From Now to Eternity [1 ed.] 9789042032682, 9789042032675

Citation preview

From now to eternity

ahiers 22 hronos

C

Collection dirigée par

Carl Vetters (Université du Littoral – Côte d’Opale)

Directeur adjoint:

Patrick Caudal (CNRS – Université Paris 7)

Comité de lecture:

Anne-Marie Berthonneau (Université de Lille 3) Andrée Borillo (Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail) Anne Carlier (Université de Valenciennes) Renaat Declerck (KULAK-Courtrai) Walter De Mulder (Université d’Anvers) Patrick Dendale (Université d’Anvers) Ilse Depraetere (KUB - Bruxelles) Dulcie Engel (University of Swansea) Laurent Gosselin (Université de Rouen) Florica Hrubara (Université Ovidius Constanta) Emmanuelle Labeau (Aston University) Véronique Lagae (Université de Valenciennes) Sylvie Mellet (CNRS - Université de Nice) Jacques Moeschler (Université de Genève) Arie Molendijk (Université de Groningue) Louis de Saussure (Université de Neuchâtel) Catherine Schnedecker (Université de Metz) Marleen Van Peteghem (Université de Lille 3) Genoveva Puskas (Université de Genève) Co Vet (Université de Groningue) Carl Vetters (Université du Littoral - Côte d’Opale) Svetlana Vogeleer (Institut Libre Marie Haps - Bruxelles) Marcel Vuillaume (Université de Nice)

Ce volume est une réalisation de l’équipe de recherche “HLLI” - EA 4030 de l’Université du Littoral - Côte d’Opale, en collaboration avec l’Université d’Anvers et subventionnée par le FWO-Vlaanderen (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek -Vlaanderen / Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique - Flandre).

From now to eternity

Edited by

Jesse Mortelmans, Tanja Mortelmans and Walter De Mulder

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2011

Cover design: Pier Post Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions de “ISO 9706:1994, Information et documentation Papier pour documents - Prescriptions pour la permanence”. The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3267-5 E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-3268-2 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2011 Printed in The Netherlands

Contents Tanja Mortelmans Walter De Mulder

Introduction

Werner Abraham Non-state imperfectives in Romance Cláudio C. e C. Gonçalvez and West-Germanic: How does Germanic render the progressive?

i-v 1-20

Maria Asnes

Aspectual symmetry between indirect locative and external arguments: the French case

21-41

Fabienne Martin

Revisiting the distinction between accomplishments and achievements

43-64

Matti Miestamo Johan van der Auwera

Negation and perfective vs. imperfective aspect

65-84

António Leal

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese

Gerhard Schaden

Introducing the present perfective puzzle

105-122

Björn Rothstein

Why the present perfect differs crosslinguistically. Some new insights

123-137

Karen Deschamps Hans Smessaert

(Non)-modal uses of the present indicative in Dutch legislation

139-156

Adeline Patard Arnaud Richard

Attenuation in French simple tenses

157-178

Patrick Caudal

Towards a novel aspectuo-temporal account of conditionals

179-209

85-103

Acknowledgments The Editors are grateful to all the colleagues who spent time helping them in the process of the selection of papers. In particular, we would like to thank those colleagues who were involved in the peer-reviewings. We also warmly thank the institutions who supported the organization of the 7th Chronos colloquium in Antwerp: the University of Antwerp and the Flemish Science Foundation (FWO). Finally, we thankfully acknowledge support from the Chronos board, and especially Carl Vetters.

Introduction Tanja MORTELMANS University of Antwerp

Walter DE MULDER University of Antwerp The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 7th Chronos colloquium in Antwerp (2006), dedicated to the study of aspect, tense, mood and modality, both from theoretical and more data-driven perspectives, in a wide variety of languages. The papers in this volume specifically focus on issues dealing with the categories of Aktionsart, aspect and tense, and the possible relations between them, mainly in Germanic and Romance languages. This is illustrated by the first paper, ‘Non-state imperfectives in Romance and West-Germanic : How does Germanic render the progressive?’. Its authors, Werner Abraham and Cláudio Gonçalvez, start from an analysis of the two morphological forms for past tenses in Romance languages (designated as PS ‘passé simple’ and IMPF ‘imparfait’), to propose a semantic definition of the progressive in Brasilian Portuguese (BP), whose primary characteristic is shown to be that event time overflows reference time. The BP progressive is then compared to the progressive in Germanic languages, which is expressed by morphological means in English, but by prepositional nominal forms in German, Dutch and Flemish. It is determined to which extent it is necessary – or unnecessary – to change the proposed definition, taking into account the role of adverbials and Aktionsart. Maria Asnes (‘Aspectual symmetry between indirect locative and external arguments : the French case’) presents an analysis of two types of locative constructions in French, viz. ditransitive and transitive ones. With the ditransive ones, the verbal predicate selects two internal arguments (an object moved by the subject and the place / goal of motion, e.g. amener, apporter, transférer) ; transitive locative predicates select a locative prepositional argument that denotes the goal or motion of the subject (e.g. aller, arriver, rentrer). As far as the aspectual properties of both types are concerned, transitive predicates are shown to be either telic or atelic, whereas ditransitive predicates are essentially telic. However, not only the verbal predicate is responsible for the aspect of the VP, but also object nouns and even prepositions can be shown to have an impact on it. The VP’s aspect is therefore the result of an interaction between the aspectual contribution of the verb and its nominal and locative arguments. The author then argues that – contrary to what is usually assumed – also internal indirect locative © Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): i-v.

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Tanja Mortelmans & Walter De Mulder

arguments and even external locative arguments are able to influence the aspectual properties of the VP, and as such play an important role in the aspectual structure of the VP. Fabienne Martin (‘Revisiting the distinction between accomplishments and achievements’) presents a fine grained typology of telic predicates, on the basis of English and French data. She thereby focuses on right achievements, i.e. achievements denoting the end of an event (e.g win the race), which are claimed to have a coerced durative correspondent. Achievements can thus be durative. At first sight, this claim makes it difficult to distinguish between achievements and accomplishments, since the criterion of punctuality does not function as a distinctive feature between the two predicate types anymore. Martin, however, argues that right achievements coerced into durative predicates still differ from accomplishments semantically. For one thing, whereas durative right achievements presuppose the occurrence of the event, accomplishments don’t. Other differences between durative achievements and accomplishments pertain to the (in)compatibility with adverbs of attention (attentivement ‘carefully’), adverbs of completion (e.g. partiellement ‘partially’), durative adverbs and aspectual verbs like arrêter ‘stop’ : accomplishments allow them, durative achievements, however, rule them out. Still, the distinction between achievements and accomplishments is not clear-cut, since two types of non-prototypical accomplishments can be identified that exhibit a number of the properties typical of durative achievements. Moreover, accomplishments should be subdivided in iterative or non-iterative ones. As a result, the author proposes a new typology of accomplishments and achievements allowing for various subcategories. Matti Miestamo and Johan van der Auwera (‘Negation and perfective vs. imperfective aspect’) critically investigate the alleged generalization that perfective aspect would be less compatible with negation than imperfective aspect. On the basis of a large language sample, the authors are able to show that this generalization is not valid cross-linguistically : the number of languages in which a perfective aspect category is lost under negation equals the number of languages that give up an imperfective aspect category under negation. In the remainder of the paper, the explanations that have been proposed for the alleged generalization are addressed, i.e. the stativity of negation and the discourse contexts in which negatives occur. However, perfective and imperfective aspect are shown not to significantly differ from each other with respect to both factors. Finally, the authors examine the applicability of formal markedness as a possible factor for the loss of either distinction under negation. For a number of languages, it is argued, formal markedness might indeed account for the neutralization of grammatical distinctions, but again, without there being a significant difference between perfective and imperfective aspect.

Introduction

iii

António Leal (‘Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese’) presents a study of gerundive forms, more particularly gerundive adjunct clauses, in European Portuguese. In contrast to the gerundive forms in other Romance languages, the gerundive forms in European Portuguese are generally said to establish a relation with the utterance time by means of a connection to the main clause. In this paper, however, it is argued that both simple and compound gerundive forms exhibit some kind of temporal information themselves with respect to their temporal perspective point (TPpt), the latter being typically defined by the main clause. The temporal information, which also influences the kind of relation the gerundive clause establishes with the main clause, concerns the (temporal) location of the described state of affairs and the TPpt, which in the case of gerundive adjunct clauses, can be either [pres] or [past]. Simple gerunds are characterized by the (underspecified) features [pres] or [past], the specification of which is made by the type of relation established between the main clause and the gerundive clause (the so-called rhetorical relation). When the simple gerund elaborates on the main clause, or provides background information, for instance, it is marked as [+pres], whereas a relation of explanation between simple gerund and main clause marks it as [+past]. The simple gerund may also remain temporally underspecified. The compound gerund, on the contrary, is always specified by the feature [+past], which also restricts the number of possible rhetorical relations. Gerhard Schaden (‘Introducing the Present Perfective Puzzle’) addresses issues concerning both aspect and tense in his analysis of the socalled present perfective puzzle. This puzzle lies in the fact that perfective readings should be generally available for aspectually vague (or unmarked) present tenses, but obviously aren’t, since in German and French, the present tense combined with seit and depuis ‘since’ does not yield a perfective interpretation. Still, perfective readings of the present tense in German and Dutch exist in other contexts, so it must be allowed to generate them. It is argued, therefore, that in order to model aspectually unmarked tenses, an underspecification model must be used. The author then proposes a blocking mechanism for perfective readings in combination with since, in a bidirectional Optimality Theory framework. Björn Rothstein (‘Why the present perfect differs cross-linguistically. Some new insights’) investigates another puzzle – the present perfect puzzle – which concerns the fact that temporal adverbs indicating a definite past position on a time line (e.g. yesterday) are incompatible with present perfects in languages like English and Swedish (*I’ve been to the movies yesterday), whereas in Dutch and German, present perfects allow for such definite past adverbials. The pluperfect, on the other hand, does not exhibit this restriction (I had been to the movies yesterday) ; this is referred to as the pluperfect puzzle. The author examines whether internal components of the

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perfect might be responsible for this ‘perfect variation’. It is found, however, that an analysis based on these internal components (the present tense element within the present perfect, auxiliary selection (have vs. be), the meaning of the past participle, the syntax of the perfect) does not provide a convincing account of the observed variation. Instead, Rothstein favors a ‘competitional’ approach, which focuses on the competition between the present perfect and the present tense in since-contexts. Some languages use the present perfect to express that a particular eventuality started in the past and continues up to the present (He has been a teacher since 1990), whereas other languages (Dutch, German, Afrikaans) must use the present tense in these contexts. In those languages, in which the present perfect loses its pastup-to-now reading with since-adverbials (and as such its orientation to the present or now), the present perfect can be used with definite past adverbials. The papers introduced so far mainly looked at aspect and tense categories. The three final papers cross the aspect-tense border and address the interaction of aspect-tense markers with modal meaning. Karen Deschamps and Hans Smessaert (‘Non-modal uses of the present indicative in Dutch legislation’) study the semantic and pragmatic functions of the present indicative in Dutch legislative texts, on the basis of a corpus consisting of the Dutch version of the Belgian and the Dutch constitution. It is found that the present indicative in these texts is used both to prescribe and to constitute reality. In its prescriptive (‘deontic’) use, the present indicative expresses not only commands and prohibitions, but is also used to confer (or deny) competences and claims. In its (considerably less frequent) constitutive use, the present indicative is said to express a constitutive norm, i.e. it brings about a new state of affairs or a modification of an existing one. The present indicative’s polysemy is reminiscent of the polysemy of English shall in this type of contexts. In order to avoid misinterpretation, the authors argue, drafters of legislative texts might be advised to restrict the use of the present indicative to obligative uses only and to use other markers for the expression of other deontic concepts and constitutive norms. Adeline Patard and Arnaud Richard (‘Attenuation in French simple tenses’) seek to identify the factors that determine the attenuated readings of French non-present simple tenses (in casu passé simple, imparfait, future simple and conditionnel present), i.e. readings in which the verbal tense softens or mitigates the illocutionary act. These factors include, amongst other things, the reality status of the state of affairs and certain restrictions regarding the interpretation of past and future tenses. Moreover, it is argued that the tense’s grammatical aspect is a crucial parameter, as only aspectually neutral and imperfective tenses are compatible with attenuated readings, whereas perfective tenses rule them out. The authors provide a partly syntactic, partly pragmatic typology of contexts in which attenuative readings are said to occur, and link the various tenses to these contexts. As such, they

Introduction

v

argue that some tenses share a preference for particular attenuated contexts, in which other tenses are not allowed. Finally, different kinds of attenuation can be distinguished : attenuation expressed by the imparfait or the future simple is said to be different from attenuation marked by the conditonnel. Finally, Patrick Caudal (‘Towards a novel aspectuo-temporal account of conditionals’) addresses the well-known connection between tense-aspect marking and the interpretation of conditional structures. More in particular, Caudal tries to provide a new account for the fact that – within the protasis of a conditional structure – past imperfective markers are able to play a determining role in setting up counterfactual readings, whereas perfective viewpoint tenses (like the French passé simple) cannot freely appear in conditionals : perfective tenses are either completely blocked or interpretatively constrained (in that they do not allow an irrealis reading, but a past indicative reading, for instance). After providing a thorough critical review of the various existing temporal(ist) and aspectual(ist) approaches to this complex issue, Caudal moves on to his own proposal, the essence of which lies in the assumption that past imperfective operators (like the French imparfait in the protasis of a conditional structure) take scope over the stative belief event associated with the modal meaning expressed by the conditional structure with a consequent clause in the conditionnel. It is the stativity of the belief event that explains the incompatibility with perfective viewpoint tenses (which are clearly not stative) in the antecedent clause. Caudal views this in terms of ‘outscoping’ or ‘semantic subordination’, since aspectuo-temporal content bears on (i.e. takes scope over) modal content.

Non-state imperfectives in Romance and West-Germanic: How does Germanic render the progressive ? Werner ABRAHAM Wien-Austria

Cláudio C. e C. GONÇALVEZ Florianopolis-Brazil Introduction Romance languages have imperfective morphologies (French imparfait, (Brazilian) Portuguese passado imperfeto/IMPF), but only Brazilian Portuguese (BP) makes regular and very productive use of the gerund through all tenses to give expression to the imperfective. Since the IMPF gives expression also to a true progressive and to genericity next to futurity, the question arises how the full width of the BP form can be derived semantically and what the necessary and sufficient criteria are to separate the meanings. Furthermore, since Germanic has no such morphological IMPF, but uses nominal constituents, the challenge is to pursue the question what the common properties are between the progressive functions in Germanic and in BP. It will be seen that derivation of IMPF from properties of the non-tense of the present and its semantic width yields a bridging path between the two forms. 1. The imperfective form in BP The finite progressive (continuous), or imperfective, in European Portuguese (EP) has the analytic form of estar+a+infinitival V as in (1a). By contrast, BP makes use of the gerund, V-stem+-ndo, as in (1b). (1)

a. Estou a preparar a lição para amanhã be.1sg to prepare P lesson for tomorrow ‘I am preparing my lesson for tomorrow’ b. Está chovendo/ Ele está estudando

be.3sg

raining

he

be.3sg

‘It is raining/He is studying’ c. *Ser chovendo/ *Ela ser be.3sg raining she be.3sg

EP

BP

studying

estudando studying

BP

Two things are to be noticed. First, the gerundial form on –ndo is incompatible with the copula/auxiliary ser. ser and estar can be distinguished by the event property of a temporary state, which is shared by estar, but not by ser, © Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): 1-20.

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Werner Abraham & Cláudio C. e C. Gonçalvez

whose statal meaning is unconstrained, permanent, and often simply like an adjectival property. Second, the BP progressive form renders also generic or habitual as well as a futural meaning. European Portuguese does not do that. In what follows we will try to single out the source of this semantic branching stating their common properties (genus proprium) as well as their meaning differentials (differentiae specificae). 2. The core phenomena 2.1. Cross-linguistic common range of meanings Much in line with present (non-)tense morphology in English, BP, and German, IMPF is involved in giving rise to a certain range of meanings. The following BP sentences are examples of meaning effects that IMPF morphology gives rise to in all Romance languages with this morphological option. In such sentences we see the expression of durativity and continuity relative to a reference point in the past, (2a), the expression of counterfactuality, (2c), and a mix of both values in (2b) (from Gonçalvez 2007 : 56f.). (2)

a. O Pedro fumava the Pedro smoked.IMPF ‘Pedro used to smoke.’ b. Quando sua mãe saía, Pedro fumava. when his mother went-out.IMPF, Pedro smoked.IMPF ‘When his mother went out, Pedro would smoke.’ c. A. E se o gato te arranhasse ? And if the cat you scratched.SUBJUNCT ? ‘What if the cat scratched you ?’ B. Eu chutava ele him I kicked.IMPF ‘I'd kick him.’

2.2. Conceptual and historical motivation According to Câmara (1975), Vincent (1982), Mantoanelli & Ilari (1983), Ziegeler (2006), among others, the two morphological forms for past tenses, Passé simple (PS) and Imparfait (IMPF), of modern Romance languages are descendents of correlates in Late Latin : the perfectum and the infectum. The opposition between those two forms gave rise to the same phenomena as that which PS vs. IMPF gives rise to in modern Romance languages. The ones which descend from the perfectum are the ones which we are calling PS forms : passé simple (French), passato remoto (Italian), pretérito perfeito (Portuguese), pretérito perfecto (Spanish), etc. The forms with IMPF morphology descend from the Latin infectum : imparfait (French), imperfeto (Italian), pretérito imperfeito (Portuguese and Spanish) etc.. It is well known

Non-state imperfectives in Romance and West-Germanic

3

that the PS forms passé simple and passato remoto do not figure in colloquial French and Italian. Instead, to express perfectivity as it is expressed in the English sentence Yesterday Peter smoked a cigarette, those two languages use a form for which the syntax and morphological make up is, at first blush, similar to that of the English present perfect. Actually, there are also semantic similarities between those forms and the English present perfect. Thus, doing full justice to them would take us well into the subject of perfects. We will assume that the proposal for PS vs. IMPF can extend to the passé composé vs. imparfait opposition in French and its counterpart in Italian insofar as those periphrastic past forms are similar in meaning to the passé simple and passato remoto. 2.3 Cross-linguistically similarity of PS vs. IMPF contrast in simple sentences The morphological IMPF vs. PS opposition gives rise to largely uniform contrasts in sentence meanings throughout Romance. For example, in all of the Romance languages mentioned above the opposition between the sentences (3) and (4), which all mean roughly ‘the dog barked’, gives rise to the meaning phenomena that are described below : (3)

(4)

form and function PS : a. O cachorro latiu. ‘The dog barked once.’ b. Le chien aboya. c. Il cane abbaiò. d. El perro gru/ladró. form and function IMPF : a. O cachorro latia. ‘The dog barked several times/was barking/barked constantly’ b. Le chien aboyait. c. Il cane abbaiava. d.    /ladraba.

BP French Italian Spanish BP French Italian Spanish1

The PS points to some salient past event or stretch of time. Where the sentences of (3) are uttered out of context, their most intuitive and immediate reading is that there was an event where the dog in question barked. That barking is inferred to have happened at a contextually relevant time, which is not explicitly mentioned in these sentences. It may have been a singular occurrence of barking or several depending on the salient stretch of time. On 1

For help on Spanish I would like to thank Ulrich Detges (Munich), Wulf Oesterreicher (Munich), Andreas Dufter (Munich), and Elisabeth Stark (FU Berlin).

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Werner Abraham & Cláudio C. e C. Gonçalvez

the other hand, an out-of-context utterance of one the sentences of (4) has as most intuitive and immediate reading that there were many barking situations. Such barkings are inferred to possibly hold before, after and perhaps also concomitant to some reference point to which the barkings are a background. If not explicitly declared, that reference point must be presupposed. An important contrast between the two sets of sentences is that (3) presupposes only a contextually relevant time where the event denoted by the verb took place. On the other hand, (4) needs some kind of restriction to be felicitous. One possibility is to be asserted relative to some other eventuality which serves as its reference point. The IMPF verb meaning overflows, or exceeds, the bounds of that reference point. Thus, it is interpreted as denoting an eventuality which was ongoing in relation to the eventuality that serves as its reference point. For example, in a sentence in Romance with the form last night when we went to bed, the neighbour's dog barked, IMPF is interpreted as last night when we went to bed the neighbour's dog was barking. One way of restricting IMPF sentences is by a temporal location adverb. See the following BP sentences where the IMPF form make generalizations about eventualities. (5)

a. No verão, o Carlos escrevia um poema. ‘In the summer, Carlos used to write a poem.’ b. No verão, o Carlos nadava na lagoa. ‘In the summer, Carlos used to swim in the lake.’ c. No verão, o Carlos chegava na Pedra da Gávea. ‘In the summer, Carlos used to reach the Gavea Peak.’ d. No verão, o Carlos sabia das notícias pelo rádio. ‘In the summer, Carlos used to learn (know) about the news through the radio.’

2.4 Similar distribution Roughly speaking, PS gives verbs to which it attaches event-like properties, while IMPF gives them state-like properties. Despite their contributions to sentences being different, the two morphological markers have the same distribution in simple sentences. Variation of the Vendlerian class of the root verb, which PS or IMPF morphology is attached to, will not reveal any constraints on the occurrences or infelicities. Compare (5) with (6), both BP. (6)

a. O Carlos escreveu um poema. ‘Carlos wrote a poem.’ b. O Carlos nadou na lagoa. ‘Carlos swam in the lake.’

Non-state imperfectives in Romance and West-Germanic

5

c. O Carlos chegou na Pedra da Gávea. ‘Carlos arrived at the Gavea Peak.’ d. O Carlos soube das notícias pelo rádio. ‘Carlos learnt(knew) the news through the radio.’

The phenomena shown here with BP sentences extends to the other Romance languages. However, cross-linguistic differences arise depending on which grammatical construction IMPF interacts with. Hence, other phenomena cannot be considered as core. We suggest that due to its stability across Romance, the temporal aspects of the opposition between (5) and (6) are the core phenomena that have to be accounted for. We will not deal with any non-core cases here. Though the proposal is aimed at being able to eventually cope with them, their actual account requires going into details of other polemic issues such as the linguistic expression of different types of modality, the semantics of if-clauses, etc. By excluding such non-core phenomena, we will have a candidate hypothesis for explaining (in future work) the further, more idiosyncratic issues presented in (2) and (7). For example, IMPF in modals of ability and/or possibility gives rise to different kinds of readings across languages. Compare the following sentences with deontic modals in BP and French (sentences (7a-e) gleaned from Hacquard 2006). (7)

a. Kitty devait faire ses devoirs, et elle les a faits. French to-do her homework, and she them has done Kitty should.IMPF ‘Kitty should have done her homework, and she has.’ b. Kitty devait faire ses devoirs, mais elle ne les a pas faits.French to-do her homework, but she not them has NEG done Kitty should.IMPF ‘Kitty should have done her homework, but she hasn't.’ fazer a tarefa, e ela fez. BP c. ?A Kitty devia ? The Kitty should.IMPF do the homework, and she did.PS ‘? Kitty should do her homework, and she did.’ d. ?A Kitty devia fazer a tarefa, e ela não fez. BP ? The Kitty should.IMPF do the homework, and she not did.PS ? Kitty should do her homework, and she didn't. e. A Kitty devia fazer a tarefa logo. BP The Kitty should.IMPF do the homework soon ‘Kitty should do her homework as soon as possible.’

The IMPF in the French sentences successfully marks that Kitty had an obligation in the past. In BP the corresponding modal with IMPF marks a present obligation.

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Werner Abraham & Cláudio C. e C. Gonçalvez

3. The semantics of IMPF and PS 3.1. First definitions In this section we present a proposal for the how PS and IMPF contribute to the logical form of sentences they appear in. We will focus mainly on the contribution of PS and IMPF to logical form ignoring issues of how it maps to syntax, except for the following note. Standardly, past tense morphology in languages like English and BP conveys information about tense and aspect. One way to encode this syntactically is to assume a split-INFL, where an aspect head (AspP) takes predicates of events as its arguments and maps them into temporal intervals ; at the next syntactic level up, those temporal intervals are mapped into temporal intervals relative to the utterance time of the eventuality by a tense head (TenseP). We assume the mapping to be along the lines of Klein (1994 : 124). (8)

PAST is only defined if the context of utterance of the sentence it is in provides an interval t earlier than the utterance/speaker’s time, tS. When defined, PAST = t.

Notice notwithstanding the terminology (either t is called ‘temporal location time’ or ‘reference time’), we understand t as being conceptually close to Klein's (1994) notion of ‘topic time’. In other words, t is the time of occurrence of an eventuality. Given tense information, we will propose that the aspectual information brought by PS is as in (9). (9)

Aspect meaning carried by PS : ∀Y [e⊆t  ∀f⊆e . ∃i⊆t(Y(e, f)  Y(t, i))]

By this logical form, PS introduces a relation of inclusion of the eventuality within the temporal location time. It says that, if such an inclusion holds, then any relation holding between the eventuality and its sub-eventualities has a corresponding relation holding between the temporal location time and its subintervals. Standardly, the logical form (9) passes what seems to be a minimum requirement for the semantic information brought by PS : it forces PS to say that the eventuality no longer holds of the utterance time. That is a consequence of the [t3]-see-IMPST ‘I saw a jakuruaru lizard.’ b. isapokara

on-ene-pyra

jakuruaru.lizard 3-see-NEG ‘I did not see a jakuruaru lizard.’

a-ken 1-be.IMPST

The loss of finiteness of the lexical verb and the appearance of the copula turn the negative into a stative structure. These constructions of the type ‘there is non-V-ing’ or ‘there isn’t V-ing’ are clearly accounted for by the stativity of negation. In other words, the functional-level asymmetry – the stativity of negation – is reflected, by language-external analogy, in that in some languages negative constructions are overtly stative. Van der Auwera (2006) has suggested that the stativity of negation may also be relevant in explaining why a majority of languages has a special negation strategy for imperatives. Given that the stativity of negation has been proposed as a motivation for the (non-existent) dispreference for perfective aspect in negatives, it is interesting to discuss the relationship between stativity and perfective vs. imperfective aspect. Could there be a clash between the stativity of negation and perfective-type meanings? First of all, we claim that there is no semantic clash. After all, negation has scope over aspect – it is denied that something

Negation and perfective vs. imperfective aspect

75

is complete(d) and in so doing we express a state. This is where Matthews (1990: 86) goes wrong: “That is, it is an acceptable predication that ‘there is a state of affairs such that x is not running’ but not that ‘there was an event such that x did not run’”.

This should rather be formulated as: There is no state of affairs in which x was running and, similarly, there is no state of affairs in which x ran.

Thus, in the majority of the relevant sample languages, the combination of negation and perfective-type aspect is fine. Second, imperfectives are not inherently stative, either. Consider a typical imperfective use of a dynamic predicate, expressed in the progressive aspect in English (5c’-d’) (5)

English (Indo-European, Germanic) (constructed examples) c’. Chris was drinking the coffee. d’. Chris was not drinking the coffee.

The imperfective in (5c’) is no more stative than the perfective in (5c). As to the negative counterparts of these examples, both describe stative states of affairs (5d,d’). It may be countered that since the English progressive is a specifically progressive category, it is not an imperfective in the sense meant by Schmid and Matthews. But then, what is? In languages that have more general imperfective categories, one of their central uses is to refer to ongoing, dynamic states of affairs, i.e. progressive ones, when used with dynamic verbs. Consider the French equivalents of (5c’-d’) in (7). (7)

French (Indo-European, Romance) (constructed examples) a. Chris buvait le café. b. Chris ne buvait pas le café.

It would be quite hard to give a stative reading to (7a) (except perhaps in a habitual sense). In fact, aspectual categories that give stative readings to dynamic verbs are not common in the world’s languages, and certainly this is not the primary function of what is usually known as imperfective aspect (we are actually not aware of any categories in the world’s languages whose primary function it would be). Thus, not only are there no grounds for perfective-type aspect to be less compatible with negation, but there are no grounds for imperfective aspect to be more compatible with negation either.

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So far we have shown that there is no cross-linguistic preference for either perfective- or imperfective-type categories to be restricted under negation, and that there is no functional reason to expect such a preference, either. Nevertheless, there are many languages in the data where the occurrence of aspectual categories is restricted in negatives. We will now turn to the motivations of such restrictions in general. Miestamo (2005) proposes that the prototypical discourse context of negatives provides such a motivation. Negatives typically occur in contexts where the corresponding affirmative is supposed or at least somehow present. When two people meet in the street, the example in (8) is odd if uttered out of the blue, without the pregnancy of the speaker’s wife being supposed – being somehow in the air. (8)

English (Indo-European, Germanic) (Givón 1978: 80) Oh, my wife is not pregnant.

On the other hand, if the pregnancy of the speaker’s wife has been discussed before or if there is any other reason for the speaker to believe that the hearer might believe that the speaker’s wife is pregnant, the example is completely felicitous. The prototypical discourse context of negatives is one in which the corresponding affirmative is supposed in this way. This can be given as a general motivation for restrictions on the occurrence of grammatical categories in the negative: with the corresponding affirmative present in the context, all properties (tense, aspect, person, etc.) of the negated situation/event need not be as specifically marked. This pragmatic preference (a functional-level asymmetry between affirmation and negation) has been conventionalized as a grammatical restriction in languages that restrict the occurrence of some grammatical categories in the negative. It should perhaps be emphasized that this general explanation applies to the restriction on the completive in Bagirmi (2) (or any other one of the perfective-type categories lost in the 14 languages cited above) just as it does to the restriction on present continuous in Ebira (4) (or any other one of the imperfective-type categories lost in the 14 languages cited above). It is a general motivation for restrictions on the occurrence of grammatical categories in negatives – including aspectual categories but not specific to them. It does not say anything about why a given language has chosen to restrict such and such category; for this, we need to find other, most often language-particular, explanations. Next, we would like to briefly address the behaviour of the categories bearing the general labels imperfective, perfective and perfect in the data given above. The data show that when restrictions occur, we do indeed find perfects (Kemant, Kera, Luvale, Maba) and imperfectives (Khoekhoe, Kiowa, Lugbara) being excluded in the negative, but not perfectives. Interestingly, this is precisely the opposite of what Schmid and Matthews

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have claimed. Admittedly, there are only a few languages where any of these categories are involved in the restrictions, but we may nevertheless try to see what is behind these data. Our first suggestion has to do with neutralization. The perfective is often considered to be a holistic category, expressing “the event as such”, and the neutralization account would then predict that if any category survives under negation, it is the one that expresses the event as such. Paradoxically, this suggestion might even hold for the Russian case, where the imperfective is used for stating a past fact as such (see e.g. Dahl 1985: 74-76). Thus the semantically simplest form, in some sense, would be the one to survive, i.e. the one in favour of which the neutralization would occur. In many understandings of markedness theory, the form that is semantically the simplest should coincide with the formally simplest form. Formal simplicity alone, without any semantic considerations, could in many cases be an important factor in determining which category is to survive. In Kiowa (9), for example, the form that survives is the formally simpler one. (9)

Kiowa (Kiowa-Tanoan) (Watkins 1984: 158) PFV

IMPF

BASIC

bó̜ˑ

bó̜ˑ-n-mɔ̀

IMPERATIVE

bó̜ˑ

bó̜ˑ-n-îˑ

FUTURE

bó̜ˑ-tɔ́ˑ

bó̜ˑ-n-îˑ-tɔ̀ˑ

HEARSAY

bó̜ˑ-hêl

bó̜ˑ-n-êˑ

NEGATIVE

bó̜ˑ-mɔ̂ˑ

–

As we can see in (9), imperfective and perfective aspect may be distinguished in all TAM contexts but not in the negative. In the negative only perfective aspect is possible. Perfective aspect is the formally simpler, unmarked form in Kiowa, the imperfective being marked with a suffix. To test to what extent it is the formally unmarked form that survives, we classified all cases of categorial restrictions found in the sample into four types. In the 297-language sample, there are 79 languages where one or more grammatical categories are excluded in the negative. 69 of these languages are relevant to the present discussion in that they belong to a subtype of asymmetric negation (Subtype A/Cat) that does not have an immediate functional (semantic or pragmatic) explanation for the choice of the excluded category. The number of languages showing instances of each type is given below (note that one and the same language can show instances of different types).

