Temporal Clauses Research Articles

Plurality and Temporal Modification

A semantics with plural entitles and plural times accounts for cumulative relations between plural arguments and temporal expressions. The semantics equips nominal, verbal and sentential meanings with temporal context variables and treats temporal modifiers as temporal generalized quantifiers; cumulative conjunction, however, takes place at types lower than generalized quantifiers. The mediation of temporal context variables allows cumulative relations to percolate between an argument in a main clause and one in a temporal clause, in apparent violation of locality restrictions. Plural times form a semilattice structure imposed on the set of intervals; no interaction is observed between this and the internal temporal structure of intervals.

Condition, topic and focus in African languages: why conditionals are not topics

Since Haiman (1978), a general assumption concerning the information structure of conditional sentences is that "conditionals are topics". However, in Chadic South Bauchi West languages spoken in Northern Nigeria, as well as in Banda Linda, an Adamawa language spoken in the République Centre-Africaine, conditionals share their structure with focus, not topic. This seriously questions Haiman’s claim and forces us to reconsider the facts and characterizations of conditionals, topic and focus in general.
 
 In order to do this, we will first examine the facts of conditionals in some Chadic languages, then their information structure. We will see how both data and theory invalidate Haiman's claim. Then we will see that if they are not topics, they are different from focus as well. We will argue that if the elements which make a topic or a focus can appear in conditionals, these must be separated from what constitutes the identity of conditions. Then, we will see if these can be characterized in the same way as Lambrecht characterizes temporal clauses, viz. as "activated propositions" (Lambrecht 1994). We will finally conclude that they should rather be defined as "fictitious assertions" (Culioli 2000).

Relativization strategies in temporal adjunct clauses

This article takes a close look at the internal structure of temporal adverbial clauses in a number of unrelated languages, with a goal of uncovering the syntactic variation in these. The focus of discussion will be on temporal clauses that take the form offree relatives. It will be shown that there are minimally two different free relative strategies that can be found in temporal adverbial clauses: anordinary free relativestrategy with a gap in the position of a temporal modifier inside the relative clause and anIP-relativizationstrategy that involves relativization of the whole IP of the temporal clause. It will be shown that the latter strategy is awh-relativization strategy as well and it shows similarity to clausal relativization (sentences of the typeTom arrived, after which Susan left). The language in which the IP-relativization strategy will be isolated and fully analyzed is Hungarian. In this languagebefore/after-clauses (among some other temporal clauses) clearly exhibit a relative clause structure that is different from ordinary relatives. The evidence found in Hungarian will prove useful for the analysis of some temporal clauses in other languages as well. It will be shown that IP-relativization most probably underliesafter-clauses in German and Serbian, too. Further, a brief comparison of Hungarian temporal clauses to temporal clauses in other postpositional languages (Hindi and Basque) will suggest that the IP-relativization strategy inbefore/after-clauses can be thought of as a syntactic alternative tonominalization.

Quantificational Arguments in Temporal Adjunct Clauses

Quantificational arguments can take scope outside of temporal adjunct clauses, in an apparent violation of locality restrictions: the sentence few secretaries cried after each executive resigned allows the quantificational NP each executive to take scope above few secretaries. I show how this scope relation is the result of local operations: the adjunct clause is a temporal generalized quantifier which takes scope over the main clause (Pratt and Francez, Linguistic and Philosophy 24(2), 187–222. [2001]), and within the adjunct clause, the quantificational argument takes scope above the implicit determiner which forms the temporal generalized quantifier. The paper explores various relations among quantificational arguments across clause boundaries, including temporal clauses that are modified internally by a temporal adverbial and temporal clauses with embedded sentential complements.

Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses

This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses. Using corpus data from spoken and written English, it is shown that the positioning of finite adverbial clauses vis-a-vis the main clause varies with their meaning or function: conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause, temporal clauses are common in both initial and final position, and causal clauses usually follow the main clause. The article argues that the positional patterns of adverbial clauses are motivated by competing functional and cognitive forces. Specifically, it is shown that final occurrence of adverbial clauses is motivated by processing, while initial occurrence results from semantic and discourse pragmatic forces that may override the processing motivation.

