It goes without saying that such a durative situation time cannot coincide with t0or with a punctual Adv-time, and cannot be con-tained in an Adv-time that is shorter than the time of th
Trang 1If there is more than one Adv-time, as in He left at 4 p.m on 1 May 1999,
the relation between the various Adv-times is also Adv-time-simultaneity:1999
includeson 1 May, which includes at 4 p.m It is the last (i e shortest) of these
Adv-times that contains the situation time
2.30 Punctual Adv-times and durative bounded situations
When a durative situation is bounded, it is (by definition) nonhomogeneous and there-fore the situation time cannot be a punctual portion of the time of the full situation Rather, the situation time has the same duration as the time of the full situation This means that a durative bounded situation cannot be located at a punctual time (such as
t0 or at five o’clock) However, a durative bounded situation may be referred to in a
clause containing a punctual adverb as long as the description of the situation can be interpreted as inchoative or terminative (For example,The elephant will have a bath
at four locates the beginning of the bathing, not the entire process, at four o’clock).
2.30.1 When a durative situation is represented as L-bounded or interpreted
as W-bounded, the situation time coincides with ⫺ i e has the same length
as⫺ the time of the full situation (because a bounded situation is by definition heterogeneous⫺ see 1.45) It goes without saying that such a durative situation time cannot coincide with t0or with a punctual Adv-time, and cannot be con-tained in an Adv-time that is shorter than the time of the full situation
*I write a book.(A bounded durative situation cannot coincide with t 0 )
I am writing a book (Here the full situation is homogeneous, so that the situation time can be a punctual portion of the time of the full situation That punctual situation time can be represented as coinciding with t 0 )
*I wrote a book at five o’clock.(Ungrammatical because a bounded durative situa-tion cannot coincide with (or otherwise be contained in) a punctual Adv-time.)
I was writing a book at five o’clock.(Here the full situation is homogeneous, so that the situation time can be a portion of the time of the full situation Since that portion can be punctual, the situation time can be represented as coinciding with the punc-tual Adv-time.)
2.30.2 The constraint that a durative bounded situation time cannot be con-tained in (⫽ coincide with) a punctual Adv-time does not automatically render any combination of a punctual adverbial with a bounded description of a dura-tive situation ungrammatical If the adverbial specifies a past or future point
of time, the combination is often grammatical on a special interpretation, viz
apartly inchoative or partly terminative reading Compare:
Trang 2At seven o’clock he was eating a three-course dinner (This sentence is fine on a
coincidence interpretation because the progressive form represents the telic situation
as nonbounded and homogeneous, which means that the situation time can be a
punctual portion of the time of the full situation and can therefore be represented
as coinciding with the punctual Adv-time denoted by at seven o’clock.)
At seven o’clock he ate a three-course dinner.(This sentence is ungrammatical if it
is to express that the situation time coincided with the punctual Adv-time, because
the nonprogressive form of a telic verb phrase represents the durative situation as
bounded (and therefore as heterogeneous), which means that the situation time is
also the time of the full situation, which is durative and therefore cannot coincide
with a punctual Adv-time However, when such a sentence is uttered by a
coopera-tive speaker, a cooperacoopera-tive hearer will look for a suitable reading and assume the
‘partly inchoative’ interpretation ‘He ate a three-course dinner and started doing so
at seven o’clock’ Note that we speak of a ‘partly inchoative interpretation’ because
‘(purely) inchoative interpretation’ means that only the beginning of the
actualiza-tion is referred to This is not the case in this example: the sentence asserts the
actualization of the full situation What is inchoative about it is that the time
adver-bial specifies only the beginning of the situation.)
John came to the station at 4 (The most suitable interpretation here is a ‘partly
terminative’ one: ‘John came to the station and arrived there at four’.)
At 8 p.m John will come here.(Ambiguous between an inchoative reading ⫺ John
will leave (somewhere) at 8 p.m to come here ⫺ and a terminative reading ⫺ John
will arrive here at 8 p.m (having come from somewhere).)
It should be noted that a partly inchoative or terminative reading is not
auto-matically possible when a punctual Adv-time is combined with a
durative-bounded description of a situation Compare:
At five o’clock I wrote a letter
*At five o’clock I wrote a book
Only the former of these is acceptable on a partly inchoative reading Given
the minimal difference between the examples, it must be something pragmatic
that blocks the partly inchoative reading of the second sentence However, it
is not at all clear what the blocking factor is Granted that at five o’clock is
pragmatically odd as a starting time for such a large enterprise as writing a
book, a particularday should not sound absurd and yet the following are also
completely unacceptable on an inchoative interpretation:
On 27th September I wrote a book.(only acceptable if I wrote a complete book on
27 th September)
At the end of September I wrote a book (similar; there is no acceptable partly
inchoative reading)
Trang 32.31 The role of pure duration adverbials
2.31.1 Whereas a time-specifying adverbial indicates a (punctual or durative) Adv-time which contains the situation time of the situation referred to, apure duration adverbial like for two weeks only measures (i e indicates the
length of) an interval of time The interval in question is the time of the full situation, not the time of the predicated situation (i e the length of the situa-tion time), unless the two coincide (see 2.16.2)
John told us that he was working in Portsmouth for two weeks.(The situation time indicated by was working coincides with the (almost punctual) situation time indi-cated by told For two weeks indicates the length of the full situation of John work-ing in Portsmouth In other words, for two weeks belongs to the description of the full situation: at the time of John’s speaking, the situation of John-working-in-Portsmouth-for-two-weeks was in progress Notice that the fact that the speaker knows about the length of the situation means that the situation must have been pre-determined, i e planned in advance.)
