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Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

'I he O xford handbook o f tense and aspect / edited by Robert I. Binnick.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-538197-9 (alk. paper)
1. G ram m ar, Com parative and general—Tense. 2. G ram m ar, Com parative and general— Aspect.
3. Semantics. 4. Pragmatics. I. Binnick, Robert 1. II. Title: I landbook o f tense and aspect.
P281.O94 2011
4 1 5 ' . 6 — d C 22 2 O IIO I338 7

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States o f Am erica

on acid-free paper

S zerzoi jogi vedelem alatt alio anyag

 C ontents

Preface ix

Table o f Symbols and Abbreviations xi

About the Authors xxix

Introduction 3
Robert I. Binnick

Pa r t i :C ontexts

1. Philosophy o f Language 59
Peter Ludlow

2. Narratology and Literary Linguistics 75

M onika Fludernik

3. Computational Linguistics 102

M ark Steedman

Pa r t ii: P erspec tives

4. Universals and Typology 123

Jean-Pierre Desclés and Zlatka Guentchéva

5. M orphology 155
A skw ini Deo

6. Syntax 184
Tim Stow ell

7. Markedness 212
Edna Andrew s

S zerzôi jogi védelem alatt allô anyag

vi CONTENTS

8. Adverbials 237
M onika Rathert

9. Pragmatics 269
Patrick Caudal

10. Discourse and Text 306

Janice Carruthers

11. Translation 335

D iana Santos

12. D ia c h r o n y and G ra m m a tic a liza tio n 370

Steve Nicolle

13. Language Contact 398

Victor A . Friedm an

14. Creole Languages 428

D onald Winford

15. Prim ary Language Acquisition 458

Laura Wagner

16. Second Language Acquisition 481

Kathleen B ardovi-H arlig

Pa r t h i: Tense

17. Tense 507

John Hew son

18. Remoteness Distinctions 536

R obert Botne

19. Compositionality 563

Hen к J. Verkuyl

20. The Surcomposé Past Tense 586

Louis D e Saussure and Bertrand Sthioul

21. Bound Tenses 611

G alia Hatav

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CONTENTS vii

22. Embedded Tenses 638

Toshiyuki Ogihara and Yael Sharvit

23. Tenselessness 669

Jo- Wang Lin

24. Nominal Tense 696

Jacqueline Lecarm e

Pa r t iv :A spect

25. Lexical Aspect 721

Han a Filip

26. Verbal Aspect 752

Henriette de Swart

27. Perfective and Imperfective Aspect 781

Jadranka Gvozdanovic

28. Progressive and Continuous Aspect 803

Christian M air

29. Habitual and Generic Aspect 828

Greg Carlson

30. Habituality, Pluractionality, and Imperfectivity 852

P ier M arco Bertinetto and Alessandro L e n d

31. Perfect Tense and Aspect 881

M arie-Eve Ritz

32. Resultative Constructions 908

John Beavers

Pa r t v : A spect a n d D iath esis

33. Voice 937

M i Ia L) im it ro va - V ul chan 0 va

34. Case 960

Kylie Richardson

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Vl l l CONTENTS

Pa r t v i : M o d a lity

35. Time in Sentences with Modal Verbs 989

Ilse Depraetere

36. Evidentiality and Mirativity 1020

Ferdinand de Haan

In d ex 1047

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 Preface

The goal o f this volume is to represent what we know about tense and aspect early
in the second decade o f the twenty-first century.
To this end, I invited to contribute to the volume leading scholars residing in a
dozen countries— Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, the Nether­
lands, Norway, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United kingdom, and the United States—
working in a wide range o f areas (including most sub-fields o f linguistics, from
computational linguistics to stylistics), and representing a broad spectrum o f ap­
proaches and schools o f thought, from early twentieth-century-style descriptivism
and structuralism to Relevance Theory, Role and Reference Grammar, Segmented
Discourse Representation Theory, and other current paradigms.
I provided each with a title and charged them only with producing a chapter
that represented what they would expect to find under that title in a volume called
The Oxford H andbook o f Tense and Aspect. Within that limitation, and on the as­
sumption that each o f them had far more expertise in their topic area than I did, I
gave them total freedom.
The results are remarkably diverse— both broad surveys and deep analyses—
and some chapters present quite novel results and/or argumentation. In some cases,
conflicting chapters represent live controversies in the field, as the introduction
indicates.
Though every effort has been made to present a comprehensive picture o f tense
and aspect, no one could hope to encapsulate the entire subject in thirty-six chap­
ters, and gaps remain in the range o f topics covered, approaches followed, and types
o f languages described. I would have liked to have included a chapter on the sem an­
tics o f tense and aspect; on what Bernard C om rie called pure relative tense; and on
the future tense and related futurate constructions. I would also have liked to have
complemented the present chapter on resultatives with one on quite another type,
e.g., the chair is broken, the broken chair, discussed in the chapters by Descles and
Guentcheva (§4 .5 ), Ritz (§ 2 . 1 ), and Vulchanova (§ 3 . 1). It might likewise have been
useful to have included chapters on contrastive and comparative studies, cognitive
linguistic approaches, the sociolinguistics o f tense and aspect, and m ood and m o ­
dality as they relate formally and functionally to tense and aspect. There are n u ­
merous other directions in which the present book could have been expanded as
well. For example, there might have been chapters on individual tenses (past, pre­
sent, etc.), in parallel to those here on specific grammatical aspects.
The introduction is intended to provide contexts for the disparate chapters, and
the index should serve to point those interested in particular language areas or in
topics not assigned their own chapter (e.g., mood, the past tense, signed languages,

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X PREFACE

ctc.) to relevant passages or sections o f chapters. Much more is covered herein than
the chapter titles alone suggest.
It is to be hoped that this work will prove not only a useful reference, but a spur
to further research, especially in those areas identified by the authors as hitherto
neglected or encompassing gaps in our knowledge, o f which, alas, there remain
many.*

* I w o u l d like to t h a n k m y c o l l e a g u e s C o r r i n e B e a u q u i s a n d S u s a n a B e ja r fo r th eir a n s w e r s
to q u e r i e s ot m i n e in c o n n e c t i o n w ith this b o o k .

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Ta b l e of Sy m b o l s a n d A b b r e v ia t i o n s

— precedes
, coincides with; overlaps
! unacceptable/ungrammatical with the presumed meaning
? o f questionable acceptability/grammaticality
? underspecified discourse relation
?? o f very questionable acceptability/grammaticality
?(«,/?,/!) indicates that f3 is to be attached to a within constituent A
[['<*]]> M the meaning (semantic value) o f a
[[a])a, [ a ] " the meaning (semantic value) o f a relative to a
[., a ] constituent labeled T (tense) consisting o f a
1Tvukk 0 ] empty constituent labeled Tense
[x A C T < a > 1 x acts in manner a
[a](y = F(n)) executing a always results in a state where y = F(n)
[a/?] a well-formed expression o f type b if and only i f « is a
well-formed expression o f type <a,b>, and /3 is a well-
formed expression o f type a
[Axa] a well-formed expression o f type <a,b> if and only if x is a
variable of type a, and a is a well-formed expression o f
type b
@ variable over temporal relations
reconstructed or hypothetical
unacceptable/ungrammatical
# zero or more occurrences o f the preceding expression
& and
& general compositional operator
# infelicitous; certain interpretations are excluded
# not well-formed
the logical translation of the preceding expression
[a] the meaning o f a
Ea)“ the meaning o f a relative to a
< a ) ( y = F(n)) executing a sometimes results in a state where y = F(n)
§ section
§§ sections
implies/entails
-> is re-written as
does not imply/entail

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Xll T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S

*-> is interpreted as
=> implies/entails
=?> does not imply/entail
V universal quantifier (for a l l . . . )
V universal quantifier over subintervals
3 existential quantifier (there is/are . . for at least one/
some . . . )
3! there is exactly one
3 existential quantifier over subintervals
0, 0 empty; the empty set; null
G is a member of; is an element of
< an interpreted past tense
< an uninterpreted past tense
<, < precedes
<a>b> a type in a logical language, if and only if a and b are types
<a,b> an ordered list containing a, b
<a> manner a
= is identical to
> became
» has a unidirectional diachronic trajectory
-i it is not the case that; not
|i| the duration o f the time i
||S|| the proposition expressed by S
r,c the m e a n in g o f (|> relative to r and e
alternates with
V the respective tense- Aktionsart- co m b in a tio n exists
oo infinity
A and
= is synchronous to
« is equivalent to; translates
= if and only if; entails and is entailed by; is equivalent to
> is greater than or equal to; is at or later than
^ does not follow (precedes or is at)
C is a proper sub-interval of; is a proper subset of
DC abuts
DQ abuts and includes the right border
Ç is a sub-interval of; is a subset of
E is included within
n has common content with
0 mereological sum
<8> the respective tense - Aktionsart - combination does not
exist
— G irards linear implication operator (“ lolly” )
(“ I necessity (modal operator)

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T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S XL11

O possibility (modal operator)

u (logical) union (operator)
o false (truth value)
0 index for the local evaluation time or utterance time
1 first person
l true (truth value)
>/2 first or second person
lM one million
IP, lpl first person plural
is, i SG , iSg, lsg first person singular
2 second person
2pl second person plural
2S, 2Sg second person singular
3 third person
3M third person masculine
3 MS, 3 ms third person masculine singular
3pl third person plural
3rd third person
3« third person singular
3SF, 3sf third person singular feminine
3 $g> 3sg third person singular
3Sgposs third person singular possessive
3SM third person singular masculine
A adjective
A agent
A non-stativity (feature)
A transitive subject
a
action
a. o. among others
ABL ablative (case)
ABS, Abs absolutive (case)
ACC accomplishment
A C C , ACC accusative (case)
ACE automatic content extraction
ACH achievement
ACL Association for Computational Linguistics
ACT act in (such-and-such a manner)
ACT active (voice)
ACT activity
ADD additive
A D E S, A D ESS adessive (case)
Adj adjective
AdjP adjectival phrase
Adj TU adjoining time unit

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XIV T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S

ADV, A dv adverb
Adv* any num ber o f adverbs
AdvP adverbial phrase
alf.decl affirmative declarative
Agr agreement; category for subject agreement
A gr- 0 category for object agreement
Agr-S category for subject agreement
AgrP agreement phrase
AH aspect hypothesis
ALL allative (case)
A L L /IN S T R allative/instrumental (case)
ANS answer
ANT anterior
A N T IP antipassive
ANu activity nucleus
AOR aorist (tense)
AP adjectival phrase
AP antipassive
Apr atemporal use of the present
ARCHER A Representative Corpus o f Historical British Registers
Art article
A SL American Sign Language
A SP aspectual (marker); aspectual functional head
A sp, a s p aspect(ual) (particle)
Asp aspect; head o f the aspect phrase
AspP aspect phrase
ASS assertive
ASSOC associative (case)
AT is simultaneous with
AUD auditory evidential
AUG augmentative
A U X , Aux auxiliary (component); auxiliary (verb)
A uxP auxiliary phrase
AV attitude verb
B-LOB “ before LO B ” (a 1930s corpus o f British English)
B/GR background
BA marker for preposed object NP
BCE before current era
BCS Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
BEN bcnefactive; beneficiary
BNC British National Corpus
BR Balkan Romance
BrE British English
BS Balkan Slavic

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T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S XV

c code
c complementizer
c consonant
c; variable for a contextual restriction
c variable for a contextually determined predicate
identifying the normal “ felicity” conditions
c variable for a context
c variable for constituents
C -T relation expressing clausal finiteness
c. century
C. E. current era
C/C code referring to code
C/F comp 1cm entizer/“ focus marker”
C/M code referring to message
Carib. Caribbean
CAV complement o f an attitude verb
CBT copy-based theory
CEC Caribbean English Creoles
C h the coercion o f an event predicate into a homogeneous
description
cf. see; compare
CG comm on ground
CL, c l classifier
CL computational linguistics
CLA classifier
CM class marker
CM PL completive (aspect)
cn comm on noun
COCA Corpus o f Contem porary Am erican English
Com p complementizer
C O M PL completive (aspect)
C O M PL completive non-main clause
CONN connective
CONSTR construct (case)
CONT continuous (aspect)
CONV con verb
COP copula
CP complementizer phrase, sentence
CR current relevance
CS consequent state
Csd coercion operator mapping a stative description onto a
dynamic one
C u rT U currently relevant time unit
CUST customary (aspect)

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XVI T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S

D determiner
D set o f denotations
D-domain conceptually dissociated mental world beyond the
contemporal P-domain
D -T relation expressing nominal finiteness
D <a,b> the set of functions with arguments in D and values in D (i
= D b Da.
D <i.st>
. the domain o f semantic type <i, st>
di, d i day l, day 2
D the set of denotations of type a
DAR dual-aspect reading
DAT dative (case)
DCP double composed past time
DCPSE Diachronic Corpus o f Present-D ay Spoken English
DD direct discourse
decl declarative
DE-RE
de re reading
DEF definite
defF definite feminine
defM definite masculine
D E L IC Description Linguistique Inform atisée sur Corpus
D EM , dem demonstrative
D E M /D IS T distal demonstrative
DET, det, det determiner
detF feminine determiner
D. the set o f times
DIR direct evidential
DIR directive transitivizer
D IR E C T direct evidential
D IS.PAST distant past
DL Dynamic Logic
DO prefix do
DOR Direct Object Restriction
DP determiner phrase; noun phrase
DR discourse relation
DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo
DRS discourse representation structure
D RT Discourse Representation Theory
D, the set of truth values = {o, 1)
DTSP Discourse Temporal Sequencing Principle
D U AL dual (number)
DUB dubitative
DUR durative (aspect)
dur function delivering the duration o f a time

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T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S XVII

E event; time o f the event

E eventuality; time o f the eventuality
E existential
e, e , e event; time of the event
e trace which is a variable over times
e variable for linguistic expressions
c-reading existential reading
<v <v <v e4 variables for eventualities
ECCTD elliptical canonical calendar time designator
ECM Exceptional Case Marking
EEC European Economic C om m unity
EL extensional language
EM epistemic morpheme
EM PH emphatic
En narrated event
E ns narrated speech event
EP embedded past
E R G , erg ergative (case)
Es speech event
ET event time
EU European Union
ev eventuality
excl exclusive
expl expletive
EXT.FO C extended focus
F, f, f. feminine (gender)
F function
F future tense (operator)
F interpretation function for constants
F-LOB Freiburg update of LOB
f. and following page
F/GR foreground
Fi, F2, F3, F4 future tenses varying in remoteness
FCT factual (mood)
FDD free direct discourse
FEM , fem feminine (gender)
ff. and following pages
FID, FID free indirect discourse
fin finite
FL foreign language
FO C focus (marker)
FR, Fr. French
FUT, f u t , fut future (tense) (operator)
m , absolute future operator

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XV111 T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S

FUTi tI follows the evaluation time to

8 assignment o f denotations to variables
G.PRS general present
g(i) assignment to variables applied to the index for tense
gc contextually given assignment to variables
G E N , gen generic (operator)
GEN genitive case
GEN habitual (quantifier)
genT general
Gn gnomic operator
GSP general situation possibility
G u yF rC r Guyanese Frcnch-lexifier Creole
H hypothesis
HAB, hab habitual (aspect, operator)
I-IAB pluri-actional (quantifier)
IIAB(P) stative predicate corresponding to the predicate P
Habi adverbial null modal habitual operator within the Aspect
Phrase
Hab 2 nonmodal H A B operator occupying the position o f head
o f the Aspect Phrase
IIC Haitian Creole
HCE Hawai’i Creole English
HOD hodiernal (past tense)
HP, H PR historic(al) present (tense)
Hr(s) hour(s)
I, I, i imperfective (aspect)
I, i, / interval; variable for an interval
1 index
i the semantic type o f (time) intervals; the type o f times
individual-level
I-P R IN C IP L E informativeness principle
r I-bar structure
Ii,l2 variables for intervals
ibid. the same reference as the previous one
IC E -G B British component of the International Corpus o f English
ICP intransitive copy pronoun
ID indefinite past
ID indirect discourse
idem the identical reference to the previous one

W, identity function
IE Indo-European
iff if and only if
IFV imperfective (aspect)
II noun class 2

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T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S XIX

IL individual-level
IL in ter language
IM M .P A ST immediate past
IM P imparfait (tense)
IM P imperfect (tense)
i m p, imp imperfective (aspect)
IM PER, IM P E R F imperfective (aspect)
Imperf. imperfect (tense)
IMPF, Impf, IM P F C T imperfective (aspect)
IM V imperative
inan. inanimate
INCL is included in
IND, ind, IN D IC indicative mood
IN D IR indirect evidential
INESS inessive (case)
I N F , lnf infinitive
IN FE R inferential
Infi inflectional component
INSTR instrumental (case)
INT intensifier
IN T E N S intensive
IN T R intransitive marker
IP intlection(al) phrase
IPF, ipf, ipf, IPFV, IPV imperfective (aspect)
IR information retrieval
IRR irrealis
ITER, ITR iterative
IV, iv intransitive verb
IVP, IV P illocutionary viewpoint (function)
JC Jamaican Creole
K kilobyte(s)
k kind-level
K TT propositional content of clause tt
Li first language
Li second language
LB left boundary
LDBT long-distance-bound-tense
LE the aspectual particle le
LF, lf logical form
LIC logic o f information content
LIG ligature
LIP logic o f information packaging
lit. literal(ly)
IModE late Modern English

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XX T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S

LOB Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen (corpus o f British English)

LOG locative (case) (marker)
loc location
LOT language o f thought
M a modal meaning
M marked
M masculine (gender)
M message
M modal case marker
M variable for models
m Masculine (gender)
m variable for meanings
M -situation the modal meaning; the time o f the modal meaning
M/C message referring to code
M/M message referring to message
M ASC, m asc ,

ma sc, masc. masculine (gender)

MDP mediopassive (voice)
Melan. Melanesian
Mem. Pres. Memorial Present
M IR mirative
MOD modificant
M O D - FUT covert modal component
Modal modal component
M odE Modern English
Mpl masculine plural
MQP Mais que Perfeito (tense)
ms masculine (gender)
N neuter gender
N nominal
N north
N noun
n head o f nP
n point o f speech
n topic o f speech
n time o f speech
11 narrated
n.d., n. d. no date
n* nominal functional head introducing a genitive/possessive
argument
n*P genitive/possessive phrase
N&K Nishiyama and Koenig
NC Niger-Congo
N C i , N C io noun class l, noun class 10

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T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S XXI

NE northeast
N E G , N e g , neg negation; negative
Neg negative particle
NegP negative phrase
NF nonfinite
NFUT near future (tense)
NFUT non-future (tense)
N IM P narrative imperfect (tense)
N LP natural language processing
NOM, n o m , nom nominal
N O M , Nom nominative case
N O M IN nominalizer
N on-m em . Non-m em orial present (tense)
NON-PAST, NONPST non-past (tense)
nP noun
NP noun phrase
NP present tense in lieu of the passé tense
NPAH Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy
NPR narrative present (tense)
NPv present tense in lieu o f the imparfait tense
N V IS non-visual evidential
o overlap (s)
o
undeleted present tense
© deleted present tense
O, o , ° overlaps with
O&S Ogihara and Sharvit
OBJ object
O BJ/LO C objective/locative (case)
OBL oblique (case)
OCS Old Church Slav(on)ic
OF Old French
OM object marker
O M PD “oh m y poor darling”
OPT, opt optative (mood)
P participant(s)
P past tense operator
P perfective (aspect)
P process
P proposition
P proposition representing a particular situation
P set o f preconditions
P variable for a predicate
P variable for an eventuality (or eventuality description)
P variable for propositions

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XXII T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S

perfective (aspect)
P-domain contemporal perspective
p. c., p.c. personal communication
P{S}Q set P of preconditions for a program statement S and the
resultant state Q
Pi hodiernal past tense
Pi, P2, P3, P4 past tenses differing in remoteness
P2 hesternal past tense
P3 pre-hesternal past tense
PA passé antérieur (tense)
Pal. Palenquero
Pap. Papiamentu
PAR particle
PART participle
PART partitive (case)
PASS passive (voice)
PAST, past, past past (tense) (operator)
III
I A ST
/«M
*

deleted past tense

PastFut past-in-the-future operator
PASTi t precedes the evaluation time t
PB Proto-Bantu
PC passé composé (tense)
PC past continuous tense
PE Pidgin English
PERP, Perf, perf, perf perfect; the feature Perfect
Perf-P perfect phrase
PerfP perfect phrase
PF, Pf, pf, P F C T perfective (aspect)
PFM Performative
PFV, pfv perfective (aspect)
PL, PI, pi, pl., PLU plural (number)
pmw per million words
Pn participant(s) o f a narrated event
PNG Papua New Guinea
POSS, Poss, poss possessive (case)
POST the residue (VP) is posterior to the M-situation
POT potential
pp past participle
pp prepositional phrase
pp present perfect
PPC Pretérito Perfeito Com posto (tense)
PPC prog Pretérito Perfeito Com posto progressive
PR, Pr, Pr. present (tense)
PRdeR, PRdR présent de reportage

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T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S XXL11

PR E D predicative
PrefixP prefix phrase
PREP preposition
PRES, PRES, pres present (tense) (operator)
deleted present tense
Pres Put presen t-in -th e-fu tu re operator
PRESi t. overlaps the evaluation tim e to
PRET preterite (tense)
PRET pretèrito (tense)
PR E V preverb
PRF perfect
PRG p ro gressive (aspect)
PRMT p u r p o se c o m p le m e n t with m o tio n verb
P R O G , PROG pro gressive (aspect); p ro gre ssiv e m ark er
prog, prog. the feature Progressive
P ro g-P progressive ph rase
PRON p r o n o m in a l agreem ent m a r k e r
PRON p ro n o u n
PROP p roprietive
PROS prosp ective
PrPr present tense as m a r k e r o f present tim e
PRS present (tense)
PRT particle
PR X p ro xim ate
Ps participant(s) in a speech event
PS passé sim ple (tense)
PST passé s u r c o m p o s é tense
PST, pst past (tense)
PST p o sterio r
PST.P pluperfect (tense)
PST.R recent past (tense)
PT participle
PTQ On the Proper Treatment o f Quantification in English
Q a variable for a predicate (or a proposition)
Q qu estion w o rd
Q resultant state
QA q u e s tio n -a n sw e rin g
QR Q u a n tifie r-R a is in g
QRC Q u a n tifie r-R a is in g C o n strain t
Q UD Q u est io n - U n der- D is cuss io n
QUOT quotative evidential
q a v ariab le for a proposition
R, r, r reference tim e, point o f reference
R a variable for a d isco u rse relation

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R-state resultant state RB

RB right boundary
RC relative clause
Rep reciprocal
R E C .P A ST recent past (tense)
REFL reflexive
REL relative
REL relativizer
REL, Rel relative clause marker
REP reportative evidential
restr restrictive agreement
rn relational noun
RRG Role and Reference Gram m ar
RST Rhetorical Structure Theory
RT Relevance Theory
RTE recognizing text entailment
RTR retrospective (aspect)
Rx, Ry variables for reference points
S program statement
S sentence, clause
S south
S speech act time, speech point, speech time
S state
s speech
s result state
s perfect state
s
speech
stage-level
the point o f speech time
sj variable for a state
SBJ subjunctive (mood)
SBJV subjunctive/optative marker
sc small clause
SD signified
SDRS Segmented Discourse Representation Structure
SDRT Segmented Discourse Representation Theory
SE southeast
SELF . . .self
SENS sensory evidential
SEQ sequential
sf singular feminine
SG, Sg, sg, sg singular (number)
SL source language
SLA second language acquisition

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SLI Specific Language Impairment

SM singular masculine
SN S ran an Ton go
SOT, SOT sequence o f tense(s), Sequence-of-Tense (rule)
SP simple past (tense)
Spec specifier
SpecTP specifier of the tense phrase
SPT surcomposé past tense
SQN specified quantity o f the noun (feature)
SR signifier
ss same subject
*

ST speech time
st the semantic type o f propositions, i.e., sets o f possible
worlds.
STA state; stative
STAT stative
SUB subjunctive (mood)
SUBJ indicative subject
SUBJ subjunctive (mood)
Subj subject
SY N synchronous
T head of the tense phrase (TP)
T tense; tense constituent; the feature Tense
T terminative (feature)
T the set o f times (intervals) = D (
T the type o f truth values
T text
t reference time
t type in a logical language; the type o f truth values
t variable for a time
t temporal reference point
t
>t
index for a time
T-sentence sentence o f the form “X is true i f f . . . is the case”
To, T o , To time o f speech
to evaluation time
Ti variable for (the time of) an event
Ti variable for a time
T2 second-order time
TA tense and aspect; tense/aspect; tense-aspect
TAG tag question marker
TAM tense, aspect and modality; tense, aspect, and mood
tC utterance time
Tense tense component
TERN temporal expression recognition and normalization

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XX vi T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S

t reference time
TL target language
TMA tense, modality, and aspect; tense, m ood, and aspect
TN translation network
TNM translation network model
To1 “ repère-origine fictive”, an illusory “now ”
TOP topic (marker)
TP tense phrase
TPP temporal perspective point
TSit time o f situation
TSP Temporal Sequencing Principle
TT topic time
^Top topic time
TU time o f utterance
tv transitive verb
u
index denoting utterance time
u universal
u unmarked
u utterance time
u-reading universal reading
UCP Unique Path Constraint
UG Universal Gram m ar
ULC Upper Limit Constraint
UNM unmarked
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
UT utterance time
V verb
v causal head
V
visualizing
V* voice
V*P transitive verb phrase
VEN venitive (denotes motion towards the deictic center)
VERBSUF unspecified verbal suffix
V IS visual evidential
Voice P voice phrase constituent
VP verb phrase
vs. versus, as opposed to
VTT voltooid tegenwoordige tijd
w
w, w
a possible world; variable or index for a possible world
w.r.t. with respect to
WALS The World Atlas o f Language Structures
W IT witnessed evidential
W OLL abstract root o f the future modal
woll verb will

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T A B L E OF S Y M B O L S A N D A B B R E V I A T I O N S xxvii

W YSIW YG “ what you see is what you get”

X perfect state description
X phrase head, zero-level category of type X
X subject
x prior accompli
X’ combination o f the phrase head with its complements,
non-m axim al projection of the phrase head, level one
category of type X
X” combination o f the phrase head with its specifiers,
maximal projection o f the phrase head, level two (m ax­
imal) category of type X
X° zero-level category o f type X
XN extended now
XP phrase with head of type X
XP result phrase
YP* any number o f complements of the phrase head (i.e., X)
ZA prefix za
ZP Zeit-Phrase
ZP* any number o f specifiers o f the non-maximal projection
o f the phrase head (i.e., X ’)
a first moment of the future
a , /3, y variables (for, e.g., clauses or events)
€ state resulting from an eventuality E
A lambda operator/abstractor
77 variable for a clause
r temporal trace
r(e) the running time o f the event(uality) e
t (u) reference time interval
(p a variable (e.g., for an eventuality description)
<7? variable for a tenseless clause
a» last moment of the past
Q that the simple u/e-ambiguity is attested

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 A bout the A uthors

Edna Andrews is Professor of Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology, Director o f

the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies, at Duke University. She
received her Ph.D. from Indiana University (1984) and holds an honorary Ph.D. from
St. Petersburg State University (1991). Am ong her numerous publications are M arked­
ness theory: The union o f asymmetry and semiosis in language (1990), Markedness
theory: An explication o f its theoretical basis and applicability in semantic analysis
(1994), Conversations with Lotman: Cultural semiotics in language, literature and cogni­
tion (2003), and Semiospheric transitions: A key to modelling translation (2009).
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig (Ph.D., University o f Chicago, 1983) is Professor in, and
Chair of, the Department of Second Language Studies, Indiana University. A m ong
her publications on tense and aspect in second language are (co-author), Acquisi­
tion of tense-aspect: Converging evidence from corpora, cognition, and learner
constructions (2009), Future o f desire: Lexical futures and modality in L2 English
future expression (2005), Emergence of grammaticalized future expression in lon­
gitudinal production data (2004), Analyzing Aspect (2002), Tense and aspect in sec­
ond language acquisition: Form , meaning, and use (2000), and Narrative structure
and lexical aspect: Conspiring factors in second language acquisition of tense-
aspect m orphology (1998).
John Beavers received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stanford University in 2006.
He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department o f Linguistics at the Univer­
sity of Texas at Austin. His primary research interests are in lexical semantics and
syntax. His publications on lexical aspect, change-of-state, and event structure
include Scalar complexity and the structure o f events (2008), The structure of lex­
ical meaning: Why semantics really matters (2010), On affectedness (2011), and Lex­
ical aspect and multiple incremental themes (in press). He also has interests in
argument realization and typology, and has published the article The typology of
motion expressions revisited (2010, with Beth Levin and Shiao-Wei Tham), which
includes an exploration of correlations between directed motion and resultative
constructions.
Pier Marco Bertinetto (born 1947) completed his studies at the University of
Torino, where he taught History of the Italian Language (1975-1980). He became
Full Professor of Linguistics at the University o f Roma III (1980-81) and subse­
quently at Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (since fall 1981), where he directs the
Linguistics Laboratory. He is a member of the Finnish Academy o f Sciences and of
Academia Europaea. He was President o f Societas Linguistica Europaea in 2009. He
is Editor-in-Chief of the Italian Journal o f Linguistics /Rivista di Linguistica (1989-).

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His main interests are experimental phonetics and phonology, tense-aspect sem an­
tics, and typological linguistics.
Robert I. Binnick (Ph.D., Chicago, 1969) is Professor Emeritus o f Linguistics at the
University o f Toronto. He is author o f Time and the Verb: A G uide to Tense and
Aspect (1991), A Bibliography o f Tense, Verbal Aspect, Aktionsart, and Related Areas:
6600 Works (www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~binnick/old tense/, 2001), and The Past Tenses
o f the M ongolian Verb (2012). A m o n g recent publications on tense and aspect are
The Markers of Habitual Aspect in English (2005), and Used To and Habitual Aspect
in English (2006).
Robert Botne is Professor of Linguistics at Indiana University (Bloomington),
where he has taught for the past 26 years. Upon completion o f his Ph.D. at N orth­
western University in 1981, he spent two years as a Fulbright scholar at the Univer­
sité Nationale du Rwanda. He later lectured at Northwestern University before
joining the faculty at IU. I lis prim ary interests are Bantu languages, morphology,
and comparative linguistics, with particular focus on tense and aspect systems.
A recent publication addressing remoteness issues is Tense and cognitive space: On
the organization o f tense/aspect systems in Bantu languages (with Tiffany Kershner)
(Cognitive Linguistics, 2008).
Greg Carlson (Ph.D., University o f Massachusetts at Amherst, 1977) is Professor
o f Linguistics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Philosophy at the University of
Rochester. He served as Editor-in -C h ief at Linguistics and Philosophy (1992-97).
His w orks include Patterns in the interpretation o f generic sentences (2008),
G enerics, habituais and itératives (with B. Spejewski, 2005), G en eric passages
(i997)> Truth-conditions o f generic sentences (1995), The semantic composition o f
English generic sentences (1988), Generic terms and generic sentences (1982), and
Generics and atemporal when (1979). He со-edited The G eneric Book (1995) with
F. J. Pelletier.
Janicc Carruthcrs (Ph.D. in French Linguistics, Cambridge University, 1993) is Pro­
fessor o f French Linguistics, Queens University, Belfast. She is a former editor of the
Journal o f French Language Studies and is author o f the monograph Oral Narration
in M odern French: A Linguistic Analysis o f Temporal Patterns (Legenda, 2005). Her
articles include Tense, voices and point of view in medieval and modern “oral” nar­
ration (with S. Marnette, 2007), Temps et oralité dans le conte oral (2006), Tense,
orality and narration: The case o f the néo-conte (2003), and several on the French
passé surcomposé. She is co-editor, with P. Caudal, o f Oral N arration/La Narration
Orale (forthcoming from Cahiers Chronos, Rodopi).
Patrick Caudal, a C N R S researcher at the Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle
(Université Paris-D iderot), is a specialist in the sem antics and pragm atics of
tense, aspect, and modality (TAM ), and the discourse semantics and pragmatics of
T A M , with a long-standing interest in the sem antics/pragm atics interface. He
has produced synchronic and diachronic analyses o f a variety of TAM markers in
R o m ance, G e rm a n ic, and Australian languages, and presently coordinates the

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS XXXI

T A M E A L M arie-Curie project (The Interrelation of Tense, Aspect and Modality

with E v id en tially in Australian Aboriginal Languages).
Ashwini Deo is Assistant Professor o f Linguistics, Yale University. She received her
Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2006. A m o n g her publications related to m or­
phology are Derivational morphology in inheritance-based lexica: Insights from
Panini (2005) and Typological variation in the ergative morphology o f Indo-Aryan
languages (co-author, 2006). She is interested in how cross-linguistic variation in
the morphological expression o f tense-aspect categories, and the diachronic trajec­
tories that these morphological exponents participate in, can shed light on their
semantics.
Ilse Depraetere (Ph.D., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, H D R , Lille III) is a Pro­
fessor o f English Linguistics at the University o f Lille III. She wrote The use o f tense
in English relative clauses (1996) and со-edited Belgian Journal o f Linguistics 12, Tense
and aspect: The contextual processing o f semantic indeterm inacy (1999) and a special
issue of English Language and Linguistics on future time reference in English (2010).
Her works include Source o f m odality: A reassessment (2008), (A)telicity and inten-
tionality (2007), M ood and m odality in English (with Susan Reed, 2006), On the
resultative character o f Present Perfect sentences (1998), and On the necessity o f distin­
guishing between (un)boundedness and (a)telicity (1995).
Jean-Pierre Descles is Professor in Com puter Sciences and Humanities at Sor­
bonne, and the head o f L aL IC (Languages, Logics, Informatics, and Cognition).
He is a member o f the International Academ ic of Philosophy of Sciences. After
earning a Ph.D. (1970) and a Doctorat d’ Etat (1980) in mathematics, he collabo­
rated with linguists such as A. Culioli (Paris 7 University) and S. K. Shaumyan
(Yale University), using C u r r y s Com binatory Logic for analyzing syntactical and
grammatical problems. With Z. Guentcheva, he takes into account the topology to
formalize basic aspectual concepts (state, event, process, bounds, perfectivity,
complete and completed situations,. . . ) in an enuntiative and cognitive framework
and to study, by means o f formal schemes, the meanings o f lexical predicates and
adposition operators.
Ferdinand de Haan is Computational Linguist at Oracle, Inc., in Washington, DC',.
His publications on evidentiality include: Encoding speaker perspective: eviden-
tials (2005), The relation between modality and evidentiality (2001), The place of
inference within the evidential system (2001), Evidentiality and epistemic m o ­
dality: Setting boundaries (1999), and the chapters on Semantic distinctions o f evi­
dentiality and Morphological coding o f evidentiality for the World Atlas o f Language
Structures. He is currently working on modality in a num ber o f languages, with an
emphasis on corpus linguistic approaches.
Hana Filip is a Professor of Semantics in the Department o f Linguistics at Heinrich-
Heine-Universität in Düsseldorf. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the U ni­
versity o f California at Berkeley and held positions at the University of Rochester,
Northwestern University, and Stanford University. She is author o f A spect (to

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appear), and Aspect, Eventuality Types and Noun Phrase Semantics (1999). A m ong
her publications related to lexical aspect are: Aspectual class and aktionsart (2011),
Telicity as a semantic parameter (co-author, 2006), The telicity parameter revisited
(2004), Prefixes and the delimitation o f events (2004), and Integrating telicity, aspect
and N P semantics: The role of thematic structure (1997).

Monika Fludernik is Professor o f English Literature at the University of Freiburg/

Germany. She is the author o f The fictions o f language and the languages offictio n :
The linguistic representation o f speech and consciousness (1993) and An introduction
to narratology (2009). Her Towards a natural' narratology (1996) was the co-winner
o f the Barbara and George Perkins Prize o f the Society for the Study o f Narrative
Literature. She has edited and co-edited several volumes of essays on a wide range
o f subjects, especial postcolonial theory. Her articles have appeared in, among
others, Style, N arrative, Poetics Today, Journal o f Literary Semantics, Text, Sem iotica,
Language and Literature, The Journal o f Pragmatics, The Journal o f Historical Prag­
matics, Journal o f N arrative Technique, N ew Literary History, and English Literary
History.

V ictor A. Friedman is A ndrew W. Mellon Professor in the Slavic Department and

the Linguistics Departm ent at the University o f Chicago. He holds an associate
appointment in the Anthropology Department and is Director o f Chicago’s Center
for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies. He is a member o f the M ace­
donian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academ y of Sciences of Albania, the
Academ y o f Arts and Sciences of Kosova, Matica Srpska, and he holds the “ 1300
Years o f Bulgaria” Medal. His recent books are M acedonian (2002), Turkish in
M acedonia and beyond (2003), Studies on A lbanian and other Balkan languages
(2004), an annotated edition of Aleko K o n stan tin o vsB a i Ganyo (2010), and Ocerki
lakskogo ja z yk a (2011).

Zlatka Guentcheva (Ph.D. 1975; Doctorat d’ Etat 1985 from Paris 7 University) is
Senior Researcher Em erita at C N R S (the National Centre for Scientific Research)
in France, and former director o f L A C IT O (Languages and Civilizations with
Oral Traditions). She received a doctorate honoris causa from the University of
Sofia (2007). In the early 1980s she was especially interested in Shaumyan’s A p p li­
cative M odel and has published a b ook on this model and, jointly with him and
J.-P. Descles, two studies on passive and reflexive constructions from a theoretical
point o f view. She has also published a num ber o f research papers with a focus on
evidentiality, aspect, and tense from a typological perspective, and on the Bulgar­
ian grammatical system.
Jadranka Gvozdanovic is Ordinary Professor for Slavic Philology (Linguistics),
and Acting Director of the Slavic Institute, in Heidelberg University. For her book
Celtic and Slavic and the great migrations she won the A A T S E E L Best Book in Slavic
Linguistics Award (2010). She edited (with J.-Th. Janssen) The function o f tense in
text (1991), and wrote The verbal prefixes po- and pro- in Russian: Their meanings
and uses (1992), Russian verbal prefixes and mere ‘resultative completion’ o f the
verbal event (1994), The tense system of Russian (1994), Western South Slavic tenses

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in a typological perspective (1995), Vid na razlicnyx urovnjax jazyka (2004), and

Quantifizierende Adverbien und Typologie des Aspekts: Zur Mehrdimensionalitat
temporaler Kategorien (2006).
Galia Hatav is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University o f
Florida. She received her Ph.D. in 1990 from Tel-Aviv University. She has held vis­
iting positions at Utrecht University, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and York
University (Canada). She is author of 7h e semantics o f aspect and m odality: Evidence
fro m English and Biblical Hebrew (1997) and editor o f Theoretical Hebrew linguistics:
An anthology o f articles on H ebrew within the fram ew ork o f Generative G ram m ar
(2008). She has published on tense-aspect in Hebrew, English, and in general, in­
cluding (Free) direct discourse in Biblical Hebrew (20 0 0 ), T he aspect system in
English— An attempt for a unified analysis (1993), and Aspects, Aktionsarten and
the time-line (1989).
John Hewson (Ph.D. 1964, Université Laval, Quebec City) is Henrietta Harvey Pro­
fessor Emeritus in the Department o f Linguistics, M emorial University of N e w ­
foundland, which he was instrumental in founding in 1968. Fellow of the Royal
Society of Canada, he has collaborated with two other R S C Fellows at Memorial, Vit
Bubenik, with w hom he wrote Tense and aspect in Indo-European languages: Theory,
typology, diachrony (1997) and From case to adposition: The developm ent o f configu­
rational syntax in IE languages (2006), and Derek Nurse, with whom he wrote arti­
cles on verbal systems in Bantu, and prepared (in 2010), along with Sarah Rose, a
website on Verbal Categories in Niger-Congo.
Jacqueline Lecarme received her Ph.D. at the University of Montreal in 1978. She
is Director of Research at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(National Center for Scientific Research) and a m em ber o f the Laboratoire de Lin­
guistique Formelle (Université Paris-Diderot). With J. Guéron, she edited Time
and m odality (2008) and The syntax o f time (2004). A m ong her works on nominal
tense are Tense in nominals (2008), Nominal tense and evidentiality (2004), N o m ­
inal tense and tense theory (1999), and Tense in the nominal system: The Somali
DP (1996).
Alessandro Lenci is Researcher in the Department of Linguistics at the University
o f Pisa. He received his Ph.D. in 1999 from the Scuola Normale Superiore o f Pisa.
He has been Visiting Scholar at Brandeis University, the University o f Helsinki, and
the International Computer Science Institute o f the University o f California, Berke­
ley. I lis works focus on computational lexical semantics and cognitive modeling,
and include The semantic representation o f non-quantificational habituais (1995),
Aspects, adverbs and events: Habituality vs. perfectivity (with P. M . Bertinetto,
2000), and Com putational models of event type classification in context (with
A. Zarcone, 2008).
Jo-Wang Lin received his Ph.D. from University o f Massachusetts at Amherst in 1996
and is currently Professor o f Linguistics at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.
His research interests are in the areas o f syntax, semantics, and syntax-semantics
interface. He has published papers on w h -p h rase quantification, distributivity,

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polarity items, tense a n d aspect, com paratives and co m p arative correlatives, with
special focus on M a n d a r in C hinese.

Peter Ludlow is Professor in the Department o f Philosophy, Northwestern Univer­

sity. He received his Ph.D. from Colum bia University in 1985. He is author o f Ten-
si sm and presentism (in preparation), Understanding temporal indexicals (2007),
Tense (2006), Presentism, triviality, and the varieties o f tensism (2004), Metaphys­
ical austerity and the problems o f temporal and modal anaphora (2001), Semantics,
tense and time: A n essay in the metaphysics o f natural language (1999), and Sem an ­
tics, tense, and time: On tenseless truth conditions for token-reflexive tensed
sentences (1997).
Christian Mair holds a Chair in English Linguistics at the University o f Freiburg in
Germany. He has been involved in the compilation o f several linguistic corpora
(among them F-LOB and Frown, updates o f the classic LOB and Brown corpora,
and the Jamaican component o f the International Corpus o f English). I lis research
over the past two decades has focused on the corpus-based description o f modern
English gram m ar and regional variation and ongoing change in standard Englishes
worldwide (among the resulting monographs are Infinitival clauses in English: A
study o f syntax in discourse, 1990, and Twentieth-century English: History, variation,
and standardization, 2006) and more than 60 contributions to scholarly journals
and edited works.
Steve Nicolle received his D.Phil from the University o f York (UK) in 1997 and has
lived in Kenya since 1999, including eight years among the Digo com m unity on the
south coast. D uring this time, he has published various articles and book chapters
on grammaticalization, tense/aspect/modality, pragmatics, translation, Bantu lan­
guages, and ethnobotany, and was co-author o f a trilingual Digo-English-Swahili
dictionary. He currently coordinates linguistic work in Africa for SIL International
(see www.sil.org), teaches linguistics and translation at Africa International Univer­
sity (Nairobi), and works as a linguistics and translation consultant in Kenya, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere in Africa.
Toshiyuki Ogihara is Associate Professor in Linguistics, University o f Washington.
He received his Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Texas at Austin. He has pub­
lished extensively on the tense and aspect systems o f English and Japanese and the
semantics o f tense and aspect. His publications include Tense and aspect in truth-
conditional semantics (2007), Adverbs of quantification and sequence of tense phe­
nomena (2003), Double-access sentences generalized (1999), Tense, attitudes, and
scope (1996), The semantics o f tense in embedded clause (1995), Double-access sen­
tences and reference to state (1995), and Adverbs o f quantification and sequence-of-
tense phenomena (1994).
Monika Rathert is Professor of Germ an Linguistics and Director o f the Center for
Linguistics at Bergische Universität Wuppertal. Her research interests lie in mor-
phosyntax, semantics, and the language o f the law. Her books include Textures o f
time (Akademie, 2004), and Sprache und Recht (Winter, 2006). She has edited Per­
fect explorations (Mouton, 2003) together with Artemis Alexiadou and Arnim von

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Stechow; Form al linguistics and law (Mouton, 2009) together with Giinther Grewen-
dorf; Quantification, definiteness, and nom inalization (Oxford, 2009) together with
Anastasia Giannakidou; and N om inalizations across languages and fram ew orks
(Mouton, 2010, two volumes) together with Artemis Alexiadou.
Kylie Richardson completed her M .A . in Slavic Linguistics at the University of
Toronto in 1996 and her Ph.D. in Slavic Linguistics at Harvard University in 2003.
After finishing her Ph.D. she immediately took a post as Lecturer in Slavonic Lin­
guistics and Philology in the Department o f Slavonic Languages and Literatures at
the University o f Cambridge, where she still remains. She is also a fellow at Trinity
Hall. Her research interests include the syntax o f the Slavic languages, aspect, and
case. She has published articles on the links between case and aspect in Russian and
in Ukrainian. Her book Case and aspect in Slavic was published by Oxford Univer­
sity Press in 2007.
Marie-Eve Ritz is Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University o f Western
Australia (UWA). She obtained her Ph.D. at the University o f Paris-Sorbonne and her
interest in the semantics and pragmatics of tense and aspect started with a post-doctoral
fellowship at UWA. She has published papers on non-standard uses of the present per­
fect in Australian English and on the French passé composé. She is currently involved
in a project examining tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality in Australian Aborig­
inal languages, which has led to a first publication on the future in Martuthunira. Work
in progress includes analysis o f past and perfect tenses in Panyjima.
Diana Santos finished her doctorate studies in the Instituto Superior Técnico (Lis­
bon) in 1996 with a thesis on tense and aspect in English and Portuguese, and
became a S IN T E F IC T researcher (Oslo, Norway) in 1998. Since then she has led
Linguateca, an international resource network for the computational processing o f
the Portuguese language. Her main interests in computational linguistics are evalu­
ation, semantics, translation, and corpus methodology. Her book Translation-based
corpus studies: Contrasting Portuguese and English tense and aspect systems was p u b ­
lished in 2004. She is now Associate Professor in the Department of Literature, Area
Studies and European Languages at the University o f Oslo.
Louis de Saussure received the Doctorat ès Lettres sum m a cum laude in Linguistics
from the University o f Geneva in 2000. He received the Prix Latsis (2005) and the
Prix Charles Bally (2001) o f the University of Geneva. He is Professeur ordinaire in
the University o f Neuchâtel, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences (Chair o f L in ­
guistics and analysis of discourse). Ile has held several visiting professorships and
post-docs. His many publications include Pragm atique temporelle des énoncés néga­
tifs (2000), L’ Imparfait de rupture: Point de vue (et images du monde) (with В.
Sthioul, 1999), Quand le temps ne progresse pas avec le passé simple (2000), Temps
et pertinence (2003), Pragmatique procédurale et discours (2005), Temps, descrip­
tion, interprétation (2006), and Maintenant: Présent cognitif et enrichissement
pragmatique (2008).
Yael Sharvit is Professor o f Linguistics in the Department o f Linguistics, University
o f California, Lose Angeles. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1997.

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vShe is Associate Editor o f the Journal o f Semantics, and co-editor o f the book series
Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy (Springer). A m o n g her publications related to
tense are Embedded tense and universal gram m ar (2003), Aspects o f the semantics
o f tense in Modern Hebrew (in Hebrew, 2008), The puzzle o f free indirect discourse
(2008), Infinitival superlatives: English vs. Modern Hebrew (2010), and Covalua­
tion and unexpected BT [binding theory] effects (2011).
M ark Steedman is Professor in the School o f Informatics at the University of
Edinburgh and taught previously at the universities o f W arwick and Pennsylvania.
He received his Ph.D. from the University o f Edinburgh in 1973. He is a Fellow of
the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the American A ssocia­
tion for Artificial Intelligence. His research interests cover issues in computational
linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science and cognitive science, in ­
cluding syntax and semantics o f natural language, parsing and comprehension of
natural language discourse by humans and by machine, using Com bin atory Cate-
gorial Gram m ar. Much of his current natural language processing research co n ­
cerns wide-coverage parsing for robust semantic interpretation and inference.
Bertrand Sthioul is Chargé d’e nseignement in the School o f French Language and
Civilization o f the University of Geneva (U N IG E ). I lis research is focused on the
semantics and pragmatics of tense and aspect. I lis numerous publications include
Temps verbaux et point de vue (1998), Aspect et inférences (2000), Informations
conceptuelle et procédurale: La piste beauzéenne (2007), and, with L. de Saussure,
Interprétations cumulative et distributive du connecteur et: Temps, argumentation,
séquencement (2002), Imparfait et enrichissement pragmatique (2005), and Formes
et interprétations du passé surcomposé (to appear).
Tim Stowell is Professor o f Linguistics at the University o f California at Los Angeles
and Dean o f Humanities. He received his Ph.D. at M IT in 1981. His recent work has
focused on the syntax of tense and the logic o f temporal interpretation, and on the
syntax o f quantifiers and other determiners and the principles governing scope as­
signment and reference. Am ongst his works are Where the past is in the perfect
(2008), The English Konjunktiv II (2007), The syntactic expression of tense (2007),
and Sequence o f perfect (2007).
Ilenriëtte de Swart is Professor o f French Linguistics and Semantics at Utrecht
University (the Netherlands). She obtained her Ph.D. from the University o f G r o n ­
ingen with a thesis entitled Adverbs o f quantification: A generalized quantifier ap­
proach (1991). She works on topics in tense and aspect, negation, and indefinites.
Her publications on tense and aspect include Meaning and use of n o t . . . until (Jo u r­
nal o f Semantics, 1996), Aspect shift and coercion {N LLT, 1998), Aspectual implica­
tion of plural indefinites (2006), A cross-linguistic discourse analysis of the perfect
(Journal o f Pragm atics, 2007). She also wrote An introduction to natural language
semantics (CSLI, 1998).
Henk Verkuyl is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University. His main
research interest has been the semantics o f tense and aspect resulting in work in­
cluding On the compositional nature of the aspects (1972), Л theory o f aspectuality

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(1993), Aspectual issues (1998) and B inary tense (2008). He is also one o f the authors
hiding behind the pseudonym L.T.F. Gamut in Logic, language and m eaning (1992).
Mila Vulchanova is Professor at the Department o f Modern Languages, Norwegian
University o f Science and Technology (N T N U ) in Trondheim. She is an elected
member o f the Royal Norwegian Society o f Science and Letters ( D K N V S ) since
2002. She received her Dr.artium in Theoretical Linguistics in 1996. Her thesis, Verb
semantics, diathesis and aspect, addresses the intricate interface between verb argu­
ment structure, alternating verb realization patterns in the syntax, and aspectual
categories. Her research interests fall in the following main categories: language and
cognition, semantic representation, lexical semantics, the semantics/syntax inter­
face, formal syntax, diachronic grammar, corpora and resources, and electronic re­
sources for minority languages. She has published numerous research papers in a
variety o f journals.
Laura Wagner received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania
and is Assistant Professor in the Department o f Psychology, Ohio State University.
Her work focuses on childrens acquisition of meaning, particularly the semantics of
tense and aspect. Her publications include Aspectual influences on early tense in­
terpretation (2001), Aspectual bootstrapping in language acquisition: Telicity and
transitivity (2006), Childrens early productivity with verbal m orphology (2009),
I’ll never grow up: Continuity in aspectual representations (2009), and Acquisition
o f semantics (2010).
Donald Winford is Professor of Linguistics at Ohio State University. He received
his D.Phil. from the University o f York (England) in 1972. He has been Visiting Pro­
fessor at the Netherlands Sum m er Institute, University o f Utrecht, the Department
o f Linguistics and the Center for African and African-Am erican Studies, University
o f Michigan, and the University o f the West Indies, St. Augustine. His publications
on tense and aspect in creoles include Tense and aspect in Sranan and the creole
prototype (2000), A comparison o f tense/aspect systems in Caribbean English cre­
oles (2001), and The influence o f Gbe languages on the tense/aspect systems of the
Surinamese Creoles (2007). He has published extensively on language contact, in­
cluding An introduction to contact linguistics (2003).

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TENSE AND ASPECT

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 INTRODUCTION

R O B E R T I. B I N N I C K

T ense and aspect have risen to some prominence within linguistics in recent decades
as various theories have taken first the verb and then the inflectional system associ­
ated with it to be the central component of the clause. This has manifested itself most
obviously in syntax and morphology, but the effort to understand the meaning and
use of time-related expressions has coincidentally played a significant role in the de­
velopment o f new theories of semantics and pragmatics, and those theories, in turn,
have prompted further research into tense and aspect. Early in the second decade of
the twenty-first century, we can claim to know a great deal more about both subjects
than we did when Com rie published his classic works Aspect (1976) and Tense (1985).
But as is usual in scholarship, there remain many unanswered questions.

C ontexts

Linguistics is the only field o f scholarship that takes language as its p rim ary object
o f study. But that does not mean that linguistics is the only scholarly discipline that
seriously concerns itself with language. Surprisingly m any significant advances
in the understanding of language have come from logicians and philosophers like
J. L. Austin, Donald Davidson, Gottlob Frege, H. Paul Grice, Richard Montague,
Terence Parsons, C. S. Peirce, Arthur Prior, Willard Quine, Hans Reichenbach,
Bertrand Russell, John Searle, P. F. Strawson, Zeno Vendler, and Ludwig Wittgen­
stein, all names that will be quite familiar to m ost linguists.
Where the study of time-related linguistic phenomena— notably tense and
aspect— is concerned, in addition to philosophy, literary scholarship, especially in

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its sub-fields of narratology and stylistics (i.e., literary linguistics), has especially
provided a context for that study. While these two fields concern themselves with
language, to be sure, ultimately their concerns are divorced from those o f linguis­
tics. Nonetheless, both areas have borrowed heavily from linguistics its terms, con­
cepts, data, and methodologies, while contributing their own to it in return. Where
tense and aspect in particular are concerned, the interaction o f these fields with
linguistics is such that no one can safely ignore their importance to, nor the extent
to which they provide alternative contexts for, their study.
Yet a third context is provided by computational linguistics (CL), which is
where linguistics meets the formal sciences. From its beginnings som e sixty years
ago there has been considerable tension between three view s o f C L: as simply that
branch of computer science which concerns the processing o f natural language, as
the branch o f linguistics concerned with developing a formal theory of language,
and as a component o f a multidisciplinary research program related in some way
to cognitive science. Whatever C L m ay be, it provides not merely a special per­
spective on tense and aspect, as do the various branches o f linguistics such as
m orph ology or p rim a ry language acquisition, but a distinct context, drawing to a
great extent on quite different initial assum ptions, applying unique m e th o d o l­
ogies, and having a distinctive set o f goals. Its effect on the study o f tense and
aspect has been profound.

The Philosophy of Language (Peter Ludlow)

For m any philosophers, the main interest in tense comes from the question of
whether tense is projected onto the world by the human conception of time, or
whether tense in language reflects an objective reality. Modern physics suggests that
time is something quite different from our conception o f it; in particular, physics
provides no support for the notion o f tense. Moreover, tense gives rise to a paradox
crucial to McTaggarts argument for the irreality of time. McTaggart (1908) distin­
guishes the A-series o f positions in time, namely the ones that are past, present, and
future, and the B-series, which are those that are simply earlier-than and later-than.
Lie points out that time requires change, which the B-series alone cannot supply.
However, while the A-series does provide change, that change is paradoxical. Every
eventuality (event, action, or state) changes from future to past via the present, but
it is a contradiction to say of some particular eventuality that it is (at once) future,
present, and past. We recognize that some eventualities were or are future, some
were, are, or will be present, and some are or w ill be past. But here is the paradox, for
we must assume the reality of (tensed) time to make such statements, and conse­
quently to prove that there is time.
Notwithstanding this paradox, many philosophers remain “ tensers” : believers
in the objective reality of tense. The first four sections o f Ludlow’s chapter review
the debate between them and “detensers,” who do not. In section 4, he discusses the
related controversy involving “ presentism,” the view that only the present is real. He

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concludes that the debate between tensers and detensers bears on the metaphysics of
time (in the form o f presentism) and the philosophy of language (where indexicals,
which include tensed verbs, are concerned), and may even have consequences for
the question of whether verbal forms are compositional (cf. Verkuyl, this volume),
or formed by analogy.
Philosophical debates may seem very far from the concerns of linguists. H ow ­
ever, they are not, for formal linguistics (morphology, syntax, and semantics alike)
as well as pragmatics depends to a considerable extent on the work o f logicians and
philosophers. Basic concepts such as point and interval (of time), boundary, tempo­
ral ordering, etc., which are part and parcel o f the linguists’ toolkit in dealing with
tense and aspect, obtain their meaning in the first instance in the context of philos­
ophy, and specifically in the philosophy of language and the philosophy o f time.
A nd much as philosophy has contributed basic temporal concepts to linguistics,
linguists, through their analyses o f actual language and the resultant theories, con­
tribute in turn to philosophy. It should occasion no surprise to see the names o f
linguists among Ludlow’s references. Some of them have even on occasion been
claimed for the philosophers.
Those interested in further pursuing these issues might wish to consult the col­
lections by Le Poidevin and MacBeath (1993), Jokic and Smith (2003), and Mani,
Pustejovsky, and Gaizauskas (2005).

Narratology and Literary Linguistics (Monika Fludernik)

In recent times, an increasingly important segment of literary studies has concerned
itself with the structures of texts and discourses, from the level of the sentence right
up to that o f an entire production such as a novel, and thus with the structures and
functions of units belonging to different genres, or as Smith (2003, p. 1) says, with
“pragmatic factors [in discourse] such as genre expectations, discourse coherence
relations, and inference.”
It has become more and more clear that language, and specifically time-related
language, plays a crucial role in discourse and text, performing such functions as
m ain taining coherence; indicating perspective; establishing, m ain tain in g and
changing thematic lines; distinguishing foregrounded and backgrounded material;
providing narrative movement; marking rhetorical relations; etc. As Fludernik points
out (§1), the importance of tense to narrative comes from the significance o f time,
the fact that “ [T]ime is a constitutive component o f narrative both on the level of
story and that o f discourse; time, or the progression o f time, axiomatically defines
narrative in many definitions of narrativity, i.e., that which constitutes a narrative.”
Tim e— and hence tense-aspect— plays an equally significant role in other genres. To
a great extent, time-related language and the structure o f discourse (and o f text) are
intertwined and they can be— and are— studied from either point of view.
Hence an important context for the study o f tense and aspect is that o f literary
scholarship, in particular narratology— the branch o f literary scholarship concerned
6 T1IE O X F O R D H A N D B O O K OF T E N S E A N D A S P E C T

with the analysis of narratives— and literary linguistics or stylistics in the broadest
sense. Literary scholars such as Kate Hamburger (1957/1973) and Harald Weinrich
(1964/1985)y as well as linguists investigating literature and oral discourse, such as
Wolfson (1982), Engel (1990), Fleischman (1990), Fludernik (1993), and Carruthers
(2005), have made valuable contributions to the study o f tense, aspect, and mood.
Fludernik discusses (§2) the pioneering work o f Benveniste (1959/1966) and
Weinrich (1964/1985) in distinguishing genres of discours and those of histoire (Ben-
ven isle’s terms; Weinrichs are, respectively, Besprechen commentary' or ‘discourse’,
and Erzählen ‘narration') and their correlations with different systems o f tenses:
histoire and the diegetic genres with “past” tenses (the preterite, pluperfect, and
imperfect), discours with “present” tenses (the present, present perfect, and future).
Discours also involves deixis— there is a speaker and an addressee with whom (s)he
is communicating in real time, in a dynamic, progressive “ now” at a specific locus,
“ here.” Histoire is free o f any deictic centre, o f any “ here and now,” o f any first person
who is necessarily part of what is narrated. She focuses on narration to illustrate the
analysis o f the use and interpretation o f tense and aspect in discourse and text, dis­
cussing the largely atemporal role o f the preterite tense in narration (§3), grounding
and perspectival uses of temporal shifting in narration (§4), and chronology (§§5,6).
Fludernik’s chapter is complemented by that of Carruthers (see below, in the
part on Perspectives).

Computational Linguistics (Mark Steedman)

Given the frequent reference in text and speech to temporal phenomena, properties,
and relations, the long history within computational linguistics (CL) o f tense-
aspect-mood (TAM) studies is not surprising. As Steedman points out, theories of
temporality have helped develop many computational applications, while computa­
tional theory has served to produce theories o f the temporal semantics o f natural
language. At the same time, issues o f computability have a long history in theoret­
ical linguistics, going back at least as far as C h o m sk y ’s works of the mid-1950s, and
feature prominently in m any theories discussed in this volume, notably Relevance
Theory and Segmented Discourse Representation Theory. Section 2 o f the chapter
concerns contributions o f theoretical linguistics to C L and section 3, contributions
o f C L to linguistic temporal semantics.
Steedman discusses (§2.1) the reasons for the relatively uncomm on use of
temporal semantics and temporal logic in the development o f applications such as
information-retrieval and question-answering systems, principally the difficulty
o f separating these from the use o f speakers’ knowledge, and the great difficulty of
achieving mechanical replication of the hum an’s apparently effortless formation of
associative inferences. G eneral-purpose systems based on linguistic theories are as
yet impractical.
Section 2.2 concerns problems of temporal reference. Steedman observes that
for “suitably closed domains” it m ay be possible to “finesse explicit reference” through

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INTRODUCTION 7

human contributions such as text annotation and specific rules. But doubt regarding
the practicality o f human-labeled data has prompted considerable research into
unsupervised methods for training learning systems. He concludes that the ex­
tremely difficult problem o f automatically identifying temporal semantics and refer­
ence receives as yet only a partial solution from linguistic semantics, which while
crucial to an ultimate solution, is, in itself, insufficient to achieve one.
Steedman points out (§3) that most of the semantic theories discussed in the
present volume assume, implicitly or explicitly, a finite but extendable set of rules in
human cognition for describing the events that transform one state into another. In
one w ay or another, these theories address the question of the precise content of the
states, and the nature of the transformative events.
Models developed for the limited domains considered by theoretical linguistics,
when scaled to practical problems involving realistic worlds, become extremely
complex. Thus, Steedman argues, theories need to be judged not only in terms of
their soundness in representing temporal knowledge, but also of their efficiency for
the purpose of searching for plans, asserting that it is because issues o f constructiv-
ity (the possibility of achieving an algorithm to attain a given state) and efficiency
(the possibility o f fin din g proofs with “ affordable” resources) are p aram ount in
computer science that theoretical computer science has been the main engine
driving progress in the use o f temporal logics and that computer scientists have
made very important observations about logics o f change as they apply to programs
and human reasoning alike.
Perhaps this is the greatest significance o f computational linguistics for theories
claiming to capture human linguistic competence: its insistence on realism, i.e.,
constructivity and efficiency.

Perspec tiv es

Almost every area o f linguistics, with the exceptions o f phonetics and phonology,
has its own approach to tense and aspect. Not only do morphology, syntax, sem an­
tics, and pragmatics differ in their terminology and their methodology, but each
area has its own distinct Problem atik— they naturally seek to answer quite different
questions where tense and aspect are concerned.
In addition to chapters on the basic sub-fields of morphology, syntax, and prag­
matics, this part o f the H andbook contains chapters on other ways o f looking at the
problems raised by tense and aspect. The chapters on universals and typology,
markedness, and discourse and text complement the ones on the sub-fields m en­
tioned above, while expanding, deepening, or placing within a wider context many
o f the issues that occur in discussions in those earlier chapters. Here, too, are three
chapters offering diachronic (Nicolle on diachrony and grammaticalization), and
both diachronic and sociolinguistic perspectives (Friedman on language contact,

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and Winford on creole languages), as well as chapters on both primary and sec­
ondary language acquisition, and on translation.
The first two chapters in this part concern grammatical marking. G ram m ar is
where form meets function, the signified its signifier, and meanings their markers.
As Deo notes, for a number of reasons both synchronic and diachronic it is difficult
if not impossible to discuss morphological marking and syntactic m arking sepa­
rately. But as the reader will note after a comparison of this chapter and the fol­
low ing one on syntax, m orph ologists and syntacticians naturally tend to ask
somewhat different questions where the form/function interface is concerned.

Universals and Typology (Jean-Pierre Desclés

and Zlatka Guentchéva)
In one way or another, most o f the chapters in this volume inherently concern uni­
versals and/or typology.
Desclés and Guentchéva point out that there are two types of approaches to
typology and universals. While m any studies, both typological and universal, are
inductive and empirical, basing themselves on surveys o f a broad and diverse range
o f languages, others are conceptually based. Chomskyan linguists hold that certain
concepts are universal because they are built into the human language faculty. Such
“ universals” differ from those o f the Greenbergian variety (Greenberg, 1963),
whether these be absolute or implication al. In section 2 of their chapter, Desclés and
Guentchéva distinguish inductive generalizations from invariants resulting from
abductive analysis.
Section 3 concerns the typology of aspect, contrasting the largely inductive ap­
proach to grammatical aspect, with its morphological focus, concern with grammati-
calization paths, and European-stvle linguistics, with the concept-based approach to
Aktionsart, largely carried out within Anglo-Saxon approaches, following Vendler s
(1957) schemata. The authors conclude (§5) that though aspect and Aktionsart enter
into a compositional relationship, they draw on a network of basic aspectual concepts
(state, event, process,. . . ) and a set of semantic primitives.
Desclés and Guentchéva place the notions of topological interval and (open
and closed) boundary at the centre of the conceptualization of aspectuality (§§3, 4),
particularly as concerns the interaction of grammatical aspect and Aktionsart, and
see boundedness as serving to contrast “com plete” situations with “co m p leted”
ones, a distinction grammaticalized in some languages, to the perplexity of theo­
rists unable to cope with a category such as the Bulgarian imperfective aorist. They
also explore (§4) the relationships and shared properties between states and pro­
cesses on the one hand and events and processes on the other. Hi is leads to a con­
sideration o f resultative states (§4.5), and of the relationship between the perfective
and perfectivity (§4.6).
Aspect is highly sensitive to the kind of discourse structures and functions dis­
cussed by Fludernik and Carruthers in their chapters, as Desclés and Guentchéva

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note (§6). T h ey conclude that “a m ore elaborate and refined characterization of

linguistic markers cross-linguistically demands taking into account other factors,
generally called discourse factors . . ., but which in fact also partake in creating
meaning and determine how . . . contextualized markers function,” pointing in the
direction, among others, o f the issues in the chapters here on case (Richardson) and
voice (Vulchanova). In addition, Descles and Guentcheva distinguish temporal
frames o f reference (actualized, hypothetical, potential, conditional, irrealis, coun-
terfactual situations,. . . ) , thereby touching on matters discussed in the chapters by
De Haan and Depraetere.

Morphology (Ashwini Deo)

This chapter bears on many matters discussed elsewhere in this volume, but the
emphasis here is on the systems of markers representing the encoded distinctions.
Deo “ lays out the essential components of a morphologically grounded theory of
tense and aspect” (§2): their morphology is about (1) what the possible meanings
and the possible markers are, (2) how the two interface, and (3) what we can say
about all this from either a universal or a typological point o f view. For although
languages ditfer in the formal devices available to them and the systematic contrasts
marked, there are important universals and cross-linguistic similarities (§2).
Deo sees a universal theory of temporal/aspectual grammatical meaning as
c o m p risin g hypotheses regarding the “sem antic ingredients” u n d erly in g tense/
aspect categories, an account o f how the temporal/aspectual “ pie” can be “cut up” in
different languages, and a theory o f “ the role o f defaults and blocking mechanisms
in the structuring o f tense/aspect systems” (§2). Clearly the construction of such a
universal theory is not going to be a trivial task.
Sections 3 and 4 discuss, respectively, tense and aspect and their m odes o f ex­
pression; section 3 principally discusses asym m etry in tense systems, characterizing
the present as a default, sometimes morphologically unmarked, tense, often joined
with the past or with the future in binary tense systems. There, Deo also discusses
the relationship between future tense and m odalities, rem oteness systems, and
portmanteau markers melding tense with other categories.
Section 4.1 discusses the contrast o f perfective and imperfective, and, in section
4.2, the progressive and the perfect, while section 4.1 includes a discussion o f the re­
lationship between telicity and perfectivity, and contains a survey of some o f the
theories of aspect regarding this and related issues (thereby touching on matters dis­
cussed in the chapters by Filip, de Swart, and Gvozdanovic). Though the progressive
(cf. the chapter by Mair) is generally classed as a sub-sub-type o f the imperfective, it
is interesting to learn that encoding of the progressive is independent o f that o f the
imperfective (§4.2). Also, the range o f readings available to the perfect (cf. the chap­
ter by Ritz) in a given language is shown to be in part a function of how it is marked.
Section 5 concerns the consequences of the relatively greater semantic scope of
tense over aspect for aspects o f morphological and syntactic structuring; cross-linguistic

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surveys reveal that the relative order o f the markers of tense and aspect do tend to
reflect their relative scope. This section also discusses the ways in which synchrony
is contingent on grammaticalization.
Section 6 surveys the results o f the typological/grammaticalization tradition
founded by Com rie, Bybee, and Dahl, concluding that there is a strong correlation
between the meanings o f tense-aspect categories and their formal expression, that
the sources o f the lexemes used to create new tense/aspect morphology lie in a
limited number of semantic fields, and that the exponents o f categories tend to
evolve to express other categories (cf. the chapter by Nicolle).
What Deo says of the theories surveyed earlier in her chapter is a fair represen­
tation of the situation for tense/aspect studies as a whole: “ The morphological find­
ings from the grammaticalization literature present a challenging explanandum for
theories o f tense/aspect m e a n in g .. . For as we learn more about the how and the
what o f the evolution o f tense/aspect systems, we will be challenged to account for
the why.

Syntax (Tim Stowell)

As Stowell says (§1), syntax is a large topic, and so he chooses to focus on just four
questions:

1. What counts as a tense, from a semantic perspective, and from a morpho-

syntactic perspective?
2. Where do tense morphemes occur in syntactic structures, and what role do
they play in syntactic derivations?
3. To what extent are the semantic properties o f tenses reflected, in whole or
in part, in their syntactic form?
4. What parallels exist between tenses and other types o f grammatical cate­
gories, such as verbs, pronouns, or adverbs?

A comparison with D eos three main questions (above) reveals considerable

overlap between the concerns o f these two chapters, but naturally there are im por­
tant differences o f viewpoint, not least because Deo is concerned to a great extent
with the mapping o f semantic categories into their m orphem ic exponents, while
syntax tends to view semantics as a matter o f interpreting morpho-syntactic struc­
tures, a perspective reflected in StowelPs first two questions. Nonetheless, the review
o f Reichenbach’s (1947) and C om ries (1985) theories o f tenses (in §2) resembles
D eos chapter in its focus on the third o f Stowell’s questions, and the first half o f the
first. Unsurprisingly, he finds inadequacies in these accounts, especially Reichen­
bachs, not dissimilar to those noted in other chapters, notably Verkuyl’s.
As Stowell says, in section 3 he “review[s] some o f the major theories about the
syntactic phrase structure associated with simple tenses and periphrastic (complex)
tense constructions, based m ainly on considerations o f m orphology and syntax
rather than semantics.” This section moves from C h o m sk y ’s early accounts (§3.1),

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based on affix-hopping and a rather flat structure for the verbal complex of the sen­
tence, through a more hierarchical treatment in which auxiliaries head their own
phrases (§3.2), to X-bar theory and the theory o f categorical distinctive features
(§3.3). The theory of affix placement that resulted was incompatible with theories o f
the semantics, but was replaced (§3.4) by a theory in which the inflection served as
the head of an IP constituent (i.e., the sentence, treated as phrasal in structure) and
then by a further development in which features served as phrasal heads, achieving
a m axim ally non-flat, hierarchical structure. From C h o m sky's (1957) theory in
which affixes moved, we have arrived at an account in which it is the verbs which
move, and certain differences between languages involve a difference in the para­
metric settings regarding the conditions under which those movements take place.
This further evolution fostered an attempt, described in section 4, to reconcile sy n ­
tactic and semantic accounts of tense. Here, Stowell raises some o f the issues and
recounts some o f the arguments relevant to the subject o f the chapters by Hatav, and
Ogihara and Sharvit.

Markedness (Edna Andrews)

M arkedn ess is often appealed to in linguistic argum entation, and as A n d re w s
observes, it has been widely applied in a num ber o f research areas, including
gram m ar, semantics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics, and,
although m ost characteristic o f Slavic linguistics, the concept appears in general
linguistic work, including, notably, the study o f tense and aspect. But, as she
further notes, however “com m onplace and to be taken for granted” the concept
o f m arkedness m a y be, it remains controversial and its application to specific
problems debatable.
The main reason for this is the multiplicity of concepts o f “ markedness” and
different definitions of the term “ marked” that obtain in the various sub-fields—
especially morphology, grammar, semantics, and language acquisition. Batistella
(1990, p. ix) com m ents that “ Different approaches to markedness (and there are
many) define the markedness relation in different ways, apply the concept to dif­
ferent domains of inquiry, and integrate it into different theoretical approaches.” For
Lyons (1977, p. 305) markedness describes “a number o f disparate and independent
phenomena.” Jiang and Shao (2006) distinguish three kinds o f markedness— formal,
distributional, and semantic. Martin Haspelmaths “Against Markedness” (2006)
distinguishes “ [t]welve different senses [of the term], related only by family resem­
blances” and argues that “markedness” is superfluous— that some of the concepts it
denotes are not helpful, and as regards the rest, they should be replaced by “more
straightforward, less ambiguous” terms.
Given the frequent recourse to such a problematic and controversial concept
(cf. the chapters here by Carruthers and Govozdanovic, for example) it is useful for
Andrews to review (§1) the development of the theory o f markedness and its exten­
sion beyond the original phonetics and phonology. She critiques (§2) three “ myths”

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that have arisen in the absence of definitive formulations o f markedness theory (cf.
Andrews, 1990): that markedness is correlated with frequency, the marked member
o f an opposition being the lower in frequency; that either morphological or sem an­
tic oppositions m ay be neutralized in certain contexts; and that substitution is defi­
nitional for the unm arked m em b er o f what Kucera (1980) called a hierarchical
correlational opposition.
Jakobsons theory o f shifters provided a unitary account of grammatical cate­
gories in terms o f the speech situation, narrated situation, and their participants.
A ndrew s presents (§3) revisions o f Jakobsons account by van Schoonefeld and
Aronson, who “argue in favor of a different distribution o f the concept o f shifter,
where the verbal categories are either completely characterized by different types
o f deixis, or the placement o f m ood and status are reversed from shifter to non-
shifter” As a test case, in Slavic aspect is discussed (§4). Andrew s concludes that
while markedness can provide a useful heuristic in analyses, by itself it cannot
provide complete analyses.

Adverbials (Monika Rathert)

The role o f temporal adverbials in temporal reference and in the representation of
temporal relations is vastly greater than the relatively small literature on the sem an ­
tics and pragmatics o f temporal adverbials would suggest.
There are literally an unlimited number o f such expressions, since they include
both expressions incorporating the integers (e.g.,/or an hour; within two days; three
days fro m n o w ;. . . ) and those which are, or incorporate, phrases or clauses (for the
next three days; during her nap; while she slep t;. . . ) . But even the expressions listable
in the lexicon are large in number, including both nouns (today, M onday, . . . ) , and
adverbs (afterwards, beforehand, hitherto, lately, now, often, soon, thereafter, . . . ) , as
well as idiomatic words and phrases o f sometimes quite complex and/or idiosyn­
cratic formation (examples include fo rever and a day; fro m here on in; fro m now on;
in the wee small hours o f the m orning; never in a m illion years; nowadays; once in a
blue moon; since time im m em orial; time after time).
Rathert develops ($1) a semantics for the various types o f adverbials, of which
she lists just four: positional, which locate eventualities in time— these may be ana­
phoric (afterward), deictic (yesterday), or clock-calendric (on M ay 1,19 9 9 ); quantifi-
cational (once, seldom, sometimes); durational (for an hour); and Extended-Now
adverbials (ever since). (Adverbials commonly used with generic, habitual, and iter­
ative expressions are discussed in the chapters by Bertinetto and Lenci, and Carlson.)
The discussion o f subordinate clauses (in §3) does not include a classification of tem­
poral clauses, but it is plausible that they match these types: anaphoric (after the
party; after Sam returned hom e), deictic (now that Tom is a widower), clock-calendric
(when it was just past midnight; when it was no longer 1999), Extended-Now (since
Tom has been here), durational (while he was sleeping), as well, perhaps, as quantifi-
cational (w henever the sky is blue). Apart from complement clauses, relative clauses

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also enter into marking temporality: who norm ally buy pies from the bakers down the
street. Much less attention has been paid to other types of embedded, subordinate
clauses and phrases, as Rathert notes, and more w ork is clearly indicated.
The syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of temporal adverbials interact with
those of tense and aspect in crucial ways and thus are relevant to every chapter o f
this book. (The interactions of adverbials with aspect are discussed in the chapters
by Carruthers, de Swart, Filip, Gvozdanovic, Mail*, and Richardson.) The discussion
in this chapter focuses (in §2) on the role o f adverbials in universal and existential
readings o f the present perfect, principally in Germ an (cf. the chapter by Ritz).
The adverbial functioning of subordinate clause structures raises questions of
their temporal interpretation and the discussion here (§3) overlaps that in the chap­
ters by Hatav, and Ogihara and Sharvit.
Temporal adverbials raise many questions, probably only a minority o f which
have hitherto been paid adequate attention.

Pragmatics (Patrick Caudal)

Like semantics, the younger field o f pragmatics is an extremely broad basic area
whose concerns perfuse most o f these chapters. Its empirical and theoretical bound­
aries appear still somewhat unclear (though considerably less so than in the pre­
vious decade), and the actual scope o f pragmatics varies from one author to another,
so that in tackling the central issue— how TAM markers are used and interpreted in
context— it is necessary, Caudal points out (§1), to be concerned with questions re­
garding the semantics/pragmatics interface: “ (i) what part of the interpretative con­
tent ascribed to tense/aspect forms should pertain to pragmatics, as opposed to
semantics? And . . . (ii) how do semantic and pragmatic phenomena interact with
one another in the synchrony and diachrony of tense-aspect forms?” In section 1.1,
he contrasts theories taking a static, traditional Montagovian truth-conditional
view o f meaning with dynamic semantic theories postulating a level o f representa­
tion prior to model-theoretic truth evaluation, opting specifically for the Segmented
Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) version o f the latter, on the grounds that
it offers principled manners o f constraining pragmatic enrichment mechanism (by
making them, for example, dependent on or sensitive to linguistic form and con­
tent). Adopting Recanatis (2004) terminology, he also contrasts “ literalism,” strictly
separating the contributions o f semantics and pragmatics to logical form, with
“contextualism,” which allows pragmatics to affect logical form via pragmatic en­
richment procedures, and opts again for SD R T s modulated contextualism; in sec­
tion 3, he argues against a certain form of radical contextualism primarily resorting
to speaker meaning-based, linguistic form-independent pragmatic strategies, as
represented by Portners (2003) analysis o f the present perfect.
For Caudal (§1.1), the main interest o f pragmatics lies mainly in two areas,
namely (i) “context-sensitive uses of tense-aspect forms in synchrony” and (ii) “the
conventionalization of these contextual uses (i.e., the role of pragmatics in the

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grammaticalization and evolution o f tense-aspect forms).” As regards the later, his

chapter overlaps Nicolles.
Caudal sees objective (i) as “theoretically realized through . . . different means
o f modelling contextual pragmatic processes affecting aspectual interpretation,
from conversational implicatures to discourse structural parameters such as dis­
course re la tio n s” In section 2, he argues for a continuum between language-
independent, general principles o f communication (such as Grices theory of
implicatures) and language-specific, conventionalized usages. Although he sees
Gricean principles as playing a role all across this spectrum, he argues that many
phenomena are (at present) best captured within the SD R T framework, particu­
larly those driven by or related to discourse structural parameters, 01* exhibiting
som e fo rm o f conventionalized, n o n -free uses (he notably shows how the
distribution and interpretation o f different (semantic) classes o f grammatical as­
pectual forms interact with different kinds o f SD RT discourse relations, and can
evolve in arbitrary ways).
Caudal proposes that diachronically emergent uses for tenses m ay be associated
with defeasible pragmatic regularities and yet reflect nascent conventions no longer
capable o f being “ triggered by general, unconstrained pragmatic processes.” He
argues that this does not exclude “ free enrichment” via pragmatic modulation, but
the processes involved in this evolution are generally not entirely free and must not
be left unconstrained. l ie cites as “one of the main defects of a free pragmatic en­
richment approach (as in contextualist theories) . . . the danger o f over-generation”
and suggests that SD R T “offers an appropriate kind of architecture to try and pre­
vent such over-generation,” while “ keeping inferences tractable.” To this end, sec­
tion 4.1 provides an overview of SD RT and section 4.2 a su m m ary o f discourse
relations, while section 4.3 discusses the interactions o f discourse context, adverbial
modifiers, and aspectual classes, thereby connecting this chapter with those by Car-
ruthers, Filip, Fludernik, and Rathert, among others.

Discourse and Text (Janice Carruthers)

Sem antics has classically been taken to concern the m ean in gs o f linguistic
expressions— from the smallest meaningful unit, the morpheme, to the largest, the
sentence— without regard for context. Pragm atics, in contrast, has traditionally
been defined precisely in terms o f the interpretation o f a linguistic expression in
context, the context being as small as the co-text— the text or discourse surrounding
the expression— or as large as everything the participants in the speech act believe
about both language and the world.
An important setting for the study o f tense and aspect is that of literary schol­
arship, in particular, narratology, and literary linguistics or stylistics in the broadest
sense, the subject o f Fluderniks chapter.
The role that the semantic properties o f tenses play in the effects they produce
in discourse, especially in interaction with other tenses and temporal expressions

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INTRODUCTION 15

such as adverbials, is discussed in section 2 of Carruthers chapter. In two test cases,

she shows that the effects in question arise not exclusively from the semantics of the
tenses themselves, but from their interactions with other contextual elements. The
first test case is the historical present of French (§2.1). Using the concept o f m arked­
ness (see above on the chapter by Andrews), she shows how “the contextual effects
o f [the historical present] arise precisely from features that are not shared” between
the present tense and the preterite. The second test case is the French narrative
imperfect; Carruthers concludes (§2.2) “ that the narrative value o f the im p erfect. . .
comes from the elements in the context that allow the Discourse Relation o f N arra­
tion to be posited, and not from the tense, which remains imperfective.”
Carruthers discusses (§3) models from Discourse Representation Theory, Rele­
vance Theory, and Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT), but spe­
cifically adopts an SD RT perspective in her analysis o f the role of tense in the
construction o f discourses, as in recent research on the compound past in French
and Australian English (see Ritz, this volume).
Section 4 of the chapter concerns focalization and the creation o f point of
view in different types o f discourse. Carruthers examines the use o f the imperfect
in free indirect discourse, and the role o f the present in contemporary French
texts. She concludes that the present in particular “ is a crucially important ele­
ment in focalization strategies in discourse, particularly in m odern and p o s t­
modern literary texts.”
Just as tense and aspect play a significant role in the construction and interpre­
tation o f transsentential linguistic structures and consequently in their study, so
that Jahn (2005), for example, devotes one o f nine sections to tense, many studies of
tense and aspect today turn to the analysis o f discourse and text to provide crucial
arguments for their analyses and hypotheses. In addition to chapter 10, we see this
particularly in the chapters here by Caudal, Rathert, Hatav, Ogihara and Sharvit,
Gvozdanovic, Mair, and Ritz.

Translation (Diana Santos)

As this chapter makes clear, there is an intimate relationship between translation on
the one hand and comparative/contrastive linguistics on the other. Despite a very
large literature o f mainly bi-linguistic studies, there apparently is no general co m ­
parative/contrastive linguistics and little relevant theory outside that which is found
in the studies of second language acquisition and o f typology and universals (cf.
Santoss section 2.2).
Santos says that it should be hardly possible to discuss translation without in­
volving tense and aspect, but that the reverse is also true, that the practice o f trans­
lation can and does illuminate many o f the issues o f tense and aspect found in this
book.
She argues (in §2.2) that “translations should be among the primary semantic
data for all of linguistics.” She notes their authenticity, their independence from

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linguistic goals, and their representing the interpretation by the translator o f the
source text. She sees a purely empirical study o f translation practice as less biased
than accounts based on assumptions about language universals and typological cat­
egories, which m ay essentially be closed systems and hence unverifiable.
Accordingly, Santos advocates an empiricist, structuralist approach to the
study o f translation, indeed arguing for linguistic relativity a la Benjamin Lee
Whorf, in which languages are each in principle sui generis and may even be
incommensurate.
In order to facilitate such an empirical study o f translation, she has devised the
“ translation network m odel” (T N M , described in §3), based on Moens (1987), and
sharing with it (a) the use o f a network to describe tense and aspect mechanisms,
(b) the use o f coercion to explain marked uses of grammatical devices, and (c) the
modeling o f ambiguity as the existence o f several possible paths in the network.
One important distinctive feature of the T N M is the assumption that each language
has its own sets o f aspectual devices and o f aspectual categories. Another assum p­
tion is that, in addition to fully specified categories, languages display vague cate­
gories, which m ay be further specified in context but do not always require
specification for the understanding o f a particular text. The description o f the use in
practice of the T N M forms the bulk o f the chapter.
Section 7 concerns the effect of genre on the use of TAM markers, thereby link­
ing this chapter to those by Carruthers, Caudal, and Fludernik.

Diachrony and Graminaticalization (Steve Nicolle)

Up to now the chapters have emphasized synchronic linguistics. The next three look at
the diachrony o f tense and aspect, which has received much less attention in the liter­
ature than have synchronic issues. In recent decades, the focus has been on theories
that would make tense-aspect-mood systems out to draw fairly directly on innate
language faculties, yet it is clear from the chapters by Deo, Nicolle, Winford, and Fried­
man that synchronic structures are to a considerable extent contingent on their his­
tories ; the importance o f diachronic processes for understanding synchronic systems
is also illustrated by the chapters by Mair and Ritz, and in another way, by Caudal.
Nicolle starts ($1) by posing the basic questions of how tense-aspect systems
come about, how particular markers or distinctions arise, and how systems, markers,
and distinctions change over time.
While noting the determinant role morphological typology plays in the expres­
sion of tense-aspect categories and the causal relationship between its instability
and that of individual markers (cf. the chapter by Deo), he points out that the lack
o f long-term documentation limits our understanding of morphological typology
and the evolution o f languages through the famous isolating-agglutinative-fusional-
isolating cycle.
Most of the chapter is about the origin and evolution o f grammatical cate­
gories, though these are inseparable from those of grammatical m arkers: “ primary

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INTRODUCTION 17

grammaticalization,” the processes developing grammatical markers from lexical

material (§§2-4) and “secondary grammaticalization,” the development of further
functions for already grammaticalized constructions (§5).
Cross-linguistically, lexical material o f similar meaning develops into g ra m ­
matical markers o f similar category (§2; Deo, this volume). The processes of dese-
manticization (“semantic bleaching” ), the loss o f specific meaning in favor of
extremely broad, abstract meaning, and decategorialization, loss o f unambiguous
membership in a specific category, involved are illustrated with the development of
the Swahili completive marker sha- (§3). The source material and contexts favorable
for grammaticalization are discussed in section 4. (Again, cf. the chapter by Deo.)
Section 5 concerns “secondary grammaticalization,” the development o f further
functions for already grammaticalized constructions, which Nicolle distinguishes
from “actualization,” the spread of a grammaticalized construction through a
language community, with concomitant increase o f its frequency of use and con­
texts o f use. He notes that similar categories in different languages tend to develop
similar additional grammatical functions.
When a set o f grammaticalizations are linked sequentially, this is called a
“grammaticalization chain” or “ path” (§6). Grammaticalization chains in theory
represent a set o f discrete stages, but in reality it is difficult to identify the moment
when a construction shifts from one category to another, partly because it m ay be
difficult to identify the boundary between the categories. The problems this poses
for most theories, which assume discrete categories, are the subject of section 7,
outlining an approach, based on gradient, non-discrete distinctions, which calls
into question the absolute distinctiveness not only o f lexical and functional cate­
gories, but of “tense” and “aspect” themselves. An alternative approach is suggested
in which distinctions between categories are retained but associated with distinct
syntactic positions. (Regarding syntax, see Stowells chapter in this volume.)
Section 8 concerns the effects o f language contact, which is the topic of Fried­
mans chapter, and relevant to Win fords chapter as well, especially its section 3.

Language Contact (Victor Friedman)

As stated above, the synchronic state of a language is not purely a function o f uni-
versals, of inherent features o f human language, but neither is it random. Rather, it
is to some extent contingent on its diachrony, both internal and external, though the
role of language contact in effecting changes in TAM systems can be, and has at
times been, overstated.
The extremes o f the effects of language contact include language death, but also
the creation of new languages, as explored in W infords chapter.
The results o f long-term contact am ong a group o f languages can be described
as a Sprachbund or language union, the classic example o f which is found in the
Balkans, where a num ber o f Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, etc.) and other Indo-
European languages (Albanian, Greek, Romani, Rom anian, . . .) along with the

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n on -Ind o-Eu rop ean Turkish, have mutually influenced each other and have
evolved a num ber o f characteristically “ Balkan” features that they do not share
with non-Balkan m em bers o f their own families.
The importance o f Friedmans careful and detailed description of the effects of
diffusion on the TAM systems o f the Balkan languages for the diachronic study of
tense and aspect lies in the sociolinguistic principles it illustrates. Where the syn­
chrony o f the T A M systems o f languages in general is concerned, diachronic and
sociolinguistic studies, like studies on language acquisition, can be revealing not
only o f the structures o f particular systems, but o f tense-aspect systems in general,
since one cannot change what isn’t there, and the state of a system at a given m o ­
ment can influence the directions in which it does change.
What Friedman observes are, first, the effects o f bi-and multi-lingualism, and
second, the impact of multiple systems on the ecology o f communication, changes
in grammatical functions, creating new categories and markers that alter the
grammars of the languages w'here they occur. Diachronic principles are perceived
on the level o f whole dialects or languages, but at base they are the product of a
complex o f sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and extrinsic factors on the level o f the
individual speaker. In the Balkans, there are enough languages with a wealth of
recorded history to illustrate many such linguistic phenomena, which, taken to­
gether, suggest how contact-induced change in tense-aspect systems participates in
the identification and analysis o f linguistic areas.

Creole Languages (Donald Winford)

Creoles are interesting from m any points o f view. Their formation is incompatible
with the standard Stammbaum model o f historical linguistics, and they illustrate
radical effects of language contact (cf. Friedman, this volume), challenging widely
accepted views o f the extent to which a language can change under the influence
o f another.
Classically they have presented the enigma of apparent (albeit debatable) uni­
formity across languages that are geographically widely separated and lexically affil­
iated to different languages. Winford suggests (§4) that their similarities testify to
the role o f universal principles in their creation while their differences are evidence
o f the elfects of dilferent linguistic inputs and different sub-paths taken by processes
o f grammaticalization (cf. §3 and the chapter by Nicolle).
Debates have focused on the contrastive roles in their formation o f substratal
and superstratal languages, of processes of first language and second language acqui­
sition, of Universal G ram m ar and general cognitive capacities, and of sociolinguistic
and psycholinguistic factors. Theories accounting for their similarities and/or differ­
ences include Lefebvres Relexification Hypothesis (1986,1993,1998); Siegel’s “ trans­
fer” hypothesis (1999, 2000, 2008); and Winford’s own approach (2006, to appear).
Creoles have had an especially high profile in debates over the nature o f linguis­
tic universals and their role in language acquisition and change, and following its

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INTRODUCTION 19

proposal in 1976, Bickertons now-superceded language bioprogram theory long

served as a connection between creole studies and universalist hypotheses (see too
Bickerton 1981, 1983, 1984, 1988). The debate regarding Bickertons theory leaned
heavily on creole TAM systems, which consequently led to a large literature (in­
cluding Singler, 1990). More recently those systems have played a significant role in
debates as to whether creoles constitute a distinct typological class (McWhorter,
1998, 2005) and whether language universals should be conceived o f as innate gen­
eralizations written into Universal Grammar, or as part of more general cognitive
capacities peculiar to human beings (Winford 2010).
According to the bioprogram hypothesis, creoles arise when children apply
their innate language capacity in the process of acquisition. Insofar as the study of
creoles accordingly has implications for Universal Grammar, it is important not
merely for their study that scholars such as Arends (1989, 1996; cf. Selbach et al.,
2009), Singler (1993), and Winford have in recent times rejected the innatist expla­
nation o f creole-formation in favor o f one rooted in theories of contact-induced
change (cf. §3.2), which also takes into account the sociohistorical contexts and
social ecologies in which creoles emerged (Mufwene, 2001). This has led to more
concern with the processes by which tense/aspect categories and systems are cre­
ated, and with the role o f universal cognitive mechanisms in such processes. W in ­
ford claims (§2) a general consensus among creolists that creole formation involves
a process of natural second language acquisition by speakers with more or less
limited access to the languages that supplied their vocabulary. This has led to
increased comparison of creole formation and other cases of second language ac­
quisition (cf. Bardovi-Harlig, this volume) and growing dialogue between scholars
in the two fields o f study (cf. Andersen, 1983; DeGraif, 1999; Lefebvre et al., 2006).

Primary Language Acquisition (Laura Wagner)

As the last two chapters illustrate, it is ultimately impossible to consider language
diachrony without concerning oneself with language acquisition, both prim ary
and secondary.
The central fact in primary language acquisition is that, amazingly enough, chil­
dren do normally acquire language, and specifically, both the forms and the func­
tions belonging to the tense-aspect system(s) of what will be their native tongue(s).
The question is how they manage to do it.
Part of the answer to that question involves, of course, just what it is they
acquire. Our understanding o f tense-aspect systems and o f the processes involved
in acquiring them consequently have much to contribute to one another, and more
adequate accounts o f both will have to develop in tandem. This chapter concludes
(in §6) with a number of questions requiring further research; other chapters point
to related questions regarding TAM systems themselves.
As the present volume reveals, children are faced with a broad range o f formal
markers (cf. the chapter by Deo), which m ay or may not include tense markers

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(cf. Lin), m ay include markers on other than verbs (Lecarme), or m arking by

case (Richardson). Puzzling out the semantic categories and their exponents thus
poses a great initial challenge for the child, as is the acquisition of the temporal
concepts underlying TAM systems— boundedness, telicity, progression, deixis, etc.
These are abstractions which, Wagner points out, are not easily observed in the
world. A n d, we might add, must be abstracted from interpretations distorted by the
exigencies of pragmatics. All this at a time when the child has myriad other things
to learn, and (Wagner also stresses) must draw on immature cognitive resources.
Much o f the literature, we are told, focuses on a systematic phenomenon: chil­
dren (before about the age o f two-and-a-half years) under-extend their semantics
by restricting their languages past tense and perfective markers to telic predicates
while restricting its present tense and imperfective markers to atclic ones. With age,
they normally under-extend their morphology usage much less, and increasingly
their performance exhibits the mature independence of tense, grammatical aspect,
and Aktionsart. Their temporal under-extensions would seem to reflect general
principles o f childrens semantic organization and/or their cognitive architecture.
Accordingly, the phenomenon potentially illuminates both temporal semantics and
the processes o f language development.
Across the many diverse approaches, there is widespread agreement that there
is so m e th in g natural about the associations telic/perfective/past and atelic/
imperfective/present, but they disagree on whether they reflect cognition or linguis­
tic organization; perhaps the categories define cognitive prototypes, or perhaps the
combinations within each association are less marked or involve less semantic coer­
cion than the cross-association ones. In the latter case, childrens adherence to the
associations would reflect their implicit appreciation o f linguistic defaults.
All approaches agree that childrens under-extensions reflect the easiest sem an­
tic combinations to produce and understand. However, the particular sense in
which these classes are easier differs across theoretical positions, and are variously
attributed to childrens’ not (fully) possessing the required grammatical resources
and to their grammars not having a fully articulated temporal structure.
Ultimately, theories in primary acquisition must account for more than just this
facet of production; they must explain the full range of phenomena exhibited in the
acquisition of production as well as those o f comprehension. Wagner provides an
overview o f what is known about how children acquire Aktionsart or lexical aspect
(in §3), grammatical aspect (§4), and tense (§5).

Second Language Acquisition (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig)

Bardovi-Harlig connects second language (2L) acquisitional studies with those on
first language acquisition. Her chapter focuses on the “aspect hypothesis” (§2),
which is based on the observation that children learning their first language encode
the completion o f events (i.e., aspect) before they encode temporal relations
between events and the time of speaking (i.e., tense). The aspect hypothesis (AH),

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INTRODUCTION 2 1

“ the most widely tested hypothesis in 2L tense-aspect research,” predicts similar

acquisitional patterns in i L acquisition by adults. Work on this hypothesis serves
research into both prim ary and second language acquisition, since the study o f
adult learners facilitates the study o f language development separate from that o f
cognitive development.
She further reports (§1) that the developmental sequence in L2 acquisition is
generally independent o f environment, instruction, 01* even the learners language(s)
and the target language. Basic rules for marking are underutilized in interlanguage
(the form o f the L i language produced by learners, incorporating features o f their
native language(s)) relative to their use by native speakers in the target language,
beginning at a simpler, more prototypical starting point and subsequently spreading
throughout the learners L i grammar.
Tlie focus of investigations o f L i morphology has come to be on form-meaning
associations within developing L2 temporal systems. The AH has been prominent
in fo r m -oriented approaches which begin with tense-aspect morphology and, based
on observations o f its distribution, seek to understand what the emerging forms
mean in the developing L2. An alternative set of m eaning-oriented approaches,
championed largely by European functionalists, began with temporal concepts and
inquired into how developing systems expressed such concepts (e.g., the past).
These inquiries captured pre-morphology stages of interlanguage in which lexical
items were used by learners to make temporal reference and later stages in which
they gradually added tense-aspect morphology to their L2.
Bardovi-Harlig notes that studies documenting the spread o f morphology from
lexical category to lexical category are few relative to those that document prototyp­
ical associations typical o f the initial stages o f acquisition, and that even fewer
studies attempt an account of how such spread occurs.
L2 acquisition researchers have found a relationship between the use o f verbal
morphology in interlanguage and the grounding of the narrative. The interlanguage
discourse hypothesis (§2.2) predicts that “ learners use emerging verbal morphology
to distinguish foreground from background in narratives” and, based on language
universals, predicts that the foreground would be marked by the perfective past.
Bardovi-Harlig compares the predictions of the aspect and discourse hypotheses
(§2.3) and provides evidence (in §3) for the former.
Her own account (in §3.3) o f how the perfective past jum ps from goal-oriented
telics to open-ended activities attributes it to the narrative function of foregrounded,
chronologically sequenced, activities.
Research on the aspect hypothesis has significantly increased interest in tense
and aspect among students o f second language acquisition. She reports (§4) on sev­
eral types o f research which do not fall within her AH-oriented focus. As in most o f
the chapters here, Bardovi-Harlig concludes by pointing out a number o f areas re­
quiring further research, one being the need for longitudinal studies to facilitate the
observation o f more stages and produce more nuanced analysis than has been pos­
sible with the largely cross-sectional studies to date.

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22 T1IE O X F O R D H A N D B O O K OF T E N S E A N D A S P E C T

Tense

For decades, the standard theory of tense has been that of Reichenbach (1947),
referred to in m any o f the chapters here. In naive accounts, a tense marker refer­
ences a sector o f time (past tense refers to past time, etc.) and it is the function o f a
tense to situate an eventuality— event, process, or state— in the corresponding time:
the past tense verb painted locates a particular act of painting in the past. But hardly
any languages actually have the predicted three tenses, and while the naive notion
seems at first glance to work for “p rim ary” or “absolute” tenses such as the past, it
fails completely where “secondary” or “ relative” 1 tenses, e.g., the pluperfect or the
conditional (e.g., would leave in the next day he w ould leave fo r hom e), are con­
cerned. Before Reichenbach, most analysts treated secondary tenses as implicitly
involving two temporal relationships, where the eventuality is located in a time
sphere defined not by the present time, but by some other time. Thus the condi­
tional is a future-“ in” (relative to)-the past, the future perfect a past-in (relative to)-
the future, etc. This scheme is essentially that of Jespersen (1924) and Bull (i960).
What Reichenbach did, as Hewson points out in his chapter, was unify the treat­
ment o f tenses by defining all tenses in terms o f a “ middle term,” the reference point,
alongside the time S o f the speech act (the present) and the time E o f the “event.”
Thus, the past is not simply defined by the time o f the “event” E preceding the pre­
sent (FxS); its absoluteness comes from the fact that S serves as the reference time
R (R=S), so that the past is defined by Reichenbach as E _ R = S (i.e., E<R =S).
The naive conception o f tense, for all its inadequacy before the facts, has proven
remarkably resilient. Equally resilient, Hewson argues (in §1), is the mistaken iden­
tification of a tense m arker with a tense, pointing to echoes of this in Reichenbach
(1947) and C om rie (1985).
As shown in Table 1 in Verkuyls chapter, Reichenbachs triples have since been
reanalyzed as pairs (cf. )ohnson, 1981, §2; and Dinsmore, 1982); the past perfect, for
example, is now defined not as E_R_vS (i.e., E < R < S ), but as R_S (R < S), past, and E _ R
(E < R ), anterior. (This analysis is in fact implicit in the names Reichenbach gave the
tenses; the traditional “ past perfect” is his “anterior p a s t” ) As Johnson (1981) makes
explicit, we m ay identify the R/S relationship with tense and E/R with aspect. Many
contemporary scholars, including some in this volume, reject a purely temporal,
Reichenbachian analysis in favour of just such a mixed temporal/aspectual one, in
which the future perfect, for example, represents simply a combination of future
tense and perfect aspect. But as most of the chapters in this part o f the book dem ­
onstrate, that is still not the full story.

Tense (John Hewson)

Hewson eschews form-based systems, insisting that tense is a system o f concepts
(§1.1). Whereas Reichenbach observed that coherence in a sentence requires the per­
manence o f the “reference point” R,2 which roughly agrees with traditional notions

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INTRODUCTION 23

o f temporal accord between clauses and a sequence of tenses rule (cf. Hatav, Ogihara
and Sharvit, this volume), Hewson assigns the property of coherence to tense on the
conceptual level, not that o f markers (§1.2).
In sections 2 and 3, he presents a Guilleaumian analysis o f tense, illustrated in
section 3.1 by the system of Indo-European tenses, a binary analysis that reminds
one somewhat o f Verkuyls analysis (in this volume) o f English. Guillaumes ideas
have been influential in the French-speaking world, but almost completely ignored
in the Anglo-Saxon one outside o f Canada.3
Guillaume distinguishes the time containing the event (which provides the cat­
egory o f tense)— “ Universe Time” — and the time contained in the event (the var­
ious representations o f which provide the varieties of aspect), “ Event Time.” He also
distinguishes “ Descending Tim e” and “Ascending Time.” The form er reflects the
experience in m em ory of time coming out of the future and going through the pre­
sent into the past, where now is always descending into the past, and in this “ pas­
sive” view of objective time, the past is irretrievable. In the latter, our consciousness
moves forward, now is always progressing into the future, and this “active” view is
o f subjective time.'1
The core o f the theory o f tense presented by Hewson he states thus (§3.1):

1. The unmarked forms in Descending Time represent events as incomplete,

in progress, whereas the unmarked forms in Ascending Time represent
events as complete.
2. There are “ Type A” languages with two tenses in Descending Time, like
Greek and the Slavic languages.
3. There are “ Type B” languages with two tenses in Ascending Time, such as
English.
4. There are also “ Type C ” languages (e.g., some Semitic ones) with systems
that have tenses in both Ascending and Descending Time, where
Perfectives and Progressives are still marked forms, but Imperfectives and
“ Performatives” (the “simple” tenses) may, in certain circumstances, be
marked as well.
5. These are the building blocks for tense systems in the languages of
the world.

Section 4 presents a kind of “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” characteriza­

tion o f tense, in which the development o f more elaborated semantics is correlated
with morphological structure, and the progression from aspectual to temporal con­
cepts in p rim ary and secondary language acquisition (cf. the chapters by Wagner
and Bardovi-IIarlig) is cited as a parallel. Thus, the distinction of “quasi-nominals”
(w ritten, writing, (to) write), the subjunctive, and the indicative is seen as providing
a set o f levels in Guillaumean terms. Thus one can speak of a progression that is
both developmental and diachronic.
In section 5, Hewson analyzes three Bantu remoteness systems (cf. on Botne,
below), and in section 6, discusses the temporal use of modal forms, and vice versa
(cf. de Haan, Depraetere, this volume).

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24 T1IE O X F O R D H A N D B O O K OF T E N S E A N D A S P E C T

Remoteness Distinctions (Robert Botne)

A problem for Reichenbach’s and similar analyses comes from languages with tense
systems marking remoteness distinctions, so-called “ metric tense” systems (Carl­
son, 2009), the subject of Bottle's chapter and section 5 of Hewsons.
The distinctions between the tenses which most linguists involve themselves
with are qualitative and discrete. The past is simply different from the present. But
the tenses in remoteness systems differ quantitatively. At a given time of utterance it
is quite possible to have a choice o f different tenses with which to report an eventu­
ality, the interpretation of which, moreover, is “ flexible” (Botne, §9). These systems
are characterized by multiple past (and future) tenses, and m ay involve a large
number o f grades (up to seven) and/or great complexity in the determination of
which tense to use, which is usually based on a number o f pragmatic factors. While
sometimes the distinction is calendric and discrete, as between the hodiernal (the
eventuality occurred earlier today) and the hesternal tenses (the eventuality o c ­
curred yesterday), it often is vague, subjective, and not associated with any objective
temporal bound.
The differences between tenses in remoteness systems concern the distance in
time between E and the deictic centre (the present). But in a neo-Reichenbachian
analysis, the “tense” component o f a grammatical tense has to do with the relation­
ship o f R to S, not E; E relates only to R, in the aspectual component. Wre might
salvage the situation by observing that in these systems R is S, R=S. But then the
quantitative past tenses all become in effect present tenses, as do the future tenses.
There simply seems to be no principled w ay o f extending Reichenbachian analyses
to the tenses o f remoteness systems. One of the goals of Hewsons chapter, indeed,
and one o f his motivations for presenting a non-Reichenbachian theory, is precisely
to arrive at an adequate account of such systems.
Botnes chapter provides a vastly more comprehensive and vastly more detailed
study o f remoteness systems in a smaller compass than has hitherto been available.
It has long been known that such systems tend to be symmetrical, but that in asym ­
metrical systems, past tenses exceed future ones. But the factors determining tense
use and distinguishing types o f systems, and the interactions o f those various fac­
tors, have been poorly delineated, and Botnes study points (§9) toward “a more
complex organization underlying the distribution of form and meaning” than has
generally been recognized. (For some o f the complexities, see §§4-7.)
The analysis in his chapter sets out three patterns o f organization in which tem­
poral distinctions are typically grounded: “ natural cycles, contrasting time units
(‘Currently Relevant’ vs Adjoining’) and time scales (days, months, seasons, years)
[cf. §1], life (life span, m em ory) [cf. §2], or epistemic value [cf. §3].” Remoteness,
itself, is shown not to be a simple, straightforward concept, but one that involves
differences in time scale and temporal domain. In sum m ing up (§9), he proposes
that languages may differ in whether they differentiate time units, whether they
sub-divide the Currently Relevant temporal domain, or whether they make m an i­
fest a distinct remote domain.

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INTRODUCTION 25

B o tn e sees no discontin uity betw een a rem oten ess (m ulti-tense) system and an
apparently no n-qu antitative, sin gle-tense system like that o f English. The latter is
just the lim itin g case, the sim plest o f m etric system s. Such a claim poses a n e w c h a l­
lenge to o r t h o d o x theories o f tense.

Compositionality (Henk Verkuyl)

V e r k u y ls interest is not o n ly in a r riv in g at a m o re adequate accou nt o f tense, but in
d ealin g with the problem o f com positionality, a gen erally accepted principle w h ich
is, nonetheless, h ig h ly controversial (cf. Szabo, 2 0 0 0 , 2 0 0 7 ; D ev er, 2 0 0 6 ; Pagin and
Westerstal, 2008, 2 0 10 a , 2 0 10 b ).
The p rin cip le o f com positionality* is that the m e a n in g o f a linguistic expression
e is a function of, and predictable fro m , the m e a n in g s m ^ ........... .. m. o f the i m m e ­
diate constituents c t, ........... .. c. o f e, an d the m o d e o f c o m p o s in g those constituents
into the h yper-constitu en t e, its internal syntax. A sentence like John loves M a ry
thus m e a n s w h at it d ocs because o f w hat its in d iv id u a l m o r p h e m e s m ean, but also
(v e r y roughly) b ecau se English is an S V O language, with all that that implies.
To b e su re, la n g u a g e is replete w ith e x c e p t io n s to c o m p o s itio n a lity . But w h ile
there are s e m a n t ic a lly a n d / o r fo r m a lly c o m p le x tenses in la n g u a g e s in w h ic h the
f o r m / fu n c t io n relatio n sh ip is p u r e ly c o n tin gen t, su c h as the p e r ip h r a s tic “ p e r ­
fect” o f C a ta la n {jo v a ig cantar “ I sa n g , I h ave s u n g ” ), fo r m a lly s im ila r to the
p e r ip h r a s t ic fu tu re s o f o th e r R o m a n c e la n g u a g e s (je vais chanter , vou cantar , “ I’m
g o i n g to s i n g ” ), it is a s s u m e d that in ge n e ral, the m a r k i n g o f tenses is c o m p o s i ­
tional. There are s o m e difficulties w ith this, h o w e v e r, p e r h a p s the m o st n o to r io u s
case b e i n g that o f the m u c h - d i s c u s s e d -te ir(u ) c o n s tr u c t io n o f Ja p a n e se , w h ic h is
a m b i g u o u s b etw ee n a c o m p le t iv e r e a d i n g s im ila r to the present p e rfe c t a n d a
c o n tin u a tiv e r e a d in g s im ila r to the p resen t p r o g r e s s iv e .6 This c o n s tr u c t io n has
defied d efin itive a n a ly s is; it r e m a in s c o n tr o v e r sia l w h e t h e r it is c o m p o s it i o n a l or
not, and its v e r y ex iste n ce calls into q u e stio n b a sic c o n c e p ts in v o lv e d in c o m p o ­
sitionality. But the v a s t m a jo r i t y o f te m p o r a l (and a sp e c tu a l) c o n s tr u c t io n s are
c le arly c o m p o s it io n a l.
V e rk u yl argues (in $2 .1) that R e ic h e n b a c h s th eory is in p rin c ip le n o n - c o m p o s i-
tional, incapable o f p r o v id in g c o m p o sitio n a l analyses o f c o m p o s itio n a l tenses. O n e
o f his argu m en ts involves the fu n d a m e n ta l flaw in the system o c c u r r in g in the P o s ­
terior Future w ill walk a n alyzed by R eichenbach as S — R — E. U n d e r a strict c o m p o ­
sitional a p p roach , R eich en bach is forced to p r o d u c e w ill w ill walk for the Posterior
Future, the first w ill b ein g a finite future f o r m (by S — R), the s e c o n d w ill an infinite
p o s te rio r fo rm (by R— E). A sim ple red u ctio n from w ill w ill w alk to w ill walk is
lo g ic a l-sem an tic a lly im p o ssib le from a c o m p o s itio n a l po int o f view.
T h ere are m a n y p ro b lem s with R e ic h e n b a c h s theory, d isc u ssed in several c h a p ­
ters here (m ost notably that o f Stowell), especially its over- and under- generation o f
tenses. V erk u yl argues (§2) for a m o r e fu n d a m e n ta l, irreparable flaw : the system is
ternary, not binary, built on two d istin ctio ns rather than the three V erkuyl inherits

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26 T1IE O X F O R D H A N D B O O K OF T E N S E AND A S P E C T

(§2.2) from Te W i n k e ls treatm ent o f D utch: past/present, “s y n c h r o n o u s ” /“posterior,”

and im perfect/perfect.
The bulk o f V e r k u y ls chapter (§3), however, co n cern s his c o m p o sitio n al th eory
o f aspect, based on (1) the c o m p o s itio n a lity o f aspect, with sy n ta x p layin g a crucial
role in d e te r m in in g the aspectual value o f a structure; (2) the P lu s-Principle, w h ich
implies that term inativity (b o u n d e d n e ss, telicity) is a m a r k e d aspectual c o m p o s i ­
tional property. He illustrates the utility, and co nseq uen ces, o f these prin ciples in
d isc u ssin g the apparent conflict b etw ee n Slavic and n o n -Sla vic system s (§§3, 4),
e x p la in in g the differences b etw een Slavic and n o n -S la v ic languages thus: in G e r ­
m a n ic languages the se m an tics involves tense operators, w h ile in a language like
Russian the c o r r e s p o n d in g in fo rm atio n is encapsulated in the predication itself and
it has to be sorted out by stick in g to predicational c o m p o sitio n .

The Supercomposé Past Tense (Louis de Saussure and

Bertrand Sthioul)
A m o n g the types o f tenses w h ic h h ave received relatively little attention in the
literature are the surcom posé or s u p e r c o m p o s e d tenses, fo r m e d with two p a r t ic i­
ples, for ex a m p le , the F re n ch passé s u r c o m p o s é tense (P S T ) in Jean a eu chanté.
Often th o u g h t to o c c u r o n ly in Fren ch and O ccitan , such tenses do o c c u r else­
w h ere, and Sa u ssu re and Sthioul m en tio n v a rie tie s o f A fr ik a a n s , F le m ish , G e r ­
m a n , Y id d is h , and even English (e.g., Vve h a d g o n e through that experien ce before ):
a m o n g G e r m a n i c la n g u a g e s; o f C a ta la n , Italian, R h a e t o - R o m a n c e , and Span ish
a m o n g the R o m a n c e ; the Slavic la n g u a g e s M a c e d o n i a n and S o rb ia n ; A l b a n i a n ;
and the n o n - I n d o - E u r o p e a n T ib e ta n , K o re a n , and B a sq u e . L ik e ly the p h e n o m ­
enon is even m o r e w id e s p re a d .
W h at lends the s u p e r c o m p o s e d tenses their cross-linguistic interest is not
m erely their u n u su al m o rp h o lo g y . I f these tenses are co m p o sitio n al, they se e m in g ly
require two reference points for their se m an tic analysis, s o m e t h in g im p ossib le in
R e ic h e n b a c h s a n d all other theories o f tense that a ssu m e a sin gle tem poral fr a m e or
“ reference point.” But if they are not co m p o sitio n al, these tenses suggest that they,
and therefore at least s o m e verbal form s, are analogical rather than c o m p o sitio n a l
in fo rm a tio n . C o n se q u en tly , o ne w a y or another, they seem to p o se a fu n d a m e n ta l
challenge for at least c o m p o sitio n a l theories o f tense.
In section 1, cro ss-lingu istic sem an tic and p ra g m a tic peculiarities o f s u r c o m ­
p o sé tenses are d escrib e d : the “d ou b le perfect” o f G e r m a n m a y substitute for the
sim ple past or the pluperfect, albeit w ith m o d a l n u ances; the passé s u r c o m p o s é m a y
in s o m e languages signal a rem ote past, but in others p ro v id e a recent, even h o d ie r ­
nal, interpretation; it m a y also indicate u n e x p e c te d n e ss or ch ance o ccu rren ce.
The French tenses, at least, do not seem to be co m p o sitio n al. How ever, Saussure
and Sthioul suggest (§1), the two auxiliaries do allow for an am b igu ity: the past
au x ilia ry allows an interpretation in w h ic h the eventuality is p rim a rily relevant at a
past r e fe r e n c e p o in t R, w h e r e a s the p re se n t a u x i l i a r y m a y p lac e r e le v a n c e at the

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INTRODUCTION 27

speech act tim e S. O p e ra tin g w ithin the a p p ro a c h o f the “ G e n e v a S c h o o l” versio n o f

R elevan ce Theory, they attribute (§5) the variety o f effects to “contextual a c c o m m o ­
dations,” to specific outputs o f the interpretive p ro c ed u re e n c o d e d by the tense,
“obtained u n d er contextual pressure,” that is, generated by p ra g m a tic en ric h m en ts
c o n c e rn in g the relevance o f the eventuality either at the reference point or at the
tim e o f speech.
A l o n g the w a y they consider, and reject, first a te m p o ra l accou nt (§2) and then
an asp ectual accou nt (§3).
R e g a rd in g the relationship o f the “ re g io n a l” P S T to that o f stand ard French,
they co n clu de (§5) that the fo rm e r represents s im p ly a particu lar e n ric h m e n t o f the
“ re g u la r” tense, “ a n c h o rin g on the presentness o f the auxiliary, just as with a present
perfect, even i f sp ea k ers o f stand ard French reject them as d i a l e c t a l .. . . ”
T h ey fu r t h e r c o n c lu d e that u n iv e rsa lly these tenses indicate rele v a n c e in the
present, a n d in a d d itio n , in contrast to the present perfect, either re m o te n e s s
( E < R < S ) or te r m in a t io n . T h e y sp ecu late that im p licatu re s “ab ou t the p o ssib le re ­
o c c u r r e n c e o f the c o n sid e re d state o f affairs in the p r e se n t” b e c o m e g r a m m a t i-
calized in the tense, the past a u x ilia r y d e s c r ib in g the e v e n tu a lity as rem o te or
te rm in a te d , the present a u x ilia r y c a p t u r in g present relevan ce. H e n c e the analysis
o f s u p e r c o m p o s it e tenses has c o n s e q u e n c e s for both s y n c h r o n ic and d ia c h r o n ic
th e o ries o f tense, to u c h in g as it d o e s on c o m p o sitio n ality, g r a m m a tic a liz a t io n , and
other central issues.

Bound Tenses (Hatav); Embedded Tenses

(Ogihara and Sharvit)
These two chapters co n cern the interpretation o f tenses in context, and in p a rtic ­
ular, in e m b e d d e d structures, w h ere tenses often receive interpretations distinct
fro m their n o m in a l se m an tic values (even u n e m b e d d e d tenses m a y do so in so m e
con texts— cf. F lu d e rn ik , C a r ru th e r s , in this volu m e).
The cu rren t th e o r y o f e m b e d d e d tense is largely b a sed on o n ly a h a n d fu l o f
languages, p rin c ip a lly English , Hebrew, Japanese, and R ussian, but the facts rem ain
u n clear even w h e r e these are c o n c e rn e d . The c o n textu al interpretation o f tenses is
c o m p lica ted , and th eories differ as to w h ic h p h e n o m e n a are to be ex p la in ed in
sy n ta c tic , s e m a n tic , or p r a g m a t i c te rm s. G iv e n the c o n tr o v e r s ie s in the area, a
great deal o f fu rth e r investigation will be req u ired before a w i d e ly accepted th e o ry
is achieved.
O n e p a ra m e te r a s s u m e d to d istin gu ish languages is the tense strategy adopted
(cf. Hatav, §1). In S e q u en c e -o f-T e n se (S O T ) languages like E n g lish , interpretation o f
an e m b e d d e d tense is typically “absolute” : the evaluation tim e is g en erally the time
o f speech. But in n o n - S O T languages such as Hebrew, Japanese, and Russian, the
evaluation tim e shifts to the attitu d e-h o ld ers tem p oral point o f v ie w : the interpre­
tation is typically “ relative.” T h us English uses the past tense (that M iria m loved
him ) to report Yon is thought, “ M ir ia m loves me,” but H e b re w uses the present tense,

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since M i r i a m s lo v in g Yoni is “ sim u lta n e o u s” w ith his thought. O g ih a r a and Sharvit,

how ever, reject the S O T / n o n - S O T d ic h o to m y as un revealing, giv en the m ix e d
b e h a v io r o f Hebrew. It has likew ise been claim ed that Russian is not u n if o r m ly no n -
S O T (K o n d r a s h o v a , 2005; K u b ota et al., 20 0 9 a , 2 0 0 9 b ).
In either type o f language, interpretation d ep en d s in part on w h eth er the e m ­
b e d d ed tense is within the scop e o f an intensional context as in the case o f sentences
with attitude v e rb s such as think , a llo w in g tense shifting to occur, or in an cxtcn-
sional context, w h ich precludes it, as in the case o f the relative clause ( R C ) in H a ta v s
e x a m p le , Yoni m et the w om an who is sobbing in the corner; is sobbing can n ot receive
a shifted, relative reading. Treating tenses as v ariab les (a la Partee, 1973), and d istin ­
g u is h in g fr e e tenses (§2.1) fro m bou nd tenses, she ascribes this beh avio r to free
tenses b e in g evaluated at S, and tenses w ithin the sc o p e o f an extensional context
b e in g u n b o u n d , w h eth er e m b e d d e d or not.
The interpretation o f tenses is, how ever, also su b ject to general p ra g m a tic p r in ­
ciples, and Ila ta v advocates a p ra g m a tic analysis in term s o f Se g m e n te d D isc o u rse
R ep resentation Theory. ( S D R T is outlined in the chapter b y C audal.)
C r u c ia l for any account o f e m b e d d e d tense is the b eh a vio r o f p a st-u n d e r-p ast
sentences like H a t a v s (17) John thought that M a ry was pregnan t , w h ich in English
are a m b i g u o u s b e tw e e n a “ s i m u lt a n e o u s ” r e a d in g (in w h ic h (17) rep re se n ts the
th o u g h t “ M a r y is p r e g n a n t ” ) and a “s h ifte d ” r e a d in g , in w h ic h his th o u g h t w a s
“ M a r y w a s pregnant.”
In a cc o u n tin g for this ambiguity, H a ta v follows O g ih a ra and von Stech ow in
p red icating (as do O g ih a ra a n d Sharvit) an o ptio n al deletion o f the lower tense
u n d er identity with the m atrix tense. W h e n deleted, the tim e o f the n o w tenseless
predicate is interpreted as the sa m e as that o f the subjective tim e o f the attitude-
h old er (John , in our exam ple) o b ta in in g at the tim e denoted by the m atrix p r e d ic a ­
tion. W h e n not deleted, the low er tense is b o u n d by the m a t r ix tense, that is,
interpreted relative to the subjective tim e o f the attitude h o ld e r o b ta in in g at the
tim e the m atrix tense represents. The bulk o f H a t a v s section 2.2 illustrates the inter­
pretation o f such b o u n d relative tenses in Hebrew.
The chapter by O g ih a ra and Sh arvit ( O & S ) presents a finer-grained c o n s id e r ­
ation o f m u c h the sa m e facts as in H a t a v s chapter (cf. their §2).
T h e y see the quite co m p lic a ted beh avio r o f a present u n d e r a past or a future (cf.
their table, (22)) as equally im p ortan t as that o f the p a st-u n d e r-p ast. In Japanese, a
sim u lta n eo u s rea d in g is alw ays available for such an e m b e d d e d structure. But in
E n g lish , it is im p o ssib le in the case o f a p resent-u nd er-past, a n d w h ile in H e b re w
relative clauses act like English ones, c o m p le m e n ts o f attitude verb s ( C A V s ) act like
those o f Japanese. Thus, two central issues concern the causes o f the differential ef­
fects o f tense configuration s, and o f the d iffering b eh a vio rs o f C A V s and R C s.
In section 3, O & S set out to accou nt for the data by e x a m in in g and co n trastin g
A b u s c h s ( 19 9 3 ,19 9 7 ) th eory based on the U p p e r L im it C o n strain t ( U L C ) , and Ogi-
h ara s ( 19 9 5 ,19 9 6 ) ow n “c o p y - b a s e d ” th e o ry ( C B T ) . T hese two share c o m m o n alities,
not o n ly with one another, but with H a t a v s chapter, for exam ple, a p a ra m e te r for
w h e th e r or not a language has an optional rule deleting m atc h in g tenses. Part o f the

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explanation for the data lies in an o th er co m m o n ality, a m e c h a n is m for de re tense

interpretation (§3.2). H ow ever, their s o m e w h a t different m e c h a n is m s lead to d i f ­
ferent predictions.
The U L C - b a s e d th e o r y a ssu m e s that any e m b e d d e d tense has the option o f
b ein g interpreted de re (cf. §3.2.1). But it also requires that the reference o f an e m ­
bed d ed tense not be a tim e that b egin s after the a ttitud e-h old er’s “ now.” A c c o r d in g
to this theory, then, a de re L F (logical fo rm ) o f p a st-u n d e r-p ast m a y su p p o r t a “s i­
m u lta n eo u s” read in g (as well as a “ b ack-sh ifted ” reading; w h en the tim e description
h appens to be “ a m on th b efo re now,” as in (15))

(15) A month ago, Joseph fo u n d out that M ary loves him.

But the th eory fails to explain w h y the Japanese c o u n terp a rt o f (7a), i.e., (5b),
lacks a sim u lta n eo u s reading, and fails to accurately predict that in H ebrew relative
clauses, the present does not p ro d u c e a sim u lta n eo u s read in g u n d e r past.

(5b) #2005*n cn ni Jo sc p h -w a M a r y - g a sono-toki zib un -o aisi-tc i-ta-to sinzi-tc i-ta

(7a) lifn ey alp ayim sana, Y o sef x asa v se M i r ia m a h ava oto az

“tw o thousand years ago Joseph thought that M iria m loved h i m [at that t im e ] ”

In contrast to the U L C theory, the C B T d istinguishes a m o n g different types o f

languages in term s o f w h eth e r they treat their tenses as p r o n o m in a l, quantifica-
tional, or both (cf. §4.2). O & S note that in certain cases its predictions are the sa m e
as those o f the U L C theory, but un like that theory, it fails to predict a sim ultan eo u s
rea d in g for the H eb rew c o u n terp a rt o f Joseph believed that M a ry loved him .
O g ih a r a and Sh arv it co n clu de (§1) that “ both theories are only partially s u c ­
ce ssfu l and that each o f them a c c o u n ts for a differen t a sp e c t o f [the] v a r ia t io n ”
between languages, and in section 4 present fu rth er data that they use in section 5
to develop a n e w theory w h ich , “despite m a n y loose ends,” m a y “s e rv e as a s p r i n g ­
b o a rd for m o r e cross-linguistic stud y re g a rd in g the b e h a v io r o f tense in e m b e d d e d
cla u ses___ ” How ever, O & S w arn that the th e o ry m a y predict n o n -ex isten t types o f
languages. This w o u ld se em to suggest that the search continue for a simpler, m o re
general account.

Tenselessness (Jo-Wang Lin)

Speakers o f languages like E n glish th in k o f tense as natural, but s o m e languages
have no tense m a rk in g s: w e ll- k n o w n e x a m p le s include the C h in e s e languages (such
as M a n d a r in ) , Yukatec M a y a , and G u a ra n i. N o tw ith sta n d in g this lack, they are fully
capable o f ex p ressin g tem p oral distinctions, though they use aspect to do so.
Far from being the no rm , tensed languages m a y well be a m inority : D e C a e n (1996)
claims that tenseless systems are possessed by at least h a lf o f the w o r ld s languages. His
further claim that “ Virtually all n o n -E u ro p ean systems, with the m ajo r exceptions o f
the D ravidian, Turkic, and B e n u e -C o n g o families [and] the Q uechua dialects, are
d ee m e d ‘tenseless” ’ w ould seem to suggest that tense m a y be an areal feature.

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The existence o f tenseless languages challenges o u r u n d e r s ta n d in g o f tense. Is

tense m erely an areal feature resulting fr o m the accidents o f la n g u a ge history? O r is
there indeed s o m e th in g “ n atural” about tense, and if so, what?
At this point the question should be raised o f just w h at a tenseless language is.
Lin points out that this is less obvious than it m ight seem. C o m r i e (1985), as Lin notes,
defines tense as the “gram m aticalized expression o f location in time” (pp. 9 - 1 0 ) ,
though m ost scholars have replaced “ location in time” with the relationship between
a reference (R eichenbach, 1947) or “ topic” (K lein, 1994) time and an orientation time,
b y default the speech act time.
The criterion o f gram m aticalization w o u ld seem to exclud e pu rely lexical d e ­
v ices such as ad verbs a n d prefixes (e.g., ex-), th o u g h the p h e n o m e n o n o f n o m in a l
tense (d iscu ssed in L e c a r m e s chapter) m a y require a m o re finely tuned definition o f
(purely verbal) tense. As for aspect, Lin presents (§2) several criteria d istin gu ish in g
it from tense, s o m e d raw n from T o n h a u ser (20 0 6 ).
Lin argues (§3) for the tenselessness o f C h in ese. W h ile the usual a rg u m e n ts for
this are sem an tic, Lin utilizes syntactic a rgu m e n ts. This is b ecau se in generative
g r a m m a r the inflectional system o f the verb, in c lu d in g tense, has c o m e to be treated
as the central c o m p o n e n t o f the clause. C o n s e q u e n tly s o m e scholars, such as Syb-
esm a (20 07), have p ro p o se d that apparently tenseless languages do have tense, but
it is m ark ed b y a null. It is p r im a r ily to counter the null tense h ypo th esis that Lin
argues on a syntactic basis.
A s s u m i n g that there are tenseless languages, the question is h o w they convey
the te m p o ra l properties and relations that we exp ect a language to express u sin g
tense. L i n s co n clu sion (§8) is that “aspectual in fo r m a tio n , together with topic time
resolution d e term in ed by an overt tem p oral adverbial or d isco urse a n a p h o ra, plays
a significant role in d e t e r m in in g te m p o ra l location in a tenseless language.” A lth o u g h
there are hints in L in s chapter o f h o w this is d o n e in C h in e s e , a general th eory o f
tem p oral expression in tenseless languages rem a in s for the future, not least because
o f the u n a n s w e r e d question as to w h y languages have tense, if tem poral properties,
relations, and objects can all be adequately e x p resse d in its ab sen ce. In a n y case, the
seriou s stud y o f tenselessness is ju st b eg in n in g .

Nominal Tense (Jacqueline Lecarme)

E x o tic as s u p e r c o m p o s e d (su rc o m p o sé ) tenses and rem oten ess system s m a y be,
from the v ie w p o in t o f traditional E u ro p e a n g r a m m a r , at least these are tenses m o r -
p h o syn tactically m a r k e d on, or in association with, the verb, m u c h as are m o r e
fam iliar tenses. But there are languages in w h ic h tem poral distinctions m ay be
m a r k e d on substantives (n ou n s, adjectives) other than deverbal ones, as in L e c a r m e s
ex a m p le s (lb, 28b) b elo w :

(ib) te -1 lâlém -ch a (H alkom elem )

det-isg.Poss house-FUT
“ m y future house" (Lecarm e, $ 1, from Wiltschko, 2003)

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(21b) ard ayad -d ii w an aagsan ayd (Somali)

studcnt(f)-detF[+past] go od [+ p ast] (f)
“ the g o o d student (f., p ast)” (L ecarm e, 1999)

Such m a r k in g s m a y also o c c u r w ithin noun and adjective ph rases elsewhere

than on the lexical head itself.
F o r both se m an tic and fo rm a l reasons, L e c a rm e argues (§§1, 2) that such
system s o f m a r k in g , c o m m o n ly referred to as “ n o m in a l tense,” do in fact represent
tense, differing fr o m verbal tense o n ly in the type o f expression tense is m a r k e d on.
W h ile d efinitely u n u su a l, n o m i n a l tense is m o r e w id e ly s p r e a d than one
m ig h t think. L a n g u a g e s cited in the literature in c lu d e A m e r i c a n ( C h a m i c u r o ,
G u a r a n i H a l k o m e l e m , K w a k iu tl, N o o t k a , St’a im c e ts, T a r ia n a ), A fr ic a n (S o m a li),
and A u stra lia n (Jin g u lu , K a y a r d ild ) ones. T h e full extent o f the p h e n o m e n o n is
u n k n o w n and f u r t h e r re s e a rc h w ill u n d o u b t e d ly fin d m a n y m o r e la n g u a g e s in
w h ich it o c c u r s .
The existence o f tense m a r k in g in substantives naturally raises questions (§§1,
2) such as h o w n o m in a l and verbal tense interact, w h e th e r te m p o ra l reference w o r k s
the sa m e w a y in both types o f tense, w h eth e r the relevant syntactic structures are
sim ilar in the two cases, and w h a t w e can, and m u st, say about the g ram m aticaliza-
tion o f tense in substantives. A n d , further, w hat im plications does n o m in a l tense
have for theories o f tense in general?
L e c a r m e discusses (§3) E n ^ s claim ( 1 9 8 1 ,1 9 8 6 ,1 9 8 7 ) that the tem poral interpre­
tation o f n o u n p h ra se s is in d e p e n d en t o f that o f the verb in sentences, c o n c lu d in g
that w h ile the tem p oral location o f ind ivid u als is not directly d e term in ed by the
tense o f the sentence, the tim e variables o f n o m in a ls can receive a value fr o m the
context, p h ra se -in te rn a lly fro m te m p o ra l m o d ifiers, 01* fr o m n o m in a l tense and
aspect m arkers. She says that in the fr a m e w o r k o f C h o m s k y (2 0 0 1, 2008), w e a k
(tem po rally indefinite) N P s are m erg e d in the V P and interpreted in situ , w h ereas
“ p re su p p o sitio n a l” (tense-related) phrases o c c u p y the positions typically associated
with “su rface structure” interpretations.
In section 4, she discusses fu r th e r im plications o f n o m in a l tense for the sy n ta c ­
tic structure o f n o m in a ls within a M in im a lis t fr a m e w o r k . L e c a rm e pro po ses that
the tem poral structure o f n o m in a l phrases is stron gly parallel to that o f clauses, with
a c a te g o ry D fo rm a lly parallel to a C , and that parallel to the C - T relation ex p ressin g
clausal finiteness, a D - T relation expresses “ n o m in a l finiteness.” N o m in a l tense
s e e m in g ly exem plifies the w e ll- k n o w n syntactic and se m an tic parallels that exist
betw een sentences and n o m in a ls.
Like verb al tenses, n o m in a l tenses have m o d a l uses (§5) and specifically can
co n v e y e v i d e n t i a l l y (cf. de H aan , this v o lu m e ). L e c a rm e discusses the m o r p h o s y n -
tactic and se m an tic co n n ectio n s b etw een the catego ry o f rem o ten ess and that o f
invisibility and the su p e rim p o s itio n in s o m e languages o f the visible versus non-
visible opposition on a proxim al/distal system . Sh e p ro p o se s that the c o m m o n fea­
ture u n d e r ly in g the m e a n in g s o f the past m o r p h o lo g y in n o m in a ls is an abstract
feature o f “exclusion/dissociation.”

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A spect

The co n cept o f “ aspect” co m p re h e n d s at least two distinct system s o f categories that

are nonetheless so in tertw in ed that they h ave been, and still are, difficult to prise
apart. A sp e c t “p r o p e r ” — gram m atical or verbal aspect , the subject o f the chapter by
de S w a r t— is a su b -sy stem b e lo n g in g to the g r a m m a r o f a particu lar language,
m u c h as tense is. A spec t in this sense interacts with the n o n - g r a m m a tic a l, language-
in d e p e n d e n t categorization o f types o f eventualities and/or their lexical expressions
(the subject o f the chapter by Filip) v ario u sly called lexical aspect, actionality, or
A ktion sart “ type o f action”. For ex a m p le , illness (i.e., b e in g ill) is a state, and any
expression in any language m e a n in g “ be ill” is stative, w h ich has im plications for its
sem antics and pragm atics.
N o co n sen su s has yet em erg ed , however, as to the m e a n in g s and uses o f the
term s lexical aspect, actionality, and A ktionsart. W ik ip c d ia equates two o f these and
treats them as linguistic by sa y in g that “ The lexical aspect o r aktion sart o f a verb is
a part o f the w a y in which that verb is stru c tu re d in relation to tim e” (en.wikipedia.
o rg /w ik i/L e xica l_ a sp ec t, retrieved D e c e m b e r 19, 2 0 10 ). But it is possible that there
are in fact two different, if interactive, system s o f categories, one linguistic, the other
extra-linguistic.
To a certain extent, lexical aspect constrains g ra m m a tic a l aspect; for exam ple,
E n glish can n ot n o r m a lly use the p ro gre ssiv e with a stative predicate ( *John is being
4 years o ld ; *A is fo llo w in g В in the alphabet). At the sa m e time, aspect m a y se rv e to
tra n s fo rm (“co erce” ) one A k tio n sa rt into a n o th er (cf. de Swart, this v o lu m e , §4.4):
she clim bed the m ountain is eventive (she clim bed the m ountain in three days) but she
w as clim bing is not (*she was clim bing the m ountain in three days).
C e n tra l issues in the stud y o f (verbal) aspect include these:

1. W hat is gram m atical aspect? H o w does it differ fr o m lexical aspect?

2. H o w are the aspects and Aktionsarten defined, and h o w do they relate to
one another?
3. H o w does g r a m m a tic a l aspect interact w ith lexical aspect on the one hand
and tense on the other?
4. Is g r a m m a tic a l aspect universal, and w h y w o u ld we exp ect it (not) to be?

Q u estion #1 is purely contingent and derives fro m the rather co n fu sed (and
co n fu sin g ) h isto ry o f the study o f “ aspect.” 8 Q u estio n s #2 and #3 are descriptive in
nature, th o ugh they raise ad d ition al theoretical issues. F o r ex a m p le , it has gen erally
been a ssu m ed , and se em s plausible, even likely, that in s o m e sense the co n tin u o u s
and habitual m e a n in g s often m ark ed by the sa m e form are aspects o f a b road er
se m an tic catego ry o f imperfectivity, but o f course the question is w h at, if anything,
in a c o m p re h e n siv e and adequate th e o r y o f aspect w o u ld predict this. T he theoret­
ical basis for the o b serv a tio n that tenseless languages m a k e up for their lack o f tense
with aspect (see the chapter by Lin), and for the apparent universality o f aspect is
lik ew ise questioned in #4. Finally, aspect is not only significant on the clausal and

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sentential levels, but enters into the stud y o f text and d isc o u rse (as s h o w n in the
chapters by F lu d e r n ik — especially in §2, and C a r r u t h c r s — especially in §§2.2, 4).
The question then (#5) is h o w aspect on the intrasentential level relates to aspect on
the extrasentential level. A n s w e r i n g q u estions such as these is the goal o f the c h a p ­
ters in this part.

Lexical Aspect (Hana Filip)

Filip w r ite s (§1) that lexical aspect is a s e m a n tic c a te g o ry that c o n c e rn s p ro p erties
o f eventualities (in the sense o f B a c h , 1981) e x p re s se d by verb s. In the m o s t g e n e ral
term s, the p r o p e r tie s in qu estion h av e to do w ith the p r e se n c e o f s o m e end, limit
or b o u n d a r y* in the lexical stru c tu re o f certain classes o f verbs a n d its lack in
oth ers. She is in a c c o rd with w hat de S w a rt says in h er ch apter (§1): “ the th em atic
relation b etw een the verb and its a r g u m e n t s is relevan t to the asp ectual c h a ra c te r ­
ization o f the se n te n c e ” — read rep resen ts quite a different k in d o f th in g than does
read a story : *She read in f iv e m inutes, she read a story in fiv e m inutes; she read fo r
fiv e m inutes, ?she read a story f o r fiv e m inutes; and 7.sh e fin is h e d reading, she fin ish e d
readin g a story.
A s we have seen, the existence o f classes o f eventualities d iffering in their o n to ­
logical properties and o f the c o r r e s p o n d in g categories o f linguistic expressions d i f ­
ferin g in se m an tic properties raises a n u m b e r o f questions c o n c e rn in g the nature o f
both the linguistic and extralin guistic entities, as well as the bases and universality
o f the two classifications.
T h e v a r i o u s types o f e v e n tu a lities differ in th e ir p h a sic p r o p e r tie s and have
so m e tim e s been defined in phasic terms. States such as existing consist o f a single,
u n i f o r m ph ase. In s t a n ta n e o u s even ts such as s p o t t in g a coin on the p a v e m e n t,
V e n d l e r s “ a c h ie v e m e n ts,” are m o m e n t a r y tra n sitio n s fr o m state to state, utterly
lack in g duration. O th e r types o f o c c u rre n c e s consist o f distinct p h ases: V e n d le r s
“a c c o m p lis h m e n ts” (like c lim b in g a m o u n ta in ) c o m b in e an “activity” phase ( c lim b ­
ing on a m o u n ta in ) with a point o f cu lm in a tio n w h ich is an instantaneous event
(reach in g the top).
Eventualities differ too in their m ereo lo g y. States are like m asse s, c u m u lative
(if y o u w e r e ill f r o m 3 to 5 and fro m 5 to 7, yo u w ere ill fr o m 3 to 7) a n d d ivisib le (if
yo u w ere ill from 3 to 7, you were ill d u r in g any interval, a n d at any point in time,
within that interval, h e n c e the “ su b in terval p r o p e r t y ” 9 o fs t a t iv e exp ressio ns). Event
predicates (this term c o r r e s p o n d in g here to “ telic predicates,” i.e., it is used as in
M o u rela to s, 1978/81 and Bach , 1981, 1986, for instance) are like count n o u n s in
d e n o tin g in d iv id u a ls that lack c u m u la tiv ity and divisibility, and a llo w in g a d ve rb s
o f qualification to be u sed with them as direct quantifiers o ve r in d iv id u a te d events
in their d en o tatio n (she adm onishes h er children a lot can m ean “often”, but she a p ­
preciates h er children a lot can o n ly m ean “ to a great exten t”, not “often” ).
A n o t h e r w a y o f lo o k in g at eventualities is in term s o f a n u m b e r o f— in m ost
theories, three— param etric features: telicity, the possession o f an inherent b o u n d a ry ;
duration or extent; and d y n a m ic ity or c h a n g e — or their lack. A lth o u g h three b in a ry

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featu res s h o u ld d efin e eight p o s sib ilitie s, m o s t th e o rists h av e r e c o g n iz e d o n ly

b etw een three and six classes, such as the four in Filips list in her (9), w h ic h s u m ­
m arizes B a c h s (1986) classification: state, process (“activity” ), protracted event (“a c ­
c o m p lis h m e n t” ), and m o m e n t a n e o u s event (“a c h ie v e m e n t” ).
The interaction o f lexical and g r a m m a tic a l aspect has tra d itio n a lly been c h a r ­
acterized as in v o lv in g constraints on c o - o c c u r r e n c e : e.g., n o n - d y n a m i c e v e n tu a l­
ities do not o c c u r in the p ro g re ss iv e (*the children are being you n g). In rece n t tim es,
th e relationsh ip has rather been seen as o n e o f type c o e r c io n , in w h ich one type o f
e x p r e s sio n is im p licitly taken as d e n o t in g a different type o f ex p ressio n (thus, the
p ro g re ssiv e in he is d yin g “ tu rn s” an a c h ie v e m e n t into an a c c o m p lis h m e n t) . H o w
and w h y type co ercio n o c c u r s has been the subject o f m u c h as yet in co n c lu siv e
research.

Verbal Aspect (Henriette de Swart)

The distinction b etw een tense and aspect on the o ne hand and betw een g r a m m a t ­
ical aspect and lexical aspect on the other, c o m e s up in several chapters o f this b oo k .
D e Sw art devotes section 1 to these questions.
Tense is essentially a deictic category, h a v in g to do with the relationship between
times, traditionally the tim e o f an eventuality E (an event, action, or state), and the
tim e S o f the speech act, fu n c tio n in g as a tim e o f orientation o r evaluation as well as
a tim e o f utterance or en u n ciation . This is what de Sw a rt m ea n s, with reference to
I l e w s o n s chapter, b y verb al tense se r v in g “ to an ch o r the situation described b y the
sentence to the tim e axis.”
Verbal or g r a m m a tic a l aspect is also called “ v ie w p o in t” aspect, in contrast to
lexical aspect, w h ic h is also called “situation” aspect (term s w h ic h c o m e from Sm ith,
1991). The v e r y sa m e situation in the real w o rld m a y be reported u sing different
aspects (cf. (c), (d) b elo w ). U n lik e tenses, w h ich denote objective and m utually i n ­
com p atible distinctions ((a) and (b) b elo w are co n tra d icto ry), aspects, w h ile s o m e ­
h o w m e a n in g different things, do not m a r k objective d istinctions, and there is no
co n trad ictio n betw een (c) and (d). The difference is in h o w the situation in question
is v ie w e d — hence the Russian term v id “ v i e w ” and its English gloss, aspect.

(a) John w on the race for the first time.

(b) John w ill win the race for the first time.
(c) I w a s sleeping all night.
(d) I slept all night.

W h ile v e r b a l a s p e c t is g r a m m a t i c a l a n d p art o f the sy ste m o f a p a r tic u la r

language, lexical aspect “ bears on inherent features o f the verb,” as de Sw art says (§1)
and hence is universal by definition.
At the sam e tim e, w h ile verb al aspect m a y be, and classically is, defined as c o n ­
c e rn in g h o w the eventuality is v iew ed (or presented), so that in m a n y cases m o re
than one aspect can be used, for e x a m p le the situation represented by the p r o g r e s ­
sive in (c) and the perfective or neutral aspect in (d), in many, i f not m ost, cases the

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INTRODUCTION 35

choice o f aspect is not facultative, either because there is an objective difference in

m e a n i n g or the context forces a ch oice on the s p e a k e r (cf. (e, f) , (g, h)).

(e) W h e n Su zan n e c a m e in, the baby w a s sc ream in g .

(f) W h e n Su zan n e c a m e in, the baby scream ed .
(g) Mr. B la n d in g builds his d ream house.
(h) Mr. B la n d in g is b u ild in g his dream house.

H o w e v e r w e m a y w is h to ch a ra c teriz e a sp ect in g e n e ra l or defin e the v a r io u s

asp ects, o n e th in g that is true o f g r a m m a t i c a l a sp ect that is not tru e o f either tense
or lexical a sp ect is its c o m p o sitio n a lity . A clause m a y rece ive at m o s t but one
tense. The effect o f p ilin g m o r p h o s y n t a c t i c tense m a r k e r s atop o n e a n o th e r is not
to refine the tense o f the clause, but to alter it. S u e left , Sue has left , and Sue w ill
h ave left rep resen t three different tenses. But i f Sue is lea vin g and Su e has been
lea vin g represent different a sp ects (the p r o g r e s s iv e and the p e r fe c t p ro g re ss iv e ), it
is in a different sense, sin ce (i) a n d (j) are n o n - s y n o n y m o u s and p o te n tially c o n ­
trad ictory, w h ile (k) a n d (1) are not, and m a y freely be u sed to d e s c r ib e o ne and
the s a m e situation.

(i) Sue left today.

(j) Sue will have left today.
(k) Sue has slept all day.
( 1) Sue has been sleeping all day.

The relationship o f tense, aspect, and A k tio n sa rt raises the question o f h ow the
three interact on the syntactic and se m an tic levels. A s de Sw art notes in section 4.1,
“ M a n y cu rren t theories adopt s o m e version o f a layered representation in w h ic h
tense syntactically and/or se m a n tic a lly d o m in a te s g r a m m a tic a l aspect, w h ich in
turn d o m in a te s aspectual class,” as d ia g ra m e d in her e x a m p le (32) (slightly m od ified
here). This indicates that tense has greater s c o p e than aspect, and aspect than
A k tio n sa rt (aspectual class).

(32) [Tense [Aspect [aspectual class]]]

This is certainly not necessarily reflected in the su rface structure o f clauses; in

(k, 1 ), for exam ple, the aspectual root have o c c u rs before the tense en d ing. But in
m a n y syntactic theories, at s o m e deep or u n d e r ly in g level o f structure, possibly that
o f logical fo rm , tense (T) c - c o m m a n d s a structure h eaded by aspect (A sp), w h ic h in
turn c - c o m m a n d s the verb ph rase p ro p e r (Figure 1).
A s de S w a rt p o ints out, there is co n sid erab le co n tro v ersy over (32). First, is T
universal, with so-called “ tenseless” languages sim p ly h a v in g a null tense? (C f. the
d iscu ssio n in Lin, this v o lu m e , §3.) For that matter, is the constituent labeled A sp in
Figu re 1 in universal? It m a y b e an em pirical fact that it is fo und in all languages, but
even if it were not, w o u ld a particu lar th e o r y o f s y n ta x force a null aspect on one?
B e y o n d that, as de S w a rt points out (§4.1), there are quite different configuration s
possib le w ith in the VP, “g iv in g rise to a range o f possib le fun ctio nal structures.”

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TP

Asp

F ig u r e o.i.

Yet another question considered by de Swart is the semantic relationship between

a sp ect and A k tio n s a r t . O n e p r o m in e n t v ie w is that a sp ect fu n c tio n s p re c ise ly to
transform the A k tio n sa rt via aspectual coercion (§4.4).
D e S w a r ts chapter contains sections on the p erfective/im perfective distinction
in Slavic (§3.1) and French (§3.2) and on the pro gressive and p erfect o f English
(§3.3), fo r m i n g a preface to the chapters by G o v o z d a n o v ic and M a ir w h ic h follow.

Perfective and Imperfective Aspect (Jadranka Gvozdanovic)

The p erfective/im perfective distinction lo o m s large in aspectology. It w a s in c o n ­
nection with this distinction in Slavic that the concept o f “ aspect” first arose, and
then c a m e to the attention o f Western scholars. It is also p ro b ab ly the m o st c o m m o n
aspectual d istinction, gra m m a tica liz e d in over 40% o f the w o r l d s languages (Mair,
this v o lu m e ) . Finally, in C o m r i e s s e m in a l t y p o l o g y o f a sp e c ts (19 7 6 , p. 25), this
o p p o s it io n — the d istinction o f a global, “ex te rn a l” v ie w o f a situation and a partial,
“ internal” v ie w — is represented as the m o st fu n d a m e n ta l one.
'Ihere are several p ro b le m s associated with this ch aracterization o f the o p p o s i ­
tion, how ever. In Slavic, the im p erfective is the u n m a r k e d m e m b e r o f the o p p o s i ­
tion (cf. A n d r e w s , this v o lu m e ). In English, however, it is the p ro g re ssiv e — for
C o m r ie , a s u b -s u b -ty p e o f the im p e rfe c tiv e — w h ic h is m ark ed . W h at this says about
the universality o f either aspect or m a rk e d n e s s, or the relationship b etw een m a r k ­
ed n ess and m e a n in g , re m a in s contentious.
The relationship o f perfectivity, a p ro p e rty o f the predication, to telicity, a p r o p ­
erty o f the predicate, poses a n o th er pro b lem . T he Slavic prefixes w h ich alter aspect
in m o st cases also change the m e a n in g o f their stem s. For ex a m p le , Russian im p e r ­
fective pisat* m ean s “ to write” but the p erfectivized p erep isa l' is “ to c o p y ”. A spectual
suffixes do not change m e a n in g : p erep isy va t>is the im p erfective o f “ to c o p y ”. The

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question then is h o w telicity a n d perfectivity relate a n d w h e th e r the Slavic prefixal

aspect is inflectional or d erivation al in nature.
G v o z d a n o v i c follow s G e h r k e (2 0 0 7 ) in d is t in g u is h in g b etw ee n in tern al a f­
fixes, w h ic h m a y affect the a r g u m e n t stru c tu re co n tro lled by the verb and ind u ce
telicity (inherent e n d - b o u n d e d n e s s ) , and extern al affixes w h ic h affect the global
situation a n d in p rin c ip le do n o th in g but ch an ge the asp ect. In ternal affixes have
o n ly the verb w ith in their sc o p e , but ex te rn a l o nes the entire v e r b a l c o m p le x .
G v o z d a n o v ic states, h ow ever, that affixes are not in h eren tly internal o r extern al,
that this d istin ctio n is a result o f the c o m b in a tio n o f affixal m e a n i n g with that o f
the verb base.
A g a in st this b a c k g ro u n d , G v o z d a n o v ic o b serv es that there are two approaches
to (im )p e rfectiv ity in Slavic a sp e c to lo g y : (1) the aspectual d istin ctio n c o n c e rn s the
(n on )attain m ent o f the inherent b o u n d a r y o f situations (being either the telic
b o u n d a r y or a tem p oral b o u n d a r y ) , or (2) it c o n c e rn s tem poral constituency,
w h eth e r the tim e over w h ic h the situation in question obtains is c o n tain ed within
(im perfective), or contains (perfective), the tem p oral fra m e (R e ic h e n b a c h s (1947)
reference tim e, K le in s (1994) topic tim e). Both v ie w s have their places outside Slavic
studies as well.
G v o z d a n o v i c rep o rts sy ste m a tic d ifferen ces in the use o f aspects b etw een
eastern and w este rn g r o u p s o f Slavic la n g u a g e s, the latter u s in g the p erfective
aspect m o r e fr e q u e n tly than the eastern (D ick ey, 2 0 0 0 ) . This usage differen ce, at­
tributed by D i c k e y to a different c o n c e p tu a liz a tio n o f the p e rfec tive in the two
g r o u p s is illustrated in G v o z d a n o v i c s F igu re 2: w e s te rn S lavic b a ses it on the a u ­
to n o m o u s event in its totality, the eastern, on its “ te m p o r a l sp ecificity w h ic h
e m e rg e s in se q u e n tia l relations.” H o w ev er, in h e r a n a ly sis o f p arallel texts, she
d isc o v e rs that this fails to a d e q u a te ly a c c o u n t for R u ssia n usage, and po ints (§1.4)
to in te ra c tio n s o f tense and aspect as also relevant.
She rejects as inadequate both K lein s treatm ent based purely on te m p o ra l in clu ­
sion relations betw een situation tim e and topic time, and D i c k e y s concept o f te m p o ­
ral specificity, and develops a m o re refined account, which she then tests (in §2)
through the scop e o f tem poral quantifiers and verb prefixation in Russian and Czech.

Progressive and Continuous Aspect (Christian Mair)

A s w e h ave seen , in C o m r i e s categorization o f the aspects, the im p erfe c tiv e has
two varieties, the continuous aspect and the h ab itu a l aspect, represented r e s p e c ­
tively by the two E n g lish glo sses o f the F re n c h im p e r fe c t tense: Jean lisait is either
“ Jean w a s r e a d in g ” or “ Jean used to read, Jean w o u ld read.” For C o m r i e , the c o n ­
tin u o u s in turn has two varieties, the progressive (in w h ich there is ch an ge over
tim e) and the non-progressive , s o m e t im e s called the “co n tin u o u s.” A s M a ir notes
(§§1, 2), the d em a rcatio n b etw ee n the two is p ro b lem atic al in practice, as is the
d istin ctio n betw een the c o n tin u o u s (e.g., the horses h ad their hooves p a d d e d
because they w ere kicking) and the habitual ( the horses h a d their hooves p a d d e d
because they kicked).

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N o r is there a complete corresp on d ence between the expression in a particular

language o f the concept o f d y n a m ic progression, and use o f the progressive aspect—
progression m a y be expressed in so m e other way, and progressive aspectual m arkers
m a y have non-progressive uses, as in M a ir s exam ple (8), I can only add that when Paul
Gascoigne says he w ill not be h appy until he stops pla yin g fo o tb a ll he is talking rot.
Progression is expressed by m a r k in g the verb (as in Turkish E vim d e $ah$iyor
“ (s)he is w o r k i n g in m y house,” e x a m p le (ia)), by the use o f p e rip h ra stic c o n s tr u c ­
tions, as in G e r m a n E r ist einen B r ie f am Schreiben “ he is w ritin g a letter” (3c), or
th r o u g h p a rticle s, as in M a n d a r i n C hähn S ä a n g taan -gän sa ig a a i “ M r. C h a n is
h a v in g a g o o d tim e” (5). The t y p o lo g y o f progressive c o n stru ctio n s is the topic o f
section 2, in w h ich M a ir co n clu des that the m o r p h o s y n ta c tic e n c o d in g s o f p r o g r e s ­
sive and co n tin u o u s aspect in in d iv id u a l languages v a r y w id e ly in obligatoriness
and g ram m aticalization .
Languages m ay be what M air calls “abstract, de-contextualized structural systems,”
but as noted in F lu d e r n ik s chapter, they nonetheless function within, and in part are
shaped by, h u m an discourse. The questions M a ir discusses in section 3, illuminated
b y recent changes in the English progressive, overlap with the concern s o f both Flud-
ernik and C a r ru th e r s in their chapters: W h at are the d isco urse implicatures o f the
progressive? If the choice o f aspects is not d eterm in ed semantically, w h at stylistic
and sociolinguistic factors play a role in the choice? Is textual genre or m e d iu m an
im p ortan t factor in the selection? (This section also relates directly to the concern s o f
N ic o lle s chapter.)
M a i r c o n c lu d e s (§4) that the degree o f g ra m m a tic a liz a tio n o f pro gre ssiv e s is
h ig h ly v ariab le, cross-linguistically, and that la n g u a ge s such as English , in w h ic h
the c a te g o ry is largely obligatory, are in the m inority. Interesting in the con text o f
the notion o f “actualization” (N icolle, §2), the d rastic in crease in the d isc o u rse
fr e q u e n c y o f pro gressives across m o st genres that M a ir finds in recent E n glish is
located m a in ly in the lo n g-estab lish ed uses, a n d is not due for the m o s t part to the
ad d ition o f n e w fo rm s o r fu n c tio n s. H e attributes the ch an ge to sh iftin g p re fer­
ences at the d isc o u rse level a n d o th er p ra g m a tic and e x tra-lin g u istic factors, but
w ith h o ld s cro ss-lin g u istic gen eralizatio n s p e n d in g fu rth e r research.

Habitual and Generic Aspect (Greg Carlson); Habituality,

Pluractionality, and Imperfectivity (Pier Marco Bertinetto
and Alessandro Lenci)
A se c o n d v a rie ty o f the im perfective, a c c o r d in g to C o m r i e (1976) and a plurality, i f
not a m ajority, o f scholars since, is habitual aspect. Insofar as it is se e m in g ly defined
by repetition, it resem bles, a n d s o m e tim e s has been c o n fu sed w ith, the iterative
A ktionsart, ch aracterized by w hat Bertinetto and Lenci call (§1) “event-internal p lu ­
ractionality,” e.g., Yesterday at 5 o’ clock John knocked insistently at the door. This
m ust be contrasted w ith “ev en t-extern al pluractionality,” w h ich refers to the rep eti­
tion o f the sa m e event in a n u m b e r o f different situations (e.g., John sw am d a ily in

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INTRODUCTION 39

the lake). C a rlso n (§1) notes that se m e lfa ctiv e s10 su ch as knock and fla p (cf. stroke
below ) readily receive an iterative interpretation. So-called “ fréquentatives” 11 in la n ­
guages such as English (e.g., flitter, waggle), Latin (cantare “ to s in g ” , cursare “ to run
a r o u n d ” ),12 and Russian (в и д ы в а т ь , “ to see rep eated ly” ; п о г л а ж и в а т ь , “ to stroke” )
are p ro b ab ly best described as iterative.
O n the other hand, habitual aspect has m u c h in c o m m o n with ge n e ric aspect.
D ev ices d edicated to m a r k in g gen ericity are rare (C a rlso n , §1), it is often expressed
by the sa m e m ean s as habituality, and am biguities a llo w in g either interpretation are
possible, cf. C a r ls o n s e x a m p le (1), The lion roars. The habitual read in g c o n c e rn s a
specific lion involved in specific acts o f roaring, w h e re a s the ge n e ric rea d in g c o n ­
cerns lions in general w ith o u t reference to specific o ccu rren ces.
T h e s e th ree c a t e g o r i e s — ite ra tiv e A k t i o n s a r t , a n d the h a b itu a l a n d g e n e r ic
a s p e c t s — p r o v id e the su b jects o f the ch a p te r by C a r ls o n , and that o f Bertinetto
and L e n d .
These two chapters p ro po se alternative v ie w s o f habituality. Bertinetto and Lenci
claim that habituality is closely connected w ith the im perfective aspect and belongs
to the d o m a in o f “g n o m ic imperfectivity,” w hereas C a rlso n suggests that habituality
m a y not be part o f aspect at all: the problem o f habituality is still a matter o f debate.
Hopefully, these two contributions will contribute to fostering further investigation.
Section l o f the Bertinetto/Lenci chapter su m m a r iz e s the g r a m m a tic a l and l e x ­
ical devices used to m a r k repetition o f o ccu rren ces, and v a rio u s m e a n in g d istin c ­
tions so m ark ed , e.g., red u plicativity (Italian rian dare ‘to go a g a i n ) , frequentativity
(Lithuanian as b ü davau T used to go’, K lim as, 1984), capacitativity (this engine
vibrates, said o f an en gin e w h ic h is not r u n n in g ), etc.
In section 2, Bertinetto and Lenci also insist that habituality b elo n g s, in their
view, to the im p e rfe c tiv e aspect. ’Ih e y thus d istin gu ish h abituality— w h ic h they
describe as “ present[ing] a situation . . . as a ch a ra c teriz in g p ro p e rty o f an in d i­
vid u al . . . d u r in g a given interval,” as in (b, their l b ) — fr o m “ iterative” perfective
sentences, m e r e ly “ present[in g] a plain state o f affairs,” “establish[ing] a relation
b etw ee n an i n d i v i d u a l . . . and a tim e-interval,” as in (a, their la). Th us alth ough (c,
their 4c), in the French passé com posé tense, involves repetition, they term it itera­
tive, not habitual, unlike (d = 4d), in the im p arfa it .1? B o th habituais and iteratives
are p lu r a c tio n a l— in the sense o f “e v en t-extern al p lu r a c tio n a lity ” — but they c r u ­
cially differ in term s o f aspect v ie w p o in t (hence, o f se m an tic interpretation). T h ey
note that a d verbials o f habituality are perfectly com p atible with habitual sentences
such as (e = 5b), but m u c h less . . . so iterative ones ( f = 5a).

a. In the past f e w years, F ra n ck has often taken the 8 o’ clock train.

b. W h e n he lived in the c o u n trysid e , Fra n ck w o u ld usually take the 8 o’ clock
train.
c. Louis a écrit cinq lettres. “ Louis w rote/has w ritten five letters.”
d. Louis écrivait cinq lettres. “ Louis w rote/w o u ld write/used to write five
letters.”
e. D ’habitude, O livier écrivait des p o è m e s, [habitual]

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“ Usually, O livier w ro te [im perfective] poem s.”

f. ??D 'habitude, O livier a écrit des p o è m e s, [iterative]
“ Usually, O livier w rote [perfective] poem s.”

T h e y fu rth e r note that iterativity (g = 7b) is inco m p atib le with the present,
w h e re a s habituality (h = 7d) is not. They o b s e r v e too that “ the fr a m in g adverbials o f
iterative and habitual sentences do not share the sa m e constraints.”

g. * Luc p e rd son parapluie trois fois.

“ Luc loses his um brella three times.”
h. C h a q u e année, Luc perd son parapluie trois fois, [habituai]
“ E v e r y year, Luc loses his um brella three times.”

In section 3, they discuss w hat they call “g n o m i c imperfectives,” w h ic h they

d ivid e into these categories (i-m , m o d ified from i5a-e):

i. At that tim e, John w o u ld easily get a n g ry with his colleagues, [habitual]

j. John sm o k e s cigars, [attitudinal]
k. John sp e a k s Sw ahili, [potential, capitative]
1. Elina is Fin n ish , [individual level (IL) predicate]
m . D o g s have four legs, [generic]

Bertinetto and Lenci argue that habituais (e.g., i) differ from generics (m) because the
form er, but not the latter, necessarily involve (event-external) pluractionality; habit­
uais are, in their view, at the intersection o f pluractionality and imperfective gn o m ic -
ity. That is, habituais entail the repetition o f o ccu rren ces (like perfective “ iterative”
sentences, but contrary to generics), but at the sa m e tim e they characterize a specific
individual or situation over a p e rio d o f tim e (like generics, but contrary to perfective
“ iterative” sentences). G e n e ric s, like IL-predicates ( 1) are intrinsically stative. B y c o n ­
trast, they argue, attitudinals (j) and potentials (k) receive stative interpretations via
coercion from actional m eanings.
C a rlso n quotes C o m r i e (1976, p. 27; 1985, p. 39) in n o tin g that the repetition o f
o c c u rre n c e s is neither sufficient nor n ecessary for the use o f habitual aspect: a h a­
bitual situation can be a “characteristic situation that holds at all tim es” ( the tem ple
o f D ian a used to stand at Ephesus) and “ the m ere repetition o f a situation is not s u f ­
ficient for that situation to be referred to b y a specifically h a b i t u a l . . . form.”
The fo rm alizatio n o f the sem an tics o f habituais and related sentences is the s u b ­
ject o f section 4 o f Bertinetto and L e n d s chapter. They contrast (§4.1) analyses in ­
v o lv in g a m o n a d ic g n o m ic o p e ra to r— w h ic h they characterize as “a sort o f covert,
default quantificational adverb,” so that the logical form o f John alw ays sm okes after
d in n er differs fro m that 0 1'Jo h n smokes after d in n er only in the o c c u r r e n c e o f A lw a y s
instead o f the operator G E N — with relational m o d e ls e m p lo y in g a d y a d ic operator.
The logical fo rm o f sentences in this m o d e l involves a restrictor and a m atrix clause,
the fo r m e r s p e c i f y i n g “ the c o n d itio n s u n d e r w h i c h the state o f affairs e x p re s se d
in the m a t r ix - c la u s e hold.” In this case, John sm okes is analyzed as s o m e t h in g like
G E N ( e ) [n o rm a l_ s m o k e _ situ a tio n ( jo h n ,e )][s m o k e ( e ,jo h n ) ]. The interpretation o f

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the operator, and specifically the opposition betw een e x ten sio n a l and intensional
treatments, is the subject o f section 4.2. Bertinetto and Lenci argue for an in ten ­
sional interpretation.
A lth o u g h the habitual is traditionally regarded as an aspect, and C a rlso n c o n ­
tinues to use the term habitual aspect , he casts doubt (§2) on its aspectuality.
A lt h o u g h w id ely m a r k e d by im p erfe c tiv e aspectual m ark ers, “ it is not apparent
fro m a d istrib ution al po int o f v ie w that habituals fo r m a system atic part o f aspect
system s from language to language, n o r a part o f tense system s, nor a part o f any
o th er system s in the verbal com plex.” In section 8, he d iscu sses analyses treating
habituality as an aspect distinct from g n o m ic im perfectivity in general.
In se ctio n s 3 and 4, C a r l s o n d iscu sse s the q u e stio n o f ju st w h a t constitutes a
m a r k e r o f habitual a sp ect a n d a rgu es (§3) that w ill/w o u ld is the sole m a r k e r o f
h ab itu ality in E n g lish , though used to is “c o n siste n t” with habituality. N o t i n g (§4)
that “ the m a jo r ity o f la n g u a g e s do not e m p lo y a general, sy ste m a tic m e a n s o f
e x p r e s s in g habituality,” he rep o rts a w id e ra n ge o f d ev ic es for d o in g so in v a r io u s
la n g u a g e s, th o u g h he rep o rts “s o m e v e r y st r o n g pattern s” : “ Im p e rfe c tiv e s . . . , p r o ­
gressives, inceptives, statives a n d co n tin u a tiv es a p p ea r m o st read ily able to also
ex p ress habituality,” and “ the reg u lar a p p e a r a n c e o f sp ec ific a lly habitual past
tenses (akin to E n glish ‘used to’) ” co n trasts with the lack o f “g e n u in e g e n e r ic future
form s.”
In section 7, C a rlso n tackles the issue o f the m e a n i n g o f habitual expressions,
the m ultiplicity o f specific n o tio ns e n c o m p a s se d b y the ru b ric “g n o m ic im p e rfe c tiv ­
ity” and the putative a m b ig u ity o f sentences such as John drinks beer , citing analyses
in w h ic h the “p r o p e n s ity ” r e a d in g receives a sem an tic analysis r e q u irin g existential
quantification over tim es or possible w orld s, w h ile the habitual re a d in g requires
u n iv e r s a l q u a n t if i c a t i o n , but also o th e r a n a ly s e s in w h ic h the d i f f e r e n c e is not
sem an tic. It is relevant in this context that even languages with “ habitual” m ark ers
allow other m a r k in g s o f h abituality or genericity, but that there g e n e rally are differ­
ences in m e a n in g betw een them .
In the end (§8), he points to a lack o f stron g u n iversal patterns and concludes
that “ w o r k on habituality and h o w it and sim ilar notions [relate] to g n o m i c im p e r ­
fectivity is still u n d er d evelop m en t, and the qu estions o u tn u m b e r the an sw ers by
quite s o m e m argin.”

Perfect Tense and Aspect (Marie-Eve Ritz)

The E n glish present perfect tense is a puzzle, since, unlike the other perfect tenses,
it appears to b e n o n - c o m p o sitio n a l (see Ritz, §1). But as Ritz points out, the perfect
itself is problem atical, since (1) its f o r m / m e a n in g relation is cross-lingu istically
h ig h ly variable, (2) its m e a n in g (s) and use(s) are un certain , (3) it is d iac h ro n ically
unstable and the processes o f its change are not well u n d e rsto o d , and (4) its analysis
has attracted a great m a n y distinct approach es. We m ust even question w h eth er it is
in fact an a sp e c t.1'1

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C lassically ( M c C a w le y 19 7 1, 1981; C o m r ie , 1976) the perfect has been taken to

have fo u r distinct uses: (i) the perfect o f “persistent situation” (universal perfect),
(ii) the experiential (existential) perfect, (iii) the stative or perfect o f result, and (iv)
the perfect o f recent past ( M c C a w l e y s “ hot n e w s ” perfect). There has been a lively
debate on w h eth e r these constitute different m eanings.
The sem an tics o f the perfect has raised other controversies as well (§§2-3), i n ­
c lu d in g w h e th e r it is a tense o r an aspect, and w h e t h e r there is such a thing as a
“ p erfect” state, resultant from the eventuality im plicit in the use o f the perfect. Ritz
s u r v e y s vario u s theories.
Section 4 discusses its pragm atics, co n tra stin g two theories, those o f Portner
(20 0 3 ) a n d N is h iy a m a and K o e n ig (2004), both o f w h ic h attempt to connect the
m e a n i n g o f the present perfect with the d isco urse context in w h ich it occurs.
O th e r studies, e x a m in in g the use o f the perfect in relation to rhetorical (or “d is­
co u rse” ) relations, such as narration or result , are also d isc u ss e d in section 4. De
Sw art (200 7) concludes that the perfect establishes an elaboration structure, w here
speech tim e/the utterance situation is the topic. She argues that in general, s e n ­
tences in the present perfect are related by a relation o f continuation, w h ic h is n e u ­
tral with regard to tem p oral ord erin g. In English and Dutch, no tem poral relation is
p o ssib le betw een eventualities, thus p reclu d in g use o f the perfect in narration.
Section 5 su m m a r iz e s the status o f the fo u r p ro b le m s Ritz started with. D i a ­
c h ro n ic analysis has b eg u n to p ro v id e fu rth e r u n d e r s ta n d in g o f the sources for the
diversity o f m e a n in g s expressed by perfects cross-linguistically. F o c u s on the uses o f
the perfect in d isco u rse has p ro v id e d ev id en c e for a range o f textual fun ctio n s,
thereby p r o v id in g a better u n d e r s ta n d in g o f the p ra g m a tic factors involved. A s for
sem antics, recent pro po sals seem to be c o n v e r g in g on a picture o f the present p e r­
fect as referrin g to the con seq u en ces o r post-phase/state o f an event. The fo u r types
o f perfect, Ritz says, can b e exp lained on the basis o f the lexical aspect o f the VP, the
use o f adverbials, a n d contextual factors. R ath er than the v arie ty o f approach es h in ­
d e rin g research, she secs research as h av in g benefited fro m it.
N o n e th ele ss, as in the case o f the progressive, little o f a general and definitive
nature can as yet be said about the perfect, especially diachronically. Ritz calls for
fu rth er research, especially typological, as well as research into so c io lin g u istic and
d isc o u rse factors affecting the perfect.

Resultative Constructions (John Beavers)

In recent Western E u ro p e a n and N o rth A m e r ic a n linguistics, the term “ resultative
construction” prin cip ally refers to “a ph rase that indicates the state o f a[n object
denoted by a] noun [phrase] resulting from the completion o f the [action denoted by
the] verb [p h ra se ]” (http://en.w ikipedia.org/w iki/Resultative, retrieved D ec e m b e r
18, 2 0 10 ) such as w ipe the counter clean; be drain ed d ry; sw ing shut; shout oneself
hoarse. O th e rw ise the term is m o r e fam iliar as a tag for constructions associated
with the n a m e o f N e d ja lk o v (1983/1988), e.g., be torn (the cloth is torn), have . . . done
(he has the jo b done), etc. This chapter c o n cern s the fo rm e r type.

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W h at the two types o f “ resultatives” have in c o m m o n is the exp ressio n b y the

c o m p le m e n t ph rase o f a state resultant fro m a p re v io u s action, w h ic h is expressed
by the s e c o n d a r y predicate in B e a v e rs’s type, but is m erely implicit in N e d ja lk o v ’s (as
in the perfect).
The interest in resultative co n stru ction s co m e s precisely fro m this “event c o ­
m p o sitio n ” resulting in a derived eventuality o f the sort n o r m a lly f o u n d in lexical
a c c o m p lish m e n ts, though analysts differ re g a rd in g the nature o f the co m p o sitio n
(§1). The questions raised by their analyses touch on m a n y o f the issues elsew h ere in
this v o lu m e , in volvin g com positionality, gra m m a tica liz atio n , the structures o f
eventualities, etc.
Section 2 c o n c e rn s the v a rio u s types o f resultatives; e.g., the result p h ra se m ay
be an A d jective Ph rase ( h am m ered the m etal flat)y but not a participial (* ham m ered
the m etal flattened). The specific types o f co n stru ction s are c o n stra in ed by the types
o f predicates: the freez e solid type requires an u n a c c u sa tiv e 15 verb, u n e rg a tiv e s16 take
a d u m m y reflexive object (yell oneself hoarse).
There has been a co n sid erab le a m o u n t o f literature on resultatives, generally
focused on the cross-lin gu istic availability o f resultatives, variation in the in v e n ­
tories o f co n stru ction types a m o n g languages that have resultatives, and the rela­
tionship o f resultatives to other exp ressio n s o f c o m p le x events, such as serial verbs
and V - V c o m p o u n d s .
The k ey issue (§6) is h o w the verb and the result phrase (X P ) c o m b in e to express
a single event. In section 3, Beavers lays out the “ C la ss ic A c c o m p lis h m e n t Analysis.”
A lead in g assu m p tio n has been that resultatives represent derived lexical a c c o m ­
plishm ents. E v id e n ce for this co m e s fro m the fact that resultatives and lexical a c ­
c o m p lish m e n ts pattern together in term s o f telicity, adverb scope, and causation
diagnostics. Likew ise, the specific causal relation for both resultatives and lexical
causatives m ust be “ direct” causation, with no event interm ediate between the c a u s­
ative event (e.g., h a m m e r i n g ) a n d the result state (being flat).
In section 4, he d iscu sses a n u m b e r o f p ro b le m s for the classic view. Beavers
points out that not all resultatives are causal in nature; in particular, resultatives
with unaccusatives (e.g . y freez e solid), resist causative p araph rases.
Resultatives that do have causal read in gs do not alw ays involve causation o f the
X P -d e n o te d state by the v e rb -d e n o te d event (28), and causation m a y r u n the other
w a y (29).

(28) Smith cut the bread into thick slices. (R ap op ort, 1999, p. 671, (42a))
(29) The bullets whistled past the house. * ‘ The bullets w histling caused it to be
past the house.’ (Cf. The bullets m o v in g past the house caused it to whistle.)

B e a v e rs d iscu sses a novel app roach to event c o m p o s itio n , p r o p o se d by R a p p a -

po rt H o v a v and Levin ( 2 0 0 1) , in w h ic h the crucial relationship betw een the verb
and the X P is defined in term s o f te m p o ra l d e p e n d e n c y b etw een the events denoted
by the V and the XP. W hile it solves s o m e o f the p ro b le m s o f the classic ap p roach ,
it has its o w n p r o b le m s ; in particular, it can n ot accou nt for a causal relationship in
those cases in w h ic h it o ccu rs. Lie also discusses te m p o ra l d e p e n d e n c y approach es

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p r o p o se d by W echsler (2005) and B e a v e rs (2008 ) in w h ic h the X P d en otes a scale

that h o m o m o r p h i c a ll y delim its the en d o f the ch an ge event. This a p p ro a ch m ak e s
m a n y aspectual and g r a m m a tic a l pred ic tion s not captured b y p re v io u s app roach es,
but fails to exp lain recen tly noted cases o f resultatives that are atelic or that do not
entail actual change. B eavers co n clu d e s that so lu tion s in term s o f te m p o ra l d e p e n ­
d e n c y still leave m a n y questions u n a n s w e r e d , but suggests that future w o r k on
d erived eventualities m a y want to take into ac c o u n t m o r e recent a d va n c es on types
o f lexicalized eventualities.

A spect and D ia t h esis

The next two chapters c o n cern two areas often neglected in the stud y o f aspect, but
w h ich clearly are relevant to it, first in te rm s o f the m a r k in g o f aspectual d istin c­
tions, but also in term s o f the interaction o f aspectual and tem p oral se m an tic cate­
go ries with diathetic ones.

Voice (Mila Vulchanova)

The term diathesis , so m e tim e s used as a s y n o n y m for g r a m m a tic a l voice and s o m e ­
tim es as its su p e ro rd in a te term , is u n fa m ilia r even to m a n y g r a m m a r ia n s . V u lc h a ­
n o v a a c co rd in g ly en c o m p a s se s the s u n d r y diathetic alternations w ithin a b ro a d use
o f the term “ voice.”
V u lc h a n o v a s chapter principally c o n c e rn s the relationship to v o ic e o f aspect
( § § 1 - 3 ) (hut also o f tense, in §§4, 5). M o rp h o lo g ically , the two m a y be m ark ed in
related w ays, as in the case o f perfect/passive participles such as broken. S e m a n t i­
cally, both voice and aspect relate— as m o r p h o lo g ic a l case largely does (cf. R ic h a r d ­
so n , this v o lu m e ) — to the structure o f a situation and to in fo rm atio n reg ard in g the
participant roles associated w ith the verb (§1).
Voice m a y b e view ed, V ulchano va says (§2), as the range o f potential alternative
realizations in syntax o f the sa m e verbal root. A spect construal d ep en d s not o n ly on
the m a p p in g o f both internal and external argum ents, but also on their quantifica-
tional properties, as in V erk u yls influential theory (cf. his chapter in this volu m e). She
discusses gra m m a tica l processes and constructions closely related to aspect construal
w hich affect diathesis, e.g., resultatives (cf. Beavers, this volum e) and causatives,
asking (a) h o w these are generated, (b) w h at allows for the generation in the first
place, and (c) what constraints there are on the generation. In this section she describes
two m ajo r types o f approaches that have em erged: constructionist and lexicalist.
She reports that m ost recent w o r k has ad d ressed aspectual values in the context
o f w h a t are co n sid ered as can o n ical 01* default realizations o f a rgu m e n ts such as
active sentences in In d o - E u r o p e a n (§2). Particularly in ergative languages, aspect
has been sh o w n to stro n g ly correlate and interact with the m a p p i n g o f argu m en ts to
svn tax.

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Section 3.1 concern s w h eth er a diathetic alternation yields a n e w aspectual value,

and the relationship between resultative constructions, the passive, and the perfect.
Section 3.2 concern s the extent to w h ic h aspect construal is constrained, e.g., by p a s ­
sive m orp h o lo g y. V u lch a n o v a concludes that “o ne can expect that vario u s diathetic
fo rm s differ as regards the possibility o f aspect construal, and are further constrained
by the lexical sem antics o f the head verb and m o re specifically, by the k in d o f process
it denotes and w hat kind o f (internal) a rg u m e n t this process applies to.”
In §4, V u lc h a n o v a explores cases in w h ic h tense places restrictions on diathetic
alternations, such as passives. For exam ple, the G e r m a n i c m id d le tend s to o c c u r in
the present tense and expresses a gen eric value.
In §5, she discusses the question o f w hat gives rise to the constraints on aspect
construal and the expression o f certain tem p oral categories in their interaction writh
diathetic alternations. Essentially, there are two approach es, o ne that attributes
these restrictions to o rig in ally lexical properties o f the respective c o m p o n e n ts, and
another that attributes this to co ercio n by the specific syntactic structures in w h ic h
these c o m p o n e n ts are em b e d d e d . V u lc h a n o v a opts for an ap p ro a ch that recognizes
the participation o f both, at different levels o f the c o m p o sitio n .
A s in other areas, no definitive an sw ers have been fo u n d for the central q u e s ­
tions raised in this chapter, reflecting the co m p lexities not o n ly o f aspect, but also o f
its interactions w ith voice on the one h an d , and tem p oral categories on the other
(§6). It d o es not help that the field has suffered fro m a “ [p ro n o u n ced ] proliferation
o f ideas, fra m e w o rk s, form ats, and term inology,” aggravated by the differences
between, for exam ple, the Slavicist and other traditions o f study (§1.2).

Case (Kylie Richardson)

H i e relevance o f case to aspect goes b e y o n d the w ell-k n o w n use o f cases to m a r k
aspectual relationships in Finn ish , w h ic h R ich a rd so n (§4) describes as “exhibit[ing]
an a ccusative-versus-p artitive-case opposition on an internal a rg u m e n t that a p ­
pears to be linked to an aspectual contrast” as illustrated by exam ples (4) and (5):

(4) A m m u-i-un karhu-a

sh o o t-P A S T -i.sg b c a r- P A R T
“ I shot at the/a bear.”
(5) A m m u-i-n karhu-n
shoot- PAST- l.s g bear-A CC
“ I shot the/a bear.”

In this chapter, Richardson aims (§6) to sh o w that “ m orph ological case [discussed
in her section (§2)] is aspectually relevant across a w ide range o f different languages,”
notw ithstanding the difficulty o f establishing a one-to-one correlation betw een case
and aspectual features (§1). The languages cited include, a m o n g others, the Slavic lan ­
guages, two G e r m a n ic languages (G e r m a n and Icelandic), som e Uralic languages
(Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Inari Saam i), Indie languages (Hindi, Bengali), an
Australian language (Walpiri), and a Sepik language o f Papua N e w G u in e a (M an am b u ).

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She points out (§1) that m o rp h o lo g ic a l case has been co nnected to the “ lexical/
se m an tic " aspectual feature telicity and/or to the “g r a m m a tic a l/ m o r p h o lo g ic a l” one
o f b o u n d e d n e s s. The two types o f aspect— lexical or situation aspect and g r a m m a t ­
ical or v ie w p o in t a sp ect— are discu ssed in §3, specifically in connection with the
relationship o f b o u n d e d n e ss to telicity, and R ichard so n argues that “ the defining
characteristic o f an im perfective or perfective eventuality as u n b o u n d e d or b o u n d e d
in time is distinct fr o m the notion o f telicity,” though case is relevant to both b o u n d ­
edness and telicity, and hence to both k in d s o f “ aspect.” (The issue o f the relationship
o f perfectivity to telicity is also d iscu ssed in the chapters by D eo and G v o z d a n o v ic .)
For exam ple, she reports (§4) claims that Finnish case is not only relevant to
lexical/sem antic aspect but to g ra m m a tic a l aspect: that the inessive and addessive
( A D E S ) cases are linked to the im perfective aspect, w h ile the elative, illative, ablative,
and allative ( A L L ) cases are linked to the perfective, co n trastin g the exam ples (6 ,7 ) :

(6) Juna pysahtyi ascma-llc

train stop-PAST-3Sg station -A L L
“ The train stopped at the station (i.e., toward the station as its final
destination).”
(7) Ju n a pysahtyi asema-lla
train stop-PAST-3Sg st a tio n - A D E S
“ The train stopped at the station (i.e., at the station as a p assin g point).”

She says that “ [ a c c o r d i n g to Sand s (2 0 0 0 , p. 277), in e x a m p le (6), fo cus is on

the process o f the eventuality d escribed by the verb phrase, not the result, w h ereas
in exam ple (7), fo c u s is on the result, e.g., this station m a y be the tra in s final d esti­
nation," a n d adds that “ the different interpretations o f these two e x a m p le s are r e m ­
iniscent o f the u n b o u n d e d - b o u n d e d read in gs o f the im p erfective versus the
perfective aspect in the Slavic languages.”
In section 4, she d iscu sses the lin k b etw een n o m in a l case and gra m m a tic a l
aspect in the h isto ry o f G e r m a n and in a n u m b e r o f ergative-absolutive languages
(e.g., W arlpiri and H in d i); the link betw een case on adverbial phrases and g r a m ­
m atical aspect in Inari Saam i, F in n ish , a n d R ussian; the c o n n e c tio n s between case
and lexical aspect in Latin, C lassical G re e k , Hebrew, Icelandic, and M a n a m b u . In
section 5, she discusses in detail the relationship o f c a s e -m a r k in g in Slavic to the
sem antics o f verbal prefixation and the event structures o f verb phrases.
H ow ever, the extent to w h ic h aspectual relevance can or sh o u ld b e captured
syntactically, sem antically, or o th erw ise , she leaves open (§6).

M o d a lity

The th ird m e m b e r o f the T A M triple is s o m e t i m e s id en tified as m o o d , s o m e t im e s

as m o d a lity . Jo h n s o n (19 8 1) s p e a k s o f a c a t e g o r y she calls status , and d efin es
tense, a sp ect and status alike in te r m s o f the three p o in ts in tim e, S, E, and R. We

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INTRODUCTION 47

h ave se e n that tense can be v i e w e d as th e rela tio n sh ip b e t w e e n R a n d S, and

a sp e c t as that b e tw e e n E and R. This leaves the t h ir d m e m b e r o f J o h n s o n s triple,
status, as rela tin g E to S. Jo h n s o n is c o n c e r n e d w ith the status d istin c tio n o f
“ M a n i f e s t / I m m a n e n t ” (e ven tu alities w h ic h are part o f h is t o r y vs. th o se w h ic h are
not) in the B a n tu la n g u a g e K ik u y u . S u c h a d is t in c tio n is clearly related to both
m o o d a n d m o d ality.
M o o d is a su b -system o f g ra m m a r, but one difficult to define. T he A m erican
H eritage D iction ary offers a fairly stand ard definition:

A set o f verb fo rm s o r inflections used to indicate the s p e a k e r s attitude toward the

factuality o r likelihood ol the action o r co n d ition expressed. In E n g lish , the
in d icative m o o d is used to m a k e factual statements, the su bjun ctive m o o d to
indicate d o u b t o r un lik eliho od , and the im perative m o o d to e x p ress a c o m m a n d . 17

Tw o p ro b lem s are evident in this definition: first, m o o d is expressed in lan ­

gu ages that lack verbal inflections, and se co n d , “e x p ressin g a c o m m a n d ” (that is,
c o m m i t t i n g a s p e e c h act) is c le arly a differen t so r t o f t h in g than “ i n d ic a t in g the
s p e a k e r s attitude.”
M o d a lity is a concept from sem an tics. The A m erican H eritage D iction ary again
offers a fairly stand ard definition: “ The classification o f p ro p o sitio n s on the basis o f
w h eth e r they assert or deny the possibility, impossibility, contingency, or necessity
o f their content.”
A lt h o u g h m o o d and m o d a lity are closely e n o u g h related that m o o d is s o m e ­
times ch aracterized ro u g h ly as the g r a m m a tic a l ex p ressio n o f m o d a lity (“ M o o d is
one o f a set o f distinctive fo rm s that are u sed to signal m o d a lit y ” ),ls the two are
in d ep en d en t, with m o o d b e in g used at tim es to exp ress other things than m o d a lity
(for exam ple, c o m m a n d s in the case o f the im perative and w ish es in the case o f the
optative) a n d m o d a lity b e in g expressed in other w ays than m o o d (for exam ple,
th rou gh the use o f m o d a l a u x ilia ry verb s like can, could, may, m ight , etc.).
Tense and aspect relate closely to m o o d , as well as to modality, in terms o f both their
meanings and their markers. For this reason, while a fuller consideration is beyond the
scope o f this volume, som ething needs to be said about aspects o f m o o d and modality
that touch on tense and aspect, and two chapters here deal with som e such aspects.

Time in Sentences with Modal Verbs (Ilse Depraetere)

It is useful to refer to T A M (te n se -a sp e c t-m o o d /m o d a lity ) sy stem s rather than to
tense-aspect system s alone. W h ile not directly time-related, m o d a lit y on the s e m a n ­
tic level and m o o d on the m o r p h o sy n ta c tic level interact closely with both tense
and aspect.
It is well k n o w n that tense m ark ers m a y receive m o d a l interpretations or trigger
m o d a l inferences, and that the converse is true as well. In this chapter, D ep raetere is
c o n c e rn e d specifically with the c o m m u n ic a t io n o f tem p oral in fo r m a tio n in utter­
ances with m o d a l verbs, u sing clauses with epistem ic and root possibility (hence
with the v e rb s can, could, may, might) as her “ test cases.”

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She d istin gu ish es (§1.2) two in d ep en d en t times in m o d a l clauses: the tim e at

w h ic h the m o d a lity holds (the “ M -situ a tio n ” and the tim e o f the “ r e s i d u e ” the p r e d ­
icated situation w h ic h rem a in s after the m o d a lity is stripped off. Thus she contrasts
present (5), past (6), and future (7) possibility, and past (8), present (9), and future
(10) “ residues” :

(5) She ca n sw im .
(6) She could swim at the age o f five.
(7) She will be able to sw im after she’s taken s w i m m in g lessons.
(8) You m ay have been right.
(9) You m a y be right.
(10) We m a y be back b y ten.

The principal questions she seeks to a n sw er are (§1.4):

1. W h at is the tem poral location o f the M -situ atio n ? (d iscu ssed in §2)
2. W h a t are the tem p oral relationship betw een the M -situation and the
residue in the cases o f w id e scop e m o d a lity (e.g., in the case o f epistem ic
m o d a lity) (§§2.1, 2.4) and w h en the m o d a l m e a n in g has n a r r o w scop e (e.g.,
in the case o f ability and p e rm issio n )? (§§2.2, 2.3)
3. W hat are other linguistic factors that fu rth er influence the tem p oral
interpretation o f utterances c o n ta in in g m o d a ls? (§3)

Tile defective m o r p h o lo g y and d iac h ro n ic d e v e lo p m e n t as preterite-present

v erb s have left the English m o d a ls with unusual se m an tic s that plays an im p o rta n t
role in their use and interpretation, as D ep raetere notes (§1.5). E x c ep t in indirect
speech c o n stru c tio n s past tense m o d a ls m a y (18) or m a y not (19) have past time
reference. In s o m e cases, the use o f a p e rip h rastic form m a y be allow ed (can = is
able, is perm itted) or is n e c essa ry (*w ill can: w ill be able).

(18) At that time he might also by chance have met his sister Isabella
(19) The p r im a r y object o f a new police might be couched in
the following o r sim ilar terms.

She co n clu des (§2.4.1) that the m a jo r factors d e t e r m in in g the possible range o f t e m ­
p o ral relations between the M -situation and the residue are the scop e and the nature
o f the m odality.
The interactions o f m o d a lity a n d tense are c o m p le x and a general th e o r y o f time
expression in m o d a l utterances will require m u c h m o re investigation.

Evidentiality and Mirativity (Ferdinand de Haan)

E v i d e n t i a l l y is often, but not invariably, c o n s id e r e d to b e the ex p ressio n o f e p i­
stem ic m o d a lity (cf. Palm er, 1986, pp. 5 1 —54), th o u g h the c o n n e c tio n has been
q u e stio n e d by, inter alia, de H a a n (1999, 2 0 0 1 ) . E v id e n tia lity — and the closely re ­
lated m ira tiv ity (§7)— are also f o r m a lly and se m a n tic a lly co n n e c te d with tense and
aspect. S o m e m a r k e r s (such as the T u rk ish past tenses in (i)) are p o rtm a n te a u s ,

laterial com direitos autorais

INTRODUCTION 49

e x p r e s s in g both tense/aspect and ev id e n tia lity ; evid en tial m a r k e r s (as in (iib)

b elo w ) s o m e t im e s d evelop fr o m tense or aspect m o r p h e m e s (here the sa m e m a r k e r
as in the related C a r a p a n a la n g u a ge (iia)); and tenses an d /o r aspects m a y have
evid en tial im p licatio n s and v ic e - v e r s a (iii, iv), e.g., S w ed ish has a present perfect
(iii) c o n sid e re d to have in feren tial m ean in g (Thorell, 1973, § 4 0 7 ; K in n a n d e r , 1974,
p. 129; cf. H a u g e n , 1972) w h ile the m ira tiv e g e n e ra lly im plies a recent or o n -g o in g
o c c u r r e n c e (iv).

(i) geldi “ he/she/it ca m e ”, gelmi$ “ he/she/it apparently/reportedly cam e” (Slobin

and A k su , 1982, pp. 18 6 - 18 7 )

(ii) (a) = (de H aan s 15)

Carapana (E. Tucanoan)
p a -w o
‘She worked.’ (110 apparent evidential reading)

(b) = (de H a a n s 16)

Tucano (E. Tucanoan)
ni-wo
‘She was.’ (witnessed past)

(iii) Pa fo rs o m m a re n 1814 har Slagnelius sakerligen aterviindt till hem m et i Kalmar.

“ Stagnelius (most likely) returned to his h o m e in K a lm a r in the early s u m m e r o f 1814.”

(iv) = (de H aan s 38b)

H a re (Athabaskan)
heee, gu hd e daweda! ch’ifi dach’ida 1 6
“ Hey, he is sitting up there! The g u y is sitting up there.”

D e H a a n s chapter explores the various w a y s in w h ich evidentiality m anifests

itself in language, with d iscu ssio n s o f the vario u s types o f evidentiality (the sem antic
side o f evidentiality, in §3) and the w a y s evidential notions are expressed cross-lin-
guistically ( m o r p h o s y n t a c t i c e x p r e s s i o n s o f m o d a lit y , §4). T h e f o c u s is on w o r k
in the f u n c t i o n a l - t y p o l o g i c a l t r a d i t i o n , but o t h e r v i e w p o i n t s r e c e iv e s o m e a t­
te n tio n as w ell.
E videntiality w a s fo r m e r ly seen as an exotic feature o f m a in ly n o n -W estern ,
n o n - In d o - E u r o p e a n languages found in the A m e r ic a s and A sia (this despite Ilaar-
m a n n , 1970, on indirect evid entiality in the languages o f E u ro p e ). How ever, in
recent years, studies o f evidentiality have sh o w n that evid entiality does play a role
in the languages o f E u ro p e, even though it m a y not be expressed in quite the sa m e
w a y as in, say, languages o f the A m e r ic a s such as Tuyuca. The h is to r y o f the stud y o f
evid entiality is briefly review ed in de H a a n s section 2.
S e c tio n 3 ca te g o riz e s e v id e n tia l/ in fe r e n t ia l m a r k e r s , d i s t i n g u i s h i n g d irect
(fir s th a n d or sen sory) e v i d e n t i a l that i n d ic a t e that the s p e a k e r a c tu a lly w i t ­
n e ss e d the o c c u r r e n c e a n d in direct (seco n d h an d ) e v i d e n t i a l , a n d e x p lo r e s r e la ­
tio n s h ip s b e t w e e n these c a te g o r ie s or th e ir s u b - c a t e g o r ie s . The d ire c t e v i d e n t i a l
in c lu d e v is u a l, a u d ito ry , a n d n o n v is u a l e v i d e n t i a l . The in d ir e c t are q u o ta tiv e s

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50 T1IE O X F O R D H A N D B O O K OF T E N S E AND A S P E C T

(h e a r s a y ) a n d i n f e r e n t i a l , w h ic h m a y be d is t in g u is h e d (as in A i n u ) o r not (as in

T u r k is h ) .
Section 4 offers ex a m p le s o f v a rio u s lexical and g r a m m a tic a l w a y s o f m a r k in g
evidentiality, in clu d in g tense/aspect m ark ers (§4.4) and m o o d (§4.5).

NOTES

1. F o llo w in g C o m r i e (1985), rec o g n iz ed as “absolute-relative,” in o p p o sitio n to true or

“ p u re” relative tenses such as those in Classical A ra b ic o r in Latin participles. I l e w s o n (this
v o lu m e ) analyzes these as c o m b i n i n g p r i m a r y tense with aspect, as m a n y o th e rs have done.
T h e pure relative tenses have received an aspectual analysis as well.
2. N ot the s a m e time t th ro ugh out the clauses o f the sentence, th ou gh , but rather the
s a m e relationship betw een R and S. A s far as I know , this w as first stated by M c G i l v r a y
( ! 9 7 4 . p- 6), w h o wrote, “. . . *R’ need n ot designate e x actly the s a m e m o m e n t o r interval in
each clause [ o f a sentence). . . . to require that it d o e s in all [sentences] w ou ld m a k e it
difficult to analyze [George discovered that H arry had put a nickel in before the cop gave him
a ticket] (and p erh a p s [If John had left quietly, Dick wouldn't be in trouble])!'
3. A b ib lio g ra p h y o f w o rk s about an d /or p resen tin g G u i l l a u m e s th eo ry can be fo u n d
at this date (D e c e m b e r 17, 2 0 1 0 ) at w w w .fo n d sg u sta ve g u illa u m e.u la val.c a/b ib lio /p rin cip es_
theoriques/presen tation_theorie.htm.
4. S o m e t h i n g o f a related nature plays a role in K le in s ( 1 9 9 4 , 1 9 9 5 ) distinction
b etw e en R e ic h e n b a c h s reference point and his o w n Topic T i m e ( T T ) . For while R d o e s not
n ecessarily ad van ce in either a sentence o r a set o f sentences e x p r e s s in g a temporal
s e q u e n c e o f events, the T T d o c s , thus m a in t a in in g the R point w hile p ro v id in g narrative
m o v e m e n t . We can id en tify the R-S relation with subjective, a s c e n d in g time, and the T T - S
relation with objective, d e s c e n d in g time.
5. A ls o k n o w n as Fregean compositionality, after its putative originator, G o ttlo b Frege.
First explicitly attributed to Frege b y C a r n a p (1947), the p rin ciple is n o w h e re explicitly
stated in F re g e s w o r k s , however. Pelletier ( 2 0 0 1 ) argues that Frege did not, in fact,
s u b sc r ib e to it.
6. See for e x a m p le O g ih a r a (1998).
7. T h e ir e x a m p le , from G o o g le . A G o o g l e search on “ I’ve had gon e th ro u g h ” in fact
retu rn ed a lm o st 8.5 m illion e x a m p le s , though not all are e x a m p le s o f the c o n stru c tio n in
question. But a large n u m b e r o f them are: “ I appreciated the h a rd life I've h a d gon e
through . . .,” “ O . . . ’ e v e r the years I’ve h a d gon e through several tanks . . . ” “ I . . . “ I n ow
k n o w I ’ve had gon e thro ugh m a n y QJ[s],” “ I . . . ,” “ I’ve had g o n e thro ugh o n e o f m y
toughest w eek[s] here . . “ S . . . ,” “ Since age 3, I ’ve h a d gon e through 5 p acem akers,”
“A n y o n e that has followed the case and what I’ve had gone through . . . “ I . . .,” “ I’ve had
gone through that before . . . , ” . ..,” etc., etc. This suggests that this c o n stru c tio n is quite
c o m m o n in English and it is lo n g o v e rd u e that serious attention be paid to it.
8. 'lh e h is t o r y o f the co n cep ts o f aspect and A k tio n sa rt, and o f the te rm in o lo g y
associated w ith th em , is quite c o m p le x. S h o rt histories can be found in B in n ic k (1991,
esp e cially pp. 1 3 9 - 1 4 9 ) , K o r t m a n n (1991), and M l y n a r c z y k (2 0 0 4 , C h . 2).
9. “ S U B I N T E R V A L v erb p h rases have the p ro p e rty that i f they are the m a in verb
phrase o f a sentence w h ich is true at so m e interval o f time I, then the sentence is true at

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INTRODUCTION 51

e v e r y subinterval o f / in c lu d in g e v e r y m o m e n t o f time in /. E x a m p le s o f su binterval verb

p h rases are: walk, breathe, walk in the park, push a cart. N O N S T A T I V E , N O N S U B 1 N T E R -
V A L verb phrases are verb phrases that are neither stative n o r subinterval. E x a m p le s o f
such verb phrases arc: die, walk to Rome, catch a fish, build a house. S in cc these verb
phrases take the progressive fo rm , they are nonstative. T h e y are also nonsubinterval.
C o n s i d e r walk to Rome. I f it took an h o u r to w alk to R o m e , o n e did n ot w a l k to R o m e
w it h in the first thirty m in utes o f the h o u r ” (Ben nett & Partee, 19 7 2 /2 0 0 4 , p. 72).
10. A m o m e n t a r y o r p u n ctilia r action such as blink. The status o f sem elfactives as a
type o f A k tio n s a rt is, as w ith so m u ch else in aspectology, controversial.
11. Cf. http ://en .aca d e m ic.ru /d ic.n sf/e n w ik i/137 819 , retrieved S e p t e m b e r 10, 2 010 .
12. V a rio u s Latin g r a m m a r s g lo ss the “ freq ue ntative” verb s as “ to d o x fre q u e n tly ”, “ to
do x m u c h ”, etc. Quite often there is little o r 110 d ifferen ce b e tw e e n the d e r iv e d verb and
its root verb. T h u s the o n -lin e E l e m e n t a r y L e w is - S h o r t D i c t i o n a r y g lo sses both cano and
canto as “ to p ro d u c e m e lo d i o u s s o u n d s , s o u n d , sin g, play.” H o w e v e r it d o c s differentiate
curro “ ru n ” fro m curso “ ru n hith er and thither, r u n constantly.”
13. The glosses are mine.
14. F o r a n u m b e r o f reasons, in clu d in g the difficulty o f fitting the perfect into a
classification o f the aspects such as C o m r i e s , s o m e sch olars (Trager and S m ith , 1951; jo o s,
1964) have suggested that the perfect is not an aspect, but instead a “ phase.”
15. U n a ccu sativc s arc verb s in intransitive c o n stru c tio n s that arc hyp othesized to have
u n d e rly in g objects rather than subjects.
16. U n ergatives arc v e r b s in intransitive co n stru c tio n s that have subjects wrhich arc
sem a n tic a lly agentive. Thus, leap is unergative w h ile fa ll is unaccusative.
17. w'w 'w.thefreedictionary.com /m ood, retrieved N o v e m b e r 14, 2 010 .
18. w w A V .sil.o rg/lin gu istic s/G lo ssa ry O fL in g u isticT erm s/W h atIsM o o d A n d M o d ality .
h tm , retrieved N o v e m b e r 14, 2 010 .

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CONTEXTS

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 CHAPTER 1

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

P E T E R LUDLOW

i. T e n s e d W o rds, Tensed T h o u gh ts,

and T e n s e d Fa c t s

In this chapter, I explore s o m e o f the puzzles that su r r o u n d the analysis o f tense in

the p h ilo so p h y o f language. O f co u rse the first question that will arise is exactly
w hat k in d s o f things can be tensed. Is tense, as s o m e contend, m e r e ly a feature o f
language (linguistic tense) but not o f thought or the w orld , o r are thoughts and facts
about the w orld tensed as w ell— ten sed facts b e in g e x a m p le s o f w hat w e could call
“ m etap hysical tense” ? M a n y have argued that a p ro p e r analysis o f linguistic tense
w ou ld say that the tense operators in natural language express n o n -te n se d features
o f the w o r ld — that past and future linguistic tense are ju st used to express static
universal relations between events or times.
Tensers and detensers are split on precisely this point: The tensers take tense to
be an irreducible and real feature o f the w orld , and the detensers think it is a s u p e r ­
ficial p ro p e rty o f language or th ought that can be reg im en ted a w ay in term s o f other
(m ore scientifically legitimate) prim itives. A m o re precise w a y to put it is this: The
tenser thinks that linguistic tense is used to express tensed thoughts and to describe
tensed facts about the w orld . The detenser m a y allow that linguistic tense can express
tensed thoughts, but will reject the idea that it can be used to express tensed facts,
because the detenser believes there are no such things (see, for exam ple, Mellor, 1981
and O a k la n d e r a n d Sm ith, 1994 for discussion).
T h e re are tw o a s s u m p t io n s b e h in d the d e t e n s e r s p o s it io n . The first a s s u m p ­
tion is that m e t a p h y s ic a l tense is p r o b l e m a t i c f r o m the p o in t o f v i e w o f p h y s ic a l
th eory. The idea is that s c ie n c e is the v ie w fr o m n o w h e r e , a n d m e t a p h y s ic a l tense
is a p a r a d i g m a t i c a lly e g o c e n t r ic p e r s p e c t iv a l p ro p e rty. That is, f r o m the p o in t o f
v ie w o f p h y sic s there s h o u ld be n o t h i n g sp e c ia l a b o u t o u r s p a c e t im e lo c a tio n ,

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but i f there is m e t a p h y s ic a l tense, w h e t h e r even ts are past o r fu tu re d e p e n d s

u p o n o u r t e m p o r a l p o s it io n . T h ese w o u ld be fir s t - p e r s o n p e r s p e c t iv a l facts
b e c a u s e i f w e w e r e lo c ated at o th e r t e m p o r a l p o s it io n s ( if there are o th e r t e m p o ­
ral p o s i t i o n s — the p re se n tist m a y d isp u te this) d ifferen t ev e n ts w o u ld be future
and p a st to us.
The se c o n d assu m p tio n is that tense is a feature o f languages o n ly (i.e., there is
only linguistic tense), and that w e m ista k en ly project this feature o f natural language
into o u r m etap hysics. The prob lem with this assu m p tio n is that it is questionable
w h eth e r there really is such a thing as purely fo rm a l linguistic tense. It d o e sn ’t take
a terribly robust s u r v e y o f the w o r ld s languages to see that different languages
c h o o se radically different strategies to express tensed claims. S o m e languages use
aspect, s o m e use evidential m a rk e rs , s o m e use spatial language, a n d even English
uses m o d a ls to express future tense. So there is g o o d reason to question this se c o n d
assu m p tio n . There is no form al linguistic p h e n o m e n o n that w e m is ta k e n ly project
onto the w o r ld ; it is m o r e plausible to t h in k that tensed aspects o f the w orld are
m eta p h y sica lly prior, and that different languages find different strategies for talk ­
ing about these aspects o f the world.
It is fair to say that tensism , w h atev er its p r im a facie appeal, is a difficult p o s i ­
tion to s u p p o r t on both linguistic and p h ilo so ph ical g ro u n d s. O n the p h ilo so ph ical
end, it is alleged to c o m m it us to the d o c trin e o f presentism , and i f true, this in turn
leads to difficulties on the linguistic e n d — p a rtic u la rly for c o m p le x tenses and the
p h e n o m e n o n o f tem poral an aph o ra. W h eth e r tensism is in fact c o m m itted to p re s­
entism is a question that we will explore.
T e n sism m a y also h av e s u r p r i s i n g c o n s e q u e n c e s fo r the s t a n d a r d v ie w that
linguistic tense is m o rp h o lo g ic a l. As we w ill see, the position m a y well force us to
reject the m o r p h o lo g ic a l v ie w for one in w h ic h there are no tense m o r p h e m e s and
the relation between different verbal fo rm s is “analogical.”
Ultimately, m y goal here is not to argue for or against tensism , but sim ply to
illustrate w h y the position is attractive, the kin d s o f obstacles it faces, and so m e o f
the e x t r a o r d in a r y co n se q u e n c e s that e x tru d e fro m the view.

2. T e n s e r s v s . D e t e n s e r s : T w o T h e o r i e s
of T ense

To better u n d ersta n d the distinction betw een tensers and detensers it is perhap s
easier to start with the d eten ser’s p o sition . To a first a p p ro x im a tio n , the basic idea is
the fo llow ing: so -c a lle d tense operators in natural language s h o u ld be a n alyzed in
te rm s o f a series o f events related by the earlier-than/later-than relation. Wre can
th in k o f these events b e in g lined up on a tim elin e (or perhap s the tim eline is n o th in g
m o r e than the o rd e r in g o f these events). All o f the events on the tim elin e are equally
real, from the D eath o f Q u een A n n e to the event o f y o u r read in g this b o o k to the

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birth o f the first child in the year 2500. F o llo w in g M c T a g g a r t (1908, 1927), we can
call this series o f events the B-series. So, for exam ple, to take a v e r y sim ple case,
consider the utterance u, o f a sentence h a v in g the fo rm ‘P A S T ( E ) ’ w h e re ‘E ’ refers to
a particu lar event and 'PAST” is the past tense m o r p h e m e . In this case the sem an tics
m ight lo ok as follows:

(1) ‘Past(E)’ is true iff (the time o f) E is earlier than (the time o f) u.

I l o w does an analysis like (1) help? If event E holds at a tim e earlier than the
tim e o f a p articu lar utterance, then that E stands in such a relation to the utterance
event that it sh o uld be true e v e r y w h e r e (and at e v e ry time) in the universe. (A c t u ­
ally, this isn’t true in the relativistic fr a m e w o r k , but w e can find o th er n e u t r a l w ays
o f d e sc rib in g the relative position o f these events, for e x a m p le by u sing M in k o w s k i
sp a c etim e d ia g r a m s — see Stein, 1968 and Sklar, 1974. For n o w lets just w o r r y about
the analysis in classical physics.) Let’s again call the relation h o ld in g betw een event
E and the utterance event u the earlier-than/later-than relation. Isn’t the earlier-
than/later-than relation an irred ucib ly te m p o r a l relation? M a y b e not. Ph ilosoph ers
(e.g., R eich en b a c h , 1956) have thought that the earlier-than/later-than relation
m ight b e fu rth e r reducible to causal o rder or features o f statistical t h e r m o d y n a m ic s
(but it m ust be noted that these red u ctio n s don’t w o rk s m o o t h ly — see Price, 1996 for
d iscu ssio n).
The analysis o f tense sketch ed in (1) is a “ regim entation” in the sense o f Burgess
( 1 9 7 9 ) — alth ough tense expressions app ear in the object language (here as the
abstract m o r p h e m e “ P A S T ” ), such expressions do not app ear in the m etalan guage;
they are analyzed aw ay in favor o f the earlier-than/later-than relation. In this way,
tense is regim ented out o f the sem antics.
The tenser v ie w s matters differently. O n h er view, the p ro p e r analysis requires
that w e lift the tense into the m etalan gu ag e, so that the co rrect analysis w o u ld not
be (1) but rather so m e t h in g like the fo llo w in g (i').

(O “ P A S T ( E ) ” is true iff E held.

N o t i c e that I ’ve u sed th e past tense f o r m ‘h e l d ’ in the m e t a l a n g u a g e . T h a t is

not accidental; the tenser typically consid ers a m o v e like this (u sin g tense in the
m eta la n gu a g e) un avoidable. U su a lly tensers give their analysis in term s o f treating
tenses as o perators on p ro po sitio ns, but with the sa m e effect. So, for ex a m p le , a n ­
other tenser analysis w o u ld be as in ( 1 " ) , w h ere S is a sentence and ||S|| is the p r o p ­
osition exp ressed by S.

(1") “ P A S T [ S ] ” is true iff IISII w as true.

We could sim ilarly sw ap in talk o f sentences for talk o f pro p o sitio n s, so that the
right h an d side o f ( 1 " ) could state that S itself w a s true.
I’ve used a T-sentence1 to state the sem antics for tense because it has the virtue o f
being able to “display” (in the sense o f M cD o w ell, 1980) the perspectival nature o f
tense. 'Ib see this, note that a tokening o f ( 1 " ) is only effective i f the person tokening
the T-sentence (e.g., uttering it) is in the right temporal position, because the right-hand

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side o f the T-sentence positions the state o f affairs described by S in the u sers egocen­
tric past.
O f course T-sentences that lift indexicals into the m etalan guage lo ok w eird. Even
D avid so n (1967), while ad vocating disquotational T-theories, avoided treating in d e x ­
icals disquotationally.2 P resu m ab ly he did so because o f troubles with cases like (2).

(2) I am h u n g r y now.

Su ppo se John utters this in the m o r n i n g and I w ant to report w h at he said after
lu nch . It w o u ld be o d d for m e to say that the content o f Jo h n s utterance is that I am
h u n g r y now. A cco rdin gly, w e m ight think that (3) is a v e r y bad idea i f we are inter­
ested in g iv in g the se m an tic s for (2).

(3) ‘I am h u n g r y n o w ’ is true i f f I am h u n g r y now.

A n d o f c o u rse in this instance the a x io m does fail. This d o e sn ’t m ean it fails i f it

w e re em ployed by John at the tim e o f his utterance. If we n o w w a n t to report w hat
John said b y uttering (2) at an earlier tim e, we need s o m e th in g like (4).

(4) £I am h u n g r y n o w ’ as uttered b y John at t, is true iff John w a s h u n g r y then (at t).

We need to recalibrate the T -sen tence to account for different te m p o ra l and

p erso n al positions. Evan s (1985), ta k in g his cue from Frege, d escribed such recali­
bration strategies this w ay:

F reg e s idea is that the s a m e ep istem ic state m a y require different things o f us at

different times; the c h a n g in g c ir c u m st a n c e s force us to ch a n g e in o r d e r to keep
hold o f a constant reference and a co nstan t th o u gh t— we must run to keep still.
F ro m this point o f view, the accep tan ce on d i o f “ Yesterday w as fine,” given an
accep tan ce o n d 1 o f “ T o d ay is fine” can m anifest the persistence o f a b e lie f in just
the w a y in w hich acceptance o f different utterances o f the sentence “ The sun sets
in the W e st" can. (p. 308)

M a n y p h ilo so p h ers w o u ld argue that this recalibration strategy is clumsy, and

that the elegant solution is to strip a w ay the m aterial that m ust be recalibrated and
m a k e the T -sen tence so that it is true e v e r y w h e r e and at e v e ry time. Thus, they w a n t
the T -sen tence to express the v ie w fro m n o w h ere. The tenser, o f course, will claim
that this leaves o u r th eory too im p o v e ris h e d to give an adequate analysis o f tense,
since you can’t accou nt for p ersp ectival egocentric p ro p e rtie s with n o n p ersp ectival
properties. We will e x a m in e this claim in the next section.

3. T h e C a se for T en sism

Su p p o se that I am traveling a b ro a d th in k in g to m y s e lf that I ought to call m y m o th e r

on her birthday. Let’s say that she is b orn on F e b ru a ry 1, and let’s su p p o s e while
th in k in g this, I utter (5).

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(5) M y m o t h e r s birthday is Fe b ru ary 1.

1 believe that F e b r u a r y 1 is a few days away, so I feel no u r g e n c y to call her. But

then s u p p o s e I see a n e w s p a p e r with t o d a y s date, a n d I c o m e to realize that today
is F e b r u a r y 1. S u p p o s e fu r th e r that w h ile c o m i n g to this realization I utter (6) and
I im m e d ia te ly call m y mother.

(6) O M G ! M y m o t h e r s birthday is today!

Now, the thought I have w h e n I utter (6) appears to be different than the thought
I h av e w h en 1 utter (5) and it is also at least arguable (if controversial) that the c o n ­
tents o f those utterances are different as well. For surely, the thought I h ad w h en I
uttered (5) did not lead m e to call m y m o th e r and the thought I had w h e n I uttered
(6) d id cause m e to call m y mother.
The prob lem for the detenser is this: i f the o n ly in fo rm a tio n preserved in our
analysis is the utterance time, the tim e o f the event in question and the earlier-than/
later-than relation, then the content o f both (5) a n d (6) c o m e to the sa m e thing.
Both sa y that m y m o t h e r s b irth d a y falls on a p a rticu la r date/time. N e ith er carries
the in fo rm a tio n the b irth d a y is today— w h ich is the in fo rm a tio n that got m e to
m ak e m y p h o n e call!
The se c o n d e x a m p le is fro m Prior (1959). Su p p o se that after h a v in g m y root
canal I utter (7).

(7) T hank g o od n ess that’s over!

N o w i f the only content we are allow ed is that allowed by the detenser, then w e
seem to have trouble e x p la in in g w h y I’m relieved about anything, for the d eten sers
analysis m a y well c o m e to (7').

(7') T hank g o od n ess that E is earlier than S.

W h y is S (or the tim e o f S) special? It is just a point on the B -th e o ry timeline.

It is no accident that we got into this q u a n d a r y in the cases o f (6) and (7); the
detenser specifically lim ited h e rse lf to resources that were n o n - p e r s p e c t iv a l— the
v ie w fro m no w h ere, and h en ce the sp ea k er is not situated at a perspectival position
on the B-series. A n d the prob lem w ith this is that e x p la in in g h u m a n action and
em o tio n s d o e sn ’t m a k e sense i f we limit ourselves to n o n -p e rsp e c tiv a l properties.
As I’ve already indicated, I think it is a cheat to su p p o s e that the relevant p e r s p e c ­
tival properties can be fo u n d at the linguistic or psych ological levels alone; talk o f
tense in language and the m in d o n ly m ak e s sense i f the w o rld is tensed.
'I’o see this, w e m u st first recall that w h a t we are ta lk in g ab ou t is not a m ere
linguistic or p s y c h o lo g ic a l p h e n o m e n o n . A s I n o ted earlier, there is no c o m m o n
syn tactic or lexical elem en t to the v a r io u s fo rm s that tenses can take in natural
lan g u age, and the idea that these v a r io u s fo r m s are unified by c o r r e s p o n d in g to
c ertain p s y c h o lo g ic a l states is no m o r e stab le— w h a t m ak e s a p s y c h o lo g ic a l state
tensed i f not that it tracks s o m e t e m p o r a l feature o f the w o r ld ? To s u p p o s e that
there co u ld be p s y c h o lo g ic a l tense but no m e ta p h y sic a l tense is to s u p p o s e a k in d

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o f C a r t e s ia n is m in p s y c h o l o g y that I c o n s id e r su sp ect for re a so n s o u tlin ed in

B u r g e (1986). In short, B u rg e o b s e r v e s that m a n y o f the rep resen tatio n al states
p o s it e d in p s y c h o l o g y ( p a r t i c u la r ly in the c a se o f p e r c e p t i o n , fo r e x a m p le ) are
in d iv id u a te d b y referen ce to objects a n d p ro p e rtie s in the extern al e n v iro n m e n t.
W ith o u t the ex te rn a l a n c h o rs, there w o u ld be no c o r r e s p o n d in g p sy c h o lo g ic a l
states.

4. T r o u b l e s w ith T en sism

D espite the intuitive appeal o f tensism , it has to be co n ce d e d from the outset that
the position o f the tenser is difficult. The first problem is that the position se em s to
c o m m it the tenser to p resen tism , and this in turn leads to all so rts o f p ro b le m s with
the se m an tics o f n a tu ra l language.
Tensers typically are presentists, w h ic h m e a n s that they reject the existence o f
events that do not c u rre n tly exist. But w h y? The prob lem is that if we try to c o m b in e
tensism with the B-series, it s e e m s to c o m m it us to a “ m o v i n g n o w ” (W illiam s, 1951)
and this is not a h a p p y o u tc o m e . To see the p r o b le m , le ts ju st th in k ab ou t the
expression n o w ’ and lets su p p o se that it has an irred ucib le tense-like p r o p e r ty (the
point I’m m a k i n g here will c a r r y over naturally to past a n d future tenses).
T h e p r o b le m is that w h ile ‘n o w ' c u r r e n t l y p ic k s o u t a c u r r e n t tim e, a few
m o m e n t s ago it p ick e d out a n o th er tim e a n d in a n o th er few m o m e n ts it will pick
out yet another. O ne natural w a y o f th in k in g about this is that the operator d e s ig ­
nated by n o w ’ m o v e s a lo n g the B-series p ic k in g out different te m p o ra l points as it
m o v es. But here is the p ro b lem : what sense does it m a k e to say that the operator
m o v e s , since m o v e m e n t takes place in tim e , and w h at we were o fferin g w a s an
analysis o f time?
The coherent options here are lim ited. O n e option is to sa y that w e m ust m ove
to a notion o f se c o n d o rd e r tim e (let’s call it T 2 ), so that the n o w operator m o v e s in
T 2 . This isn’t a v e r y g o o d option, since w e can easily generate a regress that forces us
into third o rd e r time, fourth o rd e r time, etc.
P rio r s e e m e d to b elie ve that the only w a y out o f the im b ro g lio w a s to b e c o m e
a presentist (in Ludlow, 1999 I a ss u m e d this as well). P resentism solves the prob lem
b e c a u se there is no m o v e m e n t a lo n g the B-series b ecau se there is no B -series. There
are only present events. In a bit w e w ill c o n s id e r w h e t h e r the tensers are really
c o m m itte d to p resen tism , but note first that the m o v e to presentism ( if n e cessa ry)
generates tr e m e n d o u s h ea d a c h e s w h e n we attem pt to do the se m an tic s o f natural
language.
The first set o f sem an tical prob lem s involves w h at we could call tem poral
a n a p h o r a — linguistic elem ents that refer to past and future events and/or times.
C o n s id e r the fo llow in g classic e x a m p le (8) from Partee ( 19 7 3 ,19 8 4 ).

(8) J o h n t u r n e d o f f t h e s to v e .

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O r d in a r ily an utterance o f this w o u ld not be taken to say that John turned o lf

the stove at least on ce before in the past. R ath er there is typically an u n d ersto o d
tem p oral reference point in play (for exam ple, w h e n he left the h o u se this m o rn in g ,
or w h en he ca m e over the other night). We could say that this reference point c o n ­
stitutes an implicit tem p oral a n a p h o r (see Webber, 1988 for further exam ples).
R eich en b ach (1947) m a d e excellent use o f tem p oral an a p h o rs like this w h en he
d evelop ed his analysis o f c o m p le x tenses. To u n d ersta n d R e ic h e n b a c h s proposal,
lets take S to indicate (the tim e o f) the utterance event, E to indicate (the tim e of)
the event u n d er d iscussion (for ex a m p le , the tu rning o f f o f the stove), and lets take
R to indicate a (p ossib ly implicit) reference time (e.g., w h en I left the h ou se this
m o rn in g ). Then w e can u n d ersta n d the past perfect as in d ica tin g that E holds before
R, w h ic h in turn holds befo re S, thus:
E -R -S

The future perfect, on the other h an d , could be represented disju nctively in the fol­
lo w in g w a y:
S — E — R or E — S — R or E / S — R

There are m a n y possible v ariatio n s on this basic idea (see A q vist, 19 7 6 ; G u e n ­

ther, 1979; C o m r i e , 1985; Vikner, 1985; H in rich s, 1986, 1988; and Ilo r n s te in , 1990).
For exam ple, we m ig h t introduce tem p oral intervals. F o r now, how ever, w e have
en o u gh on the table to begin a sk in g s o m e interesting questions.
The first and m ost interesting question is w h eth er a presentist has a sto ry to tell
about these construction s. Prior (19 6 7 ,19 6 8 ) held that one could still h an d le c o m p le x
tenses by nesting the te m p o ra l operators. This isn’t as sim ple as it so u n d s because a
sim ple n esting is not up to the task. C o n sid e r, for e x a m p le (9) as a possible analysis
o f past perfect tense.

(9) P A S T [ P A S T [S]]

T h e p ro b lem with this is that as it stan d s, it m o r e or less collapses into the

sim p le past, sin ce n o th in g in the past tense o p e ra to r tells us h o w far into the past
the o p e ra to r is p u s h in g us. We co u ld try to r e m e d y the situation by m a k i n g the
o p e ra to rs “s p a n n y ” and pu ttin g d u ra tio n a l values on them so that the d eg ree o f
p a stn ess (fu tu re n e ss) is rep resen ted , y ie ld in g s o m e t h i n g like (9') (w h e re the
su p e r sc r ip t n u m e r a ls indicate the d e g re e o f p a stn ess):

(9') P A S T 8[ P A ST E S]]

W h e r e these values c o m e from and the m e c h a n ic s o f h ow they are represented

is one issue, but the m o r e serious prob lem is that, in m a n y cases, w e m a y use a past
perfect tense fo rm w ith only the vaguest sense o f h o w lo n g ago the reference event
o ccu rred . F o r exam ple, you m ight ask m e w h y I d id n ’t accept U ncle F re d ’s invitation
to d in n er (the invitation c o m i n g s o m e n u m b e r o f w eek s ago) and I could say,
“ B ecau se I had already eaten,” w h ile b e in g totally unclear as to w h eth er this w a s two
w eek s ago or three w e e k s ago. But it is still possible for m e to id entify a reference
event R, w h ic h I could express as “ w h e n U ncle Fred invited me.”

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In L u d lo w (1999), I suggested a w ay to handle tem poral a n aph o ra w ith ou t the

resort to tem p oral reference, and the strategy w a s analo go us to the use o f E -typ e
a n aph o ra in the case o f n o m in a l a n aph o ra (see Evans, 19 7 7 ).3 The idea w a s that we
could in tro d uce implicit tem p oral co nju ncts, as in (9 ").

(9") P A S T [I cat] B E F O R E P A S T [Unclc Fred invites m e to dinner]

N o w clearly there are a lot o f details m issin g here. We need to allow for m ultiple
invitations fro m U ncle Fred th ro u gh the years, and w e also do still need to indicate
a short tim e span in the B E F O R E o p e ra to r (p resu m ab ly I had to have eaten shortly
befo re I received the invitation to din n er). A n d this in turn leads to the question o f
w h e th e r the B E F O R E operator isn’t just the B-theoretic no tio n o f earlier-than, and
w h e th e r this d o e sn ’t in turn already c o m m it us to the B - th e o r y tim eline and thus
the existence o f past and future events.
'Ihere are other places w h ere tem p oral a n a p h o ra can be fo u n d . Em; (1986), for
exam ple, has o b s e rv e d that w e also app ear to find te m p o ra l reference w ithin n o m i-
nals, as in (10).

(10) The hostages cam e to the W hite House.

Presumably, w hen they cam e to the W hite H o u se the Iranian hostages w ere no
longer hostages. We u n d ersta n d this as saying, in effect, “ The [people w h o w ere h o s ­
tages at R] cam e to the W hite House.” H o w does an operator th eory deal with this?
G iv e n that all the troubles with tensism 4iust outlined seem to extrud e from the
c o m m it m e n t to presentism and the subsequent p ro b lem s w ith te m p o ra l anaphora,
one m ight w o n d e r if it is co m p letely clear that a tenser really is c o m m itted to p re s­
entism and thus can’t help h e rse lf to such elements. Perhaps not.
O n e option for the tenser is the possibility that there is no single ‘n o w ’ operator
but that there are a series o f such o p e ra to rs— each o f them built as the d isco urse
proceeds, each o f them h a v in g a different sense, and each o f them irreducible.
W h e n w e m o v e to relativistic time, this story needs to be su p p lem en te d so that
the p e rsp ectiv a l operators are in d exed to an inertial fram e, but there d o e sn ’t seem
to be a technical p r o b le m with this, as first s h o w n in Sklar (1974).
I f tensism can be w e d d e d to a B -series o f events, it certainly solves a n u m b e r o f
p ro b lem s for the tenser, but there are other p ro b lem s lu rk in g in the analysis.

5. M o nsters and M orphem es

C o n s i d e r a sentence like the fo llo w in g (11).

(11) D in osa u rs roam ed the Earth.

The te n s e r s analysis for this e x a m p le w o u ld be the fo llow in g, w h e r e the past

tense m o r p h e m e ‘-e d ’ (represented as ‘ P A S T ’) b reak s a w ay from the verb stem and
m o v e s into an operator position in the syntax.

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(11') ‘P A S T [ D in o s a u r s roam the earth]' is true iff ||‘D in o sa u rs ro am the earth’ ll w a s true.

'To see the prob lem for the tenser, co n sid er h o w the tenser thinks o f the inner
present tensed clause ‘D in o s a u r s roam the E arth ’. This sh o u ld m ean that d in o sa u rs
roam (or are r o a m in g ) the Earth in the present with respect to o u r egoc en tric p e r­
spective. But the past tense m o r p h e m e is s u p p o s e d to put so m e t h in g in the past
with respect to o u r egocentric perspective. So w h ich is it? Past or present? You
m ight w a n t to say that the past tense shifts o u r egocentric perspective, but does this
even m ak e sense? N o te that this is not as sim ple as tak in g o u r present egoc en tric
p ersp ective and p u s h in g it into the past on the B -se rie s; past tenses (for the tenser)
just d on ’t w o r k that way. In effect, the question is this: w hat d o es it m ean to em b ed
one egoc en tric persp ective w ith in another? O n e could m a k e a v e r y g o o d case here
that for a tenser this is just plain incoherent. I’m not say in g that the v ie w is in co ­
herent, just that it sh o u ld give us pause.
The analysis in ( n ') e m p lo y s a “m o n s t e r ” in the sense o f K ap lan (1977). N o r ­
m ally we th in k o f an in d exical operator like tense as not b e in g a m en ab le to shifting.
To see what I m ean, co n sid er a sentence like ‘ 10 0 years ago John said it is rain ing
n o w ’. This is a n o m a lo u s in that the m e a n i n g o f n o w ’ d o e sn ’t shift to 10 0 years ago.
There are really only two g o o d w a y s o f m a k in g sense o f such a sentence. The first
w o u ld involve a v e r y sp ecio u s present so that ‘n o w ’ takes in a v e r y lo ng p e r i o d o f
tim e (and a cen tu ries-lon g rain storm ) 01* we take the e m b e d d e d m aterial to be
quoted (‘ 10 0 years ago John said “ it is ra in in g n o w ’” ) so that we un d erstan d it as a
case o f direct rather than indirect discourse.
I f ‘n o w ’ could shift w h e n e m b e d d e d , it w o u ld be a “ m o n ste r ” in K ap lan’s sense.
To develop o u r u n d e rs ta n d in g o f m onsters, let’s start with a n o n -te m p o r a l exam ple
and co n sid er the English first p e rso n indexical ‘I.’ The interesting thing about index-
icals like this is that w hen we e m b e d them u n d er a b e lie f report, they alw ays c o m e
b ack to the person m a k in g the utterance. So, for exam ple, co n sid er (12):

(12) Bill said that I am lazy.

Tli is isn’t Bill calling h im s e lf lazy. It s e e m s that no matter h o w deeply we e m b e d

the indexical, it always seem s to latch onto the person m a k i n g the utterance.

(13) Bill said that J o h n said that Fred said that 1 a m lazy.

T enses se em to w o r k this w a y as well. T h e y seem to latch onto the tim e o f the

utterance, no matter h o w deeply they are e m b e d d e d (as in (14)). (We will see so m e
apparent exceptions to this in the next section.)

(14) Bill said that John said that Fred said that it I a m h u n g r y now.

This d o e sn ’t se e m to m e a n that I w a s h u n g r y w h e n Bill sp o k e or John sp o k e or

Fred spoke, but that I am h u n g r y now. But if indexicals can’t shift, then h o w is the
analysis in (11') su p p o sed to w o rk ?
F o r Kaplan, it w a s an em p irical claim that natural languages (or at least E n g ­
lish) d o n ’t have m on sters, and he p re su m a b ly has no qu arrel w ith recent w o r k in

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linguistics, for e x a m p le by S c h le n k e r (2003), that has suggested that in fact m a n y

languages do allow for shifts like this. From the p ersp ective o f the detenser, shifts
like this are b e n ig n , but for a tenser they are at least w eird i f not entirely
problem atic.
For the detenser, these cases are not a p ro b lem because no ge n u in e m on sters
are req u ired . This is because no operators are in play; we sim p ly need to appeal to
relations on the B -se rie s to explain w hat is h a p p e n in g .
For the tenser, m o n ste rs are a m o r e se rio u s issue. O n e possibility is to say that
w h ile English d o e sn ’t o rd in a rily co u n ten a n c e m o n ste rs, they do c o m e into play in
certain c ir c u m sta n c e s— for exam ple at the m o r p h o lo g ic a l level (as in (n '))- M y
issue with these attempts is that it is difficult to u n d e rsta n d w hat it m e a n s for a g e n ­
uine tense to be tem porally shifted.
Is there a w a y to b e a te n se r a n d a vo id m o n s t e r s — at least at the m o r p h o lo g ic a l
level? There is o n e, but it in v o lve s r e t h in k in g s o m e sta n d a rd v ie w s about the w ay
lin g u istic tense is treated. It is not u n iv e r sa lly tru e, but su rely the vast m a jo r ity o f
p e o p le w o r k i n g in the s e m a n tic s o f tense s u p p o s e that tense m o r p h e m e s w o r k like
little b u ild in g b lo c k s. T h ese b u ild in g b lo c k s have their o w n st a n d a lo n e m e a n i n g
or s e m a n tic c o n trib u tio n , and th e y c o m b in e with v e r b a l s te m s and the m e a n i n g o f
the c o m b in e d ex p ressio n is c o m p u te d fr o m the m e a n i n g o f the m o r p h e m e and
the m e a n i n g o f the stem . The p r o b le m for the tenser is that the stem has to be
giv en an in trin sic present tense m e a n i n g and that for th in g s to w o r k out, the past
tense m o r p h e m e m ust s o m e h o w shift the present tense m e a n i n g into the p a st— a
m o n s te r m u st be created. But, at least in E n g lish , m o n ste rs aren’t s u p p o s e d to be
possible.
There is an alternative. It is possible to argue that the b u ild in g b lock analysis o f
tense w a s in e r r o r — that the past tense and present tense do not have a core shared
present tense c o m p o n e n t, but rather that they are both “sim ple” in the sense o f
b e in g sem an tically n o n -d e c o m p o s a b le . In other w o rd s, w h ile it m a y lo ok like ‘w alk ’
and ‘w a lk e d ’ have a shared c o m p o n e n t, ‘w a lk ’, this is illusory: ‘w a lk ’ and ‘w a lk e d ’ are
both sem an tically sim ple; neith er is m o r e basic.
T h i s m ig h t s o u n d ra th er fa n t a s tic fo r a n u m b e r o f r e a s o n s . O n e r e a s o n is
th e s i m p l e fact that it looks like there is a s i m p l e rela tio n b e t w e e n ‘ w a l k ’ and
‘w a l k e d ’ — a p a st tense m o r p h e m e h as b e e n a d d e d . M o r e c o m p e l l i n g than this
s i m p le o b s e r v a t i o n is the fact that w e k n o w the a d d it io n o f the s u f f i x e d ’ is e n ­
tirely p r o d u c t i v e , so y o u k n o w that if th e re is a n e w v e rb , ‘b l u r f ’, w e can fo r m a
past tense b y a d d i n g the e d ’ s u f f i x , y i e l d i n g ‘b l u r f e d ’. Isn't this h o w w e learn
la n g u a g e s so ra p id ly ?
B le v in s ( 2 0 0 6 ) has a rg u e d that d espite this c o m p e lli n g story, th e re is an a lte r­
n ative s t o r y a c c o r d i n g to w h ic h the relation b e tw e e n ‘b l u r f ’ a n d ‘b lu r fe d ’ is not
c o m p o s it i o n a l but rath er is u n d e r s t o o d a n a lo gic a lly. H ere is the idea: the p re se n t
and p a s t tense (a n d future tense) fo r m s are all s e m a n t ic a lly sim p le , so that the
past tense is not c o m p o s e d out o f the p re se n t tense fo r m a n d a past tense m o r ­
p h e m e . R a th er, the two fo r m s are related a n a lo gic a lly . We h av e le a r n e d that
f o r m s that en d in ‘e d ’ are t y p ic a lly past tense v e r s io n s o f the fo rm s that lack the

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ed’. So, fo r e x a m p le , a lth o u g h ‘w a l k ’ a n d ‘ w a l k e d ’ are both s e m a n t ic a lly sim p le ,

w e h a v e l e a r n e d that the latter is the past tense v e r s io n o f the f o r m e r (a n d vice
v e rs a ). W h e n w e e n c o u n t e r a n e w verb , su ch as ‘blear, w e a c c o r d i n g ly reason
a n a lo g ic a lly : i f w e w a n t to fo rm a n e w v e rb that is the past tense c o u n t e r p a r t o f
‘b le a l’, w e p re d ic t that the c o rre c t fo r m w ill be ‘ b le a le d ’. O f co u rse , w e c o u ld be
w r o n g . P e rh a p s the c o r r e c t f o r m is ‘ b lealt’ ( a n a lo g o u s w ith ‘d e a lt’) or ‘ blole’
(a n a lo g o u s w ith ‘stole’).
A s the articles in B levin s and Blevin s (200 9 ) illustrate, there are c o m p e llin g
a rg u m e n ts in favor o f the analogical s t o r y for a b road range o f linguistic c o n s tr u c ­
tions, and indeed for h u m a n cognition generally. In the specific case o f tense, as
Blevins (2 0 0 6 ) o b serves, the analogical account m ak e s sense o f facts in v o lv in g la n ­
guages r a n g in g from Latin to Saam i, Eston ian , and G e o r g ia n . The Latin case is illus­
trated by M a th e w s (1991):

C o n s i d e r n e x t the o p p o s i t io n b e tw e e n the Future P articip le (A c t iv e ) and the

Past Particip le (P assiv e). F o r a Verb like am o ‘to love’, the latter is b a s e d o n a
s te m am at- ( N o m i n a t i v e S in g u la r M a s c u l i n e am at-u-s). The f o r m e r is based
c o r r e s p o n d i n g l y o n am atur- ( N o m in a t i v e S in g u la r M a s c u l i n e am atur-u-s). But
w h a t is the relation b e tw e e n them ? In term s o f lo r m a t iv e s , the Future A c tiv e
am atur- s e e m s to d e riv e fro m am at- by the a d d itio n o f -ur-. Or, as an ancient
g r a m m a r i a n w o u ld have put it, am aturus c o m e s fro m am atus b y the c h a n g e o f
-s to -rus. But there is n o sense in w h ic h the m e a n i n g o f the F u tu re A c tiv e
P articip le in c lu d e s that o f the Past P a s siv e Participle. F o r m a lly , am dt-ur-
in c lu d e s am at-. But in m e a n i n g all they have in c o m m o n is that both are
P articip le s, (p. 2 0 0 )

B le v in s ( 2 0 0 6 , p. 533) c o n c lu d e s that “ the p ro b lem . . . is o n e o f a s s ig n in g a

‘d iscrete m e a n i n g ’ to a m a t ” a n d “ the p ro b le m o n ly arises w h e n o n e th in k s o f am at
as a ‘m i n i m u m u n it’ fro m w h ic h fu tu re active and past p a rtic ip le s are C O N ­
S T R U C T E D . ” B le v in s g o e s on to note that le a d in g m o r p h o lo g is t s like A n d e r s o n
(1992) and A r o n o f f (1994) have o b s e r v e d the p r o b le m s w ith id e n tify in g a c o m m o n
s e m a n tic (or sy n ta c tic or p h o n o lo g ic a l) unit to id en tify w ith the tense m o r p h e m e s
in these cases. In a nutshell, e x a m p le s like these s u p p o r t the idea that w o r d
m e a n i n g is m o r e b a sic a n d the m o r p h o lo g ic a l units are the p r o d u c t s o f analysis.
A s B le v in s pu ts it,

T h e descrip tive challenges raised by inflection classes, lexical classes and m o r p h e ­

m ic stem s illustrate different facets o f a single p h e n o m e n o n . In each case, an
analysis that takes a larger form as the basis for abstracting sm aller f o rm s avoids
difficulties that arise i f the sm aller fo rm s are taken as the basis for d e r iv in g the
larger form s, (p. 533)

I f this is right, then it w o u ld b e reason ab le to su gg est that the past tense in a case
like (11) is not built from a present tense stem and a past tense m o r p h e m e , but rather
that the w o rd ‘r o a m e d ’ is the basic unit o f se m an tic analysis. It has an inherent past-
tensed verb.
The prob lem is that this type o f apparent shifting p h e n o m e n o n does not m erely
arise internal to w ord structure.

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6. S e q u e n c e of T ense and D ouble

A spect R ea d in g s

H ig g in b o th a m (200 9 ) has used the p h e n o m e n a o f se q u en ce o f tense (S O T ) and

dual aspect readings (L)AR) to press the case against o p e ra to r theories o f tense and
on b e h a lf o f anaphoric/referential theories (theories that in effect utilize the
B-series).'1 W hile H ig g in b o th a m takes his target to be operator theories o f tense, I
th in k the target is really m u ch b r o a d e r — the target is really any th e o ry that fails to
reduce tense to relative tem p oral positions on a B-series.
First o f all, c o n s id e r the D A R rea d in g o f (15).

(15) G ia n n i said that M a r ia is pregnant.

N o tice that there is no rea d in g o f an utterance o f (15) in w h ic h M a r i a s entire

p r e g n a n c y is future to G i a n n i s utterance. She m ust be pregn an t at the tim e o f
G i a n n i s utterance (even if G i a n n i correctly predicts M a r i a s pregn an cy, an utterance
o f (15) is infelicitous if M a r y isn’t pregnant at the tim e o f G i a n n i s utterance). Thus,
it looks like the present tense m e a n in g o f ‘ is pregnant* has been shifted into the past,
and H ig g in b o th a m suggests that this is su p p o r t for the idea that the events are
chained in a te m p o ra l o rder on the B-series: before the utterance o f (15) there was
an utterance event by G ia n n i, and at the tim e o f G i a n n i s utterance event, M a r ia s
p r e g n a n c y holds (tenselessly).
O n the other h an d , it also m ust be co n c e d e d that an utterance o f (15) asserts
that M a r ia is still pregn an t at the time o f that utterance. But if this is right, then it
isn’t entirely clear that the present tense has been shifted into the past. For exam ple,
it d o e sn ’t seem an utterance o f (15) w ou ld be felicitous i f G ia n n i uttered ‘.Maria is
p re g n an t’ last m on th just se c o n d s befo re M a r ia s g iv in g birth. But w h y w o u ld n ’t it be
felicitous i f the tense has been shifted as on H ig g in b o th a m ’s proposal?
A n alternative story w ou ld be that G ia n n i and w h o e v e r is uttering (15) share a
particular specious present (as in the usual interpretation o f the English sentence
‘ Hubble said the U niverse is e x p a n d i n g ) . O n e w a y o f thinking o f this is that the event
o f M aria’s pregn an cy is present (in an exp and ed specious present) even w h ile the
event o f G ia n n i’s re m a rk in g on the p regn an cy is in the past relative to our egocentric
perspective. This avoids the nesting problem for genuine tenses by optin g for a kind o f
conjunction o f tenses, w h ich strikes m e as fairly coherent in this instance.
H ig g in b o th a m presses b a c k against such a view, a rg u in g o f the ‘M a r ia is p r e g ­
nan t’ clause that it “cannot m atch in content a n y speech o f G i a n n i s in w h ich the
(alleged) situation o f M aria’s [continued?] p r e g n a n c y is future to that speech.” By
this, H ig g in b o th a m m e a n s that w h ile G ia n n i m a y have thought the p re g n a n c y
w o u ld co ntin ue (and p e rh a p s he h ad to have thought that it w o u ld co ntin ue for an
utterance o f (15) to be true), the content exp ressed by an utterance o f “ M a r y is p r e g ­
nan t” does not get at that future tensed thought. But su rely G ia n n i could h ave used
the sp ecio u s present in sp e a k in g o f M a r ia ’s p r e g n a n c y (how could he not have?), in
w h ich case there is no problem o f content m ism atch.

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I think that greater difficulties are raised by the S O T cases, w h ic h are also dis­
cu ssed by Sm ith ( 19 7 5 ,1 9 7 8 ) , L a d u s a w (1977), D o w t y (1982), En^ (1987), H ornstein
(1990), A b u s c h (1997), and G io r g i and P ianesi (1997), a m o n g m a n y others. C o n s id e r
the contrast betw een (16) and (17):

(16) G ia n n i said that M a r ia w a s ill.

(17) G ia n n i saw a w o m a n w h o w as ill.

There is a rea d in g o f (17), not fo u n d in (16), in w h ic h the w o m a n w a s just re­

cently ill (p erh aps well after G ia n n i sa w her). The question is w h y this rea d in g isn’t
available with (16) a n d it app ears that w h at w e have is a case o f o b lig a to ry S O T — the
internal past tense operator in “ M a r ia was ill” has to be shifted b ack to the tim e o f
G i a n n i s utterance or before. L a d u s a w (1977) and D o w t y (1982) th o u g h t that this
rea d in g could be p ragm atically d erived, but not p e rsu a siv ely in the v ie w o f H i g g i n ­
b otham a n d others. To see the difficulty o f the p ra g m a tic strategy, co n sid er (16')
w h ere w e h ave set up the context to favor a fo r w a r d - lo o k in g reading:

(16') The a m a z in g fortuneteller G ia n n i said that M a r ia was ill.

This still se em s to require that M a r ia s b e in g ill m ust shift back at least to the
tim e o f G i a n n i ’s sp eak in g , even though pragm atically it is salient that he sh o u ld be
in the b usin ess o f m a k in g p rogn ostications. We just d o n ’t extract the m e a n i n g that
M a ria w o u ld b e ill b etw een the tim e o f G i a n n i s utterance and the tim e o f utterance
o f (16 '). Thus, the co n ju n ctiv e tense sto ry I p ro p o se d for D A R cases does not seem
to w o r k here. O n the other h a n d , it m ust be o b serv ed that H ig g in b o t h a m ’s shifted
tense sto ry does not w o rk all that well either. C o n s i d e r (18).

(iS) The a m az in g fortuneteller G ia n n i said that M a ria will be ill.

N otice that M a r ia s illness m ust n o w be future to the tim e o f utterance o f (18),

b ut on H ig g in b o t h a m ’s sto ry it sh o uld be possib le for the illness to be any time
future to G i a n n i s utterance.
Suffice it to say that both D A R and S O T cases are subtle en o u g h so that it is hard
to d r a w stro n g c o n c lu sio n s from the available data, and both d e m a n d fu rth e r in v es­
tigation b efo re their co n se q u e n c e s in the tenser/detenser debate can be assessed.

7. C o n c lu sio n

It m a y have c o m e as a su rp rise that a sim ple ch oice in the se m an tic s o f tense can
have such far-reach ing co n seq uen ces. The ch oice betw een b e in g tensers and d e te n s­
ers not only has co n seq u en ces for what our th e o r y o f tense looks like, it also has
co n se q u e n ce s for the m etap hysics o f tim e (m u st w e be presentists?) and the p h ilo s­
o p h y o f language (m ust tem p oral in d exicals b e rebuilt at e v e r y instant?), a n d — not
least— it forces us to co nfron t the nature o f m o n sters in K ap lan’s se n s e .’’ The tenser/
detenser ch oice m a y even have co n seq u en ces for w h eth er we think o f the relation

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betw een verbal fo rm s as b e in g c o m p o s itio n a l or analogical, and this could well have
an im p a c t on the m e c h a n ic s o f our logic o f tense.6 The nature o f these co n seq u en ces
are o n ly just n o w b e g in n in g to be explored.

NOTES

1. “ The sentence g iv in g the truth c o n d itio n s o f a sentence o f an object lan gu age, the
la n g u a g e u n d e r se m a n tic investigation. It is itself f ra m e d in a ‘m eta la n g u a g e ’, w h ich is
usually in p rin ciple d istin gu ish e d from the object lan gu age in o r d e r to avoid p ro b le m s o f
inconsistency. T -sen ten ces w ere the ly n c h p in o f T a r s k is sem in al investigation into h o w to
give a th e o ry o f truth for a fo rm al language. A T -sc n tc n c c takes the fo rm o f a biconditional:
‘S ’ is true in L i f and o n l y i f p. H ere ‘S ’ n a m e s a sentence o f the o b ject lan gu age L, and p is
substituted by a sentence in the m eta la n g u a g e that translates it. Such a sentence is c x tcn -
sional, in the sense that it will be true provid ed the sentence S h a s the sa m e truth value as
the p roposition p. But c o n d it io n s m a y be placed on the w a y the T -sen ten ce is d erived in a
fo rm al sem antic theory, that do s o m e t h i n g to en su re that the b icond ition al in fact gives a
satisfacto ry a c c o u n t o f the m e a n in g o f S.” (w w w .a n sw e r s.c o m /to p ic / t-se n te n c e , retrieved
A u g u s t 2, 2 0 1 0 ) . — Editor.
2. “ The sim plest fo rm u latio n [ o f the d isq u o ta tio n a l th eo ry o f truth) is the claim that
e x p ressio n s o f the fo rm ‘S is true’ m ean the s a m e as e x p r e ssio n s o f the form S.” (www.
an s w e rs.c o m / to p ic / d is q u o ta tio n a l-th e o r y -o f-tr u th , retrieved A u g u s t 2, 2 0 10 ). — Editor.
3. E -type theories o f an aph ora take anaphors to be “stan ding p r o x y ” for definite
descriptions. Thus anaphors are not devices o f reference, but rather devices o f quantification.
4. F o r in fo r m a tio n on the relevant linguistic p h e n o m e n a , see Hatav, O gih ara &
S harvit, this v o lu m e .— Editor.
5. It m a y also have c o n se q u e n c e s for the linguistic treatment o f e m b e d d e d tenses and
s o m e types o f b o u n d anaphors. (See Hatav, O g ih a r a & S harvit, this v o lu m e .) — Editor.
6. N o t to m en tio n for m o r p h o s y n t a x . (On c o m p osition ality, see V erk u y l, and on
m o r p h o lo g y , see D eo , both this v o l u m e . ) — Editor.

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R e ic h e n b a c h , II. (1956). The direction o f time. L o s A ngeles: U n iversity o f C a lifo rn ia Press.
Schlenker, P. (2003). A plea for m onsters. Linguistics and Philosophy , 26, 2 9 - 1 2 0 .
Sklar, L. (1974). Space, time, and spacetime. Berkeley: U niversity o f C a lifo r n ia Press.
S m ith , C. (1975). Ihe analysis o f tense in English. Texas Linguistic Forum , 1, 7 1 - 8 9 .

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S m ith , C. (1978). The s y n t a x and sem an tics o f tem poral e x p ressio n s in English. Linguistics
and Philosophy , 2, 4 3 -9 9 .
Stein, H ., (1968). O n E in s t e in - M in k o w s k i space-tim e. Journal o f Philosophy, 65, 5 -2 3 .
V ik n er, S. (1985). R e ic h e n b a c h revisited: O n e, two, o r three t e m p o ra l relations. Acta
Linguistica H afniensia , 19, 8 1 - 9 8 .
W ebber, B. (1988). Tense as d isco u rse anaphor. Com putational Linguistics , 14, 6 1 - 7 3 .
W illiam s, D. C. (1951). The myth o f passage. The Journ al o f Philosophy, 48, 4 5 7 - 4 7 2 .

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 CHAPTER 2

NARRATOLOGY AND
LITERARY LINGUISTICS

M O N IK A F L U D E R N IK

T h i s chapter focuses on the use o f tense in (m o stly literary) narrative, specifically in

narrative fiction and narrative poetry, and p rin c ip a lly in English, French, and G e r ­
m an literature.1
T h ree clarifications are need ed at the b e g in n in g o f this chapter. The first c o n ­
cerns the use o f the term aspect , w h ic h will refer here to only two types o f aspect,
n a m e ly the im p e rfe c tiv e and the perfective. Specifically, the chapter will be c o n ­
cern ed w ith the progressive tenses in relation to the sim ple present o r past tense in
narratives, and with the R o m a n c e contrast b etw een sim ple and im perfect (e.g.,
French passé sim ple vs. im parfait). This contrast is distinctive in both English and
the R o m a n c e languages as w ell as to s o m e extent in Russian (see C o m r i e 1998, pp.
7 4 - 7 6 ) and is em p lo ye d for crucial narrative a n d /o r literary effects. Fu rth er, I will
note the contrast b etw een the sim ple and p erfect tenses in English as against the
R o m a n c e languages in their m a r k in g o f anteriority and reg ard in g the com pletive
fu n c tio n (“c u rren t relevan ce” or “ present result” — D eclerck, 2006, pp. 3 0 1 - 3 0 7 ) . 2
The seco nd proviso c o n c e rn s the focus on narrative to the exclusion o f d ra m a
and poetry. Tliis follow s fr o m the dearth o f analyses o f tense in p o e t r y and dram a.
The function o f tense and aspect in d r a m a and in p o e tr y has b een a m o o t point in
stvlistics.
4
The third point o f clarification c o n cern s the definition o f w h a t is m eant b y nar-
ratology and literary linguistics. N arratology will here be used b ro a d ly to include all
literary ap p roach es to narrative that use linguistic te r m in o lo g y (in clu d in g the ter­
m in o lo g y o f literary stru ctu ralism ), and specifically the w o rk o f M iek e Bal, S e y ­
m o u r C h a tm a n , C a th e rin e E m m o tt, G é r a r d Genette, D avid H e rm a n , M an fred

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Jah n , G e r a ld Prin ce, M a r ie -L a u r e R yan , Franz Karl Stanzel, a n d others w h o have

b een fo c u s in g on tense as a significant feature o f narrative texts.
The term literary linguistics , ch o sen b y the editor for the title o f this chapter, is
r o u g h ly s y n o n y m o u s with w h a t in the U K is called stylistics (with w h ic h it w ill be
used here interchangeably) or “ language and literature” studies. It will therefore
refer to linguistic analyses o f literary texts co n d u c ted p r im a r ily w ithin a linguistic
p a r a d ig m . In the f r a m e w o r k o f this chapter, literary linguistics and n a rra to lo g y
overlap to a co n sid e rab le extent. In s o m e areas, the m e t h o d o lo g y o f literary lin g u is­
tics m a y b e m o r e em pirical and resort to m o re extensive linguistic analyses than
that o f narratology, and s o m e narrato logical w o r k is given to u sin g linguistic cate­
go ries in a m e ta p h o ric rather than a strictly em p irical m an n e r. (This is true esp e­
cially o f G e n e tte s use o f the term tense.) Basically, one could say that the spirit o f
linguistic n a rra to lo g y is to do a type o f literary study by re so rtin g to linguistics,
w h ile literary linguistics is c o n d u c ted in the spirit o f d o in g linguistics by lo o k in g at
literary texts. B oth “disciplin es” are, how ever, c o n c e rn e d with h ow the texts that
they stud y c o n v e y m e a n in g , and they use linguistic features as a key to open the
secrets o f literary (especially narrative) sem an tics.

i. T e n s e a n d T i m e

O n e reason w h y tense is so crucial in narrative texts relates to the im p o rtan ce o f

tim e for narrative. T im e is a constitutive c o m p o n e n t o f narrative both on the level
o f s t o r y and that o f d isco u rse; time, or the progression o f time, a x io m atic ally defines
narrative in m a n y definitions o f narrativity, i.e., that w h ic h constitutes a narrative.
C on versely, the successive sentences on the page, constituting the su rface structure
o f narrative texts, represent the p a s sin g o f tim e in the rea d in g process a n d — in finite
clauses— contain verbs that are m ark ed for tense.
A lt h o u g h there are m a n y different definitions o f a narrative, one o f the d istin c ­
tive features often attributed to a sto ry is that it contains at least two events in te m ­
p o ral su ccessio n (Prince, 2 0 0 3 ).3 M o re extensive definitions stipulate that the events
h ave to be logically (not m e r e ly tem p orally) linked, that narrative refers to specific
places, agents and actions, that agents have to be h u m an (or a n th r o p o m o r p h iz e d ),
and so on. M o re recently, the evocation o f h u m an w orld e x p erie n c e has been
em ph asized, and possib le w o rld s th eory (Ryan, 1991; R o n e n , 1994) fo re g ro u n d s the
creation o f a w o rld o f h u m a n -lik e a g e n c y and c o n scio u sn ess, a fo rm u la that includes
succession o f actions as a prototypical constituent o f exp erientiality or
w o rld -lik e n ess. Two representative recent definitions are cited here by w a y o f
illustration:

N arrative must be about a world populated by individuated existents. This world

must be situated in time and space and undergo significant transformations. The
transformations must be caused by non-habitual physical events. S o m e o f the
participants in the events must be intelligent agents w h o have a mental life and react

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em otionally to the states o f the world. S o m e o f the events m ust be purposeful actions
by these agents, motivated by identifiable goals and plans. The sequence o f events
must form a unified causal chain and lead to closure. Ih e occurrence o f at least som e
o f the events must be asserted as fact for the story world. The story must c o m m u n i ­
cate so m e th in g m eaningful to the recipient. (Ryan, 2006, p. 8; m y emphasis)
[N arrative is] (i) a m o d e o f representation that is situated i n — m u st be
interpreted in light o f —-a specific d isco u rse context o r o c c asio n for telling. This
m o d e o f representation (ii) fo cu se s o n a structured time-course o f particularized
events. In ad d ition , the events represented (iii) in trod uce s o m e kin d o f disruption
o r disequilibrium into a st o r y w o r ld , w h e t h e r that w o rld is presented as actual or
fictional, realistic o r fantastic, re m e m b e re d o r d re a m e d , etc. rl he representation
also (iv) c o n v c y s w h a t it is like to live through this s t o r y w o r ld -in -f lu x , h i g h ­
lighting the pressure o f even ts on (in other w o rd s, the q u a lia o f) real o r im agin ed
c o n s c io u s n c s s u n d e r g o in g the d isru p tive e x p e r ie n c e at issue. ( H e r m a n , 2 0 0 9 , p.
189; m y e m p h asis)

B oth definitions u n d erlin e the succession o f events a n d therefore the issue o f

ch ron olo gy. O n e o f the reasons w h y p o e try is not usually regard ed as a narrative
genre is precisely its preferen ce for atem p oral sc en arios that d escrib e un iversal, re ­
current, 01* tim eless situations, or m o m e n ts o f tim e that are not an ch o re d in a s p e ­
cific c h r o n o lo g y or a specific point on a calendar.
L inguistic tense also needs to be co n sid e red in relation to time. In the context
o f narrative, three aspects o f tim e stand out. There is (a) tim e as a deictic category
(past vs. present, present vs. future); (b) tim e as c h r o n o lo g y or o rder: the relation o f
b efo re and after; and (c) tim e as extension (punctual vs. ex te n d e d actions). T hese
three categories o f tim e give rise to fo u r categories o f tense as v ie w e d in the light o f
its fu n c tio n s. T im e as a deictic category (a) correlates with deictic tense; tim e as
chronology (b) m anifests itself in tense m a r k in g o f simultaneity, anteriority and p o s ­
teriority; tim e as extension (c) is m a r k e d by tenses sig n ify in g o n g o in g activity vs.
co m p leted or punctual actions or even ts— a catego ry that also involves the c o n s id ­
eration o f A ktion sart (stativity, ingressivity, telicitv, etc.'1). A final, fourth catego ry o f
tense em erges from the fact that tense o c c u r s in d isco urse w h ere attention needs to
be fo c u se d on s o m e elem ents over others. O n e o f the m ost p ro m in e n t fu n c tio n s o f
narrative tense is its use as a m a r k e r o f fo re g r o u n d in g and b a c k g r o u n d in g (H opper,
1979a). Tense is not alone in fulfilling this fu n c tio n ; it can also be p e r f o r m e d by
p r o n o u n s ( E m m o tt, 1999) 01* d isco u rse m a r k e r s (Flu d ern ik , 1991, 1992), by w ord
order and voice (H opper, 1979a, pp. 2 1 9 - 2 3 8 ) ; but tense is pa rticu la rly im p ortan t in
narrative since it tends to put into relief the m a in plot against the s u b s id ia r y plot, to
distinguish actual events from r e m e m b e r e d o r fantasized o ccu rren ces, or to set
apart the real fro m the h ypo th etical or fictive.
T im e as deixis, though apparently the most obvious and simple case, is actually a
very complex alfair in narratives. Temporal deixis involves not only the relationship o f
present to past on the story level: for instance, when characters narrate past experiences—
Ulysses talking to Nausicaa now about leaving Troy then. Temporal deixis also character­
izes the relationship between the act o f narration (now) o f what narratologists call the

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extradiegetic3 narrator, and the narrated events (then): in the case o f the Odyssey , the bard
or narrator is set apart deictically from the experiences o f Ulysses in the (mythic) past.
Deictic tense in addition determines the relationship between earlier and later moments
in the narrative discourse (As / told you h a lf an hour ago/in the follow ing chapter), an
aspect that involves both deixis and chronology. Moreover, temporal deixis affects the
relationship o f narrative discourse to the addressee— the temporal relationship between
the m om en t o f telling and the m om en t o f reception. Since texts arc not face-to-face co n ­
versations, the temporal discrepancy between telling and reading lends itself to a deictic
analysis. As we will see below in the discussion o f the epic preterite (section 3), fictional
texts have a particularly complicated system o f temporal deixis that operates on several
levels and gives rise to a num ber o f semantic effects that are genuinely literary.
We turn now, in section 2, to a d iscu ssio n o f two theorists w ho h ave presented
se m in a l d isc u ssio n s o f tense in narrative. Sectio n 3 contains a d iscu ssio n o f the
issue o f the epic preterite, and section 4 an outline o f fo r e g r o u n d in g and b a c k ­
g r o u n d in g b y m e a n s o f tense. Section 5 w ill d isc u ss the fu n c tio n s o f te m p o ra l shifts
in the m a r k in g o f point o f v ie w a n d o f c h r o n o lo g y as well as for the lin k in g between
plot strands. In section 6, several e x p e rim e n ta l d e p lo y m e n ts o f tense in m ostly
p o s t m o d e r n is t fiction will be discussed. C o n c l u d i n g rem a rk s a p p ea r in the final
section (7).

2. D i s c o u r s v s . H i s t o i r e : F r o m B e n v e n i s t e
t o W e in rich

In his m agisterial Problèm es de linguistique générale (1966), E m ile Ben ven iste dis­
cussed “ The C o rrelation o f Tense in the French Verb” (C h a p te r 19; Benveniste, 1966,
pp. 2 3 7 - 2 5 0 ; 1971, pp. 2 0 5 - 2 1 5 ) . The a rg u m e n t sets out fro m the insight that French
has two tenses to refer to the past, the perfect (passé com posé) and the aorist (passé
sim ple). B en ven iste then outlines the opposition in French b etw een the two system s
o f tense, w h ic h “ s h o w two different planes o f utterance” (p. 2 0 6 ): the system o f d is­
cours (or conversation) and the system o f histoire (or narrative).
The narrative system (called here story m ode6) is reserved in present-day French
for the written language and is defined by the absence o f a speaker (“presented w ith ­
out any intervention o f the speaker in the narration” — p. 206). A c c o rd in g to B e n ­
veniste, sto ry m o d e texts do not em ploy a n a rra to rs je ‘I’ or tu yo u ’ ; they are
incompatible w ith Jakob sons expressive or conative functions. The passé sim ple also
cannot co m b in e with deictic tem poral expressions linked to the here and n o w (*il le
vit m aintenant “ he sa w it n o w ” ). Benveniste m oreover points to the existence o f a
periphrastic future in the past typical o f story m o d e texts (e.g., “ la lutte co m m ercial ne
devait cesser” in Benvenistes example: “ the ec on om ic w ar w ou ld not stop” — p. 207).
In contrast to histoire , texts and utterances in the discours system (in what will
be called here interlocutionary m ode7) c o m e in written and oral fo rm . D iscours

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N A R R A T O L O G Y AND L IT ER A RY LINGUISTICS 79

freely e m p lo y s deictic expressions that refer to sp eaker a n d addressee and to the

n o w o f utterance. The in te rlo c u tio n a ry m o d e has three b asic tenses: “ present, future,
and perfect, all three o f w h ic h are excluded from historical n a r r a t io n 8 (except the
p lu p e rfec t)” (p. 209).
In co n trastin g histoire and discours , B enven iste notes that m any, especially non-
literary, first-person n arratives use the perfect tense (passé com posé) and that such
narratives are typical o f witness reports (p. 2 10 ): “ The p erfect creates a livin g c o n ­
nection b etw een the past event and the present” ; “ the tem p oral location o f the p e r ­
fect is the m o m e n t o f the d isc o u rse w h ile the location o f the aorist is the m o m e n t o f
the event” (p. 210). H ow ever, B e n v en iste has to a d m it an im p o rta n t exception to the
rule, the use o f the passé sim ple in traditional literary first-person narrative, in the
novel (p. 309, n. 14).
B e n v e n is te s m o s t influential dictum about sto ry m o d e , how ever, c o n cern s the
absence o f the narrator:

A s a m atter o f fact, there is then no lo n g e r even a narrator. The events are set
forth c hronologically, as they o c cu rred . N o o n e sp ea ks here; the events see m to
narrate themselves. T h e f u n d a m e n ta l issue is the aorist [passé sim ple ], w h ic h is
the tense o f the event ou tsid e the p erso n o f a narrator, (p. 208)

N ot only is this statement patently false i f o n e co n sid ers the existence o f first-person
narratives in the passé sim ple (as a c k n o w led g e d in footnote 14); the passage also fails
to co n sid er that m a n y novels and no d ou b t historical studies as well contain a dis­
tinct s p e a k e r function w h ich is indeed linked to the system o f discours. W h e n the
historian says that we have argued earlier (en haut nous avons disputé cette thèse) or
that the reader w ill receive clarification in the fo llo w in g chapter (on verra plu s has),
w hat w e have here is precisely the system o f tenses o f the in te rlo c u tio n a ry m o d e , the
discours. How ever, B e n v en iste is correct to note that, in reference to story events in
the past, French written narratives w ithout an im m e d ia te link to the present o f n a r­
ration e m p lo y the F ren ch aorist, and that this tense can n ot gen erally be used in
conversational exch an g e.9
Benvenistes dictum as cited above had a crucial impact on the w o r k o f the A m e r ­
ican scholar A n n Banfield, w h o based her theory o f Unspeakable Sentences (1982) on
this statement o f the n a rrato rs absence from narrative. Narrative sentences, a c c o rd ­
ing to Banfield, are unspeakable because narrative does not have d iscourse features,
and hence there is no speaker in narratives. This thesis10 patently conflicts with the
existence o f oral narration in conversational narratives, w h ic h are after all interlocu-
tional, or in fictional imitations o f such orality. It also flies in the face o f om niscient
novels such as m ost books by Balzac, D ickens, or Tolstoy: in such novels there is a
pro m in en t narrator figure wrho co m m u n ica tes with the narratee or im plied reader.11
Banfields theory w orks best for novels in which the narrative is focalized through a
protagonists m in d — here narratorial discourse does not usually interfere with the
concentration on the fictional w^orld (Fludernik, 1993). Banfields theory in fact does
not have narrative as its m ain focus; it is m o re co ncern ed with the representation o f
characters’ consciousness in free indirect discourse (com pare section 4 below). She

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therefore em phasizes that in the unspeakable sentences o f narrative, p ro x im a l deixis

and other discourse-related elements (evaluative expressions, honorifics, etc.) can be
com bined with narrative tense to signal the protagonists perspective or point o f view.
This com bination can only w o rk in the absence o f discourse, since, in the presence o f
a speaker, such signals w ou ld have to be related to the speaker rather than the co n ­
sciousness o f the protagonist. In the absence o f a speaker, the “deictic center” for such
expressions can be aligned with the protagonist. (I will co m e back to the deictic center
and the conjunction o f p ro x im a l deictics with narrative tense in the next section.)
A s we have seen, the translator o f B en v en iste s b o o k , M a r y Elizabeth M eek,
em ployed the term “ historical narrative” for B en v en iste s récit historique (1966,
p. 242), a translation that raises m o r e p ro b lem s than it solves since h istoriograp hy
does actually contain passages o f discours in the B enven istean sense. The in tro d u c ­
tion o f a n e w te r m in o lo g y (“story m o d e ” and “ interlo cutio nary m o d e ” ) here is
therefore m eant to c larify that Benveniste talks about two en unciational system s
distinguished by their use o f tense: one that focuses on c o m m u n ic a tio n ( discours ),
and one that renders stories with no im m e d ia te im p act on the present o f telling
( histoire, s t o r y m o d e). In specific texts, the two m o d e s are often co m b in e d , for
instance in novels, w h e re the authorial narrator c o m m u n ic a te s with the (im plied)
r e a d e r in the form o f discours , but tells the story o f the protagonist as histoire. The
discours system is then focused on the narrational plane o f the narrative (the level o f
n a r r a to r- n a r r a te e c o m m u n ic a tio n ), w h ile the histoire applies to the representation
o f the plot, the fictional w orld . B e n v e n iste s se m in a l d is c o v e r y re g a rd in g the French
te m p o ra l system therefore allows for a crucial insight into the structure o f fictional
narrative.
B a n fie ld s application o f Benveniste to the analysis o f free indirect discourse
w a r p s B e n v en iste s th e o ry in at least two directions. M o st crucially, o f course, English
does not have an aorist or passé sim ple; to argue that “ narrative” (m uch m o re broadly
conceived than B enven istes histoire) is equivalent to w h at in French is ren d ered in
the passé sim ple im p o s e s a F re n c h te m p o ra l system 011 English texts. M ore o v er, Ban-
field is m o st interested in precisely those passages in the novel which do not h ave the
passé sim ple but the im parfait o f free indirect d iscourse. The technique Banfield
analyses is one w h ich is b a c k g ro u n d ed fro m the s u r r o u n d in g passé sim ple in French
narratives by its use o f the im parfait. The absence o f a speaker (the n o -n a rra to r
hypothesis) is used only to explain the shift in the deictic center from sp eaker to
protagonist; there is no n e c essa ry connection to B e n v e n iste s tem poral system.
What Banfield and all narratologists are therefore doin g is to use a distinction c o n ­
cerning tense in French texts (as outlined by Benveniste) to support an axiomatic divi­
sion between two levels o f narrative, the narration and the story. English and G erm an
tenses do not have the sam e gram m atical distinctions at all, but Benvenistes dichotomy
is taken to have universal validity in the form o f abstract categories o f narrative.
A s it happens, since B en v en iste s story m o d e , w h en used in reference to novels,
refers to the fictional w orld, his d ic h o to m y is often interpreted as nearly s y n o n y ­
m o u s w ith the st o r y vs. d isco urse distinction o f S e y m o u r C h a t m a n (19 7 8 )— histoire
(story m o d e narrative) represents the story, plot, or fictional world, w h erea s discours

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NA RR AT OL OG Y AND L IT ER A RY LINGUISTICS 8l

(interlocutional m o d e ) renders the narrative on the d isco urse level o f narrative. This
alignm en t b etw ee n B e n v en iste and n a r r a to lo g y o b scu res the fact that the narrative
discourse, i.e., the w o r d s on the page, contains both the narration an d the story in
one text [récit), since d isco urse in the sto ry/d isco u rse opposition m e a n s “ text” and
not exclusively c o m m u n ic a tio n . It is doubtful w h eth e r B e n v e n is te s th e o ry o f the
two tem p oral system s has a n y special relevan ce for literature as such or in d eed for
narrative. We will en co u n ter the sa m e p ro b le m with W einrich. The c o n fu sio n about
discours and d isc o u rse m o r e o v e r suggests that a translation into English o f B e n ­
venistes discours as d isco urse is m islea d in g . H istoire and discours do not have a one-
to-one relation to the sto ry /d isco u rse dichotomy.
In the s e c o n d h a lf o f his article B en ven iste turns to the co m p osite tenses o f
French. E v e ry sim ple fo rm has an eq uivalen t co m p o site p erfect fo rm , and these
c o m p o site perfects h ave two fu n c tio n s— that o f a c c o m p lis h m e n t (aspectual perfec-
tivity) and that o f the m a r k in g o f a n te rio rity :12

il écrit il a écrit
il écrivait il avait écrit
il écrivit il eut écrit
il écrira il aura écrit (Benveniste, 1971, p. 212)

Let us turn n o w to W einrich w h o , in his b o o k Tem pus (1964/1985), classifies

te m p o ra l inflection as “obstinate m arking,” n o tin g that texts co ntin ue to repeat t e m ­
poral inflections rather than m a r k in g tim e on ce and for all as one does for dates or
setting. W einrich then d istin gu ish es b etw een the tense g ro u p s ( T em pu s-G ru ppen ),
w h ich he calls Besprechen (“ to d iscu ss” ) un d Erzählen (“ to narrate” ). Tense gro u p I
(present, perfect, future [and future II in G e r m a n ] ) is to be characterized as d is c u s s ­
ing tenses ( discursive tenses m ig h t be a better tra n sla tio n 13), w h ile tense gro u p II
(preterite, pluperfect, co n d itio n al [and co n d itio n al II in G e r m a n ] ) co rre sp o n d s to
the n a r r a tin g tenses. W e in rich then d istin gu ish es betw een two attitudes to w ard the
content o f the text that is rendered in the two tem p oral sy ste m s— an attitude o f d is­
cussion or analysis, and an attitude o f relaxed narra tio n . He p ro c ee d s to n a m e this
attitude “ Sprech perspektive” (“enunciative persp ective” ). He illustrates the o c c u r ­
rence o f d iscu rsive tenses in fiction (e.g., in the o p e n in g o f s o m e stories by E d ga r
A llan P o e — 1985, p. 46; here the short sto ry imitates oral d eliv ery o f the tale) a n d the
use o f the preterite o f the n a rra tio n a l tense system in a novel set in the future (H e r ­
m an n H e sse s G lasperlenspiel ( The Glass B ea d G am e} — 1985, p. 48).
Besid es d ealin g with the two tense system s (W e in richs analysis is here v e r y
close to B en v en iste s), W einrich also in tro d uces two fu r th e r central notions, that o f
reliefing (R eliefgebung) and that o f T em pus-M etaphorik (“ tense m e t a p h o r ” ). Relief-
ing c o n c e rn s the fo re g r o u n d in g o f s o m e verb fo rm s against others and especially
c o n c e rn s the R o m a n c e aspectual difference b etw een the sim ple past fo rm s a n d the
im perfect (w h ich, in E n g lish , often c o rr e s p o n d s to the pro gressive tense). ( C o m ­
pare b elo w in section 4.) A typical co n ju n ctio n o f passé sim ple and im parfait occurs
in the s c h e m a o f in cid en ce w h e n one c o n tin u in g p ro cess o r activity is interrupted
by an u n ex p ec ted or im p in g in g action or ev e n t.14

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W e in rich s notion o f tense m e ta p h o r is his m o st in n o v a tiv e contribution. It c o n ­

nects w ith his insight into tense as an obstinate signal. Since tense inflections are
used to insist on the contin uity o f a given perspective, it is the shift in tenses that is
se m a n tic a lly significant. Thus, im parfait -> passé sim ple m a y signal a shift from
b a c k g r o u n d to fo re g ro u n d , p a sse sim ple -> pluperfect a shift fro m the given te m p o ­
ral level to an anterior one. I f a sequ en ce o f tenses c o m b in e s two types o f shift (a
shift betw een d iscu ssio n and narration and a shift between c h ro n o lo g ic a l levels or
between fo r e g r o u n d and b a c k g ro u n d ), th en — a c c o rd in g to W c in r ic h — we are d o u ­
bly alerted to an i m p e n d in g se m an tic effect; the additional fo r e g r o u n d in g o f the
d ou b le shift helps to im ply n e w m e a n in g s. A d v e r b s in o d d c o m b in a tio n s a d d itio n ­
ally se rv e in the fu n c tio n o f a shift. For instance, the co m b in a tio n o f now w ith the
past p ro gressive in the context o f a narrative in the past tense constitutes a double
shift and m a y signal the onset o f free indirect d isco u rse. The historical present tense
and the h isto rio g ra p h ic future tense are also exam ples o f m etap h o rical tense usage
(1985, pp. 1 9 2 - 1 9 3 ) .
W ein rich s theses h ave been im m e n se ly influential in G e r m a n and French lit­
era ry scholarship, especially in the narratological analysis o f free indirect discourse.
W e in ric h s m o d el is m uch m o r e com p lex than Benven istes, and he is m o re centrally
co n ce rn ed with literary narrative. In a sense, W einrich co m b in e s the two axes o f
Ben ven iste (discours!histoire rou gh ly co rre sp o n d s to W e in rich s Besprechen/Erzählen ;
relational tense in Benveniste [anteriority— sim ultaneity— posteriority] is the third
category in W einrich). W e in rich s second axis o f reliefing is implicit in Benveniste.
W h ere W einrich in a significant m a n n e r goes b e y o n d Benveniste is in his notion o f
tense m etaphor, since he here m a n a g e s to add a sem iotic fu n ctio n a l perspective and
also allows one to explain p h e n o m e n a like free indirect d iscourse as c o m b in a to ry
m etaphorical tense shifts.

3. T h e E p i c P r e t e r i t e

The so-called epic preterite is a terminological invention o f Kate H a m b u r g e r s ( H a m ­

burger, 1957/1968, pp. 5 9 -8 4 ; in English 1993, pp. 6 4 -9 8 ). H a m b u rg e rs central thesis
concerns the atcmporality o f the past tense in narrative— what Weinrich w a s to c o n ­
sider the relaxation o f imm ediate present relevance in his narrational tense group. The
past tense o f literary narrative has lost its deictic significance; it can be used to refer to
the future (as in O rw ell’s 1984 , originally published in 1949), and it can com bine with
p ro x im a l deictics like now or tom orrow , which are otherwise banned from past time
reference. The main thrust o f H a m b u r g e r s argum ent focuses on the seco nd case, as
instanced in the sentence M orgen w ar W eihnachten (literally: “ T o m o r ro w was C h ris t­
m as D a y ” ; H am burger, 1968, p. 65).15 H am b u rger contrasts first-person narrative with
third-person narrative and sees first-person texts as “ Wirklichkeitsaussagen” (state­
m ents about the real world), while third-person texts are fictional statements that have
no reference to the real world. H a m b u r g e r s term epic preterite characterizes the

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cotemporality (or n on-d eictic quality) o f the preterite o f narration— a stance that ap­
pears v ery co n vin cin g for English and G e r m a n but possibly quite counterintuitive for
the R o m a n c e languages, where the use o f the passé sim ple does c a rry a strong deictic
load, though it m a y be a load o f distality rather than temporal pastness. H a m b u rg e rs
thesis w a s strongly contested by Franz Karl Stanzel in an exchange o f articles between
the two critics (H am burger, 1953, 1955, 1965; Stanzel, 1959). Stanzel pointed out that
there is first-person fictional narrative (like D ickens’s Great Expectations) and that the
combination o f pro xim al deictics with the epic preterite could also be o b served in
first-person texts. Stanzel then dem onstrated that the conjunction o f tense and adverb
that H am bu rger focused on w as not a signal o f fictionality but o f focalization through
a protagonist s m in d , and that it occurs in those narratives which are written from the
perspective o f a character (Stanzel’s figurai narrative situation— 1984, pp. 14 1 - 1 8 4 ) . In
such texts, there is often a pred om inance o f free indirect discourse, and indeed it is
within passages o f free indirect discourse that the combination o f now and past tense/
G e r m a n preterite occurs m ost frequently. Followed to its logical conclusion, this
insight w ou ld mean that H a m b u r g e r s epic preterite corresponds to the French im par­
fa it in free indirect discourse and does not refer to a specifically narrative tense.
H ow ever, one can take H a m b u r g e r s thesis in another direction, as does Wein-
rich, by generally focussing on the narrational stance o f the past tense in narrative.
The past tense, as Stanzel (1959) observes, m a y not be a fully deictic past tense in rela­
tion to the readers’ here and n o w at the point o f reception, but those novels that do
have a prom inent narrator figure often introduce a deictic relationship into the text
between the here a n d n o w o f the n arrato rs discourse and the there-and-then o f the
story-w orld. In first-person narratives, such a relationship is fully deictic; in third-
person narratives, the “ past” is m etaphorical; it is distal fr o m the act o f narration, but
since the temporal relationship between the telling and the story often rem ain s ind ef­
inite, its quality o f a fully deictic past reference is significantly bleached or dim inished.
Even if o ne does not agree with the above argum ent, however, one can go on to c o n ­
sider the reduced past deixis o f the preterite in fiction to be a consequen ce o f indeter­
minate temporal reference on the one hand and the concentration on characters’
perspective and consciousness on the other. Moreover, taking account o f the fra m in g
o f literary narrative as fiction could help to account for its reduced pastness value.
W h at is perhaps m o re interesting, though, is the fact that since the late nineteenth
century, the present tense has b eg u n to com pete with the fictional preterite as the main
tense in so m e narratives. Such present-tense narration foregrounds the fictive quality
o f the text in an even m o re forceful manner, since the present in such texts clearly does
not refer to the readers present o f reception but relates to the sam e virtual m o m en t o f
time unanchored in the here and now that already characterized the epic preterite. As
Petersen (1992) has demonstrated, the extended use o f the present tense in fiction goes
back to nineteenth-century novels that increasingly em ployed vignettes o f several
pages or even w hole chapters in the present tense, e.g., Charles Dickens’s A Tale o f Two
Cities (1859). In twentieth-century literature m a n y novels use the present tense as the
main narrative tense; English exam ples include D avid M a l o u f s A n Im aginary Life
(1978), J. M . Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), and Sebastian B a r r y ’s A n n ie D unne (2002).

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The narrative present as the m ain tense used to render the story o f a novel has to be
distinguished from several other uses o f the present tense in narrative, such as the his­
torical present tense, which occurs in v ery brief passages and usually serves to heighten
the suspense at a particular m om en t o f the story.16 There also is the gnom ic present > a
deictic present tense referring to universal truths that are relevant to the audience as well
as to the fictional characters, for example “ Life, as he began in time to see it, is the twin
consciousness, jostling you, hindering you, but with which, at unexpected m om ents, it
is possible to comm unicate in ways both animal and delicate’ (from Patrick W hites V ie
Solid M andala; cited in Collier, 1992, p. 200). O n e can also mention the tabular present
or present o f description, which appears in ekphrastic (roughly, descriptive) passages
and serves the function o f halting the flow o f the narrative to provide a pause.17
The issue o f the epic preterite, one concludes, is one that touches on the p r a g ­
matics o f literary narrative. To the extent that a narrative is a fiction, it is not deicti-
cally anch ored in the here and n o w o f the author and reader, and as a result its
tem p oral deixis b e c o m e s u n m o o r e d from real life. It is u n d er these fra m e conditions
that the past tense o f narrative acquires a quality o f fictional reference that m a y be
read as a m a rk er o f (fictional) narrative. M o re precisely, perhaps, one could argue
that the past tense o f narrative preserves its distality in relation to the present o f
rea d in g (and, if it is a novel with a n arrato r figure, the present o f narratorial c o m m u ­
nication). Present-tense novels achieve a sim ilar kind o f distality by using the p r e ­
sent in situations that are illogical, physically im p ossib le or strange, as in the o p e n in g
o f the s t o r y “ B o d y o f W o rk ” : “ I am pregnant the first time I’m asked to do a trainin g
session on co rp o ratio n s” (Small, 1991, p. 3 0 ) .18 See also the first sentence o f “ N o Exit” :
“A m an is w o r k in g in a c in e m a ” (Sm ith, 2008, p. 116). B y im p o s in g a storytelling
fra m e on the text, the present tenses acquire plot-related telicity even w h ere the verb
in and by itself or the present tense as such w o u ld suggest duration, static existence
in space, n o n - m o v e m e n t or a reference to the present situation (is working). The first
tim e in the sentence quoted ab ove w o u ld require a past tense; a m an (rather than the
m an) works rather than is working: the w a y the present tense is used in these e x a m ­
ples distances it fro m fam iliar collocational patterns and therefore introduces the
discontin uity that p ro d u ce s the “ep ic” feel that is equivalent to the epic preterite.

4. F o r eg r o u n d in g and Ba c k g r o u n d in g
and O th er Per sp ec tiv a l Uses of Tem poral

Sh ift in g in N a r r a t iv e

G r o u n d i n g has been an im p o rtan t subject both in n a rra to lo g y and in linguistics.

Here we will concentrate solely on fo re g r o u n d in g in reference to n arra tiv e.1'1 In n a r­
rative, fo re g r o u n d in g m o s t often c o n c e rn s the em p h asis on the plotline as against
certain b a c k g r o u n d m aterial. W einrich’s reliefing fu n ctio n o f the passé sim ple
against the im parfait is a clear case o f g ro u n d in g . ’Ih e passé sim ple clarifies w h ich

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events are considered crucial in terms o f narrative progression, and simultaneous

incidental material is shifted into the background. Foregrounding need not be
achieved by m eans o f tense, how ever— word order (cf. Hopper, 1979a, pp. 2 2 1-2 2 2 )
and saliency (Hopper and Thom pson, 1980; Longacre 1981, 1989) m a y be used.
Prom inence and plot sequentiality, however, need not be s y n o n y m o u s — plot may
be foregrounded by means o f tense or word order, but there is no gram m atical re­
quirement that verbs in narrative clauses will always be salient.
The notion o f foregrounding combines two aspects that often coincide but are
not entirely synonym ou s. On the one hand, as in Weinrich, the foregrounded ele­
ments stand out like figures to the (back)ground (cf. Talmy, 1978); on the other
hand, foregrounded elements are salient in terms o f informational value or rele­
vance; they can then be single items and need not be part o f a series 01* sequence.
Besides the foregrounding o f the plotline o f a narrative by means o f tense and
aspect, tense alternation is used widely in narrative for a variety o f purposes, many
o f which could be argued to have a reliefing or foregrounding function. In ex p eri­
mental postm odernist novels, for instance, present-tense versus past-tense alterna­
tion often serves to distinguish plot strands, correlates with the alternation between
first- and third-person narrative, or with a distinction between real events (in terms
o f the fictional world) and m em ories, fantasies, or dreams. Thus, in M ichael Ignati-
efFs novel Scar Tissue (1993), the m em ories that the first-person narrator has o f his
mother, w ho is suffering from dementia, are rendered in the present tense: they are
vignettes, m om ents o f time that emerge from the past. In David Leavitts 77te Indian
Clerk (2007), a novel about the Southern Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa
Ram anujan, the first-person sections with G . M. Hardy as narrator are in the past
tense, the third-person omniscient sections in the present tense. A lthough most
readers would presum ably fail to notice the shift in tense, it nevertheless underlines
the two different points o f view that the novel combines. Such alternations o f tense
occu r on a m acrostructural level o f a text and contrast fairly long segm ents.20
Tense alternation is particularly prominent also on the microstructural level,
between sentences or clauses. As noted earlier, utterances by the narrator persona
often interrupt the presentation o f the fictional world and thus com m ent on the flow
o f events. Such evaluative, moralistic, or philosophical (gnomic) com m ents are
salient also on account o f their use o f the present tense; one might even argue that the
use o f the present marks them as interventions into the narrative. In the following
passage, the narrator moves from a depiction o f Rom olas consciousness to a gnom ic
statement (highlighted in italics), which is in turn reapplied to her special situation:

R o m o l a w as so d eep ly m o v e d by the g r a n d energies o f S avo n aro la’s nature, that

she f o u n d h e r s e l f listen in g patiently to all d o g m a s and prop hecies, w h en they
c a m e in the vehicle o f his ardent faith and believin g utterance.
No soul is desolate as long as there is a hum an bein gJo r whom it can fe e l trust
and reverence. R o m o l a s trust in S a vo n aro la w a s s o m e t h in g like a rope su sp en d ed
s e c u re ly b y h er path, m a k i n g h e r step elastic while she g r a sp e d it; i f it were
s u d d e n ly rem o v e d , no firm n ess o f the g r o u n d she trod co uld save her from
staggerin g, or p erh a p s from falling. ( Rom ola , ch. 44, en d ; Eliot, 1986, pp. 4 6 4 - 4 6 5 )
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Weinrichs example o f the “ imparfait de rupture” m en tion ed above (note 14) is

another case o f a foregrounded tense form , in this case m a rk in g the prospection to
a later point in time.
Small-scale tense shifts are particularly notable in three areas: the historical
present tense, especially in conversational narrative; the representation o f speech
and thought, especially the interior m on olog u e and free indirect discourse; and in
so m e experim ental novels where the function o f the tense shifts is difficult to explain
despite being a prom inent feature o f the text.
The historical present tense in conversational narratives occurs often in single
sentences or even clauses— unlike m ore extensive literary instances (see Wolfson,
1982; Johnstone, 1987). A lthough the p u rpose o f the temporal shift is traditionally
given as vivification or greater liveliness (Fries, 1970), there have m eanwhile been
other explanations. F ludernik (1991) has argued that the historical present occurs at
key points o f the narrative episode and thus helps to underline the plotline versus
off-plotline distinction.
Tense also plays a crucial role in the representation o f speech and thought in nar­
rative. Most prominently, in the context o f past-tense narrative, interior m onologues—
preponderantly in the present tense— stand out as salient passages:

H is [ B lo o m ’s| lids c a m e d o w n on the lo w e r rim s o f his irides. C a n ’t see it. I f you

im a g in e its there you can alm o st see it. C a n ’ t see it.
He faced about and, sta n d in g b etw een the aw n in g s, held out his right h a n d at
a r m ’s length tow ards the sun. ( Ulysses; Joyce, 1986, p. 136)

W hile in this case there is a simple shift from past to present and back to the past,
in free indirect discourse, tem poral shifts are m uch m ore com plex. W einrich has
s u b s u m e d free indirect d iscou rse u n d er the category o f tem p oral metaphor,
thereby sig n a lin g that the reader is alerted to a special m e a n in g o f free indirect
d iscou rse passages by m ea n s o f a double, temporal and aspectual, shift. Thus, in
the follow ing passage, the sim ple past tense shifts into the conditional, w h ic h is
actually the past tense o f can , in order to signal that the argum en t belongs to
those readers w ho are reacting to M o o r e s pacifist statements against the pro -w ar
p rop ag an d a in church:
It w as, I [Hardy] thought, a brilliant m o v e , in that it threw into relief the [ C a m ­
bridge] C o u n c i l s h y p o c r is y : how, after all, could an institution that claim e d to be
built on C h ris tia n d o c tr in e su ppress an organ ization that w as striving for peace?
(Leavitt, 2 0 0 8 , p. 262; free indirect d isc o u rse un d erlin ed )

A lthough temporal metaphor (in Weinrichs term inology) plays an important role
in signaling free indirect discourse, tense alone cannot be argued to signify speech
or thought representation; rather, it is either the combination with syntactic features
(here the interrogative clause), or with expressive elements like interjections or the
reported sp eak ers evaluative stance, and, m ore generally, the pragmatic context that
together result in the reading o f certain passages as free indirect discourse (cf. F lu d ­
ernik, 1993). Tense is therefore m erely a contributing factor rather than, by itself, a
reliable signal o f free indirect discourse.21

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The title o f this section distinguishes between groun din g and tense alternation.
This differentiation needs to be m ade because tense often serves as a m eans o f fore-
or backgrounding, but in the case o f speech and thought presentation or in some
novels’ shift between tenses (and pronouns), the distinction between passages o f
one or the other tense no longer consists in a figure/ground or foreground/back­
ground function but is open to readers’ interpretations. Possibly, it is the shift from
one tense to the next at the b o u n d a ry o f such passages that alerts the reader to a new
perspective or simply encourages a different way o f reading what follows.
Such unregulated/irregular instances o f tense alternation are particularly
prominent in som e m ore experimental novels; their patterns resist easy explanation
or classification. I have discussed two such texts at length (Susan Sontag’s The Vol­
cano Lover and Michael Ondaatjcs The English Patient) (Fludernik, 1996b, pp. 2 6 4 -
266; Fludernik, 2003a). W hereas in The English Patient , the use o f tense has a clear
deictic function in opposing present and past, but then begins to play with the dis­
tinction, in Tl'ie Volcano Lover the oscillation between past and present occurs on
the basis o f perspectival or presentational choices, since no temporal opposition
plays into it.

5. C hronology and Sh iftin g

This section briefly discusses two other functions o f tense in narrative, its m arking
o f simultaneity, anteriority and posteriority on the one hand, and on the other, its
linking o f several plot strands by these m eans. In linguistics, the formal fram ew ork
o f relative tense (C om rie, 1985, pp. 56-82) or “ temporal relatives” (Declerck, 2006,
pp. 3 6 8 -36 9 ) applies.
The reiteration o f the past tense for the sequence o f events on the plotline has
been discussed by both Benveniste and Weinrich and was mentioned as a case o f
foregrounding in the previous section. However, chronology involves not just
sequence, but the ordering o f before and after. In narrative we therefore tend to
encounter shifts away from an ongoing sequence into the past and, rarely, into the
future. While som e events that had occurred at earlier stages m a y be sum m arized
briefly in the open ing pages o f a novel, using the past tense, other texts immediately
focus on the onset o f the central plotline and therefore present earlier events as past
in relation to the central time frame, em ploying the past perfect to signal such re­
moteness. C o m p a re the following exam ple passages illustrating these two options.

A ft e r the death o f M a n f r e d , K i n g o f N aples, the G h ib e llin e s lost their a s c e n d e n c y

th ro u g h o u t Italy. The exiled G u c lp h s retu rned to their native cities; a n d not
co n ten ted with r e s u m in g the rein s o f g o v e r n m e n t , they p ro sec u ted their triu m ph
until the G h ib e llin e s in their turn w e r e ob liged to fly, and to m o u r n in b a n i s h ­
m ent o v e r the violent p a r t y spirit w h ich had b efore o c c a s io n e d their b l o o d y
victories, and n o w their irretrievable defeat. A ft e r an obstinate contest the
Flo ren tin e G h ib e llin e s were fo rc ed to quit their native town; their estates were

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co n fiscated ; their attem pts to reinstate th em selves frustrated; a n d re c e d in g from

castle to castle, they at length took refuge in L u c c a , and aw aited w ith im p atien ce
the arrival o f C o r r a d i n o f r o m G e r m a n y , th ro u g h w h o s e in fluen ce they h o p e d
again to establish the I m p e r ia l su p rem a c y . (“A Talc o f the P a s sio n s” ; Shelley,
1990, p. 1)
E m m a W o o d h o u s e , h a n d s o m e , clever, and rich, with a c o m fo rt a b le h o m e
an d h a p p y d isp o sitio n , seem ed to unite s o m e o f the best blessings o f existence;
and had lived nearly tw en ty-o ne years in the w o rld with v e r y little to distress or
v e x her.
She w a s the y o u n g e st o f the two dau ghters o f a m ost affectionate, indulgent
father, and hady in c o n s e q u e n c e o f h e r s ist e rs m a rria g e , been mistress o f his h o u se
from a v e r y e a rly period. H er m o t h e r had died too lo n g ago for her to have m o re
than an in d istin ct re m e m b r a n c e o f h e r caresses, and h e r place had been supplied
b y an excellent w o m a n as g o v e rn e s s, w h o had fallen little sh o rt o f a m o t h e r in
affection. ( E m m a , ch. 1; A u ste n , 1986, p. 37)

In the second passage, the reiterated past perfects (italicized for ease o f reference)
indicate that the story starts m edias in res with a particular m om ent in E m m a s life
and looks back on previous aspects o f her experience merely in a m an n er o f re m i­
niscence and the effort to supply som e necessary background information. Such
background information is often interspersed into narrative: the narrator— by way
o f delayed orientation, as Labov and Waletzky (1967) would say— slips in som e note
on the past which will help the reader acquire a m ore extensive in-depth v iew o f the
fictional world. The story from M a ry Shelley, on the other hand, opens with a long
initial exposition that outlines the historical background to the tale.
In such passages, these glances into the past supplement the m ain story line.
There is, however, a much m ore important use o f the pluperfect and the progressive.
Tense in these instances is used to connect with, or shift to, a different plot strand
involving a different set o f characters in a different location. Such connective shift­
ing in the realist novel occurs m ostly on two occasions: when characters meet and
at the chapter/section boundaries o f the text.
Novels, particularly eighteenth-century novels, abound in coincidental m ee t­
ings. Such points in the plot pave the way for explanatory material since the rea ­
sons for en coun tering that particular person at that place need to be laid dow n,
and this often results in a long story s u m m a riz in g that p erso n s previous a d v e n ­
tures and, w h e n the traveler has not been m entioned before, even his or her whole
life story. From the late seventeenth century onw ard (Fludernik, 1996b, pp. 14 5 -
147), the past perfect in English is used to signal such a shift into the previous
history. The narrative employs a tense m arker to shift into the past, and that shift
correlates with a linking between two plotlines. Functionally, such passages re­
semble a m acro-stru ctural delayed orientation section since they fill in the reader s
gap in know ledge.
While the past perfect tense shifts into plotlines that originate elsewhere (in the
past) and intersect with current developments, simultaneity o f parallel actions, or
processes, is often m arked by the use o f the progressive tense (French im parfait);

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especially at chapter and section boundaries, the progressive tense is used to shift
from one setting to another, as in the following passages:

W h i l e these th in g s w e re p a s s in g in the c o u n t r y w o r k h o u s e , M r. F a g in sat in

the o ld d e n — the s a m e f r o m w h i c h O l i v e r h a d b een r e m o v e d b y the g i r l —
brooding o v e r a d u ll, s m o k y fire. (O liver Twist, ch. 25; D i c k e n s , 1993, p. 166; m y
em phasis)
W h il e N ew g a te was burning o n the p re v io u s night, B a r n a b y and his father,
h a v in g b een passed a m o n g the c r o w d fro m h a n d to h a n d , stood in S m ith field ,
on the o u tsk irts o f the m o b , g a z in g at the flam es like m e n w h o h a d been
s u d d e n l y ro u se d fro m sleep. (B arn aby Rudge, ch. 68; D ic k e n s , 1954, p. 522; m y
e m p h a s is )

In both example passages, two plot strands (and agents) are juxtaposed, and the
simple progressive shift serves as a strategy to m o v e from one to the other. The two
functions o f simultaneity and delayed background information can, however, be
combined, as in the following passage that opens Chapter 8 o f B ook IV o f H a rd y s
The Return o f the Native: “ In the m eantim e, Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at
A ld erw o rth , had becom e considerably depressed by the posture o f affairs” (Hardy,
1969, p. 232).
Tlie progressive tense m oreover has the central function o f providing the b a ck ­
ground for an incident that impinges on ongoing activity or states. The chapter
opening o f the following passage from Staying On illustrates this function quite
well.

W h ile Ib ra h im w a s ou t b o o k i n g the seat and T u sk e r w a s still out with Bloxsaw ,

the d a k [mail] cam e. (Staying On, ch. 6; Scott, 1977, p. 74)

Not only does the while clause shift from Ibrah im s point o f view to Lucy Sm alleys,
it also introduces a crucial event o f the novel: the arrival o f the letter which will
bring an acquaintance and an old friend to Lucy Smalley. Although, strictly speaking,
there is no progressive tense proper in this passage ( was out is complemented by a
participial construction), one could easily have had was booking. W hether read as
activity (was booking) or state (was out), a situation is here being interrupted by the
arrival o f the mail, and the phrase is clearly modeled on the incidence schem a (Pol­
iak, i96 0; Quasthoff, 1980; Fludernik, 1992), a device that foregrounds important
plot developments against the background o f states and activities. As shown in
Fludernik (2003b), the oral incidence schema in the novel acquires the function of
a scene-shifting m arker and tends to m ove to the position o f a chapter (or section)
opening.
A s we have seen in this section, chronological and spatial shifts are also sig ­
naled b y tense patterns. While, temporally speaking, these shifts are sim ply brought
about by an explicit m ark in g of, respectively, anteriority and simultaneity, in the
contexts in which these two shifts occur (delayed orientation, on the one hand, and
from one set o f characters to another, on the other), the temporal quality o f the
pluperfect and the progressive is overlayed metaphorically (in W einrichs phrase) by

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the shift function. Unlike the epic preterite, no direct loss o f the aspectual or tem p o­
ral m eaning occurs, but the tense acquires an additional, m ore specifically textual
function.

6. Ex per im ental U ses of T ense and M ood

in N a r r a tiv e

In this section the focus will be on postm odernist fiction and its experim ents with
language.22 These experiments, as far as their use o f tense or verbal inflection is
concerned, can be catalogued into several types: (a) the use o f odd narrative tenses;
(b) the use o f the subjunctive, non-finite verb form s or o f the imperative in lieu o f
the finite verbs o f narrative report current in m ore traditional fiction; (c) tense al­
ternation (dealt with above in section 4); (d) the elimination o f verbs, and thus o f
tense, as part o f a m ove toward deconstructing syntax.
A m o n g the odd tenses o f narration, the future tense is perhaps the most striking.
After all, one lives first and tells about it later, and to tell in the future— except in pro­
phetic passages— seems more than counterintuitive. To tell a story in the future tense
is therefore a more noticeable move than to narrate in the present tense (see above,
section 3). In fact, the use o f the future tense as the regular narrative tense in fiction
is extremely rare. In English, I only know o f Michael Frayns A Very Private Life (1968),
Christine Brooke-Roses Am algam em non (1984), and Pam Houston’s “ How to Talk to
a Hunter” (1990). In Spanish, a notable example text is Carlos Fuentess The Death o f
Artem io Cruz (La muerte de Artem io Cruz , 1962), a novel which has second-person
future tense sections in each chapter juxtaposed with third-person past tense and
first-person present tense sections. There is also Alberto Vanascos Sin embargo Juan
vivia (194 7; A n d Juan Lived After All). Like Fuentess novel, this future-tense narrative
is also a second-person text, with the main protagonist referred to as t u p
Actually, Houston's story is not a case o f a real future tense since the text only
uses the will o f hypothetical speculation rather than the will o f future reference:

The hu n ter will talk about sp rin g in H aw aii, s u m m e r in Alaska. The m a n w h o

says he w as alw ays better at math will fo rm the sentences so caretully it will be
im p o ssib le to tell i f y o u arc included in these plans. (H o u sto n , 1990, p. 99)

Frayns novel, by contrast, is a utopia set in the future, and the future tense is there­
fore fully deictic, though Frayn also plays with a deliberate ironization o f the fai­
rytale once upon a tim e :

Once upon a time there will be a little girl called U n c u m b c r.

U n c u m b e r will have a y o u n g e r b ro th er called Sulpice, and they will live w ith
their parents in a h o u se in the m id d le o f the w o o d s. There will be no w in d o w s in
the house, because there will be n o th in g to see outside except the forest. ( . . . ] For
this will be in the good new days a long, long while ahead , and it w ill be like that in
p e o p le s h o u se s then. (Frayn , 1981, p. 5; m y em ph asis)

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Both Frayn and H ouston so o n lapse into the present tense. This happens first in
the context o f sequence o f tense. Since the future tense belongs to the present
tense system, m ain clause v erb s in the future tense require a present for sim u lta ­
neity and a present perfect for anteriority (W einrich, 1985, p. 57). Thus, in H o u s­
ton’s story, the su b sid iary clause “ Before the song en ds ” precedes the m a in clause
“ he’ ll be taking o lf your clothes” (1990, p. 103). In Frayn’s novel, the present tense
also takes over first as a technique o f d ram atic presentification, a historical p re ­
sent tense in the context o f the future tense. W hen U n c u m b e r ’s father is incom-
m odated by the elderly falling asleep before the holovision pro gram , w ho thus
keeps him from w atching his favorite d ocu m en tary, his feelings are explicated in
the present tense:

G r e a t - g r e a t- g r a n d fa t h e r , w h o w ill m a k e ra th e r a habit o f tailing asleep w h ile on

t ra n s m is s io n , so that U n c u m b e r ’s father w o n t k n o w w h e t h e r he can politely
sw itch h i m otf o r not. T I o w can I watch the Battle o f B o r o d i n o o n the h i s t o r y
c h a n n e l w hile y o u r blasted m o t h e r s g r a n d fa t h e r is o c c u p y i n g the reception
c h a m b e r ? ’ he complains to his w i f e — a fa m ily joke. (F ra y n , 1981, p. 7; m y
em p h a s is )

The present tense is also used increasingly for habitual states (“A n d she takes ev ery ­
thing so seriously” — p. 12), before a scene is specified and then the narrative starts
to use the present tense as a regular narrative tense:

A n d she takes e v e r y t h in g so seriously. One day h er m o th e r will find her tapping

back to the r e p a irm e n ! . . . But w h e n her m o th e r gently dissuades her, U n c u m b e r
is furious. She weeps and throws h e r s e lf 011 the flo o r and shouts that she w an ts to
see the “animals.” (pp. 1 2 - 1 3 ; m y e m p h a sis)

Although the future tense reappears once in a w hile after this point, often in a more
hypothetical than temporal function, the bulk o f the novel ends up using the pre­
sent tense as its main narrative tense.
By contrast, Christine B ro o k e -R o se s p u n n in g experim ental novel Am algam em -
non consistently uses the will future in the context o f first-person narrative, the
m onologue o f a history and literature professor about to be m ade redundant:
“ M eanwhile things will continue to be m ildly plausible. Overall the thaw will go on,
although there’ ll still be som e wet snow falling over high ground. . . .” (Brooke-
Rose, 1984, p. 24). Tlie narrative frequently uses the future tense to narrate the past
o f myth as future:

M e a n w h ile things w ill continue to be m ild ly pleasurable. Paris son o f P ria m will
a b d u ct Helen w ife o f M e n e la u s. T h u s far there will have been n o t h in g w orse than
w ife-stealin g on all sides, but as for w hat will h a p p e n next the G r e e k s a c co rd in g
to the Persian a c c o u n t will be se rio u sly to b la m e as m ilitairily [sic] the aggressors.
P la gia riz in g y o u n g w o m e n c o u ld not, in Persian o p in io n , be a lawful act, but w h y
m a k e such a fuss about it afterw ards? (p. 16)

As one can observe in this passage, the narrator muses and com m ents on what will
happen, using the ambivalent conditional could and infinitive m ake to establish a
pocket o f implicit “prescnt'ness.

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At other points o f the novel, B ro o k e-R o se even employs the future tense for a
fairy tale opening:

In those d a y s there will dwell in the forest a paper-cutter with his three so n s, Nat
the N ig h t m a n , D a n the M a n o f D a w n , and P e rr y FIupsos, w h o will all three
d r e a m o f leavin g their old father the p ap er-cutter and the m ere raw m aterial o f
sensation for the airy e n d -p ro d u ct. I h e y will hear the Royal H e r a l d s P r o c l a m a ­
tion on their sm all transistor and they will s a y to each o th e r w h y not try o u r luck?
B y right o f birth I shall be the first to go will s a y D a n the M a n o f D a w n .
N o will say Nat the N ig h t m a n , b y tradition the youngest will inevitably win
so I m ig h t as well spare you y o u r defeats and probable deaths, (p. 87)

Will is also used as a non-deictic tense in g n o m ic utterances by the narrator or

in the function o f a hypothetical. M im ic k in g the boys will be boys proverb, the nar­
rator opines that “ [n]one will be prophets on their own planet” (p. 77); earlier she
advises “dear Dr N w a n k w o ” not to adopt the role o f Cassandra:

But as a frien d I w ou ld advise you not to m ix up so m a n y tired generalizations in

y o u r speech to the assem bly, but to stick to concrete proposals. T h e role o f
C a s s a n d r a will h a rd ly suit you and will hard ly help. (p. 77)

The future tense is speculative here; it has a m odal rather than temporal meaning.
French literature has further odd tense options besides the future tense, especially
the conditional tense (not, to my knowledge, employed as a narrative tense in English
language fiction) and the imparfait. Maurice Roches Compact (1966) plays with all o f
these options, juxtaposing passages in the present tense, the future, the imparfait
(imperfect) and the conditionnel (conditional). There is also another second-person
text, Marguerite D u rass La m aladie de la mort (1982), in which the actions o f the vous
(“ y o u ” )-protagonist are presented in the conditional tense.
For G e rm a n , one can note a Swiss authors novel, E. Y. M e y e r s In Trubschachen
(i973)> an exam ple o f an experimental text that employs the wurde conditional as its
m ain narrative tense (although at times lapsing into the present tense) and refers to
the protagonist as man (“one” ). G e r m a n and French also have the subjunctive as a
possible verbal form to play with, but to m y knowledge this option is so far defunct.
Nonfinite verb forms, for obvious reasons, do not necessarily have a great
impact on narrative; one could only with difficulty imagine a narrative text consist­
ing entirely o f infinitives. It should be pointed out, however, that in Japanese, the
standard (non-polite) verb fo rm is the infinitive {suru— “ to do” ); this is best treated
as a norm al finite narrative verb, though; in any case, it is the standard form and
does not invoke an experimental, provocative tone. Western fiction resorting to
participles or infinitives tends to do so in restricted passages; R o c h e s Compact is
again a good instance o f this technique. Exam ples in English are rare, and can be
found mainly with authors like D juna Barnes or G ertru d e Stein, where the attempt
is to radically underm ine familiar syntactic patterns. In G e rm a n , there is a short
story by Gabriele W ohm ann, “GcgenangrifT” (1972) (“ Counter-attack” ), w h ich lists
proverbs and idioms seem ingly taken from a dictionary; they are in the infinitive
form , the regular citation form for verbs in G erm an dictionaries. A combination o f

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these techniques is found in Simon B u rts “ Pisgah” (1994). This story uses im p era ­
tives, present perfects and /low-constructions: “ How, when I spend Sundays at my
gra n d m o th ers, lunch was at one o’clock instead o f the hom e time o f midday, and
how not even m y grandm other could make the extra hour pass quickly” (pp. 228 -
229). This text also em ploys num erous passages that are entirely verbless.2'1
A final form that deserves mention here is the imperative. Since the exploding
popularity o f second-person texts, imperatives in the function o f main narrative
tenses have proliferated. The technique is so com m on that Brian Richardson has
provided a distinct label for it (Richardson 1991, 2006, p. 18, pp. 2 8 - 3 0 ) : “ hypothet­
ical” second-person fiction. He defines its characteristics by pointing out “ the c o n ­
sistent use o f the imperative, the frequent em ploym ent o f the future tense, and the
unam biguous distinction between the narrator and the narratee” (2006, p. 29). An
example o f this com m on technique is the following passage from Junot D ia zs “ How
to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” (1995):

G e t b ack inside. Call her h o u se a n d w h e n h e r fath er picks up ask i f sh e’s there.

He'll ask, w h o is this? H a n g up. He so u n d s like a p rincipal o r a police chief, the
so rt o f d u d e with a big n eck w h o n e v e r ha s to watch his back. Sit and wait. B y the
time y o u r s t o m a c h s ready to give o u t on you a H o n d a o r m a y b e a Jeep pulls in
a n d ou t she co m es.
Hey, y o u ’ll say.
L o o k , she’ll s a y M y m o m w an ts to m eet you. She’s got h e r se lf all w o rried
about nothing.
D o n ’t panic. Say, Hey, no problem . R u n a h a n d through y o u r hair like the
w h itc b o y s d o even th o u g h the o n ly thing than ru n s easily thro ugh y o u r h a ir is
A f r i c a . . . . Say, Hi. H er m o m will say hi and y o u ’ ll see that y o u d o n ’ t scare her, not
really. . . . M a k e her happy. (D iaz 1997, pp. 1 1 2 - 1 1 3 )

The nervous lover visiting in the hom e o f his girl is given instructions or gives h im ­
self instructions on how to behave. Note the excessive use o f the imperative and the
prevalence o f hypothetical w ill . 23

7. Su m mary : L in g u istic N a r r a to lo g y and

L iter a r y L in g u istics— T ense in Na r r a tiv e

The first question that the reader o f this chapter m ay have asked him /herself when
approaching the issue o f tense in narrative is what new or specific perspective nar­
ratology is able to provide in the analysis o f tense in narrative texts, or what is “ lit­
e r a ry ” about the use o f tense in (literary) narratives. W h y should one, as a linguist,
be interested in what literary scholars say about narrative, even if they em ploy (and
quite possibly misem ploy) linguistic term inology?
O ne answer to these concerns might lie in the undue prevalence o f nonfictional
texts in the source material analyzed by linguists: most linguists concentrate on

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com m unicational exchange and real-life writings— journalism , obituaries, autobi­

ographies, letters, etc. C o rp u s linguistics does include literary language in its scope,
but the aim o f linguistics has always been to ascertain how language (as a system, in
general) works. This has meant putting the em phasis on more generally valid aspects
o f tense usage, aspects that are recoverable from fiction as well as nonfictional
language. Since Rom an Jakobson, the specificity o f literary language has not been
high on linguists’ agenda. It is therefore quite logical that it should have been lit­
erary critics who have cared most about literary language and that those scholars
willing to use linguistic term inology and m eth ods should have been in the forefront
o f analyzing the literary use o f tense. They have been aided and supported by stylis­
tics researchers, w h o — a m o n g linguists— have cared most about the status and
quality o f literary language, studying it in the fram ew ork o f literary semantics
(Eaton, 2 0 10 ) or “ language and literature” (Toolan, 1990, 1998, 20 10 ; Sem ino and
Short, 2004; Leech and Short, 2007). A title like Katie Wales’s The la n g u a g e o f Jam es
Joyce (1992) is typical o f this literary-linguistic approach: H o w does language work
in literature?
Do these scholars presuppose that language w orks differently in literature? One
m ay note several different positions. Neither narratologists nor literary linguists as­
su m e a basic incompatibility between literary and non-literary language; by resort­
ing to linguistic term inology and analysis, they in fact presuppose a continuity
between factual and fictional language (and narrative). However, no agreement e x ­
ists on the way in which differences and continuities are distributed in texts. One
possible stance consists in concentrating on narrative as a genre or text type and
claiming that narrative has its own rules and laws. This is clearly an attitude favored
by narratologists, especially since the advance o f discourse analysis (Labov and
Waletzky, 1967). Within the co m m on narrative fram ew ork som e differences m a y be
described that allow one to distinguish different functions o f a linguistic category in
literary texts. For instance, most novels use the historical present tense in a way
different from conversational narrative; and historical narratives em ploy yet a dif­
ferent pattern.
Secondly, there is the position that opposes literary to non-literary language, as
did Jakobson (1956) and M u k a ro v sk y (1964), as well as, later, David Lodge (1966)—
though all o f them saw the distinction as a sliding scale, a cline. Tims, in Lodge’s
w ork, p oetry tends to be m ore metaphorical than prose and prose m ore m e to n y m ­
ical than poetry. Although Jakobson was quick to point out rhym e and metaphors
in the language o f advertising, he nevertheless saw the poetic function o fla n g u a g e
as dominant in literary texts (Jakobson, 1956).
Tliis chapter has not com e down on either side o f the fence, or has combined
the two positions. In fact, what I have been arguing is that narrative— here focused
on because o f the thematic emphasis on tense— displays som e specifically narrative
uses o f tense; in addition to this, literary narrative exploits this distinctiveness and
begins to play with linguistic categories, creating new patterns and functional cor­
relations that do not exist in the same w ay in non-literary narrative. Finally, the
specific complexity o f literary narrative, for instance the introduction o f a fictional

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narrator persona, allows for m ore systematically literary (or fictional) m eaning ef­
fects in the use o f tense such as the ones Weinrich has proposed.
Thus, to recapitulate the various functions o f tense that have been outlined in
sections 2 to 6 above, let me give examples o f typical instances o f these categories.
The foregrounding function o f tense is a recurring function not only in literary
narrative but generally in narrative. (The foregrounding o f plot events against the
im parfait in French is co m m o n in the oral language, too.) What m a y be called sp e­
cifically “ literary,” however, is the choice o f the passé sim ple , although one could also
argue that it is typical o f the written language, not o f the literary as genre.
The so-called epic preterite, that is to say, the use o f tenses o f narration that lose
their deictic quality o f pastness, seems to be a clearly literary effect, since it is the
fictionality o f the narrative which allows the reader to cast off the deictic m oorings
o f the text. Shifts in point o f view induced by tense shifts and the technique o f free
indirect discourse likewise have a strong affinity to literary language. However,
som e tense shifts also occur in conversational narrative, and free indirect discourse
likewise can be encountered in conversations (cf. Fludernik, 1996b, ch. 9). What
distinguishes literary and non-literary use o f tense in these contexts is not the pres­
ence or absence o f the two devices but their specific manifestations. Oral free in di­
rect discourse is rarely used for extensive representations o f consciousness; it is
often signaled by means o f gestures and a change in intonation. Literary free in d i­
rect discourse compensates for the lack o f the audiovisual channel by adding a long
list o f additional m arkers o f expressivity (Fludernik, 1993, ch. 4). All o f these also
occu r in conversation, but not in such condensed form as in the literary examples.
Similarly, though tense alternation often signals the shift from plotline to com m ent
or delayed orientation, uses o f alternating tenses to contrast dreams and plot events
or to m a rk the juxtaposition o f several protagonists’ points o f view are clearly s p e ­
cific to literary narrative.
C o m in g to the use o f the pluperfect tense, again one has a general linguistic
function o f m arking anteriority in past-tense contexts. However, when several plot
strands are involved, the pluperfect com es to signal an analepsis, or flashback— a
function that is indigenous to literary narrative.
Finally, the experimental play with tense in postm odernist fiction is a clear
instance o f literary creativity and play. However, even such quite artificial uses o f
tense do not entirely eliminate certain key functions o f a specific tense; they m ay
warp and expand or m etaphorically surcharge the norm al fram e o f reference for a
particular tense, but s o m e reinterpretations are o ff limits. Thus, the future tense can
be used as the main narrative tense but it cannot be m ade to signify “pastness.”
W hat the above discussion has also demonstrated is that the more basic tense
differentiations exist in one language, the m ore opportunities there are with regard
to experimentation. Since m y focus has been on English, French, and G erm an (with
a very b rief excursion into Japanese), the results require extensive revision from
scholars o f other languages. W hile the establishment o f a major narrative tense
which becomes unanchored from real-world deixis strikes one as possibly a u niver­
sal feature o f narrative,26 as does the use o f foregrounding, the specific functions

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acquired by the past perfect in Western European literary narrative are presumably
inflected by m o d e s o f writing current in the Western tradition. Likewise, the use o f
the French im parfait and the English progressive do not quite correspond to the
Russian aspectual system.
G enerally one can therefore conclude that there are literary uses o f tense, but
that these uses becom e possible only by extending the basic linguistic functions o f
the respective tenses. O w in g to the fictional fram e o f literary narrative, tense is set
free from its relation to the here and now as part o f the situation o f utterance and
can then drift o ff into metaphorical and atemporal m eanings and functions. The
literary use o f tense can therefore be categorized as a second-order phenom enon in
terms o f Jurij Lo tm an s aesthetic theory (1975a, 1975b, 1976, 1977); literary language
develops a secondary system o f specifically literary functions and uses.

NOTES

1. T h a n k s go to the F reib u rg Institute for A d v a n c e d Studies ( F R I A S ) for p ro v id in g m e

with a fellowship in 2 0 0 9 - 2 0 1 0 , thus e n a b lin g m e to und ertake the research for this
chapter.
2. N ote that C o m r i e (1985, pp. 7 7 - 8 2 ) interprets the present p erfect as an absolute
relative tense, w hile D ec lerck treats it as a g e n u in e absolute tense ( 2 0 0 6 , pp. 2 0 9 - 3 1 4 ) .
3. N o te that o n ly F lu d e rn ik (1996b) d istin g u ish es b etw een experien tial (“ p r o p e r ” )
narrative and n o n -ex p erie n tia l narrative (report), w h e r e a s a fe w d is c o u r se analysts contrast
st o ry and report (see C a r r u t h e r s , 2 0 0 5, pp. 48-49» 1 2 1 - 2 1 3 ) .
4. C o m p a r e B i n n i c k (2 0 0 6 ) a n d D ec lerc k (2 0 0 6 , pp. 2 8 - 3 9 , 45~48).
5. “extern al to the narrative.”
6. M y reasons for a v o id in g the term narrative , the usual translation, will be discussed
fu rth er below.
7. Usually ren d ered as discourse , an o th e r u n h a p p y translation. (See below.)
8. I.e., histoire o r st o ry m o d e. B c n v c n is t c a d d s a footnote to this text, e x p la in in g that
he used the term “ récit histo riq u e” to avoid the phrase “ tem ps narratif ” (1966, p. 242, n. 2;
19 71, p. 308, n. 1 0 ) — precisely the kin d o f lo c u tio n that h a s b e c o m e c o m m o n in B e n v e n iste s
theoretical afterlives. O n e should also note that, after in tro d u c in g the tw'o system s o f
histoire and discours , B en ven iste goes on to talk a b o u t the “én on ciation historiq ue” (1966, p.
238), the “ historical utterance” (1971, p. 206). Discours and histoire are therefore en u ncia-
tional o r speech act related categories.
9. C a r r u t h e r s (2005) has s o m e interesting e x a m p le s o f passé simple use in the oral
telling o f fairytales.
10. But see F lu d e rn ik (1993).
11. N arratolog ists distinguish b etw ee n the (extradiegetic) narratec (the p erso n a that
the n arrator addresses) and the im plied reader, the abstract fun ctio n o f the texts recipient
as projected by the text. R a b in o w itz (1987) has called this type o f narratee the narrative
au d ien ce, and the im plied re a d e r the authorial audience.
12. B en ven iste points out that il avail fa it can be either the im p erfective o f il a fait> or
the an terio r to aorist il eut fait. He th en d iscu sse s the p erfect il a fa it and its e q u iv a le n c e in
discours to the aorist il fit in histoire. He en d s b y s h o w in g that the passé surcomposé—f a i eu

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N ARRA TO LO GY AND LITERA RY LINGUISTICS 97

fa it — se rv e s as perfective to the “ past tense" il a fa it that serves as narrative tense in the

in t e r lo c u t io n a ry m o d e. (O n the passé surcomposé , see Sau ssu re and Sthioul, this vo lu m e.)
On B en ven iste a n d W e in ric h , see also C a r r u t h e r s (this volum e).
13. A lt h o u g h W e in ric h has been translated into Fren ch (W ein ric h , 1973), there is still
no English versio n o f this sem in al study.
14. In C h a p t e r 5 W e in ric h also notes several interesting uses o f tense in French
literary prose, e.g., the use o f the passé simple for s u m m a r i z i n g slow d e v e lo p m e n ts (“ P e n ­
dant d e u x heures, il resta fort c a lm e” [“ For two h o u rs , he re m a in e d e x t re m e ly c a lm ” ] —
W e in rich , 1985, p. 109) or the case o f the “ im parfait de rupture,” w hich signals the end o f a
chain o f events: “ Le le n d e m a in tout était f i n i . . . ” [“ T h e fo llo w in g d ay all w as finished.” ] (p.
110).
15. A lt h o u g h there is a sim ilar sentence in T h o m a s M a n n s Buddenbrooks (see
F lu d ern ik , 2 0 0 9 , p. 78), H a m b u r g e r ’s sentence c o m e s fro m the fairly o b s c u r e au th or Alice
B e r e n d and her novel Die Bräutigam e der Babette Botnberling (1927).
16. O n the historical present tense see S te a d m a n (19 17 ), F r e y (1946), Fries (19 70 ),
T h o m a s (1974), SchifFrin (19 81), W o lfso n (1982), and F lu d e rn ik (1991). N ote that Fleis-
c h m a n (19 9 0 ) calls the historical present tense the “ narrative present,” and that this is the
usage C a r r u t h e r s adopts in her con tribution to this vo lu m e. In oral n arration , as both
W o lfso n and C a r r u t h e r s (2005) note, the use o f b r ie f shifts into the present tense correlates
with a n a r r a t iv e s p e rfo rm a t iv it y level.
17. O n the tabular present (present in tableaux), see C a s p a r is (1975, pp. 1 3 0 - 1 3 6 ) .
18. See F l u d e r n ik (1996b, pp. 2 4 9 - 2 5 6 ) .
19. The p h e n o m e n o n in its w id e r significance h a s been studied since the Russian
F orm a lists’ focu s on ostranenie , usu a lly translated as “defam iliarization.” M a j o r steps in that
d e v e lo p m e n t are the P ra g u e S c h o o l and J a k o b s o n s e m p h a s is on the q u a lity o flit e r a r in e s s ,
often based on salient m e ta p h o rs o r o th e r features. 'Ihe Prague S c h o o l ’s analyses o f
t h e m e - r h e m e d istrib ution ca n also be identified as d e a lin g with foreg rou n d in g. F o r e ­
g r o u n d in g b y m e a n s o f w o rd o r d e r plays a crucial role in the w o r k o f M ich a el Riffaterre
(i959, i 9 6 0 , 1 9 6 1 ; see also Fowler, 1923; G r e e n , 1982) and in the se m in a l w o r k o f Paul
H o p p e r (H oppe r, 1979a, b; H o p p e r and T h o m p s o n , 1980). M o r e recently, two im p ortan t
studies b y Jo h n D o u t h w a it e ( 2 0 0 0 ) and Brita W â r v i k (2 0 02 ) ca n be m en tioned .
20. T w o m o re e x a m p le s o f this technique, again picked at r a n d o m , are A n d r é B r i n k ’s
The Wall o f the Plague (1984) and N a d e e n A s l a m ’s The Wasted Vigil (2008).
21. D e c le r c k d iscu sses the tenses in indirect and free indirect speech as part o f
“ tem p o ral s u b o r d in a t io n ” (2 0 0 6 , pp. 3 9 0 - 3 9 8 ) ; C o m r i e uses the term s “ relative tense” and
“se q u en c e o f tenses” (1985, pp. 5 6 - 8 2 , 1 0 7 - 1 1 7 , III).
22. F o r a fu ller v e r sio n , also in c lu d in g different m aterial, see F lu d e rn ik (1996a and
1996b, pp. 2 4 9 - 3 1 0 ) .
23. O n s e c o n d -p e r s o n fiction see the special issue o f Style (F lu d e rn ik , 1994a) a n d the
b iblio grap h y (F lu d e r n ik , 1994b).
24. I a m e x c lu d in g from d iscu ssio n the e xten sive use o f non-finite verbs w ith in
passages o f interior m o n o l o g u e since they are not part o f the m a in reportative d iscourse
and project a se m b lan ce o f the frag m en tatio n o f co nsciousn ess.
25. I disagre e with R ic h a r d s o n ’s definition regard ing the “ u n a m b ig u o u s distinction
between n arrato r and narratee,” though; the n arratee-p rotagon ist is p erh a p s c o a c h in g
h im self; the so urce o f the im p eratives is less a n arrator figure than the p rotagon ist’s
(super?)ego.
26. Excep t p erh a p s in lan gu ages that have no tenses, like B u r m e s e ( C o m r ie , 1985, pp.
50-53)-

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98 CONTEXTS

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 CH APTER 3

COMPUTATIONAL
l in g u ist ic s

M ARK STEEDMAN

l. I n t r o d u c t i o n

Temporality in computational linguistics and natural language processing can be

considered from two aspects. O ne concerns the use o f linguistic and philosophical
theories o f temporality in computational applications. The other concerns use o f
computational theory in its own right to define new kinds o f theories o f dynamical
systems including natural language and its temporal semantics. The latter influence
is at least as important as the former.

2. L i n g u i s t i c C o n t r ib u t io n s to

C o m pu ta tio n a l L in g u istics

A s in the case o f n o m in a l expression s in natural language, we sh o u ld be careful

to distinguish tem poral sem antics , or the question o f what kinds o f objects and
relations tem p oral categories denote, fr o m the question o f tem p oral reference to
p articu lar times or events that the d isco u rse context affords.
It is useful to draw a further distinction within the semantics between temporal
ontology , or the types o f temporal entity that the theory entertains, such as instants,
intervals, events, states, or whatever, temporal quantification over such entities, and

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the temporal relations over them that it countenances, such as priority or posteriority,
causal dependence, and the like.

2.1 Temporal Semantics: Ontologies, Quantifiers,

and Relations
Applications such as inform ation retrieval (IR ), and q u e stio n -an sw e rin g (Q A ),
have m a d e su rp risin g ly little use o f the riches offered by linguistic temporal
sem antics and temporal logic. The reason is the inextricable entanglem ent o f the
temporal categories with e v e ry d a y know ledge. As other chapters o f this h a n d ­
b o o k show, categories like tense, m o o d , and asp ect are co n fo u n d ed with n o n ­
temporal relations such as causality, teleology, counterfactuality, evidentiality,
and the like, to an extent that m akes firm b o u n d a ries to tem poral sem antics hard
to draw.
For example, the question

(1) Have you met M iss Jones?

does not define a temporal relation between the present time and an event o f
m eeting Miss Jones, as theories o f temporal reference founded on Reichenbach
(1947) might seem to suggest, but rather asks w hether the state o f affairs that is
consequent upon such an event— roughly speaking, know ing Miss Jones— is in force
(M oens and Steedman, 1988). O ne m a y be able to answer such questions in the
affirmative even if one has no recollection o f the event in question, nor any idea
when it might have been, or even lacks the capacity for such recollection, as in the
case o f certain agnosias.
O f course, one m a y infer that m eetin g M iss Jones must have preceded the
present, for this state o f affairs to hold— but that is an entailment o f the relation
between cause and effect, rather than temporal sequence as such.
Similarly, if a search engine offers (2b) in answer to a query (2a), in order to
answer the question correctly in the negative, a question answerer must understand
the textual entailment o f (b) that, although one m ight have expected Swatm an to
win, in the event he did not:

(2) a. Did John Sw atm an w in the British O p en G o ld Medal?

b. In 1980 at 16 years o f age he fought his w a y to the final in the u n d er 60 K g category,
and was winning the contest when he was forced to withdraw through injury.

That is, the progressive denotes a state o f affairs that w ould norm ally bring about a
win, rather than a temporal relation to an actual event o f winning.
Such inferences are extremely specific to the particular content that is involved.
Thus, the tem poral extent o f the state o f having met M iss Jones is generally (as the
song says) only bounded by the lifetime o f the participants. However, if the fol­
low ing question is asked, the relevant consequent state is bounded by our k n o w l­
edge o f the digestive process to a few hours:

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(3) Has the patient had anything to eat?

Similarly, if the question is:

(4) Has the patient had a tetanus shot recently?

— then the answer depends on specific knowledge o f the length o f time the conse­
quent protection typically lasts, which is a few years.
H um an beings are rem arkably good at such associative inference, which they
seem to achieve quite effortlessly. However, the problem o f form ulating such
know ledge in computational terms, and c a rry in g out similar inference by machine,
using the standard logics that have been designed for the p u rpose (Prior, 1967;
M cD erm o tt, 1982; Allen, 1983), is very hard, although P rio rs w ork provided one o f
the foundations for the com putational d yn am ic logics discussed in section 3. Pratt
and Francez (2 0 0 1) formulate temporal generalized quantifiers for such a fra m e ­
w ork, and Pratt-ITartmann (2005) proves com plexity properties o f this system.
There have been attempts to design limited logics with better search properties,
which have tended to trade under the n am e o f “temporal database query la n ­
guages,” and there have been attempts to design natural language user interfaces or
“front ends” for such systems, draw ing on linguistically inform ed sem antics, n ota­
bly the ontologies o f Vendler (1967) and followers (e.g., Bruce, 1972; Ritchie, 1979;
M oens, 1987; Hinrichs, 1988; Palmer et al., 1993; C rouch and Pulm an, 1993; G agn on
and Lapalme, 1995; White, 1994; D o rr and Olsen, 1997; A n d ro u tso p o u lo s et al.,
1998; Dorr, 2007).
Such ontologies typically distinguish event-types according to a num ber o f
dim ensions including ±durativity and ttelicity, and distinguish states as o f type
progressive, consequent, iterative, habitual, and so on. Several o f these system s c o n ­
stitute recursive mereologies, or part-w hole hierarchies, som etim es e m b o d y in g a
notion o f type-coercion or overloading , w hereby aspects and adverbial modifiers
compositionally add layers o f temporal predication such as preparation, initiation,
iteration, and culm ination, and the like, without any limit on depth o f embedding,
as in:

(5) It took m e two years to be able to p lay “ Young and Foolish" in less than thirty seconds
for up to an h o u r at a time.

Further exam ples o f w o rk o f this linguistically inform ed kind are Pustejovsky,

19 9 1a ; K a m e y a m a et al., 1993; H itze m an , 1997; N a r a y a n a n , 1997. H o w e v e r, such
attempts at g eneral-pu rpose solutions to the problem o f temporal query have not
been widely used, and typically involve serious investments o f time in knowledge-
engineering by hand.
Instead, early natural language query systems for temporally rich domains,
such as Sager, et al. (1994) tended to hardw ire the requisite knowledge into collec­
tions o f v ery specific hand-built inference rules representing actions directly, in ad
hoc (although nonetheless revealing) ways, in the tradition o f AI action representa­
tions systems, to which we will return in section 3.

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The C Y C project (Lenat, 1995) is an attempt in the sam e tradition to build a

kn ow ledge representation o f this kind by h and on a v e ry large scale, and with
general applicability inclu ding tem poral reasoning, based on a rather general o n ­
tology and a n u m b e r in the m illions o f specific rules o f inference, m a n y o f w h ich
represent relations a m o n g events and states. Specialized versions o f C Y C have
been d evelop ed for s u p p o rtin g effective inference in several n a rro w e r “closed ”
d om ain s, m a n y o f them industrially significant, and a research version is freely
available.
H o w ever, c o m m o n sen se r e a s o n in g about the e v e r y d a y w orld, o f the kind
that is needed to capture the sim p le natural lan g u a g e ex a m p le s with w h ic h this
piece b egan , r e m a in s a v e r y d ifficu lt task. A ttem pts to ap p ly the p u b lic ly a v a il­
able version in tasks like text-based in feren c e have not p ro ve d v e r y su ccessfu l
(M ah esh et al., 1996), T h e gen eral su sp ic io n is that this is because su ch hand-
built re so u rc e s are both too high -level in term s o f ontology, and too sm all-sca le
in c o m p a r is o n to w h a t a m ix tu re o f a n im a l evolu tion and so cial lea rn in g has
put in o u r ow n heads.
In reaction to this realization co n cern in g the limits o f hand-built knowledge
resources o f m an y kinds, including ontologies such as W ordNet (Fellbaum , 1998b),
Fram eN et (Baker et al., 1998), and VerbNet (K ipper et al., 2008), there is renewed
interest recently in building larger resources o f this kind by clustering on co lloca­
tions in large volu m es o f text (Lin and Pantel, 200 1), or by searching such text
corpora for string-based proxies for ontological relations (Webber et al., 2002).
The proposals o f Banko and Etzioni (2007), Etzioni et al. (2007) and Mitchell et al.
(2009) for “ m ach ine readin g” to create sim ilar know ledge resources is related.
A m ore radical proposal o f this kind is to use more directly associative k n o w l­
edge representations such as associative m e m o ry models and sem antic networks
w hose nodes directly correspond to individuals o f various types, and w hose arcs
represent relations between them. Llarrington and C lark (2009) have proposed a
m eth od using a w id e -co v erag e parser to parse unlabeled text and constructing a
semantic network an order o f m agnitude larger than C Y C , using spreading netw ork
activation to b o u n d the complexity o f network access and update.
T h e biggest obstacle to such a m b itio u s plans is the low reliability o f w ide-
coverage parsers. Because o f the large search spaces involved, the best-perform ing
parsers use parsing m odels (and often gram m ars) acquired by “supervised” machine
learning from human-annotated corpora such as the one-m illion-w ord Penn Wall
Street Jo u rn a l T reeb an k. T h e m o d e ls are acq u ired by d e r iv in g p robabilities (or
feature weights) from the frequency with which com ponents o f derivations are
found in the corpus, in order to choose the derivation that most closely resembles
the training material.
The m ost successful parsers frequently exploit “ head d e p e n d e n c y ” m odels,
in which probabilities or w eights are com p u ted on the basis o f fre q u e n c y o f
c o -o c c u rre n c e o f relations betw een p articular w ords, such as the nou n “days”
acting as the subject o f verb “elapsed.” Such parsers, w h ile p e r fo r m in g better than
the hand-built alternative, still have d e p e n d e n c y re c o v e ry rates o f only aroun d

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90% (C o llin s, 20 0 3). Since w ord d ep en d en cies are closely related to sem an tic
p red ic ate -arg u m en t relations, there is a danger that the structures the parsers
deliver w ill be too errorful for this process to deliver useful sem a n tic netw orks.
E rro r analysis suggests that the reason the parsers are so w eak is that 1M
w ords o f fairly arbitrarily selected annotated new spaper text is not en o u gh to give
us a g r a m m a r or a parsin g m o d el com p arab le to w hat we have in our own heads.
There is considerable w o r k g oin g on to develop u n su p e rv ise d m eth o d s for parser
induction from u n an n otated text, and s e m isu p e rv ise d m eth o d s for using unla­
beled text to generalize the treebank parsers.
The relative success o f supervised-learned parsers using head dependency
m odels trained on human-labeled data might seem to suggest a quite different and
much bolder solution to the com m on -scn se reasoning bottleneck in temporal
semantics. The content-dependency o f the extent o f the consequent state denoted by
the perfect on the nature o f the core event— meeting Miss Jones versus eating som e­
thing versus having a tetanus shot — is reminiscent o f the way in which those parsing
m odels rank parses by assigning higher probability to a head-word dependency that
occurs frequently in the training data than one that appears rarely or not at all.
H ead-w ord dependency parsing m odels work because they approximate a mixture
o f semantics and real w orld knowledge that underlies frequent collocations.
O ne can therefore consider as a thought experim ent the idea o f approximating
a similar mixture underlying the interpretation o f tenses, m ood s, and aspects, by
having human annotators annotate texts about events like meeting Miss Jones with
the implicit consequent states like knowing M iss Jones and preparatory processes
like traveling fo r the purpose o f fu lfillin g an appointm ent with Miss Jones , together
with their temporal extents, and learning a model that would allow a m achine to
answer questions like Was Mr. Smith meeting Miss Jones when he had the accident?
and had he met Miss Jones?.
O f course, such an e x p e r im e n t is c o m p letely unrealistic, both in term s o f
the possibility o f o b ta in in g reliable a n n o ta tio n s, and in term s o f the a m o u n t of
a n n o tated data that w o u ld be required for effective m a c h in e learn in g, let alone
in term s o f the lim itation s o f the le a rn in g tech n iq u es th em selves w hen faced
w ith an essentially A l - c o m p le t e p ro b le m . H ow ever, a s c a le d - d o w n v ersion o f
this idea is b e in g attem pted in the related area o f tem p oral reference, to w h ich
w e n o w turn.

2.2 Temporal Reference

By temporal reference is meant the anchoring o f temporal descriptions to specific
clock-times, or to other events in an established narrative. The simple tenses— the
past, present, and in English the bare infinitival future— are temporally referential,
in the sense that their underlying Reichenbachian reference time R must stand in an
in fe ra b le t e m p o r a l/c a u sa l relation to s o m e tim e or event that is either a lre a d y
discourse-given, as in (6a), or provided by a m odifier that is itself temporal/causally
anchored, as in (6b, c);

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(6) a. It w as the night they raided M i n s k y ’s. I m et M iss Jones.

b. 1 met M iss Jones the night they raided M i n s k y ’s.
c. I met M iss Jones w hen they raided M in sk y s.
d. 1 met M iss Jones so on after they raided M i n s k y ’s.

Webber (1988) points out that such temporal anchoring processes resemble d ef­
inite noun -phrase reference in allowing “ bridging” reference to inferred referents,
as when the mention o f a car supports reference to “ the driver” (Clark and Marshall,
1981). Such inferences are knowledge-dependent in the same way as the temporal
sem a n tic in terp retatio n s c o n sid e r e d in the last section. T h u s , in the fo llo w in g
example, the fact that we know that throwing us in jail follow ed the raid, and that
co m in g with a warrant preceded it, is a matter o f w orld-know ledge about prepara­
tions for, and consequences of, such events:

(7) The night they raided M i n s k y ’s,

a. they threw us all in jail.
b. they cam e with a warrant

Such d is c o u rs e is also characterized by sh iftin g te m p o ra l fo c u s: once w e have

decided the relation o f throw ing in jail to the raid, it m a y in turn act as anchor for
further events such as phone calls, which m a y act as anchors for events o f obtaining
bail, and so on, under similar conditions o f script-like general knowledge about
goal-directed activities (Schank, 1975).
A s in the case o f early w o rk on temporal semantics, for suitably closed domains
we m a y be able to finesse explicit reference. Wiebe et al. (1998) describe a dom ain -
specific rule-based approach to temporal reference resolution in the sense o f time-
stamping for a corpus o f scheduling dialogs consisting o f exchanges like the
following:

(8) a. Would you like to meet Wednesday, August 2nd?

b. N o, how about Friday at 2?

This w ork uses a graph-structured stack as a focus model that allows nonadjacent
anteced ent an ch ors in c o m p le x d ia lo gs. Filatova and ITovy ( 2 0 0 1) offer a related
approach to time-stamping event clauses in the more open dom ain o f newspaper
stories, including relations of anteriority and priority. Both papers evaluate on held-
out data— that is, additional human-labeled data that have not been used for training.
D eveloped as part o f the A C E (automatic content extraction) initiative hosted
at the Linguistic Data C o n so rtiu m at the University o f Pennsylvania, the T I M E X 2
annotation schem e (Ferro et al., 2005) has been used to annotate corpora such as
the A C E 2005 corpus (around 600 docum ents), which has been used for training
and evaluating automatic temporal expression recognition and normalization
( T E R N ) program s using a mixture o f small num bers o f handwritten rules and
m ach ine learning (e.g., A h n et al., 2007)
The T i m e M L temporal m ark-up language (Pustejovsky et al., 2003a; Verhagen
et al., 2009) is a reformulation o f T I M E X 2 that has been extended to cover events,

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temporal relations, and certain kinds o f state, and used for annotation o f the Tim e-
bank corpus o f 186 news reports (Pustejovsky et al., 2003b). Pan et al. (2006) have
extended the T im eb an k annotation to include estimated upper and lower bounds
on the temporal extents o f T im e M L temporal expressions, with reasonable inter­
annotator agreement. C h am bers et al. (2007) present a temporal relation classifier
for six relations trained on the original T im eb an k corpus, reporting 72% accuracy
w hen these relations are collapsed to the simplest binary classification before/after.
M azur and D ale (2010) criticize both A C E and T im ebank for the brevity o f the
docum ents that they include, and the limitations on the com plexity o f the temporal
reference that they support. They point out that most temporal expressions in these
corpora can be interpreted relative to a single temporal focus or “anchor,” defined as
the dateline o f the report, rather than involving the kinds o f shifting focus charac­
teristic o f extended discourse and narrative. They offer an alternative WikiWars
corpus com prising 22 much more extended W ikipedia articles on the m ajor wars o f
hum an history, containing aroun d 2700 T IM E X 2 -a n n o ta te d temporal expressions.
It is possible in principle that the typical extent o f events could be learned from
such data, and used to improve T E R N - s ty le temporal reference program s o f the
kind discussed earlier. W hile T i m e M L does not m ark consequent states ( o f the kind
crucial to the interpretation o f (1), Have you met Miss Jones?) as such, it does mark
“signal w ords” such as m o d als and auxiliary verbs, so it is even possible in principle
that the typical temporal extent that should be considered in answ ering questions
like (3) ( Has the patient eaten anything?) and (4) (Has the patient h ad a tetanus shot
recently?) could be learned.
N ot surprisingly, nothing as ambitious as this has been attempted so far. As
Lapata and Lascarides (2006) point out, these corpora are quite small in c o m p a r­
ison with the Wall Street Journal section o f the Penn Treebank (P T B ) (the T I M E X 2 -
annotated English portion o f A C E 2005 is around 26K words, while T im e B a n k is
around 69 K). G iven the sparse nature o f these data, and the sheer difficulty in many
cases o f annotating temporal relations reliably, it is unclear whether supervised
learn in g with human-labeled data can succeed practically on this problem, although,
as Lapata and Lascarides point out, the labeled corpora remain valuable as gold-
standards against w h ich unsupervised methods can be evaluated. In reaction to
these resource limitations for supervised learning, there has been considerable
research into unsupervised methods for training such classifiers using unsuper­
vised m eth ods based on wide-coverage parsing o f unlabeled text. Chklovski and
Pantel (2004) learn verb subcategorization fram es and semantic relations between
them including temporal relations, the latter chosen on the m odel o f Fellbaum
(1998a). Lapata and Lascarides (2006) have used such m eth ods successfully to auto­
matically extract a restricted class o f specifically temporal relations, by parsing
unlabeled text using a w ide-coverage statistical parser trained on the PTB, in search
o f m ain and subordinate clauses linked by temporal connectives such as “after,”
“ while,” and “ until,” evaluating against the human-labeled T im eb an k corpus (see
above). C h a m b ers and Jurafsky (2009) show how script-like narrative chains
involving shared participants can be m ined using sim ilar unsupervised methods,

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evaluating in com parison to the related but non-narrative relations in the hand-
built Fram eN et corpus (Baker et al., 1998), as well as by a novel “narrative Cloze”
procedure.
Automatically identifying temporal semantics and temporal reference rem ains
an extrem ely hard problem , to w h ic h linguistic sem antics provides only part o f a
solution, w h ich we do not seem v ery close to attaining. The R ec o g n iz in g Text
E ntailm ent (R T E ) task (D agan et al., 200 6 ) attempts to provide a stand ard test-set
o f pairs o f text passages o f the kind delivered by real in fo rm ation retrieval and
m ach ine translation program s, and questions or “ hypotheses” which the text m ay
or m a y not answ er in the positive or negative. M an y o f the exam ples involve te m ­
poral reference, such as the following:

(9) T: Bush returned to the W hite I louse late Saturday while his ru n n in g mate w a s o ff
c a m p a ig n in g in the West.
H: Bush left the W hite House. (R T E exam ple no. i96o:P P)

(10) T: D e La C r u z s family said he had gone to Saudi A ra b ia a year ago to w o rk as a driver

after a long period o f unem ploym ent.
H: D e la C r u z w a s unem ployed. ( R T E exam ple no. i0 3 0 :R C )

The question o f whether T entails H is in both cases dependent upon the temporal
referent o f the latter. If in (9), it is taken as Saturday relative to the dateline o f T, then
the latter entails that H is false. If it is taken as som etim e prior to that Saturday, then
the entailment is true. Similarly, in (10), the text T says that at the time the family
spoke, the time De la C ru z went to em ploym ent in SA was after being unemployed.
If the reference time o f the hypothesis II is the time the family spoke, then either the
entailment is false, or there is no entailment (because we are not actually told how
long the em ploym ent lasted). Thus it seems that the R T E task examples consider­
ably underspecifv the task o f temporal reference (B eigm an -K leb an o v and Beigman,
2010). Linguistic semantics will certainly continue to be crucial to solving these
hard computational problems, but it is not in itself a sufficient solution.

3. C o m pu ta tio n a l C o n tr ibu tio n s

to L in g u istic T e m poral Sem a n tic s

The temporal semantics o f both human languages and p ro g ra m m in g languages can

be thought o f as logical languages predicating relations over a m odel (in the lo g i­
cians’ narrow sense o f the term) that can be visualized as in Figure 3.1.
The figure depicts a Kripke or S4 m odel, in which nodes represent possible
states o f the world (only a few o f which are depicted, and which should be thought
o f as complex structures, consisting o f a num ber o f propositional “ fluents,” or facts
subject to change), and directed arcs represent events a, etc. that transform one
state into another (of w h ich few are depicted also). We may want to distinguish

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F ig u r e 3 .1. T h e S4 m o d e l

som e particular sequence o f states and events as actual or historical: Those might be
the ones in solid black.
This structure is not “there,” in the m in d or the computer. It is not som ething
that can ever be built— for one thing, it is infinitely extending. Rather, it describes
the space o f possibilities that we or a m achine inhabit, and to a very limited extent
can think about by searching it to s o m e limited depth.
What w e and other animals do have in our heads (as do machines, if we p ro ­
gram them with that capability, or allow them to acquire it for themselves) is a finite
but extendable set o f rules that describe the events that change one state to another,
som e o f which are probabilistically under our control.
These rules (together with som e computational resources that must include a
[possibly simulated] push-dow n automaton) are what allows us and som e other
a n im a ls to see s m a ll p o rtio n s o f the eternal w o rld , and to co n stru ct p la n s or
sequences o f actions that (with any luck) will take us to the m ore desirable possible
worlds (or at least to the ones that we can find by searching the forest o f crossing
destinies to som e very limited depth).
Most o f the semantic theories discussed in the present volum e assume such a
m odel, implicitly or explicitly, and can be seen as addressing the question o f the
precise content o f the states, and the nature o f the events that take us from one state
to another.
For example, the theories differ as to whether they take intervals as the basic
temporal primitive, and regard events as durative, or whether they take instants as
primitive and intervals as composite. Under the first view, a Vendlerian Activity like
running would be represented as a transition, with a temporal and spatial extent.
Under the second view, an Activity would be regarded as a progressive fluent, or
property o f a state, with the states that it characterizes being accessed via instanta­
neous incipitative events o f beginning running and abandoned via terminative events
o f stopping running. (Vendler and his followers seem equivocal between these two
interpretations.) Under the latter interpretation, the instantaneous incipitative and
terminative events themselves correspond to Vendlerian Achievem ents, associated
with further changes in fluents corresponding to consequent states, such as running
and having stopped running. Vendlerian Accom plishm ents like running to the bus
stop are then the com position o f an Activity o f running with the goal o f being at the
bus stop , the terminative A chievem ent o f stopping running and the culminative
achievem ent o f reaching the bus stop , which in turn initiates its own consequent
state o f being at the bus stop.

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W hen scaled to practical problems o f planning in realistic worlds, such m odels

are clearly going to be very complex. In deciding which o f the m a n y theories they
allow w e should adopt, we will be guided not only by the usual questions o f s o u n d ­
ness in representing temporal knowledge, but also by questions o f efficiency for the
purpose o f searching for plans, which we can think o f as proofs in a logic o f change.
It is in this connection that theoretical com puter science can be o f help to lin ­
guistics. Com putation can also be m od eled as a space o f states and operators that
change state, using logics o f change, as Prior (1967) noted himself. In computer
science, issues o f constructivity (that proofs o f attainability o f a state are always
accom panied by an algorithm for actually getting there) and efficiency (that useful
proofs can actually be found with affordable resources) are always param oun t. As a
result, theoretical com puter science has been the m ain engine d riving progress in
the use o f temporal logics since the time o f Prior.
With these ends in m in d , com p u ter scientists have m ade a v e r y im portant
observation about logics o f change as they apply to p rogram s and hum an rea­
soning. That is that the kind o f changes that we are interested in are localized ,
affecting only a v e ry fe w a m o n g the vast n u m b er o f facts or fluents that define the
current state in the m odel. Thus, assigning a value to a register affects that register
and no other aspect o f the state o f the m achine. Similarly, d rin kin g an ice-cold beer
affects the beer, and the consum er, in predictable ways, but leaves unaffected a
m y r ia d o f other facts that hold in the situation o f the action, such as the weather,
the color o f the walls, and the current popularity ratings o f the president o f the
United States. This suggests that events are to be defined in terms o f p a rtia l
descriptions o f situations. (There are som e events, like detonating H -b o m b s, that
change practically everyth in g . However, these too are only useful to the extent
that they can be defined in term s o f sim ple partial d escrip tio n s— for example,
using a universal quantifier.)
This insight has been captured in a n u m b e r o f ways, both in fo rm al and for­
mal. In linguistic theory, an early version o f the idea surfaced in L e w is s (1973)
idea o f “ inertia worlds,” which he defined in term s o f sim ilarity between actual
and hypothetical w orlds, in order to provide a sem an tics for counterfactuals,
w h ic h D o w ty (1979) used to explain the im perfective pa ra d o x . (Fine, 1975, criti­
cized this definition using exam ples involving H - B o m b s and the like, for which
sim ilarity between the inertia w o rld and the actual w orld d oesn’t seem to work.
Lascarides, 1991, sh o w ed that inertia w o rld s cannot sensibly be defined other than
in term s o f the progressive itself.)
In Artificial Intelligence, the idea is usually identified with the S T R I P S rep re­
sentation for actions for the p u rp o se o f autom atically con stru ctin g plans (Fikes
and N ilsson , 19 71), although the idea seem s to have been arisen m o re than once
(cf. P L A N N E R , Hewitt, 1969). S T R I P S actions arc represented in term s o f three
elements: a list o f preconditions , that is, facts or “ fluents” which m ust hold for the
action to be possible; a list o f deletions , or fluents that cease to be true w hen the
action occurs; a n d a list o f additions , or fluents that b e co m e true in the aftermath
o f the action. A dd ition s and deletions are m o d eled by database update, so the

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property that e v e ry fact that is not explicitly m en tion ed in the rule rem ains as it
is, holds by default.
For e x a m p le, the earlier e x a m p le o f m y drin k in g an ice-cold beer m igh t be
represented by the following triple, in which the variable x is implicitly existentially
quantified:

(11) preconditions: beer(x), ice-cold(x), here(x), here(me), thirsty(me)

delete: beer(x), here(x), ice-cold(x), thirsty(me)
add: high(tne)

This rule says that when I drink an ice-cold beer, it ceases to be, while I, although I
still exist, stop being thirsty and start being high. Whatever else holds in the current
state remains unchanged. If w e want to m odel a counterfactual situation such as I f I
had not drunk an ice-cold beer we can reverse the rule and w ork out that it would be
pretty m u ch the sam e apart from m y state and that o f the beer. Since our represen­
tation is in terms o f actions rather than possible worlds, notions o f similarity
between worlds don’t come into it: If w e want to include actions like detonating an
H -b o m b in our plans, we can do so. (Sim plifying a bit, the latter action deletes
everything, so it is easy to w ork out that counterfactuals like I f someone had deto­
nated an H -Bom b , you wouldn't be here are true.)
A num ber o f important lessons were learned from w ork using S T R IP S -lik e ac­
tion representations. First, it isn’t at all easy to represent even the simplest temporal
knowledge dom ains consistently, especially if you want to be able to extend the
dom ains by freely adding new actions. For example, if you represent the fact that
so m e boxes and a truck are in Edinburgh as ground facts in a database, then your
action o f loading boxes on trucks should delete the groun d fact that the boxes are in
Edinburgh , and add a groun d fact that they are on the truck. If the m ove action for
trucks is defined in the obvious way, as deleting the groun d fact o f the truck being
in Edinburgh and adding one o f it being in London (say), this stratagem will ensure
consistency in reasoning about where the boxes are when the truck moves. (Alter­
natively, you could define the move action as deleting the location at the origin o f
any objects that are on the m o v in g object and asserting their location at the destina­
tion.) It is easy to make mistakes defining domain knowledge like this.
The other lesson learned from S T R IP S is that, if you want to do any kind o f
temporal reasoning over the representation, or more generally need to represent co-
occurrent actions, then you have to represent durative events like trucks m ovin g as
com posed o f an instantaneous incipitative event that introduces a progressive fluent,
and a terminative event rem oving it (cf. Kowalski and Sergot, 1986). This ensures that
if the truck is d ry at the start o f its journey, and it starts to rains while the truck is
moving, the database will not end up saying inconsistently that the truck is both wet
and dry at its destination. (This observation seems to suggest that instants and not
intervals should be taken as the primitive elements in any model theory for systems
o f this k in d — see Allen and Hayes, 1989, for a dissenting opinion.)
E vent c alcu li o f this k in d u n d e r lie s o m e v e r y p o w e r f u l p l a n n i n g p r o ­
g ra m s, w h ic h c o m p ete at an annual com p etition on sh ared tasks o f c o n sid e ra b le

Copyrighted mate
COM PUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS

c o m p le x ity . T h e S T R I P S idea w a s e n s h r i n e d in a s t a n d a r d n o ta tio n by G h a lla b

et al. (19 9 8 ), an d e x t e n d e d in a s e rie s o f p a p e rs c u l m i n a t i n g in Fox a n d L o n g
( 2 0 0 6 ) to c o v e r a rich o n t o l o g y o f t i m e - s t a m p e d even t ty p e s for p u r p o s e s o f
the c o m p e t it io n .
S T R I P S representations w ere initially derided by logicians for their n o n ­
monotonicity. However, they provide a v ery natural expression for change o f
state, particularly when events arc instantaneous and discrete, as they are in d ig ­
ital com puters. H oare Logic (Hoare, 1969) is fo u n d ed on a v ery sim ilar idea o f
“ triples” P/ 5 /Q, w h ere P is a set o f preconditions for a p rogram statement S and Q
describes the resulting state.
Pratt (1976) and Harel (1984) extend Hoare Logic to D y n a m ic Logic (DL) for
the purpose o f proving correctness o f program s. D L combines a m odal logic writh
the algebra o f regular events or finite-state machines. D L is a m ultim odal one, in
which the N and O modalities are relativized to particular event-types. For example,
if a program or c o m m a n d a computes a function F over the integers, then we may
write the following:

(12) a. n > o = > [ a ]{y = F(n))

b. n > o => < a> {y = F(n))

The m eaning o f (12a) is that in any state in which n > 0, executing a always results
in a state where y - F(n). The m eaning o f (12b) is that in any state in w h ic h n > 0,
executing a som etim es results in a state where y - F{n). Although our knowledge o f
action is inherently nondeterministic, as far as reasoning about the world goes, we
usually reason as if we could predict outcomes, even if we attach a probability o f
success, so we will m ostly be dealing with the [a] modalities.
The a m a y be sequences a ; ft; ___ They m a y also include loops or iteration, as in
the following representation for Piagets “ prim ary circular reaction” o f sucking in
infants (1936):

(13) [w h ile hungry do suck]

D y n a m ic Logic is usually applied to pure functional p ro g ra m m in g languages,

without update. If we want to apply it for representing actions and change w e may
want to extend to m ake it “ resource sensitive,” by extending it to include G ira rd s
(1995) linear implication operator, written — (pronounced “ lolly” ), to yield “ linear
d y n am ic” versions o f event calculi such as S T R IP S and its descendants.
For example, we might represent the earlier naive version o f the move action as
follows:

(14) afford s(movc(x} lo c )) A at{x, loc ) — \rnove{x> loc^]at'{x, lo c)

This formula m eans that if you can m ove and are at a location, and you move to
another location, you stop being at the first place and start being at the other place.
We adopt a convention that only ground facts (that is, the ones actually explicit in
the database) are deleted or added, so the rule doesn’t define whether the new situ­
ation supports inferrable facts like affords(m ove(xt loc J ) . If we define the latter in

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terms o f a groun d fact, using standard implicature as follows, to say that you can t
m ove to a place if you are at that place, then it will not:

(15) -1 at(x, loc) =* affords(movc(x, loc ))

(The predicate affords for preconditions is used in hom age to G ib s o n s (1979) notion
o f affordance o f actions by situations, w h ic h lies at the heart o f effective action
representation.)
I f we want to avoid ramification problems arising from unexpected events like
rain, as in the earlier example, then we need to recast the representation in terms o f
the instantaneous and stative com ponents described there. For example:

(16) a. -*at(x, loc)=> affords(start(move(x, loc)))

b. afford$($tart(move(x, loc ))) A at(x, loc)
— [start(move(x, loc))]m oving(x, /oc, loc)

(17) a. tnovingfx, loct, lo c ) = affords($top(move(x, loc J ) )

b. affords(stop(move(x, lo c)))) A at(x, loc) A moving(x, /oc, loc)
— \stop(move(x, loc))]at(x, loc)

Equipped with such rules, practical planning program s can search possible
futures by progressing the database breadth-first to som e limited depth (say, by iter­
ative deepening, Korf, 1985), and build and execute plans to reach desirable states by
search and com posing actions in very complicated dom ains involving multiple ac­
tions and objects.
At som e point, it may be thought desirable to timestamp everything in such
representations. However, the causal structure implicit in the representation will
often define the simplest relations o f temporal antecedence and aspectual state
without explicit indexing to clock-times. For example, a simple history o f starting to
m ove from /oc to loc2 followed by stopping doing so at a different place loc^ will
contain the inform ation necessary to answer the question “ Was x m o v in g to lot\
when she stopped at lo c V ’ Such calculi therefore appear to offer a transparent and
efficient representation for the concepts implicit in most current linguistic theories
o f temporal semantics for natural language, and have obvious relevance for pur­
poses o f linguists and philosophers o f language.
Systems related to d ynam ic and n on -m on oto n ic logics in application to natural
language semantics are described by van Benthem (1991), Blackburn et al. (1994),
B arw ise and Seligman (1997), and Fernando (2011). D y n a m ic and non-m onotonic
form alism s invoking or capturing real-world knowledge and related to the c o m p u ­
tational calculi outlined in this section have been applied to elegant effect in linguis­
tic theories o f temporality by D o w ty (1986), Sperber and Wilson (1986), Lascarides
(1991), M oltm ann (1991), Pustejovsky (1991a), Asher (1992), K am p and Reyle (1993),
ter M eulen (1995), Pirion (1997), Ram ch an d (1997), Pianesi and Varzi (1999), Stone
and Ilardt (1999), G lasbey (2004), van Lambalgen and H am m (2005), Bittner
(2007), and Truswell (2007), a m o n g others.

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4. F u r t h e r R e a d i n g

H ie computational literature on temporality and representation o f causal action and

its applications is overw helm ing, and I am painfully aware o f having been forced to
pass over entirely or, worse, to treat very superficially, a great deal o f important and
relevant w ork. ’Ihe following sources are offered as a means o f entry to a more
extensive literature.
V ard i (2 0 0 8 ) p ro v id e s an e x c e p tio n a lly readable s u m m a r y o f tem p o ra l and
d y n a m ic logic fr o m Prior to the present fro m a c o m p u ter scien ce p ersp ectiv e.
M a n i et al. (200 5) is an in d isp en sab le collection o f m a in ly c o m p u ta tio n a l r e a d ­
ings in c lu d in g several o f the papers d is c u s s e d above, and m uch other w o rk that
d eserves attention. V irtu a lly all o f the m o re recent literature on c o m p u ta tio n a l
a p p ro a c h es is accessible fro m the web, and in p a rtic u lar fro m the s im ila rly in ­
d ispensab le A C L C o m p u t a tio n a l L in gu istics A n th o lo g y , at w w w .aclw eb .o rg/
a n th o lo g y -n e w / . R eferen ces to the b ro a d e r literature on tense and asp ect in n a t­
ural lan guage can be fo u n d in the A n n o ta te d B ib lio g ra p h y o f C o n t e m p o r a r y
R esearch in Tense, G r a m m a t ic a l A sp e ct, A k tio n s a rt, and Related A re a s at w w w .
s c a r.u to r o n to .c a / ~ b in n ic k / T E N S E / .

A C K N O W LED G M EN TS

I am grateful to Bob Bin nick and Alex Lascarides for co m m en tin g on the draft. The
w o rk was supported by E U E R C A dvan ced Fellowship 249520 G R A M PLUS.

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PERSPECTIVES

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 CHAPTER 4

UNIVERSALS A N D
TYPOLOGY

JE A N -P IE R R E D ESCLES AND
ZLATKA GUENTCHEVA

1. T y p o l o g y in L in g u istics

C o n t e m p o r a r y t y p o lo g y can be characterized as the stu d y o f cro ss-lin g u istic

variations and the constraints that bear on th em . F ollo w in g the lead set by G r e e n ­
berg (1963) and treating data fr o m a wide range o f languages, authors have explored
n u m ero u s specific d om ains, in clu d in g resultatives (Nedjalkov, 1988) and tense
and aspect (C o m rie , 1976; Dahl, 1985; Bybee and Dahl, 1989). Their m eth o d o lo g y
consists in d ata-driven research b ased on representative sam ples o f languages and
linguistic p h en o m e n a; effort is consequently m ade to guarantee both linguistic
diversity and historical independence. The sam ples are culled from reference
g ra m m a rs, texts, questionnaires, and fieldwork.
There arc two main approaches. O ne is an inductive approach, extrapolating
properties and primitives, which are then used for language classification. Another
starts from conceptual properties, for example, o f a cognitive nature, and deter­
mines the various m orphosyntactic processes by which they are expressed
cross-linguistically.
Benveniste is particularly concerned with properties o f hum an language which
cannot be restricted to formal aspects o f languages (1966, p. 119; see also Culioli,
1984, pp. 115 - 12 3 ), saying, “ What can be com pared in linguistic systems that differ
completely from one another are the functions, as well as the relations a m o n g these

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functions, indicated b y formal m arkers” (1957-58/1966, p. 222). In the sam e vein,

Seiler (1990, p. 157) points out: “ the ultimate goal o f typology and general linguistics
is to explain the way in which language-specific facts are connected with a unitary
concept o f language.”
Typology thus rapidly com es up against the question o f universals and the
primitives chosen for describing languages (C om rie, 1981; Croft, 1990). Although
the search for language invariants is perfectly distinct from studies centered on
cross-linguistic variation, the two nonetheless complement one another. In univer­
sal g ra m m a r type approaches, especially the C h om skyan approach, som e language
properties are considered innate and specific to the language ability, and languages
are characterized by parameters associated with form al properties, general but few
in number.

2. U n i v e r s a l s , I n v a r i a n t s , and Pr im itiv es

For Greenberg, universals in typology are cross-linguistic generalizations. A distinc­

tion is therefore established between, on the one hand, absolute universals (e.g., “all
languages have stop consonants” ), the status o f which is currently the subject o f some
debate, with statistic universals being favored instead (Bickel, 2011), and, on the other
hand, implicational universals, which express logical implications between a lan­
guages properties, e.g., G reenbergs Universal 3 (1963, p. 78): “ Languages with d o m i­
nant V SO order are always prepositional.” Building on G reen bergs work, m an y
implicational universals have been identified in the morphosyntactic dom ain; h o w ­
ever, it would seem that none have so far been clearly identified in the tense-aspect
domain.
W hile universals are language categorizations that transcend specific languages,
invariants arc abstractions based on attested variation. Therefore they are not simple
inductive generalizations, but instead are the result o f abductive processes in the
sense o f Peirce (1965,1967). Abduction consists in formulating a hypothesis IT based
on a set o f observable facts q_, q,, . . ., q a. The larger the set o f facts explained, the
m ore plausible the hypothesis is.
The approach to universals in the tense-aspect do m ain varies from author to
author even within each b ro a d sch ool o f thought (e.g., a m o n g functionalists, for­
malists, cognitivists, generativists, etc.), differing in the categorical oppositions
d eem ed essential for d escrib in g linguistic facts. A uthors often attempt to e x tra p ­
olate a sem antic invariant (in G u illa u m e s (1929/1970) terms, a “signifié de p u is ­
sance,” i.e., an element h avin g an abstract pow er o f m ean in g), w h ic h m akes it
p ossible to gather together, within a single category, a set o f g ram m atical or le x ­
ical form s which are taken to fulfill the sam e function, and to be distinguishable
from fo rm s b elo n gin g to other categories, and thereby to explain the sem antic
v ariation s between s o m e o f the fo rm s (see C o m r ie , 19 81; Croft, 19 9 0; Seiler, 1990,
2 0 0 0 ; Lazard, 20 0 6 ). However, a notion that is considered invariant can not be

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d efin ed on its o w n , but m u st be lin k ed to a n e t w o r k o f related (o p p o s e d , s u b o r d i ­

nate, etc.) n o tio n s. In A n c ie n t G r e e k , for e x a m p le , the n o tio n o f resu lta n t state
associated w ith perfect fo rm s is o p p o sed to those associated with the Aorist and the
Im p e rfe c t.
T h e n o tio n o f a sp ect m a y be the e x p r e s sio n o f a p e r s p e c t iv e on the p r e d ic a ­
tive relatio n , d e p e n d i n g on w h e t h e r the latter is c o n s id e r e d , and p re se n te d as,
stable in e v o lu tio n , or u n d e r g o i n g a tra n sitio n p o s s i b ly le a d in g to a resultant.
A s p e c t is th erefore a s e m a n tic in v a ria n t w h ic h can b e e x tr a p o la te d fr o m the e m ­
pirical a n a ly sis o f la n g u a g e s, in w h ic h it is d istin c t from s im p le te m p o r a liz a tio n ,
c o n s is tin g in situ a tin g o r not situ a tin g the p re d ic a tiv e relation in refe ren ce to the
e n u n c ia tiv e act w h i c h g a v e rise to it. W h e n aspect is e x p lic itly g r a m m a t ic a liz e d ,
it enters into o p p o s it io n with the p r o p e r tie s w h ic h o r g a n iz e m u c h o f the p r e d i c a ­
tive le x ic o n (w h ic h is essen tially v e r b a l in la n g u a g e s h a v in g the c a te g o ry v e rb )
e x p r e s s i n g internal tem p orality, ca lled a c tio n a lity ; the p r e d ic a t iv e e x p r e s s io n s
m a y th erefore b e d istrib u te d a c ro s s a sp e c tu a l classes h a v in g the s a m e in v a ria n t
s e m a n tic p ro p e rties.
O n a m o re general level, se m an tic n o tio ns b elo n g to conceptual netw o rks
structured by v a rio u s relations (opposites, specifications and generalizations
through abstractions, im plications, v ario u s contextual constraints, etc.). This n e t­
w o r k constitutes a conceptual se m an tic m ap. We shall see an e x a m p le w ith the m ap
o f the v a r io u s m o st fu n d a m e n ta l aspects.
T yp o lo gica l studies require that the sem an tic prim itives used be specified, and
that their co m p o s itio n be clarified in ord er to b rin g out the sem an tic invariants o f
the cro ss-lin gu istic g r a m m a tic a l and lexical categories. It is therefore im perative to
distinguish betw een se m an tic p r im itiv e s— sim ple, clearly c o m p re h en sib le notions
reduced to the sm allest possible n u m b e r — and sem an tic invariants. Thus m o st, if
not all, o f the theoretic ap p roach es to aspect take into accou nt, albeit im p licitly at
times, the p rim itiv e notion o f “ b ou nd ary,” as well as that o f “ch an ge” as o p p o s e d to
“stability.” T hese n o tio n s are not alw ays w ell defined in the v a rio u s approaches,
w h ich at tim es leads to inco h eren ce. Fo r ex a m p le , by glo b ally ch aracterizin g states
as “ u n b o u n d e d ,” as o p p o s e d to “ b o u n d e d ” events, it is im p ossib le to distinguish
u n b o u n d e d , p e r m a n e n t states and contingent states, w h ich are carried out over a
defined p a rt o f a tem p oral zone, and are therefore “ b ou n d ed .” The notion o f
b o u n d a r y m u st therefore be ch aracterized by certain operational properties, and
explicitly linked to b asic n o tio n s such as stability, state, change, process, transition,
event, etc. Insufficient definition o f n o tio n s leads to c o n fu sio n , with each school
u sing specific te r m in o lo g y w ithout necessarily establishing c o rre sp o n d en c es
betw een operational concepts.
The c o m p a r is o n o f intralinguistic invariants, form ulated u sin g w ell-defined
prim itives, sh o uld m a k e it possible to extrapolate cro ss-lingu istic invariants and
un iversals (both gra m m a tic a l and lexical) tr a n s c e n d in g language diversity. O f
course, it is v e r y difficult to grasp the differences b etw een se m an tic prim itives,
se m an tic invariants and universals, but this is certain ly one o f the objectives o f lin ­
guistics in relation to la n g u a ge typology.

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126 PERSPECTIVES

3. T o w a r d a Typology of A spect

Despite a vast am ount o f research on aspectuality and temporality (surveyed by

Binnick, 1991; Sasse, 2002), there are fundamental points o f divergence in the
description o f aspectual phenom ena across languages. Though “ typological o r i­
ented research on tense and aspect is relatively scarce” (Dahl, 200 0, p. 3; Tournadre,
2004, p. 12), results confirm that aspectual phenom ena are m arked both g ra m m a ti­
cally and lexically, and that tense, aspect and m odality (T A M ) interact v ery closely
(see Sasse, 1991, p. 44).
Sasse (1991, 2002) explores the relations between g ram m atical a sp e c t1 on the
on e hand, which we will call A s p e c t j (perfective, imperfective, progressive, etc.),
and Aktionsart,2 on the other, referred to as A s p e c t i (stative, dynam ic, punctual,
etc.). To these must be added a third category, referred to as A s p e c t , w h ich c o n ­
cerns verbal phases ( begin , en d , etc.; see C o m rie , 1976, p. 6) and discourse m arkers.
S o m e authors m ain ly base their typologies on the study o f Aspect^ using the well-
know n b in a ry m orph o logical distinction between Perfective and Im perfective,3
alongside additional categories such as “ habitual,” “ iterative,” “ progressive,” etc.;1
others base their analyses on Aspect , often using a theoretical approach founded
on conceptual schem as. In this category one finds studies on actionality ( A s p e c t J
by e.g., Sasse (1991), Breu (1994), Bertinetto (1994), Bertinetto and Delfitto (200 0),
Tatevosov (2002), a m o n g others. All o f the aforem entioned authors follow the
conceptual “tim e-sch em ata” established by V endler (1957), w h ereas Dahl (1985),
Bybee and Dahl (1989), and Bybee et al. (1994) present typological studies o f
A s p e c t j based m ore on an inductive conceptual approach through generalizations
from large language samples. Sasse (1991), however, argues that cross-linguistically
the d is t in c tio n b e tw e e n A s p e c t i and A s p e c t , is not as c le a r-c u t as m a y first
appear.
In this presentation, we will begin with a b rief o v erv iew o f studies bearing on
A s p e c t , followed by those pertaining to A s p e c t . We will then explore the relations
between these two (the aspect/actionality interface).

3.1. Actionality (Aspectj

Albeit with a certain amount o f criticism and recategorization, m ost studies o f
actionality begin with V endler s (1957) four-way classification, illustrated by the fol­
lowing examples:

(1) a. John is polite/knows French, (state)

b. John walked across the park, (activity)
c. John wrote a letter/crossed the street, (accom plishm ent)
d. John reached the summ it, (achievement)

Post-Vendlerians, e.g., D ow ty (1972), often categorize V en d lers classes using

the features [± punctual], [± durative], [± telic], [± dynamic] (Table 4.1):
U N IV ER SALS AND TY PO LO GY 127

Table 4.1

Punctual Durative Telic D vnam

/
ic

States — + — —

Activities — + — +
Accomplishments - + + +
Achievements + - + +

Tatevosov (2002, pp. 3 2 0 -3 2 1) compares the distinctions proposed by various

authors: Vendler (1957), C o m rie (1976), Mourelatos (1978), C h u n g and Tim berlake
(1985), Bache (1985, 1995a, 1995b), Bach (1986), M oens (1987), Dik (1989, 1994),
Smith (19 9 1,19 9 5 ,19 9 6 ), D urst-Andersen (19 9 2,19 9 4, 2000), Klein (1994), Paduceva
(1995), Verkuyl (1972, 1993, 1999), Filip (1999), and Johanson (1996). Tatevosov
shows how each o f these authors introduces new elements, at times new features,
but nonetheless closely follow Vendler s conceptual schemata. Som e establish a fea­
ture hierarchy. C o m rie for example distinguishes “stative” and “dynamic,” the latter
being further divided into “punctual” and “durative,” and this latter into “telic” and
“atelic.” Mourelatos distinguishes between “states” and “occurrences,” the latter
being divided into “processes” and “events,” with a further subdivision o f events into
“developments” and “punctual occurrences.” O ne thus sees that C o m rie and M o u re ­
latos com e back to Vendler s four classes: a) “states or stative” ; b) “activities or atelic
or processes” ; c) “accom plishm ents or telic or developments” ; d) “achievem ents or
punctual or punctual occurrences.”
Several authors (in c lu d in g C o m r i e , 1976; Lyons, 1977; Descles, 1980; M o u r e la ­
tos, 1981; C h u n g & T im b e rla k e , 1985; Bach, 1986) also highlight the im p o rta n t
distinction between stale, process, and event. O thers (like G alto n, 1976; K a m p , 1979;
Bennett, 1981; Vet, 1985; Thelin, 1990; K a ro la k , 19 9 4 ,19 9 7 ; and K o sesk a 8c M azu erk i-
evicz, 1994) retain the b asic opposition b etw een state and event. O n the other hand,
starting with the o p p o sition state and process, Tatevosov (2002, p. 331), a d d s the
n o tio ns “ entry into a stale ” and “ entry into a process .” H e thus, albeit circuitously,
co m e s back to the notion o f event: “ [E ]n try into a state c o rr e s p o n d s to M o u r e la to s’
(1978) events, C h u n g and T im b e rla k e ’s (1985) telic processes, D u r s t - A n d e r s e n ’s
(1992) actions” (p. 331); the seco nd notion “ entry into a process” “ refers to a situation
that term inates p r o d u c in g a new situation.” T hese two notions, w h ic h are not found
in V e n d le r’s classification, h o w e v e r do not a p p ea r sufficiently clearly defined in Tat­
e v o s o v s article, w h e re he analyses them as “ transitions” (e.g., from “ not b o il” to
“ boil,” or “c lo sed ” to “o pen” ) but d o e s not sp e c ify that in fact they are b o u n d a r y
crossings.
It w o u ld thus app ear that the distinction between the two operations in fact
resides in the nature o f the b o u n d a r y : in the case o f “en try into a state,” an even t’s
te rm in a l (right) b o u n d a r y is crossed, w h erea s with an “e n tr y into a process,” the
p ro c e ss’s initial (left) b o u n d a r y is crossed, w h ic h necessarily im plies a switch fro m
an initial stable state to an o n g o in g process. It therefore appears crucial to d istin ­
guish between these two n o tio n s— term in al b o u n d ary, characteristic o f events V5 .
128 PERSPECTIVES

initial boundary, characteristic o f processes— in order to achieve som e clarity in the

face o f such com plex linguistic phenom ena, and in order to contribute to the estab­
lishment o f a coherent typology o f aspect. A longside the above four primitives, to
account for habitual, iterative, and distributive situations, Tatevosov adds the n o ­
tion o f “multiplicative process” (as in John is coughing ), w h ich he distinguishes from
“ plain process” (as in John is waiting).

3.2. Grammatical Aspect (Aspect_)

The typological approach generally applied to g ram m atical aspect and tense (see
C o m rie , 1976, 1985; Bybee, 1985; Dahl, 1985, 20 0 0 , 2005; Bybee and Dahl, 1989;
Bybee et al., 1994) is m o re inductive than that applied to actionality (Aspect,). It is
based much m ore on em piric observations leading to m ore general categories, and
then to a set o f “ universal gram-types,” 5 themselves the result o f “gram maticaliza-
tion paths.” 6
Bybee and Dahl offer a description o f the general tendencies concern in g the
creation o f tense-aspect systems based on a sample o f approximately 100 languages.
Their hypothesis is that “ the m eanings o f gram s are cross-linguistically similar,
m akin g it possible to postulate a sm all set o f cross-linguistic gram -types, identifi­
able by their semantic foci and associated with typical m eans o f expression” (p. 52).
To establish these cross-linguistic gram -types, they m ostly take “ inflectional gram s”
into consideration, as well as som e constructions with auxiliaries (i.e., the sam e
criteria as used by Dahl, 2 0 0 5 , ]n the World Atlas o f Language Structures).
In her study based on a 50-language sample (mostly obtained through reference
g ram m ars), Bybee (1985) tests a certain num ber o f hypotheses on differences in the
semantic content o f inflectional m o rp h e m es across languages, which correlate with
the degree o f fusion and formal reduction o f the lexical stem (p. 139; see also Bybee
and Dahl, 1989, p. 53). D ah ls ow n (1985) study utilizes a questionnaire o f approxi­
mately 200 sentences with contextual indications, translated into 64 languages by
native speakers. The analysis o f these two studies produced the following synthesis
by Bybee and Dahl (1989, p. 55) o f six tense-aspect gram-types:

(2) a. “ perfective,” indicating that a situation is v ie w ed as bounded;

b. “ im perfective” : the situation is viewed as n on -b ou n d ed;
c. “ progressive” (called “continuous” in B y b ees study): the situation is in progress at the
time o f reference;
d. “ future” : the speaker predicts that a situation will o c c u r after the speech event;
e. “ past” : the situation occurred before the speech event;
f. “perfect” (B y b e e s “anterior” ): a situation is being described as relevant at the m om ent
o f speech or so m e other tim e o f reference.

Neither Bybee nor D ahl use the “ present” as a gram -type since, as noted by
Bybee and Dahl (1989, p. 55), most “ presents” are expressed through zero markers,
and in D a h ls study “ present tenses w ere in general treated as “default” m em b ers
o f categories.”
U N IV ER SALS AND TY PO LO GY 129

The m ain distinctions used, “ perfective/im perfective” and “ past/non-past,”

interact in such a w ay as “to characterize a typical tense-aspect system.” The c o m ­
bination o f the three tenses “ present, past, future” with the two aspects “p e r fe c ­
tive, im perfective” should give rise to six possible com binations. rlh e authors note
how ever that all six are never found in a single language; instead there is a u n iv e r­
sal ten den cy to associate “ perfective” and “p a st” and on one hand, and “ im p erfec ­
tive p a st” or “ im perfective n o n -p a s t” on the other. In a sam p le o f 18 languages,
Dahl identifies 9 languages (A law a, Bandjalang, M a n d a rin , C h inese, French,
Kurdish, Beja, K ik u y u , Seneca) w h ere these oppositions are clearly expressed
(p. 83):

perfective past//im perfective past/im p erfective n o n -p ast

This tense-aspect system highlights the ternary nature o f the basic inflectional
categories, even though languages m ay also have other tense and aspect g ra m m a t­
ical markers, such as progressive or perfect.
The gram -types are defined b y aspectual notions (“ perfective/imperfective/
progressive” ), temporal notions (“ past” /“future” ), and a m i x o f the two (“perfect” ).
Although Dahl (2005) stresses that “ tense and aspect do not always present th e m ­
selves as separate and neatly delineated categories,” the temporalist position
adopted actually supposes a more or less linear organization o f time, where the
speech act is located between the past (“ before” ) and the future (“subsequent to” ).
However, typological studies o f the sam ple used show that all the languages where
aspect is indicated using inflectional m arkers also use a m arker for either the past,
the perfective, or both.
Dahl (1985, p. 78) stresses that the inflectional form s called perfectives t y p i­
cally denote “a single event, seen as an inanalyzed w h ole, with a well defined
result or end state located in the past” ; in order to be interpreted as perfective, a
g ra m m a tic a l form “should be the default w a y o f referrin g to a [single] com pleted
event,” thus exclu d in g “s o m e additional nuance o f m e a n in g . . ., for instance if
em p h asis is put on the result being com plete or affecting the object totally” (Dahl,
2005, ch. 65).
In their joint study, Bybee and Dahl clearly show the lexical sources o f the
“tense-aspect gram s” ; these sources are linked to historical grammaticalization
paths; in Bybee et al. (1994) and Bybee (2006, pp. 18 4 -18 5), there are presented the
grammaticalization processes show n in Figure 4.1.
Based on these gram maticalization paths, these generalizations are estab­
lished: (1) inflectional languages m a y have an opposition o f past/present, o f imper-
fective/perfective, or both (Bybee, 2006, p. 186); (2) past and perfective tend to
have inflectional expression (Dahl, 1985).
The m ostly derivational Slavic Perfectives, the prefixed Hungarian form s, and
similar form s in languages in which the gram s stem from lexical sources such as
“finish,” “conclude,” “throw away,” etc., are considered “completives” (Bybee et al.,
1994, p. 54) or “conclusives” (Dahl, 1985) as they roughly express doing “something
thoroughly and to completion” :
130 PERSPECTIVES

1. The perfective path

(i) “ b e " , “ have” + P(ast)P(arliciple) -► RESULTAT1VE

( ii ) “ c o m e ( f r o m ) > ANTERIOR > PERFECTIVE/PAST

(ii i) “ f i n i s h COMPl .ETIVC

2. The presen t/imperfective path

(i) “ l o c a t e d at
-► PROGRESSIVE

( ii ) “ m o v e m e n t w h ile '
PRESENT/IMPERFECTIVE/PAST

( ii i) re d u p lic atio n

3. Future

(i) “ w a n t"

( ii ) “ m o v e m e n t to w a rd s ♦ INTENTION —►FUTURE

( ii i) “ so o n ", “a fte r"

F ig u r e 4.1

(3) R a m a (G rin evald C raig, 1988)

dor i-aakang-atkul-u
door 3Sg-shut-finish-PST
“ She shut the d o o r tight.”

As noted by Benveniste (1961, p. 260), the Slavic Perfective/Imperfective forms

cannot be considered prototypical o f the aspect category. Dahl (1985, p. 69) co n ­
cludes that “ the Slavic systems are in fact rather idiosyncratic in m an y w ays” : “ these
systems grammaticalize the notion o f ‘perfectivity’ which cannot be conflated with
several typological ‘perfective’ types.” Bybee and Dahl (1989, p. 89) insist on the
difference between the notions “perfective aspect,” the crucial property o f which is
considered to be its presentation o f a “ total view o f the situation,” and “ perfectivity,”
“ the presence o f the limit or end-state for the process.”
In fact, as the definitions show, the perfective/im perfective distinction used in
linguistic descriptions is linked to the m ore primitive notion o f “ b o u n d a r y ” and is
open to several interpretations unless one specifies that these notions relate re­
spectively to the presence or absence o f a boundary. In Slavic languages, “one can
see a tendency for b oun ders to becom e g ram m aticalized as aspectual m ark ers”
(D ahl, p. 86) and “ the sim ilarity between the perfective m e a n in g evolved histori­
cally from boun ders and that which evolves from periphrastic constructions (i.e.,
perfects) is strong evidence for the validity o f universal gram -typ es for perfective
aspect” (p. 89).
It is also im portant to note that when the form s and the sem antic contents are
too closely linked, the terms “perfective” and “ im perfective” give rise to a m b ig u ­
ities in the descriptions which are hard to spot as these metalinguistic notions are
U N IV ER SALS AND TY PO LO GY ІЗІ

traditionally associated with easily identifiable m o rp h o lo g ical form s, e.g., in the

Slavic languages.

3.3. Interaction between Aspecti and Aspect2

A s noted by Sasse (2002, pp. 207, 211), research into A spect tends to concentrate
more on m o rp h o lo g y (based on the “ perfective/imperfective” opposition), and to
be carried out in European-style linguistics, w hile research into Aspect. (Actional-
ity) is mostly carried out in the A n g lo -A m e ric a n tradition. Since m a n y grammatical
elements resulting from grammaticalization processes stem from lexical elements,
the analysis o f the semantic notions “perfective/imperfective” (belonging to the
domain o f A spect^ can be clarified using notions belonging to the dom ain o f
Aspect^.
The notion o f b o u n d a ry is shared by both Aspect, and Aspect, and transcends
the lex ico n -g ram m ar opposition. For Sasse (2002, pp. 2 0 5 -2 0 6 ),

[a] g o o d case can be m a d e for a distinction b etw een two types o f b o u n d e d n e s s ,

w h ic h can be associated with the d im e n s io n s o f A sp e c t . A s p e c t involves
in h eren t b o u n d e d n e s s (“ b o u n d e d n e s s ” ) w h ile A sp ect involves g r a m m a tic a lly
established b o u n d e d n e s s (“ b o u n d e d n e s s ” ). This w o u ld p ro v id e us with an
o p eration alizab le d istin c tio n with w h ich the traditional in co m p re h e n sib le
d efinitio n s can be replaced.

Therefore, in the case o f predicates which, determined by Aspect,, are unbounded,

the gram m atical aspect “ perfective” (in D a h ls sense) could be analyzed as an o p e r­
ator serving to establish a boundary, thus setting a limit to the activity. For other
types o f Aspect 2, the operation which would establish a temporal boun dary becom es
irrelevant, or at the least redundant: thus stative predicates are generally view ed as
not taking in account initial and final boundary, while for telic predicates the t e m ­
poral b o u n d a ry coincides with the telicity boundary.
These issues illustrate the interaction to be found between Aspect, and Aspect,:
(i) A sp e c ti can be considered an operator operating on Aspect,, with certain c o n ­
straints on possible combinations; (ii) A s p e c t( is linked to the temporal insertion o f
possible temporal boundaries associated with the discourse dom ain (this notion
will be developed below).

4. B a s i c A spectual C oncepts

For typological studies in the tense-aspect dom ain, it is crucial to call upon a ter-
tium com parationis (see Lazard, 1994; Johanson, 200 0; Seiler, 2 0 0 0 ; Haspelmath,
2010) or a metalinguistic representation (Culioli, 1999). Indeed, use o f the descriptive
categories o f a specific language as the general concepts for cross-linguistic co m p ar­
isons, such as was long the case with Latin or happens today with English,

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132 PERSPECTIVES

skews descriptions by inappropriately projecting that languages categories onto the

languages described. There appears to be som e confusion between the labels used to
identify m orphological fo rm s and the m eanings designated by the English terms
w hich, taken to be transparent in English, are not given operational definitions. To
describe a language, it is possible to use a metalanguage structured by linguists,
where the descriptive terms used are defined and distinguished fro m each other;
this structured metalanguage can be expressed in a given language— English for
exam ple— in the form o f regulated glosses. S o m e o f this structured m etalanguages
terms can also be defined, e.g., mathematically and logically. By using a structured
metalanguage, the formula chosen to express the various descriptive concepts tends
no longer to be tightly linked to the simple m orphosyntactic encoding in a given
language, nor to the traditional gram m atical terminology, and therefore acquires
cross-linguistic status.
O ne must be very careful however to ensure that the generalizations are founded
on observations as varied as possible, and are then subjected to an abductive
analysis, leading to the coherent organization o f a conceptual system in w h ich each
concept is linked to the other concepts through various relations. This structured
conceptual system is thus a “conceptual semantic map,” similar to that established
by A nderson (19 8 2,19 86) for the perfect and for evid en tially.
Which semantic prim es should be used as the foundation for a cross-linguistic
tense-aspect conceptual network? We saw above that the notion o f bou n dary
extends across the dom ains o f both A S P E C T I and A S P E C T 2. However, this notion
is in need o f fu rth e r s p e c ific a tio n . For exam p le, stating that a sp ecific state is
unbounded does not indicate whether the state is perm anent or contingent. In some
languages (not only Spanish and Portuguese), this distinction is grammaticalized
and is expressed through well-identified m orphological oppositions:

(4) Hebrew (G reenberg, 1998, p. 127)

a. ha-sam ayim hem k x u lim (perm anent state)
the sk y 3ms.PI blue
“ The sk y is generally blue, blue b y nature.”
b. h a-sam ayim k xu lim (contingent state)
the sk y blue
“ The sk y is blue now/today.”

(5) M w o tlap, Vanuatu (François, 2003, pp. 7 7 - 7 8 )

a. N ê-lê-n <N E-m lém lëg> (permanent state)
Art-hair-3Sg STA-black
“ Her/I lis hair is black.”
b. N a-m né-k <N E-lem > (contingent state)
A r t - h a n d - iS g STA-black
“ M y h ands are dirty.”

Thus a state can be temporally bounded and have a specific finite duration.
M ost states are in fact bounded.

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U N IV ER SALS AND TY PO LO GY 133

4.1. Topological Boundary Types

Precise understanding o f the notion o f boundary is closely linked to intervals. A
b o u n d a ry is a punctual instant. As regards an oriented interval, made up o f succes­
sive instants, one can have either an initial (left) boun dary or a final (right) b oun dary;
the b o u n d a ry can be either open, in which case it does not belong to the interval, or
closed, in w h ic h case it is part o f the interval. A stative situation (Luke is seated)
obtains at each instant o f an open interval, w hose right and left boundaries are not
taken into consideration, i.e., are not included in the interval. Such a state is bounded,
but its boundaries are excluded. It would thus appear that the use o f the feature
“ unbounded state,” intrinsically associated with the notion o f state, is a source o f
contradiction because although som e states (permanent states) are unbounded, as
their boundaries are rejected at infinity (that is, the length o f each interval increases
without bound), most states (contingent states) are effectively bounded because they
are limited in length. Therefore a m ore exact characterization o f boundaries as ap­
plied to the notion o f state would be the “non-consideration o f the right and left
boundaries” o f the (open) interval in which the state is realized. The two boundaries
are discontinuities associated with two punctual events: entrance into the state in
the case o f the left boun dary and exiting the state in that o f the right. Stative situa­
tions are essentially the indication o f an absence o f change, i.e., stability in the inter­
val o f instants (see Galton, 1976; Bennett, 1981; a su rvey o f the notion o f state is given
in Binnick, 1991). One should further note that stative situations contain the p ro p ­
erties o f their sub-intervals (see Dowty, 1979; Descles, 1980; Bennett, 1981): a situa­
tion which holds for an interval T also holds for all sub-intervals o f T.
O n both the lexical and the gram m atical levels, languages can also express
punctual or non-punctual changes, i.e., events. An event expresses a change with
both initial and terminal or final discontinuity; it is effected at each instant o f a
closed interval, necessarily entailing an initial (i.e., closed left) b o u n d a r y and a ter­
minal or final (i.e., right closed) b o u n d a ry; the boundaries belonging to the closed
interval. An event is not necessarily punctual, since it can be compatible with a cer­
tain time span:

(6) Ancient Greek

E-basileu-s-e déka été:
P ast-reign -A O R -3S g t e n .A C C y e a r .A C C
“ He reigned for ten years.” (C o m rie 1976, p. 50)

The notion o f telicity discussed in G arey (1957) is essential for understanding

aspectual relations. It m ay be briefly illustrated by the French imparfait. For example,
depending on the lexical properties o f the verb, this tense-aspect form can refer to
different views o f the situation described: whereas il se baignait “ he was bathing”
implies the occurrence o f the event il sest baigné “ he bathed” (il se baignait -> il sest
baigné), the sentence il se noyait “ he was drow n in g” does not lead to a similar infer­
ence, i.e., il se noyait “ he was d row n in g ” does not im ply il sest noyé “ he drowned.”
Furthermore, a verb like run can be used to indicate an atelic (7) or telic (8) event.

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134 PERSPECTIVES

(7) He ran in the p ark this morning.

(8) H e ran to the post office.

In (7) the predicate “ run” is atelic but its temporal insertion, indicated by the
gram m atical form ran , introduces a terminal right boundary, which builds up an
event. (7) therefore refers to an event which is effected at the very instant the process
o f “ ru n n in g ” is interrupted. In (8), the predicate “run to the post office” is telic, and
the instant where the process ends coincides with the final b o u n d a ry implied by the
predicates telicity; (8) also refers to an event carried out at the instant where the
place “ post office” is reached. See also C h u n g and Tim berlake (1985). I l l es e authors
distinguish an event which “conies to an end before s o m e temporal point” (“ John
painted until the sun went d o w n” ) or “ within the confines o f som e temporal inter­
val” (“ John painted from m o rn in g to until night” ) i.e., the event is “ limited, bounded,
or included in the [temporal] fram e selected by the speaker” (p. 223), and an event
which is closed with respect to its temporal fram e; i.e., the temporal fram e is exter­
nal to the event (p. 219).
Thus there is an opposition between complete events and completed events. The
term inology used in French allows a better understanding o f the conceptual o p p o ­
sition between accompli (complete) and achevé (completed). Smith (1991, pp. 4 5-4 9 )
uses an analogous distinction between “ termination” and “completion.” In a
language such as Bulgarian, this distinction has becom e grammaticalized as an
opposition between the Imperfective A orist metox in (9) and the Perfective Aorist
izmetox in (10):

(9) M e to x stajata tazi sutrin

s w e e p .A O R .Im p f.iS g room .the this m o rn in g
“ I swept the room this morning.” (complete event)

(10) Izmetox stajata tazi sutrin

sw e e p .A O R .P f.iS g room .the this m orn in g
“ I swept the room this morning.” (completed event)

The sa m e se m an tic o p p o sition is fo u n d in other languages, for instance M o k i-

lese (O ceanic, M ic r o n e sia n ) (see C h u n g & T im b e rla k e , 1985, p. 236).
We have seen above (in section 3.1) that while num erous scholars make use o f
the basic categorical opposition o f state and event , others use a three-way distinc­
tion between state, event, and process. The notion o f “process” is characterized by a
situations unfolding (He is ploughing the field) and necessarily implies an initial
punctual discontinuity between the form er stable state and the following evolution.
This process is carried out over an interval w h o se left b o u n d a ry (often implicit in
discourse) is necessarily closed; if this left b o u n d a ry does not exist, then the process
w ould be a state, and evolution would not be possible. E n try into the process means
crossing the process’s left boundary. In the process, the right b o u n d a ry is not taken
into account as the evolutionary change takes place at each preceding instant, but

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U N IV ER SALS AND TY PO LO GY 135

Table 4.2

To take in account Evolution

Initial left bound Terminal right bound

State — — —

Process + — +
Event + + +

what takes place at this b o u n d a r y and im m ediately following it is not mentioned.

The interval within which a process is carried out is therefore an interval with a
closed left b o u n d a ry (the initial change) and an open right b o u n d a ry (the b o u n d a ry
o f incompleteness).
Let us n o w consider the relevant features for characterizing aspect: whether
(or not) the left and right b o u n d a ries are taken into consideration in the interval
and its evo lu tio n ary features (d yn am ic or not). This can be s u m m a riz e d as in
Table 4.2.
Table 4.2 well illustrates the conceptual im portance o f the left and right
boun daries, d ep en d in g on w h eth er they are taken into account (in w h ich case the
bou n d aries are closed) or not (in which case the b o u n d a ries are open). The c o m ­
bination o f not taking the left b o u n d a r y into account an d taking the right
b o u n d a r y into account cannot be directly interpreted and has apparently not
been g ram m aticalized in any language. This is because an end implies a prior
b eginning.

4.2. States, Events, and Processes

The opposition between b ou n ded and unbounded situations is thus insufficient for
characterizing the three basic aspectual types. Table 4.2 highlights the conceptual
links between states and processes on the one hand (the right boundaries are always
open, indicating incompleteness) and between events and processes on the other
hand (the left boundaries are always closed, thus indicating initial discontinuity). It
follows that the three notions state/event/process are not independent o f one
another.
C o n tin g e n t states are b o u n d e d , hence by two p o s sib ly punctual events, also
indicative o f two transitions: the first lead in g into the state, the seco n d leading
out o f the state. Thus the transition “ he fell in love” leads the subject into the
state “ he is in love” ; the transition “ he w o ke up” leads out o f the state “ he is
asleep.”
A s we said above, an event is not necessarily punctual, but m a y last a certain
amount o f time. It expresses an effective transition leading from a prior state to a
subsequent state. The transition he woke up leads from the state he is asleep to the
state he is awake. An event is thus always bounded by two states.

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 PERSPECTIVES

Process is a more com plex notion as it makes it possible to show how a transi­
tional, non-punctual event is constituted. It is necessarily characterized by an initial
event m arking discontinuity (which can be punctual or not) between a prior sta­
bility and the unfolding evolution. I l l is discontinuity corresponds to entering into
the process. The process he is fa llin g asleep indicates the passage from the prior state
he is not sleeping to a change oriented toward a state which is not (yet) reached he is
asleep , w h ich indeed implies a transition zone between stability and change. When
the process reaches a boundary, it triggers an event that becom es, depending on the
case, either a complete event or a completed event.
The event is complete when the process which gave rise to it is interrupted,
e.g., by a secant event; then the process becom es an event, since a terminal
b o u n d a r y must be taken into consideration: He was running in the pa rk when a tree
blocked his path; Russian M y vse spokojno razgovarivalis, kogda vdrug razdalsja
vystrel “ We were talking gently when sudd enly a shot w as fired” (Breu, 1994). An
event is completed when the process w h ic h gave rise to it reaches its natural final
b o u n d a r y (called often “ inherent limit,” see C h u n g and Tim berlake, 1985), linked
a m o n g other things to the intrinsic semantics o f telic predicates ( leave hom ey win
a race , . . . ) .

4.3. Discrete Processes as Sequences of Situation

Occurrences
vStates, processes and events m a y unfold over continuous instant intervals, but may
also be associated with discrete (countable) instants. This is equivalent to saying
that if one takes a sequence o f successive situations, this sequence can be either
b oun ded or unbounded. An unbounded sequence such as The earth revolves around
the sun means that the events in the sequence are all identical and repeat th e m ­
selves, but also that neither the first nor the last events in the sequence are taken into
consideration. A sequence o f situations which repeat themselves, with an initial
occurrence, constitutes a discrete process which can indicate, e.g., habitual aspect
(John has been sm oking fo r 18 years); in this case, the process's right boun dary is
open since it does not take into consideration a last occurrence. In John sm oked fo r
18 years, it is indicated that John no longer smokes and that henceforth there are no
longer any occurrences o f John smokes. The switch from the continuous to the dis­
crete thus accounts for the aspectual meanings habitual, iterative, or generic. L a n ­
guages do not systematically m a rk the distinction between discrete and continuous,
contrary to, e.g., C h iB em b a , w here the iterative is expressed by the specific m arker
-la-: ba-la-bom ba “they repeatedly w o rk ” (see C h u n g and Timberlake, 1985, p. 228)
or Y im as (Papuan language, Sepic) where the habitual is encoded by a specialized
m o rp h e m e -w at (Foley, 1991, p. 246, cited by Stassen, 1997, p. 263): M ang-nan na-
pay-kia-w at (gloss: M a n g i- O B L 3sg.Subj-lie-night-hab) “ He usually sleeps at
M a n g i” ); the sequence o f occurrences can also be indicated by adverbial markers,
quantifiers, and determiners. For example, John is eating a sandwich denotes a

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U N IV ER SALS AND TY PO LO GY 137

continuous process whereas John eats sandwiches denotes a discrete process made
up o f a sequence o f several discrete and successive events (John is eating a sandwich)
(see Verkuyl, 1999). In French, Jean fum e can denote, depending on the su p p lem en ­
tary contextual information provided, a continuous process (cf. Jean is smoking
right now) or a habit described as an open sequence o f discrete and iterated events
(cf. Jean smokes after lunch). The sam e is true for encore “still” and déjà “already”
which can refer either to continuous processes (Jean est encore à la m aison, il est en
retard “Jean is still at home, he is latey>/Jean est déjà à la m aison, il est en avance “ Jean
is already at hom e, he is early” ) or to sequences o f identical events (Jean est encore à
la m aison, une fo is de plus! “Once more, Jean is still at h o m e r /Jean a déjà construit
des barrages, il en a lexpérience “Jean has already built dams, he has experience in
the d om ain ” ).

4.4. Events and Their Phases

It is possible to express the aspectual distinction between a process (the plan e is
flying) and a state o f activity (The plane is in flight) distinct from other states (the
plane is in the hangar; the plan e has broken dow n; the plane is being repaired ; . . .).
Although the state o f activity is indeed a state, it implies an underlying process that
excludes taking an initial phase (to begin flying) or any initial transition event into
consideration; the process on the other hand explicitly expresses an evolution
unfolding from a beginning. Som e linguistic tests clearly show the opposition (the
plane is fly in g faster and faster but *the plane is in flight faster and faster) (see Desclés
and Guentchéva, 1995).
If one assimilates processes with activities, following V endlers schemata, it
becomes difficult to distinguish between states and processes, as both denote in­
completeness and are thus characterized by the presence o f an open right boundary.
A n event m a y be divided into various phases. Cross-linguistically, som e o f these
phases have been grammaticalized or are expressed, e.g., by auxiliaries. Thus one
can distinguish between preparatory, initial, terminal, final, or resultative phases.
The various phases that m ake up events can be illustrated in the form o f a diagram
(Figure 4.2).
Events m a y thus not o n ly be se g m e n te d into different phases, but m a y also be
co nceptu alized as a transition fr o m a b e g in n in g to an end. In languages such as
A lb a n ia n , G reek , A r m e n i a n , G e o r g ia n , and H in d i/U rd u , the A o r is t exp resses the
notion o f event as a w hole, called “ perfective” in the cu rren t typ o log ical literature.

4.5. Resultative States

It is v ery im p ortan t to note that in m a n y languages a single m o r p h o lo g ic a l form
m a y express both an event and the state that results fro m it, contextual in fo rm a tio n
usually r e m o v in g any ambiguity. This m e a n s that a process w h ich h as reached a
term in al or final transitional b o u n d a r y generates both a com plete and a com pleted
event, respectively, as well as a resultant state.

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Event

be fo re State of activity after

In te r io r o f event

to get re a d y to do to h a v e ...ed

to start to co n tin u e to stop

to b egin
to fin ish
•— ►
IS... in g

F ig u r e 4.2. D iffe re n t p h a s e s o f a n event

There are several types o f resultative states. A cross-linguistic su rvey o f resulta-

tive constructions can be fo u n d in St. Petersburg typological studies (Nedjalkov,
1988) based on the general fram ew o rk set out in N ed jalvo v and Jaxontov (1988).
D efining the diathetic relation between syntactic functions and sem antic roles in
the resultative and the corresponding non-resultative, the St. Petersburg group has
paid close attention to the semantic features o f verbs and formulated distinctions
between resultatives and neighboring constructions (like possessives, passives and
perfect), yielding the implicational hierarchy o f possessive -> subjective ->
objective.
Despite the fact that the expression o f the perfect is not uniform in form and
does not express exactly the sam e range o f m eanings in the languages that have
such a form , most authors consider the perfect as a resultant state subsequent to a
completed action (see C o m rie , 1976; Dahl, 1985; Klein and Vatcr, 1998). This resul­
tant state associated with perfect m eaning differs from the descriptive state in that
the latter is self-standing, while the fo rm er is linked to the event that led to it. For
example John has opened the door and the door was opened are resultant states while
the door is open is a descriptive state. The resultant state is a state that is acquired by
an actant, generally the subject, as in Ancient G reek ( tethnekenai “ be dead,” Perfect
o f thneiskein “die” ), Swahili ( amefika “ he has arrived ” ), and, marked by the particle
le , in C hinese (dongxi gu i-le lit. things have b e co m e expensive’ ).7 (See C o m rie, 1976,
PP- 57-58). The resultant state is true for a temporal zone which is contiguous and
adjacent to the prior event zone, which Ancient G reek gram m arian s referred to by
the notion parakem einos “up against,” “ right beside,” “just after” and which the
Stoics referred to as enestos suntelikos “extended present” (see Holt, 1943; Lallot,
1989, pp. 1 7 0 - 1 7 3 ; Binnick, 1991, p. 22).
Crosslinguistically, the perfect is often diachronically linked to a possessive form:
“ The m eaning o f perfect was gained by an inference: he who possesses has acquired;
he who wears a garment has put it on” (Christian Sarauw, quoted by Jespersen, 1924,

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UNIVERSALS AND TYPOLOGY 139

ch. X X ; 1965, p. 269). Considering the facts in A rm en ian and the general develop­
ments which have taken place in Indo-European languages with the introduction of
have + past participle, Benveniste (1952/1966) distinguishes between the perfect as a
state acquired by the subject and a passive state expressing a patients state. He thus
opposes the perfect z-or erpo rea l “ [the tomb] which someone dug” and the passive
or er poreal “ [the tomb] which was dug.” C o n tra ry to the resultant state which refers
to a stative temporal zone contiguous to the event, the passive state, associated with
passive diathesis, is not necessarily contiguous to the event which led to it as in he has
killed (the state acquired by the subject who thereby acquires a new quality) vs. he
was killed (patient state).
A typological approach must distinguish those languages that resort to posses­
sive-like constructions analogous to expressing resultant states from those which
use other means.
The state o f experience is another type o f resultative which implies a discrete
and open sequence o f identical occurrences, one o f the occurrences necessarily
being the event in question: John has been to Paris entails that on at least one o c c a ­
sion John was in Paris , without it necessarily being the most recent occurrence o f
the event. M an y languages express this contrast, e.g., M andarin Chinese: nt cht-le
yuchi-le mei-you “ have you eaten the sh a rk s fin?” opposed to n i chi-guoyuchi-le mei-
you “ have you ever eaten sh a rk s fin?” (see C o m rie, 1976, p. 58). Som e resultatives
are directly implied by the verbal predicates semantics: Peter has left Rome entails
the consecutive or final state Peter is no longer in Rome.
N um erous linguists have commented on resultatives (including C om rie, 1976;
M cC o ard , 1978), and m ore specifically on the compositionality o f perfect forms (e.g.,
Binnick, 1991; Klein, 19 9 2 ,19 9 4 ; Kortm ann, 1995). There are also publications o f col­
lective studies on resultatives from a typological perspective (see Nedjalkov, 1988).

4.6. Perfectives and Perfectivity

A n im p o rta n t conceptual distinction m ust be m a d e betw een what the A n g lo - S a x o n
linguistic tradition calls “ perfective” (d e n o tin g a com plete situation) and “ im perfec-
tive” (d e n o tin g an inco m p lete situation). The notion o f “ perfective” m ust also be
distin gu ish ed fro m that o f “ p e rfe ctiv ity ” (a co m p leted situation). A s C o m r i e (1976,
p. 18) points out:
A v e r y frequent characterization o f perfectivity is that it indicates a com pleted
action. O n e sh o u ld note that the w o rd at issue in this definition is “completed,”
not “complete.” . . . The perfective d o e s indeed d en o te a co m p lete situation, with
b e g in n in g , m id d le, and end. The use o f “c o m p l e t e d ” how ever, puts too m uch
e m p h a s is on the term ination o f the situation, w h e r e a s the use o f perfective puts
110 m o re em p h a sis, necessarily, o n the end o f a situation than on a n y o th e r part o f
the situation, rather all parts o f the situation are presented as a single whole.

In m a n y languages, for e x a m p le Slavic, Baltic (Latvian and Lith uan ian ), F in n o - U g r ic

(H u n g a ria n ), G e o r g ia n , R a m a , and n u m e ro u s others, perfectivity is a sem antic
notion associated with well-identified m o rp h o lo g ic a l fo rm s (prefixed or suffixed)

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140 PERSPECTIVES

w h ich often associate the predicate and one o f the arguments; for example, there is
a strong correlation between perfectivity and object determination in transitive co n ­
structions (for instance in Bulgarian, see Guentcheva, 1990). One should also note
that the completeness expressed by perfectivity does not necessarily mean that the
entire event is completed; it m a y instead simply designate the completion o f the
events initial or final phase. 111118 in Polish:

(11) Slorice za.szlo za chm ury

su n .N o m Z A .go .Past behind c l o u d s .A C C (za “ behin d , b e y o n d ” )
“ The sun hid b ehind the clouds.”

(12) Ivan dobicgl do drzew a

Iv a n .N O M DO .run.Past DO tre e .G E N (do “ until” )
“ Ivan ran to the tree.”

(13) Woda w y -p ty n eia z beczki

w atcr.N om ex-flow.Past o f barrel.Gen (wy-: passage from inside to outside)
“ The water flowed out o f the barrel.”

Thus perfectivity expresses both the existence o f a final b o u n d a ry and the fact that
the b o u n d a ry has been crossed (Russian proigrat ’: On proigral vse v kartax , ‘ He g a m ­
bled away everything he had’). The b o u n d a r y crossing concerns either the final
b o u n d a ry o f a m ore global situations initial phase (which is equivalent to entering
into the process which constitutes the event as a whole), or the final phase o f a
global situation beyond which the situation can no longer happen (equivalent to
entering into the resultative phase o f the entire event having unfolded all the way to
its final boundary). This conceptualization makes Tatevosov’s operations (see above)
m ore explicit. If one does not distinguish between “perfective” and “perfectivity,”
one necessarily com es up against semantic confusion, as there are events that are
sim ply complete without being completed.

4.7. Complete and Incomplete Aspectual Opposition

The Semitic languages provide excellent examples where the unprefixed form
al-m adi (called “accom pli” in the French linguistics tradition and “ perfective” in
A n g lo -A m e ric a n literature) is a resultant state or event; and the prefixed form
al-m uddri (called “ inaccom pli” and “ imperfective,” respectively) expresses non-
resultative states or processes, as in Ancient A kkadian , where, according to C ohen
(1989, p. 21, pp. 17 2 - 17 7 ), the predom inance o f present-future uses o f the so-called
“present” and uses for the past o f the “ preterite” does not license positing a temporal
basis for the A kkadian verb, since the “preterite” is excluded from the habitual
Imperfect, while the “ present” is used for all three times. When manifested as a
resultative or concomitant, the perfective is often expressed as a “preterite.”
In A k k a d ian , the “stative” is clearly linked to n om in al phrases, and functions
like a conjugated noun: sarr-d-ku = king-1, “ I am king” sarra-a-ta = king-you

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UNIVERSALS AND TYPOLOGY 141

(m asculine), “ you are k in g ”, labbaku - lion-1, “ I am a lion” ; ajjabata = en em y -y o u ,

“y o u are an e n e m y ” This is fo und in m a n y languages (for exam ple in Tlibatulabal
(U to-A ztec): ta-tw al-gi = “ the m a n - I ” = “ I am the m an ” (see C o h e n , 1989, p. 61).
I l l us the stative fulfills the role o f a passive perfect for active verbs, and at times
that o f a resultative perfect for m id d le -p a ssiv e verbs: sem eku = “ I have h eard ” ;
lam id = “ he k n ow s (having learnt).” A fter h avin g fu n ction ed as a perfect d u rin g
an early phase, this type o f stative then evolved in the rest o f Sem itic into a p e r ­
fect. By lin k in g stative and perfect, it b eco m es possible to distribute the A k k a d ian
“g ram m atical fo r m s ” using a clearly aspectual distinction. Below is a diagram
(Figure 4.3) o f these form s, illustrated by the verb parasu “decide” (in the third
person m a scu lin e singular), w h ere the reference point is directly linked to the
d iscourse situation, and therefore to the temporal reference denoted by T q.
General gram m atical labels used in the literature are highlighted by the d ia­
gram s in Figure 4.4.
A kkadian forms do not express temporal periods (see Koschm ieder, 1929; 1996,
p. 76). The aspectual meanings o f the “perfect/imperfect” opposition can therefore
be represented through any temporal reference point T (present, past, even future)
(Figure 4.4).
Let us sum m arize. The so-called Perfective Semitic form s (in Arabic languages,
the unprefixed form, denoting complete situations) refer to events but never to a
“present event,” in which they are similar to the Perfective in Slavic languages; h o w ­
ever, they m ay refer to a “present time” as a descriptive state or a resultant state. The
so-called Imperfective Semitic forms (in Arabic languages, the prefixed form,
denoting incomplete situations) never refer to an event, only either a state or a
process, w h o se reference time is anchored at T or at another b o u n d a ry T (. (For
discussion and references o f this controversial problem, see Binnick, 1991, pp. 4 34 -
4 4 4 ) . When one takes the topological boundaries into account, one sees that the
imperfective forms always represent incomplete situations characterized by an open
right b o u n d a ry ; the perfective ones imply closed boundaries, the closed left
b o u n d a r y o f the event and the closed right b o u n d a ry in reference to which the
resulting state is to be understood.

C o m p lete In co m p lete

R esultan t State Actual state

F «--------------- A T. * T,
« Perfect » « Stative »
iptaras p aris

Past event Process

1 « P resen t »
« P re te rit »
ip ru s iparras

F ig u r e 4.3. C o m p l e t e / in c o m p l e t e s itu a tio n at the in sta n t T°

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142 PERSPECTIVES

Reference T = T ,* T 0
Instant T

H - — *Lt „ E—3«— t Ti r
Actual resultin g state Past resulting state

Complete
H ---- LT» Tl To

Past event Past event

Incom plète - t Ti {T ,
t ‘o
Actual proccss Past proccss

} t Tl {T
} t'o
Actual (no rcsultativc) state Past (n o rcsultativc) state

F ig u r e 4.4. T em p oral d i a g r a m s o f c o m p le t e a n d in c o m p l e t e situ a tio n s

4. N e t w o r k of th e Basic A spectual

C oncepts

Basic aspectual concepts lead to a netw ork presented here in a simplified version.
These concepts are linked in Figure 4.5 by specification (“ is a sort o f ” ), generaliza­
tion (arrows with continuous lines), and constraints (arrows with dotted lines). For
example, each occurrence o f an event triggers a resultant state, each completed
event triggers a final state which is a type o f resultative state; each activity state refers
to a continuous process or an underlying progressive.
T h is n e tw o rk constitutes a co n cep tu a l sem a n tic m ap that tran scen d s the
d istin ctio n betw een A S P E C T 1 and A S P E C T 2. T h e m a in d iffe re n ce between
these two lies in the d istin ctio n b etw een lexicon and g ra m m a r . G r a m m a r
im plies (1) the creation o f pred icative relations a lo n g w ith their v a ria tio n s ( d i­
athesis, topicalizatio n, d e te rm in a tio n . . .); 2) an aspectual visu alization o f the
pred icative relation in the form o f a state, event or p rocess, or in the form o f a
s e q u e n c e o f o c c u r r e n c e s ; 3) the insertion o f the latter in a tem p o ra l d isco u rse
sp a c e o rg a n ized a ro u n d the en u n c ia tiv e act, im p ly in g an a s y m m e tr ic a l o p p o s i ­
tion “ b etw een events w h ich have tran sp ired versu s those w h ic h as yet have not,
and m a y n ever do so” (B in n ic k , 1991, p. 4 42), w ith fu n d a m e n ta lly m o d a l s e m a n ­
tic n u a n c es (we shall return to this issue b elow ). T h e d istin ction w h ic h D ahl
m a k e s b e tw een past and fu tu re essentially belon gs to this in se rtio n in the t e m ­
poral d isc o u rse space. B u ild in g the p red icative relation calls upon the aspectual
p ro p ertie s ( A S P E C T () o f the predicates ( A S P E C T ). O f c o u rs e there are m ore
natural relations be tw een A S P E C T and aspectual p ro p e rtie s o f lexical p r e d i ­
cates ( A S P E C T ): the state “ be tall” can either be e x p ressed d irectly as a curren t

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UNIVERSALS AND TYPOLOGY 143

F i g u r e 4.5. C o n c e p t u a l n e t w o r k o f b asic a s p e c ts

state “he is tall ” or as a past state “ he was tall .” H ow ever, the aspectual s c o p e
( A S P E C T ) o f the pred icative relation can tran sfo rm the A S P E C T . For exam ple,
a p ro ce ssiv e predicate (an activity in V en d ler s term s) can be e x p ressed as a past
event (p erfec tive m e a n in g in D a h l s term s): run (p ro ce ssiv e predicate) can
express an o n g o in g p ro ce ss ( D a h l s p ro g re ssiv e ): he is ru n n in g in the p a r k ; a
com plete event: he ran in the p a rk this m o rn in g ; a co m p leted event: he ran to the
post office this m o rn in g ; and even a resultant state: he has already run in the park
this m orning.
T h e r e fo r e there is a sort o f c o m p o s itio n a lity b etw een A S P E C T | and
A S P E C T but, in the end, these two n otion s call upon the sam e basic n e t w o r k o f
co n cep ts and s e m a n tic p rim itiv e s. To illustrate this, one can s h o w h o w V en d ler s
sch em a ta call upon the co n cep ts state/even t/process and s e m a n tic p rim itive s
(Table 4.3).

Table 4.3

Vendlers notions Basic concepts Semantic primitives

States States Do not take in account left and
right boundaries
Activities Processes, state o f activity Do not take into account right
boundary
Accomplishments Complete events Take into account left and right
boundaries
Achievements Punctual events Left b oundary = right
boundary/

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144 PERSPECTIVES

B yb e c and D a h ls gram m atical notions also call upon these basic concepts,
with im portant additional inform ation on the notions o f left and right boundaries
(Table 4.4).
V en d lers actionality schemata and Bybee and D a h l s gram m atical notions (as
well as those o f Bertinetto and num erous others) interfere with each other because
they call upon the sam e concepts and prim itives, which are both m ore general and
m o re elem entary than the notions usually used. Therefore language typologies
must use these concepts and elem entary primitives in order to break down the
sem antic analysis o f the gram m atical and lexical form s in the languages analyzed
into com parable representations, m ade possible by the fact that they are m ade up
o f the sam e basic conceptual ingredients. Naturally languages g ram m atical catego­
rizations are specific to the language in question: the G reek Aorist is not the same
as the W o lo f or Berber Aorist; the French Passé composé is not the equivalent o f a
m ix between the English Preterit and Present perfect. It is nonetheless reasonable
to analyze these gram m atical form s’ m eanings cross-linguistically using shared
concepts w h ich are progressively extracted and inserted into conceptual networks
based on duly analyzed representative samples which m ake it possible, following
an abductive processing, to extrapolate the m ost fundam ental and operational
concepts and primitives.

Table 4.4

G ram -types (Bybee&Dahl) Basic concepts Semantic primitives

Perfective Event (complete) Takes into account left and
right boundaries

Imperfective States, continuous processes, Does not take into

sequence o f discrete events account right boundary
o f states or continuous
processes entry in the process
from a state

Perfect Resultant state, Means anteriority o f one

Experiential states . . . event or a sequence o f
discrete events; entry into the
state from the right boundary
o f the event

Progressive Process; state o f activity Does not take into account the
right boundary
Future Not yet realized: interaction After the speech act (absolute
with modalities reference) or after an event
(relative reference)

Past Already realized Before the speech act (absolute

reference)

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UNIVERSALS AND TYPOLOGY 145

6. S i t u a t i n g A spectu a lized R ela tio n s

in D isco u rse T e m po r a lity

Situating aspectualized predicative relations in the speakers temporal space is

equivalent to taking into account the specifically temporal relations (concomitance,
anteriority/posteriority) proper to the enunciative act; the latter is fundamentally a
process (and not an event) which takes place over an interval w hose right boundary,
referred to as T o, is open, as the enunciative act is not complete as long as it is o n ­
going. The enunciative act becomes an event w hen it is complete, in which case it is
no longer an ongoing act (Descles, 19 8 0 ,19 8 9 ) and occurs in the past.8
A situations temporal location is essentially specified by relations between the
right boundary T o f the interval in which it unfolds, and the enunciative acts right
boundary T \ In general, no indication is given as to the relations between the left
boundary o f the interval associated to the referred situation and the left boundary o f
the interval associated to the enunciative process. According to our data, this type o f
temporal relation is not grammaticalized cross-linguistically. In fact, when this type of
relation is specified, this is usually done through adverbial constructions (since, start­
ing from , after, . . . ) or connectors between the processes (when, at the time of, while).
Aspectual notions are always interpreted in the light o f a reference instant “t”
(on a sim ilar conception, see Klein 1992, 2009). Suppose we describe a situation as
“ incomplete” (he is in Paris , he was sleeping this m orning when I left the hom e; he is
washing the car). Then, such a situation is either a (descriptive) state or a process,
and it is always characterized by an open right b ou n d ary: the situation is incomplete
in relation to the reference instant “t” without taking into consideration its possible
realization at “t” When the situation denoting a state (John is drunk) or a process
(He is ju st opening the door) and the enunciative process are carried out sim ulta­
neously over the instants w h ich immediately precede T o, the right b o u n d a ry T asso­
ciated with the situation is open and is concomitant with the open right boun dary
T o (see Descles, 1980). This does not m ean that there is simultaneity between the
entire interval corresponding to the state or process and the interval corresponding
to the enunciative process; the concom itance concerns only the right boundaries.
A complete aspectual situation is also relative to a reference point “ t”, but it
necessarily implies a closed right boundary. A complete situation is thus either a
complete event with a closed right boundary, or a resultative state with an open
right b ou n d ary: the resultative state is complete, as is the event that led to it.
When the situation refers to a process (He was painting the wall ; he was driving
along the Seine) or to a non-resultative state (He was in the garden) the intervals
right b o u n d a ry T is open: it is not possible to infer that it is entirely located in the
past since the situation m a y continue during the enunciative act.
When the situation is view ed as a resultant state located in the past (John had
left at six), the resultativity comes from the occurrence o f a past event with a right
closed b o u n d a ry T; it im poses taking into account a new temporal b o u n d a ry T (,
prior to T ° and posterior to T. The gram m atical form which expresses the boun dary

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T is therefore rendered by a “past perfect” (or “pluperfect” ) in the languages which

grammaticalize this sem antic m eaning, which refers either to the resultativity zone
between T and T f, or to the event which led to the resultativity.
Actualized past temporal reference is organized in two different directions:
either d ep en d in g on the chronology o f events (the occurrence o f one event, then the
occurrence o f another event); or looking back in time (the prototypical perfect in di­
cates a retrospective order), which is what the notion o f prototypical perfect
indicates.
N on-actualized temporal reference is organized differently: the localization o f
each situation is accom panied by a certain m odality (either epistemic or deontic):
either the process is expressed as already being undertaken at the enunciative
process (I am leaving tomorrow fo r London ), or being practically certain, necessary,
probable or simply possible, hardly possible or even impossible; it can also be pre­
sented as obligatory, only permitted, or forbidden (Figure 4.6). The grammatical
form s that m ark processes located in non-actualized temporal reference are usually
indicated through clearly m odal expressions, or stem from modal lexical expression
(for instance, English w ill is diachronically associated with want).
The variou s g ram m atical tenses that languages associate with the actualized
dom ain (whether past or present) thereby encode two types o f in fo rm atio n : a s ­
pectual inform ation (perfective/im perfective/perfect) and in fo rm atio n on the
temporal relations o f con com itan ce or anteriority.
The language activities seen in narratives cross-linguistically show that the sit­
uations described are not always localized in the three temporal dom ains: the
already actualized past, the not yet actualized (future) and the being actualized
(present). If certain situations have other localization m odes, it is because hum ans
have the cognitive ability to also construct narratives, which cannot directly be

- ■►
A lr e a d y e ffecte d N o t e f f e c t e d yet

Figure 4.6. A lr e a d y effected and not effected yet

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UNIVERSALS AND TYPOLOGY 147

localized in reference to the enunciative process, i.e., in reference to what has already
taken place and to what has not yet taken place. To do so, they call upon new te m ­
poral organizations: each situation narrated must be situated within a relative refer­
ence system, where its concomitance, anteriority, posteriority, temporal embeddings,
successions, etc., are specified. Linguists such as Weinrich (1964), Benveniste (1966),
Ivanchev (1971), Hopper (1982), Waugh and M onville-Burston (1986), and Fleis-
chm an (1990), call upon such distinctions by introducing the analogous notions
discourse plane/historical plane (Benveniste), discourse/narration (Weinrich),
foregrounding/backgrounding (Hopper), deictic reference points /anaphoric refer­
ence points, etc. Jakobsons (1957) notion o f shifters and C u lio lis (1980) notion o f
aoristic are also linked to this sort o f distinction. Languages do not appear to d i­
rectly grammaticalize this type o f distinction but, in order to m a rk the differences
they denote, have recourse to well-identifiable discursive processes (lack o f deictics
as today, yesterday, . . . ; adverbial phrases: in those days , in ancient times, once upon
a time , one day, that day, . . .). Moreover, gram m atical tenses often take on specific
semantic m ea n in g depending on the type o f temporal reference anchoring (enun­
ciative act, deictic temporal reference, non deictic relative temporal reference).
The two ways o f orienting temporal reference from a “ vantage point” belong to
the broader dom ain o f temporal fram es o f reference (called “ référentiels” in French;
see Desclés, 19 8 0 ,19 9 4 ; Desclés and Guentchéva, 2006, 20 10 ; also Hanks, 1990). In
distinguishing several different temporal fram es o f reference it becomes possible to
analyze much m ore precisely the gram m atical notions expressing general situations
(general truths), hypothetical, potential, conditional, irrealis, counterfactual situa­
tions, and discourse devices that speakers use in their narrations.
F rom a ty p o lo g ic al p e rsp e c tiv e , it w o u ld be h ig h ly interesting to c o m p a re
lan guages d e p e n d in g on the m o re or less g ra m m a tic a liz e d d is c o u rs e m ea n s
used to m a r k the v a rio u s tem p o ra l fr a m e s o f referen ce in senten ces and texts.
To the best o f o u r k n o w le d g e , this has not been stu died usin g a w id e lan guage
sam ple.

7. C o n clu sio n a n d Per spectiv es

A m ore elaborate and refined characterization o f linguistic markers cross-linguisti-

cally dem ands taking into account other factors, generally called discourse factors
( A S P E C T ), but which in fact also partake in creating m eaning and determine how
these contextualized markers function: as temporal fram es o f reference, diathesis
relations and predicate arguments with or without quantifiers, the possible compo-
sitionality o f the predicate with its prepositions and prefixed preverbs, specific
adverbial constructions and various particles, connectors between clauses, etc.
Aspectuality and temporal relations are often directly expressed by operators on the
verb root, but also on a m ore conceptual level. These operators often have scope over
the entire predicative relation, giving it aspectual specification w h ich is integrated in

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the tem poral fram es o f reference through sp ecifyin g the relations therein (c o n ­
comitance, succession, e m b e d d i n g ,. . . ) .
The above discussion on the m ean in gs associated w ith perfectivity/perfective/
im perfective sh ow that there are conceptual distinctions that m an y languages
express m ore or less directly, either through gram m atical m arkers, or through
syntactic periphrases, and that the logical temporal m od els have not, a priori, s u c ­
ceeded in capturing them on a form al level. The initial observation o f the g r a m ­
matical (and lexical) m arkers in languages is n ecessary in order to progressively
establish a general, coherent conceptual system that w ould m o reo v er enable a
general cognitive interpretation. The prim itives and general elem entary concepts
that have been presented in relation with their g ra m m a tic a l form s and their lex­
ical categorizations in specific languages appear to be serious candidates for
obtaining the status o f universals for A SP E C T ^ and A S P E C T ^ and their tightly
linked conceptual interactions which call upon the sam e constitutive prim itives,
nam ely the topological b o u n d a r y types. It w ould be interesting to show, fro m a
typological perspective, if a language exists w h ich is unable to express the basic
aspectual opposition o f state, event, and process. D isco v erin g such a language
w ould seriously question the initial basic opposition com plete/incom plete upon
w hich aspectual typologies are based.
To establish a typology o f tense-aspect systems cross-linguistically, it is
necessary to have recourse to a general conceptual system in order to draw up a
conceptual semantic map, which w ould be both independent o f language-specific
terminologies and w ould be progressively built up and based on the analysis of
attested distinctions specific to various languages. C on ceptu al distinctions are thus
not pre-established, but must be the result o f an abductive processing.
The conceptual sem antic map we p ropose above is structured according to
the types o f b o u n d a r y — open and closed, right and left— w h ich m a k e it possible
to distinguish between state, event, and process and, in order to better highlight
the conceptual difference between pcrfectivity and the notion o f com pleteness, to
derive m ore c om p lex concepts such as complete, incom plete, com pleted, resulta-
tive states,. . . . To characterize these aspectual notions m o re adequately however,
one must introduce tem poral relations (concom itance, anteriority/posteriority),
w h ich then lead to a general tense-aspect system. A m ore refined use o f these
notions w ould enable typolo gy to better grasp cross-linguistic differences and
convergences.
Better definition o f the primitives and concepts used by languages is necessary
to carry out the research program to identify universal invariants under the best
possible conditions, and to better grasp the typological distinctions specific to each
language. As Binnick (1991, pp. 2 1 3 - 2 1 4 ) argues, one must have recourse to p o w ­
erful, sophisticated tools— general abstract and form al logical systems.
However, one must be careful to ensure that the logical form s are not config­
ured in such a w ay as to impose a certain preconceived format for the categories
into which the linguistic observations should be divided (see also llaspelm ath,
2007). The goal is rather to establish more and m ore precisely defined primitives

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UNIVERSALS AND TYPOLOGY 149

and concepts through the semantic analysis o f the cross-linguistic categories (both
lexical and gram m atical) to organize and formalize them within a coherent system.

NOTES

1. See D e Swart, this v o lu m e.— Editor.

2. See Filip, this volum e.— Editor.
3. See De Swart and G vozdan ovic, this v o lu m e.— Editor.
4. On habituality and iterativity, see Carlson, and Bertinetto and I.enci, this volume;
on progressivity, see Mair, this vo lum e.— Editor.
5. Cf. Mair, this volum e, note 5. — Editor.
6. See Nicolle, this v o lu m e.— Editor.
7. Cf. dongxi ddu gut le ‘T h in g s have all become expensive.” (http://comet.cls.yale.edu/
m andarin/content/le/gramm ar/Le-2B.htm ; retrieved O ctober 19, 2 0 10 ).— Editor.
8. In relation to this section, see the chapters by Fludernik and Carruthers, this
volum e.— Editor.

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 CHAPTER 5

MORPHOLOGY

A S H W I N I DEO

l. I n t r o d u c t i o n

Natural language sentences e m p lo y a v ariety o f d evices to e n c o d e in fo rm a tio n about

the tem p oral properties o f the situations they describe. These include g ra m m a tic a l-
ized m a rk e rs o f location in tim e (tense) or tem p oral structure (aspect), tem poral
adverbials o f location (e.g., last year, now) or fr e q u e n c y (e.g., always , rarely ), lexical-
izcd descriptions o f events and their tem p oral structures ( Aktionsart or lexical
aspect), and d isc o u rse principles, w h ich relate the o rd e rin g o f d isc o u rse to the te m ­
poral o rd e r o f events. Tense and aspect m ark ers have been the m o st well-studied
and lo n g-stud ied devices a m o n g these, m a in ly b ecau se o f their close association
with w hat are trad itio nally k n o w n as the intlectional p a r a d ig m s o f v e r b s .1
W h e n taking a m o r p h o lo g y -c e n t e r e d p e rsp ectiv e on tense and aspect, three
central questions present them selves: (a) W h a t is the e n c o d e d m e a n in g ? , (b) In
what form is this m e a n in g en co d ed ?, and (c) h o w are system s o f e n c o d in g s o r g a ­
nized within a language? Sch olars w o r k in g w ithin different traditions have addressed
one or m o re o f these three questions in v a r io u s w a ys. In this chapter, I focus on h o w
this research has co n trib u ted tow ard b u ild in g a m o r p h o lo g ic a lly g r o u n d e d cross-
linguistic th e o ry o f tense and aspect.
T h e te rm s tense and a sp ect are used in at least two d istin ct w a y s in t y p o l o g ­
ical and s e m a n t ic literature. As m orphological categories , th e y refer to g r a m m a t i-
calized, o b lig a t o r ily e n c o d e d d is tin c tio n s that e x p r e s s t e m p o r a l p ro p e rtie s o f
situations. A s a b stra c t sem antic categories , th e y refer to te m p o r a l p ro p e rtie s that
m a y o r m a y not h av e a m o r p h o l o g i c a l reflex in a g iv e n la n g u a g e . The s e m a n tic
catego ries are u n iv e rsa l in that th e y are im p lic a te d in b oth the g r a m m a r a n d the
d is c o u r s e o f m a n y la n g u a g e s and also find rob u st m o r p h o s y n t a c t i c e x p r e s sio n in
156 PERSPECTIVES

several unrelated languages. L an gu age-sp ecific tense-aspect system s reflect the

negotiation between the m o rp h o lo g ic a l categories instantiated in the language
and the range o f (p resu m ab ly un iv ersa lly shared) sem antic notions expressible in
that language. Stu d yin g this interplay between m o r p h o lo g y and sem antics has
pro vided significant insights about the s tru c tu rin g o f tem poral in form ation in
g ram m ar.
Before proceeding, it must be noted that the realization o f tense and aspectual
information within the verbal com plex is not a neatly packageable matter o f “ m o r ­
p h o lo g y ” and “syntax.” Formal modifications like affixes and stem alternations often
com e together with periphrastic entities like participle-auxiliary combinations and
locative constructions in creating the totality o f temporal contrasts within a single
language. Moreover, it has been observed that periphrastic constructions exhibit a
diachronic tendency to evolve into inflected form s by processes o f grammaticaliza-
tion. Given that tense/aspect categories m ay be realized by varyin g formal devices,
I prefer to interpret “m o r p h o lo g y ” broadly, as an exam ination o f the structure and
content o f all gramm aticalized tense/aspect m ark in g in languages, rather than
restricting m y se lf only to the w ord-form ation processes attested in this semantic
domain.
This chapter is organized as follows: §2 lays out the essential co m p o n en ts o f
a m o rp h o lo g ic a lly g ro u n d e d th e o ry o f tense and aspect. §3 and §4 are concern ed
with the key m e a n in g s in the tense/aspect d o m a in and their fo rm a l expression.
§5 describes em pirical generalizations about the o rd e rin g o f tense/aspect m ark ers
in languages locating their so u rc e in sem an tic scope relations and d iach ro n ic
ch an ge. §6 d is c u ss e s the co rrela tio n b etw een categorial fo rm (in fle c tio n a l vs.
periph rastic) and categorial m e a n in g ob serve d in languages and its im plications.
§7 illustrates m o rp h o lo g ic a l and sem a n tic b lo ck in g as they figure in analyses o f
tense/aspect system s. §8 concludes.

2. T e m poral M e a n in g a n d its E n co d in g

R efe re n ce g r a m m a r s o f lan gu ages a b o u n d in d escription s o f m o r p h e m e s and

c o n stru c tio n s that indicate pastness, o n g o in g n e ss , futurity, anteriority, com -
p leted n ess, durativity, iterativity, habituality, inchoativitv, and so on. T h e lists
can be fo r m id a b ly long and the labels used, though tantalizingly s im ila r across
g r a m m a r s , m a y not a lw a y s c o n v e rg e p e r fe c tly on discrete, in va ria n t units o f
m e a n in g .2 M oreover, the e n c o d in g o f tem p o ra l in form ation as o b lig a to ry (rather
than optional) and gram m atical (rather than lexical) is a language-specific choice.
That is, not all languages g ra m m a tic a liz e the s a m e kinds o f m e a n in g . L an gu ages
w ith no fo r m a l m a r k in g o f tense distinctions, w h ic h have e m e rg ed as an i m p o r ­
tant object o f research especially in the past decade are a strik in g ex a m p le o f this
fo rm a l variability (Yucatec M ay a : B o h n e m e y e r , 2 0 0 2 ; K alaallisu t: Bittner, 2007;
S t a t ’imcets: M a tth e w so n , 2 0 0 6 ). N o t only do the fo rm a l tense/aspect m a r k in g
MORPHOLOGY 157

d e v ic e s a v a ila b le to i n d i v i d u a l la n g u a g e s v a r y , b u t also the s y s t e m s o f te m p o r a l

c o n tr a s ts re a liz e d by the to tality o f su c h d e v ic e s w i t h i n a g iv e n la n g u a g e . Fo r
in sta n ce , s o m e la n g u a g e s m a y f o r m a l l y c o n tra s t a g e n e r a l m a r k e r o f the im p er-
fec tive a sp e c t w ith a m o r e sp ec ific p r o g r e s s iv e a sp e c t m a r k e r (e.g., R o m a n c e ,
H in d i, or T u rk is h ), w h ile in o th e r la n g u a g e s , a s p e c t u a lly n e u tr a l te n se m a r k i n g
m a y c o e x is t w ith d istin c t m a r k e r s o f p r o g r e s s iv e a s p e c t a n d h a b itu a lity (e.g.,
E n g lis h ) .
This does not mean that there are no m orphological or m orp h osem an tic gener­
alizations to be m ade crosslinguistically in the tense/aspect dom ain. On the c o n ­
trary, as Bybee and Dahl (1989) observe, there is grow ing evidence for similarities,
which suggests that “ there m ay be some way o f arriving at a crosslinguistic under­
standing o f gram m atical meaning, or m ore ambitiously, a universally valid theory
o f gram m atical m eaning” (Bybee and Dahl, 1989, p. 53). I believe that three c o m p o ­
nents are essential to such a theory.
First , there m ust be a set o f hypotheses about the semantic ingredients under­
lying tense/aspect categories.
Second , we need to determine the nature and organization o f the temporal/
aspectual pie and how it m a y be cut (or constructed) across languages.
Third , the theory must take into consideration the role o f defaults and blocking
m echanism s in the structuring o f tense/aspect systems.
Sem antic theory, since its inception, and especially with the g ro w in g interest in
crosslinguistic semantics in the past decade, has developed several insights about
the m ea n in g s associated w ith tense/aspect catego ries— the first c o m p o n e n t. 'Hie
typological and grammaticalization literature (on w h ic h cf. the chapters by Descles
and Guentcheva, and Nicolle, in this volume) has uncovered a num ber o f robust
generalizations about the patterning o f form and m eaning in tense/aspect categories
across languages. These generalizations have taken the form o f implicational u n i­
v e r s a l such as (1a), statistical tendencies such as (lb), and unidirectional diachronic
trajectories such as ( i c ) .

(i) a. If a language has inflectional tense or aspect, it realizes past tense or perfective aspect
or both.
b. The progressive tends to be realized by periphrastic rather than inflectional means.
c. R E S U L T A T I V E » P E R F E C T » P E R F E C T IV E / P A S T

These kinds o f observations offer clues to the organization o f the temporal/

aspectual space (or pie) whose parts m orphological forms m ap on to— the second
component. Finally, the distribution o f a tense/aspect m arker depends not only on
its semantic value but also on what else is available in the language and how it is
realized. Studies o f default interpretations in the tem poral dom ain as well as m o r ­
ph olog ical and sem a n tic b lo c k in g p ro vid e a w i n d o w into the division o f labor
between semantic value and form al expression in the tense/aspect domain.
A sim u lta n eo u s investigation into the p ro p erties o f e n c o d e d m e a n i n g and the
properties o f the e n c o d in g itself in the context o f the larger system is thus at the
heart o f a m o r p h o lo g ic a lly g r o u n d e d th e o ry o f tense and aspect.

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3. T e n s e and It s E x p r e s s i o n

Tense, on the established view, is a deictic category that expresses a temporal rela­
tion between the (time o f the) situation described by a sentence and som e deictic
center, most often the speech time. Language-specific tense expressions are gram-
maticalized m arkers that facilitate the location o f situations in time with respect to
the deictic center.
Tense m ark ers m a y o c cu r on the verb (as affixes or stem alternations) or as
gram m atical w ords in the verbal com plex (auxiliaries or particles). The English Past
(2a) and the accented augment in Vedic (2b) exemplifies the first type o f m o r p h o ­
logical m arking. In W am baya (2c), on the other hand, verbs are unm arked for t e m ­
porality (or any other category); tense information is located on the auxiliary, which
occurs in the second position o f the clause. As past tense m arkers, the function o f
each o f these d evices is to locate the tim e o f the d e sc rib e d situation before the
speech time.

(2) a. John cooked/ate pancakes for breakfast.

b. d-han ahi-rn anu apas tatard-a pra vaksana

kill-IMPFCT.3.SG dragOn-ACC.SG up W a t e r -A G C .P L Open-PFCT.3.SG forth ru s h in g
a-bhina-t pdrvata-nam
CUt-IMPFCT.3.SG m o u il t a in - G E N . P L

“ He slew the Dragon, then opened up the waters, and cut channels through the
mountain torrents (rushing forth).” (RV 1.32.ic-d)3

c. nganki ngiy-a lurrgbanyi warrdangarringarti

this.SG.II.ERG 3-SG.F.A-PST grab(uN M ) m o o n -E R G

“ The moon grabbed her.” ’ (Nordlinger and Bresnan 1996)

T h e r e are two d im e n s io n s to tem p oral lo c a liz a t io n — relative o rd erin g and

relative distance. On the first d im e n s io n o f relative o r d e r in g , there are three
lo gically p o ssib le relations: A situation m a y be d e sc r ib e d as b e in g located before
speech tim e (past), o v e rla p p in g (or s im u lta n e o u s) w ith speech tim e (present),
or fo llo w in g speech time (future). A p e rfe c tly tran sp a re n t fo r m a l c o u n te rp a rt
o f this tem p oral classification w o u ld be a m a r k in g system w ith re a so n a b ly s i m ­
ilar d ed icated d evices to indicate past, presen t, and future referen ce. For
in stan ce, tense m a rk e rs m ig h t b e lo n g to the s a m e fo rm a l class o f m a r k in g , as is
the case w ith tense m a r k in g su ffix e s in L ith u a n ia n ( C h u n g a n d T im b e r la k e ,
1985, pp. 2 0 4 - 2 0 5 ) and M a la y a la m (G e o rg e , 19 7 1, p. 43) or p r e -v e rb a l particles
in Tongan (U ltan, 1978).

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(3) a. dirb-au
w ork-p s t .1
“ I worked/was working.”
b. dirb-u
WOrk-PRES.1
“ I work/am working."
c. dirb-siu
w o r k - p u t .1
“ I will work/be working.” (Lithuanian: C h u n g and Timberlake, 1985, pp. 20 4-205)

Such perfect fo r m - m e a n i n g c o rr e s p o n d e n c e s are rare in the inflectional

p a r a d ig m s o f m o st lan guages. In several lan guages, there is no special m a r k in g
c o r r e s p o n d in g to the present tense and u n m a r k e d verb fo rm s are in terp reted by
default as h a v in g present reference. Based on her database stu d y o f fifty l a n ­
guages, B ybee (1985) reports that this is the case for at least s o m e a llo m o rp h o f
the present tense in B a sq u e , G a ro , G e o r g ia n , Kutenai, M aasai, N ah u a tl, O iibwa,
Sierra M iw o k , T im u c u a , T iw i, a n d W appo. Yet another w a y in w h ich languages
deviate from the transparent th r e e -w a y contrast for tense m a r k in g is via b in ary
tense system s ( C o m r ie , 1985) in w h ic h the co n cep tu a l tripartite d ivision has
been collapsed into a tw o - w a y form al c o n tra st— a p a s t - n o n p a s t o p p o sitio n or a
fu t u r e - n o n fu t u r e o p p o sitio n . E x a m p le s o f lan gu ages with a p a st-n o n p ast o p p o ­
sition inclu de G e r m a n , F in n is h ( C o m r i e , 1985, p. 51), and K a n n a d a , illustrated
in (4).

(4) a. avanu manege ho:-d-a

ho home go-PST-3SG.M
“ He went home.”
b. avanu manege ho:gu-tt-a:ne
he home g0-N0NPST-3SG.M
“ He goes home (habitually).” or “ He will go home.” (Kannada: Bhat, 1999, p. 17)

The rarity o f perfectly sy m m etrica l form al behavior o f the three tenses is also c o n ­
nected to the metaphysical and cpistemological a s y m m e try between the n o n ­
future and the future. A n y talk about the future is inextricably tied to modality.
While the past (and to som e degree, the present) is factual and decided, any asser­
tion about the future is accom panied with som e degree o f indeterm inacy. Futurity
has to do with plans, intentions, obligations, and predictions, notions that all have
to do with m o o d and modality, and are inherently non-factual. Crosslinguistic s u r­
veys have revealed that form s that realize future time reference are often used
atem porally and have functions associated with m o o d and modality, such as p o s ­
sibility or probability (e.g., Kiwai, Zapotec), intention (e.g., G aro, Zapotec, P a w ­
nee), desire or volition (e.g., Goaiiro, Quileute) (Ultan, 1978; Bybee, 1985; Dahl,
1985; Bybee et al., 1994).
E m pirically, this raises the question o f w h eth er any m a rk in g that realizes
future time reference is distinct fro m past and present m a r k in g in necessarily

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c o n v e y in g both tem poral a n d m o d a l m ea n in g . The m o rp h o lo g ic a l repercussion

o f this difference w o u ld be the p a ra d ig m a tic and fo r m a l in d e p en d en c e o f future
m a r k in g fro m past and present tense m a rk in g , a hypothesis b o rn e out by cross-
linguistic data (Bybee, 1985, p. 157). B ybee reports that o f her 50 -language sample,
seven languages have future inflectional m a rk in g , but not present or past tense
inflection. On the other hand, o f the eighteen languages that c a rry past/present
inflection, only three lack an inflectional future.
The interaction b etw een aspectual m a r k in g (im p erfective/p erfective), tense
m a r k in g , and tem poral reference m u st also be taken into co nsid eration . A s s u m i n g
the punctuality o f speech tim e or the deictic center, any m a r k in g that en co d e s p r e ­
sent tense m e a n i n g (i.e., overlap with the deictic center) is likely to correlate with
im p erfective aspect (e x clu d in g p e rfo rm a tiv e v e rb s and the sp o rts c o m m e n t a r y uses
o f present m a rk in g ). M a r k in g that e n c o d e s past tense m e a n in g on the other hand
allows both perfective and im p erfective reference (e.g., the English past tense). F u r ­
ther, fo rm a l expression o f aspectual distinctions is m o r e c o m m o n in the past tense,
lead in g to w h at are called “ tripartite” system s o f tem p oral m a rk in g , such as those
exhibited in the R o m a n c e languages. In such a system , the im p erfective-p erfective
aspectual contrast is o n ly expressed in the past tense with the present tense m a r k in g
b e in g u n ifo r m ly im perfective.
Finally, research from a fo rm a l se m an tic p ersp ective and crosslin gu istic f in d ­
ings have clearly d em on strated that g ra m m a tic a liz ed tense m ark ers are not
n e c e ssa ry c o m p o n e n ts o f a la n g u a ge s te m p o ra l m a r k in g system . Precise tem poral
reference is n e v e r im p e d e d for lack o f d edicated te n s e -m a r k in g devices and m a y be
ach ieved in context via aspectual m a r k in g (e.g., Yucatec M a y a : B o h n e m e y e r , 2002)
or m o o d m a r k in g (e.g., B u rm e s e and D yirb a l: C o m r i e , 1985, pp. 50 -5 1).
T e m p o r a l location o f events in la n g u a g e s that do g r a m m a tic a liz e tense m a y
a d d itio n a lly in volve the p a r a m e te r o f relative te m p o r a l d istan ce fro m the deictic
center. Such a sy ste m , also k n o w n as a re m o t e n e s s m a r k i n g sy stem , exh ibits a
fo rm a l contrast b etw ee n “close” a n d “ re m o te ” past tenses a n d /o r “close” and
“ re m o te ” future tenses (see the ch apter by B o tn e , in this v o lu m e ) . D a h l a n d Vel-
lupillai (2005) r e p o r t that 20% o f the la n g u a g e s in their sa m p le o f 222 la n g u a ge s
m a k e these d istin c tio n s v ia fo rm a l m e a n s and that this feature is w id e ly d istrib ­
uted g en etically.f,A v e r y robust generalizatio n about re m o te n e s s m a r k i n g sy stem s
is that they m i n i m a l l y d istin g u ish betw een hodiernality w h e r e te m p o ra l distan ce
is w ith in the d a y o f the sp eech event and pre-h odiern ality , w h e r e th e event referred
to is not located w ithin the d ay o f the speech event. F o r instance, K a m b a (B an tu )
d istin g u ish e s b etw ee n an im m e d ia te h o d ie r n a l past, a p r e -h o d ie r n a l recent past,
and a rem o te past tense (W h ite le y and M u li, 1962) w h ile Y agu a (P e b a -Y a g u a n )
ex h ib its five degrees o f re m o te n e s s in the past tense (P ay n e and Payne, 1990, pp.
3 8 6 -3 8 8 , cited in D ahl and Velupillai, 2005). R e m o t e n e s s as a c a te g o ry m a y not be
realized s y m m e t r ic a lly in the past and the future tenses, and is less often in sta n ti­
ated in the future, p e rh a p s an effect o f the d ia c h r o n ic fact that rece n t/h o d ie rn a l
pasts m a y evo lve fr o m fo r m s e x p r e s sin g the p erfect aspect (D a h l, 1985, p. 125; Dahl
and Velupillai, 2005).

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4. A spect and It s E x p r e s s i o n

In this section, given the limited amount o f space available, I will restrict m y atten­
tion to the imperfective-perfective contrast, and the well-studied and robustly real­
ized aspectual categories o f the progressive and the perfect.

4.1. The Imperfective—Perfective Contrast

Aspect, follow ing C o m rie (1976, p. 3), is usually defined as describing “different
ways o f view in g the internal temporal constituency o f a situation.” This definition
identifies the fun dam en tal aspectual opposition between the perfective and the
imperfective, often expressed via inflectional m a rk in g on the verb, a contrast which
is intuitively said to distinguish between how situations are presented: from the
o u tsid e vs. the in sid e, as c o m p le te d or as o n g o in g , as a to m ic o r as in tern ally
differentiated.
R e n d ille (East K u sh itic, K en y a) illustrates a p r o to ty p ic a l e x a m p le o f the
imperfective-perfective contrast. M odulo context, the verb form chiirta (5a) can be
used to refer to events in progress and habits, both in the present and in the past. It
can also be used for future reference. The perfective form chiirte (5a), is typically
restricted to referring to single completed events in the past.

(5) a. khadaabbe chiirta

letter.PL write.IMPF
“ He w rite s letters.”
“ He is writing letters. He wrote letters.”
“ He w a s w r it in g letters. He will w rite letters.”
b. k h a d a a b b e chiirte
letter.PL write. PFV
“ He wrote letters.” (Dahl and Velupillai, 2005, p. 267)

This basic oppo sitio n in the distribution o f two verbal inflectional form s is
fairly stable across lan guages; s o m e lan guages m a y also form alize distinctions
within these categories. Intlectionally expressed gram m atical aspect contrasts with
lexical aspect (also called Aktionsarl or situation aspect), which typically refers to
the types o f eventualities denoted by unintlected predicates (cf. the chapters by Filip
and De Swart, this volume). To the extent that this chapter is about m orphology, it
is concerned with the m orphological and semantic categories that are studied under
the heading o f gram m atical aspect. However, the semantic notions that underpin
gram m atical aspect categories are intricately connected with (though not identical
with) the semantic notions that underpin lexical aspect distinctions, justifying an
engagem ent with both categories here.
It has been noticed at least since Aristotle that natural languages distinguish
between two kinds o f descriptions o f situations: those that necessarily involve some
end or limit (e.g., die, break) and those that do not (e.g., love, swim ).6This distinction,

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best know n as the distinction between telic and atelic predicates emerged in linguistic
theory in the context o f the classification o f lexical and composite unintlected verbal
predicates.7 Developing on w ork by Ryle (1949) and G arey (1957), Vendler (1957)
defines four aspectual classes that are intended to capture “the most com m on time
schemata implied by the use o f English v e r b s ’ (Vendler, 1957, p. 144). These classes—
states, activities, accomplishments, and achievements— are determined by the
semantic criteria o f durativity, change, homogeneity, and telicity.8 O f these, the atelic
predicate types (states and activities) are characterized by homogeneity or the su b in ­
terval property (Bennett and Partee, 1978; Dowty, 1979). That is, whenever they are
true o f som e temporal interval, they are also true at any part o f that interval. Telic
predicates (achievements and accomplishments) lack this property.9
The hom ogeneity-based telic/atelic distinction coexists in an uneasy relation­
ship with the perfective/imperfective distinction in the realm o f gram m atical aspect
(cf. the chapter by Gvozdanovic, this volume). Central to the debate in this area is
the issue o f whether it is telicity or some other property that underlies the form ally
expressed contrast. On one end o f the aspect spectrum , researchers sharply distin­
guish telicity, as a property attributable to predicates describing situations with an
inherent telos or endpoint, from boundedness, which concerns the presence or
absence o f a temporal b o u n d a ry (Declerck, 1979; Depraetere, 1995; Smith, 1997) and
is the property relevant to the analysis o f gram m atical aspect m arking. At the other
end, gram m atical aspect m ark in g is taken to have the function o f affecting or
reflecting the telicity value o f the predicate that they apply to (e.g., De Swart, 1998).
Binnick (2006, pp. 255-256) classifies theories o f grammatical aspect m eaning
into three types based on how they derive the intuitions (completed vs. ongoing, etc.)
about the effect o f the imperfective and the perfective aspectual operators: B o u n d e d ­
ness theories, Phasic theories, and Relational Aspect theories. Boundedness theories
take aspectual operators to m ake reference to temporal boundaries or edges o f even­
tualities. For instance, Smith (1997) defines the distinction between the imperfective
and the perfective in terms o f whether they include the initial and/or the final bounds
o f the eventuality described in the sentence. Relatedly, aspectual categories have been
defined in terms o f mereological notions like whole and part (e.g., Verkuyl, 1972;
Krifka, 1986; Filip, 1999) or event-structural notions o f culmination or completed-
ness (e.g., Dowty, 1979; Parsons, 1990). In Phasic theories o f aspect, aspectual opera­
tors are predicate modifiers that map eventuality predicates o f a given aspectual class
to their phases or sub-eventualities, which m ay be o f a different aspectual class, thus
directly manipulating the telicity o f predicates in their scope (Mourelatos, 1978;
Vlach, 1981; Kam p and Rohrer, 1983; Moens and Steedman, 1988; De Swart, 1998).
Finally, in Relational Aspect theories, aspectual categories are said to express
relations between a salient reference time and the time o f the eventuality (Reichen-
bach, 1947, and later w ork inspired by the Reichenbachian approach (notably Klein,
1994)).10 The idea underlying the Reichenbachian/Kleinian system is simple yet
powerful. Tense/aspect expressions are exponents o f ordering relations between
three temporal param eters— speech time S (the time o f utterance), event time E (the
time at w h ich the situation described in a sentence holds or occurs), and reference
time R (the time w h ich the sentential assertion is about).11 W hile tense corresponds

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to the relations between the speech time and reference time, aspect corresponds to
relations between the event time and reference time. The space o f ordering possibil­
ities between these parameters yields the tense/aspect relations in (6). G ram m ati-
calized markers o f tense and aspect are assumed to correspond to these relations.

(6) Tense Aspect

S < R (Future) E < R (Perfect)
S > R (Past) E > R (Prospective)
S C R (Present) E C R (Perfective)
R C E (Imperfective)

In the context o f Relational Aspect theories, it is necessary to recall the distinc­

tion that C o m rie (1976, 1985) makes between aspect proper and relative tense. For
Cornrie, aspect has to do with alternative ways o f presenting situations and therefore
relies on notions such as whole and part, completed and ongoing. Relative tense, on
the other hand, has to do with temporal relations that hold between the time o f a
situation and som e point o f reference and is described via notions such as anterior­
ity, simultaneity, and posteriority. Following this distinction, the perfect and the pro­
spective aspects are treated as relative tenses rather than aspects. Relational Aspect
theories collapse these two distinctions into a single time-relational category o f
grammatical aspect. Crucial to this unification is the treatment o f the imperfective/
perfective distinction in terms o f the temporal relation o f inclusion, as shown in (6).
Part of the reason for the multiplicity of approaches to aspectual meaning has been
the formal constitution o f the Slavic aspectual system, which has influenced much of
the aspectological thinking during the twentieth century (Binnick, 1991; Klein, 1995;
Filip, 1999). (Cf. the chapters by Andrews and Gvozdanovic, this volume.) The rele­
vance o f this system (and also the reason for some confound) is its peculiar formal re­
alization o f the perfective-imperfective contrast via several prefixes that serve as
telicizing eventuality modifiers in other languages. The facts are as follows: Apart from
a few ambiguous verbs, uninflected verbs in Slavic can be assigned to either the imper­
fective or the perfective aspect. Morphologically simplex verbs are typically imperfec­
tive.12 Adding a verbal prefix to a simplex verb results in the creation o f a perfective verb
form as is exemplified by the Russian forms in (7). The prefixation m a y be semantically
empty, effecting only an aspectual shift (7a-b) or it may contribute determinate addi­
tional m eaning such as inchoativity (7c) 01* more indeterminate m eaning as in (7d).13

(7) a. citat’ ‘to read ( IM P F ) ’ -> pro-citat’ 'read (P E R F )’

b. delat’ ‘to do (IM P F )’ -> s-delat’ ‘do (P E R F )’
c. ljubit’ 'to love ( IM P F ) ’ -> po-ljubit’ ‘to fall in love ( P E R F ) ’
d. pisat' ‘to write (IM P F )’ -> za-pisat’ ‘to write down’ (P E R F )’

The Slavic prefixes, similar to preverbal particles in other languages (e.g., the
particle a u f in auftrinken in G erm an), started out as m eaningful prepositional and
adverbial elements, belonging to the derivational component o f the language, gener­
ating new complex verbs with corresponding change in the lexical content. The
semantic contribution o f the prefix results in a telic predicate (Krifka, 1992; Filip,
2000). In the modern languages, m a n y o f these prefixes are semantically empty, a d d ­
ing only an aspectual meaning, resulting in m in im al pairs that are distinguishable

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only in their aspectual value ((7a—b) above). For a m ore detailed overview o f the full
diachronic development and description o f the Slavic aspectual system, see Forsyth
(1970), C o m rie (1976), Binnick (1991, pp. 135-139) and the references therein.14
The theoretical literature on the Slavic aspectual system is divided between
whether these preverbs contribute to a modification of the type o f situation expressed
by the verb (e.g., Filip, 2000; Paslawska and von Stechow, 2001), or whether they con­
tribute viewpoint aspect (e.g., Klein, 1995; Smith, 1997; Borik, 2002). Morphologically,
the Slavic prefixes behave like derivational rather than inflectional m orphem es. The
semantic contribution o f the prefixes is variable and the result o f the morphological
operation is a new derived verb that intlects for past or non-past tense.15 In addition,
perfective verbs may be further imperfectivized via a morphological process o f affix­
ation, a suffix -va (with allomorphs -iva and -yva). This availability o f secondary
imperfectivization also suggests that the perfectivizing prefixes in Slavic are more ap­
propriately analyzed as eventuality modifiers rather than time-relational operators a
la Klein (1994,1995). Filip (2000) makes a convincing claim for this approach.
In contrast to Slavic and other prefixing aspectual systems (Comrie, 1976,
PP- 93“ 94 )> m an y languages realize the imperfective-perfective aspectual contrast via
inflectional means (as illustrated in (5)). Bybee (1985, pp. 36-37) also notes that aspec­
tual expression is much more likely to correlate with stem alternations than any other
inflectional category. In fact, the imperfective-perfective contrast is one o f the most
com m only realized contrasts in the worlds languages and is expressed consistently by
bound m orphology rather than by periphrastic devices (Bybee and Dahl, 1989, p. 83;
Dahl and Velupillai, 2005). Examples include Greek, Romance, Indo-Aryan (Indo-
European), Arabic (Semitic: Ryding, 2005), Bambara (Mande: Trôbs, 2004). In such
languages, sentences describing events in progress at a given reference time and habits,
states, generalizations, or dispositions that hold at reference time, all contain verb
forms with uniform inflectional marking (modulo allomorphy). Perfective marking
describes situations as completed at reference time and is most often used to refer to
single, atomic events.
Unlike with Slavic, these distributional patterns o f aspectual m o rp h o lo g y are
best formalized via Relational A spect-based theories where the imperfective and
the perfective express the relations o f temporal inclusion, R C E and E C R respec­
tively (from (6)). That is, imperfective m ark in g yields those times that are properly
included within the time at which som e eventuality o f type P holds, whereas perfec­
tive m arking yields those times that include the time within which som e eventuality
o f type P holds.16 This treatment has the advantage o f guaranteeing (without stipu­
lation) the observed hom ogeneity o f imperfective-marked sentences and the n o n ­
hom ogeneity o f perfective-m arked sentences (Kam p and Rohrer, 1983; Partee, 1984;
Hinrichs, 1985; Dowty, 1986; De Swart, 1998).17

4.2. The Progressive and the Perfect

B e y o n d the im perfective-perfective opposition, the aspectual landscape consists o f
widely attested categories such as progressive, perfect, prospective, and habitual
m arking. (In this volume, cf. M air on the progressive; Ritz on the perfect; and Carlson,

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and Bertinetto and L e n d , on the habitual.) I limit m y attention to the first two o f these
categories.
7Tie progressive: The progressive is most c o m m o n ly treated as a subcategory o f
the imperfective aspect, restricted to descriptions o f ongoing events. C o n sid e r the
representation o f aspectual space from C o m rie (1976) in (8), w h ich shows that i m ­
perfective m ea n in g encom passes habitual (including the generic/dispositional
m eaning), progressive, and non-progressive continuous m eaning. The 'c o n tin u o u s”
category subsum es lexically stative predicates such as love, know (which correspond
to non-progressive meaning) and progressive meaning. Each o f these subcategories
may be realized by distinct form al devices or languages m ay use a single form to
express imperfectivity. Bybee et al. (1994) report that while languages do encode the
habitual/generic m eaning and progressive m ea n in g via specific forms, there is no
parallel evidence for the encoding o f the subcategory “continuous.” 18

Languages which instantiate a distinct progressive form typically use it to refer

to events in progress at reference tim e.19 There is a rich research tradition on the
m eaning o f the progressive aspect engendered prim arily by the investigation o f the
English Progressive (Dowty, 1979; Vlach, 1981; Lan dm an, 1992; Portner, 1998, am ong
others). Typological studies indicate that the en cod in g o f progressive m eaning in a
language is independent o f w hether the language encodes imperfective aspect. That
is, languages m ay v ary within a four-w ay typ o lo gy— whether they m orphologically
realize the imperfective or the progressive or neither or both. The following table
gives exam ples o f languages that fall in each o f these slots.

(9 ) ASPECT
IM P F PROG Languages
0 0 German
0 / English
/ 0 Arabic
/ / Hindi, Italian

In contrast to the general imperfective, the progressive is often realized via p eri­
phrastic m arking (more discussion in §6). The English Progressive construction (be

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166 P E R S P E C T IV E S

V +ing) with tense m arking on the auxiliary, exemplifies this pattern.20 Moreover, it
has been noticed that progressive m ark in g in languages often involves periphrasis
that builds up on the imperfective m arking within the sam e language in con ju n c­
tion with locative m arkers or tense auxiliaries. The presence o f locative elements in
progressive m arking has been observed to be a w orldw ide tendency by Bybee et al.
(i994)> generalizing from earlier w ork by Blansitt (1975), Traugott (1978), and others.
C o n sid e r the examples from G o d ie , a language o f the K ru fam ily (Marchese, 1979,
p. 108), where the progressive aspect is realized as a locative construction with a
place marker, based on the imperfective form o f the verb.

(10) a. 0 ko sukA 6 li d<\

she PROG rice pOUIld-IMPF PLACE
“ She is pounding rice.”
b. o stikyi 6li
she rice pound
“ She is pounding rice.”

The M iddle Hindi progressive is similarly built up on the finite imperfective

form in combination with present and past tense auxiliaries (Kellogg, 1893; Deo, in
progress). The form affixed with -ta is the general tenseless imperfective fo rm in the
lan gu age. T h e use o f past and present tense a u x ilia rie s in p e r ip h r a s is w ith the
imperfective form allows reference to events in progress.21

(11) a. saba santa sukhi vicar a-ta mahi

all saint.NOM.PL c o n te n t e d ly walk-iMPP.M earth
“All saints live (lit. w a lk a b o u t) c o n te n t e d ly o n earth.”
(Text: Tulsi Ramayana, cited in Kellogg, 1893, p. 318)
b. manah-u mori kara-la haht ninda
t h in k -su B j.i.S G my do-iMPF.M p res-3.p l censurc.NOM
“ I feel as if th ey are re b u k in g me.” (Text: T u lsi R a m a y a n a 3. 36)

The perfect: The status o f the perfect as a monolithic primitive semantic cate­
g o r y has been s u b je c t to s o m e debate given the v aria tio n o b s e r v a b le in the
distribution and uses o f form s labeled “perfect” across languages (Dahl, 1985; Bybee
et al., 1994; D e Sw art and M o len d ijk , 2 0 0 1 ; Iatridou et al., 2 0 0 1). C o m r i e (1976)
identifies four distinct readings o f the perfect (12) all o f which are exhibited by the
English periphrastic perfect construction (have V-en).21 Each o f these readings m i n ­
imally involves temporal anteriority or relative pastness o f the eventuality described
in the sentence with respect to so m e reference time.

(12) a. Perfect o f result: / have broken my glasses (and so I cant read now.)
b. Experiential (or existential) perfect: I have visited Paris once.
c. U n iv e rsa l p e rfe ct o f p erfect o f persistent situ atio n : I h ave lived in Paris all m y life.
d. Perfect o f recent past: President Obam a has left Mumbai for New Delhi.

Although these readings m ay co-o ccur in the same m orphological formation, it

is often the case that language-specific perfect markers exhibit only a subset o f these

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readings. O n e o f the im po rtan t challenges for theories about the m e a n in g o f the

perfect is to identify the nature of the anteriority expressed by perfect morphology and
to derive its various readings from the basic meaning together with its interaction with
the lexical aspect of the event description it combines with and pragmatic factors.23
The anteriority component, an essential part o f any semantic theory o f the perfect, is
overwhelmingly encoded via forms that signal completedness (resultative participles,
past participles, or perfective forms).24 The combination o f these participles with tense
auxiliaries gives the perfect its morphologically composite character. Given that the
perfect is a complex construction built out o f multiple morphosyntactic pieces, a c o m ­
positional analysis o f the perfect is concerned with how the meanings encoded in each
piece combine to yield the meaning associated with the construction as a whole.
The perfect m ay also be realized in fleet ion ally rather than periphrastically as is the
case for the older Indo-European languages, Greek and Sanskrit. The Perfect paradigm
in Vedic is formed with a special reduplicated stem and a special set o f person-number
endings.25 A notable point about the Indo-European Perfect is its stative present reading.
For instance, in Vedic Sanskrit, with a small class o f verbs, the perfect inflection is inter­
preted as denoting an ongoing state (13). In fact, the stative use has been argued to be
diachronically the earliest function o f the Indo-European Perfect (Renou, 1925).

(13) Root Perfect Interpretation

a. vid ‘kn ow ’ veda ‘knows’ (has come to know)
b. cit ‘think1 ciketci ‘knows’ (has come to know)
c. bhi ‘fear’ bibhaya ‘fears’ (has become frightened)
d. jus ‘rejoice’ jujosa ‘rejoices’ (has rejoiced)
e. dha ‘hold’ dadhara ‘holds’ (has held)
f. stha ‘stand’ tasthau ‘stands’ (has stood)

T h e stative uses o f perfect m o r p h o l o g y bears s o m e rese m b la n ce w ith result-

stative participial constructions found in other languages, which assert the exis­
tence at reference time o f a target state lexically associated with the verb. A stative
construction such as the horse is yoked asserts that the horse is in a state o f being
yoked at utterance time.26 Such result-stative constructions are distinguishable from
the perfect in being typically restricted to change-of-state predicates and their c o m ­
patibility with an adverbial like still. Bybee et al. (1994) observe that in several lan­
guages, these constructions evolve into more general markers o f perfect marking.
This has been the case for R o m a n c e (Squartini and Bertinetto, 2 0 0 0 ), G e r m a n ic
(Traugott, 1972), as well as In d o -A ry a n (C on d oravd i and Deo, 2008).
Finally, it has been observed that the aspectual properties o f the participial
form involved in the construction o f the perfect plays a crucial role in determ ining
the readings available to perfect m arkings in languages. latridou et al. (2001) argue
that the availability o f the universal perfect reading for the perfect has to do with
w hether the participle carries perfective or imperfective specification. For example,
in Bulgarian, a perfect formed on the perfective participle o f a stative verb exhibits
only the existential reading (14a), while a perfect form ed on the imperfective parti­
cipial form o f the sam e verb has the universal reading (14b).-'7

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168 PERSPECTIVES

(14) a. M arija e obiknala Ivan

Maria is Iovc - p e r f . p a r t Ivan
“M a ria has fallen in love with Ivan.”
b. M arija vinagi e obicala Ivan
Maria always is Iovc - i m p e r f . p a r t Ivan
“ Maria has always loved Ivan.” (Iatridou et al 2001, pp. 17 1-17 2 )

5. F o r m - M ean in g C orrespondences

The relative scope o f tense and aspect operators (15) is taken to be invariant in the­
ories o f the syntax-sem antic interface. Aspectual operators alter the propositional
content o f the eventuality description they apply to. Tense operators, in contrast,
locate the aspectually m odified description in time with respect to the deictic center
(most often the speech time).28

(15) [T E N S E [A SP E C T * [eventuality d e s c r ip t io n ] ] ] 29

W hen distinct elements o f the m orphosyntactic structure realize tense and

aspect, we see this hierarchical structure reflected crosslinguistically in relative or­
dering tendencies (Bybee, 1985). Julien (2002), on the basis o f an extensive su rv e y
o f 530 languages, reports that aspect m arkers are always closer to the verbal stem
than tense markers i f both occur on the same side o f the verb, with tense markers
preceding aspect m arkers in all other cases. This tendency is exemplified by the
Turkish (agglutinative aspect and tense), Hindi (affixal aspect) and Mauritan Creole
(tense a nd aspect particles) cases in (16).

(16) a. genellikle iki saat $ali$-ir-di-m

u su ally fo r tw o h o u r s work-iM PF-PST-iSG
“ I would usually work for two h o u rs” (Turkish: Goksel and Kerslake, 2 0 0 5 , p. 331).
b. nisa rasoi-me roti •
bana-t-I hai
N .nom kitchen-Loc bread.NOM.se make-iMPF-F.sG PRES.3.SG
“ Nisa makes bread in the kitchen.'’ (Hindi: Deo, 2 0 0 9 )
c. lapli ti pc tonbe
rain past im pf fall
“ Rain w as falling.” (Mauritian Creole: Adonc, 1994, p- 4 4 , cited in Julien, 2002).

A syntactic explanation for this pattern is B akers (1985) M irror Principle, which
is the hypothesis that the order o f m orphem es in com plex words reflects the natural
syntactic em bedding o f the heads that correspond to those m orphem es. C inqu e
(1999) has shown that the M irro r Principle holds in tense/aspect/mood inflectional
m o rp h o lo g y across a wide variety o f languages. A closely related hypothesis is
B y b e es (1985) semantic relevance claim that relates the affix-ordering tendency to

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MORPHOLOGY

the nature o f the semantic contribution o f the affixes concerned. B y b e e s idea is that
aspectual affixes contribute m ore to changing the m eaning o f the lexical predicate
and are therefore m ore “derivational” than tense affixes.30
The crosslinguistic landscape, however, presents m u c h m ore m orphological
com plexity than the transparent m ap p in gs illustrated in (16). Portm anteau e x ­
pression o f tense and aspect m ea n in g , as in the R o m a n c e Im perfect, or tense or
aspect m a rk in g with m o o d , agreem ent, or voice m a rk in g have been attested in
languages. For instance, in A ra b ic (M cC arthy , 1981; Ryding, 2005) the vocalic in ­
fixes to the verbal root c a rry specification for both aspect and voice, rather than
e m p lo y in g distinct devices for each category. C o n sid e r the stems for the root ktb
‘read’ in (i7).31

(17) Aspect Active Passive

Perfective katab kutib
Imperfective aktub uktab

Agreement markers m a y also form distinct paradigms across the tenses 01* the
aspects so that the aspectual contrast is at least partially realized via agreement. The
In d o -E u ro p ea n Perfect has its own reduplicated stem and a special set o f person/
number endings that contrast with the agreement endings for the other aspectual cate­
gories of Indo-European— the Aorist and the Imperfect (Delbrück, 1876; Renou, 1925).
The stable facts o f the relative ordering o f tense/aspect information as well as
the fusion o f temporal m ark in g with other verbal m arking together point to an in ­
teraction between the semantic content o f tense/aspect m arking and the diachronic
forces that are responsible for developments ultimately leading to com plex word
formation. It is an established fact that most inflectional m o rp h o lo g y diachronically
emerges from the recruitment o f m orphosyntactic and lexical resources o f a
language to create new categories (Meillet, 1912; G ivon , 1979; Traugott and Heine,
1991; etc.). The grammaticalization and phonological reduction o f syntactic m ate­
rial such as auxiliaries and adverbs across time is at least partially responsible for the
ordering effects that are robustly seen in languages.
A s an exam ple o f the fairly com m on pattern o f auxiliary cliticization and affix­
ation, consider the Bengali facts from Lahiri (2000, pp. 7 8 -8 4 ). The M o d ern C o llo ­
quial Bengali Progressive originates in an Early Bengali periphrastic construction
based on an imperfective participle and tense auxiliary (18 a).'2 In M iddle Bengali
(Chatterjee, 1926), the auxiliary phonologically reduces (loss o f initial vowel) and
encliticizes to the participle (18b), naturally respecting the generalization for rela­
tive tense/aspect ordering. In Colloquial M o d ern Bengali (18c), the original im p er­
fective aspectual affix has been completely lost while the tense clitic has the status
o f an affix. The affricate I I I o f the a u x ilia ry is s y n c h ro n ic a lly interpreted as the
m arker o f progressive aspect, while the original person/num ber affixes also c o n ­
tribute tense information. Aspectual m arking, sourced from the tense auxiliary in
a periphrastic construction thus diachronically em erges closer to the root than the
peripheral person/num ber endings.

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(18) Language stage Form Grammaticalization

a. Early Bengali bos-i ac-i auxiliary
Sit-IMPF be-PRES.l.SG
b. Pre-colloquial Bengali bos-i-ci clitic
Sit-IMPF-PRES. 2 .SG
c. Colloquial Bengali bos-c-i affix
Sit-PR O G -PR ES.2.SG

A sp e ct-b a se d split ergativity presents another sort o f exam ple w h ere d ia ­

chronic forces interact with sem an tic content to yield stable fo r m - m e a n in g c o r r e ­
lations at a clausal level. C rosslin gu istically it has been observed that ergative/
absolutive case m a r k in g patterns are associated with perfective aspect (or its c o g ­
nates) w h ile n om in ative/accu sative case m a r k in g is associated with im perfective
aspect. A n d e rso n (1977, 2004) has argu ed that this clause-level correspon d en ce
between verbal aspect and case is rooted in d iach ronic pathways o f change rather
than universal constraints associating subject m a rk in g with aspectual category.
Split ergativity em erges through the reanalysis o f passive and possessive c o n ­
structions with oblique agents as perfective (In d o -Iran ian ), or o b ject-d em o tin g
constru ction s with oblique patients as im perfective (G eo rg ia n ). This sort o f typo-
logically robust form al c o rresp o n d en c e is rooted m ore in d iach ro n ic tendencies
rather than the nature o f tem poral m eaning.

6. S y n t h esis, Per ip h r a sis, and E v o lu tio n

of M ea n in g

The bulk o f w ork on m orphological devices en cod in g tense and aspect has been
carried out in the typological and grammaticalization tradition. The classic texts in
this area remain C o m rie (1976,1985) and the typological surveys pioneered by Dahl
(1985) and Bybee (1985), which were further developed in Bybee et al. (1994) and
Dahl (2000). This research has uncovered a num ber o f robust generalizations about
the patterning o f form and m eaning in these domains:

1. There is a striking correlation between m eanings o f tense-aspect categories

and their form al expression— bound, periphrastic, or unm arked.
2. The lexical resources harnessed in creating new tense/aspect m o rp h o lo g y
are sourced from a small set o f sem antic fields.
3. M orphological exponents o f categories tend to diachronically evolve to
express other categories.

From the synchronic perspective, the relative uniform ity o f the semantic cate­
gories that are realized p erip h rastica lly vs. syn th etically across languages is quite

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remarkable. (19) reports the tendency for periphrastic vs. synthetic realization for a
set o f c o m m o n ly realized tense/aspect categories.

(19) Expression o f major semantic categories in Dahl (1985)

Periphrastic Bound
perfect (16/18) 88% past (33/45) 73%
perfective (17/20) 85%
progressive (18/19) 95% imperfective (7/7) 100%
future (27/50) 54% future (23/50) 46%

(Bybee and Dahl, 1989, p. 56)

This non-accidental connection between categorialform and categorial m eaning

is understood to indicate that the progressive and the perfect tend to be relatively
recent formations in languages in contrast to the other tense/aspect categories (given
the independent w ord > clitic > affix trajectory in m orphosyntactic form ). G ram -
maticalization theory correlates the predom inantly periphrastic expression o f these
categories with the nature o f their meaning. Specifically, the progressive and the
perfect express m ore specific m eaning categories, whose generalized versions are
the imperfective and the perfective or past respectively. Evidence for this specific-
general relation between categories in the tense/aspect dom ain also comes from
unidirectional diachronic trajectories— recurring regularities in the ways that g r a m ­
matical m orphem es undergo semantic change. Two such examples are given in (20).

(20) a. P R O G R E S S I V E » I M P E R F E C T I V E
Languages: Yoruba, Scots Gaelic, Turkish, M aa, Margi, Kui (Bybee et al., 1994;
Com rie, 1976)
b. R E S U L T A T IV E » P E R F E C T » P E R F E C T IV E /P A S T

Languages: Kru, Chinese, Ewe, French, Italian, Germ an (Dahl, 1985, 2000; Bybee
et al., 1994)

Labeled grammaticalization paths or d in e s, these describe the typical unidirec­

tional paths along which m orphological formations restricted to a particular e x ­
pressive function, appear to semantically expand in scope to cover a w ider range of
expressive functions. (20a) describes a pattern w here a form or construction re­
stricted to expressing events-in-progress is extended in use to other imperfective
contexts, and exhibits characterizing or habitual/generic readings at a later d ia­
chronic stage. The original form apparently expands to have the properties o f the
imperfective aspect, following the basic organization in (8). (20b) describes another
change in which a m orphological form or construction originally restricted to
expressing result states (e.g., a result-stative participle) is extended to a w ider set o f
contexts, exhibiting the m ea n in g o f a perfect or perfective and simple past. The
evolution o f the C o m p o u n d Past tense in R o m a n c e (Squartini and Bertinetto, 2000)
and the development o f the G e r m a n Perfect into the general past tense m arker illus­
trate this path.

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172 PERSPECTIVES

The m orphological findings from the grammaticalization literature present a

challenging explanan du m for theories o f tense/aspect m ea n in g review ed in the pre­
vious sections. M ost semantic research is synchronic, concerned with developing
analyses o f the distribution and interpretation o f language-specific and crosslin-
guistically observed patterns. However, these robust patterns in the evolution o f
m e a n in g o f tense/aspect markers demonstrate that such theories must be able to
account not only for the distribution o f aspect m arkers at a single stage, but also for
the changes in their distribution across stages and the compositional build-up o f
aspectual categories from distinct com ponents o f the periphrasis. The beginnings o f
this prom ising field o f research are evidenced in recent w ork on diachronic s e m a n ­
tics (Deo, 2006, 2009, in progress; Eckardt, 2007).

7. B l o c k i n g P h e n o m e n a in Sy s t e m s of

Tem poral M a r k in g

The grammaticalization literature concerns itself with how synthetic vs. analytic
expression correlates both with relative recency o f m orphological formation and
the type o f semantic contribution. C om posite synthetic-analytic paradigm s have
also received attention in m orphological theory in the context o f m orphological
blocking (Em bick, 2 0 0 0 ; Sadler and Spencer, 2 0 0 0 ; Kiparsky, 2005) and the c o m p e ­
tition between syntax and m o rp h o lo g y in the expression o f temporal/aspectual
(and other verbal) categories. The Latin Perfect paradigm has been particularly well
investigated in this discussion because the same aspectual category is expressed
synthetically and analytically d epending on voice specification.
The Latin verb has a synthetic paradigm in both the active and the passive
voices in each tense. The Latin Perfect, however, is synthetic in the active voice but
analytic in the passive voice, with a participial form o f the m ain verb (agreeing in
num ber and gender) and a tensed form o f the auxiliary be ( laudatus/a/um est).

(21) Non-perfect Active Passive

Present laudat ‘praises’ laudatur ‘ is praised’
Past laudâbat laudabatur
Future laudäbit laudabitur
Perfect
Present laudävit la u d a tu s /a /u m est
Past laudäverat lau d a tu s/a /u m erat
Future laudäverit la u d a tu s /a /u m erit

The question is: w h y does Latin not have uniform ity o f expression (synthetic or
periphrastic) across the two voices in its Perfect subparadigm ? From the lexicalist
perspective, the inflectional p aradigm is defective and the lack o f inflectional m o r ­
phology expressing tense, perfect, and passive features is filled by recruiting mor-
phosyntactic resources o f the language, i.e., by com positionally building up the

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MORPHOLOGY 173

perfect passive by using the perfect participle (which carries the relative past E < R
m e a n in g associated w ith the perfect) and tense auxiliaries (Kiparsky, 2005). Kipar-
sky argues that this gap in the paradigm is principled; a synthetic perfect passive
ending in Latin w ould express three features— tense> aspect, and passive— m aking
it the only triple portmanteau in the language (Kiparsky, 2005, p. 126). Moreover,
what prevents the periphrastic forms fro m surfacing in other areas o f the Latin in­
flectional paradigm is an econom y condition that prefers synthetic form s over ana­
lytic forms if both express the sam e meaning. This is m orphological blocking in the
traditional sense: The blocking m echanism acts as a filter that adjudicates between
com peting expressions based on their structural econom y (for instance, inflection
vs. periphrasis) and their semantic expressiveness. Synthetic form s, being simpler,
are to be preferred over equally expressive analytic forms. The composite paradigm
is therefore an outcome o f the competition between a structural econ om y require­
ment and the need for expression o f perfect passive meaning.
On another proposal framed within Paradigm Function M orphology (Stump,
2001), the Latin Perfect, and periphrastic paradigms more generally, are not derived
syntactically, but rather morphologically, and should be modeled like word formation
processes. Borjars et al. (1997) propose that composite paradigms not be treated as
defective where gaps are filled by using syntactic resources, but rather, as complete
paradigms with periphrastic forms in certain cells. Sadler and Spencer (2000), fol­
lowing this line o f analysis, take a constructional view of the periphrastic perfect,
where its building blocks (the participle and the auxiliaries) are devoid o f meaning and
only constructionally realize the meaning o f the perfect aspect. The periphrasis is ef­
fectively stipulated as the exponent o f an inflectional subparadigm by a morphological
realization rule.33 Further, the analysis proposes that the blocking relation is the con­
verse o f that assumed in both traditional and lexicalist analyses. It is the presence o f the
periphrastic forms and the rule that associates the syntactic construction with a m o r­
phological subparadigm that blocks the generation o f synthetic perfect passive forms.
In contrast to this “syntax as w o rd form ation” approach to periphrasis is its
direct opposite, the Distributive M o rp h o lo g y view o f “ word formation as syntax.”
Em bick (200 0) proposes that periphrastic and synthetic perfects are derived from
the sam e syntactic structure and differ o n ly in that synthetic perfects undergo a
process o f Merger, which leads to a postsyntactic fusion o f the Aspect node that
houses the auxiliary with the main verb, by adjoining the T e n s e * A g r node to the
A spect node. The passive perfect is analytic because such a m erger is prevented by
the presence o f the passive feature.
Within the dom ain o f tense and aspect, at least, periphrastic realization appears
to be largely compositional rather than constructional. As Kiparsky (2005, pp. 123)
notes, the perfect can be periphrastic because the m eaning it contributes can be
com positionally built up from the m ea n in g o f the participle (temporal anteriority)
and the m ea n in g o f the auxiliary (tense). This is reinforced by the observation from
the grammaticalization literature that the perfect is overw helm ingly realized peri-
phrastically in the w o r ld s languages. This correlation emerges as an accident on any
v ie w that takes periphrastic and inflectional means o f expression to have equal

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174 PERSPECTIVES

status (whether as exponents o f paradigm atic cells or as spellouts o f syntactic struc­

ture). A view o f m orphological expression as driven by the com peting forces o f
structural simplicity and semantic expressivity is far m ore compatible with the
properties o f tense/aspect periphrasis.
The principle o f blocking has been fruitfully employed in yet another form in
the tense/aspect literature. In contrast to m orphological blocking, where formal and
semantic constraints interact to adjudicate between com peting expression types
(synthetic or periphrastic) for a given meaning, is sem antic blocking, where the
sam e constraints serve to determine the interpretation associated with com peting
form s with overlapping m eaning. The notion o f general and specific sem antic cate­
gories introduced in §6 is helpful in understanding how the distribution and inter­
pretation o f tense/aspect m o rp h o lo g y is determ ined by such competition. We will
exam in e this in the context o f the effect o f overt progressive marking.
Visser (1970, p. 746) observes that in M iddle English, before the emergence o f
the be + V-ing construction as a grammaticalized progressive, the English Simple
Present exhibited progressive, stative, as well as the habitual, generic readings. In
M odern English, however, the progressive reading (exemplified in (22)) is unavail­
able to the Simple Present.

(22) a. What do you read, my lord? (Hamlet II.2.191)

b. 0 , 1 die, Horatio. (Hamlet V.2.345)

The incompatibility o f the Simple Present paradigm with an event-in-progress

reading is connected to the grammaticalization o f the specific progressive construc­
tion in M odern English. This change affects the distribution o f present (and past)
tense m arking in the language, thus altering the temporal m arking system in the
language without affecting the temporal m eanings o f individual forms. Bybee (1994)
labels this kind o f introduction o f systemic opposition “the grammaticization o f
‘zero’ morphology.”
Dahl (Dahl, 2 0 0 0 , pp. 1 0 - 1 1 ) introduces the notion o f a “ D oughn u t G r a m ” to
describe form al m a rk in g which fails to appear in certain semantic contexts that its
m eaning is compatible with, because its use is blocked by the presence o f m ore sp e­
cific form al marking.

(23)

D o w t y (1980) p o s its a G r i c e a n B l o c k i n g p r i n c i p l e that can d e t e r m i n e the

distribution o f two expressive devices w ith o ve rlap p in g contexts o f possible u se .31
The idea (originally d u e to the Sanskrit g r a m m a r ia n Panini and heavily u sed in
m o r p h o p h o n o lo g ic a l analysis) is that given a context to w h ich two rules m a y apply,
the rule with a n a rro w e r d o m a in o f application takes preced en ce over the rule with
a b ro a d e r d o m a in o f application.

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Hindi, which m orphologically realizes both the imperfective and the progressive
categories, exhibits a restriction on the distribution o f imperfective m arking in both
the present and the past tenses (Deo, 2009). The imperfective form (Verb -tâ) is in ­
compatible with the event-in-progress reading which is uniquely expressed by the
progressive (Verb + rah).55 In contrast to English and Hindi, in Italian (and French),
the presence o f periphrastic progressive forms does not block the Imperfetto (and the
Imparfait) from exhibiting the event-in-progress reading. Marchese (1979, p. 108)
reports a similar pattern o f free variation for Godié, a language o f the K ru family.
This free variation scenario in R om ance indicates that considerations besides
semantic specificity/generality must determine the relative distributions o f forms
with overlapping m eanings in a language. K o o n tz -G a rb o d en (2004, Spanish) and
K iparsky (2005, Vedic Sanskrit) exam ine the free alternation o f semantically broader
tense-aspect forms with semantically narrower forms in the expression o f narrower
meanings, in terms o f an optim izing competition between the two opposing c o n ­
straints corresponding to semantic expressiveness and structural economy. The idea
is that because progressive forms tend to be periphrastic (Dahl, 1985; Bybee et al.,
1994), they are structurally more complex than imperfective forms, which are more
likely to be synthetic. In a language w here the imperfective-progressive or neutral-
progressive contrast correlates with the periphrastic-synthetic m orphological c o n ­
trast, the distribution o f the two forms is likely to be determined by the interaction
o f structural simplicity with semantic expressiveness. If the constraint favoring
semantic specificity ( E X P R E S S I V E N E S S ) is ranked above the constraint penalizing
extra structure ( E C O N O M Y ) , the result is a strict blocking relation that character­
izes a language like English or Hindi. In these languages, the general forms (Simple
Present and Imperfective respectively) are not compatible with an event-in-progress
reading. On the other hand, in a language like Italian, it can be said that E X P R E S ­
S I V E N E S S and E C O N O M Y are freely ranked with respect to each other, which
generates the pattern o f free alternation between I M P F and P R O G in the expression
o f the event-in-progress meaning.

(24) a. E X P R E S S IV E N E S S » E C O N O M Y (Hindi)
b. E X P R E S S IV E N E S S , E C O N O M Y (Italian, French)

The factorial ty p o lo gy in this d om ain is complete with the ran k in g o f

E C O N O M Y above E X P R E S S I V E N E S S . Such a language is one in which a structurally
complex form that expresses the specific event-in-progress meaning is not expected
to surface. xVIiddle English exemplifies such a language where the Simple present is
compatible with the event-in-progress reading.
The b rief analysis o f semantic blocking presented here can be applied m ore
broadly. C ip ria and R oberts (2000) have p roposed that the distribution o f the
Spanish Pretérito and Imperfecto is determ ined by a sim ilar blocking relation,
where certain readings are pragmatically blocked for the m o re general Pretérito.
K iparsky (1998) also m o d els the distribution o f the Aorist and the Perfect in Vedic
along sim ilar lines. The treatment o f these ph enom ena in terms o f an optim izing
competition is only observed in later w o rk on sem antic blocking.

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176 PERSPECTIVES

8. C o n c lu sio n

A m orphologically grounded theory o f tense and aspect is simultaneously c o n ­

cerned with the properties o f the encoded m e a n in g and the en codin g itself. The
recruitment o f new lexical material in grammaticalization and the stable pathways
o f historical change in form and m eaning demonstrate that diachrony is as central
to such an investigation as is the synchronic study o f individual tense/aspect
m arkers and temporal m ark in g systems. Moreover, w e see that the form al constitu­
tion o f such systems and the distribution o f categories within them is structured by
com peting constraints o f econ om y and expressiveness. An integration o f the form-
based insights from the typological and grammaticalization literature with the nu-
anced semantic theories o f particular tem poral— aspectual categories is necessary
in bettering our understanding o f the organization o f this area o f grammar.

NOTES

1. P an in is Astadhyayi (c. 500 B C E ) , which includes a concise m orphological analysis

o f the verbal inflectional paradigm s o f Late Vedic Sanskrit, constitutes the first systematic
treatment o f tense/aspect m o rp h o lo g y in any language.
2. For instance, the form labeled Imperfect in Tigre (Raz, 1983, pp. 7 0 - 7 2 ) has present
reference in contrast to the familiar Indo-European usage o f that label for the augmented
past-tense, which is based on the present stem and has imperfective m eaning in Latin and
Greek, but is aspectually neutral in Sanskrit.
3. The abbreviations for Vedic arc as follows: 3 = third person; sg = singular; PL =
plural; a c c = accusative; g e n = genitive; im p f c t = Imperfect; PFCT = Perfect. The terms
Imperfect and the Perfect refer to the cognate forms o f the m orphological categories o f
Indo-European and not to their semantic function in Vedic.
4. The abbreviation for W am baya are as follows: SG = singular; F = feminine; II =
noun class II; e r g = ergative; a = Transitive subject; u n m = unmarked.
5. The o v e rw h e lm in g majority o f remoteness m arkin g languages are found in three
geographical areas— sub-Saharan Africa, N e w G uin ea, and western South A m e ric a , in the
two first o f w h ic h predominantly (but not exclusively) in two large language families—
N ig e r-C o n g o and Tran s-N ew Guinea.
6. Aristotle distinguishes between kineseis (translated “ m ovem ents” ), which have an
external end or goal, and energiai (“actualities” ), wrhich are actualized as soon as they begin
(Metaphysics 1048b).
7. The terms wrerc coined by G a r c y (1957), based 011 the Greek word telos “goal.”
8. D o w ty (1979) offers a synthesis o f earlier w'ork by the Oxford philosophers,
integrating their diagnostics and introducing n e w ones, to show how the four aspectual
classes pattern distinctly writh respect to their logical entailments, their interaction with
temporal adverbials (e.g., the in/for test), as well as tense/aspect m o rp h o lo g y (e.g., entail­
ments associated with progressive m orphology). I lis conclusion deviates from the Vendle-
rian idea o f a predetermined lexically en cod ed classification.

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MORPHOLOGY 177

9. Vendler presents his classification as applying to the lexical verbs o f English— for
instance verbs like love, know are categorized as states, while verbs like win, reach are
categorized as achievements. It has been pointed out, first in G arey (1957) and, later, since
Verkuyl (1972), that the aspectual classification o f verbs is not fixed once and for all, but
rather appears to v a ry based on the properties o f the arguments they combine with. Even
Vendler s ow n examples (draw a circle) indicate that the aspectual classes cannot be re­
stricted to the meanings o f individual lexical verbs. The observation that verbs exhibit
variability in their aspectual classification d epending on the broader context o f their use led
to broadening the empirical scope o f the Vendlerian classes to at least the level o f V P s (verb
+ object argument), and in some cases, also to including the subject argument as a determ i­
nant o f aspectual class (Verkuyl, 1972; Mourelatos, 1978; Dowty, 1979). Much later research
on aspectual classes has focused on identifying the semantic underpinnings o f the tclic/
atelic distinction and the compositional buildup o f (a)telicity through the interaction o fle x i-
cal verbs with other syntactic and morphological elements in the sentential structure (Bach,
1986; Krifka, 1989, 1992; Parsons, 1990; Filip, 1999 am on g others).
10. The original Reichenbachian system involves three temporal points whose relative
locations determines the tense/aspect combination expressed in English. Later researchers
tease apart the contribution o f the tenses and the aspects via pairwise ordering between the
temporal parameters (Hornstein, 1990; Klein, 1994).
11. Klein (1994) presents a reformulation o f the basic Reichenbachian theory whose
major advance is a proper characterization o f the notion o f reference time. On Kleins
interpretation, Reichcnbachs reference time is the time which the sentential assertion is
about (in analogy with the notion o f “ topic” on other domains), and therefore, is rechris­
tened 'Topic T im e (T T ). Because o f ease o f exposition and familiarity to the reader, I use the
Reichenbachian names for the three times, rather than Kleins TSit (Time o f Situation), T U
(Time o f Utterance), and T T (Topic l ime). 'Ihese parameters, however, have the same
m eaning as they do in Klein (1994).
12. A sim plex verb m ay also be perfective. The addition o f a verbal prefix to a lexically
perfective verb maintains its perfcctivity, but effects a change in its meaning.
13. There are twenty-eight prefixes that can be attached to an imperfective verb to
yield a perfective one and up to sixteen prefixes can be compatible with one and the same
verbal stem. (Altschuler, 20 10 , p. 20). Moreover, in som e cases, the perfective form may
also be formed via vowel change and stem change (Binnick, 1991, p. 136).
14. C o m rie (1976: 9 3 -9 4) locates prefixing aspectual systems on a diachronic scale,
d epending 011 the extent to which telicizing prefixes have been employed in realizing the
perfective— imperfective contrast in a language. Languages like English and G e rm a n , with
prepositional particles that effect m eaning changes but do not otter a systematic process o f
deriving perfective verbs from imperfective verbs, are at the least grammaticalized end o f
the scale. Languages like Lithuanian do have such a derivational process but not at the level
o f productivity exhibited in Slavic.
15. Perfective verbs have future reference when inflected in the non-past tense. For
future reference with imperfective verbs, a periphrasis using the verb bud ‘be’ is required.
16. Formally, aspectual operators are existential quantifiers that apply to
predicates o f eventualities P and return sets o f intervals t that correspond to the Kleinian/
Reichenbachian reference times (Kratzcr, 1998).
a. [im p f] = \ P \ t 3 e\t C i{e ) & P(e)]
b. _perf] = \ P \ t 3 e[tD r(e) & P(e)]
17. Phasic theories o f aspect (e.g., Vlach, 1981; Dc Swart, 1998; K am p and Rohrcr, 1983;
M oens and Steedman, 1988) derive the (non)homogeneity o f aspectually marked sentences in

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178 PERSPECTIVES

English (the English Progressive) or Romance (the French Imparfait) by claiming that such
sentences express stative eventuality predicates. The process by which stativity is achieved is
mostly left unexplicated, lending a stipulative flavor to the analysis. However, on the rela­
tional approach to aspect, homogeneity manipulation is not stipulated, but rather, derived via
temporal semantics o f aspectual operators (Dowty, 1986, p. 44; Klein, 1994). It is the time rela­
tional contribution o f the impcrfcctive and the perfective that yields temporal predicates
with/without the subinterval property These predicates then interact in predictable ways
with the reference time given by context in narrative discourse or overtly expressed by
adverbials.
18. That is, there is no m arking that is used only with lexical stative verbs to refer to
states and with activities, accomplishments, and achievements to refer to events in progress
Bybee ct al., 1994, p. 127).
19. This is not entirely accurate because progressive m arking m a y also apply to lexical
and derived stative predicates to refer to temporally contingent or tem porary situation
(C o m rie , 1976; Dowty, 1979). See D e o (2009) for an account o f this contingency reading o f
progressive marking.
20. W hile the m o d ern English construction uses the present participial form o f the
verb with tense auxiliaries, the origin o f this construction is highly debated. It is not clear
w hether the source is a participle-based construction or a locative construction. See Smith
(2007) for a recent o verview and proposal.
21. Following a c o m m o n diachronic change, the periphrastic progressive construction
has generalized as the impcrfective m arker in M o d e rn Hindi.
22. C o m rie calls these readings “ types o f perfect” suggesting that the ditferent
readings represent distinct grammatical subcategories o f the perfect. While there is
evidence for som e m orphologically encoded subdivisions within the dom ain o f the perfect,
it is not clear that each o f these readings can be correlated to structural and semantic
differences in aspectual meaning. See Dahl (1985, p. 133) for a similar statement.
23. The perfect aspect is yet another locus o f debate regarding the correct underlying
notions for the analysis o f aspect. On the time-relational approach (6), the perfect indicates
a temporal precedence relation (E < R ) between the time o f a situation and the reference
time. Phasic theories o f aspect (M oens and Steed man, 1988; Parsons, 1990; K a m p and
Reyle, 1993), on the other hand, treat the perfect as asserting the existence o f a state that
results from the event that is described in the perfect-marked sentence. Finally, the Extend-
e d - N o w approach (M c C o a rd , 1978; Dowty, 1979; Iatridou et al., 20 0 1), treats the perfect as
m ak in g reference to an interval w ho se left b o u n d a ry is before the reference time, but
w ho se right b o u n d a ry overlaps with the reference time. I refer the interested reader to
Portncr (2003) tor overview s o f these approaches.
24. Bybee and Dahl (1989, pp. 67-68 ) observe that perfect constructions in some
languages m ay also involve the use o f temporal particles such as already (e.g., Yoruba) and
lexical verbs such as finish (e.g., Ewe).
25. For a full description o f the uses o f the Vcdic Perfect, I refer the reader to Renou
(1925), which is devoted to the Vedic Perfect and a more concise su m m ary in Kiparsky (1998).
26. These constructions arc often called resultatives in the typological literature (Dahl,
1985; Nedjalkov and Jaxontov, 1988; Bybee et al., 1994); however, I use the term result-
stative to distinguish them from compositionally built resultatives (freeze solid) discussed
in the event composition literature.
27. Perfective m arking on statives gives rise to an inchoative interpretation o f the
stative in Bulgarian (Iatridou ct al., 2001, p. 171).
28. The tenses have been modeled either as existential quantifiers over times (an
analysis em erging from Priorian Tense Logic and used in M on tagues PTQ , 1973, as well as

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MORPHOLOGY 179

Dowty, 1979) o r as pronom inals with temporal presuppositions that provide arguments to
temporal predicates (Partee, 1973; Enc, 1986).
29. In (15), the Kleene star indicates that zero or more aspectual operators m ay apply
to an eventuality description: the output o f aspectual operators m a y serve as the input to
other aspectual operators (De Swart, 1998; M ichaelis, 2004, and others).
30. A s noted in §4, aspectual markers can cither be analyzed in terms o f their
event-structural contribution or their time-relational contribution. At least som e kinds o f
aspectual marking, such as the perfectivizing affixes in Slavic, or the frequentative, iterative
affix -tar in West Greenlandic (Van G eenhoven, 2004), are best analyzed as eventuality
m odifying, and therefore closer to the derivational end o f the inflectional-derivational
continuum.
31. The Arabic verbal system is organized around the Bin yanim or the root-tcmplatc
system and the forms listed here belong to the first binyan for the root ktb (McCarthy, 1981;
Ryding, 2005).
32. For ease o f exposition, I have given only the first person singular forms in the
present tense. The remaining paradigm for the present parallels this form in all relevant
respects. Moreover, the past progressive is formed with a past auxiliary based on the same
verb and undergoes the same diachronic process, /c/ marks progressive aspect in both tenses.
33. rl his rule is actually a rule o f referral in the sense o f Stump (2001). 'I he syntax
independently generates a form to which the m o rp h o lo g y refers as the exponent o f some
subspace o f a morphological paradigm (Sadler and Spencer, 20 00, p. 89).
34. “I f a language has two (equally simple) types o f syntactic structures A and B, such
that A is am biguous between m eanings X and Y while B has only m eaning X , speakers o f
the language should reserve structure A for co m m u n ic atin g m eaning Y (since B would
have been available for co m m u n icatin g X unam biguously and would have been chosen i f X
is what was intended).” (Dowty, 1980, p. 32).
35. This form also exhibits the contingent characterizing reading available to the
English Progressive. See Deo (2009) for an explicit characterization ol the m eanings o f the
impcrfectivc and the progressive that account for the patterns o f distribution and interpre­
tation o f these categories in languages.

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 CHAPTER 6

SYNTAX

T IM S T O W E L L

i. I n t r o d u c t i o n

This chapter is co n c e rn e d with the syntactic properties o f tense, and h o w the th eory
o f sy n tax sh o u ld account for th em . This is a vast topic that no single essay can hope
to address fu lly; therefore, I focus here on ju st four questions:

(i) W h at co un ts as a tense, from a se m an tic perspective, and from a

m o r p h o s y n ta c tic perspective?
(ii) W h e r e do tense m o r p h e m e s o c c u r in syntactic structures, and what role
to they play in syntactic derivations?
(iii) To w h at extent are the se m an tic properties o f tenses reflected, in w h o le or
in part, in their syntactic fo rm ?
(iv) W h at parallels exist b etw een tenses and other types o f gra m m a tic a l
categories, such as verbs, p ro n o u n s, or ad verbs?

M y aim is to strike a balance b etw een p re se n tin g an o v e r v ie w o f the p re v io u s liter­

ature a n d laying out a coherent presentation o f a p articu lar theoretical point o f view.
M y s u r v e y o f pre vio u s theories o f tense is highly selective. In the interest o f brevity,
m y em p irical fo cus is restricted to E nglish , th o ugh I m a k e p a ssin g references to
p ro p erties o f tenses in other languages.
D e s c r ip tiv e g r a m m a r s g e n e ra lly d isc u ss tense in te rm s o f the usage o f the p a r ­
ticu lar affixes, particles, a u x ilia r y v e rb s, or p e rip h ra s tic c o n s tr u c tio n s that o c c u r
in the la n g u a g e they are d e s c rib in g ; they se ld o m seek to fo rm u la te a u n iversal
definition o f “ tense” per se. N e v e rth e le ss , g r a m m a r s o f p a rtic u la r la n g u a g e s often
appeal im p licitly to u n iv e rsa l se m a n tic n o t i o n s — for e x a m p le , by s a y in g that “ past
tense” is e x p r e s s e d in L a n g u a g e X by m e a n s o f a giv en m o r p h e m e o r p e r ip h r a s tic

Copyrighted material
SYNTAX 185

construction. C o m r i e (1976) defined “ tense” as “ the gram m aticalization o f lo c a ­

tion in time,” a sim ple characterization that has considerable intuitive appeal.
Nevertheless, most subsequent syntactic and semantic theories o f tense have
adopted narrower definitions o f what counts as a tense. The most influential syntac­
tic definition o f tense restricts the category tense to the m orph em es present and past;
this originated with C h o m s k y ’s (1957) analysis o f the English system o f tenses and
auxiliary verbs, which almost entirely ignored semantics and sought only to ac­
count for the syntactic distribution o f tense and aspect m orphem es in grammatical
English sentences. C h o m s k y ’s proposal to accord privileged status to the simple
tense m orph em es present and past was adopted by most subsequent generative
analyses, including those that em erged within the research tradition o f form al
semantics. Nevertheless, the most influential com prehensive syntactic treatments o f
tense have en com passed accounts o f related aspectual constructions as well, and
have generally sought to be consistent with prevalent theories o f tense semantics.
In section 2, I provide a critical su rvey the early literature on the semantics o f
tense, focusing on theories that had the greatest influence on syntactic analyses, and
seeking to identify their strengths and weaknesses from a syntactic perspective. In
section 3 , 1 discuss previous syntactic theories o f tense, concentrating on the histor­
ical development o f ideas within the research tradition o f generative g ra m m a r that
have shaped the current consensus on the role o f tense in syntactic phrase structure
and in syntactic derivations. In section 4 , 1 discuss issues o f current concern, where
syntax and semantics intersect.

2. S e m a n t ic T h eo r ies of T ense

The inherent semantic content o f tenses has been debated for decades, dating back
(at least) to rival theories o f tense semantics developed by the philosophers Arthur
Prior and I Ians Reichenbach. Both theories influenced later w ork by philosophers
and linguists such as Hans Kam p, James M cC aw ley, Richard Montague, Barbara
Partee, and m any others. Prior (1957,1967) developed a sem antic theory o f tenses as
prepositional operators, sim ilar to m odal operators, which was widely influential
on subsequent philosophical and logical approaches to the semantics o f tense.
W ithin the research tradition o f theoretical syntax, however, Reichenbachs (1947)
theory has been m ore influential, and I will therefore focus on it here.

2.1. Reichenbach’s Theory of Tense

2 .3 .1. Outline o f Reichenbachs Theory
Reichenbachs theory was concerned prim arily with the semantics o f tenses, in­
cluding periphrastic tense constructions, in simple (m ono-clausal) sentences. His
central idea was that the inherent semantic content o f each “tense” in English, or
186 PERSPECTIVES

any other language, involves the specification o f the temporal arrangement o f three
time coordinates in relation to each other. The first time coordinate is the Speech
T im e (S); this refers to the actual time at which the sentence is uttered, written, or
intended to be read or heard. The second coordinate is the Event T im e (E); this is
the time o f the event or situation associated with the main verb. The third time
coordinate is a “ Reference T im e” (R), a key innovation o f Reichenbachs theory that
I describe below.
In Reichenbachs theory, S and E play a central role in defining the semantics o f
the so-called simple tenses (past, present, and future). He assumed

(i) that the present tense conveys that S and E are simultaneous, or
coincident;
(ii) that the past tense conveys that E precedes S (or, equivalently, that S
follows E); and
(iii) that the future tense, expressed in English by the m odal verb will, conveys
that E follows S (or, equivalently, that S precedes E).

R e ic h e n b a c h e x p re s se d these a n aly ses fo r m a lly by m ea n s o f a no tatio n that r e p ­

resents tim e graphically, flo w in g from left to right: tem p oral p re c e d e n c e is
e x p ressed ic o n ic a lly as linear preced en ce. D istin c t tim es are separated by a
dash or u n d e r lin e , and c o in c id e n t (or s im u lta n e o u s ) times are sep ara ted by a
c o m m a . T h u s:

(1) a. present tense is represented by [S,E];

b. past tense is represented by [E—SJ;
c. future tense is represented by (S—E ] .

Actually, this is an incomplete version o f Reichenbachs actual theory, since it ignores

the role played by the temporal coordinate R; I return to this shortly.
Reichenbach described the semantics o f the present tense in terms o f sim ulta­
neity or coincidence; this relation is sym m etrical, in the sense that [S,E] is equ iva­
lent to [E,S]. Actually, however, present tense may really involve an asym m etric
relation o f containm ent (cf. D em irdache and U ribe-Etxebarria, 1997.)
In the sentence John lives in Paris , where E is the interval o f John s residency in
Paris, the Speech T im e S is just a small subpart o f the interval E. This suggests that
the present tense conveys that “ E contains S” (or, equivalently, “ S is contained in E ” ),
in which case the relation between E and S is not svmmetrical.
j If Reichenbachs
c o m m a is understood to mean “contains,” then the present tense is [E,S]; if the
c o m m a m eans “ is contained in,” then the present is [S,E].
The major innovation o f Reichenbachs theory, and the source o f much o f its
appeal, lay in his account o f the periphrastic perfect constructions, where the time
coordinate R plays a crucial role. C o n sid e r the examples in (2):

(2) a. John opened the window.

b. John had opened the window.
c. John has opened the window.
SYNTAX IS?

The semantics o f the past perfect in (2b) is more com plex than that o f the simple
past tense in (2a); w hereas (2a) simply locates the time o f Johns leaving (E) prior to
the Speech T im e S, (2b) locates E prior to a third time, which also precedes S. E v i­
dence for this third time, which Reichenbach identified as the Reference T im e R,
comes from the fact that (2b), unlike (2a), cannot be used “out o f the blue” ; the past
perfect can only be used in contexts where its R coordinate can be identified with a
time m en tion ed (or alluded to) elsewhere in the sam e sentence or in the sur­
rounding discourse:

(3) a. At five o’clock, John had already opened the window.

b. When Bill arrived , John had (already) opened the window.
c. Bill said that John had opened the window.
d. The house was cold when we walked in. John had opened the window earlier, and the
thermostat had been turned off.

Reichenbach represented the semantics o f the past perfect in terms o f the simple
form ula [E— R— S].
For the present perfect (2c), w h ere E again precedes S but there is no intuitive
basis for a third time distinct fro m E and S, R eichen bach proposed that R is s i­
m ultaneous with S: [E — R , S ] . In su p p ort o f the idea that the sem an tics o f the
present perfect involves R co in cid in g with S, it has so m e tim e s been ob serve d that
the present perfect can only be used w hen the event has “present r e le v a n c e ” For
exam ple, if R is u n d ersto o d to refer to the time o f a “ result state” that arises when
the event c o n v e y e d by the m ain verb has been com pleted, the fact that (2c) can
most naturally be used in a context w here the w in d o w is still open at S w ould
follow fr o m R e ic h e n b a c h s claim that R and S coincide. Flowever, it is not possible
to m ain tain that R always c o rre s p o n d s to a result state in this w a y ; for exam ple, in
the exam ples in (3), there is no im plication that the w in d o w was still open at R.
Reichenbach argued that the past and present perfect are not unique in m aking
use o f R in their semantics; on the contrary, he proposed that every tense involves
an exhaustive ordering o f S, E, and R. While this claim gave his theory the virtue o f
consistency, it also led to serious problems.

2.3.2. Problems with Reichenbachs Theory

The first problem concerns the semantics o f the future perfect, exemplified in
(4a-c).

(4) a. John will have left.

b. When Bill arrives , John will have left.
c. Bill will arrive tomorrow. But John will have (already) left.
d. When we win the war on terrorism , our soldiers will not have died in vain.

Like the past perfect, the future perfect involves intuitive reference to a third time R,
distinct from both E and S; (4a), like (2b), cannot be used “out o f the blue” ; R must
be identified with a time previously mentioned, as in (4 b -d ).
l8 8 P E R S P E C T IV E S

W hereas R is before S in the past perfect, in the future perfect R is after S. A

problem arises, however, in the location o f E relative to S. In most situations where
the future perfect is used, such as in (4b) and U d ) , E is understood to lie in the
future, i.e., after S: [S — E — R J . But C o m rie (1976) showed that the ordering o f E after
S in the future perfect is a cancellable implicature that can be attributed to G rices
m a x im o f quantity. That it is not part o f the semantics o f the future perfect itself is
shown by (4d), which can be used in contexts w here E (the time w h en the soldiers
die) is a ssum ed to precede S.
C o m rie argued that the future perfect involves two independent temporal o r­
dering relations, both involving R: [E — R] and [S — R ] ; it does not order E in relation
to S. But Reichenbachs iconic notation dictated that E, S, and R all had to be located
in a single timeline form ula, and this forced him to specify a particular ordering o f
E in relation to S. This led him to posit three distinct formulas for the future perfect:
[S — E — R], [E — S — R], and [S,E— R], each o f which counted as a different “ tense.”
But there is no attested case in any language o f m ore than one future perfect, a fact
that his theory manifestly failed to explain. In this respect, his theory that every
tense construction involves an exhaustive ordering o f S, E, and R has too m uch de­
scriptive power. (See also Verkuyl, this volume.)
A s e co n d p roblem lay in R e ic h e n b a c h s claim that R and S are in clu d ed in
the s e m a n tic s o f all tense c o n stru c tio n s. T h is forced him to p ro vid e a m ore
c o m p lica ted a cco u n t o f the sim p le tenses than the sim p lifie d v ersion o f this
t h e o r y presented in ( l a - c ) . He suggested that R is present in the se m a n tic s o f
these tenses too, c o in c id in g w ith E; thus, instead o f (1), what he actually p r o ­
p o s e d was (5):

(5) a. simple present [S,R,E]

b. simple past [E,R— S]
c. simple future [S— R,E]

This com plication has no intuitive basis; its only m otivatio n was to im p o se u n ifo r­
m ity on all tense constructions.
A third, m ore serious problem was that by including S in the semantics o f all
tenses, Reichenbach was unable to account for the semantics o f pure “relative” tense
forms, such as those found in participial and infinitival clauses like those in (6):

(6) a. M a x left the party early, having eaten quickly.

b. M a x will leave the party early, having eaten quickly.
c. Sandra expected Bill to have already left.
d. Sandra will expect Bill to have already left.

A fourth problem lay in the fact that Reichenbachs theory attributed semantic
values to tense constructions as a whole, and not to individual tense m orphem es.
This m a d e it impossible for him to construct a com positional semantics for m o r ­
phologically com plex periphrastic tense constructions, by assigning sem antic
values to their com ponent parts and then com bining these to derive the semantics
o f the com plex constructions. In attributing the sem antic values in (5) to the simple
SYNTAX 189

present, past, and future tenses, R eichenbach was not assigning any sem antic values
to the English m o rp h e m e s present, past, and w ill. These m o rp h e m es also occur in
the present, past, and future perfect constructions, respectively, but from R eich en ­
bachs perspective, this was a coincidence, since he view ed the m orphosyntactic
composition o f all tense constructions as being essentially arbitrary. Moreover,
even if he had chosen to attribute the values in (5) to the m o rp h e m es present, past,
and will, he could not have com bined these with a semantics for the perfect (pre­
sum ably [E — R ] ) to derive the semantics that he attributed to the present, past, and
future perfect constructions, since these im p ose incompatible orderings on the
three time co-ordinates:

(7) a. present pcrfcct [E— R,S]

b. past perfect [E— R—Si
c. future perfect [S— E— R], (E,S— R], [E— S— RJ

C on sequ en tly , his th eory m a d e absolutely no p re d ic tio n s w h a tso e v e r about the re­
lationship between the m o r p h o s y n ta c tic stru ctu re o f tenses and their se m an tics, a
d eficien cy for w h ic h it w as criticized by C o m r i e (1976), B o u c h a rd (1984), and
Verkuyl (this v o lu m e ), a m o n g others.
R e ic h e n b a c h s insistence on a u n ifo r m th ree-co ord in ate a p p roach , even for the
sim ple tenses, led to a fifth pro b lem : his th e o ry led him to o v e rlo o k an im p o rtan t
e m p iric a l generalization, n a m e ly that m o n o m o r p h e m i c tenses are invariably less
c o m p le x sem an tically than m o r p h o s y n ta c tic a lly co m p le x tense c o n stru ctio n s. O n ly
c o m p le x tense co n stru ction s provid e clear ev id en c e for R (distinct f r o m both S and
E), as in the case o f the past and future perfect. This generalization suggests that
individual tense m o r p h e m e s alw ays sp ec ify tem poral o rd e r in g relations that involve
reference to just two times. The fact that sem an tically c o m p le x tense co n stru ction s
are invariably c o m p le x in their m o r p h o s v n t a x as well suggests that the sem antic
co m p lex ity o f three in d ep en d en t tim e co ord in ates o n ly arises as the result o f the
syntactic co m b in a tio n o f two e le m e n ta r y tenses, each o f w h ic h has only two t e m p o ­
ral coord inates. R e ic h e n b a c h s theory o f tense exclud ed this possibility, and was
thus incapable o f e x p la in in g it.
A sixth problem w'ith the th e o ry is that it p ro v id e d no account o f the se m an tic s
o f tenses in su b o rd in ate clauses. A s C o m r i e o bserved , tense fo rm s that have an
absolute interpretation in m ain clauses (locating E an d /o r R in relation to S) often
have a relative tense interpretation in su b o rd in a te clauses, w h ere S is replaced in the
sem antics o f the tense with an “ u n a n c h o r e d ” tim e that C o m r i e labeled as “ R.” H o rn -
stein (1990) p ro p o se d a revision o f R e ic h e n b a c h s th e o ry to address this defect, in
effect re d e fin in g S along the lines suggested by C o m r ie .
A final draw back o f Reichenbachs theory is that its iconic notation o f timeline
diagrams cannot be integrated directly neither into conventional logical formulas
nor into syntactic tree structures. This is an important defect in the theory, and in
my view it has not been adequately resolved by later neo-Reichenbachian theories
o f tense proposed in the generative literature, such as those o f Bouchard (1984) and
Hornstein (1990), though 1 will not discuss these theories in detail here.
190 PERSPECTIVES

2. 3. Comrie’s Theory of Tenses as Predicates of Temporal

Ordering
2.3.1. Outline o f Com rie’s Theory
C o m rie (1976) proposed a theory o f tense that resembled Reichenbachs in certain
respects, but improved on it in a n u m b er o f ways. C o m r ie s theory was based on an
extensive su rv e y o f tense systems in a num ber o f different languages; based on this
sou nd empirical footing, he sought to explain both the com positional semantics o f
com plex tense constructions and the range o f possible variation that is observed
across languages.
C o m r ie s first am en d m en t to Reichenbachs theory was to abandon the iconic
representation o f temporal ordering relations in terms o f left-to-right ordering o f S,
R, and E along a timeline diagram. Instead, C o m rie claimed that the inherent
semantic content o f every simple tense involves one o f three predicates o f temporal
ordering: “ before,” “after,” and “simultaneous with.”
Second, C o m r ie rejected Reichenbachs claim that the semantics o f every tense,
including simple tenses, involves all three time coordinates (S, R, and E). For C o m ­
rie, S, R, and E function as the arguments o f the temporal ordering predicates; but
these predicates (“ before,” “after,” etc.) are d yad ic— they must com bine with exactly
two arguments. O ne o f these is the event time (E); the other is either the speech time
(S) or the reference time (R).
The choice between S and R is related to a third innovation o f C o m r i e s theory:
he introduced a distinction between absolute (or deictic) tenses and relative tenses.
An absolute tense always has S as one o f its arguments, whereas a relative tense uses
an unanchored reference time (R) instead o f S. In both cases, the other argument o f
the tense is E; thus an absolute tense orders E relative to S, w hile a relative tense
orders E in relation to R. The value o f R in a simple relative tense is determined in ­
dependently; typically it is understood to refer to a time mentioned previously in
the sentence or discourse. W hen a relative tense occurs in a complement clause, R
typically refers to the event time o f the V P containing the complement clause. Thus,
C o m rie posited six distinct simple tenses, as in (8):

(8) a. [E before S] absolute past

b. [E after S] absolute future
c. [E simultaneous with S) absolute present
d. [E before R] relative past
e. [E after R] relative future
f. [E simultaneous with R] relative present

W hereas S refers deictically to the actual speech time, the reference o f R is typically
determined anaphorically; for example, when a relative tense occurs in a com p le­
ment clause, R is generally understood to refer to the event time E o f the main
clause. C o m rie suggested that m a n y languages, including Classical Arabic, only
have relative tenses, even in main clauses. In languages like English, main clause
tenses are typically absolute, but most types o f subordinate clauses have relative

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tenses; these include the infinitival and participial clauses in (6), as well as finite
clauses (as we shall see below).
C o m r i e s fourth innovation was based on his cross-linguistic observation that
all m o n o -m o rp h e m ic tenses are semantically simple as well, corresponding to one
o f the options in (8); semantically com plex tense constructions (involving three
time-coordinates) are also m orphosyntactically com plex (com bining at least two
distinct m orphem es). This led C o m rie to conjecture that all com plex “ tenses” in ­
volving three distinct time coordinates are formed by com bining two elementary
tense predicates, each o f which relates two time-coordinates to each other. O ne o f
the elementary tense predicates is a special type o f absolute tense, relating S and R;
the other is a relative tense, relating R and E.
C o m r ie called these complex tenses absolute-relative tenses. He formalized
their semantics in a single formula, with R always functioning as a bridge between
the two elem entary tense predicates, serving as the “object” o f the first predicate and
as the “subject” o f the second, as in (9):

(9) a. [E before R before S] past perfect

b. [E before R after S) future perfect

He could have represented the present perfect as “ E before R simultaneous with S,”
but he argued against such an analysis on the basis o f empirical evidence that I will
ignore here.
Finally, C o m r ie placed no principled upper limit on the num ber o f elem entary
tenses that can be com bined in a complex tense construction. This allowed for the
possibility o f an absolute-relative tense com posed o f three elementary tenses; he
suggested that one such case is the future perfect in the past, which he formalized as
“ E before Ri after R2 before S.” Though he conceded that such complex tenses are
rare, he attributed the rarity to limitations on cognition.

2.3.2. Problems with Comries Tlteory

A lthough C o m r ie s theory o f tense semantics involved three temporal ordering
predicates (“ before,” “after,” and “simultaneous with” ), the semantics o f each tense
also included a specification o f both argum ents o f the temporal ordering predicate.
Thus, simple absolute tenses all include E and S in their inherent temporal s e m a n ­
tics, w hile simple relative tenses include E and R. Thus, C o m r ie s semantics for a
(simple) tense w as not just a predicate such as “before” or “after,” but rather a c o m ­
plete proposition, with both arguments fully specified.
A consequence o f this was that his theory treated the distinction between abso­
lute and relative tense interpretations as being determined by the inherent lexical
semantics o f the tense; thus, absolute tense interpretations arise only with absolute
tenses like (8a-c), while relative tense interpretations arise only with relative tenses
like ( 8 d - f ) . The chief empirical motivation for this, in English, came from non-
finite “ tenses” in participial and infinitival clauses, which generally occur only as
subordinate clauses; their event times are understood to be located in relation to the

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event time o f the m ain clause in which they occur. C o m rie assum ed that these non-
fin ite clauses all contain one o f the relative tenses in ( 8 d - f) , ordering their E in rela­
tion to R; an independent rule or principle determined that R in the tense o f a
nonfinite subordinate clause refers to the main clause event time. (1 will refer to this
rule or principle as T E M P O R A L C O N T R O L .)
O n the other h an d , finite tenses in English (and m a n y other languages) can
have either an absolute or a relative m e a n in g , d e p e n d in g on w h ere they o c c u r s y n ­
tactically. In m ain clauses, past tenses are absolute, but in m o st types o f c o m p le m e n t
clauses, they are relative. This is illustrated in (10):

(10) John said/believed that Bill left early.

The m ain clause past tense (Past-i) is absolute: it locates its E (Ei) before S. The
com plem ent clause past tense (Past-2) is relative: it locates its E (E2) before Ei. (In
C o m r ie s theory, Past-2 locates E2 before R, and the principle o f temporal control
determines that R refers to Ei.) Thus, for C o m rie , Past-i and Past-2 in (10) are d if­
ferent tenses, although they are h om op h on ou s. The sam e is true o f other finite
tenses (both simple and complex): they must all have absolute and relative h o m o ­
phones. Thus, C o m r i e s assumption that the absolute/relative distinction is deter­
m ined by the inherent lexical semantics o f the tense forced him to introduce a
lexical distinction that is not reflected overtly in the m orph osyn tax. The only way to
avoid this bifurcation o f the finite tenses in languages like English is to reject C o m ­
ries proposal that the absolute/relative distinction is reflected in the inherent lexical
semantics o f the tense. I return to this issue below in Section 4.
A s e c o n d problem with C o m r i e s th e o ry c o n cern s the align m en t o f the a r g u ­
m ents o f the tense predicates. C o m r i e characterized the absolute sim ple tenses as in
(8 a - c ) :

(8) a. [E before S) absolute past

b. [E after S] absolute future
c. [E simultaneous with S] absolute present

Instead o f ( 8 a - c ) , C o m r i e could have p r o p o se d ( l i a - c ) , with the subject and object

a rgu m e n ts reversed, and the tem p oral o rd e r in g predicates for past and future
switched:

(11) a. [S after E] absolute past

b. [S before E] absolute future
c. [S simultaneous with E) absolute present

He recognized that this was an issue, but he view ed the choice between (8) and (11)
as essentially arbitrary, and purely a matter o f form alism .
C o m r i e chose to adopt ( 8 ), based im p licitly on a pair o f a lignm en t principles
like those in (12):

(12) a. E is always the subject o f a tense predicate.

b. S is always the object o f an absolute tense predicate.

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If, instead, he had adopted the alignment principles in (13), he w ould have opted for
(11) over (8a-c).

(13) a. S is always the subject o f an absolute tense predicate,

b. E is always the object o f a tense predicate.

C o m rie defended his alignment on intuitive grounds, stating sim ply that “ it locates
E, the variable, in terms o f the fixed point S, rather than vice versa.” This still begs
the question o f whether the choice between (12) and (13) really is arbitrary. If there
is an empirical distinction between them, which alternative is correct? The same
issue arises with the relative tenses in (8 d -f).
O n e indication that C o m r i e m a d e the w r o n g choice about the alignm ent
c o m es from his t h e o r y ’s account o f the sem a n tics o f com plex (absolute-relative)
tenses: his alignm en t has the odd effect o f im p o sin g a reversal on the hierarchical
relation between the two elem en tary tenses at the sy n tax -sem a n tics interface.
C o n sid e r the future perfect (w ill have V-en). M o rp h o syn tactica lly , the future
m o d al w ill is hierarch ically su perior to the perfect a u x ilia ry have and the past
participle, but in C o m r i e s sem antics for the future perfect [E before R after S],
the perfect [E before R] is hierarchically su p e rio r to the future [R after S). This
curious reversal o f the syntactic h iera rch y in the sem an tic representation o f
tenses is eliminated i f the alignm en t principles in (13) are adopted, since the hier­
archical relation between the predicates in the sem an tics [S before R after E]
matches that o f the syntax. In section 4, I discuss s o m e theories that are con sis­
tent with (13).
A third p roblem with C o m r i e s th e o ry c o n c e rn s another aspect o f the c o m ­
positional sem a n tics o f his absolute-relative tenses, w h ich can also be traced
back to the decision to inclu de S, R, and E in the inherent lexical sem a n tics o f
the tense m o r p h e m e s . A lt h o u g h he correctly o b s e r v e d that absolute-relative
tenses involve the syntactic c o m b in a tio n o f two e le m e n ta ry tense m o rp h e m e s ,
he c o u ld not d erive the sem a n tics o f any absolute-relative tense s im p ly by c o m ­
b in in g the sem a n tics o f its two e le m e n ta ry tenses. C o n s i d e r the absolute-relative
future perfect, w h ic h C o m r i e characterized as [E before R after S]. M o r p h o s y n ­
tactically, this looks like a c o m b in a tio n o f the absolute fu ture (w ill) with the
p erfect (w h ich has the sem a n tics o f a relative past). But C o m r i e s future perfect
fo rm u la [E b e fo re R after S] can n o t be d e riv e d sim p ly by c o m b in in g [E after S]
(the sem a n tics o f the absolute future) with [E before R] (the s e m a n tic s o f the
perfect).
There are two ways to resolve this. First, one could adopt a more complex p ro ­
cedure to derive the semantics o f com plex absolute-relative tenses from the s e m a n ­
tics o f their com ponent parts. (What appears to be needed is a rule converting the
freestanding absolute future [E after S] into [R after S], so that it can com bine with
a relative tense relating R and E, such as the perfect.) A better solution, I believe, is
to abandon the integrated formula for the absolute-relative tenses, and to treat all
complex tense constructions as bi-clausal, with each clause containing its own
(simple) tense. C o n sid e r again the future perfect. This consists o f a “main” clause

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containing a garden-variety simple future tense, and a “com plem ent” clause c o n ­
taining the perfect (have plus past participle). The future tense in the m ain clause
locates S before Ei, where Ei simply denotes a time, with no event explicitly located
at it. The “com plem ent” clause non-finite perfect behaves like a relative past tense,
locating R after E2. The principle o f temporal control that applies in participial, in ­
finitival, and finite subordinate clauses in (8) also applies here, equating R in the
com plem ent clause with Ei in the main clause.

2.4. Tense as a Referential Expression

A n o th e r influential approach to the semantics o f tense is based on the idea that
tenses function sem antically like temporal pronouns. This has so m e initial plausi­
bility given that the semantic relation between past tense and a temporal adverbial
such as yesterday , last week , or at 10 P M is similar to the semantic relation between
a pronoun such as he or she and a proper nam e, demonstrative, or definite descrip­
tion such as John , that wom an , or the president o f IBM . Just as a pronoun can refer
to any individual or set o f individuals (subject to consistency for gender and
num ber), so a (past) tense in a sentence like John left can be assum ed to refer to any
(past) time.
Tenses are not the only expressions that refer to times; temporal adverbs do,
too, and in finite clauses they can co-occur with tenses:

(14) a. John left.

b. John left yesterday.
c. *John left tomorrow.

I f tenses refer, like pronouns, then both the tense and the adverb yesterday in (14b)
refer to times located in the past. A s (14c) shows, the tense must be compatible with
the time-denoting adverb. But what does “compatible” mean, exactly?
O ne might be tempted to assum e that “compatibility” involves a kind o f syntac­
tic agreement relation between the tense and the adverb, and that tenses are really
analogues o f agreement m orph em es rather than o f pronouns. On this view, the
tense w ould reflect agreement for a + / - P A S T feature inherent in the adverb. To ac­
count for sentences such as John left , an agreement theory o f tense w o u ld have to
posit a covert (silent) adverb referring to a past time and bearing the feature +PAST,
so that the tense can “agree” with it; this would be parallel to the behavior o f subject
agreement in so-called pro-drop (null subject) languages such as Italian. More
problematically, m a n y temporal adverbial expressions, such as the fo llo w in g week or
on February 24thy can occur either in past 01* future contexts. If tenses were just
agreement m orphem es, all such adverbs w ould have to be arbitrarily assigned fea­
tures such as +PAST, -P A S T , or perhaps F U T U R E for the tense to agree with. The
proliferation o f such features on adverbs lacks independent empirical justification.
A more fundamental problem with the idea that tenses are analogues o f agreement
is the fact that sentences like (14b) actually involve reference to two distinct times;
the adverb refers to an interval spanning an entire day, but the tense refers just to the

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brief time span (located in the past) at which the event o f John s leaving is located.
The interval denoted by the adverb must contain the event; (14c) is excluded simply
because the day denoted by tomorrow does not contain any time located in the past.
The idea that tenses are temporal analogues o f pronouns was given m ore s u b ­
stance by Partee (1973), who pointed out that the past tense in English appears to
resemble definite pronouns in being able to function deictically, as in (15a), ana-
phorically, as in the second sentence o f (15b), and like a variable b o u n d by a quanti­
fier, as in both occurrences in (15c):

(15) a. I did n t turn off the stove.

b. Sheila had a party last Friday, and Sam got drunk.
c. Richard always gave assignments that were due the next day.

Par tee’s central idea was that an appropriate account o f the deictic, anaphoric, and
bound variable semantics o f the past tense m o rp h em e in (15) com es for free if tenses
are considered to be tem poral analogues o f pronouns, which receive analogous in ­
terpretations in the sam e contexts. She argued against previous sem antic accounts,
according to which tenses are indefinite quantificational operators. She showed that
the usage in (15a) must involve deictic or definite reference to a time interval during
which the stove was not turned off, rather than sim ply having an indefinite time-
denoting operator scoping above or below negation.
In (15b), the past tense in the second clause refers anaphorically to the time o f the
event mentioned in the first clause; in this case, the past tense appears to be behaving
like an anaphoric pronoun. In (15c), both past tenses seem to function as (co-varying)
variables bound by the quantifier always , which presumably quantifies over times or
situations, in the same way that pronouns can be b oun d by quantifiers.
Later w ork by En<; (1981, 1987), A busch (1991, 1994, 1997), O gihara (1996),
Schlenker (1999), and others, built on Partees original insight by d raw ing attention
to other aspects o f tense semantics that seem to parallel the sem antic behavior o f
pronouns. As we saw in (10), past tenses in com plem ent clauses typically have a
relative past tense interpretation ([E before R] or [R after E]) w here R is equated (or
anaphorically bound) by the E argument o f the main clause tense. En<; (1987) and
subsequent authors refer to this as the past-shifted interpretation. This interpreta­
tion arises w henever the predicate in the com plem ent clause is a simple eventive
predicate referring to a single episodic event. W hen the predicate in the com ple­
ment clause is stative, however, another interpretation arises:

(16) Jenny said that Janice owned a house.

Here it is natural to interpret the time interval associated with Janices ownership as
being simultaneous with (or, rather, containing) the time at which Jenny spoke. En$
called this the simultaneous interpretation. A ccord in g to the traditional generative
analysis o f this interpretation, proposed by Ross (1967), the past tense in the com p le­
ment clause is actually a present tense in disguise. Given the theoretical fram ew ork
that Ross assumed, where semantic interpretation took place at Deep Structure, the
tense in the complem ent clause originated as a present tense and was converted into

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a past tense because the main clause tense is past. This is often referred to as the
sequence-of-tense analysis. A b u sch (1988) proposed a variant o f this analysis consis­
tent with assumption that Logical Form (the syntax-semantics interface) is derived
from S-structure, whereby there are two distinct past tenses in English; one o f these
has the semantics o f a norm al past tense, while the other has the semantics o f a (rel­
ative) present tense. (The latter occurs only in complement clauses, and only when
the main clause tense is past.)
En<; (1987) argued against the seq u en ce-of-ten se analysis; a m o n g other
things, she objected to the idea that past tenses are lexically am b igu ou s between
a “ past” and “ present” interpretation. She p ro p o se d an alternative account
designed to ensure that past tense always m ea n s “ p a s t ” H er account w a s based
loosely on Partees idea that tenses behave like p ro n o u n s. lust as the interpreta­
tion o f pron oun s is determ in ed in part by the theory o f b in d in g (C h o m sk y , 1981),
she p roposed that the interpretation o f tenses is d ete rm in e d in part by a tem poral
an alogue o f b in d in g th e o ry that applies to tenses. A b stractin g away fr o m te c h ­
nical details, her idea w a s that a past tense always refers to an event time E that
precedes another time variable (w hich, for convenience, I will call R ). She p r o ­
p o sed that in a main clause, R always refers to S, w hile in a c o m p lem en t clause, R
refers to the event time o f the main clause (Ei). She suggested that the s im u lta ­
neous interpretation in (16) arises w hen the m ain clause past tense binds the
c o m p lem en t clause past tense; the two tenses must be co-referential, referring to
the s a m e time. To ensure a coherent sem antics, she further p roposed a c o n v e n ­
tion w h e re b y the R a rg u m en t o f a b o u n d tense refers to the sam e time as the R
argum en t o f the antecedent tense.
En<; also noted that a present tense in a com plem ent clause has a D ouble Access
interpretation when the m ain clause tense is past, as in (17):

(17) Jenny said that Janice owns a house.

The double access interpretation is a special kind o f sim u lta n eo u s interpretation,

and only o c c u rs w h e n the present tense o c cu rs with a stative predicate. The event
tim e o f the c o m p le m e n t clause is u n d e rs to o d to denote an interval that is sim u lta ­
n e o u s w ith (or contains) both S a n d the m a in clause event tim e E i. E n ^ s ac co u n t o f
the d ouble access r e a d in g is too c o m p le x for m e to s u m m a r iz e here in detail, but it
in v o lved two central ideas: first, that the two tenses (m ain clause past and c o m p le ­
m en t clause present) enter into a b in d in g relation, and se c o n d , that the c o m p le m e n t
clause m ust u n d erg o quantifier raising (Q R).
A busch (1991, 1997) proposed a different account o f double access interpreta­
tions. Her idea was that double access readings are analogous to de re interpretations
o f noun phrases. She also suggested that, in contexts such as (18), the temporal refer­
ence o f the past tense in the relative clause depends in part on whether the noun
phrase containing it is understood de re or de dicto for de se), suggesting a further
connection with the theory o f nominal reference.

(18) Jenny said that the man who bought Bills car owned a house.

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I will return to the semantic interpretation o f (8), (11), (12), and (13) in section 4
below.

2.5. Decomposing the Predicative and Referential Aspects of

Tense Semantics
The dichotom y between the predicative and referential approaches to tense s e m a n ­
tics outlined in sections 2.3 and 2.4 is som ewhat misleading, insofar as all theories
o f tense have to co m e to grips with both aspects o f the m eanings o f tenses.
In C o m r ie s theory, the temporal ordering predicate within the inherent s e m a n ­
tic value o f each tense expressed the predicative function, while the temporal co or­
dinates S, E, and R expressed the referential function. To capture the insights o f the
referential theories o f tense discussed in the previous section, C o m rie w o u ld have
had to draw an analogy between these temporal coordinates and pronouns.
A m ore purely predicative theory o f tense semantics that reduces the inherent
semantics o f a tense to just that o f a temporal ordering predicate would have to
capture the insights o f the referential theories o f tense by attributing these referen­
tial properties not to the tenses themselves but rather to their arguments. Insofar as
these arguments are not themselves part o f the tenses semantics, they w ould have to
be posited as distinct tim e-denoting elements that com bine with a tense to saturate
its predicate. I will discuss this further in section 4.
On the other hand, referential theories o f tense, such as those o f En^ (1987) and
A busch (1988, 1991, 1994), account for the temporal ordering relations that the
semantics o f individual tenses convey by em b ed din g these predicates o f temporal
ordering into restrictions on the reference o f these tenses, built into the lexically
specified semantics for each tense. For example, just as the English pronoun she
incorporates a restriction specifying that the pronoun must refer to a female indi­
vidual, so the English past tense includes a restriction specifying that the time that
the tense refers to must be located in the past with respect to som e other time (R);
En^s anchoring conditions determine what R refers to.
The main difference between the two theoretical approaches lies in where they
locate the referential and predicative functions o f the tense in the syntactic (or log­
ical) structure. In referential approaches to tense, the temporal ordering predicate is
em bedded within the referential expression itself. In the predicative approach, the
temporal ordering predicate is syntactically external to the referential expression
that denotes E. To illustrate the difference, consider a simple sentence such as (14a)
(John left.). Abstracting away from important details, a referential theory o f tense
would characterize the semantics o f (14a) as “ John leave at a time E that precedes S,”
w hereas a predicative approach would characterize the m e a n in g o f (14a) as closer to
“ S is after a/the time E at which John leave.” The choice between these approaches
hinges on the question o f which rendering o f temporal semantics is better suited to
explaining the behavior o f tenses within the context o f broader theories o f syntax
and semantics.

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2.6. The Future

Reichenbachs and C o m r i e s theories treated the future tense (conveyed by will) as a
virtual m irror image o f the past tense. On this view, it is an accident that past tense
is conveyed by a verbal suffix while future tense is conveyed by a m odal verb. But
m an y subsequent semantic analyses o f the future have suggested that it is no acci­
dent that English uses a m odal verb to convey the future, which they take to be in­
herently modal from a semantic perspective. This is based on the assumption that
future worlds belong to the set o f possible worlds, as opposed to to the actual world
at the time o f evaluation. The idea is that the default fram e o f reference for a tense is
the actual world, and that a m odal operator is needed to shift the location o f the
event 01* situation into a non-actual world. If the future is a non-actual world, then
w ill must be a modal operator, since it is responsible for the future shifting.
Possible support for this position comes from the fact that other modal verbs,
when com bined with episodic/eventive verb phrases, com bine their modal force o f
possibility or necessity with a future shifting interpretation, locating the event or
situation described by the verb phrase in a possible world located in the future rel­
ative to the time o f m odal evaluation:

(19) a. John must/should/may leave.

b. John need not leave.
c. John has to leave.

Perhaps, then, the semantics o f future shifting (that is, the temporal ordering o f S
before E) is a side effect o f the semantics o f modality, rather than a diagnostic o f a
future tense per se.
The situation is different, however, when m od als combine with stative VPs, as
in (20); the m odal quantification remains but the tense interpretation is ambiguous
between an (absolute) present tense interpretation and a future shifting one:

(20) a. John must/should/may be in Paris.

b. John need not be in Paris.
c. John has to be in Paris.

In this respect, w ill is different: future shifting is obligatory, even with a stative V P :

(21) John will be in Paris.

This suggests that the future shifting triggered by will is part o f its lexical semantics
in a way that is arguably not the case with the other modals, where future shifting is
som etim es optional. Regardless o f whether will should be classified semantically as
a future m odal or a future tense, it is not clear that this distinction has any import
for the question o f how it behaves with respect to the semantics o f temporal or­
dering. In the latter respect it resembles the past tense and the perfect, though co n ­
veying the opposite type o f temporal ordering. Nevertheless, in the next section we
shall see that its distinctive m o rp h osyn tax has motivated syntactic analyses that
treat it as a m odal verb rather than a tense.

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3. S y n t a c t i c T h e o r i e s of T ense

Section 2 provided an overview o f various theories about the semantics o f tense, as

a well as a critical evaluation o f these theories from a syntactic perspective. In this
section, I review som e o f the m ajor theories about the syntactic phrase structure
associated with simple tenses and periphrastic (complex) tense constructions, based
m ain ly on considerations o f m o rp h o lo g y and syntax rather than semantics.
Theories o f the syntax o f tense within the fram ew o rk o f generative g ram m ar
can be traced back to C h o m s k y ’s (1957,1965) account o f English tenses and auxiliary
verbs, based on the phrase structure rule for the Aux constituent and the transfor­
mational rule o f Affix Hopping. Subsequent revisions to this theory were proposed
on the basis o f empirical problems that the original theory encountered, and also as
a result o f changes in the overall theory o f syntax as it developed over the past half
century. This section provides an overview o f the development o f these analyses.

3.1. Chomsky’s Theory of Aux, Tense, and Affix Hopping

C h o m s k y ’s (1957,1965) syntactic theory o f the English tense and aspectual auxiliary
verb system was designed to generate the set o f gram m atical English sentences, and
an associated set o f syntactic phrase structure representations. Sem antic consider­
ations were generally ignored. Furtherm ore, the theory was designed prim arily to
account for the structure o f finite clauses, as opposed to infinitives or participial
clauses.
C h o m s k y ’s theory was based on a set o f phrase structure rules for the expansion
o f the categories S (Sentence), Aux (A uxiliary Phrase), and V P (Verb Phrase),
a m on g others, as in (22):

(22) a. S -» N P — A u x — V P
b. A ux -> Tense— (M o d al )—(have + -en )—(be + -ing)
c. Tense -> past or present
d. V P -> (Adv*) V — ( N P ) . . .

Rule (22a) defined a ternary-branching structure for all sentences. Rule (22d) lo ­
cated m ain (non-auxiliary) verbs within the category V P ; auxiliary verbs and tense
m orph em es were assigned by Rule (22b) to the category Aux. ’lh e first (leftmost)
constituent o f A u x was the (obligatory) m orphosyntactic category Tense , which had
just two possible values provided by Rule (22c): past and present.
Rule (22b) was designed to account for the fact that every finite clause contains
exactly one tense affix (present or past); the actual m orphological placem ent o f this
affix on a verbal stem was accounted for by the transformational rule o f Affix H o p ­
ping, discussed below. Rule (22b) also accounted for the linear order o f auxiliary
verbs relative to each other when two or m ore o f them occurred in the same sen­
tence. Rule (22d) accounted for the fact that syntactic processes such as m ovem en t
and deletion treat the sequence o f the thematic verb and its com plem ents as a single

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constituent (V P ); this rule also accounted for the linear ordering o f the thematic
verb and is com plem ents relative to each other.
The phrase structure rules in (22) did not define the actual linear order o f words
and affixes as they are pronounced; rather, they defined deep structure representa­
tions o f sentences. Deep Structure representations were converted into Surface
Structure representations by transformational rules. O ne such rule was A ffix H op­
pin g , which adjoined each o f the inflectional affixes for tense and agreem ent (pasty
present , -en y and -ing) to the auxiliary or main verb that immediately followed it.
D epen d in g on which o f the optional constituents o f A ux in (22b) are realized, the
underlying sequences in (23a -c), a m on g others, would be generated, with Affix
H opping converting these into ( 2 3 d - f) , respectively:

(23) a. NP past/present Modal have + -en be + -ing V ( N P ) . . .

b. NP past/present have + -en V ( N P ) . . .
c. NP past/present V (NP) . ..
d. NP M o d a l -past/present have be -en V-ing V ( N P ) . . .
e. NP have-past/present V-en ( N P ) . . .
f. NP V -past/present ( N P ) . . .

This correctly accounted for the various combinations o f inflected verb form s that
can o ccur in English finite clauses.
Although each inflectional affix originates in a single position within Aux in (22b),
it m ay end up either in Aux or in VP, depending on whether it is immediately followed
by an auxiliary verb or a main verb prior to the application o f Affix Hopping. I b i s
analysis provided a compelling account o f the periphrastic perfect and progressive
constructions. In surface structure, these constructions consist o f two discontinuous
parts: an auxiliary verb, and an affix that is attached to the following verb. The Affix
Hopping analysis enabled C h o m sky to claim that these two discontinuous parts orig­
inate as a single contiguous constituent, to which a semantic value could be assigned.
The generalized notion o f “tense,” as defined by R eichenbach and C om rie, did
not correspond directly to any single syntactic constituent in this system. The simple
present and past tenses were the only tenses originating in C h o m s k y ’s Tense p o si­
tion; the simple future originated in the M odal position, and all o f the complex
tenses originated as sequences o f a tense affix and/or w ill followed by an
auxiliary+aflix combination. A lthough all the m orphosyntactic elements of
Reichenbachs and C o m r ie ’s simple and complex “ tenses” originate within A ux, the
sam e is true o f all other modal verbs, which did not form part o f any o f R eich en ­
bachs or C o m r ie s tenses.

3.2. Hierarchical Structure of Auxiliary Verb Sequences

C h o m s k y ’s analysis assigned a flat structure to any sequence o f two or m o re auxiliary
verbs, but evidence from classical constituency tests argued against this flat struc­
ture, and in favor o f a hierarchically more articulated structure, with each auxiliary
verb heading its own VP, as in (24):

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(24) a. John could have been reading a book.

b.

NP Aux VP
1
John
1
Tense Modal VP
past can
have + ~en VP

be+ -ing VP

V NP
(read a book)

Affix hopping could then apply, as in C h o m s k y ’s original theory, adjoining the

floating tense and participial affixes to the verbs heading the V P s following them,
yielding (25):

(25) s
NP Aux VP

John Modal VP
can-past
have VP

be-«*« VP

V NP
read-mg a book

Support for the structure in (25) com es from (26), which shows that V P dele­
tion can affect any o f the three lowest V P s in (25), as in (2 6 a -c ), though not the V P
headed by the m odal, as shown by (26d -e):

(26) a. Sue couldn’t have been sleeping, but Bill could've been— .
b. Sue couldn’t have been sleeping, but Bill could’v e — .
c. Sue couldn't have been sleeping, but Bill could— .
d. *Sue couldn’t have been sleeping, but Bill— .
e. ’‘ Sue couldn’t have been sleeping, but Bill did — .

The fact that m o dais cannot undergo VP-deletion might be taken to indicate that
modals originate in Aux rather than as heads o f their own VP. But there is indepen­
dent evidence that V P s headed by finite inflection cannot undergo V P deletion, re­
gardless o f whether a modal is involved. Thus, although the auxiliaries have and be
can undergo V P deletion in (26b-c), they cannot do so when they bear finite
inflection:

(27) a. Sue hasn’t been sleeping but Bill *(has)— .

b. Sue isn’t sleeping, but Bill ^(is)— .

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Whatever accounts for the exclusion o f (27) can also account for (2 6 d -e ), regardless
o f whether m odals originate in A u x or in VP.
M c C a w le y (1971) argued that the analysis in (25) should be taken a step further,
and proposed that Tense itself originates as an auxiliary verb heading its own VP,
allowing for the full elimination o f the traditional A u x position. This treatment of
auxiliaries as main verbs heading their own V P s was not universally adopted, h o w ­
ever. Som e theories o f phrase structure proposed in the 1970s treated auxiliary verbs
as Specifiers o f VP, in the term inology o f X -b ar theory, discussed below. Other
analyses within the Extended Standard Theory abandoned the category A ux as a
single constituent where all o f the auxiliary verbs originated, but still assumed the
existence o f a Tense position located outside V P as the source position for tense af­
fixes. C h o m s k y ’s (1981) G o v ern m en t-B in d in g theory introduced a new category Inti,
consisting o f abstract features for tense and subject agreement, which were realized
morphologically as a single affix. All these theories continued to assume the exis­
tence o f an Affix H oping rule to account for the placement o f tense affixes on verbs.

3.3. Inflectional Affixes and the Theory of Categorial

Distinctive Features
In the classical theory o f transformational g ra m m a r defined by C h o m s k y (1965), the
theory o f transformational rules was relatively unconstrained. By the early 1970s,
however, it was recognized that most syntactic m ovem ent operations involved
upward m ovement o f a constituent to a higher position in the hierarchical tree struc­
ture; this led to proposals that excluded dow nw ard m ovem ent o f constituents to a
lower syntactic position. Affix H opping came under suspicion in this theoretical
context, because it involved downward m ovem ent o f tense affixes from Aux to a sub-
constituent o f VP. Tli is led m an y syntacticians to seek an alternative account o f affix
placement. In this section and the following one, I discuss two theories o f this type.
The first alternative to Affix Hopping was based on two theoretical proposals
introduced by C h om sky (1970): X-bar theory and the theory o f categorial distinctive
features. X -bar theory had two leading ideas: first, that each lexical category phrase
(VP, NP, AP, or PP) inherits its syntactic category label from its lexical head (V, N, A,
or P, respectively); and second, that lexical category phrases all have basically the same
internal structure. The notion o f a shared category label was expressed by the catego­
rial label variable X, and the shared internal structure was expressed by a pair o f phrase
structure rules defining the internal structure o f X P for all four lexical categories:

(28) a. X'^ X —YP*

b. X"-> Z P * - X ‘

(28a) allows a lexical head X to com bine with one or m ore phrases (Y P * ) that it
selects as its com plem ents to form a “ n o n -m axim al projection” o f the head, X ‘ (pro­
nounced “X - b a r ” ). For example, a transitive verb like hit selects a direct object N P

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as its com plem ent; by (28a), V would com bine with this N P to form V'. (28b) allows
X' to com bine with one 01* m ore constituents functioning as its s p e c ifie r s ) , fo rm in g
a M A X I M A L P R O J E C T I O N X" (“X double-bar” ), n o w more c o m m o n ly referred to
as XP. For example, N ‘ might com bine with a pre-n om in al determ iner or genitive to
form N" (N P). A nalyses based on X -b a r theory varied considerably in terms o f what
constituents were analyzed as specifiers; for example, m a n y analyses o f adverbs
treated them as specifiers o f VP, and som e analyses o f auxiliary verbs treated them
as V P specifiers as well. M ost o f these early analyses were abandoned in later ver­
sions o f X -b a r theory, which treated the Specifier position as a subject position
(Stowell, 1981) or the target W h -m o ve m en t (Chomsky, 1986).
C h o m s k y (1970) paired X -bar theory with a theory o f categorial distinctive fea­
tures. The lexical categories N , V, A, etc. were treated as complexes o f distinctive fea­
ture values [±N ] and [± V ]. The idea that X and X P share the sam e category label was
stated in terms o f these categorial distinctive features being projected from the head
X to the phrase X P dominating it. It was a simple step from here to expand the set o f
categorial distinctive features, so as to allow for more fine-grained distinctions am ong
XP-types, for example, allowing for various sub-types o f VP, distinguished from each
other by additional syntactic category features. If the inflectional affixes {past, present,
-en, and -ing) on the verbs in (25) are treated as the overt expression o f certain abstract
categorial features o f the verbs to which they are affixed, then different subtypes o f V P
can be defined in terms o f these features, providing a different category label for a V P
headed by a finite verb bearing a tense affix from that o f a V P headed by a perfect or
progressive participle affix. More concretely, suppose that the inflectional affixes are
defined in terms o f the features Tense, Past, Perf, and Prog, as in (29):

(29) a. past expresses the features [+Tense, +Past];

b. present expresses the features [-flense, -Past);
c. -en expresses the features [-Tense, +Perf, -P ro g ];
d. -ing ex presses the features [-Tense, -Perf, +Prog).

A verb bearing the suffix past bears the features [+V, - N , +Tense, +Past], and like­
wise for the other inflectional affixes in (29b-c). Verbs that are [-Tense, -Perf, -P ro g ]
bear no inflectional affix and surface as bare verb stems. X-bar theory ensures that
these features are inherited by the V P s headed by these verbs.
O ne o f the central notions underlying X -b ar theory was the relation o f selection
holding between a head and its complement(s): it was generally assumed that each
lexical head V, N , A, or P has the ability to select a m axim al projection o f a partic­
ular category as its complement. A crucial property o f selection is that is local: a
head X m a y select the category o f its com plem ent (Y P ), but it m a y not directly select
any o f the sub-constituents o f YP. However, w henever a head X selects Y P as its
complement, X -b a r theory ensures that Y P will include Y; thus, a lexical head X
indirectly selects the category o f the head o f its com plem ent (Y).
This provided the basis for an alternative account o f affix placement with
auxiliary verbs: one could claim that the perfect auxiliary have selects as its com ple­
ment a V P bearing the features [-Tense, +Perf, - P r o g ] , which must be headed by a

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verb bearing the perfect participle suffix - en ; similarly, a modal auxiliary selects as its
complement a V P bearing the features [-Tense, -P e rf, - P r o g ] , headed by a bare verb
stem. Affix Hopping was no longer needed in this theory, and the semantic values
that had once been assigned to present , past , have + -en, and be + -ing could now be
assigned instead to particular combinations o f these abstract inflectional features.
The analysis o f tenses and the other inflectional affixes as feature matrices has
one c h ie f drawback, though this was not recognized as a problem in the 1970s: it
does not provide a transparent syntactic expression o f the temporal semantics o f
tenses along the lines o f any o f the semantic theories outlined in section 2. In any
case, this theory o f affix placement was soon supplanted by an alternative family
o f theories, based on two other theoretical developments: the theory o f functional
categories and the theory o f verb movement.

3.4. Functional Categories and the Verb-Movement Theory

of Affix Hopping
C h o m s k y s (1981) theory o f phrase structure assum ed a tripartite structure for
the category S (Sentence), consisting o f a subject position NP, Infl, and VP, as in
(30a). Stowell (1981) suggested that X - b a r theory should be extended to all syntactic
categories, including lnfl, and that (30a) should be replaced by (30b):

(30) a. S

NP Inll VP

Pollock (1989) proposed a further revision, with tense features and subject
agreement features originating independently as the heads o f T P and A g r P respec­
tively; he also suggested that the negative particle not (Neg) is the head o f NegP,
w h ic h intervenes hierarchically between T P and AgrP, as in (31):

(31) TP

T NegP
(past)
N eg AgrP

Agr VP

V ...

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P ollo ck then used the placem ent o f negative particles and adverbs in rela­
tion to finite m ain (n o n - a u x ilia r y ) v e rb s in F ren ch and E n g lish to argue that the
m ain verb in a finite clause in French u n d erg o e s m o v e m e n t fr o m V to Agr,
w h ere it c o m b in e s with the ag reem en t features, and then m o v es again to T,
w h ere it c o m b in e s with the tense features. This accounts for the fact that the
finite verb in French su rfaces to the left o f the negative p article pas. In French
infinitives, the verb su rfa c es to the right o f p a s , but to the left o f p r e - V P adverbs;
to account for this, he p r o p o s e d that n o n -fin ite verbs in French m o v e from V to
Agr, but do not u n d e rg o m o v e m e n t to T. For E nglish, w here the negative p a r­
ticle not alw ays precedes the finite verb, he su ggested that the tense and
ag reem en t features o rig in a tin g in T and A g r m o v e d ow n to adjoin to V in VP, as
in the traditional Atfix H o p p in g accou n t. Thus, P o llo c k s th e o ry did not e lim i­
nate Affix H o p p in g completely.
The idea that verbs can undergo movement was not new; it had been widely as­
sumed for some time, with respect to Subject-Auxiliary Inversion and have/be raising
in English, and Verb-Second and V SO word order in finite clauses in other languages.
Moreover, E m ond s (1978) had proposed a similar analysis o f the contrast between
English and French with respect to verb movement. What was new in Pollocks
account was the idea that verb m ovem ent was responsible for the affixation o f inflec­
tional tense and agreement m orp h olo g y; in effect, this was affix hopping in reverse.
This approach became widely influential, though various am endm ents to it were p ro ­
posed; for example, Belletti (1990) proposed that the placement o f T P and A g rP in
the hierarchy o f functional projections in (23) should be reversed, with N egP still
lying between them.
Pollocks account o f m orph ological affixation via verb m ovem en t lent itself
naturally to an account o f the inflectional perfect and progressive affixes -en and
-ing as well. These too could be assum ed to originate as the heads o f their own
functional projections, located below Tense and A g r but still above VP. Just as a
finite verb in French m oves to A g r and T to c o m b in e with its inflectional affixes, so
a participial verb in French or English could be assum ed to undergo m o v em en t to
the head o f a participial projection to com bine with -en or -ing.
T w o fu r th e r theoretical d e v e lo p m e n ts, n a m e ly the theories o f feature c h e c k ­
ing and covert m o v e m e n t, a llo w ed for the full e lim in a tio n o f A f f i x H o p p in g ,
even in E n g lish . In this a ltern ative accou n t, P o llo c k s fu n c tio n a l p ro je ctio n s
h e a d e d by T an d A g r still play a cru cial role, but they are re in te rp re te d as p o s i­
tions w h ere the abstract syn tactic features e x p ressed by the inflection al affixes
are “c h e c k e d ” or “ licensed.” T h e affixes (and their associated features) originate
sy n ta c tica lly on the v erb s to w h ic h th ey are o vertly m o r p h o lo g ic a lly adjoined ,
rather than in the fu n c tio n a l categories w h e re the features m ust be licensed.
T h is is what triggers verb m o v e m e n t: a fin ite verb in French m u s t m o v e to A g r
and T, in o rd e r for the tense and a g re e m e n t features o f its in fle c tio n a l affix to be
licensed.
To account for the param etric difference between English a n d French in terms
o f verb m ovem en t, an an alo g y was d raw n w ith param etric variation in the overt

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application o f other m o v e m e n t processes, such as W h -m o v e m e n t. W h -p h ra ses

undergo overt m o v e m e n t in English, but rem ain in situ in C h inese. H uan g (1982)
argued that “abstract” W h -m o v e m e n t applies even in languages like Chinese,
though the m o v em en t takes place in a different c om p on en t o f the gram m ar, in the
m a p p in g fro m syntactic representations to the level o f “ Logical F orm ” (the syntax-
sem antics interface). M o re recent accounts have reinterpreted the w h -m o v e m e n t
param eter in terms o f “ pied p ip in g ” ; on this view, W h-featurcs always undergo
m o v e m e n t in the syntax, but languages differ according to whether the full wh-
p h rase visibly m oves (pied pipes) along with the wh-features that drive the
m ovem ent.
This approach allows for an account o f tense placem ent based on a theory o f
param etric variation in verb m ovem ent without invoking affix hopping. Verbs o rig ­
inate, fully inflected, within VP. Their inflectional features must undergo m ovement
to the appropriate functional projections in all languages, but languages differ
according to whether the lexical content o f the verb and its affix is pied piped along
with the features in question.

4. I n t e g r a t i o n of Sem a n tic and

Sy n t a c t ic A n a lyses of T ense

The syntactic theories o f tense discussed in section 3 largely ignored the semantics
o f tenses, but En^’s (1987) binding-theoretic account o f temporal interpretation
stimulated renewed interest in these issues, and this led to proposals for syntacti­
cally based accounts o f som e o f the facts discussed in section 2, based on elabora­
tions o f the syntactic structures posited by Pollock (1989) and subsequent
developments o f functional category theory.
Z a g o n a (1990) p ro p o se d a theory o f the phrase structure o f tenses that m ade
it possible to represent their argum en t structure syntactically in a w a y that was
largely parallel to the representation that the th e o ry provided for representing
the argu m en t structures o f other types o f predicates. I will confine m y discussion
o f her theory to its treatm ent o f the sim ple past and present tenses. H e r central
idea was that tenses are transitive predicates selecting “su b ject” and “object” a r­
g u m en ts that refer to tim es (in particular, to S and E, respectively.) Seco n d , she
a ssu m ed a varian t o f P o llo c k s (1989) syntactic structure: she suggested that tenses
originate syntactically as the head F o f a fu n ctional category FP, w h ere F selects
V P as its co m p le m e n t; F and V P m erge to fo rm F ‘, w h ich in turn m erges with a
Specifier to form FP. She fu rth e r a ssu m ed that V P functions as the object a r g u ­
m ent o f the tense (referring to E) and that the Specifier o f F P fu n ction s as the
subject argu m en t o f the tense (referrin g to S). R ecasting her p roposals in terms
o f the m ore fam iliar category label T (instead o f F), her syntactic structure looked
like (32):

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(32) TP

Spec (S) T’

T(cnsc) VP (E)

Zagona did not assume a referential theory o f tense semantics, insofar as she did not
assume that tenses refer to times; rather it is the arguments o f tenses that refer to times:
the V P complement o f T refers to E, and the Specifier (subject) o f T P refers to S.
Z a g o n a s theory differed from standard predicative theories o f tense semantics,
in that she did not assume that tenses have intrinsic m eanings analogous to “ before,”
“after,” or “simultaneous with.” Rather, she proposed that the difference in m ea n in g
between present and past arises as an effect o f the standard G B binding theory pro­
posed by C h o m s k y (1981), in terms o f the binding relation between the two argu­
ments o f the tense. The idea was that present tense selects a V P com plem ent that
behaves like an anaphor and must be bou n d by the Specifier o f TP, whereas past
tense selects a V P complement that behaves like a definite referring expression that
must not be boun d by the Specifier o f TP. C onseq uently S and E must co-refer to the
same time with present tense, and must refer to different times with past tense.
Given other assumptions about the modal status o f the future, this provided an a c ­
count o f the difference in m eaning between present and past tense without explic­
itly attributing to either tense the inherent semantics o f a temporal ordering
predicate.
In Stowell (1995a, 2007), I adopted a variant o f Z a g o n a s structure in (32), with
an additional functional category Z P (Zeit-Phrase), conceived o f as a temporal a n ­
alogue o f A b n e y s referential category DP (D eterm iner Phrase). Just as D combines
with N P to form a phrase D P that refers to an individual, Z com bines with V P to
form a phrase Z P that refers to a time. T selects a Z P as its object argument, and a
phonetically null “ P R O ” Z P occurs in the Specifier o f TP, fun ctioning as the subject
argument o f the tense, as in (33):

(33) TP

ZP r
(PRO=S)
Tense ZP
(past)
VP

W hen V P is overt, it restricts the reference o f ZP, just as an overt N P restricts the
reference o f D P; this arises from a bindin g relation between Z and the temporal
argument o f the verb, projected as a covert argument within VP, just as D binds a
covert subject argument within the predicative category NP. Consequently, a Z P
with a V P complement denotes the time o f the event or situation that the V P refers
to. In a simple sentence like (14a) (John left), the denotation o f Z P corresponds to
the traditional notion o f E, because the head o f the V P complement o f Z is the m ain

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208 PERSPECTIVES

verb leave. In m ore com plex sentences containing a m odal or aspectual auxiliary
verb, 01* a Habitual operator, Z P corresponds m ore closely to Kleins (1994) notion of
Topic Time. The apparent referential properties o f tenses that motivated Partees
(1973) analysis attributed to tenses themselves are attributed in this theory to the ZP
arguments o f tenses instead.
Unlike Z a g o n a s theory, this theory assum es a conventional predicative s e m a n ­
tics for tenses, in the spirit o f the kind o f predicative alternative to C o m r i e s theory
defended in section 2.3, according to which each tense has the semantics o f a te m ­
poral o rdering predicate, with a m eaning analogous to “ before,” “after” or “ (con ­
tained) in.” Crucially, the theory adopts the argum ent alignment for tenses
consistent with the alignment principles in (13), and essentially parallel to the align­
ment proposed by Zagona, whereby the argument denoting S is the subject o f the
tense predicate, and the argum ent denoting E is its com plem ent. Because this align­
ment is the opposite o f C o m rie s , the semantics o f the tense predicates is the o p p o ­
site o f what he assumed: past tense means “after” (rather than “ before” ); future
m eans “before” (rather than “after” ), and present tense means “ (contained) in.”
Thus, in (14a) (John left)y the past tense predicate locates S (the denotation o f the
P R O - Z P subject o f the tense in the Specifier o f T P ) after E (the denotation o f the ZP
com plem ent o f the tense).
The Z P “subject” o f a tense is always phonetically null; I have referred to it as
PRO-ZP, intended as a Z P analogue of the PRO (DP) subject o f an infinitival control
clause. Although I have suggested that this P R O - Z P denotes the speech time S, this is
an over-simplification o f the theory. Like conventional PRO, P R O - Z P has the refer­
ential status o f a bound variable; it lacks intrinsic reference and is normally bound by
an antecedent, with which it co-varies. This is essentially equivalent to claiming that
P R O - Z P functions like the R argument o f a relative tense in C o m rie s sense; in other
words, the default interpretation o f a tense is relative rather than absolute. In a subor­
dinate complement clause, the P R O - Z P argument o f a tense is subject to the theory
o f control, and its controller is the closest c-com m anding time-denoting expression,
namely the temporal argument o f the main verb in the matrix clause. This accounts
correctly for the interpretation o f most subordinate clause tenses, including the past
shifted reading o f (10), where the subject argument o f the subordinate clause past
tense is bound by the temporal argument o f intensional predicate in the main clause.
As Abusch (1994) observed, this b o u n d variable analysis o f the temporal control rela­
tion discussed above in 2.3.2 has the virtue o f predicting that tenses occurring in the
finite complements o f intensional predicates should have de se interpretations, par­
allel to PRO D P arguments in conventional infinitival control complements. The
analysis extends naturally to account for the relative tense interpretations o f other
types o f subordinate clause tenses, including those o f infinitival and participial clauses
(assuming that such clauses contain non-finite tense predicates). This is true not only
o f adjunct participial clauses o f the sort that C om rie discussed, but also o f the subor­
dinate clause within C o m rie s absolute-relative tenses, in terms o f the alternative to
C o m rie s theory o f these complex tense constructions defended at the end o f Section
2.3.2. M ore generally, temporal control should apply to the P R O - Z P argument o f the

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SYNTAX 209

tense o f any clause that functions as an argument a verb; this includes the tense o f a
sentential subject, given the V P-internal subject hypothesis.
It rem ains to explain how absolute tense interpretations arise in main clauses.
W hen P R O - Z P o ccu rs in a m ain clause, there is no tim e-d en otin g category
c - c o m m a n d in g it to serve as a potential antecedent; in this case, we must assum e
a principle that assigns a deictic, or indexical interpretation to any P R O - Z P that
lacks a c - c o m m a n d in g tim e-d en otin g antecedent. (See, however, Stowell, 2 00 7 for
an alternative approach.) This indexical rule should apply not only in main clauses,
but also in subordinate clauses that originate outside VP, and thus outside the
c - c o m m a n d dom ain o f the covert tem poral argum ent o f the main clause VP. This
is what happens with adjuncts such as finite conditional clauses and because-
clauses, w h ic h originate outside V P ; their tenses have absolute interpretations.
Recall that relative clauses also have absolute interpretations, as noted by En<;
(1987), though only when they are construed de re , as Abusch (1988,1997) observed.
Suppose that de re interpretations arise by assigning syntactic scope to D P in a VP-
external position, perhaps arising from lam bda-extraction or quantifier raising.
Then Abusch’s generalization follows if control o f the P R O - Z P argument o f the rel­
ative clause tense is determ ined on the basis o f the V P-external de re scope position
o f the DP.
Finally, con sid er the sim u lta n eo u s interpretation o f past tenses with stative
V P predicates in c o m p le m e n t clauses, as in (16) above; this involves the so-called
seq u en ce -of-ten se interpretation o f the past tense, w h ere it appears to have the
interpretation o f a relative present tense. To account for these cases, without
h a v in g to claim that past tense m o r p h e m e s have two distinct m e a n in g s (one o f
w h ic h is s y n o n y m o u s with the present tense), the th e o ry relies on a tem poral
analogue o f the th e o ry o f negative polarity. rlh e central idea is twofold. First, true
past tenses always have a past shifting interpretation; thus, past tense always
m eans “ after.'’ However, to account for (16), the theory assum es that the English
tense affixes present and p a st are not, in fact, tenses orig in atin g in T; rather, they
are T em p o ral Polarity Items fu n c tio n in g as the Z head o f the Z P c o m p le m e n t o f
a ph onetically null (covert) tense. These affixes adjoin to a verb as a result o f
V - m o v e m e n t from V to Z. The covert tense can be either past (m ea n in g “after” )
or present (m e a n in g “contained in” ). The past suffix is a Past P o larity Item ; it m ay
only o c cu r w ith in the c - c o m m a n d d o m ain o f a true (covert) past tense. The p re ­
sent suffix is a Past A n ti-P o larity Item ; it m ay never o ccur within the c - c o m m a n d
dom ain o f a higher past tense. W hen the past suffix o ccu rs in a m ain clause, the
covert tense o f that clause m u s t be past, to satisfy the polarity req uirem ent o f past
in Z. C on versely, w h e n the p r e s e t suffix o ccu rs in a m ain clause, its anti-p olarity
requ irem ent dictates that the covert tense in that clause must be present. Tilings
w o r k out differently in su b ord in ate c o m p lem en t clauses em b e d d e d w ithin a main
clause c o n tain in g true past tense, as in (10), (16), and (17). In (10) and (16), the
main clause past tense can license the polarity requ irem ent o f the past suffix in
the c o m p lem en t clause, and the covert su b ord in ate clause tense is free to be
either past, as in (10) or (16), or present, as in (16). In (17), the present suffix in the

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210 PERSPECTIVES

c o m p lem en t clause can not be licensed because it falls w ith in the scope o f the
m ain clause past tense; this forces the c o m p le m e n t clause to be sco p e d out o f the
c - c o m m a n d d o m a in o f the m ain clause tense, exactly as in E n $ s (1987) th e o ry o f
the double access interpretation. I h i s accounts for the in d e xical c o m p o n e n t o f
the d ouble access interpretation; the P R O - Z P subject o f the present tense has no
c - c o m m a n d in g controller w h en the clause c o n tain in g it is sco p e d out.

5. C o n clu sio n

In this chapter, I have discu ssed the historical developm ent o f fo rm al theories o f
the syntax and sem antics o f tense over the past h alf-cen tu ry or so. M y coverage
has not been complete, but I have sought to convey the gist o f som e o f the leading
ideas that have underlain prevailing theories o f the syntax o f tense in variou s eras.
In the interest o f brevity I have had to gloss over m a n y details, and to ignore m a n y
im p o rta n t theoretical proposals that a m ore com prehen sive s u rv e y o f the litera­
ture w ould have en com passed . N evertheless, I believe that m y account has p r o ­
vided a broad outline o f how theories o f the syntax and sem antics have
d e v e lo p e d — so m etim es indepen d en tly o f each other, but som etim es in mutually
inform ative ways.

REFERENCES

Abusch, D. (1988). Sequence o f tense, intensionality, and scope. Proceedings o f the 7th West
Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 1 - 1 4 ) . Stanford: CSLI.
Abusch, I). (1991). Ihe present under past as de re interpretation. In D. Bates (ed.), 7 he
Proceedings o f the 10th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Stanford: CSLI.
Abusch, D. (1994). Sequence o f tense revisited: Two semantic accounts o f tense in inten-
sional contexts. In H. K a m p (ed.), Ellipsis, tense, and questions. D y a n a i Esprit Basic
Research Project 6852, Deliverable R2.2.B, www.science.uva.nl/research/illc-secure/
D Y A N A /R 2 .2.B /A b u sc h .p d f. https://www.science.uva.nl/research/illc-secure/DYANA/
R2.2.B/Abusch.pdf.
Abusch, D. (1997). Sequence o f tense and temporal dc re. Linguistics and Philosophy, 2 0 , 1 - 5 0 .
Belletti, A. (1990). Generalized verb movement: Aspects o f verb syntax. Turin: Rosenberg &
Scllicr.
Bouchard, D. (1984). Having a tense time in grammar. Cahiers Linguistiques d Ottawa, 12,
8 9 -113.
C hom sky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
C hom sky, N. (1965). Aspects o f the theory o f syntax. C am b rid ge, M A : M I T Press.
C hom sky, N. (1970). R em arks on nominalization. In R. Jacobs and P. R osen baum (eds.),
Readings in English transformational gram m ar (pp. 18 4 -221). Waltham: Ginn.
C hom sky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.

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C hom sky, N. (1986). Barriers. C am b rid ge, M A : M I T Press.

C o m rie , B. (1976). Tense. C am bridge: C am b rid ge University Press.
D em irdache, H., and Uribe-Etxebarria, M . (1997). The syntax o f temporal relations: A
un ifo rm approach to tense and aspect. In E. Curtis, J. Lyle, and G. Webster (cds.),
Proceedings of the Sixteenth West Coast conference on Form al Linguistics (pp. 145-159).
Stanford: CSLI.
E m on d s, J. (1978). The verbal com plex V ’-V in French. Linguistic Inquiry ; 9, 151-175.
En<^, M . (1981). Tense without scope: A n analysis o f nouns as indexicals. Ph.D. dissertation,
University o f W isconsin, Madison.
Enc^, M . (1987). A n c h o rin g conditions for tense. Linguistic In qu iry , 18, 633-657.
Hornstein, N. (1990). A s time goes by. Cam bridge, M A : M I T Press.
Huang, C. T. J. (1982). M ove W H in a language without W H m ovement. Linguistic Review ,
1 » 369 - 416 .
Klein, W. (1994). Time in language. London: Routlcdge.
M cC a w le y , J. D. (1971). Tense and time reference in English. In C. Fillmore and D. Langen-
d oen (eds.), Studies in Linguistic Semantics. N ew York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Ogihara, T. (1996). Tense, attitudes, and scope. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Partee, B. (1973) Som e structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English.
Jou rn al o f Philosophy, 70, 6 0 1-6 0 9 .
Pollock, J.-Y. (1989). Verb m ovem en t, universal gram m ar, and the structure o f IP. Linguistic
Inquiry, 20, 36 5-4 24.
Prior, A. (1957). Time and modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prior, A. (1967). Past, present, and future. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Reichenbach, H. (1947). Elements o f symbolic logic. N e w York: Macmillan.
Ross, J. R. (1967). Constraints on variables in syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Schlenker, P. (1999). Propositional attitudes and indexicality (A cross-categorial approach).
Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Stowell, T. (1981). Origins o f phrase structure. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Stowcll, T. (1982). The tense o f infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry , 9 , 3 1 - 4 4 .
Stowell, T. (1995). The phrase structure o f tense. In L. Z a r in g and J. R o o ryc k (eds.), Phrase
structure and the lexicon (pp. 2 7 7 -2 9 1). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Stowell, T. (2007). The syntactic expression o f tense. Lingua , 117(2), 437-463.
Zagona, K. (1990). T im e s as temporal argum ent structure. M anuscript, University o f W ash­
ington, Seattle.

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 CHAPTER 7

MARKEDNESS

EDNA ANDREW S

The concept o f m arkedn ess is often appealed to in form ulating the solution to
problem s that arise in the m o rp h o lo g y and/or sem antics o f tense, aspect, and
m o o d , and is especially prom inent in certain fields, one o f w h ic h is Slavic linguis­
tics. Tliis is perhaps not surprising, given the roles o f R o m an Jakobson, Nikolai
Trubetskoy, and other m em b ers o f the Prague School in the fou n d in g o f the theory
o f m arkedness and distinctive features. To m any linguists these concepts seem
com m on p lace and to be taken for granted. Yet they continue to be, as they have
proven to be throughout their history, sources o f controversy, and their application
to problem s in various areas discussed in this volum e is more debatable than m a n y
linguists believe.
The first section o f this chapter review s the d e ve lo p m en t o f basic concepts in
m a rk e d n e ss theory, w h ile the s e co n d section deals with s o m e “ m y th s ” w h ere
that th e o ry is co n cern ed . Section 3 c o n c e rn s Ja k o b s o n s th e o ry o f “shifters,” its
application to the Russian verb, and its revision by van S c h o o n e v e ld and A r o n ­
son. Finally, section 4 d iscu sses m a rk e d n e ss in the study o f Russian verbal
aspect.
It is concluded that there are m an y areas o f language, whether they be g r a m ­
matically or lexically determined, where the application o f m arkedness principles
can be useful as one o f the com ponent levels o f analysis, but in and o f itself will not
be sufficient to fully explicate the conceptual value and usage o f a category. N o n e ­
theless, m arkedness theory provides a useful heuristic for negotiating through the
complexity o f distinctive, asym m etrical, paradigmatically given conceptual features
o f hum an language.

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MARKEDNESS 213

1. M arkedness T h eo ry R ev isited

One o f R om an Jakobsons most significant contributions to theoretical linguistics

can be found in his formulation o f the form al prin ciple1 o f markedness in 1921 as a
central com ponent to understanding and explicating oppositional relationships at
all levels o f language, from phonological to m orphological, lexical, and syntactic.
The terms m arked/unm arked (originally priznakovyj/bezpriznakovyj from the noun
priznak (признак) in Russian, and secondly m erkm alhaltig/m erm alios from the
noun M erkm al in G e rm a n ) w ere introduced and applied by Nikolai Trubetzkoy in
his 1931 article. The G e rm a n term was “M erkm alhaltigkeit” — the property o f c o n ­
taining a distinctive mark. Jakobson included gram m atical distinctions very early
in his career, and was conspicuously clear that there was a difference in the defini­
tion o f m arkedness between the phonological and gram m atical levels o f language,
where in the first case the difference is based on the signans (sound level) and in the
second case on the signatum (semantic level) (Holenstein, 1979, p. 91). Figure 1 gives
the general definition o f m arkedness for g ra m m a r and m orphology, with both a
general and specific representation, while the definition for ph on ology would be
restricted to the specific representation.
A s early as 1927 Jakobson had already formulated certain notions that were later
to serve as the basis o f his definition o f m orphological markedness; specifically,
Jakobson (Jakobson, Karcevskij, and Trubetzkoy, 1928) addressed the idea o f “corre­
lation” as b in ary opposition: “A phonological correlation is constituted by a series o f
binary oppositions defined by a co m m o n principle w h ich can be conceived inde­
pendently o f each pair o f opposite terms.” W hen Jakobson brought his theory to the
United States, he adopted Leonard Bloom field’s term “distinctive feature,” (B lo o m ­
field, 1933, p. 79) for the G erm an M erkm al.
As a m arkedness theory began to take shape, the notion o f binary opposition
becam e v ery important in defining m arkedness relations. Yet, the two major figures

In General:

Thu s,
I. General M ean in g
A. M arked: Statement o f A
B. Unm arked: Nonstatem ent o f A

II. Specific M ean in g

A. M arked: Statement o f A
H. Unm arked: Statem ent o f non -A A

Figure 7.1.

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214 PERSPECTIVES

o f the Prague School did not agree on what “m arkedness” meant. Jakobson and
Trubetzkoy defined the term “opposition” in very distinct ways.
Trubetzkoy developed three types of phonem ic oppositions, while Jakobson, on
the other hand, expanded and modified his theory o f binariness to encompass m or­
phology and semantics.2 However, the prim acy o f binary oppositions in linguistic
systems is not universally accepted. In phonology, a given feature (e.g., voicing) is
cither present or absent in a particular class o f phonemes (or, possibly, indifferent to
the feature, as the feature sharpness is not applicable to vowels). Therefore, the
opposition in phonology is privative, whereas in morphology, marked means the
necessary presence o f an element, while unmarked means the element may or may
not be present— it is simply not specified; therefore, unmarked does not merely imply
negation. In his theory o f morphological markedness, Jakobson clearly does not
equate the unmarked element with the element that occurs most frequently in syntag-
matic contexts. Rather, Jakobson bases his determination o f the marked/unmarked
pair on the presence o f a property o f meaning. These “properties o f meaning” are
defined as intrinsic properties given by the linguistic system itself, not by external re­
ality (1967, p. 671). The fact that Jakobson views the linguistic system as defining its
own order o f reality does not prohibit a potential relationship between linguistic and
extra-linguistic phenomena. Yet, Jakobson does imply that the linguistic object is
defined within the linguistic system proper and is not the same thing as an object in
reality. An important concept related to Jakobsons distinction between intrinsic and
extrinsic relationships is the notion o f relative autonomy. Thus, linguistic signs within
the linguistic system are defined in terms of oppositional relations, which are relative,
while the linguistic object is necessarily autonomous o f extra-linguistic reality. Fur­
thermore, the unmarked category is part o f a relation, which means that it cannot be
empty o f meaning. This point is critical and is one o f the fundamental misunderstand­
ings that lead to inappropriate applications o f Jakobsons fundamental principle of
markedness. When markedness theory is embodied in a semiotic fram ew ork where
the marks becom e fully developed signs, as given in Peirces theory o f interpretants, it
becomes a more powerful explanatory principle in m orphology and semantics.3
The different definitions o f m arkedness that result from m o v in g from one lin­
guistic paradigm to another is one o f the contributors to a lack o f clarity in under­
standing the principle itself (A ndersen, 1989, p. 11).4 Jakobsonian linguistic theory
necessarily distinguishes paradigmatic, or invariant meaning, from syntagmatic, or
contextual m eaning.5 In any Jakobsonian-based m arkedness theory, a clear distinc­
tion must be maintained between paradigmatic/invariant m eaning, given by the
m arking, and contextual/variant m eaning, which is not necessarily a property o f the
paradigm atic base. It is important to distinguish between context and contextual
m eaning, and that is precisely w hy deixis is such an important concept in m odern
linguistic theory. Deixis, or linguistic pointing to a specific spatial or temporal point
given by the speech or narrative situations is an example o f context b e co m in g a part
o f the gram m atical and lexical code itself (cf. verbal tense, pronom inal form s).6
Another point o f confusion in defining markedness concerns the difference
between the terms “mark” and “ feature.” In Jakobsons 1974 article “ M ark and Feature,”

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MARKEDNESS 215

he attempted to clarify som e o f the definitional terms o f the fundamental concepts of

markedness theory. Unfortunately, the article itself has been a further source o f con­
fusion. In general, Jakobson theoretically did not waiver in his conviction that all such
oppositions were asymmetrical, but in practice inconsistencies did arise (cf. compact/
diffuse, instead o f compact/non-compact, diffuse/non-diffuse).
W hat precisely is the difference between m ark and feature? Apparently, “ m ark”
came to mean, in addition to its original definition o f the presence o f a m ore re­
stricted pole o f an opposition, the sam e thing as a distinctive feature (Jakobson,
1974, p. 123). The feature, called distinctive in phonology and conceptual (or s e m a n ­
tic) in m orphology, is the element that defines the invariant property or relationship
o f a given form. In phonology, distinctive features can receive objective definitions,
but in m o rp h o lo g y and semantics, the conceptual features are defined differently by
different scholars. Jakobson, as we have seen, defined these features in a hierarchy,
as paradigmatically given invariants.
As in van Sch oon eveld s w ork on m orphology, m arkedness theory can only re­
alize its full potential as a theoretical fram ew o rk when this final step is taken: the
identification o f the distinctive/conceptual featu re itself. It is not sufficient simply to
establish that two categories fit the m arked/unm arked relationship. Such a state­
ment is necessarily a relative one, and if no feature is ever posited, one ends up with
a linguistic system full o f M s and Us (marked and unm arked), but with no further
discrim inatory principles for distinguishing (say) a perfective verb from a noun in
the instrumental case. Both categories are m arked, but not vis-à-vis each other, and
for entirely different features.
A conceptual feature in m o rp h o lo g y is, for Jakobson and van Schooneveld, a
relationally determined, paradigm atically defined invariant that is part o f every
(potentially infinite) occurrence o f a given form (signifier/SR). ’Ihe feature is nei­
ther interchangeable with, nor actually, the signified (SD), or m eaning o f the SR,
just as the feature directionality (Jakobson, 19 36,19 58) is not the sam e as the accusa­
tive case. Rather, the feature, in this case directionality (or van Sch oon eveld s exten­
sion ), is precisely what Peirce w ou ld call an interprétant o f the sign.7

2. Myths about M arkedness:

D istin g u ish in g Trends from Rules

Jakobsons m arkedness theory is a qualitative theory o f oppositional relations, pre­

sented not in a comprehensive discussion o f m arkedness in general, but rather, in
applications to specific problems within the areas o f phonology, m orphology, and
semantics. In fact, as A ndersen (1989, p. 26) points out, it is only in 1979 that Jakob-
son presents an explanation for the qualitative difference expressed by the defini­
tions o f m arkedness for phonology versus m orphology. (For a full discussion, see
A nd rew s, 1990, pp. 136-165.) C o nsequently a num ber o f “ myths” developed re­
garding the theory; this section discusses three o f the most prominent o f these.

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2.1. Statistical Frequency

Ever since Trubetzkoys work on phonology (1930/1975) and Jakobson’s on phonology
and m orphology (1931), linguists have debated the pertinence o f a given forms statis­
tical frequency in determining a marked category. Trubetzkoy writes: “Здесь
статистика ни при чем, а дело в самом, так сказать, «идейном содержании»
кор р ел яц и и ” (i 93o /i 975 >Р - 162) ‘Statistics has nothing to do with it. The crux o f the
matter rests in the so-called “ intrinsic content” o f the correlation (translation mine).
Trubetzkoy clearly states that statistical frequency should not be considered an indi­
cator o f markedness relations in phonology. Yet, despite Trubetzkoys clear denial o f
the relevance o f statistics here, confusion has abounded over precisely this point. For
example, John Lyons states that although the perfective aspect is usually considered
the marked m em ber o f the perfective/imperfective aspectual opposition in Slavic,
the “relatively high frequency” with which perfective verbal forms occurred in texts
suggests that the perfective was, at some point, unmarked (1977, p. 709), contradict­
ing Trubetzkoys claim. Andersen articulates the solution to this problem w hen he
states that “markedness values motivate changes in frequency, and not vice versa”
(1989, p. 30).
The purpose o f m arkedness theory is to explain properties o f m eaning that are
invariant , not to justify a system based upon statistical frequency, which, by defini­
tion, is a context-specific p h enom enon. If the perfective aspect in Russian is marked,
it is not because the perfective occurs less frequently in actual usage, but because the
perfective is defined by a property o f m ea n in g absent in the imperfective. A s Maslov
demonstrates, one can m o d ify the definition o f perfectivity to accom m odate c o n ­
textual variation without abandoning the integrity o f the perfective's m arked status;
“ The perfective, being the strong' m e m b e r o f the opposition (semantically m arked
and intensive, and by the same token having a narrower meaning) depicts an action
in its indivisible integrity [or as an individual w h o le]” (Maslov, 1984, pp. 15 - 16 ;
brackets and translation mine).
A n d yet m any linguists remain convinced that statistical frequency is signifi­
cant, partly because, as a general tendency, the unm arked element o f the marked/
unm arked opposition often does occur m ore frequently than the m arked element.4
However, two important points follow directly from this statement: first, and most
important, statistical frequ ency is representative o f a tendency, that is, o f a variant ,
not an invariant , rule o f m arkedness relations; secondly, statistical frequency may
seem to be relevant in oppositions o f the perfective/imperfective aspectual type, but
what about more complex oppositions such as masculine/feminine/neuter genders,
first/second/third persons, or nominative/accusative/geni-tive/dative/locative/
instrumental cases? In these last examples statistical frequ ency can be v ery m is ­
leading, if not totally unsystematic (cf. Greenberg, 1966, p. 45). In the majority o f
instances (and perhaps this overlooked fact is another cause o f misinterpretations
and misapplication o f markedness), oppositions in m o rp h o lo g y and semantics
involve m ore than two categories. It is hardly rewarding simply to use marked/
unm arked in describing triadic distinctions such as feminine/masculine/neutral

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MARKEDNESS 217

genders or without also attempting to uncover the properties o f m eaning that dis­
tinguish these categories. Yet, it is precisely in dealing with such m ore complex cor­
relations that the true explanatory pow er o f markedness theory can be realized.

2.2. Neutralization
The m isn o m er o f neutralization is another example in m o rp h o lo g y o f an inheri­
tance from phonology. Neutralization entails the systematic cancellation o f an o p ­
position in a particular syntagm atic environ m ent— cf. voicin g before obstruents
(Jakobson and Waugh, 1979, p. 28). Jakobson wrote regarding his theory o f m o r p h o ­
logical markedness: “Notion o f neutralization in the Russian case system is a char­
acteristic exam ple o f phonological contraband in gram m atical analysis” (1958, p.
111). However, not all linguists, including even som e Jakobsonians, acknowledge
that neutralization is a problematic notion in m o rp h o lo g y and semantics.9
A lthough Jakobson m akes a com parison between neutralization in phonology
and syncretism in m o rp h o lo g y (including both gram m atical and lexical meaning),
he is not im plying that meanings are neutralized. (Jakobsons statement o f 1938
[Signe zéro y 1938/1971/1984] predates by 20 years his restatement o f this principle in
1958.) W hile neutralization and syncretism are sim ilar ph enom ena sharing certain
properties, they are nonetheless distinctive processes as defined within the spheres
o f ph on ology and morphology.
Thus, in the Jakobsonian linguistic tradition the signifier o f the phonem e and
the signified o f the m o rp h em e are characterized by bundles o f distinctive/concep­
tual features, while the signified o f the p h onem e and signifier o f the m o rp h e m e are
characterized by mere otherness (Table 7.1).
It is feasible to conclude that the inherent difference in m eaning between two or
more distinct gram m atical categories (or between two or more distinct lexical cate­
gories) is never completely neutralized. Com plete neutralization would destroy the
integrity o f the fundam ental differences between the phonem e and the m orphem e.
Phonological elements express distinctiveness, and that is all; m orphological ele­
ments, however, express m ore than mere distinctiveness— they are “endowed with
their own m ea n in g ” (Sangster, 1982, p. 134), as given by the invariant conceptual
features expressed in the signified. A lthough an opposition in m ea n in g m a y indeed
be “suppressed” (Jakobson, 1938, p. 159) in a particular context, it is never c o m ­
pletely deprived o f its meaning. The conceptual features (or m arkings) inherently
given in a particular signified are an invariant for the given synchronic language
state and can only “mutate” or change in time.

Table 7.1.

SIG N IFER SIG N IFIED

Phoneme bundle of distinctive features mere otherness

M orphem e mere otherness bundle o f conceptual features

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Jakobsons and van Sch o o n e ve ld s interpretation o f syncretism in m orphology,

as well as o f the absence o f neutralization in m orphology, directly accords with C . S.
Peirces semiotic perspective on the essence o f signs. If the sign is indeed a mere
potentiality, w hose nature, in the case o f the symbol, is “esse in futuro,” then sy n cre­
tism precludes the realization o f a particular “ potentiality” in a restricting context.
Yet, the essence o f this potentiality, as well as its very existence, is in no way negated
or eliminated by its nonrealization (or suppression). The fact o f the potentiality
rem ains as ever— essentially unchanged, but interpreted within the confines o f a
specific context.10

2.3. Markedness Reversals

M arkedness reversals are one o f the m ost controversial aspects o f Jakobsonian
m arkedn ess theory, even though Jakobson only m entions a gram m atically based
(not a lexically given) m arkedn ess reversal in one article (1959, pg. 18 5-18 6 ). C o n ­
fusion co ncern in g whether a m arkedness reversal has o ccu rred in gram m atical
m ea n in g is due to conflating statistical frequency with m eaning. I l l is is most
clearly seen in the mistaken claim that the negative imperative m o o d in Russian is
an exam ple o f a m arkedness reversal.11

2.4 Substitutability
The notion o f obligatory substitutability o f the unm arked for the m arked category
has been used by som e scholars (cf. Kucera, 1980, 1984) to prove that the ascribed
m arkings are incorrect and that the theory is not rigorous enough. But what does
substitutability in a given context actually imply? First, substitutability must be e x ­
plicitly defined: A re two items substitutable for one another as long as the “truth
value” in exogenous reality is maintained, or should substitutability be defined in
terms o f its elfect on the linguistic value o f the utterance? Consider, for example, the
sentences, C ary Grant was an Englishman versus Archibald Leach was an English­
m an. Although C a r y Cirant and Archibald Leach were the sam e person in reality, in
the linguistic context, each sentence signifies a different aspect o f his life.
It is not controversial to argue that substitutability, as a criterion independent o f
markedness, implies intersection, not inclusion. However, if we recall that m a rk ed ­
ness relationships are fundam entally defined by a hierarchical correlational o p p o s i­
tion, w h ich involves an inclusion relationship, then substitutability cannot and
should not be a defining point o f such an opposition.
Therefore, it is apparent that substitutability, in the strict, paradigmatic sense, is
impossible in the case o f a hierarchial correlational opposition, since the notion o f
hierarchy implies that the two elements in the hierarchy are not equivalent but,
rather, are asymmetrically defined. Given this fact, finding examples where substitut­
ability is impossible only reinforces the idea that substitutability is not a criterion for
establishing a markedness opposition. However, in those cases where substitution

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MARKEDNESS 219

can occur, w e do not find sufficient grounds to prove that substitutability should be a
criterion for determining markedness oppositions. Furthermore, substitutability
implies intersection, not inclusion. Two sets (of linguistic forms) can share a feature,
but such sharing does not indicate whether one set is included by the other, that is,
whether we are dealing with a marked or an unm arked relationship. At best, syntag-
matic substitution o f one form for another illustrates the potential that two forms
share a feature.

3. D eix is an d C onceptual Features:

Sh ifter s in t h e Ru ssia n V erb

Jakobson s 1957 analysis o f “shifters” continues to be a m ajor explication o f the role

o f deixis in gram m atical categories, providing an innovative approach that captures
the general im portance o f the relationships between the speech and narrated events
(E^ and E n, respectively), as well as a m on g their participants (Ps, P"), in defining
verbal categories. By defining the differences a m on g verbal categories in terms o f
the speech and narrated events and their participants, Jakobson was able to define
the Russian verbal categories using the same fundam ental elements and, thereby, to
go beyond the traditional definitions o f the categories o f m ood , voice, tense, and
aspect to a more profound level o f linguistic analysis.
A n article by van Schooneveld (1978a) presents a slightly different version o f
Russian verbal categories, in which the concept o f deixis is expanded and each
gram m atical category is related to an invariant, sem antic (or conceptual) feature. As
a result o f this expanded notion o f deictic categories, van Schooneveld is able to
state the qualitative difference between categories such as voice and aspect, as o p ­
posed to m o o d and tense, in terms o f perceptional versus transmission al deixis (van
Schooneveld, 1977).12 By dem onstrating that these two fun dam en tal types o f deixis
are relevant to verbal categories, van Schooneveld has modified and expanded the
entire concept o f “shifter.”
This section will feature a discussion o f the two approaches, as well bringing as
a third perspective, that o f A ron son, to the undertaking o f defining the relationship
between verbal categories for the Slavic languages.

3.1. Jakobson’s Shifters

Jakobson defines the two basic vehicles o f linguistic com m unication, message (M)
and code (C), and their interaction (cf. message referring to message [M /M ]
[reported speech]; code referring to code [C/C] [proper nam es]; message referring
to code [M /C] [meta-language]; code referring to message [C / M J [shifters]). O f the
four structures given, only the last one, C /M , is defined by Jakobson as being deictic.
Jakobson defines a deictic element as any element w hose “general m eaning cannot

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220 PERSPECTIVES

be defined without a reference to the message” (Jakobson, 1957, p. 131), and he calls
such elements '‘shifters” (a term coined by Otto Jespersen), or, in Peircean term i­
nology, indexical symbols.
Jakobson translates the vehicles o f message and code into the ultimate constit­
uents o f any com m u nication act: the speech itself (s), the topic o f the speech (or
narrated matter) (n), the event (E), and any participants o f that event (P), who
necessarily include speaker and receiver. Thus, it is possible to com bine these c o n ­
stituents to produce four defining categories: E ° = Narrated Event; E* = Speech
Event; P" = Participant(s) o f the N arrated Event; Ps = Participant(s) o f the Speech
Event. The result is an elegant analysis o f the relationship between verbal g r a m m a t ­
ical categories and the speech and narrated events and their respective participants
(Table 7.2):
To complete his analysis, Jakobson ( 19 3 2 ,19 5 7 ) 13 includes the concept o f m a r k ­
edness and relates subcategories to each other as m arked versus unm arked (cf. pret­
erit vs. present [non-preterit], perfective vs. imperfective, plural vs. singular, etc.).

3.2. The Shifting of Shifters

The w id ely influential notion o f deixis d eveloped by van S c h o o n e v e ld is clearly
based on Ja k o b so n s w o r k ; like Jakobson , he v ie w s deixis p rim a rily as a process by
w h ich parole is recodified into langue. H ow ever, van S c h o o n e ve ld extends the
concept o f deixis to all areas o f language. A n y traditionally deictic category,
w h ere such categories require redefinition in each unique context to becom e
m e a n in g fu l (for exam ple, d em onstratives, personal p ron ou n s, etc.), involves a
type o f linguistic pointing, w h ic h is restricted to the actual speech event. Van
S c h o o n e ve ld realized that the act o f reference itself is also a form o f linguistic
pointing. H ence, he considers all acts o f reference, and thus g ra m m a tic a l and
lexical m ea n in g , to be inherently deictic, a v iew o f deixis consid erably different
from that o f m ost linguists.
C o n sid e r the following examples, modeled on those given by Fillmore (1975, p.
16), involving the lexical form left. The two sentences (1,2 ) demonstrate that linguis­
tic forms m ay have both deictic and non-deictic functions:

(1) M y friend stood to her h u sb a n d s left.

(2) WT10 is that stan din g to the left o f that building?

Table 7.2.

P involved P not involved

Designator Connector Designator Connector

Non-shifter pn pn p En En E"
gender/number voice status/aspect taxis
Shifter Pn ps pn En/ps E7ES E«. £«*/£*
person m ood tense evidential

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MARKEDNESS 221

In (1) the location o f the participants o f the speech event (Ps) is irrelevant to inter­
preting the sentence, whereas in (2) the location o f the participants (Ps) is crucial.
From a slightly different perspective one could argue that the form left is deictic in
both sentences but on two different levels. In the first sentence the location o f P5 is
indeed irrelevant. Nevertheless, implicit to that sentences message is a potential
objectivized observer o f the narrated event (or P n). Obviously, every hum an being
has two sides and therefore potentially has two “ left” sides. The most com m on
reading o f the first sentence assumes that one is looking at the faces o f the husband
and the friend. However, it is indeed possible that som e P" is looking at the backs o f
the husband and friend. In such a case, an entirely different perspective results, and,
hence, (1) is equally deictic, not vis-a-vis the E s or Ps, but rather the E n and P n. To
further complicate the matter, (1) could be interpreted in only one way if the p e r­
spective o f a particular potential Pn, the husband himself, is assumed. Clearly, when
asked which is his left side, the husband w ould always point to the sam e side. There­
fore, the role o f P n is just as important as that o f Ps. Since lexical forms such as left
can require the involvement o f Ps or Pn, whereas form s such as now , he , here always
require Ps, our reformulation o f deixis must take this difference into account. There­
fore, the type o f deixis represented by form s such as left, right, near is called percep­
tional by van Schooneveld. We can now understand w hy van Schooneveld defines
perceptional deixis as an unm arked type o f deixis, since it involves an act o f percep­
tion by any observer (that is, Ps or Pn), whereas transmissional deixis is defined as
marked for the involvement o f the participants o f the given speech event (Ps only)
(van Schooneveld, 1983).
W hat does van Sch oon eveld s redefinition o f deixis imply for the verbal cate­
gories defined by Jakobson? In van Sch oon eveld s system, since all categories are
deictic, it is necessary to replace the terms non-shifter/shifter with the terms per-
ceptionally deictic/transmissionally deictic. Second, and most important, as van
Schooneveld has demonstrated (1978a, pp. 4 2 -5 0 ), the verbal categories defined by
Jakobson should be arranged in a hierarchy; each m ark ed m em b er o f a verbal cate­
gory is m arked by m eans o f a conceptual feature, defined similarly to those o f the
Russian nominal case system (Jakobson, 1936, 1958). Thus, not only does a hierar­
chical relationship exist between the m arked and unm arked m em bers o f a given
pair (cf. plural(M ) vs. singular(U), preterit(M) vs. non-preterit(U), etc.), but the
categories given as m oo d , voice, tense, and aspect are also given hierarchically.
A s regards the category o f aspect, Jakobson gives the p erfective as the
m a rk ed pole o f the o p p o sitio n , and van S c h o o n e v e ld assigns the conceptual fe a ­
ture d im e n sio n a lity to the perfective aspect. D im e n s io n a lity req uires that the
verbal process is b o u n d e d , that is, the focus w ill be either on the inception or
com pletion (result) o f the action, not on the process. The result im p lie d is g e n ­
erally perceivable by any P".
The category o f m o o d , particularly as it is manifested by the Russian im p era ­
tive, is firmly implanted in the narrated event, yet its defining characteristic requires
the involvement o f som e Ps vis-a-vis the E n and P”. The imperative constructs a
direct line, or connection, between Ps and Pn. Van Schooneveld assigns to m ood the

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222 PERSPECTIVES

conceptual feature extension, which requires that s o m e Ps be pulled into the realm
o f the narrated event.
The final category analyzed by van Schooneveld, tense, involves an obligatory
disjunction o f the speech event and the given narrated event, described by a verb in
the past tense. If the preterit is defined in terms o f disjunction and not “past time,”
all categories expressed in Russian by so-called past tense forms can be adequately
accounted for (cf. Russian conditional m o o d : Esli by u rnenja bylo rnnogo deneg, ja
by kupila novuju masinu = “ If I had a lot o f money, I would buy a new car” ). In this
exam ple the verb is in the past tense form , but the narrated event being described
could occur at any point in time, past or future, if the conditions are met; only the
present m om ent given by the speech event is excluded. Van Schooneveld calls the
feature that gives the obligatory disjunction with the speech event restrictedness
(van Schooneveld 1978a, p. 48).
Van Schooneveld orders these features in the hierarchical system shown below
in Table 7.3.
The one, unm arked category within the verbal system, that is, the category car­
ryin g m inim al inform ation, is in Russian the infinitive. G ivin g no inform ation p e r­
taining to P*, P", Es, E", the infinitive also fails to provide any reference to person,
number, or gender. Placed side by side, we can see the implications o f van Schoo-
n eveld s changes to Jakobson’s characterization o f verbal categories (Table 7.4).
The generalizations provided by van Schooneveld s system are essentially three­
fold. The first concerns the relationship between tense and aspect in verbal systems.
A s Lyons points out, aspect is a much m ore frequently occurrin g distinction than
tense, if one considers all the languages o f the world. He further notes that since
children have been shown to master aspect before tense in languages that have both
categories, aspect is therefore “ontogenetically” a more basic distinction than tense
(Lyons, 1977, p. 705). O ne m ay see a reaffirmation o f Lyons’ view in van Schoo-
neveld’s hierarchy, if one assumes unm arked categories have a tendency to be
acquired first. As we have already discussed in section three, language acquisition
hierarchies are more indicative o f trends, not category-based rules. The second c o n ­
cerns expanding the notion o f deixis into perceptional and transmissional, whereby
the most fundam ental com m on denom inator that unites all categories o f m e a n in g —
the act o f perception itself— is m ade explicit. Finally, van Sch o o n e ve ld s conceptual
features are m ore narrowly defined than the traditional verbal category given by

Table 7.3.

Infinitive = 0

Passive (voice) = Plurality

Perfective (aspect) = Dimensionality
Conjugation = Distinctness
Imperative (mood) = Extension
Preterit (tense) = Restrictedness

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MARKEDNESS 223

Table 7.4.

Jakobson van Schooneveld

Non-shifter Perceptional deixis

pn gender/number
pn E n voice Plurality
En status/aspect Dimensionality
E n E" taxis
Shifter Transmissional deixis
Pn F person Distinctness
p n E n/ p mood Extension
E 7 ES tense Restrictedness
En E nVEs evidential

Table 7.5.

Jakobson Aronson

E n (non-shifter) status/aspect E" (non-shifter) => mood/aspect

E 7 PS (shifter) => mood En/Ps (shifter) status

Jakobson (for example, in his system mood is the imperative, and not m ood more
broadly defined).
A ro n so n s w ork on the Bulgarian verb challenges Jakobson s characterization o f
the category o f m ood (1977, pp. 9 -32). Thus, in A ro n so n s analysis o f Bulgarian, he
finds that the participants o f the speech event are relevant in status, as opposed to
m ood , and aspect and m o o d are related to each other m ore closely than status and
aspect. The result yields the following recategorization o f the relationship o f m ood
and status in the verbal system (Table 7.5).
A ron son argues in favor o f this modified view o f m o o d using examples from
English (1977, pp. 12 - 13 ). He further states that the imperative is a shifter not because
it is m arked for m oo d , but because it makes reference to the grammatical category
o f person (p. 13). The examples concerning the category o f status com e from Bulgar­
ian, where A ronson demonstrates their affinity with the evidential category given
by Jakobson (e.g., Bulgarian nonreported: Vojna njam a “ There is no w a r ” /“ ! haven’t
heard that theres a w a r ” vs. reported: A z ne sam cuval da ima vojna ! . . . —N jam alo
bilo vojna. “ How in the world can you possibly say that there is no w a r ” ) (1977, pp.
1 3 - 14 ) . A ronson accepts Jakobsons definition o f aspect as a “quantifier,” but insists
that the “qualifier” is m ood , not status. (As Binnick points out, 1991, p. 140, it was
Jakobson who “firmly established” the concept in 1932 “despite its present-day ap­
pearance o f great venerability” ) To strengthen his claim, A ron so n provides e x a m ­
ples o f m erger o f m odal conditionals and aspectual iteratives in English, B C S and
Hebrew (1977, p. 15).H
If we com pare van Sch o o n e ve ld s réévaluation o f the shifters with A ro n so n s
suggestion, we find that both van Schooneveld and A ron son argue in favor o f a

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224 PERSPECTIVES

different distribution o f the concept o f shifter, where the verbal categories are either
completely characterized by different types o f deixis, or the placement o f m o o d and
status are reversed from shifter to non-shifter.
Certainly, one o f the most broadly applicable principles Jakobson developed
w as his reinterpretation o f the com plex relationship between code and message in
terms o f the speech and narrated events and their respective participants. Jakobsons
application o f deixis is innovative and has served as an important springboard for
future analyses o f the Russian verbal system.
In fact, we will reexam ine the Jakobsonian definition and placement o f aspect
in the verbal system o f Russian as the first step in our final section.

4. R u s s i a n V e r b a l A spect and M arkedness

We would be hard pressed to find a mainstream analysis o f Russian verbal aspect

w here the perfective aspect was not claimed to be the m arked m e m b e r o f the o p p o ­
sition. Binnick (1991, pp. 135 -2 14 ) gives a thorough discussion o f the problems asso­
ciated with the category o f aspect in Slavic and beyond. O f particular interest is his
presentation on the tension between aspectual systems and Aktionsarten (1991, pp.
1 3 9 - 4 9 ) - Aspectual problems have been resolved in favor o f the gram m atical end o f
the spectrum , realization o f its role as a system , including the pairing o f verbs for
aspect. Also, it is also generally accepted that the perfective aspect is the marked
form o f an inclusion relationship with the imperfective aspect. In the Jakobsonian
tradition, the specific conceptual feature, dim ensionality (which provides the notion
o f a bounded action), as the conceptual m ark in g o f the perfective aspect has been
posited by van Schooneveld (1978a). M aslov also gives a fully developed explana­
tion o f the marked nature o f the perfective (1984, pp. 15-16 ):

The semantic base o f the opposition is attainment versus non-attainment o f the

internal b o u n d a ry o f the verbal action. O n the level o f the m ean in g o f the
category, taking into consideration all basic types used in speech, the aspectual
appraisal, expressed by perfective and imperfective, must be formulated differ­
ently: the perfective .. . gives an action as an indivisible whole, while the im p e r­
fective leaves the m arking o f the integrity o f the verbal process unexpressed.
(Translation m ine, italics mine.)

These definitions are put to the test by aspectual relationships where we find not a
pairing, but m ore com plex situations in which there appear to be triples. We will
begin the discussion using Feldstein (2007, pp. 1-2 9 ).
Feldstein takes on the interesting and little studied problem o f dual simplexes,
i.e., dual stems that share a root and differ by suffix (ex. под м ен и вать, подменять/
подм ени ть). In these instances, there are two imperfective forms related to a single
perfective. The topic o f dual simplexes in the category o f Russian verbs o f motion is
one generally acknowledged given its robustness in the Russian verbal system, and
involves both suppletive and non-suppletive (cf. suppletive: (la) ехать, ездить,

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MARKEDNESS 225

объехать, объездить, объезжать; (lb) идти,ходить, отойти, отходить, отхаживать;

non-suppletive: (2а) катить, катать, выкатить, выкатать, вы каты вать; (2b) лететь,
летать, облететь, облетать, облётывать) (Feldstein, 2007, pp. 4 -6 ). Additionally,
Feldstein gives the unusual instance where there is no syncretism in the dual simplex
paradigm and all six forms are available (cf. ехать, ездить, наехать, наездить,
наезжать, наезживать). Feldstein also includes a section entitled “dual unprefixed
series” with the nu-suffix (cf. кидать, кинуть, закидывать, закидать, закинуть)
(pp. 17 -2 0 ). While the dual simplex group mentioned below is not productive, this is
an extremely productive group in Contem porary Standard Russian.16
Feldstein (2007, p. 11) provides a list o f dual sim plex verbal fo rm s that are not part
o f the system o f m otion verbs. This list includes 13 different paired stems (stems in
internal parentheses arc given by Feldstein as controversial in their non-prefixed
usage): броси-/бросай-, пад-/падай-, хвати-/хватай-, вали-/валяй-, веси-/вешай-,
вороти-/ворочай-, ломи-/ломай-, меси-/мешай-, сади-/сажай-, (куси-)/кусай-,
(мени-)/меняй-, (скочи-)/скака-, (стрели-)/стреляй. Feldstein dem onstrates the
productivity o f these fo rm s in prefixation with the -менять and -бросить verbs (2007,
pp. 12 -17 ).
I w o u ld ad d to the d iscu ssio n w hat I will call dual derived im perfective verbal
fo rm s, w h e re there are two im perfectives related to one perfective (cf. -даривать/
-д а р я т ь / - д а р и т ь ; - пы л ив а т ь /-п ы л я т ь /-п ы л и т ь ;- п о р а ж н и в а т ь / - п о р о ж н я т ь /
- п о р о ж н и т ь ).1 Note that these g ro u p in g s, unlike the ones m en tio n ed ab ove with
two perfectives, have o n ly one perfective.
I f w e e x a m in e the sem an tics o f dual sim plexes, we m a y find a multiphase
m e a n in g for s o m e o f the verbal stem s (cf. Все плат ье грязными рукам и захват ала
“ You h ave left spots fro m y o u r dirty h an d s all over the dress” ) (Isacenko, i960,
pp. 3 0 7 - 3 0 9 ; Feldstein, 2007, p. 20).
The o ccu rrence o f dual sim plexes with verbs o f motion is quite ubiquitous
and is no stranger to g ra m m a tic a l descriptions, w hile the dual sim plexes targeted
by Feldstein are often ignored in the literature. A lso, in the case o f verbs o f m o ­
tion, the explanation o f dual sim plexes is centered a ro u n d the presence o f the
determ inate/indeterm inate distinction o f im perfective verb form s. For m ost
scholars, d eterm in ac y is treated as the m a rk ed form (vs. the indeterm inate) w ithin
the im perfective aspectual distinction. B in n ic k (1991, pp. 4 5 0 - 4 5 1 ) ends part 2 o f
his w o rk w ith a s u m m a r y o f the problem s and multiple definitions associated
with determ inacy, pointing out the clear affinity with aspectual over tem poral
m eanings. Jakobson (1957, p. 138) says that the determ inate, as a gram m atical cat­
eg o ry within the im perfective aspect, is m arked for “signaling the integrity,
unb rokenness o f E n.” (It is interesting to co m pare Ja k o b so n s definition o f deter­
m in a c y with M a s l o v s definition o f the perfective aspect.) Van S c h o o n e ve ld (1982,
pp. 4 4 5 -4 5 8 ) connects d e te rm in a c y to his conceptual feature extension and in so
doing, reconfirm s the im portance o f these conceptual features across g r a m m a t ­
ical and lexical categories. For van Sch o o n e ve ld , the difference w o u ld not be in
the extension feature itself (between say the accusative case and d eterm in acy), but
rather in the hierarchical d om in an t under w h ic h the extension feature is realized.

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Van S c h o o n e v e l d s an alysis o p e n s the d o o r to the su g g e stio n that d e t e r m in a c y

m a y not be a p u rely g r a m m a t i c a l p h e n o m e n o n , but p e r h a p s a c r o s s o v e r c a te g o ry
w ith g r a m m a t ic a l and lexical c o m p o n e n t s . We h ave revealed yet a n o th e r po int o f
d e p a rtu r e b etw een J a k o b s o n s shifters and v a n S c h o o n e v e l d s featu re an alysis o f
R u ssia n v erb a l catego ries. A n d yet they agre e ab so lu tely in te rm s o f their d e s i g n a ­
tion o f the m a r k e d n e s s status o f the catego ries o f a sp ect a n d d e te r m in a c y . I f we
m o v e n o w to the su b ject o f dual s i m p le x verb fo r m s , w e are o b lig e d to ask w h e th e r
th ese m a r k e d n e s s - b a s e d d e s c r ip tio n s and d efin itio n s facilitate e x p la n a tio n o f the
dual sim p le x verb f o r m s in v e r b s o f m o t io n ? A r e th e y u s e fu l in the c o n te x t o f the
dual sim p le x verb f o r m s in general?
The fu n d a m e n ta l point to be extracted from Feldsteins w o r k is that dual s i m ­
plex verb al fo rm s in Russian are not o n ly robust in the catego ry o f verbs o f m otion,
but they also o c c u r outside o f the m o tio n system in a m a n n e r that has often been
ignored. T h e y form a regularized and p ro d u ctive su b system in derived im perfective
derivation, prefixation a n d suffixation with se m an tic regularities as well:

I would suggest that the semantic subclasses o f prefixed perlectives, which are
derived from dual simplcxes, might be described . . . where type I refers to phasal
oppositions between the two prefixed perfectives and type II includes instances
w h en one prefixed perfective o r the other is unopposed with either spatial or
Aktionsart m eaning (Feldstein, 2007, p. 20).

O n e o f the strengths o f Feldsteins analysis is its g r o u n d in g in viable, verifiable

data o f c o n te m p o r a r y sta n d a rd Russian verb fo rm s in p ro d u c tive a n d highly fre ­
quent w o r d -fo r m a tiv e realizations. The ab sen ce o f a m a r k e d n e s s overlay does not
w eak en it in any w a y his analysis or conclu sion s. Here again, we see that for m a r k ­
ed n ess to contribute to this issue, w e w o u ld have to ex p lo re the interaction o f g r a m ­
m atical and lexical categories, in c lu d in g not only the verbal categories themselves,
but also h o w they interact with the c o m p o n e n t prefixes a n d suffixes o f verb al stem s
and lexical roots at the se m a n tic level. O f course, these exp lo ratio n s can o c c u r w ith ­
out reference to m a r k e d n e s s as well. H ow ever, m a r k e d n e s s p rin cip les can facilitate
rigo ro u s c o n c lu sio n s d e r iv e d from sy stem -level analysis, w h ic h m a k e them critical
to a c o n v in c in g and p o w e r fu l explanation o f verbal categories as c o m p o n e n ts o f a
system o f interrelationships.
M a rk e d n e s s th eory pro v id e s a useful heuristic for nego tiatin g th rou gh the
c o m p le x ity o f distinctive, a sy m m e tric a l, p arad igm atically given conceptual features
o f h u m a n language. How ever, as we h ave tried to d em o n strate here, it is clearly not
v e r y helpful to m erely a c k n o w le d g e a m a r k e d / u n m a r k e d o pp o sitio n al relationship.
Rather, it is essential to take the next step by q u a lify in g w h at the m a r k e d unit rep re­
sents. F u rth erm o re, m o s t o f the o p p o sitio n al relationships b etw ee n gra m m a tic a l
and lexical categories do not red u ce to sim ple binaries, but are m o r e c o m p le x . A n d
even w h en this next stage is com pleted, in which the m a rk in g s are given full b o d y
definitions, we see th rou gh o u r exp lo ratio n o f aspect in the Russian verb (as but one
exam ple) that there are still m a n y areas o f language, w h eth e r they be g ra m m a tic a lly
or lexically d eterm in ed , w h e re m a r k e d n e s s can be useful as o ne o f the c o m p o n e n t

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MARKEDNESS 227

levels o f analysis, or even an intermediate goal o f analysis, but will not be sufficient
to fully explicate the conceptual value and usage o f a category.

ACKNO W LEDGM ENT

The author thanks Duke Press for perm ission to use and m o d ify sections from the
1990 boo k M arkedness theory: The union o f asym m etry and semiosis in language.

NOTES

G en eral note on references to The Collected Papers o f Charles Sanders Peirce (vols. 1-8):
(5.234) = vol. 5, sec. 234.
1. I am using the phrase “ formal principle” in the sense given by A nd ersen (1991,
РР- 43 _ 44 ): M• . • m a r k e d n e s s is a f o r m a l p r in c ip l e a n d n o t an i m m e d i a t e l y g iv e n ,
q u a n tifia b le o b s e r v a b l e . . .
2. T r u b e t z k o y ’s d e fin it io n o f m arked ness is still p r e d o m in a n t in the w o r d s o f
s o m e J a k o b s o n ia n s (cf. S t a n k ie w ic z 1968, 1986). T r u b e t z k o y ’s three types o f p h o n e m ic
o p p o s it io n s arc: (a) P r iv a t iv e — T w o p h o n e m e s arc id en tic al e x c e p t that o n e c o n ta in s
a “ m a r k " w h ic h the o th e r lacks (e.g., /b/vs. /p/), (b) G r a d u a l — D iffe r e n t d eg re es o f
s o m e g ra d ie n t p r o p e r t y (e.g., /і/~ /e/~ /æ/), and (c) E q u ip o ll e n t — Each m e m b e r h a s a
m a r k that the o th e rs lack (e.g., /p/~ /t/~ /k/) (S a m p s o n , 198 0, p. 10). A n d e r s e n (1991,
p. 15) notes H j e l m s l e v ’s d i s c o v e r y o f m a r k e d n e s s -r e la t e d p rin c ip le s as e a r l y as 1815 in
G. M . Roth.
3. For Peirce, all sign types are triadic by definition and consist o f three parts called
sign, object, and interprétant. The signs resulting from sub-relationships between the parts
o f the sign result in a c om plex series o f signs. The most popular sign types used in linguis­
tic research are the triadic signs resulting from the sign-object relationship: icon, index,
symbol. A n icon is “a sign w hich stands for its object because o f som e similarity to that
object” (Fitzgerald, 1966, p. 55 [italics mine]). Furthermore, “ the o n ly w a y o f directly
com m un icating an idea is by means o f an icon; and e ve ry indirect m ethod o f c o m m u n ic a t­
ing an idea must depend for its establishment upon the use o f an icon . . . ” (Peirce 2.278).
Therefore, in language all forms o f signified-signifier relationships, insofar as they convey
ideas and make reference, must be iconic. The degree o f iconicity inherent in a given
signified-signifier relationship depends on the relative hierarchy, since icons d o not occur
alone and m a y only o ccu r in combination with other types o f signs, nam ely symbols and
indices (Fitzgerald, 1966, p. 55). E x am p les o f iconicity in language include the following: (1)
plural versus singular nominal forms, where the plural, m ean in g “ more than one,” in many
instances has an additional affix (cf. English table/tables)-, (2) positive, comparative, and
superlative adjectives that show an increase in the number o f phonemes in the affix (cf.
English big/bigger/biggest). (For more examples o f iconicity, see Jakobson, 1971, pp.
351-359 ) h is, however, the interprétant o f the sign com plex that is the key to achieving the
meaning o f a sign (Peirce 4.132, 4.127, 2.228).

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228 PERSPECTIVES

H ow is “similarity” between the sign and its object determined? A ccord ing to Peirce,
this similarity is not created by the interpreter but, rather, is a given within the ground o f
the relation. In other words, the interpreter does not establish or create the similarity— he
merely uses it (Fitzgerald, 1966, pp. 4 6-48 ). A n iconic relationship unused remains a
merely potential iconic sign, but nonetheless iconic it remains.
Ground is an ambiguous and controversial term in Peircean semiotics. T. L. Short
(1986a, pp. 1 0 6 - 1 0 8 ; 1986b, p. 99ff.) has explained in great detail the shift in Peirces usage
o f the term before and after 1867, and suggests that the term has been overused in scholar­
ship about Peirce and should be avoided. However, the term is quite ubiquitous in the
literature (i.e., Eco 1979, pp. 1 8 1 - 1 9 1) , and is often central in definitions o f the sign-object
relationship. For more on this issue, see A nd rew s (1994, pp. 1 1 - 1 3 ; 2003, p. 166, n. 22).
4. For a thorough discussion o f the different linguistic theoretical approaches and
their application of markedness, see A n d re w s (1990, pp. 13-25).
5. In Jakobsons works on the Russian case system he derives three features based on
general unified meanings to generate the Russian cases. The Russian case system consists o f
six so-called “full” cases and two “accessory” cases. Jakobson names his three features
directionality (направленность), m arginality (периферейность), and quantification
(объем н ость) and sets up the case markings as follows (in Figure 7.i).
Nom inative Case = U n m arked (0)
Accusative Case = Directionality
Instrumental Case = Marginality
Dative Case = Directionality and M arginality
Genitive Case (-u) = Quantification
Genitive Case (-a) = Directionality and Quantification
Locative Case (-u) = M arginality and Quantification
Locative Case (-e) = Directionality and M arginality and Quantification
Jakobson defines directionality as “the statement o f the existence o f directness” (1936,
p. 67); thus, the accusative case indicates the goal o f the verbal process. Marginality defines
a phen om en on o f “ peripheral status,” that is, a background phen o m en on (p. 82). Hence,
the instrumental case represents an object that is replaceable in, as well as non-central to,
the content o f the utterance. (Quantification indicates that the referent’s involvement in the
content o f the utterance is limited (Jakobson, 1936, p. 72); thus, the genitive case in -u
serves as an example o f how the notion o f limitation b ecom es an expression o f pure
quantity. The markings for the Russian case system listed above can be represented by a
cube as seen in Figure 7.2.
Van S c h oo n eveld s w o rk on the Russian prepositional system and his analysis o f the
lexical m ean in g o f the Russian verb took Jakobsons initial attempt to define m orphological
features a step further. He discovered the existence o f six conceptual features, hierarchically

G en -u
Gen-a
(+Dir,+Quant)

Loc-e
(+ M arg, (+ D ir,+M arg,+Q u an t)
+Quant)
Instr. D ative
(-t-Marg) (+D ir,+M arg)

Figure 7.i.

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ordered, that are capable o f defining the invariant properties found in both grammatical
and lexical categories (1978a,b): plurality, dimensionality, distinctness, extension (directional­
ity in Jakobson), restrictedness (marginality in Jakobson), objectiveness (quantification in
Jakobson). Three o f van S c h oon eveld s features coincide with the three features identified
b y Jakobson in his analysis o f the Russian case system, but there are som e significant
differences: (1) they are defined by paradigmatic information only; (2) all reference to
extra-linguistic reality has been removed; (3) the features are defined in terms o f a hierar­
chy. The hierarchical relationship form ed by van S c h oo n eveld s six conceptual features can
be represented by the following diagram (see Figure 7-ii).
T w o points are essential in su m m in g up the morphological/conceptual features found
in van Schooneveld as inspired by Jakobson. First, each conceptual feature defines a “range
o f reference,” that is, the range o f identifying a m odifier (as referent) (van Schooneveld,
1987, p. 135). Each feature in succession contains information o f the preceding feature
(hence, the inclusive definition), and, thus, the definition o f each later feature in the
hierarchy is dependent on the previous one. A similar phen om en on is seen in Peirces
definition o f the categories o f firstness, secondness, and thirdness, where the definitions o f
secondness and thirdness are impossible without firstness (Peirce 1.302, 1.358,1.365. 1.372,1.
5 3 0 ,1.5 3 1,1.5 3 2 ; Savan, 1976, pp. 6-9).
Other extensions o f m arkedness theory can be found in m y w o rk (A nd rew s, 1985,
i9S6a/b, 1987,1989, i99oa/b, 1 9 9 4 , 1996a, 1996b) and the w ork o f Battistella (1996). For a
variety o f perspectives on Jakobson’s analysis o f the Russian case system, see C h van y
(1984), Worth (1984), and van Schooneveld (1986). See van Schooneveld (1978b, 1982, 1983,
1986) for an in-depth presentation on his adaptation o f Jakobson s morphological features.
For a thorough presentation o f all o f van S c h oo n eve ld s features, see van Schooneveld
(1987) and A n d re w s (1990, pp. 21-25).
6. A nd ersen (1989, pp. 2 7 -4 3 ) gives a thorough critique o f the application o f
m arkedness in Lyons and Greenberg. He specifically points out the lack o f “ hierarchical
relations” in the three levels given in Lyons and G re e n b erg s focus on textual frequency as
problematic for the “ hypothetico-deductivc” definition o f m arkedness found in European
structuralism.
7. In order to fully understand the Peircean interpretant, one must revisit the role o f
the Peircean object o f the sign, which is defined not as a thing, but as a phase o f the sign.

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Peirce distinguishes two fundamental types o f objects: (1) immediate — “ the o b je c t a s the
Sign itself represents it” and (2) dynam ic — “ the reality which by som e means contrives to
determine the Sign to its Representation” (4.536). 11)us, the immediate object is given
within the sign (not denoted by it), and the dynamic object is external to the sign, a part o f
reality itself (Fitzgerald, 1966, p. 43). M ore specifically, Savan (1980, pp. 256 -2 6 0 ) d e m o n ­
strates ho w the dynamic object is realized through the speakers/users o f a language (i.e., the
speakers are the d y n a m ic objects) and the forms perceived are immediate objects. I believe
this to be one o f the most powerful aspects o f Peircean sem iotics— not only is the linguistic
system defined by signs, but the users (speakers/hearers) are also an integral part o f the
sign system and not an artificial addition. Peirce provides the metalanguage that allows
linguistics to put the user back into language.
These two types o f object signs in Peircean theory arc essential in order to establish
tangible relationships between the parts o f the functioning sign. The dyn am ic object is, in
fact, a set o f interpretantSy while the immediate object is a subset or sam pling o f the
d yn am ic object. A nd it is precisely the sign-dynam ic object relationship that m ay be
c h a r a c t e r iz e d as iconic, indexical, or symbolic. Through this process, the hum an sign user
becom es a d yn am ic object and is centrally involved (and placed) in the en cod in g process.
For a more detailed discussion o f how the immediate and d yn am ic objects interact with
interprétants in linguistic analysis, sec A n d re w s (1994, pp. 11-28).
8. Jakobson was him self briefly tempted to associate the statistically more frequent form
with the unmarked, as in his 1936 article on case. In particular, Jakobson argued that the
Russian locative 2 (ending in -u) and the genitive 2 (ending in -u), were the marked correlates
o f the locative 1-locative 2/genitive 1—genitive 2 oppositions, as locative 2 and genitive 2 are
very restricted in their distribution. However, Jakobson later reanalyzed these case forms in
his 1958 “Morfologiceskic nabljudenija nad slavjanskim skloneniem” and reversed the
markings based on semantic criteria, n o to n statistical and distributional frequency. Some
scholars (cf. Worth, 1984) feel that Jakobson was right the first time and that the locative/
genitive 2 are indeed the marked case forms o f the opposition, but it should be noted,
regardless o f the correct interpretation here, that Jakobson originally posited locativc/genitivc
2 as marked primarily because o f their restricted distribution and not because o f a restricting
property o f meaning. A s this debate suggests, most o f the “myths” about markedness are, in
fact, som ehow related to this fundamental issue o f statistical/distribution frequency.
9. All o f these approaches share a basic understanding o f neutralization as a systematic
nonoccurrence o f a (distinctive) feature in particular syntagmatic environments/positions.
But the situation becomes a bit less clear when another term, syncretism, appears in similar
contexts. In general, syncretism or syncretization is the phenomenon whereby “distinctions
existing in the unmarked m em ber are often neutralized in the marked categories” (Green­
berg, 1966, p. 27). The co m m o n Russian example concerns gender types expressed in singular
declensions that are lost in plural declensions. Greenberg calls syncretization a “characteris­
tic” o f the marked/unmarked distinction, but he also uses the term “neutralized” in his
definition o f syncretism, which only adds to the confusion between the two concepts.
Moreover, (ireenberg lists yet another characteristic o f markedness called defectivation
(Hjelmslevs term), which he claims can be considered in some cases a form o f syncretism (cf.
inflectional categories in Greenberg, 1966, p. 29). Clearly, Greenberg uses syncretism as a
term applicable to morphology, whereas neutralization is a phenomenon restricted to
phonology. Nonetheless, their joint usage here implies a type o f parallelism having profound
implications for their applicability in morphology.
For further discussion o f neutralization, sec A nd ersen (1989, pp. 3 1 - 3 2 ) and Shapiro
(1983, pp. 82, 202).
MARKEDNESS 231

10. Other interesting concepts for consideration include markedness assimilation

(where marked forms correlate with marked contexts and unm arked correlate with
unmarked contexts) (Andersen 19 6 9 ,19 72 ; 1983) and markedness complementarity (“o p p o ­
sitely m arked stems and desinences attract, identically marked stems and desinences
repel” ) as given in Shapiro (1983, p. 146; also 1972,1974).
11. For a detailed discussion o f m arkedness reversals, see A n d re w s (1990, pp. 14 7 -16 2 ).
12. The difference between van S c h oo n eveld s four types o f deixis (1983,1987), briefly
stated are (from least to m ost marked): (1) perceptional— presupposition o f a generalized
observer that is not restricted to the speech event, but to the narrated event; (2) transmis-
sional— the observer is necessarily the speaker and addressee(s), similar to the traditional
usage o f the term; (3) singulative perceptional— one, unique reference to either the speech
or narrated events involving speaker, addressee(s) and potentially a specified general
observer; (4) singulative transmissional—exists only at the category level to distinguish
word formation, agreement, part o f speech, lexical and grammatical meaning.
These four deictic types utilize the distinction between narrated event (any event in
exogenous reality, potentially involving any observer (including the speaker and a d ­
dressee]) and speech event (the act o f emitting sound waves, all observers w ho can perceive
the utterance, and the identification o f the context in which the utterance occurs).
13. Ja k o b s o n authored another article around the time o f the shifters, “ Linguistics
and Poetics" (1958, published i960). A readin g o f these two im p ortan t articles together
provides n e w insight not o nly into the speech act itself, but also into the w a y in which
the speech event evolves into a multifaceted, multileveled communication act o f at least
6 features (called factors and functions by Jakobson). One could argue that these six
factors and their c o r r e s p o n d in g six fu n c tio n s are types o f m ark ed n e ss features. H o w ­
ever, in this instance, we find them contextualizcd into a d y n a m ic h ierarch y that can
change not o n ly from c o m m u n ic a tio n act to c o m m u n ic a tio n act, but can dram atically
shift within one and the sam e instantiation, d e p e n d in g on the sp eakers and hearers
involved in the act itself.
14. For applications o f m arkedness to Slavic and Semitic languages, see Fradkin
(1985).
15. The acquisition o f native-like intuitions o f Russian verbal aspect is clearly d e m o n ­
strated in m any bilingual and second language speakers o f Russian with high levels o f
proficiency. One o f the obstacles to acquisition o f aspectual categories in L2 learners is the
flawed presentations o f aspect found in m any textbooks. 'I he metalingual function is key to
all language acquisition, w h eth e r it be first o r second. This point was brilliantly made by
Jakobson in his 1958 article, “ Linguistics and Poetics,” where he gives an in-depth presenta­
tion on his com m unication act model. I f we base o u r linguistic analyses on authentic,
representative language data, then we are able to m ake more profound statements about
the categories under analysis. In the case o f verbal aspect, Jakobson and M aslov give
important definitions o f the category. However, these definitions alone arc not sufficient to
provide a fully developed understanding o f the category. I would suggest the inclusion o f
som e or all o f the following characterizations o f Russian verbal aspect m ay provide
appropriate and measurable outcomes in the actual usage o f aspect (sec A n d re w s , 2001, pp.
9 1 - 9 4 , tor a full listing):
a. Outside o f the present tense, the speaker controls the choice o f aspect. This includes
sp eakers point o f v ie w and semantic intention. Speakers are parts o f cultural and linguistic
com m unities o f practice, which means that L2 speakers o f c on tem p orary standard Russian
(C SR ) will have to become fluent in the normative aspectual behaviors o f competent Li
speakers o f CSR.

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232 PERSPECTIVES

b. In the past tense, the result o f the action continues to be relevant up to the moment o f
speaking (e.g., Этот фильм мне понравился, Этот фильм мне нравился в детстве).
c. The imperfective m ay be the unm arked pair o f the perfective/imperfective relation­
ship, but it has v e r y concrete and regularized manifestations in C S R , including (1) focus on
the process by n am ing the action— Я читала «Мы» Замятина давным давно, (г)
questions in the past tense form with no concrete expectation/prior knowledge concerning
the answ er— Ты когда-нибудь ездил в Авст ралию? - Да, ездил/Нет, не ездил. (3)
negative imperfectives are appropriate in denial and absence o f intention, even when they
do not correspond to the aspect given in the original question— Кто взял мою книгу? Ты
взял ее? - Нет, я не брал.
d. Utterances do not o ccu r in a vacuum . Discourse often occurs in the form o f
questions and answers. W h e n answering a question, it is usually pragmatically appropriate
to maintain the aspect given in the question , unless the answer involves a strong negation o f
the question (see c.3 above).
For a variety o f perspectives on Russian and Slavic aspect, see Forsyth (1970), Lyons
(i977)>Thelin (1990).
16. K uzn e tso vs 1998 dictionary, which is very good, gives the form обм ен и ть as
colloquial for the older, out-of-date m eaning as well as the newer version “ to cheat
som eone by exchange” (Svcdova 2007, p. 540). In fact, we understand that dictionaries
often b o rro w from earlier standards, especially in countries where these dictionaries arc
produced under the auspices o f the A ca d e m y o f Sciences, which is the case for both
Kuznetsov and Svcdova.
With regard to the o/ob prefixes in Russian, it is important to note that they are not
semantically identical, and there exists a reasonably substantial group o f m inim al pairs
with significant semantic differences (cf. осудить/обсудмть, о ж и т ь / о б ж и т ь , оговорить/
обго во ри ть, очистить/обчистить, etc.). For discussion o f 0/06 with examples, see
A n d re w s (1984, pp. 4 7 7 -4 9 2 ; 2009, pp. 2 5 -3 0 ) and A n d re w s, A veryan ova, and Pyadusova
(20 0 1, pp. 65-75).
17. It is useful to consider other examples o f aspectual groupings that d o not reduce to
simple pairs. W hile the verbs are found in co ntem porary dictionaries, the examples given
here are primarily from c o ntem p orary databases and Internet sources.

-даривать/-дарять/-дарить: prefix o-

1. Э к с к л ю з и в н ы й ди стр и б ью тор безупречной ф ото техн и к и будет о даривать

покупателей д у ш е в н ы м и подарками.
2. Даритель вправе отм ен и ть дарение, если одар яем ы й со вер ш и л п о к у ш е н и е на
его ж изнь. (From the National C o r p u s o f Russian Language, В ечерн яя М о с к в а 1998)
3. Нет у него таланта: Бог не одарил.

-пыливать/-пылять/-пылить: prefix о-

1. Как правильно о п р ы с к и в а т ь и о п ы л и в а т ь сад пестицидами? (abcgardener.ru,

21.07.09)
2. 11е о б х о д и м о о п ы л я т ь виноградн ики от в с е в о з м о ж н ы х вредителей.
3. Не забудь о п ы л и т ь о в о щ и в начале цветения.

-11оражнивать/-11орожнять/-11орожнить: prefix о-

1. Как о п о р о ж н и т ь ки ш ечник? (m edkrug.ru, 20.07.09)

Material com direitos autorais

MARKEDNESS 233

2. Как о п о р о ж н я т ь накопитель с т о ч н ы х вод, если к н е м у нет подъезда?

(BamfloM.RU, 17.02.08)
3. На этом ос н о в ан и и м о ж н о действительно о п о р а ж н и в а т ь ж ел уд ок по
желанию, (fiziolivc.ru)

In terms o f prcfixation with these verbal stems, the following arc exam ples o f
prefixes that o ccu r with all three stems:

(a) -веш и вать/-веш ать/-веси ть: на-, за-, об-, с-, пере-, раз
(b ) -х ваты вать/-хватать/-хвати ть: за-, об-, пере-, от-
(c) -лам ы вать/-лом ать/-лом ить: об-, про-

Note that the only prefix that occurs with each ol these verbal stems is 06-. In cases
where only one prefix is available for the three-way opposition, we find 0-. In both sets o f
examples, there are no points o f contrast between o-and 06-.
Clearly, these stems can form with a much larger range o f prefixes if we consider paired
forms (cf. -хватывать/-хватить = на-, за-, под-, по-, о-, у-, с-, вы-, раз-, при-, про-).
With verbal stems that have three basic stems to choose from, but formation generally
occurs with on ly two o f the available stems, consider the following:

-учивать/-учить -учать/-учить
за-, под-, перс-, вы-, от-, до-, про-, раз- по-, об-, из-, при-
-менивать/-менять -менять/-менить
на-, вы-, про-, раз-, об-* в-, за-, с-, пере-, от-, из-, при-, под-*

*под- and об- m a y form with all three, but in fact the norm in C S R is o n ly two forms:
подм ен ять(ся)/по дм ен и ть(ся) and обменивать(ся)/обменять(ся)).

REFERENCES

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 CHAPTER 8

ADVERBIALS

M O NIKA RATH ERT

T h i s chapter first d escrib es the different types o f tem poral adverbials (section 1),
then interactions o f adverbials and tense (section 2). Tense and adverbials in s u b o r ­
dinate clauses co n c lu d e the chapter (section 3).

1. T y p e s of Tem poral A d ver bials

From a m orphosyntactic view, there are six different types o f temporal adverbials:

(1) a. before X m as
b. 3 weeks ago
(2) every year, last year
(3) before he left
(4) now, then
(5) earlier, later

The first type is an adverbial com posed o f an N P and an adposition. In (1a) the
adposition is a preposition that is h o m o n y m o u s to a spatial preposition. In (lb) the
adposition is a postposition. The second type o f temporal adverbials is an N P fu n c ­
tioning as an adverbial, cf. (2). The third type is sentential, a temporal adverbial
clause, cf. (3); it will be dealt with in detail in section 3. The fourth and fifth type are
adverbials based on adverbs and adjectives respectively, cf. (4) and (5).
This morphosyntactic classification is not coextensive, o f course, with a semantic
classification. We will use a fourfold semantic classification in this article (cf. Rathert,
2004, p. 61) which follows more or less the traditional ones (except for E xtended-N ow
adverbials, which is a novel category), cf. Smith (1981, p. 218); Ileidolph, Flämig, and

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238 PERSPECTIVES

Motsch (1984, p. 2iiff.); Fabricius-ITansen (1986, p. 171!?.); Swart (1991); Ehrich (1992a,
p. 125); Klein (1992a, p. lisff.); Helbig and Buscha (1993, p. 311); and m any others:

(6) positional advcrbials

a. anaphoric adverbials: three weeks ago, afterward
b. dcictic advcrbials: yesterday, tomorrow
c. clock-calendar adverbials: 0/1 May 1, 2999
(7) quantifkational advcrbials: once, twice, often, seldom, sometimes
(8) adverbials o f duration: until, since, in, for
(9) Extendcd-Now advcrbials: ever since

Positional adverbials specify a point or interval o f time at which som ething took
place 01* at which som ething was the case. Positional adverbials m ay be clock-calendar
nam es like on M ay 1, 1999 , or indexicals. The indexicals m ay be either deictic or
anaphoric expressions; both are context dependent and have to be interpreted in
relation to the utterance time (deictic adverbials, e.g., yesterday) or to som e time
previously mentioned in the context (anaphoric adverbials, e.g., three weeks ago). As
for the clock-calendar adverbials, note that they are not precise in m an y cases.
Often, they only nam e a part o f the conventional time system, cf. in the summer , on
July 1. Fabricius-Hansen (1986, p. i7iff.) calls these imprecise adverbials betrachtzeit-
einschrankend (“ limiting the reference time” ), Kamp and Schiehlen (1998) call them
E C C T D s , elliptical canonical calendar time designators.
To give an e x a m p le o f the intricacies already in v o lved in the se m a n tic analysis
o f sim ple positional adverbials, co n sid e r the m e a n in g o f yesterday or tomorrow. It is
plausible to a s s u m e that these adverbials denote the w h o le d ay and not an interval
o f the respective day, cf. Rathert (2004). Notice that one could c o m e up with both
d en otation s in principle:

(10) Gestern hat er gehustet

yesterday has he coughed
“ Yesterday, he c o ughed ”
(11) Gestern hat es geregnet
yesterday has it rained
“Yesterday, it rained."

The co u g h in g could be a singular event in yesterday, as the raining could just last
for s o m e h ou rs o f yesterday. In these cases, on e could im agine that yesterday
denotes som e time in yesterday. Let us call these readings existential readings
(e-readings). But im agine the person in (10) is ill and really cough s constantly the
w h o le day over, or im agine the day at issue in (11) is a day with rain from o a.m. to
12 p .m .— then yesterday could denote the w h o le day. Let us call these readings
universal readings (u-readings). M ay b e yesterday is am b igu ou s between these two
readings. But one w ould not want such a sim ple adverbial to sh o w lexical a m b i­
guity i f m ore elegant solutions were available. A n d indeed, such a solution is
available. Note that you can insert quantificational a dverbs to m ake the e-readings
perfectly clear:

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ADVERBIALS 239

(12) Gestern hat er oft/einmal gehustet

yesterday has he often/once coughed
“ Yesterday, he coughed often/once.’'
(13) Gestern hat es oft/einmal geregnet
yesterday has it often/once rained
“Yesterday, it rained often/once.”

A ss u m in g a covert existential quantifier like and assum ing that yesterday and 3S
interact delivers the seem ing am biguity o f yesterday in the sentences in (10) and (11).
We get u-readings if 3 C has scope over yesterday , and w e get e-readings i f they scope
the other way round.
To make this m ore explicit, we need to state the formal fram ework:

(14) The extensional language EL

• As for the types o f EL, i and t are types. If a and b are types, then <a,b> is also a type.
• As for the lexicon o f EL, it contains the constants with their types, and it contains an
endless amount o f variables o f all types.
• As for the syntax o f EL, constants and variables arc well formed (take the respective
type from the lexicon). If a is a well-formed expression o f type <a,b>, and ft is a well-
formed expression o f typo a, then [a/S] is a well-formed expression o f type b. If x is
a variable o f type a, and a is a well-formed expression o f type b, then [Axa] is a well-
formed expression o f <a,b>.
• As for the semantics o f EL, there are the following denotations: D = T (times), D t= { o ;i}
(truth values) and D < a ,b > = D hl\. (functions with arguments in and values in D b).
A model M for EL is given through <{o;i}, <T, c , c , =, z>c, <» s*, dur>, F>. The
elements o f T are intervals for which the following relations are defined: the subset-
relations “c " and “c , ” the identity-relation “ =,” the left-abutting-relations “ z x z ” and
“ d c ” (the second one means abutting plus inclusion o f the right border), and the
relation “ < “ (t<t‘ iff every element o f t is before every element o f t’). s* is the point o f
speech time; “d ur’' is a function that delivers a length (a duration, therefore “dur” ) for
each time. F is the interpretation-function for constants. F is subject to the following
condition: i f a is o f type a, then F(a) is in D^.

Only times (i) and truth values (t) are semantic types, and only lambda-abstraction
and functional application are semantic operations. The relation “3 c ” is needed for
the analysis o f the G e r m a n Perfect as an Extended Now. It just says that the Perfect-
interval abuts speech time and stretches backwards into the past. The similar-look-
ing relation “d c ” will be used for the English Perfect; it says that the Perfect-interval
abuts and includes (therefore the underlining in “z>c” ) Reference time and stretches
backwards into the past.
N o w we still need to define the denotations:

(15) Definition: Denotation o f an expression a in M under the variable-assignment g

Be a any expression o f type a.
1. If a is a constant, then ||a||M* = F(a).
2. If a is a variable, then ||a||M,g = g(a).
3. If a is o f the form (/?(y)] (with o f type <b,a> and y o f type b), then
llallMMlj8llM*(llyllM*)

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240 PERSPECTIVES

4. As for abstraction, the following holds: IIAx.all is the function f such that for any a
o f the x-type f(a) = ||a||M’*|x/a|.

We are now almost ready to do the calculation o f the tree below. What is still
m issing are the m e a n in g rules and types for VP, 3 ^, Perf, and Pres:

(16) F(Pres)(P)=i iff 3 t e D i [t=s* & P(t)]. Type: <<i,t>,t>

F(Perf)(P)(t)=i iff 3 t'eD. [t'DCt & P(t')]. Type: « ^ > , < 1 , 1 »
F ( 3 _)(P)(t)=i ifF 3 t'eD , [ t 'c t & P(t')]. Type: « i , t > , < i , t > >
F (V P )(t)= i iff V P is true at time t. Type: <i,t>

To calculate the following trees, one only needs the m eaning rule for yesterday. It
denotes a time and thus is o f type i. But notice that we w ould run into type-mismatch
if we inserted yesterday as a plain time into the tree:
The V P * must be o f the type <i,t> to function as the argum ent o f 3 . But the
problem is that it cannot be o f that type. If the V P below V P * would take yesterday
as its argument, we would end up with type t for V P*. Anyway, the lower V P should
not take yesterday as its argument, but yesterday should take the lower V P as its ar­
gument. Thus yyesterday must be o f another type. If yesterday is actually a c o m b in a ­
tion o f a covert preposition and the time yesterday proper, the type would be
<<i,t>,<i,t>>, cf. Figure 8.2:
The covert 0 has the same type as other temporal prepositions; moreover, gestern
often comes with a preposition (in der Nacht a u f gestern “during the night before yes­
terday,” von gestern “o f yesterday” ). These (17,18) are the meaning-rules needed:

(17) F(gestern) = the day before the day containing s *.

Type: i. As an abbreviation writing convention Y E S T will used.
F( 0 )(z)(P)(t)=i iff z c t & P(z). Type: < i>« i , t > , < i , t » >
(18) 3 teD (t=s* & 3 t 'e D i [t'zxzt & 3 t " e D [ t " e t ' & Y E S T c t" & VP is true at YEST]])

universal reading:

VP
< i,t>
I I
gestern es geregnet

Figure 8.1.

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A D V E R B I ALS 241

universal reading:
TP
I

I
luit

«»,/>,</,f» < i,t>

PP VP
« i tt > ,< i,t» < i,t>
I
es geregnet
P NP
< i,« i,t > ,< i,t > » i
I I
0 gestern

F ig u r e 8.2

YESTERDAY

t=s*

O
t'DQ
F ig u r e 8.3.

Example (18) is the translation o f the last tree above, Figure 8.2 for the universal
reading; cf. also Figure 8.3.
Figure 8.4 is the tree for the e-reading. C o m p a r e the translation (19) and the
illustration (Figure 8.5) below:

(19) 3 teD. [t=s* & 3 t'eD. [t 'D C t & Y E S T c t ' & 3 t"eD. [t " c Y E S T & V P is tru e at t"] ] ]

A last point about positional yesterday!gestem: their usages differ in English and G e r ­
man. This is known as the “ Present Perfect Puzzle,” a coinage o f Klein (1992b, p. 525):

In Chris has left York, it is clear that the event in question, C h ris’s leaving York,
has occurred in the past, for exam ple yesterday at ten. W h y is it impossible, then,
to make this event time more explicit by such an adverbial, as in *Yesterday at ten,
Chris has left York?

It is a peculiarity o f English that the Perfect is incompatible with som e (not all,
though) adverbs denoting the past. A ccording to M c C o a r d (1978, p. i34ff.), Koziol

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242 PERSPECTIVES

existential reading:
TP
t

Pres

I
hat

PP
« i,t > ,< i,t »

P NP
< i,« i,t > ,< i,t » > i < < i,t> ,< i,t> > < ‘>t>
I I l
0 gestern es geregnet

F ig u re 8.4.

t ’CYEST

YES']' t=s*

F igure 8.5.

(1958) was the first to give a systematic overview about past-denoting adverbs. Som e
o f these adverbs are compatible only with the Preterite, som e only with the Perfect,
and a third group goes with both tenses. M c C o a r d (1978, p. 135) developed the over­
view further, arriving at Table 8.1.
While * Yesterday at ten , Chris has left York is impossible, Recently, Chris has left
York is fine— although both yesterday and recently denote a time in the past. The
table above calls for an explanation. A solution is given in Rathert (2004, p. 137) in
terms o f features. Let us assum e two binary features for adverbs, nam ely [+/-past]
and [+/-definite]. “ Past” has the value “ + ” if and only if the adverb in question refers
to som e time prior to S; it has the value otherwise. “ Definite” has the value “ + ” if
and only if the adverb in question refers to som e definite position relative to S on the
time axis; it has the value w- ” otherwise.
The adverbs in the first co lu m n m o stly have the features [+past, +definite].
This is v e ry clear in cases like yesterday or in 1900. Both locate an interval before
S (this m a k e s them [+ p a st]). A n d both refer to a definite time (this m a k e s them
[-»-definite])— it is the day before the day co n tain in g the speech tim e in yesterday ,
it is the year 1 9 0 0 in in 1900. I f the features o f the adverb are [+past, +definite],
o n ly the Preterite is possible v ia so m e syntactic fea tu re -c h e c k in g m e c h a n ism .

Szerzoi jogi vedelem alatt alio anyag

ADVERBIALS 243

Table 8.1.

Occur with the Preterite but Occur with both the Preterite Occur with the Perfect but not
not with the Perfect and the Perfect with the Preterite

long ago long since at present

five years ago in the past up till now
once (= formerly) once (= one time) so far
yesterday today as yet
the other dav4
in m y life not yet
those days for three years during these five years
last night recently past
in 1900 just now herewith
at 3:00 often lately
after the war always since the war
no longer never before now
alreadv4

before

The adverbs in the third colum n mostly have the features [-past, -definite], cf.
at present or up till now. Both locate an interval overlapping with S (this makes them
[-past]). A n d both refer to an indefinite time (this makes them [-definite])— it is
unclear how big the extension o f at present or up till now is. If the features o f the
adverb are [-past, -definite], only the Perfect is possible via some syntactic feature-
checking mechanism .
A n d if the features are mixed, both Perfect and Preterite are possible. 'Ihis is the
column in the middle. Thus, the Perfect m ay be combined with adverbs denoting
the past (having the feature [+past]), but these past-denoting adverbs must be in­
definite (they must bear the feature [-definite]). Here are som e natural examples
from the web. The relevant sentences are in italics:

(20) A s a Home Stay Family, you will have a pair o f Japanese students stay with you for
an extended weekend to share life in a typical A m erican household. . . . The Japanese
students will arrive at the end o f July or the beginning o f August. They will stay with
us for five nights. In the past , they have arrived on a 'Ihursday and have left on
a Tuesday.
(21) Kirillos Veniadis was born in Greece in 1 9 3 6 . . . . In 1961 he was appointed Professor
o f Art in the Discipline o f Painting.. . . From 1959 to 1972 Veniadis was working with
and under the guidance o f the renowned Artist and teacher Spiros Vassiliou. Kyrillos
Veniadis has died on a rainy Saturday.

In the two examples above, it is pretty clear that w e refer to past events, i.e., that “on
a Thursday,” “on a Tuesday,” and ‘ on a rainy Saturday” carry the feature [+past]. But
they are indefinite, as the exact location o f these days in the past is not given. Thus,
“on a Thursday,” “on a Tuesday,” and “on a rainy Saturday” carry also the feature
[-definite]. A n d this allows the Perfect (although the Preterite would also be
possible).
Thus, simple positional adverbials are not as simple as it might seem. Let us
come back to the other items in the semantic classification o f adverbials above.

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244 PERSPECTIVES

Quantificational adverbials like twice or often in above differ from positional

adverbials in that they do not introduce a single time but act as bound variables that
can range over situations. Swart (1991, p. 6) established the following subdivision
a m on g quantificational adverbials ( Q A D V s for short): iterative, frequentive, ge­
neric. First, iterative Q A D V s like once, twice, several times. Iterative Q A D V s answer
questions like “ H ow often have you been to the cinem a last m o n th ?” Thus, iterative
Q A D V s count events that occur in a given time fram e like last month. If the posi­
tional adverbial serving as a time frame is left out, it is nevertheless presupposed, cf.
Swart (1991, p. 23tf.):

(22) A: How often have you been in this museum?

B: Already twice. (Presupposed: last month /this year, whatever appropriate)

The second type o f Q A D V s , frequentive Q A D V s , are adverbials like often, always,

sometimes, never, seldom. C on sider the following conversation:

(23) A: Do you go to the cinema?

B: Yes, quite often.

T h u s, if the n o r m a l f r e q u e n c y w o u ld be one visit per m o n th , B s fr e q u e n c y

w o u ld be higher, e.g. two or three visits per m o n th . Seldom is the o p p o site o f
often , it m ea n s a fr e q u e n c y low er than the n o r m . Som etim es, in G e r m a n m a n ­
chm al, is d ifferent from seldom or often; c o n t r a r y to w h a t de Sw art says. Som e­
times involves another p a ra m e te r that qualifies the visits to the c in e m a
som ehow:

(24) Ich gehe oft ins Kin, *und zwar wenn ein toller Film kommt /*aber nur wenn ein Film
mit f. Foster kommt.
“ I often go to the cinema, *and this is when there is an exciting movie /*but only if
theres a movie with J. Foster in it.”
(25) Ich gehe selten ins Kin, *Tind zwar wenn ein toller Film kommt /*aber nur wenn ein
Film mit J. Foster kommt.
“ I seldom go to the cinema, ’ and this is w hen there is an exciting movie /*but only if
there’s a movie with J. Foster in it.”
(26) Ich gehe manchmal ins Kin, und zwar wenn ein toller Film kommt /aber nur wenn
ein Film mit J.Foster kommt.
“ I sometimes go to the cinema, and this is when there is an exciting movie /but only if
there’s a movie with J. Foster in it.”

Here, seldom and often pattern alike, the continuations in (24) and (25) are u n g ra m ­
matical. Sometimes denotes a small relative frequency like seldom , but, in contrast to
seldom, som ething must form the restrictor o f the quantifier. In (26), the restrictor
is an exciting m ovie or a m ovie with Jodie Foster.
V la c h (1993, p. 251) distinguishes two subtypes o f frequentive Q A D V s : “fre­
quentative in the n a rro w sense” (e.g., each week) and “pattern.” As the term s u g ­
gests, “ pattern” is reserved for patterns o f events that lack an overt frequency, as
o ccu rrin g with adverbials like often. However, this distinction seems artificial, as
there is also a frequency presupposed in the case o f often, cf. (22) above. A pplying

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ADVERBIALS 245

the test sentences from above, there does not seem to be a big difference between
often and each week :

(27) Ich gche oft ins Kino, *und zwar wenn cin toller Film kommt /*abcr nur wenn cin Film
m itJ. Foster kommt.
“ I often go to the cinema, *and this is when there is an exciting movie /*but only if
there’s a movie with J. Foster in it.”
(28) Ich gche jede Wochc ins Kino, *und zwar wenn cin toller Film kommt /*aber nur wenn
cin Film mit J. Foster kommt
“ I go to the cinema each week, "and this is when there is an exciting movie /*but only if
there’s a movie with J. Foster in it.”

The third type o f Q A D V s de Swart postulates (but does not elaborate on in her
book) are the generic Q A D V s : norm ally , generally, usually , etc. These Q A D V s are
very similar to frequentive Q A D V s like alw ays :

(29) A: D o you go to the cinema?

B: Yes, usually when I feel sad. /Yes, always when I feel sad.

Thus, there is a causal relationship between sadness and a visit to the cinema, a kind
o f norm . I follow the norm in the case o f always without an exception, but in the
case o f usually just in m ost instances (there m ay be exceptions).
A dverbials o f duration like until, since > in, fo r in (8) above do not serve to deter­
m ine the position o f a time but rather its size, its extension on the time axis without
indicating its position on it. The sem antic literature has always suggested an inter­
relation between the Perfect and adverbials o f duration, there are universal/existen­
tial ambiguities in Perfect-sentences containing durative adverbs. M cC a w le y (1971,
p. 104) introduced the existential/universal-terminology:
The present perfect in English has the following uses:

(a) to indicate that a state o f affairs prevailed throughout so m e interval

stretching from the past into the present (Universal):
(i) I’ve know n M ax since 1960 .
(b) to indicate the existence o f past events (Existential):
(ii) I have read Principia Mathematica five times.
(c) to indicate that the direct effect o f a past event still continues (Stative):
(iii) I can’t com e to your party tonight— I’ve caught the flu.
(d) to report hot new s (Hot news):
(iv) M alcom X has just been assassinated.

Today, instead o f “stative” one often finds Perfect o f result, and instead o f “ hot new s”
Perfect o f recent past (cf. e.g., Iatridou, A nagnostopoulou, & Izvorski, 2001, p. 192).
However, it has been shown in Rathert (2004) that one need not assum e m ore than
the universal and the existential Perfect. The Perfect o f result and the Perfect o f recent
past are both special cases o f the existential Perfect; this is pretty clear in case o f the
Perfect o f result. As for the Perfect o f recent past, cf. M c C a w le y s M alcom X has ju st
been assassinated. The adverb ju st only positions the event v e ry near to S, but it is an

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246 PERSPECTIVES

existential Perfect. One should not establish a distinct Perfect-type for every adverb.
Imagine, e.g., a Perfect o f Very Rem ote Past , triggered by an adverb like “twenty years
ago” :

(30) Ich babe vor 20 Jahren in Rom jem anden gesehcn

I have before 20 years in Rome anyone seen
“ Twenty years ago, I saw som ebody in Rome.”

Let us exam ine the aforementioned ambiguities a little closer now. G e rm a n and
English Perfect sentences containing duratives are am biguous between a universal
and an existential reading. Actually, there are two different kinds o f ambiguities.
The first one is called “simple universal/existential-ambiguity” ; it is associated with
lan g u or in G e rm a n and with fo r in English. Cf. the follow ing sentence (31):

(31) John has been in Boston for two weeks.

This sentence is am biguous between the two weeks being som ew here in the past
(existential reading) and the two weeks being in the past but abutting speech time
(universal reading). Cf. the following illustrations (Figure 8.6), the first for the exis­
tential, the second for the universal reading (S is the speech time):
The second o f the aforem entioned universal/existential ambiguities associated
with durative adverbs is called “complex universal/existential-ambiguity.” It is asso­
ciated with bis ‘until’, seit ‘since’, until , and since. Cf. the following sentence:

(32) John has been in Boston since Tuesday

This sentence is am biguous between John being in Boston all the time (universal
reading) and him being there at least once (existential reading). Cf. the following
illustrations (Figure 8.7), the first for the universal, the second for the existential
reading:
Thus, the difference between the simple and the com plex u/e-ambiguity can be
stated as follows. In case o f the simple u/e-ambiguity, the duration o f the event is
specified by the durational p h ra se / o r two weeks on both readings. This ambiguity is
called “simple” because the duration o f the event does not change with the reading.
But in case o f the com plex u/e-ambiguity, the duration o f the event is specified
by the durational phrase since Tuesday only in case o f the u-reading. This ambiguity

2 w e e k s long S

be-in-Boston

be-in-Boston

F i g u r e 8.6.

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ADVERBIALS 247

Tuesday

.vmrt'-interval = be-in-Boston-interval
T ucsday

since -interval D be-in-Boston-interval

F ig u re 8.7.

is called “c om p lex” because for one reading (the existential reading), you have to cut
out a part o f the interval that is denoted by the durational phrase.
Tints, the two ambiguities differ, but in the literature, you find the heading “u n i­
versal- existential-ambiguity” for both. M ayb e it would have been an alternative to
call only the complex ambiguity a universal-existential-ambiguity and choose an­
other term for the am biguity associated with fo r and lang. In fact, Hitzeman (1997)
does so. She calls the universal reading o f the simple u/e-ambiguity “ p(=position)-
definite,” and the existential “p-indefinite.” This expresses precisely what is going on:
with the universal reading, the position o f the interval denoted by the durational
phrase is clear or “definite” — it abuts speech time. However, with the existential
reading, the position o f this interval is unclear or “ indefinite” — it is just som ew here
within the Perfect-interval. Originally, the p-(in)definite-term inology is from Klein
(1992a), as Hitzeman correctly notes. To adopt the p-(in)definite-term inology for
the simple u/e-ambiguity would have been an option. However, I decided not to do
so because the universal-existential-distinction is much m ore com m on in the
literature.
We will investigate the most important analyses o f the universal/existential a m ­
biguities in the next section, as this requires m ore form al background.
Let us close this overview o f the different types o f temporal adverbials with the
last type mentioned in (9) above: E x ten d ed -N o w adverbials, ever since in English,
schon im m er /schon oft in G e rm a n . Schipporeit (1971) treats schon oft often ever
since’ and schon im m er ‘ever since’ in a v ery descriptive w ay which nevertheless
captures all the decisive features these adverbs have. As for the m eaning effects o f
schon oft /schon im m er , she observes these “scan” the past:

It happens quite frequently that a speaker looks back from the m om en t o f

speaking into the past, scanning the time line point by point and then states that
som ething happened at no point (nic, noch nic = never), once at one point
(einmal, schon einm al or je, jem als = ever), frequently (oft, schon oft = often;
m anchm al, schon m an chm al = sometimes), or at all points (immer, schon im m er
= always).
However, it makes a difference whether the stretch o f time scanned by the
speaker reaches into the m om ent o f speaking, or whether he views it as having
co m e to an end before the m om ent o f speaking. I f the period scanned reaches
into the m om ent o f speaking, a G e r m a n speaker uses the adverbs noch nie, schon

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248 PERSPECTIVES

einmal, schon oft, schon m anchm al, and schon immer, and the native speaker o f
English must use the perfect. This is the reason w h y the question:
Hast du sie schon mal gefragt?
Have you ever asked her
cannot possibly be asked in this form if the person referred to is no longer alive.
The schon mal has exactly the same function as the English present perfect: Both
devices— the schon mal in G e rm a n and the present perfect in English— extend the
stretch o f time scanned by the speaker into the m om en t o f speaking. Conversely,
if one speaks o f G oethe, one can n ot possibly say: Goethe ist noch nie in Am erika
gewesen. One can o nly say: Goethe ist nie in Amerika gewesen. (Schipporeit, 1971,
p. i 33ff.)

A lth o u g h no sem antics is given , it is clear what happens from the exam ples: schon oft
tschon im m er “scan” the past, d en otin g m a n y (in the case o f schon oft) or nearly all
(in the case o f schon immer) points in an interval re a c h in g into R (“ the m o m e n t o f
sp e a k in g ” ). O n e m ight be tem pted to identify “ the m o m e n t o f s p e a k in g ” w ith S, but
this can n ot be true as we also have Pluperfect-sentences with schon o ft!schon immer.
S ch ippo reit claim s that Perfect and Pluperfect are the o n ly possible tenses with
schon oft tschon immer:

The v e ry nature o f what we call “scanning o f the past” explains that on ly two
tenses can be used: the perfect in conversation and the pluperfect in narration.
(Schipporeit, 1971, p. 134)

I f the Preterite o c c u r s w ith schon oft Ischon im m er , it is no se m an tic Preterite, but

only a m o r p h o lo g ic a l Preterite. This Preterite stand s for a Perfect or Pluperfect, in
lieu o f a Perfect o r Pluperfect:

It is, however, quite c o m m o n even in non-journalistic G e rm a n to em ploy the

imperfect [= the Preterite, M R ] in lieu o f the perfect tense in the following cases:
in sentences with modals, i.e., wollte instead o f hat wollen
in sentences with modal-like-constructions,e.g.,ersc/ne« zu kommen (hat
geschienen is impossible)
in sentences with to be, i.e., war instead o f ist gewesen
in sentences with to have, i.e., hatte instead o f hat gehabt
in sentences with to the passive voice, e.g., wurde geboren instead o f bin
geboren worden (Schipporeit, 1971, p. 102)

The interaction between E x t e n d e d - N o w adverbials and the tenses will be dealt with
in detail in the next section.

2. I n t e r a c t i o n s of A d ver bials an d T ense

Up to now, the Perfect has been presented as an Extended N o w in this chapter.

However, E x ten d ed -N o w theories o f the Perfect are only one option; besides them,
we have the influential group o f A nteriority theories, represented, e.g., by Ballweg
(1988), Ehrich (1992b), Thieroff (19 9 2 ,19 9 4 ), or C o m rie (1995).

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A D V E R B I ALS 249

In general, Anteriority theories locate the event-tim e E on a time-axis before

reference-time R. A nteriority theories differ in the relation R has to speech time S.
Som e A nteriority theories assum e that R and S overlap, others say that R m a y not
precede S:

(33) Anteriority theories: E < R

version 1: E < R & R,S (“,” means “overlaps” )
version 2: E < R & R-«<S

A n analysis in terms o f A nteriority theory is natural in cases like the following:

(34) Ob Mexiko, Chile oder Brasilien— Lateinamerika treibt in eine tiefe Finanzund
Wirtschaftskrise. S P I E G E L Korrespondent Jens Glüsing, 40, hat sich vor Ort
umgesehen und die Folgen für Bevölkerung und einheimische Politik beobachtet. [Der
Spiegel 35/2001, editorial]
Jens Glüsing, 40, hat sich vor Ort umgesehen
Jens Glüsing, 40, has him self before location looked
“ Jens Glüsing, 40, made an on site visit.”

Here, the on-site trip o f Spiegel correspondent Jens G lüsin g happens at so m e time
before reference time (=speech time) (as illustrated in Figure 8.8). W hen there is no
adverb in a Perfect sentence, this reading is the default reading.
A cco rd in g to E x te n d e d -N o w theories, the Perfect serves to locate an event E
within a period o f time that began in the past and extends up to the present m o ­
ment. The formalizations used in the literature to express this idea vary consider­
ably. To m ake E x ten d ed -N o w theories easy to com pare with A nteriority theories,
however, consider the following (35):

(35) Extended Now theories: E zxz R & R,S (“ zxz” means “abuts” )

The term “ Extended N o w ” was introduced by M cC o a rd (1978, p. 123):

T h e read e r w h o h a s go n e through the preced in g sec tion s will have noticed

that at se veral p o in ts we arg u ed the m erits o f an analysis o f the perfect as the
m a r k e r o f p r io r events w hich are n e v e rth e le ss in clu d ed within the overall
p e rio d o f the present, the exten d e d now, w h ile the preterit m a r k s events
a ssign e d to a past w hich is c o n c lu d e d and separate from the extend ed
present.

The E x ten d ed -N o w theory itself is older than M c C o a r d (1978), Pickbourn (1789)

being the first reference. An analysis in terms o f E xtend ed-N ow theory is natural in
cases like the following:

vS, speech time =

E, event time R . reference time

on-site trip
--- CD-- * <utterance>

F ig u re 8.8.

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250 PERSPECTIVES

(36) Der Schwarzwald mit seinen rauschenden Tannen hat schon imm er die Menschen
in seinen Bann gezogen. Doch es mußte erst die Idee des organisierten Wanderns im
vorigen Jahrhundert entstehen, daß breite Bevölkerungsschichten zum gemeinsamen
Naturerlebnis autbrachen. [Mannheimer Morgen >3.9.89]
Der Schwarzwald hat schon im m er die Menschen in seinen
the Black Forest has already always the people in his
Bann gezogen
spell drawn
“ The Black Forest ever since cast his spell over people.”

Here, the “spell casting" o f the Black Forest doesn’t happen at som e time before
reference time (=speech time), as Anteriority theory w ould have it. Instead, the
“spell casting” starts in the past and reaches up to the present (cf. Figure 8.9.) You
get E xten d ed -N ow readings only when E x te n d e d -N o w adverbials like schon im m er
are present.
N o te that the last sentence a b o v e can n ot be expressed in A n te rio rity theory.
Im a g in e that it w o u ld be represented in A n terio rity theory like the follow ing:

(37) Der Schwarzwald hat schon immer die Menschen in seinen B an n gezogen.
E < R & R,S & spell-casting(E) & ever since(E)

E is properly before R, as d em anded via “ E < R But the resultant picture (Figure
8.10) is strange, as it does not render the m eaning o f the sentence. The picture
should be like the one before (Figure 8.9). Accordingly, E xten d ed -N ow readings
cannot be expressed in A nteriority theory.
However, this flaw o f Anteriority theory could be repaired: instead o f saying
that E takes place before R, one could d em a n d that E take place before R or abut R.
Let us call this the Revised Anteriority theory. It is exemplified by Musan (2000,
200 1). Musan can explain the Perfect example above easily— it is a case where E
abuts R. But Musan cannot explain w hy the Preterite is impossible with Extended-
N o w adverbs, cf. (38):

S. speech time =
E . event time R . reference time

Black-Forest-spell <utterance>

F ig u re 8.9.

S . speech time =
E. event time R , reference lim e

B lack-Forest-spell
--- CD— * <utterance>

Figure 8.10.

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A D V E R B I ALS 251

(38) Perfect Sie hat schon immer mit Ton gearbeitet

she has already always with clay worked
w
“She has worked with clay ever since
(39) Pluperfect: Sie hatte schon imm er mit Ton gearbeitet
she had already always with clay worked
“ She had worked with clay ever since.”
(40) Preterite: *Sic arbeitete schon imm er mit Ton
she worked already always with clay
*“Shc worked with clay ever since.”

The m e a n in g o f the Preterite in M u s a n s R ev ised A n t e r io r it y th e o ry (and in

A n te rio rity th e o ry in gen eral) is that E coin cid es with R, and both arc before S
(E,R < S). N o t h in g predicts n o w the u n g r a m m a t i c a l l y o f *Sie arbeitete schon
im m er m it Ton a b o v e — w h y should E not be m o d ified by schon im m er in this
case?
Cf. also the following illustration (Figure 8.11) for (41):

(41) E,R < S & w ork with clay(E) & ever sincc(E)

The sentence should com e out as ungram m atical, but it doesn’t!

But how does E x ten d ed -N o w theory account for the data-pattern in (38-40)?
The Perfect- and Pluperfect-sentences are the easy cases. The syntactic trees are
those in Figure (8.12).
Thus, the Present Perfect is decom posed into the tense “ Present” (P R E S in the
tree, see the highest node) and the “ Perfect” (P E R F ) itself. The Perfect has its own
projection, the Perf-phrase (PerfP). In analogy to this, the Past Perfect is split up. If
this splitting should be more than a writing convention, it has to be shown that
there are elements that scope between the tense-node on the one hand and P E R F on
the other hand. It will be shown that in the case o f the futurate Perfect, there are
such adverbs between tense and PERF, see below.
This (42) is the semantics assumed for schon im m er in Rathert (2004):

(42) F(schon imm er)(P)(t)=i iff left infinite(t) & Vt/€D_ [ t 'c t & C(t')-> P(t')]

This means that schon im m er dem ands that the interval t be left-infinite, and within
this t, there are m any intervals t' at which P is true.
Schon im m er does not refer to all subintervals o f t'; this is the motivation for the
contextual restriction C (t'). Take it isn’t the case that she w orks with clay all the
time, without interruptions. W hen she w orks at all, she will use clay.

e r s

she w ork s with clay

Figure 8.11.

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252 PERSPECTIVES

Perfect:

schon
1
sie mit Ton gearbeitet

Pluperfect:

schon im m er VP
I
sic* mit Ton gearbeitet

Figure 8.12.

G o i n g b ack to the two trees above, one sees that the m e a n i n g o f the sentences
c o m e out correctly, p ro v id e d that the m e a n in g o f P R E S and P A S T are as u su al—
P R E S denotes the po int o f speech, and P A S T denotes s o m e tim e before the tim e o f
speech. Or, in form ulas:

(43) F(Prcs)(P)=i iff 3 teD, [t=s* & P(t)|

F(Past)(P)=i iff 3 teD [t < s* & finite (t) & P(t)]

O n e m ig h t w o n d e r about the finiteness co nd itio n in the rule for PAST. This c o n d i­

tion expresses the definiteness that is n e cessa ry for P A S T ; P A S T requires that the
tim e o f reference be specified either by an adverb o f tim e or contextually. O u t o f the
blue, w ithout a suitable tem p oral adverbs, P A S T is not felicitous. This is in sharp
contrast to the Perfect, w h ic h d o e s not need s o m e finite interval.
C f. the fo llo w in g translations o f the trees:

(44) a. Sie hat schon im m er mit Ton gearbeitet:

3 t e l > [t=s* & 3 t'eD. [t'zxzt & left-infinite(t’ ) & Vt"€D. [ t " c t ' & C (t") -» she works
with clay at t"]]]
in words: There is a time t that is identical to the point o f speech s*. t has to its left
some interval t'. This t' and t really abut, t' is left infinite, and it contains m any
intervals t". At these t", she works with clay,
b. Sie hattc schon im m er mit Ton gearbeitet:
3 t e D i [t < s* & 3 t/e D i [t'zxzt & left-infinite^') & Vt"<=D [ t " c t ' & C(t") -> she works
with clay at t"l]l
in words: There is a time t that is before the point o f speech s*. t has to its left some
interval t'. This t' and t really abut, t' is left-infinite, and it contains many intervals
t". At these t", she works with clay.

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A D V E R B I ALS 253

Preterite:

schon im m e r VP
1
sie m it T o n g e a rb e ite t

Figure 8.13.

This (Figure 8.13) is the syntactic tree assum ed in Rathert (2004) for the
Preterite-sentence.
This translates to the follow ing formula:

(45) *Sie arbeitete schon im m er mit Ton:

?? 3 teD i [t < s* & finite (t) & left-infinite(t) & Vt'eD i [ t 'c t & C(t') -» she
works with clay at t') ] ]
in words: There is a time t that is before the point o f speech s \ t is finite and
left-infinite, and it contains m any intervals t'. At these t', she works with clay.

The translation is weird as the time denoted by P A ST is assumed to be both finite

and left-infinite. This m irrors the weirdness o f * Sie arbeitete schon im m er mit Ton .
Let us continue with the most im portant analyses o f the universal/existential
ambiguities concerning adverbials o f duration, focusing on since and fo r. Important
analyses o f the duratives fo r and since are D ow ty (1979), Heny (1982), Richards
(1982), M ittwoch (1988), Abusch and Rooth (1990), K am p and Reyle (1993), Hitze-
man (1997), and Iatridou et al. (2001).
K am p and Reyle (1993) and Hitzeman (1997) both treat the simple u/e-ambigu-
ity associated with fo r using the fram ew ork o f DRT. The analysis o f Kamp and Reyle
(1993) is syncategorematic, as both the Perfect and fo r itself have no uniform
meaning. The proposal in Hitzeman (1997) builds on the idea that fo r m a y m od ify
either the V P or the IP. IP-modification leads to the u-reading, and VP-m odifica-
tion to the e-reading. Topicalization o f the adverb allows only IP-modification, i.e.,
sentences starting with fo r should only have the u-reading. The problem with this
argumentation is that the empirical prediction is w r o n g — sentences starting with
fo r m a y also have the e-reading:

(46) For two hours someday, M a ry has been there, (both u and e reading)

This questions the idea o f the syntactic approach. In fact, the vast m ajority o f re­
searchers has looked for a syntactic solution to the simple u/e-ambiguity associated
with fo r. It has been widely accepted that sentences with preposed fo r can only have
the u-reading— thus, the explanation had to have at least a syntactic component.
Only Heny (1982), Abusch and Rooth (1990), and Rathert (2004) doubted this claim.
While Heny did not give data, Abusch and Rooth (1990) offered natural introspec­
tive data with preposed fo r and a clear e-reading. Rathert (2004) did a huge data-
research on fo r (and the corresponding adverb lang in G e rm a n ) and it turned out
that Heny (1982) and Abusch and Rooth (1990) were right. Rathert accounts for the
simple u/e-ambiguity associated with fo r and lang in terms o f underspecification.

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254 PERSPECTIVES

Som ew here within the E x te n d e d -N o w interval, the V P takes place, and it is simply
left open w h ere exactly it takes place.
To m ake this discussion more concrete, let us investigate Abusch and Rooth (1990)
and Rathert (2004) a little deeper. Abusch and Rooth (1990) comment on the simple
u/e-ambiguity as it is displayed by the durative for. In the following example, one
would at first glance say that the running happens at all subintervals o f the two hours:

(47) John ran for two hours.

Literally, this is w r o n g — the ru n n in g only happens at all big enough subinter­

vals o f the two hours. These subintervals must be true running-intervals. Abusch
and Rooth (1990) adapt Hinrichs (1985) to express this (cf. Figure 8.14):
John run fo r two hours is true at the eventuality ei iff:

there is an interval t1 such that

(i) t. is o f duration two hours,

(ii) t is a temporal subpart o f e ,
(iii) John run is true at et,
(iv) for every sub interval i o f t,, there is an eventuality e? such that:
(a) i is a temporal subpart o f e^
(b) e; is a proper sub eventuality o f e ;
(c) John run is true at e^

’Ihe last clause is important: you only regard those e^events which are true run-
ning-events. N o w let us see how the authors analyze the simple u/e-ambiguity as
displayed in the following sentence (48):

(48) John has been in Boston for two weeks.

The tree for the e-reading o f (48) is that in Figure 8.15.

The tree in Figure 8.15 is translated into (49):

(49) xnow(t5,u) & 3 ci[ei c t5 & 3t2[two wceks(t2) & t2 e ei & A T (ci, in(j,b)) & Vi[i e t2
-> 3e3 [ e 3 c e i & i c e 3 & AT (e3, in(j,b))] 1]]

Th is is the proposal for the u-reading:/^/'identifies the Extended Now, the Extended-Now
period is anaphoric to the temporal N P which is the object o f fo r. In the following

h
Figure 8.14.

Матеріал, захищений авторським правом

A D V E R B I ALS 255

has( ) 5

XP'
J o h n b e e n in B o sto n

tw o w eeks

F ig u re 8.15

has(2)

J o h n b e e n in B o s t o n

fo r tw o w eeks

F igure 8.16. The tree for the u -re a d in g o f (48)

tree (in Figure 8.16), anaphoricity is expressed by identity o f indices (the index “ 2”
is as well on has as on two weeks):
Tlie tree translates into the following formula (50):

(50) xnow(t ,u) & 3e [ e i c t & 3 t [two weeks ( t ) & t c c i & A T ( e , in(j,b)) & Vi[i c t
3 e. [e3 c ef & i c e ( & A T (e_, in(j,b))]]]]

But there is a problem that the authors note themselves: the first t, is free. I.e., the
existential quantifier binds another i i than the E x t e n d e d - N o w - K The authors otfer
a convincing solution: scoping o f the fo r- PP or, alternatively, o f the argument of/or,
at LF. The tree is Figure 8.17.
This is fine, because now w e have our desired anaphoricity analysis for the
u-reading. The only thing is: there is no semantics given. It remains unclear what
semantics is ascribed to the scoped PP/NP. But let us assume that there could be
such a semantics. The following set o f data (51) has to be explained:

(51) a. initial for. both u- and e-readings

b. non-initial fo r : both u- and e-readings

The trees for initial fo r in Abusch and Rooth (1990) are in Figure 8.18.
A s the authors say, semantically, the fo r- PP modifies the X P ;. On surface-struc-
ture, the f o r - ? ? is topicalized and leaves behind a trace e. It depends on identity
(u-reading) or non-identity (e-reading) with the index on have whether we find a
u- or an e-reading.
For the e-read in g o f n on-initial/or-sen tences, A busch and Rooth (1990) give
the tree in Figure 8.15. Again, the fo r- PP modifies the X P . On surface-structure,
t h e /o r-P P stays in its place. But for the u-reading o f non-initial/or-sentences, they
give no tree. A gain, the fo r -P P m odifies the X P . But to achieve identity with the
256 PERSPECTIVES

XP

F igure 8.17. The tree for the u -re a d in g o f (48), w ith scoped P P

u n iv e r s a l re a d in g :

NP,
I '
two weeks

XP,

J o h n b e e n in B o s t o n

e x iste n tia l r e a d in g :

J o h n b e e n in B o s t o n

Figure 8.18.

index on have , the fo r - PP cannot stay in its place. Thus, on som e level o f semantic
representation, t h e /o r-P P m oves. This level looks like the surface-structure for the
u-read in g o f initial fo r , cf. Figure 8.19.
To achieve surface-structure for the u-reading, the m ovem en t has to be undone
(cf. Figure 8.20).
If this derivation is possible, it is at least quite complicated. It amounts to saying
that all non-topicalized/or-adverbs that are connected with a u-reading are actually
topicalized. Tliis is a strange consequence o f the indexical approach.
The account in R athert (200 4 ) is simpler. As for the c o m b in ato rical p o s sib il­
ities lang ( ‘fo r ’ ) has, see Table 8.2. In the table, “ V ” m eans that the respective
ADVERBIALS 257

XP3 PP
1 '

Jo h n been in B o ston e

Figure 8.19.

universal readin g, fin al SS: XP

Jo h n been in B o sto n P NP,

J I
lo r two weeks

Figure 8.20.

Table 8.2

States Activities Achievements Accomplishments

Pluperfect />Q / ,Q 0 0
Preterite / / 0 0
Perfect /, Q /, Q 0 0
Present /, Q /, Q 0 0
Future /, Ü / ,0 0 0
Future 11 /, Q /, Q 0 0

tense-Ato/oH sarf-com bination exists; m e a n s that it d o e sn ’t exist. “ Q” m eans

that the sim ple u /e-am biguity is attested, i.e., that both e-an d u -re a d in g s are p o s ­
sible. The data c o r r e s p o n d in g to this table are in Rathert (2004).
For the Pluperfect, cf. the illustrations in Figure 8.21, the first for the universal,
the second for the existential reading.
With the Preterite, the u/e-distinction makes no sense. The Preterite leads us to
som e time before speech time, and the interval denoted by lang ‘for’ is included in
this past time. But as this past time denoted by the Preterite does not abut any other
time (as in the case o f the Pluperfect, for instance), as one cannot tell whether we
have a u-or an e-reading, cf. Figure 8.22.
The Perfect is the prototypical case for the simple u/e ambiguity. The illustra­
tions in Figure 8.23 are just like the ones above for the Pluperfect (only that with the
Perfect, there is no backshift to the past). The first illustration is for the universal,
the second for the existential reading.
The Present is incompatible with lang ‘for’, because the interval denoted by lang
‘for’ cannot be included in the point o f speech time. The speech time cannot be two
258 PERSPECTIVES

x lang, VP-interval Past

V
XN

a lang,V P-interval Past $

XN

Figure 8.21

Past S

x lang,VP-interval

F i g u r e 8.22.

weeks long, for instance (but some researchers allow this, cf. Heny, 1982, or R ic h ­
ards, 1982). But the table above says that the Present is possible with la n g 'f or’; these
sentences all have a futurate interpretation, cf. (52):

(52) A u f d e r P r o m e n a d e g e h t s zw ei Tage lan g rund. G u i l d o H o rn besorgt d ab ei die

M u sik. W e n n am 27. un d 28. Juli w ie d e r das P ro m e n a d e n fe s t im C e n t r o steigt, gibt
sich s o g a r der “ M e is t e r ” d ie E h r e — G u il d o H o r n spielt a m S a m s t a g u m 22 U h r mit
seinen “o r t h o p ä d is c h e n S t r ü m p fe n ” Hits a u s d e m aktuellen A l b u m “ K ö n i g d er
M ö w e n .”
A u f der Prom en ade gehts zwei Tage lang rund
on the road goes two days long round
“ On the road, there will be a lot o f business for two days.”

Thus, I propose to analyze these sentences as semantic Futures, i.e., with a futurate
interpretation.
A D V E R B I ALS 259

xlang, V P-interval S

XN

x lang, VP-intcrval S

XN

Figure 8.23.

L a n g d oes not c o m b in e w ith a c h ie v e m e n ts and a c c o m p lis h m e n ts . H ow ever,

it w o u ld be an o v e rs im p lific a tio n to say that it ju st d o e s not c o m b in e with
n on -h om o g en eou s predicates, because the following contrast cannot be explained
in terms o f hom ogeneity:

(53) a. Drei Wochen lang hat er oft angerufen

three weeks long has he often called
“ For three weeks, he called often.”
b. *Drei Wochen lang hat er zweimal angerufen
three weeks long has he twice called
*“ For three weeks, he called often.”

As the English translation suggests, lang a n d /o r behave identical in this context. “ To

call often” is as n o n -h o m o g en o u s as “ to call twice,” because if I call so m eon e often
within a week, it might not be the case that I call him often on the M o n d a y o f that
week. On Monday, I might not call him at all. The same is true for “to call twice” : if
I call som eone twice within one single week, it m ight not be the case that I call him
at all on the M o n d a v/ o f that week.
A universal quantifier in the meaning rules for both lang and fo r is misplaced (but
people often put a universal quantifier there, see e.g., Dowty, 1979), as this would rule out
activities. What is needed because o f the contrast just established is reference to a pattern.
As this is not identical to, e.g., summativity, divisivity, etc., a new definition is needed:
260 PERSPECTIVES

(54) PATTERNABLE (P) is true iff P allows to be divided up into a regular pattern.

In *Drei Wochen lang hat er zweim al angerufen , it is unclear how the pattern should
look, except (and then the sentence would be gram m atical again) one assumes a
covert “a d a y ” here. To call som eone twice a day yields a pattern. To call som eone
twice does not. To call someone often also yields a pattern, which is w hy Drei Wochen
lang hat er oft angerufen is gram m atical.
Thus, this (55) is the m e a n i n g rule fo r lang :

(55) F(lang)(z)(P)(t)=i iff 3 t' e D . [dur(t')=z & t ' c t & P(t') & P A T T E R N A B L E (P)].
Type: < i , « i , t > , < i >t > »

Figure 8.24 is the underdeterm ined tree for a simple u/e-ambiguous sentence
such as (56):

(56) Charly ist drei Wochen lang gerannt

Charly is three weeks long run
“Charly ran for three weeks.”

A n d this (57) is the translation for (56), illustrated by Figure 8.25.

(57) 3 teD i [t=s* & 3 t'e D i (t'z>ct & 3 t"e D i [ t " c t '& 3 t ' " e Di. (dur(t'")=3 weeks &
t ' " c t " & Charly runs at t '" & PATTERNABLE (Charly runs)]]]]

This en sures that the three w ee k s o f r u n n in g are s o m e w h e r e in the E x t e n d e d - N o w

interval. A n d the r u n n in g -e v e n t is P A T T E R N A B L E into a lot o f intervals w here
C h a r ly takes a step faster than w alking.
Notice that in the tree below (Figure 8.24), 3 m a y also have overt variants:

(58) Charly ist oft drei Wochen lang gerannt

Charly is often three weeks long run
“Charly often ran for three weeks.”

This would m ean that within the Extended Now, there are several intervals
within which C harly ran for three weeks. Opposite scope o f 3 and lang is not p os­
sible because a singular ru n n in g cannot be put into a pattern.
A s for since and the com plex u/e-ambiguity associated with it, only Richards
(1982) did not acknowledge this ambiguity. D o w ty (1979), M ittwoch (1988), Kamp
and Reyle (1993), and Iatridou et al. (2001) offer syncategorematic explanations in

TP

PerfP T
Pres

pp VP
3 Wochen lang C h arly gerannt

F igure 8.24.

Copyrighted mate
ADVERBIALS l6\

the sense that there are both two different since- ad ve rb s and two different Perfects
involved. Often, these researchers m otivate the lexical a m b ig u ity o f since with a
se e m in g difference betw een the u - a n d the e-reading. With existential readings, the
event could not be located in the tim e denoted by the a rg u m e n t o f since, l h a t is,
with the existential read in g o f John has been in Boston since Tuesday, Jo h n could not
have been there on T u esd a y proper. Thus, the existential re a d in g o f the sentence
se em s to be closely co n n e cte d to an “exclusive” r e a d in g o f since. This w o u ld be a
sharp con trast to the universal read in g o f the sam e sentence, w h e re Jo h n s b e in g in
Boston w o u ld include the w h o le Tuesday. Thus, the un ive rsa l read in g o f the s e n ­
tence w o u ld be co n n e cte d to an “ inclusive” re a d in g o f since.
Rathert (2004) did s o m e data-w ork on this question, with the outcom e that
there are existential sentences with “ inclusive” readings o f since. Tims, “ inclusive­
ness” is the way to go for both the universal and the existential readings. It is u n n e c ­
essary in her approach to assume a lexical am biguity for since.
O n ly H e n y (1982) did not p ro p o se a lexically a m b ig u o u s since. His analysis is in
term s o f v a g u e n e ss and resem bles M u san (2002). Like M u s a n (2002), H e n y (1982)
runs into p ro b le m s w ith data in volvin g quantifiers.

u -re a d in g :

VP

t=s*

v ----------------------------------- v ----------------------------------- '

t"Ct' f

----------------------------------------------

e -r e a d in g (fro m th e s a m e tr a n sla tio n , this is an u n d ersp e c ific a tio n -a c c o u n t):

VP

t=s*

v---------------- Y t"Ct’
---------------- '

Figure 8.25.

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262 PERSPECTIVES

Let us look at som e o f the approaches in m ore detail. D o w ty (1979) notices the
existence o f the complex u/e-ambiguity with since, but he only has a proposal (59)
for the u-reading.

(59) since ( e B TniAVn. J translates into A P A P P j A t J A t J ^ < t^ & X N ( t J ] -> P j t J ) ) } (p. 344)

The tree for John has slept since m idnight is Figure 8.26.

J o h n h a s slep t sin c e m i d n i g h t , t ,4

Jo h n ,T h ave slept sin c e m id n ig h t , IV, 42

s in c e m i d n i g h t , T m A V sle e p , IV

since, TmAV / Tm m id n ig h t,T m

F igure 8.26.

This tree gets the translation (60):

(60) A t J [midnight' < t%& X N ( t J ) -» [ X N ( t J & AT(t,, sleep'(j))]]

This indeed is the u-reading o f the com plex u/e-ambiguity in the case o f since.
Richards (1982) does not recognize the complex u/e-ambiguity arising with
since. He proposes the following rule (61):

(61) F ( S I N C E 7)(w,i)(||A||M (w,i)) =1 (where A is a tenseless sentence) ilf beg(i)=7 & Vj [j c

i ||A||M (w,j)=i). (p. 97)

Let us do an example-derivation (62):

(62) Sam has been in Boston since 7

Pres<*> [SIN CE 7 [H A V E (Sam be in Boston))]
II Pres(w,l) [S IN C E 7 [H A V E (Sam be in Boston)]) ||M (w',i') = 1 iff
F(PrestwJ) (w/,i/)(ll S I N C E 7 [HAVE (Sam be in Boston)) ||lM(w',i')) =1 iff
w '= w & i'=i & bcg(i')=7 & Vj [j c i' -> IIHAVE (Sam be in Boston)||M (w’,j)=i]
iff
w ' = w & i'=i & bcg(i')=7 & V j [ j c i ' - > 3 k [ k c j & IlSam be in Boston ||M (w',k)=i]

The problem is the expansion o f the speech time, and it is not clear that Sam s stay
in Boston ends at the “ real” point o f speech. A n o th e r problem arises from the since-
rule. Universal quantification is too strong as since also combines with other Aktion-
sarts than states.
H eny (1982) analyzes the duratives fo r and since. As for since, he recognizes the
com plex u/e-ambiguity arising with this adverb:

(83) (a) For Sam to have been in Boston since 7.00 . ..

(b) Sam has been in Boston since 7.00 [ . . . ]

E xam ple (83b) can be true if Sam has been in Boston continuously since
7.00— o r if he has been there just once in the interval between 7.00 and the
time o f evaluation, (p. 146ft'.)

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ADVERBIALS

Heny then proposes the following rule (63) for since (identical to R ichards rule
above):

(63) F (S IN C E 7)(w,i)(IIA||M (w,i)) = 1 (where A is a tenseless sentence) iff beg(i)=7 & Vj [j c i

IIAHM (w>j)= i]. (p. 147)

In addition, he dem ands that his aspectual rule for H A V E is used (he has two rules
for H A V E ). Let now us do the derivation (64) o f the sentence mentioned in (62) and
(83b):
(64) Sam has been in Boston since 7
Pres(wj) (SIN CE 7 [HAVE (Sam be in Boston))]
II P r e s . , [S IN C E 7 [H AV E (Sam be in Boston)]] ||M (w',i') = 1 iff
l W'W
F(Prcs|w ))(w,,i,)(|| S I N C E 7 [HAVE (Sam be in Boston)] ||M (w',i')) = 1 iff
w '= w & i'=i & heg(i’)=7 & Vj [j c i’ -» IIHAVE (Sam be in Boston)||,vl (w/,j)=i] iff
w '= w & i'=i & heg(i')=7 & Vj [j c \' 3 k [k c j & k is a non final subinterval o f j &
Jam be in Boston||M (w',k)=i]]

The problem, again, is the expansion o f the speech time. A n d , again, it is not clear
that Sam s stay in Boston ends at the “real” point o f speech. A nother problem arises
from the sj«ce-rule. Universal quantification is too strong as since also combines
with other Aktionsarten than states. Above all, it is hard to realize that there is an
e-reading. But Heny says that e-readings are there, are represented by the formula:

Exam ple (83b) can be true if Sam has been in Boston continuously since 7.00— or
i f he has been there just once in the interval between 7.00 and the time o f
evaluation. Although we might once again try to use scope to differentiate these
“ readings,” the situation seem s quite analogous to that which we cam e across with
the durational For 20 minutesy and we believe that we are dealing once again
sim ply with a special case o f a more general quantificational phenom enon: there
m ust be at least one subinterval at which the em bedd ed proposition is true* in the
interval between 7.00 and the time o f utterance, and at the limit this can extend
throughout that period. The limiting case is experienced for what it is: as a special
case. (p. 147)

W hat Lleny regards as a “special case” is the norm al one, nam ely the u-reading. It
seems as if Heny wants an analysis in terms o f a vague since, like M u sa n (2002)
wants it for seil and bis. However, if we have an e-reading with an overt quantifier in
the scope o f since , we have to start with the whole since- interval in order to be able
to “cut out” som e part o f it (65):

(65) From covering school board meetings I have expanded to be the unofficial history
and agriculture correspondent. I have been on the cover four times since M a y (twice
this month, Dec.) and had the cover o f the “ Friday” magazine three times since Sept.
(www.momwritcrs.com/aboutmw/bios/bioK.html)

The vagueness-approach is w ro n g in its generality as examples like the one above

show that what we need is the since -interval as a whole. Since cannot denote some
subpart as either (with u-readings) I take the whole since- interval, 01* (with e-read-
ings like in the example above) I take the w hole since -interval and say with the

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264 PERSPECTIVES

quantifier “ take x times within it.” What I need in any case seems to be the full since-
interval, not only som e subinterval o f it.
V ia a syntactic postulate, H en y wants to rule out the opposite scope o f H A V E
and since. This would ensure that since only combines with Perfects.

3. S u b o r d i n a t e C lauses

It is interesting to extend the view to the interpretation o f tense in subordinate

clauses, e.g., relative clauses and com plem ent clauses.
In relative clauses, a classical S O T ph en om en on (SO T = sequence o f tense) can
be observed: the em b ed ded past in past-under-past sentences m a y be semantically
empty as in (66), cf. Ogihara (19 8 9 ,19 9 6 ):

(66) John said that he would buy a fish that was alive.

Here, the time o f the fish being alive is simultaneous to the buying. The past in the
relative clause thus has the m eaning o f a b o u n d variable. A semantically empty e m ­
bedded past in past-under-past sentences also occurs in com plem ent clauses, cf.
Abusch (1988) (67):

(67) John decided a week ago that in ten days at breakfast lie would say to his mother that
they were having their last meal together.

A s in (66), the time o f the having the last meal is simultaneous to the saying.
But relative clauses and complement clauses differ with respect to the avail­
ability o f posteriority readings relative to the matrix clause. While the event time o f
the relative clause in (68a) m ay also be after the event time o f the matrix clause, this
is not possible for the event time in the co m plem ent clause in (68b), cf. En<; (1987),
Abusch (1988), K usum oto (1999):

(68) a. Hillary married a man w h o became the president,

b. Hillary said that Bill was president.

Exceptions to this rule are matrix verbs referring to the future (H illarypredicted that
Bill won) and scheduled events in the com plem ent clause (H illary said that the train
arrived at 7).
A nother difference between relative clauses and com plem ent clauses concerns
double access interpretations o f present-under-past sentences. Double access means
that the em bedded event is true both at the time o f the m atrix event and at speech
time. Double access interpretations are only possible with com plem ent clauses as in
(69b), they are impossible with relative clauses as in (69a), cf. Abusch (1991), Gen-
nari (2003):

(69) a. Hillary talked to the boy who is crying,

b. Hillary believed that the boy is crying.

