The Use of the Past Static after the Beforepresent Staticin the Same or Different Sentences

The Past Static is frequently used after a verb in the Beforepresent tense in different sentences, in co-ordinate clauses of compound sen­tences, in complex sentences with an attributive, object, time, reason or manner clause.

In Different Sentences: 1. "You have worked hard," Tom said.— "Yes, I have worked hard," Frederick affirmed. "It was worth it" (J. Lon­don); 2. "I have worried about you, Matt I I didn't know where you had gone" (A. Cronin); 3. "Forget what I've said. I didn't mean most of it" (H. Walpole); 4. "But tell me what has actually brought you back?" — "Nessie! My sister Nessie!" she said slowly. "Things have been dreadful at home and she has suffered. She needed me — so I came home" (A. Cro­nin); 5. "The truth is I have been so absorbed in my work that I've thought of nothing else. I took it too much for granted that you were happy because I was happy" (H. Walpole); 6. "I don't understand. I've lain awake for two nights turning it all over in my mind. I thought I should go mad" (W. S. Maugham).

In Co-ordinate Clauses: 1. "I haven't seen her for years — I was too busy" (M. Wilson); 2. "Ever since our days on the farm I've wanted to tell you but I could not" (G. Gordon); 3. "I've only seen him for a few minutes; he looked quite nice, I thought" (J. Galsworthy); 4. "And how often I've heard you say 'God bless you'—"AndI meant it!" (S. Lew­is); 5. "I've just been and looked at myself in the glass, and I wanted ever so much to kiss that beautiful woman" (J. Lindsay).

In Sentences with an Attributive Clause: 1. "No, I've never done anything that wasn't necessary to keep the wheels of progress moving" (S. Lewis); 2. "I've done everything I could" (Th. Wolfe); 3. "My father has beaten me every time I mentioned painting" (I. Stone); 4. I, too, have had a dream. It has consoled me through the weary hours when I practised scales for eight hours a day (B. Shaw); 5. "I have never known anyone whom I wished so much to serve" (A. Cronin).

In Sentences with an Object Clause: 1. It's not your fault, dear, you've done what you could (A. Sutro); 2. "I have worked hard. I have done what came to my hand" (J. London); 3. "Look here, old George: I've never for one moment believed you meant it when you've defended Doane and the strikers and so on, at the Club" (S. Lewis); 4. I know what your ambitions are. I have always felt that I did, in part" (Th. Drei­ser); 5. "How long have you known you had this power?" (F. Norris).

In Sentences withan Adverbial Clause of Time: 1. "Why!" said Ara­bella, affecting dismay. "You've promised to marry me several times as we sat here tonight. These gentlemen have heard you" (Th. Hardy); 2. "I tell you, I've sat and looked into that dog's eyes till the shivers ran up and down my spine" (J. London); 3. "I have sat and thought upon it till my head went round" (J. London); 4. "Just once or twice I've thought when I was stoned to hell I might like to sample it for experi­ence" (F. Pohl); 5. "While you and I have been alive, people built all this" (D. Carter).

In Sentences with a Clause of Reason or Manner: 1. "The blame is entirely mine, and she has treated me kindly because she was sorry for me" (J. Galsworthy); 2. "We have never quarreled about these things, because I didn't think it was important to quarrel about them" (Th. Drei­ser); 3. "I have heard actors speak it so that it was indistinguishable from prose" (W. S. Maugham); 4. "I've hinted at this before, but I've been as charitable and long-suffering as I could be" (S. Lewis).

PARALLEL USES OF THE PAST AND THE BEFOREPAST STATIC

The Past Static is frequently used to refer to processes which are objectively anterior to the past.

