Abstract
The purpose of the present chapter is twofold. First, it provides both the traditional and CG descriptions of the grammatical units of English mentioned in the title of the chapter. The descriptions are offered because the teaching of these grammatical elements was the main focus of the empirical study reported in Chap. 5. Both kinds of descriptions are presented since the quasi-experiment described in that chapter compared the effects of teaching based on traditional descriptions of the grammatical phenomena in question with teaching outcomes based on CG descriptions. The second objective follows naturally from the first, and from the focus of the whole book, which is the exploration of the effectiveness of CG-inspired grammar teaching in comparison with instruction based on traditional grammars. The second aim is to compare and contrast the two kinds of grammatical description, i.e. traditional descriptions and descriptions offered by CG. This is done in the second part of the chapter, mostly on the basis of the descriptions provided in the first. The grammatical elements to be described are specifically the English present tense, the progressive aspect, and the distinction between stative and dynamic verbs. The contrast between stative and dynamic verbs is discussed, because it impinges on how English verbs are used in the present tense and the progressive aspect.
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Notes
- 1.
Aarts (1988, p. 170ff) views this difference, i.e. the difference between being fact-oriented and explanation-oriented, as a difference between traditional grammar and generative grammar, the latter being clearly theoretical and not structuralist-traditional in orientation.
- 2.
This and subsequent influences on Quirk et al. (1985) pertain also to Biber et al. (1999), which follows Quirk et al.’s (1985) general framework and grammatical outlook: “[f]rom CGEL [A comprehensive grammar of the English language] we have also borrowed, with few exceptions, the grammatical framework of concepts and terminology which has provided the present book with its descriptive apparatus” (Biber et al. 1999, p. viii).
- 3.
See note 2 above.
- 4.
The relative influence exerted on Quirk et al. (1985) by some of the theories mentioned seems to be by far the weakest in comparison with the other reference works and therefore negligible when attaching additional labels.
- 5.
Biber et al. (1999) is based on the over-40-million-word Longman spoken and written English corpus. For some criticism of this grammar’s approach to corpus research, see Mukherjee (2006). It is interesting to note that the limited preoccupation of the other two grammars with language corpora has earned them the label corpus-aware (Mukherjee 2006, p. 342) rather than corpus-based.
- 6.
See note 2 above.
- 7.
The use of situation as an umbrella term to refer to verb-symbolized phenomena existing and unfolding in time is adopted here and follows Quirk et al. (1985, p. 177).
- 8.
Specifically, the present chapter excludes from its scope such phenomena as the tentative use of the progressive (e.g. I’m hoping to gain admission) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 210), the use of the progressive and the non-progressive present tense to refer to the future (e.g. Are you going to the cinema tomorrow? The plane leaves tomorrow at seven) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 210) or the use of the non-progressive present tense to refer to multiple situations (the habitual use of the present tense, e.g. He frequently opens that closet) (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002, p. 118). Also excluded from consideration are verbs that are intermediate between stative and dynamic verbs, such as the so-called stance verbs (e.g. sit, live) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 205ff), verbs of bodily sensation (e.g. hurt, tickle) (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, p. 203) and the verb look, as these seem at first blush to welcome arbitrariness with respect to their use in the progressive and non-progressive present tense. Verbs with this property were deemed undesirable for the experimental part of the study reported later in the book for reasons to be discussed in Sect. 5.5.
- 9.
See the comment on the difficulties in clearly distinguishing between tense and aspect in Sect. 3.2.2.
- 10.
The two linguistic examples used in this sentence are taken from Quirk et al. (1985, p. 200).
- 11.
This taxonomy was in fact published earlier, in Vendler (1957), but was widely popularized by Vendler (1967).
- 12.
In their presentation of lexical aspect, neither of the two reference works evokes the label lexical aspect or the term aktionsart. Instead, they speak of situation types designated by the verb phrase understood as the verbal group and its complementation.
- 13.
Most treatments of lexical aspect such as that by Huddleston and Pullum (2002) also distinguish some situation types that are intermediate between the types mentioned here. As stated earlier, they are not subject to further investigation here.
- 14.
Kardela (2000, p. 73ff) offers a succinct discussion of the problems related to distinguishing between tense and aspect.
- 15.
A more detailed characterization of pedagogical grammars is offered in Sect. 4.4. As will become apparent later in the present section, pedagogical grammars also deserve the traditional-structuralist label, a view supported by Chalker (1994, p. 42).
- 16.
This rule is worded ambiguously in the grammar. The rules given here are partially based on an interpretation of the examples illustrating the rule.
- 17.
The perfective/imperfective aspectual distinction in Slavic studies is not equivalent with the CG one (Langacker 2002, p. 351n).
- 18.
As mentioned in Sect. 3.2.2, one of the traditional reference grammars, Huddleston and Pullum (2002), also introduces the perfective/imperfective verb distinction. However, their characterization of the two aspectual classes differs from the one offered by CG in failing to offer the specifications of the internal homogeneity/heterogeneity of the situation and in being analytically less precise and detailed.
- 19.
This effect of the progressive is mentioned in the reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 164) and is reported in Table 3.3. Huddleston and Pullum, however, regard this feature as an implicature, which means that it may be cancelled in some uses of the progressive, a claim that CG does not make. Also unlike CG, the reference grammar does not ascribe this feature of the progressive to the contribution of –ing, which is left without any precise analysis.
- 20.
As mentioned in Table 3.3, the descriptive grammar by Huddleston and Pullum (2002, p. 163) also acknowledges the imperfectivizing function of the English progressive. For some differences between its account and the CG one, which result from the respective understanding of imperfectivity/perfectivity, see Sect. 3.2.2. Also, Huddleston and Pullum (2002) do not ascribe the progressive’s imperfectivizing effect to the semantic value of –ing, which, as stated in note 19, is left unanalyzed. This constitutes another discrepancy between Huddleston and Pullum’s (2002) and CG’s accounts.
- 21.
Eastwood (1999) includes numerous pictures with situations in which various grammatical units might be used. It is not done in a principled manner, though, and, moreover, the book does not contain any pictures/diagrams focusing on the meanings/conceptualizations of grammatical units.
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Bielak, J., Pawlak, M. (2013). Traditional and Cognitive Grammar Descriptions of the English Present Tense, Progressive Aspect, and Stative and Dynamic Verbs . In: Applying Cognitive Grammar in the Foreign Language Classroom. Second Language Learning and Teaching. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27455-8_3
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