Abstract
Paraguayan Guarani does not overtly mark tense in its inflectional system. Prior accounts of languages without obligatory morphological tense have posited a phonologically covert lexical tense, or have introduced tense semantics via a rule, in the post-syntactic interpretative component. We offer a more radical approach: Paraguayan Guarani does not have tense at the level of lexical or logical semantics. We propose that evaluation time shift, a mechanism independently attested in the narrative present in languages with tense, is more widely used in Paraguayan Guarani for encoding temporal meaning. The broader consequence of our proposal is that tense is not a linguistic universal.
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Notes
1sg\(\rightarrow \) 2sg glosses a portmanteau prefix marking person and number features of the agent and theme, respectively. The order is direct because the agent has a higher person value than the theme. In inverse orders, an object clitic for the theme, which is higher in person value than the agent, replaces the prefix. tr stands for ‘transitive’.
Languages with no overt tense include Kalaallisut (Eskimo-Aleut), Shaer (2003), Bittner (2005, 2011); Chinese (Sino-Tibetan), Smith and Erbaugh (2005), Lin (2006); Blackfoot (Algonquian), Ritter and Wiltschko (2004), Reis Silva and Matthewson (2007); St’át’imcets (Salish), Matthewson (2006); Gitxsan (Tsimshianic), (Jóhannsdóttir & Matthewson, 2007); Yucatec Maya (Mayan), Bohnemeyer (2009); Hausa (Afro-Asiatic), Mucha (2013), Bochnak et al. (2019); Northern Paiute (Uto-Aztecan), Toosarvandani (2016); Samoan (Austronesian), Bochnak et al. (2019); Sierra Zapotec (Oto-Manguean), Toosarvandani (2021).
Abbreviations in the glosses in (3) are to be interpreted as follows: prog ‘progressive’, appl ‘applicative’, incompl ‘incompletive’ (a category that combines imperfective aspect and indicative mood), cont ‘continuous’. \(\phi \)-markers differ between sets A and B, following an ‘active-inactive’ pattern. D2 glosses a distal deictic clitic.
A common alternative is the quantificational approach to tense: the past (and present) assert the existence of a time that precedes (or equals) \(t_c\), and which is further restricted by inclusion in a contextually salient interval. In yet another approach, tenses are binary predicates that have non-overt time-denoting arguments; the pronominal external argument of tense is indexical in matrix clauses and denotes the speech time, \(t_c\) while its reference is controlled by the time of the matrix attitude event in embedded clauses (Stowell , 1996, 2007). While the specifics of the lexical semantics of tense may differ, on all approaches tense introduces in the logical form a time interval in relation to the evaluation time. For an overview of tense semantics, see Ogihara and Sharvit (2012), Ogihara and Kusumoto (2020), Sharvit (2020), a.o.
These core aspectual relations have sub-types, e.g., the non-habitual uses of imperfective aspect are usually called continuous (Comrie, 1976), and the progressive, in English and other languages, is one type of continuous aspect, restricted to non-stative predicates. There is a lot of variation in how the core aspectual relations and their sub-types are instantiated in specific morphemes in different languages and we clearly cannot do justice to this variation here.
The covert viewpoint aspect can also be interpreted habitually. Additionally, Paraguayan Guarani has overt morphemes that unambiguously mark habitual aspect, see footnote 28.
A reviewer observes that a more radical cross-linguistic difference could involve absence of temporal variables altogether, and draws a parallel to proposals in the literature on gradability that while some languages employ degree variables, others are truly degree-less.
We prefer the term narrative present as it avoids bias towards past temporal reference and also highlights the link to narratives.
Other tenses besides the present may also be evaluated relative to a shifted evaluation time. An example is seen in (i), from Zucchi (2005: (10)-(11)), where two past forms, the imperfetto ‘imperfect’ and the piuccheperfetto ‘pluperfect’ are most plausibly evaluated relative to the shifted evaluation time of the whole narrative.
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(i)
Nel gennaio del 44 a.C. Cesare è dittatore a vita. Nel 49 a.C. { passava / aveva passato } il Rubicone. Nel marzo del 44 a.C. verrà ucciso in Senato.