It was ... since. The Past Static in this pattern is about three times more frequent than the Beforepast Static (Cf.: I caught sight of her at the play. It was long since I had last seen her — W. S. Maugham // // Michelangelo gazed with pleasure at the shabby features. It had been a year since they had seen each other — I. Stone). Examples:

1. She glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes since the train had gone (D. Cusack); 2. It was weeks since they had eaten a proper meal (A. Coppard); 3. It was some days since they had met (M. Mitchell);

4. It was not a week since he had received a letter from his
mother (G. Gordon).

In Sentences with No Adverbial Indicators of Anteriority. Anterio­rity of a process to another process in the past is commonly denoted by a beforepast tense. If, however, the meaning of anteriority is point­ed out by an adverbial modifier or is evident from other contextual signals, the use of the tense — a beforepast versus a past tense — is optional. Some examples illustrating the use of the Past Static to refer to objectively beforepast processes in utterances having no special adverbial modifiers of time are given below:

1. "Go into my sitting-room and sit down. I'll put on my stockings and some shoes." — He did as she bade and in five minutes she joined him (W. S. Maugham); 2. Though his room was beyond mine I saw him return the way he came (J. Conrad); 3. "The war did something to Larry. He didn't come back the same person he went" (W. S. Maugham); 4. So­phia, who was eleven, had not stirred to meet her. She alone inherited her father's fine straight profile, and large black eyes (Miss Yonge); 5. We drove out tosee the Turtles. Amicia rang me and I suggested it
(J. Lindsay); 6. It was not what it used to be[51] (J. Galsworthy).

In Narrations after Beforepast Tenses. It sometimes happens that the speaker, when narrating about the past, has to refer to processes which objectively belong to a beforepast period of time. In such cases it is common to use only one or several beforepast tenses to switch the time relation over from past to beforepast. Other processes of the beforepast period of time are usually denoted by verbs in past tenses, for example:

The story she related was as follows: Her husband and child had

left the hotel about 10 : 30 in the morning for a trip to Mount Vernon. She had remained in her room because of a headache. Half an hour later, feeling somewhat better, she dressed and went out, intending to get some fresh air. ... (A. Maltz); His history was curious. He had been born in Bavaria, and when a youth of twenty-two taken an active part in the revolutionary movement of 1848. Heavily compromized, he man­aged to make his escape, and at first found a refuge with a poor repub­lican watchmaker in Trieste. ... (J. Conrad).

Two factors account for the use of the Past Static in such cases. In the first place, the speaker, when narrating, associates the verbal processes with certain circumstances in the beforepast: the beforepast, therefore, becomes his m e n t a1 past. In the second place, the Past Static, which in such cases conveys the information intended equally well, is structurally simpler.

In Sentenceswith an As-, When-,or While-clause: 1. I spun the wheel hard to port. The giant wave carried with it not only the elemen­tal force of the sudden gale, but also the pounce of the submarine erup­tions. No one had seen it towering up astern as we raced towards the Thumb (G. Jenkins); 2. There should not be this sense of uncertainty, he thought vaguely. But it had been with him since they struck the Australian coast. Had grown day after day as he watched the shoreline in the north (D. Cusack); 3. "We'll stop, baby. I am tired from think­ing so much." — He had looked tired when he came in (E. Hemingway); 4. There was a bend in the road there, and the other two cars were no­where to be seen. Christian was sure they had stopped when they heard the shots (I. Shaw); 5. She had wakened at his company, much refreshed by her sleep, and, in full possession of her very sharp wits, had studied him with interest while he cooked, and had arrived at some conclusion (M. Mitchell); 6. Everybody was rejoiced to see him return, for while he was away every man had been afraid not Only of him being killed, but also of what would come after (J. Conrad).

In Sentences with Co-ordinateor Other Clauses: 1. This was new reason­ing for Hurstwood. In the old days the world had seemed to be getting along well enough. He had been wont to see similar things in the 'Daily News', in Chicago, but they did not hold his attention (Th. Dreiser); 2. All that night she'd lain in a kind of ecstasy, her body seemed to go rigid, stiff as a board (A. Cronin); 3. And Rosamond did not guess what had passed during those moments that he remained silent (Ch. Dickens).

