The Future of Greek and Italian: an Evidential Analysis

Chicago Linguistic Society 48, April 2012

The future of Greek and Italian: an evidential analysis

Anastasia Giannakidou, University of Chicago Alda Mari, Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS/ENS/EHESS

Main claims

• The future tense/ morphemes (FUT) in Greek and Italian are epistemic modals that assess evidence at the utterance time.

• The modal and the temporal interpretations of FUT depend on an evidential mechanism of indirect evidence.

• The modal reading expresses epistemic uncertainty (nonveridicality). FUT is like a ‘reported’ evidential.

• When only direct evidence is available at the utterance time, FUT will be interpreted temporally, i.e. forward shifted.

English will also has modal uses Palmer 1990, 1987: Εpistemic use of will:

“It is tempting to refer to the meaning of will as probability, alongside possibility and necessity for may and must. But the word ‘probable’ does not provide a good paraphrase. A better paraphrase is again in terms of conclusion: ‘A reasonable conclusion is that...’.”

(1) The French’ll be on holiday this week. (2) No doubt, you’ll remember John.

But unlike must, will does not seem to be evidential!

(3) John will be in his office. (4) John must be in his office (Palmer 1987: 136).

Greek/Italian futures: epistemic and temporal interpretation Italian (1) a. Giovanni sarà malato. (Epistemic interpretation) Giovanni FUT-be sick b. O Janis tha ine arrostos. The John FUT be.nonpast.3sg sick John must be sick.

(2) Giovanni arriverà alle 5. (Temporal, forward-shifted) Giovanni will-arrive at 5 pm

(see Bertinetto, 1979; Squartini, 2004 for previous description of the Italian future).Notice the use of the adverb.

4 Greek: the temporal reading arises only with perfective nonpast

(1) O Janis tha ine arrostos (epistemic interpretation) the John FUT be sick For all I know, John must be sick.

(2) O Janis tha ftasi stis 5 pm. (temporal) The John FUT arrive.nonpast.PERF.3sg at 5 pm John will arrive at 5 pm.

(3) O Janis tha ftani stis 5 pm. (epistemic) The John FUT arrive.nonpast. IMPERF.3sg at 5 pm For all I know, John must be arriving at 5 pm.

(See Tzartzanos 1953, Tsangalidis 1998 for earlier descriptions of tha; Giannakidou 2009, 2011)

The temporal deficiency of NONPAST (Giannakidou 2009)

Modern Greek lacks present tense, i.e. a verbal form with reference to now, the utterance time.

(1) a. graf -o (INP) b. * grap- s- o (PNP) write.imperf -1sg.nonpast write- perf.1sg.nonpast ‘I am writing (right now).’ [no English equivalent] ‘I write (generally).’ (2) a. e- graf - a (IP) b. e- grap-s- a (PP) past-write.imperf. 1sg.past past- write- perf.1sg.past ‘I used to write.’ ‘I wrote.’ ‘I was writing.’

(3) * Το grapso. (verbal dependent PNP: * on its own)

The PNP appears with future, subjunctive, optative particles

(4) a As grapsi o Γιάννης. OPT write.PNP.3sg the John ‘Let John write.’ (request or permission) b Nα grapsi o Γιάννης. na write.PNP.3sg the John ‘Let John go.’ (request, permission, command) c Tha grapsi o Γιάννης. tha write.PNP.3sg the John ‘John will leave.’ (future)

Some of these particles are associated with higher (speech act) operators (Giannakidou 2009)

Giannakidou 2009: the particles as PRESENT

(5) ΜoodP

Mood’

Mood0 NegP {na/impr/∅} Neg0 Now-TP {dhen/min} NowT0: tha TP: PNP to grapso

8 The PNP is WOLL

(6) [[ non-past ]] = λP λt P((t , ∞)) (Giannakidou 2009)

Like the substitution operator (e.g. Abusch’s analysis of WOLL).

(7) * TP: ∃e [write (j, e) ∧ e ⊆ (t, ∞) ‘grapsi o Janis’ ‘John write.PNP’

T0: non-past AspectP: λt ∃e [ write (j, e) ∧ e ⊆ t ] λP λt P((t , ∞)) Asp0 :PFT= VP: λt write (t,j) λP λt ∃e [ P (e) ∧ e ⊆ t ] tv ο Γιάννης

Need to introduce n: tha as PRES

(8) Tha kerdisi o Janis. tha win.PNP.3sg the John 'John will win.'

