Splitting the reference time: the analogy between nominal and temporal anaphora revisited

Abstract

The analysis in Partee (1984) of quantified sentences, introduced by a temporal connective, gives the wrong truth conditions when the connective is before or after. In this paper, we show how splitting the different roles of Reichenbach's reference time may be used in order to solve this problem. We further enhance the analogy between pronominal and temporal anaphora, by proposing an analog of plural NP-anaphora in the form of temporal anaphora involving multiple event antecedents and an analog of an E-type analysis of pronouns in the analysis of quantified narrative discourse. In Partee (1973), Partee introduced the notion of temporal anaphora to account for ways in which temporal expressions depend on surrounding elements in the discourse for their semantic contributio'n to the discourse. This analogy between NP anaphora and temporal anaphora has been an important factor in the analysis of temporal expressions in natural language semantics and a driving force in the early stages of the development of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT)2 (Kamp 1981, Heim 1982, Kamp & Reyle 1993) in particular. A factor vital to the analysis of temporal anaphora which is absent from the analysis of NP anaphora is the well-known notion of reference time (Reichenbach 1947). Thus the analysis of temporal anaphora has an added level of complexity relative to analyses of nominal anaphora. This may be seen in the unified treatment of temporal expressions in discourse given by Hinrichs (1981), Partee (1984), and Hinrichs (1986). In these works, a heavily burdened reference time plays an important role. In this paper, we examine temporal anaphora under two kinds of special circumstances: the interaction of temporal anaphora with quantification over eventualities and anaphoric links to multiple eventualities. Such circumstances, while interesting in their own right, are also good test-beds for theories of the semantic interpretation of temporal expressions.