Habitual Aspect in English

Journal of English Linguistics
http://eng.sagepub.com The Markers of Habitual Aspect in English

Robert I. Binnick Journal of English Linguistics 2005; 33; 339 DOI: 10.1177/0075424205286006 The online version of this article can be found at: http://eng.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/4/339
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JEngL 33.4 Binnick / Markers (December of Habitual 2005) Aspect in English
ARTICLE 10.1177/0075424205286006
The Markers of Habitual Aspect in English

Robert I. Binnick
University of Toronto
Contrary to the traditional account of habitual aspect in English, the only marker of habituality is will, with its past tense, would. Used to functions as a kind of anti-presentperfect tense, contrasting past states of affairs with present ones. In certain contexts, various tenses, and not merely the simple ones, may receive habitual interpretations, but these are not their meanings. Generic readings are contextual interpretations; there are no markers of generic aspect in English. Keywords: habitual aspect; generic aspect; would; used to
Introduction
The generally accepted account of the expression of habituality and genericity in English is this: would (as in example 1) and used to (2) are markers of past habituality, will (3) marks present or timeless habituality, and the simple present (4) and past (5) tenses may mark habituality as well. The meaning of the habitual past tense, as in (5), is pretty much the same as that of would in (1) or used to in (2). All three express a past condition, that is, a state of affairs holding of a past interval of time but one that no longer obtains (2). Furthermore, habitual expressions may, in general, also express generic aspect, as in (6), referring to a characteristic propensity and not to an actual series of eventualities. Examples may be ambiguous between the two, habitual and generic, readings; (7) can refer either to the habits of a particular tiger or to the traits of tigers in general. (1) Over and over and over again, we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as three hours at a stretch. (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, chap. 12) (2) They used to cater to the elite; they were the temples of high culture, trying to raise the level of public appreciation of the arts. But nowadays, museums are becoming more responsive: its the public, not the institutions, that calls the shots. (http://www.gc.cuny.edu/about_the_grad_center/conversations/ conversation_arts.htm)1 (3) The dress is kept in a bag but every now and then she will bring it out for review. (http://www.tntleague.com/misc/bettyhill.html)
Journal of English Linguistics, Vol. 33 / No. 4, December 2005 339-369 DOI: 10.1177/0075424205286006 2005 Sage Publications
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(4) My dad always yells instead of talking, and he has for years. He yells at me for doing stuff . . . and not doing stuff. (http://lost.crystal-mind.net/bio.htm) (5) From time to time she had a bit of a go at me, and I suppose I was rather resentful. (http://www.pentecostal.org.uk/testimony1.htm) (6) He builds canoes and kayaks for a living. (http://www.joekaz.net/friends .html) (7) The tiger ate many fish live and whole. . . . (http://www.bergen.org/Update/ 03academy.html) This standard account is almost wholly incorrect. Used to is neither a past tense nor a marker of habituality (see the section Used to below). The simple tenses do not have habitual meanings, though they may receive habitual interpretations in context (see The Simple Tenses), nor is a habitual interpretation restricted to the simple tenses (see Habitual Aspect in English). The only marker of habituality in English is the modal will, and would is simply its past tense (see Will and Would). There is a considerable difference in interpretation between expressions such as they used to go, they went, and they would go. None refers to a past state (see Habituality as a State). That a past condition no longer obtains is a conversational implicature and no part of the meaning of the expression itself (see The Habitual as a Condition That No Longer Obtains). And genericity is a contextual interpretation; there are no markers of generic aspect in English (see Generic Aspect).
Habitual Aspect in English

It is usually assumed that such sentences as (1) through (5) express a grammatical category of habitual aspect (Comrie 1976; Freed 1979; Dahl 1985; Leech 1987; Brinton 1988), which indicates a series of events or episodes, viewed as a whole (Lyons 1977, 716; Leech 1987, 5; Tagliamonte and Lawrence, 2000, 326), and distributed over an explicitly or implicitly given interval of time (Dahl 1985, 97). Following Comrie (1985, 39), Harrison (2002) sums up by saying that the habitual aspect refers to a situation that is protracted over a long period of time, or a situation that occurs frequently during an extended period of time, to the point that the situation becomes the characteristic feature of the whole period, even if the situation in question does not literally hold at a particular time (Cutrer 1994, 150). As noted above, English has traditionally been viewed as having no single marker of habitual aspect but as having several: would, used to, and will. The simple past and present tenses may receive habitual interpretations as well, especially when combined with temporal adverbials such as usually, often, always, from time to time, and so on. Indeed, eventive (or episodic) expressions in the present tense normally have either habitual (4) or generic (6) interpretations and cannot refer to an actual eventuality ongoing at present.
Binnick / Markers of Habitual Aspect in English 341
(4) My dad always yells instead of talking, and he has for years. He yells at me for doing stuff . . . and not doing stuff. (6) He builds canoes and kayaks for a living. While other tenses have not traditionally been identified with habitual aspect, habitual readings of the pluperfect (e.g., had had in (8)) are possible, and because future-marking will can receive a future-habitual interpretation (9), so can the conditional (future-in-the-past), as in (10). Hence, habituality is not limited to the simple tenses, but we will restrict ourselves to such examples here and continue to refer to the simple tenses in the discussion of the habitual interpretation of sentences lacking would and used to, since the habitual interpretations of tenses other than the past, present, and future are derivative of these (e.g., the pluperfect in example (8) is a habitual past in a past context). (8) He was mostly out of town on his business, but from time to time, she had had the opportunity to observe him and as always admired his gentle and pleasant disposition. (http://www.austen.com/derby/radhika4.htm) (9) After you join you will occasionally receive our newsletter in your email. (http://www.all-free-samples.com/newsletter.php) (10) He predicted that he would lose any case that he initiated. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees of religious freedom would probably nullify the Provinces marriage act in these cases. (http:// www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bibl.htm) Would is formally the past tense of will, and in its future-in-the-past meaning, the so-called conditional tense is clearly just the past counterpart of the future tense. The putative habitual marker would is likewise nothing more than the past tense of the habitual will found in examples such as (11). As simply the past tense of a modal auxiliary, habitual would in a sentence such as (12) is just like a modal such as could, when that modal is used of past time, as in (13) (as opposed to nonpast uses, for example, would in example (14)). Indeed, habitual would occasionally is found in connection with another past modal in a context that suggests a parallel between the two (e.g., (15)). (11) From time to time he will yell that he doesnt want to be managed, but overall, I am the one who is more frustrated. (http://www.marriedtomommy .com/_disc5/0000006c.htm) (12) She would never simply answer a question with a yes or a no. (13) She could never simply answer a question with a yes or a no. (14) You would think differently if you were me. (15) The King suffered from hallucinations. He would often hear footsteps and voices when nobody else could. (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/ 4080/report.htm)
It is often the case that would and the simple past can freely, and while seemingly preserving the meaning of the sentence, replace one anothercompare would see and saw in examples (16) and (17), respectivelyand sometimes they alternate in a series of clauses, as in (18). We shall see below that there are, however, subtle but nonetheless significant differences in meaning between the two (and between used to and would). (16) For the next month, from time to time, she would see her fathers face in different objects or pictures, and she would hear voices saying: Youll never get away with it. . . . (http://www.deikman.com/depression.html) (17) From time to time she saw him as he hurried around the village, but they were only able to smile at each other in passing. (http://mujweb.atlas.cz/ www/Pepa.Josef/pribehy/cl_zvz04).html) (18) It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend. (R. L. Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, chap. 1)