In January 44 B.C. Caesar is dictator for life. In 49 B.C. he { crossed / had crossed } the Rubicon. In March 44 B.C. he will be killed in the Senate.
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(i)
Present mode, historical mode, and present historical mode are the terms used in Zucchi (2005) for the narrative mode.
Klein (1994: 135) calls non-cannonical uses of the simple present like the one in (21) fact listing and restricts the term narrative present to just vivid narratives like the one in (4); Curme (1931: 355–356) calls such uses annalistic present. It is beyond our goal here to offer an analysis of the differences among the various genres of narratives.
Thomas (2014) treats rt as an adverbial, but for other languages the null tense is syntactically projected in a Tense node.
Bochnak (2016: 271) suggests that the asymmetry between past and future times as potential discourse referents is rooted in their different status in a branching times model. We do not find this conjecture to be on the right track. In particular, reference to future times is possible for adverbs like then, in addition to tomorrow at 10am, next Monday. The way our conception of time is structured cannot be the ultimate explanation for the absence of overt future tenses and the impossibility of reference to future times with covert tenses, and moreover that conception should be universal, not subject to variation across languages. Rather, the answer must lie in the linguistic devices themselves that languages use, whether lexical expressions (tense vs. adverb) or mechanisms (evaluation time shift).
We do not object to pragmatic constraints on temporal reference in general. For instance, Mucha (2013), building on Smith et al. (2007), suggests that present, past and future reference form a hierarchy of increasing conceptual complexity, which, in conjunction with the contribution of viewpoint aspect, influences how the lexically unrestricted null temporal pronoun in Hausa is interpreted.
This is not to say that null morphemes in general may not be learned. If they contrast with overt morphemes in a paradigm, as is the case for the English present vs. past tense tense on main verbs, this is relevant positive evidence. Null morphemes may also be posited when there is no alternative mechanism for delivering an interpretation: we posited null viewpoint aspect, to allow for the transformation of predicates of events into predicates of times, on the assumption that analytically, it is a preferred mechanism to type-shifting, and so, by hypothesis, the only available mechanism to learners.
Paraguayan Guarani has a class of stems known as triformes whose initial consonant varies with grammatical context, e.g., tova, rova, hova ‘face’, techa, recha, hecha ‘sight, see’, tory, rory, hory ‘happiness, (be) happy’. The predicate in (37) is of this kind: tasy, rasy, hasy ‘sickness, be sick’. The t-initial form is a noun outside of possessive contexts; the r / h distinction reflects factors such as the status of the form as a predicate vs. a noun with a possessor, the person features of the subject of predication or possessor, and the direct vs. inverse alignment of the clause. See Zubizarreta and Pancheva (2017b) for an analysis of triformes.
Hína is the 3rd person form of a functional item that agrees with the subject in person and, for 1st and 2nd person, number. While the inflectional paradigm is being lost in favor of a single non-agreeing form, the inflected form is still recognized, and one of our primary consultants uses it regularly. The morpheme doesn’t have a fixed position and has a focusing or emphatic property with respect to the constituent to its left (with which it generally forms a prosodic unit), and appears to add a nuance of stronger certainty. The temporal contribution may be entirely absent, with only the focusing (and certainty-expressing) function surviving : e.g. O-manó-ta hína. ‘He will die’ (death is imminent). We abstract away from the non-temporal properties of hína in this article.
Hína is compatible with states, see (i). This is congruent with its focus properties, but is also indicative that it is a continuous aspect rather than a progressive.
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(i)
Kalo hasy hína.
Kalo 3.sick cont
‘Kalo is sick.’
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(i)
Or alternatively, a single underspecified covert aspect is interpreted as a habitual or as a perfective, with eventive predicates.
A common explanation for the incompatibility between present tense and perfective viewpoint aspect is that the speech time is grammatically represented as being of a very short duration, too short to accommodate perfective aspect (Bennett & Partee, 1978; Kamp & Reyle, 1993; Smith, 1997:110, Wyngaerd, 2005, a.o.). Because present tense contributes the meaning that the reference time equals the speech time, a present reference time is too short of an interval to include the event time. We do not, however, adopt this explanation, siding instead with Ogihara (2007), who attributes the present perfective restriction to the requirement that eventualities have to hold not at but throughout the speech time. It then follows that dynamic predicates need to combine with progressive/imperfective aspect to be able to express events ongoing at the speech time.
The null aspect can also be interpreted habitually; we do not illustrate this here. Paraguayan Guarani also has an overt habitual aspect morphemes, -va (for ongoing habits) and -mi (for habits that no longer hold).
Less common but possible for some speakers is an epistemic/conjectural meaning, perhaps due to Spanish influence. Tonhauser (2011a) reports such cases as unacceptable.
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(i)
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Q:
Why didn’t Maria come?
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A:
Hasy-ta piko?
3.sick-prosp Q
‘She might be sick?’
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Q:
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(i)
The two meaning components of English woll are sometimes represented by two distinct morphemes, a modal woll and a phonologically covert prospective aspect; in some languages both components may be overtly realized (see Bochnak, 2019).
The analysis of -ta as a high aspect suggests that seemingly bare predicates marked with -ta are in fact already marked with a null viewpoint aspect \(\textsc {Asp}_\varnothing \), as in (i).
We will not be representing a null viewpoint aspect below -ta in the morphological analysis of the examples. The logical formulas suppress information as to whether the meaning contribution is of -ta alone, or of -ta in conjunction with a null viewpoint aspect.
Sometimes, for some speakers, as also noted in Tonhauser (2006), the presence of kuri further contributes the meaning that the described event is in the recent past. Such a recency meaning doesn’t always arise, as kuri is readily compatible with a past adverbial like yma ‘long time ago’, as in (i).
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(i)
A-je-juhu ramoguare María-ndive ymá-ma o-menda kuri.
1sg-refl-meet past.temp María-with long.time-already 3-marry kuri
‘When I met María, she had already married long time ago.’
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(i)
Kuri is a mobile morpheme that also has focusing properties (and possibly ’best-evidence’ evidential meaning). Evidentials like ra’e and raka’e also have focusing properties, as well as the previously discussed hína. This focusing property of evidentials and morphemes with a temporal function is quite common in the language. While we abstract away here from these other functions of kuri, it is important to note that, because of them, sentences such as the ones in (53a)-(53b) are not equivalent to their counterparts without kuri, even when those receive past interpretation. The bare form and the form with kuri are not in free competition to the extent that kuri contributes other nuances to the meaning of the sentence.
Liuzzi and Kirtchuk (1989) include kuri among the ‘morfemas retrospectivos’ rather than the ‘morfemas aspectuales’, and their informal description suggests that they have in mind an analysis of kuri as a past tense, although nothing they say would preclude an account of kuri as a high retrospective aspect.
See Pancheva and von Stechow (2004) for an account on how the weaker meaning of the perfect is grammatically strengthened in the context of present tense in English. This strengthening cannot happen in Paraguayan Guarani because of the absence of lexical tenses that are in competition at the same syntactic node.
With context, such effects do not obtain, as in the following well-known example from Klein (1994):
One participant selected both Paraguayan Guarani sentences as acceptable and two participants indicated that neither of these sentences is acceptable. Of the three participants who selected Spanish (57a) one also selected Paraguayan Guarani (56a).
Our primary consultant, with whose help we prepared this questionnaire, found each sentence ambiguous, and appropriate in both contexts.
It is also possible that because its context was presented second, this interpretation was less likely to be accessed, with participants already committing to the interpretation that corresponds to the initially-presented context.
The 1/10 responses in the lower left cell are not expected on any account. They were contributed by two different participants and are possibly just errors.
We note, however, that Bochnak et al. (2019) observe that in Medumba the backshifted reading of bare complement clauses is not as freely available, as it is in Washo, and that the same is true for bare imperfective complement clauses in Samoan. Their conclusion is that res-movement is itself subject to parametric variation across languages. On this account, the absence of backshifted interpretations in Paraguayan Guarani could be due to restrictions on res-movement. We do not find this alternative convincing, particularly in the absence of a theory of what factors govern the possibility of res-movement cross-linguistically.
