Theoretical Grammar

book sells easily; The dress washes well. "Reflexive Voice": He dressed; He washed - the subject is both the 
agent and the recipient of the action at the same time. It is always possible to use a reflexive pronoun in this 
case: He washed himself. "Reciprocal voice”: They met; They kissed - it is always possible to use a reciprocal 
pronoun here: They kissed each other. 
We cannot, however, speak of different voices, because all these meanings are not expressed morphologically. 
4. The category of tense 
The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential 
characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to 
in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being 'now ' or the present moment). The 
tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in 
the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main 
temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following 
graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition): 
Present Past 

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Future I Future II 
Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is traditionally 
described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past. Quite a lot 
of scholars do not recognize the existence of future tenses, because what is described as the 'future' tense in 
English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is undeniable that will and shall 
occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in sentences that do not. And they do not 
necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly 
modal. 
5. The Category of Aspect 
The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of Manner of Action. It is 
realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The realization 
of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs. 
There are some verbs in English that do not normally occur with progressive aspect, even in those 
contexts in which the majority of verbs necessarily take the progressive form. Among the so-called ‘non-
progressive’ verbs are think, understand, know, hate, love, see, taste, feel, possess, own, etc. The most striking 
characteristic that they have in common is the fact that they are ‘stative’ - they refer to a state of affairs, rather 
than to an action, event or process. It should be observed, however, that all the ‘non-progressive' verbs take the 
progressive aspect under particular circumstances. As the result of internal transposition verbs of non-
progressive nature can be found in the Continuous form: Now I'm knowing you. Generally speaking the 
Continuous form has at least two semantic features - duration (the action is always in progress) and 
definiteness (the action is always limited to a definite point or period of time). In other words, the purpose of 
the Continuous form is to serve as a frame which makes the process of the action more concrete and isolated. 

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