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Type 1: – –

– Type 2: –

–

– Type 3: –

–

5

Positive: V-a vs. V-b,5 Negative: irrelevant. Description: There is no (clear) formal markedness difference between the categories involved. In the schematic representation both categories are overtly marked. Example: In Nasioi, the distinction between present temporal and present progressive is lost in the negative. Both categories are overtly marked by their dedicated suffixes in the affirmative. The way they are negated is irrelevant in this context. 41 languages. Positive: V vs. V-b, Negative: V-x-NEG. Description: There is a formal markedness difference between the categories. None of them survives in the negative formally, i.e. the negation strategy as such is not formally based on any of the categories in the affirmative. In the schematic representation, one of the categories is unmarked and the other one marked, but negative marking applies to a form different from both of these. Example: In Meithei, the distinction between certain and potential future is lost, and there is a formal markedness difference between them, certain future being marked by the suffixation of the copula to the verb and potential future by the suffixation of the potential marker and the copula to the verb. Negative future is based on neither one of these, but it is marked by the non-potential marker suffixed to the verb without the copula. (This example is not from aspectual marking since the only cases found in the data involve the marking of TAM categories other than aspect.) 2 languages. Positive: V vs. V-b; Negative: V-NEG. Description: There is a markedness difference between the categories. A formally marked form is blocked in the negative and the form that survives is an unmarked one. In the schematic representation, one of the categories is unmarked and the other one marked, and negative marking is added to the form of the unmarked category. Example: In Kiowa (see ex. 9), the distinction between imperfective and perfective is lost in the negative. The imperfective is overtly marked and the perfective is unmarked. Negative marking is attached to the unmarked perfective form.

The markings of the categories are represented by suffixes in these schemes, but naturally, depending on language, they may be realized by other means such as prefixes or particles as well.

Negation and perfective vs. imperfective aspect

– Type 4: –

–

–

79

30 languages. Positive: V vs. V-b; Negative: V-b-NEG. There is a markedness difference between the categories. A formally unmarked form is blocked and the form that survives is a marked one. In the schematic representation, one of the categories is unmarked and the other one marked, and negative marking is added to the form of the overtly marked category. Example: In Bella Coola (see ex. 11 below), the distinction between old and new information is lost in negatives. Old information is overtly marked and new information is unmarked. Negative marking cooccurs with the marked old-information form. (This example is not from aspectual marking since the only cases found in the data involve the marking of TAM categories other than aspect.) 7 languages.

Types 1 and 2 are irrelevant in this context. In Type 1 there is no markedness difference, so we cannot infer anything about the role of markedness (and how negation is formed is then not relevant at all). In Type 2, we cannot infer anything about the role of markedness either, since negation is not based on any of the forms available in the positive. Types 3 and 4 are interesting, and indeed, in accordance with the prediction, it is much more common that the unmarked category survives in the negative. It should however be noted that Type 4, which goes against the prediction, is not inexistant – we will come back to this type below. 6 We can make a further division within Type 3. On the one hand, there are cases in which there are no markers of any other category occurring in the same position with the excluded category such that they could occur in negatives. We call this Type 3a. Schematically it can be given as: positive: V vs. V-b; negative: V-NEG. The Kiowa example (9) above shows an instance of this type – there is no third (aspectual) category surviving in the negative the marker of which would occur in the same position with the imperfective marker. On the other hand, there are cases in which, although the excluded category is marked vis-à-vis one or more categories that survive in the negative, there are other similarly marked categories that survive. We call 6

It should also be remembered that there are more than 200 languages in the sample where this kind of paradigmatic asymmetry is not found, i.e. the occurence of grammatical categories in the negative is not restricted in this way, and in these languages there are both cases where a markedness difference is found between the categories that are distinguished in the paradigm and cases where no markedness difference is found.

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this Type 3b. Schematically it can be given as: positive: V vs. V-b vs. V-c; negative: V-NEG vs. V-c-NEG. An example can be found in Paamese (10). (10) Paamese (Austronesian, Oceanic) (Crowley 1982: 145, 226) a. long-e

b.

3SG.R.hear-3SG.OBJ ‘He heard him.’ c. *inau

NEG-3SG.R.hear-PART ‘He didn’t hear him.’

na-ro-muumo-tei tai

1SG 1SG.R-NEG-work-PART ‘I have not worked.’ d. inau

ro-longe-tei

CMPL

na-ro-munuu-tei velah

1SG 1SG.R-NEG-dive-PART ‘I haven’t been diving yet.’

PROG

As we can see in (10c), the completive tai is incompatible with negation, but there is another aspectual morpheme occurring in the same position, the progressive velah, that may occur in negatives (10d). Cases of Type 3a are more easily explained by formal markedness, but for Type 3b we still need an explanation for why one marker is blocked while another formally parallel one survives. Thus, in Paamese we still need an explanation for why the completive is blocked but the progressive survives. Of the 30 languages of Type 3, 16 belong to type 3a and 14 to Type 3b. This means that roughly one fourth of the 69 languages showing paradigmatic restrictions in negatives belongs to the type that is the most compatible with explanation in terms of formal markedness. Returning now to aspect, the formally unmarked category may belong to the perfective type like in Kiowa or to the imperfective type like in Russian (where simple verbs are generally imperfective in the past). Of the 14 languages where a perfective-type category is blocked, six belong to Type 3a, three to Type 3b, and five to Type 1. Of the 14 languages where an imperfective-type category is excluded in negatives, three belong to Type 3a, four to Type 3b, and six to Type 1; in one case it remains unclear which type we are dealing with. The number of Type 3a cases is somewhat higher in the group where perfective-type categories are excluded in negatives, suggesting that formal markedness might be more usable in explaining these cases. However, this difference is hardly big enough to warrant the conclusion that there is a real difference between these groups in terms of the role of formal markedness. It should also be noted that this small difference goes against the hypothesis proposed by Schmid and Matthews – according to their hypothesis the cases where a perfective-type category is blocked should be the ones that are semantically motivated.

Negation and perfective vs. imperfective aspect

81

Finally, although no cases involving loss of perfective- or imperfectivetype aspectual categories were found in Type 4, we will say a few words about these potential counterexamples to the survival of the unmarked category. In Bella Coola, affirmatives can make a difference between new and old information with third person subject marking (11a,b), but negatives only allow the old information marker (11c). (11) Bella Coola (Salishan, Bella Coola) (Nater 1984: 36) a. ksnṃak-Ø

b.

work-3SG.NEW ‘(S)he is working.’ c. ʔaxw

ksnṃak-s work-3SG.OLD ‘(S)he is working.’

ksnṃak-s

work-3SG.OLD ’(S)he is not working.’

NEG

This is an instance of Type 4, where the more marked category survives in the negative, and thus a counterexample to the prediction that the least marked category should survive. However, there is a clear semantic motivation for the choice of the surviving category. As we have seen above, negatives typically occur in contexts where the corresponding affirmative is somehow present, and thus typically do not bring new information to the discourse. In a language where a grammatical distinction between old and new information is available in the affirmative but lost in the negative, it is natural that it is the old information category that survives. In five out of the seven instances of Type 4, we have been able to identify a possible, language-particular, functional (semantic or pragmatic) explanation for the survival of the more marked category, i.e. the categories that survive (e.g. old information, partitive, contrastive) are functionally more compatible with negation than the ones that do not survive. 4. Conclusion In this paper we have critically examined the alleged generalization that perfective aspect would be less compatible with negation in the world’s languages than imperfective aspect. When the question is approached using an extensive language sample, it turns out that the generalization is not valid cross-linguistically. We have also discussed the explanation proposed for the alleged generalization, viz. the stativity of negation, and concluded that perfective and imperfective aspect do not differ in terms of stativity in such a way that this should be reflected in their compatibility with negation. We

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have discussed the discourse context of negatives as a general motivation for the disappearance of grammatical distinctions in the negative, noting that imperfective and perfective aspect do not differ from each other in these terms. Finally, we have examined the role of formal markedness in neutralizing grammatical distinctions, and found out that part of the cases in the language sample may be accounted for by formal markedness; but again, no significant difference is found between perfective and imperfective aspect. Acknowledgements This paper was conceived while Miestamo was a visiting researcher at the Antwerp Center for Grammar, Cognition, and Typology (November 2005 – April 2006). At the time of writing and revising, van der Auwera spent a sabbatical term at Princeton University and Miestamo was a research fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. We thank Princeton University, the Research Council of the University of Antwerp, the Science Foundation Flanders, the University of Helsinki, and the Academy of Finland for financial support. We would also like to thank the audiences at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea in Bremen (August 2006) and Chronos 7 in Antwerp (September 2006) for their feedback on the paper, and the anonymous referee for her/his comments. Abbreviations used in the glosses 1 2 3 CMPL FUT IMPF IMPST NEG NEW OBJ OLD PART PFV PL PROG R

first person second person third person completive future imperfective immediate past negative, negation new information object old information partitive perfective plural progressive realis

Negation and perfective vs. imperfective aspect SG SUBJ TAM

83

singular subject tense-aspect-mood

References Adive, J. R. (1989). The Verbal Piece in Ebira, Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics 85, Dallas : Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. Crowley, T. (1982). The Paamese Language of Vanuatu, Pacific linguistics B 87, Canberra : Australian National University. Dahl, Ö. (1985). Tense and Aspect Systems, Oxford : Blackwell. Dryer, M. S. (2005). Genealogical language list, in: M. Haspelmath ; M. S. Dryer ; D. Gil ; B. Comrie, (eds), The World Atlas of Language Structures, Oxford : Oxford University Press, 584-644. Givón, T. (1978). Negation in language: pragmatics, function, ontology, in: P. Cole, (ed.), Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 9. Pragmatics, New York : Academic Press, 69-112. Hagman, R. S. (1977). Nama Hottentot Grammar, Indiana University Publications, Language Science Monographs 15, Bloomington : Indiana University. Haspelmath, M. ; Dryer, M ; Gil, D. ; Comrie, B., (eds), (2005). World Atlas of Language Structures, Oxford : Oxford University Press. Heath, J. (1999). A Grammar of Koyraboro (Koroboro) Senni, Westafrikanische Studien 19, Köln : Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Itkonen, E. (2005). Analogy as Structure and Process: Approaches in Linguistics, Cognitive Psychology and Philosophy of Science, Human Cognitive Processing 14, Amsterdam : Benjamins. Koehn, E. ; Koehn, S. (1986). Apalai, in: D. C. Derbyshire ; G. K. Pullum, (eds), Handbook of Amazonian Languages, vol. 1, Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter, 33-127. Matthews, S. (1990). A Cognitive Approach to the Typology of Verbal Aspect, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Southern California. Miestamo, M. (2003). Clausal Negation: a Typological Study, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Helsinki. Miestamo, M. (2005). Standard Negation: the Negation of Declarative Verbal Main Clauses in a Typological Perspective, Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 31, Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter. Nater, H. F. (1984). The Bella Coola Language, Canadian Ethnology Service, Paper No. 92, Ottawa : National Museums of Canada.

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Schmid, M. A. (1980). Co-Occurrence Restrictions in Negative, Interrogative, and Conditional Clauses: a Cross-Linguistic Study, Ph.D. Dissertation, SUNY Buffalo. Stevenson, R. C. (1969). Bagirmi Grammar, Linguistic Monograph Series 3, Khartoum : Sudan Research Unit, University of Khartoum. van der Auwera, J. (2006). Why languages prefer prohibitives, Journal of Foreign Languages 2006 (1): 1-25. Watkins, L. J. (1984). Grammar of Kiowa, Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press.

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese António LEAL Centre of Linguistics of the University of Porto1

1. Introduction Gerundive forms, both Simple (SG) and Compound (CG), exhibit a diverse behaviour in European Portuguese, which is difficult to describe. They can occur in very distinct syntactic constructions (cf. Lobo 2001 ; Neto & Foltran 2001) and, even in the same syntactic context, they show different semantic values (cf. Móia & Viotti 2004 ; Cunha, Leal & Silvano 2006). This diversified behaviour is not exclusive of the Portuguese language. In Spanish and Italian, gerundive forms are similar in many aspects (cf. Lagunilla 1999, for Spanish, and Lonzi 1997, for Italian ; cf. also Leal 2001 for a critical summary of those proposals, and a brief comparison of Gerund usage in those languages and in European Portuguese). Despite the large similarities, we can find distinct characteristics in the Portuguese Gerund, namely the ability of the CG to establish, in certain circumstances, a relationship with the utterance time, which, as far as we know, cannot be found in any other romance language. Because a crosslinguistic study is not the main goal, we will not focus on the comparison of European Portuguese with other languages, referring the reader back to the previously mentioned works. It is commonly accepted that the gerundive forms do not establish a relationship with the utterance time directly, but by means of a connection to the main clause. However, we will show that both simple and compound gerundive forms in European Portuguese exhibit some kind of temporal information. Based on some of Kamp and Reyle’s (1993) temporal concepts we will argue that temporal information displayed by gerundive forms is related to their Temporal Perspective Point (TPpt). Furthermore, we will show that although the underlying principles are the same, the temporal information of the SG is somehow distinct from that of the CG. This temporal information influences the kind of relation (temporal and non-temporal) gerundive clauses establish with the main clause. In order to analyse the non-temporal relations between the gerundive clauses and the main clauses we will use some concepts of Asher and Lascarides’ (2003) 1

I&D unity financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology, Programme FEDER / POCTI - U0022 / 2003. © Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): 85-103.

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proposal. We will show that there is a bidirectional relation between the rhetorical relation2 connecting the gerundive clause to the main clause, and the temporal information displayed by the SG. The gerundive constructions considered are the ones M. Lobo (2002, 2006) designates as gerundive adjunct clauses3. Examples (1) illustrate this kind of Gerund : (1)

(a)

O João The-João

sentou-se no sat-himself on-the

telhado, roof,

tendo having

escalado o prédio. climbed the building ‘João sat down on the roof, having climbed the building.’

(b)

Tendo Having

escalado climbed

o the

prédio, building,

o João the-João

sentou-se no telhado. sat himself on-the roof ‘Having climbed the building, João sat down on the roof.’

2. A proposal for gerundive forms General considerations As referred to in the Introduction, we propose that gerundive forms comprise temporal information with respect to the TPpt. The TPpt corresponds to the intermediate time between the utterance time and the eventuality described and it identifies the focus point of the eventuality (Kamp & Reyle 1993). This temporal information indicates the relation between the location of the described eventuality and the TPpt. Kamp and Reyle (1993) propose three features : [past], [pres] and [fut] to explain this relation. However, as we will show, to explain the behaviour of gerundive forms only two features are necessary : [past] and [pres]. The feature [pres] indicates an overlap between the eventuality and the TPpt ; the feature [past] indicates anteriority of the eventuality with respect to its TPpt. The motivation for the use of these particular features will become clearer in the sections to come. The TPpt of the gerundive clause is typically defined by the main clause, with finite tense (this always happens with the SG, but not always 2

3

Rhetorical relations are understood as in Asher & Lascarides (2003): connections between the clauses’ contents or meanings. Lobo’s approach (2002, 2006) to gerundive clauses in European Portuguese is mainly from a syntactic point of view. According to this author, Gerund can be divided into four groups: Gerund in verb complexes; predicative Gerund; adjunct Gerund; adnominal-adjunct Gerund.

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese

87

with the CG). The gerundive clause establishes a temporal relation with the main clause, and the main clause helps to establish a relation between the gerundive clause and the utterance time by defining the TPpt from which the Gerund is evaluated. According to Kamp and Reyle (1993), the Temporal Perspective relation has two values : [+ PAST] and [- PAST]. The former means that the TPpt lies before the utterance time, and the latter means that the TPpt overlaps the utterance time (cf. Kamp & Reyle 1993 : 598). However, as we will point out below, our analysis of the Gerund points to the hypothesis of a feature [FUTURE], indicating that the TPpt lies after the utterance time. 2.1. Simple Gerund 2.1.1. Temporal values A gerund’s temporal information includes the underspecified features [ pres] and [ past] for the SG. In other words, the SG can have [+ pres] or [+ past] as temporal values, or these may remain underspecified. The determination of the feature + or Į will depend on the rhetorical relation established with the main clause and on the role played by the gerundive clause in this rhetorical relation. Notice that the ordering of the eventualities is important to determine the rhetorical relation, as its change can modify the rhetorical relation or the role played by each eventuality in that rhetorical relation. Therefore, the rhetorical relation established between the gerundive clause and the main clause depends not only on the semantic content of both clauses and on world knowledge, but also on the ordering of the eventualities and on the features that the Gerund displays. When there is no activation of the temporal features of the SG, i.e., when the features [pres] and [past] remain underspecified, the temporal readings result from the mere ordering of the eventualities. Consider (2). (2)

Atravessando a rua, o André foi atropelado. Crossing the street, the André was run over by a car ‘Crossing the street, André was run over by a car’.

In (2), the Gerund bears the features [+PAST]4 and [pres]. The feature [+PAST] is set by the main clause and shows that the eventuality is viewed from a TPpt prior to the utterance time. The feature [pres] in the SG implies an overlapping between the eventuality and the TPpt, which means that the eventuality is taking place at the same time interval as the TPpt set by the main clause. 4

Note that the feature [+ PAST] is not specific of the Gerund. It is defined by the main clause because it uses a finite verb. On the other hand, the feature [pres] is, according to our proposal, a Gerund-specific feature.

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In order to fit this proposal in the chosen framework, we need to account, as in Peres (1994), for the existence of a feature [+FUTURE] with respect to the relationship between the TPpt and the utterance time (the Temporal Perspective), thus justifying the occurrence of gerundive clauses with the SG where the eventualities from both the main clause and the gerundive clause occur after the utterance time with a reading of overlapping, as illustrated in (3). (3)

Atravessando a rua, o André vai ser atropelado. Crossing the street, the-André will be run over by a car ‘André will be run over by a car when crossing the street’.

If we analyse (3) as in Kamp & Reyle (1993), the main clause should assign the gerundive clause the feature [-PAST] with respect to the utterance time ; the gerundive clause bears the feature [pres] with respect to the TPpt. The feature [-PAST] shows that the TPpt overlaps the utterance time, and the feature [pres] indicates that the eventuality expressed by the gerundive clause is taking place in the same interval as the TPpt, which, in this case, is the utterance time. However, this analysis is not correct, because atravessar a rua does not include the utterance time ; instead the former is posterior to the latter. To analyse this sentence according to our proposal, we have to consider that the TPpt of the gerundive clause is located after the utterance time. In fact, the information conveyed by the verbal periphrasis from the main clause vai ser atropelado can only be located after the utterance time. Note that in Kamp & Reyle (1993 : 598) the TPpt can only establish a prior [+PAST] or overlapping [-PAST] relationship with the utterance time. However, these authors leave open the possibility of a TPpt occurring after the utterance time. For the analysis of example (3) we shall then consider the presence of a TPpt after the utterance time. The TPpt will be defined by the main clause and it will bear the feature [+FUTURE]5. Again the SG bears the feature [pres] with respect to the TPpt, and in that sense the reading of (3) is similar to (2).6

5 6

See Peres (1994) for a similar proposal, but with different motivations. A reviewer noticed that this analysis of (3) is quite complicated, whereas the explanation can be simpler by noting that the reference point of the Gerund overlaps the temporal location of the event in the main clause. Although that may explain the reading of (3), it is not according to the two dimensional theory of tense proposed by Kamp and Reyle (1993) and used in this work to analyse the gerundive forms, as the Temporal Perspective can only bear features [+PAST] or [- PAST] and none of these can be used to explain the temporal reading of the gerundive clause in (3).

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89

2.1.2. Non-temporal readings of gerundive clauses The above examples raise the following question : why is the SG marked with the feature [+ pres] ? This is motivated by the rhetorical relation established between the gerundive clause and the main clause : the Background relation. Rhetorical relations are a very useful concept when analysing the non-temporal values of gerundive clauses (cf. Móia & Viotti 2004 ; Cunha, Leal & Silvano 2006).7 The Background relation « holds whenever one constituent provides information about the surrounding state of affairs in which the eventuality mentioned in the other constituent occurred » (Asher & Lascarides 2003 : 460). It has, as temporal consequence, the overlapping of the eventualities. The Elaboration relation requires the second eventuality to be a temporal part of the first eventuality. The mereological relation part of implies the overlapping between entities, therefore, the Elaboration relation also implies that eventualities (partially) overlap. Both these relations activate the feature [pres] in the SG8. Therefore, a SG involved in a relation of Elaboration or of Background bears the feature [+ pres]. As a consequence of these relations, the ordering of eventualities does not affect overlapping readings. This happens because overlapping is a symmetrical relation. Let’s consider some examples.

7

8

In what follows, we will consider only the relevant readings of the sentences. Some examples may have other readings, but these readings are not relevant to our explanation, therefore they will be disregarded. A reviewer asked whether it couldn’t be the feature [+ pres] from the SG that determines the existence of a relation of Elaboration or Background between the eventuality denoted by the gerundive clause and the one denoted by the main clause. In our opinion, this possibility does not account for the existence of the numerous and grammatical occurrences of gerundive clauses with the SG with a reading prior to the main clause. It seems that the SG with a previously defined feature [+ pres], would require to state that the SG determines, at least partially, the rhetorical relation, and this makes it difficult to explain the reading of anteriority. If, otherwise, we consider that the SG has two potential features, only one of them can be contextually activated, and that that activation depends on the type of rhetorical relation established between the gerundive clause and the main clause, then it is possible to explain why the gerundive clause can establish with the main clause all possible temporal relations. Also, note that, from a certain perspective, the SG determines partially the rhetorical relation established between the gerundive clause and the main clause. As we will see later, the available rhetorical relations are restricted by the features that the SG can bear.

90 (4)

António Leal a.

Os animais The animals pessoas, persons

domésticos domestic

ocupando as occupying the

concorreram competed ruas, streets,

fazendo making

com as with the ruído noise

nos prédios.9 in-the buildings ‘Domestic animals competed with people, occupying the streets and making noise in the buildings.’ b.

Ocupando as Occupying the

ruas, streets,

fazendo making

prédios, os buildings, the

animais animals

domésticos domestic

com as with the

ruído noise

nos in-the

concorreram competed

pessoas. persons.

‘Domestic animals competed with people, occupying the streets and making noise in the buildings.’

(4a) exhibits three eventualities connected by the Elaboration relation. Ocupar as ruas and fazer ruído nos prédios are part of os animais domésticos concorrer com as pessoas. Therefore, the feature activated in the SG is [+ pres]. Temporally, that means that ocupar as ruas and fazer ruído nos prédios overlaps with os animais domésticos concorrer com as pessoas. As this relation is symmetrical, (4b) has the same reading as (4a). Consider now (5). (5)

a.

Arrastando uma coisa parecida Dragging a thing similar

com névoa to mist

cinzenta grey

e oleosa, and greasy,

dois palmos two inches

da from-the

cabeça, head,

suspensa hanging

João Carlos João Carlos

a at

andou walked

três ou three or

quatro four

passos. steps ‘João Carlos walked three or four steps, dragging something resembling a grey and greasy mist, hanging two inches over his head.’

9

Examples (4a) and (5a) were taken from the CETEMpublico corpus.

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese b.

João Carlos João Carlos

andou walked

três ou three or

quatro four

passos, steps,

arrastando uma coisa parecida dragging a thing similar

com névoa to mist

cinzenta grey

e oleosa, and greasy,

dois palmos two inches

da from-the

suspensa hanging

a at

91

cabeça. head ‘João Carlos walked three or four steps, dragging something resembling a grey and greasy mist, hanging two inches over his head’.

In (5a), the eventualities are connected by the Background relation. Arrastar uma coisa parecida com névoa cinzenta e oleosa, suspensa a dois palmos da cabeça occurs at the same time as João Carlos andou três ou quatro passos. Again, the feature [+ pres] is activated in the SG and the symmetry of the relation justifies the maintenance of the overlapping reading in (5b). The gerundive clauses can be attached to the main clause by other rhetorical relations, namely Narration, Result and Explanation. The Narration relation « holds if the constituents express eventualities that occur in the sequence in which they were described » (Asher & Lascarides 2003 : 462). It requires the first eventuality to be prior to the second eventuality. This relation does not seem to activate any feature in the SG, which means that establishing a relation of Narration between the gerundive clause and the main clause will determine that neither the feature [pres] nor the feature [past] will become [+ pres] or [+ past]. In other words, the SG will not exhibit any temporal value. Therefore, the features remain underspecified and the temporal relation between the gerundive clause and the main clause will depend on the mere ordering of eventualities, not being affected in any way by the SG. If the gerundive clause is located, in the sentence, before the main clause, it will have a temporal reading of anteriority regarding the main clause. If the gerundive clause is located, in the sentence, after the main clause, it will have a temporal reading of posteriority. Consider (6). (6)

a.-

O João The-João se himself

escalou climbed no on-the

o the

prédio, building,

sentandositting-

telhado. roof

‘João climbed the building and then sat down on the roof.’

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António Leal b.

c.

* Sentando-se Sitting-himself

no on-the

escalou climbed

o the

prédio. building

Escalando o Climbing the

prédio, building,

telhado, roof,

o João the-João

o João the-João

sentou-se no sat-himself on-the

telhado. roof d.

‘João climbed the building and then sat down on the roof.’ * O João sentou-se no telhado, escalando The-João sat-himself on-the roof, climbing o the

prédio. building

In all examples of (6), the eventualities are connected by Narration. In (6a), o João escalar o prédio occurs before o João sentar-se no telhado. But, in (6b), sentar-se no telhado must occur before o João escalar o prédio, and this is inconsistent with our world knowledge : John must climb the building before he sits on the roof (of the building). In (6c) and (6d), the nature of the clauses is inverted : now, escalar o prédio is the gerundive clause and sentar-se no telhado is the main clause. The results are consistent with the claim that the features in the SG are not activated. In (6c), escalar o prédio is prior to sentar-se no telhado, but, in (6d) sentar-se no telhado is prior to escalar o prédio and this is, once again, inconsistent with our world knowledge. Hence, we can conclude that while the relations of Elaboration and Background determine the activation of the feature [pres] in the SG, the relation of Narration does not activate any temporal feature, keeping the features [pres] and [past] underspecified. The relations of Explanation and Result require a causal relation between eventualities (they connect a cause to its effect) and they have the following temporal consequences : the relation of Result demands that the first eventuality occurs before the second eventuality (with or without a partial overlapping) ; the relation of Explanation demands that the second eventuality occurs prior to the first one (or there is an overlapping relation, if the second eventuality is a state). (7) illustrates a cause-effect relation.

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese (7)

a.

O vaso partiu-se The vase broke-itself ao onto-the

em in

pedaços, pieces,

93

caindo falling

chão. floor

‘The vase broke into pieces because it fell onto the floor.’ b.

Caindo Falling

ao onto-the

chão, o floor, the

vaso partiu-se vase broke-itself

em in

pedaços. pieces ‘The vase broke into pieces because it fell onto the floor.’ c.

O vaso caiu ao The vase fell onto-the

chão, partindo-se floor, breaking-itself

em in

pedaços. pieces ‘The vase fell onto the floor, therefore it broke into pieces.’ d.

Partindo-se Breaking-itself

em in

pedaços, pieces,

o the

vaso caiu ao vase fell onto-the

chão. floor ‘The vase broke into pieces and then fell onto the floor.’

These examples show that a gerundive clause can express cause (in a causeeffect relation) both after (7a) and before (7b) the main clause. In both cases, the eventuality o vaso partir-se em pedaços occurs after the eventuality o vaso cair ao chão. This can be understood if we assume that in a cause-effect relation where the gerundive clause expresses the cause the SG has the feature [past] activated. That explains why there is a relation of Explanation when the gerundive clause occurs after the main clause, as in (7a) ; if it occurs before the main clause, as in (7b), there is a relation of Result. If we consider only temporal readings, the order by which the clauses are displayed in the sentence is irrelevant, since the gerundive clause is always temporally prior to the main clause when the SG bears the feature [+ past]. Furthermore, the type of rhetorical relation is different due to the inversion of the clauses’ order, but the semantic relation cause-effect10 remains unchanged. Nevertheless, if the SG expresses the effect in a cause-effect relation, there is no definition of temporal features, i.e., both [ pres] and [ past] remain underspecified. This explains the asymmetry verified in (7c) and (7d). 10

Explanation « is the ‘dual’ to Result » (Asher & Lascarides 2003:462).

