Temporality
Universals and Variation
Explorations in Semantics Series

Temporality surveys the ways in which languages of different types refer to past, present, and future events, through an in-depth examination of four major language types: tense-based English, tense-aspect-based Polish, aspect-based Chinese, and mood-based Kalaallisut.

• Cutting-edge research on directly compositional dynamic semantics of languages with and without grammatical tense
• New in-depth analysis of temporal, aspectual, modal, as well as nominal discourse reference
• Presents a novel logical language for representing linguistic meaning (Update with Centering)
• Develops a unified theory of tense, aspect, mood, and person as different types of ?grammatical centering systems?

List of Figures ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Glosses xv

Introduction 1

Part I Semantic Universals 13

1 Direct Semantic Composition 15

1.1 Simple Type Logic (TL0) 16

1.2 A CG.TL0 Fragment of English 17

1.3 Dynamic Type Logic (DL0) 23

1.4 A CG.DL0 Fragment of English 27

1.5 Centering: A Blind Spot of English-Based Logics 34

2 Nominal Reference with Centering 41

2.1 Center v. Periphery: Anaphora to Structured Lists 42

2.2 Kalaallisut Third Person Inflections as Top-Level Anaphora 48

2.3 Mandarin Third Person Features as Top-Level Anaphora 53

2.4 English Third Person Pronouns as Shallow Anaphora 57

2.5 Simple Update with Centering (UC0) 61

3 Tense as Temporal Centering 67

3.1 Polish Third Person Inflections as Top-Level Anaphora 68

3.2 Polish Tenses as Top-Level Temporal Reference 69

3.3 English Tenses as Temporal (In)definites 73

3.4 English Tenses as Top-Level Temporal Reference 78

3.5 UC0 with Temporal Centering (UCτ) 85

4 Aspect as Eventuality Centering 93

4.1 Polish Aspect Features v. Inflections 94

4.2 Mandarin Aspect Features v. Particles 101

4.3 English Aspectual Auxiliaries 108

4.4 UCτ with Mereology (UCτ+) 112

5 Quantification as Reference to Sets 118

5.1 Nominal Quantification and Anaphora 119

5.2 Nominal Quantification and Temporal Reference 127

5.3 Temporal Quantification and Anaphora 130

5.4 UCτ+ with Discourse Referents for Sets (UCτ?a) 134

6 Mood as Illocutionary Centering 142

6.1 Illocutionary Moods with(out) Reportative Recentering 143

6.2 (Not-)at-Issue Content as Modal Discourse Reference 146

6.3 (Not-)at-Issue with Start-Up Illocutionary Referents 150

6.4 Dependent Moods as Perspectival (Re)centering 157

6.5 UCδ?a with Illocutionary Referents (UCε!?a) 160

7 (In)direct Speech and Attitude Reports 166

7.1 Mood with(out) Reportative Recentering Revisited 167

7.2 At-Issue Reports with Finite Complements 174

7.3 At-Issue Reports with Non-Finite Complements 179

7.4 UC: Combining UCτ?a and UCε!?a 185

Part II Temporal Variation 191

8 Tense-Based Temporality in English 193

8.1 Indexical Past with(out) Recentering Aspect 194

8.2 Indexical Non-Past with(out) Recentering Aspect 200

8.3 Reports: Speaker’s View of Subject’s (Non-)Past 203

8.4 Quantification: Tenses in Distributive Contexts 206

8.5 A CG.UC Fragment of English 209

9 Tense-Aspect-Based Temporality in Polish 219

9.1 Relative Past (Im)perfective 220

9.2 Relative Non-Past (Im)perfective 226

9.3 Reports: Subject’s (Non-)Past 230

9.4 Quantification: Distributed (Im)perfectives 233

9.5 A CG.UC Fragment of Polish 237

10 Aspect-Based Temporality in Mandarin 246

10.1 Non-Future: Verifiable Topic State 247

10.2 Future: Prospective Topic State or Comment 253

10.3 Reports: Attitudinal Topic State or Comment 257

10.4 Quantification: Topical Habit or Distributive Comment 260

10.5 A CG.UC Fragment of Mandarin 262

11 Mood-Based Temporality in Kalaallisut 272

11.1 Non-Future: Verifiable Eventualities 273

11.2 Future: Verifiable Eventualities with Future c-Points 278

11.3 Reports: Verifiability from Agent's Perspective 282

11.4 Quantification: Verifiable Habits 287

11.5 A CG.UC Fragment of Kalaallisut 290

Conclusion 298

Bibliography 308

Author Index 319

Subject Index 323

Maria Bittner is a Professor of Linguistics at Rutgers University and a member of the editorial boards of Journal of Semantics and Semantics & Pragmatics. She is well known for her work on cross-linguistic formal semantics, dynamic semantics, and syntax-semantics interface, with special focus on Kalaallisut (Eskimo-Aleut: Greenland). Her early research in LF-based static semantics culminated in Case, Scope, and Binding (1994).