Abstract
The only obligatory temporal expression in English is tense, yet Hans Reichenbach (1947) has argued convincingly that the simplest sentence is understood in terms of three temporal notions. Additional possibilities for a simple sentence are limited: English sentences have one time adverbial each. It is not immediately clear how to resolve these matters, that is, how (if at all) Reichenbach’s account can be reconciled with the facts of English. This paper attempts to show that they can be reconciled, and presents an analysis of temporal specification that is based directly on Reichenbach’s account.
Part I is devoted to a study of the way the three times – speech time, reference time, event time – are realized and interpreted. The relevant syntactic structures and their interaction and interpretation are examined in detail. Part II discusses how a grammar should deal with time specification, and proposes a set of interpretive rules. The study offers an analysis of simple sentences, sentences with complements, and habitual sentences. It is shown that tense and adverbials function differently, depending on the structure in which they appear. The temporal system is relational: the orientation and values of temporal expressions are not fixed, but their relational values are consistent. This consistency allows the statement of principles of interpretation.
An interesting result of the study is that the domain of temporal specification is shown to be larger than a sentence. Sentences that are independent syntactically may be dependent on other sentences for a complete temporal interpretation; complements may be dependent on sentences other than their matrix sentences. Time adverbials and tense may be shared, in the sense that a temporal expression in one sentence may contribute to the interpretation of another sentence. These facts have important consequences: only a grammar with surface structure interpretation rules can account for temporal specification in a unified manner, because more than one sentence may be involved. Context is thus shown to be crucial for the temporal interpretation of sentences.
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- 1.
The discussion is limited to tense, time adverbials, frequency adverbials, and auxiliary have. Not included in the analysis at this time are conditional and contrary-to-fact sentences, aspect, modals, relative clauses, temporal NPs such as former president, and adverbial sentences.
I would like to thank Lauri Karttunen, and the other members of the informal syntax discussion group of the University of Texas, Department of Linguistics, for helpful discussions of the topics covered in this paper.
- 2.
Reichenbach outlines his system in Reichenbach (1947).
- 3.
In this section I discuss only time adverbials that are not habitual, so that frequency adverbials are excluded. Frequency adverbials are discussed in Section 3.
- 4.
With a different word choice, the sentence would probably be taken as ambiguous. For instance, I left on Thursday or I was leaving on Thursday might be taken as a Future-in-Past, that lacked RT. See below for this second interpretation; it is facilitated by imperfect aspect.
- 5.
Some speakers accept such sentences; for instance, see Hornstein (1975).
- 6.
The ‘already’ reading, in which John read the article some time previous to three weeks ago, is not intended here.
- 7.
Adverbials that can occur in this construction are strictly limited; the matter is discussed in Smith (1976a).
- 8.
See Hofmann (1966) for a different analysis of such sentences.
- 9.
See Braroe (1974) for discussion of some of the problems involved.
- 10.
Sentences in which matrix and complement have the same tense, and are taken as simultaneous, exhibit Sequence of Tense. The phenomenon is discussed by Jespersen, among many others. Ross (1967) proposes a transformational rule to account for it; Smith (1976b) and Riddle (1976) argue against such an analysis (from different points of view).
- 11.
For some speakers and in some contexts, anchored adverbials may be dependent on a time not mentioned in a sentence at all, but understood or appearing elsewhere in the discourse.
- 12.
Certain sentences must be understood as having a complex ET: these cases where the complement refers to more than one point in time, e.g. Bill said yesterday that Tom had already left 3 days earlier.
- 13.
- 14.
The notion of an underlying performative sentence is due to Sadock (1969) and (1974). A superordinate performative associated with each sentence would also be quite plausible.
- 15.
See Smith (1976a).
- 16.
Lawler (1972) discusses this type of sentence.
- 17.
‘Incomplete’ sentences are frequently uttered and written, and almost always are understood without difficulty. This is due to the contribution of context, I believe, and to principles of interpretation according to which speakers choose that interpretation requiring the fewest assumptions or additional information. I plan to state these principles - which are strategies, essentially - in a forthcoming paper.
- 18.
- 19.
I omit discussion of the Historical Present, as in the preceding sections.
- 20.
A third rule would also be needed to account for tense in adverbials with embedded sentences, perhaps as suggested in Smith (1975a).
- 21.
Sentences with tense alone are not complete semantically and therefore are not independent.
- 22.
22This combination is that of the Historical Present and recurs, of course, throughout the rules. It will be noted but not discussed.
- 23.
This notation, introduced in Part I, represents that Past RT is anterior to ST, Present RT simultaneous with ST, and Future RT posterior to ST. Arrows will be used throughout the rules to indicate anteriority or posteriority, and the equals sign will represent simultaneity.
- 24.
Complements will be interpreted by the Sharing Principle when this interpretation is possible, or by the Extended Sharing Principle, according to the rules of application developed in Part I.
- 25.
Anchored adverbials play two roles in sentences like this: they indicate the relation between ET and RT, and specify ET.
- 26.
Frequency adverbials would present no problem for the rules; they have been discussed in the preceding part of this paper. They are omitted here because they present problems of recognition rather than analysis, and do not require separate treatment in terms of RT from the sentences analyzed here.
- 27.
27Historical Present.
- 28.
28Only a very few prepositions appear with explicitly Present adverbials.
- 29.
29No other adverbials will appear in such sentences because of restrictions on have.
- 30.
30See preceding note.
- 31.
31See preceding note.
- 32.
32Historical Present.
- 33.
33This sentence is odd semantically because the deictics are contradictory.
- 34.
34Historical Present.
- 35.
35Historical Present.
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Smith, C.S. (2009). The Syntax and Interpretation of Temporal Expressions in English. In: Meier, R., Aristar-Dry, H., Destruel, E. (eds) Text, Time, and Context. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 87. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2617-0_4
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