Английского

§ 7. The category of retrospective coordination (retrospect) is constituted by the opposition of the perfect forms of the verb to the non-perfect, or imperfect forms. The marked member of the opposition is the perfect, which is built up by the auxiliary have in combination with the past participle of the conjugated verb. In symbolic notation it is expressed by the formula have ... en.
The functional meaning of the category has been interpreted in linguistic literature in four different ways, each contributing to the evolution of the general theory of retrospective coordination.
The first comprehensively represented grammatical exposition of the perfect verbal form was the "tense view": by this view the perfect is approached as a peculiar tense form. The tense view of the perfect is presented in the works of H. Sweet, G. Curme, M. Bryant and J. R. Aiken, and some other foreign scholars. In the Soviet linguistic literature this view was consistently developed by N. F. Irtenyeva. The tense interpretation of the perfect was also endorsed by the well-known course of English Grammar by M. A. Ganshina and N. M. Vasilevskaya.
The difference between the perfect and non-perfect forms of the verb, according to the tense interpretation of the perfect, consists in the fact that the perfect denotes a secondary temporal characteristic of the action. Namely, it shows that the denoted action precedes some other action or situation in the present, past, or future. This secondary tense quality of the perfect, in the context of the "tense view", is naturally contrasted against the secondary tense quality of the
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cantinuous, which latter, according to N. F. Irtenyeva, intensely expresses simultaneity of the denoted action with some other action in the present, past, or future.
The idea of the perfect conveying a secondary time characteristic of the action is quite a sound one, because it shows that the perfect, in fact, coexists with the other, primary expression of time. What else, if not a secondary time meaning of priority, is rendered by the perfect forms in the following example: Grandfather has taken his morning stroll and now is having a rest on the veranda.
The situation is easily translated into the past with the time correlation intact: → Grandfather had taken his morning stroll and was having a rest on the veranda.
With the future, the correlation is not so clearly pronounced. However, the reason for it lies not in the deficiency of the perfect as a secondary tense, but in the nature of the future time plane, which exists only as a prospective plane, thereby to a degree levelling the expression of differing timings of actions. Making allowance for the unavoidable prospective temporal neutralisations, the perfective priority expressed in the given situation can be clearly conveyed even in its future translations, extended by the exposition of the corresponding connotations:
→ By the time he will be having a rest on the veranda, Grandfather will surely have taken his morning stroll. → Grandfather will have a rest on the veranda only after he has taken his morning stroll.
Laying emphasis on the temporal function of the perfect, the "tense view", though, fails to expose with the necessary distinctness its aspective function, by which the action is shown as successively or "transmissively" connected with a certain time limit. Besides, the purely oppositional nature of the form is not disclosed by this approach either, thus leaving the categorial status of the perfect undefined.
The second grammatical interpretation of the perfect was the "aspect view": according to this interpretation the perfect is approached as an aspective form of the verb. The aspect view is presented in the works of M. Deutschbein, E.A. Sonnenschein, A. S. West, and other foreign scholars. In the Soviet linguistic literature the aspective interpretation of the perfect was comprehensively developed by G. N. Vorontsova. This subtle observer of intricate interdependencies of language masterly demonstrated the idea of the
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successive connection of two events expressed by the perfect, prominence given by the form to the transference or "transmission" of the accessories of a pre-situation to a post-situation. The great merit of G. N. Vorontsova's explanation of the aspective nature of the perfect lies in the fact that the resultative meaning ascribed by some scholars to the perfect as its determining grammatical function is understood in her conception within a more general destination of this form, namely as a particular manifestation of its transmissive functional semantics.
Indeed, if we compare the two following verbal situations, we shall easily notice that the first of them expresses result, while the second presents a connection of a past event with a later one in a broad sense, the general inclusion of the posterior situation in the sphere of influence of the anterior situation:
The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever.