EIGHTEEN WEEKLY LESSONS FOR COMPETENT
 AND CREATIVE TEACHERS OPEN TO RECENT
INSIGHTS CONCERNING THE GRAMMAR OF
ENGLISH AND DESIROUS OF FINDING
OUT HOW TO COACH PUPILS TO
CONSTRUCT THE GRAMMAR
SYSTEM FROM ITS FOUR
BUILDING BLOCKS

© 2002, 2003, 2005 by Orchid Land Publications

C.-J. N. Bailey

[20020630, updated 20030808]

PART B

THIS PAGE IS CONSTANTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION 

L83A
STRUCTURAL LESSONS FORMS AND THEIR USAGE
 1. PREDICATION; FUNCTORS
 2. COMPLEMENTS
 4. MODIFICATION--ADJECTIVAL; 
     DETERMINERS; THE
     GENITIVAL POSTPOSITION
 5. MODIFICATION--ADVERBIAL
 6. MORE ON HYPHENS; WORD 
     ORDER; APPOSITION;
     VOCATIVES; IMPERATIVES; 
     EXCLAMATIONS 
 7. PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 
     FOREGROUNDING, STRANDING, 
     AND PIED-PIPING; POSTVERBS 
     AND PREVERBS
 9.
EMBEDDED CLAUSES I-- 
     ADVERBIAL SUBORDINATE 
     CLAUSES; ALSO 
     UNEMBEDDED  QUESTIONS
 3. PERSONAL & OTHER   
     PRONOUNS--SUBSTITUTES FOR 
     NOMINALS
 8. VERB MODALITIES  I--
     EXOCHRONOUS (TIMELESS) 
     AND POSTERIOR MODALITIES
10. COMPARISON FORMS OF 
     MODIFIERS

L83B

11. VERBIDS I--GERUNDS AND 
     PARTICIPLES; ABSOLUTE  
     CONSTRUCT
14. SUBORDINATE  CLAUSES--  
     EMBEDDED ADJECTIVAL 
     CLAUSES
15. VERBIDS II--INFINITIVE 
     CONSTRUCTS; CAUSATIVES 
     AND CONTRACAUSATIVES; 
    RAISING
16. SUBORDINATE  
     CLAUSES III--EMBEDDED   
     NOMINAL CLAUSES;   
    EXTRAPOSITION
18. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES; SURREALIS CLAUSES; WISH, WOULD PREFER, &c
12. VERB MODALITIES II--PASTS,  
     ANTERIORS, AND PRETERITIVE
     GOT 
13
. PASSIVES, CONTRAPONENTS 
     PRETERITIVE HAVE GOT
17. VERB MODALITIES IV--
     MODAL VERBS,  PURPOSE  
     CLAUSES, AND JUSSIVE
     AND HORTATORY USAGES

    

L83C

APPENDIX A:  VIRTUAL WORDS AND CLAUSES
APPENDIX B:  WHERE PIED-PIPING AND STRANDING PREVAIL 
APPENDIX C:  PROCESSUAL MODALITIES
APPENDIX D:  USING WORDS

  

PART TWO for more advanced learners, who learn to
construct and analyse increasingly complex structures 

11 VERBIDS II--GERUNDS AND PARTICIPLES

GERUNDS AND GERUND CONSTRUCTS

     A gerund is a nominal formed by adding -ing to a verb:

      moving ; being/getting moved 
having moved : having been/gotten moved 
going to move : going to be/get moved
having been going move : having been going to be/get moved 

     The form of a gerund construct:  If there is a subject of a gerund, it is genitival; cf. "Buying groceries is a weekly chore," their investigating the matter, my posting that letter, and "your notifying the editor."   When the subject of a gerund is a determiner, it is genitival if a noun or personal pronoun:  "The gardener's moving the lawn" "your undertaking this investigation."  With a different focus, a gerund may be followed by an agentive noun preceded by of or, if viewed as a passive, by by, with, or through.  When the object of gerund follows it, it has of before it when the verb is preceded by a determiner or genitival pronoun like their, my, your; e.g. a/the filtering of the harmful particle, that restoring of the monumentHowever,  with different focus, even the object of a gerund may be genitival; e.g. the lawn's moving.  Any subject of the foregoing is then preceded by by, with, through; e.g. the lawns' mowing by the gardener.   
     N
OTE that some apparent gerunds have become real nouns; e.g. forms that can be pluralized--like building, saying, posting, being, filing, and other former gerunds are real nouns and may have a plural ending.  Any form with a plural (e.g. beings) should be regarded as a true noun. 
     When
the gerund has a determiner, of stands between it and its object, if it has an object; e.g. "each carrying out of that command."   (This is often ignored when the determiner is a noun with the genitival postposition or words like my, your, etc.; cf.  's, as in "any re-ordering [of] the events in the schedule"; however, if the noun with 's has its own determiner, of is present, as in "This morning's re-ordering of the work schedule."   When the subject lacks a determiner, of is usually absent, as in "obtaining the necessary materials" and "wealth's being able to buy whatever it wants."  Note the difference between my late posting of that letter and my posting of that letter too late.  In the first of these examples the gerund is premodified by the adjective late, whereas in the second example, it is an adverb that modifies posting. 
When the nouniness of the gerund is foremost in the mind of a speaker or writer, it is modified by an attributive adjective; but when the verbiness of a gerund is present to the mind of the writer or speaker, it is modified by an adverb.  When a form ending in -ing is modified by a prepositional phrase, the latter is adjectival if the form is regarded as a noun; it is adverbial when the form is participialIn "getting ready on time," the prepositional phrase would be regarded as adjectival unless getting modifies a preceding noun, as in "two persons getting ready on time."  A nouny gerund can be followed by a relative clause (e.g. the hasty withdrawing of the funds that resulted from that failure of communication) or even an adverbial clauses (e.g. the hasty withdrawing of the funds after their announcement had been made)The immediate foregoing is much preferable to the immediately foregoing.  The last example is mixed--preceded by an adjective, modified with an adverbial clause.  It seems generally advisable to place of before the object of a gerund having a subject or other determiner other than a genitival personal pronoun; e.g. the filing of the materials at that time and an assembling of relevant materials that was carried out earlier in the day.