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António Leal

In (7c), o vaso cair ao chão occurs before o vaso partir-se em pedaços. The relation between the eventualities is that of Result. But, in (7d), o vaso partirse em pedaços occurs before o vaso cair ao chão, and not after. These examples show the opposite of (7a) and (7b), where the anteposition of the gerundive clause did not cause any change in the rhetorical relation ; according to our proposal, the SG is marked, in those cases, with the feature [+ past]. In (7c) and (7d), because no feature is set, temporal relations between eventualities will depend on its ordering. The anteposition of the gerundive clause in (7d) only allows a relation of anteriority with regard to the main clause, although this location is not in accordance with the role of effect, in a cause-effect semantic relation (which requires a temporal relation of posteriority). The rhetorical relation of Explanation cannot therefore be established when the gerundive clause expresses the effect in the order gerundive clause + main clause. Instead, in (7d), the relation of Narration arises, and there is no causal link between the two eventualities. Notice that this is a two-way relation : (i) the rhetorical relations determine the temporal values of gerundive forms ; (ii) the possible temporal values displayed by the SG restrict the various options of rhetorical relations (and the ordering of the eventualities). The relations of Result or Explanation in which the gerundive clause is the cause determine the activation of the feature [past] for the SG (the order of the clauses does not affect the temporal order of the eventualities). If the gerundive clause denotes the result, no feature is activated. As the role of result requires a temporal reading of posteriority, the gerundive clause can only occur after the main clause to have such a reading. No linguistic mechanism is known to assign to the gerundive clause located before the main clause a reading of posteriority with regard to the main clause. These data also explain the choice of a feature [past] and not [future] for the SG. In fact, when a SG occurs after the main clause, it can be interpreted as temporally prior to the eventuality in the main clause ; but when a SG occurs before the main clause, it cannot be interpreted as temporally posterior to the eventuality in the main clause.11 We can conclude that there is a relation between the temporal values of the SG - anteriority, posteriority or simultaneity (partial or total overlapping or inclusion) - and the non-temporal readings assigned to the gerundive clause, which have been associated to some rhetorical relations.

11

Notice that some speakers interpret the SG in (7d) as temporally posterior to the main clause. But this interpretation is very unnatural and it seems to depend on aspectual properties of the eventualities involved. Moreover, it is not systematic, i.e., not all speakers accept this reading in all examples. In fact, this reading arises in a very small set of sentences.

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2.2. Compound Gerund 2.2.1. Temporal value The temporal value of the CG has many similarities with the SG. We will only point out the differences. Firstly, the CG exhibits only a feature, [past]. Secondly, this feature is already specified as [+ past]. In other words, this feature is inherent to the gerundive form. This has some consequences. For instance, as has already been shown in Cunha, Leal & Silvano (2006), the number of possible rhetorical relations is smaller in gerundive clauses with the CG than in those with the SG. Finally, when the gerundive clause occurs after the main clause, the former can take the interval of the latter as its TPpt, similar to what happens with the sentences with the SG, or the interval of utterance time. This last possibility is very important because it strongly supports the claim that gerundive forms comprise temporal information. The existence of a feature [+ past] in the CG can be easily verified. Consider (6d) and (8). (8)

a.

O João sentou-se no The-João sat-himself on-the escalado climbed

o the

telhado, roof,

tendo having

prédio. building

‘João sat down on the roof after having climbed the building.’ b.

Tendo Having

escalado climbed

sentou-se sat-himself

o the

no on-the

prédio, building,

o João the-João

telhado. roof

‘João sat down on the roof after having climbed the building.’ c.

* Tendo-se sentado Having-himself seated escalou climbed

d.

o the

no on-the

telhado, roof,

o João the-João

prédio, building,

tendo-se having-himself

prédio. building

O João escalou The-João climbed

o the

sentado seated

telhado. roof

no on-the

‘João climbed the building and then he sat down on the roof.’

Recall that (6d) is odd because there is a relation of Narration between the eventualities that does not activate any of the features of the SG, highlighting

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António Leal

the temporal sequence of the eventualities. Our world knowledge tells us that climbing the building must be prior to sitting on the roof. (8a) is unproblematic. Note, however, that the climbing occurs temporally before the sitting. This is only possible if the CG has a feature [+ past] that does not depend on the nature of the rhetorical relation involved. This feature explains the oddness of (8c) where the sitting occurs before the climbing, colliding with our world knowledge. (8d) shows that the TPpt of a gerundive clause with CG can be the utterance time. In (8d), climbing is prior to sitting. But if we argue that the CG always has a feature [+ past], this feature cannot be evaluated taking the time interval of the main clause as its TPpt ; if we do so, then the sitting must be prior to the climbing. A solution for this problem is to consider the TPpt for the CG as being identical to the interval of the utterance time. This choice is confirmed by the following examples : (9)

a.

O João irá sentar-se The-João will seat-himself tendo having

escalado climbed

o the

no on-the

telhado, roof,

prédio. building

‘João will seat on the roof after having climbed the building.’ b.

Tendo Having

escalado climbed

sentar-se seat-himself

o the

no on-the

prédio, building,

o João the-João

irá will

telhado. roof

‘João will seat on the roof after having climbed the building.’ c.

* Tendo-se sentado Having-himself seated irá escalar o will climb the

d.

telhado, roof,

o João the-João

prédio, building,

tendo-se having-himself

prédio. building

* O João irá escalar o The-João will climb the sentado seated

no on-the

no on-the

telhado. roof

The verbal periphrasis irá sentar-se and irá escalar project both eventualities into a time posterior to the utterance time. (9a) and (9b) are good examples because the TPpt for the feature [+ past] of the CG is the time interval of the main clause. But both (9c) and (9d) are odd. We can explain (9c) in terms of (8c), but not (9d). In (9d), the utterance time is prior to the eventuality in the gerundive clause (contrary to what happens in (8d)) ; therefore, the CG

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese

97

cannot be interpreted as [+ past] with respect to this temporal element. These data seem to confirm that the CG is sensible to the utterance time. 2.2.2. Temporal versus aspectual connections The temporal nature of the CG can also be emphasized by comparing gerundive clauses using the CG with other apparently similar constructions. We can find many affinities between the CG and the Absolute Participle (AP). In fact, it is common to consider the CG a perfective construction, very similar to the AP (cf. Peres 1994). The AP is a construction that has a participial form as its nucleus. It also contains an internal argument lexically fulfilled. This construction establishes a relation of adverbial modification, expressing anteriority with respect to the main clause. The AP depends on the main clause for its temporal interpretation, as its TPpt is the time interval of main clause (cf. Santos 1999) (see (10a) and (10b)). In (10c), the occurrence, in the AP, of an adverbial establishing a relation of posteriority with the utterance time contradicts the temporal value of anteriority of the main clause, defined by the Pretérito Perfeito (Simple Past), making (10c) odd. (10) a.

Escrita Written

a the

concluiu finished

introdução introduction a the

ontem, o João yesterday, the-João

tese. thesis

‘João wrote the introduction yesterday, finishing the thesis.’ b.

Escrita Written

a the

concluirá a will finish the

introdução introduction

amanhã, o João tomorrow, the-João

tese. thesis

‘João will write the introduction tomorrow, finishing the thesis.’ c.

* Escrita Written

a the

introdução introduction

concluiu finished

a the

tese thesis

amanhã, o João tomorrow, the-João

The definition of the TPpt of the AP is a consequence of the aspectual connection established between the AP and the main clause, revealed, for instance, by the restrictions imposed to the aspectual types that can occur in the AP. In fact, the AP expresses a consequent state (cf. Moens & Steedman 1988) that includes the eventuality denoted by the main clause. Therefore, only the eventualities that have a culmination in their aspectual nucleus can

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occur in this construction : culminations and culminated processes (cf. (11a) and (11b)). Points, processes and states are excluded (cf. (11c)-(11e)). (11) a.

Fechada Closed

a the

porta, door,

o the

professor começou teacher began

a the

aula. class ‘The teacher closed the door and began the class.’ b.

Lido o Read the

livro, o João book, the-João

devolveu-o returned-it

à biblioteca. to-thelibrary

‘After having read the book, João returned it to the library.’ c.

* Tossido, o João Coughed, the-João

d.

*Trabalhado Worked

muito, much

o João the-João

descansou. rested

e.

* Morado no Porto, Lived in-thePorto,

o João the-João

conhecia knew

bem a well the

começou began

a to

falar. talk

cidade. city

The CG shows some similarities with the AP : in both cases, a relation of temporal anteriority with respect to the main clause is established when the main clause occurs in the second position. (12) a.

Terminado o Finished the

teste, o João test, the-João

saiu da sala. left of-theclassroom

‘João left the classroom after having finished the test.’ b.

Tendo Having

terminado o finished the

teste, o João test, the-João

saiu da left of-the

sala. classroom

‘João left the classroom after having finished the test.’ However, when the main clause occurs in first position, different readings arise. The CG can have a reading of posteriority or anteriority with respect to the main clause ; the AP always keeps the reading of anteriority. (13) a.

O João saiu da sala, terminado o The-João left of-theclassroom, finished the

teste. test

‘João left the classroom after having finished the test.’

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese b.

O João saiu da sala, tendo The-João left of-theclassroom, having

99

terminado o finished the

teste. test ‘João left the room after having finished the test. / João left the room and then he finished the test.’

The fact that the above configuration only allows a reading of anteriority to the AP, but both a reading of anteriority and posteriority to the CG, can be confirmed by inserting a temporal adverbial. Thus the AP cannot be used with depois (after), which locates the eventuality described by the AP after the main clause (cf. (14a)). On the other hand, the CG is compatible with antes (before) and depois (after), which determine, respectively, a relation of anteriority and posteriority of the eventualities with regard to the main clause eventuality. (14) a.

* O João saiu da The-João left of-the

sala, terminado o classroom, finished the

teste depois. test after b.

O João saiu da The-João left of-the terminado o finished the

sala, tendo classroom, having

antes before

teste. test

‘João finished the test first and then left the classroom.’ c.

O João saiu da The-João left of-the terminado o finished the

sala, tendo classroom, having

teste depois test after

(sentado no corredor). (siting in-the corridor)

‘João left the classroom and then he finished the test (sitting in the corridor).’

This difference in behaviour results from the fact that the gerundive clause establishes a temporal relationship with the main clause. As a consequence of this temporal relationship, the order of the predications is relevant (cf. (12b) and (13b)) and there are no restrictions as to the aspectual types that may occur in the gerundive clause (cf. (15)).

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António Leal

(15) a.

Tendo Having a the

fechado closed

a the

porta, o door, the

professor teacher

começou began

aula. class The teacher closed the door and began the class.

b.

Tendo Having

lido o read the

livro, o João book, the-João

devolveu-o returned-it

à to-the

biblioteca. library ‘After having read the book, João returned it to the library.’ c.

Tendo Having

tossido, coughed

o João the-João

começou began

a to

falar. talk

‘João coughed and then he began to talk.’ d.

Tendo Having

trabalhado muito, worked much

o João the-João

descansou. rested

‘João worked hard and then he rested.’ e.

Tendo Having

morado lived

no Porto, in-thePorto,

conhecia knew

bem a well the

cidade. city

o João the-João

‘João lived in Porto, so he knew the city very well.’

The AP establishes an aspectual relationship with the main clause, which makes the occurrence of predicates other than those which have a consequent state impossible. There is always a reading of anteriority for the participle clause, as the main clause is anchored in the consequent state of the AP. Notice also that the occurrence with the adverbial in x-time, a marker of perfectivity, shows us that what matters in the CG is not a possible perfectivity of the eventualities, but the presence of a final limit. In (16) and (17), the adverbial em três minutos is ungrammatical, while the adverbial durante três minutos, which is compatible with the basic aspectual types occurring in gerundive construction, is grammatical.

Some semantic aspects of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese (16)

Tendo Having

tossido coughed

101

(* em três minutos / durante (* in three minutes / for

três minutos), o João three minutes) the-João

começou began

a to

falar. talk

‘João coughed (* in three minutes/ for three minutes) and then he began to talk.’ (17)

Tendo Having

trabalhado (* em três horas / worked (* in three hours /

horas), hours)

o João the-João

durante três for three

descansou. rested

‘João worked (* in three hours / for three hours) and then he rested.’

We can see, however, a slight but interesting change in some eventualities. Eventualities in (16), (17) and (18) are basically atelic (processes12 and states), and receive, with the CG, an arbitrary final limit. From (18) we can infer that when João married Maria he no longer loved her. (18)

Tendo Having

amado loved

a Maria, o João the-Maria, the-João

casou married

com ela. with her ‘Having loved Maria, João married her.’ 13

In short, both the AP and the CG express anteriority with respect to the main clause. In the case of the AP, this information is mandatory, and the position of the AP with respect to the main clause is irrelevant. In the case of the CG, the position is relevant as the order main clause + gerundive clause allows the CG to have the interval of the main clause or of the utterance time as its TPpt, giving rise to different temporal readings. This difference between the AP and the CG is due to the fact that the connection with the main clause is made by distinct mechanisms : a temporal one, in the case of the CG (it is not a perfective construction), and an aspectual one, in the case of the AP, as this construction expresses perfectivity. 12 13

In (16), the point changes into a process by iteration. A reviewer suggested that this gerundive clause should be interpreted as having always loved Maria. This interpretation seems possible indeed, but in that case we will infer João is dead. In other words, when he married Maria, he loved her and kept loving her while they were married, but at the utterance time love has ceased because João has died. While in one reading the state amar a Maria is regarded as prior to the main clause eventuality, in this second reading the state amar a Maria is regarded as prior to the utterance time.

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Conclusion In this paper, we have considered the gerundive forms of European Portuguese, specifically in gerundive adjunct clauses. We have shown that these forms convey temporal information. These temporal values are related to the TPpt (cf. Kamp & Reyle 1993). The TPpt for the evaluation of a gerundive clause is typically the main clause. The SG is characterised by two features : [pres] and [past]. These features are underspecified, i.e., they are not pre-defined. The specification of these features is made by the rhetorical relation established between the main clause and the gerundive clause, since rhetorical relations have temporal consequences. We saw that the Elaboration and Background relations mark the SG as [+ pres], which means that the gerundive clause overlaps its TPpt, the interval of the main clause. The Result and Explanation relations mark the SG as [+ past], when the gerundive clause expresses cause, in a causeeffect relation. If the gerundive clause expresses effect, then the SG remains temporally underspecified. The SG also remains underspecified when clauses are related by the Narration relation. We saw that the rhetorical relations determine the temporal values of gerundive forms, but the possible temporal values displayed by the SG narrows the various options of rhetorical relations and the ordering of the eventualities. As for the CG, we saw that it is always specified by the feature [+ past]. In this case, the temporal information the CG exhibits restricts possible rhetorical relations. This temporal feature is highlighted by the fact that, when the gerundive clause occurs after the main clause, the CG can take the utterance time as its TPpt. Its temporal nature is also highlighted by the comparison with the AP, a construction that is attached to the main clause by aspectual mechanisms.14 References Asher, N. ; Lascarides, A. (2003). Logics of Conversation, Cambridge : University Press. Cunha, L. F. ; Leal, A. ; Silvano, P. (2006). Relações Retóricas e Temporais em Construções Gerundivas Adverbiais. Paper presented at XXXVI Simposio de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística (Edifício de Humanidades da UNED - Madrid, 18-21/12/2006). Kamp, H. ; Reyle, U. (1993). From Discourse to Logic. Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and 14

I would like to thank the members of the DisSema group, especially Fátima Oliveira, Luís Filipe Cunha and Purificação Silvano, for their thorough remarks.

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Discourse Representation Theory, Dordrecht : Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lagunilla, M. F. (1999). Las Construcciones de Gerundio, in : I. Bosque ; V. Demonte (eds.), Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Espanõla, Madrid : Editorial Espasa Calpe, SA, 3443-3503. Leal, A. (2001). O Valor Temporal das Orações Gerundivas em Português, Masters Dissertation, University of Porto. Leal, A. (2006). Temporal value in gerundive clauses in european Portuguese, in : Studies in Contrastive Linguistics, Santiago de Compostela : Servicio de Publicacións da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 883-888. Lobo, M. (2001). Aspectos da Sintaxe das Orações Gerundivas Adjuntas do Português, in : Actas do XVII Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, Lisboa : A.P.L., 247-266. Lobo, M. (2006). Dependências Temporais : a Sintaxe das Orações Subordinadas Gerundivas do Português, Veredas 10 (1-2) : 21 pp. Lonzi, L. (1997). Frasi Subordinate al Gerundio, in : L. Renzi ; G. Salvi (orgs.), Grande Grammatica Italiana di Consultazione, Urbino : Ed. Il Mulino, 571-592. Móia, T. & Viotti, E. (2004). Sobre a Semântica das Orações Gerundivas Adverbiais, in : Actas do XX Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, Lisboa : A.P.L., 715-729. Moens, M. & Steedman, M. (1988). Temporal ontology and temporal reference, Computational Linguistics 14 (2) : 15-28. Neto, J. B. & Foltran, M. J. (2001). Construções com Gerúndio, in : Actas do XVI Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, Lisboa : A.P.L., 725-735. Peres, J. (1994). Sobre a Semântica das Construções Perfectivas do Português, in : Actas do Congresso Internacional sobre o Português (vol. II), Lisboa : A.P.L., 33-58. Santos, A. L. (1999). O Particípio Absoluto em Português e em outras Línguas Românicas, Masters Dissertation, University of Lisboa. Corpus CETEMPúblico 1.7 anotado 2.0 (http://www.linguateca.pt).

Introducing the present perfective puzzle Gerhard SCHADEN∗ Université Paris 7/CNRS UMR 7110

1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to point out a problem associated with the hypotheses that (i) aspect is a universal category, and (ii) all aspectually unmarked tenses behave alike (cf. Smith 1991). The combination of these hypotheses leads to the prediction that perfective readings should be generally available for aspectually unmarked present tenses across languages. However, at least in French and German, present tenses combined with since X do not display any perfective readings. I will propose to block such readings in a bi-directional OptimalityTheory (OT) framework, and to maintain the hypotheses cited above. Reyle et al. (2007) have developed an underspecification-analysis of the German present tense in the framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT)1. More specifically, they suppose that all occurrences of German present tense are at the same time aspectually perfective, and imperfective. For the purposes of this paper, I will use the following definitions of perfective and imperfective aspect2 : (1)

a. [[perfective@@ =  (e) ҧ T-Ast The temporal trace of the eventuality ( (e)) is included in the interval of assertion (T-Ast). b. [[imperfective]] = T-Ast ҧ(e)

∗

1

2

I am grateful for comments and input of the audience at Chronos 7 in Antwerp. More specifically, I would like to thank Patrick Caudal, Hamida Demirdache, Brenda Laca, Andrew Woodard, and the anonymous reviewer of this paper. Any remaining errors are my own. In this paper, I will apply the following typographical conventions : I will refer to a tense of a particular language, for instance German, by italicising it (e.g., present tense). When referring to a tense-feature, however, the feature – or the word “tense” – will appear in small caps : the PRESENT feature, or the feature TENSE. Reyle et al. (2005 : 70) use a different representation formalism for their definitions, and more specifically, they assume a considerably stronger (intensional) representation of the imperfective. The final outcome for the problem I consider here, however, will be the same. © Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): 105-122.

106

Gerhard Schaden The interval of assertion (T-Ast) is included in the temporal trace of the eventuality ((e))

Discourse update and contextual reasoning will determine if one of the aspects will be eliminated, and which one it will be. More precisely, if one of the aspectual interpretations becomes inconsistent with information received in the update process, the inconsistent viewpoint will be eliminated. Aspectual underspecification is one possibility for resolving the issue of aspectually unmarked tenses, raised in the work of Smith (1991). However, the German present (like its French equivalent) behaves in at least some contexts more like an imperfective tense than like an aspectually unmarked tense : often, there simply is no perfective reading available. An underspecification approach predicts a perfective reading for the following sentences : (2)

a. Aliénor dort depuis minuit. A. sleeps since midnight. (i) ‘Aliénor has been sleeping since midnight.’ (ii) * ‘Aliénor has slept since midnight.’ b. Aliénor schläft seit Mitternacht. A. sleeps since midnight. (i) Aliénor has been sleeping since midnight.’ (ii) * ‘Aliénor has slept since midnight.’

Assuming that aspect restricts the relation between the interval denoted by since X and (e) – a solution advocated by von Stechow (2002 : 780ff.), amongst others – the imperfective reading of the sentences of (2) is that Aliénor has been sleeping throughout the interval starting at midnight and ending at the moment of utterance. This reading does actually exist. However, if the aspectual relation is underspecified, there should be a perfective reading as well : Aliénor has slept at some subinterval of since midnight, and crucially, possibly not throughout the whole interval. However, this reading does not exist. The important point is that no update will allow us to eliminate the perfective reading, while maintaining the imperfective reading. The reason for this is that the imperfective reading entails the perfective reading. Therefore, whenever an update renders the perfective reading inconsistent, the imperfective reading will be inconsistent as well. This is what I call the “present perfective puzzle” : some predicted perfective readings are not attested. The aim of this paper is to show that this is not a shortcoming restricted to the underspecification theory by Reyle et al. (2007), but that this is a problem that will apply to any neo-reichenbachian theory, provided that it accepts the following assumptions :

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a. Aspect is a universal and obligatory category. b. Aspectually unmarked tenses behave alike in all languages and across all positions of the tense-aspect system.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows : first of all, I will sketch the neo-reichenbachian approach of the tense-aspect systems of natural languages, and the problem of aspectually unmarked tenses that arises. Given the empirical behaviour of such aspectually unmarked tenses, I will conclude that one must use underspecification in order to model these tenses. Then, I will seek evidence for the existence of perfective readings of the present tenses in French and German, and argue that perfective aspect must be allowed to be generated. Finally, I will propose a blocking mechanism for perfective readings of the present tense in sentences like (2), in a bidirectional OT framework (cf. Blutner 1999 ; Dekker & van Rooij 2000). In this way, the unwanted perfective readings can be eliminated, without abandoning the assumptions in (3). 2. Tense and Aspect Systems the Neo-Reichenbachian Way One of the defining properties of most modern theories of temporality in natural languages is that they deny the existence of a direct link between the time of utterance (TU) and the temporal trace of the eventuality ((e)). The relation between these two intervals is specified indirectly by the intervention of a third point or interval, which is, in a classical reichenbachian or in a DRT-approach, the “point of reference” (R) (cf. Reichenbach 1947/1966 ; Kamp & Reyle 1993). Such a point of reference seems to be indeed the only way of accounting for tenses like pluperfects or future perfects. Neo-reichenbachian scholarship, following the work of Smith (1991) and Klein (1994), is no exception : it does not suppose the existence of a direct link between (e) and TU, either. The intermediate interval, in this tradition, is called the ‘interval of assertion’ (T-Ast)3, and allows us to define the two basic categories of tense-aspect systems in natural languages : TENSE and ASPECT. TENSE is defined as the relation between TU and T-Ast, ASPECT as the relation between T-Ast and (e). According to a metaphor by Smith (1991), ASPECT provides a lens through which we see certain parts of an eventuality, but not necessarily the entire eventuality. Therefore, ASPECT is often referred to as view-point aspect. Both TENSE and ASPECT are obligatory and may only appear once in a clause, according to such a definition4. The 3 4

This ‘interval of assertion’ is a reinterpretation of the reichenbachian point of reference R. Some neo-reichenbachian scholars, e.g. Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2008), suppose that tense and aspect are simply conventionally applied to (in principle

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neo-reichenbachian approach has two main consequences : it is necessary to distinguish clearly the notion of ASPECT from the notion of Aktionsart, that is, the (lexical) properties of an eventuality predicate. Such a distinction has already been advocated by Agrell (1908). The second consequence is the need to assign an ASPECT to any tense of any natural language, even if the tense is not involved in an aspectual opposition of any sort. As a consequence, tenses like French présent and futur simple will have to be assigned a certain ASPECT, and furthermore, in languages lacking aspectual oppositions altogether – like modern Hebrew or modern German – one still needs to deal with the aspectual properties of the tenses. The question arises how to model the aspectual behaviour of such tenses. Smith (1991) makes two claims : (4)

a. All tenses without marked aspectual behaviour obey one single pattern and can be characterized in the same way. b. Unmarked aspectual behaviour can be characterized by one single viewpoint aspect, namely “neutral aspect”, which is on a par with imperfective or perfective aspect.

I will show now that the second claim cannot be maintained, although it might provide a way out of the “present perfective puzzle”. I will also show that an underspecification approach is only problematic for the analysis of aspectually unmarked present tenses if one accepts (4a). 2.1. The Empirical Behaviour of Unmarked Aspect Smith (1991) seems to be the first to have pointed out the special behaviour of aspectually unmarked tenses in sentences containing a when-clause. Clearcut perfective tenses (like French passé simple), occurring in the main clause of a sentence containing when, allow only for a sequential reading (cf. (5a)). Clear-cut imperfective tenses (like English progressives), allow only an incidental reading in this position (cf. (5b)) : (5)

5

a. Quand Jean arriva, Marie chanta. singPS. when J. arrive.PS5, Marie ‘When Jean arrived, Marie sang (started to sing).’ b. When John arrived, Mary was singing. arbitrary) relations between intervals, and might therefore be iterated. This, however, is not in the spirit of the original proposal of Klein (1994), as Boneh (2003) and Schaden (2007) have argued. “PS” indicates that the tense of the verb is French passé simple ; “F” indicates that it is the future tense. “Prät” refers to the German preterite. The present tenses and present perfect tenses will be simply given by their English equivalents.

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(5a) is felicitous only in situations where Marie starts to sing after (and maybe because of) Jean’s arrival. (5b) is felicitous only in situations where the eventuality sing(m) has already started and is still going on at Jean’s arrival. Aspectually unmarked tenses, however, may give rise to sequential (that is, perfective-like) readings, as well as incidental (that is, imperfective-like) readings : (6)

a. Quand Jean arrive, Marie chante. when J. arrives, M. sings. (i) ‘When Jean arrives, Marie sings (starts to sing).’ (ii) ‘When Jean arrives, Marie is singing.’ b. Quand Jean arrivera, Marie chantera. when J. arrive.F, M. sing.F. (i) ‘When Jean arrives, Marie will sing (start to sing).’ (ii) ‘When Jean arrives, Marie will be singing.’

(6a-b) are felicitous in circumstances that render (5a-b) felicitous. However, French present and simple future tenses are not compatible with just any temporal ordering of the two eventualities : if the singing event is properly anterior to the entering event, (6a-b) are infelicitous. But these tenses show the relative temporal ordering of both perfective and imperfective tenses. An important point is that this temporal behaviour of aspectually unmarked tenses is not specific to French, nor to the non-past tenses : (7) shows that German present, present perfect, and preterite display the same pattern of relative temporal ordering as the French présent and futur simple : (7)

a. Wenn der Hans ankommt, singt die Maria. when the H. arrives, sings the M. (i) ‘When Hans arrives, Maria sings (starts to sing).’ (ii) ‘When Hans arrives, Maria is singing.’ b. Als der Hans ankam, sang die Maria. when the H. arrivePrät, singPrät the M. (i) ‘When Hans arrived, Maria sang (started to sing).’ (ii) ‘When Hans arrived, Maria was singing.’ c. Als der Hans angekommen ist, hat die Maria gesungen. when the H. arrived is, has the M. sung. (i) ‘When Hans arrived, Maria sang (started to sing).’ (ii) ‘When Hans arrived, Maria was singing.’

This behaviour is not restricted to Indo-European languages : Smith (1991 : 121) shows that aspectually vague sentences in Chinese and Navajo display the same possibilities of relative temporal ordering of the two eventualities ((8) illustrates this for Mandarin Chinese) :

110 (8)

Gerhard Schaden Zhangsan dao jia de shihou, Mali xie gongzuo baogao6. Z. arrive home DE time, M. write work report. a. ‘When Zhangsan arrived at home, Mali wrote the work report.’ b. ‘When Zhangsan arrived at home, Mali was writing the work report.’

Basing herself on these observations, Smith concludes that aspectually vague tenses in all languages do behave the same way. I agree with that claim, and will adopt it as a working hypothesis for the exposition in this paper. Furthermore, I claim that (6a) and (7a) have established that the present tenses of at least French and German do follow the characterisation of Smith, and are thus aspectually vague (or unmarked) tenses, in the sense of Smith (1991). 2.2. Modelling Unmarked Aspect Smith proposed the following representations of perfective, imperfective, and neutral aspect, respectively : (9)

a. PerfectiveTemporal Schema I..........F ///////////// b. ImperfectiveTemporal Schema I..........F ///// c. Neutral Temporal Schema7 I..........F ////

The schema of neutral aspect proposed by Smith, however, cannot account for all attested uses of aspectually unmarked tenses. First of all, let us consider the case of the when-sentences. If ASPECT is to be the determining ingredient of the sequential/incidental ambiguity, and if we want to maintain a neo-reichenbachian analysis, we need to suppose that the when-clause restricts T-Ast of the main-clause, just like a localizing temporal expression does8. The sequential reading would then be caused by

6 7

8

Example, gloss and translation from Smith (1991 : 121). DE is an auxiliary morpheme establishing a relation between two phrases. I is the initial point of the eventuality, F is its final point. The slashes represent the part of the eventuality which is “visible”. The schemes are taken from Smith (1991 : 103,111), with the exception of (9c), which is in her spirit, but does not correspond to her schema (cf. Smith 1991 : 123). This analogy has been proposed by Kamp & Reyle (1993 : 651).

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the fact that one “sees” the initial point of the eventuality with a perfective9 ; the incidental reading comes about through the “invisibility” of the initial point with an imperfective aspect. If this is the case, one cannot model neutral view-point aspect by (9c) : such a representation should systematically produce sequential readings of sentences containing a whenclause, because the initial point of the eventuality is visible in any case. One could still claim that the environment of sentences with whenclauses is not very revealing for the aspectual properties of tenses in the main clauses of such sentences – though Smith identified neutral aspect essentially in such environments. After all, it might be that rhetorical relations govern the relative temporal ordering in such environments, and while aspect may give some indications about the appropriate rhetorical relation, it may not determine directly the temporal ordering10. So, it would be better to find other criteria in order to determine the precise aspectual configuration for aspectually vague tenses. Expressions like since X seem to offer a good test environment : (10)

John has lived in Paris since 1990.

If the notion of an interval of assertion has any descriptive value, it needs to apply in sentences like (10) to the interval whose left (i.e., past) boundary is 1990, and whose right boundary is the moment of utterance of (10)11. (10) has two different readings : a universal reading (for every subinterval i of TAst it is true that John lives in Paris at i), and an existential one (there is at least one subinterval i of T-Ast such that it is true that John lives in Paris at i). These two readings correspond to two different relations between the 9

Why is it then the case that we don’t get a reading focusing on the final point of the eventuality ? I do not have an answer to this ; note, however, that with punctual temporal expressions applied to sentences marked with perfective aspect, the same effect comes about : one only obtains an inchoative reading. À cinq heures, Jean dansa. at five o’clock, J. dancePS. ‘At five o’clock, Jean started to dance.’

10 11

Such a stand would be in line with SDRT-approaches (e.g. Asher & Lascarides 2003). I am well aware of the fact that orthodox reichenbachian or neo-reichenbachian theory, supposing only two temporal relations between intervals, cannot deal with sentences like (10) in the required way. An analysis in a neoreichenbachian spirit is however possible, if one assumes a third temporal relation, situated between TENSE and ASPECT. Such an assumption is extremely common in the literature on perfect tenses (cf., e.g. Alexiadou et al. 2003), and it can be brought in line with Klein (1994), as shown in Schaden (2007).

