Abstract
The theory we have developed in the preceding chapters ignores all questions of reference to time. In view of this one might have thought that it cannot possibly by right. For in natural languages such as English reference to time is ubiquitous. Virtually every English sentence involves an element of temporal reference because of the tense of its verb: as a first approximation, a sentence in the past tense locates the episode it describes before the utterance time, sentences in the future tense serve to describe episodes later than the time of utterance and a present tense sentence is typically used to present a condition as holding over some period which surrounds the utterance time. Since our theory paid no heed to any of this, how could it possibly be correct?
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsAuthor information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kamp, H., Reyle, U. (1993). Tense and Aspect. In: From Discourse to Logic. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 42. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1616-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1616-1_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-1028-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1616-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive