moment outside, rapped gently and entered (Th. Wolfe); 3. Two hours later my uncle presented himself in the King's chamber. He had been undressing the knight and putting him to bed (Th. White); 4. "You weren't really sore with that man at all: you were just doing your stuff... "Throughout this Roger had been producing his pigskin case and taking a cigar from it (A. Kingsley); 5. Already Clyde had maneuvered the canoe around so that they were among the water lilies and he had been reaching over and pulling them up, tossing them at her feet (Th. Dreiser); 6. The Tuscan treats stone with the tenderness that a lover reserves for his sweetheart. From the time of their Etruscan ancestors the people of Florence had been quarrying stone from the mountains, hauling it by oxen to their land, cutting, edging, shaping and building it into homes and places, churches and loggias, forts and walls (I. Stone).

ADVERBIALS OF TIME COMBINED WITH THE BEFOREPAST DYNAMIC

The Beforepast Dynamic combines with adverbials of time in 44.8% of its uses, of which 6.8% are temporal clauses or their equiva­lents.

The frequency list of adverbs and adverbial phrases of time (% of the total number of instances modified by an adverb or adverbial phrase):

for a long time, etc. (41.5); all this time, etc. (13.2); since three o'clock, etc. (6.6); during the last hour, etc. (5.8); daily, every week, etc. (4.2); a moment before, etc. (3.9); just (2.3); until recently, up to that moment, etc. (2.3); of late, lately (1.9); that day, etc. (1.7); half an hour ago, etc. (1.4); meanwhile, etc. (1.4); already (1.3); throughout, etc. (1.3); from the moment of etc. (1.2); continuously, etc. (1.0); last week, etc. (1.0); previously, etc. (1.0); recently (1.0); always (0.9); again (0.7); in the morning, etc. (0.7); at the time, etc. (0:7); then (0.6); before (0.4); before that, etc. (0.4); in 1937, etc. (0.4); this morning, etc. (0.4); after his words, etc. (0.3); in the past, once (0.3, each); at last, at night, at one time, earlier, on that evening, hitherto, once more, one afternoon, on Sunday, originally, in his sleep, in the term, so far, still, tonight (0.1, each).

It will be noticed that the Beforepast Dynamic, firstly, does not combine with ever and never (never before, never in my life, etc.) which are frequent with the Beforepresent Static and, secondly, is common with adverbial modifiers of past time.

Adverbs and Adverbial Phrases of Past Time. Only such adverbial phrases as a moment before (3.9%), half an hour ago (1.4%), last week (1.0%), in 1937 (0.4%) make 6.7% of the total use of the tense with adverbs and adverbial phrases of time, which places them in the frequency list immediately after the two most common adverbials — for a long time, etc. and all this time, etc. Examples:

A Moment Before, etc.: 1. In the big room there was a lot of dust dancing in the sunbeams, dust which they had themselves been stirring up a moment before (Th. White); 2. Dave went in the mess hall for a cup of tea. The bos and one of the Navy gunners still worked over the

same game of chess they had been playing four hours before (A. Saxton); 3. There came a night when he confessed to Carrie that the business was not doing as well this month as it had the month before (Th. Dreiser).

Half an Hour Ago, etc.: 1. All this struck Jenny as odd. Why was Anna behaving and talking like this when not half an hour ago she had been giving a fairly unflattering opinion of Patrick? (A. Kingsley); 2. She was leaning out of an open window, just as he had been leaning out of the room below two minutes ago (A. Berkley); 3. The fish was four feet long and God knows how heavy, and he was peering out of his hole as he had been the last time — a week ago (J. Aldridge).

Last Week, etc. In 1937, etc.: 1. He knew that, because he had taken up a letter she'd been writing last week and gone on reading (J. Lindsay); 2. "Good morning, Grace. Has anything happened here?" — "Only mas­ter had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his candle lit, and the curtain got on fire" (Ch. Bronte); 3. They also knew that you had an affair with an American girl who had been living in Vienna in 1937 (I. Shaw); 4. She told him a lot about herself. She had been teaching in an elementary school in 1940; but the school was bombed out... (J. Lindsay).

