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【转载自耶鲁大学北美英语语法多样性项目】Have yet to用法

Helen 2017-08-28 23:25:26

本文转载自耶鲁大学北美英语语法多样性项目主页，版权归耶鲁大学所有。

耶鲁大学北美英语语法多样性项目：探讨北美各种英语口语中句法多样性。通过记录英语句法语法中微妙但有系统的差异，这个项目为人类语言知识理论的发展提供了重要数据来源。

Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in NorthAmerica

This Project explores syntactic diversity found in varieties of English spoken in North America. By documenting the subtle, but systematic, differences in the syntax of English varieties, it provides a crucial source of data for the developmentof theories of human linguistic knowledge.

原文地址：http://ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/have-yet-to

文中红色字体是讨论have yet to 是否有否定含义。讨论的结果是have yet to 很多时候是表示否定的意思，但是也可以表示肯定的意思，两种用法都对。

"John has yet to visit his grandmother."

(Provided by page author)

“She blocked her eyes and drew the curtains with knots I’ve got yet to untie.”

(Michael Penn –No Myth)

Have yet tois a construction that appears in most, if not all, varieties of English. It refers to an event that has not occurred so far but that might occur in the future. For example, (1) means that the speaker has not eaten dinner but will possibly do so at some point in the future:

1) I have yet to eat dinner.

Some speakers can use a form ofbeinstead ofhave, as shown in (2):

2) I am yet to eat dinner.

Who saysthis? 适用人群

From our surveys, this construction appears to be distributed across speakers in all regions and demographic groups. Certain properties of the construction differ from speaker to speaker, with no clear geographic or demographic trends. These properties are discussed in the next section.

Syntacticproperties句法特征

Have/bevariation

Harves and Myler (2014) state that speakers who acceptbe yet to, as in (3), also accepthave yet to.

3) John is yet to eat dinner.

The clearest distinction betweenhave yet toandbe yet tois found with respect to so-calledthough-movement, at least for some speakers. Given a base sentence like (4a), most speakers allow the bracketed part to be moved to the front of the sentence and be followed bythough, but only withbe yet to, as in (4b):

4) a. Though he has/is [yet to score], Messi is still Barcelona’s best player. b. [Yet to score] though heis, Messi is still Barcelona’s best player.

Sentence (5), which does the same operation withhave yet to, is ungrammatical:

5) *[Yet to score] though hehas, Messi is still Barcelona’s best player.

Doeshave yet tomake a sentence negative?

have yet to 在句中是否表示否定的意思？

When a sentence is negative, it can be followed by a shorter sentence beginning withneither, as in (6a). By contrast, when the sentence is positive, the following sentence can begin withsoinstead, as in (6b):

6) a. John doesn’t have any children, andneitherdoes Mary. b. John has three children, andsodoes Mary.

In this way, the ‘so/neithertest’ can be used as a way of distinguishing a positive sentence from a negative one. When this test is applied tohave yet to, speakers (and linguists) often give contradictory judgments. Harves and Myler (2014), for instance, judge (7a) to be ungrammatical and (7b) to be grammatical, while Johnson and Bybel (2014) give the opposite judgments:

7) a. John has yet to eat dinner, andneitherhas Mary. b. John has yet to eat dinner, andsohas Mary.

Our surveys suggest that (7a) is more widely acceptable than (7b), but in fact both are accepted by most speakers.

Theso/neithertest is one of several tests for negation given by Klima (1964). Another test is whether or not a sentence can be continued bynot even once: Negative sentences can be continued bynot even once, while positive sentences cannot. For Bybel and Johnson (2014), (8) is grammatical, suggesting thathave yet todoes create a negative sentence. However, Harves and Myler (2014) disagree, and for them, sentences like (8) are ungrammatical:

8) John is yet to attend Mary’s lecture, not even once.

The inconclusive results from the negation tests could mean that speakers simply disagree about whetherhave yet tomakes a sentence negative, or it could mean thathave yet toputs a sentence somewhere between negative and positive.