     The function of a gerund construct:  A single gerund or one accompanied by a subject and/or a direct or indirect object or modifier can serve as a subject, object, or predicate complement of a predicator as well as an appositive (that act--naming the perpetrator).  A model active gerund has a subject followed by 's and an object preceded by (objective of); cf. passivized "Jane's having been invited."  But a difference in focus can upset the pattern; in  The inviting of Stacey, Stacey can be the object (the default understanding) or the subject--which can be disambiguated by using by instead of of.  Similarly, Tracey's inviting (with no object) can be interpreted as Tracey's doing (the default interpretation) or, less likely, as someone's inviting Tracey.  The latter is sufficiently confusing for it to be rare and usually disambiguated as the inviting of Tracey.  When there is no of before its object, a gerund construct is best construed as the first kind of participial construct (see below for "They heard about Melanie running the race").  If the subject is a noun lacking 's or is not a genitival personal pronoun, the construct is best classified as participial--something it cannot be if an article or demonstrative or genitival subject precedes it (e.g. "about that student demonstrating your theory to the class" or its object is the object of of.  With verbs of perception, as in "They heard Melanie doing it," a construct with verb form ending in -ing is to be analysed, for obvious reasons, as a participial predication paralleling infinitival predications like "They heard Max enter."  (CLICK HERE concerning where to is virtual (deleted) with an infinitive.)   
     Note the difference between "They continued doing it that way for years" and "They continued to do it that way for years" and similar expressions with other main verbs.  While the difference is extremely subtle, the gerund complement simply states a fact here, whereas the irrealis infinitive connotes something to do with will or purpose--so that continued to do it may have overtones of persistence lacking in the parallel with a gerund.  We can say "They continued to do it against all odds" more easily than "They continued doing it against all odds," though both are possible.
     A third-person v
erb that can be inflected with -s has the -s when the subject is singular; e.g. "The sun comeS up at six this time of year."  When the subject is plural or when there are two or more subjects conjoined with "and," the verb lacks -s (e.g. "The teams meet tomorrow for the finals" and "The sun and moon give light to our days and nights, respectively."  When subjects are linked with (n)or, the verb "agrees' with the nearest; e.g. "The lady or her daughters expect to be present" and "Does the lady or her daughters intend to be there?"  Collective or (group) nouns are plural in Britain, at least when thought of as teams, but are generally singular in North America; e.g. "The Senate is meeting today" and "The American team is winning" would have are meeeting and are winning in Britain.  But contrast "
These United States" act as one when the entire country is attacked"--where the singular purposely contrasts with the singular unity.  
      A special situation is the
Q of N situation, where Q stands for quantifier.  We say "(One) lot of sugar was shipped yesterday, and (two) lots of apples will be sent tomorrow" when lot and lots are not quantifiers.  But when they are quantifiers meaning "a good deal," we say, "A lot of apples were sent yesterday and lots of sugar will be sent tomorrow."  The
PRINICPLE is that the verb agrees with N in the Q of N construct, not with Q.  
     A recent development is seen in the use of of in "too big of a project," "not very big of a project," "It's not all of that different," and "a little bit different of a make-up."  The connotation of such expressions with quantifying slight the importance of what is mentioned or obliquely to reject a suggestion.  

PARTICIPLES AND PARTICIPIAL CONSTRUCTS

     The two forms of a participle:    (i) durative and (ii) perfective.  The durative kind look like gerunds.  (Gerunds and attributive durative participles of three syllables having "r,", "l", "n," or "w" before -ing drop the middle vowel and become dissyllabic in a given tempo of speaking:  gath'ring, lab'ling, butt'ning, swall'wing.   The attributive participle in a gath'ring storm may be contrasted with the predicative participle in a storm gathering strength; cf. further a crying child with a child crying because of hunger.  (See Essays on time-based linguistic analysis, p. 163, for the difference orderings of "She saw a crying child" : "She saw a child crying" and of He had a broken arm" : "He had an arm broken.")
    
The principle use of the durative participle in its predicative form is to constitute PROGRESSIVE modalities like is reading, were sleeping, having been studying, going to be helping, etc.  That this is not a "continuous" modality, as some grammarians allege, is evident when it cannot be used in something as continuous as "Troy was standing 600 years" or even "Troy used to stand 600 years"--a least in the absence of a locative (e.g. there).
     The second kind of participle is termed perfective although the modality formed with have plus this kind of participle is not completive, as in "They have always done it that way (and will continue to do it that way), but is used for occurrences detailed in Lesson 12.  This kind of participle has many forms in English.  It regularly ends in -ed, but may end in -(e}n, -t, or nothing (with a vowel change, as in cost and shed or simply without a vowel change (e.g. swum and bound) or with both a vowel change and appended -en (e.g. broken, spoken, frozen).

     Note that many endingless forms have an underlying or virtual //t// added.  Some verbs ending in //t// and //d// are inflected by adding a final //t//.  The final //d// of and send changes to /t/ before the ending //t//, and the two ts combine as one--as they do in //cut+t //, //quit+t//, //shut+t//, and //put+t//.  Note that a heavy base vowel is lightened before two consonants (e.g. felt, meant, and heard), including /t+t/, which get simplified to one [t] after causing the base vowel to be lightened, as in bit, shot, slept, read, fed, led.   Note that shed as well as read, fed, and led end in //d+d//, which simplify to a single [d] after lightening the vowels of read, feed, and leadFled and told are exceptional in obvious ways.
     English has remnants of old strong verbs, which inflected pasts and participles by changing the nucleus rather than appending a suffix; cf. shrunk .....

