Temporal Structure in Sentence and Discourse [Reprint 2021 ed.] 9783112419960, 9783112419953

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Temporal Structure in Sentence and Discourse

Groningen-Amsterdam Studies in Semantics (GRASS) T h i s series of b o o k s on the s e m a n t i c s of natural l a n g u a g e c o n t a i n s collections of original research on selected topics as well as m o n o g r a p h s in this area. C o n t r i b u t i o n s f r o m linguists, philosophers, logicians, c o m p u t e r - s c i e n t i s t s a n d cognitive psychologists are b r o u g h t t o g e t h e r to p r o m o t e interdisciplinary a n d international research. Editors Alice ter M e u l e n Martin S t o k h o f

Editorial Board R e n a t e Bartsch University of Amsterdam J o h a n van B e n t h e m University of Amsterdam Henk Verkuyl University of Utrecht

O t h e r books in this series: 1.

Alice G.B. ter M e u l e n (ed.) Studies in Mode/theoretic Semantics

2.

J e r o e n G r o e n e n d i j k , T h e o M.V. J a n s s e n a n d M a r t i n S t o k h o f (eds.) Truth, Interpretation and Information

3.

Fred L a n d m a n a n d Frank V e l t m a n (eds.) Varieties of Formal Semantics

4.

J o h a n van B e n t h e m a n d Alice ter M e u l e n (eds.) Generalized Quantifiers in Natural Languages

All c o m m u n i c a t i o n s to the editors c a n be sent to: D e p a r t m e n t of P h i l o s o p h y or D e p a r t m e n t of Linguistics, G N 4 0 University of A m s t e r d a m University of W a s h i n g t o n G r i m b u r g w a l 10 Seattle, W a s h i n g t o n 9 8 1 8 5 1012 G A A m s t e r d a m U.S.A The Netherlands

Vincenzo Lo Cascio Co Vet (eds.)

Temporal Structure in Sentence and Discourse

1986 FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht - Holland/Riverton - U.S.A.

Published by: Foris Publications Holland P.O. Box 509 3300 AM Dordrecht, The Netherlands Sole distributor for the U.S.A. and Canada: Foris Publications U.S.A. P.O. Box C-50 Riverton N.J. 08077 U.S.A. CIP-DATA

ISBN 90 6765 135 4 (Bound) ISBN 90 6765 136 2 (Paper) © 1985 Foris Publications - Dordrecht. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands by ICG Printing, Dordrecht.

Contents

Introduction

1

Renate Bartsch On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations....

7

Pier Marco Bertinetto Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal References: On Restricting the Notion of 'Reference Time' Christian Rohrer Indirect Discourse and 'Consecutio Temporum'

41

Bob Rigter Focus Matters

79

99

Co Vet and Arie Molendijk The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

133

Frans Houweling Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes

161

Vincenzo Lo Cascio Temporal Deixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text: Finding a Reference Time

191

Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Christian Rohrer Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs in Complex Sentences 229 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Cascio Temporal Relation, Localization and Direction in Discourse

251

Chapter 1

Introduction Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Co Vet

In the last few years there has been a remarkable growth of interest in the temporal structure and temporal organization of sentences and texts. At the same time it has become clear what are the crucial problems in this field of investigation: the matter of the exact nature of the difference between imperfective (progressive) and perfective aspects; the different ways tenses, temporal adverbs and aktionsarten contribute to the interpretation of sentence and discourse; the number and the nature of the reference points; the question to what extent the interpretation is based on syntax and to what on inference. In this respect the theoretically important question is whether it is really necessary to introduce in the interpretative process an intermediate level like that of Kamp's Discourse Representation Structure or whether one can do without it. In the latter case one may wonder whether it is possible to account for the temporal anaphoric or binding relations in the syntactic and/or semantic component of a grammar and at the same time preserve the advantages of the partial models. Another very intriguing question is how to interpret embedded clauses and indirect speech and, more generally, how to deal with the phenomenon of the 'consecutio temporum'. The studies in this volume present the results of research on these problems. They are 'linguistically oriented' in that the proposals are based on a detailed study of the linguistic phenomena. In the first paper Renate Bartsch rejects the idea that events might be punctual, without duration, and argues that it is necessary to introduce time intervals (time-space regions in her frame-work) into the interpretation of progressive and unmarked (perfective) aspect. The topological notions 'openness' and 'closure' of intervals have proved to be insufficient in this respect since they imply direct reference to reality. The imperfective/perfective distinction corresponds with the different ways the language user may look at reality and this implies that the reality referred to is language dependent. In Bartsch's view an intermediate level like Kamp's Discourse Representation Structure is not needed if, as she proposes, this language dependency can be accounted for in the model itself. The notions of openness and closure are redefined for this purpose. The paper then gives a detailed analysis of the infinitival and ING/UNG nom-

2

Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Co Vet

inalizations in Dutch and German, in which these notions play an essential role. Finally Bartsch proposes a formal semantics for the aspectual properties of these nominalizations. In the second paper, Pier Marco Bertinetto shows that Reichenbach's notion of reference point suffers from ambiguity. On the one hand it serves to locate the event E (in sentences with the simple past, for example), on the other it indicates a moment posterior to E at which the result of E is considered (perfect meaning). Bertinetto proposes to use the term 'localizer' for the former function, and to reserve the term 'reference point' exclusively for the latter (perfect meaning). It is argued further that this 'real' reference point cannot be some arbitrary point, but that, from a pragmatical point of view, it must be a well established time, known from the situational or linguistic context. On the basis of an analysis of the perfect and simple past it is shown that an important difference between the localizer and the reference point is that a localizer is not obligatorily present and even has to be absent sometimes, as in sentences with the present perfect in English. It is argued further that time adverbials cannot be identified with a reference point as was suggested by Reichenbach. At the end of his paper Bertinetto formulates some principles which govern the co-occurrence of two time adverbials in the same sentence. The three following papers deal from different angles with the Reichenbachian reference points and their role in Kamp's theory of Discourse Representation. Christian Rohrer proposes a set of rules which are capable of translating sentences from a fragment of indirect discourse into Discourse Representation Structures. It is argued that for these rules a set of at least five reference times are needed. Beside the speech point and the 'normal' (Reichenbachian) reference point, a Temporal Perspective (Past, Present, Future) is needed as well as the 'temporal location time' established by temporal frame adverbs (cf. Bertinetto's localizer) and the temporal perspective point, which is provided by the matrix sentence. First the indirect speech is examined in complement clauses. Although the rules account for a good deal of the phenomena, the confrontation of the rules with some counter-examples, well-known in the literature, leads to a modified proposal for this type of sentences. Next the relative clauses in indirect speech are studied. These seem to refuse to obey any rule for the sequence of tenses, since the speaker can choose to change the tense form or to leave it as it would have been in direct speech. It is shown, however, that this choice influences the interpretation (in the former case we have the de dicto reading, in the latter the de re reading). Next the temporal clauses are examined: for these the rule is that they always have the same temporal perspective as the main clause. Finally Rohrer discusses the problems of temporal anaphora and metaphoric use of tenses.

Introduction

3

The aim of the second paper of this group, by Bob Rigter, is to propose rules capable of construing Discourse Representation Structures á la Kamp for the chronological orderings holding between embedding and embedded domains, creating in the DRS's a primary discourse domain and one or more intensional subdomains. This approach provides at the same time an account for the sequence of tenses phenomenon. As the syntactic basis for the construction of this kind of complex DRS's, Rigter uses a government and binding type of syntax. It is shown that a good deal of the temporal variables which are needed for establishing the chronological ordering relations in a DRS can be provided by the syntactic structure of the clauses of a text so that a large part of the chronology of a DRS can be formulated in terms of government, c-command, and projection relationships. It is shown further that the 'focal episode' (roughly Reichenbach's R) can be construed in a syntax-driven or an inference-driven way. In the last two sections of his paper Rigter discusses the status of the focus (reference point) in sentences containing free adjuncts and in sentences with future reference. In the last paper of this series Co Vet and Arie Molendijk examine the function of the past tenses of French in the light of earlier work by Kamp and Kamp & Rohrer, especially with respect to the effect they may have on the place of the reference point. Although it remains true, in general, that in narrative texts the passé simple moves the reference point 'forward', whereas the anaphoric imparfait does not, there is so large a variety of counterexamples that, according to the authors, some of the basic assumptions of Kamp and Kamp & Rohrer have to be reconsidered. One of these concerns Kamp's idea that the passé simple implies that the (discourse) event is punctual and indivisible (see also Bartsch, this volume). Another point is that there are contexts in which the imparfait has exactly the same aspectual properties as the passé simple, whereas the aspectual difference between these tenses is mostly regarded as irreducible. The paper as a whole shows that the interpretation of tense depends, to a greater extent than was assumed, on aktionsart and contextual factors. It is argued further that another factor is important: the capacity of tenses to link events in some way or another to the speech time or to some other pragmatically determined time. This feature distinguishes the passé simple from the present perfect and the passé antérieur from the pluperfect of French. In the second part of the paper construction rules for Discourse Representation Structures are proposed in a framework which differs from Kamp's in that in the representation Bartsch's timespace regions are used. In the last group, consisting of four papers, two proposals for a text model, by Houweling and Lo Cascio, are discussed, in which binding rules play an essential role.

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Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Co Vet

In the first paper of the group Frans Houweling outlines a theoretical framework which is very close to that put forward by Kamp & Rohrer (1983), although it was developed independently. It is shown in this paper that the aspectual nature of a state of affairs is a determining factor in a formal device which is capable of situating the states of affairs referred to in a text on the time-axis. More precisely, Houweling examines whether anaphoric relations between VP's obey the same type of rules that regulate the anaphoric relations between nomináis. It is shown that in a story temporal deixis is used to move the story forward, while temporal anaphora is employed to describe the structure of the world, the universe of discourse in which the events take place. Temporal deixis and temporal anaphora are expressed respectively by perfective tenses and imperfective tenses. Houweling argues further that Reichenbach's reference time can no longer be regarded as a moment at which the speaker places himself psychologically, but that it has to be conceived of as a time interval which has been established by a deictic tense, i.e. every 'new' interval that is introduced in this way into a text. This new definition of the notion reference time facilitates considerably the interpretation of the temporal structure of a text. Houweling finally argues like most of the other contributors to this volume that the reference time belongs to the text and not to the sentence. In the second paper of this series, Vincenzo Lo Cascio proposes a grammatical framework in which binding rules can account for the way in which we usually interpret the temporal information contained in a story. According to him a story is always within the scope of some 'super time-operator' which may be the speech point or some other pragmatically known time interval, which controls the whole story. A story or discourse is conceived of as a set of states of affairs which are placed on the same line, i.e. which are ordered with respect to each other on the timeaxis. Every state of affairs belonging to this main line can be the initiator of a substory and thus of a secondary line of states of affairs, pertaining to a subdomain of the story. States of affairs belonging to the main line are generally introduced by main clauses, while subordinate clauses, which express anaphoric relations with events of the main line, introduce states of affairs into a subdomain, which consequently is controlled by the matrix clause or by some state of affairs that was introduced into the text before and that occupies a higher line of the story. The hierarchical organization of states of affairs offers the possibility to formulate two important binding rules (a horizontal one, i.e. a 'mainline binding rule', and a vertical one, i.e. a 'subdomain-binding rule'). These rules regulate the semantic interpretation of a text at the level of Logical Form. The binding rules are sensitive to the hierarchical position of clauses and are analogous to the c-command and governing principles as these are developed in the ETS version of generative grammar.

Introduction

5

In the next paper Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Christian Rohrer propose to improve Lo Cascio's system by distinguishing between those binding relations which depend on tenses and those which depend on adverbs. The authors also stress the point that the binding rules proposed by Lo Cascio for subdomains are valid only for complement clauses, but that restrictions have to be formulated for temporal and especially for relative clauses. Unlike complement clauses the tense of these clauses is not obligatorily bound by an antecedent pertaining to the matrix clause, but show a more independent behaviour. As a matter of fact temporal binding is not only sensitive to the nature of the clause (main or subordinate), but also to the nature of the subordinate clause itself and, consequently, to its functions and its position with regard to the components (NP, VP, Subject, Object, etc.) of its matrix clause. It is also shown that the reference time or evaluation time of adverbs does not necessarily coincide with the time selected by the tense of the clause which contains them. The authors conclude that other rules are needed to regulate the respective jobs of the tense and the adverb or adverbs which belong to the same clause. In the last paper Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Cascio elaborate this point by making a clear distinction between tenses and adverbs. They postulate three temporal levels of semantic interpretation: Relation, Localization, and Direction. Temporal relation is expressed by tenses, which operate a subdivision (into Past, Present, and Future) within the universe of discourse. Temporal adverbs locate or anchor the states of affairs referred to by a text in the chosen domain. The ordering relations between states of affairs belonging to the same domain provide the temporal direction of the story and are linguistically expressed by members of the class of connective temporal adverbs. If the latter are omitted, only knowledge of the world can help us to give a semantic interpretation of the temporal structure of the story. Note that deictic tenses do not give any information about ordering relations; only anaphoric tenses do. A careful analysis of the behaviour of tenses show that, contrary to what is stated in work by Kamp, or by Hinrichs (1981) and Partee (1984), tenses do not always establish a binding relation. Tenses (both anaphoric and deictic) express a binding relation only with time intervals or events or states occupying a higher position. A clause never provides a temporal antecedent for tenses of a clause or clauses with which it is coordinated. Tenses give indications about the temporal sector into which a state of affairs has to be placed. Temporal adverbs which indicate the time interval in which a state of affairs is located are free to choose their evaluation time, but they cannot contradict the information given by the tense of the clause to which they belong. It is also shown, as in Bertinetto's paper, that a differentiation is needed

6

Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Co Vet

with respect to the notion of Reichenbach's reference point. There exists a textual reference time and a sentential reference time (the localizer), which according to Adelaar and Lo Cascio, introduces the time interval which shares at least one point with the state of affairs referred to by the clause. The papers by Pier Marco Bertinetto, Frans Houweling and Vincenzo Lo Cascio are reprinted from the Journal of Italian Linguistics 111 (1982). University of Amsterdam University of Groningen REFERENCES Hinrichs, E. (1981), Temporal Anaphora im Englischen, Unpublished Zulassungsarbeit, University of Tübingen. Kamp, H. & Chr. Rohrer (1983), 'Tense in texts', in: R. Bäurle, C. Schwarze & A. von Stechow (eds), Meaning, use, and interpretation of language, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, p. 250-269. Partee, B.H. (1984), 'Temporal and nominal anaphora', Linguistics and Philosophy 7, p. 243-286.

Chapter 2

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations* Renate Bartsch

1.

PROGRESSIVE-IMPERFECTIVE MARKING A N D SIMPLE TENSE

The imperfective/progressive aspect 1 , which in English is expressed by be a-ing, with a as verb, is expressed in Dutch by means of the infinitivenominalization aan het a-en zijn, and in German by am a-en sein, or beim a-en sein. - The English progressive form, by the way, is of the same historical origin; it had been an infinitive nominalization within a local prepositional phrase, be on a-en. Since in this construction the preposition on had no opposition, it was unstressed and disappeared when this phrase was re-analyzed as be a-en(d) with the present participle a-en(d) which later became be a-in(g) in standard English. In model-theoretical semantics, aspects have been treated by means of tense logic: the imperfective/progressive form was interpreted as referring to an interval of time, while the simple tense form (i.e. the form unmarked for aspect, or with 'zero-aspect') was interpreted as referring to a point of time. Sentences like the following were standard examples: (1)

John was writing a letter (p), when Peter entered (q).

(2)

When Peter entered (q), John was writing a letter (p).

In Dutch: (1)

Jan was een brief aan het schrijven (p), toen Piet binnenstapte (q).

And in German: (1)

Johann war am Schreiben eines Briefes, als Peter eintrat.

* This article is a translation of 'Over de semantiek van nominalisaties', 1983, GLOT 6: 1-29, with some minor revisions. Compared with Bartsch ( 1 9 8 1 ) it contains considerable improvements on the semantics.

8

Renate Bartsch

or (1)

Johann war dabei einen Brief zu schreiben, als Peter eintrat.

The time relationship between p and q is represented as in (1'). 0')

q — i — i

t0 1

p If we understand the time co-ordinate realistically, this picture is not true. Also the zero-aspect form q (here: Peter entered) takes an interval, which in this case normally is quite short, but it can, in other examples, even be longer than the interval of p. (3)

Jan was het huis aan het opknappen (p), terwijl zijn vrouw een wereldreis maakte (q). 'John was renovating his house, while his wife traveled around the earth.'

Here, (31), as well as (3") are possible: (3')

P

t

-I—(-

o

(3")

n

H-

^

Instead of a realistic representation of time, Kamp (1979) advocated an in-between level of discourse representation, on which the French 'imparfait' could be treated as referring to an interval, in opposition to the 'passe simple', which is treated as referring to a point or instant, although in the real world, that what is viewed as a point in discourse representation could very well take an interval. 'What emerges as an instant structure induced by discourse representation Dj may nevertheless be a temporally extended event from another point of view; and that other point of view moreover be the one that generally passes for the 'objective point of view'.' (Kamp 1979:404). This position is not true, at least not with respect to aspectual marking in Dutch and German: Even when certain events explicitly are stated as taking a long time interval, the zero-aspect form can be used. Sentence (4) certainly does not refer to a point of time, not even in discourse representation.

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German (4)

Nominalizations

9

De kroning van de koningin duurde 6 uur. Het was een indrukwekkende gebeurtenis. 'The coronation of the queen took 6 hours. It was a remarkable event.'

Also, with respect to sentence (3), it is impossible to represent 'His wife traveled around the world' by referring to a point of time, although it is expressed in the simple past, i.e. without aspectual marking: A point cannot comprise the interval in which John was renovating the house, also not in an unrealistic discourse representation. This is even more evident in (5), where according to Kamps position, if it would hold for Dutch, an interval should contain a point which should comprise another interval, which contains another point: (5)

Jan was een brief aan het schrijven (p), toen Marie binnenstapte (q). Terwijl ze de deur aan het openen was (s), brak ze haar pink (t). 'John was writing a letter, when Mary entered. While she was opening the door, she broke her little finger'

Here (5'), that would be the time structure of the first sentence of (5), has to be expanded to become (5"), to accomodate the second sentence. (5')

P

t

(5")

p —I~H

1

t

— -t-H

t s q If (5) is continued by (6), the point t has to be expanded into an interval, like q had been before. (6)

Toen haar vinger aan het breken was, hoorde ze het botje kraken. 'When her finger was breaking, she heard the bone crack.'

For all these expansions of the time points, there is no linguistic evidence by aspect marking. From this I conclude that the distinction 'interval point' for tenses with progressive/imperfective marking against those without, does not hold, at least not for the languages considered here. Whether we use a realistic time co-ordinate, or another one, we anyhow need to refer to time intervals for the interpretation of progressive/imperfective verb forms as well as for aspectually unmarked forms. To use intervals for the interpretation of both forms, and still be able to make a

10

Renate Bartsch

difference between them, the topological notion of open and closed intervals had been used by Bennett (1977), and by Bartsch (1981) for spacetime regions. But the topological notions 'open' and 'closed' were insufficient, and did not quite capture the intuition about what open situations and what closed situations are, with respect to imperfective and perfective aspect. The distinction is not one of reality by itself, but of the way in which reality is looked at, or better, the way in which reality is partitioned and represented by language. When we incorporate these aspects into a realistic semantics, we always mean by such a reality, a reality that is already filtered through, or represented by, the cognitive means that are available in language. It is perceived reality, and not reality per se. Open situations are situations in which the begin point and the end point are not included into consideration, namely processes, activities, and states. Closed situations are those where the starting point, and especially the end point are included into consideration; these are events, acts, occasions. 2 In fact, every event, act, or occasion has internal parts that are processes, activities, or states, that can be described by the same concept, though with an aspectual marking. Actions are activities which are conceived as directed towards an end point or goal, and where, in unmarked forms of expression, it is assumed that the goal is reached. 'Dansen' (,to dance') is an activity, but 'een polka dansen' ('to dance a polka') is an action, because the piece of music that defines the polka, defines a begin and an end point. If the concept A' is 'to dance a polka', then A in (7) is the space-time region on which the concept is realized.

(7) boundary of A interior of A (=A°), open A° U boundary = A, closed

A° is the interior, i.e. the open region which has A as its closure. The closed region with respect to concept A' is the whole open region, together with the boundary. Jan was een polka aan het dansen, 'John was dancing a polka', refers to the interior of the space-time region on which the content of the sentence John danced a polka is realized, the last including the boundary. The time projection of the closed region results into a closed time interval, the projection of the open region on the time co-ordinate gives an open interval, i.e. an interval without the end points. - Note that openness or closedness with respect to space does not play a role here. When we talk about an open time interval, mainly the end point is considered; that there is a begin point seems to be presupposed. —

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

11

In this view on 'open' and 'closed' intervals with respect to a concept, a sentence marked for progressive always follows from the corresponding unmarked one, as for example 'John was dancing a polka' follows from 'John danced a polka'. If the last sentence is true, i.e. if there is a time interval on which the sentence is true such that at the end point the result is reached, i.e. the polka is completed, then there, naturally, is an interior on which 'John was dancing a polka' is true. But the reverse does not hold: If it is true that John was dancing a polka, it need not be true that John danced a polka, because the polka need not be completed. Although this is a good outcome of the view sketched above, these considerations already show that the purely topological notions 'open' and 'closed' are insufficient. The problem is that the activity 'dancing a polka' has an end point anyhow, even if the polka is not completed. In such a case the sentence John danced a polka is not true. Therefore, we need to define what we mean by 'end point', such that the closure of an interval is the one we want, and not any end point at which the action might be terminated. - With regard to activities or states, this problem does not exist, because here any termination is an end point; the end point has not to meet the result of providing a result or a completion. Thus 'Jan was aan het dansen' and 'Jan was een polka aan het dansen' has many possible end points at which the concept expressed by the progressive-imperfective form can cease to be realized, and it certainly has such an end point in reality. But these end points need not be the end point of the realization of the aspectually unmarked concept in 'Jan danste een polka'. The closure of the interval, such that 'John danced a polka' is true at the end point of this closure, cannot be defined in purely topological notions. We need notions of the theory of action, as 'intention' and 'result'. Let us analyze the truth conditions of (8) and (9) in some detail: (8)

Jan schreef een brief 'John wrote a letter'

(9)

Jan was een brief aan het schrijven 'John was writing a letter'

Sentence (8) is true if and only if in the past there is an open interval on which (9) is true, and which has a closure such that on the end point the sentence The letter is written by John or John has written the letter is true. Sentence (8), which is aspectually unmarked, then refers to this closed interval, on which the concept it expresses, is realized. Normally, sentence (9) is true if and only if with respect to an open interval in the past the following holds: John is writing, and this with the intention to produce a letter as the result of this activity. Sentence (8)

12

Renate Bartsch

is true if and only if this result is reached. - Note that with respect to (9) and (8) it is not really necessary that John really has the intention, but at least his behavior has to look as if he has it. Situations like these are less typical borderline cases, that are not understood as the normal states of affairs described by the above sentences. - The semantic analysis of a sentence like (9) looks, informally, like the following: I.

The activity and the individual as referents: het schrijven: s \Jan: j

II.

Relation between these referents: Jan is aan het schrijven: Aan (j,s), where the local preposition aan expresses, for the concept 'write', the actor-action relationship: Rj(j,s).

III.

With the intended result: A letter is written: RiQ,s) & Intend(j,$ There is a letter 1 such that R 2 (s,l)$), where R 2 , for the concept 'write', expresses the action-result relationship, and $ marks the propositional attitude of intending.

The intention will be satisfied if and only if s has a closure at the end point on which the 'letter writing' is completed in the sense that the result is accomplished. For the truth conditions of sentence (8), 'John wrote a letter', we have to add IV. IV.

There is an end point of s such that there is a letter 1 such that R2(S,1).

The closure of s with this end point is the closed interval on which the concept expressed in (8) is true. In the formal part of this paper the notions used above will be defined. Before that the oppositions between different kinds of nominalizations will be discussed, because the formal semantics has to account also for these.

2. ASPECTUAL PROPERTIES OF DIFFERENT KIND S OF NOMINALIZATIONS

It has been noticed that in language we can express a difference between two ways of representing a situation, cf. Bartsch 1972 or 1976, and 1981. (a) The view from outside the situation: here one does not take notice of the internal properties of an event, act, or occasion. This perspective, which represents the situation as 'closed', is used when we make assertions about relationships a situation has with other situations. It is the

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

13

relevant perspective in the use of relational adverbials, which characterize situations with respect to other situations (cf. Bartsch 1976). In this perspective, the situation is represented as an event, act, or occasion, which means that the concept that characterizes it, is used to refer to the space-time region that is closed with respect to this concept, i.e. the end points with respect to this concept are included. (b) The view from within the situation: here one takes notice of the process of an event, the performance of an act, or the stative properties (i.e. the state) of an occasion. This perspective which represents a situation as 'open', is used when one wants to talk about internal properties, such as the quality of the process, the performance, or the state. This is the relevant perspective in the use of manner adverbials and instrumental adverbials, which characterize the way in which something takes place or is performed. Here, we refer to a space-time region which is open with respect to the concept that characterizes it; i.e. the end points are not considered. Both perspectives, though they are perspectives chosen by the language user, can be represented in a 'realistic' semantics by referring to different parts of some situation, namely to the situation with, or without the end points, with respect to the characterizing concept. This way, the reality we refer to is a language-dependent reality, and not a brute reality. A separate level of discourse representation is, thus, not necessary for the problems treated in this paper. The first view, which includes the end points, replaces the traditional view of the event as a point. 'As a point' or 'pointlike' is a metaphorical way of talking. It does not mean that an event represented in a pointlike manner does take a point in time, i.e. has no extension in time. Rather, the property of points on which this metaphor drives, is that a point is not differentiated in itself. It has no internal distinctions. About differentiation we can only talk, if there is a relevant point of view under which differences are discerned. The expression 'An event is pointlike' interpreted as a metaphor means: In the speech situation, in which we refer to the situation or event in question, there is, at this point of discourse, no relevant point of view of internal differentiation. Note, that this does not just mean that internal spatial or temporal differentiation is not relevant at this moment, but the same holds for other possible points of view of internal differentiation. The 'pointlikeness' of events is not just a temporal property; it means abstraction from any internal specification at this moment in the discourse. On the other hand, if a linguistic form is used that indicates that in the sentence in question an internal differentiation or specification of the described situation is relevant, this does not need to be an internal spatial or temporal specification. The opposite of 'pointlikeness' is not 'intervallikeness', strictly speaking, but 'internal differentiatedness'.

14

Renate Bartsch

I think, that the opposition of temporal zero-differentiation (i.e. pointlikeness) and temporal differentiation (i.e. interval-likeness) is the proto-typical case that has been linguistically expressed first or primarily. The expression then was extended to other oppositions of non-differentiation versus differentiation from other points of view than time. The infinitive nominalization in Dutch and German is a means to indicate that an event or action is represented in its progress, i.e. that internal specifications are relevant, as in (10). (10)

Jans dansen is mooi. 'John's dancing is beautiful'

Here, a qualitative specification is given of certain properties of the process or performance, other than in (11). (11)

Jans dans is mooi 'John's dance is beautiful'

This need not to be interpreted as a characterization of the process or performance, but rather means that John dances a beautiful piece, for example a waltz, in opposition to other less becoming dances, or that the composition is beautiful. We can say (12), where (11) is asserted and (10) negated. (12)

Jans dans is mooi, maar zijn dansen is afschuwelijk. 'John's dance is beautiful, but his dancing is terrible'.

Other internal specifications are those of temporal-aspectual kind, which focus on the process, keeping the end points out of sight, as in (13). (13)

Jan was zijn auto aan het repareren, toen . . . 'John was repairing his car, when . . . '

Here, the infinitive nominalization is used to represent the process of the activity or action, which in this way is opened up, so to speak, for further temporal specification by means of the adverbial clause. If the temporal clauses with toen and terwijl (German: als and während, English when and while) show zero-aspect, i.e. are in simple tense, they refer to closed intervals. Closed intervals are usable for giving sharp time specifications. Sentences with progressive-imperfective aspect are not useful for that, because they refer to an open interval, the closure of which is not known, i.e. the end point of which is not identified. Time specifications are therefore made by means of temporal clauses with zero-aspect.

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

15

On the fact just mentioned the following observation, reported in Kamp (1979), seems to rest: In text interpretation the French imparfait does not involve progress in time, while the passé simple takes care of selecting a new point of time on the time coordinated This is typically so for texts that are stories: Time reference made by simple past, or simple present tense of story-telling, involves progress in time. Since this is not so for other texts, this property of the text sort 'story' cannot be transferred to the analysis of simple tense, generally. Thus, if the initiating question was 'What did everybody do today?', the answer 'John bought a new car, Peter had ad accident, Mary went to the movies, etc.' does not involve a progression in time. But, anyhow, simple tense clauses refer to pieces of time, closed intervals or situations - and not points, I have argued - which are identified by the concept expressed in the sentence. Note, that the infinitive nominalization does not preclude the specifications of external relations. Even if no internal specification is given, the infinitive form directs attention towards the process. (14)

Het verwoesten van de stad werd gevolgd door een bloedbad. 'The destroying of the city was followed by a bloodshed.'

The infinitive form denotes the process of destroying of the city as a part of the war action, without representing the act of destroying as a completed act of destruction. This is different in (15), where the -ing nominalization is used. (15)

De verwoesting van de stad werd gevolgd door een bloedbad. 'The destruction of the city was followed by a bloodshed.'

Here an act or event of destruction is referred to, i.e. an action that is completed, and not just ended. The process or activity of destroying is part of the event or act of destruction. The same opposition we find in German: (16)

Das Verwüsten der Stadt . . . Die Verwüstung der S t a d t . . .

'destroying' 'destruction'

According to Ullmer-Ehrich (1977), action verb phrases have the double aspect 'imperfective-perfective': the verb phrase die Stadt verwüsten refers to a process or activity with a goal; under the point of view of activity it has imperfective, and under the point of view of the goal it has perfective aspect. The verbs zerstören and verwüsten by themselves, without goal directedness made explicit, have imperfective aktionsart. Esau (1973) found that infinitive nominalizations in German have an imper-

16

Renate Bartsch

fectivizing effect. Ullmer-Ehrich (1977) investigated the effect of the infinitive nominalization in opposition to the -i/wg-nominalization, and other derivative nouns in German by taking into account the aktionsart of the verb and of the verb phrase. Her result was that the effects of the different kinds of nominalizations depend not only on the kind of nominalization itself, but also on the aktionsart, i.e. the internal aspectual properties, of the verb phrase that is nominalized. We can add to this observation that the aspect that is attributed to the nominal depends further on the whole sentence in which it occurs, especially on the aspectual properties of the predication of the sentence. According to semantic properties, I distinguish three main groups of verb phrases, into which I have rearranged Ullmer-Ehrich's (1977:130) classification of aktionsarten of verb phrases: 4 A. Processes (interior of time interval) 1. states be healthy, sleep, have pain aktionsart: durative 2. processes sink in, give way, grow fat, rol, aktionsart: progressive fall 3. activities dance, broadcast music, sing, eat aktionsart: imperfective cake 4. repeated events or acts drip, kill mice aktionsart: iterative B. Processes with completion/result (time interval with defined boundary) 1. teleological processes heal, die o f f , grow to full size, aktionsart: progressive-resultative desolve 2. actions write a letter, solve a problem, aktionsart: imperfective-perfective kill the mouse, dance the polka C. Completions/results (boundaries of intervals) 1. boundary events reach the top, leave, end, pass the aktionsart: resultative border, fall asleep 2. boundary acts get a diploma, reach the goal aktionsart: perfective 3. boundary events or acts expressed by verb phrases with inchoative aktionsart: begin, awake, go on strike, start a process. The difference in agent control between A2 and A3, between B1 and B2, and between CI and C2 does not matter for the topic of this paper. Likewise, the difference between connectedness and unconnectedness does not matter: the action of building a house is normally unconnected as far as time is concerned, while writing a letter mostly is connected, i.e. takes place uninterruptedly. A2 and A3 are related to A4, because in all of them

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

17

iterativity is included, with the difference that in A2 and A3 the iterated parts are connected to form one process, while in A4 they are unconnected. Type A1 is related to A2 and A3, because a state is a process too, but without distinguishable parts. A state is a constant process, i.e. a process without changes under the relevant points of view. A1 is connected, but it is related to A4 under the point of view of constancy of the parts. The types B1 and B2 belong together under the point of view that they denote a process with a defined result. The types CI and C2 are combined because they denote the boundary of a process or state. The attribution of an aspectual property to a nominal within a sentence also depends on the predication; but the kind of nominalization contributes to this by excluding certain aspectual properties. Because of this, the different nominals are compatible or incompatible with certain predications. The different kinds of nominalization had been placed in a battery of different predications, one of which is aspectually neutral, namely kost veel geld 'costs a lot of money'. All nominalizations are compatible with this neutral context. The contexts are: .. .. .. .. . . . . . .

duurt al twee uur vindt plaats in twee uur nam twee uur in beslag wordt onderbroken wordt uitgesteld wordt voltooid wordt bereikt

'is already lasting two 'will take place in two 'took two hours' 'is interrupted' 'is postponed' 'is completed' 'is reached'

hours' hours'

It will take too much space to write down the tests in detail. It suffices to report the main results. When we place infinitive nominalizations of expressions of group A into these contexts, we see that the aspectual possibilities are not changed by this kind of nominalization. The aspectual field of infinitive nominalizations of verb phrases of type A is the same as the aktionsarten of these phrases: durative, progressive, imperfective, iterative. This is shown by the fact that all these infinitive nominalizations are possible in the context duurt al twee uur which requires the inserted noun phrase to denote a process or state, that they are strange with the predication wordt voltooid, and that they are really unacceptable in the context wordt bereikt, which requires the inserted noun phrase to denote a boundary event. Likewise, the infinitive nominalizations of verb phrases of group B exclude the context wordt bereikt, admit the context duurt al twee uur\ they also admit the context wordt voltooid. This means that the purely resultative/perfective aspect is precluded. Depending on the context within

18

Renate Bartsch

the sentence, the progressive, imperfective, progressive-resultative, or imperfective-perfective aspect is realized. Thus, the infinitive nominalization of group B has the same aspectual field as the nominalized verb phrases have. Also the infinitive nominalizations of verbal phrases of group C exclude the context wordt bereikt, and admit the other contexts. Thus, the resultative/perfective aspect of the verbal phrase is not retained. — This is in agreement with Esau's (1973) and Ullmer-Ehrich's (1977) findings. The infinitive nominalization of group C has the same aspectual field as the one of group B, namely: progressive/imperfective, progressive-resultative, and imperfective-perfective. Examples of group C, with a comparison between infinitive, i.e. aen nominalizations, and simple tense forms, are the following: (17) *Op het station vertrok Jan drie uur lang. 'At the station, Jan left for three hours' This sentence is unacceptable, because the aspectually unmarked form of the verb vertrekken realizes the aktionsart, which for this verb is perfective. The adverbial, on the other hand, requires progressive/imperfective aspect. (17')

Op het station was Jan drie uur lang aan het vertrekken. Toen bleef hij toch. 'At the station, John was leaving for three hours. Then he decided to stay.'

The English translation of this sentence would be better acceptable with 'was about to leave'. The Dutch and also the German infinitive nominalization is perfectly alright in such a context: Jan war drei Stunden lang am Abreisen, or Jan war drei Stunden lang dabei abzureisen. Dann blieb er doch. Similar examples for the verb beeindigen are the following: (18) *De staking werd al drie dagen lang beeindigd. 'The strike was finished for three days.' (19)

Het beeindigen van de staking nam drie dagen in beslag. Toen pas konden de bedrijven weer draaien. 'Finishing the strike took three days. Only then, the factories could run again.'

The -ing derivative nouns in Dutch, and the German -ung derivatives, and the alternative forms for verbs of Latin origin, namely -tie derivatives in

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

19

Dutch and -tion derivatives in German, do not exist for group A l . Also for the other groups -ing is not fully productive in Dutch, and, anyway less productive than -ung in German. Generally, if there is another noun which can fulfil the same purpose, the -ing derivatives do not exist. The -ing derivative nouns, like the German -ung derivative nouns, have an effect of closure, a perfectivizing or resultativizing effect, that can clearly be seen with respect to verb phrases from the A-group. For this, compare the two different kinds of nominalization in (20) and (21). (20)

Het uitzenden van pop muziek gisteren kostte veel geld. 'Broadcasting pop music yesterday cost a lot of money.'

(21)

De uitzending van pop muziek gisteren kostte veel geld. 'The broadcast-event of pop music yesterday cost a lot of money.'

If the -ing nominal refers to a process, it is presupposed that the process has a defined closure. (22)

De verzakking van het huis voltrok zich in twee jaar. 'The sinking-in of the house happened in two years.'

(22') ?Het verzakken van het huis voltrok zich in twee jaar. (23)

Het verzakken van het huis duurt al twee jaar. 'The sinking-in of the house takes already two years.'

(23") ?De verzakking van het huis duurt al twee jaar. In the context duurt al twee jaar, the -ing derivative is less acceptable, while, in the context voltrok zich in twee jaar, the infinitive nominal is less acceptable. The -ing derivatives of the verb phrases of group A have a progressive-resultative, or an imperfective-perfective aspect. As far as the B-group is concerned, the progressive-resultative, or the imperfective-perfective aspect of the verb phrase keeps intact in -ing nominalization, though the resultative/perfective aspect is focus, as can be seen in (25) and (26), where the two nominalizations are compared: (25)

Het oplossen van het probleem duurt al twee uur. Zullen ze het ooit redden? 'Solving the problem takes already two hours. Will they ever succeed?'

20 (26)

Renate Bartsch De oplossing van het probleem duurt al twee uur. Zullen ze het ooit redden? 'The solution of the problem takes already two hours. Will they ever succeed?'

The text (26) is close to unacceptable, because of the second sentence, which cancels the presupposition of reaching the defined result or closure, which is carried by the -ing nominal, in opposition to the infinitive nominal. On the other hand, with the opposite context, 'is achieved' or 'is reached', the nominals behave in the opposite way;here, the nominal is fine, cf. (27), and the -en nominal is unacceptable, as in (28). (27)

De oplossing van het probleem werd bereikt. De oplossing van het probleem staat in de krant. 'The solution of the problem has been achieved.' 'The solution of the problem is in the news paper.'

(28) *Het oplossen van het probleem werd bereikt. *Het oplossen van het probleem staat in de krant. 'Solving the problem has been achieved.' 'The solving of the problem is in the news paper.' With respect to the C-group the -ing nominal has a clearly resultative/ perfective aspect, if the context requires that, as in (29). (29)

Dit medicijn brengt verlossing van de pijn. 'This medicine gives redemption of the pain.'

(30)

Het verlossen van de pijn door dit medicijn duurt twee uur. 'To redeem the pain by this medicine takes two hours.' De verlossing van de pijn door dit medicijn duurt twee uur. 'The redemption of the pain by this medicine lasts two hours.'

In (30), the infinitive nominal denotes the process that leads to the result, while the -ing nominal denotes the result itself. The -ing nominal can also be used to denote the process together with its result, but it cannot be used to denote the process itself, as we can see from (31) and (32). (31)

Het afbreken van het proces kost moeite en is nog niet voltooid. 'Terminating the process is difficult and cannot be completed.'

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

21

(32) *De afbreking van het proces kost moeite en kan niet worden voltooid. 'The termination of the process is difficult and cannot be completed.' The -ing derivative can be used in referring to a process with result/completion, or to the result/completion itself. The effects of the infinitive nominalization and the -ing derivation can be summed up as follows: Infinitive nominalization (-en nominal): verb phrase denotes: infinitive nominalization denotes: A. process process B. process with completion/result process; process with completion/ result C. completion/result/begin process just before completion/result/begin; process with completion/result/ begin -ing derivative nominal: verb phrase denotes:

-ing nominal denotes:

A. process process with completion/result B. process with completion/result process with completion/result; completion/result C. completion/result process with completion/result; completion/result In a sentence of the form (33), the VP selects an aspect from the set of aspectual possibilities of the NP, i.e. of the aspectual field of NPi. (33) (DET

a

{

~Zg)(

vaw

NPX VP) S

The NPi has a set of aspectual possibilities which depend on the kind of nominalization or derivative, and the aktionsart of -the verb phrase (a (NP 2 ))yp , which is nominalized. The VP of the whole sentence S itself has a certain aspect A. This aspect A selects from the aspectual field of NPX the aspect that is compatible with A. The aspectual properties of VP are based on the aktionsart of the Verb in the VP, and the kind of object-NP in the VP, like 'mass', 'count', num-

22

Renate Bartsch

ber, case or preposition, as for example, accusative, or partitive. It further depends on adverbial modifiers. All these factors together, which in their interplay have been investigated by Verkuyl (1972), Hoepelman (1981), Ullmer-Ehrich (1977), define the aktionsart of the VP, to which morphological-syntactic aspect markers can be added to make up the aspect of the VP. By selection of aspectual properties that are compatible with the VP and the NP 1 ; finally, the aspect of the whole sentence is built up. The aspectual properties that are attributed to an NPi in a certain sentential context, are in fact the ones that belong to the whole sentence, and are a selection of those that the NP t can possibly have.

3. FORMAL SEMANTICS FOR THE ASPECTUAL PROPERTIES OF NOMINALIZATIONS

The semantic model consists of a space-time region which is connected, which contains subregions, where each subregion contains smaller subregions, and where regions can overlap each other. The basic notion is inclusion, on which the definitions of the other notions are based. Mergers, or unions, and overlaps, or intersections of regions are regions. Connected regions are interesting for the definitions of situations and individuals. Points are defined in the well-known manner as equivalence classes of converging filters of regions.5 In this way we have points to define the boundaries of regions, especially the begin- and end-points of time intervals. We can distinguish open and closed regions as those with a boundary against those without one (cf. Bartsch 1981:13). Situations and individuals occupy connected regions, constellations of situations occupy unconnected regions. We can speak of 'before' and 'after' of situations or individuals by projection of their respective regions on the time-coordinate. We can speak of similar notions for spatial order by considering locations on paths with a defined direction. A pair consisting of a connected region and a concept is a situation, also called a 'conceptualized region'. Conceptualization by a concept C means that the region exhibits a structure of subregions. These subregions are regions on which concepts are realized that in conjunction define the concept C. A region rrealizes a concept C, or concept C is true on r, if and only if the sentence Here is C is true on r, and r does not contain parts that are irrelevant for the truth of this sentence. We also say 'C is realized on r'. C is realized in region r if and only if r contains a part on which C is realized. - We can say 'C is realized at r' if and only if the region on which C is realized includes part of the border of r. Thus, the concept that describes the result of an action is realized

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

23

at the region of the action. - A dance-situation, for example, is a region on which the concept 'Dance' is realized. For many concepts the extension of such a region is fairly vague; it is basically a matter of convention, partly depending on typical contexts: The departure of a person includes the whole-good-bye ceremony, or even the preparations for departure; the departure of a train includes much less activities, though more than just starting to move. A region is structured, according to the concept that is realized on it, by a set of subregions.

r

2

s = < r s , C s >, with r s as the region, C s as the concept that is realized on it, and s as the situation or conceptualized region. A realized concept on r can, for many formal purposes, be replaced by its 'extensionalization' on r in the form of the set of subregions rj of r, on which the properties Cj are realized that are realized with the realization of C. Those Cj are, roughly, the properties that define C. This set of subregions on r can be called 'the structure of the situation s\ ST„, which is induced by C as a realization of its decomposition. Thus: s = < r s , { rj I Cj are realized on rj } > , with Cj being properties that are realized on the different rj, q C r s , with the realization of C. Shortly, s = < rg, C > : = < r s , ST s > . The notion of identity with respect to situations (events, acts, processes, activities, states) then is the following: Two situations s, s' are strongly identical if and only if 1. 2.

their regions are identical: r s = r$. ; the conceptualizations are identical: ST s = ST s ..

Two situations s, s1 are weakly identical if and only if 1.

their regions are identical: r s = rgi ;

24

Renate Bartsch 2.

one of the two conceptualizations is embeddable in the other, i.e. one of the structures is a substructure of the other: ST s CST s ., orST s , CST s .

According to these definitions of identity, the sentences John eats the steak and John eats the steak with knife and fork can describe the same situation in the sense of weak identity. The sentences John eats the steak and The steak is eaten by John can describe the same situation in the sense of strong identity. These definitions also solve the problem discussed in Davidson (1967) and Lemmon (1967) 7 , where two events take place on precisely the same space-time region, but are nevertheless not identical: A sphere rotates around an axis runnning through its center, and is precisely at the same time warm. These two events are distinct, according to the definitions given above, because the region is conceptualized in two different manners: the structure of subregions that is given on the basis of its being warm is different from the structure on the basis of its rotating around a central axis. The notions 'inclusion', 'overlap', 'connectedness', etc. for situations are defined on the basis of their regions.8 Of central importance for this paper are the following notions: 'Temporal openess and closedness with respect to a concept'. 9 A situation is open with respect to a concept C if and only if for each point p in s there is a region r which includes p such that C is true on r, and r includes points later than p. We say shortly: s is C-open. A situation s is closed with respect to a concept C if and only if C is true on s, and s is not open with respect to C. Shortly: s is C-closed. Temporal closedness with respect to C thus means that there are points in s which have no temporal neighbourhood on which C is true. These are the points the boundary consists of. The (temporal) neighbourhoods of (temporal) boundary points contain each a part on which C is not applicable any more. We can say that C is true, or applicable, or realized, in a neighbourhood of the boundary, but not on such a neighbourhood. This is: the situation has a boundary with respect to C, or is C-closed. The notation s = < r s , C > always means that C is realized on r $ . We, therefore, call s a 'C-situation' and r s 'the region of s'. Important are also the following notions: A situation s' is a continuation of a situation s with respect to concept C, if and only if r $ Cr s ., and s1 = < r s i, C >. Using the notion 'inclusion' with respect to situations, we can also say: s Cs', and s and s' are both C-situations. On this notion the following notion is based, which is im-

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

25

portant for the distribution of the different kinds of nominalizations: A situation s has a closure with respect to a concept C, if and only if s has a continuation that is closed with respect to C. This notion is trivial for C-closed situations, and with respect to C-open situations which are states, processes or activities, which all have some end with respect to the characterizing property, except the state described by the verb know, because we assume that, if someone knows something, he always will know it. The notion of having a closure is interesting with respect to all other C-open situations (actions and teleological processes), because there are some with, and some without a closure. In this article, only singular sentences are treated, and the model is given so far that these sentences with nominalizations can be dealt with. A singular sentence expresses itself a concept, if we abstract from its modal, temporal and local specifications. A singular sentence consists of MOD, (LOK, TEMP), and SENTENCE RADICAL. The radical expresses the concept that characterizes a situation. The component (LOK, TEMP) expresses where the situation described by the sentence radical is located in the space-time region we talk about. MOD expresses restrictions on the truth claim, in the unmarked case TRUTH. As far as nominalizations are concerned, we need only to take into account the sentence radical. It also expresses the aspectual properties, and thus consists of ASPECT and CONCEPT. SENTENCE = MOD + (TEMP, LOK) + ASPECT + CONCEPT ASPECT refers to the information about openness, or closedness, or having a closure of the region with respect to the concept. CONCEPT refers to the conceptualization of the region. Examples of concepts are 'Write', 'Write a letter', 'Write a letter, performed by John'. The sentence John writes a letter expresses that the concept mentioned last is realized on a region which is assumed to be closed with respect to that concept. With a concept there corresponds in the model a set of regions on which the concept is realized. They can be distinguished in C-closed ones and C-open ones. For a concept C we thus have: SQ = { s I s = < r s , C > , s closed with respect to C } S°Q = { s I s = < r s , C > , s open with respect to C } In the model, it holds that for each C-closed s there is a C-open s' with s' Cs. Individuals can be characterized as sets of conceptualized regions that are connected in space and time. Their concepts are those that are realized by the individual through his life time. With this set of conceptualized

26

Renate Bartsch

regions there corresponds a union, namely a smallest connected region in which all the properties are true which the individual has realized on its way through space and time. This whole space-time region with its structuring, STj, by realized properties is called 'the life history' of the individual i in question. It is a sheaf of situations, which forms a path through space and time. For the purposes of this paper, the individual is its life history. Jonny runs means that Jonny in his, up to now, short life history has realized the concept 'Run' and that this is also expected for his future. Jonny ran on June 2, 1982 means that in the section of Jonny's life history with as time projection June 2, 1982, the concept 'Run' is realized by Jonny, i.e. that there is a sub-region in this section which is conceptualized by 'Run, performed by Jonny', i.e. is a situation of runnning performed by Jonny. If we have, for example, the -sentence John beats Fred, we should find a situation in the model, on which the concept 'Beat' is realized such that this situation s is part of John's and Fred's life history, though in a different way: John has to s the relationship R t , while Fred has to s the relationship R 2 . For an action-concept, R t selects from s the actor properties, and R2 selects the properties of being acted upon. Thus, Ri ( < r s , Beat > ) is a region with a substructure of STg e a t that consists of all the parts which define the doing of the beating, while R 2 (< r$, Beat > ) is a region with a substructure of STg e a t that consists of all the parts which define the being beaten of the object. Thus, in John's life history we find the situation R t ( < r$, Beat > ), and in Fred's life history we find R 2 ( < r s , Beat > ), both of which are weakly identical with s, which is < r s , Beat >. We can represent an individual by its characterization, i.e. the set of his realizations of properties, or by his life history, i.e. the region in which all these realizations of properties are placed in their spatio-temporal order. This way, we can speak of an individual as a whole, and also about spatio-temporal parts of it, for example the intersection of the region JOHN, i.e. the life history of John, and the region IN THE GARDEN, expressed by John, in the garden, or further intersected with ON JULY 10, 1982, expressed by John, in the garden, on July 10, 1982 in, for example, the sentence John, in the garden, on July 10, 1982, was happy. The relation R t with respect to a state just means that the state is realized by, or in, the individual, R j ( < r, Happy > ) C JOHN, and within the section defined in the above sentence: there is an r with R x ( < r, Happy >) C JOHN n IN THE GARDEN Pi ON JULY 10, 1982. If we take HAPPY to be the union of all regions conceptualized by the property 'Happy', this amounts to the intersection HAPPY n JOHN n IN THE GARDEN Pi ON JULY 10, 1982 not being empty. 10

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

27

i: individual, CHj: the characterization of i; CHj = { s l s = < r , C > , r C i , C properties of i } In the model under discussion, this is a complete characterization. In models with partial information, we would have partial characterizations. The life history of i is: I = U s, with s e CHj. The individual thus is conceived of as a sheaf or rope which consists of threads of different strength and length; these threads are the realized properties, i.e. the conceptualized regions. Some of these situations exist for a longer time, others for a shorter time. An individual as a whole is, in this model, a special kind of situation, namely its life history. Situations, and especially individuals can have roots in other situations. The notion 'root' is important for the definition of the notion 'result': s' is a root of s if and only if s' n s # 0 , s" is connected, and there is an s" with s" C s', and s" Pi s = 0. A root is thus a realization of a property of s which is partly outside of s. For an individual s its roots are realized properties of the individual that are partly inside and partly outside of its life history. If life history of a person begins with her birth, her roots are realized properties that extend into the embryonal stadium, and further to her parents, via roots and roots of roots. In the same way, we can base the connection between the writing of a letter and its result, the letter written, on the notion of 'root': s^ has a root in s, if and only if there is an s', s' is connected, s' n s b 0, s' n s + 0, and (s1 n s b ) U (s1 n s) is connected. From the definition it follows that s and s^ have common boundaries, or have a common overlap. The notion 'result' is defined via the notion 'has a root': s^ is a result of action/process s, if and only if s^ has relevant roots in s. Those roots are relevant that are necessary for the existence of s^- For each concept, we can find a set of root properties, i.e. properties that define its roots.

28 4.

Renate

Bartsch

EXAMPLES OF INTERPRETATION OF NOMINALIZATIONS

Sentence (34) has two interpretations, a general and a specific. (34)

Fred's schrijven is voorbeeldig 'Fred's writing is excellent'

always: For all s with s e S ^ r j t e , and Ri (s) C FRED: s e S £ x c e y e n t specific: There is a certain s t with SjeS^y^^g, and R j ( s O C FRED, and s i c ^Excellent' - The same semantics is given to adverbial constructions like in German Fritz schreibt vorbildlich, 'Fred writes excellently', in Bartsch 1972/ 1976. Instead of R! (sj ) C FRED, we could also write R! (s! ) e CHp r e ( j.

(35)

Fred is/was aan het schrijven Fred ist/war am Schreiben 'Fred is/was writing'

Here, the local preposition can be interpreted literally:

But in the interpretation we have to be somewhat more specific: In sentences in the active voice, aan for action-verbs expresses the agent relationship: R j ( s j ) is the region that is conceptualized by the property of being the agent of s t , if s t is an action or activity. Thus the interpretation of (35) is: There is/was a certain s t , with s ^ S ^ r j t e , and R x ( S! ) C FRED. was the set of situations closed with respect to the concept 'Write', and S ^ r j t e was the set of situations open with respect to the concept 'Write'. Since for each C-closed s there is a C-open s' with s' C s, Jan was aan het schrijven follows from Jan schreef 'John wrote'. For all verb phrases from group A (activity-, process-, state-, and iteration-verb phrases) also the opposite holds: For each C-open s there is precisely one C-closed ¿ » W r i t e

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

29

s' with s C s'; that is: there is precisely one continuation closed with respect to C.11 Therefore, it holds also that Jan schreef follows from Jan was aan het schrijven. Thus, in the model Jan schreef is truthfunctionally equivalent with Jan was aan het schrijven. The same holds for all A-group verbs: Here, two sentences are equivalent, as far as truth in the model is concerned, although the aspectual properties are different. These aspectual differences mean that, with the two different sentences, we refer to different situations, namely a C-open one, or a C-closed one, where the open one is included in the closed one. The equivalence that holds for verbs from group A, does not hold for verbs from groups B and C. If we have the action verb een brief schrijven 'write a letter', or zijn auto repareren 'repair his car', the closure of the realization of the concepts expressed by these verb phrases requires that the result is reached, or presupposed to be reached. But this requirement is not satisfied in all cases in which we can say Jan was een brief aan het schrijven, or Jan was zijn auto aan het repareren. 'Write' is an activity concept (aktionsart: imperfective), and 'Write a letter' is an action concept (aktionsart: imperfective-perfective). The action concept 'Write a letter' is realized on a region under imperfective aspect, if and only if the concept 'Write' is realized on that region, and that region is open with respect to 'Write', and this concept is realized there with the intention to produce a letter as the result. From this, of course, it does not follow that this situation has a continuation on which that result is reached, i.e. it does not follow that the situation has a closure on which the concept 'Write a letter' is true; in other words, it does not follow that the concept 'Write a letter' is true under imperfective-perfective aspect, which is the aktionsart that is its aspect in the case of zeroaspect-marking, the unmarked case. (36)

Fred is/was een brief aan het schrijven 'Fred is/was writing a letter'

The interpretation is: There is a certain Sj with s x e S ^ r j t e , and R t (sj) C FRED, and there is an s, with Sx C s, and s = < r, INTENTION: RESULT 'Written Letter' > , s C FRED. Note, that for 'repairing a car' the result is the repaired car, and for 'painting a house' the result is the painted house: whether or not the object as a whole has existed before, is not included in this semantic analysis. It is a matter of knowledge that is associated with the different predicates and has to be treated additionally as presupposed knowledge. (37)

Fred schrijft/schreef 'Fred writes/wrote'

30

Renate Bartsch

There is/was a certain s t with s ^ S^y r j te , and Ri ( St ) C FRED. (38)

Fred schrijft/schreef een brief 'Fred writes/wrote a letter' There is/was a certain Si, s ^ S^y r j te a j e t t e r , and Ri ( s t ) C FRED. Here the action concept 'Write a letter' is true on S! in the unmarked way, i.e. under the aspect that is identical with its aktionsart, and not in the imperfective aspect, which was indicated by the infinitive-nominalization in (36). The further semantic analysis of (38) runs as follows: { s ' s = < r ' Write a letter > , and s is closed with respect to 'Write a letter'} < r, Write a letter > is weakly identical with < r, Write >, and it normally holds that there is an s' with s' D s, and s" = < r', INTENTION: RESULT 'Letter' > ; the closedness of s with respect to the concept amounts to: there is an s^, s^e Sj^ e t t e r , and s^ is RESULT of s, i.e. has relevant roots in s. This condition of closedness amount to R 2 (s) C s^, where R 2 , the direct object relationship expressed by accusative case, for the concept 'Write' is the result-relationship, as it is for the other verbs of group B. Likewise, the repaired car has relevant roots in the act of repairing, i.e. is a result of repairing, though this is not true of the car itself, as a whole. The interpretation of (38) is: ^Write a letter

(38')

=

There is/was a certain S!, S! e Syy r j te , Ri ( Si ) C FRED, and there i s a n ^ , ^ e S ^ ^ R a (s, ) C s b .

If we say in German Hans schreibt einen Brief, or in Dutch Jan schrijft een brief, the letter is not yet finished; we presuppose that the C-open situation in which we are right now has a closure on which the concept 'John writes a letter' is true. Thus, the sentence John writes a letter is true at the time of speech, if there is a C-open interval r containing the time of speech, on which he writes with the intention to produce a letter, and which has a closure at the end point of which the letter is accomplished. This is actually the truth of John is writing a letter together with the speaker's assumption that it gets done in the future. The sentence with unmarked aspect refers to that closed interval, part of which lies in the future. With past-tense sentences with unmarked aspect, the closure has to be in the past. The semantic condition 'There is an s' thus means that the time of speech is included in s, and 'There was an s' means that the time of speech is not included in s, but later than s. From John writes/wrote a letter it normally follows that John is/was writing a letter, because, normally, actions are performed with the inten-

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

31

tion to perform them. But in exceptional cases, it is also possible that, for example, John repaired the car by just playing around with it, getting the result unintentionally. Our semantics makes it possible that the following sentence can be true: John repaired his car, but he was not repairing his car. This is interpreted by cancelling the normal assumption of intentionality: repairing his car is interpreted as an action, and not just as a teleological process. There is also the possibility of, for example, drawing a cow, without intending or even noticing it. The speaker then can state: John is drawing a cow. But he does not intend that; he wants to draw a dog. Here, drawing a cow is not interpreted as an action, i.e. with the intention of drawing a cow, but as a teleological process that leads to a cow drawn. As an action it, in fact, is 'drawing a dog', but as a process it looks as if it will lead to a cow. So, in certain marked contexts, the imperfective/progressive form of an action verb phrase can be used to refer to a teleological process. If in the context of use agent's control is explicitly negated, all activity and action verb phrases are interpreted as processes, and teleological processes, respectively. According to the semantics given, we can say truthfully: (39)

Toen Piet binnenkwam schreef Fred net een brief. 'When Peter entered, Fred, right then, wrote a letter'

and likewise: (40)

Toen Piet binnenkwam was Fred een brief aan het schrijven. 'When Peter entered, Fred was writing a letter'.

In saying (39), the speaker assumes that the letter got finished. The time of entering, referred to by net, or German gerade, is the reference time, like the time of speech in present tense sentences, that lies within the enclosed interval. Sentence (39), therefore, cannot be continued with De brief kwam nooit a f , 'the letter was never finished'. When I say Jan schrijft een brief (unmarked aspect!), I assume that the letter will be finished. That is the normal case, and thus unmarked. If I need to be careful about that assumption, I would have to use the imperfect aspect marking, namely the infinitive nominalization in Dutch, and in German.

5.

FORMAL CHARACTERIZATION

OF THE DISTRIBUTION

OF

NOMI-

INALIZATIONS

The infinitive nominal expressing a concept C leaves open whether there is

32

Renate Bartsch

a C-closure or not. Those C-open situations that, in fact, have a C-closure, can also be referred to by the -ing nominal in Dutch, or the -ung nominal in German. In case there is a C-closure, we can also refer directly to the C-closure itself by using the zero-aspect verb, or the derivative nouns that refer to closed intervals, as dans 'dance', or slag 'beat', which will be discussed below.12 We thus have the following distribution of the use of a-en (infinitive), and a-ing/ung in Dutch/German: in referring to 'a'-open situations, that have, or have not an 'a'closed continuation, i.e. with or without an 'a'-closure. a-ing/ung: only in referring to 'a'-open situations with an 'a'-closure, or in referring to '«'-closed situations.

a-en:

These latter alternative possibilities are comprised in the following formulation: a-ing/ung: only in referring to a situation with an 'a'-closure. Other derivative nouns are used exclusively for referring to C-closed situations, or to C-results, i.e. to the respective C-boundary. Examples are nouns with zero suffix (-0): vertrek/Abreise 'departure', roep/Ruf 'call', dans/Tanz 'dance', loop/Lauf 'run', zoen/Kuss 'kiss', begin/Beginn 'begin'; nouns on -de/te/e: liefde/Liebe 'love', boete/Busse 'penance' or 'fine', overname/übernähme 'take over'; and derivatives on -t: aankomst/Ankunft 'arrival', gift/Gabe 'gift', schrift/Schrift 'scripture', gracht/Graben 'canal'; words of Latin origin on -atie/ation: publicatie/Publikation 'publication'. Generally, these derivative nouns can replace the a-ing/ung nominals in those cases where they refer to 'a'-closed situations. This explains the fact, that often there are no a-ing nominals, if there are derivative nouns of the kind mentioned above in the lexicon, suitable for that purpose. These are exclusively usable for 'a'-closed situations, while the corresponding infinitive nominals are exclusively usable for open situations. So we have dansen (infinitive) and dans, or tanzen and Tanz, but not darning or Tanzung, or publiceren en publicatie, but not publicering, or slaan (infinitive) and slag, schlagen and Schlag 'beat' and 'beat' or 'stroke', but not staging or Schlagung. Ullmer-Ehrich (1977) has observed that, for German, the derivative nouns a-0, a-e, and a- ( )i have the same aspectual properties as the corresponding verbs. This is explained, or more modestly, formally described, in the semantics given in this paper: The aspectually unmarked verb phrase a and the derivative a-nominals just mentioned, are both used to refer to

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

33

an 'a'-closed situation, for example: Zijn loop duurde twee uur/Sein Lauf dauerte zwei Stunden 'his run took two hours', hij Hep twee uur, er lief zwei Stunden 'he ran two hours'; zijn vertrek was verlaat/seine Abreise war verspätet 'his departure was delayed', hij vertrok verlaat/er reiste verspätet ab 'he departed with delay'. The same holds with regard to space: Zijn loop ging over 10 km/sein Lauf ging über 10 km 'his run extended over 10 km', and hij liep 10 km/er lief 10 km 'he ran 10 km'. For activity and process verbs, which have the aktionsart imperfective/ progressive, the closure is trivial, since it always exists with respect to such a concept. Therefore, the aspectually unmarked form refers to the process with its end, and thus has the aktionsart imperfective-perfective, with a trivial perfective, purely in the sense of being ended. There are some pecularities noteworthy with respect to aspectually unmarked activity verbs: Compare (41) with (42). (41)

Als Maria herein kam, schrie Fritz. 'When Mary came in, Fred cried'

(42)

Als Maria herein kam, schrie Fritz gerade. 'When Maria entered, Fred was crying'

Gerade refers to the reference time that is introduced by the temporal adverbial clause. This is situated within a closed interval with respect to the concept expressed in Fritz schrie, namely Fred's crying'. The interpretation is equivalent, as far as truth is concerned, with the one of (43). (43)

Als Maria herein kam, war Fritz am Schreien. 'When Maria entered, Fred was crying'

Sentence (41) has two interpretations, one like sentence (42), and the other, that he started crying, or just produced one short cry, when Mary came in. Here, the initial boundary of the region on which the concept 'Fritz schreit' is realized, is fixed by the adverbial temporal clause. The difference between infinitive nominalization and 0-derivative nominals, based on activity verbs, can be used to express aspectual differences in a non-trivial secondary way: instead of the trivial interpretation on which the infinitive nominalization of an activity verb, and the corresponding 0-derivative noun would come out equivalent (because for activity verbs each C-open situation has a C-closure), a non-equivalent, and therefore informative interpretation of the infinitive nominalization is achieved in a sort of metaphorical transfer of the construction type, namely the iterative interpretation, which seems to be conventionalized.

34

Renate Bartsch

(44)

Hij riep luid/er rief laut 'He shouted loudly'

(45)

Zijn roep was luid/sein Ruf war laut 'His call was loud'

(46)

Zijn roepen was luid/sein Rufen war laut 'His calling was loud'

Here, the interpretation of the infinitive of (46) as referring just to the taking place of one shout, would not result in an other information than expressed in (45) or (44). - Note that this was different with respect to 'Dance' in Zijn dans was mooi and Zijn dansen was moot, treated in part 2 of this paper, where an opposition was noticed. - The empty opposition that would arise with respect to the property 'Loud call', gives rise to an interpretation with an informative opposition between the aspectually unmarked, and the aspectually marked case: the infinitive zijn roepen is interpreted as iterative. There are also some pecularities noteworthy with respect to verbphrases that characterize boundary-events, i.e. verbs from the C-group. It has been observed in Hoepelman (1981), but also in Verkuyl (1972), and Ullmer-Ehrich (1977), based on Vendler's (1967) distinctions, that accomplishments and achievements can be tested against activities by being unacceptable in contexts like twee uur lang/zwei Stunden lang 'for two hours' or 'during two hours'. (47)

*Jan kwam twee uur lang in Amsterdam aan 'John arrived in Amsterdam for two hours'

(48)

*Jan's aankomst in Amsterdam duurde twee uur 'John's arrival in Amsterdam took two hours'

(49)

*Jan reisde twee uur lang uit Amsterdam af 'John departed from Amsterdam for two hours'

(50)

* Jan's vertrek uit Amsterdam duurde twee uur 'John's departure from Amsterdam took two hours'

But, on a second thought, these sentences, certainly (48) and (50), are very well acceptable. This depends on what we count as belonging to the situation of arrival or departure (the whole scene with ceremony, or not). Departure and arrival take a spacetime region the time projection of which is closed with respect to the concepts 'Departure' and 'Arrival'. Sentences

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

35

(47) and (49) sound somewhat ironical, as if departure and arrival of John are unduely extended. The boundary of these events can even be canceled; but for that the infinitive nominalization has to be used: (51)

Op het station was Jan twee uur aan het vertrekken. Maar uiteindelijk bleef hij toch. 'On the station, John was departing for two hours. But finally, he stayed, anyway.'

Something similar happens for all boundary events, accomplishments as well as achievements (beginnen, beeindigen, openen, sluiten, winnen, bereiken, te pakken krifgen) and other events happening in a very short time interval, like German außlitzen, Dutch flitsen, 'flash'. (52)

Das Blitzlicht blitzte 1/200 sec. 'The flashlight flashed 1/200'

(53)

Das Blitzlicht blitzte drei Stunden lang. 'The flashlight flashed for three hours'

Sentence (53) is interpreted as iterative, like (54), in opposition to (55), which is unacceptable not by linguistic-semantic reasons, but by matter of fact. (54)

Das Blitzen dauerte drei Stunden 'The flashing lasted three hours'

(55) *Der Blitz dauerte drei Stunden 'The flash lasted three hours' But (56) is alright, as well as (57). (56)

Der Blitz dauerte 1/50 sec. 'The flash lasted 1/50 sec.'

(57)

Das Blitzen dauerte 1/50 sec. 'The flashing lasted 1/50 sec.'

Primarily, also with achievement verbs, the infinitive nominalization of a verb a refers to an 'a'-open region which may have an 'a'-closure, or not, like in (59) and (58), respectively. The iterative interpretation is a secondary interpretation of infinitives of verbs with a non-iterative aktionsart, that is attempted if the primary

36

Renate

Bartsch

interpretation would be trivial in the way that it does not form ail opposition to the aspectually unmarked case (cf. (46) versus (45) and (44)), or if the primary interpretation would be very unlikely or impossible, like in (53) and (54). (58)

Jan was de race aan het winnen. Maar toen lieten zijn zenuwen hem in de steek. 'John was winning the race. But then his nerves gave in.'

(59)

Jan is de race aan het winnen. Nog drie meter. - Hij heeft het gehaald. 'John is winning the race. Still three meters. - Het made it.'

In using the aspectually unmarked verbphrase a from group C, 'a'-closedness is required. In (60), the reporter had to correct himself: (60)

Jan wint de race. Nog drie meter. Maar: nee, nee, nee. Hij valt. 'John wins the race. Still three meters. But: no, no, no. He falls.'

From the examples we see, that the infinitive nominalization makes it possible to characterize also boundary events in their progress by referring to a region that is open with respect to the concept in question. This is only possible, because these events are not really points, but take a time interval, which is short in normal cases.

CONCLUSION

I. II. III.

The a-en (infinitive) nominalizations refer to 'a'-open regions, be it with an 'a'-closed continuation, or not. The a-0, a-e, a-( )t derivative nouns refer to 'a'-closed regions. The a-ing/a-ung derivative nominals refer to regions that have an 'a'-closure.

Note, that the last condition includes 'a'-open situations with an 'a'closure (i.e. with an 'a'-closed continuation), and 'a'-closed situations themselves. Group III is thus in between I and II. University of

Amsterdam NOTES:

1. The term 'imperfective' is here used in another way than in, for example, Comrie (1976). I speak of 'imperfective aspect' with respect to activities, and of 'progressive

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German

Nominalizations

37

aspect' with respect to processes. In both cases the same phenomenon is meant, also expressed by 'imperfective/progressive'. Parallel with this runs the distinction 'perfective' and 'resultative', where the first is used with respect to actions, and the second with respect to processes. 2. The notions 'open with respect to a concept' and 'closed with respect to a concept' will be defined in the formal part of this paper. 3. Likewise Scha in his lecture at the 4-th Amsterdam Colloquium. 4. It will lead too far, for this paper to treat the composition of the aspectual field of a verb phrase according to its parts. For this, cf. Verkuyl 1972. 5. The borders of the region on which a concept is realized can be pretty vague. The important notions about regions are defined as follows: Two regions overlap if and only if they have a common part: overlap (r,r'): = There is an r°, with r° C r, and r° C r'. Two regions merge if and only if they are united to form a new region: merge (r, r'): = There is an r°, with r C r°, and r' C r°, and for all r* with r* c r° it holds: overlap (r,r*) or overlap(r", r*). The overlap, or intersection, of two regions is their largest common part, and the merger, or union, of two regions is the smallest region of which both are parts. A path is a merger of a series of regions r j , . . .,rj,rj + J ,. . ,,r n such that for each i, 1 — i n, Tj overlaps with . A region is connected if and only if for every two parts r' and r" of r, there exists a path in r that overlaps with r" and r". For the notions of continuity of a region, descending filters of regions, the definition of points based on Whitehead (1919), and the notion of density, and openness and closedness of regions see Bartsch (1981), and particularly for time intervals and points cf. Kamp (1979). 6. We have to distinguish between two kinds of extensionalization of a concept: 1. The structure ST s of a region on which the concept is realized; this structuring by subregions is typical for a concept in its compositional analysis. 2. the set of all regions on which the concept is realized. This is the usual notion of 'extension'. 7. Lemmon (1967) writes, as a commentary on Davidson's 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences', p. 100: 'I am sorry not to have a full-grown logic of space-time zones to present. But it would clearly require (at least) a proper logical development of the 4-dimensional part-whole relation, and this I am quite unclear how to do. My hope is, that within such a framework, we can really do justice to the tense distinctions marked in various languages (for example, as I have hinted, the extended or continuous tenses as opposed to simple tenses, and the distinctions between perfect, imperfect, and preterit, which are largely ignored in orthodox tense logic), as well as the logic of certain temporal adverbs,. . .' In this paper, we took inclusion as basic. If we would take points as basic, we can easily define inclusion in R 4 by inclusion of sets of points, or via projection on a set of four co-ordinates that are all identical with R. The real problem seems to be that inclusion of situations requires that the boundaries of the situation defined by the concept is not vague; for different concepts there might be stricter, or looser conditions of inclusion. 8. Regional inclusion of situations: s C s' = Inclusion of situations: s c s' =

r $ c r s , , and ST s C STs> , i.e. the structure of s is part of the structure of s' . Overlap (intersection) of situations: s n s' = ^ ^ the maximal r with r C r s and r C rs> , and with as structure the union of the structure of s restricted on r with the structure of s' restricted on r. def

38

Renate Bartsch

The restriction of a structure on a region is: If s = < r, {ij,. . . , r n } > , then the 1 n r restriction sir" = < i n i' , { i j n r' ' ) >• T^e consequences of this n definition for various concepts has not been investigated yet. Thus: s n s" = < r, {rj | rj e ST$ | r orrj e STs, | r } >» with r from the above definition. Two situations overlap regionally, if and only if their regional overlap is not empty. Two situations overlap, if and only if they overlap regionally, and the structure of the overlap comprises the structures of both situations, restricted to the regional overlap. Union of two situations: s u s' = ^ the minimal r with c r and r s . C r, with as structure the union of the structures of s and s'. Thus: s u s' = < r, { r. I r- e STs or n e STs. }>, with r from the above definition. 9. Spatial openness ana closedness do not matter here. In what follows, we can presuppose that the situation is spatially closed with respect to the concept. When we speak of open and closed, we mean, in this paper, temporal openness and closedness. We also assume that the beginpoint always is presupposed, and that thus 'openness' and 'closedness' refers to the temporal endpoint. 10. Jan speelt vandaag in de tuin 'John plays today in the garden': As a short notation, the capital letter words name the regions referred to, on which the concepts expressed are realized. The semantics then is Rj (PLAY) n IN THE GARDEN n TODAY C JAN. Jan gaat vandaag naar de tuin 'John goes today to the garden': There is a region, which is a path that leads to the garden, namely TO THE GARDEN, and Ri (GO) n TO THE GARDEN n TODAY C JAN. Thus, local and directional adverbs are easily interpreted in this model. 11. 'Precisely one' can be claimed here, because we suppose spatial closedness, and it therefore cannot happen that only a part of the space is chosen on which the concept is realized at the respective time interval. Note, by the way, that a stative verb like know p, which, if it is realized by a person, is supposed to be realized by her permanently from then on, would have a redundant progressive marking, if it had one; but progressive would not be contradictory to its content, as Comrie (1976), and others, claim. Something that does not end anyway, within the life time of a person, does not need to be marked as not yet ended. Therefore the progressive form of verbs of this kind is unacceptable. If it were contradictory, speakers of Indian English, who use the progressive form much more freely with all kinds of stative verbs, including know, would speak contradictorily; but they are not, they rather express information redundantly! 12. The syntax will be topic of a separate paper, as well as the rules of interpretation. The interpretation of the aspectual marking will be treated as specifying the reference by a name, or by an assignment function, as to which kind of region is meant: If a is a pure concept, i.e, without any aspect, we have: [a (s) ] = g (s) e S o U S^, i.e. g (s) can be a-open or a-closed. Aspect: 1. (J-aspect (unmarked) [ ( 0 A a ) (s) ] g = g (s) e SQ, i.e. g (s) is a-closed. 2. en-aspect (infinitive) [ (-enA a ) (s) ] g = g (s) e S°, i.e. g (s) is a-open. 3. /«^-aspect I a ) (s) ] g = g (s) e S°a c S°, i.e. g (s) is a-open with an a-closure. Thus, aspect is a restriction on reference or on assignment.

On Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalizations

39

REFERENCES Bartsch, R. 1972. Adverbialsemantik. Frankfurt. Bartsch, R. 1976. The Grammar of Adverbials. Amsterdam-New York - Oxford. Bartsch, R. 1981. 'Semantics and Syntax of Nominalizations. In: Groenendijk, J., Janssen, T., Stokhof, M. (eds.), Formal Methods in the Study of Language. Mathematical Centre Tracts 135. Amsterdam. Bartsch, R. 1972. 'Over de Semantiek van Nominalisaties.' In: GLOT6: 1-29. Bennett, M. 1977. 'A Guide to the Logic of Tense and Aspect in English.' \n.Logique et Analyse 20. Comrie, B. 1976. Aspect. An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems. Cambridge. Davidson, D. 1967. 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences.' In: Resher (ed.): 81-95. Esau, H. 1973. Nominalization and Complimentation in Modern German. Amsterdam, London. Hoepelman, J. 1981. Verb Classification and the Russian Verbal Aspect. Tübingen. Kamp, H. 1979. 'Events, Instants, and Temporal Reference.' In: Bäuerle, R., Egli, U., Von Stechow, A. (eds.), Semantics from Different Points of View. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: 376-418. Lemmon, J. 1967. 'Comments on D. Davidson's 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences.' In: Resher (ed.): 96-103. Resher, N. (ed.) 1967. The Logic of Decision and Action. Pittsburg. Ullmer-Ehrich, V. 1977. Zur Syntax und Semantik von Substantivierungen im Deutschen. Kronberg Ts. Vendler, Z. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: New York. Verkuyl, H. 1972. The Compositional Nature of the Aspects. Dordrecht. Whitehead, A. 1919. Concept of Nature. New paperback edition: Cambridge 1964.

Chapter 3

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal References. On Restricting the Notion of 'Reference Time'* Pier Marco Bertinetto

1. Though virtually every scholar who deals with tenses in natural languages recognizes the notion of 'reference time', there is hardly any agreement on its meaning and function. In this paper I will try to work out a viable definition. Specifically, I will claim (as Katz (1972) and Barense (1980) have done, among others) that the reference time is needed only when compound tenses are concerned; and I will also claim that this notion must be carefully distinguished from a closely related one, which I will call 'event localizing function', or 'localization' for short (henceforth L). Since the notion of L will be clarified in the following paragraphs (see in particular par. 7), the reader is asked to bear patience before urging for an explicit statement. Let us begin the discussion by mentioning the pioneer of this kind of studies. As is well known, Reichenbach (1947) suggested for English a semantic model in which every tense is represented through the different ordering of three 'times': 'speech time', 'event time' and 'reference time' (henceforth S, E and R). If we leave out the progressive forms, which do not concern us here, we get the following formulas, where the lines indicate temporal distance, and the commas temporal coincidence: Present Present Perfect Simple Past Past Perfect Simple Future Future Perfect

S,E,R E S,R E,R—S E—R—S S E,R S E—R

* I would like to thank Diego Marconi for his very friendly assistance (paragraph 4 is actually an almost verbatim transcription of his own ideas), and E. Coseriu, O. Dahl, V. Lo Cascio, D.J. Napoli and C. Rohrer. This paper was discussed on three different occasions in Torino, Roma and Pisa. I am not going to draw a full list of all the people who raised objections and suggestions: but I want them to know that I greatly appreciated their effort to understand my effort to make myself understood.

42

Pier Marco Bertinetto

As illustrations of these formulas we could take the following sentences (where I drop S for convenience): (1)

John feels (E) better now (R)

(2)

Until now (R) John has behaved (E) nicely

(3)

Last year (R) John went (E) to the sea-side

(4)

When John came (R), Mary had left (E) already

(5)

Tomorrow (R) John will go (E) to the sea-side

(6)

Tomorrow (R) John will have left (E) already.

Two comments should be put forward at the outset. First one should bear in mind that the use of the Present with deictic reference very often raises serious problems in English; however, in the remainder of this paper I will not bother with this matter, which I regard as perfectly settled. Second, it should be noticed that Reichenbach also provides another formula for the Simple Future, i.e.: S,R E; nevertheless, since this problem has little relevance for our discussion, I will not bother with it here. 1 Coming now to the core of the topic, I will avow my thorough agreement wi'th Reichenbach's view as far as examples (2, 4, 6) are concerned. My disagreement is specifically centered around the treatment of time adverbials. Whenever an expression of this kind surfaces in a given sentence, Reichenbach argues that it must signal the R. 2 In my view this is not true, particularly when simple tenses are employed, as in examples (1,3,5) above. In other words, I refuse the status of R to any time adverbial which is interpreted as simultaneous with E; I claim instead that R must always follow E. When the adverbial indicates simultaneity with E, I will call it L (= localization); and I will try to show that in these two circumstances (simultaneity and posteriority with respect to E) time adverbials fulfill quite distinct functions. To anybody familiar with the semantics of verbal tenses, these two functions are clearly distinguished by the presence vs absence of peculiar aspectual connotations: specifically, the R which follows E (i.e. the only relevant R for me) carries what is often called the 'perfect meaning' (often rendered as 'accompli' by French scholars). As for L, I will merely, for the moment, state that this function is fulfilled by any linguistic string which answers the question: "When does (or did, or will) the event occur?' Let us now begin our analysis. I will try to defend my claim mainly

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal References

43

through the discussion of sentences containing the Simple Past and the Past Perfect; but the conclusions can easily be extended to the other tenses as well. 3 2. As a starting point, take sentences containing time adverbials of the type " b e f o r e X": (7)

(a) John left before midday (b) John had left before midday.

If one assumes a Reichenbachean perspective, the situation looks rather confusing. As a matter of fact, if one conceives midday as R, 4 one might easily get the same representation for both sentences i.e.: E

R

S

It goes without saying that, according to this representation, the specific information conveyed by each tense in (7) will be lost, though intuitively the two sentences are not felt as synonymous. Of course, one might object that the true R in (7) is not provided by midday alone, but rather by the whole expression before midday, I will show that this phrase must be assigned a single function for the semantic interpretation of (7). However, there still remains the problem of deciding whether before midday is, in the given sentences, an R or an L (in the sense specified in the previous paragraph). Let us then provisionally continue to consider midday alone as the relevant temporal specifier. With this in mind, we can examine at length the problem posed by (7). Three hypotheses suggest themselves: A) B)

C)

both (7a) and (7b) contain an R (the 'Reichenbachean' hypothesis); the adverbials in both (7a) and (7b) are merely Ls, whereas the R does not surface in any of these sentences (and is not even needed in the first one; I will call this the 'non-Reichenbachean' hypothesis) ; only (7b) contains an R, whereas (7a) contains an L.

(No doubt one could also consider a further hypothesis, that the adverbial is an R in (7a) and an L in (7b); but since this is intuitively implausible, I will drop it). Let us examine each hypothesis separately. A) In order to support the 'Reichenbachean' hypothesis A, we might observe that the following sentences are not grammatical:

44 (8)

Pier Marco Bertinetto (a) *At 2 p.m., John left before midday (b) *At 2 p.m., John had left before midday.

Consequently, it might be thought that midday (or, alternatively, before midday, since I left this question open) is the R. Indeed, the ungrammatically of (8) could easily be explained by stating that no sentence can contain more than one R. I am of course provisionally assuming here that at 2 p.m. is an R too, inasmuch as it is a time adverbial: but notice that this is not at all an odd solution. In order to better recognize at 2 p.m. as an R, it is enough to assign the following sentence the meaning that the state of affairs which was valid at 2 p.m. was that John had already left: (9)

At 2 p.m., John had left.

However, in Reichenbachean terms it would make no difference to choose this reading or the alternative one, where at 2 p.m. indicates the exact time of John's leaving. This is a point which must be clearly understood before pursuing our discussion. The two interpretations I am talking about are respectively exhibited in: (10)

(a) John had left (exactly) at 2 p.m. (b) At 2 p.m. John had (already) left.

But given this double interpretation of the notion of R, one has to observe that the Reichenbachean theory entails an important assumption, which needs to be made explicit. Namely, Reichenbach assumes that R is a complex function, which can either: (a)

locate E in the time domain (as in (10a));

or (j3)

point to a moment subsequent to E, where the result of E is still taken as relevant (as in (10b), which carries the so-called 'perfect meaning').

Since this is not at all a trivial matter, let us see what happens in our examples. First take example (7b): it is easy to see that this sentence can be read, just like (9), both according to interpretation (a) and according to interpretation (/3). Now take example (8b): reading (a) is clearly ruled out for at 2 p.m., because before midday is most naturally interpreted as the time of John's departure (thus, the event itself could not take

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal References

45

place also at 2 p.m.). Sentence (8b) should then forcibly be read (if it were grammatical) in the sense that the state of affairs which was valid at 2 p.m. was that John had already left (i.e., reading (0) would be the only likely one for at 2 p.m.). Finally, take sentence (7a), or the following one: (11)

At 2 p.m., John left.

In both these cases the time adverbial can only indicate the time of John's leaving: thus, only reading (a) is available. It should now be clear why we said above that R is, in Reichenbachean terms, a complex function. Indeed, with simple tenses R can be read only according to interpretation (a), whereas compound tenses (or at least some of them) trigger both interpretation (a) and the more common interpretation (0), depending on the situational context. However, this complicates the matter considerably; it is in fact a very costly assumption to assign a double meaning (a) and 03) to a single function. It is therefore a simplification to accept (as I am provisionally doing now) the Reichenbachean hypothesis A. My claim is that only interpretation (P) captures the real function of R, whereas interpretation (a) should be kept clearly apart: interpretation (a) in fact covers a quite different function, the one denoted above as 'localization' (= L). However, since at the moment we do not have any definite reason to reject hypothesis A, I will leave the matter open for a while. B) The problem raised by (8) can also be faced in an altogether different way according to the non-Reichenbachean hypothesis B. One could in fact think that only at 2 p.m. is an R, provided we read it according to interpretation (/3), whereas midday (or before midday) is an L in both (8a) and (8b), and consequently in both (7a) and (7b). Consider also, to this effect, the following two sentences: (12)

(a) *At 2 p.m., John left at 5 o'clock (b) *At 2 p.m., John had left at 5 o'clock.

There can be little doubt that at 5 o'clock is used here in order to specify the time of John's leaving, i.e. is an L according to my view. Now, although this is not yet proof that such an adverbial is not an R in the Reichenbachean sense, at least it serves the purpose of showing that the function of before midday in (7, 8) is exactly of the same kind as that of at 5 o'clock in (9). Indeed, both adverbials can be used as an expression like at 5 o'clock). In other words, as I have already stated,

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Pier Marco Bertinetto

midday cannot be isolated as R from the rest of the adverbial to which it belongs (I shall return to this matter, in paragraph 6). To return to the main issue, it could no doubt also be suggested that both at 2 p.m. and at 5 o'clock are Ls; in that case the ungrammatically of (12) could be accounted for straightforwardly since there cannot be two competing Ls within the same sentence. The same would be true, of course, of (8). If one assumes, instead, that at 2 p.m. is the R, the ungrammatically of (8) and (12) must be accounted for by a more complex principle, which would rule out any sentence containing both an R and an L within the same sentence boundaries. However, this principle should be made more sophisticated in view of the fact that some Romance languages accept sentences like the following Italian one:

(13)

Alle 2 , Giovanni se n'era andato da un'ora (At 2 p.m. John had left since one hour (i.e., an hour before).

where da un 'ora is a localizing adverbial whose extensional meaning can be directly computed from alle 2. The reason why a literal English translation of (13) seems inadequate is not completely clear to me. Perhaps here we have come upon some idiosyncratic property of the proposition since, which is in competition with for when used to render the meaning of Italian da {un'ora), or French depuis (une heure)\ cf. I've known Max for 10 years. It might be, in other words, that since has a narrower distribution than its Romance cognates. But this is not the point. One can easily agree that the grammar of Italian is, in this particular respect, richer than the grammar of English.5 The important matter however is that, given the grammaticality of (13), we have at least one class of fully grammatical sentences containing two time adverbials which fulfill two quite different functions, roughly corresponding with the formulations suggested above under (a) and (J3). So, whatever they are, it cannot be that they are both Rs, unless we decide to leave this notion unduly vague. We have therefore collected an independent reason to distinguish two different semantic functions as far as the interpretation of time adverbials is concerned: a result which was not foreseen by Reichenbach's theory. This calls for a more accurate definition of the status of the adverbial in examples (7). Consider the following sentences (notice that midday is non- deictic in both): (14)

(a) *It was already 2 p.m.; John left before midday (b) It was already 2 p.m.; John had left before midday.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal

References

AH

It can be seen that only (14b) is a coherent sequence of sentences, resulting in a homogeneous textual structure. This means, in my view, that the true R needed by the Past Perfect of (7b), at least according to its most natural interpretation, was not explicitly stated in the sentence itself but was implicit in the broader situational context in which the sentence might be uttered; and it is precisely this context which enables us to fix a time R when the event can be seen as accomplished. This is why before midday could not work in (7b) (again, according to the most natural interpretation) as the R. Hence, we can finally reject hypothesis A and retain hypothesis B as the most likely one. C) As for hypothesis C, it should now be clear that it is also plausible, provided we interpret before midday in (7b) as suggested by formulation (j3) given above: which is not, of course, the most natural reading. As for (7a), anyway, hypothesis C is exactly like hypothesis B inasmuch as it regards before midday as a mere L: and indeed, in the light of (14), this is the only workable solution (i.e., only reading (a) is available). To summarize my results so far, I can say that (14), together with (7), shows the following two important points: (i)

the Simple Past is not compatible with any time expression which works like a genuine R, such as the first clause in (14); thus before midday in (7a) must be regarded as an L;

(ii)

the Past Perfect is quite compatible with a genuine R (witness (14b)); thus, in (7b) before midday can be read either as an R (according to interpretation (0) above) or as an L (according to interpretation (a)), in which case the R is implicit in the broader textual structure. As for (14b), where the first clause of course plays the role of R, before midday can only be taken as ar. L.

As I have said already, this result is compatible only with hypothesis B and C; hypothesis A must therefore be rejected. Notice further that, given this analysis, sentence (8a) should be regarded as ungrammatical exactly because it contains two competing Ls, just as we suggested above. In paragraph 8 I will further elaborate on sentence (8b), which is ungrammatical in spite of the fact that the two adverbials work as an R and as an L respectively. 3. Comparison of (14a) and (14b) shows that the ultimate difference between the Simple Past and the Past Perfect can be viewed, at least in some cases, as a difference of textual scope: the second clause in (14b)

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Pier Marco Bertinetto

needs, in order to be fully understood, something like the first clause, whereas its very presence makes (14a) ungrammatical. The interpretation I am suggesting here has (at least) the merit of taking seriously the often repeated (and seldom obeyed) warning that linguistic facts, and tenses in particular, must be viewed in a genuinely textual perspective, beyond sentential limits. It is to be noted, in this connection, that during the past few years linguists have become more and more aware of the inadequateness of a purely sentential framework in the analysis of tense and aspect phenomena. Bennett (1977:510), for instance, writes: "We often use sentences in the Present Perfect and the Simple Past that do not contain a temporal adverbial phrase at all. I believe that in all such cases there is always an implicit reference to an interval of time of the appropriate sort (i.e., and interval of time that respectively includes or does not include the moment of utterance) which is determinable from the previous discourse or the extralinguistic features of the context of utterance. An adequate analysis of the tenses will have to account for this feature". More recently, Kamp & Rohrer (n.d.) have claimed something of the sort with respect to pairs of sentences such as Marie téléphona and Marie téléphonait, which are exactly alike in modaltheoretical terms. These scholars state that "the significance of the tenses lies primarily in the temporal relations which they establish between the sentences in which they occur and the sentences which precede those in the texts or discourses in which those sentences figure" (see below, par. 9, for a further discussion of Kamp & Rohrer's paper). As a matter of fact, linguistic communication does not grow in vacuo: the one who speaks or writes always gives the temporal coordinates which are needed to order the events with respect to each other: the mere succession of facts in a discourse is often sufficient in itself to fulfill this task. But one should distinguish carefully between 'extrinsic temporal references', bound to the purely chronological dimension of the real world and 'intrinsic temporal references', implied by the semantics of verbal tenses. The former kind of references provide the extralinguistic information which is necessary to gather the exact ordering of the events: they are, specifically, what I have so far called L. The latter kind of references contain the purely linguistic information which is required by compound tenses, and which is essential to the well-formedness of utterances. Only this last kind of references, i.e. intrinsic temporal references, constitute what I consider an R; they are, so to say, a temporal indication which is internally postulated by those verbal forms which belong to the set of definite compound tenses (see footnote 3). To find a further illustration of this principle, consider the following set of examples. I think nobody would be likely to begin his or her speech by saying:

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal References (15)

49

Look! This is the town where I had attended

primary school

//The speaker is pointing t o a spot on a map// In the given situation, one would rather say: (16)

Look! This is the t o w n where I attended

primary school.

However, nobody would find anything odd in hearing the following:

(17)

Look! This is the town where I attended secondary school; and this is the town where I had previously attended primary school.

Example (17) is a perfectly plausible albeit abrupt start of conversation since the speaker has already provided, before using the Past Perfect, the temporal indications which are intrinsically needed to place the R. This is not to suggest that nobody would ever begin a conversation with sentence (15); what I want to suggest here is, instead, that in such a case (15) would not be an absolute beginning, but rather a rejoinder to a previous conversation which was already performed by the same individuals. Consider, to this effect, (18)

Coming back to what 1 said yesterday. . . Look! This is the town where I had attended primary school.

In this case the hearer can easily build in his or her own mind the temporal map on which he or she will fix the R required by the compound tense. Here is another example showing the need for a genuine textual dimension (let us take it as a piece of sequentially ordered instructions): (19)

(a) ( ? ) . . . By that time it will already be 2 p.m.; you will leave bebefore m i d d a y . . . (b) . . . By that time it will already be 2 p.m.; you will have left before midday. . .

In order to be fully acceptable, (19a) should take for instance the form of: (20)

. . . By that time it will already be 2 p.m.. In any case, as I said, you will leave before midday. . .

It can be easily seen that the clause with Simple Future (cf. (19a) and (20)) and the one with Future Perfect (cf. (19b)) are performatively quite dif-

50

Pier Marco

Bertinetto

ferent, the former being a command, the latter a descriptive speech act referring to a command. Thus we can say that only (19b) and not (19a) forms a thoroughly coherent text since only (19b) contains a single speech act. When this is not the case, we feel that we have to make explicit the performative structure of the text, as I have tentatively done in (20). One might of course speculate on the reason for the oddness of (19a). Apparently, there is no objective reason, just as there are no objective reasons for the ungrammaticality of (14a). In fact one can easily find languages which do not show this idiosyncrasy. A case in point is offered, for instance, by the Semitic languages, which usually exhibit a very poor tense paradigm. Indeed, the most common translation for the English Past Perfect in a Semitic language (see for instance Hebrew) would be the (perfective) Past tense preceded by a morpheme roughly meaning "already". Thus, both sentences (14) would be approximately rendered as "It was (already) 2 p.m.; John already left before midday". Other translations are of course available, depending on the language: but they all crucially make use of the (perfective) Past, which looks on the contrary hopelessly infelicitous in (14a) (Fabrizio Pennacchietti, personal communication). The same holds for most Slavic languages (see for instance Russian). What is at work in (14a) and (19a) must therefore be a languagespecific restriction: i.e., a restriction which we might predict to be specific of all languages which possess a Past Perfect and/or a Future Perfect. In other words: whenever the language offers, in cases like (14) and (19), a favourite choice in its tense paradigm, the speaker feels that (14a) and (19a) would be definitely ill-formed. Example (21) below, on the other hand, does not present any problem even if we are not acquainted with the broader linguistic and performative context, because the E indicated by will leave follows (instead of preceding, as in (19a)) the E expressed by will be, so that at 2 p.m. cannot be regarded as a possible R, and the Simple Future becomes readily available: (21)

. . . By that time it will already be 2 p.m.. You will leave one hour later. O.K.?