À Propos des nouvelles tablettes de Thèbes, I: Les trois divinités ma-ka, o-po-re-i et ko-wa et les trois subordonnées temporelles dans la série Fq

AbstractLinguistic, philological and historical considerations show that the editors of the new Thebes tablets correctly interpreted ma-ka, o-po-re-i and ko-wa as the dative forms of three theonyms: Mα Γα 'Mother Earth', Oπωρης = oπωρευς 'god of the fruits' (Zeus) and KoρFα (Attic Koρη). The nouns μα 'mother', γα/δα 'earth', να 'little girl' and μνα 'mina' are Pre-Greek loan-words. The following interpretations are proposed for the three temporal clauses in the Fq tablets: Fq 126 o-te tu-wo-te-to oτευoς ετo 'when he (: the priest) had placed the sacrifice (on the altar)'. Fq 130 o-te o-je-ke-te-to oτεoy εκσετo 'when he (: the priest) had exposed the tree-fruits (on the offering table)'. Fq 254 o-te a-pi-e-qe ke-ro- pa-ta oτε αμϕιhεσκwε γερoνταsigmav; παντας 'when he (: the priest) had made all the Elders follow him on both sides', i.e., 'when the priest had led a procession of all the Elders'. The editors correctly interpret de-qo-no (Fq 254) as the dative of δεικwνoς 'person charged with the preparation of sacred meals'.—The appendix contains a discussion of the origin of the passive aorist in-()η-, of oα 'tree-fruits', 'service berries', and of the original connexion between εν-επω 'tell' and επoμαι 'follow'.

La distribution de l’inversion nominale en français dans les principales non interrogatives et les subordonnées circonstan

Summary This article deals with the distribution of nominal inversion in non-interrogative main clauses and embedded adverbial clauses in French. As for main clauses, it is established that nominal inversion occurs when the clause contains a stage topic, i.e. a spatio-temporal location, whether overt (indicated by an adverb or PP) or covert (indicated by a spatio-temporal link with the preceding context). Then, it is shown that nominal inversion is also allowed in main clauses when the subject is a restrictive focus, because of the presence of a restrictive focus particle such as ne...que or seul, or because of the reference of the subject being exhaustively specified. It is then shown that both principles also explain the occurrence of nominal inversion in embedded adverbial clauses: in temporal clauses, nominal inversion is licensed without the presence of an additional factor, whereas, in causal and concessive clauses, nominal inversion is only allowed if the clause contains a stage topic or an indication of the focal interpretation of the subject. Finally, it is shown that the same explanation also acccounts for nominal inversion in comparative clauses and in main clauses preceded by the comparative adverb of manner ainsi.

Zur Semantik der Konjunktion als. Paradigmatische und syntagmatische Aspekte

This paper develops a theoretical model for the semantics of connectives, following central ideas of Reichenbachian tense semantics. In a first step, the terminological and conceptual framework is presented and illustrated with German da. The meaning of a connective is modeled as a four-place-relation between the situated object E, a reference object R, a discourse anchor S and the speaker O. The relata can belong to one of four different classes of entities: physical object, event, proposition or act. Correspondingly, the relations are divided into four cognitive domains: space, time, alethics/epistemics, and deontics. In each domain, relations can be treated under three different perspectives: situation, condition or causation. A cross-classification of relational domains and perspectives provides a typology of connectives which is more consistent than the ones available in traditional grammar. In the second part of the article, the analytic apparatus is refined, using German so as the main example. Following Roman Jakobson, a distinction is made between contiguity and similarity relations. Contiguity relations are typically encoded by functional categories, whereas similarity relations are encoded by lexical categories. However, there are a few connectives like so which encode similarity relations. A structural isomorphism between similarity and contiguity relations makes it possible to reinterpret so in certain contexts as an indicator of contiguity. In these cases, so is semantically weakened, particularly in relation to its definiteness. The model is extended to also, from which als descends etymologically. The third part of the article contains the semantic characterization of als in its variants as an intransitive and transitive connective. Als is described paradigmatically, in terms of the semantic oppositions that distinguish it from da, so, wie and wenn. Like so, it originally encodes similarity relations, but in present day German its use has been extended, so that it may indicate contiguity relations as well. With da and so it shares the abstract relational meaning O-S,R,E. The main difference from da is its lesser degree of definiteness; in contrast to so, its use is almost exclusively temporal. Wie and wenn are indefinites, i.e. they do not establish a deictic backlink to the speaker and discourse context. Als indicates that the situated event temporally overlaps with a specific event of reference, whose factivity is presupposed. The reference event must be categorically predictable in the context of utterance. Als does not indicate temporal antecedence of the reference event in relation to the speech event; it only requires the identifiability of the reference event and its non-coincidence with the speech event. In the last section, so-called "peripheral temporal clauses" are examined with respect to the syntagmatic interaction between aspectuality, intonational focus, serialization of clauses and the abstract relational meaning of als. The proposed semantic formula is shown to be capable not only of clarifying the paradigmatic structure of a subset of German connectives but also of explaining the semantic and stylistic properties of complex sentences.