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temporal trace of the eventuality live_in_Paris(j) and the interval of assertion. The distinction between universal and existential readings in sentences like (10) must therefore correspond to two different aspectual configurations. Now, which aspectual configurations do tenses with unmarked aspect allow for ? The Present Perfect tense in German – which is an aspectually vague tense in the sense of Smith, as shown by example (7c) – does allow existential readings, where the temporal trace of the eventuality is included in the interval of assertion (or : (e) ҧ T-Ast) : (11)

Hans hat seit 12 einen Apfel H. has since 12 one apple ‘Hans has eaten one apple since 12 o’clock.’

gegessen. eaten.

This is an aspectually perfective reading. It is less sure that there are clear-cut imperfective readings of a sentence like (11) ; some speakers of German (like Renate Musan) do allow however for sentences like the following : (12)

Max hat seit einer Stunde M. has since one hour ‘Max has been eating for an hour.’

gegessen12. eaten.

According to Musans’s translation, (12) should have an imperfective (or universal) reading : the event eat(m) lasts at least throughout the entire last hour preceding TU. This means that the temporal trace of the eventuality must include the interval of assertion, which is only possible if an aspectually unmarked tense like the German present perfect allows for a proper inclusion of the interval of assertion in the temporal trace of the eventuality (cf. (13a)), as well as for a proper inclusion of the temporal trace in the interval of assertion (cf. (13b)) : (13) a. T-Ast ҧ (e) = imperfective aspect b. (e) ҧ T-Ast = perfective aspect

One may object that a large number of German native speakers do not find sentences like (12) acceptable. However, if one supposes, as I do here, that all aspectually unmarked tenses behave alike, there is still the present tense, where we get clear-cut imperfective readings : (14) 12

Hans

isst

seit 12.

Example, gloss, and traduction from Musan (2003 : 255). I personally find (12) – on the interpretation given by Musan – very odd, if not straightly ungrammatical. I do get, however, a “resultative present” reading for (12) : Max has been in a post-state of eating for one hour now.

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H. eats since 12. ‘Hans has been eating since 12 o’clock.’

Once again, if the notion of ‘interval of assertion’ is supposed to have empirical content, it needs to cover in (14) the interval from 12 o’clock up to the moment of speech. And as (e) must cover at least this interval, the reading is imperfective. I don’t think that there can be a single kind of aspect that can account for clear-cut perfective readings (like (11)), and clear-cut imperfective readings (like (14)) of such tenses. As shown by Allen (1984 : 129), there are 13 possible configurations between two intervals — none of them being a point. However, no single configuration allows at the same time i to be included in i’, while permitting i’ to be included in i. Therefore, the approach by Smith, advocating a single view-point, namely “neutral” aspect, cannot be maintained. I am only aware of one theory which allows us to preserve the hypothesis that all aspectually unmarked tenses behave alike : one can generalize the underspecification model of aspectual relations between imperfective and perfective aspect to all aspectually unmarked tenses. However, as we have already seen, the price to pay for this move is the present perfective puzzle. The empirical question that arises thus is the following : are there actually perfective presents in a language like French or German, which might be blocked in certain contexts, or are such perfective readings only a theoretical fiction ? In the first case, we can allow perfective aspect to be generated, and search for a blocking device preventing it in certain contexts. In the second case, we need to revise our working hypothesis, namely, that all aspectually unmarked tenses can be characterized in the same way. 3. Do Perfective Presents Exist ? I assume that the semantics of the PRESENT feature corresponds to an inclusion of the moment of utterance in the interval of assertion. As a consequence, a present tense, combined with perfective aspect, does not guarantee that the temporal trace of the eventuality will overlap with the moment of utterance. This is one of the problems we faced in sentences like (2), repeated below. (2)

a. Aliénor dort depuis minuit. A. sleeps since midnight. (i) ‘Aliénor has been sleeping since midnight.’ (ii) *‘Aliénor has slept since midnight.’

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Gerhard Schaden b. Aliénor schläft seit Mitternacht. A. sleeps since midnight. (i) ‘Aliénor has been sleeping since midnight.’ (ii) *‘Aliénor has slept since midnight.’

In some languages, like Russian, what is morphologically a present perfective tense is semantically a future form. Now, the present tenses of French and German can be used as well in futurate contexts. Surprisingly, at least out of context, there is some affinity between futurate uses of the present tense, and perfective aspectual readings13 : (15) a. Johnny chante à cinq heures. J. sings at five o’clock. (i) ‘Johnny will (start to) sing at five o’clock.’ (ii) ?* ‘Johnny will be singing at five o’clock.’ b. Der Hans singt um fünf. The H. sings at five. (i) ‘Hans will (start to) sing at five o’clock.’ (ii) ?* ‘Hans will be singing at five o’clock.’

It is very difficult to get a reading other than the inchoative, perfective reading for the sentences in (15). So, futurate readings of the present tenses of French and German seem to be one possible interpretation of a perfective present configuration. Futurate readings are, however, not exclusively perfective, as is shown by the following example, inspired by an earlier version of Reyle et al. (2007) : (16)

13

Wenn Du morgen zu Paulchen ins Büro gehst, schreibt when you tomorrow to P. in the office go, writes er mit Sicherheit einen Brief an den Minister. Aber ebenso he with certainty a letter at the minister. But equally gewiss ist, dass er diesen Brief nie zu Ende schreiben wird. sure is, that he this letter never to end write will.

With clear-cut perfective tenses, one gets systematically inchoative readings when combining such a tense with a punctual localizing temporal expression (cf. (ia)). With a clear-cut imperfective tense, one only obtains ongoing interpretations : (i)

a.

b.

Johnny chanta à cinq heures. J. singPS at five o’clock. ‘Johnny started to sing at five o’clock.’ Johnny was singing at five o’clock.’

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‘When you go and see Paulchen tomorrow in his office, he will be certainly writing a letter to the minister. But there is no doubt either that he will never finish that letter.’

Another context where a perfective present tense seems to be necessary are the so-called “reporting presents” : (17) a. Völler schlägt einen Haken zieht am Tormann vorbei und V. beats a hook pulls at the keeper by and schiebt den Ball ins Tor. pushes the ball into the goal. ‘Völler doubles...moves past the keeper...and pushes the ball into the goal.’ b. Barthez s’énerve... et crache à la figure du joueur B. gets angry... and spits at the face of the player algérien. Algerian. ‘Barthez gets angry... and spits at the face of the Algerian player.’

However, as pointed out by Patrick Caudal (p.c.), reporting presents, as well as historic presents, appear only in quite specific discursive environments. It might therefore be possible that the present tenses which allow for such uses are basically imperfective tenses, but ones which make beginning and ending points accessible by some kind of pragmatic inference. Such a solution, denying that narrative use goes along with perfective aspect, has been presented by Caudal et al. (2003) or Caudal & Vetters (2005) for the French imparfait. The hypothesis that a basically imperfective tense can extend to narrative uses by pragmatic means is tempting, considering the evolution of the French imparfait, which has displayed its narrative uses massively since the beginning of the 19th century (cf. Caudal & Vetters 2005). The question is, however, whether such an approach could provide a general explanation scheme, under our working assumption that all aspectually unmarked tenses behave in the same way. I do not think so. For Modern German, it seems improbable that all unmarked tenses should have started out at the level of an imperfective tense, with pragmatically motivated narrative uses. So let us look at other environments which require perfective aspect in present tense. One possible candidate are performative speech acts. In English, where there is a separate progressive form, one uses the simple form for performatives : (18) a. I baptize this ship the Titanic. b. # I am baptizing this ship the Titanic.

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Yet, performatives arise once more under pragmatically very specific conditions, which might not be very telling about the aspectual properties of the tense involved. So, I propose a last context, namely quantificational contexts, of which some (but not all) require the strict inclusion of the temporal trace of the event in some interval of reference – which means that they are aspectually perfective. One does not expect such contexts to be governed by rhetorical relations. (19) a. Hans fährt jedes Jahr nach Italien. H. drives every year to Italy. ‘Hans drives to Italy every year.’ b. Jean part chaque année en Bretagne. J. leaves every year in Britanny. ‘Jean leaves for Britanny every year.’

The truth conditions of sentences like (19) should be roughly the following : for every year in a period containing the interval of assertion, an eventuality of type drive_to_italy(h) occurs at some subinterval of that year, or more formally : (20) ∃i,h [n ⊆ i & ∀i’∃e[(i’ ⊆ i & year(i’) = 1) Ÿ ((e) ⊆ i’ & drive_to_Italy(e,h))]] where n is the moment of utterance, n ҧ i expresses present tense, and year(i’) = 1 is a measure phrase, meaning that the duration of i’ is one year14

As there is a condition (e) ⊂i’ in (20), the aspect of (19) is perfective. Note, however, that there is no general need to have perfective aspect in the scope of a universally quantified expression : (21)

À chaque fois qu’ explose une ampoule, la Castafiore chante At each time that explodes a bulb, the Castafiore sings l’ air de la Reine de la Nuit. the aria of the Queen of the Night. a. ‘Each time a bulb explodes, the Castafiore (starts to) sing(s) the air of the Queen of the Night.’ b. ‘Each time a bulb explodes, the Castafiore is singing the air of the Queen of the Night.

In order to get the causal inference that it is the singing of the Castafiore which causes the light bulb to explode, one needs to interpret the verb 14

I am aware of the fact that this does not constitute an adequate formalisation of every year : one should at least take care of the fact that the years do not overlap. However, this is not the point of the analysis, and I sacrifice here adequacy for readability.

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chanter in the main clause imperfectively. Thus, there is a reading where imperfective aspect appears in the scope of the universal quantifier, and it seems to be more salient than the perfective reading. Summing up, the inchoative readings of futurate presents and the occurrence of presents in universally quantified contexts are strong evidence for the necessity of a perfective present tense. Other phenomena, like performatives, narrative and reporting presents, also point in the same direction. Therefore, I conclude that there is sufficient empirical evidence for the existence of perfective presents in aspectually unmarked present tenses, like the ones in French or German. Our working hypothesis, whereby we have the same type of aspectual behaviour for all aspectually unmarked tenses, can be maintained. But why is it that perfective readings do appear in some contexts, but are completely unavailable in others (like in (14), repeated below) ? (14)

Hans isst seit 12. H. eats since 12. ‘Hans has been eating since 12 o’clock.’

In the last section of this paper, I will show that a blocking device, using pragmatic parameters, is able to get rid of the undesired perfective reading of sentences like (14). 4. A Blocking Device The blocking device used in this paper relies on a bi-directional version of Optimality Theory (OT), as developed by Blutner (1999). This theory allows us to integrate notions of (neo-)gricean pragmatics into a framework of underspecified compositional semantics. More specifically, the model permits the output of the speaker to be influenced by the expectations of the hearer. ‘Classical’ pragmatics is hearer-centred ; bidirectional OT gives us a grip on the production-side. The basic idea is that there are conflicting constraints, namely Expressiveness (“say as much as you can”) and Economy (“don’t say more than is necessary”) constraints. Those two constraints are clearly inspired by the first and second maxim of quantity by Grice (1975), or the principles Q and R of Horn (1989) (or I by Levinson 1987)15 :

15

Definitions in (22) taken from Blutner (1999 : 7).

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(22) Q-principle : Say as much as you can (given I) (Horn 1984 : 13). Do not provide a statement that is informationally weaker than your knowledge of the world allows, unless providing a stronger statement would contravene the I-principle (Levinson 1987 : 401). I-principle : Say no more than you must (given Q) (Horn 1984 : 13). Say as little as necessary, i.e. produce the minimal linguistic information sufficient to achieve your communicational ends (bearing the Q-principle in mind) (Levinson 1987 : 402). Read as much into an utterance as is consistent with what you know about the world (Levinson 1983 : 146-147).

In bi-directional OT, the reasoning of speaker and hearer does not concern the truth conditions of a sentence in a certain context (as would be the case in ‘classical’ pragmatics). The reasoning concerns rather the relation between form and signification (of grammatical tenses, for instance), which might have been used alternatively in a given context. So, let us suppose that compositional semantics gives us two possibilities for expressing the proper inclusion of the eventuality eat(h) in the interval denoted by since 12 o’clock, namely (23a) and (23b) : (23) a. Hans isst seit zwölf. H. eats since twelve. b. Hans hat seit zwölf gegessen. H. has since twelve eaten.

Let us establish the following convention : 1 will be the imperfective reading of (23a), and 2 the perfective reading. Furthermore, let us note F1 the form displayed in sentence (23a), containing a present tense, and F2 the present perfect form we see in sentence (23b). Let us suppose furthermore for the moment that (23b) only has the perfective reading (i.e., universal perfects do not exist in French or German). We get the following form-meaning pairs for such a situation : (24)

{¢F1, 1² ;¢F1, 2² ;¢F2, 2²}

Suppose now that a speaker wanted to convey 2. In principle, he has two choices : F1 and F2. If he chooses F2, the signification will be exclusively 2 ; if he chooses F1, he might also want to convey 1. Suppose now that the speaker chose F1. The hearer would know that the speaker could convey with F1 1or 2. But by gricean rules, the hearer would reason that, because of F2, which conveys exclusively 2, the speaker would have intended to convey 1 by uttering F1. Therefore, the speaker must choose F2. Under the assumed circumstances, the absence of a perfective reading for (23a) is quite easy to explain : the more specific (23b) blocks the perfective reading of (23a). But the situation might actually be more

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complicated than what we have assumed in (24) : we could have the formmeaning pairs in (25) : (25)

{¢F1, 1² ;¢F1, 2² ;¢F2, 1² ;¢F2, 2²}

(25) supposes that (23b) has got a universal reading, and thus that F2 may express 1. We are still able to obtain the correct truth conditions, if we assume the following : F1 satisfies the Q-principle, and is more economic than F2, and 1 satisfies the I-principle, and is more expressive than 2. Before I go into the explanation of the details, I will briefly show that this claim is justified and, as far as I see, unproblematic. How can we tell if a form is ‘more economic’, or a meaning ‘more expressive’, than another form or meaning, respectively ? Both claims presuppose a measure of economy and expressiveness, which seems problematic to define. I will argue, however, that in our specific case, the measure is easy to find. Let us first consider the meaning part. The only clear-cut measure of expressiveness or informativity I am aware of is entailment. A meaning  is more informative than a meaning ’ if  entails ’16. And in our specific case, 1 entails 217. Let us consider now the form-part. In both languages under consideration here, French and German, the present tense is a synthetic form, with reduced flexional elements, whereas the present perfect is construed with an auxiliary plus a past participle. If our measure of economy is thus number of phonemes, number of syllables or number of words, F1 will always be better (i.e., more economic) than F2. Bearing this in mind, it is time to introduce a bit of formalism. Blutner defines the (weak) version of bidirectional OT as follows : (26)

Bidirectional OT (weak version) (Q) ¢F, ² satisfies the Q-principle iff ¢F, ² Щ Gen18 and there is no other pair ¢F’, ² satisfying the I-principle such that ¢F’, ² > ¢F, ² . (I)

¢F, ² satisfies the I principle iff ¢F, ² Щ Gen and there is no other pair ¢F, ’² satisfying the Q-principle such that ¢F, ’² > ¢F, ² . ¢F, ² is called super-optimal iff it satisfies both the Q-principle and the I-principle.

16 17 18

This kind of measure is proposed in Levinson (2000 : 31), based on work by Popper, Bar-Hillel and Carnap. More generally, it is probably the case that imperfective aspect is more informative than perfective aspect, cf. Schaden (2008). x Щ Gen means that the form-meaning combination x has been generated by the compositional semantics.

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Let us first take the comprehension perspective with form F1. The meanings competing for being associated with F1 are 1 and 2, because the marked ( longer) form F2 does not block any meaning. Now, as 1 entails 2, ¢F1, 1² cannot beat ¢F1, 2². Therefore, the hearer must associate F1 with 1. Now we switch to the speaker perspective, starting with 1. The competing forms are F1 and F2, because there is again no marked meaning blocking anything. F1 being more economic ( shorter) than F2, ¢F2, 1² doesn’t fare better than ¢F1, 1². So, the latter will be retained. Being the best choice from both perspectives – and according to the definition in (26) – this means that ¢F1, 1² is super-optimal. However, we have not quite finished yet : let us take the hearer perspective with F2. The only meaning we can associate with it is 2, because F1 blocks 1. Therefore, the hearer will associate F2 with 2. For the speaker, the reasoning is similar : F1 being blocked by 1, he can only associate F2 with 2. Therefore, ¢F2, 2² is the second super-optimal pair19. The whole decision-process can be depicted in the following OT-table20 : Forms

(& F1 F2 Interpretations

Q-prin.

I-prin.

&(

* 1

Q-prin.

I-prin.

*

* * 2

Thus, bi-directional OT gives us the correct form-meaning pairs, coupling namely the present tense with the imperfective (or universal) reading, and the present perfect tense with the perfective (or existential) reading. Therefore, we have obtained an efficient blocking mechanism which gets rid of the unwanted readings, and which allows us to preserve the two working hypotheses adopted in this paper : (3)

a. Aspect is a universal and obligatory category. b. Aspectually unmarked tenses behave alike in all languages and across all positions of the tense-aspect system.

19

This reasoning can also be developed in a game-theoretic perspective (cf. Dekker & van Rooij 2000). Table adapted from Blutner (1999 : 11). The black hand represents the combinations favoured by the speaker, the white hand the combinations favoured by the hearer.

20

Introducing the present perfective puzzle

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5. Conclusion In this paper, I have shown that, if one assumes the very common hypotheses in (3), there is a problem with the perfective interpretations of the simple present tenses, at least in French and in German. I have shown that there are contexts which require present tenses with perfective aspect, and, as a consequence, present tenses with perfective aspect must be generated. But this leads to an issue of overgeneration : there are cases where there is no reading available which would correspond to the perfective reading of the simple present tense. However, I have shown that we can take care of this overgeneration issue by implementing a blocking mechanism in bi-directional OT, which allows us to constrain form-meaning pairs. References Agrell, S. (1908). Aspektänderung und Aktionsartbildung beim Polnischen Zeitworte : ein Beitrag zum Studium der Indogermanischen Präverbia und Ihrer Bedeutungsfunktionen, Lund : H. Ohlsson. Alexiadou, A. ; Rathert, M. ; von Stechow, A., (eds.), (2003). Perfect Explorations, Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter. Allen, J.F. (1984). Towards a general theory of action and time, Artificial Intelligence 23 : 123-154. Asher, N. ; Lascarides, A. (2003). Logics of Conversation, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Blutner, R. (1999). Some aspects of optimality in natural language interpretation, in : H. de Hoop ; H. de Swart, (eds.), Papers on Optimality Theoretic Semantics, Utrecht : Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, 1-21. http ://www.blutner.de/optimal.pdf. Boneh, N. (2003). La représentation syntaxique du temps : le cas de l’hébreu moderne, de l’arabe standard et dialectal, Ph.D. thesis, Université Paris 8. Caudal, P ; Roussarie, L. ; Vetters, C. (2003). L’imparfait, un temps inconséquent, Langue française 138 : 61-74. Caudal, P. ; Vetters, C. (2005). Que l’imparfait n’est pas (encore) un prétérit, Cahiers Chronos 14 : 45-77. Dekker, P. ; van Rooij, R. (2000). Bi-directional optimality theory : An application of game theory, Journal of Semantics 17, 3 : 217-242. Demirdache, H. ; Uribe-Etxebarria, M. (2008). Scope and anaphora with time arguments : The case of ‘perfect modals’, Lingua 118, 11 : 1790-1815. Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation, in : P. Cole ; J.L. Morgan, (eds.), Syntax and Semantics. Speech Acts, New York : Academic Press,vol.3, 41-58.

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Horn, L.R. (1984). Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference : Qbased and R-based implicatures, in : D. Schiffrin, (ed.), Meaning, Form, and Use in Context, Washington : Georgetown University Press, 11-42. Horn, L.R. (1989). A Natural History of Negation, Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Kamp, H. ; Reyle, U. (1993). From Discourse to Logic. Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory, Dordrecht : Kluwer. Klein, W. (1994). Time in Language, London : Routledge. Levinson, S.C. (1983). Pragmatics, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Levinson, S.C. (1987). Pragmatics and the grammar of anaphora, Journal of Linguistics 23: 379-434. Levinson, S.C. (2000). Presumptive Meanings. The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature, Cambridge : MIT Press. Musan, R. (2003). Seit-Adverbials in perfect constructions, in : Alexiadou et al., (eds), 253-276. Reichenbach, H. (1947/1966). Elements of Symbolic Logic. Toronto : CollierMacMillan. Reyle, U. ; Rossdeutscher, A. ; Kamp, H. (2007). Ups and downs in the theory of temporal reference. Ms, Universität Stuttgart, Linguistics and Philosophy 30.5 : 565-635. Schaden, G. (2007). La sémantique du parfait. Étude des “temps composés” dans un choix de langues germaniques et romanes, Ph.D. thesis, Université Paris 8. Schaden, G. (2008). A formal definition of temporal default relations, in : S. Blaho ; C. Constantinescu ; E. Schoorlemmer,(eds), Proceedings of ConSOLE XV, 207-221. http://www.sole.leidenuniv.nl. Smith, C.S. (1991). The Parameter of Aspect, Dordrecht : Kluwer. von Stechow, A. (2002). Temporal prepositional phrases with quantifiers : Some additions to Pratt and Francez (2001), Linguistics and Philosophy 25 : 755-800.

Why the present perfect differs cross-linguistically. Some new insights Björn ROTHSTEIN Ruhr-Universität Bochum

1. Introduction An interesting cross-linguistic difference concerns the adverbial selection of the present perfect. Although the present perfects in English, Swedish and German denote anteriority, only the latter can be modified by positional temporal adverbials expressing a definite position on the time axis. Klein (1992) dubbed this phenomenon the present perfect puzzle : (1) (2) (3)

*I have been to the movies yesterday. *Jag har varit på bio igår.1 I have been to-the movies yesterday Ich bin gestern im Kino gewesen. I have yesterday to-the movies been

(Swedish) (German)

The pluperfect behaves differently. In all three languages, it allows for event time modification by positional temporal adverbials. This is the “pluperfect puzzle” : (4) (5) (6)

I had been to the movies yesterday. Jag hade varit på bio igår. I had been to-the movies yesterday Ich war gestern im Kino gewesen. I had yesterday to-the movies been

(Swedish) (German)

The present perfect puzzle and the pluperfect puzzle are summarized as perfect variation.2 The perfect variation has been the topic of a long discussion, mostly in the semantic and pragmatic literature (among many 1

2

This is different for modal uses of the Swedish present perfect. In inferential contexts, when used to indicate the author’s degree of confidence in a present inference about past events, the present perfect puzzle only disappears in Swedish : Han har tydligen jobbat igår (‘He has probably worked yesterday’). In Rothstein (2005), it has been argued that this is not a semantic present perfect, but an infinite perfect that is embedded under a phonologically null modal verb. In the following, inferential contexts are therefore neglected. I do not discuss the non-finite perfect here. My proposal can, however, fully account for all perfect tenses in German, Swedish and English. © Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): 123-147. .

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others Klein 1992, Portner 2003, Pancheva & Stechow 2004), but all approaches I know of face problems. Hence, I consider the perfect variation to be still unexplained. The aim of this paper is to give some new insights into the longstanding debate from a rather empirical point of view. The paper is organised as follows : in section 2, the components of the perfect and their meaning contribution to the perfect variation are considered. Section 3 explores the competition between the preterite and the present tense. Section 4 concludes. 2. On compositional approaches to the present perfect puzzle It is desirable to analyse all the perfect tenses (the present perfect, the future perfect and the pluperfect) in the same way, because all perfect tenses contain the same components : the tense of the auxiliary, the auxiliary and the past participle. This suggests the same kind of analysis. One of the arguments for such an analysis is the correlation between the present tense and the present perfect in futurate contexts : if in a language L the present tense can be used to express future, then the present perfect of L can be used as a future perfect. This is confirmed by German, Swedish and English. While the German and Swedish present tense can denote future time reference, this is only occasionally possible in English. A compositional account predicts that the German and Swedish present perfect can be used as future perfects, while this is not possible in English. This is borne out : (7) (8)

(9)

a. *Tomorrow, I leave. b. *Tomorrow, I have already left. a. Imorgon åker jag. tomorrow leave I ‘Tomorrow, I will leave.’ b. Imorgon har jag redan tomorrow have I already ‘I will have left by tomorrow.’ a. Morgen verreise ich. tomorrow leave I ‘Tomorrow, I will leave.’ b. Morgen bin ich bereits tomorrow am I already ‘I will have left by tomorrow.’

(Swedish)

åkt. left

(Swedish)

(German)

verreist. left

(German)

The same compositional analysis of the present perfect and the pluperfect predicts that the meaning contribution of the auxiliary and the past participle remains the same independently of whether they occur in the present perfect or in the pluperfect. The perfect variation should therefore result from the

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third component of the perfect, from tense. We will discuss the contribution of each perfect component in the next section in more detail. The by now standard approach to the perfect variation is an analysis which is based on the meaning contribution of the present tense (cf. Klein 1992, Portner 2003, Pancheva & Stechow 2004). As the pluperfects pattern in the same way, it is natural to argue that the present tense explains the perfect variation, because only the present perfect contains the present tense. However, the present tense cannot explain the present perfect puzzle. If it could, we would expect that languages with a “similar” present tense have a “similar” present perfect. The German and Swedish present tenses pattern in the same way. They can be used to express future and present time reference and they can be combined with since-adverbials. Hence, analyses based on the present tense predict that there is no present perfect puzzle in Swedish. But Swedish does display the present perfect puzzle, while German does not : (10) a. Imorgon reser jag till London. tomorrow go I to London b. Imorgon har jag redan åkt. tomorrow have I already left (11) a. Jag är lärare sedan 1990. I am teacher since 1990 b. Ich bin Lehrer seit 1990. I am teacher since 1990 ‘I have been a teacher since 1990.’ (12) a. Han sover. he sleeps b. Er schläft. he sleeps (13) a. *Sigurd har kommit igår. Sigurd has come yesterday b. Sigurd ist gestern gekommen. Sigurd is yesterday come

(Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish) (German)

(Swedish) (German) (Swedish) (German)

Next, we will investigate whether the meaning contribution of the past participle might explain the puzzle. There are basically two possibilities : either the meaning of the past participle differs cross-linguistically or the meaning of the past participle in the present perfect is different from that in the pluperfect. If this position is correct, there should be an independent reason why the meaning of the past participle differs. The German present perfect can be used in exactly the same ways as the German pluperfect : five major uses of the perfect can be distinguished (cf. McCawley 1971, Iatridou et al. 2001, Musan 2002). The universal present

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perfect denotes an event time stretching from a certain point in the past up to the present ; compare (14). The existential perfect asserts that the subject had a certain experience (see (15)). It does not say anything about whether the eventuality of the main verb still holds at the moment of speech. The hotnews perfect reports an eventuality that happened in the recent past (cf. (16)) and the perfect of result or resultative present perfect expresses a result that holds at the reference time set by the tense of the auxiliary (see (17)). In the preterite use, the perfect does not have a perfect state reading (see (18)). (14) a. Ich habe Dich schon immer geliebt. I have you particle always loved b. Ich hatte Dich schon immer geliebt. I had you particle always loved (15) a. Ich habe Faust dreimal gelesen. I have Faust three-times read b. Ich hatte Faust dreimal gelesen. I had Faust three-times read (16) a. Ich habe gerade meine Prüfung bestanden. I have just my exam passed b. Ich hatte gerade meine Prüfung bestanden. I had just my exam passed (17) a. Ich habe meine Brille verloren. I have my glasses lost b. Ich hatte meine Brille verloren. I had my glasses lost (18) a. Sigurd ist gestern angekommen und gleich Sigurd is yesterday arrived and at-once wieder abgefahren. again left b. Sigurd war gestern angekommen und Sigurd was yesterday arrived and gleich wieder abgefahren. at-once again left

(German) (German) (German) (German) (German) (German) (German) (German) (German)

(German)

(14) to (18) show that the German present perfect and the pluperfect pattern in exactly the same ways. They only differ concerning the meaning contribution of the tense of the auxiliary. I therefore conclude that the meaning of the German past participle is the same in the present perfect and in the pluperfect. The English and Swedish present perfects and pluperfects pattern in exactly the same way as the German examples do.

Why the present perfect differs cross-linguistically (19) a. Jag har alltid älskat dig. I have always loved you b. Jag hade alltid älskat dig. I had always loved you (20) a. Jag har läst Faust tre gånger. I have read Faust three times b. Jag hade läst Faust tre gånger. I had read Faust three times (21) a. Jag har precis klarat mitt prov. I have just passed my exam b. Jag hade precis klarat mitt prov. I had just passed my exam (22) a. Jag har tappat mina glasögon. I have lost my glasses b. Jag hade tappat mina glasögon. I had lost my glasses (23) a. *Sigurd har kommit igår Sigurd has arrived yesterday och åkt tillbaka igen. and left back again b. Sigurd hade kommit igår och åkt Sigurd had arrived yesterday and left tillbaka igen. back again (24) a. I have always loved you. b. I had always loved you. (25) a. I have read Faust three times. b. I had read Faust three times. (26) a. I have just passed my exam. b. I had just passed my exam. (27) a. I have lost my glasses. b. I had lost my glasses. (28) a. *Sigurd has arrived yesterday and left again. b. Sigurd had arrived yesterday and left again.

127 (Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish) (Swedish)

(Swedish)

It follows that the past participle cannot be the source of the perfect variation. Another possibility is to consider the meaning contribution of the auxiliary when used in the present perfect and in the pluperfect. But in German, the pluperfect and the present perfect pattern in exactly the same way. It follows that the English and Swedish perfect auxiliaries should have distinct meanings in the present perfect and the pluperfect. But there is no evidence for such a claim.

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There is, however, a difference between the English, Swedish and German present perfect. Swedish and English only have one perfect auxiliary (have), while German has two (have/be). This suggests a causal relation between auxiliary selection in the perfect and the perfect variation. But Danish has two perfect auxiliaries (have/be) and displays the present perfect puzzle. Therefore, there can be no causal relation between auxiliary selection and the perfect variation. (29) (30)

*Han he *Han he

er is har has

kommet come arbejdet worked

igår. yesterday igår.3 yesterday

(Danish) (Danish)

Maybe scope differences explain the perfect variation. In German, the adverbial seems to scope over the past participle while in English it is the other way around : (31) (32) (33) (34)

Er hat gestern gearbeitet. he has yesterday worked ? Er hat gearbeitet gestern. he has worked yesterday *He has worked yesterday. *He has yesterday worked.