     Some verbs differentiate attributive and predicative participles.  There are four classes of these:

allegëd : alleg(e)d, blessëd (poëtic blest) : bless(e)d
burnt : burned, bereft : bereaved
rotten : rotted; proven: proved
sunken : sunk, drunken : drunk;
and for some, hidden : hid

The attributive form (ending in -ëd, -t, -en) is used before a noun (e.g. a proven theory, a sunken ship), while the predicative form (in -(e)d or zero) is used after a noun (as in a theory not proved till after its proposer's death, that man drunk on cheap wine) or in a compound verb like have sunk.  Attributive and predicative forms (see the A-X N rule in Lesson 4) are different for a number of completive participles, the main groups being represented by:
    
A few additional variants of these patterns are heard in molten : melted, swollen : swelled, and stricken : struck.  Note also clad : clothed as well as shod : shoed.  A number of other forms ending in -en exist only as adjectives; e.g. misshapen.  Cf. dog-bit with bitten.

Seven verbs form both past and perfective participle by changing everything following the initial consonant(s) to -ought or -aughtbring, buy, catch, fight, seek, teach, think; note also ought, originally a participle of owe, and distraught, from distract (see below)--whose unmarked perfect participle is distracted..  (If these forms are taught before all other verbs, foreign students will never have trouble with them; if taught after regular formations, even the best students will often get them wrong, saying teached and the like.)   There are also old participles now used as adjectives:  distraught, fraught, wrought--which is sometimes also used as the participle for work or wreak.  In North America, gotten is the participle of get, got being used as a participle only in preteritive have got (for which, see Lesson 12).  Note differences in fit and  fitted, wed and wedded, etc.  Many say fit for the past of fit, but I continue to say fitted like outfitted; the adjective fit means "in good condition," etc.   Hanged has pretty much disappeared in favor of hung, as has dived in favor of dove; neither participle of dive fits the old pattern of drive.  There is a transitive verb cost with past and perfect participle regularly formed as costed.  Cf. the different meanings of quit and  quitted (with which compare acquitted).  Some speakers have (a)waked, while others say (a)woken.  Where I come from we said, waked up or awakened--with awoke as an occasional variant. I say lighted, though others say lit--which for me means "drunken."  In contrast with broken, broke means "bankrupt."  Usually preceded by all, shook up is a variant of shaken up that has emotional connotations.  A number of verbs have two forms in use; some speakers seem to differentiate transitive and intransitive forms of some of these; e.g. speeded (up), sped up.  Note that (over)flown and (over)flowed belong, respectively, to (over)fly and (over)flow.
       If adverbial -ly is suffixed to a participle, the attributive form (e.g. rottenly) is used, unless it ends in -t (e.g. burnt, left) or nothing (put and led, the result of the sound rules operating on underlying put+t and lead+t).  Note that the participial ending -ed (e.g. in supposed, pronounced, and confessed) has "e" pronounced before -ly; e.g. supposëdly, pronouncëdly, confessëdly.  Some participles (e.g. said) are not amenable to being suffixed with -ly.

 

     A participial construct or participial phrase is analogous to a gerund construct in including  modifiers and an object with the participle.  Note the different roles of the participle in:

"We left it standing in front of her door.'
'They saw something moving (or  move [an infinitive]) in the bushes.'

In the first of the foregoing examples, standing is predicative participle modifying the preceding pronoun--it.  But is not a predicator like moving in the second example; the subject of moving is something.  As noted in parentheses, the short infinitive is allowed in the same position; but with be, there is a difference between the short and long infinitives (see Lesson 15):  "We saw them (to) be obnoxious."  For the different status of a predicative participle with the object of see and the object of (non-causative, non-contracausative) have,  see Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis, p. 163.
    Whenever the subject of a verbid ending in -ing is genitival, it is to be analysed as a gerund; e.g.  "They heard its moving in the bushes."
     English
has absolutes with a participial predicator that function as modifiers of the predication of main clause they precede:  "They having been seen by the police, their leader could hardly avoid confessing everything."  This is more or less equivalent to "Since they had been seen by the police, their leader could hardly avoid confessing everything." Note that the pronominal forms undergo a double reversal here, re-reversing the forms heard in marked environments.  For similar expressions involving predicative-adjective quasi-absolutes, which modifying a noun in the sentence, CLICK HERE.

ABSOLUTES

     English has quasi-absolutes modifying a subject--either preceding the subject and following a predicate:   "(Being) ready, she departed."  "They came in, (being) prepared to sing."
                    "(Having) long (been) ready, he finally departed."

Being and  having been may be present or omitted.  True absolutes differ from the preceding in that the do not modify a noun but the predicator: e.g. "That (having been) announced, our defenders prepared for the onslaught."
     One should not mistake for an absolute any examples of focusing on a given item in the sentence by putting it first; e.g. "This guy Moe, what was his interest in the matter?" and "Literal, that translation is not."
     See Appendix C for cleft and cloven sentences. 

 

12 VERB MODALITIES II--PASTS, ANTERIORS, AND THE
MISNAMED PRETERITIVE HAVE GOT 

    Any form of a verb, simple or compound, is called a MODALITY.

Plain-past forms:   Regular ones ending in -ed; irregular ones like ate, ran, spoke, etc.
With did  "They did (not) help"  Emphatic when not negated; contrast "never   
     helped" without do-support.
Used to (habitual)               "He used to sit there like that in those days."
Would (characterizing)      "She would sit there like that in those days."   

(The forces of the be and get passivizing auxiliaries get reversed in the last usage, as do other uses of would as compared with will.)  See Lesson 6 for the way a past takes did-support with not--but not with never.  Contrast "wasn't moving" with didn't (useta) move." And note there that when the negative comes first with any time-form of a verb, it is never that takes do-support; not takes do-support when it does not negate the predicator.  Emphatic do can precede any non-auxiliary (including modal) verb.  
   