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The relative clause in (69a) is considered true only at speech time, and not true at
the event time o f the m atrix clause.
The data in (68) and (69) suggest that tense in relative clauses should be c o n ­
strued independent o f the matrix tense. However, the sentence in shows that there
must be a possibility o f a boun d variable reading as well. Kusumoto (1999) and
others bind the empty past-m orph em e to a higher PAST-operator. This kind o f
binding is possible as long as no other tense operator intervenes, cf. (70):

(70) a. H illary said that she would talk to a b oy w h o was kissing a girl w h o was
crying.
talking time = kissing time = c r y in g time
b. H illary said that she will talk to a b o y w h o w a s kissing a girl w h o was crying,
talking time * kissing time

The relative clauses tense is bound by the future o f the matrix in the following e x ­
ample (71):

(71) Next month I w ill an sw er e v e r y email that arrived. (Abusch, 1998)

The sem an tically e m p t y e m b e d d e d past in p a st-u n d e r-p ast co m p le m e n t clauses like

(67) ca n n o t be b o u n d by a h igh er tense operator for type reasons. C h ie rc h ia (1989)
and H eim (1994) b in d it by an operator in C o m p .
The exam ple ( 68 a) with its independent tense in the relative clause d em a n d s the
implementation o f an indexical distinguished variable t* in K u su m o to s system . S y n ­
tactic c - c o m m a n d w ould allow b in d in g to the m atrix past, but sem antically the
b in d in g is impossible. Thus, all variants located before t* are possible: simultaneity o f
m atrix and em b ed d in g , e m b e d d in g preceding m atrix, m a tr ix preced ing em bed d ing.
Exam ple (69a) receives another explanation in K usu m otos account: indexical
P R E S is located in the em b ed d in g and leads to speech time interpretation, despite
syntactic scope o f matrix P A ST over em bedded pres.
Japanese, Polish, and Russian are n o n - S O T languages, i.e., the simultaneous
reading with past-under-past sentences is not available in these languages. In non-
SO T languages, simultaneous readings are generated by present-under-past. H o w ­
ever, n o n -S O T languages behave uniform only with respect to com plem ent clauses,
not with respect to relative clauses (cf. Table 8.3):
There is a lot o f research on the S O T / n o n -S O T difference, but m ostly on c o m ­
plement clauses, not on relative clauses.
In Japanese, p re se n t-u n d e r-p a st relative clauses allow both a sim u lta n eo u s and
a speech tim e interpretation:

Table 8.3. Simultaneous readings with present-under-past, Kusumoto (1999,

p. 183)
English Japanese Polish/Russian

Complement clauses no yes yes

Relative clauses no yes no

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266 PERSPECTIVES

(72) M ariko-w a naiteiru o tokonoko-ni hanasikaketa

(73) M a rik o -to p cry-teiru-pres boy-with talk-past

(74) sim ultaneous interpretation: the talking and the c r y in g coincide

speech lim e interpretation: the talking is in the past, the c ry in g is at speech time

A c c o r d in g to K o n d ra s h o v a (1998), the co rresp o n d in g sentence in Russian only

displays speech time interpretation. K u su m o to analyzes the Japanese present rel­
ative clauses as tenseless, sim ilar to the English participle (the interpretation o f
w hich depends on higher tense operators). In her account, Polish and Russian
present relative clauses are treated like their English equivalents. Thus, the facts in
3 follow.
As far as relative clauses are concerned, m ore cross-linguistic research is
necessary, because languages other than English, Japanese, Polish, and Russian have
hardly been investigated.
A n o t h e r d e sid e ra tu m is c o m p a r a t iv e research on the d ifferen t relative
clause s u b ty p e s . A s far as R u s s ia n is c o n c e r n e d , Table 8.3 says that it resem b les
E n g lish with resp ect to the in terp retatio n s o f p r e s e n t - u n d e r - p a s t relative
c la u s e s — the s im u lt a n e o u s r e a d in g is ex c lu d e d , o n ly sp e e c h time in terp retatio n
is possible. H ow ever, this is o n ly true for the n o n - r e s t r ic t iv e v e r s io n o f the rel­
ative clause. R is in g in to n a tio n on the h ead o f the relative clause leads to a r e ­
strictive relative clause and a s im u lta n e o u s re a d in g , a c c o r d i n g to Y o k o y a m a
( 2 0 0 1 ) . T h u s , one w o u ld have to c laim that restrictiv e relative clauses are not
m o v e d an d that the past o f the m a t r ix is r e sp o n sib le for the s im u lta n e o u s
r e a d in g . H o w e v e r, this w o u ld m ean in return that n o n - r e s tr ic t iv e relative
clauses are m o v e d , and K u s u m o to (1999) has a rg u ed at length and c o n v i n c ­
in gly that this is u n d e sira b le .
Finally, after this short overview ing excursion to other subordinate clauses, let
us come back to adverbials and their m e a n in g contribution to the temporal under­
standing o f subordinate clauses. So-called tenseless languages like Ch inese lack
tense m orph ology at the verb and they sh ow that a variety o f factors determine the
temporal interpretation o f relative clauses: temporal adverbials, aspectual particles,
A ktionsart , viewpoint aspect, the (in)definiteness o f the D P w h ich contains the rel­
ative clause. To cite a Ch inese exam ple (Lin, 2006, p. 28):

(75) W ojian-guo na-wie zai ku de n an h ai

I m eet-A sp that-CL Prog cry Rel b oy
“ I met that b oy w h o is crying.”

The relative clause is true at speech time but not at m atrix time. If y i (one), a dif­
ferent classifier, is used, the resulting reading is that both events happen sim ulta­
neous in the past.

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Sprachen , 7, 4 9 7 - 5 0 6 .
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M assach u setts at A m h erst.
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Semantics , 23, 1-53.
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 CHAPTER 9

PRAGMATICS

PATRICK CA U D AL

l. I n t r o d u c t i o n : on Pragm a tics an d It s
Im p o r t a n c e for T e n se -A spect Stu d ies

This chapter is really dedicated to the pragmatics of tense and aspect; yet, this
domain cannot be covered without focusing on the interrelation and boun dary
between semantics and pragmatics. Indeed, two o f the central questions 1 will try
and answer in this chapter involve the semantics/pragmatics interface: (i) what part
o f the interpretative content ascribed to tense/aspect forms should pertain to p ra g ­
matics, as opposed to sem antics?1 A n d correlatively (ii) how do semantic and p ra g ­
matic phenom ena interact with one another in the synchrony and diachrony o f
tense-aspect forms?
The fact that current theories o f pragmatics in general hold extremely different
views over the semantics vs. pragmatics divide (see e.g., Recanati, 2005, 20 10 ; Horn,
2006; Jaszczolt, 2010a, 2010b) and that both questions (i) and (ii) are central to c o n ­
tem porary research on tense-aspect forms makes this task both urgent and delicate.

1.1. Theoretical Issues about Pragmatics and the Semantics/

Pragmatics Interface
If w e adopt a top/down strategy, several views o f the semantics/pragmatic interface
need to be distinguished and assessed, before a proper introduction to the prag­
matics o f tense/aspect can be conducted. By and large, I believe that two m ain the­
oretical features matter w hen trying to (very broadly) compare existing approaches
to pragmatics, if we want to be able to pick up the most appropriate available theory:

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1. R epresen tation alism vs. plain tru th -c o n d itio n a lism fo r logical form (//):2
by and large, this co rresp o n d s to the idea that an interm ediate level o f
representation prior to d e te rm in in g I f is required or not; although this
issue is rather ancient and co m p le x (K e m p s o n (2 0 11)), I will reduce it
here to the opposition between theories stan d in g for a plain M ontagov-
ian tr u th -c o n d itio n a l co n cep tion o f m ea n in g , and so-called d y n a m ic
sem an tic theories w h ic h definite it in term s o f con tcxt-ch an g e potential
(v ie w in g m e a n in g as “ in form ation updates” o f the current u n d ersta n d in g
o f context shared by d isco u rse p a rtic ip a n ts)— a m o v e which m akes it
n e c e s s a r y for said theories to postulate an in term ed ia ry layer o f r e p re ­
sentation up and above (and prior to) truth-evaluation relative to a
m odel.
2. Separate vs. intertwined contributions o f semantics and pragmatics to If:
these positions, which Г11 respectively dub “ literalism” vs. “contextualism”
(cf. Recanati, 2004), have drastically different views o f the semantics/
pragmatics divide; note that som e strong versions o f contextualism tend
v ery m uch to deny any substantial sem antic dimension to linguistic forms
(even though this needs not be the case, as noted by Recanati him self); a
particular version o f contextualism can be found in Levinsons (2000)
notion o f “ presumptive meanings,” which are in effect a third term between
semantic and pragm atic meaning.

A s a matter o f fact, and so m ew h at surprisingly, m o st p o st-G ric ea n theories o f

pragm atics (including e.g., Recanati, 2 0 10 ) retain a standard M o n tag o vian s e m a n ­
tics, and still focus on the role w h ic h should be granted (or denied) to static truth-
conditions (see R oberts, 2005 for a s o m e w h a t isolated attempt at b rin gin g together
a n e o -G ric e a n fra m e w o rk and the (d yn am ic) notion o f context change p o ten ­
tial )— this is arguably a bit o f a b a c k w a r d -lo o k in g contention. T h o s e theories
g enerally lack a proper d iscou rse-stru ctu ral co m p o n en t; a m o n g all the theories
here d iscussed, only A sh e r and L a sc a rid e ss (2003) Segm en ted D iscou rse R e p re ­
sentation Th eory (S D R T ) possesses both a d y n a m ic sem antics and w ell-h oned
theoretical m a c h in e r y ad d ressin g d isco u rse-stru c tu ral p h e n o m e n a .3 I will take
this to give an im portant edge to S D R T over other existing theories, as it will a p ­
pear b elow that tense-aspect fo rm s are to a large extent d iscou rse-sensitive d e ­
vices, and require a fra m e w o rk capable o f defining m e a n in g in a non-static
fa sh io n .4
The second criterion mentioned above in our little review o f theories o f prag­
matics has to do with the classical G ricean distinction between “ what is said” (sen­
tence m eaning) and “ what is implicated” (speaker meaning). As the question
underlying it can be simply rephrased as “can pragmatics interfere with logical form,
qua semantic interpretation?,” it is obviously an important issue with respect to a
m od ular theory o f grammar. Works standing for so-called “ Truth-Conditional Prag­
matics” (which I take to include not only Recanatis works, but also relevance theo­
rists’ works, cf. e.g., Blakemore, 2002; Carston, 2002, 2005; as well as Jaszczolt, 2007)

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assume that “free,” top-down pragmatic processes (i.e., triggered b y speaker m eaning
principles, not by linguistic material) can m odulate linguistic expressions prior to
their final semantic interpretation. On the contrary, other w orks (such as so-called
“semantic m in im alism ” (cf. Cappelen and Lepore, 2005), and Kent B ach s pragmatic
w orks (e.g., 1999, 2007)) stand for a strict division o f labor between semantics and
pragmatics, rejecting any kind o f pragmatic enrichm ent/m odulation o f logical
form.
A ga in , in contrast to both literalism sem an tic m in im a lis m 01* to B a c h s p o s i ­
tion, S D R T allows n o n - g r a m m a tic a lly or lexically controlled p rag m a tic in fe r­
ences to have an im pact on logical form (d iscou rse relations, though established
by p rag m a tic inferences, do contribu te to “ w h a t is said,” cf. A sher, 2007, pp. 32,
37), and therefore counts as a contextualist fr a m e w o r k (see A sher, 2007, p. 18),
w is h in g to get rid o f the traditional s e m a n tic s/p ra g m a tics divide, in o rd e r to
replace it with the distin ction betw een a logic o f inform ation content (ro ugh ly
c o r r e s p o n d in g to logical fo rm , and associated inferences) and one o f in fo rm a ­
tion packagin g (in essence a c o m m o n sense en tailm en t logic, capable o f [shal­
lowly] a cc essin g in form ation content as well as n o n -lin g u istic so u rces o f
in fo r m a t io n — cogn itive m o d e lin g [i.e., a m o d el o f the s p e a k e r s beliefs and
intents], and w o r ld - k n o w le d g e in fo rm a tio n , a m o n g other things). The p r in c i­
pled w a y in w h ic h S D R T addresses in form ation flow between these two logics
d istin guish es it fr o m theories a d v o ca tin g a stron g con textualism . M oreover,
A sh e r (2 0 0 7) explicitly rejects a detailed m o d e l o f s p e a k e r s intentions and beliefs
as lying outside the p u r v i e w o f a p ro p er linguistic enterprise; A sh e r apparen tly
intends to sh o w that m u c h can already be said about the (broad ) linguistic c o n ­
tent o f a contextualized utterance b y reso rtin g to d isco u rse -stru c tu ra l m e c h a ­
nism s. The present chapter w ill by and large adopt this h u m b ler objective, and
rem ain w ithin the b o u n d a rie s o f a d e c id e d ly linguistic pragm atics o f tense-aspect
fo rm s, lim iting itself to the w a y we can (contextually) co n stru e //for tense-aspect
expressions.

1.2. Laying the Foundations: Empirical Limits and

Theoretical Starting Point of the Chapter
1 will argue here that the main interest o f pragmatics as regards the study of tense-aspect
(or at least regarding recent and important trends in their studies) lies in two main
areas, namely (i) context-sensitive uses o f tense-aspect forms in synchrony (as illus­
trated by e.g., aspectually underspecified tenses specified in context, or tenses receiving
so-called contextual uses via some form o f pragmatic enrichment), involving different
kinds of contextual parameters, be they related to general pragmatic mechanisms (i.e.,
conversational implicatures), to information structural notions (such as discourse
topic) or to discourse-structural mechanisms (as captured e.g., by SD R T discourse rela­
tions) and (ii) the conventionalization o f these contextual uses (or to put it differently,
the role o f pragmatics in the grammaticalization and evolution o f tense-aspect forms).

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Before m o vin g to the study o f the pragmatics o f tense-aspect (TA) forms, we

need to agree on som e basic definitions. Following Smith (1991) (which I take to in­
stantiate a broader and more ancient tradition, see e.g., Garey, 1957), I will assume
that aspectuo-temporal interpretations are construed by com bining two kinds o f as­
pectual meanings, nam ely viewpoint aspect (typically conveyed by inflectional TA
forms) vs. event structure aspect, typically determined by the (disambiguated, contex-
tualized) semantics o f the verbal complex (i.e., a verb as interpreted with a specific
combination o f complements and adjuncts/modifiers).5 1 will not follow a different
tradition, which considers that the aspectual contribution o f tenses should be exclu­
sively modeled by some sort o f morphosyntactically free type-shifting operator or
functions (this includes coercion operators a la de Swart, 1998, and this volume).

1.3. Classifying the Aspectual Contribution of Tenses:

Cross-Linguistic and Historical Considerations
The existence o f recu rre n t historical and typological co n figu ratio n s in the aspectual
content o f tenses will be here used to establish a basic descriptive cross-linguistic
term in olo gy, d r a w in g im p ortan t insights from the fact that (i) there are regular pat­
terns in the w a y tenses evolve, asp ectually s p e a k in g (in line with d iscu ssio n s in, e.g.,
B y b e e et al., 1994, and D ah l, 200 0) and that (ii) these evolution s involve not only the
se m an tic content o f tenses but also the se m an tics/p rag m a tics interface, and result in
c o m p le x , “ h y b r id ” aspectual categories o f tenses. I w ill su p p o se that there are three
b ro a d se m an tic classes o f aspectual v ie w p o in ts:

— Im p erfectiv e view p o in ts: they are used to focus on s o m e internal part o f

s o m e eventuality;
— Perfective v ie w p o in ts: th e y are u sed to focus on the w h o le o f an eventuality
(its core part, w h ic h I will also call “ in n er stage” );
— Resultative v ie w p o in ts: they are used to fo c u s on the result state h old in g
after an eventuality (this definition is p ro v is io n a l— a m ore accurate
definition o f resultativity will em e rg e b elow ).

T hese three b road classes o f v ie w p o in ts are c o m m o n l y gra m m a tic iz e d as three

cross-lingu istically identified types o f tenses, n am ely:

— so-called im perfects, associated with im perfective v ie w p o in ts;

— so-called aorists, associated with perfective v ie w p o in ts;
— so-called perfects, associated w ith resultative view p o in ts.

I am here not following Smith (1991, p. 103, 146) which defines perfects as
expressing an extended kind o f perfective view point tense; instead, I associate them
with a specifically resultative view point content, taking perfect sentences to describe
a consequent state (in the sense o f Parsons, 1990), w hose precise identification is
highly context-sensitive (see the notion o f perfect state developed in N ishiyam a and
Koenig, 2004, 20 10 , and Ritz, this volume).

Copyrighted material
PRAGMATICS 273

O nly three categories o f m ixed, hybrid tenses will be discussed here, n am ely:

1. Perfects having evolved into aorists;

2. Perfects having evolved into preterits;
3. Imperfects having evolved into preterits.

I consider preterits to be aspectually und ersp ecified tenses p o ssessin g (at

least) a perfective and an im p erfective v ie w p o in t interpretation. D ia ch ro n ically
sp eak in g , it is well know n that perfects tend to evolve into aorists (cf. Nedjalkov,
1988; Bybee et al., 1994; Sq u a rtin i and Bertinetto, 2 0 0 0 ; and Ritz, this volu m e).
Perfects can also evolve toward preterits rather than aorists (that is, can becom e
even m o re largely u nderspecified tenses, with a threefold p erfective/im perfec-
tive/resultative u n d e r -d e te r m in a c y ), as is the case o f the G e r m a n Perfekt (and as
once w a s the case o f the Old French passé sim ple , derived from the fo rm e r Latin
perfect). W h en this evolution is sem anticized, they b e c o m e com patible with the
full range o f past tem poral m odifiers, w ithout any p articu lar restriction. C o n tra st
(1) and (2):

(1) * Y a n n ig ha s left on M o n d a y (standard British/A m erican English: canonical perfect)

(2) Y a n n ig c s t parti lundi. (M o d e rn French: perfectivized perfect)
Yann ig b e-P R -3sg leave-PP Monday.
“ Yann ig left 011 Monday.”

Note that imperfects too can evolve toward preterits (cf., e.g., the French im par­
fa it , or the Italian im perfetto ), but the respective aspectual contributions o f these
two types o f tenses can then be fairly different, as we will see.
Taking this diachronic dimension into account is crucial, in so far as it sheds
light on the m ixed aspectual semantics and/or pragmatics o f tenses. To put it short,
there are two interesting cases: either (i) tense-aspect form s having acquired a
broader, underspecified aspectual content covering m ore than one canonical aspec­
tual viewpoint content (cf. e.g., preterits)— in w h ich case the pragmatics can be
called in to narrow down (presicify) their interpretation; or (ii) semantically fully
specified tenses, but having evolved toward new uses, som ew hat at odds with their
semantics, in which case the pragmatics needs to enrich logical form so as to achieve
the interpretations at stake. As 1 will show below, these evolutions crucially involve
the semantics/pragmatics interface.
N ote that I am applyin g here the standard sem an tic notion o f underspecifica-
tion to m y classification o f tenses, rather than the m ore aspectual notion o f so-
called “tense neutrality” p roposed in Smith (1991), for I believe it is useful for a
theory o f the pragm atics o f tense-aspect form s to distinguish between (even
slightly) different kinds o f underspecified aspectual form s, instead o f conflating
under the sam e eventually c o n fu s in g label. Indeed, it can be argued that so-called
“aspectually n eu tral” tenses invariably retain (at least traces of) m ean in gs they
previously had (i.e., are sem antically layered in the sense o f Hopper, 1991), and
therefore end up bein g underspecified hybrid tenses with slight (or not so slight)
differences.
274 PERSPECTIVES

2. C la ssic a l G r icean R ecipes and Tense-

A spect U se in C ontext : From the Free or

the So c ia l, to t h e U n d o u b ted ly L in g u istic

A lth o u g h I have indicated above that 1 w ill be m o s tly c o n cern ed here about the
linguistically conventionalized uses o f tense-aspect fo rm s, I believe it is i m p o r ­
tant to list s o m e p h e n o m e n a that illustrate the existence o f a c o n tin u u m between
(p re su m a b ly ) la n g u a g e - in d e p e n d e n t uses, and a lread y d istin ctly c o n ve n tio n al
uses.

2.i. Free Conversational Implicatures and Tense-Aspect Use

Past imperfective viewpoint tenses often involve som e form o f pragmatic reasoning
in their relationship to the speech time interval, often in a trivial way. Suppose I
enquire about m y daughter, and m y partner utters (3) as a response:

(3) Well five minutes ago, she w as crying.

The sort o f pragmatic reasoning best captured using Gricean concepts would lead
m e to conclude that m y daughter is possibly upset and crying now, even though my
partner used a past tense to answer m y question. An intuitive explanation is that
imperfective viewpoint tenses such as the past progressive are associated at most
with a conversational implicature6 that the described event does not extend up to
speech time. Gosselin (2005, pp. 16 3 - 16 4 ) thus argues that in the case o f the French
im parfait , this pastness implicature is triggered via a com bination o f G rices m axim
o f quality and first m a xim o f quantity.
Consider now the following uses o f the imparfait. Immediately before playing
(typically cops and robbers or some such “make believe” game), French children resort
to this tense in order to set up the stage and attribute roles to those involved in the
gam e— it is the so-called “ preludic” use o f the imparfait , cf. Saussure and Sthioul, 2005;
note that the imparfait can also appear in subsequent negotiation stages throughout
the game (such uses have been simply dubbed “ ludique” ), as shown in Patard (2010),
cf. (4):

(4) Tu étais le gen d arm e, et moi le voleur.

You be-IM PF.2Sg the policem an and me the thief.
(“Y o u ’re the cop, and I ’m the robber”.)

Like the previous uses, (4) might appear to be a case o f totally free, pragmatics-
driven interpretation, in so far as the speaker must cancel the pastness implicature
associated with the im parfait : indeed, these utterances describe events holding at
speech time, going against the expected use o f past tenses (i.e., we expect the “being
a cop /a robber” states to be past). In effect, such uses o f tenses have been argued to
be instances o f m etacom m unication , i.e., involving an implicit (and som etim es an
PRAGMATICS 275

explicit) reporting expression (e.g., “ Lets say that . . .” ), which should anchor the
described situation within a fictio n a l past— cf. Sawyer (1993).
It could thus be argued (follow ing m ore general o bservation s m a d e for e x ­
ample in G o sse lin , 1999, 2005) that the “ presently relevant” reading o f the im par­
fa it is contextually produced by defeasing the pastness im plicature m entioned
above.
It should be highlighted that the above data is not an isolated ph enom enon at
all, and that similar uses o f tense-aspect form s are docum ented within a substantial
num ber o f languages: for instance, the Italian imperfetto has related luciico uses
(Bazzanella, 1990), the Spanish pretérito imperfecto too (see e.g., A lm g ren and Idi-
azabal, 200 1), whereas Dutch has a so-called “ imaginative im perfect” (Kaper, 1980;
K auppinen, 1996, p. 109). M oreover, although past tenses appear to be predominant,
som e variation has been recorded; Finnish thus resorts to the “conditional” instead
o f the “ imperfect” (Kauppinen, 1996), and G erm an to the “ Subjunktiv II” (Kaper,
1980), a m odal trend also reflected in languages possessing a “ pretend play” use o f
conditionals; French (cf. e.g., Patard, 2010) and Spanish thus also have “pretend
play” uses o f their conditionals.

2.2. From Conversational Implicatures to Conventionalized

Pragmatic Inferences
Yet other contextual uses o f tenses, arguably akin in som e sense to those illustrated
above and certainly derived from conversational implicatures, appear to suggest
that linguistic convention can be involved too. This is for instance the case o f the
so-called “politeness” im parfait (5), a usage most prom inent with com m unication
and modal/attitudinal verbs ( vouloir “ want”, espérer “ hope” ), etc. (cf. Saussure and
Sthioul, 2005; Detges, 2 0 10 ).7

(5) Je voulais vo us parler.

I w a n t - IM P F .is g you talk-INF. (“ I w anted to talk to y o u ” ).

A ccording to the now classic analysis in B erth on n eau and K leiber (1994) (see also
Saussure and Sthioul, 2005, p. 110; Detges, 2010, p. 204), using the im parfait allows
the speaker to attenuate her statement b y relegating the described event into the
past, thus leaving it open for the addressee to decide whether it overlaps or not with
the speech time interval, i.e., whether the pastness implicature associated above
with the im parfait should hold or not; if it is no longer relevant, there is no need to
react (this is a negative sort o f politeness, in that respect).
Som e interesting empirical intricacies are worth mentioning, as they suggest
that politeness use o f the imparfait has undergone som e conventionalization in
terms o f its association with overt speech act m arkers o f different types (but not
downright semanticization, as claimed in Detges, 2010). Thus an explicit polite
request marker such as s'il vous plait “ please” w ould be ruled out in (5). Som ewhat
predictably, a straightforward jussive speech act is also incompatible with the
imparfait (when used to convey a desire having present relevance), (6)— the present
2 j6 PERSPECTIVES

is then required, (7). Similarly, it is difficult to use the imparfait with a prosod y c o n ­
veying anger (8), or within e.g., an exclamative utterance, (9) (the latter utterance
can then only describe a bona fide past event):8

(6) Sonja mets-toi en ligne, ??je voulais te parler!!!!!

Son ja, put-IM P.2sg y o u rse lf on line, I w a n t - IM P F .is g you talk -IN F
“ Sonja, go online, I w anted to talk to y o u !”

(7) Sonja mets-toi en ligne, je veu x te parler

Son ja, put-IM P.2sg y o u rse lf on line, I w a n t - P R .is g you talk-IN F
“ Sonja, go online, I want to talk to y o u ! ”

(8) #Q u est-ce que vous vouliez? (with a scolding, rage-conveying prosody)

W h at be-PR-3sg that you want*IMPF.2pl

(9) # Q u e s t-c c que j ’avais envie de vous parler!

W hat be-PR.3Sg that I have-IM PF.isg. desire of you talk-INF!

If the attenuating reading o f (5) was m erely produced by canceling the pastness
implicature associated with the im parfait , then we should predict (6), (8), and (9) to
have a politeness reading. There must thereforebe more to (5) than form -independent,
“ free” pragmatic enrichment. In particular, it seems that there are (linguistic) c o n ­
ventions g o v e r n in g the acceptability o f such uses o f the im parfait with different
kinds o f speech acts.

A n even m o re c o n v in c in g case can be m a d e o f the so -ca lle d “ h y p o c o r is t ic ”

uses o f the im parfait. Thus in (10), if we either leave out the reduplicated variant
o f patte (“ p a w ” ), or do not adopt the sort o f p r o s o d y g e n e ra lly used to pity a
child about a w o u n d , etc. (in echo to a c h ild ’s com p lain t; I will call it the “oh m y
p o o r D a r li n g ” ( O M P D ) p r o so d y ), then the utterance b ecom es hardly acceptable
(cf. Bres (2 0 0 4 )).9

(10) O h , mais on avait mal à la papatte!

O h , but we have-IM P F .3sg ache at the paw.
“ Oh, but o u r p aw aches!” (with O P M D prosody, speech act is (fictionally) attributed
to a pet anim al)

This demonstrates that O M P D utterances have undergone a triple prosodic,

m orphological and syntactic conventionalization (possibly pragm atic strengthening
in the sense o f Traugott, 1988, as an implicature cancellation is involved). Indeed,
most existing works with a strong post-G ricean background rather view such uses
o f the im parfait as contributing to “what is said,” by means o f (linguistically encoded)
pragmatic enrichment/explicatures/implicitures, cf. Saussure and Sthioul (2005);
Saussure ( 2 0 10 )— a content w h ich com plem ents and extends (but does not contra­
dict) its semantic value: the im parfait retains the semantic contribution o f a past,
imperfective tense.
PRAGMATICS 277

3. The D iffer en t Flavors of In f o r m a t i o n

St r u c t u r a l C o n tex tu a lism :W hy a Ra d ica l
Pragm a tic A ppr o ach to Ten se-A spect
Fo rm s Sh o uld Be Rejec ted

I will now turn to the pragm atic analyses o f tense-aspect form s based on parameters
related to an information structural conception o f context— as expressed through
certain neo-Gricean notions, such as that o f common ground (i.e., the set o f p ro p o ­
sitions which the interlocutors in a discourse behave as if they all hold to be true; cf.
Stalnaker, 1978), discourse topic /Question under Discussion and context set (cf. R o b ­
erts, 1996, 2005). Said analyses demonstrate the need for taking such notions as
central to our understanding o f certain kinds o f tense-aspect forms. Perfects, and
past imperfectives (notably the past progressive, cf. Portner, 1998, forthcom ing) are
certainly the forms that have been best studied under this particular angle; I will
here only consider the former.
Not content with illustrating here how informational structure issues lie at the
heart o f understanding (at least) certain tense-aspect forms, I will try to show here
how this enriched pragmatic m od elin g m a ch in ery can be (and has been) put to use
in very different ways, and allows for both a radical pragmatic or a more balanced
semantic and pragmatic approach to tense-aspect forms. To establish this, I will
here contrast two recent treatments o f the English present perfect (PP, henceforth),
nam ely Portner (2003) (which attributes aspectual interpretative effects o f the PP to
language independent, speaker m eaning-based principles) and N ish iyam a and
K oenig ( 2 0 0 4 ,2 0 10 ) (which strikes a more even theoretical deal between the s e m a n ­
tics and pragmatics o f aspect; see Ritz, this volume).

3.1. Portner (2003): A Radical Pragmatic Account of the

Present Perfect
A s it is im possible to discuss here the entirety o f P o rtn ers (2003) proposal
(defended anew in Portner, forthcom ing), let us focus on its relevant features. Its
most im portant tenet is that the English PP does not contribute a result state, but
an epistem ic notion o f result, relating som e currently relevant proposition to a past
event. Follow ing sem inal w ork by Inoue (1979), Portner (2003, PP- 4 7 1 tf-> 5oiff.)
argues that PP utterances convey a total or partial answer to the current discourse
topic, understood as a structured set o f questions. For instance, Portner claims that
(11) is about an sw erin g an implicit, presupposed question, i.e., Is the Earth in da n ­
ger o f being hit by giant asteroids ?, while B s response in (12) answers an explicit
question.

(11) The Earth has been hit by giant asteroids before (and it p robably will be again).
278 PERSPECTIVES

(12) Speak er A : We need to get an explanation o f G eo rge Eliot s style. W h o can w e ask?
Speak er B: M a r y is sm art and she has read M iddlem arch. So w e can ask her.

Portner claims that neither (11) nor the third sentence in (12) (M a ry is smart and she
has read M iddlem arch) require any present result state to be available. Rather, he
claims that those PP utterances describe events falling within the “ Extended N o w ”
o f a given context c (p. 496); according to Portner, this suffices to account for the
distribution o f the PP with temporal adverbials. In addition to this light semantics,
Portner (2003) considers that the aspectual value o f the PP boils down to the dis­
tinction between continuative and non-continuative interpretations (a fact which
has been disputed, e.g., in N ish iy a m a and Koenig, 2004, pp. 1 0 9 - 1 1 0 ) ; I will ignore
this for the sake o f the argument), illustrated below by the contrast between (13a)
and (13b): w hile the event o f M a ry reading M iddlem arch cannot be said to be c o n ­
tinuing at speech time in (13a) (in a shorthand, Reichenbach-style notation, e < r A
r= s)y at speech time, M a ry can be either upset or not in (13b) ( e ° r A r=s, with 0
denoting the overlap relation).

(13) a. M a r y has read Middlemarch (e ).

b. M a r y has been upset (c ).

In short, the only empirical generalization relevant to the aspectual interpretation

o f the PP in Portner (2003) is that stative clauses license both the continuative and
the non-continuative reading, whereas as non-stative clauses only license the latter.
By virtue o f a line o f reasoning which, very shortly, involves an apparent analogy
between sequence o f tense effects in em bedded clauses and the PP,10 and O giharas
(1995) idea that em bedded clauses are tenseless, Portner claims that the PP itself is
in effect tenseless, and that its aspectuo-tem poral effects can and should be derived
from a single general pragmatic principle related to the interpretation o f aspect in
discourse, which he dubs the Temporal Sequencing Principle (TSP) (p. 484)» (14)*

(14) (T SP) For an y tenseless clause 0 , reference tim e r, and event e,

(i) i f 0 is not stative: || 0 \\r,c im plies that e precedes r, and
(ii) i f 0 is stative: II 0 ||':* im plies that e either precedes o r o verlaps with r.

P o rtn e r (2003, p. 484) goes even fu rth e r by c la im in g that a m o re general principle,

w h ich he calls the Discourse Temporal Sequencing Principle ( D T S P ) offers additional
ev id en c e in fa vo r o f the TSP. P o r t n e r s D T S P is in effect akin to K a m p and R ey le’s
(1993) th eory o f event o rd e r in g in d isco urse, itself b a sed on essential insights taken
fro m , e.g., D o w t y (1986): the idea is r o u g h ly that eventive sentences force the refer­
ence tim e to “ m o v e forw ard,” w h ile stative sentences do not.
Finally, a d d in g a m o d a l and inform ational twist to his otherw ise rather plain
‘ exten d ed n o w ” analysis, Portner (2003, p. 501) claims that the perfect “fo rm serves an
information m an agem en t role within the conversation,” establishing an epistemic
link between the past event u n d erlyin g a sentence in the perfect, and its presently
relevant interpretation; he reformulates the presupposition function o f the perfect as
follows:
PRAGMATICS 279

(15) A sentence S o f the form P E R F E C T ^ ) p resu p p o ses: 3 q\ANS(q) A P(p, q)].

where P is a kind o f epistemic must , p is the proposition expressed by 4> and the
property A N S is true o f any proposition which is a complete or partial answer to the
discourse topic at the time S is uttered. Portner (2003, PP- 4 9 9 - 5° ° ) argues that P is
interpreted given a certain conversational background (which Portner defines in a
classical Kratzerian m anner).

3.2. Why a Fair Trade Attitude Is Advisable at the

Semantics/Pragmatics Interface
Portners account is driven by a keen sense o f theoretical economy, and involves a fairly
minimal amount o f semantic commitments. But appealing as it m ay seem, I believe it
faces some serious empirical problems. For want of space, I will only address here
those directly related to the question o f the semantics/pragmatics division o f labor.
It is capital to recall that P o rtn ers (2003) T S P is supposed to obviate the need
for ascribing any aspectual semantic content to the PP, and that its empirical m o ti­
vation lies in the alleged parallelism between the aspectual interpretation o f the PP
and that o f em bedded clauses in the simple past.
The sort o f temporal ordering prevailing between a matrix clause event and that
o f an em bedded clause event has been the subject o f m any studies unrelated to SO T
ph en om en a; and observations m ade in these works suggest that Portn ers T S P is, in
fact, inaccurate. Relative clauses and all m a n n e r o f non-com plem ent clauses do not
to obey this principle (see Felser, 1999; M iller and Lowrey, 2003), cf. (16), (17):

(16) M a x kicked John, w ho fell, (falling event d ocs not precede the kickin g event)
(17) M a x kicked John because he w as angry, (non -con tin uative read in g is out)

Note that given Portn ers (2003) formulation, the T S P should also apply to any form
o f tenseless clause, including infinitival or gerund com plem ent clauses of, e.g., per­
ception verbs (cf. e.g., Felser, 1999), thus massively over-generating, (18):

(18) John saw (e ) M a r y leave (ea). (w ro n g prediction: e %< e )

So Po rtn ers (2003) T S P fails at a first, general level, because it cannot handle the
intricacies underlying the temporal semantics o f em bedded clauses; their temporal
interpretation cannot boil d o w n to a simple, context-insensitive p rin cip le.'1 This
diagnostic is only confirmed by the fact that Portn ers (2003) D T S P is also flawed at
an even m ore general level, and fails to m ake correct predictions in m a n y structur­
ally different contexts, cf. (19), (20):

(19) John fell ( e ). M a x pushed h im (e^). (D T S P prediction: e < e )

(20) John took the staircase [e ), a n d M a ry took the lift {e ). (D T S P prediction: e < e )

The above examples are classical a m o n g w orks having criticized similar context-
insensitive temporal ordering o f event theories o f the 1980s (cf. e.g., Partee, 1984;
Dowty, 1986; Hinrichs, 1986);12 it is hardly surprising that Portners (2003) D T S P
280 PERSPECTIVES

should also fail at accounting for them; w hat is m ore surprising is that one should
venture into this old im passe again (and in all fairness, Portner h im self should be
credited for having suspected so m uch, see Portner, 2003, p. 488).13
1 believe the sort o f problem we have identified by studying Po rtn ers account
should prom pt us to (i) adopt an approach m akin g provisions for gram m ar-sensitive
pragmatic processes in the interpretation o f tense-aspect forms, and (ii) not attempt
at assigning such a trivial aspectual content to obviously aspectual forms, as Portner
did with the English PP (as P o rtn ers (2003) T S P has been shown to be inadequate,
Portn ers main argum ent for not ascribing a substantial aspectual semantics to the
perfect vanishes; although I cannot demonstrate it here for want o f space, this c o n ­
clusion should be extended to virtually any gram m aticalized aspectual fo r m —
language-independent principles like the T S P cannot be invoked to take away from
the semantics o f tenses their rightful aspectual load).
(ii) may seem rather obvious for anyone interested in the diachrony or typology
o f present perfects (or other tense-aspect forms). A radical pragmatic approach a la
Portner is impossible to reconcile with observations about the grammaticalization
o f the English perfect (cf. e.g., Carey, 1994) and its evolution in certain dialects o f
English (cf. Ritz, 2007, this volume), which preclude the possibility o f letting the
aspectual interpretation o f PPs (including in various dialects o f English) depend on
such an abstract pragmatic principle as Portners (2003) T S P (and again, this obser­
vation extends to other tense-aspect forms).
N ow should we conclude from this that the v ery information structural prag­
matic tools involved in Portn ers analysis are useless to the analysis o f perfects? I
believe this is not the case; Portner is certainly correct in seeking in such tools a
solution out o f the sort o f puzzles associated with the resultative content o f perfects—
they must be indeed highly context-dependent referents. I h e kind o f analysis dis­
cussed in the following section demonstrates that information structural
contextualist strategies can be applied to the PP (and other tenses, presumably) in a
v e r y different way.

3.3. Nishiyama and Koenig (2004, 2010): for a Balanced

Semantic and Pragmatic Account of Tense-Aspect Forms
Using Information-Structural Pragmatic Tools
Similarly to Portners (2003) analysis, N ishiyam a and Koenig (2004, 2 0 10 ) (N & K,
henceforth) take the English PP to describe a context-dependent, underspecified
referent, which they call a “perfect state,” X(s) (X being a free, contextually inter­
preted variable, overlapping with the speech time), together with a past eventuality
ev o f w h ich 5 is the result in so m e epistemic and context-sensitive sense. So N ishi­
y a m a and K o e n ig s account differs from Portners analysis prim arily with respect to
the aspectual content ascribed to the perfect (the perfect is a form with resultative
m e a n in g for N ish iyam a and K o en ig )— but retains the idea o f an epistemic approach
to the definition o f resultativity. The canonical, DRT-style representation they
PRAGMATICS 281

ascribe to a perfect can be found in (21) (using a standard, abbreviated notation for
discourse representation structures— D RSs), w here 0 stands for the eventuality de­
scription contributed by the main verb, r the reference time interval, and t the usual
temporal trace function:

(21) 3 ei',s,r [<f){ev) A t { cv ) < r A A'(s) A r(s)or]

The most innovative aspect o f N ishiyam a and K o en ig s account proposal lies in

the fact that X is a “perfect state description” specified by m eans o f pragmatic, infer­
ential processes, which should be m odeled via Levin son s (2000) I-Principle (“ In ­
formativeness Principle” ). A lthough N & K do not go into the details o f the reasoning
process involved (a point which, as noted in Portner, forthcoming, gives Portners
(2003) account a bit o f an edge over N ish iyam a and K o e n ig s account), they claim
that it can successfully predict w h y (22) can, d epending on context, convey either
“ Patricks m eniscus is currently broken” (23) or, “ Patricks (understandably) behind
in his w o r k ” (24).

(22) Patrick has broken his m eniscus.

(23) Lexically entailed rcsultativc perfect reading:
X (s )= P a tr ic k s m en iscu s be broken (s)
(24) C o n versatio n ally Im plicated rcsultativc perfect reading:
X (s )= P a tr ic k s be behind in his w o rk (s)

To sum m arize, N ishiyam a and K o e n ig s account preserves the central insight that
(grammaticalized) perfect tenses have a well-developed aspectual semantics, while
leaving appropriate room for pragmatic enrichm ent via information-structure-
based context m odeling pragmatic tools in the spirit o f Portner (2003), thus d e m o n ­
strating that those can be reconciled with a more balanced analysis o f T A forms at
the semantics/pragmatics interface.

4. D is c o u r s e -St r u c t u r a l C o n t ex t u a lism

and the Pragm a tic s of A spect

Although much m ore could be said about the interest o f information structural
contextualism and the pragmatics o f tense and aspect, I will now focus on another
kind o f factors which have been central to the pragm atic study o f aspect— nam ely
discourse structural contextual parameters. Awareness o f the im portance o f such
factors predates m o d e rn linguistics (cf. e.g., Foulet, 1919, 1920; Hatcher, 1942), and
becam e very successful with W einrichs and Benvenistes seminal studies (VVein-
rich, 1964; Benveniste, 1966). A n o th e r group o f works, pioneered by H opper (1979)
and Hopper and Thom pson (1980), initiated a related, Gestalttheorie- influenced
line o f analysis by distinguishing between the so-called foregrou n din g and b a ck ­
gro u n d in g functions o f tense-aspect forms. On the whole, evidence o f the role
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played b y discourse-structural param eters has been steadily e m e rg in g for nearly a

century within such relatively th eory-neutral w o rk s, both historical and typological.
See e.g., the repeated observation in philological w ork s (cf. Foulet, 1920; M a rtin , 1971;
Schosler, 1973) or crosslinguistic studies (D ahl, 2000) that one o f the m a in empirical
signs o f the gradual evolution o f perfect tenses into aorists w a s their use within n a r­
rative sequences (to the po int that D a h l s questionnaire m ak e s it one o f the important
tests for identifying bona fid e perfects); or the c o m m o n observation that ‘‘discourse
b a c k g r o u n d in g ” is associated with im perfective view p o in t tenses, w hereas “ fore­
g r o u n d in g ” is associated with perfective vie w p o in t tenses (see e.g., Fleisch m an , 1990;
Sch osier, 1994). These analyses, pre-theoretical as they were (in the sense o f m o d ern
theories o f sem antics and pragm atics), played a decisive role in the subsequent devel­
o pm ent o f so-called d iscourse theories placin g the sem antics/pragm atics interface at
the heart o f their p reoccu patio n s (in contrast, radical pragm atics relying on speaker
m e a n in g strategies a la Portner still disregard these facts). The m o s t prom inent
th e o ry o f that kind is u n d ou b ted ly A s h e r and L a scarid ess (2003) Segm ented D is ­
course Representation Theory. O f course, other theories o f pragm atics have studied
d iscourse structural p h e n o m e n a with regard to tense-aspect form s; this is p a r tic u ­
larly true o f R elevance T h e o r y — see the countless publications by m e m b e r s o f the
“ G e n e v a school,” o f which Saussure (2003) is certainly the m o s t extended instance
(this branch o f R T contrasts with m o re o rth o d o x R T w o rk s such as Blakem ore, 2002,
2003, w h ich clearly see discourse structural factors as se c o n d a r y to sp eak er m e a n in g
param eters, and in that sense, fall into the sam e league as Portner, 2003). However,
d iscu ssin g the idiosyncratic properties o f R T as a th eory o f co m m u n ica tio n w ou ld
take us astray fro m the goals o f the present chapter.

4.1. A Short Introduction to SDRT, and to the Role of Tense/

Aspect in the Framework
I will now give a succinct introduction to S D R T ; see Asher and Lascarides (2003) for
an in-depth presentation. Within the S D R T fram ew ork, discourse structure is p ri­
marily determ ined by means o f discourse relations (D Rs): thus R(a,fi) indicates that
D R R attaches som e new discourse segment (an elementary discourse unit) to the
discourse context, via a specific attachment site a (another, previously introduced
discourse unit). Labels such as a, called speech act referents , are proposition tokens
distinguishing each linguistic occurrence o f a proposition; and each proposition
within a given discourse eventually receives a compositional semantics (modeled as
a Discourse Representation Structure , or D R S, cf. K am p and Reyle, 1993). Since S D R T
adopts a n e o-D avid son ian v iew on event semantics, this com positional semantics
comprises an event description (at least for declarative sentences); and when R(a,fi)
attaches segment /3 to segm ent a, ea and e (i serve to note the events respectively u n ­
derlying a and /?.
I have already introduced above the core architectural organization o f SDRT,
w h ich distinguishes the logic o f information content (LIC), roughly capturing “ what
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is said,” in the largest possible sense (i.e., the logical form o f clauses plus the logical
form o f discourse— including discourse relations between discourse segments), and
the logic o f inform ation packaging (LIP), which em bodies all the pragmatic process­
ing required in order to establish discourse structure. The central task o f the LIP is
thus to determine discourse relations, which, in turn, becom e part o f “segmented
discourse representation structures” (SDRSs).
Technically speaking, discourse relations (D R s) are established via a c o m m o n
sense entailment logic, capable o f tapping every possible source o f contextually
available in fo rm a tio n :14 (i) content drawn from the L IC , (ii) “ pragm atic rules” re­
alizing cues taken from explicit linguistic inform ation (discourse connectives and
aspectuo-tem poral m orp h olog y, in the d o m a in relevant to the present chapter, are
notably capable o f offering such cues— it is an im portant property o f the S D R T
with respect to the pragm atics o f aspect, and one which gives substance to the idea
that pragm atic content can be tied to linguistic form , and reflect on s o m e sort o f
“ linguistically conventionalized” pragm atic processes), (iii) inform ation s te m ­
m in g from S D R T s cognitive c om p on en t (which m od els the contextual intentions
and beliefs o f the speaker/addressee), and (iv) know ledge-based/real-w orld in fo r­
mation. It is crucial to note that this logic is n o n -m o n o t o n ic — a feature know n to
be necessary for pragm atic processin g not to give rise to countless problem s with,
e.g., “garden-path sentences,” and generally com p etin g inferences. Finally, it
should be noted that in the latest version o f the fram ew o rk , the com putation o f
discourse relations is subjected to a principle called M axim um Discourse C oher­
ence , and w h ich “ ran ks” possible configurations o f d iscourse relations in terms o f
the n u m b er o f connections established (the greater the num ber, the greater the
coherence).
There are at least two natural w ays in which aspectuo-temporal constraints can
play a role when building up discourse structure in S D R T — I will be here mostly
concerned with so-called veridical discourse relations, as other types o f discourse
relations are trickier:

1. Through discourse-relation specific axiom s (constraints) associated with

the Satisfaction Schema for Veridical Rhetorical Relations:

(25) ( w f l ||J?(jr,^)||Af ( . / # ) iff ( w j) IIK 1 A K A J I Af (iv'tf)

Where _ represent discourse-relation specific axiom schemata (or m eaning

postulates ); they are express m onotonic constraints on discourse relations, o f the
following form:

(26) <f>R(a^=> con dition s^,ft)

(where conditions(a,f$) represents constraints on K 01* K , or discourse constituents

introduced by them; A sher and Lascarides, 2003, p. 159). Note also that since
is the antecedent for the m eaning postulate, the latter cannot be verified unless K
and K are properly bound (via the Satisfaction Schem a for Veridical Rhetorical
Relations). Exam ple (27) gives an illustration for the Elaboration relation:

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284 PERSPECTIVES

(27) T e m p o r a l C o n s e q u e n c e o f E la b o r a t io n : </>afl£wMWl,Il{<vS) => P art-of (c

2. Within the G lue Language:Tlie G lu e Language, w h ich pertains to the LIP,

computes discourse relations, by com bining information stem m ing from
natural language with other sources o f information so as to update (=
“S D R T update” ) the discourse context.

S D R T uses axiom schemata in the Glue Language (or “ Glue Logic A x io m s ” ;

they pertain to the LIP) in order to com pute rhetorical relations, that is, perform
discourse update. Their form is shown in (28)— where ?(«,/?,A) indicates that j8 is to
be attached to a within constituent A (= the label which im mediately outscopes both
a and P via underspecified D R ?); R (a ,fit/\) is the inferred discourse relation, in case
“some s t u ff” holds true (cf. A sher and Lascarides, 2003, pp. 187!!'., 473 ff.), see (28).

(28) (?(ff,/?,/\)Asom e stuff) > R {a ,fiy/\)

Let us take (again) the example o f the Elaboration relation:

(29) E la b o r a t io n : (?(ayfiyA)/\subtype(ftya)hAspect(ayft)) > Elciboration(a,fi,A)

Aspect(ctyfi) represents an unspecified conjunction o f aspectual constraints on the

main events o f a and in (29), w hile subtype(jfiyd) indicates that jS is a subtype o f a
(this notably entails that et. is in so m e sense an “event ingredient” o f e ).

4.2. Standard Definition of DRs and Aspectuo-Temporal

Information
We must now consider how aspectual inform ation can be fruitfully integrated (i)
within the preconditions for com puting discourse relations, and (ii) within m eaning
postulates associated with D R s (this reflects on how the computation o f D R s can
help determine aspectual information within logical form itself). I give below the
standard definition o f D R s (taken from A sher and Lascarides, 2003) interacting
m ost with tense-aspect phenom ena (not every DR appears to be aspect-related),
and stating those aspectual constraints in terms o f aspectual classes instead o f v ie w ­
point aspect.
Let us begin with N arrationy which A sher and Lascarides (2003) defines as
follows:

(30) 5
N a r r a t i o n ^ , / ): a and describe a sequence o f events ea (with a n o n - e m p t y c o m m o n
topic):
(31) N a r r a t i o n I: (?(ay/?yA) A O ccasion(ay/?)) > Narration(a,/?yA)
(32) Occasion 1: (?(«,/?,A) A [0 (t? ) ] a A [ ^ ( e ,)]/?) > O ccasion(ayfi)

W h e re [<t>(ej]a m eans that condition is part o f the pro po sition al content

o f term a. The conjunction on the left hand -sid e o f Occasion reflects on s o m e local
or global script-like causal law, w h ich “ typically” relates two events; cf. (33) and
( 3 4 )).

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PRAGMATICS 285

(33) M a x fell. (77-) John helped him up. (77 J (cf. A sh e r and I.ascarides, 2 0 0 3 )
(34) F a ll in g an d H e lp in g : (?(«,/?,A) A [fall(e , jc))r/ A [help-up(c^ y, x)\fi) > O c c a s io n in g

Such scriptal knowledge can in turn help establish the Narration discourse relation
within the LIP in a n on -m o n o to n ic fashion (following Asher and Lascarides, 2003),
thanks to axiom s such as (34) above.
A m onoton ic version o f Narration is claimed to exist as well (cf. (35), and the
associated m ea n in g postulates (36) and (37)), capturing examples involving explicit
temporal ordering m arkers such as then in English, see (38).

(35) N a r r a t i o n II: ( ? (tf,$ A ) A Cue-Phrase(fi)) -> Narration(a,ft,A)

ex.: (?(«,/?,A) A then(fi)) -> N arration (a,fiyA)
(36) Temporal consequence o f N arration :
KrraUonM * overlap(prestate(es)y poststate(e))
(37) T o p ic c o n s tra in t on N a rra tio n : ^>Narration{aS) => - > ° ( K n/Q

(where n computes the com m on content between two form ulas; this condition says
roughly that a and /?have a contingent non-em pty co m m on content, i.e., topic).

(38) John pushed M a x («) and then M a x fell (/ ). 5

The temporal consequence o f Narration has an obvious aspectual basis, inas­
much as it implicitly relates change-of-state segments (cf. the notions o f post-state
and pre-state used in (36)— this temporal postulate (36) says that no intermediary
event separates ea and e8, and that ea < e j .
Background is another S D R T discourse relation w hose connection to aspectuo-
temporal factors appears fairly obvious, as its role is to indicate overlap between two
events (the n am e itself is reminiscent o f H o p p e r’s (1979) background). Note that two
distinct kinds o f Background relations can be established, d epending on the order o f
the segments. Thus (39a) is a case o f B a c k g r o u n d ^ ^ (the newly introduced seg­
ment describes an event referent which is backgrounded with regard to a previously
introduced event), w hile (39b) is a case o f Background l n v l . (40) and (41) give the
form al rules for inferring Background , and associated m eaning postulates.

(39) a. M a r y cam e h o m e (a). It w as p o u r in g with rain (ft).

b. It was p o u rin g with rain (a). M a r y cam e hom e [ft).
(40) a. E v e n t(e J A State(ep) A ?(r/,#A) > BackgroundB(ukwanJ (a yfty A)
b. S ta te(e) A Event(efi) A ?(r/,^,A) > B a c k g r o u n d A)

(41) Tem poral consequence o f Background:

$ Background0 *ft) ^ o v e r la p s p e ) (but in fact, the stronger en Q ea often holds).

Further constraints hold with respect to the notion o f narrative topic underlying
Background discourses, but I must leave them aside here (see Asher and Lascarides,
2003, pp. 16 5-16 8 ).
Elaboration is a third D R for which tense marking is given as an important factor
by Asher and Lascarides (2003). Elaboration(ctyfi) holds if e3 spells out events m aking

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286 PERSPECTIVES

up eu (cf. (44)) (speech act referent elaborates on the content o f a). I am repeating in
(42) the LIP rule used to infer it, and the associated meaning postulate in (43):

(42) E la b o ra tio n : (?(ayfiyA)f\subtype(J3ya)hA spect{ayfi)) > E laboration(ayfiyA)

(43) Tem poral consequence o f Elaboration

=>Part-of(ep O EO
(44) G u y had a wonderful night (a). He ate a delicious d in n e r (/?). He won a d an cin g
competition (7). A n d he went clubbing with his girl friend (< ). 5
C ondition Aspect(a,fi) in (42) is a shorthand to say that ditferent aspectual var­
iants o f the rule exist, capturing aspectual constraints (which, again, A sh er and Las-
carides, 2003, take to be a matter o f aspectual class).
Finally, Explanation is the last o f the tense-aspect sensitive discourse relations here
listed:1" E xplan ation ^ , ft) indicates that by perform ing speech act f t speaker intends to
explain what is said (i.e., If) in a , cf. (45), and the associated meaning postulates in (46):

(45) Explanation: (?(ay/?yA)/\Top((jya)Acausen((jyf iyu)AAspect(ayfi)) > Explanation^ayf i yA )

(where cause^((jyfiyo) indicates that there is evidence in the discourse that /?caused a)

(46) Temporal consequences o f Explanation:

e*<0
< es>
=■(event^) =>
(where event(e) indicates that c is a non-stative event)

Again, A spect(ayfi) says that although Explanation (like Elaboration) does not nec­
essarily depend on specific aspectual information to be inferred, it nevertheless a p ­
pears to be sensitive to tense change (i.e., if the aspectual m arking o f a and j8 cannot
differ in an unconstrained fashion). Finally, I will not discuss Result , but it is really
the discourse converse o f E xplanation : Result(ayfi) indicates that ea causes e;. (in
another sense, Result is also another com plem en tary D R o f N arration , as Narration
requires a and ft not to be (01* only weakly) causally related).

4.3. On the Discourse Structural Pragmatic Signatures of

Aspectual Classes of Tenses
I will n o w study the “discourse signatures” o f classes o f aspectual viewpoints through
the kind o f rhetorical relations which they license (or block) in context, thereby
giving substance to the v iew that view point aspect (rather than m ere Aktionsart
information, as was suggested in A sher and Lascarides, 2003) is central to u n d er­
standing the role o f tenses at the semantics/pragmatics interface.

4 .3.1. Why Grammatical Aspect Should Be Involved in DR Rules and

Consequence Axioms
A s we have just seen, the standard definition o f S D R T temporal consequence a x ­
ioms capture the different effects o f Background vs. Narration via the opposition

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PRAGMATICS 287

between states and events, c la im in g that the progressive has a stative denotation.
W h ile there is certainly s o m e t h in g (m o rp h o lo g ic a lly ) true about this, the question
is ultim ately w h eth e r we do not need m o re specific aspectual labels than state vs.
event.
N o w it is rather easy to show that this sort o f definition o f Background can apply
to discourses m arked with a perfective view point tense, provided the two events
overlap and one appears to offer a “ backgrou nd in g” event for the other. (47a) pro­
vides such an example:
*
indeed, we have e 771 « e 772; m oreover dem eurer (“
V
remain” )7
could qualify as describing a state. So in principle, BackgroundBackn.(trd{7r 77) could
be computed (this is m ade even more likely by the fact that Asher et al., 2007, m e n ­
tion w hile/pendant as typical triggers for Background). Yet intuitively the correct
interpretation o f t t Jt t is not about B a c k g ro u n d in g ) (these segm ents do not intro­
duce a “stage-setting” elem ent relative to which 7r should be evaluated); it is
rather one o f Contrast or Parallel ; but using the im parfait in ttJ tt would cause
Contrast ! Parallel to be set aside for Background. M ore generally, the sam e problem
occurs w henever an atelic sentence is used with a simultaneous interpretation: thus
while Continuation is a likely candidate to analyze (47b), the rules and axiom s seen
above might also license Background— and its not obvious at the end o f the day why
the latter shouldn’t be established.16

(47) a. Jean passa trois heures glorieuses à se faire congratuler ( tt). Ht pendant ce temps,
Jeanne d em eu ra dans lo m b r e (77 ), à lecart du monde.
Jean sp en d -P S .3sg three hours glorious at R E F L m a k e - I N F congratulate-INF. A n d
d u r in g this time, Jeanne slay-PS.3sg in the-shadow, at the distance of.the m a n y _
people.
“ Jean spent three glorious hours with people congratulating him. M eanwhile, Jeanne
rem ained in the sh ad ow s, aw ay from the crowd.”
b. Jeanne raconta une légende irlandaise (77- ), et Jean jo u a de la harpe pour
l’a c c o m p a g n er (77- ).
Jeanne tell-PS-3sg a legend Irish, and Jean p l a y - P S . 3 s g o f the harp to h e r - A C C
accom pan y-IN F .
“ Jeanne told an Irish legend, and Jean accom pan ied her on the harp.”

Even m ore telling are examples involving the present or past progressive and
the perfect. Consider the case o f Elaboration : (48a) can be easily uttered in the pro­
gressive or the perfect if the same tense is used throughout; but things get messy if
w e start com b in in g them, cf. (48b) vs. (48c)— note that U 8 d ) is correct because the
jS segm ent does not elaborate upon r/, but is backgrounded to y instead.

(48a) 5
G u y has had a w onderful night (a). He has eaten lots o f salm on (/ ), and has talked
with old friends (y).
(48b) G u y is h aving a w onderful night (<•/). He has eaten lots o f sa lm o n (fi)y and is talking
with friends (y).
(48c) 5
G u y has had a w on d erfu l night (</).??He is+w as eating lots o f salm on (/ ) . . .
(48d) G u y has had a w onderful night («). He was eating lots o f salmon (ft) w h en he met
old friends (y).

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288 PERSPECTIVES

The state and event labels cannot help us rule out the incorrect (48c) unless we
introduce a distinction between perfect states and progressive states. But o f course,
m akin g such a m ove is tantamount to giving up the core o f the “aspectual class”
hypothesis. Exam ples such as those demonstrate that viewpoint information needs
to be incorporated into the D R s rules and axioms. Further evidence for this will be
fo u n d in the existence o f empirical generalizations relating aspectual classes o f
tenses and D Rs.

4.3.2. The Imperfective/Perfective Viewpoint Distinction: Background vs.

Narration
Perfective an d imperfective viewpoints are know n to be often associated with sp e­
cific classes o f aspectuo-temporal modifiers, or at least to ascribe them different
interpretations. Thus bounded interval modifiers (pendant ‘for’ + measured d u ra ­
tion) typically reject imperfective view points (unless they are themselves under the
scope o f som e pluractional (H A B ) 01* habitual ( G E N ) quantifier) and accept perfec­
tive viewpoints. What is often less considered in the literature (particularly the neo-
Gricean one) is that this sem antic signature o f aspectual classes o f tenses has a
pragmatic counterpart found in the distributional constraints o f tense-aspect
m arker with DRs.
Thus, the use o f perfective vs. imperfective viewpoints in (49a-b) triggers different
discourse structural configurations: Backgroundn(h.kwani in (49a), vs. Narration in (49b):

(49) a. Yannig appuya sur l'interrupteur. L’ obscurité régnait dans la pièce.

Yannig press-PS.3sg on the switch. Darkness reign-IMPF.3sg in the room.

“ Yannig pressed the switch. The room w as pitch dark.”

b. Yannig appuya sur l'interrupteur. Lobscurité régna dans la pièce.
Yannig press-PS.3sg on the switch. Darkness reign-PS.3sg in the room.
“. . . the room became pitch dark.”

Such examples are well know n from the literature (notably) dedicated to Rom ance
languages; and it has been considered co m m o n w isdom since at least Reichenbach
(1947) that the fundamental function o f perfective viewpoint tenses is to “ m ove the
reference time (and narration) forward,” while that o f imperfective view point tenses
is not to “ m ove it forward.” Early aspectual theories o f temporal ordering in dis­
course have usually captured this generalization via the state vs. event distinction,
claim ing imperfective view poin t tenses to denote states (Kam p and Reyle, 1993)—
or at least “ ho m ogen eo u s” events where the heterogeneous vs. hom ogeneous refer­
ence criterion has been ascribed a similar role in discourse (cf. Dowty, 1986; de
Swart, 1998). Yet such abstract generalizations were soon criticized as inaccurate—
as we have seen with our study o f Portners (2003) D T S P ; and even aspectual v ie w ­
point is not enough to account for temporal ordering in discourse.
Instead, the intuition underlying the above aspectual-class-based accounts should
be recast in terms o f DRs interacting with aspect. The Reichenbachian generalization

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PRAGMATICS 289

can thus be reformulated as “perfective viewpoint tenses license Narration but not
Background , whereas imperfective viewpoint tenses license Background , but not N ar­
r a tio n '^ ee e.g., (s o a -b ) (which is an updated form o f standard S D R T rules):

(50) a. PerfectiveV P(a) A Im perfectiveV P(fi) A ?(r/,/?,A) > Background (a, ft, A)
b. Im perfective VP (a) A Perfective VP(jS) A > BackgroundF ^ (a , /?, A)

PerfectiveVP(7r) and ImperfectiveVP(Tr) indicate that the main event described

b y 7t receives the sort o f bounded vs. u nbounded interpretations associated with
perfective vs. imperfective viewpoints (and is accordingly m arked, i.e., either with a
tense at least compatible w ith— if underspecified— the corresponding view point
reading).
Narration J could also be rephrased in a com plem en tary way, using Perfective(a)
A Perfective(/?) as a precondition for interpreting it. The most obvious empirical
problem for this m ove is that imperfective viewpoint tense m arked discourse seg­
ments are know n to be capable o f being related to the discourse context via N arra­
tion in som e languages— take for instance the so-called “ narrative” uses o f the
French im parfait (51), or that o f other imperfects in R om an ce (e.g., the Italian
imperfetto).

(51) Pierre appela au secours («). L’instant d ’après, un policier arrivait {fi)y défonçait la
porte (y) et libérait Pierre (<$).
5
Pierre call-PS.3Sg at.the help (<7). The-instant after, a police arrive-IM PF.3Sg (/ ), break_
th ro u gh -IM P F .3sg the d o o r (y) a n d set_free-IM P F .3sg Pierre (S).
“ Pierre called for help; the next m om en t, a police arrived, broke through the door, and
set Pierre free.”

However, such uses do not necessarily invalidate the empirical generalization

that imperfective view points do not license N arration , as it can be argued that they
are contextual interpretations produced by m eans o f pragmatic enrichment (see
e.g., Caudal and Vetters, 2003; Saussure and Sthioul, 2005), and not because the
im parfait is semantically underspecified: Narration is then established despite the
inherently imperfective aspectual view point content o f the im parfait (and I will
argue below that this is actually a symptom o f an on-going evolution o f these tenses;
cf. Caudal and Vetters, 2005). Evidence for this analysis can be found in the fact that
in the absence o f a discourse context where Narration holds, (52) cannot be inter­
preted as a narrative im parfait— only as a bona fide “backgrou n d in g ” im parfait ; this
suggests that a discourse structural trigger (i.e., a constructed sequence o f events) is
required for such a reading to occur by m eans o f pragm atic processes.

(52) M aigret descendait lescalier. (narrative, perfective-like reading ruled out)

Maigret g o -d o w n -IM PF .3 S g the stair
“ Maigret w as go ing (#went) downstairs.”

Therefore, s o m e indirect solution has to be found so as to accom m od ate the possi­

bility o f “ narrative imperfects” to occur, involving a context-sensitive notion o f
change-of-state instead o f gram m atical aspect p ro p e r1 (see e.g., C aud al and Vetters,
2005), and which would be triggered as Narration is established. We are thus

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confronted with our first case o f pragm atic enrichm ent going hand in hand with
discourse structural parameters.

4.3.3. The Aorist/Perfect Distinction: Explanation vs. Narration

Let us turn now to another system ic opposition between aspectual classes o f tenses
that can be captured through discourse structural parameters. It is a well-known
fact (see Ritz, this volum e) that “canonical” perfects do not license narrative uses,
while perfective viewpoint tenses do; I take this opposition to be the pragmatic
correspondent (at least partly) o f another, semantic opposition between these as­
pectual classes o f tenses (nam ely their ability to com bine or not with past temporal
m odifiers).
We can n o w propose the following generalization: Narration(a,jff) is ruled out if
f i i s in som e canonical perfect tense; cf. (53). The acquisition o f narrative uses is ar­
guably one o f the important shedding lines separating canonical perfects from “aor-
isticized/perfectivized perfects,” such as the G erm an Perfekt or the French passé
composé { PC ); it reflects on the development o f conventional pragmatic enrichment
processes not inherently associated with perfects.

(53) The British fleet has shelled the Bismarck. ??It h a s sunk. (* N arration )

In contrast, becau se they d escrib e perfect states, resultative v ie w p o in ts

allow for an overlap betw een the reference interval and that state— a situation
typical o f im p erfectiv e v ie w p o in t tenses: we can therefore claim that present
perfects are im perfective resultative view points. This, in turn, is a likely reason
fo r their ability to license tem p ora lly and causally reverse d isc o u rse relations
such as E xplanation (an intuition shared, e.g., by de Swart and M o le n d ijk , 2 0 0 2;
de Swart, 20 0 7), cf. (54).

(54) Jo h n is sick (77- ). He has caught the flu b u g from M a x (77 ). ( Explan ation )

N o w it is another well-known fact about bona fid e perfective viewpoint tenses

such as the French passé sim ple , i.e., full aorists, deprived o f lingering perfect fea­
tures, that they reject reverse causo-tem poral ordering, as opposed to perfectivized
perfects such as the PC.; cf. (55a) vs. (55b).18

(55) a. La maîtresse gifla (PS) mon fils. 1

??I arriva (PS) en retard. (* Explanation)
b. La maîtresse a gifle (P C ) m o n fils. Il est arrive (P C ) en retard.
The mistress slapped.3sg my son. He arrived.3sg late.
“ The teacher slapped m y son in the face. He w a s late.”

Apparently, thus, the com plem entary empirical generalization holds that unlike
perfect utterances, bona fid e perfective view poin t utterances accept to be attached
to the discourse context by Narration but not by Explanation.
Note that in contrast the English simple past (SP) has retained such perfect-like
m eanings, as in (56) (C ox, 2005; ITundt and Smith, 2009); and consistently, the SP
is compatible with reverse-causo-tem poral ordering ( Explanation ), cf. (19) (note,

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PRAGMATICS 291

furthermore, that the French passe simple exhibited the v ery sam e behavior up to
the M iddle French period, when it definitively lost any “perfect” features— the PS
being derived from the Latin perfectum , it should not come as a surprise).

(56) You look like you just heard a real gasser, Mr. Partlow. (Brow n P27,1” in H u n d t and
Smith, 2 0 0 9 , p. 53)

So arguably, one could reformulate the rules and axiom s about Explanation so
as to capture the above observation that Explanation(a,fi) requires f$ s main verb to
be m arked with a non-perfective or non-canonical perfective viewpoint tense in
order to be computed. Vice versa , the fact that Narration rejects “canonical” perfects
partly follows from N arrations inability to be established with imperfective v ie w ­
point tenses— but also from the fact that the causing, prior events entailed20 by per­
fects are not available for establishing Narration (I am duplicating here Caudal and
R oussaries (2005) hypothesis that N arration can be computed if, and only if, a tran­
sition between two referents accessible within the LIP can be established). In effect,
as Narration is really about changes-of-state, no such change-of-state is available in
the case o f canonical perfects, because we cannot contrast the actual events bringing
about changes— we merely contemplate their presently relevant results.
This ends our list o f empirical generalization concerning the relation between
D R s and aspectual classes o f tenses; it certainly demonstrates the interest o f inte­
grating grammatical aspect better within inference rules and semantic axioms associ­
ated with D R s — this move would indeed reflect the structuring role o f aspect in
context (and overcomes the difficulties encountered by Asher and Lascaridess (2003)
stative vs. eventive distinction, cf. §4.3.1). This, in turn, suggests that the form o f DRs
should be made language-specific, as it should depend on the grammatical expression
o f aspect— the latter move being a rather straightforward consequence o f a linguistic
approach to pragmatic processes. This view patterns well with C audal and Roussaries
(2005) hypothesis that tenses, through their viewpoint component, are in effect illocu-
tionary force indicators , in the sense o f Bierwisch (1980)— a hypothesis consistent with
the S D R T tenet (Asher and Lascarides, 2003) that rhetorical relations are (relational)
speech act types , and the fact that tenses and D R s constrain one another.

4.3.4. Tenses with a M ixed Aspectuo-Temporal Semantics:

Disambiguating Underspecified Tenses
We have seen above that tenses are usually not can on ical instances o f the theoret­
ical aspectual v ie w p o in t categories. S o m e tenses are clearly hybrids, like preterits,
w h ich possess an underspecified sem antics yieldin g in s o m e contexts a perfective
v iew p o in t-lik e interpretation, and in som e others an im perfective view p oin t-like
interpretation.
The sort o f pragmatic reasoning underlying the computation o f D R s (or dis­
course structural parameters, if one does not believe in DRs) often plays a prom inent
role in the interpretation o f such tenses. Its first and obvious function is to “saturate”
(to use Recanatis (2004) term) or “supplem ent” (to use A sher and Lascaridess

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292 PERSPECTIVES

(2003, p. 113) term) their aspectual interpretation. A g oo d exam ple o f such a tense
can be found in the G e rm a n Perfekt or the English simple past, which adm it perfec­
tive, imperfective, and resultative viewpoint-like uses.
In (57a/b), segment {ft) is, out o f context, aspectually underspecified; its inter­
pretation depends on the stative (‘= be on top o f ’ ) vs. accom plishm ent (‘ = cause to
be covered’ ) readings ascribed to cover. As Occasion(a, fi) obtains via scriptal world-
knowledge in (57a) (“snowstorm sn ow on the g ro u n d ” ), a and must describe
transitions (changes-of-state); this causes cover to have an accom plishm ent reading,
and therefore an obligatory perfective view point reading (accom plishm ents always
do in the simple past, unless they are under the scope o f an iterative or H A B / G E N
quantifier), and N arration(a,fi) is computed. From the opposite world knowledge-
based reasoning (and possibly information structure/associative anaphora-based
reasoning: the district -> the fie ld s ), com bined with linguistic inform ation (namely,
cover admits a stative interpretation compatible with an imperfective view point
reading because it appears in the simple past), it follows in (57b) that ea E eft, so that
an imperfective view point reading is ascribed to the sim ple past covered , and Back­
ground is eastablished.21

(57) a. A sn o w storm began (a). A thick blanket o f s n o w covered the fields (ft).
b. We eventually reached this cold, northern district (a). A thick blanket o f snow
covered the fields {ft).

Such an analysis contrasts o f course w ith P o rtn e r’s (2003) (D )TSP, in that (i) it
does not a ssu m e the tense in qu estion to be aspectually v a c u o u s , but rather u n d e r ­
specified, and (ii) it does not rely on an “ u n co n tro lled ” principle, but on the S D R T
c o m m o n sense en tailm ent logic and d isco urse structural p ro c essin g architecture to
pro v id e in fo rm a tio n w h e re necessary. Finally, for this little analysis to be com plete,
one w o u ld need to c o m p le m e n t it with a study o f Explanation readings o f the simple
past (cf. John broke his leg. He fe ll o ff a bicycle ), cap tu rin g its (m arginal, but real)
resultative v ie w p o in t interpretations; but I m ust leave this as an open issue for fu r ­
ther research.

4.3.5. Pragmatically Enriched Uses o f Tenses: Contextual Expansion of

Their Aspectual Cores
The se co n d and less o b v io u s function o f D R s and c o m m o n sense p ra g m a tic r e a ­
so n in g in the contextualization o f aspect m ark ers, on top and ab ove o f the k in d o f
p ra g m a tic e n r ic h m e n t via im plicatures + c o m m u n ic a t iv e principles e x p o s e d in
section 2 and the kind o f u n d erspecificatio n lifting w e have ju st discussed, is to
trigger w hat s e e m s to be cases o f p rag m atically e n ric h e d uses o f tenses. This is for
instance a rgu ab ly the case o f the so -ca lle d narrative use o f the Fren ch im parfait ,
w h ich is a p p aren tly at o d d s w ith its historical im p erfective v ie w p o in t aspectual
m ea n in g .
A c c o r d i n g to C a u d a l and Vetters’s (2003) analysis, the n a rra tiv e im parfait
involves s o m e sort o f “a sp ectual m e t o n y m y ” p r a g m a tic effect: alth o u gh the sp eaker

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PRAGMATICS 293

uses a form w h ich sem antically describes an im perfectively view ed event e such
that the reference time interval t is included within it (i.e., t E e), we can pragm at­
ically infer a m ore extended perfective event description e\ such that e ^ e \ p r o ­
vided an appropriate context is given (notably one for which a transitional sequence
o f events is construed, and Narration is established). C o n sid e r (51) again. By virtue
o f scriptal w orld know ledge, w e know that the textual and temporal ordering o f
events must match, and that som ething like Occasion must relate them by succes­
sive pairs. A s a result, e.g., Narration(/?,y) is established. Yet y does not need to have
a perfective view poin t sem antics; it is sufficient for its pragmatic interpretation to
becom e perfective viewpoint-like. The distinction in the S D R T fram ew ork between
L IC content and inferences m a d e within the LIP is particularly hand y to m odel
such p h enom ena: we can associate the im parfait with a LIP-level rule w h ich will
supplem ent the LIP interpretation o f any speech act tt in the im parfait with s o m e ­
thing more inform ative— so m eth in g like a perfective interpretation o f the main
verb o f TT.
A lthough I will not attempt to define them here for want o f space, the general
form o f such rules would be som ething like (with > m ark in g a non-m onotonic,
defeasible inference):

(58) Aspectual _ IV P ( tt) > [pragmatically enriched content derived from the m ain verb o f n
is available w ithin the LIP]

T h e anteced ent part o f the ru le A spectual_IV P(Tr) sp ecifies the illocu tion ary
view p o in t fu n c tio n ( I V P ; C a u d a l and R o u s sa ric , 2 00 5) attributed to a p a rtic u lar
tense, and w h ich e n c o d e s its illo c u tio n a ry force-level c o n t r ib u tio n — i.e., the a s ­
sociated tense is then treated as a u n ary speech act type fu n c tio n — n a m e ly the
sort o f c o n v e n tio n a liz e d p ra g m a tic e n ric h m e n t c a p a b ility 22 it has acq u ired (e.g.,
by “ p ra g m a tic s tr e n g th e n in g ” ). A s an IVP, A spectual_IV P(Tr) p erta in s to the
logical form o f d is c o u rs e (alo n g with D R s ). It is thus typically e n c o d e d in the
fo llo w in g w ay:

(59) 3 77 [77: K_ A A spectu al_lV P ( tt)]

(where K_ denotes the propositional content o f t t ).

4.4. A Note on Diachrony and the Existence of Conventional

Pragmatic Processes
I have argued ab ove that diachrony sh o uld be a m a jo r co n cern for a th e o ry o f the
p ra g m a tics o f tense-aspect form s. I will illustrate this im p o r ta n c e th rou gh two p h e ­
n o m e n a related to the d ia c h ro n y o f perfects: n a m e ly (i) the “s tre n g th e n in g ” o f
im plicatures associated with the early/p roto-perfect in Old English, and (ii) the
“stren g th e n in g ” o f d isc o u rse structure-sensitive, narrative uses o f the O ld French
passé composé.

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4.4.1. Pragmatics Strengthening o f Implicatures: The Birth o f the English

Perfect
A lthough the previous neo-G ricean accounts o f tense-aspect form s we have dis­
cussed have put historical concerns aside, it does not reflect on any general ten­
dency o f the neo-Gricean com m unity. Quite to the contrary, in fact; neo-G ricean
accounts o f gram m atical evolution even abound (to the point that this com m unity
played a central role in the founding o f the Journal o f Historical Pragmatics in 2000),
and offer what I believe to be important insights in tense evolution. O ne o f the most
substantial contributions to the dom ain o f tense-aspect grammaticalization is the
notion o f pragm atic strengthening (first investigated in Traugott, 1988): the idea is
roughly that conversational implicatures associated with the contextual uses o f
tense-aspect form s can, in time, b e co m e strengthened into, e.g., sem antic entail-
ments, and eventually becom e part o f the sem antic content o f a tense.
N ow according to a w idely accepted analysis (found with an explicit neo-
Gricean form in, e.g., Carey, 1994, but with ancient origins— see Slobin, 1994), the
grammaticalization o f perfects owes a great deal to implicature strengthening pro­
cesses. It is co m m o n w isd om that a frequent development path for perfects (at least
in Europe) starts from so-called resultative constructions such as the Latin habeo
litteras scriptas ‘I have (got) written letters’ We have thus the following am biguity in
Old English (60):

(60) le hæ b b e gebunden Pone feond t»e hi drehte. (Slobin, 1994, p. 126)

a. Adjectival reading: ‘ I have that e n e m y b ound that afflicted them.’
b. Proto-perfect reading: ‘ I have boun d that e n e m y that afflicted them.’

Carey (1994, p. 111) claims that examples such as (60) illustrated a state o f partial g ra m ­
maticalization o f the perfect in Old English, where the former resultative construction
co-existed with a nascent perfect. The crucial difference between them is that the
adjectival reading (60a) does not indicate who is the agent o f the “causing”, past event
entailed by the past participle gebunden ‘bou n d ’, whereas the “proto-perfect” reading
in (60b) obtains via a contextual conversational implicature that only the subject
could have performed the (entailed) binding event, and therefore is its agent. With
time, this mere conversational implicature strengthened into a semantic entailment
that the subject was the agent o f the event bringing about the denoted perfect state.

4.4.2. Pragmatics Strengthening o f Discourse Structural Regularities: On

the Pragmaticization o f Narrative Uses o f the Passé Com posé in
Old French
Besid es im plicatures, I believe the notion o f p ra g m a tic stren gth en in g (u n d e rs to o d
as s o m e form o f “en tre n c h m e n t” — i.e., s o m e fo rm o f co nven tion alization, cf. Detges
( 2 0 10 ) — o f (fo rm e rly) free p ra g m a tic processes) could be applied to n o tio ns which
do not fall u n d e r the usual G ric ea n in ven to ry o f sp ea k er m e a n i n g — n o tab ly regular­
ities in d isco urse structural p a ra m e te rs not p e rta in in g to in fo rm a tio n structure
p ro p e r (or not trivially so), such as d isc o u rse relations à la SDRT.

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Thus, C a u d al a n d R oussarie (2005), C a u d al (forth com in g) observe that the

Old French (OF) passé com posé started bein g used w ith d iscou rse relations i m ­
p o s in g s o m e sort o f perfective v iew p o in t interpretation as early as the twelfth
century (a feature n o rm a lly not associated w ith “c a n o n ic a l” perfects, as we have
seen before), w hile re m a in in g incom patible with the sort o f past tem poral m o d i ­
fiers associated with perfective v ie w p o in t (or at least perfectivized tenses), n ota­
bly definite past dates, h ier ‘yesterday’, a m o n g others. C a u d al (forth com in g)
o b serve s that the p red o m in an t pattern o f o c cu rre n c e o f so-called narrative uses
o f the P C in O F involves correlative quant a , (5/) fi'w h e n a y (then) /?’ structures
such as (61):

(61) Quant il est ju sq ue la venuz si voit une petite chapel.

(Queste del Saint G raaly 188a, 3 9 - 4 0 )
W h en h e b c - P R . 3 s g till there c o m e - PP, then sec-P R .3sg a little chapel
“ W h e n he arrived there, he saw a little chapel.”

Caudal argues that (61) can be v iew ed as originating in an inchoative reading o f the
resultative state construction from which the PC was historically derived (triggered
by the O F present inflexion, notoriously capable o f such inchoative perfective read­
ings). This m ove is supported by the systematic parallelism uses o f the P C and the
passé antérieur (PA) within quant subordinates— where the PA clearly m arks the
“onset” o f some resultative state, cf. (62).

(62) Lors ala o i r messe en labeïe meïsmes. F.t quant il fu entrez au m ostier si vit a destre
partie unes prones de fer . . .
Then go-PS.3Sg hear mass in the-abbey itself. A n d when he be-PS.3Sg enter-PP at.the
monastery, then see-PS.3sg 011 right part a gate o f iron . . .
(‘Then he went to the abbey itself in ord er to attend mass. A n d w hen he had entered
the m onastery, he saw an iron gate on the r i g h t . . .*) ( Questey 176b, 3 0 -3 3 )

Note that a strict temporal ordering is im posed by the quant structure between the
matrix and the quant (“ when” ) subordinate (som e o f the quand a y^ s t r u c t u r e s even
have a weakly causal— i.e., scriptal— reading illustrating the w ell-know n gram m ati-
calization path (Traugott and Dasher, 2002) from such temporal expressions to
causo-temporal o n e s;cf. the English since); we have thus e < ef,yso that N arration(ayfi)
can be computed.
H owever this is not enough to account for, e.g., (63)— as an “ inchoative resulta­
tive” reading w ould be compatible with the event o f Ganelon raising his sword being
simultaneous with the event o f his hearing so m eon e’s utterance; this is too weak, as
the intended reading is not so liberal (i.e., the hearing must precede the sword bran­
dishing). Moreover, a similar problem could potentially arise for the (rarer) n a rra ­
tive uses o f the P C in simple coordinated sentences such as (64): the going and
fetching the queen event is m erely required to precede the onset o f the result state
o f the queen being sat at the w indow if we assum e an inchoative resultative reading—
but this is too weak again, as it allows the agentive sitting the queen event (by
Badem aguz) to overlap with the going and fetching, whereas it should be strictly
posterior to it. A rguably then, the P C in O F had developed a full pragm atic perfective

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v iew poin t reading; not just a mere inchoative resultative reading comparable to that
o f the PA (in spite o f its clearly non-perfective semantics, and lingering “protoper­
fect” inchoative resultative uses).

(63) 1
Q u an d bit G u e n e s (77), lespee en ad brandie (77). /Vait s a p u ie r suz le pin a la tige.
( R oland , 4 9 9 - 5 0 0 )
W hen him-hear-PR.3$g Ganelon (77), the-sword from-that have-PR.3sg brandish-PP (77^).
G o -P R .3 S g R E F L - l e a n - I N F on the pine at the trunk.
('When G an elo n hears him [saying X ] , he has brandished [= brandishes] his sword.
He goes and leans against the trunk o f the pine (tree).’)
(64) Si l a l a querre [e ); ( . . . ) . /A une fenestre l a mise (<?). ( C hevalier , 3583-3586)
A n d her-go-PS.3sg fetch-IN F (e?). To a w in d o w her h ave-PR .3sg p u t-PP (e.).
(‘ l ie [king Badem aguz] went and fetched her [Guinevere), (. . . ) sat her d ow n at a
window.’)

C aud al (forthcoming) suggests that the Narration uses developed from quant P C
clauses were the cradle out o f which a perfective view point m ea n in g pragmatic e n ­
richment capability was born to the O F P C ; its frequent use in such constructions
paved the way for other, stronger perfective interpretations within classical N arra­
tion configurations (i.e., outside quant structures). Following C aud al and Roussarie
(2005), he proposes to associate with the OF P C the following L IP pragmatic e n ­
richment rule, which captures its conventionalized perfective viewpoint pragmatic
content (note that technically speaking, said rule must conform to the proposi-
tional, static and modal nature o f the G lue Logic used within the LIP):

(65) PresentResultativelVP(Tr) > 77)

W h ere K { is a function from lexical contents (in this case, the (main) verb in the P C
in 77) to s u b -D R S s expressing the core, inner stage sub-event related to the result
state sub-event associated with a given verb (cf. the relation between a core sub-
event o f killing, and the associated result state o f “ killed-ness” )— which roughly
speaking, gives us the propositional content corresponding to the causing event
entailed by a sentence in the perfect.
C audal and Roussarie (2005) argue that this conventional ability o f the P C to
allow for pragmatic perfective viewpoint interpretations was gradually semanticized
from the M iddle French to the Classical French p e rio d — the time at which the P C
becam e compatible with the sort o f bona fid e past temporal modifiers (e.g., hier) as­
sociated with past perfective viewpoint tenses. Rule (65) then accordingly vanished.

5. C o n clu sio n

I have argu ed abo ve that the contextual interpretation o f tense-aspect fo rm s,

both in s y n c h r o n y and diachrony, involves a v ariety o f p ra g m a tic processes,
r a n g in g from the free (cf. the sort o f c o n versatio n al im plicatures a ssociated with

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the p ro ce ssin g o f the so-called politeness uses o f the im pa rfait , or the use o f
L e v in s o n s I-P rin c ip le in the contextual interpretation o f “ perfect states” in
N is h iy a m a and K o e n i g s (200 4, 2 0 10 ) account o f the E n g lish perfect) to the m ore
or less con ven tion alized . We have seen that besides G r ic e a n -s ty le im plicatures
and c o m m u n ic a tiv e prin ciples, the sort o f pragm atic tools used in existin g ac­
counts resort to m o re stru ctu red m a c h in e r y in order to m o d e l contextual p a ­
ram eters in flu en cin g the p rag m atics o f tense-aspect fo r m s , e.g. n e o - G r ic e a n
inform ation structural m e c h a n is m s (such as the Q U D — Q u e s tio n - U n d e r -D is -
cussion — or c o m m o n g ro u n d , or the m o re general and th e o ry -n eu tral concept
o f d iscou rse topic) or S D R T -sty le d iscou rse s tru c tu ral m e c h a n is m s. W h ile the
fo rm e r are certainly v e ry useful tools, I suggested in section 4 that d iscourse
stru ctural p a ra m ete rs played a m ost salient role with respect to tense-aspect
fo r m s becau se the latter are indeed illo c u tio n a ry force indicators (B ie rw is c h ,
1980), and that this is reflected in the w a y v ie w p o in t aspect interacts with the
com putation o f d isco u rse relations— a central p ra g m a tic issue i f any. I have also
argued that d is c o u rs e -s tru c tu ra l regularities associated with tenses could
b e c o m e h istorically “en tre n ch e d ” as specific pragm atic rules o f e n ric h m e n t (cf.
the a b o v e review o f the F ren ch im parfait and passé com posé)— rules also reflect­
ing the illo c u tio n a ry force-level status o f tenses. M oreover, I have argued that
said d isco u rse regularities w ere ultim ately connected with c o rr e s p o n d in g
sem a n tic properties. For instance, a “c a n o n ic a l” perfect utterance can n o t be at­
tached to the d isco u rse context by a N arration relation, in sh arp contrast w ith an
utterance in s o m e past p e rfec tive tense. This c o rre s p o n d s to their respective in ­
ability a n d ability to anchor perfectively v ie w e d events in the past (and not just
entail th e m ); if a perfect changes in this respect, then it is arg u a b ly in the process
o f b e in g perfectivized. The existen ce o f d isco u rse-stru c tu ral gen eralizatio n s in ­
v o lv in g the contrasted c o m p atib ility o f aspectual pairs o f tenses with different
d isco u rse relations (im p erfectiv e vs. p erfective v ie w p o in t tenses A N D B a c k ­
gro u n d vs. N arration (+ R esu lt ), p erfective vs. resultative v ie w p o in t tenses A N D
E xplanation vs. N arration (+ R esu lt )) suggests that there is s o m e th in g deeply
gram m atical about these p rag m a tic facts, and that they sh o u ld be paid special
attention w h en s tu d y in g the prag m atics o f tense-aspect fo r m s . This presum ption
is fu rth e r re in fo rce d by the fact that these p ra g m a tic facts have historical s e m a n ­
tic c o rre sp o n d e n ts: thus a change in the com patibility o f a perfect with
N arration + R esu lt can be, in time, associated with a change in its sem a n tic c o m ­
patibility with the kind o f past tem p o ra l m od ifiers a ssociated with past p e r fe c ­
tive v ie w p o in t tenses (cf. the evolution o f the French passé com posé; a sim ilar
r e m a rk holds for “p e rfe c tiv iz e d ” im perfects, such as the F ren ch im parfait or the
Italian im perfetto). This gives stro n g b a c k in g to the h y p o th esis that d iscou rse
stru ctural p h e n o m e n a are both (i) g ra m m a tic a l/lin g u istic (related to the logical
form o f d isco u rse), and (ii) a m a jo r p rag m a tic factor in the g ram m aticalization
o f ten se-aspect form s.
If we bear all o f this in mind, S D R T appears to have an edge over other theories
where the analysis o f the pragmatic interpretations o f aspectuo-temporal forms is

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c o n c e rn e d ; this theoretical f r a m e w o r k m ak e s it possib le to co n n ect aspectual inter­

pretation with d isco urse structure in a p rin c ip le d and language-specific w ay ( c o n ­
tra ry to the sort o f “ abstract” d isco urse principles p ro p o se d in s o m e n e o - G r ic e a n
w o r k s to relate aspectual factors a n d d isco urse structure, namely, P o r t n e r s (2003)
( D ) T S P ).23 Yet this d o e s not m a k e n e o - G r i c e a n in sig h ts less fr u i t f u l and even
n e c e s sa r y — “ free” e n r ic h m e n t by m e a n s o f im plicatures, or the fact that s o m e tenses
exhibit a k in d o f context sensitivity calling for in fo rm a tio n structural m e c h a n is m s
such as the Q U D (or in general, d isco urse topic) are a g o o d illustrations o f the fe ­
c u n d ity o f this line o f research too.
W hat s more, it has been repeatedly argued over the past few years that S D R T /
d iscou rse structure oriented theories and n e o -G ric e a n theories are less divergent
p a ra d ig m s than one m ight assum e at first sight. O f course, S D R T and (at least
part of) the n e o - G r ic e a n parad igm have con verg ed in an alm ost trivial w a y ; they
are both increasingly c o n cern ed about p ro vid in g an articulate answ er to the
th orn y G rice a n question o f how one can distinguish between w hat is said and
w hat is im plicated , as awareness o f the difficulty raised by the se m a n tic s/p ra g ­
m atics b o u n d a r y has spread through the linguistic com m unity. Consequently,
both com e to assum e s o m e kind o f “contextualist” approach in the sense o f
Recanati (2 0 0 4 ). But it can be argued that even their core theoretical concepts
could converge (or at least b e c o m e fru itfu lly c o m p ared , if not related) in the
future. On the S D R T side, de facto evidence for this convergence can be found in
the now w idespread use o f the notion o f discourse topic in the analysis o f certain
tense-aspect fo r m s — see e.g., B orillo et al.s (200 4 ) and de S w a r t s (2007) analysis
o f the French passé composé as elaborating upon a topic (segm ent). O f course,
S D R T s different notio n s o f topic (e.g., as involved in E laboration , and the so-
called “ fo re g ro u n d -b a c k g ro u n d pairs” u n d e rly in g certain cases o f Background)
certainly re m a in in need o f bein g further discu ssed in a relational m a n n e r, but
the co nvergence with n e o -G ric e a n p a ra d ig m s rem ains ob vio u s. On the neo-
G ricean side, the co nvergence is attested in several recent w orks. Thus, Roberts
(2005) re-casts the definition o f several R S T rhetorical relations (M an n and
T h o m p so n , 1988) in n e o -G ric e a n term s (and cru cially that o f Q U D ) — even
though she rejects (p. 215) the S D R T assum ption that d iscou rse relations are the­
oretical prim itives. A sim ilar strategy is p u rsu e d in Jasinskaja (2 0 10 ): Jasinskaja
claim s that S D R T d iscou rse relations could be seen as a co m b in atio n o f discourse
topics and im plicatures (m o re specifically, Q u antity im plicatures). K rifka (2007)
d efend s a less polem ical, but sim ilarly m in d ed position, noting in his conclusion
that “ C G [ C o m m o n G r o u n d ] m a n a gem en t cannot be d escribed without referring
to the strategies h o w events are narrated or argum ents are b e in g made,” and that
this squarely puts D R s in the dom ain o f Inform ation Structure devices. So one
can rea so n a b ly hope for future d evelop m ents to shed further light on the rela­
tions between the respective theoretical fu n d am en tals o f S D R T vs. the neo-
G ricean p a ra d ig m , and for aspectologists to capitalize on these advan ces to
provide m ore general and extended accounts o f the prag m atics o f tense-aspect
fo rm s in context.

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NOTES

1. There are, in effect, two general u n d e rsta n d in g s o f p rag m a tics as a discipline; one is
related to the s tu d y o f the c o n stru c tio n o f m e a n in g , and the o t h e r to the social uses o f
language; o n ly the f o r m e r will c o n c e r n us here.
2. I un d erstand logical fo rm here in the broad se m a n tic (and possib ly p ragm atic)
sense, rather than in the narrow , syntactic sense (i.e., as //rather than L F , to use a c o m m o n
notation; see Recanati (2010)).
3. S o m e R e le v a n c e T h e o r y (R T ) w o r k s also a d d r e s s d is c o u r s e - s t r u c t u r a l p h e n o m ­
en a; see e.g., B l a k e m o r e ( 2 0 0 2 ) for a g e n e r a l d i s c u s s i o n , and for in sta n c e , S a u s s u r e
( 2 0 0 3 ) , S a u s s u r e et al. ( 2 0 0 7 ) for se v e ra l a p p lic a t io n s to the d o m a i n o f tense a n d aspect.
H o w e v e r , R T fails to p r o p o s e a g en eral a n d f o r m a l f r a m e w o r k for a d d r e s s i n g such
is s u e s — at least n o n e that can c o m p a r e with A s h e r a n d I.a sca rid e s ( 2 0 0 3 ) . It sh o u ld
f u r t h e r m o r e be n oted that, as su g g e s te d in R e c a n a ti ( 2 0 1 0 ) , R e le v a n c e T h e o r y also
c o u n t s as a re p re se n t a t io n a list theory, for it is a i m s at p r o v i d i n g a t h e o r y o f c o m m u n i c a ­
tion b a s e d on “ the la n g u a g e o f thought,” a r e p re se n ta tio n la y e r d is tin ct f r o m truth-
c o n d i t io n s and a m o d e l, as m e a n t in m o d e l- t h e o r e t ic s e m a n t i c s (logical fo rm b e in g
“ tra n sla ted " into said rep re se n ta tio n s b efo re p r a g m a t i c p ro c e s s e s are a p p lie d ); h o w e v e r ,
it a p p e a r s that R T is o n l y c o n c e r n e d w ith a static n o t io n o f t r u t h - c o n d i t i o n s — s o m e ­
tim es to reject it (as C a r s t o n ( 2 0 0 8 ) , d o e s , for in s ta n c e ), s o m e t i m e s to c la im that it is not
ultim ately in c o m p a t i b le with R T ’s c o n c e p t i o n o f s e m a n t i c in te rp re ta tio n (a gain , see
R e c a n a t i, 2 0 10 ).
4. C f. C a u d a l and R o u ssa rie (2005).
5. In effect, it sh ould be noted that this distinction and its p articu lar g r a m m a tic a l
realizations is subject to im p o rta n t cross-lin gu istic variation s, as s o m e lan gu ages m a y
possess “aspectless” o r “a te m p o ra l” verbal in flexio n s, o r v e r y un d erspecified o n e s (this is
for instance the case in certain lan gu ages with rich aspectual derivatio n al m o r p h o lo g y , or
so-called “ tenseless” languages). T y p o lo g ica l co n sid e ra tio n s will be set aside for want o f
space to address them in a sensible fashion.
6. I will be here o n l y c o n s i d e r i n g classical, “ n o n c e ” G r i c e a n co n v e rs a tio n a l
im p lic a t u r e s , and n ot g e n e r a liz e d c o n v e r s a t io n a l im p lic a tu r e s in the sen se o f L e v in s o n
( 2 0 0 0 ) , as the latter are lo c a lly trig g e re d and l in g u i s t ic - f o r m b o u n d (cf. N o v e c k and
R e b o u l, 2 00 8).
7. In fact, D etges ( 2 0 1 0 , p. 2 0 3) s p e c ific a lly a r g u e s that there are tw o d is t in c t uses
o f the im p a rfa it de politesse : a “c o m p u te d ,” p r a g m a t i c a l l y “ free” so rt o f use w ith u n s p e ­
cific v e rb s, a n d an “e n tren c h ed ,” “c o n v e n t i o n a l i z e d ” use with je vou lais + a s p e e c h -a c t
verb ; i f D e t g e s is right, the latter w o u ld co nstitute a c o n s t r u c t i o n in the sen se o f G o l d ­
b e r g (1995). H o w e v e r , I b elieve that D e tg e s fails to p ro v id e d e c is iv e e v i d e n c e in f a v o r o f
his “sp lit” a n a ly s is, as it c r u c i a l l y d e p e n d s o n a single c o n tr o v e r s ia l e x a m p l e , given
b e lo w :

M a is il у a autre chose que je vo u lais v o u s dire p en d an t quc n ou s parlons

d ’h o m m e a h o m m e . (V ia n , L e G ra n d sotnm eily in D etges, 2 0 1 0 , p. 217)
But it there h a v e -P R .3 S g o t h e r thing that I w an t-IM P F .3 S g you tell w hile we
s p e a k - P R . i p l fro m m a n to man.
“ But there is s o m e t h i n g else that I w an ted to tell you, as we sp e a k m an to man.”

Detges ob viou sly (and mistakenly) views the subordinate pen dan t q u e . . . as being purely
temporal; but it is actually a causo-tem poral , explan atory subordinate; its interpretation is

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sim ilar to the idiom pendant que nous y som mes (‘while we are at that’ ), or to a subordinate
introduced by puisque (‘since’).
M o re o v e r, regardless o f this fact, the scope o f the su b ord in ate c a n n o t be what Detges
takes it to be: it attaches to the m a t rix clause, not to the c o m p le m e n t clause que j e voulais
vous d ire ; S O T then dictates the use o f the present. The su b ord in ate d o e s not serve to
t e m p o ra lly locate the intention o f s p e a k in g as b e in g present; it serves to explain the present
ad d ition (cf. “ il y a une au tre”) o f a (“ politely” past) intention to the co n v e rs io n a l b a c k ­
g ro u n d .
8. T h ese are m y ju d g m e n t s . Sau ssu re and Sthioul (2005) claim that such utterances
are acceptable, but a q u ick c o r p u s search 1 c o n d u c te d o n ly yielded utterances in the présent
in such contexts. In m y g r a m m a r , (8) can b e c o m e acceptable o n ly i f the s p e a k e r is im plicitly
(not explicitly) b e in g threatening, i.e., i f she is ironically fe ig n in g to be polite.
9. A lth o u g h I d o n ’t have an y th in g to s a y on the topic, it is clear to m e that a p rop er
analysis o f these e x am p le s w o u ld involve a th eo ry o f the p r o s o d y to p rag m a tics interface in
the spirit of, e.g., B e y ss a d e a n d M a r a n d i n (2006).
10. B o th PP clauses and e m b e d d e d clauses ap p ear to allow a so -called “d ou ble access
r e a d in g ” (i.e., the describ ed event precedes (read in g 1) o r overlap s with (read ing 2)
reference time) with stative sen tences only.
11. I a m actually n ot g iv in g here the full range o f em p irica l difficulties en co u n tered by
the T S P ; it also sh o u ld c o m p ris e d istrib u tio n o f the progressive vs. sim ple fo rm s o f the PP,
and v a r io u s types o f quantificational puzzles on the a r g u m e n ts o f such PP clauses; these
facts su ggest that the T S P also fails at a specific level, i.e., that the p u rp o r t e d a n a lo g y
b etw e en the tem poral sem an tic s o f e m b e d d e d clauses and that o f P P clauses is in fact
in co rrect because it d oes n o t a c c o u n t for all the asp e c tu o -te m p o ra l properties o f P P clauses
(contra P o r t n e r s (2003) claims).
12. W orks fo cu sin g on d isco u rse co h eren c e and structure u n d e rsto o d in terms o f
rhetorical relations (see C a r r u t h e r s , this v o lu m e ) such as L asc arid c s and A s h e r (1993),
C a e n e p e e l (1995), etc., c a m e up with e x am p les such as ( i 9 ) - ( 2 o ) to d em o n stra te that aspect
played a role in d e t e r m in in g tem poral s e q u e n c in g o f even t together with the m o re general
p rag m atic principles g o v e r n in g the c o m p u ta tio n o f d iscou rse relations— or co m p ara b le
d is c o u rse -stru c tu ra l m ach in ery , i f one d o es n ot believe in R S T ( M a n n and T h o m p s o n ,
1988) o r S D R T - s t y le rhetorical relations.
13. N ote though that P o r t n e r s co n c e ss io n to d is c o u r se structural c o n c e rn s is limited
to narrative d is c o u r s e — but argu a b ly temporal o r d e r in g is ju st as tricky and n e c e s s a r y to
establish w it h in an y given type o f discourse.
14. The follo w in g is s o m e w h a t sim plified, for e x p o s it o r y p urposes.
15. Result is a rg u a b ly also sensitive to tensc-aspect, but as I w ill not m e n tio n it below, I
a m not p resenting it here.
16. The n a g g in g issue I am tryin g to get at here is that in the absence o f an y clear
d istin ction b etw een A ktionsart /event structure p a ra m e te r s and g r a m m a t ic a l aspect, and in
the ab sen c e o f an y th e o ry o f the c o m p o sitio n o f their m e a n in g s , the so rt o f state vs. event
based distinction u n d e rly in g the “classic” aspectual c o m p o n e n t s o f DRT and SORT does
n ot m a k e clear predictions.
17. That is, reference to the im p ossib ility o f im p erfective v ie w p o in t s with N arration
sh ould be barred for such languages. Yet it w o u ld be possible to in tro d u ce perfective
v ie w p o in t s as a positive co n d itio n for in fe rr in g N arration (or Result) besides, as least w h e n
it correlates with Occasion o r then.
18. I am here o v e r l o o k in g details a bit, but by and large, the o b s e rv a tio n is correct. Sec
e.g., M o le n d ijk and de Sw art (1999).

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19. R eferen c e is to the B r o w n C o r p u s . See h ttp :/ / e n .w ik ip e d ia .o rg / w ik i/ B ro w n _

C o r p u s (retrieved J a n u a r y 20, 2 0 1 1 ) . — Editor.
20. A rg u a b ly , this sort o f en tailm en t leaves the ca u sin g su b eve n t “ou tsid e” the at-issue
content o f p e rfe c ts— even in its p rag m a tic und erstand in g. O n e possible D R T - s t y l c im p le ­
m entation strateg y w o u ld be to leave it as an e m b e d d e d d is c o u r se referent.
21. It s h o u ld be noted that the A l c m m a n i c Perfekt exhibits a slightly different k in d o f
aspectual u n d ersp ecification : the Perfekt allow s a c c o m p lis h m e n t v e r b s to a d m it an
im perfective v ie w p o in t rea d in g (only a c h ie v e m e n t verbs im p o se a perfective vie w p o in t
re a d in g in narrative contexts), so that (57a) w o u ld still be aspectually a m b ig u o u s in
A l e m m a n i c ( contra E nglish). S u ch a difference illustrates, I believe, the im p ossib ility o f
classifyin g preterits as s i m p ly "neutral,” as they effectively exhibit differences.
22. See e.g., Sau ssu re (2 0 0 3) for a related R T -b a sc d ac co u n t o f the p rag m a tic e n r i c h ­
m en t ca p a city o f French tenses.
23. It sh o u ld also be said that S D R T , through its w e ll-h o n e d architecture co n trolling
in fo rm a tio n flow b etw e en its different c o m p o n e n t s , is in a better position to avoid the kind
o f o v e r-g en era tio n d a n g e r inherent to “ free" e n ric h m e n t p ro c e s s e s — a d a n g e r a c k n o w l ­
edged by Recanati h i m s e l f (see R ecanati, fo rth c o m in g ). This d a n g e r is greatest still with
p rag m a tic, but alread y con ven tion alized uses o f tenses (cf. §2.2); attributing them to free
e n r ic h m e n t processes, regardless o f c e rta in linguistic p a ra m e te rs, o p e n s the d o o r to the
over-gen era tion risk.

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT

JAN ICE C A R R U T H ER S

i. I n t r o d u c t i o n

There are two significant factors determ in ing the issues discussed in this chapter. The
first is its focus on “discourse and text,” i.e., on tense and aspect in the context o f
attested fo rm s o f discourse and text .1 The em phasis throughout will be on the s e m a n ­
tic, pragmatic, textual and stylistic functions o f tense in context, taking into account
linguistic features in the su rro u n d in g discourse, and the im portance o f factors such as
m ed ium (spoken or written), register (degree o f formality), text-type (literary vs. jo u r ­
nalistic vs. conversational etc.) and discourse m o d e (narrative vs. report vs. d escrip ­
tion, etc.). Tense and aspect will therefore be analyzed not purely as part o f a linguistic
“system” as such, but in the context o f particular texts or form s o f discourse.
The second determ ining factor is the chapters inclusion in a series o f contribu­
tions on “ perspectives” ; this has shaped its internal structure and the research ques­
tions posed. The main sections will discuss three theoretically different types o f
perspective on tense in discourse and text. The first (section 2), entitled “ Tense in
Discourse: M arkedness, Context, Effects,” will explore the concept o f “ m arkedness” :
how can “ unexpected” or “non-standard” use o f tense create contextual effects in
texts, and how can “m arkedn ess” help theorize such usage? Section 3, “ From Tense
to Text: the Temporal Structure o f Discourse,” will ask how different sequences o f
tenses can build particular types o f text, with an emphasis on what is probably the
most widely discussed type o f discourse, i.e., “ narrative.” Finally, section 4, “ Tense
and Point o f View,” will ask: what roles do tenses play in conveying particular points
o f view in texts, including shifts and/or ambiguities in point o f view, and how can
these roles be conceptualized in theoretical terms?

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The tenses discussed in the course o f the chapter will necessarily be dominated
by those in the French system, reflecting the authors expertise, but will also include
som e varieties o f English tense usage.

2. T e n s e in D isc o u r se: M arked ness,

C ontext, Effects

Perspectives that draw on the notion o f “ m arkedness” will be explored here through
two case studies. The first o f these, the narrative present (N P R ), is a crosslinguistic
p h enom enon, widely debated in the literature on tense and aspect.2 The second, the
narrative im perfect , is considered to be a fundam entally French phenom enon, but
one which raises particularly interesting and potentially much broader questions
for analyses based on “ m arkedness” and textual effects.

2.1. Present as Past

The terms historic(al) present (H P ) and narrative present (N P R ) are a m o n g those
found in the literature for a present tense used to m a rk past tim e.3 S o m e analyses
assum e a present-time function for HPs and N P R s , w hereby past events are literally
“ m ade present” : e.g., “ le présent abolit le décalage entre le passé et le m om ent de
lenonciation” 4 “ the present removes the gap between the past and the m o m e n t o f
speech” (Riegel, Pellat and Rioul, 1994, p. 301); “ l’e mploi du présent de narration fait
que l’auteur et le lecteur sont transportés, par le jeu de la m étaphore spatio-tempo-
relle, du lieu et du m om ent où ils se situent effectivement ju s q u ’au lieu et au m o ­
ment où se déroule l’action” “ use o f the narrative present m eans that the author and
reader are transported, through spatio-tem poral metaphor, from the place and
time where they are situated to the place and time where events are un fold in g” (Le
G u ern , 1986, p. 49). In analyses such as these, the PR is co-temporal with the sp eak ­
er’s “now.” Contextual effects discussed by early analyses o f the H P / N P R , such as
“vividness” or “dramatic quality,” are predicated on that co-tem porality (see Suther­
land, 1939; Oilier, 1978). By contrast, the dom inant c on tem p orary v iew o f the N P R
relies on an analysis o f the present as the least strongly m a rk e d — even temporally
neutral— tense, w h ich is therefore the most context-dependent tense in the system
(Fleischm an 1990, pp. 34 -35; M aingueneau, 1993; Mellet, 2000). This temporal n e u ­
trality can, in som e cases, allow the PR to be multivalent, in the sense that it can
take on a variety o f different temporal and aspectual properties in context, as we
shall see.
A ssu m in g this fundam ental temporal neutrality, Fleischman (1990) uses the n o ­
tion o f “markedness” (a term derived from the Prague school o f phonologists) to
explain particular usages of the PR, including the narrative present. If one considers
that in most languages that have a grammatical opposition between past and present,

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the past is ‘ m arked” for the feature “past” in non-narrative (ordinary) language,
whereas the present is “unmarked,” then the atemporal character o f the PR is its “zero
interpretation” (i.e., it is not “ m arked” for a particular time reference), the “minus
interpretation” is a PR that is co-temporal with “ now ” (it is strongly “u nm arked ” ),
and a “positive interpretation,” i.e., marked usage o f the present, w ould be a past-time
usage. Fleischman then argues that contextual effects in narrative that can result
from the “ m arked” use o f a PR emerge specifically from features that the preterite
and the PR do not share. Thus, given the preterites unm arked use for diegesis (as
opposed to mimesis) and its association with “a distanced, objective perspective on
events” (p. 55), use o f the PR to denote past time events on the narrative line can
neutralize one 01* more o f these features and create contextual effects such as increased
subjectivity, a “close-up” perspective on events, or an association with speech m ode
rather than narration (mimesis rather than diegesis). Similarly, the N P R can be used
to “ foreground” events on the narrative line, given that the preterite is unmarked for
the feature “ foreground” in a narrative context since it is the “expected . . . tense for
reporting events” (p. 57)/’ Indeed, possible connections between some o f these c o n ­
textual effects will becom e apparent in m any o f the examples cited below: for instance,
events that are foregrounded are by definition subjectively evaluated (though the
reverse is not always the case).
To demonstrate som e o f the contextual effects produced by m arked usage o f the
PR, I shall focus first on N P R /p ast punctual alternation as a key linguistic strategy
in oral story perform ance.6 For example, in (1), a section o f Aucassin and Nicolette
discussed in Fleischm an (1990, p. 194), the N P R is used for events that are both
subjectively evaluated as significant events, and structurally foregrounded as salient
relative to the other events on the narrative line for which the unm arked past tenses
are used. Fleischm an argues that the actions associated with riding into battle,
recounted in the past tenses o f the opening section, are o f lesser significance in the
narrative than the events o f the battle itself, where the N P R appears {lance, getent,
prendent, dessaisisent, m annent):

(1) Et q uanques il dut faire;

Et li c e v a x qui ot senti les esperons
Len porta p a r m i lc prcssc,
Se se lance tres entre mi ses anem is;
Et il getent les mains de toutes pars,
Si le prendent;
Si le dessaisisent de lescu et de le lance,
Si len m annent tot estrousement pris . . .
“A n d the horse, [once he] had felt the spurs,
Carried him into the fray.
He throws h im s e lf am idst his enemies,
A n d they grah at him from all sides,
Take hold o f him ,
Divest him o f his shield and his lance,
Lead him away, securely captured.”

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Foregou nd ing can be particularly striking at narrative peaks and these are textual
environm ents where there is often also heightened subjectivity. Indeed, such peaks
can be zones o f what Fleischman calls “temporal turbulance,” as in (2), taken from a
contem porary conte, where there is rapid alternation between the P C functioning as
a past punctual, and the N P R :

(2) Il rentrait chez lui il voyait plus le c h e m in il est arrive d a n s l’im p asse il pousse la porte
il a trébuché su r le p alier ça lui a fait tellement mal qu'il s’é crie aïe m o n pied/et le c œ u r
d e la m ère lui d i t . . . “ He w as on his w a y h o m e he could no lon ger see the road he
arriv ed in the a lle y w a y he p u sh es the d o o r he tripped on the la n d in g it hurt him so
m uch he cries out “ou ch! m y foot” and his m o t h e r s heart says to him . . (C arruthers,
2 0 0 5, p. 78).

Foregrounding can also be associated with points where the narrative m oves for­
ward; this textual function o f N P R can (but does not necessarily) involve the o c c u r ­
rence with adverbials such as un jo u r “one d ay ” or le lendem ain “ the next day,”
particularly at the onset o f what Labov and Waletzky (1967) term the “complicating
action” o f a narrative, or a new section o f “complicating action” after one o f e m ­
bedded “orientation” :8

(3) Il est retourné dans son ancien royaum e de B o u k ara et là il a vécu c o m m e un maître
avec ses disciples mais c o m m e un maître hum ble qui vivait du travail de ses m ains et un
jo u r alors q u ’il était assis au bord de la rivière en train de réparer un vêtement en train
de recoudre une étoffe voilà q u ’u n e troupe de cavaliers s'arrête . . . “ He returned to his
form er k in gd om o f B o u k ara and there he lived like a m aster with his disciples but as
a hum ble master w h o lived b y the w o rk o f his hands and one d ay w hile he was sitting
beside the river repairing a piece o f clothing resewing a piece o f material a troop o f
h o rsem en stops . . . ” (C arruthers, 2005, p. 79).

Similarly, the N P R can c o -o c c u r with m a rk e rs o f su rp rise or sh o ck , fo re g ro u n d in g

u n e x p e c te d events:

(4) We just pulled into this lot it w as just in this lot and all o f a sudden the buzzer sounds
(Fludernik, 1991, p. 378, citing Schiffrin).

Fludernik (1991) captures the function o f the N P R in all such examples as a marker
o f both “ tellability” and “ narrative turn,” the form er stressing the significance o f the
event for the story, and the latter often associated with a structural shift to a new,
important event or episode.
M oreover, there is a well-attested crosslinguistic tendency for tense switching to
occu r particularly frequently with verbs o f speech in sections o f dialogue. In such
examples there is a strong association both with m im esis and with the sp eak ers
subjective viewpoint (the PR being the tense o f the speakers “ here and n o w ” ). As
E ss -D y k e m a (1984, p. 287) has argued, such sections o f speech can occur at n arra­
tive peaks, or can be associated with linguistic intensifiers: in (5), for example, a
passage taken from a conversational narrative where the speaker recounts a medical
examination during the second world war, linguistic intensifers take the form o f the

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expressive “oh là là,” the rhetorical question “qu’e st-ce qu’il y a,” and adjectives such
as “grave” and “ terrible” :

(5) Il m a d it o h m ais v o u s p o u v e z p a s p a r t ir v o u s êtes fatigué ça se voit rien q u a

vo tre tête il m a passé u n e visite et il me fa it o h là là . . . q u e s t - c e q u ’il y a c ’est
grave oh m ê m e plus grave q u e ça . . . il tria dit v o u s av ez u n c œ u r de b o e u f . . .
q u e s t - c e q u e c’est ça o u h là là il m e d i t . . . “ He said to m e oh y o u c a n ’t go y o u are
not well it’s o b v io u s fro m y o u r face he e x a m i n e d m e a n d he says to m e oh m y
g o o d n e s s w h a t ’s w r o n g it’s s e r io u s eve n m o re se r io u s . . . he said to m e you h a ve
the heart o f an o x w h a t ’s that oh f o r g o o d n e s s sake he sa y s to m e" (C a r r u t h e r s ,
2 0 0 5 , PP- 7O - 70-9
In short, in this type o f analysis based on features and markedness, it is the
properties o f the N P R that it does not share with the preterite that can create co n ­
textual effects in the discourse, or, as Fleischman puts it, generate “ meanings that
the P R E T cannot olfer” (1990, p. 58).
Working on a very different type o f discourse, M onville-Burston and Waugh
(1991) explore the use o f the PR to m a rk past time in c on tem p orary French jo u rn a l­
ism. A m o n g the fundam ental characteristics o f this type o f text are its written form
and the fact that it is pre-planned rather than spontaneous. Indeed, often the
language o f the text is consciously chosen such that the lexis and syntax can present
events from a particular perspective— political, personal or oth erw ise.1" Monville-
Burston and Waugh argue that the neutrality o f the present lends it “cham eleon­
like” properties w h ich m eans that it can be “ multivalent” in context, at times
allowing journalists to use it to create two or m ore simultaneous m eanings. They
discuss cases o f both temporal and aspectual multivalency. In the temporal cate­
gory, these include examples where a given use o f the PR is am biguous between a
reading as a “ historical present” (H P) and one as a m arker o f present time (which
they label PrPr “present present” ):

(6) 1
En 1984, il Berlusconil. met [a mis) la m ain sur son dernier concurrent, Rete 4,
et règne d éso rm ais sur 80% de l’audience de la télévision p r iv é e ." “ In 1984, he
(Berlusconi) takes h old [took hold] o f his last competitor, Rete 4, and ever since has
controlled 80% o f the private television audience” (from Le M onde , cited in Monville-
Burston and Waugh, 1991, pp. 94 -9 5).

In (6), the date “en 1984” suggests that the PR met is a IIP. However, the adver­
bial désorm ais is not usually associated with past time, since it norm ally means
“ from this point o n w a rd ” (vs. dès lors w h ic h m eans “fr o m that time o n w a rd ” ).
M onville-Burston and Waugh thus argue that the second verb in this section, règne ,
is not straightforwardly an HP, but also involves an “extended” PR, such that the
statement is am biguously situated with respect to past and present.
A second type o f temporal ambiguity involves cases where a PR can be read
both as an H P and as an atemporal present (A Pr): not only is there reference to a
past time event, but also, that event is “simultaneously perm eated by the timeless
quality o f A P r ” (M onville-Burston and Waugh, 1991, p. 96): e.g.,

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT 311

(7) Les dirigeants de reorganisation de Liberation de la Palestine (O LP) confirment

[confirmèrent, ont confirmé] leur rejet des résolutions des Nations Unies sur le
Proche-O rient qui reconnaissent le droit à l’e xistence de l’Etat d ’Israël. La centrale
palestinienne décide [décida, a décidé] de sen tenir ferm em ent au rejet des résolutions
242 et 3 3 8 . . . . “ The leaders o f the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO ) confirm
[confirmed, have confirm ed] their rejection o f the United Nations resolutions on the
M id d le East w h ic h recognize the right o f the State o f Israel to exist. The coalition o f
Palestinian gro u p s decides [decided] to hold firm on its rejection o f Resolutions 242
and 3 3 8 . . . . ” (cited from Le M onde by M on ville-B u rsto n and Waugh, 1991, p. 96).

In (7), confirm ent and décide refer to assertions that were m ade at a particular point
in time, but that are not completely limited by that time, and thus, in a sense, are
also timeless.
M onville-Burston and Waugh also discuss examples where the multivalency o f
the present is aspectual rather than temporal, an issue which is particularly signifi­
cant in the French system, where there is no aspectual distinction in the present
between an imperfective and perfective form : e.g., il chante is the form used for both
the imperfective he is singing and the perfective he sings. This lack o f aspectual dis­
tinction means that with uses o f the PR as a m arker o f past time, it can be unclear
whether it is being used in a context where the passé simple or passé composé (i.e.,
perfective forms) w ould have been used, or one where the imperfect would have
been used: Fleischman (1990, p. 35) refers to the form er as N P R , as opposed to
N P R ' ■ M onville-Burston and Waugh argue that even in examples where an H P is
found, the imperfective qualities o f the PR can encroach upon the perfective ones:

(8) Les faux époux Turengc sont condamnés [furent condamnes, ont été condamnés]. “ The
Turenges, who passed themselves o f f as a married couple, are convicted [were convicted,
have been convicted]" (cited from Le M onde in Monville-Burston and Waugh, 1991, p. 101).

In ( 8 ), the Turenge couple w ere c o n d e m n e d (past action: perfectivity to the

fore) and are still c o n d e m n e d (im perfectivity to the fore): the passive v o ic e with the
stative verb être as the a u x ilia ry also facilitates an im p erfective read ing. This a s p e c ­
tual m u ltiv a le n c y is especially fo u n d , in M o n ville -B u rsto n and W a u g h s view, in
cases o f P C / I I P transitions, w h e re the im p erfective properties o f the I I P can m ore
easily c o m e to the fore, given the c o n n e c tio n o f the P C to the present (its a u x ilia ry
is a present tense, and it can m ark, albeit not in this context, a past w ith present
relevance or a present perfect). The v a rio u s types o f tem p oral a n d aspectual a m b i ­
guity explored by M o n v ille -B u rsto n and W augh are thus d ep loyed by jo u rn alists to
create effects in the text. T h e y hinge on the tem p oral and aspectual neutrality o f the
PR , w h ic h is at the root o f its m ultivalency.
A further use o f PR to mark past time in journalistic French is the “présent de re­
portage” (PRdR), which is analysed by Facques (2007). Again, the temporal neutrality
o f the PR is assumed and the analysis is based on contrasting temporal and aspectual
features. As Facques points out, this usage o f the present is more often associated with
oral sports commentaries, in the typical context cited by Mellet (1998, p. 207):

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312 PERSPECTIVES

L’E m p lo i du présent dit “d e rep ortage” qui a c c o m p a g n e une action vue et d o n n ée

à v o ir en direct [est] f r é q u e m m e n t utilisé par les jo u rn a liste s sportifs. D a n s cet
e m p lo i, la parole veut a c c o m p a g n e r le geste au m o m e n t m ê m e de son inscription
d a n s le temps.
The so -called present o( “cu rre n t rep ort” lo r an event w hich is view ed and
represented as live [is] frequently used b y sports journalists. In this usage, the
id ea is that the sp o k e n word a c c o m p a n ie s the event at the precise m o m e n t o f its
representation in t im e .1'

But this type o f PR can also be found in written journalism , where the events in
question are clearly “ past” relative to the m om ent o f speech:

(9) Accoudé au comptoir d u n pub, le vieil Olivier raconte son fils Franck, tué il y a vingt-deux
ans p ar une bombe républicaine. Son coupé, déformé par la réception approximative, le
téléviseur renvoie l’image tremblée de G e r r y Adams. “ C est lui qui m a enlevé m o n petit,”
dit-il simplement. Ce soir , l’inquiétude est fleur de la rue. C e n’e st pas u n éventuel retour de
la violence qui inquiète, mais de quoi demain sera f a it . . . “ Leaning on the bar counter, old
man Olivier tells the story o f his son, Franck, killed twenty-two years ago by a republican
bomb. With the sound cut o ff and distorted by the poor reception, the T V shows a
w obbly image o f G e r r y Adams. lH e s the one w h o took away m y little boy,’ he says simply.
This evening, w o r ry is the mood o f the street. Its not a possible return to violence that is
concerning, but what tomorrow will bring” (Facqucs, 2007, p. 250 from Libération).

Facques contrasts use o f the P R d R with the H P in journalism. The H P tends to

occur in contexts where there is a precise temporal indication such as a date, and
w here there is therefore an apparent “clash” between the PR and the past time refer­
ence: as with the N P R in oral narrative discussed above, the contextual effects o f HP
arise precisely from features that arc not shared. In the case o f the PR d eR , Facques
invokes C u lioli’s notion (1978) o f a “ repère-origine fictive,” T ‘ , which is in fact not
the time o f speech To, but the time o f the event T . C o n tra ry to the situation with the
HP, the time o f the event, T , is not situated in absolute terms by an element such as
a definite date, or an indicator o f a definite point in past time: “ il sagit de faire
oublier que le reportage est un texte différé et l’absence d’ indications temporelles
autonomes permet de maintenir l’illusion d’une perspective simultanée du récit,
déjà induite par l’emploi du present” (“ it’s about m aking the reader forget that the
report is a differed text and the absence o f indications o f absolute time allows the
illusion to be maintained that the events and the narrative are simultaneous, an il­
lusion already created by use o f the present” (2007, pp. 2 5 0 -2 5 1)). In other words,
the illusion o f co-temporality with “ n o w ” is maintained with the P R d eR in a w ay in
w hich it is not with the N P R /1 IP.

2.2. The Narrative Imperfect

This is a phenom enon that has been discussed prim arily in relation to French and
involves the use o f the imperfect in contexts o f obvious perfectivity. Given the ap­
parent direct contradiction between a core property o f the tense (its capacity to
m ark imperfectivity) and the perfective context in which the narrative imperfect

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT 313

(N IM P ) is found, this is a usage o f tense in discourse that has attracted a great deal
o f com m entary. Indeed, there is no agreed term inology: here we shall use the most
com m on term, i.e., narrative imperfect (see for example Vetters, 1996; Bres, 2005a
and b; and Labeau, 2005), but there is a wide variety o f terms in the literature,
reflecting the perceived textual effects o f its use in discourse, including im parfait de
rupture (e.g., T a sm o w sk i-D e Ryck, 1985; Le Goffic, 1995; and De Vogüé, 1999),
im parfait pittoresque (Imbs, i960; Muller, 1966; Delbart, 1996), and im parfait impres­
sionniste (Bally, 1932).M It is perhaps most widely attested in literature, and while
there are Old French and Classical French examples, it is a phenom enon that seems
to have developed particularly rapidly in the nineteenth century.1*’ It is now also
attested in journalistic and oral French— both pre-planned (where it is always ac­
com panied by a perfective adverbial)16 and spontaneous. It favours telic verbs (or
those with an achievem ent predicate) and in som e cases, the perfective context is
m ade explicit through the use o f an adverbial such as a precise time or date, as in
(10), but this is not a necessary condition:

(10) À la m ê m e minute, le 13 janvier, à trois heures, pendant que je parlais, le p rem ier tocsin
de l’insurrection sonnait à Palerme. “At the sam e m om ent, on the 13th January, at three
o’c lock, as I w as speaking, the first tocsin sounded in P a lerm o ” (cited from Hugo in
Muller, 1966, p. 258).

As som e o f the term inology suggests, the textual effects o f the N I M P stem from the
discordance between the imperfectivity o f the tense and the perfective context. Rie-
gel, Pellat, and Rioul, for example, assert that

L’im p arfait p ren d ici la place du passé sim ple, p o u r e x p r i m e r un évé n e m e n t

im p o rtan t, don t il m od ifie la perception: le fait est envisagé de l ’intérieur d an s son
d é r o u le m e n t et l’im p arfait efface ses limites, p o u rtan t bien réelles. C e procéd é sert
p a ra d o x a le m e n t à mettre en relief le fait é v o q u é , qui acquiert de l’im p o rta n c e par
le tem ps o u v e rt e m e n t con sacré à le co n sid é re r d a n s son d é r o u l e m e n t . . . q u a n d
l’accent est m is su r l’im p o r t a n c e de la datation . . . , on parle d ’im p arfait “ h isto ­
rique” ; q u a n d il s’agit plutôt de d é p ein d re un procès c o m m e d an s un tableau, on
parle d 'im p arfa it “ pittoresque.”
T h e im p erfect replaces the past historic, to d en o te an im p o r t a n t event, and
the p erception o f that event is m odified: the event is v ie w e d from the inside as it
e vo lv e s and the im p erfect r e m o v e s the b o u n d a rie s a r o u n d the event, even though
these actually exist. This proced ure p ara d o x ia lly fo re g ro u n d s the even t which
g a in s sa lie n c y through the tim e taken to c o n s id e r it as it e vo lves . . . w h en the
tem poral location is stressed, we c a n sp e a k o f a “ historic im p e r fe c t ” ; w h e n
e m p h a s is is on p ainting a proc ess as in a picture, w e can sp e a k o f a “picturesque
imperfect.'’ (1994, p. 3 0 8 ) 17

O f crucial importance for an analysis based on features and markedness is that

much o f the debate around the N I M P has centred on the question o f whether, in this
perfective context where (at least theoretically) it can be replaced by a passé simple (PS)
or a passé composé (P C ),18 there is a change in the properties o f the imparfait (IMP)
such that it loses its [-perfective] feature (or [+sécant] to use W ilmets terminology
(1991)) and acquires a [+perfective] ([-f-global]) feature.19 Maingueneau (1994, p. 91),

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3 14 PERSPECTIVES

for example, asserts that in examples such as (11) and (12), T im p a rfa it na pas à propre­
ment parler de valeur im perfective” “ the imperfect does not really have an imperfective
value” :

(11) À cc m o m e n t Platini passait à Fernandez, qui centrait p o u r Giresse, lequel envoyait la

balle dans la lucarne gauche. “At that m om en t Platini passed to Fernandez w h o centred
for Giresse w h o in turn sent the ball into the left c o rn er o f the net” ;
(12) Paul d o n n a sa dem ission sur le champ. Le lendem ain, le p re m ie r ministre mourait.
“ Paul resigned on the spot. The next day, the prim e m inister died.”

Both De Vogüé (1999) and Gosselin (1999) also make detailed cases for considering
the N IM P as inherently [+perfective]. De Vogüé stresses the impossibility o f reading
certain imperfects, notably those often labelled de rupture , as anything other than
perfective, since the temporal b o u n d a ry to the right o f the verb in an exam ple such
as (11) is closed. Gosselin argues that if the context contains features that are in c o m ­
patible with the [-perfective] feature o f the IMP, then processes such as “d efo rm a ­
tion” can change this feature through the interaction o f the elements in the context,
and thus the IM P can, in certain contexts, take on a [-»-perfective] feature. Bres
(2005a; 2005b) challenges this, citing the use o f the N I M P with the adverbial déjà,
where it cannot be replaced by the PS:

(13) Les oiseaux, qui avaient l’air de fonctionnaires e n d im an ch és, d em an d aien t en effet à
Cottard s'il s’appelait bien Cottard et celui-ci, poussant une sorte d ’e xclamation sourde,
tournait sur lui-m êm e et fo n ça it déjà dans la n u i t . . . “ 'Ihe blokes w h o looked like
m in o r officials in their S u n d a y hest, were indeed asking Cottard i f he w as actually called
Cottard, and the latter, with a muffled shout, s w u n g round and headed o f f into the
darkness . . . ” (cited from La Peste in Bres, 2005b, p. 11).

Bres also challenges the other arguments m ade in support o f the analysis that the
N I M P is [+perfective]. In some cases, he argues that the sense o f perfectivity arises
entirely from elements in the linguistic context, including the relationship between
the lexical semantics o f the verbs involved. In (14), the action o f entering so m eo n e’s
h o m e is likely to precede recounting an adventure to that person:

(14) Un quart d ’heure plus tard, M . Sigisbert entrait chez m o i et m e contait son aventure. “A
quarter o f an hour later, M . Sigisbert cam e into m y house and recounted his adventure’’
(from M aupassant, Clochette II, cited in Bres, 2005b, p. 13).

To those who w ould argue that N IM P s always show narrative progression, he cites
cases where there is temporal regression or simultaneity (15):

(15) Il y a des choses qui ne s’inventent p as, m ôme dans les plus mauvais feuilletons
démocrates. Le 29 novembre, le jour précisément où Kathleen fut reçue à la M aison
Blanche, Ed se suicidait. “ There are so m e things that you can’t make up, even in the
worst dem ocratic soap operas. On the 29th N ovem ber, the v e r y d a y that Kathleen was
w elcom ed at the White H ouse, Ed com m itted suicide” (p. 14).

For Bres, the imperfect has one fundamental value in terms o f perfectivity, i.e.,
[-perfective], and use o f the IM P in a perfective context does not change that core
feature. The perfectivity comes, in varyin g degrees o f explicitness, from the context:

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT 315

[Il| im p liq u e, p re su p p o se ou pose exp licitem en t q u e le tem ps im p liq u é par le

procès à l’i m p a r f a i t . . . est bien allé j u s q u ’à son term e, co n trairem en t à la
représentation q u ’e n fournit ce tem ps verbal.
[It] im plies, p resu p p o ses o r m a k e s the case exp licitly that the time inherent
in the process d e sc rib e d b y the i m p e r f e c t . . . has in deed evolved through to its
e n d p o in t, c o n t r a r y to the representation o f tim e provid ed by the tense in q u e s ­
tion. (2 0 05 a, p. 76)

Contextual or co-textual indicators include indicators o f temporal progression (e.g.,

temporal adverbials such as “x temps plus tard,” (‘x time later’ ), achievement predi­
cates, the syntactic position o f the imperfect in a main or independent clause, and
clear indicators o f completion (Bres, 2005a, ch. 4). Caudal and Vetters (2005),
w orking within the fram ew ork o f Segmented Discourse Representation Theory
(SD R T ), com e to broadly the sam e conclusion, i.e., that the narrative value o f the
imperfect (in this case via the S D R T relation o f “ N arration” ) com es from the ele­
ments in the context that allow the Discourse Relation o f Narration to be posited,
and not from the tense, which remains imperfective. It is perhaps also for this rea­
son that so m an y potential exam ples o f the N I M P remain am biguous: they could
justifiably be read either w ay in context.20

3. F r o m T e n s e to Text: the Temporal

Str u ctu r e of D isco u rse

What is the role o f tense in the construction o f different types o f discourse?

3.1. From Discourse Representation Theory to Models with a

Pragmatic Component and Their Application
M uch c on tem p orary w ork on discourse relations and discourse m od es takes as its
starting point the fram ew ork proposed by K am p and Reyle (1993) as D iscourse R ep­
resentation Theory (D R T ),21 where temporal structure is described in Reichenbachian
terms o f event time (E), reference time (R) and speech time (S).22 In their analysis,
in discourses such as (16), the reference point does not m ove forward between the
first and second sentences, whereas it does m ove forward between the second and
third:

(16) She went into the room. It w as d a r k and gloomy. She sat d ow n 011 the sofa.

For C arlota Smith, D R T form s the basis o f a theory o f D isc o u rse M odes, w here
she argues that intuitively recognizable text types sh o w particular linguistic
properties— “characteristic clusters o f linguistic features” (2003, p. 7). The contribu­
tion o f temporal and aspectual information is crucial to how a new clause is interpreted

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31 6 PERSPECTIVES

relative to the previous clause, w h ic h in turn is central to the determination o f dis­

course m od e. Smith posits five discourse m o d e s — Narrative, Description, Report,
Inform ation and A rgum ent. In “Narrative,” 23 for example, bounded events (i.e.,
event verbs that have a perfective view point such as “ M a r y w alked” ), with or w ith­
out temporal adverbials, advance narrative time, whereas ongoing events and states
do not: cf. (17).

(17) 1 I slipped outside into a sh ock o f cool air and -» ran d o w n the pier. 2 Several small
boats w ere rocking lazily to and fro in the water. 3 -» I unfastened the rope to one,
paddled out toward the “ Republic,” -> then hauled m y s e lf h a n d over hand up a rope
ladder to the topgallant bulwark, o v e r onto a broad em p ty deck (p. 27).

The arrows in (17) indicate the points where narrative time advances. In this sense,
time is anaphoric in Narrative mode, as the temporal interpretation o f one event
relates to the previous one. Contrastingly, in Report mode, which also involves a
combination o f events and states (normally in the past), temporal interpretation is
deictic, and therefore related not to the previous event or state, but to the m om ent o f
speech:

(18) 1 At his new s con feren ce here, even before he took questions, Schroed er implicitly
challenged the official US explanation for the b o m b in g o f the C h in ese E m b a s s y in
Belgra d e— that target analysts relied on a faulty street m a p — by rene w in g his d em an d
for a formal N A T O e n q u iry into the bom bing. 2 Diplom ats say that Schroeder, w h o
just returned from C h in a, was a n g ry that a trip he had long p lan n ed to herald his
chairm anship o f the Euro pean U n io n w a s transform ed into an official a p o lo g y for the
em b assy b o m b in g (p. 30).

In (18), S c h ro e d e rs new s conference is past relative to the m om ent o f speech, and

the latter is co-tem poral with “diplomats say.” Different layers o f past time are
involved, including a recent past-in-the-past— “ just returned,” and a more distant
one, “a trip he had long planned” : the point is that in Report m ode, all these events
and states are located relative to the s p eak ers “ now,” not to each other. Description
m o d e involves “states, ongoin g events, atelic events” (p. 28) and time is static rather
than d y n a m ic — there is no temporal advancement.
Sm iths Discourse M odes certainly do capture patterns in tense usage that a p ­
pear to correlate well with different types o f discourse. The main drawback is that
Smith never fully resolves the question o f the “scope” o f the modes. The sample
chunks o f discourse involve m ainly short texts or sequences o f clauses where it is
norm ally clear that a given m od e is attested. How these m odes interface and inter­
weave with each other in the context o f a m ore substantial text is not fully explored,
nor is the question o f the boundaries o f a given m o d e in context.
Other theoretical models that discuss issues around temporal progression
attempt to address a major criticism o f DRT, i.e., that because it does not contain a
pragmatic component, it fails to account satisfactorily for certain cases, such as series
o f propositions containing bounded events that do not appear to move a narrative
forw ard (19):

(19) M a x fell. Jo h n pushed h im .

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This type o f problem has led to the form al incorporation o f a pragmatic com ponent
into the analysis by a num ber o f co ntem porary theories, all in a sense taking on
board the conversational implicatures arising from G r ic e s m a xim o f m anner:

There is a general su p p o sitio n w h ic h would be s u b s id ia r y to the general m a x i m o f

M a n n e r (“ Be p ersp ic u o u s” ) that o n e presents o n e s material in an o rd e rly m a n n e r
an d , i f w hat one is e n g a g e d u p o n is a n arrative ( i f one is talking about events),
then the m o s t o rd e rly m a n n e r for a n arration o f events is an o r d e r that c o r r e ­
s p o n d s to the o rd e r in w hich they took place. (W ilso n and S pcrb cr, 2 00 2 , p. 259)

M oesch lers approach (2000), for example, draws heavily on Relevance Theory,
which is based on what W ilson and Sperber, d raw ing on Grice, call the “c o m m u n i­
cative principle o f relevance” and the idea o f “optimal relevance” :

a. F ollow a path o f least effort in c o m p u tin g cognitive effects: test interpretive hypotheses
(disambiguations, reference resolutions, implicatures etc.) in ord er o f accessibility.
b. Stop w h en y o u r expectations o f relevance are satisfied (Grice, 1981, p. 186).

For Moeschler, there is thus a mutual adjustment in the comprehension process

between information that is encoded in the language (both explicitly and implicitly
in elements such as tense, aspect, connectors, the lexical semantics o f the verb), and
that which is m ade available in the context by a series o f assumptions the listener
supplies, som e o f which com e from their “ w orld knowledge.” The information is
hierarchized, such that contextual information is the strongest, capable o f cancel­
ling linguistic information. Procedural information (contained in the connectors or
adverbials [strong features] or in the tenses [weak features]) is next in the hierarchy,
followed by conceptual information carried m ain ly in the lexis. 'Ihus in an utterance
such as (20), the connector “then” is a strong indicator o f sequence, and in any case,
an interpretation o f sequence is not contradicted by anything in the context.
W hereas in (19), repeated here as (21), it is the sense o f the two verbs and the rela­
tionship between their sem antic properties that causes the listener to interpret the
event in the second clause as having preceded the event in the first.

(20) M a x finished his w o rk then left the building.

(21) M a x fell. John pushed him.

Perhaps the m ost influential approach w here a pragm atic c o m p o n en t is

fu n d a m en ta l is Segm en ted D isc o u rse Representation T h eory (Asher, 1993;
Lascarides and Asher, 1993; A sh er and Lascarides, 2003). The theoretical basis for
S D R T is outlined b y C a u d al (this v o lu m e ); I p ro p o se here to d iscuss h o w this
type o f approach can be used in the analysis o f tense usage (notably o f the perfect)
in three v e ry different types o f discourse, i.e., a literary text in French ( C a m u s ’
L*Etranger ), oral narratives in radio chat-sh ow s in A ustralian E nglish, a n d written
police reports in A ustralian English. S D R T offers a form al logic that in corporates
a pragm atic co m p o n en t into event ordering. It is based on default k n o w le d g e that
can be o v e rrid d e n , w h e re b y the sem an tic/p rag m atic relations between clauses
are expressed in terms o f “ D isc o u rse Relations” or D R s . Thus the an ap h o ric

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318 PERSPECTIVES

relations p ro p o se d in a m o d e l such as D R T are not adopted here: rather, each

event is p o sitio n ed relative to the m o m e n t o f speech, but crucially, is related to
previou s events via D R s. A s far as tem p oral se q u e n c in g is co n cern ed , the default
order is the order in w h ic h the events occu rred . W h ere this holds, a D R o f
“ N arratio n ” exists:

N a r r a t i o n : I f the clause ft c u rre n tly b ein g proc essed is to be attached by a

d is c o u r se relation to the clause « that’s part o f the text processed so far, then
n orm ally, N arration(a> ft) holds.
A x i o m o n N a r r a t i o n : i f N arration holds, and a and ft describ e the eventualities c i
and e respectively, then e t o c c u r s before e . (L ascarid es and Asher, 1993)

W here this is not the case, then a D R other than “ Narration,” such as “ Explanation,”
“ Elaboration,” or “ Background,” or “ Result” exists (for a full account, see Asher and
Lascarides, 2003, pp. 2 0 4 -2 0 9 ).

3.2. Applications of SDRT in Discourse

De Swart (2007) uses SD R T to analyse narrative use o f the passé composé (PC) in
L’Etranger , a choice on Cam us’ part that has attracted considerable attention from lin­
guists and literary scholars alike. In French, the passé simple (PS) is the narrative tense
p a r excellence, and is represented in Reichenbachian terms as E, R— S (the temporal
reference point and the event are co-temporal and are past relative to the point of speech):

(22) il term ina sa thèse en 2003 ‘he finished his thesis in 2003!

The present perfect, on the other hand, is represented as E — R,S, i.e., with the tem ­
poral reference point coinciding with the m om ent o f speech:

(23) il a terminé sa thèse maintenant ‘he has now finished his thesis’.

O f c o u rse the PS has effectively d isappeared from alm ost all varieties o f oral
F ren ch , and is m a in tain ed most strongly in relatively form al written discourse,
m ost especially in certain literary narratives. It is the P C that has “ rep laced ” the
PS as the sim ple past o f conversation, and o f m a n y types o f m o r e in fo rm al written
texts, but, at least as far as literary narrative is c o n c e rn e d , there rem ain s a sense
in w h ich the P C is not (yet) regarded as a narrative tense. The sem an tic shift
w h e re b y the P C (origin ally exclusively a present perfect) has exten ded its f u n c ­
tion in m a n y varieties o f French to include op era tin g as a sim ple past, is well
d o c u m e n te d (see A y r e s-B e n n e tt and C a rru th e rs, 2 0 0 1, ch. 6). De Swart uses
S D R T to argue that the P C , in c o m m o n with other languages w h e re the c o m ­
p o u n d past has not acqu ired a sim p le past fu n ction , such as E nglish and Dutch,
rem ain s s em a n tic a lly a present perfect in French, but that there are different c o n ­
straints op era tin g crosslinguistically, such that the P C in F ren ch has the capacity
to operate as a narrative tense. A n S D R T analysis o f the present perfect assum es
that it is related to the Topic o f the d iscou rse through the D R o f “ E laboration,”
and that w h ere there is a series o f sentences (S) in the perfect, the D R between

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT 319

those sentences is one o f C o n tin u a tio n , as illustrated in Figure 10.1 (De Sw art,
2007, p. 22 8 0 ):2'1
D e Swart argues that since the DR o f Continuation does not have temporal
implications, the events described by a series o f P C s are unordered. However, c ru ­
cially, Continuation “ leaves open the possibility o f a further temporal structuring”
(p. 2281), and thus the P C does not block a DR o f Narration holding between events.
In support o f her analysis o f the PC as a present perfect, De Swart cites evidence that
in m any instances, the PC s in LE lran ger are in fact present perfects, arguing that the
deictic centre can and does moves fo rw ard in the novel through adverbials such as
aujourd'hui ‘to d ay’ referring to reference points that clearly change as the novel p ro ­
gresses. She also shows how temporal relations other than progression are attested
with scries o f PC s, such as temporal overlap, inversion etc., all o f which are com pat­
ible with Continuation. But for De Swart, although the P C rem ains very much a
present perfect, a DR o f Narration can arise from the lexical semantics o f the verbs,
from connectives {puis, ensuite etc.),25 adverbials, or from pragmatic knowledge, o f
which De Swart cites num erous examples. One o f the most interesting observations
is that, at a global level, texts that are classified as “scripts” or “scenarios” “ have been
defined as stereotypical sequences o f actions” (p. 2288), and thus that the readers
knowledge about the default order in the type o f discourse at stake will also influ­
ence the readers interpretation regarding sequence. For example, in the following
“dinner scenario” from L'Etranger , De Swart argues that “shopping, cookin g and
eating occur in a natural order” :

(24) J a i pensé alors qu'il fallait dîner. J avais un peu mal au co u d etre resté longtem ps appuyé
su r le d os de ma chaise. Je suis descendu acheter du pain et des p â t e s ,;« / fa it m a cuisine
et j ’a i mangé debout.211 “ I thought m aybe I ought to have som e dinner. I had a bit o f a
neck-ache from leaning on the back o f m y chair for so long. I went d o w n to buy som e
bread and som e pasta, I did m y c o o k in g a n d I ate standing up” (p. 2289).

A similar argument is m ade in Carru thers (2005) with respect to oral narrative:
when an audience listens to a conteur recount a conte , there is already an expecta­
tion that the default order o f events, whether recounted in the PS, P C or N P R , will
be one o f temporal sequence; this can be overriden, and m ay or m ay not be rein­
forced by connectives, lexical semantics, or adverbials.
Ritz (2007) uses S D R T to analyse the use o f the co m p o u n d past (labelled PP by
Ritz to reflect its unm arked function in English as a present perfective) as a simple
past in Australian English, i.e., in a language where, at least in theory, this form (e.g.,
“ he has eaten” ) has not expanded to include usage as a preterite; it rem ains a present
perfect. Two different corpora are analysed, one o f oral narratives in the form o f

Topic

S, —*■ Si —► S3 —► S.j —> s5

C o n tin u ation

Figure 10.1

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320 PERSPECTIVES

listeners’ contributions to phone-in radio chat shows, and one o f written police
reports o f incidents. In the case o f the oral narratives, non-standard uses account
for just under 80% o f PPs; these PP usages contrast with the N P R which tends in
this context to be used for states:
P P usage in these narratives is able to achieve two things at once: sign allin g a
retrospective look at a situation (with the possibility o f the inception o f a situation
b ein g u n d e rsto o d to be su ch a past event) and p r o v id in g a p o st-tim e in w h ich
o t h e r even ts can be located. We thus ga in a sen se that events are tightly co n n e cted
as th e y overlap with each o th e r and /or o c c u r in v e r y q u ick succession i f telic
v e r b s are used. (Ritz, 2007, p. 139)

In 56% o f PPs in the corpus, Ritz argues that a D R involving temporal succession is
found, since 41% involve Narration and 15% involve Result (a D R which by defini­
tion involves temporal progression). The following short example, from an account
o f a visit to Jamaica by Prince Charles, illustrates this:27

(25) and so he’s been presented ( e ) with this novelty rasta tam N A R R A T I O N
now its got ( s ) dreadlocks at the back E L A B O R A T I O N
n o w he's ju st gone (e2) “o k thank you v e r y m u ch ” N A R R A T I O N
and has put it on ( e ) back to front N A R R A T I O N
so the dreads have ju s t fa llen ( e ) straight in front o f his face R E S U L T
(p- 14O

D raw in g on theories that analyze “phases” o f eventualities,28 and arguing that the
post-state o f the first event in a series o f two linked by a Narration D R (this p o s t­
state is implied by use o f the PP) overlaps with the pre-state o f the second event
(since with Narration there is no intervening event between the two), Ritz shows
that the effect is one o f “ju m p in g ” from post-phase to post-phase:

W e u n d erstan d that the p ost-p h ases are te m p o ra lly ord ered , and as a result o f
their ov erlap w ith the fo llo w in g event, we also in fe r that the events them selves
su cce ed each o t h e r in time. (p. 144)

So for an example such as (26), Ritz w ould argue that, as is demonstrated in Figure
10.2 (p. 144), the post-phases (denoted by the diagonal lines) o f the events e t, e, and
e^ imply the inner phases and end points o f those events (shaded), such that the PP
includes part o f the inner phase o f the event:

(26) and u m m , I've d u ck ed u n d e r (ei) F O R E G R O U N D / N A R R A T I O N

and I’ve looked back (c2) an d , N A R R A T I O N
and sh es g on e past (e3) N A R R A T I O N (p. 143)

ct x has du cked under c2 x has looked b ack e$ y has gon e past

x looks back y goes past

F ig u r e 10 .2

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT 321

C o m b in e d with the “ presentness” o f the PP, Ritz argues that the events are under­
stood both as a sequence o f events and also as “ unfolding in front o f their eyes” (p.
144), properties that are often associated with the N P R which in this context is used
m ain ly for states.29
In the corpus o f written police reports, the PP again is found in series o f past
events in sequence, often alternating with the simple past, including cases where
sequence is indicated by a connective such as “ then” (27), 01* where there are specific
temporal adverbials such as past time dates or times (28):

(27) It will be alleged that after being fo u n d in the rear yard o f a Cargill Street house at
aroun d 6.30 pm , he has then been chased by the 44-year-old resident o f the house. They
have then begun fighting, w h ich has continued alon g Cargill a n d M a c k ic Streets, before
they have fo llo w ed each other to A lb a n y H ighw ay (Ritz, 2 0 10 , p. 9);
(28) D uring the early evening o f Thursday 1st Jan u ary 2004 , detectives from the Police Prison
Unit have arrested a n d charged Michael Jam es Pajich following his escape from Karnet
Prison Farm (p. 7).

Even m ore strikingly, and probably because o f the different nature o f the corpora,
in the police corpus, 62% o f occurrences o f the PP are with verb phrases that are
what Ritz labels [-extended], i.e., punctual verbs, as opposed to 80% with non-
punctual verbs in the chat-show data. Ritz goes on to discuss the discourse effects
o f those usages. For example, linking s o m e exam ples to the “ vividness” properties
o f the PP, she shows how the PP can be used to introduce n e w or unexpected
events, i.e., for “ mirative” effects, such as introducing a new piece o f information, a
new episode etc., and argues that what de Lancey (2001) discussed as the gram-
maticalization o f m irative categories in the shift from perfect to past punctual, can
be found as a mirative effect in discourse. (Regarding mirativity, see De Haan, this
volum e.) What is important for our purposes here is that Ritz uses S D R T to show
that D R s w h ic h im ply temporal sequence, notably Narration and Result, are
attested in the context o f sequences o f PPs, both in oral chat-show narratives and
in written police reports, both o f which represent non-standard “discourse” usage
o f the English PP.

4. T e n s e and Po in t of V iew

4.x. Introduction
Tense and aspect are key components in m ost approaches to “ point o f v iew ” in texts,
or “ focalisation,” or “ énonciation .” This is a complex area, with many different the­
ories and their sets o f terminology in circulation, but they all share a preoccupation
with the multiplicity o f voices and points o f view found in a given discourse. It is a
field where literary studies and linguistics “meet” ; the linguistic elements that have
322 PERSPECTIVES

been analyzed include pronouns, adverbials, pragmatic particles (such as “ but,”

“since,” etc.)> m ood, and o f course, tense. O ne o f the key roles played by tense is in
speech and thought presentation, i.e., “ how people quote themselves and . . . others”
(Marnette, 2005, p. xi). There are certain clear, straightforward associations with par­
ticular tenses which I will illustrate briefly, but perhaps m ore interesting are the forms
o f speech and thought presentation that can create ambiguities around point o f view,
or blends o f perspective; in these, as we shall see, tense also plays a crucial part.
A seminal text in French enunciation theory is Le Dire et \e Dit (1984), where
Ducrot articulates his theory of polyphony, according to which any utterance can have
several “voices,” notably le sujet parlant (speaking subject), the locuteur (locutor), and
the enonciateur (enunciator).30 The sujet parlant in spoken discourse is the person who
actually physically articulates the discourse; in written discourse, it is the person who
writes the text, such as the journalist or the literary author. The locuteur is the speaker
within the discourse, the “ I” o f the discourse; there can o f course be different locuteurs
within a section o f discourse, such as the narrator, or characters within a narrative.
Finally, the enonciateur is the subject whose point o f view is being articulated. These
three entities can coincide, or two o f the three can coincide (e.g., in a conversational
narrative where the speaker is recounting a story where s/he is the “ I” in the discourse,
the sujet parlant and the locuteur in much o f the discourse will be the same), but the
point is that they can be different— the text can be polyphonic. In a section o f free
indirect discourse for example, the sujet parlant is the author, the locuteur the narrator,
and the enonciateur the character whose point of view is represented.
Marnette (2005, p. 23) applies D u c ro ts theory to m odes o f speech and thought
presentation and describes the fun dam ental properties o f each, one o f which is
“ tense” patterning:

D irc c t d is c o u r se ( D D ) : since the re p o r tin g sp e a k e r c laim s to report the original

d is c o u r se o f the locuteur, tense (an d deictic e x p r e ssio n s such as adverbials) are
N O T tran sp osed ("Paul looked at m e and said T d o n ’t w a n t to go: d o you ?"');
Free direct d is c o u r se ( F D D ) : in this case there are no verbs o f sp eech , and in
written lan gu age, no q u o tatio n m a r k s (“ Paul lo o k e d at me. I d o n ’t w an t to go: do
y o u ? ” );
Indirect discourse (ID): the reporting sp ea ker reports the discourse in his/her
o w n w ords, and thus the tense (and p ron o uns, dcictics, etc.) arc transposed in line
with the perspective o f the reporting speaker, in practice often to a past tense (“ Paul
looked at h e r and said that he did not w a n t to go. He asked if she w anted to go'');
Free indirect d isc o u rse (F ID ): shifted p ro n o u n s and tenses arc characteristic
o f indirect d isc o u rse (i.e., tenses are n o r m a lly past), w hile o t h e r features o f direct
d is c o u r se rem ain in tact, i.e., deictics, expressives, question s, ex c la m a tio n s , etc.
(“ Paul looked at her. He d id n ’t want to go: did s h e ? ’ );
Narrated discourse (ND): Marnette adds this category for cases where we find
verbs referring to speech or thought, but where there is no reported clause as such. In
this case, tense is aligned with the perspective o f the reporting speaker and there is no
verb in a reported clause (“ Paul asked about her intentions” ), (adapted from pp. 23-25)

Marnette then draws on Leech and Short (1981) to show how speech and thought
presentation is linked to questions o f point o f view. At one end o f the scale, the narrator
DISCOURSE AND TEXT 323

N a rra to r N a rra to r a p p aren tly in partial control N a rra to r

a p p aren tly in + *-*■ - ap p a re n tly n o t
total control in c o n tro l a t all
N arratio n N a rra te d In d irect Free Indirect D irect Free D irect
D iscourse D iscourse D iscourse D iscourse D iscourse

F ig u r e 10.3.

is totally in control, while at the other, it is the characters point o f view that is conveyed
(Leech and Short, 1981, p. 324):
The important point is that, as we move to modes o f speech and thought presen­
tation that convey the characters point o f view, or toward what R im m on- Kenan (1983)
would call “ internal focalization,” we move through free indirect discourse (where in
French there is a very strong association with the IM P) to direct and free direct dis­
course, both of which are present-tense modes, not just in French, but in many other
languages. The IM P and PR in these two contexts form the basis o f this section.

4.2. Internal Focalization and the French IMP

R im m o n -K e n a n notes that “external focalization" (where the locus is outside the
represented events) is “ panchronic” and therefore that the “external focalizer has at
his disposal all the temporal dim ensions o f the story (past, present, and future),”
whereas an internal focalizer (where the locus is inside the represented events) “ is
limited to the “present” o f the characters” (1983, p. 78). In the case o f FID, the “pre­
sent” o f the characters is transposed to an imperfective past tense, i.e., the IMP,
through which states, perceptions etc. can be conveyed. Indeed, for Rabatel (1997, p.
25), the association between the IM P and subjectivity is fundamental. He speaks o f
“ L’ IMP, dont maintes valeurs textuelles servent à l’e xpression subjective des percep­
tions” “ the IMP, where num erous textual values involve the subjective expression of
perceptions”. The textual properties to w h ic h he is referring include “experiential”
properties (i.e., the metaphorical value o f the I M P as a m arker o f what the speaker
is experiencin g— “ il est présenté c o m m e s’il était encore présent ou quasi-présent à
la m ém oire du locuteur” “ it is presented as i f it was still current or pseudo-current
in the speaker’s m e m o r y ” (p. 43)), as well as the I M P ’s m eronym ic value, h ig h ­
lighted by Berthonneau and Kleiber (1993), i.e., the fact that the event or state in a
clause in the IM P is included temporally within the scope o f the previous event.
Use o f the IM P is o f course not in itself indicative o f FID: F ID requires the c o -o c­
currence o f “shifted pronouns plus I M P ” with one or more features o f FID, notably
exclamations, questions, colloquialisms, terms o f atfection, subjective vocabulary etc.
that can only be attributed to the character.31 Indeed, one o f the key issues in discus­
sions o f FID is the potential ambiguity arising in contexts where we cannot be certain
about the attribution o f apparently subjective vocabulary. For example, in “ the house
was grotesque,” we cannot be sure if “grotesque” represents the point o f view o f the
324 PERSPECTIVES

narrator and/or an ob jective fact, or the opinion o f the character; the reader is heavily
reliant on context, on surrounding discourse, on textual knowledge etc., and even
then, the interpretation o f point o f v iew m ay remain blurred. Although third person
F ID is the most com m on, it is o f course possible to find first person examples, partic­
ularly where the narrator is the “je” o f what Fleischman calls the “narrating self,” as
well as the “je” o f the “experiencing s e lf” in the past: Prousts A la recherche du temps
perdu is an obvious example which is discussed by Fleischman (1990, ch. 7; 1991).
A n d although most examples are “ literary,” spoken cases o f F ID are also attested.
These can be found both in “oral literature” (29, 30) and also in m ore informal c o n ­
versational discourse, although the frequency o f FID is very low here relative to other
forms o f speech and thought presentation (see Marnette, 2005, p. 145).

(29) Elle a ouvert la porte et q u’e st-ce quelle a vu? L u i . . . ah il était beau ! “She opened the
d oo r and what did she see? Him . . . oh, he was handsom e!" (Carruthers, 2005, p. 93);
(30) Cette fois ce ne fut pas un verre d ’e au que la vieille lui rapporta m ais un verre de vin
ah! le parfu m du vin était si subtil si m agnifique si m erveilleux q u’il ne put résister.
“ This time it was not a glass o f water that the old w om an brought him but a glass o f
w ine oh! the sm ell o f the wine was so subtle so beautiful that he couldn’t resist'’ (p. 93).

A s with literary uses, ambiguities around localization can also occur in the spoken
m ed iu m : since the narrator is norm ally physically present in the discourse context
o f speech, it can be difficult to know i f subjective vocabulary, or expressives such as
questions or exclamations, emanate from the perspective o f the narrator or the
character.

4.3. Internal Focalization, Textual Polyphony, and the PR

This final section, although specifically relating to questions o f focalization, takes us
back in certain respects to som e o f the issues raised in the first section o f this ch ap­
ter, i.e., questions arising from the neutrality and potential m ultivalency o f the P R . 32
The most direct access to internal thoughts and perceptions is through the present
tense, which in a narrative context, means either through direct discourse, or through
particular strategies for internal focalization. In addition to FID, these include free direct
discourse (FDD) or interior monologue. I assume there to be a distinction, as defined by
Cohn (1978, p. 15), between the “ narrative technique” o f F D D (which gives direct access
to the thoughts o f the character, but appears in the context o f a third person narrative)
and the “narrative genre” of interior monologue, where this narrative technique extends
over a large section of text. In both cases, the PR is central to focalization strategies.
As Marnette explains (2005, p. 240), one o f the m a jo r changes that occurred in
20th century literature was a shift from the canonical use o f past tenses to mark
events on the narrative line (PS), description (IM P ), and internal focalization
through F ID (IM P ), to a m u ch m ore widespread use o f the PR, either as the m ain
narrative tense in a text, or in a context w here it alternates with past tenses— whether
in terms o f alternating sections o f text, or in terms o f what Judge (1998) terms “ m u l­
tifocal” uses o f tense in rapid succession. As Fleischman puts it:
DISCOURSE AND TEXT 325

Narration presupposes that the activities o f “experiencing” or “perceiving,”

“ remembering,'’ and “ reporting” o ccu r in the order listed here . . . the syn chroni­
zation o f these three activities, which the PR tense makes possible in fiction,
produces a text that is no longer narrative. (1990, p. 297)

The w ays in which the PR can be used to manipulate perspective in the m odern
literary dom ain are multiple: I shall discuss only so m e o f these here, alongside cer­
tain uses o f the PR as a focalization strategy in oral narrative.
Marnette (2005) illustrates the importance o f “characters’ voices” in the p o ­
lyphony fou nd in Gide, w hose representation o f these voices often takes the form o f
juxtaposing m odes o f speech and thought presentation, such that it can be unclear
whose point o fv ie w is represented. For example, in the section o f Les Faux-Monnayeurs
cited below, the paragraph beginning “ Un coup de sonnette” is dominated by the PR,
but it is possible to read the focalizer in at least two ways:33

(31) Monsieur Profitendieu prend le cahier, mais il souffre trop. Il repousse doucement lenfant:
« Plus tard. O n va dîner. Charles est-il rentré?
— Il est descendu à son cabinet. (C ’est au rez-de-chaussée que l’avocat reçoit sa clientèle).
— Va lui dire q u ’il vienne me trouver. Va vite. »
Un coup de sonnette! M adam e Profitendieu rentre enfin, elle s’e xcuse detre en retard;
elle a dû fa ire beaucoup de visites. Elle s’attriste de trouver son mari souffrant. Que
peut-on fa ire pour lui? C'est vrai qu'il a très mauvaise m ine—il ne pourra manger. Quon
se mette à table sans lui.
M ais qu'après le repas elle vienne le retrouver avec les enfants—B ern a rd ?— Ah!
C ’est vrai; son a m i . . . tu sais bien, celui avec qui il prenait des répétitions de
m athém atiques, est venu l’em m ener dîner.
Profitendieu se sentait mieux. Il avait d ’abord eu peur detre trop souffrant pour
pouvoir parler.
M onsieur Profitendieu takes the copybook, but he is in too much pain.
He gently pushes the child away.
—Later 011. It’s just dinner time. Has C harles com e in?
— He went down to his consulting room . (The barrister receives his clients in a room
011 the ground floor.)
— G o and tell him I want to speak to him. Quick!
A ring at the door bell! Madame Profitendieu at last! She apologizes for being late. She had
a great many visits to pay. She is sorry to see her husband so poorly. What can be done fo r
him? He certainly looks very unwell.—He won't be able to eat anything. They must sit down
without him, but after dinner will she come to his study with the children?—Bernard?—
Oh, yes; his friend . . . you know, the one he is reading mathematics with,
came and took him out to dinner.
Profitendieu felt better. He had at first been afraid he would be too ill to
speak (Marnette, 2005, pp. 24 8 -249, adapted from translation by Dorothy Bussy,
Modern Library, New York, 1955, pp. 19-20).

One possible reading is that the paragraph begins with external focalization, i.e., the
narrator’s perspective (where the PR w ould be a N P R ), and moves to F ID (signaled
by italics by Marnette), m oving to a short piece o f F D D (bold and italics), before
returning to direct discourse D D (bold).3'1 The interpretation o f the opening section
as the narrators perspective would not be impossible in a context where the narrator
32 6 PERSPECTIVES

makes direct interventions as happens in Les Faux-Monnayeurs. A n alternative

reading is that the focalizer is M onsieur Profitendieu from the beginning o f the par­
agraph, in which case we have FID in the PR, with the exclamation mark and the
pragmatic marker “enfin” attributed to his perspective. Either way, the multiple p os­
sible enunciative roles associated with the PR are central to the polyphony: the PR
can be used for a narratorial intervention, a N P R , a PR o f F ID in the present, a PR
belonging to F D D or even to DD. All the PRs contrast with the shift to the past that
occurs with “ Profitendieu se sentait mieux,” though as an IMP, this too is a form as­
sociated with subjectivity which could either bridge to a clear section o f external fo-
calization, or to a section o f FID in the past.
Note that in addition to m odes o f speech and thought presentation where we
might expect a PR, elements o f this polyphony involve FID, where we w ould n o r ­
mally expect an IMP. In fact, as Marnette (2005, p. 147) and Carru thers (2005, p. 93)
point out, where the dom inant narrative tense in a section o f discourse is the N P R
or IIP, then sections o f F ID are likely to be in the present rather than the IM P.35 In
other words, expressives and deictics are aligned with the character, while pronouns
and tense, like classic FID , are aligned with the n arrators perspective, but in such
cases, the narrative tense is the N P R :

(32) et alors il voit tout son foin, A h! Quand il voit la grange pleine mais p le in e . . .
“and so he saw all his hay, A h! When he saw the barn fu ll, f u l l . . . ” (p. 93).

A m bigu ity in focalization can also occu r around the borderline between DD
and FD D . In a literary context, Marnette cites examples from Queneau, where the
punctuation does not seem to make a clear distinction between cases o f D D (here
introduced by the dash), and those o f F D D : in theory, the section in (33) beginning
“ non mais” would be classed as F D D since there are no overt signs o f D D such as a
dash or quotation marks, but in practice, the effect in a text where there are such
high levels o f D D is that this section is another section o f D D :

(33) — Et pou rqu oi pleurais-tu tout à l’ heure sur le banc?

Zazie répond pas. Il commence à lemmerder, ce type.
— Tu es perdue, hein?
Zazie hausse les épaules. C ’est vraim ent un sale type.
— Tu saurais me dire l’adresse du tonton Gabriel?
Zazie se tient de grands discours avec sa petite voix intérieure: non m ais, de quoi je
me mêle, q u ’est-ce qu’ il s’ im agine, il l’aura pas volé ce qui va lui arriver.
Brusquement elle se lève, s’e mpare du paquet et se carapate.
“And w hy were you cryin g just now on the bench?”
Zazie doesn’t answer. This chap, he's starting to get on her w ic k *
“ You’re lost, eh?”
Zazie shrugs her shoulders. H e really is a stinker.
“ Could you tell me your uncle G abriel’s address?”
Zazie and her little inner voice are addressing each other at length: no but what am
I letting m yself in for, what’s his idea, you can’t say he hasn’t asked for what he’s
going to get.
All o f sudden she gets up, snatches the parcel and scrams (Marnette, 2005, p. 266,
translation by Barbara Wright, John Calder, New York, 1982, p. 64).

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT З2 7

Like the G id e exam ple (31), given the use o f the PR as a N P R and also the exis­
tence o f F I D in the P R , the PR is at the centre o f the p o ly p h o n y created. A s we
noted above, one o f the uses o f PR in exam ple (31) is a possible case o f narratorial
intervention, w h ere the PR is aligned with the narrator. M arn ette goes on to show
how authors such as C é lin e use high levels o f apparent narratorial intervention in
the PR, in vo lv in g c o m m en ts on situations or events, rem arks on the activity o f
narration, and direct addresses to the readin g audience (in upper case below),
such that other sections in the PR rem ain a m b ig u o u s as to w h eth er they represent
the n a rra to rs perspective (external localization) or the ch a ra cters internal R e a l ­
ization ( F D D ) — these appear in b o xes in the follow in g quote from Voyage au bout
de la nuit :

(34) Le courage ne consiste pas à pardonner, on pardonne toujours bien de trop! Et cela ne
sert à rien, la preuve est faite. C ’est après tous les êtres humains, au dernier rang qu’on
a mis la Bonne! C ’est pas pour rien. N E L’O U B L I O N S JA M A IS . Il faudra endormir
pour de vrai un soir, les gens heureux, pendant q u ’ils dormiront, JE V O U S LE DIS
et en finir avec eux et avec leur bonheur une fois pour toutes. Le lendemain on en
parlera plus de leur bonheur et on sera devenu libres detre malheureux tant qu’o n
voudra en même temps que la “Bonne.” M ais que JE R A C O N T E . . . : Elle allait et
venait donc à travers la pièce Lola, un peu déshabillée et son corps me paraissait tout
de même encore bien désirable. [Un corps luxueux c ’e st toujours un viol possible, une
effraction précieuse, directe, intime dans le v if de la richesse, du luxe, et sans reprise à
craindre.
“Courage doesn’t consist in forgiveness, we always forgive too much. A nd it does no
good, that’s a known fact. W hy was the Housemaid put in the last row, after all other
human beings? Not for nothing, L E T ’S N E V E R F O R G E T IT. One night while they’re
asleep, all happy people, I A M T E L L I N G YOU, ought to be put to sleep for real, that’ll
be the end o f them and their happiness once and for all. The next day they’ll all be
forgotten, and we’ll be free to be as unhappy as we please, along with the ‘Housemaid.’
But L E T M E T E L L T H E STORY: Lola was pacing the floor without m any clothes on,
and in spite o f everything her body still struck me as very desirable. |Where there’s a
luxurious body there’s always a possibility o f rape, o f a direct, violent breaking and
entering into the heart o f wealth and luxury, with no fear o f having to return the loot”
(Marnette, 2005, p. 252, translation adapted from the version by Ralph M anhcim ,
New Directions, New York, 1983, p. 183).

M an y o f these p olyphon ic effects can also be found in oral narrative. A lthough

F ID in the PR is relatively rare, nonetheless, the PR is w id ely attested as the m ain
narrative tense (N P R ), in narratorial interventions (a c o m m o n , indeed, fu n d a m e n ­
tal feature o f interactive p erform ed narrative), in D D (which is particularly fre­
quent in oral narrative), both where verba dicendi (“ verbs o f sp eak in g ” ) are found,
and where they are not. In the latter case, D D has all the properties o f F D D , given
that there are no verba dicendi , but a key difference with literary texts is that into­
nation, voice quality and pitch are used by storytellers to distinguish the different
voices in the narrative, such that the audience know s exactly who is speak in g (see
Carru thers, 2005, p. 95). Thus, in oral narrative, m ore often than not, the identity
o f the locuteur is in fact clear, in spite o f the use o f PR for a multiplicity o f narrative
perspectives.

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328 PERSPECTIVES

Finally, Fleischm an discusses the use o f the PR in the nouveau roman , the
novels by a group o f writers in the m iddle o f the twentieth century, including Robbe-
Grillet, Sarraute, Butor, and Sim on. There is no one pattern attested in terms o f use
o f the PR, but there are discernable trends that recur in a num ber o f the novels. One
is what Fleischman (1990, p. 298) refers to as the use o f the PR in “dechronologizing
story-tim e” :

The conceptualization o f time as a continuum stretching backward (and c o n ceiv­

ably forward) from the S p e a k e rs present is no longer appropriate; there is only
the h ere-an d -n o w o f the t e x t . . . the PR that serves as the vehicle o f such texts is
thus not the H P but a Sp e a k e rs P R , a P R cotcmporal with now.

In other words, time is represented as a totality, rather than a continuum that might
contain a series or sequence o f events. In its most extreme form , such as Robbe-
G rillets La Jalousie , the sam e “event” is described over and over again, with m a n y o f
the descriptions in the PR:

(35) Une moitié de la chevelure pend dans le dos, l’autre main ramène en avant de lepaule
l’a utre moitié. Sur ce côté (le côté droit) la tête s’incline , de manière à m ieux offrir les
cheveux à la brosse. Chaque fois que celle-ci sabaty tout en haut, derrière la nuque, la
tctc penche davantage et remonte ensuite avec effort, pendant que la main droite— qui
tient la brosse— s’éloigne en sens inverse. La main gauche— qui entoure les cheveux sans
les serrer, entre le poignet, la paume et les doigts— lui laisse un instant libre passage et
se refei-me en rassemblant les mèches à nouveau, d ’un geste sûr, arrondi, mécanique,
tandis que la brosse continue sa course ju sq u a l’e xtrême pointe. Le bruit, qui varie
progressivement d ’un bout à l’autre, n’est plus alors qu’un pétillement sec et peu nourri,
dont les derniers éclats se produisent une fois que la brosse, quittant les plus longs
cheveux, est en train déjà de remonter la branche ascendante du cycle, décrivant dans
lair une courbe rapide qui reporte au-dessus du cou, là où les cheveux sont aplatis sur
l’a rrière de la tête et dégagent la blancheur d ’une raie médiane.
“ Half o f the hair hangs down the back, the other hand pulls the other half over one
shoulder. The head leans to the right, offering the hair more readily to the brush. Each
time the latter lands at the top o f its cycle behind the nape o f the neck, the head leans
farther to the right and then rises again with an effort, while the right hand, holding the
brush, moves away in the opposite direction. 'Ihe left hand, which loosely confines the hair
between the wrist, the palm, and the fingers, releases it for a second and then closes on
it again, gathering the strands together with a firm, mechanical gesture, while the brush
course to the extreme tips o f the hair. The sound, which gradually varies from one end
to the other, is at this point nothing more than a dry, faint crackling, whose last splutters
occur once the brush, leaving the longest hair, is already moving up the ascending part o f
the cycle, describing a swift curve in the air which brings it above the neck, where the hair
lies flat on the back o f the head and reveals the white streak o f a part" (pp. 298-299).37

A n o t h e r strikin g m otivation for the PR is the sense that visu al perception is

everyth in g : the “event” is b a c k g ro u n d e d , and d escription is fo regro u n d ed . The
im plications o f this for questions o f focalization are serious: in such passages,
w ho is the focalizer for this d escription? W h o se p erspective is c o n veyed ? C h a r ­
acters are not perceived in term s o f psychological or em otion al depth; indeed
their descriptions often resemble those o f inanim ate objects in the discourse, and
they can com e across as unanalyzed and unanalyzable ph en o m e n a. A s Fleischm an

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DISCOURSE AND TEXT 329

points out, there is an apparent p a ra d o x here, in the sense that the v e ry tense that
is used in certain fo r m s o f speech and thought presentation as the ultimate p u r ­
vey o r o f subjectivity, i.e., the PR o f interior m o n o lo g u e and o f F D D and DD, can
be found in the nouveau roman as the apparen tly ultim ate expression o f o b je c tiv ­
ity, w ith the invitation to the sp eak er to interpret and im p ose m ean in g. But Fleis-
ch m a n also argues that there is a sense in w h ich the PR o f the nouveau roman is
both objective and subjective, fu n c tio n in g in the latter capacity since it is the
ultimate expression o f a s p e a k e r s perception. Indeed, ju st as the argum en ts m ade
aroun d “ m a rk e d n e ss ” in section 2 drew on the PR ’s “ n eu trality” and possible
“ multivalency,” so, too, in terms o f énonciation , the PR can signal both “ p o ­
ly p h o n y ” (in exam ples su ch as G id e w here the m ultiplicity o f voices is o f key
im portance) and “neutralization” (in certain nouveau roman usages, the a ll-p e r ­
vasive PR has a “flattening” effect, m a k in g it extrem ely difficult to differentiate
between voices). S p e a k in g o f Sa rra u tes l.e Planétarium , M arn ette observes:

The whole text is in the present, which neutralizes m an y o f the most explicit
differences between the characters’ discourses and the narrative voice . . . it is at
times difficult, even impossible to distinguish between free (in)direct discourses
and Narrated D iscourse, or even the simple description o f actions. (2005, p. 267)

In short, the PR is a crucially important element in focalization strategies in

discourse, particularly in m od ern and p ost-m od ern literary texts.

5. C o n clu d in g C omments

This chapter has attempted to respond to the series o f research questions I posed in the
Introduction and thereby to offer a fresh analysis of how and why tense and aspect are
vital components in the “ textuality” o f a given discourse. Through three discrete sec­
tions, each o f which sets its own parameters, I hope to have raised and debated the key
questions in current research, and offered perspectives, including m y own, on prob­
lematic issues. Traditionally, certain types of discourse have dominated the research
landscape, particularly “ literary” texts; however, there are m any potential avenues for
future research, not least in oral discourse and in the domain o f new electronic media
(such as the internet, text messaging and email) which will impact in innovative and
exciting ways on our understanding o f “ textuality” and the role o f tense and aspect.

NOTES
1. rlhere is considerable overlap between the terms “d isc o u rse ” and “ text,” but I
take the fo rm e r to be a b roa d er term than the latter. W ith Leech and Short (1981, p.
209), I assum e “d isco u rse” to be “a transaction between speaker and hearer, an in terp er­
sonal activity w hose form is d eterm in ed by its social purpose,” and “ text” to be “ linguistic

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330 PERSPECTIVES

c o m m u n ic a tio n (either spoken o r written) seen sim p ly as a m essage cod ed in its

a u d ito ry o r visual m ed ium .” In practice, much o f the d isc u ssio n will center on tense
usage in “ text,” but b roa d er issues relating to d iscou rse as an “ interpersonal activity ”
w ith a “social p u rp o se ” will c e rta in ly feature.
2. See lor exam ple, Schiffrin (1981), Wollson (1982), Fludernik (1991).
3. I shall use N P R for oral usage, and will otherwise use the term inology preferred by
the scholars under discussion. Note that Fludernik (this volum e) positions N P R and I I P
differently.
4. Translations are my o w n except where otherw ise indicated.
5. Note that on this point, Fleischman differs from most other commentators who
would consider that the preterite m arks the “foreground” o f the narrative, in the sense that it
is used for the series o f events that make up the narrative, as opposed to the “ background,”
which includes states and descriptions. See the discussion by Fludernik (this volume).
6. Exam ples will be taken from Flcischman’s discussion o f medieval texts, where
there are strong traces o f orality, from C arru th e rss (2005) study o f m odern French
storytelling (conversational and perform ed contes) and from Fludernik (1991). Note that, in
c o m m o n with Fleischman (1990, pp. looff.), I use the term “story” to refer to both oral and
written narratives that can be said to recount past-time, specific events where there is a
“ point,” a sense o f tcllability (see Carruthcrs 2005, pp. 18 -19 ). Fludernik (this volume)
defines “sto ry ” in a different way.
7. The translation is Fleischman’s.
8. In Labov and W alctzky’s model, the “complicating action” corresponds broadly to
the series o f events that form the central story, while the “orientation” co rrespon d s broadly
to descriptive, background information. The latter is often found at the beginning o f a
story, or e m b ed d ed between episodes.
9. Conversational data is taken from the C O R P A I X / D E L I C corpus, with kind
permission from the late Claire Blanchc-Benvcnistc. For full details, see Carruthcrs (2005).
10. See for example the discussion in Blanche-Benveniste (1995).
11. The translations o f examples from M onville-Burston and Waugh arc their own.
Note also that the verb forms in square brackets arc the past tenses to which the HP
examples correspond.
12. a = action, v = visualizing.
13. See Ryan (1993) for a discussion o f the P R in sports discourse.
14. See Labeau (2005) for a full discussion and list o f terms.
15. For an o verview o f the history o f the form, sec Bres (2005a, ch. 13).
16. Bres (2005a, p. 212).
17. Note that V crin e (20 07) exp lo re s questions o f s a lie n c y with the N I M P in verbs
o f speech in con versatio n al Fren ch, where N I M P alternates with o th er tenses, a rg u in g
in p articu lar that the N I M P can in fact b a c k g ro u n d p articular section s o f speech,
w h e th e r in terms o f their proposition al content or in terms o f textuality.
18. M a n y literary texts and a small n um b er o f other v e ry form al written tcxts-typcs
would use the PS; all other registers and text-types in written French, and virtually all
varieties o f spoken French would use PC.
19. Note that there is also debate around the feature [ past]: see for example Le Goffic
(1986).
20. See the discussion in C arruthers (2005, p. 62).
21. For detailed discussion o f DRT, see Smith (2003, chapter 3.4) and M ani, Pustejo-
vsky, and Gaizauskas (2005, pp. 317-332).

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22. Note that K a m p and Reyle identify a limitation in the Reichenbachian model and
use a distinctive term, “reference point,” for the point in time to which the narrative has
progressed.
23. For a discussion o f the term “narrative" in narratology and literary linguistics, see
Fludernik (this volum e, section 1).
24. Note that here, S = sentences, not “speech time” as in the Reichenbachian
term inology used above.
25. Broadly speaking, puis = “ then” ; ensuite = “ next,” but the semantics o f puis in
particular are complex. The important point here is that both are compatible with the
Narration DR.
26. 'I he translation o f examples from De Swart are her own.
27. In Ritzs examples, e=evcnt, s=statc; the relevant D R s arc given at the end o f
propositions. Note also that most o f the rem aining PPs involve Elaboration, which is
temporally neutral. Ritz (2007) also discusses examples o f the D R o f Foregrounding.
28. See the discussion in Ritz (2007); the phases include the “ pre(paratory) phase,” the
“ inception" o f the “event,” the “ inner phase," the “telos" o r “ final b o u n d a r y ” and the
“post-phase.”
29. In other words, the N P R here is what Fleischman would call an N P R v.
30. See Marnette (2005, pp. 2 1-2 3 ) f ° r an excellent s u m m a r y o f enunciation theory.
31. In addition to Fleischm an (1990) and Marnette (2005), sec Banficld (1982),
Fludernik (1993), Rabatel (1997), and Rosier (1999) for recent discussions o f FID.
32. For further discussion o f the PR in literature, see Fludernik (this vo lum e, sections
2-4).
33. Exam ple (31) is a conversation between M . Profitendieu, his stepson Bernard, and
M m e. Profitendieu.
34. rIhe underlined sections are cases o f indirect discourse.
35. Note that Rosier (1999, pp. 2 8 0 - 2 8 1 ) does not agree that F I D can be found with the
PR: for her, such cases would be examples o f FDD.
36. Britishism: “ irritate” o r “a n n o y ”.— Editor.
37. Sec Fleischm an for details o f the adapted translation used.

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prose. London: Longman.
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la-Neuvc: Pceters.
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R im m o n -K e n a n , S. (1983). N arrative fiction. London: Methuen.
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Élém ents sous droits d'auteur

 C H A P T E R 11

TRANSLATION

DIANA SANTOS

i. I n t r o d u c t i o n : T r a n s l a t i o n and T ense

Matters connected with time are pervasive in language, and they are inextricably
linked to the knowledge representation that each language offers.1
Hence, it is hardly possible to discuss translation (and particular examples o f
translation) without involving, explicitly or implicitly, issues o f temporal m odeling
and tense translation. However, there are fewer works on the im port o f (linguistic)
time for the theory and practice o f translation than the pervasiveness in language o f
temporal matters w ould predict.
Instead, the influence between tense and translation is felt the other w a y around:
in recent years consideration o f translation practice has brought several insights
into the study o f tense and aspect issues, as will be described below. It is only indi­
rectly that this kind o f study can be claimed to have contributed to the translation
field as a whole.
After som e basic considerations on translation and translation studies, and a
b rief excursion into the closely related area o f contrastive studies, the translation
network will be presented. This is a model for formalizing tense and aspect differ­
ences across languages and for m aking explicit their impact on translation. It is of­
fered here as a tool for developing further insight into both translation and tense
and aspect. Finally, a selection o f further themes related to the translation o f tense
will be discussed, with special emphasis on m achine translation and corpus-based
studies.

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2. A spec ts of T r an slatio n

2.1. Translation Equivalence and Untranslatability

There are several m etaphors used to describe translation. A particularly apt one is
that o f Benjamin (1981 [1921]), w ho talks about “trans-creation” or transplantation,
em phasizing a new creation in a new language (usually called the “target language”
in translation parlance), starting from a previous creation in another language, the
source language.
As a c o m m o n property o f words en d in g in -ion, the w ord “translation” itself
refers equally well to the process itself, 01* to its result, 01* to the accom plishm ent
com prisin g both, and this multiplicity is also applicable to the discipline o f transla­
tion studies itself. In fact, translation studies attempt to answer questions as distinct
as: how should translation be done?; how do translators go about it in practice?;
how can the result o f translation be characterized, generalized, analyzed, and
taught, etc.?
The read er is directed to the exten sive literature describing, d isc u ssin g and
often recasting the im p o rt a n d m e th o d o lo g ie s o f translation studies, e.g. Steiner
(1975), S n e ll-IIo r n b y (1995 [1988]), T o u r y (1995), and Bassnett (2002 [1980]), to
n a m e ju st a fe w o f the m ost influential scholars. This section follow s C a t f o r d s (1967)
A linguistic theory o f translation, w h o s e m ain interest is not in p r o p o s in g a new
d iscipline but rather in relating the study o f translation to the stud y o f language.
Catford is at pains to distinguish two senses in wrhich the expression “transla­
tion equivalence” is c o m m o n ly used: he claims that it som etim es is, or should be,
understood as an empirical phenom enon (“discovered by com p arin g SL [source
language] and T L [target language] texts,” 1967, p. 27), but at other times it is used in
the sense o f translation justification: namely, implying that the source text and its
translation “can function in the sam e situation” (p. 49), although rarely having “the
same meaning.” In other words, “ translation equivalence” m a y mean sim ply that X
and Y are translation ally related, or that X and Y are evaluated as good translations
o f each other.
The apparent p arad ox o f (a) having two different language systems (those o f the
source and target languages) but (b) translation nonetheless being possible between
the languages, is solved by the notion o f “a SL and a T L text or item [being] relatable
to (at least som e of) the same features o f substance” (Catford, 1967, p. 50).
For e xam p le, a c c o rd in g to C a tfo rd , Russian ja prisla is in general a v e ry g o o d
translation o f English I have a rrived , although the two sentences express d if­
ferent things (d escrib ed in fo rm ally by the m id d le co lu m n in F ig u re 11.1; the in ­
tersection o f the content o f both languages is italicized in that c o lu m n ). A lth o u g h
ja prisla expresses fem in in e gender, w hile I have a rrived does not, and although
the latter explicitly connects a past event w ith the present, w h ile the fo rm e r does
not, etc., there is en o u g h o f an overlap in content for the gen eral p u rp o se s o f
translation.

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TRANSLATION 337

> speaker

fe m a le

arrival

o n fo o t

prior event

lin k ed to p re sen t

c o m p le t e d *

Figure 11.1. In fo rm a l sem antic d escrip tion o f the E n g lish -R u ssian sentence p a ir I have
a rriv e d - j a p r i s la , from C a tfo rd (1967, p. 39)

However, untranslatability can occur when some o f the things linguistically

conveyed are also fu n ctionally relevant : Catford (1967, pp. 96ff.) provides a good
e x a m p le o f the untranslatability into English o f the sa m e verb in a passage o f G o r k i ’s
Childhood, a dialogue between the child and his g r a n d m o t h e r and his pu z z lem en t
over her answer, in w h ich C a tfo rd claim s that the notion o f c o m i n g on foot is c r u ­
cially at stake: Ty otkuda prisla? Sverxu, iz Niznego, da ne prisla, Po vode-to ne x o d ’
at. Literally, this can be ren d ered as: Thou whence cam e-on-foot? From above, from
Low er (Novgorod) and not came-on-foot. On water-(!) not they-go-on-foot. C a tfo rd

m o th e r and his puzzlem ent o ve r h er an sw er d e p e n d too on the facts first that the
specific place n a m e (N iznij ) also m e a n s ‘lo w e r’, and seco nd that the expression
sverxu, ‘from ab ove’, can be u n d e r s to o d as fro m upriver or fro m upstairs. N eith er
a m b igu ity is exp ressed by an English translation su c h as Where have you come fro m ?
From above, fro m Low er Novgorod and not on foot. They don t go on foot on water,
and hence the English translation fails the test o f fun ctio nal eq uivalen ce to the
source passage.
C a tfo rd also describes another kind o f untranslatability, cultural u n translat­
ability: ex a m p le s are the F in n ish w o r d sauna and the Japanese w o rd yukata , w h ic h
are often transferred and not translated, because there are no “c o r r e s p o n d in g ”
w o rd s in English. He is h o w e v e r careful to m ention that cultural untranslatability
can be reduced to linguistic untranslatability i f w e are w illin g to use e.g. bathroom
and nightgown respectively a n d thus provide, so to say, a “collocational s h o c k ” to the
readers. A fte r all, it is an aspect o f the F in n n ish and Japanese cultures that y o u have
fun in a sh a re d b a th ro o m or that y o u go out in a hotel n ig h tg o w n : w h e th e r you
learn about this in a e n d n o te w h ile increasing your international vocabulary, or you
are c o n fron ted with a w id e r concept o f b ath ro o m or clo th in g habits in a foreign -
o rigin ated text, it is pretty m u c h the sam e, C a tfo rd argues: an effect o f translation.
O f course, neither su cceed s in b rin g in g the total m e a n in g o f these lexical items into
English, but does change ( if o n ly slightly) E n glish itself .2 In other w o rd s, translation
can n ot exp ect to leave the m in d s and system o f the target language the sa m e as it

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w as before it existed. If not n e w words, at least further connotations to old words

will arise in English because o f translations from Finnish and/or for Japanese.

2.2. The Empirical Study of Translations: Methodology

and Theoretical Issues
Catford is a structural linguist, that is, a follower o f Saussure (1916), and so he as­
su m es that every natural language is a system in itself, and that m eaning, c o n ­
ceived as a relation between a linguistic expression and “ reality,” is language-specific.
Or, in E lliss (1993) words, “ev ery language is a particular system o f categorization.”
To realize that m eanings are different in different languages has been the lot o f
alm ost anyone w h o has, for one reason or other, looked at translation or language
contrast; com pare what scholars from widely different linguistic persuasions have
said: “ it w ould surely be surprising, and a v ery strong empirical claim, that d if­
ferent languages using different m eans to express “ m eanings” always arrived at ex­
actly the sam e end,” Keenan (1978, p. 166) notes, and Talmy, regarding the way
languages as know ledge representation systems distribute inform ation am ong
their finite com ponents, says (m y emphasis):

G e n e r a l terms arc n e c e s sa r y for referrin g to interstitial co n cep tu al materials,

b etw een the references for specific t e r m s . . . . T h eir locations m u st n evertheless be
to a great extent arbitrary, co n strain ed p rim a r ily b y the req u ire m en t o f being
“ representative” o f the lay o f the sem an tic lan d scape, as e vid en ce d b y the enor­
mous extent o f non-correspondence between specific morphemes o f different
languages , e ven w h ere these arc sp o k e n b y the peoples o f sim ilar cultures. (Talmy,
1983, pp. 277tf.)

While these linguists c o m p are— and wonder at— the differences to be found
between languages, it is only fair to say that the disciplines o f contrastive linguistics
and translation are strange bedfellows. The ghost o f translation haunts most w ork in
contrastive linguistics, consequently translation data, m ore often than not, is dis­
missed as unreliable or irrelevant as a source o f insights (although translation is
universally recognized as an application o f contrastive linguistics itself). Still, the
concept o f translation equivalence is implicitly used in contrastive linguistics, as
shown by van Burens (1980) paper, which involves form al contrastive linguistics for
tense and aspect. A s usual in theoretical linguistics, however, van Buren starts with
simple examples (instead o f real ones), such as I've been waiting for six hours /
jattends depuis six heures , together with the a priori contention that the two s e n ­
tences mean the same thing. In fact, van Burens critique o f a Catford-like approach
is illuminating in show ing that different premises regarding translation clearly
imply different “values” o f possibly the “same” data:

Ironically, m a n y structural linguists w h o c h a m p io n the case o f contrastive

analysis fail to a c k n o w le d g e the logical n ecessity o f c o m m o n categories (or a
fortiori, universals). ’Ihis failure m a y have been due to the characteristically
structuralist a ssu m p tio n that each lan g u ag e is a self-sufficient system in that e v e r y

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e lem e n t has a “ value” w h ich is un iquely d e te rm in e d by the structural relations o f

that system. Clearly, a descriptive technique w hich is c o n fin e d to an analysis o f the
internal relationships o f a single language is, strictly sp eakin g, in co m p atib le with
the notion o f c o m p a r is o n b etw een two o r m o re languages, (van B u r c n , 1981, p. 85)

Also dedicated to cross-linguistic studies is yet another branch o f linguistics.

The practitioners o f this school, typological linguistics (see Guentcheva and Des-
cles, this volum e), select a priori categories or m eanings and look at the languages
o f the w orld to illuminate them.
Although the object o f study in the three cases o f translation studies, contrastive
linguistics, and typological linguistics, is apparently the same (for example, tense and
aspect in two languages), their methods, data and assumptions (that is, the scientific
paradigms they are a part of) are so distinct, even sometimes contradictory, that studies
done within the scope of these disciplines are in fact difficult to compare and contrast.
For example, while, for van Burens school, translation equivalence and language univer­
s a l are theoretical requirements, or premises, for being able to do contrastive linguistics
in the first place— and the same, although in a vaguer form, is true for typological
studies— this is not the case for translation studies. For this latter discipline, translation
data are the data to be studied, and only a posteriori can the hypothesized equivalences
that are postulated in these other disciplines be validated or falsified.
O ne difference is methodological, related to m ore fundamental, theory-based
issues: typological studies typically em p loy questionnaires (e.g., Dahl, 1985) and
independent descriptions o f m an y unrelated languages. The choice o f the questions
to ask, the fram in g o f the questions, and the interpretation o f the responses are all
open to a nu m ber o f biases. For example, Bybee (1994, p. 235) assumes right from
the start that “perfective and imperfective are the m ost general and . . . co m m on
senses expressed grammatically in verbal systems in the languages o f the world.”
She is obviously not claiming that she has knowledge o f all the languages she is dis­
cussing; at best this is a conclusion drawn from surveys such as D ahls. Often, h o w ­
ever, such claims reflect the linguistic literature. An immediate question arises in
this regard: have the hundreds o f gram m arian s who described those languages all
used the terms “perfective” and “ imperfective” in the same w ay? A n d , even if this
was the case, how can we be sure that this does not simply follow from their having
this distinction in their term inology/language/view o f the world? M arkkanen
(1979), contrasting the Finnish and English tense and aspect systems, aptly talks o f
“gram m atical false friends” to describe sim ilar-looking systems in form al terms, but
with different functions and uses. Such latent terminological assumptions clearly
bias the conclusions o f this kind o f study, and m ake their conclusions hard to relate
to actual translation practice a m on g any pair o f these languages.
O ne com m on objection to the use o f translation data in linguistics is a much
discussed phenom enon, translationese (Gellerstam, 1986), referring to the indirect
influence o f the source language on the outcome o f the target language text. The
existence o f this ph en om en on is usually invoked as an argument to discourage the
use o f translation data for contrastive studies, together with the related argument
that such data inevitably contain translation errors. Both are perform ance issues,

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340 PERSPECTIVES

and som e prefer to describe languages as Platonic ideals, so this is again a strong
m ethodological divide in linguistics at large. A typical w a rn in g ru ns like this:

i f the target language is influenced by the structure o f the source language . . . y o u r

stu d y will n ot be b ased on two in d ep en d en t languages. (G e lle rsta m , 1986, p. 53)

It has also been said that the language o f translations constitutes a third code in
itself: Frawley (1984) suggested that translated text was a subcode o f both languages
involved. A n d the characterization o f features o f a translated text versus an original
text is an active area o f a corpus-based translation studies, as will be discussed below.
The two issues just raised, nam ely (a) the possibility o f translation despite the
differences between two language systems and the difference o f their categories, and
(b) the fallibility o f translation (with the consequence that translated texts can even
be considered as yet another “ language” ), can be addressed and fruitfully m ade
sense o f by empirical translation data.
A ccepting the structuralist d ogm a that languages are independently describ-
able, translation data allow one to construct links between two languages, without
requiring the target text to be perfectly idiomatic. In fact, translation data allow one
to see how the source text is seen through target language eyes.
Translations should be a m on g the p rim a ry semantic data for all o f linguistics.
O ne relevant property o f translations is that they are authentic. This means that they
were, in real use, created with a purpose other than doing linguistics or p erform ing
semantic interpretation.3 They represent to a greater or lesser extent the interpreta­
tion o f the source text by its translator. A n d as insisted upon by E v e n -Z o h a r (1990)
and Toury (1995), translated text m ay be in the periphery o f the literary canon at
first, but after s o m e time it does com e to the center and “translationese” is no longer
perceived by the native readers.
A n o th e r forceful argument for empirically studying translation practice instead
o f uncritically m akin g assumptions about language universals and typologically
shared categories is that it is a far less biased method. If one starts by postulating
that two things m e a n the sam e thing and therefore should always be translated that
way, and that actual deviations from this expected translation practice are errors,
how is it then possible to find out that the initial hypothesis w a s wrong, no matter
how m a n y “errors” can be docum ented? H ow is it possible to claim that the two
expressions did not mean the same thing after all? Functional translation theorists
and contrastivists such as C h esterm an (1998) have m a d e the sam e point.
This is not to say that the intuition and the know ledge o f the analyst should not
play a role. Rather, using empirical data is a g oo d m ethod to put previous a ss u m p ­
tions to the test. Also, they rem ind us that more often than not m ost claims have to
be further evaluated in particular contexts where they represent a choice am ong
m an y other choices that may or may not bear on the particular decision that is
being assessed. This is w hy the concept o f (un)translatability is always relative to
context.
A n d this is also why the concept o f translation quality (see Halliday, 2001) is so
hard to specify, although several evaluation axes can be found, such as faithfulness,
TRANSLATION 341

preservation o f style, fu n c tio n a l role p reservatio n , target language flu e n c y and c o ­

hesiveness, literary status and role, etc.
The sc h o o l o f thought m o s t co nnected w ith the description o f languages as s e p ­
arate, even in c o m m e n su ra b le , system s is linguistic relativity, and its best k n o w n
ch a m p io n is B e n ja m in Lee W h o r f, w h o stud ied the te m p o ra l o n to lo g y o f H opi and
p o in ted out h o w distinctive it w a s fr o m In d o -E u r o p e a n .

. . . th in k in g . . . follows a n e tw o rk o f tracks laid d o w n in the given lan gu age, an

o rgan izatio n w hich m a y concentrate system atically upon certain phases o f reality,
certain aspects o f intelligence, and m a y system atically d iscard others featured by
o t h e r languages. (W h o r f, 1956, p. 256)

It is fashionable to d ism iss relativist app roach es to linguistics as radical and fa r­

fetched by p ick in g an exaggerated r e n d e r in g o f su c h an ap p ro ach as a straw m an .
How ever, a relativist m e th o d w o u ld be the only m e th o d that could p ro v e n o n - r e la ­
tivists right: i f the categories o r the o perators are the sa m e in different languages,
surely this can be assessed experim entally, w ith ou t h a v in g to p re su p p o se it.
T h ere arc two a rgu m e n ts that are often presented against lo o k in g at translation
and the relationships b etw ee n different languages w ithout bias. O n e is that c o g n i­
tively we are b orn equal (so, w e must have the sa m e categories in o u r m i n d s — as if
le a rn in g did not exist). The other invokes the fact that sim ilar concepts and g r a m ­
matical structures and m e a n i n g distinctions appear in genetically unrelated la n ­
guages (so, at a deep en o u gh level th e y must be the s a m e — as i f they w ere not m a r k e d
in different places in the lexicon and/or the g r a m m a r ).4
Before m oving on, in a section about empirical study o f translation reference must
be made to a famous philosophical argument by Quine (i960) on the indeterminacy
of translation. Quine argues that, no matter how detailed and complete a interpreta­
tion (or translation) procedure were specified that made only use o f direct stimuli in a
concrete situation, there would be an infinite number o f possible translations that were
compatible with the empirical data, and that in fact, translation accuracy is possible
only due to previous cultural interaction and mediation having occurred successfully
between the communities involved. Conversely, this also stresses the importance o f
translation (and language contact) for language development itself: the translator/in­
terpreter as mediator shapes both languages with his practice in context.

3. T h e T r a n s l a t i o n N e t w o r k M odel

3.1. Tense and Aspect in the TN Model

The translation n e tw o r k m o d e l w a s devised to allow the em p irical stud y o f tra n sla ­
tion with a relativist m e th o d o lo g y . A n y m o d e l p re su p p o ses a set o f assu m p tio n s. In
the particu lar case o f the translation n e tw o rk m od el, the assu m p tio n s it e m b o d ie s

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w ill be spelled out in detail after a p r e lim in a r y introduction to w h at a translation

n e tw o rk ( T N ) is.
The T N m o d e l w a s conceived to describe h u m a n translations and p ro v id e a
fin e-g rain ed analysis o f w hat is expressed in each language, so that the o u tc o m e o f
translation could be u n d e rsto o d . Additionally, it w a s also expected that the m o d el
m ig h t illum inate the choices and p ro b le m s en co u n tered w h ile creating the target
text (and in terp retin g the so u rc e text), by p r o v id in g a detailed h u m a n analysis o f
the individual translations.
Where tense and aspect are concerned, the T N model is based on M oen ss (1987)
w ork on English and the main ideas were borrowed from that work: (a) the use o f a
network to describe tense and aspect mechanisms, (b) the use of coercion" to explain
marked uses o f grammatical devices, and (c) the modeling o f ambiguity as the exis­
tence o f several possible paths in the network. In contrast to M oenss aspectual net­
work, however, instead o f nodes representing semantically defined subparts o f the
structures defining aspectual classes (such as preparatory phase, process, culmination,
etc.) aspectual classes themselves are taken as nodes. Vendlers (1967) classes, though
widely known and adopted by the linguistic community, were specified for English'1 on
strictly linguistic empirical grounds. Instead o f adapting them for Portuguese, I wanted
to use the same empirical method and see which classes would emerge for this language.
The alternative o f using the novel semantic model by M oens— which was justified as a
better model for the same facts in English as already covered by the Vendlerian
classes— would be too removed from actual linguistic testing.
O ne basic assumption o f the T N m odel is that each language has its own set o f
aspectual devices, which goes hand in hand with its set o f aspectual categories. A n ­
other assumption is that, in addition to fully specified categories, languages display
vague categories, which m a y be further specified in context but do not always
require specification for the understanding o f a particular text. This hypothesis
implies a larger set o f nodes than in M o e n s s m odel, with unlabelled arcs between
vague classes and fully specified ones, to be traversed only if necessary. For example,
Santos (1998a) argued for the existence o f a class o f English verbs, dubbed ‘ acquisi­
tions,” w hose m em bers are systematically vague between a state and its inception.
A n o t h e r assu m p tio n b e h in d the aspectual n e tw o rk is that all n o d es and transi­
tions c o r r e s p o n d in g to a p a rticu la r sentence are part and parcel o f the m e a n i n g o f
that sentence.

3.2. Translation in the TN Model

A s for translation, the model presupposes that m eanings are almost never exactly
the same, given that the translator has to apply m an y different strategies, and choose
specific parts to preserve, w hen not all components o f the source text have parts
fully “corresponding” to those o f the target language.
C o n tra ry to gram m atical operators that ultimately constrain and license the
tense and aspect transitions in an aspectual network, there is no formal evidence for
translation arcs (the other kind o f arcs in a translation network). From the mere

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TRANSLATION 343

existence o f pairs o f sentences translationally related, and the intuition o f the analyst,
translation arcs are postulated between different nodes in the paths in each language,
and it is in fact the recurrence o f such possible pairings that justifies translation arcs.
Note, incidentally, that there is no required level at w h ich inform ation has to be
specified in a T N , although I have m ade most o f m y studies at the lexical and g r a m ­
matical level o f the clause. This does not prevent particular translation pairs from
requiring a sub-lexical analysis. Others in turn m ay require a larger span than the
sentence, especially when discourse effects involving direct speech are involved. For
the sake o f simplicity, I will m ainly refer to source and target sentences , although
later IT 1 discuss cases needing a larger context.
Analysis based on a T N requires a general theory about tense and aspect in each
language (for instance, a theory about English, another one about Portuguese), and
the specific analysis o f particular actual translation pairs reflects those two theories
(which can both be revised as the analysis proceeds).7
Let us start with an abstract example, shown in bold in Figure 11.2. N odes rep­
resent categories in the language; labelled arcs represent gram m atical operations;
and unlabelled arcs stand for possible reinterpretation o f categories without the use
o f formal devices (that is, overtly marked grammatical operators) for travelling
from one node to another. These unlabelled arcs account for vagueness, one o f the
most important properties o f natural language. They serve to formalize coercion,
nam ely the reinterpretation o f an expression in order to m ake sense o f the applica­
tion o f a particular gram m atical or discourse operator.8
Unlabelled directed arcs joining the two aspectual networks, called translation
arcs, and printed as dashed lines, are intended to m odel a possible translation relation
between the respective categories, which are then said to be “translationally related.”

F ig u r e 11.2 . O n e t r a n s la t io n p a i r (in b o ld ) d e s c r ib e d in a fictitio u s t r a n s la t io n n e tw o r k :

o n the left, the s o u r c e sen ten c e , o n the rig h t the target o n e ; the d a s h i n g a r r o w s rep re sen t
t r a n s la t io n re la tio n s b e t w e e n n o d e s o f the t w o la n g u a g e s .

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344 PERSPECTIVES

While the source path (A g C f D F z I r l ) includes six nodes (five different

ones), the target path only contains four (T 1* R h V S). Also, only the second and the
fourth nodes o f the source path are translationally related to some node in the target
language model (C to R and F to S). Finally, note that, in this particular translation
pa iry the last node in the source path (I) has no correspondence in the target
language. This point is w orth y o f further com m ent: Even though there m ay be
(translationally) related categories in the two languages (the links from I to U and
Y), they may not be (monolingually) connected in the sam e way. Hence, it is not
necessarily possible for “corresponding” lexical items (path beginnings) to arrive at
“correspon d in g” final nodes. Concretely, in the example o f Figure 11.2, even though
nodes I and Y are translationally related in the system (from evidence from other
translation pairs), the target language netw ork displays no path from V (or S) to Y.

3.3. The Translation of Tense and Aspect between

English and Portuguese
A concrete exam ple is Figure 11.3, w h ic h provides a subset o f a translation network
from English into Portuguese. Unlabelled arcs represent paths that can be traversed
without requiring overt signs (monolingual coercion), situations which are often

inceptive particular
event event

series always
PerfeitoX
MQP, '
M Q Pconj

tem porär ) 1
state
perm anent Import eito setup re
Im p crfeito
state

qu alid ad e

state
estado

acquisition tem porario

sim p le
sim p le obra
past
co m p léta Import cito

p a ssiv e

F ig u r e 11.3. A s m a l l subset o f the c o m p le t e E n g l i s h - t o - P o r t u g u e s e t r a n s la t io n n e t w o r k ,

d e s c r i b i n g the d iffe re n t t r a n s la t io n s tr a te g ie s e n c o u n t e r e d in P o r t u g u e s e text f o r E n g li s h
p a s s iv e a n d s i m p le p ast.

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TRANSLATION 345

E N G L ISH PORTUGUESE
even t event

exten ded punctual

exten ded punctual

accom plishm ents achievem ents activities O b ra s M udan^as

F i g u r e 11.4. T h e d iffe re n t c o n c e p t u a l iz a t io n o f e v e n t s in E n g li s h a n d P o r t u g u e s e

F ig u r e 11.5. S e v e r a l k i n d s o f states in P o r tu g u e s e : in italics, th e g r a m m a t i c a l d e v ic e s o r

a s p e c t u a l iz e r s w i t h a n o u t p u t o f that kind.'1

described as vague. Labelled arcs require the particular gram m atical feature to be
present (such as, in this case, simple past, passive, Imperfeito , always , semprey etc.).
Figure 11.4 presents schematically the way the lexico-gram m atical categories o f
Portuguese are organized, com p arin g them to the English classification proposed in
Vendler (1967), in relation to events.
Figure 11.5 illustrates the different states in Portuguese.
For further details and rationale for each category and device, see Santos (1996,
2004).

3.4. Analyses of Translation Using the TN Model

An idea o f the m an y things that can be involved in the simplest translations will be
provided in the next pages. In the follow ing tables, the paths in each aspectual net­
w ork are indicated below the examples, with gram m atical operators (which label
the arcs) underlined. W hen the analysis o f the actual translation leads to the c o n ­
clusion that the translator interpreted the source text in a particular w a y (that is,
followed a path not warranted by any formal sign on the source language), the tran ­
sitions that are part o f that (extension) path are printed inside square brackets [].

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Table 11.1 Translation o f be

Source Translation

1 B u t Kino was in motion mas Kino com efou a mexer-se

“ But Kino started to move”
acquisition simple-past acquisition Obra comegar-a M udan^a+O bra Perfeito
[inceptive-achiev.] Mudan^a
2 A n d suddenly he was afraid o f E, de repente, assustou se com os proprios
his talking pensamentos
“A nd, suddenly, his own thoughts
frightened him”
acquisition simple-past acquisition Obra Perfeito Obra
suddenly achievement
3 N ow uncertainty was in Kino ,4 duvida apoderou-se de Kino.
uThe doubt took over Kino!'
acquisition simple-past acquisition Mudan^a Perfeito Mudan^a
[inceptive-achiev.)

Table 11.1 provides som e examples o f the unexpected translation o f the verb to
be.'0
English be has a strongly inchoative (or inceptive) use, absolutely absent from its
Portuguese counterparts (be is the prototypical example o f an acquisition, a class o f
English verbs vague between an inchoative and a state sense), which requires different
strategies for coping with its translation. In the examples, the translators interpreta­
tion o f the verb was formalized as an inceptive achievement, but was represented in
brackets because this shift is not required for understanding the English text by itself.
A n o th e r conspicuous difference between English and Portuguese is the prefer­
ence o f the latter for conceiving o f rules instead o f sim ply registering regularities.
In exam ple 4 (Table 11.2), there is a rule in Portuguese, but a factual description in
English.
S o m e tim e s , in o rd e r to c o m p ly with this P o rtu g u ese feature ( o f e n u n c ia tin g
ru les), the E n g lish translation goes even further. E x a m p le 5 (Table 11.2 ) is a case
in p o in t. T h e s o u rc e senten ce d escrib es a rule in Im perfeito w ith a definite direct
object, w h ic h is c o n v e y e d as an ability (potential, not n e c e s s a r ily actualized)
with an in d e fin ite -e v e r w o r d in E n g lish . T h e two lan guages thus assign different
roles to the constituen ts in a sentence, but in the process this brings a slight
change to w h at is con veyed : the P o rtu gu ese so u rc e senten ce states clearly that
there were m a n y cases w h e re he w rote those p o e m s, w h ile in E nglish only a
capability is asserted (w hich m ig h t not be based on w ritin g s that had actually
occurred).
O ne further com m on source o f observable differences in translation is when
sentences deal with m ovem ent and space, cf. example 6 (Table 11.3).
In (6), passary[l a very com m on Portuguese verb, was rendered m ore concrete
in English by adding the m anner o f m ovem ent (walked), which is nowhere explic­
itly conveyed in the original text, although it constitutes a good guess. (For all we

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Table 11.2 Rules vs. Regularities vs. Abilities

Source Translation

4 Até 0 fasti0, que às vezes 0 afastava Even boredom, which at times took him fa r
longamente de contactes car nais. from carnal contacs
“ Even boredom, which sometimes kept accomp. at-times series simple-past accomp.
him away for a long time from carnal
contacts'
Obra às-vezes série Imperfeito estado
permanente
5 fa zia s logo os versos que te pediam. you could quickly write whatever verses were
“ You did at once the poems which (people) asked o f you.
asked you!'

Table 11.3 Translation o f movement

Source Translation

6 Passei entre as mesas empilhadas. I walked among the stacks o f tables.

“ I went past the tables stacked”
Obra Perfeito Obra-completa activity simple-past activity

know from the story, the character could have run , or crawled , or even lim ped , but
the less m ark ed case is walked.) This can be described by the translation network o f
Figure 11.7.
Not all cases o f m ovem ent have specified m anners in English and unspecified
descriptions in Portuguese, though. Exam ple 7 (Table 11.4) is a counter-example.
The approach o f death is c o m m o n ly described by the verb rondar in Portu­
guese, and so it was appropriately chosen in (7) instead o f a literal translation o f
come. But the resulting temporal properties conveyed by the two lexical items are
quite different: while rondar as an Obra does not imply any culmination, come to

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Figure u.7. Translation o f P ortuguese O b ras

Table 11.4 Involved translation o f a directed movement

Source Translation

7 it felt fo r the source o f the death that was queria encontrar a causa da morte que 0
cow in g to it rondava
“ it wanted to find the cause o f the death that
surrounded him”
activity to accomp. prog temp, state obra Iniperfeito obra-em-progresso

does as an accomplishment, even in a progressive form where the progressive sig­

nals that culmination has not yet been attained. See the T N s for the translation o f
activities in Figures 11.8, a - c , which show that different subclasses have different
translation properties.
Figures 11.8a, 8b and 8c illustrating three different kinds o f translation strategies
per kind o f activity (movement; including a goal, or not; etc.) demonstrate that as­
pectual class m ay not be enough to decide on the translation outcome, and that
rather m ore fine-grained, even lexically-driven rules, have to be taken into account
to model the translation
Exam ple (8) (Table 11.5) is another good illustration o f the m a n y choices that
Obras open for in English (see again Figure 11.7), this time featuring the choice o f an
achievem ent in translation. The two situations depicted are related, but instantiated
in rather different ways: while the Portuguese sentence only reports that there had
been much talk around a particular subject, and with rather negative connotations
o f “ talk” in such a context, the English translation states that the matter became
fam ous (a clear exaggeration), and soon (which is certainly an addition, although
plausible). Furthermore, nothing in the translation suggests that talk had finished
(as unam biguously expressed by the Portuguese pluperfect tense, Mais que Perfeito

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TRANSLATION 34.9

F ig u re 1 1 . 8a. Translation o f English activities (subnetw ork) for co n s tru c tio n s such as p ry
open , brush clean

Figure 11.8b. T ran slatio n o f E n glish activities (subnetw ork) fo r c o n s tru c tio n s in v o lv in g
m a n n e r -o f-m o v e m e n t v erb s with a specified to-argum en t

F ig u re n .8 c . T ran slation o f E n glish activities (subnetw ork) for co n stru c tio n s such as
creep out, slip o ff

[M Q P]). On the contrary, from the English rendering alone, one m ight suppose the
episode was still fa m o u s.12
In the next example, (9), the verb distrair is again a typical Obra (that is, an event
which takes som e time and has no result), in this case referring to a short and w'hole
past event (where concentration was lost) in the Portuguese original. The English

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Table 11.5 The translation o f Portuguese Obras

Source Translation

8 O caso dera qu efalar , The episode soon became famous

“the case had given origin to much talk’’
obra M Q P obra-completa achiev. simple-past incep. Achiev.
9 Onde agora, coma nao onde 0 frade se where now, unlike when the fria r had
distraint, as pedras cram too mimerosas become distracted, stones were as numerous
“ where now, not like where the friar had
been distracted, the stones were as many”

translator used again an achievement to translate it, thereby rendering instead the in­
ception o f the state o f being distracted. With this choice, he left open whether the state
might still be holding in the narrative “ now.” Clearly, temporally speaking, the two
descriptions are different, but the translation can be deemed successful given that this
detail does not make much difference for the story being told (after all, the main point
o f the sentence is to raise attention to the growing number o f stones around the friar).
These examples show how the translation o f tense and aspect is intermingled with
other translationally relevant properties in complex ways. Although at first sight they
do not primarily concern tense and aspect properties, they allow us to understand and
confirm the “exact” and “prototypical” temporal contours in both languages.
Let us n o w turn to a specific Portuguese tense, Preterito Perfeito Composto
(PPC ), considered unique am ong R om ance languages, w h ich has been m uch dis­
cussed by Portuguese sch olars,13 and w hose place in the tense and aspect system o f
Portuguese (as well as its translation) is represented in Figure 11.9.
While the two first translations below ( 1 0 , 1 1 ) (Table 11.6) have at least one model
in English where they agree with the source text, since they allow for a sequence o f
occasions where the “ I” character did not write (10), and m ade acquaintances (11),
(12) is a most striking example: in the Portuguese text, it is clear that the nam e has
appeared in the papers an unspecified but plural num ber o f times (and days),14 so
that an often , or a several times adverbial is absolutely m issing in the translated m a ­
terial. (On the other hand, had it been Vi seu nom e nos jo rn a is “ I’ve seen your name
in the papers,” using the Perfeito in the Portuguese original, it would mean either
once, or m ore than once, that is, vague about how m an y times, corresponding to one
or several occasions, and then ideally translatable by the English present perfect.)
The opposite situation can be appreciated in (13) (Table 11.7): w hile habituar , a
Mudan^a, m eans literally “get the habit” and is assum ed to occur once— and thus
Perfeito is the right choice, be it in an affirmative or negative context— the English
translator employed the present perfect with never , thereby hinting that the process
o f getting accustomed is perceived and conceptualized differently in English, and
that it is the present that matters in such a statement. Further, one could conclude
that this non-habit is a tem porary state— she is not yet accustomed, so far.13

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TRANSLATION 351

Table 11.6 The translation o f PP C (from Santos (2008))

Source Translation

10 Nào Ihe tenho escrito por certos I have not written you because o f
niotivos particidares, etc some very special reasons, etc.
“ Repeatedly I failed to write you for
certain private reasons, etc.”
Obra série PPC estado-até-agora activity accomplishment series perfect
result-state
activity accomplishment perfect
result-state
11 É ai que tenho feito muitos I have m ade many acquaintances there.
conhecimentos.
‘T have on many occasions made
acquaintances there”
12 - Tenho visto seu nome nos jornais. - Vve seen your name in the papers.
“ 1 have on many occasions seen your
name in the paper”

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Table 11.7 Translation into present perfect (from Santos (2008))

Source Translation

13 Tantas vezes Ariela conduziu um cliente So many times Ariela has led a male
masculino pelo corredor, tantas portas de client down the hallway, so many doors
apartamentos abriu para dar passagem a to apartments opened to make way fo r a
uni homem, e nem assim se Habituou a uni man, and even so she has never become
protocolo que considéra humilhante. accustomed to a protocol she considers
“So often Ariela took a male customer along humiliating.
the corridor, so many does she opened so
that a man could enter, not even so did
she get used to a protocol she considers
humiliating”
Obra Perfeito Obra tan las-vezes Série activity perfect accomplishment
Mudança Perfeito Mudança nem estado- so-many-times series
negado achievement series never series perfect state

N ot all differences between the two constituents o f a translation pair concern,

or are prim arily about, category m em bership (that is, belonging to specific a sp ec ­
tual classes): the m ea n in g o f so m e tenses m a y refer directly to time intervals, and
“c o rresp o n d in g ” tenses in the other language m a y refer to different intervals, cf.
exam ples 1 4 - 1 7 (Table 11.8). These exam ples are all covered by the translation net­
w ork o f Figure 11.3 as far as aspectual class is concerned, but the T N does not make
explicit strictly temporal matters, and thus fails to expose the lack o f temporal
co-reference:
The point o f examples (14, 15) is that in the original English sentences a choice
between past and present is not required (and so the normal reading would en com ­
pass both), while Portuguese in this case requires such a choice: the translator chose
past and therefore discarded present. The effect was that the comparison is weaker
than if the situation were presented as a general rule, not temporally bounded. These
examples show clearly that sometimes the time line cannot be partitioned the same way.
In aspectual network terms, English does not require a choice between a state and a
series of events (“ traps” ), while to translate into Portuguese the translator has to make
a choice. And, since he chose the series rendering, he had to use M ais que Perfeito
(M Q P) which implies completion, and therefore sempre can only refer to the past.
The third example (16) is a case o f (nominal) quantification with a gradual
achievem ent (with a typical English construction, grow + adjective). Since grow is
an activity and there is no similar class in Portuguese, translation has to resort to a
verb which is connected with the resulting state ( interested ) and which is, in fact, an
Aquisi<;ao;16 but in this case, with Im perfeito , it describes the state. The information
that things changed is implied by the adverb agora (‘n o w ’ ), which pragmatically
implies that, before, the situation (“ interest” ) would not be the case.
The fourth example (17) was also apparently analyzed by the translator as an
English passive (although a better analysis o f the English text might have been past

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TRANSLATION 353

Table 11.8 Temporal mism atch

Source Translation

14 He was trapped as his people were always Estava peado, eonto todos os da sua raça
trapped sempre tinham estado
“ He was trapped as his people had always
been”
event passive acquisition simple-past Obra passiva-com-estar estado-temporârio
acquisition [inceptive-event series always MQP estado-temporàrio série sempre série
series]
15 Perhaps he alone did this and perhaps all o f Talvez ninguém mais fizesse aquilo e talvez
his people did
it. todos os seus 0tivessem feito.
“ Maybe nobody else did that and maybe all o f
his had done it”
particular-event series simple-past series obra MQPconj obra-compléta série
16 All manner o f people grewinterested in Toda a gente agora se interessava por Kino.
Kino—people with things to sell and people Toda a gente tinha coisas para Ihe vender ou
with favors to ask. favores a pedir-lhc.
“ Everyone was now interested in Kino.
Everyone had things to sell him or favors to
ask him.”
event series simple-past series aquisiçào estado Imperfeito estado
17 But now it was gone , and there was no Mas agora via que tudo estava acabado, sent
retrieving it. remédio possivel.
“ But now she saw everything was finished,
without remedy”
event passive acquisition simple-past obra passiva-com-estar estado Imperfeito
acquisition estado

perfect), emphatically stressing an irreversible result. There is no passive o f ir (go ’) in

Portuguese, so a different verb, acabar (‘finish’), was used, focusing on the result state
with the passive. Curiously, the translator considered that the bare mentioning o f a
result state was not powerful enough and added an emphatic subject, tudo
(everything’).
I do not want to convey the idea that all exam ples are amenable to a description
that focuses on aspectual class or time line only. Exam ples ( 18 - 2 0 ) in Table 11.9 do
not have a generalizable T N description, although they m a y be related to tense and
aspect matters.
Exam ple 18 turns a property assigned to the current situation in the narrative
into one relative to a future one: while in Portuguese the protection is stated as
holding at the narrative now, in English it is turned into a prem onition. I cannot
find any reason w hy it should have been translated this way, unless the translator
took Im perfeito as conveying the C onditional in the source sentence.17
The second example, (19), translates the Portuguese present subjunctive by
could , add in g the w ord ever as an intensifier, although there is neither temporal d i­
mension nor quantification in the original. This m a y be a standard way to translate
Portuguese subjunctives, but it illustrates a rather heavy rephrasing.

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Table 11.9 Exam ples o f different kinds o f mismatches

Source Translation

18 seguros da sua falta de vista e da solidao, que confident that his poor eyesight and
os protegiam de ele os reconhecer mais tarde their situation would prevent him from
“sure o f his lack o f sight and o f the solitude, recognizing them later
which protected them o f him recognizing
them later”
19 devo ser [. . .] um desses coragoes que nao ha surely I can be nothing fo r you but [ . . . ]
incendio que purifique. one o f those hearts that no amount o f fire
“ I must be [...] one o f those hearts which could ever purify.
there is not a fire that purifies”
20 She, being the nearest woman relative, raised Sendo a iinica parente mu Iher, competia-
a form al lament fo r the dead o f the fam ily Ihefazer 0 carpimento form al da morte
da fam ilia.
“ Being the only woman relative, it was
her duty to do the formal lament for the
death o f the family”

A n d in the third case, (20), the Portuguese translator decided to make explicit
a rule that is at m ost implicit in the original, therefore radically changing the aspec­
tual class o f the translation. A lthough this choice m a y be related to the absence o f a
g oo d idiomatic formulation in Portuguese involving the verb carpir , the changes in
themselves are too radical to be considered necessary for the translation o f this par­
ticular case.
In connection with example 19 the thorny issue o f the interaction o f aspect and
quantification must be raised, given that the existence o f quantification provides
w ide discrepancies in the w ay information gets distributed across the two sides o f a
translation, as examples 2 1-2 5 (Table 11.10) illustrate.
C a rlso n (1981) handles the interplay o f verbal aspect and nom in al quantifica­
tion by postulating, in a gam e-theoretic fra m e w o rk , interpretation rules w h ich are
separate from o rd erin g rules: the interpretation rules he suggests, w h ic h are based
on sem antic principles, account for both count/m assive and different event q u a n ­
tification interpretations. Additionally, they account for the existence o f m ore
than one interpretation o f quantified sentences, and explain h o w am biguou s or
m ark ed readings occur. A lth o u g h quantification is not explicitly m od eled in the
aspectual n e tw o rk (although quantifiers can label arcs, a higher order hierarchy o f
nod es w a s not added), the gist o f the exam ples is to show that, w hile English q u a n ­
tifiers p roduce a cum ulative effect (add up, so to say), Portuguese ones tend to
invoke rules.
Moreover, while Portuguese and English are both languages with articles, remark­
able differences occur in both nominal and verbal quantification. See Gawronska (1993)
for an interesting discussion o f the differences o f languages with articles (Swedish and
English) vs. languages with morphological aspect and no articles (Polish and Russian).
N o w for the last batch o f examples, m eant to illustrate discourse considerations,
in examples 26 and 27 in Table 11.11.

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TRANSLATION 355

Table 11.10 Interaction of quantification and aspect

Source Translation

21 The doctor never came to the duster o f o rntdico nao vittha

nunca aquele lugarejo
brush houses. de cabanas.
"'Ihe doctor would never come to that
hamlet o f huts.”
22 A mini a Senhora Sant’A na nunca me Saint Anne has never fa ile d me
desam para
“ To me Saint Anne never leaves me
unsupported”
23 Muitas vezes eu pensava que me escrevias, Many a time I thought you would write to
mas lu nunca escrevias me, but you never wrote
1
“Often thought you would write me, but
you would fail to do so in every occasion’
24 For minha parte, nunca me senti tao As fo r me, I ’ve never fe lt more human
human o
“On my part, I’ve never felt so human”
25 Entao um livro desses [ . . . / precisa que tu estejasDoes a book like this [ . . . / need you
sernpre a explicar o que e isto [.. .] ? constantly to explain what
“So such a book [ . . . ] needs that you are alwaystfiis is [ . . . ] ?
explaining what this is ( ... ) ?”

In exam ple 26, an English a cco m p lish m en t in the pluperfect (en su ring, there­
fore, that the p articular phase is complete) gets translated b y an O bra in Imper-
feito, m a rk in g it as in progress. But if we look closer, the English author asserts a
first phase as com pleted, but p resu p p o ses that readers k n o w h o w dawn s o m e ­
times proceeds by illu m in ating just the low er sky. The Portuguese translator, in
turn, d escrib es sim ply the b e g in n in g o f dawn (by m a l , “ h a r d ly ” ), not m a k in g any
reference to h o w day proceeds, except for low intensity o f light, also a ssum ed to
increase with the d a y ’s progression. Now, these two sentences could be replaced
by it was early m orning or era de m anhd cedo from a purely tem poral point o f
view, but this is obviou sly not their main im port. Rather, the first sentence o f the
b o o k (John Steinbeck’s The Pearl) is d escrib in g the su rro u n d in g s and the daily life
o f the m a in character fr o m his point o f view, and so, a visual im age to set the
scene is m andatory.
Finally, in exam ple 27, the two source clauses represent the inner thoughts o f
the m ain character, who assigns to a female singer the property o f singing well (in
general), in the m ost natural way in Portuguese, nam ely by Presente or Imperfeito
(in this case, Im perfeito is used because in free indirect speech). Now, there is no
tense or aspect in English that can convey this stativity, or property-like character,
so the sy m m e try o f the original gets lost, and the English translator had to express
the property explicitly (for the second clause) and m oreover had to choose between
the expression o f a prospective, future, hypothetical reading (corresponding to they
would like her) and a past (or present) fact or attitude for the first clause.

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Table 11.11 Exam ples involving discourse

Source Translation

26 the day h a d draw n only a pale wash o f 0 dia mal espalhava tima palida claridade
light in the lower sky no ceu
activity pluperfect result-state “the day hardly spread a pale clarity in the
sky” obra Imperfeito obra-em-progresso
27 Gostavam pela certa, cantava hem. Certainly they liked her, she was a good
“Surely they would like, she sang well.” singer.
estado Imperfeito estado permanente state simple-past state
obra Imperfeito estado permanente state simple-past state

In any case, it is important to stress that text interpretation in both languages is

conditioned by discourse context, which is understood from the narrative surround­
ings and not from inner properties o f the sentences at issue. It is also possible that dis­
course context requirements are different in different languages. While the T N model
(and the aspectual network model) so far has no device to add context, this is one
important issue that should be dealt with for an adequate understanding o f translation
choices.18
For this chapter, however, I hope that the above presentation gives a fair idea o f
the m o d e ls p o w e r and is able to convey a sense o f the intricacies involved in natural
language interpretation and re-rendering in another language, in what concerns
tense and aspect.19
It is important to bear in m in d that there was hardly any sentence pair which
failed to display subtle or not so subtle differences between the two sentences: it is the
frequency o f these mismatches, or bridging features, that is the most relevant feature
that emerges from m y empirical studies, and, I would claim, from all empirical
studies that attempt a fine-grained analysis o f the sentences related by translation in
two languages.

4. O t h e r C o r p u s -B a se d

T r a n sl a t io n St u d ie s

4.1. Universals of Translated Text

Without aim ing for exhaustiveness, let m e refer to som e studies based on real trans­
lation examples.
First o f all, there is Blum -K ulkas (1986) study o f cohesion and coherence in trans­
lation, which led her both to a plea for further empirical studies, and for a tentative

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suggestion o f explicitation (or increase in the degree o f explicitness) as a typical fea­

ture o f translation text.

It might be the case that explicitation is a universal strategy inherent in the

process o f language mediation, as practiced by language learners, non-profes-
sional translators and professional translators alike. (Blum -K ulka, 1986, p. 21)

A lthough Weissbrod (1992) has contended that explicitation in translation

seems to be norm -governed, and not a universal feature o f translation, Baker (1992)
has launched a program o f corpus-based studies in which it appears prominently, in
addition to the translation norm s o f standardization and simplification. B a k e rs p ro ­
posal was followed by a great deal o f w o rk trying to ascertain, and measure explici­
tation with respect to several distinct language pairs, a slightly dubious enterprise
where what is actually being assessed is quantitative, low-level statistics, such as
word or sentence length, type/token ratio, etc., as argued for example by Wang and
Qin (2010).
A s far as I know, 0 veras (1996) is the most serious study done to date on the
explicitation issue, since she also tried to measure implicitation, and furtherm ore
she provides her data for independent inspection. B y doing this, she exposes how
hard in fact it is to decide whether so m eth in g was made explicit (or not): if only one
fem inine character is talked about in the text, should the replacement o f she by a
proper name be counted as explicitation? Or, in the following examples from the
tense and aspect dom ain, where translation o f then to dennegangen (that time), and
Once I had lunch here and ate a ladybird without noticing it. to Jeg spiste lunch her
engang og da spiste je g en m arilwne . . . (“ I ate lunch here once and at that time I ate
a ladybird . . . ” ) were adduced, is the translator really adding anything, m akin g the
sentence m ore explicit, or simply giving it a more idiomatic turn?

4.2. Metaphor
Another interesting subject that has been discussed is the metaphorical fabric o f
language(s), after Lakotf and Johnsons (1980) seminal book. While metaphor as an
abstract process seems indeed to be a universal o f how natural language works and
evolves, different cultures, and different languages, seem to live by different m eta­
phors. One obvious example o f a temporal metaphor is the flow o f time, and other
metaphors involving time such as T I M E IS M O N E Y (a resource), or T I M E IS A
P L A C E (apparently the source o f grammatical operators such as the progressive in
many languages). Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much study o f the trans­
lation o f precisely these metaphors. But again this is a field fraught with the danger o f
a too subjective analysis, as Pinar Saygins (2001) examples o f Turkish and its transla­
tion into English illustrate: in that w o rk ,p ass the time in the sentence Now it is time to
leave the open air, not just to escape the cold, but to pass the time, relax , was considered
as evidence for the metaphor T I M E IS S O M E T H I N G T H A T M O V E S , while I would
read it as we (agent) m ove past the time, which means it is we who move, not time.

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5. T h e R o l e of th e Translator, D iffer en t

D o m a in s, an d N ear -Sy n o n y m s

An important property o f hum an translation is hum an mediation: there is a human

in the loop (often even m ore than one), who understands, imagines, empathises
(m ore or less) with the text before s/he re-renders it.20 There is no neutral transla­
tion, in the sense that people always take stances and have opinions and feelings on
what they read. So translation is always a personal, subjective, enterprise, d e p e n d ­
ing on the understanding o f the translator, even before translation has started. In
Sn ell-H o rn b y’s words:

Translation is a com plcx act o f com m unication in which the SL-author, the reader
as translator and translator as T L -au th o r and the T L -read er in te ra ct.. . . the
translator-rcader builds up his o w n scenes d ep en d in g on his o w n level o f
experience and his internalized knowledge o f the material concerned. A s a
non-native speaker, the translator might well activate scenes that diverge from the
authors intentions or deviate from those activated by a native speaker o f the
source la n g u a g e .. . . (Snell-Hornby, 1988, p. 81)

If we m ake this concrete again in the realm o f tense and aspect with the model
that w e have been using, we note that the translator is forced to m ake choices when
there are vague categories in the source language text, and s/he is equally forced to
either spell out in detail the contents o f com pact categories (in the sense o f m ergin g
pieces o f inform ation w h ic h from the other lan guages point o f v iew are distinct)
or leave things implicit or absent, if there are no equivalent ones in the target
language. Both can be considered explicitation (although they are quite different
in terms o f inform ation preservation). However, the opposite cases occur: a d d i­
tion o f interpretations or o f in form ation because o f the translation involving a
vague object, or involving a category or g ra m m a tic a l device com pact from the
point o f v ie w o f the source language; that is, by translating that way, som ething else
must be said.
The first case can be again illustrated by the pervasive rule-like quality o f Imper-
feito tingeing the w hole description o f the situation in Steinbeck’s parable The Pearl
as an explicit description o f a society instead o f a set o f events. In fact, I was s u r­
prised to find m ore habitual Imperfeitos in text translated fro m English than in o rig ­
inal Portuguese prose, only to understand later that this interpretation had been
added in translation and was n ow here to be found in the original text.
The second case is the well-discussed addition o f m ovem ent details in transla­
tion from languages without com pact devices into those with them (in this case, for
m ovem ent in English one usually merges the m an n er o f m ovem ent): this is s o m e ­
thing that has led Slobin to put forward his “ thinking for speaking” hypothesis.

Briefly— habitual m eans for describing physical paths appear to influence mental
processes involved in the conceptualization o f motion events. Language-specific
differences sho w up in strategies for the presentation o f both Path and M a n n e r
information in narratives. (Slobin, 2009, p. 201)

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This c o m p u lsio n , or linguistic habit, is so strong, that even in d o m a in s such as

v isu a l description (w h ich strictly sp e a k in g does not involve m o v e m e n t) speakers o f
the different languages tend to fo llow the usual pro ced u res, even th o u g h , a c c o rd in g
to Slobin, there is really no fo rm al restriction or difference betw een the two la n ­
guages Spanish and E n glish in the visual d o m a in , as o p p o s e d to m o v e m e n t:

. . . there is a Spanish “ narrative style” that prefers to limit the num ber o f ground
elements in path depictions, as well as the num ber o f separate clauses used to
describe a trajectory. (Slobin, 2009, p. 206)

M y ow n stud ies in the two d o m a i n s h av e in fact u n c o v e re d that there are v e r y

different w a y s o f c o n c e p tu a liz in g both spatial and v is u a l issues in the two la n ­
gu a ge s (Santos, 1998b), but the m o s t c o n v in c in g e v id e n c e as to different d o m a in
o rg a n iz atio n is to be fo u n d in S n e ll- H o r n b y s (1983) d isc u ss io n o f v e r b - d e s c r i p t i v -
ity in E n g lish and G e r m a n , and in V in a v and D a r b e l n e t s (1977) detailed in v e s tig a ­
tion o f E n g lis h -F r e n c h differen ces. O n e last e x a m p le m ix i n g these issues is 28 in
Table 11.12 .
In (28), the m ovem ent implicit in the final state expressed by the English s e n ­
tence is explicit in the translation. Before we m arvel at the counter-nature displayed
by the Portuguese translation (given that, according to most authors, Portuguese as
a Rom ance language is much less concrete in general than English), we have to take
into account the crucial detail that the lexical richness displayed by winking and
glinted was (wisely) shortened into one lexical item, cintilava . 2 1 We can thus advance
the hypothesis that, in order to deal with a profound lexical gap, the tenses employed,
the aspectual class o f the lexical items involved, and the narrative structure, all had
to be significantly changed in the translation. What we see in example 28, is an E n g ­
lish past participle clause, followed by a com plex compact past progressive c o n ­
struction (lay winking behind ), followed by a new sentence in past simple, getting
translated by one sentence conjoining a pluperfect (M Q P ) including a pluperfect
relative clause with an ImperJ'eito clause.
Such severe r estru c tu rin g can at least be partially p red icted i f we are aw are o f
several differences befo reh an d , n a m e ly : there is no sim ila r c o m p a c t c o n stru ction in
Portu gu ese (position plus activity), there is no sim ila r lexical richness in the visual
field (wink and glint have the sa m e standard translation into Portu gu ese as twinkle ),

Table 11.12 A complex case involving movement and verb descriptivity

Source Translation

28 and the pearl, knocked from his hand, lay Mas a pérola, que Ihe saltara da mâo, rotara
winking behind a little stone in the na terra para trâs d e lima pedra do caminho
pathway. It glinted in the soft moonlight. e cintilava sob a pâlida lua.
“ But the pearl, which had jumped from him
from the hand, had rolled on the ground
into behind a stone in the path and twinkled
under the pale moon.”

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and there is no corresponding natural way o f translating knock from (because any
standard translation o f knock in Portuguese does not accept a source position). So,
the translator is in fact forced to understand, or imagine, the situation depicted in
the English source text and attempt to concoct a set o f events leading to a similar
result, from w h ich the narrative can continue naturally. In the process, he has added
a ju m p action (which does allow a source position), and a rolling m ovem ent speci­
fication. He cannot how ever express in Portuguese the subtle differences between
w inking and glinting, verbs carryin g a wealth o f detail and connotation well outside
the Portuguese lexicon,22 so omits them altogether, providing thus a good example
o f implicitation in translation.23
This leads to the concept o f n ear-syn onym y, so m eth in g that has been a c k n o w l­
edged by m an y scholars as a substantive problem for com putational treatments o f
natural language, and for theories o f semantics as well. Snell-H ornb y studies what
she calls descriptive verbs in English and G e r m a n , nam ely verbs that can be
described as co m p reh e n d in g an activity nucleus (A N u ) and a m odificant (M od),
w h ich in turn can be expressed or rephrased by adjectives or m a n n e r adverbs, and
often carries s p eak ers evaluation o f either som e o f the agents or o f the action itself;
typical exam ples o f this kind o f verbs are stare, w ink , etc. In order to provide a
consistent description, she claims that “ the form er [A N u ] are best analysed by the
com ponential m eth od, the latter (M od) by the definitional m e th o d ” (Snell-
Ilo rn b y, 1983, p. 28, on D ixon , 1971, p. 436). In other words, these verbs can be
clustered as having a set o f com ponen ts and defining a hierarchy in terms o f their
activity nuclei, but require another, finer-grained, m eth od, to deal with the c o n n o ­
tations and the im plications regarding the different agents they presuppose (for
e x a m p l e , bluff, boast, fo x, dupe, groan, moan, ache, etc.). Incidentally, she also
claims that this kind o f verb is hard to cope with in translation because o f the
m a n y different implications it gives rise to. A lth o u g h her particular study does not
focus on temporal or aspectual properties per se, in n u m erou s exam ples temporal-
aspectual nuances do explicitly appear, as well as their associated problem s o f
translatability.
E d m o n d s and Hirst (2002) discuss the problem o f form alizing in a computer
program differences between near-synonym s, for both m achine translation and text
generation. They argue that “contrary to what one might expect— that the more
sim ilar two items arc the easier it is to represent their differences . . . — there is ac­
tually remarkable complexity in the differences between near-synonyms.” They
offer a two-tiered approach that distinguishes between choice o f cluster, and choice
within a cluster, and hypothesize that while one can obtain a relatively acceptable
agreement across languages between the generic clusters, the distribution and dis­
tinction a m on g the elements o f clusters is deeply language-specific and causes c o n ­
siderable problem s for translation. They use the G e n eric-E rro r clusters (blunder,
lapse, mistake, slip, howler ; error) in English and (faute, erreur, fa u x pas, bavure,
impair, bêtise, bévue) in French, and G en eric-O rd er (command, order, bid, direct,
enjoin) in English and (ordonner, commander, sommer, enjoindre, décréter) in
French to bring their point home.

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TRANSLATION 36l

C o m i n g b a c k to the im p o rtan ce o f the hum an influence in translation, let me

invoke another p ro p o sa l in m a c h in e translation fro m Italian to G r e e k w h ere we
m ight talk about n e a r-sy n o n y m ity n o w a m o n g different languages and h o w a
com putational m odel w a s put fo rw ard to solve it, m im ic k in g w hat a h u m an trans­
lator or m ediator w ould have to do: A n to n a and Tsujii (1993) un cover a set of
exam ples o f differences in im plicitness between the two languages Italian and
G reek. In particular, quantification and plurality are m a rk e d by two different
aspects in G reek for all tenses, in a w ay different from how related (but not
the sam e) concepts are m ark ed by the Italian past tense. Their solution invokes
then a k n o w le d g e-b a se d c o m p o n en t to ascertain or infer inform ation that is not
explicit in the source (the process a hu m an translator w ou ld autom atically p e r­
form ). Tliis way, if the original sentence in Italian is u n d ersp ecified about the
n u m b er o f events described, a k n o w le d g e-b a se d co m p o n en t tries to infer whether
s o m e th in g is repeated or unique (sem elfactive),21 and accord in gly chooses the
translation tense.

6. M ore T h an O ne T r an slatio n

O ne m ight claim that the evidence from c o m p arin g the tense and aspect systems
using translation m ay be tainted by bad translations, or in any case, not the best
translations that could be offered. This is an im portant issue, because there is not,
in the vast m ajo rity o f cases, one single best translation, and so one has to look at
the existing ones consid ering them as a m o n g the m a n y which are possible, and
investigating why they w ere conceived. In fact, and given that hu m an errors are
not ran d om , the d isco very and close consideration o f errors in translation m ay
well turn out to be a gold m ine not only for the u nd erstand in g o f the translation
process but for u n d erstand in g the interference between the two underlying
systems.
It should also be noted that the hum an analysis o f translations always implies
the consideration o f two different subjects: the translator and the analyst, so one
often looks into alternative translations. Consideration o f a larger set o f different
translations for the sam e original is anyw ay a plus that should be eagerly taken up if
available.
M a lm k jæ r (1996), discussing the relevance o f parallel corpora for translation
studies, suggests that com paring different translations o f the sam e text is a w a y to
automatically detect non-trivial issues in the translation process, issues that cannot
be uncovered by the inspection o f a single original-translation pair, that is, a single
solution in the translation space.
Incidentally, this is a truth that has been recognized even in the quarters o f
statistical m ach ine translation, w here the B L E U evaluation paradigm (Papinem i et
al., 2001) uses a set o f (four 01* more) hum an translations to com pare and rank
m achine translation results.

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7. T h e R e l e v a n c e of G enre

ITovv im portant is genre or text type for translation, and for tense use? M an y have
argued for genre-specific m ach ine translation. For example, Laffling (1991) put for­
w ard a com plex m odel for translation choice in G e rm a n -E n g lish translation o f
political party program s, assuming:

W here the selection o f a particular word in the target text is dependent on

rcfcrcnce being made to som e other item in that text, there is stylistic cohesion -----
syntagmatic cohesion will now be seen to hold sway, i f not to rule alone, when it
com es to providing an appropriate target equivalent. W hen several potential
translation candidates are available, we believe that collocability, or rather texttype-
specific [sic] collocability, decides. (Laffling, 1991, p. 31)

The truth o f the matter is, stylistic and other conventions o f the text type (text
norm s) will have a lot to say about the creation o f a target text. There is no reason to
expect that this will not be the case for temporal no rm s or presuppositions o f the
particular text type and, in fact, som e studies by Toury (1995), although on literary
texts, did uncover such differences in norm also in narrative openings and closings
in different languages (G erm an and Hebrew).
A genre particularly well studied, that o f academic writing, has also revealed
w ide gaps in argumentation and text structure between cultures, cf. the Finnish-
English contrasts studied by M aurancn (1993), even though texts on econom ics are
arguably not the best place to uncover subtle tense and aspect nuances.
In fact, even tense may have a different role in different genres or kinds o f text,
as argued b y C aenepeel and Sandstrom (1992) in a thorough analysis o f the English
pluperfect in narrative discourse and newspaper text. C aenepeel (1995) suggests a
bracketing o f the speech point in narrative text, that is, no relationship with the real
now, so that only the Active timeline remains relevant for temporal interpretation.
Her model o f tense and aspect postulates narrative, descriptive and perspectival
focii for each tense and aspect device in a narrative context. On the other hand, in
news text, deixis, specifically the relationship with the time o f the utterance, is o f
utm ost im portance in the news genre, where the main focus is on event updating,
with only m in o r descriptive or perspectival contributions. (Wrhile in narrative the
author can be om niscient and convey all characters’ perspectives, in news text it is
rare that the opinions o f the journalist are explicitly conveyed. In fact, most o f the
time a journalist can only convey other people’s statements, not their feelings or
inner thoughts.)
C aenepeel has shown that stativity is used in English narrative text to convey a
perspective, for example the thoughts o f a fictional character. This would not be
expected in new s or scientific text, where a “same” m arker or aspectual class m a y be
due for quite different reasons. However, different discourse conventions in d if­
ferent languages m ay clash or require different renderings o f the sam e linguistic
object, being therefore an extra case o f complexity for translation (analysis).23 S i m ­
ilar to this position arc the conclusions by N ak h im o v sk y (1988), who suggests that

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studying in detail topic discontinuities in narratives allows the identification o f dif­

ferent discourse segm ents (inside w h ic h there are cohesion and other m icro phe­
nom ena w here tense and aspect play a significant role). Conversely, he shows how
the interplay o f m a n y tense and aspect features o f a language signals discontinuities
and hence contributes to the m a k in g up o f the narrative structure. Since these fea­
tures are clearly language-specific clues and properties that authors have at their
disposal, different kinds o f tools allow writers writing in different languages to come
out with different devices and styles. This is som ething that has to be taken into
account in translation, in order to distinguish between norm s or rules that belong
to a language or to a culture (to the extent one can recognize different cultures in
one language and different languages sharing the same culture, both undeniably
situations that exist).26 After all, to understand a language and how it works one has
to see how it is put to use.

8. C o n clu d in g Remarks

I am clearly not being original in stressing the need to look at other languages, and
at translation, to understand not only one particular language but language in
general:

W hat language means for humans, what it does for them, how it does it for them,
is best seen if one com pares different languages with one another. (Wandruska,
1969, p. 7, m y translation)27

A lthough now stated in the context o f m o d ern technologies, and the use o f
tools and resources such as parallel corpora and computational models, Wandrus-
kas quote was absolutely vindicated by m y work. I have argued, as have many before
me, for the need to be aware o f the language context, and o f the context o f both
original and translation, such that m a n y other fields o f in q u iry m a y have to be
touched upon when m akin g sense o f translation.
I have also noted that translation has several features that m ake its study partic­
ularly hard (although particularly rewarding as well): translations have a space o f
solutions (i.e., there is no single solution); they require understanding o f the
m eaning and purpose o f the source text (note that it is equally im portant to attend
to what was left implicit, and to understand what was required versus what was
chosen by the author him self). The analysis o f translations further requires under­
standing o f the position o f the translator as mediator (her skills, her goals, her c o n ­
text, her ability to understand); it requires insight into the whole fabric o f the two
languages, and o f the translation history between them.
Time is a notoriously difficult concept to pin down, and throughout history (and
language contact) languages have created, included and internalized a whole set o f
implicit and unconscious details about repetition, durativity, direction, typicality,
rule-like behavior and the like, that can be m ined from lexical items and prefixes to

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g r a m m a tic a l tenses and to narrative expectations, and w h ic h can be best m a d e clear

b y lo o k in g at differences against n e ig h b o r in g (or distant) languages.
In this chapter, I h op e to have p ro v id e d insight, th ro u gh the analysis o f tra n sla ­
tions, into aspectual classes and the k in d s o f situations that users h av e to consider
in o rd e r to classify language ex p ressio n s in their languages. I h o p e also to have
d em o n stra te d that translation data directs one to apparently u n p ro b le m a tic areas in
language u n d ersta n d in g , lead in g to the d is c o v e r y o f interesting details.
For s o m e people, this is rather unsatisfactory: they sweep m a n y o f those problems
away as irrelevant for linguistic science, as p erform an ce errors, translation errors,
practical details. For other people, this is what m akes language the best w in d o w into
the h u m an m in d .
But let me try a m id d le w a y here. The translation m o d el suggested, and the data
analysed, are offered here p r im a r ily as a m e t h o d o lo g y to fu rth er u n w rap the intri­
cacies o f tense and aspect at w ork, and to closely o b se rv e the w o r k in g s o f translation
as a b rid g e across languages.

NOTES
1. I would like to thank Jan Kngh and Belinda M a ia for careful readings o f prelimi­
n a ry versions o f this chapter, Bob Binnick for a large n um ber o f pertinent suggestions and
the hard job o f editing this chapter, and Lauri Carlson for everything he taught me.
2. The issue o f translated text changing the target language, especially in cultures where
translated material corresponds to a sizeable portion o f published literature has been specially
discussed and argued for by the polysystemic school (see Even-Zohar, 1990; Toury, 1995).
3. I do not view linguists’ translations or glosses as empirical data on translation, and
w ould advise others not to do so, either.
4. This is a “ fact” that is bound to appear often in the analysis o f the translation
examples: while similar or com parable categories m a y often exist both in English and
Portuguese, time and again we find out that, most inconveniently, they do not concern the
same lexicon items, the same fields o f meaning, o r the same kinds o f operators.
5. C oercion is simply the conversion o f an argument to the right type before a
particular operator can apply to it. This is a concept from com puter science (to interpret
w e akly typed p ro gram m in g languages) but which seems to be at work in natural language,
as argued by M oen s (1987).
6. Vendlcr was the first to note that he never proclaimed the universality o f the
distinctions he uncovered: his p urpose w a s “to describe the most c o m m o n time schemata
implied by the use o f English verbs” (Vendler, 1967, pp. 98ff., m y emphasis).
7. In this aspect the setup is strikingly similar to C h e sterm an s (1998) contrastive
functional analysis m ethodology: his tertium comparationis is a posteriori and always
open to revision.
8. For exam ple, to account for the interpretation o f the English sentence He has
been playing the Vivaldi E m inor concert fo r three hoursy the expression p lay the Vivaldi E
m inor concert has to be reinterpreted as a punctual event such as cough (= coerced into a

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TRANSLATION

punctual event), before the use o f f o r three hours can be felicitous, and the progressive
operator can be understood as c o n veyin g repetition.
9. P P G prog stands for Preterito Perfeito Composto progressivo.
10. All exam ples will co m e from (English to Portuguese) John Steinbeck, The Pearl,
Bantam Books, 1975 (1st edition, 1945), translated by M ario D ionisio into John Steinbeck,
A perola, Publica<;6cs Euro p a-A m erica , 1977, or (Portuguese to English) Jorge de Sena,
Antigas e Novas A ndan$as do Dem onio, Edi^oes 70, 5* edi^ao, 1984 (1st ed., 978) rendered
into Jorge de Sena, B y the rivers o f Babylon and other stories, edited and with a preface by
D aphne Patai, Rutgers University Press, 1989.
11. Passar is possibly the best indicator o f a radically different Portuguese Weltan­
schauung about time: (i) it can be used transitively or ergatively, i.e., passar o tempo (s p e n d
time'), as well as 0 tempo passa (‘time passes’), (ii) it can be used for describing events: 0
que se passa? (‘what is happening? ). In addition, it is a c o m m o n m ovem ent verb, employed
for m o vin g things and their backgrounds, for images in sequence in a film, and for a broad
m ovem ent on another surface, which can be described in English with verbs as different as
pat, clean (dust), brush (paint), etc.
12. This m ay im ply an altogether dilferent conceptualization o f social habits and
m e m o r y in the two cultures. Som ething highly talked about implies fame in the English-
speaking world (o f the A m erican translator), but rather sham e in the society described in
Sena’s v e ry critically minded short story o f a petty and hypocritical society in Portugal o f
the 1950s, from which he had voluntarily exiled himself.
13. For an overview, see Santos (2008).
14. Note that what is at stake here is the n um b er o f days the name was seen in the
papers: one single d a y where the name in question appeared in all papers would not qualify
for a use o f P P C , but it would for Perfeito (and for the plural in both languages).
15. '1his verges on translationese, o f course: most English native speakers would
consider the target sentence awkward, I believe, but translationese is a ph en om en on that
has its roots in translation, and in this case in the difficulty o f the translator to free h im se lf
from the original rendering.
16. A qu isifao is the name given to the Portuguese aspectual class vague between a
state and its inception. This is a case o f an almost exact abstract parallel between two
classes o f English and Portuguese, aquisifdes and acquisitions, which are, however, almost
completely disjoint when their (lexically corresponding) m em b ers arc concerned.
17. In European Portuguese, the conditional form is losing ground and being replaced
by Im perfeito. This could have led the translator astray.
18. Other properties o f the translation network not discussed here are the m odelin g o f
translationese and translation errors, and its application for gathering quantitative data; see
Santos (2000).
19. There are also interesting contact points with L e fe v e re s (1998) proposal o f two
g rid s— I leave o p e n the issue on w h e t h e r culture and literary n o rm s are different from
language. A lth o u g h tense and aspect seem s far aw a y from the them es taken in his paper,
the T N design based on the im age “ when the sp eaker o f the target language translates,
he is seein g the source text with target language eyes" agrees with Lefeve res vision o f
translation.
20. Coulthard (1996, p. 2) aptly describes the translator as overhearer, if one focuses,
as is the rule, on the relationship between author and her audience.
21. Incidentally this is again a semantic field where Rom ance languages are signifi­
cantly poorer than G erm a n ic ones, cf. V inay and D arb cln ct (1977, p. 61).

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22. For a discussion o f this field and the difficulty o f translating it into G erm a n
(and even to explain it conveniently in monolingual English dictionaries), see
Snell-H ornby (1983).
23. The restructuring o f sentences due to translation is a c o m m o n case for some
language pairs, as Fabricius-Hansen (1998) demonstrated for G e rm a n -N o rw e g ia n ,
contrasting it with G erm an-E n glish .
24. The rule (Antona and Tsujii, 1993, p. 140) is: ig([aspect(E, perfective), cond
([pred(m ult-occurrence(E))y shift(i,Ei,E)])], [set(E,Ei), aspect(Ei, imperfective)]). Italicized
is the call to the external knowledge base.
25. See also the insights reported in Salkie (1989) while discussing the English
pluperfect in translation.
26. This is not a denial o f W h o r f s insight that a culture and a language arc intimately
interdependent. On the contrary, it highlights the issue o f sublanguages and subcultures, as
well as pays attention to the fact that language and culture evolve, also due to the fact that
one has in each language m an y ways to look at a situation and therefore co n v e y it in
different ways. See G u m p e r z (2006) for the case o f problems in one language due to
different underlying cultural substrata.
27. “ Was die Sprache für den Menschen bedeutet, was sie für ihn leistet, wie sie es
leistet, erkennt man am besten, wenn man verschieden Sprachen miteinander vergleicht.”

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DIACHRONY AND
GRAMMATICALIZATION 1

STEVE NICOLLE

l. D i a c h r o n y in Tense and

A spect Sy s t e m s

Questions about diachronic change as it relates to tense and aspect (TA) range from
the general, such as “ How do T A systems com e about?” and “ H o w do TA systems
change over tim e?” to the m ore specific, such as “ H ow do individual tense/aspect
m arkers or particular temporal or aspectual distinctions arise?” and “ H ow do tense/
aspect m arkers change over tim e?” This chapter will prim arily be concerned with
the m ore specific questions, but we will begin with a b rief s u m m a r y o f how entire
T A systems develop and change.
To a large extent the m o rp h o lo g ic a l t y p o lo g y o f a lan guage d e te rm in e s the
m a n n e r in w h ic h tense and/or aspect categories are expressed. B ro a d ly sp eak in g ,
lan guages can be ch a ra cteriz ed as either isolating, agglutinative, 01* fusio n al. In
isolating lan gu ages, m ost w o r d s consist o f a single m o r p h e m e , and so TA
m a rk e rs ( if they o c c u r) tend to be realized as free m o r p h e m e s . In agglutinative
lan guages, w o rd s can be segm ented into in d iv id u a l m o r p h e m e s , and so each
tense or aspect m a rk e r is typically realized as a distinct b o u n d m o r p h e m e . In
fu sio n al lan guages, m o r p h e m e s are fused together to fo rm p o rtm an tea u form s
w h ic h s im u lta n e o u sly m a r k a n u m b e r o f different g ra m m a tic a l categories, and
so tense 01* aspect m a y be expressed, for exam p le, as part o f an u nsegm entable
affix exp ressin g not o n ly tense or aspect but also the person and n u m b e r o f the

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subject. In agg lu tin atin g and fu s io n a l languages, T A m a rk ers often o c c u p y a

required inflectional “slot” and so T A m a r k in g is m o re likely to be o b liga to ry
than in isolating lan guages. Thus, in the isolating lan gu age V ie tn am ese , no t e m ­
poral or aspectu al m a r k in g is required in (1) so long as the tim e referen ce can be
inferred from the context, w h erea s in the E n g lish gloss, te m p o ra l or aspectual
m a r k in g is o b ligatory:

(1) Chi ay quen

s/llC ANAPHORIC forget
“ She (or he) forgets” or “ She (or he) has forgotten” o r “ She (or he) will forget"
(Thompson, 1987, p. 207, cited in Aikhenvald, 2007, p. 3)

M orphological typology is not entirely stable, and so T A systems as a whole, as

well as individual TA markers, are subject to change. Dixon (1994, pp. 182-5)
describes a cycle o f typological change whereby languages, over a long period o f
time,2 may change from isolating to agglutinative, from agglutinative to fusional,
and from fusional to isolating. An isolating language m a y becom e m ore agglutina­
tive through augmentation, in which free m o rp h e m es becom e affixes, for example
when the verbs in a serial verb construction develop increased sem antic and syntac­
tic dependence on the main verb and b ecom e affixed to it. An agglutinative language
m ay becom e more fusional when phonological changes blur the boundaries between
m orphem es. For example, in Digo (Bantu, E 7 33), w h ic h is an agglutinating language,
the is g subject prefix ni has fused with the following present tense (and continuous
aspect) m arker na to form nay and with the following past tense m arker a (with
floating high tone) to form na with the result that na and nd are n o w portmanteau
form s indicating both person, nu m ber and tense, and distinguished solely by tone.
Isolated cases o f fusion like this do not cause a language to change its typological
profile from agglutinating to fusional, but an accumulation o f such cases over a long
period o f time will result in typological change. Finally, a fusional language may
becom e m ore isolating as phonological changes, such as the neutralization o f par­
ticular phonological distinctions, lead to m orph ological simplification whereby
previously distinct forms can no longer be distinguished; at this point, speakers m ay
have recourse to (m orphologically free) lexical material to express information that
was previously expressed using purely functional categories.
The above discussion o f changes affecting the m orphological typology o f lan­
guages is, o f course, a simplification. Because o f the length o f time that it takes for a
language to change from one typological profile to another, and the lack o f written
documentation for m an y ancient languages, linguists have docum ented very few
cases in w h ich a language (or language family) m oves very far through this cycle o f
typological change.'1 Changes affecting particular TA m arkers and categories, on the
other hand, are well docum ented in a num ber o f languages, and this will be the
focus o f the rest o f the chapter.

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2. G r a m m a t ic a liza t io n of Tense and

A spect M arkers: A n In t r o d u c t io n

The development o f T A markers is an example o f “grammaticalization,” defined by

I lo p p e r and Traugott (2003, p. xv) as “the change w hereby lexical items and c o n ­
structions com e in certain linguistic contexts to serve gram m atical functions and,
once grammaticalized, continue to develop new gram m atical functions.” The first
part o f the definition, the development from lexical to gram m atical status, is termed
“ p rim ary grammaticalization,” and includes the kind o f change that results in the
form ation o f new TA m arkers out o f previously lexical material. The second part o f
the definition, the development o f further gram m atical functions by an already
gram m aticalized construction, is termed “secon dary grammaticalization” (Trau­
gott, 2002, pp. 2 6 - 7 ; Traugott and Dasher, 2002, p. 8i), and includes the ways in
which TA markers change over time, developing new functions. Second ary g r a m ­
maticalization should be distinguished from “actualization,” that is, the spread o f a
grammaticalized construction throughout a language co m m u n ity accom panied by
an increase in frequency and an extension o f the contexts in which the construction
is used (see Tim berlake, 1977; A ndersen, 2001; Eckardt, 2006, p. 56).
Heine (2003, p. 594) lists the following cross-linguistic generalizations c o n c e rn ­
ing the grammaticalization o f tense and aspect:5

i. Future tenses are prim arily derived from m otion schem as (Xgoes to/
comes to Y) and volition schem as (X wants to 7 ).
ii. Progressives are p rim arily derived from location schem as (X is at Y),
action schemas (X does Y), and com panion schemas ( X is with Y).
iii. Com pletive markers are c o m m o n ly derived fro m verbs m e a n in g ‘finish’.6
iv. Iterative aspect m arkers are prim arily derived from verbs m eaning 'turn'
or ‘return’.
v. Present tense and imperfective markers are frequently derived from
progressive markers.
vi. Anterior (perfect) aspect m arkers tend to be derived from resultative or
completive markers.
vii. M arkers o f epistemic m odality are c o m m o n ly derived from markers o f
deontic (agent-oriented) modality.7
viii. Epistemic m odality m ay also be expressed by means o f future and past
tense markers.

(i)-(iv) are instances o f p rim a ry grammaticalization, since they involve lexical mate­
rial (such as verbs meaning ‘finish’ or ‘return’ ) developing into a TA marker; (v)-(viii)
are instances o f secondary grammaticalization, in which an existing grammatical
category (such as the progressive) serves as the source for another grammatical cat­
egory (such as present tense or imperfective aspect). P rim ary and secondary g ra m ­
maticalization will be described in m ore detail in the following sections.

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DIACHRONY AND GRAM M ATICALIZATION 373

3. M e c h a n is m s in P rim a r y
G r a m m a tic a liza tio n : F r o m ‘F i n i s h ’
to C o m pletive A spect

P r im a r y g ram m aticalizatio n typ ically involves a correlation o f fu n ctio n a l (s e m a n ­

tic and pragm atic), m o rp h o sy n ta ctic , and phonetic changes. G ram m aticaliza tio n
begins w hen a construction is freq uently used in contexts that give rise to a p a r­
ticular inference, w h ic h then b e co m e s c o n ven tion alized as part o f the m e a n in g o f
the associated c o n stru c tio n .8 At this point, the con stru ction typically undergoes
“d esem an ticization” (also referred to as “sem an tic b lea c h in g ” or “generalization” ),
in w h ic h specific c o m p o n en ts o f referential m e a n in g are lost. D esem anticization
enables the constru ction to be used in contexts in w h ic h it p re v io u sly w o u ld not
have been ap p rop riate, and results in the c o n stru c tio n d e v e lo p in g in creased
functional d ep en d en ce on associated lexical material. This is often a cco m p a n ied
by c o rre s p o n d in g “d ecategorialization,” in which the loss o f certain m o r p h o s y n ­
tactic properties o f the so u rc e construction results in the b lu rrin g o f m o r p h o l o g ­
ical b o u n d a rie s leading, in s o m e cases, to cliticization or affixation (Heine, 2003,
p. 579). D ecategorialization is also frequently a c c o m p a n ied by phonetic r e d u c ­
tion, or erosion.
As an illustration o f this process, consider the grammaticalization o f the c o m ­
pletive aspect m arker sha- in Swahili (Bantu, G 4 2 9). The source o f this new aspect
m arker is a construction in which the lexical verb kwisha ‘finish’ is preceded (within
the same phonological word) by the anterior (perfect) m arker me - 10 and is followed
by the infinitive form o f another verb. The w hole construction can be interpreted in
one o f two ways: either the second verb functions as a verbal com plem ent o f kwisha
(parallel to the sam e construction with, for example, anza ‘begin as the m ain verb),
or the second verb functions as a main verb with kwisha operating as an auxiliary
(an option not available with anza ‘ begin’) expressing completion o f the event
described by the m ain verb:

(2) N i-m e-kwish-a ku-imb-a

IS-A NT- fin ish -IN D INF-Sing-IND
“ I have finished singing.” O R “ I have already sung.”

(3) Ni-m e-anz-a ku-imb-a

IS-A N T - b e g i n - I N D IN F -S in g - I N D
“ I have begun to sing.”

The construction in (2) has developed into (4) below, in which the infinitive
prefix on the m ain verb has been lost and kwisha has been affixed to the following
verb stem. At this point the construction is no longer sem antically ambiguous, as
only the second interpretation is possible, but it is now structurally am biguous in
that kwisha can be characterized either as an auxiliary verb preceded by the anterior

Copyrighted mate
374 PERSPECTIVES

m arker me- or as part o f a new completive aspect m arker m ekwisha-.u (4) has s u b ­
sequently developed into (5), in which the first syllable o f kwisha has been lost12 and
the form mesha- can now only be interpreted as a new, unsegm entable completive
marker. This new completive m arker indicates that the event has been completed
before the m om en t o f speaking, and contrasts with the anterior m arker me -, which
if it w ere used in place o f mesha- in (5) would indicate that the speaker has sung but
not necessarily that he has finished singing (for example, he m ay have sung one
song but be about to sing another).13

(4) N i-m e-kw ish a-im b-a OR N i-m ekw isha-im b-a
lS-ANT-finish-Sing-IND lS-COMPL-sillg-IND
“I have already sung.”
(5) Ni-m esha-im b-a
lS-COMPL-Sing-IND
“I have already sung.”

The n u m b e rin g o f the exam ples reflects the order in w h ich these changes
occu rred ; there is no form Nimesha kuim ba in w h ich the first syllable o f kwisha
has been lost but the infinitive prefix on the se co n d verb rem ains. Finally, in c o n ­
te m p o r a ry spoken Swahili, mesha- can be reduced to sha- as in (6), with no f u r ­
ther change in m ean in g. It is also w orth n o tin g that the com pletive m a rk e r did
not develop in order to fill a “gap” in the sem an tic inventory o f Swahili. E ss e n ­
tially the sam e m essage can be expressed using the adverbial tayari ‘ready, a lre a d y ’,
as in (7); the m a in difference w h ic h S w ahili speakers perceive between (6) and (7)
is one o f register: (6) is used in colloquial speech, w h ereas (7) is used in m ore
form al speech.

(6) N i- s h a - im b - a
lS-COMPL-Sing-IND
“I have already sung.”
(7) Ni-m e-im b-a tayari
is-ANT-sing-ind a lread y
“I have already sung.”

As a lread y indicated, an utterance o f (2) is open to two possible in te rp re ta ­

tions: “ I have fin ish ed s in g i n g ” and “ I have a lread y sung.” T h e first in te rp re ta ­
tion d e p e n d s on there b e in g an o n g o in g A ctiv ity (used in the A ktionsart sense
o f a no n -static, n o n -p u n c tu a l, n o n -te lic event) o f sin gin g, w h ilst fo c u sin g on the
fact that this activity has now been com p leted . T h e s e c o n d interpretation shares
a fo c u s on the com pletio n o f the event, but is not d ep e n d e n t on there having
been a p rio r o n g o in g Activity. T h e s e co n d interpretation is therefore m o r e g e n ­
eral than the first, and as a result the g r a m m a tic a liz e d co n stru ctio n illustrated
in (4) can be used w ith verbs such as ‘fin d ’, w h ic h b e in g an A c h ie v e m e n t (and
therefore pun ctual) is not an event w h ic h can usually be c o n c e iv e d o f as
finish ing.

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DIACHRONY AND GRAM M ATICALIZATION 375

(8) N i-m ekwisha-zi-on-a

lS-COMPL-NClO-filld-IND
“ I have already found them.” (Drolc, 1992, p. 76)

It is important to note that it is constructions containing lexical material that

gram m atical ize, rather than lexemes per se. For example, the use o f kwisha as an
auxiliary is not restricted to the construction in (2) in w h ich it is preceded by the
anterior m arker m e in (9) kwisha is preceded by the past tense m arker //- but the
already’ interpretation is not possible. As a result, desemanticization did not occur
and so this construction has not undergone decategorialization (resulting in affixa­
tion) or phonetic reduction, hence the u n g r a m m a t ic a lly o f (10).

(9) Ni-li-kvvish-a ku-imba

lS-PST-finish-IND INF-Sing
“ I finished singing.”
(10) *Ni-lisha-imb-a

This b r ie f description o f the gram m aticalization o f the Swahili completive

aspect m ark er sha illustrates a n u m b er o f points. F orm a l factors (the juxtaposition
o f kwisha ‘finish’ and the follow in g verb, plus the existence o f a system o f pre­
verbal T A m ark ers in Swahili) set the scene for gram m aticalization, but sem antic
and pragm atic factors (the use o f kwisha in contexts w h ere the com pletion o f the
event was in focus) triggered the actual changes, resulting in decategorialization
(m anifested as affixation) and phonetic reduction. We also noted that the d e v e l­
opm ent o f a new com pletive aspect m a rk e r was not motivated by a c o m m u n ic a ­
tive need that the language was previously unable to meet; the completive aspect
m ark er now exists as a stylistic alternative to the adverb tayari. Finally we noted
that the lexem e kwisha only d eveloped into a verbal aspect m a rk e r as part o f a
particular construction in which it w as preceded by the anterior m arker me- and
not in other constructions.
The degree o f desemanticization and decategorialization found in Swahili is not
a necessary characteristic o f p r im a r y grammaticalization, however. In some Asian
languages (e.g., K h m e r and Thai), gram m aticalized m arkers o f tense and aspect are
characterized by rigid word order and closed-class m em bership (often, but not n e c ­
essarily, accom panied by phonetic erosion in terms o f duration and vowel quality),
rather than by loss o f independent word status leading to affixation. These g r a m ­
maticalized constructions m ay perform different functions in different situations,
including— but not restricted to — the m arking o f tense and aspect; pragmatic infer­
ence is required to determ ine the intended function in a given utterance (Bisang,
2008). This is in contrast to the situation in Swahili where, o w in g to desem anticiza­
tion, mekwisha- in (4) expresses a single gram m atical function. These differences
probably reflect the different m orphological typology o f the languages concerned:
K hm er and Thai are isolating whereas Swahili is agglutinative. However, even within
languages with a similar typological profile, subtle differences can be detected. Post

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376 PERSPECTIVES

(2007) reports that m orph em es with gram m atical functions in M andarin C hinese
exhibit m ore syntactic control features, phonetic erosion, and sem antic bleaching
than comparable m orph em es in Thai (although M an d a rin Ch inese and Thai draw
on similar source lexemes for these functions). Post also notes that the Chinese
m o rp h e m es exhibit a greater overall frequency o f occurrence than the comparable
Thai m o rp h e m e s.1'1
W hereas in the Swahili case study, pragmatic inference played an important
role in the early stages o f grammaticalization, in the case o f East and mainland
Southeast Asian languages, Bisang (2004, p. 116) claims that “ inferences seem to
remain o f more or less equal relevance through all stages o f grammaticalization.”
Thus (prim ary) grammaticalization should be considered to have taken place when
a construction is used to express a functional category (as argued by Givon, 1991,
and Nicolle, 1998), rather than when decategorialization (and associated m orpho-
syntactic changes) has occurred.

4. S o u r c e C o n s t r u c t io n s in P rim a r y
G r a m m a tic a liza tio n

P rim ary grammaticalization occurs when constructions containing “ lexical m ate­

rial in high ly con strain ed p rag m a tic and m o r p h o s y n ta c tic contexts” (Traugott,
2003, p. 645) com e to function as gram m atical markers, for exam ple o f tense or
aspect. In this section, w e will look in more detail at the kind o f lexical material that
can serve as the input to a process o f grammaticalization, and at the m o rp h o syn ta c­
tic contexts that favor grammaticalization.
There are certain restrictions governing the kind o f lexical material that typically
serves as the input to grammaticalization; these restrictions concern word class,
degree o f specificity, and semantic class. First, lexemes from particular word classes
tend to develop into different kinds o f grammatical elements; for example, nouns arc a
common source o f adpositions but not o f TA markers, which often develop from verbs.
Second, basic lexical items are far m ore likely to be involved in gram m aticaliza­
tion than m ore specific items.15 One w a y in which to identify basic lexemes is with
reference to frequency o f use relative to other, semantically related, lexemes (see for
example Thornell, 1997, pp. 1 1 0 - 1 1 2 ; Bybee, 2006). An exam ple o f the im portance o f
frequency in grammaticalization is provided by the development o f constructions
involving verbs m eaning sit’, stand’ or ‘lie’ into progressive markers. As Kuteva
(200 1, pp. 4 3 -7 4 ) shows, using data from Bulgarian, M andan (Siouan), Kabyle (B er­
ber), Im onda (Papuan) and K x o e (Khoisan), this is a com m on change in languages
in which verbs m eaning sit’, stand ’, or ‘lie’ function as the canonical means o f
encoding spatial position,16 regardless o f whether a perfective/imperfective distinc­
tion already existed in these languages, but is rare in languages in which spatial
position is typically expressed through other means.

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DIACHRONY AND GRAM M ATICALIZATION 377

Third, certain semantic classes are m ore often involved in grammaticalization

than others; a m on g nouns, b o d y parts (‘back’, ‘belly’, ‘head’ ) are far m o re frequent
sources o f adpositions than any other sem antic category, whilst verbs o f motion and
position (‘com e’, ‘leave’, ‘remain’) are particularly com m on sources o f T A markers.
A m o n g verbs o f motion, those which simultaneously describe change o f location
and “ Path” (Talmy, 1985) are far m ore c o m m o n sources o f T A markers than any o f
the other kinds o f m ovem ent verbs; and those in which the default source or goal
(starting point or end point) o f the m otion event is the deictic center o f the speech
event (usually the location o f the speaker), such as come and go, are m ore com m on
sources o f T A markers than non-deictic m ovem ent verbs such as travel and ap­
proach (Nicolle 2007, 2009). Crosslinguistically, a single semantic class m a y serve as
the source for a nu m ber o f gram m aticalized categories. For example, Heine and
Kuteva (2002) distinguish a num ber o f target (grammaticalized) categories for each
o f the three lexical source categories come , come from and come to, o f which many,
but not all, are cases o f tense or aspect. For the source category come in w h ich nei­
ther the goal nor the source o f the motion event is privileged, the following target
categories are listed: consecutive, continuous , hortative , and venitive (ventive). The
category eventual can be added to this list (Ewe: Essegby, 2004, p. 474):

(11) Kofi va kpo novi-a

Kofi com e see sibling-DEF
“ Kofi came and saw his sibling." or “ Kofi eventually saw his sibling."

For the source category come from (which is source-oriented), Heine and Kuteva
list the target categories ablative and near past; and for come to (which is goal-oriented)
they list benefactive , change-of-state, future (prospective), proximative , and purpose.
Although m any o f these target categories are instances o f tense or aspect, not all are.
The m orphosyntactic environ m ent in which a lexical item occurs also c o n ­
strains the kind o f gram m aticalization that m a y occur. O ne exam ple o f this is the
notion o f diachronic scope expansion (Tabor and Traugott, 1998; and subsequently
Roberts and R o u sso u 2002, 2003 in the M in im alist fram ew ork), according to
which the C - c o m m a n d scope o f a grammatical m arker m ust be greater than the
C -c o m m a n d scope o f its source construction in the sam e syntactic context. This can
be determined through the process o f diachronic string com parison, in which each
word in an expression containing the source construction is replaced by its descen­
dant from a specific later stage o f the language, including the resulting grammatical
marker. Exam ple (12) provides a simplified illustration o f this process:

(12) a. [[p Kamau [Jf0 [vp is going [vp to m a r r y Njeri]]]]

b. [|p Kam au [,.0 [,, is going to [vp m a r r y Njeri]]]]

The position o f is going to in (12b) has C - c o m m a n d scope over the position o f

is going in (12a), which illustrates the claim that grammaticalization involves an
increase in C - c o m m a n d scope.
As Fischer (2007, p. 274) notes, diachronic scope expansion is a descriptive rather
than an explanatory notion.17 However, even though diachronic scope expansion

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378 PERSPECTIVES

does not explain w h y grammaticalization occurs, it does help to predict the kind of
grammaticalization w h ic h occurs. This is most clearly illustrated in the w ork o f
M atasovic (2008), who makes a similar claim to that o f Tabor and Traugott within
the fram ew ork o f Role and Reference G r a m m a r ( R R G ) . 18 M atasovic suggests that
when two verbs occur in a complex clause and one develops in that construction
into a gram m aticalized m odifier o f the other, the syntactic relationship between the
verbs in the source construction has a bearing 011 whether the resulting g ra m m a t­
ical m arker will function as an aspect, a tense, or som e other gram m atical category.
In R R G , a clause is described as consisting o f distinct "layers” : the nucleus (contain­
ing the predicate), the core (containing the nucleus plus arguments o f the predi­
cate), and the clause itself (containing the core plus any peripheral elements, that is,
n on-argum ents). Different gram m atical m arkers affect different layers o f the clause
and occur in a linear order relative to the predicate: aspect m arkers m o d ify the nu­
cleus and occur closest to the predicate; deontic modality m arkers m o d ify the core
and occur further from the predicate than do aspect m arkers; epistemic modality
(termed “status” ) markers and tense markers m o d ify the clause and occur further
still from the predicate, and so forth (Foley and Van Valin, 1984, pp. 2 0 8 - 2 2 4 ; Van
Valin, 2005, pp. 1 1 - 1 2 ) .
Now, when two verbs occur in a com plex clause, they can be related in more
than one w ay: either they can share all o f their core arguments, or at least one argu­
ment can belong to one verb but not to the other. If a clause consists o f two verbs
w hich share all o f their core arguments, then the clause has only one core; each verb
occurs in its own nucleus, however, and so the two nuclei are com bined in what is
termed “nuclear juncture” ; that is, the clause consists o f two nuclei in a single core.
Alternatively, if a clause consists o f two verbs that do not share all o f their core ar­
guments, then the clause consists o f two cores (each core consisting o f a verb and its
arguments) that are com bined in what is termed “core juncture”. W hat Matasovic
(2008) demonstrates is that w h en one verb in a complex clause undergoes g r a m ­
maticalization into a T A marker, the scope o f the resulting T A m arker must be the
sam e as 01* wider than the level at which the verbs in the source com plex clause were
combined. Thus, elements in core junctures may develop into grammatical m arkers
with scope over either the clause (such as tense markers) or the core (such as de­
ontic modality markers) but not into gram m atical m arkers with scope over the n u ­
cleus (aspect markers). By the sam e principle, aspect markers, w h ich m o d ify the
nucleus and therefore have the narrowest scope, can only be derived from elements
o c cu rrin g in nuclear junctures. (Given that scope can be w idened but not narrowed,
it is o f course possible for an element in a nuclear juncture to widen its scope and
develop into a tense marker.)
For example, in the development o f the French verbs aller go to’ and venir de
come from ’ into proxim ate future and recent past tenses respectively (as in, Jean va
m arier Marie ‘John is going to m a rr y M a r y ’ and Jean vient de m arier M arie ‘John has
recently m arried M a r y ’ ), M atasovic (2008, p. 51) notes that “ [t]he subordinated
com plem ents o f the m ovem ent verbs alier and venir were, at first, arguments o f the
verb in a core juncture; later the verbs were reanalyzed as tense markers.” Similarly,

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DIACHRONY AND GRAM M ATICALIZATION 379

when a verb m eaning ‘finish’ combines with another verb in a single clause, the two
verbs tend to be ju xtaposed and to share core arguments, that is, they occur in a
nuclear juncture; as noted above, completive aspect m arkers often develop from
verbs m eaning 'finish’. M o re generally, auxiliary-in corporation in Bantu languages,
which typically begins with the juxtaposition o f an auxiliary and a main verb, typi­
cally results in aspect markers (Nurse, 2008, pp. 59-61).
Finally, the definition o f p rim ary grammaticalization needs to be adjusted
to account for the development o f functional categories in signed languages.
Signed languages exhibit many o f the sam e features o f grammaticalization as do
spoken languages, along with so m e unique, modality-specific features (Pfau and
Steinbach, 2006; W ilcox and Wrilcox, 2010). G ram m atical m arkers o f aspect, tense
and modality in signed languages develop from m any o f the same lexical sources
that are attested in spoken languages; for example, in A m erica n Sign Language go
to’ was a source for a future tense (Janzen and Shaffer, 2002; Pfau and Steinbach,
2006, pp. 2 0 - 2 3 ) , a lexical form m ea n in g ‘possessing physical strength’ was a source
o f a modal can (W'ilcox and W ilcox, 1995), and the lexical verb ‘finish’ was a source
o f consecutive and perfective aspect m arkers (Fischer and G o u g h , 1972/1999; S e x ­
ton, 1999; Pfau and Steinbach, 200 6, pp. 16 - 17 ) . A s in spoken languages, the result­
ing gram m atical m arkers are often phonologically reduced and syntactically
restricted in com parison with their lexical sources (Pfau and Steinbach, 2006).
However, som e functional categories have developed from gestures that are not part
o f the linguistic system, without these gestures undergoing a prior process o f lexi-
calization. In this kind o f grammaticalization, m an n er o f m ovem ent and various
m an ual and facial gestures develop into m arkers o f prosody or intonation and s u b ­
sequently into gram m atical m arkers, bypassing any stage in which they express lex­
ical m eaning (Pfau and Steinbach, 2006, pp. 5 6 -8 1; Wilcox, 2007; W ilcox and
Wilcox, 2010, pp. 7 5 6 -7 6 0 ). One example o f this is the use o f m an n er o f m ovem ent
to indicate deontic vs. epistemic m odality (W ilcox and Shaffer, 2006).

5. S e c o n d a r y G r a m m a tic a liza tio n

S e c o n d a r y gra m m a tica liz atio n o c c u rs w h e n existin g g r a m m a tic a l m ark ers develop

fu rth er fu n c tio n s and develop into m a rk e rs o f different fu n ctio n a l catego ries .19 Note
that I am not defin in g s e c o n d a r y gram m aticalization as a shift from “ less” to “ m o r e ”
g r a m m a tic a l ;20 as A n d e r s o n (2006, pp. 333-334) notes, it is hard to k n o w h o w
degrees o f g ra m m a tica liz atio n could actually be m easu red . S e c o n d a r y g r a m m a t i ­
calization is defin ed here w ith reference to the so u rc e m aterial rather than to the
resulting g r a m m a tic a l categories (after all, in p r im a r y gra m m a tica liz atio n lexical
m aterial can develop into m a r k e r s o f tense, aspect, and m a n y other functional cate­
g o r ie s ; see also B isa n g , 2008, p. 31). C r u c ia lly , s e c o n d a r y g r a m m a t ic a liz a t io n
involves a lr e a d y g ra m m a tic a liz ed sou rces, w h e re a s p r i m a r y gra m m a tica liz atio n
involves lexical sources.

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38о PERSPECTIVES

Crosslinguistically, there is a v ery strong tendency for aspect m arkers to de­

velop into tense m arkers, rather than the reverse (C om rie, 1976, pp. 9 9 - 1 0 1 ; Bybee,
1985, p. 196; Bybee and Dahl, 1989, pp. 5 6 - 7 ; Heine, 2003, p. 594). This is just part o f
the general trend for the structural scope o f gram m aticalizin g constructions to
increase rather than decrease, discussed in section 4 above. For example, w h en an
aspect m arker undergoes seco n d ary gram m aticalization and becomes a tense
marker, in R R G terms this change corresponds to a shift from being an element
with scope over the nucleus o f a clause to being an elem ent with scope over the
whole clause. Given that p rim ary gram maticalization m ay involve structural scope
expansion (but not narrow ing), it com es as no surprise that when se co n d a ry g r a m ­
maticalization occurs, gram m atical markers tend to increase their scope. In a d d i­
tion to aspects developing into tenses, M atasovic (2008, p. 49) cites the exam ple o f
the Iraqw (South Cushitic) venitive m arker ni (with scope over the clause nucleus)
which has developed into a near future m arker (with scope over the entire clause)
with present relevance ( 13 - 14 ) :

(13) in o s ni xa-xeer di'-r doo-ren-ee

3SG VEN HAB-COme.3.F.SG place-GONSTR-F h o u s e - 1 PL.POSS-BACKGROUND
“She c o m e s to o u r house.”
(14) aten ni d a 1 -dan
1 PL NFUT sing-lPI.
“ We are going to sing.” (Mous, 1993, pp. 134-5, cited in Heine and Kuteva, 2002, p. 309)

Through structural scope expansion, gram m atical m arkers with clause-level

scope can arise not only from elements with nuclear-level scope but also from ele­
ments with core-level scope. Exam ples o f this kind o f seco n d a ry gram m aticaliza­
tion include the well-known change from root to epistemic modality (that is, from
“ m o d a lit y ” to “status” in R R G ) , 21 and the change from m o d ality to future tense
(docum ented in Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, 1994, pp. 258-264).
Just as p a rtic u la r lexical so u rc e c o n stru c tio n s tend to develop into sim ilar
g ra m m a tic a l categories crosslinguistically, so p a rtic u la r g ra m m a tic a l categories
tend to develop similar further gram m atical functions. Bybee et al. (1994, pp. 14 - 15 )
use the term “ universal path” to describe a sequential series o f similar diachronic
changes which occur in a num ber o f different languages. The image o f a path is
perhaps misleading, as the reality is m ore akin to a series o f tracks, som etim es
join in g for a while and som etim es separating, but all heading in roughly the same
direction. For example, completive aspect markers often develop into anterior (per­
fect) aspect markers. However, completives are not the only sources o f anteriors;
anteriors can also develop directly from constructions containing the lexical verb
‘have’, or from resultatives, which describe present states resulting from past actions
(M aslov, 1988; N e d ja lk o v and Jaxontov, 1988, pp. 4 1 - 4 4 ) . In R o m a n c e languages,
resultatives have developed into anteriors (Harris, 1982; Fleischman, 1983; Schwen-
ter, 1994) whereas in Russian, according to H opper (1982), a “ resultative perfect”
(which indicates both past actions with current relevance and present states resulting

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DIACHRONY AND GRAM M ATICALIZATION 381

from past actions) developed from the perfective aspect marker. This difference
m ay in part be attributable to the presence or absence o f a preterite (past) fo rm in
p articu lar lan guages, but d o es not invalidate the claim that s e c o n d a r y gram m ati-
calization involves structural scope expansion, since resultative, anterior, and p e r­
fective are all aspectual categories.
Anteriors m a y further develop into past tenses (see Ritz, this volume). This
change has already occurred in spoken M o d e rn French, and is nearing completion
in spoken M odern G erm an where the past tense in form s such as ich liebte “ I loved”
is being replaced by the anterior form ich habe geliebt, which no longer necessarily
functions as an anterior but now functions prim arily as a sim ple past tense marker,
with no obligatory overtones o f current relevance or recency.
It is not always the case that older form s are replaced by newly gramm aticalized
forms, however. For example, a new past tense m arker m a y develop alongside an
existing past tense marker resulting in a division o f past time reference into near
and far, or hodiernal and pre-hodiernal.22 This has happened in contem porary A li­
cante Spanish (Schwenter, 1994), where the anterior has becom e almost obligatory
to describe events which occurred on the day o f the utterance, even when there is
no implication o f current relevance, leaving the preterite form to describe events
which happened prior to the day o f the utterance. In this way, Alicante Spanish has
also developed a hodiernal/pre-hodiernal distinction:

(15) Mi hermana ha cocinad o esta tarde.

My sister have:3SG cooked this afternoon
“M y sister cooked this afternoon.'’ (Schwenter, 1994, p. 86)
(16) Mi madré cocinô el otro dia.
My mother cooked:3SG the other day
“M y mother cooked the other day.” (87)

The d e ve lo p m en t o f anteriors into h o d iern al past tenses is also found in

Bantu languages. M a n y Bantu languages exhibit a reflex o f the P ro to -B an tu an te­
rior suffix * -He,1* and in s o m e o f these it has d evelop ed into a past tense. N urse
(2008, p. 266) notes that, in the absence o f an overt p re-verb al tense m arker, re ­
flexes o f *-ile are m o re often m a rk ers o f n ear past than o f m o re rem ote pasts. An
ex a m p le o f this com es from the U g a n d an Bantu lan guage G w e r e (J17 ) in which
the suffix - ire!-ere (reflexes o f *-ile in w h ic h the first vowel is con d ition ed by
vow el h a r m o n y with the p rec ed in g vowel) fu n ctio n s both as an anterior aspect
and as a h o d iern al past tense alon gsid e three other past tense fo rm s (N zogi,
200 4). A n o th e r so u rc e o f rem oten ess d istin ctions in Bantu past tenses arises
when the seq uen tial tense prefix ka- (also called “ narrative” and “co n se cu tiv e” in
s o m e g ra m m a tic a l d escriptions) develops into a past tense m arker. In m ost
Bantu languages in w h ich this has o c cu rre d , ka- indicates far past (N urse, 2008,
p. 305). In D igo (E73), the form ka- is u se d to indicate sequential, anterior, and
h o d iern al past:

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 PERSPECTIVES

Sequential

(17) M -m w en ga nku-phand-a na wanjina a-ka-vun-a.

N C i- o n e ha b - plant - i n d and other.NCi 3SG-SEQ-reap-iND
“One plants and (subsequently) another reaps”

Anterior

(18) Tsaka u -ka-rim -a kura amba-ko ku-na-tish-a

forest 3 SG- a n t - f a r m - i n d there r e l -l o c L 0 C -C 0 N T -frig h tc n -iN D
ku-ka-sir-a.
LOG-ANT-finish-IND
“ Where the forest has been cultivated it is no longer a frightening place.”
(Lit., “ The forest you have farmed, there where it is frightening has
finished” )

Hodiernal past

(19) Sino hu-ka-on-a mutu a-im-ire mo chisima-ni.

1PL lPI.-IIOD-see-IND person 3SG-Stand-PFV LOG Well-LOC
“We s a w a p e r s o n s t a n d in g in sid e the well (earlier today).”

Digo is unusual in having a hodiernal past with the form ka-> and so this is most
likely a recent innovation rather than an inherited function. The question then
arises as to whether the hodiernal past developed from the sequential use o f ka- or
from the anterior use o f ka-. The fact that sequential ka- form s tend to develop into
far pasts, together with the cross-linguistic tendency for anteriors to develop into
hodiernal pasts, suggest that the anterior use o f ka- is the m ore likely source o f the
hodiernal past tense. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the hodiernal
past has the sam e negation strategy as the anterior, whilst the sequential form differs
from both:

(20) k-a-ka-hend-a
NEG-3SG-ANT/H0D-d0-IND
“ she/he has not d o n e ” o r “she/he did not d o ( t o d a y ) ”
(21) a-ka-sa-hend-a
3 S G -S E Q - N E G - d o - IN D
“she/he d o e s / d id not ( su b se q u en tly ) d o ”

The development o f the hodiernal past tense use o f ka- in Digo had a knock-on
elfect on the existing past tense m arker a- (with floating high tone), which became
restricted to the description o f events o ccu rrin g prior to the day o f the utterance,
and now functions as a pre-hodiernal tense marker.
A lt h o u g h v e rb a l inflection s are the m o s t c o m m o n s o u rc e o f T A m a rk e rs
derived through se co n d a ry grammaticalization, they are not the only grammatical-
izcd elements that develop into tense or aspect markers. The Australian language
K a y a r d ild (Evans, 19 9 5 )2'1 has an elaborate system o f n o m in a l case m a rk in g , in

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DIACHRONY AND G R A M M ATICALIZATION 383

w h ic h each nom in al indicates its function in the clause, a n d each nom in al in a

subordinate clause additionally4 m a rk s the function o f the subordinate clause in
the m ain clause. In addition to case m a rk in g indicating gram m atical roles and
direction (allative, ablative, etc.), som e nom inal case m arkers have a second use
(called the “m o d a l” use b y Evans) in w h ich their p rim a ry fun ction is to indicate
tense/m ood. The m o d a l case m ark ers appear on alm ost all non-subject n o m in a ls
in the clause, inclu ding n on -a rgu m en ts such as locatives, instrum ents and time
nom inals. In the follow ing exam ples (Evans, 1995, pp. 1 0 8 - 9 , cited in Nordlinger,
1998, p. 125), temporal information is encoded both by the modal case m ark ers
(indicated by the gloss m ) and by verbal inflection; the past tense corresponds to
the use o f the ablative case, and the potential verbal inflection corresponds to the
proprietive case.

(22) Ngada yalaw u-jarr yakuri-na mijil-nguni-na.

1SG.NOM c a tc h -P S T fish-M .ABL net-IN STR -M .A B L
“ I c a u g h t fish w i t h t h e n et.”
(23) Ngada yalawu-ju yakuri-wu mijil-nguni-wu.
lsg.nom catch-pot fish-m.prop net-instr-m.prop
“ I will catch fish with the net.”

In the exam ples above, the case m arkers are redundant as far as m a rk in g t e m ­
poral relations is c o n c e rn e d , but this is not alw ays the case since there is no
straightforw ard correspond ence between verbal tense/aspect inflection and the
m o d al case m arkers. In the follow ing exam ples (Evans, 1995, p. 404, cited in N o r ­
dlinger, 1998, p. 125), the m odal case m arkers provide inform ation which com bines
with the verbal inflection to determine the tense/m ood o f the clauses; in (24) the
m o d al proprietive case situates the inability indicated by the verbal inflection in
the future, and in (25) the m o d a l locative cases indicates that the inability took
place on a real occasion.

(24) Ngada kurri-nangku mala-wu (balmbi-wu).

1SG.NOM S e e -N E G .P O T S e a -M .P R O P tO n iO rrO W -M .P R O P
"I won’t be able to see the sea (tomorrow).”
(25) Ngada kurri-nangku m ala-y (barruntha-y).
1SG.NOM See-NEG.POT sea-M .L O C y e s te rd a y -M .L O C
“ I c o u l d n o t s e e t h e s e a (y e s te r d a y ) .”

The development o f tense/mood functions by nom inal case markers in Kayard-

ild is an instance o f secondary grammaticalization as it involves one functional cat­
egory developing further functions and b e co m in g a m arker o f other grammatical
categories. Case markers in Kayardild already provide clause-level information c o n ­
cerning the gram m atical roles o f nom inals and subordinate clauses, and the use o f
the m o d a l case markers as tense markers can be viewed as an extension o f the use
o f case to indicate clause-level information concerning temporal relations.

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6. G r a m m a tic a liza tio n C h ain s

We h ave seen how, in p r i m a r y g ra m m a tic a liz a tio n , a lexical so u rce construction

can d ev e lo p into a g r a m m a tic a l catego ry w h ic h can in turn fu n ctio n as the so u rce
o f s e c o n d a r y g ra m m a tic a liz a tio n le a d in g to the d e v e lo p m e n t o f a fu rth e r g r a m ­
m atical c o n stru c tio n . W h e n a n u m b e r o f su c h changes are linked sequ en tially this
is d escribed as a g ra m m a tic a liz a tio n chain (H eine, C la u d i, and H u n n e m e y e r , 1991,
p. 222; H eine, 1992) o r path ( B y b e e et a l„ 1994).
In this section, we will trace the various stages involved in the development o f
a directional suffix into a past tense m arker based on synchronic data from a num ber
o f Quechua varieties spoken in the southwest o f Peru. The data for this section
comes entirely from Hintz (2011). Based on a com parison o f various Quechua vari­
eties, ITintz has reconstructed a grammaticalization chain in w h ich the Quechua
directional suffix *-rqu out’ has developed in turn into a m arker o f completive,
perfective, recent past tense, and general past tense. N on e o f the current Quechua
varieties exhibits all o f these functions fo r reflexes o f *-rqu ; rather, different varieties
exhibit different stages o f grammaticalization, each o f which can be thought o f as a
“ link” in the grammaticalization chain. However, in South C on ch u cos Quechua the
initial and final stages o f grammaticalization co-occur synchronically in the form o f
the directional -rqu and recent past tense -ru, both o f which are reflexes o f *-rqu:

(26) laso:chu i medya-na-m Pamparomas-man yarqu-ya-ru-:

S .o c lo c k and h a lf- n o w - D iR Pamparomas-ALL go.out-PL-PST.R-i
huk k a m y u n e :t a - w a n
one s m a l l.t r u c k - c o M
“ Then at 8:30 we left for Pamparomas on a small truck.” (Hintz, 2011, p. 189)

The directional suffix -rqu in South C o n ch u co s Quechua is described as “deri­

vational” because it contributes to the formation o f lexicalized verb stems; in the
example above, -rqu is suffixed to a general m o rp h e m e expressing m ovem ent, *ya->
w hich does not exist synchronically in South C o n ch u co s Q uechua as an indepen­
dent lexical item, but com bines with other directional suffixes to form verb stems
such as yarpu- ‘lower' fro m *-rpu ‘down, yarku- climb’ from *-rku up’, and yayku-
enter’ from *-yku ‘ in (Hintz, 2011, p. 188). The directional m arker *-rqu developed
into a derivational completive marker in contexts where the verb with which it c o m ­
bined described a situation bounded by an endpoint, until the completive sense
becam e associated with the directional m ark er itself. In Huallaga Quechua and
Cuzco Quechua, reflexes o f *-rqu function as “derivational completives” ; they occur
close to the verb stem and can co -o ccu r with other TA markers, such as the progres­
sive and “pluperfect” ( p s t . p ) suffixes:

(27) Cuzco Quechua: papa chakra-ta-qa chikchi-ru-sha-sqa-taq

potato field -O B j-T O P h a il-0 U T -P R 0 G -P S T .p -E M P ii
“ It had been hailing on the potato field !” (Hintz, 2011, p. 194)

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The next link in the grammaticalization chain is the development o f a d eriva­

tional perfective, which is attested in Tarm a Q uechua and A m b o -P a sc o Qucchua.

(28) Am bo-Pasco Quechua: yan ap a-ru -m a- 0 -nki

h e l p - P F V - l . O B J-PRES-2
“You unexpectedly help me." or “ You
recently helped me.” (Hint/, 2 0 11, p. 194)

This construction shows features o f both derivational and inflectional cate­

gories. Structurally, -ru is derivational in that it occurs in the derivational “slot,”
close to the verb, but semantically it behaves m ore like an inflectional category. The
lack o f a m a rk e r in the T A slot usually indicates present habitual situations, which
suggests that, in the reading in which -ru expresses recent past time, -ru has taken
over the function o f an inflectional marker. In addition, -ru cannot co-occur with
the progressive (in contrast to the Cuzco Quechua example above).
As example (28) above indicates, the present tense is unm arked, as are third
person object markers. ITintz (2008, p. 195) observes that “the lack o f a formal
m arker intervening between -ru and the subject marker, coupled with the recent
past reading, presents a situation ripe for the reanalysis o f -ru as a past tense marker
in the inflectional T A M system.” This is particularly so because intransitive clauses
are m ore frequent in discourse than transitive clauses, and 3rd person objects are
more com m on than first or second person objects. The potential for reanalysis is
evident in the following example:

(29) Am bo-Pasco Quechua: p u ri-ru - 0 -nki

W alk-PFV-PRES-2

“ You recently walked.” (Hintz, 2011, p. 195)

Reanalysis has occurred in Huaylas Quechua, where -rqu now o ccurs in the TA
slot, following the object marker, and functions unam biguously as a m arker o f the
recent past. However, it still occurs with subject m arkers from the present tense
paradigm (for exam ple the second person subject is -nki rather than -yki which
occurs with past tenses).

(30) Huaylas Quechua: ima-ta apa-m a-rqu-nki ranti-pa-q

what-OBJ carry-1.OBJ-PST.R-2 buy-BEN-PRM T25
“What d i d you b r in g for m e to b u y ? ” ( Ilin t z , 2 0 1 1 , p. 196)

In South C on ch u co s Quechua, -ru has developed into a fully inflectional “ past

perfective” marker, taking subject m arkers from the past tense paradigm and no
longer being restricted to the recent past (the example below describes an event that
happened som e months before the m om ent o f speaking). It retains elements o f a
perfective (it presents situations as temporally b oun ded and is usually incompatible
with statives and imperfective markers) but is restricted to the past26 (Hintz, 2011,
pp. 3 9 - 4 1) .

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з 86 PERSPECTIVES

(31) runa-pa a b e :n a - n - k u n a - t a - s i qashu-tsi-r usha-ru-yki

pcrson -G EN oats-3-PL-OBj-ADD tram ple-causc-ss' finish-PST.R-2PST
“ You c o m p le te ly tram ple d the o w n e r s oat field.” (H in tz, 2 0 1 1 , p. 196)

Finally, in C o ro n g o Q uechua, the suffix -:xu (a reflex о f*-rq u ) has becom e vir­
tually syn o n ym o u s with the older past suffix -:xa resulting in a total neutralization
o f the recent-remote past distinction (Hintz, 2011, p. 196, fn. 155). Although no
single Quechua variety exhibits every link in the grammaticalization chain, the
chain itself can be identified by com p arin g reflexes o f the sam e source construction
(the directional *-rqu) in different varieties and com paring this with what is known
about grammaticalization crosslinguistically.

7. G r a d ien c e an d Sem a n t ic R eten tio n

Gram m aticalization chains are typically represented as a series o f distinct stages, in

w hich a gram m aticalizing construction m oves fro m m em bership o f one category to
m em bership o f another (from lexical to gram m atical, from aspect to tense, and so
forth). However, it is often difficult to identify a precise m om ent at which a co n ­
struction shifts m em bership from one category to another. Moreover, it can also be
difficult to distinguish a discrete b o u n d a ry between categories (see Aarts, 2007 and
the contributions in Traugott and Trousdale, 2010). For example, in discussing the
grammaticalization o f anteriors into pasts and perfectives, Bybee et al. (1994, p. 78)
describe what they call “old anteriors,” which they suggest “ represent an interm e­
diate stage between pure anterior and past or perfective.” This poses a problem for
most theories o f linguistic analysis, which m ake use o f discrete categories in their
descriptions. O ne way to resolve this problem is to blur the distinctions between
categories, with the result that category m em bership becom es a matter o f gradience,
with elements m ovin g gradually along a continuum or cline from one category to
another over time. Bybee and Beckner (2010 , p. 838) discuss gradience o f form, in
which “at any given m om ent in a synchronic gram m ar, there will not only be varia­
tion, but also gradience in the sense that some units will not fall squarely into the
linguists categories o f word, clitic, or affix.” G rad ience can be extended to the dis­
tinction between lexical and functional and, presumably, to the distinction between
aspect and tense, whilst recognizing that “aspect” and “tense” constitute “equiva­
lence classes” (Bybee and Beckner, 20 10 , p. 831) which share certain properties, and
to which elements tend to “gravitate” during grammaticalization.
A n o th e r approach is to retain the traditional notion o f categories, but to merge
stages in the diachronic process o f change such that, for example, “an auxiliary and
the lexical verb from which it is historically derived jointly form a complex category
w h o se structure is diachronically motivated” (Heine and N arrog, 2010, p. 415).
Viewed diachronically, a lexical verb and the auxiliary to which it gave rise are
treated as a unit and assigned m em bership o f both categories, without the need to

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DIACHRONY AND G RAM M ATICALIZATIO N 387

distinguish a point at w h ic h category m em bership changed and the lexical verb

becam e an auxiliary. However, this approach raises synchronic problems. It is p o s ­
sible for a lexical item to diverge, on the one hand undergoing grammaticalization
and on the other persisting as a lexical item. For example, the Swahili lexical verb
kwisha ‘finish’ continues to function as a lexical verb as well as being the source of
the sha- completive aspect marker, and the South C o n ch ucos Quechua derivational
directional -rqu and the recent past tense -ru also co-occu r; synchronically, these
form s belong to different categories. If, as Heine and N arro g suggest, an auxiliary
and the lexical verb from which it is derived form a complex category, then either
the lexical verb has dual category m em bership (as part o f a diachronically m o ti­
vated com plex category and synchronically as a lexical item), or it remains a purely
lexical item. Dual category m em bersh ip is problematic in its own right, but if the
lexical verb remains a purely lexical item, then what Heine and N arro g are really
claim ing is that the com plex category does not consist o f an auxiliary and a lexical
verb, but o f the grammaticalization chain which links them. N o w a gram m aticaliza­
tion chain is an abstract construct, and this still leaves us with the issue o f how to
describe an auxiliary synchronically. Heine and N arrog (2010, p. 416) suggest that
“auxiliaries can be described roughly as desemanticized and decategorialized lex­
ical verbs.” This proposal retains the category o f lexical verb and assigns auxiliaries
to it, but states that auxiliaries lack certain important features associated with all
other m em bers o f the category, which seems sim ilar to blurring the distinctions
between categories.
A third approach to reconciling the gradualness o f grammaticalization with the
discrete categories used in most theories o f linguistic analysis, is to allow a gram-
maticalizing construction to occupy different structural positions in different c o n ­
texts. Within the fram ew ork o f R R G , Nicolle (2008) has argued that a single
construction can function either as a lexical item or as a functional category in d if­
ferent occurrences.28 Taking the case o f the English be + going to future tense c o n ­
struction, Nicolle (2008) suggested that w h en it has scope over other grammatical
markers, such as the anterior aspect, it functions as a tense marker (32), and when it
falls within the scope o f one or m ore tense or aspect m arkers it f unctions as a lexical
construction, specifically a clause nucleus (33) (see section 4 above).

(32) She’s going to/gonna have left.

(33) She has been going to/*gonna leave. (Nicolle 2008, p. 60)

These different structural positions have semantic effects. W h en be + going to

falls within the scope o f tense or aspect markers, as in (33), it exhibits semantic re­
tention. Sem antic retention (Bybee and Pagliuca, 1987; Bybee et al., 1994, pp. 15-18 )
describes the way in which certain semantic features o f an earlier stage o f a gram-
maticalizing expression “adhere” to the resulting gram m atical marker. Eckardt
(2006, p. 100), looking at occurrences o f be + going to between 1550 and 1650 (when
grammaticalization occurred), found that when be + going to occu rred in contexts
which invited a future interpretation, the intentions o f the protagonists were also
conveyed. In (33), the subject is understood to be intending to leave, reflecting this

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original lexical meaning, and the reduced form gonna is not possible. However,
w hen b e + going to has scope over other gram m atical markers, as in (32), there is no
semantic retention, and the reduced form gonna is also possible.

8. C ontact -In d u c e d C hange 29

D iachronic change in tense and aspect can also be affected by language contact,
although such change is rare in com parison to lexical and phonological change and
changes to m ore pragm atically oriented m orphological categories such as topic and
focus m arking. As A ik h en vald (2006, p. 27) notes, “stable categories resistant to
b orrow in g are those that capture the internal structure o f m ea n in g ’ including deic-
tics, case markers, and tenses” A nother reason why contact-induced change o f
tense and aspect is rare is that TA markers and categories only exist as part o f a par­
adigmatic system. It is possible for a language to borrow, say, an evidential m arker
without greatly altering the existing system, but when an aspect or tense is bor­
rowed this will almost always necessitate adjustments to the TA system as a whole.
Unsurprisingly, there are no recorded instances o f complete paradigms o f verbal
inflection being borrow ed (A ikhenvald, 2006, p. 19). W hen contact-induced change
in TA systems does occur, however, it takes two forms: b orrow in g o f individual
m o r p h e m e s , and in n o v atio n o f n e w categories under the influence o f another
language (or other languages).
The T A m arkers which are m ost likely to be borrow ed are “easily separable
m o rp h e m e s with no fusion on the b o u n d a ries” (A ikhenvald, 2006, p. 33). B o r ­
row in g o f form s is also easier when the languages concerned share sim ilar surface
structures and u nd erlyin g categories (Nurse, 200 0, p. 256), as in the adoption o f
T A m arkers fro m northern varieties o f Swahili by southern varieties o f Swahili
(N urse and Hinnebusch, 1993, p. 425) and to a lesser extent by the related Bantu
language L ow er Pokom o (p. 444). In these cases, the b o rro w e d TA m arkers
replaced existing form s, and this process had hardly any effect on the southern
Swahili and Lower P okom o T A systems as a whole, w h ic h were already v ery s im ­
ilar to that o f northern Swahili (through genetic relationship). Even w hen m o r ­
phem es have been b o rro w ed from unrelated languages, T A systems can rem ain
relatively unchanged. The Bantu languages o f northeastern D em ocratic Republic
o f C o n go (the D . 1 0 - 2 0 - 3 0 languages in G u th r ie s 1971 classification) have been in
prolonged and close contact with Central Sudanic and Ubangian languages result­
ing in a high degree o f m ultilingualism . As a result, m a n y o f these languages c o n ­
tain m orphological TA markers that are not found in other Bantu languages.
H o w e v e r, N u r s e (2 0 0 8 , pp. 1 0 5 - 7 ) o b s e rv e s that alth ough the m o r p h o lo g ic a l
m a rk in g on verbs shows evidence o f n on -B an tu influence, the TA categories th e m ­
selves, both in terms o f the kinds o f distinctions which are m ade and in terms o f
the n u m b er o f distinctions (for exam ple multiple degrees o f rem oteness in the
past), are typically Bantu.

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Conversely, when there is no borrow ing o f m orphem es, T A categories and s o m e ­

times also the means o f expressing them m ay be borrowed (or copied) from other
languages. This m ay result either in an elaboration or in a simplification o f the exist­
ing T A system. 1 mentioned above that the Swahili completive m arker did not d e­
velop in order to till a “gap” in the TA system, but if a language lacks a category that
a neighboring language m arks obligatorily (especially if the neighboring language is
socially prestigious), speakers m ay seek to fill what they perceive o f as a gap in their
ow n language. An ex a m p le o f this is the d eve lop m en t o f a present progressive
m arker in Likpe (or Sekpele, a Kwa language spoken in G h ana) under the influence
o f another Kwa language, Ewe (A m eka, 2006, pp. 13 0 - 13 2 ). Ewe m arks the present
progressive with le ‘be.at:PRES’, pronounced le in areas adjacent to Likpe, preceding
the progressive form o f the m ain verb. Likpe has a verb le ‘ hold’ which has also
developed into a present progressive marker, presumably based on similarity o f
form with Ewe It and the fact that both expression s have m ea n in g s related to a
location schema.

(34) Ewe: Kofi le mO /11 ciu

NAME b e.a t:P R E S rice eat.P R O G

“ Kofi is eating rice.” (Ameka, 2006, p. 131)

(35) Likpe: li-kpefi na-ma le wo ambe b0-kp6-n*ko
GM-child CM-det h o ld 3SG m other CM-fight-LiG-ASSOC
“ The ch ild is fighting w ith his/h er mother." (idem)

The present progressive m ark er in Likpe clearly developed by analogy with Ewe
rather than through entirely language-internal processes, since “ the present pro­
gressive is the only situational aspect expressed p erip h rastica lly ; all others, in ­
cluding the past progressive, are marked by verbal prefixes” (A m eka, 2006, p. 131).
A case o f co n ta c t-in d u c ed sim plification o f a TA system c o m e s fr o m the Kenyan
Bantu language Ilwana (E701). In Ihvana, past and anterior h ave been m erged in a
single fo rm based on the o rigin al anterior m a r k e r -ie (a reflex o f the Pro to -B an tu
anterior suffix *-ile) pre su m a b ly u n d e r the influence o f the C u s h itic language O r m a ,
which has o n ly an anterior (N urse, 200 0, p. 251).

9. C o n c lu sio n

B yb ee et al. (1994, p. 302) c o n c lu d e their investigation into universal paths o f g r a m ­

m atical ization with the fo llo w in g statement:

underlying these cross-linguistic patterns are the true universals, which are the
mechanism s o f change that propel gram[matical m arker]s along these paths o f
development. The changes we have studied reflect what is c o m m o n ly used in
conversation, they reflect the metaphorical processes that arc based on h u m a n
cognitive make-up, and they reflect the inferences that hum ans c o m m o n ly make

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when they communicate. The cross-linguistic similarity o f these paths o f change,

then, attests to universal m echanism s o f metaphor, inference, and contextual
influence in the use o f language in the cultures o f the world.

If these apparently universal m echanism s constitute a “propelling force” (Hintz,

ю н , p. 202), which is responsible for so much o f the cross-linguistic similarity in
the development o f Т А marking, then the question arises as to what accounts for the
differences between languages. For example, som e languages have m ore ТА cate­
gories than others, and som e seem to grammaticalize n ew ТА m arkers m ore rapidly
than others. The obvious conclusion is that there are other m echanism s at work
either reinforcing or obstructing the universal propelling force.
As a m echanism that reinforces the tendency toward grammatical change,
Hintz (2008, p. 203) proposes the notion o f an “attracting force,” which he defines as
“ functional pressures or tendencies that m a y b e present to a greater or lesser degree
in the environm ent in w h ic h gram m atical developments are observed to occur.
Conceptually, the basis o f attraction is sem antic or structural congruence, that is,
similarity between linguistic features o f the developing m o rp h em e with features o f
corresponding m o rp h e m es in a m ore gram m atical category.” This is very similar (if
not identical) to F isch ers (2007) claim that analogy (both functional and formal) is
one o f the main motivating factors in language change, and to C h a fes notion o f
“ florescence” — the proliferation o f related forms within an expan d in g paradigm
(Chafe, 2 0 0 0 ). C on tact-in duced change can also be v iew ed as an attracting force in
w h ich the functional pressure is external rather than internal to the language.
In contrast to a universal propelling force and a language-specific attracting
force, Hintz (2011, pp. 2 0 5 - 2 0 6 ) proposes the existence o f an “obstructing force” to
account for diachronic stability within a language. A n obstructing force could be
the absence o f a paradigm into which a potential new gram m atical m arker could fit,
that is, the absence o f an analogical attracting force. Equally, an obstructing force
could exist because a particular construction in a language has such a high fu n c ­
tional load that it has becom e too deeply ingrained in the language to be easily
changed. For example, although both Q uechua and Russian have derivational per-
fectives, only in Q uechua have they developed further gram m atical functions. Hintz
puts this down to the fact that in Russian almost ev ery verb is obligatorily formally
m arked as either perfective or imperfective, w hereas in Quechua, fewer than half o f
the verbs take a derivational perfective or imperfective marker. Thus, perfective
m a rk in g has a higher functional load in Russian30 than in Quechua, and as such has
been m ore resistant to further grammaticalization.

NOTES

1. I am grateful to H ilary Chappell, Rebecca Fong, M aik G ib son , Alison Nicolle, and
D o ris Payne for help and advice in writing this chapter, lhe editor would like to thank
Susana Bejar for her advice on part o f section 4.

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DIACHRONY AND G RAM M ATICALIZATIO N 391

2. Dixon (1994, p. 185) suggests “ under n orm al conditions o f change, probably

anything from two or three thousand years to fifty thousand or more.”
3. All Bantu languages have been classified using a system o f letters and numbers
devised by Guthrie (1971) and updated by M a h o (2003).
4. A n exception is Egyptian. Hodge (1970), cited in Dixon (1994, p. 184), describes
ho w Egyptian u n derw ent a complete cycle, beginning with a fusional typological profile in
Old Egyptian (about 3 0 0 0 BC), b ec o m in g isolating by Late Egyptian (about 1000 b c ) and
fusional again by the time o f Coptic (a d 200), although using different forms from those
found in Old Egyptian.
5. Heines list has been reordered to group cases o f p rim ary and secon dary gram-
maticali/ation together. Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994) provide a detailed account o f
the development o f tense, aspect, and m odality markers in a wide range o f languages. For
an extensive list o f grammaticalization processes, not restricted to tense and aspect, see
Heine and Kuteva (2002).
6. The completive aspect “ indicates that som ethin g is done thoroughly and to
completion” (Heine and Kuteva, 2002, p. 18). Verbs m e an in g ‘finish’ are a source o f
completive aspect markers in languages as diverse as Israeli Sign Language (Meir, 1999),
where a completive m arker derived from ‘finish’ contrasts with a perfective m arker derived
from the adverb already' (indicating termination o f an event but not necessarily co m p le ­
tion), C hinese (Sun, 1996, pp. 82-99; Peyraubc, 2009) in w hich a completive aspect marker
le developed from the verb liao , one o f a n um b er o f verbs expressing ‘finish, complete’, and
Swahili, which will bc discussed below. Dircctionals (e.g., aw a y ’, ‘up’, ‘ into’ ) are also a
c o m m o n source o f completives (Bybee et al., 1994, p. 55).
7. A detailed discussion o f modality is beyond the scope o f this chapter, but for an account
o f the diachronic relations between different types o f modality marker, see Narrog (2005,
2007). Narrog claims that deontic to epistemic change, which is not widely attested crosslin-
guistically outside o f European languages, is an example o f a general tendency for modal
categories to develop more “speaker orientation” over time.
8. For a discussion o f pragmatic aspects o f grammaticalization, sec Nicollc (2011).
9. C o n te m p o ra ry standard Swahili is based prim arily on the Unguja (Zanzibar)
variety, G42d.
10. Kwisha is the infinitive form o f the verb isha, but this form is frequently used
w h en preceded by a n u m b e r o f tense/aspect prefixes, including me (anterior). For a
discussion o f the status o f me as an anterior (perfect) marker, see Drolc (1992).
11. Alternatively, at this stage in the process m e+kw isha could o ccupy a point on a
gradient between different grammatical categories (see Haspelmath, 1998, for a discussion).
12. For a discussion o f w h y this particular syllable has been lost while /sha/ remains,
see Nicolle (1998, p. 12).
13. This is an exam ple o f “auxiliary-incorporation,” which is the source o f virtually all
o f the pre-verbal T A markers in Swahili, including the anterior marker me (Heine and Rch,
1984, p. 102; Nurse, 1989).
14. In an evaluation o f a n um b er o f diachronic corpus studies, Lindquist and M air
(2004, p. xiii) suggest that “ increasing discourse frequency is often a delayed sign o f
grammaticalization that has been going on for quite som e time rather than a decisive factor
in the process itself.”
15. Aikhenvald (2000, pp. 3 0 - 3 1 ) notes that “ while som e languages tend to grammati-
calize basic lexical items, others grammaticalize more specific ones.” For exam ple, whereas
English has the basic verb break , Tariana (North A raw ak ) has m a n y verbs for breaking,
each o f which specifies the m an n er in which the action is performed. S o m e o f these verbs

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(m eaning roughly split, crush’, ‘squash’ and cut in two’ ) have grammaticalized into
“A ktionsart enclitics” (p. 13), but a more general verb m eaning ‘break’ has not, simply
because the language has no such verb.
16. This principle also applies to Tunisian Arabic (M aik Gibson, p.c.).
17. Fischer (2007, pp. 2 6 1 - 3 1 2 ) criticizes the notion ot diachronic scope expansion on
the basis o f studies o f the grammaticalization o f cpistcmic m odals and pragmatic markers.
She argues that rather than there being a direct increase o f scope during these kinds o f
grammaticalization, scope increase is caused by a change in structure when the gram m ati-
calizing elements o ccu r in a higher or independent clause as part o f a more elaborate
construction type. This m ay be correct for the cases Fischer discusses, but it does not alter
the fact that the end result is that grammaticalization is often accom panied by an increase
in structural scope.
18. One o f the main concerns o f R R G is the question o f h o w best to describe and
explain the interaction o f syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in different grammatical
systems (Foley and Van Valin, 1984; Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997; Van Valin, 2005). Aspect,
tense, and modality are characterized both semantically and structurally, and g ra m m atical­
ization involves significant interaction between these dom ains, so R R G is potentially well
suited to addressing issues concern in g language change.
19. A different but com p lem en tary distinction is suggested by H opper (1998, pp.
154-156). A construction undergoing grammaticalization changes from form A to form B
via “a stage o f alternation” A ~ B (see also Traugott and D asher 2002, p. 11). Hopper
distinguishes two stages, A > A ~ B which he calls “ incipient grammaticalization” and A ~ B
> B which he calls “dissipating grammaticalization.” These changes are structural, whereas
p rim ary and secondary grammaticalization are defined in functional terms. If dissipating
grammaticalization results in a n ew form B, which does not differ in m ean in g from form
A, this can be viewed as the structural completion o f a process o f p rim ary grammaticali/a-
tion. However, if the change to form B is accompanied by a further change o f m ean in g or
function, it can be viewed as the structural correlate o f seco ndary grammaticalization. It
has been argued that se c o n d a ry grammaticalization is not “ real” grammaticalization, but
N orde (2009, pp. 2 0 - 2 1 ) suggests that this m ay be because secon dary grammaticalization
has been confused with or subsum ed under dissipating grammaticalization (although she
does not use this term).
20. This view, which probably originated with K u rylow icz (1965, p. 69), is exemplified
by Heine and N arro g (2010), who define grammaticalization as a shift “ from grammatical
to even more gram m atical forms” (2010, p. 401) and “from less gramm aticalized to more
grammaticalized m eanings” (p. 404), thereby m ak in g “gram m atical” a degree term in
relation to both form and meaning.
21. Similarly, in the M inim alist fram ew ork, when a modal takes the T(ense) node
within its scope, by oc cu rrin g in a “ higher” node than T, it receives an epistemic reading,
but when a modal occurs within the scope o f T, by o c cu rrin g in a “ low er” node, it receives
a dcontic reading (Roberts and Roussou, 2002, 2003; Nicollc, 2007); the diachronic change
from deontic to epistemic (termed “status” in R R G ) therefore corresponds to scope
expansion in M in im a lism also.
22. I refer here to cases where the new grammatical m arker develops as a p aradig­
matic alternative to the existing m arker within the T A system, rather than as an optional
and additional m o rp h e m e functioning as what B ou rd in (2002) calls a m arker o f “ temporal
modulation”. A n exam ple o f such a marker is the M alagasy verb avy co m e’ in avy ni-Iado
aho (come PST-play is g ) “ I played just now,” w h ic h co-o ccurs with the past tense m arker
ni- and serves to “contract” the time interval between S and E (p. 181).

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23. The symbol * before a form in historical linguistics conventionally indicates that
the form is reconstructed rather than documented.
24. Kayardild is part o f the Tangkic language group (with Lardil and Yukulta), and is
spoken on Bcntinck Island in the G u l f o f Carpentaria, northwest Queensland.
25. prmt signifies "purpose com plem ent with motion verb.”
26. Also, clauses with -ru obligatorily involve speech-act participants as either subject
or object. In contrast, the past perfective m arker -sha occurs exclusively in clauses with
third person subjects, so that “ -ru and -sha appear in c o m p lem en tary distribution with
respect to person, together fo rm ing a single ‘m ix e d ’ inflectional past perfective category”
(Ilintz, 2 0 11, p. 41).
27. ss signifies “adverbial, same subject.”
28. Fischer (2007, p. 145) makes a similar proposal w h e n she suggests that be + going
to has m em bership o f two different construction-types.
29. Sec the chapters by F rie d m an and W in ford in this volume.
30. Also, in Russian the perfective fo rm s are irregular (M a ik G ib s o n , p.c.). This
m e a n s that i f the perfective o f one verb were to d evelop a n ew g ra m m atic al function
that fun ction w ould not be associated with a particular form that is shared by m a n y
other verbs.

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(pp. 19-49). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Traugott, E. C. (2003). Constructions in grammaticalization. In B. D. Joseph and
R. D. Janda (eds.), The handbook o f historical linguistics (pp. 624-647).
Oxford: Blackwell.
Traugott, E. C. (2004). Historical pragmatics. In L. R. Horn and G. Ward (eds.),
The handbook o f pragm atics (pp. 538-561). Oxford: Blackwell.
Traugott, E. C , and Dasher, R. B. (2002). Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge:
C am b rid ge University Press.
Traugott, E. C., and Trousdale, G. (eds.). (2010). Gradience, gradualness and
gram m aticalization. Am sterdam : Benjamins.
Van Valin, R. D. (2005). Exploring the syntax-semantics interface. Cam bridge: C am bridge
University Press.
Van Valin, R. D., and LaPolla, R. (1997). Syntax: structure , m eaning and function.
C am bridge: C am b rid ge University Press.
W ilcox, S. (2007). Routes from gesture to language. In E. P. Antinori, P. Pictrandrea, and
R. Sim one (eds.), Verbal an d signed languages: Com paring structures, constructs and
methodologies (pp. 1 0 7 -13 1) . Berlin: de Gruyter.
W ilcox, S., and Shalfer, B. (2006). M odality in A m erican Sign Language. In W. Frawley
(ed.), The expression o f m odality (pp. 207-237). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Wilcox, S., and W ilcox, P. P. (1995). I he gestural expression o f modality in A m erican Sign
Language. In J. Bybcc and S. Fleischm an (eds.), M odality in gram m ar and discourse
(pp- 135-162). Am sterdam : Benjamins.
W ilcox, S., and W ilcox, P. P. (2010). The analysis o f signed languages. In B. Heine and
II. N arrog (eds.), The Oxford handbook o f linguistic analysis (pp. 7 3 9 -76 0 ). Oxford:
O xford University Press.
 C H A P T E R 13

LANGUAGE CONTACT

V I C T O R A. F R I E D M A N

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

Tense/aspect systems tend to be m ore resistant to contact-induced change than

modal systems. Thus, for example, the tense/aspect system o f R o m a n i— w hose adult
speakers are all bi- or multi-lingual in a broad range o f languages— is extremely
stable whereas the m odal system is always calqued or b o rro w e d .1 This chapter will
exam ine in detail tense/aspect contact phenom ena in the first linguistic area
( Sprachbund) to be recognized, the Balkans, but the principles involved have broad
applicability. There are two advantages to taking the Balkans as our example. One is
that the historical record for m an y o f the languages is quite old. The other is that the
complexity o f the contact situation enables us to exam ine a variety o f languages and
types o f contact at once.2
B ased on a c ro ss-lin g u istic stu d y o f c o n ta c t-in d u c e d change, M atras (2007,
p. 44) w rites: “ Little attention has been g ranted in the literature to the b o r r o w in g
o f features b e lo n g in g to the d o m ain o f v e rb s . . .; reports on the b o r r o w in g o f
[te n se-asp ec t-m o o d ] m a rk e rs are quite rare.” M atras (p. 46) posits the follow ing
h ierarchy (1):

(1) modality > aspect/Aktionsart > future tense > (other tenses)

Matras notes two apparent exceptions: Kildin Saam i (borrowed tense but not m o ­
dality) and Yiddish (borrowed Aktionsart but not modality), and suggests that at
least in the latter case, the borrow in g o f Hebrew m odals from the literary tradition
accounts for the lack o f vSlavic m odals, which w ould otherwise be expected, given
that the Aktionsart is from Slavic. We can note here that this is an instance where in
LANGUAGE CONTACT 3 99

fact there is a degree o f sp ea k er control over b o rro w in g , the h igh er social prestige o f
H e b re w p u s h in g against the contact pressure fro m Slavic.
He d oes not offer an explan ation for K ild in Saam i, but in fact the problem
m a y lie in the treatm ent o f the future as a tense (Reissler, 2007, pp. 2 3 6 - 2 3 7 ) . T h e
K ild in S a a m i futu re is analytic, fo rm e d w ith the a u x ilia r y alVke ‘to start, to
b e c o m e ’ as a caique on the Russian im p erfectiv e future u sin g the (perfective)
present o f b y t ’ ‘be’. In the B a lk an s, the s h a re d creation o f a future based on a
particle d e sc e n d e d fro m a verb m e a n i n g ‘w ant’ has basically the s a m e distribu tion
as that o f infinitive r e p la c e m e n t by analytic sub ju n ctive, thus c o n trib u tin g to
the a rg u m e n t for treating fu tu rity as a m o o d rather than a tense cate go ry (cf.
K u r y lo w ic z , 1956; G ol^ b , 1964a). We shall retu rn to this p ro b le m in section 4
below .3
M atras (2007, pp. 4 5-4 6 ) argues the less stable, secure, or intimate the event is
from the sp eak ers perspective, the m ore likely the verbal category is to be b o r­
rowed. He treats m o o d as denoting speaker control, aspect as denoting the internal
structure o f the event, and tense as denoting the most intimate relationship o f the
event to the speaker’s perspective. We can argue that futurity can also be treated as
modal in this sense.
If we com pare these definitions to those given in Jakobsons (1957) classic article
on shifters (cf. A nd rew s, this volum e), nam ely m o o d as the relation PnE 7 Ps, aspect
as the quantification o f E n, and tense as the relation E nE s (where P=participant,
E=event, s=speech and n=narrated), we see that Matras’ cline o f likelihood of
copying (to use the term inology o f Gol^b, 1976 and Johanson, 1992), makes the
category that includes Pv m ore likely to be borrowed, but the non-shifting category
(aspect) is between two shifters. If, however, we accept A ro n so n ’s (1991) argument,
based on Gohjb (1964a), that m o o d represents the ontological evaluation o f the nar­
rated event, i.e., the qualification o f E n in Jakobson s terms, then the one o f these
categories that is a shifter, i.e., tense, is the one intimately connected to the speaker
in Matras’ terms.4
M y approach here is informalist, to use B in n ic k s (1991) felicitous term. The
sections that follow examine what we can call the classic Balkan languages— Albanian,
Greek, Balkan Slavic (Bulgarian, M acedonian, and the Torlak dialects o f Southeast
Serbia and Southern Kosovo, henceforth BS), and Balkan R o m an ce (R om anian,
A rom an ian , and M eglenorom anian, henceforth BR), as well as the Balkan dialects
o f R om ani, Turkish, and Judezmo. Taken together, this group o f distantly related or
unrelated languages gives ample demonstration o f the variety o f tense and aspect
phenom ena to be found in contact situations. A lthough Friedm an (1983) argues
that surface similarities can m ask structural differences, for the purposes o f this
chapter it is precisely the surface similarities that matter, since contact-induced
language change is essentially a surface ph en om en on (see Joseph, 200 1a). I agree
with L ab ov (2007) that speakers b o rro w form s rather than rules. At the same time,
however, the wholesale importation o f paradigm s, e.g., Turkish conjugation in
R om ani, can also result in the creation o f new rules in the affected language (see
§2.2.1 below).

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2. T h e M o rph o lo g y of T ense M arkers

Even Turkish, a classic agglutinative language, shows som e conflation o f tense and
person, e.g., the ipl m a r k e r -k correlates in most dialects with the preterite m arker -D I
and the conditional m ark er - sA , w h ereas in other tenses the ipl m arker ends in -z
or -m (see Table 13.3).5 In this section, therefore, I shall exam ine two cases o f bound
person-m arkers that are restricted to a tense category, the first in the present tense
(§2.1 below), the second in the preterite (§2.2.1). In §2.2.2 , 1 consider the copying o f
w hole conjugations from Turkish into Romani.

2.1. Meglenoromanian from Slavic

M eglen o ro m an ian s are unique a m on g B R speakers in that they do not refer to
themselves by a w ord cognate with R om an, e.g., A rn vn , i^awan, Rurnin , etc., but
rather as Via (plural Vlasi ), i.e., the term used by their M ac ed o n ian -sp eakin g
neighbors.6 This usage reflects significant Slavic influence on M eglenorom anian
(see §3.1 below).
A frequently cited example o f the diffusion o f inflectional affixes via language
contact uses data from M acedonian and M eglenorom anian (Capidan, 1925, pp. 159-
161, cited by Weinreich, 1953, pp. 3 2 -33, then Heath, 1984, p. 370, see also Thom ason,
20 0 1, p. 77, cited by M yers-Scotton, 2002, p. 92). The claim is basically that lsg PRS
-m and 2sg PRS -s in M eglenorom anian are copied from M acedonian, which has
these markers. In fact, however, the m arkers occur in only a tiny nu m ber o f verb
form s (m ostly where loss o f the final high vowel would result in an unacceptable
consonant cluster), there are potential native sources for them elsewhere in the pre­
sent conjugation, and they occur in only four o f the eleven M eglenorom anian vil­
lages but not in the m ost heavily Slavicized. This last fact is especially difficult for
the argument o f Slavic contact versus native analogy, since that village, Tsarnareka,
is the only one where the dialect has borrowed the M acedonian gerundive (verbal
/ /

adverb) m arker -ajk'uz.g., nircizeajki going’ (C aragiu-M arioteanu, 1977, p. 209).7 So

C apidan s example is m ore about the difficulties o f distinguishing diffusion (copying)
from transmission (analogy, drift). The example given in §2.2.1 below is much
clearer, and demonstrates, as does the Tsarnareka gerundive (and pace Labov, 2007,
pp. 34 8 -34 9 ), that bound m o rp h o lo g y can indeed be copied.

2.2. Romani from Turkish

The e x a m p le s in se ctio n s 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 b e lo w illustrate the c o p y in g and sp rea d o f
a b o u n d m o r p h e m e and the c o p y in g o f entire p a r a d ig m s and ten se-asp ect cate­
gories, respectively, from T u rk ish into R o m a n i. It is w orth n o tin g that w h ile the
dialects in qu estion are to d a y heavily concentrated in Eastern B u lg a ria , th e y extend
fro m G r e e c e to C r i m e a and do not fo r m c o n tig u o u s gro u p s. M ore o v er, both p h e ­
n o m e n a o c c u r in representatives o f all three o f the R o m a n i dialect g r o u p s spoken

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Table 13.1 R om ani îpl & 2pl preterite person markers (after Elsik and Matras,
2 0 0 6 , p. 136)

Preterite KX&VG VD AV SK Cr

-am -am-os -am-o(s) -am(-us) -am -am

-en -an-os -an-o(s) -en ~ -anus an-o(s) -an-us

in the Balkans: N orth Balkan, South Balkan, and South V la x . (See Matras, 2002,
pp. 214 -237, on Rom ani dialect classification.)8

2.2.1. Bound Morpheme Copying

In certain R om ani dialects o f eastern Bulgaria, Greece, and C rim ea, the unm arked
2pl marker -Iz is copied onto the native R om ani 2pl preterite m arker (-an in these
dialects), and, in som e cases, it is extended to the native ірі preterite m arker -am.
The evidence for this extension being a Rom ani innovation is the fact that the T urk­
ish dialects with which these R om ani dialects are in contact have the lpl ending -k
in the preterite (Dalli, 1976, pp. 1 1 9 - 1 2 4 ; Elsik and Matras, 2006, pp. 135 -136 ), and
this is the ірі ending used for the Turkish conjugations in these Rom ani dialects.
Thus, for example, Turkish yaz- ‘write conjugates in the simple preterite (D/-past)
yazdim , yazdin} yazdi , yazdik , yazdmiz, yazddar. These sam e endings will be used
for this verb in those Rom ani dialects with Turkish conjugations. The native Rom ani
perfective preterite is formed from the root plus a participial formant that surfaces
most often with a final {d} or {1} (which is jotated in som e dialects) plus person
markers, e.g., the preterite o f the native root ker- ‘do’ conjugates in m an y Balkan d i­
alects: kerdum, kerdan kerda, kerdam, kerden, kerde. In the dialects noted in Table
13.1, however, the Turkish bound 2pl m o rp h em e -nlz has been reanalized as - Iz , a p ­
plied to the native 2pl preterite and then generalized, in som e cases, to the lpl pret­
erite (for abbreviated terms, see note 8).‘J

2.2.2. Conjugation and Category Copying

As noted in §1 above, the R o m a n i tense-aspect system is rem ark ab ly resilient and
p a n - R o m a n i, while the m o d a l system is always open to contact-induced change.
The basic oppositions in the R o m a n i tense-aspect system can be seen in Table 13.2.
In addition to these inflected form s, for alm ost all R o m a n i dialects the particle te
is used with im perfective form s to m a rk subjunctive-optative and irreal c o n d i­
tional in a protasis (i.e., non-factives) much as is the case with c o rresp o n d in g
native elements in A lban ian (te)y BR (sa, etc.), BS (da)y and G reek (na). In the
R o m a n i dialects o f the Balkans, a particle derived from a verb m e a n in g ‘w a n t’
(usually ka from kam-) m ark s future and conditional-iterative in the apodosis.
N egation is m a rk e d with na for indicative form s and та for the imperative and
su b ju n ctive.10 Table 13.2 (cf. M atras, 2002) gives an exam ple o f R o m a n i’s p rim ary
tense/aspect o p p o sitio n s.11

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Table 13.2 3sg im perfective & lsg perfective o f ker-“do”

imperfective perfective

non-remote kerel[a] = present kerd[j)um = preterite (aorist)

remote kerelas ~ kerela sine = imperfect kerd[j]umas ~ kerd[j]um sine = pluperfect

As indicated in §2.2, Turkish conjugations occur in dialects in regions where

there was close contact with Turkish throughout the Ottoman period, which may or
may not continue into the present. The phenom enon, however, is not present in all
such dialects, and it varies from dialect to dialect where present. While the pattern o f
variation does not match either dialect group or geographic distribution (see Fried­
m an, 2010, for exact details), there is an implicational hierarchy for the kind o f cate­
gories likely to be copied. Those that are congruent with existing Rom ani categories
are more likely to be copied, while those that are most in contrast with the structure
o f R om ani g ram m ar are least likely to be copied. Table 13.3 gives the relevant tense-
aspect-m ood categories o f Turkish, and Table 13.4 gives the occurrence o f Turkish o f
these categories in so m e representative Rom ani dialects.12
The hierarchy o f copying mapped out in Table 13.4 shows both the extent to which
the tense-aspect system o f one language can be incorporated into another and also the
paths by which this is accomplished.13 The Turkish preterite in -DI is most likely to be
borrowed into Rom ani and is both semantically and, by coincidence, formally, most
similar to a corresponding Romani form. Turkish has an aspectual opposition between

Table 13.3 Turkish tense— aspect— m ood markers

(Dyor progressive present (A/I)r general present

(-i)DI preterite (~i)ml$ perfect
(y)A optative or subjunctive AcAK future
(-i)sA conditional m AK infinitive
rfiA (2/3 gen’ l pres -mAz) verbal negator

Table 13.4 Turkish verbal categories in R om ani dialects

VB Se Sp AV SM FA SK VK SN Fu KX VG

PRET + + + + + + + + + r + 1
G.PRS — — + + — + + + + + H- +
PROG — — — — + +? + + + • + 1
idi — — — — — ? + + + + + f
OPT — — — — — — — te+ te+ te+ (te)+ 0+
PERF — — — — — — — — — r + 1
FU T — — — — — — — — — k+opt + 1
NEC — - — — - — - - — - + +
INF - - - - - — - - - - + +

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a general and a progressive present, and various Romani dialects borrowed one or the
other, or both. If both are borrowed, then it is likely that the use o f clitic idi, which can
form imperfects, pluperfects, and conditionals from presents, will also be borrowed. In
those dialects with only one Turkish present, however, such meanings are rendered by
the use o f native devices such as the remoteness marker -as and the modal subordi-
nator te. H i us, the introduction o f the non-R om ani aspectual distinction in the present
tense is likely to also allow the introduction o f other Turkish morphology. The next
stage is the introduction o f the Turkish optative with the Romani modal subordinator
te. Although some Romani dialects do have a morphologically distinct subjunctive, it
is transparently related to the present, unlike the Turkish optative. The construction of
the type ka + Turkish optative actually recapitulates the original path o f the Romani
(and other Balkan) future insofar as the earlier formation wras ka+te, which can still be
encountered. The copying of the Turkish perfect into Romani can also result in a
copying of evidential functions, which will be dealt with in §5 below. Finally, the
copying of the Turkish synthetic future into Romani is accompanied by the facultativ-
ity or omission o f te with the optative, the copying o f the affix o f negation and o f the
infinitive, which m a y or m a y not be subordinated to te.
In terms o f chronology, the fact that the shape o f the Turkish present is indepen­
dent o f the group to which the Rom ani dialect belongs (see Friedman, 2009b, for
details) suggests that the ph enom enon o f Turkish conjugation— at least as currently
attested— either has its origins in or is influenced by the linguistic situation after the
differentiation o f the Balkan and V lax dialect groups, i.e., sixteenth-seventeenth
century (see Friedman and Dankoff, 1991).

3. A spect M arkers and A spect Sy s t e m s

We can distinguish three types o f Balkan aspect (cf. A ro n so n , 1981): Aktionsart ,

superordinate aspect, and subordinate aspect. In the context o f Slavic, A ktionsart
has an effect on both the aspectual and the lexical m eaning o f a verb and is usually
m arked by prefixation (cf. De Swart, Gvozdanovic, this volume). Superordinate
aspect is inherent in the verbal stem and in the Balkans is the opposition o f the type
o f perfective/imperfective found in Slavic and G reek. Subordinate aspect is illus­
trated by the aorist/imperfect opposition found in Slavic, Greek, Albanian, and BR.
The temporal-aspectual oppositions o f Turkish are likewise subordinate aspectual
oppositions. Subordinate aspect is often involved in debates over relative tense, but
in the Balkans, those languages with both oppositions clearly treat them as aspec­
tual. In M o d ern M acedonian, the imperfective aorist is almost extinct, although it
is still vital in Bulgarian. In the imperfect, while the behavior o f the perfective/im­
perfective opposition resembles a m apping o f the present onto the past, the crucial
fact that an imperfect can be followed by an aorist that is temporally subsequent to
it demonstrates that at issue is an aspectual opposition involving duration, as in
example (2), from Friedm an (1977, p. 30).

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(2) R abotn icki igrase p rvo lig ask i vo K oso vsk a M itrovica i
w orkers p lay.3sg.IFV .IM P big.lcague in K. M. and
ottam u se vrati so d va boda.
thence IN T R retu rn .P F V .A O R with tw o points
“ [The so ccer team] W orkers played big league ball in K oso vsk a M itro v ic a a n d returned
from there w ith two points.”

Aside from the importation o f Turkish subordinate aspectual distinctions into some
R o m a n i dialects with Turkish conjugation mentioned in §2.2.2, subordinate aspec­
tual distinctions are the least likely to affect another language in a contact situation,
while Aktionsarty o w in g to its quasi-lexical nature, is the most likely. It has even
been suggested (e.g., A senova, 2002, pp. 2 6 4 -2 6 9 ) that the relative conservatism in
the preservation o f subordinate aspectual distinctions is a Balkanism . On the other
hand, insofar as we dem and that only the shared innovations be counted as d iag­
nostic, such a shared archaism cannot be treated as contact-induced. Nonetheless,
there are shared specificities at all aspectual levels in the Balkans that can reasonably
be attributed to the influence o f multilingualism.

3.1. Perfective/Imperfective: Meglenoromanian from Slavic

M e g le n o ro m a n ia n has a Slavic perfective/im perfective opposition, e.g., durm iri
‘sleep’ zadurm iri ‘fall asleep’ (Atanasov, 2002, pp. 2 2 6 - 2 2 7 ) . It also uses M a c e d o ­
nian aspect/Aktionsart preverbs to m ark iterativity with both native and Slavic
im perfective verbs, e.g., turndri ‘return’ pritu rn dri ‘return repeatedly’ (native),
vaviri go/set out’, zavaviri ‘go/set out repeatedly’. M a c e d o n ia n vrvi/zavrvi is im-
perfective/perfective, and the suffix -uva w ou ld be req u ired to im perfectivize
z a vrvi : zarvrvuva. Such a fo rm does not occur in the stand ard language, but -uva
is m o re productive in colloquial M aced o n ian than in the norm (H um p hries,
1997), and this is especially true in the Meglen dialect o f M aced on ian (Bojkovska,
2 0 0 6 , p. 86). It w o u ld appear that M e g le n o ro m a n ia n has followed the M a c e d o ­
nian ten den cy o f p rod u ctively d eriv in g iteratives, but rather than generalizin g
-uva, M egle n o ro m an ia n has adopted the strategy o f exten din g the productivity o f
prefixation.

3.2. AAtumsari-Perfective/Imperfective: Romani from Slavic

R o m a n i dialects are in contact with a wide variety o f languages with various types
o f aspectual m ark in g (cf. Elsik and Matras, 2002, pp. 1 1 7 - 1 6 4 ; Rusakov, 2004; Elsik
and Matras, 2006, pp. 18 8 -202). Those dialects in contact with Slavic tend to b o rrow
Slavic perfectivizing /Aktionsart prefixes. Thus, for example, Arli Rom ani in M a c e ­
donia kinel ‘purchase [in general],’ pokinel ‘buy [take possession o f ] ’; lei ‘take, get,
begin (in general )\polel grab, take hold of, seize’. Unlike the M eglenorom anian phe­
n om en o n , which pervades the system, the influence o f Slavic on R o m ani is m ore
that o f lexicalized aspect.

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3.3. Perfectivity in Slavic and Greek

Although Greek and BS superordinate aspects are not isomorphic, one crucial sim i­
larity between them whose directionality suggests a possible linguistic influence is the
fact that the perfective present in Greek is bound in a way that is closer to Bulgarian
than to Macedonian. In general, perfective presents cannot be located in indicative
time at precisely the moment o f speech. In Macedonian, present perfectives can only
/
occur after a limited set o f modal particles, such as the future marker ke , the hortative
neka , the modal subordinator da , conditional ako ‘ i f ’, etc. (see Kramer, 1986). In Greek
and Bulgarian, however, certain indefinite pronouns and conjunctions (‘whoever’,
‘when, etc.) support the present perfective, whereas in Macedonian such words must
be followed by one o f the modal particles. Based on the textual evidence, it appears that
the Greek and Bulgarian restriction developed during the medieval period, i.e., at the
time o f first contact between Slavic and Greek, whereas the Macedonian restriction
must have been subsequent. Bulgarian still permits the occasional free-standing pre­
sent perfective, albeit much more rarely than B C S ,1'1 which, however, also has limited
use o f such forms, since their most comm on function, that of futurity, is marked ana­
lytically with ‘want’ (see §4 below). However, such freestanding perfective presents do
not occur at all in Greek nor in Standard Macedonian and the western dialects on
which it is based. They were normal in Old Church Slavonic ( C C S ) and have devel­
oped as such in the rest o f Slavic (mostly as futures). Freestanding present perfectives
in non-BS tend to have the same uses as the bound perfectives in BS and Greek, and so
it appears that these two together have developed explicit exponence to accompany the
inflected aspectual verb form, with G reek being located between Bulgarian and M ace­
donian on a cline o f boundedness. This in turn, as just noted, is connected with the
exponent for futurity treated in §4 below.

3.4. Aspect Neutralization: Slavic from Aromanian

In O h rid A r o m a n ia n (and also Krusevo, cf. G ol^b, 1984, p. 106), the g e ru n d (the old
present participle in -inda/-anda) has disappeared. The c o rre sp o n d in g M aced on ian
/
verbal adverb (standard - e/ajki , with many dialectal variants), descended from the
old present active participle and derived only from imperfective verbs, is likewise
/

extremely rare in Ohrid. On the basis o f the situation in Romanian, M arkovik (2007)
argues that the A rom anian gerund likewise had a variety o f functions that differed
from the purely adverbial function in M acedonian already attested in the late m e d i­
eval period as was the Macedonian form s inherited limitation to reference to the
subject. Therefore, to render communication more isomorphic, speakers brought the
two systems closer to one another by adopting constructions using the verbal noun
(which in A rom anian is descended from the old infinitive). The result is both a rein­
stantiation o f non-finiteness in the local M acedonian dialect and a neutralization o f
the imperfective/perfective opposition. Instead, M acedonian verbal nouns derived
from iteratives are preceded by edno one’ to render a perfective effect by focusing on
/
a single iteration. Consider examples (3)—(4) from M arkovik (2007, p. 164-165):

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(3) a. Tu munt’reri tele'vizie, me aka'ca somu.

in w atch ing television me grab.3sg.A O R sleep
b. Vo gledanje televizija zaspav.
In w atch ing television fell_asleep.isg.A O R
“ W h ile w atch ing television, I fell asleep.”
(4) a. “ Una s a d e r i, ga'dzuj.”
b. Edno sedvenje, padnav.
one sitting fell.isg.A O R
“ W h e n I sat d o w n , I fell.”

In standard Macedonian, example (3b) would use an imperfective gerund

gledajki “ while watching” whereas in example (4b), either a derived iterative imper-
/
fective gerund sednuvajki “ while in the act o f sitting down” or a perfective stom sed-
nav “ when I sat down” would be used. The A rom anian constructions use a verbal
noun, and then a quantifier, if necessary, to limit the action, and the Ohrid M aced o­
nian has calqued this, in part as a substrate effect. Thus, here as in other parts o f the
g ram m ar o f Ohrid M acedonian, it can be argued that the BR substrate has reinforced
certain kinds o f feature selection (cf. M ufwene, 2008).

3.5 Subordinate Aspect: Aromanian from Albanian

The Frasheriote dialect o f G o rn a Belica (Bela di supra), Republic o f Macedonia,
w hose speakers arrived from central Albania about a century ago, have calqued the
Albanian subordinate aspectual distinctions into their analytic past tenses. A s Mar-
/
kovik (2007) observes, this continues to serve them in translating the M acedonian
superordinate apectual distinction as well, e.g., Frasheriote A ro m an ia n ave lukratdj
avu lukrata “ he has [IM P /A O R ] worked,” based on Albanian kish punuar/patpunuar
(same meaning), now corresponds to M acedonian ima raboteno/ima srabteno “ he
has w o rk ed ” [ I F V / P F V ] .15 See Table 13.6 (in §5.2). Here we have an example o f c o n ­
tact-induced change involving subordinate aspect corresponding to superordinate
aspect. In this instance, the forms were available to be utilized, but only as a result o f
the Albanian model was this utilization realized in the given A rom an ian dialect.

4. ‘ B e ’, ‘ H ave ’, and ‘W a n t ’ as

A u x ilia r ies, Pa r t i c l e s , E t c .