Habituality as a State
A habit has generally been taken to constitute a state (Vendler 1967, 108; Hirtle 1967, 48; Hirtle 1975, 95) or at least a durative situation with many of the properties of a state (Lyons 1977, 716, in Brinton 1987, 196). Moreover, as Comrie (1976) points out, used to can be used to refer directly to a state, as opposed to a series of eventualities, as in his example, here (19). Accordingly, he concludes that what is common to all habitual expressions is that they describe a situation which is characteristic of an extended period of time, so . . . that the situation referred to is viewed not as an incidental property of the moment but, precisely, as a characteristic feature of a whole period (27-8). This can involve either a protracted situation, as in (19), or, as in the usual habitual, a series of iterations of some type of eventuality. Thus, following Comrie, Jrgensen (1988, 348) says that [used to] in contemporary English [expresses] repeated (or habitual) activities or continued states in the past, and many definitions of habitual aspectfor example, that of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/ GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/ WhatIsHabitualAspect.htm)characterize it as an imperfective aspect that expresses the occurrence of an event or state as characteristic of a period of time. (19) The Temple of Diana used to stand at Ephesus. But a habit is not a state, and the standard tests for stativity generally fail with habitual expressions. States, for example, may be true at a point in time, as in at noon,
Sue was in Rome. But a habit cannot be true at a point in time (20a), only over an interval of time (20b). More generally, states have the subinterval property (Bennett and Partee 1978). If a state holds of a certain interval of time, it holds of any subinterval of that time whatsoever. Thus, if Sue was in Rome all last year, then she must have been in Rome all last June. But if Sue frequently visited Max last year, there is no guarantee that she frequently visited him in June or even visited him then at all. Nor, if she sometimes received gifts in the mail last year, is there a guarantee that she received any gifts in June. (20) a. *At noon, Sue {used to eat/would eat/ate} bananas for lunch. b. {For years/in her youth}, Sue {used to eat/would eat/ate} bananas for lunch. Stative clauses typically do not advance narrative time but do often function as background information contemporary with the foregrounded narrative line. Thus, in (21a), Sue stands up (stood up is an eventive expression) after John enters, but in (21b), her standing up (with the stative expression was standing up) occurs before he enters. If habitual sentences were stative, we would expect no narrative advance, but in fact, Sues standing up in both (21a) and (21c) occurs after Johns entrance. Of course, the when in (21c) can only mean whenever, and it is not the habit itself that follows his entrance but the single event of her standing. However, this receives no explanation if habitual sentences are stative. (21) a. When John entered, Sue stood up. b. When John entered, Sue was standing up. c. When John entered, Sue would stand up. States are typically nonagentive, so it is generally not possible to have an imperative of a state (22), nor may the pseudo-cleft construction involve a stative predicate (23) (Dowty 1979, 55). Yet it is completely possible to have an agent in a habitual sentence (24) and likewise a habitual interpretation of a pseudo-cleft (25) or of an imperative (26) sentence. (22) *Be sleepy! (23) *What John did was be sleepy. (24) John {frequently stole/often steals/would frequently steal} cars. (25) He uses tried and tested methods, but what he does is to wave his magic wand . . . (www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/rugby/strength.htm) (26) Be particularly wary anytime a nice person offers you an unusual deal. . . . (http://www.december.com/simple/live/prepareurban.html)
States hold over intervals of time. Hence, they readily occur with temporal adverbials of duration (27). Used to (28) and would (29) do co-occur with such expressions. Nonetheless, it is incorrect to say that the habit characterizes the interval in the way that a state does. Although the habit itself holds over the interval, the individual eventualities instantiating the habit do not fill out the period in question, which is why the subinterval property fails. Moreover, it is possible to define a period in terms of a state (when he was wealthy in (30)) but not of a habit. The when clauses in (31) do not refer to the intervals during which the habits occurred; as shown by the plural times, these expressions refer instead to the individual episodes. (27) For years, Sue was quite content to let things slide. (28) For years she used to get up early in the morning and drive him to tournament sites all around the state of California. (http://www.rolemodel.net/ tiger/tiger.htm) (29) For years she would wake up at 2 or 3 am with all kinds of brilliant ideas that she would promptly forget by morning. (http://www.witi.com/growth/2004/ environment.php) (30) All his relatives and family who thought high of him when he was wealthy, now looked down upon him. (http://www.samratchana.net/about/ baba/hisstory/en-us/default.asp) (31) There were times when he would get on my nerves, and Im sure there were times when I ticked him off too. (http://www.eszlinger.com/family/ fambenmemories.html) To be sure, in examples of stative used to such as (19), the state holds of the entire interval of time in question. But Comrie (1976) is misled by such examples when he concludes that habitual used to likewise involves a state characteristic of the interval in question. Stative used to (19) is indeed stative, but not by virtue of being an expression of habituality, and we should neither be surprised that habitual would cannot be used statively (the habit in (32) consists of a series of episodes, not states as such, as indicated by the reference to these occasions) nor attempt to find a single definition that fits both the meaning of stative used to and habitual used to (as well as habitual would). If habits are states, they are not states because they can be expressed with used to. But neither do they function like ordinary states, for they necessarily include gaps and hence fail the subinterval test. (19) The Temple of Diana used to stand at Ephesus. (32) His solution was to move on, but every so often, he would be near her. On these occasions, . . . (http://www.greyjedi.com/SWArchives/chronicles/ archives-interim.html)
In examples such as those in (33), habitual used to and would hold over a certain era, as shown by reference to that time, and to that extent, a habit may characterize an interval of time. But truly habitual expressions are not, ipso facto, stative. (33) a. Why, all that time when he used to come breakfasting with Mr Pontifex morning after morning, it took me to a perfect shadow the way he carried on. (Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, chap. 72) b. So I sit and think about other things, like Taajs smile, or of that time when he would laugh out loud everytime he saw himself laugh on video. (http://www.thebilns.com/index.php/weblog/2003/12/)
The Habitual as a Condition That No Longer Obtains

Traditionally, used to (34, 35) has been taken to imply, or even to mean, that some past condition no longer obtains; Schibsbye (1970, 88-9) extends this to habitual would as well, and Tagliamonte and Lawrence (2000, 324) observe that each of these forms [used to and would, as well as the preterit] is used . . . to describe a situation that existed for a period of time but is no longer the case. This is said to be particularly true with used to . . . as opposed to would . . ., where there is no implication of discontinuance (Visser 1963-1973, 1413, in Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 331). (34) I used to dance, but I dont dance now. (35) Its just not like it used to be at all. (Examples (34) and (35) from Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 331) That a past habit is no longer the case is not part of the meaning of the expression itself but a conversational implicature, as recognized by Comrie (1976, 29), who says, One can reasonably say, without self-contradiction, in answer to a question whether Bill used to be a member of a subversive organization: yes, he used to be a member of a subversive organization, and he still is. . . . Thus this cannot be an implication in the strict sense, since the putative implication can be cancelled by an explicit denial of it, and by Harrison (2002), who cites the example (36), in which the tag cancels the implicature. The other putative markers of past habituality likewise can co-occur with and still {does/is} (37-38). (36) Erik used to be a member of the Volapk League, and he still is. (37) He would (and still does!) tell any one he can get to stand still long enough how GREAT this dog is! (http://www.bigdawgsboarding.com/_wsn/page3 .html) (38) My father always said it and still does, to fill in time. (http://www.phrases .org.uk/bulletin_board/37/messages/471.html)
In the case of used to, this raises an interesting question, for used to presupposes a contrast between a past state of affairs and the present one. How used to can coexist with the implicature-canceling tag is discussed in the section Used to.
