The Syntax of the Sequence of Tenses

Abstract

Abstract The term “sequence of tenses” (SOT) refers to the conditions imposed on subordinate tenses by the tense of the main verb; these conditions are both the choice of tense forms and tense construal, since subordinate tenses may have interpretations that are not available to root tenses, such as the simultaneous reading of the past tense in embedded clauses. The SOT is sensitive to the type of subordination, since complement clauses, relative clauses, and adjunct clauses differ in how (un)constrained they are in the use of tenses. This chapter focuses on the use of tenses in complement clauses. In the light of recent research, SOT accounts for two types of cross‐linguistic variation: (a) there are languages that formally mark the syntactic and semantic dependence of subordinate tenses on main clauses’ tenses and languages that do not do so (the SOT parameter); (b) there are languages that have “double‐access readings” (DAR), that is, languages that allow the subordinate tense to have a reading dependent on the tense of the main clause, as well as a deictic reading directly dependent on speech time, and there are also languages that do not force such a reading on the same type of subordinate clauses (the DAR parameter). This chapter surveys some of the syntactically based accounts of these types of cross‐linguistic variation. The form of the accounts proposed depends on how the category of tense is represented in syntax. Representations of tense have become more complex, with the evolution of clausal architecture and with the realization of the fact that tenses are binary predicates (the polarity theory of tense and later accounts). Accounts of DAR rely on detailed representations of the left periphery.