However, a relative tense involves at least two orientation times: the situation time and the time of orientation by which the situation time is bound in a relation of simultaneity, ante
Trang 1574 11 Tense choice determined by temporal focus
The word ‘definite’ in the comment to the last example may mean either ‘ ref-erential’ or ‘attributive’ in Donnellan’s (1966) sense That is, it is not neces-sary that the time of opening the bottle is definite in the sense that the speaker knows (and assumes the hearer to know) when exactly it was that the bottle was opened (⫽ the referential reading) It is sufficient that the speaker knows (and assumes that the hearer knows) that the bottle was opened, hence that there exists a time when the bottle was opened, even if they do not know the exact temporal location of that time (⫽ the ‘attributive’ reading) The latter reading is sufficient because the message that the speaker wants to convey is that the milk was already sour in the unopened bottle The question when exactly the bottle was opened is quite immaterial to this
The time focussed on by the speaker can be recoverable not only from a time-specifying adverbial but also from the context Compare:
The paint was white.(not fully interpretable in isolation)
[I asked John about the colour of the paint.] It was white (The situation time is interpreted as W-simultaneous with the time when I questioned John.)
The latter example can be modified so that the second clause refers to the pres-ent:
[I asked John about the colour of the paint.] Itis white.
In this case the shift of temporal domain (see 8.21) implies a shift of temporal focusfrom the past to the present
In the case of relative tenses, temporal focus is also reflected in the tense chosen However, a relative tense involves (at least) two orientation times: the situation time and the time of orientation by which the situation time is bound in a relation of simultaneity, anteriority or posteriority The temporal focus may be on the situation time or the binding time, so that (except when the relation between the two is T-simultaneity), we rely on adverbials and other contextual factors as well as tense to ascertain more exactly where the temporal focus is located
11.1.3 In the previous section, only examples with an ‘absolute tense’ (see 2.41) were given In connection with absolute tenses, ‘temporal focus’ can be defined as the phenomenon that the speaker draws attention to a particular kind of time⫺ past, pre-present, present or post-present ⫺ by locating a situa-tion time in the corresponding ‘absolute zone’ (see 2.37) The choice of tempo-ral focus is thus revealed by the choice of absolute tense For a full tempotempo-ral
Trang 2interpretation of the clause, the time focused on needs to be identifiable in some
way This may be through the use of a time-specifying adverbial or through
interpreting the situation time as standing in a particular ‘W-relation’ (see
2.16.1) to a situation time that is present in the context, or through making
use of other information that is pragmatically available (such as our general
knowledge of the world) However, the latter elements do not create the
tempo-ral focus: they just help to identify what time exactly is focused on It is the
use of a tense form that creates a temporal focus: the very fact that the speaker
uses a tense means that he has a particular absolute time-zone in mind, in
which he locates the situation time
11.1.4 In connection with ‘relative tenses’ (see 2.15.3), ‘temporal focus’ can
again be defined as the phenomenon that the speaker draws attention to a
particular time by choosing a particular tense For a full temporal
interpreta-tion of the clause, the time focused on again needs to be identifiable in some
way This may be through the use of a time-specifying adverbial or through
representing the situation time as standing in a particular ‘T-relation’ (see
2.16.1) to the binding orientation time In the latter case there are two
possibil-ities Relative tenses representing their situation time as T-anterior or
T-poste-rior to a binding orientation time in principle allow the temporal focus to be
placed either on the binding orientation time or on the bound situation time
(In the case of relative tenses expressing T-simultaneity the difference between
the two possibilities is neutralized, because the bound situation time then
coin-cides with the binding orientation time ⫺ see 2.17.) The following examples
illustrate this double possibility:
[“Did you see John?”] ⫺ “No, he had already left when I arrived around ten
o’clock.”(The temporal focus is on the time to which John’s leaving is T-anterior.
It is this time (viz the time of my arrival) that is indicated by the when-clause.)
[John was no longer there when I arrived, because] hehad left earlier, together with
Linsey.(The temporal focus is on the bound situation time, i e on the time of John’s
leaving This time is specified by a time-specifying adverbial (earlier), while the time
of my arrival is not.)