For similar reasons, the following example (to be compared with (14a)) sounds all right: (22)

It was already 2 p.m.; John left one hour later.

4. At the beginning of the previous paragraph I quoted Kamp & Rohrer's statement that a purely model-theoretical approach is inadequate to account for tenses in natural languages. As a matter of fact, from the point of view of model-theoretical semantics, even the problem of discriminating

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal References

51

simple tenses from compound tenses is not an obvious one. It is not easy to assign different truth conditions to, say, a sentence containing a Simple Past and a sentence containing a Past Perfect, so that in model-theoretical terms the presence of the compound tense does not prove to be mere redundancy. In order to avoid this undesired result, one must assume that the logical form of a sentence containing a Past Perfect makes explicit reference to a m o m e n t in time which is different both from the event time (E) and from the speech time (S). So, for instance, a sentence like: (23)

It was 2 p.m.; J o h n had left one hour before

is true at ts (= S) iff: (24)

( 3 r ) (John leaves at t & t < ts & ( 3t') (t' = 2 p.m. & t< t' < t' = t+1 hour))

ts&

or, more simply, iff: (25)

( 3 t) (John leaves at t & t < ts & t < 2 p.m. < / s & 2 p.m. = t + 1 hour)

(where t is E and t' is R; although it is now a current practice to speak of intervals instead of points in time, I shall use here the more traditional symbolization, since this has no consequence whatsoever for our present purposes). Notice that in (25) R is indicated by a constant (2 p.m.); but also in (24) R is univocally identified, given some obvious pragmatic restrictions (we have to do with a certain time of a specific day). There are other examples, on the other hand, in which R cannot be so exactly and univocally identified. Take, for instance: (26)

John had left one hour before.

If the logical form of (23) is like that in (24) or (25), the logical form of (26) must be like that in: (27)

( 3 1 ) (John leaves in t & t < ts & (31') (t < t' < ts& t' = t + 1 hour)).

The problem is then as follows. In (24) and (25) the condition "( 3 / ' ) ( t ' = 2 p.m. & t for an hour. ( had been gone )

Notice, however, that for an hour is merely a duration adverbial, since it can never occur with non-durative verbs, whereas da un'ora can occur both with durative and with non-durative predicates. Thus, sentences like (i) cover but a small subset of the cases in which an adverbial like da un'ora can be used. Incidentally, we can observe that the adverbial "since X " (where X is a nonquantified temporal expression, such as a date) also shows a peculiar semantic behaviour. Consider the follwoing sentences: (ii) (iii) (iv)

I've known Max since 1975 I've visited Paris only once since 1975 I've been ill since September.

As Vlach (1977) correctly argues, since September in (iv) can be read both as the adverbial in (ii) and as the adverbial in (iii); i.e., it can refer either to an event which is still in progress at S, or to an event which occurred at an unspecified moment within the interval considered.

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6. The schemes provided here can undergo revision under special circumstances. For instance, it is not always the case that S and R coincide whenever the Present Perfect is imployed. Consider: (i)

Every day, when I arrive at 12, Mary has been practising the piano since 9 o'clock.

Since we have here a Present Perfect Progressive with habitual meaning (which is by the way an imperfective interpretation of this form), we cannot localize R on S. This particular use of the Present Perfect Progressive does not indicate anteriority with respect to S, but with respect to several undefinite points in time; it indicates, in other words, mere anteriority with respect to the non-deictic Present of the clause introduced by when. This is a special case of consecutio temporum (we take the example from Rivière (1980:127), who, however, suggests an altogether different reading). 7. According to Pusch (n.d.), these kinds of localizations should be called 'indirect' ("indirekter Aktzeitreferenz"), in contrast to direct localizations (such as at 5 o'clock, on the 3rd of June, and so on). 8. Notice however that when before is used as an adverb rather than as a preposition, it conveys a quite definite temporal information. In the following sentence L can be easily and precisely inferred from R, which is fixed on a given Christmas (compare also utterance (23), (29b) and 34)): (i)

It was Christmas; John had come 3 days before.

9. If (45b) were uttered in a different context, such as: "The house you see has undergone a conversion 3 years ago", then the R would be accordingly different. In such a case R might be identified with the moment when the conversion took place. Notice, however, that the one who answers (45b) need not share the presupposition of the speaker as far as the localization of R is concerned. If one answers, for instance, with: (i)

this house has been built by the architect Mr Brick

we gather that R is localized at S, as is usual with the Present Perfect, though the first speaker had actually uttered a sentence containing a Past Perfect, which demands a different localization of R. A problem quite similar to the one exhibited here by (45b) is raised by Smith (1978:51), who considers the following example, odd, in isolation for there is no apparent R: (ii)

John had read the article 3 weeks ago.

All we need here is, again, a full context, such as: (iii)

A - Did you give the paper to John? B - Yes, but he had read that article 3 weeks ago.

R coincides here, of course, with the moment when the paper was given to John. What remains peculiar in this utterance is that L is deictically computable from S (3 weeks ago), instead of being derivable through R as is usually the case with compound tenses.

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Pier Marco Bertinetto

10. One might recall, in this connection, that the reason behind my proposal for the introduction of the notion of L into the semantic machinary of the tenses is perhaps similar in nature to the reason which led Vlach (1977) to introduce the operator THEN to account for sentences such as: (i)

John was once going to cite everyone (then) driving too fast.

Without the information provided by this abstract operator, which needs not be lexicalized, we would not be able to give the right temporal interpretation to the -ing form of this example. Therefore, whatever the operator THEN is, it can be regarded as a kind of L in my conceptual framework. 11. One might object that in the following utterance, quite similar to (14b), L (in that very moment) and R (2 p.m.) coincide, so that also E and R coincide: (i)

It was already 2 p.m.; John had left at that very moment.

But this is not a true counterexample, as we can gather from: (ii)

Y - Where is John? Z - 1 don't know: he left this very moment.

It would be quite unreasonable to say that in (ii) the L which localizes E (in this very moment), coincides with S; the real meaning of the adverbial is of course "just a moment ago". Accordingly, the meaning of L in (i) must be "just a moment before". The semantics of the Past Perfect in (i) is thus the usual one; the only seeming difference is that the temporal distance between E and R is very small. But this is no problem, because compound tenses are often used in such ways. Another seeming counterexample to the principle concerning the non-coincidence of E and R is afforded by the following pair of sentences suggested with different purposes by Barense (1980:63): (iii) (iv)

If John had come to the airport when Tess arrived, she would have been happy If John will have come to the airport when Tess will arrive, she will be happy.

In (iv) the R is provided by the wfte/i-clause, and the E of the Future Perfect precedes R, as usual. In (iii), on the other hand, we can assume that the E (John's hypothetical coming) coincides with Tess's arrival. Consequently, if the wftew-clause fulfills in the role of R (iii), as it does in (iv), we have to admit that E is simultaneous with R. However, this is not a good picture of the situation. The point is that in (iii) (unlike (iv)) the only event which belongs to the temporal domain of the real world is the one included in the w/zen-clause: all other events are hypothetical ones. Thus, we can consider the clause in (iii) as the L of the hypothetical coming of John, rather than as a genuine R. In other words, the Past Perfect in (iii) does not work like a normal, non-hypothetical Past Perfect. Whether it requires an R or not is not yet clear to me; but I have serious doubts about it. A more intriguing problem, with regard to the principle governing the relative position of E and R, is offered by the so-called 'Future-in-the-Past'. Consider the following sentence: (v)

John said he would come later on.

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75

Here, as is well known, said provides a kind of R relative to which we can appreciate the 'futurity' of John's coming (as for its absolute futurity, things vary according to the context, because John's coming might take place before, simultaneously or after S). However, this kind of R precedes E instead of following it; and this puts it on a quite different footing. For this reason I prefer to make use here of the term 'time anchor', which has been introduced already (although in a different sense) by Smith (1978). Thus, said in (v) is the time on which the 'Future-in-the Past' anchors itself, i.e. relative to which it is viewed as future. Notice, further, that English admits sentences like: (vi)

I was sure John would have received the letter by last Tuesday at the latest

which can be read as meaning that by last Tuesday John should have already got the letter. In this case, if one posits that the 'Future-in-the-Past' necessarily requires an R, one ends up with having a double R (as indeed McCoard (1978:91) suggests). The following scheme represents the intended reading: R' I (was sure)

E | (would have received)

R" i

S

J

>

(last Tuesday)

However, the point in time here indicated by R " is the only one that has the behaviour of a genuine R, as I have redefined this notion in the present paper. My solution is therefore to consider R' as the 'time anchor' necessary to compute the correct temporal interpretation of the 'Future-in-the-Past' used in (vi); this avoids the undesirable result of having a double R, when in fact the semantic function fulfilled by R' and R " in the above diagram is quite different. Moreover, this solution is also highly desirable because of independent reasons, as I will claim in par. 9 with respect to the Romance Imperfect tense. 12. Rivière (1980:114-6) is aware of the different meaning of the adverbial in the following two utterances: (i)

(a) John had gone out at 5 (= E(5) R (b) At 5, John had gone out (= E R(5)

S) S)

and suggests that only (b) is a true Perfect, while (a) is a Pseudo-perfect. Essentially, he states that whenever E is specified by means of what I call an explicit L, one gets a Pseudo-perfect, because the temporal property (anteriority) prevails on the aspectual one (current relevance of a previous action). So far, so good; it is just a matter of terminology. However, the diagnostic he suggests for assessing the different meaning of the Past Perfect in (a) and (b) seems rather dubious. The Pseudo-perfect should be paraphrasable by means of a Simple Past, as shown by: (ii)

I met John yesterday, he had lost his watch two days before

(iii)

I met John yesterday, he lost his watch two days before.

The true Perfect, on the other hand, cannot be paraphrased: (iv) (v)

I met John yesterday, he had lost his watch I met John yesterday, he lost his watch.

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Pier Marco Bertinetto

Granted that (v) is not a paraphrase of (iv), since it can be accepted only in case the loss takes place after the encounter, one might observe that (iii) is very odd from the point of view of textual cohesion. Hence, Rivière's argument results considerably weakened. I also find the interpretation suggested by the same scholars (p. 122-3) for (vib) below unconvincing (notice that (via) is considered a Pseudo-perfect): (vi)

(a) He had read all Shakespeare's works after his college years (b) After his college years, he had read all Shakespeare's works.

According to Rivière, the E of (vib) (i.e., the true Perfect) is unspecified with respect to the adverbial (after. . .years), which is regarded as the R. In other words, the reading of Shakespeare's works might have taken place "before, during or after the college years". However, I find it quite implausible that the reading had taken place (at least partly )before or during the college years. Indeed, it would sound very peculiar to say: (vii)

After his college years, he had read all Shakespeare's works. As a matter of fact, he had read them before.

In order to get the interpretation pointed to by Rivière, one needs a broader context, such as: (viii)

During his early childhood, John made the decision to read all Shakespeare's works. After his college years, he had finally done it.

What I want to stress here is that the position of the adverbial in the sentence is not a sufficient cue to its status as an R; it can still be an L (as in (vib)) even when it précédés the verb. 13. A purely terminological confusion might arise when "point de référence" is taken in the sense of Rohrer (1979), where it indicates the point of view assumed by the speaker with regard to the event. This "point de référence" is said t o be "â l'intérieur de l'action dans le cas de l'aspect imperfectif", and outside it in t h e case of the perfective aspect. I thoroughly agree with this position, at least as far as imperfective aspect is taken in the sense of the English progressive (for habitual events the matter looks quite different); but I think it is highly uncomfortable to make use of one and the same term for two concepts which are so clearly different. The same terminological objection can be raised against Kamp & Rohrer's (nd.) important paper. I would like to add a few comments here, in order to show how easily a misunderstanding on these matters can lead to untenable conclusions. The problem lies, to a great extent, in the interpretation of adverbials. I have already shown that this can hardly be a matter of mechanical decisions. I therefore believe that Hornstein (1977:549-50) runs into unnecessary complications when, after stating a rule for the interpretation of clauses introduced by while (whereby two Es must be read as simultaneous), he claims that the following sentence is ungrammatical because E^ (had left) precedes E j {planted): (i)

Joe had left while Mary planted the bomb.

Having concentrated his attention on the temporal structure of verbal tenses, Hornstein does not realize that the real problem, here, is not temporal but aspectual: substitute the Simple' Past with a Past Progressive, and the sentence becomes O.K. Similarly, he claims that in the next utterance we "cannot have a reading on which 2 p.m. is both the time the secretary leaves and the time that Sam Walkes in":

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Temporal References (ii)

11

The secretary had left when Sam walked in at 2 p.m.

This is certainly all right for his rule of when interpretation, but it is by no means justified on linguistic grounds. If one fixes R, within a broader context, at a time after 2 p.m., then the two Es can be seen as simultaneous. It seems that the postulation of severe rules as to the interpretation ad adverbials leads to unmotivated and arbitrary decisions. Finally, I shall shortly consider the following case. In Smith (1981:214) one finds a surprising statement: "A third time, Event Time, is needed to account for some sentences: Event Time may be simultaneous or sequential to Reference Time. Reichenbach's example of a sentence requiring the notion of Event Time is a sentence like (iii), involving the Perfect: (iii)

Roger had already graduated last week.

The time of Roger's graduation precedes last week, which precedes S". Actually, according to Reichenbach, E is necessarily present in every tensed sentence, and for very good reasons indeed. I feel that there will be no great improvement in the study of these matters as long as such terminological differences exist among scholars.

REFERENCES Barense, D.D. (1980), Tense structure and reference: a first-order non-modal analysis, IULC mimeograph. Bennett, M. (1977), "A guide to the logic of tense and aspect in English", Logique et Analyse -. 491-517. Comrie, B. (1976), Aspect, Cambridge etc. Comrie, B. (1981), "On Reichenbach's approach to tense", Chicago Linguistic Society 17: 24-30. Hornstein, N. (1977), "Towards a theory of aspect", Linguistic Inguiry 8, 3: 521-57. Kamp, H. & Rohrer, C. (n.d.), "Tense in text"; paper presented to the Konstanz conference, 1981. Katz, J.J. (1972), Semantic Theory, New York etc. Korzen, H. & Vikner, C. (1980), "La structure profonde des temps verbaux en français moderne", Lingvisticae Investigationes 4, 1: 103-29. Leech, G. (1971), Meaning and the English Verb, London. Lo Cascio, V. (1981), "Sulla traccia e il riferimento di prima", in Moneglia, M. (ed), Tempo verbale - Strutture quantificate in forma logica, Firenze: 91-129. McCawley, J. (1971), "Tense and time in English", in Ch. Fillmore & D. Langendoen (eds.), Studies in Linguistic Semantics, New York: 96-113. McCoard, R.W. (1978), The English Perfect: Tense-choice and Pragmatic Inferences, Amsterdam etc. Miller, G.A. & Johnson-Laird, Ph.N. (1976), Language and Perception, Cambridge etc. Pusch, R. (n.d.), Das italienische Tempussystem, Arbeitsdokumentation der Konstanzer Projektgruppe "Erstellung einer italienischen Referenzgrammatik", mimeograph. Reichenbach, H. (1947), Elements of Symbolic Logic, London. Rivière, C. (1980), "Tense, aspect and time location",Linguistics 18, 1-2: 105-35.

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Rohrer, C. (1979), "Temps, aspect et modes d'action dans la grammaire universelle", Modèles Linguistiques 1: 63-88. Smith, C.S. (1978), "The syntax and interpretation of temporal expressions in English", Linguistics and Philosophy, 2: 43-99. Smith, C. (1981), "Semantic and syntactic constraints on temporal interpretation", in Tedeschi, Ph. & Zaenen, A. (eds.), Tense and Aspect, London etc.: 213-37. Vlach, F. (1977), Now and Then: A Formal Study in the Logic of Tense Anaphora, Ph.D. Thesis, UCLA.

Chapter 4

Indirect Discourse and 'Consecutio Temporum' 1 Christian

Rohrer

1. ABSTRACT

We will discuss a set of rules that translate sentences in indirect discourse into discourse representation structures (DRS's). Besides complement clauses we will also examine relative clauses and temporal clauses. We will especially try to work out the different behaviour of these three types of subordinate clauses in indirect discourse. In order to give an adequate account of the meaning of tense forms and temporal adverbs in indirect discourse, one has to distinguish the following points: speech point, event point, reference point, temporal location point and temporal perspective point. We will try to give an intuitive motivation for the introduction of these points into our system and try to explain why we need more points than H. Reichenbach. It will furthermore be argued that in French there exist basically two temporal perspectives: Past and Non-Past. The Past perspective comprises the tense forms 'imparfait', 'plus-que-parfait', 'conditionnel' I and II; the Non-Past perspective contains all tense forms of French with the exception of 'conditionnel' I and II in their strictly temporal use. The main rule for indirect discourse seems to be the following: the time denoted by the event of the matrix sentence becomes the temporal perspective point of the complement clause. This principle would also explain why indirect discourse is subject to the law of 'consecutio temporum'. Relative clauses are much freer than complement clauses. They need not obey the law of 'consecutio temporum' and may be evaluated with respect to any matrix clause that dominates them (directly or indirectly). They may even be evaluated with respect to a discourse time introduced by a preceding sentence. A side effect of our analysis is a better understanding of H. Weinrich's notion of 'Tempusmetapher'. We will conclude our paper with a logical reconstruction of this notion.

2. THE TENSES OF FRENCH

As we mentioned in the introductory chapter, we want to write explicit

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rules that extract the temporal information contained in a text. We would like to model the situation in which someone reads a text and constructs a partial order of the events and situations described in the text. In order to reach this goal we have to introduce into our formal syntax of French certain features. We will try to explain the syntactic function of these features and their task in the construction of DRS's. This explanation will be informal. 2.1. Syntactic Features and Syntactic Rules Since we are dealing with tenses we will certainly need a feature TENSE with the values pa(st), pr(esent) and fu(ture). These values have their obvious interpretation. If the main verb (the tense carrier) of a simple sentence contains the feature value pa, then the event or state denoted by the sentence lies before the speechpoint.2 Thus these feature values express the traditional time relations (Zeitstufen). The feature PROG(RESSIVE) with the values + or - is intended to express aspectual information. A verb form which contains the feature +PROG denotes a state,3 a verb form with the feature -PROG denotes an event. Furthermore a verb form with -PROG 'brings the action forward', or in more technical jargon, the denoted event lies after the reference point. Verb forms with +PROG don't 'bring the action forward'. The feature PERF(ECT) also has the two values + and - . It is used to capture the notion of a 'perfectum praesens'. We want it to denote a state which is the result of a preceding event. What we mean here can be illustrated with the help of the 'passé composé'. The 'passé composé' has two interpretations, -PERF or +PERF. The distribution with the adverb 'déjà' can be used as a test. (a) (b)

*A quatre heures, j'ai déjà mangé. J'ai déjà mangé.

The fact that (a) is ungrammatical shows that in this sentence the 'passé composé' is the modern French equivalent of the 'passé simple'. Therefore it is marked -PERF. In (b) we have an occurrence of the 'perfectum praesens', the state resulting from the preceding event 'manger' still holds at the speech point. The 'passé composé' in (b) has at least the features (pr, +PERF, +PROG). The feature TENSE, PROG and PERF should be intuitively familiar to a linguistic working with French. They cover traditional temporal and aspectual information. The remaining two features are concerned with indirect discourse, 4 reported speech and flashbacks. The first is the T(emporal) P(erspective) with the values PA(ST) and PF (PRESENT or FUTURE). What are the

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data for which we need the TP feature? First, there are some deictic temporal adverbs like 'maintenant', 'dans deux jours', 'il y a deux jours', etc.. These adverbs are normally evaluated with respect to the speech point. But there are some cases especially in narrative texts where they do not refer to the speech point. One of these cases is the following example: (1)

Pierre se dépêcha. Son train partait dans cinq minutes.

Here we have a shift of the temporal perspective. The temporal perspective point is shifted from the speech point to the event denoted by 'Pierre se dépêcha'. Formally we account for this shift by assigning to the verb form 'partait' the feature value PA.5 In the construction rules for DRS's PA has the effect of shifting the temporal perspective point from the speech point into the past. This analysis gives us the possibility to assign one (and only one) meaning to adverbs like 'maintenant', 'dans deux heures', etc. Second, in narrative texts one may find 'transposed' tense forms that occur in sentences which are not dominated by a verb of saying. Typical examples are pieces of 'discours indirect libre' and flashbacks. The underlined sentences in the following text are reported speech. The tense forms all have the feature PA in our analysis (indicating the temporal perspective). (2)

Frédéric eut envie d'accepter. Mais comment expliquerait-il son séjour définitif a Nogent? Il n 'avait pas un costume convenable; enfin que dirait sa mère? Il refusa. (Flaubert, Education sentimentale)

The transposition of tense forms in reported speech has been commented upon by all specialists in the field. It is the most important feature which distinguishes it from direct speech.6 Transposition in flashbacks, however, has gone practically unnoticed. 0 . Jespersen mentions some examples in English when he claims that the pluperfect has two functions: it can function as a 'shifted' simple past or as a 'shifted' present perfect. In French there is one clear case of transposed tenses in flashbacks. As a rule, after the conjunctions 'lorsque', 'quand', 'dès que', 'après que', one has to use 'passé simple' or 'passé antérieur'. The 'plus-que-parfait' occurs, however, in flashbacks and of course in indirect discourse. Here is an example of a flashback.

(3)

Marie était malheureuse. Deux ans auparavant, lorsqu'elle avait divorcé et vendu sa maison, elle avait cru que tout allait changer.

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If the Temporal Perspective is PAST, then the verb forms are 'transposed'. This 'transposition' of the verb forms obeys the following rules: 7 non-transposed form

transposed form

présent imparfait passé simple passé composé plus-que-parfait futur I futur II conditionnel I conditionnel II

imparfait imparfait plus-que-parfait plus-que-parfait plus-que-parfait conditionnel I conditionnel II conditionnel I conditionnel II

If the Temporal Perspective is PRESENT or FUTURE then the verb forms remain unchanged. Roughly speaking, in our system, the feature 'Temporal Perspective' is used to detect transposed tense forms and to change them back into their original form in order to interpret them correctly. The last feature is TRANSPOSITION) with the values + or - . A verb form is marked +TR if it has been transposed and - T R otherwise. This feature serves mainly a technical purpose. It is used to check the 'concordance des temps' in indirect discourse. The table below summarizes the syntactic features which are necessary for the analysis of tense forms. Syntactic Features feature name

feature value

informal explanation

T(emporal P(erspective)

PA PF

'PAST' 'Present or Future' = 'Non-past'

TENSE

pa

'past' 'present' 'future' (times, Zeitstufen)

Pr fu

PROG(ressive)

+

'progressive' or 'continuous' 'non-progressive'

PERF(ect)

+

'perfectum' 'non-perfectum'

Indirect Discourse and 'Consecutio Temporum ' TR(ansposition)

83

'verb has been transposed' 'verb has not been transposed'

These features lead to the following classification of the French tenses: (1)

Simple Forms ( - P E R F )

Temporal Perspective

TENSE

PROG

Verb form

PF

pr

+

présent présent 8

pa

+

imparfait passé simple

fu

+

futur I futur I

pr

+

imparfait ?

PA

pa

imparfait plus-que-parfait

fu

conditionnel I conditionnel I

(2)

Compound Forms 9 (+PERF) PF

Pr pa fu

PA

pr pa fu

+ + + + + +

passe compose plus-que-parfait futur II plus-que-parfait plus-que-parfait conditionnel II

In order to give the reader a rough idea of the fragment of French which our syntax covers, we list the syntactic rules. The symbols are nearly all self-explanatory. TA stands for temporal adverbs, RC for relative clause. The notation S', S", etc. comes from X-bar syntax (Jackendoff). Rule 19 introduces complement clauses (indirect discourse). We leave out the detailed description of the syntactic rules and refer to Kamp/Rohrer (1985).

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Syntactic Rules FRO FR1 FR2 FR3 FR4 FR5 FR6 FR7 FR8 FR9 FRIO FR11 FR12 FR13 FR14 FR15 FR16 FR17 FR18 FR19 2.2.

NP NP VP VP VP VP VP' S S' S' S" TA TA TA TA TA CN RC S"' NP

PN Det+CN ^ IV ^ TV + NP -> TV + NP + a NP (+PERF) -*• VP1 (-PERF) (PROG) VP -*• NP + VP" (TENSE) -»• S (TENSE) -»• S + TA (TP) -»• S' ^ NP -*• TAdv ->• Tprep + NP Tprep + S -»• Tcon + S -»• CN + RC -> S" (TR) -> S" -> S'"

Construction Rules for DRS's and Some Temporal Concepts in DRS's

For each syntactic rule there exists a construction rule. We will informally discuss the rules that are concerned with temporal information. We will also make some comments on the temporal concepts used in DRS's. The language of the DRS's is a formal language in its own right which is interpreted model-theoretically. Now what temporal concepts do we need? One obviously needs discourse referents10 for events (notated e t ,...,e n ), states (notated Si ,...,s n ) and times (notated t j ,...,t n ). Events are introduced by clauses marked -PROG, states are introduced by clauses marked +PROG, and times are introduced by temporal adverbs. Furthermore, one needs relations between these new referents. We want to express that ei lies before e 2 (e t < e 2 or ej < e 2 ), that t t is equal to t 2 (t x = t 2 ) , and that t j is contained in Sj ( t j c Sx). These temporal concepts occur in practically every theory on time and tense in natural languages. One just cannot do without temporal objects and relations between these objects. The other concepts we need are a bit more difficult to explain. We distinguish a series of special points or

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times. First, the point n (now) which functions as speech point. The introduction of speech point does not require any special justification. The treatment of deictic tenses is impossible without a designated point which serves as speech point. Second, the reference point (Rpt). It has one main function: to explain the different distribution and behaviour of verb forms marked - P R O G from those marked +PROG. We mentioned before that we want to account for the idea that a sentence in the passé simple 'brings the action forward'. Let us consider an example: (4)

Frédéric sonna; un valet parut et l'introduisit dans une petite pièce.

The events described in this text are consecutive, e! < e 2 , e 2 < e 3 , etc. We say that ei functions as reference point for e 2 , and e 2 functions as reference point for e 3 . Furthermore the construction rule for - P R O G introduces the condition Rpt < e into the corresponding DRS. On the other hand for verb forms with the feature +PROG, which introduce states and which don't cause the action to progress, we introduce the condition Rpt c s. Third, the temporal location time (TLt). If our fragment did not contain frame adverbials (e.g. 'hier', 'demain', 'en 1968'), whose function is to locate events and states more precisely in time, then we would not need a temporal location time. Let us again consider an example. (5)

Pierre avait beaucoup de chance dimanche dernier. Il se fit déposer par hélicoptère sur le Cervin. La vue était splendide. Deux heures plus tard il neigeait et la visibilité était quasi nulle.

The frame adverb 'deux heures plus tard' introduces a temporal location time t. This time point functions as reference point for the last sentence in the imparfait. If this sentence did not contain a frame adverbial, then the preceding sentence in the passé simple would serve as its reference point. Fourth, the temporal perspective point (TPpt). This notion must not be confused with the syntactic feature TP of the preceding chapter. The function of the temporal perspective point can best be illustrated by examples. In simple sentences like 'J'ai faim', 'Demain il pleuvra' TPpt and speech point coincide. If a tense form is marked PF (Present or Future), then the construction rule which corresponds to the syntactic rule FRIO sets speech point = temporal perspective point. If a tense form is marked PA, then construction rule 10 picks up a suitable point o which lies before the speech point and makes this point the new TPpt. In the preceding chapter we mentioned that this is necessary in the case of reported speech and flashbacks. So much for simple sentences. For complement clauses, which are introduced by FR19, we have a special rule. If the complement clause has the feature PF, then the event

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denoted by the main clause becomes the TPpt of the complement. To give an example: (a)

Pierre dira qu'une étudiante lui a prêté un livre.

Here the event e t ('Pierre dira que...') becomes the TPpt of the complement. Therefore the complement clause will be anterior with respect to e!., not with respect to n.

speech point o > n

o e! : Pierre dit que e x = TPpt

O e 2 : une étudiante prêter un livre à Pierre

e 2 may lie before or after n. In the case of relative clauses the event denoted by the matrix clause does not become the TPpt of the relative clause. Therefore the next example will be assigned a temporal structure which differs from the one which we assigned to (a). (b)

Pierre rencontrera une étudiante qui lui a prêté un livre. speech point O

o n

>

o ei : Pierre rencontrer une étudiante

e 2 : une étudiante prêter un livre à Pierre Here n is the TPpt for the main clause and for the subordinate clause. The case where the complement clause has the TP feature PAST will be discussed in the next section.

Indirect Discourse and 'Consecutio Temporum ' 3.

3.1.

87

INDIRECT DISCOURSE

Complement Gauses

The obvious rule for indirect discourse seems to be the following: the time denoted by the event of the matrix sentence becomes the temporal perspective point of the complement clause. This rule corresponds to the treatment of the sequence of tenses in indirect discourse which we find in traditional grammars. Consider the following examples and their interpretation from G. Mauger's Grammaire pratique du français d'aujourd' hui: 11 A. L'action de la principale est contemporaine de celle de la subordonnée. Elle apprendra qu'il dort (à ce moment de l'avenir). B. L'action de la principle est postérieure à celle de la subordonnée. Elle a appris qu'il avait dormi (auparavant). C. L'action de la principale est antérieure à celle de la subordonnée. Elle apprendra qu'il dormira (plus tard). Mauger clearly interprets the present in A as simultaneous with the event of the matrix clause and not as simultaneous with the speech point. The plus-que-parfait in B is evaluated with respect to the event of the matrix clause and the future in C denotes a state which follows the time of its matrix clause. In other words the tenses in the subordinate clauses are 'relative' and not 'absolute'. They are interpreted relative to the event of the corresponding matrix clause and not absolutely (i.e. not with respect to the speech point). Unfortunately, as Sempé already noticed, 'rien n'est simple'. There are many exceptions to this rule. First there is the well-known example of the jumping future. 12 (6)

Pierre a dit hier que Marie viendra (demain).

The action of the subordinate clause lies in the future of the speech point. The choice of the 'futur' instead of the 'conditionnel' indicates that the subordinate clause has to be evaluated with respect to the speech point and not with respect to the saying event. Then there are examples of the 'passé composé' which also have to be evaluated with respect to the speech point and not with respect to the corresponding matrix clauses.

88 (7)

Christian Rohrer Vous n'avez pas compris (ne compreniez pas) que les découvertes atomiques ont changé la face du monde. 1 3

The event of the subordinate clause lies before the time of the matrix clause. Therefore one would expect a 'plus-que-parfait' instead of a 'passé composé'. The 'passé composé' expresses that the consequences of the 'découvertes atomiques' are still relevant today. Since one could argue that the complement in (7) expresses an 'eternal truth', here is a less dramatic example: (8)

Le docteur a constaté que Rummenigge s'est foulé le pied et ne pourra pas jouer à Hamburg ce soir.

Even a 'présent' in a complement clause with a matrix clause in the past is not uncommon. (9)

Vous releviez un peu votre jupe pour ne pas la mouiller, car il y avait de la rosée dans l'herbe, si bien que je pus voir que vous avez des pieds charmants.

Damourette et Pichon (par. 1717), who quote this example, comment upon it as follows: 'Jacques, qui prononce cette phrase, tient à redire et à affirmer qu'Hermine a des pieds charmants'. The present in such a context means that the state denoted by the complement holds at the speech time and at the time of a the matrix clause. These examples all violate the rule for the transposition of tenses. Therefore they can be identified very easily as exceptions and we can write special rules of interpretation for them. The case of the jumping future is the easiest one. We just have to make sure that the complement clause is evaluated with respect to the speech point and not with respect to the time of the matrix clause. The cases of the 'passé composé' and the 'présent' are more complicated. If we evaluate (8) with respect to the speech point, then the sentence would also be true in a situation where Rummenigge sprained his ankle after the doctor noticed that he sprained his ankle. An interpretation which is clearly absurd. We cannot discuss these violations of the 'consecutio temporum' in more detail here. We just wanted to point out that these violations exist and that we are aware of them. Furthermore we wanted to use them in order to show in what sense the set of examples which follows differs from these 'classical' exceptions to the sequence of tense rule. Traditional grammarians discuss sentences of this type, because they constitute violations of the sequence of tense rule. Since after a present or a future in the matrix clause one can have any tense form in the com-

Indirect Discourse and 'Consecutio Temporum '

89

plement clause, these grammarians did not notice that the next series of sentences also constitute counterexamples to the rule according to which the event of the matrix clause provides the temporal perspective point of the complement. We want to do more than traditional grammarians. We want to describe the distribution of tense forms and to extract the temporal information in the text. It is mainly this second goal which leads to the examination of the next examples. Let us try to illustrate what we have in mind with a small text extracted from an article by C. Smith. 14 (10)

It was three o'clock in the morning when the old lady rang for the nurse on duty. The prosecuting attorney claims that the nurse was tired now, and did not pay much attention to the old lady.

The relevant temporal elements here are the tense forms present and simple past and the adverb now. In our analysis now refers to the temporal perspective point. If the matrix clause were to establish the temporal perspective point for the subordinate clause, then now would refer to the same point as the verb claims. But this is obviously impossible. Now refers to the time denoted by the preceding sentence (It was three o'clock...). Thus we have an example where the temporal perspective point of the complement clause is different from the time denoted by the matrix clause. This example also differs from the sentences (6) through (9) in another aspect. In those sentences the tense in the complement had to be interpreted with respect to the speech point. Here, however, (in example (10)), the past tense (was) and the adverb now have to be interpreted with respect to a time which was introduced earlier in the text. This time is not identical to the speech time. Examples like (10) also occur in French. For instance one could translate C. Smith's example into French. (11)

Il était trois heures du matin quand la vieille dame appela l'infirmière de service. Le procureur général prétend qu'à ce moment-là l'infirmière était fatiguée et qu'elle ne faisait pas très attention à la vieille dame.

The temporal relations denoted by the French version are as ir. the English original. Sentences which are similar in spirit can be constructed very easily: (12)

Il dit (présent) que dimanche dernier Claude-Alain était de mauvaise humeur parce que l'école recommençait le lendemain.

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Christian Rohrer

The verb form recommençait denotes an action which is futurate with respect to the temporal perspective point. 15 The temporal perspective point, however, is not identical to the time denoted by the saying event but also to the time denoted by dimanche dernier. In these examples the complement clause picks up to a temporal perspective point that lies before the time denoted by the matrix clause. All these examples have indirect discourse verbs in the present or future tense. Once one has been persuaded that saying event and temporal perspective point of the complement clause need not coincide, one should be prepared to recognize this possibility also in cases with past tense indirect discourse verbs. The next example is a case in point. (13)

Albertine arriva à l'hôtel vers minuit. Marcel ne dormait pas encore mais n'avait pas envie de la voir. Lorsque le matin Albertine voulut savoir pourquoi il n'avait pas ouvert il dit qu'il était fatigué et qu'il avait pris un somnifère qui allait agir dans cinq minutes.

This indirect speech can go back to two versions of direct speech: (a) (b)

je suis fatigué, j'ai pris un somnifère qui va agir dans cinq minutes. j'étais fatigué, j'avais pris un somnifère qui allait agir dans cinq minutes.

Given the context of example (13), version (a) is not very plausible. Therefore we have to examine version (b) more closely. In the indirect version of (b) the temporal perspective point cannot be the time of the saying event ('dit', passé simple). Otherwise the interpretation of (a) and (b) would coincide. The temporal perspective point in (b) is provided by the preceding context and not by the matrix clause. The temporal periphrase 'allait agir' has to be interpreted with respect to 'minuit' and not with respect to 'il dit'. Thus we have a clear case of indirect discourse where the matrix clause contains a past tense, where the tense forms of the complement clauses have been transposed and where nevertheless the matrix clause does not provide the temporal perspective point. In face of these examples it is clear that we have to modify our rule for complement clauses (of indirect discourse verbs). The new version runs as follows: (I)

(II)

the temporal perspective of the embedded verb is PF (Present or Future): the saying event becomes the temporal perspective point. the temporal perspective of the embedded verb is PA (Past): choose a reference marker r which has been introduced into the reference point system and add the conditions (r = TPpt) and (r < saying event).

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Rule (I) does not require any comment. Rule (II) can be illustrated with our example of Albertine and Marcel. The arrival of Albertine at midnight provides the reference marker r. r is chosen as temporal perspective point. It satisfies the condition r < saying event. Before we leave the topic of complement clauses, we want to mention one further point: Transposition of tenses is transitive. What does this mean? Consider the following example in direct speech: (14)

Pierre disait: 'Marie croit que Jean viendra'.

If this example is transformed into indirect speech, then croit is transposed into croyait and viendra into viendrait. In the rule that checks for transposition one has to make sure that the information that the matrix clause contains a past tense flows down the tree into all complement clauses. We use the syntactic feature ±TR(ANSPOSITION) to check for transposition. It would lead too far to describe the corresponding rule for the construction of DRS's here.

3.2. Relative Clauses It is very difficult to work out regularities underlying the distribution of tense forms in indirect discourse. This distribution seems to be so arbitrary that F. Brunot threw up his hands in despair and wrote: 'Le chapitre de la concordance des temps se résume en une ligne: Il n'y en a pas.' 1 6 One of the reasons of this apparent lack of regularity is certainly the behaviour of relative clauses. In relative clauses which are embedded in complement clauses the speaker is free to transpose the tense form or to leave it unchanged. The following example illustrates these two possibilities. (15)

Jean a dit qu'il avait rencontré une jeune fille (a) qui étudiait la linguistique (b) qui étudie la linguistique

Probably the most natural way to interpret sentence (15a) is to consider it as the indirect version of (15a 1 ) Jean a dit: J'ai rencontré une jeune fille qui étudie la linguistique. The speaker reports Jean's words. He doesn't commit himself as to the truth or falsity of Jean's statement. The form étudiait would be analyzed in our system as < + T R , PF, pr, +PROG, - P E R F > . Semantically this means that the girl was studying linguistics at the time of the saying event. In the jargon of philosophical linguists we can say that the analysis in

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which the relative clause belongs to the indirect speech is the de dicto analysis. 17 Sentence (15b) constitutes the de re analysis. The indefinite NP 'une jeune fille qui étudie la linguistique' is an addition by the speaker of the whole sentence and not by Jean. Here the girl is a student of linguistics at the speech point, she may not have been a linguistics student at the time when Jean met her. In the jargon of Montague Grammar, sentence (15b) is a case of quantifying-in. The next example from 'Le Monde' illustrates the use of a non-transposed tense in a relative clause which is embedded in an indirect discourse where all other tenses have been transposed. (16)

... M. Kurt Rebmann, a déclaré à Karlsruhe que le parquet fédéral disposait d'indices prouvant que l'agression dont a été victime M. Zimmermann avait été commise par des membres de la Fraction Armée Rouge.

The journalist describes a terrorist attack perpetrated by the RAF against a German industrialist, Mr. Zimmermann. The relative clause 'dont a été victime M. Zimmermann' are the words of the journalist. He is committed to the truth of this statement. The rest of the indirect discourse consists of the statement by Mr. Rebmann. The journalist just reports Mr. Rebmann's words, he does not commit himself to the truth of Mr. Rebmann's claims. The de re analysis of relative clauses must be carefully distinguished from the cases of violations of the rule of sequence of tenses in complement clauses. To work out this difference compare (15a) and (15b) with the pair of sentences below: (15a 1 ) La jeune fille a dit qu'elle étudiait la linguistique (15b 1 ) La jeune fille a dit qu'elle étudie la linguistique. Sentence (15b 1 ) is true if and only if the girl is a student of linguistics at the saying event ('a dit') and at the speech point n for the whole sentence. 3.3.

Temporal Clauses

A temporal clause always has the same 'Zeitstufe' (pa, pr or fu) and the same temporal perspective as its main clause. Furthermore, if the tense form of the main clause has been transposed then the tense form of the temporal clause must also be transposed. Temporal clauses are more restricted than relative clauses. The different behaviour of these two types of subordinate clauses can be explained by their different function. A relative clause is part of an NP. In indirect discourse, an NP may be due

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to the speaker of a whole sentence (rule of quantifying-in) or to the subject of the verb of saying. A temporal clause, on the other hand, functions like a frame adverbial. It provides the temporal location point for the tense form of its main clause. It is important to keep in mind that the verb form in a temporal clause is obligatorily transposed if the rule of transposition applies to its main clause. The failure to observe this transposition leads to incorrect analyses. A case in point is the analysis which Olsson 18 proposes for the following example: (17)

Leurs biens avaient été saisis et vendus après le procès. Quand le mari avait terminé son temps de bagne, la femme l'avait rejoint àM.K.

Olsson sees in (17) a counterexample to the hypothesis that if an achievement verb like 'finir', 'terminer', 'achever' occurs in a subordinate temporal clause introduced by 'quand' or 'lorsque', then the tense form of the subordinate clause must be different from the tense form of the main clause. (18)

Quand il {eut achevé} son article, il l'envoya à l'éditeur. *acheva

Olsson overlooks that his text is part of a flashback, that all tense forms have been transposed and that the sentence which he considers as an exception is the transposed version of the correct form: (19)

Quand le mari eut terminé son temps de bagne, la femme le rejoignit à M.K.

4. SOME REMARKS ON ANAPHORIC RELATIONS AND TEMPORAL METAPHORS

We have seen that for a sentence to be fully interpretable in a given discourse we have to find a reference point and a temporal perspective point. Usually these points are provided by the preceding sentence (or by the immediately dominating clause in the case of subordinate clauses). Sometimes however, one has to pick up a reference point which was introduced several sentences before. There exists a set of possible temporal referents (maybe ordered by a salience relation) among which a tense form in a given sentence may find its reference time. This is analogous to the way we find a suitable referent for an anaphoric pronoun. We can define some

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configurational conditions which restrict the set of reference markers from which a pronoun may choose its referent. However we cannot define exactly which referent among the set of possible referents the anaphoric pronoun must pick up. 1 9 A sequence of sentences constitutes a temporally coherent discourse if one can find plausible reference points and plausible temporal perspective points. H. Weinrich observed that certain sequences of tense forms in a text are difficult to interpret and constitute what he calls 'temporal metaphors' ('Tempusmetaphern'). For example a 'passé simple' followed by a 'futur' would be an instance of a temporal metaphor. Weinrich quotes many examples and interprets them very convincingly. Let us consider one example. It is a paragraph from the 'Histoire de France' by Bainville. He describes the situation after Louis-Napoléon has been elected president. (20) Ce fut une situation bien extraordinaire que celle de ce princeprésident qui n'était rien la veille, qui n'avait qu'une poignée de partisans et qui devenait chef d'Etat. Le premier mouvement des députés fut de considérer son élection comme un accident (le président n'était pas rééligible) et de le traiter lui-même comme une quantité négligeable. En effet, n'étant pas initié aux affaires, il montrait de l'embarras et même de la timidité. Pourtant, il avait déjà une politique. Il choisit ses ministres parmi les conservateurs, et, mesurant l'importance de l'opinion catholique, lui donna une satisfaction en décidant l'expédition de Rome pour rétablir le Pape dans ses Etats d'où une révolution Yavait chassé. Jusqu'à la fin, Napoléon III sera conservateur à l'extérieur et libéral à l'intérieur ou inversement, pour contenter toujours les deux tendances des Français. 20 Why can one speak of metaphoric use of the 'futur'? Well, obviously the 'futur' cannot be evaluated with respect to the speech point. The 'futur' does not have its literal meaning in this context. It is used to denote an event or state which is futurate from a point in the past (the year 1851 in our example) and which is past (the death of Napoléon III) with respect to the speech point. While Weinrich's theory works beautifully for the literary examples he has chosen, one runs into difficulties if one tries to generalize his theory of metaphors. Any sequence of sentences, where the first contains a 'plusque-parfait' and the second a 'futur', or vice versa, would count as a temporal metaphor. But this is certainly not the case. What is metaphorical in the interpretation of the tense forms in the next example? (21)

Ce soir je te montrerai l'homme qui avait oublié son passe-port.

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This sentence may be a bit difficult to accept because the 'plus-que-parfait' requires a reference point anterior to the speech point. Since there is no such point in the above example, it has to be provided by the extralinguistic situation or, if (21) is part of a larger text, one has to search in the preceding sentences. For instance (21) may be part of a story where A tells B about a man who had forgotten his passport and therefore had missed the plane to Paris. If we find such a reference point, then the example is fully interpretable. Since many linguists don't trust invented examples, we want to quote a passage from 'Du côté de chez Swann'. (22)

-

Comment, vous n'avez pas rencontré devant la porte le plus beau des Swann ... Non. M. Swann est venu? Oh! un instant seulement. Nous avons eu un Swann très agité, très nerveux. Vous comprenez, Odette était partie. (Gallimard 1954, p.19)

According to Weinrich the sequence présent, plus-que-parfait in the last sentence would constitute a temporal metaphor. There is, however, nothing metaphorical here. The reference point for the clause in the plus-queparfait (Odette était partie) is the arrival of Swann. His arrival is mentioned in the preceding page (... il arriva chez eux si tard, qu'Odette,..., était partie). Our main objection to Weinrich is the following: in his definition of temporal metaphor he considers only tense forms which immediately follow each other. In a sequence of five occurrences of tense forms in a text, the second may be a temporal metaphor with respect to the first, the third with respect to the second, etc.. He does not take into consideration the fact that a tense form or a temporal adverb, which were introduced much earlier in the text, may provide a reference point (or a temporal perspective point) and thus provide a literal interpretation for a tense form that cannot be interpreted if one only looks at the immediately preceding tense form. In our system we systematically analyze a text sentence by sentence. Each clause introduces an event or state. The set of possible referents increases with every sentence we analyse. Therefore if we analyse sentence n in a text we can choose as possible reference point for n not just the event introduced by sentence n-1 but theoretically any event or state introduced by preceding sentences. Of course this choice is severely restricted by the narrative structure of the text and by our knowledge of the world. University

of

Stuttgart

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1. The research reported in this paper was done in cooperation with H. Kamp. It was financed in part by DFG grant 245/12 and 13. For an introduction to DRT and French tenses see Kamp (1981b). 2. In the next chapter we will see that pa, pr and fu will be defined with respect to the temporal perspective point rather than with respect to the speech point. 3. This formulation is shorthand for 'If the main verb of a sentence contains the feature value +PROG, then the sentence denotes a state.' 4. In the course of the paper we do not always distinguish between indirect discourse (clauses dominated by Verba dicendi') and objects of other propositional attitude verbs like 'apprendre, voir, croire, etc.'. We felt that it was not necessary to separate these cases as long as they show the same phenomena of 'consecutio temporum'. 5. The way the rules are written now, a sentence in the 'imparfait' without a temporal adverb will always be assigned two readings (PF or PA). If the sentence contains a frame adverbial, then in an example like (la) Pierre arriva à deux heures. Une heure plus tard il était au lit. the adverb 'une heure plus tard' would rule out on semantic grounds a reading with temporal perspective = PA. The rules that interpret DRS's semantically would indicate an inconsistency. We intend to build in further rules that allow to reduce the number of ambiguities by taking into account the preceding context. 6. Lips, M. (1926), Le style indirect libre, Geneva, p. 59. 7. Rules like these are usually listed in grammars in the chapter on the 'concordance des temps'. 8. We interpret the reportive present as (PF, pr, -PROG, -PERF). 9. The 'passé antérieur' has the feature (PF, pa, +PERF, -PROG). It is the only compound form marked —PROG. If French did not have the 'passé antérieur', then the feature specification of the tense forms with +PERF could be simplified. We could write a redundancy rule that +PERF implies —PROG. 10. For the question whether these new referents denote points or intervals see Kamp, (1979) and Kamp (1981b). 11. Mauger, G. (1968). Grammaire pratique du français d'aujourd'hui, Paris, p. 276. 12. For an excellent treatment of the jumping future within the framework of indexical semantics see Gabbay, D. (1976). 13. This example is due to Mauger (1968). 14. Smith, C. (1978). The example corresponds to sentence No 105 in C. Smith's paper. 15. 'Recommençait' is the transposition of a 'présent' which functions as a future tense. P. Imbs illustrates this use of the 'présent' with the example 'je m'embarque dans une semaine' (Imbs. 1968, p.45). 16. Brunot, F. (1926), La pensée et la langue, p. 782. 17. There exists a second de dicto interpretation of (15a). In this interpretation Jean uttered the sentence: 'j'ai rencontré une jeune fille qui étudiait la linguistique.' In the transposed version of this sentence étudiait has the features . In this case the girl was studying linguistics at some time prior to the meeting. One doesn't know whether she was still a student of linguistics at the time of the meeting. 18. Olsson, L. (1971). 19. See Kamp, H. (1981a) 20. Weinrich, H. (1971), Tempus, besprochene und erzaehlte Welt, Stuttgart, p. 190 ss.

