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This study examines the forms and meanings of tensed and non-tensed clauses in English, and proposes an analysis of them that is 'Reichenbachian' in spirit and syntactic in orientation. The study considers tensed verb forms in simple sentences, focussing on 'present', 'future', and 'perfect' forms and their interaction with adverbials of temporal location; and those in complement, relative, and temporal clause constructions. It also considers three types of non-tensed verb forms--infinitives, gerunds, and 'bare infinitives'--in verb complements. / The study demonstrates that the interpretation of tensed and non-tensed forms can be described in terms of Reichenbach's (1947) temporal schemata, which express relations between 'S' ('speech time'), 'R' ('reference time'), and 'E' ('situation time'). However, its central claim is that the tensed forms themselves are 'temporally underspecified', encoding relations between 'S' and 'R', and leaving the relation between 'R' and 'E' and the location and duration of both of these intervals to be determined by lexical properties of the verb and its arguments, temporal adverbials, and context. Non-tensed verbs forms have a similar syntactic representation, differing primarily in not fully encoding a relation between 'S' and 'R'. This claim is cashed out in terms of two devices: a feature system that expresses tenses as particular values of the feature matrix (Anterior, Posterior); and a device of 'tense linking', based on Higginbotham's (e.g. 1983) proposal for binding theory, which associates verbs with temporal adverbials or tensed Infl, and one (tensed or non-tensed) Infl with a higher one.

This dissertation investigates the interaction between the basic rules for tense interpretation, on the one hand, and temporal types of VPs or sentences, time expressions and syntactic distribution of tense forms, on the other. This dissertation proposes an analysis in which each tense form is associated with at least three time identities, the zero time point, the event time and the reference time. The zero time is defined as the time from which a situation is considered and interpreted, the event time as the time at which a situation takes place and the reference time is the time at which the situation holds and which is part of the event time under consideration. Concerning the temporal structures of situations expressed by VPs or sentences, this dissertation proposes a six-type temporal classification and treats temporal types not as atomic but as reducible to temporal features. By so doing, this dissertation brings to light the internal structure among various temporal types. Regarding the relation between tense and time expressions, this dissertation analyzes it to be one of temporal inclusion and provides a successful account of why time adverbs do not necessarily mark both ending points of a given homogeneous situation, though this is true with a nonhomogeneous situation. In accounting for tense interpretation in complement clauses, this dissertation maintains that complement tense forms and matrix tense forms can be interpreted in the same way and they differ only in the interpretation of the zero time point. In the matrix clause, tense is interpreted with respect to the speech time and, in the complement clause, tense is interpreted relative to the reference time of the matrix clause. Because the zero time is used instead of the speech time in the proposed basic tense rules, these rules are general and powerful enough to be applicable to tenses in any syntactic environment.

Thesis (M.A. (African Languages)) --University of the North, 2003 / Refer to the document

This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South Baffin Inuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstrates that, although closely related dialects are argued to be tenseless (Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where the present, past, and future are distinguished, and the future and past are divided into more fine-grained temporal domains. I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absence of a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe a past eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, it describes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that all zero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation is aspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstrate that they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that these markers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in part on whether or not they block more general tenses (e.g., -qqau, the ‘today’ past blocks the use of the general past -lauq when the time of eventuality falls within ‘today’). I label both the general tenses and the group which can block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other group which does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. This distinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine the distribution of four different future markers and argue that three of them indicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups, in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyse the temporal interpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that when tense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality, the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domain of hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in an embedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embedded tenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before, and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in human language.

This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South Baffin Inuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstrates that, although closely related dialects are argued to be tenseless (Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where the present, past, and future are distinguished, and the future and past are divided into more fine-grained temporal domains. I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absence of a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe a past eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, it describes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that all zero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation is aspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstrate that they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that these markers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in part on whether or not they block more general tenses (e.g., -qqau, the ‘today’ past blocks the use of the general past -lauq when the time of eventuality falls within ‘today’). I label both the general tenses and the group which can block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other group which does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. This distinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine the distribution of four different future markers and argue that three of them indicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups, in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyse the temporal interpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that when tense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality, the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domain of hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in an embedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embedded tenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before, and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in human language.

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