The LFs in (78) includes a \(\lambda \)-bound pro in the complement clause, which is ultimately interpreted as the time of the matrix attitude (cf. 12).
We put aside non-canonical questions, e.g., When is the siege of Leningrad? asked by a history teacher. This is not an information seeking question and is only felicitously asked with a historical lesson, a narrative, in the common ground. A harder case to explain is And the Maryland delegation goes two to one for the Democrats!, which could be said by an on-the-scene newscaster, as noted in Parsons (1990: 30); this is similar to the play-by-play use of the narrative present, yet the latter obeys the narrative restriction.
The units of a narrative may not always be clauses (e.g., see (i), where the time adverb may plausibly be argued to be a separate unit) but this is a good enough approximation.
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(i)
1792. For two months, then three months, the National Assembly of France has been in a state of indecision: should it back war against the coalition of emperors and kings, or should it argue for peace? (Stefan Zweig “The Genius of a Night: the Marseillaise”)
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(i)
Anand and Toosarvandani (2018a) propose that evaluation time shift in \(\sigma _1\) needs to be anchored at the described event in \(\sigma _1\). This will not give the correct result for the examples in (84), (85). A possible amendment to their constraint could allow anchoring in a result state, contributed by the perfect.
Tense-aspect forms other than the narrative present are compatible with evaluation time shift. Recall that in footnote 15 we saw an example of Italian past tenses likely involving evaluation time shift, as well as a present tense and woll that definitely involve a shifted evaluation time. Thus, it is possible that backtracking in (90) is derived via evaluation time shift, as suggested in Anand and Toosarvandani (2018a). However, an alternative is available. Let’s assume that the event in \(\sigma _1\), Max falling, is at \(t_1\). Then in \(\sigma _2\), the past tense, evaluated with respect to the speech time, i.e., without evaluation time shift, may place the reference time before \(t_1\), and thus allow backtracking.
The difference lies in (94b). Anand and Toosarvandani (2018a) propose that a shifted evaluation time in \(\sigma _2\) must be anchored to the beginning of the event in \(\sigma _1\). This however requires the evaluation time to extend past the time of the event in the first clause, to allow for narrative progression. In the Appendix we suggest that a shifted evaluation time does not extend in duration.
Responses were elicited in written form. For each item (context), there were two or more options. Participants could chose any number of these options. Of the ten participants, one did not respond to the item in (103).
A selection rate of 5/10 for (104) likely reflects a choice between considering the two clauses as free-standing, or as part of a narrative sequence. The addition of indirect evidential ra’e to the second clause of a sequence similar to the one in (104), in the same context, resulted in a selection rate of 8/10. The use of ra’e indicates that the event in \(\sigma _2\) has not been directly perceived by the speaker, but has been reported or inferred (Pancheva & Zubizarreta 2019), thus facilitating the interpretation of the two clauses as free-standing rather than forming a narrative.
The prohibition against backshifting obtains for minimal narratives, consisting of two clauses \(\sigma _1\) \(\sigma _2\). Longer narratives provide an opportunity for a shift of perspective: instead of the shifted evaluation time being continuously updated from \(\sigma _n\) to \(\sigma _{n+1}\), a new evaluation time shift obtains in \(\sigma _{n+1}\), potentially to a time before the time of the event in \(\sigma _n\). We tested such longer narratives in both Paraguayan Guarani and Spanish, but do not include the results here as they do not affect the main point: minimal narratives with evaluation time shift do not allow for backtracking, which is unexpected on a theory positing null non-future tense.
As mentioned earlier, kuri has focusing (and possibly evidential) properties, so opting for the version with kuri does not have to be for temporal reasons.
While in Hausa the viewpoint aspect in (111)/(112) is imperfective, in the corresponding sentences in Tlingit it is perfective, Cable (2017: 657), and in St’át’imcets it can be perfective or imperfective, Matthewson (2006: 681–683). This does not affect the argument that languages with a non-future tense allow reference to intervals containing both past times and the speech time.