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REFERENCES Brunot, F. (1926), La pensée et la langue, Paris. Gabbay, D. (1976), Investigation in modal and tense logics, Dordrecht, Holland. Imbs, P. (1968), L'emploi des temps verbaux en français moderne, Paris. Jespersen, O. (1973), A modem English grammar, Part IV, Syntax, Third Volume, London. Kamp, H. (1979), Events, instants and temporal reference, in: R. Bauerle, U. Egli, A. van Stechow (eds.), Semantics from different points of view, Berlin. Kamp, H. (1981a), 'Discourse representation and truth', Amsterdam Papers on Formal Grammar, Vol. 3, Amsterdam. Kamp, H. (1981b), 'Evénements, represéntations discursives et référence temporelle', Langages 64, p.39-64. Kamp, H., Rohrer, C. (1985), Tenses and Temporal Adverbs, how they contribute to the interpretation of texts. Stuttgart, forthcoming. Lips, M. (1926), Le style indirect libre, Geneva. Mauger, G. (1968), Grammaire pratique du français d'aujourd'hui, Paris. Olsson, L. (1971), Etude sur l'emploi des temps dans les propositions introduites par quand et lorsque et dans les propositions qui les complètent en français comtemporain, Uppsala. Smith, C. (1978), 'The syntax and interpretation of temporal expression in English', Linguistic and Philosophy, p. 43-99. ^ Weinrich, H. (1971), Tempus, besprochene und erzaehlte Welt, Stuttgart, 2 Ed.

Chapter 5

Focus Matters* Bob Rigter

1.

INTRODUCTION

Kamp (1981a) proposes a theory in which Discourse Representation Structures mediate between the syntax of a series of sentences in a discourse and their model-theoretic interpretation. Kamp's proposal was the basis for a number of studies on temporal anaphora (Kamp (1981b), Hinrich, (1981), Kamp & Rohrer (1983), Partee (1984)) which all discuss discourses consisting of series of sentences which are true in one and the same intensional domain. Temporal anaphora in all these studies is described in terms of ordering relations to be established between the reference points of the consecutive clauses that constitute the discourse. Reichenbach's (1947) notion reference point thus plays a central role in these discussions. A Discourse Representation Structure, DRS for short, is a partial model with a small, finite domain. The truth-conditional significance of a DRS can be stated as follows: a discourse D with a DRS m is true in a model M iff m can be properly embedded into M. Proper embedding can be described as a map from the universe of m into that of M which preserves all the properties and relations which m specifies of the elements of its domain, including those that pertain to temporal order. A DRS can be regarded as a purely theoretical device that makes it possible to give an account of the semantic properties of sentences and sentence complexes, including an effective statement of informational dependencies between constituents of a discourse, such as, for example, pronominal and temporal anaphora. Considered from a different angle, DRSs can be regarded as parallels of the mental representations which speakers form in response to the verbal inputs that they receive.

* This article is based on a paper read at the ZWO workshop The Pragmatics of Tense at the university of Groningen, on 13-14 September 1984. Thanks are due to Frits Beukema, Erica Garcia, Robert Lankamp, Alice ter Meulen, Florimon van Putte, Pieter Seuren and Herman Wekker for their comments on that paper. The research for this article was part of the Leiden university project Wordorder and Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Structure, financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education.

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The construction of a DRS is to an important extent syntax-driven. However, syntax-driven construction rules do riot exhaustively determine the construction of a DRS. For example, the only constraint that the syntax places on pronominal coreference is that the pronominal must not be bound - i.e. coindexed with a c-commanding antecedent - within its governing category (see Chomsky (1981) or Rigter & Beukema (1985) for details). This means that the establishment of a pronominal coreference relation to be entered in a DRS cannot be the output of a syntax-driven construction rule. It must be the output of an inference-driven construction rule. Such a rule would have to make explicit the strategies that a language decoder follows when selecting the antecedents of anaphoric pronominals. Likewise, the studies on temporal anaphora referred to above agree that the discourse representation of the ordering relations between the reference points of consecutive clauses cannot be derived directly from syntax-driven construction rules. Roughly, these studies regard tense and perfect as operators on tenseless clauses, and they assume that at the start of a past-tense discourse there is a reference point in the past, which - if there are no explicit indications to the contrary - is moved forward by the introduction of new event clauses in the same domain. Thus these studies deal with the inference-driven construction of chronological ordering relations between reference points in one and the same intensional domain. Let us call such relations horizontal chronological relations. In this article, I discuss the creation of intensional subdomains in DRSs, and the syntax-driven construction of the representation of the chronology of complex sentences involving a primary discourse domain and one or more intensional subdomains. Let us refer to the chronological ordering relations between variables in embedding domains and embedded domains as vertical chronological relations. This article discusses the interrelations of horizontal and vertical chronological relations in DRSs. It provides a full account of the sequence of tenses phenomenon, and it traces where, precisely, the notion reference point in Kamp (1981b), Hinrichs (1981), Kamp & Rohrer (1983) and Partee (1984) has a direct correlate in the syntax of an English clause, and where this is not the case.

2.

TERMINOLOGY

In the Reichenbachian tradition of tense analysis embraced by the sources referred to in section 1, S, R and E are three important variables that relate to the use of tense and perfect in English. Reichenbach (1947) defines S as the point of speech, R as the point of reference, and E as the point of the event. In later work on tense it became clear that instead of to points of time, these Reichenbachian notions should be taken to refer to inter-

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101

vals which can include events (see, for example, Rigter (1980a), Partee (1984)). In the case of simple sentences, the point of speech (S) often corresponds with the present (P) of the discourse domain. It should be borne in mind, however, that P is a time interval in the DRS m, whereas S is an interval in the speaker's reality. Thus P corresponds with S only if the speaker's reality is the model M into which m can be properly embedded. In the case of complex sentences, world-creating verbs (feel, hope, say, seem, think, etc.) introduce intensional subdomains which have a present of their own. The present (P) of such a subdomain is not cotemporaneous with the point of speech, but is located at the time when the proposition of the world-creating verb holds true. Thus in (1) the present of the primary discourse domain corresponds with the point of speech, but the present of the intensional subdomain introduced by THINK is located at the time when the thinking takes place in the embedding domain. (1)

Pete thought that Jane was angry

(2)

a = THINK (Pete, aa) aa = ANGRY (Jane)

The sentence in (1) is based on the two tenseless propositions in (2). In (1), proposition a - which is taken to express the conviction of the speaker - is entered in the primary discourse domain, and its referent is temporally located in a time interval which is anterior to the present of the primary domain, which is cotemporaneous with the point of speech. The referent of proposition aa - which does not express the conviction of the speaker - is not entered in the chronology of the primary discourse domain. It is temporally located in the present of the intensional subdomain which is introduced by the world-creating verb THINK. Clearly, the term S (point of speech) is inappropriate to refer to the present of the subdomain. This is why I use P g - i.e. P with a single-letter subscript to refer to the present of a primary discourse domain, P a a - i.e. P with a double-letter subscript - to refer to the present of an intensional subdomain directly embedded in the primary discourse domain, etc. Reichenbach's term E (point of the event) disregards the existence of states. Instead of E, I use the label T a to refer to the temporal location of a, where a is a state, event, activity, achievement, etc. in the primary discourse domain. T aa_ is used to refer to the time interval of aa, which is a state, event, activity, achievement, etc. in an intensional subdomain directly embedded in the primary discourse domain. Apart from the fact that Reichenbach's R (point of reference) is not a point but an interval, the word reference, as Partee (1984) also observes,

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cannot be taken too seriously, since reference time can play the role of a bound variable. Instead of the notion point of reference, I use the label F a to refer to the focal episode for a, F a a to refer to the focal episode for aa, etc. The focal episode for a proposition is that interval in the relevant (sub)domain on which the speaker's attention is focused when he refers to a, aa, etc. To put it simply, a focal episode in a domain is the time in that domain that the speaker is talking about. Note, in this connection, how close Kamp & Rohrer (1983:259) are to using the notion focal episode when they describe the forward-shifting of the focal episode in a past-tense discourse as follows: "In such cases it would seem possible to focus, without further explicit verbal indication, directly on this subsequent period, i.e. to understand this period, rather than the event which initiates it, as the new reference point" (my italics). Adopting the terminology defined above, we can represent the chronology of the sentence in (1) as in (3), in which, as in (2), a is a proposition in the primary discourse domain, whereas aa is a proposition in the intensional subdomain created by a. 0)

Pa

>

Fa

= T a = P aa = F aa

=

T aa

The chronology in (3) can be read as follows: a is temporally located at a time T fl which is in a focal episode F a in the primary discourse domain. This focal episode F a lies in the past of P a , which is the present of the primary domain. In the intensional subdomain created by a at T a , aa is temporally located at a time T a a which is located in a focal episode F a a This focal episode F a a coincides with P a a , which is the present of the subdomain introduced at T 0 . P„„ necessarily coincides with T„, because the a

aa

a

present of the domain representing Pete's thoughts is located at the time of Pete's thinking. Note that a holds true in the primary discourse domain, but not in the intensional subdomain. Conversely, aa holds true in the intensional subdomain, but not in the primary discourse domain. When a primary domain contains more than one proposition, we shall call these propositions a, b, c, etc. When a embeds one proposition, we call this embedded proposition aa. Further propositions directly embedded in a would be called ab, ac, etc. Propositions directly embedded in b are called ba, bb, be, etc. Propositions directly embedded in be are called bca, beb, bcc, etc.

3.

HORIZONTAL CHRONOLOGICAL ORDERINGS

In the studies on temporal anaphora referred to in section 1, the sentences that make up the discourse which is represented in a DRS are all represent-

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ed in one and the same intensional domain. For example, this is the case in the discourse in (4). If we call the tenseless propositions in the three clauses in (4) a, b, and c, respectively, the separate chronologies of these three clauses can be represented as in (5). (4)

John took the bag. He opened the door and left the room.

F

=

>

F

b =

T

>

F

c =

Tc

a

T

a b

However, in the discourse in (4) the chronologies in (5) are interrelated. As Kamp, Hinrichs, Rohrer and Partee have observed, the focal episode shifts forward in the direction of the speaker's present when we pass from the first clause in (4) to the second. The same happens when we pass from the second to the third clause. These observations are accommodated in the DRS in (6).

(6)

F

a ||


F a a = T a a

(16) He thinks that Jane had been angry

P a = F a = T a = P a a >-F a a > T a a

(17) It seems that Jane is angry

P a = F a = T a = P aa = F a a = T a a

(18) It seems that Jane has been angry

P„a = F a = T a = Pad = F„„ > T„„da aa

(19) It seems that Jane was angry

P a = F a = T a = P aa > F a a = T a a

(20) It seems that Jane had been angry

P a = F a = T a = P aa > F a a > T a a

(21) Jane seems to be angry

P a = F a = T a = P aa = T a a

(22) Jane seems to have been angry

P a = F a = T a = P aa > T a a

(23) Jane seemed to be angry

P a > F a = T a = P aa = T a a

a

= F

a=

T

a = P aa = F aa

= T

aa

Focus Matters

107

(24)

Jane seemed to have been angry

P

a>

(25)

It seemed that Jane was angry

P

a>

(26)

It seemed that Jane had been angry

P

a>

(27)

He thought that Jane was angry

P

a>

(28)

He thought that Jane had been angry

P

a>

F

a = T a = Paa> T aa

V

T a = P aa= T aa

F

a = T a = Paa> T aa

F

a = T a = Paa= T aa

F

a = T a = Paa> T aa

In (13)-(16) we see that in a finite clause embedded in a present-tense clause we find all the oppositonal possibilities that we see in (9)-(12). This also holds for (17)-(20). However, in non-finite clauses, and in finite clauses embedded in a past-tense clause, we lose precisely those oppositional possibilities that could be attributed to the presence of an F a a In the non-finite clauses in (21) and (22) the only chronological distinction that can be made by means of a formal opposition is the distinction between P = T and P > T that we find in the right-hand column after examples (9)-(12). Thus the nonfinite embedded clause in (21) is the Fless correlate of (9) and of the embedded clause in (17). The non-finite embedded clause in (22) is the F-less correlate of each of the three clauses in (10)-(12), and of the embedded clauses in (18)-(20). Similar observations can be made about the non-finite embedded clauses in (23) and (24). The fact that there is no syntax-driven F construction in these non-finite clauses suggests that syntax-driven F construction is based on the presence of a tense. The chronologies in (9)-(24) indicate that a -PAST tense places an F on the P of the same domain, and that a +PAST tense places an F in the past of the P of the same domain. In section 8 we shall see that a -PAST tense can also allow placement of F in the future of the P of the same domain, although in English F placement in the future of the P of the same domain is severely constrained (cf. (66)). We shall call a tense that establishes an F and relates this F to the P of the same domain a domain tense. Now let us look at the finite subclauses in (25) and (26), which are embedded in a past-tense headclause. In these subclauses, too, the oppositional possibilities that could be attributed to the presence of an F a a are lost (however, see section 6). The embedded clause in (25) is the correlate of (9) and of the nonfinite clause in (23). The embedded clause in (26) is the correlate of the non-finite clause in (24), and of each of the three clauses in (10)-(12). Thus the finite subclauses in (25) and (26) do not appear to contain a syntax-driven F. Since we have just defined a domain tense as establishing an F, the +PAST tense in the subclauses in (25) and (26) is not a domain tense. This is borne out by the fact that there is no

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subdomain-internal motivation for the use of a +PAST tense in these subclauses. This is especially clear in (25), in which P a a = T a a - It is true that in (26) PQdd„ > T 0dd0 , but this is not to be attributed to the tense of the v

subclause, but to the auxiliary of the perfect. The chronology of examples (25) and (26) is parallelled in all relevant respects by the chronology of examples (27) and (28). The use of the +PAST tense in the subclauses in (25)-(28) does not relate to chronological ordering inside the subdomain, but is motivated by the fact that P a a lies in the past of P a . This is why this +PAST tense will be called a domain-shift tense. In the analysis provided above, the use of a domain tense leads to the syntax-driven construction of an F, and the use of a domain-shift tense does not. 3 The chronologies in (9)-(28) can be straightforwardly constructed by a syntax-driven set of construction rules, if we assume the lexical entries for tenses, for the auxiliary of the perfect and for other verbs, provided in (29)-(33). In the remainder of this article I will show that the entries in (29)-(33) used in a government & binding type of syntax provide an adequate basis for syntax-driven chronology construction in English, and I will trace where this syntax-driven chronology construction is augmented with inference-driven F construction. (29)

+PAST DOMAIN-SHIFT TENSE: +PAST , INFL° [t = P]

(30)

INFL 0 ,

must be inserted iff pa-i > T a-i = p a

: [ INFL 1

V]

+PAST DOMAIN TENSE: +PAST , INFL 0 [t=P>F]

(32)

V]

-PAST DOMAIN TENSE: -PAST [t=P*F]

(31)

: [ INFL 1

:

[ INFL 1

V]

cannot be inserted if pa-i > T a-i = p a

AUXILIARY OF THE PERFECT: HAVE r[t>l],

,

V°

[ V1

V]

Focus Matters (33)

109

CHRONOLOGICAL SPECIFICATION OF VERBS: V° [t=T]

In the entries in (29)-(33) the chronological specifications are provided in square brackets under the item. The t is an instruction to find the right-hand term of the nearest ccommanding chronology indicator. The highest t in a phrase marker is deictic. If the model M into which the DRS m can be properly embedded is the speaker's reality, the deictic t points to the moment of speaking, i.e. to the Reichenbachian S. -PAST and +PAST are inserted under INFL°, i.e. as the head of an INFL projection, and subcategorize a verbal complement. The reason why headclauses are characteristically finite may be sought in the fact that only full clauses - i.e. INFL projections - offer the possibility of relating the present of a non-embedded domain to the moment of speaking, because only INFL projections can dominate a tense, and only tenses have [t=P . . . ] in their chronological specification. In (29) and (31), a is any embedded domain which either is or embeds the domain represented by the INFL projection of which the +PAST tense is the head, a-1 is the domain that directly embeds a. According to (29), the +PAST domain-shift tense must be used iff in any embedded domain the P a has been shifted back in time with respect to the nexthigher P, which is P**'1. If this is not the case, the domain-shift tense in (29) cannot be used, and one of the domain tenses - i.e. -PAST in (30) or +PAST in (31) - is inserted under INFL 0 . In the entry in (30), P ^ F means that either P=F, or P < F . As we shall see in section 8, the latter possibility is severely constrained in English. HAVE, the auxiliary of the perfect, is used as a V°, i.e. as the head of a verbal projection, and it subcategories a verbal complement. The I in the chronological specification of HAVE is an instruction to find the righthand term of the chronological specification of the verb which is thematically governed by HAVE. The entry in (32) shows that HAVE offers a choice out of two chronological specifications, viz. [ t > l ] or [ t > l ] . The latter specification means that the T which the I points to begins before, and continues into, the episode that the t points to. The use of HAVE with this specification is called the continuative perfect, and requires the use of a duration adverbial specifying the T of the governed verb. The continuative perfect will not be discussed any further in this article (see Rigter (1980a), (1982) for discussion). A government & binding syntax of English - described in detail in Rigter & Beukema (1985) - assigns the phrase marker in (34) to the sen-

110

BobRigter

tence in (15). The boxes in (34) have been added to facilitate comparison with the DRS constructed on the basis of the phrase marker in (34). (34)

INFL

INFL -PAST [t=P=F] INFL 2 COMP THINK [t=T]

INFL 1 THAT INFL' +PAST [t=P>F]

N

ANGRY

In (34) the outer box corresponds with the primary discourse domain which is constructed on the basis of the part of the phrase marker contained in it. The inner box corresponds with the intensional subdomain constructed on the basis of the complement of THINK, which is a worldcreating verb. Note that the tenses are operators on tenseless verbal clauses, which are the syntactic correlates of tenseless propositions. Since ANGRY, as an adjective, cannot be used as a finite verb, the semantically empty raising verb BE, which is a one-place predicate subcategorizing a non-verbal complement, is inserted to function as the finite verb subcategorized by the +PAST tense. JANE, the subject of ANGRY, is Caseless in its deep-structure position - occupied by the trace ?• in (34) and is raised into the subject position of BE in accordance with Burzio's (1981) observation that a verb that does not assign a thematic role to its subject is incapable of assigning Case. In (34) the tenses thematically govern the verbs, and can thus induce the correct verbal morphology.

Focus Matters

111

The tenses structurally govern the subjects of the V projections which they subcategorize, and thus assign nominative Case to HE and JANE. The +PAST tense in (34) is the domain tense listed in (31). This domain tense can be inserted in (34) because there are only two Ps in the phrase marker, and it is not the case that the P of the embedded domain lies in the past of the P of the embedding domain. This is also the reason why the +PAST domain-shift tense listed in (29) cannot be inserted in (34). For full details of the syntax discussed here, the reader is referred to Rigter & Beukema (1985). After this discussion of the syntax of the sentence in (15), we turn to the construction of the DRS based on the phrase marker in (34). This construction is syntax-driven, and in accordance with the compositionality principle. With respect to the tenseless propositions, it should be noted that where movement has occurred - as in the case of the subject of the adjectival small clause JANE ANGRY - the presence of the trace t a t the foot of the chain of coindexed nominal positions ensures the constituent status, even at S-structure, of a predicate and its argument(s). Thus the V 2 node over THINK in (34) matches the proposition THINK (u, aa) in the primary domain in (35), and the A 2 node over ANGRY matches the proposition ANGRY (v) in the subdomain. Since BE is semantically empty and does not assign a thematic role to its subject, the propositional content of the V 2 node over BE in (34) is the same as the propositional content of the A 2 node. BE is, however, instrumental in the construction of the chronology of the DRS for (34), because BE does carry a chronological specification. Now let us see how the syntax of (34) constructs the chronology of the DRS on the basis of the chronology indicators in (34). Recall that t is an instruction to find the right-hand term of the nearest c-commanding chronology indicator, and that - if the model M into which m is properly embedded is the speaker's reality - the highest t in the phrase marker points deictically to the moment of speaking.4 The syntax-driven construction of the DRS for (34) yields (35), of which the chronology shows a perfect correspondence with (15). As before, a T in a DRS is printed under the F to which it is related. This makes it easier to represent increments resulting in horizontal F orderings, as in (6), (8) and (45).

112 BobRigter (35)

F a = Pa

F aa

u v

u: v: a: aa:

< P aa

'aa

a aa

he Jane THINK (u, aa) ANGRY (v)

Syntax-driven construction rules operating on the chronological specifications set out in (29)-(33) as they are deployed in the phrase markers of the sentences in (13)-(28) pair these sentences correctly with the chronologies listed after them. The use of the +PAST domain-shift tense is illustrated in (36). Note that, in accordance with (29), the +PAST domainshift tense must be inserted in the embedded clause in (36) because the P of this clause lies in the past of the P of the higher clause. The +PAST tense in the headclause cannot be a domain-shift tense, because there is no higher P, and hence the P of the headclause does not lie in the past of a higher P. s (36) INFL 1 INFL' +PAST [t=P>F]

THINK

COMP

[t=T]

I THAT +PAST [t=P]

Focus Matters

113

The syntax-driven construction of the chronology of the DRS corresponding with (36) yields (37). Note that (36) pairs (37) correctly with the sentence in (27). (37)

t

= Pa

>

Fa

= Ta = Paa

=

Taa

The chronology in (37) does not contain a representation of a focal episode in the embedded domain. This is because the chronological specification of the domain-shift tense in (29) does not introduce an F for the embedded domain. If the +PAST domain-shift tense were to introduce an F in the same way as the +PAST domain tense, the fact that the embedded clause in (28) is the correlate of each of the embedded clauses in (14)-(16) would remain unexplained. Insertion of perfective HAVE in the subclause in (36) results in (38), which constructs the chronology in (39), and pairs this chronology correctly with the sentence in (28). (38) INFL1

INFL2 THINK [t=T]

COMP | THAT

INFL1 INFL'

I

+PAST [t=P]

(39)

t

= Pa

>

F

= T

=

aa >

P;

T aa

114

BobRigter

The syntax-driven construction of the chronology of the sentence in (23) - Jane seemed to be angry - is illustrated in (40), which yields the chronology in (41). For syntactic details, see Rigter & Beukema (1985).

+PAST [t=P>F]

(41)

5.

t

= P

>

F

= T

= T

aa

FOCUS CONSTRUCTION

If the chronological specifications in (29)-(33) are correct, a syntax-driven P can only be constructed on the basis of a tense, and a syntax-driven F can only be constructed on the basis of a domain tense. This is why the chronologies in (37), (39) and (41) do not show an F a a , and why the chronology in (41) does not show a P a a - Yet, since SEEM is a worldcreating verb, the embedded domain in (41) must have a P a a - Because the present of an embedded domain necessarily coincides with the T of the world-creating verb that introduces this embedded domain, the place of P in (41) is as in (42).

Focus Matters (42)

t

= Pa

115 >

Fa

= Ta = Paa

= Taa

The inclusion of P a a in (42) has now been described as inference-driven. However, if the T 01 ' 1 of a world-creating verb is necessarily cotemporaneous with the P a of the domain which it introduces, the construction of this P a can also be described as syntax-driven, by including the P of the embedded domain in the chronological specification of the world-creating verb. In that case, the chronological specification of the world-creating verb is [t = T w = in which n is the domain of the world-creating verb, and n+1 the domain which it introduces. The absence of an F a a in (21)-(28) is an entirely different matter. For example, the absence of F a a in (22) - repeated below - makes (22) indeterminately ambiguous between (18)-(20). (18)

It seems that Jane has been angry

p

(19)

It seems that Jane was angry

p

(20)

It seems that Jane had been angry

p

(22)

Jane seems to have been angry P„ = F 0 =T„ = (P Q ,) > T 0 0

a

a

a

a

= F

a

= F

a=

= F

a

a

= T

T

= T

=

a

a= a

=

a

P

P

aa

aa

P

aa

=

F

> F

aa>Taa

aa =

>F

T

aa

aa>Taa

da

aa

A speaker who wants to be explicit about the time perspective in these embedded clauses can use (l8)-(20), in which F a a construction is syntaxdriven. When the time perspective is of less consequence, or when it is self-evident, (22) can be used. In (22) the speaker provides no clue as to the whereabouts of the F 0 0 . Thus the hearer can leave the F„ 0 indetermidd

da

nate, or he can conceptualize a focal episode on P a a , as in (18), or on T a a > as in (19), or between the two, as in (20). Any F a a constructed in the DRS for (22) could only be inference-driven if there are contextual clues for such an inference. The syntax-driven chronology of the non-finite subclause in (22) can, but need not, be augmented with an inference-driven F_„. Evidence for dd. the potential presence of an F a a in the DRS for (22) is found in sentences like (43), in which at that point cannot refer to the P a a because the P a a coincides with the speaker's present - cf. seems - and cannot refer to T a a either, because the T a a is specified by before he closed it, which points to a time anterior to at that point. Thus the only possibility that remains is that at that point is a specifier of F , and places F between P and

B o b R i g t e r

116

(43)

The conjuror seems, at that point, to have placed the pigeon in the box before he closed it. But it is not in the box, of course.

In the D R S for (43), inference-driven F a a construction is obligatory, because of the presence of an F a a specifier. When augmented with an inference-driven F a a , the chronology in the subdomain constructed on > T„„. the basis of the first sentence in (43) becomes P a0 a0 > F „aa„ v da

When only one non-finite clause is embedded in a sentence like (22), when there is no F a a specifier, and when there are no contextual clues, the chronology of ( 2 2 ) need not be augmented with an inference-driven F a a - When more non-finite clauses are embedded in a sentence like (22), however, this gives rise to horizontal F ordering a la Partee (1984). Thus the syntax-driven chronology of the D R S for ( 4 4 ) must be augmented with the inference-driven construction of the horizontal ordering of F a a , F ^ , F a c in the embedded domain, as in (45). (44)

John seems to have taken the bag, opened the door and left the room

(45)

F..a = P a

aa < Fab II II X X aa ab F


T Q ! J d a d dd dd dd

angry (15)

He thinks that Jane was angry

Pa = F a =

(16)

He thinks that Jane had been angry

P = F = T = Pno d

d

Ta= d

Paa dd

> Faa = Taa >

F00>T00 dd dd

Focus Matters (28)

117

He thought that Jane had been angry

Pa > F a = Ta= Paa > T a a

Because the +PAST tense that governs had in (28) is a domain-shift tense, the subclause in (28) does not construct a syntax-driven F a a - Thus, if there are no contextual factors to serve as such, the hearer gets no clue as to the whereabouts of an F a a in (28). If there are contextual clues, the syntax-driven construction of the chronology of (28) can be augmented with an inference-driven F„„. da (46)

This afternoon, he thought that by 10 a.m. Jane had been angry several times already.

(47)

He thought that John had taken the bag, opened the door and left

In (46), by 10 a.m. can only be an F a a specifier, and hence gives rise to the construction of an F a a in the DRS for (46). In (47) the occurrence of three embedded event clauses with coreferential subjects gives rise to horizontal F ordering. Thus the syntax-driven construction of the DRS for (47) must be augmented with the inference-driven construction of the horizontal ordering of F a a , F ^ and F a c .

6. THE PRIMARY-DOMAIN

COMPUTATION

OF TENSES IN EMBEDDED

CLAUSES

The grammar of the +PAST domain-shift tense presented here, and discussed in more detail in Rigter (1982), accounts fully for the sequence of tenses phenomenon. It may seem as if an example such as (48) is an exception to this phenomenon, and a counterexample to the domain-shift tense theory presented above. This is not so. The reason why there is no +PAST domain-shift tense in the embedded clause in (48) is that there is no domain shift: both the headclause and the embedded clause in (48) are statements constructing the speaker's primary domain. The DRS for (48) is provided in (49). (48)

Simon said that he is hungry

Fa Il T

a


F in the case of +PAST, P < in the case of - P A S T in a non-subcategorized clause, and P = F in the case of —PAST in a headclause or subcategorized clause - the precise placement of syntax-driven F is free, but it can be further constrained by syntax-driven and inference-driven factors. Thus a time adverbial adjoined to an INFL projection specifies the temporal location of the F in the chronological specification of the tense which is the head of this INFL projection. If the adverbial has an F of its own, the F of the adverbial is the orientation time for the F of the specified INFL projection. In that case, the F of the INFL projection is a bound variable. Sequence indicators such as before, after, while etc. introducing the adverbial clause place the F of the specified INFL projection before, after, or on the F of the adverbial clause.

130

BobRigter

An inference-driven factor that can constrain the position of a syntaxdriven F is the presence of more than one proposition in one and the same domain. For example, when a domain contains a series of event propositions with coreferential subjects, the focal episode is moved forward by the introduction of each new proposition. Further inference-driven Fordering strategies followed by language decoders remain to be investigated. In sub categorized non-finite clauses, and in finite clauses with a +PAST domain-shift tense, there is no syntax-driven F construction. Restrictions which syntax-driven F construction places on intervals in which F can be located do not hold for exclusively inference-driven F constructions. When there is no syntax-driven F construction, there is either no F construction at all, or, if an inference-driven F is constructed, it is subject to the same inference-driven factors that can narrow down the placement of a syntaxdriven F. The sequence-of-tenses phenomenon is due to the selection of domain-shift tenses under all INFL nodes c-commanded by a +PAST domain tense - and connected with this domain tense by means of a g-projection - unless such a syntactically embedded INFL projection is entered in the primary domain. Thus apparent exceptions to the sequence-of-tenses phenomenon show the truth-conditional characteristics of primary-domain propositions. University of Leiden

NOTES 1. This horizontal P ordering is also required to account for the past tense in sentences like I said just now that . . in which the speaker refers back to the P of a previous sentence in the primary discourse domain. 2. This also holds for generic sentences. For discussion, see Rigter (1980b-c). 3. The sentence in (i) shows that F construction is not impossible in a subdomain constructed on the basis of a clause with a domain-shift tense. (i) John thought that George Best scored the first goal Whereas in (25) — It seemed that Jane was angry —, which has a domain-shift tense in the subclause, the T of Jane's being angry is cotemporaneous with the T a of the headclause, in (i) tne T ^ of George Best scoring the first goal lies in the past of the T a of the headclause. Since the T a of a world-creating verb is necessarily cotemporaneous with the P a a of the subdomain which it introduces, we conclude that in (25) P = T , whereas in (i) P „ > T „. Since in (i) the subclause does not a? aa as aa contain perfective HAVE, the only remaining explanation for P„„ aa > Taa„ in the subclause in (i) would be the presence of an F „, such that P„„ > F„„ = T . The quesaa aa fia aa tion that arises now is whether the construction of this F a a is syntax-driven or inference-driven. If it is syntax-driven, there appears to be no explanation why a domain-shift tense sometimes does, and sometimes does not, construct an F. If it

131

Focus Matters

is inference-driven, the domain-shift tense never establishes a syntax-driven F. Thus the advantage of postulating an inference-driven F a a in (i) is that it allows a unitary treatment of the domain-shift tense. Now let us see whether there is a likely basis for the inference that in (i) there is an F ^ in the past of P a a . It does seem likely that a context in which (i) would be used would contain clues that T a > T . For example, the context might show that the T a is temporally located after the match. Moreover, the phrase the first goal suggests that the speaker attributes to John the awareness that more goals were scored in that match. John can only be aware of this if T a > T a g . Thus (i) is a likely basis for the construction of an inference-driven F in the past of Speakers who want to be more explicit about the T a > T relation in the situation referred to by means of (i) may prefer to insert the auxifiary of the perfect in the embedded clause, as in (ii). (ii) John thought that George Best had scored the first goal 4. The addition of the parenthetic clause is necessary. This will become clear when the model-theoretic interpretation of example (90) is discussed: in the case of a 'historic present', and in the case of stage directions, the t does not point to the moment of speaking, because the m of the DRS is not mapped into the speaker's reality. Due to limitations of space, free indirect style and counterfactual statements, in which headclauses construct intensional subdomains, cannot be discussed in this article. For discussion, see Rigter (1982). 5. However, in free indirect style and in counterfactual statements the highest +PAST tense can be a domain-shift tense. See Rigter (1982). 6. When a seemingly non-stative verb is used to refer to a world-structure state, the progressive construction is not used. This is illustrated in (iii). This example refers to Dexter being a saxophonist, which is a world-structure state. (iii) Dexter plays the saxophone (iv) He writes a letter and puts it in an envelope A non-progressive, non-stative predicate refers to a complete event. Such a complete event, if it takes some time, cannot be contained in the actual present of the speaker, but it can be contained in the present of the M which is referred to in stage directions or in passages in the 'historic present'. In such contexts (iv) is grammatical. 7. See Vet (1984), who makes this observation in his discussion of Rigter (1983). 8. Limitations of space prevent me from discussing the grammar of modals. For the chronology of modals, see Rigter (1982), (1983). For their syntax, see Rigter & Beukema (1985). 9. In a language such as English, in which the canonical direction of government is to the right, a g-projection is a uniformly right-branching path connecting a c-commanding element with a c-commanded element which is either on a right-hand branch or on a left-hand branch, but which is not embedded on a left-hand branch. 10. The problem of plurality is not discussed here, because it is not relevant to the issue addressed in this article.

REFERENCES Beukema, F.H. (1984), Seven studies on free adjuncts. Doctoral dissertation, University of Leiden. Burzio, L. (1981), Intransitive verbs and Italian auxiliaries. Doctoral dissertation, M.I.T.

132

BobRigter

Chomsky, N.A. (1981), Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Hinrichs, E. (1981), Temporale anaphora im Englischen. Unpublished Zulassungsarbeit, University of Tübingen. Kamp, H. (1981a), A theory of truth and semantic representation. In: Groenendijk, Janssen & Stokhof (eds.), Formal methods in the study of language. Mathematical Centre Tracts, University of Amsterdam. Reprinted in GRASS vol. 2, Groenendijk, Janssen & Stokhof (eds.), (1984), Truth, interpretation and information. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Kamp, H. (1981b), Evénements, représentations discursives et référence temporelle. In Langages 64. Kamp, H. & Rohrer, C. (1983), Tense in texts. In: Bauerle, Schwarze & von Stechow (eds.), Meaning, use and interpretation of language. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Kayne, R.S. (1984), Connectedness and binary branching. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Partee, B.H. (1984), Temporal and nominal anaphora. In: Linguistics and Philosophy 7. Reichenbach, H. (1947), Elements of symbolic logic. New York: Macmillan. Reuland, E.J. (1983), Government and the search for auxes: a case study in crosslinguistic category identification. In: Heny & Richards (eds.), Linguistic categories: auxiliaries and related puzzles. Vol. I. Dordrecht: Reidel. Rigter, G.H. (1980a), Time diagrams and rules for tense and perfect in English. In: Zonneveld & Weerman (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1977-1979. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Rigter, G.H. (1980b), States, events, and the use of tense and perfect in English. In: Daalder & Gerritsen (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1980. Amsterdam and New York: North-Holland. Rigter, G.H. (1980c), Laying the ghost of times past. In Linguistics 18. Rigter, G.H. (1982), Intensional domains and the use of tense, perfect and modals in English. In: Journal of Semantics 1. Rigter, G.H. (1983), Tense theory and the relation between futurity and non-finiteness in English. In: Bennis & van Lessen Kloeke (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1983. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Rigter, G.H. & Beukema, F.H. (1985), A government and binding approach to English sentence structure. Apeldoorn: van Walraven. Vet, C. (1984), Is there any hope for the 'futur'? In: Bennis & van Lessen Kloeke (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1984. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.

Chapter 6

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French* Co Vet and Arie

0.

Molendijk

INTRODUCTION

In this paper we will discuss some recent proposals by Kamp (1979, 1980, 1981) and by Kamp & Rohrer (1983) for the characterization of the discourse functions of the French imparfait and passé simple/passé composé. In the first section of this paper we will briefly recapitulate the representation Reichenbach (1947) proposes for these tenses. Then we will discuss some points of the proposals by Kamp/Kamp & Rohrer. Although we fully agree with their idea that, very often, the passé simple is used to express progress in narrative texts and that the imparfait sentences mostly introduce a discourse event which includes the most recently introduced passé simple event, we will show that Kamp's hypothesis about the punctual nature of the passé simple events (and hence about their indivisibility) is too strong (Kamp & Rohrer noticed this point too, we will discuss some counter-examples of a different nature). It will be argued that an approach in which events are conceived of as taking place at a space-time region (as proposed by Bartsch (1981, 1983, this volume) for the treatment of aspectual differences between nominalizations) leads to a characterization of the tenses which is intuitively more satisfying. In the last section of this paper it will be shown that the difference between the passé simple and the passé composé can best be characterized in the following way: the passé composé has the property that it can establish an accessibility relationship between the speech situation and a situation which is anterior to the speech situation, whereas the passé simple cannot. This function, it will be shown, can also be assumed by time adverbials. It will be shown too that the imparfait/passé simple distinction does not always involve an aspectual difference (open vs closed

* This article is partially based on papers read by the two authors at the ZWOworkshop 'La pragmatique des temps verbaux/The pragmatics of tense', held at the University of Groningen on 13-14 September 1984. We are grateful to Renate Bartsch, Anne-Marie de Both-Diez, Brigitte Kampers-Manhe, Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Piet Molendijk for their valuable remarks and comments on an earlier version of this paper.

134 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk intervals), but that this depends upon the Aktionsart of the sentence. The anaphoric nature of the imparfait, however, seems to be a permanent feature of this tense (at least in the non-modal uses).

1. THE PAST TENSES OF FRENCH

In this section we will give a brief survey of some recent proposals which account for the differences between the past tenses of French as they are illustrated by the following examples: (1)

a. b. c.

Pierre a vu Marie (passé composé) 'Pierre has seen Marie' Pierre vit Marie (passé simple) 'Pierre saw Marie' Pierre voyait Marie (imparfait) 'Pierre was seeing Marie'

All these examples carry the meaning that the state of affairs 'see (Pierre, Marie)' was true at an interval which lies in the past of the speech point (S). There is one tense, the plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) which expresses that the states of affairs referred to by the sentence lies in the past of an interval which itself is anterior to the speech point, for example: (2)

Pierre savait/sut/a su que Marie avait disparu 'Pierre knew (resp. imparfait/passé simple/passé composé) that Marie had disappeared'

There are two tenses which are capable to express that the state of affairs is posterior to a point in the past: (3)

Pierre savait/sut/a su que Marie allait bientôt disparaître/disparaîtrait bientôt 'Pierre knew (impft, ps, pc) that Marie was going to disappear soon/ would disappear soon'

We will call the future tense in (3a) the 'futur proche du passé' (near future of the past), abbreviated as FproP, and the future of (3b) the 'future of the past' (FUTP) respectively. Note that with the FUTP the order of the discourse event and the speech point is free: (4)

Pierre avait promis qu'il viendrait ajourd'hui/demain/hier/le lendemain, etc. 'Pierre had promised that he would come today/tomorrow/yesterday/ the following day/ etc.'

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

135

The last tense we will deal with is the passé antérieur (anterior past), which appears only in two kinds of context: in a main clause in combination with an adverbial of the kind vite, (quickly), en moins de rien ('in a flash'), etc. or in a subordinated clause introduced by temporal conjunctions such as dès que ('as soon as'), quand ('when'), etc. In the latter case the tense of the main clause has to be a passé simple (cf. also Vet (1980: 91s). For example: (5)

En moins de rien Marie eut. terminé son travail (passé antérieur) 'In a flash Marie had finished her work'

(6)

Quand Marie eut terminé son travail (passé antérieur), elle rentra (PS) 'When Marie had finished her work, she went home'

We will treat the difference between the passé antérieur and the plus-queparfait as well as that between (6) and (7) in section 5. (7)

Quand Pierre entra (ps), Marie sortit (ps) 'When Pierre entered, Marie left'

If we adopt the three points of Reichenbach: S (speech point), E (event point), R(reference point) the different relations expressed by the past tenses of French can be represented as follows: (8)

Jean vit(ps)/voyait (impft) Marie

s

'Jean saw/was seeing Marie' This means that both the passé simple and the imparfait indicate that an event (E) is anterior to the speech point, and that is considered from a point (R) which is simultaneous with E. The difference between the two tenses, according to Reichenbach (1966:291), is that the imparfait is an 'extended tense' (comparable to the progressive form in English), whereas the passé simple is not. The function, then, of the imparfait is to indicate that 'the event covers a certain stretch of time'. This difference is represented by Reichenbach by the schémas of (9a,b): (9)

a.

Jean voyait (impft) Marie E,R S • ' i

b. Jean vit(ps) Marie E,R S 1 i

This view, however, is not correct. First the passé simple can be used in sentences which express a considerable stretch of time, whereas theimparfait in examples of this kind is entirely unacceptable :

136 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk (10) Pendant toute sa vie Jeanne fut (ps)/*était (impft) vertueuse 'During her whole life, Jeanne was virtuous' The difference between the passé simple/simple past on the one hand and the passé compose/present perfect on the other is, according to Reichenbach, that in the latter case the event-in-the-past is regarded from a reference point which coincide with the speech point: (11) Jean a vu Marie (pc) E R,S _ i

i

'Jean has seen Marie' This analysis explains, according to Reichenbach (1966:289), why the present perfect cannot be used in narrative texts. It should be observed, however, that the analysis of (11) is only partially correct for French. The French passé composé can be used in narrative texts, but it can also be used in the same contexts as its English counterpart. This difference is reflected by the fact that the French tense can be combined with adverbials which refer to the speech point just as the English present perfect, but that it can also be combined with adverbials denoting moments or intervals which are anterior to the speech point, which is impossible with the present perfect; compare: (12) a. b. (13) a. b.

Peter has arrived Pierre est arrivé

(now) (maintenant)

*Peter has arrived on 9 September Pierre est arrivé le 9 septembre

The passé composé of (12b) has to be represented as in (11), while for the passé composé of (13b) the analysis has to be the same as the one we proposed for the passé simple in (9b).

2. KAMP AND ROHRER

Although Reichenbach makes some suggestions with respect to the role of the reference point in complex sentences (this is elaborated by Smith (1978) and Hornstein (1977), for example) he does not deal with the function of tenses in texts. Since, in our conception, the difference between imparfait and passé simple/passé composé as well as the notion of reference point can be captured only on the level of a text and not on sen-

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

137

tence level we will discuss here a proposal by Kamp and Rohrer (1983) in which Reichenbach's notion of reference point plays a crucial role and then a proposal by H. Kamp in which the imparfait/passé simple distinction is accounted for by the rules he gives for the construction of Discourse Representation Structures. These constitute an intermediate level between the syntactic level and the model-theoretic interpretation of a text. In both cases the perspective is that of the hearer and not of the speaker. According to Kamp and Rohrpr (1983) the main function of the tense is to give the hearer instructions on how one should interpret the temporal relationships between the states and events a text is about and which is their relationship with the speech point. In 'Tense in texts' the notion of reference point plays an important role in this respect, because the tense of each sentence of a text tells the hearer where he/she has to place it on the time-axis, in other words the tense of the sentence tells him/her on which point he/she has to focus his/her attention. In this respect the tenses (of French) can be classified into two groups: A. those that do not change the position of the reference point; B. those that do. According to Kamp and Rohrer the imparfait, the plus-que-parfait and the future of the past belong to the first category, while the passé simple and the passé composé must be placed into category B. The tenses of group A give the following instructions to the hearer which enable him/her to construct a discourse representation structure of the text: -

-

if the sentence contains a plus-que-parfait the hearer receives the instruction to introduce a new event and to place it before the reference point (which is already present in the preceding text); if the sentence contains a future of the past: maintain the position of the reference point R and introduce a new event e such that R < e ; if the sentence contains an imparfait: maintain the position of the reference point R and introduce a discourse state s such that R C s .

The tenses of group B, the passé simple and the passé composé, give the instruction to move the reference point to the right so that it is posterior to the position on the time-axis it occupied in the preceding sentence (or one of the preceding sentences). In all the cases the reference point is anterior to the speech point t Q . These rules can be illustrated by the following examples:

138 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk (14) a. b.

Pierre entra (ps) ( e j ) . Marie téléphona (ps) ( e j ) ( i ) First sentence:

R

t

e ei

(ii) Second sentence: R

t0

- e — 0 el e2 (15) a. b.