The use o f verbs, particles, and c o n stru c tio n s c o r r e s p o n d in g literally or etym ologi-
cally to English ‘be,’ ‘have,’ and ‘w a n t’ for m a r k in g futurity, conditionality, resultativ-
ity, iterativity-habituality, and deontic m o d a lity are w id esp rea d . A m ere m a p p i n g o f
the sy n c h ro n ic situation, however, fails to take into account the fact that w h ile cer­
tain d irectio n s o f drift are a rgu ab ly inherent in the concepts involved (cf. L o h m a n n ,

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LANGUAGE CONTACT 407

1937; Benveniste, 1966), we have different results o f contact processes in different

parts o f the Balkans as a result o f local conditions (Got4b, 1976; see §4.4 below).
Moreover, despite parallel developments elsewhere in Europe, the timing and loca­
tion o f these developments in the Balkans argue for their being treated as part o f the
historical development o f the Balkan Sprachbundy pace eurological approaches
(Friedman, 2008a) that conflate typological and areal linguistics in order to claim
“ Europe” as a Sprachbund.
W hen exam ined in their historical contexts, i.e., with a view to both the socio-
linguistic and geopolitical contact situation, on the one hand, and the com parison
with genealogically related languages in other regions, on the other, what emerges
for the Balkan languages in terms o f auxiliaries is a result o f feature selection (cf.
M ufw en e, 2008) in which a variety o f pre-existing tendencies produced complexly
congruent outcomes o w in g to changes that resulted from, 01* were reinforced by,
language contact. As Joseph (2001b, pp. 182, 185) writes o f the development o f the
Greek future from lexical ‘w ant’-!-infinitive to particle+finite form: “all o f these steps
involve, for the most part, perfectly ordinary and well-understood processes in
language change: sound change, reduction o f redundancy, and (analogical) g eneral­
ization o f one variant at the expense o f another” and thus “grammaticalization is an
epiphenom enon resulting from other processes o f change.” In this section, I shall
look at the expressions o f “future,” “conditional/habitual/anterior future,” and “per­
fect” in the Balkans by m eans o f ‘be’, ‘have’, and ‘want’ as quintessentially areal.
While it is true that similar developments can be identified outside the Balkans, it is
the combination o f historical attestation and local conditions that allows us to speak
o f Balkanism s in this regard, i.e., shared innovations w hose time and place points to
the results o f multilingualism in the Balkans itself.

4.1. Future
The history o f future m arking in the Medieval and M odern Balkans is a history o f
competition a m on g auxiliaries o f which the three m ost significant are o f the type
‘have’, ‘be’, and ‘want’. It is the com plexity o f their interactions rather than the victory
o f this or that item that constitutes the Balkan fram e (see also Kramer, 1995; Asenova,
2002, pp. 2 0 1 - 2 2 0 ; A ndersen, 2006).
For Greek, ekho “ have” and mello “ be about to” + infinitive emerged as the main
competitors with the synthetic future during the early medieval period, with thelo
“want” replacing first mello and then ekho in the late middle ages. Horrocks (1997, p.
230) attributes the victory o f ‘w ant’ over ‘have’ to the development o f ‘have’ as the
perfect m arker (see §4.4 below). He also writes that the thelo + infinitive future was
consistently distinguished from thelo + nd + finite verb to express volition. The thelo
+ infinitive future continued to be used— at least in texts— until the infinitive disap­
peared in the sixteenth century. Meanwhile, an invariant m arker the developed from
the 3sg PRS thelei and w as used with n a- clauses to m a rk the future from the thir­
teenth to the eighteenth centuries. The contraction to tha + present, probably from
allegro speech, dates from the end o f the sixteenth century (p. 231). Greek is also the
408 PERSPECTIVES

only Balkan language in w h ich no vestige o f the subjunctive m arker survives in

future and future-like constructions (the type tha na appeared and disappeared in
the sixteenth century; cf. Asenova, 2002, p. 214).
A nalytic futures begin to appear in Latin at the end o f antiquity, using habeo
‘ have’, uolo ‘w ant’ debeo ‘have to’ + infinitive, or esse ‘ be’ plus a future participle. In
the rest o f R om ance, the future alm ost universally ended up u sin g form s descended
from habeo , but in BR , the uolo future becam e generalized, although constructions
using ‘have’ (lsg tfm )+s£+subjunctive can still be used with both necessitive and
future m eaning. In R om anian , the future m arker can be either conjugated voi
‘w a n t’ + infinitive, or invariant o+sa+subjun ctive (this latter m ore colloquial,
southern, and later [seventeenth century]). In A ro m a n ia n , the m ark er is invariant
( va , etc.) ± s ’-fsubjunctive, while in M eg len oro m an ian the future m ark er has been
absorbed by the subjunctive m arker and lost, except in Tsarnareka where the
m arker as is used with the subjunctive. It is also worth noting that, unlike Greek,
M aced onian, A ro m a n ia n , A lbanian, or R om ani, but like Bulgarian (rarely) and
B C S (regularly), the R o m a n ian future m arker can still be conjugated and also p o st­
p o sed to the m ain verb (G ra u r et al., 1966, pp. 2 6 9 - 7 0 ; Rosetti et al., 1969,
pp. 8 5 -9 0 , 267 -6 8 ).
Vaillant (1966, pp. 1 0 4 - 1 0 7 ) notes parallels a m on g Baltic, Slavic, and G e rm a n ic
expressions o f futurity, e.g., by m eans o f preverbs on presents that function as
(future) resultatives. In O C S , the future was usually expressed by a plain present
although there are periphrases using various auxiliaries plus the infinitive. The use
o f imeti ‘have’ parallels G reek and Latin as well as G othic ( haban ), but only occurs
as a true future (as opposed to obligative) in Bulgaro-M acedonian texts, and, along
with the Gothic, is likely a caique on the G re c o -R o m a n usage. The use o f na-/vii<$tu
‘begin’ parallels the use o f G o th ic (but not West G erm an ic) duginnan ‘begin’ and is
rare in O C S . The perfective present o f ‘be’, lsg bpdQ y was used regularly as a future
for that verb, and in North Slavic as well as Slovene and the Kajkavian dialects o f
Croatian, this becom es the auxiliary for the imperfective future. The future using
‘w iir (3sg PRS xosletu) + infinitive is attested in O C S , albeit usually as a voluntative,
and is regular as a future in South Slavic texts by the fourteenth century. The short­
ened form o f the verb without the initial syllable appears in the thirteenth century,
and the short infinitive in the sixteenth century. Conjugated short auxiliary + finite
dc?-clause appears in the fifteenth century, and the invariant particle + dd-clause
appears in the sixteenth. As noted, Bulgarian retains remnants o f the short infinitive
and postposed auxiliary as well as the conjugated short verb (which can be lexical).
s

N one o f these features occur in M acedonian, where, however, the negative nejkam
“ I don’t want/like” does continue the old finite verb. The Torlak dialects o f B C S
show a continuum from conjugated ‘w ant’ + da-c lause (the infinitive is absent) to an
invariant particle + finite form as in M acedonian and Bulgarian. In the intermediate
villages, the auxiliary simplifies to a particle in all persons except lsg, which is the
most resistant to leveling. The negative future shows a remnant o f the use o f ‘have’:
the norm al negated future in BS is the impersonal пета ‘there isn’t’ (literally ‘ it
hasn’t’) + d a -clause. The negation o f the particle derived from ‘want’ can also occur,
LANGUAGE CONTACT 409

but often has voluntative overtones, just as the positive o f ‘have’, ima + da-clause is
obligative. In any case, the temporal, social, and geographic evidence argue strongly
for the specifically Balkan nature o f the BS future.
M ost general descriptions o f Albanian identify the future using conjugated pre­
sent o f ‘have (lsg PRS kam in the standard and m any dialects) + infinitive (= me +
short participle) with G e g and the future using an invariant particle derived from
‘will’ (do in the standard and most dialects) ± te + subjunctive with Tosk, the latter
being typically Balkan, the former being identified as m ore similar to Western
Romance. The actual distribution, however, is m ore complex and indicates the B al­
kan nature o f the constructions. The do future is either in competition with or has
pushed out kam in all o f southern G eg, the border regions with M acedonia, south­
ern Kosovo, and M ontenegro, and even in som e central North G e g dialects (Fried­
man, 2005). On the other hand, the A rberesh (Tosk) dialects o f Italy have conjugated
ftam+fe+subjunctive, and, in the twentieth century invariant ka+te+s ubjunctive.
Relics o f a ‘have’ future also survive in Laberi in southern Albania. In Sh. G je^ovs
Kanuni i Lcke Dukagjinit , which represents traditional Geg, A;a+fe+participle is used
for permitted actions while do+fe+subjunctive is used for obligations, as can be
seen in example (5):16

(5) D o reraras-i c ka te luejt-m cn naten c aty, ku t a

murderer-the it has S B JV move.PT at.night and he when S B JV him
<^ile d rit-a, do te struket.
0 p e n s.3sg .P R S .S B JV light-the will S B JV h id e .3sg .P R S .M D P
“ The m u rd erer [in a blood feud] m ay m ove around at night, hut at the first light o f
daw n he must conceal himself.” (Gjecov, 1989, pp. 16 3 -16 4 )

As noted in §2.2.2 above, the Rom ani dialects o f the Balkans (and those o f Balkan
origin such as Crim ean), form the future with a particle derived from a verb m eaning
‘want, like, love’, usually ka[m/n)~ < kam- but rarely ma < mang- (ibid.). Given the
absence o f such a future in Rom ani dialects outside the Balkans, this is clearly a B al­
kan ism in Romani. Moreover, those dialects in contact with BS sometimes caique the
negative ‘have’ future using a possessive construction. In Romani, as in the rest o f
Indie and most o f Asia (Masica, 1976, pp. 16 6 -16 9 ), the concept o f ‘have’ is expressed
analytically, in the case of Rom ani by ‘be’ + accusative. Example (6) is a negative
future calqued on the BS model, while example (7) is a caique on a positive that could
be construed as obligative, but in Prizren Arli is the ordinary future, probably as a
result o f Albanian influence.

(6) nac m an tc dzav

not.is m e .A C C S B JV g o .isg .P R S
“ I w o n t go”

(7) si man te dzav

is m e .A C C S B JV g o .isg .P R S
“ I have to go” ~ “ I will go”

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4io PERSPECTIVES

Finally, the West Rum elian dialects o f Turkish, which likewise use an analytic co n ­
struction to express ‘have’ (positive existential var, negative existential yok ), caique
the BS negative future using an optative to translate the da-clause:

(8) yok-tur gidelim

negative.existential-copula go.ipl.OPT
“wc won’t go”

4.3 Conditional
The intersection o f future and imperfect m arking produced irreal conditionals and
iteratives as well as anterior futures. The com bination o f these categories is not by
itself a peculiarity o f the Balkans, but the development o f how they are m arked and
the distribution o f both forms and pragmatic functions is attested in such a w ay that
we can speak o f a Balkan conditional as a Balkanism , i.e., an areal, and not just a
typological, feature (Sandfeld, 1930, p. 105; Gol^b, 1964b; Kramer, 1986; Belyavski-
Frank, 2003).
The sequences o f changes, which are attested for Slavic and G reek (as with the
future proper, the initial stage is an independent development in each language that
w as in competition with other possibilities), have three principle stages (I): (1)
imperfect ‘want’ + infinitive > (2) imperfect want’ + S B JV + present > (3) future
particle ± S B JV -1- imperfect. Moreover, as with the future, ‘have’ constitutes a sig n if­
icant competitor with ‘want’, in which case the stages are these (II): (1) imperfect
‘have’ + IN F > (2a) imperfect ‘have’ + S B JV + present /(2b) conditional particle +
INF.
Greek has I.3; in M acedonian I.3 for the positive and II.2a for the negative, in
Bulgarian 1.2 for the positive and II.2a for the negative; Tosk A lban ian has I.3, as
does A ro m an ia n (some A ro m an ia n s dialects also preserve the synthetic co n d i­
tional); G e g Albanian has II.1, but the exact dialectal details have yet to be investi­
gated. Rom anian has 1.2 and II.2b, while M eglenorom anian has a variant o f 1.2
(3sgIM P vrea functions as a particle; cf. Atanasov, 2002, p. 251). R o m a n i ka
dz.alas~dz.ala sine ‘he would go’ is also type I.3.17

4.4. Perfects: ‘Be’ and ‘Have’

By the tim e Latin arrived in the Balkans, the synthetic perfect was already in
retreat before a perfect using ‘ have’ with a past passive participle, a fact which
contributed to the rise o f a ‘ have’ perfect in G reek, although H orrocks (1997, p. 77)
argues that at most Latin gave impetus to processes already taking place in G reek
from Hellenistic times and earlier. The G reek perfect, however, follow ed a d if­
ferent path o f d eve lop m en t from that o f the Latin perfect. In G reek the past o f
‘ have’ plus the old aorist infinitive (now a non-finite form confined to periphrastic
tenses) was used in conditional sentences (cf. e.g., K in g Jam es’ English I f you had
been here, my brother had not died) w h ic h then becam e interpreted as a true p lu ­
perfect. The earliest exam ple o f a ‘have’ pluperfect is from the fourteenth century,

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LANGUAGE CONTACT 411

whereas the 'have’ perfect is a m o d e rn developm ent and is not m en tion ed in Sofi-
anos’s sixteen th -cen tu ry G reek g r a m m a r ; it was still rare in the nineteenth c e n ­
tury. Perfect construction s u sin g ‘be’ and ‘have’ + perfect passive participle as
passive/stative and active, respectively, w ere strengthened by contact with
R o m a n c e influence d u rin g the late m ed ieval and early m o d ern periods (see Hor-
rocks, 1997, p. 231).
W hen Slavic arrived in the Balkans, the perfect was formed by the present im-
perfective o f ‘be' plus the resultative participle. This perfect developed into the
unm arked past throughout Slavic.IS Possessive perfects using ‘have’ constructions
have developed at three Slavic peripheries: in Czech and Polish in contact with G e r ­
man, N orth Russian dialects in contact with Finnic, and BS in contact with BR,
Albanian, and Greek. The BS constructions do not appear until the m od ern period
and are clearly contact-induced. In Bulgarian, such constructions are limited to a n ­
imate subjects and transitive verbs (true past passive participles), which agree with
a direct object, except in Thrace, where, as in standard M acedonian and the western
dialects on w h ich it is based, the old past passive participle has becom e a true verbal
adjective (formed from intransitives as well), and, in the ‘have’ perfect, is invariantly
neuter.
G ohjb’s (1976, 1984) arguments com bined with the geographic distribution in
M acedonia make A rom an ian the m ost likely source o f the ‘have’ perfect in M a c e d o ­
nian. The A rom an ian ‘have’ perfect uses an invariant fem inine verbal adjective, and
since fem inine functions as the unm arked (neuter) gender in A rom an ian (as in
A lbanian), it corresponds to the invariant neuter verbal adjective in M acedonian.
A s one m oves n o rth and east fro m the center o f intense A ro m a n ia n -M a c e d o n ia n
contact in the southwest, ‘ have’ perfects becom e less frequent, with fewer p ara­
digms, and eventually disappear. As one moves south and west from the center o f
innovation, the ‘have’ perfect replaces the old ‘be’ perfect altogether. Additional e v ­
idence for M a c e d o n ia n -A ro m a n ia n interaction is the fact that in southwest M a c e ­
donia, the two perfect systems have becom e isom orphic, as illustrated in Table 13.5
(based on Gol^b, 1984, p. 135).
In stage IV, the old perfect (‘be’ + /-form) o f Slavic has b ecom e limited to evid en­
tial contexts, while the new ‘be’ perfect can only describe a present result. Thus, an
adverbial like tri saati ‘for three hours’ can be used with imam vecerano but not with

Table 13.5 Four stages o f M aced o n ian -A ro m an ian calquing “ I have dined”

Macedonian Aromanian

I sum veceral am" tsinat*

II sum veceral imam vecerano <- am11 tsinat®
[borrowed)
III imam vecerano sum veceral -> esku tsinat" am11 tsinat*
[borrowed]
IV imam vecerano sum veceran <- esku tsinat1’ amu tsinat"
[reborrowed)

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412 PERSPECTIVES

sum veteran , both T have dined’. The same restrictions apply in A ro m an ia n . This
stage is characteristic o f the O hrid-Struga region, but is expanding north and east.
In the competition between ‘be’ and ‘have’ as auxiliaries involved with resulta-
tivity and related concepts that depend on one event being prior to som e other
event or state, e.g., taxis, it is clear fro m the historical record that Latin brought
‘have’ to the Balkans, whereas Slavic brought ‘be’ in these sam e functions. Goh}b
(1976) argues that whereas the effect m oves from A rom an ian to M aced on ian as
described above, in the case o f north D anubian BR the direction o f influence is from
Bulgarian to Rom anian. This is seen not only in the elaboration o f ‘be’ as the
auxiliary for new paradigm s in Bulgarian (thus, for example, where M acedonian
has imal napraveno Bulgarian has bil napravil for ‘he had/has supposedly done it’)
but in the use o f ‘be’ in R om anian for active c o m p o u n d tenses, e.g., the perfect o f
‘be’ fo rm in g a pluperfect, e.g., am fast facut ‘ I had done’ and invariant f i in c o m ­
po u n d tenses such as the anterior future, e.g., 0 f i facut ‘he will have done’ corre­
sponding to Bulgarian bil sam napravil and ste sam napravil , respectively. A s Gohjb
(p. 306) observes, the use o f a fi with a (transitive) perfect participle (facut) should
be passive; in Bulgarian however, the participle napravil is etym ologically resulta-
tive, and thus ‘be’ carries a different force. W hat we have, then, is a surface reinter­
pretation o f ‘be’ as a past-form ing auxiliary and an equivalence o f the two forms o f
participial origin used to form past tenses (in Bulgarian, the form retains participial
features, but not in B C S or M acedonian).
Although the Old Slavonic perfect was not copied into Romanian because habed
factum (> am facut) was already well established in C o m m o n Romance, the more
recent analytic tenses were subject to calquing. The A rom anian situation shows more
mutuality, in keeping with the relative social positions o f local populations. Golab
(1976, p. 304) hypothesizes that north o f the Danube the landowners and transhumant
shepherds spoke Romance and the peasantry spoke Slavic until Romance-speakers
also became peasants; Slavonic, however, was the language o f literacy. South o f the
Danube, Slavic was the language o f the landowners and clergy as well as the peasantry,
and the Romance-speaking population accommodated by shifting unless they stayed
isolated in the mountains. Thus we have an east-west division where Romanian shows
influence from Bulgarian, and Macedonian from Arom anian.
The A lban ian ‘ have’ perfects are already in place by the time o f our earliest
attestations. The auxiliary ‘be’ is used for m edio-passives. In N orth ern G eg, h o w ­
ever, ‘be’ is used to form the perfect o f ‘be’ and in N ortheastern G e g also for verbs
o f m otion. The sim ilarity to Western R o m a n c e has led to the hypothesis o f
R o m a n c e influence here, as with the G e g ‘ have’ future, and indeed in Kosovo the
consistent use o f both and the earlier attestations o f R om an ce speakers into the
twentieth century is worth n o tin g .19
Historically, R om ani used participle + ‘be’ to form what becam e the simple
preterite (Paspati, 1870, p. 98). Som e dialects in contact with Greek use the root
ther- (etymologically ‘hold ’) as ‘have’ and form a perfect with it using the Rom ani
participle, e.g., ov therel nasto ‘he has left’ (Matras, 2004, p. 88). This usage is notably
absent elsewhere in the Balkans.

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LANGUAGE CONTACT 413

5. T e n s e / A s p e c t , E v i d e n t i a l i t y ,
and C ontact

The development o f evidential(-like) m eanings out o f perfects is som etim es labeled

an internal development ow ing to perfects’ focus on results o f actions that might
not be witnessed (van Wijk, 1933), but an examination o f the nature and tim ing o f
evidential-like paradigm s and usages in the Balkans points to contact-induced
change. F ried m an (2000) argues that in BS and Turkish the original m a rk in g is for
confirmativity in the simple preterite, with non-confirm ative as a contextual variant
m eaning o f the perfect. N on-confirm ative becom es the invariant m eaning o f per­
fect-based form s either (a) after confirmativity develops, or (b) in languages that do
not develop confirmatives, but do develop new paradigms based on the perfect
(Albanian, BR , etc.). These m arked non-confirm ative m eanings form a com plex
that is attested in m any languages (report-inference-surprise-disbelief). While the
concentration o f confirmative m eaning in the BS past definite could have begun
prior to contact with Turkish (van Wijk, 1933), the developments as we see them
today are clearly m odern, i.e., precisely w h en BS was in intimate contact with T u rk ­
ish, where the distinctions occur in the oldest docum ents (eighth century C E).

5.1. Evidential as True Past: Turkish, BS

The idea that the Turkish perfect in -ml$ is marked as reported and the simple preterite
in -D I is marked as witnessed appears already in M ahm ud al-Kasgari’s eleventh century
Diwdn Lugdt at-Turk (Compendium o f the Turkic Dialects; Dankoff, 1982, p. 412). The
suggestion that this was calqued into Bulgarian dates to C on ev (1910/11). While it is
accepted that the so-called witnessed (the DI -past in Turkish, the synthetic aorist and
imperfect in BS), which is not always literally witnessed but rather confirmative,20 must
refer to a past action, non-confirmative forms are sometimes described as tenseless.
At issue is whether the so-called reported can claim the kind o f autonomous
status as a separate category that is clearly the case in some o f the languages o f North
A m erica. In the case o f Turkish and BS, instances such as example (9), which can be
interpreted as perfect/past (9a), reported/inferential (9b), admirative (9c), and dubi-
tative (9d) are regularly cited as examples o f tense neutralization, although (9c) also
presents problems for a theory that relies on reportedness or any related concept:

(9) Toj bil dobar covek (Macedonian)

he be good person
iyi adam imi§ (Turkish)
good person be
a. He has been/used to be a good man.
b. They say/said/Apparently he is/was a good man. (reported/inferential)
c. It turns out he is/was a good m an (to m y surprise]! (admirative)
d. Oh, sure, he is/was a good man [and cows can fly]! (dubitative)

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414 PERSPECTIVES

M ean in g (9a) is a straightforward perfect or past habitual. For (9 b -c ) there is always

so m e previous report, state, or assumption, despite the fact that at times English
w ould require a present tense.21 The evidence for the past reference in Turkish and
BS comes from interrogatives as in exam ple (10):

(10) a. K ade bil majstorot? (Macedonian) “ Where *is/was the boss?”

b. Usta neredeym if? (Turkish) “ Where * is/was the boss?”
c. Ku qenka mjeshtri? (Albanian) “ Where is/*was the boss?”

The context for (10) is the following: a man walks into a barber shop and sees the
b arb ers apprentice but is surprised that the barber him self is not in his shop. At this
moment, he requests information about the current whereabouts o f the boss. The
question does not refer to a previous state o f affairs, and therefore can use the present
admirative in A lbanian (see §4.2 below) but not the BS or Turkish non-confirmative.
If the customer were to ask, e.g., in Turkish, “ Usta nerede ?” and the apprentice were
to answer that he didn’t know, that he wasn’t around, that he wasn’t at home, etc., and
the exasperated customer did not believe him, he could then exclaim: “Iyi be, usta
neredeym if ?/,” “O K , then, where is the boss?!,” but this quotation would be an excla­
mation o f sarcastic exasperation at the apprentice’s previous responses, rather than a
genuine question. The same holds true for the BS equivalent. Moreover, in the c o n ­
texts o f m eanings (9b—d) Albanian could use not only a present admirative, but any
o f its past admiratives (see Table 13.6) in exactly the same set o f meanings.
Form s such as Bulgarian bil napravil and M acedonian imal napraveno , which
use the old perfect as an auxiliary are new paradigm s created after the synthetic past
becam e a m arked confirmative. These m arked non-confirm atives begin as pluper­
fect constructions (cf. §4 above) and then, in southwest M acedonia the new perfect
pushes the old perfect into marked non-confirm ativity and, ultimately, oblivion.

5.2. Evidential as True Present: Albanian and Aromanian

The Albanian admirative is a marked non-confirmative and has a true present that is
based on an inverted perfect (historically, participle + auxiliary, but synchronically an
inflectional paradigm), an imperfect derived from an inverted pluperfect, and various
analytic paradigms using the admiratives o f ‘be’, and ‘have’. The development took place
during the early modern period, i.e., when there was contact with Turkish. In the oldest
significant Albanian text (1555), the inverted perfect functioned as a conditional-
optative, albeit also beginning to show some admirative functions (Friedman, 2010).
The optative (irreal conditional) function survived in Arvanitika into the nineteenth
century and still occurs in standard Albanian pluperfect admirative usage. The Alba­
nian present admirative, however, unlike the “evidentials” o f BS and Turkish, is a true
present, and the admirative series has a complete paradigm without, however, the aorist.
The forms are given in Table 13.6, together with those o f the Frasheriote Aromanian o f
Gorna Belica, which combines copying and calquing from Albanian. In this dialect,
speakers reanalyzed the Albanian 3sg PRS admirative marker -ka as an invariant marker
o f nonconfirmativity and attached it to a Mpl IM P participial base.22
LANGUAGE CONTACT 415

Table 13.6 A ro m an ian (Frasheriote-Bela di supra) and A lban ian Indicatives

(3sg “ w ork” )

N onadm irative Adm irative

Arom anian A lbanian Arom anian Albanian

present lukra punon lukracka punuaka

perfect ari lukrata ka punuar avuska luktrata paska punuar
im perfect- ave lukrata kish punuar ------ paskesh punuar
pluperfect
aorist-pluperfect avu lukratil pat punuar
perfect-pluperfect ari avut lukrata ka pase punuar ari avuska lukrata paska pase punuar
imperfect- ave avut lukrata kish pase punuar ave avuska lukrata paskesh pase
pluperfect 2 punuar
aorist-pluperfect 2 avu avut lukrata pat pase punuar

5.3. Meglenoromanian
The BR inverted perfect, which in Romanian is a stylistic variant o f the perfect, has
been reinterpreted as a non-confirmative, with exactly the same complex o f m e a n ­
ings o f reportedness, surprise, and disbelief found in the non-confirmative uses o f
the BS and Turkish (old) perfect, which arc the likely sources o f the semantic devel­
opment. Thus, for example lsg .P R F o f see’, am vizut > vizut-am and the inverted
perfect o f ‘have can then function to form an analytic pluperfect vutam vizut. Unlike
the R om anian inverted perfect, where clitics come between the participle and the
auxiliary, e.g., dusu-s-a ‘he has gone (go.PT.anaptyctic w-ITR-AUX), in the Megle-
noromanian non-confirmative the clitic precedes the entire form si-turnat-au ‘he has
[apparently] returned, etc.’ (Graur et al., 1966, p. 269; Atanasov, 2002, p. 254)

5.4. Evidential as Future/Modal: Romanian

and Novo Selo Bulgarian
The so-called presumptive m o o d o f Romanian has the sam e complex o f non-
confirmative meanings discussed above. It can be formed with any o f the three
p aradigm -form in g m odal markers (future 0 [as well as conjugated va\> subjunctive
sa, and conditional ci$) plus invariant f i ‘be plus either the gerund or past participle,
e.g., 0 f i lucrind/lucrat ‘he supposedly/will have worked.’ When used with the past
participle, it is indistinguishable from the corresponding pluperfect, but when used
with the gerund the only possible interpretation one o f the marked non-confirmative
meanings illustrated in (9 b -d ) above.
The Bulgarian dialect o f the village o f N ovo Selo (Vidin region) has a special
m o o d called the probabilitive, w hich likewise displays the m arked non-confirmative
complex o f meanings. The village is located in the northwest corner o f Bulgaria only
a few kilometers from both Rom ania and Serbia. The future is formed with invariant
ca— the local variant o f the ‘w ant’ particle— as in Bulgarian and adjacent parts o f
416 PERSPECTIVES

Table 13.7 Probabilitive m ood, N ovo Selo Bulgarian (Mladenov, 1969,

pp. 1 0 9 - 1 1 0 )

present 1 gled&cam gledacamo

2 gledacas gledacata
3 gledaca gledacaju
future 1 ca gladacam, etc.
past 1 budacam ~ budam - bicam gladal, etc.

Torlak. The dialect also has a series o f paradigm s based on a Serbian type future, i.e.,
conjugated ‘want’ suffixed to the infinitive stem, which n o w functions as a present
with its own future as well as a past using the probabilitive o f ‘ be’ as the auxiliary.23
The forms are illustrated in Table 13.7 (based on Mladenov, 1969, pp. 1 0 9 - 1 1 0 ) . G iven
the location o f this dialect it w ould appear that with the establishment o f the
Bulgarian-type future, the Serbian-type with which it had been in competition was
restricted to the non-confirm ative m eanings found in Rom anian , w h ic h also makes
use o f future marking. Thus, as with the M eglenorom anian inverted perfect under
M acedonian (and possibly Turkish) influence and Albanian under Turkish (and in
som e places perhaps M acedonian) influence, a positional variant acquired evidential-
like meanings.

5.5. Evidential as Caique or Copy in Judezmo and Romani

The Judezm o o f Istanbul uses the pluperfect as a caique on the Turkish past in -m l$
as in exam ple (11) from Varol (200 1, p. 91):

(11) Kuando esta-v-an 1

en ’ Am erika, les av-iy-a
when be-IMP-3pl in the America them.DAT have-IMP-3$g
cntra-do ladrön
enter-PST.PT thief
“ When they were in America (i.e., absent], a thief broke into (lit., had broken into,
Turkish girm if) their house.”

In standard Spanish, a pluperfect could not occur in this context. This kind o f e v i­
dential deixis is attested elsewhere in the world, e.g., in the Spanish o f Peru o w in g to
influence o f a Quechua evidential substrate (Dan Slobin, p.c.).
E x a m p le (12), from Iva n o v (2 0 0 0 ) illustrates an effect o f Turkish on Futadzi
R o m a n i. The past in -m /f is used with Turkish v erb s in contexts w h ere it w ould
be expected in Turkish, w hile with native R o m a n i past tense verbs in the sam e
contexts, the particle berim is n o rm a lly placed im m ed iately after the verb or its
p ro n o m in a l object if that follows the verb.

(12) Oda kana dikljas la berim don-mus pe taneste

that.M when scc.3sg.PST her. A C C berim freeze-PRF in place.LOC
“When he saw her [berim], he froze in his tracks [lit. ‘place’ ].”
LANGUAGE CONTACT 417

6. T h e N a r r a t i v e I m p er a tiv e

and E x p r essiv e T ense

All the Balkan languages can use the present tense as g n o m ic or historical present.
Moreover, the second person future replaces the imperative as a kind o f pragm ati­
cally polite way o f giving directions to strangers seeking to find a place and in other
contexts where English w o u ld expect or require an imperative. O f particular in­
terest to the question o f tenseless tense, i.e., forms not m arked for tense that n o n e­
theless are distinctly temporal, is the so-called narrative imperative. The narrative
imperative is the use o f the imperative to render the narration o f past actions par­
ticularly vivid in a shorter passage. Unlike the historical present, which can be
maintained over a longer stretch o f narrative, the narrative imperative is rarely more
than a sentence in a longer narrative.
As will be seen in this section, and pace A se n o va (2002, p. 193), the narrative
imperative o ccurs not only in Slavic, but also in A lban ian and R o m a n ian , as well
as A ro m a n ia n , M eglen o ro m an ian , Rom ani, and Turkish. From the point o f view
o f language contact, five facts to be illustrated in § § 6 .1-6 .8 below stand out as p a r­
ticularly significant: (1) the ph en o m en on is found throughout Slavic, but the re ­
strictions on its o ccu rren ce and usage point to specifically Balkan developm ents
for BS; (2) The usage is absent not only from Greek but also from the A ro m an ian
dialects o f G reece (cf. F ried m an , 2008b, on sim ilar p h en om en a with respect to
object reduplication); (3) The R o m a n ia n usage is characteristic specifically o f
those dialects that were longest in the O ttom an E m p ire — Walachia and M o ld a v ia —
and at the sam e time had m ore influence from East Slavic as well as BS; (4) today
the usage is best preserved in M a c e d o n ia n and A lb a n ia n and the languages in
contact with them; (5) as an areal p h e n o m e n o n , the distribution and vitality o f the
narrative imperative in the Balkans suggests that it is an areal rather than a t y p o ­
logical p h en om en on .

6.1. Macedonian
In M acedonian, a perfective narrative imperative can be used if the action is c o m ­
pleted and iterative, as in exam ple (13) from H acking (1997, p. 215) and (14), slightly
modified from K oneski (1967, p. 418):

(13) Tetin Nom£e bese ora£. Eden vol kupi, drug

uncle N. was.IFV.IMP ploughman one ox buy.PFV.IMV other
pcovisaj. Cel 2ivot toa rabotese.
die.IFV.IM V whole life that.N work.IFV.IMP
“ Uncle Nomce was a ploughman. Hed buy one ox and another would die. His whole life
went like that.”
418 PERSPECTIVES

(14) Se vrakavme pijan-i: toj padni, jas stani, jas padni, toj
ITR return. lp lIM P drunk- he fall. I stand. 1 fall.LVIV he
PL IM V IM V
stani.
stand.
IM V
“We were returning drunk: he fell, I stood up, I fell, he stood up.”

Impcrfcctive imperatives can also be used in M acedonian for repeated 01* habitual
actions that are atelic or g n o m ic and hence imperfective as in examples (15)—(16),
from Koneski (1967, p. 148).

(15) Teraj, teraj, napinaj, napinaj — ne

pull.IFV.IMV pull.IFV.IMV struggle.IFV.IMV struggle.IFV.IMV not
biduva, ne biduva — ostana kola-ta
be_p0ssible.3sg.PRS not be_p0ssible.3sg.PRS 1emain.3sg.AOR wagon-the
v kal.
in mud
“ He pulled and pulled, struggled and struggled, it was no use, the wagon remained in
the mud.”
(16) Star-i-te naveduj se, mlad-i-te rasti, taka
old-PL-the bend_over.IFV.IM V ITR young-PL-the grow.IFV.IM thus
vrvi vek-ov.
go world-the.PRX
“ The old get bent over, the young grow up, that’s the way o f this world.”

6.2. Bulgarian
In Bulgarian, Tcodorov-Balan (1940) gives examples o f the narrative imperative, but
none o f the later (post-World War Two) norm ative g ram m ars include such usage,
and N ico lovas (1974) Bulgarian examples are all from dialect studies. The educated
speakers o f m odern Bulgarian that I consulted found the usage stylized, dialectal,
and archaic, and they also pointed out that even in nineteenth and early twentieth
century Bulgarian literature, the narrative imperative was used to evoke peasant
speech. It w ould thus appear that this usage was disfavored by the East Bulgarian
intellectuals w hose dialect becam e the basis o f the Bulgarian standard.

6.3. BCS
Stevanovic (1986, pp. 7 0 8 - 7 0 9 ) cites num erous examples by nineteenth-century
authors from southern Montenegro to northeastern Croatia but specifies the usage
as being especially characteristic o f Montenegro. M aretic (1963, p. 625), however,
LANGUAGE CONTACT 419

highlights their rarity and observes that the usage is “ very com m o n in the speech o f
the southern regions, but it is a dialectism” (p. 626, m y translation). Examples
involve both perfectives and imperfectives. Thus, already before the break-up o f
B C S , narrative imperatives were identified as more “ Serbian” than “ Croatian” and as
typical o f those dialects closest to BS.

6.4. East and West Slavic, and Questions o f Origin

In East Slavic, the perfective im perative denotes su dd en past actions ( V in o g r a ­
dov, 1972, pp. 4 3 4 - 4 3 7 ) . This usage differs from South Slavic in two im portan t
respects: it is sem elfactive rath er than iterative, and it is lim ited to perfectives. In
West Slavic, the con stru ction is alm o st n o n -existen t (N ic o lo va , 1974). W h ile the
dilference between the aspectual force o f the East Slavic and South Slavic usages
could be invoked for separate exp lan atio n s, it could also be argued that this was
a C o m m o n Slavic colloqu ial in n o v a tio n that d evelop ed differently in East and
South Slavic.

6.5. Albanian
Examples o f the narrative imperative are cited as emotive usage in Buchholz and
Fiedler (1987, p. 150):

(17) Po vajta, se s’ kisha te beja,

so went.isg.AOR that not have.isg.IMP what S B j V do.isg,IMP
vajta kcmbadoras, aty ngrcu, aty
went.isg. foot.hand. there get_up.lMV.ITR there
AOR ADV
rrexohu.-1
fall_down.IMV.ITR
“ So I went on, for there was nothing else for me to do, I went on all fours, I stood up,
I was knocked dow n” (literally “stand up, get knocked dow n”).

6.6. Turkish
Turkish has the sam e type o f usage o f the imperative, as can be seen in examples
(18) and (19), w h ich are translations o f (13) and (14) above. Here the (a) examples
arc in standard Turkish and the (b) exam ples are West Rumelian (M acedonian)
dialect:

(18) a. Nom^e eni§te <;if«;i-ydi: bir okiiz al, digeri other.

N. uncle ploughman-was.PST one o x buy.PFV.IMV geber die.IFV.IMV

Матеріал, захищений авторським правом

420 PERSPECTIVES

b. N om $e ini§te idi t^if^i: al bir ukuz,

N. uncle was.IFV. buy.PFV. one ox
IM P ploughman IM V
iibiirisi geber.
other die.IFV.IM V
“ Uncle N om ce was a ploughman. He’d buy one ox and another would die.”
(19) a. Sarho§ don-iiyor-du-k: o dii§, ben kalk, ben
drunk retu rn -P R G -P R E T -ip l he fall.IM V I stand.IM V I
dii$, o kalk.
fall.IM V he stand.IM V
b. Sarvo$ din-er-di-k: o dii$, ben kolk> ben
drun k return-G.PRS-PRET-ipI he fall.IM V I stand.IM V I
dii§, o kolk.
fall.IM V he stan d.IM V
“We were returning drunk: he fell, I stood up, I fell, he stood up.”

In the case o f example (18), Standard Turkish would prefer a gerundive construction
o f the type dii§e kalka “ falling, arising,” but the construction with the imperative is
also permissible.

6.7. Romani
The narrative im perative o c c u rs in all o f the three m ain dialect g ro u p s spoken in
M a c e d o n ia , Serbia, K o so v a , and Turkey, but not in G re e c e (C e ch and Ilein-
schink, 1999, p. 125). E x a m p le (20), w h ic h translates (14), is in the Skopje A rli
dialect, but speakers o f the other dialects agreed that the contruction w as norm al
for them as well.

(20) Irinaja sine amen mate: o v per, me usti, me

return.lsg.PRS be.IMP we drunk: he fall.IMV I stand.IM V I
per, ov usti
fall.IM V he stand.IM V
“ We were returning drunk: he fell, I stood up, I fell, he stood up.”

6.8. BR
A ccordin g to m odern speakers, the narrative imperative is characteristic o f W ala­
chia and Moldavia and has a som ew hat archaic or dialectal feel to it now. Exam ple
(21), from G rau r et al. (1966, p. 223), is from the nineteenth-century Walachian
writer B. Delavrancea.
(21) Cartca e dcschise la foia 80; §i eu trage-i tare §i
the.book is opened to page 80 and I read.IM V it aloud and
delimit. . .
clearly
“ H ie book opened to page 80; and I read it aloud and c le a r l y . . . ”

Bahan dengan hak cipta

LANGUAGE CONTACT 421

6.9. Meglenoromanian and Aromanian

Like M a c e d o n ia n , the A ro m a n ia n dialects o f M a c e d o n ia have narrative im p e r a ­
tives, w h ereas in Greece, as in G reek , A ro m a n ia n dialects do not use the narrative
imperative. M e g le n o ro m a n ia n also has a narrative imperative as in exam ple (22),
based on (14), and (23). These exam ples d escribe a general state o f affairs in the
past:

(22) Na turnam beac, kaz- skoala_ti

we return.lpl.IMP drunk, fall.IMV- rise-you
“ We were coming home drunk, we kept falling down and getting up.”
(23) Toata ziua manka, manka, nu si dumanka
all day eat.IM V eat.IM V not IN T R get.full.3sg.PRS
“All day he ate and at and didn’t get full.”

7. C o n c lu sio n :A r e a lit y v er su s Typology

Tense/aspect categories do not figure into the most c o m m o n ly attested contact-

induced changes. At the same time, insofar as futurity is considered temporal, then
one o f the first observed contact-induced innovations was precisely the develop­
ment o f Balkan future m ark in g (Kopitar, 1829), although typologically motivated
hierarchies o f likelihood o f b orrow in g can combine with epistemic arguments to
argue that futurity is a modal rather than a temporal category. Contact-induced
change in tense-aspect systems is the product o f intense rather than casual hi- or
multilingualism (see T hom ason, 1997). Moreover, as is also the case with ph o n o log­
ical changes, m any tense-aspect phenom ena diffuse at the local level. Such phe­
nom ena can be taken as precisely the kinds Trubetzkoy (1923, 1928) had in m ind
when he first conceptualized the Sprachbund (with the Balkans as his example) to
describe similarities a m on g languages due to diffusion rather than transmission.
Although there is a relatively recent tendency to conflate areal and typological lin ­
guistics, the two are quite distinct since one is historical and the other is not (cf.
Hamp, 1977). Moreover, anxieties about defining boundaries o f a Sprachbund
(Masica, 19 7 6 ,2 0 0 1 ) have obscured the fact that Sprachbunde do not involve descent
from a co m m on ancestor, neither are they entities o f which one either is or is not a
member. Rather, as Ila m p (1989) argued, they are associations o f languages for
which som e shared features are m ore broadly distributed than others. Trubetzkoy
meant to conceptualize a unit describing results o f diffusion in the sam e w ay that
the language family described results o f transmission, and it can be argued that just

Bahan dengan hak cipta

422 PERSPECTIVES

as not all In d o - E u r o p e a n languages share all possib le cognates, so, too, in a Sprach-
bund like the Balkan s, not all languages share all features that can be coun ted as
B a lk a n ism s. W h en tense-aspect p h e n o m e n a are v ie w e d in this light, the Balkan s
helps us see that the diffusio n o f tense-aspect distinctions v ia language contact
tends to involve the k in d s o f surface p h e n o m e n a that speakers are aware of, and
local diversity participates in a c o m p le x picture o f areal unity.

NOTES

l. So m e o f the fieldwork for this article was conductcd while I was living in Skopje,
Republic o f M acedonia, in 2 0 0 8 - 2 0 0 9 , with support from a Fulbright-Hays Post-Doctoral
Fellowship from the U.S. D epartm ent o f Education, as well as a John Sim on G ug gen h eim
M em o rial Foundation Fellowship, and some o f the research while I was a visiting fellow at
the Research C enter for Linguistic T yp olo g y at Latrobe University in 2 0 0 4 . 1 gratefully
acknowledge their support. The organizations are not responsible for the opinions
expressed in this chapter. I also wish to thank the following colleagues and consultants for
their advice and judgm ents concernin g A rom an ian , Bulgarian, Greek, M eglenorom anian,
M aced on ian , R o m an ian , R om an i, and Turkish: M ariana Bara, M arjan M arkovik, Angelina
Ilieva, Valentina Izmirlieva, Brian Jospeh, Petar Atanasov, D enis DurmiS, Enisa Em inovska,
and Çirin Tufan.
2 Binnick (1991, p. viii) notes that his o w n concentration on what I would call the
European Great Power languages— Greek, Latin, Rom ance, G erm a n ic, and Russian— and
Kikuyu, is because “ they have been well-explored and entered crucially into thcory-
formation.” Similarly, while m an y contact situations and phenom ena have been studied
and theorized in recent years, the Balkans has a similar advantage o f depth o f exploration,
although these languages have been slighted in m odern theory formation. M ost such
theories look at contact in situations either o f colonization or labor migration. Such work is
important and valuable, but the languages taken as objects o f study have been in contact
for shorter periods, and under less com plex socio-historical circumstances, than those in
the Balkans.
3. Sec also Joseph (1983).
4. rlhis argument involves a réévaluation o f Jakobson s Status , as well as the recently
more popular Evidential.
5. Capital letters in the rendition o f Turkish m orphem es denotes vowels subject to
vowel h a r m o n y and consonants subject to automatic alternations.
6. For languages with nation-state orthographies, I follow the standard orthography
o r transliteration. A ro m a n ia n and R o m a n i both have more than one o rth o grap h y at this
point, so I use a Latinization in c o m m o n usage in Balkan linguistics for these and
M eg le n o ro m an ian .
7. See Friedm an (2009a) for details.
8. Dialect names arc coded and abbreviated as follows: plain for North Balkan, Italic
for South Balkan, and Bold for South VIax. The relevant dialects abbreviated in Tables 13.1
and 13.4 are given here in full with their locations and, where relevant, alternative
names preceded by and equal sign. Unless otherw ise indicated, the source material was
taken from R M S (2 0 0 1-2 0 0 5 ): A j i a V a r v a r a (Athens, Greece; Igla, 1996); Fiorina A rlia

Bahan dengan hak cipta

LANGUAGE CONTACT 423

(N Greece); Futadzi (Haskovo, SE Bulgaria; Ivanov, 2000); Kaspican X o r a x a n i (Sevlievo,

N E Bulgaria); Sepeci (Izmir, Turkey; Cecil and Ileinschink, 1999); S in d e l K a l b u r d z i (NE
Bulgaria); Sliven Muzikanti (SE Bulgaria); Sliven Nange (= Gradeski, SE Bulgaria); Spoitori
(= Kalajdzi, SE Rom an ia); Varna Burgudzi (= Parpulii, N E Bulgaria); V arna G adzikano
(N E Bulgaria); V a r n a KalajdAi (= Trakijski Kalajdzi = V laxorja, N E Bulgaria).
9. The changc o f the 2pl preterite stem vowel fro m /є/ to /а/is a separate p h en o m e­
non found in m an y Rom ani dialects (see M atras, 2002, p. 145).
10. The long form o f the present with final -a is distinguished from the short form in
som e dialects as indicative versus subjunctive, and outside the Balkans, the long form
serves as a future or a formal register in som e dialects (see Elsik and M atras, 2006, p. 191).
’I here is considerable dialectal variation in details o f the shapes or m o rphem es, the
deployment o f та, etc. (see Elsik and Matras, 2006, p. 201).
11. Imperfects and pluperfects using invariant sine — the 3sg preterite o f ‘be’— for all persons
arc typical o f those Arli dialects where -s is lost in final and intervocalic position. The usage may
be influenced by the M acedonian use o f the 2Sg3Sg I M P bese, which, in addition to
m arking the pluperfect when used with the verbal /-form, e.g., bese napravil ‘you/he had
done’, can be used in any person o f the past indefinite as an emphatic past, e.g., bese sum
napravil ‘ I have/had indeed done!
12. Affixes that can also o ccu r as clitics are indicated by a preceding (-/), which so m e­
times surfaces as /у/. M arkers arc given in their bare (3sg) form, to which person markers arc
attached. The row labeled icii in Table 13.4 indicates that the dialects marked with a plus use
the clitic to form imperfects, pluperfects, etc., as in Turkish rather than adding the Romani
remoteness marker -as. Question marks are used where there wrere lacunae in the data.
13. For the abbreviated terms, see note 8.
14. I shall use B C S to refer to the current Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin
standards as well as the form er Serbo-Croatian.
15. M aced o nian has 110 aorist for the verb ima ‘have’, and the aorist o f ‘be’ (3sg hi) is
archaic or obsolete and is not used in form ing analytic tenses.
16. Additional participial constructions o ccu r throughout Albanian.
17. There is considerably more com plexity to the conditional systems o f the various
Balkan languages, but here we are concerned o n ly with the convergence o f anterior future
with irreal conditional marking.
18. This includes M acedonian and Bulgarian, where the old perfect developed
contextual variant meanings o f non-confirmative in contrast to the synthetic aorist and
imperfect, w hich arc marked as confirmative. The non-confirmative contextual variant
m eaning o f the old perfect resulted in a non-confirmative invariant m eaning for later forms
(new pluperfects, etc.) using the old perfect o f ‘ be’ or ‘have’ as an auxiliary. See §5 below.
19. Rexhep Ismajli recounts that when Pavle Ivic was researching the Serbian town
dialect o f Prizren and asked a group o f old w om en to count “ the old w ay” they began to
count in A rom anian .
20. Sec Johanson (1971) and Friedm an (1977, 2000) for n um erous examples where the
relevant forms cannot possibly refer to witnessed actions. 'Ihe forms can refer to states at
the m om en t o f completion, e.g., M acedonian P F V A O R Stignavm e ‘We have arrived’ (as
the train pulls in to the station), or even a hypothetical completion.
21 F riedm an (1977, 2000) argues that m arking for confirm ativity in the simple
preterites o f Turkish and BS is basic, while various non-confirmative usages o f perfects
refer to felicitous (reported/inferential o r dubitative) and infelicitous (admirative) d eploy­
ments o f the concept “ nonconfirmativc,” itself an implication (but not invariant meaning)
resulting from confirmative m arking in the simple preterites.

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424 PERSPECTIVES

22. Three o r four verbs use the aorist base, m ost importantly ‘be* and ‘have’, but this
can be attributed to the identifiably aorist stem o f the participle in these c o m m o n verbs in
both Albanian and A ro m an ian . In the Albanian source dialects the past participle ends in
-e, which looks like a masculine plural, w hen ce the otherwise unused M p l I M P participle
as the A rom an ian base.
23. The dialect has no infinitive, but the stress pattern assures us that this is the origin.
24. The form ngreu would be ngrihu in the p o st-1972 standard.

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 C H A P T E R 14

CREOLE LANGUAGES

D O N A LD W IN FO R D

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

The starting point for any discussion o f creole tense-m ood-aspect ( T M A ) systems
has traditionally been Bickertons (1981, 1984) claim that creole T M A systems, like
0 ther aspects o f creole gramm ar, were due to the workings o f a language bio p ro gram —
an innate language faculty that children appealed to in creating creoles out o f defi­
cient pidgin input. Though this view is no longer accepted by the vast m ajority o f
creolists, it has left its imprint on the field in a num ber o f different ways (see Veenstra,
2008). In the first place, it raised the question o f where creole T M A systems and
creole g ra m m a r in general came from, giving rise to continuous debate over the
com peting roles o f “universals,” superstratal input and substrate influence in creole
form ation. In the second place, it focused the fields attention on the typology o f
creole gram m atical systems, and specifically on whether creoles in general, or “ rad ­
ical" creoles in particular, conform ed to Bickertons “creole prototype.” M ore gener­
ally, it invited debate as to whether creoles represent a “special'’ or “ unique” set o f
languages. All o f these issues continue to be debated today thanks in large measure
to Bickertons provocative and revolutionary perspective on creoles. These issues
remain central to discussions o f the origins and development o f creole T M A
systems.
B ick e rto n s hypothesis also left its m a rk on the w ay research was conducted on
creole T M A , by establishing a rather unusual term in o lo g y and fram ew o rk , which
m a n y if not m ost creolists have used in their ow n analyses. Bickerton ( 19 7 4 ,19 8 1,
1984) claimed that the “prototypical” creole T M A system was m ade up o f two
com po n en ts— an inventory o f three categories (Anterior tense, Irrealis m oo d , and
N on-punctual aspect), and an invariant ordering o f Tense, M o o d , and Aspect. The
so-called prototype is represented in Table 1, with illustration from Sranan Tongo.
CREOLE LANGUAGES 429

Table 14.1 Bickerton’s “ prototypical” creole T M A system (illustrated with

Sranan markers)

Anterior Irrealis Non-punctual

____ s v▼
.......... > + -— > eV
---- > + — ....... -> - — > sa V
------------- > + — > sa e V
— > + ----------> _ .......... -> - — > ben V
------ > + — > ben e V
---- > + -.........-> - — > ben sa V
— > + — > ben sa e V

For a long time, research on creole T M A systems took this fram ew o rk as its
starting point, attempting to sh o w how closely they matched the prototype. Dahl
(1993, p. 251) was struck by “the extent to w h ic h — due to the influence o f Bicker­
tons w o r k — the study o f creole T M A system s has b e co m e an autonom ous tradi­
tion, with its own term in o lo gy and conceptual apparatus, with an ensuing relatively
restricted influence o f non-creolist T M A studies.” A n o th e r consequence o f this
was that the indeterm inacy o f Bickertons terms and definitions (or perhaps more
accurately, creolists’ interpretation o f them) led to inaccuracies and inconsistencies
in the analysis o f creole T M A categories (see W inford, 1996). Most research o f the
last fifteen years has departed from Bickertons m odel, em b racin g instead the
fram ew orks em ployed by typologists such as C o m rie (19 7 6 ,19 8 5 ), C h u n g and T im -
berlake (1985), Dahl (1985), and Bybee et al. (1994). There have also been recent
attempts to apply form al sem antic m od els to the analysis o f creole T M A (see van
de Vate, 2010). This has allowed for m ore accurate and systematic analyses, as well
as m ore insightful com parison s, o f creole T M A systems. The m ost im portant c o n ­
sequence o f such research has been the d iscovery that these systems are much
m ore diverse than originally thought, and that even those creoles that share the
sam e lexifier language display significant differences. The focus in the field has
therefore shifted toward explaining not just the similarities, but the diversity we
find a m o n g creoles.
This shift in focus also reflects a departure from attempts to explain creole T M A
systems as instantiations o f a universal innate language bioprogram to explaining
them in terms o f the interaction o f linguistic inputs, social contexts and m ec h a ­
nisms o f contact-induced change.1 Recent research has revealed the significant in ­
fluence o f substrate languages in shaping various aspects o f creole grammar,
including T M A , w hile at the same time revealing the contribution from superstrate
languages. In all the above respects, the study o f creole T M A systems has increas­
ingly becom e part o f the m ainstream o f current research, contributing m ore to our
understanding o f the typology o f tense-aspect systems, their organization, their his­
tory and their development.
In the rest o f this chapter, I focus m y attention on the tense-aspect systems o f
selected groups o f creoles whose lexifier languages were European languages such
430 PERSPECTIVES

as English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. I discuss the similarities and differ­
ences a m o n g them, and attempt to explain these in terms o f the linguistic inputs as
well as the processes o f internally and externally motivated change that operated in
the course o f creole formation and later development. 1 approach this task from a
typological perspective, and m ore specifically from the view poin t o f gram matical-
ization processes.2 1 argue that both internally and externally motivated gram m ati-
calization played m ajor roles in shaping creole tense-aspect systems. Such processes
are in fact associated with situations o f natural or untutored second language acq u i­
sition, particularly under conditions where learners have restricted access to native-
speaker m odels o f the target language, and increasingly target the L i varieties used
by m em bers o f their own group. In section 2 , 1 provide further justification for this
view o f creole form ation as a consequence o f natural second language acquisition.
From this perspective, I also discuss the emergence o f tense-aspect systems in two
creoles with very different inputs and histories— Haitian Creole and Sranan Tongo.
In section 3 , 1 elaborate further on the processes o f grammaticalization that led to
the em ergence o f creole tense-aspect categories. Finally, in section 4, I compare
tense-aspect systems in creoles o f different lexical affiliation, and discuss them from
the point o f view o f typological relationships.

2. T h e E m er g en ce of Ten se-A s p e c t in

C reole F o r m a tio n

Largely due to Bickertons influence, creole formation was earlier conceived o f as a

process o f first language acquisition in which the prim ary input came from pid-
ginized varieties that were deficient in structure and expressive power. As a result,
infants had to appeal to innate universal principles to create creole structures essen­
tially ab ovo. This hypothesis has been convincingly rebutted by various scholars (see
Singler, 1992; Arends, 1996; Roberts, 2000). There is now general consensus am ong
creolists that creole formation involved natural second language acquisition by
speakers who had fully developed Lis, and that differences in the nature and extent o f
L i and L2 input, am ong other factors, led to differences in outcomes across creoles.
All types o f S L A involve stages o f re s tru c tu rin g — the p ro cess by w h ich interlan­
gu a g e ( IL) g r a m m a r s are su ccessively built up and revised as n e w relevant data are
encountered. The initial stage o f the process involves the creation o f a h ig h ly sim p li­
fied IL system , w h ic h is follow ed b y elaborative stages in w h ich learners exp an d
their basic system , d r a w in g on three m a jo r sources. T hese include input (intake)
fro m varieties o f the target language, Li influence, and internal d evelop m en ts p e c u ­
liar to the IL system itself. D ifferences in the degree to w h ic h each type o f input
figures in later stages o f IL restru ctu rin g lead to differences in the o u tc o m es o f S L A .
Social factors, in clu d in g d e m o g r a p h ic s , c o m m u n it y settings, codes o f interaction,
attitudinal factors and so on, help to d eterm in e the outcom es. Tense-aspect system s

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CREOLE LANGUAGES 431

provide clear evidence o f the different degrees o f interaction a m o n g the various

kinds o f factors, and how they guide the restructuring process. In typical S L A , the
acquisition o f tense-aspect follows a very sim ilar pattern o f development crosslin-
guistically. A cco rd in g to B ard ovi-H arlig (2000, p. 25ff.), the following stages have
been observed:

Stage 1: The pragmatic stage. This is characterized by use o f bare verbs,

reliance on chronological order, and the strategy o f “scaffolding” or reliance
on the other interlocutors utterances.
Stage 2: The lexical stage. In this stage, the use o f bare verbs continues, and
there is strong reliance on temporal and locative adverbs to convey time
reference. Other strategies include the use o f connectives (e.g., “and, then” ),
the use o f dates or days o f the week, and the use o f temporal verbs like
“start” and “ finish.”
Stage 3: The m orphological stage. Again, use o f bare verbs continues, but then
verbal m o rp h o lo g y begins to appear, usually in a fixed order, d ep en d in g on
the target involved. For instance, the (perfective) Past tense emerges first in
all cases, followed by the Imperfective Past in L2 varieties o f Rom ance
languages and the Perfect in L2 varieties o f G e rm a n ic languages.

This general pattern o f acquisition is based on studies by Klein (1993,1995), and

sum m arized in B a rd ovi-IIarlig (2000, p. 119). It seems to be typical o f learners who
have both access to, and frequent opportunity to use, the target language. The
restructuring o f tense-aspect in creoles departs radically from this scenario, partic­
ularly with regard to the m orphological stage o f acquisition. Since learners lack
sufficient access to native m odels o f the superstrate language, they have less o p p o r­
tunity to acquire the m orphological expressions o f tense and aspect that would
allow them to approximate superstrate g ra m m a r more closely. Creoles such as
Réunionnais and Bajan (Barbados Creole), whose creators had m ore adequate and
continuous access to superstrate varieties, approximate the latter m ore closely. In
other cases, such as Haitian Creole (H C ), such access seems to have been available
in the earlier stages o f contact, as evidenced by the close correspondences between
the creole tense-aspect m arkers and elements used in the expression o f tense-aspect
in French (FR). Even here, however, significant innovation due to both internal and
substrate-influenced change took place. This was due prim arily to the fact that the
shaping o f H C g ra m m a r took place over a long period involving successive stages o f
SL A by new African arrivals, w ho continued to restructure the system under Li
influence. This w a s true o f other creoles as well. Still other creoles, such as Sranan
Tongo (SN), depart more radically from their lexifier language (English in this case)
because o f their creators’ need to rely m ore on Li know ledge and internal in n o v a ­
tion because o f the m ore restricted availability o f native superstrate m odels. To
understand how the interaction o f these different factors led to the different out­
comes, I will now discuss the emergence o f tense-aspect systems in I I C and SN in
more detail. I’ve chosen these two creoles because their tense-aspect systems are
relatively well docum ented, which is unfortunately not true o f m ost creoles. The

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fuller docum entation allows us to use these two cases as illustrative o f the complex
processes by which creole tense-aspect systems in general came into being.

2.1. The Emergence of Tense-Aspect in Haitian Creole

Though Haiti was first settled by French colonists in 1630, it wasn’t until 1665 that
the colony, then known as Saint D o m in g u e, received its first French governor. The
population at that time consisted o f about 400 planters, som e slaves, and an
unknow n nu m ber o f freebooters. By 1681, it had grown to alm ost 7,000, including
4,336 French settlers and 2,312 African slaves (see Patterson, 1982). Up to this point,
the econ om y was based on small-scale farm ing involving close contact between
A fricans and speakers o f French regional dialects. A s a consequence, the earliest
varieties o f Haitian Creole were closer to their European models. In the late seven­
teenth century, sugar plantations were established on the island, and this led to
rapid and massive growth o f the A fric an population until 1791, when the Haitian
Revolution ended French rule and the slave trade. In the course o f the plantation
period, Haitian Creole diverged significantly from its earlier forms, as newly ar­
riving Africans acquired it as a second language. By 1750 or so, Haitian Creole had
emerged as a v e r y different language. It is generally accepted that the m a jo r su b ­
strate influence on the g ra m m a r cam e from G b e languages, particularly Fongbe and
Ewegbe (see Singler, 1993, p. 245).
Tlie early history o f Haiti explains w hy m any o f the features o f H C g ram m ar
involve continuities from the French dialects that survived d u rin g the first 10 0 years
o f the colony’s settlement. On the other hand, the developments during the planta­
tion period explain w h y so much o f H C g ra m m a r bears the m ark o f G b e and other
West A frican influence. Given this scenario, it is not surprising that scholars dis­
agree about the precise sources o f H C grammar. For instance, DeGrafT (2005, p. 320)
argues that “all o f the preverbal T M A m o rph em es in H C . . . can be straightfor­
w ardly traced back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French.” On the other
hand, Lefebvre (1998, p. 111) argues that “the general features o f the Haitian T M A
system pattern on the m o d el o f Fongbe rather than French.” These two positions are
by no means irreconcilable. It is clear that the form s used to convey T M A notions
in H C derive fro m French, but it is equally clear that their functions and/or s e m a n ­
tics in most cases display significant influence from the G b e substrate (see Lefebvre
19 9 6 ,19 9 8 ). Table 14.2 provides a s u m m a r y o f the tense/aspect categories o f H C , the
form s that express them, and their sources in French dialects. It is based on D e G r a if
(2005, pp. 32 0 -3 2 3) and Spears (1990). I have am ended their labels somewhat.
As the table shows, there are close correspondences between the I I C tense-
aspect markers and elements used in French constructions to convey temporal
m eanings. The following examples from DeGrafT (2005, pp. 32off.) illustrate this.

(1) a. HC. Li te (deja) ale.

3Sg PAST (already) go

“ He had (already) gone.”

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CREOLE LANGUAGES 433

Table 14.2 Sources o f main I I C T M A m arker (W inford 20 0 0 )

I I C category I I C marker Regional French sources

Perfective Unmarked Infinitival/3rd sing/particle
(Relative) past te Imperf. était / PP été
Progressive/immediate future ap être après à +V
Indefinite future va (a/aviva) va(s) + V
Prospective future (a)pral(e) après (de/à) aller
Completive (perfect) fin(i) fin ir ‘finish’

b. FR. Il était (déjà) allée

3sg masc was (already) go (PP)
“ He had (already) gone.”

(2) a. HC. Ou (a)va ale demen.

You FUT go tomorrow
“ You will go tom orrow ”
b. FR. Tu vas aller demain.
“ You will go tomorrow.”

(3) a. HC. M ap(e) demele woblèm

isg PROG untangle roblem
“ I am untangling problems.”
b. FR. Je suis maintenant après à demester le chaos
(i7th-c. FR.)
isg be now after P R E P untangle the chaos
“ I am now untangling the chaos.”

(4) a. HC. Nou fin(i) sakle

ipl C O M PL weed
“ We have weeded.”
b. FR. Nou avons fini de sarcler
We have finished to weed
“ We have finished weeding.”

Fattier (1998, pp. 864-888) provides a m ore detailed overview o f the p h o n o lo g ­

ical, semantic and distributional correspondences between the I I C tense-aspect
markers and their counterparts in French.
But the HC] m ark ers also display differences fro m their French etym on s in
sem antics and syntactic properties, w h ic h can be ascribed to both substrate influ­
ence as well as internal developm ents. With regard to syntax, the I I C c o n stru c ­
tions do not replicate their French m od els. S o m e tense-aspect m a rk ers such as te
and ap are m o d eled on French form s that already had g ra m m a tic a l or quasi-
g ra m m a tic a l fun ctions in French, but these French fu n ctions (copula and p re p o ­
sition respectively) were tran sfo rm ed in H C . O ther H C m ark ers such as va and
fin derive fr o m lexical items that were reinterpreted as new fun ctional categories.
All o f the tense-aspect m ark ers also enter into variou s c o m b in a tio n s to express
quite c o m p le x tem poral and m o d al notions, none o f w h ic h has any m o d el in

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4 34 PERSPECTIVES

F ren c h . W ith reg ard to se m a n tic s , u n m a r k e d v e rb s in H C a llo w for a v a r ie ty o f

in te rp re ta tio n s, in c lu d in g sim p le p resen t for statives, s im p le past for n o n -sta tiv e s,
and habitual m e a n in g . Th ere are no c o u n t e r p a r t s to this in F r e n c h . I I C apy w h ile
e x p r e s s in g p r o g r e s s iv e m e a n in g , also c o n v e y s the se n s e o f an im m e d ia te , or m o re
c ertain fu tu re , as w ell as a habitual in s o m e co ntexts. This a p p ea rs to be a m o r e
recent internal d e v e lo p m e n t (see S p e a rs, 1990, p. 125). H C (a)va c o n v e y s the sense
o f a m o r e u n c e r ta in , or in s o m e c o n te x ts, h y p o th e tic a l fu tu re . S p e a r s (1990, p.
128) a rg u e s that it c o n v e y s n o tio n s such as d e sid era tiv e, p u r p o s i v e , h yp o th e tic a l,
c o u n te r fa c t iv e a n d d ub itative, w h ic h he a sso c ia te s with s u b ju n c t iv e m o o d . A g a in ,
su c h m e a n in g s a n d uses d istin gu ish H C va clearly f r o m its Fren ch c o u n te rp a rt.
In s im ila r fa s h io n , m a r k e r s like te and fin h a v e d e v e lo p e d quite differen t m e a n ­
ings a n d in te rp re ta tio n s fr o m th o se o f their r e s p e c tiv e F re n c h e t y m o n s . Te is
p r o b a b ly b e s t a n a ly z e d as a m a r k e r o f R elative Past tense, s t r ik in g ly s im ila r in
m e a n i n g and use to o th e r R elative Past m a r k e r s in A tlan tic creoles. Fin has b e e n
a n a ly z e d as a m a r k e r o f C o m p l e t i v e Perfect (A n te rio r, in o th e r t e r m i n o lo g y ) . In
I I C , like its c o u n te r p a r t s in o th er F r e n c h - le x i c o n creo les, it ex p re sse s the se n se o f
the resultant state o f s o m e p r e c e d in g event, a lo n g w ith o th er m e a n i n g s (see d i s ­
c u ssio n in se ctio n 3). A g a in , n o n e o f these m e a n i n g s or uses can b e a ttrib uted to
F re n ch in flu en c e on its o w n . Rather, they h av e to be e x p la in e d in te rm s o f in te r ­
nal d e v e lo p m e n t s and su b strate in flu en c e (see Le feb v re , 1 9 9 6 ,1 9 9 8 fo r fu ller d i s ­
c u ssio n o f the latter).

2.2. The Emergence of Tense-Aspect in Sranan Tongo

S r a n a n T o n g o (“ S u r i n a m e T o n g u e ” ) r e p r e s e n ts a c a se w h e r e the inp ut f r o m n a ­
tive or L2 s p e a k e r s o f the s u p e r s t a t e d ia le c ts w a s s e v e r e l y li m i t e d a lm o s t fr o m
the v e r y sta rt. S u r i n a m e w a s c o lo n iz e d b y the E n g lis h in 1651, but c e d e d to the
D u tc h in 1667. T h e E n g lis h e s ta b lis h e d a p la n ta tio n s y s te m f a ir ly rapid ly,
b r i n g i n g w ith th e m sla v e s f r o m o th e r c o lo n ie s su c h as B a r b a d o s . A f t e r the
D u tc h a s s u m e d p o w e r, the n u m b e r o f E n g li s h se ttlers d e c lin e d f r o m a p p r o x i ­
m a t e ly 1500 in 1666 to o n ly a b o u t 38 in 1680 (see V o o r h o e v e and L ic h tfe ld , 1975,
pp. 2 - 3 ) . B y 1695, m o s t E n g lis h p la n te rs a n d in d e n t u r e d s e r v a n t s h a d left, ta k in g
w ith th em the slaves w h o h a d b e e n a c q u i r e d b e fo r e the D u t c h t o o k c o n tr o l, and
w h o no d o u b t s p o k e s o m e fo r m o f E n g lis h as w ell. A s a result o f c o n t i n u i n g
i m p o r t a t i o n o f slaves fr o m 1675 o n, the ratio o f A f r i c a n s to E u r o p e a n s in c r e a s e d
fr o m 2/3:1 in 1679 to 12:1 b y 16 8 0 , w h ile d u r i n g the 16 8 0 s the ratio o f old to
n e w slaves d e c r e a s e d fr o m n e a r ly 7:1 to n e a r ly 2:1. A c c o r d i n g to P o s t m a (1990,
p. 185), th e re w e r e a b o u t 13,604 A f r i c a n s a n d o n ly 935 E u r o p e a n s in the c o lo n y
b y 1720. A s w a s the c a se in H a iti, the f o r m e r c o n s is te d o f m o s t l y s p e a k e r s o f G b e
v a r ie tie s , w h o m a d e up a b o u t 70% o f all the sla v e s b r o u g h t to S u r i n a m e d u r i n g
th e e a r ly e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y . T h e e a rly w i t h d r a w a l o f E n g lis h s p e a k i n g p la n te rs
a n d slaves m e a n t that the m o d e l s a v a ila b le to n e w A f r i c a n sla v e s w e r e p r i m a r i l y
p i d g i n i z e d o r h ig h ly c h a n g e d L2 v a r ie t ie s o f E n g li s h (see M ig g e , 1998). T h i s
m e a n t that the T M A s y s t e m o f S r a n a n h a d to b e c r e a te d p r a c t ic a lly f r o m sc ra tc h ,

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via rean alysis o f available lexical items from E n g lish and other lan gu ages. Table
14.3 p ro vid e s a s u m m a r y o f the m a jo r ten se-asp ect m a rk e rs in Sran an and their
sources.
The unm arked verb is in perfective aspect, representing situations viewed as
unanalyzed wholes, and conveying the sense o f present time reference with statives,
and past time reference with non-statives (when the reference point is the time of
utterance):

(5) A pikin wani go sribi

DET child want go sleep
“ The child wants to go to sleep.”
(6) A kamra kowru bikaa me opo a fensre
DET room cold because lsg open DET window
“ The room is cold because I opened the window.”

Imperfective (habitual, progressive, and related) m eanings are expressed by the

form e , which is derived from the copula de.

(7) Fowru e singi, dagu e bari

Bird IM P F sing, dog IM P F bark
“ Birds sing, dogs hark.”
(S) Wan tu fu den pikin e wroko gron now ooktu
One two o f the-pl child IM P F work ground now also
“ Some o f the children are also cultivating the land now.”

Past and Future tenses are expressed by ben and 0 (< go) respectively; they are
both relative tenses.

(9) A ben taigi mi a o kon na fesisey baka

3sg PAST tell lsg 3sg FUT come LO G front.side back
“ He told me he would come to the front again.”

Finally, VP-final kaba expresses the sense o f already’.

(10) Di mi doro na oso esde, mi brada ben gwe

W hen lsg arrive L O C house yesterday, lsg brother PAST go.aw aykaba
already
“ W hen I arrived home yesterday, my brother had already left.”

Table 14.3 M ajor tense/aspect categories in Sranan and their sources

Sranan category Marker Source

Perfective Unmarked Bare verb

Imperfective e < de English there
Completive perfect kaba (VP-final) Po rtuguese acabar .finish
Relative past Ben Eng. been
Predictive future 0 Eng .go

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The above com parison o f the sources and emergence o f tense-aspect categories
in Haitian Creole and Sranan shows that there is no single form ula to explain their
creation, nor any single mold into w h ich we can fit them. There are som e respects
in which the process resembles that found in the m ore usual cases o f natural second
language acquisition, as scholars like C h auden son (1992, 2001) and D e G r a ff (2005)
have argued. But there are significant differences as well, prim arily due to the far
greater role played by internal developments and substrate influence in creole for­
mation (K ouw enberg, 2 0 0 6 ; W inford, 2006). I turn m y attention to these two
aspects o f the creation o f creole tense-aspect systems in the following section.

3. T h e R o l e of G r a m m a t i c a l i z a t i o n in t h e

C r ea tio n of C reole T en se-A spect Sy s t e m s

It is now c o m m o n ly recognized that the processes o f change that led to the creation
o f creole g ra m m a r involved both internally and externally motivated g ram m atical­
ization. (See Bruyn, 1996, 2008.) The latter type has typically been discussed under
the rubric o f substrate influence. Before I proceed further, it is necessary to clarify
the sense in which I will be using the term “grammaticalization.” Bybee (2006, p. 16)
defines it as “ the process by which constructions arise in languages and the lexical
items in them becom e gram m atical m orphem es.” This is a g oo d start, but some
aspects o f the definition are questionable. In the first place, som e scholars (e.g.,
Fischer, to appear) object to the extension o f the term to refer to the development o f
gram m atical constructions in general, including such ph enom ena as word order
restrictions and the creation o f new syntactic patterns (see Bybee, 2003; Hopper and
Traugott, 2003). For present purposes, I restrict the term only to the creation o f new
functional categories. Second, I w o u ld argue that grammaticalization need involve
only lexical items, since certain types o f gram m atical m orph em es may be further
reanalyzed as new functional categories. In this, I agree with Heine and Kuteva
(2005, p. 14), w ho suggest that “grammaticalization is a process leading from lexical
to gram m atical and from gram m atical to m ore gram m atical form s . . .” Som e
scholars, for exam ple Detgers (2000), prefer to restrict grammaticalization only to
the reanalysis o f lexical items, and argue that the process whereby items that already
had gram m atical functions are further reinterpreted as functional categories should
be referred to as instances o f “ reanalysis” Thus, for Detgers, the reinterpretation o f
French lexical item fini(r) as the Com pletive Perfect m arker fin (i) in French creoles
would be a case o f grammaticalization (2000, p. 139), w hile the reinterpretation o f
French past tense auxiliary était as a Past tense m arker te would be an exam ple o f
reanalysis (2 0 0 0 , p. 146). I will refer to both types o f developm ent as cases o f g r a m ­
maticalization, and treat reanalysis as simply the m ain com ponent o f this more g e n ­
eral process— if indeed the two need to be distinguished at all (see Ilaspelm ath,
1998; Joseph, 2004). Following Joseph, I view grammaticalization as a cover term

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CREOLE LANGUAGES 437

for a variety o f processes involved in the creation o f fu n ctio n a l categories, in clu d in g

reanalysis, se m a n tic bleaching, ph o n etic red u ctio n, and so on. In the rest o f this
section, I exp lore the roles o f internally and externally m otivated gra m m a tic a liz a-
tion in the creation o f creole tense-aspect system s, and argue that the paths o f
change that led to their em e rg e n c e m ir r o r those fo u n d in processes o f gra m m a tica l-
ization crosslinguistically. I fu r th e r argue that both types o f g ra m m a tic a liz atio n are
co n strain ed by universal cognitive principles, th o ugh they differ w ith respect to the
k in d s o f m e c h a n is m involved. Finally, since the gra m m a tica liz atio n paths differed
s o m e w h a t from one creole to a n o th er because o f differences in linguistic inputs, the
social ecology, and later internal d evelop m en ts, we find differences across creoles
both in their in v en to ry o f tense-aspect categories, and in the m e a n in g s and uses
they assign to sim ilar categories.

3.1. Internally Motivated Grammaticalization and

Creole Tense-Aspect Systems
Research on language typology has provided convincing evidence for the recurrence
o f the same mechanisms and paths o f change in the grammaticalization o f tense-
aspect categories crosslinguistically (see Hopper and Traugott, 1993; Bybee et al.,
1994). For instance, Progressives develop from constructions containing locative cop ­
ulas, or from verbs o f movement such as go* and come’ Perfects develop from resul-
tative constructions involving ‘be’ and ‘have’ + PP, or from verbs m eaning ‘finish’.
Futures develop from verbs meaning ‘want’ or ‘have to’ or from temporal adverbs
meaning ‘soon or ‘after’ (see Bybee, 2006, pp. 184-185). Bybee (2006, p. 186) argues
that “ This remarkable similarity in grammaticalization paths across unrelated lan­
guages strongly suggests that universals o f diachronic development be included in a
theory o f language universals.” I return to this question in section 4. Though Bybees
observation was based on studies o f internally motivated grammaticalization, her
argument can well be extended to contact-induced grammaticalization, which
involves reanalysis o f items in a language such that they acquire grammatical m e a n ­
ings and functions derived from another language. Heine and Kuteva (2005, p. 266)
suggest that “ the general mechanism shaping the development o f grammatical cate­
gories is the same irrespective o f whether or not language contact is involved.” The
emergence o f creole tense aspect systems lends further support to both Bybees, and
Heine and Kutevas positions. In fact, creoles display a remarkably similar set o f tense-
aspect categories, all o f which appear to have arisen through similar processes of
grammaticalization. I will illustrate this with examples from creoles o f English,
French and Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish) lexicon, beginning with tense cate­
gories, w h ich emerged prim arily through internally motivated grammaticalization
(though substrate influence also played som e role), and proceeding to aspectual cat­
egories, which emerged prim arily through externally motivated grammaticalization.
C reo les related to E u ro p e a n languages g e n e rally m an ifest two p r i m a r y tense
categories, Past, and Future. In the Atlantic English lexicon creoles (both those in

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438 PERSPECTIVES

the Caribbean and in West A frica), the Past is expressed by forms derived from
English been , which include ben in Sranan, (b)en/wen in Jamaican, bin in Guyanese,
and mi (< min < bin) in Belizean.3

(11) (Sranan) Aay, na mi ben opo a fensre.

Yes, FOC îsg PAST open DET window
“ Yes, it was me that opened the window.” (Winford, 2000, p. 400)

Pacific contact Englishes such as H aw ai’i Creole, the three varieties o f “M elan e­
sian P id g in ’— Tok Pisin, Bislama, and Pijin, and Roper Kriol o f Australia also have
a Past m arker derived from been (alternating with wen (< went) in H aw ai’i Creole
(see Siegel, 2008, p. 261).
Past tense m arkers derived from been in Atlantic and Pacific creoles:

Belize Jamaica East Carib. Sur. Nigeria PE Melan. PE Hawai’i Kriol

Mi ben/wen bin ben/bi bin bin ben/wen bin

These categories are not all identical in m eaning and use, however. The Past
category in the Pacific varieties appears to be an Absolute Past, which locates an
event or situation as past in relation to the time o f utterance. In the Caribbean, and
m ore generally in the Atlantic, the past tense category is a Relative Past, which
locates an event or situation as past in relation to either the time o f utterance or to
som e other reference point in the past.
The grammaticalization path that gave rise to these Past categories seems to
have been som ew h at as follows:

'I he Past path

M ove m en t to a goal in the past > completion o f goal > past

1 been see him = “1 went and saw h im ” > I saw him.

In the French lexicon creoles, the Past m arker te and its variant ti derived, as we
have seen, from the French auxiliary était , perhaps reinforced by the past participial
form été. Detgers (2000, p. 12) suggests that the following “ Principle o f restructur­
ing” was at w o rk in the grammaticalization o f te/ti :

T ry to match salient elements o f the situation, as you perceive it, with the sound
chain you hear.

A cco rd in g to this principle, learners perceived était as regularly o c cu rrin g in

contexts m arked by past adverbials, and assigned the function o f past m ark in g to it
on that basis. I11 addition, the fact that the imparfait construction with était was
regularly used for background information in narrative texts probably explains why
te/ti was reanalyzed as a marker o f expositional and background information,
leading to its use in contexts such as preceding stative verbs, which is not possible
for était (see Detgers, 200 0, pp. 152-153). This scenario is in keeping with the analysis
o f te/ti as a m ark er o f Relative Past.
Past markers in French-Lexicon creoles:

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CREOLE LANGUAGES 439

Louis. Haiti Hast Carib. Fr. Guy. Mauritius Reunion Tayo

tc tc tc tc ti tc tc

Like their Fren ch -lexico n counterparts, Iberian-lexicon creoles generally

adopted g ra m m a tic a l m o r p h e m e s from their s u p e r s t a t e s a n d reinterpreted th em as
m ark ers o f tense-aspect. So m e (in clud ing Palenquero and the U p p e r G u in e a Portu­
guese creoles o f C a p e Verde and G u in e a -B issa u ) adopted suffixal -ba (< Portuguese/
Spanish imperfectivo en d in g - ba ), w h ile others such as the Lo w er G u in e a Portuguese
creoles (Principe, Sao Tom e, etc.) e m p lo y preverbal taba , derived from a past fo rm o f
estar “ to b e .” 4 A ngolar, a m a r o o n creole sp o ken in Sao Tom e, em ploys ta , also derived
from estdy or perhaps a reduced form o f taba. P ap iam en tu em ploys preverbal a,
derived from ha, the third singular form o f Portuguese/Span ish au x ilia ry haber.
Past m ark ers in s o m e Ib e ria n -L e x ic o n creoles:

Pap. Pal. C. Vcrdc (Brava) Guinea Bissau Principc Sao Tome Angolar
a V V-ba V-ba V-ba tava V tava V ta

Future tense m ark ers derive from go in all varieties o f C E C except Belize creole,
w h ich has a Future m a r k e r wa derived from want. J C em p lo ys both a go ( P R O G +
go , and wi (< will).

(12) (Sranan) Efu yu no wroko, dan yu no o nyan, tog

If you N E G work, then you N E G FUT eat, TAG
“ I f you don’t work, then you won’t eat, right?” (Winford, 2000, p. 412)
(13) (Belizean) Junie see i wa kom luk fi yu wan a diiz deez.
Junie say 3sg FUT come look for you one o f these days
“ Junie says she’ll come and look you up one o f these days.”
(Winford, 2001, p. 165)

F uture m a rk e rs in Atlantic E n g lish creoles and H a w a i’i Creole:

Belize Jamaica East Carib. Sur. Nigerian Ghanaian PE Hawai’i

wa wi/a go go o go go go

The Fren ch lexicon creoles also e m p lo y F u tu re m a rk e rs d eriv e d fr o m fo rm s o f

French aller go’. As w e sa w earlier, the uncertain or indefinite future m a r k e r a/va/
ava d eriv es from present sin gu lar fo rm s o f aller, and m o s t o f these creoles also
e m p lo y a P ro sp ectiv e F uture exp ressed by a co m b in atio n o f the P ro gressive m a rk er
and the lexical item go’, for ex a m p le , Haitian C r e o le (a)prale (< Prog, ap + ale),
Eastern C a r ib b e a n (Lesser Antillean and G u y a n e s e ) French C reo le kay/ke (< Prog.
ka + ale).

(14) (GuyFrC r) Pol ke lere (C o m e , 1999, p. 133)

Paul PROS cry
“ Paul will cry.”

R e u n io n C re o le em p lo ys sa(va) (< sa va < Fr. sen va g o e s’) as a prospective

future m arker, and M a u r itia n e m p lo y s pu (< French pour) in a sim ilar function.

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Future m arkers derived from aller “go” in French creoles:

Louis. Haiti East Carib. Mauritius Reunion Tayo

Future a/va a/(a)va n/a5 a/(a)va a/(a)va va
Prospect, ale (a)prale ke/kay6 n/a sa (va) n/a

Som e creoles have Future m arkers derived from temporal adverbials. For ex ­
ample, in the Melanesian Pidgin varieties, baim bai < by and by developed into a
Future marker bai/bae , which is increasingly occurring in pre-verbal position (Siegel,
2 0 0 8 , p. 64). A m o n g I b e r ia n -le x ic o n creoles, P a p ia m en tu and Papia K rista n g
(Malaysia) both em ploy a future m arker /0, derived from Portuguese logo , soon (see
Maurer, 1985, pp. 15-16 ).
All o f these developments closely parallel the em ergence o f future markers
crosslinguistically as illustrated in the following path o f change, taken from Bybee
(2006, p. 185).

The Future Path

1. ‘want’, ‘movement toward’ > I N T E N T I O N > F U T U R E
2. ‘soon, after’

Other Iberian-lexicon creoles developed rather different m arkers o f future.

Palenquero employs tan , apparently from estan> the 3rd plural indicative o f estar ‘to
be. The U pper G u in ea creoles em ploy tay while the Lower G u in ea creoles employ
ka. Interestingly, both ta and ka also function as m arkers o f habitual aspect. Sub­
strate influence appears to explain this. M aurer (1997, p. 431) suggests that ka in the
L ow er G u in e a creoles derives from Edo gha [ya], which conveys present progressive
and future, and has a low-tone counterpart that is used in hypothetical conditionals,
just as ka is used in the creoles. Its also possible that ka also represents a reduced
fo rm o f fik a , derived from Port . ficar ‘to stay, be’, which is used as an auxiliary in
progressive constructions in Portuguese.
Future m arkers in some Iberian-Lexicon creoles:

Pap. Papia Krist Pal. C. Verde (Brava) Guinea Bissau Principe Sao Tome Angolar
lo lo tan ta ta ka ka ka

3.2. Contact-Induced Grammaticalization and Tense-Aspect

in Creoles
It is well k n o w n that the creation o f creole g ra m m a r involved processes o f c o n ­
tact-induced change in w h ic h superstrate lexical items or m o rp h e m e s assum ed
the syntactic and other properties o f substrate fu n ctional categories, including
articles, plural m arkers, com plem en tizers, and tense aspect m arkers, a m o n g
others. C h a n ge s o f this type have been d escribed variou sly as cases o f transfer,
convergence, interference through shift, and so on. M ore recently, it has b e co m e
w id e ly accepted that they are best seen as instances o f con tact-in d u ced g r a m m a t i­
calization (see Heine and Kuteva, 2003, 2005). Creolists have in fact adopted this

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approach to d escrib in g the em erg en ce o f creole g r a m m a r for s o m e time (see

K eesing, 1991; Sankoff, 1991; B ru y n 1996). The extension o f the gram m aticaliza-
tion fr a m e w o r k to the study o f contact-induced language change is welcom e,
since the study o f this process has been perhaps the most im portant contribution
to fun ctionalist attempts to m ap “the com plex tem poral sub-processes by which
g ra m m a r em erges as frequently used patterns sedim en t into conventionalized
patterns” (Evans and L ev in so n , 2009, p. 444). B u ild in g on p reviou s research,
H eine and Kuteva (2003, 2005) applied the gram m aticalization fr a m e w o r k to a c ­
count for the replication o f g ram m atical functions and categories in a w ide v a ­
riety o f language contact situations across the world. It is clear that contact-induced
gram m aticalization is extrem ely c o m m o n in language contact situations, and it
m ay well be that, like internally m otivated gram m aticalization, it is due to u niver­
sal m ech an ism s o f change. I return to this briefly in section 4 below. The w orkings
o f contact-ind uced g ram m aticalization in the creation o f creole tense aspect
system s is particularly evident in the em ergence o f aspectual categories (though
not confined to these, o f course). I will illustrate this with respect to the e m e r ­
gence o f types o f P E R F E C T and P R O G R E S S 1V E / I M P E R F E C T I V E in som e o f
these languages.

3.2.1. The Emergence o f P E R F E C T in Creoles

M an y contact Englishes have a type o f P E R F E C T that is expressed by a marker
derived from a verb m eaning ‘finish’. Varieties o f C aribbean English Creole (C E C )
share the category o f C om pletive Perfect, expressed by don < done ‘finish’. For the
most part, the Perfect m arker occurs pre-verbally, as in the following example:

(15) (Belize) a don gat cvriting rcdi, inoo.

isg PERF have everything ready you.know
“ I already have everything ready, you know.”

A cross the Atlantic, Nigerian Pidgin uses preverbal don in ways quite sim ilar to
C E C and also employs finish in V P-final position. M ann (1996) informs us that don
m arks “ perfect” and provides examples o f its use with activity verbs like bil ‘build’
and adjectivals like lay a ‘tired’. By contrast, Ghanaian Pidgin English lacks don alto­
gether (see Huber, 1996, p. 56).
A s noted, the S u rin a m e s e creoles also have a C o m p le tiv e Perfect category,
expressed by kaba (< Portu gu ese acabar ‘finish’ ), w h ic h app ears in V P -fin a l p o s i ­
tion, as in the fo llo w in g exam ple:

(16) (Sranan) A kownu doro kaba

DET king arrive C O M PL
“ The king has arrived.”

W inford and M igge (2007, p. 84) demonstrate that the category is closely m o d ­
eled on the Com pletive aspect category found in G b e languages, as shown in the
following example.

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442 PERSPECTIVES

(17) (Ajagbe) aA xo Asulo a A , e va lo voA

king DET TOP he come arrive C O M PL
“A s for the king, he has already arrived.”

In G b e, the C om pletive m ark er is also identical to a m ain verb m e a n in g ‘finish’.

The creators o f these creoles clearly reinterpreted main verbal ‘finish’ as a m arker o f
Com pletive Perfect based on analogy with the use o f main verb ‘finish’ as a marker
o f Com pletive aspect in the substrate languages. This is a clear case o f w h at Heine
and Kuteva refer to as “ replica grammaticalization,” w h ic h they define as a process
in which the speakers involved “ replicate a grammaticalization process they assume
to have taken place in language M , using an analogical form ula o f the kind: [My >
M x ]: [Ry > R x ] ” (2005, p. 92).
Other creoles that developed a Resultative Perfect category expressed by a
m arker derived from a verb m eaning ‘finish’ include the three varieties o f M elan e­
sian Pidgin (Tok Pisin, Bislama, and Pijin), and H aw ai’i Creole English. In the
former, the category is expressed by pinis ‘finish’, which occurs in VP-final position,
as in the following example:

(18) Mipela lukim ol pik pinis (Siegel, 2008, p. 7)

ipl see PLU pig PERF
“ We have seen the pigs.”

In H C E , the Perfect is expressed by pau (< Hawaiian Pidgin pau ‘finish’), which
occurs preverbally.

(19) Wen Pilipo been pau talk, me 1 feel gul insi

When Pilipo PAST COMPL talk me I feel good inside
“ When Pilipo had talked to me, I felt good inside.” (Roberts, 1998, p. 26)

A cco rd in g to Siegel (2008, p. 82), its not clear whether pau was already gram-
maticalized in Pidgin Hawaiian, hence it’s possible that pau underwent language-
internal grammaticalization in H C E .
Perfect markers in Atlantic and Pacific English Creoles:

CEC W. Africa PE7 Suriname Melanesian41 Hawai’i

Pre-verbal don don n/a n/a pau
Post-VP don*' finish kaba pinis/fin is n/a

The development o f subtypes o f P E R F E C T from verbs m eaning ‘finish’ and

other sources has also been well docum ented for French-lexicon creoles (Detgers,
2000), and Iberian-lexicon creoles (Stolz, 1987). Detgers (2000) offers an interesting
account o f how this category arose through different kinds o f pragmatic inference,
with illustration from the grammaticalization o f fin i (< French fin ir ‘to finish’) in
French-lexicon and other creoles. It is also interesting to note that French Guyanese
Creole employs VP-final kaba , which it borrowed from Portuguese, as a Perfect
marker. This m a y have replaced VP-final fin iy which is attested in the nineteenth
century (Detgers, 200 0, p. 141).

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CREOLE LANGUAGES 4 43

Perfect markers in French-Lexicon creoles:

Louis. Haiti Fr. Guy. M auritius R eunion Tayo

fini fin(i) V P -k a b a (f)(i)n (la) fin(i) fini

The Iberian-lexicon creoles encode notions associated with perfect aspect in

different ways. Papiamentu, Principense and Fa d’A m b o (Lower G uinea) and Papia
Kristang all employ forms o f kaba as a resultative perfect. Kaba occurs pre-verbally
and in VP-final position in Papiamentu and Papia Kristang, and in pre-verbal p o si­
tion in the two L ow er G u in e a creoles. The U pper G uinea Portuguese creoles, by
contrast, em ploy adverbial expressions such as dja or za> derived from Portuguese
ja already’ (see Silva, 1990, p. 163). This m arker m a y appear in various positions in
the sentence in the C ape Verdean creoles, but appears post-verbally in G uinea Bis­
sau Kriyol (see Silva, 1990, p. 162). Note that postverbal za is also found in Sao Tome
(see Silva, 1990, p. 162), while preverbal ja is found in Papia Kristang.
Perfect markers in Som e Iberian-Lexicon creoles

Pap. Papia Krist. C. Verde (Brava) G u in ea Bissau Principe A n n o b o n Sao T o m e A n golar

kaba K ab a dja ja k ab a kaba za dja

The developm ent 0 t'kaba as a m ark er o f Perfect aspect in creoles like Fa d’A m b o
and Papia Kristang w a s apparently driven by substrate influence. Ferraz (1976)
mentions a num ber o f possible substrates for the former creole, while Schuchardt
(1890) show ed that kaba in Papia Kristang was used in v e r y similar ways to the
M alayan item ha:bis ‘to (be) finished’ (Schuchardt, 1890, pp. 2 4 0 - 2 4 1 , quoted by
Stolz, 1987, p. 311). W hat is interesting is that the development in all cases followed
the general paths o f change that are typical o f the emergence o f Perfect categories
cross-linguistically, with differences in the substrate inputs and internal d evelop­
ments within each creole leading to som ew hat different outcomes.
The emergence o f perfect m arkers from verbs m eaning ‘finish’, as described
above, followed a w ell-know n and frequently o ccurrin g path o f grammaticalization
found in m any languages, which Bybee (2006, p. 184) characterizes as follows:

‘finish’ > C O M P L E T I V E > A N T E R I O R > P E R F E C T I V E / P A S T

A s is also co m m o n crosslinguistically, the Resultative Perfects expressed by

‘finish’ followed som ewhat different sub-paths o f development in the various cre­
oles. This is reflected in the differences in the uses as well as the com binatory possi­
bilities associated with this category across the Atlantic creoles. For instance,
Jamaican Creole is alone a m on g C E C s in limiting its Com pletive Perfect m arker
don to non-stative predicates, while other varieties o f C E C , as well as the S u r in a m ­
ese creoles, allow use o f don with predicates o f all types. Guyanese Creole distin­
guishes between two types o f preverbal dony one with low pitch which is used
prim arily with non-statives and conveys the sense o f ‘finish’ (terminative) and one
with high pitch which is generalized to all predicates and conveys the sense o f
‘already’ (see Winford, 1993, pp. 55-56). A cross the Atlantic, Nigerian Pidgin ap­
pears to use preverbal don in w ays quite similar to C E C , em ploying it with activity
444 PERSPECTIVES

verbs like bil ‘build’ and adjectivals like taya ‘tired’ (see M an n , 1996). Such differ­
ences indicate that different creoles adopted different strategies in creating and fur­
ther gram m aticalizing their categories o f Resultative Perfect. Explanations for the
differences have to be sought in the different degrees to which substrate influence
and internal developments played a role in the shaping o f these categories.
A n o t h e r interesting e x a m p le o f the e m e rg e n c e o f a Perfect catego ry co m es
fro m H aw ai'i C r e o le English , w h ic h has g r a m m a tic a liz e d already as a m a r k e r o f
R esultative Perfect. This app ears to b e m o d e le d on the Resultative m ark ers fo u n d in
the substrate C h in e s e varieties, such as C a n to n e s e jo and H o k k ie n dou (Siegel,
2008, p. 151). A sim ilar use o f already is fo u n d in S in g a p o re C o llo q u ia l English,
w h ic h also has m o d e ls in the C h in e s e substrates (see Bao, 2005).

3.2 .2 . The Emergence o f IM P ER FE C T IV E in Creoles

The term ‘im p erfe ctiv e’ refers to n o tio ns such as ‘progressive’, ‘habitual’, ‘co n tin u o u s’,
and the like. S o m e creoles h ave distinct Progressive and H ab itu al categories, w h ile
others e m p lo y a single Im p e rfec tiv e category that s u b s u m e s these m e a n in g s. The
em e rg e n c e o f such categories can in m a n y cases b e attributed to pro cesses o f contact
in d u ced g ra m m a tica liz atio n , follow ed in s o m e cases by c o n tin u in g pro cesses o f in ­
ternally m o tiv a te d g ra m m a tic a liz atio n . A case in po int is the creation o f the Im p e r ­
fective c a te g o ry in the S u rin a m e s e creoles, w h ic h is exp ressed by e (< de) in eastern
creoles su ch as Sranan and P a m a k a and by ta (< tan stay’) in western creoles such
as S a a m a k a. There is ev id en c e from eighteenth c e n tu ry texts that de in Sranan and
tan in S a a m a k a w ere first gra m m a tic a liz e d as m ark ers o f progressive aspect (see
W in fo r d and M ig g e , 2 0 0 7 , p. 85). In the m o d e r n creoles, how ever, they express both
p ro gre ssiv e and habitual m e a n in g s, and arc clearly m ark ers o f Im perfective aspect.
The fo llo w in g e x a m p le s (2 0 , 2 1) fro m W in fo rd and M ig g e (p. 8 6 ) illustrate:

[Q: What is your brother doing right now?]

(20) a. (Sranan) a e krin en kamra
3sg IM PF clean 3sgp0ss room
b. (Saamaka) a ta seeke hen kamba
3sg IM PF arrange 3Sgp0S$ room
“ I Ie is cleaning his room.”
[Q: What kind o f job docs your brother do?]
(21) a. (Sranan) a c krin kamra
3sg IM P F clean room
“ He cleans rooms.”
b. (Saamaka) a ta bai kantoo
3sg IM P F clean office
“ He cleans offices.”

There is clear ev id en c e that G b e languages p ro v id e d the m o d e l fo r the aspectual

fu n ctio n s o f (d)e and ta(n). In G b e , co p u lar verbs such as le ‘b e at’ or no ‘stay’ also
fu n ctio n as m ark ers o f progressive aspect. In so m e varieties (e.g., X w e la g b e ) no is
CREOLE LANGUAGES 445

used in all tense-aspect specifications, w h ile in others, le is restricted to present

contexts w hile no is used with other tense-aspect markers, or in negative construc­
tions. Sranan reanalyzed its locative copula de as a progressive m arker on the model
o f G b e copula/progressive m arkers like le, w hile Saam aka reanalyzed its copula-like
verb tan on the model o f no. Later internal developments, probably reinforced by
substrate influence (see W inford and M igge, 2007, pp. 9 0 - 9 1) , resulted in the exten­
sion o f e and ta to habitual meaning, and their emergence as true Imperfective
markers. The extension o f progressive markers to imperfective m arkers is well-
attested crosslinguistically (see Bybee et al., 1994, p. 141), so both substrate influence
and universal tendencies m ay have played a role in this process.
“ Imperfective” notions in som e Atlantic English creoles

JC Bel. Guy. Cr. Sranan Saamaka W. A frica PE

“progressive” a/de di a e ta de
“habitual” 0 0 a e ta de

Similar developments have been reported for other creoles. In the Pacific,
Hawai’i Creole employs pre-verbal stei ‘be at, stay’ (< stay) as a m arker o f Progres­
sive aspect. Tok Pisin and Bislama, respectively, em ploy post-verbal i stap and pre­
verbal stap stay, be at’ in the same function. Siegel (2000, p. 2i9f.) argues that the
progressive function o f stei is modeled on the similar function p erform ed by Portu­
guese copula esta. But it is also quite possible that it is modeled on the use o f Portu­
guese fica r ‘stay’ as a progressive marker, as Sanchez (2006, p. 291) suggested. As far
as the Melanesian Pidgin varieties are concerned, the use o f stap as a marker o f P r o ­
gressive seem s to be modeled on the use o f existential verbs as markers o f progres­
sive aspect in m any Oceanic languages (see Siegel, 2008, p. i88f. for fuller discussion).
One final example comes from nineteenth century Ghanaian Pidgin English, which
employed live fo r as a m arker o f progressive aspect. Huber (1996, p. 64) suggests that
this use had a m odel in Twi, which employed its locative verb ti ‘live at, stay’ to c o n ­
vey progressive aspect.
All o f these developments follow a very co m m o n path o f grammaticalization
that has been found to recur in m a n y languages, and which Bybee (2006, p. 184)
represents as follows:

‘ be located at’ > P R O G R E S S I V E > P R E S E N T / I M P E R F E C T I V E

The Melanesian creoles express habitual m eaning with the preverbal marker
save/sae/sa, which derives from save ‘k n o w ’ (Port, sabir ‘to k n o w ’ ), and also fu n c ­
tions as a m arker o f ability in Bislama and Pijin. Siegel (2008, pp. 19 1-19 2 ) shows
that these functions have models in substrate languages such as Tangoa, where the
preverbal m arker eri can mean ‘be able to, be allowed to, know how to, be in the
habit o f ’.
Progressive and habitual m eanings are expressed in quite different ways in
French and Iberian lexicon creoles. For the most part, the French lexicon creoles
have progressives expressed by variants o f ape, derived as we saw earlier from
French apres, also used in French progressive constructions. M auritius also uses the
446 PERSPECTIVES

exp ression le antrenn , w h ile Tayo uses (an)tran de , both m o d e le d on the French
progressive être en train de. These appear to be continuities from the superstrate, as
D e G ra tf and others have argued. The Eastern Caribbean French creoles are an e x ­
ception, em ploying the preverbal marker ka as an Imperfective marker, expressing
progressive, habitual and related m eanings. It is possible that ka derives from Por­
tuguese. C o r n e (1999, p. 153) points out that fik a ‘be (< Portuguese fica r ‘to stay’)
w as a m on g several words that this language contributed to French G u y a n a Creole.
Its grammaticalization m ay well have been due to substrate inlluence similar to that
which led to the emergence o f de and tan as markers o f Imperfective in the Suri­
nam ese creoles.

“ Imperfective” m arkers in French-Lexicon creoles

Louis. Haiti E. Carib. Mauritius Reunion Tayo

“prog.” ap(c) ap ka pc 1c aprc/antrenn (an)tran dc
“ habit.” 0 o ka o 0 (an)ko

T h e r e are sim ila ritie s as well as d iffe re n c e s in the w a y I b e r ia n - le x ic o n c r e ­

oles express n o tio n s such as “ h a b itu a l” and “ p ro gressive.” In gen era l, they
e m p lo y fo r m s d e r iv e d fr o m P o r tu g u e se / S p a n is h estar , but they d o n ’t all e m p lo y
the s a m e fo r m s in the sam e fu n c tio n s . P a p ia m e n tu , P a le n q u e ro , and the C a p e
V e r d e a n P o r tu g u e se creoles e m p lo y d iffe re n t v arian ts o f esta to m a r k p r o g r e s ­
sive m e a n in g . P a p ia m e n tu and P a len q u e ro also o p tio n a lly c o m b in e ta with
v e rb s e n d in g in the p ro g r e s siv e s u f f ix -ndo (d e riv e d fro m S p a n is h / P o rtu g u e s e )
to ex p ress p ro g re ssiv e , but this m a y be a recent d e v e lo p m e n t. T h e s e creoles
also e m p lo y ta to ex p ress habitual m e a n in g , w ith the e x c e p tio n o f P alen q u e ro ,
w h ic h e m p lo y s asé in this fu n c tio n . T h e low er G u in e a P o rtu g u e se creoles use
quite d iffe re n t fo r m s , in c lu d in g ka for h ab itu al, and w h at a p p ear to be h yb rid
fo r m s c o n sis tin g o f the c o p u la sa + k a , with v a r io u s realizatio n s, to express
p ro g re s siv e m e a n in g .

“ Imperfective” m arkers in som e Iberian-lexicon creoles

Pap. Palenq. C. Verde Guinea Principe A nnobon Sao Tomé Angolar

(Brava) Bissau
“prog.” ta ta sta na sa ska/sxa ska tha/thê ka
“ hab.” ta asc ta ta ka xa ka ka

It will also be recalled that the Portuguese lexicon creoles o f both Upper and
L ow er G uin ea, also em ploy their habitual m arker to express future m ea n in g — a de­
velopment that has been attributed to influence from substrate languages.
This v ery general overview was m eant to provide only the bare outlines o f the
tense-aspect system s o f a select group o f creoles rep resen tin g those o f E uropean
affiliation. The overall inventory and organization o f the tense-aspect systems found
in each g ro u p o f creoles share m u c h in c o m m o n b e ca u se o f sim ilar superstratal
inputs, and, in som e cases, because o f similarities in substrate input (for instance the
substantial Kwa input to French and English-lexicon creoles o f the Caribbean). By

Bahan dengan hak cipta

CREOLE LANGUAGES 447

the same token, differences in substrate input also contributed to differences both
within and across the groups in their expression o f tense and aspect. For instance,
C o rn e (1999, pp. 9 5-9 6 ) argues that “ the sue element T /A system o f IF C [Isle de
France Creole o f Mauritius and The Seychelles] corresponds am azingly well to
‘C o m m o n Bantu, and that the system “ includes also a num ber o f French-derived
categories.” The com peting and com plem entary effects o f substrate and superstrate
influence, added to the effects o f internal developments, have not been thoroughly
researched for most creoles.

4. T y p o l o g y and Un iv er sa ls of C reole

T en se-A spect Sy s t e m s

The above discussion o f the emergence o f creole tense-aspect categories via p ro ­

cesses o f internally and externally motivated grammaticalization has implications
for our understanding not only o f the typology o f creole tense-aspect systems, but
also the role o f universal principles in their creation. With regard to typology, all o f
the creoles w e have exam ined em ploy categories that are sub-types o f PAST,
F U T U R E , P R O G R E S S I V E , H A B I T U A L , I M P E R F E C T I V E , and P E R F E C T . For the
most part, these are expressed by free forms preceding the verb. This set o f category
types m a y be typical o f creoles in general, though it is beyond the scope o f this ch ap­
ter to determine whether this is true. A ccordin g to K ouw en berg (2010, p. 361), the
num ber o f know n pidgins and creoles (including m a n y that are extinct) has been
estimated at around 500, and these include m any creoles, most o f which have not
been described with the kind o f rigor that w ould allow detailed com parison o f their
tense-aspect systems. Still, the available descriptions suggest that there is a great
deal o f uniform ity across creoles with regard to their inventories o f tense-aspect
categories. This set in fact corresponds quite closely to the set o f m ost com m on
n on -b ou n d gram types found crosslinguistically, which includes perfects, progres­
sives, habituals, pasts, and futures (Bybee and Dahl, 1989; Bybee et al., 1994). Thus,
there appears to be som e truth to D a h ls (1993, p. 252) suggestion that, “ L o o kin g at
what kinds o f m arkers tend to be n o n -b o u n d in T M A systems generally, we might
arrive at a general prediction o f what the semantics o f creole T M A systems should
be.” In addition, as Dahl (p. 252) also notes, since creoles had to build up these
systems practically anew, this m a y explain w h y the tense-aspect categories th e m ­
selves manifest properties that are predictable from their place in the g ram m atical­
ization process, i.e., the fact that they have not yet attained advanced stages o f
grammaticalization. Given these considerations, it is perhaps not surprising that
creoles, as you n g languages, manifest a set o f non-bound categories that show up
with striking regularity crosslinguistically. This also suggests that universal p rin ci­
ples played a role in the creation o f creole tense-aspect systems, a point to w h ich I
return below.

Material com direitos autorais

448 PERSPECTIVES

At the sam e time, however, creole tense-aspect systems display the kinds o f di­
versity w e would expect, given that grammaticalization processes are know n to
follow different sub-paths, and that differences in linguistic inputs and social ecol­
ogies lead to different outcomes. This is reflected in the differences across creoles
not only in the forms used to express the categories, but also in the m eanings and
uses to which the categories are put. We saw this in the case o f the subtypes o f P E R ­
F E C T and the different kinds o f interpretation to w h ich they arc put. A nother ex ­
ample o f aspectual differences involves the expression o f habitual meaning. It is
interesting that most o f the creoles discussed here have no distinct or exclusive H a ­
bitual category. Som e, like Jamaican, Haitian and Belizean, express “ habitual” via
unm arked verbs, or as secondary interpretations o f Progressive.10 Others, like the
eastern C E C varieties and the Surinam ese creoles, subsum e “ habitual” and “pro­
gressive” under a single Imperfective category. This, as we saw, reflects a widespread
tendency for progressives to grammaticalize further into imperfectives. Still other
creoles, such as those o f Lower and U pper G uinea, employ the same m arker for
habitual and future m ea n in g , reflectin g influence from their substrates. Sim ilar
observations can be m ade about the differences in the expression o f tense across
creoles. Som e em ploy a Future m arker derived from verbs m eaning ‘go’ or ‘want’,
others from a temporal adverb m eaning soon* or ‘later’. Past tense markers derive
generally from past form s o f ‘be’, while som e derive from past inflections adopted
from the superstrate. Here to we find differences in meanings and use, with some
creoles em ploying relative tense, and others absolute tense. The general conclusion
to be reached from this overview is that there is no invariant mold into which we
can fit creole tense-aspect systems. In other words, there are no absolute universals
o f creole tense-aspect, any m ore than there are absolute universals o f tense-aspect
crosslinguistically. But this does not m ean that we cannot appeal to universal p rin ­
ciples to explain the emergence o f creole tense-aspect.

4.1. Universal Principles and Creole Tense-Aspect

A s M airal and Gil (2006, p. 21) point out, “ it seems reasonable to assume that u n i­
versals should not be identified with specific linguistic items or constructions, since
these are unequivocally not universal.” These remarks are meant to apply to what
Sm olensky and D u p o u x (2009, p. 468) refer to as a “d e s c r ip tiv e ] universal” — “a
superficial descriptive property true o f the expression o f all languages.” While there
is g ro w in g consensus that descriptive universals are rare, if they exist at all, this does
not preclude the possibility that there are universal cognitive principles— cognitive
universals— that shape the structure o f g ram m ars. However, different scholars have
approached this question from quite different perspectives. On the one hand, for­
malists w o rk in g within the tradition o f C h om skyan generative g ra m m a r propose
that there is a set o f universal, language-specific, principles— a Universal G r a m m a r —
w hich constrains the form o f g ra m m a rs in both language acquisition and language
change. Bickertons Language Bioprogram Hypothesis might be seen as an extreme
interpretation o f the formalist approach to U G , in that it claimed that the putative
CREOLE LANGUAGES 44.9

language bioprogram itself determined the structure o f creole gram m ar, including
the prototypical T M A system. As far as I am aware, there is no consensus a m on g
formalists on what the universal properties o f tense-aspect systems m ight be, or
w hat universal principles constrain their expression and organization. F unctional­
ists w orking within the Greenbergian tradition o f typological research adopt a very
different approach to the question o f cognitive universals. This approach first seeks
language universals through empirical research that starts with a representative
sample o f languages and proceeds to generalizations based on cross-linguistic c o m ­
parison. These generalizations are in turn used as a basis for hypothesizing what
kinds o f universal principles are at w ork in the design o f human languages. F u n c ­
tionalists do not view such principles as specific to the language d om ain, but rather
seek to explain universals o f language design in terms o f more general cognitive
skills and capacities, including processing constraints and conditions o f learning,
which are seen as universal.
The functionalist approach to cognitive universals has recently been extended
to discussion o f language change, and particularly to processes o f grammaticaliza-
tion. This field o f research represents perhaps the most important contribution to
functionalist attempts to map “ the com plex temporal sub-processes by which
g ra m m a r emerges as frequently used patterns sediment into conventionalized pat­
terns” (Evans and Levinson, 2009, p. 444). The well-docum ented recurrence o f the
same m echanism s and products o f grammaticalization across languages has been
taken as evidence that the factors that produce these outcom es are themselves “ the
only true universals o f language in the sense that they operate in all languages at all
times” (Bybee, 2008, p. 108). M uch attention has been devoted in the literature to
the specific factors that are at w ork in processes o f internally motivated g ra m m a ti­
calization. In particular, researchers have discussed the role played by pragmatic
inferencing (Traugott, 1989), repetition and the automatization o f frequently o c c u r ­
ring sequences (Bybee, 2002), and analogy (Fischer, to appear). These are the very
same processes that were at w o rk in the kinds o f internally motivated g ram m atical­
ization that gave rise to creole tense-aspect categories such as Past, Future, and in
som e cases, Perfect. Creoles therefore provide further evidence o f the universality
o f the cognitive abilities that shape the creation o f gram m ar. The fact that the same
universal m echanism s were involved explains the general similarities we find across
creole tense-aspect systems. In addition, the m ore specific similarities we find
a m on g certain sub-groups o f creoles arise from a variety o f external factors, in ­
cluding similar linguistic inputs and similar social ecologies. By the sam e token, the
differences w e find across creoles follows from the fact that they cam e into being
under different sociohistorical circumstances, involving differences in linguistic
inputs, in dem ographies, and in the patterns o f interaction a m o n g speakers o f the
languages in contact, a m on g other things. As Bybee (2006, p. 190) puts it,

Becausc they were produced by the same m echan ism s across languages, they
resemble one another. Becausc they were produced in different languages with
different linguistic material as input to the process, with so m e differences in the
contexts o f use, the outcomes arc similar but not identical.

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450 PERSPECTIVES

There has been far less discussion o f the principles that come into play in exter­
nally motivated gramm aticalization. Heine and Kuteva argue that the kinds o f
gram m atical replication that occur in contact-induced grammaticalization are reg­
ular, and “shaped by universal processes o f gram m atical change” (2005, p. 1). H o w ­
ever, they do not attempt to describe exactly what these universal processes are, but
simply stipulate that the principles at w ork in grammaticalization are “ the same
irrespective o f whether or not language contact is in volved ” They distinguish
between two types o f contact-induced grammaticalization, namely, “o rd in a ry ” and
“ replica” grammaticalization. 1 will confine m y attention to the latter type, since this
is the one that is most c o m m o n ly found in cases o f creole formation, and arguably
in contact situations generally. In this type, “ the m odel language provides a model
for both a category and the way that category is replicated” (Heine and Kuteva,
2005, P- 80). A ccordin g to Heine and Kuteva (p. 92), the “m echanism ” involved in
replica grammaticalization is as follows:

Replica grammaticalization

Speakers notice that in language M there is a grammatical category M x.

T hey create an equivalent category R x in language R on the basis o f the use

patterns available in R.

To this end, they “ replicate a grammaticalization process they assume to have

taken place in language M , using an analogical formula o f the kind: [M y > M x ]:
[Ry > Rx].

T h e y grammaticalize Ry to Rx.

However, Heine and Kuteva provide no principled explanation for the m ec h a ­

nism they describe. They themselves acknowledge that their putative m echanism
would imply that speakers replicate a historical process that took place much earlier
in the model language, but they rightly reject that as improbable, since “ there is
virtually no inform ation on what conceptual cues speakers m a y have to reconstruct
a process presum ed to have taken place in the m odel language” (p. 92). Clearly there
must be som e other explanation for how speakers m anage to “replicate” a g r a m ­
maticalization process. Ironically, H eine and Kuteva them selves hint at such an
explanation when they suggest that the agents involved use an analogical formula o f
the kind: [M y > M x]: [Ry > Rx]. W hat this implies, quite rightly, is that replica
grammaticalization in fact relies heavily on analogical inferencing— one o f the u n i­
versal cognitive abilities that com e into play in many kinds o f language change. I
would therefore argue that analogy is the prim ary cognitive factor involved in the
transfer o f functional categories such as tense and aspect in cases o f contact induced
grammaticalization. But I w ould also suggest that the role o f analogy is to trigger
the actual m echanism that results in the creation o f a “n e w ” functional category.
That m echanism is imposition, which van C oetsem (1988, 200 0) describes as a

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CREOLE LANGUAGES 451

transfer type in w h ich the speaker, as agent o f change, is linguistically dom inant in
the source (or m odel) language, and transfers features o f it into his version o f the
recipient (or replica) language, “as in the case o f a French speaker using his French
articulatory habits while speak in g English” (van Coetsem , 1988, p. 3). Van C oetsem
refers to the type o f agency involved here as “source language (SL) agentivity.” Im ­
position refers essentially to the sam e phenom enon that has been described as
“transfer” in the S L A literature, as well as in the literature on creole form ation (see
Siegel, 2008). As suggested earlier, creole formation involved processes o f S L A in
which learners had limited exposure to native varieties o f the superstrate. Like other
learners in early stages o f S L A , they initially acquired superstrate lexical items, but
had little or no access to the gram m atical inform ation— the le m m a s — associated
with those items. This applied especially to the m orphological expressions o f fu n c ­
tional categories such as tense and aspect in the superstrates, which creole creators,
like early L2 learners in general, were unable to process and acquire. This is reflected
in the near universal elimination o f inflectional m o rp h o lo g y in most creoles. As a
result o f this loss, tense-aspect markers and other functional categories had to be
reconstituted. To achieve this, learners appealed to their Li knowledge, and trans­
ferred the lem m as associated with functional heads in their dominant Lis to lexical
items in their L2 interlanguage. For example, the grammaticalization o f kaba as a
m arker o f Com pletive Perfect in the Surinam ese and other creoles involved two
stages. First, learners established an “ interlingual identification” (Weinreich, 1953)
between the interlanguage lexical item kaba ‘finish’ and its G b e lexical counterpart
vo ‘finish’ on the basis o f their sem antic similarity. Then, via analogy, they extended
the additional aspectual m eaning o f the substrate item to kaba , by simply transfer­
ring the lem m a o f the form er to the latter. A m e n d in g Heine and Kuteva’s formula,
we might represent this process as follows:

[vo = ‘finish’ > vo = completive): [kaba = ‘finish’ > kaba = completive]

The actual transfer o f the g ram m atical function is what I w o u ld label im p o s i­

tion. O th er scholars have d escrib ed this process as a case of “ reanalysis” (Lefebvre,
1996), or “ functional transfer” (Siegel, 2 0 0 8 ) .11 These approaches are by no m eans
incom patible with that taken here, but in m y view the concept o f im position c a p ­
tures the psycholinguistic m e c h a n is m involved in these types o f g ra m m a tic a liz a ­
tion m o re explicitly. It does so by lin kin g the m e c h a n ism to the language
production procedure, particu larly at the level o f le m m a access (see de Bot, 20 0 0
for discussion).
It is arguable that imposition should be considered one o f the universal m e c h ­
anisms o f change that com e into play in situations o f language contact. Smits (1998)
and W in fo rd (forthcom ing) have argued that it occurs in a wide variety o f contact
situations, including second language acquisition involving language shift, creole
formation, and cases o f structural convergence, especially those that involve
language attrition. W hat unites these situations is that they all involve contact
between two or m ore languages, one o f which is linguistically dominant, and there­
fore becom es the source o f gram m atical transfer. Ceases o f replica grammaticalization

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452 PERSPECTIVES

such as we have described for creole tense aspect categories are p rim e exam ples of
this kind o f transfer. This scenario is quite com patible with functionalist approaches
to the cognitive m ech anism s and processes u nd erlyin g grammaticalization in a
n u m b er o f ways. For instance, functionalists argue that changes due to g ra m m a ti­
calization arise d u rin g language production, or in what Bybee (2008, p. 109) refers
to as “ usage events.” Creolists too have argued that the creation o f creole g ra m m a t ­
ical categories occurs during attempts to produce the partially acquired L i (see
Siegel, 2008, p. 120). Hence, the creation o f creole tense-aspect and other fu n c ­
tional categories provides further evidence for functionalist usage-based theory,
w hich holds that structure is created as language is used (see Bybee, 2008, p. 120).
Bybee further describes usage events as consisting o f various stages where in n o v a ­
tions m ight occur, including lexical access, perceptual decoding, assignm ent o f
m eaning, inference m aking, articulatory production, etc. S o m e o f these corre­
spon d to stages o f language production at which the potential for im position arises,
for instance at the stage o f lem m a access, or d u rin g phonological encoding. Here
again, the functionalist v iew that language processing plays a key role in shaping
g ra m m a rs finds support in the creation o f creole tense-aspect categories via
imposition.
Finally, the emergence o f creole tense-aspect categories offers support for the
view that properties shared across languages need not have origins in som e innate,
language-specific faculty, as Bickerton and others have proposed. Rather, the pro­
cesses by which such categories were created are due to m ore general cognitive ca­
pacities that hum ans possess. As Bybee (2008, p. 110) puts it,

The ability to create language systems through categorization, analogy, n e u ro m o ­

tor automatization, semantic generalization, and pragmatic inferencing derives
from the innate neuro-cognitive capacities o f hum an beings.

We have seen how cognitive factors like pragmatic inferencing and analogical
reasoning play a role in the creation o f creole tense aspect categories through both
internally and externally motivated grammaticalization. I have also suggested a
strong link between analogy and imposition as the m echanism involved in contact-
induced grammaticalization in particular. In all these respects, the em ergence o f
creole tense-aspect systems lend further support to the idea that certain causal
m echanism s o f change might well be view ed as universals in their own right.

NOTES

1. On contact-induced change, see the chapter by Friedm an, this volume.

2. On grammaticalization, see the chapter by Nicolle, this volume.
3. Exceptions in West A frica include K ru Pidgin English and G hanaian Pidgin
English, which em ploy un m arked verbs for past reference.
4. Baptista (2002, p. 83) suggests that the choice o f -ba as Past m arker m a y have been
influenced by the fact that several o f the substrate languages for C ape Verde creole have a

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CREOLE LANGUAGES 453

Perfect marker that is phonologically similar to -ba (ha in M a n ja k and M an k an ; ban in

Diola). The same m ay apply to other creoles that use - ba. The fact that -ba can appear both
post-verbally and in VP-final position in creoles like Palenquero and G uin ea-B issau Kriyol
is also probably due to substrate influence.
5. Older Eastern Carib b ean French creoles also employed ajva/ava as a Future
marker, and Detgers (2000, p. 157) claims that this future m arker was once found in all
French-lexicon creoles.
6 . < Prog, ka ale.
7. Except G hanaian Pidgin English.
8. Tok Pisin and Bislama. Solom on s Island Pijin uses nao ‘n o w ’ as a post-verbal
marker o f Perfect (Siegel, 2008, p. 194).
9. Guyanese and Jamaican.
10. Several varieties o f Caribbean English Creole, including Jamaican and Belizean,
have a distinct Past Habitual category, which also reflects a crosslinguistic tendency (Bybee
et al., 1994, p. 151).
11. Siegel (2008, p. 107) acknowledges that his use o f the term “ transfer” refers to
imposition or transfer via SL agentivity.

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W inford, D. (1993). Predication in Caribbean English creoles. Am sterdam : Benjamins.
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 C H A P T E R 15

PRIMARY LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

LAURA WAGNER

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

A s this v o lu m e sh o w s, the syntax and sem a n tics o f tense and aspect are com plex,
and v a r y in interesting w a y s across lan guages. From the p ersp ec tiv e o f a child
w h o has to learn the p a rtic u la r tem p o ra l system o f her lan guage, the co m p lex ity
and variability p o s e v e ry real le a rn in g p ro b lem s. C h ild r e n face seve ra l critical
challenges in a c q u ir in g tense and aspect. O n e challenge c o n c e rn s the variability
in lin guistic m a rk in g , w h ich e n c o m p a s s e s a w id e range. S o m e lan gu ages m ark
o n ly g r a m m a t ic a l aspect w h ile others m a r k o n ly tense (c o m p a r e M a n d a r i n and
M o d e r n H e b re w ); w h e n a lan g u a g e d o es g ra m m a tic a lly e n c o d e these elem ents,
it can do so via m a n y m e th o d s, in c lu d in g m o d ific a tio n s to the verb stem (as in
R u ssia n ), separate particles (as in M a n d a r in ) , verb m o r p h o l o g y that c o m b in es
aspectual and tense in fo rm a tio n together (as in F re n c h ), and im plicit s ig n a lin g
u sin g case m a r k in g on n o u n s (as in F in n is h ). T h u s , sim p ly fin d in g the relevant
m o r p h o s y n t a c t ic elem en ts that express tem p o ra lity is a n o n -triv ia l task for the
learner. A n o t h e r challenge c o n c e rn s the c o m p le x ity o f the tem p oral sem a n tic
system . Tense and asp ect co n sist o f several o v e rla p p in g and related elem ents
that interact with one a n o th e r; m o reo v er, the sp e c ific types o f interaction that a
lan g u a g e allo w s d ep en d on the sp e c ific instantiation o f the se m a n tic elem ents
in that lan guage. F o r exam p le, the c o m b in a tio n o f im p e r fe c tiv e asp ect with sta-
tive predicates is allowed in s o m e lan gu ages but not others. In particular, w hen
the im p e rfe c tiv e form in a lan gu age has a p ro g ressive fla vo r to it, lan guages tend

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PRIM ARY LA N G UA G E ACQUISITION 459

to d isallo w it (as in E n g lish ). T h u s, children must learn fin e -g ra in e d sem an tic

d istin ctio n s so that they can create the right system across their t e m p o r a l ele­
m ents. A fin a l ch allen ge for children stem s fro m their c o g n itive im m a tu rity :
children must be able to u n d e rsta n d the co n cep ts that u n d erlie tem p o ra l s e m a n ­
tics, as well as be able to id e n tify situations in the w orld that c o rr e s p o n d to
those concepts. T e m p o ra l concepts are quite abstract, in c lu d in g notion s su ch as
event b o u n d e d n e ss , d y n a m ic change o v er time, and deictic te m p o ra l center.
T h e y are not the kin d s o f co n cep ts that children can easily o b s e r v e in the world.
W h en children begin the acqu isition p rocess, it is not clear w h e th e r they can
fu lly en tertain u n d e r ly in g tem p o ra l co n cepts, n or is it clear w hat e v id e n ce from
their e x p e r ie n c e s they w o u ld d raw on to d e te r m in e what concepts w ere b e in g
used by others.
Nevertheless, despite these challenges, children do use tense and aspect mor-
phosyntax from a young age, and by and large, they appear to use it correctly. The
sections below will discuss specific evidence illustrating the nature o f childrens
competence with temporal semantics, beginning with an analysis o f an apparent
error (an under-extension) in childrens early production and then proceeding to sp e­
cific evaluations o f childrens knowledge o f Aktionsart (lexical aspect), grammatical
aspect, and tense.

1.1. Definition of Terms

G iv e n the nature o f this v o lu m e , a full lin gu istic a cco u n t o f A ktionsart , g r a m ­
m atical aspect, and tense w o u ld be r e d u n d a n t .1 N e v e rth e le s s, a fe w w o r d s about
h o w th ese te rm s will be used in the c u rren t d is c u ss io n seem s w a rr a n te d . A ktio n ­
sart will be used to refer to the aspectu al p ro p e rtie s that are lin ked to the
se m a n tic s o f the pred icates th e m se lv es; that is, the fa m ilia r V e n d le r / D o w t y
classes (Vendler, 19 67; D o w ty , 1979). T h e term gram m atical aspect will be used
to refer to the s p e a k e r s tem p o ra l p e rsp e c tiv e on an event; that is, to the perfec-
tiv e /im p e rfe c tiv e d istin ctio n . G r a m m a t i c a l aspect sh ares w ith Aktionsart a
fo c u s on the tem p oral p ro p e rtie s o f the event, but the two are in d e p e n d e n t o f
each other. For exam p le, telic predicates can be d esc rib ed in either p e rsp e c tiv e
(p erfective: Natasha fe ll; im p e rfe c tiv e : Natasha was falling) as can atelic p r e d i ­
cates (p erfec tive: A u drey rode; im p e r fe c tiv e : A u d rey was riding). In con trast to
both o f these a sp e c tu a l elem ents, tense w ill be used to refer to the deictic f u n c ­
tion that locates an event in tim e relative to an o rig in m o m e n t — usually, the
tim e o f utterance. U n lik e the asp ec tu a l categories, tense d oes not s p e c ify or
interpret event p ro p e rtie s; it sim p ly locates them on a tim elin e. It does, h o w ­
ever, share with g r a m m a t ic a l asp ect the fact that it con tribu tes in d e p e n d e n t
in fo r m a tio n to senten ce m e a n i n g a b o v e and b e y o n d the lexical in fo r m a tio n in
the predicate. T h u s, Aktionsart, g r a m m a t ic a l aspect, and tense all co n trib u te to
the tem p oral interpretation o f events, but they do so in d iffe re n t, and largely
in d e p e n d e n t ways.

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4бо PERSPECTIVES

2. A spectual U n d e r -e x t e n sio n s in

C h i l d r e n ’s P ro d u ctio n

The literature on childrens acquisition o f aspect has been dominated by a cross-

linguistically robust phenom enon found in childrens language production. As will
be discussed shortly, children fail to use all the tense-aspect combinations available
to them, effectively under-extending their semantics. A s the course o f typical
language development is dominated by childrens successes, the d iscovery o f a g e n ­
uine error in children’s speech— even the subtle error o f under-extending the use o f
f o r m s — has naturally drawn the attention o f researchers. Moreover, the systematic
nature o f childrens temporal under-extensions suggests that they arise from general
principles o f childrens semantic organization and/or their cognitive architecture.
Understanding the p h eno m enon, therefore, is potentially illuminating about both
the nature o f temporal semantics as well as the processes o f language development.

2.1. The Phenomenon

Exam inations o f young children’s speech (i.e., before age two and half years or so)
have found that children tend to restrict their languages past tense and perfective
markers to telic predicates while also restricting their languages present tense and
imperfective markers to atelic predicates. Thus, children c o m m o n ly say things like
broke (past + perfective + telic) and riding (imperfective + atelic) but rarely say
breaking (imperfective + telic) or rode (past + perfective + atelic). The overall pat­
tern is shown in Table 15.1: children tend to produce forms that conform to the classes
defined by the vertical columns and they tend to avoid com binations that would
require cross-class groupings. Note that the trend is statistical; cross-class groupings
are not w holly absent in childrens speech, they are just less likely to occur.
This pattern constitutes an under-extension because children systematically
under-use the options available to them. There is nothing ungramm atical, or even
unusual, about form s that cross these category lines. It is even a little bit surprising
that children seem to not want to talk about ongoing bounded events that would
warrant a telic + imperfective + present combination (e.g., Look mom , Vm making a
sandwich!) or completed activities that would warrant an atelic + perfective + past
combination (e.g., I played in the sandbox). Moreover, based on the forms that children
do produce, it is clear that they have some com m and o f the relevant morphological

Table 15.1 Tw o critical classes in children’s early aspectual use

Class 1 (completive) Class 2 (ongoing)

Aktionsart Telic Atelic

Grammatical aspect Perfective Imperfective
lense Past Present

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PRIM ARY LA N G UA G E ACQUISITION

forms. The gaps in their production therefore seem significant and have draw n the
attention o f researchers.
A cross languages, childrens specific instantiation o f this pattern does vary
so m ew h at— in som e languages, children produce tense m o rp h o lo g y while in other
languages they use gram m atical aspect m orph em es or m o rp h e m es that combine
both tense and aspect. However, childrens preference for the vertically defined
classes has been found in m an y languages, including English (Bloom , Lifter, and
Hafitz, 1980; Shirai and A n d ersen , 1995; Johnson and Fey, 2006), French (Bronckart
and Sinclair, 1973; Labelle, G od ard , and Longtin, 2002), G reek (Stephany, 1981),
Hebrew (B erm an , 1983), Italian (Antinucci and Miller, 1976), Japanese (Rispoli,
1981), M andarin (Li and B o w e rm a n , 1998), Polish (Weist, Wysocka, Witkowska-
Stadnik, Buczowska, and Konieczna, 1984; Bloom and Harner, 1989), Russian (Stoll,
1998), and Turkish (Aksu-Ko<;, 1998). Thus, it appears that whatever drives this phe­
nom enon does not depend on specific structural properties o f any particular
language, but requires a more general explanation.
A related ph enom enon o f childrens early language— the so-called Root Infini­
tive (or Optional Infinitive) stage— provides additional support for the idea that
childrens production is guided by the vertically defined temporal classes. In chil­
drens early production, not all verb forms are produced with adult-like m orp h olog y;
instead, children produce som e verbs in their infinitival form or som e variety o f a
bare form (see Poeppel and Wexler, 1993, and llo e k stra and Hyams, 1998, for d if­
ferent approaches to the p h enom enon). These infinitive forms are the sole verb in
the root clause (hence, Root Infinitive) and co-exist in childrens speech at the same
time period with appropriately tensed form s (hence, Optional Infinitive). Investiga­
tions o f childrens interpretations o f these Root Infinitive forms have shown that
they are intluenced by both Aktionsart and gram m atical aspect. For example, Brun,
Avrutin, and Bayonyshev (1999) looked at the Root Infinitives o f children acquiring
Russian, and used the context o f the utterance to determine the probable temporal
reference that the children intended. They found that children overw helm ingly
used perfective verb stems to refer to past times and imperfective verb stems to refer
to present times. Temporal reference was defined contextually in this case, but even
so, it was tied to the vertically defined classes just as standard tense m ark in g would
be. Similarly, Hyams (2007) reviews data fro m several languages, including Greek,
Dutch, and English, and argues that both gram m atical aspect and Aktionsart (in
particular, the telic/atelic distinction) contribute to the temporal interpretation o f
Root Infinitives. Even when tense m ark in g is not specifically used, past tense inter­
pretations are linked to telic verbs and verbs marked with perfective aspect while
present tense interpretations are linked to atelic verbs and verbs marked with i m ­
perfective aspect.
Beyond the production data itself, additional evidence for the power o f the ver­
tically defined classes comes from experimental studies that investigated childrens
willingness to use tense and grammatical aspect m orph ology to generalize the
meaning o f a novel verb (Behrend, 1990; Behrend, Harris, and Cartwright, 1995; Carr
and Johnston, 2001). In these studies, pre-school aged children acquiring English

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462 PERSPECTIVES

were shown novel events containing a distinctive action, instrument and result state.
For example, they might see the experimenter use a bookend to scoop up som e clay
and deposit it in a small box. Each event was described with a different nonsense
verb that used either past perfective m o rp h o lo g y (“ He zivved!” ) or present imperfec-
tive m orph ology (“ He is zivving!” ). At the test phase, children were shown variations
o f the original event and asked to say which variations could also be called by the
novel verb. Three-year-old children generalized the verbs according to the m o r­
phology in which they were presented: novel verbs with past perfective marking
were taken to sp ecify the result state o f the event w hile novel verbs with present
imperfective m arking were taken to specify the action involved in the event. These
result and action features correspond conceptually to the telic/atelic distinction.
Thus, these children are draw ing inferences in accordance with the vertically defined
classes: given past + perfective marking, a child will infer a telic Aktionsart and given
present + imperfective marking, a child will infer atelic Aktionsart.
Interestingly, there are two groups o f children who have been tested who failed
to m ake this inference. The first group are five-year-olds (Behrend, 1990; Behrend
et al., 1995). As children get older, the vertically defined classes becom e less strong.
Children under-extend their m o rp h o lo g y usage much less (although even adults
continue to do it to som e extent; see below), and apparently the classes weaken to
the point where they no long support inferences within them. Given the genuine
in d e p en d en c e o f tense, g ra m m a tic a l aspect and A ktionsart , this w e a k e n in g is a
desirable outcom e o f childrens language development. The second group w ho fail
this task are children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). SLI is a language
disorder that is characterized by problems with linguistic elements (including in ­
flectional m o rp h o lo g y in particular) with no concom itant problems with hearing or
in general cognition (see Leonard, 1998 for an overview). C a rr and ]ohnston (2001)
fou n d that neither three- nor five-year-old children with SLI m ade inferences from
m o rp h o lo g y to Aktionsart ; moreover, unlike the neuro-typical five-year-olds they
tested, the SLI children also failed to sh o w a bias to analyze the events in terms o f
their result state m ore generally. C a rr and Johnston argue that the SLI failures are
reflective o f their larger difficulties with language acquisition. Indeed, as the forth ­
co m in g discussion will demonstrate, a recurring theme in the acquisition o f tense
and aspect is that children with SLI have trouble with several dimensions o f tem po­
ral semantics.

2.2. Theoretical Approaches to Children’s Temporal

Under-Extensions
A s will be discussed shortly, there are different theoretical approaches to childrens
temporal under-extensions. However, across all approaches, there is widespread
agreement that there is som ething natural about the classes defined by the vertical
columns. Som e researchers (e.g., Bloom et al., 1980; Shirai and A ndersen, 1995;
Wagner, 2009) find the naturalness in the cognitive dom ain. For example, Shirai

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PRIM ARY LA N G UA G E ACQUISITION

and A nd ersen (1995) argue that the categories define cognitive prototypes. Each
category corresponds to an idealized, 01* prototypical, event representation. The
completive class is best exemplified by a bounded event type done to its inherent
completion point at som e point in the past (i.e., telic + perfective + past). The o n ­
going class is best exemplified by an unbounded event type that is still ongoing in
the present time (i.e., atelic + imperfective + present). These event prototypes help
organize early cognition as well early language use.
O th e r researchers find the naturalness in the linguistic d o m a in (e.g., Bickerton,
1981; O lsen, W ein berg, Lilly, and D r u r y 1998; van H out, 2005). These researchers
appeal to theoretical accou nts that identify the w ith in -class co m b in a tio n s as less
m a r k e d or as in v o lvin g less sem an tic coercion than the cross-class co m b in atio n s
(cf. D e Sw art, 1998; B o h n e m e y e r and Swift, 2004). T h e y sec the naturalness p r i ­
m arily as a function o f linguistic organization , and children’s a d h e ren c e to the v e r ­
tically defined classes reflects their implicit appreciation o f linguistic defaults. Thus,
all approach es agree that c h ild re n s u n d er-exten sio n s reflect the easiest sem an tic
co m b in a tio n s to p r o d u c e and u n d erstand . How ever, the particu lar sense in w h ic h
these classes are easier differs across theoretical positions.
The first theoretical approach fo c u s e s on ch ild ren s c o m p ara tiv ely limited c o n ­
ceptual abilities. Early research (B ro n c k a rt and Sinclair, 1973; A n t in u c c i and Miller,
1976) into this p h e n o m e n o n d r e w heavily on the theories o f Piaget (1969) and his
ideas about h o w children construct k n o w led g e . F ro m this perspective, the reason
that children restrict them selves to the v e rtic a lly defined classes is because they
don’t have the conceptu al resources to un d erstan d deictic tense, a n d possib ly not
even g r a m m a tic a l aspect. C h ild re n m ust build these h igher-level concepts out o f
in fo rm a tio n that can be interpreted in the h ere-a n d -n o w , n a m e ly Aktionsart. Thus,
ch ild ren s cognitive lim itation s gu id e their early language use. This general position
has fallen out o f favor for two m ain reasons. First, ad van ces in the field o f d e v e lo p ­
m ental P sy c h o lo g y h av e sh o w n even infants have the capacity for abstract thought,
in c lu d in g th in k in g about event c o m p o n e n ts and events over tim e (for review s, see
Bauer, 2 0 0 6 ; W a gn er and Lakusta, 2009). These early capacities do not prove that
y o u n g children u n d ersta n d the linguistic instantiation o f tense and aspect, but they
do m e a n that w e can n ot a s s u m e a p rio ri that they do not. S e c o n d , and m o re i m p o r ­
tantly, v a r io u s studies (see d iscu ssio n below ) have s h o w n that y o u n g children can
c o m p r e h e n d the m e a n in g b e h in d tense a n d g r a m m a tic a l aspect m ark ers, includin g
in cross-class c o m b in a tio n s (e.g., Weist, W y s o c k a , and Lyytinen, 1991; Weist,
Lyytinen, W y s o c k a , and A ta n asso v a , 1997; Weist, A ta n asso v a , W ysock a, and Pawlak,
1999; Wagner, 20 0 1; Valian, 2006; K a z a n in a a n d Phillips, 2007). A lt h o u g h c o n c e p ­
tual deficits alone can n ot accou nt for c h ild re n s behavior, nevertheless, ch ild ren s
m o r e lim ited cognitive abilities in general play an im portan t role in the in fo rm a tio n
pro cessin g app roach d isc u ssed below.
The s e c o n d general type o f approach treats children’s p ro d u c e d fo rm s as a
m ore-or-less direct reflection o f the their g r a m m a r s . C h ild r e n s o m issio n s are taken
as evid en ce that children do not possess (or do not yet fully possess) the g r a m m a t ­
ical resources needed to p r o d u c e and represent th em . The specific instantiations o f

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the gram m atical approach are as varied as the range o f linguistic theories available.
At one extreme, som e researchers have suggested that children cannot initially build
or otherwise specify the features for the functional projections required o f tense and
gram m atical aspect in a syntactic tree (e.g., Radford, 1990). Children restrict their
use o f these m orph em es according to Aktionsart type because Aktionsart is the only
semantic category they can actually represent in their syntax. Other researchers see
the vertically defined classes as instantiating the initial settings o f Universal
G r a m m a r ; children prefer the vertically defined classes because those are the default
param eter settings (Bickerton, 1981; Olsen et al., 1998). Indeed, s o m e languages do
have gram m atical restrictions that correspond to these classes (e.g., Russian restricts
present tense to imperfective gram m atical aspect), so childrens under-extensions
m ay reflect a possible g ra m m a r for a language, perhaps even a default g ra m m a r for
a language. A m ore limited version o f the gram m atical approach can be seen in
Wagner (2001). She suggests that children m ay have initially m is-m a p p e d g r a m ­
matical aspect semantics onto tense m o rp h o lo g y ; the alignment o f those two cate­
gories within the vertical classes would therefore be a simple by-product o f this
mistake. At the other extreme, researchers com in g from a m ore constructivist point
o f view have argued that the fact that childrens fo rm s are largely restricted to the
vertically defined classes is evidence that childrens g ra m m a rs do not have a fully
articulated temporal structure (see Shirai and A ndersen, 1995; Li and Shirai, 2000).
That is, children do not have separate representations o f Aktionsarty grammatical
aspect, and tense; instead what they have are representations that correspond to the
vertically defined classes.
O ne intriguing piece o f evidence for this last position comes fro m w ork show ing
that the pattern o f under-extension found in childrens early production is also
found in adult speech, including their speech directed at children (Shirai and
A n d ersen , 1995; A ksu-K o^, 1998; Wultf, Ellis, Römer, Bardovi-H arlig, and Leblanc,
2009). Like children, adults tend to use present and imperfective m o rp h o lo g y with
atelic predicates, and perfective and past m o rp h o lo g y with telic predicates. Adults
tend to be a bit less extreme in their under-extension, using m ore cross-class items,
but they do show the sam e general pattern. Moreover, Li and Shirai (2 0 0 0 ; see also
Z hao and Li, 2009) have proposed that a recurrent connectionist netw ork2 can take
the adult distribution as input and produce the child’s m ore extreme distribution as
output. The data from adults raises the possibility that children are just m irro rin g
the distribution o f form s that they hear; if this is the case, there is no reason to posit
any detailed grammatical representations to the child at all.
This gram m atical type o f approach has faltered as an explanation for children’s
temporal under-extensions for several reasons. First, children’s under-extensions
are a statistical trend, not a categorical phenom enon (see, for example, Bar-Shalom,
2002). In all the studies d ocum en tin g the phenom enon, examples o f cross-class
combinations have been found; these combinations are less frequent, but they do
occur in noticeable quantities. If the vertically defined classes are a true reflection o f
children’s gram m ars, then w h at is the status o f these form s that fall outside o f those
classes? O ne possibility is that they are sim ply errors; another possibility is that

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PRIMARY LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 465

children are in the process o f shifting from one g ra m m a r to another— that is, from
a g ra m m a r oriented aroun d the vertical classes to the adult grammar. Regardless,
som e additional process has to be invoked to account for the cross-class form s, and
that process u nderm ines the central appeal o f this approach, nam ely that what chil­
dren produce is a direct reflection o f their g ram m ar. Second, and m ore generally, it
is unclear how tenable it is to draw a direct line from what children say to what their
g ra m m a r looks like. This idea has been criticized on two fronts. On the one hand,
what children say may over-estimate what children know. This point has been made
forcefully in the language development literature by Tomasello and colleagues (see
Tomasello, 2003 for a review). Within the dom ain o f temporal semantics, Shirai and
M iyata (2006) show ed that y o u n g Japanese children used contrastive forms o f tense
(that is, they used the very sam e verb in both past and present tenses) for several
months before they had linked them to appropriate m eanings (that is, before they
used the past tense forms to refer to past time situations). Simply having the rele­
vant forms does not mean children are using them for the adult meanings. On the
other hand, there is a grow ing consensus in the field o f temporal semantics that
w hat children say m a y under-estimate what they know. The sections below will
focus on childrens comprehension o f temporal semantics, and the dom inant finding
will be that that children understand m an y form s they don’t produce themselves. To
the extent that childrens com prehension outstrips their language use, it again s u g ­
gests that the pattern found in production is driven by elements outside o f the
child’s grammar.
The final type o f approach to the pattern o f under-extension is the information-
processing point o f view (e.g., Weist et al., 19 9 1,19 9 7 ; van Hout, 2005; Kazanina and
Phillips, 2006; Wagner, 2009). This approach focuses on the fact that appropriate
use o f temporality requires children to coordinate a range o f inform ation— from the
m orphosyntactic form s, to the specific semantic interactions, to the evaluation o f
truth conditions with respect to the world. H ie relative difficulty in processing any
o f these information elements can influence how hard it is for children to produce
(or understand) a particular tense-aspect combination. The vertically defined
classes reflect the sem antic combinations with the lowest information processing
dem ands, and hence, are preferentially produced by children. Proponents o f this
view typically assume that children have a fairly complete set o f the relevant s e m a n ­
tic elements at their disposal; children are presum ed to distinguish a m on g tense,
gram m atical aspect and Aktionsarl. W hat children must learn is how their native
language specifically instantiates each o f these elements. The difficulty o f this
learning task will depend on how easy it is for children to find the right m orphosyn-
tax (cf. van I lout, 2005), how easy it is for children to determine which concept is
being referred to (see Wagner, 20 0 1, for discussion o f the difficulties o f teasing apart
concepts like past and completion), and perhaps even the specific concepts a
language encodes (see the argument in Weist, Pawlak, and Carapella, 2004, that
children acquire the imperfective in Polish before they do in English because o f the
semantic differences between them). Indeed, as will be discussed below, the ease
with which children understand particular combinations can be manipulated by

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466 PERSPECTIVES

m anipulating the evidence in the larger situation; moreover, the less information
available to children, the m ore likely they are to depend on the vertically defined
classes (Kazanina and Philips, 2006; Wagner, 2009).
In addition, the information processing approach provides an alternative per­
spective on the fact that adults show the sam e pattern o f under-extension as chil­
dren. First, the fact that parents exhibit the under-extension pattern will limit the
data that children have access to: children need exposure to the full range o f mor-
phosyntactic options in order to learn them, and less evidence about the cross-class
combinations could lead to slower learning o f those elements. Second, and more
importantly, the information processing approach offers an explanation for why
adults show the sam e pattern o f under-extension as children. Adults m a y have more
advanced information processing abilities, but in principle, they are subject to the
sam e kinds o f constraints as children and the sam e combinations o f form s should
be easier for them to produce and understand. A n d indeed, Wagner (2009) has
shown that when given less information about a situation, adults do sh o w dips in
perform an ce along the same lines as childrens under-extension.
For researchers, the fields focus on childrens under-extensions and the im p o r­
tance o f the vertically defined classes has been v ery useful for identifying phe­
nom en a and refining theoretical positions. However, these theories must ultimately
account for m ore than just a particular quirk o f childrens production; they must
explain how children come to correctly produce the full range o f tense and aspect
combinations as well as how children develop their understanding o f the meanings
o f these forms. The following sections provide an overview o f what is know n about
how children acquire Aktionsart , gram m atical aspect, and tense. These will each be
treated as the separate semantic elements that they are; however, as much o f this
research was inspired by a desire to understand childrens under-extensions, much
o f the discussion will be focused on childrens ability to distinguish a m o n g the var­
ious semantic levels.

3. A c q u i s i t i o n o f A k tio n sar t

N o languages m ark Aktionsart directly— that is, no languages have a m orphological

m arker for verbs when they are in telic as o pposed to atelic predicates. Instead, the
various aspectual classes generate a variety o f syntactic reflexes that occur m ore or
less reliably across languages. A skin g whether or not children have acquired Aktion-
sarty then, is tantamount to asking whether they appreciate the aspectual relevance
o f these syntactic reflexes.
Based on childrens production data, it appears that they do distinguish am ong
a range o f Aktionsart types. As noted in the previous section, there is ample e v i­
dence that children tend to restrict past and perfective m arking to telic predicates
and present tense and imperfective m arking to atelic predicates. Moreover, the
trend to restrict past and perfective m arking for telic predicates tends to be stronger

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PRIM ARY LA N G UA G E ACQUISITION 467

for punctual achievements (reach, die) than for durative accom plishm ents (climb,
build), suggesting that children m ay m ake relatively fine-grained distinctions
a m on g the Aktionsart types. In addition, the studies that have found the u n d er­
extension typically also find evidence for m orphological restrictions on stative
predicates: children acquiring English typically reserve the third singular -s marker
for statives (B loo m et al., 1980) and children acquiring G reek typically restrict sta­
tive predicates to the present imperfective form (Stephany, 1981); similarly, root in­
finitives are generally restricted to eventive (i.e., non-stative) verbs (Hoekstra and
Hyams, 1998; G avruseva, 2003).
However, gram m atical aspect and tense m arkers are not actual reflexes o f
Aktionsart , and childrens use o f them cannot constitute evidence that they know
how their language signals Aktionsart information. Investigations o f actual reflexes,
such as sentence particles and argument structure, have found that these also ap­
pear to be linked to Aktionsart for children at a young age.
In G e r m a n i c lan guages, particles such as E nglish up, G e r m a n auf, and Dutch
op all help to signal b o u n d e d , or telic m e a n in g ; children use these particles for
that p u r p o s e from early on. Penner, Schulz, and W y m a n n (2003) fou nd that c h il­
dren a cq u irin g G e r m a n use such particles to signal telicity fro m their v e ry ea r­
liest uses. M oreover, the s tu d y also fo u n d that children w ho fail to und erstand
the connection betw een particles and telicity m a y be at risk for d e v e lo p in g S p e ­
cific L an g u a g e Im p a ir m e n t (SLI). Similarly, van H o u t (2 0 0 0 ) found that three-
year-old children a cq u irin g D utch could use particles to c h o o se between
b o u n d e d and u n b o u n d e d events. Finally, W agner and C a r e y (2003) (also W ag­
ner, 2 0 0 6 ) fo u n d that two- and th ree-year-old ch ild ren a c q u ir in g E nglish could
su ccessfu lly use p rep o sitio n al p h rases to help them establish telic interpretations
in an individ uation task. P repositions, either used as verb particles or as the
heads o f p rep o sitio n a l phrases, are a m o n g the earliest elem ents in c h ild re n s v o ­
cabularies (Fen son et al., 1994), and children link them to telic interpretations
from early on as well.
A no ther reflex o f the telic/atelic distinction is transitivity. A rgum ent structure
is, o f course, not a direct m arker o f aspect; however, telic predicates tend to appear
in transitive structures while atelic predicates tend to appear in intransitive struc­
tures, and this connection is at least partly motivated by the semantics o f telicity
itself (Hopper and Thom pson, 1980; Tenny, 1994). C h ild ren s understanding o f ar­
gument structure has been the focus o f much language acquisition research, and in
general, children have been shown to be able to link sem antic features, such as cau­
sality, to structures by two years o f age (e.g., Naigles, 1990). In addition, Wagner
(2006 and 2010) has shown that two-year-old children can link transitivity to telic­
ity in particular. For example, in Wagner (2010), children were asked to generalize
the m eaning o f a nonsense verb as a function o f whether it appeared in a transitive
or intransitive sentence. The children treated nonsense verbs in transitive frames as
telic, generalizing them to events with similar results, and verbs in intransitive
fram es as atelic, generalizing them to events with sim ilar actions. Thus, children
were sensitive to this argument structure reflex o f telicity as well.
468 PERSPECTIVES

It appears, therefore, that before children are three years old, they appreciate
that differences a m on g the Aktionsart classes can be reflected with various m o rph o-
syntactic m arkings. Indeed, an over-reliance on this appreciation m a y partially a c ­
count for the pattern o f under-extension discussed in section 2. Nevertheless, the
appreciation itself suggests Aktionsart is important for children and is integral to
their early gram m ars.

4. A cq u isitio n of G r a m m a tica l A spect

The m orphological form s o f gram m atical aspect (and tense) tend to be acquired
quite early. The existence o f the under-extension ph enom enon discussed above in
section 2 in fact depends on children prod u cin g recognizable tense/aspect m o r ­
phology. Within English, children as you n g as 18-m onths-old appreciate that the
progressive -ing is distributionally dependent on the auxiliary verb (Santelmann
and Jusczyk, 1998) and the progressive -ing and past tense -ed are a m on g childrens
earliest used m o rph em es (Brown, 1973). Moreover, two-year-old children u n d er­
stand that these m o rp h e m es can be segmented as separate units from the verbs they
are attached to. In Hohenstein and A khtar (2007), children were given a nonsense
verb (e.g., tamming) and were encouraged to produce the bare form o f the verb (e.g.,
“ What will he do now? He wants to . . . ” ). The children were able to identify the
tense/aspect m o rp h o lo g y and strip it off the verb in their own production. Im p o r­
tantly, they only did this for verbs; when a new noun happened to end with the same
sound (e.g., “ This is m y tam m in g ” ), children never deleted the final syllable in their
speech. As gram m atical aspect m o rp h o lo g y tends to be highly frequent, it is not
particularly surprising that children are able to identify it from an early age.
Investigations into the m ea n in g o f gram m atical aspect have been largely m o ti­
vated by the under-extension phenom enon, and m any have focused on childrens
ability to distinguish gram m atical aspect from Aktionsart on the one hand and from
tense on the other. Indeed gram m atical aspect is the pivot point o f the p h e n o m ­
enon: it is similar to Aktionsart within the semantic dom ain and similar to tense
within the syntactic one. Thus, dem onstrating that children understand the specific
contribution o f grammatical aspect goes a long way toward show ing that children
can differentiate all the levels o f sem antic representation. In addition, gram m atical
aspect also plays an important role in structuring discourse, and researchers have
investigated childrens know ledge o f this function as well.

4.1. Grammatical Aspect vs. Aktionsart: The Imperfective

Paradox
To determ ine if children can distinguish between gram m atical aspect and Aktion­
sart, researchers have asked children to interpret perfective and imperfective form s
PRIM ARY LA N G UA G E ACQUISITION 469

when they are paired with childrens disfavored type o f event, in order to see whether
children can correctly interpret telic + imperfective and atelic + perfective com bi­
nations. These combinations have figured prominently in the theoretic literature in
the context o f the Imperfective Paradox. The paradox is this: W hy does the im per­
fective version o f a sentence entail the perfective version with som e predicates (sen­
tence (1) entails (2)) but not others (sentence (3) does not entail (4))? The solution
to the paradox rests on the fact that the Aktionsart o f the predicate interacts with the
way that entailments work for gram m atical aspect. For atelic predicates, perfective
and imperfective aspects have equivalent entailments. That is, sentence (1) entails
sentence (2), and vice versa.

(1) Pierre was walking.

(2) Pierre walked.
(3) M arya was building a house.
(4) M arya built a house.

A lthough there are indeed subtle semantic differences in the interpretation o f these
two sentences, the hom ogen eou s nature o f atelic events effectively neutralizes any
difference in completion entailments. By contrast, for telic predicates, perfective
and imperfective aspects have very different effects. Parallel to the atelic case, the
perfective version o f a telic predicate (4) entails the imperfective version (3); h o w ­
ever, as noted by the paradox, the reverse is decidedly not the case. Evidence for the
absence o f a completion entailment comes from the continuation sentence in (5)—
this sounds quite reasonable after (3) but becom es a contradiction after (4). The
inherent ending-point included in the m eaning o f a telic predicate defines a unique
point that is entailed by perfective, but not imperfective aspect.

(5) But she never finished it.

Researchers have long noted that the difference between sentences like (3) and (4)
can be exploited in an experim ental p arad ig m . In sem inal w ork, Weist and col­
leagues (Weist et al., 19 9 1,19 9 7 ,19 9 9 ) showed children pairs o f pictures illustrating
different phases o f an event. O ne picture w ould sh o w a completed event (for e x ­
ample, a girl sitting by a completed house) an d the other, an incomplete event still
in progress (for exam ple, a girl busily h a m m e rin g a nail into a partial house). C h i l ­
dren were asked to match either sentence (3) or sentence (4) to the correct picture.
To su cceed in this task, the child m u st be able to c o rrec tly interpret both a p e r ­
fective + telic com bination (cf. sentence 3) that is sim ilar to the kinds o f sentences
they would p rodu ce them selves, as well as an im perfective + telic com bination
(cf. sentence 4) that is s o m e th in g they w ould rarely say on their ow n . C h ild ren
a cq u irin g both Polish and E nglish were able to succeed at interpreting both those
com binations by age three years (see also V in n itskaya and Wexler, 2 0 0 1 ; Wagner,
2009; W agner et al., 2009).
This basic success supports the idea that children have both the conceptual and the
grammatical resources to understand grammatical aspect independently o f Aktion­
sart. Additional studies have demonstrated the ways that different informational
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conditions influence that understanding. For example, the specific encoding o f

gram m atical aspect matters. Weist et al. (1991) also tested children acquiring F in n ­
ish along with the children acquiring English and Polish. Unlike the latter two lan­
guages, which m ark gram m atical aspect as part o f the verb, Finnish typically m arks
this information through the choice o f case m ark in g on the nouns. The Finnish
children succeeded at the task on average two years later than their English and Pol­
ish counterparts. However, when Finnish children were tested with periphrastic
verbal encodings o f gram m atical aspect, they too were able to succeed at age three
years. (See also van Hout, 2008, for a related argum ent to explain differences in
childrens perform an ce with Dutch, Italian, and Polish).
In addition, childrens ability to interpret gram m atical aspect is influenced by
how much information is available to them, either in the situation or in the larger
discourse. For example, children acquiring English succeed with telic + imperfec-
tive combinations around age three years if the situation explicitly depicts a person
in the m idst o f the action (as in the studies o f Weist and colleagues) but it takes until
children are around five years old to succeed w hen the situation shows only relevant
objects from the event, such as contrasting a completed and a half-complete house
(Wagner, 2002; Matsuo, 2009; and see Wagner, 2009, for a direct com parison o f the
informational conditions). This particular result m a y depend on the fact that the
English imperfective form is a progressive one, which m a y semantically highlight
the notion o f ongoingness— a notion which is m ore easily conveyed through the
presence o f an agent. Regardless, the results suggest that children m ust not only
know the m e a n in g o f the gram m atical aspect form, but they must know how to
evaluate the world to find the m ea n in g it connects to.

4.2. Grammatical Aspect vs. Tense: Past Imperfective Forms

To determine if children can distinguish between gram m atical aspect and tense,
researchers have focused on past imperfective forms. As with the research from the
previous section, the motivation for investigating this particular form is that it is a
combination that children rarely utter in their own speech. Indeed, in childrens
speech production, the past + imperfective combination appears to be especially
difficult for children. For example, in Bronckart and Sinclair (1973), children did not
regularly produce the French version (the imparfait form) until they were around
six years old— several years after they had been reliably producing a wide range o f
other tense and grammatical aspect forms. Similarly, in Weist, Pawlak, and Carapella’s
(2004) investigation o f the spontaneous speech o f children acquiring English and
Polish, they also found that past + imperfective com binations were produced after
children had acquired other com binations o f tense and gram m atical aspect (though
long before the children were six years old).
Investigations o f childrens ability to interpret grammatical aspect independently
o f tense have found that children do in fact have difficulty understanding these forms
early on. For example, in Wagner (2001), children watched an experimenter enact two

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tokens o f an event at two distinct places along a road. While the second event token
was still being enacted, children were asked a target question in either the present +
imperfective form or the past + imperfective form: e.g., “ Where is/was the cat filling
in the puzzle?” ). I h e first event token was the correct answer for the past tense ques­
tion and the second, ongoing event was the correct answer for the present tense ques­
tion. Critically, the trials differed with respect to whether or not the past time event
was completed or incomplete (e.g., a puzzle might have been finished, or there might
still be a piece still needing to be fit in). Three- and four-year-old children succeeded
in this task, correctly matching the past tense question to the past time event and the
present tense question to the ongoing event; moreover these children succeeded re­
gardless o f whether or not the past time event was completed. Two-year-old children,
however, were only able to succeed with the past tense question when the past time
event was completed. This pattern o f data suggests that these young children are not
using the deictic temporal information to solve the task, but instead are using the
completion information to do it; they succeeded when the situation contrasted a c o m ­
plete and an incomplete event, but not when it contrasted two incomplete events.
Since completion information is the very semantic information that grammatical
aspect actually does encode, these data suggest that children may not be aware that
tense information is independent, and can differ from, grammatical aspect.
Very similar m ethods were used by Kazanina and Phillips (2007) to investigate
children acquiring Russian. Th ey found that children linked past tense form s to
events that had been completed in the past, regardless o f whether or not the verbs
were in perfective or imperfective aspect. Similar to Wagner (2001), it appeared that
children did not understand the separate sem antic contributions o f tense and g r a m ­
matical aspect, and interpreted all past tense forms as if they were past + perfective.
However, Kazanina and Phillips also found that they could improve childrens per­
formance by adding information to the discourse. They recognized that past + i m ­
perfective sentences presuppose a particular temporal anchor point, and that it is
difficult to infer such an anchor from a single sentence uttered out-of-the-blue.
They added a context sentence to their targets (e.g., “W h ile the boy was washing the
dishes” ) and found that even three-year-old children could now correctly interpret
past + imperfective forms and distinguish them from past + perfective forms. C h il­
dren did better with m ore information, even when the additional information made
the sentences themselves more complex.
In addition, as has been seen with other aspects o f temporal semantics, children
with SLI also have difficulty distinguishing between tense and grammatical aspect.
Leonard and D e e v y (2010) used the task from Wagner (2001) with neurotypical and
SLI children. The neurotypical children were five years old, and they successfully
interpreted the past + imperfective form s with both completed and incomplete
events. The SLI children did poorly overall, and interestingly, they did not do better
when the past event was completed. This finding echoes findings with SLI children
discussed previously: This population does not seem to focus on completion infor­
mation as much as their neurotypical peers do, and does not seem biased to connect
it to their linguistic categories. These children not only have difficulty learning the

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adult-like m appings o f temporal semantics, they also seem to have difficulty with
the vertically defined classes.

4.3. Discourse Functions of Grammatical Aspect

B e y o n d the se m an tic interactions with Aktionsart and tense, gra m m a tic a l aspect is
also used for vario u s d isco urse and p ra g m a tic fun ctions in language. To the extent
that children tend to acquire d isc o u rse uses, p a rtic u la rly narrative d isc o u rse uses,
later in d evelop m en t, their k n o w le d g e o f h o w g r a m m a tic a l aspect e n c o d e s such
fu n ctio n s is also later. H ow ever, ex a m in a tio n s o f c h ild re n s early n a rra tiv e s— that is,
narratives o f children fr o m as y o u n g as three years o ld — consistently sh o w that c h il­
dren do use g ra m m a tic a l aspect in w a y s that are largely consistent with their adult
narrative fu n c tio n s, That is, children tend to describe events with perfective aspect
w h e n they w a n t to co n vey that the events h ap p e n e d sequentially and tend to use
im p erfe c tiv e aspect to co n v e y that events h a p p e n e d sim u lta n eo u sly (for data from
Thai, see W inskel, 2007; see also the articles in B e r m a n and Slobin, 1994). O b v i ­
ously, there are a variety o f subtle differences across languages in precisely h o w
g r a m m a tic a l aspect helps to structure a narrative, but ch ild ren s ability to tell stories
and their ability to use g r a m m a tic a l aspect to do so appears to develop together.
Moreover, there is som e evidence that gram m atical aspect understanding is
linked to broader abilities in discourse function (Vinnitskaya and Wexler, 2001;
Stoll, 2005). O ne particularly intriguing piece o f evidence com es from Vinnitskaya
and W exlers study o f childrens understanding o f the imperfective in Russian. The
Russian imperfective, beyond its temporal meaning, can also signal that in fo rm a ­
tion is presupposed within a discourse. Thus, it is possible to talk about a completed
event with a past + imperfective form , but only if the speaker and listener already
know about the completion. That is, if the completion information is discourse-old,
then an imperfective form is fine. If the completion is a n e w addition to the dis­
course, then it must be referred to with the perfective form. V innitskaya and Wexler
looked at childrens uses o f past + imperfective forms while they were telling short
narrative stories. They found that even three-year-old children did use som e past +
imperfective form s; m ore importantly, they found that the children used the form s
in contexts where they were presupposing listener knowledge. Three-year-old chil­
dren often have difficulty keeping track o f the content o f a discourse and tend to
presuppose that their listener knows m ore than they do. O ne m arker o f this diffi­
culty is the use o f unheralded pronouns in childrens narratives— that is, children
often fail to supply proper antecedents for their pronouns and m a y introduce a new
character in a story by simply saying he. Vinnitskaya and Wexler found that sen ­
tences containing past + imperfective forms wrere also m ore likely to contain un h er­
alded pronouns o f this type. The children in this study clearly had much to learn
about how to tell a well-form ed narrative, including learning what information they
can and cannot assume their listener already knows. However, with respect to
gram m atical aspect, these children dem onstrated quite impressive know ledge about
h ow it links to discourse functioning.

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5. A cq u isitio n of Tense

H ie m orphological forms o f tense overlap largely with those o f gram m atical aspect;
therefore, just as gram m atical aspect forms are acquired early, so too are tense
forms. In addition, it is also worth noting that around the age o f three years, chil­
dren begin over-regularizing the past tense forms (e.g., they say goed), suggesting
that they have abstracted a rule about application o f this form (M arcus et al., 1992;
Maratsos, 2000). Som e children do not acquire tense form s on schedule, but go
through a prolonged period d urin g which they produce bare 01* infinitive fo rm s o f
the verb; this kind o f delay in correctly using tense m o rp h o lo g y is a com m on char­
acteristic o f children with SLI (e.g., Rice et al., 1995; M arch m an et al., 1999). As has
been noted previously, children with SLI seem to have particular problems in a c ­
quiring both form and m eaning in the d om ain o f temporality.
In the sem antic dom ain, the presumption has been that children will have d if­
ficulties with the deictic element o f tense because som e tenses (past and future)
necessarily force children to consider times outside o f their preferred time, the
here-and-now (cf. Piaget, 1969). A n d indeed, research using a variation o f the wug
task (Akhtar and Tomasello, 1997)3 found that two-year-old children could not reli­
ably attach past tense m o rp h o lo g y to a novel verb in their own produced forms.
However, tests o f childrens com prehension have found that even two-year-old
children understand tense marking. Valian (2006) provided a v e ry straightforward
demonstration o f tense know ledge in children acquiring English. Children were
shown two targets in the same state (e.g., two teddy bears w earing h appy faces);
then one o f the targets changed state (e.g., one teddy bear put on a sad face). C h il­
dren were simply asked to “ Sh ow me the one w ho is/was happy.” With items like this
in which the tense information is simply carried through the copula verb, two-year-
old children reliably differentiated the forms.
When tense is com bined with gram m atical aspect, two-year-old children do
not fare as well. As noted previously, Wagner (2001) found that two-year-olds could
successfully differentiate past from present only when the two events also differed
with respect to completion. That is, children asked to interpret a past + imperfective
form (e.g., “ The kitty was filling in a puzzle” ) could do so only when the past event
was also a completed event (i.e., the puzzle was completely filled in). Further s u p ­
port for this position com es from Valians w ork. She tested children with all atelic
predicates so there was no possibility o f a completion contrast because atelic events
have no inherent completion point. A s with the copula case, she showed children
two targets, one o f which underwent a simple change o f state, and asked children to
identify a target using a progressive form (e.g., “ Show me the one who is/was
w earing socks” ). Both two- and three-year-olds failed in this condition; it was not
until children were age four years that they could correctly interpret a past progres­
sive form.
C h ild ren s perform ance in these tense tasks also improves when the test sen ­
tences contain temporal adverbs (e.g., right now , already , before). Wagner (2001)

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found that the presence o f temporal adverbs boosted the correct perform an ce o f all
children, but she tested them only with situations where pastness and completion
information were confounded. Valian (2006) found that adverbs could not help
two-year-olds with a pure tense contrast— indeed, adverbs do not even improve
their perform an ce when tense is marked only on the copula verb. Slightly older
children (three-year-olds), however, were able to use the adverbial inform ation to
help them succeed. It is unclear precisely how the adverbial findings should be
interpreted. On the one hand, they suggest support for the information processing
approach to temporal semantics: adding information to the discourse helps chil­
dren do better. On the other hand, it is possible that the adverbs provide enough
information on their ow n that children do not have to rely on tense at all when they
are present. The success with the adverbs certainly shows that children have the
conceptual resources to understand time and to order things deictically, but it does
not constitute knowledge o f linguistic tense itself.
In addition, it should be noted that exam inations o f childrens ability to under­
stand tense often show that Aktionsart does not influence that understanding at all.
The children in W agners (2001) study succeeded with both telic and atelic predi­
cates. Moreover, Delidakis and Varlokosta (2003) similarly showed that children
acquiring Greek understand tenses equally well with both telic and atelic predicates.
(But see Matsuo and van der Feest, 2001, and Grinstead et al., 2009, for som e p o s ­
sible counter-evidence.) Given the fact that the link between tense and Aktionsart is
not direct, but seems to be mediated by gram m atical aspect, it is perhaps not su r­
prising that the two do not directly interact with each other.

5.1. Future Tense

For s o m e researchers, the future tense is not pro p e rly a tense at all, but sh o u ld m o re
rightly be co n sid ered a m odality. The future necessarily has irrealis p ro p erties that
stem fro m the fact that it is applied only to events that have not yet actually h a p ­
p e n e d ; and, since the future is in p rin cip le un k n o w ab le , the events m a y never
h ap p en . Investigations o f ch ild ren s acquisition o f tense h ave regularly in c lu d e d the
future and, in general, the results have found that children acquire contrasts i n ­
v o lv in g the future tense before they can differentiate the past fr o m the present tense.
For exam ple, Weist et al. (2004) e x a m in e d the sp o n ta n e o u s pro d u ction o f c h il­
dren a c q u irin g Polish and English. The key m e a su re used w a s the presence o f c o n ­
trastive fo rm s; that is w h en the v e r y sa m e verb was used with m o r e than one
m o r p h o lo g ic a l fo rm . C h ild re n p ro d u c e d contrastive pairs in v o lv in g the future tense
(future vs. past) earlier— in s o m e cases, as m u c h as h a l f a year earlier— than p r o ­
duced pairs co n trastin g past and present tense.
Moreover, comprehension studies regularly find that two-year-olds succeed ro­
bustly with contrasts involving the future tense. For example, in Valian (2006), the
condition in which two-year-olds did the best involved an auxiliary contrast
between will and did. That is, the children succeeded at identifying the correct tar­
get given a sentence like this: “ Sh ow me the duck that did/will d rin k ?” Similarly, the

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youngest children in Wagner (2001) p erform ed most clearly with the future target
(e.g., “Show me where the kitty is gonna fill in a puzzle” ), decidedly m ore clearly
than they did with either the past or present tense targets. Similar results have also
been found for Greek by Delidakis and Varlokosta (2003). Moreover, the early su c­
cess with tense found for English, Polish, and Finnish by Weist and colleagues
(Weist et al., 1991, 1997, 1999) m a y be partially attributable to the fact that those
studies always contrasted the past with the future tense.
The idea that children are better earlier with the future tense than with the past
or present tenses suggests that the realis/irrealis distinction is particularly salient for
children and m ay play an important role in helping them break into the linguistic
dom ain o f event-anchoring m ore generally. However, systematic investigations
have yet to be done to tease apart various alternative hypotheses, such as the possi­
bility that future form s are easier to find in the input, or that parents provide more
contextual support for future interpretations.

6. C o n c lu sio n

Tense and aspect are central semantic elements in every language, and they are
a m on g the earliest gram m atical elements that children acquire. Children produce
tense/aspect m o rp h o lo g y in their early spontaneous production, but on their own,
they tend to align their usage w ithin general semantic classes. That is, they prefer­
entially produce form s that com bine past -1- perfective + telic or else com bine pre­
sent + imperfective + atelic. This under-extension in their production, however,
does not translate into an equivalent omission in their comprehension. Before chil­
dren are three years old, they understand the basic semantic contribution o f tense
and gram m atical aspect, and they can interpret both regardless o f the Aktionsart o f
the predicate on which the m o rp h o lo g y appears. Similarly, they have also learned at
least s o m e o f the syntactic reflexes used by Aktionsart in their language. Children
do have s o m e initial trouble disentangling tense from grammatical aspect, but this
is largely resolved by the time children are three years old, and later difficulties are
greatly ameliorated by providing children with m ore information, either through
the situation or through the linguistic discourse.
There are, o f course, a nu m ber o f open questions rem aining to be investigated.
Even at a descriptive level, there are m any elements o f childrens tense and aspect
knowledge we know little about. For Aktionsart , only a handful o f potential syntac­
tic reflexes have been investigated and little w o rk has exam ined childrens ability to
make fine-grained distinctions a m on g Aktionsart types. For gram m atical aspect,
most o f the w ork has focused on the presence/absence o f completion entailments,
while little attention has been paid to other semantic distinctions in this area, such
as the difference between progressive and non-progressive imperfective forms. For
tense, very little is known about how children interpret remote tenses and how tense
interpretations might be influenced by reference to p roxim al or distal time periods.

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At a m ore conceptual level, this chapter has argued that the information processing
point o f view provides the best theoretic account o f childrens temporal knowledge,
but v ery little is known about what kinds o f information really matter for children.
It is clear that both discourse and situational factors matter, but which factors in
particular are most important for interpreting each o f the m a n y temporal elements
in a language needs a great deal o f further study. Finally, although there is evidence
that having early difficulties with temporality may be diagnostic o f the presence o f
a language disorder such as SLI, it is unclear why this link exists and whether it is
best described in terms o f the syntax or the semantics o f temporal elements. N e v e r­
theless, the existing data do show that even very you n g children (i.e., two-year-olds)
have the basic building blocks o f temporal semantics in place. Tense and aspect are
core elements not only within languages, but also within the process o f language
acquisition.

NOTES

1. See H ew son on tense, Filip on lexical aspect, and de Swart on grammatical aspect,
in this volume.
2. R e c u rre n t c o n n c c tio n is t n etw o rk s arc a type o f d o m a in - g e n e r a l le a rn in g device.
T h e y are notable b ecau se in som e cases, rule-like regularities em e rg e in their output
even though they were not ex p lic itly p r o g r a m m e d into the n e tw o rk ’s architecture. See
E l m a n et al. (1997) for a full set o f a r g u m e n ts in favor o f c o n n e c tio n ist ap p ro ach es to
d evelo p m en t.
3. The w u g task was pioneered by Berko (1958) and is used to test children’s ability to
productively apply a m orphological rule. Children are given a nonsense word and
encouraged to produce the target m o rp h o lo g y with it. For exam ple, to target the past
tense, the experim enter would say “ This girl wugs every day. Yesterday, she . . . ” Children
w ho c o m m a n d the past tense would respond with the form wugged.

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SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

KATHLEEN BARDOVI-HARLIG

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

This chaptcr presents an overview o f recent w o rk on the aspect hypothesis within

second language acquisition (SLA) research on tense and aspect. The aspect h y p o ­
thesis addresses the distribution o f gram m atical aspect across predicates belonging
to different lexical aspectual categories, draw ing on w ork with which readers o f this
volu m e will be familiar. It exam ines interlanguage form -function associations from
a form -oriented approach, and is the most widely tested hypothesis in second
language (L2) tense-aspect research, both in variety o f target languages investigated
and learner populations. Based on the observation that children learning their first
language encode the completion o f events before they encode temporal relations
between events and time o f speaking, the aspect hypothesis tests for sim ilar acqui-
sitional patterns in adult second language acquisition. The study o f adult learners
further offers the opportunity to study language development separately from c o g ­
nitive development, with w h ic h it is always entwined in first language acquisition
(Klein, 1986, 1998). Studies in the aspect hypothesis fram ew o rk also offer evidence
for the acquisitional reality o f lexical aspect, as the categories are demonstrably
relevant crosslinguistically in the acquisition o f L2 tense-aspect m orphology.
Interlanguage (the em erging second language g ra m m a r) is systematic and c o n ­
stitutes a natural language. Second language acquisition exhibits rem arkably similar
developmental sequences or paths regardless o f environment, instruction, or even
first language or target language. Even such basic rules as m arking past time with

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past tense do not apply everywhere they could apply in interlanguage (or do apply in
the target language), but instead begin at a simpler, earlier, or more prototypical start­
ing point and spread throughout the L i grammar. The aspect hypothesis predicts
both the initial restricted use o f verbal m orphology (perfective past, imperfective
past, and progressive) and its subsequent spread in the L i grammar.

1.1. Tense and Aspect in SLA

S L A researchers have always been interested in tense-aspect m orphology, although
the empirical research has developed considerably from the first studies. The lon g i­
tudinal studies o f the development o f m o rp h o lo g y in first language (Li) acquisition
(Brown, 1973) were replicated for child and adult L2 learners in large cross-sectional
studies (Dulay and Burt, 19 7 3,19 74 ; Bailey, M adden, and Krashen , 1974). Following
Brown, the early m orp h em e studies investigated up to 13 m o rph em es at once, in ­
cluding not only select verbal m orphology, but also noun m orphology, articles,
prepositions, and auxiliaries. While the interest in acquisition orders continued, the
research focus began to shift to orders o f acquisition within a single system, and o f
interest here, included studies o f the acquisition o f verbal m orphology. Studies o f
the acquisition o f English past and past progressive (Bailey, 1987,1989) and French
perfective and im perfective past, passé composé and imparfait (Kaplan, 1987)
explored the use o f past m orphology. O ne hallm ark o f early w ork on L2 acquisition
w as the emphasis on targetlike production and the use o f a cut-off score— usually
8 0 - 9 0 % appropriate use in obligatory contexts— at which a m o rp h e m e was c o n sid ­
ered to be acquired (see Brown, 1973). A lm o st as early as the m o rp h e m e studies
began, other scholars argued that focusing on the endpoint o f second language ac­
quisition (i.e., high rates o f appropriate use) precluded the study o f the process o f
second language acquisition (Flatch and W agner-G ough, 1975; A ndersen, 1977,1978;
Dittmar, 1981). As a result, the focus o f investigations o f L2 m o rp h o lo g y began to
shift not only from end-point to process, but from the form o f tense-aspect m o r ­
phology to fo rm -m ea n in g associations within developing L2 temporal systems.
The close study o f developing L2 temporal systems took two main approaches,
the meaning- (or concept-) oriented approaches and the form-oriented approaches.
The meaning-oriented approaches, exemplified by the early work o f von Stutter-
heim (1986), Meisel (1987), and von Stutterheim and Klein (1987), and championed
largely by European functionalists, began with temporal concepts— such as the
past— and asked how developing systems expressed such concepts. These inquiries
were able to capture p re -m o rp h o lo g y stages o f interlanguage in which adverbials
and other lexical items were used by learners to m ake temporal reference and show
how learners gradually add tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y to their linguistic repertoire
(see especially Dietrich, Klein, and N oyau, 1995; Bardovi-H arlig, 2000). In contrast,
the form-oriented approaches began with tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y and asked
w here it occurred and how it was distributed, and consequently what the em erging
form s meant in the developing L2. The best know n o f these investigations tested the
aspect hypothesis, and to date it has guided SL A research into multiple languages

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and m any combinations o f first and second languages. The aspect hypothesis came
to S L A fro m first language acquisition research through the w o r k o f Roger A n d e r ­
sen and his students (Kumpf, 1984; Andersen 19 8 6 ,19 9 1; Flashner, 1989).

2. T h e A spect H yp o t h esis

The aspect h yp o th esis in S L A research is related to research in child language a c q u i­

sition (B ro n c k a rt and Sinclair, 1973; A n tin u c c i a n d Miller, 1976; B lo o m , Lifter, and
Hafitz, 1980), although e n o u g h recent w o r k in S L A has been u n d ertaken that these
Li studies are less frequently a c k n o w le d g e d today than form erly. Іл acquisition
studies fo u n d that children w ere sensitive to lexical a sp ect in the m o rp h o lo g ic a l
e n c o d in g o f past events. Based on conversation al data from longitudinal studies,
A n tin u c c i and M iller (1976) reported that seven Ita lia n -sp ea k in g children and one
E n g lish -s p e a k in g child (ages 1 ;6 to 255) used the past participle w ith change o f state
verbs (e.g., venire “come,” cascare “ fall,” arrivare “arrive” ) w h ic h “ lead to an end
result” (p. 174). (The target language fo rm w o u ld be t h e passatoprossim o , co n sistin g
o f an a u x ilia ry and the past participle, w h ich is the past fo rm for non-stative verbs.
A n tin u c c i and M iller equated the use o f the bare participle with the past in the early
stages o f d evelop m ent.) In contrast to the pattern exhibited by ch an ge o f state verbs,
stative verbs (e.g., volere ‘w a n t’, sapere ‘k n o w ’ ) and activity verbs (e.g., volare ‘fly’,
caminare ‘w a lk ’) w ere not used w ith the past or bare participle. B ro n ck a rt and S in ­
clair (1973) rep orted sim ila r results fro m an e x p e rim e n ta l p ro d u c tio n task in w h ich
74 F r e n c h -sp e a k in g children (ages 2;n to 8;7) used perfective past fo rm s (passé com­
posé) for actions with end points and present fo rm s (présent) for inh erently durative
events. Im perfective past (imparfait) w a s rarely used. B ro n ck a rt and Sinclair (p. 126)
c o n c lu d e d that before the age o f 6 the aspectual d istinction “ betw een the perfective
and im p erfective events se em s to be o f m o r e im p o r ta n c e than the te m p o ra l relation
b etw ee n action and the m o m e n t o f en un ciation [speaking),” and it is o n ly from the
age o f six on, w h en the use o f passé composé extends to all actions and the imparfait
em erges, children use verbal m o r p h o lo g y to express “ the sa m e tem poral relation­
ships as adults.” A n tin u c c i a n d M iller (1976, p. 182) c o n clu d ed that in Italian and
English “ the child is able to m a k e reference to and e n c o d e past events only w h en
their character is such that they result in a present end-state o f s o m e object.” A n t i ­
nucci and M iller h ypo th esized that the o b serv a b le end-state allow s the e n c o d in g o f
the event in the past. T h e y co nclu de that for the children, the use o f verbal m o r ­
p h o lo g y is not the result o f an abstract te m p o ra l relation such as past, but rather the
result o f the child’s ability to o b serv e a specific o utcom e. This interpretation o f the
distribution o f verb al m o r p h o lo g y in Li acquisition is cognitive as well as linguistic
(B lo o m et al., 1980), b ecau se the ch ild ’s system is said to lack the concept o f t e m p o ­
ral location, a concept that is n e c e s sa ry for tense.
W ith the L i research as a b a c k g ro u n d , se c o n d language acquisition researchers
began a sim ilar line o f investigation. With adult learners, the investigation o f second

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484 PERSPECTIVES

language acquisition also afforded the opportunity to test claims o f the cognitive-
developmental basis for tense-aspect distribution in first language acquisition (Klein,
1986,1998); in adult second language acquisition the learners cognitive development
is complete (no one would claim that an adult lacks the concept o f temporal location)
but their new linguistic system is not.
W hat has com e to be know n sim ply as the aspect hypothesis in second language
acquisition research (Andersen and Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-ITarlig, 1994) has under­
gone a series o f revisions similar to its developm ent in the Li studies. An early ver­
sion o f the aspect hypothesis (Andersen, 1986, 1991), called the defective tense
hypothesis (following Weist et al., 1984), stated that “ in beginning stages o f language
acquisition only inherent aspectual distinctions are encoded by verbal m orphology,
not tense or gram m atical aspect” (Andersen, 1991, p. 307; emphasis in the original).
In the most current formulation o f the aspect hypothesis, A ndersen and Shirai
(1994, p. 133) have maintained the im portance o f the initial influence o f aspect (cf.
Robison, 1990), but have not explicitly set aspectual influence in opposition to
encoding tense or gram m atical aspect: “ First and second language learners will ini­
tially be influenced by the inherent semantic aspect o f verbs or predicates in the
acquisition o f tense and aspect markers associated with or/affixed to these verbs.”

2.1. The Four Aspect Hypotheses

The aspect hypothesis can be broken down into four separate claims (Shirai, 1991,
pp. 9 - 1 0 ; Andersen and Shirai, 1996), stated in terms o f gram m atical aspect and its
relation to lexical aspect stated in terms o f Vendler categories o f states, activities,
accomplishments, and achievements (Vendler, 1957/1967; Dowty, 1979).

1. Learners first use (perfective) past m arking on achievements and a c c o m ­

plishments, eventually extending use to activities and statives.
2. In languages that encode the perfective/imperfective distinction, imperfec-
tive past appears later than perfective past, and imperfect past m arking
begins with statives, extending next to activities, then to accomplishments,
and finally to achievements.
3. In languages that have progressive aspect, progressive m arking begins with
activities, then extends to accom plishments and achievements.
4. Progressive m arkings are not incorrectly overextended to statives.

W hile readers familiar with lexical aspect will not be surprised by the affinity o f
certain tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y for certain lexical aspectual categories (after all,
what arc the best know n tests for lexical aspectual categories if not co-occurrence
tests), the acquisitional claim goes beyond the affinity o f verbal m o rp h o lo g y for
predicates o f semantically compatible lexical aspectual categories. It additionally
claims that in the initial stages— in the past— verbal m o rp h o lo g y will be in co m p le­
m en tary distribution according to aspectual category, unlike in the target languages
investigated in the s am e studies, where contrast is possible (Andersen, 19 9 0 ,19 9 4 ).

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M ost em pirical studies o f the aspect hypothesis have adopted the four-w ay
distinction o f the V endler categories as reflected in Sh irais (1991; A n d e rse n and
Shirai, 1996) expansion o f the aspect hypothesis into four separate testable
hypotheses. Two em pirical studies have em ployed additional aspectual categories.
Robison (1995), follow ing Leech (1971) and Lys and M o m m e r (1986), grouped
predicates into six categories: three durative categories, states, activities, and du-
rative events (the latter c o rre s p o n d in g to the Vendler category o f a cc o m p lish ­
ments), and three punctual categories, punctual states, punctual activities, and
punctual events (a subset o f V endler achievem ents). There were very few tokens o f
punctual states, and this analysis was not replicated in the acquisition literature.
Suguya and Shirai (2007) add ed a fifth category, sem elfactive, to the four Vendler
categories follow ing Smith (1991). Sem elfactives are d y n a m ic and punctual, but
atelic (Smith, 1991) and include predicates such as cough and knock which in a
Vendler analysis belon g to achievem ents. Sem elfactive predicates allow p ro g res­
sives and have an iterative reading (such as John is knocking on the door) whereas
achievem ents with progressives m a y allow the interpretation o f a prelim in ary
stage o f an event, but not the iterative, as in John is dying (Suguya and Shirai, 2007,
p. 4). (See also section 3.2.2.)
In a d d itio n to the ro le that a sp e c tu a l c a te g o r y play s in the initial d istrib u tio n
and s p r e a d o f te n s e - a s p e c t m o r p h o l o g y in s e c o n d la n g u a g e a c q u is itio n , one
m ust also c o n s id e r the role that te n s e - a s p e c t m o r p h o l o g y play s in n a r r a tiv e
stru ctu re .

2.2. The Discourse Hypothesis

Hopper (1979, p. 239) observed that competent (native) users o f a language “ m ark
out a main route through the narrative and divert in som e w ay those parts o f the
narrative that are not strictly relevant to this route.” The main route is generally
known as the foreground which can be characterized by three temporal criteria
(Reinhart, 1984, p. 801): narrativity or tem poral continuity (only narrative units,
i.e., textual units w hose order matches the order o f the events they report, can serve
as foreground); punctuality (units reporting punctual events can serve m ore easily
as foreground than units reporting durative, repetitive, or habitual events); and
completeness (a report o f a completed event can serve m ore easily as foreground
than a report o f an ongoin g event). O ne means o f m arking the foreground m a y be
through the use o f tense and aspect (Hopper, 1979). In the fo regrou n d , H opper
(p. 239) ob served , successive events m a y be m ark ed in the preterite or sim ple
past. D ahl (1984, p. 117) o b se rv e d that in so m e languages verbs in the fo regro u n d
m ay c a r r y no m a rk in g , and c o n c lu d ed that “ it is always possible to use the least
m ark ed indicative form in a narrative [i.e., foregrou n d ] past context.” In L2 ac­
quisition researchers also fo u n d that a relationship exists between the use o f v e r ­
bal m o r p h o l o g y in interlanguage and the g r o u n d in g o f the narrative (K u m pf,
1984; Flashner, 1989; von Stutterheim and Klein, 1989; von Stutterheim, 1991;

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486 PERSPECTIVES

B a rd o v i-H a rlig , 1992, 1995). Taking interlangu age as natural lan guage that fo l­
lows linguistic universals, the interlanguage discourse hypothesis predicts that
“ learners use e m e rg in g verbal m o r p h o lo g y to distinguish fo reg ro u n d fro m b a c k ­
g ro u n d in narratives” (B a rd o v i-H a rlig , 1994, p. 43). Based on the w o rk o f H opper
and Dahl, the d iscou rse h ypothesis predicts that the fo regro u n d w ould be m arked
by the perfective past.

2.3. Comparing the Aspect and Discourse Hypotheses

The aspect-hypothesis states its prediction in terms o f aspectual category and the
discourse hypothesis in terms o f grounding, but they can be com pared by en vision­
ing aspectual categories across grounding.

a. Discourse hypothesis
F o r e g ro u n d :|A C II, A C C , A C T , STA
Background: A C H , A C C , A C T , STA
b. Aspect hypothesis
Foreground: A C H , A C C , A C T , STA
B ackgrou n d : A C H , A C C , A C T , S TA
c. C o m p a r iso n
Foreground: A C H , A C C , A C T , STA
Background: A C H , A C C ] , A C T , S TA

The discourse hypothesis predicts that all foregrounded predicates will attract per­
fective past, indicated by the box in (a). The aspect hypothesis predicts telic predi­
cates will receive perfective m orphology, regardless o f grounding, indicated by the
box in (b), but the discourse hypothesis suggests that foreground telics are more
likely to. The hypotheses make the same predictions for achievements and a c c o m ­
plishments in the foreground (they will attract the perfective past) and activities
and states in the backgrou n d (they are unlikely to attract the perfective), and they
m ake different predictions for telic predicates in the background and atelic predi­
cates in the foreground, indicated by the boxes in (c). In practicality, o f the atelics
only activities occur with frequency in both foreground and background. In the
narratives o f less proficient learners, activities clearly show perfective m o rp h o lo g y
only in the foreground, and in m ore proficient learners in background as well (Bar-
dovi-Harlig, 1998).

3. T e n s e and A spect St u d ie s: T he Ev id en c e

There are two main steps to establishing evidence for the aspect hypothesis: the first
is dem onstrating the initial associations, and the second is tracking the d evelop­
ment o f new associations o f m o rp h o lo g y to aspectual categories as the L2 exhibits
less prototypical associations.

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3.1. Initial Distribution

The evidence for the starting point o f Hypothesis 1 (in section 2.1), the distribution of
the perfective past, is quite robust and comes from a variety o f target languages in­
cluding English, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, and Japanese. (See Bardovi-Harlig,
2000, for a review.) L2 English oral narratives produced by 37 learners o f English in a
retelling o f an excerpt from Modern Times showed higher use o f perfective past with
achievements than accomplishments, which in turn showed higher use o f past than
with activities); written narratives by the same learners showed that achievements and
accomplishments patterned together, and showed higher used o f perfective past than
activities (Bardovi-IIarlig, 1998). The distribution o f verbal m orphology across cate­
gories is illustrated in Examples (1-4 ) (from Bardovi-Harlig and Bergstrom, 1996).

(1) The police left 1A C H , past] the m an and caught [ A C H , past] the w o m e n . The m an wants
[STA, pres) go to the prison because he is v e r y p o o r [STA, pres] and he sleep [AC T , base]
on the street e v e r y day. After that he went to the restaurant [ A C C , past] and took food
[ A C C , past] for eating. [Learner £4]
(2) W h e n the bus w a s ru n n in g [AC T, progressive], he met her [ A C I I , past] in the bus. He
stand up [ A C C , base] for her. W h e n m o v in g bus [AC T, progressive] [when the bus w as
m ovin g], he sat on [ A C C , past] fat w o m a n s knee. [Learner E7]
(3) Then the girl c r y in g [AC T , progressive] might be she w as sad [STA, past] for her
setwation [situation] [Learner E16]

Also reasonably w ell-docu m ented is the first stage o f Hypothesis 3, the initial use o f
progressive with activities, with evidence prim arily from English (Bardovi-H arlig
and Reynolds, 1995; Bardovi-H arlig, 1998), Italian (Giacalone Ramat, 1997), and
Japanese (Shirai and Kurono, 1998; Shirai, 2002) in which the initial association o f
the progressive with activities is dominant. An exam ple o f the distribution o f the
progressive in its continuous reading comes from the sam e narrative data (Bardovi-
Harlig, 1998): The use o f the progressive w as greater for activities than accom plish­
ments, and rare for achievements. Hypothesis 4, the nonuse o f progressive with
states, requires a different type o f evidence, that o f non-occurrence, and will not be
pursued further here.
T a k in g narrative structure into accou nt there are three m ain findings:

1. A chievem ents are the predicates most likely to be inflected for simple past,
regardless o f grounding.
2. Accom plishm ents are the next most likely type o f predicate to carry the
simple past. Foreground accom plishm ents show higher rates o f use than
backgrou nd accomplishments.
3. Activities are the least likely o f all the d y n am ic verbs to carry simple past,
but foreground activities show higher rates o f simple past inflection than
background activities. Activities also show the highest use o f progressive,
but this is limited to the background.

In contrast to the evidence for the initial distribution o f the perfective and the
progressive, the evidence for Hypothesis 2 regarding the initial association o f the

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488 PERSPECTIVES

imperfective past with statives is less robust. There are fewer studies on the imper-
fective past in general (partly ow ing to the prom inence o f English as a target
language in S L A research), fewer tokens o f the imperfective than the perfective past
in production data, and generally less lexical diversity a m o n g imperfectives in inter­
language; these reasons, coupled with the fact that in L i development the first i m ­
perfective seems to be the present and the acquisition o f the imperfect is delayed,
have led to insufficient evidence for a confident docum entation o f the development
o f the imperfective in second language acquisition (Bardovi-H arlig, 2005).

3.2. Documenting Changing Distributions

So far, the bulk o f the L2 research reflects the initial distribution o f tense-aspect m o r­
phology across aspectual categories. There is less evidence o f the spread from the
predicted starting points through the system: for perfective past from achievements
and accomplishments to activities and from activities to states; for imperfective (be­
ginning later than perfective) m o v in g from states to activities, accomplishments, and
finally to achievements; and for progressive from activities to accomplishments, and
last to achievements. In lieu o f longitudinal studies in this fram ework, most studies
provide cross-sectional evidence for dom inance o f the canonical associations at
lower levels with increased use at higher levels by more advanced learners. This
m eans that spreads have to be investigated in two ways: m o rp h o lo g y moves across
aspectual categories and across proficiency levels. It is slightly trickier to docum ent
cross-sectionally than in a longitudinal study, where presum ably the m ove from a
prototypical association to a less prototypical association should occur sequentially,
across time.
O ne unanticipated finding early on which has been repeated subsequently is
that this association o f tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y with lexical aspectual category
strengthens with proficiency (Bardovi-H arlig and Reynolds, 1995; Robison, 1995;
Bardovi-H arlig, 1998). O ne might have anticipated the opposite direction quantita­
tively, nam ely that as tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y spreads across aspectual categories
there w ould be a lessening o f the association. One reason for this is the increased
use o f m o rp h o lo g y as learners becom e m ore proficient (and the concomitant
decreased use o f bare verbs or com peting m o rp h o lo g y) which appears with s e m a n ­
tically congruent predicates. A n additional possibility has not been investigated: the
use o f tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y in nonprototypical contexts may not be sufficient
to quantitatively alter the pattern.

3.2.1. Perfective Past

The spread o f the perfective past from achievement to stative predicates via a c c o m ­
plishments and activities (A C H A C C -> A C T -> STA ) is well docum ented in E n g ­
lish, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, and Japanese, particularly across dynam ic
verbs. (See Bardovi-Harlig, 2000 for a review.) L2 English oral narratives showed
higher use o f perfective past in A C I I than A C C , which were higher than A C T (the

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SECOND LANG UAG E ACQUISITION 489

initial state) and then increased its use in all the categories over time (the spread).
The written narratives sh o w much higher use o f perfective past with events (A C H
and A C C , com bined) and significant increases o f simple past with activities, reach­
ing over 70% o f all activities by the advanced group (Bardovi-H arlig, 1998). In E n g ­
lish, statives in the past are unremarkable, but not so in R om an ce languages, which
have both perfective and imperfective past.
O n e o f the reasons that the p erfective is well d o c u m e n te d is that it o c c u rs in the
fo re g ro u n d o f narratives and sequential reports. E v e r y narrative has a foregroun d,
and se q u e n c e d events in the past a p p ea r in the perfective past. The perfective past
w h ich presents b o u n d e d or closed situations with its interpretation o f sequentiality
is pa rticu la rly well suited for the fu n ctio n o f the fo re gro u n d , a n d it is in fact the
d o m in a n t fo rm o f the fo re g ro u n d . In addition, the p erfective does not change
m e a n in g s and is relatively u n p o ly s e m o u s c o m p a r e d to the progressive and the g e n ­
eral im p erfective, w h ich are co n sid ered in the fo llo w in g sections.

3.2.2. Progressive
The s p r e a d o f the p r o g r e s s iv e is p re d ic te d to take the path A C T -> A C C -> A C H . In
its m o st s t r a ig h t fo r w a r d in terp re ta tio n , th e a s p e c t h y p o th e s is a d d re ss e s the c o n ­
tin u o u s r e a d in g o f the p ro g re ss iv e (after all, that is w h at m a k e s activities with no
in trin sic end po int and the p r o g r e s s iv e s e m a n tic a lly c o m p a tib le ). H o w e v e r, in the
c o u rse o f a c q u isitio n , the p ro g re ss iv e also takes on o th e r r e a d in g s such as r e p e a t­
ed n ess, w h ic h are relevan t to its sp rea d acro ss a sp ectu a l c atego ries.' A n d e r s e n
and Sh ira i (1996) p r o p o s e d a p r o g r e s s iv e p r o to ty p e w h ic h p re d ic ts the path o f
d e v e lo p m e n t:

P ro cess (activity > a c c o m p lis h m e n t) > iterative > habitual o r futurate > stative
p rogressive

B a rd o v i-IIa r lig (in press) conducted a study o f the spread o f the progressive in
a one-year longitudinal study o f 16 learners o f English fro m m ix e d Li background s.
The learner corpu s yielded 10 9 6 progressive tokens from 1751 oral and written
texts. O f those, 33 tokens o f progressive (3.0%) were used in repeated actions
(whether iterative or habitual). Repeated readings appeared only after the c o n tin ­
uous reading w as established in the unguided production that constitutes the
corpus. The repeated readings appeared p rim arily in activities as in Exam ples (4)
and (5); only five occu rren ces were telic predicates (four accom plish m en ts and
one achievem ent) as in E x am p le s (6) and (7). (Exam ples from Bard ovi-H arlig, in
press.)

(4) W h en I a m playing the clarinet at Recital Hall I can feel v e r y good. (Idcchi, Written,
M onth 7.5)
(5) She always call m e, “ what did you do?" uh, we arc always talking about men. (laugh)
(Noriko, Oral, M onth 15.0)
(6) lliree m en were once at a bridges. 'Ihey were saying to e v e r y b o d y w h o crossed it— you
must tell us where are you g o in g and you will can to pass, hut i f you lie as about it, we
will kill you. [A C C ] (Eduardo, Written, M onth 2.5)

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(7) M ost K orean w o m e n , w h e n they get m arried, they are leaving their home (Ji-A n ,
Written, M onth 4.5).
(8) At last the bicycle toke the balles then play alon or juggle alon he was throwing and
receiving the balles by its pedals. [A C C ] (Zayed, Written, M onth 10.5)

With telic predicates, the progressive can force the repeated reading even w ith ­
out an explicit adverb as in (6) and (7). It m ay be argued that the indirect object to
everybody in (6) makes the predicate saying to everybody an activity because the
action is distributed across m any times. In Exam ple (7) a generic subject, Korean
women , renders an achievem ent predicate leave home an activity. In Example (8) the
paraphrase o f juggle (an activity) as throwing and receiving the balls shows that
although the individual predicates throw the balls and receive the balls are a c c o m ­
plishments, their use in the progressive results in a derived repeated activity made
up o f telic predicates (Smith, 1997).
Learners m a y also use adverbs o f frequency in conjunction with the progressive
to create a reading o f repeatedness as in Examples (9) and (10). The im portance o f
adverbials in repeated readings is shown by the increase in the adverb-to-verb ratio
fro m .37 (under four adverbs for every ten verbs) for activities in general to.94 (or
just over 9 adverbs for ev ery 10 verbs) in repeated readings.

(9) I had a part time jo b in circus, like guard. S o every d a y I w as w atching the circus
(Kazuhiro, Oral, M onth 10.5)
(10) He w as traveling every, e v e r y year. M a n y times. (Saleh, Oral, Month 12.5)

The lon gitu d in al data suggest that the progressive b e gin s its expansion
w ithin activity predicates, a d d in g the repeated rea d in g to the earlier-acq uired
co n tin u o u s reading, before sp re a d in g to a cc o m p lish m e n ts and a ch ievem en ts. It
appears that it will be n e cessary to collect p ro d u c tio n data from learners w h o are
m o re a d v an ced than those in the longitudinal study under d iscu ssio n or to use
ju d g m e n t tasks (or both) in order to m ore fully investigate progressives with telic
predicates.
H uang (1999) exam ined the expression o f iterative and habitual actions (which
she called repeated predicates) com pared to actions that occur as a single event
(which she called unitary predicates) in a small study o f five L i Chinese learners via
oral interview data. Learners in H u an g s study favored the use o f progressive with
u n itary predicates, focusing on the continuous reading o f the progressive. A s in the
longitudinal study discussed previously, the use o f progressive in repeated readings
w as m u ch less co m m o n , with progressive and repeated readings occurrin g at about
a 3:1 ratio. However, without a cross-sectional com parison, the direction o f develop­
ment cannot be assessed from these data.
Suguya and S h irai (2007) investigated the acquisition o f the progressive by L2
learners o f Japanese w ho spoke English, a language that has a m orphological pro­
gressive, and learners who spoke G e rm a n , Russian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian, lan­
guages that do not have an obligatory progressive. The results o f a judgm ent task
show ed that regardless o f Li, learners at lower levels were better able to judge the
appropriateness o f the progressive with activities than with accom plishm ents or

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semelfactives. M ore advanced learners were equally able to assess the appropriate­
ness o f progressive with accomplishments and semelfactives, suggesting that there
is a spread across categories as predicted (although there w a s no statistically signif­
icant difference between accom plishm ents and semelfactives on this test).2 The
results o f a picture-description production task completed by the same learners
showed that all progressive contexts involved activities, with the only exception
being one state verb used twice in a progressive context. Thus, the production data
exhibited the initial state but were unable to shed light on how progressive spreads
across categories. This highlights the fact that prototypical associations are co m m on
in production data, which is not a surprising observation, but one that reinforces
the need for guided elicitation tasks. (See also section 4.5.)

3.2.3. Imperfect
If the initial relationships o f the imperfective are less robustly docum ented than
other associations, it is not surprising that the spread across categories has also been
less well docum ented. Tracking the imperfect in L i acquisition must take into ac­
count its semantic characteristics, discourse functions, and the fact that the imper-
fective is learned late (Bardovi-Harlig, 2005). The production o f the imperfective
depends in part on the text type (narrative or nonnarrative, and if narrative, whether
personal or impersonal narratives),3 timing o f emergence, limited variety o f lexical
statives in interlanguage, and the task.
The m ost im portan t o f these m a y b e the fact that the im perfective is late-learned,
not only that it em erges after the perfective as H y p o th e sis 2 predicts. Lo n g itu d in al
studies by G ia c a lo n e R a m a t (2002) o f G e r m a n learners o f Italian and Kihlstedt
(2002) o f Swedish learners o f French sh o w that all learners begin w ith the im perfect
associated with states and at a d va n ced levels add the im perfect to activities over
time. Learners in both studies sh o w e d v e r y lim ited use o f the im perfect w ith telics.
This is not to say that the imperfect is not learned, just to emphasize the amount
o f time that m ight be necessary for acquisition under som e input conditions.
A dvan ced learners o f Spanish (L i Danish) who were Spanish majors and minors
with at least two to three years o f foreign language (FL) instruction and 6 to 18
months living and studying in a Spanish-speaking country exhibited the spreading
o f the imperfective that the aspect hypothesis predicts, including the use o f the
imperfect with achievements (Cadierno, 2 0 0 0 ). Even once the im perfect spreads to
accom plishm ents and achievements (and similarly, the preterite to activities and
states), the rates o f appropriate use are higher in the prototypical uses (telics with
preterite and atelics with imperfect) than in the nonprototypical uses. Garcia and
van Puttes (1988) study o f 20 Dutch teachers o f Spanish found that the nonnative
speakers supplied the imperfect with statives such as parecer seem’, ser ‘be’, and
entender ‘understand’ m ore often than native speakers, including an instance where
native speakers clearly preferred the preterite.
The results o f these studies suggest that one o f the reasons that d o c u m e n t in g
the spread o f the im perfect has been less successful so far than the d o c u m e n t in g o f

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the perfective past is that researchers have tested learners who were not sufficiently
advanced. Kihlstedt (2002) reports that in the interlanguage o f the Swedish learners
o f French (m ore advanced than learners in m any studies), the imparfait spreads
only to activities that have already occurred in the passé composé. O ne possible in­
terpretation o f this is that the acquisition o f the imperfect is so delayed that it begins
to cross from statives to activities only after the passé composé has completed its
spread across the d y n a m ic predicates, all the w ay to activities. The data w ould seem
to support this interpretation. A nother possible interpretation, however, is that the
passé composé emerges as a default past and is only gradually replaced in specific
environments by the imperfect. This interpretation is consistent with the views
expressed by W iberg (1996) and Salaberry (1998). The behavior o f im perfect statives
is crucial in determ inin g which interpretation should be favored. That is evidence
that can be gained through additional empirical studies.
To say that the imperfect is late-acquired begs the question o f w hy it is acquired
later. This m ay very well be related to its multiple readings. This is taken up in sec­
tion 4.2. In addition, Izquierdo and Collins (2008) report much higher uses o f the
imperfect in L i French by H ispanophones (whose Li has a general imperfective like
French) than by A ngloph ones at the sam e proficiency level (whose Li lacks a g e n ­
eral imperfective). The H ispanophones also show m ore robust use o f perfectives
than the A ngloph ones do, suggesting that a good match between Li and L i form-
m eaning associations m a y confer an advantage on the rate o f fo rm -m e a n in g associ­
ations in the second language. (See Suguya and Shirai, 2007, for a discussion of
additional factors.)

3.3. What Motivates the Changing Distribution

of Tense-Aspect Morphology?
What remains to be docum ented— especially in light o f observations that associations
between verbal m orphology and lexical aspect m a y even strengthen as learners
becom e more proficient— are the processes by which verbal m orph ology spreads
across lexical aspectual categories in L2, taking into account both evidence o f the
spread and the mechanism o f the spread (the means by which a spread occurs). Studies
that docum ent the spread o f m orphology across lexical categories are in the minority
compared to those that docum ent prototypical associations found in initial stages o f
acquisition, and even fewer studies have undertaken an account o f how tense-aspect
jum ps across categories. Andersen and Shirai (1994) posit at least two factors: the
communicative need to distinguish discourse motivations (main story-line from
background) and the model provided by more fluent speakers (input). They suggest
that a learner can free the m eaning o f an inflection from the array o f prototypical
meanings (for example the association o f a past inflection with [+completed] and
[-»-past] to simply [-»-past]) for use in less prototypical situations.
Bardovi-ITarlig (1998) otfers an em pirical account o f how perfective past
ju m p s from sem antically com patible goal-oriented telics to o p en -en d ed activities:

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F o r e g r o u n d e d c h r o n o lo g ic a lly se q u e n c e d activities attract the past by v ir t u e o f

their n a rra tiv e fu n c tio n . O n c e the system a d m its p e rfec tive past activities, it is
r e a d y to a d m it activities in the past m o r e g e n e rally (in n o n - fo r e g r o u n d e d text,
in c lu d in g past contexts in n o n - n a r r a t iv e d isc o u rse w h e r e p erfective past refers to
a co m p leted past o c c u r r e n c e ) . Future w o r k s h o u ld se ek ad d itio n al exp lan atio n s.

4. A d d itio n a l In v e s t i g a t i o n s :
Avenues of E x p lo r a tio n

Even a brief review o f research testing the aspect hypothesis, such as this one, calls
attention to additional areas o f investigation. These include compositionality, the
polysem y and multifunctionality o f progressive and imperfective, frequency effects,
acquisition at the periphery, and use o f ju d gm en t tasks to test the developing L i
systems in areas that cannot be investigated by production data.

4.1. Compositionality
A lm ost all research in tense and aspect recognizes the com position o f accom plish­
ments to include an activity verb and a com plem ent as in walk and walk a mile,
swim and swim Jiv e laps. Con trasting complements such as bake cookies (an activity)
and bake a batch o f cookies (an accomplishment) have been less frequently investi­
gated in SLA (but see, for example, Slabakova and Montrul, 2002). Certainly, a
question in L2 research is to what extent learners are aware o f such distinctions.
Such contrasts must be tested directly because unguided production tasks produce
insufficient tokens to assess learned knowledge in this area.
Collins (2002) reported on three activity-accomplishment pairs (e.g., swim and
swim a kilometer, run and run 5 kilometers, ride and ride his bicycle 10 kilometers) in
a production task using short cloze passages (contextualized fill-in-the-blank pas­
sages) where the bare verb was provided. The activities appeared in a single passage
that reported on a vacation and the accomplishments occurred in a single passage
that reported on participation in a triathlon. Learners in the lowest groups frequently
used a different form for the same verb depending on whether it appeared as an ac­
tivity or an accomplishment. There was less variation in the responses in the upper
three groups, as learners in these groups were more proficient overall in supplying
the simple past. It is interesting to note that although there was more progressive
used with the activities, individual learners often distinguished between the activ­
ities and accomplishments in both non-targetlike and unexpected ways. On the
whole, Collins concluded that the responses reflected both the influence o f the aspect
hypothesis and Li influence.
W ulff et al. (2009) took the opposite approach stripping all accomplishments
down to their lexical verbs. They compared an academic spoken corpus (the Michigan

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Corpus o f Academ ic Spoken English, M I C A S E ) to the oral narratives produced by L2

learners (Bardovi-Harlig, 1998) and compared a judgment task in which native
speakers o f English rated telicity o f bare verbs. While it has been argued that telicity is
a property that emerges from the interplay o f the lexical semantics o f a verb and its
argument structure, they opted for a rating based on the bare verb in order to be able
to attribute differences in telicity to the prototypical sense o f the verb rather than its
m eaning in context (Smith, 1997, for example, adopts a compositional approach to
lexical aspect and argues that verbs without arguments have inherent aspectual value).
Twenty native speakers o f English evaluated each o f 86 bare verbs with regard to how
strongly they imply an endpoint. The task has not yet been tested on learners, but it
m a y prove instructive in light o f retrospective tasks where learners reflect on their use
o f tense-aspect m orph ology (e.g., Liskin-Gasparro, 200 0; Izquierdo and Collins,
2008).

4.2. Polysemy and Multifunctionality

A s the review o f the progressive and im perfect suggested, the p o ly s e m y o f m o r ­
p h o lo g y also needs to be taken into accou nt in acquisition. From an acquisitional
perspective, the o n e -to -o n e principle gen erally applies: learners identify one
m e a n i n g with one form . They later are able to entertain m ultiple m e a n in g s for a
single fo rm or m ultiple fo rm s for a single m e a n in g , en terin g into a stage o f m u lti­
fun ctio n ality (the m u ltifu n ctio n a lity principle, A n d e r s e n , 1990). For exam ple, c o n ­
tinuousness is the first m e a n in g associated with the progressive, and repeatedness
(with adverbial su p p ort) c o m e s in se c o n d . Im perfective aspect has been ch a ra c ter­
ized as p o ly s e m o u s (D ahl, 1985) and as e n c o m p a s s in g habitual, co n tin u o u s, dura-
tive, and iterative ( C o m r ie , 1976; F le isc h m a n , 1995; Sm ith, 1997). The question for
acquisition is w h ere learners start and w hat path they will follow. H arley (1992)
o b s e r v e d that the im parfait is used with d y n a m ic predicates by im m e r s io n learners
p r im a r ily to c o n v e y action in process rather than habituality.
The Japanese progressive m a r k e r -te i- exhibits another type o f polysem y.
W'hereas m a n y m e a n in g s o f the im p erfect can be linked u n d e r a sense o f n o n c o m ­
pletion, the m e a n in g o f -te i- d e p e n d s on the predicates with w h ich it is associated.
-Te i- has a pro gressive re a d in g with activities and a resultative rea d in g with a c h ie v e ­
m ents. The p ro gressive read in g seem s to be the first one acquired. The results o f a
ju d g m en t task a d m in istered to 17 tutored C h in e s e learners o f Japanese suggested
that “ learners found it easier to reco gn ize the correctn ess o f -te i- with activity
v e r b s ” than with ach ievem ents (Shirai and K u ron o, 1998, p. 264). This result was
replicated in a larger stud y o f 61 learn ers from languages with and w ith ou t a m o r ­
ph ological pro gressive; regardless o f L i, learners at lower levels w ere better able to
ju d g e the app rop riaten ess o f the p ro gressive with activities than w ith a c c o m p lis h ­
m ents (Suguya and Shirai, 2007).
K orean -ko iss- behaves sim ilarly to Japan ese -te /-, alth ough the resultative
s e e m s to b e m o r e restricted. -Ko iss- exhibits a co n tin u o u s rea d in g with activities
and a resultative state with certain telic transitive verb s (verbs o f w earin g , ca rry in g ,

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and b o d y posture). A case stud y o f two E n g lis h -s p e a k in g learners o f K o rean show s

that -ko iss- is used first as action in pro gress a n d o n ly later acquires a resultative
m e a n in g ( K im , in press).

4.3. Frequency and Distinctiveness Effects

A ndersen (19 8 6 ,19 9 0 ) observed that the input available to learners exhibits distri­
butional patterns v ery similar to those found in second language production; this
was formalized by A nd ersen as the distributional bias hypothesis. Empirical studies
o f native speaker speech addressed to other native speakers and to first and second
language learners support the claim that there is a distributional bias in adult native
speaker speech (Robison, 1995; A ndersen and Shirai, 1996), although native speakers
are able to use tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y in nonprototypical cases (Andersen, 1993,
1994). However, the question o f whether acquisitional sequences are determined
solely by input remains.
O ne way o f investigating the input question is to investigate cases in which the
input and the learner production do not match. Two such cases have been identified
by Huang (1999) and Shirai (1995; Shirai and Kurono, 1998). The first concerns the
m arking o f unitary and repeated events. H uang analyzed interviews o f three E n g ­
lish native speakers and five Ch inese learners o f English. She divided d yn am ic verbs
into unitary and repeated event types, defining unitary events as single occurrences
and repeated events as iterative or habitual. With respect to progressive m orphology,
native speakers and learners showed opposite patterns: Learners show ed a strong
preference for - ing with unitary events, a combination w h ic h had a continuous
reading, and a weaker use with repeated events which had an iterative 01* habitual
reading (73% o f tokens o f -ing o ccu rrin g with unitary events, 27% with repeated
events); in contrast, native speakers used -ing m ore than twice as frequently with
repeated events than with unitary events (31% with unitary events and 69% with
repeated events). The differences in distribution suggest that input alone does not
determine learners’ production patterns.
Input that learners o f Japanese receive is not transparent with respect to the
alignm en t o f verb m o r p h o l o g y and aspectual catego ry (Shirai, 1995; Shirai and
K u ron o, 1998). A s noted above, in Japanese, the durative im perfective m a r k e r -te
w h ich appears w ith activities to denote progressive, can also be used with a c h ie v e ­
m ents to den ote resultative states. Thus, -te /-can be associated with both a ch ie v e ­
m ents and activities, w h erea s - ta , the resultative m arker, o c c u r s p r im a r ily with
ach ie ve m en ts. The pattern is fo u n d in native-speak er sam ples in both speech
a d d re ss e d to the learners by an in terview er and a separate co n versation al c o rp u s o f
adult native sp eakers. Thus, neither native sp eaker speech nor input to learn ers a p ­
pears to s h o w a distributional bias. In a sa m p le from a native-speaker interviewer,
54% o f all instances o f -ta o c c u rre d with ach ievem en ts and 33% with states, and 37%
o f -te i- o c c u r r e d with activities and 59% with ach ievem ents. N everth eless, learners
s h o w a bias in their use o f m o r p h o lo g y : O n e learn er sh o w e d 92% use o f -ta fo rm s
with ach ievem en ts, and 62% o f -te i- fo rm s with activities. Both S h ira is and H u a n g s

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studies suggest that acquisitional patterns m a y not be determ ined exclusively by

input. It is im portant to keep in m in d , however, that the distinction between input
and the cognitive, linguistic, and discursive factors that structure interlanguage
temporal systems m a y be som ew hat artificial; A ndersen (1993, p. 320) has suggested
that “the native and the learner distributions are both due to the sam e factors.”
The distribution bias hypothesis fits in with frequency approaches to second
language acquisition— however, all frequency accounts in S L A leave open the ques­
tion o f what underlying (linguistic) principles frequency patterns are based on. The
distribution o f tense-aspect m o rp h o lo g y does not com e from frequency itself, but
rather it comes from fo rm -m ea n in g associations that are available from the input,
and also from the temporal semantics that under pin them. Because native speakers
and learners show the same distributional tendencies (although those o f the learners
are much more pronounced and may also be nontargetlike), A ndersen and Shirai
(1994) argued that the same principles, namely relevance (use m o rp h o lo g y that is
relevant to the verb, closest to the verb stem: Bvbee, 1985; and learn the most rele­
vant m o rp h o lo g y first: Andersen and Shirai, 1994) and congruence (use tense-
aspect m orph em es w hose m eaning is most sim ilar to that o f the verb; Andersen,
1993) operate for both learners and native speakers alike. Andersen and Shirai (p. 152)
further argue that “ all o f these principles follow naturally from the speakers’ (both
learners and nonlearners) need to distinguish reference to the main point/goal o f
talk from supporting information.”
W ulff et al. (2009) com bined frequency and distinctiveness in an analysis o f a
spoken academ ic corpus (M IC A S E ) and a nonspecialized spoken corpus (British
National C orpu s) to test influence o f input on acquisition. A search o f both corpora
showed that the 10 verbs that occurred most frequently in the past, progressive,
present, and perfect also occurred as the ten most frequent verbs in another m o r ­
phological category. Rather than consider simple frequencies o f co-occurrence o f
verbs and tense-aspect m orphology, Wulff et al. included a distinctiveness analysis
that allowed them to consider verbs w h ich showed high associations with a single
tense-aspect m orphem e. They conclude that when distinctiveness and frequency
bias coincide, there is a facilitating effect for acquisition; when the two are corre­
lated only moderately, acquisition o f the category in question will be more difficult.
This provides a corpus-based m eans for defining prototypes and greater specificity
in the linguistic analysis than mean usage scores by aspectual category. As W ulff et
al. (2009) noted, the native speaker corpus and the learner data to which they c o m ­
pared it were not topically well matched; this nonetheless suggests an interesting
com parison for further research in which a spoken corpus that constitutes input
data can be com pared to matched learner production.

4.4. Acquisition at the Periphery

The claim that verbal m o rp h o lo g y spreads from the prototypical center to the p e ­
riphery is equivalent to the claim that learners are not forever tied to the prototype.
However, it is not to claim that learners enjoy what Andersen (1990) called the native

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sp eaker advantage and “ verb al virtuosity.” A lth o u g h there is ev id en c e that verbal

m o r p h o lo g y m o v e s aw ay from prototypical associations, there is m u c h less evidence
that learners reach the level o f virtuosity that A n d e rse n ascribes to native speakers.
In this section, w e focus on the extrem e periphery.
At the ex tre m e p e r ip h e r y are states with perfective past and ac h ie ve m en ts with
pro gressive o r im perfective. At the p e r ip h e r y we w o u ld expect to see p o ly s e m y
p layed out (d iscu ssed above). In the case o f E n glish progressive, for exam ple, w e
ex p e ct to see repeated read in gs as the data show, but there s h o u ld also b e cases o f
c o n tin u o u s readings with ach ie ve m en ts, so -ca lle d s lo w -m o tio n effects in w h ich
learners open up the interval to structure d isco u rse with sim u lta n eo u s or other
events w h ic h are presented as instantaneous. Investigating other readings o f the
pro gressive with ac h ie ve m en ts such inception rea d in g s could also be explored.
Japanese progressive m orphology has a resultative reading with achievements,
and the progressive reading is not possible. Shirai (1995, 2002; Shirai and Kurono, 1998)
has shown that learners at least begin to master the resultative reading o f -te In Span­
ish, some states such as saber receive an achievement reading with preterite m o r­
phology, which triggers a reinterpretation o f the preterite (e.g., Juan sabia la verdad
‘Juan k n e w -IM P the truth’ and Juan supo la verdad ‘Juan found o u t-P R E T the truth’).
As interesting as these cases are for linguists in general, they raise an additional issue
for the quantification o f distribution patterns: Should a perfective past that occurs with
a state-turned-achievement be classified as occurring with a state or an achievement?
This is not a trivial question as the category changers are relatively com mon in the
preterite. The challenge for analysis is to determine the aspectual category— are these
states with preterites, which would be a case o f nonprototypical use o f the preterite, or
are these achievements with preterites, which would be unremarkable as an example o f
a prototypical association.
The aspect hypothesis promotes an interlanguage distributional analysis o f
tense-aspect m orphology, which is to say that the occurrences o f verbal m o rp h o lo g y
with specific lexical aspectual categories are recorded without reference to whether
they are g oo d or bad uses in the target language. However, the notion o f virtuosic
use necessarily entails a reference to appropriate use. Not surprisingly in second
language acquisition, appropriate use tends to be lower than general use, as shown
by Bergstrom (1995), C o m a jo a n (2005), and Izquierdo and Collins (2008). Evalua­
tion o f uses at the periphery w ould necessitate a change in analytic procedure to
include native speaker judges (in addition to the researcher). A cceptance o f such
combinations is likely to show variability am ong native speaker judges as som e will
be novel. In addition, serious study o f the periphery will involve focused elicitation
tasks, including both production and interpretation.

4.5. Processing/Interpretation
A s noted in the pre vio u s sections, investigations into the use o f tense-aspect m o r ­
p h o lo g y in the least typical c o m b in a tio n s will require tests o f learn ers’ in terpreta­
tions. Tests o f interpretations in m o r e typical associations also help to p ro b e the

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learners’ form -m ea n in g associations and to determ ine the characteristics o f the

em erging tense-aspect system. Such tests will also allow researchers to determine
whether units consisting o f a lexical verb and affixed verbal m o rp h o lo g y are ana­
lyzed or have been learned whole and await parsing by the developing system. One
such task is the sentence conjunction judgment task designed by Slabakova and
M ontrul (2002), w h ich tested both the polysem y and the unboundeness o f the
Spanish imperfect. Learners judged pairs o f sentences with states, accomplishments,
and achievem ents ( A C H ) which appeared with both the imperfect (IM P ) and the
preterite (P R E T ) followed a preterite statement which was appropriate with the
imperfect but inappropriate with the preterite as shown in Examples ( 11)- (14 ).

(11) L o s G o n z a l e z vendi'an:i.MP-ACH la c asa p e r o n a d ie le c o m p r o .

“ The Gonzalez were selling their house, but n obody bought it.”
(12) #M is p a d re s vendieron:PRET-ACH el auto p e r o n adie le c o m p ro .
“M y parents sold their car but n o body bought it.”
(13) La clase era: i m p - s t a t e a las 10 pero empezo a las 10:30.
“ The class was supposed to start at 10, but it started at 10:30.”
(14) #I.a clase fue:PRET-STATE a las 10 pero empezo a las 10:30.
“ The class started at 10, but it started at 10:30.”

N ative speaker controls rejected the a n o m a lo u s com binatio ns, and about 2/3
o f the a d v an ced lea rn ers were able to do so, but only 1/5 o f the intermediate
learners were able to discern the contrast. Interestingly, the hardest items
appeared to be the states, w h ic h scored lower than the ach ievem ents with the
im perfective. However, m a n y o f the states h ad an irrealis reading, sugg estin g that
the ideal task w ould keep the im p erfective readin g constant, if possible. Van
H o u t s (2005) study o f L2 acquisition o f Polish by children em p lo y e d a picture-
m a tch in g task in w h ic h a p e r fo r m a n c e was interru pted and a helpful narrator
explained what he saw. The children w ere asked to identify a picture that c o r r e ­
sp on d ed to the n arratio n . The choices included com pleted /ongoing, completed/
incom plete, an d ongoin g/incom plete. Such tasks could also be used with m o d if i ­
cation with adult learners.

5. S u m m a r y R e m arks

Crosslinguistic research on tense-aspect systems has undoubtedly laid the fo u n d a ­

tion for the aspect hypothesis and the research reviewed here into the second
language acquisition o f tense and aspect. The formulation o f four separate testable
hypotheses (Shirai, 1991) has similarly contributed to the nu m ber o f studies that
have been undertaken. The research on the aspect hypothesis represents a major
area o f inquiry into the development o f interlanguage g ra m m a r outside the univer­
sal g ra m m a r paradigm that tends to dom inate gram m atical inquiry in second
language acquisition today. Research testing the aspect hypothesis has contributed

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significantly to the increased interest in the tense-aspect system am ong students o f

second language acquisition. The widespread publication o f studies that test the
aspect hypothesis and subsequent attention that those studies have received has
even resulted in a place for the aspect hypothesis in S L A textbooks.
Even though studies that investigate the role o f lexical aspect in L2 acquisition
have expanded to explore n o n -In d o -E u ro p ean languages such as Japanese and
Korean, m ore languages should undoubtedly be explored to test the universality o f
the hypothesis and the influence o f different Lis. One o f the challenges to the
research will be to supplement the cross-sectional studies with longitudinal studies
which facilitate the observation o f m ore stages and m ore nuanced analysis. In these
studies learners are com pared to themselves over time whereas in cross-sectional
work, learners are com pared to others. Most research in the aspect hypothesis, and
indeed in other fram ew orks as well, has focused on past-time contexts and past
m orphology. Additional work on the second language acquisition o f tense-aspect
systems should be carried out in the realm o f the present and future and in the
interface o f tense-aspect and modality. In addition, the increased interest in tense-
aspect systems that the aspect hypothesis has awakened in second language acqui­
sition researchers m ay perhaps lead to other areas o f investigation and the
investigation o f additional theoretical fram eworks.

NOTES

1. For discussion o f progressive as tuturate in acquisition see Gass and Ard (1984)
and Bardovi-H arlig (2004, in press).
2. The real advantage o f the addition o f the semelfactive category m a y be found in the
unification o f the predicates in the achievement category. B y separating the semelfactives
from achievements, the results for the association o f the past m arker -ta as an alternative
to -te i- with achievements was much clearer. Suguya and Shirai conclude “that the
five-way classification is more sensitive to learner data than the four-category system that
is dom inant in current aspect hypothesis research” (p. 26).
3. The use o f impersonal narratives as the dom inant elicitation form may
disadvantage the use o f imperfect (Bardovi-H arlig, 2005).

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Andersen, R. W. (1978). A n implicational model for second language research. Language
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 C H A P T E R 17

TENSE

JO H N HEW SO N

i. Tense and the Representation of Time

For Plato and Aristotle, a verb was above all a word which indicates time
(prosseimdinei khrdnon).1 In Greek and Latin, which are synthetic languages, dis­
tinctions o f meaning are typically indicated through the use o f affixes. The Greeks
and Romans made no very strong distinction between a marker and the concept
that it marked. Consequently, for some two and a half millennia, the different
forms o f the verbal paradigm were called times or tenses. It was only in the twenti­
eth century that a consistent distinction began to be m ade between two kinds of
meaning distinctions morphologically marked in synthetic languages, namely
“tense” as an indication o f different times (such as past, present, and future) and a
quite different indication of time, nam ely aspect, though that distinction was not
unknown in the ancient world. The Roman gram m arian Varro (116 -2 8 BC E ), for
example, in his treatise De lingua latina “On the Latin Language'’ (V IIL 20, 1X196,
99), described the six forms o f the Latin indicative paradigm as comprising three
tenses, Past, Present and Future, each divided into complete (Perfectum) and
incomplete (Infectum), as in the third person singular indicative paradigm 0 flau do
‘praise’ in Table 17.1.
The stem is lauda-y and since final /-t/ m a r k s third person singular, the Present
Infectum is u n m a r k e d for both tense and a sp ect .2 The Infectum fo rm s are all
u n m a r k e d for aspect, w h ereas the Perfectum fo rm s are all m ark ed by /-v-/ in the
ty po logically exp ected position im m ed ia te ly after the stem. Present tense is
u n m a rk e d , N o n -P re s e n t m ark ed w ith /-b -/ in the Infectum , and /-er/ in the P e rfec ­
tum. Finally, Past is m ark ed by /-a/, a n d Future by /-i-/ im m ed ia te ly before the

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Table 17.1

Past Present Future

Infectum laudabat laudat laudabit

3 sg w a s p ra isin g 3 sg praises 3 sg will praise
Perfectum laudaverat laudavit laudaverit
3 sg had praised 3 sg has praised 3 sg will have praised

personal (pronominal) inflection. Aspectual markers are typically placed closer to

the stem than the tense markers. There is probably a justification for this: the verbal
lexeme brings its own aspectual features (Aktionsart )3 to the verbal form, and these
interact closely with the grammatical aspectual forms.
Twentieth century linguists, even though aware of the categorical differences
between tense and aspect, nevertheless frequently continued to refer to the “six
tenses” of Latin. Robins, for example, when writing of Varros description of tense
and aspect in Latin, comments “ Formally there are six tenses in Latin, and in their
meanings we can recognize, as in Greek, aspect and time reference” (1951, p. 56).
Even Gustave Guillaume, who gives us (1929, 1933) the earliest clear definitions of
tense and aspect, still refers to the “six tenses” of Greek and Latin, and fails to see that
Latin has three tenses with two aspectual contrasts, whereas Greek has two tenses
with three aspectual contrasts. As a result, another early writer on tense and aspect,
Jens Holt (1943), whose definitions influenced C o m rie (see Comrie, 1976, p. 3, fn. 1),
comments that he can make no sense o f Guillaumes analysis o f the Greek verb.'1
This confusion has continued, to a certain extent, right up to the present day.
Reichenbach (1947) analyzes all distinctions on his “ line o f time” as tenses, since it
is assumed that the various forms (e.g., the pluperfect) are no more than indicators
o f times in the real world. Even in C om rie (1985) the term “absolute-relative tense”
is used for what is just a simple combination of tense and aspect.

1.1. Tense as a System of Concepts

It must be observed that language is a mental phenomenon, and cannot be ade­
quately described as a physical or behavioral phenomenon, as in the definitions of
early to mid twentieth century positivists. Nor is it correct to reduce it to an abstract
algebra that supposedly exists independently of the speaker. A language does not
exist independently of those who speak it, and the scientific investigation o f linguis­
tic phenomena cannot ignore the speakers mentally stored knowledge, without
which there would be no language. Such stored content is not an inaccessible ab­
straction; it is accessible to physical intervention (Penfield and Roberts, 1959) and to
reconstruction by the classical methods o f historical linguistics (Iloenigswald, i960).
Several important observations can be made about the system in Table 1: (i) Latin
has a ternary system o f tense, where the three contrastive tenses and two contrastive
aspects are clearly marked in the morphology; (2) the base form o f the whole system

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is clearly identifiable (lauda-), since it is unmarked for both tense and aspect; (3) to
this base form a variety o f morphemes are added to mark the more complex forms of
the system (see above), namely the one aspectual marker /-v/ immediately suffixed to
the stem, and the more complex tense markers /-ba,-bi,-era,-eri/ immediately pre­
ceding the personal inflections (here third person /-t/).
The regularity o f this m orphology led to a major error in twentieth century lin­
guistics: the assumption that the morphological forms constitute the verbal system.
This was reinforced by the behaviorist and positivist bias that science only deals with
the directly observable, and that consequently the m orphology had to be the verbal
system. The reality, as pointed out long ago (1916) by Saussure in his analogy o f the
game o f chess, is that the paradigm is only a set of markers for a contrastive set of
grammatical meanings, a “content system” in the terminology o f Jakobson (1933,
1936) and Hjelmslev (1935). The game of chess, as Saussure made explicit, is not a set
o f chess pieces, but the moves that these pieces make, marked by the pieces on the
chessboard. A tense, or an aspect, is a position in a mental, a conceptual system.
Gram m ar is where marker and meaning, form and function, meet. As in the Latin
paradigm in Table 1, individual concepts are formally represented by morphosyntactic
markers, and one of the central issues where the tense system of a particular language
such as Latin or Greek is concerned, and where tense in general in concerned, is what
the system of concepts is, what the system of markers is, and how they relate. But it is
important to stress that to refer to a form such as laudaverat as the pluperfect tense or
the meaning of the pluperfect tense as “a time before a given time in the past” (as
Reichenbach effectively does) is derivative, and to some extent an abus de langage.

1.2. The Coherence of Verbal Systems

The verbal system o f a language typically shows the same kind o f balanced and
coherent patterning that we see in the Latin indicative system in Table 1 above. This
does not imply that the system o f morphosyntactic markers which represent that
system need itself be coherent, though the principle o f compositionality would
suggest a tendency in that direction.5 Systems which are represented by remarkably
different systems o f markers can not only be equally coherent, but remarkably s im ­
ilar as conceptual systems.
To show how conceptually very similar systems can be nevertheless remarkably
different in structure, the six forms of the Ancient Greek Indicative are presented in
Table 2 below.6 The verb stem is /graph-/ ‘write’ (the aspiration of the /p/ being lost
before sibilants); the forms are again third person singular. ITyphens have been
added to show the sequential morphemes. In the left hand column are the tradi­
tional names o f the morphological forms, and on the right the modern aspectual
terminology.
The Present Stem includes the Imperfect (Past) and the Present (Non-Past). The
Future grdpsei was always considered a separate tense; the first to suggest that it was
a Perfective aspect o f the Non-Past was Kurylowicz (1964, p. 115), as noted by Com -
rie (1976, p. 67). Tlie term Perfect , because it has been continually confused with

М а те р и а л , защ ищ енны й а в то р ск и м правом

510 TENSE

Table 17.2

M orphology Past Non-past Aspect

Present stem e-graph-e graph -ei Imperfective

3 sg was writing 3 sg is writing
Aorist stem e-grap-s-e grap-s-ei Perfective
3 sg wrote 3 sg will write
Perfect stem e-ge-graph-ei ge-graph-e Retrospective, Perfect, Anterior
3 sg had written 3 sg has written

Perfective , is now normally avoided; it will be replaced by the term Retrospective

(abbreviation RTR) in what follows.
Here we notice that the past tense is regularly marked with the augment /e-/>
and that the non-past tense carries no augment. The imperfective (abbreviation
IP F V ) stem is unmarked, as is the norm in Type A systems (see 3.1 below). The per­
fective (abbreviation PFV) is marked by Is/ immediately after the stem, and this
/-s-/ also marks not only a perfective Past that contrasts with the imperfective Past,
but also, a perfective Non-Past which represents the future, just as in Eastern and
Western Slavic, where the perfective forms of the Non-Past are the normal repre­
sentation of the future, and the imperfective forms represent the ongoing present of
the Non-Past (e.g., Russian perfective japrocitaju ‘I shall read’, imperfective ja citaju
‘ I am reading’).7
As noted by Jakobson, apropos of the Slavic languages ([1957] 1984, p. 49),
futurity is the most usual meaning o f the perfective present” (i.e., of the Perfective
Non-Past). In the binary tense systems of Czech, Slovak, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian,
etc., the Non-Past includes both the ongoing present (represented by the Non-Past
Imperfective) and the future (represented by the Non-Past Perfective, since what is
complete in the Non-Past must necessarily be in the future; it cannot be in either the
past— by definition— or the ongoing continuous present). This division o f labor is
made explicit in the Russian examples in Figure 17.1, where the translations are only
approximate because o f differences between the systems.
The opposition o f past/n o n -past is fu n d a m e n ta l to both the G re ek and Slavic
system s, but is not ren d ered overt by their quite different m o rp h o lo g ic a l system s o f
m a r k in g . N o r does the use o f n o n -p a st fo rm s to indicate futurity se rv e to reveal the
u n d e rly in g p rin cip les o f either system , with the co n seq u en ce that to this day
scho lars continue to refer to the present, past, a n d future tenses o f both G r e e k 8 and
Slavic languages such as R u s s i a n .9

PAST N O N -P A S T
<........................................................ | <..............................................
on pisal “ he was w ritin g” ( I P F V ) pisat “ he is w ritin g ” (I P F V )
on napisal “ he w ro te” ( P F V ) napisat “ he w ill w rite” (P F V )

Figure 17.1.

М а те р и а л , защ ищ енны й а в то р ск и м правом

TENSE 511

2. D e f i n i t i o n s of T ense and A spect

In order to define the category o f tense, it must be distinguished from its concom i­
tant category of aspect. The first to present clear, contrastive definitions o f these
linguistic categories was Gustave Guillaume (1933):10 He produces a simple binary
contrast (1964, p. 48):

Est de la nature de l’aspect toute différentiation qui a pour lieu le temps impliqué.
(Every differentiation o f the time internal to the event involves aspect.)
Est de la nature du temps toute différentiation qui a pour lieu le temps expliqué.
(Every differentiation o f the time external to the event involves tense.)

In short, aspect is concerned with the representation o f the time contained in the
event, and tense with the representation o f the time that contains the event. This is a
clarification of earlier comments of Guillaume (1929, p. 15) where the lexical meaning
o f a verb (now normally referred to as Aktionsart) is considered an essential part of
aspect.
Guillaumes original figure representing Event Tim e was a simple space, ru n ­
ning between two vertical bars A and B. To this Hewson and Bubenik (1997, p. 14)
added a set o f five cardinal positions preceding, following, and inside the time of the
event proper. Guilaum es vertical bars have also been replaced by square brackets in
the present work to symbolize the beginning and the end of an event. In Figure 17.2,
A marks the Prospective aspect, with the position preceding the event proper; B
marks the Inceptive aspect, with the event just beginning; C marks the Imperfective
aspect, indicative o f the medial portion o f the event; D marks the Perfective aspect,
with the event completed; and E, the Retrospective aspect, following the event
proper." These are the typical range o f aspectual representations, but, o f course, not
the only aspects, nor are languages required to have them all: they simply present
the five cardinal positions: A —before the event begins; B — at the beginning, C —
between the beginning and the end, D — at the end o f the event; and E — after the
end, in the result phase.
As Ilirtle notes (2007, p. 30), Guillaumes comment from Temps et verbe (1929,
p. 21) that Taspect . . . éveille . . . l’image m êm e du verbe dans son déroulement”
(“aspect evokes the image o f the verb in its progress” ) is echoed by Holt, who had
read Guillaume’s Temps et verbe , and who defines aspects (i943> p- 6). as “ les manières
diverses de concevoir l’écoulement du procès même” “the various ways o f conceptu­
alizing the progress of the event.” 12 This definition leads in turn to C om rie’s (1976,
p. 3), “aspects are different ways o f viewing the internal constituency of a situation,”
which he acknowledges is based on Holt’s definition.
D istinguishing tense from aspect is essential for a proper description and
understanding o f tense. There is still much confusion in the literature, because o f

A [B.......................... C ......................... DJ E
F ig u r e 17.2.

M a ie p u ja /i 3 a w ™ f i e H ayropcKU M n p a B H M a
512 TENSE

a tendency to describe linguistic items in terms o f their function rather than their
category. If I use a kitchen knife as a screwdriver, I still return it to the kitchen
drawer with the cutlery; I do not describe it as a screwdriver and put it in the tool­
kit. It is still a knife; it has not changed category because of a secondary function.13
The use o f an auxiliary such as have , for example, creates a change of aspect, not a
change o f tense. The tense of the auxiliary is the tense of the whole verbal complex: /
have eaten and I will eat are both aspectual forms o f the English Non-Past; the Past
forms are I had eaten and I would eat, where the auxiliary is in the Past tense. Function­
ally I have eaten (position E in Figure 17.2 above) represents the past, and 7 will eat
(position A) represents the future, but in terms o f the categories o f the underlying
system of the English verb, these are both aspectual forms of the Non-Past tense.
Aspect is used, just as much as is tense, to represent events that took place in the past,
or events that will take place in the future. It is, consequently, important to base de­
scription and analysis primarily on (morphosyntactic) form and (verbal) category.

3. T i m e and T ense

Guillaumes distinction o f the time that contains the event (which gives us the cate­
gory o f tense) and the time contained in the event (the varying representations of
which are provided by the varieties of aspect) was clarified and simplified by Valin
(1994, p. 40), who introduced the terms Event Time (the basis of aspectual distinc­
tions) and Universe Time (the basis o f tense forms), which can then be represented
in diagram form to make the distinction explicit, and to enable the graphic repre­
sentation o f different tenses and aspects, so that no matter what the terminology
used, it can be clearly seen whether two different terms represent the same or dif­
ferent entities. This ability to make the meaning of the terminology visible is of
fundamental importance because o f the terminological confusions that have arisen,
especially in the literature o f the last half century.
Event Time, as we have already seen, can be represented by square brackets
with a space between, and a variety o f cardinal positions. When such forms are
tensed, they can be represented over or under a line of time shown as an arrow,
flowing from an infinity to an infinity, that represents Universe Time. When the
arrow points to the left, there is a representation o f the flow o f time out o f the future,
through the present, into the past, as in (a) in Figure 17.3, thereby representing the
experience of time in the Working M em ory,1; where now is always descending into
the past. This is the passive view o f time, Descending Time, where the past is irre­
trievable, and death inevitable. But because time is movement, where either back­
ground or figure may be perceived as moving, there is an equal and opposite
Ascending Time, where an action begun now, such as the reading o f a page of a
book, will be completed in the foreseeable future, as represented in (b) in Figure 17.3.
This is the active view o f time, where the cognitive faculties employ past experience
to understand and explain the present, and to plan the future.

MaTepuja/i 3aw ™ fieH ayropcKUM npaBHMa

TENSE 513

a. D es ce n d in g T im e

Event T im e
[<.................................. J
X < ................................................................................................................................................................................CO
U N I V E R S E TI ME

b. A sce n d in g T im e
E ven t T im e
I................................ >]
C C ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> 0 0

U N I V E R S E T I M E

Figu re 17.3.

As noted by Guillaume (1990, pp. 14 1-14 2 ): “ This attribution of time to two o p ­

posing movements is a new far-reaching fa c t .. . . Descending Time is the objective
image of time___ Opposed to this strictly objective image of time there is an inverse
subjective image: that of time which opens out before us to allow us to carry out our
intentions.” 15 These two distinct and contrastive representations o f the tlow o f time
are the basis for radically distinct tense systems, that otherwise appear to be very
similar: there are some classical examples from the Indo-European families.

3.1. The Binary Tense Systems of Indo-European

In a stud y o f the tense-aspect system s o f the twelve In d o -E u r o p e a n (IE) fam ilies
(H ew so n and B u b e n ik , 1997), it w as discovered that only three o f the IE fam ilies had
three or m o re tenses: Italic (see the Latin system in Table 17.1 above), Celtic, and
Baltic have future tenses, w h e re a s the r e m a in in g nine fa m ilie s 16 have b in a ry tense
system s o f Past vs. N o n -P a st, and represent the future by aspectual m eans.
"Hie binary systems divide into two distinctive types, one exemplified by the
Greek indicative forms in Table 17.2, which we m ay now show in schematic form in
Figure 17.4. Similar systems are also found in Slavic, one of the largest of the IE families,
and in other smaller groups, such as Albanian and Armenian, and also Tocharian
(extinct since the middle of the first millennium).

(i) F o r clarity o f exp osition the fo rm s that are u n m a r k e d for aspect are placed
above the line, the m ark ed aspectual fo rm s below. The u n m a r k e d fo rm s
are the base fo rm s o f the p a r a d ig m ; the m ark ed fo rm s are derivations,
aspects d ev e lo p ed from the base form s.

e-graph-e graph-ei IP F V
[ < ----------- X ----------- 1 [ < ----------- X ----------- J
c c < - .........................................................................................| <- of;
Pa st N on -P ast
6’grap-s-e grap-s-ei PFV
I < .............................X ] |<.............................X I

c'-ge-graph-ei ge-graph-e RTR

l < ~ ---------------------- xJX l < - .............. .............. xJX

Figure 17.4.

M a ie p u ja /i 3 aw ™ fieH ay io p cK U M n p a B H M a
514 TENSE

(ii) Continuous lines represent accompli, the part of the event that is
complete; broken lines represent inaccompli, the part o f the event that is
yet to be completed.
(iii) The P F V represents the completion of the IPFV; the R T R (Retrospective)
represents the time after the completed event. Every RTR necessarily
contains a hidden PFV (x as opposed to X in the diagram); many
languages consequently use the RTR in both functions (e.g., French Passé
Composé). The IE aorist, in this way, merged with the perfect in
prehistoric Latin; the sigmatic m orphology o f the aorist is to be found, as
a result, in many of the Latin perfects (e.g., scripsi “ I have written” ). The
two ditferent functions o f the Latin perfect (P FV and RTR) are easily
distinguished in Latin texts by the primary (with RTR function) and
secondary (with PFV function) sequence o f tenses.17

"Hie second kind of binary tense system found in IE languages is exemplified by

English, shown in schematic form in Figure 17.5, where the unmarked forms of the in­
dicative are normally used to represent complete events, whereas a marked form, the
English Progressive, is typically used for the representation of events in progress. As will
be shown below, the English Simple Forms are not Perfectives, and the term Performa­
tive (Hewson and Bubenik, 1997, p. 12 and passim) is used, along with its abbreviation
PFM, for this different kind o f Completive form, just as Progressive (abbreviation PRG)
is used for the different kind of Incompletive form found in English.
From the above diagrams it can be seen that in Figure 17.4 the Incompletive
forms o f the Greek verb (Imperfective) are unmarked, whereas the Completive
forms of the verb are marked (Perfective). The forms in Figure 17.5 present a mirror
image to Figure 17.4: the Completive forms are unmarked (Performative), and the
Incompletive forms (Progressive) are marked, as in Table 17.3.

3 s c wrote 3 SC writes PFM

IX - >1 I X ...... >1

Past N o n -P a s t
3 s c was 3 SC is PRG
[ X ........ > ] ix .......> ]
[ < ~ -— X - - - - J 1<r~
----- - X - - - -]
w ritin g w riting

3 s g had 3 s c has RTR

« . . . — x][X — > ] l < ....... ■x][X— > ]
written written

F i g u r e 17 . 5 .

Table 17 .3

Greek English

Incompletive Imperfective (Unmarked) Progressive (Marked)

Completive Perfective (Marked) Performative (Unmarked)

M a ie p u ja /i 3awTMfieH ay io p cK U M n p a B H M a
TENSE 515

The conclusions to be drawn are as follows:

(i) The unmarked forms in Descending Time represent events as incomplete,

in progress, whereas the unmarked forms in Ascending Time represent
events as complete.
(ii) In the IE groupings there are languages with two tenses in Descending
Time, as in the Greek model in Figure 17.4. We shall call these languages
Type A.
(iii) There are also languages with two tenses in Ascending Time, as in the
English model in Figure 17.5. We shall call these languages Type B.
(iv) There are also systems that have tenses in both Ascending and Descending
Time, where Perfectives and Progressives are still marked forms, but
Imperfectives and Performatives may, in certain circumstances, be
marked as well. Languages of this m ixed typology will be called Type C . KS
(v) These are the building blocks for tense systems in the languages o f the
world.

The notion o f system is of fundamental importance. A language is not an at­

omistic nomenclature, an unordered list, lacking in coherence, for things and
events in the real world. The systems o f a language are discernible in its phonology
and morphology, and in the syntactic distribution o f meaningful elements. Verbal
systems have observable morphological contrasts that mark the meaningful con­
trasts of a cognitive system, and the recurrence, over and over again in the lan­
guages o f the world, o f the same building blocks, is an assurance o f the universality
o f certain cognitive contrasts, such as complete versus incomplete, memorial ver­
sus non-memorial, marked (i.e., derived) versus unmarked (i.e., basic). Further
observation reveals the universality o f two different systemic ways o f contrasting
complete versus incomplete events,19 and consequently the cognitive reality o f ver­
bal representations in Descending and Ascending time, i.e., o f time that works in
the m ind in the automatic operation of the Working Memory, and the m ind that
freely works in time, as it does when composing a sentence such as the one that I
am just completing.

3.2. Perfective and Performative

The unmarked forms of the English tense system (3 sg writes , wrote; 3 sg talks, talked ,
as opposed to Prospective, Retrospective, and Progressive forms), typically called the
Sim ple Present and Sim ple Past by the grammarians and also by C om rie (1976, p. 25
and passim), are sometimes labeled Perfectives by others (e.g., Smith, 1997, p. 69).
C om rie (1976, p. 25) calls them Nonprogressives, presumably because of the difficulty
o f nam ing a category that has so m any seemingly unusual functions. Bybee et al.
criticize this label on the grounds that the Progressive is the evolved form, not the
primary form (1994, p. 138). An even more cogent argument stems from the obser­
vation that there are similar forms in other Germ anic languages, most of which have
no corresponding Progressive, and consequently cannot have a Nonprogressive.

MaTepuja/i 3aw ™ fieH ay io p cK U M n p a B H M a

5i6 TENSE

In Hewson and Bubenik (1997, p. 12) these forms were labelled Performatives ,
for a variety o f reasons. First, they typically represent the complete performance of
all phases of the event; with Activities, Achievements, and Accomplishments they
represent a complete event, and in this function Performatives and Perfectives over­
lap. In the English Pluperfect, Perfective participles can replace the Performative of
the Past tense, as in (1).

(1) P ast tense He woke up, went to the door, opened it, and saw the parcel on the mat.
P lu p e r f e c t He had woken up, gone to the door, opened it, and seen the parcel 011 the mat.

With stative verbs, however, where English uses Performatives (2a), French requires
the use o f Imperfectives, as in (2b). In this usage English (Type B) Progressives are
not feasible; in Russian (Type A) Perfectives are not feasible, and Imperfectives must
be used (2c). The usage of Type A (descending time, DT) is the mirror image o f the
usage of Type B (ascending time, AT).

(2) a. Past tense I knew what he wanted. *1 was knowing what he was wanting.
b. Past tense Jc savais cc qu’il voulait. *Jai su cc qu’il a voulu.
c. Past tense Ya znal shto on khotel. *Ya uznal shto on zakhotel.

The c o n fu sio n s o f this situation reveal the im p o rta n c e o f u n d e r s ta n d in g h o w and

w h y different system s operate differently to p ro d u ce eq uivalen t results: equally
v alid rep resentations o f the sa m e situation, u sin g fo r m s that in other usages are
contrastive.
Stative verbs are m onophasal:20 it follows that stative verbs are necessarily
phasally complete from the very first moment, since by definition a Performative
represents “a complete perform ance o f all phases o f the event.” This usage conse­
quently shows a categorical difference between the digital Performative and the
analog Perfective: stative verbs, that are phasally complete from the very first
instant, are normally temporally incomplete because they are stative, and conse­
quently temporally ongoing. In je savais ce q u il voulait “ I knew what he wanted,”
the states o f knowing and wanting are represented as continuing in time, as tem po­
rally incomplete, but phasally complete.
Second, in English, and in other languages,21 Performatives are used expressly
in performative function, where the utterance o f the verb contitutes the perfor­
mance o f the event. As originally pointed out by Austin (1962) I resign is a resigna­
tion, 1 am resigning is not; I prom ise is a promise, whereas I am promising is not.
’Ihere is in fact, a vast quantity of performative usage, o f which the following is but
a fragment: I give you my word o f honor, I insist, With this ring I thee wed, I acquit
you from all charges, I admire your steadfastness, I apologize fo r the error, I applaud
you r courage, I assure you I will not.
Third, perfo rm ative usages taper o f f into the description o f the p e rfo rm an c e, as
in C o m r i e s exam ple (1985, p. 37): Red Rover crosses the finishing line, w h ich is “ taken
to coincide with the event o f Red R o v e rs crossing the finishing line,” or ITirtles (2007,
p. 76) e x a m p le fro m C a n a d ia n ice hockey, “ Fie shoots! H e sc o res!” The instanta­
neou s nature o f these events m a y be a challenge for languages that do not have a

aterial com direitos autor

TENSE 517

Performative and have to use an Imperfective instead: it is notable that the Franco­
phone ice-hockey commentators use nominals: “ Le tir! Et le but!” (The shot! A nd
the goal!).
Fourth, there are the descriptions that accompany, or even precede the perfor­
mance, as in cookery demonstrations on television: “ We take a bowl, and put in half
a pound of flour.” The same usage is found in instructions in reply to enquiries: “ You
turn left at the next intersection.”
Finally, the only alternative that can be used in perform ative function is the
Imperfective: the Perfective can never be used in this function. T h e p e rfo rm a ­
tive function consequently distinguishes the category o f Perform ative from that
o f Perfective. To translate Perform atives such as I thank you, or I apologize, Im-
perfectives have to be used in Slavic languages (V. Bubenik, p. c.), and in G reek
both ancient and m odern: use o f a Perfective here would mean “ I will thank you;
I will apologize.” T he m ajor differences o f function between Perfectives and
Performatives are sum m arized in Table 17.4. T he m ajor overlap o f these two
forms is that both are similarly used, with active verbs (activities and achieve­
ments), in narrative function. T he contrast between Perfective and Im p erfec­
tive, and the considerable overlap o f Imperfective and Performative is also
revealed by co m p arin g the two completive form s with the functions o f the two
incompletive forms.
In the Slavic and Greek Type A systems (Descending Time) events are repre­
sented as either complete (PFV ) or incomplete (IPFV ) in time (i.e., an analog rep­
resentation). In the English Type B system (Ascending Time) it is the phases of the
event that are complete (PFM ) or incomplete (PRG), regardless o f the flow o f time
(i.e., a digital representation). The proof of this is that stative verbs, which are mono-
phasal by Aktionsart (a state has only one phase, from the first moment onward) are
considered complete events in Type B systems.
It is well known that Imperfectives and Progressives, both o f which represent
incomplete events, are quite different in their usage. It is not as well known, h o w ­
ever, that there are two different completive forms, and much Performative usage is

Table 17.4

PFV PFM IPFV PRG

Complete activities yes yes no no

Complete achievements yes yes no no
Statives no ves yes sometimes
Performative function no yes yes 110
Instant presents no yes yes no
Habitual function no yes yes sometimes'
Proverbs no yes yes no

Progressives m ay he used w ith stative and hahitual reference w h en the situation described is tem porary, not
perm anent. H e lives with his m o th e r / 1le is liv in g with his m oth er.
5 i8 TENSE

co n seq u en tly d esc rib e d as “ Perfective” ; this is the status quo in Sem itic languages,
for exam ple, as noted b y C o m r i e (1976, p. 78):

In written Arabic, there arc two sets o f forms, traditionally referred to as aspects,
tenses, or states, and distinguished either as Perfect and Imperfect, or as Perfective
and Imperfective. Here the terms Perfective and Imperfective will be used,
although the m eanings o f the terms are different fro m those used in Slavonic linguis­
tics an d elsewhere in this book, as w ill becom e apparent below, (emphasis added)

W hen we read therefore (Weninger, 2 0 0 0 , p. 91), “ Biblical Hebrew, Syriac and

Classical A rabic express the p erfo rm ative with verbal form s o f the perfective
aspect,” we arc looking at a traditional te rm in o lo gy for Sem itic languages that
fails to distinguish between the two quasi universal fo rm s o f com pletive aspect.
W hat is called “ Perfective” or “ Perfect” in Semitic is in fact unquestion ably a
Perform ative, as in Figure 17.6. Perfectives cannot be used in the perform ative
function.
T yp ologically, S e m itic languages have a verb al system o f T y p e C , w h e re there is
a m o r p h o lo g y o f two fo rm s, as in C lassical A r a b ic ( C o m r ie , 1976, p. 94): the incom -
pletive fo rm is an Im perfective (in D e s c e n d in g T im e ) and the co m p letive is a P e rfor­
m ative (in A s c e n d in g T im e ) , a ty p o lo g y that is also fo u n d frequently in languages o f
the N ig e r -C o n g o p h y lu m o f central and sou th ern A f r i c a (Nurse, Rose, and H ew so n ,
2010). The A r a b ic system o f two contrastive form s, as in Figure 17.6, is typical also o f
Hebrew, and o f Sem itic languages in general. F o r m s o f the T ype C system w ill be
analyzed in detail in section 4.
A s noted above, C o m r i e s term for the P e rfo rm a tiv e is Nonprogressive> w h ic h
b e c o m e s a d y sfu n c tio n a l term w h e n , as is so often the case, the co n trastin g in co m -
pletive is an Im perfective, and there is no Progressive. The only other term p r o ­
p o s e d is that o f W clm ers (1973, pp. 345-348), w h o, w ritin g on A fr ic a n languages,
o b se rv e s that “ In m a n y languages there is a single construction w h ich has explicit
and exclusive reference to past action” (i.e., a Perfective), but “ that s o m e languages
use a single construction to refer to past tim e for active verbs, and present tim e for
stative verb s” (o b vio u sly a P erform ative), for w h ic h he suggests the term “ factative”
on the fo llo w in g g ro u n d : “ the construction expresses the m o s t o b v io u s fact about
the verb in question, w h ich in the case o f active verb s is that the action w a s o b serv ed
or took place, but for stative verb s is that the action obtains at present.” There are
two p ro b le m s here: (i) there is inevitable co n fu sion with the term factitive,22 and (ii)
Progressives and Im p erfectives m a y also s im p ly exp ress “ the m o s t o b v io u s fact
about the verb in question” ; as noted by C o m r i e (1976, p. 122): “ the Im perfective will

va-ktub-u ‘ he is w ritin g ’ IP F V
[ < .................X ................ I
o o < ............................................................................................................................................................. 00

ka tab -a ‘ he w ro te ’ PFM
IX >1
co..................................... - ............................- ..................... ................. ............- ................. - ..............> 0 0

Figure 17.6.
TENSE 519

always add some special nuance, for instance general factual meaning.” The term
Factative offers no more descriptive adequacy than the term Nonprogressive. Perform a­
tive, on the other hand, not only names a function for which a Perfective can never be
used, but also represents the complete performance of all phases o f an active event. In
this way the term Performative covers all the functions that are listed in Table 4 above
in the Performative column; the Perfective vs. Performative terminology then parallels
the Imperfective vs. Progressive terminology for the two related incompletive forms.

3.3. The Allosemes of Verbal Forms

P h o n e m e s are alw ays represented in d isco u rse by allop h on es o f v a r y in g degrees o f
resem b lan ce to each other. D ifferent aspectual and tem poral rep resentations o f v e r ­
bal sy stem s also h ave their allosem es, su rfa ce m e a n in g s w ith v a r y in g degrees o f
resem b lan c e to each other, as exem p lified by the v a r y i n g fun ctio nal m e a n in g s listed
for the Perform ative aspect in Table 17.4 above.
There are also complex forms such as the Retrospective in Figure 17.5 above with
dual usage (Perfective with subject [x] and Retrospective with subject [X]), a usage
covered by two different aspectual forms (aorist [Perfective] and perfect [Retrospec­
tive]) in Greek. We also see, with considerable frequency, aspectual forms, such as
Prospective and Retrospective, that are used to represent what in other languages are
tense differences of Past and Future. In Section 4 we shall examine other ways of
representing tense functions by aspectual forms, and a very rare case o f tense distinc­
tions being used in aspectual function in Kikuyu, a Bantu language o f East Africa.
Just as the Performative, often an unmarked form, has a considerable array o f
different surface meanings or functions, the Imperfective, another frequently
unmarked form, also has a great variety of usage. In grammars o f French, for ex­
ample, more than 30 different usages o f the Imperfect m ay be found, all o f them
attributable to the fact that the systemic meaning can be reduced to the formula
accompli + inaccompli = 1, as demonstrated by Valin (1964).23
There are also m odal usages, not only of future tenses, which lend themselves to
such usage because they necessarily represent imaginary time, but also o f past
tenses, which when used in conditional clauses can represent the impossible, the
non-factual, as in English I f I knew , I would tell you. The use o f the conjunction I f
establishes the content of the whole clause as imaginary, i.e., non-memorial time. A
past tense, representing memorial time, is therefore counter-factual in this context,
a deliberate contradiction in terms, a representation of the impossible.2'1

4. T h e V a s t P r e s e n t

Just as the lexical d e v e lo p m e n t o f a w o rd can be seen in the se q u e n c in g o f d e r iv a ­

tional fo rm s, as in ju st > ju stly > unjustly , or believe > believable > unbelievable >
unbelievably , in the sa m e w a y one can see the g ra m m a tic a l d e v e lo p m e n t o f a w o rd
520 TENSE

L e v e l 1: Q u a s i-n o m in a l
[ < .............................X ] |<.............. X .............. 1 |X...............................>1
written w ritin g w rite

L e v e l 2: S u b ju n c tiv e
(that) 3 w rite
IX----------------- >!
co ■>00

L e v e l 3: In d ic a tiv e

3 w rote 3 w rites
IX ----------------------- >J >J
x- >00
PAST N O N -P A S T

Figure 17.7.

as in the Latin verb forms in Table 17.1 above, where similar sequencing can be seen
in lauda-v-er-a-t. Similar progressions can be observed in Child Language, in the
staged development from the one-word, to the two-word, to the three-word sen­
tence. The first verb forms of the child are also aspectual, as in the gone o f the E n g ­
lish-speaking child: it is normal for tense forms to develop later, often in the third
year of life.2' The verbal system o f English is consequently a staged system, with
three discernible levels as in Figure 17.7.
The forms at Level 1 are simply aspectual, and by themselves have no tense. As
pointed out by the writers on primary language acquisition studies (Brown, 1973;
Fletcher 1979, 1985; Bloom et al., 1980; Atkinson, 1982) Aktionsart differences are
clearly understood by child learners, who use the -ing forms with activity verbs
(drinking, eating , laughing, etc.), stative verbs with the bare stem (know, want, see ,
need, etc.), and the accomplishment verbs somewhat later with a “past” form which
is often a past participle rather than a regular past tense (broken, fell, took).
These forms then become the first finite verbs, with nominative subjects: /
drawing, Paul want cookie, car broken.26 Bloom et al. (1980, pp. 40 6 -40 7) see these
as aspectual, not tense, forms because o f the influence o f the verbal A ktionsart, and
report on similar findings by Antinucci and Miller (1976) for Italian, and Aksu-Ko<;
(1988) for Turkish. Fletcher (1985, p. 120) raises the same question, noting that the
child Sophie, his subject of study, first used the -ed inflection and then changed it
to -en, which is only participial. In that case the aspects would be Imperfective (I
draw ing)y Performative (Paul want)y and Perfective/Retrospective (car broken).
Let us be clear what is going on here. These three different forms all have sub­
jects, and the two participles are used without auxiliaries. These are finite forms:
present time is represented by the Imperfective participle of active verbs, and the
Performative stem o f stative verbs. The Perfective/Retrospective past participle then
becomes used to represent the past, simply because whatever is complete in the
present must have taken place in the past. In short, these are aspectual forms, but
with an added value: they represent not only Event Time, but also Universe Time:
the event is represented in its relation to the experiential present, which is the
speakers deictic centre. These are tensed forms, but in the simplest system o f all, the

M aterial chräneny autorskym i prävy

TENSE 521

(i ) Form s in D escen din g T im e

a-gb 6-g (Im p e rfe c tiv e )

[< ......... X ------- 1 3ps fa lls (o fte n )
DT oo< .......................................................................................................................... co

a -g b o (S itu a tive)
1<X ........ ............ J “ i f 3ps fa lls”
a-gb o (R etrosp ective. P e rfec t)
|<..................... x ] X "3 p s has fa llen ”

(ii) Form s in A scen d in g T im e

a-gb o (P e rfo rm a tiv e )

|X............................ > ] “ 3ps fe ll”
AT 00.......................................................................................................................... > X
a-ki'-gb 6 (P ro g re s s iv e )
I........ -----X ----------- >J “ 3ps is fa llin g ”
tig a -gb o (P ro s p e c tiv e )
X [ x ........................... - > ] “ 3ps w ill fa ll”

F igure 17.8.

Vast Present, there are no tense contrasts: no part of Universe Tim e is contrasted
with any other. A significant percentage o f the w orlds languages have only one
tense, the Vast Present.
The evidence of the forms without auxiliaries suggests that in English this is a
learning stage, which occurs, in fact, not only in English, and not only in Indo-
European languages.27 Semitic languages, as we have seen above (section 3.2) typi­
cally have two verbal paradigms, a Performative used for past reference, and an
Imperfective for a present (see Comrie, 1976, p. 95). Niger-Congo languages, which
in Africa lie to the south o f the Sahara desert, also show m any languages of Type C,
with varying kinds o f development of Type C typology, as in Figure 17.8, a diagram
o f the system o f Ejagham, an analysis based on Watters (1981), taken from Nurse,
Rose, and Ilewson (2010).
The Imperfective o f the Vast Present norm ally has a global sense,28 and this
language has developed a Progressive to give a more concrete representation to
the here-and-now. The Situative (a term developed by Africanists, see Rose et al„
2002) is an Imperfective with the accompli reduced to zero29. A Retrospective bal­
anced by a Prospective completes a classically balanced system, a Type C system
entirely forged from aspectual forms, each one representing a position in the Vast
Present.
With the development o f the tense contrast between Past and Non-Past, a third
layer is added to the English verbal system, and the second level functions as a sub­
junctive, as in (a) in Table 17.5, with only the one form, as against the indicative in (b)
in Table 17.5, which requires sequence o f tenses, using the Past vs. Non-Past contrast.
One o f the curiosities of this development is the evidence of a U-shaped learning
curve, in the English child’s acquisition o f past tense forms, consisting o f three
stages: (1) an early period of correct forms, (2) a period o f over-generalization of
regular forms, and (3) a final period o f correct forms, as in adult language. Stem-
berger (1994, p. 161) correctly presents three developmental stages as follows:

M aterial chraneny autorskym i pravy

522 TENSE

Table 17.5
Quoted form Reported form

a I insist he be at the meeting I insisted he be at the meeting

b I know he is at the meeting I knew he was at the meeting

Stage 1: correct fe ll varies with base-form fa ll

Stage 2: correct fe ll varies with regularized failed
Stage 3: correct fell

At Stage 1 there is no contrast between the two forms; they are in free variation, both
with the same meaning: complete event (by Aktionsart ), necessarily past, as in Man
fa ll dow n! from a two year old child. The subsequent development of a tense con­
trast with regular marked forms will produce the hypercorrection in Stage 2, which
is rectified once the new tense system has been mastered. This development pre­
sents a problem to the proponents o f rules.

5. C o n t r a st iv e Tenses

As noted in section 3.1, the majority of IE tense systems are binary, with just three
groups having three or more tenses.30 Semitic languages, which occupy most of
North Africa to the north of the Sahara, and run into Asia as far as Mesopotamia
(present-day Iraq), typically have a Vast Present with representations o f Ascending
and Descending Time. Niger-Congo (NC) languages, on the other hand, which oc­
cupy most of Africa south o f the Sahara, have a remarkable diversity. The West
African N C languages rarely have tense contrasts (Nurse et al., 2010), exploiting
aspectual forms in a Vast Present, in similar fashion to Semitic. But the Bantu su b ­
group o f N C , which occupies much of Eastern and Southern Africa presents a quite
extraordinary range o f different tense systems, some o f which will be illustrated in
5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 below.

5.1. The Contrast of Tense and Aspect in Swahili

The fundamental paradigms o f Swahili verbal forms that are marked for tense and
aspect are presented succinctly in Table 17.6, based on Nurse (1989, p. 295) and Nurse
and Hinnebusch (1993, p. 706).
The present forms of /-kimbia/ ‘run are marked only for aspect; they cannot be
marked for tense. The past and future are marked for tense, and cannot be marked
for aspect. This fact m ay explain why the Present Performative, with its ambiguous
formative /-a-/ (not used in any other form), is not found in all dialects, and conse­
quently not used by large numbers of speakers.31

M aterial chraneny autorskym i pravy

TENSE 523

Table 17.6

Performative Retrospective Imperfective Situative

Present tu-a-kimbia tu-me-kimbia tu-na-kimbia tu-ki-kimbia

“ we run” “we have run” “ we are running” “ if we run”
Past tu-li-kimbia tu-li-kuwa tu-Ii-kuwa tu-li-kuwa
“we ran” tu-me-kimbia tu-na-kimbia tu-ki-kimbia
Future tu-ta-kimbia tu-ta-kuwa tu-ta-kuwa tu-ta-kuwa
“ we will run” tu-me-kimbia tu-na-kimbia tu-ki-kimbia

Table 17.7

tulikuwa tumekimbia tulikuwa tunakimbia tulikuwa tukikimbia

“ we had run” “we was running (then)” “we ran (continuously)”

Future

tutakuwa tumekimbia tutakuwa tunakimbia tutakuwa tukikimbia

“ we will have run” “we will be running” “we will run (continuously)”

For aspectual forms of past and future, compound forms are created: the
auxiliary /-kuwa/ ‘be’ carries the tense marker, followed by the appropriate Vast
Present form in second position, as in Table 17.7. Both parts of the compound forms
are finite, which is the norm in Niger-Congo, and also in Afro-Asiatic languages.
The past and future forms are only found in initial position in these compounds,
and may only be followed by forms o f the Vast Present.
In these paradigms, consequently, we can clearly discern, using the criteria out­
lined above, distinctions of both tense and aspect. The distribution of forms in the
paradigm shows, for example, that /li-/ marks past tense, /ta-/ marks future tense,
and present tense is unmarked, with the result that the prefixal position used for the
tense marker m ay instead be occupied by one of the three aspect markers /me, na,
ki/ to give three typical aspects, a Retrospective /-me-/, an Imperfective /-na-/, and
a Situative /-ki-/. This post-subject position (immediately after the subject marker)
may be filled by either a tense marker or an aspect marker, but not both.
These three aspects are also used with Past and Future, as in Table 17.7, using be
as an auxiliary verb to carry the tense marker, and the main verb with the aspect
marker. Since a verb phrase can only have only one tense,"2 the main verb is neces­
sarily marked only for aspect. If tense is marked in any of these compound forms, it
is marked in the auxiliary, as in all the forms in Table 17.7. Both auxiliary and main
verb in these constructions are finite verbs, each with prefixed subject /tu~/ repre­
senting first person plural ‘we’, and final /-a/ representing the positive mode, which
contrasts with potential (marked with /-e/) and negative (marked with /-i/).
The fact that there is no sequence of tenses between the two forms in the co m ­
pounds leads to the conclusion that there is no clash of tenses in any of these Swahili
compounds. This stems from the fact that the second form is always an exponent o f

Copyrighted mate
524 TENSE

the Vast Present, from w h ic h both Past and Future are d erived , and o f w h ic h they
are co nseq uen tly h y p o n y m s , so that w h atev er the tense o f the first elem ent o f the
c o m p o u n d , it is always covered by the o ve r-a rch in g tense o f the seco nd elem ent, the
Vast Present.
There are, consequently two different and successive representations of tense in
Swahili, in the first o f which the whole of Universe Tim e is represented as a Vast
Present, with aspectual forms that are typical of Descending Time: Retrospective,
Imperfective, and Situative. The second level comprises a simple binary contrast
between a Performative Past which runs to its Omega (to) moment representing the
last moment o f the Past, and a Performative Future which departs from its Alpha
(a) moment representing the very first moment o f the Future, as in Figure 17.9, the
Present (which contains both to and a moments) being the Vast Present of Level 1.
T he t y p o lo g i c a l d iffe re n c e s b e t w e e n th is sy s t e m a n d the E n g lish sy s t e m in
F ig u r e 17.7 reflect c ertain ty p o lo g ic a l d iffe re n c e s b e t w e e n N i g e r - C o n g o ( N C ) on
the one h a n d , and I n d o - E u r o p e a n la n g u a g e s on the o th e r: (i) the g e n e r a l (but
not a b so lu te) lack o f p a rtic ip le s in N C ; (ii) the use in N C (and A f r o - A s i a t i c ) o f
tw o finite f o r m s in c o m p o u n d s , the s e c o n d o n e b e i n g t y p ic a lly an e x p o n e n t o f
th e Vast P re se n t; (iii) the u se o f the V a st P re se n t not as a S u b ju n c t iv e , but as a
vertically c o n t r a s t iv e tense, the h y p e r n y m (or g e n e r ic ) fr o m w h ic h the c o n t r a s ­
tive tenses are d e r iv e d . In IE la n g u a g e s the Present is re p re se n te d b y the m a jo r it y
(75%) o f the I E f a m i li e s as p a r t o f the N o n - P a s t , a n d b y the r e m a in d e r as a h ori­
zontally c o n tr a s tiv e tense w h ic h s p a tia lly se p a ra te s Past f r o m F u tu re (C e ltic ,
Italic, B altic).

5.2. The Tense System of Ruhaya

One recognizes many of the same Swahili features in the much more complex
system of Ruhaya (Muzale, 1998; Hewson et al., 2001), outlined in Figure 17.10: as in
Swahili, Level 1 represents Descending Time, and Level 2 Ascending Time. In this
figure the form ( tugura ) that is unmarked is placed above the line of Descending
Time, and the derived, marked forms are placed beneath it, so that Stage 1 is pre­
sented vertically rather than horizontally. It can be seen that /-ire/ is a suffix that
marks a Perfective, and this Perfective is turned into a Retrospective by the pre-stem

Level I a -m e -k im b ia a -n a -k im b ia a -k i-k im b ia

[< ............................ xJX l < ............. (t> X a ............J 1 < X ...........................J

< xx......................................................................................................................................................................................... CO
V AS T P R B S E N T

Level 2
a-li-kim bia a-ta-kim bia
I X ............................ > ] I............................... >J
CO-........................................................................................... > 0) I ü ................................................................... >00
PAST FUTURE

Figure 17.9.

M a ie p u ja /i 3aw ™ fieH ayiopcKUM npaBHMa

TENSE 525

morpheme /aa/ which adds the sense o f “already,” indicating that the Perfective is
viewed from a later position, the required condition for a Retrospective. This same
element /aa/ is also added to /ki/ which in Swahili forms marks the Situative. The
combination o f /aa/ “already” and /ki/ “continuous” creates a Persistive (PST): “ we
are still buying.” That this analysis is correct is clear from the data: the /aa/ element
is frequently deleted from the negative, where the prior accompli no longer exists:
“we are not still buying” indicates a break between the former buying and the
present.

(i) The Vast Present o f Level 1 is represented as an unbroken line in

Descending Tim e (arrow at the left), open-ended at each limit. The
unmarked form tu-guray as the key form o f the paradigm, is placed
above the line and the marked (derived) aspectual form s are placed
beneath it.
(ii) The form tu-guz-ire has no segmental tense marker (immediately after the
subject marker /tu-/) as do the forms at Level 2. The suffix-/'re, from
P(roto)-B(antu) /*-ile:/ is a typical Perfective marker also found
occasionally in West African languages. It is not uncom m on in Bantu to
find pre-stem tense markers, and suffixed aspect markers (cf. Kikuyu data
in 5.3). It is the Past form of the Vast Present and is often descriptively
included, because o f its function, with the tenses o f Level 2.33 In spite of
overlapping function, it is imperative to distinguish aspect from tense. In
terms o f its form and its distribution -ire is not a tense formative, and the
form has no other TA marker.
(iii) The /ki/ in tu-ki-dd-gura is cognate with Swahili /ki/: it represents the
subject situated in initial position, ready to initiate the event. It
consequently has a variety o f functions: //-clauses, actions seen and heard,
open-ended possibility o f action, continuity o f action (glossed
“continuously” in Table 17.7 above). Schematically X = subject, x = prior
accompli: the combination of Situative /ki/+ prior accompli (x) =
Persistive.

tu-gura w e buy
l< ---------X ........... J IPFV
Level 1 o c < ..............................................................................................................................................00
tu-guz-ire w e bought
[< ..........................X ] PFV

tu-ki-aa-gura w e still buy

x l < X ........................| PST

tu-aa-guz-irc w e have bought

l< ..........................xJX RTR

tu-ka-gura tu-aa-gura tu-raa-gura tu-ri-gura

Level 2 cc— ..................... >|....................... —>|..................... ->|....................... - > x

Far Past N ea r Past N ear Future Far Future

Figure 17.10.

M a ie p u ja /i 3aw ™ fieH ayropcKU M npaBHMa

526 TENSE

(iv) When /aa/ is added to tuguzire the Perfective is represented as the prior
accompli with the subject (X) occupying the result phase, creating the
Retrospective tuadguzire.
(v) The contrastive tenses o f Level 2 have been represented as contrasting
horizontally and dividing the line o f Ascending Time into 4 contrastive
positions. There is still, as in Swahili, a Past and a Future, but what were
Alpha and Omega moments in Swahili have been developed into separate
tenses in Ruhaya. Omega (co), the last moment o f the Past has been
extended backwards to the last sleep, and Alpha (a), the first moment of
the Future has been extended forwards to the next sleep. The Near Past in
the diagram covers time earlier today, and the Near Future covers time
later today, from now to the next sleep.

Ruhaya consequently has five distinctive tenses, the first o f which, the Vast
Present at Level 1 represents the whole o f Universe Time, which is divided into
four separate tense contrasts at Level 2: the four tenses o f Level 2 are all hyponyms
o f the Vast Present. As in Swahili, the contrast between Present and Non-Present
tenses is vertical, not horizontal. C o m p o u n d s can likewise be m ade by using the
tenses o f Level 2 as auxiliaries for the aspectual forms o f Level 1: tu-raa-ba tu-ad-
guzire ‘we will have bought’; tu-ka-ba tu-da-guzire ‘we had bought’

5.3. The Tense System of Kikuyu

Kikuyu is similar to Ruhaya in that tense at Level 1 is a Vast Present, and Tense at
Level 2 has four temporal domains traditionally described as a Near and Far Past,
and a Near and Far Future.34 As elements o f the system, these represent, as in
Ruhaya, a Past, a Memorial Present, a Non-M em orial Present, and a Future. But
unlike Ruhaya, which resembles Swrahili in having Descending T im e (DT) at Level
1 and Ascending Time (AT) at Level 2, Kikuyu has both AT and D T at both levels,
so that Level 1, as in Figure 17.11 is already quite complex (data from Barlow, i960,
with further details— including tones— from Bennett, 1969).

Level 1 too-ko-ru g-a “ w e cook, w ill co o k (to d a y )”

[ X ----------------------- > ] PFM
A Too-.......................................................................................................... >00

to-rug-aga “ w e cook”
[ < ----------------------- x ------------------------ J 1PFV
D Too<........................................................................................................... co
t6o-ko-rug-riga “ w e w ere c o o k in g (to d a y )”
f < ..............X ................1 ' IP F V
to-rug-frr. “ w e co o k e d ”
1<-........................... -X J PFV
to-riig-eet£ “ w e have (a lre a d y) co o k e d ”
I < ............................... xJX RTR

F ig u re 17.11.

M a ie p u ja /i 3awTMfieH ayropcKU M n p a B H M a
TENSE 527

(i) Not all verbs have the /-ko-/ focus marker o f the PFM ; there is a small
remnant subset o f half a dozen stative verbs that have null marking.
Barlow (1960, pp. 128-129) quotes the following: end-a ‘loves’; um-a
comes from’; haan-a ‘resembles’; igan-a ‘is of a quantity or size’ ; ereg-a
‘lasts’ These are all statives with a degree of permanence (comes from = is
from ).
(ii) The only form unmarked for aspect is the Performative. The Imperfective
that represents the whole o f Universe Tim e and has a generic sense is
marked by /aga/, and the Perfective by the same /ire/ element that is used
in Ruhaya, and common elsew'here, and the RTR by /ete:/.
(iii) The pre-stem element /ko/in both Imperfective and Performative is a
locative-based focus marker, which emphasizes the accompli of the form
in DT: ‘we were cooking (earlier today)’, and the completion o f the event
in the form in AT: ‘we cook, will cook (later today)’.

Only the Performative and the Imperfective have complete paradigms o f the
four contrastive tense spaces o f Level 2, which parallel those found in Ruhaya, as in
Figure 17.10 above. In Kikuyu the Perfective and Retrospective are only used in the
Present and the two Past tenses, but this still gives a plethora of tensed forms, and
there is also extensive compounding. The parallelism of Level 1 and Level 2 is shown
in Figure 17.12: there are four aspectual contrasts in the forms o f the Vast Present at
Level 1, exploiting both AT and DT, and four temporal distinctions at Level 2,
exploiting both AT and DT for a total o f eight different paradigmatic tense forms at
Level 2, given that AT and D T are two different representations of Universe Time.

Level 1

too-ko-rüg-ä “ w e cook, w ill cook (tod a y )'

IX ............................ > ] PFM
A T oo........................................................................................................... > x

to-m g-a ga “ w e cook”

[ < --------------------- x ------------------------ 1 IP F V
D T oc< ..................................................................................................................................00
too-ko-ru g-ägä “ w e w ere co o k in g (to d a y )'’
[< ----------- x ................J IP F V
to-rug-irc “ w e cooked”
[< ------------------------ x j ------------------------------------ P F V
to-rüg-eetf. “ w e have (a lre a d y ) co o k ed ”
[< ......................................x ]X .................................................. R T R

Level 2

tw -a-rug-a to-raa-rug-a to-ree-riig-a to-kaa-rug-a PFM

00.............-........> J............. ......... > J.......................> J........................>x
Past M em . Pres. N o n -M e m . Pr. Future

tw -a-riig-ägä to-räa-rug-ägä to-rec-riig-«igä to-kaa-rug-äga IP F V

oc<.................................. I < .................................... I < .................................... I < ......................................CO

F ig u re 17.12.

MaTepnja/i 3awTMfieH ay io p cK U M n p a B U M a
528 TENSE

(i) In the tense contrasts the Past begins with yesterday, and the Future
begins with tomorrow. The Memorial Present (traditionally Near Present)
represents what is in todays memory, and the Non-M em orial Present
(traditionally Near Future) represents what is not yet in todays memory.
This terminology is used simply to emphasize the cognitive
underpinnings o f the system; it is not intended to replace the traditional
terminology.
(ii) It is norm al with such systems to have usages that are stylistically creative
or innovative. The two Past forms of the Kikuyu Performative, tw-a-rug-a
and to-rda-rug-a, being largely redundant because the representation of
past events is covered by use o f the Perfective and Retrospective, are, in
fact, employed functionally in a w ay that is quite extraordinary. These are
tense forms that are used in aspectual functions, the M emorial Present
to-rda-rug-a as a “ Short Imperfect” and the so-called Far Past tw-a-rug-a
as a “ Short Perfect” (the terms are from Johnson, 1980). This curious
phenomenon involves the natural boundaries between the tenses.35
(iii) Systems that have contrastive tenses in both A T and D T frequently bring
into focus the problems o f overlapping categories, which may be
compared with the problems of phonemic overlapping. This is a question
that is beyond the scope o f this presentation.

6. T h e U s e of M odal Forms in

T en se F u n c t io n

Modal auxiliaries are typically used in Germ anic languages to represent the future,
and are found elsewhere with similar function because future time is imaginary,
and exists only in the realm o f the possible. For binary tense systems it is normal
that the Non-Past covers both Present and Future, with the tense form covering the
Present, and some aspectual element m aking possible the representation of the
Future.
But there are verbal systems, in Niger-Congo, Tibeto-Burman, Amerindian,
and elsewhere where a dilference between Future and Non-Future is marked by
modal contrasts of various kinds.36 In Doyayo, a Niger-Congo language spoken in
North Cam eroon, which has a simple Vast Present with Imperfective and Performa­
tive aspects, the future is represented by a High tone on the Subject marker (Wier-
ing and Wiering, 1994), giving an Imperfective (immediate) and a Performative
(remote) future, as in Figure 17.13.
Burmese, for its part, has markers [tc] “ realis” and [me] “ irrealis” that are oblig­
atory at the end o f clauses to mark the status o f the clause, with [me] typically being
used with the future (Romero, 2008, pp. 67-68), the obligatory marking suggesting
the status o f a tense, but the contrast is evidential rather than temporal. Smith et al.

M a ie p u ja /i 3aw ™ fieH ayropcKU M n p a B H M a

TEN SE 529

( i ) Forms in Ascending Time

m i3 kpe4lo4 m i1kpe4to>4 (Performative)

I X ------------------ > I I X ------------- ---- -> I

‘ I pour(ed).’ ‘ I w ill pour’

AT co----------------------------------------------- >|--------------------------------------------------->00

(ii) Forms in Descending Time

mi3 (gi2) kpel- ko 3 m i 1 (gi2) kpel- ko 3 (Imperfective)

< ----------x ------------| |<---------- X ------------

‘ I am pouring.’ ‘ I am about to pour’

DT ocx--------------------------------------------- 1< —-----------------------------------------------00

Figure 17.13.

(2007, p. 47) also report a Future for Navaho: “The Future Mode is mainly a tempo­
ral location indicator, although it can also have a strong modal meaning" The ques­
tion is also discussed by Comrie (1985, pp. 39-40), apropos of Dyirbal, with the
following conclusion: “ . . . despite the terminology adopted for Dyirbal, which
identifies the two tenses as present-past and future respectively, the distinction
between them is more accurately described as one of mood, namely realis versus
irrealis respectively.”
Evidentials37 are also found with temporal force in Amerindian: events marked
as Attestive (witnessed by the speaker) and Suppositive (hearsay, or probable) in
Algonkian languages (Amerindian) are necessarily past events, and such forms
were typically treated as past tenses in the grammars o f the early missionaries. In
Mi’kmaq (formerly spelled Micmac), an Algonkian language of Eastern Canada, if
the word is unmarked for evidentiality it will be understood to be a Present (data
from Hewson and Francis, 1990); e w i’kiket ‘he writes, is writing! Marked as Attes­
tive (e w fk ik e p ‘I witnessed his writing ) or Suppositive ( e w i’kikes ‘I believe he
wrote), it will be understood to be a Past. And many verbs have a reduced stem,
representing imaginary time, which is used with the Imperative (w i’kike ‘write!’),
the ^-Conjunct (w ik ik e j ‘if he writes’), the Conditional (w i’kikes ‘he would write),
and also with the Future (w i kiketew ‘he will write), which has its own personal in­
flections, which include evidential elements, as shown by Inglis and Johnson (2002),
who consequently conclude (2007, p. 256) that “modal suffixes (existential and evi­
dential) are used on an irrealis stem creating a Future form, but not a future tense”
a conclusion stemming from an uneasiness about a Future tense in a language with­
out any other tense contrasts.
530 TENSE

This question of the possibility of a binary Future vs. Non-Future tense contrast
deserves an extended study of its own so that the unanswered questions in its regard
can be more fully examined.

7. C o n c lu sio n

The study of verbal forms in the twentieth century was marked by a variety of im por­
tant developments, among which the following may be noted: (i) the discovery of
the importance o f aspect, and aspectual contrasts; (ii) the development of definitions
that clearly distinguish tense from aspect; (iii) the development of the discipline of
Linguistics as a separate body of knowledge, resulting in the foundation o f depart­
ments o f Linguistics, with students and specialists, and (iv) the development of
travel and communications, which gave access to languages and dialects that had
never before been recorded.
This essay has attempted to show that the basis o f verbal form s is aspect,
which involves the representation o f Event Time, limited to the representation o f
the event itself. Tense, which involves the wider view o f the unlimited extent o f
Universe Tim e, the time that contains the event, is a later development, an extrap­
olation from Event Time, that occupies a later or secondary level in verbal systems,
and m ay involve a tertiary level in which a variety o f systemic tense contrasts are
developed.
Tlie tensed forms o f the Vast Present typically appear in Child Language when
a verb is predicated o f the sentence subject, at which point verbs that are incomple-
tive (lexically and grammatically), are automatically understood as representing the
experiential present.38 Verbs that are completive (lexically and grammatically), on
the other hand, correspondingly represent Memorial Time, because whatever is
complete in the Vast Present must necessarily have taken place in the past, in time
that is coeval with memory. The development of tense, before there are any tense
contrasts, is achieved in this way by predicating aspectual forms o f the verb to the
subject of the sentence.
Not all verbal systems develop a further, third level with tense contrasts that are
either binary (typically Past versus Non-Past), ternary (Past, Present, Future), or
even more complex. Examples at this level m ay be found o f three variant types of
contrastive tense systems: Type A, Descending Time only; Type B, Ascending Time
only; and Type C, with representation of both Ascending and Descending Time.
Types A (e.g., the Greek indicatives in Table 17.2) and B (e.g., the English indicatives
in Figure 17.5) are common in the Indo-European phylum, whereas Type C systems
in IE languages tend to be tertiary (e.g., the Latin indicatives in Table 17.1) rather
than binary. Even more complex systems are found elsewhere, especially in the
Bantu group o f the Niger-Congo phylum, where the system o f the Kikuyu group is
so complex that two tense forms, being largely redundant for purposes o f tense, are
actually used in aspectual function.

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TEN SE 531

NOTES

1. Viz., Aristotle, Poetics 20.9 (1932/1995, p- 77), On Interpretation 3 (1938, p. 119). To

this day, one of the words for ‘verb’ in German is Zeitwort ‘time-word’.
2. On markedness, see Andrews, this volume.
3. On Aktionsart, see Filip, this volume,
4. For a binary tense analysis (with three aspectual distinctions) of the Greek verb,
and a discussion o f the issues involved, see Hewson and Bubenik (1997, pp. 24#.), and
Hewson (2006).
5. On compositionality, see Verkuyl, this volume.
6. Hewson and Bubenik, 1997, p. 28; Hewson, 2006, p. 97.
7. Potapova, 1951, pp. i58ff.
8. Guillaume, 1945, p. 53.
9. In Russian, although it is recognized that the future is represented aspectually, as
in on pisat ‘he is writing’, on napisat ‘he will write, it is still traditional to consider the
compound (Imperfective) future on budet pisat’ ‘he will be writing as a Future tense. It is
normal to teach the compound future first (Potapova, 1951, pp. 98fF.), as a regular future
tense, before introducing the simple, Perfective future (pp. i63ff.). The situation is compli­
cated by the fact that the lack of a copula has left the verb to be in Russian defective, lacking
a full array o f Imperfective forms, so that there is no corresponding Imperfective to the
Perfective auxiliary budet above.
10. Guillaumes article, published in a special linguistic issue of the French Journal de
Psychologie, is reprinted in Langage et science du language (1964, pp. 46-58).
11. The choice o f the term Retrospective to replace Perfect (Position E) is based on the
balance with Prospective (Position A). Comrie comments (1976, p. 54), under the heading
o f Prospective aspect: “the perfect is retrospective, in that it establishes a relation between a
state at one time and a situation at an earlier time,” and notes the symmetry of Prospective
and Retrospective. Jespersen (1924, p. 269) also comments: “ . . . it represents the present
state as the outcome of past events, and may therefore be called a retrospective variety of
the present.”
12. My translation.
13. See, for example Comrie’s insistence on the importance of distinguishing between
a form and its implicature (1985, pp. 23ff.).
14. Alan Baddeleys Chapter “Short-Term and Working Memory” in The Oxford
Handbook o f Memory (Tulving and Craik, 2000, pp. 77-92) gives an admirable overview of
a topic which is of prime importance to an understanding o f the cognitive functions that
are often represented in Tense-Aspect systems.
15. My translation.
16. Albanian, Armenian, Germanic, Hellenic, Hittite, Indie, Iranian, Slavic, Tocharian.
17. On sequence of tenses, see Ogihara, this volume.
18. Binary versions of Type C will be described in section 4 (The Vast Present).
Otherwise Type C versions are typically complex.
19. This contrast is, in fact not just verbal, but appears in nominal systems in the
contrast between mass nouns and count nouns. English mass nouns such as hair, paper,
may be turned into count nouns by the use o f an article: a hair, a paper (marked forms),
and count nouns often become mass nouns after prepositions: they went to school by bus. A
mass noun provides an analog interior view (as does Descending Time), whereas a count
noun presents an exterior digital view (as does Ascending Time).
532 TENSE

20. The term is from Hirtle (2007, pp. 8 7 - 8 9 ) , and co n trasts with m etap h asal ( A c t i v ­
ities, A c c o m p lis h m e n t s , A ch ievem en ts). In a stative verb each m o m e n t is identical to the
p re v io u s m o m e n t, and to the next: there are no different phases, as there are in Activities,
A c c o m p lis h m e n t s , and A ch ievem en ts.
21. B o a d is description o f tense and aspect in A k a n , a N iger-C on go language o f West
Africa, describes an Habitual that is the unmarked form o f the paradigm, and is also used with
verbs m eaning “suppose, beg, request, apologize,” etc., all “ m em bers o f the subclass o f predicates
w hich, following so m e writers, we refer to here as performative” (2008, p. 20). This Habitual is
clearly a Performative, a category which has not been fully and properly described o r defined in
the literature on tense and aspect, leaving uncertainties in the m inds o f researchers.
22. W h ic h is in m ost d iction aries, w hereas factative is not.
23. W h ic h m e a n s that both accompli and inaccompli can have valu es v a r y i n g between
o and 1 (since each b alan c es the other), a llo w in g for a w id e range o f representations.
24. A usage well b ey o n d the scope o f R e ic h e n b a c h s line o f time.
25. O n p r i m a r y la n g u a g e acquisition, see Wagner, this vo lu m e.
26. In the active sen se o f car has broken , “ The c a r broke dow n .”
27. T here is also evid en ce that the IE p roto lan guage had no past Im perfective, so that
the on ly past form w a s the aorist (the Perfective), and the Im perfective w a s used to
represent the present: tense fu n c t io n s w e re represented aspcctually. S e c, for ex a m p le ,
K urylow ricz, 1964, p. 134; C o m r ie , 1976, pp. 8 3 - 8 4 ; H c w s o n and B u b e n ik , 1997, pp. 3 5 iff.
28. A s pointed out lo n g ago b y M arcel C o h e n (1924, p. 56), these Im perfectives were
d e sc rib e d b y s o m e E u ro p ea n g r a m m a r i a n s as “aorists,” a term that, w h e n c o rre c tly used,
m e a n s “ Perfective.” The G r e e k Im perfective is horistos ' h a v in g a horizon! [< ----- X —-]
b etw een accompli and inaccompli ; the G r e e k Perfective, b ein g totally accom pli , [ < --------- X|
has no internal b o u n d a r y , is a-(h)oristos ‘ h a vin g no horizon.
29. F o r the o c c u r r e n c e and function o f the Situative in In d o - E u r o p e a n languages, see
H c w s o n (2007).
30. The five f o rm s o f Gaelic and R o m a n c e (two Pasts, one Present, two Futures) m a y be
dealt w ith as three tenses and two aspects (with the second aspect m issing in the Present), or
as five tenses, since the difference in the Present and the Past is based on different rep resen ­
tations o f U niverse T i m e ( D T vs. A T ). It is argued in Ile w s o n and B u b e n ik (1997, p. 321) that
the patterning and distribution o f fo rm s suggest five tenses rather than three.
31. A sh to n (1944/1993, pp. 3 7 - 3 8 ) gives e x a m p le s that s h o w that this “ Present In d e fi­
nite” has usages v e r y sim ilar to the English S im ple N o n -P a st, as in “ 'Ihe co o k says he wants
s o m e s u g a r ” C o n t i n i - M o r a v a (1989) also has an e x ten d e d e x p o sitio n o f the usages o f the
form with e x a m p le s that c o n fir m its status as a Performative.
32. A single even t c a n n o t o c c u p y two different spaces in U n iv e rse T im e .
33. E rnest R. B y a r u s h e n g o s o rigin a l u np ub lished w o r k on R u h a y a listing three past
tenses (P i tu-da-gura (h od iern al), P 2 tu-guz-ire (hesternal), P 3 tu-ka-gura (pre-hester-
n a l)— w ith e m p h a s is ad ded) wras used b y C o m r i e (1985, p. 28) to s h o w h o w ad verb usage
(i.e., context) clearly d em o n stra te s that P i is used for situations earlier today, P2 for
yesterday, and P3 for any time b efore yesterday. P2, h o w ever, is technically n ot a past tense:
it has 110 tense m ark er: tuguzire is a Vast Present Perfective, co n trastin g with tugura , Vast
Present Im perfective. W h a t is at issue here is a small c o m p le x it y o f the interface o f tense
and aspect system s, for w h ich the rigor o f scientific m e th o d quite p ro p e rly requires an
explanation: here we have R e ic h e n b a c h ’s Line o f T im e c la s h in g w ith the linguistic data,
w h i c h in f o r m s us that tu-guz-ire is not a Past tense; it represents the recent past because it
is a Perfective fo rm o f the Vast Present. It is m a rk e d n e ss that reveals the system ; function
m a y entail the table-knife s c re w d riv e r (see section 2).

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TEN SE 533

34. For a different treatment o f remoteness distinctions (“metric tense systems"), see
Botne, this volume.
35. For an extended explanation of the anomaly, see Hewson and Nurse (2005, pp.
302fF.). Performatives often have an inchoative sense: he sat down and ate indicates that he
began to eat, and it is this sense of “he just began to cook” (in the omega moments o f the
past) that leads to to-rda-rug-d being translated “he is cooking,” the Short Imperfective. In
similar fashion a genuine Past Performative may often function as a Retrospective, as in
English I came [= have come] to get your signature (said by a person entering an office) so
that forms such as tw-a-rug-a can be used for “he has just cooked, just finished cooking,”
the Short Perfect (i.e., Retrospective).
36. On the temporal values o f verbal complexes containing modal verbs, see
Depraetere, this volume.
37. On evidential, see de Haan, this volume.
38. As in I drawing (Weist et al., 2004, p. 41).

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 C H A P T E R 18

REMOTENESS
DISTINCTIONS

ROBERT BOTNE

A small but significant number o f the w orlds languages have the capacity to express
grammatically not only simple tense relations o f past and future, but also finer dis­
tinctions indicating the distance or “degree o f remoteness” from the deictic center,
typically the time o f utterance. This capacity to express grammatically various
degrees o f remoteness, whether temporal or modal, constitutes an important di­
mension o f the tense-aspect-mood (TAM ) systems in these languages. Some o f the
basic parameters of such systems were described nearly a quarter century ago (see
Dahl, 1984,1985; Chung and Timberlake, 1985; Comrie, 1985; Fleischman, 1989), fol­
lowed later by a diachronic study (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca, 1994) and more
recently by a cognitive approach (Botne and Kershner, 2008). Nurse (2008a) pro­
vides a general discussion o f remoteness marking in Bantu languages, noting some
o f the innovations that have occurred.
According to Dahl (2008), languages exhibiting some kind of remoteness dis­
tinction represent approximately one-quarter of the 140 language families and iso­
lates listed in the Ethnologue (Lewis, 2009). On the other hand, Dahl and Vellupilai
(2005a) list 40 o f 222 languages, approximately 18%, as exhibiting remoteness dis­
tinctions in the past; no comparable data are provided for remoteness distinctions
in the future (Dahl and Vellupilai, 2005b). However, although fairly widespread in
terms o f family representation, languages exhibiting remoteness distinctions are not
evenly distributed around the world. Rather, such languages appear to be concen­
trated in three general areas: the Niger-Congo languages of Africa, the Trans-New
Guinea languages of Papua New Guinea, and the Amerindian languages o f the
Americas.

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This essay focuses on four basic issues: (1) the common bases for delineating tem­
poral intervals: natural cyclic divisions, human life cycle and memory, and epistemic
value (sections 1- 3 ); (2) the concept o f remoteness (sections 4-5); (3) the typical orga­
nization o f multi-tense systems (sections 6-7); and (4) the complexity of such systems
(section 8).

1. N a t u r a l C y c l i c D i v i s i o n s

A common grounding for remoteness m arking is found in the natural cycles of the
sun— daily or yearly— or the moon (monthly phases). Particularly robust and wide­
spread is the occurrence of t o d a y , or intervals o f (t o )d ay , as the core o f remoteness
marking systems.

1.1. Hodiernal Grounding

The most com m on basis for m aking a temporal distinction, and a very robust
one, appears to be the contrast between a hodiernal interval (earlier or later
today) and so m e other interval, an instance o f what Bybee et al. (1994) designate
the “daily cycle” Two excellent exemplars are found in the systems o f tense-marking
in Grebo (N iger-C ongo, Kru; Liberia) and Kota (Niger-Congo, Bantu; Gabon)
(Table 1 8 . 1 ) . In each, the system is semantically symmetrical, m arking co m p a ­
rable intervals in past and future as one moves away from the deictic center, i.e.,
the time o f utterance (U T ). Intervals are roughly demarcated at boundaries o f
today and o ne - d a y -aw ay, both in the past and the future, although what counts
as the initial b o u n d a ry for a day depends on the particular culture— typically
either sunrise or sunset. The ultimate interval in each direction denotes situations

Table 18.1

Grebo (Kru) Kota (Bantu)

(Innes, 1966, p. 55) (Piron, 1990, from Nurse, 2008a)

-dâ P3 Remote past (> yesterday) P3 -à- .......................... -â-sâ

-do P2 Hesternal past (yesterday) P2 -à-.......................... -â-nâ
-é Pi Hodiernal past (today) Pi - d-mo- ................... -d
-E' Present -â- .......................... -â
-é Fi Hodiernal future (today) Fi -é- ............... -ak . . . -a
-â F2 Craslinal future (tomorrow) F2 -é- ............... -a k . . . -a-na
-do F3 Remote future (> tomorrow) F3 -é- ............... -a k .. . -a-sa

Ihis suffix m ay be realized as [ i ], |i|, (e), o r \t\ (In n e s, 1 9 6 6 , p. 2 8 ).

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538 TENSE

that are, in some sense, “ remote,” i.e., beyond the contemporal intervals o f today

a n d ONE-DAY-AWAY.
The three-term Ilodiernal-IIesternal-Rem ote past pattern observed in Grebo
and Kota is rather comm on, and occurs in m an y Bantu languages, though not all
languages necessarily match the past pattern in the future. A m o n g these are
N ugunu (A62; C am ero o n ),1 Kumu (D23; Democratic Republic o f Congo), Ruhaya
(JE22; Tanzania), Gikuyu (E51; Kenya), Kilangi (F33; Tanzania), and Kisuku (IT32,
Democratic Republic o f Congo). On the other hand, other Bantu languages have a
simpler two-term Hodiernal-Remote past pattern, am ong them Koozim e (A84;
Cam eroon), Leke (C 14; République Populaire du Congo), Chilamba (M54; Z a m ­
bia), and Ishisafwa (M25; Tanzania). Typically, more intervals are distinguished in
the past than in the future.
In Grebo and Kota, we find formal symmetrical patterning. In Grebo, the hodi­
ernal past and hodiernal future are marked by the same element, -e. This pattern is
found in a wide range of languages. A m o n g these are Ngangam (Niger-Congo, Gur;
Togo) and Basaa (Niger-Congo, Bantu; Cam eroon), Kapau (Trans-New Guinea;
Papua N ew Guinea [PN G ]) and Yele (Yele-VV. New Britain; P N G ) (Table 18.2).
In Ngangam and Kapau, hodiernal past and future are marked with identical
pre-verbal forms, wun in Ngangam, n- in Kapau, with Present marked separately.
Kapau, unlike Ngangam, differentiates the two via suffixes. Basaa and Yele2 mark
similar intervals for past and future, but include Present with the future. B a s a a dif­
ferentiates the two with tone, Yele with a prefix on the pronoun (3rd Sg is a null
pronoun).
In Kota, on the other hand, it is not hodiernal but adjoining intervals that e x ­
hibit parallel marking: - nâ marks one-day-away from the deictic center, -sa more
than one. This pattern, too, can be found in other languages, as in Dagbani (Niger-
Congo, G ur; Ghana) and Korowai (Trans-New Guinea, Awyu; Papua New Guinea)
(Table 18.3). In Dagbani, the optional time depth markers sa and dad denote “one-
day-away” or “ more-than-one-day-away” in both past and future (marked by ni).
Similarly optional, Korowai -m em a-* immediate’ and -(fe)lulo- ‘not today’ refer to
either past or future (marked with irrealis -kha-). The special nature o f the hodier­
nal is apparent in both, as li and - bakha- denote only earlier today’.

Table 18.2

Ngangam (Gur) (Higdon, 1996, 2001) Kapau (Trans-NG) (Oates & Oates, 1968)

Hodiernal past wun Hodiernal past (<12

hrs)
Present laan q(a ) - . . Present (continuous)
Hodiernal future wun n- ..............-ta Hodiernal future

Basaa (Bantu) (I lyman, 2003; M bom , 1996) Yele (Yele) (Henderson, 1995)

Hodiernal past n 0 -0. ..té Hodiernal past

Present/Hod. future it a -O .. .té Pres/Hodiernal future

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REM O TEN ESS DISTINCTIONS 539

Table 18.3
Dagbani (Gur) (Olawsky, 1999; Botne, Korowai (Trans-New Guinea) (van Enk & de Vries,
notes) 1997)

immediate past/future -tnema-(-kha-)

li earlier today earlier today -bakha-
sa (ni) yesterday/tomorrow yesterday+/tomorrow+ -(fe)lu-/(fe)lulo-(-kha-)
dää (ni) remote past/future

T a b le 1 8 . 4

Korafe (Trans-New Guinea) (forms are for 1S; Farr, 3999, pp. 37,42-45)
-teni Hodiernal past (from sunrise on day of speaking)
-ani Diurnal past (after noon on preceding day up to time o f speaking)
-mutani Diurnak past (24 hours before diurnal past)
-seni Remote (from 2 days ago into the very distant past)
—- . ,

1.2. Alternative Patterns

Many languages do not follow the “ ideal” cyclic pattern of hodiernal and hesternal
divisions. Two other patterns based on a natural daily cycle occur: one based on a
diurnal 24-hour cycle, the other biduonal,3 conflating hodiernal and hesternal into
one interval.
Korafe (Trans-New Guinea; Papua-New Guinea), although exhibiting a
hodiernal past suffix -teni with a few special verbs, typically uses -ani, which has
a diurnal interpretation—denoting approximately a 24-hour interval—from after
noon on the preceding day up to the time of speaking. The 24-hour diurnal cycle
is repeated in that the suffix -mutani denotes situations in the 24-hoar interval
prior to that. Hence, in general, the system in Korafe (Table 18.4) is like the three-
term past systems noted previously, marking two daily intervals in contrast to a
remote, except that it is grounded in a 24-hour diurnal cycle rather than the
hodiernal cycle.
In Sanuma (Yanomami; Brazil), a similar type o f contrast occurs. In this
language, past markers combine both tense and the degree of knowledge (wit­
nessed, verified, supposed) on the part of the speaker. Of interest with respect to
the issue of remoteness are the three witnessed pasts. Sanuma speakers distinguish
the current time interval—morning, afternoon, or night—from earlier time in the
same 24-hour time period. This implies that the 24-hour period includes daylight
hours and either the night before (if one is speaking in the morning or afternoon),
or the night after (if one is speaking at night). Any time preceding the 24-hour
interval is considered remote. The diurnal cycle is not limited to the past. In both
Sanuma and the Salliq dialect of Inuktitut (Eskimo-Aleut), the diurnal cycle orga­
nizes the future as well (Table 18.5).
540 TENSE

The second “non-hodiernal” pattern combines “earlier today” and “ yesterday”

into one interval, which I label the Biduonal past. Two languages exhibiting a two-
way contrast between a Biduonal past and a Remote past are Nimboran (Trans-New
Guinea; PN G), which distinguishes a Biduonal past -t- from a general past -k-
(Anceaux, 1965), and Makaa (Niger-Congo, Bantu A83; Cameroon), Biduonal dm6
versus Remote a (Heath, 1991).
Three Bantu languages— Gim bala (H 41; D cm . Republic o f Congo), Lunda (L52;
Dem. Republic o f Congo), and Kesukuma (F21; Tanzania)— exhibit a three-way
contrast. In each case, the third tense marker is an Immediate tense: past in Gimbala
and Lunda, future in Kesukuma.
A more complex system in Bantu is that o f Cimwera (P22; Tanzania), which
makes a symmetrical Biduonal division both in the past and the future (Table 18.7).
The future in this language, atypically, has more distinctions than the past.
In sum, then, there are three natural cycles that serve to organize multi-tense
systems: (1) today (Hodiernal) with its complementary counterparts yesterday
(Ilesternal) and tomorrow (Crastinal); (2) a 24-hour cycle (Diurnal); and (3) a con­
flation of today and one-day-away (Biduonal). Ih ese are summarized schematically
in Figure 18.1.

1.3. Hodiernal versus Pre-hodiernal Organization

The natural daily cycle is not always systematically subdivided into today, yester­
day, and remote, or today, tomorrow, and remote. Seemingly as com m on is a pat­
tern in which the second interval (P2) is simply pre-Hodiernal, that is, its span
extends beyond yesterday. That span m ay be a few days, a few weeks, or even a few
years. E xa m p le s com e from all three o f the areas with the highest c o n c e n tra ­
tion o f remoteness-marking languages: Ewondo (Niger-Congo, Bantu; Cameroon);

Table 18.5

Sanum a (Yanomami) (Borgm an, 1986) Salliq (Inuktitut) (Spalding, 1969)

Remote past (yesterday+) kupili -laur- Remote past

Diurnal past (within 24-hr) kupi -rcjdii- D iurnal past (24 hrs
pre-UT)
Current past (within same interval) kuhe
Present kule' -lir- Present
Diurnal future g<* -niar- Diurnal future (24 hrs
post-UT)
Remote future a -laar- Remote future

K u le is o n e o f m a n y fo r m s used fo r the present. It indicates that the even t was w itnessed and the location w ith
respect to the d eictic center. I list it here as the m o s t neutral term . A ll o f the w itnessed fo rm s contain the
w itnessed prefix ku~. T h e list gives the full forms.

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REMOTENESS DISTINCTIONS 541

Nabak (Trans-New Guinea, Huon; Papua-New Guinea); and Retuara (A m e rin ­

dian, Tucanoan; Colum bia) (Table 18.8).
Although the hodiernal/hesternal or hodiernal/pre-hodiernal divisions (or
their future equivalents) appear to be robust crosslinguistically, perhaps even prev­
alent (Dahl, 2008), there is evidence to suggest that this is not always the correct
characterization o f the distinction. Rather, a more appropriate characterization in
many cases may be one o f currently relevant (C urTU ) versus adjoining time units

Biduonal Biduonal
________________ ________________ X
f will/in two days ^ f within two d a y s '
Diurnal Diurnal
-A_______ ________ A
~ 2 4 hours ' ^ ~*2 4 hours ^
Hestemal Hodiernal Hodiernal Crastinal
A ________________ À A ________________ A
C one day away same day ^ s a m e day ^ one day aw ay ^
Past --------------------------------------------------- 1------------------------------ --------Future

UT

F igure 18.1. N atural d a ily cycles

Table 18.6

Gimbala I Ain da Kesukuma (Knya dialect)

(Ndolo, 1972) (Kawasha, 2003) (Nurse, 2008a)

(-a -).. .-a - n a - ..

&

Immediate past Immediate future

1
1
•

Biduonal past (-a -).. .-idi - a - .. .-a -go -.. .-a Biduonal future
Remote past -g a -. . .-a - a - .. .-Hi -l<xâ-.. .-a Remote future

T h e (- a - ) p refix appears o n ly w ith V -in itia l verbs. N d o lo describ es the (- a - ). . .-a fo rm as a “ passé
d ’au jou rd’ hui,” c o n tra stin g w ith the “ passé d ’ h ier et d ’au jou rd’ hui.”

Table 18.7
Cimwera (Niger-Congo, Bantu; Tanzania) (Harries, 1950)

Remote past -a-ci-..-a ci-........... -jie-..-a Remote future

cika - . . . .- 0 -..-e post-Biduonal future
Biduonal past -ci-..-a ci-........... - 0 -..-e Biduonal future

Table 18.8

Past Ewondo Nabak’ Retuara

(Redden, 1979) (Fabian et al., 1998) (Strom, 1992)

Hodiernal -0- -a -ko?o

pre-Hodiernal -â- -man -rape
Remote -ngâ- -ban -re?ka

F orm s are iS fo r C -fin a l verb stems.

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542 TENSE

(AdjTU ). In Chindali (Bantu M 30 ; Malawi) and Luwanga (Bantu JE32; Kenya), for
example, there occur the past tenses shown in Table 18.9.
A lth o u g h the default interpretation o f Pi and P2 for m o st situations is that o f
“earlier to d a y ” and “ yesterday,” respectively, they can just as readily be interpreted as
b road er tem poral intervals. That is, the unit “earlier to d a y” is only one o f several p o s­
sible interpretations o f Pi. It could also be used in contexts in w h ich the relevant time
unit w o u ld be this m onth, this year, or this season. Pi, then, can be m o re accurately
described as d en otin g the C u r T U . P2, in contrast, denotes that time unit preceding
and adjoining the C u r T U . Hence, if the relevant unit is “ today,” then P2 denotes “ ye s­
terday” ; if it is “ this year,” then P2 denotes “ last year.” Thus, we can label P2 as, roughly,
an equivalent A d jT U . Clearly, then, use o f the two fo rm s is not restricted to events
h aving o ccurred today or yesterday. Conceptually, we have a layering o f levels o f time
units, as depicted in Figure 18.2. Each temporal level in Lu w an ga utilizes the sam e
m orph o log ical opposition to m ark the difference between current and preceding
tim e units. The sa m e analysis can be m a d e for C hin dali.
In L u w an g a a n d C h in d a li, then, Pi and P2 constitute a conceptual p a ir in g —
C u r r e n tly Relevant vs. A d jo in in g T i m e U n its— in contrast to P3, a co n ceptu ally s e p ­
arate and rem o te past. First, as w e have noted, C u r T U and A d j T U arc sem an tically
co nnected to each other in a w a y that the rem o te is not. The rem ote, in fact, could
be used for recent events up to the d ay befo re yesterday. S econ d , th e y are often fo r­
m ally co nnected , as they are in L u w a n g a and C h in d a li in that Pi and P2 share the
suffix -ire or -ite, respectively.
This semantic scaling is not restricted to past time, but may also appear with
future tenses. In Lunda (Bantu L52; Zambia), for example, there are five future

Table 18.9
Chindali Luwanga
(Botne, 2008) (Botne, 2008, notes)

P3 Remote - a - . . .-a
<1*3
<13
1

P2 (I Iesternal) -a a - . . ,- it e
1 1
01 a1
1
•
•

Pi (Hodiernal) - 0 - .. .- it e
1
•
•

A d jT U C u rT U

_A _ _A_
( V
-a- -ire 0
- -...-irc UT
Time scale ..
DAYS yesterday
•/ /
today

MONTHS last month this month

YEARS last year this year

SEASONS last season this season

Figure 18.2. Scaling levels o f relevant tim e units in L uw anga

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REM O TEN ESS DISTINCTIONS 543

tenses. A lthou gh Kaw asha (2003) describes tw o o f these as basically h o d iern al and
crastinal, he nevertheless goes on to state that they m ay denote this m onth in con­
trast to n ext m onth, and so forth.
A s proposed for Luwanga and Chindali, these tense form s do not sim p ly con­
stitute conceptually a string o f intervals stretched out along a tim eline, in this case
into the future. Rather, they represent a layering o f tim e scales. W hat K aw asha labels
the hodiern al future (F3) (-k u - . . . -a) denotes a C u rT U , his post-hodiern al future
(F4) ( - ( a ) k a - . . . -a) an A d jT U , as depicted in Figure 18.3. Note, though, that there

Currently Relevant T U Adjoining TU

Proximal Distal
Tim e scale A A
YEARS r V next year
this year

M ONTHS this month next month

d ays today tomorrow

-ku-...-a -(a)ka-...-a

Immediate Near
A A
H OURS
f V '
< hour > hour
Future
hi-..>ku-..-a keeqa -i
UT
Remote future: -amba-ka-...-a

Figure 18.3. Layering in Lunda (Bantu L52; Zambia) futures [Kawasha, 2003]

A d jT U CurTU

_ A _ _A
r V
-ka-...-a -a*...-aga
yesterday

last week

last month

last year

pre-Hodiernal Hodiernal
A
( Y
-a-...-aga
< one season same day
Past Future
Remote past: -d-...-a

UT

Figure 18.4. Kesukuma (Kemunasekuma dialect) [Batibo, 1985]

544 TENSE

is a complementary pair of formal tense markers that denote immediate (in less
than an hour) and near (within hours) futures; these, too, constitute current and
adjoining time intervals. O f note is that the Immediate C u rT U is formally derived
from the proximal CurTU. Thus, we see that different levels of time scales may be
marked in different ways. We will return to this “scaling” in §6.
This scaling of time units appears to be comm on in Bantu systems (Nurse, 2008a,
p. 93). It also appears in Bantoid, but I have found no examples outside o f Bantoid. In
Bafut (Bantoid; Cameroon),4 for example, there are also three pasts— Pi le , P2 kt, P3
I f — which behave semantically like the Bantu languages, P2 referring to “ time pe­
riods such as yesterday, last week, last month and last year” (Ambe, 1989, p. 326).
The concept of Adjoining Time Unit (AdjTU) differs in significant ways from the
pre-hodiernal concept noted earlier. This difference can be clearly observed in Kesu-
kuma (Kemunasekuma dialect). AdjTU specifically denotes the relevant and equiva­
lent time unit immediately preceding the CurTU. In Kesukuma, this is marked
by -ka- . . . -ay which may be interpreted as specifically yesterday (vs. today), last
month (vs. this month), and so forth. The different time scales can be considered
“ layered.” Pre-hodiernal, in contrast, refers to a range of time preceding the hodiernal
interval, from yesterday on back, marked in Kesukuma by a - . . . -He.3 Thus, although
pre-hodiernal may denote many o f the same times as an AdjTU, it is linear in scope,
not multi-layered. Both of these stand in contrast to a remote past, - a - . . . -a.

2. H u m a n E x p e r i e n c e

’Ihe languages described to this point have been organized primarily on the basis of
the concept o f a natural daily cycle. A second basis for remoteness marking is
human experience. This m ay reflect restrictions of human memory, life span, or
cultural elements such as myths. This grounding in human m em ory and experience
seems to be particularly common in Amerindian languages. For example, in
Konkow (Penutian, Maiduan; California),

“ {w o n o } 'rem ote past’ refers to situations w hich o c c u rr e d at s o m e time in a past

w h i c h is felt to be remote b y the speaker. T h is m a y have been in an absolute sense
such as for an event w h ich transpired before the sp e a k e r w as b o rn , o r in a relative
sen se associated with an o c c u r r e n c e w h ich is b e y o n d the s p e a k e r s range o f
m em ory.” (U ltan , 1967, pp. 9 6 -9 7 , cited in M i t h u n , 1999)

An example of a more complex system is Washo (Hokan; California), in which

there are four past tense suffixes (Jacobsen, 1964, cited in Mithun, 1999). The hodiernal
past -leg reflects the natural daily cycle. Pre-hodiernal -ay? indicates yesterday or
before, but not distant. The two suffixes -gul and -lul denote intervals within (remem­
bered past) or before (preceding the memory) the lifetime of the speaker, respectively.
Another example of human experience serving as the basis for tense marking is
found in Mvskoke, or Creek (Muskogean, southern U.S.). Mvskoke, like Washo, has
four pasts, one hodiernal but three pre-hodiernal (Innes et al., 2004). The hodiernal

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REMOTENESS DISTINCTIONS 545

past, - h -y6 like Washo -leg, is based on the natural daily cycle. Three pre-hodiernal
pasts differ in the extent of the interval into the past, from an annual seasonal cycle
to a memorial past, to a mythic past. Thus, layering in Mvskoke both formally and
semantically occurs pre-hodiernal (Figure 18.5).
Finally, K a r u k , another H o k an language, m a k e s distinctions based on living
m em o ry. O f four past tenses, a N ear past seem s to im p ly im m ed ia te m e m o r y in
contrast to a Far past, w h ic h indicates re m o v a l from the “ livin g present” (O ’Neill,
2008, p. 143). A n A n c ie n t past indicates “ before recent m e m o r y ” or situations in the
pro-historic past. A R em ote past o cc u rs betw een the A n c ie n t and Far past s. O ’N eills
d escriptions n o tw ithstan d in g, the K a r u k tenses fit both form ally and sem antically
into different tim e scales (Figure 18.6), as in Lu nd a above. N e a r and Far past are
fo rm a lly similar, sh a r in g suffixal - at , the fo rm e r m a r k in g a C u r T U (“ living present” ),
the latter an A d j T U (“ rem o v e d fr o m living present” ). At a different tim e scale, based
p re su m a b ly on historic and pre-historic times, R e m o te past constitutes the C u r T U ,
A n c ie n t the A d iT U . They, too, share fo rm a l sim ilarities as verbal suffixes.

p re-H od

vt5 p re-H od

_________________ - A _

yesterday to lim it o f speaker's memory

-m vt p re-H od H odiernal

£ year ' same day

Future
-v n k -h-

UT

Figure 18.5. M vskoke past tenses (M uskogean; southern U.S.) [Innés et al., 2004]

A ncient Remote
T im e scale A A
( V ???
L IF E S P A N p re -h is to ric
-a n ik -aheen

Far N ear
A X
( y 'N
MEMORY rem oved fro m pre Ï. livin g memory

m it (a ) -at ? ip (a ) -at

UT

F ig u re 18.6. K a r u k (H o k a n ; C a lifo rn ia ) tenses an d tim e scales [O’ Neill, 2008]

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54 6 TENSE

3. E p i s t e m i c V a l u e

Although most language systems appear to be grounded in one form or another of

the daily cycle and/or in human experience of m em ory and life span, some appear
to be grounded in epistemic value, the effect subjective remoteness distinctions may
have in attenuating the claims made in uttering a proposition (see Frawley, 1992).
That is, by selectively situating an event in a relatively more recent or remote inter­
val, the speaker highlights the distance between some aspect of the actual world, i.e.,
the present, and a world denoted in the proposition, and by implication his or her
certainty (level o f confidence) or assurance (level o f assertability) that the event will
happen or has happened.
In Ewondo (Bantu A 70; Cameroon), there are three future forms, which Redden
(1979, p. 95) states are not tenses, “since they do not refer to time.’' Rather, he claims
that they have to do with probability of occurrence. Thus, -ayi- is definite, implying
that the situation will soon occur; -n- denotes probable, implying not-too-distant
future; and -ngd- indicates indefinite or low probability, implying more remote time.
Two similar cases are found in Rugciriku (Bantu K33; Namibia) and Kesukuma
(Bantu F21; Tanzania) (Table 18.10). In Rugciriku, the Remote future denotes “events
that the speaker expects to occur somewhere in the future,” considered to be “ rather
speculative” (Mohlig, 2005, p. 82). In contrast, the Immediate future denotes an
event certainly expected to occur. Similarly, in Kesukuma (Kemunasukuma dia­
lect), the Remote future renders the possibility less certain, while the Near future is
used if one is certain (Batibo, 1985, p. 270).
Babungo (Niger-Congo, Bantoid; Cam eroon) and Tinrin (Austronesian, Oce­
anic; New Caledonia) also mark two degrees of remoteness in the future, Remote
(ndo) and “ Today and tom orrow ” (or Biduonal) (taa) in Babungo (Schaub, 1985)
and Indefinite (nri) and Immediate (ei) in Tinrin (Osumi, 1995). Nevertheless, the
two markers overlap in their uses. Although typically used to refer to events occur­
ring today or tomorrow, Babungo taa m ay also be used to refer to an event further
in the future if there is certainty about its occurrence. Tinrin nri indicates uncer­
tainty in opposition to the greater expectation associated with ei. Significantly, the
Remote futures (ndo and nri) in both cases can refer to events occurring tomorrow
that are more certain but outside the control o f the speaker or subject, if they are
preceded by the Biduonal future marker taa or ei , respectively.
Epistemic organization appears as well in the verb forms o f Awngi (or Southern
Agaw) (Table 18.11). Fletzron (1969) describes two tenses— labeled Imperfect and
Perfect— and two aspects— Definite and Indefinite— that determine four verb forms.

Table 18.10

Rugciriku (Mohlig, 2005) Kesukuma (Batibo, 1985)

n g â-.. .-a Remote future [speculative] -la d -.. .-a

ku- ___ -a Immediate future [certain! -k o -.. .-a

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REMOTENESS DISTINCTIONS 547

Table 18 .11 Aw ngi (A fro-A siatic, Cushitic; Ethiopia) (H etzron, 1969)

Past Epistemic value Non-past

-a uncertain action (more remote) -é (future)

~ rà certitude about action (nearer) -yâ (future)
-a effect at present -é (present; generic)

Other languages potentially grounded in epistemic value include Hupa (Na-

Dene; California) -te’I Near future (“on the cusp of reaching fulfillment” ) versus
-te- General future (conveys expectation) (O’Neill, 2008); Buriat (Altaic, Mongolie;
Mongolia) -u u ia Simple future versus -xa- Indefinite future (Bybee et al„ 1994); and
Yapese (Austronesian, Oceanic; Yap and Caroline Islands) nga Inceptive future (ac­
tion in near future) versus baey Definite future (action certain to occur) versus raa
Simple future (action in future, not certain) (Jensen, 1977).

4. T h e C o n c e p t (s ) o f R em o teness

There are two basic concepts that play a role in remoteness m arking systems,
hodiernality (or its counterparts diurnality and biduonality) and remoteness.
Hodiernal marking, as we have observed, is often paired conceptually with pre-
hodiernal marking, one type o f “ remoteness.” M vskoke is a good example of a
language organized in this manner. In contrast, hodiernal m arking may represent
only one construal of a layered system, in which it constitutes a C u r T U in contrast
with an A djT U , the latter, in effect, a second type of “remoteness.” These types of
remoteness represent relatively distal intervals; a true Remote tense represents
separation and isolation from the time o f utterance.
A common assumption underlying most work with complex “ remoteness”
systems is that the different degrees o f distance delineated in the system are orga­
nized conceptually in a linear sequence from most recent, with respect to utterance
time, to most distant, although boundaries between one interval and another m ay
be considered flexible, fuzzy, or ill-defined. The typical approach to analysis o f re­
moteness marking is to map each temporal morpheme to an appropriate interval o f
a timeline. Basaa (Bantu A43; Cam eroon) provides an example of a nearly sym m et­
rical system, ostensibly representing a linear sequence.
The neat symmetry o f the system is disturbed by two anomalies. First, both the
remote past P3 and the remote future F3 may co-occur with the temporal adverbial
len “ today” (M bom , 1996 and p.c.), which cannot happen with either P2 or F2. A
simple linear approach provides no motivation for such discontinuous use. Second,
P3 and P2, as well as F3 and F2, may overlap in use, i.e., a situation that occurred last
month, for example, could be marked with either of the past forms depending on
contextual factors. A simple linear approach provides no explanation for overlap in
P3 and P2, but not in P2 and Pi, or the equivalent in the future. What these facts do

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548 TEN SE

suggest is that remoteness needs to be conceptualized not only in terms of pre-

hodiernal intervals and Currently Relevant vs. Adjoining time units, but also in
terms of separate, dissociated worlds or domains (Botne and Kershner, 2008).
The hodiernal and pre-and post-hodiernal markers in Basaa constitute two cor­
responding sets: past (b*-AdjTU vs. k- CurTU) and future (rt- CurTU vs. gd- AdjTU),
each contrasting the CurTU with the AdjTU. We can represent this aspect of the
semantic structure of the Basaa tense system as in Figure 18.8. The (extended) c o n -
t e m p o r a l dimension comprises two crosscutting concepts: (1) direction—earlier

or later (i.e., past or future)—with respect to the deictic anchor, i.e., utterance time
(UT), and (2) temporal distance, i.e., degree of remoteness from the deictic anchor
(i.e., CurTU or AdjTU). In addition to the contemporal dimension, there is a non-
contemporal dimension in which there are two complementary markers, one
denoting remote past, the other remote future.
Conceptually, analysis of the timeline in terms of contemporal structure pro­
vides one possible perspective, what Botne and Kershner (2008) label the P-domain.
That is, time is construed as extending through a contemporal domain encompass­
ing utterance time (UT), with complementary intervals in the past and future. These
intervals saturate (in principle) the timeline as expansively in timescale as speakers
choose, i.e., from a time scale of hours to one as vast as years or life times. These
intervals do not overlap; that is, an event that occurred in a past adjoining time unit
(e.g., yesterday), cannot be referred to using the marker for the current time unit
(e.g., earlier today), or vice versa. The contemporal domain tense markers from
Basaa, then, can be represented schematically as in Figure 18.9, in which the CurTU
is subdivided into pre-UT and UT+, with AdjTUs marked on either side.
In contrast to this perspective, there is a second possible perspective on the
timeline, essentially a complementary view of time.7 In this view, the timeline is

UT

Past Future

I Os
I

o o o o *0 y c O FT
3 %3 ÏJ! - §
©
1-^ § n £2 S' &s £ Ig
q
o ïï- &
3
*0
p go 3 5 5
■ÈS &*

Figure 18.7. Tenses in Basaa [Mbom, 1996; Hyman, 2003]

Contemporal Non-contemporal
CurTU A d jT U (R E M O T E )

past n- b f- 0 -

future

n- gà- a-

Figure 18.8. Organization o f Basaa temporal markers

REMOTENESS DISTINCTIONS 549

A d jT U C u r l'L l A d jT U

» у
Past Ы- n- n- gh- F u tu re
P2 Pl P r/ F l F2
I

UT

Figure 18.9. Basaa P-d o m a in m a r k in g

F u tu re/
D -d o m a in

Past 1.....J......................... Future

1 1
1 1
P - d o m a in

D-domain
7
F igure 18.10. B a s a a rem ote tenses

construed as linking a sequence of separate, or dissociated, mental worlds (see

Figure 18.10) beyond the contemporal P-domain, which Botne and Kershner
(2008) label D-domains. A world, or domain, construed as prior to utterance time
(UT) may be marked as a “ remote” past, one subsequent to U T as a “ remote” future.
In Basaa, the P3 and F3 markers, unlike the P2 or F2 markers, locate the event in a
mental world separate and distinct from the actual contemporal world (P-domain).
This represents a “dissociated” remoteness or separation o f the situation with
respect to the utterance time of the actual world. Because these domains arc cogni­
tively separate, or dissociated, it is possible for speakers to situate domains tem po­
rally nearer or farther from one another; that is, there may be some subjectivity in
locating a domain temporally. Hence, not only can the remote tense markers be
used to refer to temporally distant situations, but also to temporally proximate
ones (e.g., earlier today), which are nevertheless construed as epistemically remote.
This dissociative model, then, provides a motivated explanation for the overlap of
P2 and P3, F2 and F3 in Basaa: the particular time o f an event can be construed in two
distinct ways, depending on whether it is situated in the past of the P-domain or in the
past D-domain. And, in Basaa, the remote past (P3) can be used to refer to an event
that occurred earlier in the day because there is no restriction on the temporal loca­
tion of the D-domain with respect to the UT, as long as it is construed as separate.
In the Grassfields language Babungo (Bantoid; Cameroon), Remote past no
behaves in a comparable flexible manner, being used for events as recently as yesterday,
hence overlapping in use with the pre-hodiernal tenses, yet neither of the pre-hodiernal
tenses overlaps with its hodiernal counterpart (Figure 18.11). Note the unusual organi­
zation with the locus of division located between today and yesterday.
These Bantoid languages are not alone in making this distinction between con­
temporal and remote pasts. In Tepetotutla and Sochiapan Ch inantec (Oto-Manguean;
Mexico), there are cognate pairs of past tenses, ne1*- Hodiernal vs. kaM- Remote, and

М а те р и а л , защ ищ енны й а в то р ск и м n p a B O N
550 TENSE

prc- Hodiernal Hodiernal +

_ _ A _ _ -A.
h o d ie r n a l post-Hodiernah
Va a Si mi I iaa
Past Future
PI UT

F ig u r e 1 8 .11 . B a b u n g o te n se s ( B a n t o id ; C a m e r o o n ) [Sc h au b , 1985]

h'M- Contemporal vs. kal{- Remote, respectively. The two systems behave a bit differ­
ently. Tepetotutla kaM-, like the remote P3 0 -form in Basaa, can be used to refer to
situations that occurred earlier today, thereby overlapping and contrasting with n es>-
(Westley, 1991). This use is readily motivated in a dissociative model: n&VI- marks
hodiernal past in the P-domain; kaM -marks past in the D-domain, which can be
construed as occurring “earlier today,” but implies a subjective remoteness that the
hodiernal neM- lacks.
Closely related Sochiapan Chinantec does the opposite; it treats the hodiernal
past as a subjective proximal marker, rather than the Remote past as a subjective
distal marker. Although prefix l i ' M- typically marks a hodiernal past and kdH- a
remote past (i.e., events prior to today), l i 'M- (h o d ) may also be used in a manner
similar to the English historic present; the speaker chooses as if the events had
just occurred earlier in the day. (Foris, 2000, p. 117) By this, he surely means not that
the speaker asserts the event to have occurred “today,” but rather, that the event is
subjectively proximal. Thus, whereas Tepetotutla Chinantec next- is strictly hodi­
ernal in denotation, Sochiapan Chinantec l i 'M- can denote any time prior to U T in
the P-domain, but instills a sense o f proximity in doing so. The contrast between the
two Chinantec varieties is neatly captured in the dissociative domain model.

5. R e m o t e D o m a in s

These analyses o f Basaa, Babungo, and Chinantec imply that there are different kinds
of remoteness. In the P-domain, we find a “measured” (or metrical) proximity/remote­
ness in terms of temporal distance from the deictic center, while projection of an event
into a D-domain connotes an epistemic separation and subjective distance.
This distinction between contemporal and dissociated domains provides the
basis for a more nuanced analysis o f the concept of “ remoteness.” Given the co n ­
ceptual distinction in D-dom ains, we might expect to find differences— both for­
mally and semantically— in remote forms. In fact, remote domains are often
marked or behave distinctly. First, in som e languages the past and future
D -dom ains are m arked in parallel manner. Return to the case o f Ewondo, which
Redden (1979) described as not having a future tense, but rather, an Indefinite
future (-nga-)y denoting low probability. One finds the same m orphem e - ngd - also

М а те р и а л , защ ищ енны й а в то р ск и м правом

REM O TEN ESS DISTINCTIONS 551

m ark in g rem ote past, w hich R edden does label a tense. Such parallel u se is not
u n com m on . Should use as a p ast be considered tem poral, but use as a future not?
In the dissociation m odel, this issue does not arise. Rather, -n gd -sim ply denotes
rem oteness, w hich m ayb e construed as lo w p ro b a b ility (futures) or low assurance
o f factu ality (pasts) (Figure 18.12). That is, tem poral distance correlates w ith m odal
distance. Furtherm ore, future rem ote dom ain s m ay have different im plicatures a s­
sociated w ith them than those in the past.
S im ila r organ ization and m ark in g pattern s can b e fo u n d in K o m (N iger-
C o n g o , B an to id ; C am eroon ) (Table 18 .12) an d N a b a k (T ran s-N ew G u in ea; Papua
N e w G u in ea) (Table 18.13). K o m m ark s b o th rem ote dom ain s w ith n u n Ice, d if­
feren tiatin g future fro m past b y high tone p lacem en t (all true fu tu res have a
h ig h ton e).
In N abak, the remote dom ains are both m arked by - b\ future is differentiated
from past b y the non-past suffix -ap. The tw o-w ay distinction in the future versus
the th ree-w ay distinction in the past is easily accounted for: in the future (in the
P-dom ain) there is no m arking o f an A d jT U as there is in the past, hence, the asym ­
m etrical system .

Future
z
D -d o m ain
. ngâ- F 3

Past Future

Table 18.12
Kom tenses (Botne & Kershner, 2008, p. 201)

Remote past nun lœ nun lie Remote future

AdjTU past ti
CurTU past Ice lœ AdjTU future
Near past ni ni CurTU future (hodiernal)
nun Present/immediate future

Table 18.13
Nabak tenses (Fabian et al., 1998)

Remote past [> 2 days ago] -b-an -b-ap Remote non-past [post-Hodiernal]
AdjTU past [pre-Hodiernal] -m-an -s-ap AdjTU non-past [Hodiernal]
CurTU past [Hodiernal] -a -0 -ap CurTU non-past [Present]
552 TENSE

In Yele, another language of Papua New Guinea, we observe a slightly different

pattern o f organization, but again one that differentiates domains in the gram m at­
ical marking. In the complicated Yele system, transitive verbs are marked differently
from intransitive, punctiliar from non-punctiliar (Henderson, 1995). Here the focus
is on the transitive verb forms, as shown for the verb ngm- ‘hide below. The verb
stem differs for aspect (Root - 0 punctiliar, Root - :dd non-punctiliar).
Although the number o f temporal intervals marked differs between punctiliar
and non-punctiliar, the organization is very similar. In both cases, Remote past
(D-dom ain) is marked in a distinct m anner from the other tenses. With punctiliar
verbs, all contemporal P-domain tenses include the post-verbal particle ngmc , the
Remote past ngopu. With non-punctiliar verbs, ngme marks hodiernal forms, while
the C u rT U s and AdjTUs, past and future, share formal m arking o f the pronominal
forms (here 3rd PI). Remote past differs in having a different pronominal form.
Futures are distinguished from comparable pasts by the presence o f the future
marker a(-). Remote future (D-domain) appears to be unmarked. (See Table 18.14.)
This differential marking o f D-domains also appears in negation. For example,
in Mokpwe (Bantu A22; Cameroon), the remote past is marked differently from
P-domain tenses both in the affirmative and the negative (Table 18.15). Specifically,
negation in the past D-domain employs prefix -zi- plus suffix - e , while all the other
tenses, which are P-domain, employ prefix -za- and do not change the final suffix.
The future D-domain is apparently not marked morphologically in this language.
Tunen (Bantu A44; Cam eroon) negates both remote domains differently from
the contemporal (P-domain) tenses. Remote past le becomes le le in the negative,
Remote future , so rj6. In contrast, the contemporal tenses all replace the affirma­
tive tense marker in the negative with a form of say each differing in tone (Dugast,
1971; Mous, 2003).

Table 18.14 Yele (Henderson 19 9 5)

Verb (ngm- ‘hide’ (fr.) = R)

Punctiliar Non-punctiliar

Remote past 0 - R-o ttgopti 0 -dny.e R-:ââ O Remote past

Hcsternal past 0- R-o ngme 0 -dny.i R-:ââ 0 Hcsternal past
Hodiernal past O-dê R-o ngmè R-:ââ ngmè Hodiernal past
a-0 R-:ââ ngmè Pres/Hod. future
Future a-O R-o ngmè a-dny.i R-:àâ 0 post-Hod. future

Table 18.15 M okpwe (Bantu A22) negatives (Nurse, 2008b)

Affirmative Negative

P3 -m a -. . .-a -zi-. . .-e

P2 - O - . . ,-eai -z a -.. ,-eai
Pi -O-.. .-/ -z a -. . .-/
Pr/Fut -O-,..- a -za -. . .-a

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REMOTENESS DISTINCTIONS 553

Dagaare and Dagbani (Gur; Ghana) negate the remote future differently from
other tenses (Bodomo, 1997; Olawsky, 1999). Affirmative remote future na or m,
respectively, is negated by kong or ku\ non-future negative tenses all employ ba or hi.
Another way that remote domains may differ from their P-domain counter­
parts is in construals o f speaker experience or subject control. Koasati (Muskogean;
southern U.S.), for instance, has three past tense markers, -ki- Remote past (years
ago), -to- Recent past (a few hours to several years ago), and -ti- Near past (Table
18.16).* Although the meanings of the tense markers are expressed in terms of tem­
poral proximity/remoteness, according to Kimball (1991), -to- and -ki- overlap in
use; actions occurring at the same point in time m ay be referred to with either one.
One basis for difference in use is personal experience; -to- may be used for personal
experience o f speaker, even sixty years 01* more ago, while -ki- is used for actions of
others at the same point in time. That is, an event in the speakers life may be tem­
porally remote, but is construed as occurring within the contemporal world o f the
P-domain ( A d jT U -to-)y while a sim ilar event at the same point in time but in
the life o f someone else is situated in the remote dissociated D-domain of the
past (-ki-).
In Tinrin (Austronesian, Oceanic; New Caledonia) there are two pasts, an
immediate, hdma v e r b (nra )> and a remote, nr do v e r b (nra) (Osumi, 1995). The
immediate past indicates completion o f an event or change o f state in the recent
past, at least as far back as yesterday; the remote denotes a “ long” time ago, appar­
ently anytime prior to yesterday.9 In contrast, the particle ei denotes an im m e­
diate or im m inent future, at least as far off as tomorrow, while nri denotes an
indefinite future, indicating “ uncertainty in the speakers speculation about the
future, often . . . a situation in the remote future” (p. 175). The immediate future
often indicates subjects control of the situation, the indefinite future lack o f such
control. Hence, we can analyze nri and nrod as qualitatively different from ei and
h d m a , m arkin g future and past D -dom ains, respectively. In contrast, ei and hamd
denote (Biduonal) contemporal future and past in the P-domain.

6. M ore C om plex Exam p les of S c a lin g

The strategy of layering time scales— first mentioned in the analysis o f Lunda (see
Figure 18.3)— can be observed in more complex systems, such as that in Yagua
(Peba-Yaguan; Peru), which has five past tenses: Pi -jdsiy “ hodiernal,” P2 -jay “one

Table 18.16 Koasati (Muskogean; southern U.S.) (Kim ball, 1991)

-ki - Remote past (action took place many years ago)

-to- Recent past (action took place from several hours to several years ago)
-ti- Near past (action in very recent/immediate past)

laterial com direitos autorais

554 TENSE

day ago” P3 -siy “ up to a month ago,” P4 - tiy “ up to a year or so ago,” and P5 -jada
“remote” (Payne and Payne, 1990). The first four pattern as C u rT U versus A d jT U
(Figure 18.13). Hodiernal and hesternal are absolute in referring to only those time
units, unlike Luwanga and Basaa, where they were relative units. P1/P2 and P3/P4
are scaled; they constitute comparable pairs of current and adjoining TUs, but at
different time scales. P3/P4 are used when they denote events that are construed
within a “ mcnsual” time scale. Note here that the time units involved arc typically
natural cycles, a daily solar cycle, a lunar or monthly cycle, and a solar or yearly
cvcle.
4

A r a o n a (P an o -T a ca n a ) (P itm an , 1980), in n e ig h b o rin g Bolivia, appears to be

o rg an ized in a sim ilar m an n e r, with the p r i m a r y difference lyin g in the tim e scales,
ex p ressin g years rather than m o n th s at the higher level (F ig u re 18.14).
Finally, a third language, Washo (Hokan; California/Nevada), again seems to
organize its system into two time layers, with the second tier grounded in life span
rather than natural cycles of months or years (see Figure 18.15). A com m on feature
in all three o f these cases is the similarity in form o f the second level markers.

T im e s c a le p r e -M e n s u a l Mcnsual
_ A _ A
M o nth r < year sa m e m o n th \
-tiy -siv

H e s te rn a l H o d ie rn a l
_ A _ A
Day
f
1 clax away V sa m e day ^
Future
-jay -jasiy
R e m o te : ja d ä
UT

F ig u re 18.13. Y a g u a (P eb a-Y aguan ; Peru)

p re -A n n u a l Annual
Time scale
, ------------------- A -------------
YEARS • > s e v e ra l years f < severaI years ^
•ana -asha

p re -H o d ie r n a l H o d ie rn a l
A _ - A ______
DAYS r < m onth V sam e day A
Future
-a -iqui

UT
I
F ig u re 18.14. A r a o n a (P an o -T a ca n a ; B o liv ia )

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REMOTENESS DISTINCTIONS 555

7. C om plex Sy s t e m s and Rem o teness

We turn now to a consideration o f more complex systems, that is, systems that make
four or more distinctions in tense marking, either in the past 01* the future or both.
A well-known example, and one that has been commented on frequently, is Kiksht
(Penutian, Chinookan) of the Pacific Northwest. We can compare Kiksht with
Mituku (Bantu; D R C ), a language that has not been discussed in the remoteness
literature (Table 18.17). These languages share two features: both have an extensive
system o f past marking, and the marking consists o f a combination of markers, one
indicating whether the situation occurred earlier or later in a particular temporal
interval. The two sets o f tense markers for each language are set out for comparative
purposes in the chart below.

Table 18.17 C om parison o f K iksht (Penutian; C hinookan) and M ituku

(N iger-C ongo; Bantu)
Kiksht Mituku

Tense Loc Time interval Time interval Loc Tense

f
i(g)- -t- just now present prog -0- -1
-u- earlier today earlier today -a-
na(l)- yesterday yesterday -0- -і'ує -Ы
to -a-
< week < week -0- -iye
-u-
ni(g)- -t- last week to > week -0- -iye
-u- < year -a-
ga(l)- -t- > year to remote -0- -ill
-u- > 10 years -a-

іNote: M itu ku also has a “ h istorical past” - a - . . .-a tm hio.

Time scale pre-Life span Life span

л A
L if e s p a n r remote Y < speaker’s lifetime Л
-lul -gul

Day p re-Hodiernal Hodiernal

A A
r~ < ??? V same day Л
Future
-ay? -leg
UT
Figure 18.15. W asho (H o k a n ; C a lifo rn ia /N e v a d a ) [Jacobsen, 1964, cited in M ith u n , 1999]

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55 6 TENSE

Kiksht (Silverstein, 1974; Hymes, 1975) marks four p rim a ry intervals, Mituku
(Stappers, 1973) five. The difference in M ituku lies in the innovation of a separate
form for “ yesterday” rather than one form for both “ yesterday” and “this week.”
For each o f the intervals marked, a second marker can be used to specify earlier
or later within that interval. For Kiksht, these are -t- nearer, -u- further; in
Mituku, - 0 - nearer, -a- further. The parallels are striking, especially considering
their locations on separate continents.
In Mituku, the remote past stands out from the other pasts not only semanti­
cally, but formally: -Hi vs. forms o f iyf pre-hodiernal and -\ hodiernal. The system
can be set out as in Figure 18.16.
More specifically, the system can be analyzed in terms o f the dissociative model
(Figure 18.17). Although Mituku can be said to be grounded in the daily cycle of
hodiernal vs. pre-hodiernal, it differs from other languages discussed previously in
that it sub-divides the pre-hodiernal interval into hebdomal (week) and pre-heb-
domal, and hebdomal into hesternal and pre-hesternal units. Thus, the time inter­
vals marked in the P-domain are more finely articulated than in other languages.
The suffix -Hi marks the remote D-domain.
Kiksht is organized much like Mituku, as shown in the schema of forms below
(Figure 18.18). It differs from Mituku in not having further sub-divided the heb­
domal interval and, significantly, in not marking a remote domain.
A third language with some features similar to Kiksht and Mituku is Barasano
(Tucanoan; Columbia) (Figure 18.19). Although not as complex overall, Barasano

T em p ora l m arking: Mituku

Past tense suffixes

R em ote NOT remote

pre-Hodiernal Hodiernal

pre-llehdom al Hebdomal
[> sveekj l < week]

pre-Hesternal Hesternal
-iyc - iyc-bi

Figure 18.16. M itu k u past tenses

pre-Hodiernal

T im e scale prc-I/ebd om al H ebdom al

^f x
W EEK ' > w eek ' + I w eek '•
/ / / «
- ly e -ly e

pre-H cstcrnal H esternal H odiernal

■

DAY ' < w eek Y + 1 day V sam e day\

ß
*iye-0 -iye-bi -1 Future

R em o te: -i'll I T

F ig u re 18.17. M ituku tense m a r k e rs in a disso ciative fr a m e w o r k

Note that iyc is both pre-Hesternal (contrasting with ‘ iyc-bi) and Hebdomal (contrasting with -iyt)

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r e m o t e n e s s d is t in c t io n s 557

has both tense m arkers and depth m arkers (Jones and Jones, 1991), like K iksht and
M ituku, b u t em ploys them in a different m anner, as show n in Figure 18. A suffix
-bdsi affixed to either the hodiernal past - 0 or the m ensual past -k a denotes the
relevant adjoining time unit. Like Kiksht, it does not m ark a remote D -dom ain.

8. T i m e S c a l e s and D eic tic C en ter s

A ddressing a different issue, C om rie (1985) discusses the curious case o f the M abuaig
dialect o f K alaw Lagaw Ya, in w hich we find a specific tense m arking for last night, not
found in the Saibai dialect. The verb “see” has the form s listed below in Table 18.18.
A v e ry similar, but more complex, system can be observed in Bolia (Bantu; D em ­
ocratic Republic o f the Congo [D RC]) (Table 18.19). In this language, too, there is the
equivalent o f a “last night” tense. However, instead o f five past tense form s, there are six.

pre-Annual Annual

Tim e scale
A A
f
YEAR > year same year
g a (l)- n i(g )-

pre-Hodiernal Hodiernal
A A
r Y
DAY < few days same day
na(l)- i(g)-

UT

Figure 18.18. Kiksht tenses in a dissociative framework

pre-M ensual Mensual

T im e sc a le A A
MONTHS ' > month »' same month
-ka-bâsi -ka

pre-H odiernal H odiernal

A _ A _
DAYS C < few days V same day
-0 -b a s i -0
Future
UT
Figure 18.19. Barasano tenses scaled

Table 18 .18 Kalaw Lagaw Ya (Pama-Nyungan; Australia) (Comrie, 1985, p.

ima-ti Pres/Immediate past
ima-nxk Hodiernal past
ima-nbungel Last night
ima-q ul Hesternal past
ima-dhin Remote past

‘Thank you to Marie-Eve Ritz (p.c.) and her colleague Lesley Stirling
558 TENSE

A simple listing accounts neither for the formal similarities between the hodi­
ernal and hesternal pasts or the Immediate and Recent pasts, nor for the semantics
o f the system. However, when we consider these forms in terms of C u rT U and
AdjTU, and P-and D-domains, a pattern emerges (see Figure 18.20). Both the Im ­
mediate past and the Last night past can be considered CurTU s with respect to the
deictic center. But that center differs at the two levels, u tteran ce tim e with respect
to the Immediate past, today with respect to Last night. That is, the scale o f the
deictic center in this language corresponds to the scale o f the time units.
We also find that a third level exists with the C u r T U equivalent to the Biduonal
interval, with a m a r k e d p re -B id u o n a l interval. Finally, there is a R em o te past
m a r k i n g the D -d o m a in .
Kalaw Lagaw Ya, like Bolia, can be analyzed in a similar manner (see Figure 18.21).
The Pres/Immediate past and Last night tenses represent CurTUs at different time
scales, hours versus days. Last night is simply the time unit immediately adjoining the
deictic center; unusual, perhaps, but within the principles of the framework.

