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Time: Language, Cognition & Reality

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Time: Language, Cognition & Reality Time OXFORD STUDIES OF TIME IN LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT general editors: Kasia M. Jaszczolt, University of Cambridge and Louis de Saussure, University of Neuchâtel. advisory editors: Nicholas Asher, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, Johan van der Auwera, University of Antwerp, Robert I. Binnick, University of Toronto, Ronny Boogaart, University of Leiden, Frank Brisard, University of Antwerp, Patrick Cau- dal, CNRS, Anastasia Giannakidou, University of Chicago, Hans Kronning, Univer- sity of Uppsala, Ronald Langacker, University of California, San Diego, Alex Lascarides, University of Edinburgh, Peter Ludlow, Northwestern University, Alice ter Meulen, University of Geneva, Robin Le Poidevin, University of Leeds, Paul Portner, Georgetown University, Tim Stowell, University of California, Los Angeles, Henriëtte de Swart, University of Utrecht. published Time Language, Cognition, and Reality edited by Kasia M. Jaszczolt and Louis de Saussure in preparation Future Times; Future Tenses edited by Philippe de Brabanter, Mikhail Kissine, and Saghie Sharifzadeh Time Language, Cognition, and Reality Edited by KASIA M. JASZCZOLT AND LOUIS DE SAUSSURE 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © editorial matter and organization Kasia M. Jaszczolt and Louis de Saussure 2013 © the chapters their several authors 2013 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2013 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer ISBN 978–0–19–958987–6 Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR04YY Contents General Preface vii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction: time, temporality, and tense 1 Kasia M. Jaszczolt and Louis de Saussure Part I. Time, Tense, and Temporal Reference in Discourse 1 Temporal modification 15 Nicholas Asher 2 Temporal reasoning as indexical inference 37 Alice G. B. ter Meulen 3 Perspectival interpretations of tenses 46 Louis de Saussure Part II. Time and Modality 4 Modal auxiliaries and tense: the case of Dutch 73 Pieter Byloo and Jan Nuyts 5 Semantic and pragmatic aspects of the interaction of time and modality in French: an interval-based account 98 Laurent Gosselin 6 Modal conversational backgrounds and evidential bases in predictions: the view from the Italian modals 128 Andrea Rocci Part III. Cognition and Metaphysics of Time 7 Experience, thought, and the metaphysics of time 157 Simon Prosser 8 Tensism 175 Peter Ludlow 9 Temporality and epistemic commitment: an unresolved question 193 Kasia M. Jaszczolt vi Contents 10 An account of English tense and aspect in Cognitive Grammar 210 Frank Brisard 11 Frames of reference and the linguistic conceptualization of time: present and future 236 Paul Chilton References 259 Index of Names 279 Index of Subjects 286 General Preface The series Oxford Studies of Time in Language and Thought identifies and promotes pioneering research on the human concept of time and its representation in natural language. Representing time in language is one of the most debated issues in semantic theory and is riddled with unresolved questions, puzzles, and para- doxes. The series aims to advance the development of adequate accounts and explanations of such basic matters as: (i) the interaction of the temporal information conveyed by tense, aspect, temporal adverbials, and context; (ii) the representation of temporal relations between events and states; (iii) the human conceptualization of time; (iv) the ontology of time; and (v) the relations between events and states (eventualities), facts, propositions, sentences, and utterances, among other topics. The series also seeks to advance time-related research in such key areas as language modelling in computational linguistics, linguistic typology, and the linguistic relativity/universalism debate, as well as in theoretical and applied contrastive studies. The central questions to be addressed concern the concept of time as it is lexicalized and grammaticalized in the different languages of the world. But the scope and the style in which the books are written reflect the fact that the represen- tation of time interests those in many disciplines besides linguistics, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The current inaugural volume offers a carefully selected sample of analyses of various aspects of temporal reference. It emphasizes that linguistic means of con- veying time, be they grammatical or lexical, cannot be considered in isolation from the semantic factors of sentence compositionality, pragmatic factors such as contextual relevance, and the process of utterance interpretation (including prag- matic inference), or philosophical and psychological factors such as the relation of the concept of time to the ‘reality of time’ on the one hand, and to the expression of temporality on the other. As such, the collection is able to offer only a flavour of each of these topics. Part I, Time, Tense, and Temporal Reference in Discourse, offers a sample of selected problems and solutions pertaining to the semantics and pragmatics of temporal expressions that stem out of their interaction with other elements in sentence structure. Part II concerns the interaction of time and modality. Part III, Cognition and Metaphysics of Time, comprises a selection of views on the epistemology, metaphysics, and cognitive processing of temporal reference. Finally, we would like to thank John Davey, Julia Steer, and Vicki Hart of Oxford University Press for their friendly and professional advice in the process of the viii General Preface preparation of this volume; Adrian Stenton, our copy-editor, for his careful reading of the text and his expert corrections and improvements to the draft, as well as for collating the bibliography; and finally Nicola Lennon, for preparing the indexes. Kasia M. Jaszczolt and Louis de Saussure Cambridge and Neuchâtel 2012 Notes on Contributors Nicholas Asher received a doctorate in philosophy from Yale University in 1982. His advisor was Ruth Barcan Marcus. He then spent twenty-four years at the University of Texas at Austin, first as an assistant professor, then associate professor, and finally professor of philosophy and of linguistics. In 2006, he became director of research of the French Centre National de La Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). He is the author of four books, including two works on the formal theory of discourse structure and interpretation known as Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT), and one book finished in 2011 on lexical semantics and the composition of meaning. He has also edited two books, written some fifty-four journal articles, seventy papers for conference proceedings, and numerous book chapters. He has received several grants from the NSF and ANR, and has been awarded an ERC advanced researcher grant from 2011 to 2016. Frank Brisard teaches English grammar and pragmatics at the University of Antwerp, where he is a member of the Center for Grammar, Cognition, and Typology. His research interests include the semantics of tense and aspect in English and other languages, which he studies from a cognitive point of view. Recent publications focus on modal meanings and uses of tenses, the notion of imperfec- tivity (e.g. in French), and the ‘present perfective paradox’ (in English, Lingala, and Sranan). Pieter Byloo (Ph.D. 2009) is a researcher at the Center for Grammar, Cognition, and Typology at the University of Antwerp. His main interests include cognitive- functional semantics, grammaticalization, and corpus research. His dissertation dealt with the interaction of modality and negation in spoken Dutch and French. He is now focusing on the grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification of the Dutch modal auxiliaries. Paul Chilton is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics at Lancaster University. He is a cognitive linguist and discourse analyst whose publications include studies in linguistics, discourse analysis, literature, and international rela- tions. Laurent Gosselin is Professor of French Linguistics at the University of Rouen. His research focuses on the semantics of temporality (tenses, aspectual viewpoints, adverbials of time, and aspect) and modality in French. He is the author of Sémantique de la temporalité en français (1996, Duculot), Temporalité et modalité (2005, De Boeck-Duculot), and Les modalités en français (2010, Rodopi). x Notes on Contributors Kasia M. Jaszczolt is Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy of Language at the University of Cambridge. She has published extensively on topics in semantics and pragmatics, including propositional attitude ascription, the representation of time, the semantics/pragmatics interface, and her theory of Default Semantics.
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