In Sentences with From the First, Since, to This Day, Up to Then: 1. They ran together temperamentally from the first (Th. Dreiser); 2. He came from a poor farming family in some English village. From the very beginning he wanted to write (Sh. Anderson); 3. At this time, Presley knew him to be thirty-six years of age. But since the first day the two had met, the shepherd's face remained the same (F. Norris); 4. His home was too far out west for anyone to come to meet him. Besides, since Bod died, Mum didn't seem to have the farm at Nelangaloo (D. Cu­sack); 5. And to this day Felix remembered with delight the little bub­bling hiss that he himself had started (J. Galsworthy); 6. Dinner was over at 8 : 30 and all was normal up to then (A. C. Doyle).

In Sentences with Adverbial Modifiers of Exact Time: 1. Leaders of the Trades Council headed the impressive demonstration to the station. Half an hour earlier, about two-hundred demonstrators left in coaches and by private transport (D. Worker); 2. It was almost two months before Alice came out of hospital. The day before I had a phone call from Brown at the Town Hall (J. Braine); 3. "He said he saw us with Eddie Harris at Martin's last night" (Th. Dreiser) 4. "Mr. Hundt told me that Graham spoke to her husband about it the other day" (G. Gordon).

THE PAST STATIC AND DEFINITENESS OF VERBAL PROCESSES IN TIME

In about 87% of its uses the Past Static is combined with no indi­cators of time whatever, as in the following two sentences which open one of H. G. Wells' stories:

The lieutenant stood in front of the steel sphere and gnawed a piece of pine splinter. "What do you think of it, Steve?" he asked (H. G. Wells).

The use of time indicators with the Past Static is, however, quite common, as in:

One winter day a young porcupine lay on a branch of a big spruce tree (W. S. Gray).

The time of a verbal process denoted by a verb in the Past Static can be known to both speaker and listener (a), to the speaker only (b), just to the listener (c), to neither (d), for example:

(a)1. "I don't know." —"But you lived in Cape Town." — "I still don't know, mother" (P. Abrahams); 2. "I suppose you might as well meet my daughter. Come along, Sheila. This is Sheila." — "We met, remember?" (A. Kingsley); 3. "Daddy!" I called. "Your gloves are gone!"— "Huh? Did that bastard take them?" — "He must have. They're not there" (J. Updike) (Peter and his father had given a man a lift in their car. They had dropped him at the bridge);

(b)"Have you got a radio?" Lee asked.—"Yes, sir." — "Where'd you get it?"—"I bought it" (E. Caldwell); 2. "That reminds me," said Alexander, chattily, "of a story I heard" (P. Wodehouse); 3. "That phone call wasn't from my mother. It was from a girl I used to know" (A. King­sley); 4. "I know, I worked in a hospital once" (A. Maltz);

(c)1. "He had a scar on his left hand. "How did you come by that?" (D. H. Lawrence); 2. "Oh, that's a fine thought, and cleverly expressed. You made it up?" — "Well, not exactly" (S. Lewis); 3. "You're scared, aren't you?" the constable said. "What scared you?" (G. Greene); 4. There were many pages. "Golly!" said Jeremy. "Did you write all this?" (H. Walpole);

(d)1. "The Press boys are after us; everything from the 'Dalton Echo' to the national dailies. God knows how it leaked out" (H. Smith); 2. Everybody listened. Distantly a siren wailed. "Somebody phoned for an ambulance" (R. Bradbury); 3. Judy followed the footprints to the huge oak tree by the fence. "The animal went up this tree," she said, pointing to tracks on the snowy tree trunk. "I guess a squirrel made these tracks." — "Right!" said George (W. S. Gray).

In accordance with its temporal meaning, tjie Past Static is used when the speaker associates verbal processes with particular circum­stances in the past, when he reproduces the past itself. Temporal asso­ciations may be, and often are, among such circumstances, but they may also have been obliterated in the speaker's memory.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 816