Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the verbal suffix -uŋil in Washo as an optional past tense. It is optional in the sense that it is not part of a paradigm of tenses, and morphologically tenseless clauses are also compatible with past time reference. Specifically, I claim that -uŋil is the morphological exponent of a tense feature [past], which presupposes that the reference time of the clause, denoted by a temporal pronoun, precedes the evaluation time. Meanwhile, morphologically tenseless clauses lack a semantic tense restricting the value of the reference time pronoun. In comparing this analysis with one containing a covert non-future tense in morphologically tenseless clauses, I show that the range of empirical contexts that distinguish these analyses is quite narrow. However, I offer a novel argument against a covert tense analysis based on the lack of Maximize Presupposition effects. Crucially, the fact that -uŋil does not form a paradigm of tenses results in a failure for Maximize Presupposition to apply. The proposed analysis places cross-linguistic variation at the level of the paradigm of tense features, namely whether they are present or absent, and if present, whether obligatorily so. This case study from Washo thus reveals what a language where tense features are optional can look like, and more generally contributes to the growing body of literature on cross-linguistic semantics devoted to uncovering the ways in which temporal interpretation can be achieved in natural language.

Highlights

  • 1.1 Optional tense?Much work on cross-linguistic variation in tense systems has been devoted to the analysis of morphologically tenseless languages, i.e., languages that lack grammatical markers restricting the location of the reference time of a clause.1 other cross-linguistic work has focused on variation between languages that have morphological tense systems.2 The picture that emerges from this work, at least implicitly, is one where there is a dichotomy between tensed and tenseless languages

  • There is somewhat of a debate in the literature over whether grammatical temporal modifiers of nouns should be analyzed as true tenses (Nordlinger and Sadler 2004; Thomas 2014; Tonhauser 2007), so I will not even speculate at this point whether we want to extend the current analysis of -uNil as a past tense to these nominal cases, though it remains an interesting question for future research

  • Within the formal framework adopted, this means that there is no tense feature restricting the value of a temporal pronoun

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Summary

Optional tense?

Much work on cross-linguistic variation in tense systems has been devoted to the analysis of morphologically tenseless languages, i.e., languages that lack grammatical markers restricting the location of the reference time of a clause. other cross-linguistic work has focused on variation between languages that have morphological tense systems. The picture that emerges from this work, at least implicitly, is one where there is a dichotomy between tensed and tenseless languages. In principle, we might expect to find languages that have morphological tenses that are not obligatory in cases where the reference time can be identified through other means, linguistic or contextual Such a possibility has recently been discussed in the typological work of Plungian and van der Auwera (2006). These authors identify several of the world’s languages where the morphological marking of past temporal reference is optional. The optional tense markers in such languages tend to appear sporadically in discourses with past temporal reference, and morphologically tenseless clauses can have a past interpretation. I argue that morphologically tenseless clauses such as (2) lack a tense feature that semantically restricts the location of the reference time. In the remainder of this section, I outline the methodology used in this paper, and lay out the details of the formal framework within which I couch my analysis

Methodology
Formal background on tense
Past and present interpretations of unmarked matrix clauses
Future interpretations of morphologically tenseless clauses
The interpretation of embedded tenseless clauses
Relative clauses
Complement clauses
Antecedent of conditionals
The interpretation of -uNil in matrix contexts
The interpretation of -uNil in attitude complements
Analysis
Analysis of -uNil
Analysis of morphologically tenseless clauses
Unembedded future interpretations and plans
Conditional antecedents
Sequential -ud
Relative clauses and complement clauses
Null non-future tense
No T head in morphologically tenseless clauses
Presuppositional alternatives
Cessation implicatures
Further issues in past temporal reference in Washo
Conclusion
Full Text
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