A
MODALITY is any form or use of a verb—simple or compounded.   
     A talented teacher can guide students into seeing for themselves that a "definite" past act or state is one that falls within a block of past time that has ended before the "now" of a statement--and that an anterior happenings, represented by perfect participles compounded with auxiliary have (or has), fall occur a block of past time that ends with now or hasn't ended yet.  Further, events or states that are prior to some other time than now--including any time whatever--are anteriors in English:

Prior to any time:  "One should always use whatever tools have come to hand."  

We would not say came unless we regarded as true the tools' having come to hand before the now of the statement.  Note the difference:

"They have done it at ten o'clock a.m."   [an un-English present-posterior]
"They have always done it at ten o'clock a.m."  [an exochronous-posterior, which allows a definite past time--an event or state in a block of time ending before "now"]

Prior to a past time:  "They had finished it before we arrived."
Prior to a time later than some past time:  "They were to have finished it by ten o'clock."
Prior to a future time:  "By midnight, they will have repaired whatever has gone wrong."

In the last two examples, the repairing spoke of there can have already taken place at the now of the statement; or it can still be posterior to that.  An educated person would usually avoid saying, "If they already did it, we'll be able to avoid an unpleasant task."  The past is to be avoided with since in its temporal meaning; we say, "Nothing untoward  has happened since they arrived."  (When since is equivalent to because, the past is of course acceptable.)   A past event that could have taken place at any time prefers the anterior; e.g. "That same investigator has at some time been accused of fraud."  More interesting is the contrrast between after and since; cf.:

"It stood there (long) after the war."  vs.  "It has stood there since the war."

Note that [ha]ve may be omitted when the time of the sending is known to lie in the past; have sent leaves the time of sending open--a past promise may not yet have been fulfilled.  See Lesson 13.)  In the sentence, "People who succeed in business don't give money to those who haven't helped them," didn't  (which is what I read in the newspaper today) would be correct if one had specific donors at a specific past time in mind.  Here are examples of the exochronous-anterior and a posterior-anterior:

"Things (never) seem as good as they have been"  
"It seems to be something that has been disdained in an earlier century."
"Things will never seem as good as they have been"
"They will have done it by tomorrow."

In the last example, "they" may have done it before now or not yet.  An example with an imperative is:  "Next week, let me know what hasn't been received by then."
     Students should be guided to deduce the following for themselves:

     "Already did it," "didn't do it yet," and "came this far" are not educated usages.   But the former educated usage, "They've just done it," has been yielding to what is more system-conform.  Notice the use of "the first time" and "the last time" in the following  examples:
--"That was the first time that it had looked that way."
--"That was the last time that it looked that way."
--"This is the first time that it has looked this way."
--"This is the last time that it's gonna look this way."
     I recently read "It rose to 83% in recent years."  This  sounds odd to me, presumably because recent years is a period of time extending till now.  I would say, "It has risen," etc.  Rose would be unexceptionable in "It rose to 83% two or three years ago."  Educated users of English say
--"For ten years I didn't eat cheese" 
when one means "For the ten years
UP TILL THAT [PAST] DATE, I didn't, etc."  We say 
--"For ten years I haven't eaten cheese" 
when the thing being talked about is ending either now or not yet.  I have found (i) no language other than English that distinguishes exochronous from present verbs and (ii) none that does not use the present where English has the present-anterior in examples like this last--at least when the verb (unlike haven't eaten in the foregoing) is not negated.
     We of course say "I no longer eat cheese" and "I no longer ate cheese by then."  With the last, cf. "I had stopped eating cheese by then."      

 it does, the anterior modality has to be regarded as being as marked as is the anterior modality or the least-marked posterior modalities--or as an imperative or infinitive (an anterior or posterior infinitive is doubly marked, causing double reversals, as described in Chh. 5 and 6 of Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis).     

MARKED MODALITIES-CONTEXTS-USES 

Double and quartern reversals end up looking like a de­fault form; 
three reversals resemble a singly reversed item.  

Negative
Interrogative
Comparative1
Contrastive emphasis  

Anterior
Exochronous
Posterior
Surrealis5

Purpose2
Hypothesis, Contingency3   
Indirect quotation4

Modal Verbs6
Imperative
Infinitive (not gerund)7

     Inverted (Predicate-Subject) word order for direct yes-no interroga- tion, optative may (“May it . . .”contrasting with potential “It may . . .”), and other uses.

     1Not superlative.  Under comparative are understood not only more but also [(just) [this/that] much, very, too, and right—though not right would be odd.
        2Whether an infinitive construct or a (so/in order) that- clause.  Note that result clauses (beginning with so, that, or simply that do not constitute marked contexts.
     3A hypothesis clause may neutral and marked, coun­terfactual or dubitative (non-expectative), or expectative.  The last two types are over-marked.  See note 5.
       4For uses of past-posterior would in direct and indirect questions, see the Appendix.  See the Appendix also for uses of should.
     5That is, a subordinate clause posterior to a main clause.   The main clause in a conditional sentence is called the contingency clause; the hypothesis clause is imbedded in it.  Surrealis clauses may be neutral (hypothesis, temporal, relative, concessive), dubitative (non-expecta­tive)¾especial­ly hypothesis clauses), or expectative.   (This three-way divi­sion contrasts with the counterfactual/neutral categorizaton of non-posterior conditional sentences.)
    
6See immediately below for various uses of would and should.
     7Contrast the aim to comply with the aim of complying.

Uses of non-past-posterior would (and will)  

a)      Volitional (“be willing, insist on, persist in”; but actual volition is non-modal will[s]); e.g. ”He would drink too much when he visited them.”  A metaphorical use is heard in “It would turn out that way.” 

b) Epistemic or presumptive, as in “It’would be there by now, she mused.”  In contrast with will, past would ocurs only in mind-reading quotations like the foregoing.      
c) Characterizing; e.g. “She would always say that in those days.”