Auxiliaryhavevs. lexicalhave

The verbhavecan be used as amain verb, where it usually means something like ‘possess’, as in (9a).Havecan also be used alongside another verb as anauxiliary verb, or ‘helping’ verb—in (9b), for example,hasis the auxiliary verb andvisitedis the main verb:

9) a. Maryhasthree children. b. Maryhasvisited her daughter.

This brings up the question of whether thehaveinhave yet tois a main verb or an auxiliary verb. Huddleston (1976) gives several tests to distinguish main verbhavefrom auxiliaryhave. Harves and Myler (2014) apply these tests tohave yet toand, as in the previous tests for negation, they find mixed results. One such test is whether or notcontractionofhaveorhasdown to‘veor‘sis permitted. Auxiliaryhavecan be contracted, as in (10a), while main verbhavecannot be contracted, as in (10b):

10) a. We’veseen three children. b. *We’vethree children.

Most speakers permit contraction withhave yet to, as in (11), suggesting that, for those speakers,haveis an auxiliary:

11) We’veyet to win the hearts of our classmates.

Another test concerns whether or not the auxiliary verbdoappears.Docan replace part of a sentence if we already know the content of that part. This replacement is known asellipsis. For example, (12b) can be used to express the same idea as (12a): the second instance of the phrasehas three childrencan be replaced bydowithout affecting the meaning of the sentence:

12) a. John has three children, and Billhas three childrentoo. b. John has three children, and Billdoestoo.

But when an auxiliaryhaveappears in the first part of the sentence, as in (13), then that auxiliary will resurface under ellipsis:

13) Johnhasseen a dolphin, and Billhastoo.

As sentence (14) shows, usingdoto replace an auxiliaryhaveis ungrammatical:

14) *Johnhasseen a dolphin, and Billdoestoo.

Therefore, we have another way of distinguishing main verbhavefrom auxiliaryhave: a verb phrase with main verbhavecan be replaced bydounder ellipsis, as in (12b), while a verb phrase with auxiliaryhavecan be replaced byhaveunder ellipsis, as in (13). Applying this test tohave yet tohas yielded inconclusive results for the acceptability of sentences like (15a) and (15b):

15) a. John has yet to win the hearts of his classmates, and Billhastoo. b. John has yet to win the hearts of his classmates, and Billdoestoo.

For instance, Kelly (2012), rejects (15a), suggesting a main verb analysis, while some consultants of Harves and Myler (2014) accept it.

Our surveys, which use these tests and others, indicate that, for most speakers, thehaveofhave yet tois an auxiliary rather than a main verb, although many speakers allow both variants and others allow neither.

Got yet to

Our surveys have shown that a minority of speakers allowhave yet toto be replaced withhavegotyet toas in (16):

16) You’vegotyet to visit your grandmother.

This bears on the question of whether thehaveofhave yet tois a main verb or an auxiliary. Main verbhave(provided that it indicates possession) is generally interchangeable withhave got, as shown in (17a), while auxiliaryhaveis not interchangeable withhave got, as shown by the unacceptability of (17b):

17) a. We’ve goteight grandchildren. b. *We’ve got visitedour eight grandchildren.

This suggests that, for the speakers who permithave got yet to,have yet tocontains a main verbhave, rather than an auxiliaryhave.

Page contributed by Matthew Tyler on July 22, 2015

References参考文献

Harves, Stephanie and Neil Myler. 2014. Licensing NPIs and licensing silence:Have/be yet toin English.Lingua148, 213-239.

Huddleston, Rodney. 1976. Some theoretical issues in the description of the English verb.Lingua40, 331-383.

Johnson, Greg. and Bybel, Kali. 2014. The syntax of ‘have yet to’ [handout]. Presentation at SECOL.

Kelly, Justin. 2012. The syntax and semantics of infinitival yet constructions.Cahiers Chronos, 25.

Klima, Edward. 1964. Negation in English. In: Jerry Fodor & Jerrold Katz (eds.),The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language. Prentice-Hall.