Occurrence

All verbs occur with modals and semi-modals—for marking irrealis status—and all occur in generic tense (-s), in actual and previous perfective present (-s and has -en), and in actual and previous perfective past (-ed and had -en). However, there are restrictions on which verbs can occur with:

. realis future (-s and is -ing);

. realis present and past imperfective (is -ing, was -ing; and also has/had been -ing);

. imperative (base form of verb).

The restrictions relate to the meanings of verbs, and of tense-aspect and mood categories. We now briefly survey these, by semantic types of verbs.

Primary-A types. Verbs from the REST-d subtype, CONTAIN, which describe the relative positions of things, are unlikely to be used in imperative, realis future or imperfective. They include contain, enclose, adjoin, and surround when it has an inanimate subject.

Verbs taking an inanimate subject which refers to some natural phenomenon are unlikely to be found in realis future, since this should involve volitional planning. But they can occur freely in imperfective; for example, It is snowing, The ice is melting, The fire is burning brightly, The river is flowing strongly. Their use in imperatives depends on the speaker’s inclination to give orders to inanimates. One might hear Burn, damn you! to a fire, Blow, wind, blow!, and Please rain on my dry and dusty paddocks!

Verbs in the DROP subtype, MOTION-g, describe activities which are generally non-volitional and these verbs are unlikely to be used in realis future—fall, slip, capsize. They can occur in imperfective (She’s slipping on the ice) and in a mean-spirited imperative (Fall down!, said under one’s breath to a fellow competitor in a race). Intransitive verbs from AFFECT-h—break, chip, crack and so on—would not occur in realis future nor (save in a fairy story) in imperative but are fine in imperfective.

Some verbs from the OWN subtype of GIVING could not felicitously be used in imperatives—own, lack, possess, belong to. Only in an unusual context could they be used in realis future, and (except for lack) they sound distinctly odd in imperfective.

Primary-B types. Verbs in the ACTING, DECIDING and ATTENTION types are generally acceptable in imperative, realis future and imperfective. However, see and hear have restricted use in all of these, look and listen generally being preferred. There are limited possibilities for imperatives—Hear this! and See with your own eyes!

Most THINKING verbs can be used in imperative and imperfective. A few, including consider and conclude, are acceptable in realis future—They consider the report tomorrow—but most are not. Some THINKING verbs show severe limitations. Believe may be used in an imperative (Believe me!), but is very seldom found in realis future or in imperfective. It is just possible to invent a scenario in which believe takes imperfective:

(45) I was believing what he was saying until he mentioned he’d seen Elvis in the supermarket yesterday

Know is scarcely used in imperative (perhaps Know this!, from an olden-days town crier, or Know thy enemy!) or in realis future. It is, though, generally possible, with a smidgeon of imagination, to contextualize a realis future with virtually any verb, however bizarre this might be. For example:

(45’) He knows French today (said of an actor who today will be playing a character envisaged by the playwright to be fluent in French)

However, it seems impossible to invent a plausible scenario in which one may use know with imperfective—*She is knowing. This verb describes a state, which is never dynamic or evolving.

Verbs from the SPEACKING type are generally at home with imperative and imperfective but have limited possibilities for realis future. One can say He writes his exam tomorrow, We pray at six o’clock, or We’re discussing it at the get-together on Friday. But for verbs such as chat, shout, brag, threaten and argue, realis future is unlikely in normal circumstances.

Quite a few verbs from the HAPPENING, COMPARING and RELATING types are unlikely to occur in imperative—happen, resemble, differ from, result from/in, be due to. Of these, only happen is readily used in imperfective. In addition, verbs such as compare, measure and weigh are typically used in the imperfective when transitive, as in:

(46) He is weighing the rubber

However, when these verbs are used intransitively, only perfective is possible. One says

(46’) The rubber weighs thirty kilos

rather than *The rubber is weighing thirty kilos. Whereas (46) describes a dynamic activity, (46’) does not. Most verbs in these three types are unlikely to be used in realis future.

Verbs from the LIKING and ANNOYING types are also excluded from realis future—*We like it tomorrow and *He amuses me next week are quite infelicitous. Imperative and imperfective are acceptable with ANNOYING verbs and with the LIKING-iii subtype (enjoy, favor, object to) but are not encountered much with LIKING-i/ii (like, love, loathe). However, it is possible with a stretch of the imagination to invent a context for was liking, as in:

(47) I was quite liking the performance until the first interval

Secondary types (leaving aside MODALS and SEMI-MODALS). Secondary-D verbs (seem, appear, matter) are used with none of imperative, realis future and imperfective. Secondary-A and Secondary-C verbs generally take imperative and imperfective. Realis future is acceptable with the BEGINING and TRYING types of Secondary-A and the HELPING type of Secondary-C but is scarcely plausible with HURRYING and DARING verbs or with most from the MAKING type. One can say She bakes a cake tomorrow, but realis future would be uncomfortable with force, prevent or rescue, for example; these are not activities which would in normal circumstances be planned for a definite future time.

Verbs of the Secondary-B WANTING type—such as want, wish, hope, need, plan, intend—have an implicit future reference and are not found in a realis future construction. Indeed, if one essays such a construction, with a time adverb included, this adverb is taken to refer to the verb of the complement clause rather than to the WANTING verb. For example, He is hoping to go tomorrow is taken to mean that tomorrow relates to the going rather than to the hoping. Almost all WANTING verbs may be used in the imperative and also in imperfective (although perfective is more common). The verb want stands out; it is seldom used in imperative (a rare example is Only want what you can get!) and not often in imperfective (although, in Old England, one might hear the butler saying to the footman The duke is wanting his gin and tonic now, not in two hours’ time).

Verbs in the Secondary-B POSTPONING type—postpone, defer, delay, avoid—freely occur in imperative and imperfective but seldom in irrealis future. One would not normally plan to make a postponement at a later date; if this should happen, then They’re announcing the postponement of the egg-and-spoon race tomorrow is preferred to *They’re postponing the egg-and-spoon race tomorrow.

Copula clauses. When the copula complement is an adjective, one would seldom encounter irrealis future. It takes a certain effort to imagine such a construction; one example of such an effort is:

(48) It’s green tomorrow (if by some edict we have to wear a different color of clothing each day)

But in many circumstances irrealis future is not appropriate with adjective complements.

Only adjectives from the HUMAN PROPENSITY, SPEED and DIFFICULTY types, plus the main two VALUE adjectives, good and bad—which can all refer to some state achieved volitionally—may occur with imperative or with imperfective. For example:

(49) Your child is being stupid/rude/slow/difficult/good today

It would take some effort to contextualize imperfective with adjectives from other semantic types; for example, wide, heavy, young, red.

Certain types of noun phrase in copula complement function may occur with realis established future. For instance:

(50) On the rotation principle, she’s chair of the committee in March

One can also use imperative or imperfective with noun phrase copula complements, especially in make-believe: You be the doctor! and No, Mary’s being the doctor today, I’m being the patient.