Abstract
Tenses in English temporal adjunct clauses seem to show properties of both matrix and embedded tenses. On the one hand, they are often argued to be interpreted with respect to the time of utterance (Stump 1985; Arregui & Kusumoto 1998; Kubota et al. 2011). On the other hand, they are more constrained than matrix tenses, claimed to be limited to past tense when the matrix tense is past, and present when the matrix tense is future. I present evidence from the English perfect that adjunct clauses are always interpreted relative to the nearest c-commanding temporal operator, which can in principle give rise to both types of behaviors: adjunct tenses are interpreted relative to some temporal operator if within the scope of matrix tense, or they are interpreted relative to the time of utterance if they are outside the scope of matrix tense. What decides between these possibilities in a given clause are syntactic and pragmatic conditions on adjunction and the resulting interaction between the presuppositions introduced by the adjunct clause and the meanings of the temporal connectives. The result is that when the matrix clause is a non-perfect, adjunct tenses are always interpreted relative to the utterance time. When the matrix clause contains a perfect, however, adjunct tenses may be interpreted relative to the matrix tense operator.
Highlights
What we find is that adjunct future is always redundant or contradictory, except when it outscopes matrix tense
This paper began with an empirical enrichment to the study of English temporal adjunct tenses
Previous literature proposed analyses of English temporal adjunct tenses on the basis of examples like (1) and (2), which suggest that adjunct tense is always past when the matrix tense is past, and present when the matrix tense is future
Summary
The behavior of tense in temporal adjunct clauses poses an enduring problem for theories of tense because its profile within and across languages differs from that of complement clauses. To maintain a uniform analysis of adjunct tense in (1), we could stipulate that adjunct tenses are always interpreted relative to the time of utterance in English (see e.g. Kubota et al 2011) This readily explains why adjunct past is always the choice in (1), despite the fact that each temporal connective asserts a different temporal ordering between the matrix and adjunct event times. In (3), the past tense in the adjunct clause seems to be interpreted with respect to the future time introduced by woll rather than the utterance time (or the matrix event time). What is puzzling about the contrast between (2) and (3) is that the matrix clause in each example introduces a future time, relative to which an adjunct past can in principle be interpreted.
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