We note however that this is not an assumption that Anand and Toosarvandani (2018a) make. Theirs is the only account to have considered properties of the shifted evaluation time, as far as we know.
We distributed two questionnaires to the bilingual participants that differed in minor ways in how the item was presented. In the first questionnaire (Q1) we asked participants to select the sentence(s) that describe the situation adequately (adecuadamente) and the Spanish sentences used proper names; in the second questionnaire (Q2) we used the adverb apropiadamente ‘appropriately’ and the Spanish sentences used null pronouns. There were no substantial differences in the results to the two questionnaires, and so we report the aggregate data. The monolingual participants completed the Spanish part of the second questionnaire.
We excluded one participant because they reported weak command of written Guarani (answering “yes, but very little” to a preliminary question of whether they could read and write in Guarani) and our test was in written form. Additionally, 3 participants had to be set aside as they did not provide any substantive data on these items: two of them selected all sentences, and one selected none, in both the Paraguayan Guarani and Spanish items. Finally, 3 more participants were also set aside as they either did not provide a response on one of the languages or selected all options, thus precluding the possibility of analysis of linked responses.
In Table 5 we classify the combined responses to Paraguayan Guarani (115a) and (115b) as \(\varnothing \) (hína), and those to (115c) and (115d) as \(\varnothing \) kuri (hína). (The \(\varnothing \) stands for a covert lexical tense, or the tense supplied by a semantic rule, or for the absence of tense, occording to the different approaches.) The responses to Spanish (116a) and (116b) are similarly combined and classified as present (progressive), and those to (116d) and (116e) as present perfect (progressive).
A note about the limitations of this task: One of the speakers who answered all ‘yes’ and who we excluded, when further questioned, said that her choice depends on which aspect of the described situation she focuses on. This is what may also have been going on for speakers in lines a) and b) in Table 5. Some speakers apparently find it difficult to describe with a single sentence an event that has sub-events with different agents and occur at different times.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Daniel Altshuler, Kai von Fintel, Sabine Iatridou, Lisa Matthewson, Deniz Rudin, Roger Schwarzschild, Barry Schein, Yael Sharvit, Guillaume Thomas, Judith Tonhauser, and Maziar Toosarvandani for discussion. We also thank the audiences at the Workshop on Tenselessness 2 at Universidade de Lisboa, NELS 50 at MIT, the Linguistics Colloquium at the University of British Columbia, the Linguistics Colloquium at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the Logic-Semantics Colloquium at the University of Frankfurt, and mini-courses at MIT and at the NYI Winter school, where aspects of this work were presented. The main proposal and two of the empirical arguments for it appeared in Pancheva and Zubizarreta (2020). Here we present these in greater detail and we offer two additional empirical arguments.
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The work is partially supported by an National Science Foundation Grant BSC 1917619.
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The name of the language is usually spelled as Guaraní in texts written in other languages. We adopt the spelling convention used in texts written in the language itself, without a final accent. The data reported here is based on fieldwork conducted in Asunción, Paraguay. In addition to working with several primary consultants, we also conducted four questionnaires: one was presented orally and the remaining three were distributed in written form.
Appendix: Simultaneous reference to past and present sub-events
Appendix: Simultaneous reference to past and present sub-events
A common aspect of the tense accounts is that past vs. present interpretation obtains as the result of underspecification and not of ambiguity. Accordingly, the tense accounts allow reference to an interval that includes the speech time as a final subinterval and also extends back into the past. On our account, the evaluation time is either the speech time, if default, or an interval distinct from the speech time, if shifted. The two types of accounts make different predictions with respect to reference to intervals that extend in the past and also include the speech time as a final sub-interval.
1.1 Languages with a covert non-future tense or with lexically unrestricted tense
Simultaneous past and present interpretation is reported to be possible in St’át’imcets (Matthewson , 2006), Hausa (Mucha , 2013), Washo (Bochnak , 2016), and Tlingit (Cable , 2017). A representative example from Hausa is in (111) (Mucha, 2013: (31b)). The sentence can be analyzed as describing a single event consisting of the two sub-events of John and Peter each playing the guitar. This larger event is presented as ongoing from the perspective of a time interval including the speech time as a final sub-interval and extending back.
