Swart - Verkuyl - Tense and Aspect in Sentence and Discourse

2
Tense and Aspect in Sentence and

Discourse
Henriëtte de Swart & Henk Verkuyl
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS
Utrecht University
Email-addresses: henriette.deswart@let.uu.nl & henk.verkuyl@let.uu.nl

c Henriëtte de Swart & Henk Verkuyl
August 1999
Contents
1 Aspectual composition 3
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 The verb as carrier of aspectual information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.1 The Slavic tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.2 Vendler’s verb classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3 The VP as carrier of aspectual information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4 The S as carrier of aspectual information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4.1 The aspectual scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4.2 Aspectual asymmetry and inner/outer aspectuality . . . . . . 18
1.4.3 The Plus-principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.4.4 The construal of aspectual classes: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5 How terminative is perfectivity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.5.1 Aspectual operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.5.2 Comparing Slavic and Germanic sentences. . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.5.3 Thematic glue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.5.4 The Finnish case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.6 Plurality and aspectuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.6.1 Some difficult questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.6.2 Collectivity and distributivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2 Time, Tense and Temporal Reference 41

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2 Subjective and objective time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.3 Expressing time by tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.4 Past, present and future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.4.1 The special status of the present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.4.2 The future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4.3 Problems with the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.5 Theories of tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.5.1 Jespersen (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.5.2 Reichenbach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.5.3 Beyond Reichenbach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.5.4 Asymmetries between past and future . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3
4 CONTENTS
2.5.5 Prior (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

2.5.6 Beyond Prior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.5.7 Merging Reichenbach and Prior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.6 Temporal ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.6.1 Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.6.2 Intervals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.6.3 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3 The semantics of inner aspectuality 71

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.2 The index-based approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.2 The successor function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.3 The Path function `: structuring the VP . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.2.4 The participancy function : structuring S . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.2.5 The three functions working together . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.2.6 Reduction of scopal ambiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.2.7 Two Paths make a journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.3 Approaching outer aspectuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.3.1 Tense and Progressive Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.3.2 Aspectualizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.3.3 Durativity, Habituality, Repetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.3.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.4 Events or indices? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.4.1 The model structure in Kamp & Reyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.4.2 Instant Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.4.3 Interval Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.4.4 Path Structure as Instant Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.4.5 Comparison and conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.5 Event-based approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.5.2 Krifka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.5.3 Parsons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.5.4 Jackendoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.5.5 Pustejovsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
3.5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4 The semantics of outer aspectuality 101

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.2 An event-based semantics of outer aspectuality . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.2.1 The domain of eventualities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.2.2 Aspectual operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.2.3 Duration adverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.2.4 Coercion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
4.3 Logical operators: negation and quantification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.3.1 Logical operators as eventuality description modifiers . . . . . 116
CONTENTS 5
4.3.2 Logical and aspectual structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

4.4 Aspect and logical operators in Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.4.1 Aspect shift and coercion in French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
5 Tense and aspect at the discourse level 149

5.1 Temporal structure in DRT and DICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.1.1 Essentials of a discourse-based theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.1.2 The role of rhetorical structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
5.1.3 The balance between linguistic and extra-linguistic information 154
5.2 French past tenses at the discourse level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
5.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
5.2.2 The Imparfait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
5.2.3 The Passé Simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
5.3 Negation in discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.3.1 Negative sentences in French discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.3.2 Negative sentences in English discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
5.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Preface
This is a reader for the course on Tense and Aspect in Sentence and Discourse we are
teaching at the ESSLLI Summer School at Utrecht, August 9 - 13, 1999. We would
like to point out that the text offered is a rough draft of what eventually should become
a textbook. The aim of the book will be to bridge the gap between aspectual theories
focussing on the sentential domain (the micro-perspective) and theories developing dis-
course structure (the macro-perspective). In particular, we will try to connect interval-
or index-based semantics and event-based semantics in a systematic fashion.
Chapter 1 contains an overview of issues relevant to a theory accounting for the

micro-perspective on aspectuality. In particular, we will focus on composition-
ality as a basis for a cross-linguistically valid model of aspectuality. Languages
we study include Slavic, Germanic, Finnish and Romance.
Chapter 2 presents some background notions on time and tense and discusses
temporal ontology as used in various theories on tense and aspect.
Chapter 3 formalizes the semantics of so-called inner aspectuality in the index-
based compositional theory and establishes a comparison with event-based ap-
proaches. The conclusion we draw is that events are a more suitable notion to
use at the macro-level.
Chapter 4 deals with aspectual phenomena in the domain of so-called outer as-
pectuality. The event-based analysis developed here also accounts for logical
operators like negation and quantification, and outer aspectuality in Romance.
Chapter 5 extends the theory developed in chapter 4 to the discourse level. The
analysis takes into account both rhetorical structure and linguistic constraints
which particular tenses impose upon the temporal structure of discourse.
As said the text offered here is provisional in the sense that we want to use it to prepare
a book manuscript. That is why invite the reader and/or the participants in the course
to send us all their comments, reactions and suggestions for improvements.
1
2 CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Aspectual composition
1.1 Introduction
In the present chapter, we shall discuss a number of aspectual notions, which are in
need of a precise characterization, our general impression being that the progress of
theory formation in the field is hampered by a persistent lack of coined notions. It is
not so much that some authors use the term telic whereas others use terminative or
perfective or bounded, rather we see that on the semantic side of the analysis there
is a lot of trouble in determining what the authors mean when they use these terms.
For example, if authors speak about a perfective verb napisal in the Russian sentence
(1.1a),
(1.1) a. On napisal pismo
He Perf-wrote a/the letter
b. On pisal pismo
He Imp-wrote a/the letter
do they mean to say that there are perfective verbs like napisat’ and imperfective verbs
like Imp-pisat’ in that language, or do they actually purport to say that the (abstract)
verb pisat’ has two forms: a perfective one with na- in front of it and an imperfective
one with an abstract prefix Imp- in front of it? But why don’t they speak of verb forms
in that case? Is it persistent sloppyness? Or is it a measured use of the terms involved?
These apparently terminological questions are contentually loaden because they
are deeply connected with semantically relevant questions. For example, some authors
explicitly say that a verb may denote an event1 , which triggers the question of whether
they mean that interpretation of the abstract verb form pisat0 is in the domain of events
or rather that it is the interpretation of the perfective form napisal or pisal. In the
latter case, however, it should be determined whether or not the perfective prefix na-
in (1.1a) really belongs to the verb rather than to the sentential structure. There are
indeed reasons to assume that there is a close connection between the presence of
na- and the interpretation of the direct object pismo. At that very moment the notion
1 E.g. Kiparsky 1998
3
4 CHAPTER 1. ASPECTUAL COMPOSITION
of ‘denotation of the verb’ becomes rather dubious because higher levels of structure
seem to be involved. Moreover, one might wonder what it means for a verb to denote
an event without taking into account its arguments.
We have given these reflections in order to demonstrate the necessity to go care-
fully through a series of clarifying steps. The point at issue in this example will return
in more detail shortly. First we want to introduce another set of seemingly terminolog-
ical problems which turn out to be connected with contentual issues. These problems
concern the notions of compositionality and coercion. The former notion is around in
the field of aspectuality since the early seventies. The idea is that in sentences like (1.1)
it is not the verb alone which should account for its aspectual nature, but rather higher
level structures such as the VP (V plus its complements) or the S (roughly the subject
NP plus the VP). Here again there is a lot of confusion. First of all, should composi-
tionality receive a Fregean colour in the sense that the interpretation of sentences like
(1.1) proceeds from bottom to top in a compositional way along the lines of current
formal semantics? Or does it simply mean that one takes (somehow) into account that
the arguments of the verb need to be involved in establishing the aspectual information
conveyed by the sentence? In that case—in particular if one allows the verb to denote
events—, one might say that the Bulgarian perfective verb napisa in (1.2a) is coerced
into an (secondary) imperfective verb napisvaše in (1.2b).
(1.2) a. Ivan napisa edno pismo
Ivan Perf-wrote one letter
Ivan wrote one letter
b. Ivan napisvaše edno pismo
Ivan Imp-Perf-wrote one letter
Ivan used to write one letter
Or one might argue that due to the fact that the tenseless sentence Marie écrire une
lettre (Mary write a letter) expresses a bounded event, there is some need to coerce this
information into something unbounded in order to achieve the right interpretation of
the French Imparfait in (1.3).
(1.3) Marie écrivait une lettre
Mary was writing/wrote a letter
In the literature one does not find any attempt to compare the two notions involved here
in a systematic way. Our purpose is to clarify this issue as much as possible in the hope
of reducing the number of misleading notions associated with the issue of determining
at which level which sort of aspectual information is expressed.
Talking about levels at which aspectual information is expressed, let us first in-
troduce the leading figure of the present book in which different aspectual levels are
represented. Figure 1.1 determines in fact its composition in the sense that we start at
the bottom and proceed to the top. On our way to the top we will discuss the prob-
lems raised and illustrated so far and we will describe the compositional machinery
available. The higher we get, the more we meet places where discourse information
becomes relevant, the leading idea being that sentence structure provides information
for discourse by means of particular choices with respect to elements bearing aspectual
1.1. INTRODUCTION 5
Tadv S
Tense S
::: S
ASP S
NPext VP0
Det N ASP VP
V NPint
Det N
Figure 1.1: Aspectual Levels
information. This is a well-motivated choice: we are convinced of the need to stipulate

that for each syntactic level visible in Figure 1.1 the aspectual information expressed
by it is different from the preceding and following level. This is a stipulation, but so
far there is no indication that we are led astray by it.
We have to make two clarifying remarks, largely as a matter of terminology but, as
usually, connected with theoretically relevant assumptions. The first remark concerns
the syntactic structure. We want it to be useful to many theoretically diverging scholars.
Basically, it can be read as a generative structure, but not tied up to a particular trend in
generative syntax. People may give it a minimalist interpretation by adding functional
structure to it such as an AspPhrase-projection line, or AGR-projection lines, and so
forth. We will not do that, because we do not approach issues of aspectuality from a
syntactic point of view. As semanticists we need syntactic structure to interpret, but we
can easily live with Figure 1.1, which gives the opportunity for us to remain compatible
with the generative framework, but also with a lot of other syntactic approaches. This
is the reason why we speak about NP rather than about DP, about VP rather than about
V0 , about S rather than about VP or IP, etc. It will turn out that we are closely connected
with categorial approaches but this is only due to the fact that we wish to interpret the
binary branches in terms of a function-argument structure along the Fregean lines.
Our breaking away from a particular syntactic theory makes the present book com-
patible with most syntactic approaches to date because many of the aspectual issues are
not of a particular syntactic nature. Of course, there is some need to explain part of the
structure in more detail. At this moment, it suffices to observe that we will no longer
speak about subject NP and object NP but rather about the internal argument NP and
the external argument NP. This is due to our assumption that in the theory of aspectu-
ality we are going to explain in the present part, the asymmetry between the two NPs
is crucial. Connected with this point is our wish to avoid Quantifier Raising as much
as possible. In other words, we will try to interpret Figure 1.1 as directly as possible
allowing traces in the generative fashion rather than letting interpretation proceed on
the basis of a Logical Form.
As a final clarifying terminological remark we will use the term aspectuality as the
term covering the two traditional notions Aktionsart and aspect. We will argue in the
next section that one should be cautious in using these terms as they are tied up with a
suspicious distinction.
1.2 The verb as carrier of aspectual information

1.2.1 The Slavic tradition
At the beginning of the twentieth century aspectuality seemed to be an entirely Slavic
concern, even in the eyes of a lot of Western scholars who wrote about it.2 For them it
was clear that the difference between the sentences in (1.1), in (1.2) and in (1.4) was of
a semantic nature, as pointed out by Streitberg 1889:3,
(1.4) a. Ivan pil pivo
Ivan Imp-drank beer
‘Ivan was drinking/drank beer’
b. Ivan vypil dva piva
Ivan Perf-drank two beer
‘Ivan drank two beers’
who used the term imperfective (or durative or continuous) aspect for the Imp-forms,
the term perfective (or resultative) aspect for the Perf-forms and the term iterative as-
pect for the secondary imperfectization in (1.2b). It was only later that the term Aktion-
sart was introduced as a supplementary notion.
The basic idea underlying the distinction between Aktionsart and Aspect was the
conviction that in Russian one should distinguish between verbs like ždat (wait), stojat
’ (stand), etc. and verbs like pisat’ (write), ranit’ (wound), etc. on the ground of their
being different in lexical meaning. If you wound someone, then something happens
which may be described as an inherenty bounded event of some sort, but if you stand
you may do so indefinitely. This difference in meaning is not grammatical, it is rather
lexical. That is why Aktionsart is called ‘objective’ in the literature as opposed to as-
pect which is then called ‘subjective’ because of the idea that aspect expresses itself in
the sentence. In order to underline the difference one often says that aspect is gram-
maticalized. It is a phenomenon arising outside the lexicon, in the sentential phrase
structure. Barentsen 1985:134f. discusses sentences like (1.5).
(1.5) Počemu budiln’ik ne zvenit, ved’ ja ego zavodil
Why doesn’t the alarm clock Imp-go-off, I certainly Imp-wound it up
2 E.g. Streitberg 1889, Herbig 1896, Brugmann and Delbrück 1911, Leskien 1919, and Hermann 1927.
1.2. THE VERB AS CARRIER OF ASPECTUAL INFORMATION 7
Here, the idea underlying the distinction between Aktionsart and aspect is that the
Aktionsart of the verb zvenet’ (go-off, call, ring) is such that the verb expresses a com-
pleted event sui generis, that is, taken as a lexical unit having a specific “objective”
meaning. The same applies to the transitive verb zavodit’: to wind something up is
a bounded thing outside the sentence itself. The fact that the two verbs occur imper-
fectively (or in terms mostly found in Russian grammars, that the sentence contains
two imperfective verbs) is due to the sentential environment in which they are inserted.
The absence of the perfective forms prozvenet and zavesti makes it possible to express
that something is missing in the situation which is normally there as the result of the
Aktionsart-meaning. The same applies to sentences like (1.6),
(1.6) a. V sem’ časov Ivan rešal zadaču
Lit: At seven o’clock Ivan Imp-solved the problem
‘At seven o’clock Ivan was trying to solve the problem’
b. Včera v sem’ časov Ivan rešil zadaču
Lit: At seven o’clock Ivan Perf-solved the problem
‘At seven o’clock Ivan solved the problem’
where the imperfective rešal’ in (1.6) is used to indicate an attempt to do justice to the
“real” Aktionsart of the verb, expressing an effort rather than a result. Note in passing
that the opposition between perfective and imperfective aspect is now expressed in the
form of different infixes.
A final example which seems to support the fruitfulness of the distinction at hand
is given in sentences like (1.7).
(1.7) a. Olga spala
Olga Imp-slept
‘Olga was sleeping’
b. Olga pospala
Olga Perf-slept
‘Olga slept a while’
Here the Aktionsart is supposed to be unbounded because one may sleep indefinitely,
the perfective prefix po- restricting the period during which Olga slept. Many other
examples are given in which the distinction between imperfective and perfective verbs
is justified on the basis of a lexically scheme determining the Aktionsart. Sentences like
(1.6) are said to have a verb whose Aktionsart express boundedness or completeness
and on the basis of the scheme the imperfective has a certain semantic effect. Sentences
like (1.7) start from an Aktionsart which expresses unboundedness and here the effect
of the perfective prefix is to put a restriction on it. Many other variants on this theme
can given, such as the marking of the beginning or termination of events, iteration,
uncertainty, and so forth.
At this point, we should give some antidote against this seductive picture of a sys-
tem which separates the Slavic languages from, say, Germanic and Romance languages
in a way often considered as quite fundamental if not unbridgeable. Indeed, up till now
many Slavists claim the uniqueness of the aspectual system and they are inclined to
just flatly reject any attempt to generalize over the three language groups in order to
find a common basis for making the proper generalisations. This antidote consists at
the present stage in two shots, which are necessarily to see a more promising picture in
which the data discussed so far can be handled on the basis of quite different insights.
Firstly, it should be observed that at the end of the nineteenth century the notion
of verb had quite a different status from the one it has now in most theories. In the
discussions about grammar in the second half of that century, attention was primarily
focussed on word classes. Verb morphology was around, but it was mainly restricted
to the verb itself, the notion of phrase structure not being available to systematically
express any influence of the verb on what in current linguistics are called its argument
NPs. Suppose we would informlly represent the argument structure of the sentences
discussed so far in term of the well-known logical scheme (1.8) in which the Verb is
taken as a predicate taking one or more arguments.
(1.8) P (a ; : : : ; an )
1
[T]
In that case, what the Slavic tradition does, is to separate the (a1 ; : : : ; an )-part of this
scheme from the P and to focus on the binary opposition between [+T] and [–T], where
[+T] stands for the expression of telicity or terminativity or boundedness and [–T] for
the expression of atelicity, durativity or unboundedness. If [T] concerns the Aktion-
sart, nothing in the literature indicates the urge to analyze the perfective-imperfective
opposition as including the whole structure in (1.8). On the contrary, all current Russian
grammars proudly distinguish between perfective and imperfective verbs: the depen-
dency of this opposition on the contribution of the arguments is not incorporated.3
In order to understand the reason why linguists followed this course, we have to
discern the force of the lexicographic tradition, not only in the past that we are dis-
cussing but also clearly visible in the current practice of making dictionaries. What
happens if one describes the meaning of verbs like write or kill in English? For write
dictionaries give a meaning description which amounts to something like ‘to form let-
ters or words ,etc.’ but this promising beginning to reveal the real nature of the activity
is soon put aside by the more prominent meaning ‘communicating with in writing’
where mostly examples such as write a letter or write a book are given. It is this
particular habit of providing examples together with the internal argument of the verb
practically always given in its singular form with an indefinite or definite article, which
is in the heart of what we called the lexicographic tradition of word meaning. We learn
to write letter, to kill a soldier, to solve a problem, to give a book to someone, and by
doing so we are nearly convinced that to write, to kill, to solve and to give inherently
express a bounded event, sui generis, qua Aktionsart, so to say. What is forgotten is
that one is factually learning a complete VP, which is construed from different smaller
parts, one being verbal, the other being nominal. If dictionaries would systematically
have given examples like to write letters, to kill innocent victims, to solve problems, to
give books to friends, etc., one would certainly have developed a very different feeling
for the sense of the verbs involved. In comparing the two sets of examples—one with
the singular NP, the other with the bare plurals—it is possible to derive the sui generis-
sense of the verbs involved, but this may very well be quite different from what the
3 Kolni-Balozky 1960, Shvedova 1982, Maslov 1959, among many others.
Slavic tradition pulled out of them by being fixed on the singular NP examples. It is
not unreasonable to require some constant meaning in kill when occurring in to kill a
soldier and to kill soldiers.
Of course, there is a clear difference between to play in play a sonata and to kill in
kill a soldier in the sense that to play seems to focus on the activity of playing whereas
to kill seems to focus on the resulting death of the soldier. However, the crucial question
is not only whether this is true or not, but also whether it is relevant. Let us consider
the plural cases to play sonatas and to kill soldiers. Both pertain to something that
can go on indefinitely. Note, however, that if one holds that to kill soldiers means that
there is one killing for each of the soldiers involved, one can equally well maintain
that to play sonatas means that there is one playing for each of the sonatas performed:
one has to stop before the next play may begin. In fact, Verkuyl 1972 analyzed the
meaning of play in terms of an underlying notion of PERFORM, expressing that a sonata
comes into being by playing it. So, arguably the obvious difference between the lexical
meanings of the verbs play and kill might be a difference between ‘construction’ (say,
in a cumulative sense) in the case of play and destruction (its reverse) in the case of kill,
which entails that the verbs have something in common: both express a causal relation
between the activity expressed by the verb and some resulting state. What they share
can be seen as involving a processing, a dynamicity.
The easiest way to grasp the point at issue is that the verbs under discussion both
express ‘a going through a predication’. Someone who played a sonata performed some
activity to bring about the result of a sonata having been played. Someone who killed a
soldier was involved in some activity to bring about the result of a soldier having been
killed. If one accepts this as the general way to characterize the contribution of verbs
like play and kill, it is easy to take the next step and to allow the verb run or walk in to
run a mile or to walk a mile to express the activity bringing about the result of a mile
having been run or walked, the result notion following from the cumulative structure
created by the ‘going on’-sense of the verb walk.
It was exactly this point which led Verkuyl 1972:95f. to observe:
: : : we could say that moving from some point Pi to some point Pj ,

where the distance between Pi and Pj is the interval (Pi ,Pj ), can also be
conceived in terms of the predicate ADD TO. If someone is walking at Pm ,
where Pm 2 (Pi ; Pj ) such that Pi < Pm < Pj , : : :, we can say that he is
adding some distance measuring units to the interval (Pi ,Pm 1 ).
Summarizing, one could say that what we called the “lexicographic approach” to word
meaning has blurred the aspectual picture in the sense that the focus of the meaning
description was put on that aspect of meaning where at least some interaction with
the (singular) internal argument NP is visible. So either one admits that Aktionsart
is no longer a lexical matter and one takes into account the nature of the arguments,
or one focusses on the genuinely inherent meaning of the verb itself apart from what
its arguments contribute in phrase structure. This can be done by perceiving that the
verbs discussed above contribute cumulative information. The natural notion of Path of
some sort of movement emanating from the quotation may be called ‘nonstative’. It is
this meaning element that can be isolated from the verb meaning which can be said to
play its role in the aspectual composition along the lines to be sketched below. Before
we will do that, we continue our historical analysis of what happened in the Slavist
theories on aspectual structure by embroaching our second point
This second point is related to the former in a suppplementary way. The emphasis
on the lexicographic approach to word meaning can be said to be due to the lack of a
satisfactory morphology and syntax. To say that aspect is a matter of morphology and
semantics amounted to analyzing aspectual phenomena without any notion of phrase
structure. This was, of course, due to the fact that syntax in the modern sense was
non-existent in the first decennia of the twentieth century. The Bloomfieldian notion of
constituent structure was not yet available, let alone the development of that notion in
the second half of the twentieth century. So, there were no technical tools available for
those who noticed that it was not only the verb that determines aspectuality. Even those
who considered the verb as governing the case of its arguments, could not express that
in a clear unequivocal way. For example, Poutsma 1926:291 observes that “the normal
aspect of a verb is often modified or even utterly changed by the context”. The basic
idea of Poutsma’s analysis seems to be that every verb has a “basic aspect” and that
this aspect can be modified by the presence of constituents with which the verb occurs.
In modern terms, we see here the idea of coercion and behind it the holy fear for the
cherished tenets of Slavist aspectology.
At the time of Poutsma’s analysis the notion of VP as a phrase structural con-
stituent was not available at all, so the appeal to a coercive strategy, also visible in
Jacobsohn 1933, was not an unreasonable move. Poutsma simply followed his infor-
mal intuition about the VP as a unit and not having available a formal semantics to
combine two sister nodes into a higher level structure, he fell back upon a sort of trans-
fer mechanism changing the value of a syntactic node on the basis of the presence of
another one. But having available the VP as the phrase structure level at which infor-
mation about the V and its internal argument come together, coercion is at best only
a second best solution, the more so if one accepts the fact that the verbs kill and play
and run have something in common which plays an aspectual role independent of their
sisters.
1.2.2 Vendler’s verb classes

From the point of view of the developments in the linguistic discussions about aspec-
tuality up to and including Poutsma and Jacobsohn as sketched above, Vendler 1957
does not make any progress beyond what the latter two had done. All the criteria for
distinguishing between the verb classes he offered, were available in the predominantly
German literature, so in that sense he did not add anything new to what already was
there in the linguistic literature. What Vendler did was to introduce ontological classes
on the basis of linguistic clues. More precisely, Vendler offered informally a semantics
by discerning a set of semantic objects in domains of interpretation in which temporal-
ity is part of what can be said to exist. This made him quite popular in the Montague
tradition of formal semantics, which started up in the early seventies. Vendler offered
the possibility to find denotations.
Let us first introduce the Vendler classification. We will do so mainly by giving
examples, assuming that the classes are so well-known that they hardly need a further
detailed introduction.4 Briefly, what Vendler says is that if someone loves somebody
between two points of time, then this love persists for all instants between them. This
characterizes a State. If someone is walking at a certain moment, this moment is part of
a walking interval. This characterizes an Activity. If someone is running a mile at a cer-
tain moment, that moment is part of an interval in which this person ran a mile. This
characterizes an Accomplishment. Finally, if someone wins a race between two mo-
ments, the winning took place at a moment in between. This is called an Achievement.
Table 1.1 exemplifies Vendler’s quadripartition.
States: love, know, possess, rule

Activities: walk, run, swim, push, eat, write
Accomplishments: run (a mile), draw (a circle), discover, eat (a sandwich)
Achievement: recognize, reach, win
Table 1.1: Vendler’s four verb classes exemplified
This quadripartition is obtained on the basis of a scheme in which two oppositions play
a role. They are given in Table 1.2.
–Process +Process
–Definite State Activity
+Definite Achievement Accomplishment
Table 1.2: Two criteria
Basically there are two sets of criteria to distinguish the four classes. One can dis-
tinguish States and Activities from Achievements and Accomplishments by observing
that (1.10a) containing a State verb and an Activity verb is acceptable whereas (1.10b)
is not well-formed under a one-event interpretation. This observation is complemented
by the fact that (1.9a) is unacceptable whereas (1.9b) containing an Accomplishment
verbs is fine.
(1.9) a. He slept and she drew circles for an hour
b. #He slept and she drew circles in an hour
(1.10) a. #He ran a mile and she drew a circle for an hour
b. He ran a mile and she drew a circle in an hour
We immediately recognize here the well-known observation made at least sixty years
before in the linguistic literature and being available to the linguistic community ever
4 For a detailed critical analysis of the role of Vendler classes in aspectual theory we refer to Verkuyl 1989
or to chapter 2 of Verkuyl 1993.

since. In other words, the criterion used is derived from the opposition between sen-
tences like (1.11) and (1.12).
(1.11) a. #Ivan vypil dva piva s čas
John Perf-drank two beer for about an hour
#‘John drank two beers for about an hour’
b. Ivan pil dva piva s čas
John Imp-drank two beer for about an hour
‘John was drinking two beers for about an hour’
(1.12) a. Ivan vypil dva piva za čas

John Perf-drank two beer in an hour
‘John drank two beers in an hour’
b. ?Ivan pil pivo za čas
John Imp-drank beer in an hour
The single event interpretation in which Ivan drank two beers is excluded in (1.11a).
Likewise, one may say (1.12a) whereas (1.12b) is not acceptable, unless it is taken to
express a habit.
Vendler uses the following sets of sentences to distinguish between verbs that ex-
press a process and verbs that do not do that.
(1.13) a. I am knowing, she is loving him
b. She was recognizing me, he was reaching the top
(1.14) a. He was running, she is swimming

b. She is running a mile, she was drawing a circle
He rules out sentences like (1.13) on the ground that the verbs cannot have the Pro-
gressive Form, whereas the verbs in (1.14) can. This opposition sets the States and
Achievements apart from the Activities and Accomplishments.
It is not our intention to treat Vendler here in detail.5 Here the two tables, the
criteria and the examples are given in order to refresh the memory of the readers and
this should suffice to see the relevance of the two sets of examples, because they play
a very important role in the analysis of aspectual and temporal structure. They make it
possible for us to check whether the main claim made by Vendler—that there are four
verb classes—makes sense with respect to the two criteria given here. It is important to
note that in the examples Vendler is quite sloppy in his use of the term Verb. Sometimes
it covers genuine verbs like walk and run, sometimes in pertains to phrases of which
they are the verb, such as run a mile or draw a circle.
The title of Vendler’s paper is ‘Verbs and Time’. If we take him literally in the
sense that Verb pertains to the lexical verb category, then what Vendler actually did was
5 We refer for a very critical investigation of validity of the criteria to Verkuyl 1989. Moreover, there
are also empirical problems in the sense that Vendler’s judgments about the opposition between (1.13) and
(1.14) are generally not accepted.
1.3. THE VP AS CARRIER OF ASPECTUAL INFORMATION 13
to extend the Slavic scheme (1.8) into four verb classes, with the Verb -information
separated from the (a1 ; : : : ; an )-part:
(1.15) a. VState (a1 ; : : : ; an )
b. VAct (a1 ; : : : ; an )
c. VAcc (a1 ; : : : ; an )
d. VAch (a1 ; : : : ; an )
Like Vendler, Dowty 1979 distinguishes between four verb classes in English. He took
the term ‘Verb’ literally and followed Vendler by distinguishing between four lexical
classes. Given the Montagovian joy of doing genuine semantics—that is, interpretation
by relating language structurally to domains of interpretation—the course followed by
Dowty is understandable though misleading. In fact, Dowty fell victim to an ambigu-
ity introduced by Montague himself. For linguists in the seventies, it was extremely
uncommon to get used to the fact that an intransitive verb like walk was of the same
syntactic and semantic type as walk a mile. Both are syntactically of type IV and se-
mantically of type he; ti (which means to say that the verb denotes the set of walkers
in the domain). So, rather than settling the aspectual matter at the VP-level (of the
Montagovian type he; ti), he stuck to the traditional V. This ambiguity is inherent to
Vendler’s proposal. Being a philosopher and trained in the formal logic of the time
he may have used the notion of verb in a more broad sense, namely as ‘one-place
predicate’. One could take the notion of verb in the Montagovian way as a one-place
predicate at the level of VP. In that case, however, one may no longer speak of lexical
classes. As soon as Vendler-classes are treated at the level of the VP, i.e. as VP-classes,
the question arises what explanatory force may be attributed to such a quadripartition
for the analysis of aspectual phenomena. As observed repeatedly, the aspectual oppo-
sition terminative/telic/perfective vs durative/atelic/imperfective is crucially a binary
one.
Summarizing, Vendler not having the linguistic-syntactic notion of VP available
appealed in the same way as Poutsma and Jacobsohn to an informal intuition about
the cohesion between the verb and its internal argument, but he phrased, as they did,
what he wanted to express in terms of lexical notions. By doing so, he ended up in
the very traditional position of Slavic scholars who analyzed aspect in terms of lexical
classes. And this is why the influence of Vendler on current semantic analyses turns
out to produce conceptual anomalies.
1.3 The VP as carrier of aspectual information

Syntax makes it possible to assure that the verb in both Figure 1.2a and Figure 1.2b
express the same semantic value, say [+A] and that the differences in which the internal
arguments are settled at the level of the VP. Semantics makes it possible to assure that
the information conveyed by the verb and the information expressed by its internal
argument come together and form a semantic object of some sort that plays a role in
the sentential structure. This entails that the semantic status of what is provisionally
represented as the “molecular” feature [T] differs from the status of the “atomic”
VP VP
[+T] [-T]
V NP V NP
[+A] [+B] [+A] [-B]
Figure 1.2: A constant value for the Verb
features [A] and [B]. Here follows a list illustrating the four logically possible
different combinations, given two sister nodes:
Phrases Analysis Yielding

to play a sonata, to kill a soldier [+A] + [+B] [+T]
to play sonatas, to kill soldiers [+A] + [– B] [– T]
to love a sonata, to love a soldier [–A] + [+B] [– T]
to love sonatas, to love soldiers [– A] + [– B] [– T]
Table 1.3: Possible combinations of semantic values
These possibilities were first explored in this fashion in Verkuyl 1972. It should be
underscored that it would be wrong to take the features syntactically: they represent
essentially semantic information as purported to do the generative-semantic categories
employed in Verkuyl 1972.6 Semantically the features abbreviate semantic information
that will be presented formally in chapter 3. However, in view of the fact that we have
already discussed the dynamics involved in the meaning of verbs expressing change, we
will informally explain the notion of Path in terms of some figures which will express
the main idea of the feature combination in Figure 1.3.
In order to get as closely as possible at the semantic content of the features we will
relabel the feature A as ADDTO and the feature B as the label SQA. The verbal feature
[ADDTO] differentiates between stative and nonstative verbs. Nonstative verbs are
“dynamic” in the sense that they create a predicational Path: they pertain to a going
on in time during which the predication as expressed by the sentence is developing. It
opens up the possibility of taking into account the essentially atemporal structure intro-
duced by the internal argument NP by relating it to the cumulative structure introduced
by the verb. The feature [SQA] distinguishes NPs pertaining to a Specified Quantity
of A (where A is the set of sandwiches or persons in the domain of interpretation) from
NPs which express an Unspecified Quantity of A.7 The composite feature [+T] (for
6 The formal clothing of the features involved was different due to a choice in favour of generative-
semantic categorial nodes because they were considered more semantic than features. However,
Verkuyl 1972; 1976 made clear that whatever could be expressed by categorial nodes may be expressed
by features. This has caused some misunderstanding in the literature, e.g. in Dowty, Hinrichs, Krifka.
[+
7 Krifka’s term quantized is certainly modeled on the ]
SQA -feature, but Reniers has shown that there
are some subtle differences.
1.3. THE VP AS CARRIER OF ASPECTUAL INFORMATION 15
terminative, telic) represents information about what happens if you combine temporal
information ([+ADDTO]) with atemporal information ([+SQA]), the general idea being
that a predication “Path” is formed involving a set some entity is going through.
What happens if you are “going through” a set? In terms of set theory, this is an
odd question but the idea itself is not so odd. When we interpret the VP in sentences
like (1.16),
(1.16) a. Judith ate four sandwiches
b. The three girls wrote some letters
it contains an atemporal unit ([ four sandwiches] , [ some letters] ) which in some way
is involved in the development of temporal structure introduced by the verb. So, what
happens set-theoretically if you relate an atemporal set to a linear structure? This ques-
tion is not so odd any longer, the more so while you can send a line through a set
relating its elements to it by partitioning the set, as illustrated in Figure 1.3, where (a)
(a) (b)
s s3
s1 s2 s4
NP
s-
V
s s
0 1 2
-
3
Figure 1.3: Relating sets to linear order
shows the situation at which the verb and its argument are going to be structurally re-
lated into the VP; and where (b) illustrates the effect of amalgamating the verbal and
nominal information into a Path structure making (1.16) true just in case Judith first ate
one sandwiches, then two and in a third step the fourth one.
The main idea to get across at this moment is that the amalgamation of the features
[+ADDTO] and [+SQA] into [+T] involves the tuning of essentially temporal informa-
tion with information that can be captured set-theoretically in the case of Count Nouns.
Atemporal sets are unordered. Temporal structure forces us “to go through” a set im-
posing linear order to unordered partitions of the NP-denotation. The story is more
complex because in sentences like (1.16) what we do offer is a set of combinatorial
possibilities rather than just one configuration, but at this stage we aim at clarifying the
notion of Path in terms of one arbitrarily chosen configuration in Figure 1.3.
In order to prepare our discussion about the Partitive case in x 1.5.4 we will add
Figure 1.4 in which we disentangle the [+ADDTO] and [+SQA] of Figure 1.3 by putting
them in a mapping relation, but in which we also show that the set of four sandwiches
is embedded in the set A which is the semantic value of the Noun sandwiches in the NP
of sentences like (1.17). Actually, Figure 1.4 could represent what is expressed both
by (1.16a) and by (1.17).
(1.17) Judith ate four of the sandwiches
Thus, part of the [+T]-information expressed by a VP includes the information that the
sense of dynamic progress contributed by the verb affects the internal argument NP
with respect to just a part of the denotation of the Noun set A.
s
s s s
A
s3 s
s1 s2 4
6
6 6-
SQA
0 1 2 3
Figure 1.4: [+SQA] as part of the noun set A
At several places in Verkuyl 1972 it was observed that people like Poutsma in the
twenties and Jacobsohn in the thirties in fact had already departed from the traditional
Slavist position by paying more than incidental attention to the interaction between the
verb and its internal argument or other complements. Verkuyl’s way to shape their in-
tuition was the line just sketched, which ended up in recognizing the VP as the “molec-
ular” level at which atomic information was fused together into an essentially higher
level sort of semantic information. As a matter of consequence he rejected the coercive
strategy on the ground that when you transfer some information from the internal ar-
gument to the V you need an operator, say along the lines of Bennett and Partee 1978,
but also of Pustejovsky 1995.
(1.18) a: Mary walked WALK Activity
b: Mary walked a mile * WALK Accomplishment
c: Mary walked miles +* WALK Activity
To make walk an Accomplishment verb you need an operator, say *, so whatever re-
sults is, say *V. But this can only mean that * WALK 6= WALK and this means that the
sense of constancy in what is expressed by the verb is lost.8
It should be observed, though, that by the use of type logic in the analysis of
linguistic categories the idea of coercion as developed in e.g. Moens 1987 is quite
attractive. Along the lines of Moens one may think of coercive rules operating at the
S-level as in sentences like (1.19).
Pr
(1.19) Mary walk a mileterm ! Mary walk a miledur
P rog
! Mary was walking a mile
Here the idea is that in natural language we need type adaptation in order to meet
the demands of categories functioning as operators. That is, if Mary walked a mile is
a terminative sentence and Prog is an operator expressing a state, then one can either
require that Prog change the terminative sentence into a stative one, or one may assume
that there is some typeshifting operator Pr which first changes the [+T] into a [-T]
after which Prog has no problem in receiving its operand. In this way, the terminative
sentence is coerced into having the right property.
8 The criticism against Poutsma in Verkuyl 1972:42f. can easily be translated into a more modern objec-
tion against Pustejovsky’ strategy because Poutsma in fact followed exactly the same course as Pustejovsky
did.
1.4. THE S AS CARRIER OF ASPECTUAL INFORMATION 17
The obvious difference between the two examples of coercive strategies is, of
course, that the first one concerns the construction of the predication expressed by a
sentence, whereas the second one is used to accommodate a sentence into an environ-
ment requiring certain properties. In our view, the proper strategy should be to apply
compositionality in the Fregean sense in those cases where it is possible and to rely on
coercion only if that would be too bothersome. If that strategy is followed, it simply
follows that coercion with respect to the data in Figure 1.2 and Table 1.3 as proposed
by Poutsma and Jacobsohn and pursued by Pustejovsky is an inferior form of compo-
sitionality, the question being whether it makes sense to send information about the
internal argument to the verb which anyhow will become available at the VP-level. A
strictly compositional approach takes the A- and B-features of Table 1.3 together and
amalgamates them into a higher level feature. As said one may not blame Poutsma and
Jacobsohn for framing their intuitions in a coercive mode: they did not know about the
VP as a syntacto-semantic unit. The same seems to apply to Vendler 1957. We will
point out that the use of coercive rules in the sense of Moens are not well-motivated in
the realm of what we will call inner aspectuality, but that they can be of use in dealing
with phenomena in the domain of outer aspectuality. The two latter notions will be
explained in more in detail in the next section.
1.4 The S as carrier of aspectual information

1.4.1 The aspectual scheme
Verkuyl’s 1972-position about the compositionality of aspectual structure can be rep-
resented by scheme (1.20).9
(1.20) a. [ Judith [ ate three sandwiches]] terminative
[ [+SQA] [ [+SQA]]] ) [+ ]
S VP
TVP [+ ADDTO ] TS
[ Children [ a sandwich]]
TS
b. VP ate durative
[ [–SQA] [ [+SQA]]] )[ ]
S
TVP [+ ADDTO ] TS
[ Judith [ sandwiches]]
TS
c. VP ate durative
[ [+SQA] [ [– SQA]]] )[ ]
S
TVP [+ ADDTO ] TS
[ Judith [ a sandwich]]
TS
d. VP wanted durative
[ [+SQA] [ [+SQA]]] )[ ]
S
TS TVP [– ADDTO ] TS
This scheme has only an explanatory function: it turns out to be very handy to use it
for organizing the presentation of some crucial notions in the compositional theory of
aspectuality we are going to present. We will use the scheme to discuss four important
issues:
the asymmetry involved in the scheme;
9 Of course, there are differences. At the technical level there is the difference between categories and
features but as observed in the thesis itself what was expressed generative-semantically could have been
expressed interpretatively in terms of features. Furthermore, the 1972-scheme served technically as a filter
to exclude certain transformations. Contentually the 1972-filter included also the indirect object, which we
leave outside our present scope. In spite of these differences, what is expressed by (1.20) is sufficiently
present in the 1972-book to justify (1.20) as a point of departure.
the distinction between inner and outer aspectuality it provokes;

the Plus-principle that is derived from it;
the construal of ontologically relevant classes that it implies.
In the next section we will discuss the asymmetry in some detail because it plays a
crucial role in the proper understanding of the quite different roles of the external and
the internal argument in aspect construal; as the asymmetry was given a central place in
the analysis as an answer to a certain development in the literature, we will also discuss
the issue of inner and outer aspectuality. The two remaining issues will be discussed in
subsequent sections.
1.4.2 Aspectual asymmetry and inner/outer aspectuality

Feature combinations soon have the appearance of an algebra: two elements combine
so as to form a unit which can be input to a new combination. So, immdediately the
question arises whether or not a feature algebra as applied to (1.20) should meet the
requirement of associativity. This question has been raised and answered with respect
to scheme (1.20) in Verkuyl 1993:20ff., so we will restrict ourselves here to a brief
recapitulation.
Translated into a linguistic structure, where we ignore the brackets marking the S
and the VP, the question boils down to the question of whether the [+ADDTO] in ate
would combine first with the [+SQA] of three sandwiches after which [+ADDTO]+[+SQA]
in ate three sandwiches combines with the [+SQA] in Judith, or that the [+ADDTO]+[+SQA]-
information in Judith ate might combine with the [+SQA] in three sandwiches as well.
Here something goes wrong: the combination Judith ate cannot be called [+T] at some
level of syntactic structure, because Judith ate is durative. This runs counter to what
is expressed by the feature system in (1.20): one cannot make a [+T] from a feature
combination containing a minus-feature. It is only plusses that can make another plus.
One minus is sufficient to obtain durativity.
In Verkuyl 1972, there was clearly asymmetry in the aspectual scheme, in the
sense that the Verb and its complements were grouped together. This was due to the
fact that the ties between the V and its complements were considered much closer
that those between the verb and its subject NP. However, in the seventies the idea of
asymmetry got more or less in the background because it seemed that the S-level was
more important for the determination of aspectuality than the VP-level. That is, the idea
became that aspectuality was determined at the S-level, VP-aspectuality being ignored
as an intermediate stage.
In the eighties, however, the idea of aspectual asymmetry became essential to the
present theory of compositionality, in the sense that it crucially incorporates the genera-
tive distinction between external and internal argument along the lines of Williams 1980;1981.
First of all, empirically this line of thought was supported by observations such as that
to run a mile as a VP meets the same aspectual criteria as John ran a mile, as shown in
(1.21).10
(1.21) a. run a mile in an hour; #run a mile for an hour
b. John ran a mile in an hour; #John ran a mile for an hour
Secondly, it was a strong disagreement with Lindstedt 1984 which induced the position
that each structurally formed level has its own form of aspectuality which differs from
any other level unless it could be proven that they are identical. Lindstedt’s idea can be
easily demonstrated by the following list which applies to Finnish data but which can
be explained in terms of the corresponding English translations.
(1.22) a. Pekka read the paper Imp
b. Pekka read the paper one hour Perf
c. Pekka read the paper one hour a day Imp
d. Pekka read the paper one hour a day a week Perf
e. ... Perf
In Finnish the sentence under analysis contained the NP lehteä (the paper) with geni-
tive case. This gives (1.22a) an Imperfective interpretation: ‘Pekka read in the paper
or Pekka was reading the paper’. The idea is that a strict : : :(Perf(Imp(Perf(Imp))))-
structure is imperative, the alternative being the sequence : : :(Perf(Imp(Perf(Imp(Perf))))).
For Verkuyl 1988, this sort of analysis was the reason to sharpen the distinction be-
tween inner and outer aspectuality, his position being that aspect formation in sen-
tences in Pekka read the paper is crucially different from what is achieved by adding
adverbials and other adjuncts, due to the fact that inner aspectuality is derived from
interaction between the verb and its arguments. So, here is the outline of the position
emerging:
1. inner aspectuality is the level of argument structure;
2. the VP as part of the argument structure has its own aspectual properties which
deviates from the aspectual properties displayed at the S-level.
The first point invokes the Plus-principe that we will discuss shortly. It puts the first
position to test. The second point incorporates the view that sentences with a plural
external argument have distributive interpretations and one can perceive easily that the
distribution is sensitive for aspectuality in a structural way. That is, in the distributive
interpretation of sentences like (1.23),
(1.23) a. Three girls ate a sandwich
b. Three girls broke a glass
the telicity/terminativity expressed by the VP is to be distributed over each of the girls.
We will discuss the two points in much more detail when proceeding. The aspectual
analysis of sentences like (1.22b), (1.22c), etc. is left aside until chapter 4
10 In Verkuyl 1993:23–27 a number of similar arguments are given from which the VP emerges as an
aspectually independent level.

