The grammar of the english verb phrase part 24 ppsx

Since a domain is always established by a tense form and every tense form refers to a situation time, at least one of the orientation times in the set is a situation time.. The other ten

⫺ it does not relate the situation time to t0 but to another orientation time, in this case the situation time located by the future tense main clause

A temporal domain need not be expanded: it may consist just of a single situation time,

as inMeg bought a bike.

2.42.1 Atemporal domainis a set of orientation times which are temporally related to each other by means of tenses Since a domain is always established

by a tense form and every tense form refers to a situation time, at least one of the orientation times in the set is a situation time As we will see, a domain sometimes also contains an orientation time which is not a situation time, such

as the unspecified orientation time to which the situation time of had got up

is represented as anterior inHe had got up early that morning when this

sen-tence is used as the first sensen-tence of a novel

An absolute tense form always establishes a domain This means that a domain can only be expanded by relative tense forms Thus, in

(1) Johnsaid he was tired because he had worked hard all day and that he would

go to bed early.

the reference is to a past domain This is established by the past tense form

said, which is therefore an absolute tense form The other tense forms are

relative tense forms:was [tired] represents its situation time as T-simultaneous

with the situation time of said, had worked represents its situation time as

T-anterior to the situation time ofwas [tired] and would go represents its

situa-tion time as T-posterior to the situasitua-tion time of said See Figure 2.2.

2.42.2 When representing a temporal domain by means of a diagram, we will observe the following conventions The domain is represented by a

Venn-dia-gram because it is a set of orientation times (related to each other by the tense forms) The ‘central orientation time’ (⫽ the situation time establishing the domain ⫺ see 8.15) is the only orientation time which is placed on the time line, since it is the only orientation time that is directly related to t A vertical

Figure 2.2 The tense structure of John said that he was tired because he had worked

hard all day and that he would go to bed early.

line is used to represent the relation of T-simultaneity, whereas a slanting line

represents either anteriority or posteriority A situation time that is

T-anterior to another orientation time is located to the left of the latter; a

situa-tion time that is T-posterior to another orientasitua-tion time is located to the right

of the latter All orientation times and situation times are represented by a

cross (or ‘x’), irrespective of whether they are durative or punctual

2.43 Unexpanded domain

A temporal domain isunexpandedif it consists of just one situation time: the

set of orientation times forming the domain is a singleton This is the case in

He left at five and I will leave at eight, where both tense forms establish a

domain of their own, which is not further expanded⫺ see Figure 2.3

Figure 2.3 The tense structure of He left at 5 and I will leave at 8.

2.44 Absolute and relative past tenses

As is shown in Figure 2.2, English has anabsolute past tense, which

estab-lishes a past domain, and arelative past tense, which expresses

T-simultane-ity in a past domain The semantics of the absolute past tense is: ‘The situation

time is located in the past time-sphere (defined relative to t )’; the semantics of

the ‘conditional’ tense (T-posteriority), and (c) the ‘complex relative’ (see 1.18.3) tenses expressing two or more relations in a past domain at once, viz the ‘conditional perfect’ tense (would have V-en), as well as such (nameless)

tenses as are built withhad been going to, would be going to, would have been going to, had been going to have V-en, would be going to have V-en and would have been going to have V-en All these tenses have in common that they show

past tense inflectional morphology

2.46 Present (time-sphere) tenses

These comprise the present tense, the present perfect, the future tense and the absolute-relative tenses (see the next section) They all show present tense inflectional morphology

2.47 Absolute-relative tenses

An absolute-relative tense is a tense which both establishes a domain and indi-cates a relation in it In English, the absolute-relative tenses are the future

20 This is actually a simplification In section 10.2 we will see that a post-present binding orientation time may be treated as if it were t 0 , i e as a ‘pseudo-t 0 ’, and that in that case we can speak of a ‘past time-zone’ and ‘past subdomains’ A pseudo-past subdomain is established by a ‘pseudo-absolute’ pseudo-past tense and expanded by the relative tenses typical of (true) past domains:

(i) [Even if there are witnesses to the hold-up we are planning] they will no doubt say

to the police that theydidn’t notice what was going on.

In this example,didn’t notice is a absolute past tense form establishing a

pseudo-past subdomain in the post-present domain established bywill say; was going on

ex-presses T-simultaneity in that pseudo-past subdomain ⫺ see section 10.2.2 It follows that the correct definition of the semantics of the relative past tense is: ‘The situation time is T-simultaneous with an orientation time in a (pseudo-)past (sub)domain’.

perfect (will have V-en) ⫺ see Figure 2.4 ⫺ and such (nameless) present

time-sphere tenses as are built with has been going to or will be going to (and, at

least theoretically, has been going to have V-en and will have been going to

have V-en.)

Figure 2.4 The tense structure of the future perfect.

