The Case for the Compositional Tense Theory (original) (raw)

Some theoretical issues in the description of tense and mood

This article started as an ordinary review of Davidsen-Nielsen’s book on tense and mood, but gradually developed into a full discussion of a number of issues that are of crucial importance to any linguistic theory. The issues in question concern the difference between mood and modality, the delimitation of the class of auxiliary verbs, the analysis of the tense system, the relation between the meaning of tense forms and the temporal interpretation of clauses as a whole, and the question of whether nonfinite verb forms can be treated as tensed. In the margin of this, some minor questions are addressed that are brought up by D’s discussion of tense and mood.

Two Tenses for All Sixteen Tenses: A Constructivist Approach

Tarling : Journal of Language Education

Getting to know and distinguishing the sixteen English tenses formula for some students, even college students, is not simple and straightforward. The construct of verb changes and modification in English is carefully considered one of the sources of the learning problem, and this concept – verb form changes - cannot be found in any Indonesian "dictionary". By means of conceiving the verb changes concept presented hierarchically (contractedly), comprehensively, simply, and fun, it is expected that the sixteen tenses formula can be facilely understood. This article aims at presenting descriptively (qualitatively) a learning design of sixteen English tenses with a constructivist approach. Those namely sixteen tenses formula are to be simplified through the classification of two tenses. Those two distinct tenses are namely present and past. All the English tenses are explained through the concept of the two tenses. The construct of present and past tenses is explained through...

From Reichenbach (1947) to Comrie (1985) and beyond: towards a theory of tense

This paper investigates the meanings of the tenses and the system of time reference in English. It starts from a discussion of the celebrated theory of Reichenbach (1947) and the alternative recently proposed in Comrie's (1985) book on tense. The author argues that both theories are deficient in certain respects, and develops a theory which both retains the good points from Reichenbach and Cornrie and remedies the defects. It is claimed that this theory not only accounts for the use of the various tenses in English (including the often neglected present perfect) but also accounts for the use of the different kinds of temporal adverbials. It is also argued that the theory offers a satisfactory explanation for the phenomena observed in connection with indirect speech and free indirect speech.

A critical evaluation of Wada's theory of tense in English

This article is a critical comment on Naoaki Wada's theory of tense, and its application to indirect speech, as it is to be found in Wada (1998a, 1998b). The author raises a number of (what he considers to be) problems for this theory. He also defends his own theory of tense against the criticism which Wada levels at it.

The syntactic expression of tense

Lingua, 2007

In this article I defend the view that many central aspects of the semantics of tense are determined by independently-motivated principles of syntactic theory. I begin by decomposing tenses syntactically into a temporal ordering predicate (the true tense, on this approach) and two time-denoting arguments corresponding to covert a reference time (RT) argument and an eventuality time (ET) argument containing the verb phrase. Control theory accounts for the denotation of the RT argument, deriving the distinction between main clause and subordinate clause tenses. The theory of covert movement is used to account for the independent/indexical interpretation of relative clause tenses, and for the correlation between independent tense interpretation and a de re construal of the relative clause. A theory of "past polarity", based on traditional negative polarity theory, accounts both for the simultaneous "sequence of tense" construal of past tenses in subordinate clauses embedded within past tense contexts, and for the obligatory indexical/independent interpretation of present tense in a relative clause embedded within a past tense context. Combined with the copy theory of movement, the polarity theory also provides an account of the semantics of double access sentences, treating them as involving a special kind of reconstruction effect.

On the Compositionality of Tense: Merging Reichenbach and Prior

Tense systems as proposed by Reichenbach and Prior can be improved by changing their matrix 3 × 3-design into a binary-set up. In fact, the improvement took already place in Te Winkel (1866), because the Dutch grammarian L.A. te Winkel presented a 2 × 2 × 2-tense system for the eight Dutch tense forms with Reichenbachian reference points. An improvement of Reichenbach's system in terms of a system of binary oppositions will also bring about an improvement of Prior's system. In fact, the binary approach implies a merger of Reichenbach's and Prior's insights into how tense operates in natural language. It leads quite naturally to a compositional treatment of tense in the sense that presence or absence of language forms determines the presence or absence of tense operators making up the system. The binary system produces eight tense forms for English and Dutch, but it also accounts for tense systems having far more indicative forms, such as French.

The Syntactic Expression of Tense (2007, Lingua 117.2)

Abstract In this article I defend the view that many central aspects of the semantics of tense are determined by independently-motivated principles of syntactic theory. I begin by decomposing tenses syntactically into a temporal ordering predicate (the true tense, on this approach) and two time-denoting arguments corresponding to covert a reference time (RT) argument and an eventuality time (ET) argument containing the verb phrase.