1.4.3 The Plus-principle

The force of the scheme (1.20) however abbreviatory it is, consists in the prediction
that terminativity is the marked category. There are different roads leading to a durative
interpretation, there is only one way to get a terminative interpretation. Note that (1.20)
gives only four of the logically eight possibilities. If we were to include the indirect
object as participating in compositional construal, the terminative interpretation would
be the only plus-configuration out of sixteen, as discussed in Verkuyl 1972:105 with
respect to sentences like (1.24).
(1.24) a. Den Uyl handed out the Labour Party badge to a congress-goer
b. Den Uyl handed out Labour Party badges to a congress-goer
c. Den Uyl handed out the Labour Party badge to congress-goers
Here only (1.24a) is terminative on the basis of a [+SQA]-specification of all three NPs,
all other possibilities containing a minus value.
One should not overestimate the importance of the Plus-principle, but ever since
its existence in the eighties it has shown a methodological force which makes it a useful
tool in deciding about the solution of empirical problems that show up. A point in case
is the treatment of sentences like John pushed the cart where the Plus-principle fails
to give the right prediction. So, it requires a solution on the penalty of loosing the
attraction which it displays in the case of (1.20). We refer to the solution proposed in
Verkuyl 1993. Here it suffices to observe that verbs like push are neither [+ADDTO]
nor [ ADDTO], but give away a more complex argument structure, the lexical verb
push being analyzed as ‘give push(es) to’. In other words, push the cart has a more
complex argument structure than eat a sandwich or walk a mile.
We are demonstrating the force of a principle here rather than analyzing empirical
data. So, we feel free to give another possible problem for the Plus-principle in order
to show how it blocks the way for lukewarm adaptions. Consider English sentences
like (1.25) and Russian sentences like (1.26).
(1.25) a. For an hour Mary lifted tables
b. # For an hour Mary began to lift tables
(1.26) a. Miša kuril (sigaretu)

Miša smoked (a cigarette)
Miša was smoking
b. Miša zakuril (sigaretu)
Miša za-smoked (a cigarette)
Miša started smoking
c. Miša kuril sigaretu s čas
#Miša zakuril sigaretu s čas
The durative English sentence Mary lifted tables and the imperfective Russian sentence
(1.26a) are compatible with durational adverbials like for an hour and s čas. However,
as soon as one adds an aspectualizer in English or a perfective prefix in Russian, the
situation changes drastically: the resulting sentences no longer are compatible with a
durational adverbial as shown in (1.25b) and (1.26c). So, here again the Plus-Principle
warns against an unprincipled solution. It suggests that aspectualizers and the per-
fective prefix in this interpretation do not belong to the argument structure but rather
operate on it. Indeed in chapter 3 we will present a solution for aspectualizers and
Slavic prefixes expressing a beginning in terms of a modification on the predicational
Path.
Summarizing, we have illustrated how a feature-algebraic mechanism leads to the
position that terminativity as expressed by sentences like Judith ate three sandwiches
in (1.20a) is construed on the basis of plus-information only. The principle is restricted
to a certain area of inner aspectuality, but it protects the analysis of aspectuality against
arbitrary choices: begin and za- turn out to behave like operators on structures that
obey the Plus-principle rather than being part of them.
1.4.4 The construal of aspectual classes:

As a notational abbreviatory variant of underlying semantic operations, the feature-
system has a very fruitful consequence which can be demonstrated with the help of
Figure 1.5. The algebra unifies verbal and nominal information. In Figure 1.5, the V
[-SQA ] [+SQA ]
NP
States Processes Events
V
[– ADD TO ] [+ADD TO ]
Figure 1.5: Three compositionally formed aspectual categories
and the NP determine the parameters. On the basis of possible feature-combinations

classes can be construed as demonstrated in Table 1.4 and in the sentences in (1.27).
[ ADDTO] + [ SQA] ) State

[ ADDTO] + [+SQA] ) State
[+ADDTO] + [ SQA] ) Process
[+ADDTO] + [+SQA] ) Event
Table 1.4: Construal of the three classes
+
(1.27) a. Judith loved sandwiches State
+ +
b. Judith wanted a sandwich State
+ +
c. Judith ate sandwiches Process
+ + +
d. Judith ate three sandwiches Event
In the literature, this tripartition has been put forward, e.g. in Comrie 1976, Mourelatos 1978,
Bach 1981, among others. It runs counter to the bipartition found in Kamp and Reyle 1993,
de Swart 1995;1996 , among others. Evidently the present authors did not play on the
same side of the field. At this stage we shall not speak out on what we agree on. Here
it suffices to observe that whatever Figure 1.5 and Table 1.4 express, they offer the
possibility that it is the VP rather than the S that is said to pertain to States, Processes
or Events. So, they do not speak out on whether or not the external argument is to
be excluded. Never did Verkuyl so far, due to his reluctance to meddle in ontological
questions. In her analysis of tense, De Swart ended up in treating Processes as States.
In Chapter 4 we will pick up this theme again, observing that Figure 1.5 and Table 1.4
give away our view that it is language which determines ontological choices. To cloth
information in the form of (1.27c) indicates that one wants to speak about something
that Judith did (in principle) unboundedly, whereas by the choice of the determiner a in
(1.27d) a speaker presents the information as pertaining to a bounded event. We have
seen that the two sentences may be true in a domain of interpretation.
1.5 How terminative is perfectivity?

1.5.1 Aspectual operators
In the present section, we will set out to generalize over several languages with respect
to their aspectual behaviour. The now aspectual standard tests with for an hour and in
an hour apply in a large number of languages, but in each of the languages the factors
involved in the test are encoded differently. Thus, in Dutch determiners play a role
in aspectual composition, whereas in Finnish it is case which is deeply involved. In
Slavic it is the prefix of a verb which is part of the compositional machinery, whereas
in French part of the tense information plays a crucial role. We will try and generalize
over these languages with a view on the tree in Figure 1.1, focussing on the question
about why we should need an aspectual operator ASP . We will first argue that we
need the ASP -operator in order to generalize over Slavic and Germanic sentences.
Our next step is to draw Finnish data into the picture arguing for another aspectual
operator between the V and the internal argument NP. This move enables us to make
the Plus-principle more interesting by showing that it really works fine-grainedly in
the domain of the VP itself. At that point, we shall present the view that the tree in
Figure 1.1 if (at least) extended to Figure 1.6 may unify the languages under analysis
on the assumption that languages can pick out certain positions from the set of aspectual
ASP -positions available, dependent on the linguistic means they employ to govern the
relation between the verb and its arguments.
1.5.2 Comparing Slavic and Germanic sentences.

Our attempt to generalize over Slavic and Germanic languages raises intriguing ques-
tions with respect to the following sentences.
(1.28) a. #John drank two beers for about an hour
b. #Ivan vypil dva piva s čas
1.5. HOW TERMINATIVE IS PERFECTIVITY? 23
::: S
ASP S
NPext VP0
ASP VP
V NP/PP
ASP NPint
Det N
Figure 1.6: ASP -positions
(1.29) a. John drank two beers in an hour

b. Ivan vypil dva piva za čas
(1.30) a. John was drinking/drank beer for an hour

b. Ivan pil dva piva s ças
(1.31) a. ?John was drinking/drank beer in an hour

b. ?Ivan pil pivo za ças
One question is: how can sentences in the two languages express the same information
with respect to the aspectual standard test, if they do not do this in the same way?
It was obvious for the traditional Slavic scholars discussed above that the perfective
prefix vy- in the b-sentences of (1.28) and (1.29) should be held responsible for the
semantic anomaly of (1.28b) and for the well-formedness of (1.29b) and in fact it is
still obvious for the large majority of present-day scholars. However, it is as obvious
for Western scholars that the terminative nature of the corresponding a-sentences is due
to the compositional machinery discussed above. So the question is allowed whether
the situation in Slavic languages should perhaps be described differently.
Let us first show that terminativity is not identical to perfectivity. This can be
achieved by looking at the following analysis of the Slavic data. To begin with, there
are cases like (1.32) in which all constituents have plus-values, whereas (1.32a) is
durative/imperfective and (1.32b) terminative/perfective.
(1.32) a. On čital etu knigu
He Imp-read this book
[+SQA] [[+ADD TO] [+SQA]]
b. On pročital etu knigu
He Perf-read this book
[+SQA] [[+ADD TO] [+SQA]]
Secondly, sentences like (1.33) and (1.34) discussed in Młynarczyk 1998 show that
both the imperfective and the perfective forms of a verb may occur in the scope of
negation:
(1.33) Przez lata nie czytał zadnej ksiażek
-long/for years neg Perf-read-3sg no book-Gen
(1.34) Przez lata nie przeczytał ani jednej ksiażki-Acc.

-long/for years neg Perf-read-3sg not even one books
Sentence (1.33) means that for years it was the case that he did not read books, whereas
(1.34) expresses that for years he did not read a single book. The important thing to
note in this connection is that both (1.35a) and (1.35b) are durative.
(1.35) a. Przez lata nie czytał zadnej ksiażek
b. Przez lata nie przeczytał zadnej ksiażki
This is shown by the fact that they have the same behaviour in the For-test in (1.33)
and in the In-test in (1.36).
(1.36) a. ?W rok nie czytał zadnej ksiażek
b. ?W rok nie przeczytał ani jednej ksiażki
This is a very strong indication for the need to distinguish between terminativity and
perfectivity. However, it should be observed that this does not imply that there is no
overlap between the two notions. In other words, Germanic languages have a termi-
native VP generally without a prefix on the verb to mark this. In Slavic languages a
perfective prefix might be seen as encoding terminativity plus information concerning
definiteness or specificity, which in Germanic languages is expressed by the deter-
miner of the internal argument. One might argue that under negation the terminative
part of this information would in Slavic languages be neutralized as it is in Germanic
languages, the definiteness or specificity information being retained. We offer this sug-
gestion here as part of our strategy to accept the distinction between aspect and Aktion-
sart only when necessary and certainly not along the lines of the traditional distinction
discussed above.
A third consideration suggesting that one cannot simply equate Germanic termi-
nativity in Germanic languages with perfectivity in Slavic languages is induced by the
observation that in the absence of the determiner the NP pivo (beer) is marked as [–
SQA ]. A problem arises because the sentence (1.37b) means that John drank the beer.
(1.37) a. Ivan vypil dva piva

[+SQA] [[+ADDTO] [+SQA]]
b. ?Ivan vypil pivo
[+SQA] [[+ADDTO] [ SQA]]
Here the feature-system employed could be argued, in the absence of a determiner,
to assign a [ SQA]-specification to pivo whereas a [+SQA]-specification would be re-
quired.
The presence of vy- imposes a definite interpretation on the internal argument NP.
This point has been stressed by several authors, for example by Dahl 1984, Kabakčiev 1984,1989
and Filip 1994. For Czech Filip 1994:229 presents examples like (1.38).
(1.38) a. Pletla vetry
Imp-knitted-sg-fem sweaters-pl-Acc
‘She was knitting sweaters’
b. U-pletla vetry
Perf-knitted-sg-fem sweaters-pl-Acc
‘She knitted (all) the sweaters’
Here the perfective prefix u- contributes the sense of ”all-ness” and specificity of the
set of sweaters. Filip compares the effect of the presence of the prefix u- to the use of
the definite article in definite descriptions.
The idea that the perfective prefix in Russian and Czech restricts options made
possible by the absence of an overt determiner is confirmed by Bulgarian sentences
like (1.39), Bulgarian having a definite article suffixed to the Noun kafe as pointed out
in Guentcheva 1990.
(1.39) a. Az izpix kafe
I Perf-drank coffee
b. Az izpix kafeto
I Perf-drank coffee-the
‘I drank the coffee’
The definite article is required given the presence of the perfective prefix iz-. Bulgarian
is among the Slavic languages an important member from the point of view of aspec-
tual composition: it expresses perfectivity and imperfectivity just like the other Slavic
languages, but it is the only Slavic language having a definite article. By its presence
one can see formally what remains invisible in Russian cases like (1.37b).
The presence of vy- should be explained in a more general way, because Russian
has determiners like dva (two), tri (three), etc, nekiy (some, a certain), koy-kako’y
(some, a few) which are involved in the making of the [+ SQA]-feature information.
One option is that the tenseless (1.40)
(1.40) Ivan -pit’ dva piva
is terminative in the way of its Germanic counterpart, dva piva being [+SQA], and that
vy- is simply added to the verb stem as some sort of warrant, whereas the Imp-operator
(or, for that matter, the absence of vy-) would modify the terminative nature of (1.40) in
the same way as the Progressive Form in English in the b-sentence of (1.41) modifies
the terminative nature of its a-sentence.
(1.41) a. John was crossing the street
b. John crossed the street
We will pursue this line of thought concluding that the presence of the perfective prefix
has structurally something to do with information about the internal argument NP. This
was clearly shown by the two sentences in (1.35) which display a clear difference in
interpretation: the (1.35a)-part of (1.33) simply expresses that the speaker wants to
remain neutral with respect to the situation reported by the sentence. The (1.35b)-part
of (1.34) stresses the fact that the person in question did not read a single book in spite
of the fact that he could have done that. The presence of the perfective prefix prze-
gives away the singling out of a specified quantity. This can be explained by assuming
a structural relation between the perfective prefix and the internal argument.
It should be observed at this point that it is not right to speak about the perfective
prefix in sentences like (1.37) Ivan vypil dva piva. For Czech, Filip 1994:231 points out
that the two perfective prefixes in (1.42b,c) have different effects on the interpretation
of the sentences.
(1.42) a. Pil kavu
Imp-drink-sg-masc coffee-Acc
‘He was drinking coffee’
b. Na-pil se kavy
Perf-drink-sg-masc refl coffee-Gen
‘He drank some coffee’
c. U-pil kavu
Perf-drink-sg-masc coffee-Acc
‘He drank a sip of coffee’
d. Vy-pil kavu
Perf-drink-sg-masc coffee-Acc
‘He drank all the coffee’
The use of na in (1.42b) restricts the interpretation of the internal argument NP to an
indefinite specified quantity ‘some’, whereas u- in (1.42c) imposes the more specific
interpretation of a small portion of the noun set denotation. Finally, vy- in (1.42d)
contributes the set of universal quantification and a sense of definiteness.
Two sorts of idiosyncrasies should be observed. Firstly, the use of the genitive
does not seem to bear on the absence or presence of perfective prefixes. Filip observes,
for example, that in (1.42c) the accusative kavu could be replaced by the genitive kavy
without any change of meaning. Secondly, the prefix u- in (1.42c) has clearly a different
contribution to make than in (1.38b), so one may assume that the choice of the verb
stem also determines the effect of the perfective prefix on the internal argument.
Summarizing, we may say that there are reasons to assume that the perfective and
imperfective operators can be seen as applying to the taking of the internal argument by
the verb. In this sense they overtly contribute to the making of the VP what in Germanic
languages (mostly) takes place without an appeal to morphological encoding. More-
over they contribute to the interpretation of the NP in the absence of quantificational
or referential information. So essentially, Imp and Perf may be seen as VP-operators
in Slavic languages. Before we try to characterize the semantic side of this idea, let us
first pay attention to structural matters. Where do we locate these aspectual operators?
Two proposals have been made to that effect. The first one is Verkuyl’s analysis in
(1.43).
(1.43) [Ivan [V P [V vyi [V stem -pil]][NP [Det ei ] [pivo]]]]
This expresses the idea that vy- in (1.37b) Ivan vypil pivo is in fact the determiner of the
NP pivo. It presumes a movement of the determiner to the prefix position. The other
position is adopted in Dimitrova-Vulchanova 1996. It assumes that iz- in the Bulgarian
sentence (1.44a) is a predicate of a small clause.
(1.44) a. Ivan izpija dve biri
Ivan Perf-drank two beers
b. [Ivan -pija[sc [dve biri][iz]]]
The first position presents some difficulties that are made visible in Figure 1.7. Figure 1.7a
VP VP [+T
VP ]
V NP 2 Perf VP [+T
VP ]
Perf V stem V stem NP 2

(a) (b)
Figure 1.7: Two ways of analyzing a perfective prefix
indeed gives the position of (1.43). The perfective prefix is sent from NP2 to its place
adjoined to the V-stem. But in this position it fails to account satisfactorily for the
relation between the V and the NP2 : it cannot be said to govern the process of amalga-
mation. Figure 1.7b, on the other hand, has a better structural position to offer for Perf.
It governs the lower VP in the sense that it operates on the information conveyed by its
sister node. It provides the quantificational plus-value at the upper VP-level requiring
that the NP2 be interpreted as [+SQA] in Slavic languages as Russian and Polish or
requiring it by the presence of the definite article as in the Bulgarian sentence (1.39b).
We will opt for the option provided by Figure 1.7b rejecting the option in (1.44b) on
the ground that a small clause analysis cannot explain why the Bulgarian sentence Az
izpix kafe (lit. I Perf-drank coffee) is unwellformed and the Russian sentence (1.37b)
is only well-formed in the interpretation that Ivan drank the beer. In other words, an
appeal to (1.44b) requires for these cases the stipulation that the subject of the small
clause be [+SQA]. Note that this stipulation is local in the sense that the process of
putting iz- into the right place is not governed at the level at which the verb and its
internal argument come together.
The presence of a perfective operator in a position governing the whole VP-domain
is very much compatible with the fact that in Slavic languages there are also verbs
which are considered perfective without having a perfective prefix, as in (1.45).
(1.45) a. Toj kupi edno kušta Bulgarian
‘He bought one house’
b. Dał pieć kanapek Polish
‘He gave five sandwiches’
c. On izdal pyat’ knigi Russian
‘He published five books’
In all these cases the imperfective counterparts have an infix: kupuvaše, dawał, and
izdawal, respectively.
In order to get the picture clear, we will assume that the internal structure of a
VP in Slavic languages can be defined as in Figure 1.8. One drawback of this picture
VP VP
PERF VP IMP VP
V NP 2 V NP 2
Affix V stem Affix V stem

(a) (b)
Figure 1.8: Perf and Imp as operators
is that Affix should be interpreted as the presence of a prefix, infix or suffix. So, its
structural position in front of the Vstem should be modified in this sense. For the im-
perfective operator IMP there are, in principle, two possibilities when the Verb itself
is [+ADDTO]. The first one is that the Verb combines with a [+ SQA]-NP to yield a
[+TVP ]-interpretation at the lower level VP which is to be undone by the IMP-operator.
The second one is that the Verb combines with a [ SQA]-NP to yield a [ TVP ]-
interpretation at the lower level VP which is transmitted to a [ TVP ]-interpretation
at the higher level VP by the IMP-operator. We will return to this matter later on. As
to the Perf-operator we observe that, dependent on the lexical nature of the [+ADDTO]-
Verb, the V has a perfective prefix (as vy- in vypit’) or not (as in kupit’) and that the NP
should have a [+SQA]-specification. In order to see how this is obtained, we need to go
into the internal structure of the NP.
1.5.3 Thematic glue

In view of the need to get a clear picture of the interaction between the verb and its
internal argument NP, it is necessary to go into the internal argument of the NP. In
Verkuyl and van der Does 1996 it is argued that the structure in Figure 1.9 can be used
to provide for the main idea guiding us, namely that the Det can be split up into a part
which gives the quantificational information and a part in which the definiteness of
the NP is decided upon. The quantificational information is represented here simply
by j:j, roughly indicating cardinality information about the Noun set, whereas Def is
actualized as an article in English, or French, but not in Russian. Consider the following
cases:
(1.46) a. a child –Def [SG = 1] child
b. the children +Def [PL 2] child
c. some children –Def [PL 1] child
d. the next three children +Def [Mod next][PL = 3] child
e. at least three children –Def [Mod at least][PL = 3] child
NP
Det2 N
Spec Det1
Def (Mod) Det0
j:j
Figure 1.9: NP structure
The leading idea is that an NP like a child in (1.46) receives its indefiniteness from
the SPEC-part of the Det2 -node and its singular information from the Det0 -part, the nu-
meral SG being interpreted as providing the information that in the set denoted by child
a singleton will be selected. By the indefiniteness feature of Spec this singleton is not
identified but rather introduced into the discourse along the lines of current Discourse
Representation Theory. In the children the collection of sets containing two or more
children is intersected with a context set in the sense of Westerståhl 1984, yielding
a definite set identified by discourse. The NP some children in (1.46c) in the well-
known sm-interpretation selects among sets of children meeting the quantificational
requirement 1. In (1.46d) the modifier next provides specific context-dependent in-
formation useful in the selection of the proper set containing three children. Note that
the at least-meaning can also be accounted for in terms of modification, as shown in
(1.46e).
We have discussed the NP-structure in some detail in order to prepare for our
discussion on Finnish case and on strategies used in Germanic languages in order to
bring about the same sort of information. In order to complete the picture we need to
embark fruitfully on issues of Finnish, we will briefly discuss the notion of thematic
role as applied to the internal argument. We will refer to this role as the int - or
simply -role. It is illustrated in Figure 1.10, where provides the information about
VP
V PP/NP
NP
Det N
Spec Det
Def j:j
Figure 1.10: -role information
the contribution of the NP to its thematic role in the predication.

In Verkuyl 1993:298–316 attention was paid to the question of how to deal with
sentences like (1.47) in the context of the question of how to match the type-logical
properties of the internal argument NP with those of the verb.
(1.47) a. Jan liep naar de winkel
John walked toward the store
b. Jan liep tot de winkel
John walked to the store
This question boils down to asking how de winkel (the shop) denoting an atemporal
semantic object can be “drawn into” temporal structure. Recall that Figure 1.3 poses
the same question with respect to sentences like Judith ate four sandwiches. So, it
seems not unreasonable to try and find an answer covering both cases. This can be
achieved by assuming that between the V and the atemporal NP is a sort of thematic
glue, clearly dependent on the lexical information provided by the verb and pertaining
to the information about how much of the NP-denotation is involved in the predication.
In Dutch it is clear that John reached the shop in (1.47b), whereas in (1.47a) it is left in
the dark whether or not he actually reached it. Consider also cases like (1.48).
(1.48) a. Judith at een boterham
Judith ate a sandwich
b. Judith at van een boterham
Judith ate from a sandwich
Here it is obvious that in (1.48a) Judith went through the whole process of eating a
sandwich, whereas in (1.48b) she ate only a proper subpart of it. The same applies to
Dutch sentences like (1.49).
(1.49) a. Hugo schoot een bok
Hugo shot a stag
b. Hugo schoot op een bok
Hugo shot at a stag
In giving these examples we have exemplified the values of in Figure 1.10. We will
distinguish between (a) = (in (1.47b), (1.48a) and (1.49a)); (b) (in (1.47a)); and (c)
(in (1.48b) and (1.49b)). The precise interpretation of these set-theoretical symbols
will be given later on. Here their intuitive sense of completeness, indeterminateness
and incompleteness will be sufficiently clear.
The idea of assigning a thematic role to a preposition that lexically provides infor-
mation about the Path of the predication and that expressed one of the three options,
seems workable. Also, the idea that in VPs lacking such a preposition the same se-
mantic role may be assumed in the form of an abstract operator on the Prep-position,
doesn’t seem unreasonable either. Yet, we do not pretend to present a complete anal-
ysis here and we leave open the possibility that solutions for Germanic languages do
not apply to the other languages under consideration. It is only after considering the
different languages and comparing them as to how they express the same sort of in-
formation that we can decide on the merits of the solution suggested by structures as
those in Figure 1.10. For example, the treatment of Finnish data in the next section will
suggest that it might be necessary to extend Figure 1.10. So, we simply postpone the
final evaluation of the ideas exemplified here until we have a full picture of the Slavic,
Finnish, Germanic and Romance data.
1.5.4 The Finnish case

In the aspectual literature, the relevance of Finnish has been acknowledged at least
since the twenties of this century. Verkuyl 1972 discussed some examples from Jacobsohn 1933:301,
who took sentences like (1.50) clearly as an indication that non-Slavic languages may
express aspectuality.
(1.50) b. Hän rakensi taloa
He built house-Part
‘He built at a house/worked on a house’
a. Hän rakensi talon
He built house-Acc
‘He built a/the house’
The verb form rakensi is not aspectually marked as its Russian counterpart postróil is
by the presence of po-, it is rather the difference between the partitive and the accusative
case which brings (1.50a) and (1.50b) into the two groups collected in (1.51).
(1.51) a. On stróil dom
He was building a house
Hän rakensi taloa
b. On postróil dom
He built a house
Hän rakensi talon
The sentences in (1.50a) are all durative/imperfective, those in (1.50b) terminative/perfective.
Note that Finnish and English do not mark the verb to make this difference. Note also
that Finnish does not have an article. So it needs some help from noun morphology.
Let us first show that Finnish sentences such as (1.50) are relevant in the present
context. In Lindstedt 1984 sentences like (1.52) are discussed together with one of the
appropriate aspectual tests:
(1.52) a. Korjasin radioni
I repaired my radio-Acc
I repaired my radio
b. Korjasin radiotani
I repaired my radio-Part
I was repairing my radio
(1.53) a. #Korjasin radioni tunnin
I repaired my radio-Acc for an hour
I repaired my radio for an hour
b. Korjasin radiotani tunnin
I repaired my radio-Part for an hour
I was repairing my radio for an hour
This shows that Jacobsohn’s point was correct. More recently, Kiparsky 1998 paid
attention to the Partitive case in Finnish from the point of view of its contribution to the
aspectuality of sentences. In the present section, we will discuss some of his examples
and use them to refine the picture of the internal VP-structure. We give the examples
and the glosses exactly as he gives them:
(1.54) a. Ammu-i-n karhu-a /kah-ta karhu-a= karhu-j-a

shoot-Pst-1sg bear-Part=two-Part bear-Part= bear-Pl-Part
I shot at the (a) bear/ at (the) two bears/ at (the) bears
b. Ammu-i-n karhu-n /kak-si karhu-a= karhu-t
shoot-Pst-1sg bear-Acc=two-Acc bear-Part=bear-Pl-Acc
I shot the (a) bear/ two bears/ the bears
(1.55) a. Saa-n #karhu-a /#kah-ta karhu-a= karhu-j-a

get-Pst-1sg bear-Part=two-Part bear-Part= bear-Pl-Part
I’ll get the (a) bear/ at (the) two bears/ at (the) bears
b. Saa-n karhu-n /kak-si karhu-a= karhu-t
gt-Pst-1sg bear-Acc=two-Acc bear-Part=bear-Pl-Acc
I’ll get the (a) bear/ two bears/ the bears
(1.56) a. Etsi-n karhu-a /kah-ta karhu-a= karhu-j-a

seek-Pst-1sg bear-Part=two-Part bear-Part= bear-Pl-Part
I’m looking for the (a) bear/ at (the) two bears/ at (the) bears
b. Etsi-n #karhu-n /#kak-si karhu-a=# karhu-t
seek-Pst-1sg bear-Acc=two-Acc bear-Part=bear-Pl-Acc
I’m looking for the (a) bear/ two bears/ the bears
The internal arguments being constant in (1.54) – (1.56), Kiparsky distinguishes be-
tween three verb classes on the ground of the differences marked by #. Thus, verbs
like saada (get) do allow for the partitive case only if the internal argument has a bare
plural. By contrast, verbs like etsiä (seek) cannot have accusative case: they need the
partitive. The verb ampua (shoot, shoot at) does not have any restriction of this sort.
Kiparsky observes that a sentence like (1.57) has three readings.
(1.57) Ammuin karhuja
a. I shot at the bears
b. I shot bears
c. I shot at bears
From the examples in (1.57) one may derive that if Kiparsky’s observation is correct in
the sense that none of the three readings is marginal, then it follows straightforwardly
that Figure 1.10 is not sufficient to deal with them. The at-readings a and c could be
dealt with by or , but for the analysis of (1.57b) one cannot appeal to Fig-
ure 1.10. Moreover, one should be able to explain why Saan karhuja (I ’ll get bears) in
(1.55a) is allowed, whereas the other partitive cases are not allowed. Furthermore, the
unacceptability of Etsin karhut in (1.56b) must be explained as well as well as the fact
that neither the other accusative forms are allowed. We will try and solve this problem
by extending Figure 1.10 into Figure 1.11.
VP
V PP/NP
CaseAcc=P art PP/NP
NP
Det N
Spec Det
Def j:j
Figure 1.11: Case information
Suppose that the case-operator CaseAcc requires that whatever is contributed as

the internal NP denotation should be affected totally. That is, CaseAcc is the instruction
to complete the Path. As such it is an instruction involving the Verb-information: in
terms of Figure 1.3b on page 15, Accusative requires that the arrow be followed up to
the end of what is offered by the NP: whatever is made available is fully affected by the
dynamics of the Verb. This would explain why Ammuin karhut in (1.54b) means ‘I shot
the bears’ and not ‘I shot bears’: a bare plural would run counter to the idea of a finite
partition of the set of bears, the essence of bare plurals being that no such partition is
available. The thematic role is to be taken as = , which forces karhut into applying
to a set of bears not only identifiable by the previous discourse or by the context but
also partition-able as was the set of four sandwiches in our example above. What we
see here is an interaction between CaseAcc and = . One might say that on the CaseAcc
side of this interaction full commitment as to the truth of Ammuin karhut with respect
to the full Path is required, whereas the = side contributes the sense of completeness
of the [+SQA]-information: the NP “gives all it has available’.
As for CaseP art , one could say that it invokes the same sort of determinacy as the
Accusative, only the Verb dynamics should be restricted to a proper subpart of what
is expressed under total affectedness: the Path is not affected completely. This means
that the use of CaseP art in (1.57) warrants the predication with respect to at least some
entities of the internal NP denotation: they are tied up to the Path. We shall associate
Part with the proper subset sign in the intuitively clear sense of incompleteness.
If this is the essence of the contribution of Case to the interpretation of the aspec-
tual VP-information, then one predicts that the proper analysis of the triple ambiguity
of (1.57) follows from an insight into the possible combinations of Case and . We
end up with Table 1.5, which contains the relevant combinatorial possibilities. That
is, one could argue that = requires the whole NP being available for the predication,
that provides a sense of indeterminacy and that expresses a sense of incom-
Case Thematic role Finnish English

Acc= = Ammuin karhut I shot the bears
Part = Ammuin karhuja I shot bears
Part Ammuin karhuja I shot at bears
Part Ammuin karhuja I shot at the bears
Table 1.5: The interaction between Case and
pleteness.11 Given the proper subset specification for CaseP art the interpretation of
Ammuin karhuja brings about the existence of entities affected by the predicate. So,
I shot bears. This warrant cannot be given in the case of , which on our analysis
provides indeterminacy. Note that the definiteness or indefiniteness does not of any in-
fluence on this indeterminacy, just like the fact that we speak about the school in John
walked toward the school does not bear on the indeterminacy of what has taken place.
The present analysis also explains why Ammuin karhua with Partitive case for the
internal argument cannot mean ‘I shot a bear’ and why Ammuin kahta karhua can-
not mean ‘I shot two bears’. CaseP art operates on cardinality information by “taking
away” some part of a larger whole. But in the case of a bear one cannot partition the
cardinality 1 and taking away a part from a set of two entities does not guarantee that
one obtains a proper partition. In general, CaseP art may not affect quantificational
information expressed by Det0 because it is not sensitive to the nature of the entities
quantified over. It is neutral as to Mass or Noun.
From this analysis it follows that in cases where the verb is not [+ADDTO] the use
of the Partitive case should be okay, as in (1.56a). If CaseAcc is taken to operate on the
Det0 -information of the internal NP, then the unacceptability of (1.56b) follows too.
1.6 Plurality and aspectuality

1.6.1 Some difficult questions
Ontological questions are extremely difficult if not unsolvable. Consider the following
triple:
(1.58) a. Peter warned him three times
b. What Peter did was to warn him three times
c. What Peter did three times was to warn him
If a speaker says (1.58a), we may paraphrase that sentence both as (1.58b) and (1.58c).
It would be very nice if we could discern quite distinct situations connected with these
paraphrases: in the case of (1.58b) Peter repeated himself in one and the same situation,
in (1.58c) Peter gave his warning on three clearly different occasions. In that case
(1.58b) would pertain to one event with three sub-events, whereas (1.58c) would pertain
11 We do not exclude the possibility of just having covering all three possibilities.
1.6. PLURALITY AND ASPECTUALITY 35
to three events. However, we cannot commit ourselves to the existence of such a clear-
cut distinction here, because the notion of event itself is quite obscure. May an event
spread out over three different days? May three times quantify over sub-events?
The same sort of difficult questions pop up as soon as the external argument of a
sentence is a plural NP such as given in (1.59).
(1.59) a. Three girls lifted a table
b. John and Mary walked three miles
c. Ivan i Maria napisali pismo
Ivan and Mary Perf-wrote a letter
Suppose that (1.59a) applies to a situation in which three tables were lifted. In other
words, each of the girls lifted her own table. Note that it is not necessary that they were
in the same room. They may have done what they did without having any knowledge
of each other. Do we speak about one event with three subevents? Or do we speak
about three events?
We consider these questions as irrelevant to a proper analysis of what is expressed
by the sentences in (1.59). Whatever is a proper ontological answer, at least what
should be observed is that the VP lift a table plays an important role because one may
say that each of the girls “had her own VP”. In more technical terms this amounts to
saying that each of the girls has her own predicational Path in the sense informally
introduced above. There is some interpretation in which Mary’s part in the walking is
complementary to what John walked within the total sum of three miles, but we will put
this interpretation aside here, because it will be discussed shortly in the next section.
On the interpretation that (1.59) is about six miles, both John and Mary undergo the
predication ‘walk three miles’. In the same way, Ivan and Mary both completed the
same letter or both Ivan completed a letter and Mary completed a letter, but if the
sentence applies to two letters it is excluded that Ivan completed his letter whereas
Mary did not, or reversely. So the information expressed by na- is distributed over the
two members of the external argument denotation.
We will take these facts as strong signal that a theory of aspectuality should include
a proper treatment of plural quantification. It should be noted that in sentences like
(1.60),
(1.60) Some girl lifted three tables
there is no need to distribute over the girls: the sentence is about three tables that were
lifted by some girls. Likewise in sentences such as (1.61),
(1.61) Three girls lifted four tables
each of the girls underwent the predication ‘lift three tables’, whereas it is impossible to
say of the tables that each of them is related to a different set of four girls. This shows
the asymmetry in the behaviour of the external argument and the internal argument.
In view of these observations, it is necessary to pay some attention to the distinction
between collectivity and distributivity.
1.6.2 Collectivity and distributivity

Let us consider some of the sentences discussed above in more detail and focus on what
is taking place in the interpretation. We compare the following of sentences in order to
create a precise though informal picture postponing precise definitions up to chapter 3.
(1.62) Dist Coll
a. Three girls lifted four tables 3 4 = 12 14=4
b. Four girls lifted a table 41=4 11=1
c. Some girl lifted four tables 14=4 14=4
d. The twelve passengers killed a villain 12 1 = 12 11=1
e. Hans and Uwe wrote a book about DRT 21=2 11=1
We will say that all sentences in (1.62) allow for two distinct interpretations which we
will call distributive and collective. Not in all cases distributivity can have the same
form. Sentence (1.62c) shows that distributivity over a singleton set is the trivial ap-
plication of an operation that basically presumes plural cardinality. The two columns
behind the sentences display important information. What we obtain as the result of in-
terpreting (1.62a) distributively is the total sum of 12 tables, as there are twelve villains
in (1.62d) and two books in (1.62e). In all cases, the distributive interpretation amounts
to multiples of the quantificational information expressed by the internal argument as
determined by the quantificational value of the external argument. In the collective
cases, the total amount is equal to what is expressed by the internal argument. This
means that distributivity crucially involves a dependency relation between the external
argument and the internal argument. We shall show shortly that the distributive multi-
plication is more complex than we presented here, but for the moment the description
of the arithmetics involved gives a correct picture. Basically, what happens seems to
be governed by the law of distributivity as exemplified in (1.63).
(1.63) 3 girls lifted 4 tables = : : : =
girl1 lifted 4 tables + girl2 lifted 4 tables + girl3 lifted 4 tables
We see that the semantic value of lifted four tables is taken as a factor in a multiplication
as in (1.64) which is subjected to the law of distributivity.
(1.64) 3 4 = (2 4) + (1 4) = (1 4) + (1 4) + (1 4)
In (1.62a) the factor is offered as in 3 4 but this secures the interpretation in which
the factor is spelled out. It is also important to see that the law of distributivity operates
asymmetrically in (1.63). That is, it does not obey the commutative law as (1.64) does.
This is an empirical fact due to the important role of the VP in the interpretation. It
operates as a factor. To encode this role, the VP forms a structural unit and this blocks
commutativity.
The collective interpretation abstracts from the quantificational information con-
veyed by the external argument: it secures a 14-operation in the case of (1.62) which
amounts to saying that the external argument denotation is taken as a whole with re-
spect to the information expressed by the VP. The collective interpretation comes out
very clearly in sentences like (1.65).
(1.65) a. The twelve passengers killed that villain
b. Hans and Uwe wrote that book about DRT
Here it is impossible to have a distributive interpretation unless we are talking about

that villain and that book about DRT as a type analogous to our use of the NP that
computer in sentences like (1.66).
(1.66) I saw that computer in at least ten offices here in the building
So, in principle the easiest way to think about the distributive and collective interpreta-
tion is to assign both to any sentence and leave it to the context or to a particular choice
of referring elements to exclude one of them. If one follows such a line of thought
and one would attempt to describe the relation between the external argument denota-
tion and the VP, Figure 1.12 would illustrate the functional machinery involved with
respect to (1.62a). If one calls the function regulating the relation between the exter-
g1 - 4t 1 g1
- 4t q- 4t
g2 2 g2
1
g3 - 4t 3 g3
(a) : -injective (b) : -constant
Figure 1.12: Two functional modes
nal argument denotation (a set of individuals) and the VP-denotation (a set of factors)
, one may say that the distributive interpretations are governed by taken as an in-
jection, whereas the collective interpretations are determined by taken as a constant
function.12
We can now characterize more precisely what it means for a sentence like (1.62a)
to have a distributive interpretation. One can say that each of the girls receives “her
own VP-value”, in the sense that each of the three VP-denotations involved must be
different from one another. This requirement follows from the injectivity constraint on
. As to the collective interpretation one may say that all girls are mapped to the same
VP-value which amounts to saying that none of the participants in the external argu-
ment denotation may claim the satisfaction of whole predicate for herself. In Hitch-
cock’s movie Murder on the Orient Express the twelve participants all contributed to
the killing but their explicit purpose was to escape from the judgment they they as an
individual should be tried as in individual satisfying the predication ‘I have killed that
villain’. Neither Hans nor Uwe may claim ‘I wrote that book on DRT’ on the collective
interpretation. The functional modes offered by (1.12) seem to give exactly the right
interpretations.
As a final point of the present section, we would like to say a few words about
the function values in the case of a distributive interpretation. It is easy to see that a
12 The name has been chosen to evoke the notion of participancy
sentence like (1.62) is true if it turns out to be the case that in the domain of discourse
there were only eight tables available for the lifting. It follows straightforwardly from
this restriction on the cardinality of the set of tables that some of them must have been
lifted twice. However, for (1.62) a table lifted twice counts as two lifted tables. Suppose
that table t1 was lifted by Mary at index i1 and t1 was lifted by Jane at index i2 , where
we stipulate that indices with different values can never be actualized simultaneously
in real time (even if there would be an overlap between the intervals involved). And
suppose that the following configuration would hold for the situation described to make
(1.62) a true sentence:
(1.67) a. Mary 7! fhi ; t i; hi ; t i; hi ; t ; ig
1 1 2 2 3 13
b. Jane 7 fhi ; t i; hi ; t i; hi ; t ; ig
! 2 1 3 2 4 14
c. Judith 7 fhi ; t ; ; ; ig
! 3 5678
This configuration covers a situation in which one table was lifted four times. Yet it is
possible to say that twelve tables were lifted in the obvious sense that there were twelve
table liftings. Note that (1.67) satisfies the injectivity constraint on : each of the girls
has a different function value, a different predicational Path.
It is obvious that if t1 in hi1 ; t1 i pertains to a singleton set, and t5;6;7;8 in hi3 ; t5;6;7;8 i
to a set of four members, all pairs in (1.67) make up functions, because function are
defined as sets of pairs fulfilling the proper conditions. In other words, given the fact
that the proper conditions for functionhood are fulfilled, one may write (1.67) in a more
general fashion:
(1.68) a. Mary 7! f 1
b. Jane 7 f
! 2
c. Judith 7 f
! 3
This is another way of saying that each of the distributed VP-factors can be taken as a
function assigned as value of to each of members of the external argument denotation.
In this way, the dependency of tables on indices can be modelled in a standard fashion
on the basis of the empirical fact that sentences like (1.62a) Three girls lifted four tables
may pertain to just eight object tables whereas each of the three girls may claim that
she lifted four tables. The distributive multiplications in (1.62) can be seen as yielding
index-dependent values.
Our discussion about distributivity and collectivity is not a deviation from the as-
pectual road we are following in the present chapter. On the contrary, it leads through
the centre of the domain which is under investigation in the present book: the domain
of aspectuality and temporality. In particular, the issue of the token-dependency raised
here is very important because what happens in the making of a VP out of a temporal
part (the verb) and an atemporal part (the internal argument) is the origin of a mapping
between them: atemporal entities are “drawn” into temporality. The functional format
seems to be a proper tool for accounting for this match.
In this light it is interesting to discuss sentence (1.69a) understood as referring to

the situation described in (1.69b).
(1.69) a: Jones did it slowly, deliberately, in the bathroom
with a knife, at midnight;
b: Jones buttered the toast slowly, deliberately, in the bathroom,
with a knife, at midnight;
It is the second sentence of the famous paper Davidson 1980b which opened up event
semantics. Davidson had a huge problem: the pronoun it could not refer properly to a
singular term because there is no proper antecedent available. It is clear that butter the
toast may be a candidate, because the it seems to cover exactly that information, but for
Davidson butter the toast is not a constituent that can be referred to: it is not a singular
term. Therefore he proposed to introduce events to secure a correct antecedent for it.
Above we have noticed that persistently in the history of our field there are prob-
lems concerning the constituenthood of the VP. Poutsma and Jacobsohn fell victim to
it, Vendler stumbled over it, and now we see that Davidson could not come to grips
with it. The simple question is, why should or could one not refer to functions? Note
that in terms of one can account properly for sentences like (1.70):
(1.70) a. Three girls buttered their toast in the bathroom
b. They did it at midnight
Sentence (1.70a) had a collective interpretation covered by -constant which means
that the girls were involved in buttering toast without any of the girls being allowed to
claim that she did the job alone. On the distributive interpretation it is evident that there
is no need to assume that they were in the same place, so there may have been three
different bathrooms. But notice now that the it in (1.70) cannot refer anaphorically to
one event. Per girl there is an ‘it-referent’ as well as an ‘it-antecedent’. What is referred
to is the factor involved in the multiplication in which each of the girls is involved. The
it cannot be said to refer directly to an entity. It is in some way connected with the
presence of buttered their toast in (1.70a) but this information is given “lump sum”-
like as the 4 is given in 3 4. In order to get at the precise anaphoric reference one
should first spell out the hidden real factors by applying the law of distributivity. It is
only then that we can understand the plural structure involved in (1.70a) and in (1.70b).
We will return to this issue in due course. Here it may be considered as the ve-
nenum in cauda of the survey of the sentential structure in which the relation between
the external and internal argument should be accounted for. As such we observe that
collectivity and distributivity form part and parcel of the theory of aspectuality. All phe-
nomena discussed here apply to Slavic languages, the important empirical observation
being that perfective prefixes in sentences with a plural external argument distribute
over the individuals in the external argument denotations as shown by the Bulgarian
sentences in (1.71)
(1.71) a. Tri momičeta izjadoxa pet sandvica
Three girls Perf-eat-Aor. five sandwiches
Three girls ate all together five sandwiches
b. Tri momičeta izjadoxa po pet sandvica (vsjaka)
Three girls Perf-eat-Aor. times five sandwiches (each)
Three girls ate all together five sandwiches
The collective interpretation can be fully understood in terms of -constant: none of
the girls may claim that she ate five sandwiches. The distributive reading is marked by
the presence of the distributive particle po (which occurs in the multiplication 2 po 3 =
6) and (for some) in the presence of the floating quantifier vsjaka. The thing to note,
however, is that in this interpretation for each of the girls the information expressed
by the perfective prefix iz- applies. In other words, the phenomena of collectivity
and distributivity so closely connected with the presence of plural NPs is relevant for
Slavic aspectuality too. As in the Western literature too much attention has been paid to
sentences in which Mary or John were involved in some bounded or unbounded event.
It seems time to open up the realm of plurality and to extend the domain of aspectuality
so as to include it.
1.7 Conclusion
The general picture offered in this chapter is that it is possible to proceed from the
bottom to the top of Figure 1.1. As pointed out in x 1.5 the VP structure is more
complex than shown in that figure which would provide us with a sequence of aspec-
tual operators: ASP - ASP - ASP - CaseAcc=P art - . This looks formidable, in
fact a little bit too much. But as suggested above, this sequence is available to us as
analysts. Languages select some of them to provide themselves with the appropriate
means to express aspectuality. Finnish may not need ASP and French may skip the
CaseAcc=P art - interaction because it uses, say,ASP - ASP . Our aim was to show
that if languages are investigated as to compare how they express aspectuality we need
to have the whole sequence available. Some parameters came up: commitment to the
whole or partial truth, completeness, indeterminacy and incompleteness. It also be-
came clear that there are different aspectual layers. It is important to see that all this
has been investigated abstracting away from tense. The VP and the S as carrier of as-
pectual information are tenseless semantic objects. So, there is some need to see what
tense contributes.
Chapter 2
Time, Tense and Temporal