(telephone conversation with somebody travelling through France) [“Where are you
today?”]⫺ “Today I’m here in Rennes until six [At six I’m leaving for Paris.]” (The
situation time is that part of the time of the speaker’s being in Rennes that coincides with t 0 The adverbial until six indicates the duration of the remaining part ⫺ the part following t 0 ⫺ of the full situation of the speaker’s being in Rennes This
knowl-edge is available to the speaker only if the full situation has been scheduled in ad-vance In other words, the adverbial forms part of the description of the full situa-tion: what is going on at t 0 is the speaker’s-being-in-Rennes-until-six The situation time can be a punctual subinterval (of that full situation) which coincides with t 0
because I’m here in Rennes until six represents its situation as homogeneous: at any point between t 0 and six the speaker can truly say I am here in Rennes until six Today refers to the whole of ‘what counts as today’ (here, roughly the working day); this Adv-time includes t 0 as well as the situation time coinciding with t 0 )
I am only in my office for two hours.(The situation time (⫽ time taken up by the predicated situation) is that part of the time of the full situation that coincides with
t 0 The adverbial for two hours indicates the (pre-determined) duration of the full situation and belongs to the description of that situation.)
John had come for two hours.(For two hours can only indicate the duration of the time of the full situation The only possible readings that are in keeping with this are ‘John had come and stayed for two hours’ or ‘John had come with the intention
of staying for two hours’.)
2.31.2 There are a couple of cases in which the situation time coincides with the time of the full situation In these cases a pure duration adverbial measures not only the length of the time of the full situation but also the length of the situation time
(a) The situation time and the time of the full situation coincide if the situation
is L-bounded (see 1.44) In that case the predicated situation is represented
Trang 4as heterogeneous (see 1.45), which means that it is incompatible with a
time-specifying adverbial indicating an Adv-time that is shorter than the
situation time (because the Adv-time has to either include the situation
time or coincide with it⫺ see 1.46.2) Compare:
I worked on my thesis for five and a half years.(The situation time coincides with
the time of the full situation because the duration-measuring adverbial represents
the situation as bounded, i e as reaching a terminal point.)
*Last week I worked on my thesis for five and a half years.(The
duration-measur-ing adverbial for five and a half years represents the situation as bounded, which
means that the situation time is also the time of the full situation The sentence is
pragmatically unacceptable because the Adv-time specified by last week is too short
to contain a situation time that lasts for five and a half years.)
When I was in my twenties, I worked on my thesis for five and a half years.(This
time the Adv-time is long enough to contain the situation time.)
(b) In clauses in one of the perfect tenses, the period indicated by a duration
adverbial with for again coincides with the time of the full situation In
addition, this period may sometimes be interpreted as being the period
that leads up to t0 or to a past or post-present binding orientation
time.16Compare:
For the past two years she has worked intermittently for various companies.(The
situation of working intermittently for various companies took up the whole of
the past two years, i e the entire two-year period up to t 0 )
{*For / in} the past two years she has worked once or twice (For cannot be used
because there is no reference to a situation of working once or twice which lasts
throughout the two-year period up to now.)
However, in some sentences (in one of the perfect tenses) thefor-adverbial only
indicates the length of the time of the full situation:
Have you ever been abroadfor longer than two weeks [since you came to live here]?
(The relevant ‘period up to orientation time’ in which the present perfect tense
lo-cates one or more situation times is a ‘period up to t 0 ’ The for-adverbial indicates
the duration of these situations (if any), not the length of the period leading up to t 0 )
[When I went to Australia] I had been away for longer than two days only twice in
my life.(The relevant ‘period up to a past orientation time’ presupposed by the past
perfect is a period leading up to the past situation time of the when-clause The
for-adverbial specifies the duration of the full situations corresponding with the two
situation times that are located in this period.)
Under certain conditions a perfect tense can receive a ‘continuative’
interpreta-tion, i e the reading in which the full situation starts before some orientation
16 As noted before, a ‘binding’ orientation time is an orientation time to which a situation
time is temporally related by a tense (see 2.49).