9. C o n c lu sio n s

The concept of remoteness is not, as commonly assumed, simply a question of

numbers o f tenses and linear “temporal” distance each tense marks from a deictic
center. Rather, as this brief survey has shown, there m ay be a more complex organi­
zation underlying the distribution o f form and meaning. Although some languages
impose a rigid, fixed interpretation of tense markers (e.g., Grebo and Dagbani), many
others exhibit a flexible interpretation grounded in layered time scales. A fundamen­
tal division occurring over and over again is the distinction between Currently Rele­
vant and Adjoining Tim e Units, the most common bases for divisions being cycles of
day (Hodiernal, Diurnal, Biduonal), life (life span, memory), or epistem ic value.

Languages appear to differ significantly in three ways, whether or not they (1)
code for Adjoining Time Units, (2) sub-divide the Currently Relevant Time Unit
domain, or (3) code Remote domains. The simplest tense systems (not discussed
here) would simply exhibit, for example, a single past marker that would either code
for simple past in the P-domain, or for Remote past (D-domain), as with English
-D. Multi-tense systems, then, are not conceptually different from single-tense
systems, just substantively more complex.

Table 18.19 B olia (Bantu, N iger-C o ngo ; D R C )(M a m e t, i960)

- n g o - .. . - a Immediate Past
-ili Hodiernal Past
- m b o - ... -e Recent Past [not later than the preceding night]
..-ili Hesternal Past
-aa Intermediate Past [up to several days]
-aki Remote Past

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REMOTENESS DISTINCTIONS 559

prc-B id u on al Biduonal
A
( v ; "n
l'im c scalc - -..-aa H c s tc m a l Last night [D e ic tic C en ter]
A A
DAYS * * -mboo-..-c ^
Today
Hodiernal Immediate
A X
lO URS -’ -..-ili * -ngo-..-aa

UT
Remote: -'-..-aki

Figure 18.20. B olia past tenses

VERB imcm- ‘ s e e ’
Time scale D e ic t ic C e n te r

F ig u re 18.21. K a l a w L a g a w Ya (P a m a - N y u n g a n ; A ustralia)

I f te r m in o lo g y em p lo y e d in labeling degrees o f rem oten ess in c o m p le x system s

is to have any m e a n in g crosslinguistically, there needs to be a sta n d a rd basis for use.
Based on the dissociative f r a m e w o r k applied here, I p r o p o se that the term “ R em ote
tense" be reserved solely for tenses c o d in g a rem o te D - d o m a i n (past or future), the
term “ D istal” for rem o ten ess w ithin the P -d om ain .
This overview , though brief, has p ro vid ed a sa m p lin g o f v a rio u s m ulti-tense
system s, d e m o n stra tin g s o m e o f the c o m m o n characteristics that underlie m a n y o f
th em . N everth eless, m a n y questions and issues rem ain un ad d ressed . In m a n y la n ­
guages, it is not possible to d eterm in e h o w the system fu n c tio n s for lack o f adequate
detail. In o rder to u n d ersta n d m ulti-tense system s m o r e fully and deeply, there will
need to be m o r e attention devoted to the se m an tic description and attention o f
degrees o f rem oteness and h o w they are used.
I wish to th an k the fo llo w in g ind ivid u als for d iscussion o f language data: Pam ela
Innes, B o n ifa ce K a w a sh a , B alia M asele, and M a r ie - E v e Ritz. The analyses presented
here do not necessarily reflect the v ie w s o f these individuals.

NOTES

1. Letter+n um b er is a language identification code used by Bantuists to indicate

geographical zone and specific language within a zone.

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560 TENSE

2. Yele has a complicated system that differs according to the aspectual nature of the
verb—punctiliar vs. non-punctiliar—and transitivity (Henderson, 1995). There are five degrees of
remoteness for non-punctiliar verbs, four for punctiliar. The forms shown here are for third-
person plural intransitive, non-punctiliar verbs, the verb root occurring between the pronominal
form and the final particle, e.g., a-dny.i mbwoUmbwoU 0 “they were hiding (yesterday).”
3. Biduonal is a coinage from Latin biduum “a period of two days,” analogous to
hodiernal from Latin hodiernus.
4. Ambe considers there to be a fourth past tense marking expressing an immediate
past. However, this appears to be the same as the Perfect, or what Ambe labels the Termi-
native aspect, which he glosses as “have Ved.” Moreover, the marker follows the verb rather
than preceding it, as the others do, suggesting it is not part o f the same system formally,
what one might expect if it is a Perfect.
5. The suffix -ile is a perfective aspect marker. It is included here to illustrate that not
all perfective events occurring in the past are marked with it. It also reflects a second
difference between the two forms: - a- . . . -He denotes that an event has been completed—
for example, someone who left has also returned; -ka- . . . -a does not indicate whether the
event has been completed in this sense.
6. Pam Innes (p.c.) suggests that -h- may be a perfective aspect marker. Even so, it is
restricted to hodiernal use, hence behaving in a manner commensurate with tense marking.
7. Consider these views as denoting relative movement. In one view, Ego perceives
self as moving, Time static; in the other, Ego perceives Time as moving, Ego static. See
Botne (2006) and Botne and Kershner (2008) for more detailed discussion.
8. Kimball (1991) says there are four past tenses,-.*sa-described as present/recent past.
However, all of the examples he provides are with Achievement verbs having a present
interpretation, suggesting it is a perfective marker restricted to specific present/past interval.
9. The past particle nra can occur without either of the remoteness markers, hdmd or
nroo, and vice versa. It appears, then, that these time depth markers are optional.

REFERENCES

Ambe, H. S. A. (1989). The structure of Bafut. Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University.

Anceaux, J. C. (1965). The Nimboran language. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Batibo, H. M. (1985). Le kesukutna. Paris: Éditions recherché sur les civilizations.
Bodomo, A . ( 1 9 9 7 ) . The structure ofDagaare. Stanford: CSLI.
Borgman, D. M. (1986). Sanuma. In D. C. Derbyshire and G. K. Pullum (eds.), Handbook o f
Amazonian languages. Vol. 2 (pp. 15-248). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Botne, R. (2006). Motion, time, and tense: On the grammaticalization of come and go to
future markers in Bantu. Studies in African Linguistics, 35,127-188.
Botne, R. (2008). A grammatical sketch o f Chindali (Malawian variety). Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society.
Botne, R., and Kershner, T. L. (2008). Tense and cognitive space: On the organization of
tense/aspect systems in Bantu languages and beyond. Cognitive Linguistics, 19(2), 145-218.
Bybee, ]., Perkins, R., and Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution o f grammar. Chicago: Univer­
sity o f Chicago Press.
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C h u n g, S., and T im berlake, A. (1985). Tense, aspect, and mood. In T. Shopen (ed.),
Language typology and syntactic description. Vol. 3. Gram m atical categories and the
lexicon (pp. 202-258). Cam bridge: C am b rid ge University Press.
C o m ric , B. (1985). Tense. Cambridge: C am b rid ge University Press.
Dahl, Ö. (1984). Temporal distance: Remoteness distinctions in tense-aspect systems. In
B. Butterworth, B. C o m r ic , and Ö. Dahl (cds.), Explanations for language universals
(pp. 10 5-12 2 ). Berlin: Mouton.
Dahl, Ö. (1985). Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dahl, Ö. (2008). The distribution o f hodiernality distinctions in the w o rld s languages.
Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/hodiernal.
Dahl, Ö., and Velupillai, V. (2005a). Ihe past tense. In M . Haspelmath, M. S. Dryer, D. Clil,
and B. C o m rie (eds.), The world atlas o f language structures online. M unich: M a x
Planck Digital Library, ch. 39. Available online at http://wals.info/leature/39. Accessed
in August 2009.
Dahl, Ö., and Velupillai, V. (2005b). The future tense. In M. Haspelmath, M . S. Dryer,
D. Gil, and B. C o m r ie (eds.), The world atlas o f language structures online. Munich:
M a x Planck Digital Library, ch. 39. Available online at http://wals.info/feature/39.
Accessed in August 2009.
Dugast, I. (1971). Gram m aire du Tunen. Paris: Klincksicck.
van En k, G. J., and de Vries, L. (1997). The Korow ai o f Irian Jaya. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Fabian, G., Fabian, E., and Waters, B. (1998). M orphology, syntax and cohesion in Nabak,
Papua N ew Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Farr, C. J. M . (1999). The interface between syntax and discourse in Korafe, a Papuan
language o f Papua N ew Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Fleisch m an, S. (1989). Temporal distance: A basic linguistic metaphor. Studies in Language ,
13(1), 1-50.
Foris, D. P. (2000). A gram m ar o f Sochiapan Chinantec. (Studies in Chinantec Languages,
6). Dallas: SIL International and the University o f Texas at Arlington.
Frawlcy, W. (1992). Linguistic semantics. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Harries, L. (1950). A gram m ar ofM w era. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University.
Heath, D. (1991). Tense and aspect in M akaa. In S. C. A nd erso n and B. C o m r ie (eds.), Tense
and aspect in eight languages o f Cam eroon. Dallas: SIL and the University o f Texas at
Arlington.
Henderson, J. (1995). Phonology an d gram m ar ofYele, Papua N ew Guinea. Canberra: Pacific
Linguistics.
Hetzron, R. (1969). The verbal system o f Southern Agaw. Berkeley: University o f California
Press.
Higdon, L. M. (1996). Tense, aspect, and modality in G a n g a m narrative and hortatory
discourse. M a ste r s thesis, University o f Texas at Arlington.
Higdon, L. M . (2001). An overview o f Gangam gram m ar. Lome: S IL Togo.
H ym an , L. M. (2003). Basaa (A43). In D. Nurse and G. Philippson (eds.), 'Ihe Bantu
languages (pp. 257-282). London: Routledge.
Hymes, D. (1975). From space to time in tenses in Kiksht. International Journ al o f Linguis­
tics, 41, 313-329.
lnnes, G. (1966). A n introduction to Grebo. London: S O A S , University o f London.
Innes, P., Alexander, L., and Tilkens, B. (2004). Beginning Creek. N orm an: University o f
Oklahom a.

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 C H A P T E R 19

COMPOSITIONALITY

H E N K J. V E R K U Y L

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

The word compositionality is best known as a mathematical-philosophical term: it

does not appear in most general dictionaries. It is often embedded in a larger term:
the principle o f compositionality. This principle is quite generally considered as
important and hence it has received its own place in handbooks as a separate topic,
such as Janssen (1997).1 It has entered linguistics in proportion to how helpful logic
is experienced as being for the semantic analysis o f sentences of natural languages.
Compositionality is usually understood by linguists as the principle that the
meaning o f a syntactic unit such as a phrase or sentence is a function both of the
meanings of the immediate constituent parts comprising it and their mode o f
composition.
Compositionality concerns the computation o f complex meanings at higher
levels of structure on the basis of atomic meanings. If one has, in propositional
logic, a proposition p and a negation sign -1, then one is able to construct the
complex proposition ->p, the meaning of which is formed on the basis of the m ean­
ings of p and -i, given an appropriate construction rule. More in general, Boolean
algebra is founded on this idea of predicting the meaning of complex propositions
on the basis of atomic ones thus warranting computability. The extension to predi­
cate logic is generally attributed to the mathematical philosopher Gottlob Frege.
Fregean compositionality turned out to be useful in the formalization o f predicate
logic by Bertrand Russell and later on by mathematical philosophers such as
Willard Quine, Rudolf Carnap, and Richard Montague.
One o f the main ingredients of a compositional approach has been the insight
that it is necessary to translate a sentence o f natural language into predicate logic in

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 C H A P T E R 19

COMPOSITIONALITY

HENK J. V E R K U Y L

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

The w ord com positionality is best know n as a m athem atical-philosophical term: it

does not appear in m ost general dictionaries. It is often em bedded in a larger term:
the p rin c ip le o f com positionality. This principle is quite generally considered as
im portant and hence it has received its ow n place in handbooks as a separate topic,
such as Janssen (1997).1 It has entered linguistics in proportion to how helpful logic
is experienced as being for the sem antic analysis o f sentences o f natural languages.
C om positionality is usually understood b y linguists as the principle that the
m eaning o f a syntactic unit such as a phrase or sentence is a function b o th o f the
m eanings o f the im m ediate constituent parts com prising it and their m ode o f
com position.
C om positionality concerns the com putation o f com plex m eanings at higher
levels o f structure on the basis o f atom ic m eanings. I f one has, in propositional
logic, a proposition p and a negation sign -1, then one is able to construct the
com plex proposition -<p , the m eaning o f w hich is form ed on the basis o f the m ean­
ings o f p and -1, given an appropriate construction rule. M ore in general, Boolean
algebra is founded on this idea o f predicting the m eanin g o f com plex propositions
on the basis o f atom ic ones thus w arranting computability. The extension to predi­
cate logic is generally attributed to the m athem atical philosopher G ottlob Frege.
Fregean com positionality turned out to be useful in the form alization o f predicate
logic b y B ertran d Russell and later on b y m athem atical philosophers such as
W illard Q uine, R u d o lf Carnap, and Richard M ontague.
O ne o f the m ain ingredients o f a com positional approach has been the insight
that it is necessary to translate a sentence o f natural language into predicate logic in
56 4 TENSE

o rd e r to d isa m b ig u a te it a n d to escape fro m its “s u r f a c e s t r u c t u r e ’ by casting it into

a so -c a lle d L o g ic a l F o r m so that the m e a n i n g o f the resulting fo r m a l ex p re ssio n can
b e c o m p u te d c o m p o s it io n a lly from b otto m to top. For B e rtr a n d Russell, tran sla­
tion had a p u r ify in g fu n c tio n in the sense that it sh o uld r e m o v e the am b igu ities,
d isto rtio n s and v a g u e n e ss o f natural la n g u a ge p ic k in g out the stru ctu re that m ak e s
a d eclarative sentence true o r false. The price to be paid for this m a th e m a tic a l
d re a m is that essential features o f natural la n g u a ge m ig h t turn out to be exp ressed
in the parts that are left out. In the sixties, the m ath e m a tic al logician R ich a rd M o n ­
tague o p e n e d the w a y for a m o r e articulate point o f v ie w on the relation betw een
natural and fo rm a l languages.
E ssen tial for M o n t a g u e s a p p r o a c h is his c o n v ic tio n that lin g u istic categories
can be seen as logical ty p e s: c o u n t n o u n s can be in te rp re te d as sets, a d jective s as
ta k in g sets in o rd e r to yield sets, V P s as ta k in g an extern al a r g u m e n t N P to yield
a truth valu e , tense fo rm s as p e r t a i n i n g to te m p o r a l ele m e n ts a n d their c o n f i g u r a ­
tions, etc. A c c o r d i n g to h im , a natural la n g u a g e can be c o n s id e r e d a fo rm a l logical
la n g u a g e . In this p e rsp e c tiv e , the s e m a n tic v alu e o f a senten ce can b e seen as
b e in g c o m p o s it io n a lly d e t e r m in e d a lo n g the lines sk etch ed a b o v e for f o r m a l logic.
The sy n tax o f a natural la n g u a g e L can b e seen as an alge b ra (roughly, a set o f
n o d e s c o r r e s p o n d in g to catego ries and o p e ra tio n s b etw ee n th e m ). M o n t a g u e
re q u ire d that the sy n tac tic algebra b e m a p p e d d ire c tly or in d ire c tly into a so-
called m o d e l for L, a(n algebraic) stru c tu re c o n ta in in g s e m a n tic v a lu e s fo r the
different logical types, su c h as sets, in d iv id u a ls and tr u th -v a lu e s and m o r e
c o m p le x v alu e s c o n s tr u e d fro m th e m . M a k i n g use o f this m a c h i n e r y req u ires one
to strive fo r c o m p o s itio n a lity .
Janssen (1997) provided a mathematical-logical technical analysis o f the prin­
ciple giving it a precise formal content and also clearly revealing the pitfalls for a
formal-semantic application o f the principle to empirical research domains. In his
view, one o f the merits o f the principle is that it can serve as a methodological guide
given the fact that the formal logic o f natural language should be discovered as part
o f an empirical enterprise.
The present chapter is based on the conviction that complex meaning o f phrase
structure should be approached on the basis of the principle of compositionality. It
will consider two temporal domains— tense and aspect— in which linguists have a
choice between a compositional and non-compositional approach. Com positional­
ity may be then seen as a regulating force that puts severe formal restrictions on
proposing an analysis, restrictions that can be shown to render a compositional
approach more fruitful than a competing non-compositional approach. One of
these restrictions requires that the formal machinery obey the principle of compo-
sitionalily by computing the meaning o f complex structure on the basis of atomic
meaning elements. In so doing one is able to make predictions due to the mathe­
matical functions underlying complexity. In this way, one obtains the position of
vulnerability required in empirical research. Section 2 shows that Reichenbachs
(1947) tense system suffers from not being compositional and section 3 argues that
a strictly compositional approach to Slavic aspectuality produces better results than

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 C O M P O S IT IO N A L IT Y
565

competing non-compositional approaches advocated by a large m ajority o f Slavic

scholars, m ostly on the basis o f inform al semantics.

2. T e n s e and C o m po sitio n a lity

2.1. Reichenbach^ Ternary System

The standard tense system in linguistics and formal semantics is unmistakably that
o f Reichenbach (1947)- It describes the tense forms of English in the form o f a matrix
based on two tripartitions:

1. Past— Present—Future
2. Anterior—Synchronous—Posterior

In order to connect the two tripartitions, the system does not relate the point of
speech S directly to an eventuality E. As shown in Table 19.1, the first tripartition
relates the point of speech S to a point o f reference R in three different ways. A nal­
ogously, the second tripartition relates R relates to the event E. In this way R fulfills
an intermediating role between the two divisions. In spite o f its popularity, there are
severe problems with Reichenbachs proposal. For example, cells 6, 8, and 9 contain
the same tense form and cell 3 and 7 cover three different configurations. Moreover,
the form would have walked does not appear in the matrix.
The two tripartitions make the system in Table 19.1 ternary. It can be shown to
be non-compositional. This does not say that ternary systems are non-composi­
tional by definition. Montagues tense rules in his PTQ-fragment are clearly based
on a tripartition and they are compositional, in principle.2 It is the particular choice
made by Reichenbach in crossing two tripartitions that makes his tense system

Table 19.1 Reichenbachs matrix for English tense forms

Past Present Future

R -S R,S S -R
Anterior 1. anterior past 2. anterior present 3. anterior future
E -R E -R -S E —R,S E - S - R ; E, S - R ;
had walked has walked S -E -R
will have walked
Simple 4. simple past 5. simple present 6. simple future
e,r E,R—S E,R,S S—R,E
walked walks will walk
Posterior 7. posterior past 8. posterior present 9. posterior future
R -E R -E -S ; R -S -E ; S,R— E S -R -E
R - S ,E will walk will walk
would walk
566 TENSE

had^ walked hasy;n walked Willis« have walked

1 E -R walk 2 E -R walk 3 E -R walk

walked^ walkst will*. walk

4 R,E walk 5 R,E walk 6 R,E walk

wouldy^ walk wilL. walk will^ will walk

7 R -E walk 8 R -E walk 9 R -E walk

Figure 19.1. Reichenbach’s problem with compositionality

non-compositional. This can be proven by assuming that it is compositional and by

showing that this assumption leads to unsolvable problems. In order to let it be
compositional the first step is to ensure that each member of the two tripartitions is
uniquely interpreted as the fixed value of an operator.
For the second tripartition in the rows o f Table 19.2 and Figure 19.2 this means:

• anterior: h a v e .^1-» E—R

i, 2,3: h ave ln/(w a lk in/) = h a ve w a lk ed

• simultaneous: idL*-* R,E

4, 5, 6: id L(w alk.nf) = w alkjHf

• posterior: w i l l . ^ 1-» R—E.

7, 8 , 9 : w i l l .nf(w alk.nf) = w ill w a lk

where R,E is represented by the identity function idr 3 For the first tripartition in the
columns in Table 19.2 and Figure 19.2 it means:

. before: PAST ^ R—S:

1. p a s t (have.mj) = had, 4 . p a s t (w a lk inj) = w alked , 7. p a s t (w illjnj) = w ou ldfin

COMPOSITION ALITY 567

• sim ultaneous: PR E S »-> S,R:

2. PRE S(have. = hasy 5. PR E S (walk. J = walks, 8. PRES(vW// = will^

• later: P U T >-> S— R:

3. F U T ( h a v e j = ( h a v e . J , 6 . F U T ( i d t) ( w a l k J = ( w a lk .J,
9. F \ J T ( m l l J ( w a l k j = wHlfm (w iU in/( w a lk in/))

Figure 19.1 makes it easy to understand how the compositional interpretation

proceeds. The cells 1, 2, 4, and 5 turn out to be unproblem atic for a compositional
procedure: both the PAST-operator and the PR ES-operator take an infinitival verbal
form (indicated by the subscript “ i n f ” ) to yield a finite tense form (indicated by the
subscript “ fin” ). If one accepts that the FU T -operator introduces the finite auxiliary
Wf7/,Mat once, then the cells 3 and 6 also qualify as unproblematic but anticipating an
objection to be m ade right after the next paragraph, direct introduction o f willfin
deviates from the general format t e n s e ( V . m/) = V \ n in cells 1, 2, 4 ,5 , 7, and 8.
The subscripts on the operators are important for seeing where the first p ro b ­
lem arises. In each o f the three cells o f the bottom row the verb walk ^.is taken by the
R— E-operator will _. so as to form will jnf (walkirf) expressing posteriority. In 7 and 8
this does not lead to problems but in 9 there are n o w two vW//-forms: one finite (ac­
counting for S — R), the other infinitival (accounting for R — E). The doubling in 9
cannot be analyzed as an innocent form o f red u n d an cy that can simply be undone
by getting rid o f one o f the w/7/-forms by “dedoubling.” The configuration S— R c o n ­
tains a different sort o f information from the configuration R— E, so both types o f
information should be retained. Hence, it is entirely ad hoc to stipulate that an
infinitival and a finite tense form be reduced to just one finite form as a sort o f p h o ­
nological reduction. It follows that 9 is the spot where compositionality cannot be
maintained in terms o f fixed values.
The advantage o f having a general rule tense( V (/) = V /; , is far m ore important
than one m a y think at first sight. In Reichenbachs matrix in Table 19.1, the rule
clearly w orks for past and pres but not for fut. W h y not? For an answer one should
first observe that in cell 8 the finite tense form will is form ed on the basis o f the rule
p r e s (V .) = V \ . So the question arises: w hy is it necessary to have the third column
in Table 19.1 at all if you have derived willfin? The answer to this is that this column
is justified only by the wish to have Olga will have walked in the system. Strictly
speaking the cells 6 and 9 are not necessary from the point o f v iew o f producing the
tense form willfin. The problem with cell 9 has been discussed above. The only argu­
ment for having both 6 and 8 seem s to be that one may use the difference between
S,R— E in 6 and S— R ,E in 8 as the basis for claim ing a difference in perspective, cell
6 being the reverse o f the Present Perfect configuration E — R,S in cell 2 and cell 8
being the reverse o f the Simple Past configuration E ,R — S in cell 4.
This triggers a skeptical question: w h y does English (and Dutch) distinguish
between has walked (cell 2) and walked (cell 4) and aren’t there separate form s for

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568 TENSE

Table 19.2 Reichenbach on the way to com positionality

Past Present

Anterior 1. had walked 2. has walked

Synchronous 4. walked 5. walks
Posterior 7. would ^ walk 8. will,fin walk
Posterior + anterior ?? would,,jm have walked 3. will, have walked

expressing the difference between 6 and 8? The first part o f the answer is to observe
that the difference between has walked and walked expresses a difference between
Present and Past, because has is undeniably a present tense form . The other part o f
the answer is that the difference between S,R— E and S — R,E does not correspond
with a difference in tense: w ill^ in 6 is also undeniably a present tense form , so
whatever future is expressed by it, it can only be expressed by an operation on an
infinitival auxiliary willjnf But this is clearly a matter o f the cells 7, 8, and 9 at the
bottom, not o f cell 6, which is at issue now. Seen in this light the will, in cell 6 is at
best felt to be idiosyncratic.4
The next steps in following this track o f thought are: to skip the idea o f defining
Future in terms o f w illf.n in the right-hand colum n o f Table 19.1, to be content with
the existence o f 8, to rule out cell 9 and also cell 6, and to live with a tense diagram
as given in Table 19.2. O f course, this requires a proper solution for the bottom line
in Table 19.2. One o f the ways o f finding such a solution is to go binary.
In fact it seems to be the only appropriate way to go because in Reichenbachs
system there appears to be a deep-lying inconsistency, which can be revealed only
along the lines just drawn. As observed above, Reichenbach can only be m ade c o m ­
positional if one succeeds in defining the elements o f his tripartitions in a unique
way. But d oing so in the case o f have and will, one can see that will is to be defined
as R— E and have as E — R. This looks like an inconsistency. M ore concretely it is
impossible for (Olga) would have walked to be derived by Past^ (w illmt)(have.nf)
(walk), if will r is interpreted as R— E and h a v e ri as E — R. The sam e applies to Olga
will have walked. The reason for this inconsistency is easy to see: Reichenbachs
system lacks a point R ' mediating between will jnf and havejnf H aving to assume this
point R ' for both w ill have V and would have V boils down to a strong argument for
a b in a ry system. There is no other w ay for Reichenbach to solve the problem o f
inconsistency except for defining two n e w operators: (i) PresFut w o rk in g as in cell
3 and (ii) PastFut outside the matrix and w orking analogously to it. C o m p a re d with
the binary approach discussed in section 2.2 this seems to be an idiosyncratic and
unnecessary solution, especially in view o f the problem with cell 9.

2.2. Te Winkel’s Binary System

Reichenbach was not fam iliar with the binary system presented in the nineteenth
century by Te Winkel (1866) w ho proposes to describe the eight tense forms o f the
Dutch tense system with the help o f three binary oppositions as given in Table 19.3.

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C O M P O SIT IO N A L IT Y 569

Table 19.3 Three binary tense oppositions

Te Winkel: quasi-Reichenbach notation
1. Present vs. Past S,R vs. R—S
2. Synchronous vs. Posterior R,R' vs. R—R'
3. Imperfect vs. Perfect E C R' vs. E C R'

The (sort of) Reichenbachian notation at the right-hand side may help to under­
stand some o f the consequences. The explanation o f the binary system below will
also make use o f Reichenbachs notation in order to keep the explanation as succinct
as possible.
The first consequence of going binary is that the Future tense is detached from
S: it is introduced in the second opposition by assuming a point R ' posterior to R,
where R is introduced already in the first opposition, either as connected to the
Present (by S,R) or as connected to the Past (by R—S). The expression o f posteri­
ority in English is then to be taken as triggered by the presence of the auxiliary willinj
or shalljnJ. The third opposition accounts for the four forms with the auxiliary verb
have.nj as opposed to tense forms not having this auxiliary. The presence o f have.nf
expresses that E has been completed within R ', whereas its absence expresses inde­
terminacy with respect to whether or not E is completed in R'.
In this way, the binary system defines for each of the oppositions a parallelism
between four tense forms having a certain tense property and four tense forms not
having it. Present and Past are seen as the most fundamental tenses in the sense that
tensed forms may occur without posterior forms or perfect forms but not without
Past or Present: they provide the point o f attachment from which the tense config­
urations are construed. Another consequence is that the eight tense forms in Dutch
are all covered by the system due to its 2 x 2 x 2-structure.5
Formalization o f Te Winkels binary system shows that the system is fully com ­
positional. It suffices here to give the bare outlines. Assume a tenseless predication
such as (1a) which is the lowest S in Figure 19.2.6

(1) a. Olga write the letter

b. Aa.Write(a)(b)(o)

S'

SYN/POST S

IMP/PERF s
Figure 19.2. Tense structure
570 TENSE

Then Te W in k e d tense opposition s can be described in term s o f six operators, p r e s

vs. p a s t cover the first opposition o f Table 19.3, S y n vs. p o s t the second one and imp
vs. p e r f the third one. O bviously, p e r f and p o s t correspond w ith the presence o f
the auxiliaries have and will, resp ectively; imp and s y n w ith their absence. The four
operators below p r e s and p a s t take tenseless predications to fo rm tenseless p red i­
cations, w h ereas p a s t and p r e s take tenseless predications yield in g a tensed
sentence.
C o m p o sitio n ality is obtained because the operators are defined as fun ctions.
Each o f them has a fixed value in the system and is therefore u n iqu ely com putable.
F o r exam p le, the past ten se form w alked is an alyzed as a c o m p le x exp ressio n
PAST+walk i[fy w h ere p a s t is interpreted as an operator: p a s t (w a lk . ) = walked.7
Likew ise, will have walked is built up from p r e s ( w i l l . ?/)(h a v e .wP (w a lk n/), w here
w i l l inf stands fo r the operator p o s t and H A V E^for the operator p e r f.8 In this way,
the unsolvable problem in co m b in in g w ill (= R— E) with have (= E — R) that ended
the subsection on R eichenbach is solved here w ithout any difficulty.
W ith this system o f tense operators one can also form ally derive the tensed
sentences in (2a) and (3a).9

(2) a. Olga has written the letter

b. 3 !i 3 j 3 k[W rite(k)(b)(o) A k < j A j = i A i 0 n]
c. . . . W ritc(E)(b)(o) A E C R ' A R ' ^ R a R, S]
(3) a. Olga wrote the letter.
b. 3 !i 3 j 3 k(W rite(k)(b)(o) A k < j A j = i A i < n]
c. . . . Write (E)(b)(o) a E C R , a R ' = R a R < S ]

D u e to the bin ary architecture o f the tense system , com p o sitio n ality is a quite nat­
ural asset. The present tense form o f the Present Perfect has been done full justice
by seeing it in term s o f the relation betw een the point o f speech n and w hat counts
as the present i in w hich n is em bedded. The perfect sense has been accounted for
by the fact that the eventuality index k is p rop erly included in its ow n p re se n t; ,
w h ereas j - i asserts that this j is syn ch ron ou s to /, w hich accounts fo r w hat has been
called “current relevance.” N ote that it is not n ecessary to burden the definition o f
Perfect with the notion o f resultant state: curren t relevance sim ply follow s from
sy n c h ro n iz in g ; and i.

3. A spect and C o m p o sitio n a lity

V erkuyl (1972) credited both Poutsm a (1926) and Jacobsohn (1933) for their im p o r­
tant contribution to d isp layin g the com positional nature o f aspect by their im plicit
appeal to phrase structure. Poutsm a observed that “the n orm al aspect o f a verb is
often m odified or even utterly changed by the context” (1926, p. 291), w here his n o ­
tion o f context clearly applies to constituents with w hich the verb occu rs. Jacobsohn
is even m ore explicit: for him the accusativus effectivus in sentences like Ich schrieb

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COM POSITIONALITY 571

einen B rie f (“ I wrote a letter” ) makes the verb schreiben (\vrite’ ) perfective (1933, p.
297). He stated that this is not the case in Ich schrieb Briefe (“ I wrote letters” ). In the
lack o f a sufficiently developed notion o f phrase structure, however, Poutsma and
Jacobsohn were forced to call upon some sort o f transfer rule: for them the internal
argument a letter in I wrote a letter makes the imperfective verb write perfective.
They belong to the first scholars who explicitly express the idea that the verb cannot
be considered the only factor in providing aspectual information, a view held quite
generally by linguists studying Slavic languages.
Linguists had to wait until the fifties o f the twentieth century before they could
make use o f sufficiently developed syntactic tools for building phrase structure.
Z e llig H arris and N o a m C h o m s k y w ere a m o n g the first linguists w h o b e ca m e
acquainted with the technical tools o f formal syntax and in particular C h o m sk y
(1957) opened the w ay for a systematic and precise study o f phrase structure. Katz
and Fodor (1964) com bined the linguistic lexical tradition o f componential analysis
with the logical tradition discussed earlier and visible in C h o m s k y ’s syntactic work:
“ It is clear, as Katz and F od or have emphasized, that the m eaning o f a sentence is
based on the m eaning o f its elem entary parts and the m an n er o f their combination”
(C h o m sk y 1965, pp. i6iff.). At this point, linguists were finally in the position to use
syntax as supplying the basic ingredient for compositionality: without syntactic
structure there is no genuine compositionality. As soon as one is able to group
building blocks o f som e sort, there is a need for dealing with what is expressed by
combinations at a higher level o f structure. In this way, the development o f the n o ­
tion o f phrase structure in linguistics made it possible to w o rk out the notion of
compositionality along the line set out in form al syntax.
The inform al “feature algebra” in (4) illustrates how the process o f aspectual
composition in English takes place with the help o f phrase structure.10

(4) a.
1 ,TS L 0 1 8a l
[ 1 y. p
wrote [Nr three letters]J
' [+SQN] l+A] 1+SQN]
b. [_ t s [ n p ° M [ wrote [ 0 letters]]]
VP
[ + SQN] l+A) l-S Q N ]
c.
[ Ts U N o one
[+T wrote [Npa letter]]]
l-SQ N ) l+A ) 1+SQN]

d. L ts U ° M [ expected [ a letter]]]
VP
I+ s q n ) [- a ] [+ s q n ]

The basic idea underlying this informal algebra is that only if a V P can be marked
as having the aspectual value [+ T vp] on the basis o f the two plus-features [+ a ] and
[+ s q n ], the resulting (tenseless) predication S can have a plus-value [ + t s] but only
if the external argum ent has a plus value, in this case [+ s q n ]. T abbreviates “ termi-
native,” a notion that pertains to temporal boundedness o f a sort discussed in sec­
tion 3.1. In (4a), the [+ a] - verb combines with a [+ s q n ]-N P to form a terminative
VP, [+a] standing for “ nonstative,” “dynamic,” or more technically “add itive” It is
opposed to [-a] which expresses stativity. Because Olga is also a [+ s q n ]-N P, the
value o f the resulting information at the S-level is [ + t s].

Copyrighted material
572 T E N SE

The restriction on terminativity as requiring only plus-values is called the Plus-

Principle. It implies that terminativity (boundedness, telicity) is a marked aspectual
compositional property o f a sentence. In (4b)-(4d) there are “leaks” (minus values),
so the resulting value at the top is [—Ts]. Note that the durativity in (4c) is due to its
external argument: nobody is a [-sqn]-N P, so the resulting information at the
S-level is [ - t J . In the other two durative cases, the V P already makes it impossible
to obtain [ + T S] at the top. In (4d), the aspectual leak is caused by the stative nature
o f the verb. In all cases the procedure is strictly compositional.
The formal semantic machinery underlying the notation in (4) is not genera­
tive. Chom sky’s ban on interpretation as an obvious part o f the linguistic toolkit
governed and bound generative grammarians from the late sixties practically until
the minimalist period began to emerge in the nineties. One could either become an
autonomous syntactician and do away with semantics (compositionality included),
find a new framework or simply extend the generative framework in the same sense
in which renegade Catholics still call themselves Christian after having left the
mother church. This is another way o f saying that the study o f aspect in those years
was only possible outside the generative syntactic mainstream. For those who were
attracted by the formal approach o f the Frege/Russell-tradition, the extension to
M ontagues framework offered itself as a reasonable option. The model-theoretic
approach became popular with linguists who had been working in generative
grammar but who had not found sufficient semantic tools in that framework in the
1970s. In this way, compositionality turned out to be a natural ingredient o f formal
semantic approaches (cf. Partee 1987,2007).

3.1. Sharing the Same Aspectual Tests

The claim o f universal grammar put forward by generative grammarians and im ­
plicitly inherent to Montagovian semantics did not hit fertile ground in the domain
o f Slavic linguistics. Historically, aspect had been considered as typical o f Slavic
languages making them unique and so the burden o f the proof is mostly put in the
hands o f those who claim that Slavic aspect is on a par with, say, Germanic aspect.
It will be argued in the remainder o f the present section that the principle o f com­
positionality in the sense employed so far turns out to be a proper tool for the study
o f Slavic aspect. If the Russian translation of the English sentence (4a) Olga wrote
three letters has properties that lead to an aspectual value similar to the marked
value [ + t c] o f the English sentence and if translation o f the other three sentences in
(4) cannot be marked [ + t s], then there are reasons to assume that the same seman­
tic m achinery might determine the interpretation o f complex phrase structure. The
common ground is that semantically predication in Russian and other Slavic lan­
guages at the sentential level is to be understood in the same way as predication in
Germanic and Romance languages. That is, a predication is taken as consisting o f a
predicate (generally expressed by a Verb) and its arguments (generally expressed by
Noun Phrases). It is difficult to see why this should not work out properly for Slavic
languages.
COM POSITIONALITY 573

Sentence (5a) expresses that Olga wrote a specified quantity o f letters in the
sense that the N P three letters pertains to som ething discrete due to the quantifica-
tional information contributed by the determiner.

(5) a. Olga wrote three letters,

b. Olga wrote letters.

Sentence (5b) does not contain any determ iner restriction on the quantity o f letters
and so the absence o f quantificational information in the N P letters can be infor­
mally represented by the feature [ - s q n ], as in (4b). The nature o f the difference
between (5a) and (5b) can be shown to be temporal as illustrated by the sentences in
(6).

(6) a. #The whole night/for hours Olga wrote three letters,

b. The whole night/for hours Olga wrote letters.

Sentence (6a) is not well formed. There is an incompatibility between the durational
adverbial and the presence o f [+ sq n ] -information in the internal argument o f the
verb. At best, (6a) expresses a sort o f forced repetition excluding a single-event inter­
pretation, whereas (6b) with the bare plural complement o f write is well-formed,
presenting an eventuality in the past that took place continuously (for som e time).
Now, strikingly parallel observations can be m ade with respect to Russian. The
translations o f the sentences in (5) are given in (7).

(7) a. O lga napisala tri pis’ma. = (5a)

b. O lga pisala pis’ma. = (5b)

The translations o f (6a) and (6b) are given in (8).

(8) a. #Ves’ vecher/chasami O lga napisala tri pis’ma. ~ (6a)

b. Ves’ vecher/chasam i Ol’ga pisala pis’ma. ~ (6b)

The English (5a) and its Russian counterpart (7a) behave the sam e in their
refusal to take durational adverbials. In (7a), the N P tri pism a expresses [ + s q n ]-

information, but it is obvious that the verb form in (7a) differs from the English verb
form in (5a): English does not require a prefix in front o f the verb in order to secure
the clash in (6a).11 Moreover, it is possible in Russian to have a sentence like (9a)
that would not clash with a durational adverbial.

(9) a. O lga pisala tri pis’ma.

“Olga was writing/wrote three letters.”
b. Ves’ vecher/chasami O lga pisala tri pis’ma.

Sentence (9a) says that Olga was involved in the writing o f three letters or engaged
in d oing so and (9b) shows that there is no problem with taking a durational
adverbial. O btaining the aspectual inform ation in (5a) at the sentential level can be
seen as com positional, there being no need for coercion or other form s o f transfer
rules.

М атер іал, захи щ е н и й а в то р с ь к и м правом

574 TEN SE

3.2. Following the Compositional Track in Russian

The generative goal o f universal gram m ar as form ulated in C hom sky (1965) implies
that what can be expressed aspectually by a verb in Slavic languages, has its (near-)
equivalent at the level o f phrase structure in non-Slavic languages, as w ill be dem ­
onstrated in Figure 19.3. On the basis o f this assumption, the com positional thesis
says that a ll four sentences in (5) and in (7) should be dealt with in terms o f the
scheme in (4). It also m eans that the semantic clash in both (6a) and (8a) qualifies
itself, in principle, as a universal to be interpreted as a clash between discreteness
and continuity.
The left-hand side o f Figure 19.3 illustrates this for (5a) and for (5b). In (5a), the
[ + s q n ] - N P three letters contributes the restrictive [+SQN]-meaning to the formation
o f the aspectual m eaning o f the VP, abbreviated as [ + t vp]. Note that the V P in Figure
19.3a already expresses the incompatibility with a durational adverbial: #to w rite
three letters f o r an h o u r is not well form ed in the sense discussed above for sentence
(6a). The top o f Figure 19.3a has a feature [ + t s] due to the fact that the [+Tvp]-V P
combines with the [ + s q n ] - N P Olga, thus pertaining to a discrete temporal entity.12
The leading idea is that the quantificational information o f the arguments o f the
verb plays a role (though differently) in the construction o f the com plex aspectual
information which is “collected” at the top o f the tree. Plus-values contribute to dis­
cretizing temporal entities in the sense o f tem poral completion: they are discernible
in the flow o f time, so to sp eak
A long tradition in Russian gram m ar amounts to the two pictures at the right-
hand side o f Figure 19.3. At the verbal level it is custom ary to speak about the differ­
ence between n apisat an d p isa t as a difference between two verbs rather than between
two form s o f the same verb. Each if them is then considered to make up an aspectu­
ally complete verbal lexeme and so the difference between (roughly) “continuity”

s I+ t s i

^bSQNl y P f+Tvp{

| [+ A ] N p i+SQN]
a. Olga wrote three letters b. Ol’ga napisala tri pis’ma

Sl-T c ]

n p i+ s q n i Y fi- T v p i

V | + A| N P i- s q n ] V1 NP
c. Olga wrote letters d. Ol’ga pisala pis’ ma
Figure 19.3. Comparing English and Russian
C O M P O S IT IO N A L IT Y 575

and “completion” is essentially treated as a matter o f the verb rather than phrase
structure. The “aspectual completeness” o f napisat in Figure 19.3c is sufficient for
m any gram m arians to ignore both the internal argument and the external argument
and to assume an aspectual m eaning element P at the top o f the predication having
percolated from the bottom to the top o f the tree and expressing som e form o f
completion.
This w ay o f dealing with phrase structure clearly runs counter to the idea o f
compositionality. There are two possible alternatives: (a) to accept that Russian (and
other Slavic languages) have a unique position and to maintain the right-hand side
o f Figure 19.3; or (b) to use the principle o f com positionality and see how far one
gets b y applying it. In the rem aining part o f the present chapter the latter option will
be taken in order to show that this turns out to be a profitable w ay o f analyzing
complex phenomena.
In spite o f the existence o f a sm all group o f verbs without an aspectual prefix,
the perfective napisat can be seen as being built up from the verb stem -pisat and a
perfectivizing prefix na-. Yet, one cannot deny that there is a clear difference between
the dynam icity o f the English verb in Figure 19.3a, m arked here as the feature [+ a ],
and the perfectivity o f its Russian counterpart in Figure 19.3b, an obvious reason
being that both the imperfective pisat and the perfective napisat are [+ a ]. But the
question is how apparent a clear difference m ay be. The principle o f com positional­
ity is compatible with a situation in which a difference between the verbs at the
bottom o f Figure 19.3a and 19.3b is “corrected” at higher levels o f phrase structure.
The basic observation to begin with is that the lexical definition o f a verb is in
general not immediately applicable to a dom ain o f interpretation. In a sentence like
(5a) Olga wrote three letters, one cannot pick out the verb write and interpret it apart
from Olga and three letters. Being a (two-place) predicate and not a predication
itself the verb write provides a sort o f scheme with variable spots in it that have to
be filled in at higher levels o f phrase structure, along the lines sketched in Figure
19.3a. The top S in this diagram is the lowest one in Figure 19.2, which m eans that
the final interpretation o f tem poral and aspectual inform ation o f (5a) is settled at
the top S' in Figure 19.2.13 I f one says that the verb napisat expresses completion, one
is obliged to put the question: at what level o f interpretation is it possible to express
this specific sort o f completion? In other words, isn’t it sim ply a matter o f being
term inologically imprecise if one says that a verb expresses completion? W hat does
completion mean at the level o f interpretation o f a verb? A n d what does it m ean at
the top o f a phrase? These questions have hardly received any careful attention in
the literature based on Vendlers (1967) quadripartition.
Anyhow, if one characterizes the verb napisat as expressing completion, there is
no w ay o f m aking this concrete other than by form ulating conditions on its argu­
ments. In Figure 19.3a, the verb phrase to write three letters as a semantic unit receives
the feature [+ T vp] due to the combination o f a [+A]-verb and a [+SQN]-Noun. Its
Russian counterpart napisat tripisma in Figure 19.3b consists o f three elements that
play an aspectual role in obtaining [+ T vp]: ( 1 ) the verb stem -pisat contributes the
[+a]-feature; (ii) the Noun Phrase tripis’ma contributes [ + s q n ] due to the presence
576 TENSE

o f the determiner tri (three); and (iii) the prefix na- imposes a [+SQN]-interpretation
on the internal argum ent N P as part o f the VP-interpretation.
In this analysis, the prefix na- seems to play a redundant role but this is not
the case in verb phrases like napisat pis'ma , where the N P pis’ma is in itself inde­
term inate w ith respect to [+ sq n ] or [—sq n ] and where na- clearly has the function
o f requiring that the N P be interpreted as [+ sq n ]. The sentence Olga napisala
pisma is to be translated as Olga wrote the letters where the letters pertains to a
specified quantity o f letters identified already in earlier discourse. In other w ords
and sim plified: na + pis’m a « [[+ sq n ] letters] and na + tri pis’ma ~ [[+ s q n ] three
letters].
One step higher the role o f the external argument turns out to be crucial for
determ ining whether the [ + t vp]-inform ation may be part o f the sense o f com ple­
tion expressed as [ + t s]. It is imperative for a [ + t g]-sentence to have a [+ sq n ]-N P
as external argument both in the English sentence Olga wrote three letters and in its
Russian translation Olga napisala tri pisma . In the English sentence Nobody wrote
three letters the resulting aspectual interpretation is one in which no completion is
expressed: the sentence is durative. This is due to the [-S Q N ]-“ leak” caused by the
presence o f nobody. The same applies mutatis mutandis to Russian: a sentence like
Nikto ne pisal tri pis’ma (“N obody wrote three letters” ) is [ - T s] as well due to the
presence o f nikto (nobody), the difference with English being that in Russian the
prefix na- is not allowed in this negative context.14 Note that the V P pisat tri pisma
contains [ + A ] - a n d [ + s q n ] -inform ation neutralized by the negative elements nikto
and ne, analogous to the neutralizing effect o f not in English.
In spite o f the sim ilarity in the behavior o f the English and Russian sentences
dem onstrated here, the question must be pursued whether or not the com positional
label [ + t ] m ay replace the perfective label P at the sentential level.15 There are two
ways in which a translation between Russian and English m ay reveal a difference
between P and [ h-t ] (or between I and [ - t ]):

a. Russian sentences with a V ]-verb m ay have a [ + t ] -interpretation. This will

be called terminative imperfectivity.
b. Russian sentences with a V p-verb m ay have a [ - t ] -interpretation. This will
be called durative perfectivity.

These are the two logical possibilities but due to the fact that in general Russian
verbs form an aspectual pair (V 1 /V p), the difference between a and b m ade here
turns out to be som ewhat diffuse.

3 .2.1. Terminative Imperfectivity

In general it is not easy to find counterexamples against the identification o f P and
[h-t ], if one only takes into account the use o f the Im perfective aspect as expressing
the counterpart o f the English Progressive Form and as expressing habituality. So
in the case o f terminative im perfectivity one has to look for cases in w hich the
C O M P O S IT IO N A L IT Y 577

predication pertains to episodic sentences containing im perfective verbs that

occur in predications that translate as [ + t ] -predications. B orik (2006) discusses
exactly this type o f sentence, which seems to run counter to the claim o f full iden­
tity, such as (10a).

(10) a. Petja u£e peresekal1 etot kanal v ponedel’nik i vo vtornik.

b. Peter already crossed-Imp this canal on Monday and on Tuesday.
c. Petja uze peresjok1’ etot kanal v ponedel’nik i vo vtornik.

In spite o f the imperfective aspect in peresek al (‘crossed’) (10a) m ay express two

separate events o f crossing the canal, one on M onday and the other on Tuesday, as
the corresponding English [ + t ] -sentence in (10b) does.
The test used b y Borik was proposed in Verkuyl (1972) for Dutch and English.
The basic observation underlying it is that there is a difference between on M o n d a y
a n d on Tuesday and on M o n d a y a n d Tuesday , as visible in (11). In (11a), it is necessary
for them to have had two trips to Paris, one on M onday and the other on Tuesday;
in (11b), it m ay have taken two days before they were in Paris.

(11) a. They drove to Paris on Monday and on Tuesday

b. They drove to Paris on Monday and Tuesday.

Now, suppose that one leaves o ff to P aris obtaining the [ - t ] -predication T h ey drove.
In that case, (11a) strongly suggests two different trips, one on M onday and the other
on Tuesday. In the case o f (nb), however, it is as strongly suggested that th ey drove
on continuously as part o f one trip. Returning to the sentences in (io ), there are
differences between (10a) and (10c): (10c) requires two crossings, one on M onday
and one on Tuesday, where (10a) does not do so. In other words, Russian and Eng­
lish behave exactly the same: sentence (12) m ay be interpreted as pertaining to one
crossing.

(12) Petja uze peresekal1 etot kanal v ponedel’nik i vtornik.

“Peter already crossed this canal on Monday and Tuesday.”

W hat remains is to explain why both Russian and English allow [ + t ] -interpretations
to be determ ined by temporal adverbials. A plausible explanation is that the tem po­
ral adverbials under discussion here, identify a complete domain in w h ich the
eventuality is to be properly included. In term s o f the binary tense system o f section
2: k < j , where j is identified as the unified dom ain MondayTuesday, taken as the
sum o f M onday and Tuesday. Recall th a t; is to be considered the present o f the
eventuality marked by k. In (12) this means that the crossing o f the canal is part o f
the M ondayTuesday-dom ain not providing inform ation about the term ination o f
the crossing.
This is not the first place where the conclusion has to be drawn that the contri­
bution o f temporal adverbials is essential in helping to complete a com positional
analysis. Rosetta (1994) needed the contribution o f temporal adverbials to achieve
com positional translation. It does not seem to make sense to reject compositional-
ity if the sentential structure lacks information that turns out to be essential for a
578 TE N SE

proper interpretation. In other words, one can only see the use o f peresekal1 in (12)
as a counterexample to the claim that [P] = [+ t] if one can argue successfully that
the presence o f the tem poral adverbial does not play a role in the choice between
perfective or im perfective aspect.

3.2.2. Durative Perfectivity

There is another em pirical reason for B orik to detach the opposition between a
[ + t ]- or [ - t ] -predication from the opposition between Perfective and Im perfective
aspect. In (13a) the verb p ro sid el is perfective in spite o f the [-T]-predication “ Peter
be in prison”.16

(13) a. Petja prosidel1’ v tjur’me do starosti.

"Peter was in prison till old age/until he was old.”
b. Petja sidel1 v tjur’me do starosti.
“Peter was in prison till old age/until he was old.”

B orik (2006, p. 196) argues that for (13a) there is no implication “as to whether Peter
is still alive or died 10 years ago” She also points out that for (13a) to be successful it
is essential that Petja be in prison at the moment at which he can be considered old.
The difference between (13a) and (13b) shows up only in discourse, because (13a)
and not (13b) would contribute to establishing a sequence due to the difference in
perspective. Again, the presence o f the subordinate adverbial (clause) do starosti
(‘till old a g e ) is necessary to enforce the use o f the Perfective prefix p ro - in (13a): it
brings in the requirement o f completion o f the period characterized b y the [ - t ] -
predication. But this completion has nothing to do with the nature o f this predica­
tion: it is brought about by the temporal adverbial and this explains the difference
between (13a) and (13b) in discourse.

3.2.3. Combining Tense and Aspect Compositionally

One w ay o f com prom ising between the two positions [ + t ] = P and [ + t ] * P is to
see that in G erm anic languages the [+T]-inform ation enters via the bottom S in
the tense structure sketched in Figure 19.2. On the assum ption that tense is basi­
cally a m eans to contribute to the organization o f discourse, it can be argued that
in Dutch (and English) the P E R F-op erator plays a role in providing the perspec­
tive w hich in Russian is given b y a perfectivizing prefix (or its covert equivalent)
because there is no tense form available for expressing completion. D ue to the
poverty o f the Russian tense system the perfectivizing prefix seems to have a d o u ­
ble duty: (a) to be part o f the com positional m achinery providing predicational
[+ T ]-in form ation ; and (b) to take the role o f w hat in G erm an ic languages is
expressed b y PERF. In short, P = [ + t ] + X , where X stands for factors that in
G erm anic languages are contributed by tense, in particular PERF.
This line o f thought retains com positionality in the aspectual domain as far as
the construal o f [ + t ] is concerned, but it would also profit fro m com positionality in
COM P O S I T I O N A L I T Y 579

the binary tense system discussed in section 2. So, the key to a solution o f deter­
m in in g how m uch [ + t ] -information is contained in P-inform ation is possibly to go
back to the sentences (2) and (3) at the end o f section 2 and focus on the contribu­
tion o f the information expressed by k < j and by k < j . 17 Recall that j is considered
as the present o f the eventuality. In Dutch and English the difference between the
tense operators IM P and P E R F is expressed by k < j and by k < j respectively, but in
such a way that the aspectual nature o f the eventuality index k is independent from
j: the present o f an eventuality is not interested in the eventuality itself, so to speak.
Now, there is an interesting problem connected to the difference between the
two Dutch sentences in (14).

(14) a. Olga heeft dc brief gcschrcven.

“Olga has written the letter."
a / . . . [Write(k)(b)(m) A k < j A j = i A i ® n ]
b. Olga heeft gcschrcven.
“Olga has written.”
b/ . . . (Write(k)(m) A k < j A j = i A i ° n]

In (14a) the predication itself is [+ t ] and the Present Perfect requires k < j , as
sketched in Figure 19.4a. But it also does in the case o f the [—t ] -predication in (14b),
as sketched in Figure 19.4b, where the continuity o f k is blocked by the right-hand
b o u n d a ry : there is no w a y out. In both cases the eventuality index k is to be properly
included in spite o f the predicational differences.
It is possible to analyze the cases discussed in (13) in terms o f the difference
between (13a) and (13b). In the latter case, the boun dary cannot be provided by the
predication Petja sideI v tjurm e because the verb sidel is imperfective. It is necessary
to have a temporal adverbial such as do starosti (‘till old age’) identifying the present
o f the eventuality j as having its right-hand b o u n d a ry at the beginning o f Petjas old
age. Temporal adverbials arc arguably modifiers o f j and this m eans that a perfective
boun dary can be put around the |- t ] -predication analogously to what happens in
the Dutch sentence (14b) by m eans o f the use o f perp . In this way, compositionality
can be seen as a regular feature o f Russian predication by taking into account the
different levels o f phrase structure, as in non-Slavic languages.

3.2.4. Problems at the Bottom: How Much Lexical Information?

That different factors m a y play a role in the analysis o f the difference between [ + t ]
and P is also demonstrated by sentences like (15) in C o m r i e (1976, p. 19).

(15) On dolgo ugovarival1 menja, 110 11c ugovoril.1'

lit: For a long time he persuaded me, but he didn’t persuade me.
“ He spent a long time trying to persuade me, but he didn’t actually persuade me.”

A s shown in Tenny (1987) the Plus-Principle o f the feature algebra in (4)— the
requirement that a plus-value at the top can only be obtained if all relevant features
are plus— meets som e difficulties at the bottom. A sentence like Olga painted the

М атер іал, захи щ е н и й а в то р с ь к и м правом

580 TENSE

k
[-ті
а: [+Т] and к -< j by PERF b: [-T] and к -< j by PORF
F ig u re 19.4. T he Perfect in [+ T ]-a n d [-T ]-p re d ic a tio n s

door m ay pertain to som ething going on indefinitely as shown b y Olga painted the
door fo r hours but this is not the case for #Olga painted the door green fo r hours. It is
as if in Olga painted the door the verb paint is too weak to be [+ a ], the door and Olga
both being [ + s q n ]. To push the cart m a y mean that “ to give one or m ore pushes to
the cart so that the cart moves” but it can also m ean “ to exert force to'’ in cases where
the cart does not move. Chapter 14 o f Verkuyl (1993) explained these cases by as­
su m in g that the internal argum ent o f these verbs is thematically not a direct object
but rather an indirect object, so that the verb needs particles a s green, away, out o f
etc. in order for the verb to reach the [+A]-status.
Note, however, that the last sentence o f the preceding paragraph reveals the
essence o f the problem quite well: it is correct to say that a chapter 14 explains this
case but one cannot say (16a).

(16) a. *?Chapter 14 explained this case for an hour,

b. #01ga explained this case for an hour.

The un-w ellform edness o f (16a) is quite different from the one connected with the
forced repetition in (16b). Sentence (16a) does not allow a durational adverbial
because the external argument o f the verb is [-A n im a te ] and that leads to a n o n sen ­
sical interpretation. O nly if one thinks about chapter 14 as having been copied on a
C D and being read aloud, for example, can one treat (16a) and (16b) alike as express­
ing that this case was repeatedly and m echanically explained over and over again to
an audience. Yet, even then it should be clear that the [-A n im a te] status o f the
external argument o f explain deprives this verb o f its [ + a]-feature: it is no longer a
verb expressing nonstativity in the sense o f going through a process terminated by
the internal argument.
The assum ptio n about the them atic nature o f the internal a rg u m e n t discussed
earlier is thus b ro a d e n e d by a s s u m in g that the opposition b etw een [+ a ] and [-A ]
sh o u ld not be taken as purely lexical: verb s like explain, persuade, convince, run (in
These lines run parallel) have to “ w ait” till the extern al a rgu m e n t befo re they m ay be
taken as fully [ + a ]. W h a t is generally called m e a n in g extension o f a verb c o n c e rn s
its a rgu m e n ts. A s d iscu ssed ab ove in the case o f explain , a n o n -a n im a te external
a rg u m e n t need not use tem poral structure because it need not display the sort o f
nonstative progress in tim e accounted for by [ + a ], so that the value o f A is m in u s or
u n d e r d e te r m in e d (e.g., in a situation in w h ic h C h a p te r 14 is read aloud). This holds
for verbs like convince, protect, rem ain , etc., Russian co u n terp arts o f w h ic h are dis­
cussed in C o m r i e (1976), T im b e rla k e (1985), B o r ik (2006), and P a d u c h e va (2009),
a m o n g others.

М атер іал, захи щ е н и й а в то р с ь к и м правом

COM P O S I T I O N A L I T Y 581

4. C o n c lu sio n

This chapter has focused on the role o f the principle o f com positionality as a fruitful
guide in analyzing temporal phenom ena. In section 2 on tense and com position al­
ity it was sh o w n that the structure o f the Reichenbachian tense system makes it
im p o ssib le to treat it co m p o sitio n ally . Even stro n g er: any se rio u s attempt to
improve on the ternary system such as an extension o f the nu m ber o f reference
points suggests that a binary m eth od o f w o rk in g is m ore fruitful.
Section 3 on aspect and c o m p o sitio n ality argues that c o n tra ry to scholars
u n d e r sc o r in g the unique position o f Slavic aspect, the c o m p o sitio n a lity principle
open s the w a y to a different view. It m akes it possible to form ulate the equation
P = [+ t] + X w h ere P can be argued to be c o m p o sitio n ally fo rm ed as [+ t] and
w h e re X is tem poral in form ation that Russian needs in order to com pensate for
its im p o v e rish e d tense. The argum en t is straig h tfo rw ard : predicational c o m p o s i ­
tion is tenseless, which explains w hy [+ t] is tenseless. The o b v io u s differences
between Slavic and n o n -S la v ic languages can be explain ed m a in ta in in g c o m p o s i ­
tionality as the basis for translational equ ivalen ce: in G e r m a n i c lan guages like
English and Dutch the X co m p rises tense operators, in Russian the X -in fo r m a -
tion is encapsulated in the pred ication itself and it has to be sorted out by sticking
to predicational c o m p o sitio n . In this way, it can be m a d e clear that an aspectual
perfectivizin g prefix like na- contributes to the organization o f d isco u rse in a way
com p arab le to what the tense elem ent p e r f does in G e r m a n i c languages. Thus
the gap between scholars o f Slavic languages on the one hand and scholars o f
G e r m a n i c and R o m a n c e languages can be m a d e sm aller by p o in tin g out that the
p rin ciple o f c o m p o sitio n ality can be seen as a fru itful w ay for analyzin g com plex
tem poral in form ation on the basis o f a c o m m o n g ro u n d .

NOTES

1. I thank Theo Janssen for his careful and useful com m en ts and Bob B in n ick for his
editorial co m m en ts on the pre-final version. I am very grateful to O lga Borik for her very
patient and careful guidance through the subtleties o f the Russian w ay o f expressing
aspectual inform ation. I thank Ferenc K iefer and Istvan Kenesei for enabling m e to present
the present material d u rin g a course at the H ungarian A ca d em y o f Sciences. Finally, the
m an y conversations about o n to lo gy and com positionality that I had with R em k o Scha
provided a very in sp irin g background.
2. In general, M on tagu e is as com positional in his treatment o f tense as Prior (1967).
Note, however, that Janssen (1983) in his analysis o f M o n tagu es P T Q -system com es close to
a b inary reform ulation o f the tense system . B y exten d in g R eich en bach s system , Rosetta
(1994) develops a ternary tense system that m akes it possible to translate com positionally.
3. The sym bol *-* m eans: “ maps to”. In the case o f a n te r io r H A V E jMf has E — R as its
unique value.

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582 TENSE

4. A lso by Reichenbach him self: “The use o f the future tenses is som etim es c o m ­
bined with certain deviations from the original m eaning o f the tenses. In the sentence N ow
I shall go the sim ple future has the m ean in g S ,R — E; this follows from the principle o f
positional use o f the reference point. However, in the sentence I shall go tomorrow the sam e
principle com pels us to interpret the future tense in the form S — R,E. The simple future,
then is capable o f two interpretations, and since there is no prevalent usage o f the one or
the other we cannot regard one interpretation as the correct one” (1966, p. 295).
5. A n d not o n ly the Dutch tense form s: the oppositions apply to other languages as
well, including English, in spite o f differences between them , as discussed in detail in
V erkuyl (2008), w hich also discusses languages with less (C hinese, Russian) and languages
with m ore than eight tenses (French, Bulgarian, G eorgian). In this w o r k ,'Ге W in k els
system has been not on ly described but it has also been formalized and extended. In order
to express the flexibility o f the notion o f point in point o f reference , the notion in dex will be
used: the /-index is used in the first opposition, the /-index in the second and the even tual­
ity in dex k in the third opposition, n denoting the point o f speech.
6. The representation (lb) is to be taken as expressing that the tenseless predication is
a set o f indices a at w hich the two-place predicate W rite(o, b) is true— in (lb) written
type-logically as Write (b )(o )— where b stands for the letter and o for Olga.
7. In s e m a n tic c lo th : [walked] - [P A S T (w a lk )j] = ( p a s t ) ]([ [w a lk J]) .
8. N ote that in this e x p lic a tio n past (w alk. J = w alked is sh o rt fo r a rep resen tatio n
in w h ich the extern al a rg u m e n t o f the verb is in clu d ed . L ikew ise H AV E. (walk. ,) =
w alked ab b reviates an an alysis in w h ic h ro o m is available fo r the Past Participle.
9. The existential qu an tifier 3 ! uniqu ely identifies the in d ex i. So, (2b) expresses
that there is a un iquely identified in d ex / (the present o f the m o m en t o f speech n) which
syn ch ro n izes with the present j o f the even tuality indexed k , w hich is taken to be the
m e a n in g o f the sym bol ’I he difference between (2b) and (3b) is that in (2b) k is a
p ro p er part o f its (larger) present j (the sy m b o l “< ” is used to express that k precedes j in
the w ay in w hich a set co n tain in g 3 m em b ers precedes a set co n tain in g 4 m em b ers),
w h ereas in (3b) one is u n d e r-in fo rm e d about w h eth er o r not k co in cid es co m p letely with
its present j . Note that the pastness o f (3a) is due to 4 < n. The R eich cn b ach ian rep resen ­
tations in (2c) and (3c) co m e close to those in (2b) and (3b) but they can n o t be derived in
a tern ary system . T h ey are added here in o rd er to help u n d erstan d in g (2b) and (3b) in the
c u rre n t standard notation.
10. Verkuyl (1972) used a generative-sem antic notation for sem antic atoms; Verkuyl
(1976) reformulated this by using features. A feature notation does not meet the logical-
sem antic requirem ent of having an interpretation function relating sentences to dom ains
o f interpretation. The underlying form al sem antics o f the features un der discussion as
proposed in Verkuyl (1993, 2008) m akes use o f the so-called successor function accounting
for tem poral progress and quantificational inform ation expressed by the determ iner o f
N P s, which brings the successor function to a stop (term inativity) or not (durativity). An
explanation in terms o f features suffices here to shod light on the com positional process
underlying aspect form ation as governed by the Plus-principle.
11. Dutch (and G e rm a n ) m a y add prefixes expressing finalization: Olga schreef drie
brieven a) (lit: Olga “ na” -wrote three letters), where afschrijven m eans “w rite and finish it”.
12. The picture is m ore com plicated than sketched here. Recall that the feature algebra
used here abbreviates a form al sem antic m ach in ery explained in detail in Verkuyl (1993,
1999). A m b ig u o u s sentences like 'Three men lifted a table and Olga wrote three letters (three
011 one occasion vs. one on three occasions) can be handled com positionally by the use o f
function com position.

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COM P O S I T I O N A L I T Y 583

13. This objection also holds for those w ho adhere to V endler-classes in spite o f the
m an y objections against his quadripartition: D o w ty (1979), P in on (1993), Rothstein
(2008), and K iefer (20 09), am o n g m an y others. V en d le rs classes are typically verb classes.
As soon as one treats them as classes at high er levels o f structure than the verb one has to
take into account in form ation c o m in g from its argum ents. But that m ean s autom atically
that the qu adripartition can n ot be m ain tain ed and should be replaced by the phrase stru c ­
tural tripartition State-Process-Event proposed by M ourelatos (1978) because its m em bers
are c o m p o sitio n ally form ed: (4c) can be argued to express a state at the level o f [-t J , (4a)
is ab ou t an event o n ly at the level o f pred ication (not earlier), so it is to be m arked as
[+t J , and (4b) m a y be considered to be about a process o f w ritin g letters contain in g a V P
being m arked as [-T ] but contain in g a [+A ]-verb. Note that the negation o f (4b) is to be
considered as State. In fact, it is im possible to have both co m p o sitio n ality and V en d le rs
verb classes, because there is no w a y to “collect” the basic ingredients m aking up these
classes at h igh er levels o f phrase structure, as argued in detail in V crkuyl (1993).
14. It is possible to have na- in negative sentences such as Olga nichego ne napisala
(lit.: O lga wrote nothing). This is on ly if the sentence is understood on the basis o f the
presupposition that it had been O lgas intention to write som ething. The sentence cannot
be used without such a “ perfective presupposition” about what m ay constitute an internal
argum ent o f the verb. Interestingly, it follow s that it is im possible to say #Ves* vecher Olga
nichego ne napisala (lit: “ The w hole night Olga w rote n othing” ) because a presupposition
telling that Olga had the intention of repeatedly w ritin g so m eth in g is absurd. Factors like
these arc not present at the level o f the verb itself, but at the level o f com plex meaning.
15. This question has been discussed extensively in S ch o o rlem m er (1995) and B o rik
(2006). T h ey both conclude that P and T m ay not be identified but this does not mean for
them that the com positional thesis should not apply to Russian. In the discussion o f
Russian sentences below, a Russian verb V will be m arked as V 1 if it is considered imper-
fective, w hereas V p w ill be used for a perfective V. In m ost cases, a V 1’ has a form al d iffer­
ence with im perfective verbs in the form o f a prefix preceding the verb stem.
16. It is im portant to also include the sem antics o f the Perfective prefix p ro - into the
considerations, w h ich according to Flier (1985, p. 50) “typically carries connotations o f
depth, im portance, difficulty, thoroughness and concentration” due to a deep involvem ent
from beginning to end. W ith respect to |-T |-pred ication s like (13a) Flier o b serves that the
“protracted nature o f the time interval delim ited by p ro - virtually requires that the adverbial
o ccu r o vertly with the delim itive verb” (1985, p. 51).
17. O r in Reichenbachian notation: E C R ' and E C R \ wrhere R ' is defined as the
present o f E.

REFEREN C ES

Borik, O. (2006). Aspect and reference time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Based on
Ph.D. dissertation, Utrecht University, 2002.
C h o m sky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: M outon.
C hom sky, N. (1965). Aspects o f the theory o f syntax. C am bridge: The M I T Press.
C o m rie , B. (1976). Aspect. C am b rid ge: C am b rid ge U niversity Press.
Dowty, D. (1979). Word m eaning an d M ontague gratnmar. The semantics o f verbs and times
in Generative Semantics and in M ontague’s PTQ . D ordrecht: Reidel.

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Flier, M. S. (1985). The scope of préfixai delimitation in Russian. In M. S. Flier and

A. Timberlake (eds.), The scope o f Slavic aspect (pp. 41-58). Columbus: Slavica.
Jacobsohn, H. (1933). Aspektfragen. Indogermanische Forschungen, 51, 292-318.
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K. E. Kiss (ed.), Adverbs and adverbial adjuncts at the interfaces (pp. 241-262).
Berlin: de Gruyter.
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Paducheva, E. V. (2009). Telicity and incremental theme. Russian Linguistics, 33,109-119.
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 C H A P T E R 20

THE SURCOMPOSÉ
PAST TENSE

L O U IS D E S A U S S U R E
A N D B E R T R A N D S T H IO U L

l. I n t r o d u c t i o n

A num ber o f languages offer a tense com posed with a present auxiliary, a past par­
ticiple auxiliary and a past participle. French is known to offer such a double com ­
posed, or “surcom posé” past tense (passé surcom posé ), henceforth “ SPT,” e.g., Il a eu
m angé (lit., “he has had eaten’).1 This form bears m orphological resemblances with
the English (infrequent) SP T or “double perfect” (I h a ve h a d V P) and with SPTs in
other G erm anic and Rom ance languages.2
The main crosslinguistic studies on these form s (Thieroff, 2004; Am m ann,
2005, 2007; Poletto 2009; and the extensive w ork b y Litvinov and Radcenko, 1998)
show that whatever the m orphological similarities, the semantics o f double com ­
posed pasts varies very m uch across languages. As A m m ann (2007) notes, the G er­
m an SPT is com m on in colloquial Germ an (but usually banned b y normative
gram m ars), particularly in southern varieties, where it is considered a substitute for
the simple past or for a pluperfect, although with specific m odal nuances. The SPT
becam e available for the substitution with the simple past through a process o f
grammaticization, while the fusional and thus more com plex simple past decreased.
A s for the m odal nuances, a component o f “surprise” or “emotion” is sometimes
associated with the SPT, notably in higher Germ an diastratic varieties (literary G er­
m an), where, however, the SPT rem ains rare and condem ned by the norm , but also
in colloquial G erm an, as well as in Italian dialects (Cordin, 1997).
T 1I E S U R C O M P O S É P A S T T E N S E 587

Remote anteriority and exceptionality o f the eventuality are occasional inter­

pretive effects associated with SPTs (Carruthers, 1994; A m m a n n , 2007). Schlieben-
Langue (1971, pp. 145, 152) notes that in Occitan and Catalan, S P T is licensed by
g ram m ars and usually indicates remoteness; however, in som e varieties o f these lan­
guages, S P T m ay be used as a hodiernal past (indicating that the eventuality h a p ­
pened earlier the sam e day), which is clearly a disfavored interpretation o f the SPT
in French. In colloquial G e rm a n , A m m a n n (2007, p. 193) gives an example w here
the utterance is about a very recent past, which would be odd with an S P T in French.3
SPTs also exist in Yiddish (where it is very generalized as a substitute for aorists,
A m m a n n , 2007, p. 195, after Kiefer, 1994) and in other G e rm a n ic languages such as
som e varieties o f Flemish and Afrikaans, where the S P T bears a function o f substi­
tution for the pluperfect (see Litvinov and Radcenko, 1998, pp. 61, 68). Double per­
fects seem to have disappeared from Slavonic languages, except in Sorbian (p. 69)
and in M acedonian (although only in reported speech, according to Graves, 200 0,
p. 493). In Rom ance, the S P T seems distributed in an area that includes northern
Italian varieties (Venetian, Friulian), R h aeto-R om ance, French, Occitan and N o rth ­
ern Spanish varieties, but it is also present in other varieties o f Rom ance. S P T also
exists in Albanian, with an evidential flavor o f “apparently” (Litvinov and Radcenko,
1998, pp. 7 2 - 7 7 ) . A num ber o f non-Ind o-E uropean languages also have comparable
structures— Tibetan, at least at so m e stage o f evolution (N ordewin von Korber, 1935,
p. 10 0); Korean, with a duplication o f the suffix indicating past (Sohn, 1994, p. 322);
and Basque (again, Litvinov and Radcenko, 1998, p. 79).
Poletto (2009, p. 32) notes that the S P T exists not only in the southern G erm an
area but also in Austrian and Swiss dialects; according to her, the G e rm a n ic types of
SPT are terminative— therefore, we conclude, the possibility noted above by A m m a n n
o f finding it indicating the termination o f a very recent state o f affairs— while in
Northern Italian dialects the S P T indicates anteriority (past from a past reference
point). She also notes that in the Northern Italian area, the S P T can trigger an “epi­
sodic” interpretation, m eaning that the event happened “once and by chance” (p. 34).
In French, the m orphological construction o f the tense is subject to som e debate
in the literature: either the participle is com posed a second time by inserting a n ­
other auxiliary, or the whole com posed structure <auxiliary + participle> is c o m ­
posed again with another auxiliary. It is far from clear that the semantic m ea n in g o f
the French double com posed past can be deduced from the m orphological m ech a­
nism o f its construction, but it is a com m on and sound idea that if the auxiliary
m arks perfection, then a second auxiliary should m ark perfection o f perfection, or
double perfection. Nonetheless, the auxiliaries themselves are tensed; thus they may
indicate that the perfection o f the eventuality has to be considered as relevant at
their time, which is clear and well know n in the cases o f the English present perfect
and the French passé composé , at least in m an y o f their occurrences. As the S P T has
two auxiliaries, it may be that the temporal m eaning o f these clauses is ambiguous:
either the eventuality is prim arily relevant at a past reference point R, indicated by
the past auxiliary, or at the speech act time S, indicated by the present auxiliary. This
is, roughly, the line o f investigation in this chapter.

Copyrighted material
588 TENSE

The aim o f this chapter is to p ro vid e a novel account o f this tense in French,
as a classical exem plar o f the S P T and other d oubly c o m p o se d tenses, through a
pragm atic analysis o f its eifects in context. It is w orth noting that the variety o f
the possible tem poral m ea n in g s o f SPT-utterances in context m akes it a challenge
to identify a unique core sem antic content that en com p asses them all. We will
nonetheless suggest that such a core m e a n in g can indeed be identified, despite
the opposite point o f v iew expressed by s o m e o f the literature on the topic, as we
note below. We argue that all the constructions and m e a n in g s usually listed in the
literature on the SPT, inclu ding those often called “ regional” — and therefore often
consid ered deviant from the point o f v ie w o f standard F re n c h — actually result
fr o m v a rio u s k in d s o f contextual a c c o m m o d a tio n s o f a unique, fu n d a m en ta l
sem an tic item.
O u r ap p ro a ch takes as a startin g point the assum ption that tenses en cod e
pro ce d u res as per Saussure (2003) and relates to the m o re general fr a m e w o r k o f
R elev a n ce T h e o ry (S p erb er and W ilso n , 1986, 1995; B lak em o re, 1987). The “ p r o ­
cedural h y p o th e sis” c o n sid ers that the e n co d ed m e a n in g o f an expression w h ich
can not be d escribed through an easily graspable concept is an inferential path
that constrain s p rag m a tic e n ric h m e n t in c o n te x t.1 In this view, we co n sid er that
the S P T s v a rio u s etfects o f m e a n in g each c o rre sp o n d to a specific output o f the
interpretive p ro c e d u re e n co d ed by this tense, obtain ed u n d er contextual p r e s ­
sure. M o re specifically, we suggest that these vario u s m e a n in g s are generated by
p rag m a tic en rich m en ts that concern the relev an ce o f the even tu ality either at the
R -point (R e ic h e n b a c h s (1947) reference point) or at the S -p o in t (R e ic h e n b a c h s
speech p o in t)?
Usually, g ra m m a rs mention three typical SPT-structures:6

1. in a subordinate clause with a conjunction expressing forw ard temporal

ordering (1) or simultaneity (2):

(1) Après qu’ils ont eu causé un instant en tête-à-tête, la duchesse lui a dit. . . .
(Dum as, quoted by Damourette and Pichon, 19 11-19 3 6 , V, p. 294).
“After they talk-SPT (had talked) together for a while, the duchesse told him ---- ”
(2) Quand la France a eu realise son program m e révolutionnaire, elle a découvert à
la Révolution toute espèce de défauts (Renan, quoted by Grevisse, 1988, p. 122).
“W hen France achievc-SPT (had achieved) its revolutionary program , she
found that the Revolution had all sorts o f defects.”

2. in in d e p en d en t clauses with an adverbial structu re ex p ressin g duration,

such as en cinq minutes (“ in five m in u te s” ) or vite (“q u ic k ly ” ) as in (3):

(3) C e petit vin nouveau . . . a eu vite grisé tous ces buveurs de bière (Daudet,
quoted by Grevisse, 1988, p. 1228).
“ This little new w ine . . . quickly get-SPT (got) to these beer drinkers” heads.

3. in independent clauses without temporal complements. However these

cases are clearly less often mentioned by g ram m ars and are identified as a
F ra n c o - Provençal regionalism, belonging in particular— but not o n ly — to

Bahan dengan hak cipta

T H E S U R C O M PO SÉ PA ST T E N SE 589

the variety spoken in Switzerland. Hence, grammars consider these as

deviant from “standard French”7 Nonetheless, such constructions are
indeed frequent in the concerned regions:

(4) Elle ne veut plus prendre que du lait. Pourtant, elle a eu mangé. Mais depuis ie mois
de septembre, elle ne mange plus (Damourette and Pichon, 1911-1936, V, p. 301).
“She agrees only to drink milk. However, she eat-SPT (used to eat). But since
September, she doesn’t eat any more.”
(5) Il a eu coupé, ce couteau. (Jolivet, 1984, p. 159)
“It cut-SPT (used to cut), this knife.”

Such utterances bear the basic m eaning o f a habit (4) or situation (5) in the
rem ote past: the SPT-utterances above m ean roughly that she used to eat, that the
knife used be sharp in the p a st Apothéloz (2009) considers that in such clauses
the SPT is a regional equivalent o f a present perfect when used to communicate a
past experience that is relevant in the context o f speech. We will elaborate below on
this assumption, which we consider crucial, but which Apothéloz leaves sketchy. We
assum e that Crucial components o f m eaning do appear dependent on context,
w hich indeed m ake such utterances relevant in the present tim e o f speech.
Som e authors on the contrary consider these SPT-utterances as mere regional
equivalents o f past perfect utterances (Grevisse, 1988, p. 1299, for exam ple), while
others claim that they involve a specific regional tense, hom onym ous with the SPT
in standard French but in fact totally distinct from it, bearing no intrinsic semantic
link with it at all (Dauzat, 1954, p. 260). A s we suggest below, all these views are
either problematic or in need o f being refined.
There are two other types o f SPT-utterances but their status is somewhat hybrid:
SPT in correlative clauses and in narrative independent clauses:
S P T in correlative clauses:

(6) A peine avons-nous eu dîné que mon mari a proposé une promenade
(Damourette and Pichon, 1911-1936, V, p. 298).
“As soon as we dine-SPT (were done with the dinner), m y husband proposed
a walk.”

Gram m ars which mention such cases tend to assimilate them to cases (i) or (ii),
relying either on the assumption that the relation between the clauses seems one o f
subordination (as suggested by Imbs, i960, p. 133), or on the hypothesis that, on the
contrary, the SPT is in the main clause (as suggested by Damourette and Pichon,
19 11-19 36 , V, p. 297). Such hesitations show the difficulty o f harm onizing syntactic
criteria with semantic and pragmatic ones in establishing a typology o f occurrences.
S P T in n arrative in depen d en t clauses.
This—much more interesting—type appears when the SPT clause occurs in a
narrative sequence, be it with a temporal adverb ((7) and (8)) or not ((9) and (10)).
These utterances are perfectly regular in standard French, thus it is important to
emphasize that independent clauses with SPT are certainly not restricted to regional
varieties. These utterances appear typically with an aspectual verb (as fin ir in (7) and
590 TE N SE

(9)) or with the inform ation that the eventuality has been fully completed (tout in
(10) and the telic verb éva cu er in (8)):

(7) Il a fallu la [I’automobile] relever. A une heure du matin, nous avons eu fini
(Damourette and Pichon, 1911-1936, V, p. 298).
“We had to take it [the car] back. We finish-SPT (were done) at one in the
morning.”
(8) Quelques temps après, il a eu évacué son lipiodol (Damourette and Pichon,
19 11-19 36, V, p. 299)
“A moment later, he evacuate-SPT (had evacuated) his lipiodol [medicine].”
(9) Us ont commencé chez vous. Ils ont eu fini. Ils sont allés ailleurs (Damourette
and Pichon, 1911-1936, V, p. 300)
“ They began at your place. They finished [finish-SPT]. They went elsewhere”
(10) Il a eu tout bouffé sa galette; alors il est revenu (Damourette and Pichon,
1911-1936, V, p. 300).
“ He eat-SPT [‘bouffer’: slang for ‘eat’] all his m oney [‘galette’, pancake: slang
for ‘m oney’]; then he came back.”

The main issue raised b y these various cases concerns the (possible) semantic
link between them; in particular, it seems intuitively sounder to native speakers that
all SPT-utterances are realizations o f the same SPT tense, hence Dauzat’s assum p­
tion should be explored only i f there is no w ay to connect them all through a
com m on semantic core, from which various enrichments are realized in context.
Indeed, the literature has a few suggestions in this respect, w hich we will review
below; we, however, need first to pay closer attention to the regional variety.
There is no consensus in the literature about the status o f the regional types vis-à-
vis the standard ones, as Jolivet (1986, p. 109) rightly points out. Scholars seldom pay
attention to the regional SPT and all who do actually agree that it is a particular case.
In the first extensive study dedicated to the SPT, C ornu (1953) insists that
although the regional SPT is indeed specific to the concerned regions, it is but a
specific subtype o f the m ore general standard French SPT and therefore shares its
com m on semantic ground while bearing a specific flavor (he says it’s a particular
use o f the SPT which he names “ SPT with special value” (p. 179, our translation). We
call this hypothesis the “single item hypothesis,” according to which the regional
SPT is a diatopic subtype o f the standard SPT.
Dauzat (1954) challenges this study with a hypothesis w e ll call the “double SPT
hypothesis.” He claims that C ornu w rongly mixes two completely different tenses: (i)
the SPT in standard French, expressing the past, and (ii) the SPT in the Franco-
Provençal variety (p. 260), which should be considered completely separate, accord­
ing to him , since, he explains, most speakers o f French won t use, nor even understand,
an utterance with the regional SPT. The problem o f using and understanding the
expression in various contexts m ay not prove a good indication that the expression
itself is “different.” But there are other arguments available in order to sustain Dau-
zats “double-SPT hypothesis.” First, as Jolivet (1986, p. 112) shows, on the syntactic
level, adverbs tend to be placed after the first participle in regional uses, as in (11), but
after the second one in standard French, as in (12):
T H E S U R C O M P O SÉ P A ST TEN SE 591

(11) On a bien eu mis un rideau (p. 112).

“We indeed f>lace-SPT (hanged) a curtain”
(12) Quand j’ai eu bien regardé les étranges toupies . . . (p. 112).
“W hen I well look-SPT (had well looked) at the funny to p s.. . . ”

A nother difference is to be found in the com position o f SPTs with être (‘be") as an
auxiliary. Som e verbs in French do actually com pose w ith être (‘be ) and others—
m uch m ore num erous—with avoir (‘have’). It is w orth noticing that, although
rare, an SPT-utterance with a verb calling for être as a p rim ary auxiliary w ill com ­
pose differently in standard French and in Franco-Provençal French. In standard
French, the SPT construction is obtained by com posing the auxiliary itself with
avoir , hence être rem ains attached to the m ain verb, as in (13). In the regional v a ­
riety, the second auxiliary (avoir) integrates between the prim ary auxiliary and the
m ain verb, as in (14):

(13) Dès qu’il a été parti___

“A s soon as he leave-SPT (had left)___ ” [standard French]
(14) Il est eu parti.
“He leave-SPT (left, had left).” [regional French]

There are, however, much stronger facts and counterarguments that support the
“single SP T ” hypothesis.
First, the em pirical fact that speakers o f standard French (or o f other v a ri­
eties o f French) fin d Franco-Provençal SPT-utterances odd is in no w ay an ar­
gum ent sustaining the “two SPTs” hypothesis. A s a m atter o f fact, opposing the
two corpuses w ith the aim o f show ing that som e form s are unattested in the
region w ould indeed capture the also v e ry obvious fact that French native
speakers o f Sw itzerland and o f southern France (the Fran co-P roven çal region,
roughly) v e ry naturally use standard French SPT-utterances too. One m ay co n ­
clude that there are, as regards the SPT, two varieties o f SPT, one w ith a larger
num ber o f possible types (Franco-Provençal French) and the other w ith fewer
possible types (standard French). T his is quite com m on in diatopic variation
and it obviou sly doesn’t follow that there are two tenses rather than one tense,
on the w hole. A s a matter o f com parison, ch ildrens use o f the French im perfec-
tive past ( im parfait ), where the im perfective past has the function o f setting up
the conditions o f a gam e, as in Jetais le gendarm e et tu volais un vélo “ I was the
cop and you w ere stealing a bicycle,” is som etim es considered regular in som e
regions only, but it doesn’t occu r to a scholar to reject them as being a different,
independent, item.
A s fo r the syntactic m anagem ent o f the auxiliaries, it is first noticeable that
SPT utterances are not obeying a clear norm , whatever the variety o f French.
Beauzée (i767[i974l) already reported that (15) was a standard w ay o f com posing
SPT-sentences with pronom inal verbs, although if the standard construction is
obtained sim ply by re-com posing the auxiliary, then (16) below, and not (15),
shoulcf indeed be standard, since the com posing auxiliary com es always at the
beginning o f the V P :8
592 TENSE

(15) A près que je me su is eu p ro m en é-----

A fter that I me be (aux) have (au x) w alk (past p articip le)
“A fter 1 w a lk -S P T .. .

(16) * A p r è s q u e je m’ ai été p r o m e n é ...

A fter that 1 me have (aux) be (aux) w alk (past p articip le)

However, such constructions where the second auxiliary (ai) is added in front
while the original auxiliary is converted into a past participle are ill-formed; it is
striking that the intuitions o f speakers o f standard French and o f the regional variety
are identical in this respect. The S P T type in (15) is regular in all varieties; below are
two examples, one from a standard French writer and the other from a Swiss speaker:

(17) A près q u ’il sést eu rincé l’o eil, il a passé à l’autre salad ier (M . A ym é, m entioned by
P aesan i, 2 0 0 3, p. 329).
“A fter he lo o k -SP T , he sw itch ed to the o th er bow l.”
(18) Q u an d j avais 20 ans, je m e suis eu retourné su r des filles, croyan t q u elles avaient
17 - 18 an s, avec un physiqu e et un m aquillage alo rs q u elles n’avaient que 13 ou 14 ans
(G o o g le , sp eaker from Sw itzerland).
“ W h en I w as 2 0 , 1 lo o k -S P T back on g irls, th in k in g th ey w ere 17 o r 18, w ith a b o d y and
a m akeup, but in fact th e y w ere o n ly 13 o r 14.”

All in all, it seems thus m ore prom ising to explore the “single S P T ” hypothesis.
In what follows, we go through the main traditions that have investigated the S P T
as a single item. Unsurprisingly, two trends are on offer, a “tem poral” one and an
“aspectual” one.

2. T e m poral A pproaches

A co m m o n idea found in g ra m m a rs (and consequently in m a n y French-as-a-

foreign-language teaching m anuals, such as Delatour et al., 1991, pp. 52, 269) is that
the S P T indicates an eventuality E that happens before another one, which was
previously denoted by a present perfect utterance (see for exam ple Riegel et al.,
1994, p. 252). Such a view presupposes that rules o f sequence o f tense automatically
c o m m a n d the selection o f the tense. We will disregard this approach, not only
because Brunot (1922, p. 782) showed that sequence o f tense is not a mechanical
rule in French, but, m ore importantly, because m an y S P T examples precisely break
the alleged rules o f sequence o f tense. For instance, Dam ourette and Pichon (19 11—
1936, p. 297), who typically hold a temporal v ie w o f the S P T (they call it the bisan-
térieur , “double anterior” ), mention a nu m ber o f authentic examples where the
S P T com bines easily with an imparfait (IM P ) or with a (narrative) present (PR), as
in (19) and (20):

(19) J en tendais, ap rès que le réveil a eu so n n é, 1.1.1. [noise o f su ck in g ], sans doute q u ’il
suçait son pouce (oral utterance noted by D am o u rette and P ich on , 19 11- 19 3 6 , p. 297).

Bahan dengan hak cipta

T H E S U R C O M P O SÉ PA ST TEN SE 593

“I hear-IMP, after the alarm clock ring-SPT, ‘t-t-f [noise o f sucking], probably he was
sucking his thumb.”
(20) Alors il m arie sa fille. Quand il a eu marié sa fille, son genre entreprend un commerce
(p. 297)-
“ Then he marries his daughter. When he m arry-SPT his daughter, his son-in-law
start-PR a business”

Nonetheless, it is very tempting to assume that the tem poral reference o f a SPT-
utterance is determined through a calculation involving another eventuality, itself
being in the past. Other tenses clearly do this, such as the pluperfect. Beauzée
(1767(1974], p. 487) holds a view according to which double-com posed form s, such
as the SPT, in contrast to to the present perfect, are not autonomous. He suggests in
particular that the SPT imposes a ‘ comparison” with another prim arily past eventu­
ality (Beauzée, 1767U974], p. 486). Yet his analysis m ight well be biased by the fact
that he only considers SPTs in subordinate clauses.
W hen considering all standard French SPT-clauses, not only those in temporal
subordinate clauses, authors usually distinguish between two subtypes. A subordi­
nate SPT-clause is considered as expressing a “ past from a past,” while SPT-clauses
with an adverb conveying a duration im ply a past completion o f the eventuality.
Benveniste (1966, p. 249) mentions these two cases under the labels of, respectively,
“past aorist” and “accomplished aorist” (a n térieu r d'aoriste and accom pli d ’a oriste);
Vet (1980, p. 91) considers that the latter triggers an implicated state o f affairs, as in
(22), while the “past from a past” does not, as in (21):

(21) Dès qu’il a eu terminé son travail, il est rentré chez lui (p. 92).
“A s soon as he finish-SPT (had finished) his work, he went back home.”
(22) Il a eu vite terminé son travail (p. 91).
“He quickly finish-SPT (had quickly finished) his work.”

Vet explains (21) as follows: “finishing” is true during an interval Ii, “go back
home” is true during an interval I2, and I i is anterior to I2. (22) raises another inter­
pretation, far m ore complex: the SPT-eventuality (“finish” ) implies a resulting state
(“having finished” ) which is envisaged from an auxiliary reference point Ry, itself
anterior to the original reference point R x situated at S (as is R for the present
perfect).
It is a widespread idea that com posed tenses in French encode am biguous
semantics, with two very different temporal m eanings, one being a represention o f
a past eventuality, the other adding to the past eventuality an implied state o f affairs
true at som e reference point. The present perfect, typically, communicates either
only a past eventuality or a state o f affairs, resulting from the past eventuality, and
which is still true and relevant at S. Both Benvenistes and Vets analyzes clearly
apply this approach to the SPT.
At least for Benveniste (1974, p. 184), but certainly m ore implicitly for scholars
who fa^or a temporal analysis o f this kind, the process o f double auxiliation is en ­
visaged as follows. Starting from a com posed form (i.e., il a chanté , present perfect,
“he has sung” ), a new grammatical tense is obtained through the insertion o f a new
 TE N SE
594

auxiliary com posing with the original one. A ccording to this line, the SPT is thus
considered as having a structure o f this kind:
[[auxiliary auxiliary] participle]
[[a eu] chanté]
Benveniste (1966, p. 249), taking into account on ly cases where the SPT ap ­
pears in structures w ith a tem poral com plem ent, concludes that the SPT is a dis­
cursive substitute for the anterior past tense, allowed in narratives only, according
to his general view that types o f discourses (narration and conversation) con­
strain to a large extent the choice o f appropriate linguistic items. His m ain reason
for so thinking is that there is o n ly one form al difference between the two tenses:
the anterior past has a simple past auxiliary w hereas the SPT, according to the
above structure, has a com posed past (present perfect) auxiliary. This fits his view
o f French tenses nicely, for w hich the sim ple past is the specialized tense for nar­
ration w hile the present perfect is typical in conversation. A SPT is, so to speak, o f
the sam e fam ily as the present perfect (tenses for non-narratives), w hile the
sim ple past and the anterior past are the right tenses for narratives. Thus the SPT
sim ply bears the tem poral m eaning o f the anterior past, itself conveying am bigu­
ously either a “ past aorist” or an “accom plished aorist” (conveying a resulting
state) m eaning.
We notice however that the supposed dichotom y between the two SPT types
does not really map onto the syntactic dichotomy between subordinate clause and
main clause with a duration adverbial Cases where the conjunction triggers a sim ul­
taneity reading such as (23) (with quand , when ) m ust in fact be distinguished from
cases where it m arks an elapsed eventuality (with après que, after ) such as (24):

(23) Quand il a eu mangé, il est parti.

“W hen he eat-SPT, he left.”
(24) Après qu’il a eu mangé, il est parti.
“After he eat-SPT, he left.”

In the first case (23), only the result o f the eventuality (here: ‘having eaten) is
tem porally linked to the main clauses V P (‘leave ), so that the simultaneity im posed
by quand (w h e n ) holds between ‘leaving’ and ‘having eaten! In the—in fre q u e n t-
second case (24), it is on the contrary the whole eventuality (‘eat’) which has to be
understood as fitting the temporal relation established by the conjunction and thus
being true before the eventuality denoted b y the m ain clause’s VP.9
The Benveniste-Vet analysis raises, we think, two more serious objections.
The first one concerns the other possible m eanings o f the SPT that are disre­
garded by Benveniste and Vet. C om posed tenses o f French, such as the anterior past
or the pluperfect, are com posed b y adding an auxiliary m orpheme to a single verbal
m orphem e, which, according to the Benveniste-Vet analysis, leads to two possible
readings, one focused on the participle and one focused on the time indicated by
the tense o f the auxiliary. A s the SPT results from a composition o f an already com ­
posed form , if one auxiliation allows for two readings, then repeating the operation
results in four theoretically possible readings. The SPT should thus also be able to
T 1I E S U R C O M P O S É P A S T T E N S E 595

express the ‘ past from a resulting state” and the “ resulting state from a resulting
sta te ” ign ored by Ben ven iste and Vet. The “ past fro m a resulting state” co n cept m ay
be com plicated to clearly identify, but the “ resu lt-fro m -resu lt” case is a v e r y clearly
possible analysis o f sta n d a rd SPT -clauses. rlh e “ resu lt-fro m -re su lt” h ypo th esis has
been investigated in particu lar by follow ers o f the French linguist G u sta v e G u i l ­
laum e, to w h ic h we turn in the next section.
O u r second objection is that these approaches fail to account for regional and
other isolated SPT-utterances, w h ich , like (5), and even m ore strikingly with (7) or
(9) above, certainly don’t always require one to figure out a relevant period o f time
holding between E and S .10

3. T h e A spectual V iew : A “ Result

from a Result”

Guillaume (1929[1965], p. 20) suggests another explanation for the presence of two
auxiliaries composing the SPT tense. He proposes to analyze the SPT as a threefold
composition o f (i) a past participle, (ii) a past participle auxiliary, and (iii) a present
auxiliary. Within his aim o f explaining grammatical structures in general by their
mapping onto psychological operations, he considers that the S P T expresses a series of
mental operations concerning the conceptualization o f various stages of the eventu­
ality (or surrounding it) rather than mere temporal reference. According to him, first,
a mental image of a present eventuality conceived o f as holding or being in the course
o f happening (chante ‘ is singing’ in our example above) is converted into a completed
abstract eventuality (past participle chanté ‘sung’). Second, the composition o f one
auxiliary (a chanté ‘has sung’) produces a global temporalized representation. Third,
the reiteration o f the auxiliation (resulting in the SPT) re-activates the representation
of the result o f eu chanté ‘had [participle] sung’. Thus in this view, the S P T rather looks
like a double present perfect, so to speak, bearing the following structure:
[auxiliary [auxiliary past participle [past participle]]]
G u illau m es aspectual viewr does not at all imply that the S P T bears no temporal
meaning. But the S P T is aspectual since it establishes a representation o f bounded
eventualities and o f subsequent states. As for temporal reference, the S P T is under­
stood in this fram ew o rk as bearing a fun dam entally present m e a n in g .11 Noticeably,
G uillau m es view explains better the hesitation regarding the right choice o f auxiliary
for verbs com posed with être (‘be’ ) in pronom inal structures. Benveniste’s view
implies too strongly that only avoir (‘ have) can be available as an auxiliary for SPT
since both avoir and être com pose only with avoir. We mentioned above that Ben-
venistes view doesn’t correspond to the actual data for pronom inal verbs. Moreover,
in a num ber o f cases such as (25) below, an auxiliation with être is indeed far more
natural than with avoir (26). (26), although consistent with Benveniste’s predictions,
is not even m entioned by the literature as a regular possibility for the SPT:

Bahan dengan hak cipta

596 TENSE

(25) 11 s’e st eu levé.

“ He wake-SPT up (with auxiliary “être” ].”
(26) *11 s a été levé.
“ lie wake-SPT up [with auxiliary “avoir” ].”

D espite B e n v e n iste s opinion that the S P T is tem poral rather than a sp ectu a l,12 it
lo o k s thus far m o re p r o m is in g to build on the m o r e subtle aspectual tradition initi­
ated by G u illa u m e , although with s o m e caution. C o r n u (1953, p. 179), w h o e la b o ­
rates on G u il la u m e s view, suggests that the S P T c o m m u n ic a te s a d ou b le relation
b etw een resulting states. H e c o m m e n ts on e x a m p le (27):

(27) Je lai eu apprise, cette poésie (p. 180, after Foulet).

“ 1 learn-SPT this poem.”

H e suggests that three situations are re p re se n te d by (27), b e a r in g relations

with o ne a n o th e r: (i) the c o m p letio n o f the eventuality <learn the poem > in the
past; (ii) the resulting state (thus atelic) <having learned the p o em > , im p licating
<knowing the poem >; (iii) the resu ltin g state (thus atelic) o f the fo rm er, that is,
b e in g in the situation w h e r e the first im p lication ( k n o w i n g the p o e m ) d o e s not
h old any lo n ger: <not knowing the poem >. The S P T w o u ld thus im p o s e that a
resu ltin g state is rep resen ted as fin ish ed at s o m e p a st point, and a n e w state, i n c o n ­
sistent with the first, is re p re se n te d as h o ld in g fu r th e r on. This can b e sch e m a tiz e d
as in F ig u re 20.1.
W ilm et (1997, p. 333) explains similarly a num ber o f cases such as avoir eu
marché/mangé/bu (have—had— walked/eaten/drank) as conveying the m ea n in g o f
being relieved from the fatigue o f walking, being hu n gry again, being sober again.
This view' explains the S P T through the hypothesis o f the cessation o f the eventual­
ity’s implied state. W hereas a present perfect (passé composé) triggers such an
implied state, the S P T implies another, posterior, state, that is equivalent to the n o n ­
existence o f the original implied state. We m ight call this a “ result from result”
interpretation. In his recent paper on the S P T (Wilmet, 2009), he explains the ex ­
ample Il a eu neigé (‘ it s n o w - S P T ’ ) as follows:

il a neigé (present perfect ilit has sn o w ed ” ) com m unicates a relevant resulting

state o f affairs true at S (for exam ple slopes are fin e for skiing).

Learn H a v in g Having

learned having

learned

= know the = not (know

poem flic po em )

F ig u re 20.1. A spectual an alysis o f the S P T b y C o r n u (1953)

Material chrânény autorskym i prâvy

T H E S U R C O M PO SÉ P A ST TEN SE 597

il a eu neigé (SPT) implies another resulting state, still true at S, but which negates
the one obtained with a present perfect. In the example, the interpretation is o f
the form: slopes are not fin e fo r skiing since the remotely past event o f snowing
doesn't bear its result at S any longer—therefore the snow has melted.

However, it is obvious for native speakers o f the regional variety, where only
such utterances seem to appear, that the proposed interpretation is wrong: only very
seldom does a SPT-utterance communicate such a state negating a previous result.
It even looks weird to assume that il a eu neigé (lit., ‘it has had snowed’) lets the
hearer infer anything about the quality o f ski slopes at S even in the right context o f
speech.13 Nonetheless, it conforms to the intuition that such isolated SPT-utterances
do indeed communicate something in relation to the present in the form o f a state
(a point m issed b y Damourette and Pichon, and Grevisse), but we’ll argue further
down that it is certainly not merely about a result-from-result.
Although it brings more to the analysis than the purely temporal approach, this
aspectual view also raises a number o f serious issues.
First, it entails that only a non-stative predicate can trigger the “ result-from -
a-result” interpretation. H owever stative, atelic, predicates are so frequent with
the SPT that (28) appears in our data m uch m ore typically than (27) or W ilm et’s
il a eu n eig é :

(28) Je l’ai eu sue, cette poésie.

“ This poem, I know-SPT (have had known) it.”

Such utterances seem quite difficult to handle for the “result-from-a-result” ap ­

proach since here, savo ir (know) should raise a first resulting state, n ot-know , p o s­
sibly bearing a consequence such as being u n able to recite the p o em , in turn raising a
new resulting state which can only be kn o w again or being able to recite the p o e m . On
the contrary, what’s obviously typically communicated by (28) is that the speaker
simply does not know the poem any more at S. Utterance (29) makes this quite clear:

(29) J’ai eu su à quoi correspondait le backtick, mais fa i oublié (Google, our emphasis).
"I know-SPT (have had known) what the backtick was, but I ’ve forgotten!'

Here, m a is fa i o u blié (“but I have forgotten” ) does indeed cancel an im plicature,

but that implicature is in no w ay “ I know what the backtick is again.” The sentence
J*ai eu su à q u o i correspondait le backtick explicitly entails that the speaker doesn’t
know what the backtick is: there is no available context in which one m ay un der­
stand that the speaker again knows what the backtick is, contrarily to "Wilmet’s
(2009) claim. However, we mentioned earlier that the SPT in such clauses does
indeed com m unicate about a situation being the case in the present, and it is clear
that the conjoined clause, m a is fa i oublié , does cancel an implicature about the pre­
sent state o f affairs. We will argue below that it is about a potentiality o f E occuring
again. €
The second m ajor problem o f the “result from result” view is that telic p red i­
cates, actually, trigger an iterative reading instead o f a “result from result” reading,
as in (4), already mentioned:
598 TE N SE

(4) Elle ne veut plus prendre que du lait. Pourtant, elle a eu mangé. Mais depuis le mois de
septembre, elle ne mange plus (Damourette and Pichon, 1911-1936, V, p. 301).
“She agrees only to drink milk. However, she eat-SPT (used to eat). But since
September, she doesn’t eat any more.”

Carruthers (1994, 1998) mentions a number o f such examples. For example,

(30) can only be interpreted as iterative:

(30) On a eu mis de l’e au sur les chaises—on a eu enlevé la poignée de la serrure (p. 177).
“We put-SPT (used to put) water on the chairs—we take-SPT (used to take) off the
door handles.”

This utterance reports usual pranks pulled regularly by boys in the old school­
days. The interpretation, obviously, doesn’t entail anything like a “ result-from-a-
result” o f the type “ the chair is not wet” (and the boys don’t g et w et) by the cancellation
o f a first result “the chair is wet” (and then the boys get w et), but is about the mere
pastness o f a habit. A s telic predicates in iterative readings aspectually behave like
states, (30) is, in the end, quite sim ilar to (28) or (29).
These issues lead us to suggest a slightly different explanation for the SPT in
French, for which isolated SPT-utterances are just one among several possible real­
izations o f the SPT and thus corresponds to one among several outputs o f the SPT
pragmatic interpretive procedure. Our general suggestion is that SPT is better
explained as triggering pragmatic enrichments, which are obtained though the
search for relevance, rather than by grammatical assumptions based on pure m or­
phological typologies. We suggest in what follows that SPT-utterances can lead to
two m ajor types o f pragm atic enrichment, having to do with their relevance either
at R or at S.

4. A P r a g m a t i c A c c o u n t

We will first pay attention to SPT-utterances that are understood as comm unicating
inform ation that is relevant at R. M ore precisely, we will suggest that the SPT can
first comm unicate that the resulting state o f the eventuality em erges at R , that is, is
left-bounded precisely at R. That’s what happens in example (2):

(2) Quand la France a eu réalisé son programme révolutionnaire, elle a découvert à la

Révolution toute espèce de défauts (Renan, cited by Grevisse, 1988, p. 1228).
“When France realize-SPT (had realized) its revolutionary program, she found that the
Revolution had all sorts o f defects.”

Here, the SPT precisely communicates about the exact m om ent when France
found out that the Revolution had m any defects. Sim ilar effects arise in (3) and (8),
recalled below:
T 1I E S U R C O M P O S É P A S T T E N S E 599

(3) Ce petit vin nouveau . . . a eu vite grisé tous ces buveurs de bière (Daudet, cited by
Grevisse 1988, p. 1228).
“ This little new wine . . . quickly get-SPT (got) to these beer d rin ker’ heads.”

(8) Quelques temps après , il a eu évacué son lipiodol (Damourette and Pichon, 19 11-19 3 6 , V,
p. 299).
“A moment later, he evacuate-SPT (had evacuated) his lipiodol [medicine].”

In these examples, the temporal com plem ents indicate the temporal reference
o f the resulting states emergence. Vite indicates that R is to be situated close enough
to E for E to be quickly over, and quelque temps après indicates that R has to be situ­
ated “som e time later.” Such a semantics may look roughly similar to that o f the
present perfect. But upon closer scrutiny, it appears that the adverb (vite in (3)), is
precisely about the right b o u n d a ry o f the eventuality (which arrives “quickly” ),
hence about the left b o u n d a r y o f the resulting state, whereas a present perfect utter­
ance seems rather to entail that the whole o f the eventuality is quantified by vite
without any consideration o f a resulting state:

(3 ') Ce petit vin nouveau a vite grisé tous ces buveurs de bière.
“ This little new wine quickly g e t-P R E S E N T -P E R F E C T to these beer drinkers’ heads.”

We thus insist that what the S P T com m unicates in such cases is the emergence
o f the resulting state. The pragmatic m eaning o f such utterances, as far as eventual­
ities are concerned, is about R being the time where the eventuality ends but hence
also the time where the resulting state emerges, and R is indeed the m om ent about
which the utterances prim arily co m m u n icate.14 A similar analysis can be pursued
with (10) (il a eu bouffé toute sa galette; alors il est revenu).

In (9) and (31) below, SPT-utterances are integrated in a narrative sequence.

Their function o f indicating the position o f R, fixing the left boun d o f the resulting
state, appears even m ore clearly:

(9) Ils ont com m encé chez vous. Ils ont eu fini. Ils sont allés ailleurs (Damourette et
Pichon, 19 11-19 3 6 , V, p. 300).
“ They began at your place. They finish-SPT. They went elsewhere.”

(31) Ils ont trait, ils ont eu fini de traire; les lampes, là haut, n’é taient toujours pas éteintes
(Ram uz, La Grande Peur dans la montagne , quoted by C orn u , 1953, p. 100).
“ They milked, they finish-SPT milking; lights, up there, still weren’t otf."

Standard French, as a matter o f fact, tends to allow only aspectual verbs like
fin ir (finish ) in such structures. Hence utterances such as (32) below tend to be
judged odd by speakers o f standard French; how ever they are totally natural for the
speakers o f the regional variety:

(32) (?standard French) Ils ont com m encé chez vous. Ils ont eu peint le mur. Ils sont allés
ailleurs.
“ They began at your place. They paint-SPT (painted) the wall. They went elsewhere.”

Bahan dengan hak cipta

6 00 TENSE

E R S

- E - - - - - - - - EE— E— I- ---- -
£
F ig u re 20.2. S P T c o m m u n ic a tin g relevance at R

In all these examples, the S P T - utterance establishes R as the relevant m om ent

about which som ething is com m unicated, i.e., the emergence o f a resulting state €,
the relation between e and S not being relevant.
Figure 20.2 schematizes this meaning.
In the absence o f a temporal m orphem e pointing a past moment, and besides nar­
rative sequences, SPT-utterances are on the contrary interpreted as relevant about S.
We noticed that these cases are considered clearly well formed only by speakers
o f the regional variety. It is nonetheless interesting to notice that normative gram m ars
are far from unanim ous about them. Som e gram m ars simply don t mention these
cases (Chevalier et al., 1964, p. 331), while others mention them as non-standard and
incorrect, as does the Gram m aire Larrousse du X X e siècle , which states that “ in the
southern regions, this tense is incorrectly used in m ain clauses, with the m eaning o f
the present perfect” (Gaiffe et al., 1936, p. 329, our translation). Other works, more
open to variation, mention them without normative judgm ent but don’t detail their
semantic specificities. Grevisse (1988, p. 1229), for instance, also says that the SPT is
an equivalent o f the present perfect in so m e southern varieties, but refrains from
positing a normative judgment. In som e other gram m ars, probably because o f the
influence o f Guillaume, the regional case is thought o f as im plying the remoteness o f
the eventuality from S (Baylon and Fabrc, 1995, p. 268).
Yet if the consequences o f W ilm ets analysis are not in agreement with the n a ­
tive s p eak ers intuitions o f the regional variety, W ilm ets hypothesis that these SPT-
utterances com m unicate a state o f affairs true at S is certainly right (and shared by
Apothéloz, 2009). However, we suggest that the state o f affairs in question is prag­
matically inferred with much m ore flexibility than suggested by Wilmet. Apothéloz
(2009) rightly points out that these utterances “aim at asserting the existence o f a
past situation, but only so far as this existence is relevant in the present in the form
o f psychological traces” (p. 108, our translation). In Saussure and Sthioul (2006), we
tentatively suggested that the discovery o f a relevant state o f affairs in the present is
achieved through relevance-searching m echanism s. It is also crystal-clear that, as
Apothéloz rightly points out, the interval where the denoted situation is true is en­
tirely situated in the past, including its right boundary. Nonetheless, we disagree
with him that “the designated situation . . . is not represented as possibly occurrin g
again until the m om ent o f speech” (p. 116). We argue that isolated SPT-utterances
only allow one to conclude that the situation was not the case anym ore during some
time after the eventuality itself. Unsurprisingly, if considering that a state o f affairs
relevant at S is pragm atically inferred, thus is an implicature, nothing at all is actu­
ally encoded about it except the fact that such an implicature is to be obtained.
Hence the denoted situation can well happen again, depending on contexts. Two

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TIIE SURCOMPOSÉ PAST TENSE 6oi

oral examples, heard by the authors in Switzerland, will help us better understand
the variety o f states o f alfairs holding at S that is understood:

(33) Il a eu essayé den vendre.

“ He try-SP T to sell so m e ”
(34) Jen ai eu com m andé.
“ I order-SPT some.”

Here, the speakers answer questions about the possibility o f (i) buying a painting
from the speakers father (in (33)), and (ii) bu y in g chocolate bars o f a specific brand
(in (34), uttered in a tobacco shop). In both cases, the utterance in itself doesn’t e x ­
plicitly say anything about what the situation to be inferred as holding at S looks
like. In these utterances, the S P T denotes only the past termination at R o f a re­
peated activity that used to be the case before R, any other conclusion being inferred
with recourse to contextual data and the search for relevance. Starting from the lit­
eral information, the hearer can well draw several conclusions at the sam e time: the
request presented is in no way absurd (the painter m a y well agree to sell one o f the
paintings, m aybe another shop can provide the desired chocolate), but the speaker
is unable to fulfill the request (no painting is currently officially on sale, the c h o c o ­
late bars aren’t in stock). These SPT-clauses thus do encode a trigger for a pragmatic
inference true at S and compatible with E both not presently holding and holding
previously , as w e will detail below.
Noticeably, these two utterances typically occur where the interlocutors have to
carefully avoid face-threatening speech acts. They allow one to com m unicate about
S while giving the least possible amount o f information. Such pragmatic effects
would be m u ch less easily available with a present perfect:

(33 ) Il a essayé den vendre.

“ He has tried to sell some.”

(34 ) Jen ai com m andé.

“ I have ordered some.”

(33 ') c o m m u n ic a te s typically that the pain ter has n o w r e n o u n c e d selling his
pain tin gs and ( 3 4 ') that the shop has these bars or will receive them so on . We
shall thus follow W ilm e t s intuition that S P T -u tteran c es allow on e to cancel in ­
ferences triggered by present perfect utterances, but this by no m ea n s implies
that the resultative interpretation is their logical opposite. Indeed, if it were so in
all cases, the con clu sion w o u ld not be optional, w hile it o b v io u sly is, as (35)
below show s. In that perfectly natural ex a m p le a c c o rd in g to native s p e a k e rs ’ in ­
tuitions, the S P T indicates that the po em has been learn ed, then ceased to be
learned, but the k n o w le d g e that arose from le a rn in g is not n e c e ssa rily affected
by the cessation o f the lea rn in g itself— o f course, hence the possibility o f c a n ­
celin g the im p licatu re o f lost k n o w le d g e (the S P T here seem s also to a d d an iter­
ative c o m p o n e n t o f m e a n in g indicating that the speaker used to learn the poem
over and over):

Bahan dengan hak cipta

6 02 TENSE

(35) Je l a i eue apprise, cette poésie, oh oui, et co m m en t donc! Je pourrais encore vous la
réciter par c œ u r au jo u rd ’ hui.
“ I le a rn -S P T this p o e m , oh yes, for sure! I could even tell it b y heart now.”

The fact that the conclusion is optional strongly suggests that it is communicated as
an implicature. Actually, a present tense clause often explicitly states the relevant pre­
sent consequences o f the past situation, as in the following cases, which strengthens
the hypothesis that it is an implicature, since its verbalization is not redundant (as in
examples 4, 36—38):

(36) Oui, j ’ai des attaques de panique, non, je ne suis pas dépressive (je l’ai eu été, par
contre . . . l’un pouvant entraîner l’autre) (Google).
“ Yes, 1 have panic attacks, no, 1am not depressed (1 b e -S P T it [depressed] (it happened
to me), though . . . this possibly causing that).”
(37) II a 1’habitude de jo u e r au plus haut niveau, p u is q u ’il a eu été 63e m ondial (Google).
“ He is used to playing at the highest level, since he b e-SP T (once was) 63rd in the
world.”
(38) J a i eu aimé M u rat, m ais j a i l’impression q u ’il tombe dans la facilité (Google).
“ I lik e-SP T (used to like) M u rat, but I have the im pression that he’s c h o o s in g the easy
way.”

Here, as in m ost o f the exam ples we gathered, either the S P T clause is in a

stative V P (as in (36)—(38)) or it triggers iterative, usual, interpretations (as in (4)),
w h ich in the end also behave like stative clauses. That particular state or habit is
explicitly linked to S by a connective often c o n ve y in g contrast (mais, pourtant, p a r
contre) but it can also convey other relations like cause (puisque). Typical SPT-
utterances that seem to bear the function o f inviting the inference o f a situation at
S are o f the follow ing fo rm : (i) a state o f affairs w a s once true, (ii) that state o f af­
fairs d oesn’t hold at S, (iii) it m a y hold again in the future (or should be expected
to hold again). Either (ii) or (iii) can be pragm atically fo cu sed as relevant, as (39)
and (40) show :

(39) J ai eu été malade; mais je ne le suis plus.

“ I b e-SP T ill (used to be ill, once was ill); but I a m not (ill) anymore.”
(40) Ja i eu été malade: dailleurs, je le suis peut-être à nouveau.
“ I b e -S P T ill (used to be ill, once was ill); actually I m a y be (ill) again.”

In sum , so far it looks like SPT-utterances entail one or m ore relevant inferences
concerning the situation being true at S, on the basis o f two premises:

P r e m is e 1: E ven tuality E (state o r habit) w as the case at s o m e past tim e /.

P rem ise 2: Eventuality E (state o r habit) w a s no lon ger the case d u r in g a time
p o ste rio r to t.

Its only starting from these two premises that the hearer is lead to infer, if
contextually relevant, that E — or a similar situation—might, under certain circum­
stances, be true again at S. A recent exam ple from Swiss television sports news is
enlightening:

Bahan dengan hak cipta

TIIE SURCOMPOSÉ PAST TENSE 603

(41) S ’il fait une super m an ch e [en descente], c o m m e il a eu fait en slalom aussi, il a une
chance [d’avoir une médaille], (reporter W illiam Besse about Swiss skier D. Défago,
Swiss T V , T S R 2 , 2 1.02.10)
“ If he gets a g o o d score [in descent], as he S P T - d o (used to do, once did) in slalom, he
has a chance [ o f getting a medal].”

The speaker o f (41) is a form er Swiss skier, w h o is interviewed by Swiss T V

about the chances o f the Swiss champion D. Défago in the forthcom ing ski co m p e­
tition com bining descent and slalom (Vancouver winter games, 2010). The speaker
implies that if the skier achieves a good score in the descent, he has a chance o f
w in n in g a medal, since he has the potential o f scoring well at the slalom, since he
used to do so. A present perfect would inappropriately imply that he has already run
the slalom o f that very competition.
O u r other exam ples o f S P T in a u ton om ou s clauses without a temporal c o m ­
plem ent are u nd erstood in a sim ilar way. In (4), eat (have the habit to eat) d oesn’t
hold at S, which entails the inference that the person is not well. Starting from p re ­
m ise 2, the utterance leads to another inference co n cern in g S: if the person (here:
the baby) w a s once able to eat norm ally, then it is capable o f eating regularly. In
other w ords, the hearer obtains two conclusions here: the baby is not well, but the
b ab y’s eating regularly should be possible (again), from w h ic h further inferences
are derivable (there must be so m eth in g to do to get back to a norm al situation, for
exam ple). Similarly, in (36), the inferences d raw n are that the speaker is in g o o d
condition, but that he m a y be at risk o f a new breakdow n or o f again ex p erien c in g
consequences o f his past breakdow n (the speaker explicitly says that his current
panic attacks m ight well be the consequences o f a past b reakd o w n , Vun pouvant
entraîner Vautre, “ the one possibly entailing the other” ). U tterance (37) is m ade
relevant at S through the implicature that the s p o rts m a n s capacity, if not what it
used to be, rem ains com parable to what it once was, just as (41) entails that the
sp o rtsm a n ’s abilities are com p arab le to w hat they once were. (38), unsurprisingly,
com m u n icates not only that M urat used to be a great artist and that he’s no longer
d oing great things, but also (i) that M urat rem ains a valu ed artist and (ii) that he’s
able to do better than what he currently does. As for exam ple (29), which we d is­
cussed earlier, the implicature which is cancelled by the mais ‘but’ clause is p re ­
cisely that o f the present potentiality o f knowing what the backtick is re-occu rrin g,
the clause explicitly stating that the notion has been “ forgotten.”

(29) J ai eu su à quoi correspondait le backtick, mais fa i oublié (G o ogle, o u r emphasis).

“ I k n o w - S P T (have had k n o w n ) w hat the backtick w as, but I ’v e forgotten .”

All these examples, we conclude, are about a higher likelihood o f reoccurrence

o f the type o f eventuality than otherw ise expectable, contrarily to C a r ru th e r s (1994)
suggestion that the S P T typically entails “ low likelihood o f reoccurrence.”
SPT-utterances bearing relevance at S have the following structure: the state
resulting from E (e) implies that E is not holding, all the further conclusions c o n ­
cerning S being left to pragmatic inferencing (Figure 20.3):

Bahan dengan hak cipta

6 04 TENSE

E e = ”»E S

- E ----------------Ï — d — I---------
R
F ig u r e 2 0.3. S P T w ith r e le v a n c e at S

5. C o n c lu sio n

In rare cases, in particular because o f a serious problem o f syntactic norm s and the
semantic load im posed by après que, as in (1) or (24) above, the S P T has to adapt to
a situation where E is not only completed at R but is not adjacent to R (that is
im posed by après que). From the fact that a temporal connective has m ore weight
on temporal relations than the tense (see Saussure, 2003), w e hold that in these sp e­
cific cases, the interpretation accom m odates E as non-adjacent to R. Since this is a
problem related m ore specifically to the connective, we will not discuss this case
further here.
At first glance, the classical example o f regional SPT-utterance (5) m ay not seem
to fit our hypothesis o f relevance at S:15

(5) Il a eu coupé, ce couteau (Jolivet, 1984, p. 159).

“ It c u t- S P T (used to cut), this knife.”

A m m a n n (2007, p. 197) explains that (5) is a ‘ good example that the regional
French double p e r f e c t . . . cancels the implication that a certain status holds at the
m om ent o f speech.” We think however that this hypothesis fails to capture the way
SPT-utterances in French, even non-agentive ones such as (5), do com m unicate a
content in relation with the likelihood o f reoccurrence. We think that (5) is typically
uttered by a speaker who doesn’t m erely describe the past state o f the knife but c o n ­
siders a conclusion o f the kind “ this knife should be able to cut” (since it used to
cut). Its only because o f semantic and pragmatic knowledge about a knife not being
the agent o f the cutting and about the material perm anence o f the state o f affairs
that it is further concluded that a knife w h ich doesn’t cut can’t cut again all by itself.
We maintain that (5) expresses surprise at S, or a v ery specific kind o f regret where
a flavor o f hope is som ehow still available, blocked only by world knowledge. Native
speakers o f the regional variety are very sensitive to this elfect, which recalls similar
effects o f S P T structures in other languages, as mentioned in the introduction o f
this article. Such a com ponent o f m e a n in g is unavailable with other past tenses; here
an imparfait , w h ich w ould be the closest expression in this respect, if not a mere
description, gives access only to a plain regret, without any f lavor o f hope (il coupait ,
ce couteau “this knife used to cut” ). We suggest that a mere description o f a past state
o f affairs is simply not possible with the regional SPT. Particular attention should be
paid, in order to further this w ork, to the conditions that help to specify the right
kind o f situation to be inferred at S, and it is quite likely that agentivity plays a role
(as with the sportsm an, the painter, the tobacco shop holder . . . ) . Eventualities that
T H E S U R C O M PO SÉ PA ST T E N SE 605

can’t be p red icted not to h o ld again in d ep en d an tly o f h u m an will (for exam p le a

sentence like il a eu beaucoup p lu dans cette région “ it ra in -S P T a lot in th is area” )
still w o u ld carry, according to us, the representation o f the potentiality fo r the situ­
ation to h o ld again.
In sum , o u r analysis claim s that SPT -utterances b e a r either:

1. relevance at R , R b ein g the fo cu s po in t w here the resulting state o ccu rs

(w hile a pluperfect-utterance w o u ld co m m u n icate that R is fu lly in clu d ed
in the resulting state),16 a case w h ic h happen s typ ically w ith conjun ction s
such as qu an d or adverbial ph rases co n veyin g a specification o f the d u ra ­
tion o f E (vite ‘quickly' en un m om ent ‘ in a m o m e n t1); this is a conven tion al
case in standard Fren ch, w h ich easily appears in narratives.
2. or relevance at S, S b ein g the fo cu s point w here the resulting state is
co n sid ered being o ver fo r a significant w hile; the relevance o f e v o k in g the
situation is found th rou gh an in ference about the intrinsic poten tiality o f
the agent to m ake the k in d o f eventuality hap pen again , or, p erh ap s m ore
broadly, the potentiality o f the k in d o f eventuality to b e the case again in
the w orld , in the fo rm o f a m o d al conclu sion o f a p o ssib ility b ased on a
factual past experience. W e thus con clude that the regional type o f SP T -
utterances are not realizations o f another, regional, specific fo rm , b u t is a
p articu lar enrichm ent o f the regular SPT, an ch o rin g o n the presentn ess o f
the auxiliary, just as w ith a present perfect, even i f speakers o f stan dard
F ren ch reject them as dialectal acco rd in g to th eir n orm .

W e h o ld that the S P T in French, as a tense, en codes an interpretive procedu re,

w h ich specifies the satisfaction o f relevance at R or at S, d ep e n d in g on (i) its c o llo ­
cation w ith adverbials, and (ii) its inscription in n arrative sequences. W h e n n o n e o f
these elem ents are met, then the procedu re orients to w ard searching fo r an im plica-
ture takin g into account the tw o abovem en tio n ed prem ises, an d is consistently
ach ieved w ith a m utually m anifest context.
O n e sh o u ld b e cautious about generalization o f the hypotheses w e d re w about
F ren ch tow ard other languages. Poletto (2009) argues that ep isod ic read in gs o f the
S P T in Italian dialects (i.e., that the event o ccu rred on ce an d b y chance) h a p p e n in
m ain clauses as a result o f anteriority w ithou t available R , w h ic h in turn triggers a
different type o f aspect because o f p u rely syntactic rules (the S P T not b e in g b o u n d
b y an u p p er tense in the syntactic structure), but the F re n c h S P T in m a in clauses
d oes not in itself trigger such readings. In so m e dialects, fu rth erm o re, the p a st in d i­
cated b y S P T fo rm s can be recent and not rem ote, o r stand as a substitute fo r other
p ast tenses su ch as the sim ple past or the pluperfect. N o n e o f these effects seem
available in French, including in the Fran co -P ro ven çal v a rie ty o f F ren ch , despite
h o d iern al interpretations o f the S P T in so m e varieties o f Occitan.
Yet, quite clearly, the exam ples w e gathered fro m E n glish varieties have the
sam e flavor o f relevance in the present as a notable exp erien ce or a p o ssib ly reoccu r-
rin g state o f affairs (see note 2), and it seem s a quite c o m m o n feature o f the S P T
across languages uses to com m un icate specifically about a rem ote e xp e rie n c e or
6o6 TEN SE

habit, even in those lan g u ages w here the S P T also allow s fo r recent past or term ina-
tive aspect, as in G e rm a n , acco rd in g to Poletto (2009). W e h o w e v e r note that, inter­
estingly, the E n g lish S P T is not term inative. In sum , it lo o k s like the S P T across
languages indicate:

1. A n te rio rity (i.e., E past fro m R past fro m S) o r term in ation

2. R e le v a n c e in the present

A s a m atte r o f c o m p a riso n , present p e rfe c t tenses, b e a rin g o n ly o n e (present)

a u x ilia ry s im p ly indicate the relevan ce in the present o f a state resulting fro m a
past even t (excep t for n arrative uses o f the present p e rfe c t in F ren ch w h o sim p ly
indicate the past).
O n e m ig h t fu rth er speculate that, th rou gh processes o f gram m aticization,
im plicatures ab ou t the possible re-o ccu rren ce o f the considered state o f affairs in
the present get m o re an d m o re attached conven tion ally to the tense sim ply because
the event is d escrib ed as b o th rem ote, th rou gh the past auxiliary, an d presently rel­
evant, th ro u g h the present a u x ilia ry E ve n in G e rm a n dialects, that a n o tio n o f “su r­
prise” is often lin ked to S P T allow s fo r a suspicion o f relevance o f the considered
situation in the v e r y deictic present, an d the fact that there is a surprise at all in d i­
cates exp ectatio n s about w h at the present should lo o k like— hence the expected
re-o ccu rren ce o f the even t ab n o rm ally term inated.
M o re e m p irical research is o b v io u sly n ecessary in o rd e r to better understand
h o w the v a rio u s k in d s o f S P T tenses across languages are related or share sim ilar
sem an tic an d p ra g m atic properties, an d h o w th ey differ in structures and/or m e an ­
ings. Poletto (2009) suggests v e r y interestin gly that the choice o f the au x ilia ry (type
be or type have) b ears a strong im p act o n the syntactic features attached to the S P T
as a tense, b u t o n the sem an tic an d p ragm atic side, m u ch in d eed rem ain s to be
explored.

NOTES

1. The authors want to thank Bob Binnick for very useful advice on this chapter, and
Patrick Morency for cautious proofreading. All remaining errors are ours.
2. Amman (2007, p. 195) mentions that English doesn’t seem to have such a form but, as a
matter o f fact, a quick investigation gave us many examples, which often—but not always—
seem to trigger the interpretation o f a remarkable or difficult past experience such as:

(a) You are one o f the strongest people I have had known (Google).
(b) I have had known cancer since 2002 and probably had it before then
(Google).
(c) I have had seen senior runners who have taken tai chi or yoga and over about
six months increased their flexibility to the point where they were pain free
(Google).
T H E S U R C O M P O SÉ PA ST T E N SE 607

(d) The vendor purchased the car in M ay 1980 from Vintage Autos Ltd and has
retained numerous bills relating to the work that he has had done since then
(Google).
(e) What is the most unusual thing you have had eaten from a barbeque?
(Google).
(f) I’ve had gone through that experience before (Google).

3. Ammann’s examples goes as follows: Jetzt haben sie da dieganze Zeit den Spielstand
eingebiendet gehabt, und jetzt auf einmal nicht mehr (“They have [had] included an insert
with the score all this time, and now it’s not there all of a sudden” ). Here the speaker just
gets back to the T V broadcast o f a football game and notices that during the little while he
stopped watching, the insert was removed from the screen.
4. Typical “procedural” expressions are grammatical expressions and discourse
connectives such as but. That tenses encode procedures is a hypothesis made by Nicolle
(1998) and Moeschler (1998), after the seminal work by Blakemore (1987) on procedural
expressions within Relevance Theory. French tenses have been investigated in this view in a
number of works, notably Sthioul (1998), Saussure and Sthioul (1999,2005), Saussure
(2003). See also Sthioul (2007) for considerations about the relation between conceptual
and procedural meanings relative to Beauzée’s (1767) and Reichenbach’s (1947) systems of
coordinates.
5. Reichenbach (1947, pp. 297-299) describes tenses through coordinates: S (present
speech point), E (past, present or future time where the truth-conditions o f the eventuality
are true) and R (a reference point, from which the presentness, pastness or futurity o f the
eventuality is considered).
6. Typically in Grevisse (1988, pp. 1227-1229).
7. Typically in Grevisse (1988, pp. 1229).
8. Beauzée’s claim was a reply to the clergyman Dangeau, who suggested that
pronominal verbs cannot enter SPT-sentences. Beauzée’s idea was that utterances like (15)
can be heard in every day conversations “even in the speech o f the most educated people”
(Beauzée 1 7 6 7 U 9 7 4 ] » p- 4 8 4 , our translation).
9. A similar configuration holds with example (1):

(1) Après qu’ils ont eu causé un instant en tête-à-tête, la duchesse lui a d it . . .

(Dumas, quoted by Damourette and Pichon, 1911-1936, V, p. 294).
“After they speak-SPT (have had spoken) together for a while, the duchess told
h im . . . ”

10. This objection also holds for the analysis proposed recently by Apothéloz (2009),
who specifically addresses the Franco-Provençal case: he presents a developed temporal
account of the regional SPT, claiming that it is “almost synonymous” with the present
perfect o f experience (used to communicate a past experience made by the speaker), except
that the idea o f an experience is explicit with the SPT, and that the experience has to be
remotely past. Thus he also assumes that SPT imposes some relevant period o f time
between E and S where E does not hold.
11. In Guillaumes terminology, SPT is a present biextensif (“biextensive present,”
Guillaume, 1965, pp. 15-27).
12. Benveniste certainly targets Guillaume when writing that aspect won’t bring any
clear clue on the SPT (Benveniste, 1966, pp. 237-238).
13. Regarding the present perfect, Wilmet seems to reiterate a mistake already made
by Guillaume (1965, p. 21), who assumes that a present perfect utterance with an atelic
6o8 TENSE

predicate implies the negation o f the eventuality (the com pletion o f the eventuality),
although data sh o w that it is not necessarily the case (Sthioul, 1998; Saussure, 2003).
14. We don’t have a clear explanation for the fact that the anterior past could be
cxpcctcd as well but still doesn’t look natural in oral spcech while the S P T docs. We
h o w ever think that B envenistes d ich otom y between two registers o f speech (narratives
( histoire) and conversation (discours ) might well be the right explanation in this rcspcct.
15. A n observation by A n d ree Borillo (p.c.).
16. A m m a n n (2007, p. 197) suggests that the S P T can be replaced by a pluperfect, but
o bviously the structure o f the two tenses is very different, and in m ost cases they are not
interchangeable.

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 C H A P T E R 21

BOUND TENSES 1

GALIA HATAV

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

1.1. Terminology
Analyses dealing with tense in language may use different terms for the same con­
cept or the same term for different concepts. To avoid confusion, let me provide
some informal definitions for the key terms evalu ation time , reference tim e , a n d
even t tim e, as used in this chapter.
Following recent semantic analyses, I will use the term evalu ation tim e to refer
to the orientation time of a clause. The speech time seems to be the default evalua­
tion time, but other times may also serve as a (local) evaluation time, as will be
shown below. The term reference tim e , borrowed from Reichenbach (1947), is used
to indicate the location time of a situation (Reichenbach himself seems to use the
term both to indicate orientation and location time). By way o f illustration, con­
sider the following sentence:

(1) Yesterday, M ary drove to Tampa (from Gainesville).

The past tense suggests that the event o f driving to Tampa took place before the
speech time. Thus, we can determine that the speech time is the evaluation time o f
(1). I consider the (two hour) interval o f the actual driving to be the event time, and
the interval depicted by the adverb yesterday in which it is included, the reference
time.
612 TENSE

1.2. The Phenomenon

It has been show n in the semantic literature that, unlike English, languages such as
Russian, Japanese and Hebrew allow the present tense under attitude verbs to over­
lap times excluding the speech time (Barentsen, 1996; Ogihara, 1996; Schlenker,
2003; Sharvit 2003, 2008; Ogihara and Sharvit, this volum e). Thus, while (2) below
is ungram m atical in English, the Hebrew sentence in (3) is grammatical.

(2) *Two years ago, John thought that M iriam loves him.
(3) lifn e y sn a ta yim Yoni x a s a v s e -M iria m ohevet o to
before two.years Yoni think:PAST that-M iriam love:PRES h im 2
“ Two y e a rs ago , Yoni th o u g h t that M iriam lo ved him .”

The evaluation time o f the em bedded present tense in (3) is not the default speech
time, but what Abusch (1997) calls the “n o w ” o f the attitude-holder (Yoni, in our
example), such that the time o f the present tense clause itself is interpreted to over­
lap the thinking time o f the attitude-holder.
To get the Hebrew reading o f the em bedded clause in (3), English resorts to the
operation called Sequence o f Tenses (SOT), resulting in an em bedded past tense
clause. But past-under-past (i.e., a past tense clause em bedded under another past
tense clause) in English is ambiguous. On one reading, it has what En<; (1987) calls
the sim ultaneous reading o f a standard indirect discourse (equivalent to the Hebrew
present-under-past); on the second reading, it has w hat she calls a shifted reading.
The sentence in (4) below illustrates:

(4) Two years ago, John thought that M ary was pregnant.
a. Original thought: M ary is pregnant. (simultaneous reading)
b. Original thought: M ary was pregnant, (shifted reading)

The evaluation time o f the em bedded past tense, both in (4a) and (4b), shifts from
the default speech time to the “n o w ” o f the attitude-holder; however, the em bedded
clause has a different temporal interpretation for each reading. While in (4a) the
time o f the situation depicted by the em bedded clause is interpreted as overlapping
the thinking time o f the attitude-holder, in (4b) it precedes it.
Unlike English, an embedded past-under-past in Hebrew can only have the
shifted reading. Hence languages like English are referred to as s o t languages , while
languages such as Hebrew as non- s o t languages. What both kinds o f languages have
in co m m o n is that the evaluation time m a y shift from the (default) speech time to
another time, e.g., the “ n o w ” o f an attitude holder. Often the ph enom enon is referred
to as tense shift and the em bedded tense as shifted , as opposed to the non-shifted
tenses, which are often referred to also as absolute tenses for having the speech time
as their evaluation time.
In recent semantic studies, absolute and shifted tenses are analyzed in terms o f
free and boun d tenses, respectively/ Von Stcchow (1995), furthermore, distinguishes
between two kinds o f bound tenses: boun d variable tenses and boun d relative
tenses.'1

M aterial com direitos autorais

BO U N D T E N S E S 613

Barentsen (1996) and Abusch (1997), followed by Schlenker (2003), show that
tense shift in s o t and non-soT languages can only apply within the scope o f inten-
sional context; e.g., in sentences (3) and (4), the operation applies due to the attitude
verb “th in k ” To demonstrate that tense shift m ay only occur within the scope o f an
intensional context, Schlenker (2003) provides examples from Russian with em bed­
ding under extensional verb clauses, showing that in such cases the tenses are not
shifted. C onsider one equivalent example (5) from Hebrew:

(5) Yoni pagas et ha-isa se-mityapaxat ba-pina.

Y o n i meet:PAST acc th e-w om an that-sob:PRES in.th e-corn er
“ Y on i m et the w om an w h o is sobbing at the corner.”

A s in the case o f the Russian example analyzed b y Schlenker, the evaluation tim e o f
the em bedded relative clause in (5) does not shift. The present tense o f the clause is
interpreted as overlapping the speech, rather than the meeting, time. Accordingly,
English does not apply the s o t operation, w ith the result that the em bedded clause
is in present rather than past tense.
The approach o f the recent semantic analyses described above seem s to suggest
that tense shifting is a semantico-syntactic phenom enon. Semantically, it can only
apply within the scope o f intensional context. Syntactically, it involves embedded
clauses. In Hatav (2010a) I show that, indeed, tense-shift is only licensed in the
scope o f intensional context. However, the syntactic condition seems to be more
relaxed, as shown in the following Hebrew example (6):

(6 ) M ose pagaS et R ina ba-m esiba se-araxti lifn e y

M o sh e meet:PAST acc Rina in.th e-party th at-(I)-organize:PA ST before
arba Sanim. k a 'a vo r sana/be-od sana hu yitxaten ita
four years after year/in-more year he m arry:FUT with.her
“Moshe met Rina at the party I organized four years ago. A year later he would marry
her/Next year he will marry her.”

The evaluation time o f the future tense verb y itx a te n ‘w ill/would m arry in the
second sentence m ay be the speech time, such that its clause is interpreted to
report an event predicted to take place after the speech tim e (and therefore can be
m odified by an adverb such as b e -o d san a next year1). But this sentence m ay also
have a reading with a shift o f the evaluation tim e, as dem onstrated by the fact that
it c^n be m odified b y ka 'a v o r san a ‘a year later’ On this reading, the w edding
already took place, where the future tense indicates that the time o f the event fol­
lows the tim e o f the event reported in the previous sentence (and it m ay or m ay not
follow the speech time as well). Note that English, too, dem onstrates tense shift, as
the s o t operation has applied, on this reading; hence the m odal w o u ld use rather
than w ill. A s will be shown in section 3, in addition to its use to locate the situation
in time, the future form in Hebrew has a m odal component, w hich is what licenses
the tense shift o f the second m atrix clause in (6). However, this clause is not syn­
tactically em bedded, which is in violation o f the syntactic constraint on tense
shifting.
6 14 TE N SE

I suggest that the tenses in examples like (6) are “controlled” semantically, in
line with Sharvit’s (2003) analysis o f free indirect discourse ( f i d ) and sim ilar to the
behavior o f what has been called non-clause-reflexives or long-distance reflexiviza-
tion in languages like Icelandic. I w ill label shifted tenses whose evaluation times are
outside their respective clauses longdistance bound tenses ( l d b t ) .

1.3. The Hebrew Tenses

The points in this chapter w ill be demonstrated m ainly through (M odern) Hebrew,
with examples from other non-soT languages such as Russian and Japanese. Hebrew
is a good candidate for investigating tense-shift because it has three distinctive m or­
phological tenses: past, future and present. The following examples illustrate each of
the tenses;

(7) Yoni asa kafe

Yoni make:PAST coffee.
“Yoni made/was making/has made coffee”5
(8) Yoni ya ' ase kafe
Yoni make:FUT coffee
“Yoni will make/be making/have made coffee.”
(9) Yoni ose kafe
Yoni make:PRES coffee
“Yoni makes/is making/has been making coffee.”
(10) Rina [Tensc 0 ] be-herayon/mavrika/marca ba-universita
Rina pr e s in-pregnancy/brilliant/lecturer at.the-university
“Rina is pregnant/brilliant/a college professor.”

The exam ple in (10) illustrates what are usually referred to as “nom inal clauses,”
which are verbless clauses, depicting present situations. Berm an (1978) and Shlon-
sky (1997) claim that there is an invisible verb ‘be in such constructions and accord­
ingly, Berm an glosses such clauses with a verb ‘be’ in parentheses. This assumption
finds support in the fact that the equivalent sentences in the past and the future have
the verb 'be, as demonstrated b y the following example:

(11) Rina hayta be-herayon

Rina be:PAST in -p regn an cy
“Rina was pregnant.”

Nonetheless, I do not follow Berm ans lead. Instead I have adopted Edit D orons
(personal communication) suggestion and put a 0 into the structure o f the sentence
where the verb is “supposed” to appear.
The present chapter is organized as follows. Section (2) discusses tense interpre­
tation. I will first discuss the semantics o f free and bound tenses, adopting in gen­
eral the analysis suggested in von Stechow (1995)» ancl *hen proceed to show that
pragm atics may also have a role in tense interpretation. Section (3) discusses long­
distance-bound tenses ( l d b t ), whose evaluation times are outside their respective
 BOUND TEN SES 615

clauses. One o f the crucial differences between clausal and long-distance tense
binding, I will show, is that the form er is an obligatorily operation, while the latter
is only optional. Section (4) summarizes the points m ade in the previous sections.

2. I n t e r p r e t a t i o n of Tenses

A num ber o f theories have been suggested within form al semantics to account for
tense interpretation in language, with Tense Logic and the referential theory o f Par-
tee (1973) being the most influential ones.
The approach o f Tense Logic developed by Prior (1957, 1967) and followed by
M ontague (1973) treats tenses as operators. Prior discerns the operators P and F,
which he claims can be applied to present tense sentences, yielding, respectively,
past- and future tense sentences. M ost analyses o f the Priorian operators under­
stand them as existential quantifiers. For instance, the sentence Jo h n w as in Tam pa
is analyzed this way: there is a time t prior to the speech time, and Joh n is in Tam pa
is true at t. This analysis has been shown to be problematic for natural language,
yielding undesired truth conditions (cf. Hornstein, 1981, 1990, and von Stechow,
1995, am ong others).6 To get an idea o f this, consider the most celebrated sentence
(12) from Partee (1973):

(12) I did not turn the stove off.

I f we analyze (12) as saying that there was a tim e when I did not turn the stove off,
we get a trivially true sentence, which is not what the original sentence conveys. If
we analyze it as saying that there was no time at which I turned the stove off, we
probably get a false sentence, but even i f true, it is not what the original sentence
means. Partee correctly claims that this sentence m eans that at some specific time
before departing m y home I did not turn the stove off, and accordingly suggests a
different account for tenses.
Partee (1973) argues that tenses are like pronouns, an analysis she develops fu r­
ther in Partee (1984). Like pronouns, tenses are free or bound variables, which
require (temporal) antecedents for their interpretation (cf. note 3). This basic idea
w a$ adopted by a number o f linguists, adapting it to their respective analyses (Heim,
1994; von Stechow, 1995,2002; Kratzer, 1998; am ong others).
O gihara (1996, 2007) argues for a m ixed approach o f referential and existential
analysis and von Stechow (19 9 5) adopts Partees (1973) analysis while incorporating
P rio rs operators in a way that does not necessarily quantify over the event time. In
this chapter, I (generally) follow von Stechows analysis. In particular, I adopt his
distinction o f bound variable and bound relative tenses and the semantics he sug­
gests for the free, and the two kinds o f bound tenses.
Sub-section 2.1 discusses the semantics o f free tenses, showing that within the
scope o f an extensional context, both m atrix and embedded tenses use the default
б іб TENSE

speech tim e as their evaluation tim e. Sub-section 2.2 d iscu sses boun d variable and
b ou n d relative tenses, co m p arin g so t languages, notably E nglish, w ith non-SGT
languages, notably Hebrew. A n d finally, sub-section 2.3 show s that pragm atic c o n ­
siderations m ay have a role in tense interpretation.

2.1. Free Tenses

Within von Stechow s account o f free and bound tenses, the variable to is called the
distinguished (time) variable. If it is free, it denotes the speech time (i.e., the default
evaluation time); otherwise it denotes a local evaluation time such as the “n o w ” o f
an attitude holder. Tenses com e with an index as one o f their arguments, where the
index denotes the reference time. The rules (13a) and (13b) are stipulated for the past
and present tense, respectively; I added (13c) for the Hebrew future:7

(13) Tenses denotations (t4 I = reference time; to = evaluation

time; o = overlap; < = precede; > = follow)
a. PASTi is translated as AP[t. < to & P(t.)]
b. pREsi is translated as AP[t) o t & P ( t )]
c. FUTi is translated as AP[t. > t & P(t ))

In p r o s e , PASTi m e a n s that t. p r e c e d e s th e e v a l u a t i o n t i m e to, w h e r e ti is the r e f e r e n c e

t i m e o f p a s t , PREsi m e a n s that t o v e r l a p s the e v a l u a t i o n t i m e to o f p r e s , a n d г и т і
m e a n s that t. f o l l o w s the e v a lu a tio n t i m e t o f f u t .8 The c o n t e n t part o f the clause is
c o n s i d e r e d a p r o p e r t y P, w h i c h a pplies to th e r e f e r e n c e t i m e ( y i e l d i n g a s e n t e n c e ).
Tlie interpretation o f free tenses follows straightforwardly from the denotations
in (13), where the speech time serves as their evaluation time. C o n sid e r example
(14a) and its logical form (LF) (14b):

(14) a. John went to Tampa.

b. past ( (John go to Tampa)

Substituting past in (14b) with its definition (13a), we get the formula (14c) and its
corresponding form ula ( n d ) when applying lam bda-conversion:

(14) c. AP[t( < tQ& P(tt)] (John go to Tampa)

d. ti < to & John-go-to-Tam pa (t)

Since it is free, the denotation o f the evaluation time to o f p a s t in (14) is the speech
time, so the reference time t( precedes the speech time; the property o f Jo h n s going
to Tampa is applied to the reference time tt, yielding a sentence which is true if the
event o f John going to Tampa occurred at t(.
This applies to em bedded clauses under extensional expressions. Consider e x ­
ample (5) reproduced here under (15a):

(15) a. John met the wom an who is sobbing at the corner.

b. p a s t John meet the wom an p r e s who be sobbing at the corner.
c. AP[t( < t & P(t )](John meet the w om an) AQ[t o t& & Q(t )](who
be sobbing at the corner)

Material com direitos autorais

BOUND TENSES 6 17

Since there is no intensional expression in (15a), its LF (15b) does not include an
expression relativizing the embedded present tense. In other words, not only the
m atrix but also the embedded tense is free, which is shown more clearly when
substituting the denotations o f the tenses in (15c). A s shown by (15c), the evaluation
time to both o f the matrix and the relative clause is free, denoting the speech time.
Accordingly, the reference time o f the m atrix precedes the speech tim e and the
reference time t2 o f the relative clause overlaps it, such that (15a) is true iff the
m eeting tim e precedes the speech time and the sobbing time overlaps it.
To conclude, tenses within the scope o f extensional contexts are free, using the
default speech time as their evaluation time, whether they are embedded or not. The
next section will discuss embedded tenses within the scope o f intensional contexts,
showing them to be bound, with an evaluation time shifted from the speech time to
som e other time.

2.2. Bound Tenses

As illustrated in the introduction, tenses m ay shift and be bound to some local eval­
uation time, provided they are in the scope o f an intensional context. I have identi­
fied in the literature a number o f intensional operators that license tense shift (see
Abusch 1997; Schlenker 1999, 2003; von Stechow 1995, 2002); in this section, I will
illustrate the phenomenon m ainly with attitude verbs.9
Two observations o f Abusch (1997) can explain the phenomenon o f tense shift
under attitude verbs. First, in sentences such as (4) above it is not necessarily the
case that M ary was pregnant but that she had som e situation, say a big belly (maybe
from over-eating), which made John think she was. Second, the time o f the alleged
pregnancy is not referential but is Johns subjective “now.” Thus the reading o f the
em bedded clause in sentences like (4) is called a d e se, or d e n un c in von Stechow
(2002) terms, to reflect that its temporal interpretation is not with respect to the
objective tim e o f the situation but the subjective time o f the “self.” (We will discuss
later sentences with what is called a d e re reading, where their tenses are interpreted
with respect to an objective time.) Accordingly, the sentence in (4) may be para­
phrased as follows: two years ago, John located him self at a time and a w orld to
which he attributed the property o f M ary being pregnant. Hence the m eaning rule
(1^) below for attitude verbs suggested in the semantic literature (cf. von Stechow,
1995; Heim and Kratzer, 1998; am ong others):

(16) IthinkI(P)(x)(t)(w) = 1 iff for every w ' and t' compatible with what x thinks in
w a t t , P(t')(w ') = 1.

The rule can be paraphrased as “x thinks that s/he is in a world at a time such that P
is true in that world at that time.’ In other words, attitude verbs involve a universal
quantifier quantifying over world-tim e pairs, which explains tense binding within
their scope.
Von Stechow (1995) suggests the following examples to illustrate his distinction
o f bound variable and relative tenses:
6 i8 TENSE

(17) a. John thought that Mary was pregnant, (simultaneous reading)

(was = bound variable)
b. John thinks that Mary is pregnant.
(is = bound variable)
c. John thinks that Mary was pregnant.
(was ~ relative past)
d. John thought that Mary was pregnant. (shifted reading)
(was = relative past)

For the bound tenses in (17a) and (17b), where the embedded clauses have the si­
multaneous reading, von Stechow follows O giharas (1996) idea that the tenses o f
the embedded clauses are deleted at LF, due to the s o t operation.10
Ogihara (1996) suggests an optional rule, determ ining that an embedded tense
is deleted under identity o f the local tense, i.e., the m atrix tense that c-com m ands it
(cf. Ogihara and Sharvit, this volum e). Adopting Ogiharas rule o f deletion and fol­
lowing a general syntactic convention that operators shifting the time always do so
via A-abstraction over to (= the evaluation time), I follow von Stechow and suggest
LFs (18a) and (18b) for (17a) and (17b), respectively:11

(18) a. p ast John think A [that p a s t Mary be pregnant]

b. p re s John think A [that f» R B S Mary be pregnant]

A s there is no lam bda-expression binding the m atrix tenses in (18a, b), their evalua­
tion time is free, which m eans that it denotes the speech time. Applying rules (13a, b),
we can determine that the reference time t o f the m atrix precedes the speech time in
the case o f (18a), and overlaps it in the case o f (18b). On the other hand, the evalua­
tion time t o f the complement clauses both in (18a) and (18b) is bound, as indicated
b y the lambda-expression Ao, such that its denotation is Johns thinking time. Now,
since they are identical to the m atrix, the embedded tenses in (18a, b) are deleted and
the time o f their respective clause is understood to overlap the thinking time.
The em bedded bound tense in (17c) is not identical to its c-c6m m anding tense
and therefore it cannot be deleted. Rather it is a (bound) relative tense, which takes
an index as one o f its arguments, as represented by LF (18c) below I suggest for it.
Since the deletion rule is only optional, we can get the bound relative reading (^ d )
for the past-under-past even though the m atrix and the embedded tenses are iden­
tical, and the corresponding LF (i8d):

(18) c. pres] John think Ajthat 3ta [ p a s t j Mary be pregnant]]

d. past John think AJthat 3t2 [ p a s t ^ Mary be pregnant]]

(18c) and (i8d) represent that John thinks and thought, respectively, that M ary
was pregnant at a time preceding his subjective “now.”
The following sections will elaborate further on relative tenses, using data from
Hebrew. Being a n o n - s o T language, Hebrew only has bound tenses that are relative.
In sub-sections (2.2.1)—(2.2.3) 1 will concentrate, respectively, on the bound relative
past, present and future in Hebrew, comparing them with the English bound tenses.
BOUND TEN SES 619

2 .2 .1. Bound Relative Past

The Hebrew tenses, I argue, are never deleted when em bedded under attitude verbs,
whether the em b ed din g tense is identical to the matrix or not. (Recall that deletion
is only optional, as demonstrated by the fact that past-under-past in English m a y
have a shifted reading.) E xam ple (19) from Sharvit (2008) and example (20) d e m o n ­
strate that p a s t does not lose its anteriority in Hebrew:

(19) lifney savua Dan hexlit se-tox asara yam im bi-zman

before week Dan d ecid e:P A S T that-in ten days at-tim e.of
aruxat ha-boker hu yom ar le-im o se-hu hitgaagea eleha
m eal.of the-m orning he say:FU T to-mother.his that-he m issrPAST to.her
“ Two weeks ago, Dan decided that in ten days, during breakfast, he would tell his
mother that he missed her.”
Original decision: “ I will tell m y mother that I missed her.”
(20) M ose xasav se-m isehu xitet lo ba-megerot
M oshe th in k :PA S T that-som ebody sn o op :P A S T to .h im in.the-drawers
“ Moshe thought that som ebody had snooped in his drawers.”

As noted by Sharvit, the past tense verb hitgaagea ‘missed’ in (19) can only have the
shifted reading, where it is interpreted relative to the future time o f the telling. Similarly,
the verb xitet snooped’ in (20) is understood to depict a situation preceding the thinking
time.
However, it has been argued that in n o n - s O T languages a past t e n s e can s o m e ­
times support a s i m u l t a n e o u s reading in standard indirect discourse (cf. Barentsen,
1996; Sharvit, 2003, 2008; Altshuler, 2004; Ogihara and Sharvit, this volum e). C o n ­
sider Sh arvits (2008) Hebrew example (27) given as (21) below:

(21) Y o se fa m a r se-M iriam hayta hara

Yosef say:PAST that-M iriam b e:PA S T pregnant.

A ccording to Sharvit, (21) is am biguous between a simultaneous reading, where

Y osef said M iriam is pregnant , and a back-shifted reading, where he said Miriam
was pregnant. While I agree with Sharvits ju d gm en t that the (alleged) state o f being
pregnant m a y overlap (in part) the saying time, I disagree with her analysis that (21)
m ay have a simultaneous reading. (Cf. Hatav, 2010b.)
Suppose M iriam was fired and ten months later the following conversation took
place:

(22) Dina: ze lo It« » * ® ] neged ha-xok le-fater nasim harot?

this NEG p res against the-law to-fire w om en pregnant
“Isn’t it illegal to fire pregnant w om en ?”

Yosef: ze [7 « !« ®] neged ha-xok, aval M iriam rak nixnesa

th is p res again st th e -la w but M iriam just en tcr:PA ST
Ie-herayon hi lo hayta hara k o d e m / lifn e y asara
t o - p r e g n a n c y she neg bc:PAST p re g n a n t p re v io u s ly / b e fo re ten

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620 TENSE

x o d a s im

m o n th s
“ It is, but M iriam just got pregnant/M iriam is now pregnant; she w as not before/
ten months ago.”

Y o s e f ’s reply in (22) can n ot be reported b y (21). The fo llo w in g d isco urse d e m ­

onstrates fu rth e r that the sim u lta n eo u s read in g is not possible for H e b re w
past-u n der-p ast:

(23) a. Dan cilcel su v v e -su v b a -d e le t aval af e x a d lo

D an ring:PA ST a g a in a n d -a g a in in .th c -d o o r but neg one neg

ana
an sw er:P A S T

“ Dan rang the door over and over again but n obody answered.”
b. hu higia la-m askana /raa se-Rina
he com e:P A S T to.thc-conclusion / s c c :p a s t that-Rina
1° [Tcnsc 0 ] (# h a y ta ) b a -b a y it/ v e -h a la x le-d a rk o
n f.g p r e s (#be:PAST) in .th e -h o m e and-go:PA ST to-way.his
“ H e c a m e to the c o n c lu sio n /saw that Rina w as not h o m e an d w en t away.”
c. hu am ar le-isto se -R in a k a n ire (Teiwt. 0 l (# h a y ta)
he say:PAST to -w ife .h is th a t-R in a p ro b a b ly p r e s be:PAST
y e sc n a ve -lo [Tenw 0 ] (# h a y a ) keday le - h a fr ia la
a sleep and-N EG pres (#be:PAST) w o rth w ile to -d istu rb to .h er
“ H e told h is w ife that R in a w as p ro b a b ly sle e p in g a n d sh o u ld not be d istu rb ed .”

T h e context in (23a) suggests that the (alleged) situation o f Rina not b e in g

h o m e rep o rted in (b) overlap s the subjective tim e o f D a n s belief, and the ( p o s ­
sible) situation o f Rina b e in g asleep rep o rted in (c) overlap s D a n ’s utterance
time. In other w o rd s, the e m b e d d e d clauses both in (23b) and (23c) m u st have a
s im u lta n e o u s re a d in g . Sin ce past tense gives rise to the a n te rio rity r e a d in g only,
I argue, a past tense in the e m b e d d e d clauses o f (23b, c) w o u ld be in c o m p atib le
w ith what se e m s to be stated, w h ic h e x p la in s w h y it results in u n g r a m m a tic a l
(or at least u n a cce p tab le ) sen ten ces. A c c o rd in g ly , m y contention is that the
e m b e d d e d past tense clause in (21) only has the b a c k -sh ifte d re a d in g (w h ere
Y o s e f said M iriam was pregnant ) .12 H o w ever, the (alleged) state o f bein g p r e g ­
nant m a y have c o n tin u ed at the tim e o f Y o s e f s utterance. T h is , I argue, is due
to the d istribu tive p ro p e rty o f states, w h ich c o r r e s p o n d s to V e n d le r ’s (1967)
h o m o gen eity.
R e s t in g on the n o tio n o f in te r v a l s e m a n tic s , the d ist rib u t iv e p r o p e r t y has
b e e n a n a ly z e d in a m o r e fo r m a l w a y than s u g g e s t e d in itially by V e n d le r (Taylor,
19 77; B e n n e tt and P artee, 1978; D o w ty , 1979, 1986; B a c h , 1981; H in r ic h s , 1985,
1986). In te r v a l s e m a n t ic s is the idea o f e v a lu a t in g the truth o f a s e n te n c e with
re sp e c t to tim e in te rv a ls (r a th e r than to m o m e n t s or p o in ts o f tim e ). The d i s t r i b ­
utive p r o p e r t y d efin ed w i t h i n this f r a m e w o r k is c o n c e r n e d w i t h the rela tio n sh ip
o f the situ a tio n and a n y o f its s u b p a r ts . It h as b e e n stip u lated that states (and

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B O U N D TENSES 621

activities) are true in e v e ry su binterval. For instance, i f M a r y lived in Boston

from 1982 to 1994, then it is true that M a r y lived in Boston in 1988. In contrast,
events are n on -d istrib u tive. If M a r y d rew a circle (say it took her ten m inutes), it
is not the case that she drew a circle in e v e ry su b in terva l o f those ten m inutes.
(Rather, she w a s d ra w in g a circle, or was engaged in d ra w in g a circle in the s u b ­
intervals o f the event she drew a circle.) In other w ords, an event is a singleton,
only true in one interval, w h ile a state is distributive and can be true in m o re than
one. F or that reason, states are cu m u la tiv e as o p p o se d to events. O n e can add
intervals to a state and still m aintain that sam e state, but not to an event. This
explains the different entailm ents o f states and events noted by D o w ty (1986) and
R ein h art (1986):

(24) a. M a ry ate the apple. -> M ary is not eating it now.

b. M ary will eat the apple tomorrow. -» M ary is not eating it now.
(25) a. I was sick yesterday. - -> I am not sick now.
b. I will be at hom e tomorrow-. ~ -> I am not at home now'.

The antecedents o f the implications (24a, b) denote events, and thus they imply
that the events cannot obtain after or before their respective reference time. Since
the reference time precedes and follows, respectively, the evaluation time, which
happens in our examples to be the speech time, the events cannot overlap it. In c o n ­
trast, the states denoted by (25a, b) do not entail that the reference time restricts the
states’ duration, so they m a y obtain beyond the reference time and, crucially, may
overlap the evaluation time.
A c c o r d in g ly , w e can c o n c lu d e that i f a clause o f an e m b e d d e d past is stative
its situation m a y c o n tin u e b e y o n d its referen ce tim e to overlap the local e v a l u ­
ation time. T h u s , the (alleged) state o f M ir ia m b e in g pregnant re p o rte d in the
e m b e d d e d clause o f (21) m a y con tin u e b e y o n d its referen ce tim e and overlap
the time at w h ic h Y o se f uttered the sentence M iriam hay ta hara ‘M ir ia m was
pregnant.’ 13

2 . 2 . 2 . Bound Relative Present

As illustrated in the introduction, an em bedded present tense behaves very differ­
ently in English and in n o n - s o T languages. Reconsider example (26 = 3) from
Hebrew, and its English translation:

(26) lifn e y snatayim Yoni xasav se-M iria m ohevet oto

before two.years Yoni think:PAST that-M iriam loverPRi-s him
“ T w o years ago, Yoni thought that M iria m loved him.”
Original thought: M iria m loves me.

Instead o f the present tense in the original Hebrew example, English has a d e­
leted past. In other words, the H ebrew p r e s seems to function like the English de­
leted p a s t .1'1 Accordingly, von Stechow (2002, 2003) suggests a parametric rule for
an em bedded p r e s under attitude verbs. While he follows Ogihara in assum ing that

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622 TEN SE

only i f their tense is identical to the embedded tense they bind can attitude verbs
delete it in English, von Stechow claims that in languages like Russian they always
delete the present tense they bind “regardless what their tense is” (2003, p. 18). How­
ever, von Stechow (2002, p. 44) admits that this is a mere stipulation.
In accord with m y claim that Hebrew does not delete tenses under attitude
verbs, I adopt von Stechows (i 995 >P- n ) analysis o f the bound relative present (27b)
he suggests for the Germ an sentence in (27a):

(27) a. Bill believed that Mary is pregnant.

b. past, Bill believe [Ao that 3i [p r e s i Mary be pregnant] ]

A s determ ined by von Stechow for the Germ an sentence, the sentence in
Hebrew means that Bill believed that M ary was pregnant at a tim e overlapping his
subjective “ now,” but the English sentence does not have this reading. (Recall that to
get this reading English would have a deleted p a s t .)
However, von Stechow (1995) correctly notes that (27a) is not necessarily un­
gram m atical in English. A s observed first by Smith (1978), English m ay have pres­
ent-under-past. The examples in (28a-c) are Sm iths examples (110 -112 ), and the
example in (29a) is from Abusch (1997, example 8):

(28) a. The Egyptians knew that the earth is round.

b. Sam told me that Mary is leaving next week.
c. I heard last night that Whitney is sick.
(29) a. John believed that Mary is pregnant.
b. Two weeks ago, John thought that Mary is pregnant.

A ccording to Smith, present-under-past is only possible in English if the pre­

sent tense has what she calls a “double access” reading, where the eventuality
obtains both at the speech tim e and the subjective “ now” o f the attitude holder.15
This has been explained by Schlenker (1999) as due to the fact that the present
tense in English is what he calls m atrix indexical, i.e., it can never exclude the
speech time.
Note that the Hebrew equivalents would also have an em bedded present tense.
In other words, the present-under-past in Hebrew m ay be am biguous between in­
cluding and excluding the speech time. This is illustrated by (30a) below, which can
be continued either by (30b) or (30c):

(30) a. lifney Svuayim Yoni xasav se-Miryam [Tcnse 0 ] be-herayon

before two.weeks Yoni think:PAST that-M iriam p r e s in-pregnancy
“ Two weeks ago, Yoni thought that M iriam is/was pregnant.”
b. u-m e-az hu m istovev km o tarnegol ba-lul
and-since-then he go.around:PRES as rooster in.the-(hens)cage
“And since then he has been w alking around like a rooster in a
hens cage.”
c. aval etmol noda lo se-hu taa
but yesterday get.known:PAST to-him that-he be.wrongiPAST
"But yesterday he found out that he was wrong.”
B O U N D T EN SES 623

The double-access reading is problematic. Assum ing that the iam bda-operator
binds the tim e o f the embedded clause to the “now ” o f the attitude-holder, we have
to explain how it can refer to the speech time as well. Abusch’s (1997) solution is to
interpret the present tense in such constructions d e-re , as referring not to the sub­
jective time o f the attitude-holder but to the objective “real” tim e o f the situation.
Follow ing her lead, Heim (19 9 4 ) suggests an operation she calls ras-movement,
which m oves the embedded clause out o f the lam bdas scope. This line o f analysis
m ay b e adopted f o r the double access reading in n o n - s o T languages such as Japanese
and Hebrew, as done by Ogihara and Sharvit (this volume). A sim ilar explanation
can account for the behavior o f embedded present-under-past in relative clauses.
It has been observed that if its matrix contains an attitude verb, the tense o f a rela­
tive clause m ay or may not be shifted. Consider the following example from Hebrew:

(31) Rina xasva se-ha-is se-m itxabe me’axorey ha-aron

Rina thinktPAST that-the-m an that-hide:PRES behind the-closet
roce la-harog ota.
wantiPRES to-kill her
“Rina thought that the man w ho was/is hiding behind the closet wanted to kill her”

A s analyzed b y Ogihara (1996) for an equivalent Japanese sentence, the present

tense o f the relative clause in (31) has two readings. O n one reading, the time o f the
situation depicted in the relative clause overlaps the “now” o f Rina. To get this
reading, English generates a past tense clause (Rina thought that the man w ho w as
hiding. ..) , deleting the embedded p a s t at the LF level. The shifted reading o f the
present tense in Hebrew (and the deleted p a s t in English) is expected, since the
relative clause is embedded under a clause with an attitude verb. On the second
reading, though, the time o f the relative clause surrounds the speech time, possibly
excluding the thinking time. In this case, the tense does not shift, as reflected b y the
English translation (Rina thought that the m an who is h id in g ...) . The latter is prob­
lematic both for English and Hebrew.
Abusch (1997) accounts for the possibility o f having present-under-past in E n g­
lish relative clauses and Ogihara (1996) accounts for the non-shifted reading o f the
present tense in Japanese sentences equivalent to (31) in a sim ilar way, stipulating
that the relative clause in such cases is scoped out during its syntactic derivation,
nam efy at the LF level, where the sentence in (31) gets the structure in (31’).

(3 1') The man who is hiding behind the closet, Rina thought that (the man) wanted to kill her.

W hen it is scoped out, the relative clause is no longer c-com m anded by the m atrix,
and therefore does not undergo the s o t operation in English or tense shift in
Japanese and Hebrew.

2.2.3. Bound Relative Future

We have seen that Hebrew has a future tense, whose time is interpreted as posterior
to the evaluation time. Sentence (8) in the introduction illustrates a free future
624 TENSE

tense, w hose clause depicts a situation that is predicted to occur after the speech
time. The example in (32a) b elow illustrates a boun d relative future:

(32) a. M ose paxad se-misehu ycxatct lo

M oshe fear:PA S T th a t- s o m e b o d y s n o o p :F U T to .h im

b a -m e g e r o t
in . th e -d r a w e r s

“M oshe was afraid that som ebody would snoop in his drawers.”
b. pasi ^M oshe fear |/\ that 3 „ [p u t , som ebody snoop in his drawers)]

In (32), the future tense verb yexatet ‘will snoop’ is em bedded under the past
tense verb paxad ‘feared’ and c -co m m an d ed by it; hence its evaluation time is
M osh es fear time, which means that the possible event o f so m eb o d y sn oop in g is
located in the future with respect to the time M oshe w as concerned.
The future form in Hebrew will be illustrated further in section 3.

2.3. Pragmatic Considerations

The claim that tense shift is not possible in an exten sio nal context m a y be ch a l­
lenged by sentences such as (33) below:

(33) The police captured the m an w ho stole the automobile.

A lt h o u g h there is n o intensional ex p ressio n in (33), we are m o st likely to u n d e r ­

stand its relative clause to be restrictive, d ep ictin g an event p re c ed in g the event
rep orted by the m a t r i x .16N o te, how ever, that this is o n ly an invited im plicature. The
past tense o f the relative clause in (34) b elo w is not likely to be u n d e rs to o d as a rel­
ative past:

(34) A bus ran over a w om an, who w as severely injured.

It is m o r e likely to u n d erstan d the event o f the relative clause to fo llow the one
depicted b y the m atrix, and thus the relative clause to be non-restrictive.
M y contention is that the te m p o ra l relationship w e u n d ersta n d h o ld in g between
the relative clause and the m atrix , both in (33) and (34), is due to p ra g m a tic c o n s id ­
e ra tio n s.17 A s a matter o f fact, we can find contexts w h ere the event o f the relative
clause in (33) is better interpreted as fo llo w in g the event d epicted by the m atrix .
Su p p o se the police captured a m u r d e r suspect, w h o m a n a g e d to escape, stealing a
car and d r iv in g off. In this case, we u n d ersta n d the relative clause to be n o n - r e s tr ic ­
tive and its situation to follow in tim e the situation depicted by the m a trix . A n
adverb such as “o ne h o u r later” m a y b rin g out this m e a n in g , as illustrated in (35):

(35) The police captured the m an, wrho one hour later stole the automobile.

Sim ila rly , w e can find co n te x ts w h e r e the event o f the relative cla u se in (34)
p r e c e d e s the even t o f the m a t r ix . S u p p o s e there w a s a s u ic id e b o m b i n g attack
and a w o m a n go t s e v e re ly in ju red , but b e fo r e th e y m a n a g e d to take h e r to the

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BOUND TENSES 625

hospital a bus came by and ran her over. In such case, we would be dealing with
a restrictive relative clause with the presupposed event preceding the matrix, as
shown in (36):

(36) A bus ran over a woman who had been severely injured at the terror attack.

This intuitive explanation can be given a formal account within the framework
o f SDRT (Segmented Discourse Representation Theory) developed by Asher (1993)
and Asher and Lascarides (2003).18
SDRT suggests an analysis o f determining the discourse relations between
propositions introduced in a (coherent) text and the relations between the events
they describe, taking into consideration not only linguistic knowledge, with logical
entailments, but also world knowledge, whose inferences may be defeasible. C ru­
cially for the present discussion, the temporal structure of a discourse may be
determined by the kind o f discourse relations, such as Result, Explanation and Nar­
ration, holding between its propositions. The following examples illustrate (Asher
and Lascarides, 2003, p. 6):

(37) a. M ax fell. John helped him up.

b. M ax fell. John pushed him.

As noted by Asher and Lascarides, discourses (37a) and (37b) have the same tense
forms and aspectual classes, yet they seem to imply different temporal structures. In
(37a), the sentences are interpreted as relating a story in which a certain sequence o f
events is described; hence they are understood to be temporally ordered. In (37b), the
second clause serves to explain the first, and this discourse connection has a different
temporal effect: the falling happens after (and as a consequence of) the pushing.
Since the discourse relations are based in part on world knowledge they are
defeasible, and “one and the same proposition can have different discourse roles in
different contexts” (Asher and Lascarides, 2003, p. 136). The relationship between
Max fell and John pushed him, for example, is Explanation in (37b) above but Narra­
tion in (38) below (p. 136; Lascarides and Asher, 1993, p. 465):

(38) John and Max were at the edge o f a cliff. Max felt a sharp blow to the back o f his
neck. Max fell John pushed him. Max rolled over the edge of the cliff.

^The different relationships in (37b) and (38) have an effect on the temporal
order of the events. While in (37b) Max’s falling follows Johns pushing, in (38) it is
the other way around.
This analysis can explain the different temporal structures of the examples (33)
and (34 ) as opposed to their counterparts (35) and (36), respectively. For example,
while the relationship in (33) o f the relative clause and its matrix is Explanation, in
(35) it is Narration. Accordingly, in (33) the event reported in the relative clause is
interpreted as preceding the event reported in the matrix, but in (35) the two events
are understood to have a reverse order.
M y conclusion is that a past tense in extensional contexts only denotes that the
reference time precedes the speech time. That it may be interpreted as preceding the
626 TENSE

time o f the event reported in the previous clause as in (33, 37b) or following it as in
(34, 37a), is due to the discourse structure 01* som e pragmatic factors. Accordingly, I
suggest for (39a = 33) LF (39b), with no lam bda expression:

(39) a. The p olicc capturcd the m an w h o stole the autom obile.

b. PASTi the police capture the m an p a s t : w h o steal the automobile.

c. AP(tj < to & P (t))(th c policc capture the man) AQ[t. < t & Q (t2)] (who
steal the automobile)

Substituting past ( and p a s t ^ in (39b) with the denotation o f the past tense (13a),
we get the form ula in (39c), w h ic h suggests, as required, that the evaluation time o f
the relative clause is free, which in turn m eans that it denotes the speech time, such
that the clause is not to be interpreted (semantically) with respect to the capturing
time.

2.4. Conclusion
In this section, I discussed tenses syntactically b o u n d within their clause. However,
tenses m a y also be boun d semantically to som e antecedent outside their clause, a
phenom enon to which I turn now.

3. L o n g D ist a n c e Sem a n t ic B in d in g
of Tenses

The ph enom enon o f semantically long distance binding o f tenses will be d e m o n ­

strated m ain ly by the future form in Hebrew, which necessitates som e discussion on
the future in general and in Hebrew in particular (sub-section 3.1). Sub-section 3.2
will discuss the interpretation o f semantic long distance “ bindin g” o f tenses and 3.3
will show that such binding is only optional.

3.1. Future
C o m rie (1985) shows that in expressing future time reference, som e languages have
clear-cut future tenses while som e use a m odal form , and yet others use a fo rm that
is am biguous between tense and modality. Hebrew seems to be an example o f the
latter.19
As noted in the introduction, Hebrew has a m orphological future tense, which
m a y be free as in (8) above, or bound as in (32), such that its clause depicts an event
predicted to take place after the speech time and the local evaluation time, respec­
tively. But the future form may also be used to express modality.
Hebrew does not have non-indicative modal form s, except for the imperative,
which is b ecom in g rare (cf. Aronoff, 2007, p. 823).20 The future is usually used in

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BOUND TENSES 627

contexts w h e r e a m o d a l form is ex p ected (see Bolozky, 2009). Thus, speech -acts

such as d e m a n d s and requests, fo r exam ple, are usually p e r fo r m e d by the future
f o r m .21 E x a m p le (40) b elo w fu rth e r illustrates the p h e n o m e n o n :

(40) hi toxal rak b e-m isad o t yekarot

she eat:FUT o n ly in -restau ran ts expen sive
“ She w ould o n ly cat in exp en sive restaurants.”

The sentence in (40) expresses som e m odality in the present rather than the
future time.
We m ay conclude that in cases such as (8) and (32) the future form is stripped o f its
modal component, while in cases such as (40) it is stripped o f its temporal one. H o w ­
ever, it seems to be usually the case that it has a double function, bearing both a tempo­
ral and modal component. This m a y be demonstrated by examples like (41) below:22

(41) ba-san a h a-b aa hu yik n e et ha-bayit

in .th e-year th e-co m in g he buy:FUT лее the-house
se-su p ac (savu w a k od cm )
that-renovate:PASsiVE:PAST w eek p revio u sly
“ Next year, he w ill buy the house that was renovated (a week earlier).”

For h avin g a tense component, the future form in the matrix o f (41) is under­
stood to depict a situation that is predicted to take place after the speech time. But
since it is also intensional for having a modal component, it also licenses the shift o f
the past tense in the relative clause. As dem onstrated by the fact that it m a y be m o d ­
ified by an adverb such as “a week earlier,” the tense o f the relative clause in (41) m a y
be understood as a bound relative past.23
To accou nt for the d ou b le fu n c tio n o f the future fo r m in H e b r e w I suggest that
in addition to the o vert tense m o r p h e m e f u t that expresses posteriority, it also has
a covert m o d a l c o m p o n e n t I call m o d - p u t . 2'1 This suggestion gives rise to the q u e s ­
tion as to w h ic h c o m p o n e n t has a w id er scop e over the other. R e c o n sid e r exam ple
(41). Both (41 'a) and ( 4 1 Ъ ) b e lo w seem to be possib le LF candidates for (41), c a p ­
turing the b o u n d relative r e a d in g o f the e m b e d d e d clause:

( 4 1') a. m od- fut fu t he buy the house A Jth a t 3 ,[ p a s t vbe renovated])

b. fut m o d -f u t he buy the house A Jth a t 3 [ p a s t be renovated]]

But note that only (41 'a) can accou nt for the relative re a d in g o f the future tense
clause in (42) b e lo w :2:;

(42) a. D avid h a-m clex hitxatcn im ha-isa se-(le-yam im )

D avid th e-k in g m arry:PAST with the-w om an th at-(in -d ays)
teled lo et y o rcs-h a-ccer
bear:FUT to.him ACC the.heir
“ K in g D avid m arried that w om an, who (in due time) would give birth
to his heir.”
b. yores-ha-ecer slom o nim sax le-m elex
the.heir Solom on anoint:PASSiVE:PAST to-k in g

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628 TENSE

od lifney moto sel David

still before death.his o f David
“The heir, Solomon, was anointed as king even before David’s death”

As shown by the possibility o f continuing (a) by (b) (as well as by the extra-
linguistic context), the future tense in the relative clause is interpreted as future-
in-the-past with respect to the time o f the wedding. In other words, the covert
m o d - f u t operator in the relative clause applies to the future tense clause itself,

relativizing its time to the time o f the matrix. This suggests that the covert m o d -
f u t component has a wider scope over the tense component, such that the latter

gets to be interpreted in relative terms due to the fact that it is within the scope of
a modal context.

3.2. Long Distance Binding

That the modal component o f the future form has a wider scope over the tense one
can account for bound future o f matrix clauses. Consider the texts in (43a = 6) and
(43b) below:

(43) a. M o§e pagaS et . R in a ba-m esiba §e-araxti lifney

M oshe meet:p a s t acc R in a in.the-party that-(I)-organize:PAST before
arba Sanim. kaavor Sana/be-od sana hu yitxaten ita
four years after year/in-m ore year he marry:FUT with.her
“ M osh e met R in a at the party I organized four years ago. A year later he w ould m arry
h er/N ext year he will m arry her.”
b. M ose paga§ et R in a ba-m esiba Se-araxti lifney
M osh e meet:PAST ACC R in a in.the-party that-(I)-organize:PAST before
arbaSanim be-m esex ha-zm an h u yitah ev ba
four years during the-time he fall.in.love:FUT in.her
“ M osh e m et R in a at the party I organized four years ago. In tim e he will/would fall in love with her.”

The tense of the second sentence in both (43a) and (b) is ambiguous between an
absolute and a shifted future. The ambiguity can be resolved by the context, as illus­
trated in (43a). The adverb kaavor sana a year later’ in the second sentence o f (43a)
brings about the shifted reading, while the adverb be-od sana next year the abso­
lute, or non-shifted, one. In (43b), the context leaves the interpretation of the future
tense sentence ambiguous. As reflected by the English translation, it can be inter­
preted either as future with respect to the time o f the party, which may mean that
Moshe is already in love, or with respect to the speech time, which means that he is
still to fall in love. Note that in English, the shifted reading is possible, too, as the
clause can undergo the s o t operation, in which case it has the modal would rather
than w ill Since the sentences are n6t embedded, the free (absolute) reading o f the
future tense sentences needs no explanation. But how do we get the relative reading
of the Hebrew future and the deleted reading of the English would without embed­
ding? I argue for a semantic “binding,” or “control,” explanation, in line with analyses
suggested for logophoric pronouns in languages like Icelandic, and Sharvif s analyses
of F I D . 26
BOUND TENSES 629

Sigurdsson (1990) and Thrainsson (1990) show that Icelandic allows for what
Thrainsson calls non-clause-bounded reflexives and Sigurdsson calls long-distance
reflexivization , where a reflexive pronoun can occur in subordinate clauses with the
antecedents in higher clauses, as in (44) below (Thrainssons example 4 and Sigurds-
sons 3), or even in m atrix sentences, where it is not syntactically bound, as in (45)
(SigurQssons example 22):27

(44) jo n segir a6 M a ria elski sig/hann.

John says ( i n d ) that M ary loves ( s u b j ) self/him
“ Joh n i says that M a ry loves h im .”
(45) FormaOrinn vard oskaplega reiGur. Tillagan voeri
the chairm an becam e furiously an gry the proposal w as ( s u b j )
svivirdileg og voeri henni beint gegn ser personulega.
outrageous and w as (SU B J) it aim ed against self personally
ser voeri sa rn a . . .
self w as ( s u b j ) in d ifferen t. . .
“ The chairm an, becam e furiously angry. The proposal was outrageous, and it was
aim ed against him (self). personally. Ile(self). w as indifferent ..

Both Thrainsson and Sigurdsson suggest that what licenses the reflexive in the
em bedded clause o f sentences like (44) and (45) is the subjunctive. If the subjunc­
tive is not allowed or not chosen, the reflexive w ould be blocked. Their contention
is that what controls m o o d selection is whether or not the speaker is responsible for
the truthfulness o f a proposition in our world. As Sigurftsson puts it, “ Indicatives
are norm ally the s p eak ers responsibility, whereas subjunctives are not.” (p. 318). In
other words, the subjunctive shifts the point o f view from the speaker to som e atti­
tude holder (a seco n d a ry ego, in Sigurdssons terms). ’Ihe property o f shifting the
point o f v iew is shown to be the relevant factor for the correlation between the su b ­
junctive and the long-distance reflexives.
Like the subjunctive, reflexives reflect the attitude h o ld e r s point o f view
rather than the s p e a k e r s . The attitude holder w ould usually be d ete rm in e d by the
m atrix clause under which the subjun ctive clause is em b ed d ed , as in (44). To a c ­
count for the reflexives in (45), w here the subjunctive clauses with the reflexives
are not em b ed d ed , SigurQsson claim s that they “ refer to an already established
s e l f ” (p. 316).
S h a r v it s (2003) analysis o f p i d s h o w s that tense can also be sem an tically
“ bound.”
As explained by Sharvit (2003), the term Free Indirect Discourse, or fid , refers
to a particular literary technique in which the point o f view o f a character in a story
is conveyed neither by direct discourse (i.e., quotation) nor by indirect discourse
(i.e., em b ed din g under an attitude verb).28 The text in (46) from Sharvit illustrates
the phenom enon:

(46) “ Do you love m e?” asked M ary. Yes, he d id . A n d he w o u ld d efin itely m a rry her.
If not today then a year from today. I lis voice trem bled as he spoke, but it w as
true, John did love M ary.

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630 TENSE

T h e b o l d f a c e d s e n t e n c e s in (46) a re an in s t a n c e o f f i d , w h e r e Jo h n ’s p o in t
o f v i e w is c o n v e y e d . T h u s the “ n o w ” o f the c h a r a c t e r s e r v e s as the e v a lu a tio n
tim e o f the f i d text, w h i c h is d e m o n s t r a t e d b y th e fa ct that th e tw o o c c u r r e n c e s
o f the p a st te n se are d e le te d . ( I f J o h n s r e p ly w a s q u o t e d , w e w o u l d e x p e c t the
p r e se n t tense in ste ad .) S in c e H e b r e w d o e s not d elete te n ses to c o n v e y th e atti­
tude- h o ld e r s “ now,” w e s h o u l d p r e d ic t a rela tiv e te n se in ste ad . T h i s p r e d ic tio n
is b o r n e out by the H e b r e w t r a n s la tio n in (47) s u g g e s t e d by S h a r v i t for the E n g ­
lish e x a m p l e (46):

(47) hu o h e v ota, ve-hu behexlet yitxaten ita. im lo axSav

h elove:P R E S her an d -h e d efin itely m a rry :ru T w ith .h er if n e g now
az be-od sana.
then in -m o re year.

The clause d ep ictin g the situation o f lo v in g is in present tense for o verlap p in g

Jo h n s “ now,” and the clause re p o rtin g the p r o m is e d event o f m a r r y i n g M a r y is in
future tense since its tim e is to follow the subjective “ n o w ” o f the attitude-holder.
But the f i d text is not syntactically em b e d d e d .
To account for the deleted past tense in the English example (46) and the shifted
present tense in the Hebrew translation (47), Sharvit follows Schlenker (1999) and
suggests that an fid sequence is prefixed by a silent fid operator. When applied, the
operator shifts the evaluation time (along with the interpretation o f the pronouns
and the adverbs). Accordingly, she suggests an L F o f the English fid he loved her
and the Hebrew fid hu ohev ota ‘he loves h er’ with lam bda-expressions to relativize
the time, as follows:

(48)' Jf i d
1
.. [Ao speaker
< Joh n, i,M a r y > 1
. Ao,tenseAo a d..d r e s s e e [o
1 speaker
.. ] JI]1 v(Sharvit, 2003)
. o,terae love o addressee-1

As she explains, the subscript o f the fid operator denotes the context o f the
story, which is distinct from the context in w h ich the story' is told, o speaker
. is “ b o u n d ”
b y John , which refers to the s p e a k e r o f the context o f the s t o r y ; o addwssw is “ b o u n d ” by
M ary , w h ich refers to the ad d ressee o f the context o f the sto ry ; and o tcnse is “ b o u n d ”
b y T, w h ic h refers to the tim e o f the context o f the s t o r y .29
I believe the intensional operator mod-fut in Hebrew operates like the fid

operator in its ability to “ b in d ” tenses sem antically and like the Icelandic s u b ju n c ­
tive in allow ing a tense within its scope to use a long-distance evaluation time.
Accordingly, the mod- fut com ponent o f the future sentences in (43a, b) m ay
apply to the fut tense com ponen t in its scope, allowing it to use the time denoted
in the previous clause as its evaluation time. Since they are not syntactically e m ­
bedded, we m a y conclude that the bound future tenses in (43) are sem antically
“controlled” or “ b o u n d ” by the tense in the previous clause. The L F in (49) is thus
suggested for (43a):

(49) [ m o d - f u t <t n: the tim e-of-the-party>) A 3 [FU T M oshe m arry Rina)

Bahan dengan hak cipta

 BOUND TENSES 631

The covert m o d - f u t operator shifts the evaluation time o f the future tense in its
clause from the speech time to the time at which the party took place, although the
latter is denoted by the past tense in the previous clause.30

3.3. The Optional Nature of Semantic “ Binding”

One o f the crucial differences between syntactic and semantic binding is that the
former is obligatory while the latter is optional, at least in the cases o f m o d - f u t and
f i d discussed in this section.

A s for the m odal component m o d - f u t o f the future form in Hebrew, recall

that it m ay be stripped off. In such case, the future tense sentences in (43) would
behave like the Icelandic indicative, such that they would take the speech time
as their evaluation time and refer to som e future time following it, as dem on­
strated by the fact that they can be m odified by a deictic adverb such as "next
year.”
Similarly, since the f i d operator is silent and since the Hebrew tenses may be
ambiguous between a free- and bound-relative reading, a text in certain environ­
ments m ay be ambiguous between an f i d and a regular narrative. As shown by
Borer (1981), one cannot rely on tenses (and other temporal expressions) to deter­
mine whether or not a certain text is an f i d in Hebrew. Analyzing a few excerpts o f
Hebrew novels, she shows that many texts m ay be ambiguous between an f i d and a
regular narrative, where other indicators such as rhetorical questions, psychological
indicators, consistency, and the like, may resolve the ambiguity. To simplify my dis­
cussion, I will illustrate this by the made-up example (50a) below (instead o f the
“real” examples analyzed by Borer):

(50) a. Rina saxva al ha-dargas ve-hirhara. Mose ohev ota.

Rina lie:PAST on the-couch and-meditate:PAST Moshe love:PRES her
“Rina lay on the couch pensive. Moshe loved/loves her.”
b * hi t-rcnse0 ] b tu x a be_ze-
she pres sure in-this
“She was sure of it.”
c. m eod [Tcnse0 ] xaval se-hi lo hayta muda’at le-ze.
ve ry pres pity that-she N EG be:PAST aware to-this
“ Too bad she was not aware o f it”

As demonstrated by the English translation, the text in (50a) is ambiguous

between an f i d and a regular narrative. On its f i d reading, it may be continued by
(50b), where the present tense both in (503) and in (50b) is interpreted with respect
to Rinas “now.” On its regular narrative reading, (50a) may be continued by (50c),
in which case the present tense clause in (50a) and the past tense clause in (50c) are
evaluated with respect to the speech time (of the narrator), as absolute present and
past, respectively.
632 TENSE

4. C o n c lu sio n s

In this chapter, 1 have discussed tense interpretation in language, with emphasis on

the semantics o f bound tenses, w hose evaluation time shifts from the default speech
time to some other time. The m ain point I have m ade is that tenses m ay be bound
within their respective clause or outside it, depending on their kind o f binding:
syntactic or semantic.
A tense is bound syntactically, using a local evaluation time, if it is em bedded
under an intensional expression. For instance, the tense o f an attitude verb comple­
ment clause is c -co m m an d ed by the matrix and its evaluation time is the “ n o w ” o f
the attitude-holder. In discussing syntactically b o u n d tenses, I adopted von Stechows
(1995) analysis; in particular, 1 discussed bound variable tenses in English, an ex ­
ample o f an sot language, and boun d relative tenses in M odern Hebrew, an example
o f a n o n - s o t language.
Tenses using an evaluation time outside their respective clause, labeled here
long-distance-bound tense , or ldbt , were sh ow n to be sem antically “controlled” by
an intensional expression, such as the Hebrew operator I labeled mod -fu t. Though
like syntactic binding, sem antic “control” m ust also be licensed by an intensional
expression, I have show n that unlike syntactic binding it is optional, possibly result­
ing in ambiguity. For instance, a tense within the scope o f the operator m o d -fu t ,

m ay either be shifted, using a time provided by the context as its evaluation time,
or be non-shifted, using the default speech time as its evaluation time.

NOTES

1. I am indebted to R in y H uijbrcgts for his con trib u tio n in d evelo p in g the ideas
p resen ted in this chapter, to N aam a F ried m an , Yael S h arvit, G a r y M iller, E ric P otsdam ,
G iil$at A ygen , Idan L an d au , Sergey A vru tin , and A n ita M ittw o ch for d isc u ssin g so m e o f
the issues w ith m e, and to the aud ien ce at the co llo q u iu m LU SH (L eid en -U trech t
S em an tics H appen in gs) for their helpful co m m en ts on a p revio u s version o f this chapter,
presented in 2008.
2. I use sm all cap itals— P A S T , PRES and PUT— to refer to the past, present, and future
tense m orph em es, respectively.
3. The notion o f free and bound variables was taken fro m m athem atics, to analyze
natural language; in particular, to deal with the interpretation o f pron ou n s and o th er noun
phrases. Pronoun s are considered variables since they m ay refer to different entities in
different contexts, e.g., the pron oun she m ay refer to M a ry in one context and to Rachel in
another. N ote, how ever, that a p ro n o u n s interpretation is co n d ition ed ; m ainly with respect
to its b eh avior as free o r bound variable. The follow ing exam ples illustrate:

(i) M a ry loves her uncle.

(ii) M a ry loves herself.

М атеріал, захищ ений авторськи м правом

 BOUND TENSES

The possessive pronoun her in (i) is a free variable and therefore it can take any anteced­
ent for its interpretation. It m ay refer to the previously mentioned NP Mary, or to any
other (female) individual in the context. In contrast, the reflexive pronoun herself in
(ii) is a bound variable. Its antecedent can only be Mary, i.e., it must refer to the same
person as the N P Mary. In other words, the variable herself is bound by the noun Mary.
Chom sky (1981) determines the conditions under which an NP would be free or
bound, e.g., his condition (A) determines that anaphors, which include reflexives such as
herself, are always bound.
Partee ( 1973 ) suggests that tenses are variables like pronouns. They m ay be free in the
sense that they can refer to any time (in the linguistic or the extra linguistic context), or
bound to some specific time. See section (2) for discussion.
4. Both kinds o f bound tenses are interpreted with respect to an antecedent, which is
the tense that binds them. As I understand the distinction made by von Stechow, the two
kinds differ in the way they “use” their antecedent (= the binding tense). A bound variable
tense “loses” its characteristics, resulting in indicating the same time as its antecedent, no
matter what its morphology is. In the case o f a bound relative tense, it keeps its features,
such that it m ay refer to a time other than the antecedent’s. We can think o f the antecedent
of a relative tense as an anchor. The relative tense would be interpreted with respect to the
anchor but it m ay or may not refer to the same time, depending on its morphology ( p r e s
would overlap the time o f the matrix, while p a s t and p u t would precede and follow it,
respectively). The tense o f the embedded clause in (4), for example, would be an instance
o f a bound variable tense on its simultaneous reading, and an example o f a bound relative
past on its shifted reading. The embedded tense in the Hebrew sentence (3) is an example
o f a bound relative present.
5. Note that Hebrew does not encode aspectual features, as reflected by the English
translations of the sentences. Berman (1978), however, claims that there are aspects in
Hebrew, or some evidence for their existence in certain registers.
6. I only discuss here what is relevant for our current discussion. For an excellent
concise overview o f Tense Logic and its shortcomings, see Ogihara (2007).
7. A s a matter o f fact, this is only a preliminary version von Stechow suggests in the
first part o f his article; in the second part, he suggests a more precise analysis that includes
adverbials such as yesterday For the points I am trying to make in this chapter, the
prelim inary version will suffice.
8. The reference time t. is determined by a contextually given variable assignment
gc, and m ay be specified by a frame adverbial (Bennett and Partee, 1978), or a "frame
setter” in von Stechow s terminology, as in yesterday, John went to Tampa (but see note 7
above).
9. The future and the f i d will be discussed in section (3) below. For a more detailed
list, which in addition to attitude expressions, future and the f i d , includes generics,
habituals, modals, directives, and the historical present, the reader is referred to my
descriptive article Hatav (2010a).
10. Kratzer (1998) suggests a different analysis, arguing that the embedded clauses in
cases like (17a) and (17b) are generated with a 0 tense, which is spelled out as a past and
present tense, respectively.
11. Von Stechow ignores the world parameter, a practice I will follow in this chapter.
12. A s I was making the final changes in m y chapter, I got Ogihara and Sharvit’s
chapter, which provides example (6) given below under (i) as evidence that Hebrew may
support a simultaneous reading o f past-under-past:
 TENSE
634

(i) lifney alpayim sana yo sef xasav se-m iryam

before tw o-thousand
two- year Y o sef think:PAST that-M iriam
ahava oto az.
love: p a s t him then

According to Ogihara and Sharvit, the antecedent o f the adverb az ‘then is lifney alpayim
sana ‘two thousand years ago’, which means that the embedded past-tense clause has a
simultaneous reading.
Note, however, that Ogihara and Sharvit themselves admit that (i) is not accepted by all
native speakers o f Hebrew. (Indeed, a number of native speakers I consulted with found (i) very
odd and suggested to add an extra context to provide the adverb az ‘then’ with an antecedent
other than “two thousand years ago”). However, they believe that the fact that there are many
speakers who reject (i) does not affect their semantic analysis, explaining the phenomenon in
pragmatic terms. I must leave this empirical controversy for future investigation.
13. This analysis suggests an extra layer o f ambiguity for past-under-past in s o t
languages. For example, the English sentence “John said/believed that M ary was pregnant
is ambiguous between the simultaneous reading, where the original saying/thought was
“ M ary is pregnant” and the back-shifted reading where John said/thought “M ary was
pregnant.” In the case o f the latter, the (alleged) pregnancy may have preceded Johns “now”
completely or only in part.
14. Interestingly, Stowell (1995, 2007) argues that what is assumed to be a deleted past
is actually a concealed present.
15. Note, however, that Smith would not accept sentences like (29a-b), claiming that
embedding o f present-under-past in English is only possible in case o f factive verbs and
verbs o f saying. However, some native speakers do accept them. Trying to understand why
some do not, I have come to the conclusion that they find the sentences to implicate that
John no longer thinks or believes that M ary is pregnant. In other words, they reject them
because they don t interpret them as overlapping the speech time.
16. Much o f this sub-section is taken from Hatav (2010a).
17. Note that English, unlike Hebrew, has devices to disambiguate sentences like (33)
and (34), e.g., it can use the past-perfect to unambiguously elicit the back shifted reading.
18. In this section, I will only discuss what is relevant for the current discussion. For a
more detailed discussion o f SDRT see Caudal, this volume.
19. A s for the English will, Com rie claims that it derives diachronically from a modal
expression and has modal uses, but yet it is also used to refer to the future time. M cCawley
(1993 [1981]) suggests arguments that seem to support Comrie’s approach while En$ (1996)
believes that will is only modal.
20. A s a matter o f fact, we do not usually find it in everyday colloquial speech but only
in marked contexts such as military orders and driving instructions.
21. This is not a peculiar behavior o f the Hebrew future. See Bybee, Perkins and
Paliguca (1994) for examples from other languages.
22. I do not know under what conditions or environments the future form would lose
one o f its components. A rule o f thumb, though, is that when it is bound by some inten-
sional expression as in the case o f attitude verbs, it loses its modal component, and in case
it replaces the imperative it loses its tense component. (But I don’t have any intuitions
regarding its losing the tense component in sentences like (40).)
23. Being a relative clause, however, the embedded clause in (41) may also have an
absolute reading, where the renovations have already taken place. See discussion on
example (31) above.
BOUND TENSES 635

24. One could argue that the m odal com pon en t w as the overt one. Recall, how ever,
that H ebrew has overt past and pres and no overt m odal fo rm s, except for the im perative
that is not usually used in colloquial speech (see note 20 above). T h us, it seem s m ore likely
that the tense rather than the m odal op erator is the overt com ponent.
25. It seem s to be the case, how ever, that sentences like (42) are o n ly fou nd in form al
registers o f Hebrew.
26. I am indebted to Rini Ilu ijb reg ts for suggestin g this line o f analysis to me.
27. The phenom enon in Icelandic w as d iscussed before 1990 and has been attested in
other languages such as Ew e and Japanese as well. For detailed references see Sigurdsson
(1990).
28. fid w as d iscu ssed vastly by literary critics (Banfield 19 7 3 ,19 8 2 , and iMcHale 1978,
am ong others). Lately it has stim ulated linguistic analyses, too, e.g., D oron (1991) suggests
an analysis w ithin the fram ew ork o f situation sem antics and O ltean (1995) suggests an
analysis w ithin possible w orlds sem antics.
29. To adapt (48) to ou r notation and analysis, we w ould need to m ake som e changes,
but this is not n ecessary for the current discussion.
30. A s show n by the En glish translation o f the exam ples in (43a, b), the m odal will in
English seem s to behave like the H ebrew m o d -fu t, as the tense in the secon d sentence in
both exam ples can undergo the sot o p eration , such that the m odal would is used rather
than will. This m ay suggest that the m odal will in English is to be analyzed like the H ebrew
MOD-FUT, but I leave this for future investigation.

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 CHAPTER 22

EMBEDDED TENSES

T O S H IY U K I O G IH A R A
AND YAEL s h a r v it

i. I n t r o d u c t i o n

The English present tense does not exhibit a uniform behavior m all embedded en­
vironments. Its ability to receive a simultaneous reading in complement clauses
attitude verbs depends on the matrix tense, as illustrated by(i).

(1) a. Joseph found out that M ary loves him.

b. Joseph will find out that M ary loves him.

In (la), the time o f M arys loving must overlap the utterance time; but in (ib) it need
not: the time o f M ary’s loving time may overlap the utterance time, b u n t can a
overlap the finding-out time without overlapping the utterance time. This is co -
firmed by the contrast in (2): (2a) is contradictory; (2b) is not.

(2> a #M ary doesn’t love Joseph now but she did once, and he found out that she loves him.
b. M » ; doesn’t love ,oseph now but she will some day, and he w ill find out that she
loves him.
Likewise, in relative clauses, the present tense is capable o f r e c e iv in g a simultaneous
reading if the matrix tense is future, but not if it is past, as illustrated in (3).

(3) a. J o s e p h met a wom an who loves traveling.

b. Joseph will meet a wom an who loves traveling.

In (3a), the loving time again must overlap the utterance time; but not so in (3b),
where the loving time may overlap the utterance time, but need not.
EM BEDDED TENSES 639

It is well know n that not all languages exhibit the same behavior, and not all
languages that behave in a m an n er different from English behave in the same way
(see, a m o n g m an y others, Borer, 1981; Ogihara, 1996; Sharvit, 2003, 2008; G ronn
and von Stechow, 20 10 ; Hatav, this volum e and references cited there). On the one
hand, there are languages (e.g., Japanese, Hebrew), where the present tense receives
(or can receive) a simultaneous reading in com plem ent clauses o f attitude verbs,
even w hen the m atrix tense is past. On the other hand, there arc languages (e.g.,
Japanese, but not Hebrew), where the present tense can receive a simultaneous
reading in relative clauses, even when the matrix tense is past.
This chapter investigates the nature o f these language-internal and crosslinguistic
variations, and the success (or lack thereof) o f two particular theories in accounting for
it: the theory we refer to as the ULC-based theory (where U L C stands for Upper Limit
Constraint) and the theory we refer to as the copy-based theory. The former is largely due
to Abusch (1993, 1997), and the latter to Ogihara (1995a, 1996). We will see that both
theories are only partially successful and that each of them accounts for a different aspect
of this variation. We will examine a third theory, which borrows insights from both.
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 exam ines in detail the language-
internal and crosslinguistic variation m entioned above and supplies the empirical
dom ain o f the discussion. Section 3 introduces the two theories— the U L C -b a se d
theory and the copy-based theory, highlighting their advantages and s h o r tc o m ­
ings. Section 4 supplies som e additional data that justifies m ergin g the two the­
ories. Section 5 explores som e benefits o f a theory that borrow s insights from both
the U L C - b a s e d theory and the copy-based theory.

2. T h e D a t a

As regards the embedding o f tenses, languages that have (overt, morphological) tense
differ from each other along two dimensions: (i) the interpretation o f a past tense mor­
pheme under another past tense morpheme (past-under-past);3 and (ii) the interpreta­
tion o f a present tense morpheme under another tense morpheme (present-under-past/
future). Within each dimension, there might also be differences that are due to the
nature o f the embedded clause— a complement o f an attitude verb vs. a relative clause.
Let us start with the first dimension (past-under-past). Regarding complement
clauses o f attitude verbs, languages such as English are characterized by the fact that
past-under-past sentences are am biguous between a “simultaneous” reading and a
“ back-shifted” reading, as indicated in (4).

(4) a. Joseph believed in 2005 that M a ry loved h im (in 1999)-

B ack -sh ifted reading:
Josep h to h im self, in 2005: “ M a ry loved m e (in 19 9 9 )”
b. Joseph believed in 2005 that M a ry loved h im (then).
Sim u ltan eo u s reading:
Joseph to h im self, in 2005: “ M a ry loves m e (now).”

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By contrast, (5), the counterpart o f (4) in Japanese, is claimed to have only the back-
shifted reading.4 The verb complement clause of (5b) contains the adverbial sono-
toki “that time” or “then,” and this forces that the alleged time o f M arys loving John
to overlap Johns thinking. The pound sign (#) indicates that (5b) is unacceptable on
this simultaneous interpretation.
(5) a. 2005-nen ni Joseph-wa M ary-ga 1999-nen-ni zibun-o
2005-year in Joseph-Top M ary-NOM 1999-year-in self-ACC
aisi-te i-ta-to sinzi-tei-ta.
love-PROG-PAST that believe-PROG-PAST
Back-shifted reading equivalent to that o f (4a).
b. # 2 0 0 5 -nen ni Joseph-wa M a ry-g a sono-toki zibun-o
2005-year at Joseph-Top M ary-NOM that-time self-ACC
aisi-te i-ta-to sinzi-te i-ta.
love-PROG-PAST that believe-PROG-PAST
Simultaneous reading (as show n in (4b)) is not possible.

There are languages such as Hebrew that show what appears to be inconsistent
behavior.5 On the one hand, (6) certainly has a back-shifted reading. On the other
hand, just like its English counterpart in (4), it also allows a simultaneous reading
for some (though admittedly not all) Hebrew speakers.

(6) lifney alpayim sana, Yosef xa§av se M iriam ahava oto

before tw o-thousand year Yosef PAST-think that M iriam P A S T - lo v e him

Importantly, (7a)—with the time adverbial az (“then”)—allows a simultaneous

reading for all the speakers we consulted, whereas (7b)—with the adverbial “ in his
childhood”—has only a back-shifted reading.

(7) a. lifney alpayim sana, Yosef xa§av se M iriam ahava

before two-thousand year Yosef P A S T -th in k th a t M iriam PAST-love

oto az
him then
Simultaneous reading, possible:
Yosef’s belief, two thousand years ago: “M iriam loves m e now.”
b. lifney alpayim sana, Yosef xasav se M iriam ahava
before tw o -th o u sa n d year Yosef PA ST -th in k th a t M iriam PAST-love
oto be-yaiduto
him in-childhood-his
Back-shifted reading:
Yosef s belief, two thousand years ago: “M iriam loved me in m y childhood.

The presence o f az (like that o f sono toki in the Japanese example above) favors
an interpretation where the loving time overlaps the thinking time (though, i f a
previous time is m entioned in a previous sentence, other interpretations are
possible too).
This doesn’t mean, though, that Hebrew behaves like English with respect to
past-under-past. First, as we already mentioned, there is some variation among
 EMBEDDED TENSES
641

speakers regarding the availability o f a simultaneous reading in (6). Secondly, the

Hebrew (8a)—with an intervening future-oriented infinitive—does not allow a si­
multaneous reading o f the most deeply embedded past (for any speaker), unlike its
English counterpart in (8b), which does (see Sharvit, 2003).

(8) a. Dan xasav etmol se M ira hayta amura (az)

Dan PAST-think yesterday that M ira PAST-be supposed then
Iomar le-ima tox savua se hi hitgaagea eleha
iNF-tell to-mother-her within week that she p a s t - h uss to-her
M ira says to her mother: “I miss you.” Impossible.
M ira says to her mother: “I missed you.” Possible.
b. Yesterday, John thought that M ary was supposed to say to her mother within a week
that she missed her.

The generalization seems to be this: in limited simple past-under-past cases (for

example (7a), which doesn’t contain an intervening future-oriented infinitive),
Hebrew allows simultaneous readings o f past-under-past.
Conceivably, one could attribute the simultaneous reading o f (6) to pragmatics,
roughly along the lines o f Gennari (2003): semantically, the reading is back-shifted
(i.e., denotes a time prior to the believing time), but M iriams loving time may, in
practice, extend beyond the distant past into a less distant past (which m ay coincide
with Yosef s thinking time). However, such an analysis faces some difficulties. The
main difficulty concerns crosslinguistic variation. For example, a pragmatic theory
cannot explain the contrast between Hebrew and Japanese, which are very different
in this regard, as shown by the ill-formedness o f the Japanese sentence (5b). Likewise,
within a pragmatic theory we would not expect Hebrew to differ from English with
respect to complex embeddings such as (8a). In other words, if the possibility of
sometimes interpreting a past-under-past as ‘ simultaneous” were pragmatic and not
grammatically restricted, we would not expect crosslinguistic variation o f any kind.
In fact, Gennari (2003), who is not concerned with crosslinguistic variation, uses her
theory to account for the simultaneous readings o f the English (4b) and (8b) (in the
latter, the missing time presumably extends from a time prior to the f-plling time into
the future), but the Japanese and Hebrew facts cast doubt on this analysis (either for
English or for Hebrew). Therefore, we take the position that the simultaneous read­
ings of the Hebrew (6) and the English (8b) are grammatically encoded (and those
very same grammatical principles, whatever they are, disallow such a reading in (8a)).
Regarding relative clauses, a past-under-past in English may have a simulta­
neous reading (9a), a back-shifted reading (9b), and a forward-shifted reading (9c).

(9) a. In 1989, Joseph met a woman who loved him then.

b. In 1989, Joseph met a woman who loved him in the 70s.
c. In 1989, Joseph met a woman who loved him in the 90s.

Hebrew and Japanese do not show any identifiable difference here: both Hebrew
and Japanese past-under-past in a relative clause shows the same three-way ambi­
guity as English (see (10) and (11), respectively).
642 TENSES

(10 ) a. be 1989, Yosef pagas isa se ahava oto az

in 1989 Yosef meet-PAST w om an Com p Iovc - p a s t him then
•V V

b. be 1989, Yosef pagas isa se ahava oto

in 1989 Y osef meet-PAST w om an Com p love-PAST him
be-snot ha-Siv’im
in-years the-seventies
c. be 1989, Yosef pagaS isa §e ahava oto
in 1989 Y osef meet-PAST
be-snot ha-tis im
in-years the-nineties
(1 1 ) a. 1989-ncn ni, Jo se p h -wa zyo sci-n i
1989 year in Josep h -T op
at-ta.
meet-PAST
b. 1989-nen ni, Joseph-w a aisi-te i-ta
1989 year in Josep h -T op in love-PROG-PAST
zyosei-ni at-ta.
wom an-DAT meet-PAST
c. 1989-ncn ni, Joseph-w a aisi-te i-ta
1989 year in Jo sep h -T op in l0Ve-PR0G-PAST
zyosci-ni at-ta.
wom an-DAT meet-PAST

Let us m ove on to the second dimension (present-under-past/future). Starting

with com plem ent clauses o f attitude verbs, Hebrew and Japanese are characterized
by the fact that present-under-past sentences receive a simultaneous interpretation,
as shown by the Japanese (12) (from Ogihara, 1996), w h ich has a reading according
to w h ich Taro says: “ Llanako is sick,” and by the Hebrew sentence in (13), w hich has
only a simultaneous reading according to which Yosef said to himself, two thousand
years ago: “ M iriam loves m e ” 6

(12) T aro o -w a [Ila n a k o -g a b y o o k i-d a l-to it-ta

T aro-T op Hanako-NOM be-sick-PRES Say-PAST
(13) lifn ey alpayim sana, Y osef gila se M iriam ohevet
Before tw o-thousand year Y osef fin d-out-P A sr that M iriam Io vc-p rh s
oto
him

The English sentence corresponding to (13) is unacceptable, as show n by (14).

(14) ##Two thousand years ago, Joseph found out that M ary loves him.

However, even English does not always exclude a present-under-past in the com ple­
ment clause o f an attitude verb, as shown by (15), which differs m inim ally from (14),
in that the temporal adverbial is a month ago , rather than two thousand years ago.

(15) A month ago, Joseph found out that M a ry loves him .

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(15) is well-formed, but it has a special interpretation, which the corresponding (16),
with an em bedded past, does not have.

(16) A month ago, Joseph found out that M ary loved him.

The truth and acceptability o f (16) requires two things: (a) that M a r y loves Joseph
a m o n th before the utterance time, and (b) that in Jo s e p h s m in d , M a r y loves him
d u rin g a time that overlaps his “ n o w ” But the truth and acceptability o f (15)
require (a) and (b), and s o m e th in g in addition: ( a ') M a r y s lo v in g time has to
cover, in add ition to the fin d in g out tim e, the utterance time itself (i.e., her lovin g
cannot be m o m e n t a r y ; it has to hold for at least one m on th ). This rea d in g is the
so-called “double access” r e a d in g .7 But how does this rea d in g co m e about? In
fact, i f all that is required fro m the em b e d d e d present is that it overlap the utter­
ance time, a possible rea d in g should be one w h e re Joseph says to h im s e lf that
M a r y will love him (in “ his” future). But this is not possible. This w o u ld have to
be c o n v e y e d by a different sentence such as (17). To m ake this p ragm atically
plausible, w e need to a ssu m e a science fiction-like scen ario in w h ich Joseph
looks into a crystal ball, w h ich tells him about what will happen to him in the
future.

(17) A month ago, Joseph found out that M ary w ould love him (in a month).

On the other hand, when a present tense is em b ed ded under future tense, all three
languages behave in the sam e way, and a simultaneous reading o f the em bedded
present is possible, as shown in (18).

(18) a. In 2020, (M ary will love Joseph and) he will find out that she loves him.
b. be-2020, (M iriam tohav et Yosef ve) hu yegale
in-2020 M iriam love-FUT OM8 Yosef and he find-out-FUT
se hi ohevet oto
that sh e love-p r e s him
c. 2020-nen*ni, (M ary-w a Joseph-o aisi-te i-te),
2 0 2 0 - y e a r in, M ary-Top Joseph-ACC love-PROG-and
kare-wa [kanozyo-ni ai-sare-te i-ru-to]
he-TOP she-DAT love-PASS-PROG-PRES-that
wakaru-daroo.
u n d ersta n d .P R E S -p e rh ap s
“ In 2020, (M ary will love Joseph and) he will find out that he is being loved by her.”

M o v in g on to present in relative clauses, (19) show s that the availability o f a

sim u ltan eou s read in g o f the present in English again d ep en d s on the m atrix
tense: a m atrix past blocks a sim u lta n eo u s reading, but a m atrix future does not.
(19a) and (19b) sh o u ld both be u n d ersto o d as uttered w hen Joseph is a y o u n g
man.

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(19) a. In his childhood, Joseph met a w om an w ho loves traveling.

Sim ultaneous reading, impossible: loving tim e overlaps m eeting tim e (but need not
overlap utterance time).
N on-sim ultaneous (indexical) reading, possible: loving time ovw erlaps utterance
tim e (but need not overlap m eeting time),
b. A s a m iddle-aged m an, Joseph will finally meet a w om an w ho loves traveling.
Sim ultaneous re a d in g , possible: loving tim e overlaps m eeting tim e (but need not
overlap utterance time).
N on-sim ultaneous (indexical) reading, possible: loving time overlaps utterance time
(but need not overlap m eeting time).

Here, an important difference between Hebrew and Japanese manifests itself, unlike
past-under-past cases: Hebrew exhibits the sam e behavior as English (see (20)),0
whereas Japanese allows a sim ultaneous reading, not only when the matrix tense is
future, but also when it is past (see (21)).111

(20) a. be-yalduto, pagas Y osef isa se ohcvct

in-childhood-his m eet- p a s t Yosef woman C om p love-PRES
letayel
traveling
Loving time (m ay overlap m eeting time but) must overlap utterance time,
b. be-gil ha-am ida, so fso f yifgoS Y osef isa se ohevet
in-m iddle-age-his finally meet-FUT Y osef w om an C om p love-PRES
letayel
traveling
Loving time overlaps utterance tim e or m eeting time.

(21) a. K odom o-n o кого, Joseph-w a [ryokoo-o aisu-ru zyosei]-ni

child-GEN time, Joseph -t o p [travelling- a c c Iovc - p r e s w om an)-D A T
at-ta.
m eet - p a s t
[Default reading]
Loving overlaps m eeting time (but not necessarily the utterance time).
[Possible reading when appropriate adverbials are supplied]
Loving overlap the utterance tim e (but not necessarily the m eeting time),
b. T yuuncn-ni n at-tek ara, Joseph-w a yat-to tabi-o
m iddle-age-D A T becom e-from Jo s e p h - T o p finally travelling
aisuru zyosei-ni au-daroo.
love-PRES w o m a n -D A T m eet-probably
[Default reading] Loving time overlaps the m eeting time (but not necessarily the
utterance time).
[Possible reading when appropriate adverbials arc supplied]
Loving overlaps the utterance time (but not necessarily the m eeting time).

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Table 22.1 Availability o f simultaneous readings

Past-under-past Present-under-past Present-under-future

English complements o f AVs possible impossible possible

English RCs possible impossible possible
Hebrew complements often impossible possible possible
o f AVs
I Iebrew RCs possible impossible possible
Japanese complem ents o f impossible possible possible
AVs
Japanese RCs possible possible possible

Table in (22.1) sum m arizes the empirical observations noted so far, regarding
the availability o f a simultaneous reading (AV stands for attitude verb; R C for rela­
tive clause).
W hat we learn from the above discussion is that the traditional division into
SO T (Sequence-of-Tense) languages vs. n o n -S O T languages is a bit misleading:
English is definitely a SO T language (in the sense that past-under-past always has
the option o f receiving a simultaneous reading), but only Japanese shows a uniform
n o n -S O T behavior (in the sense that an em bedded present is always capable o f re­
ceiving a simultaneous reading).11 H ebrew seem s to have properties o f both: with
respect to relative clauses, it seems to behave like English; but with respect to c o m ­
plements o f attitude verbs, it behaves like English only in som e restricted cases.
Because o f this lack o f uniform ity (which will becom e even more evident as we
proceed), we refrain from using the traditional S O T / n o n -S O T terminology.
The next two sections discuss the two theories o f em bedded tense mentioned in
section 1. We first present the U L C - b a s e d theory o f em bedded tense, sh o w in g both
its merits and its shortcomings. Then w e present the copy-based theory, show ing
that it solves som e o f the problems raised by the U L C -b a se d theory, but crucially
not all o f them.

3. Two T h eo r ie s of E m bed d ed T ense

3.1. What the Two Theories Have in Common

Before we begin, it is important to point out that even though the main ingredients
o f the U L C -b a se d theory, as w e understand it, are due to Abusch (1993, 1997), and
the m ain ingredients o f the copy-based theory are due to O gihara (1995a, 1996), we
are not being entirely faithful to either one o f them. Rather, we borrow from their

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proposals what seem to us to be the crucial assumptions. We borrow other assum p­

tions from Heim (1984), von Stechow (1995), Kratzer (1998), Schlenker (1999) and
others. The reason for this “ unfaithfulness” is practical: it facilitates the comparison and
allows us to focus only on those differences that are relevant to the current discussion
(i.e., those differences that help us assess the level o f success of these theories in ac­
counting for the facts discussed above), and disregard differences that are irrelevant.
Secondly, it is important to point out that there are some assumptions that are
shared by these theories, and therefore som e o f their predictions overlap. Both the­
ories assum e the following ingredients: (a) a “deletion” parameter; and (b) a p a ra m ­
eter for an inborn relative present12 (or “deleted present” ).13 Starting with (a), both
theories assume the existence o f a “deletion” rule in som e languages: a tense that is
c-commanded by an agreeing tense (past-under-past , present-under-present) may op­
tionally be converted into a zero-tenseu (i.e., equivalent to a relative present tenseJ . 15 A
tense that has not undergone “deletion” is a doubly-indexed pronominal expression,
an expression that requires two times for its interpretation; a tense that has under­
gone “deletion” has one index only.16 Thus, a “ non-deleted” past is like a complex
pronom inal expression: the first index denotes the local evaluation time, which is
designated by the index o, and the second in d e x — a time that precedes it. A past
tense that has undergone “deletion” has a single index and it must be bound. This is
illustrated in (23). Note that “ < ” stands for an interpreted past tense feature (i.e., a
past tense that is not deleted), which contributes an anteriority presupposition,
whereas stands for an uninterpreted past tense feature (i.e., a past tense that has
been “deleted” ), w h ich results in the absence o f any presupposition. The em bedded
past that has a single index is bound by an abstractor— Ao— introduced by the atti­
tude v erb .1 The em bedded past that has two indices has its first index bound by the
same abstractor,18 and its second index bound by a default existential.1 ’

(23) Joseph believed that M a ry loved him.

a. L F resulting from applying the “d eletio n ’ rule:
Joseph PAST' o believe Ao[that M a ry PAST* love h im ]20
Joseph to him self, in the past: “M ary loves me n o w ” (sim ultaneous reading)
b. LF resulting from not applying the “deletion” r u le r 1
Joseph P A S T ^ believe A o[ 3 , [that M ary P A ST ‘D love him ]]
Joseph to him self, in the past: “ M ary loved me” (back-shifted reading)

Importantly, not all languages have the “deletion” rule. English has it, but Japanese
and Hebrew do not. This has the result schematized in (24).

(24) [ . . . . P A ST ‘D2 AV Ao [ . . . . PAST*o . . . ] ]

W ell-form ed in languages that have a “deletion” rule; ill-form ed in languages
that do not.

The assumption that Japanese and Hebrew lack the “deletion” rule explains why
(5) and (8a) do not have a simultaneous reading (though it does not explain w h y the
Hebrew (7a) does have a simultaneous reading for m an y speakers; we com e back to
this issue below).

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Let us now m ove on to the point (b) raised above. Languages also differ from
each other regarding whether they have an inborn relative (“deleted” ) present tense.
It is a present tense that is interpreted in relation to a time introduced by the closest
higher tense. We use the term “ inborn relative present tense” because this type o f
present tense does not have to undergo deletion in order to produce a simultaneous
reading. I l l is is different from the case o f the English present, which can receive a
simultaneous reading but only if it has undergone “deletion.” The English present,
when it is not “deleted,” is an absolute present in the sense that it denotes a time
containing the utterance time (i.e., the time o f the context).
We shall represent the undeleted English present P R E S ° uk, w here 0 is m n e ­
m onic for “overlap,” u is an index that always denotes the utterance time, and k is
presupposed to denote a time overlapping what u denotes (i.e., the utterance time).
On the other hand, the present tense in H eb re w and Japanese— or rather their
em b ed ded present tense— is designated by P R E S ° o, w h ere o- indicates that its fea­
ture 0 is deleted, and its index o (zero) is required to be b o u n d by Ao. The predicted
variation regarding present-under-past sentences involving verb com plem ents is
illustrated in (25).

(25) a. [ . . . . P A S T ^ A V A o [ . . . P R E S°o. . . . ])
W ell-form ed in languages that have an inborn relative PRES,
b. ? ? 1[ . . . . PAST* o.i A V A o1[ . . . P R E S 0u,k 11
This is w hat is predicted for English. But it is not clear i f it is interprétable.

(25a) explains w h y the H ebrew (13) has a sim u ltan eou s m ean in g, the same
sim u ltan eou s m e a n in g as the English (16) (A month ago, Joseph fo u n d out that
M ary loved him ). (25b) appears to sh ow that in the English (15) (A month ago,
Joseph fo u n d out that M ary loves him ), the em b e d d e d present is u n d ersto o d as
overlapping the utterance time. However, it is not clear w h eth er (25b) is inter­
pretable as is. A s we shall see below, (25b) m a y violate the U L C (U p p e r Lim it
C o n strain t) or the T e m p o ra l O rientation Principle, and we need a different way
o f a cc o u n tin g for the re a d in g that (15) has (i.e., a “double access” reading). In
addition, (25b) gives us no clue as to w h y (14) (##Two thousand years ago , Joseph
believed that M ary loves him) and (15) contrast in acceptability. We now turn to
the explanation o f these facts. The explanation lies in the third ingredient that
both theories share, namely, the existence o f a de re m e c h a n ism for tense inter­
pretation. However, each o f these theories assum es a slightly different de re m e c h ­
anism . Therefore, we n o w turn to the actual c o m p a riso n , w h ich will highlight the
different predictions.

3.2. The ULC-Based Theory of Embedded Tense

In addition to the a ss u m p tio n s d iscu ssed so far, the U L C - b a s e d th e o r y m ak e s the
fo llo w in g su b -p ro p o sa ls: (i) a de re m e c h a n is m o f tense interpretation w h ich is
b a se d on the U p p e r Lim it C o n strain t ( U L C ) ; and (ii) restrictions on zero -b in d ers
(or zero-abstraction indices). Let us discuss them in turn.

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For those w ho are not familiar with the form al analysis o f de re interpretations
which we adopt for the purpose o f this chapter, let us discuss som e basic examples.
The basic intuition behind a de re interpretation o f som e expression is that it denotes
the object associated with the expression and its descriptive content plays no role
from the perspective o f the attitude-holder. Traditionally, this is contrasted to a de
dicto interpretation, w hose interpretation necessarily involves its descriptive co n ­
tent, from the attitude-holder s perspective. O n e prototypical situation in which de
dicto/de re ambiguity becom es an issue is a verb complement clause. For example,
in (26) the definite description the C E O o f G o o g le is used as a means o f getting to
the current referent o f this expression, Eric Schmidt, and it is possible that the atti­
tude holder, Mary, does not k n o w that Eric Schm idt is the C E O o f G oogle.

(26) M ary thinks that the C EO o f G oogle is smart.

A possible scenario for which a de re interpretation o f the CEO o f Google in (26) is

appropriate is that M a ry met Eric Schm idt at an inform al gathering and talked to
him. He impressed M a r y with his conversation skills and gave her the impression
that he is a sm art person. Eric did not reveal his identity, however. So M a r y ’s thought
m ust be characterized in terms o f the actual person she talked to at the gathering,
not in terms o f the expression the CEO o f Google. In other words, she w ould not use
the expression the CEO o f Google if she were to describe her belief about the g e n ­
tleman she talked to at the gathering. But this expression could be used in a report
as in (26), and it is said that in this case the CEO o f Google receives a de re reading.
M ontague (1973) provided a wide scope rendition o f the definite description as a
w ay o f accounting for the de re interpretation o f (26) (and similar examples). The
relevant (but rough) logical representation is given in (ly ).22

(27) [the x. x is the C E O o f Google) [M ary believes (x is sm art)]

The inform al description o f (27) w ould be that according to what M a ry believes, in

each o f M a r y s “ belief worlds” Eric Schmidt, who happens to be the C E O o f G o ogle
in the actual world, is smart. He is not required to be the G o o g le C E O in the worlds
consistent with M a r y s beliefs in the actual world.
(26) can also receive a de dicto interpretation on a different scenario. For ex ­
ample, M a ry loves the search engine G o o g le and other products that G o o g le offers
and is convinced that the C E O o f G o o g le is a sm art person without k n ow in g who
the C E O is. This reading o f (26) is referred to as a de dicto reading, and it is generally
analyzed in terms o f a structure like (28) in which the definite description is inter­
preted in situ (or at least within the scope o f the verb believe).

(28) [M ary believes ([the x. x is the C EO o f G oogle] is smart)]

In this case, what M a ry conveys is intrinsically associated with the expression the
CEO o f Google , and she m ay or m a y not be acquainted with Eric Schmidt himself.
Stated in a slightly m ore technical language, what is required here is that in each
wrorld w that is consistent with what M a ry believes in the actual world, the unique
individual who is the C E O o f G o o g le in w is sm art in w.

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The above characterization of de re attitude reports does not account for a well-
known problem associated with de re attitude reports (e.g., Quine, 1956). Quines
line o f reasoning goes as follows. Ralph sees a man in a brown hat under question­
able circumstances and believes that he is a spy. On a different occasion, Ralph
glimpses a gray-haired man at the beach who he believes is a pillar of the commu­
nity. It is clear, then, that Ralph does not believe that the man he saw at the beach is
a spy. It so happens that the two men Ralph saw are one and the same: Bernard
Ortcutt. Given the above analysis o f de re attitudes, we expect (29a) to be true on its
de re reading. This reading is rendered as in (29b) informally:

(29) a. Ralph believes that the man in a brown hat is a spy.

b. [the x. x was in a brown hat] [Ralph believes (x is a spy) ]

Unfortunately, we expect (29a) to be false on its de re rendition (i.e., (29b)) re­

garding the man who Ralph glimpsed at the beach. This is because in actuality the
man in a brown hat is the same as the man Ralph saw at the beach, and it should not
matter which expression we use as long as the expression denotes the right indi­
vidual (in the actual world). Thus, we are faced with the problem of attributing two
conflicting beliefs on the part o f Ralph: (29a) is true and false at the same time on its
de re interpretation.
One possible remedy o f this situation is to adopt Lewis’s (1979) and Cresswell
and von Stechows (1982) formalization o f de re attitudes. For example, this theory
analyzes a de re reading o f (29a) as in (30), which means that believe denotes a three-
place relation involving an individual, an object, and a property. (30) is obtained
when the expression that denotes the res (the man in a brown hat) moves out o f the
complement clause and becomes a semantic argument of the verb believe, creating
a property-denoting expression out of the complement clause in the process.

(30) Ralph believes [the x. x was in a brown hat], Ay. y is a spy

Here it is important to assume that the attitude holder (Ralph) is acquainted with
the res (the man in a brown hat) via a relation (called an acquaintance relation). That
is, the context supplies a suitable relation R such that the res is the unique object to
which the attitude holder is related via R. In the situation where Ralph sees Ortcutt
in a brown hat, the relevant relation is {<x, y> | x sees y and y is in a brown hat}; in
the other situation where Ralph sees Ortcutt at the beach, the relevant relation is
{<x, y> | x sees y at the beach}. Then the entire sentence asserts that Ralph ascribes
* (in the relevant context) to the res (Ortcutt) the property o f being a spy. Since the
above two contexts involve different acquaintance relations, one and the same
formula (30) could produce two distinct semantic consequences (true and false).
That is, although the definite description the man in a brown hat denotes the same
person in both cases, i.e., Ortcutt, Ralph is related to him in two different ways in the
two circumstances in question. This offers an intuitively plausible way o f avoiding
the unwelcome theoretical prediction o f attributing to Ralph contradictory beliefs.
In what follows, we will assume this analysis o f de re attitude reports. One major
difference between the examples discussed in this section and those that we are
650 TENSES

concerned with in this chapter is that the latter involve temporal individuals (time
intervals), not “regular” individuals, like Ortcutt.

The De Re Mechanism and the ULC

The U L C -b a se d theory assumes that any em bedded tense (with “ undeleted” fea­
tures) has the option o f being interpreted de re, as shown in the LF in (31), where the
em bedded tense has undergone res-movement (see Heim, 1984). The m oved pre­
sent tense leaves behind a trace (e ) that is understood as a variable over times. The
y
analysis relies on a salient description (like the acquaintance relation discussed
above) that “outside” the attitude context uniquely determines the denotation o f the
res (in this case, P R E S ° ).23

(31) [Joseph PAST* [believeI>E RH-P R E S° ] A3Ao[M ary [e -love him ]]]

The context supplies a salient tim e description that is com patible with the
presuppositions o f P R E S °u ( and P A S T ‘D F o r exam ple, “ the m onth that su rro u n d s
n o w ” is a description that is com patible w ith them and picks out (the denotation
o f) P R E S °uj— a time that o verlap s the utterance tim e and the m onth that s u r ­
rounds (the denotation o f) P A S T ^ .

There is an additional crucial underlying assumption: e x must obey the U L C . The

U L C requires that the reference o f an em bedded tense, or its trace, not be a time that
begins after the attitude-holders “ now.” A bit informally, it can be stated as in (32).24

(32) W here T is a Tense node, [ f a] has a denotation only if the denotation o f a is not a
time that is after the local evaluation tim e o f T.

Since, by assumption, T (which dominates e^) is c -c o m m a n d e d by Ao, the local eval­

uation time o f c\ is the believers “ now.” In terms o f our LF in (31), e^ cannot denote
a time later than Josephs “ now.” I h u s , to avoid attributing a contradictory belief to
Joseph, the description that Joseph uses to describe P R E S to him self can only be
such current-time-oriented adverbials as “ this week” or “this month,” and not “ next
w eek” or “ next month.” This explains w hy a present-under-past cannot be used to
report Josephs belief when he believes “M a ry will love m e next month.” It also
explains w hy Two thousand years ago, Joseph believed that M ary loves him is odd: it
implies that in Josephs mind, M a r y s loving extends beyond the norm al human
lifespan (and that the state that caused Joseph to form his belief extends beyond that
lifespan too).
Importantly, nothing in this theory prevents an em bedded past tense from being
interpreted de re. (33) is thus a possible LF for Joseph believed that M ary loved him.

(3 3 ) [Joseph P A S T <o, [believeDK RE-P A ST <o J A3Ao[M ary [e^ loved him ]]]

The context supplies a salient tim e description that is com patible w ith the U L C
and the presuppositions o f the m oved PAST. “ The duration o f the sentence I am
uttering” satisfies these presupposition s because the presupposition o f P A S T ‘D is
that it denote a tim e prior to the utterance time (i.e., the denotation o f o).

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 E M B E D D E D TENSES
1 _________
651

According to (33), the trace o f the moved tense e} has to meet the requirements of
the ULC (which does not force anteriority). Thus, he could regard “his now” to be a
time when M arys loving him is taking place. According to this theory, then, a d e re
LF o f past-under-past may support a “simultaneous” reading (as well as a “back-
shifted” reading; when the time description happens to be “a month before now,” for
example).
It is a little hard to see whether the LF in (33) is justified, as long as we look just
at English, because the simultaneous” reading of a past-under-past sentence can be
derived, as we saw, from a non -de re LF such as (34) where the “deletion”-rule has
applied, and the back-shifted reading from an LF such as (35).

(34) [Joseph PAST <((2 believe Ao [Mary PAST^ love him] ]

(35) [Joseph PAST<oj believe Ao[3 3 [that M ary PA ST ^3 love him]]]

What seems to justify (33) is the fact that (again, for many though not all) Hebrew
speakers, the corresponding Hebrew (6) has a simultaneous reading. Since Hebrew
lacks a “deletion” rule (and therefore (6) cannot have an LF such as (34)), the only
way to derive the simultaneous reading is via a de re LF.
Why, then, does the Hebrew (8a) lack a simultaneous reading (whereas the cor­
responding English sentence in (8b)— Yesterday, John thought that M a ry w as su p­
posed to say to her mother w ithin a week that she m issed her— has one)? Note that a
simultaneous reading in this case would suggest that a moved past tense denote a
time simultaneous with the time of saying. This is inconsistent with the lexical
meaning o f the past tense because it is expected to denote a time earlier than the
time o f saying. English can resort to the deletion” rule in order to interpret that
embedded past as receiving a simultaneous reading, and Hebrew resorts to' its
(inborn relative) present tense.

(36) Dan xasav etmol se Mira hayta amura (az)

Dan PAST-think yesterday that Mira PAST-be supposed then
lomar Ie-ima tox savua §e hi mitgaagaat eleha
iN F-tell to-mother-her within week that she PRES-miss to-her
Mira says to her mother: “I miss you” Possible.

Thus, the data in (8a, b) are accounted for.

Recall the alternative pragmatic theory of “simultaneous” readings discussed in
f section 2, according to which a simultaneous reading may result in past-under-past
sentences when the time referred to in the embedded clause happens to extend into
a less distant time. We noted in section 2 that such a theory cannot account for
crosslinguistic variation (including the data in (8)). Such a theory would also make
it extremely difficult to account for (37)» where bediyuk beoto rega (“at that same
moment”) is understood as anaphoric to the matrix adverbial.

(37) etmol be-tesa baboker, Yosef amar se Miriam

yesterday at-nine in the morning Yosef PAST-say that Miriam
652 TENSES

xasva alav bediyuk beoto rega aval lo lifney

PA ST-think a b o u t-h im e x a c tly at-th e-sam e m om ent but not before
xen
now
Simultaneous reading— possible
Yosef: “M iriam is thinking about m e right now but didn’t think about m e before now.”

Even if Miriams thinking begins a very short period o f time before Yosefs saying
time, the thinking time still has to overlap Yosef’s saying time. If the embedded past
were indeed semantically back-shifted, to make it compatible with the embedded
adverbial we would have to say that only a part o f the extended thinking time—and
not necessarily all of it—is required to be co-temporal with the time denoted by the
adverbial. This would incorrectly lead to non-existent forward-shifted readings of
past-under-past, even in English. For example, John said two days ago that Mary was
thinking about him yesterday would be predicted to have a reading where John says:
“Mary will be thinking about me tomorrow” (as only part o f the extended thinking
time has, on these assumptions, to be co-temporal with yesterday). Such a reading,
of course, does not exist (either in English or in Hebrew), and on the ULC-based
version of the de re theory, it is excluded by the ULC.
On the other hand, the theory fails to explain why the Japanese counterpart of
(4b) (i.e., (5b)), lacks a simultaneous reading, and this is puzzling if we assume that
Hebrew and Japanese are alike regarding the semantics o f propositional attitude
verbs. This is one of the shortcomings o f the ULC-based theory.

3.2.2 Restrictions on Z ero -B in d ers

What are the implications o f the ULC-based theory for relative clauses? Recall the
English data discussed in section 1, a portion o f which is repeated in (38).

(38) a. In 1999, Joseph met a wom an w ho loved traveling in 1999.

b. In his childhood, Joseph met a woman who loves traveling.
Loving time must overlap utterance time.
c. In his middle-age, Joseph will (finally) meet a woman who loves traveling.
Loving time need not overlap utterance time.

The acceptability of (38a), which indicates that a past-under-past configuration in a

relative clause can have a simultaneous reading, makes it tempting to assign it the
LF in (39), where the “deletion” rule has applied to the embedded past, and the
matrix past has been moved by Quantifier Raising (QR).25

(39) PA ST ^ a Ao [Joseph eo meet [a wom an [who PA ST ^ love traveling] ] ]

Coindexation between eo and PAST^ results in them both being bound by the ab­
stractor “Ao,” and in that the meeting time and the loving time coincide. According
to the above proposal about the English present, which assumes that it is an inher­
ently indexical tense, the fact that the relative clause in (38b) only receives a reading
sensitive to the utterance time is predicted correctly. This is shown by the LF in (40).
 E M BED D ED TENSES
653

PRES°u3 indicates that it denotes a time overlapping the utterance time, which is a
correct prediction.

(40) PAST‘D Ao[Joseph eo meet [a woman [who PRES °u3 love traveling]]]

Moreover, the Japanese relative clause facts shown in (21a) receive a natural expla­
nation here. Japanese is claimed to have an inborn relative present and the free
variable o is bound by Ao. This is shown schematically in (41).

(41) P A S T ^ Ao [Joseph eo meet [a woman [who PRES°() love traveling]]]

However, these predictions for English and Japanese do not sit well with the Hebrew
facts in relative clauses. As we have already seen, Hebrew verb complement facts
show that it has an inborn relative present tense on a par with Japanese. However,
given this assumption, we cannot account for the fact that in Hebrew relative
clauses, the present does not produce a simultaneous reading under past as shown
in (20a). This means that the configuration given in (41) is not permitted in Hebrew,
and we need to improve our account in some way.
On the other hand, if we adopt an alternative account o f the present according
to which all languages have a present tense that denotes a time overlapping what the
index o denotes, i.e., PRES°ok (where the superscripted o indicates temporal over­
lap), then this would have an unwelcome consequence in that (38b) could have the
LF in (42), which incorrectly predicts a non-existent reading, namely, where the
time o f loving occurs in the past (and crucially does not overlap the utterance time).
This is equally unwelcome for languages like Hebrew, though it only produces a
harmless redundant way o f obtaining a simultaneous reading for languages like
Japanese.

(42) PAST<o3Ao [Joseph eomeet [a woman [who PRES°oi love traveling] ] ]

For different but related reasons, von Stechow (1995) suggests (cf. Abusch, 1993) the
Q RC (QR Convention: The movement index created by QR is always different from
the distinguished index o, which is the index that prefixes a complement o f an in-
tensional operator).26 John met a woman who loved him does not have any inten-
sional operators, therefore (39) is ruled out by the Q RC (and so is (42)). Rather, the
sentence may have the LF in (43)- The LF in (44)—which implies that the loving
time overlaps the utterance time—is ruled out by the assumption that a PAST that
has been subjected to the “deletion” rule has to be bound.

(43) Joseph PAST* [meet [a woman [who PAST< love him]]]

(44) # PAST<o_a A3[Joseph e3 meet [a woman [who PAST"; love traveling]]]

The two past tenses in (43) can accidentally co-refer. To account for the fact that
(38c) has a simultaneous reading, it is necessary to assume that w ill is composed o f
PRES and an intensional operator—the modal woll (an assumption that is indepen­
dently motivated by the w ill/would alternation) m aking the following LF possible.
Here the assumption would have to be that in this case, the movement o f the future
auxiliary is permitted and the creation o f Ao takes place. This leaves us with an
654 TENSES

unnatural asym m etry between (present and past) tense morphemes and the future
auxiliary, but it at least accounts for English and Hebrew relative clause facts.27

(45) PRES°o/ua woll Ao[Joseph eo meet [a woman [who PRES°o love him]]]

Even if this “solution” is accepted for English and Hebrew (and other languages),
this theory still fails to account for the fact that Japanese relative clauses behave
differently: crucially, an embedded present can receive a simultaneous reading even
when the matrix tense is past. The copy-based theory aims to explain this fact.
Before we move on to the copy-based theory, it is worth noting that the ULC
and the Q RC are related: the ULC assumes that all attitude verbs and modal auxil­
iaries introduce Ao, and the Q RC says that only attitude verbs and modal auxiliaries
introduce it. This will become significant in the next section, where the copy-based
theory is discussed.

3.3. The Copy-Based Theory

As we already mentioned, like the ULC-based theory, the copy-based theory also
assumes a “deletion” parameter, an inborn relative present tense parameter, and the
availability o f a de re mechanism for tenses with “undeleted” features (though, as we
will soon see, a significantly different de re mechanism). Its account o f relative clause
data could take some different forms. One possibility is what is provided in Ogi-
haras (1996) work, according to which all tense morphemes can be interpreted as
embedded regardless o f clause types. Since Ogihara does not assume the U LC, he
does not need to presuppose the existence o f a designated variable that denotes the
‘ evaluation time,” and his account is encoded in a w ay very different from the pro­
posals entertained here. If we were to formalize his proposal within the general
framework adopted here, it would be encoded in terms o f an optional tense move­
ment, which introduces the binder Ao as shown in (41). This allows an inborn rela­
tive present in Japanese to be bound, and a simultaneous reading is produced as a
result. This mechanism, along with a tense deletion rule for English, produces a
structure like (39), which indicates a simultaneous reading. Though redundant, this
prediction is innocuous. In this case, there is no special restriction on QR. Since this
proposal is combined with the assumption that the (undeleted) English present is a
true indexical (“absolute” ) tense in that it denotes a time containing the utterance
time, the proposal is acceptable as far as English and Japanese are concerned. As
mentioned above, the problem with this proposal is that it fails to account for the
Hebrew data in relative clauses. One possible “solution” is to say that Hebrew is
subject to the Q RC (Quantifier Raising Constraint) mentioned above, but other
languages are not.
An alternative account o f the present was discussed above according to which
all languages have a present tense that denotes a time overlapping what the index o
denotes, i.e., PRES° OtiC.. According to this proposal, Japanese is an exceptional
language because a stipulation is needed to explain the behavior o f relative clauses.
Since this proposal gives us no new insight from the viewpoint o f a copy-based
EM BED D E D TENSES 655

theory, our discussion here is very brief. According to this account, all languages
have a pronominal present tense of the form PRES00,K., and to restrict the bound
occurrences o f this tense form, the QRC (Quantifier Raising Constraint) is posited.
However, since Japanese relative clauses allow a shifted present-under-past in rela­
tive clauses, one must stipulate that Japanese does not have the QRC: Ao may appear
anywhere (thus allowing an LF such as (42) above). Presumably (39) is still ruled out
in Japanese because it lacks a “deletion” rule altogether. However, it is hard to show
this convincingly because a simultaneous reading for a past tense in a relative clause
is available by co-reference, as we saw.28
Given that Japanese is not required to obey the Q RC, the U LC becomes less
attractive from a conceptual and empirical point o f view (recall that both the
U L C and the Q RC are based on the assumption that Ao has a special status). If
there are languages that do not respect the QRC, is it possible that Ao doesn’t have
a special status at all (at least in those languages), and that the job the U LC does
in intensional contexts is done by some other principle? Indeed, in the copy-
based theory the job that the U LC does in complements o f attitude verbs is done
by the requirement that a moved tense leave behind a copy (whose features are
interpreted). To be precise, what is left behind is not an exact copy o f the original
in the case o f the simple present in English. Given the assumption that the E ng­
lish present is an inherently indexical expression, what is left must not be an
identical copy. It must be a present tense that is alm ost identical with the original
but with the indexical character stripped off. The intuitive idea behind it is that
what is left in the original position must preserve the temporal orientation o f the
original but must not carry the indexical nature o f the original, i f any. The formal
encoding o f this idea could take many different forms. Here, we simply encode this
in terms o f the difference between the original indexical present tense PRES°u ,
which gets moved, and the non-indexical “copy” PR ES°o3 o f the original, which is
left behind in the original position. This proposal is motivated by independent
arguments that have been made in recent years in favor o f the Copy Theory o f
Movement (Chomsky, 1993). In addition, it is m otivated by what we might call
the Temporal Orientation Principle (or what Ogihara, 1996, calls the Temporal
Directionality Isomorphism): the attitude holder must have the same temporal
orientation as the speaker toward the res. For present-under-past sentences (with
attitude verbs), the prediction is the same as in the U LC-based theory (i.e., a
“double access” reading).29

(46) [Joseph P A S T ^ [believeDi;-RH-PRES°u3] AsAofMary [PRES0()3-love him]]]

The context supplies a salient time description that is compatible with the
presuppositions of the moved PRES°t and the presuppositions of PAST* . “ The O fl

month that surrounds now” may be easily compatible with all three, and this
description picks out the month that surrounds Josephs “now.” Crucially, this
time overlaps the utterance time in accordance with the presuppositions of the
moved PRES°o3. The entire sentence says that Joseph attributes this time the
property of being a current time of Marys loving him (i.e., Joseph).
656 TENSES

vSo the question we are faced with is whether the U L C is needed after all. We com e
back to this question in section 4.1.
Importantly, if indeed Ao has no special status, the Q R C has to be dispensed with,
since it makes reference to Ao. We replace the Q R C with the assumption that only
quantificational expressions can be QRed, and that languages m ay differ as to whether
their tenses are pronouns or quantificational expressions. Japanese has pronominal
tenses (PAST, PRES) as well as quantificational tenses— past, present, and future
(past,pres, fut); English and Hebrew have only pronom inal tenses.-10 This assumption
renders (47a) (and perhaps (47b)) well-formed in languages such as Japanese but not
in English or Hebrewr, and (47c) and (47d) ill-formed in all languages.

(47) a. pasto Ao [Joseph e meet [a w om an [who P R E S°o love traveling]]]

b. past Ao [Joseph eo meet [a w om an [who P R E S°o2 love traveling]!]
c. P A S T *,, Ao[ Joseph c n m eet [a w om an [who P R E S rn love traveling] ] ]
d. PAST* Ao[Joseph e meet [a w om an [who P R E S°(j love traveling]]]

In English and Hebrew past and present are pronouns and woll is a quantificational
m odal (and when it is Q R ed, the present tense that is attached to it piggy-backs and
is Q R e d too).31
In addition, the U L C , should we decide to keep it, w ould have to be revised to
require that the denotation o f [T a] cannot be after the local evaluation tim e.32 So
the o n ly question w e are concern ed with is w h eth e r the U L C — the n e w U L C —
can be d ispensed w ith in favor o f the assum ption that a m o v ed tense leaves behind
a copy.
The copy-based theory, as we saw, makes correct predictions regarding present-
under-past (see (46)). It also predicts that past-under-past sentences cannot yield a
simultaneous reading (only a back-shifted reading).

(48) [Joseph P A ST <:o2 [believe™ RE-P A ST <o J A3A4[M ary P A S T ^ -lo v e him]]

The context supplies a salient tim e d escription that is com patible w ith the
p resu pposition s o f the m oved PA ST and o f its copy. “ The m onth that surrou n d s
n o w '’ can n o t sa tisfy these presu p p ositio n s, because relative to John and his
“ n o w ” it picks out a time o verlap p in g Joh n ’s “ now,” not a tim e that com pletely
precedes it.

This correctly predicts that a past-under-past in Japanese cannot receive a sim ulta­
neous reading (see section 3.1), but it runs into the opposite problem, namely,
m akin g w ro n g predictions regarding Hebrew. As we already saw, the Hebrew c o u n ­
terpart o f Joseph believed that M ary loved him has, for som e speakers, a simulta­
neous reading. This is predicted by the U L C -b a se d theory, as shown above.
In section 5 we will present a solution that constitutes a “ m arriage” between the
U L C -b a s e d and the copy-based theories; but before we do that, it is worth d iscuss­
ing som e additional data that supports m aintaining the U L C .

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EM BEDDED TENSES 657

4. A d d itio n a l Data

We a lre a d y d is c u s s e d on e piece o f e v id e n c e that s u p p o rts the U L C , nam ely,

H eb re w p a s t-u n d e r -p a s t. In this section w e d iscu ss s o m e a d d itio n a l past-
u n d e r-p a st facts and s o m e n e w facts c o n c e r n in g present with an in te rv e n in g
future.

4.1. De Re Past-Under-Past in Languages without

a “ Deletion” Rule
T h e re is no q u estio n that in n o n - S O T la n g u a g e s such as H ebrew, the p referred
w a y o f e x p r e s s in g a s im u lta n e o u s r e a d in g o f an attitude r e p o rt (w hen the
m a t rix tense is past) is, usually, with an e m b e d d e d present. T h is fact is m ost
easily illustrated by the b y - n o w fa m ilia r e x a m p le fr o m section 2, repeated
in (49).

(49) D an xasav etm ol se M ira hayta am ura

Dan PAST-think yesterday thal M ira PAST-be supposed
lom ar le-im a tox savua sc hi hitgaagca cleha
i n f - tell to-mother-her within week that she PAST-miss to-her
M ira says to her m other: “ I m iss you.” Impossible.

If Hebrew had an SOT-rule, (49) would allow a simultaneous reading o f the m ost
deeply em bedded past tense. But this is not so. For this v e ry reason, the contrast in
(50) (also familiar from section 2) is telling.

(50) a. lifn e y alp ayim san a, Y o se f x a sa v se M iriam

before two-thousand year Y o sef PAST-think that M iria m
ah ava oto az
PAST-love h im then
Y osef s belief, two thousand years ago: “M iriam loves m e now.”

b. lifn e y alp ayim san a, Y o se f x a sa v se M iriam

before two-thousand year Y o sef PAST-think that M iriam
ah ava oto be-yalduto
PAST-love h im in -ch ild h o o d -h is
Y o sef s belief, two thousand years ago: “M iriam loved m e in m y childhood."

Although both the simultaneous and back-shifted readings are available, the time-
adverbial disambiguates the sentence: w hen az is anaphoric to the matrix adverbial,
(50a) has only a simultaneous reading, while (50b) has only a back-shifted reading.
Hi is point is confirmed by (51).

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658 TENSES

(51) etmol be-tesa baboker, Yosef amar se Miriam

yesterday at-nine in the morning Yosef PAST-Say that Miriam
xasva alav bediyuk beoto rega aval lo lifney xen
PAST-think about-him exactly at-the-same moment but not before now
Simultaneous reading— possible
Yosef: “M iriam is thinking about m e now but didn’t think about me before now.”

It is clearly the presence o f the embedded adverbial that is responsible for the simul­
taneous reading. Importantly, as we saw in section 2, any theory that attempts to
attribute simultaneous readings o f past-under-past to the possibility o f extending
the time referred to by the embedded past to cover a larger time interval faces diffi­
culties, at the very least in accounting for crosslinguistic variation.
Therefore, we would like to pursue the hypothesis that in Hebrew (and possibly
in other non-SOT languages), a de re interpretation of past-under-past is allowed in
principle, but in practice it is exercised only in special circumstances. We do not
attempt to give here an exhaustive list o f such special circumstances, but such case
is when a de re interpretation implies something that the other interpretation does
not. An example from Sharvit (2008) illustrates this: the example involves a mistake
on the part o f the attitude holder, a mistake concerning the time he is living in.
Imagine that Dan just woke up from a coma, and mistakenly believes that it is Feb­
ruary, although it is already March (and to make matters worse, the calendar on his
bedside table still shows February). In his mind, his wife is pregnant and is expected
to give birth in the near future (in fact, she has already given birth). We talk to Dan,
and he says (52a). A day after talking to Dan, it seems (again, for some speakers) to
be perfectly fine to utter either variant o f the report in (52b): the variant with hayta
amura (‘was supposed’) and the variant with amura (‘is supposed5).

(52) a. isti amura laledet be-februar

wife-m y PRES-be-supposed to-give-birth in-February
“M y wife is supposed to give birth in February”
b. Dan amar se isto (hayta) amura
Dan PAST-Say that wife-his PAST-be supposed
laledet be-februar.
to-give-birth in-February
“Dan said that his wife was supposed to give birth in February.”

For those speakers who accept the past-under-past variant of (52b) as a faithful
report of the situation in which Dan uttered (52a), it must be the case that the em­
bedded past is interpreted de re: this interpretation implies that Dan has a belief of
a particular time in the past. This provides the speaker with a way to emphasize that
Dan is mistaken regarding the time he is living in.
It is worth noting that in addition to (49), there are other cases where past-
under-past is simply impossible in Hebrew. Consider (53), which expresses belief of
a generic statement.
EM BEDDED TENSES 659

(53) D an xasav se esrim h u /'h aya m ispar risoni

D an think-PAST that tw enty Ь є - p r e s /p a s t num ber prim e
“ D an thought that twenty is/was a prim e num ber”

The em b e d d e d present variant is good , p resu m a b ly because it c o rre sp o n d s to

the belief “ 20 is a prime number,5* which is a “generic” belief (and is always true). The
em bedded past variant is bad, presumably because it implies that Dan holds the
implausible b e lief that the property o f being p rim e is a property that m a y change
over time. Indeed, som e speakers report that in a situation where Dan indeed
believes that a n u m b er can be prim e one-day and n on -p rim e the next, (53) improves
considerably.
Finally, interesting examples o f Russian “simultaneous” past-under-past facts
are discussed in Altshuler (2008).

( 54) V proslom godu v bare ja do-li-1 bakal D u d k in -a і

In last year at b ar I PFV-pour-PST.is glass o f-D u d k in and
sk aza- 1, c to ja x o te -1 em u soobscit’ cto -to
PFVsay-PST.is that I wantlPF-PST.is h im announce so m eth in g
prijatn oc.
pleasant
“Last year, at a bar, 1 filled up D u d k in s glass and said that 1 wanted to in fo rm h im o f so m eth in g pleasant.”

The claim is that the wanting time and the saying time/filling time overlap. This is
so, despite the fact that otherwise, Russian is a language without a “deletion” rule
(but with a inborn relative present). G ronn and von Stechow (2010) discuss these
cases too and although (like Altshuler) they do not resort to a de re analysis for cases
such as (54), they do so for other cases o f past-under-past (specifically, factive
constructions).

4.2. Present-with-an-Intervening-Future
Consider (55): this is a case where an em bedded present is c -co m m an d ed by a future
tense.

(5 5 ) Two m onths from now John will tell his m other that he is going to the Catskills.

The most salient reading o f (55) is one where John says to his mother: “ I am going
to the Catskills.” This reading is unproblematic (the em bedded present can receive
a simultaneous reading under will — or PR E S+ wall— thanks to the “deletion” rule).
But the sentence has another, less salient, reading, brought about by the presence o f
tomorrow.

(56) Two m onths from now John w ill tell his m other that he is going to the
C atskills tomorrow.

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66o TENSES

There are speakers who find (56) well form ed; for them it implies that John said to
his m other som ething along the following lines: “ I went to the Catskills about two
months ago.” O n ly the U L C -b ased theory predicts this, as show n by (57), which
contrasts the two analyses.

(57) a. U LC -bascd LF:

[John P R E S°o/ui woll [tellnE'RE-P R E S °o J his m other A3A1 [he e^-be-going
to the Catskills]]

Suitable description : “ the tim e o f m y trip to the C atskills (in clu d in g its p rep ara­
tion).” This d escrip tion , relative to Jo h n s telling, picks out a time that contain s the
utterance tim e, and John assign s to this tim e the property o f being a time o f goin g
to the Catskills.

b. C opy-based LF:
[John P R E S °o oi woll [tell1* RE-P R F.S°i ] his m other A3A2[he P R ES" ^-be-going
to the Catskills] ]

The context can n ot su p p ly a time d escription such as “ the tim e o f m y trip to the
C atskills (in clud in g its prep aration )” ; it is incom patible w ith the presuppositions
o f the em bedd ed P R E S : In Joh n s “m in d ” that trip o ccu rred in the past, but the
presupposition o f the em bedded P R E S is that the trip o ccu r in the future relative
to Jo h n s telling his mother.

The difference between (57a) and (57b) is that according to (57b), Johns trip to the
Catskills must be conveyed to his m other as taking place in the future in relation to
John s “ n o w ” during the telling time, but according to (57a) this need not be so.
S o m e speakers find (56) acceptable on the reading predicted by the U L C -b a s e d
theory, nam ely (44a). But this reading is not universally acceptable, however. Som e
English native speakers accept it; others do not.
"Hie corresponding Llebrew sentence in (58) has— for m any speakers— the
reading predicted by (57a), but the correspon d in g Japanese example in (59) does

(58) bc-od x o d s a i m Dan yom ar le - im o sc hu

in - tw o m o n t h s D an FUT-tell to-m other-his that he
nosca (m axar) la-kctskJlz
P RE S - g o tom orrow to-the-Catskills
(59) #A su O saka-e iku to raigetsu haha-ni
tom orrow O saka-to go that next month m y-m other-to
iu tum ori-da.
say intend-pREs
“N ext m onth, I will say to m y m other that 1 am going to Osaka tomorrow.”

The fact that (58) has the relevant reading is important, because it provides
indirect evidence for the claim that even languages that have an inborn relative
present have the option o f interpreting an em bedded present de re (and obtaining a
“double access” reading). Let us briefly elaborate on this point.

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E M B ED D E D TENSES 66l

Recall that the English (15) (John fo u n d out that M ary loves him) has a “double
access” reading, according to which M arys loving overlaps both the finding out
time and the utterance time. In both the U LC-based theory and the copy-based
theory, this follows from the following assumptions: (i) the res must be an interval
containing the utterance time; (ii) this res must be understood to be a non-future
time (the ULC-based account) or a current time (the copy-based account). The
question that arises with respect to Hebrew/Japanese-type languages is whether a
present in a complement o f an attitude verb must be an inborn relative present. If it
can be an indexical (i.e., non-relative) present tense, then it should have the option
o f being interpreted de re (and this would be predicted by both the ULC-based and
the copy-based theories). The relevant example and (simplified) LFs are given below.

(60) a. Dan gila se Mira ohevet oto

Dan PAST-find-out that Mira PRES-love him
b. The embedded PRES is bound—“simultaneous” reading.
Dan [PAST [find out [3 [Mira PRES3 love him]]]]
c. The embedded PRES moves— “double access” reading.
ULC-based LF: [Dan PAST [find out-PRES] A3[Mira едlove him]]
Copy-based LF: [Dan PAST [find out-PRES] A3[Mira PRES3 love him]]

However, these predictions are not easy to confirm, because whenever (60c) is
true, so is (60b). So it would be reasonable to say that the grammar generates only
(6ob), where PRES is bound. But the fact that (58) has a reading according to which
Dan says “I went to the Catskills approximately two months ago” —a reading which
can be generated only with a de re LF—suggests that the grammar also generates a
de re LF for (60a).
More importantly, and to conclude this section, present-with-an-intervening-
future sentences, just like past-under-past sentences, provide evidence either for the
ULC-based theory or the copy-based theory, depending on which language one
looks at. Given this state o f affairs, the available theoretical options are these: (a)
claim that the copy-based theory is the right one, and that the data discussed in this
section should be viewed as the exception rather than the rule (and as such, falls
outside the required coverage o f the theory); (b) claim that the ULC-based theory is
the right one, and that Japanese relative clauses are the exception rather than the
rule; (c) try to find a theory that borrows insights from both. In the next section we
attempt to follow the third suggestion, but we leave it to the readers to decide which,
if any, is superior to the others.

5. A C o m b i n e d T h e o r y

In the previous section, we suggested the possibility that a copy-based theory dis­
tinguishes among different types o f languages in terms o f whether they treat their
tenses as pronominal, quantificational (or both).33 Let us adopt this assumption,
662 TENSES

and add the following parameter, which we call the tense-copy parameter, fo rm u ­
lated in (61).

(61) The tensc-copy param eter

A ‘res’-m oved tense m orphem e {leaves, doesn’t leave) a copy.

A n d let us assume that the U L C is universal.

This com bined theory correctly predicts the existence o f language-types that we
have observed. Japanese seem s to opt for the leaving-a-copy parameter setting; R us­
sian and Hebrew seem to choose the not-leaving-a-copy parameter setting. Re­
garding English, both possibilities seem to be possible depending upon how the
English present is understood as discussed above. It is worth noting that even
though w e assume the U L C to be universal, it is not active in Japanese: the require­
ment that a m oved tense leave a copy overrides whatever constraints the U L C im ­
poses. This is a potential conceptual concern, but it leads to correct empirical
predictions. A nother concern about the U L C is that it m a y not be falsifiable in the
following sense. A sentence in the simple present tense often makes reference to a
future situation in many languages, perhaps universally. This is shown in (62). H o w ­
ever, this type o f exam ple is assum ed to carry a special m eaning or to involve an
implicit m odal/future m o rp h e m e, and is not considered to be counter-evidence for
the U L C .

(62) a. The sun rises at 6 a.m . tomorrow.

b. Asu w atasi-w a O saka-e ikim asu.
tom orrow, 1-top O saka-to go - P RE S
[Lit.) “ 1 g o to O saka tomorrow.”

If all future reference o f an overt simple present is assum ed to involve a covert

m odal or an exceptional way o f m a k in g reference to future, then it is not clear how
to disprove the U L C . This is an empirical concern.
Supplementing the above proposal, we propose a pragmatic principle o f prefer­
ence for bound pronouns (see Reinhart, 1983; Schlenker, 1999, forthcom ing) to ac­
count for the observed ju d gm en t variability a m on g speakers. The pragmatic
com ponent o f this proposal borrow s an idea from Schlenker (1999, forthcom ing). It
says that an LF where a tense is bound from C o m p is preferred over a de re LF,31
w h en ever the two yield practically indistinguishable interpretations. This explains
why, out-of-the-blue, for m an y Hebrew speakers a de re interpretation o f past-
under-past is unacceptable. The corresponding LF with a present-under-past (where
the present is bou n d by the intensional operator) yields roughly the same interpre­
tation ( if there is any difference at all, it is too minute for those speakers to “care” ).
However, as we saw, in som e cases the interpretation is not identical. For example,
in the scenario described above for (52a, b), the de re interpretation, which suggests
that Dan is w ron g about the time he is living in, is different from the present-bound-
fr o m -C o m p interpretation (which implies nothing about D a n s mistake). Similar
considerations should account for the variability regarding (56): the existence o f
Two months from now , John will tell his mother that he went to the Catskills , where

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has been is not interpreted de re, is preferred over Two months from now , John will
tell his mother that he is going to the Catskills , where be going is interpreted de re.
There is, o f course, another m ajor concern: the multiplicity o f parameters m ay
predict the possibility o f non-existing languages, even if we exclude som e c o m b in a ­
tions for independent reasons.35 To take just one example, is there a language which,
like English, has a “deletion” rule, but like Japanese, has an inborn relative present
tense that can be boun d (i.e., can receive a sim ultaneous reading)? This is, o f course,
an empirical question which, to the best o f our knowledge, cannot be answered at
the m om ent. Our hope is that despite m any loose ends, this w ork will serve as a
springboard for m ore crosslinguistic study regarding the behavior o f tense in e m ­
bedded clauses, especially the double-access phenom ena.

A C K N O W LED G M EN TS

For com m ents, discussion, and judgments, we wish to thank our students and col­
leagues at the University o f Washington and the University o f Connecticut, as well
as Daniel Altshuler, Gidi A vraham i, C o r in a G o o d w in , M ira Goral, Dita Gutm an,
Toshiko Oda, Laurel Preston, Ariel Rubinstein, and Lyn Tieu. Special thanks go to
Dita G utm an, for collecting judgm ents from additional speakers w h o se names do
not appear here. A n y and all errors are ours.

NOTES

1. Note that we em p lo y a factive predicate fin d out so that we are assured that the
em bedded sentence is true w hen the entire sentence is. This allow s us to talk about the
events d escrib ed in the com plem ent clause as “ real events.” For exam ple, in (ia, b), we can
talk about the tim e o f M a r y s lo vin g him . I f the m ain predicate is not a factive predicate,
then d iscu ssin g the tem poral properties o f the com plem en t clause verb is m ore com plex.
For details, the reader is referred to A busch (1993, 1997) and O gihara (1996).
2. Som e term s used in this w o rk need clarification. The term “sim u ltan eou s in terp re­
tation” is used to describ e a read in g o f an em bedded clause (verb com plem ent o r relative
clause) in w hich the tim e o f the em bedded predicate is understood to be the sam e as the
tim e o f the m atrix clause predicate. The term “ back-shifted read in g” is used to talk about a
read in g in w hich the em bedded predicate d escribes a situation that precedes the m atrix
predicate situation. In addition to these term s, the term “fo rw ard -sh ifted read in g” is used
to indicate a reading in w hich the em bedded situation follow s the situation described by
the m atrix predicate.
3. The behavior o f a past tense under a future auxiliary is an im portant topic. But this is
largely unrelated to the issues discussed in this chapter, and we will refrain from discussing it
4. O gihara (2007) reports cases o f past-u nd er-past in Japanese, with factive verbs,
w here for som e speakers a “sim ultaneous” reading is available. H ow ever, O gih aras

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intuitions do not allow for this reading. For example, (i) is impossible according to
Ogiharas judgments.

(i) #Zyuunen mae, Bill-w a Sue-ga sonotoki byooki-dat-ta to sit-tei-ta.

ten years ago Bill-Top Sue-NOM then be-sick- p a s t that know-PAST
[intended] Ten years ago, Bill knew that M ary was sick then.

5. See Hatav (this volume) for a different view, at least concerning Hebrew.
6. It is worth pointing out that replacing the embedded past with present in (7a) yields
a result which seems to be unacceptable to many (again, admittedly not all) Hebrew speakers.

(i) #lifney alpayim Sana, Yosef xasav se Miriam

before tw o -th o u sa n d year Yosef PA ST -think that Miriam
o h evet oto az
PRES-love h im then
Simultaneous reading.
Yosef’s belief, two thousand years ago: “Miriam loves me now.”

For those speakers, (7a) is the only way to convey a simultaneous reading, when az is
present.
7. The semantics o f “double-access” readings is somewhat simplified here thanks to
the factive predicate find out. I f it were a non-factive predicate like think or say, the
description and explanation o f double-access sentences becomes much more complex,
as discussed in Ogihara (1995b, 1996).
8. OM stands for “object marker.”
9. For some speakers, a “historical present” interpretation is possible for the ehibedded
present in (20a) (which obviates the requirement o f overlap with utterance time). This effect
is neutralized in (i) (probably because o f the different narrative set-up, compared to (20a)):
the divorce time must overlap the utterance time (as opposed to (ii), where it need not).

(i) lifney savua pagas Yosef isa Se bediyuk

before week m eet-PAST Yosef woman that just
nimcet be-halixei gerusim
be-PRES in -p ro c e d u re s d ivo rce
“ Last week Yosef met a woman who is getting a divorce”
(divorce-getting time overlaps utterance time).
(ii) beod xodes yifgos Yosef isa se bediyuk
within month m eet-F U T Yosef woman that just
nimcet be-halixei gerusim
be-PRES in-procedures divorce
“In a month, Yosef will meet a woman who is getting a divorce”
(divorce-getting time need not overlap utterance time).

10. Korean relative clauses behave like lapanese ones. In other words, a relative clause
in the present tense can receive a simultaneous reading even when the matrix clause is in
the past tense, (i) is an example.

(i) Taro-nun wul ko iss-nun salam-ul mannass-ta.

Taro-top cry-PROG-REL person-Acc m eet-PAST
“ Taro m et a m an who was crying (at that tim e).”
EM BEDDED TENSES 665

It is also interesting to note that m an y French children seem to agree w ith Japanese adults
regarding the b eh avio r o f the present in relative clauses. This is reported in D em ird ach e
and JLungu (2008).
11. That the English past can receive a back-shifted read in g u n d er past show s that the
SO T rule does not apply to it obligatorily. There could be a language in w hich the deletion
rule applies o b ligato rily to tense m orp h em es, and i f so such a language could be claim ed to
be a S O T language in the strict(er) sense.
12. A n inborn relative tense is one that does n ot have to undergo deletion in order to
receive a sim ultan eous reading.
13. It is possible that languages could d ilfer as to w hether they have (in born ) relative
past tenses. This chapter assum es that Knglish (as well as Japanese and H ebrew ) has a
relative past tense in that (9b) is a possible reading. But it is conceivable that there are
languages that do not allow for this possibility, and i f so, this could be an im portant
p aram eter for crosslin guistic co m p ariso n o f tense m orphem es.
14. Intuitively, an undeleted tense is one that can be taken at face value. For exam ple,
an undeleted past tense has a past m eaning. By contrast, a deleted tense is one that has no
tem poral m eaning: one that does not change the evaluation time.
15. rIhere exists a slightly different w ay o f u nderstan d in g the tense “deletion” rule. It
applies ob ligato rily to in dexical tenses w h en they o ccu r in situations w here they cannot
receive in dexical in terpretations and turns them into zero tenses. A cco rd in g to this
account, the English past in a verb com plem en t clause can n ot produce back-shifted
interpretations w hen em bedd ed under a m atrix past.
16. The treatm ent o f tenses as pronouns w as first suggested in Partee (1973), and later
adopted b y Abusch (19 9 3 ,19 9 7 ), H eim (1984), K ratzer (1998), von Stechow (1995), and
m an y others. This does not exclude the possibility that som e occu rren ces o f tenses are
n o n -p ro n om in al (i.e., that they are qu an tification al), as we w ill see in section 3.3 below.
17. We shall see below that an abstractor Ao m ay also be introduced w h en relative
clauses are interpreted.
18. The idea here is that an in d ex other than o receives an cxisten tially quantified
interpretation. This m ay not be the o n ly interpretation given to such an in dex, esp ecially
w hen there is an accom p an yin g adverbial such as the d ay before, in 1994, etc. But o u r focus
is not on this type o f back shifted in terpretation, and we sim p ly opt for the sim plest
possible option here.
19. Sligh tly m ore form ally:

(i) a. Past tense with “undeleted” features:

[PAST*., j]g is defined on ly if g(k) precedes g(j); w henever defined,
[P A S T < J* = g (k )
Thus, w henever defined, [[Ao[3 , [that M ary PAST ^ love Joseph]] ]R= [A tE D . there is
a t € D such that [A t'E D : t ' precedes t. M ary loves Joseph at t’ ](t:) = True].
b. Past tense w ith “deleted” features:
[P A S T ^ J8 = g(k)
Thus, w henever defined, fl Ao[that M ary P A ST ^ love Joseph] ]g = [A t€ D . M a ry loves
Joseph at t].
(ii) a. Present tense with “undeleted” features:
[P R E S°jk]g is defined only if g(k) overlaps g(j); w henever defined,
[P R E S °'k]g = g(k)
b. Present tense with “deleted” features o r inborn relative present
[P R E S wkp = g(k)

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666 TENSES

(iii) |bdfeve]w(p)(t)(x) is defined only if: for all world-time pairs <w',t'> compatible with
what x believes in w at t, p(t')(w') is defined. Whenever defined, |be/teve]|w(p)(t)(x) =
True iff for all world-time pairs <w',t'> compatible with what x believes in w at t, p(t')
(w')=True.

20. This corresponds to a simultaneous reading: Joseph held some belief at the
contextually salient past time, and according to his belief, he was located at a time when
M ary loved him (at that time).
21. This corresponds to a back-shifted reading: Joseph held some belief at the
contextually salient past time, and according to his belief, M ary’s loving him is located at
an earlier time (in relation to Joseph’s belief time).
22. Officially, the complement clause must be interpreted to denote the proposition
associated with it (a set o f worlds or world-time pairs), not its extension (truth value).
23. j[ b d ie v e DE- R£flw'c( t ) ( p ) ( t ') ( x ) is defined only if c supplies a suitable time-concept, Fc,
such that: (i) Fc(w)(t') = t, and (ii) for all world-time pairs <w',t"> compatible with wKat x
believes in w at t', p ( w ') ( F c( w ') ( t " ) ) ( t " ) js defined. Whenever defined, {believe™ REJwc(t)(p)
(t')(x) =True iff for all world-time pairs <w',t" > compatible with what x believes in w at
t ', p ( w ') ( F c( w ' ) ( r ) ) ( t ff) - T r u e .

24. A more formal rendition o f (32) is this (see Heim 1984): Ц[T a] ]* is defined only if
la p is not after g(o). Where defined, f [T a] l g = [ссЦ8.
Taking into account the ULC, the interpretation o f [Joseph PAST4^ [beIieveDE'RE-PRES°uj]
ЛзАо[Магу [e^-love him]]], relative to context c and assignment g, is as follows: Fc(utterance-
world)(g(2)) = g(3) (which overlaps the utterance time), and for all world-time pairs
<w',t*> pairs compatible with what Joseph believes in w at g(2) (which precedes the
utterance time): [AwGW. [ ЛзЛо[Магу [e3-love him]] |w,c](w')(Fc(w ')(r))(r) = [AtGD.: Fc(w')
(tff) is not after t. M ary loves Joseph in w ' at (Fc(w/)(t"))](tff) = True. ,
25. Quantifier Raising (QR) is generally an operation through which a quantiser (an
expression that is higher in semantic type (e.g., <<e,t>,t> or < « i,t> ,i> ) than the standard
type (e.g., e or i) associated with the base-generated position) is moved out to correct a
type mismatch. At the same time, Q R is used to create a binder for a variable-like expres­
sion (such as pronouns). The latter mechanism is more important here because the tense
movement creates the binder Ao, which binds the free variable 0 associated with the past
tense within the relative clause in (39).
26. von Stechow (following Abusch) is concerned with English ought, which in
complement clauses has a “bound tense” interpretation, and in relative clauses a “free
present” interpretation. Our framework forces us to say that ought comes with a silent
Hebrew-like PRES, which in complement clauses is obligatorily relative. Note, on the other
hand, that the Japanese equivalent to ought (beki “ought-pres” ) behaves in the same way in
complement and relative clauses, suggesting that the Q RC is not valid as far as Japanese is
concerned.
27. See Hatav (this volume) for discussion o f “modal” uses o f the future. These uses
are not covered by our proposal.
28. Ogihara (1996) proposes that a DP containing a relative clause can be quantifier
raised and that this possibility yields a reading in which a relative clause tense behaves like
an “ indexical tense” (referring to any time before the utterance time).
29. The interpretation o f [Joseph PAST<02 [believeDE'RE-PRES°uj] АзАо[Магу PRES°o -
love him ]]], relative to context c, assignment g and a suitable time concept Fc, is as follows:
Fc(utterance-world)(g(2)) = g(3) (which overlaps the utterance time), and for all world­
time pairs <w',t"> pairs compatible with what Joseph believes in w at g(2): [Aw€W.
EM BEDDED TENSES

I A3/\o[M ary P R E S °o;-love him ] J w’c](w ')(F .(w ')(r))(t") = [A t€D t: Fc( w ') (r ) overlaps t. M a ry
loves Joseph in w ' at (Fc(w /)(t'r))](t") = True.
30. Q uantificational tenses are o f type < < i,t> ,t> . Im portantly, we distinguish between
Q R — w hich applies o n ly to quantificational elem ents, and res- m o vem en t— w hich applies
to in d ivid u al-d en o tin g and tim e-den otin g exp ression s. L ik ew ise, we d istinguish between
lexical quantificational tenses (such as Japanese tenses; e.g., (47a)), and pron om in al tenses
that arc bound by a default existential (e.g., (23b)). O n ly the form er can Q R. Finally, in
languages that have quantificational tenses, em bedded tenses can be pron om in al only if
interpreted de re. This has the consequence that tenses in relative clauses arc n ever free in
such languages.
31. O gihara (1996) assum es that Japanese (and En glish ) em bedd ed clauses already
denote tem poral abstracts (sem antic entities o f type < i,< s,t> > ). This m eans that the
m ean in g o f Japanese present is such that the tim e variable associated with the tense is
“ lexically bound.” So the question about binders sim p ly docs not arise. M oreover, by
default, the system predicts that the tim e o f the verb equals the time o f the argum ent
(subject o r object) noun. T he relative clause is then com bined with the head noun essen ­
tially as a case o f predicate m odification (H eim and K ratzer 1998). Thus, the tim e o f the
noun and the time o f the relative clause m ust be m atched up as w ell, and this results in a
sim ultaneous reading. I h e proposal in vo lvin g raising the m atrix tense presu m ab ly has the
sam e sem antic consequen ce, but it m a y not be an op tim ally natural w ay o f representing the
intuitions regardin g the Japanese tense system .
32. M ore fo rm ally (cf. Schlen ker 1999): If [ r a] is in the (im m ediate) scope o f an
attitude verb w h ich introduces an abstractor, Ak, then for any assignm ent g and any tim e t,
[ lT «1 l g,k>t| is d efin ed o n ly i f l a p - l is not after t. W here defined, | [T a] |g,k>*1 = [ a ] g|k>tl.
33.We w ould like to reiterate the caveat m entioned above, w h ich is the possibility that
Japanese em bedded clauses m ay involve tenses that are “b o u n d ” lexically and this idea
leads to a sign ifican tly different w ay o f en co d in g the beh avior o f Japanese (and possibly
English) tense m orphem es.
34. For exam ple, an English sentence with a past tense could produce a sim ultaneous
read in g w hen the tense has been “deleted" to produce so m eth in g an alogou s to a tcnsclcss
clause. This is a “ b ou n d tense” option. A past tense in English could be a co m p lex p ro n o m ­
inal that denotes a time p rior to the utterance time. This possibility is produced by a de re
configuration (i.e., by a m oved tense).
35. Sh arvit (2003) argues that an independent principle o f cm b ed d ability bans
languages that have no “deletion” rule and no “deleted” present (but allow s languages that
have b o th — e.g., M od ern G reek). I f the em b ed ab ility principle d id n ’t exist, we w ould
predict the existence o f languages w here certain beliefs and thoughts could be reported
only via quotation.

R EFER EN C ES

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contexts. M an uscript, C ornell University.
A bu sch , D. (1997). Sequence o f tense and tem poral de re. Linguistics and Philosophy , 20,
1-5 0 .

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668 TENSES

Altshuler, D. G. (2008). Narrative effects in Russian indirect reports and what they reveal
about the meaning o f the past tense. In T. Friedman and S. Ito (eds.), Proceedings of
Semantics and Linguistic Theory 18 (pp. 19-36). Ithaca: CLC, Cornell University.
Borer, H. (1981). Heybetim LeSoniyim §el ha-maba he-Mesulav [Linguistic aspects o f the
combined discourse]. Ha-sifrut, 30-31, 35—57-
Chomsky, N. (1993). A minimalist program for linguistic theory. In K. Hale and S. J. Keyser
(eds.), The view from Building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor ofSylvain Bromberger
(pp. 1-52). Cambridge, M A: M IT Press. Reprinted, 1995, in N. Chomsky, The minimalist
program (pp. 167-217), Cambridge, M A: M IT Press.
Cresswell, M . J., and von Stechow, A. (1982). De re belief generalized. Linguistics and
Philosophy 5,503-535-
Demirdache, H., and Lungu, O. (2008). On the present and the past in French child
language. Talk presented at DGfS-Workshop Tense across Languages, February 27-29,
2008, Bamberg University.
Gennari, S. (2003). Tense meanings and temporal interpretation. Journal o f Semantics, 20,
35 - 7 i.
Gronn, A., and von Stechow, A. (2010). Complement tense in contrast: The SOT parameter
in Russian and English. Oslo Studies in Language, 2(1), 109-153.
Heim, I. (1984). Comments on Abusch’s theory o f tense. Manuscript, MIT.
Heim, I., and Kratzer, A. (1998) Semantics in Generative Grammar. Malden, M A: Blackwell.
Kratzer, A. (1998). More structural analogies between pronouns and tenses. In D. Strolovitch
and A. Lawson (eds.), SALT VIII (pp. 92-110). Ithaca: CLC.
Lewis, D. (1979). Attitudes de dicto and de se. Philosophical Review, 88, 513—543.
Montague, R. (1973). The proper treatment o f quantification in ordinary English. In
J. Hintikka, J. M. E. Moravcsik, and P. Suppes (eds.), Approaches to natural language:
Proceedings o f the 1970 Stanford Workshop on Grammar and Semantics^ (pp. 221-242).
Dordrecht: Reidel. Reprinted, 1974, in R. J. Thomason (ed.), Formal philosophy:
Selected papers o f Richard Montague (pp. 247-270). N ew Haven: Yale University Press.
Ogihara, T. (1995a). Double-access sentences and reference to states. Natural Language
Semantics, 3 ,17 7 -2 10 .
Ogihara, T. (1995b). The semantics o f tense in embedded clauses. Linguistic Inquiry, 26,
663-679.
Ogihara, T. (1996). Tense, attitudes, and scope. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Ogihara, T. (2007). Tense and aspect in truth-conditional semantics. Lingua, 117(2), 392-418.
Partee, B. (1973). Some structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English.
Journal o f Philosophy, 70 ,6 0 1-6 0 9 .
Quine, W. V. O. (1956). Quantifiers and propositional attitudes. Journal o f Philosophy, 53,
177-218.
Reinhart, T. (1983). Anaphora and semantic interpretation. Chicago: University o f Chicago
Press.
Schlenker, P. (1999). Propositional attitudes and indexicality: A cross-categorial approach.
Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Schlenker, P. (forthcoming). Indexicality and de se reports. In von Heusinger, Maienborn,
and Portner (eds.), The handbook o f semantics. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Sharvit, Y. (2003). Embedded tense and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 34, 669-681.
Sharvit, Y. (2008). The puzzle o f free indirect discourse. Linguistics and Philosophy, 31,
353 - 3 9 5 -
von Stechow, A. (1995). On the proper treatment o f tense. In M. Simons and T. Galloway
(eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory 5. Ithaca: CLC, Cornell University Press.
 CHAPTER 23

TENSELESSNESS

JO-WANG LIN

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

In discussing the grammatical tense system in English, Jespersen (1933, p. 230)

begins with the following quotation:

It is important to keep the two concepts time and tense strictly apart. The former
is common to all mankind and is independent o f language; the latter varies from
language to language and is the linguistic expression o f time-relations, so far as
these are indicated in verb forms.

The statement above clearly points to flexibility in the way in which a language
might express time-relations—i.e., grammatical tense markings. Indeed, it has since
been shown that language can employ a variety of tense markings to locate situa­
tions in time. In some languages, these markings express a past vs. non-past distinc­
tion and in some others a future vs. non-future distinction. However, not all natural
languages employ “verb forms” or tense markings to locate situations in time. It has
been reported that some languages have no grammaticalized tense markings at all
but nevertheless express time as precisely as those that do (see esp. Bohnemeyer,
2002, 2009, on Yukatek Maya; Shaer, 2003 and Bittner, 2005, 2008, on Kalaallisut;
Lin, 2003, 2006, and Smith and Erbaugh, 2005, on Chinese; and Tonhauser, 2006,
on Guarani.) Tenseless languages, however, have received much less attention than
tensed languages, even though “grammatically tenseless” systems seem to make up
at least half of the worlds tense-aspect systems, according to DeCaens (1996) work.
The goal o f this chapter is to explore (i) the ways in which tenselessness is identified,
(ii) possible mechanisms and variations in which temporal location is expressed in
tenseless languages, (iii) syntactic properties associated with such languages, and
(iv) possible challenges in establishing that a language is tenseless, with a special
focus on Mandarin Chinese, Kalaallisut, and Stat’imcets.
670 TENSES

2. C r it er ia for Tenselessness

It isn’t possible to discuss tenselessness if one doesn’t know what tenses are. However,
defining w hat tenses are is actually a notoriously difficult task, given that the border
between tenses and other temporal expressions is sometimes hard to draw and the
distinctions between tense, aspect, m o o d and modality make the task even more
thorny. Despite such complexity and lack o f a general consensus, the literature has
suggested some criteria which might help identify a linguistic expression as a tense.
C o m r ie s (1985) distinction between tense and aspect is a very good starting point.
He has characterized tense as the “grammaticalized expression o f location in time,”
distinguishing it from aspect, which is about the “ internal temporal constituency” o f
a situation (Com rie, 1985, pp. 9 - 10 ) . This distinction between tense and aspect is
later expressed by Klein (1994) in terms o f the relations between “speech time” (ST),
“ topic time” (T T ) and “event time” (ET) (cf. Reichenbach, 1947). A ccording to Klein
(1994), tense is a relation between two times, specifying the temporal precedence
relation between T T and ST, whereas aspect specifies an inclusion relation between
T T and E T .1 The precedence relation between T T and ST determines three tenses—
past, present and future.2 A tense is past if T T precedes ST, is present if T T and ST
are cotem porary and is future if T T follows ST.3 In contrast, aspect is an inclusion
relation between E T and TT. An aspect is perfective when E T is included within TT,
and is imperfective when the inclusion relation between F.T and T T is reversed.1
Kleins characterization o f tenses would be o f limited use if not accom panied by
other criteria. For instance, just like past tense markers, a past-denoting temporal
adverbial such as yesterday denotes a reference or topic time before the speech time
but one w ou ld n’t call it a tense. A useful criterion, as indicated by C o m r ie s charac­
terization o f tense, is that tense m o rp h e m es are integrated into the g ra m m a r o f the
language, typically m orphologically bound, and are obligatory, even though they
are not necessary for interpretation, 'therefore, temporal adverbials are not tense
m orphem es, because they are not grammaticalized expressions that appear in every
(matrix) sentence, whereas the m o rp h e m e -ed in English is a tense m orphem e,
because when it expresses the precedence relation between the topic time and the
speech time it is always present even if som ething else has provided a similar tem­
poral relation, as the temporal adverbial yesterday does in (1).

(i) John cried yesterday.

In other words, a tensed language requires the presence o f a m o rp h e m e that locates

a situation in time whether or not similar temporal information is conveyed by
other temporal expressions. In m o d e rn syntactic theories, such tense m orphem es
are often assum ed to o ccup y a syntactic functional Tense (T) node, projecting its
own m axim al projection T R Given this, in what follows, tense will be taken to be an
obligatory m o rp h e m e under the T node whose semantic function is to constrain
the topic times o f utterances with respect to a reference point. W hen the reference
point is the speech time, the tense is a deictic tense; otherwise a relative tense.

M a ie p u ja /i 3 a w ™ h e H a y r o p c K U M npaBHMa
TENSELESSNESS 671

In addition to the above characterizations of tense and aspect, there are other cri­
teria which distinguish the two concepts, as discussed by Tonhauser (2006, sec. 2.2):

(2) A. G ram m atical aspect m arkers, but not tenses, m ay show restrictions with m em bers
o f particular sem antic class (aspectual classes or Aktionsart).
B. G ram m atical aspect m arkers, but not tenses, m ay co-occur.
C. G ram m atical aspect m arkers, but not tenses, m ay encode a state change.
D. Tenses, but not gram m atical aspect m arkers, restrict the time o f evaluation.
K. Tenses, but not gram m atical aspect m arkers, are anaphoric.

The above criteria for distinguishing tense and aspect are perhaps not perfect, but
they suffice for the p u rpose o f the discussion o f tenselessness in this chapter.
Apart from gram m atical inflections, tenselessness o f a language can also be s u p ­
ported by syntactic evidence such as the lack o f som e syntactic property typically
associated with tense or the possibility or impossibility o f a certain construction. In
this chapter, such evidence, in particular evidence from Chinese, will be illustrated
in support o f the lack o f tense in a language.

3. C h in e se a s a Tenseless Language

When it comes to tenseless languages, one candidate that often comes to mind is
Chinese. For example, in B in n icks (1991) m onum ental work, Chinese dialects are
cited as tenseless languages, in addition to Biblical Hebrew and Quranic Arabic.
However, detailed arguments for Chinese as a tenseless language were first brought
to the fore only recently, in Lin (2003, 2006, 2010). Although there is still a debate
concerning whether Chinese should be analyzed as a tenseless language, as in Lin
(2006, 2010), or a null tensed language as in Sybesm a (2007), it is one o f the few
tenseless languages in the world that have received a detailed tenseless analysis in the
literature. Therefore, in this chapter, Ch inese will be used to illustrate tenselessness.

3.1. Present Time Reference

Verbal stems in Ch inese are not obligatorily inflected for person, number, gender,
tense or aspect and need not co -o ccu r with a temporal, aspectual or m odal marker,
but they express temporal locations as precisely as tensed verbs in English do. In
this section, present time reference will be discussed first.
For stative sentences, present time reference is expressed by an unm arked verb,
adjective or nom inal, with or without an accom panying temporal adverbial d enot­
ing the present time, as illustrated by (3).

(3) a. Wo xianzai bu x in shen

I now not believe god
“ N ow I don’t believe in God.”

М а т е р іа л заш тиіїен ауторским правима

67 2 TENSES

b. Z hangsan (jintian) hen m ang

Zhangsan today very busy
“Zhangsan is busy (today).”
c. T a nanbu ren
he southern-part person
“ He is from the south.”

Similarly, d ynam ic verbs are not m arked in present time contexts and can be further
divided into two classes. W hen a d ynam ic activity verb stands unm arked by itself, it
receives a generic or habitual interpretation as illustrated in (4). Such generic s e n ­
tences can be understood as a kind o f state.

(4) Wo (mei tian/changchang) m anpao

I every day/often jo g
“ I jo g (everyday/often).”

To obtain a present episodic reading, the present progressive marker zai must be
used, as in (5).

(5) Wo zai m anpao

I Prog jo g
T am jogging.”

Note that zai cannot be analyzed as a present tense marker, because it is compatible
writh a time adverbial denoting a past or future interval, as evidenced by (6):

(6) Wo zuotian zhei-ge shi'hou zai m anpaor>

I yesterday th is-C L 6 tim e Prog jo g
“ I w as jo ggin g at this time yesterday.”

Therefore, if Ch inese has a present tense marker, it must take a null form . The null
tense hypothesis, however, runs into difficulties, because not every unm arked d y ­
nam ic verb gives rise to a present interpretation. For example, (7) is an accom plish­
ment sentence but it only has a past interpretation.

(7) Zhangsan ba wo bang zai yizi shang

Zhangsan part7 me tie in chair on
“ Zhangsan tied me in a chair.”

Similarly, a d ynam ic achievement gives rise to a past interpretation as shown by (8).

(8) Zhangsan dap6 yi shan chuanghu

Zhangsan break one CL w indow
“ Zhangsan broke a w in d ow ”

In fact, unm arked verb forms also appear in future contexts, as illustrated by
(9),where the sentence contains a future time adverbial.

M a ie p u ja /i 3 a w ™ h e H a y r o p c K U M n p a B H M a
TENSELESSNESS 673

(9) Wö mingtiän xie xin gei ni

I tomorrow write letter to you
“ I will write a letter to you tomorrow”

Examples such as (7) through (9) indicate that it is problematic to assume that the
present tense in Chinese is a null form. In particular, the contrast between (3-5) and
(7-9) proves that Chinese has no grammaticalized morpheme whatsoever, not even a
null one, which grammatically demarcates the present from the non-present contexts.
Instead, the data indicates that the temporal interpretation o f a Chinese sentence
seems to be sensitive to the situation type o f the sentence.

3.2. Past Time Reference

Given below are some examples that describe past events.

(10) Lisi däpö huäping

Lisi break vase
“Lisi broke a vase.”
(11) Lisi zuötiän däpö huäping
Lisi yesterday break vase
“Lisi broke a vase yesterday.”
(12) Lisi däpö-le huäping
Lisi break-ASP vase
“Lisi broke a vase.”
(13) Lisi däpö-guö huäping
Lisi break-ASP vase
“Lisi broke a vase before.”

The above examples show that past time reference in Chinese can be achieved by
means o f a zero form as in (10), a temporal adverbial as in (11), a perfective aspectual
(ASP) marker as in (12) or an experiential marker as in (13). In all o f the examples, no
single morphosyntactic morpheme obligatorily occurs with them, indicating that there
is no specific morpheme in Chinese that is used exclusively for past time reference.
Like present time reference, postulating a null past tense for Chinese is not an ideal way
to account for the past interpretation, because a zero form appears not only in past
contexts but also in present and future contexts as discussed earlier. It is impossible that
the same null-form can function as a past tense, present tense or future tense in a given
language, not only because this does not conform to a grammatical paradigm, but also
because it gives rise to an impassable problem for language acquisition. If a zero form
can be a past tense, a present tense or a future tense, how can a child know that the
following sentence cannot be interpreted in the past or in the future?

(14) Xiaoming hen cöngmmg

Xiaoming very smart
674 TENSES

a. “X iao m in g is sm art ”
b. *“X iao m in g was sm art.”
c. *“X iao m in g will be smart.”

O r alternatively, how can a child k n o w that a past sentence cannot be interpreted in

the present or the future?
As for the aspectual m arkers le and gudythey are not pure tense m arkers because
on the one hand they are not required in every sentence with a past interpretation,
and on the other hand they encode a state change, w h ich tense markers don’t. C o n ­
sider the contrast between (15) and (16) below.

(15) Zhangsan dieduan-le zuo tui

Zhangsan b rcak-A SP left leg
“Zhangsan broke his left leg, (and it is still broken).”
(16) Zhangsan dieduan-guo zuo tui
Zhangsan break-A SP left leg
“Zhangsan broke his leg before, (but it is now cured).”

Both (15) and (16) assert that an event o f leg-breaking occurred before the speech
time. However, apart from this assertion, (15) implies that the state o f Zhangsans leg
being broken still holds at the speech time, whereas (16) implies that Zhangsans
broken leg has been cured. Clearly, both le and gud say som ething about the result
state o f an event and therefore they cannot be pure tense markers. From the above
discussion, it can be concluded that Ch inese has no obligatory m orp h em e that
gram m atically demarcates the past contexts from the non-past contexts.

3.3. Future Time Reference

To establish a future tense in a language has been notoriously difficult because
future time reference often involves modality or m o o d . C h in ese is no exception in
this regard. The future m arker that has been discussed m ost often in the literature is
the m odal auxiliary hui ‘w ill’. To illustrate, consider (17), which is a statement about
a state o f affairs that will hold at a time subsequent to the present moment. In this
example, the m o rp h em e hui is obligatory.

(17) M ingtian *(hui) xiayu

Tom orrow will rain
“ It will rain tomorrow.”

However, not every sentence with a future time reference contains the m o r ­
phem e hui. C o m p a re (18) with (17). Unlike (17), hui 'will’ in (18) is not allowed even
if the time o f the trains leaving is subsequent to the speech moment.

(18) H uoche san dian ('’hui) kai

train three o’c lock will leave
“The train leaves at three o’clock.”

M a ie p u ja /i 3 a w T M h e H a y r o p c K U M npaBHMa
TENSELESSNESS 675

The difference between (17) and (18) is that the latter is a scheduled or planned
event with a lo w possibility o f change if everything proceeds normally, whereas (17)
is a non-controllable prediction based on current inform ation about the weather.
When the weather changes, the chance o f rain could change at any time. So the use
o f hui seems to add m ore uncertainty toward the proposition expressed than a v er­
sion without it. I h e difference between (17) and (18) is quite sim ilar to the English
^///-future and futurate future as the translations in (17) and (18) indicate.
There are also cases where hut is optional, as in (19).

(19) Wo xiaw u bu (hui) zai bangongshi

I afternoon not will in office
“ I will not be in m y office.”

The m eaning difference between the version with hui and the one without it
m ight be subtle, but the latter version seems to have a planned event reading,
whereas the form er is sim ply a prediction about a future eventuality.
A n o th e r property o f the future reference in C hinese is that hui ‘will’ can s o m e ­
times be replaced by another future-denoting expression jia n g ‘will’ without
changing the future m eaning, as (20a) indicates. In fact, both m a y even appear at
the same time, again without changing the meaning. This is illustrated by (20b).

(20) a. M ingtian dc huiyi jiang/hui you Zhangsan zhuchi

tom orrow DE m eeting will/will by Zhangsan chair
“ T om orrow ’s m eeting w ill be chaired by Zhangsan.”
b. M ingtian de huiyi jian g hui you Zhangsan zhuchi
tom orrow DE m eeting will will by Zhangsan chair
“ Tom orrow s m eeting will be chaired by Zhangsan.”

Still another future m ark er is yao ‘w ant’, w h ich has a volitional reading when
the subject is animate but has a future m ea n in g when the subject is inanimate or
when the subject is not the agent o f the event as in (21).

(21) T ingshuo Zhangsan yao bei diaozhi, shi zhen de m a?

hear Zhangsan will PASS transfer.post be real DE PAR
“ I heard that Zhangsan will be transferred to another post. Is it true?”

The examples discussed above indicate that there is no fixed future m arker in
Chinese. In particular, hui is not a grammaticalized future tense marker. Indeed, hui
also appears in m an y non-future-exclusive contexts as Liu (1997), C h a n g (2000),
and Ren (2008) have discussed. Som e such contexts will be discussed below.
The first non-future context in which hui appears is a generic one expressing a
regularity o f the situation in summer.

(22) Zheli xi&tian chang (hui) xiayu

here sum m er often will rain
“ It often rains here in summer.”

M a ie p u ja /i 3 a w ™ h e H a y r o p c K U M n p a B H M a
676 TENSES

The statement in (22) is m ade on the basis o f past circumstantial evidence and
is not falsified even if it does not rain in a particular past or future sum m er. N or is it
falsified or infelicitous if uttered when it is raining at the speech time, in the summer.
Next consider (23).

(23) Ta zuotian jin gran (hui) shichang, shizai rang rcn

he yesterday unexpectedly will abnorm al really let people
w anxi
regretful
“ How com e it was possible that he perform ed abn orm ally yesterday? For this, 1
feel very regretful.”

This sentence conveys the sp eak ers surprise at the realization o f an abnorm al
perform an ce o f the subject NP. In this sentence, the w ord jingran ‘to ones surprise’
is obligatory, presupposing that the speaker’s expectation worlds were such that the
subject N P w ould not perform abnormally. Hui , on the other hand, seems to be a
past possibility operator. So the m ea n in g o f this exam ple can be translated with a
possibility predicate as given in (23). This use o f hui does not have a future time
reference and hence is not a future tense marker.
Finally, hui m a y co-occu r with the present time adverb xianzai n o w ’ when the
predicate is about a state rather than an event as in (24). What is interesting about
this use o f hui is that it must appear in a question as in (24a) or a negation as in
(24c). In either case, what is questioned or negated is a current state rather than a
future state. But a positive statement such as (24b) is infelicitous. The contrast
between (24a), (24c) and (24b) indicates that it is the uncertainty o f a proposition
that licenses the present interpretation o f hui in (24a) and (24c). Since uncertainty
necessarily involves alternative worlds, hui in (24a) must be a m odal expression
rather than a future tense marker.

(24) a. T a xianze\i hai (hui) h£n badilo ma

he now still will very d om ineering Q
“ W ould he still be very d om ineering now?"
b. *Ta xianzai hui hen badao
he now will very dom ineering
“ He is v e ry dom ineering now.”
c. T a xianzai bu hui hen badao
he now not will very dom ineering
“ He is not d om ineering now.”

The tem p oral orientation o f hui ‘ w ill’ actually patterns com p letely with other
e p istem ic m o d a ls in C h in e se . A c c o r d in g to Ren (2008), epistem ic m o d a ls in
C h in e s e m ay receive a future an d/or a present interpretation, d e p e n d in g on the
situation type expressed by their co m p le m e n t. W hen the c o m p le m e n t is an
event, a future interpretation is obtain ed ; w hen the c o m p lem en t is a state, either
a present or a future interpretation is possible, d e p e n d in g upon w h e th e r there is
a fu tu re-d en o tin g adverbial, as illustrated by the exam p les in (25) and (26).

Copyrighted mate
TENSELESSNESS 677

(25) Ta keneng/yinggai lai (Event: future)

He may/should come
“He may/should come.”
(26) Ta (mfngtian) keneng/yinggai zai jia (State: present or future)
he tomorrow may/should at home
“ He may/should be at home (now/tomorrow).”

Hut ‘will* is completely like keneng may5 and yinggai ‘should’ in this respect. The
parallelism between hut and other epistemic modals strongly support the position
that hui is not a future tense marker in Chinese. In fact, it has been analyzed as an
irrealis marker by Liu (1997) and Wang (2007). It is an epistemic modal that happens
to have a future interpretation for its complement in an affirmative statement.
It can be concluded that there is no evidence for any future expression that is
grammaticalized in every sentence with a future time reference but not in other
non-future contexts. The most likely candidate for a future tense marker, i.e., hui, is
not restricted to future contexts. Its distribution indicates that it involves a modality
component as part of its inherent lexical meaning though it is beyond the scope of
this chapter to pin down exactly what it means. In view of the above remarks, it can
be safely concluded that Chinese is not a tensed language with a two-way split with
an opposition between future and non-future.

4. S y n t a c t i c P r o p e r t i e s A s s o c i a t e d
w ith L a c k of T en se

In the last section, it was shown that Chinese has no grammaticalized morpheme for
tense, be it a present, past or future tense. Nor is there any evidence for a two-way
split with an opposition between present and non-present, between past and non­
past or between future and non-future. I f the above discussion is correct, Chinese is
not a tensed language. As discussed by Lin (2010), this claim can be further backed
up by some syntactic properties which can be attributed to the lack of tense. In this
section, four such syntactic properties will be discussed to support the tenseless
analysis o f Chinese sentences.

4.1. Existence of Bare Nominal Predicates

One property o f Chinese syntax is the fact that nominal and adjectival predicates
can serve as the main predicate of the sentence without a copula, as illustrated by
the examples in (27).

(27) a. Zhangsan hen congmfng

Zhangsan very smart
“Zhangsan is very smart.”
678 TENSES

b. Jintian xlngqitian
today Sunday
“Today is Sunday.”
c. Ta da bizi
he big nose
"He has a big nose.”
d. Yu&nzi II yi pian qlhei
yard in one-CL darkness
“It is all darkness in the yard”

This contrasts with English data, which always require the copular verb be when
the main predicate is an adjectival or nominal predicate.
A possible account for the obligatory presence of the copular verb be in English,
as pointed out by Tang (2001), is that English is a tensed language and the tense
morphology (feature) needs to be checked by a verb, hence the presence of the se­
mantically vacuous copular verb be. In contrast, Chinese does not have a syntactic
tense and hence there is no T feature to be checked to begin with. Therefore, a nom­
inal or adjectival predicate may constitute the main predicate o f a sentence without
the company o f any verb.

4.2. Lack of Expletive Subjects

Another property that can be used to support the lack o f the syntactic T in Chi­
nese is the lack of the subject requirement. In English the subject requirement
explains the presence o f the expletive there in existential constructions such as
(28) and the presence o f the extraposition it in (29) and the weather it in (30)
(Chomsky, 1981).

(28) There is a fly in your soup.

(29) It is impossible that John has left.
(30) It is raining.

In contrast with the above English examples, the Chinese counterparts do not
require an expletive in subject position, as illustrated by (31) through (33).

(31) You yi-zhi cangying z&i ni de tang li

have one-CL fly in you Poss soup inside
“There is a fly in your soup.”
(32) Xi& yu le
fall rain Par
“It is raining now.”
(33) Bu ken£ng Zhangsan yljing zou le
not possible Zhangsan already leave ASP
“It’s impossible that Zhangsan has left.”
TENSELESSNESS 679

It has been argued that the subject requirement is related to tense. For instance,
Roberts and Roussou (2002) have proposed a principle such as (34) to derive the
subject requirement.8

(34) The head containing T must have a filled specifier.

A c c o r d in g to R o b e rts and R o u s so u , tense in E nglish is spelled out in T, so

S p e c T P must be filled, hence the subject r e q u ire m e n t. If their a n alysis is c o r ­
rect, then the a b se n ce o f the subject re q u ire m e n t in C h i n e s e can be attributed
to the lack o f tense; nam ely, C h in e s e has no T n o d e, so there is no subject
r e q u ir e m e n t .9

4.3. Lack of Finite/Nonfinite Distinction

If Chinese does not have tense, another interesting prediction is that it might lack the
finite vs. non-finite distinction, as finiteness is often defined in terms o f tense. Indeed,
in Chinese the same verbal form is used in all syntactic contexts and subordination
is indicated by position alone. For example, the subordinate verb likai “ leave” in (36)
has the same form as the main verb in (35).

(35) Ta likai xuexiao san tian le

He leave school three day PAR
“ It has been three days since he left school.”
(36) Ta shefa likai xuexiao
He try leave school
“ He tried to leave school.”

Despite this, som e linguists (Huang, [1982)1998; Li, 1985; C .- C . Tang, 1990; T.-C.
Tang, 200 0) have tried to identify the finite vs. non-finite distinction in Chinese,
using tests such as the possibility o f a future modal, the distribution o f overt N Ps
and em pty categories and A -n o t-A questions, etc. However, these tests have been
shown to be unreliable by Hu, Pan, and X u (2001); Xu (2003); and Lin (2010). If
these authors are correct in their arguments, then it is not clear that Ch inese has a
distinction o f finite vs. non-finite. The lack o f such a distinction can be attributed to
the lack o f a syntactic T node.

4.4. Lack of Case-Motivated Movement

Pesetsky and Torrego (2001) have argued that case might be a direct consequence o f
the functional category T. Thus, if C h in ese has no tense, we expect it not to have
case-motivated movement. There seem s to be evidence for this, because the most
recent analysis o f C hinese passives as given by Huang, Li, and Li (2009) has shown
that C h in ese passive constructions such as (37) display properties o f A '-m o v e m e n t
rather than A -m o v e m e n t.10

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68o TENSES

(37) Zhangsan bei Lisi da-le

Zhangsan PASS Lisi hit-ASP
“Zhangsan was hit by Lisi.”

According to them, the above kind o f passive constructions allows long distance
movement and resumptive pronouns, and displays island sensitivity.
Raising constructions are another type o f constructions that are claimed to involve
case-motivated A-movement in the literature. However, Lin (2010) has pointed out
that subject movement in raising-like constructions such as (38) is optional.

(38) a. Keneng Zhangsan bu qu le

likely Zhangsan not go PAR
“ It is likely that Zhangsan will not go.”
b. Zhangsan keneng bu qu le
Zhangsan likely not go PAR
“Zhangsan is likely not to go.”

Since case-motivated movement is obligatory, the optional subject movement

in (38) might be another type o f movement such as focus or topic movement.

4.5. Crosslinguistic Similarity in Tenseless Syntax ^

In the last section we saw that the absence o f certain constructions in Chinese might be
tied to the absence of the functional head T in Chinese. Significantly, such correlates are
not unique to Chinese but can be found in other reputedly tenseless languages. For ex­
ample, according to Ritter and Wiltschko (2009), Blackfoot, another tenseless language,
lacks the effects o f structural case and this is a direct consequence o f the lack o f T. Sim­
ilarly, Ritter and Rosen (2005) have argued that all Algonquian languages lack A-syntax
phenomena related to SpecTP, including Case, Case-motivated A-movement, and
A-binding, and this is because they lack TP altogether, or T is not specified for Case.
According to them, these languages do not move for reasons o f Case, but only for dis­
course purposes such as topic or focus, or for w/i-questions, which are all phenomena
exhibiting A'-movement. The above crosslinguistic similarities between Chinese,
Blackfoot and the Algonquian languages indicate that tenseless languages tend to share
some syntactic properties in common which are not observed in tensed languages.

5. A n A s p e c t -B a s e d A pproach to T emporal
In t e r p r e t a t i o n s in C h in ese

In the last section, it was shown that there is no clear evidence in favor o f the exis­
tence of T in Chinese. To the contrary, there is strong evidence that T does not
exist. If this conclusion is correct, an important question to ask is how this language
TENSELESSNESS 68l

expresses temporal locations. In Lin (2003, 2006, 2010), it has been argued that
Chinese essentially uses aspectual information, temporal adverbials, discourse
anaphora, individual lexical items and pragmatic reasoning to determine the tem­
poral reference o f a sentence. In particular, the functional head A SP in a tenseless
language seems to play the role that T does in a tensed language. In this section,
some o f these strategies will be reviewed.
As mentioned in section 3, when a Chinese sentence does not contain a temporal
adverbial or aspectual marker, its temporal interpretation is sensitive to the situation
type. States and dynamic activities give rise to the present interpretation, whereas
achievements and accomplishments are interpreted in the past. Here are some more
examples (39-42) to illustrate this:

(39) Xiaoming hen guai

Xiaoming very well-behaved
“Xiaoming is well-behaved.”
(40) Xiaoming zai shuijiao
Xiaoming PROG sleep
“Xiaoming is sleeping.”
(41) Xiaoming dapo yf-ge huaping
Xiaoming break one-CL vase
“Xiaoming broke a vase.”
(42) Xiaoming ji gei wo yi-zhang shengri heka
Xiaoming mail to me one-CL birthday card
“Xiaoming mailed a birthday card to me.”

The dichotomy between states and processes on the one hand and achievements
and accomplishments on the other has led scholars such as Smith and Erbaugh
(2005) and the author (Lin, 2003, 2006) to employ properties o f situation types to
account for temporal location in Chinese. Their ideas are roughly as follows, irre­
spective o f their differences in technical details:

(43) a. Homogenous/unbounded/imperfective situations have a present interpretation by

default.
b. Heterogenous/bounded/perfective situations have a past interpretation by default.

More technically, Lin (2006) has derived the past and present interpretation o f
a bare sentence by means of the definitions o f perfective and imperfective aspect as
given below.11

(44) a. Perfective A spect = AP<u>AtT(i Ato3 t[t C t 11>pA P(t) A < tj

b. Imperfective Aspect = AP<. t>Atroi)3 t[tTHpC t A P(t)]

What (44a) says is that the event time o f an eventuality description P is in ­

cluded within a topic time f , which is required to precede the evaluation time tQ. It
is this latter precedence condition that forces a perfective sentence to be interpreted
682 TENSES

in the past. In contrast, (44b) says that the topic time t.y^ is included w ithin the
event time o f an eventuality description P. A c c o r d in g to Lin (2003, 20 0 6 ), though
C h in e s e does not have a syntactic T, e v e ry sentence is headed by a fu n ctio n al
aspectual head ASP, which can be perfective or im perfective. This fu n ctio n al
head fulfills the role that T plays in a tensed language. For sentences without an
overt aspectual marker, the content o f aspect is d eterm in ed by B o h n e m e y e r and
Sw ift’s (200 4 ) notion o f Default A sp e ct to the effect that the aspect o f a telic e v e n ­
tuality is perfective, w h erea s that o f an atelic eventuality is im perfective. G iven
the above notions, im perfective sentences w ithout a tem poral adverbial in C h i ­
nese have a present interpretation becau se the topic time o f the sentence, i.e., fTop,
w h ic h is the speech time by default, is included w ith in the situation time. In c o n ­
trast, perfective aspect, be it overt or covert, has the situation time included
within an existentially closed topic time, w h ich in turn precedes the evaluation
time, i.e., to> the speech time by default. Therefore, perfective situations have a
past interpretation.12
However, the above generalizations can be overridden by overt expressions
such as temporal adverbials, aspectual markers, m odals or by a discourse topic time.
For example, in contrast with (39), (45) is interpreted in the past due to the temporal
adverb congqidn ‘before’, which fills in the value o f the topic time variable o f the as­
pectual head.

(45) X iaom in g congqian hen guai

X iao m in g before v e ry well-behaved
“X iao m in g w as w ell-behaved before.”

Similarly, speaker B ’s utterance in (46), in contrast with (40), receives a past

interpretation because o f the discourse topic time xiaw u ‘afternoon’ in speaker As
utterance.

(46) Speaker A: Ni xiaw u zai zuo shem e

you afternoon PRO G do what
“ W hat were you doing this afternoon?”
Speaker B: Wo zai shuijiao
I PRO G sleep
“ I was sleeping.”

(47), on the other hand, has a future interpretation because o f the addition o f
the m odal auxiliary hui ‘w ill’.

(47) X iaom in g hui hen guai

X iao m in g w ill very well-behaved
“X iaom in g will be w ell-b eh aved ”

A lthough the above discussion is v ery informal, it shows how an aspect-based

approach accounts for the temporal locations o f Ch inese bare sentences and how
the information contributed by aspect interacts with other temporal expressions to
derive the temporal interpretation.

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TENSELESSNESS 6 83

6. A n A s p e c t -B a s e d T heory of Tem p o r a lity

C r o sslin g u istic a lly

A s we saw above in the last section, rather than relying on tense, an essential ingre­
dient o f the temporal system in Chinese is the utilization o f aspectual information
in locating situations. An important question about such an aspect-based ap­
proach to temporal location is whether this approach is unique to Chinese or a
common strategy also used in other tenseless languages. There seems to be evi­
dence for the latter. For example, according to Bittner (2008), Kalaallisut is a
gram m atically tenseless language and temporal location in this language is also
aspect-sensitive. She has classified eventualities in Kalaallisut into states, events,
processes and habits. The temporal locations o f these four types o f eventualities are
determined in relation to a time that is currently under discussion, i.e., the topic
time in the terminology o f Klein (1994). This topic time can be a topical instant for
a discourse-initial sentence or a topical period inferred from the discourse. The
generalizations about temporal location in Kalaallisut are as follows (Bittner, 2008,
P- 3 7 9 ):

(48) Location relative to topical instant

a. A state includes the topical instant.
b. An event has a result state that includes the topical instant.
c. Stage n o f a process has a result state that includes the topical instant.
d. A habit includes (but need not be instantiated at) the topical instant.
(49) Location relative to topical period
a. A state includes the topical period.
b. An event is included in the topical period.
c. Stage n o f a process is included in the topical period.13
d. A habit includes (but need not be instantiated during) the topical period.

Here are two examples to illustrate the temporal locations of states, events and
processes in Kalaalilisut. In (50), the topic time is the speech moment, and in (51)
the topic time o f the second clause is shifted to a topic interval, i.e., the time o f the
result state o f the homecoming event after the first clause is uttered.14

(50) State Event Process

Ole {sinippuq itirpuq tiiiiurpuq}
Ole {sinig-pu-q, itir-pu-q, tii-liur-pu-q}
Ole {be.asleep-IND.IV-3s \vake.up-IND.IV-3s tea-make-IND.IV-3s}
Ole {is asleep, has woken up, is making tea}.
(51) Ataataga angirlarmat
ataata-ga angirlar-mm-at
dad-is.sg come.home-FCT-3s
When my dad came home,
{sinippunga, itirpunga tiiliurpunga}
{sinig-pu-nga, itir-pu-nga, tii-liur-pu-nga}
684 TENSES

{be.asleep-IND.IV-is, wake.up-IND.IV-is, tea-make-IND.IV-is}

{I was asleep, I woke up, I made/was making tea} (Bittner, 2008, p. 370)

It is interesting to note that there is a striking similarity between Bittner s (2008)

proposal o f temporal location in Kalaallisut and Lin’s (2003, 2006) for Chinese. But
there are also differences that are worth discussing.
Lin (2003, 2006) does not make a distinction between a topical instant and a
topical period. Instead, the dichotomy is drawn between perfective and imper-
fective aspect. Im perfective aspect only requires a relation between the topic
time and the situation tim e as in (44b) to the effect that the form er is included
within the latter, whereas perfective aspect has an additional requirement holding
between the topic time and an evaluation time, namely, the condition “tj. < to,”
in addition to the requirement that the situation time is included within the topic
time. This extra condition guarantees that perfective sentences have a past inter­
pretation. On this analysis, the topic time variable is existentially closed when
the sentence does not contain an overt temporal adverbial (see Lin, 2006, for
more details). The incorporation o f the past condition into the semantics o f the
perfective aspect is reasonable, given DeCaen’s (1996) observation that “perhaps
the most conspicuous property o f the perfective is its default past tense reading
in all so-called tenseless systems.” ^
In contrast with Lin (2003, 2006), Bittner has drawn a distinction not only
between eventuality types but also between a topical instant and a topical period.
It is the latter where Bittners analysis and Lins works crucially differ from each
other. When the topic time is an instant, she resorts to the result state o f an event
to derive the fact that the event is in the past, namely, the event is in the past
because its result state contains the speech time. Such an interpretation is very
close to English present perfect. Lins proposal, however, does not say anything
about the result state.
The difference between Lins and Bittner’s proposals raises a question for a
tenseless analysis o f tenseless languages, namely, is the difference one that can be
captured by a parameter, or is the difference perhaps only superficial and possibly
to be unified by using the same rule? To answer this question, lets reconsider the
Chinese sentences (41) and (42), reproduced here as (52) and (53).

(52) Didi dapo yf-ge huaping

brother break one-CL vase
“The younger brother broke a vase.”
(53) Xiaoming ji gei wo yi-zhang shengri heka
Xiaoming mail to me one-CL birthday card
“Xiaoming mailed a birthday card to me.”

As noted earlier the above two sentences do not contain any temporal marker,
both have a past interpretation. However, a past interpretation is compatible with
either a past tense reading or a present perfect reading. So the question is whether
TENSELESSNESS 685

(52) and (53) imply that the result state o f the event denoted by the verb holds at the
speech time. It seems that it can. Take (52) for instance. It can be true in the following
scenario. A younger brother and his elder brother were playing and the younger
brother broke a vase carelessly. So the elder brother ran to his mother, who did not
know that they were playing, and uttered the sentence in (52). In this scenario, the
topic instant, i.e., speech moment is contained within the result state o f the vase-
breaking event. Therefore, it seems that (52) implies that the result state is involved.
The question is: is this implication an inherent part o f the meaning o f the sentence or
just a conversational implicature that is cancelable in an appropriate context. Here is
a test.

(54) Didi dap6 yi-ge huaping, shi wo bang ta nian hui qu de

brother break one-CL vase be I help him glue return go PAR
“The younger brother broke a vase. It’s me who helped him glue them back.”

There are speakers who accept this sentence without problems. However,
when uttered out o f the blue, (54) sounds better when a temporal adverbial denot­
ing a past interval such as jintian xiawu ‘this afternoon is added. If an implicit or
explicit topic period is always required for (54), then this example will not consti­
tute a counter-example to extend Bittners approach to temporal location to
Chinese.
In contrast, example (55) is a sentence more readily acceptable when used as a
discourse-initial statement, where the result state o f the card being transferred to
the speakers possession is canceled.

(55) Xiaoming jl gei wo yi-zhang shengri h£k& d&nshi wo ba kapian

Xiaoming mail to me one-CL birthday card but I BA card
tuihui qu le
return go ASP
“Xiaoming mailed a birthday card to me, but I returned it to him.”

In this example, the discourse-initial clause must not have a result state that still
holds at the speech time.
The above judgments for (54) and (55) are quite subtle, so I am hesitant to
draw a definite conclusion from them. I f examples such as (54) and (55) are ac­
ceptable only under orientation to a topic period, be it explicit or implicit, such
as a past temporal adverbial, then Chinese might pattern with Kalaallisut and
Lin’s (2006) analysis o f Chinese and Bittners (2008) proposal for Kalaallisut
should be able to be unified. On the other hand, i f a topic instant is a fully a c ­
ceptable topic time for (54) and (55), then a parameter will be needed to account
for the crosslinguistic variation between Kalaallisut and Chinese. Whatever the
choice is, the data in Chinese and those in Kalaallisut have provided strong
empirical evidence for an aspect-based approach to the temporality o f a tense-
less language.
686 TENSES

7. C h a lle n g e s for E st a b lish in g T e n seless

Languages

A s noted above, a m ost im portant criterion o f ju d gin g w hether or not a language is

tensed is the obligatory presence o f a gram m aticalized tense m orph em e. On the
basis o f this type o f evidence, for exam ple, Shaer (2003) and Bittner (2005) have
argued that West G reen land ic (Kalaallisut) is a tenseless language and N o w ak (1994)
that Baffin Island Inuktitut is likew ise tenseless. A cco rd in g to Shaer (2003), in West
G reen land ic a sentence w ithout a tem poral m o rp h em e m ay receive either a past or
present interpretation and the presence o f a past tem poral adverbial, though trig­
gerin g a past interpretation, does not require the presence o f a tem poral m orphem e.
This is illustrated by (56).15

(56) a. aggirpuq
C0111C.IND-3S
“He is/was coming.” (Shaer, 2003, p. 146)
b. juuli-up aappa-a-ni Nuum-miip-punga
July.ERG second.its.LOC Nuuk.be-in-IND.is
“1 was in Nuuk on the second of July 2nd.” (Shaer, 2003, p. 147)

However, as pointed out by Shaer (2003), the mere absence o f an obligatory

tense m o rp h em e in a given language cannot guarantee that the language is a tense­
less language, as there is always a possibility o f postulating a null tense m orphem e.
This possibility w ould m ake a superficially tenseless language a tensed one w ith an
obligatory and gram m aticalized tense m orph em e, though this tense m o rp h em e is
phonetically inaudible. Indeed, this is M atth ew son's (2006) approach to St at’im cets
(Lilloet Salish), w hich like West G reen land ic lacks overt tense m orphology.

7.1. Matthewson’s Tensed Analysis of St at’imcets

Like West G reen landic, superficially tenseless sentences in St at’imcets can be inter­
preted as either present 01* past, as illustrated by the exam ples in (57).

(57) a. tayt-kan
hungry-lSG.SUBJ
“I was hungry/I am hungry.”
b. kac-an’-lhkan
dry-DIR-lSG.SUBJ
“I dried it/I am drying it.”
c. ay’sez’-lhkan
play-iSG.SUBJ
“I played /1 am playing.” (Matthewson, 2006, p. 676)

A c c o rd in g to M atth ew so n , stative pred icates stron gly p refer present tense

in terp retation s, w h ile a cco m p lish m en ts and ach ie vem en ts stro n g ly prefer past

Bahan dengan hak cipta

TENSELESSNESS 687

interpretations. Activities can be freely interpreted either way. However, beyond

the default interpretations, all superficially tenseless predicates may allow either
a present or past interpretation regardless o f the aspectual class.
Another important fact o f Stat’imcets, as observed by Matthewson, is that su­
perficially tenseless sentences such as those in (57) cannot be used to describe
future eventualities. Moreover, adding a future-denoting temporal adverbial to
them does not give rise to a future reading, but leads to ungrammaticality as witnessed
by (58). To describe a future eventuality, overt marking such as kelh is obligatory as (59)
shows.16

(58) *tayt-kan natcw

hungry-iSG.SUBJ one.day.away
“I will be hungry tomorrow.” (Matthewson, 2006, p. 677)
(59) tayt-kan kelh
hungry-iSG.SUBJ kelh
“*I was hungry/*I am hungry/I will be hungry.” (p. 678)

Matthewson has argued that the future morpheme kelh is neither an irrealis
marker nor an epistemic modal but the overt spell-out o f the morpheme WOLL as
originally proposed by Abusch (1985) for English, because it behaves like English
will/would in all aspects.17
As mentioned above, like West Greenlandic, superficially tenseless sentences in
St’at’imcets may be interpreted as either past or present. However, unlike Shaer's
(2003) tenseless analysis o f West Greenlandic, Matthewson (2006) has proposed a
tensed analysis o f Stat’imcets, arguing that all superficially tenseless sentences in
s

St’at’imcets contain a phonologically null tense morpheme, TENSE, which restricts

the possible values o f the reference time to a non-future interval as defined in (60) ,18
On this definition, the temporal meaning o f (61) is calculated in (62).
1

(60) |TENSE.|8,Cis only defined if no part of g(i) is after tc (the utterance time).
If defined, |TENSE.]8'C= g(i).
(61) matq [kw s-Mary]
walk [DET NOM-Mary]
“Mary walked /Mary is walking”
(62) TP

T AspP

TENSE* Asp VoiceP

PER.F matq kw sMary

b. I(62a) 1E,C= Aw3 e[walk(e)(w) & agent(Mary)(e)(w) & r(e) C g(i)]

(where no part of g(i) follows tc).
c. There is an event e of Mary walking, whose running time r is included
in the contextually salient non-future time g(i).
688 TENSES

According to Matthewson (2006, n. 4 and p. 683), imperfective aspect is overtly

marked in Stat’imcets. Absence o f the overt imperfective marker indicates the per­
fective aspect. That’s why the aspect in (62a) is perfective, which requires that the
event time is included within the reference time. The result o f the final semantic co­
mposition is the logical form in (62b), which is equivalent to the statement made in
(62c). According to Matthewson, the meaning given in (62b) predicts that (61) can be
interpreted in the past or in the present, depending upon whether the discourse has
a past reference time or present reference time.19 On this analysis, the only difference
between English and Stat’imcets is that the tense morpheme in the latter is slightly
less restrictive than English past tense morpheme.
As for the future morpheme kelh> Matthewson has proposed that it has the de­
notation o f W OLL given in (63):

{63) IWOLLJ = APGD At.Aw3 t'[t < t' & P(t')(w) = 1]

Under this analysis, it is predicted that a (matrix) clause with kelh may get a will
or would reading, depending upon whether the contextually salient reference time,
i.e., the denotation o f tense, is prior to the speech time or includes the speech time.
This prediction, Matthewson argues, is correct. ^

7.2. A Tensed Analysis of Chinese

Matthewsons tenseless analysis o f Stat’imcets, if correct, implies that a superficially
tenseless language can be analyzed as a tensed language, because a grammaticalized
tense may be phonetically inaudible but semantically interpretable. Such a null
tense analysis constitutes a great challenge for linguists who want to argue for the
existence o f a true tenseless language, because for any superficially tenseless
language, two analyses should be compared, one being a tensed analysis and the
other a tenseless one. It is beyond the scope o f this chapter to discuss whether
St at'imcets can be analyzed as a syntactically tenseless language and to compare it
with Matthewsons tensed analysis. Instead, a tensed alternative analysis o f Chinese
will be outlined and briefly compared with a tenseless analysis.
As we saw earlier, in Chinese it is difficult to find any obligatory overt mor­
pheme that gives a two-way split between a present vs. non-present, a past vs. non­
past or a future vs. non-future interpretation. Therefore, the only possible tense
morpheme is an inaudible null tense. For example, following Matthewsons sugges­
tion for St at’imcets, it can be assumed that the null tense in Chinese also introduces
an indexed TEN SE variable whose value is determined by variable assignment and
is constrained to be a non-future interval as given in (64).

(64) Chinese Null Tense

[TENSER8*6is only defined if no part of g(i) is after t.. If defined,
|TENSE.p,c = g(i).

N ow consider a stative sentence such as (65).

TENSELESSNESS 689

(65) Zhangsan zai bangongshi

Zhangsan in office
“Zhangsan is in his office.”

Let us assum e with Lin (2003, 2006) that bare hom ogen eou s (atelic) V P s in
C h in ese are associated with an im perfective aspect, w hich requires an inclusion o f
the topic time within the event time. Since the value o f the null tense, i.e., g(i),
becom es the topic time later in the sem antic com putation after lam bda conversion
has applied when the denotation o f A s p P meets the denotation o f T E N S E , this
m eans that the value o f g(i) is included within the event time. In (65), the value o f
g(i) m ust be the speech time, because this is the only salient time available w hen
(65) is uttered out o f the blue. As a result, (65) must have a present interpretation,
because the speech tim e is included within the event time.
The sa m e sentence, however, m a y have a past or future interpretation d e p e n d ­
ing up o n the context o f utterance. F o r exam ple, co n sid er the fo llo w in g d iscourse.

(66) Speaker A: N1 xiawu san dian zai nail?

you this.afternoon three o’c lock at where
“Where were you at three o’clock this afternoon?"
Speaker B: Wo zai bangongshi
I in office
“ I was in my office.”

In (66), the value o f g(i) in Speaker B’s utterance m ust be a past interval, because
speaker A s utterance has m ade the past time interval denoted by xiaw u san dian “ 3
o’clock this afternoon”, the m ost salient one in the discourse. This past interval is
asserted to be included w ithin the event time. Therefore, speaker B s utterance in
(66) is correctly predicted to be an assertion about a past interval.
W hat about the future interpretation? The dialogue in (67) show s that a stative
sentence m ay have a future interpretation.

(67) Speaker A: N1 xiawu zai jia ma?

you this.afternoon at home PAR
“Will you be at home this afternoon?”
Speaker B: Wo bu zai jia
I not at home
“ I am not at home this afternoon.”

A s noted, how ever, such future sentences are m ore like English futurates rather
than vW//-future. A ccord in g to C o p le y (2009) and Sm ith (2010), the futurate is about
the present rather than the future. It is evaluated at the speech time. The future
tem poral adverbial in such sentences is the event tim e o f the predicted future event
rather than the topic time. Details put aside, if they are correct, speaker B s utter­
ance in (67) can be analyzed the sam e w ay as in their analyses with g(i) being the
present m om ent. So C h in ese futurates can be covered under the null tense analysis
given in (64).

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690 TENSES

W hen a future sentence is not about a planned or sch ed uled event, the m o d al
hui ‘will* or other ep istem ic m o d a ls are req uired. Such future sentences can be
explained as follow s. A s noted by m a n y lin gu ists, unlike the present and the past,
the future alw ays involves u n certain ty and hence a m o d al w ord m ust be used to
express that uncertainty. I believe that this is the case in C h in e se .20 U nd er the
p ro p o sed tensed analysis, this then m ean s that the valu e o f g(i) is associated with
the m o d al rather than with the com plem en t em b ed d ed to the m o d al. B y default,
g(i) is the speech m o m en t. So n o rm a lly a sentence w ith an epistem ic hui ‘w ill’ or
other m o d als has the present m om en t as the tem poral orientation o f the m odal.
On the other hand, the tem poral interpretation o f the co m p lem en t is specified by
the m e a n in g o f the m o d a l. Therefore, sentences w ith a m o d al are not a problem to
the tensed analysis, cither.
A bove, we have considered how a null tense analysis m ight deal with h o m oge­
neous (atelic) sentences, including sentences with a m od al. N o w let us turn to het­
erogeneous (telic) sentences. C o n sid er the follow ing sentence, which has only a past
interpretation.

(68) Zhangsan dapo yi'ge huaping

Zhangsan break one vase
“Zhangsan broke a vase.”

A s noted, telic predicates in C hinese are associated with perfective aspect by

default. N o w if we assum e the standard sem antics o f perfective aspect as given in
(69), w hich requires that the event time is included w ithin the topic time, then the
sem antic com putation o f (68) is (7o).21

(69) Perfective Aspect = AP t At. (3 t [t Q tT A P(t)]

(70) TP

T A sp P

TEN SE, A sp

PERF Z hangsan dapo y ig e huaping

b. [(68)]g'c = 3 t 3 x[break(x)(Mary)(t) & vase(x) & t C g(i)]

c. There is a time t at which Mary breaks a vase and t is included within the
contextually salient time g(i).

W hen (68) is a discourse-initial statement, g(i) must be the speech time, because
this is the only salient tim e available. The analysis thus predicts that the vase-breaking
event is included within the utterance time.22 This prediction, unfortunately, is incor­
rect, because (68) does not have a present interpretation, even though a vase-breaking
event is an instantaneous one. This prediction o f the tensed analysis crucially differs
from a tenseless analysis as proposed in Lin (2006). In that fram ew ork, (68) does not
have a present interpretation, because perfective aspect in C hinese has a precedence

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TENSELESSNESS 691

condition as part o f its inherent m eaning as defined in (44a). It is this condition that
makes a telic sentence always denote a past situation. On this point, a tenseless
analysis has a plus but a tensed analysis has a minus.
A b o ve a potential problem with a tensed analysis was discussed with respect to
sim ple sentences. In fact, a tensed analysis m ight encounter sim ilar difficulties with
respect to the tem poral interpretation o f an em bedded clause. C o n sid er (71), taken
from Lin (2006).

(71) Wo jian-guo yi-wci zai ku dc nanhai

I meet-Asp one-Cl Prog cry Rel boy
i. “I met a boy who was crying.”
ii. “ *I met a boy who is crying.”

A s discussed in Lin (2006), when an im perfective relative clause is em bedded

to an indefinite noun phrase, the event time o f the relative clause is tem porally
dependent upon the event time o f the m atrix clause, i.e., the tim e o f the event
denoted by the relative clause must be sim ultaneous with the tim e o f the m atrix
event. It is argued there, within a fram ew o rk o f a tenseless analysis, that the present
interpretation is blocked because an indefinite with a progressive relative is so m e ­
how prohibited from adjoinin g to IP. Therefore, the speech time cannot be the topic
time o f the relative clause. In contrast, the dependent reading is derived when the
indefinite is adjoined to V P within the scope o f A sp. The point now is that within a
tensed free variable analysis, it is not clear w hy the present interpretation is not
available, given that the speech tim e can be salient enough to serve as a value o f the
free variable introduced by the null tense. G iven this, it seem s that a tenseless
analysis has another plus, but a tensed analysis has another m inus.
There m ig h t be s o m e m o r e prediction s between a tensed analysis and a te n se­
less one, but it is not the p u r p o s e o f this chapter to say w h ic h type o f analysis is u l­
timately the correct one. To d ecide w h ic h is a better analysis, one not o n ly has to
c o m p a re the em p irical coverage c o m p re h en sive ly but also need to evaluate which
analysis is theoretically m o r e elegant. This is certain ly b e y o n d the scop e o f this
chapter. W h at I h op e to have sh o w n here is s im p ly w h a t one sh o uld p a y attention to
in a n a lyz in g a tenseless language.

8 . C o n c lu sio n

In this chapter, the s y n ta x and sem antics o f s o m e (potentially) tenseless languages

have been review ed. It has been sh o w n that tenselessness has effects on both the
sy n tax and sem antics o f a tenseless language. Syntactically, a tenseless language m a y
lack s o m e syntactic properties that are associated with the content o f tense such as
lack o f case-m otivated N P m o v e m e n t or allow certain syntactic co nstruction s such
as sentences w ith ou t a subject or bare n o m in a l predicate w ithout a copula. S e m a n ti­
cally, since there is no tense, tem poral location must be d e te rm in e d by s o m e th in g

Bahan dengan hak cipta

692 TENSES

else. In this chapter, it has been show n that aspectual inform ation, together with
topic time resolution determ ined by an overt tem poral adverbial or discourse
anaphora, plays a significant role in determ ining tem poral location in a tenseless
language. Such an aspect-based approach to tem poral location in tenseless languages
can be as precise as a tense-based approach to tem poral location in tensed languages.
In addition, this chapter also discusses a possible challenge for establishing a tense­
less language, namely, the possible existence o f a null tense. It has been shown that
this possibility should always be borne in m ind in discu ssing tenselessness.
Tenseless languages m ay show variation as to how aspectual inform ation is
used am o n g them . This point has been illustrated when Kalaallisut w as discussed in
com parison with C hinese. A lthough the tem poral interpretations in both languages
are sensitive to aspectual classes, there m ight be a param eter with respect to what
com ponent o f an event interacts with the topic time. In Kalaallisut the result state o f
an event interacts with a topical instant, but this m ight not be the case in Chinese.
Since tenseless languages do not have overt m orphosyntactic form s to constrain
the location o f the topic times vis-a-vis utterance times. The question arises as to how
the topic time is determ ined by a speaker o f a tenseless language. This is an important
issue but is not discussed in detail in this chapter. M ost o f the time, it was assum ed
that the speech time is the default topic time or the topic time is the time o f a tem p o­
ral adverbial, if there is one. That assum ption is sufficient for our discussion in this
chapter, but it is worth pointing out that there can be a theory o f topic time resolution
in the absence o f explicit coding. For example, B oh nem eyer (2009) has defended a
proposal in which topic time resolution relies on universal “ inference m echanism s o f
temporal anaphora,” w hich are also shared with tenseless languages. If this is the case,
tenseless languages should be m inim ally different from tensed languages in the sense
that a syntactic tense node only serves to facilitate topic tim e reference resolution,
and determ ination o f a topic time reference in tenseless languages is m ore a matter o f
pragm atics.

NOTES

1. Instead o f Reichenbach's (1947) “reference time,” Klein (1994) uses the term “ topic
time,” a time which the discourse is about. In some theories, reference time or topic time is
replaced by perspective time in that the reference time or topic time can be the event time
o f the matrix clause to which a tense is embedded as in Japanese (Ogihara, 1996).
2. Current theoretical proposals differ with respect to whether tense meanings arc
asserted (e.g., Dowty, 1982; Chung and Timberlake, 1985; Comrie, 1985; Ilinrichs, 1986) or
whether they involve a presupposition about the reference time (e.g., Kratzer, 1998).
3. Not all languages utilize the three way tense distinction. English and German, for
instance, have been said to display only a past/non-past distinction (Comrie, 1985, p. 10).
4. For some people, aspect is an eventuality description modifier, mapping eventual­
ity descriptions to eventuality descriptions (e.g., Mourelatos, 1981; Moens and Stccdman,
1988).

М атериал, защ итен с авторско право

TENSELESSNESS 693

5. The abbreviations used in this chapter are as follows: ASP = aspectual marker; BA
= marker for preposed object NP; CL = classifer; DIR = directive transitivizer; ERG =
ergative; FCT = factual mood; IND = indicative mood; IV = intransitive verb; LOC -
locative; PAR = particle; PASS = passive marker; PROG = progressive marker; REL =
relative clause marker; SG = singular; SUBJ = indicative subject.
6. CL indicates a classifier.
7. The “part” indicates a particle. The precise nature and meaning of this particle is
not relevant here.
8. This is a much simplified formulation of that given by Roberts and Roussou in the
beginning of their paper. More accurately, they employ the notion of tense dependence to
account for the facts.
9. A caveat about this remark is that some tensed languages, or more precisely the
pro-drop languages, do allow a pronoun argument to be dropped.
10. Huang, Li, and Li (2009) also discussed what they call “short passives” such as (i)
below.

(i) Zhangsan bei da-le.

Zhangsan PASS hit-Asp
“Zhangsan was hit.”

They argue that such constructions are more like “get-passives” which involve a movement
of a PRO within VP. This PRO is controlled by the base-generated subject NP. Since PRO
cannot be governed and does not need case, short passives such as (i) do not support
case-motivated movement, either.
11. The condition < t ” in (44a) is not present in Lin’s (2003) work, which relies
more on pragmatic reasoning to derive the same effect.
12. When a sentence is embedded to another verb, the topic time or evaluation time
can be shifted to the event time of the matrix verb.
13. Normally, it is stage one of a process that is involved.
14. Bittner (2008) assumes with Webber (1988) that event verbs update the topic time to
the result time of the verb rather than the time immediately after the event as in Partee (1984).
15. Shaer’s (2003) examples discussed below are all credited to Fortescue (1980,2984).
16. In addition to kelh, the aspectual auxiliary cuz’ ‘be going to’ and a small number of
motion verbs may also be used to describe future eventualities.
17. According to Abusch (1985), the English surface forms will and would each
contain WOLL plus present and past tense, respectively.
18. Matthewson has assumed that the tense morpheme introduces a variable over
time intervals, i.e., the symbole i in (60). The value of the variable i is determined by a
contextually determined assignment function g. The application of g to i is a reference
interval denoted by the null tense morpheme, which is restricted to a non-future interval.
19. For a potential problem with the prediction, see Lin (2010) for discussion.
20. This remark should apply to both a tensed and a tenseless analysis.
21. Unlike Matthewsons assumption, we do not assume an event variable in the object
language. Instead, we assume that predicates have a time argument. The difference is not
crucial, however.
22. Matthewson (2006, note 6) suggested that achievements such as I reach the top in
Stat’imcets might be uttered at the moment of culmination. However, she is not sure that
this represents the true present tense reading. For such sentences, the culmination point
might only abut the moment of speech, giving rise to the illusion that it has a present
interpretation. If this is correct, no achievements have a present interpretation.
694 TENSES

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М а т е р іа л заш тиіїен ауторским правима

 C H A PTER 2 4

NOMINAL TENSE

JA C Q U E L IN E L E C A R M E

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

O u r e x p erie n ce o f tim e as the succession o f past, present, and future m an ifests itself,
at least in In d o - E u r o p e a n languages, as “ verbal te n se .” 1The privileged association o f
tense with the v erb a l d o m a in has largely sh aped o u r v ie w s about the p h ilo s o p h y o f
tim e, as well as the fo rm a l accounts o f linguistic tense— here used as both a s e m a n ­
tic a n d a s y n t a c t i c n o t i o n . C o n v e n t i o n a lly , s e n te n tia l e n v i r o n m e n t s a llo w the
d im e n sio n o f time, w h ic h is typically dealt with by the use o f m o r p h o lo g ic a l tense
and aspect; in n o m in a l en v iro n m en ts, d eterm in ers deal w ith (spatial) location and
id en tification .2
Yet the d im e n s io n a lo n g w h ic h things change, n a m e ly tim e, e n c o m p a s s e s the
categories o f lan g u age. B o th events o f r u n n i n g and states o f sickness are entities
in v o lv in g change. C h a n g i n g objects (tables and chairs) are w h o lly present at d i f ­
ferent tim es, and acq u ire n e w p ro p e rties at different tim es. Lik ew ise , o u r need to
talk in tensed term s ex ten d s b e y o n d the categorizations o f g r a m m a r . I h e system o f
represen tations that m a k e s it po ssib le to th in k and talk about objects or events
such as this table or my headache is no t lim ite d to c u rre n tly e x is tin g entities: both
n o m in a l and verb al ex p re ssio n s then are possib le veh icles o f tim e reference, and
we w o u ld ex p e c t to find s o m e g r a m m a tic a l reflection o f this.
N e arly all languages have so m e g r a m m a tic a l m e a n s o f ex p ressin g the “earlier-
later” tem p oral relations for fo r m in g tem p orally m o d ified exp ressio n s like “ fo rm e r
president”, “ m y then future s p o u s e ”, “ m y earlier illness”, “ in then current term s”, etc.
In languages like ITalkomelcm (Salishan), this correlates with the p re se n ce o f overt
tem poral m o r p h e m e s (e)lh [past], -cha [future] (also used to m a r k tense with verbs),
w h ic h o c c u r inside n o u n ph rases. The fo llo w in g e x a m p le illustrates this pattern,
w h ich is fo u n d in other languages as well:

M a ie p u ja /i 3awTnfieH ayropcKUM npaBHMa

NOMINAL TENSE 697

(1) a. te-1 xelth-elh

dct-isg.Poss pencil-PAST
“ my former pencil” (Burton, 1997, p. 67)
b. te-1 lalem-cha
det-isg.Poss house-FUT
“my future house” (Wiltschko, 2003, p. 665)

In languages with overt d eterm in ers, such as S o m a li (A fro asiatic), S ta t’imcets

(Salishan), C h a m i c u r o ( A r a w a k ) and m a n y others (see N o r d lin g e r and Sadler,
2004a), tem poral in fo rm atio n is e n c o d e d on the definite or indefinite articles: this
is not su rp risin g , given the function o f these m o r p h e m e s in su p p ly in g existential,
tem poral or spatial reference to no u n s. In languages like C h a m ic u r o , the definite
noun p h ra se m a y even be the sole b earer o f tense distinctions, the verb b ein g
u n m a r k e d for tense:

(2) a. i-nis-kana na camalo

3-see-PL th e bat
“'Ihey see the bat.”
b. y-ah'yo ka ke:ni
3-fall THE(past) rain
“It rained.” (the rain fell) (Parker, 1999, p. 552)

O b se r v a tio n s like these suggest that we cannot appeal to the linguistic notion o f
tense to explain the differences b etw een sentences and n o u n phrases, and that the
investigation o f h o w tim e is e n co d e d in natural language has suffered from a s u b ­
stantial sh o rtc o m in g .
B y the m id d le o f the twentieth century, it h ad b e c o m e clear that tense can be
e x p resse d with the n o m in a l d o m a in crosslinguistically. M a n y o f the special p r o p ­
erties o f (what is referred to here as) n o m in a l tense, pa rticu la rly in the N o rth
W akashan languages, w ere first discovered and investigated by Franz B o a s (1911,
1947)-3 T h ose properties are typical o f fu n ctio n a l categories: o b lig ato ry expression,
m o r p h o lo g ic a l b o u n d n e ss , absence o f “d escriptive content” o f the te m p o ra l d istin c ­
tions, defin ed in term s o f a close system o f m o r p h o lo g ic a l o pposition s internal to
the language itself. H ow ever, logicians and ph ilo so p h ers have m ad e no attempt to
treat distinctions o f tense in n o m in a ls as se rio u sly as the verb al tenses o f o rd in a ry
language, in part because c o n v in c in g ev id en ce for n o m in a l tense, along with c o n ­
crete analyses o f n o m in a l tense system s, is so rare— though p e rh a p s only because o f
the m eta p h y sic a l status granted to the things that are said to c o rr e s p o n d to tensed
sen ten c e s : p ro p os it ion s .
In recent years, n o m in a l tense has received a ren ew ed attention in the syntactic
and se m an tic literature, but there are m a n y un resolved issues and controversies
c o n c e rn in g the m o r p h o lo g ic a l, syntactic and se m an tic status o f the n o m in a l tense
“ m a rk e rs” : are these m o r p h o lo g ie s truly inflectional, or do they enter the n o m in a l
as adjectival m o d ifie rs (like ‘fo r m e r ’ and ‘future’ )? H o w d o e s the specification o f
tense m o d i f y a n o u n ph rase? I lo w does n o m in a l tense interact with the tense o f the

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698 TENSE

sentence? What, then, are the implications for the current theories of tense? It is fair
to say that none o f these questions has been answered in a satisfying fashion so far.
At the same time, opinions vary concerning the functions other than temporal, that
is, modal (existent vs. non-existent) or evidential (visible vs. non-visible) that the
nominal tense morphology can play: are these modal meanings specific to nomi-
nals, or do they reflect deeper parallelisms between the verbal and nominal domains?
This chapter explores both what is now known about nominal tense and what is
controversial and unresolved. In order to sharpen our perception o f the phenom­
enon, I will investigate in some detail the nominal tense system o f Somali (East
Cushitic), a field where the language is rich and subtle (see Lecarme, 1996 and sub­
sequent work). My aim is not to argue for the existence o f a special type o f tense,
called “nominal tense.” Rather, I show that tense (whether verbal or nominal) does
not identify different relationships between linguistic expressions and time, but the
same relationships to time applying to expressions of different grammatical type.
These results, though preliminary, are I think sufficient to indicate the extraordi­
nary richness o f the topic area, and the powerful tool that nominal tense offers as a
probe into the linguistic phenomenon o f tense, our conception of time and the
language we use to talk about it.

2. O n Tim e, T e n s e , a n d ( N o m i n a l ) T e n s e

In general, as the term itself suggests, I will take nominal tense to refer to gram­
matical morphology on argument nominals whose temporal interpretation is
independent from the temporal interpretation o f the clause. The Somali nominal
tense system (discussed in greater detail section 6) is basically a past versus non­
past opposition marked on the definite article. In a nonverbal context like (3) (a)
(a books title), the past morphology unambiguously locates the nominal in the
past. Since the Ogaden war took place in 1973, a non-past is unsuitable here, but
acceptable in (3) (b), where the time of the nominal coincides with that of the
main (verbal) predicate.4

(3) (a) Dagaal-kli Ogaadeenya

war-defM.past Ogaden
"The Ogaden War” (book title)
(b) Dagaai-ka well wuu socdaa, wuuna soc6nayaa
war-defM still C/F.3MS g0.0n.3ms C/F.and go.on.prog.3ms
“ The war still goes on, and will go on.”

Both nominal and verbal tense marking is available in Somali; a past definite
article would thus be possible in (3) (b), conveying an anaphoric interpretation
(dagdalkii ‘the aforementioned w ar).
The class o f (simple) event and processes nominals (e.g.; exhibition, trip, cere­
mony) provide relevant examples of the temporal independence o f verbal and
NOMINAL TENSE 699

nom in al dom ains. A s show n in (4), the tense m arked on the D P (noun phrase)
triggers distinct sem antic presuppositions, as reflected by the English translation o f
the exam ples. D ep en d in g on the tense m arked on the DP, a speaker m akes it clear
that he takes for granted that the exhibition is still ru n n in g (4) (a) or closed (4) (b)
at the time o f his utterance (see Lecarm e, 19 9 6 ,19 9 9 , for a fuller set o f exam ples):

(4) a. Bandhig-ga maad daawatay?

exh ibition-defM Q.2$ see.2s.past
“ Have you seen the exhibition?”
b. B a n d h ig - g ii maad daawatay?
exhibition-defM .past Q.2S see.2s.past
“ Did you see the exhibition?”

A s discussed in L ecarm e (2008), the tem poral m eanings are em bedded in the
sem antics o f the determ iners, not in the pragm atics o f their use. Unlike the e x is­
tence presupposition (i.e., the sem antic contribution o f the definite article), the
tem poral presupposition is not required to be in the “com m on g ro u n d ” — the body
o f know ledge m utually shared by speakers and hearers. The explicit, literal m eaning
delivered by the n o m in al tenses is sem antic in the sense that it represents “ what the
speaker knows,” independently o f his com m unicative intentions.
In Som ali, tense is a feature o f any (com m on ) noun, not only nouns that are
said to include an event as part o f their lexical sem antics. N o m in al tense, together
with (m orphological) definiteness, determ ines crucial aspects o f the internal syntax
o f noun phrases, such as C ase assignm ent, agreem ent and deletion processes. The
m ost telling exam ples are idiom s, since they typically don’t have com positional
m eanings. We can see both the tense and definiteness factors at w ork in (5), where
the n o m in al m o d ifier ku-m ed-gdar (m) ‘provisional’ is an idiom atic com pound.
Clearly, these agreem ent facts are o f syntactic nature, and cannot be plausibly be
determ ined by the sem antic properties o f determ iners:

(5) a. daw lad ku meel gaar ah

go ve rn m en t(f) in place special be
“a provisional g o v e rn m e n t”
b. daw lad-da ku meel gaar-ka ah
go vcrn e m en t-d cfF in place special-dcfM be
“ the Provisional G o v e r n m e n t ”
c. M a r- k ii d a w la d - d ii ku meel gaar-ka ahayd
tim e-defM .past governement-defF.past in place special-deflVI be.past
lagu dhisay C arta,. . .
3 M ( “one” ).in build.past A rta
“ W h e n the Provisional G o v e rn m e n t was established in Arta” . . .