Reference
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Subjective and objective time
Since Antiquity two images of time have been discussed: the flow of the river, and
the line made up of stationary points. On the one hand, time is linked to motion, i.e.
changes in the world, and on the other hand, time can be conceived as a stationary order
of events represented by numbers. In order to model these two pictures, MacTaggart
(1908) distinguishes between the A-series and B-series conceptions of time. The A-
series conception is based on the notion of past, present, and future. The B-series
is based on a simultaneity and earlier-later calculus defined over objectively existing
instants. The B-series embodies the ‘objective’ view on time.
It is independent of a point of view, and just gives a temporal ordering of events
by the precedence relation. If some event is ordered as preceding another, this relation
will never change as time goes by. So this type of temporal ordering is permanent; it
is not related to the point of speech, and it is consequently non-deictic. The A-series
embodies the ‘subjective’ (or intersubjective) view on time.
If we order propositions with the help of past, present or future, we introduce their
relation to some deictic center, the point of speech. Depending on the speech time, the
truth value of a proposition may change as time goes on. This then captures the flow of
time, since the present will become past, i.e. flow into the past. Both the static and the
dynamic view of time are part of our conception of time. Lakoff and Johnson (1987)
draw attention to metaphors built on the tension between static and dynamic views of
time. Metaphors are either built on the idea that time is a moving object (1) or time is
stationary and we move through it (2):
(1) a. Coming up in the weeks ahead . . .
b. The time has long since gone when
41
42 CHAPTER 2. TIME, TENSE AND TEMPORAL REFERENCE
c. Let’s meet the future head-on
(2) a. As we go through the years . . .

b. As we go further into the 1980s, . . .
c. We are approaching the end of the year
These metaphors are concerned with our interaction with the flow of time, but they
present different views of how we do that.
Temporal logic is mainly concerned with the A-series. Language is concerned
with both: tenses are typically concerned with the A-series, but many time adverbials
have to do with the B-series as well. Moreover, there is the interpretation of tensed
sentences in narrative discourse, where the construction of an ordering of events is at
issue.
The idea that the expression of tense in natural language is essentially deictic is
best demonstrated by showing that a statement couched in A-concepts cannot be re-
formulated into a statement in terms of B-concepts—or its truth conditions defined by
B-concepts. Take for instance the A-statement in (3a):
(3) a. It will rain in London
b. It rains in London at a moment of time after 1.51 pm on the 10th of November
in the year 1994
Suppose (3a) is uttered at 1.51 pm on the 10th of November in the year 1994. Ac-
cording to B-theorists, this statement is completely equivalent with the B-statement in
(3b). It should be noted that it is only possible to perform this reduction if the time of
utterance is known. For this reason, the suggested procedure is not perfect. Indeed, it is
not truly possible to express past, present and future in terms of the B-theory, without
some ‘hidden’ reference to the speech time.
Another problem for a ‘pure’ B-theory is the asymmetry between the past and
the future. In fact, one would have to claim that the future is just as real as the past,
and statements about the future are true or false today, exactly in the same manner
as statements about the past. This view makes it impossible to consider the idea that
it is impossible to change the past, but that different options are open to us for the
future. It is a fundamental part of our experience of reality that for instance today, one
can choose to travel to Los Angeles tomorrow, and one can also choose to stay home.
Furthermore, it is clearly also a part of our experience that one today cannot choose to
travel to Copenhagen yesterday. If you were not in Copenhagen yesterday, you have
lost any possibility you may have had of going there yesterday. If our experience of
freedom of choice as well as the passing of time are not illusions, we need a theory of
time which has certain properties of the A-series, not just the B-series.
2.3 Expressing time by tense

When we think about temporal issues from a linguistic point of view, what we are
interested in is the expression of temporal notions in natural linguage. In order not to
2.3. EXPRESSING TIME BY TENSE 43
confuse things, it is important to start by distinguishing time from tense. Tense is the
linguistic device which is used to express time relations.
Comrie (1985) provides an account of tense from the viewpoint of language uni-
versals and linguistic typology. This allows him to establish the range of variation that
is found across languages in tense, and what the limits are to that variation. Comrie
assumes that all cultures have a conceptualisation of time, even though not every lan-
guage has tense. When a language is traditionally described as ‘tenseless’, it does not
follow that there is no conceptualisation of past, present and future. According to Com-
rie, it would be equally logical to assert that speakers of languages lacking grammatical
gender categories have a radically different concept of sex from speakers of languages
with such grammatical categories. Not every culture seems to conceptualise progress,
though, so the picture is more ‘static’, and does not appeal to the notion of change. The
notion of change seems to be strongly present in modern Western culture.
All languages have ways of locating in time, but there are different classes of ex-
pressions. One class is the set of lexical items in a language that express location in
time. The information they express can bear on the A-series ( now, today, yesterday or
on the B-series (on May 13, 1998). But many languages express temporal information
by means of verbal morphology. Thus English, for instance, has grammaticalised ex-
pressions of location in time, which are realized on the verb or in the verbal complex:
present, past, future, pluperfect, future perfect.
Comrie assumes that tense is the grammaticalised expression of location in time.
In most languages that have tense, tense is indicated on the verb, either by the verb
morpholgy (English), or by grammatical words adjacent to the verb, as with certain
auxiliaries (Bamileke-Dschang). Example:
(4) a. à kè tán’ń [Bamileke-Dschang]
‘He bargained yesterday’
b. à lè tán’ń
‘He bargained some days ago’
c. à lè lá?ń’tán
‘He bargained a long time ago’
Tense is thus primarily a category of the verb. Noun phrase arguments of a verb are
often outside the scope of the tense, whereas the verb is necessarily within the scope of
the tense, e.g.:
(5) a. By 1999, every graduate student will have met a prime minister
b. All the fugitives are back in jail now
Escaped prisoners can no longer be described as fugitives when they are back in jail.
Similarly, (5a) can be true even if none of the people involved in the meeting are grad-
uate students of prime ministers at the time of the meeting.
Although tense is primarily a category of the verb or the sentence, one occasionally
finds tense expressed elsewhere, or with a different domain. In certain American Indian
languages, tense can be shown on noun phrases, thus distinguishing the ‘entity that was
an X’ from the ‘entity that is an X’, as in:
(6) inikw-ihl-’minih-’is-it-’i [Nootka]

fire in: house plural diminutive past nominal
‘the former small fires in the house’
Tense describes the way in which events, processes and states relate to the time
axis. At least, this is what the basic meaning of tense does. Often, a grammatical cat-
egory has several secondary meanings, derived from the basic meaning. For instance,
the past tense in English is used in counterfactuals, so it does not refer to the past, but
to a situation not anchored in reality:
(7) If I were rich, I would buy a nice house
The past tense is also often used to indicate politeness. It is more polite to say (8b) than
(8a):
(8) a. I want to ask you something
b. I wanted to ask you something
Similarly, the future has modal uses, because of the close ties between future and
modality (see below):
(9) Will you do this for me?
= Are you willing to do this for me
There is also a distinction to be made between the core meaning of the tense, and
certain implicatures which can be derived from it. For instance, the past tense asserts
that a situation held at some time prior to the present moment. This often comes with
the implicature that the situation no longer holds, as in (10a):
(10) a. John was in the garden
b. John was in the garden when I came in, and for all I know, he still is
Grice’s maxim of relevance suggests that a statement reported in the past tense is not
about the present moment, otherwise the speaker would have used the present tense.
Thus the use of a form explicitly locating a situation in the past suggests that that
situation does not hold at the present. That this is an implicature, and not part of the
meaning of the past tense is shown by (10b), where the implicature is cancelled (or
suspended).
Similarly, there is a feeling that events reported in the present perfect are ‘closer’
to the speech time than events reported in the simple past. This implicature can arise
because the present perfect is defined in terms of current relevance. Naturally, recent
events typically have more current relevance than remote events, which gives rise to
the implicature. That it is not part of the meaning of the simple past to describe a
remote past is illustrated by (11a). That the present perfect can relate to an event which
happened a while ago is illustrated by (11b):
(11) a. John broke his leg five minutes ago
b. John has broken his leg. It happened six weeks ago, but it hasn’t healed yet.
2.4. PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 45
In similar ways, the pluperfect can come with the implicature that the event happened
in a remote past, because it happened before some other event. However, if that event
is close enough, there need not be a large distance:
(12) Susan came back a minute ago. But Bill had already left
This is not to say that languages cannot develop in such a way that these implicatures
become part of the meaning of the tense. In modern Eastern Armenian, an original
pluperfect has been reinterpreted as a remote past. The same is true for certain varieties
of English spoken in areas of Africa.
Comrie uses the traditional terms ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ tense to refer to tenses
which do and which don’t take the present moment as their deictic centre. The three
basic absolute tenses are the present, the past and the future. The basic meaning of these
tenses is: present tense means coincidence of the time of the situation and the present
moment. Past tense means location of the situation prior to the present moment. Future
tense means location of the situation after the present moment.
2.4 Past, present and future

A very old idea is of course that the most obvious division of TIME is into present,
past and future, so a language should have three TENSES to mark these distinctions.
This view goes back to the ancient Greeks. The problem from the start was that most
languages had ‘too many’ tenses. For instance, ancient Greek has a present, an aorist (a
type of past), and a future, but also an imperfect, a (present) perfect, and a pluperfect.
Very early on, grammarians realized that notions of time were mixed with other kinds
of information. According to the Stoics, we need to distinguish between tenses which
convey the meaning of completed action (perfect, pluperfect), tenses which describe
an incomplete, ongoing action (present, imperfect), and tenses which are indifferent to
this distinction (aorist, future). From the start, the study of tense is thus mixed with the
study of aspect, the perspective presented on the internal structure of the situation. We
will talk more about aspect later, and concentrate on tenses in relation to the division
into three parts of the time axis for the moment.
2.4.1 The special status of the present

There is something special about the present, namely that it is always ‘now’, never
some other time, but that the ‘now’ we know today is not the same as the ‘now’ we
knew yesterday, or the one we will know tomorrow:
‘The rule is, jam tomorrow, and jam yesterday, but never jam today’
‘It must come sometimes to ‘jam today’, Alice objected.
‘No, it can’t’, said the Queen.
‘It’s jam every other day: today isn’t any other day, you know.’
‘I don’t understand you’, said Alice, ‘It is dreadfully confusing’.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in wonderland
Comic:
(13) A: Honey, I can’t sleep. I’m worried about the future.

B: The future? You mean the stuff that’s not in the past, or that’s not happening
right now?
A: Well, you know, things that didn’t already happen and aren’t happening now,
but may happen . . . uh . . . when it’s not . . . uh . . . now.
B: When it’s not now?
A: That’s not possible, is it? I mean, for it to be not now . . . so . . . why should I
worry about it??
B: Honey, I can’t sleep. I’m worried about the future
Borges in his story ‘The garden of forking paths’:
Then I reflected that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Cen-
tury follows centuray, and things happen only in the present (p. 90)
The future exists now. (p. 101, immediately before Yu Tsun kills Albert)
The present tense is essentially deictic: it refers to the moment of speech of the utter-
ance situation. Just like ‘I’ always picks out the speaker, and cannot refer to anyone
else in the utterance situation, the reference of the present tense and of ‘now’ is fixed
by their reference to the speech time. But the flow of time means that the speech time
shifts from one day to the next, or from one utterance to the next, or even from one
word to the next. If we picture the moment of speech as being somewhere on the time
axis, this can only be an abstraction. There are typically two images for the relation
between the ‘eternal now’ and the flow of time. Either ‘now’ is like a person standing
in the river: the person has a fixed position, that the water in the river flows by. Or
the ‘now’ is like a particle of water in the river, and it flows by static objects such as
calendar terms. Both images show the tension between the static and the dynamic view
of time (the A-series and the B-series), and all the examples above play with this idea.
Although the present tense is described as locating the situation at the speech point,
it is relatively rare for a situation to coincide exactly with the present moment, i.e.
to occupy literally a single point in time which is exactly the same as the present mo-
ment. One set of examples is performative sentences:
(14) a. I promise to leave tomorrow
b. I bet you ten dollars that the Sharks will win
Although these situations are not strictly momentaneous, because it takes a certain pe-
riod of time to utter even the shortest sentence, they can be conceptualised as momen-
taneous, especially in so far as the time occupied by the report is exactly the same as
the time occupied by the act. Another set of examples involves the so-called reportive
use of the the simple present:
(15) John gets the ball, Bill takes over, and suddenly Max scores!
The report is simultaneous with the situation described, so there is literal coincidence
between the time location of a situation and the present moment. Hoewever, situations
of this kind are relatively rare, and the more normal uses of the present tense, in lan-
guages where there is a separate grammatical category, go far beyond this restricted
range.
A more characteristic use of the present tense is in referring to situations which
occupy a much longer period of time than the present moment, but which nonetheless
include the present moment within them. In particular, the present tense is used to
speak of states and processes which hold at the present moment, but which began before
the present moment and may well continue beyond it as in:
(16) a. Sue is a student at Stanford
b. Mary likes fish
In each of these examples it is indeed true that the situation holds at the present moment,
i.e. at the speech time. But it is not the case that the situation is restricted only to
the present moment. As far as the present tense is concerned, in its basic meaning it
invariably locates a situation at the present moment, and says nothing beyond that. In
particular, it does not say that the same situation does not continue beyond the present
moment, nor that it did not hold in the past. Whether or not the situation is part of a
larger situation extending into the past or the future is an implicature, rather than part of
the meaning of the present tense. This implicatures is worked out on the basis of other
features of the structure of the sentence, and one’s knowledge of the real world. Of
other relevant features of sentence structure, aspect will be one of the most important
in deciding whether the larger situation is restricted to the present moment or not:
thus the use of the progressive or the habitual necessarily requires that the situation in
question be not momentaneous. Similarly, time adverbials may express the duration of
the larger situation:
(17) Since 1994, Sue is a student at Stanford
But this does not change the general definition of the present tense itself.
2.4.2 The future

If we analyze the past tense as locating a situation prior to the moment of speech, we
can give a mirror image of the future tense as locating a situation at a time subsequent
to the present moment. This is indeed the analysis Comrie adopts, even though he is
well aware of conceptual differences between the past and the future. He points out that
the past subsumes what may already have taken place, and is immutable, beyond the
control of our present actions. The future, however, is necessarily more speculative, in
that any prediction we make about the future might be changed by intervening events,
including our own conscious intervention. Thus the past is more definite than the fu-
ture. However, the fact that past and future differ from one another in certain respects
is not inconsistent with their being similar to one another in other respects, perhaps
even those crucial respects that are relevant to tense. The future makes a clear pre-
diction about some future state of affairs (18a), and is in this way distinct from modal
constructions that make reference to alternative worlds (18b):
(18) a. It will rain tomorrow
b. It may rain tomorrow
The truth of (18a) can be tested by seeing whether it does in fact rain tomorrow or
not. The truth value of (18b) cannot be assessed by observing whether or not it rains
tomorrow, since both presence and absence of rain are compatible with a modal possi-
bility operator. It is thus possible to have future time reference which is not necessarily
modal.
The clearest cases of languages having a future tense are languages which distin-
guish different degrees of remoteness in the future, i.e. have near and distant futures. In
Haya or Bamileke-Ngyemboon, for instance, the remote future tense can only be used
in referring to a situation which is located temporally subsequent to tomorrow, and
collocation with any other time reference (past, present, tomorrow) is ungrammatical.
One linguistic problem with studying the future tense is that most European lan-
guages have a clear grammatical distinction between past and non-past (the latter sub-
suming present and future time reference), but either no grammatical distinction or a
much less clear grammatical distinction between future and non-future, in particular
between future and present. Diachronically, most auxiliaries involved in the explicit
future tense construction are derived from modal expressions, e.g. of desirativity, such
as English will. This makes it hard to distinguish tense from modality. In many Eu-
ropean langauges, the so-called present tense is in fact the normal verb form used to
indicate future time reference, as for instance in German (19a), which is at least as
common as the specific future tense construction in (19b):
(19) a. Ich gehe morgen
I go tomorrow
b. Ich werde morgen gehen
I will go tomorrow
In English, the use of the present tense to refer to the future is restricted to ‘scheduled’
events. Thus, (20a) is felicitous, (20b) is not:
(20) a. The train departs at five o’clock tomorrow morning
b. It rains tomorrow
Our knowledge of the world as it is indicates that rain is not schedulable the way the
departure of trains is scheduled.
In some other languages, there is no specific future tense, but the conceptual dif-
ference between past and future leads to a system in which the tense reference is depen-
dent on the modal system. The future is subsumed under the irrealis, and the present
and the past under the realis. Dyirbal and Burmese are languages of this kind.
2.4.3 Problems with the future

Chapter XI of Aristotle’s On Interpretation is probably the philosophical text which
has had the greatest impact on the debate about the relations between time, truth and
possibility. In this text we find the famous example of ‘the sea-fight tomorrow’. Central
to the discussion is the question of how to interpret the following two statements:
(21) a. Tomorrow there will be a sea-fight
b. Tomorrow there will not be a sea-fight
The question arises whether statements like (21a) and (b) can be said to be true (or
false) already today. Alternatively, is the truth value of a statement undetermined,
such that it cannot be said to have any actual truth value today? The answers to these
questions bear upon the interpretation of modality. For if we assume that (21a) is
true today, is the statement then not also necessary today? And further, if it turns out
that there is no sea-fight tomorrow, can (21a) be possible today? On grounds of his
basic assumption of indeterminism, Aristotle claimed that neither statement could be
necessary today. However, the same does not apply to statements about the past or the
present; they are either necessarily true or necessarily false. Aristotle is apparently a
‘past-determinist’ and a ‘present-determinist’, but a ‘future-indeterminist’.
The logicians of the Middle Ages in general took the Aristotelian view that a
statement can change its truth value with time. A proposition such as ‘Socrates runs’
is not true at all times. The truth value depends on the actual state of affairs. The idea
of ‘the truth of a proposition at a given time’ thus comes into the picture. The truth
value of the proposition was regarded as relative to the time at which it was put forth—
its ‘moment of utterance’. The problems of the future were also discussed. Buridan
(XIIIth century) presents a paradox of self-reference in relation to tense. Imagine the
following scenario: Socrates wants to cross a river and comes to a bridge guarded by
Plato, who says:
(22) Plato: Socrates, if in the first proposition which you utter, you speak the truth, I
will permit you to cross. But surely, if you speak falsely, I shall throw you into
the water.
Socrates: You will throw me into the water
Plato must admit that he cannot keep his promise. Buridan maintained that the sophism
when uttered by Socrates has a truth value, i.e. it is either true or false. It is how-
ever, “not determinately true or determinately false”. This means that we cannot know
whether it is true or false, until we have seen how Plato acts when Socrates is crossing.
Buridan thus holds the view that a statement about the contingent future is true or false,
although its truth value cannot be known by anybody now.
For the Medieval logicians, the problems related to the future were most intimately
connected to the relation between two fundamental Christian dogmas: human freedom
and God’s omniscience. God’s omniscience is assumed to also comprise knowledge
of the future choices to be made by men. But if God already now knows the decision
I will make tomorrow, then an inevitable truth about my choice tomorrow is already
given now! Hence, there seems to be no basis for the claim that I have a free choice, a
conclusion which violates the dogma of human freedom. So the argument goes from
divine foreknowledge to necessity of the future, and from there to the conclusion that
there can be no real human freedom of choice. Several solutions were proposed, which
roughly argue that divine knowledge is different from human knowledge. God relates
in the same way to all times. Time should be regarded as a system in which the basic
relations of succession and simultaneity are given in a timeless way—owing to the fact
that time is given to God in a timeless way. The conceptual difference between past,
present, and future is relevant only when humans are invoved, either as the subjects of
cognition, or as participants in communication.
A modern version of Anselm and Ockham’s ideas is worked out by Leibniz. Leib-
niz’s central idea is that God has chosen the best of all possible worlds, and made it
actual. But in actualising the creatures of that world, He did not change their free
natures. So it is not necessary for a man to do that which he will in fact be doing
according to the foreknowledge of God. It would have been possible for him to make
different decisions, leading to different acts. For Leibniz there is a difference in modal-
ity between the past and the future. For while it is not possible to cause a past event,
it is now possible to cause some of the future events. While there is no alternative to
the actual past, there are alternatives to the future. These alternatives correspond to the
concept of possible world.
The view of time as branching towards the future has some interesting conse-
quences for the interpretation of future tenses like (23a) and (b):
(23) a. He will die

b. He is going to die
(23a) has a trivial reading which just claims that man is not immortal. It can also
have a strong “predicting” kind of reading, which may still be in the faraway future,
though. (23b) does not have the trivial reading. Moreover, it strongly suggests that
the dying is near and somehow unavoidable: we must have evidence from context
and situation that this is about to happen, otherwise we could not felicitously utter the
sentence. In (23a), the dying might be a mere possibility we are considering, in (23b)
it is not.
What is necessary is that which holds in all possible futures, and what is possible is
that which holds in at least one possible future. A future event is necessary if and only
if it is unchangeably caused by present or past events. Among the possible contingent
futures, there must be one which has a special status, simply because it corresponds to
the actual course of events in the future. This accounts for the differentation between
‘tomorrow’, ‘possibly tomorrow’, and ‘necessarily tomorrow’. The branching future
suggests an identification of the present with reality: what happens, happens now. But
according to McCawley (1993) for instance, we need to distinguish between actuality
and non-actuality in the future as well. The difference in natural language between
‘will’ and ‘possibly will’ suggests that the modal expression relates to a choice among
alternative future histories, whereas will relates to future time within a given future
history. Thus modality introduces branching, and future time refers to a later moment
on a particular branch. This means that a sentence like (24a) is different from (24b):
(24) a. Bill will finish his novel
b. Bill may finish his novel
c. Bill must finish his novel
d. George said in June that Mary would finish her thesis by January, but he was
wrong
The meaning of (24a) is clearly not that there is some time branch containing a future
point at which Bill finishes his novel, because this is the meaning of (24b). (24a) does
also not mean that on all branches leading into the future from the present there is a
point at which Bill finishes his novel. This is the meaning of the necessity statement
2.5. THEORIES OF TENSE 51
in (24c). What (24a) says is that at some point in the actual future, Bill will finish
his novel. This leaves it open whether there are other possible but nonactual futures
in which Bill does not finish the novel. McCawley agrees that the notion of actual fu-
ture is tricky because one normally has very little conception of which of the infinitely
many possible futures is the actual one. This is quite unlike one’s knowledge of the
past. Nonetheless, McCawley stresses the fact that speakers of natural languages “in-
dulge in the rashness of making statements that purport to describe the actual future”
(McCawley 1993: 433). That such statements as (24a) are interpreted as referring to
the actual future is confirmed by the kind of examples in (24c). If one can apply words
like right, wrong, true and false in talking about previous statements about the future,
this indicates that one can talk about how the actual future in the past turned out to be.
In the case of (24c), the actual future with respect to the evaluation time in June was
not what George said it would be.
2.5 Theories of tense

2.5.1 Jespersen (1924)
As already mentioned at the beginning, the traditional idea is that the most obvious divi-
sion of TIME is into present, past and future, so a language should have three TENSES
to mark these distinctions. The first modern linguists who tried to account for further
subdivisions in the three basic temporal domains is probably Jespersen (1924). Ac-
cording to Jespersen, time must be thought of as something that can be represented by
a straight line, divided by the present moment into two parts: the past and the future.
Within each of the two divisions, we may refer to some point as lying either before or
after the main point of which we are speaking. For each of the seven resulting divi-
sions of time, there are retrospective and prospective versions. This leads to a total of
21 tenses:
post-future Cc after-future
future Cb future
ante-future Ca before-future
present B present
post-preterit Ac after-past
preterit Ab past
ante-preterit Aa before-past
Some but not all of theses tenses are grammaticized in English.
2.5.2 Reichenbach
Reichenbach (1947) suggested that in order to understand how tenses work, we must
consider not only the time of utterance, and the time of the event in question, but also
a ‘point of reference’. The introduction of a separate reference point is motivated by

tenses like the pluperfect in (25):
(25) By five o’clock, John had already left
The event of leaving is located before the speech time, but also before the time of
five o’clock, which functions as the reference time. The Reichenbachian schema for
the Pluperfect is thus E–R–S, where the – lines indicate precedence. The notion of
reference also helps to distinguish between the simple past and the present perfect in
examples like (26):
(26) a. I left
b. I have left
In both cases, the event takes place before the speech time. However, there is a differ-
ence in perspective Reichenbach accounts for by having the reference time R located
in the past for the simple past, so we get the schema E,R–S, where the comma indicates
simultaneity. R is in the present for the present perfect, which gets the schema E–R,S.
This underscores the idea of ‘current relevance’ attached to the present perfect.
Structure New name Traditional name Example

E–R–S Anterior Past Pluperfect I had left
E,R–S Simple Past Simple Past I left
R–E–S
R–S,E Posterior Past — I would leave
R–S–E
E–S,R Anterior Present Present Perfect I have left
S,R,E Simple Present Present I leave
S,R–E Posterior Present Simple Future I will leave
S–E–R
S,E–R Anterior Future Future Perfect I will have left
E–S–R
S–R,E Simple Future Simple Future I will leave
S–R–E Posterior Future — I shall be going to leave
For Reichenbach, the relation between S and R, and the relation between R and E are
fundamental. The different combinations bring us up to 9 fundamental tenses. English
does not distinguish between the Posterior Present and the Simple Future. Reichen-
bach suggests that, in French, the construction with aller ‘to go’ grammaticalizes the
Posterior Present, and the Futur Simple the Simple Future. Thus, ‘Je vais partir’ has
the structure S,R–E, and ‘Je partirai’ has the structure ‘S–R,E. Reichenbach points out
that the position of E relative to S is not important. This explains the three different
schemata associated with the Posterior Past and the Anterior Future. Comrie (1985)
proposes a slightly different notation which captures exactly that. He proposes to use
complex relations like E relevative R relative S, which are to be read as ‘E relative to R
and R relative to S’. This leads to representations like the following:
Pluperfect E before R before S

Future Perfect E before R after S
Posterior Past E after R before S
The Perfect of the Future is constrained by the fact that E must take place before R, but
R must be located after S. Whether E ends up being located before, simultaneous with
or after S is irrelevant, and the formula makes no claim about it. This modification is
an elegant generalization of the Reichenbachian schema.
2.5.3 Beyond Reichenbach

Prior (1967) and others have pointed out that Reichenbach’s schema is too simple in
that it provides for only one reference point, while at least two points of reference are
necessary to account for tenses that are more complicated, such as:
(27) a. I would have left by then
b. I shall have been going to see John
In Comrie’s system, the tense in (27a) gets the representation E before R1 after R2
before S. It describes a situation located before a reference point, which is in turn
located after a reference point which is located before the moment of speech. Similarly,
(27b) requires a representation E precedes R1 after R2 after S. In other words, the
event E precedes a reference point R1 , which in turn is located after a reference point
R2 , which is located after S. According to Prior, the introduction of multiple points of
reference makes it unnecessary to make such a sharp distinction between the point of
reference and the point of speech: the point of speech is just the first point of reference.
But with several refinements and modifications along these lines, the Reichenbachian
model has proven very popular and successful in linguistics.
2.5.4 Asymmetries between past and future

Still later developments try to account for the asymmetry between past and future by
arguing that we have a past-present-future division around the deictic center (the mo-
ment of speech), which can be shifted back in time for a second past-present-future
division in the past, but cannot be shifted forward to create further subdivisions in the
future. This reduces the number of times in the future, while leaving open a rich system
of distinctions in the past. These systems are typically neo-reichenbachian in nature,
in that they use multiple points of reference (Wunderlich, Martin, Vet).
Wunderlich (1970) and Martin (1971)/Vet (1981) develop tense systems for Ger-
man and French respectively. They both introduce a distinction between past and non-
past. Within these domains there are subdivisions into past and future. Consider the
system for French proposed by Martin (see Vet 1981: 15):
passé composé présent futur

ai fait fais ferai
passé futur
surcomposé antérieur
ai eu fait aurai fait
plus-que-parfait imparfait conditionnel
avais fait faisais ferais
plus-que-parfait conditionnel
surcomposé antérieur
avais eu fait aurais fait
The idea of these systems is to create a ‘present in the past’ around which is developed
the same system of tenses as in the present. So each ‘kernel’ has a future and a past. The
secondary reference points have only a past, not a future. The asymmetry between past
and future is thus present at two crucial levels in the system. Systems like these come
closest to the expression of tenses in natural languages such as English, French and
German. They can be considered as fine-tuning of the general Jespersen-Reichenbach
line of research.
2.5.5 Prior (1967)

If we adopt a logical point of view, the most relevant question is not how many tenses
there are, but how to develop a logic which reasons with tensed statements. There are
a number of ways that time considerations can be brought into logical structure. A first
possibility if to have time appear as an extra argument in the propositional fucntions
that we have so far considered. For instance, instead of having the one-place predicate
in (28a), we would have the two-place predicate in (28b):
(28) a. Bald(x)
b. Bald(x; t)
c. Rt Bald(x))
(28b) expresses that x is bald at time t. In a modern version, using event variables in-
stead of time variables, this notation is used by Davidson (1967), and in a large number
of analyses of temporal phenomena formulated in the (neo)-Davidsonian tradition, e.g.
Parsons (1990).
A second possibility is to have operators Rt , expressing that the proposition they
are combined with is true at the indicated time. For example, we would have (28c) as
an alternative notation to (28b). A third possibility is to treat time as ‘indices’. Just as
a proposition is not flatly true of false, but is true in certain worlds and false in others,
a proposition would be true at some times, and false at other times. “Now” would
have the same special role among the time indices that “the actual world” has among
the world indices. That is, unless something indicates the contrary, a proposition is
evaluated with respect to the “actual” indices: it is taken as referring to the present time,
to the actual world, to the place where it is uttered and so forth. Prior develops several
systems of temporal logic, which are a mixture of the second and the third possibility.
Prior introduces two operators P for past, and F for future. These temporal operators
are defined over propositions. There is no operator for the present tense. A proposition
p is interpreted with respect to the given time of evaulations. The operators P and F
are interpreted by the following conditions:
(29) a. t j= P p if and only if 9t0 [t0 t ^ t0 j= p]
b. t j= F p if and only if 9t0 [t t0 ^ t0 j= p]
Two more operators can be defined in terms of P and F , namely H ‘has always been’,
and G ‘is always going to be’:
(30) a. Hp = :P :p
b. Gp = :F :p
P and F look suspiciously like the modal operator 3, whereas H and G are similar to
2. Indeed, the version of tense logic developed by Prior and others can be considered
as a variety of modal logic, with temporal relations playing the role of “alternativeness”
relations: instead of looking at alternative possible worlds, we look at alternative times
at which the proposition can come out true.
Moreover, tense operators can be freely iterated, and thus yield more complex
tenses. For instance:
(31) a. John left
Pp
b. John had left
PPp
c. John would leave
PFp
d. John would have left
PFPp
e. John will leave
Fp
f. John will have left
FPp
g. John has always loved Mary
Hp
h. John would always love Mary
P Gp
Prior develops a number of different tense logics, depending on the axioms of the
system. The most basic tense logic is Kt , defined by the following set of axioms:
(32) A1 p, where p is a tautology of the propositional calculus
A2 G(p q) (Gp Gq)

A3 H (p q) (Hp Hq)
A4 p HF p
A5 p GP p
The basic rule of inference is Modus Ponens, and there are two rules which introduce
tense operators:
(33) RG If ` p then ` Gp
RH If ` p then ` Hp
One can develop more complex systems, by adding more axioms, such as:
(34) a. PPp Pp
b. FFp Fp
For instance, one probably wants the inferences in (34a) and (b) both to go through.
Note that the future is not in all respects a mirror image of the past. Given an indeter-
ministic standpoint, one wants (35a) to come out true, but (35b) false:
(35) a. Pp GP p
b. F p HF p
(35b) can easily be ruled out if we adopt a model with a branching future. Such a model
was only worked out later by Prior, after a suggestion by Kripke that the branching
future was like a possible world semantics. If we add both (34b) and (36), we get a
system which allows for branching time:
(36) F P p (P p _ p _ F p)
More complex tense logics can be developed by adding more and more axioms, but we
will not go into further details here.
2.5.6 Beyond Prior

Linguists have not found the Priorean system fully satisfactory. One problem is that
there is no distinction between the Simple Past tense and the Present Perfect: both are
represented by the formula P '. One of the attractive features of the Reichenbachian
system was that the notion of reference time allows us to account for the ‘double’ nature
of part present, part past of the present perfect.
Another problem concerns the present tense. Neither Prior nor Reichenbach cap-
tures the distinction between the Simple Present tense and the Present Progressive. But
at least for Reichenbach, the Simple Present is a tense like the others. In Prior’s sys-
tem, the Present Tense is indicated by the absence of any temporal operators. This sets
the Simple Present aside from all other tenses. If we look at the truth conditions, we
see that all tenses are in fact derived from present tense statements. E.g. ‘John left’ is
represented as P p, which means that the statement ‘John leaves’ is true at some point
in time in the past. The only way to properly interpret this is to view this as a reportive
use of the Simple Present. But we already pointed out earlier that this is not the most
straightforward interpretation of the Simple Present. However, the use of the Simple
Past in ‘John left’ does capture the basic use of the tense. This means that the interpre-
tation of the basic use of the Simple Past is formulated in terms of an unnatural use of
the Simple Present. This is not very intuitive.
One way of giving the deictic nature of tense more content is to introduce a special
operator for the ‘now’ of the sentence. Kamp (1971) introduces the N -operator, which
gets the following interpretation for t0 the speech time:
(37) t j= Np if and only if t0 j= p
This interpretation guarantees the equivalence of (38a) and (b):
(38) a. John is asleep
b. John is asleep now
More importantly, the N-operator captures the deictic character of the present tense by
allowing us to go back to the speech time in embedded contexts. Consider an example
like (39):
(39) Someday you will be grateful for what I am doing now
The now in (39) refers to the time when the sentence is uttered. If we wouldn’t have
the N -operator, the sentence would be represented as in (40a):
(40) a. F (p ^ q)
b. F (p ^ Nq)
(40a) gives us the interpretation that ‘you are grateful’ and ‘what I am doing now’ are
both true at some future time t0 . The introduction of the N -operator in (40b) allows us
to relate the time of what I am doing to the speech time, rather than the time at which
the being grateful is true.
The N -operator also accounts for the difference between (41b) and (c), as repre-
sented in (42):
(41) a. A child is born who will rule the world
b. A child was born which would rule the world
c. A child was born which will rule the world
(42) a. P (9x (Child(x) ^ Born(x) ^ F Rule-the-world(x)))

b. P (9x (Child(x) ^ Born(x) ^ NF Rule-the-world(x)))
The interpretation of (41b) is just like (41a), but prefixed with the past tense operator.
(41c) is different, because the ‘will’ locates the ruling-the-world part in the future of
the speech time rather than just the future of the time of birth. Given the interpretation
of the N -operator as bringing us back to the utterance time of the sentence, the F -
operator in (42b) determines some moment in the future which we now have, even
though it occurs within the scope of P .
Kamp carries the formal properties of indexical operators one step further and
introduces a system of double indexing. The idea is to interpret a sentence with respect
to two moments in time, say t and t0 . The first is called the moment of utterance, and
the second is called the moment of evaluation. We begin to evaluate a statement made
at time t with respect to this time t. But the evaluation process may lead us to consider
moments in time other than t. An example: in order to determine whether P ' is true
in a given model at time t, we must try and find a moment earlier than t at which '
is true. Now if ' contains an expression like now which necessarily refers back to the
original t, then we will need some way of keeping track of this t. We can do this by
always considering two moments in time, one of which will allow us to ‘remember’
the speech time.
One can carry this reasoning one step further (Vlach, 1973) with examples like
(43b) as the past tense variant of (43a):
(43) a. One day, all persons alive now will be dead
b. One day, all people alive then would be dead
The Priorian recipe for obtaining the past tense consists in prefixing the P-operator to
the formula for the present tense sentence. This would lead to (44a):
(44) a. P F 8x (N Alive(x)! Dead(x))
b. P KF 8x (N Alive(x) ! Dead(x))
(44a) gets the intended reading wrong, because ‘then’ should refer to some point of
reference defined by the sentence (or context), rather than to the point of speech. In
order to account for such complications, Vlach introduces another operator K (‘then’),
which resets the point of speech, equating it with the current point of evaluation. For-
mally:
(45) hs; ti j= K' iff ht; ti j= '
Thus, K acts as a substitution operator replacing the point of speech t0 by the current
reference point t. The correct rendering of (43b) is then as is (44b).
Kamp carries the formal properties of indexical operators one step further and
introduces a system of double indexing. The idea is to interpret a sentence with respect
to two moments in time, say t and t0 . The first is called the moment of utterance, and
the second is called the moment of evaluation. We begin to evaluate a statement made
at time t with respect to this time t. But the evaluation process may lead us to consider
moments in time other than t. An example: in order to determine whether P ' is true
in a given model at time t, we must try and find a moment earlier than t at which '
is true. Now if ' contains an expression like now which necessarily refers back to the
original t, then we will need some way of keeping track of this t. We can do this by
always considering two moments in time, one of which will allow us to ‘remember’
the speech time. We will not go into the formal details here. Kuhn (1979) discusses
some examples of tense logical systems involving double indexing.
But once you get the idea, you can go further. A sentence like (46) is still inex-
pressible in systems that include N and K :
(46) There will always jokes be told that were told at a certain time in the past
9t < t0 8t0 > t0 9x (Tell(x; t0 ) ^ Tell(x; t)
The relevant reading is that there is a time t preceding the speech time t0 such that for
all times t0 later than t0 there is a joke which will be told at t0 which was also told
at t. This leads to a proliferation of operators and reference times (e.g. Åqvist and
Guenthner, 1977).
Examples like these show that, when the complexity of natural language exam-
ples increases, one might be better off with a quantificational account of tense (similar
to predicate logic formulas), than a treatment of tense as operators on propositional
formulas. We will not go into the formal details here. Kuhn (1979) discusses some
examples of tense logical systems involving double indexing.
Prior was very concerned with the issue of expressibility. Kamp (1968) has demon-
strated that not every temporal operator can be expressed in Prior’s system. Consider a
sentence like (47):
(47) Bill has been watching little Alice ever since Mary left
This sentence is true at time t iff there is some time t0 preceding t such that (i) the
proposition that Mary leaves is true at t and (ii) the proposition that Bill is watching
little Alice is true at all times from t0 onwards, up to (and including) t. Sentences like
these cannot be expressed in a Priorean tense logic where the structure of time has
certain natural properties (like being like the real numbers). Kamp shows that every
temporal operator in a linear, dense, non-ending instant-logic can be defined in terms
of his two operators U and S . U ('; ) is like until and is read “ it will be the case that
until it will be the case that '” (or “ it was the case that until it was the case that
'”). S ('; ) is like since, and is read “ it has been the case that since it was the case
that '” (or “ it will have been the case that since it was the case that '”. The official
semantics is given in (48):
(48) a. t j= U ('; ) if and only if 9t00 [t t00 ^ t00 j= ' ^ 8t0 [[t t0 t00 ] !
t0 j= ^ t0 j= :']]
b. t j= S ('; ) if and only if 9t00 [t t00 ^ t00 j= ' ^ 8t0 [[t00 t0 t] !
t0 j= ^ t0 j= :']]
Although the system with S and U is more powerful than classical Priorean tense logic,
it is no more satisfactory when it comes to providing natural representations of tensed
sentences from languages such as English. As Kamp and Reyle (1993) point out, the
possibility of iterating tense operators in formulas like P P ', F P ' has no counterpart
in natural language. Spelling out such formulas in natural language quickly becomes
awkward, because English has no straightforward way of iterating tenses. A tense is
always associated with a verb, and tenses cannot just be piled on top of the other. Even
the complex tenses (such as the Pluperfect) can at best provide paraphrases for tense
logical formulas with two, or at most three layers of tense operators.
An even more important observation is that English does not only use operators,
it also refers to times explicitly with the help of nouns such as time, moment, and time
adverbials. A theory of temporal reference ought to explain how the tenses contribute
to the meaning of complex statements like the ones in (49):
(49) a. Alvin rang on Sunday
b. Alvin will ring on Sunday
The phrase on Sunday has the property that it refers to the nearest Sunday—in the future
or in the past—to some given, contextually salient time. In particular, in a context in
which no times have yet been made salient, the phrase will refer either to the next
Sunday after the day on which the utterance takes place, or to the last Sunday before
it. Given that the past tense of rang in (50a) indicates that the described event lies
before the time of utterance, the token of on Sunday must refer to the last Sunday
before the utterance time. Given the future tense in (50b), reference is made to the
first Sunday after the speech time. A theory of temporal reference in natural language
needs to combine the information provided by tense and time adverbials to determine
the temporal structure of sentences like (49). Priorean tense logic does not provide the
tools to do so. Consider maybe a simpler example like (50):
(50) John left yesterday
a. Yesterday[P[John leave]]
b. P[yesterday[John leave]]
If we treat the time adverbial and the tense separately, we have to decide which one
to give scope over the other. But both scopal configuations in (50) fail to capture the
meaning of the English sentence. (50a) claims that John’s leaving takes place in the
past of yesterday. So John may have left two days ago, or a month, or a year ago. (50b)
claims that it is true in the past that John’s leaving takes place yesterday. The informa-
tion provided by the tense operator is entirely redundant here, although it wasn’t so in
(49a). What we want is of course a combined action of the tense and the time adverbial,
such that the event takes place at (or within) the time period described by the time ad-
verbial. This is almost impossible to realize within Priorian tense logic, because there
is no way to refer to the time at which the proposition is true. In a Reichenbachian sys-
tem, one can of course exploit the notion of reference time in describing the semantics
of time adverbials.
Partee (1973) is one of the first to point out certain analogies between tenses and
pronouns in English, which suggest that we need a referential approach to natural lan-
guage tenses, rather than an interpretation in terms of operators. She argues that the
three main uses of pronouns, namely deictic, anaphoric and bound variable interpreta-
tions are found with tenses as well. The deictic use of the past tense morpheme appears
in a sentence like (51):
(51) I didn’t turn off the stove
When uttered, for instance, halfway down the turnpike, such a sentence clearly does not
mean either that there exists some time in the past at which I did not turn off the stove,
or that there exists no time in the past at which I turned off the stove. The sentence
clearly refers to a particular time, but it is not an instant. Most likely, it is a definite
interval, whose identity is generally clear from the extra-linguistic context, just as the
identity of she in a sentence with a deictic use of a pronoun.
Anaphoric uses of tenses are illustrated with sentences like (52):
(52) a. Sheila had a party last Friday, and Sam got drunk
b. When Susan walked in, Peter left
The time adverbial or temporal clause provides a descriptive specification of the time
of the main clause. Both main clauses in (52a) refer to the same time variable.
Bound variable interpretations of tenses are illustrated with examples like (53):
(53) a. If Susan comes in, John will leave immediately
b. Richard always gave assignments that were due the next day
c. Mary teaches every other day
Partee analyzes (53a) as ‘For all times t at which Susan comes in, John leaves in the
immediate future of t. The kind of sentence in (53b) is closely parallel to sentences
involving a universal quantifier like all.
Reference to times also plays a role in the phenomenon of discourse anaphora.
Compare the two-sentence texts in (54a) and (b):
(54) a. Last week Fred bought his ninth cat. He paid 75 ECU for it
b. Bill left the house at a quarter past five. He took a taxi to the station and
caught the first train to Bognor.
There is a very strong tendency to take the second sentence of (54a) as talking about the
same time as the first. However, the second sentence of (54b) is naturally understood
as describing two events that directly follow the one described in the first sentence.
The temporal relations between sentences brought together in a narrative discourse is
an important feature of the use of tense in natural language. Clearly, there is no way to
express such temporal anaphora in tense logic, because such a system does not capture
the notion of reference.
2.5.7 Merging Reichenbach and Prior