(German) (German)

But Swedish suggests that this is no solution. Temporal adverbials may immediately precede the past participle in Swedish. The scope-based account predicts that Swedish should pattern like German, but this is not borne out : (35)

(36)

President Mubarak President Mubarak telefon med ledarna phone with leaders ‘President Mubarak had eleven Arab countries.’ Andro hade sjungit Andro had sung in

hade igår talat i (Swedish) had yesterday talked in i elva arabländer. in eleven arab-countries. spoken yesterday on the phone with the leaders of inne i in in

stan igår. town yesterday

(Swedish)

There might be another kind of analysis where the perfect variation results from language specific factors which are independent of the present perfect. But if this position is correct, these factors will also give rise to a pluperfect puzzle. But there is no such puzzle. This suggests that “broader” language specific parameters do not play a role. So far, we have seen that none of the components of the perfect (the auxiliary, the past participle or the tense of the 3

Sten Vikner (p.c.)

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past participle) yields the perfect variation unless one stipulates such an explanation. Concerning the German perfect auxiliaries there is an interesting remark by Musan (2002 : 53f) : There is syntactic data that suggests that the past participle morpheme and the auxiliary in perfect constructions form a constituent on some level, too. Consider the data in (4.17). The sentences (b-f) involve topicalization of various constituents in a German present perfect construction that is embedded under a finite modal verb. The underlying verb-end form of the sentences is shown in (4-17a). (4.17) a. (weil) er ein Ufo gesehen haben muss (since) he a ufo seen have must b. [Ein Ufo gesehen haben] muss er. a ufo seen have must he c. [Ein Ufo gesehen] muss er haben. a ufo seen must he have d. [Gesehen haben] muss er ein Ufo. seen have must he a ufo e. [Gesehen] muss er ein Ufo haben. seen must he a ufo have f. *[Haben] muss er ein Ufo gesehen. have must he a ufo seen

Musan (2002 : 54) concludes that the German perfect has the following structure. For the sake of simplicity, I leave out her AspP : (37) TP

Musan (2002 : 54)

PerfectP VP

Perfect ge-t/en hab-/sei-

Musan’s observation that perfects can be topicalised in German is interesting from a cross-linguistic perspective. In Swedish, perfect auxiliaries cannot be topicalised together with the past participle : (38)

*Ha have juveler jewels

gömt sedlar i hidden money in i sykorgen in sewing-basket-the

madrassen mattress-the kan hon. may she

och (Swedish) and

Nor are the corresponding tests (VP-preposing and pseudo-clefts) possible with the English perfect auxiliary :

130 (39) (40)

Björn Rothstein *Have hidden money in the mattress and jewels in the sewing basket, she may. *What she may have done is have hidden money in the mattress and jewels in the sewing basket.

To account for the German data, it is necessary to assume a structure where the past participle morpheme and the auxiliary form a constituent. Rothstein (2008) follows Musan’s analysis (cf. Musan 2002 : 54). The relevant structures he proposes are the following : (41)

a.

Swedish / English

b.

VPAux ha / have

German

PerfP

PartP

Perf’ VP t / ed

VP

Perf ge-t/en hab-/ sei-

The English and Swedish data suggest a different analysis. There, the auxiliaries cannot be VP-preposed or topicalised (cf. (38), (39)). A structure like (41)a can probably account for the facts. The perfect is analysed as a biclausal structure consisting of a VPAux and a PartP. As VPAux cannot be topicalised, it is also impossible to topicalise both the auxiliary and the past participle. The structural proposal in (41)b is, admittedly, a problematic one as it leaves several syntactic questions unanswered. It is, for instance, not clear how the internal organisation of Perf works exactly. Unfortunately, the structure of verbal clusters is a general problem for most accounts, however (cf. Kiss & van Riemsdijk (2004)), and therefore Rothstein (2008) does not present a more detailed structure. According to Rothstein (2008), the different structures in (41) probably explain the perfect variation. The by now standard view concerning the syntax/semantics interface is that syntax serves as input structure for semantic interpretation (cf. among many others the transparent logical form (Stechow 1999) and the discourse representation theory (Kamp & Reyle 1993). In (41)b, there is a symmetric c-command relationship between the auxiliary and the past participle. The auxiliary a-symmetrically c-commands the past participle in (41)a. According to the standard picture, c-command is semantically spelled out as scope. Hence, the auxiliary scopes over the past participle in English and Swedish, while in German the past participle can also scope over the auxiliary. The relation to the perfect variation is obvious : under the assumption that the past participle contains the anteriority meaning of the perfect (cf. Musan 2002 for a detailed argumentation for this view), it

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selects past time adverbials such as yesterday that modify the event time.4 While the auxiliary – and therefore also the tense of the auxiliary – can restrict the adverbial selection of the past participle in English and Swedish due to its c-commanding position, no such restriction exists in German. This explains why there is no present perfect puzzle in German. But it does not explain why the present tense restricts the adverbial selection of the present perfect in Swedish and English. Several proposals have been made in the literature and they differ widely. Difficulties already start when assigning a meaning to the perfect. While many scholars still follow the Reichenbachian tradition (e.g. Klein 1992, Musan 2002), others propose an ExtendedNowapproach (Portner 2003, Pancheva & Stechow 2004) or a result state analysis (Kamp & Reyle 1993). The Reichenbachian tradition analyses the present perfect as an event time which is before the reference time,5 with the reference time being at the speech time. According to the ExtendedNowapproach the present perfect introduces a time interval, an extended now starting somewhere in the past and ending – roughly speaking – at the moment of speech. The result state analysis maintains that the present perfect introduces a result state emerging immediately from the eventuality in the present perfect. The explanation of the perfect variation therefore depends on the meaning of the perfect. All approaches I am aware of, however, adhere to the fact that there is a present perfect puzzle and no pluperfect puzzle. The only difference between the present perfect and the pluperfect is the meaning contribution of the finite tense. Therefore, the present tense must be the source of the present perfect puzzle. This insight is used very differently in the literature. Klein (1992) and Portner (2003) propose a pragmatic constraint, while Pancheva & Stechow (2004) and Kamp & Reyle (1993) argue for a semantic solution. Leaving many details aside, their point is intuitively clear : the present perfect puzzle consists of event time modification by past time adverbials assigning a definite position on the time axis such as yesterday (cf. Klein 1992). The meaning of the present tense as it is standardly described today is that in English, the event time must be located around the speech time.6 In German and Swedish, the event time cannot be entirely located before the speech time, only at or after it. In all three languages, the present tense therefore does not involve an anteriority meaning. The past tense, on the other hand, locates an event time before the speech time. It has an anteriority meaning. The present tense now excludes past time adverbials assigning a definite position on the time axis from the present perfect. In other words : it is incompatible – be it for semantic or 4 5 6

The event time is the time at which the event, state or process obtains. The reference time is the time relative to which the event time is located. In scheduled contexts, the present tense may, however, also refer to the future.

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pragmatic reasons – with these adverbials. The past tense, in contrast, has an anteriority meaning and therefore allows the adverbials in question. Combining the just sketched syntactic analysis of the perfect with this standard approach seems to give the right results. In English and Swedish, the present tense can restrict the adverbial selection of the past participle, because the auxiliary is in a c-commanding position to the past participle. In German, there is a symmetric c-command between the auxiliary and the past participle. Under the assumption that the adverbial selection depends on the auxiliary and the finite tense, the perfect variation can be explained : the present tense excludes definite past time adverbials, while the pluperfect does not. In English and Swedish, the present tense can restrict the adverbial selection of the past participle due to its syntactic position. In German, however, the auxiliary cannot exclude the relevant class of adverbials, because it is c-commanded by the past participle. But many questions remain unanswered. This analysis can only successfully be provided if the syntax of the perfect has been worked out in detail. Especially the assumption that the German perfect is a verbal cluster with no separate phrases for the auxiliary and the past participle waits to be confirmed. Therefore, Rothstein’s (2008) proposal is no solution, as long as a fine grained syntactic structure of the perfect hasn’t been worked out. Moreover, as Schaden (2007) points out, French provides empirical evidence against Rothstein’s analysis. 3. Approaches based on the competition between the present perfect and the preterite Instead, Schaden (2007) argues that the perfect variation is not due to some feature of the perfect, but due to a competition process between the present perfect and the preterite. Languages with constraints on the present perfect, lack constraints on the preterite, and vice versa. Schaden (2007) thereby refers to Kratzer’s (1998) example : (42) (43)

#Wer baute diese Kirche ? Borromini baute diese Kirche. Who built this church ? Borromini built this church Who built this church ? Borromini built this church.

(German)

According to Schaden (2007), the variation between the preterite and present perfect is basically a pragmatic effect. One of the tenses is assumed to be the default tense : its use does not trigger any additional meaning effect. The German default tense expressing past time situations is the present perfect, in English it is the simple past. Schaden’s proposal is very important, because it points towards a new direction of analysis. So far, most approaches have been occupied by looking at the perfect itself, but not by comparing it to the preterite. But Schaden’s proposal is problematic too. His general idea is that

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tenses competing for the same domains will restrict their meanings in order to avoid total synonyms. I agree with this. But it remains unclear why in some languages the preterite is the default tense and in others it is not. The main problem, however, is that the German and Swedish preterite have an identical meaning in the relevant domains. In their main function, they locate eventualities in the past. With individual level states, they can allow the eventuality to even obtain at the moment of speech and they can both be used in free indirect speech and thought. Swedish and German differ in the use of the preterite in indirect speech. There is no productive morphological subjunctive in Swedish to mark indirect speech. The subjunctive of the weak verbs is homonymous to the indicative preterite. However, there is no temporal, but a modal meaning difference between the German and Swedish indicative preterite. The same kind of difference is found in conditional clauses where Swedish also displays sequence of tense. The only temporal meaning difference between the German and Swedish indicative preterite I can think of is the emphatic use of the Swedish preterite. In (44), the speaker is surprised that the meat is so delicious and therefore uses the indicative preterite. This kind of use is normally only found in copular constructions with ‘be’. Therefore, it will be neglected here. (44)

Vad How

det it

var gott ! was good

(Swedish)

Interestingly, Kratzer’s (1998) observations for the German and English preterite are not confirmed by Swedish. Both the present perfect and the preterite are possible : (45)

Vem Who

byggde/ built

har has

byggt den här kyrkan ? built this here church-the

(Swedish)

Therefore, it cannot be the case that the present perfect differs crosslinguistically because the preterite of the languages in question differs. Schaden’s (2007) general idea is, however, interesting, because the perfect variation is not explained by some perfect internal component like the present tense, but by looking at the tenses the present perfect competes with. Several Germanic languages have lost or are loosing the preterite, e.g. German, Afrikaans and Yiddish. A tempting analysis therefore is to explore the relation between the preterite decay and the perfect variation. Although the decay of the German preterite is a well studied phenomenon (cf. Abraham & Conradie 2001), it has never been related to the perfect variation from a synchronic point of view. Suppose the following : if a language looses (or is loosing) for some reason the preterite and if this preterite is replaced by the present perfect, the modification by positional temporal adverbials like yesterday will become possible with the present

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perfect, because this is one of the main functions of the preterite. If this is correct, all languages with no present perfect puzzle display the preterite decay. Let us therefore consider some of the Germanic languages. (46) (47) (48) (49) (50)

*Han har jobbat igår. He has worked yesterday *Han har jobbet i går. He has worked yesterday *Han har kommet igår. He has come yesterday *Hann hefur eldað í gær He has cooked-meat yesterday He has worked yesterday.

(Swedish) (Norwegian) (Danish) (Icelandic)

Apart from German, Yiddish, Africaans, Frisian and Dutch do not have the present perfect puzzle : (51)

(52) (53) (54) (55)

Dos The yor year Ik I Hij He Ek I Er He

kind, child nit not ha have is is het have hat has

vos es iz nokh keyn finf when it is yet no five alt geven, hot shoyn gekent old been has already been-able 8 dy man ferline wike sjoen. the man last week seen gisteren naar Amsterdam gevlogen. 9 yesterday to Amsterfam flied verlede week daar die boek gelees.10 last week that the book read gestern gearbeitet. yesterday worked

(Yiddish) gut leyenen.7 good read (Frisian) (Dutch) (Afrikaans) (German)

Interestingly, the preterite decay is found in German, Yiddish and Africaans, but not in the other just mentioned Germanic languages. Thus, there is no immediate link between the preterite decay and the present perfect puzzle. There is, however, a further domain where the present perfect competes with another tense. In its universal use, it denotes an event time stretching from a certain point in the past up to the present ; compare (14). Although all Germanic languages have a universal perfect, only some of them allow it with since-adverbials. These languages rather use the present tense to express that the eventuality began at some time in the past and continues up to the 7 8 9 10

Lockwood (1995 : 134) Tiersma (1985 : 78) Donaldson (1997 : 115) Donaldson (1993 : 391)

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135

present. I call this the past to now present tense. Languages like Swedish even make use of both the present perfect and the present tense to express that an eventuality started in the past and still holds at the moment of speech : (56) a. Jag I b. Jag I

har have är am

varit lärare sedan 1990. been teacher since 1990 lärare sedan 1990. teacher since 1990

(Swedish) (Swedish)

Among the Germanic languages, all languages with a present perfect puzzle have conserved the possibility of the universal perfect with since-adverbials. In the other Germanic languages, this function has been taken over by the past to now present tense : (57) (58) (59) (60) (61) (62) (63) (64) (65)

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Peter has been teacher since 1990. Peter har vært lærer siden 1990.11 Peter has been teacher since 1990 Peter har været lærer siden 1990.12 Peter has been teacher since 1990 Pétur hefur verið kennari síðan 1990.13 Peter has been teacher since 1990 Henni hevur altíd d ámt vœl køkur.14 She has always been proud-of cakes Peter is onderwyser sedert 1990.15 Peter has teached since 1990 Peter is leraar sinds 1990.16 Peter is teacher since 1990 Peter ist seit 1990 Lehrer. Peter is since 1990 teacher Zint dem tog, vos mir hobn dos Since the day that we have this gehert, tuen mir nit oyfhern tsu heard do we not stop to betn far aykh.17 pray for you

Kristin Melum Eide (p.c.) Tanya Christenssen (p.c.) Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson (p.c.) Lockwood (1977 : 131) Jac Conradie (p.c.) Ronny Boogart (p.c.) Lockwood (1995 : 101)

(Norwegian) (Danish) (Icelandic) (Faroese) (Afrikaans) (Dutch) (German) (Yiddish)

136

(66)

Björn Rothstein

Peter Peter

is is

learaar teacher

sûnt 1990.18 since 1990.

(Frisian)

The present perfect puzzle concerns the adverbial selection of the present perfect. Adverbials denoting a definite past position on the time axis cannot modify the event time of an English or Swedish present perfect ; e.g. yesterday. The link between the present perfect puzzle and the past to now present tense is probably due to the fact that present tense and the present perfect compete for the universal reading. If the present tense wins and if a universal reading of the present perfect is not possible with since-adverbials, the present perfect looses its orientation to the now, to the present. All approaches to the English and Swedish present perfect I am aware of analyse it as a tense where the past and the present are somehow linked to each other, be it by some kind of result state holding at the present (cf. Kamp & Reyle 1993), by expressing some relevance for the present or by an ExtendedNow reaching to the present (Iatridou et al. 2001, Stechow 1999). If the orientation to the present is lost in favour of the past to now present tense, event time modification by past time adverbials in present perfect sentences results. Thus, the perfect variation is due to a competitional process between the present tense and the present perfect. As soon as the present perfect looses its universal reading with since-adverbials, the present perfect puzzle disappears. 4. Conclusion In this paper, it was argued that the perfect variation is not due to some perfect internal component, be it the present tense, auxiliary selection, the past participle meaning or the syntax of the perfect. Following Schaden (2007), it was argued that the perfect variation is due to a competitional process between the present perfect and other tenses. Unlike Schaden (2007), I refuted that this competing tense is the preterite. It was shown by looking at the Germanic languages, that the perfect variation is due to a competitional process between the present tense and the present perfect. As soon as the present perfect looses its universal reading with since-adverbials, the present perfect puzzle disappears. At this stage, two things remain to be done. First, it is necessary to verify my hypothesis from a diachronic point of view. Second, the detailled mechanisms of the competition between the present perfect and the present tense have to be explored.

18

Ger de Haan (p.c.)

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References Abraham, W. ; Conradie, J. C. (2001). Präteritumschwund und Diskursgrammatik, Amsterdam : Benjamins. Donaldson, B. (1993). A Grammar of Afrikaans, Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter. Donaldson, B. (1997). Dutch: A Comprehensive Grammar, London : Routledge. Iatridou, S. ; Anagnostopoulou, E. ; Izvorski, R. (2001). Observations about the form and meaning of the perfect, in : M. Kenstowicz, (ed.), Ken Hale: A Life in Language, Cambridge : MIT Press, 189-238. Kamp, H. ; Reyle, U. (1993). From Discourse to Logic, Dordrecht : Kluwer. Kiss, K. ; Riemsdijk, H. van (2004). Verb Clusters. A Study of Hungarian, German and Dutch, Amsterdam : John Benjamins. Klein, W. (1992). The present perfect puzzle, Language 68 : 525-552. Kratzer, A. (1998). More structural analogies between pronouns and tenses, in : SALT VIII, MIT, May 1998. Lockwood, W.B. (1977). An Introduction to Modern Faroese, Tórshavn : Føroya Skúlabókagrunnur. Lockwood, W.B. (1995). Lehrbuch der modernen jiddischen Sprache, Hamburg : Buske. McCawley, J. (1971). Tense and time reference in English, in : C. Fillmore ; T. D. Langendoen, (ed.), Studies in Linguistic Semantics, New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 96-113. Musan, R. (2002). The German Perfect. Its Semantic Composition and its Interactions with Temporal Adverbials, Dordrecht : Kluwer. Pancheva, R. ; Stechow, A. von (2004). On the present perfect puzzle, in : K. Moulton ; M. Wolf, (eds), Proceedings of NELS 34, Armherst : GLSA, 469-483. Portner, P. (2003). The (temporal) semantics and the (modal) pragmatics of the English Perfect, Linguistics and Philosophy 26 : 459-510. Rothstein, B. (2005). Perfect parasitism in inferential contexts. On the inferential present perfect in Swedish, Working papers in Scandinavian Syntax 76 : 1-30. Rothstein, B. (2008). The Perfect Time Span. On the Present Perfect in German, Swedish and English. Amsterdam : Benjamins (= Linguistics Today 125). Schaden, G. (2007). On the cross-linguistic variation of ‘one-step past referring’ tenses. Talk at Sinn und Bedeutung 12. October 2007. Stechow, A. von (1999). Eine erweiterte Extended-Now Theorie für Perfekt und Futur, Lili 113 : 86-118. Tiersma, P.M. (1985). Frisian Reference Grammar, Dordrecht : Foris.

(Non-)modal uses of the present indicative in Dutch legislation1 Karen DESCHAMPS K.U.Leuven

Hans SMESSAERT K.U.Leuven

1. Introduction Deontic modality is a central semantic feature of legislative texts (Williams 2005a : 84). However, there are considerable differences as to the syntactic means drafsmen of different languages and countries use to express this semantic category. Compare for instance the English, German, French and Dutch version of article II-82 of the European Constitution : (1) (2) (3) (4)

The Union shall respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity. Die Union achtet die Vielfalt der Kulturen, Religionen und Sprachen. L’Union respecte la diversité culturelle, religieuse et linguistique. De Unie eerbiedigt de verscheidenheid van cultuur, godsdienst en taal.

In English, the modal shall is commonly used to express commands in legislative texts. Indeed, shall is the most frequent modal in English legislative texts ; its use has been studied extensively in recent years (Garzone 2001, Foley 2001, Williams 2005b). German, French and Dutch draftsmen, on the other hand, seem to favour the present indicative to express commands. This use of the present indicative is also known as the NORMATIVE INDICATIVE (cf. Šarevi 2000 : 138ff). It has been studied mainly by French philosophers (e.g. Villey 1974) and French linguists (e.g. Cornu 1990 : 270-272, Gerbe 2006). In this article, we will examine how the present indicative is used in Dutch legislative texts. In section 2, we will take a look at the frequency of different verbal constructions in a corpus of Dutch statutes. Sections 3 and 4, then, will be devoted to the semantics and pragmatics of the normative indicative in Dutch legislation. We will show that the normative indicative is used both to regulate human behaviour (DEONTIC use) and to constitute new states of affair (CONSTITUTIVE use). 1

We wish to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. © Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): 139-156.

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2. Verbal constructions in Dutch legislation The data for this investigation have been drawn from a corpus consisting of two legislative texts, namely the Dutch version of the Belgian Constitution (henceforth abbreviated B.C.) (14 331 words) and the Dutch Constitution (henceforth abbreviated D.C.) (7 555 words). In sum, 935 sentences were analysed. Each sentence of the corpus was labeled according to the verbal construction used in the main clause and according to its meaning (deontic or constitutive). Four types of verbal constructions were observed : (1) modal verbs (e.g. moeten, « must »), (2) collocational verbal expressions with a non-modal verb and a predicative modal adjective (e.g. verplicht zijn, « to be obliged »), (3) collocational verbal expressions with a non-modal verb and a modal noun (e.g. de bevoegdheid hebben, « to have the power to ») and (4) non-modal verbs in the present indicative. The sentences in (5-8) illustrate these different types of verbal constructions. (5)

(6) (7) (8)

De Kamer van volksvertegenwoordigers kan de aanwezigheid van de ministers vorderen. (B.C., art. 100, 2) « The Chamber of Representatives may demand the presence of ministers. » [E]lke preventieve maatregel is verboden. (B.C., art. 24, §1, 1) « Any preventative measure is forbidden. » Ieder heeft het recht een menswaardig leven te leiden. (B.C., art. 23, 1) « Everyone has the right to lead a life in conformity with human dignity. » De overheid treft maatregelen ter bevordering van de volksgezondheid. (D.C., art. 22, 1) « The authorities shall take steps to promote the health of the population. »

Table 1 presents the frequency of these verbal constructions in the corpus. Table 1 Frequency of verbal constructions in the corpus Belgian Constitution Dutch Constitution n % n % modal marker 215 130 37,9 35,4 modal verb 135 23,8 92 25,1 modal A + V 30 5,3 23 6,3 modal N + V 50 8,8 15 4,1 non-modal verb 353 237 62,1 64,6 in the present indicative total 568 367 100 100

Total n 345 227 53 65 590

% 36,6 24,4 5,8 6,5 63,4

935

100

The results show no significant differences between the Belgian and the Dutch part of the corpus. In each case, explicit modal markers (modal verbs,

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verbal collocations with modal adjectives and modal nouns) were found in about one-third of the sentences, while sentences put in the present indicative amounted to almost two-thirds of the cases. The frequent use of the present indicative seems strange, since we expect statutes to tell what people may (not) or must (not) do, and not what they actually do. However, as we will show below, the present indicative is used in a very particular way in legislative texts : it is not used to describe reality, but to prescribe reality (deontic use) or to constitute reality (constitutive use). These two uses correspond with two types of norms distinguished in legal theory : REGULATIVE NORMS and CONSTITUTIVE NORMS. Regulative norms are norms which impose obligations or confer permissions, competences or rights on individuals or institutions. Constitutive norms on the other hand, do not regulate human behaviour, but bring into existence new states of affairs, e.g. institutions (Hildebrandt & Gaakeer 2005 : 9-10). These two types of norms can be related to the two main functions of the law, namely the regulation of human behaviour and human relations (regulative function) and the organisation of society, i.e. the creation of a framework in which human behaviour and human relations can develop (constitutive function) (Trosborg 1994 : 32, Van Hoecke 1988 : 202). The main difference between regulative norms and constitutive norms is that the former require certain acts by their addressee(s) for their fulfilment, whereas the latter do not. Put differently, regulative norms involve deontic modality, i.e. a distinction between what is ideally the case and what is actually the case. Constitutive norms, on the other hand, do not involve such a distinction. They carry out themselves in virtue of their validity only, and not thanks to an intermediary agent (Incampo 2006 : 7-9). Linguistically speaking, then, regulative and constitutive norm sentences put in the present indicative differ in that the former can be paraphrased by means of a modal marker (e.g. moeten, « must »), whereas the latter cannot. This criterion was used to label the instances of the present indicative in the corpus as either « deontic » or « constitutive ». In the case of doubt, explanatory legal textbooks were consulted (e.g. Rimanque 2005, Koekkoek 2000). Table 2 displays the frequency of the deontic and constitutive uses of the present indicative in the corpus. Table 2 Frequency of the deontic in the corpus use of the present indicative deontic constitutive total

and constitutive uses of the present indicative frequency 447 143 590

% 75,8 24,2 100

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3. Deontic uses of the present indicative in Dutch legislation 3.1 Command and prohibition The present indicative, as used in legislative discourse, is commonly associated with the deontic concept of obligation (cf. Cornu 1990 : 270, Šarevi 2000 : 138-140). Cornu (1990 : 270) cites, amongst others, the following examples from the French civil code : (9) (10)

Si l’autre époux ne reconnaît pas les faits, le juge ne prononce pas le divorce. [La rente] est indexée.

He remarks that « Dans tous ces énoncés, il est manifeste qu’à lui seul, sans le secours d’aucun verbe explicite, l’indicatif présent suffit non seulement à exprimer le droit mais, plus spécifiquement, à marquer l’obligation. Chacun entend : Le juge ne doit pas prononcer le divorce, la rente doit être indexée. Le verbe devoir – le devoir – est sous-entendu. » Indeed, in the corpus we have examined, a large part of the sentences put in the present indicative expresses an obligation to perform some act (i.e. a command). This is illustrated by the sentence in (8) above : (8)

De overheid treft maatregelen ter bevordering van de volksgezondheid. (D.C., art. 22) « The authorities shall take steps to promote the health of the population. »

In (8), an obligation is imposed on the authorities to take steps to promote the health of the population. This is proved by the fact that the sentence in (8) can be reformulated by means of an explicit modal marker expressing obligation. For instance, D. Brongers, in his book De wet in gewoon Nederlands (« The law in plain Dutch »), paraphrases (8) as follows : (11)

De overheid moet maatregelen nemen om de volksgezondheid te bevorderen.2 (Brongers 2007 : 44)

In (11), the modal verb moet (« must ») marks the obligation which remains implicit in the original norm sentence in (8). Within the category of deontic modality, a distinction can be made between DIRECTED deontic meaning and NON-DIRECTED deontic meaning (Hall 2001 : 1-2, Barbiers 1995 : 143-144). In sentences expressing directed 2

This paraphrase seems to suggest that norm sentences put in the present indicative are less « plain » than norm sentences in which an explicit modal marker is used. This runs counter to the idea put forward in a number of drafting manuals, which advise drafters to use the present indicative instead of modal verbs, for reasons of clarity and simplicity (cf. infra).

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deontic meaning, the obligation (or permission) is directed to some person or group of persons, which is referred to as the NORM SUBJECT in legal theory (Van Kralingen 1996 : 42ff). Since norms are to be observed and applied, they must be addressed to a being which can understand the meaning of the norm and behave in accordance with it. So, norms can only be directed to human beings (Kelsen 1991 : 89). Sentences expressing non-directed deontic modality, on the other hand, do not, at least not explicitly, attribute the obligation (or permission) to a particular norm subject3. In (8), the norm subject (de overheid, « the authorities ») is expressed by the grammatical subject of the sentence. In passive sentences, however, the norm subject may be encoded in another constituent of the sentence : (12)

Jaarlijks op de derde dinsdag van september of op een bij de wet te bepalen eerder tijdstip wordt door of namens de Koning in een verenigde vergadering van de Staten-Generaal een uiteenzetting van het door de regering te voeren beleid gegeven. (D.C., art. 65) « A statement of the policy to be pursued by the Government shall be given by or on behalf of the King before a joint session of the two Houses of the States General that shall be held every year on the third Tuesday in September or on such earlier date as may be prescribed by Act of Parliament. »

In (12), the obligation clearly is not imposed on the grammatical subject of the sentence (een uiteenzetting, « a statement »), since this is an inanimate entity. Instead, the obligation holds for the King (or his representatives). This is expressed by the prepositional phrase door of namens de Koning (« by or on behalf of the King »). In passive constructions, the norm subject can also be omitted, as in (13). (13)

3

Dat verzoek wordt geformuleerd binnen vijftien dagen na de ontvangst van het ontwerp. (B.C., art. 78, 2) « This request is made within fifteen days after receiving the draft bill. » In Barbiers (1995) and Hall (2001), however, directed and non-directed deontic meaning are defined in a slightly different way. According to the authors, directed deontic sentences attribute an obligation or permission to their grammatical subject. For example, in Residents may park their cars in the street overnight the modal verb may attributes permission to its subject, residents. Non-directed deontics still express permission or obligation, but without attributing it to their grammatical subjects. For instance, in the sentence Cars may be parked in the street overnight, it is not the cars that have permission. In our view, however, a sentence such as Cars may be parked in the street overnight by residents expresses directed deontic meaning. Although the obligation is not attributed to the grammatical subject of the sentence, the prepositional phrase by residents explicitly refers to the norm subject that the obligation is imposed upon.