2.48 Terminology: relative tenses vs absolute-relative tenses

The terms ‘relative tense’ and ‘absolute relative tense’ are not used in a uniform

manner in the linguistic literature For example, Comrie (1985) applies the label

‘relative tense forms’ to nonfinite verb forms (which express a single temporal

relation with a contextually given orientation time⫺ see 1.10.4), and refers to

the past perfect as an ‘absolute-relative tense’ ⫺ a label which we reserve for

the future perfect and for forms built with will be going to (see 2.47) We do

not follow this practice In section 1.10.4 we argued that nonfinite clauses are

untensed, i e that only finite verb forms are tense forms

2.49 Temporal subordination or (temporal) binding

A relative tense, by definition, requires the presence of some other orientation time in order to locate the time of the situation expressed by the relative-tense clause (For example, such an orientation time is missing in Meg had bought a bike, rendering the

clause difficult to interpret, while in Meg said that she had bought a bike we have a

clearly accessible orientation time ⫺ the time of Meg’s saying ⫺ to which the relative tense, the past perfect, can relate its situation.) We say that the situation time located

by a relative tense is ‘temporally bound’ by (or ‘subordinated’ to) the orientation time from which the temporal location of the situation time takes its starting point (In the example above, the situation time of the buying is located by starting at the time of saying and locating the buying anterior to it.) In the same way, we talk of ‘binding orientation times’ and ‘bound situation times’

cated situation described by [John] said.

The situation time which establishes a temporal domain is the ‘central orientation time’

of the domain When a temporal domain is expanded, each situation time (if any) that

is introduced into the domain is itself the central orientation time of a domain-within-a-domain, which we call a ‘temporal subdomain’, even if that domain is not expanded Thus in Meg said she bought a bike the situation time of she bought a bike is the

central orientation time of an unexpanded domain, whilst in Meg said she bought a bike that didn’t have any brakes, the situation time of bought is the central orientation

time of a domain which is expanded by the bound situation time of the relative clause

that didn’t have any brakes In a past zone, tenses function in exactly the same way in

temporal subdomains as in the temporal domains which they expand⫺ i e the rules for relating situation times by means of tenses are recursive in a past zone The same does not necessarily go for the three zones that make up the present time-sphere, but

we nevertheless find that specific sets of tenses for expressing the set of temporal rela-tions in a domain are re-used in other zones, so that the total number of tenses required

to express temporal relations in all the temporal zones is very small

2.50.1 A ‘temporal domain’ has been defined as a set of orientation times, containing at least one situation time ⫺ see 2.42 The set may consist of no more than one situation time, in which case the set is a singleton and we speak

of an ‘unexpanded’ (see 2.43) domain A set may also be anexpanded domain,

in which case it contains several orientation times, each of which is related to another by a tense relation In the same way as any multiple set contains sub-sets, which may be singletons, an expanded temporal domain contains subdo-mains, which may be unexpanded subdomains That is, when we expand a temporal domain, each situation time that is introduced into the domain

cre-ates atemporal subdomain, whose ‘central orientation time’ (i e the

orienta-tion time from which the first T-relaorienta-tions in the subdomain start) is the newly

introduced situation time.21 It is important to see that the tenses used to

ex-press T-relations in a past subdomain are exactly the same as those used to

express T-relations in the overall past domain Consider, for example, the

fol-lowing:

Billsaid something (Said creates a past domain which is not further expanded.)

Bill said that some day I would lose my job (Said creates a past domain which is

further expanded: would lose expresses T-posteriority within the domain; would lose

creates a past subdomain which is not further expanded.)

Bill said that some day I would lose the job that I had had for over twenty years.

(Would lose expresses T-posteriority within the overall past domain established by

said and creates a past subdomain; had had expresses T-anteriority in the subdomain

created by would lose, thus expanding it; the new subdomain created by had had

within the subdomain created by would lose is not further expanded.)

Ryansaid Sheila had told him that she would resign if she didn’t get her way (Said

creates a past domain Had told expresses T-anteriority in it and creates a

subdo-main In this subdomain, would resign expresses T-posteriority and creates a new,

smaller, subdomain Within this subdomain didn’t get expresses T-simultaneity and

in doing so creates a further subdomain.)

Figure 2.5 represents the tense structure of the last example

2.50.2 There are some interesting theoretical conclusions to be drawn from

this First, in section 2.14 we defined ‘orientation time’ as ‘any time capable of

functioning as the origin of a temporal relation expressed by a tense form’ and

pointed out that it follows that a situation time (⫽ the time of a predicated

situation) is always an orientation time We can now reformulate this and say

that a situation time is always the central orientation time of a domain or

subdomain Secondly, the tenses expanding a subdomain of a past domain are

exactly the same as those expanding the overall past domain: both past

do-mains and past subdodo-mains use the past perfect for T-anteriority, the

condi-tional tense for T-posteriority and the past tense for T-simultaneity This means

that we need only a very limited number of tenses to build quite complex past

domains, since the rules for expanding a past domain apply recursively to each

of the subdomains The same thing is not necessarily true of domains in the

present time-sphere, but it will be shown in chapter 9 that the expansion of

21 In 2.42.2 we wrote that “The central orientation time is the only orientation time which

is placed on the time line, since it is the only orientation time that is directly related to

t 0 ” It is clear that this remark only applies to the central orientation time of an overall

domain, not to the central orientation time of a subdomain.

Figure 2.5 The tense structure of Ryan said Sheila had told him that she would resign

if she didn’t get her way.

pre-present and post-present domains is also governed by a limited number of rules (Present domains cannot be expanded because a tense form relating a situation time to t0 is by definition an absolute tense form, which therefore establishes a domain of its own ⫺ see 9.14.)