    Past-pasterior would is unmarked used in indirect quotations (where was/were going to is marked), but this use of would does not exist in independent clauses.  Could can be used for was/were able to in a main clause when the context is negative, interrogative, etc.; it is unmarked in these contexts and (even when not negative, interrogated, etc.) in subordinate clauses; e.g. indirect quotations.

     Uses of should

a) Equivalent to ought in meaning (but this use of should and the use of ought are not parallel; e.g. ought takes the long infinitive [with to] when in an unmarked context).

b) Semi-dubitative or non-expectative in hypothesis clauses; e.g. “If they should do it tomorrow, . . .”—not very different from “If they did it tomorrow, . . .”

c) Deletable or virtual in clauses subordinate to expressions of volition or necessity and of importance or propriety; e.g. “It was necessary that it [should] not arrive late.”  It is heard in negated adverbial (but hardly object-noun) pur­­pose clauses beginning with lest.

d) Factual, as in "We're surprised and disgusted that he should say a thing like that."  This follows expressions that are not neutral with respect to expectation or desideration; i.e. they are expectative or counterexpectative or else desired or undesired.

ANTERIOR-POSTERIOR MODALITIES

     Present-posteriors make use of was/were going to and would--as well as could and might.  One often hears also can have, could have, may have, might have, must have, ought to have, etc. (see Ch. 17).  The forms would, could, and might are default forms for indirect questions following a main clause with past (but not anterior) predicate.  English has past-posteriors like was going to and 
present-anterior-posteriors
like have been going to, . . .  even past-anterior-posteriors like had been going to and posterior-anteriors like am going to have done and will have seen.   

  MAIN CLAUSE (OTHER THAN THE CONTINGENCY CLAUSE OF A 
CONDITIONAL
SENTENCE)
SUBORDINATE CLAUSE 
DEPENDING ON A MAIN CLAUSE (OTHER THAN THE CONTINGENCY CLAUSE OF A CONDITiONAL SENTENCE) HAVING A
 PAST PREDICATION
DEFAULT 
(UNMARKED)
was/were gonna
could
or was/were able to
would
could
MARKED AS
"SETTLED NOTION" WHEN NEGATED OR TRULY INTERROGATED
wouldn't('ve); would('ve)?

couldn't('ve); could('ve)?
was/were going to . . . 
was/were
(gonna be) able to . . . 

     The foregoing refers to non-posterior would (see Lesson 17).  Note that posterior would can occur in a contingency clause having a virtual (deleted) hypothesis clause.
     The only ways for must and ought to have past reference is to add have or to write "hadda," "It was necessary that/for . . .  to 
. . . ," or "was/were obligated to . . . " 

A past-posterior-posterior like would be going to do is less rare than a  posterior-posterior like will be going to do.  Note that verb modalities can become as long as must have been going to have been getting watched [by the authorities].  (Note that we avoid the jingle, been being, in a passive verb where possible.)

    TIME-SEQUENCING

     When the finite predicator of the first clause is past, the finite predicator of the next clause is past or conditional; e.g.
     "They (had) said that we would be contacted."
     "When they (were going to) rent the house that we had looked at, we rushed over to talk with them."
     Exceptional is "He thought that the world was/is round."  The exochronous modality may follow a past.

     Should and ought are treated as an exochronous form and can go with a past or present, as in "They were assuming that it should/ought be ready by then" and "They are assuming that it should/ought be ready by now."

     When the predicator of the first clause is present or present anterior, the main clause is present, exochronous, posterior, or uses a conditional form of a modal verb, or an imperative-- would, could, might, should; but after a present-anterior or an exochronous anterior, a past is sometimes heard:
     "When I'm studying, please refrain from talking."
     "It seems odd that they would be doing that."
     "They'll tell you that we are the best ones to do that job."        
     "If it's ready, bring it over."

     When the exochronous, exochronous-anterior, posterior, or posterior-anterior comes first, the exochrnous or exochronous-anterior is preferred to any past form:

     "I've always thought that that course is [rarely was] the best for me."
     "We'll see what has been done."  Here, was would be proper only if the speaker is referring to a real past, not a time prior to future time, indeterminate between past or future.

CLICK HERE to see about the double-past-anterior in "If I'd've been there, . . .  

     'Ve loses its //v//, as does unstressed of. before a consonants. Compare musta and woulda with lotsa (the last standing for lots of).  'Ve also loses its unstressed vowel after a pronoun ending in a vowel-- including who and who all, as well as adverbial why, how,   how many, and where--which ends in a diphthong; the reduction requires a faster tempo for would following the WH-adverbs.  If 've occurs in an environment where both losses occur--e.g. I've been--'ve simply disappears.  Confusing between reduced 've and unstressed of occurs when speakers re-stressed musta as must of.    
     Note that 'd is used for had and would not only after a subject but also after any WH-word (what, who, how, when, where, why, how many, etc.).  'D stands for did not only after a
WH-word but also immediately following the adverb so. 
The reduced vowel is more likely to be lost after a preceding vowel when 'd is used for had in a given context than when it is used for would.  Since //d// assimilates to (i.e. becomes like) certain consonants, one says I'b been for I'd been in slower tempos; in faster tempos the two b's co-alesce and I been results.  Since this is very undesirable in past counterfactual hypotheses like "If he been," English has developed the double past-anterior "If he'da been" (or is somewhat slower tempos, "If he'd've been").
     'S may represent not only is; it can be an elided form of has quite generally
     Hafta, hasta, and hadda blend the auxiliary and a reduced form of to, something that creates a form treated as a single word  Some foreigners don't understand this and put an adverb between the two components.  Occasionally a native-speaker does the same thing but without foregoing the change for //v// to [f] (cf. left with leave) or //z// to [s] (cf. lost with lose) in these forms.  Hybrid forms like "He doesn't haf yet to do it."  