W hen such gram m atical requirem ents are found, im m ediate questions arise:
W hat is the relation between nom inal tense and sem antic Tense? Does Tense establish
tim e reference in the nom in al dom ain as it does in the verbal one, or does it act as

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700 TENSE

just one o f the modifiers like ‘former’, ‘future, etc.? Does the universality o f temporal
interpretation in nominals arise from a common syntactic structure necessarily
including a Tense Phrase, as first proposed by Lecarme (1996) for Somali? The
answer to these questions depends in part on more general assumptions about the
grammaticalization o f time in natural language.
We begin to explore these questions by noticing that tense is not the only m an­
ifestation o f time in natural language. English expresses time reference with tenses,
aspect, and adverbial time phrases such as yesterday, at four, etc. Depending on the
adverb with which they appear, present tense sentences are temporally located
within the present or the future time (e.g., M ary is coming now/tomorrow). To a
great extent, time reference in Arabic or Russian relies on perfective/imperfective
aspectual distinctions (or on tense/aspects interactions) instead o f on tense alone.
In Navajo (Athapascan), verbal inflection and temporal particles are optional,
which allows sentences without overt temporal information. Finally, there are ap­
parently "tenseless” languages, which have been described as not having tense at
all, such as Mandarin Chinese, Thai, Yukatek Maya and many others.5 In these
languages, temporal interpretation does not rely on tense morphemes, but relies
instead on temporal adverbials or aspectual information (see Smith, 2008 and ref­
erences cited there).
Since the inception o f generative grammar, the temporal interpretation o f a finite
clause requires the syntactic projection o f a T position, the head o f a Tense Phrase
(TP),6 involved in the assignment o f (nominative) Case (Pesetsky and Torrego, 2004)
and the distribution o f sentential adverbs (Alexiadou, 1997; Cinque, 1999). Within
the minimalist framework of Chomsky (2001), the T head (or feature) has a “double
interface” status. On the semantic side, T picks out a reference time interval, which
precedes or includes the utterance time. On the sound side, however, there is often no
direct surface evidence for the functional categories of inflection: T is silent in the
phonetic output, but must be there for interpretation. Under this view, apparently
“tenseless” languages parallel English or French in the functional structures involved
in temporal interpretation. Matthewson (2006) has argued that what appears to be an
optional past tense marker tu7 in Stat’imcets Salish is better analyzed as a temporal
adverb which co-occurs with the covert tense morpheme in T. Aspect, unlike tense,
is considered not to be deictic (Comrie 1976), but is in fact time relational: as Klein
(2009) observes, ongoingness as well as completion are always relative to a particular
time. In Gueron (2004,2008), grammatical aspect is defined with regard to the time
that T denotes: a perfective/imperfective verb introduces a time interval only if the
aspect morpheme merges with a covert tense morpheme in T.
In an exactly parallel fashion, time reference in nominals can be expressed with
tenses, aspects, and time modifiers. Matthewson (2005) has argued that the
Stat’imcets enclitic tuj, when it attaches to nouns, is not an instance o f nominal
tense but a time modifier similar to English then (e.g., the then president, my then
state o f m ind). Tonhauser (2006, 2007) has argued that what is commonly called
“nominal tense” in a language like Guarani should instead be viewed as an instance
o f aspect, and offered an explicit semantics for this proposal. But assuming the
NOMINAL TENSE 701

general principles o f tem poral interpretation just m entioned, it does not follow that
T is m issing in n om in als: it can be argued that tim e m od ifiers such as English then
or Stat m eets tU7 co -o ccu r w ith a ph onologically null T. It is also possible to suggest
that the aspectual m arker kue in G u aran i m ight define a boun ded interval under a
covert past tense in T. A sim ilar analysis m ight be relevant to other “n o m in al
tensed” languages as well, such as H alkom elem Salish, given the special readings
(‘lost pencil’, ‘destroyed house’, ‘deceased father’) o f the m o rp h em e elh (described as
a past tense by Gallow ay, 1993; B urton, 1997; W iltschko, 2003) when it applies to
nom inals.
I f Tense in n o m in a ls cannot be assu m ed on the presence v ersu s absence o f
o b lig a to ry overt tense m o rp h o lo g y , what d istin gu ish es, say E n glish (or G e rm a n )
from Som ali? This q u estio n , I suggest, contribu tes to the m o re g en eral debate on
“ tenseless lan gu ages”.8 O ne p o ssib ility is that in lan guages w h ere the tem poral
interpretation o f n o m in a ls does not sh o w up in lin guistic fo rm , these tem poral
interpretations are p rag m atic, not sem an tic. T h ey are therefore not represented.
A m ore plausible p o ssib ility on the present account is that the E nglish D P reaches
the sem an tic in terface in the sam e form as the So m ali DP, as we w ou ld exp ect if
the external system s o f interpretation are essentially lan g u a g e -in d ep en d en t. On
this view , n o m in a ls and clauses define two in d ep en d en t and parallel system s o f
tem p oral in terp retation . A s s u m in g that the com pu tation o f sy n tactic-sem a n tic
objects like sentences (C P s) and nou n p h rases (D Ps) is essen tially parallel, the
d om ain o f the Tense associated w ith D is the DP, an d can n ot be u n d ersto o d as
takin g sco p e over the clausal d o m ain . This analysis stan d s in o p p o sitio n to ea r­
lier p ro p o sa ls that certain “n o m in a l-te n s e d ” lan gu ages lack a n o u n /verb d istin c ­
tion. It also exclu des analyses in w h ich clause-level tem p oral in fo rm atio n is
directly con tribu ted by n o m in a ls, as in W iltschko (2003) and N o rd lin g e r and
Sadler (2004b).
In conclusion, current research on tense (and n o m in al tense) should not be
centered on the presence or absence o f overt m orph em es expressing Tense, leaving
m ore essential questions on the research agenda. On the other hand, the investiga­
tion o f languages o f great typological variety has show n that a specific m o rp h o lo g y
in nom inals is related to tem poral interpretation in a non-trivial way. To the extent
that these crosslinguistic patterns do exist, the question arises as to what m ech a­
nism s o f g ra m m a r are responsible for them.

3. E n ^ ’ s and M u s a n ’s G en er a liza t io n s

Significantly— though perhaps not unexp ectedly— the first serious attempts to an a­
lyze the tem poral sem antics o f noun phrases were developed independently o f
nom inal tense, and w ere applied to languages that appear to lack the phenom enon
entirely, such as English, Turkish, and G erm an .

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702 TENSE

Most o f the arguments in the literature for a referential versus a quantifica-

tional approach to tense theory crucially involve the temporal interpretation of
noun phrases. A s discussed by En$ (1981,1986), Priorean tense logic poses a prob­
lem for the semantic analysis o f nominals.9 As En<; (1981) observed, the interpreta­
tion o f fugitive in the sentence (6) (a) is independent o f the tense that is present in
the syntax; the possible readings involve individuals who are fugitives now, or were
fugitives before they were in jail. To get a past tense interpretation, the phrase every
fu gitive would have to be interpreted within the scope o f a past tense operator (6)
(b). However, since the assertion is about past fugitives who are now in jail, the
correct truth conditions would have been approximately as in (6) (c), where the
past operator is constrained to take a local scope over the nominal itself.10

(6) a. Every fugitive is now in jail (En^, 1981, p. 38)

b. Vx[P fugitive(x) in-jail(x)] (p. 42)
c. Vx[(P fugitive(x)) -»in-jail(x)]

En<; (1986,1987) provided further evidence for her claim that tense affects only
verb interpretations obligatorily. Within a dynamic semantics framework (Kamp,
1981; Heim, 1983), she proposed that nouns (like verbs) must be provided with tem­
poral arguments, the values o f which are supplied by the utterance context.
En^s initial generalization has been challenged in two ways. First, Musan (1995)
argued that the predication times o f nominals can, and sometimes must, intersect
with the time o f the main predicate o f the clause. For example, the college student in
(7a) has both a temporally dependent and a temporally independent reading: the
individual talked about may be a student while he invented a travel machine (in
which case the time o f college student intersects with the time o f invented a time
travel m achine) , or may be a college student now (in which case the time o f the
nominal predicate and the time o f the main predicate o f the clause do not inter­
sect). According to Musan (1995, 1999), only strong (presuppositional) noun
phrases can have temporally independent readings; weak noun phrases under their
cardinal readings (e.g., noun phrases in existential there-c onstructions) can only
have a temporally dependent interpretation: in (7b), the predication time o f sick
and o f professor have to intersect.

(7) a. The college student invented a time travel machine. (Musan, 1999» p- 621)
b. There w as a professor sick. (p. 95)

Musans account o f the distribution o f temporally (in)dependent interpreta­

tions is crucially dependent on an ontology that contains stages (i.e., temporal
parts) o f individuals in addition o f classical individuals.11 On Musans analysis,
temporally dependent interpretations involve determiner-quantification over
stages o f individuals; temporally independent interpretations involve determiner-
quantification over individuals in their whole extendedness (Musan 1995, 1999)*
On this view, the temporal dimension o f nominals is taken to rely on an entirely
different mechanism than the one o f clauses, that is, on tenseless, space-time slices
o f whole individuals.
NOMINAL TENSE 703

, Another challenge to E n $ 's generalization is Kratzer s (1988) proposal that the

temporal location o f individuals is sometimes directly determined by the tense o f
the clause. A s Kratzer observed, past tense individual-level clauses seem to impose
requirements on their subjects existence: utterances like Henry was French, Greg­
ory had blue eyes are inappropriate in a situation where the subject individuals are
still alive.12 On Kratzer’s semantic analysis, “lifetime effects” arise when the tense
o f the sentence directly applies to the external argument o f the main predicate.
Musan (1995, 1997) however has argued that the role o f tense for “lifetime effects”
is an indirect one: by virtue o f determining the temporal interpretation o f the
main predicate o f the clause, it triggers implicatures that give rise to “lifetime
effects”
It seems, then, that En^'s initial generalization holds: the temporal location o f
individuals (or predication times) is in no case directly determined by the tense o f
the sentence. But this does not entail that the temporal interpretation of nominals
can only be context-dependent: the time variables o f nominals can be supplied with
a value by the context of use, or their values can be determined DP-internally by
temporal modifiers, or by nominal tense and aspect markers.13 Taken together,
En^s and Musans analyses actually suggest that the temporal interpretation o f
nominals might have something to do with the syntax. En$ (1987) developed a ref­
erential approach to tense, where (clausal) tense is formally associated with C, the
complementizer. In parallel, her account o f definiteness and specificity (En$ 1991)
anticipates the D -T analysis assumed in this chapter.14 Musan (1995,1999) tried to
define the syntactic conditions in which nominals can be temporally (in d e p e n ­
dent. Under the approach taken in this chapter, the cardinal versus presupposi-
tional distinction is tense-related: if true D (i.e., D + T) relates to referentiality in
some sense, then an indefinite nonspecific nominal phrase ( a lot o f people, ‘some­
one’, etc.) is temporally indefinite. In the framework o f Chomsky (2001, 2008), the
distribution o f temporally dependent versus independent noun phrases coincides
with the notion o f phase: weak (temporally indefinite) NPs are merged in the VP
and interpreted in situ, whereas “presuppositional” (tense-related) DPs occupy the
positions typically associated with "surface structure” interpretations (specificity,
presuppositionality, topicality, etc.).15 This is consistent with the fact that nonrefer-
ential nominals (nonspecifics, quantified, and predicate nominals, etc.) are tense-
less in Somali.

4. A S y n t a c t i c A n a l y s i s

In previous work (Lecarme 2004,2008), I explicitly attempted to formulate an alter­

native to the semantic approaches initiated by En$ (1987) and Musan (1995), asking
how nominal tense can be simulaneously grammatical (computational) and context
sensitive. M y proposal has been that the temporal structure o f nominal phrases is
strongly parallel to that o f clauses with a category D formally parallel to a C, and
704 TENSE

that parallel to the C - T relation expressing clausal finiteness, a D -T relation e x ­

presses “nom in al finiteness.” On this view, the tem poral interpretation o f noun
phrases and clauses is syntactically construed as a “ Tense chain” (G ueron and I Ioek-
stra 1994), an interpretive process that brings together C - T - V and D -T -N to form
“ proposition al” categories (like Event or Tiling) at the sem antic interface.16
A key question then naturally arises: com pared with clauses, how special are
nom inals? In earlier generative work, it is the presence o f T (and the categorial [+V]
feature on T) that is responsible for the syntactic dichotom y between verbs and nouns.
In m ore recent work, it has been proposed that functional heads define the syntactic
category o f otherwise category-neutral roots (Marantz, 1997, 2007). In the fram ew ork
o f C h o m sky (2001), the category-determ ination process proceeds top-down at each
phase level (see also ITiraiwa, 2005). On this view, it no longer follows that T is asso­
ciated with V: Tense (and agreement) features are derivative from C, the phase head.
A ssum ing that nom inals and clauses share structural m eanings carried by functional
categories or features that do not determ ine a phase, such as [plural] and Tense, the
questions to ask turn out to be the following: I low is temporal inform ation conveyed
in nom inals? How does the specification o f tense m odifies a nom inal?
A s discu ssed in Lecarm e (2004, 2008), I take the basic structure o f a D P to
be (8), where D is parallel to C, n* is parallel to Voice and introduces the external
“ p o ssessor” argum ent, n is a n om inalizing bead, and nP, n*P and DP define 3 syn ­
tactic d om ain s for tense interpretation.

(S ) DP

T n *P

(F o ss)

Root

A ssu m in g that syntax and sem antics run in parallel from bottom to top, three
(sets o f) times are potentially involved in the tem poral interpretation o f noun
phrases:

• the predication time (i.e., the times at w hich a property like ‘president’ is
asserted to hold o f an individual),
• the time o f the genitive/possessive relation,
• the time o f (existence o f) an individual (object or event).

This is illustrated by the follow ing Som ali exam ples (taken from Lecarm e 2004,
2008):

(9) a. M ad axw cym -h n horc (waa im aanayaa)

president-defM .past before C /F com e.prog.3m s
<(•
The form er president (is com ing).”

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NOMINAL TENSE 705

b. (W axaan ku barayaa) afad ay-d ii hore

Expl.F.iS 2S introducc.prog.is w ifc.f.iS-dcfT.past before
“ (I am introducing you) m y ex-wife.”
c. W eerar-kii 11-k ii Setem bar
attack-defM .past 11-defM .past Septem ber
“the Septem ber 11 attack"

It m ust be noted that what looks like a tem poral m o d ifie r in (9a) and (9b) is a
place a d je c tiv e 17 w ithout intrinsic tem poral sem antics (e.g .yjid -k a hore ‘the next
street a h e a d ’), Just like English before , hore expresses tem poral preced en ce on ly if
it is b o u n d by a past tense. I have suggested in earlier w ork that hore enters the
n o m in al phrase as ad n o m in al m odifier, and that tem poral interpretation (i.e., the
aspectual m ea n in g o f ex- or former) is dependent on the com putation o f a n o m ­
inal [past] tense feature in T. In (9)(a), past tense on D en co d es the specification
o f the tim e interval in w hich the fu n ction ‘president’ holds; since hore only m o d ­
ifies the (n om in al) T head, the relevant D P is interpreted as d en o tin g an in d i­
vidual characterized as a president at an interval o f tim e in the past. In (9b), hore
applies to the possession relation: the n o m in a l can be used to refer to som eo n e
w ho was fo rm e rly m y w ife’ an d is ‘m y w ife’ no longer. A s ou r exam ples m ake it
clear in both cases, the tim e w hen the p ro p erty ‘presid en t’ or ‘m y w ife’ is true o f
the in d ivid u al m ust be a subset o f the intervals boun d by hore, but in order for
those intervals to be tem p orally located in the past, a n o m in a l [past] is needed.
Sim ilarly, the effect o f a n o m in a l [past] in (9)(c) is to constrain the denotation o f
the tem poral m o d ifier ‘Septem ber 1 1 ’ (an in terval-d en o tin g exp ression) to a set o f
past times.
M ost previous theoretical w o rk on the tem poral interpretation o f noun phrases
(and standard discussion o f nom in al tense as well) has centered on the tem poral
location o f predication times. Except for M usan’s discussion o f the “ lifetim e effects”
(see section 3), the tem poral location o f individuals has received com paratively little
attention. But M usan’s theory aim ed at explain in g in which w ay the tem poral loca­
tion o f individuals is determ ined 01* affected by the tem poral interpretation o f a
clause, and was crucially based on an ontology that contains stages (tem poral parts)
o f individuals as basic entities (o f type e). On this view, an individual’s tim e o f exis­
tence is actually the time o f existence o f a stage o f an individual. In contrast, I as­
sum e that there is no a sy m m etry between the application o f tense to individuals
and to events: tenses typically treat events as wholes, although processes or events
have tem poral parts. The “ time o f the individual” therefore is to be understood not
as the whole tim e-span o f an in d ivid u als existence (which is, in case o f anim ate
individuals, their “ lifetim e” ), but as the tim e associated with underlyin g existential
quantification, m ak in g the tem poral location o f an individual parallel to the tem p o ­
ral location o f a (D avid sonian) event.
In the literature on “n o m in al tensed” languages so far, the investigation o f how
individuals are tem porally located has relied on the Som ali data.18 A s noted earlier,
tense in this language is a feature o f any (com m on ) noun, not only nouns that are

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70 6 TENSE

said to include an event as part o f their lexical sem antics. The m a in fu n c tio n o f
n o m in a l tense in the la n g u a ge is to tem p orally locate ind ivid u als like ‘the table’ and
'm y b r o th e r ’ 19 The fo llo w in g are typical exam ples w h e r e n o m in a l tense locates an
in d iv id u a l directly:

(a) M adaxw eym '-hii WÜU dhintay

president-defM .past C /F3M S die.3m s.past
“ ’Ihe president died.”
(b) Am'-gii waan iskâ tagay
M c-dcfM .past C/F.iS re fl. from g0.3m s.past
“A s for me I left.”
(c) Yaa m as’üul ka ah b u rbu rin -tu Soom aaliya?
w ho responsible from be. rest r. destruction-
“ W ho is responsible for the destruction o f Som alia?”

Past tense in (10a) locates the president as an individual (not his presidency) at
a past time that coincides with the time denoted by the clausal tense. A nother typical
exam ple com es from the pronom inal paradigm (10b): unlike the “ w eak” (sem anti­
cally definite) pronouns associated with them , the “strong” pronouns are syntacti­
cally definite in Som ali and have the sam e distribution as ordinary DPs. Since
pronouns do not contain descriptive elements that can be predicated o f a stage, (10b)
illustrates a clear case where nom inal tense locates an individual temporally, at a past
tim e which overlaps (or coincides with) the time o f the event. The last exam ple is a
“ tensed” nom inalization (10c): while the core eventuality is anchored at the utterance
time, the nom inal itself refers to a past event o f destruction.
The relevance o f nom inal tense on languages like Som ali is self-evident: nom i-
nals bear instances o f T that are interpretable, that is, that tem porally locate the
individual denoted by the nom inal, just as interpretable T in an English clause tem ­
porally locates an event. However, n o m in a l T-features in languages that appear to
lack nom inal tense are often phonologically expressed in som e fashion. Pesetsky
and Torrego (2001, 2004) suggest that the p roperty o f nom inals called “structural
case” m igh t in fact be an un interpretable instance o f tense (uT) on D. Supporting
evidence for this hypothesis m ay be found in the interactions between case and
tense in vario u s languages.2" The interaction betw een structural case and sem antic
specificity can be view ed as another type o f interaction between case and tense, if
specificity (in the sense o f Enç, 1991) is actually D + T. In the general fram ew o rk
assum ed here (see section 3), specificity effects in nom inals can be view ed as d if­
ferent m anifestations o f T on D.21
I f the h yp o th e sis is correct, then the p h e n o m e n o n o f n o m in a l tense e m p h a ­
sizes the well k n o w n syntactic and se m a n tic parallels that exist betw een sentences
and n o m in a ls: the verb p h ra se p ro v id e s a predicate, that is, a class o f events, and T
(together w ith C ) locates a p a rticu la r event in tim e. The sa m e fu n c tio n is p e r fo r m e d
by D + T in the n o m in a l d o m a in . G iv e n the stru ctu re o f g r a m m a r a ss u m e d here,
the m ain differences b etw een sentences and n o m in a ls are syntactic, not lexical.
In clud ed a m o n g these differences is the p resen ce (or absence) o f a sy ntactically

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NOMINAL TENSE 707

p ro je cted agent in the fu n ctio n al en viro n m en t that se rv es as the con text o f cate-
g o ry -n e u tra l roots.

5. M o d a l i t y and Ev id e n t ia lit y

The m o d a l use o f a past m o rp h o lo g y is a w ell-attested p h en o m en on in n atu ral

lan gu age. C ross-lin gu istically, past tense d o es not alw ays indicate tem p oral an te ri­
o rity : in m a n y languages, past tense m o rp h o lo g y is lin k ed to irrea lis interpretations.
N o m in a ls an d clau ses seem to beh ave in a larg ely p arallel m an n er, in so far as th eir
te m p o ral an d m o d a l interpretations are co n cern ed . W e can , fo r instance, th in k an d
ta lk ab out in d ivid u als w hich, th o u gh n ot in th e least abstract, are m ere ly possib le,
n o n -actu al in d ivid u als. M o rp h o lo gical reflexes o f m o d a l d istin ction s (certain vs.
u n certain , existen t vs. non-existent) are fo u n d in th e d eterm in er system s o f m an y
lan gu ages o f the w o rld (see Im ai, 2003). A m o n g the m o d a l d istin ction s exp ressed in
n o m in als, th e p rim a ry one is evid en tiality22— th e lin g u istic exp ression o f a sp e a k e rs
so u rce o f in form ation .
In a g o o d n u m b er o f languages, the categ o ry o f evid en tiality m an ifests itse lf at
the sen ten ce level. The types o f sources on w h ich sp eakers base th eir assertion s,
su ch as p ercep tio n , report, o r in ference, are o rgan ized in a system o f m o rp h o lo g ical
o p p o sitio n s called "e v id e n tia ls A c c o r d in g to W illett (1988), a true evid en tial system
is fu n d am en tally concerned w ith the d istin ctio n b etw een d ir e c t (i.e., perceptu al)
an d in d ir e c t (i.e., inferential an d reportative) evid en ce types. The category o f e v i­
d en tiality o verlap s w ith tense an d aspect as w ell: as ty p o lo g ica l studies have sh o w n ,
there is a n o n trivial relation b etw een evid en tial an d tem p o ral fo rm s, w h e th e r e v i­
d en tial fo rm s h isto rically derive fro m tense fo rm s, o r lan gu ages m ake b oth a te m ­
p o ra l an d m o d a l use o f the sam e fo rm s (C h afe an d N ich o ls, 1986; A ik h en w ald ,
2004). System atic interactions exist cro sslin g u istically betw een ev id en tiality an d
tense, in that the present tense is interpreted as b ein g b ased on d ir e c t evid en ce. To
the extent that there is a close (causal) co n n ectio n b etw een o n e s source o f in fo rm a ­
tion an d o n e s kn ow led ge, there is also a close relation betw een evid en tiality an d
epistem ic m o d a lity; fo r exam ple, epistem ic m o d als like must are often the carriers
o f i n d i r e c t (inferential) evid ence (Palm er, 19 8 6 ).23
The c o m p a ra b le qu estion s c o n c e rn in g n o m in a l e v id e n tia lity have rece ive d
fa r less atten tio n . A s n oted in L e c a rm e (2 0 0 3, 2 0 0 8 ), the essen tial d istin c tio n s
e x p re sse d in n o m in a ls are o f th e d ir e c t ty p e — b a sic a lly , th e v isib le v e rsu s n o n -
v isib le d istin c tio n .24 T his is exp ected , sin ce n o m in a l e x p re ssio n s ty p ic a lly re fe r to
o b se rv a b le en tities. A s w ith th e cla u sa l d o m a in , sy ste m a tic in te ra ctio n s exist
b etw een n o m in a l e v id e n tia lity an d ten se (or asp e c t). In Iraqw , a C u sh itic
la n g u a g e , th e d em o n stratives q a ’ [+ far, + v isib le ] an d - M [+ fa r, + in v isib le ] can
co n trib u te a p re se n t versu s p ast ten se in te rp re ta tio n o f the m ain p red icate o f the
clau se (M o u s, 19 9 3, pp. 9 0 - 9 1) . In S t a fim c e t s (S alish ), a ten seless la n g u ag e as fa r
as the v e rb is con cern ed , the use o f the “absen t/in visible” article25 o p tio n ally (though
708 TENSE

p referab ly) d e te rm in e s th e p a st in terp retatio n o f the m a in p red icate o f th e clause.

T h is d istin c tio n is illu stra te d in (11) fo r the d isc o n tin u o u s articles t i . . . a (sin g u ­
lar p resen t) a n d ni. . . a (sin g u la r ab sen t). M o reo ver, as D e m ird a c h e (19 9 7 ) p o in ts
out, w h e n n i . . . a a p p lie s to the p red icate kelydqsten ‘c h ie f’ (y ie ld in g th e p u rely
te m p o ral in te rp re ta tio n ‘fo rm e r c h ie f’), the m ain pred icate can o n ly b e in ter­
p reted in th e p a s t:26

(11) a. s£csec ti kelzaqsten-s-a ti US-a

silly DET chief.3sg.p0ss.DET DET US-DET
“ The (present) chief o f the United States is a fool.”
b. secsec ni kelzaqsten-s-a ti US-a
silly DET chief.3sg.p0ss.DET DET US-DET
“The (former) chief o f the United States was a fool.” (Demirdache, 1997» ex. 10)

In la n g u ag es w h ere d ete rm in e rs also en co d e tem p o ral d istin ctio n s, such as

Iraqw , S o m a li an d m a n y o th e rs,27v is ib lity is asso ciated w ith the p resen t tense, n o n -
v isib ility w ith th e p a st tense. It is to b e n o ted that the “ in visib le” referen t can be
close in p ro x im ity : in S o m a li as in o th er lan gu ages (e.g., the la n gu ages o f the Sal-
ish an fa m ily ), an e v id e n tia l p ast is ch a ra cte ristica lly u sed w h en ta lk in g about re f­
erents th at are p re se n t in the u tteran ce situ ation , alth o u gh h id d e n b e h in d a door,
or ab out o b je c ts that are o cclu d ed fro m th e sp eak e r’s view . C ru c ia l S o m a li e x a m ­
ples in v o lv e cases w h ere the referen t is n ot o b se rv a b le in p rin cip le , su ch as (12a).

(12) a. Q alinkay-gii meeyey? (—Khaanad-da buu ku

pen.m.PoSSis-defM.-past[+nom] Q.is.ms (—Drawer-defF C/F.3MS in

jiraa)
stay.pres.gen.
"W here is m y pen?” (— In the drawer.)
b. Qalinkay-gu waa kee? (—Waa kan guduudan.)
pen.m.PossiS-defM[+nom] F/C m.Q (—C/F m.dem red)
“W hich one is m y pen?” (—The red one) (Lecarme, 2008, p. 212)

A s I d isc u ss fu rth e r b e lo w (section 6), the past tense m arked o n the definite
article in (12 a ) d o es n o t p ro vid e a tem p o ral in fo rm atio n (e.g., that the referent w as
m en tion ed in a p revio u s d isco u rse context), but sign als that “the pen” is not co n ­
tain ed w ith in the sp eak e r’s v isu a l field at the tim e o f his utterance. A n o n -p ast is
u n accep tab le, co n tra d ic to ry -so u n d in g , hence u n gram m atical in su ch exam ples. In ­
tuitively, th is is b ecau se the sem an tics o f v isu a l p erception com es w ith the n o rm al
use o f the p resen t tense, as sh ow n in (12b).
Past ten se m o rp h o lo g y can also b e u sed to refer to in visible places, fo r exam ple
w h en the reg io n s talked ab out are v isu a lly u n available to the sp eak ers an d th eir
in terlo cu to rs. In (13), the present ten se fo rm dalkaydga b u r c o u n try refers to the
region c o n tain in g the sp eaker an d the ad d ressee (i.e., the B ritish S o m alilan d P ro ­
tectorate), w h ile the p ast fo rm kdagn you rs’ refers to the “ rem ote” co u n try (i.e.,
B ritain ) o u t o f sigh t o f b oth the sp eak er an d the addressee:
NOMINAL TENSE 709

(13) Haddâad nabâd rabtid, dâlkayâ-ga kâ tâg 00

if.2S peace want.pres.dep country.m.PossiP out.of go and
(excl)-defM
kâa-gii tâg!
rn.P0ss2S-defM.past go
“If you wish peace, go away from our country to your own!” (Lecarme, 2003, p. 288)

C rosslin guistically, “ invisiblility” an d “rem oteness” are often com bin ed in one
lin g u istic fo rm (i.e., far aw ay an d invisible), but in som e languages (e.g., N o rth ern
W akash an ), the visible versus n on -visible distinction is su p erim posed on a p ro x i­
m ate/distal system (see A n d erso n and K een an , 1985; Im ai, 2003). This su p ports the
claim that e v id e n tia lly cannot be defined in term s o f distance, but is “an in d ep en ­
dent a n d p arallel dim ension o f deictic organization” (L evin so n , 1983).28
In L e c a rm e (2003, 20 08), I explored the co n d itio n s in w h ich a n o m in al p ast
m o rp h o lo g y is in terpreted in the m od al d im en sio n , co n trib u tin g a qu an tificatio n al
re a d in g o f th e p ast D P (com parable to E n g lish -ever in e.g., whatever) o r an e v id e n ­
tial read in g (fo cu sin g on the visible vs. n on -visib le distinction). B u ildin g on Iatrid o u s
(2 0 0 0 ) p ro p o sa ls, I argued that the co m m o n abstract feature u n d e rly in g the v a r ­
io u s m e a n in g s o f the past m o rp h o lo g y in n o m in als is a m o re p rim itive featu re o f
“exclu sio n /d isso ciatio n ” 29 To account fo r the lin k b etw een d irect evid en tiality an d
v isu a l p e rc e p tio n in n o m in als, I p ro p o sed to exten d K ra tz e r s th eo ry o f “d o u b ly
relative” m o d a lity to in clud e a p ercep tu al com pon en t. In th is revised fram e w o rk ,
p ast m o rp h o lo g y gives rise to “ n o n -actu al”, “u n kn ow n ” o r “ invisible” m ean in gs,
d e p e n d in g o n d ifferen t choices o f m od al b ase and o rd e rin g source.

6 . D eep er Q u estio n s a b o u t
(N o m in a l ) T e n s e

T he q u estion w e m u st n o w ask is w hat “p ast” an d “in visib le” interpretations h ave in

co m m o n . A n an sw er I have offered in p re v io u s w o rk is that th ey m ust share som e
feature: exclu sion /d issociation . In this section , I attem pt to address m ore p recisely
the fo llo w in g question s: w hat are the factors d eterm in in g the evid en tial read in g o f
a past n o m in al? W h at gives rise to the visu al ch aracter o f n o m in a l evidentiality?
O n ce w e ask ab o u t the cogn itive m ech an ism s u n d erlyin g tem p o rality and evid en ti­
ality, th e q u estio n s that im m ed iately arise w ill touch on the n ature and o rig in o f
(lin gu istic) tense.
A cru c ia l p iece o f evidence, I suggest, lies in the an alysis o f the d eterm in er
system o f the E a st C ush itic languages. A s I d iscu ssed in earlier w ork, S o m ali d e m o n ­
stratives m a rk distan ce in space relative to the speaker, e n c o d in g a fo u r-w ay d istin c­
tion in p ro x im ity relative to the speech act (14). B esid es the n ear/far d em onstrative
en clitics, S o m ali an d the closely related E a st C ush itic lan gu ages have a m o rp h o lo g y
7io TENSE

specific to the temporal dom ain (15). The Somali nom inal tense system is, basically, the
encoding o f past and non-past (present 01* generic), which surfaces as a vocalic i/a
opposition also found in the verbal system in m ost Afroasiatic languages.30 Both the
demonstrative enclitics and the definite articles appear suffixed to the noun (in both
cases, the initial consonant -k-l-t- is a gender m orphem e which agrees with the noun):31

(14) Spatial demonstratives:

-k/t-an “this, these”
-k/t-aas “that, those”
-k/t-eer “that, those” (visible middle distance)
-k/t-00 “that, those yonder” (far away, still visible)
(15) Tensed definite article:
[-past) [+past]
[+nom] -k/t-u k/t-ii
[■nom] -k/t-a k/t-ii

Interestingly, Heine (1978, p. 27) has described the East Cushitic determ iner
system on the basis o f five original dem onstrative stems: [ + n e a r ] *-an ‘this, these’,
[-far] *-a ‘this, these’ (here), [-n e a r ] *-aas ‘that, those’, [+fa r ] *-00 ‘that, those’
(there), [ + p a s t ] *-ii ‘that, those’ (referred to earlier). A cco rd in g to Heine, all the
distinctions are still m orph ologically reflected in con tem p orary Som ali, w h ile in
other languages (e.g., Rendille) the tim e-related function o f the [ p a s t ] d em o n stra­
tive was inherited by the distal dem onstrative. On this account, the syn ch ron ic
“ tensed” definite article in Som ali historically derives from dem onstrative form s,
one m ark in g spatial proximity, the other referring to time.
The developm ent o f a definite article from a (distal) dem onstrative is, o f course,
well known from languages around the world (including English or G e rm a n ). In
the literature on gram m aticalization, what is considered crucial about this process
is the loss o f the (spatial) deictic com ponent. A cco rd in g to Diessel (1999), definite
articles developed from the anaphoric (i.e., non-deictic) use o f dem onstratives, by
which the deictic center is shifted to a specific place in the progressing discourse.
From Heine’s historical hypothesis, however, it w ou ld appear instead that a gen u ­
inely tem poral distinction is already specified in the representation o f d em o n stra­
tives, and that the time-related function is inherited by the distal form s, rather than
(m etaphorically) derived from spatial form s (or structured in spatial term s). This
hypothesis is supported on em pirical groun ds by the existence in m a n y languages
o f a dem onstrative that has an exclusively anaphoric function and is devoid o f
deictic m ea n in g .32
On m ore conceptual grounds, there are well know n, im portant differences
b etw een spatial d e m o n stra tiv e s an d their tem p o ral c o u n terp a rts. G e n u in e ly
“dem onstrative” elem ents function only in interpretation o f the inform ation they
provide, that is, a speaker centered deictic contrast on a distance scale. Tense form s
(universally) can have non-tem poral functions: as noted earlier, “past tense” m ay
express pastness, but also counterfactuality. A n oth er im portant difference is that
unlike dem onstratives, tenses are inflectional (com putational), and give rise to

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 NOMINAL TENSE
711

purely morphosyntactic tense concord or agreement phenomena. Although spatial

morphology across languages can be used in the expression o f time reference, there
are no locational elements corresponding to tenses.
S u p p o sin g that [past], co n ceived o f as a m o re ab stract feature o f exclu sio n /
d isso c ia tio n , is a prim itive feature o f the d em o n strative system , w hat are th e stru c ­
tu res in vo lved in the com putation o f th e evid en tial m ean in gs? A s w e h ave n oted
(se ctio n 5), the m echanism that y ield s the “ in visib le” in terp retation o f a p a st ten se
is in d e p e n d e n t o f the proxim ate/distal d istin ctio n . It is d istin ct fro m v isu a l m em o ry,
sin ce [past] can be used to refer to in d iv id u a ls o r p laces that have n ever b een seen
b efo re, as in cases illustrated b y (13). It is also n o t sen sitive to “ w h at the p e rso n
k n o w s” : in the context o f the fo llo w in g u tteran ce (16 ), th e sp eaker does e xp ect h is
k e y to b elo n g to his im m ediate en viro n m en t. A t the sam e tim e, b y u sin g a past
tense, he u n in ten tio n ally m arks that “the k e y ” is n ot w ith in h is visu al field at th e
tim e o f the utterance (note that in th is in n e r solilo q u y, a d em on strative fo rm is
u se d as so o n as “ the key” is in sight):

(16) Speaker (fumbling in his bag):

a. Furi-hii meeyey?. . . Waa kan.
key-defM.past.nom where.is.ms C/F m.dem
“Where is the key? ... There it is.”

C learly, [past] does not m ark an ap h o ricity here, since there is n o d isco u rse c o n ­
text in w h ich th e referent o f the D P h as b een p re v io u sly m en tion ed. [Past] d o es n o t
p lau sib ly p o in t either on specific kn o w led ge sh ared b y sp eak er and h earer, sin ce
(16 ) is a self-ad d ressed utterance. H ere, [past] u n am b ig u o u sly in dicates “ in v is i­
b ility ”, n a m e ly m ark s “the k ey ” as b ein g o u tsid e o f the sp e a k e rs im m ed iate v isu a l
d o m ain . T he exp ression o f [past] in su ch cases is ty p ically u n con sciou s, reflexive,
an d en tirely indep en d en t o f sp eakers co m m u n icative intentions. In o th er w o rd s, a
sp e ak e r can n o t “choose” to use a past tense an y m o re than h e chooses (o r can fail)
to o rgan ize the v isu a l space in a certain way.
W h y is d ir e c t evid en tiality ty p ically visu a l ? It can n o t be the case th at [past]
“en co d es” the v isu a l m eaning. The v isu a l m e a n in g can n o t p lau sib ly b e d eriv e d
fro m a co n versatio n al im plicature either, sin ce th o se im p licatu res are ty p ic a lly c a n ­
cellable. A n atu ral an sw er I p ro v id ed is th at th e h ierarch ica l stru ctu re o f e v id e n tia l
system s lin g u istic a lly reflects the ep istem ic im p o rtan ce o f v isu a l p ercep tio n in
h u m a n kn o w led ge. T h is is because v isu a l p ercep tio n con tain s an ep istem ic c o m p o ­
nent, b y w h ich n o n -lin gu istic an d lin g u istic rep resen tatio n s are m u tu ally c o m p a t­
ib le (D retske, 1969). But this leaves us w ith th e qu estio n : W hy, and how, d o th ese
p a rtic u la r co m p o n en ts o f m ean in g, “p ast” an d “ in visib le” correlate in p re c ise ly th is
w ay? W h at d oes th is reveal m ore g en erally ab o u t the in terface betw een the lin g u is ­
tica lly rep resen ted m ean in gs an d the (en capsu lated ) v isu a l system ?
T he qu estion h as acquired n ew u rg en cy in the co n text o f a M in im alist P ro g ra m
that tries to reduce linguistic p ro p erties to req u irem en ts o f “ legibility” w ith regard
to the co gn itive system s with w hich the lin g u istic system interacts (C hom sky, 2 0 0 1).
 TENSE
7 12

To accou n t for lan guage ab o u t in visib le objects (or events), so m e h o w the v isu a l
represen tation s an d the represen tation s o f the system o f th o u gh t h ave to get to ­
gether in so m e way. L et us su p p o se that th ey d o so b y a p rim itive cau sal co n n ectio n ,
an exclu sio n /d isso ciatio n feature, w h ich in tu rn is u sed b y the co m p u tatio n al system
o f lan gu age for tim e represen tations. T h is h yp o th esis, i f co rrect, w o u ld argue that
the gram m atical p ast versu s n o n -p ast d istin ction b u ild s on a d eep -seated d ich o to m y
in n eu ral o rgan izatio n , p erh a p s in clu d ed in the m ech an ism s that u n d erlie spatial
v isio n (in the sen se o f P ylysh yn , 20 0 8 ), and later co-o p ted fo r syn tax. O n th is h y p o ­
thesis, fu n ctio n al (i.e., n on -d escrip tive) categories like tense (or d em on stratives) do
n o t o rigin ate in the core recu rsive com p on en t o f langu age, b u t are ap p ro p riate fro m
other, p h ylo gen etically far o ld er cogn itive system s. I f the e m p irical evid en ce d is ­
cu ssed in the present chapter suggests som e n ew avenues to w ard d eep er e x p la n a ­
tion o f these issues, th is, to m y m in d , m ean s that w e n eed to take n o m in a l tense
quite se rio u sly after all.

NOTES

1. I wish to thank Bob Binnick and Jacqueline Gueron for helpful comments on a
first version o f this chapter, and Bascir Kenadid (Bashiir Nuur Keenadiid) for insightful
discussion o f the Somali data.
2. See Givon (1984, ch. 3), among others.
3. For earlier discussion o f Nootka (Nuuchahnulth), a Southern Wakashan
language, see Sapir (1921, pp. 133-134)» Com rie (1985, p. 13). See also Hockett (1958)
on Potawatomi (Algonquian), Guasch (1956) on Paraguayan Guarani (Tupi-Guarani).
For recent work, see Evans, 2000; Lehman and Moravcsik, 2000; Nordlinger and Sadler,
2004a, among others.
4. The examples in the text follow the national orthography (a Roman (adapted) writing
system introduced in 1972) with small modifications: the main tonal accent of a prosodic unit is
noted with an acute accent; hyphens are added for morpheme separation.
Key to Somali gloss: C/F = complementizer/ “focus marker” (a declarative root comple­
mentizer); defF/M = definite feminine / masculine article; dem = demonstrative; dep. =
dependent; dir. = directional particle; expl = expletive; gen = generic; neg = negation; Poss
= possessive; prog = progressive; Q = question word; restr - restrictive agreement.
Pronominal clitics are identified by their person, gender, and number features (uppercase).
Lowercase = agreement features.
5. Cf. Lin, this volume.
6. Starting from work by Pollock (1989). Formerly the T position was labeled A U X or
Infl (combining Tense and Agrement).
7. Burton (1997) has suggested that the lo s t, destroyed, and deceased readings of
the past tense arise from pragmatic considerations. The fact that the time o f x s being an
N ”, or the time of “xs being possessed” is understood to hold only in the past is attributed
to an inference on informativeness (Burton, 1997, p. 72.)
NOMINAL TENSE 713

8. For con trastin g view s, see (am on g others) Bittner, 2005; L in , 2005; M atth ew son ,
2006; R itter and W iltschko, 2004, 2005; Sm ith 2008; Lin, this volum e. The topic rem ains an
area o f active d iscu ssion on languages o f the Salishan fam ily w here the tense clitics are able
to attach to a variety o f syntactic categories, leadin g to the co m m o n m iscon cep tion that
there is no distinction between nouns and verbs in the language. For exam ple, W iltschko
(2003), Ritter and W iltschko (2004) argue for the absence o f a clausal T P projection in
I Ialkom elem , an apparently “ tenseless” language. On the oth er h an d , M atth ew son (2005)
argues for the presence o f a clausal T node in H alkom elem , although she uses the evidence
in an argum ent that T is m issin g in n om in als.
9. A fact that P rio r w as well aw are o f (see P rio r 1957, pp. 6 3-7 5 ): “ The president o f the
U SA will fly to the m oon ” could be true if it is one president w ho now exists, and another
president w ho flies to the m oon . . . It is clear, then, that [ . . . ] w e need to have not o n ly
operators for fo rm in g tem p orally m odified statem ents but also operators for fo rm in g
tem p orally m odified term s (like ‘future President’, ‘fo rm er gam ekeep er’, 'perpetual m o ver’),
neither type o f op erator bein g definable in term s o f the o th er’ (1957, p. 73).
10. En<; con sid ers (6c) as a logical possibility, but exp licitly exclu des such analysis on
em pirical gro u n d s, as it w ould “ involve operators that do not correspon d to tense m o r­
phem es” (198 1, p. 44).
11. B eyon d sem antics (e.g., C arlso n , 1977), the theory o f tem poral parts has generated
a considerable literature in m etaph ysics, p h ilosoph y and psychology, too vast to be
m entioned here.
12. These and related phenom ena w ere initially d iscussed by M cC a w le y (1971) in
relation to the English Present Perfect.
13. It m ust be noted that in Tonhauser (20 0 6 ), the o n ly available analysis o f a
“n o m in al tensed” language in a d yn am ic sem antics approach, the G u aran i “ n om in al tense
m arkers” are assum ed not to play any role in su p p lyin g values for the tim e variable o f
nom inals.
14. On En<;s view, definiteness links noun phrases’ d enotations to previously
established discourse referents through the identity relation; specificity involves a w eaker
relation, that o f b ein g a subset o f o r stan din g in som e recoverable relation to a fam iliar
object.
15. Technically, a D P with an interpretable tense feature should reach the edge
positions o f the phases v*P and CP, i.e., outer Spcc,v* and Spcc,T, if T inherits the edge
feature o f C.
16. A parallel treatm ent o f C P and D P has often been assum ed in the syntactic
literature (Abney, 1987; Szab olcsi, 1987, 1994; H iraiw a, 2005), and is either stated o r im plied
in m ost sem antic theories o f tim e based on events (D avid so n , 1967; K rifk a, 1992; Partec,
20 0 0 ; von Stechow, 2002). B u ild in g on these studies, I assum e that noun phrases, like
sentences, contain im p licit quantification over tim es, and im p licit restriction s to tim es
contained in a contextually salient interval.
17. The class o f attributive, non-intcrscctivc adjectives in Som ali includes
place adjectives like hore 'before’ (root hor- 'fron t’), dhexe m iddle’ (root dhex-
‘b etw een ), darnbe ‘behind, next’, etc. U nlike predicative adjectives w h ich agree with a
D P in gender, num ber and tense (see Lecarm e, 1996), attributive adjectives are invariable in
Som ali.
18. It is to be noted that with the notable exception o f Som ali, m ost w o rk on n om inal
tense has focu sed on languages w hich are not o n ly (verbally) tenseless (e.g., the languages
o f the Salishan fam ily), but also d ctcrm in crless (e.g., G uarani).

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7H TENSE

19. A s exp ected , proper nam es, k in d -d en o tin g D Ps (e.g., naasley-da ‘the m am m al(s)1)
and D P s that denote abstract entities (e.g., xisdab-ta ‘the m athem atics’ ) d o not reflect tense
d istinction s.
20. In the A ustralian languages L ard il and Pitta Pitta, case m o rp h o lo g y differs
accord in g to the tense o f the clause (H ale, 1998).
21. In T urkish, overt versus n on -overt realization o f accusative case 011 direct
objects (definite and indefinite) correlates with their specific versu s non-specific
interpretations (En<^, 1991). A cco rd in g to R oeh rs (20 09 ), languages o f the D ouble
D efiniteness Effect (e.g., Scan d in avian ) provide evid en ce that d eterm in ers have two
in d ivid u al com ponents: D indicates uniqueness, w hile A rt is related (at least) to
specific interpretations.
22. Cf. de H aan, this volum e.
23. The vast d escrip tive and typ o lo gical literature on e v id e n tia lity can n o t be done
ju stice here. E vid e n tiality h as also b een fo rm a lly d iscu ssed in syn tax (C in q u e , 1999;
Sp eas, 20 0 4 , 20 0 8 ), sem an tics (Iz v o rsk i, 1997) and p rag m atics (Faller, 2002).
24. Som e languages ad dition ally en cod e o lfa cto ry and au d ito ry m odes o f perception
w h ich , accord in g to Im ai (2003), m ust be understood as sub-features o f the “ in visible”
param eter.
25. A cco rd in g to van E ijk (1985), the “absent” d eterm in er n i ^ is used to refer to an
entity that is distant from the sp eaker and can not be pointed at.
26. M atth ew son (2005) argues (correctly in m y view ) that in such exam ples, the
“absent” d eterm in er o n ly pragm atically d eterm in es the tem poral interpretation o f the
clause (see section 2). H ow ever, given her claim that St’at’im cets d eterm in ers (and
d eterm in ers in general) have a purely spatial sem antics, the source o f the tem poral effects
in (11) as w ell as the past tense interpretation o f the n om in al predicate (i.e., ‘fo rm er c h ie f’ )
rem ain unexplained.
27. Languages w h ere “ invisible” form s also have anaphoric uses include M o p an M aya,
M u n a (A u stron esian ), D yirbal (A u stralian ), M izo (Tibeto B u rm a n ), M alagasy (P olyn e­
sian), etc. (see Im ai, 2003).
28. See Im ai, 2003 for related discussion.
29. Iatrid o u (2 0 0 0 ) p ro p o sed that a unified accou n t o f tem p o ral/m o d al “d isp la c e ­
m en t" can be fo rm a lly co n stru ed as a set-th eo retic exclu sio n relation betw een a topic
tim e o r w o rld and a sp e a k e r tim e o r w orld . In h er term s, past m o rp h o lo g y realizes an
exclu sio n feature (E x c lf) w h o se m e a n in g in the tem p oral d o m a in is that the topic tim e
exclu d es the utteran ce tim e, and w h o se m ean in g in the m o d al d o m ain is that the topic
w o rld s exclu d e the sp e a k e r’s w o rld s (actual w orld).
30. A s d iscu ssed in Lecarm e (1996, 20 04), the relevant opposition is to be understood
as //0 , a b ein g the un m arked , “default” vow el in A froasiatic.
31. D eterm in ers (both dem onstrative and definites) can also be used as
in dependen t pronouns. The p ro n o m in al form s arc invariable in gender, but
take a num ber in fix -u u '- (e.g., kuw a , kuw ti ‘the on es’, kuw dn , kuwdas ‘these
on es’, etc.).
32. The existen ce o f special “an ap h oric” dem on stratives o r articles is a com m on
feature o f C ush itic and other A froasiatic languages, e.g., A w ngi (H etzron, 1978, p. 127),
B o n i (Sasse, 1980), Iraq w (M ous, 1993), O rom o (O w en s, 1985, p. 8 9 ),X a m ta n g a
(A p pleyard , 1988), A m h aric (Iletzro n , 1978, p. 127), C y p rio t A rabic (B org, 1985, p. 142),
Lebanese A rabic (A oun and C h o u eiri, 20 0 0 ), as well as languages like R om an ian and
G reek (Lyons, 1999).

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 P A R T IV

ASPECT

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 CH A PTER 2 5

L E X IC A L A SP EC T

H A N A F IL IP

1. T h e D e l i m i t a t i o n of L e x ic a l A s p e c t in

the D o m a in of A spect

1.1. Basic Terminology and Phenomena

Lexical aspect is a stock concept o f natural language sem antics and its usefulness, if
not necessity, for the explanation o f a wide range o f language phenom ena is well
established. It intersects with gram m atical aspect, tense, adverbial m od ification, the
syntax and sem antics o f quantification and various expressions o f quantity, argu ­
ment structure and linking at the lexical sem antics-syntax interface and also plays a
role in the tem poral seq u en cin g o f discourse. Lexical aspect is a sem antic category
that concerns properties o f eventualities (in the sense o f Bach, 1981) expressed by
verbs. In the m ost general terms, the properties in question have to do w ith the
presence o f som e end, limit or b o u n d a ry in the lexical structure o f certain classes o f
verbs and its lack in others.
This basic division a m o n g verb m e a n in g s is best k n o w n as the telic/atelic dis­
tinction, in the te r m in o lo g y o f G a r e y (1957). Telic v e rb s express “ an action te n d in g
tow ard a goal,” w h ile atelic ones describe situations that “arc realized as so o n as they
b egin ” (Garey, p. 106). Fo r Garey, the m ain d istin g u ish in g criterion o f the telic class
is the general concept o f s o m e “ e n d ” or “ limit,” rather than the n a rro w e r agentivity-
oriented “g o a l” or “ purpose,” despite the latter b e in g the m e a n in g o f the G r e e k telos.
This is evident in the fact that G a r e y illustrates his telic class with n o n -agen tive
verbs like se noyer ‘to drowrn, alon gside agentive verbs like arriver ‘to arrive*.
T he o r ig in s o f o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f le x ic a l a s p e c t lie in A r is t o t le ’s d istin c tio n
o f kinesis a n d energeia. Kinesis is “ m o t i o n ” o r “ change,” a n d energeia is “ actuality,”

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722 ASPECT

“actualization” or “activity.” G a re y m akes no m en tion o f A risto tle , but his telic/

atelic d istin ctio n is clearly in the spirit o f A risto tle ’s: kineseis are alw ays for the
sake o f so m e extern al end, w h ile energeiai have ends that are “a ctu alized ” as soon
as they begin : “ E.g., at the sam e tim e we see an d have seen, u n d erstan d an d have
u n d e rsto o d , think an d have thou gh t; but we can n o t at the sam e tim e learn and
have learnt, or b e co m e healthy an d be h ealth y” ( M etaphysics , 0 6 , 1048b, 18 - 3 6
[A ristotle, 19 3 3 -3 5 ]; re g a rd in g this d istin ction in A risto tle ’s w o rk see K enn y
(1963, pp. 17 3 -18 3 ).
Aristotle’s heritage is acknow ledged in the use o f the terms “Aristotelian
classification” or “Aristotelian categorization” in w ork s such as Dowty, Mourelatos
(1978), D o w t y (1979), and Bach (1986), w h ere they cover categories that su b su m e lex­
ical aspect classes. W hat is understood as “Aristotelian” in this context is m ain ly a set
o f conceptual tools and gram m atical tests developed within the Aristotelian tradition
in the philosophy o f action, m in d and language in the m id-to-late twentieth century
(see Ryle (1949); V endler (1957); K e n n y (1963); Taylor (1977); and the discussion in
D o w t y (1979)).

1.2. Common Tests for the Telic/Atelic Distinction in English

The m ain telic/atelic distinction and its nature is c o m m o n ly clarified with a n u m b e r
o f d ia g n o stic tests. For English data, the fo llo w in g three tests are a m o n g the m ost
reliable and c o m m o n ly used. First, the telic/atelic distinction interacts with t e m p o ­
ral adverbial m od ifiers. A s (1) sh o w s, only telic verb s freely c o m b in e with in N P
m o d ifiers like in an hour , and only atelic verbs with fo r N P m od ifiers like fo r an hour
(V end ler 1957).

(1) a. John recovered in an hour /(*)for an hour. T E L IC

b. John swam (*)in an hour /for an hour. A T E L IC

The in N P and fo r N P m odifiers are sem antically treated as two different kinds o f
m e a su r e m e n t o f the extent o f eventualities. A n in adverbial m easu res the tim e span
within which eventualities expressed by telic predicates culm inate, w h ile a fo r a d v e r­
bial m easu res the tem poral d uration o f eventualities denoted by atelic predicates. In
(ia), for instance, the culm ination o f an eventuality o f reco verin g falls writhin the
tim e span o f one hour. In ( l b ), fo r an hour carves b o u n d e d o n e -h o u r p o rtio n s out o f
u n b o u n d e d situations denoted by swim . The use o f (lb) conversationally implicates
that an eventuality o f s w i m m i n g did not last longer than one hour, w h ich can be
explicitly denied w ith ou t a contradiction, for exam ple, b y co n tin u in g (lb) with
s o m e th in g like . . . John even swam fo r two hours. The interpretations o f in N P m o d ­
ifiers that are irrelevant for this test concern the m ea su re o f time until the onset o f
the eventualities denoted by atelic verbs from “ n o w ” or s o m e other reference point,
as in (lb) (Vendler, 1957, p. 147). In the case o f fo r N P adverbials, the irrelevant inter­
pretations concern the duration o f the result state m ea su red by fo r N P that follows
the end o f an eventuality described by a telic verb.

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L E X IC A L ASPECT 723

T h is test is intended to access the inherent aspectual class o f verbs. Shifts betw een
telic an d atelic interpretations in du ced b y tem p oral (and other adverbial) m o d ifiers
are also co m m o n . Fo r instance, “ (*)” in (lb) m ean s that in an hour is acceptable in
the relevan t telic interpretation o f (1b), i f the sp eaker and the addressee k n o w “that
Jo h n is in the habit o f sw im m in g a sp ecific d istance e v e ry d ay (to prepare h im se lf for
a sw im m in g race perhaps), then I can assert that to d ay Joh n sw am in an h o u r .. .
(D ow ty, p. 61).
S eco n d , v a rio u s expressions o f quantity d ifferen tially select fo r telic an d atelic
v erb s, as w e see in (2) and (3) (observation s an d exam ples are adapted fro m M ou re-
latos, 1978, an d B ach , 1986):

(2) a. Vesuvius erupted three times. TELIC

b. John slept (*) three times last night. ATELIC
(3) a. Vesuvius erupted (*) a lot. TELIC
b. John slept a lot last night. ATELIC

V a g u e qu an tifiers like a lot select atelic verb s, as (3b) show s. C a rd in a l count

ad v e rb ia ls like three times are straig h tfo rw ard ly com patible w ith telic verb s like
erupt, as in (2a). T his is taken as evid en ce in su p p o rt o f the claim that even tualities
in th e d en otation o f telic verb s “can be d irectly o r in trin sically c o u n te d ” as M ou re-
latos p ro p o se s; th e y “fall u n d er S O R T S that p ro vid e a P R IN C IP L E o f co u n t” (1978,
p. 20 9 ). T he term “ SO R T S” is used in the sense o f Straw so n ( i 9 5 9 >P - 168): “A sortal
u n iv e rsa l su p plies a prin cip le fo r d istin gu ish in g an d co u n tin g in d iv id u a l p a rtic u ­
lars w h ic h it collects.” So cat is a so rtal and water is not; sim ilarly, erupt is a so rtal
an d sleep is n ot. In align ing telic w ith so rtal predicates an d atelic w ith m ass ones,
M o u relato s b u ild s on indep en d en t p ro p o sals that verb s, like n o u n s, h ave the fe a ­
ture “count” o r “ m ass” (see A llen , 19 6 6 ; Leech, 19 6 9 ; V erk u yl, 19 71/72; G a b b a y and
M o ra v csik , 19 73; Bolinger, 1975). S im ilarly as in h eren tly m ass n o u n s like beer m ay
shift into a coun t interpretation in card in al n u m eral co n stru ctio n s like three beers
(m e an in g three p ortion s o r three k in d s o f beer), so in h eren tly atelic verb s like sleep
m a y sh ift into a telic interpretation w h en m o d ified w ith card in al co u n t ad verb ials
like three times. So “ (*)” in (2b) m ean s that sleep is co m p atib le w ith th e card in al
co u n t ad verb ial three times ju st in case it first shifts into a suitable telic in te rp re ta­
tio n in o rd e r to satisfy the a d verb ials co u n tab ility input req u irem en t. In p a ra lle l to
co u n t-to -m ass shifts, telic-to-atelic shifts are also co m m o n . In (3a), “ (*)” m ean s
that a lot is acceptable ju st in case erupt shifts in to an ap p ro p riate atelic in te rp re ta­
tion, w h ich h ere m ost n atu rally am ou n ts to a sh ift fro m a set o f sin g u lar even ts o f
e ru p tin g to a set o f pluralities o f su ch events.
T h ird , the lexical telic/atelic d istin ction system atically interacts w ith the p r o ­
gressive/n o n -p ro gressive d istin ction in the d o m ain o f gram m atical asp ect. Telic
v erb s n e v e r san ction the conclusion o f “x has t|>-ed” fro m “x is (j)-ing,” but atelic ones
often do (see Taylor, 1977; Bach, 19 8 1 fo r t h e “ m in im al-p arts” problem ). F o r instance,
if John is dying (4a) is true, w e can n ot conclude John has (already) died (4 b ), b u t if
John is sleeping (5a) holds, w e can conclude John has (already) slept (5b).
 724
aspect

(4) a. John is dying. PROGRESSIVE with base telic verb

b. John has (already) died. NON-PROGRESSIVE with base telic verb
(5) a. John is sleeping. PROGRESSIVE with base atelic verb
b. John has (already) slept. NON-PROGRESSIVE with base atelic verb

The general idea for this test can already be detected in Aristotle’s quote, given at
the outset. The test itself was introduced by Kenny to motivate his performance/activity
distinction, which is a special agentivity case o f the telic/atelic distinction. The observa­
tion that telic verbs never sanction the conclusion of “x has 4)~ed” from “x is (f>-ing” but
atelic ones often do, raises what is today known as the “ imperfective paradox” (Dowty,
1 9 7 7 ; 1 97%
p. 133ft) or the “partitive puzzle” (Bach, 1986): A progressive sentence with
a base telic predicate is true at a given time even i f the corresponding non-progressive
sentence is false and never can be true. In applying this test to other languages than
English one should not be mislead by Dowty s 1977,1979) label “ imperfective paradox,”
given that the “paradox” only arises with formally marked progressives, but not gener­
ally with imperfectives, since the latter also have non-progressive interpretations
(among their contextually determined uses) that do not lead to the paradox.
The com p atib ility o f a v erb w ith on e d iagn o stic syn tactic context often im plies
its in com p atib ility w ith another. H ow ever, as exam p les in ( 1 M 3 ) illustrate, shifts in
verb m ean in gs are co m m o n , often fo llo w in g pred ictab le pattern s in dependen ce on
context (Vendler, 1957; P u stejovsky, 1995; d e Sw art, 1998; Z u cch i, 1998). A n y ade­
quate th e o ry o f aspectual classes m ust fo rm u late co rrect an d testable generaliza­
tions ab out su c h system atic m e an in g shifts. A p a rt fro m th e three tests given here for
the E n glish data, o th er d iagn o stic tests h ave b een p ro p o sed an d c o m m o n ly used
(D ow ty, p. 55ff.). H ow ever, th e y do not converge o n coh eren t A risto telian aspectual
classes, but id en tify o verlap p in g clusters w h ich m ere ly d istin gu ish subsets o f such
categories o r sup ersets (D ow ty, p. 6 0 ; P arson s, 1989. Fin ally, as alread y o bserved , the
three tests g iven h ere are representative o f the tests that w o rk w ell fo r the English
data, besides o th er tests (D ow ty, p. 55ff.). T h eir cro sslin gu istic application raises
n u m erou s questions, because it can n ot be taken fo r granted that all the tests devel­
op ed for E n g lish are tran sferab le to other lan gu ages, due to lan g u age-sp ecific p ro p ­
erties, an d those that seem to be require som e clarificatio n w h eth er th ey in fact
access the sam e aspectu ally relevan t prop erties in different lan gu ages, an d in fact, it
is n ot alw ays en tirely clear w hat exactly the v a rio u s d iagn o stic tests u sed b y different
researchers really test fo r in o th er languages (Sasse, 2002).

1.3. Lexical Aspect and Grammatical Aspect, Aspectual

Class, and Aspectual Form
Lexical aspect is often used in direct opposition to grammatical aspect (see de Swart,
this volume), especially when the emphasis is on the fact that grammatical aspect is
marked by a grammatical marker on a verb in a given sentence. One good example
is the imperfective/perfective opposition in M odern Greek:
LEXICAL ASPECT 725

(6) a. IM P E R F E C T IV E (IM P E R F E C T ): dhuleva “I worked.” / “1 w as working.”

b. P E R F E C T IV E (A O R IST ): dhulepsa ‘1 worked.”

A n oth er exam ple is the im perfective suffix in Slavic languages that is added to the
perfective base (Czech exam ples):

(7) a. P E R F E C T IV E : d d t uto give”

b. IM P E R F E C T IV E : d d v a t “to give” /“to be givin g”

A part from gram m atical m arkers on verbs, gram m atical aspect can be also for­
m ally expressed by syntactic constructions, which m ay contain a free form in the
verbs iauxiliaryi com plex, as in the English be + V-ing progressive construction.
Lexical aspect is also to be distinguished from aspectual class (in the sense o f
D ow ty). This m atters, given that the Aristotelian classification and the su p ero rd i­
nate telic/atelic distinction concerns not only verbs as lexical items, but also verb
phrases and sentences (Verkuyl, 1971/72; Declerck, 1979; Filip, 1990; Dowty, 1991).
Sentences m ust be included, as the quantificational and referential properties o f
their subjects (8a,b) influence their (a)telicity class and m ay override the aspectual
properties o f their constituent verbs and verb phrases. (E xam ple (8a) is taken from
Dowty, 1991.)

(8) a. At the turtle race, the w in n in g turtle crossed the finish line T E L IC
in 42 seconds.
b. At the turtle race, turtles crossed the finish line for hours. A T E L IC

A lthough “ lexical aspect” is also used to refer to the aspectual class o f verb
phrases (cf. e.g., van Hout, 2003) and sentences, this use is, strictly speaking, incor­
rect and should be avoided. The notion o f aspectual class is a w id er notion than that
o f lexical aspect, su b su m in g lexical aspect as a special case when just verbs, taken as
lexical items, are at stake. A spectual class is to be distinguished from aspectual form
(see also Dowty, 1979, p. 52, follow ing Johnson, 1977), w hereby the latter concerns
the expression o f gram m atical aspect. In contrast to aspectual form (gram m atical
aspect), aspectual class need have no overt m arker and m ay rem ain as an intrinsic
sem antic property o f verbs, verb phrases and sentences.
The term “aspectual class” is also used interchangeably with “ Aktionsart(en)” a
G erm an -lan gu age term m eaning “ m anner(s) o f action” and used by Agrell (1908) for
the classification o f overt derivational w ord-form ation devices (m ostly verb affixes)
that express various aspects o f situations (e.g., term inative, resultative, delimitative,
perdurative, iterative, sem elfactive, attenuative, augmentative), and that were distin­
guished from inflectional m orp h ology dedicated to the en codin g o f gram m atical
aspect. In the 1970s, in the tradition o f the European generative g ram m ar (e.g.,
Verkuyl, 1971/72; Platzack, 1979), the term Aktionsart(en) was freed from its exclusive
connection to derivational m o rp h o lo g y and extended to cover aspectual classes in
the Aristotelian sense o f Dowty. In this new, extended sense, it also entered tfrttr
A m erican linguistics in the m id 1980s (H inrichs, 1985).

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ASPECT

The relation between aspectual form and aspectual class is subject to much
debate. It raises a fundamental question about what is meant by gra m m a r , what
is to be included in the grammar proper o f a language and what is not. This, how­
ever, is neither uncontroversial nor well understood (see Bach, 2005). What has
emerged as a matter o f some consensus is that aspectual classes are possibly uni­
versally available (Hoepelman, 1981; Bach, 2004; Van Valin, 2006; von Fintel and
Matthewson, 2008), but have highly varied manifestations in natural languages.
Not all the languages have grammatical aspect, but certainly all have some means
o f expressing the semantic notions carried by perfective/imperfective verbs or
verb forms, as in M odern Greek or Slavic languages, for instance. This led to the
proposal that grammatical aspect is a covert semantic category on the sentential
(or propositional) level in languages that lack the overt formal category o f gram­
matical aspect (see Kratzer s (2004) arguments for German, for instance). Con­
sequently, this stimulated debates whether lexical aspect and the semantics of
grammatical aspect can be reduced to the same aspectually relevant concepts,
analyzed with the same tools and hr the same underlying semantic representa­
tion. (A good sum m ary o f the different views can be found in de Swart, 1998, and
Sasse, 2002.)

2. A s p e c t u a l l y R e l e v a n t C o n c e p t s

The concept o f end (limit or boundary), which divides the domain o f lexical aspect
into telic and atelic, is closely related to two other aspectually relevant concepts:
namely, change of state and temporal extent.
Change is the most fundamental aspectually relevant concept, as Dowty (1979,
pp. 167, 185) argues, since the explanation for the differences among aspectual
classes lies in the change-of-state entailments that are or are not present in the
different classes as well as in our expectations about the way changes happen over
time. Intuitively, any change is a transition from one state o f affairs to another, and
therefore, in order to judge whether a change-of-state predicate is true o f an indi­
vidual, we need information about the physical state o f the world at two distinct
moments at least, i.e., at an interval (Dowty, p. 168; Kamp, 1980). Since state verbs
entail no change, and hence no inherent limit or end, there is a natural affinity
between stativity and atelicity. All dynamic descriptions o f eventualities entail
some change, but not all are telic. One o f the key questions in aspect studies con­
cerns the nature and representation o f the change that characterizes telic descrip­
tions, and how exactly it differs from changes that characterize eventuality
descriptions that are atelic. For instance, how does the change o f state entailed by
telic verbs like reach or dissolve differ from that entailed by atelic verbs like move
or rain ? Are there different kinds o f change, and how many? Is the entailment o f an
inherent end that characterizes telic verbs like reach or dissolve inseparable from
the kind o f change that brings it about? For example, reach the top o f the mountain
LEXICAL ASPECT 7 27

is n o rm a lly u n d erstood as entailing successive changes o f the location o f som e

m o v in g entity that b rin g it closer and closer to the top o f the m o u n tain , with
respect to w hich its inherent end is characterized, and events described by reach
the top o f the m ountain necessarily end when the m ountain top is reached. In c o n ­
trast, w hen it com es to atelic verbs like m ove any change o f location to any degree
is sufficient to qu alify as falling under move, since m ove on its ow n specifies no
inherent end.
Tem poral extent separates verbs that denote eventualities with som e temporal
extent from verbs that denote what is conceptualized as punctual or m om entaneous
transitions from one state o f affairs to another. Exam ples are V end lers (1957)
achievem ents like reach, fin d , notice and sem elfactive verbs like flash, hit, knock,
kick, slap, tap, blink. (The term “sem elfactive” com es from Latin semel “once,” “a
single time,” and factum “event,” “o c c u rre n c e ” ) Sem elfactives describe situations
that end with the return to the initial state, and in this sense they are “full-cycle re­
settable” (Talmy, 1985). Tem poral extent is gram m atically relevant, which is evident,
for instance, in its interactions with the three tests m entioned in section 1.2. Take
sem elfactives as a case in point: They are countable (The beacon flash ed three times),
system atically lead to iterative intepretations when they are m odified by durative
adverbials (The beacon flash ed fo r an hour) or when they occur in the progressive
(The beacon was flashing).
A lth o u g h the status o f tem p o ra l extent as an asp ectu ally relevant criterio n is
in d isp u tab le, its exact role for d ra w in g the lines betw een aspectu al classes is c o n ­
troversial. To give ju st a few exam p les, in V e n d le r s classification , tem p o ral extent
a lo n g w ith agen tivity sets his a cc o m p lish m e n ts apart from his ach ievem en ts.
V e n d le rs a cc o m p lish m e n ts are agentive actions with so m e tem p o ral extent,
w h ile his ach ievem en ts tend to be n o n -ag en tive and “o ccu r at a single m o m e n t”
(Vendler, 1957, p. 147). In contrast, D o w ty argu es that both tem p oral extent and
agen tivity are irrelevan t (p. 183) for his d istin ctio n betw een a cco m p lish m en ts
an d ach ie vem en ts, and takes cau sation to be the sin g le m ost im p o rta n t m e a n in g
c o m p o n en t se p a ra tin g the two. M o u relato s uses sem elfactives like hit as p a r a ­
digm exam p les o f the telic class (his even t class), b ased on their countability.
Sm ith (19 9 1, p. 28) argues that sem elfa ctiv es ought to be treated as an atelic a s­
p ectu al class sui generis.
In sum , there arc three fundam ental aspectually relevant concepts that recur in
one w ay or another in virtually all taxonom ies o f lexical aspect and across different
theoretical fram ew orks: nam ely, (i) change o f state, (ii) end, lim it, boundary, (iii)
tem poral extent. They are sufficient to distinguish four m ain classes, namely, state,
process, protracted event and m om en tan eous event (see e.g., C o m rie, 1976; M o u re ­
latos, 1978; Bach, 1986; Parsons, 1990):
This gives rise to the basic question which fine-grained properties o f our c o n ­
ceptualizations o f change, end (or bou n dary, limit), and tem poral extent o f eventu­
alities are entailed (in all the uses) by a given verb, i.e., are gram m atically relevant
and belong to the sem antic representation or the logical form o f natural languages,
and w hich details o f such conceptualizations fall outside the g ram m ar o f natural

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( 9 ) A s p e c tu a l c la s s e s

CHANGE EN D/BOUN DARY TEM PO RA L EXTEN T

A T E L IC ST A T E - +
PRO C ESS + +
T E L I C E V E N T p r o tr a c te d + + +
m o m e n ta n e o u s + +

languages, and hence should not be a part o f the semantic representation or the
logical form. The various proposals differ with respect to how they analyze the
above three concepts, their relation to one another and to other meaning compo­
nents in the decompositions of particular lexical meanings. The next sections will
survey the role these concepts have played in the lexical structure o f basic verbs,
their consequences for the lexical class membership o f verbs and for the way in
which aspectual properties o f VPs and sentences are derived from them.

3. C h a n g e and the S t a t iv e /D y n a m ic
D istin c tio n

Since state verbs entail no change, their denotation has no inherent limit or end.
They are atelic and many state verbs pattern with dynamic atelic verbs, insofar as
they are compatible with for N P temporal adverbials:

(10) Locals believed for years that a mysterious monster lurked in the lake.

Moreover, since state verbs entail no change, they can in principle be judged
true o f an individual with respect to a single moment of time, and hence at any
instant during the interval at which they are true, as Vendler (1957, p. 149) already
observes. Both Vendler and Taylor relate this temporal property o f states to their
incompatibility with the progressive. Couched in terms o f interval semantics, Tay­
lor (1977, p. 206) proposes that the main function of the progressive is to mark a
particular time (typically a moment) within a larger interval in which the corre­
sponding non-progressive predicate would be true. It follows then that this distinc­
tion is not useful for state predicates like be hirsute or know French, because they are
true at all moments o f time t within a given interval.
Taylor s explanatory strategy, which makes an appeal to “a kind o f Gricean prin­
ciple o f economy” (Dowty, 1979, p. 167), seems plausible at first blush, but both he
and Vendler fail to notice that state predicates can be used quite naturally in the
progressive (Bach, 1981, p. 77), as examples in (11-14) show, with the exception o f be
when it combines with a prepositional phrase (15) (p. 77).

(11) I’m understanding you but fm not believing you. (Bach, 1981)
LEXICAL A SPECT 729

(12) I am understanding more about quantum mechanics as each day goes by. (Comrie,
1976)
(13) John is knowing all the answers to test questions more and more often. (Binnick, 1991)
(14) John is being a hero by standing still and refusing to budge. (Dowty, 1979)
(15) *?Bill is being sick/in the garden. (Bach, 1981)

The use o f state verbs in the progressive is often associated with special interpreta­
tions, but they all seem to involve some contingent or temporary manifestation of
the disposition expressed by the base state verb (see e.g., Comrie, 1976; Carlson,
1977; Dowty, 1979; Bach, 1981; de Swart, 1998; Zucchi, 1998).
Such observations undermine one o f Vendler’s main generalizations, namely
the grouping o f states and achievements into one natural class, based on their as­
sumed incompatibility with the progressive, and activities and accomplishments
into another, based on their compatibility with the progressive. There are three ad­
ditional arguments that can be adduced against such a grouping. First, contrary to
Vendlers judgment, not only state verbs but also achievements may appear in the
progressive (see e.g., Dowty, 1977, Mourelatos, 1978, p. 193): he is w inning the race, he
is dying, he is reaching the top, he is fa llin g asleep, he is leaving. Second, it cuts across
the dynamic/stative distinction. Third, it separates achievements and accomplish­
ments, ignoring their essential similarity that has to do with their shared entailment
o f some end.
Dowty builds on Vendler, and Taylor, but while Vendler (1957) intends to
specify “the most common time schemata implied by the use o f English verbs” (p.
144), and Taylor (1977) formulates temporal meaning postulates for his three main
Aristotelian classes (a good summary can be found in Dowty, 1979, p. 166), Dowty s
main thesis is that such temporally-based characterizations o f aspectual classes
follow from the change-of-state entailments o f the various aspectual classes. At the
same time, just like Vendler and Taylor, Dowty relies on the progressive test to make
the first cut among his aspectual classes, albeit in a different way. Given the key role
Dowty attributes to the entailment o f change, he correctly observes that the poten­
tial for a given state verb to be used in the progressive in a given context is directly
related to the extent to which that verb is understood as describing a contingent or
temporary condition o f some individual, or at least a a potential for a change, rather
than a permanent, unchangeable condition. For instance, in (16a, b), the accept­
ability o f the state verb lie in the the progressive depends on the degree to which the
referent o f its subject-NP is moveable, ‘ or to be more exact, (...) has recently moved,
might be expected to move in the near future, or might possibly have moved in a
slightly different eventuality” (Dowty, 1979, p. 175).

(16) a. ??New Orleans is lying at the mouth of the Mississippi,

b. The socks are lying under the bed.

As can be expected then, (17) is odd, since the color o f ones eyes is normally perma­
nent throughout ones adult life.
730 ASPECT

(17) *?Julie is having blue eyes.

Dovvty (1979, ch. 3.8.2) devotes m uch attention to the interaction o f aspectual classes
with the progressive, and grapples w ith fitting all kinds o f states into his classification,
w hich am ong other things confirm s that state and d yn am ic verbs do not constitute
two clearly disjoint classes (see also C o m rie, 1976, p. 36). Ultimately, D ow ty p ro­
poses to split states into interval states and m om entary states. 'Hie form er can occur
in the progressive, like the use o f the verb lie in (16b), and correspond to C arlso n s
(1977) stage-level state predicates. They express tem porary properties o f individuals,
and com prise both state and d yn am ic predicates. Insofar as the truth conditions o f
D o w ty s interval states involve an interval (Dowty, 1979, p. 176), they belong with all
other types o f d yn am ic predicates. In contrast, m om entary states like have blue eyes ,
be intelligent , believe , know are incom patible with the progressive and correspond to
C a rlso n s (1977) individual-level state predicates. They express “a te m p o r a r p ro p ­
erties that tend to be stable and hold o f individuals m ore or less perm anently and
typically for a substantial part o f their existence, possibly all o f it (C h ierch ia, 1995,
pp. 19 6 ,19 8 ).
State verbs are the m ost puzzling o f the aspectual classes. Their ontological
status is m uch hazier than that o f other classes o f verbs and their relation to tem ­
poral notions is puzzling (Bach, 1981, p. 71). At the sam e time, the m ean in g o f
individual-level predicates bears affinities to the sem antics o f genericity, and when
analyzed as inherent generics, as C h ierch ia (1995) proposes, their logical represen­
tation is quite com plex: namely, they contain a covert habitual m o rp h em e and a
situation argum ent that is locally boun d by the gen eric G E N operator. Such ob ser­
vations and proposals shed doubts on D o w ty s (1979, p. 71) claim that state p red i­
cates are “aspectually sim ple and unproblem atic,” and therefore their corresp on d in g
abstract state predicates are “prim itive” com ponents in the aspect calculus (see sec ­
tion 6).

4. T h e H o m o g en eit y Property

The property o f hom ogeneity is essential to the distinction betw een the kind o f
change that is entailed by d yn am ic atelic verbs as opposed to telic ones. It w as intro­
duced by Vendler in order to distinguish between his accom plishm ents and activ­
ities. W hile both “go on in time, i.e., roughly, ( . . . ) they consist o f successive phases
follow ing one another in tim e” (Vendler, 1957, p. 144), only activities like “ru n n in g
and its kind go on in time in a hom ogeneous [em phasis m ine, HF] w ay; any part o f
the process is o f the sam e nature as the whole” (p. 146), so for instance, “ [i]f it is true
that som eone has been ru n n in g for h a lf an hour, then it m ust be true that he has
been ru n n in g for every period within that h alf-h ou r” (pp. 14 5 -14 6 ). A cc o m p lish ­
ments are not hom ogen eous, because they “ proceed toward a term inus which is
logically necessary to their being what they are. Som eh ow this clim ax casts its

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LEXICAL ASPECT 731

shadow backw ard, givin g a new color to all that went before” (p. 146). So “ if it is true
that a ru n n er has run a m ile in four m inutes, it cannot be true that he has run a mile
in any period w h ich is a real part o f that tim e” (p. 146).
This can be u n d erstood as m ea n in g that the set term in al point requires that
the su ccessive phases p reced in g it cannot be alike, and non e o f them is su ch that
it involves the attainm ent o f the term in u s. C on seq uently, accom p lish m en ts lack
the h o m o g en eity p ro p erty and are indivisible. A ctivity predicates arc h o m o g e ­
neous and divisible, precisely because they lack the entailm ent o f a set term inal
point. This m ean s that V e n d le rs two key concepts, n am ely “su ccessive p h ases”
and “ term inus,” are sufficient to distinguish his fou r aspectual classes from one
another:

(18) V en dlers four aspectual classes

SU C C E SSIV E PHASES T E R M IN U S
activity + —
accomplishment + +
achievement — +
state — —

5. T h e S u b i n t e r v a l P r o p e r t y
and In d e f i n i t e C hange

V en d lers hom ogeneity property im plicitly relies on the part-w hole structure o f
tem poral intervals at which predicates hold, and in this respect it is related to the
subinterval property (Bennett and Partee, 1972) and the indefinite change (Dowty,
1979) defined in interval sem antics as the characterizing properties o f dynam ic
atelic predicates:

(19) S U B IN T E R V A L V P s “ have the property that if they are the m ain verb phrase o f a
sentence w hich is true at som e interval o f tim e /, then the sentence is true at every
subinterval o f I including every m om ent o f tim e in I (Bennett and Partee, p. 72)

For instance, if the atelic sentence The ball m oved is true relative to an interval /,
then The ball m oved m ust also be true relative to ev ery subinterval o f /. In contrast,
telic verb phrases like reached the bottom o f the slope have the nonsubinterval p ro p ­
erty: If The ball reached the bottom o f the slope is true relative to a single interval /,
there is no proper subinterval o f I relative to which The ball reached the bottom o f the
slope is true.
D ow ty (1979) integrates the interval sem antics introduced into tem poral logic
by Bennett and Partee and ties their subinterval property to the entailm ent o f an
indefinite change o f state that characterizes his activities. On his account, The ball
m oved has the subinterval property, precisely because it is true in any situation in

Bahan dengan hak cipta

732 ASPECT

w h ich the ball changes its location to any degree at all (Dowty, 1979, p. 16 8 tf.)• In
contrast, the accom plishm ent sentence The ball reached the bottom o f the slope has
the nonsubinterval property, because it entails a definite change o f state; it is true
just in case the ball changes its location and its final location is at the bottom o f the
slope (p. i68ff.).
Strictly speaking, as Bach (1981) am o n g others observes, the subinterval p ro p ­
erty does not u n ifo rm ly apply to all activities (his “ processes” ), since it requires the
truth at every m om ent o f time at som e interval 1 . For instance, John walked cannot
be literally true at every single m om ent o f an interval at which it holds, because what
intuitively qualifies as w alkin g takes up a subinterval larger than a single m om ent o f
time. T rying to determ ine what constitutes the appropriate m in im al interval o f
w alking raises intractable problem s that are o f pragm atic nature (see also Taylor,
1977, p. 218) and depend on world know ledge.
Despite the problem o f the m inim al interval or m in im al part, Bennett and Par-
tees subinterval property; and Vendler s hom ogeneity property capture an im portant
and valid intuition. It also motivates the analysis o f lexical aspect classes based on
the part-w hole relations o f their denotations in subsequent m ereological theories o f
aspect (see section 7).

6 . D o w t y ’s A s p e c t C a l c u l u s : T h e BECOME
P re d ica te

D ow ty (1979, ch. 3) distinguishes am on g three m ain aspectual classes: state, indefi­

nite change (activities) and definite change (accom plishm ents and achievem ents).

(20) D ow ty (1979, C hapter 3.8.3, A Revised Verb Classification)

state: be empty; know; be a hero.
indefinite change: make noise, roll, rain; move, laugh, dance.
definite change: single: notice, ignite; reach, kill, point out (something to someone)
complex: flow froin x to y, dissolve; build (a house), walk a mile.

States and indefinite change o f state predicates are atelic, all definite change o f state
predicates are telic. D ow ty s (1979) m ain innovation is to establish a system atic c o n ­
nection between lexical aspect classes and the com ponents o f m ean in g lexicalized
in verbs. To this goal he defines aspect calculus, com bining M ontague Sem antics
with interval sem antics (Bennett and Partee, 1972) and a decom position analysis in
G enerative Sem antics (see Lakotf, 1968; M cC aw ley, 1968; Ross, 1972). In form ulas o f
aspect calculus, state predicates serve as basic elem ents from w hich non-state p red ­
icates are form ed by m eans o f the v o cab u lary o f standard first-order logic and the
three abstract predicates im ported from G enerative Sem antics (Dowty, 1979, p. 71,
122): D O (agentivity), B E C O M E (definite change o f state), and C A U S E (causation).
A s (21) illustrates, basic state predicates like empty (21a) serve as the base for the

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LEXICAL ASPECT 733

derivation o f single definite change-of-state predicates (inchoatives, or Dowtys

“achievements” ) by means o f the abstract predicate BECO M E (21b), and they in
turn serve as input into the derivation o f complex definite change-of-state predi­
cates (causatives, Dowtys “accomplishments” ) by means o f CAUSE (21c).

(21) a. The room was empty. BECOME empty'(room)

b. The room emptied. BECOME empty'(room )
c. John emptied the room. [John does something] CAUSE [BECOME empty'(room)]

With aspect calculus Dowty defined a new decompositional framework and the
first model-theoretic approach to the study o f lexical semantics that has since
become the main point of reference for the research in lexical aspect. It also stimu­
lated many controversies whose roots largely lie in the fact that the assumptions and
tools o f Generative Semantics it integrates were not specifically developed for the
lexical decomposition of aspectual classes and turn out not to be well suited to this
goal. First, DO (agentivity) does not cross-classify aspectual classes, as is today well
accepted. In fact, Dowty dissociates his aspectual classes from agentivity by splitting
each into an agentive and a non-agentive subclass. In this respect, he departs from
the Aristotelian classifications in the philosophy o f language, mind and action (see
e.g., Ryle, 1949; Vendler, 1957; Kenny, 1963), which serve as his key inspiration, but
which emphasize agentivity, since their focus is on the meaning o f action verbs and
what they reveal about human agency, volition, purposes and goals.
Second, Dowty provides the first formal semantic analyses o f BECO M E and
CAUSE, and although they have been highly influential, they have also been sub­
jected to heavy criticism and revisions. One o f the main controversial points is the
logical and ontological status o f their arguments. In Dowtys aspect calculus, [</>
CAUSE iJ j\ is a bisentential connective (following Vendler, 1957; Geis, 1970; Fillmore,
1971; McCawley, 1971; a.o.), where (i) <j) is often a BECO M E sentence or contains an
activity predicate, and (ii) ip is a BECO M E sentence (Dowty, p. 91). However, the
arguments o f CAUSE are treated as events in many early works on causation (e.g.,
Davidson, 1967; Schank, 1973; Miller and Johnson-Laird, 1976) with an initial causing
process and a final resulting state (Chierchia, 1989; Parsons, 1990; Pustejovsky, 1991,
1995; van Hout, 1996; Reinhart, 1997; Wunderlich, 1997; Levin and Rappaport Hovav,
1998; Higginbotham, 2000; etc.). Intuitively, the cause and what is caused (and gen­
erally the result or outcome denoted by telic predicates) are best analyzed as eventu­
alities o f the appropriate type in the logical structure o f predicates (see also Parsons,
1990, p. io8ff).
Third, one o f the most problematic issues raised by the aspect calculus is the
uniform treatment o f accomplishments as causatives. The single most important
meaning component that sets Dowtys accomplishments apart from his achieve­
ments is “a subsidiary event or activity bringing about/causing the change” (Dowty,
1979, p. 183). Examples of Dowtys accomplishments are build a house (agentive,
temporally extended), shoot someone dead (agentive, temporally not extended), the
collision mashed the fen d er fla t (non-agentive); examples o f achievements are reach
the age o f 21 or awaken , notice, realize, ignite (non-agentive), kill, point out (agentive)
734 ASPECT

(p. 184). For Dowty, agentivity and temporal extent are irrelevant in differentiating
his accomplishments from achievements. In this respect Dowty differs from Vendler,
whose accomplishments are temporally extended and agentive, while achievements
are punctual occurrences and non-agentive.
There are two main counterarguments that can be adduced against a uniform
analysis o f accomplishments as causatives. First, causation is neither a necessary nor
a sufficient property o f accomplishments. There are causatives that are not accom­
plishments (i.e., telic): The clowns w alked the elephants around in a circle fo r fiv e
minutes/#in fiv e minutes. N or is causation necessary, because there are accomplish­
ments that are not causatives, e.g., directed motion predicates like John drove a car
fro m Boston to Detroit , which are analyzed as causatives in Dowty (1979, pp. 207-213,
216), but which lack the properties o f causatives (Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997; Levin
and Rappaport Hovav, 1999). Second, a uniform causative treatment o f accomplish­
ments has undesirable consequences for the analysis o f complex predicates like
those resulting from aspectual composition: John ate two apples (accomplishment/
telic) vs. John ate popcorn (activity/atelic). Since the accomplishment or activity in­
terpretation here depends on the quantificational and referential properties o f the
Incremental Theme argument (see also below), it is the properties o f the Incremen­
tal Theme argument that drive the decision whether a given complex predicate and
its head verb are to be analyzed as causative. This is clearly unsatisfying, as Levin
(2000) observes, since paradigmatic examples o f lexical causative verbs like kill or
break are causative in all o f their occurrences, regardless o f the properties o f their
objects. A causative analysis o f verbs o f consumption like eat is rejected by, among
others, Van Valin and LaPolla (1997), Higginbotham (2000) and Levin (2000).
In sum, although Dowtys uniform analysis o f accomplishments as causatives
initially enjoyed a widespread use, the introduction o f causation into aspect calculus
via Generative Semantics is problematic. A uniform treatment of accomplishments
as causatives is unjustified, and causation is orthogonal to the cross-classification of
aspectual classes, as is also evident from other approaches to aspectual classes (e.g.,
Garey, 1957; Bennett and Partee, 1972; Verkuyl, 1971/72; Mourelatos, 1978), including
mereologically-based theories that emphasize space-time analogies as the basis for
a theory o f aspectual classes (Bach, 1981, 1986; Krifka, 1986/89, 1992, 1998; Filip
1993/99) (see section 7).
Since neither agentivity (DO) nor causation (CAUSE) cross-classify aspectual
classes, B E C O M E 0 remains the only abstract predicate o f Dowtys aspect calculus
with aspectual import. BECO M E represents what is often understood as the core of
telicity in the logical structure o f verbs and sentences, namely its inchoativity or
transition component, and it is the shared meaning component o f Dowtys achieve­
ments (predicates involving single, definite changes of state) and accomplishments
(complex definite change-of state-predicates).

(22) BECOME^ is true at a (minimal) time interval t at whose initial bound -»0 holds and at
whose final bound 0 holds (Dowty, 1979, p. i4off.), where $ is ah embedded clause that
corresponds to a (result) state or an activity clause (pp. 77-78,124-125).
L EXIC A L ASPECT 735

The semantics o f BECOME^ is inspired by von Wrights (1963, 1968) notion o f a

‘ change o f state” (Dowty, 1979, p. 74ff.) and Kenny’s treatment o f “performances”
(PP* 77-78): “ [a]ny performance is describable in the form: ‘bringing it about that
p m (Kenny, 1963, p. 178), whereby “every performance must be ultimately the
bringing about o f a state or of an activity” (p. 178) in order to prevent an infinite
regress.
The conceptual and logical independence o f BECOME«/) from other elements o f
the aspectual calculus raises the question whether there is a level o f logical (or lex­
ical) conceptual representation dedicated just to telicity, clearly distinct from other
kinds o f representation, and if so, what its properties are and how exactly they inter­
act with properties of other types o f logical (or lexical) representation, including
causation and agentivity. Crucial empirical evidence for distinguishing among dif­
ferent proposals for logical-conceptual decompositions bearing on this issue and
for evaluating their empirical predictions is to be sought in the crosslinguistic com ­
parison o f lexicalization patterns. We may also ask whether BECOME«/» is adequate
for the representation of all the relevant telicity phenomena in natural languages
and how it contributes to the understanding o f the nature o f telicity. It is clearly too
narrow even when it comes to the empirical data that Dowty himself mentions.
Am ong his paradigmatic examples o f telic predicates are those consisting o f activity
verbs combined with durational adverbials like run a m ile /for an hour i sm ile f o r an
h o u r (see also Bach, 1981, p. 74). However, strictly speaking, such telic predicates are
not amenable to the analysis with BECO M E^, since 0 stands for a result state or an
activity, and run a mile /for an hour, sm ile fo r an hour and the like cannot be plausi­
bly claimed to entail any result state in the usual, non-trivial sense. The motivation
o f the telic property o f such predicates belongs to one o f the main goals o f the
mereological approaches to aspect to be discussed next.

7. M e r e o l o g i c a l A p p r o a c h e s to A spect:
In c r e m e n t a l R e l a t i o n s

The advent o f mereological approaches to aspect in the early and mid-1980s (Bach,
1981,1986; Hinrichs, 1985; Krifka, 1986/89) helped event semantics (Davidson, 1967)
assert its place in the domain o f aspect, after it had already gained prominence
within Discourse Representation Theory (Kamp, 1979; Kamp and Rohrer, 1983). The
mereological theories share the idea that the aspectually relevant properties o f pred­
icates o f eventualities (time-occupying entities) can be motivated in terms o f anal­
ogies to predicates o f objects (space-occupying entities) (Taylor, 1977). Eventualities
are basic ontological entities just like objects (Davidson, 1967), and both their
domains are structured by the basic binary relation p a r t - o f “ < ” which is defined
from the sum operation (Sharvy, 1980) for forming sums or plural entities
736 A SPECT

(Bach, 1981,1986; Link, 1983,1987). This mereological move is motivated by the goal
o f overcoming certain intractable problems posed by the purely temporal charac­
terization o f Aristotelian classes within temporal logic, including interval semantics
(Bennett and Partee, 1972; Taylor, 1977; Dowty, 1977, 1979). At the same time, it
broadens the empirical scope o f a theory o f lexical aspect to the similarities between
the count/mass and telic/atelic distinctions, which were already observed in the
traditional and structuralist linguistics (e.g., Leisi, 1953) and that take center stage in
cognitive linguistics (Langacker, 1987; Talmy, 1988; Jackendoff 1996, 2010).
There are three types o f similarities between the count/mass and telic/atelic dis­
tinctions. First, telic verbs are nominalized to count-quantified existential construc­
tions (e.g., There was a /at least one /two . ..), while atelic verbs to mass-quantified
constructions (e.g., There was shoving and brawling in the cafeteria and nearby hall­
ways) (Mourelatos).
Second, there is a direct structural analogy "count noun: mass noun = telic verb:
atelic verb” (і.еь “count noun is to mass noun as telic verb is to atelic verb” ). Telic
predicates are aligned with sortal predicates o f objects (Mourelatos, 1978) in so far
as they are taken to provide a criterion for counting and individuation of events in
their denotation and fail to be divisive. For instance, what boy and also arrive
describe has no proper parts that are again describable by boy and arrive , respec­
tively. This view o f telic predicates motivates Bachs (1981) mereological property o f
antisubdivisibility, and Krifkas (1986/89,1992) quantization property:

(23) A given nominal or verbal predicate P is quantized if and only if some x or e falls
under P, then it cannot have a proper part x ’ or e’ that also falls under P . Examples: boy;
arrive.

All quantized predicates o f eventualities are telic, but not all telic predicates are
quantized, since quantization is a stricter notion than telicity (Krifka, 1992,1998).
For the purposes of this summary, telic predicates will simply be taken as quantized
(see also Krifka, 1992, p. 36).
Atelic predicates like run and mass nouns like wine have the property o f addi­
tivity, according to Bach (1981): namely, if x is some quantity o f coffee, an d у also,
then their sum is also describable by wine (see also the property o f cumulativity in
Quine, i960, p. 91). Similarly, if e falls under run and e ' also, then e together with e '
is also describable by run.

(24) A given nominal or verbal predicate P is cumulative if and only if some x and y o r e
and e ' fall under P, then the mereological sum “ 0 ” o f x and y, e and e ' also falls under
P. Examples: coffee; run.

Quantized predicates can be derived from cumulative predicates by means of

extensive measure functions (e.g., liter, kilogram or hour): a liter o f wine, run fo r an
hour (Krifka, 1986/89).
The structural analogy “count noun: mass noun = telic verb: atelic verb” is for­
malized in Bach (1986) by means o f the algebraic device o f a join semilattice, which
was first used for the analysis o f the semantics o f mass terms and plurals in Link
LEXICAL ASPECT 737

(1983). The denotation o f telic verbs like arrive has the structure o f an atom ic join
sem ilattice just like the denotation o f count nouns like boy. In contrast, the d en o ta­
tion o f atelic verbs like run has the form o f a non-atom ic join sem ilattice just like the
denotation o f m ass nouns like wine.
Third, there are interactions and m utual constraints between nom in al and v er­
bal predicates in the derivation o f telic and atelic interpretations o f verb phrases and
sentences, for w hich V erkuyl (1971/72) coins the term “aspectual compositionality.”
The basic data are illustrated by exam ples in (25) and (26).

(25) a. John ate two apples in an hour /*for an hour. T E L IC

b. John ate apples (*)in an hour /for an hour. A T E L IC
(26) a. John watched two apples on the display A T E L IC
(*)in an hour /for an hour,
b. John watched apples on the display (*)in an hour /for an hour. A T E L IC

O n ly in (25), but not in (26), are the referential and quantificational properties o f
the direct object correlated with the (a)telicity o f a verb phrase, w hich intuitively
am ounts to a kind o f “sem antic concord ” (Leech, 1969, p. 137) between the two:
namely, in (25a), the direct object that denotes boun ded objects is correlated with a
telic verb phrase describing b oun ded events, while in (25b), the direct object is u n ­
bounded and is correlated w ith an atelic verb phrase describing unbounded events.
In contrast, both (26a) and (26b) are atelic, independently o f the referential and
quantificational properties o f the direct object. The first relevant observations o f
this ph enom enon were m ade by Poutsm a (1926) and Jakobson (1933) (see Verkuyl,
1971/72; 20 0 1, p. 202), followed by C a re y (1957) (see Filip, 1989).
In m e r e o lo g ic a l a p p ro a c h e s to lexical a sp ectu a l classes, the goal o f m o tiv a tin g
the aspectual c o m p o s itio n shifts attention to the en tailm en t o f a change o f state in
the d en otation o f telic predicates that is m a n ife ste d in the changes in the d e n o t a ­
tions o f their objects. Take eat two apples in (25a), for instance. T h e y den ote e v e n ­
tualities w h o s e part stru ctu re is d irectly co rre la te d w ith the ch an ges in the part
stru ctu re o f the apples eaten. E v e r y p ro p e r part o f two apples c o r r e s p o n d s to one
p r o p e r part o f an e v e n tu a lity d u r in g w h i c h th ose two apples are c o n s u m e d , and
vice versa, and since two apples d enotes a b o u n d e d object, it fo llow s that eat two
apples m u st h av e b o u n d e d eventualities in its d en otation . B a se d on such intuitions,
K rifk a (1986/89) p ro v id e s the first m o d e l-th e o r e t ic and m e r e o lo g ic a lly based
analysis o f the a sp ectu a l c o m p o s it io n , w h ic h establishes a n e w link b e tw e e n the
algebraic event se m a n tic s (B ach , 1986) and the th em atic ro le theory. K r ifk a p r o ­
poses to treat the sy ste m a tic relations b etw een the part stru ctu re o f objects and
eventualities, as in the d en otation o f eat two apples , in te rm s o f th e m a tic relations,
since g en erally relations b e tw e e n objects and eventualities are ch a ra cteriz ed as
th e m a tic relations.
T h e th e m a t ic relation im p lic a t e d in the a s p e c t u a l c o m p o s it i o n is the “ I n c r e ­
m e n ta l T h e m e .” T h i s te rm w a s c o in e d b y D o w t y (1987, 1989, 19 9 1) for the o r i g ­
inal “ G r a d u a l P a tie n t” o r “ S u c c e s s iv e P a tie n t” o f K r i f k a (1986/89, 19 9 2). It is
d e fin e d in te r m s o f th e s t r u c t u r e - p r e s e r v i n g m a p p i n g s (i.e., h o m o m o r p h i s m ,

Bahan dengan hak cipta

738 ASPECT

incremental relations) between the part structure (algebraic semilattice) o f the

denotation o f the (Strictly) Incremental Theme relation and the part structure
(algebraic semilattice) associated with its eventuality argument. Krifka’s
(1986/89) main claim is that the structure-preserving mappings are the source
o f the aspectual composition(ality) and in the simplest cases at least an entail-
ment o f a well-defined class o f verbs. This makes sense, given that the main
difference between (25), which exhibits aspectual composition, and (26), which
does not, lies in their head lexical verb, eat vs. watch , respectively. Given the
structure-preserving mappings entailed by verbs like eat, the aspectual compo­
sition straightforwardly follows from the standard composition with their
Incremental Theme argument, as schematically represented in (27): namely, a
quantized Incremental Theme argument (two apples) is correlated with a quan­
tized (telic) verbal predicate (eat two apples), while a cumulative Incremental
Theme argument (apples) with a cumulative (atelic) predicate (eat apples), in
sentences denoting singular eventualities.

(27) (|) = Ae3 x [a(e) A 8(x) A Incremental_Theme(e, x)] (following Krifka, 1992)
<j) is quantized/cumulative if S is quantized/cumulative

In contrast, since the verb watch does not lexically specify the requisite mapping
relation, its Theme argument on its own has no (a)telicity effects.
One immediate consequence o f Krifka’s mereologically based account o f aspec­
tual composition is that incremental predicates are added as an additional class to
telic and atelic ones, which implies that they are lexically unmarked with respect to
telicity, i.e., they are neither quantized (telic) nor cumulative (atelic) (see Filip,
i 993 /9 9 >and implicit suggestions in Krifka, 1986/89,1992; Dowty, 1991)- As a result,
there are three main aspectually relevant classes o f verbs:

(28) (i) telic predicates like recover, which are quantized.

(ii) atelic predicates like run, which are cumulative.
(iii) incremental predicates, paradigmatic examples being verbs o f creation (build,
write, compose), verbs of consumption/destruction (eat, burn), performance
verbs ( recite>play).

This also means that incrementality is independent of telicity in the lexical

structure o f verbs and also at the level o f sentential semantics:

(29) (i) Telicity does not require incrementality. (Krifka, 1992, 2001; Filip, 1993/99)
(ii) Incrementality does not guarantee telicity.

Telicity does not require incrementality, because there are telic predicates like to
burst or to make a dot that describe instantaneous situations that have no (non
trivial) part structure, but are indivisible, and hence quantized/telic, and also pass
the countability test proposed by Mourelatos (1978) (see above). Incrementality
does not guarantee telicity, since there are predicates like eat apples/soup fo r ten
minutes that are incremental but atelic/cumulative, because their Incremental
Theme argument is cumulative.
LEXICAL ASPECT 739

In D o w t y s (1987, 1988, 1991) th e o ry o f thematic proto-roles a n d verbal a r g u ­

m en t selection, the In crem en ta l T h e m e p ro p e rty is treated as the m ost significant
Proto-Patient th em atic p ro p e r ty for the object selection o f transitives. The In c re ­
mental T h e m e can also be an entailm ent for a subject o f transitives, as in At the
turtle race, the winning turtle crossed the finish line in 42 seconds (Dovvty, 1991). (vSee
also D eclerck, 1979; Filip, 1990, w h ic h pro v id e s an additional su p p o rt for the claim
that the classification into aspectual classes c o n c e rn s w h o le sentences, and not just
V P s and verbs (Verkuyl, 1971/72).
Both D o w ty (1991) and K rifk a (1986/89, 1998) also em phasize that in c re m e n ­
tal relations hold betw een an eventu ality argum en t and an “ in crem ental p a rtic i­
p an t” ( K rifka s term , 1998) that is not syn tactically realized as a single syntactic
argu m en t, a direct object or a subject, and that they m ay have verb external
sources, both lin guistic and also extra-lin gu istic. F o r instance, in John drove fro m
N ew York to Chicago (D ow ty, 19 9 1, p. 568ff.), the P P s refer to the b e g in n in g and
end p oin t o f the im plied Increm ental Path T hem e, and the verb drive relates the
p rop er parts o f the im plied Path to the proper parts o f an event (see also K rifka,
1998). Such directed m otion predications are quantized if the im plied In c re m e n ­
tal Path Them e is b o u n d ed , as in John drove fro m N ew York to Chicago or We fle w
over the lake in an hour , and cum ulative, i f it is u n b o u n d ed , as in We fle w over
water fo r hours (exam ples from Talmy, 1985). K rifka (1986/89; 1992, p. 45) also
observes that the m a p p in g properties m a y also depend on a lexical filler o f one o f
the v e rb s argu m en ts as well as on the lin gu istic and extra-lin gu istic context,
rather than on ly on the lexical entailm ents o f a verb. For instance, in (30a), the
quantized argu m en t seventeen clouds o f the n o n -in crem en tal verb see can fu n c ­
tion as an Increm ental T h e m e , and give rise to the quantized/telic interpretation
o f (30a), in a situation in w h ic h the clouds are taken to be seen in su ccessio n , one
(group) after another.

(30) a. M ary saw seventeen clouds for three m inutes/in three m inutes,
b. M a ry saw clouds for three m inutcs/*in three minutes.

M oreover, what counts as a suitable “ increm ental participant” m a y not be tied to any
particular verb -argum en t com bination, but instead m a y be inferred using pragm atic
principles o f interpretation and world knowledge, as in John was becoming an archi­
tect but was interrupted before he could finish his degree , where it is the stages that
John went through to reach the status o f an architect, and did not complete (Dowty,
1991, p. 569). Such exam ples indicate, according to K rifka (1986/89; 1992, p. 45), that
the m apping properties are not “ h ard-w ired ” in a them atic relation, but m ay also
follow from other know ledge sources, including our u nd erstand in g o f how events
norm ally evolve in the world.
There is a w idespread consensus that the phenom ena that fall under the asp ec­
tual com position(ality) involve increm entality, i.e., som e stru cture-preserving
m apping(s) between objects and eventualities (and also their run tim es). A part
from the algebraic m appings in the m ereological theories, which were first d is­
cussed as a “ h o m o m o rp h ism ” (K rifka, 19 8 6 /8 9 ,19 9 2; Dowty, 1991) and later labeled

Bahan dengan hak cipta

740 ASPECT

“ incrementality” or “ incremental relations” (Krifka, 1998), the relevant mappings

are identified as the add-to relation in Verkuyl (1971/72), the measuring out (of an
event) relation in Tenny (1987, 1994), the structure-preserving binding relations in
Jackendoff (1996), and Mapping to Events in Kratzer (2004, based on Krifka). The
main disagreements concern the source o f the mapping properties (or incremental-
ity) in the lexical meaning o f verbs, and its status in the grammar o f natural lan­
guages, given that the structure-preserving mappings have a variety o f verb-external
sources. For instance, as Jackendoff (1996) argues, they are an emergent property of
the lexical structure o f verbs interacting with pragmatics, and therefore cannot be a
factor in argument selection, contrary to Dowty (1987,1989, 1991 ) - In syntactic ap­
proaches to telicity, they are either a property of the [telic] inflectional head above
V P (Kratzer, 2004) or not a part o f the grammar o f natural languages at all and
instead entirely determined by world knowledge and pragmatic factors (Borer,
2005). Higginbotham (2000) argues they are a consequence o f telicity, rather than a
basis for it.
However, the explanatory power o f such alternative proposals is problematic,
since none o f them has succeeded in motivating even the basic data in the domain
o f the aspectual composition, as exemplified in (25) and (26), which the mereologi-
cal theories can account for. The proposals that place a heavy explanatory burden
on pragmatics (e.g., Jackendoff, 1996; Borer, 2005) would seem to predict that telic­
ity effects should always be cancelable in a suitable linguistic and/or extra-linguistic
context. But this prediction is not borne out for all the relevant cases. There are telic
predicates like prove the theorem, eat three apples, eat a bowl o f soup that resist a shift
into an atelic interpretation by means of the durative fo r NP adverbial (31a), for
instance, and that also disallow continuations that negate the final stage o f events in
their denotation (31b). This behavior strongly suggests that telicity is an entailment
o f such predicates, and since it is tied to predicates headed by strictly incremental
verbs, it is plausible to view the source o f this behavior in the lexical properties o f
this class o f verbs.

(31) a. John proved the theorem *for an hour. (Zucchi, 1998)

b. John proved the theorem, *but died before he could finish proving it.

Neither does the aspectual composition lend itself to a purely syntactic expla­
nation, based on a uniform link between the telicity o f a verb phrase and some telic­
ity feature related to the morphology o f its direct object that is mediated by a
syntactically based feature agreement mechanism. In its unconstrained form, the
syntactic agreement mechanism overgeneralizes since not all the direct object DP s
with the feature taken to trigger telicity in the requisite telic structure yield V P ’s that
are telic, according to the standard empirical tests. For instance, although two apples
contains the cardinal quantifier two that provides the telic “quantity” feature in the
sense o f Borer (2005), watch two apples (26a) is atelic. At the same time, the
agreement mechanism undergeneralizes, since it cannot motivate the influence of
the subject argument on the (a)telicity o f verb phrases and sentences (see above).
 L EXIC A L ASPECT
741

8. “D eg r ee of Change” v ia Pa r t
St r u c t u r e s, M e a s u r e s , and Scales

The most recent degree-based or scalar approaches to aspect have provided the
main impetus for the current focus o f lexical aspect studies on the meaning compo­
nents that encode scales, measure functions and changes along paths in a variety o f
measurable dimensions. Such meaning components have already proven useful in
the previous aspect studies. For instance, Tenny (1987, 1994) distinguishes three
main types o f scales for measuring o u t’ o f events (see Ramchand, 1997; Filip, 2005;
Rappaport Hovav, 2008, for similar proposals):

(32) (i) a scale measuring the extent/volume o f an object (as in the cases o f aspectual
composition, e.g., eat two apples vs. eat apples/soup);
(ii) a scale o f distance measuring a path in the concrete spatial domain, e.g, walk three
miles /from A to B;
(iii) a property scale, measuring temperature, consistency o f objects, and the like, e.g.,
heat the water (by 40 degrees, melt (into a gooey mess), whip the cream stiff.

What is understood by “degree-based approaches” is a cluster o f semantic and prag­

matic approaches to aspect whose main empirical focus is on “degree achievements”
(in the sense o f Dowty), which fall under (32)/(iii) above.

(33) “degree achievements” (Dowty, 1979):

a. Verbs derived from GRADABLE ADJECTIVES; cool, empty, lengthen, ripen, . . .
b. DIRECTED MOTION VERBS: sink, ascend, descend, reach, come . . .

Am ong the representative works that have shaped this general framework are Pinon
(1997, 2000), Hay et al. (1999)» Rotstein ant} Winter (2004), Caudal and Nicolas
(2005), Gawron (2005), Kennedy and McNally (2005), Kearns (2007), Kennedy and
Levin (2008), Beavers (in press), among others. They share the common goal of
providing a uniform analysis o f degree achievements, based on the idea that degree
achievements denote (or have closely related) functions from (objects and) events
to degrees on some property scale that measures the degree o f change that some
participant undergoes in the course o f an event. This unified analysis presupposes a
fundamental parallel between Themes o f changes o f location and traditional
Patients o f changes o f state (see also the Localist Hypothesis originating in Gruber,
1965; also Lyons, 1967; Anderson, 1971; Jackendoff, 1976, 1983, 1990; Van Voorst,
1993; DeLancey, 2000; Talmy, 1988, 2000).
The most sophisticated and elaborate accounts have so far been developed for
verbs derived from gradable adjectives. The main goal is to formulate predictions
concerning the availability o f telic and atelic interpretations from the characteristics
of the state denoted by x is A. The predictions appeal to one major classificatory
parameter: namely, whether the base adjective entails (i) a closed scale (a scale with
a maximal, minimum element, or both), as in empty, darken derived from absolute
742 ASPECT

gradable adjectives, or (ii) an open scale (a scale that lacks a maximal, minimum
element), as in cool, shorten derived from relative gradable adjectives. (See Kennedy,
2007, for more details regarding the properties o f scales.)
The main observation to be explained is that all deadjectival verbs, just like
other degree achievements, allow for telic or atelic interpretations, depending on
the context (see Dowty, 1979, p. 88), but independently of the quantificational and
referential properties o f their Theme argument.

(34) a. The soup cooled for ten minutes /in ten minutes. OPEN SCALE
b. The sky darkened for an hour I'm an hour. CLOSED SCALE

The main puzzle posed by degree achievements is the determination o f the end­
point o f events relative to the associated scale that is necessary for telic interpreta­
tions (for detailed discussions see Kearns, 2007; Kennedy and Levin, 2008). This
raises two main questions: What is the nature o f property scales associated with
adjectives and verbs derived from them? What is the nature o f the maximal element
o f a scale associated with a deadjectival verb on a telic interpretation?
A number o f proposed analyses presuppose that gradable adjectives are ana­
lyzed as (a measure function) mapping objects to degrees on a scale that measures
one of their properties (Bartsch aod Vennemann, 1972; Cresswell, 1977; von Ste-
chow, 1984, Heim 1985, aooo; Klein, 1991; Kennedy 1999; a.o.): e.g.,3 [[A co o fll0 =
A.dAx/xTEMp(x) < d. As is common in the studies on gradable adjectives, a scale is
characterized in terms o f three parameters (Kennedy, 2007):

(35) Scale: (i) a set of degrees (measurement values) totally ordered with respect to some
(ii) dimension, which indicates the property being measured (volume,
temperature, length, weight, loudness, intensity, etc.); and
(iii) an ordering relation on the set o f degrees, which distinguishes between
predicates that describe increasing properties (like tall) and those that
describe decreasing properties (like short).

Based on such a theoretical apparatus, Hay et al. (1999) propose the following
descriptive generalization: when a predication describes a bounded degree of
change on the associated scale, it is telic, when it describes an unbounded degree of
change, it is atelic. Kennedy and Levin (2008) develop this idea further by pro­
posing that all degree achievements are to be analyzed in terms o f measure o f change
functions mA that are derived from basic measure functions m lexicalized by grad­
able adjectives in a way that is related to the semantics of comparison. A “measure
o f change function” mA is a function that measures the degree d to which an object
x changes relative to some scalar dimension over the course o f an event e. Open-
scale deadjectival verbs have a default atelic interpretation, which merely requires
some change o f the referent o f their Theme argument, but not a change to some
specific degree on the associated scale. For instance, The soup cooled has a default
lexically determined interpretation which merely requires that the soup decrease in
temperature to some degree. The stronger telic interpretation requires the context
and our world knowledge to fix what counts as the maximal change in the relevant
LEXICAL ASPECT 743

property at a given situation, given conventional practices and expectations o f the

discourse participants.

(36) The soup cooled in ten m inutes (Kearns, 2007)

(i) . . . so we had to reheat it. cool: “too cool to eat”
(ii) . . . so we started eating it (before it cooled too much), cool: “cool enough to cat”

C lo s e d scale deadjectival verbs have a default a c c o m p lis h m e n t interpretation,

w h ic h requires that the referent o f their T h e m e a rg u m e n t has a p ro p erty w h o se
value is the stand ard e n d p o in t o f the scale, w h ic h is fixed by the co n v en tio n a l lexical
m e a n in g o f closed scale deadjectival verb s (and their related root adjectives):
namely, it is the m a x im a l degree o f change attributable to the referent o f its T h e m e
argu m ent.
D egree-based theories have a narrow er em pirical and theoretical scope than
the m ereologically-based theories, and it is unclear how a scalar account o f m otion
predicates can be provided based on the analysis o f deadjectival verbs, despite the
form al correspondence between property scales and paths (see e.g., Zwarts and
Winter, 1997; Faller, 20 0 0 ; Zw arts, 2 0 0 0 ; Winter, 2005). For instance, m an y directed
m otion predicates with implicit closed scales like reach and all m otion predicates
with explicit closed scales only have telic interpretations (i.e., the theme m ust reach
the endpoint o f the path, see also R appaport Hovav, 2008), unlike deadjectival verbs
based on closed scale adjectives:

(37) a. The clim bers reached the sum m it *for an hour /in an hour.
b. John ran to the store *for an hour /in an hour.

Neither is it straightforw ard to extend degree-based approaches to telicity to the

phenom ena that are successfully treated by m eans o f the Increm ental Them e rela­
tion (Kennedy, 2 0 10 ).
The m ereo lo g ic a lly based fra m e w o rk s an d d egree-based ones each p ro vid e a
different valid intuition about the notion o f change and different hypotheses
about the asp ectu ally relevant m e a n in g co m p o n en ts o f d y n a m ic verbs that lead
to (a)telicity effects. They are best view ed as co m p lem en tary, rather than c o m ­
peting, h ypo th eses (pace Jacken d o ff, 1996), and their integration p ro m ises to lead
to a co m p reh e n siv e and a m o re adequate th e o ry o f aspect than any o f them can
offer separately. The integration o f in c rem en ta lity and sca larity into the re p e r­
toire o f asp ectu ally relevant con cepts also raises the question about their relation
to each other. They are in d ep en d en t o f each other conceptually, fo rm a lly as well
as at the level o f lexical and syn tactic stru ctu re. F o rm a lly sp e a k in g , the in c re m e n ­
tal m ap p in gs relate two d en otation al d o m a in s (one o f objects and the other o f
eventualities) stru c tu red by the m ereo lo g ica l part relation “ < ” (m o d eled as join
sem ilattices). The notion o f a “scale” is a total order, a lin early ordered set, or a
chain , w h ich is a lin ear exten sion o f a partial order. The m e a n in g co m p o n en ts o f
“ in c rem en ta lity ” and “sc a la rity ” are taken to be in d ep en d en t o f each other in the
organ ization o f lexical sem an tic stru ctu re (Filip and R othstein, 2 0 0 5 ; Filip, 20 0 8 ;
R ap p ap o rt H ovav, 2008):

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744 ASPECT

(38) (i) Incremental (stem) verbs do not lexically encode either scales or measure
functions.
(ii) The scale with respect to which incremental predicates are interpreted as telic
is specified externally to their incremental head verbs, normally by the lexical
material of their Theme argument (e.g., eat two apples/a bowl o f soup) or resultative
secondary predicates (e.g., The supermodel ate the cracker to the last crumb/herself
out o f the modeling business.) (Filip and Rothstein, 2005; Filip, 2008)

Scalar verbs lexically encode scales, but even if they are closed, they do not guaran­
tee the telicity o f a whole sentence (see Kearns, 2007; Filip, 2008; Kennedy and
Levin, 2008; Rappaport Hovav, 2008).

(39) Closed scales lexicalized by scalar verbs (“degree achievements”) do not guarantee
telicity.

Telic interpretations o f predicates with scalar verbs are enforced by overt specifica­
tions o f maximal values on the relevant scales (Filip, 2008): The sky darkened to
pitch black .
One place in the grammar o f natural language where the mereological and
degree-based approaches to aspect may be seen as intersecting is the grammar of
measurement. In scalar approaches to telicity, measure functions that provide the
units for the scales are taken to be entailed by verbs derived from gradable adjec­
tives, and this analysis is assumed to be extendable to other degree achievements. In
mereological approaches to telicity, extensive measure functions play a key role in
the derivation o f quantized (telic) nominal and verbal predicates (in the sense of
Krifka, 1986/89,1992, and elsewhere). It is plausible then to assume that the notion
o f a measure function is (among) the basic notion(s) needed in model structures for
a unified semantic analysis o f a variety of telicity phenomena, separately covered by
mereological and degree-based theories (Filip, 2008).
The results o f mereological and scalar approaches to lexical aspect converge on
a clear revision o f the way in which lexical aspectual classes have been thought of
since Dowty (1979) with respect to the nature o f the meaning components lexical­
ized in verbs and the lexical aspectual classes they motivate. First, we see the emer­
gence o f two new lexical aspectual classes—incremental verbs and scalar verbs (i.e.,
deadjectival verbs and basic directed motion verbs)—that are not aligned with the
traditional lexical aspectual classes, e.g., either the four classes proposed by Vendler
(1957) or the tripartite classification into processes, events and states common in
event semantics.
Second, also in departure from such traditional Aristotelian taxonomies that
are predicated on the essential telic/atelic distinction, incremental verbs and scalar
verbs are taken to be underspecified for telicity, neither telic nor atelic. Both the
mereological and degree-based (or scalar) frameworks implicitly or explicitly as­
sume the strategy of semantic underspecification in the lexicon in order to account
for the ease with which incremental and scalar (aka degree achievement) verbs can
be integrated into either telic or atelic predications, rather than assuming fully
determined telic and atelic lexical meanings with coercion operations, lexical ambi-
 LE X IC A L ASPECT
745

guity, generalized lexical rules, and the like. The insights o f the recent mereological
and degree-based approaches raise the following fundamental questions: What is
the classification schema of lexical aspectual classes that best fit the natural language
data? What constitutes valid empirical evidence (like linguistic tests) for such a
classification schema?

9. C o n c l u s i o n

This short review of the vast domain of lexical aspect focused on the idea intro­
duced by Dowty that the explanation for the differences among aspectual classes lies
in understanding the change-of-state entculments that are or are not present in the
different classes (Dowty, 1979, p. 167) as well as in our expectations about the way
changes happen over time (p. 185). The main issue here concerns which fine-grained
properties o f our conceptualizations o f change are a part o f the semantic represen­
tation/the logical form and motivates a variety o f (a)telicity effects we observe in the
grammar o f natural languages, and which fall outside the grammar proper. Current
research at the intersection o f mereological and degree-based frameworks suggests
that future directions in the domain lexical aspect will also profit from building on
the insights and formal tools o f the philosophy and logic o f measurement.

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 CH APTER 26

VERBAL ASPECT

H E N R IE T T E D E SW A R T

1. T he Role of V erbs and A r g u m e n t s in

the G r a m m a r of A spect

Crosslinguistic semantic studies are often hard to carry out, for the distinctions are
subtle, and intuitions not always easy to grasp. In the study o f aspect, this problem is
compounded by the complexity and abstract nature o f the theoretical concepts, which
often have a long history in language-specific gram m ars and in the linguistic literature
(see Binnick, 1991, and Filip, 2011 for historical overviews). This first section offers
som e observations about English, which will set the scene for the exploration o f aspect
in a crosslinguistic perspective in the remainder o f this chapter.
Verbal tense, which C o m rie (1985, p. 1) defines as the “grammaticalization of
location in time,” c o m m o n ly serves in natural language to anchor the situation
described by the sentence to the time axis (cf. H ew son, this volum e). Thus the dis­
tinction between (la), (b), and (c) is temporal in nature:

(1) a. Bill was in love with Susan.

b. Bill is in love with Susan.
c. Bill will be in love with Susan.

Tense is deictic and requires reference to the speech situation. The tenses in (1)
locate the situation o f Bills love respectively before, at (or around), and after the
time. In contrast, the distinction between (2a) and (b) is aspectual in nature:

(2) a. Sarah wrote a dissertation in 2009.

It was completed in September.
#1 think she is still working 011 it.
#She never finished it, for she died in September o f that year.

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b. Sara was writing a dissertation in 2009.

It was completed in September.
I think she is still working on it.
She never finished it, for she died in September of that year.

Both sentences relate to the past, but in (2a) the writing o f the dissertation is pre­
sented as a completed event: no writing is going on at the speech time anymore, and
the dissertation is finished. (2a) cannot be followed by sentences that deny comple­
tion o f the event in the past. (2b) presents the writing process as ongoing: the disser­
tation is under way at some point in the past, but is not finished yet. The possible
follow-up o f (2b) allows completion o f the dissertation before now, or a continuation
o f the writing into the present, or a termination o f the process without completion.
The difference between (2a) and (2b) is due to the presence o f the Progressive form
in (2b), and its absence in (2a). According to Comrie (1976, p. 3) “aspects are different
ways o f viewing the internal temporal constituency o f a situation.” Grammatical
aspect is therefore also called ‘Viewpoint aspect” (Smith, 1991/1997). Aspect is not
inherently deictic, and it does not anchor the situation to the time axis. Aspect may
however affect temporal structure, as is clear from the sentences in (3):

(3) a., When Bill came into the office, Sara left through the back door.
b. When Bill came into the office, Sara was leaving through the back door.

We normally perceive (3a) as reporting two events that follow each other in time:
Sara left just after Bill came in, perhaps as a reaction to his arrival. (3b) describes the
two situations as overlapping in time, perhaps as an explanation o f why Bill missed
seeing Sara at the office. The close connections between aspectual and temporal
structure motivate the study o f tense and aspect in conjunction.
The progressive construction in (2b) and (3b) is a grammatical aspect marker, as
it is part o f the verbal inflection system o f English. Grammatical aspect is distinct
from lexical aspect, also called Aktionsart, actionality, aspectual class or situation
aspect (see Filip, this volume). Lexical aspect bears on inherent features o f the verb,
as we see in (4). All three sentences are in the simple past, and they contain no overt
aspectual markers. Yet, they describe situations with rather different internal tempo­
ral constituencies:

(4) a. Bill was in love with Susan.

b. Sarah wrote a dissertation.
c. Carl reached the top of the mountain.

Sentence (4a) (=ia) describes Bill as being in a certain state o f mind. This state
protracts over time, but nothing is occurring. (4b) (=2a) describes a completed event.
Writing a dissertation is a process that requires a certain amount o f time, but it has an
inherent endpoint: the event is completed when the dissertation is finished. Reaching
the top requires a long preparatory stage o f working ones way up, but the event o f
reaching the top itself is a momentaneous transition from the stage o f working ones
way up to the resultant state o f being at the top. The aspectual differences between
754 ASPECT

(4a-c) are due to the choice o f the verb. This is what opposes lexical aspect to g ra m ­
matical aspect.
Verkuyl (1972) labels the term lexical aspect a misnomer, as the verb is not solely
responsible for the aspectual character o f the sentence. The pair o f sentences in (5)
illustrates this:

(5) a. Susan ate an apple.

b. Susan ate apples.

Sentence (5a) describes a completed event (the apple is finished), whereas (5b)
describes an u n b ou nd ed process. Som e apples must have been consu m ed to make
(5b) true, but the unspecified nu m ber o f apples does not define an inherent en d ­
point. Verkuyl argues that the semantics o f the noun phrase contributes to the as­
pectual character o f the sentence as a whole, and aspect needs to be defined at the
level o f the predicate-argument structure ( V P and S). This insight leads him to pre­
fer the term aspectual class or situation aspect. V erku yls intuition that subjects and
objects play a role in creating temporal structure and im posing boundaries on the
situation is w orked out in various analyses (Dowty, 1979; Krifka, 19 8 9 ,199 2; Verkuyl,
1993; Jackendoff, 1996).
G a re y (1957) characterizes examples like (5a) as telic, and examples like (5b) as
atelic. Telic and atelic verb phrases give rise to different inference patterns, as illus­
trated in (6a, b):

(6) a. Susan was drinking wine -► Susan drank wine.

b. Susan was drinking a glass o f w ine -f> Susan drank a glass o f wine.

English has a small set o f verbs that are inherently telic and necessarily require
a delimitating argument, such as eat up, drink up. They are therefore incompatible
with a bare plural or bare mass noun:

(7) a. Susan ate up *cake/the cake/*apples/the apples.

b. Susan drank up *wine/the wine/*glasses o f wine/two glasses o f wine.

The contrast between (5) and (7) shows that the thematic relation between the
verb and its arguments is relevant to the aspectual characterization o f the sentence
(Krifka, 19 89 ,199 2).
Aspectual class and gram m atical aspect are independent theoretical notions,
but there are clear interactions between them. For instance, the English Progressive
does not easily apply to stative verbs (8a), or creates special m eaning effects when it
does, as in M cD o n ald s’ slogan (8b):

(8) a. ??Bill was being in love with Susan.

b. I’m lovin it!

In section 2, we briefly discuss the m ain terminological distinctions that are

drawn in the literature on aspectual class (section 2). There is m ore to grammatical
aspect than the English Progressive, so the debate on aspect has to be situated in a

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broader crosslinguistic perspective (section 3). Sections 4 and 5 are concerned with
the com positional interpretation o f aspect.

2. A spectual C la ssific a tio n s: Basic

D istin c tio n s an d C hallenges

For non-stative verbs, argum ent structure drives the telic/atelic distinction (cf.
exam ple 5). K rifka (19 8 9 ,19 9 2 ) analyzes/or-adverbials as expressions that measure
the duration o f a situation without clearly established beginning-and endpoints
(9a). /«-adverbials m easure the time it takes to complete an event with an inherent
endpoint, as illustrated in (9b). For- adverbials felicitously com bine with atelic verb
phrases, but disprefer telic verb phrases (9c). Conversely, /«-adverbials com bine
with telic verb phrases, but disprefer atelic verb phrases (9d):

(9) a. Susan wrote letters/drank wine for h alf an hour.

b. Bill wrote a dissertation in six months/drank a glass o f wine in five minutes.
c. ??Bill wrote a letter for an hour/drank a glass o f wine for an hour.
d. ??Susan wrote letters/drank wine in half an hour.

A process o f aspectual coercion (see section 4.4 below) often renders it possible
to m ake sense o f such dispreferred combinations. For instance, (9c) can be read as
“w orking on writing a letter for an hour,” or “drinking from a glass o f wine for an
hour.”
The for/in-criterion shows that a broader class o f verb phrases can be classified
as telic or atelic than those in (5) and (7). Stative verbs like be in love and activities
like waltz qualify as atelic according to (10a) and (b), whereas verb phrases
describing instantaneous events like reach the top are telic (10c):

(10) a. Bill was in love with Susan for/*in many years.

b. At the wedding, Bill waltzed for/*in several hours.
c. Bill reached the top o f the mountain in/*for two days.

The c o m m o n feature o f states (like be in love , 10a) and activities (like eat apples,
but also swim , waltz, push a cart , 10b) is that they describe unbounded situations
without an inherent endpoint. In terms o f their interpretation on the time axis,
states are true at m oments, because nothing happens, whereas activities require
intervals in their interpretation, because they necessarily imply a development over
time (Vendler, 1957; Bennett and Partee, 1972; Dowty, 1979). Eat an apple in (5a) is
an accom plishm ent in Vendler s classification, because it describes a culm inating
process the truth o f w h ic h can only be evaluated at the entire interval. In contrast,
Vendler qualifies verb phrases like reach the top (10c) as achievements, because they
describe instantaneous transitions that are verified at instants. Other classifications
besides V endlers have been proposed in the literature; they arc discussed by Filip
(this volume).

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756 ASPECT

3. G r a m m a tic a l A spect from a

C r o ss-l in g u ist ic Per spec tiv e

3.1. Perfective/Im perfective Aspect: O bservations

from Russian
English is not necessarily a good starting point for a broad perspective on g ram m at­
ical aspect, so this section places the issue in a crosslinguistic perspective. A s evi­
denced by typological research (Com rie, 1976; Dahl, 1985), the distinction most
com m only found in languages is that between perfective and imperfective aspect (cf.
Gvozdanovic, this volume). This distinction is central to Slavic languages (section 3.1)
and Rom ance languages (section 3.2), but also m any others, cf. Dahl and Velulipillai
(2008). Section 3.3 returns to the English Perfect and Progressive. Languages that lack
the category o f verbal tense, such as Sino-Tibetan languages, often have highly
complex aspectual systems (section 3.4).
The perf(ective)/imp(erfective) contrast has been extensively investigated for
Slavic languages. In a Slavic language like Russian, every verb in the lexicon is
labeled as perfective or imperfective. Affixation or stem alternations create perfec­
tive verbs out o f imperfective roots (11a) and vice versa (11b):

(11) a. p isa C 'to write’ (imp), na-pisat’ ‘to write (som ething)’ (perf), pod-pisal' ‘to sign’
(perf). {Russian]
b. dat"to give’ (perf), da-va-t**to give’ (imp).
c. pod-pis-yva-t' ‘to sign’ (imp).

W hen different prefixes com bine with the sam e verbs, they give rise to a range
o f meanings. Verbs that only differ in aspectual value such as pisat' ‘write’ (imp) and
na-pisat’ ‘write' (perf) are called aspectual pairs. In contrast, the verb pod-pisaC not
only differs in aspectual value from pisat\ but also takes up a different lexical
meaning, m eaning ‘sign*. Verbs that contain such lexical prefixes m ay take the same
suffix that an inherently perfective verb takes (cf. 11b) to create a secondary im per­
fective: (11c) is the imperfective counterpart o f the perfective verb pod-pisat " t o sign.
Inflected verbs are always marked as perfective or imperfective in Slavic languages,
so the role o f grammatical aspect in these languages is pervasive. According to C om rie
(1976, p. 16), perfectivity “ indicates the view o f the situation as a single whole, without
distinction of the various separate phases that make up that situation.” Smith (1991/1.997)
takes the Russian perfective, as in (12), to include initial and final endpoints. For (12a),
both characterizations imply that the opening of the w in d o w is completed:

(12) a. On ot-krylpcrf okno.

he open.PAST.PERF w indow .ACC
“ He opened (thc/a) window.”

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b. On ot-krylp<lf okno *(za) dva casa.

he open. PAST.PERF w indow .ACC (in) two hours
“ He opened the window in two hours/*two hours (long).”
c. Ja pro-citalFeft knigu.
I TH RO U G H -read.PA ST.PERF book.A C C entails
Ja (bolse) ne citaju,nip knigu.
1 (anymore) not read.PRES book
“ I read the book” entails “ I am not reading the book anymore.”

Perfective verb phrases com bine with ш -adverbials rather than /or-adverb і a Is
(12b), and give rise to the entailment that completed events in the past are in c o m ­
patible with the sam e situation ongoing at the speech time (12c).
The imperfective aspect “pays essential attention to the internal structure o f the
situation” (C om rie, 1976, p. 16) and abstracts away from initial and final points
(Smith 1991/1997). Prominent interpretations o f the imperfective are the plain sta-
tive reading (13a, from Smith, 1991, p. 318), the ongoing process reading (13b, from
Borik, 2002, p. 48) and the habitual reading ((13c), from Berit Gehrke, p.c.):

(13) a. Vanja golodalmiI\

Vanya was starving.IM P
b. Petja peresekal,mp etot kanal kogda
Peter cross.LMP.PAST.SG.MASC. this channel when
nacalsja storm.
PERF- begin - PST. SG. M A SC storm
“Peter was crossing this channel when the storm began.”
c. On odin iz Sesti detej, і ego otec bylimp takim sil’nym, £to, kogda synov’ja klaliimp
na stol orech, on— raz palcem !— raskalyvalimp ego lucse, cem scipcy dlja orechov.
(Hrabal, The M ermaid)
“ He is one o f six children, and his father was so strong that, whenever the sons put a
nut on the table, he—once with a finger—cracked it better than a nutcracker.”

With the ongoing process reading, there is no entailment that the event was
completed, as we see in (14) (compare with 6 above):

(14) Anja ubiralai,np kvartiru. -fr Anja ubrala**rl kvartiru.

Anja tidied.i m p flat -fr- Anja tidied.p e r i -’ flat
“Ania was tidying the flat” does not entail “Anja tidied the flat.”

A spect affects temporal structure, as in (15, from Smith, 1991, pp. 3 0 1 ,3 0 3 ) . Per­
fective sentences in the context o f a w hen-chuse have a sequential interpretation
(15a), whereas the imperfective describes the situation as u n d erw a y at the time o f
the adverbial clause situation (15b):

(15) a. Kogda o n vysel iz komnaty, on posidelpcrf v parke

when he went out o f the room, he sat for a w hile-PERF in the park
“W hen he went out o f the room, he sat for a while in the park.”

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b. Vanja pelimp v parke, kogda Nina pojavilas,perf.

Vanja sang-IM P in the park when Nina appeared-PERP
“ Vania was singing in the park when Nina appeared.”

Besides the range o f m eanings illustrated in (13), the Russian imperfective can
also have a general factual m eaning, as in (16a) or report an annulled result, as in
(16b) (examples from G r o n n , 2003, p. 25):

(16) a. Ja vasi ocerki o Sibiri citaliinp, mne oni ocen’ nravjatsjaimp.

I your essays about Siberia read-IM P me they very please
“ I have read your essays on Siberia, I like them a lot.”
b. A: Iskali,mp menja?
“ I lave they been looking for me?”
B: M ilicioner nedavno priezzal'mp. . . . S otcom razgovarivalimp.
“A police officer arrived recently.. . . He talked to your father.”

The im p erfectiv e verb citalimp in (16a) refers to a com plete single, telic event
in the past. U n d e r the factive interpretation, the kind o f en tailm ent in (14) does
go through (cf. B o rik , 20 0 2). From the use o f the im p erfective p riez z a limp in (16b)
we can infer that the police officer has left at the time o f the co n versatio n . The
use o f p riech al in the context o f (16b) w o u ld im p ly that the police w ere still
present.
The perfective/imperfective contrast is a m orphological distinction also found
in the present tense. However, perfective interpretations are incompatible with pre­
sent time reference, and in many languages, including Russian, the perfective n o n ­
past tense has future reference (17, Dahl, 1985, p. 80):

(17) Ja napisupcrl pism o.

I PER I;.Write. NON-PAST letter

“ I w i l l w r i t e a/the letter.”

T h e special m e a n in g s o f the Russian im p e rfe c tiv e in (16) are not n ecessarily

shared by all languages with a perfective/imperfective distinction, but we find c o u n ­
terparts to the o b s e r v a t io n s in ( 12 ) —(15) as well as (17) across a w id e range o f
languages.

3.2. Perfective/im perfective C ontrast: O bservations

from French
In R o m a n c e la n g u a g e s, the p e r fe c t iv e / im p e r fe c t iv e co n tra st is c o n fin e d to the
past tense, w h e r e tense a n d a sp ect are m o r p h o lo g ic a lly fu s e d . Thus, the Italian
Passato Rem oto fe c i “ I d id ” (p e r fe c tiv e past) is a s p e c tu a lly o p p o s e d to the Im per-
fetto fa c ev o “ I w a s d o in g / u s e d to d o ” (im p e rfe c tiv e past) (cf. B e rtin c tto and
Delfitto, 2 0 0 0 ). S im ila r o b s e r v a t io n s can b e m a d e for the S pan ish Preterito escribio
“ H e w ro te ” (p e rfe c tiv e past) vs. the Im perfecto escribia “ he w a s w r itin g / u s e d to

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w rite” (im perfective past) (cf. C ip r ia and R oberts, 2 0 0 0 ) or the French Passé
Sim ple il écrivit “ he wrote” (perfective past) vs. the Im parfait il écrivait “ he w ro te ”
(im perfective past).
The aspectual contrast between the French Passé Simple (PS) in (18a) and the
Imparfait (Imp) in (18b) resembles that between the Simple Past and the Progressive
in (2a) and (b):

(18) a. Il écrivit sa thèse en 2009.

He w ro te .P S h is thesis in 2009
“ H e w rote his thesis in 2009.”
Il la fini en Septem bre.
“ H e finished in Septem ber.”
#Je pense q u ’ il est en train d ’é crire la conclu sion m aintenant.
#1 think he is w ritin g the conclusion now.
#11 n’a ja m a is fini, c a r il est m ort en Septem bre.
#H e never finished, fo r he died in Septem ber.

b. Il écrivait sa thèse en 2009.

He w ro te .IM P his thesis in 2009
“ He w a s w ritin g his thesis in 2009.”
Il a fini en Septem bre.
“ H e finished in Septem ber.”
Je p en se q u ’il est en train d’é crire la co n clu sio n m aintenant.
“ I th in k he is w ritin g the co n clu sio n now.”
II n’a ja m a is fini, car il est m ort en Septembre.
“ H e n ever fin ish ed , for he d ied in Septem ber.”

With the ongoing process reading, there is no entailment that the event c u lm i­
nates, that is, (18b) does not entail (18a) (cf. also 6b and 14 above). However, the
Imparfait is not incompatible with a statement affirming completion (cf. 2b).
The Passé Simple does not allow the process to continue at the speech time, whereas
the Im parfait does.
The Passé Simple and Imparfait affect temporal structure in a similar way as w e
observed in (2) and (15). (19a) illustrates temporal overlap with the Imparfait , and
(19b) succession in time with the Passé Simple (examples from Molendijk, 1990):

(19) a. Q u an d l’e n n em i attaqua son arm ée, le général se retirait.

W h en the e n e m y attackcd.ps his arm y, the general withdrew.iMP
“ W h en the en em y attacked his arm y, the general w as w ithdraw ing.”
b. Q uand l’e n n em i attaqua son arm ée, le général se retira.
W hen the en em y attacked.ps his arm y, the general withdrew.ps
“ W h en the e n e m y attacked his arm y, the general withdrew.”

The Slavic and R om an ce imperfective are often compared to the English P ro­
gressive. Note though that R o m an ce languages have special periphrastic construc­
tions for progressive means, illustrated in (20):

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(20) a. Yo estaba h ablan d o con m i m adre. [Spanish]

“ I w as talking with m y m oth er"
b. N ous so m m e s en train de chercher un nouvel appartem ent. [French]
“ We are lo o k in g fo r a new ap artm en t;’

Just like the Slavic imperfective (cf. 13a), the R om ance imperfective is com pat­
ible with stative verbs (21a), and allows a habitual interpretation (21b) besides the
ongoing process reading in (19a), com pare (13c):

(21) a. Julie était am ou reu se de M arc.

Julie was.iMP in.love of M arc
“ Julie w as in love with M arc.”
b. Le sam ed i, Julie jouait au tennis.
T he Saturday, Julie p layed. i m p at tennis
“ On Saturdays, Julie played te n n is ”

Just like the Russian imperfective (cf. 16a), the French Imparfait can refer to a
completed event, as pointed out by Brunot and Bruneau (1949) who cite examples
like (22) (translation by Binnick, 1991, p. 374):

(22) Lorsque le notaire arriva avec M . GeofFrin . . . elle les reçut elle-m êm e et les invita à
tout visiter en détail. Un m o is plus tard, elle signait le contrat de vente et achetait en
m ê m e tem ps une petite m aison bourgeoise. (M aupassan t, Une vie, p. 292)
“ W h en the n o ta ry arrived. PS with M . G eotfrin . . . she received.PS th em herself, and
invited. PS them to ex am in e every th in g in detail. A m onth later, she signed.lM P the
contract o f sale and bought.lM P [at the sam e time] a little b ou rgeois house.”

The three events o f arriving, receiving and inviting are reported as complete
events in the Passé Simple. Signing the contract and buying a house are related in the
Im parfait , but clearly refer to completed events in the past. This use o f the Imparfait
depends on adverbials such as un mois plus tard a month later’ in (22) m o v in g the
story time, which has given rise to the term Imparfait de rupture (Tasmowski, 1985),
and emphasizes the discourse function o f aspect (cf. Brès, 2005, and references
therein; and Carruthers, this volume).
The range o f m eanings found for the R om ance perfective/imperfective past
resembles the Slavic situation. Yet, there are differences, relating to the interaction
between gram m atical aspect and situation class (in Slavic) and the interaction
between grammatical aspect and tense (in Rom ance). These compositionality issues
are addressed in section 4.

3.3. P ro g ressive and Perfect: O b serv atio n s fro m E n g lish

The p erfective/im p erfective contrast is often v ie w e d as the typ o lo g ically m ost
p ro m in e n t asp ectual d istinction, but not all languages fit this b i n a r y ap p roach . E n g ­
lish d o e sn ’t, for instance, for it has a Progressive, w h ic h only g ra m m a tic a liz es a
su b p a r t o f the m e a n in g o f the im p erfective. The focus o f the Progressive on o n g o in g

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processes typically restricts its application to non-stative verbs (cf. 8 above). Unlike
the Slavic and Rom ance Imperfective, the English Progressive does not have a h a ­
bitual interpretation. Unlike the Simple Past in (2a), the Past Progressive in (2b)
does not com m it the speaker to the claim that the culmination point (completion
o f the dissertation) is ever reached, a reading referred to as the “ imperfective par­
adox.” Accordingly, the Progressive is generally assigned a m o d a l semantics, fol­
lowing D o w ty (1979). U n d er the m odal analysis, a Progressive sentence requires
part o f the process to be realized in the actual world, but leaves open the rem ain ing
part including its culmination point, or situates this part o f the process in som e
possible world, with strict requirements on accessibility from the actual world
(compare Vlach, 1981; Parsons, 1990; L an d m an , 1992; Portner, 1998; and Zucchi,
1999, for a range o f proposals, and Mair, this volum e, for an overview).
Tlie Simple Past in (2a) is som etim es described as perfective (e.g., Smith,
1991/1997), because it presents the writing o f the dissertation as a completed event.
Alternatively, we can view the Simple Past as an aspectually neutral tense, which just
locates the state or event introduced by the predicate-argument structure in the past
(K am p and Reyle, 1993; de Swart, 1998). G iven that “write a dissertation” is an
accomplishment, both approaches imply that the event in (2a) culminates before
the speech time. The neutral interpretation accounts m ore easily for stative d escrip­
tions (i), or the habitual interpretation o f the Simple Past (23):

(23) Julia played tennis on Saturdays.

Besides the Progressive, English also has a perfect/non-perfect distinction,

which is viewed as a temporal operator by Reichenbach (1947) and Verkuyl (1999),
but included in the category o f aspect by C o m rie (1976); see Ritz, this volume.
Across languages, the perfect/non-perfect contrast is generally expressed periphras-
tically (Dahl and Velupillai, 2008).
The Perfect is not to be c o n fu s e d with the Perfective. Slavic languages gram -
maticalize the p e rfective /n o n -p erfe ctiv e contrast, but do not have a perfect.
R o m a n c e languages on the other hand g ra m m a tic a liz e both a perfective/im perfec-
tive contrast in the past tense (French Passé Simple donna ‘g a v e . P E R F ’ vs. Imparfait
donnait g a v e . I M P ’ ) and a perfect/n o n -p erfe ct contrast in all tenses (French Passé
Composé a donné ‘has given, Plus-que-Parfait avait donné ‘had g iv e n ) .
Reichenbach (1947) used the contrast between (24a) and (b) to motivate a
representation that relies on three points, nam ely S (for speech time), E (for event
time) and R (for reference time):

(24) a. Julia left the party. E ,R — S

b. Julia has left the party. E — R,S

In both (24a) and (b), the event o f Julia leaving the party is situated before the
speech time, so two points do not suffice to distinguish their temporal structure.
The structure E,R— S for the Simple Past indicates that the event in (24a) is viewed
from a reference point coinciding with the event, whereas the reference point for
the event in (24b) coincides with the speech time (E— R,S). rlh e deictic character o f

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the Present Perfect in (24b) blocks the use o f time adverbials locating the event at a
particular point in time:

(25) a. Julia left the party at 10pm.

b. #Julia has left the party at 10pm .

However, the observations in (25) hold for the Present Perfect in standard Brit­
ish English, but not necessarily in other varieties o f the language (cf. Ritz (2011), and
this volume), and they do not hold for counterparts o f the Present Perfect in lan­
guages like Dutch, German or French (cf. de Swart, 2007).
Comrie (1976), Moens and Steedman (1988), Kamp and Reyle (1993), and others
offer aspectual analyses o f the perfect in terms of mapping of the event into a post­
state o f the event (result state or otherwise). As Comrie (1976, p. 60) points out,
perfects vary across languages in whether they do (e.g., English, as in (26a)) or do
not (e.g., Dutch, as in (26b)) allow a so-called continuative interpretation. The con-
tinuative interpretation of (26a) locates the initial boundary o f the state o f living in
the past, and focuses on the result o f starting the state, which extends into the pre­
sent (interpretation 26a(i)):

(26) a. M ary has lived in London for five years.

(i) M ary m oved to London five years ago, and still lives there.
(ii) M ary lived in London during a five year period in the past,
b. Maria heeft v ijf jaar in Londen gewoond.
M aria has five years in London lived

The continuative perfect reading is available in English (26a(i)), but not in its
Dutch counterpart (26b), which only allows the reading in (26aii).
De Swart (2007) and Ritz (2011) emphasize that we should combine temporal
and aspectual features of the perfect in order to explain its discourse behavior. The
Reichenbachian analysis suggests that perfects do not have a narrative use, for their
reference point coincides with the speech time. The (British) English present perfect
(PP) is indeed blocked in narrative when-clauses (27a), where we have to use the
Simple Past (SP), but its French counterpart the Passé Composé (PC) is perfectly
felicitous in this environment (27b):

(27) a. *When John has seen (PP) me, he has got (PP)/got (SP) frightened,
b. Quand Jean m a vu (PC), il a eu peur (PC).

Portner (2003) provides a recent overview o f proposals, and a distinction

between semantic and pragmatic features of the interpretation o f the perfect, where
the primary semantic contribution o f the perfect is described as temporal in nature.
See also Ritz, this volume. Compare Schmitt (2001) and Schaden (2009) for more
observations on the perfect in a crosslinguistic perspective.
The Perfect and Progressive can be combined in sentences like (28):

(28) a. Professor P. is the head o f the writing department, where he has been writing and
perform ing since 2002.
b. [The dwarves in the story o f Snow White and the seven dwarves:]
V E R B A L ASPECT 763

W ho h as b een sitting in m y chair? W ho h as been eatin g from m y plate?

W h o has b een d rin k in g from m y cu p?

These combinations allow both continuative (28a) and non-continuative (28b)

interpretations. Their interpretation requires a handle on the compositional s e m a n ­
tics o f tense and aspect m arkers, w hich will be addressed in section 4.

3.4. M u ltip le A sp e c tu a l D istin ctio n s: O b se rv a tio n s fro m

M a n d a rin C h in e se
Besides English, m any other languages display rich aspectual systems that are diffi­
cult to relate to the perfective/imperfective or the perfect/non-perfect distinction.
Here I offer some observations from M andarin Ch inese to illustrate. Sino-Tibetan
languages are well know n for lacking the category o f verbal tense (cf. Lin, this v o l­
ume). They make up for it by a rich aspectual system. M andarin C hinese is strongly
isolating, so these aspectual distinctions are not rendered by inflection on the verb,
but by separate m arkers in the sentence. Sentences without aspect m arkers can
often be used with different temporal interpretations, as illustrated in (29a) and (b)
(from Lin, 2003b):

(29) a. Lisi hen jushang.

Lisi v e ry depressed
“ Lisi is very depressed.”
b. Z h an g san dap uo yi-ge huaping.
Z h an g san break one-CL vase
“ Z h an gsan broke a vase.”

Lin (2003b) and Sm ith and Erbaugh (2005) point out that in isolation, sen ­
tences without time adverbials or aspect markers, describing atelic situations, tend
to get a present tense interpretation (29a), but those describing telic situations get
past time reference (29b), along the lines o f B o h n em eyer and Swifts (2004) analysis
o f default aspect.
M andarin has a range o f aspectual particles that m a y affect location in time,
and corpus studies indicate that such m arkers are widely used (Xiao and McEnery,
2004). Example (30a) (from Smith, 1991, p. 349) illustrates that sentences m arked
with the perfective particle le often describe completed events in the past. However,
as (30b, from Smith, 1991, p. 349) illustrates, le m erely requires boundedness o f the
event, not necessarily completion, which is conveyed by the resultative suffix -wan
‘finish’ (compare also Soh and Kuo, 2005).

(30) a. Wo sh uiaduan le tui.

1 break asp leg
“ I broke m y leg (it s still in a cast).”
b. Wo zuotian xie le gei Z h an g san de xin , keshi m ei x ie - w a n .
I yesterday w rite asp to Z h an g san de letter, but not write- finish
“ I w rote a letter to Z h an g san yesterday, but 1 didn’t finish it.”

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764 ASPECT

c. *L im in g ai-le X iao ju an .
L im in g Io vc-asp X ia o ju an
“ L im in g loved X iaoju an ."
d. L im in g ai-le X iao ju an san -n ian .
L im in g lo v e -a sp X ia o ju a n th ree-year
“ L im in g loved X iao ju an for three years.”
e. T am en d ao d a sh an d -d in g le.
T hey reach m ou n tain -top asp
“ T h e y reached the top o f the m ountain.”

Le is incompatible with stative verbs (30c), unless they are bounded by a for-
adverbial (3od) (Xiao and M cE n ery, 2004). There is a difference between verbal - le ,
as illustrated in (3oa-d) and sentence-final -le (3oe, from Soh, 2009). Verbal -le is
generally treated as a perfective marker, whereas the sentence-final -le presupposes
a transition and is closer to a perfect.
Other aspectual markers include the experiential particle guo in (31a from
Smith, 1991, p. 349), which can be combined with -le} as illustrated in (31b) (from
Lin, 2003b):

a. W o sh uaiduan guo tui.

I break ASP leg
“ I broke m y leg (it has healed since
b. W o chi guo le.
I eat ASP ASP
“ I have eaten.”
c. L isi zai xi-zao.
L isi asp take-bath
“ L isi is tak in g a bath.”
d. Ta zui li jiao -zh e koxiangtang.
he m outh inside chew-ASP ch ew in g-gu m
“ He is ch e w in g a ch ew in g gu m in his mouth.”

T h e experien tial particle guo in (31a) requires a d isco n tin u ity with the
speech tim e that le in (30a) (and the E n g lish Perfect) lack. Z a i and zhe in (31c,d),
fro m Lin (200 3b ) fo cu s on the internal d e v e lo p m e n t o f the situation. Just like
the E n g lish P ro gressive , zai (31c) is restricted to d y n a m ic (n on -stative) verbs.
Z h e (3 id) o n ly c o m b in e s with atelic verb p h rases. T h e ex a m p le s in (30) and
(31) give a m e re indication o f the c o m p le x it y o f verbal aspect in M a n d a rin
C h in e se .
The data provided here for Russian, French, English, and M a n d a rin C hinese
only scratch the surface o f the com plexity o f verbal aspect in these languages.
However, the variou s ways o f establishing aspectual distinctions in the g ra m m a r
can be com pared in terms o f the readings they have, the entailments and con tin u ­
ations they perm it, the effects they have on temporal structure, and the distribution
o f labor between the m em b ers o f the tem poral-aspectual system o f the language.
V E R B A L ASPECT 765

A full-fledged theory o f gram m atical aspect is very complex, because it needs to

take into account the crosslinguistic variations and the interactions o f aspectual
markers with aspectual class and with the rest o f the gramm ar.

4. T h e C o m po sitio n a l Stru ctu r e of A spect

The distinctions established between aspectual class, gram m atical aspect and tense
raise the question how these notions interact. In this section, I assume a layered
structure o f aspect, and discuss a range o f challenges for the com positional inter­
pretation o f aspect. Section 4.1 introduces the basic ideas, section 4.2 focuses on the
relation between perfectivity and telicity, and section 4.3 on the amalgam ation o f
tense and grammatical aspect.

4.1. A L a yere d R epresen tation

M an y current theories adopt som e version o f a layered representation in which
tense syntactically and/or semantically dominates gram m atical aspect, which in
turn dominates aspectual class.

(32) [Tense [A spect* [aspectual class]]]

The Kleene star * is well know n from mathematical logic and indicates that
aspectual markers can occur o, 1, 2 . . .n times in the structure. (33) spells out the
layered structure o f (1a), (2a), and (2b):

(33) a. Bill w a s in love w ith Susan.

[P A ST [Bill in love w ith Susan] |
b. Sarah w rote a dissertation.
[P A ST [Sarah w rite a dissertation]]
c. Sarah w as w ritin g a dissertation.
[P A ST [P R O G [Sarah write a dissertation]]]

The difference in aspectual nature is located in the presence o f a gram m atical

m arker P R O G in (33c), versus its absence in (33a) and (33b).
Tliere is substantial disagreement in the literature about the way such a layered
aspectual structure should be set up and interpreted. M ayb e tense is not projected
in tenseless languages such as M andarin Chinese. Som e languages are argued to
have “ lower” or “ higher” aspectual projections than others, giving rise to a range o f
possible functional structures within the verb phrase (cf. Verkuyl, 1999; Travis,
200 0, 20 10 ; Ritter and Rosen, 2005; Ram chand, 2008). (For example, the progres­
sive can be viewed as a V P operator, and the tense as an operator at the sentential
level, as in (39b) below, for instance. This chapter will not be concerned with the
difference between V P and S-level, which becomes relevant, however, in sentences
that contain scope-bearing operators in subject position.)
766 ASPECT

Some researchers defend a two-component theory in which grammatical

aspect and aspectual class are interpreted by means o f different sets of tools
(Smith, 1991/1997; Depraetere, 1995; Filip, 1999; Bertinetto and Delfitto, 2000),
others use the same semantic machinery for both, whichever that may be (Moens
and Steedman, 1988; Parsons, 1990; Kamp and Reyle, 1993; de Swart, 1998;
Verkuyl, 1999; Cipria and Roberts, 2000). What both lines o f analysis agree on
is that grammatical aspect determines the aspectual nature o f the sentence as
a whole, and may overrule certain semantic features o f its internal aspectual
make-up.
The interactions between aspectual class and grammatical aspect complicate the
debate. For English, we have already seen that the Progressive is normally restricted
to non-stative verbs ((2b) vs. (8a)). This strongly suggests that the interpretation of
the Progressive is closely intertwined with the semantics of the verb it applies to,
instead o f being fully independent from it. Similar observations can be made for
Mandarin Chinese, where the progressive marker zai is restricted to non-stative verbs
(cf. section 3.4 above). Whether such dependency relations are better modeled as
constraints on transitions in an aspectual network (Moens and Steedman, 1988) or as
marked aspectual choices in a two-component theory (Smith, 1991, p. 226) remains
an open issue.
The layered structure in (32) helps us analyze sentences such as (34a) and (b),
which contain multiple aspect markers in terms o f the recursive application o f as­
pectual operators:

(34) a. Who has been sitting on m y chair?

?x [PRES [PERF [PROG [x sitting on speaker’s chair]]]]
b. Ta he-le san-wan tang le. [Mandarin Chinese]
“ He drank three bowls o f soup.”
[LE [LE [he drink three-bowl soup]]]
c. pod-pis-yva-t’ “to sign” (imp) [Russian]
[IMP [PERF [write]]]

The Perfect in (34a) takes wide scope over the Progressive, and the inverse
scope reading is not available. Soh and Gao (2006) argue that in double -le sen­
tences in Mandarin, sentence-final -le necessarily takes wide scope over verbal -le.
Similarly, the imperfective suffix -{y)va- takes wide scope over the lexical perfective
prefix pod - in the Russian secondary imperfective construction in (34c). So the iter­
ation of aspectual markers is subject to ordering constraints in the semantics. Koenig
and Muansuwan (2005) carry out an extensive study o f recursive applications of
aspect markers in Thai.
Although there are interactions between aspectual class and grammatical
aspect in languages like English, we can still tease the two apart in a representation
like (33). This is much more difficult in languages in which the boundaries between
the two aspectual categories are not strict, such as Russian and Mandarin Chinese
(section 4.2). Once we realize that grammatical markers can impose structure on a
category they dominate, we can also address such effects in the relation between
V E R B A L ASPECT 767

tense and gram m atical aspect (4.3), as well as gram m atical aspect and other aspec-
tually sensitive expressions (section 5).

4.2. P erfe ctivity and Telicity in R u ssia n and M a n d a rin

C h in e se
Given that m ost Slavic languages do not have articles, the contrast between atelic
verb phrases like read articles and telic verb phrases like read the articles is not made
overtly. Russian bare plurals and bare mass nouns are interpreted as definite or “sp e­
cific” in the context o f a perfective verb form (35b), whereas they can be definite or
indefinite in the context o f an imperfective verb form (35a) (examples from Borik,
2002, p. 68, based on insights going back to Schoorlem m er, 1995). Thus the perfec­
tive verb in (35b) is necessarily telic:

(35) a. Pctja citalimp stat’i/litcraturu.

Peter read-iMP-PAST.SG.MASC artides/literature-ACC
“ Peter w a s readin g articles/the articles/literature/the literature/read articles/
literature.”

b. Petja p ro-citalpcrf stat’i/literaturu.

Peter PERF-read-PAST.SG.MASC artides/literature-ACC
“ Peter read the articles/the literature.”

T h is in te r tw in in g o f g r a m m a tic a l aspect a n d asp ectual class has given rise to a

debate on the status o f prefixes in Slavic languages: do they co un t as perfectivity
m a rk e rs, as a rg u e d by Sm ith (1991/1997) and B o r i k (2002), or are they telicity i n ­
d ucin g, as cla im e d b y Filip (1999) (for C zech ) and A r s e n ijv ic (2006) (for Se rb o -
C r o a tia n )? Di Sciullo and S la b a k o v a (2005), G e h r k e (2007), and R a m c h a n d (2008)
suggest that the w a y out o f this d i l e m m a is to establish a d istin ctio n betw een two
kin d s o f prefixes.
Lexical affixes that create a different verb m eaning qualify as internal affixes,
w h ich alfect the argument structure and bear on telicity. For instance, when the
imperfective root pisat " t o write’ combines with the lexical prefix pod-, the result is a
perfective verb pod-pisat’ with a different lexical meaning, ‘to sign’ (cf. 11 above).
Prefixes such as na - in (11a) w h ich build aspectual pairs also qualify as internal pre­
fixes. External prefixes such as po- in po-spalV sleep for a while’ or za- in za-pisat yito
begin to write’ bear on the event as a whole. G ehrke (2007, p. 171) shows that internal
prefixes always induce telicity (36a). In contrast, externally prefixed predicates are
not necessarily telic, as illustrated in (36b) (cf. also Filip, 2000):

(36) a. Ja na-pisalp<,rl p is’m o *(za) dve minuty.

I PERF.wrote letter.acc * (in ) tw o m in u te s

“ I w rote a/the le tte r in/*for t w o m inutes.”

b. On p o - s p a lpc,f (*za) dve m inuty.

He PERF.slept (*in) two m inutes

“ He slept *in/for tw o minutes.”
768 ASPECT

Under the approach advocated by Gehrke and others, internal prefixes contrib­
ute to aspectual class, whereas external prefixes contribute to grammatical aspect.
The distinction cannot be drawn on morphological grounds, because both markers
are part o f the inflectional system o f the verb. Note that verbs can take two perfec­
tive prefixes, but their order is constrained: kopif ‘to save-IMP’, na-kopif ‘PERF-to
save up and pod-na-kopif ‘PERF-PERF-to save up some, but *na-pod-kopif (Borik,
2002). According to Gehrke (2007, p. 170), external prefixes can be stacked on top of
internal prefixes, but not the other way around.
The close connection between aspectual class and grammatical class in Rus­
sian is reason for caution in the compositional analysis o f aspect in a crosslin-
guistic perspective. We also find this phenomenon in Mandarin Chinese.
Mandarin Chinese does not have articles, and also lacks the category o f number,
so there is no formal distinction between singular and plural nouns. As a result,
a bare nominal such as N could mean “a N ” “the N ” “Ns,” or "the N s ” This has
similar consequences for aspectual distinctions grounded in predicate-argument
structure as what we saw for Russian. Sybesma (1999) notes that bare nomi-
nals get a definite or specific interpretation with a range o f predicates that are
bounded for reasons independent o f the object, as in the Mandarin Chinese
examples (37):

(37) a- Wo he-guan le tang.

I drink-up a s p soup
“I finished the/*some soup.”
b. Wo mai-zhao le shu.
I buy-get a sp book
“I managed to buy the/*some books.”

In section 1.1, we observed that English has inherently telic verbs (eat up> drink
up), but in Mandarin we construct such verbs. Sybesma defines the predicates in
(37a, b) as perfective predicates, which have a built-in moment o f completion.
In both Russian and Mandarin Chinese we observe that perfectivity imposes
telicity in the absence of articles. Other aspectual markers (imperfective in Russian;
guo, etc. in Mandarin) do not have such effects, so grammatical aspect and aspec­
tual class are easier to tease apart in those constructions. However, in a language like
Finnish, partitive case may obliterate the distinction between imperfectivity and
atelicity (cf. Kiparsky, 1998, and Richardson, this volume), so conflation is not
bound to perfectivity.

4*3* Amalgamating Tense and Grammatical Aspect in French

Further complexities arise in Romance languages, in which the past tense and
perfective/imperfective aspect are morphologically fused (cf. section 3.2). For ex­
amples like (18a), repeated here as (38a), a separation o f temporal and aspectual
information in the layered structure would seemingly lead to the representation
in (38b).
V E R B A L ASPECT 769

(38) a. Il écrivit sa thèse en 2009.

He wrote.ps his thesis in 2009
“ Ile wrote his thesis in 2009.”
b. [ p a s t [ p e r f [ p e r f [h e w r i t e his thesis] 11

c. [ p a s t [he w r it e his thesis]]

The problem with (38b) is that the m o rp h o lo g y o f the Passé Sim ple does not
com positionally m ap onto this structure: the verb form écrivit cannot be split up
into a part that leads to the past tense operator, and a part that introduces the p e r­
fective operator. As an alternative, de Swart (1998) adopts the structure in (38c).
The Passé Sim ple introduces just a past tense operator, but requires the predicate-
argument structure to introduce an event. Given that “ he write his thesis” qualifies
as an accom plishm ent (cf. section 1.2), (38c) locates a b oun ded event in the past just
like the English (2a) does, which does not c arry overt perfective m orphology.
Under de S w a rts (1998) analysis, the Im parfait gets the sam e semantics as the
Passé Sim ple : it introduces a past tense operator. However, whereas the Passé Sim ple
locates an event in the past, the Im parfait requires the predicate-argument descrip­
tion to contribute a state or an unbounded process. An example like (21a), repeated
here as (39a), can then be analyzed as in (39b):

(39) a. Julie était am oureuse de Marc.

Julie w as. i m p in.love of Marc
“ Julie was in love with Marc.”
b. [PAST[Julie be in love with Marc]]

The Im parfait sentence in (39a) locates the state o f Julie being in love with Marc
in the period preced ing the speech time. The semantics o f (39a) is then similar to
that o f the English example (33a) above, which does not carry overt imperfective
m orphology.

4.4. Aspectual Coercion

In line with this analysis, corpus research indicates that the R om ance perfective past
tense is found predom inantly with event predicates, and the imperfective past is
found m ostly with state and activity predicates (cf. de Jonge, 20 0 0 for Spanish). But
o f course, both past tense form s are gram m atically possible with any type o f e v e n ­
tuality. Under de Sw arts (1998) analysis, the combination o f the Passé Sim ple with a
state/activity verb, or the combination o f the Im parfait with an event predicate
requires a process o f aspectual coercion. Coercion is the process by m eans o f which
an argument adapts to the requirement o f the functor with which it com bines (cf.
Pustejovsky, 1995). Aspectual coercion then requires the eventuality description to
shift its m eaning to satisfy the aspectual selection requirements o f the Passé Sim ple
or Im parfait. For an Im parfait sentence like (18b), repeated here as (40a), this leads
to the representation in (40b), where C h indicates the coercion o f an event predi­
cate into a hom ogeneous description.
770 ASPECT

(40) a. Il écrivait sa thèse en 2009.

He w rote.iM P h is thesis in 2009
“ H e w a s w r itin g h is thesis in 2009.'’
b. [PAST [C c [he w rite h is th esis]]]

The coercion operator C di is located in the g ra m m a tic a l aspect slot o f the

layered representation, but is not overt. In this case, the o n g o in g process readin g
is the m ost likely interpretation o f C ch, but for an exam ple like (21b) above, C ch
leads to a habitual interpretation. A lth o u g h the coercion operator allows for a
range o f interpretations, it cannot be s em an tically em p ty: there must be an a s p e c ­
tual shift in m e a n in g associated with it. The interpretation o f C eh is always a ss o c i­
ated with a shift from events to states 01* u n b o u n d e d processes. The coercion
operator C hc, w h ich com es into play when the Passé Sim ple c o m b in es with a state
or an event, often triggers an inchoative read in g as in (41a) (from M olend ijk,
1 9 9 0 , p. 93):

(41) a. Jean inventa une machine à traduire. Il connut la gloire.

Jean invented.ps a machine to translate He knew.ps the glory
“ Jean invented a translation machine. He received praise.”
b. [PAST [Chc [he knew the glory]]

The analysis in terms o f aspectual coercion is not un controversial. B o n a m i

(2002) and C aud al (2005) propose implicit operators for the Imparfait, w h ich are
lexically licensed, and thus emphasize the role o f aspectual class. Cipria and Roberts
(2 0 0 0 ) argue for Spanish that the different readings o f the Imperfecto are inherent
to the truth-conditional semantics o f this tense form . B o n o m i (1997) adopts a c o m ­
parable approach to Italian, cf. also Bertinetto and Delfitto (2000). One way o f set­
tling the debate on aspectual coercion vs. underspecificity or ambiguity is to rely on
evidence from processing. However, these experim ental data remain difficult to
interpret (cf. de Swart, forthcoming).
Cross-linguistically, we find sim ilar effects o f aspectual reinterpretation in
Russian and M an d arin . A ccordin g to Smith (1991/1997), stative verbs do not take
perfective prefixes in Russian. I h e rare instances o f perfective states give rise to
inchoative readings as in ponjat\ the perfective o f ponim at>‘understand’ in (42a,
from C o m rie , 1976, p. 1.9). Soh (2009) provides sim ilar exam ples for M andarin
C hinese (42b):

(42) a. Nakonec 011 ponjal, v cem delo.

“At last he g ra sp e d w hat was up.”
b. Ta z h id a o -lc z h e -jia n shi.
he know'-ASP this-C L m atter
“ He c a m e to k n o w th is matter.”

States are n orm ally not compatible with the aspectual particle -le (cf. section 3.4
above), so Soh (2009) takes (42b) to describe an achievement, suggesting a reinter­
pretation o f the stative verb.

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Effects o f aspectual coercion also arise with English for- and in -adverbials that
are sensitive to the telic/atelic nature o f the predicate-argument structure they
apply to. A s pointed out in section 2.1 above, sentences containing an event predi­
cate are not always infelicitous with a /or-adverbial, but give rise to a special
interpretation:

(43) a. Jim hit a go lf ball into the lake for an hour.

[p a s t [for an hour [C.h (Jim hit a go lf ball into the lake)]]]
b. The baby was asleep in ten minutes.
[p a s t [in ten minutes [Chr (the baby be asleep|]Jl

(43a) gives rise to an iterative interpretation such that the same g o lf ball repeat­
edly ends up in the lake (Van G een h oven , 2005). The aspectual reinterpretation o f
the predicate-argument structure is located in the coercion operator C ch, m apping
the event onto an atelic (iterative) situation that can be measured out by the for-
adverbial. The inchoative interpretation o f was in (43b) implies that the initial point
o f the baby being asleep was ten minutes after the m om ent where the time m ea su re­
ment started (e.g., the m o m e n t she was put to bed). Given that the in- adverbial
requires an event predicate, the atelic predicate be is reinterpretated as a transition
between two states by the coercion operator C hc.
The analysis spelled out in (43) broadens the scope o f the layered structure in
(32) to include other aspectually sensitive expressions besides gram m atical aspect
markers. We further investigate these in section 5.

5. G r a m m a tica l A spect and Other A spect -

Se n sit iv e E x pr essio n s

Section 4 ended by extending the layered structure in (40) to account for the inter­
action o f gram m atical aspect with aspectual adverbials like fo r an hour/in an hour.
In this section, we broaden the approach to a crosslinguistic investigation o f the
aspectual requirements o f m easurem ent adverbials (5.1), and to the interaction o f
aspect with the m arker o f sentential negation not and frequency adverbs like always ,
often (5.2).

5.1. Interaction o f G ram m atical A spect w ith M easurem ent

A dverbials
As we saw in Section 4.2, the amalgamation between gram m atical aspect and aspec­
tual class makes it difficult to determ ine whether Russian in- and fo r- adverbials are
sensitive to perfectivity or telicity. The examples in (36), repeated here as (44) have
been used to argue in favor o f a distinction between internal and external affixes.
Under the layered structure o f aspect, they can be handled in terms o f scope:

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(44) a. Ja na-pisalpÉrf pis’m o *(za) dve minuty.

I PERF.wrotc letter.a c c *(in ) t w o m in u te s
“ I w r o t e a/the letter in / * fo r t w o m inutes.”

[PAST [in two minutes [PERF [I write a letter])]]

b. On po-spalperl (*za) dve minuty.
He PERF.slept ( * in ) tw o m inutes

“ He slept * i n / f o r t w o m inutes.”

[past [perf [for two minutes [he sleep]]]]

U n d e r the assu m p tio n that the internal affix in (44a) is located in a “ lo w ” a s p e c ­

tual p o sition , it takes sc o p e u n d er the m e a su re m e n t adverbial, leading to an inter­
pretation in w h ich the letter took two m in u tes to com plete. T h e / o r -a d v e r b ia l is not
felicitous here, b ecau se the aspectual adverbial applies to a perfective verb, w h ic h is
not the right input. I f the extern al affix in (44b) is located in a “ h igh” asp ectual p o ­
sition, it scop es over the duration adverbial. Perfective aspect here m a r k s the
b o u n d e d n e s s o f the situation o f sleeping for two m inutes. The /«-adverbial is not
felicitous here, b ecau se sleep is an activity verb. The interpretation o f m e a su re m e n t
ex p ressio n s is thus in line with the d istinction between internal and external
prefixes.
A s de Swart (1998) points out, both fo r- and m-adverbials require the Passé
Sim ple in French, w h ich suggests that the adverbial scopes below the aspectually
sensitive tense marker:

(45) a. La rebellion fit rage pendant six ans.

The revolt made. p s rage for six years
“The revolt raged for six years.”
[past [for six years [the revolt rage]]]
b. On finit le débat en trente minutes,
One finished.ps the debate in thirty minutes
“The debate was finished in thirty minutes.”
[past [in thirty minutes [finish the debate]]]

The French Passé Sim ple am algam ates past tim e reference and perfective
aspect (cf. section 4.3 above). G iven that the tense m a rk e r alw ays takes widest
scope in the layered structure in (32), and both in- and fo r - adverbials lead to a
b o u n d e d situation w ith well-defined initial and final points, both structures in
(45a) and (b) satisfy the aspectual selections o f the Passé Sim ple rather than the
Im parfait.
M ore complex situations arise when the m easurem ent phrase interacts with
multiple aspectual markers, as in the Spanish example (46) (from de Swart, 1998):

(46) Toda la tarde estuvieron entrando visitas,

all the afternoon were.PRET com ing visitors
[PAST ^(. [all afternoon [PRO G [visitors come]]]]

T h e situation in (46) is p re se n te d as a single co m plete w h o le (hence the

P retérito , P R E T ) , but con sists o f an o n g o in g action (hence the P ro g re ssiv e ). As

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VE R B A L ASPECT 773

an aspectually sensitive tense, we expect the Spanish Préterito to take wide

scope over the Progressive as well as the fo r -adverbial. Given that toda la tarde
measures the duration o f the ongoing situation, the adverbial scopes over the
Progressive.
The observations made with respect to (44H 46) suggest that the high or low
position of aspect in the language determines the interaction of grammatical aspect
with aspectually sensitive expressions such as measurement phrases. Section 5.2
extends this view to negation and frequency adverbials.

5.2. Recursive Applications of Asp: Negation

and Frequency
Negation takes scope over the Progressive in English (47a). The Perfect allows for
scope ambiguities (47b and c, from de Swart and Molendijk, 1999):

(47) a. Anne was not swimming across the Channel.

[ p a s t [n e g [p r o g [Anne-swim-across-the-Channel]]]]
b. Mary hasn’t met the president.
[ p a s t [n e g [ p e r f PERF [Anne meet the president]]]]
c. Mary hasn’t written a single poem (for twelve years now).
[ p r e s [ p e r f [n e g [Mary write a poem]]]]

There is no result state o f meeting in (47b), and the state of not-writing started
12 years ago (continuative perfect, 47c).
Negation also takes wide scope over perfective verbs in Russian, compare (48a)
and (b) from Smith (1991, p. 335):

(48) a. Ja esce ne éital'mp ètu stat’ju.

I yet not read-iMP this article
“ I have not read this article.” (no reading)
b. Ja esce ne procitalpcrf ètu stat’ju.
I yet not read-PERF this article
“I have not finished reading this article.” (no completion)

As Smith explains, the perfective (48b) denies that the speaker has completed
reading the article, whereas the imperfective (48a) denies that the action was initi­
ated at all.
No such effect is found in Romance languages, where negated sentences gener­
ally combine with the Imperfective past tense form. Compare the French examples
in (49a) (from de Swart and Molendijk, 1999) and (49b):

(49) a. Jean courait après Pauline. Il ne l’attrapait pas.

Jean ran.IMP after Pauline He NEG her caught.IMP NEG
“Jean ran after Pauline. He didn’t catch her.”
[PAST [NEG [Jean catch Pauline]]]
774 ASPECT

b. Les jeunes gens ne vinrent pas chez le vieil homme pendant

The young people N EG cam e.PS N E G by the old m an for
quelque temps,
some time
“ The young people didn't visit the old man for a while.”
[PAST [for some time [N EG [the young people visited the old man

De Swart and M olendijk attribute the preference o f negation for com bining with
the Im parfait to the fact that the aspectual distinction between perfective and imper-
fective is fused with the past tense, which takes wide scope over negation, locating
the absence o f action in the past. Given that absence o f action normally counts as a
state, the aspectual restrictions o f the Im parfait are satisfied in (49a). As illustrated
in (49b), the Passé Sim ple is possible when the negative situation is bounded by a
fo r - adverbial, which we expect under the analysis developed in section 5.1.
Similarly, the negation m arker bu in M an darin Ch inese is incompatible with
the perfective m arker -le, as illustrated in (50a) and (b) (from Ernst, 1995):

(50) a. Wo bu chi mugua.

I not eat papaya
“I do not eat papaya.”
b. *Wo bu chi-le papaya.
c. Wo mei-you chi mugua.
I not-PERF eat papay a

“ I d i d n ’t eat papaya.”

But here the explanation is som ew h at different. A ccord in g to Ernst (1995), bu

requires unbounded aspectual situations, and Lin (2003a) maintains that bu selects
states. A ccording to Soh and Gao (2006), the negator bu scopes higher than verbal-
le. Instead, negative perfective sentences are form ed with the negator m ei and the
auxiliary you (50c, Ernst, 1995).
Frequency adverbials crosslinguistically favor imperfective over perfective
aspect. French past tense sentences that contain adverbials like souvent often’ typi­
cally use the Im parfait (51a):

(51) a. Saint Louis visitait souvent les pauvres.

Saint Louis visited.iMP often the poor
“Saint Louis often visited the poor.”
b. Dans les semaines qui suivirent on parla souvent et on écrivit beaucoup autour de
ce nouveau compagnon.
“ In the w e e k s that f o l l o w e d .p s w e s p o k e . p s o f t e n a n d w r o te .P S a lot a r o u n d this
novel com panion.”

However, examples in which frequency adverbials com bine with the Passé
Sim ple are also found, as illustrated in (51b). They are typically interpreted in relation
to a bounded period o f time, as suggested here by dans les semaines qui suivirent.
Here the duration adverbial delimits the frequency situation. L e n d and Bertinetto
(2000) otfer similar examples from Italian.

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Frequency expressions in Russian generally require the imperfective, as illus­

trated in (52a) (from K lim ek-Jankowska, 2010). However, within the fam ily o f Slavic
languages, there is crosslinguistic variation, for Czech allows perfective aspect in
these contexts, as observed by Eckert (1985, p. 179). K lim ek-K an ko w ska (2010) illus­
trates this with the Czech example (52b):

(52) a. Kazdyi raz kogda on padal, on vstaval.

Every time when he fell.i m p , he stood. i m p up

“Every time he fell, he stood up.”

b. Ka2de kdy£ spadl, tak vstal.

alw ays w h en PERF.fcll then PERF.stood up
“ W henever he fell, he stood up.”

According to Fortuin (2008), the choice o f imperfective aspect in combination

with frequency adverbials reflects the unbounded nature o f the sentence containing a
non-specific num ber o f situations. Klimek-Jankowska (2010) takes the choice o f imper­
fective aspect in (52a) to m ark habituality, whereas the perfective aspect in (52b) reflects
the sequential relation between the events. These analyses suggest that the frequency
adverbial takes narrow scope with respect to imperfective aspect in (52a), but wide
scope with respect to perfective aspect in (52b). In languages in which aspect scopes
high, only the first option is available (cf. 49 and the discussion in do Swart, 2010).
Further interesting issues arise when we combine aspect-sensitive operators,
which m ake conflicting demands on grammatical aspect. We have already seen in
examples (49b) and (51b) that the French Passé Simple and Imparfait are only sensitive
to the highest aspectual operator in the structure. Given the amalgamation o f tense
and grammatical aspect in this language, that outcome is unsurprising. But what about
recursive applications o f aspectual operators in Russian and Mandarin? Although
measurement phrases m ay be compatible with perfective aspect in Russian sentences
like (44b), this possibility disappears when the adverbial measures the duration o f a
habitual or frequentative situation, so the imperfective aspect is required in (53).

(53) Poslednie 10 let ja kuril ot 20 do 25 sigaret v den.

Last 10 years 1 sm oke.iM P from 20 to 25 cigarettes in d ay
“ For ten y ears, I sm oked betw een 20 and 25 cigarettes a day.”

As for Mandarin, bu is not only incompatible with the perfective marker le, but also
with a duration adverbial, as in (54a). As Ernst (1995) points out, the measurement
phrase imposes boundaries upon the process o f sleeping, but bu requires an unbounded
situation, so the infelicity o f (54a) indicates that bu takes scope over the time adverbial:

(54) a. *Jinrong bu shui ba-ge xiaoshi.

Jinrong nf .g sleep eigh t-cr hour
b. Jinrong yiban bu shui ba-ge xiaoshi.
Jin ro n g in -general neg sleep eight-CL hour
c. Ta bu-shi qu lc Beijing,
he NEG-be go asp Beijing
“ It is not the case that he went to Beijing.”

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Interestingly, the sentence is fine if we add an adverbial phrase indicating frequency

or habituality (54b). Here bu takes scope over the adverbial yiban , and indicates that
Jinrong was not in the habit of sleeping eight hours a day. These data suggest a very high
position for negation in the aspectual structure of Mandarin. In contrast, Soh and Gao
(2006) argue that verbal -le takes scope below bu-shi ‘not-be in examples like (54c).
The examples treated in this section indicate that the layered aspectual structure
introduced in section 4 above opens up new ways o f investigating the interaction of
grammatical aspect and other aspect sensitive expressions such as measurement
phrases, negation and frequency adverbials in a wide range of languages.

6 . C o n c l u sio n

The domain o f verbal aspect is complex, because various factors come into play:
lexical features o f the verb, the semantics of predicate-argument structure, aspectual
operators like the Progressive and perfective/imperfective aspect, and aspect-sensitive
expressions such as measurement adverbials, negation and frequency adverbs. A
layered structure in which tense scopes over grammatical aspect, which in turn
scopes over aspectual class, allows us to study the interactions between these expres­
sions in a crosslinguistic perspective. The basic distinction between aspectual class
and grammatical aspect is not always easy to establish, because perfectivity and
telicity may interact, as we saw in Russian and Mandarin Chinese. Similarly, tense
and aspect are amalgamated in French, which correlates with differences in the way
the perfective/imperfective contrast works out in Slavic and Romance languages.
Clearly, a full-fledged theory of aspect requires a crosslinguistic perspective.

A C K N O W LED G M EN T

The editor would like to thank Jadranka Gvozdanovic for correcting some typos in
a preliminary draft of this chapter.

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PERFECTIVE AND
IMPERFECTIVE ASPECT

JA D R A N K A GVOZDANOVIC

1. L e x i c a l and Gram m atica l A spect

Situations m a y be conceptualized either as total, indivisible wholes or by envisaging

their internal constituency. H ie total view o f situations takes into account the situa­
tions’ boundaries, which are not conceptualized in the internal view o f situations.
These differences are ascribed to aspect, a multifaceted lexical and grammatical
phenom enon with correlates at the level o f discourse (cf. e.g., Thelin, 1990; de Swart,
this volume). It is m ainly due to the complexity o f these phenom ena that no consen­
sus on the kernel issues has been reached yet. 'Hie present study will concentrate on
gram m atical aspect with a p rim ary focus on the Perfective/Imperfective distinction
in Slavic, partly in com parison with other European languages. It will be shown that
the observed typological diversities can be accounted for in a straightforward way if
the lexical and gram m atical levels are kept apart consistently and the layered struc­
ture o f temporal ph enom ena is analyzed systematically.

1.1. Lexical A spect

Lexical aspect is a s s u m e d to d istin gu ish states, activities, a c c o m p lis h m e n ts and
a c h ie v e m e n ts (cf. Vendler, 1967; P a d u c e v a , 2009; Filip, this v o lu m e ) . In English,
states and a c h ie v e m e n ts lack the P ro gressive form w h ic h activities and a c c o m ­
p lish m en ts do have (e.g., it was boiling < a c tiv ity > , I was w riting a letter < a c c o m -
p lish m en t> , but *it was existing <state>, */ was fin d in g a book < a c h ie v e m e n t > ).
A d v e rb ia ls o f te m p o ra l d uration (i.e., / o r-a d v e rb ia ls, d isc u ssed by de Sw art, and

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Rathert, this volume) are combinable with states and activities, but not with ac­
complishments and achievements (e.g., it existed fo r two hours <state>, but *1
reached the top fo r two hours <accomplishment>). On the other hand, adverbials
denoting a stretch o f time required for a completion (i.e., m-adverbials) can be
combined with accomplishments (exceptionally also with achievements), but not
with activities or states (e.g., 1 reached the top in two hours <accomplishment>, but
*1 walked in two hours <activity>). However, by adding an argument to the predi­
cate, an activity can be transformed into an accomplishment and combine with an
m-adverbial accordingly, e.g., *1 walked in two hours, is incongruent due to I walked
being an activity, but I walked to the castle in two hours is acceptable due to the
addition o f the castle which transforms the activity o f walking into an accomplish­
ment (gearing toward the end). Such phenomena reveal the fact that lexical aspect
is not a matter of verbs alone, but a compositional effect o f verbs and their argu­
ments (in line with Verkuyl, 1972; cf. Verkuyl, this volume), primarily within the
predicate phrase.1 Number and definiteness or specificity o f the arguments are
thereby decisive for so-called boundedness; bounded states o f affairs have an in­
herent boundary and are referred to as terminative (cf. e.g., Paduceva, 2009) or
telic (cf. e.g., Barentsen, 1998). I shall henceforth use the term “ (a)telic” as a cover
term for these phenomena, viewing e.g., an activity such as write or write letters as
atelic, but write the/a letter as telic (because the end o f writing is determined by
the/a letter).
Telic states o f affairs can allow for two different readings, focusing either on the
end-phase with the resulting change o f state (i.e., the letter emerging as having been
written), or on the process which leads to this change o f state. In the examples
below, these readings are made explicit by means of for- vs. in- adverbials.

(1) a. He wrote a letter for twenty minutes.

'then he decided not to finish it.
b. He wrote a letter in twenty minutes.
*Then he decided not to finish it.

We can see that a telic state o f affairs can either be viewed as a single terminated
whole (as in lb), or a process leading to the specific termination (as in ta). Example
(lb) illustrates what may be called a broad focus, including the final phase by which
the letter comes into being, whereas (1a) is an instance of a narrow focus not in­
cluding the final phase. Such focusing can either be brought about compositionally
on the lexical level or—depending on the language—by grammatical aspect.

1.2. Aspectual Derivation: Internal versus External Affixes

Aspectual derivation is usually done by adding verbal affixes or periphrasis. Prob­
ably the most varied means are prefixes, which are rooted in prepositions and have
spatial or spatiotemporal meanings. As exemplified by Russian, some prefixes
m odify the verbal meaning and the aspect (e.g., pisat’ ‘writelpp pod-pisat ’ (lit. ‘under­
write’) ‘signpp)> whereas others m odify only the aspect (e.g., na-pisat’ (lit. ‘on-write’)

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‘writepp). The same holds for verb-derivational infixes and suffixes that have a
bearing on aspect and are employed for deriving aspectual pairs (most notably
imperfectivization by means o f suffixes, as exemplified by -a-, -ava-, -ova-, -i/yva-,
-ovyva- in Russian). In addition, as proposed by Gehrke (2007, p. 171)» internal af­
fixes, which affect the argument structure and bear on telicity, can be distinguished
from external affixes, which bear on the event as a whole (the latter may be exem ­
plified by po-'for a while’ or za- 'begin to’). It is specifically assumed that internal
prefixes always induce telicity, whereas external prefixes do not necessarily do so .2
The essential difference between internal and external prefixes is found in their
scope: internal prefixes scope over the verb with the capacity to produce new verbs
with new argument schemata, whereas external prefixes scope over the verb
together with its existing argument schema, adding an additional specification in
the sense o f a quantification (including delimitation) or phase.
The distinction between internal and external is, however, not an inherent
property o f an affix, but a functional difference which depends entirely on the given
combination, as may be illustrated by the following Russian examples.

(2) a. po-obed-a-t’PF
PO -dine-T H EM . A F F IX -IN F IN IT IV E
“dine/have dinner (finish dining)”
b. po-dejstv-ova-t’PF
PO -influence-TH EM . A F F IX -IN F IN IT IV E
1. “affect/influence for a while,” 2. “affect/(take an) effect”
c. po-ljub-i-t’PF
PO -love-TH EM . A F F IX -IN F IN IT IV E
x. “ begin to love” ; 2. “ love for a while”

In example (2a), po-is an internal prefix (po-obedatw ‘dine’ is the Perfective coun­
terpart to obedatm ), in (2b), po- is an internal prefix in the sense o f ‘affect/(have an) ef­
fect’ and an external prefix in the sense o f ‘affect/influence for a whiled whereas in (2c),
po- is an external prefix in both senses. In a comparable way, za- can be an internal pre­
fix and change the argument schema and induce telicity (e.g., Russian rabotatm: ‘work’
> za-rabotatvy + goal/object earn, bytm ‘be’ > zxx-bytm + goal/object ‘forget\govoritm
‘speak’ > za-govoritVf + goal/object ‘persuade, trick out’), but za- can also be an external
prefix which only adds the meaning o f ‘begin to’ without changing the argument schema
(e.g., za-govoritvv ‘begin to speak’ without a change in the argument schema). We cannot
avoid concluding that the distinction between internal and external prefixes (and more
generally affixes) is a matter o f combination o f the prefix meaning and the meaning of
the verb (phrase), in accordance with the compositionality principle.
Affixation by means o f external prefixes is the prim ary (but not the only)
source o f so-called modes o f action (also referred to as Aktionsarten ), i.e., derived
verbal lexical-aspcct classes which denote phases or quantification (e.g., za-petw
‘begin to sing’, za-pev-a-tm: ‘tune the beginning o f singing’; po-rabotat,pr ‘work for
a while ’).3 M odes o f action are marked for grammatical aspect in Russian, but they

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often do not have gram m atical-aspect counterparts (cf. e.g. za-pet>vv ‘begin to sing’,
which has a gram m atical-aspect counterpart in za-pev-a-t'in ‘tune the beginning
o f singing’, in contradistinction to e.g., po-lju b-i-t *F ‘begin to love’ without an a s ­
pectual pair).

1.3. G ram m atical A spect

G ram m atical-aspect ph enom ena are not uniform across languages and empirical
differences o f function and distribution (discussed e.g., by Dahl, 1985) are coupled
with even m ore varied theoretical approaches. These are o f im mediate importance
for the practical analyses o f gram m atical aspect and the corresponding grammatical
and lexical representations.
In an attempt to provide a general definition, C o m r i e (1976, p. 3) defined
gram m atical aspects as different ways o f view in g the internal temporal constitu­
ency o f a situation.'1 The insight that aspect operates on the level o f situations
rem ain s probably the most im portant contribution, w idely accepted in western
aspectology.
G ra m m a tic a l aspect can be analyzed as m odeled on b in ary contrasts (such as
Perfective vs. Imperfective) or com plexes o f binary contrasts (e.g., Simple vs. [P ro­
gressive vs. Habitual] as in Gaelic). In a language w h ich has gram m atical aspect as
a category, absence o f contrast in individ ual cases need not im p ly absence o f as­
pectual m arking, as sh o w n , e.g., by relational states in Russian such as ves-i-t ’
‘weigh’ or so-derz-a-t ’ ‘contain’ which allow for the Im perfective aspect only (cf.
Maslov, 1948, pp. 3 0 8 - 3 1 0 ) , or by incidental verbs denoting a change o f state which
can only be Perfective (e.g., oc-nu-t’-sja ‘recuperate’).
In the present discussion, I shall focus on Slavic languages that have tradition­
ally figured prom inently in discussions about aspect. In the study o f Slavic aspect
there are two m ajor approaches to aspect: a) the approach that hinges on the in ­
herent b o u n d a ry o f situations, and b) the approach that hinges on temporal
constituency.
It was Jakobson’s (1932) analysis o f Russian aspect as a binary privative o p p o si­
tion between Perfective and Imperfective (cf. A n d re w s, this volum e), which p ro ­
vided an im portant be n ch m a rk for further investigations. A cco rd in g to this
analysis, Perfective signalizes the (attainment) o f the “absolute b o u n d a r y ” o f the
event, which Imperfective does not signalize (Jakobson, 19 3 2 ,1 9 7 1 , 2nd, p. 6). 'Ihe
idea that Perfective denotes attainment o f an inherent b o u n d a r y forms the back­
bone o f the Russian tradition, in w h ich it becam e gradually understood that the
inherent b o u n d a ry is in fact a relative, not an absolute one.3 6 W ithin this tradition,
B o n d ark o (e.g., 1998) conceived o f the Perfective aspect as m arked by two mutually
com plem entarily connected features: “ totality” and “ limitation by a boundary.”
Barentsen (e.g., 1998) conceived o f aspect in Russian as based on three hierarchi­
cally ordered features: telicity (i.e., presence o f a virtual boun dary), totality, and
sequential connection by w h ic h a change o f state (in his terminology, o f “situation” )
becom es actualized from the relevant vantage point which m a y coincide either with

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the initial or the resulting state. Even though this description seems plausible, it
does not provide a basis for the aspect choice in cases such as “w ho sewed this dress
o f yours?,” in w h ic h the condition o f a sequential connection is met (i.e., the dress
has been sewn and its presence is attested) and yet Russian does not norm ally use
the Perfective aspect there (i.e., k-to s/-ZIPF /*s-si-/PF teb-e et-o p la t’-e? “ w h o sewed
(for) y o u this d r e s s ’ ). This shows that aspect hinges on conceptualization details
that still have to be defined.
The second type o f approach defines grammatical aspect with respect to internal
temporal constituency. This is a mainly western tradition with som e reference to
logical studies o f time in language (particularly Reichenbach, 1947)- This analysis
was proposed especially by Klein (1994,1995), who defined aspect with reference to
Topic Tim e (TT), i.e., “ the time span to which the speaker’s claim is confined” (Klein,
1994, p. 6), the T im e o f the Situation (TSit), and the T im e o f the Utterance (T U ).7
According to K leins definition o f the Imperfective aspect, “ the time for which an
assertion is m ade falls entirely within the time o f the situation,” i.e., T T I N C L TSit
(1994, p. 108). The Perfective aspect is defined as T T A T TSit; w henever TSit denotes
two states (in the sense o f a change o f state), both the source and the target state are
assum ed to at least partly coincide with TT.
K leins definition o f Topic T im e based on the “sp eak ers claim” or “assertion” in
relation to a time span m a y seem som ew h at problematic in view o f frequently
observed m odal uses o f Future Tenses (with the sp eak ers claim confined to the
s a m e — future— time span), for which an additional specification may be needed. I
therefore propose to define Topic T im e as confined to the deictic region o f the nar­
rators focal concern (i.e. conceived from his or her vantage point) for which validity
o f a predication is assum ed.8 Temporal assertion o f the predications validity can
then account for temporal uses, and lack o f temporal assertion for modal uses.9
K leins analysis assumes tacitly that the definition o f the Perfective aspect ( T T
A T TSit, i.e., Topic T im e coincides with Situation Tim e) and the Imperfective aspect
( T T I N C L TSit, i.e., Topic T im e is included in Situation Time) m a y have general
validity in the languages which distinguish Perfective and Imperfective. However,
Plungjan (1998) discussed Perfective-semantics differences in different types o f lan­
guages and came to the conclusion that situation semantics and temporal limitation
m ay be relevant to a different extent depending on the language type. We m a y add
that parallel texts, notably translations, show that the usage o f Perfective and I m ­
perfective differs even across genetically related languages and the differences are
far from trivial. They are, furtherm ore, o f a systematic nature, suggesting that these
differences o f language use may be manifestations o f differences on the level o f the
system. In order to illustrate language-specific differences, we shall focus on ways in
which English and two lypologically different Slavic languages, Czech and Russian,
express the sam e contents.
The Slavic and English grammatical-aspect systems are different from each other.
English has the aspectual opposition between Progressive and Simple; the Progres­
sive aspect has the m eaning o f actual temporal progress relative to the vantage point,
w hich the Simple aspect does not have. By virtue o f having a more specific— and a

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786 ASPECT

m o re c o m p le x — m ea n in g , it is the Progressive aspect, w h ic h m a y be considered

m a r k e d in E n g lish .10 A s c o m p are d with English, Slavic languages are v ery different.
In the case o f Slavic, it is the Perfective aspect that has a m o re specific and a m ore
co m p lex m e a n in g by d en otin g effectuation o f a relevant b o u n d a r y o f the state o f
affairs a ccom p an ied by a tem poral limitation. This effectuation o f the relevant
b o u n d a r y is conceptualized as part o f the n a rra to rs focal concern. W h en ev er the
relevant b o u n d a r y or b ou n d aries in general are outside o f the focal concern, the Im-
perfective aspect occurs. Indeed, in contradistinction to English, w h ere the Simple
aspect is the default option, it is the Perfective aspect which is considered m ark ed in
the tradition o f Slavic aspectology ,11 w hereas the Im perfective aspect is considered
u n m a rk e d for reasons o f its less specific, broader definition and the c o rre sp o n d in g
possibility o f a m o r e v aried usage. This is an important difference: the Progressive
aspect o f English co rresp on d s to a certain extent with the Im perfective aspect in
Slavic by conceptualizing a state o f affairs in medias res, but the fo rm e r has a relatively
n a rro w definition o f actual progression and the latter a relatively b road definition o f
absence o f bou nd aries. In o rder to understand the essence o f this difference, I shall
inspect closely M ilan K u n d e ra s novel Nesmrtelnost “ Im m o rta lity ” in the C z e c h o rig ­
inal and Russian and English translations .12 The first section o f the novel contains
relatively m a n y Progressive fo rm s in the English translation and m a y therefore be
used as an illustrative basis for c o m p a r in g these aspectual systems.

(3) Gram m atical aspect in Czech, Russian and English: a parallel text

M ilan Kundera (1990) Nesmrtelnost (I, 1) cC/.ech original>:

Ta pani m ohla1P,; m it scdcsat, pctasedcsat let. D ival1PF jsem sc na ni, kdyz jsem
le2el1PF na lehatku proti bazenu v telocvicnem klubu umi'stenem v nejvyssnn
poschodi m oderm budovy, odkud jc 11' videt velkym i okny celou Panz. Cekal*1’1
jsem na profesora Avenaria, s kterym se tu obcas schazim IPF, abychom si povidaliIPF.
Ale profesor Avenarius neprichazel11'1 a ja jsem se d fv a P 1 na dam u; stalali F
sam a v bazenu, po pas ve vode a hledelaI, F vzhuru na m ladeho plavcika v
tcplakach, ktery ji ucilIPF plavat. D avallpF jf povely: m usilalPF sc chytit rukam a za
okraj bazenu a zhluboka vdechovat a vydechovat. D elalaIPh to vazne, snazive a
bylo1PF to, jako by sc z hloubi vod ozyval!I F hlas stare parni lokom otivy (ten
idylicky zvuk, dnes ji£ zapom enuty, ktery se pro ty, kdo ho nepoznaliIPF, neda
popsatH jinak n ezjak o dech starsi damy, ktera u kraje bazenu hlasite nadechuje1’ 1
a vydechujefPF). D ival"’1 jsem se na ni fascinovan. U poutavala1 ' mne dojem nou
kom icnosti (plavcfk si ji byllpK take vedom , nebot’ mu kazdou chvili zacukal1'1
koutck ust), az m ne pak oslovilPF ncji\ky znam y a od vcd lPF mou pozornost. Kdyz
jsem sc 11a ni po chvili chtclIPF znovu podivat, cviccni uz skonciloPF. O dchazelaIPF v
plavkach podel bazenu. M in u la1’1 plavcika, a kdyz b ylaiPI' od neho vzdalena tfi, pet
kroku, otocilaI F k ncmu jcstc hlavu, usm alaPF sc a zam avalaPF mu. ScvreloPF sc mi
srdce. Ten usm ev i to gesto patrily11'1 dvacetilete ^ene! Jeji ruka se vznesla1’1 s
okouzlujici lehkosti. B ylolpF to, jako by vyh azovalaIPF do vzduchu barevny mLC,aby
si h rala11 F s m ilencem . Ten usm ev i to gesto m elyIPF puvab i eleganci, zatimco tvar
a telo uz zadny piivab nem ely I F. B y lIPF to piivab gesta utopeny v nepiivabu tela.
Ale ta zcna, i kdyz sam ozrcjm c m uselalPF vedet, zc uz n cn i1P’r krasna, na to v tc
chvili zapom nela1 F. Urcitou castf sve bytosti zijem eIPF vsichni m inio cas. M ozna ze

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P E R F E C T IV E A N D IM PERFECTIVE ASPECT 787

jen ve vyjimecnÿch chvi'lich si uvedomujemePF svûj vëk a ze jsmeIPF vëtsinu casu

bezvëci. At uz, je,PF tomu jakkoli, ve chvili, kdy se otocilaPF, usmalaPF a zamavalaPF
na mladého plavcika (kterÿ to nevydrzelPF a vyprsklPF), о svém vëku nevëdéla1PF.
Jakâsi esence jejiho pûvabu, nezâvislâ na case, se ti'm gestem na vterinu odhalilaPF
a oslnilaPFmne. ByliPFjsem podivnë dojat. A vybaviloPF se mi siovo Agnes. Agnes.
Nikdyjsem zâdnou zenu toho jména nepoznalIPF.13
Milan Kundera: Bessmertie (translated into Russian by Nina Sulgina, St.
Petersburg, 2001):
Dame moglolpF byt’ let sest’desjat—sest’desjat pjat’. Ja smotrelIPF na nee,
rastjanuvsis’ v àezlonge protiv bassejna v sportivnom klube, raspolozennom na
poslednem étaze sovremennogo zdanija, otkuda skvoz’ ogromnye okna viden ves’
Pariz. Ja zdalÎPF professora Avenariusa, s kotorym podcas vstre£ajus>IPF zdes’, ctoby
poboltat’PF. No professor Avenarius zapazdyvalIPF, і ja smotrel,PF na damu: ona
stojalaIPF odna v bassejne po pojas v vode і ne svodila1PF glaz s molodogo instruk-
tora v trenirovocnom kostjume, ucivsego ее plavat5. Sleduja ego ukazanijam, ona
derzalas,,PF za kraj bassejna і delalaIPF glubokie vdoxi і vydoxi. Dysala1PF ona
sosredotocenno, staratel’no, і poxoze bylolpF, budto iz glubiny vod otzyvaetsjaIPF
golos starogo parovoza (dlja êtogo idilliceskogo zvuka, nyne uze zabytogo, a
komu і vovse nevedomogo, net bole udacnogo sravnenija, как s sumnym
dyxaniem poziloj zenSciny, stojascej u kraja bassejna). Zacarovannyj, ja smotrelIPF
na nee. Svoej trogatelnoj komicnost’ju (instruktor takze osoznavalIPF ее, ibo to і
delo u nego podragival,PF ugoiok gub) ona pritjagivalaIPF moj vzor do tex por,
рока odin znakomyj ne okliknuiPF menja і ne otvlekpp moego vnimanija. Kogda
cut’ pozze mne snova zaxotelos,pF vzgljanut’ na nee, zanjatija uze koncllis,pF. Ona v
kupal’nike slaIPF vdol’ bassejna. Projdja mimo instruktora і okazavsis’ v trex-pjati
sagax ot nego» ona povernulaPF к nemu golovu, ulybnulas>PF і pomaxalaPF rukoj. U
menja szalos>PFserdce. I ulybka, і étot zest prinadlezaliIPF dvadcatiletnej zenscine.
Ruka ее vzmetnulas>PF w erx s carujuscej legkost’ju. Kazalos’IPF, budto ona
brosala1PF v vozdux cvetnoj mjac, igraja s ljubovnikom. Ulybka і zest byiiIPF
ispolneny prelesti і izjascestva, togda как lico і telo uze utratiliPF vsjakuju
privlekatelnost’. To byla1PF prelest’ zesta, zatonuvsego v neprelesti tela. No
zenscina, xotja, verojatno, і soznavaIaIPF, cto uze nekrasiva, v to mgnovenie
zabylaPF ob ètom. Kakoj-to cast’ju svoego suscestva my vse zivemIPF vne vremeni.
Vozmozno, lis v iskljucitelnye momenty my osoznaemPF svoj vozrast, a bolsuju
cast’ vremeni my—vne vozrasta. Как by tam ni byIoIPF, no v to mgnovenie, kogda
dama, obernuvsis’, ulybnulas’PF і pomaxalaPF molodomu instruktoru (kotoryj ne
vyderzalPF і prysnulPF), о svoem vozraste ona ne pomnilaIPF. Nekaja kvintèssencija
ее prelesti, nezavisimaja ot vremeni, étim zestom javilaPF sebja na mig і porazilaPF
menja. Ja bylIPF neskazanno rastrogan. I vsplyloPF v moej pamjati slovo “Anes.”
Anes. Ni odnoj zensciny s takim imenem ja nikogda ne znalIPF.14
Milan Kundera: Immortality (English translation by Peter Kussi, London,
1991):
The woman might have been sixty or sixty-five. I was watching her from a
deck-chair by the pool of my health club, on the top floor of a high-rise that
provided a panoramic view o f all Paris. I was waiting for Professor Avenarius
whom Td occasionally meet here for a chat. But Professor Avenarius was late and
I kept watching the woman; she was alone in the pool, standing waist-deep in the
water, and she kept looking up at the young lifeguard in sweatpants who was
teaching her to swim. He was giving her orders: she was to hold on to the edge of
788 ASPECT

the pool and breathe deeply in and out. She proceeded to do this earnestly,
seriously, and it was as if an old steam engine was w heezing from the depth o f the
water (that idyllic sound, now long forgotten, which to those who never knew it
can be described in no better way than the w heezing o f an old w om an breathing
in and out by the edge o f a pool). I watched her in fascination. She captivated me
by her touchingly com ic matter (which the lifeguard also noticed, for the corner
o f his mouth twitched slightly). Then an acquaintance started talking to me and
diverted m y attention. W hen I was ready to observe her once again, the lesson
was over. She walked around the pool towards the exit. She passed the lifeguard,
and after she had gone three or four steps beyond him she turned her head,
sm iled, and waved to him. At that instant I felt a pang in m y heart! rI hat smile and
that gesture belonged to a twenty-year-old girl! Her arm rose with bewitching
ease. It was as if she were playfully tossing a brightly colored ball to her lover. That
sm ile and that gesture had charm and elegance, w hile the face and the body no
longer had any charm . It was the charm o f a gesture drow ning in the charm less­
ness o f the body. But the w om an, though she must o f course have realized that
she was no longer beautiful, forgot that for the moment. There is a certain part o f
all o f us that lives outside o f time. Perhaps we becom e aware o f our age only at
exceptional m om ents and most o f the time we are ageless. In any case, the instant
she turned, smiled and waved to the young lifeguard (who couldn’t control
him self and burst out laughing), she was unaware o f her age. The essence o f her
charm , independent o f time, revealed itself for a second in that gesture and
dazzled me. I was strangely moved. And then the word Agnes entered m y mind.
Agnes. I had never known a wom an by that name.

The instances o f the Progressive aspect in English (I was watching h e r . . . I was

waiting for Professor Avenarius . . . / kept w atching. . . she kept lookin g. . . who was
teaching her to swim . . . he was giving her orders . . . as i f an old steam engine was
w heezing. . . as if she were playfully tossing) are relatively frequent at the beginning
o f Kunderas novel, yet (with the keep-\--ing constructions included) they do not s u r­
pass 14% o f all the verb forms. This contrasts sharply with both Czech and Russian,
in which about two thirds o f the verbs are Imperfective. In fact, the Progressive
aspect o f English corresponds in all cases to the Imperfective aspect o f Czech and
Russian, but there are cases in w h ic h Czech and Russian both have the Imperfective
aspect, which does not correspond to the Progressive aspect o f English. First o f all,
the English Progressive is used for actual dynam ic situations from the vantage point
o f the agent and/or the narrator (requiring part o f the process to be realized in the
actual world, but leaving open the rem aining part including its culmination point,
in accordance with Dowty, 1979; cf. also de Swart, this volume). We may say that this
is a strong case o f T opic-Tim e assertion included in Situation Time.
In the sa m e k in d o f cases, C zech and Russian use the Im perfective aspect. H o w ­
ever, these are not the o n ly cases in w h ic h C z e c h and Russian use the Im perfective
aspect. In these languages, the Im perfective aspect is used for durative and iterative
situations which are conceptualized irrespectively o f any b o u n d a r ie s .15 The P erfec­
tive aspect, on the other hand, alw ays conceptualizes effectuation o f a relevant i n ­
herent b o u n d a r y such that the state o f affairs changes. E x a m p le s o f such Perfective
situations in the presented passage are, in the English translation: “ the co rn er o f his

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mouth twitched slightly,” “an acquaintance started talking to me,” “diverted m y atten­
tion,” “the lesson had finished/the lesson was over,” “she passed the lifeguard,” “she
turned her head” “she smiled,” “waved to him ” “ I felt a pang” “ her arm rose,” “ forgot
that,” “ we becom e aware o f our age,” “she turned,” “smiled,” “waved,” “ lost control/
couldn’t control himself,” “ burst out laughing,” “revealed itself,” “dazzled me,” “entered
m y mind.” We can see that the relevant inherent b o u n d a ry is determined by the
entire predicate and the carrier o f the n e w property is an inner argument, i.e., the
agent/experiencer and/or goal (e.g., in “she turned her head” the head acquired a
new position as a consequence o f turning). The definition o f the Perfective aspect in
Slavic is thus m ore specific than the definition o f the Simple aspect in English.
A spectual m eanings are assum ed to underlie aspectual-usage variants, also
referred to as “ m ea n in g variants.” For example, the Perfective aspect in Russian
occurs in the following m ea n in g variants: concrete factual (denoting a single
event), exem plary (denoting repetition exemplified by one o f the repeating events),
su m m ative (with several events view ed as a single whole), or potential (denoting
capacity to perform a virtual event). The Imperfective aspect in Russian, on the
other hand, has the follow ing m e a n in g variants: denotation o f a process, unlimited
repetition, limited repetition, general factual m ea n in g (each o f these with several
sub-variants, cf. Petruxina, 2009, pp. 6 4 -6 7 ). As a subset o f the Imperfective aspect,
the so-called habitual (also called “ iterative” as it expresses repetition)16 is marked
fo rm ally in a regular w ay in West Slavic (cf. e.g., Czech nc-i/Hc-tlpY “say” >
> rik-ava-t]pv “say regularly” ; del-a-tlpv “d o/m ake” > del-dva-tlPF “do/m ake regu­
larly” ). In East and South Slavic this is fo und only exceptionally (e.g., for quantified
states such as sid-e-t']pr <<sit>> pro-sid-e-t’pr' “sit through/for a certain time” > pro-siz-
iva-t,[pr “ regularly sit through/for a certain time,” or with motion verbs such as
pro-xaz-iva-tnpr' “ repeatedly go through” ). Slavic languages also have ways o f
denoting irregular repetition, e.g., by means o f Perfective aspect introduced by
byvalo ‘used to be’, slucalos ‘used to happen’ in Russian, or by m eans o f a narrative
Perfective C o n d ition al in South Slavic (e.g., B osnian, Croatian, Serbian dosao bi
cesto ‘ he w ould com e often’ ).
The essential difference between Perfective and Imperfective resembles the d if­
ference between events and non-events, but there is an important difference: by
m eans o f gram m atical aspect, virtual events can be represented as either gearing
toward completion (i.e., as Imperfective), or as completed single wholes (i.e., as Per­
fective). Til is difference corresponds either to a narrow scope o f Topic T im e or to a
broad scope: in the Imperfective aspect, the scope is narrow and the Topic Tim e
included in the T im e o f the Situation; in the Perfective aspect, the scope is broad
and the Topic T im e includes the T im e o f the Situation with its boundaries. We thus
arrive at the following definitions:

. I M P E R F E C T I V E : T T is included in TSit
. P E R F E C T I V E : TSit is included in TT.

The difference between the Perfective and the Imperfective aspect is represented in
Figure 27.1, with TSit given in white and T T in grey.17

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Im perlectivc:

Figure 27.1. The Perfective aspect: TT > TSit, the Imperfective aspect: T T < TSit

The Slavic type o f gram m atical aspect, which is based on the Perfective-
Im perfective distinction, conceptualizes the Perfective aspect as a set-subset rela­
tion between T T and TSit, and the Im perfective aspect as a set-subset relation
between TSit and TT. However, next to this c o m m o n basis resulting in significant
similarities o f aspectual uses, Slavic languages also exhibit system atic differences,
w h ich have attracted attention o f aspectologists over the past decades. After a
series o f com p arison s o f individual language pairs in the light o f their differences
(e.g., Stunova, 1993, c o m p a r in g Czech and Russian), a com prehensive com parison
o f Slavic aspectual systems was undertaken by D ickey (20 0 0 ). D ickey com pared
aspectual usage in habitual expressions, general factual expressions (e.g., “ w ho
sew ed this dress?"), event cancellation (e.g., “ he called, but you w eren ’t in” ), H is­
torical Present, r u n n in g instructions and com m en taries, expressions o f c o in c i­
dence, and sequences o f events. By c o m p arin g the individual sentences used in
such denotations in the different Slavic languages, Dickey reached the conclusion
that the Slavic languages can be divided into two groups: eastern Slavic (including
East Slavic and eastern South Slavic) and western Slavic (including West Slavic
and western South Slavic, with Polish being transitional in the north and Serbo-
Croatian in the south). This systematic co m p ariso n sh o w ed that western Slavic
uses the Perfective aspect m ore frequently than eastern Slavic. In an attempt to
explain these differences in terms o f conceptualizations u n d erlyin g aspectual
usage, D ickey assum ed that western and eastern Slavic conceptualize the Perfec­
tive aspect differently: in the Slavic languages o f the western type, the Perfective
aspect is accord in g to Dickey based on the conceptualization o f an event in its to ­
tality, and in the eastern type, on its tem poral specificity which em erges in s e q u e n ­
tial relations. This m a y be rendered schem atically as follows (Figures 27.2a, b).
This analysis im plies that the aspect a ssig n m e n t in eastern Slavic d e p e n d s
essentially on the c o n c e p tu a liza tio n o f te m p o ra l se q u en ces, w h e re a s the aspect
a ss ig n m e n t in w e s te rn Slavic is by itself a u t o n o m o u s and d e p e n d e n t on the lexical
m aterial. H o w e v e r, parallel texts (translations) s h o w that this definition o f aspect
in eastern Slavic d o e s not suffice for u n d e r s ta n d in g the asp ectual usage, e.g., o f

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PERFECTIVE AND IM PERFECTIVE ASPECT 791

F igu re 27.2.a. The Perfective aspect in w estern Slavic (totality, accord ing to Dickey,
2000)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------►
F igu re 27*2.b. Ih e Perfective aspect in eastern Slavic (tem poral specificity, acco rd in g to
Dickey, 20 0 0 )

Russian, because there are instances in which the condition o f temporal specificity
is fulfilled, and yet no Perfective aspect can occur. This can be observed particu­
larly on the basis o f tense-aspect constraints.

1.4. Grammatical Aspect and Tense

Tense conceptualizes ways in which a state o f affairs relates temporally to the rele­
vant deictic reference point (so-called “origo” ). It is a matter o f the speaker’s or
narrator’s conceptualization whether the origo will be contiguous with a state o f
affairs or distant from it. It goes without saying that a contiguous origo will go with
the flow o f time and more likely conceptualize ongoing processes than completed
events, whereas distance with respect to the origo will allow for more aspectual
oppositions. In this sense, tense naturally constrains the aspectual usage. However,
these constraints are not uniform across languages and may therefore be used as a
basis for discussing typological differences o f tense and aspect.
First o f all, it should be stated that tense and gram matical aspect are in prin­
ciple autonomous grammatical categories. In some languages (e.g., in Rom ance or
Classical Greek), aspect-like contrasts are connected with past-tense contrasts
(e.g., Italian arriva-vo ‘(0 was arriving’ vs. arriva-i ‘ (I) arrived’), but the Slavic
language Bulgarian, which has gram matical-aspect differences in addition to these
tenses, shows that these tense phenomena do not necessarily equal aspect. This
phenom enon o f Bulgarian (which is not an innovation, but a remnant o f the old
Slavic tradition illustrated by Old Church Slavic texts) provides support for the
analysis proposed by de Swart (this volume) by which the corresponding Romance
distinctions (e.g., French Passé Simple vs. Imparfait) should be analyzed as pertain­
ing to tense.
The tense system o f Bulgarian resembles Romance by distinguishing Perfect,
Pluperfect, Aorist (resembling Passé Simple), and Imperfect (resembling French

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792 ASPECT

Imparfait) next to Present and Future (and Future-in-the-Past). Perfect and Pluper­
fect denote indirect evidence o f past states o f affairs (usually by virtue o f their effects),
whereas Aorist and Imperfect denote direct evidence; Aorist denotes temporal
boundedness o f a past state o f affairs, whereas Imperfect denotes continuation in the
past. The interesting thing is that all these tenses o f Bulgarian can be combined with
both grammatical aspects, the Perfective and the Imperfective. The resulting system
is relatively complex, and referred by Lindstcdt (1985, p. 169) as “ nesting.” In view o f
the meaning, the Bulgarian Aorist combines naturally with the Perfective aspect and
the Imperfect with the Imperfective aspect, but the opposite combination is possible,
too. Consider the following Bulgarian examples.

(4) a. Tja pja1™ AORlsr pesen(ta) tri minuti (*za tri minuti).
“ She sang a (/the) song for three minutes”
b. Tja iz-pja PF AOR,ST pesen(ta) za tri minuti (*tri minuti).
“ She sang a (/the) song in three m inutes'
c. Tja pceseIPF IMPERFECr pesen(ta) tri minuti/za tri minuti.
“ She used to sing a (/the) song for three minutes/in three minutes”
d. Sred kato procctcscI>F 1MPFKFR1 sutrin molitvata, tragvascIPK IMi HR1-K( 1 za scloto.
“ Having said the prayer every morning, (s)he used to leave for the village.”

We can see that/or-advcrbials, w h ic h m easure the duration o f a situation w ith ­

out clearly estab lish in g b e g in n in g and e n d p o in ts (cf. K rifk a , 1989), c o m b in e
w ith Im perfective states o f affairs (as in 4a), whereas w -ad verb ials, w hich measure
the time it takes to complete an event with an inherent endpoint, com bine with
Perfective states o f affairs (as in 4b). The Imperfective Imperfect in (4c) has a
default durative reading in which it com bines with a /or-adverbial, and an iterative
reading that em erges in com bination with an in -adverbial. Finally, U d ) denotes
repetition with a Perfective Imperfect followed by an Imperfective Imperfect. The
Perfect Imperfect is motivated by the clear sequential character o f these states o f
affairs, in w h ich the second can take place only after the first has been completed.
This shows that Perfective and Im perfective retain their full semantics in c o m b in a ­
tion with these tenses.
The d escribed n esting o f the Bu lgarian tenses pro v id e s ad d ition al ev id en c e for
the a ssu m e d layerin g o f aspect and tense p h e n o m e n a b y w h ich the basic layer is
constituted by lexical aspect, the next layer by g r a m m a tic a l aspect, and the outer
layer is constituted by tense, w h ic h relates the state o f affairs to the d eictically rele­
vant tem poral origo. In this layered structure, each h ig h er layer is g r o u n d e d on the
low er layer, but in principle a u to n o m o u s o f it. On the other h an d , each h igh er layer
m a y im p o s e co nd itio ns on the interpretation o f the low er layer (as the Aorist in
B u lg a ria n a n d the Passé Sim ple in French im p o s e event interpretations on atelic
states o f aifairs).
M o st Slavic languages h ave m u c h sim p le r tense systems. The languages in focus
here, C z e c h and Russian, have the sa m e tense inventories (i.e., Perfective-Preterite,
Im perfective-P reterite, Im p erfective-P resen t, P erfective-Presen t/Fu tu re and
Im p e rfectiv e -F u tu re ), but the rules o f aspect-tense uses are different. This applies

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PE R FE C TIV E A N D IM PE R F E C TIV E ASPECT 793

most strikingly to the Present Tense used for narration about past states o f affairs,
i.e., Historical Present, which is as a rule Im perfective in Russian (and only ex cep ­
tionally Perfective, with an added m odality o f an unexpected event), and either
Perfective or Imperfective in Czech. This rule o f Russian is so strong that it provides
the basis for the aspectual-pair test proposed by M aslov (1948): a Perfective verb is
rendered by its Imperfective counterpart in Historical Present. This rule holds even
in sequences, as shown by example (5) below from K u n d eras “ Im m o rtality” :

(5) Aspcct in Historical Present

Czech:
l.ezfm 111 v posteli ve sladkem polospanku. Uz v sest hodin v lehkem prvm m
probuzem sahnuri po m alem tranzistorovem radiu, ktere m am IPI u polstare, a
stisknui ! knoflik. O zvou:i se p rvn i ran 111 zpravy, jsem sotva s to rozeznat jednot-
liva slova a zase usm am 111, takze se vety hlasatelu p ro m e n u jP 1 ve sny.

Russian:
ja lezuiH v posteli v sladkom polusne. Uze v sest’ casov, kak tol’ko nacinaju111
probuzdatsja, ja tja n u s1" rukoj k m alenkom u tranzistoru u izgo lo vja i
na£im ajulN knopku. Zvucat11’1 pervye utrennie novosti, ja edva sposoben razobrat’
otdel’nye slova i snova zasypajuIPH, tak cto frazy diktorov prevrascajutsja,PF v
snovidenija.

English:
I am in bed, happily dozing. With the first stirrings o f wakefulness, around
six in the m orning, I reach for the small transistor radio next to my pillow and
press the button. A n early-m orning news program com es on, but I am hardly able
to make out the individual words and once again I fall asleep, so that the
announ cers sentences merge into m y dreams.

This passage starts in the Present Tense. The subsequent sequence shows that it
is to be understood as a Historical Present. Hi is sequence is depicted strikingly d if­
ferently in Czech and Russian. In Czech, each event w h o se b o u n d a ry is effectuated
(I reach fo r the small transistor radio , press the button , a news program comes on) is
expressed in the Perfective aspect. W henever the b o u n d a ry is not effectuated (/ am
falling asleep, the announcers sentences are metging into my dreams ), the
Imperfective aspect is used.
Russian has the Imperfective aspect only, as the narrator goes with the flow, not
kn ow in g what will com e next and whether the b o u n d a ry will be effectuated or not.
The possibility o f using the Perfective aspect in the Historical Present o f Czech
without evoking the m eaning o f posteriority was discussed by Krizkova (1955), who
assumed that the Future m eaning o f the Czech Perfective Present is shifted to the
background or neutralized in Historical Present. Bondarko (1959) proposed a ty­
p o lo gy o f the neutralization o f aspect oppositions in Historical Present by w h ich
there is full neutralization in Russian, Polish, and Bulgarian literary languages, full
presence o f opposition in Serbian, Croatian, and Slovene, and partial neutralization

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794 ASPECT

in Czech and Slovak. Stunova (1993) discussed differences between Czech and Rus­
sian Historical Presents, iterated events and sequences o f events observed on the
basis o f Czech-Russian translations o f the works by Capek, and Il’f and Petrov, and
established (p. 181) that especially verbs o f movement, sound, vision, feeling,
thinking and “m odality” occur in the Perfective aspect in Historical Present. She
assumed that Russian aspect operates in larger discourse units (on the so-called
macro-level), whereas Czech aspect concentrates on each individual state o f affairs
(i.e., on the so-called micro-level) and the lexical meaning o f the verb involved. Her
conclusion was (1993, p. 193) that Czech aspect possesses a more lexical character
than Russian aspect.
What does a “ more lexical character” mean with respect to grammatical aspect?
We must conclude that neither this definition, nor Dickey’s definition o f temporal
specificity underlying Russian aspect, nor Barentsen’s definition o f sequential con­
nection in the existing wording (in spite o f its essentially correct content) can fully
explain the differences between Czech and Russian aspect. So let us look more
closely at the examples mentioned above.
At this point we should recall how Historical Present conceptualizes the states
of affairs: by going along with the time flow, as represented in Figure 27.3.
Each state o f affairs is viewed as it unfolds, up to, but not beyond its boundaries.
In this discourse perspective, totality of the described situations apparently suffices
for the Perfective aspect of Czech, but not o f Russian. In Russian, it is necessary to
assert the new property that emerges with the effectuation o f the boundary in order
to use the Perfective aspect (e.g., for opening the window , the emerging new prop­
erty of the window being open must hold following the change of state from “closed”
to “open” ). The appropriate condition for the Perfective aspect in Russian would be
the following (Figure 27.4).
These data lead to the insight that neither Dickey’s definition o f Perfective
aspect in Russian based on temporal specificity nor Klein’s (1994) definition o f Per­
fective aspect based on coincidence o f T T and TSit can explain the Russian aspect

О О О »
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------►

1 I I
F ig u re 27.3. Ih e Topic T im e persp ective in the H istorical Present

О o
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------►

t r T
Figu re 27.4. Ih e Topic l im e persp ective yield in g the Perfective aspect in Russian

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PE R FE C TIV E A N D IM PE R F E C TIV E ASPECT 795

or the difference between Russian and Czech. We have seen that the latter definition
can explain the usage o f the Perfective aspect in Czech, but not in Russian. Even
though in a m ajority o f cases both languages em ploy the sam e aspect choice, we
have exemplified the difference between these two languages on the basis o f a
sequence o f events in Historical Present as shown in (5) above, for which Czech uses
the Perfective aspect and Russian the Imperfective aspect.18 G iven the fact that the
majority o f aspect uses coincides in these languages, this difference established for
the Historical Present is striking. In the Historical Present (as any Present Tense),
the deictic point o f reference (the “origo,” abbreviated as “O ” ) coincides with TSit.
The established difference shows that under the condition o f 0 = T S it= T T , a speaker
o f Czech can use the Perfective aspect, whereas a speaker o f Russian cannot do this.
In Russian, the b o u n d a ry o f TSit cannot equal TT, but T T must rather extend
beyond TSit in order to validate the proper set-subset relation between T T and TSit
which is required for the Perfective aspect in Russian. In Czech, on the other hand,
T T must not extend beyond TSit in order to validate the set-subset relation and
enable the Perfective aspect. The m in im al requirement is that T T should not be
smaller than TSit (this corresponds, in fact, to D ic k e y s analysis o f the Perfective
aspect in Czech conceptualizing a totality). This is why coincidence o f T T and TSit
is an instance o f the Perfective aspect in Czech, but o f the Imperfective aspect in
Russian, as illustrated by example (5) above.
In o rder to ac c o u n t for the established differences, the fo llo w in g analysis can be
proposed .
Russian:

• For Russian Perfective aspect, TSit is a proper subset o f T T (i.e., TSit <= T T ) ;
• For Russian Imperfective aspect, T T is a subset o f TSit (i.e., T T Q TSit).

C z ec h :

• For C z e ch Perfective aspect, T S it is a subset o f T T (i.e., TSit Q T T ) ;

• For C z e ch Im perfective aspect, T T is a p ro p e r subset o f T T (i.e., T T c TSit).

Figure 27.5a. The Perfective aspect in Russian

Fig u re 27.5b. T he P erfective aspect in C zech

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796 ASPECT

Figure 27.5a (for Russian) depicts the fact that TSit is a proper subset o f T T for
the Perfective aspect in Russian. The effect o f TSit, ascribed to the agent/experiencer
and/or goal o f the predicate, must be conceptualized as part o f T T next to TSit in
Russian, e.g., saying ot-kry-lvv okn-o opened (the/a) w in d o w ’ equals conceptual­
izing the open ing o f the w in d o w in TSit and the property o f the w in d o w being open
as an effect o f TSit within T T ; both must be present for the condition that TSit is a
proper subset o f T T to be met. If the w in d o w is closed at the m o m e n t o f speaking, a
Russian cannot use the Perfective aspect to denote a past open ing o f the window,
but must use the Imperfective instead (i.e., ot-kry-va-lW]: okno).
Figure 27.5b (for Czech) depicts the fact that TSit is a subset o f T T for the Per­
fective aspect in Czech. This does not preclude the possibility o f their identity. The
effect o f TSit within T T can therefore only be a matter o f implicature (in the sense
o f Grice, 1975), i.e., a matter o f a know ledge-and situation-dependent conclusion.
Saying ote-\'r-e-lvr okno opened (the/a) w in d o w ’ does not necessarily conceptualize
an open w in d o w within the time o f the n arrators focal concern, but only the fact
that the event o f o pen ing has been completed (the assumption that the w in d o w is
open is only a matter o f default implicature, not a necessary condition).
The proposed definitions capture the basic similarity o f these Slavic languages
(aspect statistics, offered, e.g., by Stunova, 1993, shows that identical aspect choices
outnum ber different aspect choices) and account at the sam e time for their differ­
ences. The proposed definitions can account for the other instances mentioned by
D ickey (2000) as indicative o f the differences as well. For example, so-called g e n ­
eral-factual m ea n in g o f the Imperfective aspect in Russian (o f the type who sewed
this dress o f yours? mentioned above, inquiring about TSit irrespectively o f the result
w hich is not part o f T T ) can be explained as a coincidence o f TSit and TT, leading
to the Imperfective aspect in Russian (because the condition o f TSit being a proper
subset o f T T for the Perfective aspect is not fulfilled), but to the Perfective aspect in
Czech (where TSit is a subset o f T T a n d the two m a y in principle coincide).
The P ro gressive aspect in English has basically the sa m e definition as the I m ­
perfective aspect in C zech (i.e., T T Q TSit), but with the addition o f actual p r o g r e s ­
sion from the n a rra to r’s van tage point.
H a v in g reached these definitions o f Perfective and Im perfective, w h ic h can a c ­
count for the p h e n o m e n a left u n a c c o u n ted by the p revio u s treatments, w e sh o uld
n o w turn to test cases for these definitions.

2. T e s t C ases : The Scope of Tem poral

Q u an tifier s and V erb P r efixatio n

T e m p o ra l quantifiers are k n o w n to exert constraints on aspectual usage. It is there­

fore relevant to test the pro po sed analyses against the b a c k g r o u n d o f d istributional
properties o f the generalized tem p oral quantifier Czech vzdycky /R ussian vsegda

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PERFECTIVE AND IM PERFECTIVE ASPECT 797

‘always’ in combination with grammatical aspect. This will be done, again, by using
Kunderas “ Immortality” in Czech in comparison with the Russian translation.
At the outset let me mention that the generalized temporal quantifier Czech
vzdycky, Russian vsegda ‘always’ occurs preceding the verbal or the nominal kernel of
the predicate (e.g., in Russian ix vstreci byli vsegda prekrasny “their encounters were
always wonderful,” lis’ odno kazalos’ ej vsegda nesomnënnym “only one thing seemed to
her certain beyond doubt,” or Dzimmi Karter vsegda byl mne simpaticen “Jimmy Carter
always seemed sympathetic to me,” paralleled by the same type of construction in
Czech, cf. e.g., Americky president Jimmy Carter mi byl vzdycky sympaticky). By pre­
ceding the predicate systematically, this generalized temporal quantifier, which is an
adverbial, differs strikingly from adverbials of duration or frame, which have no fixed
position vis-à-vis the predicate. The systematic occurrence of the temporal quantifier
preceding the verbal or the nominal kernel of the predicate corresponds with the fact
that the generalized temporal quantifier scopes over the predicate, including its gram­
matical aspect. The distributional data on grammatical aspect under the scope of
‘always’, e.g., on the basis of Milan Kunderas Nesnesitelna lehkosl byti (Paris, 1984) with
the Russian translation by Nina Sulgina Nevynosimaja legkost’ bytija (St. Petersburg,
1997) “ The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” show the following ratios of Imperfective
and Perfective verb forms following the generalized temporal quantifier: Russian 100%
Imperfective, Czech 43 Imperfective + 6 Perfective = 88% IPF +12% PF. There is conse­
quently a predominant majority of Imperfective forms following the generalized quan­
tifier in both these languages. This fact of predominant similarity is important, because
the differences tend to be over-exaggerated in studies by western aspectologists. In all
the instances in which Czech uses the Perfective aspect under the scope o f vzdycky
‘always’, this is motivated by the contextual necessity to implicate the effect of TSit either
as the background for the next TSit or for closing the discourse episode, as illustrated
by examples (6) and (7) from Nesnesitelna lehkost byti.
In example (6) Teresa tells the author about a dream in which she was dead and
he used to come to her grave each week.

(6) Aspect with the generalized temporal quantifier

Czech:
Vzdycky jsi zat'ukal11 na hrob a )â jsem vy§laPF ven. Oci jsem mëlaIPF plné hliny.
Russian:
Ty vsegda stucalIPHv mogilu, i ja vyxodilalp|: ottuda. Glaza u menja byli1PF polny zemli.
“ You always knocked at the grave and I came out. I had my eyes full o f clay.”

In example (7), the Czech Perfective aspect under the scope of the generalized
quantifier contrasts with the preceding series o f Imperfective forms and has the
function o f closing the discourse episode.

(7) The generalized temporal quantifier and grammatical aspect in Czech and Russian:
Czech:
V tom krâtkém prîbëhu gesta mù&eme rozeznat mechanismus, jemuic byly podrobeny
vztahy obou sester: mladsi napodobovala starsi, natahovala po ni ruku, ale Agnes
vzdycky v posledm chvili uniklaPF.

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798 ASPECT

Russian:
V ctoj kratkoj istorii zcsta my mozcm razgljadot’ m exanizm , kotoromu byli podcineny
otnosenija obcix scstcr: m ladsaja podrazala starscj, protjagivala k ncj ruki, no Ancs
vsegda s poslednij mig uskoPzala1
“ In this short history o f a gesture we can recognize the mechanism determ ining the
relationship o f the two sisters: the younger one imitated the elder, reached out her arm
towards her, but at the last moment Agnes w ould alw ays escape ”

We can take these facts as an indication that both in Russian and C z e ch , the
generalized tem poral quantifier sc o p es over TSit. In C zech , w h ere TSit = T T occurs
as a variant o f the Perfective aspect, this variant can o c c u r u n d er the generalized
tem p oral quantifier. In R ussian, on the other h an d , TSit = T T is a v a ria n t o f the
Im p e rfec tiv e aspect, w h ic h o c c u rs regularly u n d e r the sc o p e o f the generalized te m ­
p o ral quantifier.
In the Russian translation o f K u n d e r a s novel “ Immortality,” however, there is
one ex a m p le (2% o f the total n u m b er o f cases) in w h ic h the generalized tem poral
quantifier vsegda sco p es over the Perfective aspect, a v e r y unu sual fact for R u s ­
sian: no kakim by ni byl nas otvet, m y vsegda p r id e m PT k odnom u i tomu ze
zakljuceniju: drugoj velikoj ljubvi , krome dokoitaVnoj, ne bylo i byt’ ne moglo “ but
irrespectively o f o u r answer, we w ill a lw a y s r e a c h the sam e conclu sion: there has
n ever been and could not have been any other great love but the coital love.” This
Perfective Present is to be interpreted as m o d al rather than tem p oral. In the
absence o f vsegda , however, the interpretation o f this Perfective Present w ou ld be
Future. This e x a m p le provides support to our analysis by w h ic h the generalized
tem poral quantifier scopes over T S it in both lan gu ages; the effect o f TSit in R u s ­
sian (which is n ecessarily within T T for the Perfective aspect) rem a in s outside
the scope o f the generalized tem poral quantifier and can only be interpreted as
m o d al.
The im po ssibility o f the (tem poral) Perfective aspect b e in g used under the
scope o f alw ays’ in Russian acquires a natural explanation in term s o f the d e fin i­
tion p ro p o se d above, a c c o rd in g to w h ich TSit is a p r o p e r su b set o f T T in the
R ussian Perfective aspect, which m ea n s that TSit and T T cannot coincide. C o n ­
ceptualization o f a change o f state (in clu d in g both the source state o f T Sit and the
resulting state contained in T T ) is incom patible with the generalized tem poral
quantifier, w h ich can generalize o n ly one o f these states, but not both. In the
Perfective aspect in C zech, on the other hand, T Sit is a subset (not a proper s u b ­
set) o f TT , w h ic h enables their c o in cid e n ce a n d allows com p atibility with the
generalized quantifier.
The next piece o f evidence com es from different prefixation patterns o f Russian
and Czech. First o f all, there are num erous cases in w h ich Russian requires prefix­
ation, but Czech does not, as m ay be exemplified by determinate verbs o f m ovem ent
(in one direction) reported in Petruxina (2003), cf. Cz. ji-t , Ru. id-ti go (in one d i­
rection)’ Second, there is a general tendency for external prefixes to acquire resulta-
tive m eaning and gradually becom e internal in Russian. These ph enom ena are
illustrated by (8) and (9) below.

М атеріал, захищ ений авторськи м правом

PE R FE C TIV E A N D IM PE R F E C TIV E ASPECT 799

(8) Russian: o n -i p o -sl-iPF dom -oj

'they went home’
Czech: 5M ,PF dom-u
‘(they) went home’

(9) Russian: ty uze po-cita-lPF? /po-zanim a-l-sjaPF?/ po-plava-lPF?

“ (did) you already finish reading? /working?/ sw im m ing?”
(lit. ‘did you already read/work/swim for a while?’ )

Such processes o f Russian which arc not paralleled by Czech arc indicative o f
the different definition o f the perfective aspect in Russian, by which TSit is a proper
subset o f T T for the Perfective aspect, requiring conceptualization o f the T S it s ef­
fect w ithin T T as the default case. Czech does not show evidence o f such develop­
ments, which must be due to the established different analysis of the
Perfective-Imperfective distinction in this language.

3. C o n clu sio n

The linguistic data on the Perfective— Imperfective distinction discussed in the pre­
sent chapter provide evidence for a layered patterning o f aspectual ph enom ena and
semantic compositionality on each layer. The first layer is constituted by lexical
aspect as a c om bined effect o f verbs and arguments, the next layer pertains to g r a m ­
matical aspect, which is autonom ous in its definition, but in applicability c o n ­
strained by the lexical-aspect classes, by temporal quantifiers and by tense, and the
upper layer pertains to tense, which m ay im pose limitations o f distribution and in ­
terpretation on the lower layers.
Each o f the three temporal layers, lexical aspect, gram m atical aspect, and tense,
has its own semantics. Semantics o f lexical aspect is based on verbs and their argu­
ments, with an additional contribution o f temporal quantifiers. Semantics o f g r a m ­
matical aspect is based on the relation between so-called Topic T im e and the T im e
o f the Situation, on the understanding that Topic T im e is confined to the deictic
region o f the n arrators focal concern (i.e., conceived from his or her vantage point).
Topic Tim e is included in the T im e o f the Situation for the Imperfective aspect
(which view s the Situation from within), whereas the opposite relation holds for the
Perfective aspect: inclusion o f the T im e o f the Situation within Topic Tim e. This
inclusion was shown to be a proper inclusion in Russian (as a representative o f east­
ern Slavic), and inclusion without this restriction in Czech (as a representative o f
western Slavic). The m ore restrictive definition o f the Perfective aspect in Russian
can account for the observed additional restrictions on aspect usage and com-
binability with tense in Russian as com pared with Czech. This w as shown to be the
case with narrative Historical Present and with aspect under the scope o f the gener­
alized temporal quantifier, both o f which require the Imperfective aspect in R u s­
sian, but allow for the full aspectual distinction in Czech. Also language change by

lateriâl chrânenÿ autorskym prâvom

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800 ASPECT

which external prefixes acquire properties o f internal prefixes in Russian can be

explained by this strict requirement o f proper inclusion o f the Tim e o f the Situation
within the Topic Tim e for the Perfective aspect: not only the state o f affairs at the
Situation Time, but also its effect must be included within the Topic Time, and this
is prototypically conceptualized by means o f internal prefixes in Russian.
At each layer, the aspectual structure was shown to be analyzable strictly com-
positionally; lexical-aspectual phenomena were shown to “shine through” to the
higher layers; conversely, the higher layers were shown to have the capacity to
impose limitations on distribution or interpretation o f the lower layers. In all cases,
it was the semantic content o f the individual elements and their combinations that
provided the basis for the explanation o f aspectual phenomena.

NOTES

1.F o r reasons o f lexical aspect not being confined to verbs only, but a com positional
effect o f verbs and argum ents, de Swart (this volum e) proposes in line with Verkuyl (1972)
to speak o f “aspectual class” (or “situation class” ) instead o f lexical aspect. In spite o f
essential correctness o f this argum entation I shall continue to speak o f lexical aspect for
reasons o f its clear term inological distinction from gram m atical aspect.
2.'Ihis distinction is sound, but we should m ention that there are exceptions to the
proposed rule o f internal prefixes always inducing telicity (exemplified by 5/so- ‘con -’ ,
w hich is an inner prefix changing the argum ent schem a, but not necessarily inducing
telicity, cf. so-dejstvovatmPV + Dative ‘contribute to’, which is biaspectual, as com pared with
dejstvovat’m na + Accusative ‘operate, exert influence on’, which is Imperfective).
3. A ccording to G lovinskaja (2001, p. 121), m eanings o f prefixes in gram m atical-aspect
pairs (such as Perfective— Im perfective pairs o f the type za-poln-i-t'VT—za-poln-ja-fm ‘fill’,
sem antically ‘ (cause to) com e in the state o f being full’ vs. ‘ (cause to) be in the state o f
being full’) are m ore abstract than the m eanings o f the sam e prefixes in m odes o f action
(such as the expression o f the beginning phase by m eans o f the prefix za- in Russian).
4. Treating aspect as a matter o f view m ay be exemplified e.g., by Smith (1991).
5.C f. a. o. M aslov (1948), B o n d arko (1971), Glovinskaja (1982), C ertkova (1998),
Petruxina (2009).
6 .This can be shown by examples such as Russian ceny povysilis "th e prices rose-perf?
illustrating the relativity o f the boundary because the prices can reach an even higher level
at the next stage.
7. K leins (1994) Topic T im e is the time for which the assertion holds and in this sense
differs from Reichenbachs (1947, p. 288) point o f reference.
8.'lh is is similar to deictic regions o f focal concern as defined by Janssen (1991).
9. In the general-factual m eaning o f Russian, the result is left out o f the focal concern.
We cannot say that it is not asserted, because it form s the basis for the cited question.
lO.On the English Progressive see de Swart, this volum e, section 3.3, and iMair, this
volume.
11. Cf. A ndrew s, this volum e, section 4.
12. The Czech original was published in 1990, the English translation by Peter Kussi in
1991 and the Russian translation by N ina Sulgina in 2001.

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PE R FE C TIV E A N D IM PE R F E C TIV E ASPECT 801

13 .4 1 IPF: 18 PF.
14.30 IPF: 19 PF.
15. It m ay be m entioned that Celtic developed an aspect system with more sim ilarity to
Slavic than English. A ccording to О C orrain (1997, p. 161) Old Irish had the Preterite, the
ro-Preterite and the Im perfect. W hereas the Im perfect expressed habituality or iterativity, a
new periphrastic form was developed for durativity, which served as the basis for the
developm ent o f the Progressive aspect (O C orrain 1997, p. 164).
16 .See Bertinetto and L en d , and Carlson, this volume.
17. Note that the extent to which T T extends beyond T Sit for the Perfective aspect may
vary. Also, outer lim its o f T Sit for the Im perfective aspect are not conceptualized beyond
the fact that they surpass the lim its o f TT.
18.The Perfective aspect in Russian Historical Present is used only exceptionally and
so not as plain narrative Historical Present, but for denoting unexpected events and usually
supported by a particle such as как as i f ’ or i even!

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G lovinskaja, M. Ja. (1982). Semanticeskie tipy vido vyx protivopostavlenij russkogo glagola.
M oscow : Nauka.
G lovinskaja, M. Ja. (2001). M nogoznacnost' i sinonim ija v vido-vrem ennoj sisteme russkogo
glagola. M oscow : Azbukovnik.
G rice, H. P. (1975). Language and conversation. In P. Cole and J. M organ (eds.), Syntax and
Semantics, 3: Speech Acts (pp. 4 1-58 ). N ew York: Academ ic Press.
Hopper, P. J. (ed.). (1982). Tense-aspect: Between semantics and pragmatics. Am sterdam :
John Benjam ins.
Jakobson, R. (1932). Z u r Struktur des russischen Verbums. Reprinted, 1971, in Selected
Writings 11: Word and Language (pp. 3-15 ). ’ Ihe Hague: M outon.
Janssen, Tli. A. J. M. (1991). Preterit as definite description. In J. G vozdanovic and Th.
Janssen (eds.), The fu nction o f tense in texts (pp. 157 -1S 1). Am sterdam : N orth Holland.

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Klein, W. (1994). Time in language. London: Routledge.

K lein, W. (1995). A tim e-relational analysis o f the Russian aspect. Language, 71(4), 669-695.
K rifka, M . (1989). N om inal reference, temporal constitution and quantification in event
sem antics. In R. Bartsch, J. van Benthcm , and P. van Em de Boas (cds.), Semantics and
contextual expression (pp. 75-115). Dordrecht: Foris.
Krizkova, H. (1955)- K problem atice presentu historickeho v rustinc a ccstine. Sovetskä
jazyko ved ay 5, 241-255.
Lindstedt, J. (1985). On the semantics o f tense and aspect in Bulgarian. Helsinki: University
o f Helsinki.
M aslov, Ju. S. (1948). Vid i leksiceskoe znacenieglagola v russkom jazyke. M oscow : Izd. AN
SSSR.
Ö C orrain, A. (1997). On verbal aspect in Irish with particular reference to the progressive.
In S. M ac M athuna and A. Ö C orrain (eds.), M iscellanea celtica in m em oriam Heinrich
Wagner (pp. 159 -173). Uppsala: Uppsala University.
Paduceva, E. V. (2009). Leksiceskaja aspektual’nost’ i klassifikacija glagolov po M aslovu-
Vendleru. V oprosyjazykoznanija (6), 3 -2 0 .
Petruxina, E. V. (2003). D om inantnye certy russkoj jazykovoj kartiny m ira (v srovnenii s
cesskoj). Russkoe slovo v m irovoj k u l’turey X Kongress M A P R JA L , t. 1, Plenarnye
zascdanija (pp. 426-433). St. Petersburg: Izdatclstvo St. P. Univcrsiteta.
Petruxina, E. V. (2009). Russkijglagol: kategorii vida i vremeni. M oscow : M GU .
Plungjan, V. A. (1998). Perfektiv, kompletiv, punktiv: Term inologija i tipologija. In
M. Ju. C crtkova, Tipologija vida: Problem, poiski, resenija (pp. 37 0 -38 1). M oscow :
Skola “ Jazyki russkoj kuLtury.”
Reichenbach, H. (1947). Elements o f symbolic logic. New York: M acm illan.
Sm ith, C. (1991). The param eter o f aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Stunova, A. (1993). A contrastive study o f Russian and Czech aspect: Invariance vs.
discourse. Ph.D. dissertation, U niversity o f Am sterdam .
Thelin, N. B. (ed.). (1990). Verbal aspect in discourse. Am sterdam : Benjam ins.
Vendler, Z. (1967). Verbs and times. In Linguistics and philosophy (pp. 9 7 -12 1). Ithaca:
C ornell U niversity Press.
Verkuyl, II. J. (1972). On the compositional nature o f the aspects. Dordrecht: Reidel.

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 C H A P T E R 28

PROGRESSIVE AND
CONTINUOUS ASPECT

CHRISTIAN M AIR

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

All natural la n g u a g e s— w h eth e r or not they have a designated g ra m m a tic a l cate­

g o r y c o n ve n tio n ally referred to as “ p ro g ressive” or “c o n tin u o u s” — can co n ve y the
idea that an event is p ro g re ssin g d y n a m ic a lly over a time fra m e op en ed up by an
u tteran ce.1 Тії is time fra m e is v a r io u s ly k n o w n as the “event fr a m e ” ( C h u n g and
T im berlake, 1985), the “contextual o ccasio n ” (T im berlake, 2007), the “ focalization
point” (Bertinetto, Ebert, and de G ro o t, 2 0 0 0 ), or the “ topic time” (Klein, 1994).
In the fo llo w in g , I shall d istin g u ish strictly b etw een this s e m a n tic -c o g n itiv e
n o tio n o f p ro g re ssiv e a s p e c tu a lity , w h ic h is u n iv ersa l a n d tran sp o rtab le across
languages, and the c o r r e s p o n d in g fo rm a l expression for this notion , the p r o g r e s ­
sive a sp e c ts fo u n d in various languages, w h ich are o b liga to ry or optional g r a m ­
matical categories m a rk ed on lexical verbs or verb ph rases. The present chapter
will specifically focus on the fairly large n u m b e r o f languages w h o se g r a m m a r s
p ro vid e for a “ la n g u a g e -p a rtic u la r m o rp h o lo g ic a l cate go ry that signals that an
event is d y n a m ic o v er the event fram e,” w h ic h is then “ trad itio n a lly term ed
p rogressive, as o p p o se d to n o n -p ro g re ssiv e, or n eu tral” (C h u n g and T im b e rla k e,
1985, p. 219).
Tim berlake (2007), who includes the p ro gressive as one o f four cardinal aspec­
tual operators alongside the perfect, perfective and iterative, sum m arizes the typical
features o f grammaticalized progressives as follows:

Process ongoing at contextual occasion (com m only the here-and-now o f speech)

that is projected to continue in the im m ediate future, but could easily change or

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8o 4 ASPECT

cease; natural with process predicates (not states); often in conflict with (or even
interrupted by) other situations, (p. 304)

Understood in the narrowest possible way, Chung and Timberlakes definition

o f the progressive aspect as “language-particular morphological category” applies
to morphological marking on the verb, as is found in inflectional or agglutinative
languages. Consider the following pair of examples (1) from Turkish, in which the
progressive, marked with -iyor, is in variation with the neutral:2

(1a) Evimde çakçiyor.

House-my-in work-PROG
“He/she is working in my house”
(ib) Evimde çahçir.
House-my-in work-NEUTR
“He/she works in my house.”

Progressives may also be composed of periphrastic verbal constructions, which is

the usual case in languages with an analytical grammar, such as English; compare
(2a) with the neutral (2b):

(2a) I was being interviewed for the job by a former army officer.
(2b) I was interviewed for the job by-a former army officer.

Periphrastic constructions will be included in the category of progressives i f they

display a medium-to-high degree o f grammaticalization and routinization. Degree
o f grammaticalization is, o f course, a scalar concept, and there are borderline cases
for inclusion. German, for example, has some weakly grammaticalized ways of
conveying progressive aspectuality, particularly in dialectal, regional, and infor­
mal usage. Standard German usually leaves progressive aspectuality implicit or
expresses it optionally by lexical means. In answer to the question was macht er ?
(“what is he doing?” ) we usually hear (3a):

(3a) Er arbeitet/schreibt einen Brief.

He work/write-PRESENT-3rd PERSON a letter.
“He’s working /writing a letter.”

In informal regional speech, on the other hand, we may hear (3b, 3c):

(3b) Er ist am/beim Arbeiten.

He be-PRESENT-3rd PERSON on/at working.
(3c) Er ist einen Brief am Schreiben.
He be-PRESENT-3rd PERSON a letter on/at writing.

Note that (3c), with a transitive verb phrase, is less widely acceptable than (3b),
where arbeiten ‘work’ is used intransitively.3 Such semi-grammaticalized pro­
gressives are interesting for the light they shed on typical pathways of grammati­
calization and change, but they will not play a central role in the present
survey.
P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONTI NUOUS A S P E C T 805

Another borderline case arises when the progressive is marked by adverbs or

particles, as is the case in, for example, German or Cantonese. In answer to the
question was macht er?, in addition to (3b) and (3c), we may also hear (4):

{4) Er schreibt gerade /Er schreibt gerade einen Brief.

He write-PRESENT-3rd PERSON right-now /He write-PRESENT-3rd PERSON right-
now a letter
“He’s writing right now. /He’s writing a letter right now”

In Cantonese, the progressive is expressed by the particle gdn following the verb, as
in (5):

(5) Chahn Saang taan-gan saigaai.

Chan Mr. enjoy-PROG world
“Mr. Chan is having a good time.”
(Example and transliteration from Matthews and Yip, 1994, p. 202)

For the purposes o f the present argument, the German construction in (4) will not
be considered as an exponent of the category progressive. Grammatically, gerade is
an adverb o f time (meaning right now’), which is homophonous with an adjective/
adverb o f manner meaning ‘straight’ The combination o f the verb with gerade is
optional, and even if it is fairly frequent, it cannot usefully be regarded as a verbal
grammatical category. The situation is different in Cantonese, where the particle is
almost always used adjacent to the verb and while not entirely obligatory, is never­
theless extremely common. Its status as a verbal category is emphasized by the fact
that it can optionally be reinforced by using hdidouh, literally ‘to be here/there’
(Matthews and Yip, 1994, p. 202), as in (6):

(6) Keuih haidouhh gong-gan dihnwa.

She/he be-here talk-PROG telephone
“She’s (talking) on the phone.”
(Example and transliteration from Matthews and Yip, 1994, p. 202)

Obviously, even in languages with fully grammaticalized progressives, there is no

tidy correspondence between progressive aspectuality (as a semantic notion) and
the progressive aspect (as a grammatical category). Usually, there will be some clear
cases o f progressive aspectuality, which are not (or at least do not have to be)
expressed by the progressive. In English, for example, both versions of the following
sentence (7) are acceptable:

(7a) If a listing has neither of these designations it means the produce sold may come from
outside the area and may be being sold by nonfarmers or by farmers supplementing
their own crops. (Corpus of Contemporary American English—COCA, made available by
Mark Davies at www.americancorpus.org/)
(7b) If a listing has neither of these designations it means the produce sold may come from
outside the area and may be sold by nonfarmers or by farmers supplementing their
own crops.
8o6 ASPECT

On the other hand, progressives usually have at least some non-aspectual uses, an
example being the English “interpretive” progressive (cf. Huddleston and Pullum,
2 0 0 2 , p. 165):

(8) I can only add that when Paul Gascoigne says he will not be happy until he stops
playing football, he is talking rot. (FLOB, A 09: 8if.)4

There is no narrowly aspectual distinction at issue here that would justify the choice
of the neutral or non-progressive form in the first clause and the progressive in the
second. Rather, the progressive is talking expresses a metalinguistic comment on, or
interprets, the original utterance introduced by says.
Closely related to the progressive is the continuous aspect. Essentially, while
the progressive is usually reserved for dynamic verbs and predicates, non-progressive
continuous aspectuality additionally covers stative predicates, i.e., those in which,
in contrast to dynamic predications, there is no volitional agent involved and which
therefore do not usually occur in the imperative or allow modification with adverbs
such as eagerly. In the following pair o f examples (9,10), understand represents the
class o f stative predicates, whereas study is a dynamic one.

(9) I understand Mokilese.

*1 am understanding Mokilese. ■
^Understand Mokilese!
*1 understand Mokilese eagerly.
(10) I study Mokilese.
I am studying Mokilese.
Study Mokilese!
I study /am studying Mokilese eagerly.

Notwithstanding the fact that it is sometimes referred to as the “continuous form,”

the English be + V-ing construction is a progressive and therefore normally ruled
out for understand, the stative verb. In languages with a true continuous aspect, on
the other hand, both understand and study could carry the same marking. Mandarin
zhe, which occurs with verbs and adjectives and whose function, among others, is
given as “indicating] the durativity of a continued dynamic or static situation” (Xiao
and McEnery, 2 0 0 4 , p. 182), would seem to be a case in point.
Obviously, considerable problems o f demarcation remain between the progres­
sive and continuous categories, both in typological taxonomies and with regard to
the empirical facts o f individual languages. For the purposes of typological compar­
ison, Comrie (1976) has posited the progressive as a sub-type o f the continuous, a
view which—though widely quoted—is not without its problems (see section 2 below
for further discussion). With regard to the recalcitrant messiness o f the facts of indi­
vidual languages, English serves as a good example. Its be + V-ing form poses few
problems o f a theoretical nature, as it presents itself as a fairly straightforward case of
a progressive. Nevertheless, it is used with relational, that is normally stative, verbs
such as stand or live (as in a group of youths was standing on the corner or Vm living
on the other side of town)—with the implication that these states are continuous but
P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONT INU OU S A S P EC T

temporary. Diachronically, form erly continuous or durative aspects have been noted
to narrow down to progressives, and vice versa (Bertinetto et al., 2000, p. 538).
In spite o f these problem s o f dem arcation, though, it m akes sense to keep the
progressive and the continuous apart in principle, and the distinction between them
can best be grasped in those languages which have gram m aticalized them both,
such as, for exam ple, Cantonese— a language in which the progressive is m arked by
the p article gdn (11a) and the continuous by the particle jy u h (11b):

(11a) Ngoihbihn lohk-gan yuh.

Outside fall-PROG rain.
“ It’s raining outside.”
(11b) Ngoihbihn lohk-jyuh yuh.
Outside fall-CO N T rain.
“ Its raining outside.”
(Examples and transliteration from Matthews and Yip, 1994, p. 197)

As can be seen, both Cantonese sentences are translated into the English progres­
sive. The difference is that the “progressive describes the action o f rain falling,
w hile jy u h presents the weather as a continuing situation” (M atthews and Yip, 1994,
p. 197). A loose translation o f (11b) which distinguishes it from the mere progressive
in (11a) m ight thus be it keeps raining outside.
In the fram ew ork o f a short chapter, it is im possible to do full justice to the co m ­
plexities o f progressive and continuous aspects in all the languages in which they are
attested or even in the sm aller sam ple for which adequate descriptions are available.
Accordingly, section 2 will discuss general questions regarding the diachronic origin
and synchronic status o f progressives in a small sam ple o f languages. The contin­
uous will be discussed as well, but play a lesser role. M ost likely, this reflects the facts
o f the w orlds languages, in which the progressive aspect is m ore likely to be gram ­
m aticalized than the continuous; and it certainly reflects the progressives higher
profile in the typological literature.5 Section 3 w ill draw on the authors own research
on recent changes in the structure, status and frequency o f use o f the English p ro­
gressive. It is hoped that this com bination o f a fairly general crosslinguistic survey
and the detailed scrutiny o f variability and change in one language will contribute to
a deeper understanding o f this particular com ponent o f the tense-aspect system.

2. C r o sslin g u istic Trends in t h e

St r u c t u r e and Fu n c tio n of Pr o g r essives

The progressive is rarer in the w o rld s languages than the perfective/im perfective
distinction, w hich seem s to be gram m aticalized in over 40% o f them .6 This is not
surprising, as progressive and continuous aspectuality can be considered special
cases o f im perfectivity, as is argued by C om rie (1976, p. 25), who devised the fo l­
low ing w ell-know n and widely quoted visualization:

Material chraneny autorskym pravom

8o8 ASPECT

Classification o f aspectual oppositions

Perfective Imperfective

Habitual Continuous

Nonprogressive Progressive

Figure 28.1. Aspectual oppositions (adapted from Comrie, 1976, p. 25)

In this scheme, the progressive contrasts with a nonprogressive. Typically, the

defining feature o f the progressive is its restriction to dynamic verbs and predi­
cates. The continuous, on the other hand, subsumes both enduring non-progressive
states or situations and events in progress, and itself contrasts with the habitual.
Comries broad classification covers frequent and typologically common uses of
the progressive well but there are certain facts, which it does not accommodate
easily. For example, the rationale for the progressive/nonprogressive distinction as
proposed by Comrie is the correlation between progressives and dynamic verbal
predications, which typically convey the notion that the process or activity referred
to is o f limited duration, exhibits change in intensity and is normally under con­
scious control o f some agent. Nonprogressives, by contrast, are typically states for
which there is no limited duration (but continuity), no change in intensity, and
usually no conscious control. These are indeed strong correlations, which hold well
language-internally and also crosslinguistically. Still, they fail to accommodate, for
instance, momentary actions, which in English are usually nonprogressive but not
continuous: compare the clock strikes twelve or Miller is fighting harder now and
strikes his opponent on the chest). Other complications emerge one level up in Com ­
ries scheme, in the demarcation between continuous and habitual. Here the de­
fining criterion for habituality is repetition or potential recurrence at regular
intervals, which of course overlaps considerably with more general iteration,7
which is perfectly compatible with the continuous: compare the horses had their
hooves padded because they were kicking vs. the horses had their hooves padded
because they kicked. Like every “grand design” o f this kind, Comries scheme has
considerable orientational value: It captures statistically common or prototypical
aspectual usages in one language; it may even help us state the reasons for the par­
tial overlaps and significant contrasts that emerge in crosslinguistic comparisons of
P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONTI NUOUS A S P E C T 809

aspectual systems, for example between the Romance and Slavic imperfective and
the English progressive; but it clearly is not a ready-made comprehensive blueprint
accommodating all types of aspectual usage either within one language or across
languages.
With regard to morphosyntactic form, Bertinetto, Ebert, and de Groot distin­
guish inflectional progressive marking and four types o f periphrastic/analytical
constructions:

a. Affixal progressives
b. Complex verb phrases as progressive signals
verb phrases with a copula as auxiliary6
verb phrases with a motion or postural verb as auxiliary
verb phrases with a pro-predicate (do-type) as auxiliary
verb phrases with a special progressive auxiliary verb
(Bertinetto et al., 2000, p. 520, based on Blansitt, 1975)

Generally, it seems that both in the languages o f Europe and elsewhere, the
progressive shows an affinity to periphrastic constructions and local metaphors:
As is well known, PROG constructions include, in one way or another, a locative
morpheme. This may consist for instance of an auxiliary verb indicating existence
or position (as in virtually every European PROG device), of an explicit marker of
locativity (like the inessive case in Finnish PROG), or of a combination of more
than one such morphemes (as again in Finnish PROG, which combines both of
the above features). However, although the morphological structure of these
constructions is based on a locative morpheme of some kind, the degree to which
this meaning component persists in each construction varies from case to case.
(Bertinetto et al. 2000, p. 532; cf. similarly, Bybee, Pagliuca, and Perkins, 1994,
pp. 129,131)
Some o f the more striking instances o f the rapid grammaticalization o f loca­
tive expressions as progressive markers are provided by European-lexifier creole
languages. Consider, for example, Krio, which has a fairly general progressive
marked by de, which is derived from the locative copula, from which it is distin­
guished through its low tone. In an interesting instance of layering in gram ­
maticalization, this is complemented by a second progressive, which consists
o f “a form o f the locative copula de used with pan at, on (<E upon). While
de-progressives can convey futurity, de pan-progressives are restricted to currently
ongoing activities” (Yillah and Corcoran, 2007, p. 179). This gives rise to the fol­
lowing contrast:

(12a) Olu de kam.

Olu PROG/FUT come
“Olu is coming /Olu will come.”
(12b) Olu depan kam
Olu PROG kam
“Olu is coming (right now).”
(Examples and glosses from p. 179)
8 io AS P E C T

The locative origin o f the progressive marker is clearly apparent also in Guinea-
Bissau Kriyol, where the preverbal progressive marker na is homophonous with a
preposition meaning “ in, on, at” (Baptista, Mello and Suzuki, 2007, p. 56):

(13) E bajudas na laba kurpu.

DEM girls PROG wash body
“The girls are bathing.”
(Example and gloss from p. $6, following Peck, 1988, p. 279)

As locative origin of the progressive is not only a feature of the European superstrates
but also o f many West African and Pacific substrate languages, the rise o f creole pro­
gressive markers affords numerous instances o f interaction and convergence between
superstrates and substrates. Thus, the conservative Jamaican Creole progressive
markers de and da are considered to be “quite certainly African” by Cassidy (1961, p.
60), who traces them to an Ewe copula and a Twi locative verb respectively. Hawai’ian
Creole stei or Tok Pisin wok long and i stap, on the other hand, derive from English
stay,; walk and stop respectively in their form, while reflecting substrate influence in
their patterns of use (Sakoda and Siegel, 2004, pp. 747-749 and Faraclas, 2007, p. 357).
Whereas inflectional morphemes are generally fully grammaticalized, the
degree o f grammaticalization and obligatoriness in periphrastic constructions var­
ies considerably. For example, the English progressive I am singing is different from
the formally similar Italian sto cantando because of its different relation to the neu­
tral counterpart. Italian canto is commonly used for progressive and habitual situa­
tions, and sto cantando is thus a merely optional way of making progressive
aspectuality explicit. English I sing, on the other hand, is usually ruled out in clearly
progressive uses, and the progressive therefore an obligatory grammatical category
in this language. In spite of their broad similarity in function and even in form
(auxiliary + present participle), the Italian and English progressives are thus far
from being translation equivalents or even discourse equivalents.
This point, made in a synchronic crosslinguistic comparison o f present-day
English and Italian, can o f course easily be made diachronically on the basis of the
history o f one language, in a comparison o f Early Modern English and present-day
English. As is shown by the following brief exchange from Shakespeare’s Two Gen­
tlemen o f Verona (1, 3, 51), Early Modern English had a progressive:

(14) Antonio. How now! What letter are you reading there?
Proteus. May’t please your lordship, ’tis a word or two
Of commendations sent from Valentine,
Deliver’d by a friend that came from him.

In contrast to present-day English* however, the progressive was not obligatory

yet—as is shown by the following even better-known passage from Hamlet (II, 2,
190), in which Polonius asks a similar question:

(15) Polonius. What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet. Words, words, words.
P R O G R E S S I V E AND C O N T I N U O U S A S P E C T 8ll

A s the in qu iry does not concern H am lets reading habits but the text he is reading at
the m om ent o f speaking, the progressive would be obligatory here in present-day
English. Even though the progressive has the sam e form and, with regard to this
particular use, also broadly the sam e function in Early M odern English and in
M odern English, its over-all status in the system is rather different. In Early M odern
English, it is not obligatory yet: its discourse frequency is therefore low, and its use
is still subject to extra-gram m atical determ inants such as speech rhythm s, form ality
and style (on the discourse em bedding o f m ore recent changes in the English p ro­
gressive see section 3 below).
If com parison across languages based on actual situated language use thus turns
out to be difficult even in such an apparently sim ple case, can we at least establish
generalizations at a more abstract level, based on typological com parisons o f decon-
textualized tense-and-aspect system s? Binnick is skeptical:

In the absence o f a generally agreed-upon meaning assignable to the progressive,

equation o f forms across languages could at best be only speculative, or serve as a
shorthand w ay o f asserting certain similarities o f meaning or use between
languages. The question is whether there is any com m onality o f meaning to
progressives, or lacking such, what the similarities might be. (1991, p. 283)

A s an exam ple, consider the construction “postural verb + infinitive,” w hich has
been treated as a progressive in Dutch (Bertinetto et al., 2000, p. 518). By contrast,
the structurally analogous English construction (/ sat reading the paper or several
people stood talking to each other) is hardly ever considered under the sam e heading.
The reason is, o f course, that English, unlike Dutch, has a much better, already fully
gram m aticalized exponent o f the category progressive, so that none m ore are
needed. Sim ilarly precarious is the status o f locative adverbials, w hich have taken on
secondary tem poral m eaning in contexts o f progressive aspectuality. Unlike the pre­
sent chapter, Dahl (1985, p. 90), for instance, includes gerade + Verb as exponent o f
progressive for G erm an. There m ay be a general temptation in crosslinguistic-typo­
logical w ork on aspect to “over-collect” by including m arginal, optional or incipi-
ently gram m aticalized form s, without considering the m assive constraints that such
supposedly general gram m atical categories m ay be subject to in actual language use.
Ideally, crosslinguistic com parisons should not be based on exhaustive inven­
tories o f the various ways languages have o f conveying progressive aspectuality, but
rather focus on strongly gram m aticalized, conventional and if possible even obliga­
tory constructions. As Bertinetto, Ebert, and de G root put it:

Thus, whenever we use the abbreviation P R O G , this must be intended as refer­

ring to a specialized morphosyntactic device, rather than to the broad semantic
notion o f progressivity. (Bertinetto et al., 2000, p. 520)

This procedure, however, presupposes that we have the relevant inform ation
about gram m ar and usage for a particular language, which is not always the case.
Lexico-gram m atical expressions o f aspectuality, which are only partly system atic
and productive are best dealt w ithin their language-specific and partly idiosyncratic
gram m atical context. Ih u s, the English constructions in (16a):

Copyrighted material
812 ASPECT

(16a) 1 started reading.

I kept reading.
I stopped reading.

— with their corresponding transitive variants in (16b):

(16b) I started him reading.

I kept him reading.
I stopped him reading.9

are certainly relevant to a discussion o f verbal aspect in this language and, arguably,
they even show a degree o f gram m aticalization, with start, keep , and stop acting as
aspectual sem i-auxiliaries determ ining the interpretation o f the process o f reading
(as beginning, going on, or term inating). As a matter o f fact, Biber, Johansson,
Leech, C on rad , and Finegan (1999, p. 746), a corpus-based descriptive gram m ar o f
English, refers to keep + V ing as “a kind o f progressive marker, em phasizing that the
action described in the -ing- clause is continuous 01* recurrent.” In the theoretically
m ore am bitious schem e o f Bybee et al., the constructions involving keep (on), con­
tinue, and go on are treated as exponents o f continuative, as opposed to continuous,
aspect (cf. e.g., Bybee et al., 1994» p- 127). But this rich flow ering o f gram m atical
form s notwithstanding, it is still I was reading which should be the starting point
(and usually also the end-point) for any crosslinguistic study o f aspect in English
and other languages.
Beyond the structural and form al dim ension, there are som e sem antic and
pragm atic factors that are relevant for typological com parison. Thus, progressives
are largely incom patible with stative verbs and predicates, although, o f course the
degree o f incom patibility varies across languages. Som etim es, use o f progressives for
stative verbs indicates a diachronically transitional stage (in which the progressive is
m oving toward a generalized continuous aspect or even an im perfective in C om ries
schem e).lu Em pirical support for such a m ajor pathway o f gram m aticalization “ pro­
gressive > continuous > im perfective” is found in the Turkic, D ravidian, and Celtic
languages, am ong others, by Bybee et al. in their survey (1994, pp. 129 ,139 ).
Som etim es, the m arked use o f a progressive for a stative verb or predicate is not
a sign o f ongoing change but rather an instance o f sem antically or pragm atically
licensed rule-bending. It m ay lead to a stative verb being reinterpreted as a dynam ic
process in a specific context, such as when the prototypically stative verb love ,
denoting a stable affective disposition, is limited to a specified time fram e and hence
com es to take on the more dynam ic m eaning o f enjoy’. This is the case in (17) below,
w here in addition the indefinite subject pronoun everybody suggests continuity
through frequent iteration:

(17) [Mr. A LEX A N D ER ) One day you’re sort o f all washed up, a has been. The next day
everybody’s loving you again. I mean, how do you handle that? Not that you ever were
washed up.
[G E R A LD LEVIN , Chairman, Time Warner, Inc.) You mean just coming off the
garbage heap? (CO C A )

Copyrighted material
P R O G R E S S I V E AND C O N T I N U O U S A S P E C T 813

The case is sim ilar in the follow ing two instances, with the time adverbials 24 hours
a day and fo r the time being suggesting intensity through iteration (18) and limited
duration (19), respectively. In (20), the addition o f the particle up changes the
A ktionsart o f love from state to accom plishm ent:

(18) There is, too, the “touched out” phenomenon that occurs when a woman is loving
her baby 24 hours a day. (COCA)
(19) “ I’m a pretty laid-back person.” For the time being, Ashlee’s loving being
single—hitting the town with her big group o f girls. (C O C A )
(20) I am dying to drive it but I can’t push in the clutch. The governor is in the next lane.
We destroy him, o f course. We stomp the accelerator and five seconds later we are
doing sixty. We dust him good. But I know not forever. We arc in a cozy white cabin
on a lake, swinging on a white porch swing. He is asleep but he is loving me up
regardless. He is comatose almost always now but he performs beautifully I must say.
(CO C A )

In exam ples (21) and (22), from the sam e corpus, note the expected use o f the sim ple
form o f the verb alongside the m ore unusual progressive in the first use o f the verb
love.

(21) [Interviewer! What’s the best thing you heard this year?
[Celebrity] Just recently 1 got into this group I’m loving called Dead Prez. 1 love the
song “Mind Sex.” I’ve been playing that nonstop. (CO CA)
(22) The camera lo ves you, Vanessa. Austin and Vanessa arc in the midst o f a full
professional photo shoot, and she’s l o v in g it. Austin begins SN A PP IN G pictures,
all the while changing her look, touching her hair. (CO C A )

In (21), I love the song unam biguously expresses an unbounded state, whereas the
preceding continuous highlights the fact that the speaker is referring to a disposi­
tion recently entered into, a possible paraphrase being this group I love in p a rtic u la r
rig h t now. In (22), the camera loves you is an unbounded state, whereas the contin­
uous (shes loving it) serves as background to the (historic-present) narrative o f the
photo-shoot.
W hereas in the data discussed so far, the motivation for the exceptional use o f
the continuous with stative verbs has been sem antic, other instances are m otivated
pragm atically. In certain contexts, the use o f the progressive with a stative verb may
lead to the utterance being interpreted as m ore tentative and polite, as in (23):

(23) Anna watched Stante try to find the words he wanted, and fail. As she often did,
she found herself w ishing that she could give this child, her dead sister’s boy, what
God had seen fit to hold back: the ability to open his mouth and say what was
on his mind. For a moment Anna was tempted to sit dow n right where she was
and take him into her lap and rock him. “ Were you wanting to com e visit up at
Bengat?” (C O C A )

Note again the use o f the expected sim ple form and the contextually enriched pro­
gressive in close proxim ity. In fact, we can note an increasing pragm atic load when
progressing from Do you want to come v is it . . . ?, w hich is a straightforw ard plain
question, through D id you want to come v is it. . . ?, which represents a m oderately

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8 14 ASPECT

hedged question, to Were you wanting to come visit . . . ?, with its much more elabo­
rate hedging. Note that Are you wanting to come visit. . . ?, i.e., the present contin­
uous on its own, does not generally serve a hedging function in British and American
English. Typically, this usage indexes Scottish, Irish or Indian origin o f a speaker, as
is shown by one o f the very few such instances attested in COCA:

(24) VEEJAY CHATTERGEE, 50, and more British than Churchill. Behind him, his
cherubic wife, RAVI. . . VEEJAY # I say, are you looking for a way out of here? We
have an extra seat. Where are you wanting to go? (COCA)

O f course, it would be a vain hope to be able to account for every use o f stative verbs
in the progressive by identifying such semantic or pragmatic licensing conditions.
Nor do we have space to further explore the sociolinguistic dimension of variability
briefly alluded to in example (24). Crosslinguistically, and even across varieties of
the same language, there is a degree of language-specific arbitrariness in what
counts as stative or dynamic, and within a given language or variety the mechanics
o f co-ordination may lead to unexpected uses such as the following (25,26):

(25) People have been loving and marrying across racial lines since before the days
of miscegenation laws—which were declared unconstitutional in California by
the state Supreme Court in 1948, but not repealed by the Legislature until 1959.
(COCA)
(26) Well, interestingly, surveys done by the circus industry and also independently
indicate that circus animals, specifically elephants, are the number one attraction
for circus goers. But more importantly, circus animal owners have been loving and
caring for these elephants for almost 200 years. (COCA)

In a neutral context, people are loving across racial lines or circus owners are loving
these elephants are not very likely. In the present perfect time frame emphasizing
duration up to the moment of speaking (people have been loving across racial lines
since before the days of miscegenation laws and circus owners have been loving these
elephants for almost 200 years), the same sentences are much more idiomatic, and in
the additional co-ordination frames (loving and marrying, loving and caring for),
they are virtually inevitable. The grammatical context provided by the individual
utterance overrides the default preferences o f the grammatical system.
As this brief investigation of a large digital corpus has shown, it is easy to obtain
examples o f stative predications being used in the progressive. The same corpora,
however, show that such exceptional and contextually licensed uses are usually negli­
gible statistically. For example, CO CA contains 10,691 instances o f the third-person
singular present tense for love, but only 55 corresponding progressives.
While there is almost universal awareness of the incompatibility between sta­
tive verbs and predicates and the progressive, Binnick (1991, p. 282) is among the
few to point out that progressives are difficult to use also with a particular sub-class
o f dynamic verbs, namely those denoting achievements (in the sense of Vendler,
1967). Thus (27):

(27) *She is noticing a drunk on the street.

P R O G R E S S I V E AND C O N T I N U O U S A S P E C T 815

is very difficult to contextualize and hence likely to be considered ungram m atical.

Accordingly, C O C A , w ith its 400 m illion plus words o f text, has 319 instances o f
notices a, but only two o f is noticing a, and these exceptions significantly shift the
em phasis from sensory perception to intellection (28), and from a one-off act o f
perception to iteration (29):

(28) “ ’Ihere is very little land left,” noted Dvorak. “ We don’t have an overabundance o f
vacant oHice buildings.” He also is noticing a number o f companies moving to O’Hare
from Chicago, where “all the little taxes are adding up," he said. “Most people moving
out o f the city pick the O’Hare area first.” (C O C A )
(29) But if this passage from “ The Poet and the Plowman” articulates the rural poet’s fear
that he is laboring for a tangible significance his craft can never quite achieve, it is
when Chappell goes on to wonder what we might make o f the fact that “our word
verse came originally from versus, turning the plow at the end o f the furrow,” that
he offers a way o f understanding the detente Heaney seems to have struck with the
tradition o f pastoral sentimentality in the 2001 volume Electric Light. Chappell is
noticing a serendipity in language that is, in a sense, as accidental as the conditions he
says poetry shares with farming. (CO C A )

A final cause for concern is the relation between the progressive and the perfective/
im perfective distinction. C o m ries schem e, in which the progressive is a sub-type o f
im perfective, suggests incom patibility in principle between the progressive and the
perfective. This raises a num ber o f problem s. In English, for exam ple, w hich has a
perfect progressive (cf. has/have been doing, has/have been being done), we can rec­
oncile the em pirical facts o f the language and the taxonom y only if we regard the
“present perfect” as an exponent o f the category tense rather than aspect— a view
which is not entirely uncontroversial. Sim ilar thinking seem s to be implicit in the
follow ing typological reflections on the interaction between the progressive/non­
progressive and perfective/im perfective distinctions. The claim is that the progres­
sive is not only com patible with the im perfective (as would be expected), but also
w ith the perfective:

Sum m ing up, the progressive aspect is in principle compatible with both perfec­
tive and imperfective tenses, although it occurs most often with the imperfective
ones. A s to the languages presenting the distinction Perfective/imperfective,
P R O G clearly favours the Imperfective predicates. (Bertinetto et al. 2000, p. 526)

Note that the perfective and im perfective are labeled tenses here. M ore gener­
ally in relation to tense, the typological literature notes cases o f structural imbalance
in which there is a progressive distinction in the past and future but not in the pre­
sent. A case in point is provided by Lithuanian (cf. Bertinetto et al., 2000, p. 526).
The reverse constellation— a progressive vs. non-progressive/neutral contrast in the
present but none in the past or future— seem s to be non-existent (p. 526). Note,
however, that there m ay be language-specific exceptions to this generalization in the
m ore com plex niches o f the verbal paradigm s o f individual languages. Until the late
nineteenth-century English, for exam ple, did not have a progressive in the passive
voice in the future tense and in the present perfect, whereas it w as available for the
present and past tenses; com pare the sentences in (30):

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8i6 ASPECT

(30) I’m being interviewed for a really interesting job.

I was being interviewed for a really interesting job.
?I will be being interviewed for a really interesting job.
?I have been being interviewed for a really interesting job.

To sum m arize: C ro sslin gu istic com parison has m ade us aware o f the m anifold
and variou s w ays in w hich progressive and continuous aspect can be encoded
m o rp h o lo gically and syntactically. It has also show n that degrees o f gram m ati-
calization and ob ligatoriness o f what figures as a p rogressive or continuous
aspect in in d ivid u al languages differ w idely. Finally, we have noted com plex in ­
teractions between p rogressive/continu ou s and other tense and aspect cate­
gories. In all this, how ever, with few exceptions, we have com pared gram m ars o f
languages as abstract, decontextualized structu ral system s, and we have not yet
proceeded to studyin g aspect in use. W hat, for exam ple, are typical discourse
im plicatures o f the progressive? If the choice between progressive and n o n p ro ­
gressive is not determ ined sem antically, w hich stylistic and socio lin gu istic over­
tones are conveyed by the two varian ts? Is textual genre or m edium (speech vs.
w ritin g) an im portant factor in the selection? A ll these questions are im portant,
because they reveal sp eakers’ m otivations for the use o f specific gram m atical cat­
egories in d iscou rse and thus m ay help us better understand the gram m aticaliza-
tion d yn am ics that have led to the em ergence o f a p articu lar system o f tem poral
and aspectual opposition s. In the fo llo w in g section, I w ill explore som e o f these
issues by lookin g at strikin g developm ents in the recent h istory o f the English
progressive.

3. R e c e n t C h a n g e s in t h e E n g lish
Pro g r essive

W hile there have not been any dram atic changes in the use o f the present, past, and
perfect tenses since the eighteenth century, verbal aspect in English is still rapidly
developing. A s D enison points out, late M odern English continues a long-standing
historical trend:

The progressive construction, as in 1 was sw im m ing, has undergone some o f the

most striking syntactic changes ol the IM odE [late M odern English j period. By
early in the M odE period the BE +-m g pattern was already well established, and
its overall frequency has increased continuously ever since. Dennis (1940)
estimates an approximate doubling every century from 1500, though with a
slowing down in the eighteenth century and a spurt at the beginning o f the
nineteenth (Strang, 1982, p. 429). Arnaud, working from a corpus o f private letters
and extrapolating to the speech o f literate middle-class people, estimates a
threefold increase during the nineteenth century alone (1983, p. 84). (Denison,
1998, p. 143)

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P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONTI NUOUS AS PEC T 817

Changes affecting the progressive are o f two types that need to be kept distinct,
although they are often treated as one and the same phenomenon.

—First, the progressive form has become demonstrably more frequent in its
established uses in texts in the course of the past few centuries.
—Second, new uses o f the progressive have emerged. This is clear in all
those cases in which new progressive forms have been created to fill
niches in the verbal paradigms, such as the present and past passive
progressive (this is/was being done—eighteenth and nineteenth centuries)
or the future, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect passive
progressive (this will be being done, this has/had been being done, this will
have been being done, etc.—twentieth century). It is less clear in those
cases in which new uses have been claimed for existing forms. Thus, some
scholars have argued that there is currently a greater readiness than before
to use the progressive form with stative verbs such as want or understand
(e.g., Potter, 1975, pp. 118-122; Aitchison, 1991, p. 100) and that the
growing conventionalization of such previously exceptional uses may
result in the progressive becoming a continuous or even a generalized
imperfective (as assumed, for example, by Comrie, 1976). Systematic
empirical support for such claims, however, is difficult to obtain. More
promising candidates for new functions may be the interpretative,
experiental or otherwise subjective uses whose history since Early
Modern English has recently been documented on the basis of corpus
data in Kranich (2010).

For the past two decades, the present writer and his associates have carried out
corpus-based real-time studies o f morphosyntactic change in progress in con­
temporary English, based on a number o f corpora documenting usage in British
and American English in the twentieth century (for summaries o f the work cf.
e.g., Mair, 2006; Leech, Hundt, M air and Smith, 2009, with further references).
Not surprisingly, given its continuing diachronic dynamic, the progressive has
been an important topic o f study (Mair and Hundt, 1995; Smith, 2002; Hundt,
2004; Leech et al., 2009, pp. 11-43). Before moving on to an analysis o f the dia­
chronic development of the grammatical category, let us briefly consider the sta­
tistical shifts in the discourse frequency of progressives as they are reflected in
corpus data.
A RCH ER (“A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers” ) covers
the development of British and American English from 1650 to the present over a
variety o f formal and informal written genres and shows the clear trend apparent
from Figure 28.2 below. A total o f around 200,000 words has been sampled for each
sub-period in each variety, but to simplify comparison within this graph and with
the diagrams to be discussed below frequencies have been normalized as n/pmw
(= per million words). Note that American English has not been sampled for all
periods and that the first British sub-period (1650-1699) has not been included
because o f the scarcity of relevant evidence:
8 i8 ASPECT

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0
1700-1749 1750-1799 1800-1849 1850-1899 1900-1949 1950-1990

Figure 28.2. Distribution o f the progressive in A R C H E R (Leech et al., 2009, p. 122,

based on Hundt, 2004, P* 69)

With the exception o f one period, the first half o f the twentieth century, the
diagram presents the expected linear rise in the frequency o f the progressive, from
around 700 instances per million words in the early eighteenth century to more
than 3,000 in the second half o f the twentieth.12
A more fine-grained picture emerges for the second half of the twentieth cen­
tury from the Brown family of British and American one-million-word reference
corpora o f written English.13 The focus from now on will be on the present active
progressive, as this is the most common form by far and the one which is least af­
fected by genre bias or influence from other variables. For example, the incidence of
the passive progressive is highly dependent on speakers’ views on the stylistic ap­
propriateness o f passives in written texts, which are known to have changed drasti­
cally in recent years; the passive going out o f fashion in academic texts will thus
automatically lead to a drop in the frequency o f progressive passives, as well. Simi­
larly, changing conventions of fictional narration—for example a shift from omni­
scient/authorial points-of-view to free indirect discourse—will have a profound
impact on the use of the past active progressive.
The figures show significant over-all increases, both in British and American
English, but increases which clearly do not affect all of the four major text types
sampled to a comparable extent (cf. Figures 28.3a, 3b):
The first finding from the Brown family o f corpora is that there is a significant
over-all rise in the frequency o f progressives in written English both in Britain and
the U.S. Note that in contrast to the A RCH ER data, this time it is not British English
but American English which is slightly ahead in this development in the second half
o f the twentieth century. This suggests that we are dealing less with a regional dia­
lect contrast than with a diachronic drift, which is currently moving all varieties of
English in the same direction at slightly differential rates.
A second and equally important finding, however, is that the frequency of the
progressive is highly dependent on text-type and genre. The frequencies in the
P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONTI NUOUS A S P E C T 8 19

r® .0*
Ö c/

BrE 1961 AmE 1961

Figure 28.3a. Distribution of present progressive (active) across text-types in two British
corpora (1961-1991): frequencies pmw (Leech et al., 2009, p. 123)
Figure 28.3b. Distribution of present progressive (active) across text-types in two
American corpora (1961-1992): frequencies pmw (Leech et al., 2009, p -123)

Brown family o f corpora peak at around 2,000 pmw (press), with the “learned/
academic” genres polling at around 400 pmw, which is lower than the A RCH ER
average for the early eighteenth century. So while both A RCH ER and the Brown
family o f corpora show the same general direction of change, text-type is a factor
that needs to be taken into consideration, too. A RCH ERs compilers made an effort
to include informal and speech-like written genres (e.g., drama dialogues), which
resulted in a much higher frequency of progressives. On the basis these figures we
can thus gauge the massive impact o f discourse factors on the use of the progres­
sive in one language, English, and recall that it is precisely these discourse factors
which tend to be neglected in the type o f crosslinguistic comparison reported on
in section 2.
This genre sensitivity o f the progressive makes it imperative to obtain data
from the unmarked or baseline register o f informal face-to-face interaction.
Only if we can detect a parallel diachronic trend in the use o f the progressive at
this level can we be sure that we are dealing with genuine language change
rather than changes in the stylistic fashions governing specific written genres.
For after all, an increase in the frequency o f progressives that was restricted to
the written language only represents not language change (in the sense of
changes in the system of grammatical options), but style change, i.e., the fact
that, over time, the norms o f written language have moved closer to those o f
speech (the “colloquialization” of writing extensively discussed in Mair, 2006,
and Leech et al., 2009).
820 ASPECT

In fact, there is one corpus o f spoken English which lends itself to real-time
investigations o f change in progress: the Diachronic Corpus o f Present-Day Spo­
ken English (DCPSE), which samples spoken British texts which are broadly con­
temporaneous with the written material in LOB and F-LOB. Leech et al. (2009,
p. 126) present findings, which are based on extracts from this corpus recorded
in the years 1958-69 and 1990-992, respectively, and which suggest an increase
in frequency that is even more dramatic than that observed in written texts. In
face-to-face conversation, for example, they note an increase o f 41.5%, from
6,293 progressives/million words to 8,906; the corresponding figures for tele­
phone conversations are even more striking: an increase o f nearly 88%, from
6,890 to 12,935.14
As Leech et al. point out the provisional nature o f their findings and as the
DCPSE is now complete and available to the linguistic community, it is instructive
to analyze the full material. The DCPSE data are part-of-speech tagged and syn­
tactically parsed, with manual post-editing, so that a high degree of reliability is
ensured.15 To maintain comparability with the figures from the Brown corpora,
this chapter will discuss the frequencies of the present progressive active. In the
classification o f the DCPSE, the genres analyzed are “face-to-face conversation/
informal” (which is mostly composed o f spontaneous conversation and some ma­
terial from class tutorials) and “telephone conversations.” For the face-to-face con­
versations, the “old” material (recorded from the early 1960s to 1977) comprises
218,307 words, the “new” material (recorded between 1990 and 1992) 185,537
words. For the telephone conversations, the corresponding figures are 26,828 and
20,414 words, respectively. For ease o f reference, all figures will henceforeward be
normalized to n/pmw:
Figure 28.4 provides a visual representation of the trend:

Table 28.1 Progressives in the DCPSE—diachronic trends (frequencies as n/pmw)

Present progressive active (old) Present progressive active (new) +/- %

face-to-face 2,639 4,441 +68

telephone 6,662 +109

Note-. See the A ppendix o f this chapter for raw data.

B face-to-face

■ telephone

' d - l - v - v :

. :: .......................... ..:*i •

1961-77 1990-92
Figure 28.4. Present progressive active in the DCPSE—diachronic trends (n/pmw)
P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONTI NUOUS A S P E C T 821

The trends for the present progressive active, that is the most basic and neutral use
o f the form, are even more striking than the over-all trends observed by Leech et al. in
their exploratory study and largely confirmed in the analysis of the full DCPSE mate­
rial (see Appendix). In this situation, it is perfectly obvious that an explanation cannot
be found in any secondary, new or untypical uses of the progressives, for all of them
combined would not even account for a fraction of the massive increase. As in the
written texts, the progressive has become more common in its established uses, and
the type of example we need to focus on is illustrated by the following cases (31,32):

(31) But they think they’re getting a good deal if they’re paying you know if they’re handing
over the dosh (DCPSE, new)
(32) A: So the person calling is being charged thirty-eight pence a minute and the person
who’s being called is charged a quid
B: Who’s being called is charged a quid (DCPSE, new)

Example (32), owing to its being passive, was not included in the counts (Table 28.1 and
Figure 28.4), but is included for consideration here, as the present progressive passive
moves from a marginal status in the “old” data (2 cases) to 21 instances in the new
material. With absolute frequencies so low, no statistically significant trend can be
established, but it is certainly noteworthy that such a relatively complex syntactic
construction, involving two auxiliaries, is obviously firmly established in contempo­
rary spontaneous spoken material. With regard to aspectual semantics, it is instruc­
tive to compare (31) and (32) to available alternatives (33, 34) with the simple form:

(33) But they think they will get a good deal if they pay you know if they hand over the
dosh
(34) A: So the person calling is charged thirty-eight pence a minute and the person who’s
called is charged a quid
B: Who’s called is charged a quid

Compared out of context, (31) and (32) represent descriptions of specific situations,
which are (being) presupposed as given; (33) and (34), on the other hand, present
generalizations over relevant possible situations and leave open whether any such is
to be thought of as actually given at the moment of speaking. In the actual discourse
contexts in which (31) and (32) were uttered, though, this is a distinction without a
difference, and increasing tolerance o f such vagueness on the part of speakers and
listeners seems to be what is making possible the rapid statistical increase in the
frequency o f the progressive.
What do these shifts in the discourse frequency mean for the recent history of
the English progressive as a grammatical category? In a nutshell, the major findings
o f the corpus-based real-time studies are as follows.

— The increase in discourse frequency of the progressive is real and continues

unabated in contemporary written English. There is good initial evidence
that a parallel trend is at work in spontaneous spoken English, but given
that the evidence so far is confined to British English, this needs to be
corroborated further.
822 ASPECT

— Neither the addition o f new form s to the paradigm (e.g., the com plex
passive progressives o f the type I have been being interviewed) nor the
occasional use o f progressive with stative verbs {are you wanting the car fo r
the day or fo r a longer p erio d ?) is remotely sufficient to account for this rise
in frequency. Form s such as the present perfect passive progressive are so
rare that they have no im pact on usage statistics at all. For exam ple, none of
the Brown fam ily o f corpora contain a single instance o f a present perfect
passive progressive, and even the one-hundred-m illion-w ord British
National C orpu s (B N C ) has m erely a single one. In spite o f the som ewhat
greater num ber o f exam ples, the sam e is essentially true for the “stative”
progressives. Sm itterberg (2005, pp. 174 -76 , 283) detects a statistically
significant m odest increase in such uses in his 19th century m aterial, but the
twentieth-century evidence rem ains unclear.

Leech et al. thus su m m a riz e :

Closer exam ination o f the present progressive active failed to identify any
outstanding factor contributing to the increase. C ontrary to what some scholars
have supposed, stative verb use seems at best to be a m inor player, especially in
BrE. The same applies to the expressive uses with always, and to futurate progres­
sives. A more prom ising growth area may be the so-called interpretive use. 11 we
count only archetypal intcrprctives as described in previous literature, the
frequency rises dramatically. However, this use is far from being well established,
and unclear cases by far outnum ber the clear ones. (Leech et al., 2009, p. 142)

A s the spread is thus largely confined to the p ro g re ssiv e s established uses, the
co rp u s data do not directly reflect changes in the u n d e r ly in g system o f g r a m m a tic a l
choices but rather shifting preferen ces at the d isc o u rse level, in historically ev o lv in g
textual gen res and traditions o f s p e a k in g and w riting. In other w ord s, it is the p r a g ­
m atic and stylistic overtones o f the p ro gre ssiv e— inform ality, em o tion al coloring,
and so o n — w h ich seem to be the d r iv in g forces b eh in d the o b se rv e d increases in
the d isco urse fr e q u e n c y o f the form .
W h at w e are faced w ith in the c o rp u s data is la n g u a g e change p r o c e e d in g at
two different levels, and at two different sp eed s. Th ere is the lo n g -te rm “g r o u n d -
s w e ll” o f g ra m m a tic a liz a tio n , w h ic h for e x a m p le m a n ife sts itself in newr fo rm s
b e in g a d d ed to the p ro g re ssiv e p a r a d ig m e v e r y few centuries. This is structural
ch an ge in the n a r r o w sense (and u n lik ely to be reflected in c o rp u s statistics). In
a d d itio n , there are d ia c h r o n ic trends w h ic h are statistically m o r e p o w e r fu l but also
potentially m o r e s h o r t- t e r m . These have to do w ith h o w the u n d e r ly in g system o f
g r a m m a tic a l ch oices is put to use in d isc o u rse (and are reflected in c o r p u s statis­
tics). To give an e x a m p le : the interpretative p ro g re ssiv e (when you say that this
must be so y o u ’re talking rot) w a s an option in n in e te e n th - c e n tu r y E n g lish and
co n tin u e s to be an o p tio n today. H o w ever, h o w p o p u la r the type o f m e ta lin g u istic
ev a lu atio n typically associated with the interpretative p ro g re ssiv e is in p articu lar
styles and gen res at p a rtic u la r p e r io d s is a m atter w h ic h is m u c h m o r e variable and
su b je c t to fash ion .

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P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONT INU OU S A S P EC T 82 3

4. C o n clu sio n an d Outlook

H i e present contrib ution has fo c u s e d on the verb al g r a m m a tic a l catego ry o f the

pro gressive aspect (and to s o m e extent the c o n tin u o u s aspect) fr o m two different
but c o m p le m e n ta r y perspectives. F o c u sin g on the g r a m m a r s o f languages as
abstract and d econtextualized system s o f choices, w e have been able to s h o w that
progressive (and to a lesser extent co ntin uo us) aspectuality are a m o n g the r e c u r ­
rently a n d routinely g r a m m a tic a liz e d se m a n tic n o tio ns in the languages o f the
w orld . O th e r aspectual notions, how ever, such as perfectivity, seem to be even m o r e
deeply entrenched. The d eg ree o f gra m m a tica liz atio n o f pro gressives se em s highly
variable crosslinguistically. L a n g u a g es such as English, in w h ich the category is by
a n d large o b lig ato ry w ith a fe w exceptions, are the m inority. V ery often progressive
aspectuality is exp ressed by co n ven tion alized le x ic o -g ra m m a tic a l devices, such as
the c o m b in a tio n o f verb + ad verb(ial), with the adverbial construction usually
s h o w in g o rig in ally local sem an tics w h ic h has b een e x t e n d e d m eta p h o ric ally into
the tem p o ral-asp ectu al d o m a in .
F o c u s in g on d ia c h ro n ic usage data from one language, English , we have been
able to o b serv e (a) a fairly drastic increase in the d isco u rse fre q u e n c y o f p r o g r e s ­
sives across m ost sp o k e n and written genres, and (b) the m assive influence o f text-
type and g en re on the d isco u rse fre q u e n c y o f the progressive. W h at the c o rp u s data
s h o w v e r y clearly is that this sp rea d o f the pro gressive is due to fre q u e n c y increases
m a in ly in the lo n g established uses, and not to the addition o f n e w f o r m s and f u n c ­
tions. N e w fo rm s (for exam ple co m p le x p ro gressive passives) and n e w uses (for
exam ple, interpretative progressives) are, o f co urse, b e in g ad d ed , but the rate o f
such changes is slo w a n d their statistical im pact on c o rp u s data m in im a l. In a d d i­
tion to structural in n ovatio n , shifting preferences at the d isc o u rse level crucially
contribute to the g r o w i n g en tre n c h m e n t o f the catego ry p ro gressive in the tense-
aspect system o f pre se n t-d a y English. Pragm atic a n d extra-linguistic factors have
been and co ntin ue to be im p ortan t factors in its gram m a tica liz atio n . This in turn
suggests that m u c h m o r e research is req u ired in this area, both on E n glish and on
o th er languages.

A P P E N D IX

Table 28.A Present progressives in the D C P S E — d iach ron ic trends (absolute

figu res = raw data for Table 28.1)

present progressive active (old) present progressive active (new)

face-to-face 576 824

telephone 84 136

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824 AS PEC T

Table 28.B A ll progressives in the D C PSE—diachronic trends (absolute figures)

old new
face-to-face 1 ,9 4 0 2,423
telephone 116 182

Table 28.C All progressives in the D CPSE—diachronic trends (frequencies

pmw)
old new +/- %

face-to-face 8,887 13.059 + 46.9

telephone 4 ,32.4 8.915 + 106.2

NO TES

1. This chapter w as written while I enjoyed the extrem ely productive and congenial
w orking environm ent provided b y FR IA S, Freiburg University’s Institute for Advanced
Studies. I am grateful for this support. M y thanks also go to Dr. Nicholas Smith, Salford
University, w ho w ith G eoffrey Leech, M arianne Hundt, and m yself was one o f the four
authors o f Leech et al. (2009) and chiefly responsible for the chapter on the English
progressive in this join t publication, and to Dr. Richard M atthews (Freiburg), w ho read
and com m ented o n a previous draft o f this chapter.
2. This, at least, is the norm in written Turkish. In informal speech, following a
typical diachronic pathway o f grammaticalization, the continuous is increasingly extending
its range to include habitual meanings (cf. e.g., Bybee et a l, 1994, p. 141).
3. For evidence on the rapid spread o f this construction in contem porary Germ an
com pare the Atlas zur deutschen Alltagssprache, in particular the m aps for Verlaufsform,
w hich show the results for Sie ist noch am Schlafen (“she is sleeping” ) und Ich bin gerade die
Uhr am Reparieren (“I am repairing the watch” )—www.philhist.uni-augsburg.de/de/
lehrstuehle/germanistik/sprachwissenschaft/ada/runde_2/fi8a-b/.
4. This exam ple is from the F-LO B corpus, one o f the “Brow n-fam ily” o f reference
corpora o f British and A m erican English, w hich w ill be discussed in detail in section 3
below.
5. As has been m entioned, the progressive is considered one o f four cardinal
aspectual categories by Tim berlake (2007), while the continuous is barely mentioned in his
crosslinguistic survey. Similarly, a look at the index o f Bybee et al. (1994) reveals seven
references to the continuous, but m ore than sixty to the progressive. Bybee et al. also point
out that "no crosslinguistic gram -type continuous’ emerged from our study despite the
logical position o f this sense in C om rie’s system” (p. 127).
6. Cf. e.g., the data from the World Atlas of Language Structures, in which the
perfective-im perfective distinction is present in 10 1 o f the 222 languages sampled (“ Feature
65: perfective/im perfective aspect,” by O sten Dahl and V iveka Velupillai, http://wals.info/
feature/65).
7. On the distinction between iterativity and habituality, see Bertinetto and Lenci,
and Carlson (this volume).
8. As the exam ples given m ake clear, category b.i is defined loosely and would
include idiom s such as be busy, as in I ’m busy doing my homework.
P R O G R E S S I V E AND CONT INU OU S A S P EC T 82 5

9. This latter form is com m on in British and British-influenced varieties o f Standard

English. It has disappeared from Am erican English.
10. . . it m ay well be that English is developing from a restricted use o f the
progressive, always with progressive m eaning, to this more extended m eaning range,
the present anom alies representing a m idw ay stage between these two points” (C om rie,
1976, p. 3 9 )-
11. Note that w ill can, o f course, be replaced by most o f the other modals, providing a
large num ber o f additional patterns, such as this must be being done, etc. The one modal
that seems to resist such uses is shall. Shall be being is not attested in the BN C . The only
two examples o f shall be being from C O C A involve foreigner talk (e.g., “ while the multilin­
gual tour-guide lady switched languages (‘Soon, dear friends, we sh a ll b e b e in g driven past
clinic o f most famous Professor Ignaz Semmelweis, which will be being 011 left side o f
street— Prolessor Sem m elweis, who is being renowned throughout world even today for
work he shall have been doing in 1840s, when he is discovering these great principles o f
antisepsis’).”
12. As will be shown below, the frequency o f the progressive can be as high as 13,000
instances per million words in contem porary face-to-face interaction.
13. For readers not versed in the basics o f English corpus linguistics: the "Brown
fam ily” is a set o f comparable one-million word corpora o f written English docum enting a
broad range o f written genres. The starting point was the Standard Corpus o f Present-Day
Edited Am erican English, compiled at Brown University, Providence, RI, docum enting
Am erican English in 1961, to which eventually the following four corpora were added:
Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen (LOB, British English 1961), Freiburg update o f Brown (Frown,
Am erican English, 1992), Freiburg update o f LO B (F-LOB, British English, 1991), “ before
L O B ” (B-LO B, British English, early 1930s). The last-mentioned o f these corpora is not
used for the present study.
14. As Tables B and C in the A p p en d ix, with the analysis o f the full D C P S E data in
the two genres, m ake clear, the exceptional status o f the telephone conversations is an
artifact o f Leech ct al.’s lim ited material (a possibility which the authors acknowledge).
The complete figures show that the frequency o f progressives has indeed risen faster in
telephone conversations than in face-to-face ones, but that at the end o f the process it is
still som ew hat low er in the form er than in the latter. In other w ords, Leech et al. (2009,
p. 126) arc correct in their assum ption that telephone talk tended to be more formal
(and hence less likely to use progressives) in the days when telephoning was still
expensive, and that it has since “caught up” (although the frequency o f progressives in
telephone conversations has still not quite reached the level o f spontaneous face-to-face
conversation).
15. The search was for exponents o f the syntactic function operator” realized as
' auxiliary/progressive,” w ith—depending on the q u ery— further specification o f tense (as
“present,” for example). The counts in Leech ct al., on the other hand, were based on plain
text, using a sophisticated search script devised by Nicholas Smith.

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Atlas zur deutschen Alltagssprache [AdA], comp. Stephan Eslpaß and R obert Möller, www.
philhist.uni-augsburg.de/de/lehrstuehle/germanistik/sprachwissenschaft/ada/.
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Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G ., Conrad, S., and Finegan, E. (1999). The Longman
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Binnick, R. I. (1991). Time and the verb. New York: O xford University Press.
Blansitt, E. L. (1975). Progressive aspect. Working Papers on Language Universals, 18 ,1- 3 4 .
Bybee, J., Perkins, R., and Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution o f grammar: Tense, aspect, and
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Cassidy, F. R. (1961). Jamaica talk: Three hundred years o f the English language in Jamaica.
London: M acm illan.
Chung, S., and Tim berlake, A . (1985). Aspect, tense, m ood. In T. Shopen (ed.), Language
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Com rie, B. (1976). Aspect. Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press.
Dahl, Ö. (1985). Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.
Denison, D. (1998). Syntax. In S. Rom aine (ed.), The Cambridge history o f the English
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Dennis, L. (1940). The progressive tense: Frequency o f its use in English. PMLA , 55,
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Klein, W. (1994). Time in language. London: Routledge.
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A grammatical study. Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press.
Mair, C. (2006). Twentieth-century English: History; variation, standardization. Cambridge:
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 CHAPTER 29

HABITUAL AND
GENERIC ASPECT

GREG CARLSON

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

As a first approximation, sentences of natural language may be about two different

sorts of things.1 On the one hand, they may talk about what is happening (has hap­
pened, will happen) on some occasion or set of occasions. If you say, “It rained
yesterday” you are using the sentence to talk about something that occurred, as­
suming what you say is true; and if you say, “It will rain tomorrow,” you are talking
about something which, again assuming the truth of what you say, will occur in the
future. On the other hand, sentences can be used to talk about general states of af­
fairs, not about particular things happening at some time and place. If you tell
someone, “The sun rises in the east” or “Dodos were flightless birds,” the sentences
are not about anything in particular that happened/is happening/will happen, but
rather some more general state of affairs. Sentences of the first type, about specific
occurrences, predominate in natural language narrative. These mostly consist of
predicates, or verbs, that are dynamic in Aktionsart. The Dowty (1979) classification
of predicates into states, processes, accomplishments, and achievements finds all
but the first to be subclasses of dynamic verbs that are primarily used to talk about
what happened. Revisions and embellishments to this classificatory scheme, such as
Smiths (1997) arguments for a separate class of semelfactives, are refinements to the
dynamic categories.
Within the class of stative expressions, only one major division has become
generally acknowledged, namely the difference between “ individual-level” and
“stage-level” states (Carlson, 1977; Chierchia, 1995; Kratzer, 1995; Fernald, 2000). A
H A B I T U A L AND GE NE RI C AS PEC T 829

precise understanding of this division within the class of states remains unresolved,
but intuitively, some states are much more akin to what is happening than to what
is general. Such (stage-level) predicates as “be awake, be on the phone, feel dizzy
contrast with (individual-level) “be intelligent, be a mammal, love ice cream,” in
terms o f generality. In this chapter, we will call sentences designating stage-level
dynamic events and states ‘ episodic” sentences, and we will oppose them to those
expressing individual-level states, which include habitual and generic sentences.
Following the terminology of Bertinetto and Lenci (this volume), sentences express­
ing the individual-level states will be regarded as instances of “gnomic imperfectiv-
ity” though bear in mind that actual morphological or grammatical expression of
these states often may not involve use of imperfective morphology.
Dynamic expressions, though most often used to discuss what happened, can
also be used to express generality as well. For example, the English verb rise is nor­
mally used to express the occurrence of an event of that sort: “ The sun rose this
morning at 5:18,” “ The Dow-Jones stock index rose more than a hundred points
today.” However, the use o f the same verb in “ The sun rises in the east” expresses a
regularity, a generality, and not something about any specific occurrence or even a
set of such occurrences. This change in overall meaning, from occurrence to gener­
ality, also corresponds to a change in aspectual category o f the predicate. If talking
about an occurrence, the predicate is dynamic (in the examples, an accomplish­
ment), but if talking about a generalization, the predicate becomes an individual-
level state (or at least something close to a state). This change, from occurrence to
regularity, from dynamic to stative, is often described as the result of habitual aspect.
Habitual sentences, understood here as a subtype of gnomic imperfectives
(about which, see more below), are typically described as “making reference” to
some regular, repeated activity or event. However, it is important to distinguish
making reference to the events or activities, as opposed to the regularity itself, and
habitual sentences make reference to the latter. An example o f a construction that
makes reference to the events themselves are “event-internal” iterative construc­
tions (see Bertinetto and Lenci, this volume). To choose one common instance,
semelfactives are very often interpreted iteratively. If one says “John knocked on the
door” or “The dove flapped its wings,” it is natural to understand these as events
consisting o f repeated knockings and flappings, though they can easily be under­
stood to report a single instance as well. But this repeatedness alone does not make
them understood as habitual; the sentences still report an occurrence, albeit one
that consists o f repetitions of a simple event. Comrie (1985, p. 39) is very careful to
point out this distinction: “Sentences with habitual aspect may refer not to a
sequence of situations recurring at intervals, but rather to a habit, a characteristic
situation that holds at all times.” Comrie (1976, p. 27) also notes:
In some discussions of habituality, it is assumed that habituality is essentially the
same as iterativity. . . . This terminology is misleading in two senses. Firstly, the
mere repetition of a situation is not sufficient for that situation to be referred to by
a specifically habitual (or indeed, imperfective) form___Secondly, a situation can
be referred to by a habitual form without there being any iterativity at all.
830 ASPECT

This is not to suggest that there is no conceptual relationship between iteration

and habituality, o f course, but rather that the two need to be clearly distinguished in
term s o f what a given sentence is talking about. To use an exam ple from another
dom ain, reference gram m ars occasionally characterize noun-incorporated form s o f
verbs as expressing som ething like “ regular,” “ repeated,” or even “generic” activities.
However, the sem antics o f these verb form s is alm ost always dynam ic, and what
seem s to be intended is that the use o f the incorporated form is m otivated by back­
ground knowledge that the activity discussed is one that typically occurs. The incor­
porated form expresses som ething about an individual occurrence, and not about
that “ background” regularity directly. Habituality o f course m ay co-occur with
“event-internal” iterativity. If som e iterated behavior or event is characteristic o f an
extended tim e period, then it can form the basis o f a habitual. “ The postm an (always)
rings twice” m eans that on each occasion, there are two ringings, and it is ringing
two times, rather than say three or four times, that occurs on each occasion.
A second type o f construction that is som etim e introduced is a “frequentative”
form . This term inology is due to the judgm ent that the activity form ing the basis o f
a habitual occurs “often.” Such exam ples might be roughly rendered in English by
using frequency adverbs such as often or usually. It is not entirely clear that all uses
o f the term take care to distinguish frequentatives from habituals in general (which
are also regularly glossed in English with frequency adverbs), though habituals m ay
encom pass a w ider range o f possibilities beyond those readings entailing frequent
occurrences (a matter we return to below). Som e uses o f the term might indicate
frequentatives as a subclass o f iteratives (van G eenhoven, 2004). However, the gen­
eral usage appears to take them to be a subclass o f habituals, namely, habituals
w here the activity must occur with judged high frequency, and we w ill so regard
them.
The third classification we need to consider is the “generic.” This term has broad
application, extending to a designation o f noun phrase m eanings and a variety o f
sentential interpretations and form s besides, or in addition to, habituals. In som e
instances “generic” has been roughly equated with individual-level (as opposed to
stage-level) expressions. In extended parts o f the form al sem antics literature (see
K rifka et al„ 1995, for but one exam ple), the term “generic” is used to include habitu­
ality as a sub-case, w ithout m aking any principled distinction between the two ter-
m inologically, though the sem antic analysis itself distinguishes them in term s o f
what sorts o f variables are bound. W riters o f reference gram m ars and gram m atical
sketches, however, m ostly reserve the term “generic” for phenom ena that lie beyond
habituality, and this practice o f distinguishing the two term inologically has found
its way into the form al literature (e.g., Lenci and Bertinetto, 2000; Rim ell, 2004;
Boneh and D oron, 2008), and is presently an established practice.
“ G en eric” sentences are, on this view, sentences expressing gnom ic imperfec-
tivity that have generic noun phrases as subjects. G eneric noun phrases are those
that do not intuitively designate any particular individuals or group o f individuals.
In English the lion, for instance, is am biguous between referring to a particular lion,
and the species as a whole. If one says (1), and does not regard this as the report o f

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H A B I T U A L AND GENERI C A S P E C T 831

some ongoing event, the sentence is ambiguous concerning whether you are saying
of some particular lion that it (generally) roars, or o f the species taken as a whole
that roaring is among their characteristics.

(1) The lion roars.

In the first instance, one would regard the sentence as a “habitual” but in the sec­
ond instance as a “generic.” But this is a distinction based upon the nature of the sub­
ject noun phrase, and not (necessarily) upon the form or interpretation of the predicate
itself. In English, the best examples of generic noun phrases are definite singulars (e.g.,
the lion), bare plurals when not interpreted existentially (lions) and indefinite singu­
lars when not interpreted existentially (a lion). Further, many noun phrases may, in an
appropriate context, designate classes or types rather than individuals, as when we
talk about “that animal” and mean by that, lions in general. This general pattern is
found among the worlds languages, i.e., where a definite, and indefinite form (in lan­
guages that have them), or unmarked form, as well as other noun phrases in appro­
priate context, has a generic interpretation. However, we will be focusing mainly on
those types of predicates which may be episodically or habitually, and will regard
them as “habitual” even if the subject happens to be a general kind.
There is a more compelling reason to focus on habituals to the exclusion o f ge­
nerics, namely, while formal marking that corresponds to habitual interpretation is
widespread, true instances of grammatical (as opposed to lexical) generic marking
in the verbal complex (or, for that matter, in the nominals themselves) is very rare,
if it occurs at all.

2. H a b i t u a l A spect

Two questions present themselves when we discuss “ habitual aspect.” The first has
to do with the content of the term “habitual.” The second has to do with whether
habituality should be analyzed as an “aspect,” and if not, what the alternatives are.
The first question is really a matter of usage. Few grammarians would think that
habituality, in its grammatical sense, is solely confined to discussion o f habits. Most
would probably agree with John Lyons' claim (Lyons, 1977, p. 71) that, “ The term
‘habitual’ is hallowed by usage; but it something o f a misnomer in that much o f what
linguists bring within its scope would not generally be thought of as being a matter
of habit.” While there seems little doubt that Lyons is quite correct in his character­
ization of the usage of the term, it leaves open a much more difficult and presently
unanswered question as to exactiy what, besides habits, is included under the term.
For the time being, however, we will take the point of view that habitual aspect must
at least canonically include habits, among other things, leaving open exactly what
the other things might be.
The other question is whether habituality is properly regarded as an “aspect.”
This is also a difficult discussion since the means o f expressing habituality varies
B3 2 ASPECT

considerably. The presence o f the extrem ely com m on term “ habitual (or generic)
tense” alone casts som e doubt on the notion that habituality is properly aspectual. It
is likely that the special connection to aspect arises from the fact that languages that
exhibit a perfective/im perfective distinction regularly use the im perfective (and not
the perfective) to express habituality. But it is not apparent from a distributional
point o f view that habituals form a system atic part o f aspect systems from language
to language, nor a part o f tense system s, nor a part o f any other systems in the verbal
com plex. Filip and Carlson (1997) sum m arize som e reasons to place habituality out­
side the realm o f aspect, but as we will see below, other authors present analyses that
include it as an aspect proper. With these caveats in m ind, then, we will continue to
use the already com m on term “ habitual aspect.”

3. F o r m s E x p r e s s i n g H a b i t u a lit y

In d isc u ssin g the fo rm s u sed to express habituality, we need to d istinguish two p o s ­

sibilities. In s o m e languages, there are fo rm s w h ich , if they app ear in a sentence,
require that the sentence m ust be interpreted habitually. The other possibility, and
p e rh a p s the m u c h m o r e c o m m o n , is that a given f o r m m a y be interpreted as h a ­
bitual, but that sa m e form has other interpretations as well. F o r exam ple, o ne v ery
c o m m o n a rra n g e m e n t is w h ere a language has an im p erfective form that is inter­
pretable either as a p ro g re ssiv e -ty p e event o r as a habitual. This syncretism results
in the potential for a sy stem atic a m b igu ity (though n o r m a lly the context o f inter­
pretation will naturally fa vo r one interpretation over the other). Both o f these in­
stances are w h e r e there is a m a r k in g o f the habitual m e a n in g in the fo rm o f the
sentence itself. W h ile it w ou ld b e g o o d to b e able to sa y with co n fid en ce that the
form (w h eth er syncretized or not) m ust app ear in o rder for a habitual interpreta­
tion to be found , the co verage o f m o st g r a m m a tic a l d e sc rip tio n s— even v e r y careful
o n e s — does not allow this to be d eterm in ed with com plete confidence. It is rather a
specific research p o in t that needs to be taken up with this question in m in d .
T h ere are two cases that we will not reg ard as the m a r k in g o f habituality proper.
The first is w h ere there is a full lexical item (such as a no u n , verb, or adjective) that
app ears in a sentence. So if one says “ John has a habit o f w a lk in g w h ile he thinks,”
w e are g o in g to d iscoun t the full lexical item “ habit” as an expression o f habitual
aspect, b ecau se it is not a g r a m m a tic a l exp ressio n. N o r will w e accord w o rd s
m e a n i n g “ u su a lly” and “often” the status o f exp ressio n s o f frequentivity. So in g e n ­
eral, w e are g o in g to p a y attention to those items that are g r a m m a tic a l in nature—
affixes, free fun ctio nal fo rm s, and so forth. W h ile in practice it can be difficult at
tim es to d istin gu ish a given fu n ctio n a l form from a lexical free fo rm , the b a c k ­
g r o u n d o f practice in g r a m m a tic a l d escriptio n n o r m a lly relies upon m a k i n g such a
d istinction, if o n ly implicitly, and w e will follow suit.
The other case is m o re difficult to d isp ose of. This is w h e r e a language has no
specific g ra m m a tic a l m a r k in g o f habituality. Clearly, E nglish , Japanese, Malay, and

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H A B I T U A L AND GE NE RI C A S P E C T 833

a host o f other languages lack consistent grammatical expression o f it. Let us con­
sider as an example how the issues surface in the case of the standard varieties of
English. It is a casual commonplace to regard the English simple present tense as a
“generic” tense. This is because the English simple present is not easily used to
report a present event—The sun rises in the east appears to have only a habitual in­
terpretation in most contexts. Does this mean then that the simple present tense is
also a marker o f habituality? While this is a widespread characterization, it would
seem not. The simple present tense is compatible with reporting the occurrence of
an event in certain contexts, such as announcers describing sporting matches, in
stage directions, and a variety of other such uses. This includes the appearance of
the simple present tense form in subordinate clauses, which routinely allow for non-
habitual interpretations.

(2) a. I f Bob arrives before I do, please ask him to w ait

b. A ny child who touches those matches should be warned.

The present tense in (2) does not indicate habitual arrival or habitual match
touching. The present tense is also compatible with reporting present events in con­
junction with the progressive (“He is eating”), which entail no habitual interpreta­
tion, and past events in the English present perfect (“He has eaten” ), and generally
is used if the aspect o f the sentence is stative. It may also be used in its futurate
sense: “Summer officially begins this Monday.” So it is clear that the present form
itself does not select for habituality. Furthermore, it is easily demonstrated that the
past tense is entirely compatible with both a habitual and nonhabitual interpreta­
tion, as when we note of a late relative “She read crime novels voraciously.” It is
possible to have habitual interpretations for future ascriptions as well. A man might
say of his son, that when he grows up “he will repair cars (e.g., for a living) ” just like
his father. Future habituals appear infrequently in texts, in contrast to past and pre­
sent habituals, but they are entirely possible. It is, of course, also possible to express
habituals in the compound past and future perfect forms. In fact, one is hard-
pressed to make any kind o f connection between tense and habituality in English.
This is because tenseless forms exhibit the same interpretive possibilities as the
finite forms in this respect. For example, an imperative sentence such as Please
exercise can be an invitation to do so immediately (as an instruction from an exer­
cise class teacher), or to do so habitually (as a doctor advising an overweight
patient). Infinitives display both possibilities as well: “I hope to sell tickets” can be
a desire directed toward an immediate single action, or a wish to work in a box of­
fice. Gerunds likewise have both habitual and nonhabitual interpretations. In short,
habituality in and o f itself is entirely consistent with all the different possibilities o f
time reference. So the dimension habitual/nonhabitual is, clearly, semantically
independent o f time.
There are two forms in English that require closer attention, however. One of
them is the “used to” form, which intuitively talks about a past individual-level state,
which includes habituals. For instance, while (3a) is ambiguous between a habitual
and a nonhabitual reading, (3b) has only the habitual reading:
834 ASPECT

(3) a. John fixed his neighbors cars.

b. John used to fix his neighbor’s cars.

The “used to” construction is not at all peculiar to English, there being many
languages that have a form reserved especially for past generalizations. In fact, one
is struck by the unusual number o f specifically past-tense habitual forms across lan­
guages. Binnick (2005) however proposes that the “used to” form o f English should
not be regarded as an expression, which is specifically habitual. This is because the
form co-occurs with any individual-level state, and so does not effect a transition
from some dynamic, episodic event or activity to a habitual state. Examples such as
(4) are entirely acceptable:

(4) a. Harry used to be an attorney.

b. The girl used to like ice cream.
c. The weather here used to be very mild.

The "used to” form (occasionally called the “usitative” in grammatical descrip­
tions) ascribes a past state, and further implies that it no longer holds. As Binnick
points out, this is an implication only, and may be canceled (“Harry used to be an
attorney. In fact, he still is”). Binnick further argues that it is not a past tense form,
being more like the English present perfect in discussing something in the present
tense that is in the past but it is not clear whether the arguments generalize to the
variety found in other languages.
The other expression that Binnick (2005) counts as a habitual marker in English
is the use o f will (and, its past form would) in examples such as those in (5):

(5) a. Owls will catch mice. (= Owls catch mice)

b. Sam will drink alcohol. (= Sam drinks alcohol)

While the examples of (5) may also be read as predictions o f future episodic
events (or less easily as future habitual/generics), the more natural reading is a
present-tense habitual/generic reading, ascribing certain eating and drinking pro­
pensities to owls and Sam in the present time, and not the future to the exclusion o f
the present. Hence, it is an example o f syncretic marking. This sense o f “will/would”
does not co-occur with any of the individual-level states, such as those found in (4)
above:

(6 ) a. Bob will be an attorney.

b. The girl will like ice cream.
c. The weather will be very mild here.

The examples in (6) are no longer ambiguous in the way the examples in (5) are,
and have only a future reading. Since the habitual reading emerges in examples that
are based on dynamic predicates, and not when the predicate is already non-episodic,
“will/would,” in contrast to “used to,” is an expression of habitual aspect. What mat­
ters here is not quite so much the conclusions, but rather the overall point concerning
how we might draw a distinction between grammatical markers that are consistent
H A B IT U A L AND GENERIC ASPECT 835

with habituality (e.g., “used to” ), and those gram m atical elements that are expressions
o f habituality themselves.

4. F o r m s acro ss Languages

But this raises an issue that we are not going to be able to satisfactorily resolve. One
o f the most robust findings in exam ining the gram m atical expression o f habituality
across languages is that if a language has an im perfective form and no specifically
habitual form , the im perfective will (alm ost certainly) have a habitual reading
alon gside an ep isod ic readin g akin to a progressive. This is such a com m on
arrangem ent that C om rie (1976, p. 26) proposes that one o f the m eanings o f imper-
fectivity is habituality (and the other nonhabitual part is “continuousness” ). Bybee
et. al. (1994), in their survey o f gram m ars, characterize habituality as a “part o f the
m eaning o f” the im perfective. In saying that habituality is “ part o f the m eaning” o f
the im perfective, though, we need to take som e care regarding how to understand
this. It is clear that habituality is not a “part o f the m eaning” in the sam e w ay as, for
exam ple, “ fem ale” is a “ part o f the m eaning” o f m are (which plausibly is decom pos­
able as: fem ale, adult, horse). Rather, habituality, as a part o f im perfectivity can
result, and often tim e does result, in an am biguity o f interpretation, m ost co m ­
m only between a habitual-type reading, and a continuous or progressive-type
reading (whereas m are has no corresponding ambiguity, m eaning “ horse” on one
occasion, “fem ale (o f any species)” on another, etc.). Bybee et al. (1994) take care to
clarify this point (p. 139). A good m odel o f what is intended by saying that habitual­
ity is a part o f the m eaning m ay be found in the form al representation o f view point
aspect presented in Kam p (1979) and in m any other sources. The general idea is that
the m eanings o f sentences are evaluated w ith respect to reference times, construed
intervals o f tim e (instead o f times one m ay instead use, for instance, reference events
or situations). The logical relation between an im perfective and the reference time
is one o f proper inclusion o f the reference time within the time o f the event imper-
fectively described. If we (intuitively) assum e that the reference tim e (situation, etc.)
provides a fram e o f reference regarding what we m ay “see,” then an im perfectively
described situation m ay only be “seen” in part— that portion which coincides writh
the reference time. On the other hand, perfectivity requires that the event perfec-
tively described be included within the reference time, and thus is seen “as a whole.”
This arrangem ent m odels the idea that habituality is a “part o f ” the m eaning o f the
im perfective by characterizing the logical relation that various types o f im perfective
m eaning have in com m on. This leaves m ore to be done regarding how to fill out the
different types o f im perfective m eanings, having m odeled only that logical part they
share in com m on.
If we consider Binnicks argum ents against “ used to” as a habitual marker, we
might ask w hy sim ilar reasoning m ight not apply to im perfectivity. Such form s are
com m only found not only to express habitual m eaning, as in (7) (from de Swart,

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836 ASPECT

1998), but also individual-level predicates o f all sorts, including predicate nom inals,
as the French exam ples easily found on the internet in (8) illustrate:

(7) A cette époque-là, je faisais mes courses chez lepicier du coin.

In those days, 1 shop-IM P at the local grocery
“ In those days, I shopped at the local grocery store.”
(8) a. Il était un petit homme.
He be-PST.IMP a small man
“ He was a small man.”
b. Mon père était vétérinaire
My father be-PST.IMP veterinarian
“M y father was a veterinarian”

O n e c o u ld ju st as e a sily tak e th e p o in t o f v i e w then, at least in s o m e o f the

n u m e r o u s la n g u a g e s u s in g an i m p e r f e c t i v e to e x p r e s s h abituality, that the im-
p e r fe c t iv e fo r m it s e lf d o e s not c o n tr ib u t e the h ab itu al m e a n i n g to the w h o le .
In stea d , o n e c o u ld tak e it to be an in d e p e n d e n t m a r k e r , w ith an o v e r a r c h i n g
“c o n t i n u o u s ” m e a n i n g , that o n e e m p l o y s as a refle c tio n o f h ab itu a l m e a n i n g
g a in e d b y o th e r m e a n s in the f o r m - m e a n i n g m a p p i n g (for but o n e e x a m p le o f an
a lte rn a tiv e a p p r o a c h , see H a c q u a r d , 20 0 6 , p. 78 f .)-
Reported occurrences o f habitual m arkers abound in the descriptive literature.
Two sum m aries have been published that include reports o f the expression o f
habituality in a w ide variety o f languages. One is D ah ls (19 85,19 9 5) survey based
on a questionnaire (the 1995 publication being an expansion o f the 1985 report).
A nother is Bybee et. al.s (1994) survey o f aspectual system s based upon a principled
selection o f gram m ars. Putting these together with m y own fairly extensive but less
system atic unpublished survey o f gram m ars, it is clear that habitual m arkers are
quite com m on am ong the w o rld s languages. Furtherm ore, they are alm ost always
an obvious part o f the T ense-M ood-A spect system s, rather than, say a part o f the
n om inal system .
The term inology found in gram m atical descriptions o f generics is not entirely
consistent. “ Habitual” is probably the m ost com m only-encountered term, but one
also finds “generic,” “customary,” “ habituative,” “nomic,” “ usitative,” and a few other
stray terms. (See Sm ith, 1975, for a detailed discussion o f term inology.) These terms
are rarely used contrastively, and in fact there is reason for not taking the descriptive
content o f these terms as a sure guide to the m eanings. There seem s to be a good
possibility that all these labels point to approxim ately the sam e phenom enon, and
this will be our w orking assum ption. M ost gram m ars provide exam ples with glosses
at the point o f discussion as well as incidental exam ples in texts or in discussion o f
other topics, w hich m ay serve as a check on term inology; m any also include texts
that m ay be exam ined as well. And there is often m ore than one gram m ar o f the
language, so a certain am ount o f com parison o f term inology can be (and was) done.
The m a jo rity o f languages do not e m p lo y a general, system atic m e a n s o f e x p re s s­
in g habituality (D ahl, 1985 notes that the m a x im a lly u n m a r k e d fo rm s are m ost
p ro n e to habitual interpretations). How ever, for those languages that fo rm a lly and

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H A B r T U A L AND GENERIC A S P E C T 837

systematically contrast episodics and habituals, the formal contrast appears in the
verbal complex. Habituality receives any number of grammatical forms o f expression.
Very commonly, it appears as a verbal affix. For example, in Diola-Fogny (Sapir, 1965)
the “habitual” contrasts with the unmarked “incidental” (= episodic) in that the former
has the suffix /-mi/whereas the latter simply lacks this affix; a similar arrangement
obtains in Classical Nahuatl (Andrews, 1975)- Similarly, habitual markers may alternate
with, preclude, or perhaps coalesce with tense markers. For example, the Swahili “ha­
bitual” marker {hu-} precludes any tense marking on the verb (alternating with the in­
finitive marker) but is interpreted as present (Polome, 1967); Dembetembe (1974) reports
a “habitual present” in Korekore, which likewise precludes other tense marking. Ha­
bitual markers may also appear as a form of an auxiliary. For instance, in Woleaian
(Sohn, 1975) the free morpheme {gal} induces a habitual reading, being among a small
closed class o f items occurring immediately before the verb; Guyanese English has a
similar construction with the morpheme {a} (Sidnell, 2002). Less often genericity is in­
dicated by reduplication of the verb or a part of the verb. Sere (Tucker and Bryan, 1966)
reduplicates the verbal stem, while Awa (Loving and McKaughn, 1964) and Chamorro
(Topping, 1973) reduplicate the verb (or, in the latter case some “other word”), and
Engenni, unusually, is reported to reduplicate the whole verb phrase (Thomas, 1978). A
periphrastic construction (making use of the copula) may also be used, as in Daga
(Murane, 1974), Gahuka (Deibler, 1976), or Fore (Scott, 1978). One report (Tamazight
(Abdel-Massih, 1968)) claims that there are two classes of verb stems—habitual and
non-habitual. Others note that the present habitual is indicated by a tone on the verb (in
Etsako (Elimelech, 1978) and Akan (Dolphyne and Dakubu, 1988).
The general realization pattern o f the habitual is similar to the realization pat­
tern o f other elements of the tense-mood-aspect systems. But the privileges o f
distribution of generic markers are not very predictable. For example, in one
language (say, Shilluk [Tucker and Bryan, 1966] or Ebira [Adive, 1989]), the habitual
will alternate with present-past-future tense morphemes, but in another, it may
co-occur with any o f the present-past-future morphemes (as in Alur [Tucker and
Bryan, 1966]). In other cases, habitual markers are reported to co-occur only with
certain tenses to the exclusion, such as with past and future only in Mongolian
(Bosson, 1964), and past only in Kapau [Oates and Oates, 1968]). The pattern o f
exactly what habitual markers may co-occur with in any given language is hard to
predict, even if there are general propensities; in one case it may take a perfective
form, but in the next case it may not; in some languages imperative forms cannot be
habitual, but in others they can be. There were certainly no obvious pattern which
would serve as a clue to what other morphemes might form a semantic field o f com­
peting alternatives with a habitual marker (as do the set o f tenses, for example). So
not only does habituality appear independent o f tense, but it is often independent o f
everything else as well, including aspect. This is the approximate pattern we might
expect if there is but one opposing notion to the habitual—the episodic, which nor­
mally (or, perhaps always) appears as an unmarked category (a possible exception
to this is the Tamazight Berber verb-stems); thus, generics relate to episodics much
as marked plural forms stand in contrast to (typically) unmarked singulars.
838 ASPECT

We can also ask what other m arkers in a language m ay also be used to express
habituality. This raises the im portant question o f whether w e have one am biguous
item, as opposed to two hom ophonous items, each sem antically unam biguous, but
this is no som ething we can resolve here. There are som e very strong patterns in the
reports. Im perfectives (as already noted), progressives, inceptives, statives, and con-
tinuatives appear m ost readily able to also express habituality (though in a given
language a habitual m arker m ay alternate with or co-occur with them). A m o n g the
tenses em ployed to express habituality in contrast to the other tenses, futures distin­
guish them selves from pasts (where the future expresses a generic present tense
m eaning— there are other future tenses o f course (e.g., G w ari [Hym an and M agaji,
1970]) which express future generics, which I take to be portm anteaus). One con ­
trasting pattern that also appears in the data is the regular appearance o f specifically
habitual past tenses (akin to English “ used to” )— and not genuine generic future
form s. This predom inance o f habitual past tenses is unexpected from a “ m arked­
ness” point o f view, for it is the present tense form that should show a greater
num ber o f distinctions than the “m arked” past (in fact, W elmers, 1973, invokes this
to account for the predom inance o f present tense generic form s in m any A frican
languages, but the broader picture appears just the opposite).

5. T h e “ C ir c u m st a n t ia l ”

A n oft-noted structure that habituals appear in is the “circumstantial.” This is a type

o f discourse in w h ic h a type o f setting is first introduced, and then sequences o f events
that typically o c cu r within that setting are enum erated, often in the habitual. For e x ­
ample, in English one might pro v id e a setting: “O u r fam ily used to meet every year
for the holidays.” A n d then proceed to say what typically o c cu rred within that setting:
“ We arrived before C h ristm as. We w ou ld enjoy a fa m ily dinner. We then opened gifts
around the tree.” Ilere, the setting is the first sentence, and subsequent clauses relate
so m e n o rm a l course o f events within that setting. The setting m ight be introduced in
any n u m b e r o f ways, a n d m ay also be implicit. In English, would and used to, as well
as the u n m a r k e d form s, m a y be used throughout and m ix e d and m atched with style
seem in g ly the main. A n exam ple from M iya, w h ich expresses habituality via the form
dd plus the im perfective is given in Shuh (1998), w h o notes that “circumstantial clauses
represent continuous action overlapping event line actions and ‘b a c k g r o u n d ’ clauses
representing continuous or habitual activity in a narrative” (p. 129):

(9) d-da baa-tbn d-da kuw(a) aabfy d-da buway(a) aakam

da-IPF go-ICP da-IPF draw water da-IPF take home
[ICP = Intransitive copy pronoun]
. . they would go and they would draw water and they would take it home”

In this case, each o f the constituent events (going, d r a w in g water, tak in g it

h o m e ) are, within the sequ en ce, interpreted perfectively, as co n clu din g, a n d not

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H A B I T U A L AND GENERI C A S P E C T 839

interpreted as progressives. It is rather the whole sequence of actions that consti­

tutes the typical activity, even if each is individually marked with the da+imperfective
morphology. In some languages, these subsequent markers o f habituality may be
omitted. For instance, Newman (2000) notes that habituality is marked in Hausa
via a “weak subject pronoun” plus the TAM marker kan. However, in sequences of
events, he notes (p. 591) that subsequent markers after the first are omitted: “In se­
quences o f clauses in conjoined sentences, the habitual marker is expressed only
once.” For instance, in the Hausa version of “I get up around seven o’clock, shave,
have breakfast, and get into my car to go to the office” the habitual marking only
appears on the initial verb “get up” and is omitted on the subsequent verbs.
Carlson and Spejewski (1997) analyze these discourses as employing sentential
generic operators, with the setting as the restrictor and the sequence o f typical
events in the matrix. Their main theme is that although each sentence may appear
with habitual marking (e.g., English “would” or "used to”), what is being habitually
said to occur is the whole sequence o f events and not each sentence in the sequence
individually, as if the habitual morphology is “agreeing” with a single, overarching
operator. Schubert (1999) presents a compositional analysis also along these lines,
and Bittner (2008) discusses such structures in relation to temporal anaphora with
regard to Kalaallisut. These structures also provided the prompting contexts for
Dahls (1985,1995) questionnaire survey o f expressions of genericity and habituality
across languages.

6 . St a t iv e s

One other type o f structure sometimes noted in grammars concerns statives. While
statives generally do not appear to participate in habituality paradigms, among the
stative predicates, there is a similar type o f relationship that holds, between a pred­
icate that expresses a temporary (“stage-level”) state, and a corresponding predicate
that expresses a more long-term (“individual-level” ) state. Perhaps the most widely
noted o f these examples is the Spanish ser/estar distinction. Spanish has two cop­
ulas, one o f which (estar) intuitively is used to talk about “temporary” states, while
the other (ser) is reserved for talking about more lasting states (Lujan, 1981). The
following examples are from Maienborn (2005):

(10) a. Maria es rubia.

Maria is-ser blond.
“Maria is blonde.”
b. Maria esta cansada.
Maria is-estar tired.
“Maria is tired.”

Being blond is a longer-term property and so the ser form is used, whereas
being tired is the sort of thing that readily comes and goes, hence the estar form.
840 ASPECT

Some predicates select for one or the other, but it turns out that many predicates
may occur with both copular forms, with a corresponding difference in interpreta­
tion. For example, the predicate sucio ‘dirty’ may occur with either:

(11) a. Ese truco es sucio

this truck is-ser dirty
b. Ese truco esta sucio
this truck is-estar dirty

The first indicates a truck that is inherently dirty by nature (generally unclean),
whereas the latter indicates that perhaps the truck could use a wash at the moment
and says nothing about its general state. Maienborn (2005) argues, following Jager
(2001), that the distinction results from the kinds o f reference situations these copu­
lar forms index, and not from a semantic operation converting stage-level predi­
cates into individual-level predicates as suggested b y for instance, Fernald (2000),
an extension of the traditional description of the distinction as a matter o f state
duration.
A roughly similar situation among copular statives appears in Black English
Vernacular, where the indeclinable form be is used to express longer-lasting states,
when the null-copula counterparts indicate short-term ones (for example, Fasold,
1972). While it is a reasonably established fact that this “habituality” is a dimension
of the meaning o f indeclinable bey it is also clear that the construction has different
uses, which require more investigation (Labov, 1998). The situation with copular
sentences in Hebrew is another example o f stage/individual level differences within
the stative domain. Greenberg (1998) describes a situation in Hebrew where copular
sentences may, or may not include a pronominal agreement marker (which she
labels PRON) with the form of a nominative third person pronoun that agrees with
the subject. When the PRON is included, the interpretation is an individual-level
“permanent” property, whereas its absence indicates a temporary property, reminis­
cent o f Spanish estar sentences. As we have seen, some may predicates select for one
or the other of the forms, but there are instances where the same predicate may be
used with both. Greenberg cites the following example. The copula is null in the
present tense.

(12) a. ha-samayim hem kxulim

the-sky PRON blue
“ The sky is generally blue, blue by nature.”
b. ha-samayim kxulim
the-sky blue
“ The sky is blue now/today.”

Greenberg goes on to argue that the stage/individual level distinction is the

analysis o f the construction.
A situation that is more complex is described by Mahapatra (2002), where in
Odia (Oriye) there are not two but four distinct copular forms. The stage/individual
distinction is, Mahapatra argues, instrumental as a primary dimension in their
H A B I T U A L AND GE NE RI C A S P E C T 841

analysis, with many predicates selecting for forms based upon their inherent mean­
ings. it remains unclear whether all these systems involving statives are analyzable
by the same mechanisms, or whether different languages demand quite different
treatments in spite of the fact that at first sight appear the share phenomena in
common.
There are also in some languages productive lexical processes that will take
stage-level adjectives, and operate on them to create individual-level counterparts.
One example is American Sign Language. ASL (Klima and Bellugi, 1979) has a
process applying to adjectives that gives semantic results paralleling the ser/estar
distinction in Spanish. They note two classes o f Adjectival signs—those that can be
“inflected,” via one form of reduplication, and those that cannot. Signs of the former
class include ANGRY, AWKWARD, EMBARRASSED, DIRTY, SICK, while the
latter uninflectable class includes PRETTY, UGLY, INTELLIGENT, STUPID,
HARD, TALL. One type of inflection applied to the former class adds to the sign the
meaning ‘prone to be X’ or ‘has a predisposition to be X ’. So, for instance, SICK so
inflected is glossed sickly’; DOUBTFUL so inflected is glossed ‘indecisive’: SILLY is
‘characteristically foolish’. What is going on here, quite plausibly, is that certain ad­
jectives are basically episodic (the first class) and the inflection under discussion
derives the corresponding generic state. Adjectives o f the latter class are basically
generic, and hence, not susceptible to the process.

7. H a b i t u a l A spect and It s M e a n i n g ( s )

To this point we have uncritically examined reports o f the expression of habitual-

ity across languages, having swept aside terminological variation and, perhaps
most importantly, the question of whether the forms express general gnomic
imperfectivity, or some more narrow conception of habituality that we have yet to
identify, or something else. Gnomic imperfectivity includes within it a variety of
conceptually distinct types o f situations. For instance, we may talk about habits
people have (e.g., Tom smokes), universal laws (hot air rises), rules o f games
(bishops move diagonally), moral ideals (a truly good man helps those in need),
customs (carols are sung at Christmastime), occupations (Harry works counting
money at the bank), dispositions (sugar dissolves in water), or functions (this
valve stops water from leaking out).
This is not an exhaustive listing, but even brief consideration o f the above pre­
sents the question of whether any unified notion of gnomic imperfectivity should
be construed as encompassing all of the above phenomena. And, if not, then how
should the semantic territory be divided? Some have suggested, for instance, that an
ambiguous sentence like John drinks beer should actually reflect two different ge­
neric operations. Lawler (1973) and Dahl (1975) suggest that the “propensity reading”
(where it means, roughly, that John is willing to drink beer if served to him) requires
existential quantification over times (Lawler) or possible worlds (Dahl). In contrast,
842 ASPECT

the habitual reading (where John is a habitual beer-drinker) requires universal

quantification over times, or w orlds. Thus, gnom ic im perfectivity under these
analyses is not a unified phenom enon. Kratzer (1988) also questions a unified ap­
proach. On the other hand, K rifka (1988) attributes this distinction to the focus
structure o f the sentence, m aintaining a univocal generic operator (Declerck, 1986,
also addresses this issue). M uch w ork on the sem antics o f generics has assum ed that
there is an underlying unity to these conceptually types o f situations (C arlson, 1995
is quite insistent on this point). That is, such things as habits or dispositions or laws
and the like are sources o f regularity in the world that we use generics to speak
about, though the content o f genericity is regularity, and no more.
One thing that is striking about the expression o f gnom ic im perfectivity across
languages, given this notional variety it encom passes, is just how few distinctions are
m ade in the end. Setting aside the com m on appearance o f specifically past habitual
form s, languages appear in the main to either do without specific habitual m arking
at all (e.g., em ploying im perfectives, futures, or other form s to perform that func­
tion; or allowing lack o f m arking to express it). Those languages that do express it
seem to introduce just one m arker o f “ habituality,” and nothing resem bling a field o f
contrasting m arkers. It appears that at least in m any if not m ost instances, a language
with a habitual marker will also permit other form s, such as an imperfective, to express
habitualitv4 as well.
The habitual m arkers identified in languages clearly in m any instances encom ­
pass a range o f m eaning beyond the expression o f habits alone, a matter we have
already acknowledged. Reports from gram m ars m ake this clear. For instance,
D eibler (1976) (discussing Gahuka) notes that, “ The sem antic function [of the
habituative atfix] is to state an action which custom arily or habitually takes place” ;
W estermann (1930), discussing Ewe, explicitly notes that the “ habitual” form o f the
verb may be used to express (a) actions taking a usual course (as in: “ W hen bitten
by a snake, a m an cries out” ), (b) truths in proverbs (“ One tree does not m ake a
forest” ), (c) prescriptions o f right, reasonable, or custom ary actions (“One does not
sm oke in this classroom ” ). Arnott (1970) notes that Fula has the habitual suffix /-ay/
and then illustrates how it can be used to express a sim ilar range o f m eanings. In
m any o f the reports, exam ple sentences are used to illustrate the m eaning o f the
construction which they them selves have little to do with habits or the like. For
instance, Elkins (1970), in discussing M anobo, claims that the one use o f the contin-
uative designates habitual action, and then exem plifies with a sentence glossed “ The
occupation o f your father is that he snares wild geese,” thereby draw ing no distinc­
tion between habits and occupations. Arnott (1970), in discussing Fula, uses the
term “ habitual,” but then provides exam ples glossed in a variety o f ways, including
“ He farm s” (an occupation), “ Does a hen fly or not?” (a capability), and “ It stinks,”
“ It is sweet,” and “Can it be d ru n k ?” all apparently dispositions.
Yet, it also seems clear that in languages with alternate expressions o f habitual­
ity, there is som e kind o f m eaning difference between them. Kraft (1973), discussing
Ilau sa, reports (p. 157) a construction expressing “ habitual aspect” and exem plifies
with som e plausible sentences about habits. Shortly thereafter, it is noted that the

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H A B I T U A L AND G E NE R I C AS PEC T 843

continuative aspect alone m ay be also used (in fact, m ore com m only) to express
custom ary o r habitual activity. In most cases, he notes, the continuative and the
“ habitual” m ean about the same thing. However, som etim es there is a difference. He
gives an exam ple where the bare continuative is glossed “ He is a habitual drinker,”
while the form that includes the “habitual” m arker kan is glossed, “ He takes a drink
from time to time.” In short, the “habitual” m orp h em e in this case expresses the
disposition, and not the habit.
W elmers (1973) discusses the situation in Swahili, w hich has an explicit habitual
m arker but also expresses genericity b y use o f unm arked tensed forms:

Swahili has a construction which, while not restricted to a small number of verbs,
is unusual in its formation. It is formed with the morpheme /hu~/before the base,
and the common suffix /-a/after the base.. . . This construction is described in
Ashton (1944, p. 38) as occurring “ in contexts which imply habitual or recurrent
action, apart from time”.
The emphasis, however, is not on the habitual or customary nature o f the
action, but rather on the inevitable naturalness o f it; the construction is more of a
stative. Thus, when one says
ngombe hula nyasi “Cows eat grass”
one is not referring so much to the daily habit of cows as to the “nature of the
beast.” Ashton comments that this construction is commonly found in proverbs
and aphorisms—precisely the kind o f idiom that commonly refers to the state of
affairs, (pp. 360-361)

W hether such distinctions are based on implicatures associated with particular

constructions, or whether this has to do with truth-conditional m eaning, or the
focus structure o f the sentence, requires careful investigation. However, other
reports o f sim ilar contrasts fall out in v e ry m uch the sam e way, with the m o rp h o ­
logically m arked generic fo rm em phasizing potentialities or dispositions, and the
unm arked form able to express (or perhaps emphasizing) regular and repeated ac­
tion. For instance, the Hausa report b y Kraft cited above points roughly toward the
sam e distinction. Abraham (1968) (on Tiv) notes that a syncretized form o f the past
tense, w hich doubles as a present tense generic (not a “used to” form ) lacks “ha­
bitual” force, and is used to express “ innate” and “perm anent” qualities, as in “ The
artery joins with the heart.” There is also a report that O rokaiva has tw o “ habitual”
form s that divide along the same lines (Healey et al., 1969).

8 . H a b it u a l s a n d Gn o m ic Im p e r f e c t iv it y

In this final section we will review some analyses that have argued for a distinction
within the dom ain o f gnom ic imperfectivity, breaking out habituality and treating it
as an aspect.
Rim ell (2004) makes a distinction within the territory o f habituals between
sentential habituality and genericity, and “habitual aspect” proper. H er p rim a ry
844 ASPECT

concern is the interpretation o f indefinite singular objects in English, noting that

exam ples like (13) are strange on the intended habitual reading:

(13) ??Mary drinks a beer.

Indefinite singular objects can be used in m any other form s o f sentence express­
ing generalizations, in the presence o f adverbs whether explicit or im plicit (as in
(14c)), e.g.:

(14) a. M ary runs a mile every morning.

b. M ary drinks a beer when she’s upset.
c. A: What docs M ary do when she gets home?
B: She drinks a pint o f beer.

The conclusion Rim ell reaches is that the habituals like (13) above, which are
not acceptable w ith the indefinite singular, are not instances o f sentential genericity,
as are the exam ples in (14). Rather, the analysis o f (13) posits an operator that has
scope only over the verb, so that the indefinite must take scope outside the operator.
This results in a strange interpretation with predicates like “drink” because one
cannot drink a (complete) beer m ore than once, but the sem antic interpretation o f
the object would require that it be the sam e from tim e to time. If one can repeat the
action on the sam e object, then the interpretation becom es fine:

(15) a. Jill drives a Mercedes,

b. Mark smokes a pipe.

Or, if the object is a k in d (a s su m in g bare m ass term s like “ b e e r ” denote kinds),

then the Habitual interpretation is fine, since the sa m e in d iv id u a l beers need not be
c o n s u m e d from tim e to time:

(16) M ary drinks beer.

