Abstract
Tenses in English temporal adjunct clauses seem to show properties of both matrix and embedded tenses. On the one hand, they are often argued to be interpreted with respect to the time of utterance (Stump 1985; Arregui & Kusumoto 1998; Kubota et al. 2011). On the other hand, they are more constrained than matrix tenses, claimed to be limited to past tense when the matrix tense is past, and present when the matrix tense is future. I present evidence from the English perfect that adjunct clauses are always interpreted relative to the nearest c-commanding temporal operator, which can in principle give rise to both types of behaviors: adjunct tenses are interpreted relative to some temporal operator if within the scope of matrix tense, or they are interpreted relative to the time of utterance if they are outside the scope of matrix tense. What decides between these possibilities in a given clause are syntactic and pragmatic conditions on adjunction and the resulting interaction between the presuppositions introduced by the adjunct clause and the meanings of the temporal connectives. The result is that when the matrix clause is a non-perfect, adjunct tenses are always interpreted relative to the utterance time. When the matrix clause contains a perfect, however, adjunct tenses may be interpreted relative to the matrix tense operator.
Publisher
Open Library of the Humanities
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics
Reference43 articles.
1. Correlating cessation with double access;Altshuler, DanielRoger SchwarzschildMaria AloniMichael FrankeFloris Roelofsen,2013
2. Tense in temporal adjunct clauses;Arregui, AnaKiyomi Kusumoto;Proceedings of SALT,1998
3. A uniform analysis of ‘before’ and ‘after’;Beaver, DavidCleo Condoravdi;Proceedings of SALT,2003
4. On the explanatory power of dynamic semantics;Chierchia, Gennaro;Handout from a talk at Sinn and Bedeutung 14,2009
5. Future time reference in the conditional protasis;Comrie, B;Australian Journal of Linguistics,1982
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献