Generic Aspect
In addition to habitual aspect, it is generally assumed that there is a generic aspect. Harrison (2002) says, The generic aspect occurs in broad, general statements such as squirrels live in trees. Copley (2004) refers to a reading of will with generic aspect and Ferrari-Bridgers (2004) to Habitual Generic Aspect morphemes. But while Dahl (1985, 99-100) and Cutrer (1994, 194) both refer to generic sentences, Cutrer notes that in terms of tense, the grammar in English does not make a distinction between generic and habitual sentences, and Dahl notes that it seems to be rare for a language to have an overt and unequivocal TMA [tense-mood-aspect] marking of a sentence as being generic. The most frequent case is for generic sentences to be expressed with the most unmarked TMA category, as in English, where the Simple Past is used. Generic sentences concern recurrent eventualities but differ from habitual sentences in that we can neither individuate (39, 40) nor quantify (41) the occurrences in the series of situations referred to, in the way that we can in the case of habitual sentences (42, 43), because the generic, unlike the habitual, does not concern a series of actual eventualities. (39) !Each time, the dinosaur {hunted/would hunt} for meat.2 (40) !On each occasion, the dinosaur {hunted/would hunt} for meat. (41) !Many times, the dinosaur {hunted/would hunt} for meat. (42) On each occasion, Lincoln{fired/would fire} his head general. (43) Many times, Lincoln{fired/would fire} his head general. Habitual sentences are predicational; they predicate acts or states of individuals: individual entities (or groups of entities) are assigned habitual properties (Cutrer 1994, 146). Van Geenhoven (2001, section 3.2) assigns example (44) three readings: habitual, Mary handles the mail from Antarctica regularly/once in a while; prescriptive, Mary is supposed to handle the mail from Antarctica; and descriptive, if mail arrives from Antarctica, Mary will handle it. Only on the habitual reading does the sentence ascribe to Mary actual acts of mail handling. In this regard, Brinton (1987, 206) contrasts a pair of instructive examples from Jespersen ([1932] 1961, 192), respectively generic (45) and habitual (46). What (45) does is assign a certain property (that of drinking) to the set of properties that belong to the concept of smoker, while (46) generalizes over the individuals who belong to that class and predicates of those acts that they are typically in the habit of performing.
(44) Mary handles the mail from Antarctica. (45) Smokers always drink. = All smokers are drinkers.3 (46) Smokers are always drinking. = Smokers are constantly so occupied. An expression such as smokers is ambiguous and can refer either to members of a class or set taken individually (the members of the class act or acted separately) or collectively, as a group (the members of the subject class do or did something together). Accordingly, (47), in its habitual reading, can mean either that a group consisting of several men would come, or that a single man would come, on each occasion. Example (47) also has a semelfactive reading, referring to one occasion, on which several men came as a group. (47) Men came to the door and asked after Max. The purported difference in meaning between habitual and generic aspect is in fact a difference in interpretation, forced by the interpretation of such sentence elements as the subject and object. Cutrer (1994, 146) comes close to this position when she writes, Habitual expressions are handled in the same way as generics. . . . In habitual spaces, particular properties are assigned to a specific entity or set of entities. In contrast to generic spaces, the habitual spaces set up for the interpretation of examples (4.4) are more specific, since they have particular entities rather than roles. (4.4) a. John sees a therapist. b. On Tuesday, John sees a therapist. Thus, we call generic a statement that does not predicate a property or properties of specific individuals or groups of individuals, but rather assigns a property or properties to the set of properties defining a class or set. This distinction is not unlike that between sentences predicating stage-level and individual-level properties of an individual. A stage-level property such as being tired is predicated of its subject over a certain interval of time and hence is impermanent, while an individuallevel property such as being male tends to permanence over the whole lifetime or existence of the entity in question. The reason for this is that a stage-level property is contingent, while an individual-level property is in some sense essential and forms part of the identity of the entity. To be the Eiffel Tower is to be a tower in much the way that to be a smoker is to smoke. Thus, we may speak of the generality or globality of an example such as (48), which takes as its reference time the whole of the period in which ancient Rome existed and generalizes over the whole of that period in much the way that a generic sentence generalizes over a whole
class, as opposed to examples like those in (49), which take particular times whether explicitly stated, as in (49a), or implicitly given by the context, as in (49b)as reference times. (48) Ancient Rome was the largest city in the then known world. (http//www .historylearningsite.co.uk/ancient_rome.htm) (49) a. In 1871, Chicago was truly a boom town. (http://www.prairieghosts.com/ great_fire.html) b. Londons population had continued to grow and many lived in squalor and poverty. The only way people had to get rid of rubbish was to throw it out into the streets. . . . As a result, London was filthy. (http://www .historylearningsite.co.uk/plague_of_1665.htm) Preterites like was in (48) are indefinite, and those like was in (49) are definite. The difference is in whether the interpretation is global (over the whole of a certain period of time, such as that in which ancient Rome existed) or limited to a certain temporal perspective (such as that of 1871). In the same way, the difference between habitual and generic lies in whether the interpretation is global over an abstract class of individuals or is limited to a particular instantiation, or particular instantiations, of the class. Example (44, repeated below) is generic when Mary is taken globally, to refer to Mary abstractly; it is habitual when it refers to a series of her stages associated with a series of actual eventualities. Which is the appropriate reading depends on the context and many other pragmatic factors. (44) Mary handles the mail from Antarctica. Thus, there are no distinct habitual and generic meanings in English as such and hence no distinction of habitual and generic aspects in English.
Used to4
Used to is not a past tense. Like the present perfect, it is a present tense. With its past-tense morphology and present-tense semantics, used to is rather like the preterito-present modalsmight, must, and so on. Just as these modals use periphrastic constructions (e.g., might have) to express past meaning, used to has as its past-tense counterpart (at least in British usage) the pluperfect had used to (50) (Quirk et al. 1985, in Jrgensen 1988, 348). (50) His hide was less shiny than it had used to be. (George Orwell, Animal Farm, chap. 9; in Jrgensen 1988, 349)
The distribution of used to, as described by Tagliamonte and Lawrence (2000), is similar to that of the present perfect. Both are what Benveniste (1959, 70; 1966, 241) calls tenses of discours (discourse), as opposed to tenses of histoire (story), and what Weinrich (1973, 23) similarly calls tenses of commentary, as opposed to those of narrative.5 Tenses of discours are deictic and relate the time of the eventuality to that of the speech act, so they do not require a contextually defined reference time and can readily appear in absolute position (e.g., in a title) or in the first sentence of a text or discourse (51, 52). (51) Well, we have lived to see the end of civilization in England. (T. H. White, The Age of Scandal, chap. 1) (52) Gordon Brittan never used to think animals had minds. (http://www .montana.edu/wwwpb/univ/animinds.html) Like the present perfect, the used to construction shows a preference for highly salient categories such as first person and animate subjects (Wallace 1982, 212-3), particularly with nonstative predicates. For example, a Google search found approximately 43,000 Web pages for I used to eat and 405,000 for I have eaten. For you used to eat, only 4,330 pages were found, and for you have eaten, 72,000. Similarly, (s)he used to eat found 10,200 pages, and (s)he has eaten found 42,700. We may compare the 1,440,000 pages for I ate, 271,000 for you ate, and 678,000 for (s)he ate. Another search found approximately 11,500,000 Web pages for (s)he has been and almost twice as many (22,600,000) for it has been. But the 729,000 pages for it has done are less than half the 1,910,000 pages for (s)he has done. Given the various contingencies that affect what appears on Web pages, and in the absence of a statistical analysis, these numbers can only be taken as qualitatively and roughly indicative, but nonetheless they are revealing. The preponderance of the first person is not as great in the case of the preterite as in those of the tenses of discours, which are likely to occur in contexts that put a premium on deicticness and proximality and hence high salience. Insofar as the perfect and used to both speak to the current state of affairs, it would be, and is, relatively unusual for either to be negated. A Google search found 3,300,000 Web pages with I have made or Ive made but only 311,000 with either I have not made or I havent made. Versions of I have been appeared on some 40 million pages; the negated versions appeared on less than 3 million. I have lived occurred on over a million pages but the negated versions on just over 45,000. Tagliamonte and Lawrence (2000, 338) observe that though negated used to does occur (53), in their data, it is virtually nonexistent, which corroborates Denisons (1993, 323) observation that its negation is avoided.