At five p.m John was going to leave.(The temporal focus is on the binding situation
time, i e on the time when it was the case that John intended leaving It is this time
that is specified by the time-specifying adverbial Would leave cannot substitute for
was going to leave.)
[She said that] John was going to leave at five p.m (The temporal focus may still
be on the binding situation time, but it is more likely to be on the bound situation
time That is, the unmarked reading is that on which at five p.m specifies the time
of John’s leaving It is only on this reading that would leave can substitute for was
going to leave.)
Trang 3576 11 Tense choice determined by temporal focus
We can talk of ‘marked’ and ‘unmarked’ temporal focus when the speaker has a choice
as to which tense to use to refer to a situation As far as absolute tenses go, this amounts to a choice as to the time-zone in which the situation is located, that is, a choice as to the relation between the situation time and t0 There are two major factors
in deciding on tense choice when a choice exists between two or more absolute tenses
On the one hand, if the discourse is ‘about’ a particular time-zone⫺ if other situations
in the surrounding discourse are located in a particular zone ⫺ then, all other things being equal, the unmarked choice for a situation which is to be introduced into the discourse is location in the same time-zone On the other hand, if the time of the full situation includes t0but also extends into one or more other time-zones, then, all other things being equal, it is more relevant to represent the situation as located at t0 When the time of the full situation does extend over the present time-zone and some other time-zone(s), then, these two influences on tense choice for absolute tenses compete For example, if Meg is staying in my house now and will still be here for the next few days, then out of context, it is more informative to tell an addresseeMeg is here than
to tell the addresseeMeg will be here However, if I am talking about events that will
take place in my home tomorrow (for example“We’re going to have a barbecue”) it is
more informative to say “Meg will be here” than “Meg is here”.
11.2.1 Needless to say, the choice of temporal focus can only be ‘marked’ if there is an ‘unmarked’ alternative, i e if the situation can be located in time
by more than one tense This is not the case in examples like the following:
My fatherdied in 1998.
That man believes that the worldwill perish at the next full moon.
However, more than one temporal focus is possible when the reference is to a situation which lies completely before t0: compareI have already locked up (⫽
focus on the pre-present) with I locked up at seven (⫽ focus on a past time).
If the reference is to a durative ‘homogeneous’ (see 1.45) situation including t0, there is no restriction on the choice of focus Thus, when Greg is currently spending a two-week holiday at my home, all four absolute tenses can be used
to focus on different parts of that two-week period:
I can’t accompany you to the railway station now because Gregis here.
Greghas been here for almost a week now.
Jenny paid us a visit two days ago because Greg was here [She was eager to see
him.]
The reason Maud has invited herself to tomorrow’s party is that Gregwill be here.
[She wants to see him at all costs.]
Trang 4The different tenses here refer to different times within the period of Greg
staying at my house As appears from the following, the choice of tense form
expressing a particular focus is constrained by the time referred to in the
context (as well as by the speaker’s and hearer’s knowledge of the fact that
Greg is currently staying at my home):
(1) I can’t accompany you to the railway station now because Greg {is / #was /
#has been / #will be} here (The # sign means ‘unacceptable on the intended
interpretation’, which comes down to ‘unacceptable in the given context’.)
(2) Jenny paid us a visit two days ago because Greg {is / was / #has been / #will
be} here [She was eager to see him.]
(3) The reason Maud has invited herself to tomorrow’s party is that Greg {is /
#was / #has been / will be} here [She wants to see him at all costs.]