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In (13), there is no explicit reference to a human agent that the command is imposed on. Hence, this sentence expresses non-directed deontic modality. Implicitly, however, every norm must be directed to someone, otherwise, the norm would be without effect or function (Van Kralingen 1996 : 42). When the norm subject is not explicitly mentioned, it must be recoverable from the context. For instance, the context of (13) makes clear that the obligation is directed to the members of the Senate. (14)

In de andere aangelegenheden dan die bedoeld in de artikelen 74 en 77, wordt het wetsontwerp dat door de Kamer van volksvertegenwoordigers is aangenomen, overgezonden aan de Senaat. Op verzoek van ten minste vijftien van zijn leden onderzoekt de Senaat het wetsontwerp. Dat verzoek wordt geformuleerd binnen vijftien dagen na de ontvangst van het ontwerp. (B.C., art. 78, 1-2) « Regarding matters other than those described in Articles 74 and 77, draft bills adopted by the Chamber of Representatives are then forwarded to the Senate. At the request of fifteen Senate members at least, the Senate examines the draft bills. This request is made within fifteen days after receiving the draft bill. »

Another distinction which is often made within the category of deontic modality, is the distinction between TUN-SOLLEN (ought-to-do) and SEIN-SOLLEN (ought-to-be) (Van Kralingen 1996 : 22-23). Norms of the TUN-SOLLEN type regulate some act, whereas norms of the SEIN-SOLLEN type concern some state of affair. Sentences (8), (12) and (13), for instance, all express an obligation to perform some act (to take steps, to hold a statement and to make a request, respectively). In (8), the act is expressed by a verb in the active voice, whereas in (12) and (13), the act is expressed by a verb in the passive voice. In (15), on the other hand, the main verb is not an action verb, but a stative verb (tellen, « include ») : (15)

De Ministerraad en de Gemeenschaps- en Gewestregeringen tellen personen van verschillend geslacht. (B.C., art. 11bis, 2) « The Council of ministers and the Governments of the communities and regions include persons of different gender. »

Sentences such as (15) are not concerned with what ought to be done, they envisage what ought to be (Van Kralingen 1996 : 22). According to Von Wright (1983: 185), sentences expressing what ought to be can be rewritten into ought-to-do sentences. For instance, a norm sentence prescribing that a certain state of affairs ought to be the case, implies, among other things, that, if the desired state of affairs does not hold and will not arise spontaneously, a norm subject has to bring about the state of affairs. This norm subject is often implicit, as in (15), but it can also be explicit, as in (16) :

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De rechters zijn onafhankelijk in de uitoefening van hun rechtsprekende bevoegdheden. (B.C., art. 151, §1) « Judges are independent in the exercise of their judicial functions. »

In (16), the obligation to be independent (i.e. to bring about the state of affairs of being independent) is imposed on the grammatical subject of the sentence, de rechters (« judges »). So, sentences expressing SEIN-SOLLEN norms can be either directed or non-directed. So far, the sentences we discussed all expressed a positive obligation, i.e. an obligation to perform some act or an obligation to bring about some state of affairs. However, there are also sentences in which the present indicative interacts with a negative operator, e.g. niet (« not »), as in (17), or geen (« no »), as in (18). (17)

(18)

Zij [de kinderen van de Koning] worden niet meegerekend bij het bepalen van het aanwezigheidsquorum. (B.C., art. 72) « They [the King’s children] are not taken into account for the determination of the quorum of attendance. » Er is geen voorafgaand toezicht op de inhoud van een radio- of televisieuitzending. (D.C., art. 7, 2) « There shall be no prior supervision of the content of a radio or television broadcast. »

These sentences express an obligation not to perform some act, i.e. a PROHIBITION. In (17), the act is expressed by the passive verb worden…meegerekend (« are taken into account »). In (18), on the other hand, the act is expressed by the grammatical subject of the sentence, toezicht (« supervision »), which is derived from the verb toezien (« supervise »). Both sentences are non-directed : they do not contain an explicit norm subject. 3.2 Competence and incompetence Not all of the deontic sentences put in the present indicative can be reformulated by means of the modal moeten. An example is given in (19). (19)

Naturalisatie wordt verleend door de federale wetgevende macht. (B.C., art. 9) « Naturalization is accorded by the federal legislative power. »

Although the sentence in (19) has a similar syntactic structure as (12), it does not express an obligation for the federal legislative power to accord naturalization. First of all, naturalization may only be accorded to foreigners who meet the legal conditions. Furthermore, even if all legal conditions are fulfilled, the Chamber of Deputies, which exercises the federal legislative power

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together with the government, can dismiss the request for naturalization (Rimanque 2005 : 31). In addition to obligation, linguistic theories about deontic modality (e.g. Palmer 2001 : 71) also distinguish the concept of PERMISSION. However, this concept does not cover the meaning of (19) either. In fact, anyone has the permission to accord naturalization. Nobody will get punished if he says to some foreigner : « I hereby accord you naturalization ». However, his act will be legally invalid ; it will have no legal effect (cf. Jue 1982 : 136). So, the sentence in (19) does not express that the federal legislative power must accord naturalization, nor that it may accord naturalization. Instead, (19) denotes that the federal legislative power can accord naturalization. The modal can in this context does not express a physical ability, as in John can swim, but a LEGAL ABILITY or COMPETENCE (Jue 1982 : 133). COMPETENCE-CONFERRING NORMS, then, are norms which confer on individuals or institutions the competence to perform some LEGAL ACT (Van Kralingen 1996 : 29). Legal acts differ from ordinary acts in that they bring about legal effects. Examples include issuing a regulation, concluding a contract, according naturalization. When some authority issues a statute, new legal norms are created. When two parties enter into a contract, a legal relation between these parties comes into being. When a person is naturalized, his legal status is changed : he becomes a citizen of another state. Competence can be either DISCRETIONARY or MANDATORY (Šarevi 2000 : 145). When discretionary competence is conferred, the competenceholder is free to perform the authorized act. In Dutch, discretionary competence is most commonly expressed by means of the modal verb kunnen (« can »), as in (20) : (20)

Voorstellen van wet kunnen worden ingediend door of vanwege de Koning en door de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (D.C., art. 82, 1) « Bills may be presented by or on behalf of the King or by the Lower House of the States General. »

However, the example in (19) shows that discretionary competence can also be expressed implicitly, by means of a normative indicative. As argued above, the norm subject of this sentence, the federal legislative power, is given the competence to perform the act of according naturalization at its own discretion. Mandatory competence, on the other hand, implies an obligation for the competence-holder to exercise his competence. Competences conferred on officials, for instance, are often tied up with a duty to use them to the best of one’s abilities, in the light of a determined aim (Van Hoecke 2002 : 79). An example is given in (21) :

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Het Hof van Cassatie doet uitspraak over conflicten van attributie, op de wijze bij de wet geregeld. (B.C., art. 158) « The Court of Cassation makes decisions in attribution conflicts in the manner provided for by law. »

In (21), the Court of Cassation is given the competence to decide conflicts of attribution (i.e. when it is unclear whether a case should be heard before administrative courts or judiciary courts). Once such a conflict has been brought to the Court of Cassation, the court does not have the freedom to decide it or not : it is its duty to use its competence to decide on the conflict (cf. Van Hoecke 2002 : 80). It is generally not possible to determine on purely linguistic grounds whether a competence-conferring norm sentence put in the present indicative is discretionary or mandatory. In order to know the exact meaning of such norm sentences, it is necessary to consult legal textbooks (e.g. Rimanque 2005, Koekkoek 2000), which give insight into the intention of the lawgiver. In many cases, however, it remains unclear whether a competence-conferring norm sentence also expresses a command. As competence is a concept concerning legal acts, competenceconferring norm sentences are always of the TUN-SOLLEN type. Furthermore, they are always directed. Contrary to sentences expressing obligation, the norm subject of competence-conferring sentences cannot be omitted in the passive voice. For instance, a sentence such as (22)

Naturalisatie wordt verleend. « Naturalization is accorded. »

does not make much sense. A competence-conferring norm sentence only makes sense if it specifies the norm subject that the competence is conferred upon. However, quite a lot of sentences expressing competence do not contain any human agent. An example is given in (23) : (23)

De wet bepaalt welke agenten verantwoordelijk zijn voor de schending van het geheim der aan de post toevertrouwde brieven. (B.C., art. 29, 2) « The law determines which representatives are responsible for the violation of the confidentiality of letters entrusted to the postal service. »

In (23), de wet (« the law ») is the grammatical subject of the main verb, viz regelt (« regulates »), expressing a legal act. As the law is an inanimate entity, the sentence seems to be non-directed. However, in sentences like (23), the law must be interpreted as the lawgiver. This phenomenon can be viewed as an instance of metonymy, whereby the producer (the lawgiver) is replaced by the product (the law). In (24), the main verb expressing a legal act is denied by the negative operator niet (« not »). Thus, the sentence expresses a COMPETENCE-DENYING

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NORM, which implies an INCOMPETENCE for the norm subject, de rechter (« the courts »), to perform the legal act of reviewing the constitutionality of Acts of Parliament.

(24)

De rechter treedt niet in de beoordeling van de grondwettigheid van wetten en verdragen. (D.C., art. 120) « The constitutionality of Acts of Parliament and treaties shall not be reviewed by the courts. »

3.3 Claim and no-claim Some sentences in the present indicative seem to express neither an obligation, nor a competence. Examples include sentences in which the grammatical subject is said to benefit from something, as in (25) : (25)

Iedere vreemdeling die zich op het grondgebied van België bevindt, geniet de bescherming verleend aan personen en aan goederen, behoudens de bij de wet gestelde uitzonderingen. (B.C., art. 191) « All foreigners on Belgian territory benefit from that protection provided to persons and property, save for those exceptions provided for by law. »

(25) clearly does not express an obligation (it would be strange to order someone to benefit from something), nor does it express a competence (to benefit is not a legal act). Instead, (25) can be paraphrased by an expression such as as recht hebben op (“to have a claim” or “to be entitled to”). Norms conferring claims to norm subjects belong to the category of RELATIVE NORMS, i.e. norms which regulate relations between people, as opposed to ABSOLUTE NORMS, which regulate the behaviour of only one person or class of persons. A relative norm can be typified as a set of norms, one norm directed to a person A, who functions as the norm subject, and one norm directed to a person B, who is called the counterparty (Jue 1982 : 165166). In (25), for instance the claim of the foreigners to benefit from protection implies a DUTY for the counterparty to provide this protection. Usually, the norm directed to the counterparty remains implicit. In (26), however, this norm is made explicit : (26)

De Koning ontvangt jaarlijks ten laste van het Rijk uitkeringen naar regels bij de wet te stellen. (D.C., art. 40, 1) «The King shall receive annual payments from the State according to rules to be laid down by Act of Parliament.

The sentence in (26) includes two norms. First, the main clause expresses that the King is entitled to receive annual payments. Second, the prepositional phrase ten laste van het Rijk makes clear that it is the State who has to finance these payments.

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Sentences expressing a claim are always directed. Hence, in the passive voice, the norm subject cannot be ommitted. For instance, the sentence (27)

Bescherming wordt genoten. « Protection is benefited from. »

is semantically void. So, just like competence, the concept of claim requires explicit marking of the norm subject. However, contrary to the directed sentences in sections 3.1 and 3.2, the norm subject of a sentence expressing a claim does not serve as the agent of an action verb, but as the beneficiary of a process benefactive verb (cf. Chafe 1971 : 147). Hence, CLAIM-CONFERRING NORM SENTENCES do not belong to the tun-sollen type, nor to the sein-sollen type. Claims can also be denied, giving rise to CLAIM-DENYING NORM SENTENCES, which imply a NO-CLAIM for the norm subject. An example is given in (28). (28)

De senatoren genieten geen wedde. (B.C., art. 71, 1) « Senators do not receive a salary. »

In (28), senators are denied the right to receive a salary. A no-claim correlates with a DISPENSATION (Ruiter 1993 : 131) : the counterparty is not obliged to do something for the norm subject, e.g. to give him a salary. 3.4 Conclusion In this section, we have shown that in deontic norm sentences, the present indicative is used not only to express obligation (i.e. commands and prohibitions), but also to confer or deny competences and claims. Table 3 shows the frequency of the deontic concepts expressed by the present indicative in the corpus.

negative

positive

Table 3 Frequency of deontic concepts expressed by the present indicative deontic concept n % command 187 41,8 competence 242 54,1 (discretionary/mandatory) claim (+ duty) 7 1,6 subtotal 436 97,5 prohibition 6 1,3 incompetence 4 0,9 no-claim (+ dispensation) 1 0,2 subtotal 11 2,5 total 447 100

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The results reported in Table 3 make clear that the normative indicative is mainly used in positive contexts (97,5% of the cases). In addition, the results show that competence and command are by far the most common deontic concepts to be expressed by the present indicative. Conversely, the present indicative is the most common linguistic means to express commands and competences. This is shown in Table 4. Table 4 Frequency of verbal constructions used to express command and competence command competence n % n % modal markers 32 152 14,6 38,6 non-modal V + modal A 11 15 5,0 3,8 modal V 18 101 8,2 25,6 non-modal V + modal N 3 36 1,4 9,1 non modal verb in the 187 242 85,4 61,4 present indicative total 219 394 100 100

Table 4 indicates that 85,4% of the commands in the corpus are expressed by the present indicative. This is in line with the Belgian and the Dutch instructions for legislative drafting, which recommend expressing commands by means of a present indicative, without the modal verb moeten or other deontic expressions (Borman 1993 : 83, Coremans en Van Damme 2001 : 119). There are several reasons why the present indicative is preferred over other linguistic means to express commands. First, it is a more simple and a more indirect, “gentle” way of expressing commands. Second, the use of the present indicative is deemed to promote the reception of the law. Cornu (1990 : 271) puts it as follows : « La référence à ce qui est pourrait même faire imaginer que la règle énoncée n’est pas arbitrairement imposée, mais naturellement fondée, que le droit est proche de la nature des choses. Dans la même voie, la référence à ce qui se passe montre le sujet de droit agissant, dans le respect de la loi, conformément à la règle, transformant en somme le droit en fait, traduisant la règle dans la réalité […]. L’indicatif présent anticipe le respect. Ainsi, favoriserait-il la réception du droit. Son emploi est peut-être, en cela, intentionnel. »

With respect to competence, the picture is more complex. Competence is expressed by the present indicative in about 61% of the cases. In 39% of the cases, competence is expressed by an explicit deontic expression, especially by modal verbs (25%). This may be due to the fact that there are two types of competence : mandatory and discretionary competence. In Ruiter (1987 : 120), it is suggested that in Dutch, the present indicative is used for mandatory competence, whereas for discretionary competence, the modal verb

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kunnen is used. In general, this hypothesis may be correct, but, as we have seen in (19), discretionary competence is also expressed by the present indicative. Table 3 also indicates that sentences in the present indicative expressing deontic modality are mostly affirmative. Apparently, negative deontic concepts such as prohibition and incompetence are commonly expressed by an explicit deontic marker, especially by modal verbs. This is shown in Table 5. Table 5 Frequency of verbal constructions used to express prohibition and incompetence prohibition incompetence n % n % modal markers 61 24 91,0 85,7 non-modal V + modal A 9 4 13,4 14,3 modal V 52 18 77,6 64,3 non-modal V + modal N 0 2 0 7,1 non modal verb in the 6 4 9,0 14,3 present indicative total 67 28 100 100

4. Constitutive uses of the present indicative in Dutch legislation Not all legislative sentences put in the present indicative express deontic modality. For example, in (29-31), the present indicative has no prescriptive meaning. Still, these sentences serve the purpose of laying down the law (cf. Trosborg 1995 : 45). (29)

(30) (31)

De stad Brussel is de hoofdstad van België en de zetel van de federale regering. (B.C., art. 194) « The city of Brussels is the capital of Belgium and the headquarters of the Federal Government. » Er bestaat voor geheel België een Hof van Cassatie. (B.C., art. 147, 1) « There is a Court of Cassation for the whole of Belgium. » De ministers vormen te zamen de ministerraad. (D.C., art. 45, 1) « The Ministers shall together constitute the Cabinet. »

The sentences in (29-31) do not impose a command on anyone, neither do they confer a competence or a right. Rather, they bring about a new state of affairs or a modification in the previous state of affairs. They express what is called a CONSTITUTIVE NORM (Trosborg 1995 : 45, Garzone 2001 : 157-158). For instance, by stating in a statute that Brussels is the capital of Belgium, Brussels actually becomes the capital of Belgium. So, in (29-31) a

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DECLARATIVE SPEECH ACT is performed (cf. Cruse 2000 : 343). This is most clear in sentences containing an explicit performative verb, for example in (32).

(32)

Het recht tot vereniging wordt erkend. (D.C., art. 8) « The right of association shall be recognised. »

In (32), the verb erkennen (“to recognize”) encodes the declarative speech act. We can insert the word hierbij (“hereby”), indicating that this verb is used performatively (cf. Ruiter 1987 : 50). (33)

Hierbij wordt het recht tot vereniging erkend. « Hereby, the right of association is recognised. »

Most sentences expressing a constitutive norm, however, do not contain such an explicit performative verb. These sentences may be considered as the content of the performative utterance preceding every statute, which is known as the « enacting formula ». In England, for instance, this formula usually has the following form (Trosborg 1994 : 32) : (34)

Be it enacted by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty […] as follows :

This formula contains the performative verb to enact, which marks the statute as a declaration. The actual provisions of a statute, deontic or constitutive, make up the propositional content of the declaration (Trosborg 1994 : 32). In addition, some of these provisions may have an illocutionary force of their own (Kurzon 1986 : 15). Deontic sentences, for instance, also have a directive force. Constitutive norm sentences typically have an inanimate subject, either definite, as in (29) or indefinite, as in (30). There are some exceptions, e.g. (31), which have a human subject, but, contrary to deontic sentences, this human subject is not supposed to perform any act. This brings us to another feature of constitutive norm sentences, namely that their main verb is typically stative (except for the sentences containing an explicit performative verb). Examples include zijn (« to be »), bestaan (« to exist »), vormen (« to constitute »). Linguistically speaking, then, constitutive norm sentences are very similar to non-directed deontic sentences and deontic sentences of the sein-sollen type. Compare for instance the constitutive sentence in (35) with the deontic sentence in (36). (35)

België omvat drie gemeenschappen : de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, de Franse Gemeenschap en de Duitstalige Gemeenschap. (B.C., art. 2) « Belgium is made up of three communities : The French Community, the Flemish Community and the German Community. »

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Het ontbindingsbesluit bevat oproeping van de kiezers binnen veertig dagen en bijeenroeping van de Kamers binnen twee maanden. (B.C., art. 46, 5) « The act of dissolution involves the convoking of the electorate within forty days and of the Chambers within two months. »

The sentences in (35) and (36) both contain an inanimate subject and a stative verb. The difference between (35) and (36) has to do with the degree of probability that the state of affairs described in the sentence will actually occur. Constitutive sentences, such as (35), imply the immediate fulfilment of the state of affairs described. By stating that « Belgium is made up of three communities », Belgium actually becomes a state made up of three communities. The mere formulation of the norm results in the execution of the norm (Van Hoecke 1988 : 201). The sentence in (36), on the other hand, must be interpreted as a command to some unmentioned norm subject to organise new elections within forty days when the chambers are dissolved (cf. Rimanque 2005 : 136). There always remains some scope, albeit minimum, for non-fulfilment of the state of affairs which is described in (36) (cf. Garzone 2001 : 167). There is also an important link between constitutive and deontic sentences, in the sense that constitutive sentences sometimes imply deontic modality. This phenomenon can be observed in sentences as (37), where the lawgiver recognizes a particular right. (37)

Het recht tot vereniging wordt erkend. (art. 8 D.C.) « The right of association shall be recognised. »

The constitutive sentence in (39) implies that All Dutchmen have the right of association. This deontic meaning is not expressed explicitly, but it can be derived from the constitutive meaning of the sentence. 5. Conclusion In this article, we have shown that the present indicative, which is the most frequent verbal construction in the Belgian and Dutch constitution, covers a wide range of semantic and pragmatic functions in legislative Dutch, both deontic (or regulative) and constitutive ones. In 75% of the sentences we examined, the normative indicative expresses some deontic concept, especially commands and competences, or both (in the case of a mandatory competence). In 25% of the cases, the normative indicative is used to express a constitutive norm, i.e. a norm which brings about a new state of affair. In this respect, the normative indicative in Dutch resembles the English modal shall, as used in legislative contexts. This modal has been accused of being a « chameleon-hued word », which can assume any meaning, both

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constitutive and deontic, according to the context (cf. Garner 1995 : 939941). For instance, compare the following sentences : (40) (41) (42) (43)

The term ‘amusement park’ shall mean any tract or area used principally as a permanent location for amusement devices.4 The commissioner shall evaluate the report.5 The board shall take any action it considers useful in overseeing investments.6 As corporation secretary, he shall receive $30,000 a year.7

The sentence in (40) expresses a constitutive norm, whereas the sentences in (41-43) have a deontic meaning. In (41), shall imposes a duty on the subject of the sentence. In (42), a permission is conferred on the grammatical subject (it makes no sense to order the board to do what it wants to do). In (43), finally, a claim is conferred. The use of shall in legislative English runs afoul of a basic principle of good drafting, which says that a word used repeatedly in a given context is presumed to bear the same meaning throughout (Garner 1995 : 939). Therefore, many drafting manuals (e.g. Minnesota Revisor’s Manual 2002 : 251256, Dick 1995 : 93-96) recommend to restrict shall to its obligation sense, and to replace it by other modal markers, such may or is entitled to, in deontic sentences, or by the present indicative, in constitutive sentences. Perhaps, a similar advise must be given to drafters of Dutch legislative texts using the normative indicative. A possible suggestion could be to restrict the normative indicative to its « core » deontic meaning, namely obligation, and to use explicit markers for expressing other deontic concepts, such as discretionary competence or claim. Furthermore, in order to avoid confusion with its constitutive sense, it could be suggested to use the normative indicative only in tun-sollen sentences, preferably of the directed-deontic type. References Barbiers, S. (1995). The Syntax of Interpretation, Den Haag : Holland academic graphics. Borman, C. (1993). Aanwijzingen voor de regelgeving en andere voor de regelgeving relevante aanwijzingen, met supplement, Zwolle : Tjeenk Willink. 4 5 6 7

Williams (2005b : 209) Minnesota Revisor’s Manual (2002 : 251) Minnesota Revisor’s Manual (2002 : 252) Dick (1995 : 94)

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Brongers, D. (2007). De wet in gewoon Nederlands, Amsterdam : Balans. Chafe, W. L. (1971). Meaning and theStructure of Language (2nd edition), Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Coremans, H. ; Van Damme, M. (2001). Beginselen van wetgevingstechniek en behoorlijke regelgeving, Brugge : Die Keure. Cornu, G. (1990). Linguistique juridique, Paris : Montchrestien. Cruse, A. (2000). Meaning in Language. An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics, Oxford : University Press. Dick, R. C. (1995). Legal Drafting in Plain Language (3rd edition), Scarborough (Ontario) : Carswell. Foley, R. (2001). Going out in Style ? Shall in EU legal English, in : Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics Conference 2001, University of Lancaster, 185-195. Garner, B. A. (1995). A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (2nd edition), New York : Oxford university press. Garzone, G. (2001). Deontic modality and performativity in English legal texts, in : Gotti, M. ; Dossena, M. (eds), Modality in specialized texts, Bern : Peter Lang, 153-173. Gerbe, R.-M. (2006). Le présent de l'indicatif dans le discours juridique français, in : Wagner, A. ; Cacciaguidi-Fahy, S. (eds), Legal Language and the Search for Clarity, Bern : Peter Lang, 265-302. Hall, D. C. (2001). The Featural Semantics of English Modal Verbs, Generals paper in semantics, University of Toronto, at : http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/ ~halldani/hall.generals.2001.pdf. Hildebrandt, M. ; Gaakeer, A. M. P. (2005). Wetenschap in rechte, Den Haag : Boom. Incampo, A. (2006). « Ego sum dominus deus tuus » Constitutive power, prescriptive force, Paper presented at the Italian-Polish Workshop Constitutive Rule, University of Zielona Góra (Poland), 8-9 June 2006, at : http://www.uz.zgora.pl/~mwitek/Incampo%20full%20version.pdf. Jue, R. J. (1982). Notabeleid en recht. Een rechtstheoretisch onderzoek naar het rechtskarakter van beleidsnota's, in het bijzonder de planologische kernbeslissing, Deventer : Kluwer. Kelsen, H. ; Hartney, M. (transl.) (1991). General Theory of Norms, Oxford : Clarendon. Koekkoek, A. K. (2000). De Grondwet. Een systematisch en artikelsgewijs commentaar, Deventer : Tjeenk Willink. Kralingen, R. W. van (1996). Frame-based Conceptual Models of Statute Law, Leiden : Rijksuniversiteit Leiden. Kurzon, D. (1986). It Is Hereby Performed. Explorations in Legal Speech Acts, Amsterdam : Benjamins.

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Minnesota Revisor’s Manual (2002), Saint-Paul (Minnesota) : The Office of the Revisor of Statutes, at : http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/revisor/ pubs/revisor_manual.pdf. Palmer, F. R. (2001). Mood and Modality (2nd edition), Cambridge : University Press. Rimanque, K. (2005). De grondwet toegelicht, gewikt en gewogen, Antwerpen : Intersentia. Ruiter, D. W. P. (1987). Bestuursrechtelijke wetgevingsleer, Assen : Van Gorcum. Ruiter, D. W. P. (1993). Institutional Legal Facts. Legal Powers and their Effects, Dordrecht : Kluwer. Šarevi, S. (2000). New Approach to Legal Granslation, The Hague : Kluwer. Trosborg, A. (1995). Statutes and contracts : An analysis of legal speech acts in the English language of the law, Journal of Pragmatics 23 : 31-53. Van Hoecke, M. (1988). Recht en taal : de formulering van rechtsnormen in wetteksten, in : Klanderman, J. ; Roos, N. (eds), Interne en externe analyses van recht, Zwolle : Tjeenk Willink, 183-203. Van Hoecke, M. (2002). Law as Communication, Oxford : Hart. Villey, M. (1974). De l’indicatif dans le droit, Archives De Philosophie De Droit 19 : 33. Von Wright, G. H. (1983). Practical Reason, Oxford : Blackwell. Williams, Ch. (2005a). Tradition and Change in Legal English. Verbal Constructions in Prescriptive Texts, Bern : Peter Lang. Williams, Ch. (2005b). Vagueness in legal texts : Is there a future for shall ?, in : Bhatia, V ; Engberg, J. ; Gotti, M. ; Heller, D. (eds), Vagueness in Normative Texts, Bern : Peter Lang, 201-224. Corpus The Belgian Constitution can be consulted at : http://www.senate.be/doc/ const_nl.html. The English translations are taken from the translation by D. Vanheule : http://home.tiscali.be/dirkvanheule/compcons/ConstitutionBelgium/Constituti onBelgium.htm. The Dutch Constitution can be consulted at : http://www.minbzk.nl/aspx/download.aspx?file=/contents/pages/83496/neder landseversie2006definitief1.pdf The English translations are taken from the translation published by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations : http://www.minbzk.nl/ contents/pages/6156/grondwet_UK_6-02.pdf.

Attenuation in French simple tenses Adeline PATARD Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III

Arnaud RICHARD Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III

0. Introduction Among the different usages of verbal tenses that are generally identified, grammarians usually name the modal polite use of some verbal forms. In such usages, a tense occurs in the place of a present tense to produce politeness : (1)

I THOUGHT / WAS THINKING about asking you to dinner. (Fleischman, 1989 : 8)

(2)

DID you want to see me about something ? (ibidem)

We may call this effect attenuation as politeness results from the fact that the tense attenuates the directness of statements or questions. In the recent literature on French tenses, attenuation in verbal tense has been largely explored, often within the study of a particular form1. These analyses generally derive the modal effect of attenuation from the temporal meaning of the form studied. According to them, the verbal tense establishes a distance with the speaker’s now T0, which allows to « de-actualise » the speaker’s utterance and so to mitigate its meaning. However, this statement cannot explain why, in the following examples, the second form is not appropriate2 :

1

2

Among others Abouda (2004), Anscombre (2004), Berthonneau & Kleiber (1994) for the imparfait, Haillet (2002), Nølke & Korzen (2001) and Vet & Kampers-Manhe (2001) for the conditionnel, and Vet & Kampers-Manhe (2001) and Vetters (2001) for the futur simple. The list is not exhaustive. We will base our analysis on authentic data from literature, newspapers, the internet and oral conversations. © Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): 157-178.

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(3)

Il n’entend pas frapper à la porte, mais au bruit de la porte qui s’ouvre, lève la tête : c’est son fils Charles - je VENAIS / * VIENDRAI te dire bonsoir. (André Gide, Les faux-monnayeurs) I CAME (lit. WAS COMING3) / WILL COME to say good evening.4

(4)

Je VOUDRAIS / * VOULUS vous demander à titre personnel pourquoi vous avez adopté un python (Romain Gary, Gros-Câlin) I WOULD LIKE / LIKED to ask you as a personal question why you have adopted a python.

(5)

J’irai plus loin, j’AVOUERAI / * J’AVOUAIS que j’aime Garibaldi (George Sand, Mademoiselle la Quintinie) I will go further, I WILL CONFESS / WAS CONFESSING that I love Garibaldi

Indeed, the second forms (viendrai, voulus, avouais) also express a shift from T0 : a future reference for (3), and a past reference for (4) and (5) ; nevertheless, this is not enough to allow their use in these contexts. This suggests that more is needed than a shift from the speaker’s actuality to explain the attenuative use of tenses. Berthonneau and Kleiber suggest a more precise analysis for the mitigating use of the French imparfait (as in (6)) based on an accurate description of the context. (6)

Je VOULAIS / VENAIS vous demander un petit service. (Berthonneau & Kleiber 1994 : 60) I WANTED / CAME to ask you a little favour.

According to these authors, the imparfait implies an indirect act which is expressed by a verb like vouloir or venir. This tense then permits to situate in the past, not the request itself, but the desire (voulais) or the coming (venais) preceding the request which implies the indirect act. Moreover, in their view, the speaker acts as if he was responding to an anterior implicit question of the hearer about his desire or coming. Consequently, the attenuation expressed by the imparfait does not come from the de-actualisation of the request, but from the localisation of an indirect act in the past. According to us, this analysis shows how to deal with attenuation in tenses, by describing thoroughly the elements of the context which may play a role in producing attenuation (here the presence of an indirect act). 3

4

We will use the English past progressive as the approximate equivalent of the French imparfait, although we are aware of the differences that exist semantically and discursively between both tenses. We will present the English translation underneath the French utterance. A literal translation may be given in brackets when the meaning of the English forms differs from the French ones.

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This study will investigate the linguistic constraints that determine in French the use of verbal tense in attenuative uses. To do so, we will give an accurate description of the different contexts of attenuation and clarify the role of the tense’s meaning in those contexts. We will notably demonstrate that the tense’s grammatical aspect is an important parameter of attenuation, an idea which has, to our knowledge, been scarcely pointed out5. We will not restrict our study to one particular tense, but will tackle all the simple tenses of the French verbal system. So, the purpose of the study will be to outline the general mechanism of attenuation in French simple tenses. 1. Definitions 1.1. Attenuated utterances Attenuation can be expressed in languages through various lexical and/or grammatical ways. Here we will focus on attenuation as it is produced by the sole use of a verb tense, and so we will leave aside all the other manifestations of attenuation. Then, we may start from the general definition of attenuation by verb tense as the process whereby a non-present tense replacing a present tense mitigates the meaning of an utterance by removing the present eventuality from the speaker’s actuality. Consequently, (3), (4), (5) and (6) may be considered to be attenuated utterances for they constitute mitigated versions of equivalent utterances in the present tense. The definition excludes utterances with aimer in the conditionnel like (7)6 : (7)

[…] vous allez me trouver indiscrète, Odette, mais j’AIMERAIS / * AIME savoir comment vous jugez le chapeau qu’avait Mme Trombert. (Marcel Proust, A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs) I WOULD LIKE / LIKE to know how you find the hat Mrs Trombert was wearing.

Indeed, in these types of requests, aimerais is a fixed expression with no possible use of another tense, and so with no possible use of the présent. Consequently, in this case, the utterance cannot be considered as attenuated in the way we defined attenuation. We will not treat sentences like (8) either :

5 6

Except in Berthonneau & Kleiber (1994) and in Anscombre (2004). Still this utterance sounds very polite, but that is not due to the sole use of a non-present tense replacing a present tense. Attenuation arises from the combination of the verb aimer with the conditional tense, forming a fixed expression in French.

