Perspectival interpretations of tenses (handhout of a talk at ICL 19 Geneva) (original) (raw)
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The paper discusses the semantics and pragmatics of tense interpretation in language, proposing that certain complex structures allow for viewpoint shifts and simulations that enhance communication. It explores how futurate uses of the present perfect can lead to pragmatic effects and the necessity of understanding these constructions in a way that reconciles differing theories of mind, specifically simulation theory and theory-theory. The analysis raises questions about the relationship between tense, aspect, and the communicative implications in natural language.
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Towards a formal description of the differences between some tenses in French and English
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The double system of tense forms referring to future time in English
As is weIl known, some types of subclause in English differ from independent clauses in that they require a different tense form when the reference is to the future. We say 'I will be happy if the weather is nice tomorrow', but not *'I am happy if the weather is nice tomorrow' or ·*'I will be happy if the weather will be nice tomorrow'. As is clear from these examples, the two ways of referring to the future are subject to different conditions, and each has a distribution of its own. This article investigates the two systems in detail. It shows how they fit into a more general theory of tense, offers an explanation for their different distributions and examines the subtle semantic differences between their uses in clauses that allow both (e.g.restrictive relative clauses).
Declerck 2015 Tense in English
Tense in English: its structure and use in discourse., 2015
Preface viii List of abbreviations x 1 Introduction 1 Aim and scope o f the work 1 2 Some theoretical and methodological preliminaries 2 Tense in discourse 1: general principles 1 Situation 2 Temporal zero-point (tQ) 3 The two time-spheres 4 Time of orientation (TO) 5 Sectors 6 Present sector, pre-present, post-present 7 Absolute sectors 8 Temporal domain 9 Binding TO 10 Central TO 21 11 Ancillary TO 21 12 Shift of temporal domain 21 13 Shift of temporal perspective 14 Temporal subordination 15 The expression of domain-internal relations 15.1 The relations in a past time-sphere domain 15.2 The relations in a pre-present sector domain 15.3 The present sector 15.4 Relations in the post-present sector 16 Sloppy simultaneity 17 Alternatives to temporal subordination 17.1 Shifting the domain 17.2 Establishing a simultaneous domain 17.3 Re-establishing the domain 18 Different ways of establishing a domain 59 vi Contents 19 Direct and indirect binding 62 20 Shift o f temporal perspective 66 21 Temporal perspective and modality 76 21.1 Remoteness from reality, i.e. nonfactuality 77 21.2 Tentativeness 78 22 Temporal focus 80 23 Point o f view 89 24 Implicit TO 92 25 Adverbial time clauses 97 25.1 JT/jen-clauses 98 25.2 Before-clauses 101 25.3 After-clauses 107 26 Conclusion 113 3 Tense in discourse 2: restrictions and possibilities References 397 Index 416 FPS Future Perspective System MidS middle of the situation N P noun phrase PPS Present Perspective System RST Represented Speech and Thought SoT Sequence of Tenses SS situation span TE established time to temporal zero-point TO time of orientation TOE time which is both TE and TO TOs;t situation-TO TS time of the situation TU time of utterance VP verb phrase 1. Schulze (1985) offers a bibliography which is twenty-five pages long in spite o f the fact that it covers only a period o f (roughly) ten years and does not aim at being complete. 1.2 A second illustration concerns sentences like the following: (2) (a) I am hungry. (b) London lies on the Thames. 2. The fact that all o f the claims that are presented below are widespread is one o f the reasons that I will abstain from adding references to them. The other reason is that all these claims will be discussed at greater length at different places in the book and that all necessary references will be given there. used as statements and cannot, therefore, be assigned a truth value.)7 Clauses whose verb form is in the subjunctive mood are also untensed (see Heny 1982:112). Like nonfinite forms, subjunctive forms merely express a single temporal relation. Thus, the 'present subjunctive' just expresses simultaneity. For this reason it can be used after any tense (see Er-Rayyan 1986:72): (6) Bill suggests/suggested/will suggest/had suggested/would suggest that we leave. It should be noted that the term 'tense' is not always defined so restrictively as is done in Lyons (1977) and here. For example, Comrie (1985) also treats tense as a deictic category (p. 14), but (in spite of the fact that he refers to Lyons' treatm ent of deixis in a footnote) he accepts a much broader definition of deixis: according to him, a verb form is deictic if it relates a situation to a reference point, even if this referent point is not the speech tim e.8 Comrie therefore uses the term 'relative tenses' to refer to nonfinite verb forms that have 'relative time reference, i.e. time reference relative to a deictic centre other than the present m om ent' (p. 16), as in Those sitting on the benches were forced to move. In this book the term 'relative tense' will be defined differently. As far as I can see, the issue is largely a terminological one. However, it is important to see the precise meaning that is going to be ascribed to the term 'tense'. 2.2 The linguistic literature reveals a total lack of consensus as to the question of how many tenses there are in English. A great many linguists hold that we can speak of different tenses only if we have to do with morphologically differentiated verb forms. This leads to the conclusion that there are only two tenses in English: the past tense and the present (or 'nonpast') tense.9 In this theory, such verb forms involving different auxiliaries as will do, has done, will have done all belong to the same (in this case: present) tense. However, other linguists hold that tenses may be 7. It should be clear from these remarks that we cannot subscribe to M cCawley's (1973) claim that have in English is always the realization o f past tense. Our position is that have means no more than anteriority. (As noted by Lyons (1977:89), anteriority is not a deictic notion and should therefore be distinguished from 'past'.) In tenseless constructions (e.g. infinitives, gerunds, participles) have just expresses this temporal relation; when used as a finite form (i.e. in one o f the perfect tenses) the anteriority relation in question is part o f a temporal schema that ultimately relates the time o f the situation to the coding time. For example, in the past perfect tense had expresses a relation o f anteriority between the time o f the situation and some other time, which is itself 'past' with respect to the coding time. 8. In his review article on Comrie (1985), Dahl (1987:491) also draws attention to this difference between Lyons' definition o f deixis and Comrie's.
On the interpretation of tense in temporal adverbial clauses
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
Tenses in English temporal adjunct clauses seem to show properties of both matrix and embedded tenses. On the one hand, they are often argued to be interpreted with respect to the time of utterance (Stump 1985; Arregui & Kusumoto 1998; Kubota et al. 2011). On the other hand, they are more constrained than matrix tenses, claimed to be limited to past tense when the matrix tense is past, and present when the matrix tense is future. I present evidence from the English perfect that adjunct clauses are always interpreted relative to the nearest c-commanding temporal operator, which can in principle give rise to both types of behaviors: adjunct tenses are interpreted relative to some temporal operator if within the scope of matrix tense, or they are interpreted relative to the time of utterance if they are outside the scope of matrix tense. What decides between these possibilities in a given clause are syntactic and pragmatic conditions on adjunction and the resulting interaction between ...
Diacronia
Deriving from a comprehensive postdoctoral study, this article aims at presenting the evolution of future tense forms in French from the perspective of the re-grammaticalization process, understood as re-organisation of the grammatical system of a language (v. Andersen, 2006; Lindschouw, 2011). In very general lines, this process may be described as follows: in time, canonical future forms, originally representing outcomes of previous ‘grammaticalization’ processes (i.e. transition from lexical to gramatical), eventually show a poly-functional morpho-syntactic and semantic behaviour, actualising more than one grammatical value. Such a situation will imply the selection of new constituents in the canonical future paradigm and will inevitably result in: (i) a competition between canonical forms and the newly created ones; (ii) a de-semantization and specialization of canonical forms in a certain informational segment, and (iii) the (total or partial) grammaticalization of the concurre...
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