Abstract
Many languages allow for “fake” uses of their past tense marker: the marker: can occur in certain contexts without conveying temporal pastness. Instead it appears to bear a modal meaning. Iatridou (Linguist Inq 31(2):231–270, 2000) has dubbed this phenomenon Fake Tense. Fake Tense is particularly common to conditional constructions. This paper analyzes Fake Tense in English conditional sentences as a certain kind of ambiguity: the past tense morphology can mark the presence of a temporal operator, but it can also signal a specific modal operator. The ambiguity is proposed to be the result of recategorization: the Simple Past develops a second, modal meaning because of structural similarities between the temporal and the modal/epistemic domain. The proposal is spelled out in the generative semantics framework (Heim and Kratzer, Semantics in generative grammar, 1998), using the restrictor approach to conditionals (Kratzer, in: R. Bäuerle et al. (eds.) Semantics from different points of view, 1979; in: A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich (eds.) Semantics: an international handbook of contemporary research, 1991), and building on von Stechows et al.’s recent work on the English tense system (von Stechow, in: W. Klein (ed.) The expression of time in language, 2010; Romero and von Stechow, Tense: introduction, 2008).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abusch D. (1997) Sequence of tense and temporal de re. Linguistics and Philosophy 20: 1–50
Altshuler, D. 2008. Narrative progression effects in Russian indirect reports and what they reveal about the meaning of the past tense. In Proceedings of SALT 18, ed. T. Friedman and S. Ito. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.
Arregui A.C. (2007) When aspect matters: The case of would-conditionals. Natural Language Semantics 15(3): 221–264
Arregui A.C. (2009) On similarity in counterfactuals. Linguistics and Philosophy 32: 245–278
Bhatt, R., and R. Pancheva. 2005. Conditionals. In The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. 1, ed. M. Everaert and H. van Riemsdijk, 638–687. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Brasoveanu A. (2010) Decomposing modal quantification. Journal of Semantics 27: 437–527
Chomsky, N. 1982. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Chomsky, N. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Condoravdi, C. 2002. Temporal interpretation of modals. Modals for the present and for the past. In The construction of meaning, ed. D. Beaver et al., 59–87. Stanford, CA: CLSI Publications.
Dahl, Ö. 1997. The relation between past time reference and counterfactuality: A new look. In On conditionals again, ed. A Athanasiadou and R. Dirven, 97–112. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Dancygier, B. 1998. Conditionals and prediction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eckhard, R. 2006. Meaning change in grammaticalization. An enquiry into semantic reanalysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fleischmann S. (1989) Temporal distance: A basic linguistic metaphor. Studies in Language 13: 1–50
Franke, M. 2009. Signal to act. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.
Franke, M., and T. de Jager. 2011. Now that you mention it: awareness dynamics in discourse and decisions. In Language, games and evolution, ed. A. Benz et al., 60–91. Berlin: Springer.
Grønn, A., and A. von Stechow. 2011. On the temporal organisation of indicative conditionals. Unpublished manuscript, University of Oslo and University of Tübingen.
Grosu, A., and F. Landman. 1998. Strange relatives of the third kind. Natural Language Semantics 6: 125–170.
Haegeman L. (2003) New operators for theory change. Mind and Language 18(4): 317–339
Heim, I. 1997. Tense in compositional semantics. MIT Lecture Notes. Cambridge: MIT.
Heim, I., and A. Kratzer. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Iatridou S. (2000) The grammatical ingredients of counterfactuality. Linguistic Inquiry 31(2): 231–270
Ippolito M. (2003) Presuppositions and implicatures in counterfactuals. Natural Language Semantics 11: 145–186
Ippolito, M. 2006. Semantic composition and presupposition projection in subjunctive conditionals. Linguistics and Philosophy 29(6): 631–672.
James D. (1982) Past tense and the hypothetical: A cross-linguistic study. Studies in Language 6: 375–403
Jespersen, O. 1931. A modern English grammar on historical principles, part 4: Syntax. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Johnson-Laird, P.N. 1986. Conditionals and mental models. In On conditionals, ed. E. Traugott, 55–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaufmann S. (2005) Conditional truth and future reference. Journal of Semantics 22(3): 231–280
Khomitsevich, O. 2007. Dependencies across phases. From sequence of tense to restrictions on movement. PhD dissertation, University of Utrecht.
Kratzer, A. 1979. Conditional necessity and possibility. In Semantics from different points of view, ed. R. Bäuerle et al., 387–394. Berlin: Springer.
Kratzer, A. 1981. The notional category of modality. In Words, worlds, and contexts, ed. H.-J. Eikmeyer and H. Rieser, 387–394. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Kratzer, A. 1991a. Conditionals. In Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary research, ed. A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich, 651–656. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Kratzer, A. 1991b. Modality. In Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary research, ed. A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich, 639–650. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Kusumoto K. (2005) On the quantification over times in natural language. Natural Language Semantics 13: 317–357
Lewis, D. 1973. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lewis, D. 1975. Adverbs of quantification. Semantics in natural language, ed. E.L. Keenan et al., 3–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lycan, W.G. 2001. Real conditionals. Qxford: Oxford University Press.
Ogihara, T. 1996. Tense, attitudes, and scope. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Palmer F.R. (1986) Mood and modality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Romero, M., and A. von Stechow. 2008. Tense: Introduction. Lecture Notes. Tübingen: University of Tübingen.
Sauerland, U. 2002. The present tense is vacuous. Snippets 6(11): 12–13.
Schulz, K. 2008. Non-deictic tenses in conditionals. In Proceedings of SALT 18, ed. T. Friedman and S. Ito. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.
Stalnaker, R. 1981. Indicative conditionals. In IFS. Conditionals, belief, decision, chance, and time, ed. W.L. Harper et al., 193–207. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Stowell, T. 1995. What do the present and past tenses mean? In Temporal reference, aspect, and actionality, vol. 1: Semantics and syntactic perspectives, ed. P. Bertinetto et al., 381–396. Torino: Rosenberg and Sellier.
Tedeschi, P. 1981. Some evidence for a branching-futures semantic model. In Syntax and semantics 14: tense and aspect, P. Tedeschi and A.B. Zaenen, 31–64. New York: Academic Press.
von Stechow, A. 2009. Syntax and semantics: an overview. Manuscript, University of Tübingen.
von Stechow, A. 2010. Tenses in compositional semantics. In The Expression of time in language. ed. W. Klein, 129–166. Berlin: de Gruyter.
von Stechow, A., and A. Grønn. 2008. Tense and presuppositions in counterfactuals. Handout of a talk given at NYU.
von Stechow, A. and A. Grønn. 2010. Complement tense in contrast: The SOT parameter in Russian and English. Oslo Studies in Language 2(1): 109–153.
von Fintel, K., and S. Iatridou. 2002. If and when if-clauses can restrict quantifiers. Paper presented at the Workshop in Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Michigan, November 8–10, 2002.
Zeijlstra, H. 2004. Sentential negation and negative concord. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schulz, K. Fake Tense in conditional sentences: a modal approach. Nat Lang Semantics 22, 117–144 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-013-9102-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-013-9102-0