Simultaneous analyses for simultaneous present

Abstract

“Simultaneous” uses of the present tense pose a challenge for the position that present tense is essentially indexical. Two kinds of accounts have been given that stay close to this position: on the Tense Deletion account, present tense can get converted into a simple bound variable over times; on the Shifting Indexical account, present tense interacts with a context variable that can get bound below a character-selecting operator. We argue that in fact both of these mechanisms are needed. We specifically argue that a Shifting Indexical approach is useful in accounting for cross-linguistic variation in the use of simultaneous present; our arguments are based on a comparison of English and Romanian data. We suggest moreover that the Romanian data have important consequences for what a Shifting Indexical analysis of present tense should look like.