160 (8)

Adeline Patard & Arnaud Richard Vous SEREZ BIEN AIMABLE (/ ÊTES BIEN AIMABLE) de ne pas venir vous pavaner auprès de ceux qui ne partagent pas votre opinion. Merci. (forum) Please DO (lit. you WILL BE VERY KIND (/ ARE VERY KIND)) not (to) come and show off to those that do not share your opinion.

The reason is that the eventuality être bien aimable has a future reference and not a present one. Indeed it refers to a future eventuality, when the addressee will be “kind” not to come and show off again in the forum. Consequently, we do not have a shift from the present tense to the future tense which is typical of attenuated sentences, but a shift from future tense to present tense. Here, the présent may be specifically used to demand something in a peremptory manner. The authoritative character of the présent comes from the fact that the speaker presents the object of his request (the fact that the addressee does not show off in the forum) as already effective. Thus, he is not leaving any time for the addressee to meet the demand. So, as the shift here is from the future tense to the present tense and not the contrary, we will not consider this sentence as attenuated in the sense we have defined earlier. Therefore, as the attenuated sentence is a mitigated version of a sentence in the present, the eventuality described by the verb must be true at T0. We may formulate the following truth-conditional constraint that (7) and (8) fail to obey : Constraint A The eventuality described in a attenuated sentence must be true at T0.

As we shall see, the given definition (and the following constraint A) has a crucial implication for the tenses that can be used or not to convey attenuation. 1.2. What is attenuated ? In attenuated utterances, the tense mitigates an illocutionary speech act, i.e. a speech act which has the supposed primary and immediate function to affect the situation of the interlocutors (Austin 1976). Performing an illocutionary act gives rise to various transformations in the interlocutor’s relationships like greeting (3), asking a question (4), confessing (5) etc. In brief, we will talk about attenuation when a (non-present) verbal tense softens the illocutionary act performed by an utterance in the present tense. 2. The contexts of attenuation In this section, we will try to give a general overview of attenuated sentences, principally based on syntactic and pragmatic distinctions.

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2.1. Indirect versus direct speech acts We may first utilise the distinction between indirect speech acts (or derived speech acts) and direct speech acts (or non-derived speech acts) developed by Searle (1975), and used by Berthonneau & Kleiber (1994) and Anscombre (2004). a. Indirect speech acts are primary speech acts that are not directly performed but are executed by means of a (secondary) speech act that is literally performed during the enunciation. In most attenuative contexts (cf. Berthonneau & Kleiber 1994 and Anscombre 2004), the verb corresponding to the (primary) speech act is introduced by another verb describing the speaker’s state or activity. In that case, the secondary act is an assertion about this state or activity, and the primary speech act is presented as the goal. Consequently, it is not the descriptive act that is accomplished, but the intended indirect act introduced by it. For instance : (9)

Salut, Ça va ? C’était bien la fête de la musique hier ? Je petit coucou, prendre des nouvelles. Bon aprem !!! (blog)

PASSAIS

pour faire un

I WAS PASSING BY to say hi, and to get some news from everybody.

This utterance produces a literal assertion about the passing by of the writer. However this act is not recognised as the intended act performed by the utterance, but rather serves to trigger an indirect speech act, the greeting expressed by the expression faire un petit coucou (« say hi »). The eventuality of the (literal) secondary act may describe a physical activity (venir « to come », passer « to pass by » or téléphoner « to telephone » etc.) as in (9), or a psychological state corresponding to a volition (vouloir « to want », désirer « to desire » etc.) like (10) or a need / necessity (avoir besoin de « to need », falloir « be necessary » etc.) as in (11)7. (10)

(11)

Je VOUDRAIS vous demander à nouveau de rappeler qu’en fait, la France occupe le douzième rang des 27 Etats membres si ce nombre est comparé à la population de chaque pays… (Amnesty International) I WOULD LIKE to ask you once again to remind that in fact Il me FAUDRA un peu de fric, dit Brody. (Vian, Le grand sommeil) I WILL NEED a bit of dough, said Brody

But still both types of verbs have in common to describe an eventuality that leads to the illocutionary act. 7

See Anscombre’s (2004) and Abouda’s articles (2004) for a more complete list.

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Note that, sometimes, the verb describing the physical activity/event or the psychological state leading to the speech act does not introduce it explicitly. The illocutionary act is then to be inferred from the context like the request (12) : (12)

– Je VOUDRAIS du beurre de mai. – Du beurre de mai ! [...] Comment peux-tu croire que j’aie du beurre de mai, aussi bien que du beurre de juin ou de juillet. (Lacretelle & Guéritte, Sarn) I WOULD LIKE some May butter

Sometimes, there is no verb like venir or vouloir and the illocutionary act is not made explicit. Then the hearer must infer the illocutionary force of the utterance from the situation of communication : (13)

Le docteur Brain tendit l’ordonnance à madame Serbin et lui annonça, comme à son habitude, la phrase mettant fin à sa consultation : – Cela FERA 250 francs. (internet) It WILL COST you 250 francs.

As the interlocutors are a doctor and his patient, the original act « cela fera 250 francs » must be interpreted as the following request : « Donnez-moi 250 francs » (« Give me 250 francs »). With indirect speech acts, politeness comes from two facts : (i) the derivation of the illocutionary act which consists in describing the speaker’s action or state aiming at the speech act instead of presenting the speech act directly8, (ii) the dissociation with the speaker’s now established by the nonpresent tense, hence increasing the indirectness of the speech act. In other words, politeness arises from indirectness (due to indirect speech act and non-present tense) : by being indirect, the speaker softens a potentially « threatening act » for the hearer and preserve his « face » (Brown & Levinson 1987). b. Contrary to indirect speech acts, direct speech acts are not executed through the intermediary of a secondary act : the utterance directly performs an illocutionary act. (14)

8

Toujours en fonction des saisons et circonstances, j’AVOUERAI une certaine faiblesse pour un chapon fourré de coquillettes au foie gras… (Le Figaro Magazine) I WILL CONFESS a certain weakness for a capon stuffed with foie gras’ pasta Though we can note like Berthonneau & Kleiber (1994 : 79) that the use of the verb vouloir (« to want ») in an indirect act in the present (je VEUX vous demander..., « I WANT to ask you... ») is nothing but polite since it puts forward the volition of the speaker.

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(16)

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– Je pense que nous assistons aux derniers temps de l’Eglise Catholique Romaine. C’est dans la suite logique de l’effondrement du mur de Berlin. – J’y VOYAIS plutôt une conséquence de la comète de la Tougounska (forum) I WOULD rather see (lit. WAS SEEING) it as a consequence of the Tungunska comet Vous ne DÉSIRERIEZ pas vous reposer ou de prendre quelques rafraîchissements ? (de Musset, La nuit vénitienne) WOULDN’T you like to rest or to have some refreshments ?

The confession, the assertion and the question formulated in (14), (15) and (16) execute real speech acts and do not serve to trigger indirect speech acts. 2.2. Performative versus non-performative speech acts Among direct speech acts we can discriminate between performative and non-performative utterances. This distinction has been first formulated by Austin (Austin 1976). Performative utterances are characterized by the fact that they refer to the act they actually perform. For the sake of descriptive analysis we will use the label « performative » only to refer to utterances9 based on performative verbs describing a speech act like dire, demander, avouer, prier etc.10 : (17)

[…] j’ai grande envie, madame, lui dit Lucien, de vous faire cadeau d’une petite gravure anglaise [...] je vous DEMANDERAI la permission de la placer dans votre salon [...]. (Stendhal, Lucien Leuwen) I WILL ASK you the permission to place it in your living room

Here the de-actualisation of the performative act due to a non-present tense is a way for the speaker to be less peremptory, and so to be more polite. Inversely, non-performative utterances do not describe the speech act executed by the enunciation. This type of utterance forms a rather heterogeneous set. Syntactically, we find two modalities : interrogative and declarative sentences.

9 10

Thus we do not include interrogative sentences among performative utterances. Note that not all performative verbs are adequate in attenuated sentence. Indeed some verbs like déclarer (« to declare »), bénir (« to bless ») or promettre (« to promise ») describe acts that cannot be attenuated : one cannot declare things, bless someone or promise things halfway. The performative verbs in attenuated sentences rather refer to requests or assertions of one’s opinion that constitute speech acts that can be executed more or less forcefully.

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2.3. Interrogative versus declarative sentences Most often, interrogative sentences in attenuative contexts correspond to what Anscombre calls demands (2004 : 90), i.e. requests meant to benefit the speaker, as opposed to offers, which are requests meant to benefit the hearer11. In the first case, the polite meaning corresponds to the attenuation of the demand : the speaker expects something from the hearer and presents his demand as relevant in an actuality different from the present one : (18)

Un mécanicien triturait le moteur d’une automobile. Icare s’approcha de lui. – AURIEZ-vous un emploi pour moi ? lui demanda-t-il. (Queneau, Le vol d’Icare) WOULD you HAVE a job for me ?

In declarative sentences, we observe two main types of context. We may have the expression of a subjective opinion : (19)

(20)

Je n’ai perçu jusqu’à aujourd’hui que l’aspect caricatural [...] de ce multiculturalisme. Je SERAIS enclin à ne pas lui trouver d’avenir. (Haillet 2002 : 16) I WOULD BE inclined not to find it a future. Tu peux obtenir de très importantes réductions allant de -30 à -50% sur ce genre de matos. Je PENSAIS par exemple aux Triangle Alteas ES... I WAS THINKING for example about the Triangle Alteas ES…

We may also get an assertion to inform the hearer about one’s intention to do something (21), notably to perform a subsequent speech act (22) : (21) (22)

Je VOUDRAIS vous donner un gage de mon amitié. (Balzac, Le père Goriot) I WOULD LIKE to give you a token of my friendship. Salut les gens, je VOULAIS un renseignement en ce qui concerne la réunion de pré rentrée, elle se tient quand ? (forum) I WOULD LIKE (lit. WANTED) some information about the meeting concerning the pre start of the school year, when is it ?

Note that when these sentences do not express an intention to perform a following act (intention to give a present in (21) or to ask for some information in (22)) but serve to infer an indirect speech act (for instance a demand), we are not in the context of a direct speech act, but in the context of an indirect speech act as evoked in section 2.1.

11

See Anscombre’s article (2004 : 92-93) for a possible test to discriminate both types of requests.

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2.4. Telicity and atelicity We may finally distinguish between telic and atelic situations (Garey 1957). Telic situations tend toward a goal that has to be reached so that the situation becomes true (e.g. acheter “to buy”), while atelic situations do not have to wait for an achievement (e.g. nager, “to swim”). In other words, telic situations possess an inherent boundary, but not atelic situations. This distinction directly interacts with constraint A formulated above (supra 1.1.) : Constraint A The eventuality described in a attenuated sentence must be true at T0.

Constraint A entails specific constraints according to the contexts. a. With indirect speech acts, we find both telic and atelic situations. When we have a telic bounded situation like je venir te dire bonsoir (3), the eventuality becomes true when it is completed, only after reaching its final boundary, which corresponds in this type of context to the speech act itself. So, to be true at T0, the eventuality must reach its term when the enunciation begins. We have here a constraint of immediate precedence that we call constraint B. Constraint B With a attenuated indirect speech act describing a telic situation, the eventuality must immediately precede the enunciation.

We may represent it in the following figure : T0 Past

Future

Telic eventuality Enunciation (ex. venir, « to come ») (speech act)

Figure 1 : Constraint B of immediate precedence When we have an atelic situation like je VOUDRAIS vous demander or cela fera 250 francs, the eventuality is true from its beginning and remains true during its length. Consequently, to be true at T0, the eventuality must be the case during the enunciation’s unfolding, till the end of the locutionary act12. So we have here a constraint of ENCOMPASSING now called constraint C : 12

We can note that with a sentence like je VOUDRAIS vous demander (« I WOULD to ask you »), the eventuality vouloir stops to be true when the enunciation

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166 Constraint C

With a attenuated indirect speech act describing an atelic situation, the eventuality must encompass the enunciation. This constraint is represented in figure (2) : Past

T0

Future

Enunciation (speech act) Atelic eventuality (ex. vouloir, « to want »)

Figure 2 : Constraint C of encompassing b. In performative utterances such as je vous DEMANDERAI la permission (« I WILL ASK you the permission »), the eventuality describes the speech act itself. So it must be telic, for the speech act has the completion of the enunciation as inherent boundary. Consequently, the eventuality has to coincide with the enunciation (it is the same event) : we have a constraint of strict coincidence we may call constraint D. Constraint D With a attenuated indirect speech act describing an atelic situation, the eventuality must encompass the enunciation.

We may illustrate it in the following figure :

finishes, for the speaker’s volition is satisfied by the speech act. Contrarily, with sentences like cela FERA 250 francs, the eventuality faire 250 francs is still true even after the end of the enunciation, for it is not the speech act which represents the term of the eventuality, but the satisfaction of the request executed by the enunciation.

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Enunciation (speech act) Past

T0

Future

Eventuality (performative act)

Figure 3 : Constraint D of strict coincidence c. Finally, in the third type of attenuated sentences - non-performative utterances corresponding to a direct speech act -, there are only atelic situations, and in this last case, we fall in the case of encompassing constraint C. 2.5. To sum up The different distinctions we have established enable us to sketch out the contexts where verbal tense may be responsible for attenuation. The contexts of attenuation are diagrammed in the following figure :

Figure 4 : Contexts and attenuation through French verbal tense

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3. Values of French verbal tenses Here, we defend the idea that French verbal tenses have an aspectuo-temporal meaning13. Our analysis is inspired by the system of French verbal tenses exposed in Barceló & Bres (2006). According to them, French verbal tenses give temporal and aspectual instructions on the way an eventuality is represented in a given utterance. Temporally, we may thus distinguish three instructions : (i) [past] : the eventuality is represented from a past fixed point ; (ii) [future] : the eventuality is represented from a future fixed point ; (iii) [neutral]14 : there is no specification about the fixed point from which the eventuality is represented15. So we get, for the French verbal system, the following values : [past] PRE (présent) IMP (imparfait) PS (passé simple) FUT (futur simple) COND (conditionnel présent)

[future]

[neutral]

+ + + +

+ +

Table 1 : The temporal meaning of French verbal tenses Moreover, aspectually, we may discriminate three instructions 16 depending on the representation of the internal time of the eventuality : (i) [+perfective] : the eventuality is seen globally from its initial boundary until its final boundary ; (ii) [-perfective], the eventuality is represented partially without its inherent boundaries ; (iii) [O] : the time representation of the eventuality remains unspecified, we say that the form is neutral with respect to perfectivity or imperfectivity. We get the following aspectual values for the French verbal tenses :

13

14

15 16

We are thus following authors like Barceló & Bres (2006), Gosselin (1996), Leeman (1994), Smith (1991), Vet (1980), Wilmet (2003) amongst others. We do not have enough space to justify here why we consider the PRE as temporally neutral and not as temporally “present”. We refer to Mellet (2000) and Bres (1999) for some arguments favouring the thesis of a neutral value. Though the neutral feature entails a present reference as a default interpretation. We leave aside the aspectual opposition between non perfect tenses (i.e. simple tenses) and perfect tenses (i.e. compound tenses) since we are only dealing with non-perfect verbal form.

Attenuation in French simple tenses

PRE (présent) IMP (imparfait) PS (passé simple) FUT (futur simple) COND (conditionnel présent)

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[perfective] O – + O O

Table 2 : The aspectual meaning of French verbal tenses Let us see now how the different types of attenuated sentences interact with the aspectuo-temporal value of verbal tense and what is the tenses’ distribution in these contexts. 4. Tenses and contexts We will first talk about tenses compatible with attenuation in certain contexts. Then, we will depict the impossible interactions between tenses and attenuated sentences. 4.1. Concordant interactions 4.1. 1. The IMP a. The IMP is revealed to be the prototypical tense of context 1.1 and it seems also quite frequent in context 1.2 (but less than the COND that is then prototypical). This is due to the IMP’s adequacy with the two constraints (constraint B of immediate precedence and constraint C of encompassing) involved by indirect speech acts (see supra). Context 1.1 (23) « Je VENAIS vous dire que j’avais des lits d’appoint et du linge de maison qui appartenait à maman. J’ai des pulls de mon mari… » propose Andréa. (Ouest France) I CAME (lit. WAS COMING) to say that I had camp beds Context 1.2 (24)

Bonjour ? tout le monde, je suis nouvelle venue...je VOULAIS tout d’abord féliciter les instigateurs de ce site [...] (forum) First I WOULD HAVE LIKED (lit. WAS WILLING / WANTING) to congratulate the initiators of this website

Indeed, as a past imperfective tense, the IMP represents a past portion of the eventuality and so does not say anything about its ending. Consequently, and 17 as the context favours this interpretation , we can infer that a telic process 17

In attenuated sentences, the eventuality is intended to be true at T0.

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like venir reaches its term at T0. So the IMP respects constraint B in context 1.1 : the eventuality finishes when the enunciation begins. Similarly, when we have an atelic verb like vouloir, we can infer that the eventuality extends throughout enunciation. So, in context 2, constraint C is also respected : the eventuality encompasses the enunciation. We may notice a few contexts 1.2 where the IMP is not possible. We then have to do with sentences without verbs like vouloir and without phrases making explicit the illocutionary act : Context 1.2 (25) – Cela FERA / * FAISAIT 250 francs. (internet) This WILL COST / WAS COSTING you 250 francs.

This impossible use points out a constraint due to the past value of the IMP : there must be a past moment available in the context when the eventuality is true. This constraint is not satisfied by contexts like (25), and that is why the IMP cannot occur here. b. We may also find an IMP in context 3.1 : Context 3.1 (26) A : – Je pense que nous assistons aux derniers temps de l’Eglise Catholique Romaine. C’est dans la suite logique de l’effondrement du mur de Berlin. B : – J’y VOYAIS plutôt une conséquence de la comète de la Tougounska [...] (forum) I WOULD RATHER SEE (lit. WAS SEEING) a consequence of the Tungunska comet (27)

bonjour je VOULAIS un renseignement ma voiture fume bleu/blanc je ne comprends pas pkoi (i.e. pourquoi) car je viens de faire ma vidange (forum) hello I WOULD LIKE (lit. WAS WILLING / WANTING) an information my car smokes blue/white

In (26), B refers to a past moment, i.e. the moment when B has made up his mind about the cause of the decay of the Catholic Church. In (27), the IMP may refer to the past moment when the speaker decided to ask for information about her car. The IMP is possible here because it obeys constraint C of encompassing, imposed by context 3.1. As the IMP does not precise that the eventuality is finished or not in the past, we may infer that it is still true during enunciation. Therefore the IMP agrees with constraint C and fit context 3.1. 4.1.2. The COND Being defined by two temporal features : [past] and [future], the COND expresses a future of the past. This meaning has two consequences. First, the eventuality in the COND is temporally unspecified in relation to T 0. This

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eventuality is only given to be subsequent to a past moment : the eventuality may be past, present (as in attenuated sentences) or future. Consequently, the COND is temporally always compatible with attenuated sentences since it imposes no specific time (past, present or future), and so it can conform with constraint A : the eventuality must be true at T0. Secondly, the features [past] and [future] say that the eventuality is seen as subsequent to a past point of view. For us, the combination of these two consequences explains why the COND is polyphonic (or dialogic)18 i.e. denotes the presence of a second enunciator. Indeed, as the eventuality’s localisation is not specified from the speaker’s viewpoint, we interpret it as non-actual, and, as it is represented from a past point of view, we interpret it as being viewed by an enunciator situated in the past and so different from the speaker. Consequently, using a COND, the speaker does not take responsibility for the eventuality’s validity which he attributes to a past enunciator. This meaning restricts the use of the COND to contexts 1.2, 2, 3.1 and 3.2 in which it may be expressing a request ((28), (29) and (32)), a subjective point of view (30), or an intention (31) : Context 1 (28) « C’est pourquoi je VOUDRAIS vous demander de parler à nouveau des rites de divorce. Merci d’avance ! » (Le Matin) That’s why I WOULD LIKE to ask you to talk again about the divorce rituals. Context 2 (29)

Veuillez trouver ci-joint un dossier de demande de subvention à la région ; je vous DEMANDERAIS d’informer Jacques et moi-même si cela vous intéresse. (email) I WOULD ASK you to inform Jacques or myself if you are interested.

Context 3.1 (30) (31)

Je SERAIS enclin à ne pas lui trouver d’avenir. (Haillet 2002 : 16) I WOULD BE inclined to find it no future. Je VOUDRAIS vous donner un gage de mon amitié. (Balzac, Le père Goriot) I WOULD LIKE to give you a token of my friendship.

Context 3.2 (32)

18

Est-ce que ce SERAIT possible de consulter internet ? (oral conversation) WOULD it BE possible to access Internet ?

See Haillet (2002), Korzen & Nølke (2001), Vuillaume (2001) among others.

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The polyphonic value of the COND suits these contexts well as a way to present the speech act indirectly through the medium of a past enunciator. That is why this tense is quite frequent and may be considered prototypical in these contexts. However we must note that, when the verbal lexeme refers to a physical activity overtly true in the situation of communication, the COND is not possible. We encounter this type of verb in context 1.219. (33)

Bonjour monsieur, c’est Ginette. [...] Je TÉLÉPHONAIS / * TÉLÉPHONERAIS pour savoir si vous aviez reçu l’invitation pour la party de noël des employés ? (forum) I PHONED (lit. WAS PHONING) / WOULD PHONE to know if you had received the invitation for the employee’s Christmas party.

It seems here that the polyphonic value of the COND - the eventuality is seen as non-actual is incompatible with the concrete meaning of the verbal lexeme (e.g. téléphoner, “to telephon” in (33)) which implies that the eventuality is clearly taking place in the situation of communication. On the contrary, the eventualities corresponding to a psychological state in the same context 1.2 (such as vouloir “to want” in (28)) do not have concrete manifestations in the situation of communication. Consequently the eventuality can be presented as non-actual and the use of the COND is still possible. 4.1.3. The FUT As a future tense, the FUT requires a future reference contextually available for the eventuality. This reference can even be implicit. This condition is shown in context 2 when the FUT is prototypical but this is also the case in contexts 1.2 and 3.1 : Context 1.2 (34) je VOUDRAI vous demander si vous m’autoriseriez à imprimer la photo [...] celle où Sandrine Tareyre est avec Edouard Duleu. (blog) I WILL LIKE to ask you if you would allow me to print the picture. (35) « Et avec ça, ça sera tout ? » « Oui, merci. » « Ça FERA 1 euros 20 » (forum) This WILL COST you 1 euro 20 Context 2 (36) J’irai plus loin, j’AVOUERAI que j’aime Garibaldi (George Sand, Mademoiselle la Quintinie) I WILL CONFESS that I love Garibaldi 19

We also find such impossibility in context 1.1 with telic verbs. But we will deal with this scenario in section 3.2, for it represents a specific case of impossible combination.

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Context 3.1 (37)

je PRÉFÈRERAI me couper un bras plutot que d’acheter un ipod. (forum) I WOULD PREFER (lit. WILL PREFER) to cut my arm rather than buy an ipod.

Furthermore, in all of these sentences, it is possible to recover a future moment when the eventuality is still relevant. In the case of a request or a question ((34) and (35)), the FUT may refer to the moment when the addressee accepts or refuses to meet the speaker’s demand. In (36), the FUT may pertain to the subsequent enunciation of the confession itself : J’aime Garibaldi « I love Garibaldi », and, in (37), to the potential (and so future) moment when the speaker would rather cut his arm than buy an ipod. The FUT occurs in these contexts for one main reason. In contexts 1.2, 2 and 3.1, the FUT obeys the different constraints related to them. Being neutral regarding perfectivity or imperfectivity, the FUT does not tell if the eventuality is seen from within or globally, and supposing that the eventuality is ongoing, it can be true not solely in the future, but also at the present time. So, as the context suggests (the eventuality is meant to be present), we interpret the eventuality as extending to T0 and as being true during enunciation. In contexts 1.2 and 3.1, one can infer that the atelic eventuality extends to T0 and stays true during enunciation. This means the FUT obeys constraint C and the encompassing is imposed by these situations. In context 2, the FUT should disagree with constraint D − of strict coincidence (context 2) − that requires the eventuality to be true during enunciation only. But, surprisingly, the FUT, which locates the eventuality in the future (and not in the present), is also possible in that case (see example (36)). We may suggest the following explanation : the FUT indicates that the speech act is relevant in the future (see supra) when the performative utterance may have some effects on the situation of enunciation. In this sense, the eventuality described by the performative utterance may be considered to have a future relevance. As a result, the constraint of a strict coincidence is circumvented with the FUT, the eventuality being also relevant at a future time. We may remark that in context 1.2, the verbs that were incompatible with the COND (expressing a physical activity true at T0) are also impossible in the FUT. (38)

Je * TÉLÉPHONERAIS / * TÉLÉPHONERAI pour savoir si vous aviez reçu l’invitation pour la party de noël des employés ? (forum) I WOULD PHONE / WILL PHONE to know if you had received the invitation for the employee’s Christmas party.

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However the explanation may be slightly different from the one given for the COND. In the case of the FUT, there is a contradiction between the future reference conveyed by the tense and the verbal lexeme which describes a physical activity that is overtly unfolding in the situation of communication. As a consequence the FUT cannot occur in such contexts. Let us now examine the impossible occurrences of some French verbal tenses in attenuated sentences. 4.2. Discordant interactions 4.2.1. Perfectivity and attenuation The PS, which is perfective, is not compatible with attenuation. Let us examine the following sentences based on preceding examples : Context 1 (39)

je * VINS te dire bonsoir. I CAME to say good evening

(40)

Je * VOULUS vous demander à titre personnel pourquoi vous avez adopté un python I LIKED TO ask you as a personal question why you have adopted a python

Context 2 (41)

[...] je vous * DEMANDAI la permission de la placer dans votre salon [...]. I ASKED you the permission to place it in your living room

Context 3 (42) Je FUS enclin à ne pas lui trouver d’avenir. I WAS INCLINED to find it no future.

In fact, as a past perfective tense, the PS says the whole eventuality belongs to the past, from its beginning until its end. Therefore this tense entails a discontinuity between the eventuality and T0. It violates the rules of immediate precedence (constraint B), encompassing (constraint C), and strict coincidence (constraint D). All these reasons explain why the PS is not possible in (39), (40) and (41) ; and why in (42) it does not express attenuation but describes a past opinion. In conclusion, perfectivity and attenuation are temporally incompatible. 4.2.2. Past tenses and performative utterances Past tenses (IMP, PS) are impossible in context 2 : (43)

J’irai plus loin, j’* AVOUAIS / * AVOUAI que j’aime Garibaldi I WAS CONFESSING / CONFESSED that I love Garibaldi

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Veuillez trouver ci-joint un dossier de demande de subvention à la région ; je vous * DEMANDAIS / * DEMANDAI d’informer Jacques et moi-même si cela vous intéresse. I WOULD ASK / WILL ASK you to inform Jacques or myself if you are interested.

The [past] feature tends to disagree with constraint D. As a matter of fact, it imposes the existence of a past moment when the eventuality is true. This implication violates the constraint of a strict coincidence between the eventuality and T0. For this reason, past tenses are inconsistent with the context. 4.2.3. The COND / FUT and context 1.1 We may observe that FUT and COND cannot occur with attenuation in context 1.1. Let us see the following examples created from (3), and (9) : (45)

Il n’entend pas frapper à la porte, mais au bruit de la porte qui s’ouvre, lève la tête : c’est son fils Charles : -je VIENDRAIS / VIENDRAI dire bonsoir. I WOULD COME / WILL COME to say good evening

(46)

Ça va ? C’était bien la fete de la musique hier ? Je PASSERAIS / PASSERAI pour faire un petit coucou, prendre des nouvelles. Bon aprem !!! I WOULD PASS BY / WILL PASS BY to say a little hi, and to hear from everybody.

In fact, attenuation disappears, and we interpret instead the illocutionary act as the assertion of a future / hypothetical fact. The reason is different for the two tenses. The COND cannot occur in context 1.1, because it is incompatible with the types of eventuality such as venir (“to come”) or passer (“to pass”)) which are concrete – they have material manifestations in the situation – and telic. Indeed, the polyphonic value of the COND leads us to interpret the eventuality as non-actual (see supra 3.1.2) : the speaker does not take responsibility for what he says, while the eventuality is overtly being completed at T0. So the polyphonic meaning of the COND fails to represent the eventuality as coming to its end at T0, hence violating constraint B of immediate precedence. Concerning the FUT, it is the feature [future] that is responsible for its inconsistency with the context. According to it, there must be a future time when the eventuality is true. But constraint B says that the eventuality must be completed at T0, so it cannot be true in the future. Thus the futurity of the FUT is incompatible with constraint B.

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4.2.4. The IMP / FUT and context 3.2 IMP and FUT show to be impossible in context 3.2 : (47)

Est-ce que vous AURIEZ / * AVIEZ / ? AUREZ-vous une cigarette ? (Ramuz, Aimé Pache, peintre vaudois) WOULD / DID / WILL you have a cigarette ?