For decades, Priorean tense logic and Reichenbachian tense systems have existed side
by side, the first being cherished by logicians, the second by linguists. To my knowl-
edge, one of the few serious attempts to bring the two traditions together is the nominal
tense logic developed by Blackburn (1993, 1994).1 According to Blackburn, an impor-
tant reason why Reichenbachian systems are so successful is that they allow reference
to times. Given that natural language tenses have referential import, and the anaphoric
properties of tense, and the role temporal constructions play in discourse are centre
1 Compare also McCawley, 1993, who tries to achieve something similar by introducing definite descrip-
tion operators.
stage, this makes Priorean tense logic a less suitable system for the study of tense ex-
pressed by natural language. For example, an utterance of (55a) does not mean that
John ran at some completely unspecified past time, but that he ran at some particular,
contextually determined past time:
(55) a. John ran
b. P (John run)
c. P (i ^ John run)
The natural representation of this sentence in Priorean tense logic in (55b) fails to
mirror the referential nature of the English original. Blackburn’s solution is to make
Priorean tense logic referential by adding a new type of propositional symbol, called
nominals to the language. Nominals are typically written as i, j , k , etc. The point
of introducing nominals lies in their interpretation: we shall insist that in any model,
nominals are to be true at exactly one time. Nominals thus ‘name’ the unique time at
which they are true. The sentence in (55a) is now translated as in (55c). In order for
(55c) to be true, John must run at the past time picked out by i. This gives us a ‘definite’
time at which the situation takes place. Nominals thus mirror Reichenbach’s notion of
reference point. The table given above for Reichenbach’s logic, can now be extended
with one more column, in which the same tenses are described in nominal tense logic:
Structure Name Example Representation

E–R–S Pluperfect I had left P(i & Pp)
E,R–S Simple Past I left P(i & p)
R–E–S
R–S,E Future in the Past I would leave P(i & Fp)
R–S–E
E–S,R Present Perfect I have left Pp
S,R,E Present I leave p
S,R–E Prospective I will leave Fp
S–E–R
S,E–R Future Perfect I will have left F(i & Pp)
E–S–R
S–R,E Simple Future I will leave F(i & p)
S–R–E Future in the Future I shall be going to leave F(i & Fp)
Blackburn sums up these entries by saying that he has factored the English into a ‘shift’
and a ‘refer’ component. The shift component is Prior’s contribution, and is performed
by the tense operator. The refer component is Reichenbach’s contribution, and is per-
formed by the nominals. Note in particular that, unlike in Prior’s system, the simple
past and the present perfect are represented differently. This does not yet solve all the
problems related to the interpretation of the present perfect, but it captures the idea that
the simple past is ‘definite’ in nature, whereas the present perfect is ‘indefinite’. Sen-
tences which require more than one point of reference can be represented by formulas
containing more than one nominal, e.g:
2.6. TEMPORAL ONTOLOGY 63
(56) I shall have been going to see John

F (i ^ P (j ^ F (I see John)))
Blackburn extends his system to introduce indexical and calendar adverbials. For in-
stance (57a) is interpreted as in (57b):
(57) a. John climbed yesterday
b. P (yesterday ^ John climb)
Blackburn also gives an interpretation of discourse anaphora based on the Hinrichs/Partee
system in his nominal tense logic, to show that we can actually treat discourse relations
in this extended Priorean logic.
2.6 Temporal ontology

2.6.1 Points
Reichenbach (1947) thought of R, S and E in terms of points in time, sometimes called
‘moments’ or ‘instants’. Prior formulated the semantics of his tense logical operators
in terms of truth at points or moments. Moments or instants are like atomic particles
of time with zero duration, which yield intervals of non-vanishing duration only if they
are combined into very large packages. This may be a rather abstract conception of
time, which one does not really encounter in ordinary situations. Even sentences like
(58) refer to some small duration rather than to some duration-less point:
(58) a. The astrologer needs to know the exact time of birth
b. The very moment Jane came in . . .
c. Right then, the alarm went off
There is even something counterintuitive about treating a continuum such as time
through the discrete notion of point. However, the use of instants has proven to be
a fruitful way of analyzing all kinds of temporal notions. It is the concept of time that
lies at the root of theoretical physics, where it has been standard practice at least since
the days of Galilei and Newton to identify the basic constituents of time with the real
numbers. According to this conception, these basic constituents are indivisible, and
strictly ordered by the relation or earlier and later: for any two distinc elements t1 and
t2 , either t1 is earlier than t2 , or else t2 is earlier than t1 . Formally, such time structures
can be represented as pairs hT; <i, where T is the set of temporal instants, and ‘<’ is
the earlier-than relation. This relation is assumed to be a total ordering of T , i.e. for
any t1 , t2 , t3 in T we have:
(59) (i) t1 < t2!t < 6 t
2 1
(ii) (t < t < t ) ! t < t

1 2 3 1 3
(iii) t 6= t ! (t < t _ t < t

1 2 1 2 2 1
(59i) captures the directionality of time. It implies irreflexivity, which says that there
are not ‘stops’ in the flow of time: it keeps continuing. The flow of time is transitive,
as spelled out in (59ii). The combination of (i) and (ii) avoids ‘loops’ in time, with
structures like t1 < t2 < : : : tn < t1 : we clearly do not want time to be circular. The
linearity condition in (59iii) makes the order complete, that is, no instant is outside the
flow of time. If we thing of the flow of time as a river, it makes the time line stick to a
single (river)bed.
One can argue about the question whether time has a beginning (60i) or an end
(60ii):
(60) (i) 9x :9y y < x
(ii) 9x :9y x < y
(iii) 8x 9y y < x and
8x 9y x < y SUCCESSOR
The infinite structure induced by the successor relation in (60iii) is usually preferred
from a logical point of view.
Depending on whether one wants to conceptualize time as dense or discrete, one
can add a statement which creates infinite divisibility (61i) or step-wise succession
(61ii):
(61) (i) 8x 8y (x < y ! 9z x < z < y) DENSITY
(ii) 8x 9z (x < z ^ :9u x < u < z )) and
8x 9z (z < x ^ :9u z < u < x)) DISCRETENESS
Typical models associated with dense temporal structures are the rationals Q, or the
real numbers R. For the discrete temporal structures, the structure of the integers Z is
the most natural choice.
The choice of the model determines the validity of certain inference patterns. Con-
sider (62):
(62) P' ! PP'
In a dense time structure, this is a valid axiom, in a discrete time structure it is not.
Suppose we assume that P ' is true. Then there is a time t preceding the speech time
t0 at which ' is true. But in a dense model there is always a time t0 in between t
and t0 . This means that P P ' is true as well: there is a time in the past (namely t0 )
at which P ' is true. this means that we can only use the iterated temporal operator
P P as an interpretation of the Pluperfect if we assume a discrete time structure. After
all, we do not want the Simple Past to entail the Pluperfect. There is no doubt that
natural language refers to discrete orders of time: counting minutes or hours or days
is just that. But in fact, it is much more common to think of tense as having a dense,
than a discrete structure. After all, the flow of time is continuous, and there are no
‘gaps’ between times. In natural language, density is expressed by allowing ever more
fine-grained expressions: yesterday afternoon between twelve and two, I was sleeping;
I woke up when you called me; in fact, at the moment that the telephone first rang, I
woke up; in fact, I woke up at the moment the telephone first started ringing, etc. In
principle we can go on refining indefinitely: every moment that we reach can be split
into smaller moments by linguistic means. This means that we cannot expect there to
be minimal elements, and that we have to think of the tense structure as dense.
2.6.2 Intervals
Linguists and philosopher object against the use of durationless instants in a theory of
time and tense for various reasons. One observation is that even the strongest phrases
of our ordinary language refer to some (small) period of time (see the examples in 1).
Similarly, there is no punctual present. We can conceptualize the ‘now’ as an indivisi-
ble moment separating the past from the future, but if ‘right now’ refers to a period of
immediate awareness, it has to have duration, because the phenomenon of awareness
itself implies duration. Aside from the issue whether durationless instants are referred
to by natural language at all, we realize that instants cannot describe all natural lan-
guage phenomena. One of the problems which arises concerns the interpretation of
time adverbials which refer to longer periods of time. In examples like (63) we can
extend from instants to intervals in a trivial way, by claiming that the sentence is true
if and only if the state of raining holds at every instant of the interval or the leaving
occurs at some instant in the interval:
(63) a. It was raining yesterday afternoon
b. Jane left yesterday morning
If it was raining all morning, it does not make any difference to the truth value of (63a)
which instant we pick from the stretch of time denoted by yesterday morning. This
does not work for (64b): we cannot assume that the time adverbial covers only the
instant at which we locate the leaving. We interpret the sentence as describing John’s
leaving at some point within the period of time referred to by yesterday morning. This
means that we need to describe the denotation of the time
adverbial in terms of intervals rather than instants, but we can describe the mean-
ing of the proposition in terms of truth at instants within a certain interval. This use of
intervals does not really add any expressive force, because it can be reduced to instants.
There are also quite a few predicates the semantics of which cannot be described
in terms of instants. Examples are given in (64):
(64) a. The apples ripened
b. Susan and Bill waltzed at the party
c. Mary ran
The problem which such sentences raise is that it takes time for apples to ripen, it takes
three steps to be waltzing, and if we take a picture of Mary when she is running, we
won’t see the motion. Evaluating sentences describing actions, changes, and events in
terms of instants is inadequate, because they are simply not true at ‘frozen’ moments
in time. Rather than a static picture, they require a film (i.e. a succession of related
pictures) to capture the change over time. Sentences like the ones in (64) can be said
to be true at intervals, which cover longer periods of time. Intervals are defined as
(convex) sets of instants:
(65) A set of instants X is a convex set (an interval) iff:

8x 8y 2 X and 8t 2 T it is true that, if x t y then t2X
This definition of intervals shows that there are close relations between instant structure
and interval structure. We can expect interval structures to be richer in properties,
because we can define relations of temporal overlap, inclusion, etc. between intervals,
which simply weren’t available for instants. For instance:
(66) (i) complete precedence: i i0 iff 8t 2 i 8t0 2 i0 t < t0
(ii) temporal overlap: i Æ i0 iff i \ i0 6= ;
(iii) temporal inclusion: i v i0 iff i i0
One of the important advantages of the introduction of intervals is that we can model
change as something being the case at some point in time, when it wasn’t the case
at some earlier point in time. For instance, (64a) really describes the process which
changes the apples from unripe into ripe fruit. We can model periods as non-empty
intervals. By this definition, the minimal periods or atoms of the structure are identified
with instants.
Within linguistic approaches to time and tense, intervals were quickly more pop-
ular than instants. But the logic of interval logic is much less clear than the logic of
instants. For instance, the primitive notion ‘truth relative to an instant’ is a clean and
simple notion. As Vlach (1981) points out, with intervals there is from the start an
unclarity conerning how to interpret ‘truth relative to an interval’. Suppose (67) is true
relative to an interval:
(67) Bill hit Mary
Does this mean that the sentence is true at that interval? in that interval? throughout
that interval? for that interval? Different notions of truth may be necessary to handle
the differences between states and events for example.
One of the problems of interval semantics is the existence of ‘gaps’. Consider
(68):
(68) Jane is running from 2 to 3
The truth of (68) does not require that Jane is running at every instant of that interval (or
even every subinterval). The truth of the sentence is quite compatible with Jane stop-
ping briefly once in a while to cathc her breath. These small, irrelevant interruptions
make it hard to formulate a notion of downward closure. Natural language seems to
ignore these irregularities (compare also the homogeneity of fruitcake and other mass
nouns).
It has also been argued that intervals still give us a rather ‘static’ view of change,
because change is reduced to different propositions holding at different moments of
time. The notion of change can be captured with Dowty’s BECOME-operator:
(69) kBECOME(')kM;p = 1 iff
a. there is an interval q overlapping the beginning of p such that k'kM;q = 0
and there is an interval q 0 overlapping the end of p such that k'kM;q0 = 1.
b . there is no proper p0 v p satisfying (a.)

The condition in (69a) is obvious. To say that a certain change takes place over an
interval means that something is the case in the beginning, and something else holds
at the end. The condition in b. is necessary to avoid a situation in which a sentence
like John dies, is interpreted as k BECOME(Die(j)) kM;p for p the interval of seventy
years which start at John’s birth and ends five years after his death. In this example
we deal with a small change in a big interval. The condition in (69b.) will rule out the
period of seventy years as an appropriate interval, and restrict the truth of the sentence
to the period in which John actually died. We also need condition (69b) to deal with
sentences like The traffic light turned red. Suppose we take a period of 24 hours in
which a traffic light changes from green to yellow, to red, and back to green. If the
very last change was one from yellow to red, the sentence will be true. If the very last
change happens to be from red to green, we are in trouble. Intuitively, this is not the
appropriate kind of period to evaluate the truth of the sentence at, for there are many
changes during a longer time interval. The restriction in (69b) rules out the 24 hour
period, and forces us to take into account the minimal time period of one change only.
However sophisticated the definition in (69), there are still remaining problems.
One issue is the question where exactly is the first thing the case, where is the second
thing the case, and what happens in the middle? It is unspecified where the transition
exactly takes place. In fact the crucial problem of the analysis of change remains,
namely what is the moment of change? Take the traffic light again. One moment it is
red, then it is green. Clearly, a change took place, but when? Clearly not before the
state of being red ended, and not after the state of being green started: the change takes
place between these two states. If we suppose, for simplicity, that we model this as
a change from :' to ', we get into a logical problem. On the one hand, we want to
observe the principle of bivalence:
(70) 8p: either k'kp = 0 or k'kp = 1
If we say that, at the moment of change neith ' nor :' holds, it follows that there is
no time at which the change occurs, i.e. there is no moment of change.
The reason this problem comes up in this way is that the model of time encoded
in interval logic is essentially what Landman calls the ‘filmstrip model of time’: time
is a fixed sequence of frames (states), because it is modeled as a succession of instants.
Just as in a film, the illusion of change comes from distinct states succeeding each
other rapidly enough. The closest you can come to defining a change in such a theory
is to characterize its beginning and its end. The change itself is in this way eliminated
from the theory. In instant tense logic we work with idealizations of sharp predicates,
but with interval logic we necessarily get to deal with problems of vagueness. And it
becomes clear we don’t really know how to deal with them..
2.6.3 Events
So we see that interval semantics remains essentially static. The problem of the analy-
sis of change is an important motivation for the introduction of events in our ontology.
The intuition that the world is a dynamic system of changing processes then requires
the introduction of events as the basic constituents of time. We can locate a moment
where the door was open before the moment where the door is closed, because we
observed or are able to postulate an event of change leading from the state where the
door was open to the state where the door was closed. In fact, our awareness of time
passing by is closely related to things happening. This leads to the view, defended by
Davidson (1967), Kamp (1981) and others, that events are the real primitives of tempo-
ral structures. This view laid the ground for the developments of event semantics. The
definition of overlap, inclusion, and precedence relations between events in an event
structure can be used as the basis from which interval structure and instant structure
are derived. In this view, we take the dynamic changes to exist in their own right, and
we do not try to reduce them to a succession of stages.
Events are entities that inherently have duration. In this sense we cannot do with-
out a temporal ordering even if we can do without points, because duration is a temporal
concept. But we are able to take events and their temporal relations as primitive, and
construct the temporal entities, periods and moments, as abstractions out of them. The
approach of taking events as basic and constructing periods and points out of them goes
back to Russell, Wiener and Whitehead, and has been revived in modern semantics by
Hans Kamp (see in particular, Kamp 1979). We come to periods by looking at events
that are cotemporal. We can order a period before another by pointing at an event that
went on at one period, but no longer at the other.
Kamp’s event structures have precedence and overlap as primitive relations:
(71) An event structure E is a triple hE; <; Æi, where E is a set of events, < is a
strict partial order, and Æ is a reflexive symmetric relation such that:
(i) ! : (e < e )
e1 < e2 2 1
(ii) e <e ^ e <e ! e <e

1 2 2 3 1 3
(iii) eÆe
(iv) e Æe ! e Æe
1 2 2 1
(v) e < e ! : (e Æ e )
1 2 2 1
(vi) e <e ^ e Æe ^ e <e ! e <e

1 2 2 3 3 4 1 4
(vii) e <e _ e Æe _ e <e

1 2 1 2 2 1
Furthermore, we define an inclusion relation on events:

(72) e1 v e2 iff
8e [e < e2 ! e < e1 ] and
8e [e2 < e ! e1 < e] and
8e [e Æ e1 ! e Æ e2 ]
Note that the inclusion relation v is reflexive and transitive, but not antisymmetric
(see picture Landman p. 189). That is, e1 v e2 and e2 v e1 , but not e1 = e2 .
That is precisely what we want: cotemporal events need not be identical. Note also
that this inclusion relation defines just temporal inclusion. As Landman (1991: 189)
points out, we may want to put more structure on events, for instance a relation of
(constituting) part-of. For example, we have the feeling that the invasion of Normandy
is not just temporally included in the Second World war, but is a constituting part of
it. We cannot use v for that, so to express such relations, we have to introduce a new
partial order. The definition of constituting part-of relations takes us deeper into the
domain of part-whole relations in general, see for instance Moltmann (1997) for more
discussion.
The introduction of events as ‘hidden’ arguments of predicates follows the tradi-
tion of Davidson (1967) and others. The advantage of treating events like individuals
is that we have a better way of handling the referential natural of tenses. The most im-
portant conceptual problem here is the problem of event identity: what is it that makes
up the event? When are two events identical? What parts does an event have? etc. All
this depends on what singles it out as an event, a conceptual scheme. How a conceptual
scheme singles out events is a mysterious matter, but for simplicity we can assume that
it does this by assigning descriptive content to events. Changes are primitives, so an
event can now be defined as reporting a change of a certain kind. (see Landman p.
229–233 for details).
Intervals and instants are defined on the basis of events. An instant of the event
structure E is defined as a maximal set of pairwise overlapping events in the following
way:
(73) Let E be an event structure. Then:
(i) i is an instant of E if:
(a) i E
(b) e1 ; e2 2 i ) e1 Æ e2
(c) if H E and i H , and for all e1 ; e2 2 H it is the case that e Æ e ,
1 2
then H i
(ii) An event e occurs at an instant i iff e 2 i
(iii) For all instants i1 ; i2 : i1 <i i2 iff there are e1 2i
1 and e2 2i
2 such that
e1 < e2
The moral of the story is that event semantics derives temporal structure from event
structure rather than the other way around. An example of a well-worked out theory
of time and events in this perspective is Kamp and Reyle’s implementation of event
semantics in Discourse Representation theory. One of the interesting notions they de-
velop is a discourse semantics of times and events (see chapter 5 below).
Chapter 3
The semantics of inner

aspectuality
3.1 Introduction
This chapter consists of a selection of handout-like annotations, fragments taken out of
papers and material written for the course. It contains some of the formal machinery
of the PLUG+ -grammar of Verkuyl 1993 in order to make clear how a compositional
semantics may proceed formally. The PLUG+ -grammar involves higher order type
logic that we shall not discuss here in detail. What we shall do is to present properties
of the model structure to which the interpretation function operating on the presumed
logical language pertains. This turns out to facilitate the understanding of the basic
principles of the compositional system.
One important feature of PLUG+ is that it takes the VP as a central structural unit.
The external argument relates semantically to VP-information. This is because the VP:
is an intermediate station in aspectual composition;
is the predication Path;
is a factor in a multiplication;
reduces ambiguity;
plays a role in anaphoric reference;
is restricted by aspectualizers;
relates to tense.
Why asymmetry?
write a book , eat an apple, etc.
71
72 CHAPTER 3. THE SEMANTICS OF INNER ASPECTUALITY
eat three apples in an hour, #eat apples in an hour; ?lift tables in a minute; lift
four tables in une minute.
Ivan procital poeziju = ‘Ivan read the poetry’ (bounded interpretation; Ivan cital
poeziju = ‘Ivan read from the poetry’; non-bounded.
idiomatic expressions.
Sentences under investigation:

(3.1) a. Mary lifted four tables
b. Three girls lifted a table
c. Three girls lifted four tables
d. All girls lifted a table
3.2 The index-based approach

3.2.1 Introduction
Formally the PLUG+ -grammar makes us of numbers as the semantic objects involved
in building up what eventually becomes event structure. In particular, the counting in
0,1,2,3, : : : is taken to provide a sense of progress.
VP[TV P ]
s- V[+ADD] NP[SQA]

` -
Figure 3.1: Two functions make up the VP
3.2.2 The successor function

The localism involved in the account of change can be tied up very naturally with the
number systems: each [+ADD TO]-verb is interpreted as introducing a well-ordered set
I of indices i. Let I := N. That is: I is taken as the set of natural numbers, which by
Definition 3.2.1 are the endpoints of intervals in R, the set of real numbers.
Definition 3.2.1 IV := f(0; k) R jk 2 Ng

The successor-function s : I ! I is defined over I by 8k 2 I : s(k ) = k + 1. No
equidistance. The connection between I and IV is made by a function succ : IV !
IV defined such that for all 8k 2 N : succ((0; k)) = (0; s(k)) In this way [+ADD TO]-
verbs meet the Peano axioms characterizing natural numbers (cf.Partee et al. 1990:75–
78 for details).
3.2. THE INDEX-BASED APPROACH 73

Utrecht CS Duivendrecht Amstel Amsterdam CS
Figure 3.2: Stations and Lines
Important is the idea of interaction between two number systems. Visible in Fig-
ure 3.2. Train schedule: stations in IN, lines in IR. Also in Figure 3.3: we “live” in
IR but use IN to speak about it, the 4th of July, week 32, etc. Only if necessary, we
month
3k n
*1 2 Y3 4
week
day
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Figure 3.3: Interaction of two systems
break open its IN-nature. Discretization is part of our way to use language. Odometer.
Rounding-off.
Indices are introduced as part of the information expressed by a [+ADD TO]-verb.
(3.2) : : : iY:[ lift] (i)(Y )(X )
Type-logically, lift is here of type hi; hhe; ti; tiii, the type of functions taking an index
and yielding a collection of sets.
3.2.3 The Path function `: structuring the VP

The construal of the VP as a semantic object is given by Def. 3.2.2 which defines ` as
an injective (one-one) function.
Definition 3.2.2 ` : I inj

! [ NP] with ` = fhi; yi : [ AT] M;i (y)(x) = 1g
The proper value for x will be given shortly. Path formation by ` exemplified in Fig-
ure 3.4.
[ NP] : yi yi+1 yi+1+1 :::

x
6Path of x 6 6 - 6
: : :
[ V] : i i+1 i+1+1 :::
Figure 3.4: ` forming a set of pairs, i.e. a ‘Path’

The type-logical representation of the NP four tables:

(3.3) Phhe;ti;ti 9w[w [ table] he;ti ^ jwj = 4 ^ 9Qpsw[Q = P ]]
The existential quantifier in front of Q introduces a set of combinatorial possibilities
induced by the information jwj = 4.
Underinformation is essential to this analysis. It allows for a situation making
(3.1c) Three girls lifted four tables true in case girl1 lifted four tables as a group, girl2
one-by-one, whereas girl3 followed a 2+1+1-pattern. In all cases the individual Paths
of the girls are all bounded with Paths having one, four and three counting points,
respectively.
y1 y2 y3
Q= t1 t3
t4
t2
Figure 3.5: Partitioning [ NPint ] into three cells y1 , y2 and y3
3.2.4 The participancy function : structuring S

The participancy function takes as its domain the external NP-denotation assigning
to each element x in it a unique `, written as (x) = `x .
Definition 3.2.3 : [ NP1 ] ! (I ! [ NP2 ] ) is defined as: for all (singletons)

x 2 [ NP1 ] : (x) = `x, where `x := fhi; yi : [ AT] M;i (y)(x) = 1g1
Spelled out for the set G = fg1 , g2 , g3 g of three girls, this means that in (3.1b) and
(3.1c) (g1 ) = `g1 ; (g2 ) = `g2 ; (g3 ) = `g3 gives a proper interpretative format.
Since Verkuyl 1988 a distinction between two interpretive “modes” .
(3.4) a. injective : `1 6= `2 6= `3
b. constant : `1 = `2 = `3
“Law”: given cardinality 3 in the external argument and cardinality 4 in the internal
argument, the number of arguments involved in the lifting-predicate is either 34 = 12
or 1 4 = 4. In the first case, the injective mode, each of the girls has her own distinct
Path given the variety of possible configurations because hi; ft1 gi 6= hj; ft1 gi and
hi; ft1gi 6= hi; ft2 gi. That is, each Path consists of twelve pairs of indices and tables,
and so there are 12 index-dependent tables. The injective mode is an asymmetrical
1 In PLUG , the function is defined on singletons in the external argument domain. One may also define
the function on the union of the domain so as to be able to pick out individuals. The discussion about the
type-logic involved is irrelevant to the present argument, so to facilitate the exposition we will omit set braces
where possible.
version of the principle of distributivity which distributes the 3 in 3 4 = 12 down to

its atoms, as in (3.5).
(3.5) g1 7! fhi; ft ; t ; t ; t gig
1 2 3 4
g2 7! fhj; ft gi; hj + 1; ft gi; hj + 2; ft gi; hj + 3; ft gig
5 1 5 7
g3 7! fhk; ft ; t gi; hk + 1; ft gi; hk + 2; ft gig
1 2 6 7
In (3.5) there are twelve (3 4) tables provided that e.g. table as dependent
S on index
2
i differs from table as dependent on index k. If one takes the union i2I Ran(`xi ),
2
there are seven object tables.
Definition 3.2.4 X is distributive iff for all X; Y D:
(i) if X 2 X & Y X; then Y 2 X;
(ii) if X 2 X & Y 2 X; then (X [ Y ) 2 X
As to constant, the basic idea is that on this mode the individual Paths of the mem-
bers of the external NP denotation are blurred out: there is no individual Path satisfying
the predication. This may be called the kolkhoz-collective or totalizinginterpretation
of sentences like (3.1c). This interpretation is made true by several combinatorial pos-
sibilities, among which (3.6a) and (3.6b).
(3.6) a. g1 7! fhi; ft ; t ; t ; t gig

1 2 3 4
g2 7! fhi; ft ; t ; t ; t gig
1 2 3 4
g3 7! fhi; ft ; t ; t ; t gig
1 2 3 4
b. g1 7! fhi; ft ; t gi; hi + 1; ft gi; hi + 2; ft gig
1 2 3 4
g2 7! fhi; ft ; t gi; hi + 1; ft gi; hi + 2; ft gig
1 2 3 4
g3 7! fhi; ft ; t gi; hi + 1; ft gi; hi + 2; ft gig
1 2 3 4
The obvious Orient Express interpretation for (3.7a) is that all passengers are mapped
to the same individual, the purpose of the collective murder being that a judge could
never pick out one of the twelve passengers for him or her to apply the kill-predicate
to. The -injective interpretation would have twelve individuals having been killed.
(3.7) a. The twelve passengers killed a horrible villain
b. Hans and Uwe wrote an introductory book about DRT
Definition 3.2.5 X is totalizing with respect to the collections A; B iff :

(i) A \ B X;
(ii) there is no X D : X S(A \ B ) & X 2 X
S
This says that the unit set (A \ B ) satisfies the predicate
Sdenoting X and it precludes
the predicate from being applied to any proper subset of (A \ B ).
s
- -
`x1 s
- -
`xn
I I
6 DL :::
I I
6 DL

[[NPext ]] x1 ::: xn
Figure 3.6: The relation between the functions s, ` and
3.2.5 The three functions working together

In the preceding sections we have tried to show that the three functions s, ` and do not
only account for terminativity, but that they also account properly for the distributive
and collective facts. It is this feature of the framework which distinguishes it from most
event semantic enterprises. The result of the interaction between s; ` and is given in
Figure 3.6. It comprises all the different sorts of terminativity discussed so far:
1. n = 1 as in Judith ate a sandwich, Mary lifted four tables. Here the differ-
ence between the distributive mode and the totalizing mode is irrelevant: they
collapse.
2. n 1 in Dom() as in Three girls lifted a table and Three girls lifted four tables.
Here there are two possibilities:
(a) n = 1 in Ran() : totalization defined in Def. 3.2.5;
(b) n 1 in Ran(): distributivity defined in Def. 3.2.4.
If this is the right picture of the compositional process involved, it follows rather
straightforwardly that events are not individuals. Which part of the system making
up the information should be called an event seems to be a matter of convention. In
(3.1a) Mary lifted four tables one might apply the notion of event to the application of
` or to the application of . In (3.1c) Three girls lifted four tables the notion of event
may vary from 1 to the number of x’s available for the application of `x . In both cases,
however, the notion of event may also be applied to subparts of the Path expressed by
`. The Davidsonian approach tends to blur the differences between the levels at which
we may speak about events.
3.2.6 Reduction of scopal ambiguity

(hi; ft gi 6= hj; ft gi et hi; ft gi 6= hi; ft gi)
1 1 1 2
(3.8) a. All girls lifted a table

b. 8x 2 G9y 2 T : Lxy
c. 9y 2 T 8x 2 G : Lxy
(3.9) a. g1 7! fh1; ft gig

1 b. g1 7! fh1; ft gig
1
g2 7! fh2; ft gig
1 g2 7! fh1; ft gig
2
g3 7! fh1; ft gig
2 g3 7! fh1; ft gig
3
c. g1 7! fh1; ft gig
1 d. g1 7! fh1; ft gig
1
g2 7! fh2; ft gig
1 g2 7! fh1; ft gig
1
g3 7! fh3; ft gig
1 g3 7! fh1; ft gig
1
(3.10) a. ::: and put it in the corner

b. ::: and put them in the corner
(3.11) a. 8x 2 GIRL(x)[9y 2 TABLE(y)[LIFT(x; y))]]

a.0 8x[GIRL(x) ! 9y(TABLE(y) ^ LIFT(x; y))]
b. 9y 2 TABLE(y)[8x 2 GIRL(x)[LIFT(x; y))]]
b.0 9y[TABLE(y) ^ 8x(GIRL(x) ! LIFT(x; y))]
3.2.7 Two Paths make a journey
(3.12) Every professor filled out a form when a student of his passed the test
(3.13)
fill
Dom( ) Ran( )
=
`fill
x
Dom(`) Ran(`)
jj pass
Dom( ) Ran( )
p1 7! i 7! s1 7! fhi 1; test p ig
1 1
p1 7 ! i+1 7 ! s2 7 ! fhi; test p ig
2 1
p2 7! j 7! s1 7! fhj 1; test p ig
2 2
p2 7 ! j 7 ! s3 7 ! fhj 1; test p ig
2 2
p2 7 ! j+1 7 ! s4 7 ! fhj; test p ig
2 2
p2 7 ! j+2 7 ! s5 7 ! fhj + 1; test p ig
2 2
p3 7! k 7! s1 7! fhk 1; test p ig
3 3
p3 7 ! k 7 ! s2 7 ! fhk 1; test p ig
3 3
p3 7 ! k 7 ! s3 7 ! fhk 1; test p ig
3 3
p3 7 ! k 7 ! s4 7 ! fhk 1; test p ig
3 3
(3.14) For each x 2 Dom( fill ) : Ran(`x ) = Dom( pass )
(3.15) For some x 2 Dom( fill ) : Ran(`x ) Dom( pass )

3.3 Approaching outer aspectuality

3.3.1 Tense and Progressive Form
Tense is syntactically defined as taking a tenseless S of type hhhi; ti; ti; ti to form a
tensed S0 : S0 = INFL(S).2 Its semantics is given in (3.16), where varies over the
different tenses.
(3.16) [ INFL] = S 9I 9I [S (I ) ^ I = Ent (I ) ^ T ense (I )(i )]
V
+
V V
In (3.1a) Mary lifted four tables = <, because of its Past Tense. When (3.16) applies
to it, it yields (3.17):
(3.17) 9I 9I [Mary lift four tables(I ) ^ I = Ent (I ) ^ I < i ]
V
+
V V
This says that there is a set of indices I (in the naturals) and an interval IV in the Reals
such that I is associated with Mary’s lifting of four tables and I represents the stretch
of intervals IV and this stretch is before the point of speech i .3 This means that the
actualization of the abstract I -structure into a real time event takes place by Tense.
The Progressive Form P ROG applies before INFL and is syntactically defined as
taking a tenseless S to form a tenseless S: S0 = PROG(S).4
(3.18) [ PROG] = SJ 0 9J [S (J ) ^ J 0 J ]
For (3.1a) application of PROG to the tenseless [Mary lift four tables] yields (3.19b),
after which INFL is applied, yielding (3.19c).
(3.19) a. Mary was lifting four tables
b. SJ 0 9J [S (J ) ^ J 0 J ](Mary lift four tables)
= J 0 9J [Mary lift four tables(J ) ^ J 0 J ]
c. 9I 9IV 9J [Mary lift four tables(J ) ^ I J
^ I = Ent+ (IV ) ^ IV < i]
This says that the Mary-lift-four-tables-predication associated with J can only be war-
ranted as to its truth as far as its proper subset I is concerned. That is, only the I -part
of J is given as actualized in the reals and Tense commits itself only for I and not for
its complement in J . The present analysis is a non-modal treatment of the Progressive
Form as far as the application of a rounding-off function is non-modal. It assumes that
a tenseless S contains the information that supplies a full Path. Tense takes only part
of it as the Progressive demands.
The correspondence between the Progressive Form in English and the imperfective
form in Slavic can be given a structural basis on the assumption that the Progressive
Form in English sentences like (3.20) and (3.21) operates on terminative information.
(3.20) a. Judith was eating those sandwiches
b. Prog-Judith eat those sandwiches
[ ] ( )( )([[
2 The sentential structure of (3.1a) is (roughly): I: lift I i ] )([[
four tables ])
Mary , where I , the
h i
collection of i’s associated with the verb, is of type i; t . So, this makes Tense as taking an S of type
i; t ; t to form an S0 of type t. For details: Verkuyl 1993:318–327.
hh i i
3 Ent+ is defined as a rounding-off function from the Reals into the Naturals. I= Ent+ IV says that I
( )
is the set of representatives from the intervals in IV .
hhh i i hh i ii
4 This means that it is of type i; t ; t ; i; t ; t , the modifying type.
3.3. APPROACHING OUTER ASPECTUALITY 79
(3.21) a. John was crossing the street

b. Prog-John cross the street
In other words, (3.20a) and (3.21a) can be analyzed in terms of the presence of an
operator Prog modifying the information given in the tenseless phrases of (3.20b) and
(3.21b). There are many proposals in the literature on the Progressive Form involving
a very complex semantics, most of them based on modality.5 We will restrict ourselves
here to a more technical solution by assuming that the use of a Progressive operator
gives away the commitment of a speaker to the truth of what is in the scope of Prog. In
other words, given the terminative nature of the tenseless Judith eat some sandwiches
on the basis of the Plus-Principle, and given the fact that the truth can be determined
in terms of an interval (the running time of the event involved), the Prog-operator in
English to warrant the truth for just a proper subinterval. That is, for (3.20) to be
true, Judith may not have finished eating those sandwiches; in the same way, the truth
of (3.21) presumes that John did not yet had crossed the street. If Prog contributes
the subinterval Isub and I the interval of the terminative phrases, then one can say,
informally, that Prog requires Isub I . We will see Prog as an instance of an aspectual
operator ASP with = . If we put Prog on the place of PERF and IMP in Figure 1.8,
then we could make the following list:
(3.22) a. PERF = ASP =
b. IMP = ASP
c. PROG = ASP
These appear to be the three logically possible relations between the ASP -interval and
the I -interval of the tenseless phrase in the scope of the operator
Extending the scope of the analysis so as to include Romance languages we would
like to point out that it is possible to characterize some of the French tenses in these
terms. There is some debate possible and also going on about the question of whether
or not aspectual operators are in fact tense operators in these languages. We will return
to that point in detail in chapter ??. Here we can point out the possibility of analyzing
the Passé Simple in sentences like (3.23) along these lines.
(3.23) a. Marie écrivit une lettre
b. [ASP= [Marie-écrire-une-lettre]]
Sentence (3.23) is to be understood as expressing that Mary indeed produced a letter
by writing it. This is left in the dark in (3.24a).
(3.24) a. Marie écrivait une lettre
b. [ASP [Marie-écrire-une-lettre]]
This sentence can be understood as expressing that Mary did what she did in (3.23a)
but also as expressing the well-known in medias res of the Slavic Imperfective. Let
us say that (3.24a) is ambiguous as the meaning of . We would prefer to call this
underdetermination: (3.24a) simply does not want to give any commitment to either
of the two possibilities: and =. The term ‘commitment’ refers back to the point
5 Dowty, Asher & Lascarides, Landman, etc.,etc.
we made above, namely that the operators under analysis can be conceived of a ex-
pressing a commitment of the speaker. This fits the Slavic description of the difference
between Imperfective and Perfective aspect in which many scholars have observed that
the Imperfective aspect presents the situation medias in res, as opposed to the Perfec-
tive aspect by which a situation is presented as completed. As said there are different
opinions about the precise interaction between tense operators and aspectual operators
as well as about the criteria which decide whether some operator is in the temporal
domain or in the aspectual domain, but we shall not discuss them at this stage be-
cause formal machinery is necessary to have the discussion at the appropriate level of
preciseness.
3.3.2 Aspectualizers
In the past thirty years a lot of attention has been paid to the analysis of aspectualizers:
Newmeyer 1969, Perlmutter 1970, Freed 1979, among many others who based their
analyses on these studies. Recently, the attention for these verbs or rather to one of them
(begin) has been triggered by Pustejovsky 1995 and earlier work, Godard and Jayez 1993,
Pustejovsky and Bouillon 1995 who discuss the so-called coercion phenomena in sen-
tences like (3.25).
(3.25) a. Mary began a book
b. John finished his book
We will show now how aspectualizers are treated in the framework of Verkuyl 1993.
From this certain conclusions with respect to sentences like (3.25) may be drawn. So,
we will concentrate on aspectualizers occurring with to V and V-ing and try to solve
the problem how the information they contribute bears on the structure of `.
From a compositional point of view, the following question is relevant: why is
it that sentences like (3.26a)—when interpreted without the durational adverbials—
are durative and sentences like (3.26b) and (3.26c) are terminative —as shown by the
forced repetition in case they are combined with for hours, whereas the aspectual fea-
ture algebra of chapter 1 predicts that no [+T] may arise given a [–T] at the VP-level?
(3.26) a. Mary walked (for hours)
b. Mary began to walk (# for hours)
c. Mary began walking (# for hours)
One could solve this problem by simply stipulating that unergatives like walk escape
from this mechanism, but this would not help for sentences like (3.27).
(3.27) a. (For hours) Mary lifted tables
b. (# For hours) Mary began to lift tables
c. (# For hours) Mary began lifting tables
In these cases the well-known forced repetition occurs, which means that one has to
provide for a unified account of the terminativity expressed by b- and c- sentences in
(3.26) and (3.27). At this point it should be underlined that the notion of inchoativity
which is often associated with the sentences under discussion is aspectually without
content. If walk a mile is taken as pertaining to a process terminating at a given point,

begin to walk is to be taken as a process that terminates at a given point in the walking
process. Of course, if one wishes to use the term inchoativity for the onset-part of
the Path, one may do so, but this amounts to simply taking onset and inchoativity
as synonymous notions. From the aspectual point of view, the use of the notion of
inchoativity is useless because terminativity is available as the term covering both lift
four tables and begin to lift tables. In both cases the For hours-test reveals that they are
terminative. So we have to look for a possibility to deal with begin+VP in terms of the
same machinery that we need for the VP without an aspectualizer.
Given the notion of Path as elaborated above, it is a natural move to consider the
verb begin as restricting the Path function `. Syntactically, this means that aspectual-
izers should be seen as modifying the VP. Semantically it means that they modify the
information [+TVP ] and [ TVP ]. In this sense, they overrule the Plus-Principle without
making it useless. Having obtained an aspectual +-value by the application of an as-
pectualizer to a VP, say walk or walk a mile or lift tables, which yields [+TVP0 ], with
VP0 = [Aspectualizer+VP], the Plus-Principle proceeds as demonstrated by the feature
algebra, by relating the external argument NP Mary in (3.26b) and (3.27) and the VP0
formed with the verb begin and yielding a terminative value at the S-level in all cases.
Formally, the account of the modification of a VP by aspectualizers will be given
in terms of both and `, because these are closely tied together in the sense that their
definitions presuppose each other. The restriction must be located in `. Following the
standard definition for a restriction on a function, The first index produced by a verb
will be called i1 .6 The restriction on ` by begin can be defined as in (3.28).
(3.28) (x) = `x ji 1
This says that the application of yields a truncated Path ` because ` is restricted to
the first index. The restriction to index 1 is rather arbitrary because in sentences like
Mary began to lift hundred tables one might be more lenient as to the decision after
how many tables the use of begin is inappropriate. We will return to that point shortly.
At this stage, the point is that the restricted function `m ji1 yields just a finite number
of cells of the partition required by the VP-predicate. This explains the terminativity
of the sentences in (3.29).
(3.29) a. Mary began to lift tables
b. Mary began to walk
Sentence (3.29a) pertains to a bounded part of an otherwise unrestricted Path. The same
applies to (3.29b). Unergative verbs like walk can be analyzed as having a deficient
Path structure. The internal argument domain is empty. One may solve this problem
by modeling the unergative Path structure after the transitive Path structure discussed
in the preceding section. Let this co-domain of ` be the collection containing the empty
set and assume that all indices produced by the [+ADD TO]-verb walk are mapped onto
;. In this case, begin picks out the pair hi1 ; ;i, and this gives `ji1 a finite cardinality,
just as predicted.
This can be illustrated as in Figure 3.7
6 A restriction of a function f : A ! B , to a set C with C A is the set fhx; yi : hx; yi 2 f and
x 2 C g. The restriction is denoted by f jC .
begin
[ NP ] : p0 p1 p2 p3 :::
66 - 6 6
`Mary :