13 PASSIVES, CONTRAPONENTS

     The passive modality is formed with be or get (native speakers get the difference right; the teacher should read up on the difference in Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis; see index).      

Passive "Mice are hated by cats" = active "Cats hate mice"

The perspective is different:  Whichever is up front receives the main focus.

The passive modality has as its subject the direct object; passive verbs are transitive, since they can have objects when active.   If the subject of the active form is mentioned, it is preceded by a preposition-by, with, or through--and is called the agent (or, if impersonal, optionally the instrument; by is preferred for personal agents).  

PASSIVE MODALITIES

STATE OR ON-GOING ACT  SINGLE 
ACTION

WITH UNMARKED PASTS (including plain, progressive, and habitual pasts)  
AND PRESENT PROGRESSIVE


be


get

 

WITH MARKED MODALITY, INCLUDING CHARACTERIZING PAST, EXOCHRONOUS, ANTERIOR, POSTERIOR, OR INFINITIVE MODALITIES

get  be 

One should distinguish exochronous "That program gets aired at noon every day" from "That program is aired at noon every day."  The latter simply states a fact--almost a state--with no eye to action; it may be the result of a past action.  Interesting contrasts are heard in the following:

state or on-going action

single action

They were (being) 
watched yesterday. 

They got arrested yesterday.

They were getting watched 
the next day. 
The were being arrested 
the next day. 

The marked posteriority of the sentences in the lower row of the foregoing reverses the uses of be and get; negation and true interrogation (not the many kinds of English questions discussed in L78) have the same effect, though when both are combined, the result is a double-reversal that looks like an non-negated, non-interrogated use.
    Native-speakers know where to use be and get for passives. Foreign learners should refer to the index of Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis.   Contraponents are verbs that are non-passive in form (i.e. they lack the auxiliaries be and get and are finite in form) but whose sense is passive.  This use of transitive verbs is very common in timeless statements like "This book translates easily."  A normal agent is excluded, but instrumental "with the aid of good lexicon" could be added.  The current replacing of intransitive lie with contraponent lay in today's educated usage is not being paralleled except among the less-educated by a replacing of sit with contraponent set (which, however, has acceptable intransitive uses in "The concrete has set" and "The sun is setting."  (See L52.)  
     English has a verb that would be called preteritive in a classical (Latin, Greek) grammar.  The form have got is used as a non-past.  Unlike have, it lacks verbid forms (see below:  gerund, and participle, and infinitive) and, in North America, a past (viz. had got, heard in Britain and its former dependencies outside of North America).

14  SUBORDINATE CLAUSES II--EMBEDDED 
ADJECTIVAL (RELATIVE) CLAUSES

    Relative clauses are adjectival; they begin with the relative pronouns that (omitted in certain contexts; see below) and who or which--the so-called WH-pronouns; cf. the WH-adverbs.  Relative pronouns are normally moved to the front of their clauses; but see Appendix B, Lesson 7 above, and the section on pied-piping following this section.  Whose is a determiner.  We distinguish restrictive relatives and non-restrictive relatives--also called appositive--a term best reserved for true appositives to words like statement, claim, and the like--as in "the claim that he won."   (Titles like Queen and Judge function like determiners.)

  Note that appositives are reduced sentence containing the predicate be.  Thus, "the witness proved right" is reduced from "the witness who has/had been proved right."  (This explains the contrast of sunken and proven before a noun but sunk and proved following  noun and in any verb form.) 

 Restrictive relatives are not parenthetical in a way that non-restrictive relatives are.  Contrast the restrictive clause in "That's the one who/that happened to be here yesterday" with the non-restrictive clause in "My father, who happened to be here yesterday, told me about it."  

      Non-restrictive clauses, which are set off by commas, and indirect questions (like "Say who did it") avoid the relative pronoun that and use WH-relative pronouns (who, which; cf. WH-relative and interrogative adverbs where, when, why, and how); note that who is preferred to which for persons and pets having personal names That is the default relative pronoun; it is often virtual (deleted) when not the subject or predicate complement of restrictive relative clause.  But there are contexts in which that is not used.  These include the positions following a non-virtual preposition (see below) and following determiners like those and the quantifier all.  (Some languages say all what; this is un-English.)  Since the genitival postposition 's is not used with that, we say whose (for who's); but we say "of which" or "of whom" when this phrase modifies a clause-initial word; e.g. "Look at those books, some of which are falling apart"; a non-restrictive clause would prefer "Look at the ones of which some are falling apart."  We also avoid that where it could be confused with the conjunction.  In a succession of relative clauses, we often replace that with a WH-pronoun when the first is long, as in "the book that discusses what happened that year in Nigeria and which is now available in the college bookstore."  When one relative clause is embedded in another, we sometimes use a WH-pronoun in one clause (usually the clause in which the other is embedded) and who or which (hereafter WH-pronouns) in the other; e.g. "That's the book that she lent the student who needed it for his research" or "That's the book she lent the student who needed it for his research."  An example of conjoined relative clauses, the first of which has embedding of a non-relative clauses beginning with that is:  "I looked up the term that the teacher who lectured yesterday used and which seemed to her to be very important."  Whether we say relative in which or where depends on the degree of explicitness that is appropriate; see the first sentence of this paragraph.  In speaking and even in writing, we often say "the way" instead of the fuller "the way that" or "the way in which."  In "the way @ that" (where @ is a virtual pronoun), that follows a virtual pronoun; a WH-pronoun does not do so.   
    Though required when the preposition is foregrounded to the front of the clause, whom is rarely used, partly for the reasons given in Appendix B; see also the section on pied-piping that follows here. 
I have known speakers unable or reluctant to use whose (for who's) for antecedents that are non-persons and animals with names.  I can use either whose or of which in the following (see L57 for <of NOMINAL> vs. <NOMINAL's>).   In the early days of Middle English, Who? was a calque of French qui?--which had the same form in every function--even as the object of a preposition.  Later, the which (a calque of Old French laquele/liquels) and who were used as relatives; and in due course, whose (i.e. who's) and whom (an indirect-object dative in Anglo-Saxon) came into use as both interrogative and relative pronouns.     
     Notice that, although from where cannot be used in a question, direct or indirect, it is allowed in a non-restrictive relative clause like "We reached Hilo, from where we went to Kona."
     Clauses beginning with whatever (pronominal or determiner), whichever (pronominal or determiner), or who(se)ever are nominal clauses; see Lesson 16.