^

Pierre entra (ps) ( e j ) . Marie téléphonait (impft) ( s j ) ( i ) First sentence:

R

tQ

- e e\

(ii) Second sentence: R

t0

^

^ e

l

S1

For an example such as (16) (the example is ours): (16) Le ministre descendit (ps) de l'avion (e j ) . Le voyage avait été (pqp) dur() 'The minister came out of the plane. The journey had been rough' the DRS will be as in (17): (17)

(i)

First sentence:

R

tD

G e

(ii)

Second sentence:

^

•

e e2

^ —

l

R e e

l

tQ

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

139

According to Kamp and Rohrer the future of the past is comparable to the plus-que-parfait, the difference is that Qj w iU be placed posterior to R in (17 ii). In a footnote Kamp and Rohrer (1983:258) observe that the plusque-parfait and the passé antérieur do not have the same function as the following example shows: (18) Cunégonde s'évanouit (ps). Son père avait chassé (pqp)/*eut chassé (pa) Candide du château... 'Cunégonde fainted. Her father had chased-away Candide from the castle' Kamp and Rohrer conclude from examples such as (19): (19) Enfin elle referma (ps) ma porte (ej). Quand elle eut verrouillé (pa) la sienne ('ej), je regagnai (ps), dans le cabinet de toilette, mon poste d'écoute (63). 'Finally she closed again my door. When she had bolted hers (her door), I went back to my listening post, in the toilet' that 'the passé antérieur cannot express anteriority with respect to the reference point which itself lies in the past of the speech point. A sentence in the passé antérieur can denote only an event that is posterior to the reference point'. However, this is not quite exact; in any case it would yield a wrong DRS for the fragment of (19), since Kamp & Rohrer's rules would result in the following representation: (20)

R_

R

O-^O e

l

e

2

*o e

U

—

3

It seems to us that the plus-que-parfait and the passé antérieur (as all the perfect tenses) have in common that they place the event of the sentence before a reference point. The difference is that the plus-que-parfait places the event before a reference point which was already present in the preceding text and that the passé antérieur places it before the (newly) introduced reference point of the main clause which has to contain a ps. The instruction given by a sentence in the passé antérieur has to be something like: (21) If a sentence has the following form: Temporal Conjunction pa-S j , PS-S2, introduce a reference point R, introduce for S j an event e j and place it before R, introduce for So an event e-> so that e 2 = R

140 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk The DRS for the fragment of (19) is as in (22): (22)

R

-e—e e

l

e

2

—* R

R

© e

t0

3

We will come back to this problem in section 5. In other work (Kamp, 1979, 1980, 1981) the imparfait-passé simple distinction is dealt with in a more formal frame-work which differs from the traditional model-theoretic approach in that it introduces an intermediate level of Discourse Representation Structure (DRS) between the syntactic level and the model-theoretic interpretation proper. As in Kamp and Rohrer (1983) the Discourse Representation Structure can be regarded as a mental picture constructed by the hearer in response to the verbal input he/she receives. This mental picture becomes more complete with each new sentence he/she hears. The reason why Kamp introduces this DRS-level is that for a text to be true it is not sufficient that all the sentences of a text be true. Compare for example: (23)

Mary kissed John and closed her eyes

(24)

Mary closed her eyes and kissed John

Even if both sentences of (23) and (24) are true the two fragments do not describe the same reality and cannot be assigned the same truth value. The level of discourse representation is meant (among other things) to account for the temporal relationships between the evens and states a given text is about. The Discourse Representation Structure m of a text t is true with respect to a model M if m can be properly embedded into M. In other words the temporal relationships as described by m have to be identical to those present in the reality described by M. In this paper we will not go into this matter, however, but concentrate on the way in which the temporal relationships expressed by a text can best be represented in a DRS. We will first give an example from Kamp (1981:465) and then discuss some of the difficulties they give rise to. Note first that the rules for the construction of DRS's are not applied to sentences of a text, but to sentences which are syntactically analysed. We disregard this aspect here (see for details, Kamp 1981:59s). The rules introduce into the DRS of a text discourse referents of four types: discourse events (from the set E ^ ) for sentences in the passé simple, etc., discourse states (from the set Sj^) for sentences in the imparfait, discourse times (from the set T ^ ) with n ('now') as a designed member and dis-

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

141

course individuals (from the set V p ) for NP's, proper nouns, etc. Besides these sets the rules make use of a set of conditions (among which the identity relation '=', and the temporal connectors ' « ' ('completely anterior to'), ' 0 ' ('overlap'), etc. For the fragment of (25) the DRS is as in (26): (25)

Pedro entra (ps) dans la cuisine. Marie faisait (impft) la vaisselle. II passa (ps) au salon et alluma (ps) sa pipe. 'Pedro entered the kitchen. Marie was washing the dishes. He went to the living room and lit his pipe'

(26)

Discourse Representation Structure for (25): 1 n

ej

u v s w

e2

x

Pedro entra dans la cuisine u = Pedro v = la cuisine ej « n e| :

Pedro entrer dans la cuisine u entrer dans la cuisine u entrer dans v

Marie faisait la vaisselle w = Marie ej 0 s s:

Marie faire la vaisselle w faire la vaisselle

Il passa au salon e

2 cc n ejoc e2 e2:

Il passer au salon u passer au salon u passer à x x = le salon

y

142 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk Il alluma sa pipe e 3 oc n e 2 a e3 :

il allumer sa pipe u allumer sa pipe u allumer y y = la pipe de lui y = la pipe de u

In (26) the temporal relationships are the same as those that would have been established by the rule proposed in Kamp & Rohrer (1983). The passé simple sentences give rise to a progression in the narrative whereas the imparfait sentences introduce states which overlap an event already introduced. We will discuss here two points which in both approaches (Kamp & Rohrer's and Kamp's) play an important role. The first is the idea that events (as they are reported by the passé simple, etc.) are to be conceived of as being punctual (i.e. they are non-divisible entities, see for example Kamp 1981:48). Much attention is paid to this question in Kamp (1979, 1980, 1981). In Kamp & Rohrer (1983) and Kamp (1981) some counterexamples are given to this punctuality principle: (27)

L'année dernière Jean escalada (ps) le Cervin (e j). Le premier jour il monta (ps) jusqu'à la cabane H. (e2). Il y passa (ps) la nuit (e^). Ensuite il attaqua (ps) la face nord (e^). Douze heures plus tard il arriva (ps) au sommet (e^). 'Last year Jean climbed the Cervin. The first day he climbed to cabin H. He spent the night in it. Next he attacked the north face. Twelve hours later he arrived at the top.'

It is clear that the event which is presented as a whole in the first sentence is split up in a series of smaller events in the following sentences. The second sentence brings us back to the beginning of e ^ and the last sentence describes the end of e j . We think that the adverbials in this fragment play an important role. A second counterexample given by Kamp & Rohrer (1983:260) is: (28)

Marie chanta (ps) ( e j ) et Pierre l'accompagna (ps) au piano (e2). 'Marie sang and Pierre accompanied her at the piano'

The application of the rules for the passé simple (see above) would yield

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143

for (28) an interpretation in which e j is anterior to ^ i n other words Mary would have sung first and then Pierre would have accompanied at the piano. This interpretation is clearly wrong. In (28) both e j and are apparently regarded as parts of one 'superevent' (the performance of a piece of music by Marie and Pierre) which is not referred to in the preceding text. Note that in both counterexamples we are dealing with cases of simultaneity: in (27) the event e j is simultaneous with the series t° in (28) e j and ^ coincide. Strictly speaking there is no progression after the first sentence of both (27) and (28). We have found, however, examples of fragments reported in the passé simple where there is progression and at the same time overlapping of the events. For example: (29)

Nadine s'assit (ps) et lut (ps) la lettre. Elle fut étonnée (ps) de constater que la lettre la touchait (impft) beaucoup. 'Nadine sat down and read the letter. She was surprised to notice that the letter touched her very much'

According to the rules given for the passé simple and the imparfait by Kamp & Rohrer the DRS of (29) would contain the temporal relationship as expressed in (30):

e

l (s'assit)

e

e

S 3 1 (touchait) (fut étonnée)

2 (lut)

but the interpretation of (29) has to be represented as in (31): (31)

Q e

l

(s'assit)

e

2

(lut)

Cjg) N

Sj (fut étonnée)

(touchait)

Another example is the following: (32)

Jean monta (ps) dans sa chambre. Pierre le suivit (ps) 'Jean went to his room. Pierre followed him'

Here too we do not have the interpretation that e j is completely anterior to &2> but that &2 starts somewhere in the middle of e^; at any rate after the beginning and before the end of e j . Both sentences of (32) imply that the event is complete, i.e. they imply that both Jean and Pierre

144 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk have arrived in the room. These examples show, more clearly than (27) and (28), that the hypothesis about the indivisibility of the events cannot be maintained, although it is true that the rules given by Kamp & Rohrer cover the most frequent cases. The reason why in (29) and (32) the 'normal' interpretation is not possible may be of a pragmatic nature. In (29) for example the interpretation may be influenced by the fact the reading of the letter and the noticing of the emotion caused by the reading of the letter are usually simultaneous and not successive in the world we live in. In (32) the explanation might be that the Goal of the action (i.e. the room) is definite. This might imply that Pierre knows where Jean is going so that he can follow him before e j is completed. This would explain why a fragment such as: (33)

Jean monta (ps) dans une chambre. Pierre le suivit (ps) 'Jean went to a room. Pierre followed him'

has as its dominant reading that e j and not overlap but are successive events; Pierre starts to follow Jean after Jean has arrived in the room. Another point we want to discuss here is that in the conception of Kamp/Kamp & Rohrer the states and events have to be regarded as primitives. In our view, however, the description of DRS's would be more insightful if we adopt the proposals which dissociate the event/state and the interval at which it is the case (cf. Bartsch, 1981, 1983, and Vet, 1984). It will be shown that this approach makes it possible to draw a parallel between tenses and pronouns (as far as we know this suggestion was made for the first time by Partee, 1973). The following example may support this view: (34)

Dis quelque chose! cria-t-elle (ps) à son mari. Celui-ci avait systématiquement refusé (pqp) d'ouvrier la bouche. 'Say something! she shouted at her husband who had systematically refused to open his mouth' (=speak)

If events are regarded as primitives, it is impossible to determine where e2 in (34) (avait systématiquement refuse) might begin or stop since it is possible, even plausible that the husband of (34) is not speaking yet at the reference point and perhaps this will continue afterwards. The indignation of the she in (34) has to be understood as being caused by her husband's behaviour as it manifested itself only during a certain interval which lies before the reference point and which ends before this point. This means that we have to take into account the interval here and not the behaviour of the husband which may continue beyond the interval

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

145

(or not). Another point we will be able to solve is that which is illustrated by the following examples: (35)

Le grand-vizir mourut (ps) à l'âge de 88 ans. C'était (impft) un homme très sage qui donnait toute satisfaction, de sorte que... 'The grand-vizier died at the age of 88. He was a very wise man who gave much satisfaction so that....'

(36)

Le grand-vizier mourut (ps) à l'âge de 88 ans. Il pleuvait, (impft) 'The grand-vizier dies at the age of 88. It was raining.'

The state following the event of (35) (mourut, 'died') is not simultaneous with this event as one would expect on the basis of the rules for the imparfait and passé simple. In (36) the interpretation is that it was raining when the grand-vizier died. We will come back to this point in section 4.

3. CONCEPTS AND INTERVALS

The frame-work we adopt here follows the general schema for the interpretation of texts as it was proposed by Kamp (1979, 1981), but in order to solve the problems indicated in the preceding section we will introduce in this frame-work some of the ideas put forward by Bartsch (1981, 1983, this volume). For Kamp the process of interpretation starts with the syntactic analysis of the first sentence of a given text; on the basis of this analysis the discourse referents of this first sentence are introduced in the Discourse Representation Structure and the relationships between them are indicated. Each following sentence of the text is processed in the same way. Finally the DRS of the whole text is embedded in a model M. The text is true if there is a 'proper embedding' of that text in M. This means that the individuals the text is about are the same as that of the domain(s) of the model and that the relationships between them are similar in the DRS and the model M. We will not deal with this aspect of the interpretation here (for further details we refer to Kamp 1979, 1981). The general schema for the interpretation of a text t is as in (37): (37)

A Text t (= an Syntactic analysis ordered set of of S j ...S n sentences: Sj...S n )

B C Construction Modeltheoof the DRS retic interfort pretationof the DRS for t

In our conception each sentence of a text is about a situation in which

146 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk n individuals (possibly zero) are involved. The individuals and the situation are assigned discourse referents in the DRS. For the description of a situation we follow Bartsch (1981, 1983). She defines a situation as an ordered pair Sj = < rj, Cj > where r is a space-time region and C a concept; s: situation. A region r realizes a concept C or the concept C applies to region r if the sentence Here is C is true on the region r and r does not contain any parts which are irrelevant for the truth of Here is C. In this case C is said to be realized on r. C is realized in a region r if r contains a part r' at which C is realized, As a representation of a situation and its region Bartsch (1983:17) gives the following picture: (38)

r:

region

We will use in this paper some other definitions given by Bartsch (1983), for example: -

a situation s is open with respect to concept C for each point p in s there exists a region which includes p, such that this region contains other points which are later/further than p. - a situation s is closed with respect to the concept C C applies to s and s is not open with respect to C. - the notion 'continuation': A situation Sj is a continuation of Sj with respect to concept C ^ f rj C q and Sj = < rj,C >. For a sentence the concept can be defined as the part which remains after modality, tense, location and aspect have been removed from it, for example: (39)

Il pleuvra: FUT [ pleuvoir (0) ] 'It will rain'

(40)

Pierre a écrit une lettre: PC [écrire (Pierre, une lettre) ] 'Pierre has written a letter'

In (39) and (40) the italicized parts are the concepts. PC means 'passé' composé, FUT means 'future'.

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

147

The advantage of this approach is that individuals can also be defined as occupying a part of the universal space-time region. The individual 'Fred', for example, can be thought of as a string of properties, some belonging to the permanent part of it, some only temporarily present in the region. Bartsch (1983, this volume) gives the following (Dutch) example: (41)

Fred was aan het schrijven Fred was at the writing 'Fred was writing'

(41) means that there is a situation Sj such that Sj e S ° c j l r j j v e n and R j ( s j ) CFred, where R j indicates the actor-relationship with respect to Sj: Fred is the actor (agent) of Sj. S ° c j i r j j v e n is the set of situations which are open with respect to the concept of writing: Schrijven >} where Sj is open with respect to the concept 'schrijven' ('write')

The definition of the S of closed situations is as in (42) with the exception that in that case s- is closed with respect to the concept (for example 'write'). Before we give our rules for the construction of DRS's it should be observed that in this approach it is relatively easy to handle the counterexamples given by Kamp and Rohrer (see (27) and (28)). In (27) the climbing of the mountain occupies a space-time region which is subdivided in smaller subregions which all belong to the space-time region occupied by the climbing situation. In (28) the event of music-making can be regarded as a string which can be split up into threads which occupy the same time interval; in the same way it is possible to split up nearly every event into subevents: when one plays the piano one breathes, at the same time, one can look at one's hands, etc.; Bartsch (1983:17) speaks in this case of a 'weak identity' of the situations (i.e. if their regions are identical); one conceptualization (or several conceptualizations) is (are) embeddable into the other. The main function of a conjunction such as quand ('when') might be to indicate that two situations are weakly identical (for example, When he saw me, he became very pale). In the next section we will present the rules for the construction of DRS's.

4. RULES FOR DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION STRUCTURES

In the proposal we formulate in this section for the construction of

148 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk DRS's we will confine ourselves to time intervals ( i ) instead o f dealing with time-space regions. For us a situation is an ordered pair consisting o f an interval and a concept o f an event (or state, process, etc.): (43)

sj

= < ij, ej >

where Sj is a situation, e j some event-concept and ij the interval at which ej applies. Further we introduce into each DRS a situation which very often is not present in the text, but which always determines directly or indirectly the temporal relations in a text, namely the speech situation (cf. the symbole n in ( 2 6 ) ) . The speech situation is a subregion pertaining to the space-time region occupied by the speaker and, but not necessarily, by the hearer

(who may be absent). We represent this situation as: sQ =

< i c , eQ > . I f a c denotes the speaker, then R j (s Q ) C a 0 . We assume too that there are two types of situations, the first type consists of situations whose interval is a constant (and is closed), the other type of situations has a variable as its interval (noted as i Q ). Normally i a is some open interval which has to coincide with a closed interval which is already known from the context. In other words, it must be bound by a constant. We can illustrate this by Kamp's ( 1 9 8 1 ) example given as ( 2 5 ) above an repeated here as (44): (44)

Pedro entra (ps) dans la cuisine. Marie faisait ( i m p f t ) la vaisselle. II passa (ps) au salon et alluma (ps) sa pipe. 'Pedro entered the kitchen. Marie was washing the dishes. He went into the living-room and lit his pipe'

The washing up-event is relevant only at the moment that Pedro entered the kitchen. It might be the case that Marie was already washing the dishes before Pedro entered the kitchen, but the speaker does not provide any information about it. The washing up-event, or at least a part of it, is presented as occupying the same space-time region as that of the entering-event. Compare also the following example: (45)

Marie entra dans la cuisine et passa ensuite au salon. Pedro faisait la vaisselle. II alluma sa pipe. 'Marie entered the kitchen and then went into the living-room. Pedro was washing the dishes. He lit his pipe.'

In ( 4 4 ) it was suggested that Marie was washing the dishes in the kitchen whereas ( 4 5 ) strongly suggest that Pedro is washing the dishes in the livingroom; here the washing up-event is presented as occupying the same interval as that at which Marie entered the living-room. From this

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

149

observation we conclude that the imparfait behaves in the same way as an anaphoric pronoun in that it does not introduce a constant (interval) but a variable which is bound by a constant in the preceding text. For the imparfait this (temporal) antecedent has to be anterior to the speech point: (46) *Marie entrera dans la cuisine. Pedro faisait la vaisselle. 'Marie will enter the kitchen. Pedro was washing the dishes' The examples of (44) and (45) show that the imparfait can be regarded as giving the hearer the instruction to look for an appropriate antecedent for the variable i°\ In (44) and (45) this antecedent was the interval of the nearest passé simple sentence. We formulate the instruction for the imparfait as follows: (47)

h^P^i") = i

condition: i < i c

The instruction which the hearer receives from the passé simple is as follows: introduce (into the DRS) the interval (a constant) of the situation and place it before i 0 and after an interval which is already present in the DRS which has also to be anterior to i 0 . This interval is normally the most recently introduced interval of the DRS. The DRS we propose for the fragment of (44) is as follows: (48) Sentences

Discourse referents Pedro S j : Pedro entra dans la cuisine u la cuisine V Marie w S2: Marie faisait la vaisselle le salon X S3: Il passa au salon la pipe de u S4: (il) alluma sa pipe y

Syntactic analysis PS[Edans (u, v)] IMPFT[Flv (w)] PS[Pà (u, x)] PS[A (u,y)]

Discourse Representation Structure: I Sentences -

1 : PS[Edans (u,v)] S ? : IMPFT [Flv (w)] S 3 : PS[Pà (u, x)] S 4 : PS[A (u, y)]

s

III II Discourse events Temporal referents o = < io> e 0 >

i0

1= < s? = < S 3=< S4 =
i « ,e2 > i3, e 3 > 14, e 4 >

IV Temporal relation-

—

il < io h i m P f t ( i p = il

*4

i 3 < i 0 ;i3 > ij Ì4 < i 0 ; ¡ 4 > Ì3

150 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk where PS: passé simple, IMPFT: imparfait; the e represents the part of the sentence following the tense marker (PS, IMPFT). We will return now to some of the examples we discussed above. Let us first consider (35) repeated and analyzed in (49): (49)

S j : Le grand-vizier mourut à l'âge de 88 ans; u = le grand-vizier; PS[M(u)] 'The grand-vizier died at the age of 88. S2: C'était un homme très sage; IMPFT [très-sage (u)] 'He was a very wise man' S3: qui donnait toute satisfaction; IMPFT [Ds (u)] 'Who gave much satisfaction'

The DRS for (49) is as in: (50) I: Sentences:

III: II: Discourse Events Temporal referents s0 = < i 0 , e 0 >

iG

S , : PS[M (u)]

s

l

S ? : IMPFT [très-sage (u)]

s

2=

< i

2'e2>

~

s

3=

'l

il < iQ (u < i 0 ) h 0 5 ) = il h( i 2) = u h(i§) = i j h(i§) = u

Theoretically the antecedent for the interval and ¡3 has to be i j. However at i j the individual u (le grand-vizier) does not exist any longer so that sentence 2 cannot be understood as predicating something of u at i j . This forces the hearer to look for another antecedent for ¡2 and i 3 ; the only antecedent which remains is the individual u, which by the event described in S j occupies a region which is anterior to iD so that it is appropriate as an antecedent for the imparfait-interval. It might be tempting to analyse the example of (51) in the same way: (51)

On arracha (ps) le ministre de son lit. (ej) Il incitait (impft) le peuple à la révolte ^ 2 )

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

151

'They lifted the minister from his bed. He incited the people to revolt' In this example it is highly unlikely that the minister is inciting the people to revolt while he is lying in his bed (though not totally impossible if he uses a transmitter). But here the dominant reading is that the minister used to incite the people to revolt. In this case one generalizes over a number of occasions so that the event has become a property of the minister (note that the form incitait (impft) can mean both 'was inciting' and 'used to incite'). In (51) the minister's habit of inciting the people to revolt, which is also a property of the minister when he is not inciting the people to revolt, is true at i a and this i a is bound by the interval of e j . The difference between (49) and (51) is that the space-time region occupied by the minister does not necessarily lie before the speech point so that it cannot be used as an antecedent for the imparfait-interval (at least according to our rules).

5.

THE TWO PAST PERFECTS, THE FUTURE OF THE PAST AND THE NOTION OF REFERENCE POINT.

In this section we will propose rules for the interpretation of the plusque-parfait, the passé anterieur, the two pluperfects of French, and for the future of the past. Let us first consider the following fragment: (52)

S j : Le ministre descendit de l'avoin, u = le ministre; v = l'avion PS [Dde (u, v)] 'The minister came out of the plane' S 2 : Il était fatigué. IMPFT[F (u)] 'He was tired' S3: Le voyage avait été dur, w = le voyage. PQP [D (w)] 'The j ourney had been rough' S4: Il considéra la situation, x = la situation PS[C(u, x)] 'He considered the situation' S^: Il serait difficile de convaincre ses adversaires politiques, y = the political opponents of u; FUTP [DdeC (y)] 'It would be difficult to convince his political opponents' Sg: Il se dirigea vers la sortie, z = la sortie; PS [Dvers (u, z)] 'He made his way towards the exit'

For this fragment we propose the following DRS:

152 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk (53)

II

I

Sentences

III

IV

Discourse events Temporal referents

so

= < i0o>' e o >

o

s1 = < i

S2: IMPFT[F (u)]

s2 =


-

S3:PQP[D(W)]

S3 = < i 3 , E 3 >

I3

i

S 4 : PS [C (u, x ) ]

s4 = < i4, e 4 >

i4 [R2]

% > i

1

>

relationships

S j : PS D d e [ ( u , v ) ]

1

,e

Temporal

ij [Rj]

S 5 : F U T P D d e C ( y ) s5 = < i 5 , e 5 >

i5

S 6 : PS Dvers (u, z )

i6 [

s6 = < i 6 , e 6 >

ij < i

o

himpft(i«) =

R 3

]

3

< i

^

l 3

* i 6 > *5 ( i 6 > 14)

The starred interpretations in ( 5 3 ) are those which would have been automatically assigned to the sentences S 4 and Sg if the rules we proposed are applied. For Sg this wrong interpretation could eventually be blocked since under I V it is not stipulated that i j lies before i 0 (which is the condition f o r the application o f the passé simple-rule: the preceding interval has t o be anterior t o i 0 ) . However, f o r S 4 this solution cannot be adopted since f r o m the fact that i j is anterior to iQ and i 3 is anterior to i j it can be deduced that i 3 is also anterior to i 0 , so that it satisfies the condition that the passé-simple-interval, here i 4 , can be placed posterior to it. It seems to us that the best solution to solve this problem is to introduce the notion o f reference point into the D R S ' s as was also proposed in Kamp & Rohrer ( 1 9 8 3 ) . The general rule seems t o be then that in texts such as ( 5 2 ) only the intervals introduced by passé simplesentences serve as reference points ( w e have indicated them in square brackets in ( 5 3 ) ) . We regard these points as evaluation points, that means that the truth o f sentence S 3 , f o r example, can be defined as f o l l o w s : S 3 is true at R j ( = i j ) i f f there is an interval ( = i 4 ) before R j at which D ( w ) is true. The truth o f S5 is then as f o l l o w s : S5 is true at R 2 ( = i 4 ) i f f there is an interval (i^ in ( 5 3 ) ) which is posterior to R 2 and at which DdeC ( y ) is true. I f , in the D R S o f ( 5 3 ) , we replace under I I I i j , i 4 , ig by R j , R 2 and R 3 respectively, we can stipulate f o r the rules which establish the temporal relationships under I V that they take into account only those intervals which are reference points. N o t e that this is also true (generally) f o r the instruction h ™ ?

, this instruction has to look f o r

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

153

appropriate reference points under III and not for normal intervals. This means that the passé simple sentences constitute the temporal backbone of narrative texts like (53). All the other situations are situated with respect to the intervals they occupy. Finally we will indicate what seems to us the main difference between the plus-que-parfait and the passé antérieur (pa) (cf. also (22) above). Morphologically these tenses are the perfective forms corresponding to the imparfait and the passé simple (avoir ('have') + imparfait + past participle and 'avoir' + passé simple + past participle). Their discourse functions differ in the same way as those of their non-perfect counterparts. Consider for example the following fragments: (54)

Pierre monta (ps) dans sa chambre (s^). En moins de rien il eut terminé (pa) son travail (s2). Il était (impft) content (s^). 'Pierre went to his room. In a flash he had finished his work. He was glad'

(55)

Marie monta (ps) dans sa chambre (sj). Elle avait terminé (pqp) son travail en très peu de temps (S2) Elle était (impft) contente (»3)'Marie went to her room. She had finished her work in a very short time. She was glad.'

The temporal structure of these fragments can be represented as in (56) and (57) respectively: (56)

[Rj]

[R2]

J S

1

_ s

L s

2

(57)

^

3

[RlJ 1

s2

Sj s

3

We conclude from this that the passé antérieur gives the instruction to introduce a new reference point into the DRS ([R 2 ]) in (56)) and to place the event (s 2 ) referred to by the sentence before this reference point. The function of the plus-que-parfait is, as we have seen (cf. (52)), to place an event (s 2 ) before a reference point which was already present in the DRS (in 57) this was the reference point introduced by the first

154 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk sentence of (55), R j ) . Thus, the passé simple and the passé antérieur have in common that they introduce a new reference point in the DRS. The passé antérieur and the plus-que-parfait have in common with the other perfective tenses that they place the event before a reference point. The difference between (6) and (7), repeated here as (58) and (59), can easily be explained: (58)

Quand Marie eut terminé (pa) son travail (s j), elle rentra (ps) (S2) 'When Marie had finished her work, she went home'

(59)

Quand Pierre entra (ps) (sj), Marie sortit (ps) (S2) 'When Pierre entered, Marie left'

In both (58) and (59) there is a succession of the two events referred to by the sentences, but in (59) the two events coincide with the reference points introduced by the sentences, while in (58) the event of the quandsentence is placed before the reference point introduced by this sentence : (60)

a.

(=58) [Rll

S

[R 2 ]

s

1

2

(=59)

6.

[Rll

[R 2 ] 1

S

s

1

2

ACCESSIBILITY

In this section we will examine another difference between the imparfait, the passé composé and the passé simple. Let us imagine a situation in which two persons, A and B, are leaving a pub and that the two persons are supposed not to have had any conversation before. Seeing that the street is wet, A says the following sentence to B: (61)

On dirait qu'il a plu (pc) 'One would say that it has rained' 'It seems to have rained'

The important point is that in this speech situation the imparfait nor the passé simple can be used in sentence (61):

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French (62)

* 0 n dirait qu'il pleuvait (impft)

(63)

* 0 n dirait qu'il plut (ps)

155

The inacceptability of the imparfait sentence can be explained by the fact that there is no appropriate antecedent in the context, the only temporal referent, iD, cannot bind the variable interval of this sentence. This explanation cannot be given for the unacceptability of (63) since it was assumed that the interval introduced by passé simple sentences is not a variable, but a constant. Another example illustrating the same difference is the following: (64)

(65)

Pierre croit que l'avion s'est écrasé (pc) 'Peter believes that the plane has crashed' *Pierre croit que l'avion s'écrasa 'Pierre believes that the plane crashed'

In order to account for these differences we will use the notion of 'relationship of accessibility' (noted Q). This relationship is established by the speaker on the basis of a rule of inference: from what the speaker observes in the speech situation sQ = < i 0 , eD > , he/she infers that there exists a situation s' = < i', e' > anterior to s 0 : the street is wet at iG

(premise)

it rains at i' (i* < i 0 )

(conclusion

From the unacceptability of (63) and (65) we conclude that, given the situation sQ = < i Q , eG > , the passé simple cannot establish a relationship of accessibility between sQ and a past situation s p = < 'p' e p > ( w here ip < i Q ), where as the passé composé can (sQ Q s ). Consequently, in the DRS's for fragments like (61) the column IV has to contain for the passé composé, not only the indication that the interval of the event lies before s Q , but also that it relates the two situations with the help of Q; for (61) this gives the following DRS:

(66) I

(Sentences)

S j : ON-DIRAIT PC (pleuvoir (0)

II

III

s 0 = < 'io>0 , e 0 >

lo

s1 = < i 1 , e 1 >

i

IV

156 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk Our examples show that the well-formedness of a text can depend on this capacity of tenses.2 Time adverbials seem to be able to establish accessibility relationships of a different kind. In the fragment of (27), for example the adverbials le premier jour, ensuite, and douze heures plus tard establish an accessibility relationship with the different subregions of the region which is occupied by the climbing of the Cervin described in the first sentence. If the adverbials are omitted in a text like (27), we can still construct some of the chronological order of the events because of the meaning of the verbs (we know that arriving at the top does not occur in the beginning of a climbing event), but the fragment becomes less acceptable. In a more neutral context, however, the chronological order cannot be established without the help of time adverbials. Kamp & Rohrer (1983) give the following example: (67)

L'été de cette année-là vit (ps) plusieurs changements dans la vie de notre héros. François épousa (ps) Adèle. Jean-Louis partit (ps) pour le Brésil et Paul s'acheta (ps) une maison à la campagne. 'The summer of that year saw several changes in the life of our hero. François married Adèle. Jean-Louis left for Brasil and Paul bought a house in the country'

This fragment does not provide any information about the chronology of the subregions occupied by the events of sentences following the first one. In our conception this is caused by the fact that there are no time adverbials which are capable to establish the accessibility relationship between the first event (situation) and the following situations. This explains why they are presented in (67) as an unordered set. Another point that should be noted here concerns the use of the imparfait in sentences such as (68) and (69) (from de Both-Diez & Molendijk (1980)): (68)

Tout le monde entra (ps) ( s j ); le ministre arrivait (impft) (S2) 'Everybody entered; the minister was going to arrive/was arriving'

(69)

Il lut (ps) la lettre (sj) et sortit (ps) de chez lui (S2). Deux heures plus tard, il arrivait (impft) chez son oncle (sg) 'He read the letter and left his house. Two hours later, he arrived at his uncle's house'

In (68) the interval of the ps-sentence is the antecedent of the imparfaitinterval so that S2 partially coincides with Sj. In (69), however, this is not the case: here the time adverbial provides a reference point for

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

157

the imparfait-situation S3 and establishes a posteriority relationship between S2 and S3. Thus in (68) the two events overlap, whereas in (69) the third situation comes after the second. Very often the imparfait sentences introduce in this manner the last event of a series described for the rest by passé simple sentences. This use of the imparfait is called 'imparfait pittoresque' by French grammarians and was usually regarded as rather exceptional. Our impression is that this use has become quite frequent. Finally it should be noted here that if one returns in time a very limited group of adverbials can be used as an antecedent for the imparfait-interval. Compare for example: (70)

M. Bardet décida (ps) d'accepter la proposition. Trois jours auparavant ce même Bardet émettait (impft) l'opinion que... 'Mr. Bardet decided to accept the proposal. Three days before the same Bardet expressed the opinion that...'

Only the type of adverbials with the meaning 'x time units before y/x time units ago' can be used in this case whereas the type à 8 heures ('at eight o'clock') can only be used to express progress or in cases such as the following: (71)

A huit heures il lisait son journal 'At eight o'clock he was reading his paper'

This kind of sentences presuppose the following context: (72)

Qu'est-ce qu'il faisait à huit heures? - Il lisait son journal 'What was he doing at eight o'clock? - He wâs reading his paper.'

Here the time adverbial was already present in the context and does not give access to a new situation, whereas the time adverbials in (69) and (70) do.

CONCLUSION

In this paper it was argued that Kamp's hypothesis with respect to the indivisibility of passé simple events is too strong. It was argued next that an approach in which an event is conceived of as a concept which applies to a space-time region may be preferred since the counter-examples to Kamp's hypothesis can be dealt with in a more satisfactory way. We argued further that the situations described by imparfait sentences

158 Co Vet and Arie Molendijk (Kamp's discourse states) can best be regarded as an ordered pair in which the interval is a variable which has to be bound by an antecedent in the preceding text. The construction of Discourse Representation Structures for a text containing sentences with the plus-que-parfait and/or the future of the past turned out to give rise to some problems. We proposed to solve them by introducing into the DRS's the notion of reference point (or evaluation point). It was shown that the problems disappear if the intervals introduced in the DRS by passé simple-sentences are given the status of reference point and if the intervals of the past future and plus-que-parfait sentences are not given this status. Finally we have shown that there is another difference between the passé composé and the passé simple which cannot be described by means of the relations of anteriority, simultaneity or posteriority. It was shown that the passé composé is capable to establish an accessibility relationship between the speech situation and some situation which is anterior to it. Temporal adverbials (in Topic position) can also have this function. In this paper we have not dealt with aspect (or at least only in a very allusive way). This might surprise since the passé simple/imparfait distinction has been very often regarded as aspectual: the imparfait events occupy an open interval and the passé simple events a closed interval. We have seen in (69) that this is not always true in the sense that in this example the event is presented as being completed, whereas in (68) this was not the case. Consider also the following examples in which both events are presented as punctual and completed: (73)

Il y a cent ans naissait (impft) Franz Kafka A hundred years ago was born Franz Kafka 'Franz Kafka was born a hundred years ago'

(74)

Franz Kafka naquit (ps) il y a cent ans 'Franz Kafka was born a hundred years ago'

Our conclusion is that the openness of the interval is not a permanent feature of the imparfait situations, but rather that it is determined, at least partially, by the Aktionsart of the sentence (momentaneous in (69) and (73)) and by the predicative structure of the sentence. In (69) and (73) the imparfait-sentence predicates something of the moment referred to by the adverbial (deux heures plus tard and il y a cent ans respectively), whereas in (74) it is the time adverbial which predicates something of the event itself. University

of

Groningen

The Discourse Functions of the Past Tenses of French

159

NOTES 1. We have corrected in (26) some printing errors of the original text. 2. Elsewhere (Vet, 1984) it has been shown that the analytic futur proche (alter 'go' + infinitive) establishes an accessibility relationship between s and a situation posterior to s , whereas the futur simple of French cannot establish such a relationship.

REFERENCES Bartsch, R. (1981), 'Semantics and syntax of nominalizations' In: J. Groenendijk, T. Janssen and M. Stokhof (eds.), Formal methods in the Study of language, Amsterdam: Mathematisch Centrum. Bartsch, R. (1983), 'Over de semantiek van nominalisaties' In: Glot 6, p.1-29. Both-Diez, A. de & A. Molendijk (1980), L'imparfait et le passé simple: regard sur deux frères ennemis, University of Groningen, French Department. Hopper, P.J. (ed.)(1982), Tense-Aspect: between semantics and pragmatics, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hornstein, N. (1977), 'Towards a theory of tense', Linguistic Inquiry 8, p.521-557. Kamp, H. (1979), 'Events, instants and temporal reference', In: Bäurle, U. Egli and A. von Stechow (eds.), Semantics from different points of view, Berlin, etc.: Springer Verlag, p. 376-418. Kamp, H. (1980), 'Some remarks on the logic of change, Part I', In: Chr. Rohrer (ed), Time, tense and quantifiers, Tübingen, p. 135-179. Kamp, H. (1981), 'Evénements, représentations discursives et référence temporelle', Langages no. 64, p.39-64. Kamp, H. & C. Rohrer (1983), 'Tense in texts', in: R. Bäurle, C. Schwarze & A. von Stechow (eds.), Meaning, use, and interpretation of language, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, p.250-269. Molendijk, A. (1984), 'Knowledge of the world and temporality in French: a Reichenbachian approach', in: H. Bennis & W.U.S. van Lessen Kloeke (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1984, Dordrecht: Foris. Partee, B. (1973), 'Some structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English', Journal of Philosophy 70, p.601-609. Reichenbach, H. (1966) (orig. 1947), Elements of symbolic logic, New York/London: The Free Press. Rigter, B. (1983), 'Tense theory and the relation between futurity and non-finiteness in English', in: H. Bennis & W.U.S. van Lessen Kloeke (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1983, Dordrecht: Foris, p.169-179. Smith, C.S. (1978), 'The syntax and interpretation of temporal expressions in English', Linguistics and Philosophy 2, p.43-100. Vet, C. (1980), Temps, aspects et adverbes de temps en français contemporain, Geneva: Droz. Vet, C. (1981), 'La notion de 'monde possible' et le système temporel et aspectuel du français', Langages no. 64, p.109-124. Vet, C. (1984), 'Is there any hope for the 'futur'?', In: H. Bennis & W.U.S. van Lessen Kloeke (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1984, Dordrecht: Foris.

Chapter 7

Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes* Frans

Houweling

1. ASPECT, AKTIONSART, AUTONOMY

1.1. The words 'aspect' and 'Aktionsart', by now, each have many different meanings. As far as aspect is concerned, I will keep to Jacobson (1957): thus, by aspect I mean the representation of a fact as either accomplished (perfective aspect) or not accomplished (imperfective aspect). In Italian, the tenses called 'passato remoto' and 'imperfetto' are instruments designed to represent a fact as, respectively, accomplished and not accomplished. What we have here is a subjective representation that stresses, in the case of perfective aspect, the fact 'having been accomplished' and, in the case of imperfect aspect, the fact 'going on' or 'being present'. Thus, the sentences (1)

Ho scritto una lettera PP 'I have written a letter'

and (2)

Stavi scrivendo una lettera? Im 'Were your writing a letter?'

differ in aspect: perfective in (1), imperfective in (2). Aktionsart bears essentially upon the duration of a fact, upon its objective duration. In Vendler (1967), Mourelatos (1978), Lyons (1978) we find attempts to divide the verbs (or the types of predications) in various classes of Aktionsarten, whereby both syntactic criteria play a role (for example, a certain class of predications does not admit certain types of quantification: Ho * I would like to thank V. Lo Cascio, M. Nespor, C. Rohrer, M. Scorretti and P. Vaz Nunes for their help, comments, and criticism. Of course the responsibility for all that is said is entirely the author's.

162 Frans Houweling scritto per due settimane ('I wrote for two weeks') - *Ho scritto una lettera per due settimane ('I wrote a letter for two weeks')) and logical criteria (for example, if I am speaking and I stop, I have spoken - if I am writing a letter and I stop, I have not written a letter). In essence, these classifications regard facts or, at most, predications, rather than verbs. Subcategorization of the verbs in the lexicon in accordance with the Aktionsarten which they can be used to describe surely is necessary; we should bear in mind, however, that we are not dealing with some kind of 'lexical aspect' 1 , as many different syntactic factors are involved, like the nature of the object (Ho scritto delle lettere per due settimane 'I wrote letters for two weeks') and negation (Non ho scritto una lettera per due settimane 'I have not written a letter for two weeks'). 2 In short, Aktionsart is objective whereas aspect is subjective. Aktionsart belongs to the atemporal predication ('write' - 'write a letter'); aspect is expressed always and exclusively together with the temporal information (see (1) and (2)). 1.2. The perpetual co-occurrence of tense and aspect, then, is the most obvious fact to be taken into consideration. The passato prossimo and passato remoto tenses always express perfective aspect; the imperfetto tense and the stare + gerundio form always express imperfective aspect 3 ; the stare + gerundio form is never used in the passato remoto tense or in the passato prossimo tense. It is of course to be expected that instruments designed to express one type of aspect should not be used to express another type instead; but why, for example, should we never find the phrases (3)

v

Ieri sera andavo al cinema 4 Im 'Yesterday evening I went to the cinema'

and (4)

v

Mi sto facendo la barba 5

P P and for the futuro semplice Y = X > P. Examples of the deictic use of Pr and FS are: (25)

Adesso mi fumo una sigaretta Pr 'Now I am going to have a cigarette'

(26)

Fra poco andrò militare RS 'In a while I will be conscripted'.

Examples of the anaphoric use:

173

Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes (27)

Quando torni dormo senz'altro 17 Pr Pr 'When you come back I will surely be asleep'

(28)

Dormirò quando Paolo arriverà FS FS 'I will be asleep when Paolo comes back'.

Not classifyable because of its atemporal character is the use of Pr in 'general truths' as (29)

Bicarbonate is soluble 18 .

In summary, a 'complete' classification of italian TMs would be: deictic TMs passato remoto passato prossimo presente futuro semplice

anaphoric TMs X < P imperfetto X < P presente X>? futuro semplice X>P trapassato remoto trapassato prossimo futuro anteriore

Y=X

P > 'puri' Y=X> P ) Y< X< P \ Y < X < P > 'hybrid' X> Y> P ;

To this classification the gerund, the past participle and the form 'stare + gerund' need to be added as instruments of anaphora. 3. INTERPRETING TENSE MORPHEMES

3.1. Having a classification of TMs at our disposal, it is possible to give some sort of 'strategy' for the interpretation of the TMs in discourse. This strategy would consist, roughly, of searching for the (ultimate) antecedent of every anaphoric TM (from now on: TMan). Let us consider McCawley's remarks (see section 1.3) again: as for pronouns, for TMs, too, the relation with their antecedent is subject to Langacker's constraint. Using Reinhart's (1976) leformulation of this constraint one should be able to say: (30)

Two TMs of which one is c-commanded* by the other can be coreferential only if the c-commanded TM is a TMan. *Node A c-commands node B if A nor B dominates the other and the first branching node that dominates A dominates B.

174 Frans Houweling The following examples point in that direction: (31 a)

Mario chiamò la ragazza che ballava con lui PR Im 'Mario called the girl who was dancing with him'

(31 b) Mario chiamò la ragazza che ballò con lui PR PR 'Mario called the girl who (then) danced with him' (32a)

Un ciclista che faceva il giro d'Italia fu eletto Mr. Muscolo Im PR 'A cyclist who participated in the 'giro d'Italia' was elected Mr. Muscle

(32b) Un ciclista che fece il giro d'Italia fu eletto Mr. Muscolo PR PR 'A cyclist who (once) participated in the 'giro' was elected MJ Muscle. Their (simplified) phrase-markers are: (31c)

S S

COMP che

S N

INFL

A

| + PAST

V

ballacon lui

Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes

175

(32c)

INFL

+ PAST

+ PAST

esseeleggeMr. Muscolo

fa- il giro d'Italia

In these structures the upper T (tense) node c-commands 19 the lower one. As predicted by (30) we find coreference only when the lower T node contains a TMan ((31a) (32a)), while in the other case ((31b) (32b)) the events are interpretable only as subsequent 2 0 . Note that in (32a) the antecedent does not precede the TMan; and note that in (31b) as well as in (32b) the order of events is not dictated by the c-command relation but by the linear order of the constituents. 3.2. Rule (30), however, immediately appears to be contradicted by the facts. In sentences with quando ('when') 2 1 , like (33)

Paolo dormiva quando Mario entró Im PR 'Paolo was sleeping when Mario entered'

which should probably be analyzed as follows: (33a) N

INFL T

Paolo + PAST dormido

Mario

entra+PAST

176 Frans Hou weling the relation between the two T (or INFL) nodes is the same as the one between the two N nodes; yet INFL and N differ in their use of anaphora. Consider (34) - (38), in which the italicized elements are coreferent and in which # indicates the impossibility to interpret them as such: (34)

Mario fell asleep while he watched tv

(35)

# He fell asleep while Mario watched tv

(36)

Mario ran to the phone when he entered

(37)

# He ran to the phone when Mario entered

(38)

Mario was sleeping when he died.

In (35) and (37) coreference between the two subjects is blocked by Reinhart's constraint: Mario is c-commanded by the pronoun. Likewise, (38) Mario stava dormendo quando mori, would be odd in an interim PR pretation in which DIE is coreferent (coinciding) with SLEEP: the deictic TM is c-commanded by the TMan. Instead, (38) is a perfect sentence. 23 3.3. As Reinhart (1976) notes, prepostional phrases of the sentential type usually contain given information. In (38), in fact, this is the case: the most appropriate answer to the question (38a) Was Mario sleeping when he died? is - no, he was reading and not - ? no, when he had his first attack. (38) can be paraphrased as: "At the moment of his death, Mario was sleeping". In other sentences, the prepositional phrases may contain new information, e.g. (39)

Stavo fumando una sigaretta quando (improwisamente) Im entro Paolo PR 'I was smoking a cigarette when (suddenly) Paolo entered'.

While (38) is synonymous with

Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes

111

(38b) Quando mori, Mario stava dormendo PR Im 'When he died, Mario was sleeping' (39) is not synonymous with (39b) ? Quando (improwisamente) entro Paolo, stavo fumando una PR Im sigaretta 'When (suddenly) Paolo entered, I was smoking a cigarette'. Reinhart has pointed out that if a prepositional phrase contains new information, it is likely to be part of the verb phrase. If this is the case, that is, if the structures of (38) and (39) are, respectively:

then the prepositional phrase is in the domain of elements whithin V only in the (38) case. In fact Reinhart's constaint blocks coreference only in (39c): (38c) Lo stavo prorio guardando quando Mario mori 'I was just looking at him when Mario died' (39c) #Lo stavo proprio pensando quando (improwisamente) 'I was just thinking of him when (suddenly) Mario entered'. In (38) a deictic TM (PR) is used to narrate an event that is not new, in the sense that the event Ey; MARIO DIE has already been introduced in the discourse: time Y of Ey has been identified deictically. And yet the repetition of the event does not serve to characterize the world structure at some moment X, but to signal that event E z : MARIO SLEEP is narrated to characterize the world structure at moment Y. Repetition, then, is the only way to give elucidations about the world structure at a moment that is not the final one: in fact, as we have seen, every new event wipes out every preceding R. The fact remains that we do not find cases like (38) (in which the

178

Frans

Houweling

deictic element is c-commanded by the anaphoric element and not vice versa) in relations between nouns. We must conclude, then, the rule ( 3 0 ) is not correct. 3.4. In order to characterize tense in Italian, it seems useful to have, besides the three categories past, present and future, two types of features: ± anaphoric and ± anterior. The trapassato prossimo (TP) tense, for example, can be characterized by "past, + anaphoric, + anterior"; note that only + anaphoric tenses are sensitive to ± anterior. As outlined above, the presente and futuro semplice tenses are unmarked for anaphora. It would thus seem superfluous to have two types of affixes at our disposal for both tenses. However, I think that in a sentence like (40)

Un g i o m o tu arriverai e io staro con un altro FS FS 'One day y o u will arrive and I will have another lover'

the semantic component needs a 'marker' for interpreting Ey as coinciding with E x . In McCawley we read: "treating tenses as some kind of pronoun allows one to avoid having to set up two different 'and'-s one symmetric and the other asymmetric (= 'and then'). Note that especially in narratives one may get several consecutive sentences or clauscs which all contain past tenses but which refer not to simultaneous events but to consecutive events, each past tense referring to a time shortly after that which the preceding past tense referred to. I : or example, in (68), t 2 contains an implicit time reference to t, ('shortly after t , ' ) and t , contains an implicit reference to t 2 ('shortly after t 2 ') (68)

The Lone Ranger broke t , the window with the barrel of hisgun, took t 2 aim, and pulled tJ the trigger.

If we in fact say that t, is the antecedent of t 2 and that t, is the antecedent of t 3 , then Langacker's constraint explains why (68) is not equivalent to (69). (69)

The Lone Ranger pulled the trigger, took aim, and broke the the window with the barrel of his gun.