(53) That didnt use to go down really well, did it? (Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 338) This avoidance has been attributed to uncertainty regarding the form of the negated verb (Denison 1993, 323 and Jrgensen 1988, in Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 337). To be sure, there is considerable variation and confusion over the proper negation. A Web-based survey (at http://www.livejournal.com/users/pne/ 408823.html?mode=reply) evoked the forms (in descending order of occurrence) didnt use to, didnt used to, used not to, used to not, and use to not, along with others, though no examples of either usednt to or usent to. (The former seems to occur on the Web only in discussions of grammar and is so rare that (54a) must be a hypercorrection, especially in light of (54b)). However, negated used to is common enough: a Google search for didnt use to found 24,700 pages. Even a search for the relatively rare usent to found 867. That the present perfect, which does not share this morphological confusion, exhibits a similar avoidance of negation suggests that the relative lack of negation with used to is not to be accounted for on morphological grounds. (54) a. The Mistress usednt to sleep well at night, . . . (Agatha Christie, Poiret Loses a Client) b. You usent to be like that. (Agatha Christie as Mary Westmacott, Giants Bread) Nor is used to a marker of habituality, for, like the present perfect, it concerns the present state of affairs resultant from past actions and not a recurrent series of eventualities. Hence, both constructions exhibit present relevance (55) and require repeatability (56), and both disallow definite adverbials of the past (57), though they allow indefinite ones (58). (55) a. {Bill Clinton/*Abe Lincoln} has been president. b. {Bill Clinton/*Abe Lincoln} used to be president. (56) a. Woody Allen has directed {*Annie Hall/a film a year/important films}. b. Woody Allen used to direct {*Annie Hall/a film a year/important films}. (57) a. *Ive lived in York in 1914. b. *I used to live in York in 1914. (58) a. . . . my greens have sometimes frozen up on me. (http://forums.egullet .org/lofiversion/index.php/t45442.html) b. The pipes on the farm used to freeze sometimes. . . . (http://forums .nervousness.org/ lofiversion/index.php/t943-5600.html)
The used to construction functions as a kind of present perfect, but instead of linking a past event with the present state of affairs by dint of placing it in the present era (i.e., in an extended now ), the used to construction does just the reverse, divorcing the past situation from the present era, which results precisely from an alteration of the previous state of affairs. As shown by example (36), the implicature that the situation no longer holds in the present is cancelable. That this is possible is due to the fact that while normally the present era contrasts with the immediately preceding one precisely in regard to the situation predicated by the sentence (i.e., the situation in question defines the preceding era and hence its contrast with the present), in those cases in which the implicature is cancelable, the current era is not defined in terms of the predicated situation itself but of something else. The difference between the past and present eras in (36) cannot be Eriks being or not being a member of the Volapk League. When the defining characteristic is thus not that predicated by the sentence, it may be rendered explicit, as by when at Cambridge in (59), and it is presupposed that the past era in question has ended: in (59), that the author is no longer at Cambridge. (36) Erik used to be a member of the Volapk League, and he still is. (59) When at Cambridge I used to practise throwing up my gun to my shoulder before a looking-glass to see that I threw it up straight. (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin) Since the point of the used to construction is not to report a habit in the past but rather to contrast the present state of affairs with those obtaining in the immediate past, the requirement for contrast always trumps the implicature that the past situation no longer obtains, which is why (60) is not as odd as (61), in which the only possible contrast involves the predication asserted in the sentence. The eras in (60) contrast not in whether the United States has occasional disputes with its allies but instead in whether George Bush pre is president. (60) When George Bush pre was president, the U.S. used to have occasional disputes with its allies. (61) The U.S. used to have occasional disputes with its allies. If used to is neither a past tense nor a marker of habituality, it is not surprising that it shows significant differences in its use and distribution from both would and the simple past tense, as well as significant similarities to the present perfect tense in both regards.
The Simple Tenses

The simple tenses are markers neither of habituality nor of genericitythese are not meanings but contextual interpretations due to elements of context or cotext. The preterite has a nonhabitual default interpretation (Bybee et al. 1994, 153 in Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 340)6 and requires some temporal and/or contextual specification for [a habitual] reading (Quirk and Greenbaum 1972, 41-2 in Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 340). Thus, always renders (62) explicitly habitual, while (63) remains ambiguous between a habitual reading, referring to a series of actions, and a semelfactive reading, referring to one. (Examples (62) and (63) are from Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 340.) The present can have a semelfactive interpretation only in special uses such as the narrative present (which includes the historical present, as in Napoleon dies in exile), descriptive present (a caption, Washington crosses the Delaware, or a stage direction, Hamlet exits), or the instantaneous present (he scores!), and in such uses, the predicate is normally eventive, and the semelfactive is generally the preferred reading. (62) He always wrote with a special pen. (63) @He wrote with a special pen. The presence or absence of adverbials makes no appreciable difference with used to or would, but there is naturally a strong tendency to use adverbials with the preterite (Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 341), simply because otherwise it might not clearly receive either a semelfactive (64, 65) or habitual (66-68) reading. (Examples (66) to (68) are from Tagliamonte and Lawrence 2000, 341.) (64) One time I went up to the top of Sir W. Battens house. . . . (Diary of Samuel Pepys, Feb. 21, 1662) (65) Later that morning, they played catch and ran laps in a line without passing one another. . . . (http://www.nldline.com/social_camp.htm) (66) He changed it every day. (Hugh Walpole, The Secret City, chap. 10) (67) Used it quite a lot when I learned, and now when I write HTML. (http:// project5.freezope.org/oldsite/links/links.html) (68) Often they were punished for doing this. . . . (H. B. Stowe, Uncle Toms Cabin, chap. 8) The simple tenses quantify cumulatively, unlike would and used to, which quantify distributively. Thus, adverbials of quantity apply to the total number of times the episode or event recurs over the total period in question, whereas with would and used to in its habitual use, a quantifier typically applies to each episode. Compare the sentences in (69). Similarly, quantification of the subject or the object has different effects with the three expressions. With used to or would, a plural sub-
ject and/or object has only a habitual and, hence, a group reading, in which numerous episodes each involve a group of entities (70a), but the simple tenses (70b) have either a semelfactive reading (in which a group of men come to the door on one occasion) or quantify cumulatively, so that men come to the door on several occasionseither as a group or singly. Compare (71), the habitual reading of which leaves open the possibility that on any given occasion more than one, but not necessarily five, men come to the doorfor example, on one occasion, two come; on another, three. (69) a. John {left/leaves} several times. (There were/are several episodes of his leaving.) b. John would leave several times. (In each episode, he left several times.) c. John used to leave several times. (In each episode, he left several times.) (70) a. Several men {would/used to} come to the door. b. Several men {came/come} to the door. (71) Five men {came/come} to the door. Because they quantify cumulatively, the simple tensesfor example, the preterite refer to the interval as a whole, while, quantifying distributively, used to and would refer to each member of the series. Thus, the habitual preterite can only anchor (serve as antecedent to) an expression that takes the whole of the interval as its reference time, while would and habitual used to can anchor an expression taking the time of one of the episodes as its reference time. In (72), he would borrow refers to each time he went fishing and so can readily take as antecedent used to, but in (73), he borrowed is odd because it seems to refer to a single act of borrowing, while the context would seem to call for multiple acts, as in (74). Similarly, the ambiguity in (74) proceeds from the fact that the when-clause could be either semelfactive (when = one time when) or habitual. But the ambiguity of (75) is also caused by the ambiguity of the second clause, though the semelfactive is the preferred reading. We have more to say about anchoring in the section Will and Would below. (72) He used to go fishing. He would borrow tackle from his brother. (=each time) (73) @He used to go fishing. ?He borrowed tackle from his brother. (74) @When he was younger, he went fishing. He would borrow tackle from his brother. (=each time) (75) When he was younger, he went fishing. @He borrowed tackle from his brother. (the semelfactive is the preferred reading) The habitual and/or generic readings of the simple tenses are interpretations in context, due to elements of context and cotext, and a number of different factors play a role in determining the reading.