PIED-PIPING AND STRANDING

     The foregoing terms are complementary.  To understand them, consider the difference between the following sets of interrogative and relative-clause examples:

"To what (or "To which cause") did they attribute your illness?" 
"That's the book about which I've heard a lot" 

"What (or "Which cause") did they attribute you illness to?"
 "That's the book that I've heard a lot about." 

Note that in the first group, the preposition to or about is moved along with the foregrounded WH-pronoun or determiner to the beginning of the clause.  This is pied-piping.  In the second group, the prepositions are not moved to the beginning of the clause.  This is stranding.  Except where undue complexity and/or confusion would result from not pied-piping, it is usually avoided.  But there are a number of places in English where one must strand and a number where one has got to pied-pipe.  See Appendix BUnnecessary pied-piping of a preposition to the front of an interrogation or relative clause is the mark of a foreign speaker or a native-speaker who is uncertain about whether one's usage is educated enough to get away with ignoring that old "rule" of former grammar books.  

     Sound rules are, of course,  a different matter; cf. (if you read German) the full set of phonetological rules for all varieties of English in Maroldt [a revision of Bailey & Maroldt], Grundzüge der englischen Phonetologie:  allgemeine Systematik [Arbeitspapiere zur Linguistik 16, Institut für Linguistik, Technische Universität Berlin, 1988]).  

Because of an older insistence on the goodness of pied-piping (older grammarians didn't use that term), we hear overcorrections that involve misuses of whom:  

  • "the one whom I thought had delivered it" (even the 1611 Bible has "Whom say ye that I am?") 

  • "Give it to whomever is authorized to sign for it" (where who is the subject of is authorized and the entire clause is the object of to in the preceding clause)

I've received letters from school-teachers in which whom appeared to be used randomly, perhaps salted in for emphasis or something of like sort.  Another hypercorrection involves a redundant preposition, as in the BBC announcer's "the one to whom I did a favor to."  
     As already intimated, educated speakers avoid pied-piping and whom as much as is convenient, though it may be used to avoid making a construction too complex.  Note that whom is not used by educated speakers for an object of a verb or preposition in a direct or a question or relative clause unless it stands directly after a foregrounded preposition.  Pied-piping is avoided in indirect (embedded) questions altogether.  Note these examples of stranding in indirect questions:  "We saw who it was sent by" and "They're wondering who did what to who."  The rather formal (or, where formality is not appropriate, pretentious) "That is a person in whom you can put your trust" is not asystematic; but it may be inappropriate for a given style of English.  
     Whatever
, whoever/whosever, and whichever are never omitted.  Clauses beginning with these words are not relative clauses but nominal clauses. 

15 VERBIDS II-INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTS; CAUSATIVES 
AND CONTRACAUSATIVES; RAISING

     An infinitive has the form of the basic verb; e.g. speak. There is a virtual (omitted) to (pronounced as t' before a vowel) before the short infinitive; the long infinitive as the functor to; e.g. to speak CLICK HERE for the uses of the two; either can be used after than.  Note that be to VERB--as in "They are to do that tomorrow"--forms one of the marked posteriors; it  indicates obligation or at least expectation.  (We do not use the infinitive form (to be to help), though Thomas Malory used it.)
    
An infinitive (construct) can be a modifier or a nominal.  The full form of the construct is: 

FOR NOM TO INFINITIVE (OBJECT); e.g.
"(It's time) FOR NOM TO CALL US."

For NOM is often deleted when NOM would be indefinite "one" or when NOM is the same as a nominal being modified (e.g. "I notified the fellow [for him] to call us"; it is also optional when a infinitive construct modifies a modifier (adjective or adverb; e.g. "easy [for one] to do").   A nominal infinitive construct functioning as the subject (e.g. "For us to come early might be inconvenient for them"), predicate complement ("The object was for us to get it done on time"), or object (e.g. "They said for us to come early" and "instead of for them to leave early") of a higher clause has the full form of the infinitive construct; i.e. both for and to are present.   Note that the only prepositions taking an infinitive object are instead of and besides (both of which prefer a gerund, though an infinitive may keep or omit the functor to, as in "wanted to stay instead of [to] go"), than (e.g. other/rather than [to] go), as (e.g. as well as [to] go"), and besides (which also prefers a gerund, but omits to with an infinitive; e.g. do nothing besides eat and sleep")  If an infinitive construct modifies an object and its own object is the same, the object of the infinitive is omitted (is virtual),  as in "It was too much (for us) to overcome X"--where X represents the deleted much.  The sequence for for is reduced to one for; e.g. "They wanted for [for] us to be on time."   When an infinitive construct indeterminate whether an example like "It was too much (for one) to overcome X"--where X is the repeated object too much.   Note that the sense is really passive "to be overcome"; one may say "It was too much to be overcome"--in which event an agent/instrumental "by one" is usually omitted at the end.
     Infinitives and infinitive constructs serving as modifiers have the long form with the functor to:

  • a person to learn from          (adjectival)

  • happy to have been invited  (adverbial)

The only prepositions that can have as their object an infinitive construct are except, besides, but, and than (not without); e.g. "There was nothing to be done but to let them go" and "It's over except for them to formally close the meeting."