The Ordering Distribution of Main and Adverbial Clauses: A Typological Study

This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses in crosslinguistic perspective. Using a representative sample of forty languages, the author shows that the ordering of main and adverbial clauses correlates with the position of the subordinator in the subordinate clause. In languages in which adverbial clauses have a final subordinator, adverbial clauses tend to precede the main clause, whereas in languages in which adverbial clauses are marked by an initial subordinator, adverbial clauses commonly occur in both sentence-initial and sentence-final position. In the latter language type, the position of an adverbial clause varies with its meaning or function: conditional clauses precede the main clause more often than temporal clauses, which in turn are more often proposed than causal, result, and purpose clauses. The distributional patterns are explained in terms of competing motivations; it is suggested that they arise from the interaction between structural and discourse-pragmatic factors.

Grammatical Change in Progress: The Anejom Conditionals

Anejom is the sole indigenous language of Aneityum, the southernmost inhabited island in Vanuatu. Possibly due at least in part to drastic depopulation in the nineteenth century, as a result of introduced diseases and natural calamities, various aspects of Anejom lexicon and grammar have undergone fairly rapid change, often involving simplification. Interestingly, however, these changes seem to have been 'selective', as other areas of grammar remain unchanged and as complex as they ever were. One such area in which change still seems to be in progress is the marking of conditional clauses. An original conditional conjunction seems to have been lost, first undergoing reanalysis and paradigm reduction; and original conditional constructions were first replaced by temporal constructions and more recently by constructions based on a temporal clause, the quotative verb and a complement clause. This paper documents those changes and tries to explain why they have occurred.

Intentional relation and suspended reading of before clauses: the case of the French avant que

The aim of this paper is to account for the suspended reading of before' clauses, that is, a reading on which the proposition expressed by the subordinate clause is neither true nor false. The analysis is based on French linguistic material. The paper attempts to demonstrate that the suspended reading of the subordinate clause is intrinsically related to the intentional reading of the sentence, that is, a reading on which the sentence is introduced by an implicit intentional propositional attitude. The analysis shows that, in sentences referring to the past, the inference of the intentional attitude is brought about by three types of lexical and/or syntactic marker, which allows us to divide the sentences that trigger the suspended reading into three categories. The paper accounts for the cases of ambiguity and lists the readings that are allowed by each type of ambiguous sentence. The position defended is that avant que before' clauses, like other temporal clauses, do express a presupposition. The phenomenon known as presupposition suspension is due to the fact that the lexical content of the connective allows the presupposition to be modalized by a propositional attitude

The Temporal Structure of Discourse: the Syntax and Semantics of Temporal Then

This paper presents an analysis of the discourse representation of tense. I argue that temporal interpretation across sentences in discourse is subject to the same principles as temporal interpretation within sentences, and that there is thus no need to posit independent principles to account for the discourse behavior of tense. This approach makes possible an analysis of the temporal adverb then. The semantic dependency that then induces between sentences in discourse is argued to be identical to the dependency that holds within sentences in temporal adjunct clause constructions. In order to explain how the meaning of then differs depending on its position, I claim that then associates different times in tense structure depending on its syntactic position, resulting in different interpretations. This analysis accounts for interpretive parallels between discourse sequences with then and temporal adjunct clauses, and it predicts the interaction of temporal then with perfect tenses, future readings of present tense, and infinitival clause constructions.