[V ]: 0 i i+1 i+2 :::
Figure 3.7: The beginning of Mary’s Path
Aspectualizers like begin display a sort of neutrality as to their input: they slice blindly.
That is, if they receive a terminative VP the result will be terminative as well:
(3.30) a. Mary began to lift four tables
b. Mary began to walk a mile
In both cases, the restriction cuts out the first-index structure of a bounded Path, as
begin is not interested in the remainder of the Path. As soon as the restriction has been
applied, the process comes to a stop.
The point made for begin can be extended to other aspectualizers, but not for keep
and continue. These do not slice out pairs from `. Rather they come close to enhance
the working of the successor operation. We come back to them below in section ??.
The aspectualizers that qualify for being analyzed as restricting a function by selecting
a specific index or specific indices in the Path function ` are given in (3.31).
8 begin, start
< 1k<m<n
(x) = `jik ; s.t. for end, stop, quit, resume 1 < k = m < n
(3.31)
: finish, complete 1<m<kn
In general, aspectualizers modify the onset, the nucleus and the coda to use Freed’s
tripartition of the interval making up the Path. The aspectualizers in the second group
differ in many respects, but what they have in common is that they “slice out” a part of `
in the way indicated. It is also important that the value n contributed by the cardinality
information of the internal argument of the VP-predicate be not reached. Freed 1979
points out that verbs like end, quit, stop, resume, cease, etc. express the suspension
of an action or event and presuppose the prior occurrence or suspension of the action
involved. This distinguishes these verbs from verbs that indicate that the end of the Path
has been reached, like finish and complete and from verbs that indicate the beginning
of it like begin and start. In this sense, (3.31) provides for a correct account of the
interpretive data as far as restrictions on ` are concerned.
Returning to sentences like (1.26) Miša zakuril (sigaretu) (Miša started to smoke
(a cigarette)) in chapter 1, we propose that the prefix za- is an aspectualizer in the sense
just described. It operates on the VP and provides a restriction on Miša’s Path.
3.3.3 Durativity, Habituality, Repetition

There is a nice courseware game called Tarski. It helps you to learn first-order logic
and to interpret its sentences with the help of a model. The game consists of an ap-
plication, a number of documents called X-worlds and a number of documents called

X-sentences, where X is a name given to the documents by players, e.g. Bolzano,
Peano, Russell, etc. Sentences are interpreted with respect to a world. The Tarski
folder contains an application, a set of sentence files and a set of world files. We show
a part of the Tarski folder in Figure 3.8 as it appears on the screen. A folder is a set
PDF-refusal
Figure 3.8: (Part of) A Tarski folder
of documents. When we double-click one of the world documents, say HH World, we

obtain Figure 3.9. What you cannot see in the picture is a document beneath it, called
PDF-refusal
Figure 3.9: HH World
HH Sentences. Sentences in it may be interpreted with respect to all worlds in the

Tarski folder. In the file HH sentences, first order logical expressions say things about
the world you are seeing in Figure 3.9. In HH Sentences you find e.g. the statement
(3.32).
(3.32) 9x(Cube(x) ^ Large(x) ^ 8y((Medium(y) _ Small(y)) ! LeftOf(x; y)))
This formul says with respect to a model, say the HH world—which we shall call M1 —
that there is a large cube to the left of all the other objects. The sentence is accepted as
well-formed by the Tarski game, but it is taken as not being true in M1 . However, it is
true in the situation given in Figure 3.10. The change you see between the Figures is
PDF-refusal
Figure 3.10: HH2
brought about by clicking the large cube, selecting it and moving it to the left. Now,
with Figure 3.10 on the screen, Denis comes in, is puzzled by the movement on the
screen and asks us what sort of game we are playing. Henriette’s answer is (3.33).
(3.33) I put the large cube to the left : : :
Sentence (3.33) is terminative: it expresses something bounded. The well-known as-
pectual tests as in (3.34) confirm this.
(3.34) a: #For hours I put the large cube to the left
b: I put the large cube to the left in a minute
If she had answered the question with (3.34a), Denis would have taken it to mean that
she was caught in the act of repeatedly putting that cube to the left side of the quan-
drangled base and he would probably have adviced us to get away from the computer
immediately.
But now suppose that Henriette said (3.34a) with Figure 3.8 on the screen of the
computer. Denis knew that we had the task of organizing all the world documents in
the Tarski folder in a certain way preparing them for the examination of some students,
so to put the large cube to the left in world documents having a large cube is a feasible
thing to do. With an eye on Figure 3.8 Denis would not be disturbed about our mental
health as he was in the first case. This is because in (3.34a) its part (3.33) is interpreted
duratively. How come?
The fascinating thing about this problem is that in both cases we use the same
language material. It is evident that each of the worlds in the folder has its own time
structure, so in order to bring about changes one has to open the world document,
which means that there are as many time structures as there are world documents. Our
going through all the documents is durative due to the plurality we are going through.
However, there is a third situation which makes the problem at issue even more fasci-
nating. At this moment, the general Macintosh operating system called OS 8.6 is not
so far developed as to allow us to operate in documents without opening them. For
instance, if one has written and preserved seven articles in which Jespersen is spelled
as Jesperson —as linguists regularly do—, then one cannot use a Find and Change
command replacing Jesperson by Jespersen in all documents at once. Each document
has to be opened separately because, as said, each document has a unique structure,
in particular a unique individual history. Suppose now that there is a system, say OS
12.0 enabling us to operate on the world documents of the Tarski folder simultaneously
without having to open them. And assume that we now say (3.34a) #For hours I put
the large cube to the left. Then we are immediately back in the first odd situation: the
sentence forces us into repetition or into stretching.
What can we learn from this? Well, we can observe that in the durative case we
do not (or cannot) take into consideration the cardinality information expressed by the
cube. Terminative aspectuality is closely tied up with cardinality information expressed
by a [+SQA]-NP. In the durative case, we have no immediate access to it. From this,
one may derive the position that the unique time structure of a document requires that
there be [+SQA]-information for it to be able to express terminativity. As soon as we
speak about more than one time structure (more than one model), we simply cannot
have terminativity. This is because the inspection of world documents with their own
time structure is subjected to the time structure of the inspection itself: folder time
dominates file time. It is only by compressing all these time structures—by obliterating
them in OS 12 that we are able to get back at terminativity: the desk top time structure
takes over, so all documents temporarily get the system 12.0 time. A situation that
comes very close to the OS 12 situation would be the well-known electronics shop
with the wall full of TV’s broadcasting the same program. In that case we would see,
say, twenty cubes but we would certainly speak about one cube because we attribute to
each screen the same time structure.
Another thing we learn is that we seem to operate at two levels: (a) the level of
terminativity; (b) a higher level in which we have to take into account so much of
the higher level time structure that we cannot have terminativity. A proper way to
account for this is again in terms of a multiplication. If we represent the information
expressed by the terminative sentence I put that cube to the left as a factor 1, one may
say that given n documents in the folder, the durative interpretation presumes n 1-
3.4. EVENTS OR INDICES? 85
occurrences of the same sort. This creates the sense of plurality which is inherent to
the notion of repetition. In terms of the structure in Figure 1.1, we may now assume
that the factor n in n 1 is located upstairs in the tree, say at the position of ASP .
We will see that the factor 1 might be taken as expressing an event e and in that sense
the habituality statement (at the folder level) provides information about n events. The
Tarski example discussed suppresses the notion of event a bit but this is to get at the
real thing happening, namely the fact that each document (event) has a unique time
structure making it different from any other document. This seems to be the heart of
the matter of so-called episodicity.
3.3.4 Conclusion
We have discussed some issues concerning the interaction between terminative seman-
tic objects and modifications of it: taking a part of it as in the Progressive Form and in
Imperfective sentences, giving a plurality of it in the form of habituality or frequency.
We have shown that levels of perspectives are involved and with these levels we see
that the type-token distinction tends to impose itself. This does not explain the issues
under investigation, it simply shows that some sort of multiplication is involved. Nega-
tion fits in this pattern. On the face of it, one could even argue that if the ASP-operator
would be represented as a factor, say as 1, then negation might be taken as bringing
about 01, whereas habituality would yield n 1, as opposed to the Progressive Form
having 0:n 1. We do not commit ourselves to such a perspective however tempting
it is to do so. But negation will turn out not to deny the existence of what is concealed
behind the factor 1 (the VP-terminative information). Before we tackle these very sub-
tle and intricate issues in chapter ?? we will first discuss the question of whether or not
the PLUG-approach of working with indices differs crucially from the event-semantic
approaches. The question will be, in short, whether we use numbers or events to model
our sense of time. In the next section we will compare the two approaches.
3.4 Events or indices?

3.4.1 The model structure in Kamp & Reyle
Model structure of Kamp and Reyle 1993:664–79.
I(E) I(E )
6 k
I Int I(E) }(E) Int }(I(E))
E p - Ints(I(E)) E
? Int
(a) (b)
Figure 3.11: Russell-Wiener according to K&R.

(3.35) P1. e1 < e2 ) :e2 < e1 Asymmetry

P2. e1 < e2 ^ e2 < e3 ) e1 < e3 Transitivity
P3. eÆe Reflexivity
P4. e1 Æ e2 ) e2 Æ e1 Symmetry
P5. e1 < e2 ) :e2 Æ e1
P6. e1 < e2 ^ e2 Æ e3 ^ e3 < e4 ) e1 < e4
P7. e1 < e2 _ e1 Æ e2 _ e2 < e1 Linearity
3.4.2 Instant Structure

Given the postulates P1 - P7, K&R “generate” the instant structure I(E) by the follow-
ing definition, labeled as it by K&R:
Definition 5.6.1. Let E be an event structure as constrained by P1 - P7. Then I(E) =

hI; <ii, with I the set of instants i as defined in (i) and <i the precedence relation as
defined in (iii):
(i) i is an instant of E if
a. i E;
b. e1 ; e2 2 i ) e1 Æ e2
c. if H E; i H; and for all e1 ; e2 2 H; e1 Æ e2 ; then H i
(ii) An event e occurs at an instant i iff e 2 i
(iii) For all instants i1 ; i2 : i1 <i i2 iff there are e1 2 i1 ; e2 2 i2 such that e1 < e2
This is illustrated in Figure 3.12, where i1 i-precedes i2 , because e1 e-precedes e3 .
z }|i
2
{
z }|i
1
{
e1 e2 e3
Figure 3.12: i1 <i i2
3.4.3 Interval Structure

On top of I(E) a new structure is constructed called Int(I(E)) = hInt; <p ; Æp i. As
Int(I(E)) is a substructure of T , this means that Int is a set of convex subsets of T, i.e.
a set of intervals. The relations <p and Æp are defined on the basis of the K&R-definition
5.6.2.
Definition 5.6.2. Let X, Y be intervals of the instant structure P(E). Then:

(i) X <p Y iff for all i1 2 X and i2 2 Y; i1 < i2
(ii) X Æp Y iff X \ Y 6= ;
(iii) X p Y iff for every instant i 2 X; i 2 Y
3.4. EVENTS OR INDICES? 87
This definition can be illustrated by considering the following sets:
(3.36) a. X = ffi1 e1 ; e2 g; fi2 e2 ; e3 gg Y = ffi3 e4 ; e5 g; fi4 e6 ; e7 gg

b. X = ffi1 e1 ; e2 g; fi2 e2 ; e3 gg Y = ffi3 e3 ; e4 g; fi4 e5 ; e6 gg
In (3.36a), X clearly precedes Y: the definition precludes overlap. There is overlap in

(3.37a) and overlap and inclusion in (3.37b):
(3.37) a. X = ffi1 e1 ; e2 g; fi2 e2 ; e3 gg Y = ffi2 e2 ; e3 g; fi3 e3 ; e4 g; fi4 e4 ; e5 gg
b. X = ffi1 e1 ; e2 g; fi2 e2 ; e3 gg Y = ffi1 e1 ; e2 g; fi2 e2 ; e3 g; fi3 e3 ; e4 gg
The examples in (3.36) and (3.37) illustrate the nature of the mapping between the
structures E and Int(I(E)). This is done by the homomorphism p, which is structure-
preserving with respect to < and Æ. What it does is to provide for e1 in (3.36a) and
(3.37) the set ffe1 ; e2 gg and for e2 the set ffe1 ; e2 g; fe2 ; e3 gg, if we follow K&R.
In this way an event is associated with the instants at which it occurs.
The third option discussed by K&R is to abandon the idea that times should be
definable from events, which means that both events and times are taken as primitive
categories, that time has the structural properties of the reals IR, and that the event
structure and time structure are connected by some structure preserving function, which
is called LOC:
an event structure E = hE; <; Æi as defined above.

a linearly ordered and compact time structure T = hT; <i.
a function LOC: E ! T 0 defined by:
(a) if e Æ e0 ; then LOC(e) \ LOC(e0 ) 6= ;
T
(b) for every i 2 I(E) : fLOC(e) : e 2 ig = 6 ;
where T 0 is a homomorphic contraction of T .
The most appropriate way of illustrating the third option may be Figure 3.13, in which
time and events are treated separately, the only direct connection being the LOC-function.
I(E) T I(E )
[] T
6 6
I Int I(E) }(E) Int }(T)
E LOC - Int(T?) E
? Int
(a) (b)
Figure 3.13: The third option

Whatever the merits of this third option, it is clear that it crucially uses the main in-
gredients of the Russell-Wiener construction, the difference being that rather than con-
struing time from events there is now an isomorphic mapping between event structure
and time structure.
3.4.4 Path Structure as Instant Structure

Precedence can be defined in terms of the number system in which the well-orderedness
of the naturals are a way to capture this sort of precedence. This can be obtained by
construing natural numbers as sets, while making use of their status as individuals, in
the way demonstrated in e.g. Partee et al. 1990:75f. which sketches a method to treat
the numbers 0; 1; 2; 3; : : : as sets by defining them as in (3.38).
(3.38) 0 =df ;
1 =df f;g = f0g
2 =df f;; f;gg = f0; 1g
3 =df f;; f;g; f;; f;ggg = f0; 1; 2g
4 = :::
Double perspective. For example, the fourth line of (3.38) says that 3 = f0,1,2g. In
other words, the number 3 is taken as a set with 0, 1 and 2 as its elements. We will
write : i3 = fe0 , e1 , e2 g, which simply says that 3 = f0; 1; 2g. The only goal of the
rewriting is to underscore the obvious parallel with an instant i as a set of e’s as defined
in Definition 5.6.1 and illustrated in Figure 3.12.
z }|i 3
{
z }|i {
2
s1 s2s3 s4
0 1 2 3
Figure 3.14: i2 <i i3
It is clear that the two perspectives on numbers play a role in Figure 3.14.
One difference between Figure 3.14 and Figure 3.12 is that Postulate 5 does not apply
to the former. To overcome this problem, we replace Æ by =. This leads to Defini-
tion 3.4.1, in which the labels of the model structures used by K&R are retained in
order to underscore the parallelism with Definition 5.6.1.
Definition 3.4.1
Let I be the set of indices isomorphic to IN with E = hI; i, obeying the postulates P1
- P7, with Æ replaced by =. Then I(E) = hI(E); <i i, with I(E ) the set of instants i as
3.5. EVENT-BASED APPROACHES 89
defined in (i) and <i the precedence relation as defined in (ii):
(i) i is an instant of E if
a. i I;
b. e1 ; e2 2 i ) e1 e2
(ii) For all instants i1 ; i2 : i1 <i i2 iff there are e1 2 i ;e 2 i : e < e
1 2 2 1 2
This produces the instant structure underlying the Path structure described above. From
this it should be possible to define a function Int: I(E) ! Int meeting the requirements
of Definition 5.6.2 and embedding Path structure into real time. In Verkuyl 1993 this
is done by an actualization function which connects the Reals to Figure 3.14 in much
the same way in which a performance of a sonata is related to the score. At that point
events take place in real time.
3.4.5 Comparison and conclusion

Considering the differences between the event-time strategy and the number-time strat-
egy one may conclude that Figure 3.12 is contaminated by the macro-notion of event.
An event in the sense of Figure 3.12 turns out to require complete Path structure but
as this is brought about by predication, one cannot assume events to be out there even
though many things happen. Events are construed by predication. That is why events
are very useful in discourse, because discourse is after all a sequence of predications.
The present argument suggests that overlap is necessary only in comparing complete
Path structures. We want to locate events as they take place with respect to each other
and allow for partial simultaneity. But this can be achieved in the Reals.
Perhaps a metaphor may guide us here: if one reads a score, one would not call a
sequence of discrete notes to be played, say, by the clarinet an event or a set of events.
If one compares the scores for the clarinet player and the hobo player, then in spite
of the overlapping structure in comparing the two bars, one would not call the two
“Path structures” events. The overlap relation between the two sequences in the score
shows up as an overlap between events only during a performance. This is exactly
what happens in a discourse, when applied to a certain model. As long as K&R ana-
lyze discourse as scores, they had better stay more abstract by using numbers (abstract
notes) rather than events (tones). So, a conclusion could be that K&R by departing
from the model structure side, have made the same sort of mistake as Davidson, in sug-
gesting that a macro-notion can be applied at the micro-level, i.e. at the level at which
predication is built up from the information of its parts.
3.5 Event-based approaches

3.5.1 Introduction
3.5.2 Krifka
Following Link 1983, Krifka 1989;1989b attributes to the domain of discourse D the
structure hD; ti of a join semilattice, i.e. a lattice with only the join-operator t as
binary operation on its elements. D is partitioned into a set O of objects and a set of
events E and so there are two join-operations in these subdomains: hO; E; tO ; tE i.
He also assumes the (mereological) part of relation v. Thus, the resulting model struc-
ture is: hO; E; tO ; tE ; vO ; vE i. This move has clearly ontological consequences.
(3.39) a. Mary died
b. John and Mary died
Standardly one has Die(et) (me ) for (3.39a), which is true iff I (m) 2 I (Die). This
analysis leads to problems for (3.39b) because if John and Mary are treated as denoting
a set, a type clash results. There are two ways out to save the generalization over the
two sentences in (3.39):
to treat Mary as a singleton and take NPs as being of type ((et)t), which is the
set-theoretical solution;
to take John and Mary as an individual of type e.
This latter is obtained by allowing for the extension of the predicate logic with an
operator , which is interpreted as the join t of two individuals. Thus, on a lattice-
theoretical approach (3.39b) can be represented as Die(John Mary), where [ John Mary]
is considered an individual of type e.
[ Die(John Mary)]] = 1 iff (I (j) t I (m)) 2 I (Die)

Lattice theory can be used for the account of the relation between mass and count
although it should be observed that there are other ways to relate them, one of them
being the extension of set theory to ensemble theory in Bunt 1985.
(i) Judith ate three sandwiches:
(3.40) a. eat e[Eat(e) ^ Ag(e; x) ^ Pat(e; y)]
b. three RPe9y[P(e) ^ Pat(e; y) ^ R(y; 3)]
c. sandwich nxSandwich(x; n)
d. three sandwiches Pe9y[P(e) ^ Pat(e; y) ^ Sandwich(y; 3)]
e. eat 3 sandwiches e9y[Eat(y) ^ Ag(e; x)
^ Pat(e; y) ^ Sandwich(y; 3)]
f. Judith Pe9x[P(e) ^ Ag(e; x) ^ x = j]
g. (i) e9x9y[Eat(e) ^ Pat(e; y)
^Sandwich(y; 3) ^ Ag(e; x) ^ x = j]
(3.41) e9x9y[Eat(e) ^ Pat(e; y) ^ 9n[Sandwich(y; n) ^ Ag(e; x) ^ x = j]]
(3.42) ' ; e9y[ (e) ^ (e; y) ^ Æ(y)]
Definition 3.5.1 Cumulativity (CUM):

8P(CUM(P) , 8x8y[P(x) ^ P(y) ! P(x t y)])
Definition 3.5.2 Summativity (SUM):

8R(SUM(R) ,
8e8e08z 8z 0[R(e; z ) ^ R(e0 ; z 0) ! R(e tE e0 ; z tO z 0)])
Definition 3.5.3 Quantized Reference (QUA):

8P(QUAO (P) , 8z 8z 0[P(z ) ^ P(z 0 ) ! :z 0 v z ])
Definition 3.5.4 Uniqueness of Objects (UoO):

8R(UNIO (R) , 8e8z 8z 0[R(e; z ) ^ R(e; z 0) ! z = z 0])
Definition 3.5.5 Mapping to Objects (MtO):

8R(MAPO (R) ,
8e8e08z [R(e; z ) ^ e0 vE e ! 9z 0[z 0 vO z ^ R(e0 ; z 0 )]])
Definition 3.5.6 Mapping to Events (MtE):

8R(MAPE (R) ,
8e8e08z [R(e; z ) ^ x0 vO x ! 9e0 [e0 vE e ^ R(e0 ; z 0)]])
Cumulativity says for that if one has [ eating] (e) and [ eating] (e0 ), one may join them
into [ eating] (e t e0 ) and for Æ it says that if you have [ Nice] (j) and [ nice] (m), you
also have [ nice] (j t m). Summativity accounts for the -part: it joins two thematic
relations.
Some problems
1. Naumann 1996 observed that the cumulativity requirement on is empty. There
is no verb that is not cumulative. This means that any hope for making a distinction
between stative and nonstative verbs in terms of the notion of cumulativity must be
given up. It also means that all information about the role of the verb is relegated to the
(e; y)-part.
2. This holds also for the information expressed by Æ (y ) because in derivations like
(3.40) and those ending in (3.41), there is no Æ at all: the information about the Patient
is only expressed by Pat(e; y ). R(y; 3) or R(y; n) do not have the form Æ (y ). If Æ (y ) is
in fact an abbreviatory device for the “sandwich-part” of R(y; 3), i.e. its R(y; : : :)-part,
then a new problem arises: the Æ (y ) is the same in R(y; 3) and R(y; n), so if Æ (y ) is cu-
mulative in the latter it should also be in the former. And this means that the distinction
between Judith ate three sandwiches and Judith ate sandwiches cannot be made on the
basis of Æ (y ). The “sandwich-part” of R(y; 3) and R(y; n) is already expressed by the
SUM-postulate in Def. 3.5.2 applying to Pat(e; y ): its cumulativity is accounted for by

y t y0 . Cf. Naumann 1996 who raises the same objection to (e; y) as to (y): all
thematic relations are cumulative. The only place to look for the difference between
the durative Judith ate sandwiches and the terminative Judith ate three sandwiches is
the second argument of R(y; 3) and R(y; n). But here we meet an objection raised in
Verkuyl 1993: 9n.Sandwich(y; n) assumes that there is a specific unidentified number.
But the difference between an unknown number and the number 3 cannot be the basis
for a difference between unbounded and bounded. If we say John killed some men
we know that there is a finite number of men killed by John, but we cannot identify
the number n of men. The sentence itself is terminative. Basically Krifka treats bare
plurals in the same way as quantized NPs: in both cases there is a specific number n.
In PLUG+ the solution was to assume that in bare plurals no cardinality information is
given about the set involved in the predication, so that it cannot be determined.
3. Krifka says that Judith ate three sandwiches is terminative just in case Æ has quan-
tized reference and Pat(e; y ) meets the conditions UoO and MtO. Def. 3.5.4 UoO and
3.5.5 MtO do not follow from any linguistic material inside the sentence: they just stip-
ulate that the conditions hold for terminative cases. This keeps Krifka’s theory from
explaining the nature of terminativity. Naumann shows that the conditions hold good
for sentences like Judith ate three sandwiches containing verbs like eat, but that e.g.
UoO does not work properly in sentences like (3.43).
(3.43) John read two books
UoO requires that if someone reads a book, the event e has this book as the only object
to which it relates by the Pat-role. But one may read two books simultaneously, and
if humans cannot do that, computers can. One may also describe (3.43) as saying that
there are two events in each of which a book was read. But the same situation can also
be described in terms of two events meeting summativity. According to Naumann this
makes clear that whether or not the e relates to one or to two (complex) individuals
depends on underlying individuation criteria for events and these determine whether
or not UoO holds good. But this amounts to saying that UoO looses its explanatory
value, because as soon as one tries to solve this problem by pointing out that UoO may
vary dependent on the verbs involved, one is doing away with the constancy in the
-relation.
4. As to MtE and MtO Naumann also raises the problem of sentences like (3.44).
(3.44) a. John drove his car from Boston to Chicago
b. John peeled the apple
In (3.44a) halfway the Path is not halfway the car and in (3.44b) it is clear that only a
part of the apple is affected. The same applies to sentences such as Mary built a house:
the building of a house involves a lot of planning, erecting scaffolds, etc. and these are
not part of the mapping between the house and the event.
More in general it seems that MtO and MtE are not appropriate for dealing with
sentences like Three girls lifted four tables and Mary lifted four tables. For their proper
analysis it is essential that we capture the underdeterminedness of which of the possible
combinatorial configurations is actualized. For each of the actualizations the interplay
between s and ` warrants that the structure of I and the internal argument denotation
are in a mapping-relation. But this relation is not a naive physical one but it can be
formulated at the set-theoretical level at which quantification is dealt with.
These objections against Krifka’s lattice-theoretical approach in an event seman-
tic framework strengthen our wish pay attention to the position in which cardinality
information and, for mass NPs, information about some appropriate measure along the
lines of Bunt 1985 are taken as primordial for the aspectuality of a sentence. Focussing
on cardinality means that one abstracts from (naive) physics. This results in some un-
naturalness in the treatment of Judith ate a sandwich because the partitioning of the
NP-denotation [ a sandwich] yields just a singleton and so there is little room left for
what seems at first sight so nice and natural in a mereological treatment of this sentence
in terms of MtO and MtE. In the PLUG-treatment, the eating is a one swoop-event so
to say and one may wish that there should be more to it. Whether or not PLUG+ should
be “mereologized” in this direction is not clear, because from the point of view of
aspectual composition the [+SQA]-information interpreted model-theoretically as the
presence of cardinality information (or some measure function information) could be
judged sufficient. In this sense, Verkuyl prefers the strategy of a step-by-step extension
of set theory to ensemble theory as a basis for capturing the relation between Mass and
Count.
This raises the question of how Krifka’s e’s relate to the indices in the PLUG-
framework. If he would follow Naumann’s advice to simply recast MtO and MtE in
terms of the monotonicity property, then it would follow that the conditions come closer
to what is inherent to the interpretation of nonstative verbs in terms of the s-function.
It would be another way of saying that Krifka’s e’s may in fact be taken as indices.
Evidently, that would make Krifka’s grammar part of the PLUG-framework as far as
the verbal information is concerned.
This brings us finally to the point raised earlier, namely that Krifka actually uses
two notions of event. From the fact that (e) in (3.42) does not differentiate aspectually
between verbs, if follows more or less straightforwardly that the aspectual differences
are to be located at the level of ' itself. That is, at the level of VP. It is at that level
that Krifka may distinguish between a terminative event and a durative event But this
means that Krifka looks at '-events as dividuals. This is actually not what he says. But
it seems the only plausible way to interpret him. It should be added that ' does not
capture the role of the subject and that (3.42) does not say anything about the aspectual
relation between VP and S.
3.5.3 Parsons
In this section, we focus on Parsons’ predicates Hold and Cul in order to see how and
how much they contribute to a better understanding of the differences between durative
and terminative sentences. The relevant rules of his grammar are given in (3.45):
(3.45) R1: If 2 Vintr ; then 2 VP
R2: If 2 Vtrans & 2 Name; then 2 VP
R3: 2
8 etName
If & 2 VP; then 2 S &
< [ 0 ( e ) ^ Agent( 0 ; e) ^ Hold(e; t)];
a.
: et
if State, Process VP
[ 0 (e) ^ Agent( 0 ; e) ^ Cul(e; t)] if Event VP
8 et[ 0 (e) ^ Agent( 0 ; e) ^ Hold(e; t)]; if State VP
or:
<
b.
: et [ 0 (e) ^ Agent( 0 ; e) ^ Cul(e; t)]
if Process, Event VP
::: :::
R10: If 2 Adv & 2 VP; then = e[ 0 (e) ^ 0 (e)]
Both Hold and Cul in R3 are treated as two-place predicates between events and times.
R3 is split up into two different options. The a-option is chosen before 1984, the b-
option after 1984. There is an intriguing replication of the transition from R3a to R3b
in Parsons’ work. The transition from R3a to R3b took place around 1984 and so one
expects R3b to be established from that time on. But in Parsons 1990 the rules R3a
reappear at the beginning of the book and it is only at the close of the book that they
are rejected and that R3b is reintroduced. This makes it necessary to have a look at the
two options.7
Holda and Cula

First consider the definition of the two predicates:
Definition 3.5.7 (Parsons 1989: 220; also Parsons 1990:25) Holda : “means that an
eventuality e holds at time t, which means that e is either a state and e’s object is in
state e or e is an event which is in development at t”. Cula : means “that e is an event
that culminates at time t”.
Applied to the sentences in (3.46) this yields the primed representations.

(3.46) a. Mary dislikes Fred
a.0 9e[Disliking(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ Obj(e; f) ^ Hold(e; t)]
b. Mary was crossing the street
b.0 9e[Crossing(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ Obj(e; the street) ^ Hold(e; t)]
c. Mary crossed the street
c.0 9e[Crossing(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ Obj(e; the street) ^ Cul(e; t)]
Hold and Cul can only be seen as being added to the stock of Davidsonian predicates in
order to distinguish between durative and terminative aspectuality. Parsons absorbed
the Moens-idea of attributing to an event a development-part and a culmination-part.
Thus, Holda in (3.46b0) covers the development part of the crossing and expresses that
7 Pred is Pred from R3a, Pred from R3b, etc. Parsons sometimes writes simply Hold(e) or Cul(e) but
a b
this is only for convenience.
the event did not (necessarily) culminate. Cula expresses the sense of culmination that
Parsons attributes to (3.46c).
In the absence of any treatment of quantification in Parsons’ work, we must assume
that the difference between Judith ate three sandwiches and Judith ate sandwiches
would be accounted for as in (3.47).
(3.47) a. 9e[Eating(e) ^ Subj(e; j) ^ Obj(e; 3 sandwiches) ^ Cul(e; t)]
b. 9e[Eating(e) ^ Subj(e; j) ^ Obj(e; sandwiches) ^ Hold(e; t)]
The question arises: does Parsons present here a theory about aspectuality? If so, the
theory does not explain anything: Hold/Cula are at best descriptive predicates. That is,
some sort of meta-rules may be formulated:
if [ ::: Holda (e)]; then durative
if [ ::: Cula (e)]; then terminative
However, this does not work properly. Firstly, Lascarides 1988 pointed out devastat-
ingly that there is no logical relationship between (3.47a) and (3.47b). That is, there is
no Hold-part in Cula . The two predicates are unrelated, so there is no way to provide
for the one-way inference relation between sentences with a Hold-predicate and a Cul-
predicate, i.e. between (3.47b) and (3.47a). Secondly, from the purely aspectual point
of view it should be obvious that the aspectual difference between (3.47a) and (3.47b)
must be found in the difference between three sandwiches and sandwiches and it is
very hard to see what Hold and Cul could possibly contribute to explaining that differ-
ence, the more so because in (3.46) it seems to account both for the difference between
the Progressive Form and the simple Past, and for the difference between stative and
certain nonstative predications. At best, the addition of the Hold- and Cul-predicate is
a way of saying that the two sentences in (3.47) differ, but this is what we already knew
by looking at them. For Parsons there is no way of expressing that Hold sometimes has
to look at the subject NP—Nobody in Nobody ate a sandwich—, sometimes to the ob-
ject NP —three sandwiches, sandwiches—and sometimes to the verb (dislike in Judith
disliked a sandwich in order to establish durativity. In short, Hold and Cul do not do
anything to connect themselves to the spots where the relevant aspectual information
is. Not the slightest hint about which direction should be taken has been given in any
of Parsons’ articles nor in Parsons 1990.
Holdb and Culb

In spite of the change in position from Hold/Cula to Hold/Culb in Parsons 1985, Parsons 1990:
23-25 simply gives the Hold/Cula definitions and carries them with him to far beyond
p.142. Chapter 9 of Parsons 1990 is a slightly revised version of Parsons 1989. So, at
the very last pages the quite drastic change from Hold/Cula to Hold/Culb takes place
(at p. 184/185 of the book!). The differences between Hold/Cula and Hold/Culb are
minimized: “The effect of this proposal is to broaden the scope of the earlier analysis
without affecting its formulation. We just treat process verbs as a special kind of event
verb and apply the theory as before” (p. 184). From then on we have:
(3.48) a. Mary ran
a.0 9e[Running(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ Cul(e; t)]
b. Mary ran to the store
b.0 9e[Running(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ To(e; the store) ^ Cul(e; t)]
c. Mary was running to the store
c.0 9e[Running(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ To(e; the store) ^ Hold(e; t)]
And we may add:
(3.49) a. Mary dislikes Fred
a.0 9e[Disliking(s) ^ Subj(s; m) ^ Obj(s; f) ^ Hold(s; t)]
b. Mary was crossing the street
b.0 9e[Crossing(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ Obj(e; the street) ^ Hold(e; t)]
c. Mary crossed the street
c.0 9e[Crossing(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ Obj(e; the street) ^ Cul(e; t)]
It is clear that some additional notions are required. It is also clear that the distinction
between Hold and Cul now is just the lexical distinction between stative and nonstative
verbs, or rather the way the events corresponding with them actualize in time. This
raises a problem in (3.48c0): Hold cannot hold for events any longer. This is solved by:
(3.50) a. Mary be running to the store
a.0 9e[Running(e) ^ Subj(e; m) ^ To(e; the store)
^ Hold(In-prog(e); t)]
The operator In-prog takes an e and makes an s out of it: Parsons 1990:234 describes
this operator as follows: “whenever an event e is in progress, there is a corresponding
state of affairs, ‘that e is in progress’. This is a state that holds while e is in progress
(and at no other time). Call this the ‘in-progress state’ of the event e, or ‘e’s IP-state’ ”.
This can only mean that for Parsons Holdb and Culb are no longer part of an aspectual
theory: they are now part of the Tense system in the sense that they can be considered
as accounting for the connection between States and Events with real time. They have
nothing (structurally) to do in making a sentence (in-)compatible with for an hour and
in an hour. Parsons distinguishes between states and events and for each of the two
ontological categories he needs a term to express two types of actualization in real time:
Cul for nonstative predications; Hold for stative ones. Then an aspectual notion comes
in: IP-state. The reasoning must be the following: Cul brings us in the domain of non-
stative semantic objects—events—and these have a development part, a culmination
part and a consequent state part, in Parsons 1990:235 called Resultant State. In-prog
always takes the development part and yields a state.
3.5.4 Jackendoff
Introduction
Jackendoff’s work on thematic structure has been very important over the years. It is an
extension of ideas generated by Gruber 1976, and from its beginning Jackendoff 1972
an attempt to provide generative grammar with an appropriate semantics. However,

the syntax side of this enterprise is still rather reluctant to build semantic structures on
top of syntactic structures. Jackendoff has also developed very interesting insights into
aspectual things. The difference with the PLUG-framework is that it is more focussed
on the model structure (without, however, employing this notion formally). Thus a
sentence like Judith ate three sandwiches would be represented as (3.51):
(3.51) [Event CAUSE([Thing JUDITH]; [Event GO[Thing THREE SANDWICHES]
; [Path TO([Place IN([Thing MOUTH - OF[Thing JUDITH])])])])])]
It is obvious that Jackendoff sides the ontologists here in being interested in what ex-
actly happens when you eat a sandwich. This opposes the quantificational parsimony
of PLUG but also Parsons and Krifka. Jackendoff’s ontology interesting because he
applies X-bar syntactic principles to the world. He observes that the major phrases
S, NP, VP and PP have structural semantic similarities: NP’s pertain to Thing, Event,
Place, to Properties, PP’s to Places, to Paths, to Properties, etc. He also observes that
the anaphoric behaviour of these categores is analogous: That’s a robin, There is your
hat, Can you do this (cf. Davidson’s it), That fish is this long, etc. So, sortal approach:
same type (e), different sorts (Thing, Event, etc.).
In Jackendoff 1991 feature system based on [bounded], [internal structure],
[directional] and [n-dimensional]. The feature [bounded] is by and large intended
as [SQA], but due to his generalization over ontological categories it returns at the
S-level as [bounded], whereas in PLUG the complexely formed [T] would express
terminativity. The notion of [internal structure] pertains to having internal parts: it
is possible to count members. The features b and i mix into cross classifying feature
bundles. In view of the issues dealt with, the scheme’s in Table 3.1 and Table 3.2 are
significant, the latter referring to sentences like (3.52).
Features Entities Examples

[+b, +i] group 3 sandwiches
[+b, –i] individual a sandwich
[–b, +i] aggregate sandwiches
[–b,–i] substance bread
Table 3.1: Sorts of things
Features Entities Examples

[+b, +i] frequency (3.52a)
[+b, –i] terminative (3.52b)
[–b, +i] repetitive process (3.52c)
[–b,–i] process (3.52d)
Table 3.2: Sort of events

(3.52) a: The light flashed (until dawn)

a: Mary walked to Rome
a: The light flashed (for hours)
a: Mary walked
Problems for Jackendoff

no formalization of crucial notions: this makes the theory difficult to test.
problems raised in White 1994.
problems raised in Zwarts and Verkuyl 1994.
3.5.5 Pustejovsky
Introduction
In a number of recent papers Pustejovsky’s work on the generative lexicon has drawn
considerable attention: Pustejovsky 1991, Pustejovsky 1993, among several others.
These papers are now worked into Pustejovsky 1995. An important part of his the-
ory is his notion of Qualia Structure, which spreads the burden of information over the
verbs and its arguments. Arguments contain information about event structure in which
they play a role. Pustejovsky thus articulated the notion of event structure.
Event structure
Pustejovsky distinguishes between States, Processes and Events. Events may have
eventual substructure. An event structure has the form in Figure 3.15.
e<a
e1 e2
Figure 3.15: Event Structure
Here e is a complex event structure constituted of two subsevents e1 and e2 temporally

ordered such that e1 is the process part of e and e2 the resulting state part. So, in Mary
walked home e1 is the walk(m)-part and e2 the at home(m)-part.
In many respects, this is the PLUG-notion of distinguishing a cumulative process
part, particularly in Pustejovsky 1991, but it is phrased in an event semantics sort of
ontology. In Pustejovsky 1995 he withdraws a lot of earlier assumptions and e1 is a
sort of fixed property. The e2 -part is a State, reminiscent of Parsons and Moens. So,
there is no attention for the role of quantification in the composition of aspectuality.
Problems for Pustejovsky

There are still many many problems in casting Pustejovsky into a proper type-logical
format. One of the main problems for Pustejovsky is that he puts the distinction be-
tween e’s as Processes or States or Events at the verb level. Thus, he is forced to assume
all sorts of transition-operators. The problem is also that he operates at a lexical level
(noun, verb), but that restrictions on the aspectual behaviour requires information about
the determiner. This is why aspectual life is quite hard for Pustejovsky.
3.5.6 Conclusion
We have discussed only some of the many event-semantic approaches available now,
the choice having been made dependent on whether a particular approach represents a
colour on the palette different enough from the other ones. For the present course this
should be sufficient. In the references we have included some of the most important
papers, collections of papers, dissertations or books that are around, most of them
having the noun event in their title.
Chapter 4
The semantics of outer

aspectuality
4.1 Introduction
In the literature on aspectual class (‘Aktionsart’ or inner aspectuality as we call it in
this book) and grammatical aspect (or outer aspectuality as we call it), we can distin-
guish two general approaches. Smith (1991), Depraetere (1995) and others claim that
aspectual class and grammatical aspect are essentially different notions, which involve
distinct analytical tools. Smith talks about ‘situation type’ versus ‘point of view’, De-
praetere’s terms are ‘(a)telicity’ versus ‘(un)boundedness’. Smith and Depraetere pro-
vide a fine-grained analysis of the meaning effects which result from the combination
of different situation types with different aspectual markers. A disadvantage of their
approach is that it does not allow recursion, because there is exactly one situation type
and exactly one view point. This makes it hard to account for sentences in which com-
binations of expressions involving outer aspectuality play a role, e.g. both negation and
perfectivity/imperfectivity, or both progressive and aspectual adverbs or both iteration
and frequency, etc. Somehow, we need a notion of outer aspectuality which has recur-
sivity built into it. For constructions and languages in which there is no visible effect of
grammatical aspect it may be necessary to assume a third notion of ‘zero’ or ‘neutral’
aspect, which does not play an active role in the interpretation.
On the other hand, we find analyses in which the distinction between Aktion-
sart and aspect or inner and outer aspectuality is blurred. Hinrichs (1986) argues that
Progressive sentences in English introduce state variables, just like lexical states. His
analysis is based on Kamp and Rohrer (1983), who take Passé Simple sentences in
French to refer to events, and Imparfait sentences to describe states. Along similar
lines, Piñón (1995) states that Polish imperfective verbs denote processes, while per-
fective ones denote events. These analyses suggest that the situation type either does
not influence the denotation of the sentence as a whole, or is in some sense ‘overruled’
by the contribution of grammatical aspect. This view is motivated by a concern with the
temporal structure of narrative discourse, where we observe differences between states,
101
102 CHAPTER 4. THE SEMANTICS OF OUTER ASPECTUALITY
processes and events. Events move on the story line, whereas states typically provide
background information. Processes occupy an intermediate positon. If only the output
type matters at the discourse level, it may seem less important to know whether the
sentence denotes a state because it just has the Aktionsart of a state, or because it is a
derived (progressive or imperfective) state. The drawback of this focus on output type
is that we do not gain insight into the way specific meaning effects result from the com-
bination of aspectual class and aspectual operators. Moreover, we will see in chapter 5
that these subtle meaning effects actually do have consequences for the interpretation
of the temporal structure of narrative discourse.
Our general aim in this book is to develop a compositional analysis of Aktion-
sart and aspect which preserves insights from the two approaches we just described.
On the one hand, we keep the distinction between Aktionsart (inner aspectuality) and
grammatical aspect (outer aspectuality), so that we can study the meaning effects their
combination gives rise to. On the other hand, we assume that the model-theoretic no-
tions underlying inner and outer aspectuality are essentially the same. In chapters 1
and 3, we have seen that the Plus- principle is crucial for the calculation of inner as-
pectuality. The combination of a predicate and its inner and outer arguments at the
micro level yields an eventuality as its output at the macro level. In the study of outer
aspectuality, the Plus-principle does not play a role, for aspectual expressions can now
operate on a full-fledged eventuality. This does not mean that we cannot formulate an
analysis of outer aspectuality in terms of an interval-based semantics. In fact, we could
push the interval-based approach all the way up to the tense level, and claim that events
do not enter the picture until their actualization on the time axis (cf. chapter 2, section
5). However, the limit on the scope of the Plus-principle can also be taken to open the
door to an event-based analysis of outer aspectuality. In this chapter, we will interpret
the shift from micro to macro level as the challenge to develop an analysis of outer
aspectuality in terms of an event-based semantics. This chapter includes parts of de
Swart (1998) and de Swart and Molendijk (1999).
4.2 An event-based semantics of outer aspectuality

4.2.1 The domain of eventualities
In the event-based approach, we assume that aspectual class is determined at the level
of predicate-argument structure, which we identify as the level of the ‘eventuality de-
scription’. According to Comrie (1976, 3), “tense relates the time of the situation
referred to some other time, whereas aspects are different ways of viewing the internal
temporal constituency of a situation”. Accordingly, we assume that tense operates after
all the aspectual operators have done their work. Under these assumptions, the rele-
vant part of the syntactic structure that we are concerned with in the analysis of outer
aspectuality is as follows:
(74) [Tense [Aspect* [eventuality description]]]
The Kleene star indicates zero, one or more operations. In terms of the syntactic
tree of the sentence as a whole, the eventuality description is the S-level, Aspect is the
4.2. AN EVENT-BASED SEMANTICS OF OUTER ASPECTUALITY 103
Asp and Tense is the Tense projection:
figure 1
Tadv S
Tense S
::: S
ASP S
NPext VP0
ASP VP
V NPint
As we argued in chapter 3, the shift from micro to macro structure occurs at S-

level. Thus the structure built up by inner aspectuality is the input for the Aspectual op-
erators. For the purposes of the event-based semantics to outer aspectuality, we assume
that eventuality descriptions denote sets of eventualities, where the term ‘eventuality’
generalizes over different types of situations (cf. Bach 1986). Following Mourelatos
(1978), Bach (1986), Piñón (1995) and others, we assume an ontology of states, pro-
cesses and events. Aspectual operators are interpreted as eventuality modifiers, so they
map sets of eventualities (of a certain type) onto sets of eventualities (of some possibly
other type). Tense operators introduce existential closure over this set of eventualities,
and map the event onto the time axis via its location time in relation to the speech time.
An important claim made in this paper is that aspectual information plays a role at all
three levels.
Following Link’s (1983) proposals about a lattice-theoretical ontology of individ-
uals, Bach (1986), Krifka (1989), Piñón (1995) and others adopt a lattice-theoretic
structure of the domain of eventualities E . Following their proposals, we assume that
every eventuality—whether atomic or non-atomic—is a state, a process or an event, so
E is the union of the set S of states, the set P of processes, and the set E of events:
E = S [ P [ E . Processes and events are both non-stative, and form the supercate-
gory of dynamic eventualities. States and processes pattern together in having homo-
geneous, non-quantized reference, just like bare plurals and mass nouns. They have
divisive reference (parts of being sick qualify as being sick), and cumulative reference
(writing plus writing is writing). Events have non-homogeneous, quantized reference,
just like count nouns. Thus the classification of eventualities reflects the distinctions
established in our discussion of inner aspectuality (compare chapter 3):
figure 2
HOMOGENEOUS QUANTIZED
state process event
STATIVE DYNAMIC
The position of processes in this classification represents such eventualities as shar-

ing certain properties with states, and others with events. In the version of Discourse
Representation Theory (DRT) we adopt here, the ontological nature of the discourse
referent is reflected in the use of designated variables s for states, p for processes and
e for events. We use h to refer to members of the super-category of non-quantized, ho-
mogeneous eventualities (members of S [ P ), and d to refer to dynamic eventualities
(in P [ E ). There is a straightforward correlation between the aspectual class of an
atomic eventuality description and the type of eventuality it denotes: stative sentences
introduce states, process sentences refer to processes, and event sentences describe
events.
4.2.2 Aspectual operators

Aspectual operators impose a certain view point on the eventuality introduced by the
eventuality description. This motivates their analysis as modifiers of eventuality de-
scriptions (compare the general schema in 1 above). Following Bach (1986), we in-
terpret grammatical aspect as a mapping relation from one domain of eventualities to
another in ways similar to the mapping relations that have been defined between the
mass and the count domain. Link (1983) introduces the set A of atomic individuals,
and the set D of quantities of matter. He further defines a materialization function h
which maps (atomic and plural) individuals onto the ‘stuff’ which makes them up. Ap-
plication of h to an individual which is already member of the mass domain D results
in the identity function. Link uses h to define mass term counterparts for count predi-
cates. Every count predicate P denoting a set of atomic individuals (in A) has a mass
term correspondent m P which denotes a set of quantities of matter (in D). Formally
kmP k = fx 2 D j x sup h [kP k]g. where ‘sup’ stands for the supremum, the sum
of all the elements in the lattice. The supremum function ‘sup’ applies to the material-
ized counterpart of P (the result of applying function h to the denotation of P ) to give
the sum of the quantities of matter which make up the individuals in the interpretation
of P . The alternation between P and m P accounts for the interpretation of (75a) and
(75b):
(75) a. There are many/few apples in the salad.

b. There is much/little apple in the salad.
Determiners like many and few are generalized quantifiers over atomic individuals
(in A), whereas much and little establish measurement relations between subsets of the
domain D. (75) shows that a mass interpretation can easily be derived from a count
meaning: the determiner in (75a) operates on the count predicate Apple, the one in
(75b) on its mass counterpart m Apple. If we assume that such expressions as water,
gold, and beer translate as mass terms, we further need mappings from the mass to the
count domain to account for sentences like (76):
(76) a. There was much/little beer on the table.

b. There were many/few beers on the table.
Beer in (76b) can be used to refer to a serving or a kind of beer. Starting with a
basic mass predicate P , we need to be able to define its count counterpart, which we
could call c P . In addition to the materialization function h, we thus need packaging
functions g which map quantities onto bounded entities. As a result, we have both
a ‘Universal Grinder’ and a ‘Universal Packager’ (Pelletier 1979; Bach 1986) in our
semantics.
The observation that states can be presented as events, and vice versa suggests
that the metaphor of the Universal Grinder and the Universal Packager extends to the
temporal domain, where it can be used to account for aspect shift. In this section
we will be mainly concerned with aspectual operators in a language like English. As
argued in chapter 1 above, the aspectual morphology of Slavic languages is interpreted
at the level of inner aspectuality (Asp ). The aspectual operators we are interested
in right now are interpreted at the level of outer aspectuality (Asp ). The aspectual
system of Romance languages will be argued to belong to the Tense node, rather than
the Asp node. This issue will be addressed in section 4 below. In English, aspectual
operators are optional. There are no aspectual operators in (77a) and (b):
(77) a. Mary was sick.