In a coordinate structure, pronouns cannot be commanded by their antecedents and therefore must be preceded by them. Hence t, must precede t, if it is to be its antecedent." 24 Apart from the fact that McCawley clearly refers to a type of anaphora

Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes

179

that differs from the one under discussion, and apart from the fact that, as Reinhart (1976) has pointed out, in a coordinate structure coreference options should be free (that is antecedent of t 2 can be but need not be t a ) , the feature + anaphoric precisely resolves the problem of the two 'and's. In (40), starò is composed of I FUT [aff] +an

sta-

and thus contains a 'symmetric' and; in (41)

Un giorno tu arriverai ed io ti picchierò FS FS 'One day you will arrive and I will hit you'

picchierò is composed of FUT [aff] -an

V

I

picchia-

and thus contains an 'asymmetric' and (in the sense that X of E x and Y of Ey are not coreferent). 3.5.1 will now try to outline a formal strategy that permits us to situate the events and the states of a discourse along the time axis. In doing so, I will in any case need the notions event and state, coreference in the sense of 'coinciding in time', and (deictic) TMs and (anaphoric) TMans. I think the following instructions sum up more or less accurately what has been said until now:

180 Frans Houweling

& XS -3 x M s H X

X c X60

w ü « '-5 g .S >, ~ ™ -O

•o CO

•s 5 U C8 .-Ö i S.s

u+ oa CA c o •4•H-» OTT .5 5 *o c^ o» i/i C«_| c O I £ e e y S i ^ y o O— a E äs

i—i y co aa

zH

CO X U .

00 S > X s u- u. t. U. H h S % S s s M < ) Tf ^ i N r o ^ ^ s o r o o o N O f T , f t , [t . [t , fT , [t | , [t , fi, L U. U. X U. U.

186 Frans Houweling This strategy surely cannot solve all the problems raised by a simple page of text. Consider a few major ones: SI2 is introduced as coinciding with E6, and as such could be retranslated as "Mentre mio padre (. ..) non si rendeva conto (. . .), Fadigati 'While my father was not aware Fadigati si volse ( . . . ) " turned towards.. .', which is obviously incorrect. But a coincidence with E l 3 cannot solve this problem either. SI2 neither belongs to E6 nor to E13 in a temporal sense. The information about the world structure (at time 2 as at 6 as at 13) is, in this case, of a causal nature, not very well analyzable as a state. In some ways the clause that corresponds to S12 is more 'out' of the story than the other ones. E29/S29 is introduced, by B1.2 and CI.2, at the wrong place. I have considered the option CI.1 to be impossible to prevent E29 and S29 from being set apart from one another, but it seems clear that we need an instruction B0.1 analogous to C l . l : E29 should be introduced in relation to time 30 of E30, of which the corresponding clause in the text has a deictic TM that c-commands the TMan of the clause that corresponds to E29; at this point one can follow CI .1 too. 4.2. The construction of a map of events corresponds to one of the steps of semantic interpretation: the introduction of elements in a 'coreference table' 28 . The semantic component, when it encounters a TMan, begins searching for its antecedent inside the same phrase marker; in its absence, it will look whether coreference with the last (or in the text, the 'closest on the left side') hybrid TMan makes interpretation of the facts possible; finally, the semantic component will introduce the TMan as coreferent with the (deictic) TM introduced last. The information coming from temporal adverbs and from the Aktionsart of verbs, combined with the information coming from the coreference table should be sufficient to a quite precise report of the temporal nets in a discourse. An interpretative description of this type would seem to me much more elegant than the 'generativist' descriptions of McCawley himself and, more recently, of Rigter (1980a: 1980b). According to the latter tense is realized by means of a combination of deep verbs, one of which always indicates a Reichenbach-type reference point and another the distance between R and time X of event E x . These analyses, apart from the complexity of phrase markers and transformations involved, still seem unfit to tell in which cases, in discourse, the reference points {Focusses in Rigter) are to be interpreted as coinciding. 4.3. That anaphora are bound to play a role in tense seemed clear right

Deictic

and Anaphoric

Tense

Morphemes

187

from the start o f this paper: without anaphoric relations the text simply does not exist. What I have tried here is to see how temporal anaphoric relations function in the text, in comparison with relations between nouns. I was forced to conclude that at least where the c-command rule is concerned, temporal anaphora differ from nominal anaphora; not enough, though, to reject the idea o f using the anaphora-deixis opposition in the description o f tense. At least the division of TMs seems useful to me, and I am convinced that it is precisely in terms of anaphora and deixis that an understanding of the phenomenon aspect is to be found. Above all I hope to have demonstrated that the notion 'reference point' belongs to the text and not to the sentence.

Amsterdam

NOTES 1. as, instead, Van Rhijn-Tax (1973: 18-19) upholds. 2. see on this subject Verkuyl (1972). 3. it seems legitimate to me to leave out of consideration some 'periphericaT uses of the imperfetto, in which, on the contrary, it expresses perfective aspect. For a list of examples see Piva (1975: 489); for the so-called 'historical imperfect' see Bertinetto (1980). 4. I use v instead of * or ? because we are dealing with sentences that the grammar produces but that cannot be used outside a certain type of linguistic or situational context. In (3): ... quando ho incontrato Mario 'when I met Mario'. 5. It is curious that the linguistic context required by (4), that is the question Che cosa stai facendo? "What are you doing?' can on the contrary be autonomous. 6. see on this subject Coseriu (1976: 143). 7. McCawley (1971: 110). Note that McCawley does not speak of 'imperfective' tenses, but of tense in general. 8. I do not, and will not, make any reference to the term 'anaphor' as used in GB theory (Chomsky 1981); I am using the notion in a more traditional and less restricted sense. 9. 'Non-autonomous', at this stage, does not imply 'imperfective'. Note on the other hand that if the facts that are narrated with trapassato remoto and trapassato prossimo TM's are objectively terminated, this does not imply that these TMs express perfective aspect (as this is, as pointed out, a subjective vision). 10. Let it be clear that I will not consider the modal use of futuro, e.g. "Avrà 15 anni" 'I guess he is about 15 years old'. 11. Pezzoli (1978: 115), who follows Lyons (1977). 12. Manini(1977: 23). 13. The paraphrase -unfortunately- reflects the contradiction between objectively (Aktionsart): event and subjectively(aspect): state.

188 Frans Houweling 14. I have borrowed this term from Rigter (1980b). 15. 'Half deictically' because the three non autonomous-non imperfective TMs obviously have a deictic as well as anaphoric function. 16. See Borgato (1976: 107): "It is curious to observe that the non-inarkedness of the presente tense with respect to aspect accompanies the non-markedness of the same form with respect to temporal deixis". 17. Note that dormo 'I sleep' can be paraphrased by starò dormendo 'I will be sleeping'. It is very difficult to find an anaphoric presente that is not of the causal type. 18. On this subject see Manini( 1977: 110). 19. Since it is not clear in what way node INFL (inflexion) is structured, the problem arises whether elements inside an INFL node can c-command elements outside the INFL node; let us therefore take it that in (31c) and (32c) the upper INFL nodes c-commands the lower INFL node. 20. C. Rohrer has pointed out to me that there are many cases, like the French "Quand je lus mes épreuves, je trouvai trois fautes" 'When I read my proofs, I found three mistakes', in which two events narrated in the passé simple (or the italian passato remoto) need not be consecutive. 21. I limit the discussion to quando because these propositions suffice to demonstrate that rule (30) cannot be maintained; I am aware of the fact, though, that many other counterexamples can be found. 22. That the prepositional phrase is of the sentential type is indicated by the syntactic tests that Reinhart (1976:61-64) puts forward, i.e.: - pseudo-cleft sentences, in which the clause with 'Quel che' ('What') can contain only material not coming from VP, and the predicate only material coming from VP: Quel che fece Paolo quando Mario entrò fu dormire 'What Paolo did when Mario entered was to sleep' *Quel che fece Paolo fu dormire quando Mario entrò 'What Paolo did was to sleep when Mario entered' -

sentences with preposition of VP, in which only the constituents inside VP can be preposed together with VP : Volevo che Paolo dormisse quando Mario entrò 'I wanted Paolo to sleep when Mario entered' *E dormire quando Mario entrò fece 'And sleep when Mario entered he did' E dormire fece quando Mario entrò 'And sleep he did when Mario entered'

-

sentences with preposition of PP. Like adverbs, PPs, too, can be preposed only if they are of the sentential type: Paolo, quando Mario entrò, dormiva 'Paolo, when Mario entered, was asleep' *Paolo, a casa, arrivò che era mezzanotte 'Paolo, at home, arrived at midnight'.

Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes

189

23. Note that (36a) Quando entrô Mario corse al telefono 'When he entered Mario ran to the phone' is grammatical. For a possible explanation (insertion in COMP of the preposed PP) see Reinhart (1976: 71-79). 24. McCawley (1971:111). 25. Of course these instructions presuppose a classification of temporal adverbs. See Smith (1978:45-46). In A l . l the adverbial will be of the 'absolute' type, linked to the calendar ( " in the summer of 1978"); in AÏ..2 of the 'anchored' type, linked to P ( " the day before yesterday"); in A 1.3 of the type linked to R ("two days after"). 26. After B5, or in any case after having followed the instructions, semantics must decide, in case there are two R'-'s (that is two places for the same event), which of the two interpretations is the possible or the better one. 27. BASSANI G. Gli occhiali d'oro, Milano, Mondadori, 1970, pp 88-89. 28. See Jackendoff (1972) pp. 14 sgg.

REFERENCES Bertinetto, P.M. 1980 "Nuovamente sull'imperfetto narrativo" in: Lingua Nostra XLI pp. 83-89. Borgato, G. 1976 "Aspetto verbale e Aktionsart in italiano e tedesco" in Lingua e contesto 3 pp. 65-197. Coseriu, E. 1976 Das Romanische Verbalsystem, Tubingen. Jackendoff, R.S. 1972 Semantic interpretation in generative grammar, Cambridge Mass., MIT. Jacobson, R. 1957 Shifters, verbal categories and the Russian verb. Harvard University. Langacker, R. 1966 "On pronominalization and the chain of command" in: D. Reibel, S. Schane (eds.),Modern studies in English, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall. Lo Cascio, V. 1981 "Sulla traccia e il riferimento di 'prima'" in: Tempo verbale strutture quantificate in forma logica, Atti del seminario Accademia della Crusca 13-14 dicembre 1979, Firenze, pp. 91-129. Lyons, J. 1971, 1977 Introduzione alla linguistica teorica, Bari. Semantics, Cambridge CUP. Manini, F. 1977 Situazione di discorso e deissi temporale, tesi di laurea, Università di Pavia. McCawley, J.D. 1971 "Tense and time reference in English" in: J. Fillmore, D.T. Langedoen (cds.), Studies in linguistic semantics, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Mourelatos, A. 1978 "Events, processes and states" in: Linguistics and Philosophy pp. 415-434. Pezzoli, A. 1978 Deissi ed Anafora, tesi di laurea, Università di Pavia. Piva. C. 1979 " L'aspetto verbale: una categoria controversa" in: La Grammatica II, Roma, Bulzoni, pp. 479-498. Reichenbach, H. 1947 Elements of symbolic logic, New York. Reinhart, T. 1976 The syntactic domain of anaphora, Cambridge Mass., MIT. Rigter, B. 1980a "Time diagrams and rules for tense and perfect in English" in W. Zonneveld, F. Weerman (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1977-1979, Dordrecht pp. 411-458. 1980b "States, events and the use of tense and perfect in English" In S. Daalder, M. Gerritsen (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1980, Amsterdam, North-Holland, pp. 214-224.

190 Frans Houweling Smith, C.S. 1978 "The syntax and interpretation of temporal expressions in English" in Linguistics and Philosophy 2, 1, pp. 43-101. Van Rhijn-Tax, M. 1979 L'aspetto lessicale e grammaticale nel sistema verbale italiano, doctoraalscriptie Universiteit van Amsterdam. Vendler, Z. 1967 "Verbs and times", in Linguistics in Philosphy, Ithaca. Verkuyl, H. 1972 On the compositional nature of the aspects, Dordrecht.

Chapter 8

Temporal Deixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text: Finding a Reference Time* Vincenzo Lo Coscio

1. TEXT AND TIME OPERATORS

A linguistic expression becomes text when it is time-bound, i.e. when it is marked by a time variable which is bound by a time interval considered to be "known" or "given" to the hearer and to the speaker. In this definition timeless assertions such as universal statements like "the earth is round" are not considered texts. As is known there are different kinds of time: astronomical time, biological time, psychological time. Linguistic temporal information is organized in the same way as psychological time. As a matter of fact linguistic time structure has two essential compounds: localization of events on a time axis and duration of events. Events and states are "localized" on the time axis by means of a sequential relation. In other words, the place of events or states on a time axis is established as being prior to, simultaneous with or subsequent to some time interval which is given (as primary or secondary) in the text, context or situation. In order to be more precise and make linguistic expressions more interpretable, this sequential information is complemented by information about the distance between the given time interval and the time interval by which the event or state in question is bound. Tenses always give the sequential relation while time adverbs express sequential relation and quantification of temporal distance. Duration is independent of the sequential relation and is a kind of quantification of the length of the event or state on the time axis. The aim of this paper is to gain a more thorough understanding of

* This is a revised version o f a paper read at the Congress organized at S. Marghcrita Ligure in 1981 by the SLI on Textual Linguistics. I am grateful to F. Houweling, M. Nespor, Ch. Rohrer, and M. Scoretti for their useful criticism of a preliminary version of this paper. Most of the fundamental ideas in this paper are the result of my collaboration with M. Adolaar to whom I am endebted for the work done and for her many suggestions. Of course I am fully responsible for the remaining mistakes and shortcomings in this paper.

192

Vincenzo Lo Cascio

the mechanism regulating temporal discourse. For the time being I will confine myself to written text as a spoken text is very often bound to varieties which are determined by major freedom in performance. It may also be possible to find criteria for making useful distinctions in order to find the difference between narrative texts and non-narrative texts, but I think that we must first make a hypothesis of a more general character1 which may give a parameter to study differences in texts later on. Reichenbach 1947 has shown that the time of an event or state cannot be expressed in an absolute way but only in a relational way. Linguistic elements that realize time information are the linguistic output of the relation between three time points (or rather, intervals): the time of the event itself (E), time of speech (S) and a reference time (R). Reference time is the time in relation to which an Event E is true. Reference time intervals are identified in relation to known time intervals such as speech time or other given time intervals. The relation between the three time intervals is a sequential one, i.e. coincidence (=) anteriority (). In a sentence as: (1)

Paolo parte domani "Paolo leaves/is leaving¡will leave tomorrow"

"domani" gives the reference time which contains the time interval in which the event (E) of 'partire' (leaving) takes place. Both E and R are subsequent to the deictic time, i.e. the time of speech (S). Of course the relation becomes more complicated when more time intervals from the text are involved. Linguistic elements that can effectuate such temporal relations are the traditional tenses, i.e. temporal morphemes marking verbs and auxiliaries. For example, we might say that the combination S = R = E (i.e. S, E and R partially or totally coincide on the time axis) is often expressed by the present indicative or by the periphrastic structure as the progressive form (in Italian the periphrastic form: stare + gerundium), whereas the combination S > (E, R), i.e. a temporal relation where S is posterior to E and R, while both E and R partially or totally coincide, will be expressed in Italian by the past tense (passato remoto), and so on. In order to specify the reference time (R) and the Event time (E) on the time axis we make use of temporal adverbs such as "oggi" (today) "ieri" (yesterday) "due giorni fa" (two days ago) "l'indomani" (the day after) "il giorno prima" (the day before). 2 Such temporal adverbs actually quantify the temporal distance between the temporal intervals S and E and also S and R. Aspectual adverbs (e.g. "per X ore" (for X

Temporal Deixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text

193

hours)) on the contrary quantify only the length, i.e. the duration of an event interval (E) or of an R interval. Aspectual adverbs then are endoquantifiers while the temporal adverbs are esoquantifiers. A temporal theory should specify the rules which regulate the possible combinations between temporal morphemes (tenses) and temporal adverbs (cf. Hornstein 1978, Smith 1978, Lo Cascio 1981) in such a way that we can explain why the following expressions cannot be interpreted: (2)

*Paolo parte ieri "Paolo is leaving yesterday"

(3)

*Paolo é partito domani "Paolo left t o m o r r o w "

Smith 1978 argues that a sequence, in order to be interpretable, requires that the reference time be linguistically expressed. 3 A sentence like (4)

Paolo parte "Paolo leaves/is leaving"

is not fully interpretable because it could mean "in the present" or "in the f u t u r e " while a sentence like (1) will be interpreted as future because the reference time is posterior t o S, i.e. " t o m o r r o w " . Reference time intervals (but also Event time intervals) are specified in their relation to and by comparison with the speech time (S) or another time interval presupposed as known or recoverable in the context. Temporal relations established directly with the speech time (S) are deictic. 4

1.1.

Given Primary Time

In order to locate the state or event we want to talk about in the time continuum, we need a fundamental and primary comparative term which is the time of the universe of discourse relevant for the event or state in question. This comparative or primary term must be considered to be given. We will call it the "Given Primary Time", hence forth GPT. Some linguists and logicians call it t Q . Whatever the notation, this time interval can be given by the pragmatic situation, i.e. it can be the time of the enunciation, i.e. the speech time, the time of the speaker (or writer) indicated by Reichenbach as S (speech time), or it can be the time of the hearer which sometimes coincides with the speaker's time and sometimes does not (e.g. in written texts). The function of a given primary time can also be fulfilled by a time

194

Vincenzo Lo Coscio

interval different from speech time or hearer time. In fact a GPT can be searched in another universe of discourse, and it can also be in an imaginary world. The chosen primary time, i.e. the time of the universe of discourse taken into consideration, will be indicated in every text and will be considered to be "given" (known) and presupposed by the codifier and decodifier of the message. A GPT can be considered to be a kind of time operator of the text. Every other time operator in the text will be within the scope of this superoperator (GPT). In order to be interpretable every text must establish (specify) its own GPT. Below I will give a list of primary time intervals which can be chosen and regarded as given (and thus as a parameter) for the time of the states of affairs (from now on this term will stay for "events" and "states") we talk or write about : s 1. The time interval of the enunciation GPTE 2. The time interval of the decodification GPTD 3. A time interval which is established making use of the official chronological system (e.g.: in 1920 or in 2000) and thus finally established in relation with pragmatic time intervals as GPTE or GPTD, i.e. the time interval of enunciation GPTC 4. A neutral time interval, opened to all interpretations and regarded as belonging to a universe of discourse other than the universe of the enunciation. This GPTN is very often the narrative time, and in particular the GPT of written texts. Every text must first establish such a time interval and specify it. The beginning of written or spoken fairytales serves to create such a universe of discourse "Once upon a time there was...". GPTN Let us now turn to some examples of texts that are within the scope of one of the above mentioned GPT's. (5)

GPTE Due anni fa Paolo Rossi é partito per il servizio militare. Aveva poca voglia di farlo e aveva tentato ogni cosa per evitarlo, ma non gli era riuscito e cosi aveva dovuto abbandonare la scuola. Di studiare del resto non aveva voglia, trovó anzi comodo partiré. Quest'anno si é congedato (l'anno scorso si era congedato). "Two years ago P. Rossi left for the army. He did not want to go and he had tried everything to avoid it but he had not succeeded and thus he had to leave school. He did not like studying very much so that he was happy to leave. This year he has taken leave (last year he had already taken leave)."

TemporalDeixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text

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(6)

GPTD Hai già letto una trentina di pagine e ti stai appassionando alla vicenda a un certo punto osservi: "Però questa frase non mi suona nuova. Tutto questo passaggio, anzi, mi sembra di averlo già letto". È chiaro: sono motivi che ritornano... Sei un lettore sensibile a queste finezze, tu, pronto a captare le intenzioni dell'autore, nulla ti sfugge (da: I. Calvino: Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore-Torino-Einaudi 1979:25). "You have already read a good thirty pages and you begin to take to the story. At a certain moment you will notice: "This sentence doesn't really seem new to me. I actually have the feeling that I have already read the entire fragment". Of course, there are topics that come back. You are a reader who is very sensitive to those subtleties, very able in getting the author's intentions, nothing escapes you".

(7)

GPTC Arrivò a Parigi nel 1914. Aveva 20 anni. Un giorno si accorse che aveva l'affanno e che esso cresceva di giorno in giorno. Non aveva più via di scelta e doveva prendere un treno per il sud. Rientrò in Italia nel 1916. "He arrived in Paris in 1914. He was twenty years old. One day he found that he had difficulty in breathing and that it encreased every day. He had no choice, he had to catch a train to the south. So he went back to Italy in 1916.

(8) a.

GPTN Quando arrivò a Parigi aveva 20 anni. Un giorno ....Due anni dopo rientrò in Italia. When he arrived in Paris he was 20. One day .... Two years later he went back to Italy. Un giorno Paolo Rossi è partito per il servizio militare. Aveva poca voglia di farlo.... Due anni dopo si è congedato (si era congedato). "One day P. Rossi joined the army. He did not want to go... Two years later he was dismissed (he had been dismissed)." C'era una volta un taglialegna e una taglialegna....i quali avevano 7 figli....il maggiore aveva 10 anni e il minore 7. Ci si domanderà come mai questo taglialegna avesse avuto tanti figli in cosi poco tempo, ma è che sua moglie era una donna molto sbrigativa e non ne dava alla luce meno di due alla volta. Erano poverissimi.... Un'altra cosa che li tormentava era che l'ultimo nato pareva molto gracile....Egli era piccolissimo e quando era venuto al mondo non superava la grandezza di un dito pollice, perciò lo avevano

b.

c.

196

Vincenzo Lo Cascio chiamato Pollicino... Una sera che i ragazzi erano a letto e il taglialegna se ne stava accanto al fuoco insieme alla moglie, egli le disse, col cuore stretto: "Come vedi, non possiamo dare da mangiare ai nostri figlioli...mi son deciso a condurli nel bosco e abbandonarli...."Ah", esclamò la moglie, "come troverai il coraggio...." Il Marito ritornò a parlarle della loro miseria ma lei non riusciva ad acconsentire, era povera ma era madre. Tuttavia, dopo aver riflettuto a qual dolore avrebbe provato a vederseli morire di fame, finì col dire di sì e andò a dormire piangendo. "Once upon a time there were a woodcutter and his wife...who had 7 children....the eldest was 10 years old and the youngest 1... You may now wonder how it came about that this woodcutter had got so many children in such a short time, but his wife was a very expeditious woman and she gave birth to at least two children at a time. They were very poor... Another thing they were concerned about was the fact that the youngest child was very slender ...he was very short. When he was born he was not bigger than a thumb and therefore they had given him the name of Thumb. One evening when the boys were in bed and the woodcutter was sitting by the fire with his wife, he said sorrowfully to her: "As you can see, we cannot afford to feed our children... I have decided to take them into the woods and leave them there." "How can you take it into your heart to do such a thing" said his wife. The woodcutter went on talking about their poverty but she could not consent; she was poor but also a mother. Nevertheless, after having considered what kind of grief she would feel to see them starve, she finally consented and went to bed crying."

We can see that the text in (5) is bound by the time of utterance (the speech time) which is then the GPT of text (5) and that the text in (6) is bound by the adressee time which is then the GPT of (6). In (5) I have underlined these sequences that are directly bound to the GPT (and which, as I will state, form the main line of the story), thus: "due anni fa Paolo Rossi è partito" and "quest'anno si è congedato". The other sequence of the text are indirectly bound to the GPT as they are temporally defined as anterior to the time of the event "è partito" and thus form a textual unit which can be called "secondary" or "not in topic position". Thus, there are time variables that are bound by another time variable of the same text which in its turn is bound by another time variable or directly bound by the GPT. In (7) the GPT has been chosen from the official calendar and is therefore of a "chronological" type. But as such a time must ultimately be con-

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nected and brought in relation with the time of utterance, it must be stated whether it is prior or subsequent to it or simultaneous with it. In fact it must be decided whether the year 1914 is subsequent or prior to the time of speech. For this reason the sequence "arrivare a Parigi" (the arrival in Paris) is characterized by the past tense. The same goes for the sequence "rientrare in Italia nel 1916" bound the GPT. I think that if we want to regard as text also a-temporal utterances like "the earth is round", we might also consider the possibility of having a universal GPT (GPTU). This would mean that we have texts in the scope of a given primary time which holds for all possible worlds and all possible times. The notion of "given primary time" as a time operator which binds a whole text is, I think, an improvement of the Reichenbach's theory. In fact in this way the "speech" time, i.e. the comparative time, would no longer be exclusively bound to the time of utterance. On the other hand I must admit that, at least in Italian, all GPT's are related to the time of utterance of the text so that even a GPTN will be sensitive to the utterance time of the writer or the speaker. In fact all stories and tales are situated in the past in order to give the impression of a measurable distance while all science fiction stories are subsequent to the time of speech or are considered not to be simultaneous with it. The neutral GPT's originate from the proposal to the hearer to assume in his mind the existence of a not well defined world, in general prior to the time of the hearer (very rarely "simultaneous" with or "subsequent" to it even in science fiction stories) and in which the state of affairs mentioned are to be regarded as true. Temporal distance between this GPT and the GPTE is not defined. In (8a) the interpretation of the GPT is context-dependent and is determined by the information which the speaker and the hearer have about the person who arrived in Paris. The same goes for (8b), in which "un giorno" indicates a very welldefined moment in the past but a time interval which is assumed to be a primary time. In (8c) the speech time shows up at a given moment ci si domanderà because the writer wants to address himself directly to the hearer in order to give an evaluation of the fact of the story. The rest of the text is structured according to the usual principles according to which some sequences belong to a Main set because they are connected to each other and are directly bound by the GPT, while other sequences form an other (secondary) set connected to each other and bound by a given secondary time operator taken from a sequence belonging to the main set. After the GPT has been chosen, whatever it will be,(it doesn't matter whether it is the time of utterance or another time), all states of affairs belonging to that text will be bound by that given time interval. 6

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If the temporal relation with the chosen primary given time is established directly we speak of a deictic relation, because every given primary time behaves as if it were a time interval bound to the pragmatic situation. However, if the time of the event or state is indirectly bound by the GPT, i.e. is bound by the time of an event or state different from the GPT and already mentioned in the text, we speak of an anaphoric relation. The term "anaphoric" indicates that the temporal relation is established through binding of a time variable to a time antecedent mentioned elsewhere in the text. The time unit that can function as antecedent in an anaphoric relation can be called Given Secondary Time (GST).1 A temporal anaphor can find its antecedent in another temporal anaphor which is in a higher domain of the same text. Climbing up the textual chain a temporal anaphor will in Italian always be bound to a deictic time arid thus bound by the GPT. States of affairs marked by a temporal deictic relation in a text form the essential and most important part of a text, i.e. they form the set of events or states that are presented in the text as the salient features of the story. We could call such a set, the main line or the MAIN set of the text. All those states of affairs that are marked by an anaphoric relation, i.e. bound only indirectly by the GPT, form the secondary line of the text or at least are presented by the writer/speaker as such and considered to be deviations or expansions from singular elements belonging to the main set. 8 We will call the secondary line or secondary set: MINOR set. So texts (5)-(8), as already mentioned, are the result of a combination of a Main set with one or more minor set/s. Another example of such a text can be (9)

A vera impostato la lettera la domenica sera. L'aveva scritta El E2 il giorno prima ma non aveva avuto tempo di andare alla posta. E3 Quella lettera mi è arrivata domenica scorsa ma sapevo che E4 E5 mi sarebbe pervenuta. Due giorni prima l'avevo chiamato E6 E7 al telefono e gli avevo chiesto che fine avessero fatto le E8 E9 sue buone intenzioni epistolari. "He had posted the letter that Sunday evening. He had written

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it the day before but he hadn't had time to take it to the post office. I received that letter last Sunday but I knew I would receive it. Two days before I had called him on the telephone and I had asked him what had become of his good epistular intentions."

In (9) the first sequences are bound by a time which is given but difficult to state. This means that a text such as (9) is not autonomous and that in order to give an interpretation of (9) we need a wider text or we need at least to know the context. ' T h a t Sunday evening" can be a Sunday immediately preceding E4 but it can also be an other Sunday prior to E4. Anyhow the sequence E l , E2, E3 form a minor set or a set of minor sets all whithin the scope, and thus bound by a deictic time (or an anaphoric time) that has the function of a given secondary time. The time unit E4 (i.e. quella lettera mi e arrivata domenica scorsa) is the deictic time which explicitly is mentioned in (9) and which thus belongs to the main set (because directly bound by the GPTE). 9 The deictic time in E4 in turn becomes a GST (given secondary time) which has in its scope a chain of subordinate sets (or minor sets) of events or states namely: E5, E6, E7, E8, E9. The deictic time generally functions as an antecedent for a temporal anaphor in the text, i.e. it bounds all the utterances marked by anaphoric tense. In a language there are deictic and anaphoric tenses (temporal morphemes) and deictic and anaphoric adverbs. In a text, at least in Italian, the behaviour of tenses is different from the behaviour of temporal adverbs. When tenses express an anaphoric relation they simultaneously express a deictic relation (i.e. they express whether that time is simultaneous, prior or subsequent to the GPT) whereas adverbs do not. In: (9a)

Paolo e partito domenica ma aveva telefonato il giorno prima a Gianni. "Paolo left last Sunday but he had called John the day b e f o r e . "

the verbal constituent "aveva telefonato" is marked by an anaphoric tense and tells us that Paolo called at a time interval prior to " d o m e n i c a " (its antecedent) but also prior to the GPT. On the other hand an adverb such as "il giorno prima" is neutral relative to the GPT. Every utterance, regardless of whether it is directly (deictic) or indirectly (anaphoric) in the scope of that GPT, takes place on the time axis by establishing a sequential relation with the preceding events or states and their time interval. In other words, all states of affairs enter in a reciprocal temporal

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(linear) relation on the time axis of the text. We can state then that in order to define the time interval to which events and states belong, two operations are almost always needed at a textual level: 1. An operation that states the kind of temporal relation which events or states have with the GPT: direct relation (deictic) or indirect relation (anaphoric). 2. An operation that states a temporal relation between states of affairs within the same main sets or within the same minor sets. This means that within the set it belongs to, every component establishes a kind of anaphoric relation. So e.g. E7 and E8 in (9) are in a sequential relation. In (5) the utterances "Paolo Rossi e partito" and "si e congedato" are both deictic. Therefore they belong to the same main set and are in a sequential relation since the former is prior to the latter. F. Houweling (1982 this volume) has stated that the Event which has the right to bind, i.e. to deliver the reference time for the temporal sequences in the text is always the last event mentioned in the text and deictically stated. However, I think it will be necessary to find out what kind of relation can be stated within a main set and within a minor set, in order to formulate rules which govern the temporal system in a text. In fact temporal binding is neither free nor only contextual. The aim of this paper is to try and formulate rules for temporal binding i.e. rules which tell us how and when an event or state can function in a text as temporal antecedent of another event or state. 1.2.

Tenses and temporal adverbs

We have two linguistic elements at our disposal to express a temporal sequence (or temporal localization): temporal morphemes (or tenses) and temporal adverbs. According to Lo Cascio 1981 we can distinguish two classes of temporal adverbs: a deictic and an anaphoric. The choice between these two classes is made by means of criteria which are different from those adopted for temporal morphemes. Deictic adverbs are used if they can express a relation with the time of utterance, i.e. express a relation with the time of the speaker (writer) and/or hearer (reader). If another GPT is chosen, i.e. if it belongs to the category GPTC or GPTN, anaphoric adverbs are preferred. This means that temporal adverbs which localize the reference time, always focus on the direct or indirect relation with the time of utterance. In:

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Paolo la domenica decise di partire ed ilgiorno dopo parti. Lo rividi per caso un anno fa. 'That Sunday Paolo decided to leave, and the day after he left. I saw him again a year ago."

temporal adverbs as "that Sunday" and "the day after" belong to the anaphoric class, because they express the temporal relation of the reference time of an event to a time interval which is not the time of utterance. The two adverbs localize the reference times needed for establishing the event time of "decidere" and of "partire". Both adverbs refer to a time that has already been mentioned in the preceding text and that in its turn functions as reference time and indirectly as a medium for the relation to the time of utterance. Un anno fa (a year ago) is a deictic adverb which implies that the event time of "rivedere" is localized directly in relation to the time of utterance. We can state then that in texts that are in the scope of a given primary time of chronological or neutral type (i.e. GPTC and GPTN) only anaphoric adverbs are used. Some deictic adverbs used in these texts are introduced by the speaker or writer for special (stylistic/narrative) reasons and with the aim of bringing the hearer or the reader to a world which for the moment fictitiously coincides with his own world. Of course, anaphoric adverbs are also used in texts where there is an indirect temporal relation to the GPT (e.g. when reference time and event time are only indirectly related to the GPT): (11)

Paolo la domenica decise di partire ed il giorno dopo parti. Due ore prima della partenza aveva telefonato a Piero. 'That Sunday Paolo decided to leave and he left the day after. Two hours before he left he had called Piero."

The telephone-call to Piero takes place at two hours-distance from the moment when Paolo would leave and not two hours before the time of utterance. So temporal adverbs are sensitive to the kind of time chosen as GPT for the text. On the other hand, tenses are not influenced by the type of GPT but they are sensitive as to whether they establish a relation with a GPT or with a GST. So tenses very often help to distinguish between states or events belonging to the main line of the text (main set) or to a secondary line (minor set). 10 Temporal morphemes can be divided in perfective and imperfective tenses and in anaphoric and deictic tenses. Some tenses are context-sensitive as to whether they are anaphoric or deictic. A possible classification could be the following:

202 (12)

Vincenzo Lo Coscio deictic presente (present) passato prossimo (present perfect) passato remoto (simple past) futuro (future) imperfetto (imperfect) condizionale presente (present conditional)

anaphoric trapassato prossimo (past imperfect) trapassato remoto (past perfect) futuro anteriore (future perfect) condizionale passato (past perfect conditional) imperfetto (imperfect)

Actually, all deictic tenses can be used anaphorically so that they are contextually deictic, whereas tenses listed as anaphoric can never be used deictically.11 The only exception is the imperfective tense "imperfetto" which expresses co-incidence in the past and in most cases has an anaphoric function, while it can be used, as deictic, albeit rarely and almost only with stative predicates. This is also the reason why the "imperfetto" shows up twice in the list. Temporal adverbs can also be classified as follows (as proposed in Lo Cascio 1981): (13)

deictic anaphoric 1. + inherent quantification 1. + inherent quantification e.g. ieri (yesterday), doma- e.g. l'indomani (the day after) ni (tomorrow) 2. - inherent quantification 2. - inherent quantification e.g. fa (ago) fra (over) e.g. prima (before), dopo (after) 12 scorso (last)

Generally speaking it seems that a reference time of a sentence cannot function as reference textual time, i.e. antecedent, for a time variable of another sentence. It is the event time of a sentence which can bind a time-variable as seen in (11) where Piero calls two hours before his departure and not two hours before the "giorno dopo" (the day after). 1.3.

The textual reference time

According to Smith 1978 sentences are semantically independent or autonomous, (i.e. can be immediately interpreted) if they directly es-

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tablish a relation with the time of utterance and specify the reference time (through an adverb). If a sentence S! is bound by the time of another sentence S 2 in the text then sentence S! is semantically dependent. In general, subordinate clauses are semantically dependent. They find their reference time in the matrix sentence. Moreover, subordinate clauses marked by deictic tenses are to be considered semantically independent when they are marked by a deictic temporal adverb. Let us consider the following examples: (14)

ha detto che mi ha telefonato "he said that he called m e "

(15)

ha detto che mi aveva telefonato "he said that he had called m e "

(16)

ha detto che è arrivato alle 5 "he said that he arrived at 5 o ' c l o c k "

(17)

dirà che è venuto per cortesia "he will say that he came to put in an appearance"

(18)

ha detto che aveva telefonato a Gianni. Due ore dopo è partito "he said that he had called John. Two hours later he l e f t "

In (14) and (16) the first interpretation of the tense of the subordinate clauses could be deictic. In the subordinate clauses of (14) we can introduce the deictic adverb "ieri" (yesterday). In (16) the tense would remain a deictic one even when we could add the temporal adverb "quel giorno" (that day) to the matrix clause. The subordinate clause in (17) is also marked by a deictic tense. In fact we can insert the temporal adverb "oggi" (today) e.g. (17a)

dirà che oggi è venuto per cortesia "he will say that today he came to put in an appearance"

In (17a) "è venuto (he came) indicates an event time which is prior to the time of the matrix clause, i.e. prior to the m o m e n t of "dire" (say) but also prior to the GPT. Without the adverb, the temporal morpheme in the subordinate clause could be interpreted as anaphoric. In that case "venire" is prior to the event "dirà c h e " (he will say that) of the matrix clause b u t its temporal morpheme does not indicate which temporal relation the event "venire" has with the GPT, i.e. it is not possible to say whether it is subsequent or prior to the given primary time.

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In (15) the subordinate clause is marked by an anaphoric tense as it establishes a temporal relation with the time of the matrix clause which is therefore its binding antecedent. In all cases where tenses in matrix and subordinate clauses are of the same relational type (past, future), the tense of the subordinate clause even if of a deictic type will be bound by the matrix tense. Ch. Rohrer has pointed out to me that in both (14) and (15) the telephone call precedes the time of the matrix. The relation is different in (14a). (14a) ha detto che mi telefonerà "he said that he will call me" In (18) the predicate "è partito" is marked by a deictic tense as it expresses a direct temporal relation with the GPT. In the textual relation, the deictic tense of "è partito" establishes a temporal relation with the immediately preceding deictic tense as well. "Due ore dopo" is the reference time which finds its antecedent in the time of "ha detto" and not in the time of "aveva telefonato". The problem remains whether an anaphoric time is bound by the time of the event of the matrix clause or by the reference time of the matrix. In (11) the time that binds the time anaphor in the subordinate clause is the event time and not the reference time of the matrix. The temporal adverb "due ore prima" states that the telephone call by Piero is two hours prior to the event time "parti" and not to the reference time "il giorno dopo". 13 As a result we can formulate the following rule: "Only the Event time (E) of a sentence, and therefore not the reference time (R), can function as binding time, hence as antecedent, of an anaphoric time in a text". There may be problems with the rule if we use temporal adverbs quantifying great intervals as "day" or "year". In fact it is no longer evident how the rule works if we change, e.g. in (11), the temporal adverb "due ore prima" in "due giorni prima": (11a) Paolo la domenica decise di partire e il giorno dopo parti. Due giorni prima della partenza aveva telefonato a Piero. "That Sunday Paolo decided to leave, and the following day he left. Two hours before his departure he called Piero" where "due giorni prima" (two days before) is of course in relation to the reference time "il giorno dopo" and not to the event time "partenza", i.e. Paolo calls two days before the day of his departure and not precisely two days before the moment of his departure.

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I will not go further into this matter but more research is needed. The rule mentioned above states that the Event time anaphorically or deictically stated can function as reference time and thus as a binding element for other anaphoric tenses in the text. This gives rise to the following questions: 1. Do temporal anaphora imply a coreference between anaphor and antecedent, as is the case in the nominal anaphor? 2. Which are the binding conditions between time variables and their antecedents? This question is complicated considerably if we take into consideration syntactically, bound sentences, i.e. subordinate clauses. Syntactic binding in itself is not enough to state textual relations. The rules proposed by Smith 1978 need to be reconsidered and examined in a broader context. 3. What kind of conditions allow binding of time variables which belong to a main set? In other words, in what way do deictic tenses bind other deictic tenses in order to state the temporal sequentially of the text to which they belong?

2. TEMPORAL ANAPHORA A N D COREFERENCE

An anaphoric element refers to an antecedent of the same category. Nominal anaphors then have nominal antecedents somewhere in the text to which they are coreferent. But nominal anaphors do not need to carry the same syntactic function as their antecedents in the same text. In temporal relation, anaphora cannot always be coreferent, i.e. coincide, with the time of their binding element. We can only say that the time of temporal anaphora is stated in (sequential) relation with the time interval by which their antecedent is bound and with which the antecedent coincides. In other words, an anaphoric tense states a temporal relation with its antecedent but does not need to be simultaneous with it. If we extend (15) to: (15a)

Ho detto ieri che aveva telefonato "I said yesterday that he had called"

the event time of the telephone call is stated as prior to the time which binds the event "dire" and not to the time "yesterday". We might say that: a. the event " d i r e " is bound to and simultaneous with a time interval

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ti (a time interval t j which is a subinterval of the time interval t 2 , which in its turn is the reference time and localized as "ieri" because it precedes the utterance time of a specific amount of hours) and b. that the time interval t 3 wherein, at some time, is made a telephone call, is defined in relation to the time interval t ! . In that case we can also say that we have coreference for temporal anaphors as well, because both the event time of the matrix and the event time of the subordinate are bound by the same time t j . Moreover both differ in the kind of temporal relation (simultaneous and prior, respectively) to their binder. In fact t 3 does not coincide with t j as t 2 does, but is prior to it. Of course this analysis would be too complex. It would be much simpler to state that "temporal anaphora are elements that are bound by, but not need to be coreferent with an antecedent."

3. BASE RULES FOR THE MAIN SET A N D THE MINOR SET

In the preceding section I suggested that deictic tenses are liable to become units, i.e. direct constituents, of the main set. Deictic tenses bind each other and form a temporal sequence which constitutes the principal continuum of the text. This is the reason why they are all directly within the scope of the GPT which has been chosen as a parameter for the text to which they belong. This does not mean of course that deictic tenses form the most important elements of a text or story, but only that they are presented as such in the text. Utterances which are deictic in the sense defined in the preceding sections of this paper can be considered as main sentences which are independent as regards the textual level and which are bound to each other in a temporal sequential relation. The claim that sentences with deictic tenses in the main set are to be regarded as matrix clauses bound to each other in a coordinate relation, can be confirmed by the fact that a subordinate clause marked by a deictic tense cannot at the textual level function as an antecedent for a syntactically independent clause marked by a deictic tense. Let us go back to (16), adding more information, so that we get: (16a)

Paolo ha detto ieri che e arrivato alle 5. Due ore dopo £ partito. "Paolo said yesterday that he arrived at 5. Two hours later he left."

The most normal interpretation of (16a) is that Paolo does not leave at seven but two hours after he said something yesterday. This means that

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an independent "deictic clause" (as "due ore dopo è partito") cannot be bound by the time of a subordinate "deictic clause" but only by another independent "deictic clause". Obviously we can find examples that are in contradiction with our claim. Let us take for instance: (16b) Paolo ha detto ieri che aveva provato a telefonare due settimane fa, la mattina del tuo compleanno, ma che non ha trovato nessuno. Tre giorni dopo è perfino passato da casa tua. 'Taolo said yesterday that he had tried to call two weeks ago, the day of your birthday, but he found nobody. Three days later he came at your house." ' T r e giorni dopo" of course must be subsequent to the moment Paolo calls and not subsequent to the moment he said something yesterday (the time of the matrix diectic clause). The deictic utterance "è passato da casa tua" stays instead of the anaphoric "era passato da casa t u a " which would be a better form. The interpretation of "tre giorni dopo" cannot be bound by the time interval "ieri", from the matrix clause, because there would be incongruity between the past tense in the sentence "tre giorni dopo è passato da casa t u a " and the fact that "three days after yesterday" would state a time interval which is subsequent, and not prior, to the time of utterance (the GPT). If in the matrix clause we had as reference time "una settimana f a " (a week ago) instead of "ieri" (yesterday), the temporal adverb "tre giorni dopo" would be bound by the time of the matrix clause. Let us take another example: (16c) Paolo ha detto alle 5.05 che alle 2 in punto l'ingegnere è uscito di casa. Un'ora dopo è stato ritrovato morto nella sua macchina. "Paolo said at 5.05 p.m. that at two o'clock sharp the engineer went out. An hour later he was found dead in his car". The first interpretation of (16c) would be that the time at which someone has been found dead in his car is one hour after 5.05 p.m., i.e. at 6.05. The context might also allow us to interpret according to our knowledge of the world that the one who has been found dead is the engineer and that consequently the antecedent of the time in which the event "ritrovare" (find) occurs is the time in which the engineer goes out ("uscire di casa"). In that case the sentence "un'ora dopo è stato ritrovato" must be considered a sister constituent of the subordinate clause ("che alle due in punto l'ingegnere è uscito di casa"). The same kind of ambiguity can be found in:

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(16d) Paolo ha detto alle 5.05 che alle 2.05 ha comprato una bicicletta. Due minuti dopo e stato travoltc da una macchina. "Paolo said at 5.05 that at 2.05 he bought a bicycle. Two minutes later he had an accident." The same twofold interpretation of (16c) also holds for (16d) because all the clauses in (16d) have the same subject. The subject of the last clause theoretically could have had an accident after he said something or after he bought a bicycle. However we should notice that our knowledge of the world leads us to the interpretation that he had an accident at 2.07 because we see a connection between buying a bicycle and having an accident. If, instead of "e stato travolto da una macchina" in the last clause we had "e morto" (he died), we would infer that Paolo's death takes place at 5.07, in accordance with the normal rule which says that a deictic of a subordinate clause normally does not bind the time of a syntactically independent deictic sentence. On the other hand, we can say that the clause marked by anaphoric tenses can be regarded as subordinate clauses dependent on a matrix clause marked by deictic tenses. A clause marked by an anaphoric tense forms a minor set. One, or more than one, minor set can be bound by a deictic tense. If more than one minor set depends on a deictic tense, in the minor sets there will be anaphoric tenses bound by other anaphoric tenses which (command them because they) are in higher domain. Climbing the temporal chain all anaphora will be ultimately bound, directly or indirectly, by the first deictic tense. We can also have anaphoric tenses marking clauses that are syntactically independent. But generally anaphoric tenses mark clauses that are subordinate from a syntactic point of view. Furthermore, even clauses that are syntactically independent and marked by anaphoric tenses behave as subordinate clauses as far as temporal binding is concerned. As a matter of fact: a. the antecedent of anaphoric tenses of independent clauses can only be found within the scope of the immediately preceding or following deictic tense; b. anaphoric tenses can be bound by another anaphoric tense whereas this is impossible for syntactically independent clauses marked by deictic tenses, and c. anaphoric tenses cannot function as an antecedent of a deictic tense of an independent clause, which again shows that they behave differently as compared to syntactically independent sentences marked by a deictic tense.

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It can be stated that syntactically independent sentences marked by anaphoric tenses prefer to be bound directly by the next deictic tense avoiding clauses marked by anaphoric tenses as their binders. Absolute barriers for anaphoric binding are deictic tenses in clauses which are immediately dominated by the Main set node. Every minor set is commanded by one and only one deictic tense that governs all the other tenses belonging to the set. As can be seen, at the textual level the temporal anaphoric relation behaves in a way similar to a nominal ralation. Nominal anaphora undergo the adjacency and locality principle where absolute barriers for the binding of nominal anaphors are NP and S nodes. Something along these lines can be said of temporal anaphors.

3.1.

Text grammar

Now we can try to formulate rules for textual structure suggesting that

Main sets (MS) have as constituents Main units ( M u ) which have in their domain a deictic tense (Td). This tense is the head of the Main unit and projects the temporal information on the latter. Main units are locally bound to each other in a sequential temporal chain. Each Main unit can expand with the head (Td) accompanied or not by a minor set (mS). A minor set is formed by an anaphoric tense Ta (i.e. by clauses marked by an anaphoric tense) or a set of anaphoric tenses that are in a coordination relation (i.e. are sister constituents) and bound to each other in the temporal sequential chain. A minor set can also have an anaphoric head in its domain which governs other minor sets. Clauses marked by deictic tenses will be called "deictic clauses" while clauses marked by anaphoric tenses will be called "anaphoric clauses". I will present a list of temporal constituents of a text in (19) and give the basic formation rules in (20), also expressed in (21). These basic rules allow me to formulate rules at the logical form level given in (24), (25), (26), (27) and (28), which are of importance for semantic representation of the text. Nodes within brackets in (21) are optional. In (20) the ± notation indicates that nodes are optional. As already said, every text is formed by a GPT and a Main set. Within a text more than one GPT can operate; therefore there can be more than one Main set, as already observed by many linguists (e.g. Weinrich). So we need a super-category T which can expand in one or more than one subtext. Another possibility is that within the scope of the same GPT there is more than one Main set and that these are independent of each other. This yields the following rules:

210

Vincenzo Lo Cascio Constituents T T GPT MS Mu mS mu Td Ta

(20)

= = = = = = = = =

a set of coordinate texts text given primary time Main set Main unit minor set minor unit deictic time anaphoric time

Base rules T ->• T , ± T 2 ± T n T -»• GPT + MS Mu, ±MU2 ±MU3 ± M u n MS Td ± mS! ± m S 2 ± m S n Mu m u j ± mu2 ± m u n mS Ta x ± m S j ± mS 2 ± mS_ mu

(21)

GPTi

muj

(mu2)

(mu3)

Ta,

Ta 2

Ta 3

I

(22)

I

(mun)

/ \( m S ) TIa 2

n

Binding rules for the Main set "In order to belong to the Main set a clause marked by a deictic tense (Td) is time-bound by the immediately preceding (or, albeit rarely, following) deictic tense controlled by the same given primary time (GPT) and generally provided that the antecedent is not in a (syntactically) subordinate clause."