The analysis o f sim ple habituals like (13) posits an implicit H AB operator, with
scope over only the verb, and is located under an Aspect node. This is not a quanti­
fier, as it does not take a restrictor, which is characteristic o f overt quantificational
expressions (though restrictors m ay be im plicit, recovered from context). The
analysis then recognizes two possible sources for the expression o f generalizations,
aspectual habituality, and sentential genericity. The latter m ay be m odeled as in
K rifka et al. (1995) as an operator that relates a restrictor to a m atrix, in keeping with
a general theory o f quantification. The exact contents o f the Habitual operator itself
remain unclear, aside from its intuitive characterization, but the analysis poses the
question as to whether there are two distinct sources for linguistic generalizations,
one is Habitual aspect, and the other is a general non-aspectual operator that ap ­
plies not to verbs, but contents o f sentences.
A num ber o f other authors have also suggested that there are (at least) two
sources o f generalizations. The basic theme am ong all o f them is that there is one
type o f generalization that is truly “ habitual” in that it characterizes a situation that
must recur in order for the generalization to hold. Bertinetto and Lenci (1995; this

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H A B IT U A L AND GENERIC ASPECT 845

volum e) characterize habituality proper as involving an iterative operator, while

other sorts o f generalizations that do not seem to intuitively dem and sufficient re­
currence o f an event type fall under “gnom ic imperfectivity,” the broader category
that also encom passes habituals proper. The hypothesis appears to be that habitual­
ity is gnom ic im perfectivity plus iterativity. A num ber o f other researchers have
found that m aking a sim ilar distinction within the realm o f generalizations is m oti­
vated. Schcincr (2002), for exam ple, explicitly argues, like Rim ell, that a distinction
between habituality and som e m ore general notion o f genericity must be m ain ­
tained; further, habitual sentences are not to be analyzed as containing a covert
quantificational operator (i.e., an implicit version o f a frequency adverb such as
“ usually,” “often,'’ “generally,” etc.). Habituals are to be distinguished from disposi­
tional sentences (“ Tliis car goes 225 kilom eters per hour,” intending that it has that
top speed, which it may, or m ay not, have actually achieved in the actual w orld),
since habituals dem and the regular(-enough) occurrence o f the event type general­
ized over. Following an analysis by Paslawska and von Stechow (2002), Scheiner
stresses the logical properties o f habituals, chiefly, their affinity w ith states, which
are both cum ulative (any two joined together are the still an instance o f that sam e
state), and divisive (if it holds for an interval, it holds for any subinterval). On the
analysis proposed, habituals posit a state (a “ habitus” ) that is realized as regularly
recurrent events w ithin a contextually defined time period. So this too seem s to be
an analysis that treats habituals as incorporating an iterative operator, along with
what m ight be regarded as gnom ic im perfectivity.
Boneh and Doron (2008) undertake a detailed exam ination o f habituality in
Hebrew, a language w hich has overt m arkings o f habituality. They begin (p. 321) by
noting, “ Habituals are often taken to be a subtype o f g en ericity .. . . However, there
are languages . . . where expressions referred to as habitual sim ply describe the
sequence o f actual episodes, often conceived as the instantiation o f a habit, and do
not give rise to intensionality.” Hebrew has two m eans o f indicating habituality. One
form is the unm arked form w hich, as is com m on, m ay be used for episodic as well
as habitual statem ents. The other form is periphrastic, constructed from the root
hyy “ to be” along with the main verb o f the sentence in its participial form ; it only
occurs with a past tense. They exem plify with the follow ing exam ples:

(17) a. Simple form:

ya’el n a s ’-a la-avoda ba-’o tobus.
Yacl go.PAST-3SF to-work by-bus
“ Yael went to work by bus.” (episodic/habitual)
b. Periphrastic form:
yael hayt-a n o s a ’- a t la-avoda ba-‘otobus.
Yael HYY.PAST-3SF go-SF to-work by-bus
“ Yacl used to/would go to work by bus.” (habitual/subjunctive)

The (b) form also has a m odal reading, sim ilar to English “ would/will.” On their
analysis, the sim ple form , which is consistent with all tenses, arises from a null
m odal habitual operator w ithin the Aspect Phrase but with scope over the most

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deeply em bedded V P ; it is essentially adverbial. We will call this H abi. The verb is
subsequently raised via the head o f the Aspect Phrase to the upperm ost tensed p o ­
sition, just as it would be in episodic sentences, which lacks the null H abi operator.
In the periphrastic sentences, though, a different, non -m odal H AB operator (Hab2)
occupies the head o f the Aspect Phrase, w hich blocks the raising o f the verb to the
tense position but itself raises and is hosted by a tensed form o f “ to be.” The authors
dem onstrate that the two instantiations o f H A B (one the m odal ITabi and adverbial,
the other non-m odal and aspectual head Hab2) display the expected distinct
scoping properties given their syntactic analysis. The periphrastic form , with Hab2
as an aspectual head, does not co-occur with stative verbs (unlike, for instance,
English “ used to” ), but is lim ited to dynam ic predicates. It turns out there are inter­
pretive differences that distinguish the two, am ong them the actualization o f the
habit. The sim ple form Habi m ay be used for talking about potentialities, as with
occupations, in which the corresponding activity m ay he actualized only occasion­
ally, or in the lim iting cases, not at all. To say o f som eone that they “ teach at a u n i­
versity” m ay indicate only that they hold a position there as a professor, even if there
are no students for them to teach; or, on a different reading, it m ay indicate a regular
activity that an individual engages in. The sim ple form (18a) (with the null H abi)
m ay be used for the occupational m eaning, whereas the periphrastic form (18b)
(with the null I Iab2) requires the regular exercise o f the activity o f actually teaching
students.

(18) a. dan lim ed b-a-’universita.

Dan teach. PAST-3SM in-the-university
“Dan laughl al the university.”
b. dan haya m elam ed b-a- univcrsita.
Dan IIYY.PAST-3SM teach-SM in-the-university
“ Dan used to teach at the university.”

Like other analyses we have seen, this analysis incorporates an iterative oper­
ator, with scope just over the verb, as part o f the m eaning o f both the aspectual head
Hab2 and the V P-operator H abi, and not just the aspectual Hab2.
Bittner (2008) e x a m in e s the expression o f habituality in Kalaallisut (West
G r e e n la n d ic ), a language w ith o u t overt tense m a r k in g . H abituals are regularly
m ark ed , either by the su tfix-tar or by a “ habitual m o o d ” m ark er -gaang-. Lack o f
m a r k in g n o r m a lly yields an ep iso d ic interpretation. Bittner presents such contrasts
as the follow ing:

(19) a. Ole skakkirpuq

Ole skakki-r-pu-q
Ole chess-do-IND.IV-3s
“Ole is playing chess.”
b. Ole skakkirtarpuq.
Ole skakki-r-tar-pu-q
Ole chess-do-habit-IND.IV-3s
“Ole plays chess”

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H A B IT U A L AND GENERIC ASPECT 847

Van Geenhoven (2003, 2004) analyzes the habituals as in (19b) as frequentative

m arkers, assim ilating their sem antics to that o f processes. Bittner takes the point o f
view that these are habituals, and presents an analysis that has some affinities with
Scheiner (2002). On the Bittner analysis, the habituals are sim ilar to states and pro­
cesses (especially, sharing logical properties), but not identical. For each type o f
episodic expression, one can talk about a related habitual pattern, which m ay serve
as the denotation o f such nouns as “ habit,” “ routine,” “ practice,” “ (habitual) behav­
ior” and sim ilar such expressions, w hether in English or Kalaallisut. On her analysis,
habitual verbs stand in relation to their episodic (non-habitual) counterparts as
kind-level nouns bear to their individual-level counterparts (this is presum ably an
elaboration on Schem er’s notion o f a “ habitus” m entioned above). Bittner (2003,
2007) presents a form al m odel. The present point is that these “ habits” are what get
instantiated by regular episodes, and that the habitual is not sim ply a matter o f
repeated events o f the right sort, but repeated events o f the right sort that reflect a
“ habit,” thereby distinguishing habituals from sentences that m erely report s series
o f events.
The regular o c c u r r e n c e o f episodes is a req u irem en t o f these m ark ers, for in the
a b sen ce o f regularity o f o c c u rren c e, the habitual m o r p h o lo g y m a y not be em ployed.
Bittner notes that uninstantiated “ habits” c a n n o t be reported as facts. She invites us
to su p p o se a club m ak e s up a n e w rule for its m e m b e rsh ip , w h ich w e state in English
as, “ M e m b e r s o f this club support each other in em ergencies.” N o club m e m b e r has
at that tim e su p p o rte d another club m e m b e r in an em ergen cy. W h ile one m ay
report this n e w rule u sing the n o n -h a b itu a l fo rm s, o ne cannot rep ort this new rule
m a k in g use o f habitual m a r k in g . The fo llo w in g ((20), Bittner, 2008) is not a ccep t­
able as a report o f the n e w rule, m e a n in g o n ly that there m ust be actual repeated
o cc u rren c es o f m e m b e r s helping o ne another:

(20) # 2P iq a t ig iiw im m i uani ilaasurtat

pi-qat-gii-g-vik-mi ua-ni ila-u-tuq-taq-t
do-matc-sum-cn\iv-pIacc-sg.LOG this-LOC part-be-iv\cn-attachcd-pl
ajurnartursiulirvimmi ikiuqatigjittarput
ajurnar-tuq-siur-lir-vik-mi ikiur-qatigiig-tar-pu-t
be.ditiicult-iv\cn-experience-begin-time-sg.LOC help-rcp-habit-IND.IV-3pl

W h ile no precise analysis is presented for the n o nh ab ituals u sed to rep ort such rules
and other such cases, the suggestion is that talk o f uninstantiated habits is actually
an im plicitly m o d a l talk about w hat is expected, so such ex a m p le s as this are not
instances o f habitual aspect, but rather “ m o d a lly p e r m is siv e tense.”
The kinds o f distinctions between habituals and gnom ic nonhabituals exemplified
here, however, is unlikely to generalize, and each language probably needs to be exam ­
ined m ore carefully on its own to determine how the semantic territory o f gnom ic
imperfectivity might be divided up. For example, Cover (2010) describes a situation in
Badiaranke (Niger-Congo) in which it is commonplace for the imperfective to be used
with habitual or generic interpretations. Badiaranke also has an explicit “periphrastic”
form , which appears to function as a dedicated habitual marker of som e sort. In

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discussing the semantic dilferences between the imperfective and the periphrastic
form s, however, Cover finds current research concerning the distinction in other lan­
guages unenlightening, noting, “ I have no evidence o f a parallel distinction between
the imperfective and periphrastic habituals in Badiaranke. . . . ” (p. 139). Specifically,
both the imperfective and periphrastic forms may be used for m odal dispositionals.
One distinction noted, however, is that the periphrastic form m ay co-occur
with individual level states (e.g., “ be tall” ) to form generic statements about types o f
trees. So, for exam ple, to say “ This tree gets tall,” intending by “ this tree” a type o f
tree and not an individual tree, the periphrastic form m ust be used; if one is talking
about a specific tree, the ordinary im perfective m ay be used.

(21) a. mata m ama m pa- sar de.

tree DEM 3 sg .im p f bc.tall aff.decl
(O K ) “ This (specific) tree will be tall.”
*“ This (type o f ) tree gets tall.”
b. mata m ama a- pa sar de.
tree DEM 3sg.habit im pf be.tall aff.decl
(O K ) “ This (type o f ) tree gets tall”

The kinds o f distinctions between the interpretations o f form s expressing habit-

uality that were reviewed in the previous section also do not clearly and unam bigu­
ously point to a general pattern where a m arked habitual requires the presence o f
regular activity, and another form m ight be used for those cases, as with rules, func­
tions 01* dispositions, that do not require regular exercise. However, it would appear
that this is a pattern that m ay be found in som e languages. At present this is perhaps
all we can say with much certainty. Work on habituality and how it and sim ilar n o ­
tions relates to gnom ic im perfectivity is still under developm ent, and the questions
outnum ber the answers by quite som e m argin.

NOTES

1. Work on this project w a s supported in part b y N S F grants IIS-0328849 and IIS-0535105.

2. This “ #,” in d ic atin g p rag m a tic o d d n e s s , serves as a r e m in d e r that the sentence d o e s
not have the in ten d ed reading. In the paper this e x a m p le is d r a w n f r o m , Bittner places the
“ # ” before the verb , ikiuqaligiittarput.

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 CHAPTER 3 0

HABITUALITY,
PLURACTIONALITY,
AND IMPERFECTIVITY

PIER MARCO BERTINETTO

AND ALESSANDRO LENCI

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

Habituality, as com m only conceived, presupposes a m ore 01* less regular iteration of an
event, such that the resulting habit is regarded as a characterizing property o f a given
referent. The notion o f habituality is thus strictly related to itcrativity, although the two
should not be confused. In this chapter we aim to define the respective features o f habit­
uality and iterativity and to place them in the fram ework o f the broader notion o f “ver­
bal pluractionality” on the one side, and of “gnom ic imperfectivity” on the other side.
The latter term is proposed here for the first time (see section 3). As for plurac­
tionality, it was originally introduced by N ew m an (1980) and was subsequently
used to cover the variety o f phenom ena studied by Dressier (1968), C usic (1981), and
X rakovskij (1997) am ong others. These include first and forem ost the follow ing:1

• Event-internal pluractionality (called “m ultiplicative” by Shluinsky, 2009):

the event consists o f m ore than one sub-event occurring in one and the
sam e situation (Yesterday at 5 o'clock John knocked insistently at the door).
• Event-external pluractionality: the sam e event repeats itself in a num ber of
different situations (John swam daily in the lake).

Material chrânény autorskym i prâvy

H A B I T U A L 1 T Y , PI/URACTIONALITY, AND I M P E R F E C T I V I T Y 853

Some scholars (e.g., Bybee et al., 1994) use “ iterativity” as a synonym of event-
internal pluractionality; however, as explained below, by “iterativity” we intend a
subtype of event-external pluractionality, not to be confused with habituality. The
two types o f pluractionality may be combined, as in: John knocked daily at Anne's
door. Since in this chapter we only deal with event-external pluractionality, the term
“pluractionality” should be understood from now on in this particular sense, unless
otherwise specified. It is also useful to distinguish between “macro-event” (the
whole series o f singular events making up a pluractional event) and “micro-event”
(each o f the singular events comprised in a pluractional event).
Pluractionality may be expressed by a number o f devices: reduplication, affixes, free
morphemes, lexical tools (adverbials and verbal periphrases). These are not mutually
exclusive, neither paradigmatically (for one and the same language may present, e.g.,
affixes and periphrases) nor syntagmatically (for one and the same sentence may ex­
hibit, for example, both dedicated affixes and frequency adverbials). The morphological
markers can be dedicated morphemes, or morphemes conveying pluractionality along­
side other meanings. The availability o f alternatives proves that pluractionality is a cog­
nitively prominent feature.2Note that the context may occasionally suggest pluractionality
by mere pragmatic inference, as in: John and Anne wrote letters to each other, where the
combination o f plural direct object and reciprocal yields the intended interpretation.
A special case o f pluractionality is “reduplicativity,” whereby the event is re­
peated exactly twice, often implying a sort o f reverse action (Dressier s “reversa-
tive” ), particularly with movement verbs. M any languages present dedicated
reduplicative morphemes, such as the It., and generally Romance, prefix re-/ri-
(which, however, does not always carry this meaning): e.g., andare go* vs. riandare
‘go again’. A s the English translation shows, reduplicativity can be expressed lexi­
cally. Another type o f context typically yielding pluractionality is provided by cor­
relative constructions (called “polypredicative iterative-correlative” by Xrakovskij
and “usitative” by Shluinsky), such as: “When(ever) /each time /ifX , (then) Y ’’
W ith respect to the frequency o f the micro-events, one m ay further distin­
guish “frequentative” (Dressier; Bybee et al.) or “saepitive” (Xrakovskij) from
“raritive” (Xrakovskij) or “discontinuative” (Dressier). Here again, although the
prevailing means o f expression are lexical (cf. adverbs like often and seldom), one
m ay find dedicated morphemes (as in West Greenlandic; Van Geenhoven 2004),
showing that these distinctions are indeed cognitively relevant. At the bottom end
o f the frequency scale one finds “potentiality,” i.e., mere predisposition rather
than actually implemented pluractionality (cf. Shluinskys notion o f “capacita-
tive” ). Such is the case o f sentences like This engine vibrates, which m ay refer to an
engine that has not yet been switched on. See section 3 for further discussion.
To these notions, the following ones, definitely marginal for our concern, could
be added:

• “Distributive'’/"non-distributive” pluractionality (Dressier), depending on whether

different vs. identical participant(s) are involved. Distributivity further divides
into subject- vs. object-distributive; the two options are not mutually exclusive.
854 ASPECT

• “Dispersive” /“ambulative” (Dressier), whereby the action takes place in

different points o f space simultaneously vs. successively.

A point worth mentioning (although falling within the realm of event-internal

pluractionality) is Xrakovsky s observation (1997, p. 4,8) that plurality and duration are
strictly related: John addressed incessant questions to the policeman conveys at the same
time the meaning that the questions were many and that the event covered a certain
time-extension. Van Geenhoven (2004) exploited this observation for a unified
analysis o f two readings o f “fo r X time” expressions, depending on the type o f predicate
involved (durative vs. non-durative). If intensity is taken into consideration, one can
further distinguish between “ intensive,” “attenuative,” 'accelerative,” “exaggerative,” etc.
Although the above inventory is not exhaustive, it suffices to show the wide range of
phenomena comprised under the general category o f pluractionality.
Adverbials play an important role in pluractional sentences. The relevant types
may be classified as follows:

• Cyclicity adverbials: every five minutes, annually, every Sunday, always at

noon . . .
• Frequency adverbials: whenever the train was late, always, rarely, sometimes,
occasionally, time and again, often, regularly. . .
• Habituality adverbials: habitually, usually. . .
• Reiteration adverbials: (about) seven times, several times, many tim es. . .

These types are not mutually exclusive. Complex adverbials can combine, e.g.,
reiteration and cyclicity: twice a day , almost ten times a year. Besides, different types
of adverbials may coexist in one and the same sentence: e.g., Sarah always (frequency)
wrote to me every Christmas (cyclicity). Furthermore, two adverbials may indepen­
dently refer to the two types of pluractionality: e.g., Every Saturday evening (cyclicity,
event-external), Sam knocked twice (reiteration, event-internal) at her girlfriends door.
The structure o f this chapter is as follows. In section 2 we propose four
aspectually-inspired criteria to distinguish, within pluractionality, habituality
from mere iterativity. In section 3 we widen the scope, placing habituality at the
intersection o f pluractionality and gnom ic imperfectivity. In section 4 we pro­
vide a form al assessment o f the above notions. In section 5 we compare the
expression o f habituality in English and in the Slavic languages. Sect. 6 recapitu­
lates our main claims. It is advisable to constantly keep Figure 30.1 in mind: this
will help the reader to articulate the conceptual space described in the chapter.

2. H a b i t u a l i t y v s . It e r a t i v i t y

In this section, we propose a set of criteria to distinguish habituality from iterativity

within event-external pluractionality. The aim is to show that the distinction
depends on aspect. To set the stage, consider the following examples:
H A B IT U A L IT Y , P L U R A C T IO N A L IT Y , AND IM P E R F E C T IV IT Y 855

(1) a. In the past few years, Franck has often taken the 8 o’c lock train.
b. When lie lived in the countryside, Franck would usually take the 8 o’c lock train.

Both sentences are pluractional. However, (1a) presents a plain state o f affairs: it is a
fact that Franck has taken the given train several times in the given period. All ar­
gum ents and circum stantials are on the same level; the sentence establishes a rela­
tion between an individual (Franck), an object (the train) and a tim e-interval (the
past few years). Sentence (lb), by contrast, presents a situation (taking a m orning
train) as a characterizing property o f an individual (Franck) during a given interval.
The im portant difference is that (lb), asserts a property which should be understood
as a defining feature o f the individual at stake, whereas (la) falls short o f this, m erely
asserting som ething about his habits. Thus, although the two sentences m ight speak
o f the sam e facts, they present them in crucially different ways. This difference has
to do with aspect, as shown by a num ber o f criterial features.
The first is num erical specification o f the m icro-events. We call this R E IT E R A ­
TIO N SP E C IF IA B IL IT Y . Languages like English or D utch—where the Simple Past is
am biguous between perfective and (with specific regard to habituality) im perfective
reading— do not show any restriction (2a), but languages with an explicit aspectual
contrast in the past dom ain, such as the Rom ance languages and Bulgarian, are af­
fected by it (2b-e). And since the dedicated im perfective m orphology often does not
distinguish between general im perfective, progressive and habitual (Com rie, 1976),
this indicates a strong link between habituality and im perfectivity:3

(2) a. Last year, John visited his mother eleven times.

b. Pendant l’année passée, Jean a visité [PF] sa mere onze fois.
c. T e n d a n t l’année passée, Jean visitait [IPF] sa mère onze fois.
“ Last year, Jean visited (PF = (b) /IPF = (c)] his mother eleven times.”
d. '’ Pendant l’année passée, Jean visitait [IPF) sa mère à peu près onze fois /
quelques fois /plusieurs fois /un nombres indéterminé de fois.
“ Last year, Jean visited (IPF) his mother more or less eleven times/a certain
number o f times/several times/an indefinite number o f times.”
e. Pendant l’année passée, Jean visitait [IPF] sa mère rarement/souvent.
f. Pendant l’année passée, Jean a rarement/souvent visité [PF] sa mère.
“ Last year, Jean seldom/often visited [IPF= (e) /PF = (f)] his mother.”
g. Last year, John seldom /often visited his mother.

The reason why (2c) is rejected by native speakers (or at least considered as stylisti­
cally very m arked) is straightforw ard: specifying the num ber o f m icro-events is
equivalent to specifying the duration o f the m acro-event, i.e., tantam ount to closing
the interval corresponding to the event-tim e (its “tem poral trace” ). As (2d) shows,
even when the num erical specification is not sharp, the interval is im plicitly closed.
These exam ples show that interval-closure is com patible with perfective tenses (2b),
but incom patible with im perfective ones (2C -d). By contrast, (2e) is perfectly ac­
ceptable, because rarement seldom ’ and souvent often’ (unlike, despite appearance,
quelques /plusieurs fois some /several tim es’ ) do not refer to the num ber o f the
m icro-events, but to their frequency o f occurrence. Needless to say, souvent and

М атеріал, захищ ений авторськи м правом

856 ASPECT

rarement are also com patible with perfective tenses (2f), but this should cause no
surprise.
Further support to the aspectual interpretation o f the above data stems from
the Fast Progressive (3b), as opposed to the Sim ple Past (3a), in conjunction with
adverbials o f delim ited duration. W hatever the form al im plem entation o f this con ­
trast m ay be, it is a fact that perfectivity im plies intervals o f (at least potentially)
specifiable duration, w hereas im perfectivity is orthogonal to this:4

(3) a. Little M ary cried for 10 minutes.

b. ‘‘ Little M ary was crying for 10 minutes.

The closing o f the event-tim e interval m ay also be obtained via num erical spec­
ifications attached to internal argum ents, as in (4). In (4b) a frequency adverbial is
needed to project the repeated event over an unspecified num ber o f occurrences
(unless the progressive reading is intended):

(4) a. Louis a écrit [PF] cinq lettres [iterative]

b. Louis écrivait [IPF] cinq lettres ^(chaque soirée), [habitual]
“ Louis wrote [PF = (a) /IPF = (b)] five letters.”

We call IT E R A T IV IT Y the kind o f pluractionality conveyed by (2a-b ) and (4a),

and H A B IT U A L IT Y that conveyed by (2e) and (4b). The im portant point to be
retained is that this contrast is aspectual in nature. This was im plicit in C om rie
(1976) and Bybee et al. (1994), who placed habituality w ithin the realm o f im perfec­
tivity, although they were not fully explicit concerning iterativity as it is here under­
sto o d .’ The reason why this observation is not universally pointed out could have to
do with the aspectually am biguous nature o f the tenses that may convey habituality
in som e languages. However, if (2a) is analyzed vis-à-vis (2b -c), it becom es im m e­
diately obvious that it is a case o f iterativity, rather than habituality. As for (2g), it is
com patible with both readings (habitual U )[e] and iterative (2)[ f ]). Indeed, Binnick
(2005) observes that the English Simple Past is not a m arker o f habituality: it may
sim ply convey this reading in the appropriate contexts. The sem antic interpretation
lying behind the contrast iterative /habitual w ill be detailed below.
As a corollary, one should observe that habituality adverbials (cf. section 1) are
com patible with habitual sentences, but much less so with iterative ones. This m ay
go unnoticed in languages with non-explicit aspectual m orphology, but becom es
obvious otherwise. This constraint follows from the intrinsically indeterm inate
nature o f such adverbials, which is orthogonal to the notion o f closed interval
im plied by the perfective view :

(5) a. ??D’habitudc, Olivier a écrit [PF] des poèmes, [iterative]

“ Usually, Olivier wrote [PF 1. poems.”
b. D ’habitude, Olivier écrivait [IPF] des pocmes. [habitual]
“ Usually, Olivier wrote [IPF] poems.”

The second feature is T E M P O R A L L O C A L IZ A T IO N . H abituality can occur at

all tem poral dom ains (6), including future-in-the-past (Binnick, 2005), whereas

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H A B I T U A L I T Y , P L U R A C T I O N A L I T Y , AND I M P E R F E C T I V I T Y 857

iterativity is impossible to obtain in the present domain (7). Since iterativity presup­
poses a closed interval, (7b) is obviously ill-formed, for the speech-time’s time-
sphere is unbounded by nature.6By contrast, since habituality consists of attributing
a property to a given referent, rather than asserting anything specific about the plu-
ractional event itself, it may have present-reference. When the Present tense is used
as in (6e) to depict situations including (but not restricted to) the present time-
sphere, it can only have a habitual meaning; indeed, due to the cyclicity adverbial
(chaque année), the reiteration specification remains vague:

(6) Habituai
a. Dans le passé, les membres de ce club mettaient [IPF] une cravate rouge dans les
occasions officielles.
“In the past, the members of this club wore [IPF] a red tie on official occasions.”
b. Les membres de ce club mettent une cravate rouge dans les occasions officielles.
“The members of this club wear a red tie on official occasions.”
c. Les membres de ce club mettront une cravate rouge dans les occasions officielles.
"The members of this club will wear a red tie on official occasions.”
d. Marc imaginait [IPF] que, dans le futur, les membres de ce club mettraient une
cravate rouge dans les occasions officielles.
“Marc guessed [IPF] that, in the future, the members of this club would wear a red
tie on official occasions.”
e. Chaque année, Luc perd son parapluie trois fois.
“Every year, Luc loses his umbrella three times.”
(7) Iterative
a. L’année dernière, Luc a perdu [PF] son parapluie trois fois.
“Last year, Luc lost [PF] his umbrella three times.”
b. *Luc perd son parapluie trois fois.
“Luc loses his umbrella three times.”
c. Je prévois que Luc va perdre son parapluie trois fois l’année prochaine.
“I foresee that Luc will lose his umbrella three times in the next year.”

This said, one should add that habituality is best observed in the past-domain,
for self-explaining reasons. In Bybee et al.’s corpus, 19 languages exhibit a marker
expressing habituality in all temporal domains, 10 have it restricted to the past and
only 2 have a marker restricted to the present. Besides, in many languages the per-
fective/imperfective opposition is, not marked in the future-domain, so that the
contrast iterative/habitual must be inferred from the context.
The third feature concerns the role of the TIM E-FRAM E. The sentences pre­
sented So far provide some examples o f framing adverbials. Apparently, they have
the same function in both iterative and habitual contexts. For instance, in both
(2a)—iterative—and (2e)—habitual—the framing adverbial localizes in time the
pluractional event. I f the adverbial were not there, the reader would interpret the
pluractional event with respect to the whole life of the individual mentioned. Alter­
natively, a broader situational context would provide the appropriate frame: e.g.,
when he lived in Paris Iduring his mothers illness. However, the framing adverbials
of iterative and habitual sentences do not share the same constraints. A strictly
858 ASPECT

delimited tim e-fram e is acceptable in (8a), while it does not sound perfectly felicitous
in (8b), for the sentence is not self-sufficient. In order to improve it, one should best
add som ething lik e :. . . in the following period/afterwards, he took a long holidays; the
fram ing interval should thus be viewed against the background o f other (preceding or
following) analogous intervals. This suggests that the real object o f discourse o f the
imperfective situation is Jacques himself, rather than what he did in the given period.
In other words: while the tim e-frame o f (8a) is exactly delimiting, for it refers to the
events contained in it, the identical adverbial o f (8b) cannot possibly delimit its topic of
discourse, for Jacques’s existence obviously extends beyond the given period. Similar
observations m ay be attached to the subsequent example: the vaguely delimited time­
frame o f (8c-d) is hardly compatible with the perfective view. The same holds with
respect to the vaguely defined period alluded to by auparavant “earlier” in (8e-d):

(8) a. Entre le 1 mai 2009 et le 31 mars 2010, Jacques a écrit [PF] des articles /six articles.
“Between May 1st 2009 and March 31st 2010, Jacques wrote [PF] some articles /six articles.”
b. ?Entre le 1 mai 2009 et le 31 mars 2010, Jacques écrivait [I PF] des articles.
“Between M ay 1st 2009 and March 31st 2010, Jacques wrote [IPF] some articles”
c. Dans le passé, je me levais [IPF] tous les jours à 7 heures.
d. ??Dans le passé, je me suis levé [PF] tous les jours à 7 heures.
“ In the past, I got up [IPF = (c) /PF = (d)] every day at 7 o’c lock.”
e. Même si auparavant je me levais [IPF] tous les jours à 7 heures, maintenant je me
lève à 8 heures.
f. ?Même si auparavant je me suis levé [PF] tous les jours à 7 heures, maintenant ie me
lève à 8 heures.
“ While earlier I got up [IPF = (e) /PF = (f)] every day at 7 o’clock, now
I get up at 8.”

This difference can be captured by proposing that fram ing adverbials receive
a different interpretation depending on aspectual choice: “strictly delim iting” in
perfective-iterative sentences, “vaguely localizing” in im perfective-habitual sen­
tences. In term s o f inform ation structure, these adverbials behave as Topics in both
interpretations.7 Their function is to restrict the tem poral validity o f the situation,
unless the latter is assum ed to be valid at all times (9a), or at least during a period
coinciding with the life-span o f the referent (9b). The tem poral delim itation may
include the speech-tim e (9c) or be separated from it (9d). W hen the latter situation
applies (as is typical o f past habitual contexts), there is a conversational im plicature
to the effect that the intended situation is no longer valid. Such im plicature may
how ever be cancelled (9e). But here again a significant contrast arises: w hile (9O is
acceptable as a habitual sentence, (9g) should rather be interpreted in the experien­
tial sense (“ it has already occurred, at least once, that X ” ). This contrast stems again
from the aspectual nature o f the pluractional event. Sentence (9O m erely cancels
(due to the adverb déjà “already” ) the im plicature that the property attributed to
Serge does not extend to speech-tim e; (9g), by contrast, is not about a character­
izing property o f Serge, but about a contingent series o f actions perform ed by him .
Since perfective-iterative sentences are purely factual, the events they refer to m ay
be purely occasional and thus do not have a characterizing im port:

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Il A B I T U A L I T Y , P L U R A C T I O N A L I T Y , A N D I M P E R F E C T I V I T Y 859

(9) a. The Earth revolves round the Sun.

b. Philip used to go to bed very early.
c. These days, Jim walks to work.
d. Last year, Jim used to walk to work.
e. Last year, Jim used to walk to work and he still does.
f. L’année dernière, Serge jouait [ 1PF] déjà au tennis deux fois par semaine.
g. Cannée dernière, Serge a déjà joué [PF] au tennis deux fois par semaine
“ Last year, Serge already played [IPF = (f) /PF = (g)] tennis twice a week.”

The extension o f the tim e-fram e can be very large (in the past) or fairly short
(last week). The latter option poses an interesting puzzle, apparently contradicting
the num erical-specifiability constraint. G iven (îo a -b ), one can easily compute the
exact m icro-events’ number. This should lead to unacceptability o f (10b) for reasons
discussed in relation to (2C -d);yet, (10b) is perfectly acceptable. The solution to this
puzzle w ill be provided in section 4:

(10) a. La semaine dernière, Pierre est allé [PF] au cinéma à chaque soirée, [iterative]
“ Last w'cek, Pierre went [PF] to the movies every night.”
b. La semaine dernière, Pierre allait au cinéma à chaque soirée; [habituai)
maintenant il ne sort presque jamais.
“ Last week, Pierre went [IPF) to the movies every night; now he hardly gets out.”

The fourth defining feature o f the iterative/habitual contrast is D E T E R M IN ­

A B IL IT Y . The fram ing adverbial o f sentence (2g), repeated as (11a), receives two
readings depending on the intended interpretation. In the perfective-iterative
reading, last year is strictly delim iting, so that the num ber o f visits is (in principle)
exactly countable. In the im perfective-habitual reading, instead, the sam e adverbial
does not refer to a strictly delim ited period o f tim e w ithin w hich the visiting events
could be enum erated, but should rather be taken as a reference time with respect to
which Johns characteristics o f sporadical /frequent visitor is asserted. D eterm in-
ability can be regarded as an extension o f the reiteration-specifiability feature. Since,
in the habitual interpretation, the topic o f discourse is Johns habits, it m akes no
sense to define the exact num ber o f visits that occurred in the given period o f time,
nor to define the num erical threshold needed to assess the relative frequency in
connection to adverbs such as seldom /often. To clarify this point, let us m ake the
conventional assum ption that, in the given context, seldom m eans “once every six
m onths” and often m eans “twice a week.” C onsidering that one year contains 2
sem esters and 52 weeks, the perfective-iterative reading would directly entail that
John visited his m other twice (seldom) vs. 104 times (often). No such deduction is
allowed, however, with the im perfective-habitual reading, w here the only thing that
matters is the relative density o f visiting events in the reference interval. In the latter
reading, (11a) sim ply asserts that John is a “once-every-six-m onths-visitor” vs.
“twice-a-week-visitor.” To provide another illustration, consider (lib -c ). Suppose,
to sim plify the matter, that in the intended period there were 1000 club m em bers
and that there was one m eeting every m onth. In the iterative reading (11b), one can
easily count how m any tie-w earing events (and by how m any people) there were in

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86о ASPECT

the given interval. In the habitual reading (nc), by contrast, it makes no sense to
indulge in such computations. What this sentence asserts is that whoever might
have been a club member and for no matter how many meetings there might have
been, every club member adopted the given behavior:

(11) a. Last year, John seldom /often visited his mother.

b. L’année dernière, les membres du Chelsea Club ont mis [PF] une cravate bleu dans
leur réunions.
c. L’année dernière, les membres du Chelsea Club mettaient [IPF] une cravate bleu
dans leur réunions.
“Last year, the members of the Chelsea Club wore [PF = (b) /IPF = (c)l a blue tie
during their meetings.”

Table 30.10 recapitulates the four features discussed in this section. It is imme­
diately obvious that they are intimately related to one another. The subtle but crucial
semantic difference contrasting iterativity and habituality will be made explicit in
section 4.

3. H a b i t u a l s and Other
G n o m i c Im p e r f e c t i v e s

As noted above, habitual sentences, unlike iterative ones, are intrinsically character­
izing: they attribute a defining property to the intended referent(s). This makes
them similar to other types of sentences, which equally have a characterizing func­
tion. In languages with explicit aspectual marking (at least in selected temporal
domains, like the past), all such types o f sentences are expressed by means of imper-
fective devices. Since their function consists of expressing a generalization o f some
kind, we shall refer to the whole class as “gnomic imperfectives.” To this class we
assign the following types: habituals, attitudinals, potentials (Shluinsky s “capacita-
tive” ), individual-level (= IL) predicates, generics:8

(12) a. At that time, John would easily get angry with his colleagues, [habitual]
b. John smokes cigars. [attitudinal]
c. John speaks French. [potential]
d. Elina is Finnish. [IL-predicate]
e. Dogs have four legs. [generic]

Table 30.1
Perfective-iterative Imperfective-habitual
Reiteration specifiability + specifiable - specifiable
Temporal localization only past- and future-referring all temporal domains
Time-frame strictly delimiting vaguely delimiting
Determinability potentially determinable non-determinable
H A B I T U A L I T Y , P L U R A C T I O N A L I T Y , AND I M P E R F E C T I V I T Y 86 l

Not all o f these types involve pluractionality (as pointed out in Figure 30.1 in
section 6). From this point of view, habituais and generics are definitely orthogonal.
As for attitudinals and potentials, they are intermediate cases, for the number of
repetitions needs not be large, although in general at least some micro-event repe­
titions must have occurred, in order to so qualify the individual(s) at stake. In this
section we shall briefly examine the respective differences, while the semantic pro­
file will be treated in section 4.
Generics and IL-predicates are not only stative, they actually denote a perma­
nent stative property, even when their referent(s) no longer exist: in (13a), for
instance, the permanent property is delimited by the mammoths’ period o f exis­
tence. By contrast, habituais are often based on eventive predicates, as proved by
their compatibility with agentive adverbs like deliberately in (13b):

(13) a. Les mammouths étaient [IPF] des mammifères [generic]

“Mammoths were [IFF] mammals.”
b. Jean laissait [IPF] toujours la fenêtre délibérément ouverte, [habitual]
“Jean always left [IPF] the window deliberately open.”

A feature opposing not only habituais to generics, but also the former to attitu­
dinals and potentials, is the availability of passive conversion. While (14a) is the
straightforward passive of (13b), (14c) is by no means the passive o f (14b), for
although it is a property of beavers to build dams, it is not a defining property of the
latter to be built by beavers (human beings do as well). For identical reasons, this
constraint extends to attitudinals and potentials: (i4d-e) are not the passive cog­
nates o f (12b—c). Conversely, (i4f-g) are connected by passive conversion, but o f
course the former is by no means an attitudinal sentence:

(14) a. La fenêtre était [IPF] toujours laissée délibérément ouverte par Jean.
“ The window was [IPF] always left deliberately open by Jean.”
b. Beavers build dams.
c. * Dams are built by beavers. [semantically incongruous]
d. * Cigars are smoked by John. [semantically incongruous]
e. ^ French is spoken by John. [semantically incongruous]
f. John has smoked two cigars.
g. Two cigars have been smoked by John.

An interesting feature of attitudinals and potentials consists o f their

actional nature. Although they are based, unlike IL-predicates and generics, on
eventive predicates, they yield a stative predicate by actionality coercion. For
instance, although smoke is an eventive predicate in most contexts, as in (i4f-g),
sentence ( 12b ) features a stative reading o f the same predicate. Equally, although
speak is norm ally eventive, its potential cognate in (12c) is stative. This prop­
erty o f attitudinals and potentials has been described at least since Bertinetto
(1986). The permanent-stative nature o f these predicates is confirmed by their
incompatibility with the progressive ( i 5 a - b ) or with agentive adverbs ( i 5 C - d ) .
Sentence (15a) cannot be a characterization o f Joe’s personality, for smoking
862 ASPECT

cigars n eeds not be a habit o f h is; he m igh t be sm o k in g cigars for the first tim e
in his life. A s for (15c), alth ou gh it is ch ara cterizin g in n ature becau se o f its
habitu al m ean in g, it is o sten sib ly even tive due to the agen tive adverb (hence,
it is not attitu d in al). S im ila r o b se rv a tio n s can be m ade for the p o ten tials in
(15b, d):

(15) a. Joe is sm oking cigars in order to irritate his boss.

b. Jim is speaking French in order to exclude Jack from the conversation.
c. Joe deliberately smokes cigars in order to irritate his boss.
d. Jim deliberately speaks French in order to exclude Jack from the conversation.

The stative coercion induced by attitudinals and potentials yields, so to say, a

“second-order” stativization. The lexical m eaning o f the predicate involved rem ains
eventive; every act o f sm oking or speaking is an event, rather than a state. Since,
however, these sentences depict a general property o f the given referent(s), they by
definition refer to a state (the state o f being a sm oker, o f being able to speak French,
etc.). Lenci (1995) provided a form al account o f this particular actional coercion.
This type o f coercion should thus be kept apart from that occurring in sentences
like (16), where the event is a state to begin with, due to the inanim ate nature o f the
subject involved (literally speaking, frontiers do not run and announcem ents do not
read). These are m etaphorical extensions o f the verbs m eaning, producing new
hom ophonic dictionary entries:

(16) a. The state frontier runs along the river.

b. The announcement reads: “ No entry.”

Som e scholars (such as C arlson , D oron, and Scheiner, am ong others) pointed
out that even plain habituals are stative. This point deserves discu ssion . It is
in deed a fact that habitual sentences, to the extent that they are characterizing,
m ay be regarded as stative, despite the possible (indeed, frequent) eventive
nature o f the predicate involved (see (13b) above). This follow s from their sem an ­
tic in terpretation: the p roperty attributed to the intended referent(s) is valid at
all instants, in depen dently o f w hether the referent is p erfo rm in g the event in
question at the given m om ent. From this poin t o f view, habituals are exactly like
all other types o f g n o m ic im perfectives. H ow ever, stativity should not be co n sid ­
ered a d efin in g feature o f habituality: it is a n ecessary but by no m eans sufficient
con dition . Should stativity be a sufficient condition, then all stative predicates
w ould im plem ent habitual situations, but this is ostensibly not the case, as show n
by (17a), depicting a purely contingent situation. B esides, stative predicates can
appear in perfective contexts, clearly in com patible with habituality (17b). M ore­
over, in order for contingent (i.e., n on -p erm an en t) stative predicates to appear in
habitual contexts, they need to be accom panied by explicit ad verbs, such as sou-
vent often’ in (i7d ). Thus, they need lexical support to convey habitual m eaning,
w hereas eventive predicates, at least in the appropriate contexts (as in ( 17 ) [e]),
m ay express habituality in -and-by them selves, provided the appropriate asp ec­
tual choice is m ade:

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IIA B IT U A L IT Y , P L U R A C T IO N A L IT Y , AND IM P E R F E C T IV IT Y 863

(17) a. A wine bottle is on the table.

b. Une bouteille de vin a etc [ PF] sur la table pendant toute la journée.
“A bottle o f wine was [PF] on the table during the whole day.’'
c. L’année dernière, Jean était malade. [non-habitual]
d. L’année dernière, Jean était souvent malade. [habituai]
“ Last year, Jean was [IPF] (often) ill.”
e. L’année dernière, Paul prenait le métro pour aller au bureau.
“ Last year, Paul took [IPF] the underground to go to his office.”

Note, finally that som e predicates m ay have both a contingent and a p erm a­
nent stative m eaning, so that their relation to gnom icity varies according to the
context:

(18) a. At the moment, the Aula Magna contains two hundred people, [contingent]
b. The Aula Magna contains three hundred people. [permanent)
c. The doctor is available right now. [contingent]
d. Firemen are always available. [permanent]

The next section w ill detail the sem antic analogy between all types o f gnom ic
im perfectives.

4. F o r m a l i z a t i o n

Spelling out the inferences licensed by habitual sentences and defining their sem an ­
tic im port has been the m atter o f an intense research debate, at the crossroad o f
theoretical sem antics and philosophy o f language. The goal is to provide an explicit
and form al sem antic representation o f habitual sentences. Different m odels have
been proposed. Their m any differences notwithstanding, they share the com m on
assum ption that habitual sentences slriclo sensu like (12a) should receive the sam e
type o f form al analysis as attitudinal, potential, individual-level and generic sen ­
tences (12b—e). This assum ption is supported by the m any properties these sen­
tences share, ju stifyin g their grouping into the class o f “gnom ic imperfectivity.” This
section will focus on the form al sem antic representation o f the whole area covered
by gnom ic im perfectivity. However, we shall also highlight the specific features o f
the different subtypes o f this class.
O ur main tenets can be sum m ed up as follow s. G n om ic im perfective sen ­
tences form a coherent aspectual class, based on a com m on sem antic representa­
tion iden tifyin g a specific subtype o f im perfective aspect (i.e., gnom ic). The
different subtypes o f gnom ic im perfectivity depend on the lexico-sem antic and
pragm atic inferences associated with the event predicate and its argum ents. All
gnom ic im perfective sentences express a law -like generalization, taken to repre­
sent a characterizing property o f an in dividual or a class o f in dividuals in a certain
period o f tim e. Form alizing gnom ic im perfectivity am ounts to p ro vid in g a form al,
explicit description o f the notions o f “ law-like generalization” and “characterizing

Copyrighted mate
864 ASPECT

property.” The major contribution brought by formal semantic analysis is to specify

the domain covered by gnomic imperfectivity, and to clarify its boundaries with
respect to close notions such as iterativity (as here defined), often and unwarrant-
edly confused with habituality.
The various models that have been proposed to formalize the semantic area of
gnomic imperfectivity share more or less the following assumptions:

• There is a restricted set o f predicates, i.e., IL-predicates like tally man, similar
to, etc., which inherently express characterizing, gnomic properties of
individuals.
• Other predicates, such as smoke, arrive, run, etc., do not inherently express
characterizing properties, but rather specific eventualities, hence the term
“episodic” predicates. However, episodic predicates can also be used to
express law-like generalizations over such eventualities and may thus
represent characteristic properties via a dedicated semantic operator. In the
literature, this operator is called “generic” or “habitual,” depending on the
author.
• The semantic operator brings about a semantic shift, with the effect that
the sentence turns out to express a characterizing, gnomic property.
We shall henceforth refer to this operator as the “gnomic operator.”
IL-sentences thus present the same semantic representation as the other
gnomic sentences.

The main parameters distinguishing the different formalization proposals con­

cern the logical structure o f gnomic sentences and the spelling out o f the precise
interpretation o f the gnomic operator.

4.x. The Logical Structure of Gnomic Sentences

There are two main views on the logical form o f gnomic sentences (cf. Krifka
et al., 1995). In the former, the gnomic operator is a monadic operator that
takes an episodic predicate and turns it into a characterizing one. In the latter,
gnomic sentences have a relational structure, induced by a dyadic gnomic
operator.
An example o f the former approach is the classical analysis o f Carlson (1977),
whose ingredients consist of a monadic operator GEN , and o f a rich ontology
including individuals (e.g., John), stages (i.e., spatio-temporal slices of individ­
uals such as John), and kinds (e.g., men, lions, etc.). Carlson assumes a distinc­
tion among episodic predicates, such as is smoking (19a), taking stages as their
arguments (19b), hence labeled “stage-level predicates” ; predicates ranging over
individuals, such as tall (19c, d), hence labeled “ IL-predicates” ; and predicates
directly taking kinds as arguments, such as extinct (19c, f), hence labeled
“kind-level-predicates.” The gnomic operator GEN acts as a “sort-shifting” oper­
ator, changing stage-level predicates into individual- or kind-level ones, and IL-
into kind-level predicates (i9g-l):
H A B I T U A L I T Y , P L U R A C T I O N A L I T Y , AND I M P E R F E C T I V I T Y 865

(19) a. John is smoking.

b. smoke (john)
c. John is a tall.
d. tall.fjohn.)
e. Dinosaurs are extinct.
f. extinctk(dinosaurk)
g. John smokes.
h. (Gn(smokes)).(john.)
i. Italians smoke.
1. (Gn(smokes))k(italiansk)

According to Carlsons analysis, generic sentences like (19!)—or equivalently

(i2e)—express properties about kinds.9 Crucially, the different types of gnomic sen­
tences have the same logical structure, which in turn is exactly the same as the one
assigned to non-quantificational episodic sentences such as (19a), the only difference
lying at the sortal level of the predicate arguments (i.e., stages vs. individuals vs.
kinds). Since IL-predicates are stative, Carlson’s G E N operator turning stage-level
predicates into individual-level ones can be regarded as a sort of stativizing device.
Monadic operators for habitual sentences are also proposed by Boneh and Doron
(2008; 2009) and by Scheiner (2003). Disregarding the differences, these are all
stativizing operators, since they take scope over predicates of event and return a sta­
tive predicate HAB(P). However, these proposals do not rely on Carlsons ontology of
stages and kinds, but rather on a neo-Davidsonian ontology, containing events and
times among individual entities (cf., among others, Davidson, 1967; Krifka, 1992).
Krifka (1988), Schubert and Pelletier (1989), Chierchia (1995b), and Lenci and
Bertinetto (2000), among others, proposed for gnomic sentences the following re­
lational logical form, associated to a sentence-level dyadic operator:

(20) G E N (x ,. . xn; y,,.. .,yn)[restrictor(x,.. .xn)][m atrix(x,.. .,xn, y , . . .5yn)]

The restrictor specifies the conditions under which the state of affairs expressed in
the matrix-clause hold. The variables xx„ . .,xa range over individuals or eventual­
ities, and are bounded by G EN , thus receiving a generic, quasi-universal interpre­
tation. The variables only occurring in the matrix are instead existentially
interpreted. Models that adopt this kind o f representation also typically assume
that predicates have an extra argument ranging over eventualities (cf. Davidson,
1967). The examples in (21) illustrate how some cases o f gnomic sentences can be
represented according to the structure in (20) (for more details cf. Krifka et al.,
1995):

(21) a. Italians smoke after dinner.

b. GEN(x,e) [italian(x) & smoke(x,e)][after_dinner(e)]
c. John smokes.
d. GEN(e) [normaI_smoking_situation(john,e)] [smoke(e,john)]

Leaving aside for the moment the specific interpretation of the G EN operator,
which will be discussed in section 4.2, the logical form in (21b) amounts to saying
866 ASPECT

that the typical situations in which Italians smoke are situations occurring after
dinner. Notice that in (21a, b), the material filling the restrictor and the matrix-
clause is derived from the sentence structure, after being “split” according to criteria
determined by the sentence syntactic and/or informational structure. Indeed, many
scholars have associated the relational structure of gnomic sentences with the bipar­
tite structure induced by topic/focus articulation (Krifka, 1988; Diesing, 1992;
Chierchia, 1995a; Krifka et al., 1995)- Topic materials fill the restrictor clause, while
focus materials fill the matrix. However, the relational analysis is extended to gno­
mic sentences like (21c), whose relational structure is not equally self-evident. In
this case, it is commonly assumed that the restrictor contains pragmatically deter­
mined conditions about the normal constraints governing the occurrence o f events.
According to this analysis, (21c) can be paraphrased by saying that “ in a normal
smoking condition, typically John smokes” (Krifka et al., 1995). Chierchia (1995a)
proposed that IL-sentences can also be assigned a relational schema similar to the
one in (20):

(22) a. John is intelligent.

b. GEN(e) [C(j,e)j [intelIigent(john,e)]

In (22b), C is a contextually determined predicate identifying the normal “felicity”

conditions for being intelligent. Thus, (22a) amounts to stating that, in situations
such that one can show intelligence, John is normally intelligent. The relational ap­
proach is thus able to assign a uniform semantic representation to all subtypes of
gnomic sentences.
The logical structure in (20) is exactly parallel to the one proposed for sentences
containing quantificational event adverbials such as often, always, seldom, etc. (cf.
among others, Lewis, 1975; Kratzer, 1981; Partee, 1995). The generic operator GEN is
thus considered by most scholars a sort o f covert, default quantificational adverb,
normally associated with aspectual morphology. The only difference between the
logical forms o f (23a) and (23c) would depend on whether the quantificational
adverb is overtly expressed (thus replacing the default one) or not:

(23) a. John smokes after dinner.

b. GEN(e) [smoke(john,e)][after_dinner(e)]
c. John always smokes after dinner.
d. Always(e) [smoke(john,e)][after_dinner(e)]

This type of analysis has the advantage of highlighting the strong semantic sim­
ilarities between habitual sentences and sentences containing overt quantificational
adverbs. Yet, the mere identification of the generic operator with a quantificational
adverb is questionable, as argued by Lenci and Bertinetto (2000). This identification
is prima facie justified by the fact that in languages such as English, in which past
habitual imperfectivity is not overtly marked, the presence o f an explicit quantifica­
tional adverb is the only device to make a sentence univocally habitual. Indeed,
while (24a) is ambiguous between an episodic and a pluractional interpretation,
(24b) has a pluractional reading only:
H A B I T U A L I T Y , P L UR A C T I O N AL I T Y , AND I M P E R F E C T I V I T Y 867

(24) a. John smoked after lunch.

b. John always smoked after lunch.

However, when past habitual imperfectivity is overtly marked by aspect mor­

phology, the presence of a quantificational adverb is neither necessary nor suffi­
cient to generate a gnomic interpretation, which is directly conveyed by the
imperfective aspect (25a). Conversely, the same quantificational adverb with the
perfective aspect, as in (25b), does not produce truly gnomic sentences, and only
has an iterative reading referring to the factual occurrence o f a series o f events.
Lenci and Bertinetto (2000) suggested that gnomic sentences have a relational
structure like that in (20), but claimed that the operator is purely aspectual, and
should not be equated to a default quantificational adverb. The crucial argument in
this respect is the redundant nature o f the adverb toujours in (25a), as opposed to
its necessary presence in (25b). With raritive adverbs this becomes even more ob­
vious. Sentence (25d) could not possibly be interpreted as a characterization o f
Jeans habits, due to the sporadic nature o f the event; it is a mere contingent obser­
vation. Sentence (25c), by contrast, retains its characterizing meaning. In the latter
case, the adverb is no longer redundant and concurs in specifying the relative
frequency o f Jeans smoking habits. Here again, it is thus obvious that the presence
o f an explicit adverb has no impact on the possible triggering of the gnomic reading,
despite its contribution to the pluractional meaning o f the sentence. The actual
discrimination between habitual vs. iterative pluractionality is triggered by aspect
morphology:

(25) a, Jean fumait [IPF] (toujours) après le repas. [habitual]

b. Jean a toujours fumé après le repas. [iterative]
“John (always) smoked [IPF = (a) /PF = (b)] after lunch.”
c. Jean fumait [IPF] rarement après le repas. [habitual]
d. Jean a rarement fumé après le repas. [iterative]
“John (seldom) smoked [IPF - (c) /PF = (d)] after lunch”

One advantage of the relational model for gnomic sentences is its ability to ac­
count for the interaction between the interpretation of generic sentences and their
syntactic and/or informational structure. For instance, it can explain why passiviza-
tion disrupts generic sentences, as shown in (26) (cf. (14) above). Since one o f the
effects o f passivization is demotion o f the active subject from topic position, in (26b)
dams, instead of beavers, is mapped onto the restrictor of the generic structure.
Thus, this sentence implausibly states that being built by beavers is a characterizing
property of dams. By contrast, (26a) correctly expresses a gnomic statement about
beavers, i.e., their property as dam-builders. A parallel analysis can be developed to
account for the contrast in (26c-d).

(26) a. Beavers build dams.

b. ??Dams are built by beavers. [semantically incongruous]
c. John smoked cigars.
d. ??Cigars are smoked by John. [semantically incongruous]
868 ASPECT

Despite its merits, the relational approach has its own weak points. Although one
can relationally interpret even simple sentences such as John smokes or John is intelli­
gent, this does not appear to be equally felicitous for other types o f IL-predicates. The
relational approach more or less explicitly assumes that gnom ic sentences express
generalizations over specific eventualities; hence, their close relationship to standard
quantificational structure. This analysis can be extended to permanent stative predi­
cates such as intelligent or smoker , as one can for instance assume that the IL-predi-
cate intelligent can be viewed as a generalization over the different situations in which
one behaves in an intelligent way. However, this analysis yields counterintuitive
results with predicates like tall or similar to. Exploiting the analysis in (22), one would
for instance propose that John is tall means that “ in the normal situations for being
tall, John is tall," which sounds extremely odd.
As a prelim inary conclusion, we can say that m onadic and relational models
are both able to assign a com m on semantic representation to the whole family o f
gnom ic sentences. However, they differ for the details o f semantic structure they
focus upon. Proposals adopting a gnom ic operator acting at the verb phrase level
emphasize two particular facets o f gnom ic sentences (including habituality), i.e.,
the fact that: (i) they express a characterizing property o f som e individual; (ii) they
behave like a subset o f stative predicates (IL-predicates, generics) that do so inher­
ently. Thus, IL-statives and generics are assumed as a kind o f benchm ark for the
logical structure o f the larger class o f gnom ic sentences. As for relational models,
they foreground the strong similarities between, on the one hand, sentences
expressing generalizations over events and, on the other hand, conditionals, when-
clauses and sentences containing quantificational adverbs. The latter structures end
up providing the basic logical schema to be extended to the other classes o f gnom ic
constructions.

4.2. The Interpretation o f the Gnom ic Operator

The gnom ic operator has different form al interpretations in the literature on generics
and habituals. A critical survey o f the major approaches can be found in Krifka et al.
(1995). Here we would like to focus on a particular aspect o f this debate: the opposi­
tion between “extensional” vs. “ intensional” interpretations o f the gnom ic operator.
In extensional models (such as, am ong others, those o f Bonom i, 1995; Bon om i and
Zucchi 2001; Delfitto 2002; Scheiner, 2003), both episodic and gnomic sentences
refer to events occurring in the actual world. The difference lies in the fact that in
gnom ic constructions the event expressed by the predicate is bound by a “quasi-
universal” adverbial quantifier. The problem with the assumption that gnom ic sen­
tences are kinds o f general statements consists in the fact that (27a) does not exactly
m ean (27b), but rather something one could more appropriately paraphrase as (27c):

(27) a. John goes to work at Sam.

b. John always goes to school at 8am.
c. John norm ally/typically/usually goes to school at 8am.

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This difference stems from the well-known fact that generics and habituals
express generalizations that tolerate exceptions (Krifka et al., 1995). For instance,
(27a) is appropriate even if it happens that John som etim es goes to w ork at a d if­
ferent hour. The problem is that there is no principled way to specify the num ber o f
exceptions gnom ic statements can tolerate before running into falsity. G nom ic sen ­
tences seem to express quasi-universal generalizations that only hold for “norm al”
or “prototypical” conditions.
Besides the “fault-tolerance” character o f gnom ic generalizations, there are
other problems that the extensional interpretation o f the gnom ic operator has to
face. As we saw above, the mere notion o f regular iteration o f an event is neither
necessary nor sufficient to define an event as gnom ic. First o f all, event repetition is
entailed by no more than a subtype o f gnom ic sentences, i.e., habituals stricto sensu ,
but this is not a necessary condition for the other types o f gnom ic constructions.
This is illustrated by attitudinals and potentials as in (28a-b), which do not neces­
sarily presuppose iteration, or even the occurrence o f a single event. When we inter­
pret them gnomically, these sentences are perfectly felicitous in conditions such that
John actually never received a single letter from Antarctica , and the machine
designed to crush oranges was never switched on. The generalization expressed by
these sentences is simply supported by some feature connected to the “ potential”
function o f the subject, rather than on its concrete actualization. Since extensional
models assume that gnom ic sentences express statements about the actual world,
there is no easy way for them to tackle such cases:

(28) a. John handles the mail from Antarctica.

b. This machinc crushes oranges.

The mere occurrence o f repeated micro-events suffices to characterize the m acro­

event as iterative, while habituality requires that micro-events’ reiteration defines a
sort o f law-like generalization, indicating a characterizing property o f an individual
for a certain period o f time. Contrasts like those in (25) therefore cast doubts on the
suitability o f the extensional approaches to provide a proper semantic representation
o f gnom ic sentences. Such approaches risk blurring the crucial semantic difference
between truly habitual statements— expressed by imperfective aspect (25a, c)— and
the iterative ones— expressed by perfective aspect (25b, d)— reporting factual event
iterations rather then normative generalizations. Similarly, it is hard for extensional
approaches to properly capture the contrast between habituality and iterativity with
respect to reiteration specifiability and determinability (cf. section 2). Notice that uni­
versal, and even almost universal, quantifiers are not incompatible with the specifica­
tion of the exact number o f individuals for which the statement holds:

(29) Every student/ Most students in my class, that is 10, passed the exam.

Thus, the incompatibility o f habituality with reiteration adverbials (2c-d ), just as

the impossibility o f inferring the exact num ber o f occurrences o f habitual events
(11)), m ust depend on semantic properties other than the (quasi-)universal quanti­
fication mechanism per se.

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870 ASPECT

Intensional models o f the gnom ic operator try to address this issue by suggest­
ing that gnom ic sentences have an inherently normative character, akin to modal
and counterfactual sentences (cf. Dahl, 1975; Kratzer, 1981; Krifka et al., 1995; Lenci
and Bertinetto, 2000; Boneh and Doron, 2008; 2009). In this view, gnom ic sentences
do not express contingent statements about the actual world, but rather statements
that need to be evaluated with respect to a contextually determined set o f possible
worlds or situations, the so-called “ modal base” associated with the gnom ic operator.
The gnom ic operator is thus interpreted intensionally as expressing a universal
quantification over the set o f possible worlds o f the modal base. Thus, a habitual
sentence like John smokes in the garden is true if and only if, in every possible world
o f the m odal base that is most norm al according to some contextually determined
principle, every event o f smoking by John occurs in the garden.
Leaving aside the form al details o f this type o f interpretation (the interested
reader can refer to Krifka et al., 1995; Lenci and Bertinetto, 2000; Boneh and Doron,
2008), we shall focus here on the major reasons to prefer the intensional approach
in the formalization o f the semantics o f habituals, as well as gnom ic sentences in
general:

1. Universal quantification over possible worlds is the hallmark o f modal

necessity. The fact that gnom ic sentences express this sort o f intensional
quantification explains the law-like character o f the generalizations they
express. Since the set o f possible worlds o f the modal base can be suitably
restricted, the gnom ic generalization does not need to apply to every
possible world, but only to pragmatically restricted ones. In other terms,
while every gnom ic sentence expresses a universal quantification over
possible worlds, the set o f possible worlds quantified over would be an open
parameter, to be lexically or pragmatically determined. For instance, A
triangle has three angles undoubtedly has a stronger normative character
than Italians drink cappuccino at breakfast or John smokes in the garden.
Our claim is that these sentences all share the same intensional possible
world semantics, while diifering in m odal-base choice. The form er is a
linguistically and gram m atically relevant fact, determ ining the semantics of
the gnom ic imperfective aspect, while the latter is a mere pragmatic factor.
2. When so conceived of, gnom ic sentences appear to be neatly distinguished
from iterative sentences. For instance, the contrasts (25a-b) and (25c-d)
can be accounted for by the fact that, although both sentences in each pair
contain the sam e quantificational adverb, only the former has an inten­
sional interpretation, determined by the m odal-like gnom ic operator
associated with the habitual aspect.10
3. The fact that gnom ic statements express law-like generalizations and yet
allow for a potentially undefined num ber o f exceptions is naturally
explained by the intensional analysis. The universal quantification over
possible worlds is only restricted to the most “ normal worlds” in the
relevant base (cf. Kratzer, 1981). Again, the criterion o f what accounts

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for a “normal” world or situation is a non-linguistic issue, and should be

explained in cognitive and pragmatic terms.
4. The intensional explanation can also account for the behavior of attitudinal
and potential sentences like (28). The definition o f the intensional, gnomic
operator does not require that the actual world belongs to the modal base.
Thus, (28b) is true if and only if in all the worlds most normal with respect
to the functioning design of the orange-crushing machine, the given
machine crushes oranges. Given suitable contextual conditions, the gener­
alizations expressed by gnomic sentences may not be actualized.
5. The non-determinability o f habitual statements directly follows from their
intensional character as generalizations over a potentially open-ended set of
possible worlds and situations. This also explains the puzzle in (10), where
the event occurrences simply matter as an intensional characterization of the
agent’s behavior, rather than as an exhaustive description of his acts.

To sum up, the hallmark of what we call “gnomic imperfective aspect” is the fact
that it expresses law-like generalizations with a strong normative character. The use
o f intensional semantics based on quantification over possible worlds provides a
useful formal model to make this unifying feature of gnomic sentences explicit.
Gnomic generalization is undoubtedly involved by habituality, a subtype o f gnomic
imperfectivity. Indeed, most of our generalizations are “ inductively” derived by ob­
serving the regular occurring of events; this is surely the case with sentences like
John goes to work at 8am. However, law-like generalizations can also be derived
“deductively.” Simply observing the design of a machine, one can truly assert: This
machine crushes oranges. We argue that the distinction between truly habitual sen­
tences and other gnomic sentences lies outside the domain of aspectual semantics,
and concerns other lexical and pragmatic factors. For instance, a sentence like John
sold used cars involves, in the habitual reading, a normative generalization over
multiple car-selling events by John. Yet, under special contextual conditions, the
same sentence can be regarded as attitudinal, simply referring to Johns particular
profession as car-seller, without entailing that any single car-selling event actually
occurred (as might be the case for an unsuccessful car-seller).
In conclusion, the intensional approach has the advantage o f providing a sort of
division of labor between the truly semantic properties of the gnomic imperfective
aspect, and other accessory pragmatic parameters. This points to a deep relationship
between modality and habituality and indeed, in a number o f cases, one and the
same marker can express both meanings. This is the case, e.g., of the past-habitual
devices to be found in English (cf. would), Romance (cf. the modal uses o f the
Imperfect), Hebrew (Boneh and Doron 2009), or Udmurt (Ugro-Finnic; cf. Bybee
et al., p. 158). In Bargam, spoken in New Guinea, the evidential marker is also used
to convey habituality (Swintha Danielsen, pers. comm.). Considering that modal-
ity-oriented grammatical devices are typically involved in hypothetical construc­
tions, i.e., in prototypically intensional structures, the convergence in formal
expression of modality and habituality markers lends further support to our view.
87 2 ASPECT

5. H a b i t u a l i t y in E n g lish and Sla v ic

The English periphrases “ used to /would + Infinitive” are often quoted as habitual
devices (although they occur in habitual contexts far less often than the Simple
Past; cf. Tagliamonte and Lawrence, 2000). Not all scholars agree on this, however.
Binnick (2005) rejects used to as a habitual device, as opposed to would , considered
as the past form o f habitual w ill.11 The main reason to deny habitual value to used to
lies in its usage with stative verbs, as noted at least since C om rie (1976). Sentences
(3o a-b ) feature permanent stative predicates, although the extension o f validity o f
the two events is diiferent. Example (30b) could, e.g., be uttered during P h ils life­
time; in that case, it would not by definition cover the whole o f his life. These sen ­
tences convey the idea that the given situation held at som e past interval, detached
from the speech-time. Bertinetto (1992) considered this periphrasis as expressing
“confinement-in-the-past,” rather than habituality. Binnick (2005, p. 350-351)
claims that used to is a “current relevance” tense like the English Present Perfect,
although sym m etric to it: while the latter expresses current validity o f a past events
result, used to divorces “ the past situation from the present era.” However, as B in ­
nick him self points out (p. 345), this is no more than a conversational implicature,
as proved by (30c) (see also (9)[e]). By contrast, the Present Perfects entailment o f
current relevance cannot be canceled (3od). This does not mean that Binnick’s
claim concerning the present-oriented nature o f used to is incorrect; it indicates,
however, that this periphrasis behaves like the French Imperfect in contexts like
(3oe), corresponding to (30c):12

(30) a. The temple o f Diana used to stand at Ephesus.

b. Phil used to be the conductor o f the parish choir.
c. Erik used to be a member o f the Volapiik League (and he still is).
d. Erik has broken his right leg (*which is now perfectly OK).
e. Erik etait [IPF] un membre de la Ligue Volapiik (et il lest toujours).
“ Erik was (IPF] a member o f the Volapiik League (and he still is).”

This suggests a possible interpretation. The reason w hy used to is compatible

with stative non-pluractional contexts stems from its imperfective nature, conveying
some o f the functions o f the Rom ance Imperfect, nam ely its gnom ic value. Consider
the following examples. Sentences (3ia-b ), just like (31c), may have intensional
m eaning (cf.(n)): the former m ay refer to anybody who might have been a Club
m em ber at the given time (beyond those who actually were), the latter to anybody
who might have been Prime Minister (beyond the one who actually was). Needless
to say, they can also refer to the people who were actual club m em bers and actual
Prime Minister, but the important fact is that the intensional reading is available. By
contrast, the perfective Past in (3id) can only refer to those who were actual club
members: it has no intensional force. This proves that the English periphrases at
stake, like the Rom ance Imperfect, have gnom ic import. This reading is admittedly
also available to the English Simple Past {wore, drove) in the relevant, i.e., habitual,

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reading o f (31a—b), which proves once more that the imperfective-habitual value can
be expressed by this tense as well. However, as already observed, the Simple Past is
aspectually ambiguous. Its prevalent perfective value is apparent in (31e), where the
two periphrases are excluded due to the impossibility o f the gnom ic reading. By
contrast, the gnom ic (habitual) reading is perfectly acceptable in (31О with any o f
the three devices.14 As for the French Imperfect in (31g), it is acceptable also in the
non-habitual reading, but this is not surprising, for this tense may express any im-
perfective value, including progressivity:

(31) a. In that period, the members o f the Chelsea Club used to wear /would wear blue ties.
b. In that period, the Prime M inister used to drive /would drive a limousine.
c. A cette époque, le Premier M inistre conduisait [IPF] une limousine.
“ In that period, the Prime M inister drove [TPF] a limousine.”
d. Pendant une certaine période, les membres du Chelsea Club ont mis une cravate bleu.
“ For a certain time, the members o f the Chelsea Club wore f IPF] a red tie.”
e. W oody Allen directed /‘ used to direct /*would direct Annie Hall
f. W oody Allen directed /used to direct /would direct a film a year.
g. W oody Allen dirigeait [IPF] Annie Hall /un film par an.

The im p erfective-gn om ic value o f used to / would is also proved by the in­

com patibility w ith reiterative adverbials, w itness (32), unless the events are p ro ­
jected onto a cyclic dim ension (Binnick, 2005, p. 353). The contrast (a) vs. (b) in
(32) proves, alongside (2) vs. (4), that (dependin g on context) the aspectually
am biguous Sim ple Past can be u n derstood as iterative (32a), or habitual (32b),
whereas the periphrases only allow the habitual reading. We w ou ld like thus to
propose that the reiterative-adverbials-test be used as a kind o f “ litm us test” for
assessing the actual sem antic value o f any alleged habitual device. Should the
gram m atical device under analysis disallow such adverbials, its habitual value is
con firm ed; otherw ise, it should at best be regarded as an am biguous device (as
the English Sim ple Past), if not as a mere iterativity device (as the Rom ance
Sim ple Past):

(32) a. John left /*used to leave /*w-ould leave several times. [= there were several
episodes o f Johns leaving)
b. John left /used to leave /would leave several times *(every month /every
sum m er / . . . ) .

This said, we would like to point out a m ajor difference between used to /would
and the Rom ance Imperfect. As (33a—b) show, with inherently-perm anent stative
predicates the two English periphrases are ungram m atical. Apparently, both entail
that the situation referred to should be viewed as non -im m une from interruption.
Although the situation can be perm anent, as in the relevant interpretation o f (30 a-
b), it should nevertheless allow for interruption. Indeed, any temple m ay cease to
exist and anybody m ay at some point cease to be choir-conductor; by contrast,
Sam in (33) cannot possibly have shortened (excluding implausible scenarios). The
crucial difference between the predicates in (зоа-b ) and the one in (33) has to do
with the cancelability o f the intended property, and ultimately with its defining

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874 ASPECT

and necessary character: while being tall is a necessary property for the relevant
individual, being choir-conductor is not. We propose to call “defeasability” this
specific feature o f used to/w ould. It is im portant to note that the French translation
in (33b) only admits the Im perfect; the Simple Past is no m ore acceptable in M o d ­
ern Rom ance language.1'1 This conclusively demonstrates that sentences like those
in (33) are gnom ic:

(33) a. Sam was tall /*used to be tall /'w ou ld be tall,

b. Sam était [IPF] grand /*fut grand.

Slavic languages are a traditional topic in aspectual matters. One should, how ­
ever, consider the very peculiar structure o f these languages. The best w ay to address
the issue is by having Bulgarian in mind, rather than Russian or any other o f the
major North-Slavic languages. Bulgarian has by and large preserved the structure o f
Old Church Slavonic, where the viewpoint-aspect opposition in the past-domain
between perfective /imperfective tenses (Perfect and Aorist vs. Imperfect) coexisted
with the explicitly marked lexical (actional, in the Vendlerian sense) contrast telic /
atelic. The latter contrast is referred to, in the non-Slavic literature, as “ perfective”/“
im perfective” 15 This terminological merger between the aspectual and the actional
domain is infelicitous, for it is a frequent cause o f misunderstanding, although,
admittedly, the confusion is in part justified by the less than perfect alignment o f the
Vendlerian contrast telic/atelic with the Slavic verbs’ grammatical opposition. Not
all “perfeetives” are telic (cf. the so-called delimitatives), while “ imperfectives” are
occasionally used in telic contexts.16
Most other Slavic languages have lost (or are in the way o f losing, as with Serb
and Croatian) the two-way distinction still to be found in Bulgarian, so that the
surviving distinction (the lexical opposition “ perfective’ 7 “ imperfective” ) has taken
up the job o f conveying the aspectual contrast perfective vs. imperfective. Thus,
“ perfective” verbs are typically used in viewpoint-aspect perfective contexts, and
vice versa for “ imperfective” verbs. However, since the originally actional meaning
is not obliterated, the combined result is a syncretic system, where actional and as­
pectual meanings are inextricably intertwined.
Interestingly, the various Slavic languages dilfer in their treatment o f habituality.
While Russian makes use o f “ imperfective” verbs (34b-c), Bulgarian exploits both
kinds o f predicates: if the event is telic, the verb is “perfective” ; however, the tense
(the Imperfect, as in Romance) is imperfective (34a). This shows that in Bulgarian
the two-way distinction is consistently preserved: the tense takes care o f the view ­
point-aspect value, while the lexical choice conveys the convenient telicity value.
Since Russian only has at its disposal what used to be an actional distinction, the
solution adopted consists o f selecting the “ imperfective” predicate irrespective o f its
telicity value (cf. (34b, c)). This, however, is not the solution adopted by all Slavic
languages. The opposite selection is done by Czech, as noted by Klimek (2006): in
this language, habitual correlative constructions are expressed by “perfective” verbs

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(34c!), although other types of view-point-aspect imperfectivity (such as progres-

sivity) are expressed by “imperfectives” :

(34) a. Stom na-pi$-exl> pismo na mama, tja se obazdase1.

when PREV-write-iSG.IMPF letter to Mom she called-SG.IMPF
b. Kazdyj raz, kogda ja pisal1 pis’mo mame,
every time when I write.PASTletter to Mom
ona mne perezvanivala1.
she to.me ca!l_back.PAST
a-b= “Every time I wrote a letter to my Mom, she called me back”
c. Vsegda kogda on dostigal' versiny, on zazigal1 signali’nye ogni.
Always when he reach.PASTthe top, he give.PAST smoke signals,
d. Pokazde kdyz vystoupil1’ na vrchol tak postal1’ kouyove signaly.
Always when climb.PAST on top thensend.PAST smoke signals.
c-d= “Every time he reached the mountain top, he gave smoke signals.”

The interpretation we propose is based on the following preliminary observa­

tion: in a habitual (hence, imperfective) situation, every micro-event within the
macro-event is inherently perfective, for no micro-event could reiterate itself unless
the previous occurrence has been completely carried out. As it happens, while Czech
focuses on the perfectivity of the micro-events, Russian focuses on the imperfectiv­
ity o f the macro-event (by means of a hybrid actional-aspectual device). Both choices
are logical, except that neither o f them is entirely adequate. Interestingly, Polish is an
intermediate case: in the examples below, either both clauses contain “imperfective”
verbs (35a), or just the second one does (35b). This situation occurs in order to avoid
possible ambiguity as regards simultaneity vs. sequence (Klimek, 2006):

(35) a. Zakazdymrazemgdy upadal1, podnosil1 si?.

At every time when he.fali.PAST, he.stand_up.PAST
“Whenever he fell, he stood up.”
b. Zawsze kiedy wspi^l s i f na szczyt, dawal1 sygnaly dymne.
Always when he reach.PAST.MASC the top, he give.PAST.MASC smoke signals
“Every time he reached the mountain top, he gave smoke signals.”

The lesson to be learned from (34-35) is that the way habituality is expressed in
different Slavic languages is idiosyncratically diverse. Yet, it would be wrong to infer
from this that habituality is aspect-neutral (Filip and Carlson, 1997). Even if one
widens the term “aspect” to include both view-point-aspect and actionality, this
would not account for the situation o f Bulgarian. The point is that most Slavic lan­
guages present defective systems, where aspect and actionality are strictly inter­
twined.17 Identifying the lexical choice “perfective,7 “imperfective” with the basic
view-point-aspect distinction (perfective/imperfective) is not only implausible on a
broad typological scale, but unsatisfactory even on the Slavic scale.
876 ASPECT

6 . C o n c lu sio n s

While habituality and iterativity are often conflated, strong empirical evidence sup­
ports our claim that these categories should be kept apart, their prim a facie sim i­
larity notwithstanding. The organization o f their respective domains can be
summarized as in fig. 30.1. 'lhe semantic space o f habituality and iterativity is struc­
tured along two orthogonal dimensions: whether a predicate expresses a gnomic,
characterizing property (horizontal axis), and whether it expresses the reiteration o f
a m icro-event (vertical axis). Both habitual and iterative sentences have a positive
value along the latter dimension, but they lie at the opposite side with respect to the
former, since only habituals present the repetition o f a m icro-event as a law-like
generalization. On the other hand, gnom ic generalizations are also expressed by
other types o f statements— such as generics, IL stative predicates, attitudinals, etc.,
where event repetition is vice versa either lacking or inessential.
The two dim ensions should be taken as form ing a gradient space, rather than
expressing polar oppositions. For instance, a habitual sentence such as John goes to
school at Sam expresses event repetition at its highest degree, while M ary seldom
smokes in the lounge— w hile preserving its gnom ic character— is on the low scale o f
the event-repetition parameter. Conversely, a generic statement such as Two plus
two equals fo u r has a null value along the repetition dimension and a top-most
value along the gnom ic dim ension. As we saw in section 4, am ong gnom ic sen ­
tences there exists a variety o f intermediate cases, where event repetition, although
possible, is easily cancelable, depending on pragmatic conditions. Similarly, the
space covered by the gnom ic dimension is continuous, since generalizations may
differ as to the type o f norm ative force they convey.
To sum up, we have argued that the area covered by gn om ic gen eralization s
should receive a co m m o n g ram m a tical representation in aspectual term s, m ir­
ro rin g the aspectual value that we p ropose to call “g n o m ic im perfectivity.” On

+
iterative pluractionality habitual

g n o m ic
im perfectivity
о
attitmiinal
potential

singular IL-predicate
episodic event generic

gn om ic property +

Figure 30 .1. The dom ain s o f gn om ic im p erfectivity and plu raction ality

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the other hand, habitual and iterative sentences can be subsumed under the
general phenomenon of (event-external) pluractionality, whose relationship
with aspect is not univocal, for natural languages use various linguistic devices
besides aspect to express event repetition. Habituals stricto sensu thus repre­
sent the intersection between the domains o f pluractionality and gnomic
imperfectivity.

NOTES

1. The terminology varies from scholar to scholar. The one adopted here aims at
being as transparent as possible.
2. In Italian, for instance, one finds not less than three periphrases in addition to the
tenses that can, in and by themselves, express habituality; “ avere Vabitudine di Isolere lesser
solito + Infinitive.” The first of these periphrases differs, however, from the other two
inasmuch as it is compatible with perfective tenses. According to the criteria defined below,
it should thus be considered a device conveying iterativity, rather than habituality proper.
3. In this chapter French will be used to illustrate explicit aspectual contrasts,
although French only exhibits such contrast in the past-domain. For ease of the reader, PF
and IPF stand for perfective and imperfective, respectively.
4. Needless to say, (3b) can be rescued under special circumstances. For instance, if it
is pragmatically implied that little Mary was crying, as usually, for her daily 10 minutes.
5. Recall that in Bybee et al. the term “iterative” refers to what we call event-internal
pluractionality.
6. Xrakovskij (1997: 31) observes that in the speech-times domain only event-internal
pluractionality may be found. The data in (6)-(/) show however that event-external
pluractionality may be involved, provided it refers to habituality rather than iterativity.
7. As for the Topic vs. Focus interpretation o f temporal adverbials, see De Swart
(1999). As an example, consider:

(i) a. At 5 o’clock, Peter had already left. (Topic)

b. Peter had already left at 5 o’clock. (Focus)

8. We are aware of the vagueness o f some o f these labels (e.g., the distinction
between potential and attitudinal), as well as o f the difficulty of spelling out their semantic
properties. Further investigation may suggest merging some of them or, alternatively,
identifying further subtypes. Our argument in this chapter does not rest on any specific
commitment as to the number of these types. We simply aim at stressing the commonalities
among them, supporting the grammatical relevance of the domain that we call “gnomic
imperfectivity.”
9. For more details about the treatment o f generic sentences and generic noun phrases,
cf. Krifka et al. (1995) and Carlson (this volume).
10. Cf. Lenci and Bertinetto (2000) for an explanation of the incompatibility between
habituality and iterative adverbials, within an intensional model of gnomic statements.
11. In this chapter we shall not discuss Future will. Suffice it to say that we regard it as
a possible habitual device for the obvious reason that the Future tense, in most languages,
878 ASPECT

m ay receive this interpretation in the appropriate context. For instance: Once this happens,
the tiger will hunt fo r a slower prey, hum ans (= exam ple (113) o f Binnick 2005).
12. Additional reason for the present-oriented nature o f used to is the existence o f its
past-oriented version had used to (Binnick, 2005, p. 348), although its degree o f gram m ati-
calization is by far lower.
13. A poorly investigated topic is that o f non-finite verb form s w hich m ay be inter­
preted habitually. Baker and Vinokurova (2009) quote such a case from Sakha (or Yakut, a
Turkic language spoken in Siberia), but this is certainly a much more extensive phenom enon,
as the following exam ple suggests (cf. 3ia-b):

(i) By wearing a blue tie, the Chelsea Club m em bers exhibited their soccer
identity.
(ii) By drivin g a lim ousine, the Prim e M inister shows his status.

14. The contrast perfective vs. im perlective was available in such contexts in the early
phases o f the Rom ance languages (Dauses 1981). It is beyond the scope o f the present
chapter to discuss the matter. See however Bertinetto (1987).
15. To avoid m isunderstanding, we put these term s in quotation m arks when they are
used in the senses they are given in Slavic gram m ar.
16. See Bertinetto and Lentovskaya (2012) for a historical reconstruction o f the Slavic
verbs’ system.
17. Needless to say, G erm anic and Rom ance languages arc also defective, although in
a different way.

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Lincom .

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 C H A P T E R 31

PERFECT TENSE
AND ASPECT

M A R IE -E V E R IT Z

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

In English and a num ber o f other European languages, the perfect is a complex
m orpho-syntactic construction made o f an auxiliary (“ have,” “ be” ) followed by a
past participle, as in “ Jamie has eaten all the chocolate b iscu its” The auxiliary
appears in the past, present and future tenses, thus creating past, present and future
perfects. Typologically, this analytic perfect is predominantly (if not exclusively)
found in the languages o f Europe (Dahl, 2000), and we find perfect meaning
expressed form ally by other means in a num ber o f the w orlds languages, although
m any languages don’t have a perfect at all. Much scholarly work on perfects has
concentrated on the analytic type, with even more attention paid to the present form
o f this tense as it is typically unstable and often develops into a past perfective tense.
In this respect, standard English is an exception, as its present perfect (PP) has
escaped this general trend. The English perfect has also challenged theories attempt­
ing to capture a core m eaning for all its uses, as its present tense form is subject to a
num ber o f constraints in usage that do not apply to its past and future counterparts,
a problem often referred to as “ the present perfect puzzle” (Klein, 1992).
More generally, and as discussed in detail in Binnick (1991), the perfect has
been a problematic category for scholars across time due to the multiplicity o f its
meanings/uses within a given language and to the variation in meanings/uses o f
what has been labeled “ perfect” across languages. In an attempt to provide a clearer
understanding o f this complex semantic category, the present chapter will start by
considering typological and historical facts that need to be taken into consideration

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88 2 A SPECT

when discussing theories of the perfect. In section 3, we investigate in more detail

theories of the perfect focusing on semantic characteristics, bearing in mind that
most of the discussions have revolved around perfects in European languages
(Germanic and Romance). In section 4, we discuss accounts of how pragmatic fac­
tors and discourse relations affect the use of the perfect, and in section 5, we con­
clude by examining the place of a perfect in a tense/aspect system more generally,
considering how it relates to categories such as the resultative and the simple past,
and also to the habitual and the prospective.

2. T h e P e r f e c t in a Typ o lo g ic a l and

D ia c h r o n ic Per sp ec tiv e

2.1. Typological and Diachronic Variation: Overview

How do we recognize a perfect? A form labeled “perfect” in one language may
have a formal equivalent in a related language, yet the two may cover a range of
different meanings and uses. In order to define what the perfect is, we need to
consider how a semantic category “perfect” can be characterized, and a good start­
ing point is to examine typological research on forms encoding such meaning(s)
and functions. It is also useful to compare the perfect with other categories such
as the resultative and the simple past because they are intimately related to per­
fects both diachronically and synchronically. In this section we thus begin by
examining how typological research on the perfect has been conducted and what
its major findings are.
Cross-linguistic investigations of the perfect have been relatively rare, and
grammarians traditionally described perfects within language-specific tense/
aspect systems. Important recent contributions to the field include work by
Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994) and the study conducted by the EUROTYP
Tense and Aspect Theme Group (Dahl, 2000). This latter project started from the
premise that a cross-linguistic category perfect could be identified empirically,
without relying on a previously determined semantic characterization. Data were
collected in more than thirty languages in Europe using a questionnaire pro­
viding linguistic contexts designed to elicit perfects and other related categories.
Generally, results show that the perfect is frequent but also unstable, as it tends to
evolve into something else, most commonly a general past tense (Lindstedt,
2000, p. 366).
The contexts provided to informants in the various languages surveyed in the
EUROTYP project were designed in part to elicit the various meanings of the
perfect, as described in McCawley (1971,1981) and Comrie (1976), namely:

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• The universal perfect or perfect of “persistent situation,” which denotes a

state holding throughout an interval, as exemplified by (1):

(1) M atilda has lived in S yd n ey fo r two years (and she still lives there).

• The existential or experiential perfect, which presents an event as having

occurred at least once in an interval starting in the past and lasting up to the
present:

(2) D ean has been to A delaide.

• The perfect of result or stative perfect, which indicates that the result or
consequences of a past situation hold at the moment of speech:

(3) D ean has arrived (he is here).

• The perfect of recent past or “hot news” perfect:

(4) The R eserve B a n k has ju st announ ced an increase in interest rates.

The central meaning of these different types of perfect has often been described as
one of current relevance (CR) (McCoard, 1978), which means that a sentence in the
perfect describes a situation that is more relevant to the present than, for instance, a
clause in the simple past (SP). While the concept “relevant to the present” is too
vague and general to be of real use as such, Dahl and Hedin (2000, p. 391) propose
to view CR as a graded concept, with the perfect of result exemplifying its strongest
requirement as it denotes “continuance of result.” Indeed, perfects of result only
obtain when a telic or “change-of-state” verb is used, as exemplified by (3) above,
where the state of Dean being here as a result of having arrived is entailed by the
sentence. Dahl (2000, p. 391) proposes that grammaticalisation of the perfect
involves in part a relaxation of CR requirements.
Lindstedt (2000) contrasts CR with “current result,” a feature of resultative con­
structions. Resultatives “ . . . express a state implying a previous event (action or
process) it has resulted from.” (Nedjalkov, 2001, p. 928; see also Bybee et al., 1994, p.
54) and contrast with perfects in that they can combine with adverbs expressing
non-limited duration such as still or as before (Dahl, 1985; Nedjalkov & Jaxontov,
1988; Bybee et al., 1994; Lindstedt, 2000). Lindstedt contrasts the following two
English examples to illustrate the distinction:

(5) She is still gone.

(6) *She has still gone, (w ith still used in a tem p oral m eaning)

Example (5) expresses a temporary state and thus modification by the adverbial is
possible. However (6) denotes a different kind of state, if it denotes a state at all (see
section 3).
Another important difference between the resultative and the perfect is that the
meaning of the former always directly depends on the lexical meaning of the verb

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884 ASPECT

(Nedjalkov, 2001, p. 930), whereas the results or consequences o f the latter are not
so easy to specify (see section 3 for details, and section 4 for a discussion).
Perfects often take their origin s in resultative constructions, with a shift o f
m ean in g from current result to current relevance (see also N icolle, this volum e, for a
discussion o f m odels o f diachronic stages). This shift is characterized by an exp an ­
sion in the types o f verbs used, from exclusively telic verbs in resultative con stru c­
tions, to both telic and atelic verbs in perfect constructions (B ybee et al., 1994; D ahl
and H edin, 2000). A ccord in g to Lindstedt (2000, p. 368), “A C R perfect is a perfect
in its m ost central, prototypical m eaning.” C R perfects then gradu ally develop to
include experiential m eaning, and thus acquire a m ore “tense-like” function (p. 369),
w here past tim e reference is indefinite. Lindstedt com m ents that the path from expe­
riential to indefinite past tense is rare, if docum ented at all, w h ich is su rp risin g given
the “ tense-like” fun ction o f this type o f perfect. On the other hand, C R perfects often
develop into (perfective) past tenses, w here past tim e reference is clearly definite and
w here relations between events can be expressed w ithin a narrative. Thus, there is a
negative criterion for iden tifying perfects as well in that, “ W hen a perfect can be
used as a narrative tense . . . it has ceased to be a perfect” (p. 371). French provides
one o f the clearest exam ple o f a perfect that has becom e a com pou n d past tense (the
passé composé, henceforth P C ), allow ing com binations with definite past adverbials,
sequences o f clauses expressing tem poral progression (and m ore generally, exp ress­
ing any tem poral order, see de Sw art, 2007) as well as allow ing talk about objects and
individuals no longer in existence. These uses are exem plified respectively in (7)—(9)
below. By contrast, canonical perfects yield u ngram m atical sentences if used in the
contexts described above, as illustrated by the unacceptable translations o f (7)—(9)
usin g the PP (at least in standard British and U.S. English):

(7) M artin est parti (PC) il y a deux jours /lc prem ier décembre.
^Martin has left two days ago /on the first o f December.
(8) M artin s’est levé (PC) à sept heures. Ensuite, il a dcjcûnc (PC), puis a pris (PC) lc bus
pour se rendre à son bureau et est arrivé (PC) à neuf heures.
*M artin has got up at seven. After that, he has eaten breakfast, then has taken the bus to
go to his office and has arrived at nine.
(9) Napoleon a transformé (PC) Paris.
^Napoleon has transformed Paris.

W hile in English the PP is ungram m atical in the contexts exem plified above, the
past and future perfect both allow m odification o f the event with a past tem poral ad ­
verbial as well as uses in narrative sequences as shown in (10) and (11) respectively:

(10) Dean had /will have arrived in Sydney the day before we left/leave for Paris /on the first
o f December.
(11) Dean had /will have got up at seven. After that, he had /will have eaten breakfast, then
had /will have taken the bus to go to his o ffice .. . .

The past and future perfect can also express perm ansive m eaning (Binnick, 1991),
thus behave like the present perfect in such uses, as shown in (12) where the result
o f Deans leaving is in force at the time denoted by the adverbial:

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P E R F E C T T E N S E AND A S P EC T 885

(12) At 3 o’c lock Dean had /will have (already) left.

Tim s, there is an asym m etry between the past and future perfect on the one hand,
and the PP on the other, the latter b ein g a typical exam ple o f a can on ical perfect.
'Ih e asym m etries described above also contrast the P P with a tenseless perfect,
w here definite tem poral adverbials locating the event denoted by the V P are accept­
able as well:

(13) Having missed his plane to Sydney on M onday night>Dean had no choice but to find a
room in a nearby hotel.

Other facts a theory o f the perfect needs to be able to explain include the so-called
“ lifetime effects” (see also (9) above). Since Charles Darwin died som e time ago, we
cannot describe any relevant consequences o f any visit to Australia on his life, hence
the unacceptability o f (14). On the other hand, his visit m ay still have consequences
for Australia, and (15) is considered to be acceptable, for example in a context where
one is listing illustrious people who have visited the country.

(14) ^Charles Darwin has visited Australia.

(15) Australia has been visited by Charles Darwin.

In su m m ary, a perfect enables a situation to b ecom e part o f an extended p eriod that

includes a reference tim e (the tim e o f speech i f the PP is used, or another tim e estab­
lished by the context in the case o f past and future perfects), with the said situation
being anterior to such tim e. The “after effects” o f the situation are variab le, and the
situation itself cannot be located tem porally usin g a definite locating adverbial, nor
can it be tem porally related to other situations. M uch sch olarly w ork has co n cen ­
trated on representing the com plex m ean in g o f the perfect in a precise fash ion , and
w e now turn to som e o f the im portant proposals m ade to achieve this end.

3. T h e S e m a n t ic s of th e Perfect

We begin by exam ining semantic representations o f the perfect before turning to

characterization o f its pragmatics in section 4. Such examination leads us to focus
on the question o f the temporal and aspectual attributes o f the perfect in section 3.1
Section 3.2 examines temporal representations o f the perfect in more detail, and
section 3.3 focuses on whether there is a “perfect state,” and if so, how it can be
characterized.

3.1. Is the Perfect a Tense, an Aspect, or Both?

The question o f whether the perfect is an aspect has been answered in vastly d if­
ferent ways. Contrast M cCoard s (1978, p. 11) categorical remark: “. . .we shall not
refer to the perfect as an aspectual category: in this book, the perfect is not a marker

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of aspect” with Huddlestons (1988, p. 77) statement that “ [p]erfect aspectual

meaning involves a situation resulting from the completion of an earlier situation,
and perfect as a grammatical category applies to one with this as its characteristic
meaning” Comrie (1976, p. 52) acknowledges his uneasiness about the question
when he states: “ .. given the traditional terminology in which the perfect is listed
as an aspect, it seems most convenient to deal with the perfect in a book on aspect,
while bearing in mind continually that it is an aspect in a rather different sense from
other aspects treated so far.” However Comrie also points out the similarity between
the PP and the prospective, explaining that both involve a state relating to an ante­
rior and posterior situation, respectively. The main difference between the two is
that with the prospective, “. . . unlike the perfect, it is possible to specify the time at
which the future situation will occur” (p. 64), an observation which Comrie illus­
trates with example (16):

(16) I f W interbottom s calculations are correct, this planet is go in g to b u rn itself out

2 0 0 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 years from now.

We return to the parallel between PP and prospective in section 5.

McCoards decision was made on the grounds that neither “completion” nor
“result” are meanings that are “intrinsic” to the perfect. By contrast, Huddleston
(1988, p. 77) notes that completeness makes the perfect similar to the past tense,
but stresses that “with perfect aspect the emphasis is on the current or resultant
state, while with past tense it is on the past situation itself.” The decision whether
or not to categorize the perfect as an aspect thus depends on both what one con­
siders the semantics of this category to be, and what ones definition of aspect is.
These questions are addressed throughout the present section.
With respect to tense, the view is more homogeneous, as perfects appear in the
present, past, and future tenses. Their representation thus always involves some
temporal specification. We now turn to specific proposals for aspectual and tempo­
ral representations of the perfect, after providing a brief overview of the four types
of theories that have been proposed to account for the meaning of perfects.
Four major theories have been developed in order to give a representation of the
PP that could include all the types exemplified by (1M 4). This involved
accounting for the fact that the PP conveys information about both past and present,
and each theory attempted to describe the link between past and present on the
basis of syntactic, semantic or pragmatic arguments. It is not our goal here to discuss
these theories in detail; for more information the reader is referred to McCoard
(1978) and Binnick (1991), who classify the various theories into four broad types,
namely, the “indefinite past” (ID), the “extended-now” (XN), the “embedded past”
(EP), and the “current relevance” (CR) theories. Here, we will simply note the fact
that each of these theories focuses on a particular feature of the PP and accounts for
it from a syntactic, a semantic, or a pragmatic perspective. The ID theory empha­
sises the fact that the PP does not combine with definite past adverbials; the theory
captures an important constraint governing the use of the PP. However, this con­
straint does not uniquely characterize the PP as simple past (SP) sentences can also

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contain reference to an indefinite tim e; fu rtherm ore, it is not enough to explain the
P P s m ajor sem antic contribution, as definite adverbials can be used with it as long
as they refer to a period that goes up to the m om ent o f speech. The X N theory does
answ er this latter problem and sees the requirem ent that the P P refer to an interval
that extends from the past to the m om ent o f speech as m ost characteristic o f its
m eaning. The problem here has to do w ith the reference to an interval, as non-
stative V P s in the PP do not last throughout the interval, as exem plified by (17):

(17) Since 2008, Matilda has moved house and Dean has changed jobs.

Vlach (1993) has offered a pragmatic solution to this problem by im posing the X N
requirement onto adverbials associated with the PP; if no X N adverbial is present in
the sentence, he assumes that it is understood. The question is then why does the PP
combine with such adverbials? The EP theory is a purely syntactic theory (Binnick
1991, p. 103), which describes the PP as a past in the scope o f the present. As such, it
does not enable us to account for the variety o f uses o f the form, but stresses the
importance o f the present over the past. C R theories also give special importance to
the present by stressing that the PP expresses the continuing relevance o f a situation
that took place prior to the moment o f speech (cf. M cCawley, 1971, 1981; C om ric,
1976). The notion is o f a pragmatic nature, and until recently, rem ained very general;
criticisms include the fact that other tenses also describe situations that have con­
tinuing relevance, and thus the principle o f relevance fails to establish a systematic
contrast between SP and PP (see e.g., M cC oard, 1978, p. 32).
A num ber o f scholars have argued for representations that make the perfect
ambiguous or polysemous: for instance, Sandstrom (1993) argues for two different
analyses depending on whether the V P used in the PP sentence denotes a state or an
event. She sees X N theories as better suited to account for sentences whose V P is
stative, whereas for her, C R theories fit sentences whose V P is non-stative better.
Declerck (1991) considers that PP sentences can have an indefinite or a continuative
interpretation: in the form er case, the situation denoted by the sentence does not go
up to the time o f speech, whereas in the latter it includes it. These last two rep­
resentations make the PP aspectually and temporally ambiguous. Michaelis (1994)
closely examines resultative and experiential readings o f the English PP and con­
cludes with a verdict o f am biguity, arguing that constraints govern in g PP uses
cannot be predicted from its semantics. She views the resultative perfect as a formal
idiom. Kiparsky (2002) also concludes that resultative perfects (a category in which
he includes hot-news perfects) are distinct semantically from other types on the
basis that the resultative perfect (i) does not trigger sequence o f tense like a past
tense; (ii) is not acceptable in adverbial wh-questions unless the adverbial relates to
the result state, as exemplified in (18) and (19):

(1S) * Where have you found m y watch?

(19) Where have you hidden my watch?

In (18), the locative where is used to ask about a place where the watch was prior to
being found, while in (19) it is used to ask about its location at present, that is, from

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the time it was hidden. (19) may become acceptable if we add “whenever it was lost/
before,” thus forcing an experiential reading.
Recent representations of the perfect have attempted to make either CR or XN
accounts more precise. Accounts generally differ in which aspects of the meaning of
the PP they attribute to its semantics and which they claim can be explained by
pragmatic principles. Within the domain of semantics, much of the question
revolves around whether a purely temporal representation of the perfect is ade­
quate, or whether perfect sentences denote a state. We consider these proposals in
turn, starting with temporal accounts.

3.2. Temporal Representations of the Perfect

Reichenbach (1947) was the first to propose a temporal framework in which per­
fects could be uniquely characterized as having their event time (E) dissociated
from their reference time (R), in contrast with simple tenses. In turn, perfects in
different tenses are distinguished by the fact that R is either in the past of speech
time (S), co-temporal with S or posterior to it. Since Reichenbach, most representa­
tions of the perfect have incorporated at least the spirit of this characterization, with
some variations. We focus here on one of these as it will be useful for our discussion:
Kleins (1992) substitution of R with Topic Time (TT).
Klein (1992, p. 535) defines TT as “ . . . the time span to which the claim made
on a given occasion is constrained.” Like Reichenbach, Klein represents perfects as
having their Time of Situation (TSit, corresponding to Reichenbachs E) dissociated
from the TT. In his framework, S is labeled Time of Utterance (TU) and TT is either
before, included in, or posterior to TU when a perfect is used in the past, present
and future tenses respectively. Since Klein (p. 538) defines aspect as relating TSit to
TT, the perfect is also an aspect in his framework. However, what lies after TSit is
labeled a “post-phase,” and the perfect is not analyzed as a stative category, so one
could argue that Kleins representation is perhaps closer to temporal ones, to which
we turn now.
XN theorists, as explained above, take the view that the semantics of the PP is
temporal but have problems accounting for the continuative/non-continuative con­
trast, and thus the PP comes out as ambiguous in this approach.
A more recent account defending this view is that of Portner (2003), who at­
tempts to overcome the problem by following Bauer (1970), Dowty (1979), and
others in stressing the role played by the lexical aspectual class of the VP in these
two readings, as well as by the presence or absence of a/or-adverbial. Firstly, Portner
remarks that stative VPs behave in the same way in other tenses, as can be seen
when they are used in embedded clauses and in larger pieces of discourse. Witness
the difference between embedded stative and embedded eventive complements
(Portner, 2003, pp. 481-482):

(20) Joh n said that M a ry w as upset.

(21) Joh n said that M a ry read Middlemarch.

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The main clause in each sentence introduces an eventuality that also establishes a
reference time in relation to which the embedded clause can be located.
Example (20) can mean either that Marys being upset (E) occurred prior to the
time when John said that she was (R), or that it coincided with this R. By contrast,
(21) can only have one reading, namely that Mary read Middlemarch prior to the R
introduced by the main clause. This observation leads Portner to formulate a “Tem­
poral Sequencing Principle” (TSP), which he summarizes as follows (p. 484):
For any tenseless clause (|>, reference time r, and event e,

(i) if (|) is not stative: II (|>llre implies that e precedes r; and

(ii) if (|) is stative: II (|>llre implies that e either precedes or overlaps r. (in (ii), e’
is taken to be a state)

In (i) and (ii), II (|>llre means that the clause is interpreted in relation to the reference
time r and the eventuality e. Thus any tenseless clause (including embedded clauses,
as they are taken to be semantically tenseless) will be interpreted as having a non-
stative eventuality precede R and a stative one either precede or overlap R. The
same principle generally applies to sequences of sentences connected in
discourse.
Secondly, Portner points out that a continuative reading only obtains if a for-
adverbial is present in the sentence, as shown by (22) (which allows a continuative
reading) and (23) (which does not):

(22) M atilda has lived in A d elaid e fo r ten years.

(23) M atilda has lived in A delaide.

As Dowty (1979, p. 343) had noted, if the fo r -adverbial is preposed, the sentence
requires a continuative reading:

(24) For ten years, M atilda has lived in A delaide.

Portner follows Hitzeman (1997), who offers a syntactic explanation in which she
proposes that at Logical Form, adverbials can originate in VP and then move to IP,
leaving a trace, which makes it possible for them to lower to the VP level subse­
quently. Only if the temporal specification represented by the adverbial is inside the
VP can it undergo “existential closure” (i.e., get bound by an existential quantifier,
cf. Diesing, 1992). Thus, if the adverbial is postposed, two interpretations of the
sentence are possible. Alternatively, the adverbial can originate at the level of IP, in
which case there is no trace for it to return to. In Hitzemans account, this explains
why (24) can only have one reading, whereas (22) can have two interpretations.
Thus, the temporal ambiguity generated by sentences such as (22) can be dismissed,
as it does not have its source in the semantics of the PP. The PP is then semantically
characterized, following Reichenbach, as denoting an eventuality that is dissociated
from its reference time like other perfects (although if the VP denotes a state, it can
overlap with R, according to the observations made above). Other phenomena are
explained through pragmatic principles (see section 4).

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We note for the time being that while XN theory in its different manifestations
has often been described as accounting well for the incompatibility of the PP with
definite past adverbials, it still does not explain why such incompatibility is absent
in other languages. We return to this point in section 4.

3.3. The Perfect Aspect: Is There a Perfect State?

One important question is whether the perfect denotes a state or not. Those who
argue in favor of a stative analysis of the perfect have variously used the terms
“result,” “resultant,” “consequent,” or “perfect” state (Moens, 1987; Parsons, 1990;
Kamp and Reyle, 1993; Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997; Smith, 1997; de Swart, 1998; Katz,
2003; Nishiyama and Koenig, 2004,2006). We now examine these accounts in more
detail.
Representations of the perfect as denoting a state show variability both in
terms of how they view the nature of the state in question, and in terms of how the
state relates to the eventuality denoted by the VP. For Moens (1987), Moens and
Steedman (1988), and Smith (1997), the state denoted by a perfect is the result of
the occurrence of an eventuality. Moens (1987) and Moens and Steedman (1988)
view the perfect as an aspectual operator represented by a function, taking the
perfect of result, or stative perfect, as the most representative or prototypical of
their characterization. Perfects of result require a telic VP, and entail that the con­
sequences of the eventuality are in force now. Thus (3) (“Dean has arrived”) entails
that Dean is here now, while (25) does not entail that Matilda is still at the Opera
House:

(25) M atilda has been to the O p era H ouse.

Examples such as (3) thus provide the basis for representation of the perfect in gen­
eral, which is described as mapping the telic or culmination point into a consequent
state. Figure 31.1 below illustrates the authors’ concept of “nucleus,” which captures
the different phases an eventuality can have maximally; the portion denoted by the
perfect is shown with diagonal lines:
What happens if the VP is not a culmination (which corresponds to an achieve­
ment in Vendler s classification) as in (26) below?

(26) D ean has w o rk ed in the garden.

The perfect operator will coerce the VP into a culmination, subject to the require­
ment that the sentence make sense in context. Thus, the activity “work in the gar­
den” will be coerced into an achievement, and contextual knowledge will enable a

1
------------------------------------------- IIIIIIH IH IH IIIH IH IIIIIIH IIH H H

preparatory process culmination consequent state

Figure 31.1. Moens’s (1987) and Moens and Steedman’s (1988) nucleus: Perfect denotes a
consequent state

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hearer to re-interpret (26) as meaning, for example, that the task had been planned
and needed to be finished before some other activity could take place.
The theory is an interesting attempt to provide a unified analysis of the perfect
in a dynamic framework. Criticisms have included disputing the central place given
to culminations as it is difficult to explain why (27) and (28) are acceptable in the
perfect:

(27) D ean has lived in A delaide.

(28) The guests have com plained about the b ad service. (D epraetere, 1996, p. 16)

Reinterpretation of the VP as having “an inherent or intended endpoint” (i.e., a telic

point) is not obvious, yet the sentences are fine without the need for a contextual
reinterpretation along these lines. It seems that Moens (1987) is talking about a tem­
poral boundary rather than a telic point, but then it is difficult to see what the no­
tion of “consequent state” refers to if no telic point is part of the meaning of the VP.
Another criticism concerning the notion of consequent state is that it cannot
account for the fact that (29b) does not result from the event of seeing the key, as
discussed in Nishiyama and Koenig (2004, p. 106):

(29) a. I have seen the k e y in this room ,

b. The k e y is in this room .

Indeed, there is no causal relation between the seeing event and the fact that the
keys are in the room, yet (29a) can be used convey the information expressed in
(29b).
Another proposal representing PP clauses as denoting a state is Kamp and
Reyles (1993), using Discourse Representation Theory (DRT). This representation
involves the introduction of a discourse referent, s, for what they term a “result”
state (rather than “consequent” state, as they feel that the latter is possibly misrep-
resentative). More specifically, this result state is defined as starting immediately
after (or abutting) the event denoted by the VP, and extending to and including the
moment of speech. Thus, for the sentence Dean has arrived , we obtain the following
discourse representation structure (DRS) (30):

(30) [n s t x e | t= n , t £ s , D ean (x), e s, e: x arrive]

where n stands for the time of speech; t for the “temporal reference point” (which is
similar to Reichenbachs R); here, t is co-temporal with n and is a subinterval of s
(the result state denoted by the perfect VP); e § symbolises the fact that e (the
event denoted by the VP) abuts s. The event e is further specified as involving an
argument x (here, Dean) and the predicate arrive. When the DRS is embedded into
a model, it will be true iff there is a state that starts immediately after the event, and
goes up to n while also including n. However, there is still a problem with this rep­
resentation as it does not link e and s: imagine a situation where Dean arrives, and
just as he does so, the light goes off; the event of arriving is immediately followed by
the room being pitch dark, and this lasts until now. Such a situation would make the
DRS above true; yet, this is not what a PP sentence means, and despite the fact that

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the results of the eventuality are quite variable, they still relate to it in some funda­
mental way
Another proposal views the perfect as denoting a permanent state (Galton,
1984; Parsons, 1990; ter Meulen, 1995). On this view, the end of an event will always
entail the state of the events having occurred. For instance in Parsons (1990), the
perfect denotes a resultant state (R-state) defined as being the state of the under­
lying event denoted by the VP s having culminated. In his framework, activities are
considered to include culminations, thus there is no need to appeal to coercions.
However, states do not culminate, and are said to simply “hold.” Parsons thus gives
two definitions for his R-state, which he formulates as follows (31):

(31) a. es R-state holds at t = e culm inates at som e tim e at o r before t.

b. ss R-state holds at t = the p erio d o f tim e fo r w h ich s holds term inates at or before t.

A sentence in the present perfect is represented with the following logical form,
using a neo-Davidsonian framework (32):

(32) M a ry has eaten the apple.

3 e 3 x(eat(e) A A gen t(e,M ary) A Them e(e,x) A apple(x) A H old(R-state(e),S)

I.e., there is an event, the event is an eating, the agent is Mary, the theme is the apple,
and the events result state holds at the time of speech. Such a representation is dif­
ferentiated from that of a simple past sentence where e culminates before S. More­
over, the incompatibility of the PP with past adverbials is accounted for on the basis
of a logical contradiction: the time for which es R-state holds cannot be both S and
e.g., yesterday, which is in the past of S.
Parsons is careful to distinguish between the R-state of a culminated event,
and its “target state”: if someone throws a ball onto a roof, he explains, the “target
state” of this event is a state where the ball is on the roof. This state will last until
the ball is moved from this location. By contrast, the R-state of the same event is
the state of someone’s having thrown the ball onto the roof. Thus, it will never cease
to hold.
Giorgi and Pianesi (1997, p. 92) offer as a counterexample to Parsons analysis
the following scenario: imagine that John wins a race on Thursday, but is subse­
quently disqualified on Friday because he is found to test positive for drugs. We can
then assert the following:

(33) On T h u rsd ay Joh n h ad w on the race.

(34) (A s fo r today) Joh n has not w on the race.

Thus it is possible for the R-state of the event to hold on Thursday, but not on Friday,
making the permanency of the R-state doubtful, in their opinion. Giorgi and Pianesi
(1997) instead view perfects as denoting a consequent state (CS) that is realized by
the means of a binary relation, thus making any CS unique and non-permanent: “A
consequent state of such an event e [i.e., a culminated event] is any connected event
the left temporal boundary of which coincides with the right temporal boundary
(culmination) of e” (p. 98).

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Giorgi and Pianesi (1997, pp. 91-92) also comment that Parsonss explanation of
the incompatibility of the PP with past adverbials is very similar to that offered by
XN theorists: in both cases, it is due to “conflicting requirements” introduced by
two mutually exclusive temporal specifications. However, they point out that in lan­
guages such as French, as seen earlier, past adverbials are allowed. Moreover, if a
native speaker of English is presented with such a sentence and asked what it would
mean, were it acceptable, the meaning they attribute to it is one where the adverbial
“fixes the time of the event.”
The question of what an adequate representation of a perfect state might be
perhaps requires an answer to a more basic one, namely, are perfect clauses indeed
stative? Dowty (1979) pointed out that stativity tests typically give unclear results
when applied to perfects. For instance, fo r -adverbials combine well with stative
predicates, but do not seem to be felicitous when non-stative VPs are used in the
perfect, as shown in (35):

(35) * M atilda has finished w ritin g the letter fo r an hour.

However, just like stative predicates, perfect VPs cannot be used in the progressive:

(36) *1 am lo vin g ice cream .

(37) * M atilda is h avin g fin ish ed w ritin g the letter, (cf. C hom sky, 1957).

Katz (2003) re-examines the question systematically and discusses the results of
“classical” stativity tests on perfect sentences. These tests generally reveal that in
contrast to eventive predicates, stative predicates are always non-agentive, have a
“present orientation” and are temporally homogeneous. When applied to sentences
containing a VP in the perfect, Katz finds a positive result: perfect sentences exhibit
the behavior expected of stative sentences. Where results had been unclear, Katz
re-examines scope issues within the sentence. For instance, using an agentive adver­
bial such as “intentionally” in a perfect sentence is acceptable, thus suggesting that
the sentence is non-stative. However, Katz (p. 207) argues, the adverbial modifies
the event denoted by the lexical verb, not that denoted by the perfect construction,
as shown by the unacceptability of (38b):

(38) a. H ans has k issed L in intentionally,

b. ??H ans intentionally has kissed Lin .

Katz finds that perfect clauses have a present orientation, like other stative clauses:

(39) Thelm a b elieved H ans to??kiss/love Lin . (p. 209)

(40) Thelm a b elieved H ans to have kissed Lin . (p. 211)

Other commonalities between stative and perfect predicates include the fact that
both have an epistemic interpretation when used as a complement of must, while
eventive predicates have a deontic interpretation:

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(41) a. You m ust love Lin.

b. You m ust kiss Lin.
c. You m u st have k issed M ary. (pp. 2 10 - 2 11)

Both stative and perfect predicates acquire a deontic interpretation when a future
temporal adverbial is added to the sentence (as in “You must love /have kissed Mary
by the time I call”). In addition, only statives can combine with adverbs such as still
and no longer. However, as seen in section 2, perfect VPs do not combine well with
such adverbs, whereas resultative constructions do. Here, Katz follows Parsons
(1990) in proposing that the reason for such incompatibility lies in the fact that
perfect predicates are timeless. While Katz acknowledges that there are examples
where the perfect denotes non-permanent states, perfect states are in his view usu­
ally permanent, and this fact restricts the use of certain adverbials with perfects.
There are nonetheless events which by their nature will yield non-permanent per­
fect states, a point also made by Portner (2003), and others.
The present orientation of stative and perfect predicates also results in discourse
properties that differentiate them from eventive predicates: they do not move nar­
ration in time, but rather provide “background” information.
The temporal homogeneity of states makes them compatible with adverbials
such as/or-phrases, but not with expressions like “in X time”.
If we accept that perfect clauses are stative, we still need to account for the var­
iability of the state they denote, namely a clear result of an event (especially when
telic verbs are used), or any consequence that is relevant to the topic discussed, at S
or any R. More generally, and regardless of whether an aspectual and/or temporal
analysis of the perfect is chosen, pragmatic factors also need to be taken into ac­
count, and we turn to these now.

4. T h e P r a g m a tic s of th e Perfect

Starting our discussion of the pragmatics of the perfect with temporal approaches,
Portner (2003) proposes that a PP sentence presupposes that the eventuality it
describes is in the Extended-Now established by the context. It also introduces a
“modal presupposition” of a relation of epistemic necessity between the general
question that is debated in the discourse (i.e., the topic), and its answer:

(42) A sentence S o f the fo rm P E R F E C T ( 4>) presupposes:

3 q [A N S (q ) & P(p,q)] (p. 500)

In the above, p is the proposition expressed by <|>,the property ANS is true of any ques­
tion which the speaker of sentence S is trying to answer, thus the operator P is similar
to an epistemic must. P(p>q) therefore says that the proposition p, given some conver­
sational background, is necessarily an answer to a question that is part of the current
conversation. This presupposition may result in a causal relationship being established
with material that is in the conversational background. Take for instance sentence (43):

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(43) M ary has read M iddlemarch.

(43) can be understood as the cause for M ary understanding Eliots style in a co n ­
text w here som eone is lookin g for an explanation o f this au th ors style. The rea­
sonin g goes as follows: it is established in the conversation that “ [i]f som eone
who isn’t stupid reads an author’s book, they understand her style; M ary is sm art;
G eorge Eliot wrote M iddlem arch ” (p. 500). By adding the proposition expressed
by “ M ary has read M iddlem arch,” the proposition that M ary can explain E lliot’s
style is entailed and answers the question asked. The relation here between the
reading and the understanding is one o f causation, with the understanding being
a result o f her reading. This causal relation obtains with resultative perfects,
where the event referred to in the sentence also provides evidence for som e cur­
rent state. Alternatively, other types o f relations m ay be established, such as e v i­
dentiary ones (as in “ The Earth has been hit by giant asteroids before” being used
as evidence to answ er the question “ is the Earth in danger o f being struck by giant
asteroids?” ).
N ish iyam a and K o en ig (2004) argue against a purely tem poral sem antics for
perfects on the grou n d s that it fails to relate the event to its reference tim e, and they
enrich their stative an alysis usin g a n eo -G ricean approach. T hey m o d ify K am p and
R eyle’s (1993) representation o f perfect sentences using D R T and give a different
definition o f w hat they term “perfect state.” F or them , a p erfect sentence introduces
(i) an even tu ality (ev) w h o se tem poral trace r precedes a reference tim e r ( r ( e v ) <
r), as w ell as (ii) a perfect state 5, o verlap p in g w ith r ( r (5) o r). The state 5 is a free
v ariab le represented in the D R S as X(s)> w h ere X ’s valu e m ust be inferable from an
o ccu rren ce o f ev. The m ech an ism s for p ro vid in g the pragm atic inference are based
on the in form ativen ess o r I-p rin cip le (L ev in so n , 2000), w here a speak er chooses
the less in form ative utterance if there is a choice, and the hearer en rich es it to
derive the m ost specific in fo rm atio n , based on w orld know ledge. Such in form ation
needs to be inferable from the o ccu rren ce o f the event “ in n o rm al contexts,” and
this is m eant to avoid the problem arisin g from a represen tation o f the perfect that
has a result state sim p ly abutting the event, as in K am p and R eyle (1993) (see d is­
cussion in section 3.3), and w here the state can be interpreted as being unrelated to
the event.
To take an example, sentence (44) can be used to refer to the result o f the event
[Ken break his leg], as well as to a conversationally implicated reading, [Ken be
behind in his work):

(44) Ken has broken his leg. (= q)

The representation is as follow s:

(45) 3 e 3 s[Ken_break_his_leg (e) A X(s) A 7(e) *< n A 7(s) o n]

a. Ken has broken his leg and Kens leg is broken. (= p)
X(s) = Kcns_lcg_be_brokcn (Lexically entailed resultative perfect reading)
b. Ken has broken his leg and Ken is behind in his work. (= p )
X(s) = Ken_bc_bchind_in_his_work (Conversationally implicated resultative reading)

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N ish iyam a and K oenig (2006) fu rth er sought to find out m ore specifically what
types o f rules speakers use to draw such inferences. To this end, they exam in ed over
600 English perfect exam ples taken from a corpus o f new spapers, d iscu ssion s, c o n ­
versations, and narrative texts, thus co m p risin g different genres. T hey fin d that the
m ost com m on types o f perfect used are the entailed resultative and the continuative
perfect. A s they point out, such types only require readers/hearers to draw trivial
inferences, n am ely the p resu m ed persistence o f a situation, a ru le that applies unless
specific inform ation indicates oth erw ise (M cD erm ott, 1982). The other fu n ction s o f
the perfect in the corpus included negotiation o f a topic, in volvin g for exam ple a
speaker asking w hether the addressee has seen a m ovie/read a book/been to a place.
The addressee infers that the speaker wants to talk about such topics. The value o f X
is the state expressed by a sentence o f the type “ I w ant to talk about topic x.” They
find that often, the perfect is used to start a conversation, w here no shared topic can
be presupposed (contra Portner, 2003). The last type o f use o f the perfect is labeled
“com m on sen se entailm ent,” and involves the hearer u n d erstan d in g the perfect se n ­
tence as con veyin g eviden ce for, or explanation of, a situation denoted by a n e ig h ­
b o rin g sentence in the discou rse. The value o f the variable X in such cases is the
state described by another sentence, as illustrated by exam ple (46) below :

(46) Iraq still keeps U.S. forces busy, too (=X). U.S. A ir Force fighter jets h a v e f l o w n an
average o f 1,500 m issions a month over southern Iraq since 1992, in an effort to make
sure Iraq doesn’t violate a no-fly zone or attack its Shiite population. (Graff, 1995-1997,
Wall Street Journal 07.01.1996) (Nishiyam a and Koenig, 2006, p. 273)

In such cases the perfect is used to establish d iscou rse coherence.

O verall, the authors com m ent that an o verw h elm in g 93.06% o f their exam ples
require a v e ry general default rule to assign a value to X (persistence, general exp ec­
tations regarding speech acts). O n ly a sm all num ber o f instances require specific
co m m on sen se kn ow led ge rules, as for exam ple in (46) above, and the value o f X in
such cases is found in an im m ediately preceding or follo w in g sentence. They c o n ­
clude that “d eterm in in g the nature o f the perfect state posited by theories that treat
the perfect as a stativizer is a feasible task.” In addition, the perfect serves a num ber
o f d iscou rse fu n ction s (in trod u cin g the value o f X into the discourse, negotiating a
topic and establishin g d iscou rse coherence).
N ishiyam a and K oenigs study thus also shows properties o f the perfect in dis­
course and is one o f relatively few recent attempts at connecting the m eaning o f this
tense with the discourse context in w hich it occurs. O ther studies that have specifically
exam ined use o f the perfect in relation to rhetorical relations are briefly outlined below.
We now turn to studies relating perfect usage to the rhetorical structure o f dis­
course, following the w ork o f Asher and Lascarides (2003). Earlier attempts at pre­
dicting temporal order focused on the aspectual nature o f eventualities: for instance
Kam p and Rohrer (1983) had observed that events and states have different behavior
in discourse. Thus, (a) and (b) in example (47), continuing the discourse after the
first clause, describe an eventuality that is posterior to, and overlapping with that of
the first one, respectively:
P E R F E C T T E N S E AND A S P EC T 897

(47) M atilda entered the building.

a. A man gave her directions to the conference room.
b. A man was standing in the hall.

In (47), (a) describes an event and the narration m oves forward in time; (b) describes
a state which is understood to overlap with the event described in the first clause.
However, this observation is too general, as there are m any counterexamples. In
(48) the second clause describes a state, yet this state is understood to obtain after
the event denoted by the first clause:

(48) Matilda switched otf the light. The room was pitch dark.

Asher and Lascarides (2003) thus proposed that the temporal order o f eventualities
described in discourse is inferred from rhetorical or discourse relations, which are
viewed as types o f speech acts (for more detail, see Caudal, this volume). The default
relation is that o f narration, which leads to the inference o f temporal progression,
and another relation, that o f explanation, also leads to a sim ilar inference. Other
relations, such as elaboration, lead to the inference o f temporal inclusion o f the
eventuality denoted by a clause in that denoted by the preceding clause (Caudal and
Ritz, forthcom ing). The patterns are sum m arized below in Figure 31.2:
Given the semantics o f the English PP, we expect that it will not be found in
clauses that are part o f narration, result or explanation, as it is not used to express
temporal progression.

Relation Tem poral inference Exam ple

N A R R A T I O N (a, ß) ( e a < e,j) Dean came in. Matilda greeted him.

E X P L A N A T IO N (a . ß) (a) ( - e a < e fJ) Dean fe ll. Matilda pushed him.

( Ь ) ( e v e n t (Cj$) = * Cji < c (1)

R E S U L T ( a . ß) (С0 < С р ) Matilda sn itched off the light. The room was pitch

dark.

E L A B O R A T IO N (a , ß) P a r t-o f (е„, e^) Matilda cooked a great meal. She roasted some

kangaroo, m ade a beetroot salad...

e a)

B /G R -F /G R ( a , (J) ( e ^ ç e„) was a stormy night. Matilda woke up suddenly..

Figure 31.2. Rhetorical relations and tem poral inferences (after A sher and Lascarides, 2003)

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Indeed, de Swart (2007) uses the French novel L’Etranger by Albert Camus
(narrated entirely in the PC) and its translations into English, Dutch and German as
a corpus to examine the above hypothesis. She finds that the French perfect form
can appear in clauses expressing any temporal order (precedence, inversion, over­
lap), while the English perfect never appears in narrative sequences or with any
adverbial expressing temporal progression. The Dutch translation, while not using
the perfect form or Voltooid Tegenwoordige Tijd (VTT) for all PCs, occasionally uses
it in particular when a stative or process-like VP needs to be coerced to maintain
the quantized character of the French sentence (p. 22). In German, the Perfekt alter­
nates with the Praeteritum reflecting the contrast in French between PC and impar-
fait. In French, the PC advances narration with the help of other elements, such as
rhetorical structure, use of sequencing adverbials such as puis (‘then) and connec­
tives (and’), as well as lexical aspect. De Swart concludes that the perfect establishes
an elaboration structure, where speech time/utterance situation is the topic. She
argues that in general terms, sentences in the present perfect are related by a rela­
tion of continuation, which is neutral with regard to temporal ordering. In French
and German, eventualities can be freely related to each other, thus narration
becomes possible. In English and Dutch, no temporal relation is possible between
eventualities, thus discourse use of the perfect is much more restricted. Accord­
ingly, and using a Reichenbachian framework, the semantics of the four perfects
examined are summarized as follows:
A. Semantics of the English PP

(i) E-R,S
(ii) 0 E@X where @ is any temporal relation, and X is either an event or a
moment other than R or S. Thus in English, no temporal relation between
the event referred to in the PP and either another event or a moment
other than R or S is possible.

B. Semantics of the Dutch VTT

(i) E-R,S
(ii) 0 E@X where @ is any temporal relation, and X is an event. In Dutch, no
temporal relation between the event referred to in the PP and another
event is possible.

C. Semantics of the French PC and the German Perfekt

(i) E-R,S (p. 2278)

Given the above set of rules, how can we explain the range of constraints (or lack
thereof) that variously apply to the perfect in different languages? While there is no
doubt that conventions differ, are there any clues that might help explain how these
conventions come about?
Diachronic studies of perfect usage in discourse, especially using rhetorical rela­
tion analysis and their temporal inferences have also shown interesting patterns that
enable a better understanding of the processes involved in the development from

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perfect meaning to past tense/preterit meaning. See Caudal (this volume) for exam­
ples from French. Ritz (2007), Ritz and Engel (2008), and Ritz (2010) look at a change
in progress in oral narratives and police media reports in Australian English where
the PP has started to acquire past tense meanings (see also Carruthers, this volume).
In oral narratives, the PP is often used in clauses expressing temporal progression
(related typically by the rhetorical relations of narration), and is used as a narrative
PP. In the police reports, further extensions have taken place and the PP is combined
frequently with definite locating temporal adverbials such as dates and times:

(49) A t about 3.20pm yesterday a m an H A S E N T E R E D the E at-N -R u n take aw ay store on

G o ld en Fou r D rive, B ilin ga, arm ed w ith a rifle. (John K aarsb erg, QTand Police M edia,
2 1.12 .2 0 0 1) (C au d al & R itz, in press)

The PP is also used to elaborate on events presented in the SP, thus leading to an
inference that the time of the PP event is included in that of the SP event, a type of
use that also contributes to past tense reading of the PP (Caudal & Ritz, in press).
Ritz (2010) proposes that the PP in this variety of English has two representations:
(i) that of a perfect, and (ii) that of a past tense that has E located at a R but also
another R located at S. The representation of the latter indeed requires a complex
temporal and aspectual framework: the PP is used to achieve a range of effects and
thus non-standard uses still have a strong pragmatic force. More specifically, and
following Kleins (1992) analysis of the standard English PP, referring one event to
two distinct times is pragmatically infelicitous. In non-standard uses such as those
observed in the Australian police media reports, the use of two times is however
intentional, thus flouting Grices maxim of quantity. A hearer/reader will accord­
ingly infer that information that the time referred to is either now or past is not
sufficient, and that the present consequences or results of the event are to be inter­
preted as being the consequences of the event having occurred at a specific past
time. A range of more specific interpretations are then available depending on con­
text: for example, if the event is already known to have occurred at a specific past
time, yet is presented using a PP, relevance to S can be understood to convey recent
discovery on the part of the speaker (including through inference or hearsay, leading
to evidential meaning), surprise, or present recall of a situation that had not been on
the speakers mind for a while (leading to indirective meaning). All of these effects
can be observed in the Australian corpus and show that PP usage is undergoing a
change in progress where a number of possible paths for development exist. What
is clear is that in a number of its uses, the Australian PP is no longer a true perfect.
The data also show that the PP in English is not immune to change. In addition,
explanations for the differences between the English PP and that of other languages
where past adverbials are compatible with a formal equivalent of the PP that center
around differences in the meaning of the present tense (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997;
Portner, 2003) cannot be easily supported by these findings.
Given how complex and unstable the perfect is, the question of what its role in
a given tense-aspect system of a language perhaps deserves to be addressed more
explicitly. We turn to this question now.

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900 ASPECT

5. C o n c lu sio n : The Place of th e Perfect in

a Sy s t e m

The perfect, as we have seen, can be distinguished from the resultative and the
simple past, although it shares some characteristics with both: like the resultative,
the perfect can express the fact that the consequences o f an event are in force at R
(although “consequences” are o f a m ore general nature with perfects than with
resultatives). These consequences result from the event having taken place in the
past o f R, a temporal location shared with the past tense in the case o f the PP
(although the said past event is made part o f the present when a perfect is used and
cannot be located definitely at a past time). Diachronically, the perfect often de­
velops from a resultative construction and its present form often evolves further
into a past tense. Given this instability, one m ight w onder what place a perfect oc­
cupies in a system once it has arisen, that is, how does a perfect relate synchronically
to other aspectuo-temporal categories?
It is clear that the meanings contributed by a perfect can be expressed in other
ways: for instance, the simple past tense in Old French was used in contexts that
gave it resultative/present relevance readin gs (see C au d al, fo rth co m in g). The
English SP can also be used in such contexts. A num ber o f scenarios are possible
when a language has a perfect: it can have a resultative, a perfect and a past tense,
with overlap between the m eanings o f these categories also attested. Indeed, while
there are examples o f languages with a resultative that has no property o f a perfect
and vice versa, examples o f resultatives with perfect properties (e.g., Russian) and
perfects with resultative properties (e.g., Lithuanian) have also all been found
(Nedjalkov, 2001, p. 937). Similarly, perfects can co-exist with a past tense and retain
their canonical m eaning within a given language (e.g., standard English), but as we
have seen, perfect forms can come to share properties with a past tense, the latter
ending up with m ore specialized uses than originally although such uses vary
(com pare G erm an , French, and D utch, for instance). We find perfect m eaning
expressed in tenseless languages, for exam ple in M andarin (Li & Thom pson, 1981)
and Vietnamese (D o-H urinville, 2004). As a result, it is dilficult to say that the exis­
tence o f any given category in a system can implicate that o f a perfect or, conversely,
that the existence o f a perfect can implicate that o f another category.
Yet, the perfect, in establishing a connection with the present (or with a past or
future R), also participates in a set o f contrasts with other categories and its role may
also be considered in terms o f the contribution it makes to a finer “carving up” o f a
time-sphere. As discussed in section 3, the perfect shares com m on aspectual char­
acteristics with the prospective, and it has been argued that the two categories are
the m irror image o f each other (Com rie, 1976; Ritz, 2010). Binnick (2005, 2006) has
also shown that the perfect and the habitual used to in English share m any prop­
erties, proposing that used to is an “anti present-perfect” in that “ The present perfect
. . . includes the present in what is essentially a period o f the past. The used to con­
struction, on the other hand, precisely excludes the present from a past period

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(Binnick, 2006, p. 42). In both cases, the present period is pragmatically determined
and starts immediately after the end of a state of affairs or series of events in the case
of used to, or after the end of a situation in the case of the PP. In general, with used
to, the present period contrasts with one that immediately precedes it with respect
to the situation itself (which is said to define the preceding era), but in some cases
the implicature can be cancelled as in (50):

(50) E rik used to be a m em ber o f the V olap ü k League, and he still is. (B in n ick, 2005, 200 6,
fro m H arriso n , n .d.; cf. C o m rie, 1976, p. 29)

In (50), what distinguishes the present and preceding periods is not member­
ship in the League itself but something else—for example we could add “when he
was a university student.”
We could summarize the relations between used to, the PP and the prospective
with Figure 31.3:
In Figure 31.3, the period occupied by used to, the PP and the prospective exclude
each other, separating the present into mutually exclusive intervals of time, the pre­
present, the extended now, and the post-present respectively. Each period is vari­
ously filled (i) with a situation denoted by the VP (with used to), (ii) the results of a
situation or its post-state (with the PP) and (iii) the pre-state of a situation (with the
prospective). In the case of the universal perfect, while the state denoted by the VP
may still be in force at S as shown by examples such as “I’ve lived here for five years
(and I still do),” one could still argue that the speaker is excluding other periods,
namely the time before five years ago and the time after S, thus making their asser­
tion one that is about the extended-now.
Regarding the place of the PP in relation to the SP, Mittwoch (2008) examines
closely the behaviors of the resultative and experiential perfects, arguing that the
resultative perfect is in strong competition with the SP, while the experiential per­
fect is different in this respect. Such competition is due to the fact that the result
state of resultative perfects is specific since it holds at S, thus making the event it
results from also specific, or singular. Similarly, “out of the blue” SP sentences also
share the singularity feature. On the other hand, experiential perfects often denote
plural, non-specific events, and share many characteristics with the SP (i.e., itera­
tive, habitual meanings, sequence-of-tense phenomena, more focus on the pastness
of the event). The competition between resultative perfect and SP leads the two
tenses to contrast precisely with respect to the presence or absence of a result state,
which alerts a hearer to the fact that the speaker using a perfect wishes to convey

Used to Present Perfect 1 Prospective

Pre-present Extended now Post present

Figure 31.3. The place of the PP in the wider present time-sphere

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902 ASPECT

additional m eaning to sim ply asserting the past occurrence o f an event. Indeed,
differences between the two types o f perfect are supported by two contrasting ex­
amples, (i) data from Australian English where extensions in PP usage all concern
singular events (see section 4), and where the PP has expanded its uses; (ii) data
from Argentinian Spanish where the PP (presente perfecto) is less frequently used
than the SP ( Preterito) and seems to be specializing for an indefinite past meaning,
as shown in Rodriguez Louro (2009).
Mittwochs (2008) careful analysis o f the resultative and experiential readings o f
the perfect is useful when we try to place the perfect in a system, both synchroni-
cally and diachronically. We’ll briefly sum m arize its main points before suggesting
avenues for further work.
Mittwoch distinguishes between strong and weak resultatives (the latter is her term
for perfect o f result or resultative perfect). Strong resultatives are clear cases of resulta­
tive perfect, involving a telic V P that denotes a transition consisting o f an event and a
result state (Parsons’ “target state,” see section 3), as in “X has arrived in Paris” having as
a result state “ X is in Paris.” Weak resultatives on the other hand are telic but do not
involve this target state, as in “ M ary has read Middlemarch ” (Portner, 2003), where
results are variable, as explained in section 4. Similarly, results inferred when an expe­
riential perfect is used are context dependent. Mittwoch looks in detail at the target
state of strong resultatives in order to attempt to characterize more precisely the type o f
inference they represent. She shows that the result state inference is not an entailment,
as negation o f the state itself does not result in a denial o f the speaker’s utterance
(“ M arys left. #N0 she hasn’t. She’s back,” p. 334). It is not a conversational implicature
either as it is not cancelable (“ I’ve put the book back 011 the shelf, #but it’s not there
anymore/#and perhaps it’s still there,” p. 335). It is not a presupposition as shown by
examples (5ia-c) below, where the truth o f the target state “the door is locked” is not
preserved in the family o f sentences traditionally used to test presupposition:

(51) a. I haven’t locked the door.

b. Have you locked the door?
c. If you have locked the door, we can go. (p. 336)

Even (52) does not work, yet the antecedent is the target state expressed by the PP
clause:

(52) If the book is on the shelf, Bill’s put it there, (p. 336)

Mittwoch (2008) concludes with the only possible type o f inference left, a conven­
tional implicature, “faute de m ieux” ( p. 349).
Regarding the question o f presupposition, another w ay o f looking at the above
examples could be to say that the perfect clause, while not having a result state being
presupposed , is in fact presupposing som e other state. In (sia -c ), if we take M ittwochs
target state to be “ the door is locked,” it seems that one presupposition is preserved,
namely that the “opposite” o f the target state, i.e., “the door is not locked,” held at some
time prior to evaluation time, or S. Similarly, the second clause in (52) presupposes
“ the book is not on the s h e lf” at som e time prior to S. The same applies to all such

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verbs, so if “ D ean has arrived” is true (= he is here), then he must not have been here
at some time prior to S, and so forth. Thus the perfect sentence presupposes this
opposite state before S, and asserts the target state at S, signaling a change-of-state.
Since presuppositions convey information that is in the com m on ground (see e.g.,
Cherchia & M cC onnell-G inet, 1990), a change to an opposite state will obviously
constitute new information to the hearer. The perfect is known to convey such in­
formation, as has often been pointed out. In addition, perfects have been shown to
often give rise to mirative meanings (de Lancey, 20 01; see also section 4 and de
Haan, this volume, section 7), thus possibly extending this aspect o f their meaning.
O f course, the m eaning o f change with strong resultative perfects is in large part
contributed by the lexical m eaning o f the verb, which denotes a change-of-state. Yet
this type o f perfect has often been described as “ proto typical” o f perfect meaning. Is
some m eaning o f change also expressed with perfects that do not involve a target
state, for instance experiential perfects? Consider (53):

(53) Dean has been to Adelaide.

We could argue that a change did indeed occur between Dean never having been to
Adelaide to him having had the experience o f such a visit when he traveled there for
the first time. However, the event may have taken place quite a long time ago, and
not be strictly new information. The fact that there is no current target state relating
the event to S gives the clause more o f a past m eaning. Thus it seems that what is
important here, more than just the fact that the experience itself took place, is that
one o f its consequences (e.g., Dean knowing some good places to stay) is new inso­
much as it relates to the current conversation (e.g., som eone asking for advice on
where to stay in Adelaide). This may be another way in which the perfect and SP can
contrast, which would show in the case o f the perfect a generalization from a spe­
cific presupposition being replaced by an opposite state o f affairs with strong resul-
tatives, to a more general notion o f an inference being new relative to the present
com m on ground with other types o f perfect. It would also fit in with D ahls (2000)
concept o f “gradual relaxation o f current relevance” (see section 2). In sum m ary, if
the perfect conveys a inherent notion o f change, its contribution could be seen gen­
erally to give a hearer the following instruction: T w indicating a change; fin d the
appropriate inference relating the information expressed in this sentence to the ques­
tion currently being debated and m odify the common ground accordingly."
Finally, a change m ay also be part o f perfect o f persistent situation, although it
seems less obvious because o f the aspectual nature o f the V P — there is no clear
event that can be said to m ark a change. However, the perfect in such cases can also
be used to indicate a change relative to information that is in the com m on ground,
as, say in example (54), stating precisely that no change occurred:

(54) We’ve always done things this way.

Here, the situation itself goes back a long way into the past, but the point here is to
justify a way o f doing things as still being relevant now, as a result o f having been
done in a particular way over the period denoted by always. Thus one could argue

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that the sentence is still contrasting a past state of affairs with a present one. The
speaker did not choose the present version of the sentence, which would make the
situation true at S, and the PP sentence is true in more circumstances than the pre­
sent tense sentence. Consequently, the use of the PP carries the scalar implicature
that the corresponding present tense sentence need not be true, or at least that it is
being questioned in the conversation in some way.
If we accept the points made so far in this section, the perfect enables speakers
to make quite fine-grained distinctions by excluding specific time-periods and fo­
cusing on an extended present while singling out new information. In addition,
availability of a perfect in a language also enables speakers to “say less and mean
more” by leading their hearers to inferences about the nature of the possible conse­
quences of a situation, as discussed in section (4). In this way, the perfect is quite
distinct from both the SP and the resultative, as (i) unlike the SP it denotes the phase
of an eventuality where consequences are in force, while the SP denotes the situa­
tion itself (and occasionally implicates present relevance if there is an appropriate
context), and (ii) unlike a resultative, the perfect is not restricted in the type of result
expressed. The important role played by pragmatics in the encoding and decoding
of the meanings a perfect conveys however may also explain its notorious insta­
bility, as speakers and hearers keep extending the range of inferences to eventually
include temporal ones, thus, for instance, moving the meaning of the perfect toward
that of a past tense. Slobin (1994, p. 124) remarked that “ [t]he hallmark of the perfect
is its Janus-like attention to both past process and present circumstance.” Maybe the
two-faced Janus analogy is not sufficient: the perfect, rather, is the shapeshifter of
tense-aspect categories, changing and adapting its meaning to fit in a given system
and to serve the communicative goals of speakers. If changeability is its very es­
sence, it is no wonder that it has been, and continues to be, a challenge to tense-
aspect theories.

REFERENCES

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U n iv e rsity P ress.
B au er, G . (19 70). The E n g lish “ p erfect” reco n sid ered . Journal o f Linguistics, 6 , 18 9 -19 8 .
B in n ic k , R . I. (19 9 1). Time and the verb: A gu id e to tense and aspect. O xfo rd : O x fo rd
U n iv e rsity P ress.
B in n ic k , R . I. (200 5). The m ark ers o f h ab itu al asp ect in E n g lish . Journal o f English Linguis­
tics, 33(4 ), 3 3 9 -3 6 9 .
B in n ic k , R . I. (2 0 0 6 ). Used to an d habitual asp ect in E n g lish . Style, 4 0 (1,2 ), 3 3 -4 6 .
B y b e e , J. L ., P erk in s, R ., an d P agliu ca, W. (1994). The evolution o f gram m ar: Tense, aspect
and m odality in the languages o f the world. C h ica g o : U n ive rsity o f C h ica g o Press.
C a u d a l, P., an d R itz, M .-E . (In press.) D isc o u rse stru ctu re an d the p erfective evo lu tio n o f
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an d M id d le F ren ch . U n p u b lish ed m s.
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C h o m sk y, N . (1957). Syn tactic stru ctu res. Jan u a L in g u a ru m , 4. The H agu e: M ou ton .
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D a h l, Ô. (1985). Tense and aspect systems. O xfo rd : B lackw ell.
D a h l, Ô. (2 0 0 0 ). The ten se-asp ect system s o f E u ro p ea n lan gu ages in a ty p o lo g ic a l p e rsp e c ­
tive. In Ô. D a h l, Tense and aspect in the languages o f Europe (Em pirical approaches to
language typology 2 0 -6 ) (pp. 3 -2 5 ). B e rlin : de G ru yter.
D a h l, Ô., an d H e d in , E . (2 0 0 0 ). C u rre n t relevan ce an d even t referen ce. In Ô. D a h l, Tense
and aspect in the languages o f Europe (Em pirical approaches to language typology 20 -6 )
(pp. 3 8 5 -4 0 1). B e rlin : de G ru yter.
D eclerck , R . (19 9 1). Tense in English: Its structure and use in discourse. L o n d o n : R outled ge.
D ep raetere, I. (1996). The tense system in English relative clauses: A corpus-based analysis.
B e rlin : de G ru yter.
D ie sin g , M . (19 9 2). Indefinites. C a m b rid g e, M A : M IT Press.
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D ow ty, D . (1979). Word m eaning and M ontague Gram m ar. D o rd rech t: R eid el.
G alto n , A . P. (1984). The logic o f aspect. O xfo rd : C la ren d o n Press.
G io rg i, A ., an d P ian esi, F. (1997). Tense and aspect: From semantics to morphosyntax.
O xfo rd : O x fo rd U n iv e rsity Press.
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C o n so rtiu m : U n iv e rsity o f P en n sylvan ia.
H a rriso n , R . (n. d.) V erb aspect. A vailab le a t w w w .rick h arriso n .co m /lan gu age/asp ect.h tm l,
accessed Sep tem b er 7, 2 0 10 .
H itzem an , J. (1997). Sem an tic p artitio n an d th e a m b ig u ity o f sen ten ces co n tain in g te m p o ­
ral ad verbials. Natural Language Semantics , 5, 8 7 - 10 0 .
H uddleston, R . (1988). English gram mar: A n outline. C am b rid ge: C am b rid ge U n iversity Press.
K a m p , H ., an d R ey le , U. (1993,). From discourse to logic: A n introduction to model-theoretic
semantics o f natural language, fo rm a l logic and discourse representation theory.
D o rd rech t: K lu w er.
K a m p , H ., an d R o h rer, C . (1983). Tense in texts. In R . B âu erle, C . Sch w arze, an d A . v o n
Stech ow (eds.), Meaning, use and interpretation o f language (pp. 2 5 0 -2 6 9 ). B e rlin : de
G ru yter.
K atz, G . (200 3). O n the stativity o f the E n g lish Perfect. In A . A le x ia d o u , M . R ath ert, an d A .
v o n Stech ow (eds.), Perfect explorations (pp. 2 0 5 -2 3 4 ). B e rlin : de G ru yter.
K ip arsk y, P. (20 0 2). E ven t stru ctu re an d the p erfect. In D . I. B eaver, L . D . C a silla s M artin ez,
B . Z . C la rk , an d S. K a u fm a n n (eds.), The construction o f m eaning (pp. 113 - 13 6 ) .
Stan ford: C S L I.
K le in , W. (1992). The p resen t p erfect puzzle. Language , 6 8 ,5 2 5 -5 5 2 .
L e v in so n , S. C . (2 0 0 0 ). Presumptive meanings: The theory o f generalized conversational
implicature. C a m b rid g e, M A : M IT Press.
L i, C . N ., an d T h o m p so n , S. A . (19 8 1). M andarin Chinese: A fu n ctio n a l reference gram m ar.
B e rk e le y : U n ive rsity o f C a lifo rn ia Press.
L in d sted t, J. (2 0 0 0 ). The p erfect— asp ectu al, tem p o ral an d evid en tial. In Ô. D a h l, Tense and
aspect in the languages o f Europe (Em pirical approaches to language typology 2 0 - 6 ) (pp.
36 5 -3 8 3 ). B e rlin : de G ru yter.

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M cC aw ley, J. D . (19 7 1). Tense an d tim e referen ce in E n g lish . In C . J. F illm o re an d D . T.

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R in e h a rt & W in ston .
M cC aw ley, J. D . (19 8 1). N o tes on the E n g lish presen t p erfect. Australian Journal o f Linguis­
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M c C o a rd , R . W. (1978). The English perfect: Tense choice and pragm atic inferences. A m ste r­
d am : N o rth H ollan d.
M cD erm o tt, D . (1982). A tem p o ral lo g ic fo r re a so n in g abo u t p ro cesses an d plan s. Cognitive
Science , 6 ,1 0 1 - 1 5 5 .
ter M eu len , A . (1995). Representing time in natural language: The dynam ic interpretation o f
tense and aspect. C a m b rid g e, M A : M IT Press.
M ich aelis, L . A . (1994). The a m b ig u ity o f the E n g lish p resen t p erfect. Journal o f Linguistics,
3 0 ,111- 15 7
M ittw o ch , A . (200 8). The E n g lish resu ltative p erfe ct an d its relatio n sh ip to the exp erien tial
p erfect an d the sim p le p ast tense. Linguistics and Philosophy 3 1,3 2 3 - 3 5 1.
M o en s, M . (1987). Tense, asp ect an d tem p o ra l referen ce. P h .D . d issertation , C en tre for
C o g n itiv e Scien ce, U n ive rsity o f E d in b u rg h .
M o en s, М ., an d Steed m an , M . (1988). T em p o ral o n to lo g y an d tem p o ra l referen ce. Com pu­
tational Linguistics , 1 4 ,1 5 - 2 8 .
N ed jalkov, V. P. (2 0 0 1). R esu ltative co n stru ction s. In Language typology and language
universals: A n international handbook , vo l. 2 (pp. 9 2 8 -9 4 0 ). B e rlin : de G ruyter.
N ed jalkov, V. P., an d Jaxon tov, S. Je. (1988). The ty p o lo g y o f resu ltative co n stru ction s. In
V. P. N e d ja lk o v (ed.), Typology o f resultative constructions (pp. 3 -6 2 ). A m sterd am :
B en jam in s.
N ish iy a m a, A ., an d K o e n ig , J.-P. (200 4 ). W h at is a p erfect state? In B . Sch m eiser, V. C h an d ,
A . K elleh er, an d A . R o d rig u e z (eds.), W C C FL 23 Proceedings (pp. 5 9 5 -6 0 6 ). S o m e r­
ville: C a sca d illa Press.
N ish iy a m a, A ., an d K o e n ig , J-P. (2 0 0 6 ). The p erfect in context: A co rp u s study. U. Penn
Working Papers in Linguistics , 12 (1), 2 6 5 -2 7 8 .
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P ortn er, P. (200 3). The (tem poral) sem an tics an d (m od al) p rag m atics o f the perfect.
Linguistics and Philosophy , 26, 4 5 9 -5 10 .
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R itz, M .-E . (2007). Perfect change: syn ch ro n y m eets diachrony. In J. Salm o n s and
S. D u b en io n -S m ith (eds.), Historical linguistics 200s (pp. 13 3 -14 7 ). A m sterd am :
B en jam in s.
R itz, M .-E . (20 10 ). The p erfect crim e: A stu d y o f illicit adverbial com bin ation s w ith the
present p erfect in A u stralian p olice m ed ia releases. Journal o f Pragmatics, 4 2 ,3 4 0 0 -3 4 17 .
R itz, M .-E ., an d E n g el, D . (200 8). V iv id n arrative use an d the presen t p erfect in sp o k en
A u stralian E n g lish . Linguistics , 4 6 ,1 3 1 - 1 6 0 .
R o d rig u e z L o u ro , C . (20 0 9 ). P erfect evo lu tio n an d change: A so cio lin g u istic stu d y o f
p reterit an d p resen t p erfe ct u sage in c o n te m p o ra ry an d earlier A rg en tin a . Ph.D .
d issertatio n , U n iv e rsity o f M elb o u rn e.
San d str0 m , G . (1993). W h en -clau ses an d the tem p o ral in terp retation o f d isco u rse. Ph.D .
d issertatio n , U n ive rsity o f U m ea.
Slob in , D . 1. 1994. T alkin g p erfectly : D isc o u rse o rig in s o f the p resen t p erfect. In W. P agliu ca
(ed.), Perspectives on grammaticalization (pp. 119 - 13 3 ) . A m ste rd a m : B en ja m in s.
Sm ith , C . (1997). The param eter o f aspect. D o rd rech t: K lu w er.

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de Sw art, H. (1998). Aspect shift and coercion. N atural Language and Linguistics Theory, 16,
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229-283.

Copyrighted material
 CHAPTER 32

RESULTATIVE
CONSTRUCTIONS 1

JO H N B E A V E R S

1. R e s u l t a t i v e C o n s t r u c t i o n s

Resultative constructions are those clauses in which, in addition to the main verb
(V), there is an additional, secondary predicate, which I call the result XP, predi­
cating some state that comes about for some participant in the event as a result of
the action described by the clause. An example is given in (1), where hammer is the
main V, fla t is the result XP, and the metal is the determiner phrase (DP) predicated
o f by the result XP (which I refer to as the subject o f the result XP).2

(1) John hammered the metal flat.

Halliday (1967, pp. 62-66) first coined the term “resultative,” distinguishing two
types of “attributes” : the resultative as in (1) and the depictive as in (2), where the XP
naked describes not a result but a state that holds o f some participant (here John)
during the event.3

(2) John hammered the metal naked

Aspectually, one o f the leading reasons resultatives have been so important in

work in semantics and syntax is that they represent a type of covert “event compo­
sition” : the V and XP independently denote eventualities (a dynamic event for the
V and a state or stative eventuality for the XP), but together represent a single,
derived eventuality, with no overt indication of the nature of the composition. This
is the one key assumption shared by all work on resultatives. Analyses differ in
terms of the nature of the composition, i.e. how the two eventualities are related and
RESULTATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 909

the type o f the derived eventuality. A secondary issue is what the syntactic structure
is and how it determines the composition. I focus here on the more semantic ques­
tion, though it necessarily involves touching on the syntax as well. I first outline
various types o f resultatives, draw ing heavily on Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2001)
and G oldberg and Jackendolf (2004). I next look at the most com m on analysis o f
resultatives, as derived lexical accomplishments denoting caused change-of-state. I
then turn to two recent strands o f w ork challenging this view. I first discuss tem po­
ral relationships between the V and X P other than causation, and then the role o f
change and telicity in resultatives, and work challenging their relevance.

2. Types of R e su l t a t iv e s

Resultative constructions come in many varieties. First, result XPs may be Adjective
Phrases (AdjPs), Prepositional Phrases (PPs), or Determ iner Phrases (DPs) (but not
Verb Phrases (VPs) or most participial AdiPs, as noted by Green, 1972, p. 89):

(3) a. John hammered the metal [ , ) flat /^flattened ]/[..., into a ball].
b. John painted the barn [Dp a fiery red].

As noted by Simpson (1983, p. 153, fn. 2), DPs are least com m on. She proposes
that semantically a result X P must denote a property, generally thought to be stage-
level (Gucron and Hoekstra, 1995, pp. 9 9 -10 3), i.e. it holds for specific temporal
intervals rather than the entire existence o f the individual. In general AdjPs and PPs
do this, but DPs rarely do, although color terms (the most oft-cited result DPs) do.
Resultatives typically indicate a change-of-state, though it is also generally thought
(see e.g. G oldberg and Jackendolf, 2004, pp. 539-540, inter alia) that motion Vs with
PPs indicating goals also constitute resultatives (e.g. He walked/ran (to the store)).
The most oft-cited resultatives have transitive Vs, with the X P predicating o f the
object:

(4) O B JEC T -O R IEN T ED T R A N S IT IV E A C T IV E

a. John hammered the metal flat.
b. John swept the floor clean.

Verbs found in this pattern largely encode change-of-state (e.g. breakcrack , bend)
and surface contact (e.g. sweep, rub , wipe) (Simpson, 1983, p. 143). The X P is still licensed
if the V is passivized, with the X P now predicated o f the surface subject (e.g. The metal
was hammered flat (by John)). Otherwise, XPs generally do not predicate o f matrix
subjects (with some exceptions below), nor o f obliques or indirect objects (e.g. *Hegave
her a book tired or *He shot at her dead on resultative readings; Simpson, 1983, p. 147).
Resultatives also occur with intransitives, but with m ore variety in types o f
constructions. Unaccusatives, by and large those intransitives that take a single
patient argument, m ay occur with a result XP, where the m atrix subject is the sub­
ject o f the X P and there is no object.

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9 10 ASPECT

(5) BAREXP
a. The lake froze solid.
b. The vase broke open.

Unergatives, by and large intransitives with a single actor/agent argument, in general

only take XPs if a direct object not normally subcategorized for by the V is added (reflex­
ive non-subcategorized objects are often called “fake reflexives”; Simpson, 1983, p. 145):

(6) UNERGATIVE+FAKE REFLEXIVE/N ON-SUBCATEGORI2 ED OBJECT

a. i. We searched the woods and cliffs, yelled ourselves hoarse and imagined you
drowned . . . [M. Wesley, A Sensible Life, 327]
ii. Well, the conclusion was that my mistress grumbled herself calm. [E. Bronte,
Wuthering Heights, 78] (Levin and Rappaport Hovav, 1995, p. 35, (4a,b))
b. i. The jogger ran his Nikes threadbare.
ii. So, then, did Bush lie us into war? [K. Rove, Courage and Consequence, New
York: Threshold Editions, p. 340]

That these objects are obligatory and not normally subcategorized for by the V
is indicated by the fact that without the result XP or without the object these
sentences are ungrammatical:

(7) a. *We yelled ourselves.

b. *We yelled hoarse.
c. *Bush lied us.
d. *Bush lied into war.

As Goldberg and Jackendoff (2004, pp. 546-547) note, non-subcategorized

reflexives and full DPs are not always interchangeable (cp. Bill cried himself /*Sue to
sleep). However, the conditions determining when each is appropriate are pragmatic
in nature, suggesting that they form a natural class, with reflexives used when the
subject of the XP refers back to the matrix subject.
Some transitive Vs occur with non-subcategorized objects in place of the
default object:

(8) OBJECT DROP+NON-SUBCATEGORIZED OBJECT

a. The bankers drank the pub *(dry).
b. Sudsy cooked them all *(into a premature death) with her wild food. [P. Chute, 1987,
Castine. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, p. 78]
(Rappaport Hovav and Levin, 2001, p. 788, (56b))

Such transitives, however, usually have intransitive variants (cp. The bankers
drank ($25 martinis )), so that it is possible to derive this pattern from their intransi­
tive variants by the same process yielding (6). In general, transitives that do not
permit object drop do not allow this pattern, though Hoekstra (1988) offers a few
putative counterexamples:

(9 ) a. He washed the soap *(out of his eyes).

b. He shaved his hair *(ofF). (Hoekstra, 1988, p. 116, (35a, b))
RESULTATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 911

H ow ever, Levin and R appaport ITovav (1991; 1995, pp. 65-68) argue that the
uses in (9) represent a distinct sense o f these V s in d icatin g rem oval, thus licen sing
the particular argum ent structure.
There are four other con struction s w hich are som etim es grouped together w ith
resultatives:

(10) a. X s Way: John talked his way into the part. (JackendofF, 1990, pp. 211-223)
b. V ER B-PA R T IC LE: John broke a branch off. (Bolinger, 1971)
c. Time-Away: John drank the afternoon away. (JackendofF, 1997)
d. To X s Death: John fell to his death. (Goldberg, 1991; Tsuzuki, 2003)

H ow ever, the c o n d itio n s on each are ty p ica lly so m ew h at m o re sp ecific than

an d /or d istin ct fro m the c a n o n ic a l resu ltatives ab ove. In X s Way c o n stru ctio n s,
u n lik e o th er c o n stru c tio n s w ith n o n -su b c a te g o riz e d o b jects, the p red icatio n o f a
result state is on the su b ject, not the o b ject. V e rb -P a rtic le c o n stru ctio n s have
fre e r w ord ord er, are n ot n e ce ssa rily c o m p o sitio n a l, and do n ot n e ce ssa rily
alw ays en co d e a resu lt, and Tim e-Aw ay c o n stru c tio n s m o re or less n ever entail a
resu lt. To X s Death c o n stru c tio n s are h ig h ly p a rtic u la riz e d , g en era lly in d icatin g
m o vem en t to a sp ecific lo cation o f o n e s d eath . I set th ese asid e fo r presen t
p u rp o se s.
Before turning to event composition, I discuss several orthogonal issues that
m ay provide relevant background information. First is whether resultatives are
derived through productive compositional means or are lexicalized. Crucially, it is
not always predictable which XPs and/or Vs m ay form resultatives, as in (11) (Green,
1972, pp. 83-84, (6b), (7b); Boas, 2003, p. 137, (5.38)):

(11) a. He wiped it clean/dry/smooth/,*damp/*dirty/,*stained/*wct.

b. The solider struck/??hit/*injured the civilian dead.

W hile the unattested cases m ay correspond to plausible events, they are ruled
out or at least m arked. I discuss som e putative explanations for this below, but a
general consensus is that resultatives m ust be lexicalized to som e degree, though
authors disagree as to how m uch. B oas (2003) concludes that no generative account
o f resultatives can explain such restrictions and thus they m ust be fu lly lexicalized,
w hile D ow ty (1979, pp. 298-301, 307-309) argues that one can still have a theory o f
the lexicon by w h ich attested resultatives are subject to rule-based constraints, but it
is a m atter o f convention w h ich are lexicalized. Few accounts discussed below are
incom patible with som e degree o f lexical idiosyncrasy, and I generally ignore the
issue.
The distinction between subjects o f XPs that are independently selected for by
the V vs. those that are not, which W'echsler (1997, p. 309, (5)) labels “C ontrol” vs.
“ Exceptional Case M arking (E C M ) ” resultatives respectively, has also attracted
considerable attention. A key source o f debate is whether all o f these DPs constitute
arguments o f the V, based on standard argum enthood tests, such as the ability to be
predicated o f by the corresponding adjectival passive, the ability to be preposed in
middle constructions, of-PP realization in nom inalizations, etc. However, different

М атеріал, захищ ений авторськи м правом

9 12 AS PEC T

authors have different judgments for the relevant data, and draw different conclu­
sions from them. Goldberg (1995, pp. 182-185) and Rothstein (2004, p. 81) argue
that all subjects o f XPs are arguments o f the V, Carrier and Randall (1992, pp. 186-
205) and Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995, pp. 42-48) argue that only subjects of
XPs in control resultatives are arguments of the V, and Hoekstra (1988) argues that
subjects of XPs are never arguments o f the V, even in control resultatives. Another
issue is the argumentai status o f the result XP. Since Simpson (1983, p. 151) it has
been assumed that the result XP (or a constituent containing it) is a complement of
the V, or, at least, is not a canonical adjunct (see also Carrier and Randall, 1992, pp.
183-185; Levin and Rappaport Hovav, 1995, pp. 48-50; and Rothstein, 2004, pp.
60-65).4 For example, XPs show selectional restrictions based on the V, do not
survive do so ellipsis, occur before proper adverbials, and generate weak Subja-
cency effects (rather than Empty Category Principle effects) in extraction from
Islands.
A leading idea due to Simpson (1983, p. 146) is that the XP must predicate of the
logical object of the clause, what Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995, p. 34) call the
Direct Object Restriction (DOR). Evidence for the DOR is found in the data above:
whenever there has been a surface object it is the subject of the XP. Likewise, when
the surface subject is the subject o f the XP—passives and unaccusatives—it is usu­
ally assumed that the subject is an underlying object that surfaced as subject for
syntactic reasons. This also explains non-subcategorized objects: if the V has no
object, one must be added in a resultative construction to satisfy the DOR. But
what explains the DOR? Syntactic approaches (Mateu, 2005; Hoekstra, 1988) have
assumed it follows from the position o f the XP: if the XP is VP-internal, its subject
must also be, due to mutual c-command or specifier-hood requirements on predi­
cation, making it the object. However, Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995, pp.
48-49) argue that defining the exact syntactic constraints on predication is difficult,
and suggest instead a hybrid approach: since the subject of the result X P is a patient,
it is subject to a general constraint making patients objects. Either way, the DOR
emerges.
However, there are counterexamples to the DO R which call it into question
even as a descriptive generalization (Verspoor, 1997; Wechsler, 1997; Rappaport
Hovav and Levin, 2001). First, there are unergatives that may occur with Bare XPs,
although these typically involve motion Vs:

(12) John danced to the other side o f the room.

This pervasive pattern led Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995, pp. 182-202) to
suggest that manner of motion V s systematically show both unergative and unaccu­
sative behavior, an account they extend to unergative sound emission V s (e.g. whistle,
rumble), which also permit Bare XPs, albeit almost exclusively in motion contexts
(e.g. The bullet whistled out of the room).5
Likewise, there are transitives where the XP “skips” the object to predicate of
the subject:6
R ESU LTA TIV E CONSTRUCTIONS 913

(13) SU B JE C T -O R IE N T E D T R A N S IT IV E A C T IV E
a. i. The wise men followed the star out o f Bethlehem.
ii. ’Ihe sailors managed to catch a breeze and ride it clear o f the rocks.
iii. He followed Lassie free o f his captors. (Wechsler, 1997, p. 313, (15))
b. i. John danced mazurkas across the room.
ii. John swam laps to exhaustion.
iii. The children played leapfrog across the park. (Verspoor, 1997, p. 151, (4.102))

To account for this, Wechsler suggests again that the subject o f the X P must be
a patient, but that patients can be realized as subjects under specific circumstances
(see also Van Valin, 1990; Goldberg, 1995, p. 180; Rappaport I lovav and Levin, 2001).
He also extends the notion o f “patient” to some arguments o f Vs that do not change
but could, and Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2001, pp. 786-787) subsume actual and
potential patients under a notion o f being a “ force recipient” (which takes the brunt
o f the action and could change as a result; see also Beavers, 2011). This helps explain
which argument o f the V is the subject o f the X P in control resultatives: it is the
force recipient, and if there is none, one must be added. On this analysis the D O R
emerges as a tendency, for the simple reason that patients tend to be objects.7
A nother point o f variation is between X Ps that indicate change-of-state vs.
those (typically PPs) that indicate change-of-location. As Simpson (1983, p. 147)
notes, change-of-location V s rarely occur with change-of-state X P s as in (14a),
although the opposite is possible as in (14b).

(14) a. *She carried John giddy. (Simpson, 1983, p. 147, (31))

b. We broke the walnuts into the bowl. (Goldberg, 1991, p. 376, (41))

G oldberg (1995, pp. 85-86) analyzes (14) via a U nique Path Constraint (UPC]; p.
82), which says any participant that undergoes motion (literal or abstract) cannot
move along two distinct paths at once (cp. the unique delimiters constraint o f Tenny,
1994, p. 79). In (14a) John would have to move along a physical path and an (abstract)
giddiness path at once, while (14b) is possible, she argues, because break does not
involve a m etaphorical path, but rather a simple state change (though see Beavers,
2011 for an alternative analysis o f break). Conversely, Rappaport H ovav and Levin
(i 995 » PP- 6 0 -6 1) argue that there are two entities changing (the walnut breaks and
the nutmeat moves), yielding no U P C violation. M ore broadly, semantic com pati­
bility is likely a factor: breaking may naturally yield motion (Tortora, 1998), but
carrying does not naturally yield giddiness (cp. the Canonical Result Constraint of
Wechsler, 1997, p. 311, (10)).
Finally, there has been con sid erab le cro ss-lin g u istic literatu re on resultatives,
w hich fo r reasons o f sp ace I m en tion o n ly briefly. T his w ork has g en erally focu sed
on three core areas. First is the cro ss-lin g u istic availab ility o f resu ltatives, w hich
seem s to be su b ject to p aram etric v a ria tio n . For exam ple, w h ile G e rm a n ic la n ­
guages allow them relatively freely, several lan gu ages lack (fu lly p ro d u ctive) re su l­
tatives, in clu d in g R o m an ce lan gu ages (L ev in and R a p o p o rt, 1988) (th ou gh Italian
has so m e lim ited exam p les; N ap o li, 1992; Folli and H arley, 2006). A ske (1989) ties

laterial com direitos autorais

914 ASPECT

the availability o f resultatives to Talmy s (1975) typology of directed motion encod­

ing, where languages that allow manner of motion verbs to occur with phrases
expressing the goal o f motion also allow resultatives. This is often explained as
parametric availability o f some interpretive, lexical, or morphosyntactic resource
common to both constructions (see e.g. Beck and Snyder, 2001).8 Snyder (2001) in
particular argues that resultatives are generated by the same rule deriving N-N
compounds, predicting their co-variance. Washio (1997) further distinguishes
“strong” vs. "weak” resultatives, the former formed from activity Vs and the latter
from Vs that already entail/implicate a result. Japanese, he suggests, has only weak
resultatives, while English has both strong and weak resultatives, corresponding
to a Talmyan split. The second major issue is that, even among languages that ac­
tually have resultatives, there is variation in the types they have (e.g. from among
those listed above). For example, Korean lacks ECM resultatives (Wechsler and
Noh, 2000), while Chinese has more object-drop non-subcategorized object
resultatives than English, as well as greater flexibility in allowing subject-oriented
transitive resultatives (Li, 1993; Williams, 2008a). The third and final issue is the
relationship o f resultatives to other means o f expressing complex events, including
serial verbs (Larson, 1991; Collins, 1997), V-V compounds (see e.g. Matsumoto,
1996 on Japanese), and other morphological processes (see e.g. Spencer and
Zaretskaya, 1998 on Russian verbal prefixes).
With this summary in place, I now turn to the nature o f the event composition
process.

3. V i e w s on Ev e n t C o m p o sit io n : T h e
C la ssic A c c o m p l ish m e n t A n a l y sis

As noted above, a key fact to be explained is how the juxtaposition o f the V and XP
produces a complex event. Dating back to at least Dowty (1979, pp. 93-94, 219-229),
a leading assumption has been that resultatives represent derived lexical accom­
plishment, i.e. those predicates that describe a change-of-state that arises due to an
extended process (Vendler, 1957, pp. 98-103). On the analysis Dowty gives in Chap­
ter 2 o f his (1979) book, accomplishments have an event structure in which some
causing event of which the subject is an actor causes a change of-state event o f the
object. For example, lexical activities (unbounded processes) represent simple pred­
icates as in (15a), while a lexical accomplishment indicates a (perhaps unspecified)
process on the part of the subject causing a change-of-state o f the object as in (15b).
A resultative is identical, save that the causing process is named by the V and the
result by the X P as in (15c).9

(15) a. John wiped the floor. wipe'(j, f)

b. John cleaned the floor. 3 P[i,(j) CAUSE BECOME(clean'(f))]
c. John wiped the floor clean, [wipe'fj, f) CAUSE BECOME(clean'(f))]
R E S U L T A T I V E CO N S T R U C T I O N S 915

Evidence for this parallel comes from the fact that resultatives and lexical
accomplishments pattern together—and unlike activities—in terms of telicity,
adverb scope, and causation diagnostics. For telicity, lexical accomplishments and
resultatives are both more acceptable with in than fo r temporal modifiers, and give
rise to the imperfective paradox, unlike activities:10

(16) a. John wiped the floor for/??in an hour.

b. John cleaned the floor in/?for an hour.
c. John wiped the floor dean in/?for an hour, (on intended readings)
(17) a. John is wiping the floor => John has wiped the floor.
b. John is cleaning the floor John has cleaned the floor.
c. John is wiping the floor clean John has wiped the floor clean.

Furthermore, lexical accomplishments and resultatives pattern together in

having similar interpretations with scopal adverbs such as fo r an hour, almost, or
again, standard evidence for a decompositional semantics where the change
event is recursively embedded in a larger event, allowing a modifier to scope
either over the embedding or embedded event. For example, with activities
again generally allows only a repetitive reading wherein the entire event oc­
curred before, but with lexical accomplishments and resultatives it allows both a
repetitive reading and a restitutive reading where the result state is restored,
regardless o f any prior action.

(18) a. John wiped the floor again. (repetitive only)

b. John cleaned the floor again. (repetitive or restitutive)
c. John wiped the floor clean again. (repetitive or restitutive)

Finally, evidence for the causal analysis comes from the fact that resultatives are
generally amenable to a paraphrase in which the causation is highlighted, as in the
following for (15c):

(19) a. John’s wiping caused the floor to be clean.

b. John caused the floor to be clean by wiping it.

Likewise, the specific causal relation for both resultatives and lexical causatives
must be “direct” causation—the causing event leads directly to the caused event
with no intermediate event. Kratzer (2005) gives a lucid description of this following
Ginet (1990, p. 59), distinguishing an event that causes another event from an event
o f causing another event. Consider (20).

(20) I drank the teapot dry.

Kratzer notes that (20) cannot be true if, for example, I drank all o f the water
in the well, causing the teapot to be dry (there being no water to put in it). In other
words, the causing event in (20) is not just any event that causes the teapot to be
dry (if we adopt e.g. a counterfactual view of causation a la Lewis, 1973). Rather,
(20) describes a single event that subsumes whatever event the subject of (20)
9 16 ASPECT

performs and all subsequent causal events leading up to and including the dryness
of the teapot (defined formally in terms o f a convex causal chain between the two
events). The same is true for a lexical causative such as I emptied/dried (out) the
teapot, but not for a periphrastic causative such as I caused the teapot to be dry or
M y drinking all the well water caused the teapot to be dry, which allow the reading
not allowed by (20).11
Thus the event structures for resultatives seem to be identical to those o f lexical
accomplishments. Indeed, on this view resultatives justify a bi-eventive analysis of
lexical causatives by providing overt evidence for the existence o f the causing and
caused events. This being said, not all views on accomplishments involve both cau­
sation and change, a point I return to below. But tentatively assuming they do, the
question is how to derive this analysis from the eventualities denoted by the V and
XP separately. Attempts to state the appropriate constraints have been wide and
varied. Some of the differences are largely to do with particular theoretical frame­
works. Lexicalist approaches (Dowty, 1979; JackendofF, 1990; Van Valin, 1990; Levin
and Rappaport Hovav, 1991,1995,1999; Pustejovsky, 1991; Wechsler, 1997; Rappaport
Hovav and Levin, 1998, 2001) assume that event decomposition is lexical in nature
and that resultative formation occurs in the lexicon or is at least restricted by pos­
sible lexicalized event structures. Non-lexicalist approaches can be distinguished
between those that assume a phrase structural account o f decomposition (typically
in the Principles and Parameters tradition; Hale and Keyser, 1993, 2002; von Ste-
chow, 1995; Rapoport, 1999; Embick, 2004; Folli and Harley, 2004» 2006; Mateu,
2005; Ramchand, 2008) and those that assume event or argument structural con­
structions as basic primitives (Goldberg, 1991,1995; Goldberg and JackendofF, 2004;
Boas, 2003; Iwata, 2006).
Rather than resolving these theoretical issues, I focus instead on challenges all
approaches face in giving a unified, aspectually-based analysis for resultatives. A
key difficulty is that there are two cross-cutting distinctions that make stating a
single unified analysis difficult. First is the aspectual class o f the V —whether it
denotes an activity or a change (heading an accomplishment/achievement).12 The
second is argument sharing between the V and XP events, i.e. control vs. ECM
resultatives, the former found mainly with unaccusatives, passives (which I ignore),
and transitive causatives, and the latter with unergative Vs (or transitives permit­
ting object drop). Assuming unaccusatives have underlying objects, they can be
subsumed with causatives, giving the basic typology in (21) of types of Vs and their
associated resultatives.

(21) Control Resultative ECM Resultative

Change V Causative/Unaccusative (e.g., break, crack) N/A
Activity V Transitive (e.g., hammer, wipe) Unergative (e.g., cry, run)

For change Vs, the standard assumption is that the XP further specifies the
change inherent in the V and thus the V and resultative have the same event struc­
ture, indicating a caused change-of-state. For activities a new caused change-of-state
R E S U L T A T I V E C O N S T R UC T I O NS 917

event must be built from the V and XP. Devising one process accommodating all of
these cases is difficult, since it must take into account different sorts of Vs and ensure
the appropriate event structure (and syntax) is built. I briefly cover some major trends.
The case-by-case approach would be to posit one rule for each V type. Dowty
(i 979 >PP- 219-229) analyzes resultatives as derived transitive Vs produced by one of
two lexical rules—one for transitive activity Vs that stipulates argument sharing
(control, e.g. hammer flat) and one for intransitives that does not (ECM; e.g. run
threadbare). The output event structure for both is caused change-of-state as in
(15c), with V denoting the causing event and XP the result. (He does not discuss
change Vs, but a third rule could be added.)
An alternative is to posit fewer rules/constructions covering just some types of
Vs, and assimilate other V types to those. Approaches along this line either assimi­
late activity Vs to change Vs or vice versa. Hoekstra (1988), Pustejovsky (1991), von
Stechow (1995)» Wunderlich (1997a), Kratzer (2005), and Mateu (2005), inter alia
opt for an approach in which change Vs are assimilated to activity Vs. For example,
Hoekstra analyzes resultatives as non-stative V s subcategorized (lexically or by lex­
ical rule) for a small clause (SC) complement, where the V always indicates the
process/activity that leads up to the result denoted by the SC.

(22) a. John ran [sc his Nikes threadbare]. (Unergative)

b. John hammered [sc the metal flat]. (Transitive activity/causative)
c. The bottle; broke [sc t. open]. (Unaccusative)

On such approaches Vs always denote process and XPs states, giving two of the
three ingredients for the event structure in (15c). The process for combining them,
however, must supply causal/delimiting semantics, and how this is done varies (lex-
icalized interpretation for Hoekstra, 1988, interpretative rules for von Stechow, 1995,
type-raising for Pustejovsky, 1991 and Wunderlich, 1997a, intervening causal heads
for Kratzer, 2005, etc.).
Small clause variants o f this approach furthermore deny the existence of con­
trol resultatives, assimilating them to the ECM pattern. However, this means the V
could denote a process in which its patient differs semantically from the subject of
the XP, i.e. (22b) could have a meaning “Johns hammering something made the
metal flat” Hoekstra (1988, pp. 117-118) argues that control readings arise pragmat­
ically and are cancellable (e.g. (22b) could be true in a context where John ham­
mered a wooden board, under which is the metal). But as Carrier and Randall (1992,
p. 187) argue this is not always possible (e.g. The bears frightened the campers sense­
less never allows a reading where the bears frighten anything other than the
campers), weakening this analysis. Non-SC variants of this approach may instead
provide some mechanism for argument sharing. Carrier and Randall (1992) adopt a
ternary branching structure, while Pustejovsky (1991) and Wunderlich (1997a) as­
sume that two semantic arguments can map to the same DP.
Similarly, all such approaches predict that change Vs should allow a reading
where the XP denotes a change different from that encoded by the V, e.g. (22c) could
have a reading “Somethings breaking opened the bottle”. To account for this, some
918 ASPECT

have argued instead that change Vs+XPs are not actually resultatives (at least of the
same type as with activity Vs), but rather the XP is an adjunct that further specifies
the V ’s result state (see Iwata, 2006 for an extended discussion, also Pustejovsky,
1991; Rapoport, 1999; Horrocks and Stavrou, 2003; Kratzer, 2005).13 Common
evidence is the fact that such XPs may be substituted by how-type wh-XPs:

(23) a. How did s/he cut the onion? Thin.

b. How did s/he wipe the table? *Clean. (cf. Horrocks and Stavrou, 2003, p. 317, (22))

Kratzer suggests that the XPs are AdvP modifiers, but this is difficult to defend in
light of the evidence discussed above that the result XP behaves like a complement.
Furthermore, Broccias (2004) (see also Geuder, 2000; Broccias, 2008, pp. 33-34;
Levinson, 2010). distinguishes resultative AdvPs (e.g. cutx thinly) from AdjPs (e.g. cut
x thin), and suggests that they have slightly different distributions: AdvPs indicate
subjective aspects of the event (from the speaker/hearers point o f view) and AdjPs
objective properties o f the patient, so that one cannot be collapsed to the other.14 Iwata
argues that the XPs are AdjPs, but are "argument adjuncts” that pass complement-
hood tests. In any event, the semantic distinction between types of Vs makes stating a
single rule difficult if the V is assumed to denote an activity to which a result is added.
The alternative is thus to assume the V always denotes a change, and assimilate
activity Vs to change Vs (Goldberg, 1992, pp. 77-79; Wechsler, 19971 Rothstein, 2004,
PP- 59-9o)- For example, the Resultative Conjunction rule o f Rothstein (2004, pp.
75-88) says the XP event must be contemporaneous with the culmination of the V
event, presupposing that the V has a culmination, something inherently true of
change Vs. For activities she posits a type-shifting rule that maps the V to a change
V by adding an unspecified result, after which Resultative Conjunction applies.15
Capturing the ECM/control distinction, however, requires additional machinery.
Rothstein assumes two type-shifting rules. Wechsler instead relies on underspecifi­
cation in the resultative rule (which augments the V s argument structure with the
XP). If the BECOME predicates encoded by the V and XP unify, so do their argu­
ments, generating a control resultative. If not, a separate rule guaranteeing that all
predicative XPs have a subject inserts a DP onto the argument structure o f the V,
generating ECM. (Wechsler does not assume nor discuss causal semantics, while
Rothstein does not assume causation is necessary for resultatives; see the next sec­
tion.) Jackendoff (1990, pp. 225-241) also utilizes underspecification in a similar way.
In all of the above approaches, whatever processes give rise to resultatives, they
must be constrained so as to generate event structures that correspond to lexical
accomplishments. A more direct way to handle this has been to piggy-back on ones
typology o f possible lexemes (an approach not incompatible with those above,
though not always necessarily assumed). For example, Rappaport Hovav and Levin
(1998, p. 111, (23)) posit the rule in (24) that restricts possible derived event struc­
tures to only those allowed in the inventory o f basic lexemes:

(24) Template Augmentation: Event structure templates may be freely augmented up to

other possible templates in the basic inventory of event structure templates.
R E S U L T A T I V E C O N S T R UC T I O NS 919

Thus the event type of the V+XP combination can only be one that is indepen­
dently attested in a lexical, dynamic V, which on their approach is limited to (25)
(modified slightly from p. 108):

(25) a. Activities: [x ACT<JttumM> (y)]

b. Achievements: [BECOME [x<STATE>]j
c. Accomplishments: [x CAUSE [BECOME [y <STATE>]]]
d. Accomplishments: [[x ACT<manner> (y) ] CAUSE [ BECOME [z <STATE>]]]

Only the templates in (25b-d) can accommodate both the V and XP events. The
question of how different V types form resultatives simply becomes one o f compat­
ibility with the types in (25b-d). An activity V ’s template can only be augmented up
to (25d), where the V fills in the manner and the XP the state (and both are required
by a constraint ensuring each subevent is expressed by a head). A control resultative
arises if y = z and an ECM resultative arises ify * z. They do not discuss resultatives
with change Vs in detail, but if the V contributes an event structure as in (25b-c),
the X P presumably just fills in the state. A control resultative always arises because
the subject o f the XP is already an argument o f the V. (See also Wunderlich, 1997b
and Neeleman and van de Koot, 2002 for a somewhat related approaches.)
In syntactified and/or constructional approaches to event structure similar
analyses arise. For example, Folli and Harley (2004) (see also Embick, 2004) posit a
phrase structure consisting of a causal head v that takes a causer as its specifier and
a result-denoting SC as its complement as in (26). Either the result head merges
with v, giving a lexical causative as in (26a), or an activity-encoding root can be in­
corporated onto v, giving a resultative as in (26b).16

(26) a. [John [dean.+v [the floor t.]]]

b. [John [wipe+v [the floor clean]]]

Thus again parallel event structures follow from a common set of ingredients.17
However, despite the pervasiveness o f the lexical caused change-of-state
analysis, recent work has challenged this view. I turn to this next, looking first at
causation and then change-of-state. What emerges is that few aspectual factors
exhaust the possible event structures found with resultatives. An open question is
how to predict which factors are relevant for a given resultative, and how well this
aligns with the event structures found in lexical predicates.

4. T e m p o r a l R e la t io n s B e t w een

Su b e v e n t s — C a u sa t io n a n d it s Pro blem s

The first question is what links the two events denoted by the V and XP together. On
the classic view it is causation. However, while most resultatives are causal in nature,
not all are (Jackendoff, 1990, p. 239; Pustejovsky, 1991; Goldberg, 1995, p. 191; Levin
920 ASPECT

and Rappaport Hovav, 1999; Rappaport Hovav and Levin, 2001). The core examples
are resultatives with unaccusatives as in (27) from Levin and Rappaport ITovav
(1999, p. 206, (12)), which they claim resist causative paraphrases (e.g. the freezing
and solidifying events in (27a) are not conceptually distinct):

(27) a. The pond froze solid. *■ ‘The pond got solid/solidified by freezing.’
b. The bottle broke open * ‘The bottle opened by breaking.’

Likewise, these resultatives and the underlying Vs are not syntactically causa­
tive, although some researchers have nonetheless assigned underlying causers to
them (see Levin and Rappaport ITovav, 1995, p. 108; Wunderlich, 1997b; Neeleman
and van do Koot, 2002, inter alia). Furthermore, even with resultatives that do have
causal readings, it is not always the case that the event denoted by the V causes the
state denoted by the XP. C onsider (28).

(28) Smith cut the bread into thick slices. (Rapoport, 1999, p. 671, (42a))

As Rapoport argues, it is not that an event o f cutting the bread caused the bread
to go into a state o f being thick slices (as would be predicted by the simple Dowtyan
analysis). Rather, this is an event o f cutting the bread, where the final state o f cutted-
ness is that o f being in thick slices.
Furtherm ore, there are resultatives w here the change denoted by the X P
causes the activity denoted by the V, the reverse o f the typical pattern. As Ver-
sp o or (1997, pp. 1 1 4 - 1 1 7 ) , Levin and Rappaport H ovav (1999, p. 2 10 ), and G o ld ­
berg and Jackendoff (2004, p. 541) note, with sound em ission Vs in motion
constructions as in (29) the sound em ission does not cause the change o f lo ca ­
tion. Rather, the appropriate paraphrase is that the m otion causes the sound
em ission.

(29) a. The truck rumbled into the driveway. * ‘The truck’s rum bling caused it to be in the
driveway.’ (cp. The trucks m oving into the driveway caused it to rumble.)
b. The bullets whistled past the house. =* ‘The bullets whistling caused it to be past
the house.’ (cp. The bullet’s m oving past the house caused it to whistle.)

T h is predicts that if the sound denoted by the V cannot be caused by m o ­

tion, a resultative is unacceptable:18

(30) a. *The car honked down the road.

b. *The dog barked out o f the room. (Goldberg and Jackendoff, 2004, p. 540, (i8a,b))

Thus not all resultatives indicate causation, and those that do are not consis­
tent in the direction o f causation. Em ergent from this (and consistent with the
idea that resultatives reflect independently lexicalized event structures) is that
am ong change Vs, the presence and role o f causation in the m eaning o f the V
determ ines its presence in the resultative: if intransitive change V s have no cau ­
sation, neither will the resultative, and for transitive change V s the causation in
the resultative is the one contributed by the V, so that the entire V event is not
interpreted as causing the change denoted by the XP. Change V s and resultatives

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RESULTATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 921

w ithout causation, however, require a different notion o f accom plishm ent than
the classic one, i.e. one that does not have causation as part o f its definition. But
this is not unusual. D o w ty h im self abandoned the causal analysis o f accom p lish­
ments in the less often cited third chapter o f his book, opting instead for one
based on intervals over w hich change occurs. However, for resultatives with ac­
tivity Vs the problem is m ore com plicated, because the directionality o f cau sa­
tion is som etim es reversed, and som etim es causation is replaced by other
relations. Indeed, this is the one place w here the lexical accom plishm ent/resulta-
tive correlation breaks dow n: in (29) the change causes the V activity, and I am
not aware o f any lexical V where this occurs. On the basis o f this variety, G o ld ­
berg and Jacken doff (2004) assum e that resultatives represent a fam ily o f co n ­
structions, each determ ining a different bi-eventive relationship. An open
question is w hether there is a m ore principled explanation that predicts when
causation does and does not arise, what the causal relationship is when it does,
and what replaces causation when it does not.
One novel approach to event composition without causation is proposed by
Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2001) (see also Levin and Rappaport Hovav, 1999).
They argue that in Bare X P patterns the eventualities denoted by the V and X P must
be temporally dependent (i.e. “coextensive and unfold at the same rate,” p. 775).
Conversely, in EC M patterns they need not be temporally dependent, but rather the
event denoted by the V m ay occur prior to the X P state:

(31) Sam sang enthusiastically during the class play. He woke up hoarse the next day and said,
“Well, I guess I’ve sung m yself hoarse.”
(Rappaport Hovav and Levin, 2001, p. 775, (24))

In such cases, they suggest, it is possible for temporal rate modifiers like quickly
to target just the result or just the process, som ething not possible with unaccusative
control patterns:

(32) a. #Tracy ran quickly to the library, but it took her a long time to get there since she
took a circuitous route,
b. Peter quickly read him self into an inferiority complex, after a few slow deliberate
readings o f his classmates’ theses.
(Rappaport Hovav and Levin, 2001, pp. 776(1'., (29))

Further evidence comes from m inim al pairs as in (33), in which a single V can
show either pattern, generating two slightly different construals o f the event.

(33) a. One woman gets up to leave, but Red-Eyes grabs her roughly by the arm and pulls
her into his lap. She wriggles free, but remains seated obediently beside him. [The
Ottawa Citizen, 30 Nov. 1997, p. Dio]
b. M r Duggan became alarmed about being caught in the door o f a lift which was
about to begin its descent and wriggled him self free. [The Irish Times, 2 Dec. 1994,
p. 4] (Rappaport Hovav and Levin, 2001, p. 777, (32))

In (33a) temporal dependency arises, where the wriggling results in increased

freedom from the grip, while (33b) allows a reading where the w riggling results in

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922 ASPECT

no longer being caught in the door, with freedom as a natural but not immediate
result, nor does it increase over time.
R app ap ort H ovav and Levin analyze tem poral d ep en d en cy in term s o f event
co-id en tificatio n : in the intransitive control patterns the V and X P events are
co -id en tified , but not in the E C M pattern, although such an interpretation is
not ruled out, so that the E C M pattern sem antically subsum es the control p at­
tern. T h e licensing factors on each are thus G ricean in nature: a blockin g effect
arises so that when the two events are necessarily tem porally dependent, the
control pattern is preferred, as in directed m an n er o f m otion , predicting that
E C M predicates will not describe such events (R ap p ap ort H ovav and Levin,
2 0 0 1, p. 782, (43)):

(34) Robin danced ??(herself) out o f the room.

Event co-id entification also explains the Bare X P vs. E C M contrast: R appaport
H ovav and Levin assum e a condition that ensures one argum ent X P per subevent.
W hen event co-identification occurs there is just one event and thus on ly one argu ­
m ent X P is needed, g ivin g rise to the Bare X P pattern. O th erw ise, two argum ent
X P s are needed, givin g rise to E C M .
This represents a wholly new aspectual take on resultatives, as it equates the
significant component o f event complexity not with causation, but rather temporal
dependency. However, this approach falls short o f giving a full account o f resulta­
tives. First, as Rappaport Hovav and Levin acknowledge, transitive control resulta­
tives m ay or m ay not reflect co-identification, as in (35a) and (35b) respectively (the
form er also not admitting a causative paraphrase):

(35) a. We all pulled the crate out o f the water,

b. Clara rocked the baby to sleep.
(Rappaport Hovav and Levin, 2001, p. 793, (b.i), (c.i))

Rappaport Hovav and Levin suggest event identification in (35a) has to do with
the nature o f exerting force, though this explanation does not necessarily scale up.
For example, John watered the tulips fla t does not involve exertion o f force, yet
requires temporal dependency.
Second, on their account, provided an event has an interpretation o f co-identi­
fication, a Bare X P should be possible, yet som e unergatives categorically resist it, as
in (36) (their (18)).

(36) * Penny fretted/laughed/played sick/into the room.

One could imagine a particular context where som eone had a physiological
condition in which continuous fretting or laughing m ade one sicker and sicker, yet
(36) does not improve.
Third, G oldberg and Jackendoff (2004, pp. 545-546) take issue with the idea
that temporal independence perm its temporal gaps between the V and X P eventu­
alities. For example, they argue that in (31) the hoarseness must have started at the

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R E S U L T A T I V E C O N S T R UC T I O NS 923

end o f the singing, even if Sam did not notice it until later. This, they argue, puts
resultatives in line with lexical accom plishm ents, w hich, unlike periphrastic causa­
tives, require tem poral adjacency, illustrated in (37) (their (31)).

(37) a. Sue made Bill die on Thursday by poisoning his breakfast on Wednesday,
b. *Sue killed Bill on Thursday by poisoning his breakfast on Wednesday.

R appaport H ovav and Levin (2001, p. 783) argue that their analysis is the one
m ore in line w ith lexical causatives, giving (38) (their (44a)) as a causative allow ing
tem poral non-adjacency:

(38) The widow murdered her guest by putting arsenic in his coffee.

M y judgm ents are that (37b) is gram m atical, but i f there are speakers w ho do
n ot accept it, and disagree also on (31), another question is how free tem poral in d e­
penden ce can really be.
Finally, w hile causation is not n ecessary for resultatives, R appaport H ovav and
Levin do not explain when it does arise and why. T hey suggest that tem poral in d e­
penden ce requires causation, but it is not clear w hen else it is required. F o r exam ple,
thou gh Bare X P s generally do not allow causal paraphrases, som e do (Levin and
R ap p ap ort Hovav, 1999, p. 206, (13a), (14a)):

(39) a. The clothes steamed dry = “The clothes became dry by steaming.”
b. Casey waltzed out of the room. = “Casey went out of the room by waltzing.”

Thus in sum , w hile tem poral dependency offers a new perspective on event
com plexity for Bare X P and E C M patterns, its relationship to causation, the role
causation still plays in resultatives, and a proper analysis o f transitives are still open
questions. I now turn change-of-state and telicity in resultatives, begin nin g w ith
another tem poral dependency approach.

5. C h a n g e -o f -S t a t e , D u r a t iv it y , and

T e l ic it y in R e su lt a t iv e s

W echsler (2005a) (see also Vanden W yngaerd 20 0 1; Beavers, 2002, 2008) also argues
for a tem poral dependency account, although focusing m ore on how the V and X P
conspire to determ ine telicity. W echsler adopts the hom om orphic m odel o f telicity o f
K rifk a (1998), where the tem poral progress o f an event o f change o f som e patient is
m apped hom om orphically to progress along a scale o f degrees o f having som e p ro p ­
erty that defines the change (see also Hay, Kennedy, and Levin, 1999; Kennedy, 1999;
K en n ed y and M cNally, 2005). Telicity arises w hen a specific final point on the scale is
supplied. W echsler argues that control—but not E C M — resultatives require a h o m o ­
m orph ic m apping, with the X P specifying the bou n dary on the scale (see also G o ld ­
berg, 1992, p. 80). For example, ham m er the metalfla t describes an event o f increasing
change o f the m etal along a flatness scale, with the end point being “ (completely) flat.”
924 ASPECT

Evidence for a tight, hom om orphically-derived correlation betw een the scale
and the V com es from data show in g that there are constraints o n w hich A d jP s and
V s m ay co-occu r;

(40) a. He wiped it clean/dry/smooth/*damp/*dirty/*stained/*wet. (= (11))

b. He shot/*bored the miller dead. (Wechsler, 2005a, pp. 265, (19), 266)

Although such data have m otivated heavily lexicalized accounts in the past (see
e.g. Boas, 2003), W echsler suggests that these data are explained on the hom om or­
phic approach. D oing so involves distinguishing variou s types o f V s and types o f
AdjPs, on ly som e o f w hich m a y combine. A m o n g verbal predicates, we can distin­
guish durative predicates, w hich describe extended events, an d punctual ones,
w hich describe short events. The form er have both after and d u rin g readings with
for/in-m odifiers, and the latter only after readings (Kearns, 2000, p. 206).

(41) a. Punctual: John will blink once in an hour, (after)

b. Durative: John will swim the English channel in an hour, (during/after)

A djs in turn can be classified b y several param eters, as in (42). N on-gradable

A d js indicate values that fo rm b in a ry contrasts, w hile gradable A d js indicate states
w ith m ultiple degrees. O n ly the latter take com parative m orphology. G radable Adjs
include closed-scale A d js that indicate endpoints on scales an d open scale A djs
w hich describe degrees o n scales w ith no endpoints. O n ly the form er take com ­
pletely. A m o n g closed scale A d js are “m axim al endpoint” A d js that indicate a m ax­
im al degree on a scale and “ m in im al endpoint” A d js that indicate a m in im al point.
O n ly the fo rm er produce deadjectival V s that generate an im perfective paradox.

(42) a. Non-gradable Adj: #more dead, #deader, #more pregnant, #more sold
b. Gradable Adj: flatter, shorter, wider, wetter
i. Open scale: #completely wide, #completely short
ii. Closed scale: completely flat, ?completely wet (on a contextual standard)
I. Min. endpoint: John is wetting the towel. =>John has wetted the towel.
II. Max. endpoint: John isflattening the towel. ** John has flattened the towel

Based on (41) and (42), W echsler argues that control resultatives on ly occur
w ith two A d jP types: non-gradable and m axim al endpoint, closed-scale gradable
A djPs, the o n ly two that provide a definite, lexically-supplied final state, w hich he
assum es is a necessary condition for telicity on the h om om orph ic m odel. However,
the two A d jP s differ distributionally as in (43) (a correlation he supports w ith data
fro m the British N ational C o rpu s, collected in Boas, 2003).

(43) a. Gradable, closed-scale, maximal endpoint AdjPs occur with durative Vs.
b. Non-gradable AdjPs occur with punctual Vs.

These correlations are born e out in (40): o f the acceptable A d jP s in (40a) w ith
d u rative h a m m er, o n ly grad ab le, clo sed -scale A d jP s are p o ssib le, w h ile non-
gradable dead in (40b) is on ly possible with shoot on a punctual reading, not with
RESU LTATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 925

durative bore.19 E C M resultatives are not subject to temporal dependency, and thus
more types o f AdjPs are possible:

(44) W c worried *(oursclvcs) sick. (#completely sick)

These correlations, VVechsler suggests, follow from the homom orphic relation
o f the event and the scale. Beavers (2002, 2008) formalizes the relevant notions in
terms o f mereological complexity. Events and scales come in two varieties: m in i­
mally complex objects consisting o f just two subparts (a beginning and an end), and
complex objects consisting o f more than two subparts (a beginning, a middle, and
an end), producing the four-way typology of entities:

(45) M in im a lly C o m p le x
C o m p lex
Scale non-gradable gradablc
Event punctual durative

'Ihe homomorphic event-to-path Movement Relation o f Krifka (1998, pp. 222-

230), which ensures that temporally adjacent progress in the event corresponds to
spatially adjacent progress along the path/scale, preserves the (minimal) complexity
o f the event and scale as defined above, deriving (43). Beavers further supports this
correlation by tying it to lexical change predicates. Beavers analyzes all change pred­
icates as involving scalar change, and notes that even when the scale is not overt, its
complexity can influence the durativity of the event. Thus in a context o f an extended
scale o f luminosity, (46a) is durative, but the same predicate is punctual when the
scale is reduced to a non-gradable contrast, as in (46b) (Beavers, 2008, p. 253, (22)).

(46) a. [In a context o f turning a knob that dims the lights]

The stagehand will lower the house lights by 3/4 in five minutes. {during/after)
b. [In a context o f flicking a switch that cuts the lights by 3/4]
The stagehand will lower the house lights by 3/4 in five minutes. (after)

Thus again, resultatives parallel lexical accomplishments. This work therefore

introduces a new lexical notion relevant for resultative formation, namely durativity
and scalar gradability.
However, these conclusions have been challenged. Broccias (2004, pp. 11 1 - 1 1 4 )
also accepts a homomorphic model, but argues that it is not associated with the
control vs. E C M distinction. In particular, he notes that sometimes the result can
obtain after the action in a control resultative, e.g. shoot John to death can be true if
John was shot but died later in the hospital (cf. also (35b)). Broccias suggests that the
relevant constraint is instead animacy, in the sense o f having independent causal
properties. If the patient is animate the action of the V could merely trigger a process
o f the patient that later results in the change of the XP, but not if it is inanimate.
However, while the fact that some control resultatives do not necessarily involve the
action and change culminating at the same time is problematic for the hom om or­
phism approach above, Brocciass alternative fails to explain w hy the correlations in
event/scalar complexity in (43) hold. 'Ihus the correct analysis may require some

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926 ASPECT

lo o sen in g o f the h o m o m o rp h ism regard in g coexten siven ess (p erh aps w ith a n im a cy
p layin g a role), but n ot co m p le x ity p reservation .20
H owever, a larger co n cern is that the h o m o m o rp h ic approach places a h e av y role
o n change an d telicity in resultatives, w hich w as also a key part o f the classic bi-even-
tive analysis o f resultatives. In both cases, the n ecessary notion o f change is d elim it­
ing: the result X P denotes a specific, fin a l state o f its subject, p ro vid in g a delim itation
p o in t on the event (Tenny, 1994). Perhaps surprisingly, however, this assum ption has
also com e u n d er attack in recent years. G o ld b erg and Jacken d o ff (2004, p. 543, (23b,
c), (24c, d)) give the fo llo w in g tw o classes o f apparently atelic resultatives, the first
in volvin g result X P s that have com parative m o rp h o lo g y as in (47), an d also resulta­
tives that involve u n b ou n d ed path P P s (also noted b y Folli and H arley, 2006).

(47) a. For hours, Bill hammered the metal ever flatter.

b. For years, Penelope wove the shawl longer and longer.
(48) a. Bill floated down the river (for hours).
b. Bill pushed H arry along the trail (for hours).

It is h ard to argue that (4 7 M 4 8 ) are n o t resultatives, as ch an ge is entailed, there

is causation, a n d the sy n tax is resultative-like. O n e co u ld argue that the m o tio n V in
(48) selects fo r an (u n b o u n d ed ) path PP, so that (48) is not tech n ically a resultative.
H ow ever, as F o lli an d H a rle y (20 06, pp. 12 3 -12 6 ) note, E C M v arian ts are also p o s­
sible, ty p ically a p ro p erty o f resultatives:

(49) John waltzed M ary ^(toward the door).

M ore su rp risin g is the case in (50), w h ich d o es n o t even en tail a result, b u t does
have E C M -ty p e resultative sy n tax (Folli a n d H arley, 20 06 , p. 125 , (3a), (5a)):21

(50) John waltzed Matilda ’''(around and around the room) for hours.

A s Folli an d H arley (2006, pp. 129 -133) discuss, data such as these raise problem s
fo r the h om om orp h ic analysis, w hich crucially relies on an endpoint-preserving h o m o ­
m orph ism an d ru led out result A djPs that do not supply final states. However, given the
robustness o f W echsler s generalizations w h en telicity is required, there are two possible
resolutions. Perhaps the requisite end-of-scale constraints o n ly arise in som e cases,
although w hat defines them is an open question. Conversely, the exceptional exam ples
are relatively w ell-defined (m anner o f m otion predicates+PPs an d A djPs w ith com par­
ative m orphology), so perhaps telicity is the default for resultatives, and atelic (or n o n ­
change) cases require an independent explanation against such a backdrop. Suggestive
evidence for this com es approach from W echsler (2005b, p. 470), w h o notes that the
category o f the A dj head is w hat matters for occurrence in a resultative, not o f the AdjP,
so that w hile fla t as a pancake is non-gradable (cp. "flatter as a pancake), it is still ac­
ceptable w ith a durative V (ham m er the metalfla t as a pancake) because fla t is gradable.
Thus hom om orph ic licensing m ay still be applicable, even as additional operators (e.g.
com parative m orphology) obscure the effects o f the scalar structure on lexical aspect.
H ow ever, retu rn in g to a larger them e o f co n n ectin g lex ical change predicates
and resultatives, perh ap s th e reason that the atelic data are su rp risin g is that since
R E S U L T A T IV E C O N STRU C TIO N S 927

the 1960s, lexical semanticists have typically defined change-of-state by some patient
argument reaching a specific result state, thereby delimiting the process that gave
rise to this change. Yet since at least Hay et al. (1999, pp. 132-138) it has been recog­
nized that a distinction is needed between quantized and non-quantized change,
the former indicating change to a specific result state and the latter change to a non­
specific state (see also Dowty, 1979, pp. 168-170 on indefinite change), as in (51).

(51) a. The soup cooled to fifty degrees Celsius (in/?for an hour). (specific result)
b. The soup cooled (for/??in an hour). (non-specific result)

Thus there are atelic lexical change predicates, like the resultatives here (a correla­
tion noted also by Folli and Harley, 2006). Furthermore, Beavers (2011) proposes that
quantized and non-quantized change form two types on a hierarchy of degrees of af­
fectedness that also includes a third degree of affectedness he calls “potential for change.”
This is essentially Rappaport Hovav and Levins (2001: pp. 786-787) “force recipient,”
including objects of surface contact Vs. This is diagnosable by Cruses (1973, p. 13) What
happened to X is Y test, and, interestingly, (50) passes this test (cf. What happened to
Mary is John waltzed her around the room), suggesting that while it may not indicate a
result, it indicates potential change, like some lexical transitives. Thus given the intent—
if not the standard implementation—of the idea that resultatives represent event struc­
tures already found in lexical causatives, work on the semantics o f change in the last ten
years has effectively outpaced work on resulatives, and a larger open question is whether
our understanding of resultatives should be revised in light of this.

6 . C o n c l u sio n

The key aspectual issue for resultatives is event composition, i.e. the V and XP com­
bine to form a single event. It appears that several event compositional operations are
involved, including causation, temporal dependency, and a correspondence of dura-
tivity and scalar gradability, and the resultant predicate typically indicates a result
state and is telic. However, no single factor or combination of factors fully exhausts
the range of possible resultatives, and none necessarily obtain in all resultatives. In
some cases their relevance follows along syntactic lines (the control vs. ECM distinc­
tion), in others semantic lines (the semantic class o f the V or XP). These additional
factors challenge the classic accomplishment view o f resultatives, as does the fact that
not all resultatives are what anyone would call accomplishments on any view.
Furthermore, the correlation of the event structures found with resultatives
and lexical change predicates is in some ways not so clear as once thought. There
are more types of lexical predicates than has typically been assumed in work on
decompositional event semantics, including atelic predicates o f change, change
predicates without causation, and even activities with potential but unrealized
change. However, there may be additional types o f resultatives that instantiate these
928 ASPECT

“ new ” lexical types, as well as new factors (such as the scalar gradability/durativity
correlation) that also seem to link the two classes o f predicates. Thus while recent
w ork on resultatives has moved past the classic accomplishment view, the larger
intuition linking resultatives to lexical accomplishments m ay still hold and is in fact
further reinforced, although m uch more work is needed. (However, there are a
small handful of resultative types with event structures not found with lexical Vs,
such as those where the change seems to cause the verbal activity as in rustle out o f
the room). Nonetheless, the unmarked cases o f resultatives do seem to indicate
(caused) change-of-state a la the classic view, something ultimately also still in need
o f an explanation.

NOTES

1. I wish to thank Beth Levin, Alex Teorcdorescu, and Steve W echslcr for their
feedback on an earlier draft, and Ashwini D e o for some discussion. A n y errors or o m i s ­
sions are entirely m y own.
2. Williams (2 0 0 8 b ) suggests that what 1 call an " X P ” can in some languages be a
zero-level category, where the result X ° vs. X P difference corresponds to cross-linguistic
word order variation.
3. Resultatives have also been called “ factives” (Dowty, 1979) and “ instrumentals”
(Green, 1972), the latter due to the fact that they often involve V s with zero-derived
instrumental nominal counterparts (e.g. ham m er). “ Resultative” is not meant here in the
sense o f Nedjalkov and Jaxontov (1988, p. 6) as “ those verb forms that express a state im p ly­
ing a previous event” as in V ie stick is broken.
4. V + X P may instead form a com plex predicate rather than head-com plem cnt
structure (see e.g. Dowty, 1979; Hale and Keyser, 1993; Snyder, 2001; Neeleman and van de
Koot, 2002; W illiams, 2008a).
5. However, there are exceptions (e.g. The line clicked dead; Rappaport Hovav and
Levin, 2 0 0 1, p. 774).
6. Matcu (20 0 5, pp. 7 1 - 7 5 ) and Neeleman and v a n de Koot (2002, pp. 4 6 - 4 8 ) argue
that W echslers and V er s p o o r s data are not counterexamples, but rather constitute either
two-argument unaccusatives, or else do not constitute true resultatives.
7. However, without a D O R , it is difficult to explain w h y in E C M resultatives the
non-subcategorized D P is always an object, though perhaps object position is the only
open position.
8. T h i s correlation has been challen ged ; Korean lacks m a n n e r v e r b + g o a l PP
c o n s t r u c tio n s , but has resultatives ( S o n , 2 0 0 7 ) , s u g g e s t in g two p a ra m e te rs arc at play.
9. A separate debate is whether separate C A U S E and B E C O M E operators are needed
(as per Embick, 2 0 0 4), or whether they should or could be packaged into one (as per von
Stechow, 2003).
10. Tclicity also requires the patient to be expressed by a definite, specific D P (Beavers,
2 0 11, Verkuyl, 1972). Bare plural/mass DPs give rise to atelicity for both resultatives and
lexical accomplishments.
11. Note that this actually com prom ises the paraphrase diagnostic in (19) c o m m o n ly
cited in support o f a causal analysis o f resultatives: the periphrastic paraphrase allows a
strictly wider range o f readings than the resultative. However, it is generally well-known

Copyrighted mate
R E S U L T A T I V E CONSTRUCTIONS 929

that periphrastic causatives subsume the readings o f lexical causatives (M cCawley, 1978, pp.
2 4 6 -2 4 8 ) , so that i f a resultative did not have such a paraphrase, then it would not have a
lexical causative reading.
12. Resultatives are never form ed from stative V s (cf. *Medusa saw the hero into
stone; Sim pson, 1983, p. 146, (24)) though, as Levin and Rappaport H ovav (1995,
p. 6 1-6 2 ) suggest (for stative unaccusatives), this m ay have to do with the fact that
w hatever the resultant event structure for resultatives is, it is such that it cannot be
form ed from a stative.
13. W underlich (1997a) instead assum es that the decom positional operator
connecting the V and X P events is a general com positional operator and that can either
indicate causation (for activity V s + X P ) or that the X P further spells out inferences of
the V (for change V s + X P ), though this does not technically rule out a causal analysis
w ith change V s.
14. Levinson (2010) argues for a third class o f “ pseudo-resultatives” as in braid the
hair tight, where the A d jP predicates not o f the object but o f an underlying “created”
entity represented by the V (e.g. the braids are tight, not the hair). Others have classified
these as adverbials (see Kratzer, 2005; W ashio, 1997, pp. 1 5 - 1 7 ; inter alia).
15. However, Rothsteins approach also predicts the existence o f independent accom ­
plishment uses o f activity Vs, though she suggests that the underspecified result prevents
these from surfacing. Wechsler instead assumes these V s have an optional (unspecified)
result as part o f their meaning.
16. However, (26) does not capture the relationship between the V and object in
control resultatives. Ramchand (2008, pp. 1 2 1 -1 3 1 ) captures this via a more articulated
phrase structure and DP-movement.
17. Goldberg (1995, pp. 18 8 -19 2 ) posits a network o f Resultative Constructions that
contribute the appropriate event structure and whose argument structures merge with but
also augment those o f the V. The control vs. E C M contrast reflects how much m erger vs.
augmentation occurs. However, as Iwata (2006) points out, G oldbergs analysis only seems
to apply to activity Vs.
18. The data in (30) can be minimally contrasted with the X ’s way examples in (i),
which are acceptable on a reading that the sound emission and motion are co-temporaneous
but not causally related.

(i) a. The car honked its w ay down the road.

b. The dog barked its w ay out of the room. (Goldberg and Jackendoff, 2004,
p. 541, (i9a,b))

I f these are resultatives, they argue against a categorically causal analysis. Goldberg
and Jackendoff also note that some speakers accept (30) (I do not), further suggesting
causation is not necessary.
19. Beavers (2008) also notes that gradable AdjPs can occur with punctual predicates
(e.g. stamped the tulips flat with one heavy stomp), but only if the A djP is interpreted as
non-gradable. Wechsler and especially Beavers also extend this analysis to PP resultatives,
and Levin and Sells (2009) extend it to certain classes o f verb-particle constructions.
20. Uegaki (2009) notes that open-scale AdjPs are possible in Japanese control resulta­
tives, subject to contextually supplied end-states (Boas, 2003, P P -13 6 -13 7 also gives some
examples o f this in English).
21. Fong (2003) shows that Finnish also has resultatives that do not entail a result, but
only if the X P indicates a state that is maintained contra expectations that it would change.
This is similar the example He taped/glued/nailed the door shut/closed given by Green (1972,
p. 89, (28)), which could apply to a situation where the door was already shut/closed. In
930 AS P E C T

Thai, resultative serial verb constructions can involve a change V plus a negated stative V
that indicates the cancellation o f the change o f the change V (e.g. akin to kill not dead;
Thepkanjana and Uehara, 2009). The possibility o f canceling an entailed result, they note,
is found more broadly with lexical accomplishments in some languages.

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 PART V

ASPECT AND
DIATHESIS

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 CHAPTER 3 3

VOICE

M ILA D IM ITRO VA-V U LCH A N O VA

i. In tr o d u ctio n

Traditionally Aspect and Voice are regarded as grammatical categories o f verbs.

While Aspect concerns the way in which the situation denoted by the verb unfolds
and how this is represented in the sentence. Voice is about the relationship between
the participant roles that the verb encodes lexically and their overt realization in
the syntax o f the clause as argument nominal expressions. One o f the most widely
recognized definitions o f Aspect was proposed by Bernard C o m rie (1976, 1985),
according to which Aspect is “a grammaticalization or expression of the internal
temporal constituency of the situation." Both grammaticalization and expression
are important in our understanding o f the category, since not all grammatical cat­
egories enjoy the same degree of grammaticalization across languages, as observed
in typological research (cf. Dahl, 1985; Bybee et al., 1994), and the means by which
they are expressed can vary as well. In a recent survey o f crosslinguistic g ram m a t­
ical features, Kibort and Corbett (2010) classify both Aspect and Diathesis/Voice
as m orphosem antic in nature. The two categories align in that they are typically
“flagged” by some m orphology and this m orphology points to a certain semantic
distinction regarding the situation denoted by the verb, the internal temporal
structure of the situation, in the case o f Aspect, and how the participants are m e n ­
tioned in the clause, for Voice. Since both categories reflect essential aspects o f the
situation and the way humans categorize situations, it is then natural that this will
be reflected in their linguistic encoding, and leads to an expectation that the two
categories will interact both at the semantic and morphosyntactic level.
A couple o f terminological remarks are in order. While most linguists agree
that active-passive or active-middle alternations fall in the domain o f Voice, the
status o f other common alternative syntactic patterns associated with the same ver­
bal root, such as e.g., causativization patterns or impersonals, and even antipassives,

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938 A SP E C T AND D IA T H E SIS

is unclear. The latter processes have sometimes been referred to as “diathesis,” a

term which is sometimes, but not always, used as a synonym of “ Voice.” Along with
Babby (1998), in this chapter we adopt a broader definition o f Voice to include all
(diathetic) alternations in the mapping o f the verbs participant roles onto gram m at­
ical functions. Thus Voice is a category that “ relates the participant roles associated
with arguments [to] the grammatical functions o f the noun phrases (NPs) express­
ing these arguments” (Polinsky, 2001).

1.1. V ie w p o in t A sp e c t and Situ ation T ype

It is now com m on to distinguish between two closely related phenom ena, situation
type aspect and viewpoint aspect (Smith, 1991/1997; Richardson, 2007). 1 While the
fo rm er is generally considered to be lexical in nature, the latter is seen essentially as
gram m atical. Smith (1991/1997) suggests that crosslinguistically aspectual systems
have two components, situation type and viewpoint, and that the two interact in the
way clauses are realized in a language. View point aspect is the perspective imposed
on the verbal situation, as expressed in the clause, and is usually related to overt
m orphological “flagging” or m arking. It is, however, situation type or lexical aspect
that is more controversial and o f greater interest for the discussion linking Aspect
to Voice.
The notion o f situation types is based on V en d lers (1967) classical typology o f
predicates according to their Aktionsart properties. On this typology, further refined
by D o w ty (1979), there are four types o f predicates d epending on the nature o f the
event (process or not) and the presence vs. absence o f definiteness (telicity): states,
activities, accomplishments and achievements. Smith (1991/1997) suggests further
d ecom posin g these four basic types in terms o f three binary pairs o f aspectual fea­
tures: static-dynamic, telic-atelic, and durative-punctual. Since these features are
assumed to inherently characterize the internal temporal contour o f situations and,
as a consequence, be part o f a v erb s inherent aspectual m e a n in g (C om rie, 1976),
this type o f aspectuality is considered lexical.
However, Vendlers typology has been criticized by Verkuyl ( 1 9 7 2 ,1 9 9 3 ,1999a),
in that even though it purports to concern the lexical properties of predicates (verbs),
it actually depends heavily on the overt realization of the syntactic arguments o f the
verb. Indeed, the most important contribution o f recent research has been the rec­
ognition of the role of argument structure in aspect construal (Verkuyl, 1972, 1993,
1999a, 1999b; Com rie, 1981; Dahl, 1981; Tenny, 1987,1994). To illustrate the interface
o f lexical and structural properties, obscured in the Vendlcr classification, a verb,
such as eat , can give rise to both an accomplishment predicate, as in (1a) or to an
activity, as in (lb), contingent on whether its internal argument is overtly expressed,
and whether this argument is a quantified noun phrase (la) or not ( i c ).

(1) a. John ate a sandwich /five sandwiches.

b. John ate /was eating.
c. John ate /was eating sandwiches.

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VO ICE 939

V e r k u y l s influential theory is based on the idea that aspectual values are built c o m -
position ally in a b o t t o m -u p fashion and depend, on the one hand, on the sem antic
properties o f the lexical verb, and, on the other, on the quantificational p roperties o f
its co m p le m e n ts (e.g., direct object). Th e notion o f c o m p o s i t i o n a li t y is best explained
as resid in g in the idea that sem antic aspectual in fo r m a tio n is so to say scattered over
constituents in the structure o f the sentence. V e r k u y l uses two binary features to
capture the sem a n tic properties that affect aspectual c o m p o sitio n , [ A D D T O ] w h ic h
is a le x ica l feature o f the m a i n v e r b r e f le c tin g w h e t h e r the v e r b is d y n a m i c and
denotes a ch a n g e or not, and [ S Q A ] (Specified Q u a n t i t y o f A ) , w h ic h is a structural
feature an d d e p e n d s on w h eth er the direct object is characterized b y a specific
quantity or n ot.2 Verkuyl characterizes this approach as a “ feature algebra,” w h i c h
operates on these sem antic features. In order for the c o m p o sitio n to yield a T e r m i-
native aspectual value, both features need to have a positive value, while a single
negative value o f either will result in the un m ark ed D u r a tiv e aspect. This is cap tu red
by the Plus Principle? The examples in (2) fro m V erk u yl (1 9 9 9 a ) illustrate this point.
W h i l e (2a) fully satisfies the Plus principle an d is term inative due to the lexical
m e a n in g o f eat (a d y n a m ic verb) w h ic h co m b in es w ith a specific direct object, a
sandwich , (2b) fails to satisfy the same principle as a result o f the nature o f dislike (a
durative verb), and in turn (2c) is again n o n -t e r m in a tiv e as a result o f the direct
object b e in g a n o n -sp ec ified amount, as expressed b y the bare plural apples.

(2) a. Judith ate a sandwich (terminative)

b. Judith disliked a sandwich (durative)
c. Judith ate sandwiches (durative)

V e r k u y l s a p p ro ach looks at aspect construal as essentially a s y m m e tr ic a l a nd

operating fro m “ bottom u p ” This m ea n s that aspectual operations pro ceed f r o m the
m in im a l term inal constituents o f the clause a nd start at the level o f the v e rb p hrase
( V P ) w here b o th the lexical properties o f the m ain verb an d the quantificational
properties o f its direct object affect the first step in asp ect construal. T h e result o f
this process then feeds the next level up, w h i c h is the level w h e re the v e r b phrase
unifies w ith the subject n oun phrase, w h ic h unification decides the aspectual value
o f the clause as a whole.
V e r k u y l s s e m in a l w o r k sh ow s that even lexical a s p e c t is not purely lexical in
nature, and u n d e rsc o r es the im p o rta n ce o f a holistic a p p r o a c h to aspectuality at
the level o f the clause an d in terms o f the interface w ith syntax. Su bseq u en t w ork,
such as T e n n y ( 1 9 8 7 , 1 9 9 4 ) , has addressed the relationship b e tw een the head verb
o f the clause a nd its c o m p lem en t(s) and its c o n s e q u e n c e s for the aspectual n a t u r e
o f the event, w h e t h e r telic or not. T e n n y s a p p ro a c h is centered on delim itedn ess
as a c rucial aspectual p r o p e r t y that refers to an event h a v in g a distinct, definite
a n d inh erent e n d p o in t in time. In her w o rk , c o u c h e d in a generative fr a m e w o r k ,
T e n n y in trod u ces the Aspectual Interface Hypothesis, w h i c h constrain:-, the m a p ­
p ing o f a r g u m e n ts to syntax in terms o f aspectual roles. O n this proposal, o n l y
direct interna] a r gu m en ts (the ones typically expressed as direct objects), but not
external a r g u m e n ts (subjects) or indirect internal a r g u m e n ts (oblique objects)
940 ASPECT AND DIATHESIS

can in flu e n c e the a s p e c t u a l p ro p erties o f the predicate. T e n n y p r o p o s e s th at the

direct a r g u m e n t o f th e v e r b fu n c tio n s as a m e a s u r e o f the event. T h is is c a p t u r e d
in the M easuring-O ut Constraint on Direct Internal Argum ents , based on the
sim ple idea that the p r o p e r t ie s o f transitive e v e n ts largely d e p e n d on w h a t h a p ­
pen s to the p a r t i c i p a n t u n d e r l y in g the direct object. T h e m odel is s t r a i g h t f o r ­
w a r d l y illustrated in th e c o n te x t o f v e rb s o f c o n s u m p t i o n , w h e r e the c o n s u m p t i o n
o f the apple, w h i c h is th e internal a r g u m e n t o f eat in (3a) belo w , delim its the eatin g
event a n d m a r k s it as c o m p l e t e d (or finished). In the s a m e way, the c o n s t r u c t i o n
o f the h o u s e , w h i c h is th e internal a r g u m e n t o f build in (3b ), delim its the b u il d i n g
event.

(3) a. Thomas ate an apple

b. }ohn built a house

Thus, a su ccessfu lly a cc o m p lish ed (telic) event will h e characterized b y full

transform ation (internal change) o f its direct internal argum en t, the latter se r v in g
as a m e a s u r e o f the a c c o m p lish m e n t. A m o n g verb s that inherently s p e c i fy for this
kind o f “ m e a s u r i n g out,” m o s t typically w e en co u n te r verbs w i t h increm en tal th em es
( D o w ty , 1 9 9 1 ) , 4 as eat a n d build in (2) above, ch a n g e o f state v e r b s (e.g., cracky break),
a n d v e rb s e n c o d i n g p a t h o r route (walk, climb). Im portantly, T e n n y ’s h yp o th esis
attributes su ch a m e a s u r i n g role o n ly to the direct internal a rg u m e n t o f the verb,
w h i c h is seen as a p r i v ile g e d a rg u m e n t in aspect construal. A n additional constraint
in the t h e o r y is that th ere can be n o m o r e than one m e a s u r in g -o u t o f a n y event
describ ed b y a verb.
M u c h o f the later w o r k has fo c u sed on ex p lo rin g the contribution o f o th er types
o f a r g u m e n ts or p a rticip a n ts to aspectual com p o sitio n . This w o r k is b a se d o n the
observatio n that o th er a rg u m e n ts m a y play a role in asp ect construal. T h u s m a n y
verbs w h e n h e a d i n g a causative construction, i.e., w h e n takin g a small clause (the
metal fla t in (4b)), rath er than a n o u n phrase (the metal in (4a)) as their c o m p l e ­
ment, give rise to telic (resultative) interpretations.5

(4) a. John pounded the metal (for five minutes).

b. John pounded the metal flat (in five minutes).

In a sim ilar fashion m otion verbs, w h i c h lexically e n c o d e a path ( K o e n ig et a l ,

2 0 0 2 ; D i m i t r o v a - V u l c h a n o v a , 2 0 0 4 ; D i m i t r o v a - V u l c h a n o v a et al., in press), can be
m ap p e d onto telic events, p ro v id ed the path is expressed o v e r tly in sy n ta x b y an
appropriate expression, a prepositional p hrase (PP ) or an adverbial phrase. (5)
b e lo w p ro v id e s an illustration from Bulgarian, w h ere both sentences refer to c o m ­
pleted (telic) events o f m o t io n along b o u n d e d paths, with both b o u n d i n g points
expressed as preposition al phrases, otgnezdoto (fr o m the nest) in (5a), an d do vra-
tata (to the d o o r), in (5b). It is im portant to note that bo th sentences will s o u n d o d d
w ith o u t the p rep o sition al phrases. E ve n th o u g h the verb izletja (fly out) can be used
without a prepositional p h ra se referring to either the source or the goal o f m otio n,
there is a lw ays an im p lica tion at least o f the source, i.e., directed m o tio n is alw ays
implied.
VOICE 941

(5) a. Ptitsata izletja ??(ot gnezdoto).

Bird-the PERF-flcw from nest-the
“ The bird flew out o f the nest.”
b. Deteto iztica ??(do vratata)
child-the PERF-ran to door-the
“ The child ran (out) to the d o o r” (and reached it).

As a matter of fact, bounded paths are instantiations par excellence of the type of
delimitation referred to in Tennys measuring-out o f the event. Yet, surprisingly,
path arguments are not included in Tennys measuring-out argument category
unless they are expressed by a direct object, as in walk the trail or climb the ladder.
It is hard to see how climb the ladder differs from climb to the topy since both the
object (the ladder) and the prepositional phrase (to the top) refer to a bounded path
o f motion. Observe also, that Verkuyl models predicates on paths, reflected in his
localist hypothesis, whereby a non-static verb (i.e., a [+ A D D TO] verb) when co m ­
bining with a [+SQA] direct object gives rise to a bounded path, and a terminative
aspectual value. In later work Verkuyl (1999a) has emphasized the importance o f
properties o f this path, and whether it is hom ogeneous, i.e., whether it can be
defined on the basis o f identical temporal-spatial intervals, or not.
This adds a new dimension to the classical Vendlerian system in allowing for a
further distinction. The idea o f homogeneity is closely related to situation types and
aspect as highlighting the internal temporal contour o f situations. While h o m o ­
geneous situations are characterized by identical interval structure (as for instance
in John slept/was sleeping ), typically telic/bounded situations have an incremental
process leading to a culmination point beyond which the same process cannot con­
tinue. Homogeneity is closely related to cumulativity (Taylor, 1977; Krifka, 1992),
which captures the presence o f a culmination point in the development o f the situ­
ation and the process of a gradual build-up. Discussions o f homogeneity as under­
lying the telic/atelic event distinction are also present in work by Quine (i960) and
Hinrichs (1985).
A ccom p lishm ents are a good example o f the absence o f hom ogeneity, d es­
cribing processes in which the affected participants change over time. For this rea­
son recent event analyzes have suggested an event decomposition approach to this
type o f telic events. The decomposition analysis of accomplishments builds on the
recognition o f a processual part (sub-event) and a resultative sub-event (Pustejo-
vsky, 1995; Higginbotham, 2000; Ramchand, 2008).
While it has been shown that there are “ privileged” relationships between certain
arguments (e.g., the internal argument) and certain sub-events, it has also been
argued that this relationship is far from straightforward and in need of further speci­
fication. Partee (2005) points out that objects, in particular, pose a problem in sorting
out the contribution o f lexical meaning, specific syntactic configurations, and other
more general principles o f grammar. Ramchand (2008) suggests that among internal
arguments only those that, in her terms, define a path o f change are those capable of
inducing telicity. In addition, in order for telicity to obtain, a two-way relationship

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942 A SP E C T AND D IA T H E SIS

between the object and the event needs to hold. This proposal is based on Krifkas
(1992) idea that aspectual values link the semantic properties of the object with the
semantic properties of the event, and that there is a homomorphism between the two.
Thus for each subpart (increment) of the affected participant (the object), there cor­
responds a sub-part (an increment) o f the event (and vice verse).
The proposal in R am ch an d (2008) aligns with the findings in D im itrova-
Vulchanova (1996/1999) regarding the lexico-semantic restrictions on, and the
felicity of, periphrastic passives in Bulgarian. In the latter work it is argued that
the constraints on the generation o f periphrastic passives are in fact related to the
expression o f telicity. Thus, am o n g verbs that give rise to a periphrastic passive,
only those denoting a cumulative change applying to a participant, w hich serves
as an End point (a delimiter) o f the process, are natural candidates for resultative
passives, and can be used without explicit reference to the demoted External
argument. An additional constraint is the obligatory presence of perfective m o r­
phology on the participial verb. We return to this point in section 3 below.
Following on Verkuyls (1993) distinction between two levels o f aspectual
composition, the VP-level and the S (clausal)-level, scholars working within formal
syntactic approaches (e.g., the generative tradition) have attempted to define aspect
in terms of nodes (projections) in clausal architecture. The place of the aspectual
projection, however, differs across accounts, depending on what other clausal cate­
gories are assumed to be dominated by or to interact with aspect. In addition, the
position of this projection also varies cross-linguistically depending on the language-
specific realization of aspect and the levels at which aspectual processes operate
from one language to another (cf. the discussion in Travis, 2000). Thus, for Scottish
Gaelic Ramchand (1997) postulates an aspectual projection above the level o f the
V P in whose specifier subjects are generated (corresponding roughly to Verkuyls
1993 S-level). Other authors identify the projection relevant for aspect construal
with AgrO, which is a projection in clausal architecture directly related to object
expression (Borer, 1994,1998; Ritter and Rosen, 1998; van ITout, 2000). Quite often
the presence o f such a projection is justified by the overt presence of some m orph o­
logical marking at least in one language. Thus, aspectual affixes in Slavic or ag/a\r in
Gaelic (Ramchand, 1997) are sufficient for postulating a projection dedicated to the
expression of aspectual distinctions, not only in the former languages, but also in
other languages which lack overt morphology, the idea being that in the latter lan­
guages this head (category) is covert.
O v er the past twenty years research has focused on refining accounts o f
g ra m m a tic a l processes and constructions closely related to aspect construal, such
as e.g., resultatives, inclu ding causatives, and m otion verbs. In particular, the
focus has been on a) how resultatives/causatives are generated, b) what allows for
the generation in the first place, and c) what constraints there are on the g e n e r a ­
tion. In this respect, two m ajor types o f approaches have em erged , constructionist
approaches, and lexicalist approaches. W h ile constructionist approaches are
characterized by a to p -d o w n algorithm , w h ere the resultative interpretation is
rendered by the construction as such and as a direct result o f the specific syntactic

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VOICE 943

configuration, lexicalist approaches believe in a bottom-up compositional view,

with an equal contribution o f the lexical verb and its syntactic complementation.
In the latter approaches language structure is generated gradually from the m in ­
imal terminal constituents, such as words, and the semantic properties o f the
larger expressions are a function o f the lexical properties o f the terminal constit­
uents. In constructionist approaches, in contrast, it is the properties o f the larger
expression (the construction) that decide the ultimate interpretation, whereby
the constructional m eaning is coerced and imposed on the terminal constituents.
Examples o f (neo-)constructionist approaches in the generative tradition
are the exo-skeletal syntax o f Borer (2003), and the first-phase syntax o f Ram-
chand (2008) inspired by Hale and K e ysers (1993) l(exical)-syntax approach. In
Construction G ra m m a r there are a variety of approaches based on the top-down
idea, Fillm ores Frame Semantics (Fillmore and Atkins, 1992), G o ld b e r g s version
o f Construction G ra m m a r (1995), C ro fts Radical Construction G r a m m a r (in
press), as well as usage-based approaches to language structure and language
acquisition (Tomasello, 2003; Dabrowska, 2009). Even though some top-down
approaches recognize the role o f lexically encoded information (e.g., Goldberg,
1995; Ram chand, 2008), the exact interface o f this information with construction
m eaning is either not specified by the fram ew ork algorithm or surprisingly dis­
missed. In this way, the load in aspect construal is necessarily shifted to aspects o f
the gram m ar o f aspectual constructions and attributed to coercion, rather than to
the lexical encoding o f situation type. To take a simple example from resultative
constructions, the resultative (telic) interpretation in (6) below is seen as contrib­
uted prim arily by the resultative small clause configuration (or construction),
rather than the lexical properties o f the verbs (wipe and p a in t , respectively).

(6) a. A lm a wiped the table clean,

b. Ray painted the house green.

1.2. A P ro life ra tio n o f F ra m e w o rk s and T e rm in o lo g y

Work on aspectuality is no exception in linguistic research, which is marked by a
proliferation of ideas, frameworks, formats, and terminology. In aspectual studies
this tendency is even more pronounced. Even though some of the terms and c o n ­
cepts are well-known and frequently used (e.g., the notion o f “telicity” ), they are
not always used in the same sense. Each new account has aimed at refining the
picture by introducing new distinctions, and as a consequence, new terms. While
Verkuyl (1972), Dahl (1981) and Jackendoff (1990, 1996) suggest a “ bounded/
non-bounded” distinction, for example, C om rie (1976), Dahl (1981) and Smith
(1991) use “telic/atelic” ; Tenny (1987,1994) offers “delimited/non-delimited” ; Moens
and Steedman (1988) have “culminating/non-culminating” ; Filip (1993/1999) uses
“ (non-)totality” ; Verkuyl (1993) proposes “ terminative/durative” ; and Dimitrova-
Vulchanova (1996/1999), “completed/non-completed.” Observe that these differences

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944 ASPECT A N D DIATHESIS

arise in relation to a) w h a t part/aspect o f the situation is believed c ru c ia l in asp ect

construal (e.g., the internal argum ent as a delimiter or measure), b) the details o f the
analysis, and c) what sem antic value is assum ed to characterize the result o f aspect
construal. M a n y o f these terms, however, are overlapping and largely interchangeable.
This situation is ag gra vated b y the difference in linguistic traditions: one b a se d
on the description o f G e r m a n i c and R o m a n c e languages, an d a n o th e r based on
Slavic languages. T h is difference arises from the nature of aspect in the respective
lan gu ag e groups: while in Slavic, aspect is m o r p h o lo g ic a lly m a r k e d on the verb, a nd
as su ch potentially in the d o m a in o f v ie w p o i n t aspect, in the other g r o u p s aspectual
distinctions are expressed p r i m a r i l y th ro u g h a co m b in atio n o f the te m p o r a l p r o p ­
erties o f the predicate an d properties o f the c o m p le m e n ts o f the verb, e.g., in the
d o m a i n o f lexical asp ect o r A k tio n sa rt. T h e se properties are also reflected in the
term s used in the respective traditions: w h ile in the Slavic tradition, the standard
reference is to A s p e c t as a gra m m a tic a l category,6 in the W este rn tradition, m o r p h o ­
logical m a r k i n g is taken as ev iden ce that this is a lexical p ro p erty o f the verb as such,
and respectively referred to as A k tio n sa rt.7
E v e n th o u g h in the Slavic tradition A s p e c t is v i e w e d as a g r a m m a t i c a l category,
the lon g -sta n d in g , a n d flawed, be lief is that it is a (m o rp h o lo g ica l) c a t e g o r y o f the
verb, e.g., as abstracted a w a y fro m syntactic context. W h ile, indeed, v e rb s can be
listed in the lexicon as o vertly m a rk e d for Perfective or Im p erfective value, this
m a r k i n g places special constraints o n their syntactic realization. Thus, w h ile tran si­
tive im perfective verb s m a y or m a y n o t o c c u r o v ertly a c c o m p a n ie d b y a direct
object (cf. the B u lg a ria n exam ples 7 a - b ) , their perfective cou nterp arts are u n g r a m ­
m atical without an o vertly realized specified direct object (7c).

(7) a. Ivan pi.

Ivan drank S(, |Ml,„R|; A()|l
“Ivan drank."
b. Ivan pi vino.
Ivan drankjS(. IM|I|;R|1 AOI( wine
“Ivan drank /was drinking wine.”
c. Ivan izpi vino*(to).
Ivan drank S(.,,|:|(|: AOR wine-lhe
“ ivan drank *(the) wine.”

O b s e r v e that the exa m p le in (7c) is rendered un g ra m m atical i f the definite article on

the direct object n ou n, vin o (wine), is omitted.8 D i m i t r o v a - V u l c h a n o v a ( 1 9 9 6 / 1 9 9 9 )
suggests that there is a direct relationship betw een the aspectual prefix a n d the p r e s ­
ence o f a specific direct object. She provides an a c c o u n t o f this constraint based on
the s y n t a x o f this construction. H i e idea is that, at a deeper u n d e rly in g level o f
g r a m m a r , the prefix a n d the direct object are related b y a small-clause relationship,
a n d are found in an u n d e rly in g sm all-clause configuration, and the presen ce o f one
item (e.g., the prefix) requires the presence o f the other (the direct object). This
constraint holds o n ly one way, however, an d the reverse relationship d o e s not hold.
Thus, the presence o f a direct object per se does not necessarily trigger prefixation
VOICE 945

or any other perfective marking on the verb. This analysis essentially follows Bakers
(1988) analysis of morphological causatives.
The Slavic type of aspectual distinctions vis-a-vis their overt morphological
marking has provoked numerous discussions in the literature concerning the extent
to which telicity as a situation type feature is a category independent from Aspect as
viewpoint (i.e., as a strictly grammatical phenomenon). For instance, Borik (2006)
suggests that they ought to be treated independently, on the grounds that not all
telic predicates are necessarily (equivalent to) perfective (Aspect) in Russian. The
view that lexical aspect in Slavic is distinct from grammatical (viewpoint) aspect has
been expressed by other authors, such as Filip (1999, 2005), and Dickey (2000),
while opponents to this view believe that the two are not to be treated as separate
(Schoorlemmer, 1995; Borer, 2005; van Hout, 2007). Furthermore, the exact meaning
o f the category has been subject to discussion. According to Borik (2006), Slavic
aspect is a reflection o f what Smith (1991) calls viewpoint aspect (or external aspect),
while Filip (1993/1999, 2000) defines it in terms of the internal mereological struc­
ture o f the event. Gehrke (2002) offers a critical discussion o f these views.
It should be noted here that many o f the above-mentioned problems arise
from the fact that, in Slavic, both perfective and imperfective can be marked by
m orphology (as already observed by Jakobson, 19 57/1971,1966/1971), and that the
Slavic style o f aspect is a multi-layered category, whereby distinctions apply to, and
can be expressed at, different levels o f the clausal hierarchy, if we adopt a co m p o­
sitional bottom up approach. Depending on this level, som e aspectual values will
be directly related to argument structure and the denotation o f the direct object
(and the verb), such as e.g., perfective/imperfective aspect (and telicity!), while
others will explicitly relate the event to time, as e.g., in the secondary imperfec-
tives, which are overtly marked, and derived from perfective forms and exclusively
refer to iteration.
A related problem is whether a distinction is necessary between, on the one hand,
Aktionsart , sometimes used to cover “objective” aspectuality as arising from the lex­
ical properties o f the verb, and Aspect, on the other, as a perspective imposed on the
situation (Smiths (1991/1997) viewpoint), and whether Aktionsart is at all useful as a
term (cf. Verkuyl, 1993 for a criticism of the misunderstandings related to Aktionsart
as a term, and Tenny and Pustejovsky, 2000, and Binnick, 2008, for discussion).

2. A spectual Va l u e s and C a n o n ic a l

A lter n atio n s

Aspect is a category that richly interacts with other categories at the level of the
clause and can be best understood if analvzed at the level of the interface between
4

semantics and syntax. Hi is is particularly relevant, if we view Voice as the range o f

potential alternative realizations in syntax of the same verbal root. This interaction
between semantics and syntax is seen in that aspect construal depends not only on

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946 ASPECT A N D DIATHESIS

the m a p p in g o f both internal and external argum ents, but also on th eir quantifica-
tional properties (Filip, 2 0 0 0 ) , o w i n g to the h o m o m o r p h i s m b e tw e e n event and
object (Krifka, 19 9 2 ). T h u s , a specified direct object has the p r o p e r t y o f in tr o d u c in g
an inherent m ea su re/d elim itatio n ( T e n n y s [ 19 9 4 ] “ m ea su rin g o ut” o f the event) or
b o u n d e d n ess (Jackendoff, 1 9 9 0 , 1 9 9 6 ) or o f quantizing the event (K rifka, 1 9 9 2 , 1 9 9 8 ) .
It has also b e e n sh o w n that the external a rgu m en ts (subjects) o f the v e r b p l a y a role
in aspect construal above the level o f the verb phrase ( V P ) ( D i m i t r o v a - V u l c h a n o v a
1 9 9 6 / 1 9 9 9 ; V e rk u y l, 1 9 9 9 a ) , a n d that the presence o f bare plural subjects can cancel
telicity (e.g., ?S o ld iers a rriv e d ) or ren der the structure at best a m b i g u o u s o r even
unacceptable.
In light o f this special interaction b e tw een aspect and clause structure, m ost
recent w o r k h a s a d d r e s s e d a sp ectual values in the context o f w h a t are c o n s i d e r e d
as c an o nical or default realizations o f a rg u m en ts. Typically, in a c a n o n i c a l m a p p i n g
participant roles that h a ve m o r e agent p roperties (cf. D o w t y s 1 9 9 1 n o tio n o f p r o t o ­
roles) will be realized as subjects, w h i le m o r e patient-like p ro p erties w i l l a c c o r d
with m a p p i n g to the object fu n ctio n . Crosslinguistically, ca n o n ic a l m a p p i n g is not
usually m a r k e d b y a n y special o v e r t m o r p h o l o g y on the verb a n d is, therefore,
con sid er ed as default. In the I n d o - E u r o p e a n languages, this is usually instantiated
b y active (e.g., as o p p o s e d to passive) sentences. H o w ever, so m e la n g u a g e s feature
overt m a r k i n g o f active sentences, for instance m a n y A ustronesian la n g u a g e s (Polin-
sky, 2 0 0 1) . T here are also g o o d reasons to believe that in other languag es o r lan gu age
types, predicates rem in isc en t o f the I n d o - E u r o p e a n passive or m id d le stru ctu re are
m o r e central a n d a p p e a r as the default type. D a v is an d D e m ir d a c h e ( 2 0 0 0 ) p ro v id e
evid en ce that in S t a t ’im c ets (Lillooet) the u n m a r k e d predicate refers to a patient-
oriented single p a r t i c i p a n t situation. E r g a t iv e lan g u ag es d isp la y a s i m il a r pattern.
Invariably, in the latter languages, asp ect has been show n to stron gly correlate and
interact with the m a p p i n g o f a r g u m e n ts to syntax.

3. A spect and D iath esis

Eve n though the interaction o f asp ect with the realization o f the a r g u m e n ts o f the
verb has been a c k n o w l e d g e d in ca n o n ic a l alternations, such as in active sentences,
research on derived structures, such as various diathetic alternations, has been
scarce. M o s t c o m m o n l y , observations have been m a d e on a) the aspectual values o f
certain c o n stru ctio n s, su ch as e.g., p erip h rastic passives, an d b) preferences or c o n ­
straints in voice/diathesis c o m b in a tio n s w ith aspectual forms.

3.1. Aspectual Values

O n e o f the m ain issues in this context is w h e th e r a diathetic alternation yields a n e w
aspectual value. It has already been re c o g n iz e d in the linguistic tradition that p a s ­
sives can be associated w i t h a particular aspectual m eaning or value, alongside m o r e
VOICE 947

str a ig h tfo rw a r d fun ctio ns o f the passive, su ch as the a g en t-d em otio n fu n ctio n , and
the in fo r m a tio n -s tru c tu r e m otivated function. T h e range o f opinions a bout the
aspectual function o f passives varies from a c k n o w l e d g i n g the presence o f certain
“ p r e -a s p e c tu a l” features, su ch as e.g., “stative” vs. “d y n a m i c ” as typical o f passive-
type c on struction s, to asserting the passive as a k in d o f aspectual category, similar
to e.g., Perfect. T h e latter opin ion is m ost salient in B e e d h a m s w o r k ( 1 9 8 2 , 1988,
1 9 9 8 ). A m o n g the ccntral w o r k s addressing passives in relation to sentential tem p o -
raJ-aspectuaJ categories belong those o f C o m r i e ( 1 9 7 6 , 1 9 8 1 ) , N ed jalk o v and Jaxon to v
( 19 8 8 ), a n d Tobin (1993). H a sp e lm a th (19 9 3) addresses the crosslinguistic t y p o l o g y
a n d m e a n i n g o f passive participles.
In a m o n o g r a p h dealing with the ty p o lo g y o f resultative constructions, N e d ja lk o v
a n d Ja x o n to v (19 8 8 ) define the core m e a n in g o f the structure as “expressing a state
i m p ly in g a previous event.” B y b e in g related to a past (prior) event, resultatives are
considered as s e c o n d a r y states, rather than p r i m a r y states. This is seen in the c o n ­
trast b e tw een a fallen leaf (as a result o f the (prior) act o f falling) and a dancing/
beautiful girl ( p r i m a r y state). These authors go on to m ak e a distinction between
Perfect as a gra m m atical c a t e g o ry and Resultative, even th o u gh crosslinguistically,
th ey m a y be expressed in a n o n -d istin ct way. W h i l e the Perfect is n o n -s p e c if ic in
regard o f w h i c h arg u m en t (participant) the resulting state is predicated o f (Joh n has
eaten vs. John has eaten the apple), for the Resultative the resulting state is p r e d i ­
cated o f the internal arg u m en t (a rotten apple/an abused person). A fu rth e r differ­
ence b e tw een the perfect an d the resultative is that, w h ile perfect as a c a t e g o r y does
not require a diathetic alternation an d a shift in the (canonical) m a p p i n g o f a r g u ­
ments, resultatives m a y involve a n o n -c a n o n ic a l syntactic m apping. A third d istin c ­
tion is that the Perfect does not dep end o n the lexical specifications o f th e h ea d
verb, while resultatives m a y be constrained b y the lexical specification o f the m a in
v erb , w ith certain classes o f verb s not y ie ld in g resultative form s ( *the danced
sham an/*theplayed musician/*the slept child).
D r a w i n g on these ideas, D i m i t r o v a - V u l c h a n o v a ( 1 9 9 6 / 1 9 9 9 ) describes the a s ­
pectual feature o f periphrastic passives as resultative. She demonstrates that p e r i ­
phrastic passives fulfill all the above criteria and, as a consequence, q u a lify as
resultatives. M o r e specifically, she argues that b o t h resultatives and passives are l e x ­
ically-co nd itio ned and subject to lexical constraints. This is illustrated w ith material
f r o m G e r m a n i c and Slavic languages, su ch as im personal passives in G e r m a n i c
(e.g., G e r m a n heute wirdgeschlafen “som eon e is sleeping t o d a y ” ; N o r w e g i a n det ble
danset i gar “ it w a s danced yesterday” ), w h ic h are restricted to verbs s o m e tim e s
defined as unergative ( m o n a d ic verbs with a single agentive participant); resulta­
tives in G e r m a n i c featuring a form o f be as an auxiliary, w h ich are restricted to
unaccusative verb s ( m o n a d ic verbs with a single patient-like participant), as in
N o r w e g i a n Han er kommet “ he is co m e” ; and periphrastic passives in Bulgarian ,
w h i c h are constrained to specific lexical classes (e.g., verbs that denote cum ulative,
iterative processes). In contrast, non-periphrastic passives (reflexive passives based
on the presence o f a reflexive clitic se) are argued not to involve the resultative fea­
ture. The difference between the two construction types is seen as residing in the
948 A S P E C T AND D I A T H E S I S

specific morphology involved, further reflected in the difference in clausal architec­

ture (presence vs. absence o f a passive projection).
Haspelmath (1993) expresses a similar view on the resultative nature of passive/
unaccusative participles on the criteria suggested by Ncdjalkov and Jaxontov (1988).
Furthermore, he suggests that, diachronically, the resultative is a preceding stage on
the way to becoming a (true) passive participle. This is based on semantic grounds
and from the point o f view of a widening of the event types covered by the participle
form (e.g., by also including atelic transitive events).
In an analysis of participial (periphrastic) passives in Russian, Schoorlemmer
(1995) suggests that, in Russian, this construction type is restricted only to perfective
verbs as a result of a perfect-like (resultant) property of the participant underlying
the object, which requires telicity.

(8) a. Stul byl sloman

chair was broken1’1 Rl
b. *Stul (byl) loman
chair was brokenIM|,|il*|:

A parallel analysis attempts an account of the same phenomenon in terms of

the specific syntax of periphrastic passives and the syntactic node involved. Beed-
ham (1998) has criticized this kind of approach, suggesting that the perfect account
of passives is sufficient in explaining the necessity o f perfective (telic) value simply
as a result of the patient role o f the subject in passives, thus rendering the additional
analysis related to the passive per se superfluous.
As proof that Perfect and Resultative are close semantically, but not categorially,
in expressing similar values, one can bring forth evidence from language diachrony.
Thus, in the history o f English, the Perfect is derived from an originally resultative
construction in which the resulting state is predicated o f the internal argument. This
is clearly seen in the syntactic structure of the construction, which unlike its modern
counterpart, features a small-clause. The examples in (9a) and (9a) represent two
stages of the evolution o f the construction, where at earlier stages the past participle
displays agreement with the noun in both case and number (9a), which was later lost,
as seen in ( 9 a ). The minimal pair in (9b-b') illustrates the change (reanalysis) of
word order that gave rise to the modern Perfect construction (from Denison 1993).

(9) a. ic h f e f d e h i n e 3 e b u n d e n n c
I had himACCSG tied up m;( m;
a . ic hasfde hine 3ebunden
I had himACC tied up
b. America has [(a role [found]]
b'. America [has [found]] a role.

In turn, both categories are akin to passives. In Macedonian, one o f the peri­
phrastic construction for Perfect, popular in the Western dialects, is based on a past
passive participle (an «/^-participle), which is distinct from the past active participle
(the /-participle). This is illustrated in the example in (10) below.
VOICE 949

(10) Ja sum jaden/dojden/padnat

1 eaten/com e/fa llenpASSPART
a m , « ; p resen t
1 have eaten/come/fallen.”

O bserve that the « -b a sed Perfect in M acedonian is a fully gram m aticalized form in
the dialects in which it is spread and, unlike the passive or resultatives, is not lexi­
cally conditioned. Thus, passives, resultatives and the perfect can be seen as form ing
a continuum for the expression o f the full range o f resultant aspectual values.
Some related aspectual values have been argued to arise in the context of
Spanish se-constructions in what A rce -A ren ales ct al. (1993) call the M iddle
Diathesis. They show that se “o n eself” brings along the (lexical) aspectual value o f
punctuality, in contrast to the same verb when used without se. Thus, while (11a)
denotes a durative situation, the exam ple in (11b) refers to a punctual event o f
falling asleep.

(11) a. D urm io en cl auto.

Slept p;vsr in the car
“S/he slept in the car.”
b. Se durm io en el auto.
“S/he fell asleep in the car.”

The resultative interpretation o f periphrastic passives can be contrasted with

the aspectual values of other diathetic alternations, such as, e.g., what has come to
be known in the literature as antipassives. The latter have been dubbed so, since in
contrast with the better-known passive alternation, in the languages in which they
are found, antipassives involve various degrees of demotion of the direct object,
sometimes referred to as “ backgrounding.’' An example from Dyirbal (Dixon, 1979)
is given in (12) below, where “ father” in (12b) is promoted to absolutive, which is the
primary term in ergative languages, while “mother” is demoted from primary term
in (12a) to a dative object in (12b).

(12) a. yabu i)uma-r)gu bura-n

m o t h e r ^ f a t h e r ^ seepAST
“ Father saw mother."
b. i)uma b u[al-ga-jiu yabu-gu
falherA|!S seeANT|pJ>AST m o lh erDAT
“ Father saw mother.”

In a paper devoted to the functional typology o f antipassives in a num ber o f lan­

guages, C oorem an (1993) identifies an aspectual function alongside the core b a c k ­
grou n din g function. She brings evidence that, in 11 out o f 19 languages in her sample,
antipassives function as a w a y to indicate imperfective aspect by defining an event
as incomplete, w hose totality cannot be traced. The exam ple from C h a m o rro in (13)
below exemplifies the antipassive used to describe an event, which is iterative or
distributed in time (C oorem an , 1993). The sam e sentence could be used to describe
the closely related m eaning o f a habitual event.

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950 A SP E C T AND D IA T H E SIS

(13) M ang-galuti gue’ ni ga’lago

AP-hit A B S3SG O BLdog
“ He pounded on/repeatedly hit the dog."

This contrast in aspectual values between passives and antipassives, w hich es­
sentially display a contrast in the m appin g and dem otion o f argum ents involved,
is fu rth er p r o o f o f the close interaction o f diathetic alternations and aspect
construal.
On a more general level concerning preferences between diathetic alternations
and aspectual forms, Delaney (1982) maintains that there is a basic split crosslinguis-
tically between ergative or passive patterns which are patient-oriented and associ­
ated with perfective aspect, and active or “anti-passive” patterns and imperfective
aspect or future tense. His approach is semantically oriented and describes the
nature o f this relationship in terms o f three tiers or levels o f semantic structure, the
motion/directionality tier (Source-Goal), the participant role tier (Agent-Patient),
and the telicity tier (Onset-Termination). l ie suggests that there are close conceptual
and semantic links to be found between those tiers and that these semantic links
account for interactions between transitivity, voice and aspect crosslinguistically.

3.2. Constraints on Aspect Construal in Derived Structures

Another central issue regarding non-canonical mappings from the point of view of
aspect construal is the extent to which aspect construal is constrained, e.g., by the
passive morphology. It has been observed in the literature that certain diathetic
alternations not only come with a specific aspectual value, but are also constrained
in regard o f aspect construal. Bulgarian passives offer a handy illustration given in
(14) below.

(14) a. *Jabalkite bjaxa jad en i vcera.

Apples-the were eaten yesterday
b. Jab 31kite se (iz)jadoxa vcera.
apples-the se (PF.RF.)ate yesterday
“ The apples w ere eaten yesterday.”

While (14a) provides an example o f the periphrastic passive, the example in (14b) is
a se-passive based on active morphology featuring the reflexive clitic se. As seen in
the contrast in gram m atically, a periphrastic passive necessarily requires a per­
fective form of the verb, while there are no corresponding constraints on the se-
passive in (14b). Thus, se-passives emerge as free o f constraints regarding aspect
construal, while periphrastic passives are restricted. Similar constraints on a strictly
perfective form of the verb participating in periphrastic passives have been shown
to apply to the other Slavic languages (cf. Siewierska, 19S8, for Polish, and Schoor-
lemmer, 1995, for Russian). As a matter of fact, in Russian, the majority of imper­
fective verbs do not even have passive participle forms (*krasen (painted), *glazen

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VOICE 951

(ironed)), while the few verbs that have such forms only allow modifying use (*bit
(beaten), but bityji cas (a whole hour/at the top o f the hour) (Harrison 1967). This
systematic correspondence between the periphrastic passive (passive morphology)
and perfective m orphology is a clear indication o f the aspectual nature o f passives,
which, in other languages may be obscured by the absence of explicit grammatical
marking. Supporting evidence is also found in the history of English, where the
passive (15b) was incompatible with the progressive (15a) as late as the 18th century
(Delancey, 1982), as shown by the unacceptability o f (15c) below.

(15) a. He is building a house.

b. The house has been built.
c. 'T h e house is being built.

There are further restrictions related to the lexical properties of the head verb
in terms of what kind o f process it denotes. Eventually these lexical restrictions can
be reduced to the different potential o f those verbs in terms of yielding telic
predicates.

(16) a. Vinoto bese «zpivano vsjaka prolet

W inc-thc w asj!K|>AST d ru n k pASSPART1MpEItFFCT|VE every spring
(i novo se pravese).
and new ^ m ad< W IMPERFECT
“ The w ine w as drun k (being) every spring (and new wine w as produced again).”
b. ??Vratata bese ritvan a vseki pat,
door-the wasjS0Jwsr kicked,,ASSPABT IMPI:RF(.cnvl; every tim e
kogato njakoj vlezese
when som ebody entered
“ The d oo r w as (being) kicked every time som ebody entered (the room).”

The contrast in acceptability between (16a) and (16b) arises from the presence o f the
secondary imperfectivizing suffix - va -, which is possible in the case o f the passive
participle /zpivano (drunk) in (16a), but not for ritvana (kicked) in (16b). Thus,
secondary imperfective forms, which are derived from perfective ones and denote
iterativity (the iteration of telic events) appear possible in the context o f periphrastic
passives from certain verbs. This can be explained by the lexical meaning specific to
this class. The latter verbs denote cumulative processes involving internal argu­
ments, which serve to define the process itself. It will be recalled that cumulativity
as a lexical property affecting telicity is proposed in Dimitrova-Vulchanova
(1996/1999) and Ramchand (2008). Croft (in press) observes a similar interaction
between constructional aspectual values and the lexical properties of the head
verbs.
In conclusion, one can expect that various diathetic forms differ as regards the
possibility of aspect construal, and are further constrained by the lexical semantics
of the head verb and more specifically, by the kind o f process it denotes and what
kind of (internal) argument this process applies to.

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952 A SP E C T AND D IA T H E SIS

In addition to the lim itations on available aspect construal possibilities in

passives, certain languages place constraints on the very form that a certain verb
can take in the passive, depending on its aspectual value. Thus languages like Latin
and Russian only allow morphological passives in the case of imperfective verbs,
while perfective verbs appear in the periphrastic passive (Polinsky 2001).

4. T e n s e , A spect, and D iath esis

Diathesis interacts richly not only with aspect construal, but also with temporal
categories. Complex interactions o f these categories are well attested in the history
o f Indo-European (cf. Kurylowicz, 1964; Klimov, 1972, 1975; C om rie 1976;
Percl'muter, 1977; Kutsarov, 1993). This is natural, since all three categories reflect
aspects of the situations denoted by verbs, such as the participants, the internal
temporal structure o f the situation, and the location o f the situation in time.
In clausal architecture, these categories operate and are expressed in a bottom-
up fashion, with the categories more inherently related to the lexical specifications
o f the main verb expressed first, followed by categories expressing features o f the
clause. Tli is fact is reflected in the hierarchical structure of clauses in formal syntac­
tic analyzes, but also in typological analyzes, which show that the ordering o f affixes
follows a systematic mirror ordering with respect to the verbal stem: affixes, which
are closer to the stem semantically and categorically, tend to come closest, with
more remote affixes being placed further out and removed from the stem (cf.
Ilaim an, 1980, but also Bakers 1988 Mirror Principle o f Incorporation). Thus, the
level o f the verb phrase (VP) is the designated locus for the realization of the argu­
ments of the verb or alternative mappings of the latter, as in Voice alternations, as
well as any aspectual features arising from the composition of the verb denotation
with the denotation o f the direct object (cf. Verkuyls 1993 analysis of aspect con­
strual). The result o f this composition is taken as input for the operation o f temporal
categories. Whether formalized in model-theoretic terms, in formal syntactic terms,
or as constraints, the interaction is clear.
It should be mentioned that some models o f gram m ar assume a richer structure
around, and, at the level of, the verb phrase, designed to capture among other things,
a) the structure o f complex dynamic events (e.g., accomplishments, causation), and
b) semantic distinctions among the arguments o f the verb and their place in event
structure (cf. Hale and Keyser, 1993; Ramchand, 2008).
Wrhile temporal and aspectual categories m ay be complementary in roughly
denoting the same type o f temporal structure o f the situation, e.g., habitualily
(tense) and iteration (aspect), more often, tense may restrict certain aspectual forms
o f the verb in canonical mappings of arguments. Thus, in Bulgarian, the Aorist
cannot take as input so-called secondary imperfective forms which denote iterativ-
ity (Dimitrova-Vulchanova, 1996/1999), while in Russian, Czech and Bulgarian
(and most Slavic languages), perfective forms are ruled out in the present tense.9

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Borik (2006) otters a detailed analysis o f the interaction of aspectual forms and
temporal categories with a focus on Russian and English.
As a result of the above order o f operation/expression of the three categories,
quite often tense can place restrictions or preferences on certain diathetic alterna­
tions, such as passives. Thus, in Bulgarian the tendency for periphrastic passives is
a strong preference to occur in the context o f the two past tenses (the Aorist and the
Imperfect), while the se-passive, even though unrestricted in temporal reference,
displays a preference for the present tense. Likewise, the Germ anic middle tends to
occur in the present tense and expresses a generic value (as in English, e.g., in (17c)).
This is illustrated by the Bulgarian examples (i7a-b).

(17) a. Trevata bese okosena (ot selianite).

Grass-the was3SGpASr m o w n „ (by peasants-the)
“ The grass w as m own (by the peasants).”
a '. *Trevata e kosena v m om enta
g ra ss-th e iS)SG(,RES m ow nft|m A B at m o m e n t-th e
“ The grass is being m own at the moment.”
b. Trevata se kosi prez Ijatoto (ot seljanite)
grass-the se m ow iS(. |)RESACT in sum m er-the (by peasants-the)
“ The grass se m ows in the sum m er (by the peasants).”
c. Cheese cuts easily.

Some languages display fused syncretic forms, such as, e.g., Aorist and Perfec­
tive in Greek, which are inseparable in the active form. This has given rise to discus­
sions about the exact aspectual nature and value of the Greek Aorist, and whether it
can be equated with, e.g., the Slavic type of Perfective. For instance, Bakker (1993)
adopts a view of aspect in Greek as the (fundamental) opposition between Aorist
and Imperfect forms o f the verb, and goes on to define Aorist as the instantiation of
perfective aspect. The reader is referred to a comprehensive discussion o f the views
on the Greek categories in Binnick (1991), and Olsen (1997) for the interaction o f
temporal and aspectual categories crosslinguistically with a focus on English and
Greek. Dahl (2000) offers a detailed typology o f tense-aspect categories in the Euro­
pean languages.

5. T h e S o u r c e of A spectual and Temporal

Va l u e s and C o n str a in ts

A hotly debated issue in current research on aspectuality and temporality is the

question o f what gives rise to the constraints on aspect construal and the expression
o f certain temporal categories in their interaction with diathetic alternations.
Essentially, there are two styles o f approaches, one that attributes these restrictions
to originally lexical properties of the respective components, and approaches that

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954 ASPECT AND DIATHESIS

attribute this to c o e r c io n b y th e sp e c ific sy n ta c tic stru c tu re s in w h ic h th e se c o m p o ­

n en ts are e m b e d d e d (B o rer, 2 0 0 3; R a m c h a n d , 2 0 0 8 ; Afarli, 2 0 0 7 ). C le a rly , a se n sib le
ap p ro ach w o u ld re c o g n iz e the p a rtic ip a tio n o f b oth , th o u g h at d iffe re n t le v e ls o f the
c o m p o sitio n (cf. G o ld b e r g , 2 0 0 5 , fo r a d isc u ssio n ). In a d d itio n , la n g u a g e s ten d to be
in flu en ced b y th e sp e c ific g ra m m a r e x p o n e n ts th ey d isp la y fo r the c a te g o rie s at
h an d . It se e m s th at m o rp h o lo g ic a lly m ark e d c a te g o rie s are m o re c o n stra in e d in the
syn tax, as d e m o n stra te d b y the co rre la tio n b etw een the S la v ic p e rfe c tiv e an d p e r i­
p h ra stic p a ssiv e s. A n o th e r in trig u in g d ifferen ce b etw e e n S la v ic an d G e r m a n ic is the
av a ila b ility o f a tem p late fo r a c lo se ly related categ o ry, sy n ta ctic resu ltatives
exp re sse d b y a sm a ll-c la u se (Je sp e rse n s ( 19 0 9 - 4 9 ) “ n e x u s” ) c o n stru c tio n . T he latter
are u n g ra m m a tic a l in Slavic, d u e to c o n stra in ts o f sy n ta x (cf. D im itro v a -V u lc h a -
n o v a, 2 0 0 2 ), a n d it se e m s that S p a n ish h a s sim ila r co n strain ts.
A su c c e ssfu l acco u n t o f the so u rce o f co n strain ts o n a sp c ct c o n stru a l ca n d i­
rectly feed on a m u lti-layered ap p ro ach to aspectu ality. T h e re co g n itio n o f d e sig ­
nated levels o f clau se stru ctu re at w h ich asp ectu al p ro cesses o p erate can e x p la in n ot
o n ly the rela tio n sh ip b etw een a rg u m e n t stru ctu re alte rn atio n s (d iath esis) a n d aspect,
b u t can p o te n tia lly reso lve the lo n g sta n d in g d isp u te a b o u t situ atio n typ e asp ect
(.A ktionsarten) an d v ie w p o in t asp ect as essen tially a p p ly in g to d ifferen t levels o f the
clause. It is cle ar that in b oth S lavic la n g u ag e s an d G e rm a n ic lan g u ag es, the lex ical
p ro p erties o f th e v erb a n d the q u a n tific a tio n a l p ro p ertie s o f th e v e rb a rg u m e n ts p la y
a d ecisive role fo r y ie ld in g telicity (p e rfective aspect). T h ese are c le a rly asp e c tu a l
p ro cesses o p e ra tin g at the level o f th e v erb p h rase. S o -c a lle d v ie w p o in t asp ect is a
v alu e related to im p o sin g a sp e cific p e rsp e ctive on the situ ation a n d its te m p o ral
stru ctu re. T h u s, th ere are tw o o p tio n s: eith er rep resen t it as co m p leted an d keep the
telic valu e o r g iv e an in te rv a l o r iterative re a d in g , w h ic h are typ ical im p e rfe c tiv e
valu es. W h e th e r th is is exp ressed b y m o rp h o lo g y or n ot is su b ject to la n g u a g e -sp e ­
cific p referen ces. In Slavic lan g u ages th is is ren d ered b y the im p e rfe ctiv e su ffix -v a-,
w h ich can be stack ed o n an a lre a d y p e rfe ctiv e fo rm , a p ro ce ss k n o w n as se c o n d a ry
im p erfe ctivizatio n . T h e d egree to w h ic h th is d erivatio n is g ra m m a tic a liz e d varies
acro ss the S la v ic lan g u ag es, an d it h a s b een claim ed (cf. Ivan cev, 1976 ) that th is is the
b est e x p o n e n t o f asp ect as a (p u re) g ra m m a tic a l category. O n e can th en e x p ect that
m o st co n strain ts on asp ect c o n stru a l w ill ob tain at the leve l o f in teractio n o f m o r­
p h em es like th is an d sem an tic p ro p e rtie s related to situ ation type. In a sim ila r way,
th is m o rp h e m e is exp ected to in teract w ith the sem an tic p ro p e rtie s o f tense.

6 . C o nclusio ns

H ie fo cu s o f th is ch ap ter h as b ee n the in tera ctio n o f tw o catego ries c o m m o n ly

e xp re sse d on v e rb s, A sp e c t an d V oice. T he s u r v e y o f research on the to p ic h a s d e m ­
o n strated th a t th ere are both se m a n tic a n d g ra m m a tic a l re a so n s fo r th is in teractio n .
B o th are related to sem an tic in fo rm a tio n e n c o d e d in th e verb , in c lu d in g lexical
in fo rm a tio n ab o u t the p a rtic ip a n t roles a sso c ia te d w ith th e verb , a n d in p a rtic u la r
VOICE 955

what defines the situation type denoted by the verb. They are related also in the
gram m ar, since typically both categories are expressed as m o rp h o lo g y on the verb
or are related to the m ain verb, e.g., in periphrastic constructions. Furthermore,
m any o f the aspectual constraints that exist on derived voice constructions (such as
passives) have to do with aspects o f the original participant roles or the lexical p ro p ­
erties o f the verb. In addition, there are m ore general constraints related to the exact
m o rp h o lo g y related to aspect construal and the w a y in which this m o rp h o lo g y
interacts with other m orphologically expressed categories, such as Tense. It should
be observed that in the area o f Aspect no definitive answers have been found, and
the field is live with discussions. This is a clear indication o f the complexity not only
o f the category itself, but also o f the com plex interactions o f this category with
Voice, and temporal categories. This review is by no means exhaustive; however, it
offers useful pointers to so m e central view s and m ost cited works. Despite the
recent advance in research on aspectual issues, m any central problems remain
unresolved and in need o f further investigation. In particular, a lot is to be desired
in terms o f systematization and convergence o f theoretical approaches and accounts
o f empirical data.

NOTES

1. See the chapters by dc Sw art and Filip in this volum e.

2. See V erkuyl, this volum e, section 3.
3. See V erkuyl, this volum e, section 3.
4. In crem en tal th em es refer to p articip a n ts in the situ atio n , w h ose p ro p erties
g ra d u a lly change in an in crem en tal w ay as the situation p ro gresses. T h u s, in the
pro cess o f so m eo n e eatin g an app le, the apple g ra d u a lly d isa p p e a rs, u n til there is no
m ore o f it. A n in crem en tal chan ge o r pro cess is one in w hich the ch an ge o r process
p ro ceed s in on e d irectio n o n ly an d there is n o tu rn in g back, i.e., the chan ge is
u n id irectio n al and irreversib le.
5. See Beavers, this volum e.
6. O n gram m atical aspect, see de Sw art, this volum e.
7. Aktionsart is gen erally identified with lexical aspect; see Filip, this volum e. On
m arkin g, p articu larly with reference to Slavic, see A n d rew s, this volum e.
8. I.e., the sentence is gram m atical with to “ the,” but u n gram m atical w ithout it.
9. See G vo zd an o vic, this volum e.

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 CHAPTER 34

CASE

K YLIE R ICH A R D SO N

i. I n t r o d u c t i o n

The purpose o f this chapter is to illustrate that morphological case in m any lan­
guages is aspectually relevant. Num erous scholars have noticed that morphological
case is connected to so-called L E X I C A L / S E M A N T I C aspectual features such as
telicity (whether a verb phrase has an inherent natural endpoint or not) and/or so-
called G R A M M A T I C A L / M O R P H O L O G I C A L aspectual features such as b o u n d ­
edness (whether a verb phrase is bounded in time). This chapter first addresses the
link between case and both types o f aspect in a num ber of languages (e.g., Finnish,
Estonian, Hungarian, and Russian). It then explores the link between case on noun
phrases and grammatical aspect in the history o f Germ an and a number o f erga-
tive-absolutive languages (e.g., Warlpiri and Hindi), and also the link between case
on adverbial phrases and grammatical aspect in Inari Saami, Finnish, and Russian.
It then focuses on connections between case and lexical aspect in Latin, Classical
Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Manambu, and the Slavic languages (in particular,
Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Bosnian/Croatian/
Serbian). Throughout this chapter I purposely avoid couching the links between
case and aspect found in these languages in any sort of theoretical framework
(despite m y inclination toward a syntactic account). Instead, my prim ary goal is to
show that, despite the difficulty in establishing an absolute one-to-one correlation
between case and different aspectual features, it is clear that case is aspectually
relevant in m any languages.
This chapter is organized as follows: section 2 provides a definition of m o rp h o ­
logical case; section 3 provides a definition o f so-called L E X I C A L / S E M A N T I C
aspect and G R A M M A T I C A L / M O R P H O L O G I C A L aspect and also argues in favor
for keeping these two types of aspect distinct from one another; section 4 highlights

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CASE

connections between case and both types of aspect in numerous languages; section 5
explores the link between case and lexical/semantic aspect in more detail across the
Slavic languages; and section 6 constitutes the conclusion.

2. W hat Is C ase ?

To understand the statement that morphological case is aspectually relevant in n u ­

merous languages, we must first understand what scholars mean when they refer to
case. In much o f the syntactic literature, the term case is often used to refer to at least
two different phenomena: so-called structural case (also known as canonical or syn­
tactic case) versus lexical case (also known as non-canonical or quirky case). Scholars
also make reference to so-called inherent , semantic , and default case. These various
types o f case can potentially be marked on a number of different constituents in a
clause, e.g., on nominal phrases, adjectives, adverbs, and, in some languages, even
on verbs.1 In this chapter, I focus primarily on the link between aspect and case on
noun phrases, although I briefly discuss the aspectual relevance of case morphology
on adverbial phrases in three languages: Inari Saami, Finnish, and Russian. The
primary distinction crucial to the discussion o f many examples in what follows is
the opposition between structural and lexical case; thus, these types o f case are
defined below. For a discussion of inherent case (which typically refers to the case
on the so-called “ indirect object” with ditransitive verbs like give, showy and fc//), see
Woolford (2006) (and references therein). For a discussion o f semantic case (pri­
marily in the Slavic languages), see Babby and Freidin (1984), Babby (1986), and
Richardson (2007). For a brief discussion of default case and an overview of all the
five types o f case listed above, see Richardson (2007).
To understand the nature of case marking on noun phrases, some under­
standing o f the structure of case-assigned noun phrases in a clause is necessary.2
Following Dixon (1979,1994) and Aikhenvald, Dixon, and Onishi (2001), I assume
there are transitive and intransitive clauses in languages which in turn consist o f
three core grammatical categories, namely A, O, S:

A the core argument o f a transitive clause, which proto typically denotes the
controller or initiator o f the activity dcscribcd by the verb;
O the other core argument o f a transitive clause, which prototypically denotes the
participant affected by the activity described by the verb;
S the sole argument o f an intransitive clause.

Thus, the following four possible clause types exist in languages (the symbol E
represents the non-A, non - 0 argument o f a ditransitive verb):

Plain transitive A O
Extended transitive (ditransitive) A O E (or O)
Plain intransitive S
Extended intransitive S E

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Languages have diverse ways o f marking the A, O, S, and E arguments m o r­

phologically. Dixon (1994) notes, for instance, that in so-called nominative-accusative
languages (e.g., English in its system o f personal pronouns), O almost always oc­
curs in the accusative, whereas A and S are almost always in the nominative. In
so-called ergative-absolutive languages (such as Basque), A is in the ergative,
whereas O and S are in the absolutive. That is, we have the following two patterns
(Aikhenvald et al., 2001, p. 3):3

N om inative A S
Accusative O
Ergative A
Absolutive S O

Scholars often refer to deviations from the case patterns outlined above, such as
non-accusative marking on O in nominative-accusative languages as non-canoni-
cal, lexical or quirky case, whereas they refer to the accusative case on O as canon­
ical, syntactic or structural case. One o f the core differences often cited between
so-called structural and lexical case is predictability, namely only structural case is
predictable. In most o f the Slavic languages, for instance, the accusative case gener­
ally occurs 011 the O argument in a plain transitive construction. The O arguments
o f some verbs, however, occur with genitive, dative, or instrumental case marking.
This case marking is arguably unpredictable, that is, there is nothing about the
semantics o f these verbs that reliably and consistently enables one to predict the
case that occurs on their O argument.1 Another feature that sets structural and lex­
ical case apart is that only lexical case is obligatory, that is, it cannot be “overridden”
by another case. For instance, in Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish the
structural accusative case can be overridden by the so-called “genitive o f negation.” 5
Lexical case-marked arguments, on the contrary, can never occur in the genitive o f
negation. Thus, two features that set structural and lexical case apart are whether
they are predictable (structural versus lexical case) and whether they are obligatory
(lexical versus structural case).

3. W hat Is A spect ?

As mentioned at the beginning o f this chapter, the term aspect potentially covers
two phenomena: so-called lexical /semantic aspect or grammatical /morphological
aspect. (On lexical aspect, see Filip, this volume; on grammatical aspect, see de
Swart, this volume.) Lexical/semantic aspect is also referred to in the literature as
event structure , situational aspect, Vendlerian aspect, inner aspect, eventuality typey
or as AktionsartS and grammatical/morphological aspect is also referred to as view ­
point or outer aspect.
Consider first the nature o f lexical/semantic aspect. Scholars often use this term
to refer to the inherent meaning o f a verb phrase. It typically refers, for instance, to

Bahan dengan hak cipta

CASE

w h e t h e r the v e rb phrase en cod es an inherent natural endpoint (a telos) o r not. F o l ­

lo w in g G a r e y (1957)» a v erb phrase with an inherent natural endpoint is referred to
as telic (i.e., it h a s a telos), and one without an endpoint as atelic (it lacks a telos).
M a n y follo w in the spirit o f V e n d lc r (1957) and categorize atelic verb phrases as states
and activities, a n d telic verb phrases as a cco m p lish m en ts an d achievements. S o m e
also add semelfactives as an additional c atego ry to this list o f verb types (Smith,
1 9 9 1 / 1 9 9 7 ) , e.g., verbs like pu sh in constructions like Jo sh u a p u sh ed A le x a n d r a .
Semelfactives denote instantaneous v e r b phrases w ith ou t duration that la c k a p r e ­
lim in a r y or resultant stage and also lack a telos. Henceforth, w h e n e v e r 1 do not wish
to sp e c ify the aspectual status o f a verb phrase, I use the neutral term event u a lity .
C o n s i d e r n o w the nature o f g r a m m a tic a l/ m o r p h o lo g ic a l aspect. The S la v ic l a n ­
gu ag e s are particu larly ideal for illustrating g ra m m atic al/m o rp h o lo gic a l aspectual
contrasts, since th ey use a rich system o f m o r p h o l o g y to signal wheth er a v e r b is in
the so-called im perfective or p e rfe c tiv e aspect. In Russian, for example, the verb
w rite has an im perfective verbal fo rm p i s a f a n d a conventionally paired p erfec tiv e
fo rm n a p is a f. R o u g h l y speaking, perfective verb s are limited in time (b o u n d e d ),
w h ere as im p erfective verbs are not (th ey are u n b o u n d ed ). To use B a c h s ( 1 9 8 6 ) ter­
m in o lo gy , perfective eventualities are p a c k a g ed as single u n it a r y actions. T h e s e a c ­
tions m ig h t be p a ck a ged for the p u r p o s e o f se q u e n c in g the action in time, t h e y m a y
be related to a deadline or other tim e -fra m e , or th e y m a y fo cu s on the sign ifica n ce
o f reaching the inherent endpoint e n c o d e d in a c c o m p lish m en ts and m a n y a c h i e v e ­
m en ts for reasons such as e n c o d in g success or failure (C h a p u t, 1990). Im p e r fe c tiv e
verbs, o n the contrary, express actions that are u n p a ck a g ed . T h e y are not l im i te d in
time, an d th e y generally focus on actions in progress, on the duration o f a n action,
or on repetition. Im perfective actions n e v e r fo cu s on com pletion or an endpoint.
In essence, gra m m a tic a l aspect focuses on the temporal perspective o f a n e v e n ­
tuality, w h ereas with lexical aspect the tem p o ral perspective is irrelevant to the n at­
ural u n fo ld in g o f the eventuality type; w h a t is im p o rta n t is w h eth er the ev en tuality
has a natural term inus or not. That is, lexical a n d gram m atical aspect are distinct
categories. In the Slavic languages, there is no absolute o n e-to -o n e correlation o f
u n b o u n d e d im perfective verbs, for instance, with atelic eventualities and b o u n d e d
perfective verbs w ith telic eventualities (contra Brecht, 1985; S c h o o r le m m e r, 19 9 5;
van H out, 2 0 0 0 , 2 0 0 7 ; B o h n c m e y e r and Swift, 2 0 0 4 ; Borer, 2 0 0 5; Basilico, 2 0 0 8 ;
R a m c h a n d , 2 0 0 S ; and others).7 The verb in the following example taken f r o m R u s ­
sian, for instance, is in the perfective aspect, yet it describes an atelic eventuality,
hence its u n g r a m m a t i c a l l y with the ‘ in X time adverbial— an adverbial expression
c o m m o n l y used as a diagnostic for telicity in m a n y languages,8 e.g.:

(1) Masa potancevala (*za 10 minut).

Masha-NOM danced-PF in 10 minutes
“Masha danced for a while (*in 10 minutes).”

The verb ta n c e v a t'1to dance is imperfective in Russian. A d d i n g the p refix p o - to this

verb results in a perfective verb with a b o u n d e d interpretation ‘to dance for a w h ile’,
but n o t a telic one, hence its u n g ra m m a tic a lity with the ‘in X time adverbial.
964 A SP E C T AND D IA T H E SIS

Perfective semelfactive verbs (which are arguably atelic) are also ungrammatical
with the ‘in X time adverbial in the Slavic languages. Furthermore, as discussed by
Paduceva and Pentus (2008), perfective verbs like uvelicit’sja get bigger, increase’
are atelic in Russian.
Just as there is no absolute one-to-one correlation between the perfective aspect
and telicity in the Slavic languages,9 nor is there a one-to-one correspondence
between the imperfective aspect and atelicity in Slavic. As in numerous other lan­
guages, in the Slavic languages the presence or absence o f an internal argument and
the status o f that internal argument as definite, a count term, a bare plural, etc. can
play a role in the event structure of so-called C R E A T IO N / C O N S U M P T IO N verbs.
This class includes verbs like buildy eat , write , drink. In Russian, a creation/con­
sumption verb phrase like jest* jabloko ‘to eat an/the apple’, for instance, is telic even
though the verb is in the imperfective aspect. As discussed in Filip (2000a), the
internal argument jabloko an apple in this verb phrase provides an inherent natural
endpoint (a telos) for the eating eventuality. The use of the imperfective aspect in
this construction affects the w ay the telic eventuality is viewed: it signals that focus
on the successful completion o f the apple is not crucial in the discourse, although in
the right context, the verb phrase can be interpreted as completed.10 There is a diag­
nostic that we can use to test Filips claim, namely the progressive test (as discussed
in Borik, 2002, who builds on analyses of this diagnostic in Bach, 1986, and in
Vendler, 1957, among others).11 According to this test, only atelic predicates license
a present perfect inference or entailment from a verb in the progressive aspect. If we
apply this test to creation/consumption verb phrases like jest' jabloko eat an/the
apple’, the present perfect inherence ‘has eaten the apple’ is absent, as is evident in
the interpretation o f a construction like (2) below, e.g.:

(2) Kogda pozvonila mama, Ivan jcl jabloko.

when phoned-PF mama, Iv a n -N O M ate-IM P F a p p l e -A C C
“ W h en M u m called, Ivan was eating an/the/some apple.”

The lower clause Ivan je l jabloko in this example does not have the present perfect
inference that Ivan has (already) eaten the apple (up), it only has the progressive
interpretation that he was engaged in eating the apple. Compare now the different
interpretation of the lower clause Ivan pil caj, also taken from Russian, with an
internal argument that is not a definite count term (caj ‘tea’ ), e.g.:

(3) Kogda pozvonila mama, Ivan pil caj.

w hen call-PF mama, Iv a n -N O M d r a n k -IM P F tea-ACC
“ W h e n M u m called, Ivan was drinking tea.”

Unlike example (2), the verb phrase p il caj in this example can have the present
perfect inference “ Ivan has (already) drunk tea.” That is, the progressive test in these
two examples differentiates between telic (example 2) and atelic (example 3) eventu­
alities when the verb is in the imperfective aspect and it provides evidence that a
verb phrase like jest* jabloko ‘to eat an/some/the apple’ is indeed telic, despite the
imperfective aspectual marking on the verb.

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CA S E 965

Based on the patterns outlined above, in w h a t follows, I assume th;it the d e ­

fining characteristic o f an im perfective or perfective eventuality as u n b o u n d e d or
b o u n d e d in tim e is distinct from the notion o f telicity. T h e following section focuses
on links b e tw e e n case and both types o f aspect in a n u m b e r o f different languages.
In w h a t follows, I adopt V e n d J e r s (1 9 5 7 ) classification o f verb (phrase) types for
descriptive purposes.

4. L i n k s betw een C ase and A spect

Sch o lars have posited a link between case an d aspect (either g r a m m a t i c a l / m o r p h o ­

logical or lexical/semantic aspect) in n u m e r o u s languages. Links between case and
aspect have been posited, for instance, in Slavic languages, e.g., Russian ( B a b k o -
M a la y a , 1 9 9 9 ; Pereltsvaig, 2 0 0 0 , 2 0 0 1 ; Borer, 2 0 0 5 ; a n d Richardson, 2 0 0 7 ) and
Belarusian, U k ra in ia n , C z e c h , Slovak, Polish, B o sn ia n / C ro a tia n / S e rb ia n ( B C S )
(R ic h a r d so n , 2 0 0 7 ) ; in G e r m a n i c languages, e.g., G e r m a n (A b r a h a m , 1 9 9 7 ; and
Leiss, 2 0 0 0 , a m o n g others) and Icelandic (Svenonius, 2 0 0 2 ) ; and m o s t p r o m in e n t l y
in the F i n n o - U g r i c languages, e.g.:

• F in n ish (Itkonen, 1976; H e in am aki, 19 84 ; and Kiparsky, 1998, a m o n g m a n y

others);
• E s t o n i a n (Kont, 1963; and T a m m , 2007, a m o n g others);
• H u n g a r ia n (C s ir m a z, 2 0 0 6 ) ; and
• Inari S a a m i (Nelson, 2 0 0 7).

Scholars have also identified links between case a nd aspect in Bengali an d Scottish
G aelic (R a m c h a n d , 1997); Spanish (Torrego, 1998); and num erous ergative-absolutive
languages, including Warlpiri (Hale, 3982); M a n a m b u (Aikhenvald, 2 0 0 8 ) ; a n d H in di
(M o h a n a n , 19 8 4 ), a m o n g m a n y others (see, for instance, C o m rie, 1978; D i x o n , 19 7 9 ,
19 9 4 ; and D eL a n cey, 1981).
P ro b a b ly one o f the more oft-cited languages that exhibits a link b e t w e e n case
and aspect is Finnish. Finnish exhibits an accusative-versus-partitive-case o p p o s i ­
tion on an internal argument that appears to be linked to an aspectual contrast. The
nature o f this contrast has been described in terms o f boundedness, telicity, and
even, so m etim es, both. Exam ples like (4) and (5) below, from K ip a rsk y ( 1 9 9 8 ) , are
often cited to illustrate this link (for further examples and discussion see, e.g.,
Itkonen, 1 9 7 6 , and Heinam aki, 1984):

(4) Ammu-i-un karhu-a

shoot-PAST-i.sg bear-PART
“I shot at the/a bear.”
(5) Ammu-i-n karhu-n
shoot-PAST-i.sg bear
“I shot the/a bear.”
966 A SP E C T AND D IA T H E SIS

In example (4), the nominal “ bear” is in the partitive case and the implication is
that the shot may have missed and the bear has not been killed. In example (5), by
contrast, the nominal is in the accusative case and the implication is that the bear
has been shot and hit and is wounded or dead. Example (4) arguably denotes an
activity (it is atelic), whereas example (5) denotes an accomplishment (it is telic).
Examples like these suggest that the accusative case in Finnish is linked to telicity
and the partitive to atelicity. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Finnish
also has intrinsically atelic verbs such as ‘love,’ and ‘touch’ that require partitive
objects and intrinsically telic verbs such as ‘ kill’ and ‘find’ that require the
accusative.12
Case in Finnish not only appears to be intimately connected to lexical/semantic
aspectual contrasts, it also seems to be linked to grammatical aspect. Hakulinen
(1961, p. 333) and Sands (2000, p. 277), for instance, maintain that there is a link
between the inessive and addessive (A D E S) cases and the imperfective aspect in
Finnish; and between the elative, illative, ablative, and allative (ALL) cases and the
perfective aspect. Compare, for instance, the distribution o f case in the following
examples (examples cited in Aikhenvald, 2008, p. 583):

(6) Juna pysahtyi asema-lle

train stop-PAST-3Sg station-ALL
“ The train stopped at the station (lit. toward the station as its final destination)”

(7) Juna pysahtyi asema-lla

train stop-PAST-3sg station-ADES
“ The train stopped at the station (lit. at the station as a passing point).”

According to Sands (2000, p. 277), in example (7) focus is on the process of the
eventuality described by the verb phrase, not the result, whereas in example (6)
focus is on the result, e.g., this station may be the trains final destination. I h e dif­
ferent interpretations of these two examples are reminiscent o f the unbounded-
bounded readings o f the imperfective versus the perfective aspect in the Slavic
languages. Notice that the adessive case occurs with the verb interpreted as un­
bounded, whereas the allative arises on the internal argument with the verb inter­
preted as bounded. Thus, in Finnish, it seems that case is potentially aspectually
relevant in verb phrases with either lexical/semantic or grammatical/morphological
aspectual contrasts.
Finnish is not the only language for which scholars have posited links between
case and both lexical/semantic and grammatical/morphological aspect. Scholars
have also found links between case and both types of aspect in other Finno-Ugric
languages, e.g., in Estonian (Tamm, 2007) and Hungarian (Csirmaz, 2006), and in
Slavic. In Russian, for instance, Jakobson (1936/1971) highlighted the link between
the partitive genitive and grammatical aspect, namely the partitive genitive gener­
ally only occurs with affirmative verbs in the perfective aspect (see also Dahl and
Karlsson, 1976, who compare Russian with Finnish).13 Richardson (2007) also posits
a link between case and grammatical aspect in depictive secondary predicate, copu-
lar and predicative participle constructions in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian,

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and a link between case and lexical aspect in the verbal domain in these languages
(and others). For m any languages, however, scholars have focused on links between
case and one type o f aspect. Therefore, in what follows I will address first further
links between case and grammatical aspect in a number o f different languages, then
links posited between case and lexical aspect.
Abraham (1997) compares the interaction of aspect and case in Slavic, Finnish
and the history o f Germ an and posits a link between aspect, referentiality on the
internal argument, and case. He maintains that if a language “ makes a systematic
formal distinction between perfectivity and non-perfectivity, it can (but need not)
do without surface articles” (Abraham, 1997, p. 42), as is evident in the Slavic lan­
guages (except Bulgarian and Macedonian, which have a definite article), the Indie
languages, Chinese, and Finnish. Case oppositions, he suggests, are adequate sub­
stitutes for referentiality distinctions (such as definite versus indefinite) provided
certain aspectual conditions are met. The following examples from Russian illus­
trate the direct relations between aspect, definiteness, and case morphology.11 The
accusative case-marked argument in these examples can be interpreted as definite
or indefinite, depending on the aspect of the verb. In the right context, it is inter­
preted as indefinite with the imperfective verb in example (8), but definite with the
perfective verbs in examples (9) and (11). As mentioned above, the genitive case in
an example like (10) is generally only possible with perfective verbs. This (partitive)
genitive argument signals indefiniteness. Thus, with the perfective verbs in exam ­
ples (10) and (11) definiteness contrasts are manifested via different case marking on
the internal argument.

(8) On kolol drova

he-NO M split-IMPF f ir e w o o d - A C C - [ - D E F ]

(9) On raskolol drova

he-NOM split-PF f ir e w o o d - A C C - [ + D E F ]

(10) On prines papiros

he-NOM brought-PF cig are ttes-G EN -[-D E F l

(n) On prines papirosy.

he-NOM brought-PF cig a re tte s-A C C -[+ D E F ]
(Abraham, 1997, p. 43)

These examples suggest there is a link between case, aspect and also definiteness effects.
Abraham (1997) and Leiss (2000) explore the link between case, aspect and referen­
tiality in the history of German. Abraham (1997) states that in the history o f German as
long as the aspectual system was intact, case distinctions helped to identify the referen­
tial status of verbal arguments. In the course of late Old High German, however, aspec­
tual morphology weakened, and this meant that case distinctions were not sufficient
for referential identification and thus explicit article morphemes arose to take over this
function. He claims that “the loss of specific perfectivity as marked morphologically
and identified paradigmatically led to the shrinking of the verbally governed (not par­
titive!) genitive and, simultaneously, to the dominance of the accusative, since that had
less restricted status” (1998, p. 59). As is clear from his analysis, aspect and case are

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clearly closely connected— with the loss of overt marking of the perfective aspect in the
history o f German, for instance, we also see the decline of the genitive case.
While thus far I have focused on the aspectual relevance o f case in so-called
nominative-accusative languages, it is well known that ergative-absolutive lan­
guages also exhibit case patterns linked to aspect. Links between case and gram m at­
ical aspect have also been posited in the ergative-absolutive language Warlpiri, for
instance. Hale (1982) shows that the absolutive-dative case alternation in Warlpiri is
linked to grammatical/morphological aspect. He claims that a dative argument with
a verb like shoot’ (versus an absolutive argument), for example, signals a “situation
in which the effect normally resulting from the action denoted by the verb is, for
one reason or another, aborted or else is subordinated in importance to the action
itself” (p. 249). These patterns have been characterized as a “conative” case alterna­
tion which imparts an “ irresultative” aspectual value to a construction (see Kiparsky,
1998, pp. 266, 295tf., and references therein).
Many scholars have noted that in numerous ergative-absolutive languages as­
pectual variations result in changes to case assignment patterns: this phenomenon
is often referred to as “split ergativity” (Comrie, 1978; Dixon, 1979, 1994; and
DeLancey, 1981, among others). Dixon states, for instance, that “many languages
have a mixture o f ergative and accusative systems, with these splits being condi­
tioned by the semantic nature of any one or more of various types o f obligatory
sentence components—verb, noun phrases, aspect/tense/mood— or by the distinc­
tion between main and subordinate clauses” (1994, p. 2). Dixon maintains that if
case alternations conditioned by tense or aspect occur in languages otherwise dis­
playing ergative morphology, the ergative marking is always found either with the
past tense or with the perfective aspect (p. 99). An aspectually determined case split
has been posited for Georgian, Hindi, Samoan, and Nepali, among many other
ergative-absolutive languages.1' The following examples illustrate a so-called aspec­
tually triggered split in Hindi:

(12) raam-ne ravii-ko piitaa

Ram -ERG R avi-A C C beat-PERF
“ Ram beat R a v i”

(13) raam ravii-ko piitaa hai

R am -N O M R avi-A CC b e a t-IM P E R F be-PR
“ Ram beats Ravi.”
(Mohanan, 1994, p. 70)

Notice that in example (12), the ergative marker tie appears: this case-marking is
only possible on the subject when the perfective aspect is present (and, according to
Das, 2006, the verb phrase is transitive). Ergative ne would be ungrammatical in
example (13), since the verb is in the imperfective aspect. M any scholars have
noticed that the aspectual phenomena involved in inducing a split across ergative
languages are correlated, but where this split occurs differs across the languages,
e.g., it might involve perfectives versus imperfectives in a language like Hindi or
only progressives and not imperfectives in a language like Basque.16

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CASE 969

Scholars have also posited a link between case and grammatical aspect on tem­
poral adverbs in a number o f languages, namely Finnish, Inari Saami, and Russian.
Nelson (2007), for example, shows that in Inari Saami there is a link between the
type o f case that appears on an adverbial and whether the adverbial signals an as­
pectual b ou nd.17 She claims that if the adverbial denotes an aspectual bound, it oc­
curs in the accusative case, if it does not, it occurs in an oblique case.18 The following
examples illustrate this contrast:

(14) Tun lavluh uppä peivi.

You-SG sin g -P A S T -2.S G whole day-ACC
“ You sang the whole day.”

(15) Poccuh liw u a d e h täan ohhoost.

Reindeer Iie.d0wn-3.PL this w e e k -L O G
“ The reindeer (will) lie dow n this week.”
(p. 210)

According to Nelson, in example (14), the verb lavluh ‘ (you) sang’ is atelic. The ad ­
dition o f the accusative adverbial phrase uppä peivi ‘the whole day’ bounds the verb
phrase in time because the end o f the day marks the end of the singing eventuality.
The locative case-marked adverbial expression in example (15), by contrast, locates
the eventuality in time, but does not provide a bound for the eventuality. That is,
“ the end o f the week does not pick out the same point in time as the end o f the lying
down. All that is entailed is that some lying down will occur at some point during
the week” (p. 210). Based on examples like these, Nelson maintains that certain ac­
cusative adverbials in Inari Saami bear a structural accusative case and function as
“eventuality delimiters,” that is they signal a temporal endpoint to an otherwise
atelic eventuality.19
Adverbials in Finnish, like Inari Saami, can also bound an eventuality in time.
Like Inari Saami, an adverbial that bounds an eventuality in time occurs in the ac­
cusative case in Finnish, whereas one that does not also occurs in an oblique case,
e.g. (examples cited in Nelson, 2007, p. 217):

(16) Matti osti maitoa tunnin.

Matti bought-3sg m ilk-PA RT hour-ACC
“ Matti bought milk for an hour.”

(17) Matti osti maidon tunnissa/*tunnin.

Matti bought-3sg m ilk-A CC h o u r-IN E S S / * h o u r - A C C
“ Matti bought the milk (with)in an hour.”

The inessive adverbial tunnissa ‘ in an hour’ in example (17) does not function as
a so-called eventuality delimiter, whereas the accusative case-marked adverbial in
example (16) does.
Russian also has accusative adverbials. Like Inari Saami and Finnish, in Russian
accusative adverbials affect the aspectual properties of the predicate (Pereltsvaig,
2ooo).20 Pereltsvaig (2000) posits that accusative adverbials take “ non-delimited”
eventualities and produce “delimited” ones. In the following examples, like examples

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(14) and (15) in Inari Saami and (16) and (17) in Finnish, only the accusative time
expression bounds the eventuality denoted by the verb phrase in time, e.g. (examples
based on those cited in Pereltsvaig, 2000, p. 155),

(18) My rabotali nad etim projektom celyj god.

w e-N O M w o rk e d -I M P F on this project-IN STR w hole-A CC year-ACC
“ We worked on this project for almost a whole year.”

(19) On cl ikru dorogoj/utrom.

he-NOM a te-IM P F caviar-ACC r o a d -I N S T R /m o rn in g -IN S T R
“ He ate caviar on his way/in the m o r n i n g .. . . ”

As in Inari Saami and Finnish, the non-accusative adverbials in example (19) (here
in the instrumental) denote the temporal location o f the eventuality described by
the verb; they do not provide a temporal bound.21
Consider now the interaction o f case with lexical/semantic aspect. Scholars
have posited a link between case and lexical/semantic aspect in numerous languages,
including Latin, Classical Greek, and Hebrew (Arad, 1998), Icelandic (Svenonius,
2002), Manambu (Aikhenvald, 2008), and the Slavic languages (Richardson, 2007),
among many others. A rad (1998) noticed that in Latin, Classical Greek, and Hebrew,
for instance, two-place predicates with internal arguments that play a role in the
lexical aspect of a predicate universally mark that internal argument with accusative
case. All other internal arguments are marked with either accusative, dative, ablative
or genitive case, or they occur in a prepositional phrase, depending on the particular
morphological properties of the language (Hebrew, for instance, marks the objects
o f these verbs with a locative preposition be at’ or le ‘upon’). Tables (34.1) and (34.2)
below compare some of A rad’s examples from Latin, Classical Greek, and Hebrew
(p. 78):

Table 34.1 Lexical case-m arked internal arguments

English Latin Greek (Class.) Hebrew

help a U X i l ' 0 r ,D A T b o e lh e o ^ A T azar M

,
e
use U t 0 r »A B L xraom ai,DAT histames • be
.

trust p i S t C U O ( j> *T bataz ♦h

.
i*
f i d 0 .D A T
rule d ° m i n o r iAB, arX0.<iEN masal 4al,
obey P a r e ° .D A T
p eith o m ei[)AT ziyet.„

Table 34 .2 Accusative case-marked internal arguments

English Latin Greek (Class.) Hebrew

build C O n S trU C \ A < X

oikodomeoMCC b a l l a ,A C C
write scribo.Acc graphoiACC k a t a V ,A C C
murder 0 C d d 0 .ACC apokteino,ACC raCaX.ACC
eat eCl0,ACC esthi0,Acc axal,AC«:
wash laV0.ACC 1u 0 .acc aXaC,ACC

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CASE 971

Notice that, unlike the verbs that take lexical case-marked internal arguments
or prepositional phrases (PP), those verbs that take accusative case-marked internal
arguments are either telic (‘m urder’ ) or creation/consumption verbs, i.e., verbs
whose event structure is determined compositionally.
Svenonius (2002) links an accusative-dative alternation in Icelandic to lexical
aspect. C onsid er the case-m arking patterns in the following examples, for
instance:

(20) f»eir sopudu rusl.

they swept g a rb a g e -A C C
“ They swept garbage.”

(21) ??t>eir sôpuôu rusli.

they swept garbage-DAT

(22) *I>eir sôpuôu rusl 1 poka.

they swept g a r b a g e -A C C in bag-ACC

(23) I>eir sôpuôu rusli \ poka.

they swept garbage-DAT in bag-ACC
“ They swept [the] garbage into a bag.”
(Svenonius, 2002, p. 200)

Notice in example (20) that the verb sopa sweep’ takes an argument in the accu­
sative case— example (21) shows that a dative argument is ungram m atical with
this verb. Notice, however, that once the directional PP ‘ into a bag’ is added, indi­
cating the endpoint o f the movement o f the internal argument, the PP takes the
accusative case and n o w the dative case is obligatory on the internal argument
(example 23 versus 22).
According to Aikhenvald (2008), the language M anam bu22 has an objective-
locative case -Vm on noun phrases that arises if an eventuality is telic. She provides
examples like (24) and (25) below to support this claim.

(24) a takwa:m k w a lo
D E M .D I S T - 3 .s g w om an-O BJ/LO C look.for/find-COMPL
wiya:r wula:l
house-ALL/INSTR go.inside-3.sg.f.PAST
“After having found that woman, she went inside the house.”

(25) rianugw amccy kwako-ya-bana

children mother look.for-come-i.pl.N O N - P A S T + 3 s g . f . N O N - P A S T
“ W e keep looking for childrens mother.”
(examples based on Aikhenvald, 2008, p. 587)

In example (24), the verb kwakd- means ‘find’ if the internal argument is marked
with the objective-locative case (i.e., the verb phrase is telic), but in example (25) it
means ‘search, look for’ if it is unmarked (i.e., the verb phrase is atelic).
Tlius far, I have presented a somewhat superficial overview o f the aspectual rel­
evance o f case across diverse languages and language families, primarily to illustrate

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how widespread this phenomenon appears to be in m any o f the w orlds languages.

The following section provides a more in-depth analysis o f the link between case
and one type o f aspect— lexical, and in one language family— Slavic.

5. L i n k s betw een C ase and A s p e c t in Sla v ic

Scholars have approached the distribution and behavior o f case in the Slavic lan­
guages from numerous different perspectives, including linking case to cognitive
concepts (Janda, 1993a, 1993b, 2001), semantic features (Jakobson, 1936/1971,
1958/1971; van Schooneveld, 1978, 1986), a semantic metalanguage (Wierzbicka,
1980,1986), semantic and syntactic dichotomies (Isacenko, i960; Kurylowicz, i960),
and symbolic logic (Sorensen, 1957; Melcuk, 1986). There is now also a wealth of
literature on the syntax o f various (often individual) case-marking patterns in the
Slavic languages. Some have identified the aspectual relevance o f case in Slavic, pri­
marily in Russian (e.g., for Russian, Babko-Malaya, 1999; Pereltsvaig, 2000, 2001;
and Borer, 2005). In Richardson (2007), I explored the interaction of case with both
grammatical/morphological and lexical/semantic aspect across the Slavic languages.
In what follows I highlight links between case and lexical aspect only in Belarusian,
Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS).
As is clear from the discussion o f case and aspect in the various languages
above, the accusative case is often linked with telicity or eventuality delimitation
(boundedness). Many have noted, however, that this link is not absolute, that is,
while accusative internal arguments and adverbials might “delimit” an eventuality
(I use the term D E L IM IT as a catch-all phrase for boundedness or telicity patterns
here), the accusative case does not entail D E L IM IT A T IO N (as noted in Arad, 1998;
Pereltsvaig, 2000; Nelson, 2007; among m any others). In Richardson (2007) I
explored the interaction o f case and lexical/semantic aspect on so-called direct
internal arguments across the Slavic languages (excluding only Slovene, M acedo­
nian, and Bulgarian) and showed that while the accusative does not entail delimita­
tion, it is clearly aspectually relevant across Slavic. Framing a discussion of case in
terms of its aspectual relevance enables us to avoid narrow categoric claims such as
that the accusative case signals telicity, boundedness, 01* situation delimitation. Such
claims are difficult to maintain, since there are so many verbs in Slavic for which the
accusative case does not play such a role. In Richardson (2007) I showed that in
Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and BCS, lexical case-marked
arguments, unlike accusative ones, occur with atelic two-place B A SE verbs (i.e., a
verb stripped o f any prefixes) and never with a verb whose event structure is co m ­
positional. Those base verbs whose event structure is compositionally determined
take accusative case-marked arguments. Thus, the lexical versus structural case di­
chotomy in the Slavic languages is aspectually relevant. The following outlines some
o f the main general findings in Richardson (2007)— with some important changes—
without recourse to any particular theory.

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CASE 973

Consider first the definition of a base verb, i.e., a verb stripped of all its prefixes,
since this is crucial in understanding the interaction o f case and aspect in Slavic.
Verbs in the Slavic languages can occur with a variety o f different prefixes. These
prefixes are often given three different labels, depending on the w ay they interact
with a given verb: purely perfectivizing, superlexical, and lexical prefixes.23 The dif­
ferences between these prefixes are important, since they interact with the lexical
aspect of the verb in different ways and this interaction is linked to the accusative
versus lexical case-marking dichotomy on an internal argument. Purely perfectiv­
izing and superlexical prefixes do not change the basic meaning o f the base verb.
They differ in that superlexical prefixes do not affect the lexical aspect of the base
verb, whereas purely perfectivizing prefixes combined with an (accusative) case-
marked argument can.2'1 Furthermore, superlexical prefixes add additional informa­
tion about the action denoted by the verb— often with respect to time or intensity. In
effect, superlexical prefixes behave much like adverbs in that they m odify the action
described by the verb, but they do not change the fundamental meaning o f the verb
itself. Lexical prefixes, like some purely perfectivizing prefixes, can affect the lexical
aspect of the base verb. They also often contribute directional or idiosyncratic m ean­
ings to the verb. The following examples illustrate the contrasts between these three
types o f prefixes in B C S and Russian (examples taken from Richardson, 2007, p. 53):

(26) Purely perfectivizing prefix:

praviti-IMPF ‘to make’, na-praviti-PF ‘to make’ (B C S)
stroit’- I M P F ‘to build’, po-stroit’-PF ‘to build' (Russian)

(27) Superlexical prefix:

igrati-IMPF ‘to dance’, po-igrati-PF ‘to dance for a while’ (BCS)
rabotat’- I M P F ‘to work’, za-rabotat’-P F ‘to begin to work’ (Russian)

(28) Lexical prefix:

jesti-IMPF ‘to eat’, pro-jesti-PF ‘to corrode’ (B C S)
(lit. ‘to eat through’ )
bit’ - I M P F ‘to hit, beat’, pere-bit’ -PF ‘to interfere’ (Russian)
(lit. ‘across-beat’)

The purely perfective prefixes in the examples under (26) do not affect the basic
m eaning of the base verb, although they can affect its telicity by focusing on the
inherent endpoint in the action they describe, in which case an (accusative) inter­
nal argument is obligatory, e.g., Russian po-stroit’ dom - A C C ‘to build (and finish)
a/the house’. The superlexical prefix in the examples under (27) add an additional
m eaning to the base verb. The addition o f p o -to the verb igrati ‘to dance’ in B C S ,
for instance, resulting in the verb ‘to dance for a while’, does not affect the verb’s
atelicity, but rather bounds the action in time. A m o n g other characteristics,
superlexical prefixes can also shift the focus o f an action to the initiation stage, as
in Russian z a -ra b o ta l'1to begin to w ork’ versus unprefixed rabotat ’ Lto work'. I as­
sum e that the verb za-rabotat>‘to begin to w ork’ remains atelic, since there is no
inherent natural endpoint for this eventuality (i.e., no telos).23 "Hie lexical prefixes
under (28) significantly affect the m eaning of the base verb, changing a verb like

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974 ASPECT A N D DIATHESIS

bit’ ‘to b e a t’ in R u s s ia n to pere-bit* ‘to interfere’. A s d i s c u s s e d in B a b k o - M a l a y a

( 1 9 9 9 ) an d R a m c h a n d ( 2 0 0 4 ) , lexical p refixes interact w ith the ev en t s tr u c tu r e o f
a verb ph rase. R a m c h a n d ( 2 0 0 4 ) , for instan ce, s h o w s that in R u ssian the atelic
verb letet* ‘to fly ’ b e c o m e s telic w ith th e a d d itio n o f the lexical prefix pere -, as is
illustrated b y the g r a m m a t i c a l l y o f the f o l l o w i n g c o n s t r u c t i o n w ith the ‘ in X
tim e’ a d v erb ia l, e.g.:

(29) Samolet pere-letel granicu za cas.

airplane-NOM across-fiy-PF border-ACC in hour
“ The airplane crossed the border in an hour.”
(p. 16)

There are a n u m b e r o f diagnostics, w h i c h su ggest that there are at least two, i f not
three, distin ct types o f prefixes in the Sla v ic languages. First, these three prefixes
differ f r o m each other in that o n ly lexically prefixed v e rb s p r o d u c t iv e ly f o r m so-
called “ s e c o n d a r y imperfectives,” e.g., f o r m s like R u ssian p ere -friv a f’- 2 a r y ]MPF/pere-
bif- P F ‘to interfere’ (lexically prefixed verb). S e c o n d a r y im p erfectivizatio n is
restricted w i t h v e rb s w ith superlexical prefixes ( c o m p a r e the u n g r a m m a t i c a l l y o f a
s e c o n d a r y im p e r fe c tiv c with the verb w ith a superlexical prefix * p o - g u / i v a f - 2 a r y
IMPFIpo-guljat’-'PV ‘to w a l k for a w h ile’ ), an d it is v ir tu a lly absent with verbs w ith
purely p erfectivizin g prefixes.26
S e c o n d , as d isc u ssed extensively in L u d w i g ( 1 9 9 5 ), p u re ly perfectivizin g, super-
lexical, and lexical prefixes differ f r o m ea ch other in te r m s o f their hierarchical o r ­
dering. T h e o b lig ato ry o rderin g o f the three prefixes in Belarusian, Russian,
U k r a in ia n , C z e c h , Slo vak , Polish, an d B C S is: superlexical + lexical + purely p e r f e c ­
tivizing ( + V ) , alth ou gh it is rare for lexical or superlexical prefixes to o c c u r w ith
purely p erfec tiv iz in g prefixes. Stack in g o f the prefixes is possible, but this stacking
does n o t affect their relative ordering, e.g.:

(30) The relative ordering of purely perfectivizing and lexical prefixes:

komplektovat’-IM PF ‘to complete/bring up to strength’ (Russian)
u-komplektovat’ -PF ‘to complete/bring up to strength’ (purely PF prefix)
do-u-komplektovat’-PF ‘to finish bringing up to strength/to add’ (lexical +
purely PF prefix)
*u-do-komplektovat’ (purely PF + lexical prefix)
raz-u-komplektovat’-PF ‘to take to pieces’ (lexical + purely PF prefix)
*u-raz-komplcktovat’ (purely PF + lexical prefix)
(31) The relative ordering o f superlexical and lexical prefixes:
citaf-IMPF ‘to read1 (Russian)
pri-citat’-PF ‘to lament for’ (lexical prefix)
za-pri-citat’-PF ‘to begin to lament for’ (superlexical + lexical prefix)
*pri-za-citat’ (lexical -1- superlexical prefix)

The e xa m p les u n d e r (30 ) and (31) above suggest that these prefixes are in a hierar­
chical relationship a n d their ordering is: superlexical + lexical + purely P F (for f u r ­
ther discussio n , see Fowler, 199 4; G e h rk e , 2 0 0 8 ; L u d w i g , 1995, Pereltsvaig, 2 0 0 6 ;
CASE 975

Ramchand, 2004; Richardson, 2007; and Svenonius, 2004, 2008, among others).
The crucial assumption in Richardson (2007) is that a verb is listed in the lexicon in
its base form, that is, without the addition o f any prefixes. The various prefixes with
which a verb can combine are listed in the lexical entry o f a given verb, since verbal
prefixation is not predictable in the Slavic languages. That is, a homophonous prefix
can function in different ways with different verbs in a given language (it can also
behave differently across the Slavic languages): it might create a purely perfective
verb with one verb, it might m odify the meaning o f another verb in much the same
way that an adverb can m odify the meaning o f a verb phrase, or, with another verb,
it might fundamentally change the meaning and/or (a)telicity o f the base verb. Thus,
the definition o f a base verb is the infinitive form without any prefix attached (and
without any of its additional arguments).27
C o n sid e r now the alternation between structural and lexical case on a (direct)
internal argum ent in the Slavic languages, namely the opposition between the
structural accusative case and the genitive, dative, or instrumental case. If we ana­
lyze the event structure o f those base verbs that take lexical case-m arked arguments
in the Slavic languages under analysis, a striking pattern becom es clear: those base
verbs w hose event structure is com positionally determ ined take accusative case-
marked arguments, whereas those (two-place) base verbs that take lexical case-
marked arguments are always atelic and their event structure is never compositionally
determined. That is, the presence or absence o f an internal argument or the status o f
that argument as definite, a count term, a bare plural (etc.) does not affect the (a)
telicity o f lexical case-assigning base verbs. Furtherm ore, no telicizing prefixes
occu r with lexical case-assigning base verbs.28
A s discu ssed above, the event structure o f creation/consum ption verbs is
com positional. A s expected, the internal argu m en ts o f all creation/consum ption
verbs in the Slavic languages are accusative (as noticed for Russian in Pereltsvaig,
2000).
Consider now the status o f lexical case-assigning base verbs. Lexical case-
assigning base verbs are always atelic in the Slavic languages, as is clear from their
u n gram m atically with the ‘ in X time’ adverbial, e.g. (see Richardson, 2007, pp.
64-6 6, for further examples across the Slavic languages):29

(32) *Natasa kosnulas’ stola za 10 minut.30 (Russian)

N atash a-N O M touched-PF table-GEN in 10 minutes
“ Natasha touched the table (*in 10 minutes).”

(33) *Ljuda zlovzyla joho ljubov’ju za rik. (Ukrainian)

L ju d a -N O M abused /misused-PF his lo v e -IN S T R in year
“ Ljuda abused his love (*in a year).”

(34) *Jana ubh'zila Borisovi nesetrnymi

Ja n a -N O M maltreated-PF B o ris-D A T inconsiderate- 1N S T R
slovy za 30 minut. (Czech)
words-IN STR in 30 minutes
“ Jana abused Boris with inconsiderate words (*in 30 minutes).”

Bahan dengan hak cipta

9 76 ASPECT A N D DIATHESIS

(35) *David opovrhol Janom za tyzden. (Slovak)

David-NOM despised-PF Jan-INSTR in week
“ David despised Jan (*in a week).”

(36) *Dotkn$lam jego ramienia w 10 sekund. (Polish)

touched-PF his a r m -G £ N in 10 seconds
“ I touched his arm (*in 10 seconds).”

(37) ^General Petrovic je komandovao/komandirao Petom (BCS)

General Petrovic AUX commanded-PF Fifth-INSTR
Armijom za godinu dana.31
A rm y -IN S T R in year day
“General Petrovic commanded the Fifth A r m y (*in a year).”

These are just a v e r y small n u m b e r o f e x a m p les w h i c h illustrate that lexical

case assign in g verb s are atelic in Slavic, regardless o f the p r e s e n c e o f p erfective a s ­
p ectual m a r k i n g o n the verb. A s d isc u s se d above, like the internal a r g u m e n t s o f
c re a tio n / c o n s u m p tio n verbs, lexical (a n d s o m e p u re ly p e rfe c tiv iz in g prefixes) can
also affect the event structure o f a verb p h ra se in the Sla v ic la n g u a g e s. I f w e analyze
the prefixation possibilities o f base verb s in the Slavic la n g u a g e s, the pattern that
b e c o m e s clear is that accusative c a s e -m a r k e d a r g u m e n ts o c c u r w i t h base verbs
w h o s e event structure is affected b y the addition o f a prefix, w h e r e a s the atelic
status o f those base verbs that assign a lexical case is n e v e r affected b y the addition
o f a lexical (or p u re ly p erfectivizing) prefix. It is c o m m o n k n o w l e d g e , for instance,
that the event structure o f m a n y verb s is n o t affected b y the status o f an internal
a r g u m e n t, e.g., atelic verbs in E n g lish like stir, lo v e , k n o w , p u s h , yet verb s like these
also assign the accusative case in the Slavic languages. N o tic e , h o w e v e r, that an
atelic base v e r b like m esat’ ‘to stir in Russian can o c c u r w i t h the resultative (i.e.,
term inative) prefix ra z -, w h i c h in turn creates a telic v e rb p h ra se, as the follo w in g
e x a m p le illustrates:

(38) Ja raz-mesala sup za 10 minut.

I stirred-PF soup-ACC in 10 minutes.

A s C o m r i e (1976, p. 18) observes, resultative prefixes c o n v e y that an eventuality is

complete, rather than m erely com pleted (finished), i.e., th ey signal that a resultant
state o f affairs holds. A n exa m p le like (38) illustrates that a resultative prefix affects
the event structure o f the base verb m esat 5 ‘to stir’ and, as expected, the base verb
o c c u r s w ith an accusative c a s e -m a r k e d argum en t. This pattern is also f o u n d with
atelic base verbs like love, k n o w , and p u sh across the Slavic languages, as illustrated
in R ich ard so n (2007, pp. 6 8 - 7 1 ) .
C o n s i d e r n o w prefixation possibilities w ith lexical c a s e -a s s ig n in g base verbs.
N o lexical case assign in g base verbs m e r g e w ith telicizing prefixes in the Slavic lan ­
guages u n d e r analysis. N o tice, for instance, that the atelic instrum en tal case-assign-
ing verb k o m a n d o v a t’ “ to c o m m a n d , be in c o m m a n d ( o f ) ” in Russian can o ccu r
w ith a v ariety o f different prefixes. T h e addition o f these prefixes, however, never
results in a telic eventuality, e.g.:
 CASE
977

(39) *On s-komandoval diviziej za nedelju.

he-NOM commanded-PF division-JNSTR in week
“He commanded a/the division (*in a week).”

(40) *On ot-komandoval diviziej za nedelju.

h e-N O M commanded-PF division-JNSTR in week
“ He served as the commander of a/the division (*in a week).”

(41) "On po-komandovai diviziej za nedelju.

he-N O M commanded.for.a.whilc-PF division-INSTR in week
“He commanded a/the division for a while (*in a week).”
(42) *On pro-komandoval rossijskim flotom za 2 goda.
h e-N O M commanded.for.a.time-PF Russian fleet-INSTR in 2 years
“He commanded for a certain time the Russian fleet (*in two years).”
(57) *On na-komandoval-sja rossijskim flotom za2goda.
he-NOM commanded.sufficiently-PF Russian fleet in 2 years
“ He had his fill of commanding the Russian fleet (*in 2 years).”

T h is pattern o c c u r s across Russian, Belarusian, U k r a in ia n , Czech» S lo v a k , Polish,

a n d B C S (a n d there are n u m ero u s exam p les o f this pattern in R ich ard so n , 2 0 0 7 ) .
E x a m p l e s like these support the cla im that the lexical/semantic aspect o f lexical
c a s e -a s s ig n in g base verbs is not com positional, w h e re a s the lexical/semantic aspect
o f accusative case-assign in g base verb s is. Thus, it is clear that in m ost o f the Slavic
lan gu ag es the lexical versus accusative case d i c h o t o m y is aspectually relevant.

6 . C o n clu d in g Remarks

T h is chapter has sh o w n that m o r p h o l o g i c a l case is a sp ectually relevant a cr o s s a

w i d e range o f different languages: it is linked to g r a m m a t i c a l / m o r p h o l g i c a l a s p e c ­
tual contrasts (bou n d ed n ess or eventuality delim itation) an d to lex ica l/sem an tic
aspectual contrasts (the (a)telicity) o f an eventuality). T here has been a s o m e w h a t
recent t e n d e n c y in syntactic t h e o r y to generalize case and agreem ent relations
a cr o s s languages. M a n y have claim ed, for instance, that case on the so -ca lle d direct
internal a r g u m e n t is “ valued” in lan gu ag es via object agreem ent w ith the object
(p h i-) features located within the (extend ed) verb phrase. Such a h y p o th e s is m a y
m a k e sense fo r those languages that exhibit object a g reem en t m o r p h o l o g y w ithin
their verbal p a r a d ig m s . M a n y languages, in c lu d in g the Slavic languages, h o w e v e r,
d o not exhibit verbal m o r p h o l o g y lin k ed to the so -ca lle d phi-features o f their
objects. It is a r g u a b ly therefore m o re p r o d u c t iv e to seek a link in these l a n g u a g e s
b e tw e e n case an d p h e n o m e n a for w h i c h there is e v id e n c e in their g r a m m a r s , su ch
as aspectual features, and to account for case and a g reem en t patterns w ith in a
m o d e l that incorporates aspectual inform ation. It is certain ly not a novel idea to
in c o rp o rate aspectual information in syntactic structure. A n u m b e r o f sch o lars
h a v e su g gested that syntactic structure is in fact derived f r o m the s e m a n tic asp ect
978 A SP E C T AND D IA T H E SIS

o f a given predicate and that aspectual features participate fully in the syntax (e.g.,
van ITout, 2000; and Kratzer, 2004, am ong many others). Some have also linked
the syntactic operation o f case and agreement to aspect (e.g., Borer, 1994; Travis,
1994, 2000; Pereltsvaig, 2000; Richardson, 2007; and Ritter and Rosen 2000,
am ong others). The goal of this chapter was to show that case is aspectually rele­
vant and that this aspectual relevance is widespread. The extent to which this as­
pectual relevance can and should be captured syntactically I leave open for further
research.

NOTES

1. For a list o f other languages with case morphem es on verbs see Aikhenvald (2007,
p. 595 ).
2. Case can be assigned b y other elements, such as a preposition 01* postposition. I
focus here on case at the clause level, i.e., within the verb phrase, since this is the level at
w h ich aspectual contrasts most obviously manifest themselves.
3. Case can manifest itself in various ways, e.g., as an affix, via tone, via changcs
within the noun stem, or via a combination o f two or more o f these processes. Further­
more, some languages have 110 case (e.g., Vietnamese), some have only one overt case affix
(e.g., M a p u d u n g u n , spoken in Chile), and some have up to twenty-one (e.g., Hungarian
under some analyses). So m e languages also have so-called C A S E S T A C K I N G , i.e., multiple
case marking on a single nominal, e.g., some Australian languages (see A n d re w s , 1996, and
references therein for further discussion o f case stacking).
4. For the claim that some structural versus lexical case marking oppositions with
some verbs can potentially be understood from a semantic perspective see Fortuin (2 0 0 9),
and references therein.
5. The genitive o f negation, as the term suggests, is a genitive case that can arise in
negated clauses.
6. In the Slavic linguistics tradition the term A ktio n sart can also refer to semantic
distinctions expressed by verbal morphology, such as the use o f verbal prefixes to focus on
the manner, quantity, measure and degree o f intensity o f an action. Slavic linguists have
also used this term to refer to characteristics like itcrativity, scmclfactivity, and distributiv-
ity (see, lor instance, Isacenko, i960, 1962). I use the term A ktionsart here in keeping with
its c o m m o n usage in much o f the general linguistics literature, in which it refers to the
inherent m eaning o f the verb (phrase).
7. So m e o f these scholars maintain that o n ly lexical aspect is marked overtly (i.e.,
morphologically). A c c o rd in g to them, grammatical aspect still exists in Slavic, but it is
expressed by word order or supplied by discourse context. See Kucera (1983), Thelin (1990),
Sm ith (199 1/199 7), Filip (1999, 2 0 0 0 a , 2 0 0 0 b , 2 0 0 5 ), Dickey (2 0 0 0 ), Borik (2 0 0 2 ), and
Richardson (2 0 0 7 ), am o n g others, for the claim that lexical and grammatical aspect arc
distinct, a claim that goes back to Agrell (1908).
8. For a detailed discussion o f this event structure test see Vcrkuyl (1972), D o w ty
( *979 )> a° d Hinrichs (1985). In Slavic, this event structure test can only reliably be used as a
test for telicity with perfective verbs, but see Borik (2 0 0 2 ) and Richardson (2007, p. 19) for
som e examples o f the felicitous use o f the imperfective aspect with the ‘ in X time’ adverbial
in Russian.

Bahan dengan hak cipta

CASE

9. It is important to note that while the absence o f a one in one 101 irlai 1. >n l>. i w« < h
(a)telicity and (im)perfectivity is true of the Slavic languages in general. I'lamm.ti i< .d
aspect is not treated identically across Slavic. See Dickey {2000) for a summary of h< >w
grammatical aspect varies across the various Slavic languages. There are also, of com .sc.
numerous works that analyze grammatical aspect in various individual Slavic lanr.uarrs.
some of which can be found in Dickey (2000).
10. See Galton (1980), Chaput (1985,1990), Paduceva (1993), and Israeli (1996) for
discussion of some of the contextual, discourse, and pragmatic factors that favor the Lise of the
impcrfective aspect even when it is understood that an eventuality is completed.
11. A common diagnostic for atelicity in many languages— the Tor X time adver­
bial— cannot be used as a diagnostic for atelicity in Slavic. For discussion, see Richardson
(2007, pp. 19-23).
12. This is somewhat of an oversimplification of the system in Finnish. The partitive-
accusative case alternation is also associated with N P semantics (mass/count, definiteness,
specificity). Kiparsky (2005) also presents exceptions to the generalization that accusative
internal arguments occur with telic predicates and partitive internal arguments with atelic
predicates. In essence, the accusative-partitive alternation in Finnish is aspectually
relevant, but it does not appear that it can be unequivocably and absolutely linked to
aspect.
13. In actual fact, this is somewhat of an oversimplification. A s Paduceva (1998)
shows, the partitive is generally not possible with a verb in the imperfective aspect with a
progressive interpretation, although even this restriction disappears in the right context.
See Paduceva’s analysis for further examples and discussion.
14. Note that Abraham’s (1997) analysis builds on insights in Birkenmaier (1977,1979),
Brunnhuber (1983), and Leiss (1992).
15. For a list o f languages with so-called split-ergativity based on tense and/or aspect,
see Comrie (1978), Dixon {1979,1994), and Palmer (1994).
16. See Laka (2006) for a discussion o f case and aspect in Basque. See both Laka
(2006) and Coon (2009) for the claim that a split between ergative-absolutive and nomina­
tive-accusative systems is only apparent in Basque (Laka, 2006) and the Mayan language
Choi (Coon, 2009). These scholars maintain that nominative-accusative case-marking
patterns in these languages can be subsumed under ergative-absolutive patterns wilh a
better understanding o f the syntactic structure of constructions in which splits appear to
occur. See their analyses for further discussion.
17. Inari Saami is spoken by approximately 2 5 0 - 4 0 0 people around Ihe shores o f Lake
Inari in Finnish Lapland.
18. The term oblique case is often used to describe all cases in a language other than
the nominative and accusative
19. This claim follows in the spirit of Borer (199/1), 'fenny (199/1), Wechsler and Lee
(1996), Arad (1998), and Pcreltsvaig (2000), who suggest llial (he accusative is linked to
so-called event(uality) delimitation. I11 facl, Arad (199.S) makes the strong claim that “ [a]ll
measurers are (universally) marked wilh accusative case” (p. y\).
20. It is important to note that, unlike Inari Saami, finnish only allows one accusative
case-marked element in a construction in which an accusative element can interact with
aspect. In Finnish, if the temporal adverbial bears die accusative case, the internal argu­
ment must occur in the partitive, whereas if die internal argument is in the accusative, the
temporal adverb must bear an oblique (inessive) case (lor examples, including apparent
counterexamples, see Nelson, 2007, pp. 218-219). According to Pereltsvaig (2000, pp.
11-12), in Russian, an accusative adverbial can occur with an accusative internal argument
980 ASPECT A N D DIATHESIS

only when the verb is in the imperfective aspect, or the accusative internal argument does
not affect the aspect of a construction. See Pereltsvaig (2000) for further discussion and
comparison of Russian with Finnish, and Nelson (2007) for a comparison o f Russian and
Finnish with Inari Saami.
21. Sec Pereltsvaigs analysis for discussion of a wide range of accusative adverbials in
Russian, including “durational,” “distance measure,” and “ locational measure” adverbials.
22. Manambu is from the Ndu family (East Sepik, Papua N e w Guinea). It is spoken by
about 2 0 0 0 people in five villages in the Ambunti area of the East Sepik province of Papua
N e w Guinea.
23. These three classes of prefixes are controversial. See Isacenko (i960), among
others, for instance, for the claim that so-called purely perfectivizing prefixes do not exist.
24. In Richardson (2007) I mistakenly claimed that purely perfectivizing prefixes did
not affect the lexical aspect of the verb phrase. I am grateful to Roumyana Slabakova
(2008) for pointing out the error o f m y ways in her review of m y book. It may be the case
that purely perfectivizing prefixes can be subsumed under the category o f lexical prefixes,
although I leave this hypothesis open for further research.
25. In actual fact, this verb can fall into the telic or atelic class, depending on ones
definitions of telicity. If one defines telicity as non-homogeneity, for instance, as in Borer
(2005), this verb would be classified as telic. For the purposes o f this chapter, I assume that
the presence of an inherent natural endpoint is crucial for the definition o f telicity. In terms
o f its interaction with other prefixes and its case and aspect patterns, the prefix za- behaves
like an atelic(izing) prefix in Slavic.
26. A s Ludwig (1995, p. 30) notes, verbs with purely perfectivizing prefixes already
have an imperfective counterpart; thus, the formation of a derived secondary imperfective
would be redundant with these verbs. Note that these patterns do not hold in Bulgarian.
Furthermore, in Polish verbs with the superlexical prefix za- allow the formation o f a
secondary imperfective. In essence, these patterns represent a general tendency. For further
discussion, see Richardson (2007, p. 55).
27. See Richardson (2007, pp. 5 8 -5 9 ) for further discussion o f what constitutes a base
verb, including the status o f verbs which can combine with a clitic/particle/affix that begin
with s-. Also see Richardson (2007) for a syntactic account o f prefixation in the Slavic
languages.
28. See Richardson (2007, pp. 8 1 - 9 1 ) for discussion o f potential counterexamples to
this claim, including the claim that there appear to be only four real counterexamples to
this claim across the Slavic languages under analysis.
29. It is important to note that “ bare” lexical case marking does not include those
lexical cases assigned by a preposition, including covert prepositions. Bare lexical case
marking also does not include those lexical cases assigned by a prefix. Merging a prefix
with a verb can change the case assigned to the internal argument, just as it can affect
the argument structure o f a base verb. The lexical case assigning base verb strzec + G E N
‘to guard, keep watch’ in Polish, for instance, can occur with the prefix 0-, creating the
verb o-strzec 'to warn which assigns the accusative case. I assume that it is the
PrefixP(hrase) assigning this new case. That is, lexical cases are obligatory in the sense
that they take precedence over structural (or so-called semantic cases), but they can be
superceded by a PrefixP (or a case-assigning preposition in a PP). Crucially, an accusa­
tive case-assigning prefix (or any other case-assigning prefix) does not affect the
atelicity o f lexical case-assigning base verbs, that is, these verbs always remain atelic,
since their lexical aspect is not compositional. See Richardson (2007, pp. 7 7 - 8 1 ) for
further discussion and analysis.
CASE

30. Short time periods, like za sekundu ‘ in a second* and za dve minuty ‘in two
minutes’ in Russian, can become semantically bleached and mean quickly’ (this is true of
za in the Slavic languages in general and w in Polish). 'I hus, an example like the following
is possible if the ‘in X time’ adverbial means quickly’ and not literally that the eventuality
was completed in a second:

i. Natasa kosnulas* cego-nibud’ /a sekundu.

Natasha-NOM touch-PF something-GKN in mtoiuI

“ Natasha touched something quickly.”

As expected, larger time periods are ungrammatical in a construction like this.

31. The verb kom andovali ‘to command' is biaspcclunl.

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 P A R T VI

MODALITY

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 CHAPTER 3 5

TIME IN SENTENCES WITH

MODAL VERBS

IL S E D E P R A E T E R E

In this chapter, I will look at the ways in which temporal information is co m m u n i­

cated in sentences with modal verbs.1 Clauses with modal verbs that express epi-
stemic and root possibility will serve as a test case. In other words, the focus will be
on can, could , m ay and might , on the understanding that most of the observations
made can be extended to the modal realm of necessity.2
The structure of the chapter will be as follows: I will start with a terminological
section in which some core concepts will be introduced and defined. Sections 2
and 3 present a m ethodology for the analysis o f temporal information in modal
possibility utterances.3 In a number o f cases, the markers that communicate time
(e.g., the past m orphem e - ed , have) can also contribute to other kinds of meaning
(e.g., hypothetical meaning, counterfactual meaning, tentativeness (politeness)).
Since it is our purpose to analyse time in modal utterances, we will focus only on
the temporal potential o f each o f them.

1. T e r m i n o l o g i c a l P r e l i m i n a r i e s

1.1. Epistem ic M odality versus Non-epistem ic

(Root) M odality
The basic distinction between two kinds o f modal meaning, that between epistemic
modality (epistemic possibility and epistemic necessity) and non-epistemic or root
modality (root possibility and root necessity) is well known. In the case o f epistemic

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possibility (1) or epistemic necessity (2) “ the speaker asserts that a proposition is
possibly or necessarily true, relative to some information or knowledge. If the prop­
osition is only possibly true, the propositional attitude is that of uncertainty; if it is
necessarily true, the propositional attitude is that o f a high degree of certainty” (Van
der Auwera and Hammann, 2008).4

(1) I thought your taste might have changed. (IC E -G B ) '

(2) At a guess the monkey must have been something like 5ft high. (IC E -G B )

Root modality does not express the speakers judgment on the likelihood o f a situa­
tion being the case; it merely indicates whether there is possibility (3) or necessity
(4) o f actualization or not.

(3) Can you understand each others languages? (IC E -G B )

(4) I think he needs to shave five times a day. (IC E -G B )

As pointed out by Depraetere and Reed (2011), root modality is concerned with an
either/or question (is actualization possible/necessary or not?), while epistemic
modality is concerned with a matter of degree (How likely is it that the proposition
is true?).
Epistemic meaning is traditionally (cf., e.g., Coates, 1983) paraphrased with a
that clause; root modality is paraphrased with a fo r clause (ia-4a):

(1a) It is possible/possibly the case that your taste has changed.

(2a) It is necessary/necessarily the case that the monkey was about 5ft high.
(3a) Is it possible/or you to understand the other’s language?
(4a) It is necessary f o r him to shave five times a day.

Paraphrases o f this kind will be used in this chapter, not only as a means to distin­
guish between epistemic and root meaning, but also to bring out, in a clear way, the
temporal information communicated by modal utterances.

1.2. Com position o f a M odal Utterance

The meaning o f a modal utterance necessarily consists of two parts: a modal
meaning (M) o f possibility or necessity and a proposition representing a particular
situation (P). Huddleston (1984, p. 168) uses the term residue to refer to “ what is left
o f the meaning expressed in an utterance o f the clause when the modality is ab­
stracted away.” 6
Anticipating the discussion somewhat, on the basis of this dual composition it
can be predicted that two kinds o f temporal information are likely to be co m m u n i­
cated by a modal utterance. First o f all, the possibility (or the necessity), which I will
call the M-situation, is located in time. The M-situation may have present time ref­
erence (as in (5)), past time reference (6), or future time reference (7) (cf. Depraetere,
2009; Verhulst, 2009):

(5) She can swim.— It is possible for her to swim.

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T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI TH MO DA L V E R B S

(6) She co u ld sw im at the age o f five.— It was p o ssib le for her to sw im .

(7) S h e w ill be able to sw im after sh e’s taken s w im m in g lesso n s.— It w ill be p<»smM. i«m |„ ,
to sw im .

Secondly, the sentence also gives inform ation about the temporal link b n wren
the M -situ atio n (the modal m eaning) and the residue. That link m a y b e one of ;mi<<
riority (8), simultaneity (9), or posteriority (10):

(8) Y o u m a y h ave been right.— It is p o ssib le that yo u were right.

(9) Y o u m a y be righ t.— It is po ssib le that y o u are right.
(10 ) W e m a y b e b a c k by 10.— It is po ssible that w e w ill be b a c k at 10.

A descriptive overview o f the w ays in w hich the two types o f temporal in fo rm a­

tion (tem poral location o f the M -situation, temporal relation between the
M -situ atio n and the residue) are com m unicated, is lacking. So is a com prehensive
su r v e y o f the syntactic, semantic and pragm atic factors that bring about or influ­
ence the tem poral interpretation.7 The current chapter is a m odest attempt to ad ­
dress the descriptive gap that needs to be filled.

1.3. Sco p e o f M odal M ean in g

T h e notion o f scope o f the m o d a l m e a n in g requires us to refine the distinction just
m ade. In discussions o f m odal m eaning, the notion o f scope is appealed to in a
n u m b e r o f contexts, among w hich the following:8 (a) in the analysis o f the m eaning
o f h a v e in m o d al utterances with perfect infinitives, (b) in definitions o f the differ­
ence between epistemic and root m eaning, and (c) in discussions focused on the
ta x o n o m y o f root possibility A s will becom e clear in section 2, each o f these is rele­
vant to the analysis o f time in m odal utterances.
(a) In the chapter on the verb in the C a m b rid g e G ra m m a r o f the E nglish L a n g u a g e
(2 0 0 2 ), H uddleston and Pullum devote a section to the scope o f the perfect in se n ­
tences w ith modals. They point out (p. 203) that w hen h ave follows a m odal auxiliary,
it “ m a y belong semantically in the com plem ent o f the m odal or [it] m a y have scope
over the modal.” The following examples are given to illustrate the observation
m ad e ( u , 12):

(n) She m ust h ave saved him.

(12) She could have saved him i f she’d tried.

The authors argue that “the syntax matches the semantics” in the example in (11):
“ the m odal precedes have and is outside its scope” (2002, p. 203). 'I he example in (11)
is an instance o f what they call the “ internal perfect” In (12), the perfect has so-called
“extended scope, attributable to the fact that can lacks the past parliciplc lo m i (hal
w ou ld be needed if it were to follow h ave (p. 203). In other words, can cannot follow
h a ve, because it does not have a past participle form (cf. Poulsma, 1926, p. 442., lor a
similar explanation o f the role o f have). For lack o f this form, have gets extended
scope. This is an instance o f what Huddleston and Pullum call an “external perfect”
992 MODALITY

It will be clear that the scope o f h a v e as discussed b y H uddleston and Pullum is

relevant to the discussion o f tim e in m odal utterances w ith a perfect infinitive. The
following generalization follows from their account: if h a v e has scope over the
m odal, it m eans that the m odal + perfect infinitive has counterfactual m eaning. If
h a ve does not have scope over the m odal, i.e., w hen it belongs to the com plem ent o f
the modal, its role is that o f establishing a temporal relationship o f anteriority
(between the M situation and the residue). This generalization will be taken up in
section 3.2 (cf. e.g. C o n d o ra vd i (2 0 0 2 ), D em ird ach e and U rib e-E txeberria (20 0 8 )).
(b) Ross (1969) w as am o n g the first linguists to distinguish between w ide scope
epistemic m eaning and n arro w scope root m eanings: a difference in scope lies at the
origin o f the difference between what he calls m odals that are one-place predicates,
i.e., that take an entire proposition as their com plem ent (e.g., m ust w hen it has epi­
stemic m eaning: m ust (Joh n be at h o m e at six oclock)) and m odals that are tw o-
place predicates, i.e., that involve relations between the subject and the rest of the
clause (for instance, m ust w hen it com m unicates root m eaning: m u stroo( (John , be at
h o m e at six oclock)). The idea that epistemic m odality has scope over a complete
proposition w hile root m o d ality has scope over the predicate is w id e ly accepted (cf.,
e.g., Bybee, 1985) but the notion o f scope com es less to the fore in discussions about
the subcategorization o f root m o dality (cf. (c)).
(c) W h ile scope is stan d ard ly called upon to distinguish between (w id e scope)
epistem ic m o d a lity and (n a rro w scope) root m o d ality (cf. (b)), the existence o f
w id e scope ro o t necessity is highlighted b y N o rd lin g e r and Traugott (19 9 7 ), w ho
point out that the d evelo pm en t o f “ w id e scope deontic” m o d ality as a phase in the
evolution o f epistem ic m o d al m e an in g s fro m w h at th ey refer to as “deontic” m o d al
m eanings has been overlooked.9 Sim ilarly, Traugott and D ash er (2 0 0 2 , p. 14 1)
refer to “ [t]he w ide scope associated w ith general participant-external roo t/d e­
ontic necessity.” Inspired b y these authors, Depraetere and Reed (2 0 11) argue that
the scope o f the m o d al m ean in g has a cru cial role to p la y in the definition o f su b ­
classes o f root possibility m eaning. T h e y argue that a m ore explicit ta x o n o m y o f
root m o d al m e a n in g can be arrived at (w ith clearer definitions o f the subclasses o f
root possibility m eaning) if the criterion o f scope is com b in ed w ith that o f source
and that o f potential barrier. W h ile it is not the pu rpose o f this chapter to deal
w ith tax o n o m ic questions, it seem s relevant to briefly explain the different su b ­
classes o f root possibility m eaning, because scope will be show n to have an influ­
ence on the tem poral inform ation co m m u n icated by m o d al clauses. Depraetere
and Reed (2 0 11) use the fo llo w in g param eters to define subclasses o f root
possibility:

scope o f the m odal meaning: “ Put informally, there is narrow scope if we are
concerned w ith whether som ething is possible for the subject referent to do,
i.e., ‘w h at is possible relates to the VP. There is w ide scope if we are
concerned w ith the possibility (or conceivability) o f an entire situation, i.e.,
‘w hat is possible’ relates to the clause.” (p. 3)
source o f the m odal meaning: is the source o f the m odality subject-internal or
subject-external?
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI T H M O D A L V E R B S 993

Table 35.1 A more explicit taxonomy o f root possibility (Depraetere and Reed
2011)
Abilitv/ Opportunity Permission GSP Situation
(general situation permissibility
possibility)

Scope narrow narrow narrow wide wide

Source internal external external external external
Potential - potential - potential + potential - potential + potential
Barrier barrier barrier barrier barrier barrier

potential barrier: does the source owe its status as source to the fact that it can
potentially impose a barrier to actualization?10

On the basis of the analysis o f a large set of corpus examples, it is argued that
five subclasses o f root possibility meaning should be distinguished and it is shown
that their meanings can be captured (as in Table 35.1) in terms of the three criteria
mentioned above.11
The following examples (13-17) illustrate the five subclasses o f root possibility:12

(13) Nature decrees that men can conceive children through to old age, giving them plenty
of time to get round to fatherhood. But the ideal time for women to procreate is their
twenties. (Cobuild) (ability)
(14) You can find out the balances on your Saver Plus and Current Account simply by using
your Saver Plus Card at our Self-Service machines. (B N C ) (opportunity)
(15) Sorry can I interrupt you? (IC E -G B ) (permission)
(16) Was World W ar I avoidable?
A nsw er
I don’t think it could have been avoided.
A nsw er
Well the assassination could have been prevented.
(http://wiki.answers.eom/Q/Was_World_War_i_avoidable; accessed 7
February 2010) (general situation possibility)
(17) Since the first marriage was monogamous in the eyes o f English law a charge o f bigamy
might be brought if the husband later returned to England. (IC E -G B ) (situation
permissibility)

The meanings involved can be paraphrased in terms o f the three criteria listed
in Table 35.1 in the following way:

Example 13: ability

(a) narrow scope: The meaning of the sentence is captured by the paraphrase “ It is possible
for men to conceive children up to a late age.” or “conceiving children up to a late age is
possible for men to do.”
(b) internal source: The source o f the modality is internal to the subject referent.
(c) -potential barrier: The internal source does not owe its status as source to the fact that it
can potentially impose a barrier. The internal constituency o f a man is such that he can
conceive children up to a high age, but there is no idea that the internal constituency o f
a man is considered as a source because it constitutes a potential barrier to actualization.

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994 MODALITY

Example 14: opportunity

(a) narrow scope: The meaning of the sentence is captured by the paraphrase “ It is possible
for you to find out what the balance is on your account is b y . . rather than by the
paraphrase “The situation o f your finding out what the balance is on your account is
theoretically possible.”
(b) external source: the Saver Plus Card and the availability o f Self-Service machines make
it possible for the subject referent to find out about the balances.
(c) -potential barrier: There is no idea that the external source owes its source status to the
fact that it can, in theory, impose a barrier to actualization.

Example 15: permission

(a) narrow scope: The meaning o f the sentence is captured by the paraphrase “ Is it
possible for me to interrupt you?’' rather than by the paraphrase “ Is the situation of my
interrupting you possible/permissible?”
(b) external source: the addressee is the source o f the modal meaning expressed in the
clause.
(c) + potential barrier: the addressee is the source o f the modal meaning by virtue o f the
fact that (s)he can potentially prevent the speaker from interrupting the addressee.

Example 16: general situation possibility

(a) wide scope: Ihe meaning o f the sentence is captured by the paraphrase “ The situation of
world war I being prevented was theoretically possible.” In other words, it is a complete
proposition, that is, a situation, that is represented as being possible.
(b) external source: The historical circumstances constitute the (external) source o f the
possibility.
(c) -potential barrier: the historical circumstances do not constitute the source o f the
modal meaning because they can potentially impose a barrier to actualization.

Example 17: situation permissibility

(a) wide scope: The meaning o f the sentence is captured by the paraphrase “ (The situation
of) a charge of bigamy being brought in if the husband later returned to England was
theoretically possible.” A s in the case o f GSP, it is a complete situation that is possible/
permissible.
(b) external source: English law constitutes the source o f the modality.
(c) + potential barrier: The law has source status because it could potentially impose a
barrier (but it does not in this example) to the actualization o f the situation.

The discussion o f the criterion o f scope of the modal meaning shows that our
earlier description of a modal utterance as consisting of a modal meaning (M-situ­
ation) and a residue needs to be refined and be made more explicit. In certain cases
(that o f epistemic possibility and wide scope root possibility (G SP and situation
permissibility)) it is a situation that is possible; in other cases the modal meaning
bears on the VP. As will be shown in section 3.4.1, the differences in meaning sig­
naled by scope and the corresponding differentiated semantic structures need to be
taken into account when unpacking the temporal information in modal utterances
in order to arrive at a more accurate description.

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T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI TH M O D A L V E R B S 995

1.4 . A im s R edefined
T h e discussion o f som e basic m o d al concept* has revealed that in order to describe
systematically the w ays in which time is com m unicated in possibility utterances, it
is necessary to address the following issues:

1. W h a t is the temporal location o f the m odal meaning (M situation)? (see all

subsections o f section 2)
2. W h a t is the temporal link between the M-situation and the residue in the
case o f w id e scope m odality (i.e., in the case o f cpistemic modality, general
situation possibility and situation permissibility)? (see 2.1, .»./])
3. H o w should the temporal information in a modal utterance be unpacked
when the m odal meaning has narrow scope (i.e., in the ease (»l ability,
permission, and opportunity)? (sec 2.2, 2.3)
4. The discussion o f the first three questions should enable tis to pin clown the
linguistic markers and distinctions (hat impact on I lie com m u n ication o f
time in m odal utterances. T he scope ol this chapter will only allow us to
briefly sketch'the influence o f a set oflinguistic markers, (see section 3)
\v
\
Before we turn to the'analysis o f temporal information in wide scope and
n arro w scope m odal possibility utterances, we will offer a su m m a ry o f the general­
izations and observations that have been m ade in the literature 011 the w a y in which
time is gram m aticalized (or not) in m odal utterances.

1.5. G en eralizatio n s about T im e in M odal U tterances

in the Literature
The following generalizations standardly feature in discussions o f m o d als and the
link with tense and time.

1. A ubiquitous observation in w o rk on modals is that a past inflection in

com bination with a m odal auxiliary does not necessarily— except w hen
used in indirect speech— com m unicate past time reference (cf., e.g.,
Tregidgo, 1982, p. 88; Coates, 1983; Q uirk et al. 1985, p. 231; Palmer, 1990,
p. 14, 4 3 - 4 4 ; Huddleston and Pullum, 2002, pp. 1 9 6 - 2 0 2 ) . The follow ing
examples ( 1 8 - 2 1 ) all testify to this claim:

(18) A t that tim e he m ig h t also b y chance have met his sister Isabella w h o w as blown
into P lym o u th on h er w a y to her m arriage in Burgundy. (IC E -G Ii) (ep istem ie
possibility: it is possible that he met his sister b y chance).
(19) T h e p r im a r y object o f a new police m ig h t be couched in the fo llo w in g or
sim ila r terms. ( IC E -G B ) (general situation possibility: the situation o f co u ch in g
the p r im a ry object o f a n e w police in specific terms is possible)
(20) We c o u ld co m e roun d with a bottle o f som eth ing and I could bring the odd
bottle o f cider. ( IC E -G B ) (op portu n ity: it is possible for us to co n ic ro u n d with
a bottle o f som ething)
996 MODALITY

(21) I anticipate that there may well be several areas on which the College and
A U T would agree, and that the involvement o f Joe Bloggs and me with the
discussions taking place within London and nationally could be of assistance in
your local deliberations. ( 1C E - G B ) (epistemic possibility: it is possible that our
involvement will be . . . )

2. An equally common observation is that not all modals have a morpholog­

ical past form (e.g., must) (that observation does not apply to the modals
under discussion here — can and m ay). If they do (e.g., can — could), the
speaker may still choose to use a periphrastic form to establish past time
reference (e.g., was able to, was allow ed to, was perm itted to), even though
the two alternative forms are not necessarily mutually interchangeable
(cf. 2.2 and 2.3). Reference to a future M-situation requires the use of a
periphrastic form involving (depending on the meaning) be able to, be
possible to, be perm itted/allow ed to.
3. A third observation is that certain modal meanings are inherently incom­
patible with particular temporal relationships. For example, the modal
meaning of permission is said to imply that the residue is posterior to the
M-situation (cf., e.g., Lyons, 1977, p. 824; Huddleston, 1984, p. 168);13 the
modal meaning of ability implies a relationship of simultaneity. Nuyts
(2001, p. 195), for instance, writes that since “dynamic modality5’14 “indi­
cates a property of the first-argument participant” it “ is bound to the
temporal position of the state of affairs. If the state of affairs is situated in
the past, present or future, this automatically means that the ability of or
inherent potential for the agent to realize it is so, too.” (As will be shown in
3.2.4, the residue in ability utterances is often understood as the actualiza­
tion of the ability, in which case the residue is posterior to the M-situation.)
Epistemic modality is different in that it relates to the “the temporal
position (the hie et nunc)15 of the speaker. Thus, in an epistemically modal-
ized expression the temporal location of the state o f affairs and o f the
epistemic qualification are in principle mutually independent.” Translated
into the terminology used in this chapter, Nuyts’s observation implies that
there is always a relationship o f simultaneity between the M-situation and
the residue in the case of ability, whereas, in the case of epistemic modality,
the relationship between the M-situation and the residue may be one of
anteriority, simultaneity or posteriority.16 With respect to the same topic,
Coates (1995) convincingly shows that it is mistaken to associate, as Heine
does (in his discussion of German modals), epistemic and non-epistemic
modality with an exclusive temporal relation between the M-situation and
the residue. Heine’s (1995) argumentation is that in the case of what he calls
agent-oriented modal meaning17 if “the event has not yet taken place at
reference time, i.e., its occurrence, if it does take place, will be later than
reference tim e ” (p. 29). In other words, in his opinion, root meaning in
general always implies that the residue (Heines event ) is posterior to the
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI TH M O D A L V E R B S 997

M-situation (Heines reference time). The following examples from Coates

(1995) show that this is an overgeneralization: the residue may be simulta­
neous with the M-situation in utterances that communicate root modality
(as in (22)) and the residue may be posterior to the M-situation in epi-
stemic utterances (as in (23)):

(22) C e r t a i n th in g s ca n b e s e x - li n k e d to the Y - c h r o m o s o m e . ( C o a te s , 19 9 5 , p. 14 7)
(2 3) I m a y be a few m in u t e s late, but d o n ’t k n o w . (p. 14 8 )

In other words, Coates’ examples show that the temporal relation between
the residue and the M-situation cannot be used as a diagnostic for the
epistemic/root distinction. The temporal constellations that are, as it were,
part and parcel o f the semantics o f the different possibility meanings will
be examined in detail in the discussion of each o f these in section 2.

As mentioned in footnote 7, Palmer (1995) and Verhulst (2009) are unusual in

offering more detailed analyses o f (certain aspects of) time in modal utterances. The
hypotheses they put forward will be discussed in detail in sections 2 and 3.
Having introduced the necessary terminological tools and bearing in mind the
generalizations made in the literature, I will now discuss each o f the possibility
meanings. For each meaning, I will consider in what time sectors the M-situation
may be located, what are the possible temporal relations between the M-situation
and the residue, and what markers contribute to the communication o f temporal
information.

2. T im e in M odal Po ssib ility U tter a n ces

2.1. Epistemic Modality

2 .1.1. Vie Time o f the M-Situation
In section 1.2 it was argued that the M-situation o f a modal utterance may be lo­
cated in the past, in the present or in the future. This generalization needs to be
qualified in the sense that the modal meaning o f epistemic modality can only be
located in the future or in the past in a context o f represented speech or thought:
epistemic modality entails, by definition, the m aking of a judgment about the like­
lihood that it is true that something is the case. This means that the modality itself
must be located at the time o f the ju d gm ent— either speech time or some implicitly
or explicitly evoked speech (or thought) time. Palmer (1990, p. 44) puts it as fol­
lows: “ with epistemic modality, only the proposition [the residue] can be past. This
is indicated by the use of have (John may/must/will have been in his office). The
modality is not m arked for past, for the obvious reason that an epistemic modal
makes a (performative) judgment at the time o f speaking” (cf. also p. 63).

Copyrighted material
99 8 MODALITY

Epistemic modality can be located in the past provided the source o f the judge­
ment is some sort of reported speaker (or thinker), that is, provided the sentence is
part of some kind of indirect (including free indirect) reported speech or thought
(Palmer, 1990, p. 65). Consider the following examples (24-27):

(24) H e c o u ld be w r o n g — after all, he’d been m ista k en ab ou t h er a m b itio n s before.