    There is a subtle difference between began to do it and began doing it and parallel expressions:  The example with the infinitive is not as factual as the example with the gerund; it may imply that one began to do something, but the act was interrupted and never really got off ground.  But goes more easily with the infinitive example than with the gerund example.  The reader can think of other examples, say with try.  Tried to do it implies non-success, whereas tried doing it conveys not such connotations.  The infinitive can convey intentionality rather than success.   
    Most verbs cannot take full infinitive constructs--of the form {for NOMINAL to VERB}--as direct objects.  While desire can do so (e.g. "They desire for th'others to stay away"), want drops for:  "I want my dogs t'enjoy what they eat."  See more on this below.  Note that for is never present when the infinitive lacks a subject--as it nearly always does when the subject is the same as the subject of the main clause (e.g. "They want to see it"); cf. also the sentence-adverb, "To tell the truth, I don't know what caused the outage."  While most non-object nominal uses of the infinitive take to, after than, to is often virtual (omitted).  The long infinitive--with to--is used to modify other parts of speech; e.g. the person to watch out for, eager to go, carried out with haste.  While there are a few exceptions, it is usual for the {for NOMINAL}
subject of an infinitive to be dropped if that subject would be a reflexive pronoun whose antecedent is the same as the subject of the sentence in which the infinitive is embedded; e.g.  "I desire {for myself} to take a swim" and "They pretend {for themselves} to be ready."
     In its rôle of modifying a noun and in its nominal rôle, an infinitive (construct) is irrealis--often expressing a purpose yet to be realized--in contrast with a participle and with a gerund (which can have 's suffixed), respectively.  Contrast these gerunds and infinitives:

                  a book for GETTING advice from : a book TO GET advice from 
                  happy at
HEARING the news : happy TO HAVE HEARD the news

     "Their passing on that gossip is (or "was") being complained about"  : "For them
to pass on such gossip will/would be (or "has been") complained about"

and 

"For them to pass on such gossip is disreputable."  

Notice here how an irrealis (posterior, conditional, anterior, exochronous) predication accompanies an infinitive-construct subject.  With the last example, compare "Their passing on such gossip is having an untoward effect on this meeting."
    
While the full form of an infinitive construct is "for NOMINAL to VERB" any part of it may be virtual (omitted)  except the verb itself; but for is never present when the nominal subject is not present, though for can be absent with the subject nominal's being absent.     

     After make and perceptual verbs, both  for and to are virtual, as in "They made us do it" and "He heard [or: "saw"] them do that."  In the structure, "I saw them to be charming," see is a conceptual verb meaning "realize"; "to be charming" describes or characterizes "them."  Compare infinitive and adjective or participle in the following:

    STATE:        "I saw them to be charming" : "I thought them charming."
    ACTIVITY:  "I saw them do it (with short infinitive) : "I saw them doing it."

In the foregoing, see is perceptual with the infinitive denoting activity, but conceptual with the infinitive representing a state.  (See also Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis, P. 158.The foregoing illustrates usages with perceptual verbs and with conceptual verbs like think, consider, regard.  Note that one is beginning to hear "consider . . . as" and "declare . . . as"  by analogy with "regard . . . as."  Whether as is present or virtual (as in "regarded that as necessary"), and whether be is present or virtual ("thought it [to be] a stupid error"), what follows these words is called the object predicate in school grammar.

     Help, even when negated or interrogated, omits for and (when more like a modal verb) may omit to:  "They helped us (to) finish the job on time."  In this example, us is as much object to help as subject to finish.  When the nominal in question is longer, to can be present:  "The manager helped the new employees (to) learn how to handle that matter."  When negated, truly interrogated, or in comparison (i.e. following than), as well as when help is itself and infinitive, to is more likely to be  virtual (deleted); e.g.  "The manager didn't help the new employees learn how to handle that matter," "Did the manager help the new employees learn how to handle that matter?"--and also  "He helped others to finish their projects more than he helped us finish ours" and "She gave up her free time to help us finish our project."   SEE BELOW.
     With causative verbs other than make, for is virtual but to is present:  "That caused/forced/impelled us to be vigilant."  Verbs of commanding, requiring, etc.--which are volitionally (deontically) causative--act like causatives; e.g.  "They required us to pay on time."  Like help, make is a bit different from other causatives in that it drops both for and to (e.g. "That threat made them pay on time") unless it is separated from its  infinitive construct object--in which eventuality, to is acceptable, as in, "The commander made every single soldier that has been exposed to mustard gas (to) take a shower lasting fifteen minutes.")  
     In the colloquial usage of some regions, a few simple infinitival expressions are used instead of an prohibition (negative imperative); e.g. "Not to worry!"

CAUSATIVE HAVE AND GET AND THE CORRESPONDING CONTRACAUSATIVES 

     One needs to distinguish causative and contracausative get and have (on which see the details in nn. 20-21 on pp. 225-226 in Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis.  There, it is said that have and get parallel the be and get passives.  But those examples come from marked imperatives, which should doubly reverse passives, given that causatives constitute a marked verb category.  Whatever the truth, contracausatives do reverse causative uses:

Intentionality

CAUSATIVE

CONTRACAUSATIVE
(undergoing something)

Responsibility

Directly or purposely
causing
(default)

"They got their hair cut." 
"They got  th'others to
accept the deal."

 "She had her favorite 
dog die on her."  
" He had his benefits cut off."
Not 
responsible
(default)
Obliquely causing
(more 
marked)

"They had th'others speak in their place at the annual meeting."

 "He got his sleeve caught on that hook."  
" They got their wings clipped." 

Obliquely
responsible
(more marked)

     The foregoing are predicted all to be reversed when negated or truly interrogated and when they are objects of imperatives.  For the different status of a predicative participle with the object of see and the object of (non-causative, non-contracausative) have,  see Bailey, Essays on time-based