Examples of the Beforepast Dynamic combined with other adverbs and adverbial phrases of time:

For a Long Time, etc.: see Examples 3—9 on page 184.

All This Time, etc. Since Three O'clock, etc.: 1. She found then that it was not of herself that, all this time, she had been thinking, but rather of Brandon (H. Walpole); 2. "Well, I had decided to play as fair as I could. I had been thinking about it all night" (Th. Dreiser); 3. The landing barges had been rolling a mile off the beach since three o'clock in the morning. It was 7.30 now (I. Shaw); 4. There was the little carriage which had been waiting ever since sunset, and there was Anne (C. Forester).

During the Last Hour, etc. Daily. Every Week, etc.: 1. When he was half-way home the storm that had been slowly, during the last hour and a half, climbing up above the town, broke (H. Walpole); 2. He told me that he had been living in Switzerland during the war (E. Wal­lace); 3. Her mother had been writing or phoning almost daily to a dozen people (J. Galsworthy); 4. The whole thing was appalling. His sister had been writing to him every week, but she hadn't told him they were as badly off as this (A. Maltz).

Just. Until Recently. Up to that Moment, etc.: 1. She opened her eyes. "Mortimor, darling!" she said. Mortimor had just been going to say something else, but he checked himself (P. Wodehouse); 2. He then motioned to the two empty teacups that Anthony and Steve had just been using (G. Gordon); 3. Still handsome, he looked shabby. Until re­cently hehad been associating with gamblers and other persons of question­able reputation (Th. Dreiser); 4. "You are ill?" the landlord asked. Up to that moment he had been talking about football to a knot of his cronies. Now he turned his attention to me (J. Braine).

Of Late. Lately. That Day, etc.: 1. "Cowperwood's here," he said to Owen, who had been rapidly coming into a sound financial under-

standing of late (Th. Dreiser); 2. He was weary. Like most of the men he had lately been doing overtime (D. Carter); 3. I could see John stand­ing at the barnyard gate watching me. I'd been plowing that day and I was dog-tired (E. Caldwell); 4. That afternoon someone walked quietly into the bedroom and took her dress she had been wearing that morning (D. Lessing).

Meanwhile, etc. Already. Throughout, etc.: 1. "I don't know where mamma is," answered Minna. "We got separated, and I never have been able to find her again." Meanwhile, Presley had been taking in with a quick eye the details of Minna's silk dress (F. Norris); 2. In the mean­time the social affairs of Aileen had been prospering in a small way (Th. Dreiser); 3. He replied that hehad already been thinking of that (Th. Dreis­er); 4. Throughout the dinner Eddie had been complaining about his wife's new frock (S. Lewis); 5. He incidentally mentioned that he had been writing through the night (G. Meredith).

From the Moment of ... . Continuously, etc. Previously, etc.: 1. He was astonished. From the moment of the rising of the monsters out of the water, hehad been acting too swiftly to fully comprehend his actions (H. G. Wells); 2. They had been meeting now continuously during the last week (H. Walpole); 3. And Sondra, who sat next to him and who previously had been whispering at intervals of her plans for the summer, now whispered: "What's come over the sweet thing?" (Th. Dreiser); 4. Then suddenly he came down with a kind of fever. Short of money, he had in the previous weeks been going rather short of food (E. James).

Recently. Always. In the Morning, etc.: 1. He knew very little else. He could not have been expected to know what had been happening re­cently in Hollywood (A. Kjngsley); 2. He ilked Cowperwood and had always been hoping that mentally as well as financially he could get close to him (Th. Dreiser); 3. "I worked all afternoon. Got the pictures up first —they'd been trying to put them up by themselves in the morn­ing" (S. Leacock).

Again. At the Time. Then: 1. Anthony came to her, dragging his feet. He had been crying again and his eyes were red (G. Gordon); 2. (Some time before Patrick had refused Sheila to go out with her) He had not been consciously thinking of Jenny at the time, but of course that was where a good part of his motive must have lain (A. Kjngsley); 3. He looked at Christian, and later, remembering the moment, Christian believed that he had been smiling then (I. Shaw).