Leviticus (review)

Hebrew Studies 39 (1998) 218 Reviews into English is not the test of the semantics of the language from which we are translating. As to Endo's suggestion that preview and summary uses of wyyqtl's are off the line, I have no great quarrel with him here. I do want to suggest, however, that storylines are emic structures in the language where they are found, and verbs of storyline fonn may be expanded in usage in one language as compared to another language-so that storyline must be defmed anew for each language and is not entirely subject to a general semantic calculus. The latter concerns are etic and provide our initial analytic insights but do not dictate the fonn of the final emic analysis in a language. Some languages are more parsimonious in regard to what they put on the storyline, and other languages are more profligate in this regard. Consequently , storyline fonns may be used in one language at a point where they are not possible in another language. At any rate, the wyyqtl fonns are the backbone of Hebrew storytelling and correlate for the most part with what is represented as punctiliar sequential "happenings." Some of these backbone fonns emerge as non-backbone in English, where, for example, they are often rendered best as temporal clauses. This, I believe is apropos to Endo's discussion in 7.3.2.2. "The Temporal Clause with waYYIQTOL." Such clauses can be considered to be on the storyline in Hebrew but off the storyline in English. For the analysis of aspect in verbal fonns, Endo uses a diagram in which he discusses plus or minus values for each verb in each example cited in respect to the following parameters: perfective, complete, stative, fientive, durative, punctual, and progressive. These diagrams, with the accompanying commentary, may be one of the most interesting features of his work. Here the influence of Bernard Comrie is evident. Also in the first chapter, Endo provides a helpful summary of the system of the Hebrew verb as presented in the writings of a variety of scholars. Robert E. Longacre University of Texas, Arlington Dallas, TX 75236 bob_Iongacre@sil.org LEVITICUS. By Philip J. Budd. The New Century Bible Commentary. pp. xxiii + 390. Grand Rapids. MI: Eerdmans. 1996. Philip J. Budd, lecturer and tutor at Westminster College, Oxford, England, has provided a concise and useful commentary on the Book of Hebrew Studies 39 (1998) 219 Reviews Leviticus. He notes the lack of attention often given the book in popular circles and is candid about the ambiguities of historical context and the presuppositions about purity systems that are foreign to western readers. It is for this very reason, the author argues, that the book deserves serious study, since these same ambiguities reflect the enigmatic character of human motivation and experience. After a select but representative bibliography, the author deals with prolegomena: text, content, authorship and redaction, sources, literary forms and style. He also examines anthropological, historical, and theological topics related to holiness and sacrifice. Intentionally, the work does not attempt to detail a sustained inquiry into these introductory matters, but seeks to grapple with the broad arguments of the generally held positions and those who take exception to them. His ultimate judgments are prudent and well informed. The study benefits from an ability of the author to glean the strengths of variant positions, presenting conclusions that are carefully researched. The author's overview of current research on the priestly composition of Leviticus affirms an early post-exilic date of P between 539 and 516 BeE. These priestly writers constructed a narrative based on an existing written tradition and inserted substantial legal and cultic material which revised and supplemented the earlier narrative material. Budd identifies several of the major component parts of a legal and cultic nature which were inserted into the existing tradition: a narrative thread (8:1-10:20), procedures for the Day of Atonement (16:1-34), a large section on offerings {1:1-7:38), a Manual of Purity (11:1-15:33), the Holiness Code (17:126 :46), and a final chapter (27:1-34). The introduction also includes a helpful overview of the...

Strategies in the Acquisition of Temporal Clauses by EFL Arab Learners

Strategies in the Acquisition of Temporal Clauses by EFL Arab Learners

Distributed control systems debugging based on global predicates detection

This paper presents a model of computation for distributed control systems where a global time base does not exist. A notion of logical time based on time vectors which reflect causality between events is proposed instead. According to this, it is shown that the set of global states of a distributed control system is partially ordered and forms a lattice. New algorithms to determine global states and to compute the lattice of global states based on vector timestamps are proposed. The lattice of global states is used as a basis to define and to detect global predicates, including predicates with modal and temporal clauses. The global predicate detection technique is used to detect violations of correctness and safety conditions in a distributed control system.