Trang 5time and continues up to (and into) the orientation time in question, as in I’d been waiting for her for two hours [before she finally arrived] ⫺ see 5.3.2 In
that case the period whose length is specified by the durational adverbial is the time of the full situation (which is interpreted as containing the orientation time in question ⫺ see 5.3.2) This ‘time of the full situation’ is the time of actualization of the situation in the actual world However, such a continuative interpretation does not exclude the possibility that the situation will continue
in the (not-yet-factual) future world: I’ve lived here since 1998 suggests that
the situation may well continue after t0 The function of afor-adverbial
accom-panying a ‘continuative present perfect’ (⫽ the representation, by means of a clause in the present perfect, of a situation as starting before t0 and as still actualizing at t0) is to specify the duration of thefactual full situation, i e the full situation covering the period up to t0plus t0itself, but leaves open the possibility that the actualization will continue in the (not-yet-factual) post-present, in other words that thepotential full situation is longer than the factual one
I’ve been waiting for her for two hours now.(For two hours now indicates the length
of the factual full situation, i e the full situation as it has actualized up to now Nothing is said about the length of the potential full situation.)
In two weeks’ time Maggie will have been in prison for exactly three years (For exactly three years specifies the length of the full situation up to the time (point) indicated by in two weeks’ time This situation is assumed to be a factual situation The sentence leaves it vague whether or not this factual full situation will potentially extend beyond the post-present point indicated by in two weeks’ time Only world knowledge can tell us this, i e can tell us whether Maggie is due to serve exactly three years or more.)
2.32 Summary of section III
We have distinguished three types of adverbial that give temporal information
Time-specifying adverbials (e g.at seven o’clock) temporally locate an
orienta-tion time (which may be a situaorienta-tion time) by specifying a particular time (an
Adv-time) which may be durative or punctual and which contains (i e
coin-cides with or includes) the orientation time Pure duration adverbials (e g.for seven hours) specify the length of time occupied by a full situation, but do not
locate it in time Bifunctional adverbials (e g. from six to eight) both
tempo-rally locate a situation time and specify the length of the corresponding full situation Thus in Sam worked in the garden from six to eight, the temporal
adverbial locates the situation time (the time of the predicated situation) at the time indicated byfrom six to eight and measures the (time of the) full situation
(as taking up two hours) To sum up: time-specifying adverbials locate
Trang 6orienta-tion times (including situaorienta-tion times), pure duraorienta-tion adverbials measure the
length of the time of a full situation, and bifunctional adverbials simultaneously
locate a situation time and specify the length of the corresponding full
situa-tion time
As we have seen, a time indicated by a time-specifying adverbial (⫽ an
Adv-time) contains the situation time (or other orientation Adv-time) whose temporal
location it specifies The situation time may be shorter than the Adv-time (i e
it is included in it) or it may be exactly the same length (i e it coincides with
it) In either case we can speak of Adv-time-simultaneity Adv-time-simultaneity
differs from W-simultaneity in that it is linguistically expressed and it is unlike
T-simultaneity in that it is not expressed by a tense and it allows for a relation
of proper inclusion as well as one of strict coincidence, though it does not
allow for mere overlap When there is more than one Adv-time in a clause, the
relation between the Adv-times is also one of Adv-time-simultaneity ⫺ i e
proper inclusion or coincidence
When the Adv-time is punctual, the situation time, in order to be included
in the Adv-time, must of necessity be punctual A durative situation can be
represented as simultaneous with a punctual Adv-time provided that the
situa-tion is homogeneous (nonbounded) (The situasitua-tion time is then the time of a
punctual portion of the situation which is representative of the whole
situa-tion.) The fact that a progressive clause can combine with an adverbial
specify-ing a punctual Adv-time means that a progressive clause represents the
predi-cated situation as a punctual situation which is representative of the longer full
situation When a durative situation is bounded, it is (by definition)
nonhomo-geneous and therefore the situation time cannot be a punctual portion of the
time of the full situation Rather, the situation time has the same duration as
the time of the full situation This means that a durative bounded situation
cannot be located at a punctual time (such as t0 orat five o’clock) However,
a durative bounded situation may be referred to in a clause containing a
punc-tual adverb as long as this adverb can be interpreted as indicating the beginning
or end of the full actualizing situation For example, We’ll have lunch at one
p.m locates the beginning of the situation of having lunch, not the entire
situa-tion, at one o’clock (This does not alter the fact that the speaker envisages the
entire situation as actualizing in the future.)
In a given context, a time-specifying or bifunctional adverbial may contain
(i e by inclusion or coincidence) a situation time, an orientation time other
than a situation time, or several orientation times (usually situation times) We
speak, respectively, of situation-time adverbials, orientation-time adverbials
and multiple-orientation-time adverbials.
As we have seen, a pure duration adverbial measures the time of the full
situation InMidge said that the baby was crying for two hours, the predicated
situation expressed by the baby was crying for two hours must be punctual
Trang 7because it is T-simultaneous with the (more or less) punctual situation time indicated bysaid However, the full, i e the implied, situation is measured as
lasting for two hours Usually the time of the full situation is longer than the time of the predicated situation and so the duration adverbial only measures
the time of the full situation, but in some cases, notably when the situation is explicitly bounded, the situation time coincides with the time of the full situa-tion In those cases, of course, the adverbial time indirectly also measures the predicated situation