There appear to be two conflicting tendencies at work here One follows from
the privileged temporal status of t0, which is the pivot time of the whole tense
system This privileged status renders it possible for the present tense to be
used in each of the above examples Since the present tense means ‘The
situa-tion time coincides with t0’ (see 3.1.1), and since, other things being equal,
statements about the present are more relevant than statements about some
other time, there is a natural tendency to use the present tense to talk about
situations that include t0 In this sense the present tense is the unmarked tense
However, the ‘other things being equal’ condition is not satisfied in (2) and
(3), because the reference to Greg’s ‘being here’ is made in a context dealing
with a past or post-present time This means that, in this sense, the present
tense is the marked choice because it ‘shifts the focus’ from the time referred
to in the context to t0 In this sense, the unmarked forms in (2) and (3) arewas
and will be, respectively: they are the unmarked forms in the sense that they
fit in with the context, i e with ‘what the discourse is currently about’ This
tendency too can be traced back to the Gricean Maxim of relevance: in a
context about the past (or present), a statement about the past (or
post-present) is more relevant than a statement about another time This implies
that, in a context dealing with the past, a statement about the past might be
more readily interpretable than a statement about the present
Of the two conflicting tendencies, the former appears to be the stronger in
(2) and (especially) in (3):is sounds more natural than was in (2), and definitely
more natural thanwill be in (3), which actually implicates that Greg is not yet
here at t0 However, that implicature can easily be blocked, for example, by
the addition ofstill:
(3⬘) The reason Maud has invited herself to tomorrow’s party is that Greg {is / will
stillbe} here [She wants to see him at all costs.]
11.2.2 Let us illustrate the effects of the conflicting tendencies with the help of
another example Since the present tense means ‘The situation time coincides
Trang 5578 11 Tense choice determined by temporal focus
with t0’, and since (other things being equal) statements about the present are more relevant than statements about some other time, it is normal for us⫺ at least in sentences used out of context⫺ to use the present tense to talk about any situation that includes t0 Thus, since it is presently the case that the Eiffel Tower
is in Paris, this fact will normally be reported in the present tense: The Eiffel Tower is in Paris Out of context, sentences like The Eiffel Tower was in Paris, The Eiffel Tower has been in Paris or The Eiffel Tower will be in Paris are odd,
because they reveal amarked focuson a time other than t0, while such a time is neither specified nor inferrable from the sentences in isolation The use ofwas, has been or will be can only be interpreted as meaning that the speaker is
con-sciously focusing on an absolute time-zone other than the present, hence that the statementThe Eiffel Tower is in Paris cannot be appropriately uttered because it
is not true at t0 This is whyThe Eiffel Tower {was / has been / will be} in Paris
wrongly suggest that the Eiffel Tower is not in Paris now
However, there is no such suggestion in the following sentence:
My grandfather insisted on going to Paris because the Eiffel Towerwas there [He
wanted to paint it.]
Because the relevant clause forms part of a past context, the past tense is the unmarked form here This is in keeping with the above observation that there
is a tendency to choose the tense which fits in with what the current discourse
is about The other tendency, viz that the present tense is preferred when the full situation includes t0, is the weaker tendency here, probably because the fact that the Eiffel Tower still exists in Paris is irrelevant to the message the speaker wants to convey In other words, in this example the time of my grand-father’s past visit to Paris is more relevant than t0
When it comes to relative tenses, markedness has to do, not with the choice of where the situation is located relative to t0, but rather with the choice of where it is located relative to the binding time Just as, in the case of absolute tenses, simultaneity with
t0⫺ i e location in the present ⫺ is the unmarked option where it is possible (albeit with the competing factor of the temporal location of the current discourse), so in the case of relative tenses, T-simultaneity with the situation time of the head clause is the unmarked option where it is possible In some cases, though, there may be a choice between expressing simultaneity with the head clause situation time and expressing a different relation to a different time, to which the situation time is indirectly bound
11.2.3 In 11.2.1⫺2 we have only discussed sentences that use an absolute tense form However, the two tendencies observed in connection with these have their counterparts in clauses that use a relative tense form
Trang 6There is a natural tendency to use a tense form expressing T-simultaneity if
the bound situation time (⫽ time of the predicated situation) is to be
interpre-ted as W-simultaneous with the binding orientation time This follows from
the fact that, other things being equal, T-simultaneity is the unmarked
T-rela-tion ⫺ see 9.20.4) Thus, the sentence
Bill told his children yesterday that the Eiffel Towerwas in Paris.
is fully acceptable because it rightly states that, when Bill told his children
about it yesterday, the Eiffel Tower was in Paris.1 However, the following
examples, in which the complement clauses locate their situation times
respec-tively anterior and posterior to the time of the telling, are pragmatically
unac-ceptable because they wrongly suggest that the Eiffel Tower was not in Paris
when Bill told his children about it:
Bill told his children yesterday that the Eiffel Towerhad been in Paris.