The LF and interpretation of (111) and its counterparts in St’át’imcets, Washo and Tlingit, are in (112). The lexical tense restriction non-fut is shown as optional, because it is posited for St’át’imcets and Tlingit, but not for Hausa or Washo.Footnote 52
1.2 Languages with both a present and a past tense
In English, this kind of temporal perspective cannot be achieved with the simple present or past, but needs the present perfect progressive, see (113). The compositional interpretation of the present tense and the perfect higher aspect provides reference to a perfect time span bound to the right by the speech time. The progressive viewpoint aspect further determines that the time of the event includes the perfect time span, resulting in a universal-perfect reading. Some speakers also allow an existential-perfect reading with the simple present perfect, in an enriched context where the guitar playing is a regular occurrence and today’s instance of it is being reported.
We present below the results of a test with monolingual Spanish speakers from Paraguay and from Spain, largely confirming that Spanish is like English in this respect: native speakers of the two varieties of Spanish mostly select the present perfect or present perfect progressive in contexts like (111)/(113).
1.3 Predictions for Paraguayan Guarani
The tense accounts applied to Paraguayan Guarani predict that the language should be like St’át’imcets, Hausa, Washo and Tlingit: the counterpart of (111) should be acceptable. Our account, on the other hand, predicts that such simultaneous past and present interpretations should not be possible. This prediction rests on the assumption that a shifted evaluation time is fully distinct from the speech time, and cannot both include the speech time and extend backwards.Footnote 53 Therefore, the Paraguayan Guarani counterpart of the sentence in (111) should either have a present evaluation time or a past one, see (114) for an illustration, and so should be unacceptable in the given context. In other words, Paraguayan Guarani should pattern with languages like Spanish and English that have two tenses, a present and a past one—even though it has none—and not with languages that have a single non-future tense.
Importantly, this different prediction highlights how evaluation-time denoting pro differs from reference-time denoting \(\textsc {T}_i\) of the covert lexical tense accounts (see (31) and (32)). The grammatical properties of the abstract parameter of evaluation time—fixed to the time of the speech context or to the time of a context distinct from the speech context—place constraints on the kinds of temporal intervals that can be referents to indexical pro, while non-indexical \(\textsc {T}_i\) is free of such constraints and may refer to intervals that extend back from the speech time.
1.4 Testing the predictions of the tense and tenseless accounts for Paraguayan Guarani
We presented a similar context to (111) together with several sentence variants in Paraguayan Guarani and in Spanish to bilingual speakers in written questionnaires. Within-subject results are particularly important, as the participants’ choice among the explicitly tensed sentences in Spanish can reveal how they are interpreting the sentences in Paraguayan Guarani. This constraining factor adds a crucial, and novel, dimension to the test. We further administered the written questionnaires to monolingual speakers of Spanish, as spoken in Paraguay, and to monolingual speakers of Spanish from Spain, in order to identify potential differences between the two varieties of Spanish, which in turn could be influencing the Paraguayan Guarani responses of the bilingual participants from Paraguay. The cross-dialectal application also adds a novel dimension.
We asked the participants to select the sentence(s) in (115) and (116) that can describe well the presented situation. The prompt and context were given in Spanish, and the participants could select any of the given options, including all or none.Footnote 54
1.4.1 Bilingual study
A total of 34 bilingual speakers completed a questionnaire; we analyze the responses of 27 of them, summarized in Table 5.Footnote 55\(^,\)Footnote 56
When Paraguayan Guarani is considered in isolation, the tense and tenseless accounts make different predictions for the \(\varnothing \) (hína) category. The tense accounts predict that all participants would select the sentences in this category, (115a) and (115b), in line with the results reported for St’át’imcets, Hausa, Washo and Tlingit. In contrast, our tenseless account predicts that none of the participants would accept these sentences, similarly to the judgments for English and Spanish discussed above. The results for (115a) or (115b) are at first glance unexpected on both types of accounts: some but not all participants selected them, specifically 16/27, as can be seen in Table 5, rows (a), (b), and (d).