The first is Aktionsart. With an eventive predicate, as in (76), the preferred, default interpretation of the past tense and the special uses of the present cited above is a definite, semelfactive one, that is, as a single event at a specific temporal nexus. (76) a. John {turned/turns} blue. b. Susan {went/goes} home. c. The dam {broke/breaks}. An activity or process expression acts like a stative when unbounded, so that the preferred reading of (77a) is she habitually traveled (and [77b] characterizes a series of travels); and for (78), she never traveled or she was in the habit of not traveling;it acts like an eventive one when bounded, and hence the preferred reading of (79) is on some occasion, she traveled for three days (cf. (80)). (77) a. She traveled. b. Julius Caesar travels not in a chariot but a horse-drawn Edsel automobile. (http://www.sfbrain.co.ik/misc/anime.html) (78) She didnt travel. (79) She traveled for three days. (80) When Caesar travels to Utica with his army. . . . (http://www.musicweb_ international.com/classrev/2005/Aug05/ferrandni_catone_OC901.htm) In the preterite, an unbounded process has a generic (81) or habitual (82) default reading, and some explicit indicator (as in (83)) is required for a semelfactive interpretation. A bounded process without an explicit adverbial, however, is normally interpreted as semelfactive (84), and some indicator (as in (85)) is required for a habitual reading. (81) Annette Kellerman loved to swim. She swam for fun. . . . (http://www .edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_33_106.html) (generic) (82) But she couldnt wear them when she swam. . . . (http://umanitoba .fitdv.com/new/articles/article.html?artid=58) (habitual) (83) She swam, then met with some small boats which conveyed her to the Lucrine lake. . . . (Tacitus, The Annals, Book XIV, 1-16) (semelfactive) (84) She swam for an hour, then got tired and began looking for pretty seashells along the beach. (http://illusionsworld.tripod.com/story/warmagic.htm) (85) She swam for an hour every morning, and always ate. . . . (http://sfgate .com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ chronicle/archive/1997/08/28/DD23604 .DTL) With states, it matters whether the state is a temporary, stage-level predicate, or a relatively permanent, essential, individual-level predicate. With a stagelevel predicate (86a), the most normal interpretation is definite; the state obtains at
the reference time, as in (86b), where she was tired is true of a time on the day she was arrested. As Partee (1973, 602f.) points out, negating a definite past (as in (87)) simply indicates that the predication failed to hold at the time in question, while negation of an indefinite (88) means that the predication never held. The aspects have stage-level readings, hence definite readings (89). (86) a. She {was/is} tired. b. On that famous day when she was arrested, it would have been much easier for Rosa to give up her seat. . . . But Rosa was tired. (http://www.socialstudies .com/c/@ca5ECqLPQRruU/Pages/rosaparks.html) (87) a. John didnt turn blue. b. Rosa wasnt tired. (88) Pompeii wasnt large. (89) a. Susan {was(nt)/is(nt)} reading. b. Susan {had(nt)/has(nt)} gone to the store. With an individual-stage stative predicate, the preferred reading of the past tense (90) and of one of the special uses of the present (91) is indefinite, simply predicating a property as a global characteristic, without specifying any particular time at which it holds, other than the lifetime of a living subject or period during which an inanimate subject exists. (90) Lincoln was tall. (91) . . . Hamlet is male and Ophelia is female. (http://www.123helpme.com/ assets/4506.html) We have been considering the use of the preterite as an absolute tense, but it also is used as a relative tense, a present-in-the-past, and when so used, the default reading is definite, as with a stative expression such as tall (92); cf. the context in (93). An individual-stage stative predicate also has an absolute, indefinite reading, as in (94), which does not mean that the man was tall when she spoke but instead that the man who came to her door was a tall man. A stage-level predicate lacks an indefinite reading, however, and (95) cannot mean that he was globally tired in the past, only that he was tired at that time, as in (96). (92) Sue knew that John was tall. (93) She kept her eyes on the hall, her other senses working together to form a picture for her. She already knew that the intruder was male. Now she knew that he was tall. . . . (http://members.tripod.com/reality_dysfunction/pitchblack/ games8.htm) (94) KATU spoke with one woman who said a white man in his mid 40s came to her door. And she said that he was tall and slim, dressed well, and was very polite. (http:// www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=57037)
356 JEngL 33.4 (December 2005) Table 1 Predicate Type and Tense Interpretation Absolute Eventive Stativeindividual level Stativestage level John turned blue. (definite, semelfactive) John was tall. (indefinite) John was tired. (definite) Relative
(Sue knew that) John was tall. (definite) (Sue knew that) John was tired. (definite)
(95) Sue knew that John was tired. (96) The jerk stopped throwing punches at her. She knew that he was tired as much as she was. (http:// tannim.anifics.com/Fushigi_Mizu/fm2.txt) Eventive sentences do not have relative tense uses unless there is a special adjunct that forces an indefinite, habitual interpretation. A search on the Internet for examples such as she knew that John turned blue found none in millions of Web pages. But adding often found the example (97). However, adding such an adjunct forces an indefinite reading of stage-level predicates as well, as in (98). We summarize these relationships in Table 1. (97) Mulder would have teased her forever if he knew that she often turned inward to find where he was, if he was all right. (http://vickiemoseley.freeservers .com/follies2.html) (98) She knew that he was often up all night. (http://www.geocities.com/osakabe_ yoshio/ Haruki/Books/Honey-Pie-E.html) The quantification of subjects, objects, and other adjuncts plays a role also, interacting in various ways with elements of context and cotext. In the preterite, a singular subject with a singular object takes as its default reading, in the absence of an explicit or implicit adverbial indicating plural occasions, a semelfactive reading (99a), whereas a plural object (99b) or subject (usually with plural object) (99c) renders preferred a habitual reading. But even a singular subject and singular object, and even in the absence of a frequentative adverbial, can give rise to a habitual reading in an appropriate context (e.g., the last sentence in (99d)). (99) a. . . . Tim wrote a novel set in his fictional village. (http://www.bloc-online .com/about writing/writing-fiction/TimPears.htm) b. . . . Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote several novels set in the medieval conflicts between Poles and the Teutonic Knights. (http://www.answers.com/topic/ historical-novel) c. The authors were important individuals who were famous writers; they wrote novels with social messages. . . . (http://www.odessa.edu/dept/english/ dlane/eng1302/Pages/Background.html)
d. . . . Lora . . . occasionally interfered and took her part when she was very unjustly accused, but no one seemed really to care for her, and she often felt sad and lonely. Mr. Dinsmore, though her own grandfather, treated her with entire neglect. . . . (Martha Finley, Elsie Dinsmore, chap. 2) The interpretation of a simple-tensed sentence as habitual depends not only on the presence, either in the sentence or the context or both, of plural or frequentative elements but also on a number of pragmatic factors. For example, in a polygamous society, a sentence such as (100) could receive a semelfactive, group reading it is otherwise likely to lack. (100) John {married/marries} two women named Sue. The habitual interpretation of both simple tenses thus depends on a number of semantic and pragmatic factors and occurs only in special contexts. Similarly, the generic reading of the simple tenses is restricted and depends on a number of factors, the most important of which is the presence of a generic subject or object. A sentence with a singular, definite subject and singular definite object (101) can receive a habitual reading in the appropriate context but cannot receive a generic reading. What is required is a generic subject (102) or object (103) or some element of context or cotext (such as any) that licenses a generic reading (104). As in the case of habitual interpretations, pragmatics may enter into a generic interpretation. Generic sentences usually involve individual-level properties, which are the kind of properties that may be assigned to the set of properties characterizing the class in question (105a); they do not usually involve stage-level properties, and a sentence such as those in (105b) is at best not as natural as those in (105a). Adverbs of frequency (105c) render such examples habitual and hence natural. (101) John {seeks/sought} a new client. (102) Roman generals {love/loved} a parade. (103) John {drives/drove} trucks. (104) They intercept any HTTP or HTTPS requests from the users web browser, go and retrieve the page themselves, and then hand it back to the user. (http://www.upenn.edu/computing/web-security/websec-proxy .html) (105) a. {Dinosaurs were/Crocodiles are} {big/swift/ferocious}. b. ?*{Dinosaurs were/Crocodiles are} {tired/furious/hungry}. c. {Dinosaurs were/Crocodiles are} {frequently/often/never}{tired/ furious/hungry}. When a nominal expression may receive either a generic or group reading, the interpretation depends on the nature of the property. A stage-level predicate forces a nongeneric reading (106a), while an individual-level predicate forces a generic
reading (the second cats in 106b). The second cats in (106a) could be replaced by the cat (106c), but that in (106a) cannot (106d). It is only the cotext that reveals which reading is intended. (106) a. That year was really bad for rats and cats were everywhere with such an abundant food supply. (http://www.doc.govt.nz/Conservation/002~ Animal-Pests/001~Control-Methods/1080-in-Action/017~StewartIsland-Sentinel.asp) b. Cats were popular because the ancient Egyptians believed that cats had protective qualities. (http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22Cats+were+ popular%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N) c. Cats were popular because the ancient Egyptians believed that the cat had protective qualities. d. *That year was really bad for rats and the cat was everywhere with such an abundant food supply. Genericity, like habituality, is not a meaning of the simple tenses; it is an interpretation dependent on a number of semantic and pragmatic factors.
