One of the most striking features of the poem ‘Off Course’ (see p. 128) is the absence of a main verb. In that poem one of the effects created by the omission of a main verb is a sense of suspension and disorientation as it becomes increasingly difficult to work out, grammatically, what are the objects and what are the subjects in the text (for discussion of ‘subjects’ and objects’, see p. 132). Readers find it difficult to know where they are.
Activity
Text: Bleak House (1852–3) is the opening four paragraphs from Charles Dickens’s novel. Dickens is one of the major English nineteenth-century novelists who saw the legal system of the country as a source of corruption and as a major obstacle to progress. Here the ‘Lord Chancellor’ is the head of the legal system.
One of the most striking features of Dickens’s use of the language is that the opening three paragraphs do not contain a single main verb. Is the effect which is created for the reader the same as that created in the poem ‘Off Course’?
Text: Bleak House
3 Your third task is to write a brief advertisement yourself. You may choose the product for which you wish to write the advertisement but your text should make particular use of personal pronouns and of premodified noun phrases. Your choices of language should be appropriate to the product you wish to advertise.
London. Michaelmas Terms lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimneypots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes— gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in the mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot- hold at street-corners, where tens of since the day broke (if this day
Commentary
There are, of course, verbs in this opening to the novel. It is, in fact, difficult to construct a text without verbs and this passage is no exception. In the opening paragraph alone there are verbs such as ‘retired’, ‘waddling’, ‘splashed’, ‘jostling’, ‘slipping’, ‘sliding’, and so on. The verbs all serve to create an atmosphere of constant action and movement in the big city. Yet there are no finite verbs in main clauses in the text. There is thus a difference between the following two sentences, the first of which (1) contains a main finite verb, the second of which (2) does not:
ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollution of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex Marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on th yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ‘prentice boy on deck. Chance of people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the street, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be soon to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.
The raw afternoon is rewest, and the dense fog is denset, and the muddy streets are muddiest, near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of leaden-headed old corporation: Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
(1) Foot passengers jostled one another’s umbrellas and lost their foothold at street corners.
(2) Foot passengers jostling one another’s umbrellas and losing their foothold at street corners.
Main finite verbs provide, as it were, a kind of anchor for the action. You know clearly when something took place and that the action was completed. In the second sentence above you are left suspended, knowing that the action is ongoing, but awaiting a main verb to give you your bearings. A sentence such as the following provides that kind of ‘anchor’ for the action in the verb arrived, which is the finite verb in the sentence:
Foot passengers jostling one another’s umbrellas and losing their foothold at street corners arrived at the bank.
A finite verb is thus a verb which tells you when something happened (past or present), how many were/are involved (singular or plural) and who the participants are (‘you’/‘we’/‘I’, etc.). By contrast, when a non-finite -ing form is used the verb can be referring to any number, or tense, or first, second or third person. For example:
In these examples, singing, been and be are the non-finite forms; is, have and might are the finite forms.
Sentence (2) above is a kind of model for many of the sentences in the first three paragraphs. Sentences such as the following therefore serve to create a sense of both disorientation and dislocation. We feel that all the activity of London is confused and directionless; and we do not know what timescale we are in. The present participles in particular convey a feeling of continuous action which could almost be timeless.
Given the timeless character which is imparted to these descriptions it is perhaps not surprising that Dickens can suggest that London has an almost prehistoric feel to it—‘and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill’.
In the final paragraph of this opening to Bleak House main finite verbs are restored to the sentences of the text. In particular the main verb ‘to be’ is repeated: ‘The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest…’. The presence of a main verb is most noticeable in the final sentence:
She is singing.
They have been singing. You might be singing.
London.
Implacable November weather.
Smoke lowering down from chimney pots… Dogs, undistinguishable in the mire.
Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas
Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides…
And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
Here the main finite verb is sits. The action and location of the Lord High Chancellor is thus clearly situated. Indeed, the sentence is structured so that the location of the main subject of the sentence (‘the Lord High Chancellor’) comes first in the sentence. He sits:
Structured differently, the sentence might have read:
The Lord High Chancellor sits hard by Temple Bar in Lincoln’s Inn Hall at the very heart of the fog.
This structure would be more normal and would follow the conventional word order for sentences in English in which the subject (‘The Lord High Chancellor’) occurs first and is then followed by a main finite verb (‘sits’).
