Chapter 2 Time Concepts in Language and Thought: Filling the Piagetian Void from Two to Five Years

Abstract

This chapter presents time concepts in language and thought. Tense (more specifically absolute tense) morphology codes the deictic relationships between the time of the speech act and the time of some event. Not all languages code tense, but when they do, it is likely to interact with aspect and modality. Children progress through a series of four temporal systems—namely, (1) the speech time (ST) system, (2) the event time (ET) system, (3) the restricted reference time (RTr) system, and (4) the free reference time (RTf) system. In the speech time system, the child's language is relatively, but not exclusively, limited to the child's immediate perceptual environment. The system is primarily a here-and-now communication system. Speech time, which is the time of the speech act, is the only functional time concept within this linguistic system. Initially, children code events as if they occurred during the speech time interval, and the child's point of temporal reference is also at speech time. The modal distinction between statements and requests is expressed, but typically within a frozen morphology.