The T-relation expressed by the conditional perfect tense 457 9.8 The relevance of the W-interpretation of the present perfect clause 459 9.9 T-relations in a domain established by an in
Trang 19 Temporal subordination in the
various time-zones
I Temporal subordination in a past time-sphere domain 444
B The expression of T-simultaneity in a past domain 448
C The expression of T-posteriority in a past domain 450
D The T-relation expressed by the conditional perfect tense 457
9.8 The relevance of the W-interpretation of the present perfect clause 459 9.9 T-relations in a domain established by an indefinite perfect 460 9.10 T-relations on an up-to-now reading of the head clause 474 9.11 Shifting the domain after a continuative perfect 478 9.12 Temporal subordination after a continuative perfect 483
9.14 Head clauses referring to a nonrepetitive present situation 485 9.15 Head clauses referring to a present repetitive hypersituation 487
C Expressing T-anteriority in a post-present domain 491 9.18 The past tense expressing T-anteriority in a post-present domain 491 9.19 The present perfect expressing T-anteriority in a post-present domain 493
D The expression of T-simultaneity in a post-present domain 494 9.20 Coincidence with the central orientation time of a post-present domain 494 9.21 T-simultaneity with an orientation time coinciding with the
E The expression of T-posteriority in a post-present domain 499
9.23 The theoretical status of pseudo-absolute tense forms 501
Trang 2442 9 Temporal subordination in the various time-zones
9.25 Relating a situation time to the situation time of a future perfect 503
F The explanatory force of this analysis of tenses in post-present domains 504
9.32 The expression of T-relations to a present orientation time 525
Trang 3In chapters 3⫺7 we have seen how temporal
do-mains can be established in each of the four
ab-solute time-zones by the use of the preterite, the
present perfect, the present tense and the future
tense, respectively In this chapter we investigate
which tenses can or must be used to ‘expand’
such a temporal domain For example, in I’ve
told you before that I had cancer, the present
perfect formhave told establishes a pre-present
domain, which is expanded by the use of the
past tensehad, which represents my having
can-cer as T-simultaneous with the pre-present time
of my speaking to you
In part I (⫽ sections 9.1⫺7) we examine the
expansion of temporal domains that are
estab-lished by a preterite form It is shown that the
past perfect, the relative preterite and the
condi-tional tense are used to express anteriority,
T-simultaneity and T-posteriority, respectively,
ir-respective of whether the binding time is the
central orientation time of the domain or a
situ-ation time that is itself temporally subordinated
An example likeHe said he would beat up any
customer who did not pay for the drinks they
had ordered illustrates this: would beat up,
didn’t pay and had ordered express
T-posterior-ity, T-simultaneity and T-anteriorT-posterior-ity,
respecti-vely, to an each time different binding time in
the past domain established bysaid.
Part II (⫽ sections 9.8⫺13) deals with
pre-present domains It is shown that the only way
to expand a pre-present domain involves a ‘shift
of temporal perspective’: the pre-present central
orientation time is treated as if it were a past
time, so that the tenses used to T-relate a
situa-tion time to it are the same as are used in past
domains For example: He has often told me
that he would beat up any customer who did not
pay for the drinks they had ordered However, it
is shown that a pre-present domain can be
ex-panded this way only if the central orientation
time lies completely before t0 When the present
perfect receives a ‘continuative’ reading or a
‘re-cency’ interpretation, the subclause that is added normally uses an absolute tense, which shifts the domain: You’ve known for some time that I have cancer.
