Tenses, time adverbs, and compositional semantic theory

Linguistics and Philosophy 5 (1):23 - 55 (1982)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I might summarize this section by saying that the English tenses, according to this analysis, form quite a motley group. PAST, PRES and FUT serve to relate reference time to speech time, while WOULD and USED-TO behave like Priorian operators, shifting the point of evaluation away from the reference time. HAVE also shifts the point of evaluation away from the reference time, but in a more complicated way. And FUT, in contrast to PRES and PAST, is a substitution operator, putting the reference time of its clause in the plate of the speech time of subordinate clauses

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
106 (#152,073)

6 months
4 (#315,908)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Semantics and the objects of assertion.Dilip Ninan - 2010 - Linguistics and Philosophy 33 (5):355-380.
Assertion, Evidence, and the Future.Dilip Ninan - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (4):405-451.
Sequence of tense and temporal de re.Dorit Abusch - 1997 - Linguistics and Philosophy 20 (1):1-50.
The puzzle of free indirect discourse.Yael Sharvit - 2008 - Linguistics and Philosophy 31 (3):353-395.

View all 34 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Elements of symbolic logic.Hans Reichenbach - 1947 - London: Dover Publications.
Word Meaning and Montague Grammar.David R. Dowty - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (2):290-295.
`Now' and `Then': A Formal Study in the Logic of Tense Anaphora.Frank Vlach - 1973 - Dissertation, University of California Los Angeles

View all 7 references / Add more references