Abstract
AbstractIn this paper, we investigate the temporal interpretation of propositional attitude complement clauses in four typologically unrelated languages: Washo (language isolate), Medumba (Niger-Congo), Hausa (Afro-Asiatic), and Samoan (Austronesian). Of these languages, Washo and Medumba are optional-tense languages, while Hausa and Samoan are tenseless. Just like in obligatory-tense languages, we observe variation among these languages when it comes to the availability of so-called simultaneous and backward-shifted readings of complement clauses. For our optional-tense languages, we argue that a Sequence of Tense parameter is active in these languages, just as in obligatory-tense languages. However, for completely tenseless clauses, we need something more. We argue that there is variation in the degree to which languages make recourse to res-movement, or a similar mechanism that manipulates LF structures to derive backward-shifted readings in tenseless complement clauses. We additionally appeal to cross-linguistic variation in the lexical semantics of perfective aspect to derive or block certain readings. The result is that the typological classification of a language as tensed, optionally tensed, or tenseless, does not alone determine the temporal interpretation possibilities for complement clauses. Rather, structural parameters of variation cross-cut these broad classes of languages to deliver the observed cross-linguistic picture.
Highlights
AND BACKGROUND 1.1 The PhenomenonLet’s start with an old observation
(16) Logical Forms (LFs) structure of a tenseless matrix clause: temporally unmarked clauses under our approach are genuinely tenseless in the sense that temporal reference is not restricted by covert tense, the reference time is still represented by a pronominal element in the syntactic structure
We argue that differences in the precise semantic contribution of aspect and variation in the availability of an additional mechanism for backward-shifted readings in the two languages account for the variation we observe in the temporal interpretation of complement clauses
Summary
“There is a time t before the utterance time such that in all worlds w that are compatible with what Mary said at t in the actual world, John is sick at the time that Mary identifies as t in w.” Several implementations of such a mechanism exist in the literature, ranging from an explicit deletion operation for the PAST-operator under certain conditions (Grønn & von Stechow, 2010; Ogihara, 1989, 1995, 1996) to a more refined view of how the past morphology on the embedded verb is licensed (Kauf & Zeijlstra, 2017; Kusumoto, 1999, 2005; von Stechow, 2009). With the above background at hand, we are in a position to discuss the relevant data for each language in turn, starting with the optional-tense languages
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