Before. Before That. This Morning: 1. I laughed and we were silent for a moment. Then she went back to what we had been talking before (W. S. Maugham); 2. Her dejected spirit was grappling with another care. She had not received a letter from her for six weeks, and, before that, his communication to her had been growing increasingly brief (A. Cronin); 3. When he analysed it still further he saw that in every case it had been Savina. Only this morning he had been wondering what would have happened if he had married Mary (M. Wilson).

After His Words. In the Past. Once: 1. "Is she gone?" said Mr. Kendal, who had been musing after his last words (Miss Yonge); 2. It answered in a rough way that riddle which had been annoying him so much in the

past: "How is life organized?" (Th. Dreiser); 3. He spoke disparagingly of his novels. He had once been pruning a tree when an idea for a story suddenly entered his head (R. Graves).

At Last. At Night. Earlier in the Evening: 1. At last, through Greaves and Henshaw, they had been seeking to find a financier who would take his Charing Cross line (Th. Dreiser); 2. "I asked him to explain himself, and he said that you had been taking me regularly at night to your flat" (G. Gordon); 3. It was the city I and the people of my story had been trying to find earlier on that same evening (Sh. Anderson).

Hitherto. One Afternoon. On Saturday: 1. The chain of thoughts that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links, was drawn straight (Ch. Bronte); 2. One winter afternoon she had been buying something in a little antique shop (K. Mansfield); 3. It had just happened that Elmer had been calling the "Times" on Saturday (S. Lewis).

Originally. In His Sleep. In the Term: 1. One of these destroyers was "The Aaron Ward", which originally had been escorting Lst-449 (R. Tregaskis); 2. Martin sat up and began eating, between mouthfuls reassuring Maria hehad not been talking in his sleep (J. London); 3. Tony grew fretful, for after all he had been working in the term and now he felt entitled to play (D. Lessing).

So Far. Still. Tonight: 1. As Erik listened, he wanted to fight back against Regan with all the savagery he had been so far expending against himself (M. Wilson); 2. The fire-place had survived the bomb untouch­ed; the two loose bricks on its left-hand side had still been projecting like buck teeth (J. Braine); 3. Tonight he had been walking about in town and had hardly anything to eat, so he went into the chip-shop (J. Lindsay).

Time-Clause Modifiers (6.8%). In most cases (73.6%) the modify­ing time-clause contains a verb in the Past Static. The other tenses are: The Beforepast Static (21.7%), the Past Dynamic (3.1%), the Beforepast Dynamic (1.6%).

Time-Clause Modifiers with the Past Static: when-clause (45.3%); as-clause (15.8%); since-clause (14.8%); before-clause (11.6%); as-long-as clause, while-clause (4.2%, each); from the moment that + a clause (2.1%); until-clause, all-the-time clause (1.0%, each).

A When-Clause. The Past Static of verbs in the when-clause refers processes to either the speaker's mental past or a period of time anterior to it (67.5% and 35.5%, respectively: Examples a and b):

(a)1. They had been rehearsing for a fortninght when Roger arrived from Austria (W. S. Maugham); 2. Then he got up and wandered off taking the easiest way. He had been walking like this for about an hour when he came upon the most beautiful thing he had seen in his short life so far (Th. White); 3. They had been working on their design for two weeks when Erik received a thick letter from Mary Carter (M.Wil­son);

(b)1. Margaret listened to her ski boots crunching in the packed snow. She smikal at the pure twilight. It had been raining in Vienna when she left (=had left) that morning (I. Shaw); 2. The door of Hen­ry's lunch-room opened and two men came in. They sat down at the

counter. From the other end of the counter Nick Adams watched them. He had been talking to George when they came (=had come) in (G. Ches­terton); 3. Then they went down the steep bank until they found where the lion had been trotting when Macomber first shot (=had shot) (E. Hem­ingway).