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Binding rules for the minor set "In order to belong to the minor set a clause marked by an anaphoric tense (Ta) finds its antecedent: 1. In a clause marked by a deictic tense immediately preceding or immediately following, or 2. In a clause marked by an anaphoric tense immediately preceding; particularly when that clause carries a lexicalized reference time through a temporal adverb. If the reference time is not explicitely indicated, the binding function of that clause is weakened.

Let us look at some examples. I will mark the different clauses by letters of the alphabet in order to emphasize the temporal connections and binding within the different texts. (24)

La domenica dopo lo vide alla stazione. Il lunedi lo rincontrò a b e gli disse che aveva deciso di partire. Due giorni dopo infatti c d fu visto alla stazione mentre saliva sul treno, e "The next Sunday he saw him at the station. On Monday he met a b him again and he said to him that he had decided to leave. Two c d days later someone saw him at the station while he jumped on e the train".

(25)

La settimana dopo lo vidi alla stazione. Il lunedì lo rincontrai e a b mi disse che il sabato aveva deciso di partire. Due giorni dopo c d fu visto alla stazione mentre saliva sul treno, e "The next week I saw him at the station. On Monday I met him a b again and he said to me that at that Saturday he hud decided to c d leave. Two days after someone saw him (he was seen) at the e station."

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(26)

La settimana dopo lo vidi alla stazione. Lo rincontrai inseguito e a b mi disse che il sabato aveva deciso di partire. Due giorni dopo c d fu visto alla stazione, e "A week later I saw him at the station. I met him afterwards and a b he said to me that that Saturday he had decided to leave. Two days c d later someone saw him." e

(27)

Paolo ha detto (domenica scorsa) che aveva telefonato (il giorno a b prima) a Gianni ma che gli avevano (hanno) detto che lui era partito c d già da tre giorni. "Paolo said (last Sunday) that he had called John (the day before) a b but that they had/have said that he already had left three days c d before."

(28)

Paolo ha detto a me (due giorni fa) che Gianni gli aveva/ha telea b fonato (la mattina alle 5). Un'ora dopo si é sentito male c "Paolo said to me (two days ago) that John had called/called that a b morning at 5. An hour later he felt ill. " c

Let us now analyze each example to see in what way anaphoric tenses and deictic tenses are bound, and to test our rules (22) and (23). In (24) the GPT is probably of the type GPTN according to the adverbial time "the Sunday after" and the first clause (a) has a deictic value. Clause (b) is marked by the adverbial time "on Monday" and also has a deictic value and is bound in the Main set to (a). The same goes for the coordinate clause (c) which is also bound by the preceding deictic (b) to which it is temporally subsequent. The subordinate clause (d), i.e. "that he had decided to leave", is an anaphoric clause and finds its antecedent in the immediately preceding deictic clause (c).

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213

One cannot say that (d) can be bound to (b), let alone to (a). The clause marked by the temporal adverb "due giorni dopo" (two days after) and called (e), is a deictic clause and cannot be bound by the preceding anaphoric (d). According to rule (22), clause (e) is bound by (c). This shows that time binding in a text does not take place in a discontinuous way. Anaphoric clause (e) cannot be bound by other deictic clauses such as (a) or (b). This confirms the adjacency principle (as stated in rule (22)) governing the binding rule for deictic tenses according to which there cannot be any other deictic tense y between deictic a and its deictic antecedent ¡3 which does not bind a . The interpretation of (24) will then be: (a) d)

(35)

Un giorno Paolo decise che era stanco di studiare e che la settimana a~ b dopo sarebbe partito militare. Il giorno prima l'aveva scritto a c d sua madre. "One day Paolo decided that he was tired of studying (to be a student) and that the week after he would leave. The day before he had written it to his mother." interpretation: i f p b c d (a = b) A (a < c) A (a > d)

(36)

Un giorno Paolo decise che l'indomani sarebbe partito militare a b e che la settimana dopo avrebbe comprato una macchina c Il giorno prima aveva vinto giocando a poker, d "One day Paolo decided that the day after he would leave for the army and that the next week he would buy a car. The day before he had won playing poker." interpretation: a ^ ì ^ c

d

or or

(a < b) A (a < c) A (a >d) ( a < b ) A ( b < c ) A (a > d )

The examples mentioned above show that an anaphoric tense of a syntactically independent clause prefers to be bound by a deictic tense, i.e. by the time of an other syntactically independent clause. Consequently we can state that a deictic can be the head of a Main unit v/hich can be extended with more than one minor unit. In other terms a Main unit Mu can expand as Td which has as sister constituents one or more minor sets mS all commanded by the Td. Therefore (36) can have the following structure; (the arrows indicate the temporal binding):

Temporal Deixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text

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(37)

mS 2 mu 3 Ta 3

This explains why 7 a 3 , i.e. clause (d), is directly bound by the Td and not by Ta2, as a matter of fact Ta3, and Ta2 are not directly dominated by the same mS node. If we examine the examples more closely we can also state that: a. It is important to distinguish between anaphoric adverbs with and without inherent quantification. The former are stronger in binding another anaphoric time. b. An anaphoric tense in a syntactically independent clause prefers to be bound by the immediately preceding and dominating deictic tense, even if the anaphoric tense immediately preceding and dominated by the same deictic tense is in a clause in which the reference time has been lexicalized by a temporal adverb with inherent quantification. An anaphoric tense in a clause which is syntactically subordinate t o a clause also marked by an anaphoric tense, is bound by the tense of its matrix. c. An anaphoric tense of a clause coordinate with an other clause, also containing an anaphoric tense according to its structure and to the presence of some syntactic factors (such as identity of syntactic subject, nature of the predicate, nature of the temporal adverb), may (not must) find its antecedent in the preceding coordinate anaphoric clause. If the subject of both coordinate anaphoric clauses is different then the second anaphoric clause is bound by the deictic clause (cf. (32)).

4. C-COMMAND A N D GOVERNMENT IN TEMPORAL BINDING

Hierarchy principles and adjacency principles apply in Main sets and minor sets so that we can consider the possibility of making use of prin-

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ciples which have already been developed and studied for syntactic structures within the framework of the extended standard theory. The same can be done in order to give interpretation rules for temporal relations and specify the scope range of time operators. As a matter of fact, the temporal binding system behaves in the same way as the nominal binding system. In other words, binding rules for time variables, such as (22) and (23) are rules that focus the range of time. Both rules can be formulated in another way making use, mutatis mutandis, of the more general notions of c-command and government which have been developed within the framework of the EST. In fact we can state that: a. temporal relation within the Main set is determined by the government principle, and b. the intern relation within the Main unit, and therefore also within the minor set is regulated by a c-command principle. The reformulation of rules (22) and (23) would allow us to say that, at least for Italian, both notions (c-command and government) are more powerful as they can explain almost all kinds of binding and not only nominal binding.14 4.1. The c-command

notion

Let us consider (38)

C

We can express the hierarchy between the constituents in (38) in terms of superiority or command. The c-command rule, i.e. command between constituents says:

Temporal Deixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text (39)

221

"x c-commands y if x does not dominate y, and y does not dominate x, and the first branching node by which x is dominated, dominates y".

In tree (38) then: -

C B D E G I

4.2.

c-commands B and D c-commands C - D - E - F - G - H - I c-commands B - C - E - F - G - H - I c-commands F - G - H - I but does not c-command B and D c-commands H-I but does not c-command E, B and D c-commands G because H does not branch and the first branching node is the same of that of G Syntactic

domain

Another notion that can be useful for our purpose is the notion of syntactic domain as it explains the hierarchical relation within syntactic constituents and can also be employed at the textual level: (40)

The domain of a node x consists of x with all and only the nodes c-commanded by x.

In tree (38), for instance, the domain of B is then C-D-E-F-G-H-I while the domain of E is F-G-H-I. 4.3.

The

"GovernmentNotion"

The notion of c-command can be useful for explaining the relation within a temporal Main unit in which the deictic time, which is the head of the Main unit, binds all the time variables that are in its domain. This notion is not sufficient to explain the relation between Main units within a Main set. The c-command notion would not prevent the Main units from controlling time variables within other Main units. I have already shown that the node Mu is a barrier for temporal anaphora to refer back. In some aspects the relation between temporal units works according a principle similar to the government principle, which is more restrictive than the c-command principle since it regulates the command relation between sister-constituents, i.e. constituents that are at the same hierarchical level. This principle reads as follows: (41)

Government "x governs y if x minimally c-commands y", i.e.

222 (42)

Vincenzo Lo Coscio minimal c-command "x minimally c-commands y iff 1. x c-commands y 2. there is no w such that a. x c-commands w b. w c-commands y c. w does not c-command x"

In (38) for instance, B governs C and D, but does not govern F because B c-commands F. E c-commands F, B c-commands E but E does not ccomand B. In other words a higher category does not govern a lower category if another lower category is between them. In (38) B governs all categories that are immediately under the same node or governing category A. (43 )

Go verning category "z is a governing category for x if there is a category y such that y governs x and z properly contains y".

In (38) the governing category for E will be C and the governing category for B will be A. This notion allows us to preclude the possibility that Main units of a Main set can govern Main units of an other Main set dominated by the same GPT or dominated by other GPT's. As a matter of fact, a government relation holds only between Main units of the same Main set. We can now reformulate our rules (22) and (23) and define the scope of the time operators and thus the binding rules for time variables making use of principles as government and c-command, respectively, for the temporal relations at the Main set level between Main units, and at the Main unit level.15 Of course this is only possible if: a. we accept a text grammar as given in (20) and b. if we keep in mind that government and c-command are syntactic principles that would be used now for semantic interpretations of semantic categories as time operators are, and not for syntactic structures, although tenses could also in a sense be considered syntactic categories. If the parallel is allowed, and taking into consideration all the differences, the interpretation rule (22) at the logical form level could be reformulated as follows:

Temporal Deixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text (44)

223

Temporal relation at the Main set level "If y is a deictic tense, then x can f u n c t i o n as antecedent of y if x governs y " .

There are, however, some problems related to rule (44). First of all it would probably prevent a deictic tense f r o m bounding in the same Main set a deictic tense of a branching Main unit. In ( 2 1 ) e.g. Tdy of Main unit Mu3 cannot be the antecedent of 7G?4 in Mu4 because there is no governing relation in between as their first branching nodes are not the same. In order to solve the problem I have claimed that each Mu carries the time projected by its head, i.e. carries its deictic time. In this way there is a temporal relation between Main units at the Main set level and not between deictic tenses. In other words, by m e a n s of a projection process t h e Main unit assumes the time of its main sentence, i.e. the deictic tense which allows the existence of the Main unit itself. In this way each Main unit can be a binding category f o r an o t h e r Main unit. There is another problem. As M. Adelaar has pointed o u t to me, the government principle applied t o the Main set would allow that a Main unit governs its antecedent or any preceding Main unit. As a matter of fact in (21) Mu4 governs Mu3 and also Mu2 and Mux • Rule ( 4 4 ) would not prevent either that e.g. Mut governs and is the antecedent of Mu4. Therefore if we want t o make use of the government principle for temporal binding, we must formulate conditions on rule (44), i.e. the adjacency condition16 for time variable and its binding category. So (44) should be formulated as:

(45)

Temporal relation at the Main set level "If y is a Main unit Mu and thus a unit marked by a deictic tense, then x can be the antecedent of y if x is a Main unit Mu, t h u s a unit also marked by a deictic tense, and x governs y and there is no other governing category between x and y . "

As far as temporal relations are concerned within the Main unit, the interpretation rule (23) can be formulated as:

(46)

Temporal relation at the Main unit level "If y is an anaphoric tense then x is the antecedent of y if x c-commands y and is in the higher domain, so that it f u n c t i o n s as head, or if between x and y there is no other category which c-commands y. Node Mu is an absolute barrier for a c-command relation and binding".

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Coscio

Rule ( 4 6 ) allows in the first case (i.e. x c-commands y and is in the highest domain) to explain the binding between a deictic and an anaphoric in a subordinate clause, or the fact that an anaphoric tense binds the anaphoric tense of a subordinate clause (cf. example (27): the relation between c and d). The second condition, viz that between x and y there is no other category which c-commands y, allows a binding relation between two coordinate clauses both marked by an anaphoric tense (cf. example ( 2 9 ) in the interpretation a b c). —•

University

of

Amsterdam NOTES

1. Platzack, 1980 analyzing temporal and aspectual structures of Swedish in the framework of the EST, distinguishes between two levels of semantic interpretation: a. the level of "Bare propositional content" which takes into account lexical semantics (i.e. also lexical informations of for instance an aspectual kind, the socalled aktionsart) thematic relations (subject, object) and logical form (where nominal anaphora are interpreted) and b. the level of "modal structure", which specifies the binding with the real and possible world and in which information such as tense, aspect, mode are taken into consideration a fid interpreted. It would be necessary to state whether tense interpretation, which must take into account binding rules and also syntactic structures, belongs to the first or to the second level. 2. I do not think it is at all possible to express linguistically the time of the utterance (S) in absolute. Adverbs as "oggi" (today), "ora" (now) localize the reference time or the event time. The utterance time is always defined pragmatically. 3. It does not hold for stative "states of affairs". E.g. "Paolo e ammalato" (Paolo is ill) there is no ambiguity, because the sentence cannot be interpreted as "Paolo will be ill in the future". There is no need of a temporal adverbium in order to interprete the Reference time coinciding with the time of utterance. 4. This kind of temporal relation had been called "external time" in Lo Cascio 1975 as opposed to the temporal relation within the text (the anaphoric relation) which has been called "internal time", while the temporal information in lexical items (aktionsart) has been called "lexical time". 5. Obviously if a GPT in a text is the time of utterance, the codification time very often does not coincide with the time of decodification. It should also be noted that a text can be formed by more than one subtext, i.e. a text can hold more than one GPT and thus be formed by different Main sets or can be formed by different subtexts independently of each other but all within the scope of the same given primary time operator. Also Weinreich 1971 in another framework claims that from a temporal point of view a text can be the result of the combination of different types of sets, for instance narrative texts and comment texts. In my analysis I will not make such a classification but I will take into consideration only the priority given by writer or speaker to some events in the text from a

Temporal Deixis and Anaphor in Sentence and Text

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syntactical point of view. So the Main set I have in mind will not always and only be the most important unit in the text from a narrative point of view. I am concerned here with surface structures phenomena and not with the deep structure of the text. For these surface phenomena I will try to formulate interpretation rules. 6. "Deictic" would be a term that is used here in a wider sense than normally: in my grammar it does not only refer to the extralinguistic situation at the moment of utterance in order to give temporal and spatial information. It should also be noted that information like space, choice of syntactic subject, etc. also plays a role by the identification of the reference time and understanding of temporal organization in a text. But for the time being I will ignore these variables. 7. The choice of a given primary time and the organization of sequences, and thus of events at the linguistic level vary according to the function of the text. For instance a report, or a verbal (survey) of a meeting, an advertisement text, or a narrative text may behave different and privilege different structures. In a conversation or an oral narrative, the temporal organization of the events probably does not follow the rules for time binding as strictly as in the written text. The internal structure of oral narratives has been analyzed by Labov 1972 while others have described the temporal structure of narratives (cf. Shiffrin 1981, Wolfson 1978 and 1982). It has been noted that, at least for English, temporal sequency rigidly reflects on the distributional order of the utterance in the text. This distinction in Main set and minor set could be, in a sense, related to Weinrich's proposal to distinguish foreground and background information. 8. Note that I do not use a term like "macrostructure". In this way I hope to avoid confusion, as the term macrostructure introduced by van Dijk has a different meaning. According to van Dijk, macrostructures are formal representations of the global meaning of the text, and therefore are not very different from the semantic representation of an utterance. At the macrolevel we can assume that the derivation contains abstract configurations of base predicates (cf. v. Dijk 1973, Sornicola 1980: 38). We may now assume that temporal sequences of a deictic type are linguistic formalizations of the fundamental abstract configurations at the macrolevel. In this paper I am not interested, as I have already said, in the text as an abstract configuration at the macrolevel but in the text as a linguistic, i.e. surface, configuration. Since I am interested in localizing the rules which dominate the linguistic organization of text and particularly in the organization of primary linguistic elements and secondary elements (or elements presented at the surface as primary or secondary by the speaker/writer) I try to study the text as linguistic realization. However, I think that also in a framework that regards the abstract macrolevel as input for the formation of a linguistic text, the procedures must be defined through which, given a specific macrolevel, a linguistic text can be formed. One of the most fundamental projection rules then will regulate how the temporal organization of the constituents (or events) of the macrolevel can be realized at the linguistic level, making use of the time axis which is chosen according to the communicative situation at the moment of the text formation as a linguistic unit. This parameter, or time axis, is given by the time interval chosen by the speaker (or writer) as given primary time. In a more interpretative framework the problem remains the same, as it is also a central problem of how the temporal interpretation of a text can be done according to existing binding rules that allow us to understand the temporal relation between time units and which together form a map, which I call text. There is no macrotext if it is not contingently converted into linguistic text (with specific topi-

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calization of some elements) which in turn is bound to a specific communicative situation. The production process of a text or the interpretative process of a text is bound by specific rules. The aim of this paper is to discover the nature of some of these rules. 9. E4 introduces a subtext of another kind. In terms of Weinrich. E 4 allows a change from a narrated world into a commented world. In this paper I cannot go into the difference between the two kinds of texts, but I think it would be interesting to study the deeper semantic meaning of a text. Here I must confine myself to the more linguistic surface, and then to the first steps in the interpretation chain. 10. Smith 1978 claimed that, at least in English, the temporal relation concerns the relation between the reference time and the utterance time (R-S) while the temporal adverb has the task of localizing the reference time (R) on the time axis. As a matter of fact, the temporal adverb always quantifies the distance between the time of utterance and an interval of time which is called the reference time. I think it is not quite clear whether the time morphemes (present, simple past, etc.) only express the relation R-S or also E-S. At least for Italian we could say that it expresses both. In a sentence like (1 )

Paolo partirà prima di mezzogiorno "Paolo will leave before noon."

Paolo's leaving takes place before the reference time (mezzogiorno) which is subsequent to S. But Paolo's leaving will also be subsequent to S. The future morpheme in "partirà" says that R, but E as well, are subsequent to S. 11. It is difficult to explain why the imperfetto is contextually anaphoric or deictic. The only thing we can observe is that while the true anaphoric tenses do not coincide with their antecedent, the imperfetto is the anaphoric time of the coincidence. Cf.: (1)

Paolo disse che in quel momento non aveva fame e che aveva mangiato due ore prima. "Paolo said that at that moment he wasn't hungry and that he had eaten two hours before."

The classification in deictic and anaphoric tenses proposed in this paper is slightly different from the one proposed in Lo Cascio 1981, cf. also Houweling in this volume. 12. Sometimes deictic adverbs are used in anaphoric structures in order to obtain specific narrative effects. Cf.: Un'ora più tardi O. era sulla terrazza. Nella terza ridotta, sul punto medesimo donde la sera prima aveva guardato verso settentrione. Ieri era venuto a curiosare come un viaggiatore di passaggio. Adesso era invece il padrone per 24 ore (Buzzati, il Deserto dei tartari: 57). "One hour later he was on the terrace. In the third redout at the same place where the evening before he had been watching the north. Yesterday he had come to explore as he was a traveller passing through. Now he was the master for the next 24 hours." It must be noticed that there are temporal adverbs which are contextually deictic.

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227

such as " d o p o " (later, afterwards) or (rarely) "tra u n ' o r a " which means "in an h o u r " or "an hour later". Cf.: (1)

Partirò tra un'ora. "I will leave in an hour."

(2)

Sarebbe partito tra un'ora (= un'ora dopo). "He would leave an hour later/in an h o u r . "

13. This could be an argument for distinguishing between Reference time and Event time. Reference time is necessary in order to explain aspectual information in sentences and texts. 14. It must be stressed that c-command and government principles probably at the semantic level do not behave in the same way as they do at the syntactic level. 1 only try to test this notion on other levels. I think, however, that there is a similarity in behaviour between the two levels. At the semantic level the government principle is adequate for explaining the temporal relation between main units from a configurational point of view as the latter are constituents bound to each other in the scope of the Given primary time. The GPT is the head of the text and dominates the Main set and thus the Main units. For various definitions of both principles cf. Reinhart 1976, Chomsky 1981 and Koster 1978. 15. If we take into consideration the sentence structure as proposed in the framework of the Extended Standard Theory, i.e.

1NFL where INFL expands on "tense" and "agreement", we can state that the temporal relation at textual level, i.e. at the level of relation between sentences, is expressed by the relation between different INFL categories. If a text has the following structure

S N

/

l \ INFL,

S V

I N — INFL4-—V

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the INFL which are directly dominated by S, which in their turn are immediately dominated by T(ext), are bound to each other (thus INFL, binds INFL 3 ). The INFL that are in the domain of at least two S are bound to each other or are bound by higher INFL nodes with the condition that the last INFL that can be their antecedent is the INFL of the higher S (S). Thus INFL, can bind INFL, but not INFL„, nor can INFL, bind INFL 3 or INFL 4 . In this case we could say that the time node t project the time information to the INFL node. The same rules would hold in a theory which states that the time information is in COMP and not in INFL. 16. The so called "strict adjacency" condition or coadjacency, for this cf. Koster 1978 and in particular page 216 and following.

REFERENCES Chomsky, N. 1981 Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht. van Dijk, T. 1973 'Nota sulle macrostrutture linguistiche', in F. Conte: la linguistica testuale, pp. 191-194 (trad, ilt: 1977) Milano. Houweling, F. 1982 Deictic and Anaphoric Tense Morphemes, this volume.. Koster, J. 1978 Locality Principles in Syntax. Dordrecht. Labov, W. 1972 "The transformation of experience in narrative syntax", in: Language in the inner-city. Philadelphia, pp. 354-396. Lo Cascio, V. 1975 "Le facteur "Temps" dans une grammaire générative", in: De Vriendt, Dierickx, Wilmet, Grammaire générative et psychomécanique du langage, Bruxelles, pp. 151-175. Lo Cascio, V. 1981 "Sulla traccia e il riferimento di "prima", in: Tempo verbale strutture quantificate in forma logica. Accademia della Crusca, Firenze pp. 91129. Platzack, C. 1980 The semantic interpretation of Aspect and Aktionsarten. Dordrecht. Reichenbach, H. 1947 Symbolic Logic. New York. Reinhart, T. 1976 The syntactic domain of Anaphora. MIT dissertation. Schriffin, D. 1981 "Tense variation in Narrative", in: Language, pp. 45-62. Smith, C. 1978 "The syntax and interpretation of temporal Expressions in English", in: Linguistics and Phylosophy,pp. 43-99. Sornicola, R. 1981 riparlato. Bologna. Weinreich, H. 1971 Tempus: Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo. Bologna, (traduzione italiana). Wolfson, N. 1978 "A feature of performed narrative: the conversational historical present", in: language in Society, pp. 215-237. Wolfson, N. 1982 The Conversational Historical Present in American-English Narrative, Dordrecht.

Chapter 9

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs in Complex Sentences* Vincenzo Lo Cascio & Christian

0.

Rohrer

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays it seems more important than ever before to analyse the rules that determine the temporal structure of arbitrary texts, especially in narrations. The analyses of the temporal structure of sentences which have been proposed so far have proved insufficient. In order to give adequate rules for the semantic interpretation of a sentence, it is necessary to describe its relationship to the text within which it appears. Two different models have been independently proposed recently in order to solve this problem: Kamp & Rohrer (1983b) and Lo Cascio (1982). 1 Both models attempt to present algorithms which test the temporal coherence of a text. In the present article we will examine the second model (Lo Cascio 1982), taking into account the results of the first one (Kamp & Rohrer 1983b). In particular we will examine the way in which verbal tenses and temporal adverbs relates sentence to the text in which it appears. In order to do this, it will be necessary to distinguish the function of temporal adverbs from the function of verbal tenses, which Lo Cascio (1982) did not do. Taking into account the syntactic structure of a sentence, it will be necessary furthermore to distinguish various types of subordinate clauses, especially complement clauses, relative clauses and temporal clauses. Due to limited space and time we'll restrict ourselves to the analysis of complementary clauses and relative clauses.2

1. LO CASCIO'S MODEL

Lo Cascio (1982) proposes rules for temporal 'binding' at the level of the entire text. These rules are based on a distinction between sentences containing deictic verbal tenses and sentences containing anaphoric verbal * The present paper has been made possible by a grant of the Dutch ZWO which permitted Christian Rohrer to spend a month in Amsterdam and to work at the Italian Institute of the University of Amsterdam. We therefore wish to thank the ZWO and also M. Adelaar who discussed some ideas expressed in this paper.

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Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Christian Rohrer

tenses. The model presupposes that every text is dominated entirely by a temporal operator which is considered as given or known to the speaker/writer or listener/reader. This temporal operator can be the time of speech or another time defined by the speaker or by the writer as the fundamental temporal operator of the text. This operator is called in Lo Cascio (1982): Given Primary Time (GPT), which often but not always is the time of speech. Verbal tenses have the function of establishing a temporal relation (succession, anteriority or coincidence) with another time which is different from that of the sentence in which they occur. If this time is the time denoted by the textual operator (that is the GPT) then the verbal tenses are called deictic tenses. These deictic tenses constitute the major units of a text and usually occur in main clauses. The verbal tenses on the other hand which establish a temporal relation with a time mentioned in the text and different from the GPT are called anaphoric tenses. The deictic verbal tenses constitute the fundamental flow of the text, i.e. the fundamental set (main set: MS). The anaphoric tenses constitute subsets of the text, that is to say digressions or specifications and further explanations of parts of the text, they constitute subtexts (minor sets: mS). Lo Cascio in (1982) proposes a text grammar with categorial formation rules based on a generative mechanism. Furthermore he proposes rules that serve to predict how the temporal binding takes place in the text. It is immediately apparent that the major categories control and thus generally bind the minor categories. According to the above mentioned rules the deictic tenses of a text can enter into a relationship with each other in order to express the temporal relation which holds between them. Each deictic tense can be the antecedent of another deictic tense or the antecedent of an anaphoric tense or of a sequence of anaphoric tenses. A sentence with a deictic tense can express in addition to the temporal relation with the given primary time also a temporal relation with a deictic tense which was previously mentioned in the t W . Therefore one can say that this type of sentence is evaluated temporally twice. Similarly an anaphoric tense can bind, that is be an antecedent of (and therefore establish the time of evaluation of) another anaphoric tense especially if the latter occurs in a subordinate clause. However an anaphoric tense cannot bind a deictic tense. In the text therefore one distinguishes two functions: the tense that binds the 'antecedent tense' and the tense which is bound or 'anaphoric tense'. The latter expresses a temporal relation (anteriority, posteriority or coincidence) with respect to the tense which binds it. In the same way temporal adverbs are classified as deictic and anaphoric. The former are evaluated with respect to the speech time and not with respect to an arbitrary GPT. A deictic verbal tense together with the ana-

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs

231

phoric tense which it controls constitutes a textual unit called 'major unit' (Mu). The set of anaphoric tenses which depends upon a deictic tense constitute a minor set or minor text (mS). The anaphoric tenses in turn constitute together with the other anaphoric tenses which they control a minor unit (mu) of the text. This unit can be expanded into one or two new minor subsets (mS) with other anaphoric tenses in subordinate clauses. Therefore in a text of the following type: (1)

Paolo ieri ha parlato con Maria due ore al telefono. Alia fine le El ha detto che un'ora dopo sarebbe passato da casa sua e che E2 E3 avrebbe preso la macchina che le aveva prestato il giorno prima. E4 E5 'Yesterday Paolo talked on the phone to Mary for two hours At the end he told her that he would come (lit. would have come) along one hour later and he would take, back (litt.: would have taken back) the car which she had borrowed from him the day before'

E l and E2 are major units; E3, E4 and E5 are contained in the (Mu)E2 and depend on it. They constitute a (mS); E3 and E4 are the (mu) of this minor set (mS); E5 is in a (mS) which in turn depends on E4. In general the 'temporal binding' within the various units (Mu and mu) is sensitive to the syntactic structure. One notices furthermore that a deictic tense which is the head of a (Mu) is always in a main clause whereas the anaphoric tenses occur in general in subordinate clauses. Independent sentences which contain anaphoric tenses can often be reanalysed as subordinate clauses. Clauses with anaphoric tenses inside a minor set can be coordinated or subordinated. Sentences with deictic tenses inside a major set (MS) can only be coordinated. The categorial base rules of the text grammar for temporal relations proposed by Lo Cascio (1982) are as follows:

1.1. Categorial Rules (2)

Constituents T T GPT MS Mu

= = = = =

a set of coordinate texts text given primary time Main set Main unit

232

Vincenzo Lo Coscio and Christian Rohrer mS mu Td Ta

(3)

= = = =

minor set minor unit deictic time anaphoric time

Base Rules T

-

T

-»• GPT + MS

MS

-»• M u j ( M u 2 ( M u n ) )

Mu

-»> T d ( m S ^ m S j i m S n ) ) )

mS mu

TJ ( T 2 ( T n ) )

mu j ( m u 2 (mu n )) - » - T a j (mSj (mS 2 (mS n )))

(Mu 2 )

Tdj

(Mu 3 )

Td2

Td3

(mSj)

mu j

(mu2)

(mu3)

Taj

Ta 2

T a 3 (mS 2 )

(MU4)

(Mu n )

Td4

Tdn

(mun)

Taj^

Given this grammar 3 we now want to examine the corresponding temporal binding rules. 1.2.

Rules for textual binding proposed by Lo Cascio (1982)

Lo Cascio (1982) proposes the following rules for temporal binding:

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs (5)

233

Rule for the major set (MS) 'In order to belong to the main set a clause marked by a deictic tense (Td) is time bound by the immediately preceding (or, albeit rarely, following) deictic tense controlled by the same given primary time (GPT) and generally provided that the antecedent is not in a (syntactically) subordinate clause.'

(6)

Rule for the minor set 'In order to belong to the minor set a clause marked by an anaphoric tense (Ta) finds its antecedent: 1. in a clause marked by a deictic tense immediately preceding or immediately following, or 2. in a clause marked by an anaphoric tense immediately preceding, particularly when that clause carries a lexicalized reference time through a temporal adverb. If the reference time is not explicitly indicated, the binding function of that clause is weakened.'

Rules (5) and (6) seem to function adequately 4 and they seem to explain how tenses function in the majority of Italian texts. Maybe the rules also apply adequately to texts in other languages especially other Romance languages. We expect to find primary differences between languages in how the verbal tenses function. It is well known that these functions vary from language to language.

2. PROBLEMS

It seems that the rules formulated in Lo Cascio (1982) can be improved. In fact a detailed examination reveals the following problems: 2.1.

As far as rule (5) is concerned one can ask whether it is true that a subordinate clause containing a deictic tense cannot function as the antecedent of a following main clause containing a deictic tense. It seems that if the subordinate clause in question is a relative clause then it can function as the antecedent of a following main clause containing a deictic tense, cf. (7)

Ho dato il libro a Maria che lo ha portato alla biblioteca. Un'ora El E2 dopo è andata dal medico ed è ritornata alle 3. ~E3 E4

234

Vincenzo Lo Coscio and Christian Rohrer 'I gave the book to Mary who took it to the library. One hour later she went to the doctor and she came back at 3'o clock'

In (7) at least one interpretation allows E3 to have E2 as antecedent. In other words that Maria goes to the doctor an hour after her visit to the library. This fact at first glance seems to contradict rule (5) according to which a deictic tense in a subordinate clause (in this case E2) cannot function as antecedent of a main clause containing a deictic tense (in this case E3). One attempt to explain away this difficulty would be to interpret the main clause containing a deictic tense (E3) as coordinated with the preceding relative clause (E2). In that case the temporal binding would be explained by rule (6). Syntactically this explanation is however somewhat ad hoc. 2.2. According to rule (6) anaphoric sentences can be bound by anaphoric sentences which immediately precede them (independent of whether the second clause is coordinate or subordinate). Another possibility is that the major deictic clause, which is the head of the major unit (Mu) binds the anaphoric clause. In fact in text (1) of note 3, E6 is directly bound by E3. This is especially possible because E6 is a relative clause. Let's consider the following text: (8)

Paolo ha raccontato alle 14.30 che Maria alle due aveva confessato El E2 che un'ora prima aveva ucciso Gianni. E3 'Paolo said at 2.30 p.m. that Mary had confessed at two p.m. that she had killed John one hour before'

One can claim that in E3 the verbal tense and the temporal adverb express anteriority with respect to E2 and not directly with respect to E l ; in fact the murder of Gianni could have happened at 1 p.m. and not at 1.30 p.m.. Of course this does not mean that E3 does not express a temporal relation with respect to E1. A closer look, however, reveals that the choice of the antecedent for the temporal evaluation of a sentence is not as free as rule (6) seems to suggest. In addition to the principle of binding from left to right and from top to bottom it is necessary to establish what the conditions are under which an anaphoric tense is not evaluated with respect to the anaphoric tense which immediately precedes, but is evaluated directly with respect

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs

235

to the deictic tense which controls it. Under what conditions can an anaphoric tense skip its preceding anaphoric tense and go right up to the dominating deictic tense? In effect it seems that we have to make a distinction according to the type of subordination. We have to distinguish between relative clauses and clauses that are dominated by verba dicendi (verbs that introduce indirect discourse).5

2.3. A situation can arise in which an anaphoric tense is not evaluated with respect to a time which belongs to the same (Mu) but is evaluated with respect to a time denoted by a sentence or temporal adverb in another major unit. At first sight this seems to contradict the rules proposed by Lo Cascio. In fact in some special cases this may happen. Consider the following example: (9)

Paolo ha detto che Gianni avrebbe giurato che aveva ascoltato i El E2 E3 nastri il giorno precedente. 'Paolo said that John would swear (lit.: would have sworn) that he had listened to the tapes the day before'

It is possible that the temporal adverb in E3 is neither evaluated with respect to E2 nor to E l , but with respect to a reference point which is given somewhere else in the text or in the context. If this is the case, then we would have a counterexample to rule (6). If this is the case then it would seem that rule (6) is contradicted and thus the barrier which is generally created by the deictic element which controls syntactically the anaphoric phrases would have been overcome. Actually, however, it seems as if something were missing in this reading of the sentence, as if the sentence originally had had the following form: ...aveva ascoltato i nastri il giorno precedente (al giorno di cui stiamo parlando o abbiamo parlato) where the clause in parentheses has been cancelled at the surface level. Thus it seems evident that we have to formulate more precise conditions on binding of anaphora. The binding conditions for verbal tenses differ from those of temporal adverbs. Temporal adverbs seem to be freer in the choice of their reference time and thus less sensitive to the structure of the text and to the syntactic type of the sentence in which they occur.

236

Vincenzo Lo Coscio and Christian Rohrer

3. TEMPORAL BINDING INSIDE THE (MU)

3.1. Behaviour of verbal tenses As we have said already at the beginning of our article, the rules formulated in Lo Cascio (1982) require further specifications. It seems in fact necessary to distinguish the behaviour of complement clauses from the behaviour of relative clauses and temporal clauses. We will now examine in detail the behaviour of complement clauses and of relative clauses inside the (Mu).

3.1.1. Complement clauses In a sequence of clauses inside a (Mu) in which the complement clauses contain anaphoric tenses, the tense of each complement clause is evaluated with respect to the time denoted by the matrix clause that immediately dominates it. Therefore in a sequence of the following type: Mu

in which b, c and d are complement clauses, the verbal tense in (d) is evaluated with respect to the time denoted by the event (c). The event (c) therefore is the antecedent of (d), whereas the verbal tense of (c) is evaluated with respect to (b) and (b) with respect to (a). However, the verbal tense of (d) cannot be evaluated with respect to (b) or (a). Let's take the following example: (10)

Paolo ha spiegato che quella mattina aveva confessato a Maria che E2 El un'ora prima si era sbagliato accusandola di omicidio. E3

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs

237

'Paolo explained that that morning he had confessed to Mary that one hour before he had made a mistake in accusing her of murder'

(11)

mu

E2 aveva confessato

Ta-i E3 si era sbagliato

In other words

El

E2 ^

-^j

GPT

R

E3^—vj R (El < GPT) A (E2 < E l ) A (E3 < E2) one can say that E3 is evaluated with respect to the time introduced by E2 and similarly E2 is evaluated with respect to E l . The fact that E3 not only precedes E2 but also El is due to the law of transitivity. If E2 were posterior to E l then the fact that E3 expresses anteriority with respect to E2 would not imply anteriority with respect to E l . Therefore if we had the sentence:

238 (13)

Vincenzo Lo Coscio and Christian Rohrer Paolo decise quel giorno di uccidere Maria e ci promise che avrebbe El" ~E2 confessato ai carabinieri, quando l'avrebbero arrestato, che aveva "ET ucciso Maria per gelosia. 'Paolo decided that day to kill Mary and promised us that he would confess (lit: would have confessed) to the carabinieri, when they would arrest him (lit.: would have arrested him), that he had killed Mary out of jealousy.'

then E3 would be anterior to E2 but certainly not to E l . The temporal structure of (14) can be illustrated as follows: (14) El

GPT R

k

^

E2

E3^—-sj R (El < GPT) A (E2 > E l ) A (E3 < E2) The verbal tense of the complement clause is evaluated with respect to the time introduced by its matrix clause. We notice that if the matrix clause contains a verb of saying like: dire, confermare, affermare, attestare etc. which introduce indirect discourse then the verbal tense of the complement clause is always bound by the verbal tense in the main clause. In other types of complement clauses one can find, although not very often, that the verbal tense of the complement clause is not evaluated with respect to its matrix but with respect to a clause which is higher in the hierarchy inside the (Mu) to which it belongs. It can also occur that the verbal tense in the complement clause is evaluated directly with respect to GPT. Cf.: (15)

Paolo è certo che non sarà contento che tu sarai alla stazione ad -

TI

E2

IF

aspettarlo 'Paolo is sure that he will be glad that you will be at the station waiting for him' One notices that the verbal tense 'future' of E3 need not express pos-

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs

239

teriority with respect to E2 but only with respect to E l . In fact this would be the case when Paolo does not discover that 'you' are waiting for him at the station until he arrives and then becomes angry. Paolo in this case becomes angry after E3. In another situation Paolo could find out that ' y ° u ' intend to wait for him at the station before his arrival and this information makes him angry. This would amount to the fact that E2 is anterior to E3. 6

3.1.2. Relative clauses Relative clauses don't seem to follow the rigid rules that apply to the verbal tenses in complement clauses and in particular to the complement clauses that depend on verbs of saying. In effect the verbal tense of a .elative clause is evaluated with respect to a time chosen arbitrarily in the text. In some cases this time can be found inside the (Mu) in which the relative clause occurs, in other cases even outside of the (Mu). However, this time must already have been introduced into the text. Even though relative clauses are subordinate clauses, when they are evaluated temporally, they need not be evaluated with respect to a time introduced by the matrix clause. Let's compare the following examples: (16)

Paolo racconto alia ragazza che aveva conosciuto il giorno prima ElE2 che Gianni l'avrebbe uccisa. E3 'Paolo told the girl whom he had met the day before, that John would kill her (lit.: would have killed her).'

(17)

Paolo racconto a quella ragazza che domenica sarebbe venuta al El E2 cinema con te, che Gianni l'avrebbe uccisa. E3 'Paolo told the girl who would go (litt.: would have gone) to the movie with you on Sunday, that John would kill her (lit.: would have killed)'

One notices that in (16) the verbal tense of the relative clause E2 is evaluated with respect to E l or with respect to a time or an event mentioned somewhere else in the text. On the other hand in (17) the relative clause E2 seems not to be bound by its matrix, the conditional of E2 seems to express posteriority with respect to a time in the past which need not be E l . Not even the adverb domenica helps us in the decoding because

240

Vincenzo Lo Coscio and Christian Rohrer

this adverb can denote a time in the past of the speech point or in the future. In fact this freedom of relative clauses could be justified by the fact that even syntactically they are less strictly subordinated than complement clauses. Some linguists have even considered relative clauses as syntactically and semantically coordinated rather than subordinated.7 Actually while relative clauses are free in the choice of their reference time there are restrictions when this reference time is given by their matrix. In fact the relative clause can choose its reference time in the matrix sentence if the type of temporal relation expressed by the verbal tense of the relative clause belongs to the same category (anteriority, posteriority, coincidence with GPT) as the relation expressed by the verbal tense of the matrix. Cf.: (18)

Ha scritto alla ragazza che aveva incontrato a Roma. El

E2

'He wrote to the girl whom he had met in Rome' (19)

Invitò la ragazza che avrebbe assunto come segretaria TT~

E2

'He invited the girl whom he would hire as a secretary' (20)

Invitò El la ragazza che avevaE2assunto come segretaria 'He invited the girl whom he had hired as a secretary'

In these examples E2 seems to be evaluated with respect to El because all the verbal tenses express anteriority with respect to GPT. In: (21)

Inviterà la ragazza che aveva assunto come segretaria. El E2 'He will invite the girl whom he had hired as a secretary'

E2 is not evaluated with respect to El, but with respect to a time given somewhere else in the text. Notice, however, that a relative clause as opposed to a complement clause need not be related to a time of the matrix. Consider, for example (22)

Paolo comunicherà che tu sarai arrivato El E2

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs

241

'Paolo will make known that you will have arrived' (23)

Paolo butterà via i giornali che gli avrai portato da leggere ~E1 E2 'Paolo will throw away the newspapers which you will have brought for him to read'

The sentence (22) would be grammatical if E2 were che tu sei arrivato. If on the other hand we were to change avrai portato to hai portato in (23) then this would mean something different, it would mean that at the speech point Paolo already has the newspapers. One can claim that the relative clause can be related to its matrix especially in the case where its verbal tense denotes the same type of relation (anteriority, coincidence etc.). Cf.: (24)

Paolo quel giorno ammise che la ragazza che aveva sedotto il giorno EÌ E2 prima l'aveva minacciato di denunciarlo alla polizia E3 'That day Paolo acknowledged that the girl whom he had seduced the day before had threatened him to denounce him to the police'

It seems highly probable that E2 is evaluated with respect to E l . Therefore rule (6) could be extended to include the following additions: (6.3)

The anaphoric verbal tense of a complement clause, especially if controlled by a verb of saying is always evaluated with respect to the time denoted by its matrix.

(6.4)

The anaphoric verbal tense of a relative clause can be evaluated with respect to a time denoted by an arbitrary clause and is therefore free of the restrictions imposed by subordination. In some cases the antecedent can be given by the matrix if the verbal tense of the relative clause and of the matrix clause express the same type of temporal relation.

3.2. Temporal adverbs It is generally known that a verbal tense as well as an adverb express a temporal relation namely anteriority (passato prossimo, passato remoto, or il giorno prima, ieri, etc.) or posteriority (futuro or domani, il giorno

242 Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Christian Rohrer dopo etc.) or coincidence (presente or oggi, quel giorno). The verbal tense and the temporal adverb in a sentence generally denote the same temporal relation but sometimes they can contradict each other. Let's look at some examples: (25)

Paolo ha sentito lunedì che Maria ha detto il giovedì precedente che El E2 due giorni prima Gianni era partito. E3 'On Monday Paolo heard that the Thursday before Mary said (lit.: has said) that John had left two days before'

Interpretation: El

^

>JGPT

R

E 3 ^

R (El < GPT) A (E2 < E l ) A (E3 < E2)

In (25) the temporal relation of the verbal tense {ha detto : passato) and the temporal adverb {due giorni prima: passato) coincide. The same agreement between the temporal adverb and the verbal tense can be found in E3 of the following complex sentence: (26)

Paolo ha detto il 1° settembre che Gianni avrebbe giurato che El E2 avrebbe ascoltato i nastri l'indomani. E3 'On the first of September, Paolo said that John would swear (lit.: would have sworn) that he would listen to the tapes the next day'

Interpretation:

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs El ^

243

"s»GPT

Rk—^E2 Rtr^E3 (El < GPT) A (E2 > E l ) A (E3 > E2) On the other hand: (27)

Paolo ha detto che Gianni avrebbe giurato che aveva ascoltato i naEl E2 E3 stri l'indomani. 'Paolo said that John would swear (lit.: would have sworn) that he had listened to the tapes the next day'

in E3 of (27) the temporal adverb and the verbal tense denote opposing temporal relations: the verbal tense denotes anteriority whereas the temporal adverb 'l'indomani' denotes posteriority. Therefore the temporal interpretation becomes more difficult. One notices that the verbal tense tells us that E3 must be anterior with respect to E2, but the temporal adverb 'l'indomani' in order to localize the event of E3 on the temporal axis chooses its reference time no longer in E2 but in another time mentioned somewhere else in the text. The interpretation would therefore look like: El /

^

R k

GPT

22 R

( E l < GPT) A (E2 > E l ) A ((E3 < E2) A (E3 > Ex)) in which Rx denotes a reference time somehow introduced already in the text with respect to which the event E3 is localized. If we take some further examples where every clause contains a temporal adverb (something which happens quite rarely in linguistic reality): (28)

Gianni sognò il lunedì che Maria aveva detto il giovedì che Paolo

"IF

era partito il giorno prima. E3

E2

244

Vincenzo Lo Cascio and Christian Rohrer 'John dreamed on Monday that Mary had said on Thursday that Paolo had left the day before'

(29)

Gianni sognò il lunedì che Maria aveva detto il giovedì che Paolo E1 ~E2 era partito il giorno dopo E3 'John dreamed on Monday that Mary had said on Thursday that Paolo would leave (lit.: would have left) the day after'

(30)

Gianni sognò il lunedì che Maria aveva detto il giovedì che Paolo El E2 sarebbe partito il giorno prima E3 'John dreamed on Monday that Mary had said on Thursday that Paolo would leave (lit.: would have left) the day before'

we note that in the cases where the temporal adverb and verbal tense denote opposing temporal relations, as is the case in E3 of (29) and (30), the reference time chosen by the adverb is not the time denoted by the verbal tense but by some other interval of time. With respect to deictic temporal adverbs we notice furthermore that (31) *Paolo ha detto che avrebbe dichiarato che aveva visto Gianni l'anno Tì E2 E3 prossimo 'Paolo said that he would declare (lit.: would have declared) that he had seen John next year' cannot be interpreted: the deictic adverb l'anno prossimo denotes posteriority with respect to the speech point whereas the anaphoric verbal tense of the trapassato prossimo aveva visto expresses anteriority with respect to E2 (and of course also with respect to the speech point). A sentence like (32) should therefore be normally interpreted: (32)

Paolo ha detto che avrebbe dichiarato che aveva visto Gianni l'anno ~~EÌ E2 ' E3 scorso. 'Paolo said that he would declare (litt.: would have declared) that he had seen John last year'

Interaction between

Verbal Tenses and Temporal

Adverbs

245

At this point one could formulate the following rules for the behaviour of temporal adverbs that localize an event with respect to a reference time: (33)

Rule If a temporal adverb expresses the same type of temporal relation (anteriority, posteriority, coincidence) as the verbal tense which it accompanies, then the evaluation time is either: the same as the evaluation time of the verbal tense which it accompanies - or the time of another event in the same unit in which it occurs. If the temporal adverb denotes a temporal relation which opposes the temporal relation of the verbal tense, then the time of evaluation of the adverb cannot coincide with the time of evaluation of the verb. In this case the time of evaluation must be found elsewhere, it is usually given by an event which has not been mentioned in the same textual unit (Mu).