In part III (⫽ sections 9.14⫺15) it is explained that a present domain cannot be expanded, be-cause the central situation time is located at t0 Any relation to this central time is a relation to
t0, i e an ‘absolute relation’, expressed by a verb form creating a new domain
Part IV (⫽ sections 9.16⫺25) explains that when a post-present domain is expanded, there
is again a shift of temporal perspective: the central situation time is treated as if it were t0,
so that the tense forms used to T-relate a situa-tion time to this ‘pseudo-t0’ are ‘pseudo-abso-lute’ tense forms Thus, inIf you kill him tonight you will regret for the rest of your life that you murdered him in front of his children, the form murdered locates the killing anterior to the time
of the regretting The form murdered creates a
‘pseudo-past’ subdomain within the over-all post-present domain This subdomain can be ex-panded as if it were a real past domain Part IV also discusses the theoretical status of pseudo-absolute tense forms, the recursivity of the rules governing the tense sysem (which can establish domains as well as subdomains) and the analysis
of temporal domains established by a future per-fect Part IV is closed off with the discussion of two particular test cases which nicely illustrate the explanatory force of the proposed analysis Finally, part V (⫽ sections 9.28⫺29) is con-cerned with the difference between ‘direct’ and
‘indirect binding’ In the former case a subclause
is T-bound by its own head clause (as in When
he first visited the house, he had noticed the strange smell in the kitchen); there is indirect
binding if a subclause is not bound by the situa-tion time of its own head clause, but by the situ-ation time of the syntactically higher clause binding its head clause (as inWhen he had first visited the house, he had noticed the strange smell in the kitchen.)
Trang 4444 9 Temporal subordination in the various time-zones
I Temporal subordination in a past time-sphere
domain
Each kind of domain (whether past, pre-present, present or post-present) has its own system to express the (domain-internal) T-relations that form part of the process of temporal subordination The purpose of Part I (⫽ sections 9.1⫺ 7) is to investigate the system of relative tenses expanding a past time-sphere domain
A The expression of T-anteriority in a past domain
9.1 The past perfect
T-anteriority in a past domain is expressed by means of the past perfect, irrespective
of whether the binding time is the central orientation time or another orientation time within that past domain
In order to represent a situation time as T-anterior to another time in a past domain, the past perfect is used This is the case irrespective of whether the binding time is the ‘central orientation time’ (see 8.15) of the past domain or another orientation time located in that domain
Maud left her husband after he had wrongly claimed that he had seen with his own eyes how Maud had made advances to a young man she had run across in the street
(Only had claimed T-relates its situation time to the central orientation time, which
is the situation time of left Each of the other past perfect forms T-relates its situation time to the situation time of its head clause, which each time uses the past perfect.)
He thought Ihad been living there for some time (The central orientation time is the binding orientation time.)
She said that she would tell Mary that John had said that he had done it all by himself.(The situation time of had done is bound by the situation time of had said, which is itself bound by the situation time of would tell, which is itself bound by the central orientation time, i e the situation time of said.)
The tense structure of the last example is represented by Figure 9.1
9.1.1 The past perfect can express the same types of T-anteriority as are ex-pressed by the absolute past tense and the present perfect Thus, when the past perfect represents the situation time as past with respect to the binding orienta-tion time, it resembles the absolute past tense (which represents the situaorienta-tion time as past with respect to t )
Trang 5Figure 9.1 The tense structure of She said that she would tell Mary that John had said
that he had done it all by himself.
[Two weeks ago fire destroyed the cottage] that I had sold a couple of months
before (Compare with: ‘[Fire has destroyed the cottage that] I sold a couple of
months ago’.)
When it locates its situation time in a period leading up to a past orientation
time, the past perfect resembles the present perfect (which locates its situation
time in a period leading up to t0) Like a present perfect clause, the clause in
the past perfect may then receive either the T-reading ‘situation time completely
before orientation time’ (which leads to the ‘indefinite’ W-reading) or the
T-reading ‘situation time co-extensive with the period leading up to the
orienta-tion time’ (which leads either to a continuative past perfect W-reading or to an
‘up-to-then’ reading, which is the past counterpart of an ‘up-to-now
W-reading ⫺ see 5.4)
[We could easily have entered the temple because] someone had just unlocked the
door.(past perfect with indefinite interpretation implicating a resultant state)
[When I found the medal in the gutter,] ithad apparently been lying there for some
time (past perfect with continuative interpretation: compare with The medal has
been lying here for some time.)