(25) H e m ig h t have k ille d h e r — after all, Jim w as the o n ly on e w h o d id not have a
c o n v in c in g alibi.
(26) She c o u ld not w in the g a m e — after all, she h ad taken a o n e - y e a r sabbatical and it
seem ed unlikely that she was in g o o d shape.
(27) It h a d to b e th ere— there wasn’t a n y w h e re else it co u ld h ave been. (p. 6 5 )18

Palmers example expresses a past epistemic judgment about a simultaneous situa­

tion—the judgment belongs to an implicitly evoked thinker, presented as thinking
something like “It must be here—there isn’t anywhere else it can be.” '9 The modal
possibility examples in (24), (25), and (26) express past epistemic judgments about,
respectively, a situation simultaneous to, anterior to and a situation posterior to the
time of the epistemic judgment.
In a similar way, epistemic modality can only be located in the future when it is
explicitly embedded in a future speech-situation and is clearly “present modality”
for the reported speaker or thinker, as in (28):

(28) Je n n ife r w ill sa y /th in k that y o u m a y be w ron g.

Summing up, while it is possible to express epistemic necessity in the past or in the
future, the location of the M-situation in these time spheres is only possible in a
context o f indirect or free indirect speech (cf., e.g., Coates, 1983, pp. 133,149, 241; for
similar observations on Dutch and German, cf. Nuyts, 2001, pp. 209-210).

2 .1.2. The Temporal Relationship between the M-Situation and the

Residue
The temporal relationship between the M-situation and the residue may be one of
simultaneity (as in (24) and (29)), anteriority (as in (25) and (30)) or posteriority (as
in (26) and ( 3 1 - 3 3 ) ) :

(29) T h e y m a y b e su ffe rin g fro m m aln u trition . (Tredidgo, 1982, p. 86) (It is po ssible that
th ey are su fferin g fro m m alnutrition.)
(30) R ic h a rd III m a y n o t h ave b e e n re sp o n sib le fo r th e m u rd e r o f th e tw o little p rin ces
after all. (“ E v id e n c e and lo g ic p e r m it th e c o n c lu sio n that h e w as n o t resp on sib le.” )
(p. 86)
(31) E n g la n d ’s next fixtu re in Salzburg c o u ld be the decisive m atch. (Sinclair, 1990, p. 225)
(It is po ssib le that the next m atch w ill be decisive.)
(32) C le rica l w o r k m a y be available for tw o students w h o w ant to learn ab ou t publishing.
(p. 225) (It is p o ssib le that w o rk will be available for two students.)
(33) T h e y m ig h t be able to rem em b er w h a t he said. (p. 225) (It is p o ssib le that they will be
able to r e m e m b e r w h a t he said.)
T I M E IN S EN TE NC E S WITH MO DA L V E R B S

While it is one thing to point out that particular temporal < Il.ui.nr, .n<- p»»-,
sible, it is another to pin down the linguistic (syntactic, seiuanih <.i pi.iimm.iIk )
features that are associated with the temporal relation in quest ion I’a In in ( > . | >|>
5 1 - 5 2 ) gives examples to illustrate that the residue may be a presen I <>r a Ini m e ,\iai<-
(34» 35 )> a present or future action in progress (36, 37), a habit (j.S, v;). .1 "suij-.le
future action” ( 4 0 - 4 3 ) :20

(34) T h e y ’re all v e r y sort o f K en tish an d th e y m a y be in S u sse x actually.

(35) You m a y not like the idea o f it, but let m e explain.
(36) W h o m a y not have a v e r y stron g claim o r w h o m a y be facin g bitterness amonj-, tlu-ii
m em bers.
(37) S o we m a y be seeing so m e changes in B ritish in d u stry fro m these students.
(38) H e m a y go to Lond on e v e r y day.
(39) H e m a y go to Lond on e v e ry d ay w h e n he gets his n e w job.
(40) I m a y go up at the end o f A u g u st.21
(41) O ne the other h an d he m a y say “ M y d ear fellow, o f co u rse we understand this problem
and w e w o u ld arrange it this way.”
(42) So she m a y be telephoning you.
(43) W e m a y b e in tro d u cin g a n e w fo r m o f therapy, L e v am iso le , to try to reduce the
am o u n t o f steroids she h as to take.

We will discuss the impact of aspectual distinctions on the temporal interpretation

of modal utterances in section 3, after we have completed the survey of modal pos­
sibility meanings and the temporal information they communicate.

2.2. Ability and Opportunity

2.2.1. The Time of the M-Situation
In sentences that express ability and opportunity, the M-situation maybe located in
the present (44, 45), in the past (46, 4 7 ) , or in the future (48, 49):

(44) C an y o u sp ea k any East E u ro p ean languages? ( I C E - G B ) (ability)

(45) I see yo u can clip it on to y o u r breast pocket. ( I C E - G B ) (opportunity)

(46) She co u ld do anything a b o y could do, he said, an d do it a d am n sight bcller. (K ;i- < .T.)
(ability)
(47) T im e helped to reconcile them to a yoke th e y could not throw off, the m u r e icad ily
because R o m e preserved peace, and guaran teed their local liberties a n d p m v n . ami
their e c o n o m ic interests. ( IC E -G B ) (opportu n ity)
(48) Your optician w ill be a ble to tell yo u ab ou t it. ( IC E - G B ) (ability)
(49) I h o p e yo u w ill be able to relocate sta ff satisfactorily. ( IC E - G B ) (o p p o rlim ii ) •)

2.2.2. Ability and Actualization

A comment that standardly features in descriptions of abilily is that muhl expresses
“ mere ability” (or “mere opportunity,” for that matter) in the past: il eannot he used
to communicate the idea that the subject referent had a skill (abilily) in Ihe past and
lOOO MODALITY

made use of it (a) unless the modal utterance contains a State verb, (b) unless there
is reference to a habit, (c) unless the clause is negative or interrogative (Declerck,
1991>P- 394)-22 In contexts other than these, reference to actualized ability in the past
requires the use of a periphrastic form of be able to, as in (50, 51) (Quirk et al., 1985,
p. 232; Palmer, 1990, p. 93; Declerck, 1991, p. 391; Huddleston, 2002, p. 197).23

(50) H e d id n ’t quite get h is shot in an d T o rv o rd was a ble to get the ball. ( I C E - G B )

(51) A n d as she got better, A n g e la was a ble to visit the foster hom e. ( I C E - G B )

The situation is less clear in the case of present ability. Even though Palmer
(1990, p. 195) argues that be able to is more likely to be used when there is reference
to actualized ability in the present (52) (cf. also Coates, 1983, p. 127, for examples in
which is able to has to be used in order to express present time actualized ability), in
some cases, actualized ability requires the use o f can (53) (cf. Hewings, 2005, p. 30):

(52) In this w ay we are a ble to c a r r y out research. (Palm er, 1990, p. 195)
(53) W atch m e, M u m ; I can stan d on o n e leg (*am able to stand) (H e w in g s, 2005, p. 30)

It will be clear that the difference in meaning between are able to and can in (52)
and (53) cannot be captured in terms of non-actualized present ability vs. actualized
present ability. There does not seem to be a form that uniquely and unambiguously
expresses the idea that someone has a skill and is making use o f it. You can sw im and
You are able to swim can both be used to refer to a (present) potential of the subject
referent’s.24
When it comes to future time reference, there is no form in English that
expresses “actualized ability” in the future, that is, there is no form that means “you
will have the ability to swim” and “you will make use of your ability to swim” (cf.
Declerck, 1991, p. 393). In You w ill be able to swim there is reference to a skill that still
needs to be acquired or that will not exist until a future point in time. As in the case
of examples that express present time ability, the question of actualized ability in the
future is one that has hardly been addressed in research on modals; it is a focal point
of attention only in the discussion o f past ability.

2.2.3. Ability and Opportunity in the Future

The location of the modal meaning of ability and opportunity in the future time
sphere requires the use of a periphrastic form with w ill (cf. Palmer, 1990, p. 99;
Declerck, 1991, p. 393).
However, Palmer observes that in many cases of what he calls “neutral possi­
bility” (1990, pp. 83, 97),25 can readily expresses a “timeless possibility,” in which case
it can be used to refer to future events.26 While Palmers observations (pp. 97-100,
195-196) seem to be focused on the temporal constellation “present time modality”
or rather, “timeless possibility” + “posterior residue,” at times it is hard to decide
whether he is dealing with “potential future actualization of the ability” (the subject
referent has the ability now to do something in the future) or rather discussing the
possibility of “effective future actualization of the ability” (the subject referent has
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WITH MODAL VF.RI 5S

the ability now to do something in the future, ami will ac lually make use of ihc
ability to perform the activity in question), or siill, dillerenlly, whether lie is do
scribing the possibility to use can to express future time modality (ability). I lu- lol
lowing observations illustrate the three different strands in Ilie discussion;

1. For instance, when he writes, “provided the possibilily is limolos.s [ami

provided there is specific reference to future time], can may relate to a
specifically future event,” he seems to be pointing out that can may realize
the following temporal template: present M-situation + posterior residue.
That at such is not groundbreaking news, given that, for instance, a similar
constellation is possible with epistemic possibility (cf. examples in (32) and
(33))- Palmer illustrates his claim with the following example:27

(54) The next time you can take the exam is in April. O th erw ise she will h ave lo
wait till— is it Septem ber? I ’m not sure. (pp. 9 8 -9 9 ) (It is possible fo r a n y o n e to
take the exam in April)

2. However, in the section that deals with “actuality,” he argues that “ Can .. .
often .. . implies future actuality” and he gives the following example (55) to
illustrate his claim:

(55) Liverpool can win the cup next year. (p. 195)

Clearly, here, the focus of the discussion is the actualization of the ability
and not just the potential actualization of a situation in the future thanks to
a present skill. In this part of his book, Palmer is interested to find out why
could cannot communicate actualized ability in the past whereas its present
tense counterpart can communicate actualized ability in the future (which
is Palmers (temporal) interpretation of the example in fe ) ) .28 Palmer’s
explanation runs as follows: non-factuality is part and parcel of modal
verbs and modal meanings. Given that future time reference inherently
refers to a period of time that “ has the least factual status” (p. 195), it: seems
logical that modal verbs are appropriate to “refer to future events whose
factual status cannot be established” but inappropriate “to refer to past
events whose factual status is established” (p. 195).
3. Thirdly, in his discussion of “neutral possibility,” Palmer claims that "in
many cases it would be difficult to decide whether can or will be abb■lo is
the more appropriate form. When we are concerned with future events, ii is
often possible to regard the possibility as either present or future. In s o m e
of the examples considered, can could replace will be able lo with very little
change of meaning” (p. 99). Unfortunately, there are no references l o
contexts in which the change is possible. Palmer underlines the (ac t that
future time ability requires the use o f will, as (56) shows:

(56) He can run a m ile in four m inutes next year. (p. 99)

This sentence can only refer to future time on a “ neutral possibility''

10 0 2 MODALITY

reading (“ because the stadium will be ready” (p. 99)), but not on an ability
reading.29

2.2.4. The T em poral R elation betw een the M -S itu a tio n a n d the R esidu e
When it comes to the temporal link between the M-situation and the residue, the
paraphrases o f the ability and opportunity examples below show that, irrespective
o f whether the ability is located in the present, the past, or the future, the actualiza­
tion of the skill necessarily lies after the moment o f speech (or past/future reference
time established). In other words, it is necessarily (that is, for pragmatic reasons)
posterior to the M-situation, irrespective o f the temporal location o f the M-situa­
tion, as in (44a-49a) (Palmer, 1990, p. 47):

(44a) Is it p o ssib le for yo u to sp e a k a n y E ast E u ro p ea n langu ages ((potential) actualization

(after n o w o r in the future)
(45a) It is p o ssib le for yo u to clip it on y o u r breast pocket ((potential) actualization
im m e d ia te ly after n o w o r in the future)
(46a) It w a s po ssib le for h er to d o e v e ry th in g ((potential) actualization p o ste rio r to the tim e
o f the M -situ atio n ) a b o y c o u ld do.
(47a) C irc u m sta n c e s d id not m a k e it possible fo r them to th ro w o ff th eir y o k e ((potential)
actualization p o ste rio r to the tim e o f the M -situ ation)
(48a) It w ill b e po ssib le fo r y o u r o ptician to tell y o u about it ((potential) actualization
(im m ed iately) after the fu tu re m o m e n t in tim e that co in cid es w ith that o f y o u r
m e e tin g w ith the optician)
(49a) . . . it w ill be possible for y o u to relocate the staff ((potential) a ctu alizatio n at a
m o m e n t in tim e (im m ed iately) after the future tim e referred to in the m a in clause)

Palmer points out that even though can has a morphologically past form, the
past morphology can only be used to communicate that the M-situation lies in the
past; there is “ no form to express past time o f the proposition [the residue], and
this is understandable, since, although one can have past ability . . . one cannot
have (non-past) ability . . . to do things in the past” (Palmer, 1990, p. 45, cf. also
p. 92). W hile the point that Palm er is making is clear, it can be formulated in more
accurate terms in that he is, in actual fact, arguing that the temporal constellation
“present time M-situation + anterior residue” is not possible for pragmatic reasons.
The question that comes to the fore, and that is related to a comment by Nuyts
(2001) (in 1.5) is whether we are justified in interpreting the residue in terms o f
actualized ability when determining its temporal relation with the m odal meaning.
I f the examples given in (41)—(49) are interpreted in terms o f potential (repeated)
actualization, the relationship between the V P and the M-situation is one o f simul­
taneity. ( C f N uyts comment about the temporal contour o f ability/adynamic” ex­
amples referred to on p. 5.) We will take up this issue again later in the text (section
2.4.1), when we zoom in on the role o f scope on the temporal interpretation o f
m odal utterances.
The conclusion to the discussion o f ability and opportunity is that there is no
unanimous view on whether can can express future time modality. It is neither clear
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI T H M O D A L V E R B S Ю 03

what constraints dictate the interpretation of can and is/are able to (reference to
actualization or not). Observations on the temporal link between the M-situation
and the residue almost exclusively centre around the question of actualized ability
in the past and there are as yet no full-fledged descriptions that discuss the rele­
vance of the actualization/non-actualization parameter on the temporal interpreta­
tion of ability examples in general. More extensive corpus research will be needed
to complete the picture.

2.3. Permission
2.3.1. The Time o f the M-Situation
The modal meaning o f permission may be located in the present, in the past or in
the future (57-59):

(57) Can I record over it? (ICE-GB) (Do I have permission now?)
(58) The police told me they could check Pams Mums baggage without having to speak to
her so I agreed. (ICE-GB) (They had permission in the past.)
(59) Commonwealth ministers are expected to recommend the easing of sporting
restrictions next month and there are high hopes that South-Africa will be allowed to
compete in the 1994 Olympics. (ICE-GB) (South-Africa will have permission in the
future.)

It is generally accepted that might can only com m unicate past time permission if it
is embedded in a past tim e clause (or in free indirect speech or thought) (Coates,
1983, p. 155). However, Q uirk et al. (1985, p. 232) observe that there is a “ rare and
archaic use o f might outside indirect speech in the sense was/were perm itted to”
(60):

(60) We might leave school only at weekends.

Like Quirk et al., Tregidgo (1982, p. 87) also believes that might can occur indepen­
dently with past time reference, an observation he illustrates with examples from
Scheurweghs (1959, p. 365) and Palmer (1979, p. 159) (61-66):

(61) No one but the Duke might build castles. (Scheurweghs, 1959, p. 365)
(62) If the law applied by the Kings judges could not provide a remedy, an aggrieved person
might appeal to the Lord Chancellor, (p. 365)
(63) In medieval times the scholars who gathered together to listen to the master might be
adults or they might be children, (p. 365)
(64) As late as the eighties a social observer might still find a beaver outside a museum.
(P- 365)
(65) "Ihere was very little skill displayed, but on these occasions, there might be a solo
exhibition by an expert, (p. 365)
(66) In those days we might go for a walk in the woods. (Palmer, 1979, p. 49)

However, Tregidgo does not follow the authors’ interpretations of all the examples.
He believes that while the examples in (61) and (62) communicate (habitual) per­
mission, those in (63)-(66) “seem to contain very little idea of permission . . . they

М атеріал, захищ ений авторськи м правом

1004 MODALITY

surely indicate that custom or circumstance ‘permitted’ these events to be brought

about, implying that they did occur occasionally” (Tregidgo, 1982, pp. 87-88). What
the examples in (63)—(66) show, in Tregidgo’s opinion, is that there is an “uncertain
frontier between the clearly deontic and the fully epistemic” (p. 88). Obviously,
these observations are in the first place relevant to modal taxonomy (the examples
in (63) and (64) illustrate wide scope root modal meanings), but at the same time,
they bring to the fore the question whether past epistemic modality, standardly
thought to occur only in contexts o f represented speech and thought (cf. 2.1), is
nevertheless possible in direct speech.
Palmer argues more in general: if deontic modals (can or may) are used perfor-
matively (that is, when the speaker gives permission to the addressee),30 “neither the
modality [the M-situation] nor the proposition [the residue] can be marked for past
tense. Again, if deontic modals are performative, the modality cannot be past, and
the proposition cannot be past because one cannot (in the present) permit or oblige
someone to do something in the past” (Palmer, 1990, p. 45; cf. also p. 79).
For the same reason, there is “no future expression o f deontic modality.” Palmers
generalization follows from his “performative definition” o f permission. He does
not as such deny that it is possible to “indicate that permission will be given . . . by
using main verbs, I shall perm it you . . (Palmer 1990, p. 80).
Palm ers observations touch upon the temporal location o f the M-situation, as
well as on the temporal relation between the M-situation and the residue.31 If the
modal meaning o f permission is defined in terms o f an illocutionary act o f giving
permission, like epistemic modality, it cannot be located in the past or in the future.
The examples that follow (67, 68) show that it is not unusual, though, to express so-
called ‘ general permission in the past” :

(67) W e cam e on O c to b e r 17. T h e y said w e c o u ld stay 90 days but I c a m e five years ago, also,
b a c k in 2003, a n d at the tim e, I w a s told — b y the police, actu ally— that if y o u w a n t to
sta y again after 90 days, y o u ju st leave the country, yo u can go a n d get a stam p at any
b o rd e r s u r r o u n d in g the C z e c h R e p u b lic a n d y o u can com e b a c k fo r an o th er 90 days,
(fro m h ttp ://ro m o ve.rad io .cz/en /clan ek /2i8 o o , accessed 23 Ju n e 2 0 10 )
(68) To d eterm in e w h a t circu m stan ces w o u ld allow the players to capture the m o st tokens
a n d get the h igh est return, the research ers v aried the rules g o v e rn in g player behavior.
In so m e trials, players c o u ld c o m m u n ic a te with each other v ia text m essage. In other
trials, players c o u ld pu n ish o th ers w h o m isb eh aved b y ch arg in g th em o n e token. In
so m e trials, players co uld b o th c o m m u n ic a te and punish; in o th e r trials they co u ld do
neither, (fro m h ttp ://w h yfile s.0 rg /2 0 10 /c0 m m u n ica ti0 n -k e y-t0 -sm a rt-res0 u rce -u se /,
accessed 23 Ju n e 2 0 10 )

2.3.2. Perm ission a n d A ctu alizatio n

As in the case o f ability, could communicates “mere permission” in the past (unless
the residue has specific [aspectual] features illustrated in footnote 22). If the speaker
wants to make it clear that the permission was made use o f on a particular occa­
sion, that is, that the permission actualized, a form o f be allowed to is used, as in
(69, 70).32
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI T H M O D A L V E R B S Ю05

(69) Britain’s resolve has been greater to get 011 with the conflict because the historical
shame o f the 1930s, when dictators were allowed to spread their evil across Europe
unchecked, still hangs over us. (ICE-GB)
(70) The cricket club was allowed to continue—although with a requirement to compensate
if the cricket balls caused damage. (ICE-GB)

2.3.3. The Temporal Relation between the M-Situation and the Residue
O bservations on the temporal relation between the M-situation and the residue
again bring the question o f actualization to the fore. I f the residue is interpreted as
referring to specific instances in which the permission is m ade use of, it is always
posterior to the M-situation (Coates, 1983, p. 233).33 The situation that actualizes as a
result o f the permission necessarily (that is, for pragmatic reasons) lies after the time
when the permission is given. P a lm ers view is that we can “give perm ission to . . .
others only to act in the future, although it m a y be the immediate future with the
adverb now * (Palmer, 1990, p. 80):

(71) You may come in now/tomorrow.

However, if the residue is interpreted as a situation that could in theory actualize

(since permission exists), on a number o f occasions (some would use “om nitem po­
ral permission" to refer to this interpretation), it is simultaneous with the M-situa­
tion (cf. p. 1002).
Huddleston and Pullum (2002) touch upon this temporal template when they
write: “ Deontic [permission and obligation] modality can combine with past or
present situations only with general requirements, conditions, options, etc., as in
20ii [We can/may borrow up to six books at a time] (present) or Candidates must
have completed at least two years o f undergraduate study, (past)” (p. 184). However,
even in cases like (2oii), one might argue that even though potentially, the situation
that is permitted could be the case at the moment o f speaking, effective actualiza­
tion lies after the time o f the M-situation. Huddlestons observations show that the
concept o f “possible” or “effective” actualization again has a role to play in the dis­
cussion o f temporal interpretation. The necessity example mentioned by H ud­
dleston can be adapted and changed into a possibility example (72, 73):34

(72) Candidates may have completed less than two years of undergraduate study.
(73) Applicants may have completed their national service in industry instead o f in the
armed forces. (“The rules permit them to have done so without their application
being affected” ) (Tredidgo, 1982, p. 86)

At first sight, it seems that the examples just cited falsify the claim that the res­
idue in a permission utterance can only be posterior to the M-situation, as have
expresses a relationship o f anteriority here. I would argue that these are examples o f
wide-scope situation permissibility rather than examples that illustrate narrow
scope permission. It seems that the interpretation o f the utterance in (72) can be
paraphrased as follows: “ the situation o f candidates having completed less than two
years o f study is permissible/possible” or “ for candidates to have completed less

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1006 MODALITY

than two years o f study is permissible/possible.” In other words, no permission is

given to someone to do something in the past, but a particular set o f people, that is,
candidates who have undertaken undergraduate study before are in a situation in
which they are allowed to do something (apply). These examples show that the
scope o f the modality influences the temporal interpretation and constellation. It is
therefore scope that will be addressed in the next section.

2.4. G en eral Situ ation P o ssib ility and Situ atio n

P erm issib ility
2.4.1. Scope and Temporal Interpretation
(a) Narrow scope root possibility vs. w ide scope root possibility. The modal meanings
in the survey so far all have narrow scope (it is possible/for X/to Y)> which means
that the modality bears on the VP. In the case o f GSP and situation permissibility,
the modality has wide scope: it bears on a complete situation (for X to Y/is p o s­
sible). Since GSP and situation permissibility together constitute the class o f wide
scope root possibility, they will be dealt with together: scope impacts on the tem po­
ral information communicated, irrespective o f whether the meaning is GSP or situ­
ation permissibility
To say that a situation is theoretically possible necessarily implies that there is a
relationship o f simultaneity between

(a) the time at which the circumstances required for the situation to
(potentially) actualize are the case (or, put differently, the time o f the
world in which actualization is possible) and
(b) the time o f the potential situation as such.

In other words, it follows from the semantic structure o f wide scope root
utterances that there is a relation o f simultaneity between the M -situation and
the residue (proposition, situation): the situation is, as it were, intrinsically
nested in the possibility.35 Note that, although the residue situation may be the
result o f events that are located in the past, as in examples (72) and (73), this does
not alter the fact that the situation is simultaneous with the time o f the modal
meaning.
In the case o f narrow scope modality, there is a “two-place predicate” (cf. 1.3) (it
is possible for X /to Y), which makes for a different temporal constellation. The
enabling factors or the circumstances that endow the Subject referent with a poten­
tial to do something (whether this is the result o f internal skills or whether it is
brought about by an external source) establish a relationship o f simultaneity
between the possibility and the Subject referent’s enabled state (be it possibility in
the sense o f ability, possibility in the sense o f permission, or possibility in the sense
o f opportunity— It is possible for X), but the VP, which encapsulates what is the
potentially actualized (thanks to the possibility) is not necessarily simultaneous
with the possibility itself.

«a H at n -1
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WITH M O D A L V E R B S 1007

Table 35.2
GSP /situation permissibility Ab i l i t y , o p p o r t u n i t y , p e r m i s s i o n

Possibility Possibility
S IM U L SIM UL
Situation Subject referent
SIMUL or m sr
VP VP
(potential (cllccfivc
actualization) acluali/alion)

'P O S T is to he understood as indicating that the residue (VP) is posterior to the M-silualion.

The difference might be visualized as in Table 35.2.

In the case of wide scope root meaning, the modal meaning is simultaneous
with the situation referred to by the residue. In the case of narrow scope root
meaning, the possibility affects not a complete situation, but it is rather the Subject
referent that is in a position to do something. (It is possible for X). The predicate
referred to in the V P is simultaneous if it is thought of in terms of “potential, theo­
retically possible” actualization; if it is understood as “potentially effective” actual­
ization, it is posterior to the M-situation.
(b) Wide scope root possibility vs. wide scope epistemic possibility Even though
epistemic possibility is also wide in scope, the temporal templates with which it is
inherently compatible are different from those associated with wide scope root
possibility and this is due to the different nature of the modality involved. In the
case o f epistemic possibility we are no longer talking about the possibility of actu­
alization, but about the degree of likelihood of actualization. As pointed out in the
introduction, root modality is concerned with an either/or question, while epi­
stemic modality is concerned writh a matter of degree. In the case of epistemic
possibility, there may be reference to a situation (is/will be) potentially the case in
the past (in the present /in the future), and the speaker comments (from a present
point of view) on how likely he believes the actualization is. In other words, while
in the case o f wide scope root possibility, the relationship of simultaneity between
the M-situation and the residue seems to follow from the semantic make-up of
the modal meaning, in the case of epistemic possibility, there is no similar, in­
herent temporal relationship o f simultaneity between the situation referred to and
the possibility. The starting-point, epistemic meaning, even though it also consti­
tutes wide scope modality, is completely different. We make a judgment in the
present about how likely it is that a situation was the case in the past, about how
likely it is that a situation is the case at present, or about how likely it is that a
situation will be the case in the future. In the case o f wide scope root possibility
we formulate a judgment on whether or not the world is such (at a particular
time) that a particular situation is possible (at the same time). Enabling circum­
stances (possibility) and the situation necessarily coincide when root meaning is
involved.
юо8 MODALITY

Sum m ing up, the scope of the modality, together with the nature of the m o ­
dality, determine the range of temporal relations between the M-situation and the
residue that wide scope root meaning, wide scope epistemic meaning and narrow
scope root meaning are inherently compatible with.

2.4.2. The Temporal Location o f the M-Situation

W hile a relationship o f simultaneity between the M -situation and the residue
is encapsulated in the sem antics o f wide scope root modality, this does not, as
such, constrain the temporal location o f the M-situation: the M-situation m ay be
located in the present (74-76), the past (77, 78), or in the future (79, 80) when
the m odal meaning expressed is that o f general situation possibility 01* situation
permissibility:

(74) This articlc for tcachcrs suggests ways in which dinosaurs can be a great context for
discussing measurement. 11rich.maths.org/5995 (accessed 23 June 2010) (GSP, present
M-situation)
(75) You cant blame her for that really can you? (IC E -G B ) (situation permissibility, present
M-situation)
(76) The U.S. president s w ord— “verifiable” — has set the 65-nation Conference on
Disarmament on a possible course toward negotiating a treaty after years o f deadlock,
most recently because the Bush administration argued that a pact couldn't be verified
by inspections and monitoring. (www.vuw.ac.nz/~caplabtb/dprk/US_w0rld09.htm,
accessed 7 February 2010; Dcpraetere and Reed, 2011, p. 28) (GSP, past M-situation)
(77) After a considerable pause Portal said that the matter might be looked into, and that
he would discuss it at length with the captain o f the flying-boat and go into weather
prospects with the meteorological authorities. 1 left it at that. Two hours later they both
returned, and Portal said that he thought it might be done. The aircraft could certainly
accomplish the task under reasonable conditions . . . . (From Winston Churchill, The
Second World War, vol. 3, The G rand A lliance, http://books.google.nl/books, accessed
2 February 2010; Depraetere and Reed, 2011, p. 29) (situation permissibility, past
M-situation)
(78) Free subjects o f Rome could not legally be made slaves. (IC E -G B ) (situation
permissibility, past M-situation)
(79) It w ill be possible to predict earthquakes from space, (www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.
html?pid=36oi, accessed 23 June 2010) (GSP, future M-situation)
(80) Foreigners w ill be allow ed to have a maximum ownership o f 49 percent in plantations
for staples such as rice. (farmlandgrab.org/13s90> accessed 23 June 2010) (situation
permissibility, future M-situation)

As will be clear from the latter two examples, as in the case of ability, opportu­
nity and permission, future time wide scope root possibility meaning requires the
use o f a periphrastic form, such as will be allowed to or will be possible to.
N ow that we have given a birds eye view o f the temporal templates (temporal
location o f the M-situation and the temporal relations between the M-situation
and the residue) that each o f the modal meanings allows, w e can list some o f the
syntactic and semantic features that determine the range o f possible temporal con­
stellations taken stock of.

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T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI TH MODAL V E R B S 1009

3. F e a t u r e s T h a t I m p a c t on t i n : T emporal

In t e r p r e t a t i o n

The characterization in C ollin s C o b u ild G ra m m a r 0! lime reinrn< e m modal niter

ances with m odals, while general and relatively vague, a< lually ro rs hi ilir hear I o f
the matter and therefore constitutes an interesting sturtinr, pomt lor .1 discussion ol
the factors that determine h ow time is com m unicated in modal nil cram es:

Modals do not usually indicate whether you are talking about ilu- jm -.i . the
present or the future. Usually you indicate this in othci way,'.. Im »w.impU- by-
putting an auxiliary verb and a participle after the modal. Someiiimv. ilu- gruci .il
context makes it clear whether you are talking about a past, piv;m i m luim
event or situation. (Sinclair, 1990, pp. 220-221)

In the final section o f this chapter, we will briefly high Iir. hi some ol 1 In* linguis­
tic factors that influence the temporal interpretation ol modal uKeraiK es. Il will
only be possible to list the features and briefly illustrate their role without e x a m ­
ining in detail their im pact on each o f the m odal m eanings and Ihr interplay mm mi;
the different factors.

3.x. Contribution of the Past Morpheme

A s pointed out in section 1.5, the past m o rph em e can, but docs not always, eslnhlisli
past time reference. Reference to past time m odality sometimes requires the use o f
a perfect infinitive in combination with a past m odal (cf. 3.2.3).

3.2. Contribution of Have

3. 2 . 1.

A first observation to be made is that even though examples can be found *'l o m 1
perfect infinitive, e.g., (81), it does not seem to be a combination Ih it is widely used.

(81) Nighttime snowboarding is another aspect of snowboarding that is u n l i k e any oilier

that you can have tried so far. (www.skateramp.co.uk, accesscd 23 |um- .'.mo)

3. 2 .2 .

A second observation is that certain modals, w hen followed by a perfect inlinitive,

can only com m unicate one type o f m odal meaning. Coates (1983, p. 137), lor instance,
points out that m a y + perfect infinitive always communicates cpislcmic m ean in g.u>

3 - 2 .3 -

In some cases, the (past form o f the) m odal needs to be followed by a p e rio d infin­
itive in order for past modality to be expressed (82a, 82b):
Ю 10 MODALITY

(82) a. He could write to Helen. (It is possible for him to write to Helen)
b. He could have written to Helen much earlier and not published it, but there’s no
evidence for that, (for him to write to Helen earlier was possible) (www.guardian.
co.uk/books, accessed 29 June 2010)
c. There were no restrictions on the number of times you look the exam. You could
try as many times as you liked.

The last example in the set (82c) shows that could does not necessarily have to
be followed by a perfect infinitive in order for past time modality to be established.

3 .2.4.
In certain contexts have does not have the effect o f locating the M-situation in the
past, rather, it grammaticalizes a temporal relationship of anteriority between the
M-situation and the residue (83-84):

(83) a. 1 may/might be very bad in my explanation.

b. I may/might have been very bad in my explanation. (ICE-GB)
(84) a. There was immediate chatter that the sale could be part of the Kuwait Investment
Offices 3.16 p.c. holding in the company, although close followers of the stock
described this as idle gossip,
b. There was immediate chatter that the sale could have been part of the Kuwait
Investment Offices 3.16 p.c. holding in the company, although close followers of the
stock described this as idle gossip. (ICE-GB)

3- 2 . 5 -
Depraetere (2009) offers a survey of the meanings that can be communicated by
could + perfect infinitive. In one set o f examples have to does not seem to perform
any of the functions that it has been associated with, namely that of establishing
past time reference, that of expressing a temporal relation o f anteriority between
the residue and the M-situation, or that establishing counterfactual meaning (cf.
3.2.6). In examples like the following (85, 86), there is a relationship o f simulta­
neity between the M-situation and the residue, in spite of the fact that have is
used:

(85). Forget the “melodrama” label. Just muse about how something so weird and wonderful
could have been written in the midst of all that 19th-century realism. (Comment on
Wuthering Heights; www.amazon.co.uk) (How was it possible for such books to get
written in such a context)
(86) What’s hard for us to understand in retrospect is how anyone could have
thought otherwise. (ICE-GB) (How was it possible for anyone to think
otherwise)

Depraetere argues that this kind of simultaneous reading with have arises in presup-
positional contexts, that is, when the modal occurs in a clause with typical presup­
position triggers: the examples with “simultaneous factive have* taken stock of
occur in w/i-questions and in cleft constructions.
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI T H M O D A L V E R B S lO ll

3 .2 . 6 .

As pointed out by Huddleston (2002, p. 203) (cf. section 1.5 above), when root could
or might is followed by a perfect infinitive (87-89), there is very often counterfac-
tual meaning: Theoretically, a situation could have actualized in the past, but it
didn’t.37

(87) It could have been awful. (Sinclair, 1990, p. 226) (but it wasn’t)
(88) I could easily have spent the whole year on it. (p. 226) (but I didn’t)
(89) A lot o f men died who might have been saved, (p. 226) (but they weren’t)

Sum m ing up, the contributions of have to the temporal interpretation o f modal
utterances are multi-faceted. A more in-depth analysis is needed in order to deter­
mine the contexts in which the different interpretations arise (cf. e.g., Condoravdi
(2002), Demirdache and Uribe-Etxeberria (2008)).

3.3. Heterogeneity/Hom ogeneity

Verhulst (2009, p. 213) argues that a relation sh ip o f sim u lta n e ity betw een the
M -situation and the residue is possible only “ i f the infinitive clause contains a
h o m o g en eo u s situation.” H o m o g en e ity is associated with (u n )b o u n d ed n ess, an
aspectual distinction which is different from Aktionsart. Following Declerck et al.
(2006), she argues that a situation is hom ogen eou s if every subpart o f the situation
can be qualified in the sam e way as the whole situation. “ Be at home,” “w o rk in the
garden,” “ be w orking in the garden,” “ be writing a letter” are hom ogen ous situa­
tions, while “write a letter” is heterogenous: every subpart o f “ write a letter” cannot
be referred to as “ write a letter.”
It is not possible, for reasons o f space, to go into m ore detail regarding the aspec­
tual concept involved and its links with the traditional Vendlerian situation types or
(a)telicity (cf. Declerck et al., 2006, for a detailed discussion), but it will be clear that
this aspectual distinction, together with the inherent temporal constellations c o m ­
municated by som e o f the modal meanings, enable us to m ake certain predictions
about the form o f the residue.38 For instance, we argued that wide scope root m o ­
dality inherently implies that there is a relationship o f simultaneity between the
M-situation and the residue. We have just established that a simultaneity relation­
ship presupposes that the residue is hom ogeneous, 'lhis seems to imply that the res­
idue will have to be one o f the following: (a) a State, (b) an Activity, (c) an Achievement
or an Accomplishment that gets a repetitive interpretation (d) an Achievem ent or an
Accom plishm ent in the progressive (that gets a hom ogeneous interpretation; cf. 3.4).

3.4. Progressive Infinitive

Observations about the influence o f the progressive infinitive on the kind o f modal
m e a n in g c o m m u n ic a t e d feature rather a b u n d a n tly in the literature, one o f the
m ain generalizations being that the unm arked interpretation o f may/must with a

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1012 MODALITY

progressive infinitive is usually one in terms o f epistemic meaning (cf. Declerck,

1991, p. 409). There are fewer observations on the effect that the progressive form
has on the temporal interpretation of a modal utterance.
It should first of all be pointed out that the use of the progressive with possi­
bility modals is constrained in the sense that can is not usually followed by a pro­
gressive infinitive, in the same way as it is not usually followed by a perfect infinitive
(cf. (90-91)):39

(90) In effect this means that you can dial an 0207 number thinking you arc phoning a
London location when in fact, you can be phoning anywhere in the world, (www.
talkphotography.co.uk, accessed 29 June 2010)
(91) Its wonderful to be part of a group that can be singing original pop songs one minute
and wrestling with a baroque masterpiece the next, (www.kingssingers.co.uk/friends/
blog_archive.php, accessed 29 June 2010)

The progressive marker results in a situation being represented as homogeneous in

the majority of cases (cf. 3.3.). From this it seems to follow that a residue with a pro­
gressive infinitive is likely to communicate a relationship of simultaneity between
the residue and the M-situation (92):

(92) I think the point that they may be making is that it doesn’t make me worse equipped to
be Prime Minister. (ICE-GB)

However, as pointed out by Palmer (cf. section 2.1.2), when may communicates
epistemic meaning, the progressive infinitive may be used to “establish future time
reference (even if there is no duration involved)” (Palmer, 1990, p. 52). The same
observation applies to epistemic could and might (93-96):

(93) So she may be telephoning you. (p. 52)

(94) I may be staying around to the end of the week or I may go back tomorrow. (ICE-GB)
(95) We may be introducing a new form of therapy, Levamisole, to try to reduce the amount
of steroids she has to take. (p. 52)
(96) Listen, I could/might be leaving earlier than planned. Is this going to be a problem?
(Depraetere and Langford, 2012, p. 209)

Palmer finds it surprising that there are no examples in which there is reference
to “a single non-progressive present action” (Palmer, 1990, p. 52). Palmer explains
this apparent idiosyncrasy in semantic terms: it is only in a limited number of cases
that the non-progressive present is used to refer to a present event. While the non­
progressive present is used in sports commentaries or cookery programs, Palmer
argues that “ in such circumstances the events are immediately observable and epi­
stemic judgments about them are inappropriate” (p. 52).
The progressive is one of the markers indicative of a homogeneous situation (cf.
(92)), but examples (93)-(96) show that the progressive contributes in more than
one way to the temporal interpretation o f modal utterances. A systematic examina­
tion is needed to pin down the factors that determine the temporal interpretation
in examples with a progressive infinitive.
T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI T H M O D A L V E R B S 1013

4. C o n clu sio n

In this chapter, we have tried to present a m eth o d o lo g y that can be used to describe
the temporal inform ation that is com m unicated by m o d al utterances. It will be clear
that the description is considerably program m atic: there is still a lot o f untrodden
ground in this field, and the su rvey pinpoints a large num ber o f areas that are wait­
ing for an in-depth and com prehensive analysis.
In a nutshell, we have argued that it is necessary to distinguish between on the
one hand, the temporal location o f the M-situation, and on the other hand, the
temporal relation between the M-situation and the residue. In the case o f ability,
opportunity and perm ission, an additional factor to be taken into account is the
notion o f “actualized” ability (opportunity, permission), reference to (effective)
actualization being an element o f m ea n in g that m a y or m ay not be grammatical-
ized, and therefore a concept that should be included in the discussion o f time in
modal utterances.
Questions o f modal taxonom y are relevant to the description o f temporal infor­
mation: when it comes to perm ission, for instance, limiting that category (or not) to
so-called “perform ative” exam ples will impact on the inherent (that is, pragm ati­
cally possible) temporal relations com m unicated. It has also been shown that “scope
o f the m odal m e a n in g ” (in combination with the nature o f the m odal meaning, that
is, root or epistemic meaning) has an influence on the basic temporal constellations
com m unicated by m odal utterances.
The past m orph em e, the aspectual feature o f homogeneity, which m ay be for­
mally realized by the progressive m arker or by specific situation types, and have are
the linguistic features that have been mentioned in the survey o f m arkers that influ­
ence the temporal interpretation o f m odal utterances.
In sum, this chapter gives a b ird s eye view o f some o f the key questions to be
addressed, and shows along what lines a systematic exam ination might be carried
out: a more detailed description and an explanation o f the interaction between the
markers o f time in m odal utterances will be necessary in order to fill the descriptive
gap in the field.

N O TES

1. 1 would like to thank Susan Reed for reading an earlier draft o f this chapter. I am
grateful to Bert Cappelle, Renaat Declerck, Caroline Gevacrt, A n Vcrhulst and especially
Susan Reed, for many discussions about modality in general, and about time in modal
utterances. I have also benefited from the feedback and suggestions for improvement that I
have received from Bob Binnick.
2. There is no unanimous view on whether or not can can communicate epistemic
meaning. W hile the standard view is that this modal expresses root meaning only (cf., e.g.,

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1014 MODALITY

Papafragou, 2002; Timotejevic, 2008), Coates (1995) points out that can is developing
epistemic meaning (in American English) and Collins (2009) argues that epistemic can
exists. As the focus o f this chapter is on time in modal utterances, rather than on semantic
and pragmatic differences between modals, the question to what extent and in what
contexts can expresses epistemic meaning will not be addressed.
3. From here onwards, the phrase m odal utterance is understood to mean an
utterance o f a sentence with a m odal verb. Root m odal utterance stands for an utterance o f a
sentence with a m odal verb that communicates root meaning, root possibility utterance stands
for an utterance o f a sentence with a m odal verb that communicates root possibility meaning.
4. References will mainly be to insights drawn from discussions of modals in
descriptive and typological linguistics, and, to a lesser extent, formal natural language
semantics.
5. The examples are from the British English component o f the International Corpus
of English (ICE-GB), the British National Corpus (BNC), the Cobuild Corpus and the
World Wide Web. Note that disfluencies and anacolutha in the corpus examples have been
removed to facilitate reading.
6. Cf. also, e.g., Halliday (1985, p. 333), Leech and Coates (1989, p. 86), Palmer (1990),
and Larreya and Rivière (2005, P- 83) for a similar distinction. Halliday actually uses the
label “residue” too. Von Fintel (2006) uses “prejacent proposition.”
7. Two exceptions need to be mentioned: Palmer (1990) reserves ample space for the
discussion of time in M odality and the English modals. Verhulst (2009) offers a discussion
o f the structural, semantic and pragmatic factors that determine temporal reference in
sentences with root must and root have to.
8. Scope also features in discussions of the scope of negation (cf., e.g., Huddleston,
1984, p. 169; Palmer, 1995; Huddleston and Pullum, 2002; Larreya and Rivière, 2005, pp.
83-84) and in (generative and functional) discussions of the relative scope of operators
(cf., e.g., Foley and Van Valin, 1984, p. 231). The fact that epistemic meaning appears above
non-epistemic meaning explains, for instance, why John could be able to write a letter is
acceptable. Examples like John might could do it with stacked modal auxiliaries, which are
used in dialects of the southern United States, illustrate the same principle: the first modal
has epistemic meaning while the second has root (deontic) meaning.) Cf. also, e.g.,
Condoravdi (2002), Demirdache and Uribe-Etxeberria (2008), Nuyts (2001, p. 201),
Hacquard (2009). The interaction between modals and temporality has been studied in
more detail in formal semantics.
9. Deontic modality is a label (from modal logic) commonly used in descriptive
linguistics to capture the meanings o f permission and obligation.
10. In You may come in, the speaker is the source of the modality because he or she
can potentially impose a barrier to actualization. In this example the source does not
make of use of that possibility so we get positive permission. In You may not come in the
speaker does make use o f their power to do so; we get negative permission. In other
words, the feature “ + potential barrier” pins down the nature o f the source (it has source
status because it can, in theory, block actualization), and does not automatically imply
there is permission. A comparison with an example that is characterized by “ -potential
barrier” may bring out even more dearly the defining criterion at stake. In Tire printer
can print 10 pages p er minute it is the technical make-up o f the printer that constitues the
source of the possibility, but we cannot say that the printer owes its status as source to the
potential it has to print or not to print 10 pages per minute. Rather, the printer is simply
the cause in itself of the possibilty. In other words, it is in the potentiality to block (or not)
the actualization of a situation that the defining nature of the “ -«-/-potential barrier” lies.
T I ME I N S E N T E N C E S WI TH MODA L V E R B S 1015

11. Cf. Depraetere and Reed (2011) for more details on how the criteria should be
understood and used to define the five categories of root possibility meaning.
12. The examples are from the appendix in Depraetere and Reed (2011).
13. Lyons (1977, p. 824) explains that this is characteristic of deontic meaning
in genera], i.e., also typical of obligation meaning. A sentence like You should have gone
to the m eeting yesterday, which communicates that the addressee was under the obliga­
tion to go to a meeting yesterday, is only an apparent exception: “ we are making a
statement, rather than issuing a directive” and therefore, the sentence is not a typical
example o f deontic modality. Discussions of the kind show that it is not possible to
discuss time in modal utterances without a clear definition of the subcategories o f modal
meaning.
14. Dynamic modality “ involves an inscription of a capacity or a need to the subject-
participant in the slate of affairs, or of a situation-internal potential or necessity for him/
her/it to do something (usually this involves animate entities, but it can also be extended to
inanimate subjects)” (2001, p. 25).
15. “Here and now.”
16. Note that the M-situation is always taken as the starting-point for the establish­
ment of a temporal relation, irrespective of the order in which “M-situation” and residue
are mentioned in the clause describing the temporal information. For instance, the
sentence preceding note 16 means “ The M-situation may be simultaneous with the residue”,
“ The M-situation may be anterior to the residue”, “ The M-situation may be posterior to the
residue”.
17. Heine points out that even though, in principle (following, e.g., Bybee, Perkins,
and Pagliuca, 1994), can can communicate two kinds of non-epistemic meaning (“root
possibility” and “permission”)> “these two senses will not be distinguished in the quantita­
tive analysis that follows; our concern will be essentially with the distinction between
non-epistemic and epistemic modality, rather than between agent-oriented and epistemic
modality” (1995, p. 20).
18. Examples like this one lead Palmer (1990, pp. 65-66) to conclude that his claim
that epistemic utterances are always “performative” (cf. note 30), needs to be relaxed.
19. This example reveals a quite interesting point, which will be taken up below,
namely, that in certain cases, have does not contribute to establishing a relationship of
anteriority. If there is a difference in meaning between there wasn’t anywhere else it could
be and there wasn’t anywhere else it could have been, in this context, it is not necessarily
one that can be captured in terms of a difference in the temporal relation that is
expressed.
20. Palmer (1990, p. 53) points out that the progressive form with future time refer­
ence does not necessarily imply that “duration” is involved, witness the examples in (42)
and (43) (cf. section 3).
21. Palmer points out that epistemic necessity with must, unlike epistemic may, does
not combine with a “single future action” (1990, pp. 52, 54). Tregidgo refers to a related
difference between may and must (that is, he points out that while They may be suffering
from malnutrition could be followed by now or next year, They must be suffering fro m
malnutrition can only be followed by now) and gives the following explanation: “It is
natural to feel that logical conclusions about the future are never demanded in the way
they often are about the present or past. But they are certainly permitted’” (1982, p. 86). It
will be clear that the nature of the restriction referred to is different: while Palmer formu­
lates a constraint in terms of situation type, Tregidgo’s explanation is one in terms o f more
general semantico-pragmatic considerations.
lO l 6 MODALITY

22. The fact that could can communicate the idea o f actualized ability, in combination
with a State verb and habits pinpoints the importance o f aspectuality on the temporal
interpretation o f sentences with modals:

(i) He felt as if his spine was six inches shorter and he could taste warm blood in his
mouth from the lip he had just bitten. (IC E -G B )
(ii) Somewhat to her surprise, the doorbell was working and she could hear the sharp
peal on the other side o f the door. (IC E -G B )
(iii) More accurately, she could sense it. (IC E -G B )
(iv) The closet was so big it could contain all m y belongings. (Declerck, 1991, p. 394)

Cf. Palmer (1990, pp. 9 4 -9 6 ) for a discussion o f this issue.

23. Coates (1983, p. 91) uses the term “ factive ability.”
24. Note that the modal category o f ability as such is controversial: whether or not
there is actualization o f the ability, there is reference to a factual skill and that as such is,
according to some researchers, incompatible with the definition and nature o f modality
( c f , e.g., Palmer, 1990; Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen, 1997, p. 325; Hoye, 1997, p. 44; Salkie,
2009).
25. Ilis examples include instances o f what Depraetere and Reed (2011) call “opportu­
nity” (It is really a m atter o f h ow qu ickly can we get the surveyor to m ove.) as well as
examples that express “general situation possibility” ( I've spotted . . . a solecism, but it can
easily be ru b bed out.).
26. Cf. p. 121 for a similar remark about must with future time reference. Palmers
observations about m ust seem to corroborated by an investigation I carried out on the
basis o f the Intersect corpus, in which I checked how French d evo ir gets translated into
English. W hile I expected thc fu tu r sim ple o f d evo ir ( d e v r-a i,-a s , etc.) to be systematically
translated by a form o f w ill + have to , it turned out that in 19% o f the cases (30 out o f 157
sentences with a modal), must is used, which suggests that like the instances with can
signalled by Palmer, the differences in communicative effect between future modality with
a simultaneous residue and present modality with a posterior residue are small.
27. An alternative explanation o f the use o f can (rather than w ill be able to) might run
along the following lines: the auxiliary features in a restrictive relative clause. This is a
syntactic environment in which what Declerck (1991) calls a relative tense is typically used
(cf. You w ill be met by a man who is ( w ill be) wearing a red tie). In other words, it might be
argued that it is not necessary to re-establish future time reference in the relative clause
through the use o f a verb form that explicitly communicates future time.
28. Note that, contrary to Palmer, Declerck (1991, p. 393) argues that “ future ability is
by definition mere ability: there is no reference to actualization on specific occasions.”
29. Quirk et al. (1985, p. 223) add that //-clauses constitute an exception to the
generalization that can cannot express future time ability when it combines with a future
time adverbial:
If you can pass your driving test next month, you w'ill be able to visit us more often
during the summer.
Com pare with:
? You can pass your driving test next time you take it.
You w ill be able to pass your driving test next time you take it.
30. This is how Palmer defines performative use o f a modal: “ by using a dcontic
modal, a speaker m ay actually give permission (may, can), lay an obligation (m ust) or make
a promise or threat (shall). The difference between deontic and dynamic modality is that
the former is performative or discourse-oriented, the latter is not” (1990, p. 69).

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T I M E IN S E N T E N C E S WI T H M O D A L V E R B S ЮІ7

31. That part o f the quote that bears on the relation between the M-situation and the
residue will be taken up in section 3.3.3.
32. For reasons o f space, we will not deal with the question o f actualized permission
in the present and in the future.
33. Declerck (1991, p. 3 71) writes that the situation m ay actualize in the present or in
the future, and illustrates present actualization with the following sentence:

(i) You m ay open the door now.

It seems to me that even though now is used, the actualization o f the situation will not
take place until after permission is given.
34. The temporal interpretation o f a similar necessity example is discussed in
Depraetere and Reed (2006).
35. Thanks to Susan Reed, who used this metaphor in one o f our discussions.
36. For each o f the modals she discusses, Coates (1983) lists examples with a perfect
infinitive and comments on the meaning they convey.
37. Cf. Quirk et al. (1985, p. 235) for a similar comment on should/ought to + perfect
infinitive. Cf. Tregidgo (1982, pp. 8 9 -9 0 ) for an observation on hypothetical epistemic m ay
+ perfect infinitive.
38. Cf. Coates (1983) for observations on the aspectual nature o f the residue.
39. Note that ca n t is more easily compatible with a progressive infinitive:

(i) She can't be com ing on Monday.

REFEREN CES

Bache, C ., and Davidsen-Nielscn, N. (1997). M asterin g English. Berlin: dc Gruyter.

Bybee, J. L. (1985). M o rph ology: A study o f the relation betw een m eaning an d fo rm . Am ster­
dam: Benjamins.
B y b e e ,). L., Perkins, R., and Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution o f g ra m m ar: Tense , aspect
a n d m ood in the languages o f the world. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Coates, J. (1983). Ih e sem antics o f the m odal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm.
Coates, J. (1995). The expression o f root and epistemic possibility in English. In B. Aarts
and C. M air (eds.), 77ic verb in contem porary English: Theory a n d description (pp.
145-159 )- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Collins, P. (2009). M odals an d qu asi-m od als in English. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Condoravdi, C. (2002). Temporal interpretation o f modals: Modals for the present and for
the past. In D. Beaver et al. (eds.), Stanford papers on sem antics (pp. 5 9 -8 8 ). Stanford:
C S I J Publications.
Declerck, R. (1991). A com prehensive g ra m m a r o f the English language. Tokyo: Kaitakusha.
Declerck, R. (in collaboration with S. Reed and B. Cappelle). (2006). The g ra m m a r o f the
English tense systein. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Demirdache, H., and Uribc-Etxeberria, M . (2008). Scope and anaphora with time argu­
ments: The case o f ‘perfect modals’. L in g u a , 118, 179 0 -18 15.
Depraetere, I. (2009). Some observations on (factual) could + perfect infinitive. In A.
Tsangalidis and R. Facchinetti (eds.), Studies on English m odality (pp. 2 8 5 -3 0 6 ). Bern:
Peter Lang.

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Depraetere, I., and Langford, C. (2012). Advanced English gram m ar: A linguistic approach.
London: Continuum.
Depraetere, I., and Reed, S. (2006). Mood and modality in English. In B. Aarts and
A. McMahon (eds.), An introduction to English linguistics (pp. 269-290). Malden:
Blackwell.
Depraetere, I., and Reed, S. (2011). Towards a more explicit taxonomy of root possibility in
English. English Language and Linguistics, 15(1), 1-30.
Foley, W. A., and Van Valin, R. D. Jr. (1984). functional syntax and universal grammar.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hacquard, V. (2009). On the interaction of aspect and modal auxiliaries. Linguistics and
Philosophy, 32, 279-315.
Halliday, M. A . K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
Heine, B. ( 1 9 9 5 )- Agent-oriented vs. epistemic modality: Some observations on German
modals. In J. Bybee and S. Fleischman (eds.), M odality in discourse (pp. 17-53).
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Hewings, M. (2005). A dvanced gram m ar in use. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Hoye, L. (1997). Adverbs and modality in English. London: Longman.
Huddleston, R. (1984). Introduction to the gram m ar o f English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Huddleston, R., and Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge gram m ar o f the English language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Larreya, P., and Rivière, C. (2006). Gram m aire explicative de VAnglais. 3rd ed. Paris: Pearson
Education France. - -
Leech, G. N., and Coates, J. (1980). Semantic indeterminacy and the modals. In S. Green-
baum et al. (eds.), Studies in English linguistics (pp. 79-90). The Hague: Mouton.
Lyons, J. ( 1 9 7 7 ) . Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nordlinger, R., and Traugott, E. C. (1997). Scope and the development of epistemic
modality: Evidence from ought to. English Language and Linguistics, 1(2), 295-317.
Nuyts, J. (2001). Epistemic modality, language, and conceptualization: A cognitive-pragmatic
perspective. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Palmer, F. R. (1979). M odality and the English modals. 1st ed. London: Longman.
Palmer, F. R. (1990). M odality and the English modals. 2nd ed. London: Longman.
Palmer, F. R. (1995). Negation and the modals of possibility and necessity. In J. L. Bybee and
S. Fleischman (eds.), M odality in gram m ar and discourse (pp. 453-471). Amsterdam:
Benjamins.
Papafragou, A. (2002). M odality and the semantics-pragmatics interface. Oxford: Elsevier
Science.
Poutsma, H. (1926). A gram m ar o f Late M odern English. Pt. 2. The parts o f speech. Section 2.
Groningen: Noordhoff.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., and Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive gram m ar o f
the English language. London: Longman.
R o ss,}. (1969). Auxiliaries as main verbs. In W. Todd (ed.), Studies in philosophical
linguistics , ser. 1 (pp. 77-10 2). Evanston, IL: Great Expectations Press.
Salkie, R. (2009). Degrees of modality. In R. Salkie, P. Busuttil, and J. Van der Auwcra
(eds.), M odality in English (pp. 79-104). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Scheurweghs, G. (1959). Present-day syntax: A survey o f sentence patterns. London:
Longmans Green.
Sinclair, J. (ed.). (3990). Collins Cobuild Grammar. London: Collins.
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Tirnotcjevic, J. (2008). 77ie semantic domain o f possibility in English and German. Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Brighton.
Traugott, E. C., and Dasher, R. B. (2002). Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tregidgo, P. S. (1982). Musi and may: Demand and permission. Lingua, 56, 75-92.
Van der Auw era,}., and Hammann, A. (2008). Situational possibility; Epistemic possibility;
Overlap between epislcmic and silualiona) possibility. In M. Haspelmath et al. (eds.),
The World A llas o f Language Structures Online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library,
chs. 74, 75, and 76, available at http://wals.info/feature/74, http://wals.info/feature/75,
and http://wals.inro/lealure/76; reprints of 2005 papers.
Verhulst, A. (2009). Posleriority in expressions with must and have to: A case of interplay
between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. In R. Salkie, P. Busuttil, and ). Van der
Auwera (eds.), Modality in English (pp. 211-222). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Von Fintcl, K. (2006). Modality and language. In D. M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopcdia o f
philosophy. 2nd edition. Detroit: MacMillan Reference USA. Available (as of
December 27, 2011) on-line from: http://mit.edu/fintcl/www/modality.pdf.
 CHAPTER 36

EVIDENTIALITY
AND MIRATIVITY

FER D IN A N D DE H A A N

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

This chapter is con cern ed w ith the nature o f e vid en tially, the m arking o f the source
o f information, or w here the speaker got his or her evidence for m ak in g a statement
fr o m .1 A discussion o f e v id e n tia lly is fitting in this volume, as the categories o f
evidentiality an d tense/aspect overlap in various respects. O n a form al level, it is
frequently the case that evidentials are expressed with tense or aspect m orph em es
(see section 4.4). T h e y also share certain sem antic features, som ething that will be
discussed in section 6. Evidentiality and tense/aspect are m uch closer related than
is som etim es assum ed in the literature (w h ich tends to focus on the relations
between evidentiality and epistemic m odality), and this chapter lays out the reasons
for treating evidentiality and m irativity as part o f tense/aspect.
A n example o f a prototypical evidential category is shown in (1), from the South
A m erican language Tuyuca, w h ich shows a sentence ending in an evidential a ffix -w i
that show s that the speaker saw (personally witnessed) the action described in the
sentence. This evidential affix in Tuyuca is a portmanteau m orphem e, com bining
inform ation about evidentiality, tense, person, and number.

(1) Tuyuca (E. Tucanoan; Barnes, 1984, p. 257)

diiga ape-wi
soccer play-3SG.MASC.PAST.VIS
“ He played soccer (I saw him play).”

Until quite recently, evidentiality w as seen as an exotic notion, a feature m ainly

found in non-W estern (or n o n -In d o -E u ro p ean ) languages, such as the languages
E V I D E N T IAL IT Y AND M I R A T I V I T Y 10 2 1

o f the Americas and Asia (this despite the presence o f a work like Haarmann (1970),
on indirect evidentially in the languages o f Europe). However, in recent years studies
of evidentiality have shown that evidentiality and evidential strategies do play an
important role in the languages o f Europe, even though evidentiality may not be
expressed in quite the same way as in, for instance, languages of the Americas, such
as Tuyuca. This chapter explores the various ways in which evidentiality manifests
itself in language, with discussions of the various types o f evidentiality (the semantic
side o f evidentiality) and the ways evidential notions are expressed crosslinguisti-
cally (morphosyntactic expressions o f modality). The focus is on work in the functional-
typological tradition, but other viewpoints receive some attention as well.
In the recent literature, discussions o f the status of evidentiality have revolved
around questions o f whether evidentiality is a grammatical category in its own right
(i.e., separate from other linguistic areas) or whether it is part o f some other cate­
gory. In this chapter, two such areas are discussed, namely the interaction of eviden­
tiality and (epistemic) modality, and the relationship between evidentiality and
tense/aspect. The interaction between evidentiality and epistemic modality revolves
around discussions o f whether evidentials, like epistemic modals, show a dim in­
ished degree of confidence in the truth of the statement. The literature is divided on
whether evidentials, especially evidentials encoding indirect evidence, necessarily
show this diminished belief in the truth of the proposition on the part o f the speaker.
This discussion is exemplified by an examination of the epistemic modal must and
related verbs in other Germ anic languages and by a comparison of these verbs with
evidentials in languages that are more grammaticalized. The discussion of the rela­
tionship between evidentiality and tense/aspect is framed in terms o f the similar­
ities in locating actions and events with respect to the speaker and the moment of
speech. Reasons for these similarities are discussed and a possible solution is found
by looking at evidentiality as a deictic category.
Finally, a relatively new category is discussed, namely mirativity> the marking of
unexpected information. This category has been linked to evidentiality, in that both
are usually, but not exclusively, expressed by the same morpheme. However, in
recent years enormous strides have been made in our understanding of mirativity,
and it has been shown that this category has some unique properties that set it apart
from evidentiality.

2. A B r i e f H i s t o r y of Ev id e n t ia l it y

This section gives an overview o f the history o f evidentiality and discusses some o f
the more important and influential publications in this area. In an overview such as
this it is of course impossible to mention all studies on evidentiality, especially since
in recent years many studies have appeared on “evidentiality in language X ” which
almost invariably add to our understanding of evidentials, but here we concentrate
on theoretical and typological studies.

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1022 MODALITY

The best place to start is undoubtedly Franz Boas’s introduction to the first vol­
ume of the Handbook of American Indian Languages (1911), which highlighted the
fact that certain morphemes in languages of North America have a meaning that is
unlike those present in English. The following quote serves to exemplify Boas’s
thoughts, not only on evidentiality but also 011 its role in language (p. 39):
[I]t will be rccognized that in each language only a part of the complete concept
that we have in mind is expressed, and that each language has a peculiar tendency
to select this or that aspect of the mental image which is conveyed by the expres­
sion of the thought. To use again the example which I mentioned before, The man
is sick. We express by this sentence, in English, the idea a definite single man at
present sick. In Kwakiutl this sentence would have to be rendered by an expres­
sion which would mean, in the vaguest possible form that could be given to it,
definite man near him invisible sick near him invisible. Visibility and nearness to
the first or second person might, o f course, have been selected in our example in
place of invisibility and nearness to the third person. An idiomatic expression of
the sentence in this language would, however be much more definite and would
require an expression somewhat like the following, That invisible man lies sick on
his back on the floor of the absent house.. . . if we take into consideration further
traits o f idiomatic expression, this example might be further expanded by adding
modalities of the verb; thus the Kwakiutl. . . would require a form indicating
whether this is a new subject introduced in conversation or not; and, in case the
speaker had not seen the sick person himself, he would have to express whether
he knows by hearsay or by evidence that the person is sick, or whether he had
dreamed it.

Perhaps one o f the first scholars to incorporate evidentiality into a larger theory
was Roman Jakobson in his famous 1957 (1971) paper on “Shifters” who compared
evidentiality to other verbal and nominal categories by breaking these categories
down into semantic features (p. 135). Evidentiality in Jakobsons theory is seen as an
interaction between events, not participants. There are three events involved, a nar­
rated event, a speech event and a narrated speech event, the last one being the source
of information of the narrated event. When the speech event is the same as the nar­
rated event, then we have direct information. When the two speech events are dif­
ferent, we are dealing with indirect evidence. An example can be seen in the
following quotation:2
Bulgarian conjugation distinguishes two semantically opposite sets of forms:
“direct narration” (Ens = Es) vs. “ indirect narration” (Ens * Es). To our question,
what happened to the steamer Evdokija, a Bulgarian first answered: zaminala “ it is
claimed to have sailed,” and then added: zamina “I bear witness; it sailed” (p. 135)

In this theory, evidentials, like tense, mood and person, are shifters,3 whose
meaning “cannot be defined without a reference to the message” (Jakobson 1971,
p. 331). Categories such as gender, number and aspect are not shifters. Jakobson
more or less explicitly sets evidentiality apart from mood/modality, which is defined
as “the relation between the narrated event and its participants with reference to
the participants of the speech event: . . . this category ‘reflects the speaker’s view of
the character of the connection between the action and the actor or the goal”’ The
E V I D E N T I A L I T Y AND M I R A T I V I T Y 1023

formula Jakobson uses is PnE n/Ps (p. 135). This shows that Jakobson views evidential­
ity as an interaction of events, but mood and modality primarily as an interaction of
speech act participants and the narrated event.
The study of evidentiality as a category in its own right started in the 1980s,
despite the appearance oi earlier studies such as Haarmann (1970), which seems to
have had little influence in Anglo-Saxon linguistics. In 1981 a symposium on evi­
dentiality was held at UC Berkeley which lead to the publication of Chafe and Nich­
ols (1986), containing several papers that are still important, mostly on evidential
in specific languages or language families, but also papers that lay the foundation
for theoretical examinations of evidentiality (such as Anderson, 1986, on establish­
ing criteria for evidential and drawing a semantic map for evidentiality). Another
paper from the symposium, Givon (1982), was published separately. It started
research into the relation between evidentiality and epistemic space, a still-ongoing
area of interest (see section 5). Palmer (1986) devotes a lot of space on evidentiality
in his still-influential book on mood and modality. He considered evidentiality as
part of epistemic modality, mainly based on data from Indo-European languages,
which have since been shown to be atypical (see section 4 below). Willett (1988) is
the first typological study of evidential categories and their hierarchical structure,
examining the relationship between direct and indirect evidence, coming to the
conclusion that there is a diminished degree of confidence in the truth of the prop­
osition when indirect rather than direct evidentials are used. Among non-English
publications Guentchéva (1996) was influential in the French literature. The term
médiatisée is used instead of a literal translation o f evidentiality to highlight the fact
that we are dealing with mediated utterances, i.e., the speaker is not expressing an
opinion on the truth of the statement s/he is reporting on.
The close relationship between evidentiality and epistemic modality was ques­
tioned in de Haan (1999), a study examining this relationship and coming to the
conclusion that the two areas are best kept separate, even though in some languages
they may be expressed by the same linguistic material. This was elaborated upon in
de Haan (2005), which considered evidentiality a deictic category, viewing eviden­
tials as similar to demonstratives. This will be elaborated upon in section 6 below.
Aikhenvald (2004) is the largest study to date on evidentials. It is based on data
from about 500 languages, and covers most aspects, from a typology of evidential
systems to issues o f diachrony
Aikhenvald limits herself to grammaticalized evidentials, however, specifically
excluding lexical evidentials such as adverbs and lexical verbs. The study o f lexical
evidentials is taken up in Squartini (2008) and Wiemer (2008), who find that
studying lexical evidentials can help greatly with establishing grammaticalization
paths and the study of evidentiality as a category.
In formal linguistics, evidentials had not received much attention until Cinques
(1999) work on the cartography of categories included evidentiality as a separate
category (and thus,byimplicature, as a separate category from any type o f modality).
He did not distinguish between types of evidentials, however. Workin formal seman­
tics include Garrett (2001) on evidentials in Tibeto-Burman and Faller (2002) on
1024 MODALITY

e vid en tia l in Cuzco Quechua. Both works lay the foundation for work on evidenti­
ality within formal semantics, and it is followed up in such studies as McCready and
Ogata (2007); Matthewson, Davis, and Rullmann (2008); and Portner (2009).
Finally, in anthropological linguistics the focus is on the interaction o f eviden­
tiality and culture. In these studies, the emphasis is on how evidentiality can reveal
something about the worldview o f the culture that is investigated. Representative
studies include Basso (2008), a study of the differences between evidentiality and
epistemic modality in the Cariban language Kalapalo, and Nuckolls (1993), a study
on evidentials in Quechua from an anthropological linguistics point o f view.

3. T y p e s of Ev id e n t ia l it y

This section briefly outlines the various types o f evidentiality that can be found in
the w orlds languages. The section is meant as a brief introduction to the semantics
o f evidentiality and it also serves to introduce terminology for the sections that
followr. Given the brief nature o f the section, it consequently will omit many details
o f evidential systems in particular languages.
Broadly speaking, evidentials fall into one of two groups, those evidentials that
mark that the speaker somehow witnessed the action or event described, and those
evidentials that mark that the speaker is or was not present at the action or event.
The first group will be referred to here as direct evidentials , the second group as
indirect evidentials. Evidentials as source-of-information markers therefore form a
connection between the speaker and the action or event s/he is describing.
Direct evidentials, also sometimes referred to as firsthand or sensory eviden­
tials, detail the various ways in which the speaker can have personally witnessed the
action. The most common one is a visual evidential, which states that the speaker
saw the action in question. An example is (2), from Ainu.'1

(2) Ainu (Isolate; Shibatani, 1990, p. 84)

apto as siri-ne
rain fall D IR E C T -b e
“ It has just rained.”

Another direct evidential is the auditory evidential, marking the fact that the
speaker heard the action, but did not see it. Such auditory evidentials are rarer than
visual evidentials, but they do occur in various places around the globe. They are
prevalent in the Pomo (California) and Tucanoan (Colombia/Brazil) languages and
also in at least one New Guinean language, Fasu (3). It would appear that the presence
of an auditory evidential entails the presence o f a visual evidential (but not vice versa).

(3) Fasu (Trans-New-Guinea; Loeweke and May, 1980, p. 71)

pe-sa-rakae
c o m e -C U S T 5-A U D
“ I hear it coming.”

М атеріал, захищ ений авторськи м правом

E V I D E N T I A L I T Y AND M I R A T I V I T Y 1025

The other senses are rarely, if ever, represented by individual evidentials, but on
occasion one can find nonvisual evidentials that cover all nonvisual senses. Such
languages include the Arawakan language Tariana (Aikhenvald, 2004), the
Wakashan language Makah (Jacobsen, 1986) and various languages from the Pomo
language family. Example (4) is from Wintu:
1
(4) Wintu (Penutian, Wintuan; Pitkin, 1984, p. 183, glosses mine)
kupa~nthe'
chop.wood-NVIS
“He is chopping wood (ifl hear him or if a chip flies ofl and hits me).”

There are two main types of indirect (or secondhand) evidentials, namely hear­
say evidentials (also referred to as quotatives) and inferential evidentials. Hearsay
evidentials denote that the speaker has heard about the action or event from some­
body else or that the statement is part of a story or myth. Inferential evidentials are
evidentials that show that the speaker has based his or her statement on the pres­
ence of some kind of evidence (e.g., animal tracks in the snow, bear droppings, etc.)
or on the basis of a purely logical deduction.6 In many languages hearsay and infer­
ential evidentials are formally separated. Some languages with these two indirect
evidentials are Ainu (Shibatani, 1990), West Greenlandic (Fortescue, 1984), and
many languages in the Americas such as Serrano (Hill, 1967) and the Pomoan lan­
guages. Example (5) is from Andoke.

(5) Andoke (Andoke; Landaburu, 1979, pp. 120-121)

a. pai b-aya-ha puke 0-1-ti-A
Pai ASS-PRON-QUOT canoe NOMIN-NOMIN-make-VERBSUF
“Pai has made a canoe, they say.”
b. pai b-aya-ni puke o-I-ti-A

Pai ASS-PRON-INFER canoe NOMIN-NOMIN-make-VERBSUF

"Pai has made a canoe (I infer).”

Note the presence of the assertive prefix b- in both examples, showing that there
is really no doubt on the part o f the speaker, even though indirect evidentials are
used. Note also that the absence of an indirect evidential in Andoke entails direct
evidence, thus direct evidence is represented by a zero morpheme (Landaburu,
1979, pp. 120-121).
In many languages hearsay and inferential evidentials are rolled into one indi­
rect evidential, quite often as part of the verba) system (see section 6). Such lan­
guages include Turkish (Aksu-Ko<; and Slobin, 1986), Takelma (Sapir, 1922), Sherpa
(Woodbury, 1986), and Mangarayi (Merlan, 1982). An example from Takelma is
shown in (6):

(6) Takelma (Takelma; Sapir, 1922)

mena yapa domkhwa-kh
bear man kill-INFER:3SG
“It is said that the bear killed the man.”
“'The bear evidently has killed the man.”
1026 MODALITY

In certain languages there is either a hearsay or an inferential evidential, but not

both. For instance, in Sarcee there is an inferential suffix -la, but apparently no hearsay
evidential (Cook, 1984, p. 35) while Suena only has a quotative particle sia (see e x ­
ample (20) in section 4 below).
There are various minor types o f evidential which only occur in one or two
languages. For instance, Kwakiutl has an indirect evidential which shows that the
information for the statement came to the speaker in a dream. Such evidentials are
subtypes o f other kinds o f evidentials (in the Kwakiutl case, hearsay).
We now turn to the interrelationship o f direct and indirect evidentiality. It
would seem to be a near absolute universal that if a language has grammaticalized
direct evidentials, it also has grammaticalized indirect evidentials. Or, to put it
another way, indirect evidentials are grammaticalized before direct evidentials.
Pragmatically, the reasoning seems to be that statements m ade by the speaker are
assumed to convey direct evidence unless stated otherwise. Hence the abundance
o f lexical material and grammaticalized evidentials to m ark indirect evidence, as
this is the marked member of the opposition. Once grammaticalized indirect evi­
dentials are present, direct evidentials can be grammaticalized. It must be rem em ­
bered that it is not necessarily the case that in languages with only grammaticalized
indirect evidentials the absence of indirect evidentials entails direct evidence.
Only in a small num ber o f languages, such as the Cariban language Ilixkaryana
(Derbyshire, 1979, p. 144) and in A ndoke (Landaburu, 1979, see (5) above) is the
absence o f an indirect evidential tantamount to an expression of direct evidential­
ity. In other words, direct evidence in Hixkaryana and A ndoke is marked with a
zero morpheme.
In a number o f studies (including Willett, 1988; de Haan, 1999; Faller, 2002)
the evidential categories are treated as an implicational hierarchy, where the pres­
ence of a m em ber higher on the hierarchy means that the members lower on the
hierarchy are also present. One such hierarchy, from de Haan (1999) is presented
in Figure 36.1.
The question is: what does this hierarchy represent? Beyond the mere represen­
tation o f the entailments in the hierarchy, it has also been thought o f as representing
different levels o f truth values. That is, a direct evidential is thought o f as being more
truthful than an indirect evidential. This may not be a true 01* complete analysis of
the hierarchy, as there are m any languages in which the indirect evidentials do not
show any sign o f a diminished level o f confidence in the truth o f the statement
(de Haan, 1999). More on the relation between modality and evidentiality can be
found in de Haan (1999), Portner (2009) (for the position in formal semantics), and
in section 5 belowr.

v is u a l < a u d it o r y < n o n v is u a l < in f e r e n c e < q u o t a t iv e

d ir e c t e v i d e n c e < in d ir e c t e v i d e n c e

Figure 36.1. Evidential hierarchy

E V I D E N T I A L I T Y A ND M I R A T I V I T Y 102 7

4. G r a m m a tic a l and Lex ica l Ev id en t ia lit y

4.1. Modal Verbs

Looking at the ways in which evidentiality is coded in the languages of the world,
we can observe a wide variety of lexical and grammatical means. This section looks
at this variety.
While it may not always be obvious, evidentiality can be expressed via modal
verbs. This is the case in certain European languages, especially those from the
Germanic language family (de Haan, 2009), but also in languages that have been
areally influenced by Germanic languages, such as Finnish (Kangasniemi, 1992)
and Polish (Hansen, 2001). It would appear to be an extension o f epistemic
modals, which did not take place in English (but see Traugott, 1989 for an alter­
native view), but did occur in most other Germanic languages. Some examples
are:

(7) Dutch (W. Germanic; De Haan 1999)

Het moet een goede film zijn.
It must.3SG.PRES a good movie be.INF
“It is said to be a good movie.”
(8) Swedish (N. Germanic; Holmes and Hinchcliffe, 1993, P- 2 93 )
Hon skall vara vacker.
she Q UOT be beautiful
“She is said to be beautiful.”
(9) Polish (W. Slavic; Hansen, 2001, p. 139)
W Grecji ma padac
In Greece Q U O T rain.INF
“It is said to rain in Greece.”

4.2. Verbal affix

The definition of a verbal affix as opposed to a marker of mood is not always easy
to make. Here we will use the heuristic that verbal affixes of modality and evidenti­
ality are never obligatory, as opposed to markers of mood (see de Haan 2006, for
discussion). Evidentiality expressed as verbal affixes are widely attested in the
worlds languages. Some examples include:

(10) Koasati (Muskogean; Kimball, 1991» pp. *95 > 207)

a. if-o-:li-:s /ifo:lis/
dog-be-INFER-IMM.PAST
“One might guess it’s a dog.”
b. nipo-k aksohka-ha /nipok aksohkaha/
meat-SUB] char-AUD
“It sounds like the meat is charring.”
1028 MODALITY

(11) Mam (Mayan; England, 1983, p. 14)

at-0 jun xaq-ch
L0C .P R E D -3SG .A one rock-QUOT
"Theres a rock, he says.”
(12) Tamil (S. Dravidian; Asher, 1985, p. 172)
Neettu ceqkattle maze pencut-aam
yesterday Chengam.LOC rain fall.PAST^SG.INDIR
“It seems it rained in Chengam yesterday.”

It is not always clear in grammatical descriptions whether we are dealing

with a verbal affix (which is optional) or a more obligatory morpheme, such as a
mood morpheme. Sometimes an evidential morpheme is labeled as “ m ood”
even though it is apparently optional. In such cases, the morpheme is labeled as
a verbal affix.

4.3. Clitic
Given that evidentiality is a phenomenon that essentially has the entire propo­
sition in its scope, it is not surprising that it can be expressed by a clitic that
attaches itself to a word that is sentence initial (or possibly final), regardless of
the word class. An example o f this is Takelma (Sapir, 1922, p. 274). Am ong
other expressions o f evidentiality, Takelma has a Quotative clitic -h i? attested
only in myths, which is (most commonly) attached to the first word in the
sentence.

(13) Takelma (isolate; pp. 274, 292)

a. gane-hi?
and.then-QUOT
“And then, it is said . . . ”
b. naga-ihi?
say.AOR.3S G - QU OT
“He said, it is said . . . ”

An example of what seem to be word-final clitics is Georgian (Aronson, 1990)

where several morphemes can occur at the end of a subordinate clause to mark a
form of indirect speech. For instance, the Quotative morpheme -0 is used when the
subject of the main clause is any person except 1SG.

(14) Georgian (Kartvelian; p. 283)

Man tkv-a, xval me k’ino-si c’a-(v-)val-o.
he-ERG he-said-it tomorrow I movies-to I-will-go-REP
“He said he would go to the movies tomorrow.”

Note that Aronson calls these morphemes particles, but they are written as part
of the preceding word. This shows that the difference between a clitic and a particle
is not always straightforward and perhaps to a certain degree language-dependent.
E V I D E N T I A L I T Y A ND M I R A T I V I T Y 1029

4.4. Part o f the Tense-Aspect System

In a number of languages and language families around the world evidentially is
part of the tense-aspect system. This will be further elaborated upon in section 6
below. Here we will touch upon the basic facts.
In Tuyuca, as in a number of other Tucanoan languages, evidentiality, tense and
person form a portmanteau morpheme (Barnes, 1984). In this language, the past
and present have evidential distinctions (four for the present and five for the past
tense), while the future has none. The following table from Barnes (3984) illustrates
the interaction of evidentiality, person and tense for visual evidentiality. Other
types of evidentiality work the same, although the hearsay evidential does not have
a present tense paradigm, as it is impossible to have only indirect evidence about an
action currently in progress in Tuyuca.
That we are dealing with a grammaticalization of tense > evidentiality can be
illustrated by comparing the forms with those o f related languages:

(15) Carapana (E. Tucanoan; Metzger, 1981, p. 34)

pa-wo
w0rk-3.SG.FEM.PAST
“She worked.” (no apparent evidential reading)
(16) Tucano (E. Tucanoan; West, 1980, p. 29)
ni-wo
be-3.SG.FEM.PAST.DIRECT
“She was.” (witnessed past)

Tuyuca is a famous example, and it is a language with a complex interaction o f

tense and evidentiality, but the same interaction can be seen in many languages. In
many cases, the interaction is limited to the past tense, presumably because espe­
cially in the past tense it can be considered important to distinguish between wit­
nessed and unwitnessed events. A famous case is Turkish (see, e.g., Aksu-Ko^ and
Slobin, 1986), whose two past tenses show an evidential split, the form -DI conveys
witnessed events and -ml$ is used for indirect evidentiality.7 Similar examples
include the Finno-Ugric language Komi (Leinonen, 2000), several Caucasian lan­
guages such as Ingush (Nichols, 1994), languages of the Tibeto-Burman and Tun-
gusic families, including Sherpa (Woodbury, 1986) and Evenki (Nedyalkov, 1997,
p. 239). Example (17) shows a direct-indirect split in the past tense in Khalkha
Mongolian:

Table 36.1 The Visual Evidential paradigm in Tuyuca (Barnes, 1984, p. 258)
Past Present

3 sg. masc. -w i -i
3 sg. fein. ■wo -yo

3 pi- -wa -ya

3 sg. man, 1/2 -m -a
1030 M O DA L I T Y

(17) Khalkha Mongolian (Mongolian; Svantesson, 2003, p. 167)

a. Xan ir-lee
king come-DIRECT.PAST
“ The king has arrived.”
b. Xan ir-jee
king come-INDIR.PAST
“ The king has [reportedly] arrived.”

The interaction of evidentiality and (past) tense seems especially prevalent in

Asia, pervading many different language families, so this might be an areal feature.
The feature does come up in other languages, though. For instance, languages of the
Pomo family of California have a visual evidential (in many cases -y a ), which has
been analyzed either as a past tense morpheme or a perfective aspect morpheme.

4.5. M ood
In a number of languages mood can be used to mark evidentiality, specifically indi­
rect evidentiality. The mood corresponding to the subjunctive is normally the one
used to mark indirect evidentiality. (It is in general not known if the corresponding
indicative mood is used to mark specifically direct evidence, or whether this is a
pragmatic inference.) An example of a language with an interaction of evidentiality
and mood is German:

(18) German (W. Germanic)

Er sei krank.
he be.3SG.SUB ill
“He is said to be ill.”

Other languages that mark indirect evidentiality through mood include French,
but also the Algonquian language Passamaquoddy (Leavitt, 1996) and the Austra­
lian languages Mangarayi (Merlan, 1982) and Gooniyandi (McGregor, 1990). An
example from Mangarayi is shown in (19):

(19) Mangarayi (Gunwinyguan; Merlan, 1982, p. 150)

najiq-gana do? a-wula-ma-ri maiga Gumja
piace-ABL shoot IRR-3PL-AUX-PC up.to Gumja
“ They supposedly shot from Najig right up to Gumja.”

Expression o f evidentiality in the mood system does not seem to be a very

common trait, although it must be said that more research is definitely needed here.

4.6. Separate Particles

In a large number of languages evidentiality is expressed with particles. It is not
always easy to tell the difference between particles and more lexical means of ex­
pression, such as adverbs. In the large majority of cases these particles denote some
E V I D E N T I A L I T Y AND M I R A T I V I T Y 1031

kind o f indirect evidentiality. Some examples are shown in (2o)-(22). Note that
Apalai (22) is a rare example o f a visual evidential particle. The etymology o f this
particle is unclear.

(20) Suena (Trans-Ncw-Guinca, Binanderean; Wilson, 1974, p. 151)

Oneki gutu-ra bam-I sia.
Oneki isle-to went-he QUOT
“ Oneki reportedly went to the island.”
(21) N . Puebla Nahuatl (S. Uto-Aztecan; Brockway, 1979, pp. 14 7 -14 8 )
mac say=inon ki-maka-ti-ka
QUOT just=that it-give-CO NN -be
“ I le was giving him just that (it is said).”
(22) Apalai (N. Cariban; Koehn and Koehn, 1986, p. 119)
moro puli t-onah-se rohke
that VIS N F-fin ish -C M P L only
“ I could tell it was all gone.”

There are a num ber o f languages that have more than one way of marking evi­
dentiality. Most often, these languages combine particles with verbal material. For
instance, the Australian language Diyari uses a particle to m ark hearsay and a verbal
affix for direct sensory evidence, as shown in (23).

(23) D iyari (Australian, Pama-Nyungan; Austin, 1981, p. 173)

a.apa talara wakara-la nana-yi-ku
water rain.ABS co m e-FU T A U X -P R E S -S E N S
'‘ It looks/feels/smells like rain will come.”
b. pinti nawu wakara-yi
QUOT 3 S G .N F U T com e-PRES
“ They say he is coming.”

If there is a mix of particle and more grammaticalized material, the particle usu­
ally marks a form of indirect evidence, while the verbal affix or tense-aspect m or­
pheme marks either direct or indirect evidence. On occasion, there can be a
direct-indirect evidential split in the verbal system, and a separate particle for a specific
type of evidentiality. This seems to be the case for Amdo Tibetan (Sun, 1993), wTiich
has a separate particle se for hearsay and a direct-indirect split in the verb system.

4.7. Lexical Evidentiality

Finally, there are countless ways of marking evidentiality lexically (non-grammatically).
These ways include adverbs such as English allegedly and reportedly, but also tags like it
seems (that) . . . or complex constructions such as I saw John crossing the street vs. 1 saw
that John had crossed the street. This brings us in the area of reported speech marking,
which has certainly relevance for the study of evidentiality, but the connection between
the two is yet to be investigated satisfactorily. The same is true for logophoricityf which
has been claimed to have relevance for evidentiality (Speas, 2004), but it still has not
been convincingly established that there is a connection between the two.

laterial chraneny autorskym pravom

1032 MODALTTY

5. E v i d en tia lity an d M o d ality

In this section we will take a look at the w a y s evidentiality and m odality are linked.
W e have already seen that in som e languages m o d al verbs can take on evidential
m eanings, but in this section we will lo o k at the debate o f whether evidentiality is
inherently modal.
A s m entioned in section 2 and 3 above, P alm er (1986, p. 51) lists evidential n o ­
tions such as hearsay and inference u n der epistem ic modality, a practice also found
in such w o rk s as G iv o n (1982) and W illett (19 8 8 ). It is still w idely held, but in recent
years som e other view s have been d iscussed in the literature. In studies such as de
H aan (1999, 2 0 0 5 ) som e doubt has been cast upon this, for a num ber o f reasons.
For one, e v id e n t ia l can c o -o cc u r w ith epistem ic m odals in certain languages. The
follow ing examples from W estern T a rah u m ara exem plify this. A sentence w ith a
quotative can optionally be followed b y an epistem ic affix show ing the level o f truth
the speaker assigns to the statement. A sentence such as (24b) also show s that in d i­
rect evidentials do not inherently sh o w a dim inished belief in the truth o f the
statement.

(24) Western Tarahumara (Uto-Aztecan; Burgess, 1984, p. 104)

a. alue hu-ra
he be-QUOT
“They say it is he.”
b. raha-ra-guru
burn-QUOT-truth
"They say he burned it and its probably true.”
c. simi-le-ga-ra-e
go-PAST-STAT-QUOT-DUB
“Someone said he went but he did not.”

C u rren t w o rk on the interaction o f evidentiality and m odality is focused on the

border areas betw een the two categories. To illustrate this we will take the English
m odal must as an example. A s w e have seen in section 4 above, the cognates o f this
m odal in other G e rm an ic languages (such as D u tch moeten, example (7)) has been
analyzed as having evidential as well as epistem ic m eanings, but traditionally E n g ­
must has been seen as epistemic but not evidential. In a sentence such as John
lish
must be in the office the use o f must is considered to refer to the high, but not abso­
lute, confidence the speaker has in the truth o f w hat is being said. The example can
be paraphrased as I am almost certain that John is in the office. Although this v ie w is
frequently found in the literature,9 there are several studies, some going back a long
way, that point to problems with this view. In form al semantics, this v ie w is p reva­
lent, but certainly not universal. W h ile studies such as Kratzer (1977) and m uch
must into a truth-
recent w o rk (see Portner, 20 0 9 for a relevant overview ) try to fit
conditional fram ew ork, already Karttunen (19 72 ) showed that must and the logical
operator o f necessity are not equivalent. Karttunen’s w ork is elaborated upon in
E V I D E N T I A L I T Y AND M I R A T I V 1TY 1033

w o r k b y W e stm o re la n d (1998) an d in su b se q u en t research (such as Faller, 2002)

w h ic h t r y to lo o k fo r an evidential c o m p o n e n t in must.
The fu n ctio n a list literature sh o w s a sim ila r d eve lo p m e n t, as d oes the literature
b y E n g lish sch olars. W h ile the p re v a le n t v ie w still is one o f stro n g c o n fid e n c e in the
truth o f the sp e a k e r’s utterance (e.g., V a n d er A u w e ra an d P lu n g ia n , 19 9 8 ; N u yts,
2 0 0 1) , there are studies that lin k must to so m e th in g akin to an evid en tial. C o ate s
(1983, p. 41) calls the use o f must in se n te n ce s such as (25) e p istem ic but d efin es it as
follow s: “ E p iste m ic M U S T co n veys the s p e a k e r s co n fid e n ce in the truth o f w h a t he
is sayin g, based on a logical process o f deduction from facts known to him (w h ic h m a y
o r m a y n o t b e sp e cifie d )” (italics m in e ). Thus, even th o u g h C o ate s still c o n s id e rs
relative c o n fid e n c e to be an integral p a rt o f the m e a n in g o f must, she p la c e s great
w e ig h t in the fact that the co n fid en ce is d erived fro m a d ed u c tio n o f evid e n ce . H o w ­
ever, this d e d u c tio n from evid en ce is n o t p art o f C o a te s’ co re ch a ra c te ristic s o f e p i­
stem ic must w h ile sp e ak e r c o n fid en ce is (p. 42). P a lm e r (19 9 0 , p. 53) also su b sc rib e s
to the a rg u m e n t that epistem ic must h as deduction from evidence as a k e y m e a n in g
co m p o n en t, even m o re so than sp e a k e r co n fid en ce. P a lm e r m e n tio n s that must h as
s o m e ch aracteristics o f an evidential. H e states that must can often be p a ra p h ra se d
b y the only possible conclusion is th a t . . . (p. 54). A n e x a m p le he gives is (25):

(25) He must have been discouraged because he’s been hitting Mitoff with everything in the
book and still he cannot keep this man away

H o w ever, th is is p ro b a b ly too o p tim istic a view. W h ile it is tru e that in e x a m p le

(25) ab o ve must m ig h t be p ara p h ra se d b y the only possible conclusion is th a t . . . , it
tu rn s out that this is m e re ly a special case o f the o verall picture. I f w e lo o k a t c o rp u s
data, w e see that “ep istem ic” must is a v e r y atypical m o d a l. F o r instance, it is u se d in
restricted syn tactic contexts (de H a an , 2 0 0 9 ), o c c u r r in g in few er sy n tac tic fra m e s
than d eo n tic must. A s far as co n fid en ce in the truth o f the p ro p o sitio n is c o n c e rn e d ,
in fact must has a w id e confid en ce in terval, ra n g in g fro m a lm o st absolute ce rta in ty
to in differen ce on the p art o f the sp e a k e r w h e th e r the statem en t is true. I n the last
case its tru th level is sim ilar to that o f e p iste m ic may. A n e x a m p le is sh o w n in (26),
fro m the S w itch b o a rd C o rp u s. N ote that epistem ic must (the seco n d in stan ce: I
must get) is a lig n e d w ith the w e a k m o d a l ad verb probably sh o w in g that th e use o f
must in (26) is not due to a strong c o m m itm e n t to the tru th o f the p ro p o sitio n .

(26) But, you know, people, its like your name must be on a list or something, bccause I
know at my office, I get calls, I mean, I must get at least, I probably average at least a
call a day,

Based on corpus instances o f must it seem s that in its epistem ic sense it often o c ­
curs in contexts w here overt evidence is present, usu ally in subordinate clauses with
because o r for. The first occurrence o f must in (26) above show s that. Even in cases
w here evidence is not present overtly it is usually referred to in the extended context or
is available in the discourse through shared world know ledge. For these reasons, de
H aan (2009) assum es that the basic m e an in g o f must is to co n vey a conclusion based
on evidence. It is the overt evidence is evaluated (de H aan, 1999), rather than the entire
1034 MODALITY

proposition an d must is used to sh o w that w e are dealing with an evaluation o f ev i­

dence. It is this connection betw een must an d evidence that has led so m e scholars
(W estm oreland, 1998, for instance) to classify must as an evidential. H ow ever, som e
caveats are in order. The m ost c o m m o n ly used definition o f evidentiality states that
evidentials are m o rp h e m es that m a rk the source o f evidence for the statement, an d the
verb must d oes not d o that. Evaluation o f evid en ce is not necessarily the sam e as
m a rk in g the source o f the evidence, w h ich is a sim ple assertion. W e can o f course
broaden the definition o f evidentiality to include evaluation but that w o u ld defeat the
p u rp o se o f h a v in g a clear definition o f evidentiality an d we are ru n n in g the risk that we
e n d up w ith a definition that is not applicable crosslinguistically. There are clear d iffer­
ences b etw een the evaluative use o f must an d fo r instance the T u yu ca Inferen tial.10
I f w e c o m p a re must in its evalu ative sen se w ith its D u tch co gn ate m oeten , moeten
d oes the sa m e as E n g lish musty n a m e ly sa y in g that the statem ent w as a rr iv e d at b y
e v a lu a tin g e v id e n c e , w h ile moeten in its evid ential sense asserts that there is (in d i­
rect) e v id e n c e fo r the statem en t but that the sp e a k e r refrains fr o m m a k in g a j u d g ­
m e n t.11 O n ly in its evaluative sen se c a n moeten be felicitously be tran slated b y must.
In its ev id e n tial sense, an o th er tran slatio n m e c h a n is m m ust be so u g h t, su c h as alleg­
edly o r be said that , d e p e n d in g o n the co rrect so u rc e o f evid en ce (de H a an , 20 0 9 ).
W e are th e n left with tw o p o ssib ilities d e p e n d in g on w h e th e r w e c la s s ify evalu -
atives as evid en tial. I f w e do, th en m ust is an evid en tial. T he w a y to settle the m atter
is to lo o k at la n g u a g e s in w h ic h e v id e n tia lity p la y s a larger role th a n in the G e r ­
m a n ic la n g u a g e s (a la n g u ag e like T u y u ca , say), an d see i f e valu atio n p la y s a role in
su ch la n g u a g e s. It is u n d e rsto o d that a sse rtio n o f e vid e n ce is a k e y c o m p o n e n t o f
e v id e n tia lity (in d eed , the k e y c o m p o n e n t a c c o r d in g to de H a a n , 1999, 2 0 0 5 ), but
o th e r fu n c tio n s c a n b e p art o f evid entiality, in c lu d in g evalu atio n o f e v id e n c e as se e n
in must. H o w e v e r, that is to be d e te rm in e d b y cro sslin g u istic stu d ies, a n d n o t b y a
p rio ri p ro c la m a tio n .
A se c o n d m o d a l v e rb that h a s b e e n a rg u e d to h ave e v id e n tial n u an c e s is will.
T he c a n o n ic a l e x a m p le is (27), w h e r e the use o f w ill is not to d en o te the fu tu re, but
to d e n o te that, b a se d o n so m e k in d o f e v id e n c e , an actio n w ill follow . In (27), b a se d
o n the k n o c k in g the actio n o f d is c o v e r in g that the p o stm a n is at th e d o o r is p r e ­
dicted. D e H a a n (2 0 0 9 ) calls th is the predictive u se o f w ill w h e r e an actio n is p r e ­
d icted b a se d on s o m e k in d o f e v id e n c e . B e c a u s e a p re d icte d actio n is yet to o ccu r, it
is lo g ica l to u se a m a rk e r o f the future.

(27) [Someone’s knocking on the door.] That will be the postman.

This is quite common crosslinguistically and seems to be associated with mor­

phological expressions of the future. Thus, the same predictive meaning is seen in
Italian, which uses a morphological future:

(28) Italian (Palmer, 1986, p. 62, m y translation)

Suonano. Sara Ugo.
ring.3PL.PRES be.3SG.FUT.INDlC Ugo.
“ Its ringing. That’ll be Ugo”
E V I D E N T I A L I T Y AND M I R A T I V I T Y IO35

It can be shown that the predictive function is different from the regular future
meaning, because the predictive can be used in cases where the future meaning is
not available. Hi is too seems to be crosslinguistically valid, as can be seen from the
following two examples from English (29) and Italian (30). In both cases the reference
is not to a future event, but to an event in the past.

(29) [Context: Person A is stating that “Sophie” had been talking about person
B behind his back. Person B is stating that it can't have been person B
Sophie w as talking about] B : . . . and I doubt that Sophie will have been
talking about me. I’ve not worked on any o f the M c C o y D V D s.
(30) Italian (Palmer, 1986, p. 62, m y translation)
Ilai idea dove siano? Saranno tornati
H avc.2SG .PR ES idea where bc.3P L.P R ES b c.3P L .FU T .IN D IC return
a casa
to home
“ Do you have any idea where they are? They’ll have gone home.”

There is a connection between evid en tially and the predictive function o f the
future, as the predictive function is based on evidence som ehow present in the dis­
course, but whether this compares to expressions o f evidentially is a matter of
crosslinguistic research.
The relationship between the evaluative meaning of must and the predictive
meaning o f will is also a matter of debate. For instance, Perkins (1983, p. 45) concludes
that must shows that the speaker is “aware” of evidence, which does not have to be
present with will. In the case o f will it denotes that circumstances are merely disposed
toward the proposition being true. This seems plausible, since most cases o f evaluative
must in English do have overt evidence in the context, while it seems optional with will;
the English sentence (29) has overt evidence, while the Italian example (30) does not.

6. Ev id en t ia lit y and T en se /A spect

We saw above that evidentiality and modality have some features in common, but it
goes too far to say that evidentiality and epistemic modality are exponents o f the
same linguistic category. In section 4 above we saw that evidentiality can be expressed
using tense/aspect morphemes and in this section we will investigate how this inter­
action can help us determine the place o f evidentiality in the wider area of human
interactions. In this section we will concentrate on two areas. The first is the nature
o f visual evidential, as they are the clearest examples of the relation between the
evidentiality and tense, ’lhey also show the relation between evidentiality and deixis
(for further details see de Haan, 2005). The second area concerns the question o f
whether certain tenses and aspects are more likely to develop evidential readings.
While it has been thought that visual evidentials derive from words denoting a
visual event, such examples are rare. One genuine instance of this is Maricopa,

Material chraneny autorskym pravom

 MODALITY

where actions witnessed visually are expressed by the m orphem e - ?yu u which
comes from the verb yuu “ to see.’'

(31) M arico p a (Yuman; G ord on , 1986, p. 85)

W aly-m arsh-m a-?yuu.
N E G -w in .D U A L -N E G -V IS
“ (I saw) They didn’t win.”

Anderson (1986, p. 305) reserves the category o f “visual evidential” for those
morphemes that actually come from a previous vision word. He explicitly rejects
the claim that visual e vid en tia l develop from tense and aspect morphemes (1986,
P- 305 )> viewing them rather as pragmatic extensions (01* default values) o f their
normal temporal or aspectual meaning. While it is certainly true that visual evidcn-
tials developed from tense/aspect morphemes did so under a process of pragmatic
extension, that is not a reason to deny them the status o f evidentials. Indeed, the
development tense/aspect > evidential is a key piece of evidence for considering
evidentiality a deictic category: it is deictic elements such as tense morphemes that
serve as the basis for evidentials.
Languages with a direct— indirect split in the verbal system include, as m en­
tioned, Turkish, several Uralic and Tibeto-Burman languages (see section 4). In the
Americas they can be found in the Amazon region of South America and in certain
parts o f North America, especially in the US Southwest. In the rest of this section
we present three aspects o f the visual evidentiality— tense/aspect interaction.

6.1. Southern Athabaskan

Like the other Athabaskan languages, San Carlos Apache is an aspect-prominent
language. There arc no tense morphemes present on the verb. There is, however, a
clitic m orphem e which refers to “an action or condition in the past, known
by participation or direct report”

(32) San C a rlo s A p ach e (Athabaskan, W. Apache; Edgerton, 1963, p. 119 -12 0 )
rntso ntsaann-z^ niken ke nadag goneezihn
coat that.which.is.big-just and shoe upward that.which.is.Iong
l \ \ \ \ t r s O
daagohi-ni (
they.exist-VIS
“ There were just overcoats and galoshes.”

The m orphem e - m ? h a s cognates in other Athabaskan languages and it would

appear that it is used for past tense reference, without evidential connotations. In
Chiricahua Apache (Hoijer 1946, p. 84), the clitic -n is glossed simply as ‘past tense’.
The same is true for Navajo (Sapir and Hoijer, 1967, pp. 67,114), where the clitic -ni?
is glossed as ‘past tense’ (33a). Ih e r e is a possible related clitic in Navajo, -nif-n
(without final glottal stop), which is glossed by Sapir and Hoijer (p. 114) as certainly,
for a fact’. It therefore marks speaker assertion. Given the close semantic relation
between past tense, visual evidence, and speaker assertion, it is quite possible that
the two clitics are related. An example o f the certainty clitic is shown in (33b).

Material chraneny autorskym pravom

E V I D E N T T A L I T Y AND M I R A T I V I T Y 1037

(33) Navajo (Athabaskan; p. 114)

a. sici/ disnii-ni/

my.daughter I.told.her-PAST
“I told my daughter.”
b. ?akoteela dism-ni
in.that.fashion I.spoke-ASS
“I certainly spoke in that fashion.”

From the few isolated examples given it is impossible to make any determi­
nation whether the clitic -ni? is restricted in Navajo to situations the speaker
witnessed personally.

6.2. Pomo
There are languages in which the visual evidentials seem to have arisen out of aspec­
tual, rather than tense morphemes. Such languages include most notably the Pomoan
languages o f California (see e.g., Oswalt, 1986), but also Wintu (Pitkin, 1984). For
instance, in Kashaya Pomo, two Visual evidentials are present, -wa and -ya. These
correlate with imperfective and perfective aspect, respectively, as in (34) below:

(34) Kashaya Pomo (Pomoan; Oswalt, 1986, p. 36)

a. qowaq-ya /qowahy/
pack-VIS.PERF
“ (I just saw) he packed.”
b. qowaq-wa /qowa:qh/
pack-VIS.IMPER
“ (I see) he is packing.”

In other Pomoan languages, cognates of these morphemes are considered tense

morphemes, rather than aspect morphemes. Thus, in Northern Pomo (O’Connor,
1992), the morpheme -ye (cognate with Kashaya -yd) is consistently referred to as a
“perfective/past tense morpheme.” In Eastern Pomo (McLendon, 1975, p. 95), a
morpheme -ya is listed as an indicative suffix, i.e., a mood marker (and no visual
evidential is listed in the grammar).

6.3. Sanuma
Sanuma is a Yanomami language spoken in Northwestern Brazil and Venezuela (Borg-
man, 1990). The interaction between visual evidentiality and tense is handled slightly
differently from the languages discussed above. Like the Eastern Tucanoan languages,
tense is always expressed as a portmanteau form with an evidential-type modality (p. 165).
However, from the examples in the study it appears that visual evidentiality is not an
obligatory category. Sanuma has a large number of visual evidentials, but all of them start
with the morpheme ku- or one of its allomorphs. There is a difference between present
witnessed (visual) and past witnessed morphemes. The present witnessed forms combine
the morpheme ku- plus a demonstrative, such as kulatili “far away inland from the river,”
kupoli “up above in air, tree, etc.,” kupokili "down below in hole, earth, etc.,” and kimati
1038 MODALITY

“going away from speaker on same level” (example (35a) below) (for a full list see Borg­
man, 1990, p. 166). The past witnessed forms combine ku- and a tense morpheme, denot­
ing various degrees of remoteness. They are ke/kehe/kuhe “immediate past (same part of
day)” kupi/kopi/kipi “recent past (same 24 hour period, but not same part o f day)’* and
kupili/kdpili/kipili “distant past (yesterday or before)”
The most common present visual evidential is -kule “near speaker,” which can
be used with any verb. The other visual evidentials are more restricted in their use,
being intimately tied to a specific location or motion. The evidential -kule is also the
one which developed more abstract meanings: -kule can be used when the act of
witnessing is not strictly simultaneous with the moment of speech which would be
expected of a present witnessed evidential. This is shown in (35b):

(35) Sanuma (Yanomami; Borgman, 1990, pp. 167,166)

a. old koko wani hole-a ki-mati
snake CLA DEPR crawl-DUR PRES.WIT-away
“A snake is crawling away.”
b. I na topo ku kule
REL like 3PL say PRES.WIT
“That is what they are saying.”

Sentence (35b) was used in the context where the speaker had just come from a
conversation in another house and reported on what was discussed. The witnessed
tense can be used because it shows that the speaker was present in the same deictic
sphere as the action described. This probably means that -kule is the morpheme
with the most claim to evidential status. The presence of the other forms do show a
connection between visual evidentiality and deixis that goes beyond the mere wit­
nessing o f an action. Witnessed events in the past tense in Sanuma are not located
in space, given that the event has taken place and there is no need to locate it any­
where. The hearer does not need to know the precise location of the event. It is
much more relevant when exactly the event took place, and past witnessed morphemes
are encoded for that This is shown in (36a)-(c):

(36) Sanuma (Yanomami; Borgman, 1990, pp. 28,154,153)

a. ipa sai ha hama topo hasu-ki ke.
my house by visitor 3PL pass.by-FOC IMM.PAST.WIT
“ The visitors passed by my house.”
b. 1 ka pi ti-ki pata hila ku-pi.
REL IN T PRT C LA -D U A L AUG name W IT-REC.PAST
“What did I name that big tree (I referred to) this morning?”
c. 1 naha 1 a ku-la-so ku-pili.
REL like REL 3SG say-EXT-FOC W IT-D 1S.PAST
“Like that that one finally said” “Like that he said.”

Thus, present events are located spatially, and past events are located temporally
in Sanuma.
Based on data such as those presented in this section, and more, it was proposed
in de Haan (2005) to consider evidentiality a deictic category, and in particular an
example of propositional deixis. An evidential grounds an action or event with
E V I D E N T I A L I T Y AND M I R A T I V I T Y IO39

respect to the speaker, just as a demonstrative grounds an object with respect to the
speaker. In other words, the relation between a proposition and an evidential is anal­
ogous to the relation between a noun (phrase) and a demonstrative.
We will now turn to the question o f whether certain tenses and aspects are
more likely to develop evidential m eanings than others (or, in the case o f evidential
separate from tense/aspect m orphem es, co-occur with them). We will concentrate
on tense rather than aspect in the rem ainder o f this section, as the correlation
between aspect and evidentiality is still poorly understood. From limited data it
would seem that as o f yet no clear crosslinguistic conclusions can be drawn.
As far as the correlation of tense and evidentiality is concerned, it may seem
obvious at first glance that the past tense is in general more likely to develop evi­
dential readings than the future. As Aikhenvald (2004, p. 261) observes, a language
will not have more evidentiality choices in a non-past tense than in a past tense.
This may be due to the fact that past tense events have already happened and are
more likely to have different possible interpretations. On the other hand, future
tense evidentials seem less likely as they concern events that have not yet hap­
pened. In Tuyuca, the future tense makes no evidential distinctions, unlike the past
(5 distinctions) and present (4 distinctions) tenses.12 In many languages an eviden­
tial m orphem e can co-occur with a future tense morpheme, but there may be ad ­
ditional meanings beyond pure evidential ones. Aikhenvald (pp. 261-263) mentions
some cases, for instance in Shipibo-Konibo (Panoan; Valenzuela, 2003, p. 35) the
combination o f the direct evidential -ra and future tense yields a certainty rather
than a firsthand interpretation. There is a complex interaction between tense,
aspect and type o f evidentiality that does not lend itself well to capture in typolog­
ical rules and in m a n y cases only a language-specific analysis will work. As m e n ­
tioned by Aikhenvald (2004, p. 266), it is not even possible to assume that certain
types o f evidentiality make fewer tense distinctions than others; in the Samoyedic
languages Selkup and Nganasan, sensory evidentials have fewer tense distinctions
than reported evidentials, while in the East Tucanoan languages (such as Tuyuca),
the secondhand evidentials have fewer, as there is no present tense reported
evidential.
From this w e might tentatively conclude that the interaction between tense
(and aspect) and evidentiality is highly idiosyncratic, though a fuller typological
investigation into this area is highly desirable. But it may turn out that this interac­
tion is governed not by crosslinguistic patterns but by diachronic changes in indi­
vidual languages or language families.

7. M l R A T I V I T Y

Mirativity is a ph enom enon that is related to evidentiality, since quite often mira-
tivity makes use o f the sam e m o rp h e m es as evidentiality in those languages that
have both. M irativity can be defined as the m a rk in g o f unexpected information,

Material chrâneny autorskym prâvom

 1040 M O DA L I T Y

inform ation that som eh o w shocks or surprises the speaker. The foundational paper
on m irativity is D e L a n c e y (1997). A n example from Turkish is shown in (37).

(37) Turkish (p. 37, my translations)

a. Ecevit istifa el-mi§
Ecevit resignation make-PAST.MIR
“Ecevit has resigned!”
b. Nixon istifa et'ti
Nixon resignation make-PAST.DIR
“Nixon resigned.”

A s mentioned in section 4 above, Turkish has two past tenses, w hich correspond
to an evidential distinction between direct and indirect evidence. The past tense -mi§,
w hich in its evidential sense denotes indirect evidence, can also be used if the infor­
mation in the sentence was unexpected to the speaker. In (37a) the resignation o f the
Turkish prime minister Ecevit cam e suddenly and w as som ew hat o f a shock, while the
resignation o f President Nixon was widely expected and not a shock at all. This dis­
tinction can be found in m a n y languages and is similar to w h at M c C a w le y (1971) calls
the H o t N e w s Perfect in English, which accounts for the translation o f (37a) above.
D e L a n c e y (1997) notes that in m a n y languages there is a connection between
(indirect) evidentials and miratives. He cites exam ples from Hare Slave, and several
T ib e to -B u rm a n and D ardic languages, am ong others. E x a m p le (38) from the A th a ­
baskan language Hare, shows the mirative use o f the indirect evidential particle Id.

(38) Hare (Athabaskan; pp. 38, 39; glosses slightly adapted)

a. juhye sa k’inayeda 16
hereabout bear wallearound.IMPER ZNDIR
“I see there was a bear walking about here.”
b. heee, guhde daweda! ch’ifi dach'ida lo
hey up.there sit guy sit M IR
“Hey, he is sitting up there! The guy is sitting up there.”

E xam ple (38a) show the standard indirect use o f the particle lo: the speaker was
not present w hen the bear was around, but can see the result o f the action (inference)
or w as told about it (hearsay). The indirect evidential reading is not available in (38b)
because it is m ad e clear in the context that the speaker w as a witness to the m an sit­
ting up in a tree. A s there is a mismatch between the indirect evidential particle and
the speakers presence at the event, the interpretation o f Id in (38b) cannot be eviden­
tial but must be mirative: the speaker is surprised at seeing the m an in the tree.
W h ile there is a connection between evidentiality an d m irativity (see also
D eLancey, 2 0 0 ]), it is not universally the case that these two categories are expressed
b y one and the sam e m orphem e. For instance, in Kalapalo, the mirative is expressed
b y the affix - se k u , which does not seem to have evidential m ean in gs (Basso, 200 8):

(39) Kalapalo (Cariban; p. 230)

ege-seku=apa wake ukw-oto e-ni wake tis-ina, wege wake
you-M IR=EM EM dual-parent kill-NOM EM 1+3-B EN you EM
I was shocked to realize you, the killer of our parent, preyed on us, that it was you.”
E V ID E N T IA L IT Y AND M IR A T IV IT Y 1041

There appears to be a connection between mirativity and speech act. Many

(but not all) examples o f miratives involve an exclamative speech act. As can be
seen in (38b) above, the Hare example is an exclamative (as evidenced by the
exclamative particle hey) and the same is probably also true for the Turkish e x ­
ample (37b). In A inu, the visual evidential m orphem e siri can be used miratively,
as in (40 ):13

(40) A inu (isolate; Nikolaeva, 2009)

a. huci ck kor an siri 11c.
grandma come while be V IS COP
“ (I see that) grandmother is coming.’'
b. e-easkay siri.
2SG-ca.do V IS.M IR
“ You are really skillful [while observing an activity].”

However, there are also examples where mirativity is not obviously linked to an
exclamative speech act. An example is Buryat (Skribnik, 2009), which has a rather
large system o f converbs, two of which, =hA n= and =tAr= form an opposition
expected vs. unexpected course of events, respectively. Examples are shown in (41).
If we wish to hold on to the thought that mirativity marks unexpected events, then
these examples count as mirative, despite the fact that these are obviously not
exclamative speech acts.

(41) Buryat (Mongolian; Skribnik, 2009)

a. tere xiin udaan iibde=ze bai=han=aa naha
this man long b e.ill=C O N V AU X=CO NV=REFL die
bara=s=oo
INTENS=PAST.3$G
“ Tliis man died after being ill for a long time
(expected course o f events).”
b. *tcrc xiin udaan iibdc=ze bai=tar=aa naha
this man long be.ill= C O N V AUX=CO NV=REFL die
bara=s=oo
INTENS=PAST.3SG
“ Tli is man died after being ill for a long time (unexpected course o f events).”
c. xaluun haixan uder=niiud xodo bai=tar=aa /bai=han=aa olybon
warm good d ay=PL a.while be=CO NV=REFL cold
una=han bai=gaa
fall=PART be=PAST.3SG
“ For a while the weather (lit. days) was warm and beautiful, and then it got cold.”

The converb =hA n= marks expected course o f events, so that (41a) is perfectly
natural and (41b) is not, as the result is expected from the state described in (41b).
In other cases the choice is optional, as in (41c). Either one can be used, depending
on whether the weather turning cold is expected (e.g., in the autumn) or unex­
pected (e.g., in the spring). Skribnik (2009) discusses other instances o f the expected
vs. unexpected information opposition. This opposition also occurs, for instance, in
various types o f adverbial and causal constructions. As remarked by Skribnik, the

Material chraneny autorskym pravom

 1042 MO DA L I T Y

marking o f expectations permeates the grammar on various levels and it goes far
beyond the normal level of mirative marking.
The question is whether such examples are instances of mirativity or whether
we should limit mirativity to exclamative speech acts. The latter has the advantage
that we can draw the generalization that miratives are evidentials, which occur in
exclamatives. That does entail that we must treat cases such as the Buryat examples
differently from miratives. We would have to say that the marking of unexpected
information is not a sufficient condition for being mirative. We would also have to
have these morphemes occur in a specific speech act, the exclamative. Whether
such methodological sleight-of-hand is worth the cost, must be determined by the
number of languages that have constructions similar to the Buryat examples and
their degree o f similarity. In short, more work needs to be done here, both on the
interaction o f evidentiality and mirativity and on the relationship between mirat­
ivity and speech act theory.

8 . C o n clu sio n s

While the study o f evidentiality is not as old as other speaker-oriented categories,

such as tense and deixis, there has been a tremendous amount of progress in the last
couple o f decades on establishing the nature of evidentiality (and mirativity) and its
place in the overall framework of human language, the theoretical gains made in the
past decades having provided a solid foundation for future research into evidential­
ity. Nevertheless, there is more work to be done in these areas. In the upcoming
years, attention will no doubt be focused more on the small-scale investigation of
evidentials and evidential-like morphemes in a single language or language family,
regardless o f the theoretical framework involved.

NO TES

1. This chapter is based on materials presented at various conferences over the years. I
thank the participants and commenters for the stimulating discussions. Special thanks to
Ellen Basso for supplying and discussing the Kalapalo data. Thanks are also due to Bob
Binnick for editorial guidance and suggestions for improvements. All remaining errors are
my own.
2. In Jakobson’s terminology, E stands for event, and P for participant. The super­
scripts n, s and ns stand for narrated , speech and narrated speech, respectively.
3. The term shifter comes from Otto Jespersen (1923).
4. Shibatani (1990, p. 83) calls sir “visual evidence” a particle, despite the fact that it is
apparently attached to the verb to be. If sir is indeed a particle, then it is a rare case of a
particle marking direct evidence. See section 4 below. Also see section 7, example (40)
where the mirative functions of this afflx/particle will be discussed.
EVIDENTIALITY AND MIRATIVITY 1043

5. For the abbreviations used in the glosses, see the table of abbreviations in this
volume.— Editor.
6. In early descriptions of evidentials, for instance in Boas’ Handbook o f American
Indian Languages, the term evidential is used for what we now call an inferential evidential.
7. The past tense also has mirative overtones, see section 7 below.
8. Logophoricity is a type of anaphoric marking which is used to establish co-referentiality
between subjects, or, conversely, that two subjects are not co-referent. Apart from its
grammatical marking it has been argued that logophoric pronouns mark point of view as
well, hence the connection with evidentiality. Logophoricity seems to be predominately
found in languages of Africa. This phenomenon might be one reason why evidentials seem
to be much rarer in these languages: African languages use logophoric pronouns rather
than dedicated evidentials, although, as mentioned in the text, it has still not been estab­
lished that logophoricity is an evidential strategy.
9. For instance in Ehrman (1966, p. 67) where must is used to mark “ high probabil­
ity,” although her prototype meaning for must in general is “the predication is required by
some aspect(s) of the state of the world.” This definition does seem to allow for a deduction
analysis for epistemic must.
10. Note that Barnes (1984) does not use the verb must to translate instances of the
inferential in Tuyuca.
11. It is not a coincidence that the evidential use o f moeten is found in the more
objective registers of language use, such as newspaper language.
12. There is no present tense secondhand evidential in Tuyuca.
13. The hearsay particle hawe is also used for both hearsay and mirativity.

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 In d e x

19S4 £2 actionality 1 2 5 , 1 2 6 ,1 2 6 - 1 2 8 , 753, sec also

a (Papiam cntu) 439 A ktion sart; lexical aspect; situation aspect
a (Sranan) 44$ A ctivity 1 1 0 , 1 4 ^ 345- 356> M 2* 3 6 0 , 222, 731,
â (D igo) 37 1 735, 7 81, 890, 9 6 6 ,1 0 1 1
A la recherche du temps p erdu 324 phase 33
a lot 723 use o f progressive w ith an 487, 732, 919, 938,
“A Tale o f the Passions” 87t. 963
A Tale o f Two Cities 83 actualization 372
A Very Private Life 90 “actualized ability” 10 0 0
A -b in d in g, А -and A '-m o v e m e n t 689f. A D D T O (feature) 9 3 9 ,242
A -series ± ad d -to relation 740
a/de (Belizean C reole) 445 add itivity 736
a lva{/ava) (French creoles) 4 4 0 , 453115 A dessive case 966
A arts, В. 386 Adive, L R. 837
A b d e l-M a ssih , E. 837 A d jo in in g T im e U nit 54 2-54 5, 547- 551, 552^, 557f.
abduction 124 ad m irative, the 4i3f.
Ability, ability 993, 995, 9 9 9 - 1 0 0 3 ,1 0 0 7 A d o n e, D. i £ £
Ablative case 322 î 382, 966 ad position s 377
A bney, S. P. 7131116 adverbial(s) 147, 1 5 5 , 194, 2 3 7 -2 6 6 , 437, 473!'.,
A b rah am , R. 843 578, 579» 7 2 2 , 723, 854, 857^, 8 6 6 , 877117,
A b rah am , W. 965, 967, 9791114 8 8 3,9 6 1
absolute tense interpretations 209 accusative 969, 979n 20, 9 8on 2i
a b so lu te tenses 190I., 438 agentive 861 f., 893
absolute-relative tenses 1 9 1 , 192 cyclicity 854, 857
A bsolu tive case 962 o f duration 238, 245, 2S3, 588, 735, 775, 781,
a b so lu tive , the 94Q 782 f.
abstract predicates 732 fo r- 2 5 6 ,7 5 5 , 757, 771 f-, 774. 7 8 if., 79 2 , 888,
A busch, D. z!> 195., 196, i97> 208, 209, 264, 612, 613, 893
617, 622, 623, 639, 645, 653, 663111, 6651116, ‘ for X time* 854, 9791111
6661126, 687, 6931117 o f freq u en cy 155, 244, 774f-, 854, 856
A busch, D. and R ooth , M . 253t. o f habituality 775, 854, 856
acabar (Portuguese) 435 in N P 722, 723
accelerative, the 854 ‘ in X tim e’ 963, 978118, 9811130
accompli 1 3 4 , 140 in- 755, 757»7 7 », 772, 78 2 f., 792
accompli daoriste 593 o f iteration 244, 830, 878nio
accom plished aorist tense 593 m easu rem en t, gram m atical aspect with
A cco m p lish m en t 3^, 110 , 14^, 3 4 5 - 3 5 6 , 348, 349» 771-773
355, 487, 493, 7 2 7 ,7 3 0 - 7 3 2 , 734, 781, 828, 914, quantificational event 866
919, 92of., 2 1 8 , 2 Ц , 2 Ï 2 , 963, 9 6 6 ,1 0 1 1 o f reiteration 859, 869, 873
accom plishm ent/resultative correlation and tense 19 4 , 2 4 11., 2 4 7 -2 6 4 , 278, 893
921 types o f 2 3 7 - 2 4 7
A ccusative case 962, 965t., 969, 976, 979П19 A farli, T. A . 954
A ccu sative-D ative alternation gZ i affix-ho pp in g 19 9 -2 0 2 , 2 0 4 - 2 0 6
achevé 134 affixation (creation o f an affix) 3 7 3 , 375
A ch ievem en t 3 3 , 1 1 0 , 143, 3 4 5 - 3 5 6 , 487, 890, 727, affixes
729, 733t., 25$, 781, 828, 919, 9^8, 963, »оч aspectual 169, 782f., 942
acquaintance relation 649 internal and external 3 7 ,7 7 1 ,7 8 2 - 7 8 4
A cqu isition 3 4 2 -35 6 , 348 perfectivizing, Slavic 1 7 9 ^ 0 , 404, 575, 578, 581,
action sch e m as 372 973 , 974 , 976, 98on23, 98on24, 98on26

Material com direitos autorais

1048 INDEX

A fric a n languages 518 A m b o -P a sc o Q uechua 385

A frik a a n s $8^ A m d o T ib etan 1031
A fro -A sia tic languages 523, 7 10 , 714П32 A m e k a, F. K. 389
after’, after 14 5 -14 7 . i9of., 207, 2 0 9 , 4 3 7 , 440» 924 A m e ric a n Sign Lan gu age 379, 841
ag/air (G aelic) 242 A m e rin d ia n languages 528, 529, 536, 544
again 915 A m h aric 7141132
agent-oriented m o d ality 9 9 6 ,10 15 1117 A m m a n n , W. 586, 587. 603, 606112, 606113, 6071116
agentivity 451» 453П11, ~і2Пі 733-735 -an (R o m an i) 401
A gr, A grO , A g rP 204f., $42 A n Im aginary Life 8$
agreem ent 16 9 ,19 4 an alepsis 25
A grell, S. 725, 9 7 ^ 7 a n alo g y 68f., 390, 4 0 0 , 407, 450, 452
A h n , D. et al. 107 A n ce au x, J. C . 540
A ik lien vald , A. Y. 372, 388, 3911115, 707, 965, 966, A n cie n t G reek 1 2 5 , 13 3 ,13 7 , 509, 5 1 0 ,5 1 3 f., ^ 529,
97Q. 9 7 i> 9 7 * n i, 1023, 1039 see also C lassical G reek; G reek
A ik h cn v ald , A. Y. et al. 961, 962, 9 78 m , 1025 A n cien t Past tense ^
A inu 1024» 1 0 2 5 , 1041 A n d lu an L ived A fter A ll 90
A itchison, L 817 A n d e rsen , H. 2i4 f., 230119, 229n6, 2 3 11110 ,3 7 2 ,
-d jk i (M ace d o n ian , M egle n o ro m an ian ) 400 407, 4M
A kan 5321121, 837 A n d e rsen , R. W. 482, 483, 484. 4 9 5 -4 9 7
A khtar, N . and Tom asello, M . 473 A n d e rsen , R. W. and Shirai, Y. 484» 485. 489, 492,
A k k ad ian цоГ. 4 9 5 » 496
ako (M ace d o n ian ) 405 A n d e rso n , G. D. S. 379
A k su -K o ^ , A . A. 461, 464, 520 A n d e rso n , ]. M . 742
Aksu-Ko<;, A. A . an d Slobin, D. L 10 2 5 ,10 2 9 A n d e rso n , L. 1 3 1 , 1 0 2 3 , 1036
A ktionsart ^8, j j i 392П15, 403, 4 Q4 , 459, 463» 464« A n d e rso n , S. R. 6 9 ,1 7 0
466, 474, 475, > 0 8 ,5 10 , 5 2 0 ,7 2 6 , 753, 789, A n d e rso n , S. R. and K een an , E. 709
cV 7n 5? 93»? 9 4 4 : 9 4 5? 954 : 962Г., 9 7 8 116 ,10 11, A n d o k e 10 2 5 ,10 2 6
see also actionality; inn er aspect; lexical A n d re w s, A. 978n3
aspect; situation aspect A n d re w s, F,. 215, 228n4, 229n5, 2 3 1m l, 23in i5
acquisition o f 4 6 6 -4 6 8 A n d re w s, K 837
h isto ry o f the concept 50118 A n d ro u tso p o u lo s, L et al. 104
types o f 4 6 6 Г , 475 A n g o lar creole 439» 4 4 3 , 446
al-K äsgäri, M a h m u d 413 (an)ko (Tayo C reole) 446
al-mädty a l-m u d ä ri 140 A n n ie D unne 83
A la w a 123 A n n o b o n e s e creole 4 4 3 ,4 4 6
A lban ian 137,399, 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , 4 0 6 , 408, 409, 4 10 , 411, A n n u a l tense 557
4 1 2 , 4 П. 4 H» 4 16 ,4 17 , 419, 4 231116 ,4 2 4 112 2 , antérieu r d aoriste 593
513, 53 m 16, 587 A n terio r aspect see A n terior m arkers; Perfect
ale (Lou isian a C reole) 440 aspect
A le xiad o u , A . 7 0 0 anterior futures 4 10
algebraic event sem an tics 737 A n terio r m arkers 372, 373, 380, 381, 386, 3 9 im o
algebraic sem ilattice 738 A n terio r Past tense 38if., 594
A lg o n q u ian languages 529, 680 A n terio r tense 428
all'ke (K ildin Saam i) 399 anteriority 221 â ii 95. 1 4 7 . 156, 16 3 ,16 7
Allative case 966 theories o f the perfect 2 4 8 - 2 5 1
allegedly 1 0 3 1 , 1034 anteriority/posteriority 14 5 - 14 7
A llen , 1. 1 0 4 , 112 A n tin u cci, F. and M iller, R. 4 6 1 ,4 6 3 , 483, 520
A llen, R. L. 723 antipassives 937, 9 4 9 t
aller (Fren ch ) 3 7 8 ,4 39 . 440 antisubdivisibility 736
allosem es o f verb al fo rm s 519 A n to n a , M ., and Tsujii, JL 361, 3661124
A lm g re n , M . and Idiazabal, L 301 (an)tran de (Tayo Creole) 446
alread y’, already 178П24, 2 4 3 ,391П6, 443, 444, 473, anza (Swahili) $21
52£ aorist, P ro to -In d o -E u ro p e an 5321127, 5321128
Altschuler, D. 1771113, 619, 659 A orist tense 78, 7 9 , 1 2 5 , 169, 5 1 9 , 792, 953
A lu r 837 aorist/im perfect opposition 403
always 243, 244, 245, 866 aorist/perfect distinction 29of.
-am (R o m an i) 401 aoristic, notion o f 147
A m algam em non 9 0 -9 2 aorists, S u rco m p o sé Past substitutes for 587
A m b e , 11. S. A. 544, 560П4 A o u n , J. and C h o u e iri, L. 7141132

Material com direitos autorais

INDEX 104.9

A pache, C h iricah u a юяб and A ktionsart, interaction o f 458

Apalai 1031 calculu s (D o w ty ) 732-7 35
cip(e) (F ren ch -lexico n creoles) 433, 4 34 , 446 and case 961, 965-977, 979
A pothéloz, D. 589, 600 the com position al structure o f 7 6 5 - 7 7 1
A pp leyard , D. 7141132 the con cept of £2*124
( a)prale (H aitian C reole) 433. 430. 440. 443. 446, definition o f 510 , 5 Ilf., 670, 937, 9 6 2-9 6 5
44? and diathesis 9 4 6 -9 5 3, 954
après (F rench) 4 ^ . 445 and evidentiality, interaction betw een 1039
Aqtiisiçào 352f., 3651116 generic 830, 831
 q v ist, L. h isto ry o f the concept 32, 50118
A rabic languages 141,. 164, 165,. 169, 179П31, 190, H ypothesis, the 4 8 1- 4 8 6 , 497
3 9 2 П 16 ,51.8, 7 0 0 , 714П32 in L2 acquisition 482f.
A ra d , M . 970, 9791119 m ark ers 3 7 8 - 3 8 0 , 4 0 3 - 4 0 6 , 766
A ra o n a 554 phasal 126
A rc e -A rc n a le s et al., М .т 949 pragm atics o f 2 8 1-2 9 6
A R C H E R 8 17 ,8 18 vs. relative tense 163.
A re n d s, J. 19 ,4 3 0 situation(al) see lexical aspect
A rgen tinian Spanish 902 in Slavic languages 130, 139!., 163, 232П15, 572,
A rgu m e n t (discourse m od e) $ib. тН+245-
argum en t structure 467, subordinate, superordinate 403
argum entai status o f the result X P 912 system s 4 0 3 - 4 0 6
argu m en ts 3 7 8 ^ 975 in tenseless languages 6 8 0 -6 8 2
A ristotelian classes 7 2 2 , 724, 726, 729, 733, 736, ty p o lo g y o f 36, i23f., 12 6 - 1 3 1
744 verbal, v iew p oin t see gram m atical aspect
A ristotle 161, 176П6, 507 , 7 21« 722 , 724 ASPECT 1, A S P E C T 2 1 2 6 . 1 2 8 - 1 3 1 ,1 3 2 , i42f., 148.
A rm e n ia n 13 7 ,13 9 , 513, 53in 16 see too actionality; gram m atical aspect;
A rn o tt, D. 842 lexical aspect
A ro m a n ia n 399, 405, 4 0 6 , 4 10 , 4 11, 4 1 2 , 4 iif., 412, A S P E C T 3 1 2 6 ,1 4 7
4 4 » 4 *7»4-2-U4 23n i9 » 424П22 A spect-sensitive operators 775
A ro n o ff, M . 6 ^ 626 aspect-voice infixes (A rab ic) 169
A ro n so n , H. I. 223, 399, 403, 1028 aspect m ark ers 3 7 8 -3 8 0 , 4 0 3 - 4 0 6 ,7 6 6
A rsen ijv ic , B. 767 aspectual affixes 169. 782г., 942
artificial intelligence 1 0 4 , 1 0 6 , 1 1 1 aspectual categories with aspectual devices
-as (R o m an i) 403 3 4 2 -3 5 6
a$ (R o m an ian ) 415 aspectual class(es) 162, 7 2 5 .726, 728, 7 3 0 ,7 3 1 ,7 3 2 ,
as (Tsârnarekâ A ro m an ian ) 408 7 3 4, 73 9 , 753f , 76o, 7 6 6 ,7 6 8 , 800111
as before 883 aspectual classifications 739, 7 5 5 -7 6 0
as yet 243 aspectual com pleteness 575
A sce n d in g T im e 24 ^.50114, 5 1 2 . 515, 52 l f , 524 . 5 26 , aspectual com position (ality) 7 3 7 - 7 3 9 ,7 4 0 ,7 4 1 , 940
S2£ * 53ini 9 aspectual concepts, basic 131^., 14 2 - 1 4 4
asé (Palenquero) 446 aspectual construal 9 4 3 -9 4 6 , 9 50 -9 52 , 953, 954
A se n o v a, P. 4 0 4 , 4 0 7^ , 42J. aspectual derivation 7 8 2-7 8 4
A sher,N. 114, 282, 300П 12, 317. 625 aspectual devices 34 2-356
Asher, N. and L ascarid es, A. 2 8 2 -2 8 6 , 291, 300П12, aspectual fo rm s and tem poral categories,
317,318, 896, 897 interaction o f 953
A sher, N. et al. 286 aspectual habituality 844
Asher, R. E. 1028 A spectual Interface H ypothesis 939
A shton , E. O. 5321131, 843 aspectual leak 572, 576
A ske, J. 913 aspectual m eto n y m y 292
A slam , N ad een 971120 aspectual n etw o rk 766
A sp 7 7 3 -7 7 6 aspectual operators 1 6 2 , 1 6 8 . 1 7 7 ^ 1 1 1 1 6 - 1 7 , 761,
aspect(s) 1 2 ^ 7 ^ 1 2 8 - 1 3 1 , 14 6 ,15 5 , îûn» 222, 223* 3 9 9 , 7 6 6 , 22s* 7 7 6 , ікЦ» 867, 890
403, 405, 486, 682, 692114, 700 , 753, 754> 757, aspectual opposition s, classification o f 808
766, 786. 944, 962, see also C o n tin u o u s aspectual pairs 756
aspect; g n o m ic Im perfective aspect; aspectual particles (M a n d a rin ) 763
gram m atical aspect; Habitual aspect; aspectual projection 942
Imperfective aspect; lexical aspect; Imperfective/ aspectual values 939, 942
Perfective opposition , the; Perfect aspect; aspectual v iew p o in ts, classes o f 286
Perfective aspect; P rogressive aspect A stadhyayt 176111

Material com direitos autorais

1050 INDEX

at present 243 Baddclev, A. 53in i4

at the time 0 / 1 4 5 - 1 4 7 Bad iaran k e 847. 848
A tanasov, P. 4 04, 415 Baffin Island Inuktitut 686
atelicity 162, 286, 723, 7 2 6 ,7 2 8 ,7 3 6 - 7 3 8 ,7 4 3 . 745» Bafut 544
754» 763. 9 6 3 ,1 0 1 1 , see also telicity bai/bae (M elanesian Pid gin) 440
A tkin son , M . 520 Bailey, N . 482
A tlantic En glish lexicon creoles 437^ Bailey, N . et al. 482
attenuative, the 72s» 854 baim bai (M elanesian Pidgin) 440
attcstivc, the 529 Bajan (B a rb a d o s C reole) 4^1
attitude(s) 612, 646, 655, 657, 658, 6671132 Baker, C. F. et al. 1 0 5 ,10 9
attitudinals 8 6 0 -8 6 2 , 863, 869, 8 71, 876, 8 7 7 n s Baker, M . 168, 357, 945, 952
attracting force 390 Baker, M . C. and V in o k u ro v a , N . 878ni3
Aucassin a n d Nicolette 308 Bakker, E. 953
aud itory evidential, 1024 Bal, M . 23.
auf, auf- (G e rm a n ) 163, 467 Balkan languages 3 9 8 -4 2 2 , 422n2
augm ent e- (A ncient G reek) 510 Ballw eg, L 248
augm entative, the Bally, C. 313
aujourd'hui (French) ^13 Baltic languages 139, 513, 524
auparavant (F rench) 858 Balzac, H onoré d e 79
A usten, lan e 88 Bam bara 164
A ustin , L. ^ 5 1 6 ban (D iola) 453114
A ustin, P. 1031 B an d jalan g ±29
A ustralian English 319, 899, 902 Banfield, A . 79t., 635n28
A ustralian lan guages 978113 Ban ko, M . 105
A ustrian G e rm a n 587 Bantoid languages 544
A ustronesian languages 946 Bantu languages 379, 3 8 1 , 388t'., 39 m 3, 522, 525,
autom atic content extraction 107 536, 537- 539. 54 4
A u x 1 9 9 - 2 0 2 , 7 i2 n 6 Bao, Z .-M . 444
au xiliary verb (s) 1 0 8 , 158, <66,173, 2 0 0 - 2 0 2 , 387 Baptista, M. 452114
au xiliary-in co rp o ratio n 3 7 9 ,3 9 11113 Baptista, M . et al. 810
(a)va H aitian C reo le 434 B ar-Sh alo m , E. 464
avere labitndine d i (Italian) 877n2 Barasan o 556t.
avoir (French) 591, 525 B ard o vi-H arlig, K. 431, 482, 484, 4 8 6 -4 8 9 , 491,
avy (M alagasy) 3921122 492, 493, 4 ^ 4 9 9 1 1 1 , 499113
A w a 837 B ard o vi-H arlig, K. and B ergström , A. 487
A w ngi (Southern A gaw ) 546, 547, 7141132 B ard o vi-H arlig, K. and R eyn o ld s, D. W. 487^
A x io m on N arratio n 318 bare substantive predicates 677^
A vres-B enn ctt, W., and C arru th e rs, j. ^18 Bare X P vs. E C M contrast 921F., 923
az (H ebrew ) 640, 657 Barentsen, A . 6i2f., 619, 782, 784, 794
Bargam 871
B -scries 4, 6of., 63 f., 70 Barlow, A. R. 526, 527
B / G R -F / G R 897 B arn aby Rudge 89
-ba (U p p er G u in ea Portuguese creoles) 439, 452114 Barnes, D ju n a 9 2 ,1 0 2 0
Babby, L. 9 3 8 ,961 Barnes, k 1029, i0 4 3 n i0
Babby, L. and F reid in , R. 961 Barry, Sebastian 83
B ab k o -M alaya, O. 965, 972, 974 Bartsch, R. and V en n em an n , T. 742
Bab un go 546, 549, 550 B arw ise, L 114
Bach, E. 3^, 127, 177119, 620» 7 2 1 , 7 2 2 , 7 2 3 ,7 2 4 , 726, Basaa 538, 547. 548, 549. 550. 554
727, 729, 7 3 0 »732, 7 3 4 >735. 736 222 9 ^3» 9^4 Basilico, D. 963
B ach , K. 271 B asq u e 159» 5S7, 962, 96S, 9791116
Bache, C. 122 Bassnet, S. 336
Bache, C. and D avid sen -N ielsen , N . io i6 n 2 4 Basso, E. 1 0 2 4 , 10 4 0
back-shifted readin g 2^2» 640, 641, 651, 652, 656, Batibo 543, 546
657. 639, 663112, 6651111, 6 6 6 n 2 i, see also Battistella,E. 11, 229n5
shifted reading Bauer, G . 463, 888
b ackgrou n d 88, 4S7 Bauer, P. ]. 463
B ack gro u n d (d iscou rse relation) 2 8 5 -2 8 9 , 318 B ay lo n , C . and Fabre, P. 600
b ac k g ro u n d in g J2 i 84-87, 281, 286, 949, see also Bazzanella, C . 727
g ro u n d in g ‘be’, be 4 0 6 - 4 1 2 , 4 0 7 - 4 1 0 , 4 12, 437, 678

Material com direitos autorais

INDEX 1051

be (H ebrew ) 970 Bickel, B. 124

be + V -in g con stru ction , the 174, 725, 806, 816 B ick erton , D. 12, 4 2 8 - 4 3 0 , 447, 45.2t, 4 6 3 ,4 6 4
be able to 9 9 6 , 1 0 0 0 , 1 0 0 3 biduonal cycle 540, 547, 558
be allow ed to 996 B id u o n al Past tense 5 4 0 , 5 4 i> 546
be going to $ZZ> 387f-» 3931128 B ie rw isch , M . 2^1
‘be located at* 445 bin (G u yan ese) 438
be perm itted to 996 b in ary opposition 213
be said that 1034 b in ary tense system s 1 ^ , 5 1 0 , 522
Beauzee, N . 591, 593, 606114, 606117, 6061110 b in d in g o f tenses 19 5 ,19 6 , 265
Beavers, I 741, 913, 923, 925, 927, 9281110, 9291119 b in d in g relations 740
because 2 0 9 ,10 3 3 bin din g-theoretic accoun t o f tem poral
B eck , S. and Snyder, W., 914 interpretation 206
B E C O M E 7 32 -7 35 , 918, 928119 B in n ick , R. L 5011S, 96n4, 1 2 6 , 1 3 3 , 1 3 8 , 1 3 9 , 142,
B e e d h a m , C . 947, 948 148, 1 6 2 , 163, 164, I77n i3, 223, 399, 422112, 671,
been in creoles 435, 437 752, 760 , 811, 814, 834^, 856, 872, 8 7 8 m l,
‘before’, before i9o f., 2 0 7 , 7 0 5 8 78n i2, 881, 884, 945, 953
before now 243, 47^ B in yan im 1791131
B E F O R E operator 66, 243 bioprogram th eory 29, 4 2 8 - 4 3 0 , 447
before recent m e m o r y 545 Birken m aier, W. 979ni4
B eh ren d , D. A . 461, 462 bis (French) 246, 263
B eh ren d , D. A . et al. 461, 462 bisantérieur 592
B e ig m a n , E. 109 B isang, W. 3 7 5 ^ 3 7 9
B e ig m an -K leb an o v , B. 109 Bislam a 438, 445, 453ns
Beja 129 Bittner, M . 11 4 ,1 5 6 , 669, 6 8 3-6 8 5, 686, 6931114,
beki (Japanese) 6661126 713118, 839, 846f.
Bela di supra (G o rn a Bclica) 4 0 6 , 414 B lack English V ern acular 840
Belarusian 960, 962, 965, 966, 972, 977 B lackburn, P. et al. 114
Belizean creole 4^8, 441» 4 4 5 . 447>4 53n io B lackfoot, as a tenseless language 680
Bcllcti, A. 205 B lakem ore, D. 282, 299n3, 588, 6o6n4
B elyavski-F ran k , M . ±12 Blansitt, E. L. 166, S09
ben (Jam aican C reo le, Sran an ) 435, 438 B L E U evaluation parad igm 361
benefactive, the 377 B le v in s,]. P. 68f.
Bengali i69f., 946, 965 b lo ck in g 17 2 -17 5
B e n jam in , W. 336 B lo ck in g Principle, G ricean 124
Bennett, M . 1 2 £ 13 3 ,16 2 B lo o m , L. and H arner, L. 4 6 1, 476n3
Bennett, M . an d Partee, B. H. 620, 6 33n s, 73if., B lo o m , L. et al. 4 6 1 ,4 6 2 , 467, 4 8 3 ,5 2 0
734.>73<S 755 Bloom field , L. 213
Bennett, P. R. ^26 B lu m -K u lk a , S. 356f.
B e n u e -C o n g o languages 29 B o ad i 5321121
Ben ven iste, E. 7 8 - 8 2 , 9 6 n s , 9 6 n i 2 , 1 2 3 , 1 3 0 , 139, B o a s, F. 697, 9 1 6 ,1 0 2 2 , io4 3n 6
147, 281, 407, 593, 594, 595, 596, 6 o 6 n i2 , B o as, II. C. 924, 9291120
6061II4 b o d y (O ld C h u rch Slavonic) 408
B e re n d , A lice 97n>5 B o d o m o 553
B ergstrom , A. 487, 497 “ Body of Work” 84
B erko, J. 476113 b o d y part term s \ J2
B e rm a n , R. 461, 614 Boh n em eyer, ]. 156, i £ a
B e rm a n , R. and Slobin, D. L 472, 633115 Bohnemeyer, L and Swift, M . 4 6 3 ,6 8 2 ,6 9 1 ,7 6 3 ,963
B e rth o n n e au , A .- M ., and Kleiber, G. 275» 323 B oik ovsk a, S. 4 0 4
Bertinetto, P. M . 1 2 6 , 1 4 4 , 1 6 7 , 171 Bolia 557. 5?S> 559
Bertinetto, P. M . and Delfitto, D. 7 5 8 ,7 6 6 ,7 7 0 Bolinger, D. W. 723, 911
Bertinetto, P. M . and Lend, A . 844, 861, 8781114 Bolozky, S. 626
Bertinetto, P. M . and Lcn tovskaya, A. 878ni6 B o n a m i, O. 7 7 0
Bertinetto, P. M . et al. 803, 807, 809, 811, 815 B o n d ark o , A. V. 784, 793f., 800115
Besprechen 6, 81 B on eli, N . and D o ro n , E. 830, 845, 865, 87of.
B eyssad e, C ., and M a ra n d in , J.-M . 3 0 0 n s B on i 7 i4 n 32
Bhat, D . N . S . 159 B o n o m i, A. 7 7 0 , &£&
bi-eventive analysis o f resultatives 926 Bonomi, A. and Zucchi, A. 868
Biber, D. et al. 812 B orer, H . 631, 6 3 9 ,7 4 0 , 942, 943, 945, 954, 963, 965,
Biblical I Iebrew 518, 671, see also I lebrew 972, 978, 9 7 9 ^ 9 . 98on25

Material com direitos autorais

1052 INDEX

B o rg, Л. L 7 Ч П 32 B u riat ( B u r y a t ) ->47, i 0 4 i f.

B o rg m a n , D. M . > 4 0 , 1037t'. B u rm e se 9 7 0 2 6 , 16 0 , 528
B o rik , 0 . 1 6 4 , 5 7 7 ,5 7 8 ,5 8 0 , 5831115,2 7^7U Burt, S im o n 93
9 4 5 » 953.» 964. 97 ^ 1 7, 978П8 B u rton, S. 7 0 1, 712117
Borillo, A. 6071115 B yaru sh en go , E. R. 5321133
B orjars, K. et al. 123, 29S Bvbee, f L. 1 2 3 , 1 2 6 , 1 2 8 - 1 3 0 , 1 4 4 , 157» 159, 160, 164,
b o rro w in g 388f., 338 168, i6Sf., 1 2 3 , 1781124, 376, 380, 992
B o sn ian , 283 B ybee, L L., and Beckner, C. 386
B o sn ia n -C ro a tia n -S e rb ia n 22 3. 4 0 5 , 408, 4 1 2 , 418t'., B yb ee, h L. and D ahl, O. 1781124, 380, 447, 449.
789, 960, 96.5, 9/ 2>9 73> 9/ 6 , 977 452. 496
B o sso n , L 837 B yb ee, L L., and Pagliuca, W. 387
Bot, K. de 451 B ybee, J. L. et al. 165, 1 6 6 , 1 6 7 , 1 7 0 , 1 7 1 , 1 7 5 , 17 8 m s ,
B otn e, R. and K erschner, T. L. 536, 539, 542, 548, 1781126, 380, 384, 386, 387» 389» 39 1115,39 1116 ,
54 9 » 56 o n 7 429» 437» 440 , 4 4 3 » 44 5 » 4 4 Z» 4 5 3 m o , 515, 536,
B ou ch ard , D. 189 537-539. 6341121, 809, 812, 824112, 82404, 835.
b ou n d future 627 836, 853, 856, 857, 871, 877n5, 882, 883, 884,
b ou n d pron ou n s, preference fo r 66?. 937» i o i 5n i7
b ou n d relative tense 618 byt* (R ussian) 399
b o u n d variable an alysis 208 byvalo (R ussian) 78 3
b o u n d a ry 12^, 1 3 0 , 1 3 1 , 133-135» >4 Q. 14Я, 1 4 4 , 145»
721,726 c -c o m m a n d 2 6 5 , 377, 646, 659, 912
b o u n d e d interval m od ifiers 288. ca (N o vo Selo R o m a n ia n ) 415
bou n d ed paths 941 C ad ie rn o , T. 491
bou n d ed states o f affairs 782 C aenepeel, M . 30 01112
b o u n d e d /n o n -b o u n d e d distinction 9 4 3-9 4 5 C aenepeel, M ., and San d stro m , G . 362
b ou n d ed n ess 162, 405, 782, 963, 9 6 5 ,10 11 caiques, calq u in g 399, 406, 408, 4 0 9 , 4 10 , 4 11, 412,
theories 162, 946, 965, 972 4 14 , 416
B o u rd in , P. 392П22 C am bridge G ram m ar o f the English Language 991
Brecht, R. 963 C am u s, A lbert 317, 318, 898
Bres, J. 276, 314» 760 can 989, 9 9 6 , 1 0 0 0 , 1 0 0 2 , 1 0 0 9 , io i4 n 2 , ioi5ni7,
B resn an, JL 1^8 io i6 m i2 6 - 2 7 , io i6 n 2 9 , io i7n 39
Breu, W. 1 2 6 , 136 can’ 379
Brin k , A n d re 971120 can o n ical case 96if.
British N ational C o rp u s 496, 9 2 4 ,10 14 115 C an o n ical Result C onstraint 913
Broccias, C. 918, 925 C antonese 4 44 , 805, 802
Brockw ay, E. 1041 capability 842
Bronckart, I.-P. and Sinclair, H . 461, 463, 47Q> 483 capacitative, the 853, 860
B ro o k e -R o se , C h ristin e 9 0 - 9 2 capacitativity 39
B ro w n corp u s 3011119 C ap e Verde creole 4 3 & 443, 452114» 453»4
B row n fam ily o f co rp o ra 818 C ap e Verdean Portuguese creoles 446
B ro w n , R. 468, 482, 520 C ap ek , K arel 794
B ruce, B. 104 C ap id an , T. 400
B ru n , D. et al. 461 C ap p elen , H. and L ep ore, E. 221
B ru n n h u b e r, В. 979П14 C arag iu -M ario te an u , M . 400
B ru n o t, F. $t)2 C arapana 1029
B ru n o t, F. and B ru n e au , C . 760 cardinal aspectual operators 803
B ru y n , A . 4 3 6 , 441 cardinal cou nt adverbials 723
bn (M an d arin ) 774C Carey, K. 280, 294
B u b e n ik , V. 517 C arib bean E n glish C reo le 44i> 4531110
B u ch h o lz, O., and Fiedler, W. 419 C arlso n , G. 7 131111, 729, 730 , 828, 842, 862, 864, 865
Buddenbrooks 971115 C arlso n , G. and Spejew ski, B. 839
Bulgarian 134, i67f., 178П27, 22^, 376» 3 9 9 , 4 Q3» 4 Q5> C arlso n , L. 354
408, 4 11, 412, 4 1 4 - 4 1 6 , 4 18, 4231118, 490, C arn ap , R. 50115, 563
5 8 2 115 ,7 9 1,793» 855» 874, 875, 940, 942, 9 4 4 » C arr, L. and Joh n ston , JL 461, 462
947» 95Q-952, 967, c £ 2 , 9 ‘s on26, 1022 C arrier, J. and R andall, L. 912, 917
Bull, W. 22 C arsto n , R. 299113
Burge, T. 64 C arru th e rs, L th 9 6n3, 9 6 n9, 309. 3i9> 326, ^82» 603
Burgess, D. 1032 case 9 6 0 - 9 7 8 , 97803, 979ni2
Burgess, J. P. 61 on adverbial phrases 961

Copyrighted material
INDEX 1053

and aspect 170» 961, 965-977, 979 C h au d e n so n , R. 436

lexical 961, 962, 975 C h erch ia, G. and M c C o n n e ll-G in e t, S. 90Я
m ark ers 170 , 382, 458, 4 70 , 68o, 9 6 0 - 9 8 1 C h este rm an , A. 3 4 0 , 364П7
M a rk in g , E xception al 9 11, 914, 9 16 - 9 19 , C hevalier, I.-C. et al. 600
9 2 1- 9 2 3 , 9 2 4 -9 2 6 , 927. 928117 C h iB e m b a 136
-m otivated m o vem en t 679, 680 C hierchia, G. 265, 730 , 733, 82s, 865, 866
q u irk y 961, 962 C h ilam b a 538
structural, syntactic 961, 962 child language 464, 465, 520, 529, see also Li
case-by-case approach 917 acquisition
C a sp a r is, C . P. 97ni7 C h in an tec 549f.
C assidy, F. 810 C h in d ali 542, 543
Catalan 487, 488 C h in ese 29, 129» 137» 171» 266, 39 tn6, 4 9 0 , 494» 495»
categorial distinctive features, theory o f 2 0 2 - 2 0 4 582115, 6 6 9 -6 8 5, 6 8 8 -6 9 2 , 914, 967
categories likely to be copied 402 C h iric ah u a A pach e 1036
C atfo rd , I C. 33 6 -3 3 8 C h k lo vsk i, T. and Pantel, P. 108
C au casian languages 1029 C hoi 979П16
C au d al, P. 2 9 4 -2 9 6 , 770 C h o m sk y, N . 185, i99f., 2 0 3 , 2 0 4 . 207, 447» 572,
C au d al, P. and N icolas, D. 741 574, 633П3, 655, 678, 700» 703» 704» 7 n
C au d al, P. and Ritz, M .-E . 897 c h ro n o lo g y 8 7 - 9 0 ,1 4 6
C au d al, P. and R oussarie, L. 291, 292, 2 9 4 -2 9 6 C h u n g , S. 1 2 2 , 1 3 4 , 1 3 6 , 1^8
C au d al, P. and Vetters, C . 289, 2 9 2 , 315 C h u n g , S. and T im b erlake, A. 429, 536, 692112,
causal action 115 8o3f.
causal analysis, the 915, 9 21, 9 2 8 m l, 929ni3 C hvanv, C . 229П5
causal chain 77, 916 C im w e ra 54of.
causal con stru ction s 1041 C in q u e , G . 168, 700» 7 14 112 3 ,10 2 3
causal d epen d en ce 103 C ipria, A. 125
causal head(s) 917, 919 C ipria, A . and Roberts, C . 759» 766, 770
causal structure 114 circu m stantial, the 838П
causation 734, 919, 923, 927, 932 C lark , H. 10 7
causative con stru ction 940 C lark , S. 105
causative paraphrase(s) 920, 922 C lassical A ra b ic 190, 518
causatives 43, 44, 733» 734» 9>5^-» 919» 923» 927» Classical G re e k 791, 960, 970» see also A ncient
9291111, 9 4 2 ,9 4 5 G re ek
C A U S E (causation) 7 32 -7 35 C lassical N ahuatl 837
C A U S E operator 928119 clause types 961
C arib b ean En glish creoles 442, 443, 447 clitics, cliticization 169, 3 7 3 ,3 9 2 111 5 ,1 0 2 8 ,10 3 2
C e c h , P. and H ein schin k, M . 4 20 , 423118 clo ck -calen d ar adverbials 238
C é lin e , L.-F. 327 closed scale 741, 743
Celtic languages ^13, 524» 8011115, 812 closing o f the event-tim e interval S56
C entral Su d an ic languages 388 C oates, I 990, 995, 996, 997, 9 9 8 ,1 0 0 3 ,1 0 0 5 ,
C e rtk o v a , M . ju. 800115 10 0 9, Ю 14П 2,1016П 23, 1017П36, Ю17П38,
C hafe, W. 390 1033
C hafe, W. and N ichols, 1^ 7 0 7 ,10 2 3 C o b u ild C o r p u s 1014П5
chain(s) C O C A (The C o r p u s o f C o n te m p o ra ry A m e rican
causal 72» 9*6 E n glish ) 815
gram m aticalization u> 3 8 4 -3 8 6 , 387 coercion , aspectual/type 104, 2 7 2 ,3 4 2 - 3 5 6 , 364П5,
narrative 108 4 ^3» Z55» 7 6 9 - 7 7 1 » 86i, 862, 890, 943
Tense 7 0 4 C oetzee, jL M . 83
C h a m ic u ro 31» 697» 702 cogn itive linguistics 736
C h a m o rro 837, 949^ cognitive prototypes 463
C h a n g , Y.-L. 675 cognitive un iversals 448f.
change(s) i n , 1 2 5 , 726, 727, 729, 732, 741-745» 927 C o h e n , D. 140!'.
con tact-induced 38 8 -38 9 , 39S, 4 21, 429 C o h e n , M . 532112S
change o f state 1 1 3 , 1 2 5 , 162, 289, 721, 727» 728-730» C o h n , D. 324
73if., 733f „ 735, 743, 745, 903, 928, 940 coin cid ence 186
C h ap u t, P. 963, 9791110 C ollier, G . 84
chaque année (French) 857 Collins C o bu ild G ram m ar 1 0 0 9 , 1014П2
C h a tm a n , S. 25» ^ C o llin s, C . 914
C h atterjce, S. K. 169 C o llin s, L. 923

Copyrighted material
1054 INDEX

C ollin s, M . 1Q£. con ative function 7 S

C ollin s, P. 1014112 conceptual sem antic m ap 132, 142^
C o m a jo a n , L. 497 conclusives 129
com bin ed theory o f em b ed d ed tenses 6 6 1-6 6 3 co n co m itan ce 14 5 - 14 7
com e’, come 377, ЛХ7- C ondicional tense (Portuguese) 353.
C o m m o n Bantu 447 C o n d itio n al m o o d , Russian 222
c o m m o n grou n d 277, 208, 6 qq C on d ition al tense £2«. 275.353. 3 6 5 1117 ,4 10 , 789
co m m o n se n se entailm ent, reasonin g 10s. 283. 292, conditional-iterative 4 0 1
con d itionals, m odal 223
Com pact $2. C on d ition al m o o d , Russian 222.
com p an ion schem as 372 con d itional situation 147
com plem en t clause(s) 2Q & 264, 289. 648, 666П26 C onditionnel tense $2.
u n der an attitude verb 638, 63^ 6 42^ .6 55, 661 C o n d o rav d i, C. 167, 992, m u . 1014118
com plete events 134 C o n ev, V. 413
com plete p arad igm s 388 con firm ative, the 413t.
com plete vs. com pleted i39f. con firm ativity 4L3*423n2i
com plete vs. incom plete 1 4 0 - 1 4 2 con n ectives 898
com pleted events 134. con secu tive m arker, from ‘finish’ 379
com pleted/n on -com pleted £44 con sequ en t state 890, 891, 892
com pletedness 156, 167 consecutive tense m arker
completely 924 con stru als o f sp eak er exp erien ce or subject
com pleteness control ^ 3 .
com pletion 134, 4 7 1. 575. 886 C on stru ction G r a m m a r 943
C om pletive aspect m arker(s) 372, 373, 379, 380, con stru ction al v ie w o f the periphrastic perfect 173.
£89*391116 con stru ction ist approaches 942.943.
com pletive function 7^. con stru ctivity i n
C om pletive Perfect aspect 441 contact, language 3 8 8 .3 9 8 - 4 2 2 , 437, 4 4 0 -4 4 7 , 450
com pletives 129, 3 7 3-37 6 C O N T E M P O R A L d im en sio n 5 4 8 ,^ 0 .
com position al an alysis o f the perfect 167 C o n tem p o ral tense 550
com position al approach to lexical aspect 494 context set 233.
com position al b o ttom -u p approach 945 con text-chan ge potential 270
com position al sem an tics o f the absolute-relative contextual occasion 803
tenses 123. con textualism ü > 270. 2 - 1 , 2 7 7 ,2&1
com position al structure o f aspect, the 7 6 5 - 7 7 1 contingent (n o n -p erm an en t) stative predicates
co m p osition ality 4 1 * 7 if., 68f., 143. iS8f., 493f.,
C o n tin i-M o ra v a , E. 5321131
Fregean/principle o f 24* 50115, дшь. 564, 575, continuance o f result 883
S&i C ontinuatio n (d iscou rse relation) £ i a
co m p o u n d Past tense 31$. C ontinuative aspect 8i>, 843
com putational linguistics 4» 10 2 - 115 , 360 continuativc interpretation 762, 763» M 2
C o m rie , B. 3* 22, ^ 0 ,4 0 , 8 ^ 96П2, 97П21, con tin uative/n on-contin uative contrast 888
971126, 123, -1-І4-» 12 6 f„ 1 2 X № -ШІ-ШЬ ібо, continue 812.
163, 1 6 4 , 1 6 5 , 1 6 6 , 170, i x u 177Ш 4, 178П19, C o n tin u o u s aspect liE * 1^5» 8 0 3 -8 2 4 , see also
178П22, щ і к 20 0, 208. 429, 49 4, 508, Progressive aspect
411* £ 1 $ * ц 6 , 5 19 -5 2 2 , 529, 5 3 1m l, 531П13, con tin uous m e a n in g 165.
532П27, 532П33,43^* 557, ^741* іЯси-бгб^ 634П19, con tin u ou s p r o c e s s i f
670, 6 9 2 1 1 2 ,7 0 0 ,712П3, 729f., 755^-* control resultatives 9 1 1 - 9 1 3 , 916t., 919, 9 2 1-9 2 5 ,
756. 757, 761, 762, 7 7 0 . 784. 806, 807, 808, 815, 927, 929111116-17, 9291120
817, 824ПЮ, 829, 835, t o * 856, 882, 886, conventional im plicature 902
8 8 ^ 2 0 0 , 901, W » 947, № ^ 9 6 5 » conventionalization 2 7 ^ .2 8 3 .2 9 2 . 373. 817, see also
9 76 ,979 1115 gram m aticalization
critique o f R eich en bachs th eory i88f. conversation
d efinition o f tense 1S5. conversational b ackgrou n d 27^
th eory o f the perfect 248 conversational im plicatures 274 -276
theory o f tense i9of., 197, conversational narrative Mu 94> 95
typ ology o f aspects 37, C o o k , E. 1026
011 uses o f the perfect 42. C o o n , J. 9 79m 6
con ative case alternation 968 C o o re m a n , A . 949
control resultative 918 C opley, B. 689

Material chrâneny autorskym prâvom

INDEX 1055

C o p tic 391114 D -d o m ain (s) 549, 550, 550!'., 552, 553, 557
copula 677Г D - T an alysis 703
C o p y T h e o ry o f M o vem en t 655 da (Balkan Slavic languages) 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 ,
C o p y -B a se d T h e o ry o f em b edded tense, the 639. 4 Q5
64s, 6 5 4 -6 5 6 , 6 6 0 , 661 da (Jam aican C reole) 810
co p y in g 399, 4 0 0 - 4 0 3 D ab ro w sk a, E. 94^
correlative con stru ction s S53 D a g a 837
C o m e , C. 439, 446, 4 4 2 D agaare ^
C o rn u , M . 590, 596, i 2 2 D agan , L et al. 10^
C o ro n g o Q uech u a 386 D a g b a n i 5 3 8 ,5 3 9 ,5 5 3 ,
Corpus o f C ontem porary A m erican English 815 Dahl, O. 1 2 3 , 1 2 6 , 1 2 8 - 1 3 0 , 1 3 1 , 1 3 7 ,14 3 ,14 4 ,
corp u s o f written police reports ^21 157, 159. 160, 1 6 1 ,1 6 4 , 166, 1 7 0 , 1 7 1 , 173,
could 989. 996, 999f-> 1 0 0 4 , 1 0 1 0 , 1 0 1 2 , 1016П22 1 7 5 . 17 8 112 2 ,17 8 112 4 ,17 8 112 6 , 2S2, 429.
C o u l t h a r d , М . 365П20 447, 485^, 494, 536, 541, 756, 7 5 8 ,7 8 4 ,
“count” or “ m ass” feature on v erb s 723 811, 836, 839, 841, 870, 881, 882, 883, 903,
count/m ass distinction 736 937, 938, 943. 253
counterfactive, the 434 D ahl, O. and H edin, E. 883, 884
counterfactual m ean in g 992, in n D ahl, O. and K arlsson , F. 966
counterfactuality 2 10 D ahl, O. and Velupillai, V. i6of., 1 6 4 ,5 3 6 ,7 6 1 ,
C over, R. T. 847!'. 82406
C o x , R. 2^0 daily cycle 537-539
congqidn (C h in ese) daily solar cycle ^54
C P a n d DP, parallel treatm ent a s s u m e d in s y n tax Dalli, LL 401
7131116 D am ou rette, L and Piclion, E. 588, 589, 590, 592,
C R T h e o r y 8 8 6 -8 8 8 597, 522
C r a s t i n a l F u t u r e t ense 537> 543 D anielsen, S. 871
C R E A T I O N / C O N S U M P T I O N v e r b s 964 D an ish 491
C r e e k 544» 545. М 2 D an k ofi, R. 413
c re ole f o r m a t i o n 19, 4 3 0 - 4 3 6 D A R see D ou b le A ccess readings
c re ole la n g u a g e s 4 2 8 -4 52 D ard ic 1040
c re ole p r o t o t y p e 428 D as, P. K. 968
c r e o l e T M A s y s t e m s 4 2 9 . 4 4 7 -4 5 2 database update i n f .
C r e s s w e l l, M . JL 742 D ative case 228, 949, 962, 968, 97of., 225
C ressw ell, М . К and v o n Stechow, A . 6 4 9 ,7 4 2 D auses, A . 878n i4
C ro atian 408, 789, 793, 874 D auzat, A . 589, 590
C roft, W. 124, 943, 951 D avid so n , D. 3, 62, 282, 705. 7 13 11 16 ,7 3 3 ,7 3 5 , 865,
C ro u c h , R. 104 892
C ru se , D. 927 D avis, LL and D em ird a ch e , LL 946
C sirm a z , A. 965, 966 d ay cycle 5^S
C ulioli, A . 1 2 3 ,1 3 1 . 147 d e (Jam aican C reole) 810
cu lm in atin g/n o n -cu lm in atin g opposition 943 de (Pidgin English) 445
cu lm in atio n 89of. d e (Su rin am e creoles) 446
cu m ulativity 736, 738, 9^1 de (K rio ) 809
cu rren t relevance 25. 872, 883, 884 dd (M iya) 838, 839
C u rren t R elevan ce T h e o ry 886 -8 8 8 de Bot, K. 4^1
current result 883, 884 d e dicto interpretation 196, 446, 648
C u rren t T im e U nit 542. 543. 545. 547, 548, 5 4 9. 551» d e H aan , F. 1 0 2 3 , 1 0 2 6 , 1 0 2 7 , 1 0 3 2 , 1 0 3 3 , 1 0 3 4 , 1035,
552. 554. 557 1038
C u rren tly R elevant T im e Unit 541. 558 de Jon ge, B. 26 2
C ushitic languages 7141132 D e lingua latina 502
C u sic, D. D. 852 de nunc reading 617
C u zco Q uechua 384^, 1024 d e pan (K rio ) 809
cu z’ (Kalaallisut) 6931116 d e re 196, 209, 6 4 7 -6 5 2 , 654, 6 57 -6 5 9 , 66of„, 662f.,
C Y C project 105 6671130
c ycle (s) 537- 541. 544, 545. 554. I i 8 d e se readin g 617
C yp rio t A rab ic 7141132 D e V ogue, S. 314
Czech 4 11, 5 10 .7 2 5 . 767. 775. 785. 786, 788, debeo (Latin) 408
790, 7 9 2 -7 9 9 , 874, 875, 952, 960, 965, D ecae n , V. 29, 684, 669
972 . 975 . 977 decatcgorialization 373, 3 7 5 ^ , 387

Material chrânenÿ autorskym prâvom

1056 INDEX

D eclerck, R. 75* 82,. 96112, 96114, 971121. l62» 725, deontic to epistem ic change 37?., 391П7
7 m 842. 887, 10 0 0 , i o i 2 , io i6 n ii2 7 “ 28, d epictive attribute 908
10 170 33 D epraetere, L 162, 766, 891, 9 9 0 , 10 10
D eclerck, R. et al. 1011 D epraetere, L and L an gford , C . 10 12
d ecom position an alysis 742. D epraetere, L and R eed, S. 10 15 1111,10 15 1112 ,
d ecom p osition al fra m e w o rk 733 1 0 1 6 1 1 2 5 ,1017П34
deduction from evid en ce 1033 D erb ysh ire, D. C. in?.6
d efam iliarization 97ni9 D e sce n d in g T im e 2 4 * 5 0 1 1 4 , si?.» s is , s ?.i. 5 2 2 , <>24.
default A spect 682. 763 S26, s?.S, S 3 i n i 9
default case 261 D e s c lé s , J.-P. 127, m * 1 3 7 , 1 4 5 - 1 4 7
defeasability 874 D e s c r i p t i o n ( d i s c o u r s e m o d e ) 316
D efective Tense hypothesis 484 d e sc r ip t iv e u n i v e r s a l s 4 4 7
definite (feature) 242 d e sc r ip t iv e v e r b s 3 6 0
D efinite aspect (A w ngi) 546 d e s e m a n t i c i z a t i o n 373. 3 7 5 , 387
D efinite Future tense 547 d esid e r a tiv e , the 434
definiteness effects 962 d e t e n s e r s 4f., 59Г, 63f., 7 1
D egraff, M . 4 3 2 ,4 ^ 6 ,44Ü D e t e r m i n a b i l i t y 859, 860
degree 7 4 1-74 5 D e tg e r s, U. 436. 438, 4 4 2 , 453П5
d e g r e e s o f r e m o t e n e s s 1 6 0 , 388. s^ti. S46, S47 , 559. D etgeS, U. 27 S, 2ДД» 2991 -П7
1038 d evo ir ( F r e n c h ) 7&
Deibler, E. 837, 84?. d i ( G u y a n e s e C r e o le ) 44^
deictic adverbials 24K -D I (Turkish) 4 0 2 , 41Я. 1 0 2 9
deictic category, evidentiality as a 1038 Di Sciullo, A. M . and Slabakova, R. 7 6 7
deictic center 1 6 0 , 537-539 , 557 D iachronic Corpus o f Present-D ay Spoken English
deictic e x p r e s s i o n s 82. 820, 823f.
deictic tense see tenses, deictic d iach ron ic studies o f perfect usage in discourse
deictic/anaphoric reference points 147 898
deixis 214 , 219, 221, 222, 223, 2311112, 4 1 6 , 1037 d iach ron ic trajectories 1 7 1
déjà (F rench) 137, 314 , 838 d iach ro n y 155, löyf., 278, 2 9 3 -2 9 6 , 3 7 0 - 3 9 0 , see
D eLan cey, S. 3 2 1 .7 4 1 . 90^, q si. 965. 9 6 8 , 10 4 0 also gram m aticalization
D elatour, Y. et al. 592 diathesis 44* 132» 1441* 9^ 9 5 if-, 954
D elavran cea, Barbu 42of. diathetic alternations 946, 950
delayed orientation £&*£$. D iaz, Jun ot aa
D albart, A . R. $13. D ickens, C h arle s 73* 83, fta
D elbrück , B. jl^ l Dickey, S. 790, 794, 795, 796, 945, 978П7, 979119
deleted tenses 618, 619, 622, 623, 630, 6341114, D ie Bräutigam e der Babette Bom berling 971115
646f., 650, 654, 6651114, 6651119, 6 6 7n n 3 4 -35 diegesis
“deletion” D iesin g, M . 866, 889
p aram eter 646, 654 D iessei, L L 7 1 0
rule 6 4 6 , 6 5 1 - 6 5 3 , 655, 6 5 7 - 6 5 9 , 6 6 5 n i5 D ietrich, R. et al. 482
Delfitto, I). 126, 868 diffu sion, distinguished from transm ission 400
deliberately 861 DigO £Z_L,3Slf.
D elid akis, S. and V arlokosta, S. 474, 4 75 D ik, S. 12 7
D E L I M I T A T I O N 4*72. dim en sio n ality 222t.
delim itation, eventuality, 9791119 D im itro va-V u lch an o va, M . 940. 042. 043. 944.
delim itative, the 725 946, 9 4 7 , 9 5 4
d elim ited/non -delim ited opposition 5143. D im itro va-V u lch an o va, M. et al. 940
d elim itedness 939 D in sm o re , J. 22.
D em b etem b e, N . 837 Diola 453П4
D em ird ach e ,LL 70S D io la -F o g n y 837
D em ird ach e, LL and L u n gu , O. 6651110 direct and indirect evidence types 70 7
D em ird ach e, LL and U rib e-E txeb arria, M . 186, direct causation 915
992, lQll direct evid en ce 1 0 2 3 , 1031
D en ison , D. 816, 948 direct evidential(s) 7 1 1 , 1 0 2 4 , 1 026
D en n is, L. 816 direct internal argu m en ts 972
“denotation o f a process” m ean in g varian t 7S0 D irect O bject R estriction 912, 928117
D eo , A. 166, 1 6 7 , 1 6 8 , 1 7 2 . 1 7 4 , 17 8 n i9 ,17 9 n 3 5 directionality 228f.n 5
deontic m o d ality 146. 378. 379, 392112^ 1004, d ircction als 384, 391116
1014119, 1 0 1 5 1 1 1 3 , 1 0 i 6n 3 0 , 1033 discontinuative, the 853

Material chrâneny autorskym prâvom

INDEX 1057

discours üu 7 8 - 8 2 179П34, 2£ ru 2 6 2 ^ 2 ^ 279, 2ІШ»

d iscou rse 66± 7 6 - 9 6 , 9 6 n 7 ,14 5 -14 7 , 277, 282, 283, 459, 484, 583ПІ3, 620, 621, 692112, 722, 724,
2&U 3 0 6 - 3 2 9 , 3 4 3 * 3£S*4 7 -2* 4 iU* <>25, 724* 7 2 6 , 2 2 2 ,728, 729. 7 Ш . 731* 732- 735. 736,
free direct 3 2 4 2 і2 і7 3 8 , 73£* 740, 741, 742, 7 4 4 . 745.
H ypothesis, the 485t. 761, 7 88. 828, 888, 889, 893, ш_ц 914, 916, 917,
indirect and free indirect 612, 629, 630, 631, 920, iLLL 927, 928113, 928114, 940, 946,
6351128 978118
m o d es 306, 31s* D o yay o 428
relations 282—2 8 4 ,2Ü6* jlülx* 291 f>, 30 0 1112 , 315, d ra m a
112 . 625 D ra v id ia n languages 29* &i _l
R epresentation Structure 2 8 1-2 8 6 d ream , inform ation cam e in a 1026
R epresentation T h eory 253. 28of., 31s* 31&, 735, Dressier, W. U. 852
891,841$. D retske, F. 7 11
signatures, of aspectual classes o f tenses drift 4 o o r 406
286 -28 8 D rolc, U. 391П10
structural contextualism 28if. dual aspect readings see D o u b le A ccess readings
Structural p aram eters 282, 290 dual category m em b ersh ip 387
T em poral S eq u en cin g Principle 278^, 2 3 2 dubitative 413, 434
tem po ral structure o f 3 15 - 3 2 1 D u cro t, 0 . 32 2
tem porality 14 5 - 1 4 7 D u g a s t,L ^ 2
tense in 3 0 7 -3 15 duginnan (West G e r m a n ic languages) 408
discrete p r o c e s s i f , Dulay, E L and Burt, M . 482
d iscu rsive processes 147 D u ras, M argu erite £ 2
Disgrace £3. duration 403, 813
dispersive/am bulative opposition 854 D urative aspect 939
disposition (al)s 8 4 1- 8 4 3 , Ü 4$*84&.861, 869 d u rative perfectivity 576, 578
disquotational T - t h c o r ie s £ 2 d urative-pu nctual 938
dissociative fra m e w o rk , m odel 550. 556, durativity 1 0 4 , 1 2 6 f . t 15 6 ,16 2 , 927
distality 3 1 * 8 3 ^ 4 7 ^ .5 4 3 , 547. 5^ 5^ 7 0 9 , 710. 711 ‘d u rin g ’ read in g 924
distinctive features 2 0 2 - 2 0 4 , 2 1 3 , 2 l£ D u rst-A n d e rse n , P. 12 7
distributional bias hypothesis, the 4 95 D utch 275, 3JL&» 461, 467. 4 7 0 . 577,578,
distributive property o f states 620 5 8 2 m l, 762, 81 lr 855, 898. (jOO, 9 9 8 ,10 2 7 ,10 3 2 ,
distributive/non-distributive pluractionality 853 1034
distributivity 978116 D y a d ic operator 411* 865
D ittm ar, X . 482 D yirb al 160, 529, 714П27, 949
d iurnal cycle 539f., 547, SSii d y n a m ic atelic predicates 7 3 1
D ixo n , R. M . W. 3 6 0 ,271+ 3 9 1112 ,3 9 1 114 ,040» 961, d y n a m ic expressions 829
962, 9 6 5 , ^ * 9 7 9 1 1 1 5 D y n a m ic L o gic 113.
Dtwàn Lugàt at-Turk 413. d y n a m ic m odality 9 9 6 ,1 0 1 5 1 114 ,10 16 11 3 0
D iyari 1 0 3 1 d y n a m ic sem an tics 7 0 2 , 713П13
dja (U pper G u in e a Portuguese creoles) 4 43 d yn am ic/stative distinction 729
D O (agentivity) 732, 733 d yn am icity i26f., 135
do (A lb an ian ) 409. 732
D o -H u rin v ille , D. T. 900 e (Su rin am ese creoles) 435. 444. 4 45
D olp h yn e, F. A . and K ro p p D ak u b u , M . E. 837 -e/djki (M aced o n ian ) 404
don (Jam aican C reole, N igerian Pid gin) 4 4 1, 4 43 each week 244, 245
D o ro n , E. 614, 6351128, £ £ 2 earlier tod ay’ 542
D orr, B. ]. 10 4 East C arib bean creoles 438*439^, 446
dou (H okkien) 444 East C arib b ean French creoles 439+453П5
D ou b le A ccess read in gs 7 1» iQfi. 210« 264, 30 0 1110 , E ast C u sh itic languages 7 0 9 , 7 m
622, 623, 643. 647, 655, 660, 661, 664117 East Slavic languages 789. 790
D ou b le A nterior tense 592 East T ucanoan languages 1030
D ouble D efiniten ess Effect 7 14 1121 Eastern C arib b ean F ren ch creoles 439. 446
d ouble S u rco m p o sé Past tense hypothesis 590 Eastern P o m o 1037
“d ou b ly relative” m o d ality 709 Eastern T ucanoan languages io37f.
D o u g h n u t G r a m 224 Ebira 837
D o u th w a ite ,J. 971119 Eckardt, R. 372. 387
D owty, D. 71* 1 1 4 . 1 2 6 , 1 3 3 . 1 6 2 , 164, i6 sr 173, Eckert, F.. 775
i7 6 f.n n 8 -9 , i7 8 n i7 ,17 8 n i9 , I78n23, i79n28, E ck h ard t, R. 1 7 2

lateriâl chrânenÿ autorskÿm prâvom

1058 INDEX

eco n o m y 12 3 .12 5 A m e rican io i4 n 2

•ed (English) 468, 520, 558 A ustralian 317. 319, 899, 902
E d gerton , F. 1036 British 814, 824n9
E d m o n d s, P., and H irst, G . 360 E arly M o d e r n 810, 817
E d o 440 G u yan e se 837
efficiency JLLL as a lexifier language 429, 431, 437f.
E gyp tian , Old 391П4 M id d le 173,175
E h rich , V. 238, 248 Old 293, 948
E h rm an , М . E. 1043119 Sin gapore colloquial 444
Ejagham 52л énonciation 321
eklw (G reek) 407 ensuite (French) vi^
ekphrastic passages 84 e n try into a process or state 122
E L (extensional language) 233 enunciative act/process, the 14 5 - 14 7
Elaboration (discourse relation) 283-286, ^18,3 2 0 ,897 enunciative persp ective S i
Elative case 966 en u n ciator ( énonciateur) $22
elh (H alk om elem ) j o i E P theory 886f.
Elim elech, B. 837 epic preterite 8 2 -8 4
Eliot, G e o rg e 85 ep iso d ic (category) 837
E lk in s, R. 842 ep iso d ic predicates 864
E lm an , ]. L. et al. 476П2 epistem ic m ean ing, paraphrased 9 9 0 . 1014118
Elsik, V., and M atras, Y. 401, 404, 4231110 epistem ic m o d ality/m o d als 146, 3 7 2 ,3 7 8 , 3921117,
em bed d ability principle 6671135 676, 677. 687,707, 9 8 9 f-, 99 2 , 9 9 5 f-, 9 9 7 - 9 9 9 .
em b ed d ed and b ou n d tenses, th e o ry based on few l O ll f., 10 14 n 2, 1015ni7, 1021, 1023, 1024, 1032 f.,
languages 2 7 -2 0 10 4 311119 -10
em b ed d ed clauses 27 8 г, epistem ic necessity with must io i5 n 2 i
E m b e d d e d Past (F.P) T h e o r y 886 f. epistem ic possib ility 9 8 9 , 10 0 7
em b ed d ed tenses, th eory o f 27, 6 6 1- 6 6 3 epistem ic reading, o f a m o d al 3921121
E m b ick , D. 1 7 2 , 123» 916, 919, 928П9 epistem ic separation 550
Em m a M epistem ic value 546, 547, 558
E m m o tt, C. 75, 77 epistem ic/root distinction 997
Emonds, L 205 Ergative case 962
-с/г (En glish) 2 0 3 - 2 0 5 , 520 Ergative-A bsolutive languages 946, 949, 960, 962,
En<;, M . 66, ті» 17 9 112 8 ,1 2 5 , 19 6,19 7, 206, 209f., 9 6 5,9 6 8
264» 612, 7 0 1 - 7 0 3 , 714П 21 Ergative/A bsolutive case m ark in g 120
e n c o d i n g 155» 156 f. eri (Tangoa) 445
encore (F r e n c h ) 132 Ernst, T. 774f.
e n d see b o u n d a r y ; limit erosion, phonetic 373, 375f-> see also phonetic/
energeia(i) 176116, 721, 722 phonological reduction
enestos suntelikos see e x t e n d e d present Erzählen 6, &i
En gel, D. M . 6 espoir (French) 275
E n g e n n i , 837 E ss -D y k e m a , C. van 3 0 9
England, N. m i Essegby, I 377
En glish 27, яб, 75, 80, i3if., 152>1^5» 121» 1Zi> »77ni 4 > esser solito + Infinitive (Italian) S j y n i
190, 205, 290, 318, 3 4 2 -35 6 , 359 f»» Зб2, 364П6, estado 3 4 7 -3 5 1
3661123, 371, 4 14, 4 3 4І-, 4 5 9. 461, 465, 4 6 7 f., estan (Iberian) 440
4 7 0 »4 7 3 - 4 7 ^ 4 8 7 - 4 9 0 , 492, 49 4f.t estar (Iberian) 439. 440» 446
5 И - 5 1 6 , 519. 521, 524. 529. І І 2 , 558, 577. 578, Estonian 69, 960, 965, 966
579, 582115, 586, 582, 605, 6 0 6 , 612, 613, 621. était (French) 4 3 3 .4 3 6 ,4 3 8
622, 631, 634П13, 6341117, 634П19, 6351130, 638, été (French) 4^3
639, 640, 641, 642, 644, 645, 646, 647, 651, Ethnologue 5^6
652, 653, 654, 655, 656, 660, 66 i, 662, 663, être (French) 5 9 1 , 525
6 6 5 m l, 665П13, 667П31, 667П33, 667П34, 669, être après c) (French) 433
671, 67S, 684, 687, 688, 689, 692113, 693П17, être en train de (French) 446
7 0 0 , 7 0 1 , 2 0 5 , 7 10 , 7 2 2 - 7 2 4 ,7 2 5 , 7 6 0 -7 6 3 , Etsako 837
752- 755. 759, 761, 763. 764. 766, 768, 769. 781, Etzioni, O. 105
785, 786, 788, 796, 8011115, 8o4. » ° 6 . S io , »12, Etzioni, O. et al. 105
8 13 -8 2 2 , 829 -834 , 8 3 7 -8 4 0 , 84 4 -8 47, 852-874, E uropean languages M l
8 8 1-9 0 4 , 9 0 8 -9 2 8 , 929П20, 948, 953. 962, 976, E U R O T Y P Tense and Aspect T h em e G ro u p 882
9 8 9 - 10 13 , 1027, 10 31, 10 3 2 - 10 3 4 , 1035. Ю40 evaluation tim e 611

Material chrâneny autorskym prâvom

INDEX IO 59

evaluative must 10 ^ explicatures 276

E van s, G. 62^712113 expressive fu nction
E van s, N . ^82, 7 12 expressiven ess constraint 175.
E van s, N . and L evin so n , S. 4 4 1 .4 4 9 Extended N o w (X N ) 2 5 4 ^ ,2 7 ^ *8 9 4
E v e n -Z o h a r, L 3 4 0 ,3 6 4 112 adverbials 237,24^* 247, 248
E ven k i 1029 t h e o r y 1781123, 248L, 2 s i i 278, 886, 887, 888,
eveilt(s) 124* 122, 133> 135-137» 24 4 , 286, 2 ^ 1 8 9 0 ,8 9 3
463. 740» TIL. 735» 7 4 1 . 7 4 4 » 803, 875, 896, extended present 137
922, 925, .94^ 9 4 6 , 9 4 9 , 996 extension 222f., 229115
com plete(d) 1 3 4 , 1 4 3 ,1 4 4 extensional language E L 249.
co m p o sitio n 178П26, 908, 9 14 - 9 19 , 927 extensional m o d els 869
decom position approach 941 external affixes 22» 7^3» see also external prefixes
extended 34 5-356 extern al argum en t 9 4 2 , 9 4 6
instantaneous, punctual i35f., 14 4 *34 5 -3 5 6 , external perfect 991
5i6f. external prefixes 767, 768, 783, 798
and objects, h o m o m o rp h ism between 9 42*946 external v ie w 36* see also perfective aspect
result o f an 34 5-356
sem antics 2 8 2 ,744 F (Future tense) operator 615
structure(s) 916, 952* 9 6 2 - 9 6 4 ,972* 975, 976 Fa d ’A m b o (L o w e r G u in ea) 443
tim e 186, 5 1 1 - 5 1 3 , £2£2*529, 530, 6 1 1 , 6 7 a Fabian, G . et al. 541, 551
eventive sentences 2 7 S Fab riciu s-H an sen , C . 2 3 8 ,366n23
eventualities(s) 33* 1781117,735, 962, 963, 969, factitive, the 518L
9791119 factive ability io i6 n 23
ever since 247 factive con stru ction s 659
evidential categories, typological study o f 1023 factives 928113
evidential deixis 4 16 , 422П 4,1043П 6 factum 727
evidential m arker 871 Faller, M . 7141123, 7 4 3 ,1 0 2 3 ,1 0 2 6 ,1 0 3 3
evidential readin g o f a noun phrase 709 Far Future tense 525
evidential system s 1023 Far Past tense 381. 525, 528. 545, see also R em ote
e v id e n tia lly , evidentials 1 0 3 , 132, 223, 40Я, 4 11, Past tense
4 1 3 - 4 1 6 , £2£* 529, 582» 707, 7 14 П 2 3 ,1 0 2 0 - 1 0 4 2 Faraclas, N . 810
direct 7 1 1 , 1 0 2 4 , 1026 Farr, C. J. M . 539
form s, evolution o f 160, 280, 293f. Fasold, R. 840
history o f its study 1 0 2 1- 10 2 4 Fasu 1 0 2 4
indirect ТЯ2-.1°2б, 1030, 1040 Fattier, D. 433
inferential 413. 4 2 3 112 1,7 0 7 ,10 2 5 ^ , 10 3 4 ,10 4 3 116 features 215. 313, 939
and m od ality 1 0 2 1 . 1 0 2 6 ,10 3 2 - 10 3 5 Fellbaum , C. 105
and tense/aspect io2of., 10 2 9 ,10 3 5 - 1 0 3 9 Felser, C. 222
understood as present 529 -(fe)lulo- (K orow ai)
Ewe 17 1, 1 7 8 П 2 4 , Я77, l& lb . 6 Я5 П27 , 8 10 . 842 Fen son , L. et al. 467
Ew egb e 432 Fernald, T. 828, 840
E w o n d o S4Q, S4i, S46, ssof. Fern an d o, T. 114
exaggerative, the 854 Ferraz, L. 443
E xception al C a se M a rk in g 911, 914, 9 16 - 9 19 , Ferro, L. et al. 107
9 2 1- 9 2 3 , 9 2 4 -9 2 6 , 927, 928117 fi (R o m an ian ) 415
exclusion/dissociation 7 0 9 ,7 1 1 fic a r (Portuguese) 4412*445, 446
existential closure 889 F ID operator 630, 631
existential perfect 167, 245, 883 figural narrative situation 83
existential quantifier 179П28, 239 Jika (French G u yan a C reole) 4 40 , 446
e[xisten tialj-read in gs 238f. Fikes, R. 111
expected vs. un expected co u rse o f events 1041 Filatova, E. 107
experiential particle 764, 901 Filip, 11. i22i 1 6 2 - 1 6 4 , 1 7 7 n 9 ,;z2£* 734, 737- 739»
experiential perfect 1 ^ * 8 8 3 , 9 0 1, 902, 903 743f-> 752, 766f., 9 4 6 , 964» 97 8 n 7
experiential readin g 887, 902 Filip, H. and C arlso n , G . 8^2, 875
Explan ation (d iscou rse relation) 286, 290, 292, 41&. Filip, 11, and Rothstein, S. 743!.
625 Fillm ore, C. 733
Explan ation vs. N arration (d iscou rse relations) Fillm ore, C. and A tkins, B. T. 943
290Г, 897 Jin (Haitian C reole) 444
expletive subjects, lackin g in C h in e se 678!’. final b o u n d a ry 140

Material com direitos autorais

юбо INDEX

F in e, K . 111 fra m in g adverbial 857-859

fin i (creoles) 433, 436, 442 Francez, N . 104
fm ir (F r e n c h ) 433. 436, 44 2, 589, 599 F ra n c o -Provençal 591, 605, б о б п ю
fin ish 1 2 9 , 1781124 Frasheriote A ro m a n ia n 4 0 6 , 414
‘finish’ 3 7 2 - 3 7 6 , 379 ,39 1*16 , 437, 4 4 1, 442, 443 Frawley, W. 546
F in n ic lan guages 4 11 F ra y n , M ichael 9of.
F in n ish 1522 362, 458, 470, 47S, 768, 809, 9291121, free alternation between Im perfective and
960, 961, 965I0 967, 969, 9 7 0 , 9791112, 9791120, Progressive 175
9S01120, 1027 free direct d iscou rse 324
F in n o -U g ric languages 139, 965, 966 free indirect d isco u rse 79f., 83, 8 6 ,3 2 3 ,3 2 4 , 326,
von Fintel, K. io i4 n 6 6 14 629, 630, 631, 635П28
von Fintel, K. and M atth ew son , L. 726 Frege, G. 3, 62, 572
First language acquisition, see Li acquisition Fregean co m p osition ality 24^ 50115
first-order logic 732 French 1 2 2 , 171» 1Z5» 20 s, 2751'., 286, 288. 289, 290,
firsthand e v i d e n t i a l 1024 292, 296, 3 0 7 - 3 1 5 , 3 *7, 32 3-32 9 , 359, 3Z*L
Fischer, 0 . 2ZZ‘ 39Q, 3921117,3931128, 436, 442 4 3 >> 432. 4 34 .» 4 4 2 , 445.» 4 4 6 . 458, 461, 4 70 , 483,
Fischer, S., and G o u g h , B. 379 487, 488, 491. 4 9 2 , 5l6 , 519. 582115, 5 8 6 -6 0 6 ,
flashback 25 665ПЮ, 7 0 0 , 7 5 8 -7 6 0 , 762, 764. 7 6 Sf., 773,
Flashner, V. E. 483, 48s 774, 791, 79 2 , 836, 8 5 5 -8 6 0 , 861, 863, 867,
F leischnian , S. 6^ 9 7 n i 6 , 1 4 7 282. 30 7 ,324!'., 380, 872-874 . 877113, 884, 898, 1030
4 9 4 »? 36 as a lexifier language 429, 4 ^ 436, 4 3 7 ,4 3 & â â h
Flem ish 582 4 4 5 f-> 453n 5
Fletcher, P. $20 M id d le 29of., 296
Flier, M . S. 5831116 Old 2 9 3-2 9 6 , 900
florescence 390 French G u yan e se C reole 439, 442, 443, 4 46, 873
Flud ernik, M . 6, 77, 79, 86f., 88, 89, 95, 96n3, frequentative form 830
961110, 971116, 971118, 9 7111122-23, 309 frequentative verbs 322 511112, 853
focalization 321, 3 2 3 -3 2 9 , 803 frequentativity 39. 832
Foley, W. A. 136 Frey, ]. R. 97П16
Foley, W. A ., and V an V alin, R. D. 3 7 8 ,3921118, F rie d m an , V. A. 399, 4 0 2Г , 407, 413, 4 14 , 422П7,
1014118 423П20, 423П21
Folli, R. and Harley, H ., 913, 916, 919, 926, 927 Fried m an , V. A ., and D ankoff, R. 403
F ong, V. 9291121 Fries, С. C. 86
F o n gb e 4^2 Fries, U. 971116
/o r/m -m o d ifie rs 924 Friulan 587
force 32 2 i 913, 927 Fuentes, C arlo s 90
Fore 837 Fula 842
Foreground (discourse relation) 320 fu ll-cycle resettable 727
foregroun d A cco m p lish m en ts 4S7 fu nctional load 390
fo regro u n d (in g) 77, »2* 84-87, 89, 93, 28if., 308, functional transfer 4 ^
309, 485, 489, 493, see also g ro u n d in g fu nctional ty p o lo g y o f anti passives 949
fo re gro u n d in g/b ack gro u n d in g 1 4 ^ 2&1 F U T operator 6i6f., 627
Foris, D. P. 550 futur simple 1016П26
fo rm -m e a n in g co rresp o n d en ces 16 8 - 17 0 futurate Present tense 258, 662, 689
fo rm -orien ted approaches to L2 acquisition 482 future (tim e) 146, 4 4 7
fo rm al co rre sp o n d e n ce between p rop erty scales Future, sem an tic 258
and paths 743 future ability 10161128
form al sem antic approaches 572 future and m o d ality 152
F orsyth, ]. 164, 232ni5 future fo rm , H ebrew 626
Fortescue, M . 6 9 31115 ,10 2 5 future generics S38
F ortu in , E. 775, 978114 future g ram -ty p e 14 4
fo rw ard -shifted readin g 652, 663n2 Future m od e (N av ah o ) 529
Foulet, L. 2 8 1 , 2S2 future operator 615!*., 627
Fowler, G. 974 future path, the 4 4 0
Fow ler, H. W. 97ni9 Future Perfect tense i87f., 189, iç^f.
F rad k in , R. 2311114 future reference 1Ü1
F ram e Sem an tics 943 future shifting 198
fram e setter 633ns Future tense 25, 7 8 , 12 8 ,12 9 , 198, 372, 4 0 7^ , 437,
F ram e N c t corp u s 1 0 5 ,10 9 507, 510, 524, 526, 529, 547, 614, 623

laterial com direitos autorais

INDEX 106l

acquisition o f 474!'. G e n n a ri, S. 264, 641

analytic 399, 408 genre and translation 362t.
in Balkan languages 4 0 7 - 4 1 0 G eorge, K. M . 158
irrealis properties o f 424 Georgian 6^, 137 ,139 , 155), *7 0 , 582115, 968, 1028
m ark ers, m a rk in g 16 0 , 171, 40s, 408, 4 21, 437, gerade ‘right now’ (German) 805, 811
4 40 , 442 German 38, 8 0 , 1 ^ 1 6 5 , 1 7 1 , 1771114» 225* 359,
m ean in g o f 1 6 3 , 186, 208 360, 362, 3 6 6 11112 2 -2 3 ,3 8 1, 4 11, 467, 490,
m od al uses o f 372, 519 491, 5821111, 5 8 6 -6 0 6 , 622, 692n3, 701,
in n arration 9 0 - 9 2 7 10 , 726, 762, 804^, 811, 824113, 878ni7,
future tim e i 5 8 f , 446, 674, 793, 10 0 0 898, 9 0 0 , 913, 944, 947, 954, 960, 965,
future w ill 87 8 m l 967, 996, 9 9 8 ,10 3 0
future w o rld s 298 Old I Iigh 967
future/non-future tense system ^ G e rm a n ic languages 162, 408, ^15, 528, 5311116, 572,
futurity, as a m o o d 399, 529 57*** 581, 586, 282, 953« 9 6 5, 1 0 2 1 , 10 2 7 ,10 3 2 ,
1034
G abbay, D. and M o rav csik , L M- 723 g e ru n d , A ro m a n ia n 405
Gaelic 532n30, 784, 942 gerund ial clauses 2789
G a g n o n , M . 104 Gestalttheorie 1&1
G a h u k a 837, 842 gestern (G e rm a n ) 240
GaiHie, F. et al. 6 0 0 G eud er, W. 918
g a l (W oleaian) 837 g h a ( E d o ) 440
G allow ay, B. D. 201 G h an aian pidgin En glish 439, 4 4 1 , 445, 452113,
G alton, A. P. 892 453n 6 , 45307
G alton , H. 1 2 2 ,133, 9791110 G iacalon e R a m a t, A . 487, 491
gdn (C an tonese) 805, 807 G ib so n , J. 114
G arcia, E. C . and van Putte, F. C . M . 491 G ib so n , M aik 39 2 m 6 , 393n30
G arey, 11. B. 13 3 ,16 2 ,17 6 117 , 7 2 if-, 73 4 , 737, I M i 9^3 G id e, A n d r é 325
G aro 159 G ik u y u 5^8
G arrett, E . 1023 G inib ala 540, 541
G a ss, S. and A rd , JL 4 9 9 m G in ct, G. 915
G a v ru se v a , E. 467 Giorgi, A. 2 1
G a w ro n , L M . 741 G iorgi, A. and Pianesi, F. 890, 892, 893
G a w ro n sk a , B. 15 4 G irard , I.-Y. 113
G b e languages 4^2, 434, 4 4 1 , 4 4 4 , 451 G iv ô n , T. 1 6 9 , 3 7 6 , 7 1 2 1 1 2 ,1 0 2 3 ,1 0 3 2
“ G e g e n a n g riff ” 92 Gjeçov, Shtjefén 4 0 9
G eh rke, B. 32, Z5Z> 7^7^ 7 ^3, 245i 974 G lasbey, S. 114
G e is, I 733 Glasperlenspiel Üi
G E N operator 4 0 , 730 , 866, see also generic G lovin skaja, M . Ja. 800113, 800115
operator; habitual operator G lu e L an gu age 284
G E N quantifier 292, 864, 865, 866 G lu e Logic A x io m s 284
“general-factual” m ean in g 789, 790, 796, 8oon9 Gn operator 864I’., see also generic operator
general situation possibility 993, 994, 995, g n o m ic Im perfective aspect, im perfectivity 39f.,
10 0 6 -10 0 8 829, 8 4 1-8 4 8 , 852, 860 -877, 8 7 7 n s
general states o f affairs, 828 ‘go I go IZZ2 379, 435, 437, M l
general truths 14 2 go on 812
generalization 373, 407 G o ajiro 159
generalized versio n s o f aspects 171 G o d ic 166, 175
generally 245 Golijb, Z. 3 9 9 , 405, 407, n o , 4 1 1 , 4 1 2
G en erative Sem antics 7 3 2 -7 3 4 G o ld b erg, A . 29907, 9 11, 912, 913, 916, 918, 919, 923,
generic aspect 3^2 830, 831 9291117, 943, 954
“gen eric" expressions 830 G o ld b erg, A . and Jackendoff, R. 909, 9 10 , 9 12, 913,
generic n oun phrases 830, 831, 878n9 916, 918, 9 20, 921, 922, 926, 9 2 9 m s
generic operator 839, 842, S64, 866 gonna 387L
generic sentences 830, 865, 878119 G o o n iy a n d i 1030
gcn ericity 7 3 0 ,8 3 7 ,8 4 3 G o rd o n , L. 1036
generics 860, 861, 8 6 4 -8 6 8 , 826 G o rn a Belica (Bela di supra) 406, 414
G enette, G . 25 G osselin , L. 2 2 5 ,3 14
G e n e v a School 27, 282 G o th ic 408
G enitive o f negation 962 G o v e rn m e n t-B in d in g th eory 202, 207

Bahan dengan hak cipta

1062 INDEX

gradien ce 386 G rin cvald C raig, C . 230

G rad u al Patient 737 G rin stead , L et al. 474
gradual relaxation 903 g ro u n d in g 84, 87, 485, 486, 492, see also
G raff, D. 896 b ack gro u n d (in g), foregroun d (ing)
g ram -ty p es 128t., 144 G ruber, L S. 741
G ram m aire Larrousse du X X e siècle 600 G ro n n , A . 639,
g ra m m a r 7 2 6 ,7 4 4 , 509 G r o n n , A . and von Stechow, A . 639, 659
gram m atical aspect 32, 34. 1 3 1 , 1 5 5 , 1 6 ^ 472, 723, G u aran i 29, 31, 7 0 0 , 7 12 113 ,7 13 1113 , 7 i3 n i8
72s, 766, 7 7 1, 281, 783» 7 8 4 - 7 9 1, 962, see also G u asch , A . 712113
v ie w p o in t aspect G u yan e se C reo le 438* 443, 453119
acquisition o f 4 6 8 -4 7 3 G u yan ese English 837
vs. A ktion sart (lexical aspect) 4 6 8 - 4 7 0 , 753 G u yan ese F ren ch C reole 4 3 9 , 442
definition o f 1 6 1 .1 6 3 , 4 5 9 , 784, 78s, 963 G u en tcheva, Z. 1 3 7 , 1 4 0 , 1 4 7 , 1023
expression o f 1 6 1- 16 4 G uenther, F. 65
and lexical aspect 126, 1 3 1 , 1 4 2 - 14 4 , 767 G u ero n , L 700
and M easu rem en t A dverbials, interaction o f G u ero n , L «nd H oekstra, T. 7 0 4 , 909
771-773 G u illau m e, G . 23, 5on3 , 124, 508, 5 1 1 - 5 1 3 , 520, 530,
Russian 2 2 1 - 2 2 7 531118, 5311110, 595f., 6 0 0 , 6 0 6 111111-13
and/vs. tense 4 7 0 - 4 7 2 , 760 , 7 9 1- 7 9 6 G u in ea Bissau K riyol 439, 443, 446, 453114, 810
theories of, classification o f 162 G u m p e rz, ]. 3661126
gram m atical categories, core (A , O, S) 961 guo, guo (M an d arin , C h in ese) 673, 674, 764
gram m atical operator 342f., 3 4 5 ,35Z G u th rie, M . 391113
gram m atical transfer 453 G u yan ese C reo le 443, 445, 453n9
g ram m atical-m o rp h o lo g ical aspect 960, 962, see G u yan ese En glish 837
also gram m atical aspect; view p o in t aspect G w a r i 83S
gram m aticalization 1 3 0 , 1 3 2 ,1 3 4 ,1 4 5 - 1 4 7 ,1 5 5 - 1 5 7 , G w cre 381^
15s, 1 6 3 , 1 6 9 , 1 7 0 , 1 7 3 , 2 9 3 , 2 9 4 , . m , 3 7 0 -3 9 0 , G ok sel, A. liiii
39 in 8, 39 2n i9 , 407, 4 5 0 , 451, 606, 804, 809,
810, 883, 937, 954, 1029 ha (Iberian) 439
chain s 38 4 -38 6 Ila a n , F. d e 1 0 2 3 ,1 0 2 6 , 1 0 2 7 , 1 0 3 2 , 1 0 3 3 , 1 0 3 4 , 1035,
d i n e o f i28f., 17 1, 384, 4 3 7 ,438, 4 4 0 , 447 , 1023 1038
con tact-in d uced 437, 4 4 0 - 4 4 7 , 450 H aarm an n , H. 4 9 , 1 0 2 1 , 1023
in the creation o f creole tense-aspect system s H A B operator, implicit 844, 846, 865, see also
4 3 6 -4 4 7 habitual operator; habitual (G E N / H A B )
d efinition o f 372, 4 36 f. quantifier
intern ally-in du ced , in creoles 4 3 7 - 4 4 0 haban (G o th ic ), habeo (Latin) 408
literature of, the 15 ^ 172 ha:bis (M alayan ) 443
path(s) 128!'., 171, 384, 437, 438, 4 4 0 , 447 , 812, habits 841, 847
1023 habitual ( G E N / H A B ) quantifier 288, 292, 447,
p rim a ry 3 7 2 -3 7 9 , 39 2n i9 , £ io , 812, &22 532n 21
p rocesses 1 2 9 , 131, 430, 447 I fabitual aspect 3 8 , 1 2 6 , 136L, 161, 165, 444, 445,
se co n d a ry 372, 379~3®3» 3921119 447, 760 , 761, 828-848
g ram s i_2Ü habitual event 949
G rau r, A . et al. 408, 415, 420I. habitual expressions, 790
Great Expectations 83 habitual interpretation 7 6 0 , 761
G re b o 537- 539, 55« habitual m ark ers 440, 4 46 , 836, 837, 842
G reek 1 3 7 ,1 6 4 , 1 6 7 , 176112, 361, 399, 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , 4 0 s, habitual m ean in g 445, 862
407, 4 10 , é l h 4 6 1, 467, ûZài 475, 507, 508, 509!’., Habitual m o o d 846
517, 53i n 4 , 53in i6 , 7 i4 n 32, 953 habitual operator 208, 844, 84s. 864, 865
A n cie n t 1 2 5 , 13 3 ,13 7 , 509, 510 , 5i3f., Ü 5, 529 Habitual Present tense 837
C lassical 791, 960, 970 habitual sentences 845, 862, 870, 8 7 6 , 877
M o d e rn 667n35, 724, 725, 726 habitual states 90, 34 5-356
G re e n , G. 971119, 909, 9 11, 928113, 9291121 habitual/generic m e a n in g 165
G reen berg, J. 1 2 3 , 124, 216 , 229116, 230119, 447 habituality 156, 447, 830, 831, 833, 841, 852-877,
G reen b erg, Y. 840 877n2, 87706
G revisse, M . 588, 589, 597, 598, 606116, 606117 definition o f 808, 845, 877
G rice, H. P. 3, i24> 188, 274, 276f., 288, 293, 317, 796, in En glish 872-874
8 -9 5 , 899 expression of, the 831, 832-838, 847
G ricean principle o f e co n o m y 728, 922 as g n o m ic im perfectivity 852-877, 789, 871

Bahan dengan hak cipta

INDEX

vs. iterativity 8 5 4 -8 6 0 H eim , L a n d Kratzer, А. 667П31

in Slavic languages 874-876 H ein äm äk i, O. 965
habituative, the 836 H ein e, B. 1 6 9 , 372, 22І* з8о, 3 8 4 , 391П5, 996,
habitus 84s, 847 10 151117
H acq u ard , V. 8 3 6 ,1014118 H eine, B. and Kuteva, T. 32Z> 380, 391116, 436, 437,
had used to 8781112 4 40 , 4 4 b 4 5 0 » 4 ) 1, ZiOi 9 9 6 ,1 0 15 111 7
hdidouh (C antonese) 805 H eine, B. and N arro g , H. 386f., 3921120
H aim an , L 9S2 H eine, B. and Reh, M . 3911113
1 Iaitian C reo le 430. M h 432- 4 3 4 , 436, 4 3 9 ^ 443, I leine, B. et al. 384
4 4 6 , 447 H elbig, G . and B u sch a, J. 238
H aku linen , L. 966 H en d erson , J. 552, 559П2
I Iale, K. 714П 20, 965, 968 I Ienv, F. 253, 258, 262t.
H ale, K. and Keyser, L 916, 928П4, 943, 952 herewith 243
H alkom elem 3 1 , 696, 7 0 1, 713П8 Herman, P. 75>77
I Iallaga Q uech u a 384 II esse, 1 Ierm ann &i
H alliday, M . A. K . 9 0 8 ,10 14 116 Hesternal tense 554, 556
H am burger, K. 6, 8 2 -8 4 Hesternal Past tense 5.37»552, 557
H am let 810 h eterogeneity/hom ogeneity opposition 1011
H a m m , F. 114 H etzron, R. 546, 547, 7141132
H am p , E. 4 21 H ew in gs, M . 10 0 0
H andbook o f A m erican Indian Languages 1022, H ewitt, C. 111
1043116 H e w so n , J. 531116, 5321129
I Ianks, W. F. 14 2 I Iew son, I. and B u ben ik , V. 511, 513, 514, 516,
H ansen , B. 1027 531114, 531116,5321127
H ardt, D. 114 H e w so n , J. and F rancis, B. 529
I lardy, T h o m a s 89 I Iew son, L and N u rse, D. 531П4, 532П35
I lare Slave 1040, 1041 I Iew son , 1. et al. 524
H arel, D. 113 hier (French) 2^5
Harley, B. 494 hierarchical correlational opposition 12
H arries, L. 541 I Iigdon, L. 538
H arrin gto n , B. 105 H iggin b o th am , L 2 L 733» 7 3 4 . 7 4 0 » 941
H arris, M . 380 H ill, K . C .1 0 2 5
H arriso n , R. 901 H indi i^2i 1 6 5 , 1 6 6 , 1 6 8 . 1 7 4 . 17s, 960, 965, 968
H arriso n , W. H indi/U rdu 137
H aspelm ath, M . 1 1 , 1 3 1 , 1 4 8 , 39 11111, 436, 947, 948 H inrichs, E. 6 5 , 104, 254, 279, 620 . 692П2, 726, 735,
Hatav, G. 98, 613, 6341116 941, 978118
Hatch, E. and W ag n e r-G o u g h , I. 482 H intz, D. 3 8 4 - 3 8 6 , 390
Hatcher, A. G. 2iii 1 Iiraiwa, K. 7 0 4 , 7131116
H ausa S39, 842, 843 Hirtle, W. H. 510 , 516, 5321120
have 203, 263, 264, 991, 9 9 2 , 1 0 0 5 , 10 0 9Г histoire 6^ 7 8 -8 2
‘have’ 380, 4 0 6 - 4 1 2 , 437 H istoric Present tense £>0
have/be raisin g 205 historical narrative
H aw ai’i C reo le 4 3 8 , 4 3 9 , 4 4 2 , 4 4 4 ,4 4 5 H istorical Past tense 555
I lay, ]. et al. 7 4 if., 923, 927 I listorical Present tense 84, 86, 417, 6 6 4 П 9 ,790,
H ayes, P. 112 793f., 800115, 8 o in i8
Healey, A. et al. 843 Hittite 531П16
h earsay 1 0 2 5 , 1 0 3 1 , 10 3 2 ,10 4 3 1113 H itzem an , J. 104, 247, 253, 889
H eath, I. 4 0 0 H ix k a ry a n a 1026
H eb d om al tense 556 H jelm slev, L. 227П2, 509
H e b rew 2 7 ,13 2 , 2 2 ^ 362, 398, 4 6 1, 612, 613, 6i4f., H oare, C . A . 113
618, 619, 62i> 622, 623, 626, 630, 631, 633115, H oare Logic 113
6з4пі7, 635П30, 6 3 9 -6 4 2 , 6 4 4 - 6 4 6 , 6 5 1-6 5 4 , I Iockett, C. 712П3
6 5 6 -6 6 2 , 664116, 664119, 6651113, 6661126, 840, H od ge, C . T. 391114
845, 8 71, 960, 970 h od iern al cycle 558
Biblical 518, 624 I Iod iern al Future tense 537, 54b 543, 548, 550, 551,
M o d e rn 45S 555» 556,5 5 7
H eid olp h , K. E. et al. 237I. H od iern al Past tense 381C, 532» 544> 548, S4 9 > 55Q>
H e im , L 265, 623, 646, 6 5 0 -6 5 2 , 665П16, 666П24, 5.5 2»j .5 3 »^ 7>.587,605
702, 742 I Iodiernal tense 550, 554, 556

Bahan dengan hak cipta

1004 INDEX

H o d iern al-(H estern al-)R em o te past pattern L (Russian) 8 o im 8

238 Lstap (Tok Pisin) 445
hodiernal/hesternal 541 I-P rin cip le 8*^5
hodiernal/pre-hodiernal 1 6 0 .5 4 0 - 5 4 4 Iatridou, S. 7 0 9 ,7 14 112 9
h o d i e r n a l i t y 54 2 Iatridou, S. et al. 1 6 6 , 1 6 7 . 1 7 8 n 2 3 ,1781127, 245, 253,
H oekstra, T. 9 10 , 912, 917 zfn
H oekstra, T. and H yam s, N . 461, 467, 912, 917 Iberian -lexico n creoles 4 4 2 , 443, 446
H oen igsw ald , H. 508 Icelandic 614, 629, 635n27, 960, 965, 970» 971
I Iocp elm an , ]. P. 726 ID th eorv/ 886
H ohenstein, L and A khtar, N. 468 icii (R o m an i) 403
Hoijer, H. 1036 -ie (Ilw an a) 389
I Iokkien 444 i f 519,529
H olenstein, E. 213 Ignatieff, M ichael 85
H o lm es, P. and H inchlilfe, L 1027 *-ile (P ro to-B an tu ) 381, 389, 525
H olt, 138, 508, s n Illative case 966
h om o gen eity 162, 620, 681, 73of., 941» 10 11 illocu tion ary force indicators 2^1
h o m o m o rp h icity 9 2 3-9 2 6 illocution ary v iew p o in t function 292
H opper, P. I ZZi 85, 971119» 281, 285, 380, Ilwana 389
3 9 2 m g , .485 Il’f and Petrov 794
H opper, P. L a n d T h o m p so n , S. A. 97ni9, 281, im a g in a ry time 529
467 im aginative im perfect 2 25
H opper, P. L an d Traugott, E. C. 436f. Im ai, S. 7 0 7 ,7 0 9 ,7 14 11 2 4 ,7 14 11 2 7 ,7 1 4 1 12 8
hard (Som ali) 705, 7 i3 n i7 I m bs, P. 313, 589
H ornstein, N . 65, ZL 17 7 1110 ,18 9 , 615 im eti (O ld C h u rch Slavonic) 408
H orrock s, G. 4 0 7 ,4 10 L Im m ediate C urrent T im e Unit 544
Ilo r r o c k s , G . an d Stavrou, M . 918 Im m ediate Future tense 528, 540, 546, 551, 553
hortative (target category) 32 z Im m ediate Past tense 54 0, 5 4 1> 553, 557
hortative particle 40 5 Im m ortality 7 8 6 -7 8 8 , 793. 797, 798
Hot N e w s perfect 245, 883, 8 8 7 ,10 4 0 Im on d a 376
H ouston, Pam 9of. IM P operator 579
H out, A . van 463, 465, 467, 4 70 , 497, 725» 733. 942, Im parfait tense (French) 39. 75, 8 0 -8 2 . 83, 84, 88,
945 »963, 978 95, 133, IZ li I78ni7, 2 7 4 -2 7 6 , 286, 2 9 2 ,3i3f.,
H ovy, E. 107 323, 438, 470, 482L, 492, 591, 759f-, 7 &9 f-, 7 7 2 ,
“ H o w to Date a B row n girl, Blackgirl, W hitegirl, or 774f., 7 9 if., 872, see also Im perfect tense
Halfie” 23 de rupture 86, 314 , 760
“ H o w to Talk to a H unter” 90 ludic (ludique), preludic 274f., 591
how-type W H - X P s 918 narrative 92, 289, 292
H ove, L. 10161124 o f politeness 275!'., 299117
H rabal, B o h u m il 252 Im perative m o o d 218, 4 1 7 - 4 2 1 , 529
hu- (Swahili) 837 Im perfect tense 12 5 ,16 9 , i76n 2, 323, 326, 491 f., 546,
1 Iu, l.-I I. et al. 679 872, see also Im parfait tense; Imperfecta tense;
H uang, C . 4 9 0 ,4 9 5 Im perfeito tense; Imperfetto tense; Preterito
H u an g,C.-T. J. 679 Im perjecto tense
I Iuang, C.-T. L e't al. 679, 6 9 3m o narrative 92, 289, 292, 307. 3 12 -3 15
H uaylas Q uechua 385 Im perfective A orist, Bulgarian 8, 134, 447. 792,
Huber, M . 4 4 1, 445 874
H uddleston, R. 886, 990, 9 9 6 , 1 0 0 0 , 1 0 1 1 , 1 0 1 4 1 1 8 Im perfective aspect 1 2 6 , 1 2 8 , 1 2 9 , 1 6 5 , 1 6 9 , 1 7 0 ,
H uddleston, R. and P u llu m , G . 806, 9 9 5 ,10 14 118 2321115, 444, 4 5 8 ,4 7 2 , 491. 4 9 4 . 511. 514. 519,
hut (C h in ese) 674, 675, 676, 677, 682, 690 521, 528, 532n28, 757, 7 6 0 ,7 6 1 , 775, 7 8 9 ,7 9 5 ,
H un dt, M . 817L 809, see also g n o m ic Im perfective aspect;
H undt, M ., and Sm ith, N . 290 Im perfective Past tense; Perfective and
1 Iungarian 1 2 9 . 139, 9 6 0 , 965, 966, 978n3 Im perfective aspect; Perfective/Im perfective
H upa 547 opposition
H yam s, N . 461 definitions o f 1 6 3 , 1 6 4 , 17 7 m 6 , 670, 681, 757, 785,
1 Iym an , L. 548 7 9 0 , 795, ‘ 033
H ym an , L. and M agaji, D. 838 e m ergen ce in creoles 4 4 4 - 4 4 7
H ym es, D. 556 expresses habituality 576, 832
hypothetical 434 expression o f 171, 945
hypothetical epistem ic m ay 10 17 ^ 37 and Progressive aspect 1^2* 1Z5

Bahan dengan hak cipta

INDEX I O6 5

in Sem itic languages 14 1.5 18 . 5 19 -5 2 2 Indie languages 5 3 in i6 , 967

in Slavic languages 3 6 * 7 6 1, 7 B6 indirect (seco n d h an d ) e v i d e n t ia l 1025
im perfective fo rm s, synthetic 17 5 (free) indirect d isco u rse 612, 629. 630, 631, 635П28
Im perfective Future tense, Russian 333. ind irect e v id e n tia lly , evidentials 1 0 2 1 .1 0 2 4 , 1 0 2 6 ,
im perfective g ram -ty p e 144 10 2 9 - 10 3 1
im perfective m ark e rs from progressive m arkers individual-level 730, 828!'., 839, 86of., 8 6 4 -8 6 6 ,
868, 876
im perfective m ark in g , H indi 17 3 In d o -A r y a n languages 1 6 4 ,16 7
im perfective m o rp h o lo g y S-5» In d o -E u ro p ean languages 513, 5 19 -5 2 2 , 524, 529,
Im perfective P arad ox, the 4 6 8 - 4 7 0 ,7 2 4 , 761 7Ш* 946, £ £ 2 , 1023
Im perfective Past tense 1 2 9 , 487^ inertia w o rld s m
im perfective suffixes (Slavic languages) 725» 766 Inessive case 966
im perfective v iew p o in t tenses 282, 288t. infectum 507
Im perfective-habitual aspect 859Г inferen ce lQ3f-> lQi> 1Q7>897, 1032
Im pcrfective/Perfective op p o sitio n , the 36, inferential evidential 413. 423П21, 707, i025t., 1034,
1 6 0 - 16 4 , 2 8 8 - 2 9 0 , 405. 724 1043116
im perfectivity inferential path 588
g n o m ic дя* 829, 8 4 1-8 4 8 , 852-877, 877118 inferential Present Perfect, Sw edish 4^1
term inative 576, 5 7 6 -57 8 inferential processes 2Я1
Im perfecta tense (Spanish) 175, 758f.Tsee also infinitival clause 208, 279
Im perfect tense infinitive 461^
Im perfeito tense (Portuguese) 34 5-356 , 348. 353* Infl 202. 204, 712116
358. see also Im perfect tense inform alist approach 399
Imperfetto tense (Italian) 175, 275, 289, 758, see also Inform ation (d iscou rse m od e) 316.
Im perfect tense Inform ativeness Principle 281,
im person al passives (G e rm a n ic languages) 947 -ing (En glish) 203, 205. 468, 49s, 520
im plicature 276, 796. 902 Inglis, S. and Johnson, E. 529
implicit H A B operator £ 4 4 Ingush 1029
im plicitures 276 inherent case 961
im p ositio n 451» 452a 4531111 inherent limit 13&
in the past 243 inherently atelic verb s, telic interpretation o f 723
In Truhschachen 92 inherently perfective m icro -even ts 875
in/for test, the 176118 inherently p erm an en t stative predicates £73.
inaccompli 14 0 inherently telic verb s 768
Inari Saam i 960, 961, 965, 97Q» 9 7 9 i i i 7> initial b o u n d a r y 125
9791120, 9801120 inner aspect 962, see also actionality; A ktion sart;
inborn relative tenses 647, 653, 654, 659, 661, 663, lexical aspect; situation aspect
66 5111112-13 Innes, G . 5^7
Inceptive aspect 5-LL Innes, P. 560116
Inceptive Future tense 547 Inn es, P. Ct al. 537» S44f.
inchoative interpretations 178П27. 770 Inoue, K. 277
inchoative resultative readin g 2$$. instants 112.
inchoativity, inchoatives 15 6 ,16 3 , 733f. instrum entals 928П3
incipient gram m aticalization 392П19 intensional approach 870
inclusion, tem poral 163!’. intensional explanation 8~q. 871
increm ental relations 7 3 5 -7 4 0 intensional m o d els o f the g n o m ic operator 868f.
Increm ental T h e m e 7 3 4 ,7 3 7 - 7 4 0 , 743, 940, 955114 intensional operator 617, 630, 631, 653, 662
increm ental verb s 744 intensity, the intensive 854
increm entality 738 ,333 » 743 intentionally 893
-in da f-â n d a (A ro m a n ia n ) 405 intentions 152
Indefinite aspect (A w n gi) 546. iterative(-correlative) con stru ction s 829, 853
indefinite change 731!'. iterative operator 845
Indefinite F u t u r e tense 547, 550» 55i. interior m o n o lo g u e 86,324.
indefinite interpretation o f Present Perfect &S7 interlanguage 430* 4&1+ 4 8 2 ,4 ^ 4Я&* 4^2* 4 ^ 42?
Indefinite m o o d 546 interlingual identification 4 5 1
Indefinite Past tense ££4 internal affixes 767, 7 7 1. 7 8 2-7 8 4
Indefinite Past T h e o ry 886 internal argum en ts 940, 94 к 944, 946, 947, 951.
ind cxical (non-relative) present tense 661 964, 96s. 97Q> 97 2 , 975> 9 7 6 , 9 7 9 4 2 0
indexicals 62, 6 6 -6 9 , 238 internal perfect 991

М атеріал, захищ ений авторським правом

ю 66 INDEX

in ternal prefixe s 7 6 7 Г , 783 Ivanéev, S. 954

in ternal t e m p o r a l c o n s t i t u e n c i e s 753 Iva nov, L 4 1 6
internal v i e w 36, see also I m p e r f e c t i v e aspect Ivic, P a v le 4 2 3 n i 9
in tern ally m o tiv ated g r a m m a t i c a li z a t i o n 4 37» Iw ata, S. 9 16 , 918 , 9291117
449 ■iyor (T u r k ish ) 804
International Corpus o f English 1014П5 -Iz ( R o m a n i ) 401
Interprétan ts 2 1 4 , 227113, 229117 I zq u ie rd o , J. a n d C o l l i n s , L. 49 2, 494
Intersect c o r p u s , 10 16 112 6 I zv ors ki, R. 7 M n 2 3
inte rval s e m a n t i c s 620, 73 2, 736
in te r v a l s щ , 230^ 85^ ja ( G u i n e a B iss au K r i y o l ) 443
‘ into’ 391П6 jci ( P o r t u g u e s e ) 443
Inuktitut 539, 686 J a c k c n d o ff, R. 7 3 6 , 74of., 243, 754 » 9 >6 » 9 »8 » 9 »9 >
in varian ts , s e m a n t i c 124П 943 , 946
in verse s c o p e r e a d i n g 7 66 J a c o b s e n , W. 544. 555» 1025
invisibility 7o8f. Jäger, G . 840
I P - m o d i f i c a t i o n 253 J a h n , M . 75t'.
I r a n ia n l a n g u a g e s 5311116 J a k o b s o n , R. 28. 9 4 » 97 n i 9 > 2 1 6 - 2 1 8 , 2 2 8 n s , 2 3 o n 8 ,
I r a q w 380, 707, 7 0 8 , 7 14 1132 2 3 i n , 5» 5« 9 f-> ZZZi i M i M l » 9 6 6 , 972,
-ire ( L u w a n g a ) 542 1022,10 23,1042112
-ire ( R u h a y a ) 525 e st a b li s h m e n t o f the c o n c e p t o f asp e ct 223
-irel-ere ( G w e r e ) 3S1 shifters, t h e o r y o f 12, 147, 2 1 9 - 2 2 4 , 399
irrealis 2» М 2 . 4 28, 429, 474 f-. 498, 528^ , 538, 677, a n d the t h e o r y o f m a r k e d n e s s 2 1 2 - 2 1 5
687, 7 0 7 J a k o b s o n , R. et al. 213
irreality o f t i m e 4 J a m a i c a n C r e o l e 43 S, 44 3, M i M h 453n 9 >
Isac e n k o , Л . V. 972, 978116, 9801123 4 531110
islui (S w a h ili) 3 9 in 10 J a n d a , L. 972
Ish isa fw a 538 J a n s s e n , T. A. J. M . 581112, 80011 8
Isle d e F r a n c e C r e o l e 4 4 7 J a n z e n , T., a n d Shaffer, B. 379
Ism ajli, R e x h e p 423П19 Ja p a n e s e 2^, 27, 265t'., 4 6 1, 465, 487, 488, 49 0 , 494»
Israeli S i g n L a n g u a g e s 3 91116 , 9791110 495 » 497» 49 9112, 6 12 , 6 14 , 623, 635n27,
Israeli, A . 979 6 39 -6 4 5^ » 6 5 2 - 6 5 6 , 6 6 0 - 6 6 3 , 663114, 6651110,
Italian 165, 17 1, 175, 275» 289, 361, 4 7 0 , 483, 487I.» 6 6 s n i 3 , 6 6 6 n 2 6 , 6 6 7 n 3 i , 667n33> 6 9 2 m , 832,
491 , 5 20 , 758, 770 , 775 , 7 9 b 8 1°> 8 53> 877П2, 9 14 , 9291120
1034,1035 Jax o n to v , S. Ju. 1 3 7 - 1 3 9
Italic l a n g u a g e s 513, 524 J e n s e n , L 547
-ite ( C h i n d a l i ) 542 J e s p e r s e n , O. 22j_ 138f., 5311111, 6 6 9 , 9 5 4 , 1 0 4 2 1 1 3
iteration 813 jià n g ( C h i n e s e ) 674f.
iterative (a sp e c t o f situation) 225 Ji a n g , Z .- z. i i
iterative a c tio n 4122 4 1 9 , 4 9 0 jin grän ( C h i n e s e ) 676
iterative affix (W est G r e e n l a n d i c ) 179П30 Jingulu 32
Iterative A k t i o n s a r t 38, 7 8 9 , 8 7 7 n s )6 ( C a n t o n e s e ) 44 4
Iterative a sp ect 1 2 6 , 1 3 6 , 372, 489, 494, 789, 803 J o h a n s o n , L. 1 2 ^ 131, 399, 423112 0
ite rative(-c orrela tive) c o n s t r u c t i o n s 829, 853 J o h n s o n , B. W. a n d Fey, M . E . 4 6 1 , 725
iterative e v e n t 104, 949 J o h n s o n , M . R. 22, 528, 725
iterative im p e r fe c t i v e g e r u n d 406 J o h n s t o n e , B. &&
iterative o p e r a t o r 803, 845f. j o i n sem ila ttice 7 3 6 , 232
iterative p r o c e s s 9 47 Jo livet, R. 589, 59 0, 603, 604
iterative q u a n tifie r 2£2 J o n e s , W. an d J o n e s , P. 557
iterative re ad in g /in terp re tation 485, 495 > 597f-» J o n g e , B. de 769
6 0 2 , 727, 771, 792 , 829, 856, S57, 855), 867, § 2 1, J o s e p h , B. D. 399, 407, 422113, 436
954 Jo u rn a l o f Historical Pragmatics 293
iterative sen ten ces 858, 8 6 0 , 869, 8 7 0 , 876, 877 j o u r n a li s t i c l a n g u a g e 94, 3 1 0 - 3 1 3 , 322, 362
iterative si tuations 128, 788 J o yc e , J a m e s 86, 94
iterative(s), 223, 40 4f., 4 1 0 , 725, 803 J u d e z m o 399, 4 1 6
iterative/habitual c on t r a st 859 Ju d g e , A. 3 2 4
iterativity 156, 4 0 4 , 853, 8 5 4 - 8 6 0 , 869, 877112, Ju lien, M . i£&
8 7 7 пб, 978П6 j u n c t u r e , c o r e 378
I tk o n e n , T. 965 ju st now 24 3, 245
Iva nc hc v , Sv. 14Z jy u h ( C a n t o n e s e ) 807

М атеріал, захищ ений авторським правом

INDEX I067

-ka ( A l b a n i a n ) 4 1 4 K i k s h t 555-557
ka- (B a n t u la n g u a g e s) 381L K i k u y u i2<), 5 ! 2 i 525, 5 2 6 - 5 2 8 , 529
ka ( I b e r i a n - l e x i c o n c r e o le s) 4 4 0 , 44 6 K i l a n g i 558
ka ( R o m a n i ) 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , 446 K i l d i n S a a m i 398L
kaba (creo les) 435, 4 4 i, 442f., 4^1 K i m , H.-T. 495
K a b y l e _3Z6 K i m b a l l , G . 56 011S, 1 0 2 7
как ( R u s s i a n ) 8 0 11118 k i n d - l e v e l- p r e d i c a t e s 864
K a l a a l li s u t 156, 6 6 9 , 683, 6 8 5 - 6 8 7 , 692, 6931116, kinesis, kineseis 176116, 7 2 1 , 722
839, 846, 847, 8 5 3 , 1 0 2 5 K ip a r sk y , P. 172, i73> 1 7 5 , 1781125, 7 6 8 , 887, 965, 968,
K a l a p a l o 1 0 2 4 , 10 4 0 9791112
K a l a w L a g a w Ya 5 ^ K ip p e r , K . e t al. 105
kam ( A l b a n i a n ) 409 K i s u k u 538
kam - ( R o m a n i ) 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , 409 K i w a i 1^2
K a m b a 160 K l e i n , W. 3 0 , 5 0 П 4 , 1 2 2 , 1 5 2 , 139, M5» 1 6 2 , 1 6 3 , 164,
K a m e y a m a , M . et al. 104 1 7 7 П П Ю - 11 , 177f-n n i 6 - 17, 238, 2 4 1 , 247, 4 31,
K a m p , EL 1 1 4 , 1 2 7 , 1 6 2 , 1 6 4 , 17 7t.1 1 1 7 , 1 7 8 П 2 3 , 185, 4 8 1 , 4 8 4 , 6 7 0 , 6 8 3 , 6 9 2 m , 7 0 0 , 7 4 2 , 2 8 5 , 79 4,
7 0 2 , 7 2 6 , 735, 835 803, 881, 888, 899
K a m p , jHLi an d R e y le , U. 253, 2 6 0 , 2 6 1 , 2 7 8 , 282, K l i m a , F.. a n d B ellu g i, U. 841
288. 31s, 7 6 1, 7 6 2 , 7 6 6 , 8 9 0, 8 9 1, 895 K l i m e k , D. 874, 875
K a m p , E L an d R ohre r, C . , 735, 896 K l i m e k - J a n k o w s k a , D. 225
Kamp, an d S c h i e h l e n , M . K l i m o v , G . 252
kan (H a u s a ) 839, 843 k n o w l e d g e ю з Г , 105
kan- ( R o m a n i ) 409 -ко iss- ( K o r e a n ) 49 4L
K a n g a s n i e m i , EL 1027 K o asati 2 5 3 , 10 2 7
K a n n a d a 152 K o e h n , E. a n d K o e h n , S. 1031
K anu ni l Leke D ukagjinit 4 0 9 K o e n i g , L P- et al. 9 4 0
K a p a u 538, 837 K o e n i g , I.-P. a n d M u a n s u w a n , N . 76 6
K a p e r , W. 225 K o m 55of.
K a p la n , D. 66f. K o m i 1029
K a p l a n , M . A. .482 K o n d r a s h o v a , N . 266
K a r o l a k , S. 127 K o n e s k i , B. 4 1 8
K a r t t u n e n , L. 1032 K o n k o w 544
Karuk K o n t, K . 965
K a s h a v a P o m o 10 3 7 K o o n t z - G a r b o d e n , A . 125
Katz, G . 8 9 0, 893, 894 K o o z i m e 538
K a u p p i n e n , A . 275 Kopitar, J. 4 2 1
K a w a s h a 54 b 543 K o r e a n 494, 587, 6 6 4 111 0 , 9 14 , 928118
K a y a r d i l d 31, 382, 383, 3931124 K o r e k o r e 837
K a z a n i n a , N . a n d P h illip s, C . 463, 465, 4 6 6 , 4 7 1 K o r f , R. 1 1 4
ke ( M a c e d o n i a n ) 405 K o r o f e 539
ke/kay (East C a r i b b e r a n F r e n c h creoles) 4 4 0 K o r o w a i 5 3 8 , 539
K e a r n s , K . 7 4 if., 744, 924 K o r t m a n n , B. 5 0 1 1 8 , 133
keep (on) 812 K o s c h m i e d e r , E. 1 4 1
K e e s i n g , R. M . 44 1 K o s e s k a - T o s z e w a , V. 127
kelli ( S t a t ’im c e ts) 687, 688, 6931116 Kota 537-539
K e l lo g g , S. L L i £ £ K o u w e n b e r g , S. 4 3 6 , 4 4 7
keneng ( C h i n e s e ) 6 77 K o w a l k s k i , R. 1 1 2
K e n n e d y , C . 742, 923 K o zio l, UL 242
K e n n e d y , C . a n d L e v i n , B. 7 4 1 - 7 4 5 K r a ft, C . 842, 843
K e n n e d y , C . a n d M c N a l l y , L. 741, 923 K r a m e r , C. E . 407, 4 1 0
K e n n y , A. 7 2 2 , 7 2 4 , 7 3 3 , 7 3 5 K r a n i c h , S. 8 17
K e r s la k e , C . i6& Kratzer, А. 177П16, 279, 633П10, 646, 665П16,
K e s u k u m a 5 4 0, 541, 543, 5 4 4 , 546 692112, 7 0 3 , 7 0 9 , 7 2 6 , 740, 828, 842, 8 6 6 , 870,
K halkha M ongolian 10 2 9 ,10 3 0 915, 918 , 929 1114, 9 7 8 , 1032
K h m e r 325 K r ifk a, M . 1 6 2 , 1 6 4 , 177П9, 2 9 s , 713П 16 , 734, 735,
ki (B a n t u ) 52^ 7 3 6 , 7 3 7 - 7 4 0 , 744 , 754 , 755, 792 , 842, 865, 866,
K i b o r t , A . a n d C o r b e t t , G . G . 937 923, 925 , 9 4 1 , 942 , 946
Kiefer, F. 583П13 K r i fk a , M . et al. 830, 844, 8 6 4 - 8 6 8 , 869, 870, 878П9
K ih lstcd t, M . 4.9if. K r i o 809

М атеріал, захищ ений авторським правом

io 6 8 INDEX

K r io l 42« Larson , R. K. 914

K ripke m o d el io9f. Lascarides, A . 1 0 8 , 1 1 1 , 1 1 4 , 625
KriZkovd, LL J 2 1 Lascarid es, A. and Asher, N . 317
K r u 171 t o 24 3, 244
K r u languages 1 6 6 , 175 ‘ last night’ 557
K ru Pidgin En glish 452113 Late Egyptian 391114
K ucera, LL 12, 2 1 8 , 978117 lately 242
kue (G u aran i) 701 Latin 6^, n i , 508, 960
Kui 12 1 Perfect parad igm i72f., 176112, 408, 4 12, 507, 508,
K u m p f, L. 483, 485 5Q9 , 5M, 520, 526, 952, 220
K u m u 2^8 Latvian 139
K u n d cra, M ilan 7 8 6 -7 8 8 , 793, 797, 798 law -like generalization 8 6 2 -8 6 4 , 870^, 876
K urdish i2 £ Lawler, K «41
K u rylo w icz, L 392П20, 399, SP9> 532П27, 952, 972 layered structure o f tense/aspect 7 6 5 ,7 6 6 , 7 7 1, 772,
K u su m o to , K. 2 6 4 , 265, 266 721
Kutenai 159 lay erin g 542, 543, 545, 553. 79 2, 809
K uteva, T. 376 Lazard, G . 1 2 4 ,1 3 1
Kutsarov, L 952 le (C h in ese) i22i 39 in 6 , 673, 674, 764, 7 6 6 , 770,
K w a languages 389, 446 721
K w akiutl ^1 , 1026 le (G b e) 444!'.
kwisha (Sw ahili) 373, 375, 3&7, 3 9 in io , 39 Ш іі le (H ebrew ) 220
К х о е 376 le antrcnn (M auritian C reole) 446
le apre/antrenn (R e u n io n Creole) 446
Letranger 317« 3i8f., S98 le, le (Ew e, Likpe) 389
l(exical)-syn tax approach 943 L e D ire et le Dit 322
Li acquisition 430, 458-476» 481, 483, 520, 521!. L e G u c rn , M . 307
L2 acquisition 430, 4 5 if., 4 S 1-4 9 9 le lendem ain (French) 309
La Jalousie 328 ‘ leave’ 377
La m aladie d e la m art <^2 Leavitt, D avid 8$i &£
La M u erte de A rtem io C ru z tjo Leavitt, R. M . 1030
Labelle, M . et al. 461 Lebanese A rabic 7 i4 n 32
Lab eri, A rb e re sh dialects of 409 L e c a rm e , L 698, 699, 7 ° ° , 7 ° 3» 704, 7 0 7 ,7 0 9 ,
Labov, W. 8 8 i24, 399, too, 840 7 13 1117 ,7 14 113 0
Labov, W., and Waletzky, L 309 Leech, G . 4 8 5 , 7 2 3 , 2IZ> «17
Ladusaw , W. A. 71 Leech, G . and C oates, J. 1014116
Laffling, I 362 Leech, G . and Short, M . 322f.
L ah iri, A. 16^ Leech, G . et al. 817, 820, 821, 822. 8 24 m , 8241114
Laka, L 9791116 Lefebvre, C. 18, 432, 434, 451
Lakoff, G . 232 Lefevere, A . 3651119
Lakoff, G ., and Joh n son , M . 357 L e h m an n , C. an d M o rav csik , E. 7 12 0 3
lam bd a-operator (Л) 622 L ein on en , M. 1029
L a n d a b u ru , L 1 0 2 5 , 1026 Leisi, E. 736
L a n d m a n , E 165, 761 Leiss, E. 965, 967, 979ni4
lang (G e rm a n ) 247, 253, 2 5 6 -2 6 0 Leke 5^8
Langacker, R. 736 let 1 (Basaa) 542;
language contact 388Г., 39 8-422 L e n a t , D. 105
languages Lend, A .
e n c o d in g tense in N P s 696f. Lend, A. and Bertinetto, P. M . 775, 830, 865, 866,
n o m in al tense 6 9 6 - 7 12 867, 870, 8 78 0 10
n on -Seq u en ce-o f-T en se (n o n -S O T ) 2 7 - 2 9 , 265, Leonard , L. B. 462
612, 645, 657, 658 Leonard , L. B. and D eevy, P. 4 2 1
with rem oten ess distinctions, n u m b er o f 536 Les Faux-M onnayetirs 325^
S equ en ce-of-T en se (S O T ) 2 7 - 2 9 , 612, 6341113, L e vin , B. 734
645, 6651111, sec also sequence-of-tense(s) L evin , B. and R a p o p o rt, T. 213
tensed, as a m in o rity o f languages 29 L e vin , B. and R appaport 1 Iovav, M . 733, 734, 911,
Lapalm e, F. 104 912, 916, 919, 920, 921, 923, 9291112
Lapata, M . iq S L evin , B. and Sells, P. 9291119
I.ardil 393П24, 714П 20 L evin so n , L. 9 29n i4
L arrey a , P. and Riviere, C. 1 0 1 4 1 1 6 ,1014П8 L evin so n , S. 281, 299n4, 709, 895, 918

М атеріал, захищ ений авторським правом

INDEX I0 6 9

Lew is, D. 536, 649, 866, 915 long ago 243

lexem es, possible, typ ology o f 918 long distance 614, 6 2 9 -6 31
lexical/sem antic aspect 962 long since 243
lexical and gram m atical aspect 7 8 1-7 9 6 L on gacre, R. 84
lexical aspect 3 2 ,3 4 ,1 5 5 ,1 6 1 * 721- 74S, 753. 754, L o t m a n .L
781L, 800111, 944, 960, see also actionality; L ou isian a C reo le 439f., 443, 446
A ktion sart; situation aspect L o v in g , R. and M c K a u g h n , LL 837
and gram m atical aspect 1 2 6 . 1 3 1 , 1 4 2 - 1 4 4 , 724, L o w er and U p p er G u in ea creoles 447
767, 945 L o w er G u in e a Portuguese creoles 439, 440 , 443,
lexical aspectual classes 232i 744 446-448
lexical case 961, 962, 975 L o w e r P o k o m o 38S
lexical e v id e n t ia lly 1023, 1031 ludic tense 275, 902
lexical prefixes 973, 974 Ludlow, P. 64, 66
lexical sem anticists 926 L u d w ig, L 974, 9801126
Lexicalist approaches 916, 942, 943 L u g w e re 3#/
lexicalization 379, 735 Lujan, M . 839
lexifier languages, see E n glish ; F ren ch; Spanish; lunar o r m on th ly cycle 554
Portuguese Lmii-la 5 4 0 . 5 4 i. 542, 545, 553
Li, C . N . and T h o m p so n , S. A . 900 Luw an ga 542, 543. 5 M
Li, D. 105 Lyons, C . 7 i4 n 32
Li, P. and B o w e rm a n , M. 461 Lyons, 1. 1 1 , 127, 216 , 229116, 2321115, 741, 831, 996,
L i, P. and Shirai, Y. 464 10151113
Li, Y. 914 Lys, F. and M o m m er, K. 485
liao (C h in ese) 391116
‘lie’ 376 M -situation 990, 991, 995, 996, 9 97-999
life span 555, 558 ma (R o m an i) 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , 409
lifetim e effects 703, 705, 885 M aa 171
L ik p e 389 M aasai 159
limit 721, 726, 728, see also b o u n d a ry M ab u aig dialect (K alaw L a g a w Ya) 557
“ lim ited repetition” m ean in g 789 M aced on ian 399, 400, 403, 404, 405, 406,
Lin, i.-W. 266, 669, 671, 677, 679. 680, 681, 682, 408, 4 10, 4u f., 4M> 417^ . 4231111,
684 ,685, 689, 690, 6 9 3m l, 6 9 3 n i9 ,7 13 n s , 423n i5, 4 2 3 m s , 423n 2o, 587, 948,
763.7 7 4 9 4 9 , 967. 972
L in d qu ist, and M air, C. 3911114 m achine learning, reading, translation 105, 361
Lindstedt, J. 792, 882, 883, 884 m acro -ev e n t vs. m ic ro -ev e n t 853
linear im plication (“ lolly” ) operator m M ahapatra, B. B. 840
linguistic tense 22 M ahesh, K. et al. 105
Link, G . 736 M a h o ,] . 391113
L isk in -G asp arro , L. 494 M aien b o rn , C. 839f.
literalism 13, 270, 271 M ain gu en eau , D. 307, 313^
literary sem an tics 94 m aintenant (French) 78
L ith uan ian ^ 132, i58f., 1771114, 815, 900 Mair, C . 817
Litvinov, V. and R ad cen k o, V. 586, 587 Mair, C . and H undt, M . 817
Liu, 1I.-M . L. 675, 677 M airal, R. and G il, L 447
living present 545 mais (French) 6o2f.
lo (Papiam entu, Papia K ristang) 4 4 0 M a is que Perfeito tense (Portuguese) 359, 605
Localist H yp o th esis 741, 2 1 1 M ak aa 540
location schem a 372, 389 M ak ah 1025
L ocative case 382 m al (Portuguese) 355
lo d lt o r (loCUteiir) 322 M alagasy 3921122, 7141127
Lod ge, D. 2 4 M a la y 832
L o ew ek e, E. and May, ]. 1024 M alay alam 158
logic o f inform ation content 2iLi M alayan 443
logic(s) 1 0 4 , 1 1 1 , 113L, 292, 296 Malmkjcer, K. 361
logical form 283, 299n2 M alo u f, D avid 83
logo (Portuguese) 440 M am 1028
logophoricity 1 0 3 1 , 10 4 3 n s M am et, M . 558
I.oh m an n , ]. 406L M an am b u 960, 965, 970, 971, 98on22
“ lolly” operator 113 tnanchtnal (G e rm a n ) 244

М атеріал, захищ ений авторськи м правом

1070 INDEX

M a n d a rin zn ^ ilL i?.q. n o . ^76, j _ ^ 46i> 66q, 7 0 0 , M cT aggart, J. M . E. 4+60.

7 6 3 - 7 6 5 ,7 6 6 , 767!'., 770*775* 806, yiK i me (B u rm ese) 528
M an g ara yi 10 2 5 ,10 3 0 m e - (Sw ahili) 373I., 3 9 i n m o - n , 39 in i3
M a n ja k 453114 m e a n in g
M an k an 453114 postulates 2 8 1
M a n n , C. 441*444. varian ts 789
M a n n , T h o m as 971115 m ean in g-orien ted approaches to L2 acquisition
M a n n , W. C ., and T h o m p so n , S. A . 298. 3 o o n i2 482
M an o b o 84 ?. m ean in g s and expon en ts, correlation o f 17 0 - 17 2
M ap p in g to Events 740 m easu re o f change function 742
M ap u d u n gu n 978n3 m easu rem en t phrases 772*775* 776
M aran tz, A. 704 m easu rin g-o u t 740t., 940L, 946
M aratsos, M . 473 m édias in res, sto ry starting &&
M archese, L. 1 6 6 , 174. M eek, M . E. &a
M a rch m a n , V. A . et al. 473 M egle n o ro m an ian 3 9 9 ^ 404. 4 10 , 415, 4 16 , 417,
M arcu s, G. F. et al. 473. 42-L
M aretic, T. 4i8f. m ei (M a n d a rin ) 774
M argi 1 7 1 M eillet, A. 169
M arico p a 1035^ M eir, L 391116
m arked aspectual choices 766 M eisel, J. M . 4Ü2.
m arked ness 11*36^ 2 12 -2 2 7 , 230118, 2 3 1111110 - 11, m ekwisha- (Swahili) 374L
2 3 11 114 ,3 0 7 - 3 1 5 M elanesian creoles 442. 445
M ark o v ik , M . 405 M elan esian pidgin En glish 438. 445
M arnette, S. 32?., 3 2 4 -3 2 6 M ellet, S. 3 0 7
M arshall, C. 10 2 M ellor, D. L L s £
M artin , R. 282 M e lc u k , L A. 972
M asica, C . 421 -ttiemà- (K o ro w ai) 53Ü
M aslov, Yu. S. 216, 380. 784, 7 9 3 , 800115 m em o rial past 545
M atasovic, R. 378, 380 M e m o rial Present tense 526. 528
M ateu, J. 912, 916, 917, 928116 m em o rial time 519, 529
M athew s, P. L L & i m em o rial/n o n -m e m o rial opposition 515
M atras, Y. 398f., 4 0 1 - 4 0 4 , 423n9 m e m o r y cycle 558
M atsu m oto, Y. 914 M e n su al tense 557
M atsuo, A. 470 m en sual tim e scale 554, 557
M atsuo, A. and van d e r Feest, S. 474 “ m ere p erm ission ” in the past 1004
M atthew s, S. and Yip, V. 805, 807 m ere o lo gical an alysis o f aspectual com position
M atth ew son , L. 156, 686. 687, 688, 693111118-19 , 737f-
7 0 0 , 7 13 118 ,7 14 112 6 m ereological approaches to aspect 734, 735-740 ,
M atth ew son , L. et al. 1024 743-745
M aupassant, G u y de 760 m ereological co m p lexity 925
M a u ran e n , A. 362 m ereological n otions 162
M aurer, P. 440 m ereological property 736
M auritian C reo le 168, 439t.. 443, 445» 446 m ereological structure o f the event 945
m a x im s, G ricean 188. 3 17 m ereological sum 736
M ax im u m D isco u rse C o h e re n ce 283 m e re o lo g y 1 1 * 104
41&41* 9 9 6 ,1 0 0 9 , lo n f ., io i5 n 2 i, 1033 M erger, process o f 17 3
M azu erk ievicz, A . 127 M erkm al(haltigkeit) 213
M b o m 547, 548 M erlan , F. C . 10 2 5 ,10 3 0
M cC arth y , J. J. lüg* I79n3i mesha- (Sw ahili) 373.
M c C aw ley , J. D. 185. 202, 7 n n i 2 . 7 3 2 , 733, 882, m etaco m m u n icatio n , 274
887, 9 2 9 m l, 1040 m etalinguistic representation ±31
M c C o a rd , R. W. 139. i78n23, 24 if., 24 $* 883, 885, m etaphor 357
8 8 6 ,8 8 7 m etaphysical tense $ $
xMcCready, E. and Ogata, N . 1024 M etaphysics (A ristotle) 176116, 722
M c D e rm o tt, D. 10 4, 896 m etric tense system s see rem oten ess distinctions
M c G ilv ray , J. 50112 Metzger, R. 1029
M c G reg o r, W. 1030 M eyer, E. Y. 412.
M cI Iale, B. 635n28 M eyers-Scotto n , C . 4 0 0
M c L e n d o n , S. 1037 médiatisée 1023

Copyrighted material
INDEX I0 7 I

niello (G reek) 4 0 7 M o d e rn G reek 667П35, 724, 77.5, 726

m i (Belizean) 438 M o d e rn H ebrew 458, see also H ebrew
M ich aelis, L. 1 7 ^ 2 9 , £ £ 7 M odern Times 487
M ich igan C o r p u s o f A c a d e m ic Spoken English m odificant 360
( M I C A S E ) 44*3* 4414* 4416 M o en s, M . ю ^ , і Д 4 * і 2 7 .162, I7 7 f.n i7 ,1781123,
m icro-events, inherently perfective 875 3 4 2 -3 5 6 , 36 4 115,8 9 0 , 891
M id d le Bengali i69f., 946 M o en s, M . and Steedm an, M . 692114, 7 6 2 ,7 6 6 ,
M id d le diathesis 949 890,4143
M id d le E n glish 173,173. M oeschler, I. 317, 606114
M id d le F ren ch 2 9 o f , 296 moeten (D utch) 1 0 3 2 ,10 3 4 ,10 4 3 1 111
M i g g e , B. 434 M o h an an , T. 965, 968
might 9 8 9 , 1012 M o h lig, W. J. G . 546
M iller, P. and Low rey, B. 289 M okilese 13 4
M iller, G . A. and Jo h n so n -L a ird , P. 733 М о к р е 552
m im esis 308 M o k p w e 552
m in im al interval 732. M olen d ijk, A . 166, 7 5Q. 7 7Q
m i n i m a l part 732 M olen d ijk, A ., and d e Sw art, L L 3 0 0 n i 8
“ m in im al-p arts” problem 723 M o ltm an n , F. 1 1 4
M in im alism 377» 39 2n 2i, 7 0 0 , 7 11 m o m en tan eo u s event 727
»Minkowski space-tim e d iagram s 6 1 m o m en tan eo u s transitions 727
m irative effects 3 2 1 m o m e n tary actions 808
m irativity 00^. 1 0 2 1 . 10 3 9 - 1 0 4 2 ,10 4 3 111 3 m o m e n ta ry states 7311
M irro r Principle o f In corporation 168. 052 m on ad ic m odel for g n o m ic sentences 864 -8 6 8
-m l$ (Turkish) 413« 4 1 6 , 10 2 9 ,10 4 0 m on ad ic operators 4x1* 864, 865
M itchell, T. et al. 1115 M on golian 547, 8 3 7 . 1 0 2 9 , 1 0 3 0 , 1 0 4 if.
M ith u n , M . 544, 555 m on sters 6 6 -6 9
M ittw o ch , A. 252*260, 9 0 1. 902 M on tagu e, R. з* 17 9 112 8 ,185, 572, 581112, 615, 648,
M itu k u 554*556, 557 Z il
m ixed S O T / n o n -S O T language, H ebrew as a 645 M o n v illc-B u rsto n , M . 147
M iy a , 838 m o o d 150. 309. 6 2 9 , 1030
M iz o 7 14n27 definition o f 47, 223
M i’ k m aq (M ic m a c ) 529 futurity as a 399. 529
M lad en o v, M . 416 m a rk in g o f 1 6 0 , 1 0 2 7 ,1 0 2 8 ,1 0 3 0 ,1 0 3 7
M tyn arczyk , A. K . 50118 and m od ality 4 7 , 159, 6 7 4 , 1023
M O D - F U T (operator) 6 2 8 ,6 3 0 , 631» 632, 6351130 as a shifter 220 , 223. 3 9 9 , 1022
m o d al ad verb 1033 M o p a n M aya 7141127
m o d al au xiliary verbs 5 2 $ m oral ideals 841
m o d al con d itionals and iteratives, m erger o f 223 M O R E -ТІ IA N -O N E -D A Y -A W A Y 53&
m o d al m ean in g 992, 995, 996 m o rph ological an alysis o f form s, against 60, 6Sf.
m odal operator 185^ 198. 635n24 m o rph ological case 960. 961
m o d al presupposition 894 m o rph o lo gical categories 155
m o d al readin g 845. m o rph o lo gical causatives £ 4 5
m o d a l t a x o n o m y >004 m o rph ological expon en ts, evolution o f 170
m o d al uses 707, 785. 871 m o rp h o lo g y 60 , 68f., 1 3 1 . 15 5 -17 6 . 458, 482, 769.
m o d a l utterance 99of., 9 9 2 ,10 14 113
m o d al verbs 8 2 4 m l m o rp h o lo gy/syn tax 155
m odal/attitudinal v erb s 275. m otion 372, 377
m odalities 144. m otion/directionality tier (S o u rce -G o a l), 41511
m odality 146» 15 ^ .3 8 0 , 39in7, 709, 8 7 1 , 1 0 0 2 . 10 2 6, M ourelatos, A. P. D. яз* 1 2 7 , 1 6 2 , 177119, 58зпіз,
see also the various types o f m odality 6 9 2 114 ,7 2 2 , 7 2 3 , 222г.729, 73 4 ,7 3 6 , 73«
m o o d and 4 7 , 15a* 674» 1023 M ou s, M . 480, 552, 707, 7141132
m o d ally p e rm issiv e tense 847 M ovem en t, translation o f U 7 , зд £
m o d als as on e(/tw ol)-place predicates 992 M ovem en t Relation $125.
m odel-theoretic analysis o f aspectu al com position “ m ovem en t tow ards” 440
737 M udan^a 3 4 5 - 3 5 6 , 347, 34<^ 35o f
m odel-theoretic approaches 572, 733 M u fw en e, S. 4o6f.
m od els, head d e p e n d e n c y i05f. M u karovsk y, J. 414
M o d e r n Ben g ali 16 9 }. M uli, M . G . 160
M o d e rn En glish 224 m ulti-layered approach to aspcctuality 954

Copyrighted material
1072 INDEX

m ultifun ction ality principle 494 negation 7 7 3 - 7 7 6

m ultilingualism 388, 398, 421 negative Im perative, Russian 21&
m ultiplicative p ro ce ss 128. 852 neka (M aced o n ian ) 405
M im a 7 14 1127 N elso n , D. 965, 969. 979f.ii20
M u ran e , E. 837 N epali 968
M u san , R. 250, 251, 261, 263, 701. 702. 703. 705 Nesm rtelnost 7 8 6 -7 8 8
must 707, 893Г, 992, 9 9 6 ,1 0 1 5 1 12 1,10 16 112 6 , Nesnesitelna Ichkost byti 797
1 0 3 2 - 10 3 5 ,10 4 3 1111 9 - 10 nesting +$2.
M uzale, L L R. T. 524 n etw o rk o f Resultative C o n stru ctio n s 9291117
M vsk ok e 5 4 4 ,5 4 5 ,5 4 7 neutral possibility 10 0 0
M w otlap 132. neutralization 217L, 2 3 o n 9 ,4£i£*.793l., 8oon5
m ythic past 78, 545 never 243. 244
N evynosim aja legkost' byti)a 797
n- (K ap au ) 538 N e w m a n , P. 839, £52
N . Puebla N ahuatl 1031 n e x u s 954
na ( D is c ) 3 7 1 , 446 -ngâ (E w o n d o ) 55of.
ua (G reek) 4 0 1 N gan asan 10 3 9
na (G u in ea-B issau K riyol) 810 N gan gam ^
N a b a k 4 4 i* 551 ni (D igo) 3 7 1
N ahuatl 159, 8 3 7 , 1031 ni (Iraqw ) 380
Naigles, L. R. 467 ni- (M alagasy) 3921122
N ak h im o vsk y, Л. 362f. N ich o ls, J. 1029
nao (S o lo m o n s Island Pijin) 453П8 N icolle, S. i z f L 377,387, 39in8, 3 9 in i2 ,3 9 2 n 2 i,
N ap oli, D. J. £13. 606114
N arayan an , S. 104 N ico lo v a, R. 4 18. 419
N arration (d iscou rse relation) 2 8 4 -2 8 6 , 2 8 8 -2 9 6 , N ig e r-C o n g o lan guages i?6 n 5. 318. 521. 522, 523,
315!., .U& 32Q, 524, 528, 529, 536
n arration(s), narrative(s) 7 5 - 9 6 , 96П5, іл&* 147. N igerian C reole 438, 439
3 0 9 >3- 4 >4 72, 4 85. 4 88 1. N igerian pidgin En glish 438. 441. 443
definition o f Z5*76f., &£>. N ik o lae v a, L 1041
use o f unusual m oods/tenses for 9 0 - 9 3 , N ilsso n , N . 1 1 1
4 17 -4 21 N im b o ra n 540
narrative C loze procedure 109, ^ 7 8 - 8 2 , N ish iyam a, A., and K o e n ig, J.-P. 2 7 7 - 2 8 1, 890, 891,
narrative Im perfect(ive) 314. 895, 896
narrative Perfective C o n d itio n a l 789 n o (G b e) 444f.
narrative Present tense contrasts w ith Present “ N o E x it” &4
Perfect 3 2 a no longer 24 3*8 9 4
narrative Present/Past punctual alternation 308 n o m in al clauses 614
narrative structure 4S3. nom in al tense 6 9 6 - 7 12
narrative system n om in alization , "tensed” 706
narrative tense m ark e r 3&1 N o m in ativ e case 962
narrative tim e, ad v an ce o f N o m in ativ e -A c cu sativ e case-m ark in g 1 7 0 , 962
n arrator 77!., 79!. n o n -can o n ical case 961, 962
N a rro g , 1L 3 9 in 7 n on -clau se-b o u n d ed reflexives 629
n arro w scope m od ality 9 9 2 , 1 0 0 5 . 1 0 0 6 , 1 0 0 7 n on-clause-reflexives 614
natural cycles 554 n o n -co n firm ative, the 4 1 3 - 4 1 6 , 4 23n i8 , 4 23n 2i
natural daily cycles 5 3 9 -5 4 1, 5 4 4 . 545. n o n -co n te m p o ral d im en sio n 548
N a v a h o 528!'., 7 0 0 , io36f. n on-con tin uative interpretation o f Perfect
• ndo (< Spanish/Portuguese) 446 Progressive 763
N d o lo £ 4 1 non-epistem ic/epistem ic m od ality 10151117
N e ar Future tense 380. 525, 526, 52 8 .5 4 7 non-existent languages 663
N e ar Past tense 381. 525. 526. 545, 553 non-finite verb form s interpreted habitually
Necessity, logical operator o f 1032 8781113
N edjalkov, V. P. 42!'., 1 2 3 . 13 7 - 13 9 , 883, 884 non-lexicalist approaches 916
N edjalkov, V. P. and Jaxontov, S. Je. 178П26, 380, N o n -m e m o ria l Present tense 5 2 6 ,52Ü
883, SS4, 928113, 947, 948 N on -p ast tense 509, 5321131
N ed yalkov, L 1029 N o n -p ro g re ssiv e aspect 165, 518, 519
N eelem an , A . an d van d e K oot, LL 919, 920, n o n -p ro gressive tenses, English 51^
928П4, 92Sn6 N o n -p u n c tu a l aspect in creole prototype 428

Copyrighted material
INDEX IO 73

n o n -Sequ en ce-of-T en se (S O T ) languages 2 7 -2 9 , often 243, 244, 245, 830, 853, 859, 866
26s, 612, 64s, 6 s7, 658 often 832, 855
non-totality 943 O gihara, T. i95> 264, 278, 612, 615, 618, 621, 623,
N o o tk a (N u u ch ah n u lth) 712113 639, 642, 645, 654, 655, 663111, 663114, 664117,
N o rd e , M . 3921119 6661128, 6671131, 6 9 2m
N o rd ew in von Korber, LL 587 O jibw a 159
N ordlin ger, R. 158, 382, 702 Olawskv, W. 539, 553
N ordlin ger, R. and Sadler, L. 7 0 1 , 7 1 2 m Old C h u rch Slavonic 405, 408, 791, 824
N ordlinger, R. and Traugott, E. C . 992 O liver Twist 89
norm ally 24s O lsen, M . 104, 953
N o rth W akashan languages, en cod e tense in N P s O lsen, M . B. et al. 463, 464
697 Oltean, S. 635П28
N o rth -S lav ic languages 874 once 242
N o rth ern Ponio 1037 Ondaatje, M ichael 87
N orth ern W akashan languages 709 O N E -D A Y -A W A Y 537-539
N o rw e gian 366П23, 947 o n go in g process readin g 2^2»759, 760
not yet 243 o n go in gn ess 156, 4 7 0
N o veck , L a n d R eboul, A . 299116 on tologies 102, 113, 165, 341
novels 22, &S op (D utch) 467
N o v o Selo village 415 open scale 742
now 78, 82, 8 3 , 10 0 s, see also m aintenant ; n ow ; operator(s) 64, 65, Щ , i47f-> 1 6 4 , i8i> 14 3 , 615, 618,
‘n o w ’ 622, 676, 766, 7 6 9 , 7 7 0 , 775, 1 0 14 П 8 ,1032, see
now 64, 67, 612, 6 5 0 -6 5 2 also the in d ivid u a l operators
‘n o w ’ 453118, 616., 722 aspectual 162, 16 8 ,17 7 1.111116 -17 , 7 6 1 , 766, 775,
operator 6 4 , 6 6 , 7 8 776, 803, 867, 890
N o w a k , E. 686 C „ Z Z ° .Z Z I
N u ck olls, L B. 1024 coercion 272, 7 7 0 , 771
nuclear ju n ctu re 378I. d yad ic 4 0 , 865
N u g u n u 5^8 generic 4 0 , 730, 839, 842, 864^, 866
null tense 6 8 8 -6 9 1 g n o m ic 40, 864, 8 6 8 -8 7 1
n um erical-specifiability constraint 8^2 gram m atical 342^, 345, Ш
nunc 996 intensional 617, 630, 653, 662
de, read in g 617 linear im plication m
N u rse, D. 3 7 9 , 3 8 1 , 388t'., 3 9 1П 13 ,5 1^ , 522, 54i> 544, m o d al 18^, 198, 6351124
і 51 m o n a d ic 4 ^ 864, 865
N u rse, D. and H in n eb usch , T. Ї. 388, 522 perfect 5 2 2 * 578, i 2 2 i 890
N u rse, D. et al. ^ 1 8 , 521Г progressive 3 6 5 118 ,765, 776
N uyts, ]. 996, 9 9 8 ,1 0 0 2 ,1 0 1 4 1 1 8 ,1 0 3 3 proposition al 185
N zogi, R. K. 381 quantificational 1 3 ^ 842
su m 735
o (R o m a n ia n ) 442 tem poral 65, 195, 761
0 (Sranan) 435 tense ^ 2 6 ii 6 2 ,168, 266, 567. 5 7 0 , 581, 615,
o + sä + su bju n ctive (R o m a n ia n ) 408
Ö C o rra in , А. 801П15 theory 65, 70
O’C o n n o r, M . C. 1037 opportun ity 99 3 , 9 9 4 , 99 5» 10 0 7 ,10 16 112 5
O 'N eill, S. 545, Ї 4 2 optative (irreal con ditional) fu nction 4 1 4
O aklander, N . 52 oral sto ry p erfo rm an ce ^08
Oates, W. and Oates, L. 538, 837 order o f m o rp h e m e s i68f.
ob ject-d em o tin g con stru ction s 120 o rd e rin g relations i62f.
obligation(s) 152., 10 14 119 ,10 15 1113 orientation
O bra 3 4 5 - 3 5 6 , 347, 3 4 8 , 349, 350Г. delayed 88, 95
obstinate m a rk in g &i time 611
o b stru ctin g force i3 90 prigo 791, 795
O ccasion (discourse relation) 284, 292f. O rm a ^89
Occitan 587^ O rokaiva 843
occupation s 841 O ro m o 7141132
O cean ic languages 445 O rw ell, G e o rg e £2
Odyssey 77Г ostranenie 9 7 m 9
O dia (O riye) 840 O su m i, M . 546, 553

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1074 INDEX

Oswalt, R. L. 1037 Passé Com posé tense (French) 3 ^ 7 8 , 7 ^ 290, 318І.,

o u g h t 666П26 482, 4 83. 4 9 2. 587, 7&U 762, & І 4* 898
outer aspect 962, see also gram m atical aspect; Passé Sim ple tense (French) 7 5 *7 8 -8 5 , 29of.,
v ie w p o in t aspect 3 1 ^ 752* 7ÛÛ, 77Û, Z2 2 , ZZfb 775* 7 9 1
0 veras, L. 357 passé surcomposé , see Su rco m p o sé Past tense
o verlo ad in g 104^ passive con struction s, periphrastic 942. 947, 949.
O w ens, J. 7141132 s#a
passive conversion 8 6 1, 946
P operator 615, 894 Passive voice 9 4 7 -9 4 9
P and T m ay not be identified 5831115 passive/unaccusative participles 948
P-dom ain 5 4 8 -55 1, 553, 55$f., 559. passive/antipassive contrast 950
p-(in)definite 2 47 past 129, 482, see also Past tense, past tenses
Pacific contact E n glish es 438 epistem ic m odality 1004
P ad u ceva, E. V. 127, >8ог 7 8 1Г. (feature) 203, 24 2 * 253, 44 7 , S5Q-
P ad u ceva, E. V. and Pentus, M . 964, 979ПЮ, g ra m -ty p e 1 4 4
9791113 m ark e r from ‘be’ 4 4 7
Paesani, K. 592 m o rp h e m e 2 0 3 , 1009
P alen quero 4 3 3 * 4 4 6 , 453114 m o rph o lo gy, m odal use o f 707
Palm er, F. R. 707, 9 7 9 Ш 5»99 5 , 22Z> 9 9 «, 9 9 9 , 1 0 0 0 , vs. n on-past 12 9 .5 2 1
10 0 2, 1 0 0 3 , 1 0 0 4 , 1 0 1 2 , 10 14 11П 6 - 7 ,1014118, o p erato r (P, P A S T ) 252, 265, 616
10 15 m s , 10 15 ^ 111 12 0 - 2 2 ,10 16 11 2 4 ,1 0 16 112 6 , Perform ative 5331135
Ю16П28, ЮібПЗО, 1023, 1032, 1033, 1034. Ю35 possibility operator 676
Palm er, M . et al. 104 tim e u i L 156, jlsiL 673f-
Pam aka 4 4 4 Past A orist tense 593
pan (K rio ) 809 Past Habitual 4531110
Panini 174, 176m Past Im perfective fo rm s 4 7 0 - 4 7 2 , 532П27
Pantel, P. 105 Past Perfect tense 8 8 . 189. see also P luperfect tense
Papafragou, A . 1014112 Past Perfective m ark e r (South C o n c h u co s
Papia K ristan g 440 , 443 Q uechua) 3S5
Papiam entu 4 4 0 , 443» 446 Past Progressive tense 88f.
Papineni, K et al. 361 Past tense, past tenses 1 2 8 , 12 9, is 7, 1 6 0 , 1 7 1 , 195,
p a r contre (Fren ch ) 602 2 0 9 , 437, 460t., 507, 510, 524, 526, 52.8» 586,
Paradigm F un ction M o rp h o lo g y 173. 6 14 ,7 0 7 , see also Preterite tense; Sim ple Past
paradigm atic (invariant) m ean in g 214 tense
p arad igm s, im portation 0 ( 399 En glish 1 5 8 . 185
parakem citios 147 French 78, see also Im parfait tense; Passé
Parallel (discourse relation) 286f. Com posé tense; Passé Sim ple tense;
param etric variation in verb m o vem en t 206 su rc o m p o sé tenses
Parker, S. 697 m ark e r 372, 381. 384
parsers io5f. m ean in g of 163, 186. 208, 209
Parsons, T. 2* 1 6 2 , 177П 9,178П 23, 7 2 2 - 7 2 4 , 727, 729, m o d al uses o f 519
733, 73«, Z 6 ii7 6 6 , 890, S92, 893, 894, 20 2 in narrative 82-84
p a r t- o f relation, the 735 operator (P, P A ST ) 6i^ 65f.T7 1, 265, 567, 570, 702,
Partee, B. L L 64, £5* 1 6 2 , 1 6 4 , 179П28, 279, 572, 7^894
615, 633113, 665П16, 6 9 3П 14 ,7 131116 , 8 6 6 , 9 4 1 past-shifted interpretation 195
tenses as an alogs o f p ro n o u n s 195, 196, 207 past-u nd er-past 265, 612, 639, 640, 641, 645. 646,
participial (periphrastic) passives, Russian 948 651, 652, 6 5 7 -6 5 9 , 6 6 i, 662, 663114, 665111
participial clauses, non-finite tense predicates in past/anterior m erger 389
208 PastFut operator 568
participle(s) 1 6 7 , 173. 408 Patard, А . 274г
particles, pre-verbal 158 “ Path” 3 7 7
Partitive case 768, 965!., 979П12 path o r route, verb s e n c o d in g 940
Partitive Puzzle, the 724 paths, gram m aticalization 1 2 8 L 171. 384. 4 3 7 ,43&.
Paslawska, A . 164 4 4 0 «. 447, 1023
Paslaw ska, A. and von Stcchow, A . 845 P A T T E R N A B L E 2Ü11
P assam aq u o d d y 1030 Patterson, 0 . 432.
passar (P ortuguese) 3 4 6 , 36 5m l Paw nee 139
Passato Prossimo tense (Italian) 483 Payne, D. L. and Payne, T. E. 554
Passato Rem oto tense (Italian) 758 Payne, D. 16 0

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INDEX 1075

P ayn e, T. lik i definition o f 163, 164, i7 7 m 6 , 670, 756. 763, 78s,

p e (M au ritian C reole) 446
Peck, S. 810 as the m arked aspect in Slavic languages 216,
Peirce, C. S. 3 * 12 4 . 2i4 f., 27.7f.n3. 229115 7S6
Penfield, W. and R oberts, L. ^08 m ark e r/m ark in g 3 7 9 . 3 9 1116 ,944
Penn Wall Street Jo u rn al T reebank 105. 108 m ean in g o f 681, 963
Penner, Z. et al. 467 as “ Perform ative” 5 13 - 5 19
perceptional d e ix is ?.iq . 222. 2311112 in Sem itic languages 14 0 ,518.
perdurative, the 72.5 perfective fo rm s 129, »41. 167, 510, 95?.
Pereltsvaig, A . 965, £ ^ 9 7 0 * 9 7 2 * 9 7 4 , 9 7 4 * 4 ^ perfective g ram -ty p e 1 4 4
9791119, 979n 20, 98on2i perfective N on -p ast tense, future reference of 758
Pcrel’muter, M . 952 perfective operator 760
P e r f (feature) 203, 2si, s z a Perfective Past tense 157, 4 8 7 -4 8 9
P E R F operator 570, 578, 579, 581 Perfective Present tense, C zech 793
Perf-p h rase (PerfP) 2 4 1 perfective sentences 757
perfect(s) 4 2 * 1 4 4 ,1 6 6 * 1 7 1 * 173* i7 8 n 2 2 , 244*773, perfective view poin t tenses 282, 2 8 8 -2 9 0
8 8 1 - 9 0 4 , 10 11, see also Perfect A sp ect; Perfect perfective-iterative reading, 839, 860
tense; perfectivity Perfective/Im perfective opposition 129, 131. 403,
confused w ith the Perfective SQ9f-> 761 4 0 4 ,758* 760 , XZ5»Z&I* 807, 857, 8 7 4 ,a4 ^ .a7 Q
con stru ction s i<j, 173, 1781124, 186, 881, 947 Perfective/R etrospective distinction >20
d iach ron ic variation 882-885 perfectivity 130, i39f., 405, 767^, 8->£* sec also
G re e k ‘ have’ 4 11* 803 Perfective aspect
m eaning(s) 882, 883, 8 9 8 -9 0 0 m ark ers 767, see also Perfective aspect, m arker/
operator 4 70 , 578, 579, 890 m a rk in g
o f persistent situation 166. 883, 903 and telicity 7 6 8 , 774
as “ phase” 5 in i4 p erfectivizin g affixes, Slavic i79n 30 , 404. 573, 578,
p ragm atics o f 8 9 4 -S 9 9 973, 974, 976, 9 8 0 111123-2 4 , 9801126
o f recent past 1 6 6 ,24^*883, 8 8 7 ,1040 perfect um 507
o f result 166. 245, 883, 890, 902 Perfeito tense (Portuguese) 348
resultative 9 0 0 - 9 0 2 Perfekt tense 290, 202. 3 0 in 2 1
fro m resultative con stru ction s 437, &&4- P erform an ce/A ctivity distinction, 724
sem antics o f the 8 85-89 4 p e rfo rm an ce s 735
sentences 2 4 5 -2 4 7 , 893 “ Perform ative” aspect 5 13 -5 2 2 , 52+L.5 2 7 , 528» 5321121
state 2 8 0 .2 8 1* 288. 8 9 0 -8 9 4 , 890, 893, 894, Perform ative Future, Past tenses 524
p erform ative verbs 160, s-LZ
tem poral representations o f the 8 8 8 -8 9 0 p erform ative(s) 514. s»6. 518, 5 19 -5 2 2 , 5 3 2 ^ 5
w hether a tense o r aspect 885-888 p eriphrastic con stru ction s 24 *14s* 1 5 7 , 1 6 4 , 1 6 7 , 1 70.
Perfect aspect 128, 1 3 2 . 1 5 7 , 1 6 0 , 1 6 6 , 1 7 1 . 443. 447, 173, 186, 759, 9 4 2 , 947, 9 4 9 f-
762, 8 8 1-9 0 4 , see also A n terio r m ark ers Perkins, M . R. 103S
definition o f 163, I78n23 perm anent stativc predicates 868
e m ergen ce in creoles 4 4 1 - 4 4 4 perm anent stative p rop erty 861
expression/m arkers o f 16 5 -16 8 , 37?.. 380, 442 p erm an sive m e a n in g 884
Progressive aspect and 7 6 0 - 7 6 3 P erm ission 4193*££4* 9 9 5 ,1 0 0 3 - 1 0 0 6 ,1 0 0 7 , io i4 n 9
as relative tense 163 persistive, the £25.
Perfect tense(s) 25, 4?-, 8 1 , 1 4 6 , 1781125, -•■90, 415!., p ersonal exp erien ce 553.
5 1 9 , 446* 881-904» see also Present Perfect perspective 3 2 1- 3 2 9 , 362
tense perspectival operator 65
perfect/n o n -perfect distinction, the 7 6 1 Pesetsky, D. and Torrego, E. 679, 7 0 0 , 706
Perfective and Im perfective aspects 1 2 6 , 1 2 9 , 418« Petersen, J.
5 1 9 , 424, £24*^26^527, 5321128, 773, 803, 815, P etru xin a, E. V. 7 8 9 .7 9 8 , 800115
963 Peyraube, A. 391116
Perfective A orist tense, Bulgarian 1^4 Pfau, R., and Steinbach, M . 379
Perfective aspect 1 2 6 . 1 2 8 . 12Q, 131, i39f., i^Zi pliasal aspect 1 2 6 , 1 4 7
169, 170. 171. 511. 514. sis, 5 18. 5321128, 682, phase(s) ^ 137, 220*703
775. 795, 798. see also Perfective and Phasic theories 1 6 2 , 1 7 7 ^ 1 7 , i78n23
Im perfective aspects; perfective form s; p honetic/phonological reduction 169, 375, 379.
Perfec ti ve/I m p erfec t i ve o pp 0 si tion 387f., 437, see also erosion, phonetic
default past tense read in g in tenseless system s Piaget, J. 112 * 4 6 3 , 473.
684 Pianesi, F. 71» 1 1 4

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1076 INDEX

Pickbo u rn , J. 24S Post, M . W. 375f.

Pidgin E n glish 4 4 $ P O S T operator 570
p id gin s an d creoles, n u m b er o f k n o w n 4 47 Post-hod iern al Future tense 543
Pijin 438. 445 p ost-phase 320, 888
P in ar Saygin, A. 357. post-state o f a situation 901
Piiion, C. 114. 5831113, 741 posteriority 163.
P iron , P. ££Z Postill a, J. M . 444
“ Pisgah” 9Л Potapova, N . 531117, 531119
Pitkin, 1 L 10 2 5 ,10 3 7 Potawatom i 712113
P itm an , D. $$4. potential(s) 4jq* 8 6 0 -8 6 3 , 869
Pitta Pitta 714П 20 for chan ge 729, 927
plain process 12& con text-chan gc 270
plain stative read in g 757 (m ean in g variant)
PLANNER 111 sentences 871
p lan n in g p ro gram s 1 1 2 - 1 1 4 the 523. 869, 8 7 і , £ т £ * 8 7 7 п 8
plans 159. potential actualization 1 0 0 0 - 1 0 0 2 , i o o 6 f „ 10 14 1110
Plato 507 potential barrier (feature) 993І., 1014П 10
Platzac k, C. 726 potential fram e o f reference £
P l u n g j a n , V. А. Potential m o d e $23.
P lu p e r fe c t tense 8 2 ^ 1 46, 2S7> 362, 366 112 5, 4 1 0 , potential situations 147
4 12 , 4-L4-» 41 S, SOQ, 586, 587, 5 9 4 » 607 1116 , sec potentialitie(s) 218. 843f., S53
also M ais que Perfeito tense; Past Perfect Potter, S. 817
tense; Plus-que-Parfait tense p o u r (French) 439
p l u r a c t i o n a l q u a n tifie r ( H A B ) 2 M pourtant (French) Cm2.
p lu ra ct io n a lit y 8 52-8 7 7 , 8 7 7 11115 - 6 Poutsm a, L L 737, 991
plu ra lity a n d d u r a t i o n , rela tionship o f 854 p ragm atic en rich m en t 276, 280, 290, 292, 588. 598
P lu s P r i n c i p l e 579. 939 p ragm atic inferenc(ing) 452, 601
Plus-que-Parfait tense ( F r e n c h ) 7 6 1 p ragm atics 26 9 -2 9 8
P o e , E d g a r A ll e n S i Prague School 9 7 0 1 9 , 2 1 1 * 2 1 4
P o e p p e l, D. an d W e xle r, J. 4 6 1 Pratt, JL 104
p o etry 74* Zzl 9 4 Pratt, V. 113.
point o f v iew 3 2 1- 3 2 9 , 362 P ratt-H artm an n , L 104
Poletto, С 586, 587, 605, 606 Pre-ann ual tense 557
Polinsky, M . 9 3 8 ,946, ££2. “ pre-aspectual” features 947
Polish 140. 265, 266, 354, 4 11. 461. 465, 468, 470. P re -h eb d o m al tense 556
474.» 4 7 5.»497» ?>o. 7 9 0 .» 793» 875.»95Q> 960, 96 2 , Pre-hesternal tense
965, 972. 976, 977, 980П26, 9801129, 9811130, Pre-historic Past tense 445.
1027 P re-h od iern al tense 4 4 1,5 4 4 ,2 5 0 ,5 ^ 5 * 5 5 6 , 557
politeness 27sf., 417, &1Д- P re-Life span tense $$$
Pollak, W.iici P re-m en sual tense 557
Pollock, J.-Y. 2 0 4 - 2 0 6 , 712П6 P re -rem e m b ere d Past tense 544
P o lo m e, E. S37 pre-state o f a situation 901
p o lyph o n y 321. 325^ predicates 19 0!., 485, 828, 938, see also telic
polypredicative iterative-correlative con stru ction s predicates
853 predicational co m position $£±
Pom о 1 0 2 4 , 1037 predictions
P o m o an languages 1 0 2 5 ,1 0 3 0 ,1 0 3 7 predicative approach to tense sem an tics 19 0 - 19 4 ,
Portner, P. 1 6 5 , 1781123, 2 7 7 - 2 8 0 , 282. 2 8 8 ,3 0 0 1111,
3001113, 7 6 if., 888, 889, 894, 896, 899, 902, predicative sem antics for tense 208
1 0 2 4 , 1 0 2 6 , 1032 predictive w ill 1034 , 103 S
Portner, P. and N ish iyam a, A ., and K o e n ig, J.-P., prefixation patterns o f Russian and Czech,
contrasted 277 different 798
Portuguese 1Д2. prefixes 5 S 2 1ÎI1,7S3
E n g li s h a n d , translation b e t w e e n , 3 4 4 - 3 6 0 in Slavic languages i63f., 767, 973f.
as a lexifier la nguage 429^ , 435» 437» 439 - 443»446 . p reludic tense 275
v e r b class es in 34 2 -3 5 6 p reparato ry process 890
po ssib ility 1ЗД. P R E S operator 2s.2 , 2 6 s , S67, s z n , 6 16 , 6s3> 6 6 6 n 2 6
p o ssib le w o r l d s 198 present tim e 146. 548
s e m a n t i c s 635П28 present and past passive progressive 817

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INDEX IO77

Present Indefinite tense 5321131 Presum ptive m o o d , R om an ian 415

present m ark in g , in sports co m m en tary 160 presupposition function o f the perfect 278f.
present m o rp h e m e 203 Preterite tense 8 2 -8 4 , 22 2, 248, 308. 251, 257, 4 8 5 г
present perfect passive progressive £ 2 2 see also Past tense; Pretérito tense
Present Perfect Puzzle, the 241, 278, 6 0 1, 881 Pretérito lm pcrfecto tense (Spanish) 2 7 5, 902
present perfect sentences 894 Pretérito Perfeito Composto progressive
Present Perfect tense 23^, 24S» 252. 28of., (Portuguese) 34 5-356
290, 762, 886, 891, 896, 9 0 0 , sec also Passé Pretérito Perfeito Composto tense (Portuguese)
Com posé tense; Perfect tense; Present Perfect 350-352
tense, English; Presente perfecto tense; Prétérit о tense (Spanish) 175. 758, 772
Pretérito Perfeito Composto tense; Voltooid prcverbal particles ібя
Tegetiwoordige Tijd Price, 1 L й і
definition o f 187, .L&fl p rim a ry gram m aticalization 3 7 2 - 3 7 9 ,3 9 2 1119 , 7 1 0 ,
o f persistent situation 166^883, 903 S i 2, S22
o f recent past 1 6 6 ,2 4 1* 8 8 3 , 8 8 7 ,1040 p rim a ry language acquisition 4 5 8 -4 7 6 , 481. 4 83.
o f result, resultative 166. 245. 883, 887, 9 0 1, 902 5 2 0 . 52lf.

theories o f the 886f., see also E xten d ed Now, Prince, G . 76.

T h e o ry P r i n c i p e n s e 443. 446
Present Perfect tense, En glish 4-U-277, 280. 293, 587, P r i n c i p l e s a n d P a r a m e t e r s 916
684, 7131112, 872, 881 r 884, 896 Prior, A. 6 3 - 6 5 , 10 4, i n * 17 9 П 2 8 , 1&5* 581П2, 615,
A ustralian, 110 longer a true perfect 899 7 0 2 ,7 13 119
British 762 P r i o r i a n o p e r a t o r s 615
incom patibility with past ad verbials 2 4 if., 893 priznak 243.
uses o f the 24$. Prizren Arli R o m an i 409, 4231119
w ith (n o n -)p u n ctu al verb s $ 2 1 Probabilitive m o o d , N o v o Selo R o m an ian 4 i5f.
Present Progressive m arker 389 probability 1$$.
present relative clauses, Russian 266 Probable m o o d 546
present result 75. probably 1033
present suffix 209 Problèm es de linguistique générale
Present tense 129, 1S9, 18 s, 3 0 7 - 3 12 , 324, 372. 417, p r o c e d u r a l h y p o t h e s i s 588
522,^ 10* 5l6f., 537, 547, 6 14, 647. 662, 837. see p r o c e d u r a l i n f o r m a t i o n $1+
also H istorical Present tense; Present tense, p r o c e s s ( c s ) 12 s* 127, 134» I36f-, 14 3 . 1 4 4 , 14 5*727,
English; Présent tense; Presente tense 232, 744 , 828, 8 9 8 f.
correlates with Im perfective aspect and atelicity P ro g (feature) 203, 765, 809, fin
160, 4 6of. progressive, English 36, g i . I781II7, 17S112O, 4 & L .497,
g n o m ic 8 4 ,4 1 7 499111, £14 , 576, 753, 754, 759, 7 6 1 , 7 8 5 , 810, 818
incom patible with /or, lang 25 j(. “ interpretive” 806, &22
for instantaneous events 516!’. in L.2 acquisition 4 8 9 -4 9 1
m ean in g o f 1 6 3 , 186. ?.o8 recent changes in the 8 16 -8 2 2
narrative 83f., 307 repcatcdn ess readin g o f the 489t.
sim ultan eous readin g in com plem en t clauses o f Progressive aspect 103. 1 2 6 , 128 .157, 1 6 5 ,1 7 1 . 175.
attitude verb s 6 3 S f 444, 487. 7 6 0 , 785, 80 5-8 0 7, see also
Present tense, English 638, 833 C o n tin u o u s aspect
“deletion” o f the 647 con stru ction s, see progressive construction,
as an indexical tense 622, 647, 652, 654, 655 E n glish ; progressive con stru ction s
Présent tense (French) 483 an d con tin uous aspect, 8 0 3 -8 2 4
present tim e 158, 5 19 -5 2 2 with d y n a m ic, non-stative verbs 761, 808
reference, in C h in ese 6 7 1-6 7 3 expression o f 16 5 - 16 8
presen t-un der-future sentences 645 and habitual aspects, expression o f 16 1, 447,
p resen t-u n d er-p ast ?.6>f., 612. 622, 642, 655!'. 760 , 761
present-under-past/future 639, 642 m arked in English 3 6 ,1 6 5 .7 8 6
prescnt-under-present sentences 646 m arkers, see progressive constructions;
p resen t-w ith -an -in terven in g-fu tu re 661, 6 5 9 -6 6 1 progressive m arkers
present/non-present contrast £26. and Perfect aspect 7 6 0 - 7 6 3
Presente Perfecto tense (Spanish) 902 with stative verb s 729, 812,
Presente tense (Portuguese) 34 5-356 progressive aspectuality S03, 805
presentism 4 * 5 * 6 0 , 6 4±66j_see also tensism progressive con stru ctioil(s) 17 2 * 4 4 a
PresFut operator 568 progressive con struction s, R o m an ce periphrastic
presum ed persistence o f a situation 896 zsa

S ze rzô i jogi védelem alatt allô anyag

1078 INDEX

p ro g r e ssiv e fo r, E n g lish ü 5 q u a n d (French) 296, 605

p r o g r e s s i v e g r a m - t y p e 144 quantification and aspect, interaction o f $$$
P r o g r e s s i v e Infinitive lOllf. quantificational ad verb 867
p r o g r e s s i v e m a r k e r s 1 6 6 .3 7 2 , 376, 445 quantificational properties o f the v erb s argum en ts
pro g re ssiv e m e a n i n g 16^ and com plem en ts 939, 954
p r o g r e ssiv e p r o t o t y p e 489 quantificational tenses 6s6. 66 51116. 6671130
pro g re ssiv e states quantifier 104
progressive tenses 8 - Ц .^ 165. 286. 372 raising 196, 652
progressive(s) 3 ^ 1 6 ^ 1 7 1 , 17 3, 175, 437, 4 9 7 ,765* R aisin g C o n v en tio n 653^, £^6* 6661125, 6661128,
806, sec also progressive, English; Progressive 6671130
aspect; progressive con stru ction s; progressive quantity, expressions o f 723
tenses quantization 736, 738, 946
o perator 365П8, 76s, 776 Q uasthoff, U. M . 89
test, the 729, 964 Q uechua 2 9 ,3 8 4 -3 8 7 , діщ -4 ііь. 1024
p rogressivc/n on -progrcssive opposition 475 quelque temps après (French) 599
projection o f tense in tenseless languages quelques/plusieurs fo is (French) 855
q u ery system s 104
proliferation o f fram e w o rk s and te rm in o lo gy q u estio n -an sw e rin g 103
9 4 3 -9 4 5 ‘q u ick ly’, quickly 921, 9811130
PRO N ’ ( p r o n o m i n a l a g r e e m e n t m a r k e r ) Quileute
840 Q uine, W. v. O. 3* 649, 7 3 6 , 9 4 l
p r o n o m i n a l tenses ( P A S T , P R E S ) £ ^ . 6 6 7 1 1 3 0 Q uirk, R. et al. 9 9 5 ,1 0 0 0 ,1 0 0 3 ,1 0 1 6 1 1 2 9 ,1 0 1 7 1 1 3 7
p r o n o m i n a l s , t e n s es m o d e l e d as 179П28 q u irk y case 961, 962
pron ou n s 77, 104- quotatives 1 0 2 5 ,1 0 2 6 ,1 0 2 8 ,1 0 3 2
p r o p e l li n g force Q u ran ic A rab ic, as a tenseless language 671
p r o p e n sit y r e a d i n g 41» 841
p r o p o sit io n o p e r a t o r s , tenses a s j ü î . R see reference point (R)
p r o p o s i t i o n a l attitude v e r b s 652 R-state 892
P r o p r i e ti v e c ase 382 Rabatel, A. 323
Prospective aspect 1 6 3 , 16 s, 440 , 511. siq , S2i. 886, R abinow itz, P. J. 9 6 m l
900f. R ad ford , A. 464
P rospective Future tense, creole 439 R adical C on stru ction G r a m m a r 4143
prosse:mâittei khrônon 507 rah (H indi)
P roto-B an tu *-ilc: щ R am a 1 3 0 , 139.
P ro to -In d o -E u ro p e an 514. 5321127 R am c h an d , G . 114, 741, 765, 767, 916, 929П16, 941,
prototypical association 496f. 942, 9 -43 ? 9 3 b 932, 9 5 -b 9 ^3 , 96 5. 9 7b 9 75
prototypical event representation 463 R ap o p o rt, T. 916, 918, 920
protracted event 72Z R a p p ap o rt I Iovav, M . 741, 743f.
Proust, M arcel 324 R ap p ap o rt H ovav, M . and L e vin , B. 909, 912, 913,
Provençal 587t'. 918, 9 20, 921, 922, 923, 927
proxim al C u rren t T im e Unit 544 rarement (French) 855, 856
proxim ality 31, 82, 83, 4 7 5, 543» 5 4 4 , 550 raritive, the 853
proxim ate future m arker raritive ad verbs 867
proxim ative, the 377 Rathert, M . 237f., 242, 245. 253t., 256t., 261
pseudo-resultatives 929П14 re-fri- (R o m a n c e languages) 853
pu (M au ritian C reole) 439 realis/irrealis distinction 475, 528Г., see also
p uis (French) ,3iq, 898 irrealis
puisque (French) 602 reanalysis 3^5*436^, 4 3 7 ,4 41
P u lm an , S. 104 recalibration strategy £2.
punctual o ccu rren ces sec telicity Recanati, F. 291, 299112, 3011123
p u n ctu al transitions 727 recent d isco v e ry 899
punctual/durative opposition 949 recent Past, in G e rm a n 587
pun ctuality i26f.. 485. 949 Recent Past m ark e r 378. 553
purely p erfectivizin g prefixes 973, 9801123 recent-rem ote past d istinction, neutralization o f
p u rp o siv e , the 434 №
Pustejovsky, J. lihU 1 4 , 7 2 4 , 733, 769, 916, 917, 918, recently 242, 243
919» 4*41 récit historique S o
Pustejovsky, J. et al. 107 R eco gn izin g Text F.ntailment 109
P ylyshyn, Z. 712 recruitm en t o f m orph osyn tactic resources 172!'.

Bahan dengan hak cipta

INDEX 1079

recurrence, potential 808 R em ote Past Tense 2 ^ S2A S4-WM l» S4 %

recurrent con n ectionist n etw o rk 464, 476П2 $$!*■$$$+$$$* 557
recursive application o f aspectual operators 766 R em ote tense 559
R e d d e n , J. R. 5 4 1.5 4 6 . 550 rem oteness
reduction o f re d u n d an cy 4 0 7 concept o f 54 7-550
reduplication in d icatin g genericity 837 degrees o f 160, 388. 536. 546. 547, 55 Q. 1038
reduplicative m o rp h e m e s 853 “d issociated” 5 4 6 ,449
reduplicativity 39* 853 d istinctions 160. 536-559
reference point(s) (R) lit'., 50114 , io 6 f., 1 4 5 , 1771111, d istinctions, cpistem ic value o f 546f.
1771116, 186, 190, 588, 6 11, 692111, S00117, 891 distinctions, n u m b er o f languages exhibiting
m o vem en t o f the 288. 315
need for two 26* system o f 160. i76n5
reference tim e, m ovem en t o f 288 system s §46* £47.
referential approach to tense 703 system s, natural cyclic d ivisio n s in 537-544
referential ap p roach es to tense sem antics R e m o v e d from I.iving Present tense 545
19 4 -19 7 R en, F. £7 4
referential versus quantilicational approaches to R endille 161, 7 10
tense th eory 702 R en o u , L. 167, 169. i78n25
référentiel see vantage point replica gram m aticalization 4 41
regim entation £ul R eport (discourse m o d e) ,316.
register 306 reported/inferential 4 13.
R eichen bach, 1 0 3 , 1 6 2 , 17 7 1110 ,17 7 1111, reportedly 1031
177П16, 198, 20 0, 2&iL US* 31ÀL ІІШЛ.532ПЗЗ, res 649, 6 5 0 -6 5 2 , 655, 6 6 iT662
582114, >88, 6 0 6 1 1 1 1 4 - 5 ,670, 6 9 2 111 ,7 6 1 , 762, -m o vem en t 623, 6671130
785, 800117, 889, 891, 898 residue, the 9 9 0 *9 9 1, 996, 998f., 1014116
analysis o f com plex tenses 6 3 , 1&4 restrictedness 222f., 229n5
critique o f his th e o ry i£ ii restrictions on zero-binders 647, 652
extension o f the system 581П2 restructuring, principle o f principle o f 438
notation 278 Result (d iscou rse relation) 286, 3 o o n i s , .uiL m i
problem s for the th eory 2 4 - 2 6 , 1 8 7 - 1 8 9 result-from -a-rcsu lt 595-598
011 reference time 6 11 result(ant) state 144, 145, 278, 35of., 887, 890, 891,
th eory not com position al i88f.,4 & i 89z.901.927
theory o f tense 12 - 185-187, 1 9 0 result phrase(s) (X P ) 9o8f., 912, 913. 9i6f.
R eichen bach, R. 288f., 508 adjunct sp ecifyin g the result state 918, 920, 923,
R ein hart, Т. 48ч, 621, 662, 733 926, 927, 9 29n i3, 9 29n 2i
Reissler, M . ^99 resultative affixes 763, 976
reiteration 854, 855. 859f., 869, 873. 876 resultative attribute 908
relational approach Resultative C o n ju n c tio n Rule 918
to aspect 1781117 resultative con stru ction s 4 2 - 4 4 , 1 3 7 - 1 3 9 , 252»
to g n o m ic sentences 8 6 4 -8 6 8 I78n26, 293. 4 12, 437, 725. 883!., 9 0 0 . 9 0 8 -9 28 ,
Relational A spect theories 162 929ni7,0 4 ^ 9 4 7
relative clause(s) 1 9 6 ,-164*638, 639, 641, 643, 645, as derived transitive V s 917, 942, 954
652, 653, 654, 655, 661, 664ПЮ, 666П26, developm ent into perfect tenses 293. 884
666П 28,667П 30 stron g and w eak 902, 914
relative distance 14& types o f 9 0 9 - 9 1 4 . 947
relative Future tense 19 0 , 623t’. resultative interpretation o f p eriphrastic passives
relative o rd e rin g 15Я
relative scope o f operators 1014118 resultative m ark ers 372.
relative tense(s) 188, ш і ь .208. 209, 4Q3. 438, resultative m e a n in g 280, 38of., 444
6 2 1-6 2 3 , 646, 6 6 5 1 1 1 3 ,1016П27 resultative readin g o f the En glish Present Perfect
relevance, search for 598 88-
R elevance T h e o ry 282, 299П3, 301П22, 317, süiL. resultative serial verb co n stru ction s 9 3on 2i
606114 resultative state, onset o f a 295^
G e n e v a School o f 27, 282 resultative verb phrases 894
Relexification I ly p o th e sis i& results o f a situation, the 901
Reliefgebungy reliefing ^ib.S2*Ü4 R etrospective aspect 510. 519. 521. 5 2 3 ^ 524. 525,
‘rem ain 377 527, S3in il
R em ote Future tense 528, 537, 541. 546, 548, 340, retrospective order 146
‘return’ 372

laterial com direitos autorais

ю8о INDEX

Retuara ^ R o s s ,]. R. 111* 992

R eu n ion C reo le 4 39f., 443, 446 Roth, G . M . 227112
R eu n io n n ais 431 R othstein, S. 583П13, 912, 918, 929П15
reversative, the 853 R otstein, C . and W inter, Y. 741
Revised A n te rio rity th eory 25of. *-rpu (South C o n c h u c o s Q uech u a) 384
R eyle, U. 114^ 1781123 *-rqu out’ (Q uechua) 38 4 -38 6
R h a e to -R o m a n ce 582 -ru (South C o n c h u c o s Q uechua) 38 4 ^ ,38 2,39 31126
rhetorical relations 2 8 2 -2 8 4 , 286. 288, 29if., R u gcirik u 546
300ni2, uSillZ R uhaya 52 4 -52 6 , 527, 5321133, 538
rhetorical stru ctu re o f d iscou rse 896 rules o f gam es 841
R hetorical Structu re T h eory 3 o o n i2 Rusakov, A . Ju. 404
Ricc, M . L. et al. 473 Russell, B. 3, 572
R ichards, B. 253, 258, 260, 262f. Russian 27, 28, 7 5 , 140, 163, 2311115, 265, 354, 380,
R ich ard son , B. 93, 965, 977 390, 39ЗП30, 399, 4 11, 458, 461, 464, 471, 4 7 2 ,
R ich ard so n , K. 9^8» 961, 966, 970, 972, 973, 975, 490, 510, 516, 531П9, 572, 581, 582П5, 612, 613,
9 7 6 , 978, 9 7811117-8, 9 7 9 m l, 98on24, 614, 622, 659, 662, 7 5 6 -7 5 8 , 764, 767f., 760 ,
980111126-29 7 6 6 ,7 6 8 , 220, U h ZZ1 >7 8 2 -7 8 6 , 7 8 8 -8 0 0 ,
Riegel, M . et al., 302, r n , i 21 8 o im 8 , 874, 9 0 0 , 9 4 » 948» 9 5 0 , 952, 953,
Riffaterre, M . 971119 9 6 0 -9 6 7 , 9 6 9 f„ 972- 977» 979П20,
right now 473 980П П 20-21, 9811130
R im ell, L. 830, 843, S45 R yan, M .-L . 26
R im m o n -K e n a n , S. 323 R yding, C. 1 6 4 , 1 6 9 , 1791131
Rispoli, M.
Ritchie, G . 104
Ritter, E. and R osen , S. T. 6 8 0 , 765, 942, 978 -s (En glish) 467
Ritter, E. and W iltschko, M . 680, 7 13 n s -s- (A n cien t G reek) 5.10
Ritz, M .-E . 2 S 0 , 3 19 - 3 2 1, 899L sen va (French) 439
Ritz, M .-E . and Engel, D. 899 S4 m o d el 109I.
*-rku ‘up’ (South C o n c h u c o s Q uechua) 384 sa (Balkan R o m an ce languages) 4 0 1 - 4 0 3
R ob b e-G rillet, A lain 328 sa (R o m a n ia n ) £15
Roberts, C . 12^, 277, 298 sa ( va ) (R eu n io n C reole) 439, 440» 446
R oberts, L and R o u sso u , A. 377, 3 9 2 n 2 i, 679 Saam aka 4 4 4 , 4 4 s
Roberts, S. JL £^0 Saam i 69, 960, 961, 965, 969. 9 7 0 , 979n 17, 9791120,
R obin s, R. UL 508 9801120
R o b iso n , R. E. 484L, 488, 495 Sadler, L. 1 2 2 , 1 2 1
R oche, M au rice 22 Sadler, L. and Spencer, A. 1791133
R o d rig u ez L ou ro, C. 902 Saepitive, the 853
R o eh rs, D. 7 14 1121 Sager, N . et al. 104
Rohrer, C. 1 6 2 , 1 6 4 , 177f.1117 Saibai dialect (K a la w L a g a w Ya) 557
R ole and Reference G r a m m a r 378, 380, 387, Saint D o m in g u e 432
39 2n i8, 39 2n 2i Sakha (Yakut) 878ni3
R o m an ce languages 2^ 21» 152i 1 6 0 , 1 6 4 , 1 6 7 , 1 7 1 , Sak od a, K. and Siegel, \. 810
17s, 380, 489, 532n30, 572, 586, 5 8 7 756, 758, Salaberry, R. 492
759, 760 , 761, 768, 26 2, 773, ZZ1>7 9 », 853, 85 salien cy 85
871, 873, 8 7 8 0 14 , 878ni7, 913, 944 Salishan languages 7 i3 m 8
R om an i 3 9 8 -4 0 0 , 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , 404, 4 08, 409, 4 10 , Salkie, R. 366n25, io i6 n 2 4
4 12, 416, 417, 4 20 , 423119, 4231119 Salliq dialect (Inuktitut) 539, 540
R o m an ian 399, 408, 4 10 , 4 12 , 415, 4 i6 , 417, 7141132 Sam oan 968
R o m ero , N . 528 San C arlo s A pach e, as a tenseless language 1036
Rom o h 85 Sanchez, L. 445
R on en , R . 76 Sandfield, K. 4 10
root infinitive 461, 467 Sands, K. 966
root m od ality 990, 992, 995^, 1014118 San d stro m , G . 882
root m o d als 1 0 1 1 . 10 14 117 Sangster, R. 212
root possibility 989, 992, 993 Sankoff, G. 441
root to epistem ic m odality, chan ge o f 380 Sanskrit 1 6 7 ,176112
R o p e r K rio l 438 San telm ann , L. M . and Ju sczyk , P. W. 468
Rosetta, M . T. 577, 58102 Santos, D. 34 2-356 , 359, 365n i3, 3 6 5 m s
Rosetti, A. et al. 408 S an u m a 539, 540, io37f.

Material com direitos autorais

INDEX 108l

Sao T om é 443, 446 Segm en ted D isco u rse representation T h eory 270t.,
Sapir, D. 837 286. 289. 2 9 1- 2 9 4 , 297^, 30 0 1112, 3 0 1П 2 3 ,41s*
Sapir, E. 7 1 2 1 1 3 ,1 0 2 5 ,1 0 2 8 625
Sapir, E. and Hoijer, L L 1036 applications to d iscou rse 3 18 - 3 2 1
Sarauw, C. 12& introduction to 2 8 2 -2 8 4
Sarcee 1026 Seiler, H. 124. 131
Sasse, H .-ï. 12 6 ,1 3 1 , 7 14 113 2 ,7 2 4 ,7 2 6 seit (G e r m a n ) 263.
Satisfaction Sch em a for Veridical Rhetorical Sekpele
Relations 283 ‘seld om ’, seldom 244, 853, 855, 8.59*866
Saussure, F. de s o q . 6 0 3 Seligm an, J. 1 1 4
Saussure, L. de 282, 2 9 ^ 3 , 3o in 2 2 , 588. Selkup 1039
6o6n4 sem antic and syntactic
/ analvscs
* o f tense,'
Saussure, L. de, and Sthioul, B. 27 4 -2 76 , 289, integration o f 2 0 6 - 2 1 0
3o o n 8 , 6 0 0 , 6o6n4 sem antic “ bin d in g” 631
savelsaelsa (M elanesian creoles) 4 45 sem antic blcaching 4 7 ^ 2 7 ^ 437, 981П30
Saw yer, K. 274 sem antic case 961
scalar approaches to telicity 744 sem antic categories 1^2
scalar change 325. sem antic concord 737.
scalar gradability/durativity correlation 927f. sem antic invariants i24f.
scalar verb s 744 sem antic m ap, conceptual 1 3 2 , 142L
scalarity j à l sem antic m etalanguage 222
scales, tim e 542- 545. 548, 553- 555» 557"559 sem antic prim itives 125
Scan d in avian languages 7 i4 n 2 i sem antic retention 387
Scar Tissue £4 sem antic theories o f time based on events 7131116
Sch ad en , G . 762 sem anticization 27s. 293, 2 96
Sch an k , R. 107, 733 sem antics 6 4 - 6 6 , 1 1 4 , 1 0 2 - 1 0 6 , 1 0 9 - 1 1 4 , 399, 898
Schaub, W. 550 sem antics/pragm atics interface 2 6 9 -2 7 3
Scheiner, J. M . 845, 847, 862. 865, 868 sem elfactive(s) ^S*4S§*499n2, 725, 828, 829, 963
sch e m as 372. 389 sem elfactivc verb 727
Sch eu rw egh s, G. 1003 sem elfactivity 978116
Schitf'rin, D. 9 7n i6 , 309 Sem itic languages n o f . , 518. 5 2 1.4 2 2
Schipporeit, L. 2 4 - Sen eca 129
Schlenker, P. 68, i qs . 612. 613, 617, 622, 630, 646, sen so ry e v i d e n t i a l 10 2 4 , 1039
662, 6671132 sentential genericity 844
Sch lieb en -L an ge, B. ^£7 sequence o f tense(s) 7of., 1 ^ 6 ,2ûû* 2 6 4 ,2 7 Î L S14*
Schm itt, C . 762 S 2 a * S S 2 * 6 4 5 , 6 6 S1111, Ш
schon im m er (G e rm a n ) 247, 248, 2Si languages 2 7 - 2 9 , £ 12 * 6 3 4 1113 ,6 4 5 * 6 6 5 1111
schon oft (G e rm a n ) 247 sequential Past tense 3 8 if.
S c h o o rlem m er, M . 5831115, 767, Q4S. 948, 950, ser/estar distinction S 3 9 -8 4 1
963 Serbian 4 16 , 423П19. 790,. -9 3 . 874
Schubert, L. K. 839 S e rb o -C ro atian 767
Schubert, L. K. an d Pelletier, F. j. 865 Sere 837
Schuchardt, H. 443 Sergot, M . 1 1 2
Schwenter, S. A. 380, a&L Série 348. 35of.
Schosler, L. 2&2 serial verb s 914
scope 264, 766, 9 9 1 , 10 14 n s series 350 t.
d iach ron ic 377^, 3921117 Serrano 1025
e xpansion ^&a* 3921121, io i4 n 8 Sexton, A. L. 379
o f the m od al m e a n in g 9 9 1-9 9 4 sha- (Swahili) 3 7 3 - 3 7 5 ,2 M * 39 11112, 3931126
relative, o f tense and aspect operators Shaer, B. 6S5, 686, 6S7, 669, 6931115
structural 380L Shakespeare, W illiam 810
Scots G aelic 171. 942. 965 Shao, C .-Z . h
Scott, G . 837 Shapiro, M . 230119
Scott, Paul &}* 837 Sharvit, Y. 612. 614, 619. 629, 639, 641, 658, 6671135
se-constructions 949. 9 50 -9 52 Sharvy, R. 735
Searle, J. ^ Shelley, M . 87Г
second language acquisition 4 8 1- 4 9 9 , see also L2 Sherpa 10 2 5 ,10 2 9
acquisition Shibatani, M . 1 0 2 4 , 1 0 2 5 , 1042П4
se co n d a ry im perfectivization 954, 974 shifted read in g 612, 623

Material com direitos autorais

1082 INDEX

shifter(s) 12. 147. 399, 1022, 1042113 situational aspect 962

m o o d as a 220. 223. 3 9 9 ,1022 situative, the 521, 523, 524, 532П29
theory o f 2 19 - 2 2 4 ska ( S a o T o m e ) 446
shifting, tem poral 82. 8 4 - 9 0 ska/sxa (A n n a b o n ese) 446
Shilluk 837 Sklar, L. &i
Sh ip ib o -K o n ib o 1039 S k rib n ik , E. 1041
Shirai, Y. 484, 48s, 487, 4 9 5 , 497 Slabakova, R. 9801124
Shirai, Y. and A n d e rse n , R. W. 4 6 1-4 6 4 S l a b a k o v a , R. a n d M o n t r u l , S. 493, 4 9 8 , 9801124
Shirai, Y. and K uron o, A. 487, 494. 495, 497 S lav ic l a n g u a g e s 1771114, 403. 4Q4> 405, 408, 410,
Shirai, Y. and M iyata, S. 465 4 12, 419, 513, 517, 5311116, 572, 581, 28 7 .726,
Shlonsky, U. 614 756, 759>761, 767. 775. 781, 784» 785, 786, 790,
Shluinsky, A. 852, 853, 860 7 9 2, 7 9 6 , 8011115, 874 -8 76 , 9 4 2 , 9 4 4 >947> 95 0 .
Short (Im )perfect(ive) 528, 5331135 952. 954, 960, 961, 962, 963, 965, 966, 970,
should/ought to + perfect infinitive 1 0 1 7 ^ 7 972~ 977>9 7 8 П7, 981П30
Shuh, R. G . 838 aspect in 130, i39f-> 16 3 ,16 4 , 212, 232П15, 572,
Sidnell, ]. 837 284» 875, 945
Siegel, J. l8> 44P> 444> 445, 451, 4 5 2, 4 53n il p e r f e c t i v i z i n g al lixes 179ПЗО, 4 Q4 >575. 578, 581,
Sierra M iw o k 159 973, 974, 976, 980П 1123-24, 9801126
Siew ierska, A . 950 pre fixe s in 767, 973 f.
signans, signatum 213 Sp ecif ic L a n g u a g e I m p a i r m e n t 4 7 1. 473
signed languages 379 S lo b in , D. L 293, 358f., 4 16 , 904
Sigurdsson, LL A. 629, 6351127 S l o v a k 1 1 0 , 794, 960, 9 6 5 ,222. 976, 977
s'il vous plait (French) 275 S l o v e n e 408, 793, 972
Silva, L 443 slucalos’ (R u s s i a n ) 289
Silverstein, M . 556 S m a l l , Ju d ith 84
Sim ple Future tense 547 sm all-clause configuration 944, 954
Sim ple Past tense 349, 761, 762, 856, S73 Sm ith, A . 17 8 112 0 ,17 8 112 1
Sim ple Past tense, En glish 20 0, 290, 292, 348, 761, Sm ith, Ali 84
900 Sm ith, C. S. 2 1.1 2 2 . l 6 ^ 164, 237> 315. 485, 490.
habitual 872f. 4 9 4 »І!І> 2 ~2>753. 75 6 f-, 261» 2^І> 7 66fr-> ZZ°>
a n d I m p e r f e c t Past t enses, con trast o f the 75. 773, 800П4, 828, 8 9 0 , 2 3 8 , 243> 245, 963.
97807
Sim ple Present tense, En glish 1 2 1 ,1 7 4 , 2 0 0 . 833 Sm ith, C. S. and E rb au gh , M . S. 669, 681, 6 8 9 ,7 0 0 ,
sim ple tense fo rm s, En glish ^15 263
Sim p so n , j. 909, 9 10 , 9 12, 913, 9291112 Sm ith, C. S. et al. 528f., 622, 6341115, 817, 836
sim ultaneity 163, Sm ith, N . 817, 8251115
sim ultan eous factive have 10 10 Sm ith, Q. 22
sim ultan eous interpretation/reading 195, 209, 286, Sm its, C . 451^
612, 620, 638, 64of., 6 4 4 -6 4 7 , 6 52 -6 5 9 , 663, Sm itterberg, E. £22
663n2, 6 6 4 m o , 6 6 5n i2, 6 6 6 n 20, 667n34, 10 10 Sm olensky, P. and D u p o u x , F . 447
o f past-u nd er-past 265, 641 Sn ell-H ornby, M . 3 5 8 - 3 6 0 ,366П22
‘sim ultan eous with’ ltjof., 207 Snyder, W. 914, 928114
Sin em bargo Juan vivia 90 so f a r 243
Since 145-147> 245. 253, 2 6 0 - 2 6 4 , 295, 322 Sochiapan C h in an tec 549!.
Sinclair, L i o q 8 social prestige 398
Sin gapore C o llo q u ial En glish 444 sociolinguistics i&
single item hypothesis 590 Soli, LL L. 264
“single su rco m p o se past tense” hypothesis 591, ^ 2 . Soli, LL L. and G ao , M . 766, 77 0 . 775
Singler, L V. 19, 43Q, 432 So h , LL L. and Kuo, L Y .-C . 263
Sin o-T ib etan languages 7 5 6 ,7 6 3 S o h n , LL 582» 837
‘sit’ 3Z 6 solar o r yearly cycle 554
situation(s) 14 5 ,14 6 , 147, 635n28, 781, 8 0 0 m , 972 solere (Italian) 877П2
aspect 753f., see also actionality; A ktion sart; So lo m o n s Island Pijin 453118
lexical aspect Som ali 31, 70 2 , 6 9 7 -6 9 9 , 7 0 1, 703, 705, 706, 708,
g lo b a l 32» 140 7 0 9 , 2 10 , 71 зпп 17—18
p erm issib ility 993, 994» 995 , 1 0 0 6 ,1 0 0 7 so m etim es’, sometimes 244, 855
possibility, general 1 0 0 6 - 1 0 0 8 S o n ,M . 928П8
types 9 3 8 - 943 sono toki (Japanese) 640
v iew o f 3 6 , 16 1, 781 Sontag, Susan 87

Material com direitos autorais

INDEX I083

so o n ’ іШ і 440 atem poral 34 5-356

Sorbian 587 change o f sec change o f state
So ren sen , H. 972 contingent 1 2 5 . 1 3 3 . 135Г
“sort-sh iftin g” operator 864 disposition al 34 5-356
sorts 723 habitual 34 5-356
SOT, see sequ en ce o f tense(s) in an interval 350L
source, gram m aticalized/lexical ^ 9 . resultant 144, 145. 278. 35of-> 887, 890, 891» 897,
South C o n c h u c o s Q uechua 3 8 4 ^ ,^ 3 7 9 0 1,9 2 7
South Slavic languages 789, 790 te m p o rary 34 5-356 , 8o6f., 883
So u th ern A th abask an languages io36f. types o f 1 0 4
souvent (French) 774, 855, 862 static-d ynam ic 938
space-tim e an alogies 734 stative, the 1 4 1 . 178П27
Spaldin g, A. E. 540 stative clauses 278
Spanish 132, 175, 275, 381, 416, 487, 4 88, 4 9 1, 402, stative perfect 245, 883, 890
497, 587, 77Q>ZZ^ 839, 840, 902, іЩ ц stative situations 133.
954 ,9 6 5 stative verb s 516, 770
as a lexifier language 42ц» 437, 439 stative vs. eventive distinction 291
sp eak in g subject (le sujct p arlan t) $12. Stative/D yn am ic distinction 7 2 8 - 7 3 0 , 947, see also
Spears, A. 4 ^ * 4 4 4 A ktion sart
Speas, M . 714 1123, 1031 statives and habituality 8 39 -8 4 1
Specific L an gu age Im pairm en t 43of., 45-u 462, 467 stativity 1221726, 8 6 k 862. 893
S p e cT P 679L stativizing device 865
speech act theory, the relationship betw een status 223, 378. 392П21. 422П4
m irativity and 1042 Staying On S9.
speech point Steadm an, J. М ., Jr. 971116
speech tim e (S) 186, 611 Steed m an , M . 1 0 3 , 1 6 2 , i j j f . m j , 178П23
Spencer, A. 172, ігд stei (I law ai’ i C reole) 4 45
Spencer, A ., and Zaretskaya, M . 914 Stein, G e rtru d e £2.
Sperber, D. 1 1 4 Stein, L L £ i
Sperber, D. and W ilson , D. 5 M S te in b ec k, J o h n 355. 358
split ergativity 170, 9 6 8 , 9791115 Stephany, U. 4 6 1,4 6 7
sports c o m m e n ta ry 160. 1012 S t e v a n o v i c , M . 418
S p rachb u n d , Balkan 3 9 8 -4 2 2 still 167, 883, 894
Sprechperspektive see enunciative perspective Stoics 1£Z
SQ A (feature) 939,041 Stoll, S. 4 61, 4 72
Squartini, M . 167, 171* 1023 Stolz, T. 442* 444
S r a n a n T o n g o 1 2 1 4 3 0 , 44-U 4 3 4 - 4 3 6 , 44-L4 4 4 » 4 4 S S to ne, M . 1 1 4
sta ( C a p e V e rd e C r e o le ) 446 stop £12.
stab ility 114 + Ш story m o d e 7 8 - 8 0
stacked m od al auxiliaries (Southern U.S.) 1014П8 story vs. d isco u rse distinction £ 0
stage o f alternation 392П19 Stowell, T. 203, 207, 2ЩЬ 634П14
stage/individual level distinction 839f. Strang, B.
stages of individuals 702!., 705 Straw son , P. 3» 723
“stage-level” and “ ind ivid u al-level” states 828 strictly d elim itin g interpretation 858
stage-level predicates 730, 829, 864 S T R IP S 1 1 1 - 1 1 3
stage-level state, relationship to and an Strom , C . 5 4 1
individual-level state 839 strong and w eak resultatives 902
stan d ’ 376 structural case q6i. 962
Stalnaker, R. 277 stru ctu re-p reservin g bin d in g relations 740
Stam m bau 111 ±8 structuralist linguistics 736
Stanzel, F. K. 83. Stum p, G. i~_3^ 1791133
stap (Bislam a) 445 Stun ova, A. 7 o o r 794. 706
Stappers, L. Stat’im cets (Lillooet) Д1* 156, 669, 6 8 6 -6 8 8 ,
start ІІ12. 6931119» 6^2» 7 0 0 , 7 0 2 , 707, 7141126, 946
starting from 14 5 - 14 7 subevents, tem poral relatio n s betw een 9 19 -9 2 3
Stassen, L. 136 s u b in te rv a l p r o p e r ty i ^ i ^ 1 6 2 , 17 8 1117 ,7 3 if.
state(s) 12SH 27» 132, 135-137, u a * 141* 141* 14^- su b je c tive d ista n c e 550
i M * 2ІIS* 347, 348, 35°f-> 72й і 7 2 8 , 732, 744, 7 #i> su b jects o f X P s 912
828, 9 6 3 ,10 11 Subject S Control £££

laterial com direitos autorais

1084 INDEX

Su bju nctive m o o d 92, 434, 6 2 9 , 1030 T 3921121, 670, 6 7 7 - 6 8 0 , 682, 700

S u b jw ik tiv II (G e rm a n ) 2 7 1 T -sen tence 6if., 72111
subordin ate clauses 2 6 4 -2 6 6 T -th eories Û2.
substrate effect 406, 4 16 , 445, 446, 452114 -ta (H ind i) 174t*.
substrate influence 436, 443 - ta (Japanese) 4 9 5 » 4 9 9 H2
substratum , role in creole creation 428f. -ta (M id d le H ind i) i £ £
succession 142 tg (creoles) 4 3 9 » 4 4 0 » 4 4 4 » 4 4 5 » 4 4 6
Successive Patient 737 to (deictic center) 6i6f.
successive phases 731 taba (L o w er G u in ea Portuguese creoles) 4 32
successor fu nction 5821110 Tabor, W., an d Traugott, E. C . 377
Suena 1 0 2 6 , 1031 T agliam onte, S. and Law ren ce, H. 872
suffixes, Slavic im pcrfectivizin g 164 T akelm a 10 2 5 ,10 2 8
Su gu ya, N . and Shirai, Y. 485, 49Q> 492, 494. 499П2 T a lmy, L. 85,377, 7 27 ,7 39 , 741, 914
suppositive, the 529 Tam azight 837
Sun, С. 391П6 Tam il 1028
S u n ,L T. 1031 T am m , A . 9 6 5 ,9 6 6
su percom posed ( supercomposé ) tenses 26, 58 6 -6 0 6 tan (creoles) 440» 446
superlexical prefixes 973 T ang, C .- C . 629
superstratum 428f., 43 9 » 447 T ang, S.-W. 678
suppositive, the 529 T ang, T.-C . 679
“stron g” vs. “ w eak ” resultatives, 914 Tangoa 445
successive phases (feature) 731 -tar (West G reen lan d ic) 1791130
Surcomposé Past tense 58 6 -6 0 6 target language 336f., 3 3 S - 3 4 4 , ^ 362, 364n2,
Hnglish 586, 606 3651119
as a H o d iern al Past tense 587, 605 target state 892, 902
Italian, ep iso d ic readings o f 605 T ariana 34, 3 9 10 15 ,10 2 5
languages with a 586!'., 589, 605!'. T arm a Q uechua ^
“ region al” ^88, 589, 590, 597, 599, 6 0 0 , 603, 605, T asm o w sk i-D e Ryck, L. 760
бобпю Tatevosov, S. 12 6 -12 8
surcomposé tenses 26, 58 6 -6 0 6 taxis 4 12
Su rin am e creoles 434, 438, 439, 4 4 1, 442, 4^3, 444, taxo n o m y o f root m o d ality 992f.
4 4 6 , 447» 4 SI tayari (Sw ahili) 374I.
su rprise 309, 413, 415, 586, 604, 606, 676, 8 9 9 ,10 4 0 Taylor, B. 6 2 0 , 722, 7 2 3 ,7 2 8 , 729, 732, 7 3 5 ,7 3 6 ,
Svantesson, L 1030 941
Sveno nius, P. 965, 970, 971, 975 te (French lexicon creoles) 433^, 438
Sw ah ili 137, 3 7 3 -3 7 6 , 3 8 7 ,388f., 39 1116 ,39 1119 , te (R o m an i), te (A lb an ian ) 4 0 1 - 4 0 3
391П13, 52 2 -5 2 4 , 525, 526, 837, 843 te (B u rm ese) 528
Sw art, II. d e 1 6 2 , 1 6 4 , 1 6 6 , 17 7 f.n 17 ,17 9 1129 , 238, -te iru (Japanese) 25, 4 9 4 » 4 9 5 » 497»499»2
2 4 4 , 245, 288, 290, ^18, З19» 775» 781, 835. te W inkel, L. A . 26, 582115
877П7, 884, 890, 898 telic events 941
Sw art, H. de, and M olen d ijk, A . 290, 7 2 4 ,7 2 6 , 729, telic eventualities as perfective 682
7 6 1, 762, 766, 769, 7 7 0 , 7 7 2 , 7 7 3 , 2 2 1 telic predicate types 162, 1 6 4 , 732
Sw ed ish 49, 354> 4 9 1> 4 9 2 , 1027 telic predicates, verbs 33» 136, 690, 7 2 3 ^ 735, 736t.,
Sw iss French 591, 592, 6 0 1, 6o2f. 73#> 740
Sw iss G e rm a n 582 telic sentences, tend to receive a past tense
Sw itchboard C o r p u s 1033 interpretation 263
sxa/ska 446 (A n n o b a n ese Creole) telic situations 24 1
Syb esm a, R. 30 , 671» 768 telic/atelic distinction 721-724» 7 3 6 ,7 4 4 , 755» 874,
syncretism , syncretization 230П9 938, 9 4 3 -9 4 5
syntactic approaches to telicity 740 telic-to-atelic shifts 723
syntactic case 962 telicity 104, I 2 6 f , 13 3 ,1 6 2 , 467, 7 3 4 ,7 3 5 , 7 38 ,7 4 0 ,
syntactic theories o f tense 19 9 -2 0 6 743, 744, 754, 767f., 923, 924, 925, 926, 927,
syntagm atic (contextual) m ean in g 214 9281110, 938, 940, 941, 942, 9 4 3 - 9 4 5 » 946, 948,
syntax 1 8 4 - 2 1 0 ,4 6 4 9 5 0 » 951» 9 5 4 » 9 6 3 » 965» 9 7 2 » 9801125
“syn tax as w ord form ation ” approach 173 vs. b o u n d e d n e ss 162, 965
sy n tax/m o rp h o lo g y 155 and perfectivity in ch ild ren s language 460I'.
synthetic perfect tense (Latin) 4 10 telos 162, 3311128, 963, 964, 973
Syriac 518 télos 176m 7, 21L
Szabolcsi, A. 7131116 T erm in ative aspect 560114

Copyrighted mate
INDEX IO 85

Tem plate A ugm en tation 918 ty p o lo g y o f 9 ^

tem poral adverbials 194» 437, 4 7 3f- and aspect, contrast in Sw ahili 522-524
tem poral clauses, classification o f 12 b ou n d 6 11- 6 3 2
tem poral con sequ en ce 28 4 -2 8 6 definition o f ^o* i6 2 f„ 185, 459. s iif., 6 7 a
tem poral constituency £z. deictic 77f., iLu. 670
tem poral con tin uity 483 as a deictic category 15 8 ,z s 2
tem poral control 1 9 2 , 1Q4, 208 and diathesis 952f.
tem poral database q u e ry languages 104 e m b ed d ed and b ou n d 2 7 - 2 9 , 618, 6 38 -6 6 3
tem poral deixis £ 4 and evid cn tiality 1039
tem poral d e p e n d e n c y account 923, 924, 927 expression o f 15 8 - 16 0
Tem poral D irectionality Isom orp h ism 655 features 203, 50 7 -5 3 0
tem poral distance (rem oteness fro m the deictic free 612, 6i6f.
anchor) 548 logic 1791128, 615
tem poral e m b e d d in g s 147 in L2 acquisition 482!.
tem poral extent 726, 727, 734 long distance sem antic b in d in g o f 6 2 6 -6 3 1
tem poral fram es o f reference 147 ludic 275. 902
tem poral generalized quantifiers 104 m ark ers 377» 378, 380, 4 0 0 - 4 0 3 , 772
tem poral inclusion i63f. m etaph o r 8 i f . , M
tem poral interpretation o f noun phrases 7 0 2 ,7 0 3 m o rph o lo gical 5 0 7 - 5 10
tem poral link between the M -situation and the narrative 77, i i u i U
residue 995 n o d e 3921121, 670, 678, 679, 6 8?.
tem poral localization 158, &»6»86o n o m in al, see n om in al tense
tem poral logic 731. 736 null, see null tense
tem poral m ean ing, e n c o d in g o f i56f. operators 49, 6n, 61. §2i 168. iqs. 266,
tem poral m ism atches 353f. 567» 57Q, 581. 7 6 1 , 765. sec also tem poral
tem poral m o d u latio n , m ark e r o f 392n22 operator(s)
tem poral on tology 102, ü i pe r fe ct see P e rfe ct t ense; pe r fe ct t en ses; Perfeito
tem poral operator(s) see tense(s), operators tense (P o r tu g u e s e ) ; Perjekt tense ( G e r m a n ) ;
tem poral order o f events 145 Present Per fect t ense
tem poral o rd e rin g predicate 1 3 7 p c r s p c c t i v a l n ature o f 60 . 61
Tem poral O rientation Prin ciple 647» 655 p h r a s e ( T P ) 670» 680, 7 0 0 , 713118
Tem poral Polarity Item s, tenses as 209 p r e lu d ic 275
tem poral precedence o f E to R 1781123 as a referential expression 19 4 - 19 7
tem poral progression 315, 320 relative 87, 670, see too relative tense(s)
tem poral properties sem an tic 5 0 7 - 5 10
tem poral quantifiers 7 9 6 -7 9 9 sem an tic theories o f 18 5 -19 8
tem poral rate m od ifiers 9 2 1 shift 612. 613, 617, 623, see also tem poral
tcm p oral reference 1 0 6 - 1 0 9 , 147» 160, i a ü shifting
tem poral relatives Ä7 as a system o f con cepts 5o8f.
tem poral sem antics 102, 1 0 2 - 1 0 6 , 1 0 9 - 1 1 4 system s 5 13 - 5 15 , 422
Tem poral S eq u en cin g Principle 2 7 8 - 2 8 0 , 292, theories of, ;z£* 19 9 -2 0 6
3 0 0 1111, 889 as variables 615, 633n3, 6651116
tem poral shifting £2» 8 4 - 9 0 T e n se -M o o d -A sp e c t system s, creole 428, 429
tem poral turbulan ce 309 tense/aspect > evidential 1036
tem po rary states 3 4 5 -3 5 6 , 8o6f., 883 tensed languages as a m in o rity o fla n g u a g e s 29
Temps et verbe 510 tenseless clauses 279
Tem pus-Gruppen £ 1 tenseless language(s) 2 9 ,1 6 0 , 266, 458. 6 6 9 -6 0 2 .
Tem pus-M etaphorik 8if., M 7 0 0 f., 713118, 763, 765.
Tenny, C 467, *79*740!'., 914*914* 9 2 6 , 4 ^ 9 3 9 , tenselessness, syntactic properties associated with
9 4 0 , 9 4 1 , 9 4 ^ 9 4 6 , 979»i9 677-680
Tenny, C. and Pustejovsky, J. 944 tensism 59 -6 9
tense(s) 2Ü, § 2 s . 7 & ± 1 7 3 .1 8 4 ,1 8 9 .1 9 4 , 202, T e o d o ro v -B alan , A. 4 i £
333» 413» 474> 5Q4 >-SIS* 612, 615, 6i7f., 629. 654, Tepeto tutla C h i n a n t e c 549^
662, 670, 7 0 4 , 765, XZ4 ter M e u l e n , A. 114, 892
alternation 85-87, 9 0 - 9 3 , i 5 > see also tem poral t e r m i n a l b o u n d a r y 127
shifting t e r m in a t io n 144
-aspect, creole, and un iversal principles te rm in ativ e , the 725
4 4 8 -4 5 2 tc r m i n a t i v e / d u r a t i v e o p p o s i t i o n 943
-aspect categories in European languages, T e r m i n a t i v e a sp e ct 939

laterial com direitos autorais

ю 86 INDEX

term inative im p erfectivity 576, 5 7 6 -5 7 8 in m o d al utterances 9 9 5 -10 0 8

term inative interpretations 577 m ythic past 7&* 545
term inativity 572, 5761'., see also bo u n d ed n ess; o f (the) situation 1771111, 785
telicity and tense 5 12 - 5 19
term in us (feature) 7^1 o f (the) utterance 1 7 7 1 1 1 1 , 7&s* 888
TERN 107. variable, distinguished 6i6f.
tern ary system s £22. T im e B a n k co rp u s inii
text 3 0 6 - 329 , 3 4 ^ 3 6 2 T im e M L language io7f.
text-type 306, 4gi Tim e-A w ay co n stru ction £i±
textual effects 3 0 7 -3 15 T I M E - F R A M E 857,860
tha (G reek) 407!'. tim e-relational approach 178П23
tha/thi ka (A n g o la r C reole) 446 tim eless possibility 10 0 0
Thai 375, 4 7 2 . 7 0 0 , 7 6 6 , 93o n 2 i T I M E X 2 10 7
The Death o f A rtem io C ruz 4m T im o te je v ic, J. 1014П2
The English Patient 87 T im u c u a 1 5 3
The Indian Clerk 85. T in rin 5 4 6 ,^ 3 .
The M erm aid 757 T iv 843
the other day 2 4 s T iw i 153.
The Pearl “ To X s D eath” co n stru ction £i±
The Solid M andala £ 4 T ob in, Y. 947
The Pearl $$$ T och arian 5311116
The Return o f the N ative today 238, 243
The Unbearable Lightness o f B ein g 797 ‘today* 547, 549, 550
The Volcano L o ver 87 T O D A Y operator 537-539
V ie Wall o f the Plague 971120 T o k Pisin 43&» 453118
The Wasted Vigil 97n20 Tolstoy, Leo 7a.
Thelin, N . 2321115, 781. 978117 Tom asello, M . 465. 943
thelo (G reek) 407 tom orrow 82.
them atic relation(s) 737, 754 ‘to m o rro w or later’ 548
thematic role theory 737>730 Tongan
then 321, 7 0 0 , 701 Tonhauser, J. 669, 7 0 0 , 713П13
theories, operator 7a topic 285. 877П7
T hep k an jan a, K. and U ehara, S. 9301121 Topic T im e 32* 5 0 114 ,17 7 1111, 207, 670, 683, 6 9 2m ,
ther- (R o m an i) 412 692, 7 85. 789. 800117, 803, 888
there 4^5. topicalization 253f., 256
there appears to be 1041 topological b o u n d a ry types 133 -135
Thierotf, R. 248, 586 T oppin g, D. 837
‘this w eek’ $$£ T orlak dialects 399
T h om as, E. 837 Torrego, E. 965
T hom as, W. 9 7 m 6 T ortora, C . 913
T h o m aso n , S. G . 4 0 0 , 421 total v ie w o f the situation 130
T h o m p so n , L. C. 372 totality £44
T h o m p so n , S. A. fis. toujours (French) 867
T horncll, C. 376 T ou rn ad re, N . 126
those days 243 Toury, G. 336, 340, 362, 364112
T hrainsson, L L 629 T ra n s-N e w G u in ea languages 176П5,
three-tense system s transfer 452, 453HI1
ti (French lexicon creoles) 438. hypothesis 1Я
ti (Twi) 445 tran sform ational gram m ar, classical th eory o f 199,
Tibetan 587,10 31 •>o?
T ib e to -B u rm a n languages 5 2 8 .1 0 2 9 , 1036, transition 125. i35f., 734
1040 transitions in an aspectual n etw o rk , constraints on
T ig re 176112 766
T im b e rlak e , A . 12 7 ,13 4 , n 6 , 158,372» 580, 803, transitivity and telicity, correlation o f 4 6 7
824n4 Translation N e tw o rk M od el, the 3 4 1- 3 5 6
time 66 ^ 22».52 9 > 557^> 560117 tran sm ission distinguished fro m diffusion
irreality o f 4 (copying) 4 0 ^
operators relating to 1 6 4 , 1 4 ^ 618 transm issional d e ix is 219, 221, 222, 223, 231П12
m em o rial 5 iq , 5 2 9 ,545.

Material com direitos autorais

INDEX IO87

Traugott, E. C . 1 6 6 1 1 6 2 , 1JS9*27Ü.29 3. 37?-. 3/6* 449- u n b ou n d ed n ess 9 6 3 , 1011

1027 un d erexten sion(s), aspectual 4 6 0 - 4 6 6 , 468
Traugott, E. С ., and D asher, R. B. 295, 372, 302niQt underspecification 253
992 underspecified tenses, d isam b igu ation o f 29if.
Traugott, E. С ., and T rou sd ale, G. ^£6. Une Vie 760
travel unergative verb s 910, 912, 916, 917, 922, 947
Travis, L. 76s, 942. 07 ft un iform analysis o f accom p lish m en ts as causatives
Treebank, Penn Wall Street Jou rn al 105, i n £ 733»734
Tregidgo, P. S. 995, 1 0 0 3 , 1 0 0 4 , 1 0 1 5 1 1 2 1 , 1017П37 U nique Path C onstraint 91^
tripartite system s 1Ы 1 universal cognitive principles 447
Trubetskoy, X . 2 i2 f.T214. 2 16T421 , ,
U niversal G r a m m a r i8f., 124, 4 4 7 4 6 4 572, 574
Trusw ell, R. 1 1 4 universal laws 841
Trobs. I L 164 un iversal path 3ftо
Tsarnarekà village 4 0 0 universal perfect 1 6 6 , 1 6 7 , 245* 883, 901
Tsuzuki, М . сщ. universal/existential am biguities with durative
tuy (St at’im cets) 7 0 0 , 7 0 1 expressions 253Г.
Tübatulabal 1 4 1 u niversals 80* 12 4 , 125, 128. 129, 157, 356f., 389, 428,
Tucano 1029 43 Z
T u can oan languages 1 0 2 4 , 1029 U niverse T im e 5i2f., 52of., 524. S26f., 529, 530.
Tucker, A. and B ry a n , M . 837 532П30, 532П32
Tu nen $$2. u n ivo cal generic operator £4 2
T u ngusic languages 1029 “ unlim ited repetition” m ean in g varian t o f the
Tunisian A rabie 392П16 Russian Im perfective 789
T u rk ic languages 29, £ 1 2 U n speakable Sentences 7 9
T urkish IS7, liÜL 1X1* 399f-, 4 0 0 - 4 0 3 , 404, 41Q> until 245.
4 1 3 - 4 1 6 , 417, 419t., 423П21, 461. 520. 701. uolo (Latin) future 408
7 14 112 1, 804, 8 2 4 1 1 2 ,1 0 2 5 , 1 0 2 9 , 1 0 3 6 , 1040, up', up 391116, 467, £ u
1041 up till now 243
'turn* 372 U p p e r G u in ea Portugue.se creoles see C ap e Verde
Tuyuca 1020, 1 0 2 1 , 1 0 2 9 , 1 0 3 4 , 1 0 ^ . 1 0 4 3 1 1 1 0 , creole; G u in ea-B issau K riyol
1043П12 U p p e r Lim it C onstraint 639, 647
Tvvi 4 45, 810 U ralic languages 1036
twice 244 usage events 442.
Two Gentlem en o f Verona 810 used to 833-835, 839, 846, 872-874 , 9 0 0 , 901
“ two su rco m p o sé past tenses” hypothesis 591 usitative con stru ction s 834, 836, 853
tw o -co m p o n en t th e o ry 766 ‘usually’, usually 24s. 830, £ 1 2
tw o-place predicate 10 0 6 u (n iversal)-read in gs 238f.
type А , В, С languages 510, 5*5—517» 5i 3 . 5Д1» 5^9 » -uva (M aced o n ian ) 404
5311118
typological change, cycle o f 371 V - V c o m p o u n d s 914
typological com p arison 812 va (A ro m a n ia n ) 408. 440
typological literature is7. 81s va (alav/va) (H aitian Creole) 4$$.
typ ology -va, -iva, -yva (Slavic languages) 164, 954
o f entities 92s v ag u e quantifiers 723
and gram m aticalization tradition, the 170. 278 vaguely localizin g interpretation 858
and universals tradition, the 170 v agu en ess-approach 2643
Va ilia nt, A . 408
U ban gian languages ^££ Valenzuela, P. 1039
U d m u rt 871 V alian, V. 4 6 3 , 473f.
Uegaki, W. 9291120 Valin, R. 31л, >19
U k rain ian 4 9 0 . s io . 960, 962, 9 6s, 966, 9 72. 975. van B e n th e m , J. 1 1 4
977 van B u re n , P. 338, 339
U p p er L im it C onstraint (U L C ) 6 5 0 -6 5 2 , 6 54 -6 5 6 , van C o e tse m , F. 4 5 0 ,4 5 1
662, 6661124 van de Vate, M . 4 2 9
th eory o f e m b ed d ed tense, the 639, 64s, van der A uw era, J. and 1 Iam m an n , A. 990
6 4 7 -6 5 6 , 6 6 of. v an der A u w era, J. and Plungian, V. A. 1033
U ltan, R. 158 ,159 , 544 van E ijk , J. 714П25
Ulysses £& van Enk, G . J. and de V ries, L. 539
unaccusative verb s qoq. 912, 9 16 , 917, 020, 021, 947 Van G e e n h o v e n , V. 1701130. 7 7 1, 8*o. 847, 853, 854

Material com direitos autorais

io88 INDEX

v an L am b algen , M . 114 visual evidcntial(s) 102 4, 1 0 2 9 , 103 1, 1035L, 1037^

van Sch o o n e v e ld , C . LL 21^, 218, 219, 2 2 0 - 2 2 4 , vite (French) 588, 599, 605
228П5, 229П5, 231П12, 272 V lach, F. 16^, 17 7 !.n 17, 244, 761, 887
Van Valin, R. D., Jr. 3 7 8 ,726, 913, 916 vo (G b e) 451
Van Valin, R. D., Jr., and LaPolla, R. L. 3 9 2 1118 ,7 3 4 , voі (R o m an ian ) 408
913, 916 voice 22i 12^ 937- 955» 945
Van Voorst, L 741 volition 159, 372
v an W ijk, N . 413 Voltooid Tegenwoordige Tijd ( V T T ) 898
Vanasco, A lberto 20 voluntative, in Old C h u rch Slavonic 40S
V anden W yn gaerd, G . 923 Von Stechow, A . 164, 612, 614, 615, 6i6f., 617, 618,
vantage point 147 621, 622, 633118, 6 3 3 m l, 646, 653, 665П16,
Varol, M .- C . 416 666П26, 713П 16, 9 16 , 917, 928П9
V arro 507, so8 von Stutterheim , C . 482, 485
Varzi, A. 114 von Stutterheim , C . an d K lein, W. 482, 485
Vast Present, the 5 19 -5 2 6 , 328, 530 von W right, G . LL 735
Vater, LL 137 V oorhoeve, L and Lichtfeld, U. M . 434
Vedic Sanskrit 1^8,167, 175, 17 6 m , 176П3 vouloir (French) 2 2 i
Veenstra, T. 428 V P -m o d ificatio n 253
Velupillai, V. 1 6 0 ,1 6 ] , 164 vsegda (R ussian) 796f.
Vendler, Z. 3 , 33, 1 0 4 , 110 , i26f., 137, Щ , 144, 162, vzdycky (C zech) 796L
i7 6 f.n n 8 -9 , 3 4 2 -3 5 6 , 364116, 484^, 575.
5831113, 620, 722, 727, 728, 73of-, 733^. 7 4 4 . 21i . W. A frica Pidgin English 442
781, 814, §74, 890, 914, 918, 9 Ц , 962, 963, 964, W. A frican C reo le 445
965, in n wa (Belizean creole) 4 1 2
V enetian 587 W agner, L. 4 6 2-4 6 7, 4 6 9 - 4 7 1, 4 7 3 -4 7 5
venir de (F rench) 378 W agner, L. and Carey, S. 467
ven(i)tive 3 7 7 380 W agner, L. and Lakusta, L. 463
verb phrase types, classification o f 965 W agner, L. et al. 462
verbal pluractionality 8^2 Waletzky, 1. 88, 94
verb -m o v e m e n t th eory o f affix-ho pp in g 2 0 4 - 2 0 6 W am baya 1 5 8 , 176П4
verb -particle construction £ n •w an (M an d arin ) 263
verbal aspect 752, 8i6> see also gram m atical aspect; W an d ru sk a, M. 363
v ie w p o in t aspect W ang, K ., and Q in , LL 352
verbal m o rp h o lo g y, in L2 acquisition 492, 496 W ang, X. 677
verbal system s, coherence o f 509^ want 146, 439
V erbN et 105 ‘w an t’ 399, 4 0 6 - 4 1 2 , 4 0 1 - 4 0 3 , 40 5 , 4 0 7 - 41 0 , 437.
verb s and their associated resultatives, ty p o lo g y o f 4 4 0 , 447
916 W appo |59
W arlpiri 960, 965, 968
V erhagen, M . et al. 107 W arvik , В. 97П19
Verhulst, A. 990, 997, ю н , 1014П7 W ashio, R. 914, 9 2 9 m 4
Verkuyl, LL 1. 1 2 7 , 1 3 7 , 1 6 2 , 17 7 119 ,5 7 7 ,2 8 0 , 582115, W asho 544.. 554? 555
582П10, 582П12, 723, 724, 725, 7 2 6 , 734, 737, Watters, L. 521
740, 754, 761, 765^, 782, 8 0 0 m , 928П10, 938, W augh, L. R. 147
941, 942, 9 4 3 - 9 4 S, 946, 952» 978118 “ w eak ” resultatives 914
V erspoor, C. M . 912, 9 2 0 , 928П6 W ebber, B. 65, io 6 f., 693П14
vertical correlation 464, 483, 484 W ebber, B. et al. 105
vertically-defined classes 4 6 5 -4 6 7 Wechsler, S. 2 1 1 . 912, 2 П , 916, 918, 923, 924, 925,
Vet, C. 127, 593. 5 9 4. S25 926, 928П6, 929П15, 929П19
V ietn am ese 371, 9 0 0 , 978П3 Wechsler, S. an d Lee, Y.-S. 9791119
view poin t 3 2 1 - 3 2 9 , 362 Wechsler, S. and N o h , B. 914
view p o in t aspect 753, 9 38 -9 4 3, 944. 954. 962, see W einreich, U. 4 0 0 , 451
also gram m atical aspect W einrich, LL 6i 7 8 -8 2 , 9 7 111113 - 14 ,14 7 , 2ІІ1
V ikner, S. 65 W eissbrod, R. 357
Vinay, J.-P., and D arbelnet, L 359, 365П21 Wcist, R. M . et al. 461, 463, 465, 469L, 474!., 484,
V in n itskaya, L and W exler, K. 469, 472 5ЗЗП38
V in ograd ov, V. V. 419 W elm ers, W. E. 518, 838, 843
visibility 708 wen (H aw ai’i, Jam aican C reo les) from went 438
Visser, F. T. 174 W eningcr, S. 518

laterial com direitos autorais

INDEX IO89

West, B. 1029 W orth, D. 229П5

West A frican languages 525 w ould 834, 839, 872-874
West G reenlantiic see Kalaallisut w u g task 473» 4 7 бпз
West Slavic languages 789, 7 9 0 W ulff, S. et al. 464, 493» 495
W esterm an n, D. 842 wun (N g an g am ) 538
W estern T arah u m ara 1032 W un d erlich , D. 733, 917, 919, 9 2 0 , 9291113
Westley, D. 550
W estm oreland, R. 10 3 3 ,10 3 4 X -b a r th eory 202f.
when 145- 147, 757 “ X ’s W ay” construction 911» 9291118
while clause 89^ 1 4 5 - 1 4 7 X a m ta n g a 7141132
while/pendant 286 x iän zäi (C h in ese) 676
W hite, M . 10 4 X iao , R. and M cE n e ry , A . 763t'., 806
W hite, Patrick 84 x iä w ü (C h in ese)
W hiteley, W. LL i4 q X N Theory, see E xten d ed N ow , Theory
W h o r f, B. L. ^6* 366n26 XP, see result phrase(s) (X P )
w i (Jam aican creole) -132 X rak o v sk ij, V. S. 852, 853, 854, 877116
W ib erg, E. 4 2 2 X u , L. 622
w id e scope m o d ality 9 9 2 , 1 0 0 4 , 10 0 s, 1 0 0 6 ,10 0 7 , X w elagbe 444
mil
W iebe, L et al. 102; *ya- (Q uechua) 38 4
W iem er, B. 1023 Yagua 16 0 , 553» 554
W ierin g, E. and W ierin g, M . ^28 yao (C h in ese) 625
W icrzbick a, A. 972 Yapese 547
W ilco x, S. 322 yarku -, yayku- (South C o n c h u c o s Q uechua)
W ilcox, S., and W ilcox, P. P. 322 384
w ill £ 2 ,1 4 6 ,1 8 6 ^ 182» 123» 4 1 2 »4Z4* 6341119, Yclc 5 3 8 ,5 1 1 , 559112
6351130, 8241111, see also w ill/w ould; W O L L yesterday 238, 24 0 , 243
future 674!., 689, 8 7 8 m l ‘yesterday* 542» 5 4 9 , 556
as habitual m ark e r 834, 822 ‘yesterday or earlier’ 548
w ill be able to 10 0 0 ,1 0 1 6 1 1 2 7 yesterday/gestern , positional 241
‘will* future (O ld C h u rch Slavonic) 408 Y id d ish 398, 587
w ill/w ould 687, 688, 693ni7, 834, see also w ill ; Y illah, S. M . and C o rc o ra n , C . 809
W O L L ; would Y im a s 136
W illett, T. 7 0 7 , 1 0 2 3 , 1 0 2 6 , 1032 yinggäi (C h in ese) 677
W illiam s, A . 914, 928112 *-yku (South C o n c h u c o s Q uechua)
W illiam s, D. C . 64, 928114 384
W ilm et, M . 313, 596, 597, 6 0 0 , 6 m Y okoyam a, O. 266
W ilson , D. 1 1 4 , 1031 Yoruba 1 2 1 , 1781124
W ilson , D., and Sperber, D. 3 12 you (M a n d a rin ) 224.
W iltschko, M . 222 Yukatec M aya 22» 1 5 6 ,1 6 0 , 669, 7 0 0
W in fo rd , D. 19^ 429, 436, 4 4 3» 4 5 i Yukulta 3931124
W in fo rd , D. an d M ig g e , B. 4 4 1 , 444, 445
W inskel, LL 4 2 - Z ag o n a , K . 2 0 6 - 2 0 8
W inter, Y. 243 zai, zäi (C h in ese, M an d arin ) 672, 764»
W intu 10 2 5 ,10 3 7 766
Wirklichkeitsaussagen &2 Z apotec 1^2
W ittgenstein, L. 3 Z e it-Phrase 207f.
W o h m an n , G abriele 22 Z eitw ort 531111
W oleaian 837 zero
W olfson, N. 6, 86, 971116 m arkers, present expressed by 12 $
W olfson, N. and C arru th e rs, ^ 971116 m o rp h o lo g y 123
W O L L ( woll) 653, 656, 659» 687, 688, 6931117 tense 646
W ood bu ry, A. 10 2 5 ,10 2 9 Z h ao , X . and Li, P. 464
W oolford , E. 961 zhe (M an d arin ) 764, 806
“ w ord form ation as sy n tax” 123 Z P (Z e it-Phrase) 2 0 7 г
W ord N et 105 Z u cch i, S. 7 2 4 ,7 2 9 ,7 4 0 , 761
World Atlas o f Language Structures 128, 824n6 Z w arts, [. 743
worlds 198, 635n28 Z w arts, L antl W inter, Y. 743

Material com direitos autorais