An As-Clause. A Since-Clause:1. Then with a sudden pull at Clyde's arm, as much as to say, "Silence!" he drew Clyde to one side, out of the hearing of the youth to whom he had been talking as Clyde came in, and added: "Ssh!.." (Th. Dreiser); 2. Then he pointed to the new plow by the gate. He had been telling us about it as we walked (=had walked) (M. Endicott); 3. "One morning I saw a notice: 'Auction Next Week!' Ha! I thought. Might be interesting! I'd been looking for a suit­able real estate investiment ever since I came (=had come) South" (A. Cronin); 4. Now it seemed that he had been resisting this proposi­tion ever since he met (=had met) Jill (J. Lindsay).

A Before-Clause. An As-Long-As Clause. A While-Clause: 1. And at 5:30 he hastened to the shop. He hadn't been standing on the corner a minute before Ratterer appeared (Th. Dreiser); 2. "Yes, sir. But you see just as I was going to talk to her at that time I got to thinking of all the things I had been thinking before I came (=had come) up" (Th. Drei­ser); 3. He didn't think about it. For as long as he could remember he had been getting up with the dawn and working late and eating and' sleeping (D. Carter); 4. The players began to come in. The last to move was Skinner, who had been standing like a statue while all these things went (=had gone) on (A. Kingsley).

From the Moment That + a Clause. An Until-CIause. All the Time + a Clause: 1. He smiled. He had been waiting for this opportu­nity from the moment Baumer told him (=had told him) about his broth­er-in-law (A. Maltz); 2. His art-collection, in which he took an immense pride, had been growing, until it was the basis if not the complete sub­stance for a very splendid memorial (Th. Dreiser); 3. All the time he thought (=had thought) he had been living to the deliberate measures of a minuet, he had been running downhill (M. Wilson).

Time-Clause Modifiers with the Beforepast Static: since-clause (57.6%); when-clause (34.6%); during ...+ a clause, till-clause, while-clause (3.9%, each). Examples:

1. He cared for Jean as much as any man could care for a girl. True enough, since they had become so friendly, old Hartley had been putting work his way. But what of that? (J. Braine); 2. At the same time, here was exactly the compromise of which he had been thinking ever since Berenice had arrived in Chicago (Th. Dreiser); 3. Three days before he had been smoking a second pipe over his account, when the maid had announced: "A gentleman to see you, sir" (J. Galsworthy); 4.1 dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. When I had first sallied from the door, the other mutineers had been already swarming up the palisade to make an end of us (R. Stevenson); 5. At this time Cowperwood was doing business in South Third Street. During the six months which had elapsed he had been quietly resuming financial relations with those who had known him before (Th. Dreiser); 6. He had been supping on

oysters and porter till Archie had found it expedient to set off (Miss Yonge).

Time-Clause Modifiers with the Past Dynamic: 1. Surely there was something familiar about this view. While they were driving (=hadbeen driving) he had not been taking notice — but now he saw! (J. Gals­worthy); 2. The taxi-driver, who had been fumbling energetically with gears while the inspector was departing (=had been departing), now desisted and looked sympathetically at the silent figure at the curb (M. Arlen); 3. A scene had been enacting in the hall, whilst I was rest­ing in Meredith's office (Ch. Dickens).

Time-Clause Modifiers with the Beforepast Dynamic: "I've already written to them, so there's nothing I can say. You wait until you hear more from them." All the time he had been talking he had been moving away from the door (Th. Dreiser); During all the time that Cowperwood had been arguing his case in this fashion he had been thinking how he could adjust this compromise (Th. Dreiser).

TYPES OF SENTENCES AND CLAUSES WITH THE BEFOREPAST DYNAMIC

50.7% of the instances of the Beforepast Dynamic are uses insubor­dinate clauses, simple sentences making only 21.8%. The frequency of different clauses, except subordinate: independent clauses (14.2%), principal clauses (10.5%), included clauses (2.7%), parenthetic claus­es (0.1%).

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 631