(9) Now-TP: ∃e [ write (e,j) ∧ e ⊆ (n, ∞)

Now-T: tha: n TP:λt ∃e [win (j, e) ∧ e ⊆ (t, ∞)

grapsi o Janis "John writes"

 THA gives us n, so we now have n to replace t. • This explains the possibility of future for the PNP, • While saying that tha is NOT a future tense.

But is tha just n?

Giannakidou 2009: tha with modals plus past: epistemic, not circumstantial

(10) (Mallon) tha efije ο Γιάννης. likely tha left.PP.3sg the John (For all I know now), John must have left.

New claims:

• Tha does not contribute just n. It is itself an epistemic modal operator! Above, we have modal concord. • As a modal operator, tha retains its present perspective and epistemic nature, and cannot be embedded under past (it cannot be a ‘future of the past’ as in Mondadori 1978, Condoravdi 2002)

Mari (2009,2010): Italian future also has present perspective

Plain modals: inflected for tense and aspect can be evaluated in the past (11) Poteva vincere la battaglia (counterfactual) Can-IMPERF win.inf the battle He might win the battle ‘future of a past’

 Condoravdi: future of a past, PAST [might p]]

(12) Giovanni sarà arrivato No future of a past John will/must have arrived It can be true now that John has arrived. #It might have been true in the past that John was arrived

So, in both Greek and Italian FUT, the time of assessment (‘modal perspective’) cannot be in the past.

12 (13) I Ariadne tha efevge tora. The Ariadne FUT left.IMPERF.past now Ariadne would leave now.

a. Ala dhen efije telika. But she didn’t actually leave. b. Ke pragmati, ine sto treno. And indeed she is in the train.

Counterfactual reading an implicature (see also Smirnova 2011). Not so with the perfect:

(14) I Ariadne tha ixe fiji The Ariadne FUT had left.IMPERF.past Ariadne would have leave left. # Ke pragmati, ine sto treno. ‘#And indeed she is in the train’

13 Evidence for the evidential nature of the FUT

Contrary to what has been claimed (Bertinetto, 1979, Condoravdi, 2002), the temporal reading is not the only one with eventive prejacents (Mari, 2009,2010).

(15) Pioverà (epistemic and temporal) It will rain

Remember, Greek: (16) Tha vrexi (imperfective.nonpast) epistemic It must be raining (now)

(17) Tha vrek-s- i (perfective.nonpast) temporal It will rain (at an interval starting at now)

So, modal interpretation is always available with FUT

Evidential inferencing: indirect knowledge

(18) While raining: a. # Pioverà b. # Tha vrexi ‘FUT rain.imperf.nonpast.3sg” # It must be raining

• Just like must (see von Fintel and Gillies 2010 and references therein)

• In direct knowledge, FUT is odd.

Force of modality

FUT is bad with weak possibility modals isos/possibilmente ‘possibly’

(19) a. I Ariadne isos #tha ine jatros. The Ariadne possibly *FUT be.nonpast doctor b. # Possibilmente Arianna sarà un dottore {Possibly/Maybe/Perhaps} Ariadne is a doctor.

FUT is good with stronger modals

(20) a. I Ariadne malon tha ine jatros. Ariadne probably FUT be.3sg doctor b. Probabilmente Arianna sarà un dottore Ariadne must probably be a doctor.

Tha co-occurs with prepi MUST

(for a recent discussion of Greek modals see Staraki in prep.; also Smirnova 2011)

(21) I Ariadne tha prepi na efije. Ariadne FUT must SUBJ left.PNP .3sg For all I know, Ariadne must have left.

The option with tha and without seem to be equivalent.

(22) Context: Anna is sneezing, has a fever, watery eyes, etc. B: She must have the flu. Prepi na exi gripi = Tha exi gripi. She must have the flu = FUT has the flu

FUT as a necessity modal

w,f,g (23) [[tha/FUT]] = λq . ∀w’∈ Best g(w) (∩f(w)): q(w’) = 1; where Bestg(w)(X) selects the most ideal worlds from X, given the ordering given by g(w); (∩f(w)) is the modal base.

∩f(w) best (∩f(w)) p

So, prepi ‘must’/FUT quantify universally over a subset of worlds, the worlds of best indirect evidence. They are thus nonveridical (Giannakidou 1998, 1999; see also Mari 2009,2010)!

