The category of voice presents us with its own batch of difficulties. In their main character they have something in common with the difficulties of mood: there is no strict one-way correspondence between meaning and means of expression. Thus, for instance, in the sentence I opened the door and in the sentence the door opened the meaning is obviously different, whereas the form of the verb is the same in both cases. To give another example: in the sentence he shaved the customer and in the sentence he shaved and went out the meaning is different (the second sentence means that he shaved himself), but no difference is to be found in the form of the verb.

We have already discussed some relations between mood and tense in dealing with such forms as lived, knew, and such forms as should come, would come.

Among these we must mention first the groups let me go, let us go, and let him (them) go, i. e. the patterns "let + personal pronoun (in the objective case) or noun (in the common case) + infinitive' which may be used to denote (1) a decision of the 1st person sin- 
The Verb: Mood gular (i. e. of the speaker himself) to commit an action, or (2) an appeal to the 1st person plural, that is to one or more interlocutors to commit an action together with the speaker, or (3) an appeal to the 3rd person (singular or plural) to commit some action.

Now we come to a very difficult set of problems, namely those connected with the subjunctive, conditional, or whatever other name we may choose to give these moods. The chief difficulty analysis has to face here is the absence of a straightforward mutual relation between meaning and form. Sometimes the same external series of signs will have two (or more) different meanings depending on factors lying outside the form itself, and outside the meaning of the verb; sometimes, again, the same modal meaning will be expressed by two different series of external signs.

The imperative mood in English is represented by one form only, viz. come(!), without any suffix or ending.2 It differs from all other moods in several important points. It has no person, number, tense, or aspect distinctions, and, which is the main thing, it is limited in its use to one type of sentence only, viz. imperative sentences. Most usually a verb in the imperative has no pronoun acting as subject. However, the pronoun may be used in emotional speech, as in the following example: "But, Tessie—" he pleaded, going towards her. "You leave me alone!" she cried out loudly. (E. CALDWELL)

The use of the indicative mood shows that the speaker represents the action as real.

The category of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions, and has been treated in so many different ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less convincing and universally acceptable conclusion concerning it. Indeed, the only points in the sphere of mood which have not so far been disputed seem to be these: (a) there is a category of mood in Modern English, (b) there are at least two moods in the modern English verb, one of which is the indicative. As to the number of the other moods and as to their meanings and the names they ought to be given, opinions to-day are as far apart as ever. It is to be hoped that the new methods of objective linguistic investigation will do much to improve this state of things. Meanwhile we shall have to try to get at the roots of this divergence of views and to establish at least the starting points of an objective investigation. We shall have to begin with a definition of the category. Various definitions have been given of the category of mood. One of them (by Academician V. Vinogradov) is this: "Mood expresses the relation of the action to reality, as stated by the speaker." 1 This definition seems plausible on the whole, though the words "relation of the action to reality" may not be clear enough. What is meant here is that different moods express different degrees of reality of an action, viz. one mood represents it as actually taking (or having taken) place, while another represents it as merely conditional or desired, etc.

We have accepted the definition of the basic meaning of the perfect forms as that of "precedence". However, this definition can only be the starting point for a study of the various uses of the perfect forms. Indeed, for more than one case this definition of its meaning will seem wholly inadequate, because its actual meaning in a given context will be influenced by various factors. Though a very great amount of investigation has been carried on in this field and many phenomena have by now been elucidated, it is only fair to say that a complete solution of all the problems involved in the uses and shades of meaning of the perfect forms in Modern English is not yet in sight.

The Modern English perfect forms have been the subject of a lengthy discussion which has not so far brought about a definite result. The difficulties inherent in these forms are plain enough and may best be illustrated by the present perfect. This form contains the present of the verb have and is called present perfect, yet it denotes an action which no longer takes place, and it is (almost always) translated into Russian by the past tense, e. g. has written — написал, has arrived — приехал, etc.

While the existence of the aspect category in English is a disputed matter, the tense category is universally recognised. Nobody has ever suggested to characterise the distinction, for example, between wrote, writes, and will write as other than a tense distinction. Thus we shall not have to produce any arguments in favour of the existence of the category in Modern English. Our task will be on the one hand to define the category as such, and on the other, to find the distinctions within the category of tense, that is, to find out how many tenses there are in English and what each of them means and also to analyse the mutual relations between tense and other categories of the English verb.