Bill told his children yesterday that the Eiffel Towerwould be in Paris.
Still, the tendency to use a relative past tense (expressing T-simultaneity) if
there is W-simultaneity in the actual world may, under certain conditions, be
overruled by the tendency to use a tense that is in keeping with the situation
time’s temporal W-relation to the central orientation time of the past domain:
Bill told me that Greg had stayed at his house for two weeks and that his daughter
had been quite unmanageable because she {was / had been} infatuated with Greg.
The use of had been [infatuated] is an example of ‘indirect binding’ (see
9.28.1), which is only possible in some types of subclause The speaker focuses
on the relation of W-anteriority of the situation referred to byhad been
[infatu-ated] to the situation referred to by told rather than on the relation of
W-simultaneity of the situation referred to by had been [infatuated] with the
situation referred to byhad been [unmanageable] (Focus on the latter relation
would be expressed by the relative past tense formwas [infatuated].)
11.2.4 As a further illustration, consider the following sentences:
The author of this bookis my nephew.
The author of this bookwas my nephew.
When used in isolation, the second sentence suggests that the referent of the
subject NP is no longer the speaker’s nephew The temporal focus expressed is
therefore unmarked only if the person in question is indeed no longer the
1 Since not only the head clause situation but also t 0 is included in the subclause’s full
situation, the speaker may also sayBill told his children yesterday that the Eiffel Tower
is in Paris In that case there is a shift of domain from the past to the present zone.
Trang 7580 11 Tense choice determined by temporal focus
speaker’s nephew, for example because he has died On the other hand, there are contexts in whichX was my nephew is the unmarked version even though
the person in question is still the speaker’s nephew at t0 Thus, when my secre-tary comes into my office just as a visitor is leaving it, I am more likely to say
That was my nephew than That is my nephew to inform her of the identity of
the person who has just left This preference follows from the fact that the past tense is the unmarked tense in a past situational context In this example,
it is natural for the speaker to place the temporal focus on the moment when the secretary saw my nephew and perhaps wondered who he was
11.2.5 The following example further illustrates how the past tense can ex-press an unmarked temporal focus:
(4) [“Let’s rehearse the concerto we are playing tonight.”⫺ “We can’t do that here!] Don’t you remember that notice on the receptionist’s desk that stated that no
musical instrumentscould be played in the hotel rooms?”
If the second speaker had said
(5) Don’t you remember that notice on the receptionist’s desk that states that no
musical instrumentscan be played in the hotel rooms?
he would have placed the temporal focus on t0 (the time of his utterance) Instead, he has preferred to put the temporal focus on the time when he and the addressee checked in at the hotel and read the notice on the receptionist’s desk In this way the situations are located in the past time-sphere rather than
in the present one, and this is the unmarked tense choice in the given context Example (4) illustrates the possibility of an unmarked past temporal focus
in clauses that are not bound (⫽ temporally subordinated) The following is
an example in a clause whose situation time is bound:
(6) [After we had unpacked, Bill suggested that we should rehearse the concerto we were playing that evening I pointed out that we could not do that there, as] there had been a notice on the receptionist’s desk which had stated that no
musical instrumentscould be played in the hotel rooms.
In the same way as the preteritestated in (4) locates the situation (which still
holds at t0) at some time before t0,had stated in (6) represents its situation as
T-anterior to the relevant binding orientation time (⫽ the situation time of
pointed out) (The same is true of had been, so that had stated is an instance
of ‘indirect binding’ ⫺ see 9.28.) In the given context (in which the speaker is clearly concerned with the past), the T-anteriority form had been represents
the unmarked choice of temporal focus