[When he came back, I asked him] what he had been doing (nonquantificational
constitution reading)
[When I lit the cigarette I realized that] that was the tenth cigarette Ihad smoked
that day.(quantificational constitution reading)
See chapter 5 for a discussion of the various T-readings (‘before now’ and
‘co-extensive’) and W-readings (‘indefinite’, ‘up-to-now’ and ‘continuative’) of
clauses in the present perfect
Trang 6446 9 Temporal subordination in the various time-zones
9.2 Further remarks
9.2.1 It should be remembered that the temporal relation which exists be-tween two situations in the real world is not necessarily expressed by the verb forms of the clauses reporting these situations (In other words, there may be W-relations that are not expressed as T-relations⫺ see 2.16.1) This explains why sentences of the typeIn May I spoke to the boy whose father had died in the February bomb attack can alternate with sentences like In May I spoke to the boy whose father died in the February bomb attack Both sentences receive
the same temporal W-interpretation but they differ in the T-relations that they express In the former casehad died temporally subordinates the situation time
of the subclause to the situation time of the head clause:had died is a relative
tense form expressing T-anteriority in a past domain However, there is no temporal subordination when the preterite is used:died is an absolute preterite
establishing a new domain (i e ‘shifting the domain’⫺ see 8.21.1)
This kind of shift of domain is quite common inafter-clauses and in clauses
functioning as the head clause of abefore-clause, because the temporal relation
between the head clause situation and the subclause situation is sufficiently clear from the semantics of the temporal conjunction:
He retired soon after he {turned / had turned} sixty.
After the board {had met /met}, the company called a press conference.
Some students {had left /left} before the lecture ended (There is a slight difference
of interpretation between had left and left: only the former implicates the resultant state ‘some students were no longer present’ ⫺ see 5.37.)
The wounded pedestrian {had died /died} before the ambulance arrived (similar)
It should be noted, however, that (in Standard Br E.) there are two cases in which the past tense cannot alternate with a past perfect:
(a) The past tense cannot alternate with a past perfect which receives a ‘co-extensive’ (see 5.2) T-reading (i e the situation time leads up to the binding time but does not include it):
She first came to visit me after I {had been / *was} living in Hurford for 15 years (continuative W-reading)
He divorced his wife after they {had been / *were} married for 30 years (idem)
I {had been / *was} living in Hurford for 15 years before she paid me a visit (idem)
There is one exception: the past tense can alternate with the past perfect (on a co-extensive T-reading) in a head clause combining with a before-clause that
is a ‘narrative time clause’, i e a time clause which does not specify an Adv-time but ‘pushes forward the action’ (For more details on ‘narrative’ Adv-time clauses, see 13.1.2 and 14.11.4.)
Trang 7I {lived / had lived} in Hurford for 15 years before I found out that it was built
on the remains of a Roman fortress
They {had been / were} married for 30 years before they suddenly decided to
di-vorce
(b) The past tense cannot alternate with the past perfect either in nonbounded
(homogeneous) Adv-time-clauses when there is no adverbial, contextual or
pragmatic indication that the clause should not be interpreted in terms of
W-simultaneity:
He said that hehad been in love with her (when he was young) (The that-clause
is interpreted in terms of anteriority.)
He said that hewas in love with her when he was young (The that-clause is still
interpreted in terms of anteriority.)
He said that hewas in love with her (Out of context, the that-clause is not
inter-preted in terms of anteriority Therefore, this sentence cannot substitute for He
said that he had been in love with her.)
9.2.2 Apart from the past perfect, there is another tense that would seem to
express T-anteriority in a past domain, viz the conditional perfect (would have
V-en) However, the conditional perfect does more than just express
T-anteri-ority It also makes it clear that the binding orientation time to which the
situation time is T-anterior is itself T-posterior to another orientation time in
the past domain The conditional perfect thus expresses a complex T-relation,
which means that it does not belong to the set of ‘pure’ relative tenses (which
express a single T-relation) but relates to another part of the system⫺ see 9.7
9.2.3 A sentence involving asince-clause that refers to a period leading up to
some past orientation time normally makes use of the past perfect in both head
clause andsince-clause.
[He whispered that] hehad been waiting for this moment ever since he had seen her
walk past his window three years before
[Herman looked at the bottle of pills.] He had been thinking of suicide more and
more since hehad been living in Bournemouth.
However, the past tense may be found in the head clause of a since-cleft, i e.
in a specificational sentence of the form ‘it was ⫹ measure phrase ⫹
since-clause’ (see 5.21.1) In that case the sentence always forms part of a stretch of
free indirect speech
[The lioness looked at us with greedy eyes.] Itwas probably days since she had last
had a decent meal.(expresses the narrator’s thoughts)
Itwas a long time since I had stopped drinking alcohol.
In such examples the past perfect can also be used in the head clause, though
it sometimes sounds rather cumbersome