Both tenses are incompatible with this context because there is no past or future time available in the situation when the eventuality can take place. We can note that the FUT is not possible whereas the COND is quite frequent (even prototypical). We may explain that, at the second person required by the interrogative modality, there is no possible confusion anymore with the COND : voudrez / aurez (FUT) versus voudriez / auriez (COND). So, as it cannot be mixed up with the COND, the FUT scarcely occurs. 4.3. To sum up We recall in the following table all the combinations evoked. We note + the combinations always possible, – the combinations always impossible and +* the combinations possible but under certain conditions. Context 1.1

Context 1.2

Context 2

Context 3.1

Context 3.2

IMP

+

+*



+



PS











FUT



+*

+

+



COND



+*

+

+

+

Table 3 : Tenses and contexts of attenuation 5. Conclusion We are now able to identify some of the linguistic parameters that determine the attenuative use of French simple tenses : (i) Attenuated sentences require the eventuality to be true at T0. This general constraint entails specific constraints proper to each different context. (ii) The aspectuo-temporal meaning of verbal tenses also involves some restrictions : past and future tenses respectively require a past or a future moment when the eventuality may be true while the COND reveals to be

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incompatible with verbs describing a physical activity that is overtly true in the situation. These constraints interact, so as to allow or to ban some combinations or other (see table above), and can partly account for the prototypicality of the IMP in context 1.1, of the FUT in context 2, and of the COND in most contexts 1.2, 2 and 3. Moreover, the study points out the following facts : (i) First, the grammatical aspect of the verbal tense seems to be a key parameter : neutral and imperfective tenses agree with attenuation, but perfective tenses are excluded. The reason may be that attenuation needs the eventuality to extend until a past or future moment, which is incompatible with perfectivity. (ii) Then, the FUT and the COND appear almost in the same contexts, namely contexts 1.2, 2 and 3.1, as opposed to the IMP which cannot occur in context 2, but is present in context 1.1. (iii) Finally, attenuation as it is expressed by the IMP and the FUT may be opposed to attenuation involved by the COND. Indeed, the IMP and the FUT present the eventuality as true at a past or future moment in order to avoid the peremptory character of the present. On the contrary, the COND, which is polyphonic (due to its two temporal features), indicates a lesser commitment of the speaker by attributing his words to a secondary enunciator. However we still have, in both cases, a shift from the speaker’s actuality. Finally, in light of this study, we would say that attenuation corresponds to the concealed performance of an illocutionary act, through the shift from the speaker’s actuality. This shift is operated by a tense that is neither present, nor perfective, and that may or may not occur in the different attenuative contexts according to precise aspectual and temporal parameters. References Abouda, L. (2004). Deux types d’imparfait atténuatif, Langue française 142 : 58-74. Anscombre, J.-C. (2004). « L’imparfait d’atténuation » : quand parler à l’imparfait, c’est faire, Langue française 142 : 75-99. Austin, J. L. (1976). How to Do Things With Words, Oxford : Oxford University Press. Barceló, G. J. ; Bres J. (2006). Les temps de l’indicatif en français, Paris : Ophrys. Berthonneau, A.-M. ; Kleiber, G. (1994). Imparfait et politesse : rupture ou cohésion ?, Travaux de linguistique 29 : 59-92. Bres, J. (1999). Textualité narrative orale, genres du discours et temps verbal, in : J.-M. Barbéris, (éd.), Le français parlé : variétés et discours, Montpellier : Presses de l’université Paul-Valéry, 107-133.

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Brown, P & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness : Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Dendale, P. ; Tasmowski, L., (éds), (2001). Le conditionnel en français, Metz : Université de Metz. Fleischman, S. (1989). Temporal distance, Studies in Language 13-1 : 1-50. Garey, H. B. (1957). Verbal aspect in French, Language 33 : 91-110. Gosselin, L.(1996). Sémantique de la temporalité en français, Louvain-la Neuve : Duculot. Haillet, P. P. (2002). Le conditionnel en français : une approche polyphonique, Gap : Ophrys. Leeman, D. (1994). Grammaire du verbe français, Paris : Nathan. Mellet, S. (2002). Le présent, Travaux de linguistique 40 : 97-111. Nølke, H. ; Korzen H. (2001). Le conditionnel : niveaux de modalisation, in : P. Dendale ; L. Tasmowski, (éds), Le conditionnel en français Université de Metz : 125-146. Searle, J. R. (1975). Indirect speech acts, in : Cole P. ; Morgan J. (eds), Syntax and Semantics, vol. III : Speech Acts, New York : Academic Press, 59-82. Smith, C. S. (1991). The Parameter of Aspect, London : Kluwer Academic Publishers. Vet, C. (1980). Temps, aspects et adverbes de temps en français contemporain, Paris : Droz. Vet, C. ; Kampers-Manhe B. (2001). Futur simple et futur du passé : leurs emplois temporels et modaux, in : P. Dendale ; L. Tasmowski, (éds), Le conditionnel en français : 89-104. Vetters, C. (2001). Le conditionnel : ultérieur du non-actuel, in : P. Dendale ; L. Tasmowski, (éds), Le conditionnel en français : 169-207. Vuillaume, M. (2001). L’expression du futur dans le passé en français et en allemand, in : P. Dendale ; L. Tasmowski, (éds), Le conditionnel en français : 105-123. Wilmet, M. (2003). Grammaire critique du français, Brussels : Duculot.

Towards a novel aspectuo-temporal account of conditionals

Patrick CAUDAL LLF / UMR CNRS 7110 – U. Paris 7

1. Introduction While temporal accounts of the semantics of conditionals are so to speak history already (cf. Palmer 1986), aspectuo-temporal accounts are very much a hot topic for current research (cf. Ippolito 2006, Arregui 2007). I will try and propose here some (hopefully) decisive arguments in favour of a novel kind of aspectuo-temporal approach to the semantics of conditionals, departing from existing theories in several respects ; the present analysis will make crucial use of French data, as will become apparent in the following. The possible existence of a connection between tense-aspect marking and the interpretation of conditional structures (CSs henceforth ; cf. if A, B / si A, B / wenn A, B, etc.), and more specifically their protases (that is, their antecedent clauses), has been abundantly discussed in the recent (or not so recent) semantic literature. Among both typological (cf. James 1982, Bybee & Fleischmann 1995) and theoretical / formal works (Gosselin 1999, Vetters 2001, Iatridou 2000, Ippolito 2003, 2006, Caudal & Roussarie 2005, Trnavac 2006, Arregui 2007, inter alia), a consensus seems to have emerged that past imperfective markers often play a determining role in setting up irrealis readings, or counterfactuals (CF henceforth). On top of the past vs. present CF CS distinction (cf. (3) vs. (4)-(6)), we need to further divide past CF CSs between ‘one-past’ CF CSs as in (4)-(5) (which describe accessible possible worlds / open possibilities with respect to speech time and the actual world) vs. ‘two-past’ CF CSs as in (6) (which describe foreclosed possibilities / inaccessible possible worlds with respect to speech time and the actual world). Indeed, it seems that languages possessing past imperfective aspectuotemporal markers use them within protases of CSs. To mention but a few languages, this is for instance the case in modern Greek (1), Warlpiri (2), and of course, French (4)-(7). (1)

An eperne afto to siropi θa γiinotan kala. If take-PST-IMP this syrup FUTb become-PAST-IMP well ‘If he took this syrup, he would get better.’ (Iatridou 2000 : 234)

© Cahiers Chronos 22 (2011): 179-209.

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(3)

(4)

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(6)

(7)

Kaji-lpa-npa NFact.C-Pst.Impf-2sg

ya-ntarla-rni come-IRR-HITHER

kuyuwangu, meat-WITHOUT

kapu-∅-rna-ngku kulu-jarri-∅. Fut.C-Perf-1sg-2sg.Obj angry-become-NPST ‘If you come back without any meat, I will be angry with you.’ (Legate 2003 : 160) Si Yann vient, Mona partira. (present CF / irrealis) If Yann come-Pres.3sg., Mona leave-Fut.3sg ‘If Yann comes, Mona will leave.’ Si Yann venait, Mona partirait. (‘one-past’ CF / irrealis) If Yann come-Impf.3sg., Mona leave-Cond.3sg. ‘If Yann came, Mona would leave.’ Si Yann était malade, Mona viendrait.(‘one-past’ CF / irrealis) If Yann be-Impf.3sg. sick,Mona come-Cond.3sg. ‘If Yann were sick, Mona would come.’ Si Yann était venu, Mona serait partie.(‘two-past’ CF / irrealis) If Yann come-PluPerf.3sg., Mona be-Cond.3sg. leave-PastPart. ‘If Yann had come, Mona would have left’. Si Yann avait été malade, Mona serait venue.(‘two-past’ CF / irrealis) If Yann be-PluPerf.3sg. sick, Mona be-Cond.3sg come-PastPart ‘If Yann had been sick, Mona would have come.’

This observation extends to aspectually underspecified tenses capable of receiving an imperfective reading, such as Germanic preterits (cf. for instance the English simple past and the German Perfekt). Moreover, complex aspectuo-temporal markers possessing an imperfective component also appear within protases of conditional structures with a ‘two-past’ CF reading. This is for instance the case of the French plus-que-parfait in (6)-(7). Simplifying a much-debated issue, I will define counterfactuals (CFs) as CSs whose antecedents are invalid or foreclosed at some (past / present) evaluation time because of specific knowledge available to the speaker, and siding with Iatridou (2000) and Arregui (2007), I will take this to be a matter of implicature (rather than presupposition). This definition immediately brings into light a sharp difference between ‘one-past’ CSs, which refer to possible worlds presently deemed accessible within the actual world, as in (4)-(5) (that is, open possibilities, even though these worlds may be extremely unlikely and therefore difficult to access 1 ; this is the ‘I wish I 1

I will assume here a theory of modality à la Kratzer (1991), in which possible worlds can be ranked in terms of their similarity to the actual world. Similarity

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were rich’ sort of situation), and ‘two-past’ CSs, which clearly involve inaccessible worlds, at least with respect to the present time and actual world (6)-(7) – that is, foreclosed possibilities : (6)-(7) linguistically (at least) imply that the relevant event expressed in the protasis cannot take place (anymore). No such implication exists for e.g. (4)-(5), although contextual knowledge may be available which invalidates the described events at some present, past or future time ; the speaker simply does not present such knowledge as a linguistic issue. In spite of recent works leaning towards an aspect-based approach, I believe that the real magnitude of the role of aspect in CSs has been somewhat overlooked so far. For instance, it remains unexplained why nonimperfective viewpoint tenses, and particularly perfective viewpoint tenses (cf. Smith 1991), cannot freely appear within CSs protases 2. I will define past perfective tenses as describing the entirety of a past, change-of-state event ; such tenses enforce inchoative or durative, bounded readings with atelic sentences. This clearly excludes e.g. the English simple past, which can receive imperfective readings with such sentences. Thus, the French passé simple, a perfective viewpoint tense, is blocked in CSs, except with non-conditional readings, cf. (8) vs. (9). It is also worthwhile noting that the présent and the passé composé block the past CF but respectively allow for a present CF vs. a past indicative reading (10)-(11). (8)

(9)

2

*Si Yann vint, Mona partirait. If Yann come-PS.3sg., Mona leave-Cond.3sg. ‘If Yann came, Mona would leave.’ Si Yann fut pieux en apparence, If Yann be-PS.3sg pious apparently, il fut en fait un mécréant. (concessive) he be-PS.3sg. in fact a heathen. ‘Although Yann was-PS seemingly pious, in fact, he was-PS a heathen.’

ranking can help us understand how e.g. ‘I wish I were rich’ examples describe ‘open possibilities’, although they may be regarded as practically impossible. Contrary to what an anonymous reviewer implied, this remark extends to Gosselin (1999) as well as Patard (2006), and even Patard & Vermeulen (2010) : none of these works offers any explanation (let alone a theoretical or formal account) of the impossibility of using perfective viewpoint markers in antecedent clauses of CSs.

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(10)

Si Yann part / est parti (demain), If Yann leave-Pr.3sg. / leave-PC.3sg. (tomorrow), on mangera(*it) des crêpes. (*past CF) Pro.3sg. eat-Fut (Cond).3sg Det.Pl. pancakes. ‘If Yann leaves / is gone tomorrow, we will (*would) eat pancakes.’ Si Yann a mangé, alors Mona a mangé aussi. If Yann eat-PC.3sg., then Mona eat-PC.3sg. too. ‘If Yann had lunch / dinner, then Mona had lunch / dinner too.’

(11)

Past tenses in a number of other Romance languages exhibit similar distributions. This is for instance the case of Portuguese, which allows a ‘preterit perfective’ protasis in past indicative CSs, but blocks it within irrealis CSs ; by contrast, an indicative past imperfective protasis is possible then as well as a subjunctive imperfective protasis (cf. (12)). I will say nothing of subjunctive protases here, though ; the main object of this paper is the use and interpretation of indicative tenses within CSs (and I believe that Ippolito’s (2003) notion of ‘subjunctive CSs’ is inappropriate to describe such data ; I will therefore carefully avoid it). (12)

OK Se *eu tinha / tivesse bastante dinheiro, OK If I have-Pret.Perf.1sg. ( have-Imp.Subj.1sg.) enough money compraria / comprava um carro novo. buy COND.Pres.1sg. / Impf.Past.1sg. a car new. ‘If I had enough money, I would buy a new car.’

So far, to the best of my knowledge, none of the above data has received a principled explanation (except for a partial, tentative account in Caudal & Roussarie 2005). It is my purpose here to bridge this gap. Through the example of French tenses, I will try to explain why certain aspectual classes of (indicative) tenses are either excluded or interpretatively constrained within the protases of conditional structures, whereas (past) imperfectives are perfectly happy with both present and past irrealis readings. 2. Reviewing existing approaches Before moving to my own account, I will discuss the evidence and arguments put forth in (some) of the (many) different existing approaches to CSs 3. 3

For want of space, I am deliberately setting aside a number of existing accounts of French CSs – e.g. Vairel (1982) and Adam (1992). See Caudal & Roussarie (2005) for a critical review of these two references. It is de facto impossible to discuss here even a tenth of the relevant literature on CSs. I have therefore

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2.1. On temporal(ist) accounts Let us turn first to the well-established sort of ‘temporal’ accounts. By and large, they fall into two broad categories : (i) ‘now-excluded’ accounts, which treat past imperfectives as quantifying over (past) intervals or (possible) worlds (not necessarily worlds accessible from the actual world, though), but not the speech time / ‘now’ interval ; see e.g. Palmer (1986), Iatridou (2000) ; (ii) ‘past evaluation / belief’ accounts (Gosselin (1999), Ippolito (2003, 2007) inter alia), which attribute the modal effects of past imperfectives to the fact that their temporal content does not actually bear on the protasis’ propositional content, but on some epistemic modal / belief / evaluation operator underlying the modal construction, which is therefore restricted to the past 4. In the ‘temporal league’ of the analysis of conditionals, the most prominent players remain Palmer (1986) and Iatridou (2000), both of which claim that the modal (CF / hypothetical) content of protases is derived from (or inherently coexists with) the ‘(fake) pastness’ of their aspectuo-temporal marking 5. The present section is dedicated to this kind of account, which I call the ‘now excluded’ approach.

4

5

selected a few maximally relevant references as the main focus of my line or argument, given the goals and requirements of the present investigation – formal implementations being an important part of these requirements, as it is often very difficult to assess the content and predictions of informal analyses. A third and less represented type of account is based on a ‘dialogical’ analysis, whereby the tense marker of the protasis is assumed to bear on an implicit speech-act predicate instead of a modal predicate / operator / quantifier ; see e.g. Bres (2005), Patard (2006), Patard & Vermeulen (2010). Finally, Vetters (2001) should be mentioned as a mixed approach, which takes the imparfait to have a ‘now-excluded’ meaning, while still arguing that CSs take (antecedent) clauseexternal scope. More recently, Boogaart & Trnavac (2006) and Trnavac (2006) have blamed the so-called ‘non-autonomous’, ‘anaphoric’ semantics of past imperfectives for their modal readings within CSs, which should make these tenses unable to contribute a temporal referent of their own, therefore leaving the door open to non-past referents. I will not detail their proposal for want of space to do so ; this would require a general discussion of the shortcomings of the anaphoric / deictic dichotomy with respect to a theory of tenses ; but see e.g. Vetters (1993) for a review of some problems with such theories of tense reference. In a sense, invoking ‘anaphoricity’ is a way of sidestepping aspectual factors, just like the ‘now-excluded’ analysis. And it is clearly not a sufficient category to account for the distribution of tenses in CSs, since not every ‘deictic’ tense has the same

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The central theoretical tenet underlying ‘now-excluded’ accounts is that the true temporal meaning of past imperfectives is not ‘past’, but in fact ‘now-excluded’ – thus possibly yielding either past or modal (i.e., possible worlds) readings ; this is of course reminiscent of the classical Damourette & Pichon ‘toncal’ analysis of the imparfait (but see Vetters 2001 or Caudal & Vetters 2005 for recent accounts of that type). The second important tenet shared by at least some ‘temporalist’ accounts (see e.g. Gosselin 1999 and Ippolito 2003, but also James 1982) is that past imperfectives are truly and unambiguously past tenses, and therefore neither require the theoretical pirouette of Iatridou’s (2000) ‘fake past’ nor the claim that past imperfective tenses are heavily underspecified. The idea is that the past component of past imperfectives within protases of CSs does not bear on the event described by / reference time attached to the protasis, but rather on some (higher, protasis-external) epistemic modal underlying the CS – which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the belief entertained by the speaker about the validity of the proposition expressed by the protasis (i.e., it holds true within a certain here accessible possible world, in the case of ‘onepast’ CF CSs). 2.2. Arguments in favour of the shifted-evaluation approach Ippolito (2003) offers several counter arguments against the traditional, dominant, ‘now-excluded’ analysis (and related arguments can be found elsewhere in the literature, cf. e.g. Gosselin 1999). I believe the most important one is repeated in (13) / (13’) – which exemplifies what Ippolito calls ‘mismatched past CF conditionals’. (13) (13’)

If C. had taken his Advanced Italian test, he would have passed. If C. had taken his Advanced Italian test tomorrow, he would have passed.

The ‘now-excluded’ analysis of (13) would run as follows (in the spirit of Iatridou 2000) : it involves two past markers, one of which is a ‘true’ past indicating that the conditional worlds at stake are accessible in the past (with respect to the present, actual world), whereas the other is a ‘fake’ past, but a true modal introducing the hypothetical world(s) in which the protasis is true. The conditional structure as a whole is true if the consequent is true in every (past) world where the antecedent (= the protasis) is true (it can be modelled

interpretative or combinatorial properties with protases of CSs (e.g, the passé composé is fine with present irrealis, potential readings, while the passé simple rejects them and only admits non-conditional readings). The explanation of such distributional issues can only be aspectual, and cannot boil down to the anaphoric / deictic tense dichotomy.

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as an accessibility relation R of type ; one of the past markers is used to ‘localize’ a possible world variable (type s). Therefore, one of the two past markers must be interpreted within the protasis ; it bears on the associated reference time (or ‘topic time’). However, in (13’), it is clear that given the presence of the future modifier tomorrow, none of the past markers at stake can really bear on the antecedent clause reference time (in Reichenbachian terms). As indicated above, Ippolito’s (2003) alternative analysis is to have the temporal marker borne by the antecedent clause bear not on that very clause, but on some temporal argument associated with the accessibility relation incorporated within the implicit modal expressed by the conditional structure. This amounts to locating some epistemic state of the speaker’s in the past (instead of locating ‘possible worlds’ in the past, cf. Iatridou’s (2000) version of the ‘now-excluded’ analysis). 3. On aspectual(ist) accounts After temporal(ist) accounts, we need now to discuss existing aspectual(ist) accounts of CSs ; I’ll discuss here two fairly different types of theoretical options, namely ‘clause-internal’ vs. ‘clause-external’ approaches, depending on the scope they attribute to aspectuo-temporal operators with respect to CSs. 3.1. Arregui (2007) : an (antecedent) clause-internal account of CSs Arregui (2007) is a clause-internal aspectual account in that it assumes the aspectuo-temporal operators (or functions) contributed by the antecedent clause verb to take clause-internal scope. Thus in (14), Arregui assumes that some perfective operator is contributed by the simple past morpheme borne by died, and that it affects the eventuality described by that verb, thereby contributing to the irrealis interpretation of the CS. (14) If your plants died next week, I would be very upset. (Arregui 2007)

In short, Arregui’s account involves three main points : (i) tense / aspect operators expressed by the protasis bear on its eventuality time, i.e. they take clause-internal scope ; (ii) the English simple past contributes a perfective operator within (eventive) CSs, that is, sentences denoting a telic eventuality (I am making this (I believe sensible) assumption, because Arregui (2007) does not discuss in detail how the aspectual interpretation of sentences in the simple past is construed) ; (iii) the perfective operator introduces a deictic (Lewis-event) pronoun, triggering the presupposition of some antecedent eventuality

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referent. In (14), the perfective-introduced pronoun being unable to pick up an appropriate eventuality referent in the current context, some pragmatic device is called in to salvage the CS’s interpretation (cf. Arregui’s (2007) ‘diagonalization’). A critical assessment is in order. Note first that (iii) is somewhat awkward because it leads us to view natural, unmarked sentences like (14) as semantically deviant ; indeed, according to Arregui (2007), (14) requires to be salvaged by some pragmatic interpretative principle ; a compositional semantic account mirroring (14)’s non-markedness should be preferred. Second, Arregui’s (2007) analysis (wrongly) predicts that (8) is correct, by salvaging it through the very means used to assign an interpretation to (14) (the French passé simple is also perfective, and contextual parameters are no different than in (14)). And third, (iii) depends on (ii), which depends on (i) ; but unfortunately, (i) is clearly problematic. This is obvious in a language like French, where the aspectual interpretation of an antecedent clause depends on the eventuality type described, and not on the inflectional tenseaspect marking of the protasis per se. For instance telic antecedent clauses in the imparfait yield ‘perfective’ readings (15), while atelic clauses yield ‘imperfective’ readings, (16) (I’ll argue below that the aspectual neutrality of the conditionnel (both modal and imperfective) reveals a parallel phenomenon). This suggests that the antecedent clause’s aspectual operator cannot bear directly on the antecedent clause’s eventuality time. (15)

Si Luc partait (e1), Max viendrait (e2). ‘If Luc left-IMP, Max would come.’

(e1< e2 : ‘perfective’ protasis)

(16)

Si Luc était ivre (e1), Max viendrait (e2). (e1⊆ e2 : ‘imperfective’ protasis) ‘If Luc were-IMP drunk, Max would come.’

3.2. On ‘(antecedent) clause-external’ aspectual accounts Let us now turn to the main alternative type of approach, namely clauseexternal aspectual accounts of CSs ; as indicated above, I’ll focus here mostly on Ippolito’s (2006) analysis. Indeed, in sharp contrast to Arregui (2007), Ippolito’s (2006) account is based on the assumption that aspectuo-temporal operators contributed by the protasis take clause-external scope (instead of clause-internal scope). Ippolito (2006) is not alone in that league ; Gosselin (1999) (as well as Vetters 2001, inter alia) offers a somewhat related clauseexternal treatment of French CSs, but since Gosselin’s and Vetters’s analyses are not formally implemented and less detailed than Ippolito (2006), I will use the latter paper as a guide-line for my argumentation. To give a simple example, Gosselin’s (1999) conception of the modal contribution of CSs appears to be rather vague, even though he makes it clear what it is not – i.e.

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according to Gosselin, the modal contribution of CSs should not be modelled as a (propositional) operator or as a quantifier, but as some sort of ‘metapredicate’ possessing a temporal / event argument, treated as a ‘meta-event’, which Gosselin defines as a modalized assertion event, corresponding to a prospective possibility. Unfortunately, he does not discuss further the semantics of this ‘meta-predicate’ nor how his modal ‘meta-events’ relate to ‘ordinary events’, nor how they are derived, so that its relation to the more global semantics of CSs is impossible to assess. In contrast, Ippolito (2006) (as well as Ippolito 2003) clearly shares the fundamental assumptions of temporal, ‘shifted evaluation time’ approaches, i.e. the philosophical view that in modal expressions, branching possible worlds are accessed up to a certain ‘evaluation time’, which plays a crucial role in the evaluation of the related CS. But let us turn now to the main point in Ippolito’s (2006) analysis : when treating (14) Ippolito (2006) assumes a PRES PERF (‘XN’, in the sense of McCoard’s (1978) eXtended Now interval analysis of perfects) operator to determine / bind that evaluation time 6 by scoping over the antecedent clause. Ippolito (2006) postulates a unique aspectual operator PERF for different sorts of CSs, and invariably accounts for their irrealis interpretations through PERF : Ippolito (2006) argues that the semantics of imperfective tenses within CSs construes a ‘universal present perfect’ 7 (UPP) evaluation time, defined as the time interval from which the possible worlds at stake in the CS’s protasis are accessed. (17) summarises Ippolito’s (2006) treatment of one past CSs, and (18) that of two-past CSs, where PRES / PAST stand for present / past operators binding the evaluation time variable (and not the protasis eventuality time / referent), narrowed down by the PERF and ∀⊆ aspectual operators (the latter quantifying over the subintervals of the evaluation time, so as to meet the requirements of an ‘extended now’ interval). WOLL stands for a universal quantifier over worlds (= a bare conditional, in fact), SIM for a similarity function ranking possible worlds, and HIST for an historical accessibility function 8. HIST incorporates the evaluation time parameter of the CS (associated with proposition ϕ, and 6 7

8

Which is technically a free variable borne by the CS’s representation. The notion of ‘universal present perfect’ has been first introduced in McCawley (1971). HIST expresses ‘historical’ (and not ‘metaphysical’) accessibility, i.e. that possible worlds instantiate possibilities, which get foreclosed as time goes by (see Ippolito 2007 : 637). By and large, thus, it denotes an ‘alternative history’, consisting of the set of possible worlds w’ (‘antecedent worlds’) accessible from the currently relevant world w at the evaluation time t, and such that these worlds are maximally similar to the current world, i.e. embody a similar history, up to t.

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higher up, with ψ); this evaluation time is bound by the higher aspectual/temporal operators. (17) PRES(PERF(∀⊆(WOLL(SIM(HIST(ϕ)))(ψ)))) (18) PAST(PERF(∀⊆(WOLL(SIM(HIST(ϕ)))(ψ))))

t by FA ¢it² by FA

PRES i

¢it² by FA

PERF ¢¢it²¢it²² ∀ ¢¢it²¢it²²

t by FA

ψ

¢¢st²t² by FA

t ¢st² by FA

WOLL ¢¢st²¢¢st²t²² SIM ¢¢st²¢st²²

¢st² by IFA

HIST ¢¢st²¢st²²

ϕ t

Figure 1 : Ippolito’s (2007) analysis for a one-past CS Figure 1 gives a detailed representation for (17) ; i is the usual Montagovian shorthand for a time-world pair ¢w,t² ; s notes the ‘world’ type. FA stands for ‘Functional Application’, and IFA for ‘Intensional Functional Application’, two kinds of composition rules (see Ippolito 2006 : 669 for details). Formally, Ippolito’s (2006) approach is inspired by Kratzer’s (1991) analysis of conditionals, and treats CSs as tripartite structures (i.e. generalized quantifiers over worlds) where the antecedent is in the restriction of a (possibly) covert modal operator, and the consequent is its nuclear scope (that is, the antecedent clause contributes a contextual restriction on the

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interpretation of the consequent clause ; see Roberts (1989) for a discussion of the intuitive interest of such a move). But how well does Ippolito’s (2006) analysis fare with the data exposed in section 1 ? Obviously, it cannot handle (8)-(10) since it was devised to account for imperfective tenses only ; and therefore, it is unclear how it would treat the passé simple (perfective) and the passé composé (a perfect with some perfective features). Moreover, turning again to (4)-(5) and (14), it is dubious why we should introduce a PRES and a PERF operator to represent the contribution of a past, non-perfect tense, as Ippolito’s account would have us do. Although Ippolito (2006:668) argues that « subjunctive conditionals are marked by imperfective morphology, since in many languages standard occurrences of universal [present] perfect are marked by imperfective morphology »

two important facts militate against her analysis : (i)

imperfective tenses receive perfect-like readings only in (some) languages lacking a perfect ; since perfects are widespread forms, this rules out the UPP as a plausible general component of meaning for imperfectives (and CSs) ; (ii) perfects are generally banned from one-past, irrealis CSs (cf. (19)). How is that so, if the UPP is a key component of the semantics of one-past, irrealis CSs? (19)

*Si Yann a quitté son bureau, Mona partirait aussi. *‘If Yann has left his office, Mona would leave too.’

And more generally, it seems to me that if we take the morphosyntax / semantics interface seriously, we cannot assume on the face of scant (and arguably debatable) evidence such an unlikely analysis as ascribing a perfect meaning to an imperfective marker. Occam’s razor tells us that it is safer to assume that imperfective markers contribute imperfective meanings within CF CSs, instead of an improbable ‘perfect’ meaning. 4. A tentative aspectual analysis Before spelling out my own analysis of CSs, I would like to ground it on what I believe to be some important empirical observations. 4.1. Some additional facts It seems to have escaped Ippolito’s attention that the very argument she used about so-called ‘mismatched past CF conditionals’ (cf. (19) / (19’)) actually carries over to other types of CSs such as (4’) :

190 (4’)

Patrick Caudal Si Yann venait demain, Mona partirait. ‘If Yann came tomorrow, Mona would leave’.

(4’) lends further support to the view that the imparfait cannot have a ‘nowexcluded’ contribution, or else (20) would naturally be interpretable as having future reference. This is, I believe, a decisive blow to now-excluded accounts – assuming the imparfait to be modally / temporally underspecified makes it necessary to explain why (4’) does not exhibit the expected future / modal reading. However, given a proper context, (20) could admit a marked, dialogical reading, namely the so-called ‘imparfait ludique’, meaning e.g. that children are setting up some ‘fake situation’ for the purposes of a game : ‘let us pretend Yann is going to be sick tomorrow’ ; see also Ippolito (2003 : 179) for related facts in English. (20)

#Yann était malade Yann be-Impf.3.sg. sick ‘Yann was sick tomorrow.’

demain. tomorrow

Now the existence of this dialogical reading brings us to an important set of facts – the so-called ‘dialogical’ effects of the imparfait. Indeed, intuitively, the temporal behaviour of imparfait antecedent clauses within CSs has something in common with its ‘dialogical’ reading of (20), or e.g., within complement clauses of speech act verbs (cf. ‘Jean a dit que Marie venait’). If we assume a theory of sequence of tense in the spirit of Higginbotham (2007), then the analogy becomes clear : both phenomena are a matter of past evaluation (with respect to the speaker’s present / speech time interval) ; and both involve some explicit or implicit form of semantic subordination (or at least ‘clause-externality’) 9. Other interesting, converging facts can be found in the well-known ‘aspectual neutrality’ of future and conditional morphemes (cf. Smith 1991, inter alia), such as the French futur and conditionnel. Indeed the aspectual interpretation of the inflected verb solely depends on its lexical aspectual contribution (in combination with all its modifiers and adjuncts), cf. (21), which is clearly akin to (15)-(16) (i.e., telic verbs favour a ‘perfective’ reading, while atelic verbs favour an ‘imperfective’ reading). Yet these tenses respectively incorporate présent vs. imparfait endings ; I conclude from this fact that the aspectuo-temporal content of these endings bears on some modal 9

So-called ‘dialogical’ accounts (e.g. Patard & Vermeulen 2010) capitalize even further on some of these analogies ; see section 4.3 for a critical review of such approaches. Other dialogical uses of the imparfait include the so-called ‘imparfait forain’, ‘imparfait de politesse’ and ‘imparfait hypocoristique’ ; see Bres (2004) for a review.

Towards a novel aspectuo-temporal account of conditionals

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expression conveyed by the futur and the conditionnel, rather than on the event described by the verb they mark. (21) a. Yann sera malade (e1) lorsque tu arriveras (e2). ‘Yann will be sick-FUT when you arrive-FUT.’ (‘imperfective’ protasis : e2⊆e1) b. Yann mangera (e1) lorsque tu arriveras (e2). ‘Yann will be sick-FUT when you arrive-FUT.’ (ambiguous protasis : e2