Unreal past in the english language

The course paper is devoted to the past forms expressing unreal actions or states in the English language. Even though the synthetic and analytical forms denoting unreality are those of the most commonly used grammatical means in the English language, the problem of unreal past is still studied by many linguists. The reason for this fact is that the category of subjunctive mood expressing unreality is at the stage of the formation and change. Besides, the present changes in the English language cause the appearance of new meanings and ways to convey the sense of unreality in different contexts and speech situations. Moreover, the learners of English usually face a lot of difficulties in comprehending complex sentences with subordinate clauses of unlikely and unreal conditions mainly because of the fact that the system of the subjunctive mood in English is devoid of inflections making the expression of imaginary situations clear in other world languages. The system of analytical forms based on the usage of English modal verbs which is gradually substituting the synthetic subjunctive also makes the problem of unreal past in the modern English language one of the most controversial. The relevance of this work lies in the fact that there is a considerable change in the means of expressing unreal past in English in the recent years and the number of linguistic studies devoted to the problem of denoting imaginary actions as a whole is rather limited, especially in Russian linguistic school. The object is the grammatical forms of the English language rendering the process described in the utterance as imaginary. The subject is the ways of expressing unreality by means of the past forms in the English language. The objective of the study is to identify and reveal all the past tense forms used to express the actions presented by the speaker of the utterance as unreal.

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To achieve this objective, a number of tasks should be accomplished: 1) to study and summarize the information about the grammatical category of mood in the English language; 2) to observe the information about the subjunctive mood; 3) to investigate the grammatical forms used to express unreality and their peculiarities; 4) to analyse and synthesise the latest research on the topic of the work. The research is focused on the subjunctive mood as one of the parts of the English language grammar most difficult for comprehension. The studies of different linguists, both Russian and foreign (namely, M. Y. Blokh, O. A. Morozova, A. M. Yakhina, S.V. Sannikova, E. A. Vikulova, T. N. Khomutova, R. Nordquist, R. Quirk, C. Gabrielatos, A. Carter, S. Gardener, etc.), will be maintained in this work. The works of these linguists are considered as theoretical basis when conducting the research. The material under research includes different grammar textbooks and the latest research on the subjunctive mood and its role in the Modern English language. All the sources studied are provided in the list of references which consists of 20 items both in English and Russian. The scientific methods used in the research are the analysis of the publications on the topic and the synthesis of information connected with the subject of the research. The study consists of introduction, two chapters, and references. The introduction presents the relevance, the objective, the tasks, the object, the subject of the course work and the methods used in it. The main part of the course work consists of two chapters. The first chapter is entitled “Unreal Past as a Means of Expressing Modality in the English language ” and it contains the observation of various research related to the topic studied. The second chapter – “The Usage of Unreal Past Forms in Modern English” – includes the analysis of various research which reveals the topic more precisely, namely the study of conditional sentences and several types of subordinate clauses in which the past tense forms are used to express the process as imaginary frоm the speaker’s point of view. The summary of the course work is provided in conclusion.

According to the analysis carried out in the first chapter, it should be emphasized that the use of the past forms with the purpose of expressing unreality is closely connected with the notion of modality. The nature of this phenomenon is revealed in a number of linguistic studies. Only the true understanding of its meaning can result in the proper use of the grammatical forms expressing real or unreal actions. The modality in the language is expressed by the means of the category of mood which includes, as was stated in the process of the present research, 3 types in English: the indicative, imperative and subjunctive mood. The number of moods, though, is still being discussed in the linguistic literature. The subjunctive mood is meant to convey the meaning of hypotheticalness in English. Because of the lack of the synthetic forms denoting imaginary actions the subjunctive forms nowadays are expressed by a wide range of past tense forms and modal verbs in the modern language.

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