Temporal dependency and the syntax of subjects

This thesis contributes to the research on tense and eventualities across languages. It presents a systematic investigation and detailed theoretical analyses of the temporal interpretations of sentences with bare (aspectually unmarked) predicates in Mandarin. Traditionally considered a “tenseless” language, Mandarin lacks the morphological tense that we find in “tensed” languages such as English and French. Instead, its grammatical system displays a variety of aspectual markers giving information on the perspective on the eventuality described by the predicate. This study shows how a careful investigation of the temporal construals of sentences without overt morphological aspect can lead to novel and insightful generalizations about temporal reference in Mandarin. It attributes the contrast between stative and eventive predicates in the temporal interpretation to their argument structure, and claims that aspect must be overt in Mandarin root clauses. The interaction of past vs. future time adverbs and bare predicates provides evidence for a covert semantic tense in Mandarin, restricting the time reference of bare root clauses to non-future times. It is argued that bare sentences yielding “future” construals involve a non-future plan.

Te Reo the Journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand, 2020

This study presents a cross-linguistic investigation of attributive temporal clauses encoded by a Generic Head Noun meaning ‘time’. While most studies have concentrated on the diachronic origin of this construction, no typological study has explored the synchronic properties of constructions encoded by a GHN of time (e.g. At the time I went there, I felt sick) that are used to express temporal adverbial semantic relations. The research reports on 45 languages in which attributive temporal clauses are the primary conventionalized way of expressing temporal adverbial relations. This construction is found in almost every macro-area, but especially in Africa, Papunesia, and Eurasia (particularly in Sino-Tibetan languages and Caucasian languages). In exploring the construction, the study takes into account three parameters, viz. the linear position of the Generic Head Noun of time, the encoding of Generic Head Nouns of time in comparison to other relativized temporal nouns (e.g. ʽdayʼ, ʽyearʼ), and whether languages tend to have specialized or unspecialized Generic Head Nouns of time to encode this construction.

Synthese, 2000

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 ...

Minds and Machines, 1997

The Syntax of Time, 2004

To appear in The Syntax of Time [Jacqueline Guéron and Jacqueline Lecarme (eds.), MIT Press].

Linguistics in the Netherlands 1995, 1995

This paper discusses the consequences of the Locality Theory for perfect tense constructions. It argues that the perfect auxiliary intoduces the agent.

Journal of Pragmatics, 1990

This paper investigates the way in which discourse context is relevant to the interpretation of tense in English narrative discourse. I demonstrate that the specific readings available to the simple past tense can be explained, in part, by considering units larger than the sentence along with the grammatical signals which serve to sustain and delimit these units. More specifically, the cohesive device of referential linking between sentences is shown to play an important role in the interpretation of tense.

In: Allan K, & Jaszczolt K, The Cambridge handbook of Pragmatics, 423-446, 2011

In: L. de Saussure, J. Moeschler and G. Puskas (eds.) Tense, Mood and Aspect: Theoretical and descriptive issues, 47–65. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. (Cahiers Chronos 17.), 2007

Embedded tenses pose a challenge to any semantic theory of temporal discourse. In this paper I propose an intensional account of English embedded tenses. On the account that I will present, the semantic job of a tense is to specify a relation between a perspective time and the time at which an eventuality takes place. By default, the time of utterance is the perspective time that a tense takes as input. But a switch of perspective time can be triggered when a tense appears in certain grammatical environments. I suggest that intensional verbs and modals are triggers of perspective-time shifts.

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.

2006

In all languages, sentences convey information that allows people to locate situations in time. Languages vary: some have tense and tense-like forms, others do not. I will suggest general pragmatic principles to account for how temporal location works in language. The principles have different realizations according to the forms that are syntactically obligatory in a given language. I will begin by introducing the general principles, in Section 1; Section 2 gives some necessary preliminaries to the analysis; Sections 3-5 discuss Mandarin Chinese, Navajo, and English; Section 6 concludes. In an appendix, I show how to formalize the analysis of Mandarin within the framework of Discourse Representation Theory.

The basic semantic function of locational elements with the syntactic status of clause modifier is typically assumed to be the establishing of a (spatial, temporal, or other) setting, within which entities interact and processes unfold. Less attention has been paid to structures where several settings are connected to the same predicate, and to the mutual semantic relation of the settings in these structures. In this article evidence is produced for the argument that these constructions (called multiple locational specifications) reveal a scope relation between the settings such that a semantically higher domain dominates a lower one. For instance, in the sentence On Monday nights, Ollie played chess with Arthur in London, time dominates space by confining the spatial relation between Ollie and London to Monday nights only. The opposite scope relation can be achieved by creating a special interpretation of the lower domain. For instance, space can dominate time only if it acquires a temporal sense itself. Such a reading foregrounds the duration of the presence of an entity in the space. Syntactically, this effect is created by word order; e.g. In London, Ollie played chess with Arthur on Monday nights evokes a temporal reading for in London (‘when in London’), enabling it to include on Monday nights within its scope. It is argued in this paper that temporal and other special interpretations are quite productive and possible for many different kinds of domain.