18  Tha and prepi therefore license NPIs:

(24) Context: I am talking with John and I see that he is very well- informed about Mary's illness. A: (Tha) prepi na milise me kanenan giatro. She must have talked to some doctor or other. -/→ He talked to a doctor He must have talked with a doctor (to know so much).

(25) DF1. (Non)veridicality for propositional operators (Giannakidou) i. A propositional operator F is veridical iff Fp entails or presupposes that p is true in some individual’s doxastic model or a modal base M(x); p is true in M(x), if all worlds in M(x) are p-worlds. ii. If it is not the case that all worlds in M(x) are p-worlds, F is nonveridical.

The kernel (von Fintel and Gillies):

• The privileged information; the direct information or trustworthy reports.

(9) K is a kernel for BK, BK is determined by the kernel K, only if: i. K is a set of propositions (ifP∈K then P⊆W) ii. BK = ∩K • Given a kernel K, the question whether P is a directly settled issue with respect to K just in case P is either entailed or contradicted by one of the pieces of direct information explicitly given by the context.

(10)

Must signals that the K does not directly settle P! So must comes with a nonveridical kernel, but a veridical BK since it is claimed in that P may not be settled in the kernel but it is still entailed in BK. (But recall the problem with NPIs).

Adding time

(∩f(w,tu)) provides the alternatives available to the speaker at the utterance time. q(w’,t’) states that q is true in the projected alternatives at time t’ that either coincides or follows the evaluation time tu.

w,f,g (26) [[FUT/tha PNP]] = λq. ∃t’ ∈ [tu, ∞) ∀w’∈ Best g(w) (∩f(w,tu)): q(w’,t’) = 1; where Best g(w)(X) selects the worlds of best indirect evidence from X, given the ordering g(w).

w,f,g (27) [[FUT/tha PAST]] = λq. ∃t’< tu ∀w’∈ Best g(w) (∩f(w,tu)): q(w’,t’) = 1; where Best g(w)(X) selects the worlds of best indirect evidence from X, given the ordering g(w).

Forward shifting arises when evidentiality is blocked

• If the speaker has indirect evidence at tu and both p and not p are compatible with what he/she knows in the context (nonveridicality), the evaluation time of the prejacent is not forward-shifted.

• If the speaker has direct evidence that either p or not p in virtue of what he/she knows at tu the evaluation time of the prejacent is forward-shifted, and the temporal interpretation is obtained.

(see Mari, 2010; Giannakidou & Mari 2012)

The evidentiality mechanism is blocked in two cases

1. when a temporal adverb provides the time at which the prejacent is evaluated as true/false;

In this case, the speaker knows that p is not true at tu

2. when the prejacent is stative. We assume with Bertinetto (1979) and Condoravdi (1992,2002) that stative predicates denote unbounded eventualities and that, unless otherwise stated (i.e. unless an overt temporal adverbs used) if a stative eventuality holds at a time t1 preceding or succeeding t0, then, it holds at t0. Consequently is the stative prejacent holds true at a time t1 preceding or succeeding t0, then, it holds true at t0, and the evaluation time of a stative prejacent is always the present.

The temporal interpretation of the future

Use of overt temporal adverbs.

(1) Arrivérà alle 4 del pomeriggio He will arrive at 4pm.

Utterance time, 3 pm: the speaker has direct evidence that ‘He arrives’ is not true at tu.

• The evidential reading is blocked, forward shifting of the time of the event to the time of the adverbial. Speaker is making a prediction based on the information she has.

Temporal reading of future = making a prediction

• As it is not determined at the utterance time what the world will be like in the future (we assume that p and not p be can be both true at different world-time pairs),

• When the evaluation of the prejacent is forward-shifted (and the temporal interpretation is obtained), the truth conditions we gave are satisfied:

• The speaker knows what is going on at the utterance time, but she cannot guarantee that in all available futures p is true. She can only guarantee that it will be true in a subset of possible futures.

• And she can do so because she has knowledge about these futures.

Conclusions

1. The future morphemes in Greek and Italian are epistemic modals that access indirect evidence at the utterance time.

2. The ‘future’, temporal interpretation arises (a) when indirect evidence at the utterance time is not available.

3. Or, (b) when there is direct evidence, at the utterance time, about a time in [tu, ∞).

4. In both cases, the future morphemes remain nonveridical, express unsettledeness, and license NPIs.

Thank you!

References

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