When the verbal tense is accompanied by a deictic temporal adverb (like oggi, domani) and if this adverb is a real deictic, that is evaluated only with respect to the speech point and not used for stylistic reasons then it can only be interpreted if it expresses the same temporal relation as the verbal tense. University of Amsterdam University of Stuttgart

NOTES 1. See also Houweling (1982) who presents an interesting model for analysing texts, Smith (1978 and 1979) and Kamp & Rohrer (1983a). For an analysis of verbal tenses and temporal adverbs (French) and their interrelation see Klum (1961). Houweling (1982) and Lo Cascio (1982) have been reprinted in this volume. 2. For the relation between temporal adverbs and verbal tenses see Smith (1978 and 1979). She proposes a classification of verbal tenses and temporal adverbs and proposes rules for their intersentential and intrasentential relations. Her two papers are concerned primarily with English. She discusses, however, also examples from other languages as for instance Hindi and Japanese. Unfortunately she only considers pairs of sentences and not complete texts. 3. Let's now take an example in order to understand how a text is organized according to such a grammar and how the rules are applied. The individual sentences are numbered successively. Sentences containing a deictic tense are circled. Figure (2) represents the structure of the text. Figure (3) illustrates the information about temporal binding without indicating, however, whether the events are anterior, posterior or simultaneous with respect to the time of evaluation. The arrows indicate the time with respect to which each verbal tense is evaluated.

246

Vincenzo Lo Coscio and Christian Rohrer

(1)Paolo ieri ha telefonato a Maria alle 5. Ha parlato due ore al telefono, alla fine El E2 ha detto che un'ora dopo sarebbe passato da casa a prendere la macchina che le E3 E4 E5 aveva prestato il giorno prima. Poi è andato a lavarsi e cambiarsi il vestito che la E6 E7 E8 E9 settimana prima aveva fatto lavare. Verso le 7.30 mangiò le prugne che aveva E10 Eli comprato tre ore prima e quindi uscì. Mezz'ora dopo era a casa di Maria. E12 E13 E14 'Yesterday Paolo called Mary at five p.m. He talked for two hours on the phone. At the end he said that one hour later he would come (lit.: would have come) along in order to take back the car that he had lent to her the day before. Afterwards he went to have a wash and to change the clothes which he had had washed (lit.: he had let wash) the week before. At about 7.30 he ate the plums which he had bought three hours before and then he went out. Half an hour later he was at Mary's home'

GPTE

Td

Td

Td

mS

Td

mS

El

E2

E3

mu

E7

mu

mu

K

I K

Td

mS

Td

Td

Ell

mu

E13

E14

Ta

mS

Ta

Ta

ms

Ta

E4

mu

E8

E9

mu

E12

K

Ta mS | I mu I i E5 Ta

E6

Ta

E10

Interaction between Verbal Tenses and Temporal Adverbs

247

GPTE E ^ R F '—S Rfc-Egfe-sE ^10 9 E

6

^

R t - E ^ E5

In this text E l , E2, E3, E7, E l l , E13 and E14 contain deictic tenses which are all related (by the relation of anteriority) to the primary time which functions as temporal operator for the whole text (in other words the GPT) and which in this specific case is the time of speech. Each deictic tense forms a (Mu). The deictic tense E3 controls the series of anaphoric tenses E4, E5, E6, which together form an (mS) which is an expansion of an (Mu) whose head is the deictic E3. The deictic E7 on the other hand controls E8, E9, E10. In E7 the adverb poi indicates furthermore succession with respect to E3 and not with respect to E6. We notice furthermore that E l l is in the relation of succession with respect to E7. If E7 instead of being accompanied by the adverb poi had been accompanied by the adverb prima then E7 would have been anterior not with respect to E l or E2 but with respect to E3. It would always have been bound by E3, its immediate deictic predecessor in the textual sentence. We notice furthermore that E13 is bound by E l l and E14 by E13. Between the anaphoric tenses there exists also a relation of temporal binding. This binding occurs according to a hierarchic principle. Each anaphoric tense is evaluated with respect to the time introduced by its immediately dominating predecessor. 4. According to such rules in example 1 of Note 3, E l binds E2. In other words, E2 is evaluated with respect to E l . E2 in turn binds E3 and E3 in turn binds E7. According to rule (6) El cannot be the antecedent of E4. E4 is evaluated with respect to E3 which is its deictic, that is to say the head of the (Mu) to which it belongs. In turn neither E4 nor E6 can function as antecedent of E7. In fact the temporal adverb poi of E7 is evaluated with respect to E3 and not with respect to E6, following thus rule (5). 5. For reported speech see Herczeg (1963) for Italian and Lips (1926) for French. 6. Let's take another example. (1) Paolo si meraviglierà che Maria verrà assunta all'IBM El E2 'Paolo will be astonished by the fact that Mary will be hired by IBM' If Maria has not yet been hired by IBM but will be hired, for instance, on October 5 t h whereas Paolo will find this out on October 10* , we have the possibility to say that E2 precedes E l , in other words the future of E2 expresses posteriority with respect to the speech point. Also examine (2) Oggi è il 2 ottobre. Paolo, quando lo vedrò il 10 ottobre si meraviglierà che tu El E2 il 5 ottobre verrai assunto all'IBM. E3

248

Vincenzo Lo Coscio and Christian Rohrer

'Today is the second of October. Paolo, when I will see him on the tenth of October, will be astonished by the fact that you will be hired on the fifth of October' of course we could prefer the following version: (3)Paolo, quando lo vedrò il 10 ottobre, si meraviglierà che tu il 5 ottobre sarai El E2 stato assunto all'IBM. E3 'When I will see Paolo on the tenth of October, he will be astonished by the fact that you will be hired on the fifth of October by IBM' But the last version becomes more difficult if one uses deictic adverbs. (4)

*Paolo si meraviglierà, quando lo vedrò la settimana prossima, che tu martedì El E2 prossimo sia/sarai stato assunto all'IBM E3 'When I will see Paolo the next week, he will be astonished that you have been/ will have been hired by IBM next Tuesday'

(4) is somewhat odd, whereas (5) is quite acceptable (5) Paolo si meraviglierà, quando lo vedrò la settimana prossima, che sarai assunto E1 E2 E3 all'IBM martedì prossimo 'Paolo will be astonished, when I will see him next week, that you are hired by IBM next Tuesday' Notice that with verba discendi this would not be possible (6) Paolo dirà, quando lo vedrò la settimana prossima, che sarai assunto all'IBM martedì prossimo. 'Paolo will say, when I will see him next week, that you will be hired by IBM next Tuesday'. 7. See, for example, Thompson (1971) who quotes also other linguists like Lakoff, Postal, etc. For a classification and an analysis of relative clauses within the framework of generative grammar see also Radford (1981) where he claims that relative clauses whether restrictive or non-restrictive are islands from which one cannot extract any component. Relative clauses are one of the constructs to which the restriction COMPLEX NOUN PHRASE CONSTRAINT applies and which says that no rule can move any element out of the complex noun phrase clause.

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REFERENCES Herczeg, G. (1963), Lo stile indiretto libero in italiano, Firenze, Sansoni Ed. Houweling, F. (1982), 'Deictic and anaphoric tense morphemes\ Journal of Italian Linguistics 7, pp.1-30. Kamp, H. & C. Rohrer (1983a), 'Tense in texts', in: R. Bauerle, C. Schwarz & A. von Stechow (eds.), Meaning, use, and interpretation of language, Berlin, pp.250269. Kamp, H. & C. Rohrer, (1983b), Tense and temporal adverbs: how they contribute to the interpretation of texts. Stuttgart, unpublished paper. Klum, A. (1961), Verbe et adverbe, Stockholm, Anquist & Wiksell. Lips, M. (1926), Le style indirect libre, Paris, Payot. Lo Cascio, V. (1982), 'Temporal deixis and anaphora in sentence and text: finding a reference time', Journal of Italian Linguistics 7, pp. 31-70. Radford, A. (1981), Transformational syntax, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Smith, C.S. (1978), 'The syntax and interpretation of temporal reference in English', Linguistics and Philosophy 2, pp.43-100. Smith, C.S. (1979), 'Temporal structures in discourse' paper presented at the conference on 'The logic of tense and quantifiers', Stuttgart, March, 1979.

Chapter 10

Temporal Relation, Localization and Direction* Moscia Adelaar & Vincenzo Lo Cascio

0.

INTRODUCTION

A text is a set of utterances and facts bound to each other by a temporal relation and placed, following some order, on an imaginary time axis. Each text and particularly a narrative text or story is characterized by a temporal progression, i.e. a temporal development so that the story represents the running from a (initial) time interval to another (final) time interval. Each event or set of events and thus the whole story takes place, and thus is disposed, in a period, or region, or sector of time which is anterior, coincident or posterior with respect to some given time interval. Within the temporal sector or period chosen, each state of affairs (event or situation) is located or anchored on the time axis. In general the temporal relation which indicates the sector where the state of affairs we talk about are placed, as well as the location process, are expressed through linguistic elements such as tenses, adverbs or temporal clauses. The precision according which the temporal location takes place depends on many factors. Assignment of a precise place to the state of affairs on the time axis is sometimes not very important or even not desired by the author or speaker for some stylistic or pragmatic reasons. So, many texts do not show a temporal location while other texts are very strict and very explicit about doing it. When there is a lack of linguistic elements for the precise location on the time axis, in order to give in some way a temporal order to the states of affairs mentioned in a text, we are forced to have recourse, in the interpretive process, to the knowledge of the world. In this paper we are interested in the linguistic set up of a text. In particular we want to discover which linguistic tools we use to locate on the temporal axis the states of affairs in order to give them the right relevance in the text. We want also find out which linguistic elements have the task of indicating the temporal direction of the story. We are thus interested in the static components (relation and localization) as well as in the dynamic component (direction) of a narrative text. Until now in the literature the problem has been only partially faced.

252 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Cascio In order to solve it we need a theory or a linguistic model which makes some hypothesis about the organization of temporal information in a text. For our aims we will then try to improve the textual model proposed in Lo Cascio 1982 (see also this volume) in order to formulate at the level of the logical form, interpretive rules which allow us to give account respectively of the temporal relation, the location process and the temporal direction which characterize a text. We could also take into account the model proposed by Kamp & Rohrer, or the model for Discourse Representation proposed by Kamp and illustrated in B. Partee (1984). But those models either consider all events and states belonging to a text as located on one time axis so that there is no explicit distinction between text and subtexts (Kamp & Rohrer) or they distinguish between domains and subdomains (Kamp) without involving enough the syntactic organization of the text. The syntactic structure, on the contrary, is, as we will stress, of great importance in the choice of temporal domains, and thus in the choice of reference times and evaluation times (i.e. binders and antecedents). Further the theories mentioned above do not take into consideration the possibility of discontinuous binding within a text, i.e. they do not formulate explicitly binding rules which bring into connection time units which are enunciated in a text at some distance one from the other.

1. LO CASCIO's MODEL

The temporal binding rules proposed in Lo Cascio 1982 are based on a distinction between sentences characterized by so-called deictic tenses and sentences characterized by so-called anaphoric tenses. According with Lo Cascio's theory every text is in the scope of, and is dominated by, a temporal operator which is considered as 'given' or 'known' to the speaker or the writer and to the hearer/reader. Generally this given time is the 'enunciation' time or 'speech time', but it could also be another time interval (in other words the universe of discourse could be different from the time of the speaker). This time interval can be considered (by the speaker or the writer) as the fundamental temporal operator of the text. Such a fundamental given temporal operator is called Given Primary Time (GPT). In a text, tenses have the function of indicating which temporal relation (anteriority, posteriority, coincidence) exists between a state of affairs and some given time interval. If this evaluation time interval is the textual temporal operator (the GPT), then the tenses are called deictic tenses. If on the contrary, the comparative time interval is mentioned in the text then we have to do with anaphoric tenses.

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Deictic tenses characterize those states of affairs which form together the main flow of the text, i.e. the fundamental set of states of affairs of the story (the main set: MS). Anaphoric tenses and thus anaphoric relations characterize states of affairs which form textual subsets (the minor sets: mS), i.e. states of affairs which are presented as digressions, specifications of parts of the text. Lo Cascio, considering that a text is formed by temporal units hierarchically organised, proposes a text grammar with two kind of rules - categorial formation rules based on a generative mechanism - interpretation rules, i.e. rules which indicate how temporal binding can take place in a text. In Lo Cascio's model it is evident that major categories control and thus generally bind, minor categories. According to the categorial rules, in the model a deictic tense together with those anaphoric tenses controlled by him form a textual unit called 'Major unit' (Mu). The set of the anaphoric tenses which depend upon the same event time marked by a deictic tense form a minor set (mS). The anaphoric tenses controlled by another anaphoric tense form in turn with the latter a unit called 'minor unit' (mu), a minor unit which can expand again into a minor set (mS) with other subordinate anaphoric tenses. For the sake of simplicity we repeat here the basic rules proposed in Lo Cascio's model: (1)

T

- Tj (T 2 (T n )

T

-* GPT + MS

MS -> Mu2 (Mu2 (Mu n )) Mu

Td (mSjCmSj (mS n ))

mS -> m u j (mu 2 (mu n )) mu -> T a j (mSj (mS 2 (mS n ))) Generally speaking, temporal binding within the various units (Mu and mu) in Lo Cascio's model is sensitive to syntactic structure. Lo Cascio observes that a deictic tense which is the head of a Mu, marks generally a verbal phrase of a main clause while verb phrases of subordinate clauses are in general marked by anaphoric tenses. Clauses which are syntactically independent and marked by an anaphoric tense, according to him, appear to be false independent clauses, while deictic tenses which show up in subordinate clauses appear generally to be false deictic tenses. Within a minor set (mS) a clause marked by an anaphoric tense can be subordinated or coordinated to another clause marked by an anaphoric

254 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Cascio tense. Within the major set (MS) a clause marked by a deictic tense can be coordinated to another clause also marked by a deictic tense. In Lo Cascio's model binding rules have been proposed for the Mu at the level of the Major set (MS), which we also repeat here for the sake of simplicity. (2)

RULE for the Major set: 'In order to belong to the main set a clause marked by a deictic tense (Td) is time bound by the immediately preceding (or, albeit rarely, following) deictic tense controlled by the same given primary time (GPT) and generally provided that the antecedent is not in a (syntactically) subordinate clause'

Rule (2) says that the deictic tenses express a temporal relation with the GPT, but also that there where some textual binding is given the deictic tenses allow us to define the place of the state of affairs on a time axis taking as evaluation point a time interval provided by the event marked by a deictic tense and immediately preceding in the text and expressed by a main clause. Consider the configuration (3a)

T

GPT

MS

Muj

Mu2

Mu^

Tdj

Td 2

Td 3

which could be the representation of: 1 (3b)

Ieri Gianni ha visto 0 film di Fellini e Vha discusso oggi pomeriggio El E2 con i suoi amici; dopo ha scritto una recensione E3 'John saw Fellini's film yesterday and discussed it this afternoon with his friends, later he wrote a review'

In (3b) then E3 is evaluated not relative to El but with respect to E2, i.e. E3 is posterior to E2 which is its immediate antecedent marked by a deictic tense, while E2 in turn establishes a relation with E l .

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The RULE which governs temporal binding between mu's at the level of the minor set (mS) is the following: (4)

In order to belong to the minor set a clause marked by an anaphoric tense (ta) finds its antecedent: 1. In a clause marked by a deictic tense immediately preceding or immediately following, or 2. In a clause marked by an anaphoric tense immediately preceding, particularly when that clause carries a lexicalized reference time through a temporal adverb. If the reference time is not explicitly indicated the binding function of that clause is weakened

i.e. an anaphoric tense looks for an antecedent: - in the deictic tense, head of the Mu - or in the anaphoric tense immediately preceding Lo Cascio has added some auxiliary rules: 1. If an anaphoric tense is in a subordinate clause then it prefers to find the antecedent in the matrix clause immediately superior 2. If on the contrary the anaphoric tense is in a clause coordinated to an other clause marked also by an anaphoric tense it can (but will not necessarily) find its antecedent in the coordinate clause instead of finding it in its matrix (independent) clause. 3. If the anaphoric tense marks a main clause then it will find its antecedent in a clause marked by a deictic tense and functioning as head of the Mu instead of finding the antecedent in the immediately preceding clause, marked by an anaphoric tense.2 Further, in order to give a more general interpretation to the discussed phenomena, Lo Cascio adopts two general principles developed within the generative theory: i.e. the government and the c-command principles. The relation between events presented through deictic tenses functioning as head of a Mu is a relation between categories belonging to the same configurational level and thus between equals. In fact deictic tenses do not have their antecedents in temporal units hierarchically covering an inferior position. In other words events marked by deictic tenses find their antecedents in temporal units which are in the position to govern them, and are immediately adjacent. Barrier for a temporal binding of this type is the MS node. In analyzing more closely Lo Cascio's proposal we can notice that it

256 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Cascio needs a further specification and improvement and first of all it needs to distinguish the functions of various linguistic elements. Particularly it appears necessary to formulate more strict binding conditions for anaphors and to distinguish between the function of tenses (which we will call from now on TE) and that of temporal adverbia (which we will call from now on TA). In Lo Cascio - Rohrer (this volume) this analysis has been made and the following additional rules have been proposed, which we will repeat here for simplicity: (5)

The anaphoric verbal tense of a complement clause, especially if controlled by a verb of saying is always evaluated with respect to the time denoted by its matrix

(6)

The anaphoric verbal tense of a relative clause can be evaluated with respect to a time denoted by an arbitrary clause and is therefore free of the restrictions imposed by subordination. In some cases the antecedent can be given by the matrix if the verbal tense of the relative clause and of the matrix clause express the same type of temporal relation

In the same paper it has been observed that the TA seem to be free in looking for their reference time in the text. They seem to be indeed less sensitive to the textual structure and to the syntactic nature of the clause within which they are used. Accordingly the following rule has been formulated. (7)

If a temporal adverb expresses the same type of temporal relation (anteriority, posteriority, coincidence) as the verbal tense which it accompanies, then the evaluation time is either: the same as the evaluation time of the verbal tense which it accompanies or the time of another event in the same unit in which it occurs. If the temporal adverb denotes a temporal relation which opposes the temporal relation of the verbal tense, then the time of evaluation of the adverb cannot coincide with the time of evaluation of the verb. In this case the time of evaluation must be found else where it, is usually given by an event which has not been mentioned in the same textual unit (Mu).

As already said Lo Cascio - Rohrer make a distinction between the job done in the clause by the tense and the job done by the temporal adverb.

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The distinction has produced two different and autonomous binding systems. Nevertheless the additional rules in Lo Cascio - Rohrer do not make clear in which way TE and TA interact within the same clause in order to define the location of states of affairs (we will use from now on for sake of simplicity the term 'event' E to indicate a state of affairs (event, process or state) on the time axis). A closer analysis of temporal structures within a text will bring us to state the existence of three different levels in the interpretation process: RELATION, LOCALIZATION, DIRECTION. The three levels are determined by the function of the TE or of the TA separately or by the function of their interaction. The first two are the static temporal components while the latter is the most dynamic component of a narrative text.

2.

2.0.

RELATION

Definition

An event establishes a temporal relation of anteriority, posteriority or coincidence with a time interval which becomes its evaluation point (or its antecedent). This time interval can be the GPT or an other time interval already given in the text. The linguistic form which has the function of expressing such a temporal relation is the verbal tense (TE). A deictic tense or an anaphoric tense express thus a temporal relation. We could say that the time axis, introduced by a chosen evaluation time interval, is divided into three domains or sectors (past, coincident, future) with respect to the evaluation time interval in question. The TE has the function to indicate in which sector the event must be placed. Consider the example: (8)

Paul said that he had seen the movie El E2

The tense of El tells us that the event (Paul says) falls in the temporal sector preceding the speech time, while the tense marking E2 tells us that the event {to see the movie) falls in the temporal sector preceding the time interval in which the first event El (Paul says) takes place. We can now study the RELATIONAL level closely analyzing first the deictic tenses and thus the Major units, and afterwards the anaphoric tenses, and thus the minor units.

258 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Coscio 2.1.

Temporal relation and deictic tenses in the main clause

Rule (2) which concerns the behaviour of the deictic tenses, and thus the major units, seems to be only appropriate for those narrative texts where the deictic tenses form a sequence of the same type, i.e. where deictic tenses are all past tenses, or future tenses or present tenses (i.e. tenses which place all the events in the past sector or in the future sector or in the present sector). In other words the rule appears to function adequately in a text characterized by tenses which express temporal relations of states of affairs belonging to the same temporal sector. Cf.: (9)

Paolo e venuto a trovarci e ci ha raccontato la storia dell'incendio. El E2 È rimasto a cena e abbiamo suonato, lui il pianoforte ed io il E3 E4 violino e se ne e andato soddisfatto E5 'Paul came to see us and told us about the fire. He had a dinner with us and we played, he the piano and I the violin. He left satisfied'

which could have the following interpretation (10)

El

GPT

R

E2R

E3 R

E4 — R

E5 -

which can also be represented in this way: R1 E1

--E2

>

>

E3

>

E4

>

E5

GPT

There where deictic tenses are not accompanied by temporal adverbs and the TE's in the text express a different kind of temporal relation, the rule for textual binding proposed in Lo Cascio does not hold. The

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259

condition according to which in a narrative text the action moves forward in time only where all the clauses are marked by the same type of tenses was already stated elsewhere (see e.g. B. Partee 1984, p. 253). We could in fact have a text where a sequence of tenses expressing past alternates with a sequence of tenses expressing future, i.e. states of affairs belonging to different temporal sectors are put together in the same narrative text. In that case the binding relation becomes a problem: a deictic TE expressing a past relation is not bound by a deictic TE expressing future, cf.: (11)

Paolo è venuto a trovarci e ci ha raccontato dell'incendio. È andato E1 E2 E3 a trovare anche Maria. Certamente telefonerà a Gianni. Purtroppo E4 ha anche telefonato alla zia ma lei non ha capito nulla. L'assicuE5 E6 razione gli rimborserà una parte dei danni. E7 'Paul came to see us and told us about the fire. He went to see Mary. He will certainly call John. Unfortunately he also called his/our aunt but she didn't understand anything. The insurance company will refound a part of the damages'

has the following interpretation:

(12) R
E l )

C (SECTOR > Ex) A distance (Ex-E2)= a day A Ex > E l condition 1 : (E2 > E l ) A (Ex < S)

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281

Two interpretations then are possible with respect to the relation between E2 and the speech point, i.e. E2 is not controlled by the given primary time S, namely:

El

El

Ex

E2

(where Ex takes an independent position) or

:m

El

.i^r.

E2

E2 in both interpretations is not related to S, i.e. the tense of E2 does not give any information about the relation between E2 and S. (65)

Paolo ha promesso che sarebbe partito domani El E2 'Paul promised that he would leave tomorrow'

interpretation: Tense: adverb:

i.e.

TE(E1) El C (SECTOR < S ) TE(E2) E2 C (SECTOR>El) TA(E2) E2 C (SECTOR > S ) A distance (E2-S)= a day condition 1 is met transitively

282 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Coscio

E2

(66)

Paolo ha promesso che sarebbe partito il giorno prima El E2 'Paul promised that he would leave the day before'

interpretation: tense: adverb:

TE(E1) : E l TE(E2) : E2 TA(E2) : E2 condition 1:

C (SECTOR < S ) C (SECTOR > E l ) C (SECTOR < Ex) A distance (Ex-E2)= a day A (Ex > E l ) E2 C (SECTOR > E l )

Also here the localization of Ex as well as the localization of E2 is independent from S. The interpretation can be represented as follows:

E2

Ex

In (66) the temporal adverb the day before seems to contradict, on expressing a past relation, what the conditional tense is stating about E2: namely that E2 would be posterior with respect to E l . Since from rule (61) we learn that a contradiction is not possible, then we must conclude that the temporal adverb has as its reference time an event which is different from the one ( E l ) chosen by the conditional tense. The temporal adverb is free in choosing another reference time but on the condition that after calculation of the temporal distance the event in question will be placed in the same sector indicated by the conditional tense. This explains also why (67) is odd.

Temporal Relation, Localization and Direction in Discourse (67)

283

*Paolo ha visto Maria domani El Paul saw Mary tomorrow

the interpretation of which would be: tense: TE(E1) adverb :TA(E1)

: :

El El

C (SECTOR < S ) C (SECTOR > S )

i.e.:

El

_lil__!î

The temporal adverb tomorrow, because of its deictic nature, was not free to choose a reference time different from S in order to meet the condition (61). This is the reason why (67) is not grammatical and thus not interpretable. A sequence with an anaphoric temporal adverb is always grammatical because we can always posit an event time Ex which provides a reference time. If of course the Ex is not recoverable in the context then the sequence, even if it is grammatical, is not interpretable. In terms of a c-command principle we can conclude that, unlike the tenses, the temporal adverb can find its reference time in event times by which it is c-commanded or governed.

3.4. Reference time and temporal localizer Up to now we have analyzed temporal adverbs as having the task of localizing the state of affairs on the time axis, i.e. having the task of indicating the time interval which shares at least one point with the time interval of the state of affairs. We have also noticed that the temporal adverb in order to cover this task, quantifies the distance between the time interval with which, in some points, the state of affairs coincide and another time interval which functions as evaluative term. But it must be said that temporal adverbs can sometimes have a different function. Instead of localizing the time interval for the state of affairs, they function as evaluative time intervals in order to define the sector or to locate some state of affairs. So it seems to us very important to analyze closely this double function.

284 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Cascio It would be useful, according to us, to distinguish (in a slightly different way from Bertinetto's proposal (this volume)) two types of time interval: one time interval which has the function of localizing a state of affairs, and a time interval which provides the reference time. 4 The first, the localizer (L), has the task of localizing a state of affairs on the time axis. This time interval L deals at at least one point with the time interval of the state of affairs. Linguistic forms which are able to indicate L intervals are temporal adverbs. Temporal clauses have the same function as temporal adverbs. In order to define L it is necessary to have an evaluative time R which is given and allows us to quantify the temporal distance. The time interval R is provided either a) by the time interval of a state of affairs which is given in the same text and which is already localized on the time axis or presupposed as such, or b) by the time of enunciation. This evaluative term R is then the reference time and thus has a textual character. In the case of a deictic relation, then, L is defined as not choosing an evaluative time, but the evaluative time of the enunciation i.e. the speech point. Consider the following examples: (68)

Paolo parti due mesi fa El 'Paul left two months ago'

with an interpretation:

(69)

L

R

E

S

Paolo era partito la domenica El 'Paul had left that Sunday'

interpretation: Ex L R E

S

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285

If we assume that the speech point provides an evaluative time interval in order to establish the temporal Sector for a state of affairs E and also in order to localize E on the time axis, then we can assume that in all cases, at least at the level of deep structure, we will have an R and an L. On the surface structure on the contrary, at least in italian, we can find within a clause the lexical expression either of the L or of the R. s We never find both at the same time. Further R and L never coincide, unless R and L = S. R is provided by the event time of the clause which functions as antecedent. The R time is then the time unit resulting from the interaction between the information given by the tense, the temporal adverb and other items all belonging to the same clause. Sometimes if the verbal phrase, and thus the tense, lacks the temporal adverb alone represents the entire clause and at the surface it appears as belonging to another clause for which it functions as antecedent or evaluative time, and not as localizer. Cf.: (70)

Ieri avevo già parlato con Maria E 'Yesterday I had already spoken to Mary'

(71 )

Quel giorno avevo già visto Gianni E 'That day I had already seen John'

where ieri and quel giorno do not indicate the time interval which coincides with the event time (respectively: spoken and seen), but they function as R, in order to find the time localization. If a temporal adverb indicates a reference time, as in the above mentioned examples, then it is a localizer of an event already known and mentioned somewhere in a text. For example in a clause where the predicate has been deleted because it is already known. As matter of fact (70) could be considered as the equivalent of: (72)

Ieri (quando tu sei partito) avevo già parlato con Maria El E2 'Yesterday (when you left) I had already spoken to Mary'

where ieri is a kind of a topic which is called to the memory from preceding information. We can now conclude that a TA alone can also, at the surface, provide a reference time. This implies that the predicate of the clause to which that adverb originally belonged has been deleted or is presupposed for

286 Moscia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Coscio some pragmatic reasons. In order to account for this, we should change the categorial rules developed by Lo Cascio and reformulate the rewriting rule: Mu

Td

or

mS

mu

Ta

mS

as follows:

where node ET stays for the event time or the time of the state of affairs. At the surface level the TE node projects its aspectual information (perfective/imperfective) to the ET and thus to the (respectively) Mu or mu. In some texts one of the two nodes (TA or TE) dominated by ET can be empty. If the TE node remains empty then in some cases the TA projects its time to the ET and provides a reference time for the next state of affairs which is a candidate to be bound. This seems obvious because the TA and the TE concur both to define, more or less precisely, the event time which is, as already said, the only time which can provide a reference time for another clause in the text. There are anyway some restrictions on the possibility that temporal adverbs function alone as reference time. 1) There are temporal adverbs which cannot function as R, if the TE and thus the predicate of the clause to which they belong is deleted, i.e. they must be deleted too. Such adverbs are the neutral temporal adverbs, as un giorno (one day) una sera (one evening) una volta (once) which cannot function as reference time but only as localizers. Cf.: (73) *Un giorno avevo già scritto a Maria 'One day I had already written to Mary' unless the sentence goes on as in:

Temporal Relation, Localization and Direction in Discourse (74)

287

Un giorno avevo già scritto a Maria, quando mi arrivò un telegramma 'One day I had already written to Mary when I received a telegram'

where un giorno indicates a long time interval which is the localizer of both events (the writing and the arrival) 2) The combination of a residue temporal adverb and a new clause marked by some tense is subject to restrictions. For instance a deictic temporal adverb with a R function cannot combine with a deictic tense in the clause for which it must function as binding element; cf.: (75)

*Ieri (quando ti ho visto) ho già parlato con Maria 'Yesterday (when I saw you) I had already spoken to Mary'

(76) ?Oggi parlo già con Maria 'Today I am already speaking to Mary' (77)

Oggi ho già parlato con Maria 'Today I have already spoken to Mary'

(77) would not be odd if we interprete parlo as a future tense: i.e. I will speak to Mary already. In other words deictic adverb and deictic tense which would indicate coincidence of time interval would be incompatible if accompanied by an adverb such as already which indicates that the time interval indicated by the adverb and the time interval indicated by the tense do not coincide. 6

4.

DIRECTION

The temporal relation and the temporal localization are two static moments of temporal binding. Their interaction produces a dynamic process in the text, i.e. it gives the direction in which a story or a microstory goes. To establish a forward shifting of the action in a narrative text, at least two time intervals are required to be bound within a text. The linguistic element which mostly expresses explicitly the direction in the story is a temporal adverb, and more particularly an anaphoric adverb. A temporal relation with a time interval outside the MS (i.e. a relation with a GPT) cannot express direction. This implies that deictic tenses as such are not able to impress movement to the story as they do not give any information whether the state of affairs lies before or after other states

288 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Coscio of affairs belonging to the same text, unless they are accompanied by anaphoric temporal adverbs.7 The binding (and the ordering relation) between deictic tenses, or better between clauses marked by deictic tenses is established, if a temporal adverb is lacking, with the help of our knowledge of the world, at the condition that all events belong to the same temporal (deictic) sector. Let us consider again: (9)

Paolo è venuto a trovarci e ci ha raccontato la storia dell'incendio. El E2 E rimasto a cena e abbiamo suonato lui il pianoforte ed io il E3 E4 violino e se ne è andato soddisfatto E4

our interpretation of (9) is that the story goes forward in time within the chosen temporal sector (past with respect to S). But our knowledge of the world sometimes does not help us, so that it becomes very difficult to give an interpretation of ordering relation between states of affairs, i.e. the directionality of the sequence of states of affairs, even when tenses are of the same (type). Cf. (78)

Paolo ha mangiato, ha suonato il pianoforte e ha scritto una El E2 E3 lettera 'Paul ate, played piano, and wrote a letter'

In (78) is difficult to be sure in which order E l , E2 and E3 are to be placed on the time axis. A text can also be a set of states of affairs belonging to different temporal sectors. There could be a discontinuous sequence of states of affairs belonging to the same sector but interrupted by another discontinuous sequence of states of affairs belonging to another sector. We could then raise the question whether in this particular case, temporal binding is allowed between distant states of affairs belonging to the same temporal sector but not adjacent at the surface. Let us consider again example (11), and in particular the position of E5 with respect to the other events. (11)

Paolo è venuto a trovarci e ci ha raccontato dell'incendio. È andato E1 E2 E3 a trovare anche Maria. Certamente telefonerà a Gianni. Purtroppo E4 ha anche telefonato alla zia ma lei non ha capito nulla. L'assiE5 E6

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curazione gli rimborserà una parte dei danni. E7 Given the fact that the sequence of states of affairs belonging to the past sector is interrupted by a state of affairs belonging to the future sector (E4), does E5 find a reference time in the immediately preceding, but not adjacent, state of affairs (E3) belonging to the sector to which E5 belongs? An anaphoric tense expresses the direction of the story in relation to its matrix, but behaves in the same way as deictic tense, if it concerns coordinate clauses. States of affairs of anaphoric clauses coordinate with each other establish a direction of the story on the basis of our knowledge of the world or with the help of temporal adverbs. Cf.: (79)

Paolo disse che Gianni aveva mangiato una mela e che aveva cantaci E2 E3 to gioia 'Paul said that John had eaten an appel and had sung with joy'

where it is difficult to establish whether E2 precedes or follows E3. The movement of a story in the relation between subordinate completive clauses and their matrix goes in the same direction expressed by the temporal relation of their tenses, and thus: conditional moves the story forwards, while past perfect moves the story backwards. In the relation between coordinate clauses the direction is free. Cf.: (80)

Paolo diceva che Gianni aveva confermato che aveva comprato i E1 E2 E3 biglietti per il concerto e che avrebbe visto Maria. E3 'Paul was saying that John had confirmed that he had bought the tickets for the concert and that he would meet Mary'

which would get the following interpretation:

290 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Coscio where as we see the ordering between E l , E2 and E3 goes in a backwards direction, while E4 gives a forward direction to the story. For relative clauses the direction is not predictable. Cf.: (81)

Paolo aveva visto il ragazzo che gli aveva dato il libro che lui El E2 aveva regalato a sua moglie E3 'Paul had seen the boy who had given him the book which he had given as gift to his wife'

which can be interpreted in three ways. Cf.: (82a)

El

I

R


- — E2

I

I

E2-—E3

R

or (82b)

R >

E3

Until now we have analyzed deictic or anaphoric tenses not accompanied by temporal adverbs, thus clauses giving an indication about the temporal sector to which they belong. We have also said that temporal adverbs in localizing the state of affairs give also information about the direction in which the story goes. For those texts characterized by temporal adverbs it must be observed that in a sequence of deictic tenses accompanied by deictic temporal adverbs the ordering of the state of affairs and thus the temporal direction can only indirectly be established. As a matter of fact, with deictic TA we can only quantify the distance which exists between the states of affairs with respect to S, and indirectly understand which will be the relative order between the state of affairs. Cf.: (83)

Ieri Paolo è venuto a trovarci. L'altro ieri è scoppiato un 'incendio El E2 a casa sua. Ieri pomeriggio ci ha raccontato tutta l'avventura. E3 Ierisera si è fermato a cenare da noi. Stasera telefonerà a suo E4 E5

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fratello Giovanni. L'altro ieri l'ha scritto anche a Maria e a quanto E6 pare ha anche telefonato alla zia. L'assicurazione tra qualche giorno E7 gli rimborserà una parte dei danni E8 'Yesterday Paul came to see us. The day before yesterday there was a fire at his house. Yesterday afternoon he told us all the adventure. Yesterday he had a dinner with us. Tonight he will call his brother John. The day before yesterday he also wrote it to Mary and it seems that he also called his aunt. The insurance company will refound in few days a part of the damages' which will be interpreted as follows, after having calculated the different temporal distance of the states of affairs with respect to the S, and expressed by the deictic temporal adverbs: 1

(84)

E2 E6 i i

E7 i

El


R El

I

R I E2

> R R I X ^ l E3—E5 — E 4 — E 6 — S

E5 is marked by the temporal adverb (prima) which changes the direction in the story which in general goes forward within a given sector. The fact that the direction changes is stressed by the connective ma. We could not possibly have employed the connective e (and) in that text. Since temporal adverb prima indicates 'anteriority' and the tense marking E5 expresses also anteriority, both linguistic elements (TA and TE) find their antecedent in E4. While E6, since it does not have at the surface a localizer

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which gives a backward direction to the story and in order to let come the story forward, finds its reference time in the last event mentioned which also lets the story advance, namely in E4 and not in the immediately preceding event E5. We can now give a positive answer to the question raised earlier: whether in a story there can be, by interruption of chains, a discontinuous binding. 8 But most of all we want also mention that the ordering of the state of affairs and a temporal direction of discourse is very sensitive to the aspectual information present in every clause. In other words what is very important is, as was already stressed in Kamp & Rohrer and in Partee, the nature of the state of affairs involved in the discourse. States of affairs which are stative or imperfective do not stimulate the directionality. Perfective state of affairs are dynamic elements, they represent the dynamism of every discourse. Unitversity of Amsterdam

1984 NOTES

* The present paper has been made possible by a grant from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Amsterdam, allowing Mascia Adelaar to work during the academic year 1983-1984 at the Italian Institute of the University of Amsterdam. Many thanks are due to R. Eaton for reviewing the English of this paper. 1. We will give examples from Italian, as we are working on Lo Cascio's article, but in most cases our observations hold also for other Romance languages or for English (as the English translation of the examples shows) and other Germanic languages. 2. Examples for this rule could be, for 3: (1)That evening Paul said that John had arrived. The day before he had seen him El E2 E3 in the bookstore with the following interpretation: El E2

R

E3

R

GPT

and for 2: (2) That evening Paul said that John had left on Tuesday and that the day after he El E2 would leave himself E3 with the interpretation:

294 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Cascio El I R I R

E2

GPT

E3

and (3) That evening Paul said that John had left on Tuesday and that the day after he El E2 had become ill E3 with the interpretation:

E2 I R

El I R

GPT

E3

3. As far as rule (35) is concerned it could be maintained that binding rules for nominal anaphors does not follow this principle. A nominal anaphor can find its antecedent in a coordinate clause. Cf.: (1) Paul said that he had seen Mary. and that he had given to herj as present his book 4. Bertinetto (1982 and this volume) also makes a distinction between L and R. Both notions represent two different uses of Reichenbach's Reference point. The localizer (L) locates the event on the time axis within a time interval. The reference time (R), indicates a time interval posterior to E. So when E is simultaneous with (Reichenbach's) R we do not speak of an R but of a localizer L. This is the case when we have non-compound tenses. But Bertinetto talks about 'extrinsic temporal references' provided by extralinguistic information, in the case of L, and of 'intrinsic temporal references', in the case of R and thus in the case of compound tenses. While L is required only when we want to give more precise information, the time interval R (i.e. when we employ compound tenses), on the contrary, must always be present in the semantic structure. So far we agree with Bertinetto, except two points: 1. Bertinetto in analyzing the following two examples: (37a) John had left before Mary's arrival (37b) John had left after Mary's arrival maintains that the temporal adverbial phrase before Mary's arrival in (37a) is L established by taking as evaluative time the time interval within which Mary's arrival, takes place which in turn is the reference time R for the compound tense had left; while in (37b) the temporal adverbial phrase after Mary's arrival would be an L which cannot be defined by taking as evaluative time Mary's arrival because the latter cannot function as R for the tense had left since John's leaving would be posterior rather than anterior to Mary's arrival. This consideration obliges Bertinetto to deny that Mary's arrival could be considered as a time interval functioning as R for the compound tense had left. In our theory, on the contrary, (see e.g. our analysis of examples (59) and (60)

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in paragraph 3.2.3.) this would not be a problem since in our theory, the localization of E can be done with respect to a time interval different from the time interval chosen as evaluative time by the tense but on condition that E takes place, i.e. is anchored, in the time axis within the temporal sector indicated by the tense. This allows us to give some reasons why in (37a) Mary's arrival is the evaluative time for both the tense and the temporal adverb, while in (37b)Mary's arrival is only the evaluative time for the localizer (thus the temporal adverb) while the antecedent for the tense is furnished by another event time mentioned in the text which is posterior to John's leaving (which in turn must be located posterior to Mary's arrival) so that in (37b) the R of the tense cannot be a time interval anterior to Mary's arrival. 2. Our system gives solutions for another problem which rises in the Bertinetto analysis. Bertinetto in analyzing the example: (35) John had left before he would definitely lose his patience maintains that: 'if we take the fictitious moment of John's losing his patience as the R, we run into a difficulty. It is hard to understand how the Past Perfect can indicate anteriority with respect to a non-occurring event. The absurdity becomes even more striking if we recall that the R of the Past Perfect should always precede S'. In this analysis two problems arise: one derives from the necessity of binding anaphoric tenses to the speech point, the second is derived from the supposition that a time interval in order to function as R must be part of the real world. With respect to the second problem we could object that in this way it would be impossible to find a R for the last event (would kill) of the following sequence: (10) Gianni era partito prima che perdesse completamente la pazienza altrimenti avrebbe ucciso qualcuno 'John had left before losing his patience; otherwise he would kill somebody' It is clear that 'would kill' finds its antecedent R in a possible time interval where John could lose his patience. We do not see why in a linguistic analysis we could not take into consideration, by temporal organization, time intervals which are only imagined and supposed instead of belonging to the real world. With respect to the relation between S and the anaphoric tense, we tried to demonstrate that this is not obligatory. Cf.: (2) Maria fra cinque minuti allatterà il bambino, quindi quando arriverai, lei l'avrà già allattato. 'Mary in five minutes will nurse the child. So when you will arrive, she will already have nursed him' (3) Paolo parte per Parigi domani, va a trovare la sua ragazza, però dirà ai suoi genitori quando glielo chiederanno che è andato a Parigi per studio e che quindi aveva incontrato Maria per caso. 'Paul is leaving for Paris tomorrow, where he will meet his girl but he will tell his parents when they ask him, that he went to Paris for research and that thus he had met Mary by chance' These examples show that the E's marked by the anaphoric tenses, although expressing anteriority, in the specific context cannot be interpreted as anterior

296 Mascia Adelaar and Vincenzo Lo Coscio to the S. These anaphoric tenses express only anteriority with respect to a time interval different from S. 5. The sentence: (1) Alle due Gianni se n'era andato da un'ora 'At two o'clock John had left one hour ago' which according to Bertinetto would contain at the same time R (at two o 'clock) and L (one our ago), is not a counterargument for our hypothesis for the following reasons: 1. one hour ago is an aspectual adverb which quantifies the duration of the state of affairs, the absence of John 2. we could not account for the fact that one hour ago cannot be replaced by an anaphoric Temporal adverb one hour earlier 6. The fact that neutral temporal adverbs cannot function as R and thus cannot function as head of a unit when the predicate and thus the tense has been deleted, can be explained. As matter of fact if a tense is deleted or at least if the node is empty, we can assume that this is due to the fact that the event is already given in the preceding text and now is chosen as topic. But a temporal adverb can represent alone the event as topic only if it can refer to something which is already mentioned or which is already in the situation: it must be thus recognizable pragmatically, i.e. be deictic or anaphoric, it cannot be a neutral or generic adverb. Temporal adverbs as at two are so called neutral adverbs, but actually they are contextually either deictir or anaphoric. Temporal adverbs such as an evening, a Tuesday can never be contextually deictic or anaphoric, because of their nature (i.e. because of the presence of a indefinite aricle as an), they cannot refer to something known and thus cannot function as topic. This is the reason why they cannot show up when the TE node is empty. In other words they cannot function as R. A temporal adverb as that evening is on the contrary clearly anaphoric and thus can function as R and can represent alone an event which is bound to that time interval and is mentioned somehow (or known) in the text. The ideal position for a Temporal adverb functioning as R, is the beginning of the sentence, which is the canonic position, at least in Italian, for information which is given. This explains the reason why a position at the end of the clause is reserved for the L which gives new information. A temporal adverb with the function of R can take an initial position only if a particular intonation can be applied, or if an adverb can be added such as già (already). 7. B. Partee (1984:245) is not completely right, according to us, in stating that in a sentence such as: (l)When John saw Mary, she crossed the street the When-clause provides an antecedent for the past tense of the main clause. As matter of fact the when-clause provides an antecedent for the event expressed by the main clause marked by the past tense, in order to establish the direction of the story. The past tense of the main clause, on the contrary, has as its antecedent the speech point and gives the information that the event of the main clause is placed in a temporal sector which is anterior to the speech time. In fact the event of the main clause is subsequent to the event expressed by the when-clause so that the past tense of the main clause cannot express any temporal relation with respect to the when-clause.

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A direction between the main clause and the when-clause can be established because both are marked by a past tense, i.e. both events are placed in the same section antecedent to the speech point. 8. The relation between Mu's is actually a relation between different temporal domains, while the relation within the Mu's, namely a relation between minor units and their head and the relation between minor units belonging to the same major units, is a relation between a domain and its subdomains or a relation between subdomains belonging to the same domain. Further we could distinguish between events which function as reference time for other events belonging to the same domain in order to establish the direction of the story, and events which introduce a subdomain and function as reference time or evaluation time for some events belonging to that subdomain.

REFERENCES Bertinetto, P.M. (1982) 'Intrinsic and extrinsic temporal references on restricting the notion of Reference Time', in: Journal of Italian Linguistics, no. 1, pp. 71108. (see also this volume) Houweling, F. (1982) Deictic and anaphoric tense morphemes in: 'Journal of Italian Linguistics', vol. 7 nr. 1, pp. 1-30 (see also this volume) Kamp, H. (1981) Evénements, représentations discursives et référence temporelle, in: Langages, 64 pp. 39-64. Kamp, H. & Rohrer, C. (1981) Tense in texts, in R. Bâuerle & C. Schwarz & A.V. Stechow (eds.): Meaning, use and interpretation of language, Berlin 1983, pp. 250-269. B. Partee (1984) Temporal and nominal anaphora, in: Linguistics and Philosophy 1, pp. 243-286. Lo Cascio, V. (1982) 'Temporal deixis and anaphor in sentence and text: Finding a Reference Time', in: Journal of Italian Linguistics, no. 1, pp. 31-70. (see also this volume). Lo Cascio, V. & Rohrer, C. (1983) 'Interaction between verbal tenses and temporal adverbs in complex sentences', this volume. Reichenbach, H. (1947) Symbolic Logic, New York. Smith, C. (1978) 'The syntax and interpretation of temporal expressions in English', in: Linguistics and Phylosophy, pp. 43-99.