Will and Would

In contrast to the simple tenses, will and its past tense form, would, are markers of habituality, though not of genericity. Habituality is, however, only one of a number of uses of this modal verb. That these uses are so disparate and allow for ambiguity even in narrowly restricted contexts suggests that the modal is polysemous and that habituality is a different meaning from, say, futurity, as opposed to merely a contextual interpretation. How many different meanings the verb has is not within the scope of the present article to consider, but certainly it has, inter alia, the following uses: future/conditional (future-in-the-past), supposition (that will be John),7 volition or intention (if you will turn now to page 21),8 and habituality (107, 108). (107) Patch is very affectionate. She would prefer to be by your side all day. She will jump up and head butt you to get your attention. (http://www.hsfn .org/cats.htm) (108) She would follow me every place. I couldnt turn without her being there. If I sat in a chair to watch television, she would jump up on and curl up in my lap. (http://www.in-memory-of-pets.com/aboutus.asp) Would differs from the simple past in that unlike the latter, it does not require any special adjuncts to be interpreted as habitual; it is inherently habitual, although conditional readings are naturally possible, out of context, for examples such as (109). As we have noted, the default reading, out of context, of an example like (110) is
nonhabitual (i.e., semelfactive). Since individual-level predicates do not readily form series of episodes, would, unlike the simple past (111a), is not readily used with such predicates (111b) (except in the conditional, i.e., future-in-the-past, reading), but would is common with stage-level predicates such as aware (112). Will/ would also has generic readings (113, 114). (109) Sue would swim across the pool. (110) Sue swam across the pool. (111) a. John was tall. b. !John would be tall. (112) . . . from time to time he would be aware of occasions when the sound had changed for no apparent reasonhe just knew that the sound had changed with no conventional explanation as to why it had. (http://www.belt .demon.co.uk/bh.html) (113) Once this happens the tiger will hunt for a slower prey, humans. (http:// www.milmdl.k12.hi.us/nmd/Malama/M3/Wild%20Animals/Tigers/ Tigers.html) (114) The sender would dictate his or her letter (say it out loud) to the scribe, and the scribe would write what he was told. (http://educ.queensu.ca/~fmc/ march2005/signedandsealed.html) When the simple tenses cannot express habituality, will/would can, and when the simple tenses are ambiguous, will/would is unambiguously habitual because it lacks semelfactive readings, both with eventive predicates (contrast 115b with 115a) and stative predicates (116b versus 116a). Whereas the absolute eventive past has as its preferred interpretation reference to a single event, would renders it explicit that a series of events is in question. Thus, in examples such as (117) and (118), the use of would is clearly intended to render unambiguous that a habit is referred to, and the event in question is part of a series and not just a single event. If we were to delete would in these examples (as in 119 and 120, respectively), a semelfactive reading would be not only possible but the preferred reading. (115) a. John turned blue. b. John would turn blue. (116) a. John was too tired to run. b. John would be too tired to run. (117) On landing in the evening, Good would at once set to work . . . to build a little scherm, or small enclosure. . . . (H. Rider Haggard, Allan Quatermain, chap. 2) (118) So now when the huge loaf came in on a gigantic trencher . . . and, the tour of the table once made, seemed to have melted away, Elias and Catherine would look at one another and say, Who is to find bread for them all when we are gone? (Charles Reade, The Cloister and the Hearth, chap. 2)
(119) On landing in the evening, Good at once set to work . . . to build a little scherm . . . and to light a fire. (120) So now when the huge loaf came in on a gigantic trencher . . . Elias and Catherine looked at one another and said, Who is to find bread for them all when we are gone? As we have seen, the simple past may be rendered, and indeed usually is rendered, habitual by quantifying a subject (by not all in (121a) or simple plurality in (122a)) or object (by any in (123a)) or specifying either the frequency of occurrence (from time to time in (121a), every now and then in (124a), every week and often in (125a)) or the period over which the series of repeated occurrences took place (never in (122a), as a child in (126a)). (121) a. Not all his visits were to the sick; from time to time he made surprise visits to clandestine dances. (http://www.maristoz.edu.au/champagnat/ glances/page5.html) (122) a. My teachers said Id never amount to anything. (http://www .copycoach.com/sampo.htm) (123) a. When I made any remark to him on Geology, he never rested until he saw the whole case clearly, and often made me see it more clearly than I had done before. (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin) (124) a. . . . they had prizefights every now and then, and cockfights and even dogfights. (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle) (125) a. So every week they received reports as to what was going on, and often they knew things before the members of the union knew them. (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle) (126) a. . . . as a child, I went to Church, Sunday school, the Church choir. . . . (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~edges/online/issue31/p5.htm) Without such adjuncts or quantifying terms, the past is ambiguous, as in (127), which could mean either (1) that on one occasion, the narrator made a remark and that on that occasion, the person he spoke to didnt rest until he saw (on that occasion) the whole case clearly, or (2) that habitually the narrator made remarks and that on each occasion the person didnt rest until (on that particular one of the various occasions) he saw the case clearly. (127) When I made a remark to him on Geology, he didnt rest until he saw the whole case clearly. In those cases in which the simple past is ambiguous, would can disambiguate the past, and where the past tense lacks a habitual reading, would can supply the want. Example (128), unlike (127), is unambiguously habitual. John was tired is definite and refers to a single nexus, but John would be tired refers to a series of epi-
sodes of tiredness. Thus, sometimes we can account for the use of would as simply a device for marking a habitual interpretation when the simple past itself cannot do so or forcing such an interpretation when the past tense is ambiguous. (128) When I made a remark to him on Geology, he wouldnt rest until he saw the whole case clearly. We have been considering cases in which would makes up for the ambiguity of the simple past tense. But in the (a) sentences of (121) to (126), the simple past tense is explicitly rendered habitual (and neither semelfactive nor generic) by various adjuncts and quantifying expressions. Hence, the replacement of the simple past by would in the corresponding (b) sentences cannot be explained by the need to unambiguously mark habituality. How, then, do we account for the use of would in such cases of an unambiguously habitual simple past? (121) b. Not all his visits would be to the sick; from time to time he would make surprise visits to clandestine dances. (122) b. My teachers would say Id never amount to anything. (123) b. When I would make any remark to him on Geology, he would never rest until he saw the whole case clearly, and would often make me see it more clearly than I had done before. (124) b. . . . they would have prizefights every now and then, and cockfights and even dogfights. (125) b. So every week they would receive reports as to what was going on, and often they would know things before the members of the union knew them. (126) b. . . . as a child, I would go to Church, Sunday school, the Church choir. . . . The key to answering these questions is the concept of distributivity. Brinton (1987, 203) states that the habitual views a situation as iterated or distributive over a period of time. She also comments, by way of explaining the incompatibility of habituality with the progressive, that habits, although dynamic, are never continuous in the frame considered, but distributive (207). She says no more regarding distributivity or the distributive nature of habitual aspect, but her comment correctly places distributivity at the heart of habituality. Similarly, Van Geenhoven (2001, section 5) characterizes frequency adverbs such as often as binding subevent times by distributing them over the overall event time. The simple tenses are not habitual. They do not represent a series of events as a habit because they quantify over events cumulatively, while habitual expressions such as the modal will/would quantify distributively: the past tense speaks of all events within the frame, while would speaks of each event. Thus, even in the habitual, as opposed to the generic, interpretation, the simple tenses characterize the pe-