When Did the Women Visit the Tomb?:Sources for Some Temporal Clauses in the Synoptic Gospels

Les phrases qui indiquent le temps de la visite au tombeau vide dans les Evangiles synoptiques posent des difficultes. L'analyse des structures des indications temporelles oriente vers la fin du sabbath et le debut de la nouvelle semaine

The acquisition of temporal conjunctions by Saudi Arabian learners of English1

Eighty Saudi EFL students were assessed on their understanding of English temporal conjunctions (TCs) and on the effect of the sentence position of the temporal subordinate clause (initially or finally) on such acquisition. The combined performance of the experimental groups did not show any significant difference between TCs indicating sequence and simultaneity. TCs were categorized according to their relationship in time with the main clause event: e.g., FIRST TCs indicate that the main clause event occurs before that in the temporal clause. Responses over the semantic categories of the TCs varied: SECOND and SAME TIME were more difficult than FIRST. The subjects’performance on individual conjunctions within these semantic categories also varied. Similar to the performance for the control group of native speakers, it was found that before (FIRST), after (SECOND), and when2, while, and as (SAME TIME) were the least difficult conjunctions within these categories for the EFL learners by a significant amount. It was also found that whenever1 and directly (SECOND) and now that2 and whenever2 (SAME TIME) were the most difficult conjunctions for the EFL learners. Weak evidence of transfer (positive and negative) was observed in the data. The experimental and control groups gave similar performances for the conjunctions in the SAME TIME category. The EFL learners performed better on temporal clauses which occurred initially in the sentence than on those which occurred finally. The results also showed that these learners, in processing the temporal conjunctions, faced problems similar to those of L1 learners.

The function of local cues in the acquisition of Japanese temporal sentences

This study examines the role of Slobin's (1982) ‘local cues’ in the acquisition of temporal clauses in Japanese. The local cue under consideration is the grammatical aspect expressed by the verb-ru/-ta form in Japanese temporal clauses, especially in mae ‘before’, ato ‘after’, and toki ‘when’ clauses. Ninety-six children, equally divided into three age groups of 3, 4 and 5 yr, were examined in two distinct tasks. The performance on ato and V-ta toki in the first (“act-out”) task was significantly better than on mae and V-ru toki sentences. The results suggest that the children are sensitive to the local cues expressed by the V-ru/-ta form and indicate that the success of the verb forms as a cue depends on whether the verb forms can express the temporal relations clearly and consistently. These results confirm Slobin's claim that overt and clear surface cues facilitate a child's sentence processing. Although there was no significant difference found in the second (“story”) task, an explanation for this result is also offered.

Temporal clause comprehension in fluent and nonfluent aphasics

Ten fluent and ten nonfluent aphasics participated in this study. Their ability to comprehend before and after clauses which mirrored the order of occurrence and those which did not mirror the order of events was investigated. Results indicate that type of aphasia was not a significant variable related to comprehension but that sentence type was a significant variable. Aphasics' comprehend before clauses better than after clauses. Nonfluent aphasics were able to comprehend those temporal clauses that mirror the order of occurrence better than those that do not. Order of mention was not a significant factor related to comprehension in the fluent group.

Interclausal syntactic connections in contemporary Polish

It is claimed in the article that agreement and government patterns in Polish are not restricted to simple sentences. То illustrate the point, the category of tense is examined. A variety of temporal constraints in Polish subordinate compound sentences are discussed within the framework of a formal grammar of Polish. A number of conjunctions requiring that a clause containing them be of a definite value of tense are listed. It is shown that in sentences which contain a temporal clause a kind of temporal agreement between the finite centers of such a sentence and of that clause takes place. The same kind of agreement can be observed in coordinate temporal clauses. The problem of temporal characteristics of non-declarative and impersonal verbs is also taken into considération.