Abstract
Abstract A concept called Displacement is proposed which enables one to provide an adequate account of the basic as well as the non-basic uses of the tense/aspect system of a natural language. Displacement describes two types of situation: The first is one in which Speaker S refers to an Entity/Event present within his/her own Here and Now, and does so as if it was not there; the second is one where Speaker S refers to an Entity/Event absent from his/her own Here and Now, and yet does so as though it was present there. This yields a continuum the two extreme points of which are Politeness, at one end, and Emphasis, at the other; the corollary concept of Speaker Perspective mediates between the two.
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