One of Dickens’s purposes may be to delay the subject so that it has more impact as a result of its occurrence in an unusual position. It also has a very particular impact as a result of being in the simple present tense (‘sits’) when readers of a novel or of any kind of narrative might expect verbs to be in the simple past tense (‘sat’).
‘Sits’ suggests, however, that the Lord High Chancellor always sits there and is a permanent landmark in this landscape. The simple present tense in English carries this sense of a permanent, general, unchanging truth, as in scientific statements such as:
Oil floats on water. Mice have long tails. Two and two make four.
In this final paragraph one of the main effects which Dickens creates may be to imply that the legal system of the country is in a state of permanent confusion or creates states of confusion which cannot be changed. And both in these opening paragraphs and in the novel as a whole fog assumes symbolic importance, reinforcing a sense both of general confusion and of not being able to see clearly. The Lord High Chancellor is always ‘at the very heart of the fog’ and nothing will alter this position. For this reason perhaps choices of language and of the structure of the sentence position ‘the Lord High Chancellor’ and ‘the heart of the fog’ together.
Note: see satellite text: The Language of Fiction hard by Temple Bar in Lincoln’s Inn Hall at the very heart of the fog.
MODALS AND MODALITY
Text: Severn Trent Water communicates information; in this case the information concerns an interruption to the water supply and is on behalf of a water company. Whenever instructions are given, a modality enters the relationship between the writer and reader of a text. Modality takes a number of different forms in English but the presence of modal verbs is particularly significant. Here are some of the main modal verbs in English:
can, could, will, would, must, should, shall, may
Activity
What is the function of modal verbs in Text: Severn Trent Water?
What other verb forms work, in particular, to establish a relationship between the water company and the customers to whom it has distributed this notice?
Text: Severn Trent Water
Notice of interruption of supply
We are sorry to inform you that necessary mains repairs in the area may cause an interrupation to your water supply between the hours overleaf.
1. Every effort will made to keep inconvenience and the duration of the shut-off to a minimum.
2. Do not draw more water than your minimum requirements. 3. If the water does go off, leave taps open or flooping may result
when the supply is restored.
4. You may use water from the hot water system, but as a boiled before drinking.
5. Even if the domestic hot water supply runs dry there will be no risk of damage to the system, but as a precaution keep a low fire where a back boiler is installed and turn or switch off other sources of heating the water by gas, oil or electricity. 6. Central heating system can continue to be used at moderate
temperatures.
Commentary
This text is in a curiously mixed mode. The water company has to inform its customers that repairs are unavoidable. It has to give its customers instructions which they need to follow both in their own interests and in the interests of other consumers. At the same time the company needs to reassure its customers that a more or less normal service is still available, that, in spite of the interruption to supply, the company still provides a good service and, above all, that there are no safety or health risks involved for its customers so long as they comply with the guidelines and instructions issued with the notice. It is important therefore that the company is clearly seen to be in control. This ‘mixed mode’ is inscribed in the different modal verbs in the text along the following general lines:
Notice that some modal verbs can signal possibility and control, depending on the other words which surround them as well as on the context in which they are used. For example, ‘you may use water’ (primarily control); ‘they may need your help’ (primarily possibility).
‘Control’ is also established through an extensive use of imperative forms of the verb which unambiguously inform us what to do and what not to do. For example:
We apologise again for any inconvenience this may cause you and request your patience and co-operation. In case of any difficulty please contact the Nottingam District Office on the telephone number 608161, extension 4012.
Please remember neighbours who may be older or disabled— they may need your help.
ST.6253 discolouration and or cholorine may persist for a short time. Allow your cold tap to run for a few minutes to clear this water from your services pipe.
8. Do not use your washing machine or other applications during the discolouration.
Mode of reassurance/possibility: may cause an interruption; may persist for a short time; they may need your help; every effort will be made; flooding may result; any inconvenience this may cause you.
Mode of control: must be boiled before drinking; the main will be flushed; can continue to be used.
Do not leave taps open Allow your cold tap to run Do not use your washing machine
Activity
Collect examples of further texts in which you would expect modal verbs to be used quite extensively. For example:
What other examples can you find? Why are modal verbs concentrated in some texts but not others? (Note: there is no commentary on this activity.)