test
Search publications, data, projects and authors

Article

French

ID: <

10670/1.fq131b

>

Where these data come from
Match and discrepancy of time in English

Abstract

`titreb Is there a sequence of tenses in English ? `/titreb Backshifting rules in English are notoriously loose and what seems to lie behind the SOT relations is more closely related to various levels of enunciation than tense harmony. This paper shows first that in Reichenbach’s logical framework (1947), the interplay of the three intervals E, R and S raises many questions. Declerck’s enunciation-based synthesis brings in a temporal zero-point t0 which is the one and only reference point : the present time-sphere includes t0 and the past time-sphere lies “wholly before” it. Declerck keeps relations of simultaneity with, anteriority or posteriority to, t0 but gives no explanation as to how such relations can obtain in a past temporal domain which is by definition deprived of a zero-point. Owing to a strong deixis hypothesis, the modal or counterfactual past tense is simply labelled “exceptional” and “metaphoric”. We therefore intend to discuss the referential definition of t0 in terms of interlocutive relations. In this view tenses cannot be defined as relative to actual time spans but as two opposite configurations of the speech act itself.

Your Feedback

Please give us your feedback and help us make GoTriple better.
Fill in our satisfaction questionnaire and tell us what you like about GoTriple!