Checking the Categorial Features of Tense

Abstract

Abstract The idea that in verbless sentences tense is [+D] only is essentially an update within the feature system of Chomsky (1995) of previous analyses of verbless sentences as constructions that contain an lnfl (Inflection) node that is specified for Agr (agreement) only (Doron 1986) or an AUX node that is specified for tense with no VP complement (Jelinek 1983). However, all the previous analyses implicitly or explicitly assume a fundamental difference between verbless present tense sentences and present tense sentences that contain verbal predicates. The assumption is that the feature composition of each of the two Infl (or TP) projections is different. One interacts with the verb—that is, triggers verb movement—and the other does not. Since verb movement within minimalism is motivated by feature checking, this would imply that the present tense in sentences with verbal predicates is [+V], in addition to being [+D]. In this chapter, I discuss the syntax of tense in light of the conclusions of the previous chapter. Focusing particularly on the contrast between the present tense and past tense, I show that the idea that characterizing the present tense as [+D] only in both sentences with and without verbal predicates will turn out to be crucial to deriving the following generalizations, which, as far as I know, have not been dealt with before, particularly generalizations (2), (3), and (4).