riod of the frame as a whole, while the modal will distributes individual events over the period of the frame. Because generic (129), serial (130), and individual-stage stative (131) sentences concern a period of time, they cannot take as their anchor a moment in time (129a131a) but must instead anchor at an interval of time (129b-131b). Habitual would, too, characterizing as it does an entire period of time, cannot take as its anchor a moment (132a) but must anchor at an interval (132b). In a sentence such as (133), the when clause is interpreted as a whenever clause, precisely because a when clause, interpreted literally, refers to a moment. (129) a. !When Suzanne entered, lions ate meat. b. Before they became vegetarians, lions ate meat. (130) a. !When Suzanne entered, Bill commuted to work by train. b. Throughout 2003, Bill commuted to work by train. (131) a. !When Suzanne entered, Bill was American-born. b. All his life, Bill was American-born. (132) a. !When Suzanne entered, Max would stand up. b. Every time Suzanne entered, Max would stand up. (133) When a man got to the mast-head, he would come slowly down again to get something which he had forgotten. . . . (Richard Henry Dana, Two Years before the Mast, chap. 12) It is striking, then, that would can co-occur with each time (134). This expression, unlike every time in (132b), appears to refer not to a set of times (and hence implicitly to an interval) but instead to but a single time. Yet would can take as its reference or frame time the time denoted by a phrase headed by it. (134) Each time Suzanne entered, Max would stand up. There is more to observe regarding each time. Each time can serve either as an adverbial or as a subordinating conjunction. When it is a conjunction, it does not take as its complement a clause in would but does take one in a simple tense (135). But when it is an adverbial, the reverse is trueit does not take a clause containing the simple past, but instead would (136) (or, as in (137), will). (135) a. She had always liked thrift stores and each time she went into one, ideas would start to form. (http://www.secondhandsavvy.com/ez5/ez5_3.html) b. . . . she is writing Atlantic series history each time she drives the #24 Argent Mortgage/Toyota/Swift. (http://www.toyotaatlantic.com/Feature.asp ?ID=598) (136) Schools for gardening, astronomy, cooking, mathematics, tailoring and for the martial arts, but from each of these came a note, I can teach her nothing if she does not want to learn. And each time she would reply, It
is really too difficult. (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/yw/2002/10/ 26/ stories/2002102600160300.htm) (137) Now I put the water in a bowl and each time she will drink about half bowl of water especially after a walk. (http://www.puppy.com.my/forum/Dog_ and_Puppies_Talk_C3/Behaviour_F15/My_pug_make_the _floor_wet_ after_he_drink_water_P6392/) We may ascribe this contrast to the different functions of each time in the two structures. The subordinating conjunction serves to individuate the members of a set of events. Example (138a) refers to a series, a set, of events; (138b) to each one of them. But while the simple tenses refer to a set of events and hence can provide input into the semantic operation of individuation, will and would do not refer, as they seem to do, to sets of events but instead already refer to each one, so no further individuation is possible. On the other hand, the adverbial each time refers to one of a series of times and hence is compatible with an expression such as will, referring to one of a series of events, but not with an expression, such as a simple tense, referring to the series of events as a whole. As we would expect, while used to is quite uncommon with the adverbial each time, examples like (139) do occur. On the other hand, used to does not occur with the conjunction. (138) a. I always left at noon. b. I would always leave at noon. (139) They used to come twice or three times a week and each time they used to take from our detainees 30-40 to unknown destinations. . . . (http:// www.crohdi.org/english/hostages/abbas.asp) The period of time designated by used to can serve as an anchor for would, as in (140). For that matter, so can that denoted by would itself (141). In fact, just about any interval of time will serve to anchor would. In (142), these intervals are rendered explicit by the phrases I have italicized here, but in (143), they are given by the context or are otherwise merely implicit. Thus, the period in question in (143a) is defined (by the preceding sentence) as Pauline Breedloves younger years; in (143b), it is defined as the period in which she suffered old age and deterioration. (140) When I used to fly with my parents, I would always tell the security guards No guns or bullets! (http://iusedtobelieve.com/the_law/police/) (141) When I would write to music, I would often produce a great deal. (http://www .outminds.com/outspoken/outspoken_column.cfm?cid=434) (142) a. When she was in Mumbai, she would often go to the Shanti Durga temple in Goa. (http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2003/09/29/stories/ 2003092901610400.htm)
b. Upon returning home she would collect the letters and use them to write the memoirs of her travels. (http://sunshinedubois.greatnow.com/wrklsr .html) c. As a child, Judy would often creep up into the attic of the family home to play. She would dress up in all sorts of homemade costumes and make-up and star in her own feature films. (http://www.yourlibrary.ws/childrens_ webpage/j-author22000.html) (143) a. Pauline Breedloves younger years are described. It explains how she would often go to the movies, and because of this eventually became fascinated with Hollywood ideals of beauty. (http://www.bookrags.com/notes/ be/SUM.htm) b. I know that the indignities of old age and deterioration were almost more than she could bear, and how she would often go without rather than ask people to do things for her. (http://www.benedira.com/) Where there is an expression in the sentence that would force a habitual reading of the past tense, the past can be substituted for would in sentences anchored on used to (144a), would (144b), or an interval otherwise designated (144c). (144) a. When I used to fly with my parents, I always told the security guards No guns or bullets! b. When I would write to music, I often produced a great deal. c. As a child, Judy often crept up into the attic of the family home to play. But if we examine sentences such as those in (144), we notice that a subtle shift in meaning has taken place from the corresponding would sentences. Example (145) connects each telling to each event of flying. The sense is that each time the narrator flew, he told the guards No guns or bullets! But (144a) merely says that during the period in which the narrator flew with his parents, on every occasion he spoke to the guards thus, and the connection between the events of flying and the events of saying No guns or bullets! is indirect, mediated by the fact that always refers not to all times within that period but only to those occasions on which the narrator flew with his parents. (145) When I used to fly with my parents, I would always tell the security guards No guns or bullets! Similarly, (146) says that it was often the case that an occasion of writing to music was an occasion of producing a great deal. But (144b) says something slightly differentnamely, that occasions of producing a great deal were fairly dense among the occasions of writing to music. Of course, this implies that it was often the case that an occasion of writing to music was an occasion of producing a great deal, that is, (144b) implies what (146) says, but it is not what (144b) says.
(146) When I would write to music, I would often produce a great deal. It is interesting to observe that stative used to and habitual used to serve as anchors in rather different ways. Habitual used to regularly serves to anchor would, as in the examples (144a) and (145) above. It can also anchor another used to (147). (147) a. Because when he used to drink, he used to be very violent towards me. (http://www.datec.net.pg/~phowley/oldst1.html) b. When he used to travel to his customers, farmers he used to exchange products with, he used to rehearse the order of prayers for the high holidays. (http://www.zabludow.com/chosenpagesbaaltefilah.html) On the other hand, stative used to tends to anchor the simple past tense, either with an eventive predicate (i.e., the past tense event occurred in the interval denoted by the used to phrase, as in (148a)) or a stative one (the state persisted over the interval denoted by the used to phrase, as in (148b)). (148) a. . . . when he used to be a wrestler, he faced the Bossman once in a battle royal in Cordele, Ga. back in 1992 and was eliminated by him. (http:// www.raytraylor.net/Wrestling/ Interviews/1_6_02/1_6_02.shtml) b. When he used to be straight, I thought he was adorable. (http://www .geocities.com/cbaglad/malecast.html) When a stative used to anchors the past (e.g., (148)), it is possible to replace used to with the past tense, with no essential change in meaning (149). Stative used to, the past tense with a stative, and expressions such as when I was a child all simply denote an interval that can serve as anchor for any clause requiring an interval as anchor. (149) . . . when he was a wrestler, he faced the Bossman once in a battle royal in Cordele, Ga. back in 1992 and was eliminated by him. But habitual used to is like would, and as such, when it serves as anchor for an expression with would or another used to, we understand the two to coordinate, so that there is a link between the members of each pair of events. In (147a), for example, each episode of drinking involves an episode of violence toward the narrator. Example (150), substituting the simple past for used to, lacks this kind of linking. (147) a. Because when he used to drink, he used to be very violent towards me. (150) Because when he drank, he used to be very violent towards me.
Thus there is something about the meanings of would and nonstative used to that differs from the meanings of stative used to and the past tense, that interacts differentially with the meaning of the past tense, and that affects how the past tense anchors to the various types of expressionsused to, would, the past tense itself, and other expressions. The factor is that of quantification. The stative use of used to, like that of the past tense, simply quantifies cumulatively over the whole of the period, while the nonstative use, like would, quantifies distributively. The used to in (145, repeated below) speaks to each occasion of flying, so that it is not the totality of the period in which the narrator flew with his parents that each occasion of speaking to the guards anchors to. But the past tense can only anchor to the period as a whole. Hence, the link, the logical relationship, between each event of flying and each act of telling cannot be directly expressed by the past-tense version (144a). (144) a. When I used to fly with my parents, I always told the security guards No guns or bullets! (145) When I used to fly with my parents, I would always tell the security guards No guns or bullets!
Conclusion
Traditionally, used to, would, and the simple tenses are considered markers of habituality and genericity in English. Habits have been said to be conditions constituting a state, and past habits no longer obtain. However, expressions of habituality in English fail most tests for stativity, and expressions of past habituality do not necessarily express conditions that no longer apply. Used to is neither a past tense nor a marker of habituality. It is a kind of present tense, a deictic tense of discours. Its distribution and usage are similar to those of the present perfect, and it functions as a kind of anti-present-perfect, serving to divorce a past state or series of events from the present state of affairs. In its present semantics and past morphology, it is similar to the preterito-present modals, and in British English, at least, it has a past-tense counterpart (had used to). Nor are the simple tenses markers of habituality or genericity. These are possible contextual interpretations of the simple tenses (and not only the simple tenses), but these readings come not from the meanings of the tenses but from elements of cotext or context. The simple tenses quantify cumulatively, not distributively, and can neither anchor, nor link, individual members of a series in the way that expressions with truly habitual uses do. The modal will (past tense would) has among its various meanings that of habituality, though not genericity, the generic reading (as in boys will be boys) being, as in the case of the simple tenses, a contextual interpretation. Will can receive a
habitual reading out of context and in the absence of any special adjuncts, and it quantifies distributively, not cumulatively.
Notes
1. Pages on the World Wide Web are highly volatile. However, a search of the Web should find comparable examples to those on pages that have disappeared. 2. The exclamation point indicates that the sentence is grammatical but with a different meaning than that assumed, in this case, a habitual reading referring to a specific dinosaur. 3. The example sentence is ambiguous, but the gloss makes clear the intended sense. 4. A fuller exposition of the argument and discussion summarized in this section may be found in Binnick (forthcoming). 5. Weinrich specifically distinguishes (1964) the besprochene Welt (1973, monde commentcommented world or world of commentary) and the erzhlte Welt (monde racontnarrated world or world of narration). 6. Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994) say that the default is perfective. This is controversial, however, and in the present context, the point is simply that habituality is not the default reading. 7. Suppositional would seems never to be used as the past-tense counterpart of will but always as a less direct present-tense modal. 8. Would seems not to share this meaning.
References
Bennett, Michael, and Barbara Hall Partee. 1978. Toward the Logic of Tense and Aspect in English. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Benveniste, Emile. 1959. Les rlations de temps dans le verbe franais. Bulletin de la socit linguistique de Paris 54:69-82. . 1966. Problmes de linguistique gnrale. Paris: Gallimard. Binnick, Robert I. Forthcoming. Used to and Habitual Aspect in English. Style. Brinton, Laurel J. 1987. The Aspectual Nature of States and Habits. Folia Linguistica 21:195-214. . 1988. The Development of English Aspectual Systems. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Bybee, Joan L., Revere D. Perkins, and William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. . 1985. Tense. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Copley, Bridget. 2004. Aspect and Scope in Future Conditionals. http:// semanticsarchive.net/Archive/GQ3ZDY5Z/copley.aspect.scope.future .conditionals.5.27.04.pdf Cutrer, L. Michelle. 1994. Time and Tense in Narrative and in Everyday Language. PhD diss., University of California, San Diego. Dahl, sten. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Denison, David. 1993. English Historical Syntax. Harlow, UK: Longman. Dowty, David R. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel. Ferrari-Bridgers, Franca. 2004. [V-N] Compound Nouns Formation in Italian. Paper presented at 20th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, January 7-9, Helsinki, Finland. http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/kielitiede/20scl/abstracts.shtml. Freed, Alice F. 1979. The Semantics of English Aspectual Complementation. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel. Harrison, Rick. 2002. Verb Aspect. http://www.rick.harrison.net/langlab/ aspect.html Hirtle, W. H. 1967. The Simple and Progressive Forms: An Analytical Approach. Qubec: Les presses de luniversit Laval. . 1975. Time, Aspect, and the Verb. Qubec: Les presses de luniversit Laval. Jespersen, Otto. [1932] 1961. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles: Part IV. Syntax (Third Volume). Reprint, London: Allen & Unwin. Jrgensen, Erik. 1988. Used to (+ infinitive). English Studies 69:348-54. Leech, Geoffrey N. 1987. Meaning and the English Verb. London: Longman. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Partee, Barbara Hall. 1973. Some Structural Analogies between Tenses and Pronouns. Journal of Philosophy 70: 601-9. Schibsbye, Knud. 1970. A Modern English Grammar. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Tagliamonte, Sali, and Helen Lawrence. 2000. I Used to Dance, but I Dont Dance Now: The Habitual Past in English. Journal of English Linguistics 28:324-53. Van Geenhoven, Veerle. 2001. Aspect, Pluractionality, and Adverbial Quantification. Paper presented at Perspectives on Aspect, December 12-14, Utrecht, The Netherlands. http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/conferences/Perspectives_on_ Aspect/Proceedings/geenhoven.pdf Vendler, Zeno. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wallace, Stephen. 1982. Figure and Ground: The Interrelationships of Linguistic Categories. In Tense-Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics, edited by Paul J. Hopper, 201-23. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Weinrich, Harald. 1964. Tempus: besprochene und erzhlte Welt. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer. . 1973. Le temps: le rcit et le commentaire. Paris: ditions du Seuil.
Robert I. Binnick is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. His research interests include the semantics and pragmatics of tense and related areas.

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JEngL 33.4 Binnick / Markers (December of Habitual 2005) Aspect in English

The Markers of Habitual Aspect in English

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340 JEngL 33.4 (December 2005)