This is where it becomes relevant that our participants also did the task in Spanish. The Spanish responses in rows (a) and (b) reveal that the corresponding \(\varnothing \) (hína) responses are either present or past, and thus not problematic for our account. On the contrary, even though the Spanish results are unexpected, the within-participant responses in the two languages conform to our predictions. Our tenseless account predicts that Paraguayan Guarani \(\varnothing \) (hína) would be selected by a participant if and only if the same participant selects the Paraguayan Spanish present (progressive) or past tense sentences. The combined results in rows (a) and (b) are in line with this bi-directional prediction. In contrast, the tense accounts are merely compatible with the results of row (a) and (b) but do not predict these linked responses.
Thus, it turns out that of the 16/27 participants whose results initially seemed problematic for our account, 11/27 are not. The remaining 5/27 participants (row (d)) violate the predictions of our account and are compatible with the tense accounts.
Turning to row (c), we see support for our account but not for the tense accounts. Our account makes the prediction that Paraguayan Guarani \(\varnothing \) kuri (hína) would be selected by a participant if and only if the same participant selects the Paraguayan Spanish present perfect (progressive). The 11/27 participants in row (c) meet this prediction. The tense accounts, however, predict that given their selection of a Spanish present perfect (progressive), participants may select Paraguayan Guarani \(\varnothing \) kuri (hína) but they should also select Paraguayan Guarani \(\varnothing \) (hína). Yet this is not what row (c) shows.
To conclude:
Thus the linked responses of 81\(\%\) of the participants, 22/27, are predicted on the no-tense account. It is not clear that we can conclude anything definitive about the other 19\(\%\), 5/27. Short of conducting an experimental study to more clearly control variation, we interpret the results of the questionnaires as supportive of our proposal that there is a (dominant) Paraguayan Guarani grammar that does not have tense, even if that characterization only covers 81\(\%\) of our participants.
Individual discussions with three of our primary consultants confirm that they accept the Paraguayan Guarani \(\varnothing \) (hína) sentences, (115a) and (115b), when they also accept the Paraguayan Spanish present tense sentences, (116a) and (116b). We also presented the consultants with a version of the sentences where we changed the adverbial from ko ára-pe ‘this day-loc’, today, to ko pyharevé-pe guive ‘this morning-loc from’, since this morning, keeping the rest of the sentences and the context the same. This change facilitated the targeted reading: our consultants chose the examples with kuri (hína) and the present perfect (progressive). The fieldwork interviews confirm our general interpretation of the results of the questionnaires.
More generally, our results call for caution in interpreting the results of this test cross-linguistically. As we saw, a number of our participants flouted the presupposition of the test and selected a present or a past response for Spanish, and then also accepted a bare form in Paraguayan Guarani. Had only their Paraguayan Guarani responses been available, we would have reached the wrong conclusion that their grammar contains a single non-future tense.Footnote 57
1.4.2 Monolingual study
10 monolingual speakers of Paraguayan Spanish and 10 monolingual speakers of Castilian Spanish completed Q2. One participant in each group answered none on the choices for this item, presumably finding the task difficult or unnatural (see footnote 57). Results of the remaining 9 participants in each group are presented in Tables 6 and 7.
The results of the two monolingual groups and the bilingual group are broadly similar: as expected, most participants selected the present perfect (progressive), and some selected the present (progressive), no matter the variety of Spanish. One difference is that the past was selected only by the Paraguayan Spanish speakers: in this, the monolingual speakers behaved like the bilingual speakers (cf. Tables 6 and 5). A related difference is that only speakers of Castilian Spanish uniformly selected the present perfect (progressive), even if two of them also selected the present (progressive). If these differences are grammatically meaningful, they are in favor of our account, illustrating that the use of \(\varnothing \) (hína) in the relevant contexts is not linked to a non-future interpretation but to either a past or a present one.
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Pancheva, R., Zubizarreta, M.L. No tense: temporality in the grammar of Paraguayan Guarani. Linguist and Philos 46, 1329–1391 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-023-09387-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-023-09387-0