La Localisation Temporelle

Abstract

The paper proposes a new approach to temporal clauses and temporal adverbs, which are mostly said to "localize" the main verb. In recent work of Vicenzo Lo Cascio and others, temporal clauses and adverbs are treated completely differently and independently. We want to show that they should be handled together. Therefore, we start from a different conception of temporal localization, based on non-linguistic localization, as used in f.e. geography. So, we are able to show similarities between temporal clauses and adverbs. Our conclusion is that the localizer is always the time interval which is situated at the background, although it is not necessarily expressed by the temporal clause or adverb. On the contrary, a temporal clause or adverb can also be localized by the verb of the main clause.