[ PAST [ Mary be sick ]]
b. Susan wrote a letter.
[ PAST [ Susan write a letter ]]
The aspectual class of the eventuality description determines that (77a) introduces
a state, and (77b) an event into the Discourse Representation Structure (DRS). Appli-
cation of the tense operator completes the grammatical structure. The interpretation of
(77a) and (77b) is spelled out in the DRSs in figures 3 and 4, which follow the standard
construction rules defined in Kamp and Reyle (1993):
figure 3
Mary was sick
n s t x
tn
Mary(x)
sÆt
s: x be sick
figure 4
Mary wrote a letter
n e t x y
tn
Mary(x)
Letter(y)
et
e: x write y
Figures 3 and 4 illustrate that events are included in their location time t, while states
and processes overlap with t. The past tense operator introduces a condition t n,
and locates t before the speech time n ‘now’.
The Perfect is an example of an aspectual operator in English. Consider (78a) with
the grammatical structure spelled out in (78b):
(78) a. Mary has met the president.
b. [ PRES [ PERF [ Mary meet the president ]]]
In our compositional analysis, we want a unified interpretation of tense operators
in sentences with or without aspectual operators. The optionality of aspectual operators
suggests an interpretation in terms of eventuality description modifiers: they map sets
of eventualities onto sets of eventualities. (cf. figure 1 above). This interpretation
guarantees that the input to the tense operator is always a set of eventualities. It also
opens the way to the iteration of aspectual operators, examples of which are given
below.
Sentences in the Perfect are stative, so the Perfect denotes a function PERF: E !
S , mapping any kind of eventuality onto a state. The Perfect introduces the consequent
state which starts when the eventuality ends:
figure 5
Mary has met the president
n e s t x y
t=n
Mary(x)
President(y)
sÆt
e s
e: x meet y
The condition e s (e ‘abuts’ s) means that the result state starts right at the end of
the event. The Perfect is an extensional operator, which asserts the existence of both
the event e, and its consequent state s. It is the result state which provides the variable
for the tense to operate on, because that state corresponds to the output of the Perfect
operator. If the result state s holds now, we know that the event e took place in the past
of the speech time, and the consequent state has current relevance.
The Perfect operates on eventualities of any aspectual type.1 Other aspectual oper-
ators are more selective and come with special input conditions. Consider the Progres-
sive in English. Sentences in the Progressive are always stative, whether the underlying
sentence is characterized as a process (79a) or as an event (79b) (Vlach 1981, Hinrichs
1986). This characteristic they thus share with the Perfect. The Progressive does not
normally combine with stative eventuality descriptions (79c):
(79) a. Susan was writing letters.

b. Susan was writing a letter.
c. # Susan was being in the garden.
Following Kamp and Reyle, we interpret the Progressive as an instance of gram-

matical aspect, and introduce a Progressive operator PROG into the DRS. The examples
in (79) illustrate that the Progressive maps dynamic eventuality descriptions, denoting
either processes or events onto the state of that process or event being in progress. So
the Progressive denotes a function PROG: P [ E ! S . As pointed out by Dowty
(1979), the Progressive requires an intensional semantics. In our analysis, this inten-
sionality is reflected in the introduction of an embedded box the Progressive operates
on. Given that the output of the Progressive operator is again an eventuality, we can
draw a box around the operator and make it the description of a state. The real inter-
pretation of the Progressive is left to the embedding conditions, which require the state
s to be a state of the event of Mary reading a book being in progress. The semantics
of the progressive involves stripping an event of its culmination point (Moens 1987),
and referring to a part of the process or event (Krifka 1992). The progressive picks
out a stage of the process/event which, if it does not continue in the real world, has
a reasonable chance of continuing in some other possible world which resembles the
real world in certain ways (Landman 1992, Asher 1992) (see appendix part D). The
1 There is more to be said about the interpretation of stative sentences in the Perfect tense, see Moens
(1987, 70–76) and Kamp and Reyle (1993, 579–587) for discussion.
introduction of the operator PROG gives (80a) the grammatical structure (80b), and the
DRS representation in figure 6:
(80) a. Mary was reading a book.

b. [ PAST [ PROG [ Mary read a book ]]]
figure 6
Mary was reading a book
n s t x y
tn
Mary(x)
Book(y)
sÆt
e
s: PROG
e: x read y
In accordance with the intensional nature of the Progressive, there is no claim that the
event variable corresponding to the description ‘Mary read a book’ exists in the main
box of the DRS in figure 6.2 At the top level, only the state of the event in progress is
asserted to exist. The tense operator locates this state in the past.
The aspectual operator in the grammatical structure of (1) carries a Kleene star,
which allows for zero, one or more applications. The examples in (77a) and (b) do not
involve any aspectual operators. The examples in (78) through (80) have one aspectual
operator each. Examples involving both the Perfect and the Progressive require the
application of an aspectual operator to a structure which already contains an aspectual
operator:
(81) a. Jane has been writing a letter.
b. [ PRES [ PERF [ PROG [ Jane write a letter ]]]]
The Progressive in (81) maps a set of events onto the set of states of Jane’s writing
a letter being in progress. Given that aspectual operators are interpreted as eventual-
ity description modifiers, the output of the operation is of the same type as the input,
namely a set of eventualities. This allows for multiple aspectual operators which apply
recursively. In (81), the set of states which results from the application of the Pro-
gressive is taken as the input for the Perfect operator, which maps it onto the set of
consequent states of Jane writing a letter.3
2 Given that a book one reads already exists, its discourse referent is introduced in the main box. With
verbs of creation such as build, write, we have the problem of unfinished objects (Parsons 1991). In those
cases the discourse referent for the object is introduced in the embedded box (cf. figure 8 below).
3 In principle, event modifiers can be freely ordered with respect to each other. However, in (12) the
reverse order of the aspectual markers is not well-formed, because the output of the Perfect operator is
4.2.3 Duration adverbials

As pointed out in chapters 1 and 3, for- and in-adverbials are sensitive to the aspec-
tual character of the eventuality description they combine with. For-adverbials are re-
stricted to homogeneous eventualities (states or processes), and in-adverbials to events:
(82) a. Susan lived in Paris for two years.

b. Andrew swam for three hours.
c. # Eve drew a circle for three hours.
(83) a. # Susan lived in Paris in two years.

b. # Andrew swam in three hours.
c. Eve drew a circle in ten minutes.
Vet (1980), Moens (1987), Naumann (1995) and others point out that a for-adverbial
brings in a notion of boundedness. As a result, the inference from Progressive to Sim-
ple Past goes through in (84a), but not in (84b):
(84) a. Andrew was swimming ! Andrew swam

b. Andrew was swimming for three hours 6 ! Andrew swam for three hours
c. Eve was drawing a circle 6 ! Eve drew a circle
As far as the semantic inferences of sentences involving for-adverbials are con-

cerned, they pattern with the event sentence in (84c), rather than with the process sen-
tence in (84a). This patterning correlates with Krifka’s (1989) observation that mea-
surement phrases make a predicate quantized. Thus to swim denotes a set of processes,
but to swim for three hours denotes a set of quantized eventualities, i.e. events. As an
extension of Kamp and Reyle (1993), I propose to interpret for-adverbials in terms of a
function FOR x time: S [ P ! E . In-adverbials denote a function IN x time: E ! E .
Duration adverbials are thus seen as aspectual operators mapping sets of eventualities
onto sets of eventualities, just like the Perfect and the Progressive.4 Duration adver-
bials denote extensional operators, so their interpretation entails the existence of both
the input and the output eventuality. Their analysis is thus similar to the one we gave
for the Perfect. The grammatical structure of (82a) is as in (85), and its interpretation
is spelled out in figure 7:
(85) Susan lived in Paris for two years

[ PAST [ FOR two years [ Susan live in Paris ]]]
a set of states, and the Progressive operator is restricted to non-stative, dynamic eventualities. Aspectual
constraints thus reduce the number of scope ambiguities.
4 Moltmann (1992) argues against a treatment of duration adverbials as event modifiers, on the basis of
sentences involving quantifiers and negation. If we combine the analysis developed here with the assumption
that negative and quantified sentences introduce their own eventuality referent, as argued for in section 3
below, most of her objections disappear.
figure 7
Susan lived in Paris for two years
n s e t x y mt
tn
Susan(x)
Paris(y)
et
e = BOUND(s)
two years(mt)
dur(s) mt
s: x live in y
The amount of time (mt) introduced by the for-adverbial in figure 7 is two years, and
the duration (dur) of the state s of Susan’s living in Paris is at least as long () as
that. The application of the BOUND-operator to the state variable results in a bounded,
quantized portion of the state (see appendix, part D), which counts as an event because
it is quantized.
Given that time adverbials are extensional in nature, the construction rules for
for- and in-adverbials are quite similar to those for the Perfect. The interpretation of
both aspectual operators and duration adverbials as eventuality description modifiers
opens the way to recursive structures in which multiple operators are piled on top of
each other. (84b) combines the Progressive with a for-adverbial. The examples in (86)
contain a Progressive and an in-adverbial:
(86) a. John is running a mile in ten minutes.

b. Susan is writing a book in a month.
If we combined Kamp and Reyle’s interpretation of in-adverbials with their treat-

ment of the Progressive as a VP-operator, we would automatically end up with the
in-adverbial taking wide scope over the Progressive. However, a wide scope interpre-
tation of the adverbial would not capture the meaning of the sentences in (86), for they
describe the event of something culminating within the specified period as an event
in progress. On the other hand, my definition of the Progressive as an eventuality de-
scription modifier, rather than a VP-operator, allows it to take wide scope over the
in-adverbial. Thus (86b) gets the grammatical structure (87) and the interpretation in
figure 8:
(87) Susan was writing a book in a month.

[ PAST [ PROG [ IN a month [ Susan write a book ]]]]
figure 8
Susan was writing a book in a month
n s t x
tn
Susan(x)
sÆt
e e’ mt y
book(y)
s: PROG e’ = e
a month(mt)
dur(e) mt
e: x write y
The amount of time (mt) given by the temporal noun specifies the period within
which the event culminates, so that its duration (dur) is less than () a month. Given
that the output of the in-adverbial is again an event, it can serve as the input for the
Progressive.5 The interpretation of duration adverbials as eventuality description mod-
ifiers makes interesting predictions for the combination of their French counterparts
with the Passé Simple/Imparfait, as we will see in section 4 below.
4.2.4 Coercion
The interpretation of aspectual operators as eventuality description modifiers builds on
ideas developed by Moens (1987, 44f.). Moens constructs an aspectual network out of
a number of aspectual categories and relations between them. He labels a number of
aspectual transitions as established ‘routes’ through the network. Some of these shifts
are controlled by explicit aspectual operators. For instance, the change from event to
consequent state requires the use of the Perfect, and the transition from dynamic action
to state of the action in progress is expressed by the Progressive in English. Transitions
for which a language has no explicit markers are free as long as the context supports the
meaning effects associated with the aspectual change. Such transitions as inchoativity
and habituality in English are governed by a contextual reinterpretation process called
‘coercion’. Moens illustrates this with examples like (88):
(88) a. My program ran for a few minutes.

b. My program ran in less than four minutes (this morning).
(88a) measures the time during which the program ran. (88b) describes how long
it took for the program to start running (adding a preparatory phase to culminate in
the program running) or to do a complete run (turning the process into a culminated
process). We can coerce a state into an event by emphasizing the starting point of the
state, which gives the sentence an inchoative reading (89a). The event of reading a
5 Again, we do not get scope ambiguities, because the other scope order is ruled out as a violation of
aspectual constraints.
book can be coerced into an ongoing process (89b). Events can also be coerced into
states by giving the sentence an iterative (89c) or a habitual reading (89d):
(89) a. Suddenly, I knew the answer.

b. I read a book for a few minutes.
c. John played the sonata for about eight hours.
d. For months, the train arrived late.
Typically, coercion is triggered if there is a conflict between the aspectual character

of the eventuality description and the aspectual constraints of some other element in the
context. The felicity of an aspectual reinterpretation is strongly dependent on linguistic
context and knowledge of the world.6
In the framework developed here, we have three basic classes of eventualities:
states, processes and events. They are organized into the supercategories of homo-
geneous/quantized eventualities and stative/dynamic eventualities (see figure 1). The
aspectual transitions that we study here involve labelled mappings from one supercat-
egory to another.7 The view of coercion as an eventuality description modifier implies
that coercion is of the same semantic type as an aspectual operator such as the Perfect,
the Progressive or an aspectual adverbial introduced by in of for. The main differ-
ence between grammatical operators and coercion is that coercion is syntactically and
morphologically invisible: it is governed by implicit contextual reinterpretation mech-
anisms triggered by the need to resolve aspectual conflicts. A further difference is that
the aspectual operators we have introduced so far denote a specific function from one
domain of eventualities to another. Coercion on the other hand corresponds to different
possible aspectual transitions, as illustrated by (88, 89).
Given that the ontological nature of the eventuality is specified in the DRS by
means of designated variables s, p and e, we need to make aspectual transitions ex-
plicit, even if the mapping has no morphological or syntactic reflection. Therefore, we
introduce coercion operators into the DRS. The operator Ceh stands for the coercion of
an event into a homogeneous situation (a state or a process). Che is a coercion operator
which maps a state or a process onto an event. Csd maps a state onto a dynamic even-
tuality (a process or an event). Given that coercion operators are potentially intensional
in nature, the DRS conditions they introduce are similar to the ones given for the Pro-
gressive (see appendix part C for construction rules). In order to avoid overgeneration,
we introduce a coercion operator only when there is a trigger for it. The coercion oper-
ator can be viewed as a macro operator, which generalizes over a number of semantic
operations. The use of Ceh , Che and Csd , rather than specific operators INCHO, HAB,
etc., illustrates the pragmatic, context-dependent nature of the reinterpretation process.
As an example, let us consider duration adverbials. Adverbials introduced by for
are restricted to states and processes, and an adverbial introduced by in must operate
on an event description. As long as the eventuality description is of the aspectual type
required by the adverb, we can build DRSs as given in figures 6 and 7, the verification of
6 Coercion is not limited to aspectual transitions, but is used for a variety of cases in which a clash between
a functor and its argument would lead to ungrammaticalities unless the argument is reinterpreted in such a
way that it meets the requirements on the functor; see Pustejovsky (1995) for a more general discussion.
7 States and events do not form a natural supercategory in figure 1, so no aspectual transitions relate the
[
set S E to the set P .
which proceeds as usual. In examples like (88b) and (89), the eventuality description
does not satisfy the aspectual selection restrictions of the adverb. In such cases, the
verification procedure fails unless we coerce the description into an eventuality of the
appropriate type. For (89c), introduction of a coercion operator yields the grammatical
structure in (90) and the DRS in figure 9:
(90) John played the sonata for eight hours
[ PAST [ FOR eight hours [ Ceh [ John play the sonata ]]]]
figure 9
John played the sonata for eight hours
n e h t x y mt
tn
John(x)
Sonata(y)
et
e = BOUND(h)
eight hours(mt)
dur(h) mt
e’
h: Ceh e’: x play y
Combination of the event predicate with the for-adverbial fails, because the con-
dition ‘dur(h) mt’ in the semantics of the time adverbial cannot be met by the
quantized eventuality description. Application of Ceh maps the event of playing the
sonata onto a homogeneous eventuality description. This mapping introduces the de-
sired variable h into the DRS, which can then combine with for eight hours to result
in a bounded process. In figure 9, Ceh naturally gets the value of iteration: the event
takes place an indefinite number of times (compare the definition of ITER in part D of
the appendix).
The incompatibility of the homogeneous description with an in-adverbial in (88b)
triggers a coercion operator Che in the grammatical structure (91) and the DRS in figure
10, which introduces the necessary event variable e:
(91) The program ran in four minutes.
[ PAST [ IN four minutes [ Che [ the program run ]]]]
figure 10
The program ran in four minutes
n e e’ t x
tn
program(x)
e’ t
e’ = e
four minutes(mt)
dur(e) mt
p
e: Che p: x run
One interpretation for Che is ADD-PREP, which implies that the in-adverbial specifies
the amount of time (mt) within which the event of the program getting up and running
culminates. Another possible interpretation is ADD-CUL, which adds a culmination to
the process so that the complete run of the program takes no more than four minutes
(compare appendix, part D for definitions of the aspectual transitions).
A coercion operator also accounts for the felicity of sentences like (92):
(92) a. Susan is liking this play a great deal.

b. Peter is believing in ghosts these days.
The Progressive does not normally apply to state descriptions. But there are well-
known exceptions to this rule. The examples in (92) are taken to have a certain color,
and give a more vivid description than conventional statives. Smith (1991: 20) argues
that the sentences in (92) present states as dynamic situations, because they use the
viewpoint of the Progressive, which in English normally only occurs with non-statives.
In the present framework, we assume that the state has been coerced into a dynamic
eventuality by Csd before the Progressive applies, in order to satisfy the input condi-
tions on the aspectual operator. The grammatical structure of (92a) in (93) leads to the
DRS in figure 11:
(93) Susan is liking this play.

[ PRES [ PROG [ Csd [ Susan like this play ]]]]
figure 11
Susan is liking this play
n s t x y
t=n
Susan(x)
Play(y)
sÆt
d
s: PROG
d: Csd
s’
s’: x like y
The dynamic variable d, obtained by coercion, is the input for the Progressive
operator. The output of the Progressive is again a state, but the state of an event or
process being in progress is a lot more ‘dynamic’ than the underlying lexical state. The
more complex internal structure accounts for the vivid color of the description.8
As far as the interpretation of aspectual operators is concerned then, we only need
to make sure we have a variable of the right aspectual type in the DRS to satisfy the
aspectual constraints of the operators. We achieve this result by defining construction
rules which check the input conditions for aspectual operators, and introduce a coercion
operator Che , Ceh or Csd if the aspectual constraints are not satisfied. Such construc-
tion rules build DRSs like the ones in figures 9 to 11. Sentences can be ambiguous in
isolation (e.g. 19b), and the coercion operator leaves room for different interpretations.
Even though we can usually work out for each example what the semantic value of the
operator Che , Ceh or Csd will be in the context, we do not need to introduce specific
aspectual operators ITER, ADD-CUL or BOUND into the DRS. This is good, because we
want to preserve the insight that the interpretation in terms of coercion is fully com-
positional, but the value of the hidden operator is dependent on linguistic context and
world knowledge, and is determined only when the DRS is embedded in the model.
At this point, coercion of an event into a state or process leads to a choice among the
set of possible mappings fITER, HAB, PROC, . . . g, and coercion of a state or process
into an event leads to a choice among the set fBOUND, INCHO, ADD-CUL, . . . g.9 If
the linguistic and extra-linguistic context do not support any aspectual transition which
satisfies the aspectual restrictions on the operator, there is no proper embedding of the
DRS into the model, which means that it cannot be verified. Thus the well-formedness
of the DRS can be saved by the introduction of coercion operators, but its verification is
dependent on the felicity of specific aspectual transitions in the context.10 The appendix
8 English does not seem to use a coercion operator Cds , presumably because it lacks aspectual operators
which require non-dynamic eventualities as their input.
9 Not all interpretations are necessarily available for each eventuality description. See Pustejovsky (1995)
for observations about the semantic frame of different classes of eventuality descriptions, which constrains
coerced readings.
10 See Moens (1987, 106–107) for similar observations. If we had not wanted to make coercion operators
explicit in a theory like DRT, we could have developed an underspecification approach, instead of a mapping
analysis. However, as Bach (1986, 11) points out, the interpretation of common nouns is not completely
spells out the formal definition of the construction rules (part C), and the verification
procedure (part E), and gives an informal characterization of the semantic effect of the
aspectual transitions triggered by coercion (part D).
4.3 Logical operators: negation and quantification

This section develops an extension of the event-based semantics of aspectual operators
which includes logical operators like negation and quantification in the Aspect slot of
the structure in (1), repeated here as (94):
The claim is thus that logical operators are eventuality description modifiers, that
is, they introduce operations over eventualities, and build new, complex eventuality
descriptions out of other—atomic or complex—eventuality descriptions. The semantic
type of the expression does not change: the input for the logical operator is a set of
eventualities, and so is the output.
4.3.1 Logical operators as eventuality description modifiers

Adverbs of quantification are the temporal counterparts of determiner expressions, and
establish a relation between two sets of eventualities. As pointed out by Partee (1984)
and De Swart (1991), tense takes wide scope over the adverb of quantification in sen-
tences like (95):
(95) Jane always came late.
Tense restricts the domain of quantification in such a way that we only take into con-
sideration past situations of Jane coming in. 11 Partee assumes that there is a location
time t already present in the top box, so that the discourse event in the antecedent box
falls within the current reference time. She also proposes to label the quantificational
statement as a whole as a state. In order to obtain the state corresponding to the quan-
tificational statement as a whole, we introduce a recursive rule for the introduction of
unrestricted. Apples, chairs and cats are typically interpreted as bounded, discrete items, and the derivation
of a mass interpretation leads to a regular and predictable meaning in terms of the quantities of matter
constituting the individual. Similarly, underspecification in the verbal domain would not explain why the
default interpretation of predicates like to write a letter, to swim a mile, is to refer to a completed event in
sentences like (ia). It would be unclear why to write letters, to run, in sentences in the simple past normally
describe a process (ib), whereas sentences involving to be sad, to know denote states (ic):
(i) a. Sally wrote a letter
b. Sally ran
c. Sally knew the answer
States can be used as events and vice versa, but these contextual reinterpretations give rise to specific and
predictable meaning effects, which correspond with the aspectual values of the coercion operators Che /Ceh
and Csd .
11 There are further contextual restrictions on the domain of quantification, e.g. in (95), we only take into
account situations in which Jane is alive. We assume that such restrictions are handled by the pragmatic
module.
4.3. LOGICAL OPERATORS: NEGATION AND QUANTIFICATION 117
discourse referents. As Kamp and Reyle (1993, 673) point out, it is straightforward to
construct states out of triples < t; x; P >, where t is a period of time, x an individual
and P a property such that t is an interval at which x has P . The state consists of
the individual having the property P at time t. What properties of individuals have
in common with quantified and negative statements is that they all introduce (static)
conditions into the DRS. We use a generalized version of Kamp and Reyle’s proposal
to build states out of pairs < t; > of a period of time t and a condition holding at
that time:12
(96) Recursive rule for the introduction of discourse referents:
For a condition holding at time t, s: and Max(s) and s =t t define the
maximal state consisting of the condition holding at time t.
can either be an atomic condition (a property ascribed to an individual) or a complex
condition (that is, a quantified condition). The application of this rule implies that
every quantified statement denotes a state description, namely the set of states which
consist of the negative or quantified situation holding at some time t. Fernando (1994)
suggests that there is a natural correlation between conditions and states. In DRT,
conditions require verification of embeddings in the model, and do not involve the
notion of change. DRSs, like events, involve change, and are interpreted as a relation
between input and output assignments. A condition can be understood as a special
kind of DRS, whose output assignment does not differ from its input assignment. This
makes it possible to reinterpret conditions as eventualities, as long as we label them as
states. For the condition on maximality, see below.
An example like (95) can now be interpreted as in figure 12:
figure 12
Jane always came late
n s t x
tn
Jane(x)
s =t t
Max(s)
e e’
s:
es
) e v e’
e: x come e’: x come late
12 The phrase ‘s holds at t’ suggests that s and t are coextensive rather than that they just overlap. Accord-
ingly, we strengthen the DRT condition and take states to be coextensive with their location time, written
= =
t . s t t is defined as the conjunction of s t and t s, where denotes temporal inclusion. This can
be viewed as a temporal version of the ‘strongest meaning hypothesis’ (Dalrymple et al. 1998).
The complex, quantificational condition holds over a period of time preceding the
moment of speech, so the tense operator constrains the domain of quantification. The
DRS is true iff every (contextually relevant) event of Jane coming within the domain of
quantification of the adverbial quantifier extends to her coming late (cf. De Swart 1991
for more details).
In essence, we want to apply the recursive rule for the introduction of discourse
referents to negative conditions as well as quantified conditions. Consider example
(97):
(97) Jane didn’t come.
According to (97) Jane has the property of not coming in at some time t in the
past. We view this as a complex property which is true if there is no embedding func-
tion which verifies the subordinate box (see appendix, part D) in figure 13:
figure 13
Jane didn’t come
n s t x
tn
Jane(x)
s =t t
Max(s)
e
s: : es
e: x come
This proposal immediately raises two important problems. First of all, it is obvious
that we cannot view the complex negative state as a minimal eventuality. Second, it
has been argued that that negative sentences do not describe eventualities (Kamp and
Reyle 1993, Asher 1993 and others). Before we develop an analysis of more complex
examples, we will address these two issues.
We agree that the complex negative state s that a sentence like (96) introduces
should not be viewed as a minimal situation. It is too weak a statement to say that we
can find at least one minimal situation holding at t at which Jane coming is not the
case. There can be many of such eventualities without them guaranteeing the truth of
(97). A similar problem arises in the interpretation of monotone decreasing indefinite
NPs like at most three N (cf. Krifka 1989). In order to make a sentence like (98) true,
it is not enough to find some group of students which has at most three members; we
have to rule out the existence of a larger group:
(98) At most three students failed the exam.
The non-persistent character of negative sentences like (97) and (98) implies that
we have to switch to maximal eventualities. Following Krifka, we interpret maximal
eventualities e (generalizing over states and events) as the sum of all eventualities at
some point in time:
(99) 8e [MAX (e) $ 9t [e = supE (e0 (e0 t))]]
supE is the supremum in the join semilattice of eventualities E , which gives us
the sum of all the eventualities temporally included in t. Krifka describes negative
eventualities as the ‘fusion’ of all eventualities at a given time t which are not of the
type described by the sentence. The dependency on t accounts for the intuition that
negative sentences typically presuppose a contextually determined period of time for
which the negative state of affairs holds. Krifka’s proposals lead to the definition of
event predicate negation in (100) (where e generalizes again over events and states):
(100) P s 9t [MAX (s) ^ s =t ^ : 9e [P (e) ^ e s]]
Negation is thus a modifier which operates on an eventuality description P and
yields the maximal state s holding at t such that no eventuality e of type P is included
in s at t.
The condition on maximality takes care of the technical problem surrounding the
introduction of a discourse referent for negative sentences. However, this is not enough
to really motivate the introduction of a discourse referent for negative eventualities per
se. We think that there are two reasons why it is useful to extend the recursive rule
for the introduction of discourse referents to negative sentences. The first is that this
allows us to deal with more complex examples than the ones Kamp and Reyle took
into consideration, including cases in which negation interacts with other aspectual
and logical operators. The second argument is that a treatment of logical operators as
essentially the same type of expressions as aspectual operators helps us understand the
cross-linguistic variation in the interaction between negation and aspect. This will be
illustrated for Romance in section 4 below. For the time being, we will limit ourselves
to English.
In order to appreciate the differences between Kamp and Reyle’s theory and the
analysis we are developing here, it is useful to run through their argumentation. Ac-
cording to Kamp and Reyle (1993, 546-555), negation is not an aspectual operator,
and we do not need to introduce a discourse referent for negative sentences as a whole
in order to obtain the correct interpretation for sentences containing frame adverbials
such as on Sunday, compare:
(101) a. Mary wrote a letter on Sunday.
b. Mary didn’t write a letter on Sunday.
In the Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) of Kamp and Reyle, these sentences
get the interpretation in figures 14 and 15. These Discourse Representation Structures
(DRSs) contain discourse referents, and conditions which assign properties to the dis-
course referents:
figure 14
Mary wrote a letter on Sunday
n e t t’ x y
tn
Sunday(t’)
t = t’
et
Mary(x)
letter(y)
e: x write y
figure 15
Mary didn’t write a letter on Sunday
n t t’ x
tn
Sunday (t’)
t = t’
Mary(x)
e y
: letter(y)
et
e: x write y
Temporal nouns like Sunday introduce an interval t0 into the DRS, and the con-
dition that t0 is a Sunday (typically the most recent Sunday in a past tense context).
The preposition on identifies t0 with the location time t of the eventuality e. The past
tense introduces the condition that t precedes the speech time now: t n. Events
are included in their location time, which is captured by the condition: e t. This
leads to an inclusive or existential interpretation of the frame adverbial in figure 14.
The negation operator in figure 15 is generated lower than tense, but high enough to
take scope over the event variable. As a result, we get the interpretation that no event
of Mary writing a letter is included in last Sunday. This corresponds with a durative
or universal interpretation of on Sunday in (101b): the negative sentence is true for
the entire Sunday. Given that stative sentences trigger durative readings of locating
time adverbials, the universal reading of (101b) has been taken as an argument in fa-
vor of the claim that negative sentences denote states (Verkuyl 1993, 163). However,
in Kamp and Reyle’s approach, it is not necessary to interpret negative sentences as
states to derive the correct meaning of (101b). Negation introduces a subordinate box,
but the temporal structure of the negative sentence is the same as that of its affirmative
counterpart.
Kamp and Reyle further argue that the interpretation of negative sentences as re-
porting states would yield the wrong results in discourse contexts. It would blur the
distinction between (103a) and (b), which are to be compared to their positive counter-
parts in (102):
(102) a. Mary looked at Bill. He smiled.

b. Mary looked at Bill. He was smiling.
(103) a. Mary looked at Bill. He didn’t smile.

b. Mary looked at Bill. He wasn’t smiling.
(102a) suggests that Bill smiled after Mary looked at him, perhaps as a reaction
to her doing so. In DRT, this is derived by a rule for the interpretation of narrative
discourse which says that events usually happen in succession. Accordingly, a condi-
tion e e0 is introduced into the DRS. (102b) describes Bill as already smiling when
Mary looked at him. Kamp and Reyle treat the Progressive as an aspectual operator
which applies to the predicate smile to derive the corresponding state of the event of
smiling being in progress. They assume that states temporally include the event which
functions as their antecedent in the discourse, which introduces a condition e s. The
examples in (103b) show that the contrast between the Simple Past and the Progressive
is preserved under negation. This is reflected in the DRSs 16 and 17, which Kamp and
Reyle propose for (103a) and (103b):
figure 16
Mary looked at Bill. He didn’t smile
n e t x y t’ u
tn
et
Mary(x)
Bill(y)
e: x look at y
t’ n
u=y
e’
: e’ t’
e e’
e’: u smile
figure 17
Mary looked at Bill. He wasn’t smiling
n e t x y t’ u
tn
et
Mary(x)
Bill(y)
e: x look at y
t’ n
u=y
s
: s Æ t’
es
s: u PROG(smile)
In figure 16, we negate the existence of an event e0 following e, so there is no event

of Bill smiling for some contextually determined period of time t0 after Mary’s looking
at him (Kamp and Reyle 1993, 552).
Figure 17 claims that there is no state of Bill smiling which includes the event of
Mary looking at him. If we assume that discourse relations are established between
discourse referents in the main box, and that negation has the aspectual effect of trans-
forming any sentence into a stative one, the introduction of a higher level discourse
referent for negative sentences would not account for the contrast in (103). Both sen-
tences would qualify as states, and we would be unable to explain why the not-smiling
in (103a) is interpreted as a reaction to Mary looking at Bill, whereas it overlaps with
this event in (103b). In addition, we would lose the parallel between (102) and (103).
Kamp and Reyle take these observations as evidence against the interpretation of nega-
tion as an aspectual operator. In their view, negation has no effect on temporal structure:
whatever information we have about the aspectual character of the sentence remains un-
changed under negation. We will call this Kamp and Reyle’s null hypothesis, and refer
to the sentences in (102) and (103), which support this claim as the ‘smile’ examples.
Asher (1993) does not rule out a discourse status for negative sentences, but argues
that this possibility is severely limited. He claims that only negative sentences which
contain stative predicates qualify as states. Event predicates which are embedded under
negation give rise to facts, not states. One argument in favor of this view is provided
by the unacceptability of sentences like (104a):
(104) a. ??The non-arrival of the train lasted for hours

b. Ellen did not write a book for two years
c. For how long did Ellen not write a book?
If the non-arrival of the train denoted a state, we would expect to be able to mea-
sure this state and say how long it lasts, but that seems impossible. However, (104a)
contains a negated event nominal, which does not necessarily behave in the same
way as a negative sentence simpliciter. Although temporal measurement is apparently
blocked for negated event nominals, it is perfectly acceptable for regular negative sen-
tences such as (104b). Also, the duration of a negative state of affairs can be questioned
as in (104c). Although Asher is well aware of these observations, he does not provide
an explanation for the difference in behavior between negative sentences and negated
event nominals. In our view, it is the unacceptability of (104a), rather than the well-
formedness of (104b) and (c) which is in need of explanation. One possible hypothesis
is that the lack of tense and aspect precludes the introduction of a stative discourse
referent for the negated event nominals. As a result, only negative sentences which
come with tense and aspect would allow the introduction of a discourse referent (i.e.
an eventuality variable). This hypothesis would immediately account for the difference
between (104a) on the one hand, and (104b) and (c) on the other. However, given that
we do not intend to provide a semantics of event nominals in this book, we will not
pursue this line of research any further. Independently of the correct solution to the
problem of event nominals, we need to explain why negative sentences are compatible
with measurement phrases.
Amsili and Le Draoulec (1995) take sentences like (104b) and (c) to motivate a
reanalysis of for-adverbials as measurement phrases over intervals rather than states or
activities. They claim that negative sentences do not introduce a discourse referent (i.e.
an eventuality variable). However, they accept the idea that negative sentences have a
location time t outside the scope of negation. They take t to be an interval the length
of which can be measured by a durative adverbial. In their view, the assumption of
a location time t outside the scope of negation also explains the felicity of negative
temporal clauses:
(105) a. When John didn’t show up, Mary went to the movies by herself
b. When Mary didn’t finish her dissertation in time, she was fired
c. Mary asked John a question. When he didn’t answer, she walked out on him
Most analyses of (sentence-initial) when-clauses are set up in such a way that the
temporal connective establishes a relation between the two eventualities, and the subor-
dinate clause functions as the temporal antecedent for the main clause. As Heinämäki
(1984) points out, a negative sentence cannot be the temporal antecedent of the main
clause in sentences like (105) if it does not itself introduce an eventuality variable, or
if it denotes an atemporal fact. Amsili and Le Draoulec contest Heinämäki conclusion.
They refer to Hamann (1989) for the claim that the absence of an event can some-
times license the introduction of a reference time, in particular when the event was
expected or scheduled to occur. More generally though, the introduction of reference
times in theories like DRT and related frameworks is tied to the presence of an eventu-
ality variable. This makes the solution proposed by Amsili and Le Draoulec almost an
acknowledgement of the discourse status of negative eventualities.
Some further problems for the analysis of negative sentences in terms of time-
or fact-denoting expressions have been pointed out in the literature. Horn (1989: 55)
argues that this view cannot deal with examples like (106):
(106) What happened next was that the consulate didn’t give us our visa
Assuming with Vendler (1967: 141) and Horn (1989: 55) that events, but not facts
“happen”, we are forced to admit that we have a negative event here, and not something
that simply didn’t happen.
A related issue is brought up by Stockwell, Schachter and Partee (1973), who point
out that there are certain cases where the negation of an event may, loosely speaking,
itself be an “event”. They discuss cases like not paying taxes, not getting up early, not
going to church, not eating dinner, etc., and show that the negative “eventuality” can
even be embedded under frequency adverbs:
(107) a. He often hasn’t paid taxes
b. He sometimes doesn’t eat dinner
c. He doesn’t eat dinner two nights a week
These sentences allow a reading in which the frequency adverb has scope over
negation, meaning that they describe the frequency of a negative situation. As pointed
out by Stockwell, Schachter, and Partee, sentences like (29) are a counterexample
against the claim that “one cannot assert the frequency of an event that does not occur”
(Lakoff 1965: 172). Sentences like (29) are also hard to reconcile with an interpreta-
tion of negative sentences in terms of facts. If facts are abstract objects, which are not
located in time and space, one would predict that embedding under a frequency adverb,
which typically quantifies over eventualities according to De Swart (1991) is not possi-
ble. Under the analysis advanced here, the combination of negation and quantification
in examples like (107) is easily handled by the recursive nature of the Asp node.
The arguments discussed so far mainly concern the sentence-internal structure of
negative sentences. But Kamp and Reyle’s (1993) arguments were also crucially based
on the behavior of negative sentences in narrative discourse. However, we find that
they base their analysis on a relatively small set of examples. If we take into account
a wider range of data, we find that the temporal structure of negative sentences cannot
always be derived from their affirmative counterparts. Compare (108a) and (b):
(108) a. Paul switched on the light. The room was very bright.
b. Paul switched on the light. The room was not very bright.
As pointed out by Hinrichs (1986) and Lascarides and Asher (1993), the room be-
ing bright is a result of the event of switching on the light. This interpretation triggers
a temporal structure in which the state s immediately follows the event e. We will note
this with Kamp and Reyle’s ‘abut’ relation: e s. Admittedly, Kamp and Reyle’s
(1993) rules for the interpretation of narrative discourse do not generate this structure,
but we can assume that it is possible to develop a more refined version of DRT which
yields the desired interpretation. However, this is not sufficient to interpret (108b).
(108b) allows different temporal structures, depending on the rhetorical relation estab-
lished between the two sentences. The room not being very bright can be the result of
Paul switching on the light, if the light is not strong enough. This reading can be de-
rived by negating the abut relation between s and e: :(e s). This is the only option
within Kamp and Reyle’s system of negation. However, there is another, maybe more
likely interpretation of (108b), namely one in which the room not being very bright is
the reason for Paul to switch on the light. In that case, we have a relation of expla-
nation between the two sentences in Lascarides and Asher’s terms, and the temporal
structure is one of immediate precedence: the temporal structure is one of immediate
precedence: the room not being bright immediately precedes the event of switching on
the light, and ends there. We could represent this as :s e. Given that a relation
of explanation can be established in (108b), but not in (108a), it is impossible to derive
the temporal structure of the negative sentence from its affirmative counterpart.
Further problems arise when we consider the way the discourse continues after the
negative sentence has updated the context. Kamp and Reyle’s null hypothesis predicts
that the temporal structure of negative sentences does not play a role in the further
discourse. This prediction follows from the claim that the eventuality variable is em-
bedded under negation, and the negative sentence itself does not denote a state or an
event (compare figures 16 and 17). Accordingly, we expect subsequent sentences to be
attached to the same reference point as the negative sentence. Thus Kamp and Reyle’s
treatment of negative events as subordinated to the main storyline implies that negative
sentences should be dispensible as far as temporal structure is concerned. However,
the discourses in (109) become incoherent if we leave out the negative sentence:
(109) a. The plane exploded. But John didn’t panic. On the contrary, he was very
calm.
b. John invited all his friends. They didn’t show up. So John decided to go out
into the street and bring in all the homeless from the neighbourhood.
c. John invited all his friends. They didn’t show up, although they had promised
to come.
In (109a) the state of being calm overlaps with the not panicking, rather than with
the event of the plane exploding. (109b) relates a sequence of events, one of which
is a negative one. It is the friends not showing up which triggers John’s decision to
go out in the street and bring in all the homeless. This makes it impossible to directly
attach the last sentence to the first one. Finally, the pluperfect in (109c) locates the
promise before the not showing up, and world knowledge suggests that the promise
follows the invitation. Under the null hypothesis, it is unclear how we can account
for the way negative sentences update the context in narrative sequences like those in
(109), because negative sentences are not supposed to shift the reference time.
The conclusion we draw from these data is that there are quite a few case where
negative statements have a role of their own to play in the temporal structure of narra-
tive discourse. Given that the rules for the interpretation of narrative discourse in both
Kamp and Reyle (1993) and Lascarides and Asher (1993) are formulated in terms of
eventualities, this suggests that an analysis in which the external referent of a negative
sentence is an eventuality variable (a state or an event) rather than just a time is justified.
Note however that our claim represents a weaker ontological commitment than it might
seem. Kamp and Reyle (1993), Amsili and Le Draoulec (1995) and others do not deny
that we need an external referent for negative sentences. Their idea is that the external
referent of negative sentences is a time, rather than an eventuality (compare figures
15–17 above). The only respect in which we strenghten this claim is that we argue that
the negative condition holding for t can be labelled as a state which co-extends with
t. The recursive rule for the introduction of discourse referents that we propose allows
us to switch from times to eventualities whenever needed. Note that our treatment of
negation differs from the one proposed by Higginbotham (1983), who claims that the
only negative events which are allowed in perception reports are those that somehow
describe some positive, active behavior. But as argued by van der Does (1992, 133),
this constraint is the result of more general aspectual restrictions on perception reports.
Negative sentences are more limited in their use than affirmative sentences (cf. Horn,
1989 for discussion). We take these restrictions to be pragmatic, rather than semantic
in nature.
The switch from times to states is a minor one in the sense that states are like
conditions in that they just require verification of embeddings, and do not involve the
notion of change. It is a major one in the sense that it allows us to integrated negation
in the model of aspect structure that we have developed so far. Adopting the recursive
rule for the introduction of discourse referents for negative statements means that we
open the way to a systematic study of the interaction of logical operators and aspectual
operators in various languages.
4.3.2 Logical and aspectual structure

The interpretation of negation and quantification as eventuality description modifiers
whose input and output is a set of eventualities implies that adverbs of quantification
and negation are of the same semantic type as aspectual operators like the Progressive
or the Perfect. This predicts that their interaction can lead to scope ambiguities. In this
section, we discuss such scope ambiguities in English.
The relations the temporal connective when establishes between the subordinate
and the main clause depend on the aspectual properties of the clauses involved. When
one of the clauses is stative, the relation is overlap. When two events are connected, it
is possible to get succession of events. The Progressive induces stativity, compare:
(110) a. When Mary came home, Max left.

b. When Mary came home, Max was leaving.
In (110a), the leaving can be interpreted as taking place after Mary came home, for
instance as a reaction to this event. In (110b), the situation of Max leaving is interpreted
as already going on when Mary came home. Nothing changes in the temporal relation
between the main and the subordinate clause when we add an adverb of quantification
like always:
(111) a. When Mary came home, Max always left.

b. When Mary came home, Max was always leaving.
The same effects of succession of events (111a) or overlap (111b) can be observed
here as in (110), so the Progressive takes narrow scope with respect to the quanti-
fier. The Progressive cannot take wide scope, because the quantificational relation as a
whole describes a complex state, and the Progressive requires is an event (or a process)
as its input description. The interpretation of (111b) is spelled out in figure 18:
figure 18
Max was always leaving when Mary came home
n s t x y
tn
Max(x)
Mary(y)
s =t t
Max(s)
e s’
s: es ) e s’
e: y come home s’: PROG(x leave)
Examples in which an aspectual operator takes narrow scope with respect to a

logical operator do not provide evidence in favor of a higher level discourse referent.
For that we need aspectual operators which allow scope ambiguities. The English
Perfect is such an operator. In (112a), the Perfect takes narrow scope with respect to
negation:
(112) a. Mary hasn’t met the president

b. [Pres [: [Perf [Mary meet the president]]]]
(112a) denies that we are now in the state which results from the event of Mary
meeting the president. This is naturally rendered by embedding the Perfect under the
negation operator. Examples in which the Perfect takes wide scope with respect to
negation are given in (113):
(113) a. Mary hasn’t seen her grand-child for over a year (now).
b. Mary hasn’t written a single poem for twelve years (now).
The reading of (113a) with an explicit or implicit now means that Mary is in the
state of not-seeing her grand-child, this state of affairs has been going on for more than
a year now, and it hasn’t ended yet. (113b) means that the last time Mary wrote a poem
is twelve years ago, and the state of not-writing a poem has lasted since then and up
until now. We propose (114) as the grammatical structure of (113a):
(114) [Pres [Perf [: [Mary see her grand-child]]]]
The peculiarity of this use of the Perfect is that it is limited to stative predicates,
as Kamp and Reyle (1993, 567) observe. Interestingly, the negative sentences in (113)
behave like the stative predicate in (115a) rather than the non-stative ones in (115b)
and (115c):
(115) a. Mary has lived in Amsterdam for three years (now).

b. #Mary has seen her grand-child for over a year (now).
c. #Mary has written a poem for twelve years (now).
This is not just a motivation for the wide scope interpretation of the Perfect over
negation, it is also an additional argument in favor of the view that negative sentences
are stative.
This completes our analysis of outer aspectuality in an event-based semantics as
far as English is concerned. In the next section, we will see that there are interesting
differences between the aspectual systems of English and Romance languages. They
will be handled as an instance of paramatric variation: English carries its aspectual
information in Asp , whereas Romance carries part of its aspectual information in
Asp and part of it in Tense. Given that Tense is higher in the tree than Asp , this has
important consequences for the interaction between aspectual and logical structure.
The claims will be illustrated by a detailed discussion of French, but can be extended
(with minor variations) to other Romance languages.
4.4 Aspect and logical operators in Romance

4.4.1 Aspect shift and coercion in French
The DRT-analysis of aspect and coercion, developed in section 2, can be applied to
large portions of French. We assume that the Parfait in French counts as an aspectual
operator.13 Vet (1994a: 67–73) observes that the Futur Simple is aspectually neutral in
the sense that it applies to states and events alike. The aspectual nature of sentences
like (116a) and (116b) is fully determined by the aspectual class of the eventuality
description:
(116) a. Nous serons heureux

We are-FUT happy
b. Nous achèterons une maison de campagne
We buy-FUT a country house
The DRSs we construct for these sentences are similar to the ones given in figures
3 and 4 above, except for the condition n t which interprets the future tense as non-
past. But how do the simple past tenses in French fit into the picture sketched so far?
There are well-known differences between English and French in this respect.
13 We will leave the discussion of certain differences between the French Passé Composé and the English
Present Perfect for another occasion (cf. Kamp 1991 and Vet 1992).
4.4. ASPECT AND LOGICAL OPERATORS IN ROMANCE 129
The Simple Past tense in English is aspectually neutral and ‘transparent’, just like
the Futur Simple in French: it applies to states, processes and events alike, and the sen-
tence inherits its aspectual character from the eventuality description the tense operator
applies to. The two simple past tenses in French differ in aspectual nature. According
to Kamp and Rohrer (1983), the Passé Simple sentences in (117a), (118a) introduce
events into the DRS, and the Imparfait sentences in (117b) and (118b) introduce states.
Given our more fine-grained event ontology, it is more appropriate to say that the Passé
Simple/Imparfait contrast is sensitive to the homogeneous/quantized distinction, so that
the sentences in the Passé Simple describe events, and the ones in the Imparfait refer to
either states or processes:
(117) a. Anne fut triste.

Anne was-PS sad.
b. Anne était triste.
Anne was-IMP sad.
(118) a. Anne traversa la rue.

Anne crossed-PS the street.
b. Anne traversait la rue.
Anne crossed-IMP the street.
The fact that the sentences in (117) have an underlying stative eventuality descrip-
tion, whereas the ones in (118) involve an event predicate does not influence the role
these sentences play in narrative discourse. In the larger context of (119) and (120),
the Passé Simple sentences move the story line forward, whereas the corresponding
Imparfait sentences describe the background to the action:
(119) a. Georges annonça sa résignation. Anne fut triste.
Georges announced-PS his resignation. Anne was-PS sad.
b. Georges annonça sa résignation. Anne était triste.
Georges announced-PS his resignation. Anne was-IMP sad.
(120) a. Quand elle vit Georges, Anne traversa la rue.

When she saw-PS Georges, Anne crossed-PS the street.
b. Quand elle vit Georges, Anne traversait la rue.
When she saw-PS Georges, Anne crossed-IMP the street.
Anne’s sadness in (119a) is naturally interpreted as a reaction to the announcement,

and is located later in time. In (119b), Anne’s sadness overlaps with the announce-
ment. (120a) describes a succession of events, whereas Anne is already crossing the
street when she sees Georges in (120b). The observation that aspectual class does not
determine the output type of the discourse referent suggests that the contrast between
the Passé Simple and the Imparfait relates to grammatical aspect. This is similar to
the difference between the simple and the However, there are important differences
between an aspectual operator like the English Progressive and the French past tenses.
A first observation is that the Progressive is sensitive to the stative/dynamic distinc-
tion, whereas the Passé Simple and the Imparfait depend on the homogeneous/quantized
contrast. But even if we leave processes out of the discussion and just compare states
and events, there are a number of striking differences. Both the Perfect/Parfait and the
Progressive are independent of tense: they are compatible with Past, Present and Future
tenses. A compositional approach thus sorts out the contribution made by the aspec-
tual and the temporal operator. But the Passé Simple and the Imparfait morphology is
composite, and encodes temporal and aspectual information in one morpheme.
Furthermore, there are differences in meaning between the English Progressive
and the French Imparfait. With respect to (120b), we noted that an event predicate
with the Imparfait leads to a progressive interpretation. In other contexts, the same
combination may give us the choice between a progressive (121) or a habitual reading
(122):
(121) a. Un jour, je faisais mes courses chez l’épicier quand je rencontrai Jean.
One day, I got-IMP my groceries at the grocery store when I ran-PS into Jean.
b. One day, I was shopping at the grocery store, when I ran into Jean.
(122) a. A cette époque-là, je faisais mes courses chez l’épicier du coin.

In those days, I got-IMP my groceries at the local grocery store.
b. In those days, I shopped at the local grocery store.
English uses the Progressive in episodic sentences like (121b), but the Simple Past in
habitual sentences like (122b). In other words, the meaning of the Imparfait is broader
than that of the Progressive.14
Finally, the Imparfait combines with a larger class of predicates. States do not
normally combine with the Progressive, unless we find some way to coerce the state
into a dynamic situation. (123a) is unacceptable, and only the simple tense is felicitous
(123b):
(123) a. # Anne was being sad.

b. Anne was sad.
In French, the Imparfait is often considered the unmarked tense for statives (124a),
but statives may also occur with the Passé Simple (124b):
(124) a. Anne était triste.

Anne was-IMP sad.
b. Anne fut triste.
Anne was-PS sad.
14 Smith (1991) makes similar observations, but provides no explanation.
(124b) requires a context which supports an inchoative reading (‘suddenly Anne

was sad’) or an interpretation as a bounded state (‘for several weeks Anne was sad’).
English cannot express this contrast for which French exploits the Passé Simple and
the Imparfait by grammatical means. Implicit contextual reinterpretation mechanisms
must give us the feeling that in the one reading something is simply the case, whereas in
the other reading, something happens. These three observations, namely the past tense
restriction, the progressive/habitual interpretation, and the combinatory possibilities
and their special meaning effects provide sufficient evidence to support the claim that
the English Progressive and the French Passé Simple/Imparfait are essentially different.
Comrie (1976), Smith (1991), and Vet (1994b) draw on the differences between
the English and French past tenses to motivate an analysis of the Passé Simple and the
Imparfait as an instantiation of the perfective/imperfective distinction. In their view, the
perfective indicates that the assertion presents the process as completed, including the
beginning point and the endpoint. The prototypical interpretation of the imperfective
is to present the process as already started, and susceptible to continuing further. The
characterizations Smith and Vet provide of the perfective and imperfective aspect are
necessarily rather broad. The drawback of such a general definition is that it is rather
vague, which makes it hard to determine exactly what their contribution is in certain
cases. In fact there are examples where one wonders whether the Passé Simple or
the Imparfait contributes anything at all beyond the information provided by aspectual
class. Some of the most striking examples are cases like (125a) and (126a), which
would involve an imperfective (IPF) and a perfective (PRF) operator respectively under
Vet’s analysis:
(125) a. Anne était malade.

Anne was-IMP ill.
[PAST [IPF [ Anne be ill ]]]
b. Anne was ill.
(126) a. Anne écrivit une lettre.

Anne wrote-PS a letter.
[PAST [PRF [ Anne write a letter]]]
b. Anne wrote a letter.
The default reading of (125b) is equivalent to the Imparfait sentence in (125a):

both describe an unbounded situation which holds in the past. The Passé Simple sen-
tence in (126a) expresses the same meaning as its English Simple Past counterpart in
(126b): both sentences locate a culminated event in the past of the speech time. Re-
member that the simple past in English is aspectually neutral and the aspectual nature
of the eventuality is inherited from the aspectual class of the sentence. (125b) thus
introduces a state and (126b) an event into the DRS. Given that the French sentences
in (125a) and (126a) are equivalent to their English counterparts in (125b) and (126b),
we can conclude that the same combination of aspectual class and a past tense operator
is sufficient to derive the proper interpretation of the sentence. Examples in which the
semantic contribution of the perfective and imperfective aspect reduces to zero are de-
scriptively characterized as ‘unmarked’ cases. The unmarked cases make it attractive
to develop a semantics of the French past tenses which does not involve vacuous as-
pectual operators. Such an analysis would also shed new light on the observation that
the perfective/imperfective contrast is not expressed by independent morphology, and
that it is limited to the past tense domain.
We therefore propose to treat the Passé Simple and the Imparfait are aspectually
sensitive past tense operators. Specifically, Passé Simple sentences refer to events, and
Imparfait sentences denote states or processes. The intuition behind this claim is illus-
trated by drawing a parallel with the nominal domain. As we have seen, determiners
like much and many, little and few come in pairs that have the same interpretation, but
different selection restrictions: they apply to either mass or count nouns. The deter-
miner itself does not convert the noun into a mass or a count expression; all it does is
to select for a mass or a count expression. In the unmarked case, determiners like many
and few combine with typical count nouns, such as chair, student, and determiners like
much and little operate on typical mass nouns, such as water, gold. If the predicate does
not fit the requirements on the determiner, coercion comes into play, giving rise to spe-
cial meaning effects. The French past tenses are similar to the determiners much/many,
little/few, in that they do not convert the description into an aspectually different one,
but that they select for a homogeneous or a quantized eventuality description.
This idea can be implemented in DRT in the following way. Both the Imparfait
and the Passé Simple introduce a condition t n into the DRS. The aspectual selec-
tion restrictions are treated as input requirements on the operator. The Passé Simple
requires a quantized event description as its input, and the Imparfait is felicitous only
if it applies to a non-quantized, homogeneous description (a state or a process). These
constraints are part of the construction rule (appendix, part C). The Passé Simple is
thus used exclusively to locate events in the past, whereas the Imparfait locates states
or processes in the past. In contexts in which the Imparfait applies to an eventuality de-
scription denoting a state or a process, or the Passé Simple to an event description, the
aspectual class of the description satisfies the selection restriction on the temporal op-
erator, and the well-formedness condition is fulfilled. As a result, the DRS-construction
of (125a) and (126a) proceeds as for their English counterparts in (125b) and (126b),
spelled out in the figures 3 and 4 in section 2 above. As far as the unmarked cases are
concerned, the French past tenses do not trigger any aspectual meaning effects beyond
the aspectual class of the eventuality description. Furthermore, we do not need vacuous
aspectual operators to derive the correct interpretation.
If the aspectual requirements of the Passé Simple or the Imparfait are not satis-
fied by the eventuality description, the tense operator cannot apply. A straightforward
extension of the analysis developed so far is to assume that a contextually governed
process of reinterpretation comes into play when the input conditions on an aspectu-
ally sensitive tense operator are not met. Thus I formulate construction rules which
check the input conditions of the tense operator and introduce a coercion operator if
the eventuality description does not satisfy these aspectual constraints (see appendix,
part C). If a state or a process description combines with the Passé Simple, we need
to come up with an appropriate aspectual transition which allows the state to be rein-
terpreted as an event. In such a situation, the construction rule for the Passé Simple
appeals to the operator Che in order to resolve the aspectual conflict. Similarly, the
combination of an event description with the Imparfait triggers the introduction of a
coercion operator Ceh , which reinterprets the event as a state or a process. As before, it
is the linguistic and extra-linguistic context which tells us how to interpret the coercion
operator. The embedding function requires the meaning effects of at least one of the
possible mappings to be supported by the context. If no appropriate reinterpretation
can be found, the DRS is not verified. The result is not an ungrammatical sentence (we
can build up a well-formed DRS), but an uninterpretable sentence (we cannot embed
it).
Consider the presentation of a stative description in the Passé Simple. The in-
troduction of a coercion operator Che leads to (127b) as the grammatical structure of
(127a). The interpretation of (127a) is given in figure 19:
(127) a. (Soudain,) Jeanne sut la réponse.
(Suddenly,) Jeanne knew-PS the answer.
b. [ PAST [ Che [ Jeanne know the answer ]]]
figure 19
Jeanne sut (PS) la réponse
n e t x y
tn
Jeanne(x)
Answer(y)
et
s
e: Che s: x know y
French does not have a morphological marker for inchoativity, but the value IN-
CHO of Che may be triggered by the combination of a state and the Passé Simple (127)
in the presence of soudain ‘suddenly’. The value BOUND is appropriate in (128a),
where Jeanne’s life has a definite beginning point and endpoint, which presents the
state as a quantized event. ADD-PREP adds a preparatory phase and an initial boundary
to the process in (128b):
(128) a. Jeanne d’Arc fut une sainte.

Jeanne d’Arc was-PS a saint.
b. La machine fonctionna (en cinq minutes).
The machine worked-PS (in five minutes).
In all cases, Che introduces the necessary event variable e to satisfy the input
condition on the Passé Simple.
Statives nicely illustrate the difference in the syntax-semantics interface between

French and English. The English counterparts to (127) and (128) all use the Simple
Past tense:
(129) a. (Suddenly,) Jeanne knew the answer.

b. Jeanne d’Arc was a saint.
c. The machine worked (in five minutes).
English has aspectual operators like the Perfect and the Progressive which have
an output in the domain of states. However, there are no grammatical operators which
allow us to represent states as events. All aspectual transitions which have an output in
the domain of events are implicit and governed by a contextual process of reinterpre-
tation. Such aspectual transitions show up in the presence of an adverb like suddenly
or in five minutes, which are restricted to event descriptions, but the reinterpretation
of a state as an event is not visible in the morphology of the verb. French does not
have grammatical operators mapping states onto events either, but it has tense opera-
tors which apply only to homogeneous or only to quantized eventualities. Thus there
is a difference in the syntax-semantics interface for the two languages: the semantic
effects of sentences like (127)/(128) and (129) are the same, and their DRSs are identi-
cal, but only French makes the fact that the state is presented as an event visible in the
morphology of the verb, using an aspectually sensitive tense operator.
Given that French has no Progressive verb form, the transition of an event to the
state of the event being in progress is a free transition. A progressive reading may be
triggered by the combination of an event description and the Imparfait, as in (130a):
(130) a. Jeanne écrivait une lettre.

Jeanne wrote-IMP a letter.
b. Jeanne écrivit une lettre.
Jeanne wrote-PS a letter.
The event of writing a letter is presented as a (completed) event in (130b), and as

an event in progress in (130a). The conflict between the eventuality description and the
Imparfait is resolved by the introduction of the coercion operator Ceh . Thus (130a) has
the grammatical structure (131), and the interpretation in figure 20:
(131) Jeanne écrivait (IMP) une lettre.

[ PAST [ Ceh [ Jeanne write a letter ]]]
figure 20
Jeanne écrivait (IMP) une lettre
n h t x
tn
hÆt
Jeanne(x)
e y
h: Ceh letter(y)
e: x write y
The grammatical structure in (131), and the interpretation in figure 20 are to be

compared with the representation of the English Progressive in figures 6 and 8 above.
Figures 6 and 8 contain an explicit aspectual operator PROG, which leads to the state
of the event/process being in progress, whereas the homogeneous discourse referent in
figure 20 is obtained by coercion. In both cases, we have an (intensional) aspectual
transition, but the aspectual operator PROG labels one particular aspectual transition,
whereas the aspectually sensitive tense operator in French in principle allows any map-
ping, as long as the result is a state or a process. The interpretation chosen must be
supported by the linguistic and extra-linguistic context as usual. The difference be-
tween aspectual operators and coercion is thus not the effect (namely, some mapping
from the domain of states to the domain of events or vice versa), but the way in which
this aspectual transition is obtained: by means of a syntactic or morphological marker
in the case of an aspectual operator, by implicit, contextually governed reinterpretation
in the case of coercion.
Given that the Imparfait is not a progressive operator, it is natural to assume that
progressive readings are but one possible way to present an event as a state. For (130a),
it is straightforward to strip the event of its culmination point and to describe it as being
in progress. In other cases, we may have the choice between a progressive interpreta-
tion (as in 121) and a habitual reading (as in 122), depending on the context in which
we process the sentence. The ambiguities remains at the level of the DRS, because the
value of the coercion operator is not determined until the DRS is embedded into the
model.
The examples in this section illustrate the aspectual sensitivity of the French past
tenses. They argue against the treatment of the Imparfait and the Passé Simple as as-
pectual operators, for, unlike the Perfect and the Progressive, they do not specify one
particular aspectual transition. All they do is to impose a general aspectual constraint
on the eventuality description they apply to, which must be satisfied, if necessary, by
means of coercion. The interpretation of the Passé Simple and the Imparfait as aspec-
tually sensitive tenses explains why it is not possible to separate aspectual and tem-
poral information in the morphology: there simply is no aspectual operator involved.
The distinction between temporal and aspectual operators accounts for the differences
between the Progressive and the Imparfait in stative contexts by treating them as differ-
ences in the syntax-semantics interface. The Imparfait has a broader meaning than the
English Progressive, because there are more free aspectual transitions that map events
onto homogeneous situations than just a progressive reading. The observation that
the French past tense operators are sensitive to the homogeneous/quantized distinction
does not lead us to expect that all tense operators in that language are specified along
this dimension. It is an idiosyncratic feature of certain determiners in English that they
are limited to either mass or count nouns, whereas other determiners are not specified
along the mass/count dimension. Similarly, it is an idiosyncratic feature of the French
past tenses that they are sensitive to the homogeneous/quantized distinction, whereas
other tenses in this language are aspectually neutral. Past tenses are more likely than
present or future tenses to develop such distinctions, because they often have a more
fine-grained semantics than the other tenses (Comrie 1976, 87). The general frame-
work developed here is thus rich enough to provide a fully compositional analysis of
aspect shift in French and English.
If we combine the analysis of duration adverbials as eventuality description mod-
ifiers with the interpretation of the French past tenses as aspectually sensitive tense
operators, we can make some interesting predictions concerning the combination of
duration adverbials and past tenses in French. Adverbials introduced by pendant have
the same selection restrictions as for-adverbials in English, and adverbials introduced
by en are similar to in-adverbials, as is clear from the examples in (132) and (133):
(132) a. Anne a été malade pendant deux semaines.

Anne has been ill for two weeks.
b. Georges a nagé pendant deux heures.
Georges has swum for two hours.
c. #Eve a chanté la Marseillaise pendant cinq minutes.
Eve has sung the Marseillaise for five minutes.
(133) a. #Anne a été malade en deux semaines.

Anne has been ill in two weeks.
b. #Georges a nagé en deux heures.

Georges has swum in two hours.
c. Eve a chanté la Marseillaise en deux minutes.
Eve has sung the Marseillaise in five minutes.
En-adverbials map events onto events that culminate within the period of time
specified by the temporal noun. Pendant-adverbials map states onto events consisting
of a bounded state, the duration of which is measured by the temporal noun.
If our analysis of the French past tense forms as tense operators, rather than as-
pectual operators, is correct, we do not expect to find duration adverbials taking wide
scope over Passé Simple and Imparfait. If duration adverbials take narrow scope with
respect to these tenses, and if the output of both en- and pendant-adverbials is an event
description, we predict that their combination with the Passé Simple will be unmarked.
This is indeed what we observe, as the following examples illustrate:
(134) a. Anne joua du piano pendant deux heures.

Anne played-PS the piano for two hours.
[ PAST [ FOR two hours [ Anne play the piano ]]]
b. Anne écrivit une lettre en une demi-heure.
Anne wrote-PS a letter in half an hour.
[ PAST [ IN half an hour [ Anne write a letter ]]]
The Passé Simple sentence (134a) describes a past event which consists of the
bounded state of Anne playing the piano for two hours. Similarly, (134b) introduces an
event of Anne writing a letter culminating within half an hour. In both cases, the output
of the duration adverbial is of the aspectual type required by the Passé Simple, so no
special meaning effects arise. The DRS for (134a) is similar to the one given in figure
7 above for the English for-adverbial. Such a characterization of the sentences in (134)
suggests that we can expect special meaning effects to arise if we combine sentences
modified by duration adverbials with the Imparfait. This prediction is borne out by the
sentences in (135):
(135) a. Anne jouait du piano pendant deux heures.

Anne played-IMP the piano for two hours.
[ PAST [ Ceh [ FOR two hours [ Anne play the piano ]]]]
b. Anne écrivait une lettre en une demi-heure.
Anne wrote-IMP a letter in half an hour.
[ PAST [ Ceh [ IN half an hour [ Anne write a letter ]]]]
(135a) does not describe one event of Anne playing the piano for two hours, but states
this as the habitual duration of her play. (135b) typically conveys that (almost) every
letter Anne writes is finished within half an hour. These meaning effects arise from
a conflict between the aspectual nature of the description and the aspectual require-
ments on the tense operator: the event description is forced to behave like a state or a
process in order to be compatible with the semantics of the Imparfait. Such conflicts
are resolved by introducing a coercion operator into the DRS. Accordingly, (135a) is
represented in figure 21:
figure 21
Anne jouait (IMP) du piano pendant deux heures
n h t x y
tn
John(x)
Piano(y)
hÆt
e s’ mt
e = BOUND(s’)
h: Ceh two hours(mt)
dur(s’) mt
s’: x play y
A habitual reading is the most likely value for the operator Ceh in figure 21, but
other interpretations are not excluded, depending on the context.
If we accept the existence of aspectually sensitive tenses along with aspectual
operators, the grammatical structure in (1), repeated here as (136), predicts that the
combination of an aspectual operator and an aspectually sensitive tense operator leads
to an interpretation in which the tense operator takes wide scope over the aspectual
operator:
An example which confirms this prediction is the combination of pendant-adverbials

with the Passé Simple and the Imparfait. Another example is provided by the combina-
tion of negation and adverbs of quantification with the Progressive in English, and the
Passé Simple/Imparfait in French. We will return to negative sentences in chapter 5,
because the full analysis requires an analysis of tense and aspect as the discourse level.
But for the quantificational contexts, we can remain at the sentence-level, and use the
framework developed so far to explain the meaning effects which arise in French, rather
than in English. In section On the basis of the semantics we adopt for the French past
tenses. In section 3.2 above, we argued that Simple past and Progressive sentences es-
tablished the same kind of temporal relation with a preceding when-clause when they
were embedded under an adverb of quantification like always as when they were un-
embedded. In French, we find an alternation of the Imparfait and the Passé Simple
which is similar to the English data involving the Progressive/Simple Past distinction
in contexts which do not involve quantification. Compare the contrast in (137) to the
one in (??) above:
(137) a. Quand Marie rentra, Max partit

When Marie came-PS home, Max left-PS
b. Quand Marie rentra, Max partait
When Marie came-PS home, Max left-IMP
As observed in de Swart (1991, 221, 254), the role of the tenses changes when we
add a quantifier like toujours ‘always’. We can no longer use the combination of one
Imparfait and one Passé Simple, but we have to have either two Imparfaits or two Passé
Simples:
(138) a. Max partait toujours quand Marie rentrait,
Max always left-IMP when Marie came-IMP home
b. (Pendant deux mois) Max partit toujours quand Marie rentra
(For two months) Max always left-PS when Marie came-PS home
The Passé Simple/Imparfait contrast no longer applies to the relation between the
individual events of Marie coming home and Max leaving. In both (138a) and (b),
it remains vague whether the relation between the subordinate and the main clause
event is one of overlap or immediate succession, although in both cases there seems to
be a preference for a succession reading, due to the event-like character of the atomic
predicates. The tense difference affects the presentation of the quantificational relation.
The Imparfait in (138a) gives the relation an open, unbounded character and describes
it as an ongoing state of affairs. The Passé Simple in (138b) on the other hand, presents
the quantificational relation as a bounded situation which is closed off in time. This
suggests that the Passé Simple and the Imparfait take wide scope over the adverb of
quantification, and the requirement on parallel tenses is an agreement phenomenon.
Given that we analyzed the Passé Simple and the Imparfait as aspectually sensitive
tense operators, they necessarily operate on the highest discourse referent. Thus, they
cannot take narrow scope with respect to the adverb of quantification. The recursive
rule for the introduction of discourse referents introduces a state variable for the quan-
tificational relation as a whole. This satisfies the input conditions on the Imparfait (cf.
figure 22). In order for the quantificational relation to be compatible with the Passé
Simple in (138b), a coercion operator must be inserted in figure 23:
figure 22
Max partait (IMP) toujours quand Marie rentrait (IMP)
n s t x y
tn
Max(x)
Marie(y)
s =t t
Max(s)
e e’
s: es ) e e’
e: y come home e’: x leave
figure 23
Max partit (PS) toujours quand Marie rentra (PS)
n e t x y
tn
Max(x)
Marie(y)
et
s t’
Max(s)
s =t t’
e: Cse e’ e”
s: e’ s ) e’ e”
e’: y come home e”: x leave
The addition of boundaries is sufficient to give the eventuality quantized reference

(Krifka, 1989), and to treat it as an event. Given that the Passé Simple and the Imparfait
are interpreted at the level of the quantificational relation as a whole, the temporal re-
lation between the eventualities described by the main and subordinate clause remains
underspecified. This is indicated by the symbol , which indicates succession or over-
lap. The type distinction between aspectual operators and tense operators predicts that
the Progressive applies at a ‘lower’ level than the Passé Simple/Imparfait. The scoping
relations explain why the contrast between Simple Past and Progressive is preserved
under quantification in English, whereas the related contrast in French disappears in
such contexts.
Further evidence in favor of the system developed here is provided by languages
which have both aspectual operators similar to the Progressive in English and aspec-
tually sensitive tenses similar to the Passé Simple/Imparfait in French. Comrie (1976,
23–32) discusses several languages which can be fruitfully analyzed along these lines.
Spanish and Portuguese optionally express the progressive by the construction be +
present participle. In the past tense, there is a distinction between the Simple Past and
the Imperfect. The combination of the Simple Past of be with the present participle
leads to a perfective progressive:
(139) a. Toda la tarde estuvieron entrando visitas. [Spanish]
All the afternoon, visitors kept arriving.
b. Ele esteve lendo em casa o dia inteiro. [Portuguese]
He spent the whole day at home reading.
The situation is presented as a single complete whole (whence the Simple Past), but
consists of an ongoing action (whence the Progressive). This suggests that the Progres-
sive is an aspectual operator, and both the Simple Past and the Imperfect are aspectually
sensitive tenses, similar to the Passé Simple and the Imparfait in French. Note that the
sentences in (139) cannot be used to describe a complete event as being in progress,
thereby confirming the hypothesis that the aspectual operator (the Progressive) takes
narrow scope with respect to the tense operator (the Simple Past).
Similar distinctions can be found in Slavic languages. Bulgarian has a morpholog-
ical opposition corresponding to the perfective/imperfective distinction. Furthermore,
there are two past tenses, the Aorist, and the Imperfective. The combination of the Im-
perfective with the Aorist leads to a meaning effect which is rather different from the
combination of the Perfective with the Imperfect. As Comrie (1976, 32) formulates it,
“the Imperfective Aorist takes a situation which is described by an imperfective form
(Imperfective), to give explicit reference to its internal complexity, and circumscribes
the situation by giving it a perfective form (Aorist). (...) The Perfective Imperfect, on
the other hand, takes a situation which would in itself be described by a perfective form
(Perfective), and then superimposes upon this imperfectivity.” Consider the example in
(140):
(140) Štom pukneše zorata, izkarvax ovcite navǎn.
as-soon-as broke.3sg.perf-imp dawn.the drove.1sg.imp-imp sheep.the outside
‘As soon as dawn broke (Perf Impf), I used to drive the sheep out.’
The Perfective Imperfect in (140) refers to a habitual situation using the Imperfect,
but each individual event is described as a complete whole by the Perfective. The
Imperfective Aorist in (141) describes a bounded action which is presented as a single
whole by the Aorist, but which has internal complexity referred to by the Imperfective:
(141) Pred mnogo ikoni ošte pop Stefan vodi djada Nedka. Te se spiraxa pred sv. Nikolaj
before many icons other father Stefan led.3sg.imp-aor old Nedko. They refl stopped.3pl.imp-aor before St. Nicholas
pred obrazite na arxangelite Gavrail i Mixail.
before images.the of archangels.the Gabriel and Michael.
‘Father Stefan led (Ipfv. Aorist) old Nedko in front of many other icons. They
stopped (Ipfv. Aorist) before St. Nicholas the miracle-worker, . . . , before the
images of the archangels Gabriel and Michael.’
There are no scope ambiguities in these cases: (140) gives us the ‘imperfective
of a perfective’, while (141) describes the ‘perfective of the imperfective’ in Comrie’s
terms. In combination with the restriction of the Aorist/Imperfect opposition to the
past tense, these observations suggest that Bulgarian (but also Georgian for instance)
has both aspectual operators (the imperfective/perfective, which we analyzed as sitting
in Asp ) and aspectually sensitive tenses (the Aorist and the Imperfect).
Further research on the relation between aspect shift in French and English on
the one hand, and other Romance languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, but also
Slavic languages like Bulgarian is needed to investigate these issues in more detail.
The data provided here support a general theory of aspect shift in which aspectual
information is present at the three different levels of eventuality descriptions, aspectual

operators and tense operators. The analysis developed in this paper thus offers new
perspectives for a cross-linguistical study of aspect and aspect shift.
4.5 Conclusion
In this chapter, we have developed a cross-linguistically valide event-based semantics
of outer aspectuality. This model involves a mixture of universal and language specific
characteristics. The interpretation of negation and quantification as eventuality de-
scription modifiers is taken to be universal. Thus, all logical operators in all languages
are expected to end up in Asp . The interpretation of aspectual information such as
the Perfect and the Progressive in English or the Pass/’e Simple/Imparfait contrast in
French depends on the aspectual system of the languages in question. We argued that
the Passé Simple and the Imparfait are not interpreted as aspectual operators (in Asp ),
but as tense operators (in Tense) which are sensitive to the aspectual nature of the
eventuality description they operate on. As a result, the French past tenses always take
wide scope with respect to logical operators like negation and quantification. We have
shown that the treatment of negative sentences as states does not exclude the possibil-
ity of them being presented as events, as long as we recognize the crucial role coercion
plays in both English and French. We can also distinguish between the negation of
events and the negation of states, if we define appropriate restrictions on the kind of
aspectual transitions which are permitted, and take into account the rhetorical structure
of the discourse. Our proposal can be viewed as a generalized version of the analysis
of aspect and logical operators developed by Kamp and Reyle (1993).
Appendix
In the Appendix we introduce the construction rules, the DRS-conditions, and a verifi-
cation procedure necessary to construct and interpret the DRSs given in the text, in so
far as they are different from the DRSs constructed by Kamp and Reyle (1993).
A. General notions
DRSs are confined to a given vocabulary V and a set R of discourse referents
The universe of discourse UK of the DRS K confined to V and R is a sorted do-
main. This is a set of discourse referents of possibly different types including:
individuals, times, amounts of time, events, processes, states, organized into their
supercategories of homogeneous/non-homogeneous and dynamic/stative eventu-
alities.
ConK is the set of DRS-conditions in K confined to a given vocabulary V and a
set R of discourse referents.
B. DRS-conditions for aspectual operators
4.5. CONCLUSION 143
Progressive:
If d: is a dynamic description (event or process) then
d
s: PROG
d:
is a state description.
Durative adverbs:
(i) If e: is an event description then e: IN x time( ) is an event descrip-
tion
(ii) If s: is a state description then e: FOR x time( ) is an event descrip-
tion
Coercion:
(i) If e: is an event description then
e
h: Ceh e:
is the description of a homogeneous situation (a state, or a process).
(ii) If h: is a description of a homogeneous situation (a state or a process),
then
h
e: Che h:
is an event description.
(iii) If s: is a state description, then
s
d: Csd s:
is the description of a dynamic situation (a process or an event).
C. Construction rules
Introduction of discourse referents for sentences modified by an aspectual oper-
ator:
(i) For progressive sentences of the form Prog(S ):
a. Introduce in UK : a new state discourse referent s
b. Introduce in ConK :
s: PROG K1
c. If is a dynamic description, introduce in UK1 : a new discourse ref-
erent p or e.
d. Introduce in ConK1 : p: or e: .
e. If is not a dynamic description, so does not satisfy the input condi-
tions on the Progressive, introduce in UK1 : a new discourse referent
d.
f. Introduce in ConK1 :
d: Csd K2
g. Introduce in UK2 : a new discourse referent s
h. Introduce in ConK2 : s:
(ii) For state/process sentences which undergo contextual reinterpretation Che (S ):
a. Introduce in UK : a new event discourse referent e
e: Che K1
c. Introduce in UK1 : a new discourse referent h.
d. Introduce in ConK1 : h:
(iii) For event sentences which undergo contextual reinterpretation Ceh (S ):
a. Introduce in UK : a new homogeneous discourse referent h
h: Ceh K1
c. Introduce in UK1 : a new discourse referent e.
d. Introduce in ConK1 : e:
Duration adverbials
(i) For sentences modified by a for-adverbial of the form (FOR x time(S )):
a. Introduce in UK : new discourse referents e and mt
b. Introduce in ConK : x-time(mt)
c. If is a state or a process description, introduce in ConK :
dur(s) mt or dur(p) mt and e = BOUND(s) or e = BOUND(p)
d. If is an event description, introduce in ConK :
h: Ceh K1
and introduce in ConK : dur(h) mt and e = BOUND(h)
e. Introduce in UK1 : a new discourse referent e.
f. Introduce in ConK1 : e:
(ii) For sentences modified by an in-adverbial of the form (IN x time(S )):
a. Introduce new discourse referents e0 and mt
b. Introduce in ConK : x-time(mt)
c. Introduce in ConK : e0 = e
d. If is an event description, introduce in ConK : dur(e) mt
4.5. CONCLUSION 145
e. If is a state or a process description, introduce in ConK :

e: Che K1
f. Introduce in UK1 : a new discourse referent s or p.
g. Introduce in ConK1 : s: or p: and continue with c.
sentences modified by a logical operator

(i) negative sentences of the form not(S ):
a. Introduce in UK : a new state discourse referent s and a new time t
b. Introduce in ConK : Max(s), s =t t and s: : K1
c. Introduce in UK1 : a new discourse referent of the appropriate type (e
or s0 )
d. Introduce in ConK1 : e s (or s0 s)
e. Introduce in ConK1 : e: (or s0 : )
(ii) For (universally) quantified sentences of the form Always(S; S 0 ):
a. Introduce in UK : a new state discourse referent s and a new time t
b. Introduce in ConK : Max(s) and s =t t and s: K1 ) K2
c. Introduce in UK1 : a new discourse referent of the appropriate type (e
or s0 )
d. Introduce in ConK1 : e s (or s0 s)
e. Introduce in ConK1 : e: (or s0 : )
f. Introduce in UK2 : a new discourse referent of the appropriate type (e0
or s00 )
g. Introduce in ConK2 : e v e0 (or s v s00 )
h. Introduce in ConK2 : e0 : 0 (or s00 : 0 )
Tense operators
(i) Past tense (English):
a. If S is the first sentence of the discoure, introduce in UK : a new dis-
course referent n which is identified with the speech time. If S is not
the first sentence of the discourse, continue with b.
b. Introduce in UK : a new time discourse referent t
where t is the location time of the sentence
c. Introduce in ConK : t n
d. If is a state description, introduce in ConK : s =t t
e. If is an event description, introduce in ConK : e t
(ii) Passé Simple (French)

d. If is an event description, introduce in ConK : e t
e. If is not an event description, but a state description introduce in
ConK :
s
e: Cse
s:
and continue with d.
(iii) Imparfait (French)
d. If is a state description, introduce in ConK : s =t t
e. If is not a state description, introduce in ConK :
e
s: Ces
e:
and continue with d.
C. The model
The model M is a structure which consists among others of:
A set UM of individuals
A set T of times
A set EM of eventualities. hEM ; tE i is a complete join semi-lattice, with tE
as the join operation on eventualities. EM = EM [ SM where EM is the
set of events and SM is the set of states. States have homogeneous reference,
that is they satisfy Krifka’s (1989) postulates on cumulative (i) and divisive (ii)
reference. Events have non-homogeneous reference and satisfy Krifka’s (1989)
postulate on quantized reference (iii):
(i)8P [CUME (P ) $ 8x8y [P (x) ^ P (y) ! P (x [ y)]]
(ii) 8P [DIVE (P ) $ 8x8y [P (x) ^ y vE x ! P (y )]]
(iii) 8P [QUAE (P ) $ 8x8y [P (x) ^ P (y ) ! :y vE x]]
A part-whole relation v, a precedence relation , an identity relation =, a tem-
poral inclusion relation , a temporal co-extension relation =t (defined as the
conjunction of and ), and an overlap relation Æ are defined over events, states
and times in the usual way, so that the eventuality domain satisfies the seven ax-
ioms on event structure defined by Kamp and Reyle (1993, 667).
4.5. CONCLUSION 147
A function PredM which maps predicates onto their denotation such that:
(i) For each one-place predicate TAi over times, PredM (TAi ) is a subset of T
(ii) For each atomic event description Pi (ei , 1 ; : : : ; n ), PredM (Pi ) is a set of
tuples <ei , a1 , . . . , an > where ei 2 EM and a1 . . . an 2 UM .
(iii) For each atomic state description Pi (si , 1 ; : : : ; n ), PredM (Pi ) is a set of
tuples <si , a1 , . . . , an > where si 2 SM and a1 . . . an 2 UM .
(iv) <si , a1 , . . . , an > belongs to PredM (PROG(Pi )) for Pi an event description
iff si 2 SM and <si , a1 . . . an > belongs to (PROG(PredM (Pi ))).
(v) The coercion operator Ces is multiply ambiguous and has senses Ces1
. . . Cesn for the n free aspectual transitions defined as possible mappings
from events to states in the language under consideration. <si , a1 , . . . ,
an > belongs to PredM (Ces1 (Pi )) for Pi an event description iff si 2 SM
and <si , a1 , . . . , an > belongs to ITER(PredM (Pi )); <si , a1 , . . . , an > be-
longs to PredM (Ces2 (Pi )) for Pi an event description iff si 2 SM and <si ,
a1 , . . . , an > belongs to PROC(PredM (Pi )); <si , a1 , . . . , an > belongs to
PredM (Ces3 (Pi )) for Pi an event description iff si 2 SM and <si , a1 , . . . ,
an > belongs to HAB(PredM (Pi )), etc.
(vi) The coercion operator Cse is multiply ambiguous and has senses Cse1
. . . Csen for the n free aspectual transitions defined as possible mappings
from states to events in the language under consideration. <ei , a1 , . . . ,
an > belongs to Cse1 (PredM (Pi )) for Pi a state description iff ei 2 EM and
<ei , ai , . . . , an > belongs to ADD-TO(PredM (Pi )); <ei , a1 , . . . , an >
belongs to Cse2 (PredM (Pi )) for Pi a state description iff ei 2 EM and <ei ,
ai , . . . , an > belongs to INCHO(PredM (Pi )); <ei , a1 , . . . , an > belongs
to Cse3 (PredM (Pi )) for Pi a state description iff ei 2 EM and <ei , ai , . . . ,
an > belongs to BOUND(PredM (Pi )), etc.
Semantic effect of aspectual transitions (informal)
(i) PROG is a function from EM to SM which maps event descriptions onto

state descriptions in such a way that the state is temporally included in
the event and describes the action as being in progress, as a development
which would eventually lead to a culmination point (although that need not
be reached). Compare Parsons (1991), Asher (1992) and Landman (1992)
for more discussion.
(ii) PROC is a function from EM to SM which maps event descriptions onto
state descriptions in such a way that the state describes the homogeneous
process underlying the event predicate without any reference to an inherent
culmination point.
(iii) ITER is a function from EM to SM which maps event descriptions onto state
descriptions in such a way that the state describes an unbounded number of
events of the type described by the event predicate; see Jackendoff (1990,
29) for more discussion.
(iv) HAB is a function from EM to SM which maps event descriptions onto

state descriptions. HAB functions like an implicit adverb of quantification
similar to always, and is interpreted in terms of universal quantification
with exceptions.
(v) ADD-TO is a function from SM to EM which maps state descriptions onto
event descriptions which consist of the preparatory phase leading up to plus
the change in state from non-s to s as a culminated process.
(vi) INCHO is a function from SM to EM which maps state descriptions onto
event descriptions in such a way that the event describes the start of the
state (that is, the change from not-s to s), see Dowty (1979), and Hinrichs
(1985) for more discussion.
(vii) BOUND is a function from SM to EM which maps state descriptions onto
event descriptions in such a way that the event consists of a bounded (quan-
tized) portion of the state.
D. Verification
Let K be a DRS, let be a DRS-condition, and let f be a possibly partial embedding
from the set R of discourse referents into the model M, then:
(i) f verifies the DRS K in M iff f verifies each condition belonging to ConK in M
(ii) If is of the form e: ( 1 : : : n ) then f verifies iff f maps e onto an
element e of EM and 1 : : : n onto elements a1 . . . an of UK such that <e, a1
. . . an > belongs to PredM ()
(iii) If is of the form s: ( 1 : : : n ) then f verifies iff f maps s onto an

element s of SM and 1 : : : n onto elements a1 . . . an of UK such that <s, a1
. . . an > belongs to PredM ()
(iv) If is of the form s: : K1 then f verifies iff f maps s onto an element s of

SM such that MAX(s) and there is no embedding g from R into M which extends
f , such that Dom(g) = Dom(f ) [ UK1 and g verifies K1.
(v) If is of the form s: K1 ) K2 then f verifies iff f maps s onto an element
s of SM such that MAX(s), and for every extension g of f such that Dom(g) =
Dom(f) [ UK1 and g verifies K1 in M, there is an extension h of g such that
Dom(h) = Dom(g ) [ UK2 and h verifies K2 in M.
Chapter 5
Tense and aspect at the

discourse level
5.1 Temporal structure in DRT and DICE

5.1.1 Essentials of a discourse-based theory
Kamp and Rohrer (1983), Hinrichs (1981, 1986), Kamp and Reyle (1993) and others
have shed new light on the interpretation of tense morphemes, aspectual class and time
adverbials by going beyond the sentence level and focusing on the way these expres-
sions constrain temporal relations in discourse. These approaches use the Reichen-
bachian notions of S(peech time), R(eference time) and E(event time). Reichenbach
(1947) used S, R and E to analyze the English tense system (compare chapter 2 above).
For instance, the present tense is analyzed in terms of the schema S, R, E, the simple
past corresponds with R, E – S, and the pluperfect with E – R – S. Reichenbach views
these notions as points, so for the present tense R, E and S coincide, and for the sim-
ple past R and E coincide. In their analysis of temporal anaphora, Kamp and Rohrer
crucially make use of extensions in time (intervals, events). This makes it possible to
view the relation between R and E in a more flexible way. Furthermore, Kamp and
Rohrer reinterpret the Reichenbachian notions at the discourse level. In narrative texts,
the unfolding of the story often corresponds with the feeling of progress in time. Kamp
and Rohrer illustrate this with the sequence of two sentences in the Passé Simple in
(142a). If the second sentence is in the Imparfait (142b), the temporal structure of the
discourse is rather different:
(142) a. Pierre entra. Marie téléphona.

Pierre entered-PS. Marie telephoned-PS
‘Pierre came in. Marie made a phone call.’
a. Pierre entra. Marie téléphonait.
Pierre entered-PS. Marie telephoned-IMP
‘Pierre came in. Marie was making a phone call.’
149
150 CHAPTER 5. TENSE AND ASPECT AT THE DISCOURSE LEVEL
In (142a), the two events are consecutive: Marie starts making her phone call after
Pierre has come in. In (142b), Marie is already talking on the phone when Pierre comes
in.
Kamp and Rohrer propose to handle this moving on in time by assuming that ref-
erence times progress with the story line. All sentences are interpreted not only with
respect to the utterance time, but also with respect to some contextually determined
reference time. This makes it possible for the sentence to fit in with the event struc-
ture built up by the discourse so far. The dependency on the current reference time
is responsible for the anaphoric nature of independent clauses. In French, the current
reference time is provided by the last sentence in the Passé Simple. Kamp and Rohrer
assume that sentences in the Imparfait include their reference point while sentences in
the Passé Simple generally imply a relation of succession with their reference point.
This accounts for the “dynamics” of Passé Simple sentences which carry on the main
story line (142a), and it contrast with the “stative” nature of Imparfait sentences (142b).
We can give similar examples for English. An adequate theory of the temporal
structure of narrative discourse should capture the “dynamic” nature of (143a) versus
the “stative” nature of sequences like (143b):
(143) a. John bought a one-way ticket, hopped on the bus, and bought himself a new
pair of shoes.
b. He went to the window and pulled aside the soft drapes. It was a casement
windown, and both panels were cranked out to let in the night air.
Kamp and Reyle (1993) provide an extensive analysis of temporal anaphora in

English, in which they propose that the current reference time is normally provided by
the last event sentences of the discourse. They assume that event denoting sentences
introduce a new reference point slightly later than the current reference point, and
they include this new reference point. State denoting sentences are included in the
current reference point, and do not introduce a new reference point. As Hinrichs (1981,
1986) observes, Kamp and Rohrer’s/ Kamp and Reyle’s rules do not provide the right
temporal structure for all narrative discourses. (144) is a problematic example:
(144) Sue switched off the light. It was pitch dark in the room.
The first sentence denotes an event, and thus provides the reference time for the
second sentence. The second sentence denotes a state, so we would expect the state of
it being pitch dark in the room to include the event of Sue switching off the light. This
is obviously not how we interpret the discourse. In order to solve this problem, Hin-
richs proposes that each new past-tense event sentence occurs within the then-current
reference time. It subsequently causes the reference time to shift to a new value, later
than the original one. The new value of the reference time becomes the current one
for the next sentence of the discourse to be processed. States, activities and sentences
in the progressive are required to include the current reference time. Unlike events,
states do not shift the reference time to a later time. The fact that event sentences shift
the reference time forward allows the stative sentence of (144) to include the current
reference time, without therefore including the event of switching off the light.
5.1. TEMPORAL STRUCTURE IN DRT AND DICE 151
The difference between the approach proposed by Kamp and Rohrer (1983) and
Hinrichs’ analysis has been described in terms of the contrast between “pulling” and
“pushing” the reference time. Aside from that difference, the two proposals share some
important properties:
(i) They use the Reichenbachian notion of reference time to account for progress in
time at the discourse level.
(ii) The analyses are procedural in the sense that tenses are interpreted as instructions
to develop certain discourse structures.
(iii) They use the aspectual distinction between states and events to account for the
difference in behavior between sentences in the Imparfait, statives and Progres-
sives on the one hand and sentences in the Passé Simple, and events on the other
hand.
The three features of the DRT analysis of tense and aspect in discourse have led to
very sophisticated analyses of English and other languages. However, in recent years,
researchers have pointed out some shortcomings of this model. This has led to a debate
about the claims in (i) and (iii), but what remains is the essential insight that discourse
interpretation is procedural, and tenses are interpreted as instructions to update the
discourse representation structure (ii).
5.1.2 The role of rhetorical structure

In a series of papers, Lascarides and Oberlander (1993a, b) and Lascarides and Asher
(1991, 1993a, b) argue that the notion of reference time and the strictly linguistic in-
formation concerning the aspectual nature of the sentences involved is insufficient to
determine the temporal structure of the sentence. Consider the following examples:
(145) a. Our heros were playing a complicated game. Sue threw the ball at Phil. Phil
barely caught it, but quickly passed it on to Hilary. Hilary mad a wrong move
and missed the ball.
b. Our heros were going through a lot of changes. Sue got married and left for
Ohio. Bill graduated and got a job in San Francisco. Eve went on a trip
around the world.
(146) a. Hilary entered the room. Phil was reading in his chair.
b. Hilary entered the room. Phil was happy to see her.
Both (145a) and (b) present a series of events after an introductory stative (Pro-
gressive) sentence. Although the aspectual properties of the two discourses are the
same, we interpret (145a) as a sequence of events, and (145b) as an unordered list of
events. Given that the rules provided by Hinrichs (1986), Kamp and Reyle (1993), or
similar accounts only take into account strictly linguistic information about aspectual
class, it is impossible to explain this difference in interpretation on the basis of these
rules. Similarly, both (146a) and (b) present first an event denoting, and then a state
denoting (Progressive) sentence. However, in (146a), we interpret the state as overlap-
ping the event, whereas in (146b), we interpret the state as following the event. The
rules formulated by Hinrichs allow both temporal structures, but at the price of an un-
derspecification of the actual interpretation of the discourse. On the basis of examples
of this kind, Lascarides et al. argue that we need to take into account extra-linguistic
information, such as knowledge of the world framed in lexical rules. They go one step
further and argue that this actually allows us to dispense with the notion of reference
time altogether.
In DICE (discourse and common sense entailment), the system which Lascarides
et al. develop to describe the temporal structure of texts, temporal relations are not
dependent on the reference time, but are derived from rhetorical relations. The triple
< ; ; > expresses that the representation of the text so far (of which is already
part) is to be updated with the representation of the current clause via a rhetorical
relation which attaches to . functions as the temporal antecedent for in the
discourse. As the default case, Lascarides et al. assume that the descriptive order of
events matches the temporal order, unless there is information to the contrary. This is
the essence of the rhetorical relation of Narration:
(147) a. Narration
< ; ; > > Narration ( ; )
b. Axiom on Narration
For describes e1 and describes e2 :
2 (Narration ( ; ) ! e1 e2 )
The connective > in (147a) indicates the default character of the implication. (147b)
uses the strict inference !, and claims that, if Narration( ; ) holds, then the discourse
must describe two events happening in succession. This is illustrated in (148):
(148) Max stood up. Bill greeted him
: Max stood up
: John greeted him
Narration ( ; )
9e1 [Stand-up(max, e1 ) ^ 9e2 [Greet(john, max, e2 ) ^ e e ]]
1 2
Other discourse relations overrule the default case and describe more specific cases.
These are accounted for by means of (versions of) the Penguin principle:
(149) Penguin Principle
' > ; > ; ' > : ; ' j= :
but not: ' > ; > ; ' > : ; ' j=
If we know that penguins are birds, that birds fly and that penguins don’t fly, then know-
ing that Tweety is a penguin will support the (default) inference that Tweety doesn’t fly,
rather than that Tweety flies. According to the Penguin principle, the more specific rela-
tion wins. It is used for cases like (150), which involve Elaboration. Elaboration( ; )
holds if the event in is part of the preparatory phase of the event described by
(Moens and Steedman (1988):
(150) Elaboration
a. h; ; i ^ e v e > Elaboration( ; )
b. 2 (Elaboration( ; ) ! e e )
The action of drawing up plans is taken to be part of what it means to build a bridge,
so we can infer a relation of Elaboration in (151):
(151) The council built the bridge. The local architect drew up the plans
: The council built the bridge
: The local architect drew up the plans
Elaboration ( ; )
9e1 [Build(council, bridge, e1 ) ^ 9e2 [Draw(arch, plans, e2 ) ^ e2 e ]] 1
The Penguin principle is also used in other rhetorical relations, such as Explanation.
Explanation ( ; ) holds if the event described in clause causes the event described
in clause . Typically, causes precede effects:
(152) Explanation
a. h; ; i ^ Cause (e ; e ) > Explanation( ; )
b. Causes precede effects:
2 (Cause(e1 ; e2 ) ! :e1e ) 2
c. 2 (Explanation( ; ) ! :e e )
Given that causes cannot precede their effects (152b), Explanation typically shifts back
in time. If Max pushed John and thereby caused him to fall, the pushing typically
precedes the falling:
(153) Max fell. John pushed him
: Max fell
: John pushed him
Explanation ( ; )
9e1 [Fall(max, e1 ) ^ 9e2 [Push(john, max, e2 ) ^ Cause(e2; e1 ) ^ e e ]]
2 1
The converse relation of Explanation is Result:

(154) Result
a. h; ; i ^ Cause (e ; e ) ^ State(e ) > Result( ; )
b. 2 (Result( ; ) ! e e )
The Result relation causes the state of the light giving the room a sad air to follow the
event of switching on the light:
(155) Max switched off the light. The room was pitch dark
: Max switched off the light
: The room was pitch dark
Result ( ; )
9e1 [Switch(max, e1 ) ^ 9s2 [Dark(room, s2 ) ^ Cause(e1; s2 ) ^ e s ]]
1 2
The resulting state follows the event described by the first sentence, because of the
causal relation between switching off the light and a room being dark. In cases where
no such specific information is available, states are interpreted as overlapping the
state/event described by the first sentence. If a state takes an event as its temporal
antecedent, the default relation is Background. Background ( ; ) holds if the state in
describes the circumstances under which the event in holds:
(156) Max opened the door. The room was pitch dark
: Max opened the door
: The room was pitch dark
Background( ; )
9e1 [Open(max, door, e1 ) ^ 9s2 [Dark(room, s2 ) ^ e s ]]
1 2
The system Lascarides and Asher develop is flexible, and more discourse relations can
be defined if needed. For instance, the relation between the president asking for support
and Jill raising her hand is stronger than just Narration, but can be defined as Reaction,
which involves a causal connection. Temporal sequencing is derived as a result of the
interpretation of the second event as a reaction to the first one.
Information about causation is not usually encoded in temporal morphemes. DICE
is a system which uses a mixture of world knowledge and linguistic knowledge to
describe the temporal structure of a text. The notion of reference time is thus not
indispensable for a description of the temporal order between independent clauses in
a discourse. Note that the system as discussed here only accounts for a sequence of
sentences in the (English) simple past, and ignores all other tenses, the role of time
adverbials and temporal connectives, etc. As such, it provides the bare backbone of a
theory of tense and aspect at the discourse level. For an extension to time adverbials
and temporal connectives, see Lascarides and Oberlander (1993) and de Swart (1999).
Section 5.1.3 provides an extension to other tenses, in casu the Pluperfect.
5.1.3 The balance between linguistic and extra-linguistic informa-

tion
The analysis Lascarides et al. develop of discourses in the simple past is based on the
idea that the only contribution made by the (English) past tense is that the state/event is
located before the speech time. We can call this the absolute location of the state/event.
All information concerning the relative location of the state/event with respect to other
states/events in the discourse is derived from other sources.1 Non-linguistic informa-
tion based on lexical semantic rules and rhetorical structure plays a prominent role in
the determination of relative location of the state/event. Lascarides et al. assume that
the (English) simple past does not impose any constraints upon the possible rhetorical
relations which the sentence can establish with the preceding discourse. We can make
this assumption explicit in the following claim:
(157) Unless we specify otherwise, relative location in time is unconstrained by the

tense.
1 The distinction between absolute and relative location is inspired by, but broader than Comrie’s 1976
definition of absolute and relative tenses).

(157) makes tenses like the (English) simple past the default case. However, not all
tenses are so liberal. A clear example of a tense which does not only impose an absolute
location in time, but also contributes to the relative location in time of a state/event is
the Pluperfect. The Reichenbachian structure E–R–S requires the event time to precede
some reference time which itself precedes the speech time. Given that DICE does not
have the notion of reference time, we need to use other means to impose anteriority.
The first problem we face, is that the interpretation of a sentence in the Pluperfect
is dependent on the tense form of its temporal antecedent. We need to make sure that
the event e2 in (158)a) is anterior to the event e1 , but we should allow the series of
events e2 – e5 to form a narrative sequence:
(158) The doctor received a call from Mrs Smith (e1 ). Her husband had taken all his
pills at once (e2 ), had drunk his cough lotion (e3 ) and had lighted a cigarette (e4 ).
And then there had been an enormous explosion (e5 ).
If we want to base our analysis directly upon the rhetorical structure of the discourse,
we could propose a discourse interpretation rule along the following lines (compare
Asher and Lascarides 1993b):
(159) Discourse interpretation rule for the Pluperfect (first version)
a. A sequence Simple Past + Pluperfect is compatible with the following rhetor-
ical relations: Explanation, Elaboration, . . .
b. A series of two Pluperfect sentences is compatible with the following rhetor-
ical relations: Narration, Explanation, Elaboration, . . .
Although the definition is compatible with examples like (158), it is somewhat
unsatisfactory. Note that the definition is purely extensional, which implies that it is
subject to change every time we add a new rhetorical relation to the general frame-
work. This is related to the fact that the disjunction of rhetorical relations does not give
us any insight into the reason why we have these constraints. In other words, (159)
is an extensional definition of the requirement of the Pluperfect to express anteriority
with respect to some moment situated in the past, whereas we would rather have an in-
tensional definition of this characteristic which allows us to predict whether a rhetorical
relation is going to be compatible with the Pluperfect every time we update the general
framework. We can obtain this insight once we realize that with every discourse rela-
tion corresponds a given temporal relation (cf. Molendijk and Vet 1995, Landeweerd
1998):
figure 1
Derivation of the temporal relation from the rhetorical relation
Narration ! posteriority
Result ! posteriority
Explanation ! anteriority
Background ! simultaneity
...
We observe that several rhetorical relations can imply the same temporal struc-
ture. If a tense imposes constraints upon relative location in time, the actual temporal
structure can thus be the result of different rhetorical relations, as illustrated by figure 2:
figure 2
Constraints the temporal relation imposes upon the rhetorical relation
Posteriority ! Narration or Result or . . .

Anteriority ! Explanation or . . .
Simultaneity ! Background or
...
We can use the schema in figure 2 to constrain the rhetorical possibilities of the
Pluperfect in a more insightful way. We propose to replace definition (159) with (160):
(160) Discourse interpretation rule for the Pluperfect (final version)
A sentence S in the Pluperfect needs to find a sentence S 0 in the Simple Past with
which S establishes a rhetorical relation R implied in the relation of anteriority:
R = Explanation or . . . .
As far as the sequence of Simple Past + Pluperfect is concerned, this definition gives
the same results as (159a). Nothing needs to be said about a sequence of Pluperfect
sentences as long as we add the following assumption to our framework:
(161) A sentence can establish rhetorical relations with more than one other sentence
If we accept (161), we allow a sentence in the Pluperfect to establish a relation with
another sentence in the Pluperfect as long as we also find a sentence in the Simple Past
with respect to which it establishes a rhetorical relation compatible with the temporal
relation of anteriority. The combination of the two assumptions in (157) and (161)
allows us to derive a narrative sequence for the series of Pluperfect sentences in (159).
The Pluperfect is just an example of a tense which shows us what happens when
the tense itself imposes restrictions upon the relative location in time of the state/event
denoted. The analysis outlined here is sketchy, but shows how we can strike a balance
between linguistic and non-linguistic information, and obtain an analysis of tense and
aspect at the discourse level which combines insights from both DRT and DICE. Our
analysis of the Pluperfect sets the scene for our treatment of the French past tenses, the
Passé Simple and the Imparfait in section 5.2.
5.2 French past tenses at the discourse level

5.2.1 Introduction
According to Kamp and Rohrer and others, sentences in the Passé Simple describe
events, and sentences in the Imparfait describe states. We followed this view in chapter
5.2. FRENCH PAST TENSES AT THE DISCOURSE LEVEL 157
4 above, and argued that this provided us with the right characterization of negative
and quantified sentences in the Passé Simple and the Imparfait. The question which
arises in this chapter is whether the aspectual characterization of Passé Simple and
Imparfait sentences is sufficient to account for their discourse behavior. In other words,
does a sentence in the Passé Simple have the same discourse properties as an English
event sentence in the simple past, and does a sentence in the Imparfait have the same
discourse properties as an English stative or Progressive sentence in the simple past?
If that is the case, we need not say anything more, given our assumption (157) about
unconstrained relative location in time being the default case. However, Landeweerd
(1998) and de Swart and Molendijk (1999) argue that the Imparfait excludes certain
temporal structures, and Molendijk and de Swart (1999) make the same point for the
Passé Simple.
5.2.2 The Imparfait

The analysis of the Imparfait is based upon the following minimal pair, discussed by
Molendijk (1996) and Landeweerd (1998):
(162) a. Karin attrapa une contravention. Elle roulait trop vite.

Karin got-PS a fine. She drove-IMP too fast.
b. Karin attrapa un contravention. # Elle brûlait un feu rouge.
Karin got-PS a fine. She ran-IMP a red light.
Both driving too fast and running a red light are good reasons to get a fine. So if we
are able to infer Explanation in (162a), we would expect to be able to do so in (162b)
as well. However, the sequence in (162b) is incoherent, and no relation of Explanation
can be inferred. Note that the contrast disappears when we use the Plus-que-Parfait in
the second sentence:
(163) a. Karin attrapa une contravention. Elle avait roulé trop vite.
Karin got-PS a fine. She had driven-PQP too fast.
b. Karin attrapa un contravention. Elle avait brûlé un feu rouge.
Karin got-PS a fine. She had run-PQP a red light.
Both discourses in (163) are well-formed, and the two sentences are related by Ex-
planation. We conclude that the incoherence of (162b) must be due to the use of the
Imparfait. As pointed out by Landeweerd (1998: 180 sqq), a closer look at the exam-
ples reveals some crucial differences between the eventualities involved. Driving too
fast is a process, but running a red light is an event. Assuming that one only gets ticket
once the illegal behavior has been clearly established, this means that one can be fined
for driving too fast as soon as and as long as one is driving too fast, whereas one can
only be fined for running a stop light when when one has actually run the light. The
example in (164) illustrates this in the form of the classical imperfective paradox:
(164) Karin brûlait un feu rouge quand elle aperçut un gendarme de l’autre côté de la
rue. Elle s’arrêta juste à temps.
Karin was running-IMP a red light when she noticed-PS a policeman on the other
side of the street. She stopped-PS just in time.
Karin gets a fine in (163b), but not in (164). We cannot set up imperfective paradoxes
for processes, because of the homogeneous character of these eventualities (compare
chapter 2 above). We can use this to explain the difference in acceptability between
(162a) and (b) if we assume that the Imparfait requires that its state is temporally
contiguous with the state or event denoted by the sentence the Imparfait sentence es-
tablishes a rhetorical relation with. De Swart and Molendijk (199a) formulate this
constraint as a blocking of temporal discontinuity:
(165) Discourse interpretation rule for the Imparfait:

If describes an eventuality e1 and is taken as the rhetorical antecedent of a
sentence in the Imparfait, which describes a state s2 , then *s2 _ e1 , where _
means temporal discontinuity.
This interpretation rule is not by definition incompatible with a rhetorical relation of

Explanation. The temporal relation formulated in (152) is that causes do not follow
their effects. Typically, causes precede their effects, but temporal contiguity is not ex-
cluded. Accordingly, we interpret (162a) in such a way that Karin was caught in the
act: she was driving too fast up until the very moment she got stopped by the traffic
police to be fined. We can obtain that interpretation in (162a), because of the process
nature of the eventuality involved. An interpretation in terms of temporal contiguity
is not possible in (162b), because there is necessarily temporal discontinuity between
the end point of running the red light and the beginning of getting a fine. Given that
temporal discontinuity is not allowed by the Imparfait according to (165), no relation
of Explanation can be established. Assuming that the Plus-que-parfait is like the Plu-
perfect in that it requires anteriority rather than temporal contiguity, Explanation can
be inferred in both (163a) and (b).
Other examples of relations which respect the temporal constraints imposed by the
Imparfait, and we can establish are Background (166a), Explanation (166b) and Result
(166b):
(166) a. Julie entra à la dernière minute. Elle portait un suberbe manteau rouge.
Julie entered-PS at the last minute. She wore-IMP a suberb red coat.
b. Julie rentra. Le soleil lui brûlait les épaules.
Julie came-PS in. The sun burned-IMP her shoulders.
c. Julie alluma la lampe. Il faisait très clair dans la pièce (maintenant).
Julie switched-PS on the lamp. It was-IMP very light in the room (now).
d. # Il se mit à pleuvoir. Jean était tout mouillé.
It started-PS raining. Jean was-IMP all wet.
The Background relation in (166a) is the default interpretation in which the state
provides background information about some event. As a result, the state temporally
surrounds the event. The Imparfait is not in conflict with the temporal structure of
Explanation, as long as the constraint on contiguity is respected (166b). The Result

relation in (166c) causes the state of the light giving the room a sad air to follow the
event of switching on the light. The constraint on contiguity makes that the result
state must start immediately after the event. Note that one is not all wet right after it
starts raining. The violation of the constraint on contiguity explains the incoherence
of the discourse in (165d) (from Landeweerd 1998, 186). The fact that the rhetorical
structure of the minimal pairs in (162) and (166c, d) is identical, but does not guarantee
the well-formedness of the discourse supports our claim that the rules for the discourse
interpretation of the Imparfait must include constraints on relative location in time.
Section 5.2.3 makes a similar point for the Passé Simple.
5.2.3 The Passé Simple

Lascarides and Asher (1993), Caenepeel and Moens (1994), Asher (1996) and others
have drawn attention to the fact that sequences of event sentences in the (English)
simple past can describe the events in reverse order, when a relation of Explanation is
established. The example given in (153) above is repeated here as (167):
(167) John fell. Max pushed him.
According to Vet (1996) and others, a reverse order interpretation is not available for
sequences of sentences in the French Passé Simple; the inherent temporal progress
implied by the use of the Passé Simple would be opposed to it. Thus, an example like
(168a) is interpreted as referring to a situation in which Max pushed Jean after he fell.
The only way to obtain a temporal structure of anteriority is to use the Plus-que-Parfait
as in (168b):
(168) a. Jean tomba. Max le poussa.

Jean fell-PS. Max pushed-PS him.
b. Jean tomba. Max l’avait poussé.
Jean fell-PS. Max had pushed-PQP him.
However, it is not impossible to construe sequences of the type PS + PS in which

the descriptive order of the events does not correspond with the real temporal order.
Some examples are given in (169):
(169) a. Jean décida de partir sans guide. C’est ce qui le tua, le pauvre homme. Il
tomba dans un abı̂me.
Jean decided-PS to leave without a guide. This is what killed-PS him, the
poor guy. He fell-PS into a ravine.
b. Le jour suivant, les Martiens attaquèrent Londres. Ce qui provoqua cette at-
taque, on ne le sait toujours pas.
The next day, the Martians attacked-PS London. What provoked-PS this at-
tack, we still do not know.
c. Le singe s’échappa. Nous ne le retrouvâmes plus, car il disparut dans la forêt

épaisse.
The monkey escaped-PS. We did not find-PS it anymore, for it disappeared-
PS into the thick forest.
Jean fell into a ravine before he was killed (169a); the attack was provoked before
it was actually carried out (169b), and the monkey disappeared before we could find
it (169c), so all these examples illustrate cases in which the last sentence mentions
an event which temporally precedes an event referred to by a previous sentence. The
question arises why a description in reverse order is possible in the examples in (169),
while it is clearly blocked in the paradigmatic case (168a).
Caenepeel and Moens (1994) argue that the possibility to tell events in reverse
order depends on the type of text in which they occur. They claim that non-narrative
discourse is compatible with reverse order, but narrative discourse is not. At first sight,
this might help us to explain the difference between the English sequence in (167)
and its French counterpart in (168a). The English simple past is easily used in deictic
contexts, which signal non-narrative discourse, whereas the French Passé Simple is
traditionally characterized as a narrative tense. Thus, (168a) would have to be part
of narrative discourse, which would explain why an interpretation in terms of reverse
order is blocked. However, such an approach would leave the felicity of the discourses
in (169) unexplained.
An alternative approach is developed by de Swart and Molendijk (1999) and Molendijk
and de Swart (1999). This analysis preserves the role of rhetorical structure, but impose
constraints upon the temporal structure with which the Passé Simple is compatible. In
section 5.2.2 above we have seen that the Imparfait requires temporal contiguity, which
is formulated as a blocking of temporal discontinuity. The characterizing property of
the Passé Simple is that it blocks temporal anteriority. This leaves open a relation
of posteriority or of (partial) simultaneity. The general formulation of the discourse
interpretation rule for the Passś Simple is given in (170):
(170) Discourse interpretation rule for the Passé Simple (blocking constraint):
If describes an eventuality e1 and is taken as the temporal antecedent of a
sentence in the Passé Simple, which describes an event e2 , then *e2 e1 .
This rule relies on the notion of temporal antecedent. The temporal antecedent of a
sentence S is normally identified with the sentence S 0 which functions as the rhetorical
antecedent in the structure h; ; i (compare section 5.1.2 above).
In order to spell out the blocking constraint in terms of positive options for the
temporal structure, we distinguish between the two cases of posteriority and (partial)
simultaneity. Remember that a rhetorical relation always implies a particular temporal
relation, but that a temporal relation can be the result of various rhetorical relations.
This leads to a disjunction of rhetorical relations along the following lines:
(171) The interpretation of the Passé Simple (positive options, first version)
The temporal antecedent of a sentence S in the PS is a preceding sentence S 0
with which S establishes:
(i) a rhetorical relation R implied in the relation of posteriority: R = Narration

or Result or . . . ;
(ii) a rhetorical relation R implied in the relation of (partial) simultaneity: R=
Elaboration or Incidence or . . .
Examples which illustrate the cases in (171i) and (ii) are provided in (172):
(172) a. Pauline entra dans la pièce. Elle s’assit dans un coin.

Pauline entered-PS the room. She sat-PS down in a corner.
b. –Achevez-lez! cria le tyran. Pierre pâlit. Paul s’évanouit.
–Kill them! shouted-PS the tyrant. Pierre turned-PS pale. Paul fainted-PS.
c. Pendant 10 ans, Hudson examina la Planète Rouge. Il découvrit . . . .
For 10 years, Hudson examined-PS the Red Planet. He discovered-PS . . . .
d. Jean joua un match formidable. Il marqua le premier but.
Jean played-PS a great game. He scored-PS the first goal.
In (172a), we find a narrative structure. The turning pale and fainting in (172b) can be
construed as results or consequences of the tyrant’s words. Both discourses exemplify
the temporal structure of posteriority. (172c) and (d) are cases of (partial) simultaneity.
In (172c), this is the result of a relation of Incidence, (172d) illustrates a relation of
Elaboration. The examples of partial simultaneity are crucial to demonstrate that the
Passé Simple does not require posteriority, but comes with the weaker constraint of
blocking anteriority.
The examples in (172) illustrate cases in which a preceding PS sentence provides
the temporal antecedent for the PS sentences at hand, and a rhetorical structure is cre-
ated. In some cases, the temporal antecedent of a sentence is not another sentence in
the linguistic context, but a deictic time (usually the speech time). This situation fre-
quently arises with deictic tenses such as the Présent (173a) or the (resultative) Passé
Composé (173b), but we also find it with the Passé Simple, as argued by Molendijk
(1996) in relation to examples like (173c):
(173) a. Les Hollandais aiment la bière.

The Dutch like-PR beer.
b. Maman, je suis tombé!
Mam, I fell-PC!
c. En 1860, Dumoulin visita Paris. Ses récitals eurent un succès formidable.
Certes ses symphonies–car Dumoulin fut un grand compositeur de musique
orchestrale–étaient appréciées d’un Liszt et d’un Wagner, mais la société
parisienne admirait surtout ses compositions pour piano.
In 1860, Dumoulin visited-PS Paris. His recitals had-PS great success. Cer-
tainly, his symphonies–for Dumoulin was-PS a great composer of orchestra
music–were-IMP appreciated by Liszt and Wagner, but the Parisian society
especially admired-IMP his compositions for piano.
The speaker of (173a) directly relates the general statement to the utterance time. Sim-
ilarly, (173b) locates the falling of the speaker prior to the speech time. In (173c), we
observe that the PS sentence ‘fut un grand compositeur de musique orchestrale’ does
not establish a rhetorical relation with the rest of the fragment. We do not locate Du-
moulin’s being a great composer before his visit to Paris or his great success, or even
simultaneous with either of these events. Rather, we interpret the sentence as meaning
‘we agree now that Dumoulin was a great composer of orchestra music’. This deictic
use of the Passé Simple requires a small revision of the rule (171). The final version is
given in (174):
(174) The interpretation of the Passé Simple (positive options, final version)
The temporal antecedent of a sentence S in the PS is a preceding sentence S 0
with which S establishes:
(i) a rhetorical relation R implied in the relation of posteriority: R = Narration
or Result or . . . ;
(ii) a rhetorical relation R implied in the relation of (partial) simultaneity: R=
Elaboration or Incidence or . . .
(iii) If S does not establish any rhetorical relation with its textual environment,
the temporal antecdent of the sentence is associated with the speech time
(deictic PS).
Given that anteriority is blocked by the discourse interpretation rule we adopted

for the Passé Simple, we predict among others that a relation of Explanation cannot
be established between two sentences in the Passé Simple. Thus we expect the inter-
pretation of the French sequence (??) not to describe events in the reverse order, even
though its English counterpart (??) does. The cases in (??), however, will be shown to
be compatible with the discourse interpretation rule in (174). Let us consider the cases
one by one. (??a) is repeated as (175a):
(175) a. Jean décida de partir sans guide. C’est ce qui le tua, le pauvre homme. Il
tomba dans un abı̂me.
poor guy. He fell-PS into a ravine.
b. Jean décida de partir sans guide. C’est ce qui le tua, le pauvre homme. Dix
minutes après son départ, il tomba dans un abîme.
poor guy. Ten minutes after his departure, he fell-PS into a ravine.
The last sentence of the discourse in (175a) cannot establish a rhetorical relation with
the immediately preceding sentence without violating the constraint against anteriority
imposed by the Passé Simple. However, the discourse interpretation rule in (174) does
not require the temporal antecedent of the sentence to be the immediately preceding
sentence. A closer look at the discourse reveals that the third sentence is logically
connected to the first one, rather than the second one. This is confirmed by the felici-
tous insertion of a time adverbial picking up the event denoted by the first sentence in
(175b). The reverse temporal order is thus not the result of the rhetorical structure of
the discourse.
The choice of the temporal antecedent is also at stake in example (??b), repeated
here as (176):
(176) Le jour suivant, les Martiens attaquèrent Londres. Ce qui provoqua cette attaque,
on ne le sait toujours pas.
The next day, the Martians attacked-PS London. What provoked-PS this attack,
we still do not know.
In (176), the second PS sentence does not take the first PS sentence as its temporal
antecedent, but the utterance time. The fact that the main clause is in the Présent makes
it possible to use a deictic Passé Simple in this context. Again, the reverse temporal
order is not the result of the rhetorical structure of the discourse, and no violation of
the discourse interpretation rule for the Passé Simple is found.
The last case (??c), repeated here as (177) is a slightly more complicated version
of (175):
(177) Le singe s’échappa. Nous ne le retrouvâmes plus, car il disparut (aussitôt) dans
la forêt épaisse.
The monkey escaped-PS. We did not find-PS it anymore, for it disappeared-PS
(immediately) into the thick forest.
The third sentence cannot establish a rhetorical relation with the second sentence, for
this would create a temporal structure of anteriority. The fact that we can felicitously
add ausssitôt (‘immediately’) to the last sentence supports an analysis in which the
third sentence is connected to the first one by Narration (or a stronger version of this
relation like Occasion or Consequence). What complicates this case is the presence of
the causal connector car, which establishes an explanatory relation between the not-
finding and the disappearing. If the causal link between the two clauses is so strong,
how can we defend that the temporal antecedent of the car-sentence is found in an
earlier sentence of the discourse? The work on argumentative structure by Ducrot
(1983), Anscombre (1989), Nolke (1995) and others suggests a possible answer to
this question. They observe that causal relations can be asserted (by connectives like
parce que ‘because’) or presupposed (by connectives like car ‘for’). Examples like
(177) suggest that if the causal relation is presupposed, the argumentative structure
can be preserved, even if the explanandus does not take the explanans as its temporal
antecedent. Indeed, it is easy to find examples of reverse temporal order with car or en
effet (‘indeed’), whereas we hardly ever encounter parce que in this construction. For
more discussion of the relation between argumentative and temporal structure, we refer
to Molendijk and de Swart (1999). We just conclude here that the examples in (175)–
(177) actually confirm our claim that the Passé Simple is incompatible with a temporal
relation of anteriority. Both the Imparfait and the Passé Simple are thus examples of
tenses which constrain the possible rhetorical relations which can be established by the
discourse by imposing restrictions upon the temporal structures with which the tense is
compatible.
5.3 Negation in discourse

5.3.1 Negative sentences in French discourse
In chapter 4 above, we argued that the sentence-internal structure of negative sentences
in English and their behavior at the discourse level were difficult to handle in a system
which does not introduce a discourse referent for negative statements. More problems
for the null hypothesis arise if we take into account the discourse structure of negative
sentences in a language like French. Let us first point out that the French discourses
in (178) and (179) roughly behave as their English counterparts in (??) and (??) of
chapter 4:
(178) a. Marie regarda Paul. Il lui sourit

Marie looked-PS at Paul. He smiled-PS at her
b. Marie regarda Paul. Il lui souriait
Marie looked-PS at Paul. He smiled-IMP at her
(179) a. Marie regarda Paul. Il ne lui sourit pas

Marie looked-PS at Paul. He NEG smiled-PS NEG at her
b. Marie regarda Paul. Il ne lui souriait pas
Marie looked-PS at Paul. He NEG smiled-IMP NEG at her
The Passé Simple (PS) in (178a) suggests that Paul smiled after Marie looked at
him, possibly as a reaction to her looking at him. The Imparfait ( IMP) in the second
sentence of (178b) describes a state of Paul smiling which overlaps with the event of
Marie looking at him. This is in line with the view that Passé Simple sentences refer
to events in the DRS, and Imparfait sentences denote states. We can consider this the
well-established view of the PS/IMP contrast, independently of the question whether
this information is analyzed in terms of aspectual operators or in terms of aspectually
sensitive tense operators. Defenses of this view can be found in Kamp (1981), Kamp
and Rohrer (1983), Molendijk (1990), etc. The difference between states and events
has consequences for the temporal structure of the discourse. States include the current
reference time provided by a preceding event sentence. In a sequence of event sen-
tences, an event typically moves the reference time, and gives a further development
of the story line. There is no difference between affirmative and negative sentences in
this respect. The sequence of Passé Simple sentences in (179a) describes succession
of events, whereas (179b) states that Paul’s not-smiling temporally includes Marie’s
looking at him.
In order to represent these examples in DRT, we have to decide where the infor-
mation contributed by the Passé Simple and the Imparfait comes in. We assume with
Vet (1994) that French also follows the general schema in (180):

5.3. NEGATION IN DISCOURSE 165
If we propose a treatment of the Passé Simple/Imparfait as aspectual operators

which function in ways similar to the Progressive, we could develop DRSs for (180a)
and (b) which look similar to the ones given in figures 4 and 5 of chapter 4. As a result,
we would predict that the temporal relations which hold between the two sentences in
(179) are not affected when the second sentence is replaced by its negative counterpart,
as in (180). An analysis of negative sentences along these lines would be compatible
with Kamp and Reyle’s null hypothesis. However, it is equally possible to provide an
alternative analysis of these examples in which the negative Passé Simple sentence in
(180a) would describe an event, and the negative Impafait sentence in (180b) would
describe a state. Under this analysis, we would predict the negative event to follow
the event of looking, and the negative state to overlap with the event of looking. The
two approaches would yield different, but equivalent representations of the discourse.
The French version of the smile-examples thus weakens Kamp and Reyle’s evidence
in favor of the null hypothesis. This raises the question whether French provides evi-
dence which helps us to really decide between the null hypothesis and the hypothesis
according to which negation is an aspectual operator.
Crucially, the null hypothesis implies that aspectual information always takes nar-
row scope with respect to negation. This assumption is necessary to preserve the claim
that the temporal structure of a discourse involving a negative sentence is derived from
the one involving its affirmative counterpart. We already observed that this assumption
is problematic for English (cf. ??) in chapter 4. Similar problems arise with respect to
the French discourses in (181):
(181) a. Paul alluma la lampe. Il faisait très clair dans la pièce (maintenant).
Paul switched-PS on the light. It was-IMP very bright in the room (now).
b. Paul alluma la lampe. Il ne faisait pas très clair dans la pièce.
Paul switched-PS on the light. It NEG was-small IMP NEG very bright in the
room.
Molendijk (1990, 80) points out that the Imparfait sentence in sequences like
(181a) describes a state which coincides with the result state of the event of turning
on the light, described by the Passé Simple sentence. Thus we have the same temporal
structure e s as in (177a). Just as (177b), the discourse involving the negative
sentence in (181b) is ambiguous. It can either take the room not being very bright to
describe the result state of Paul switching on the light (under the assumption that the
lamp is not strong enough), or describe it as the state which explains why Paul switched
on the light. Thus, in French as well as in English, not all examples allow derivation of
the temporal structure of the negative sentence from its affirmative counterpart.
Furthermore, we already pointed out that the null hypothesis faces serious prob-
lems when we consider how the temporal structure of a discourse is updated after the
negative sentence has been processed. The examples can be repeated for French:
(182) a. Il y eut une énorme explosion. Mais Jean ne paniqua pas. Au contraire, il
avait l’air tout calme.
There was-PS an enormous explosion. But Jean NEG panicked-PS NEG. On
the contrary, he seemed-IMP quite calm.
b. Paul s’énerva. Ses invités ne venaient pas. D’ailleurs, ils ne vinrent pas. Paul
fut déçu.
Paul got-PS worked up. His guests NEG came-IMP. In fact, they NEG came-
PS. John be-PS disappointed.
c. Jean invita tous ses amis. Ils ne vinrent pas. Pourtant, ils avaient promis
d’être là.
John invite-PS all his friends. They NEG come NEG. However, they had
promised to be there.
We observe that the French counterparts of the English examples we discussed

in chapter 4 use a Passé Simple when the negative sentence is used to move on the
storyline. In fact, the use of the Imparfait would be infelicitous in these contexts,
because it would describe the negative situation as stative rather than eventlike. This
means that the distinction between the Imparfait and the Passé Simple is preserved in
the context of negative sentences. In order to see more precisely how the difference in
meaning between the Passé Simple and the Imparfait carries over to negative sentences,
compare the incoherent (183) with the well-formed sequence (182):
(183) Paul s’énerva. Ses invités ne venaient pas. ?? Il fut deçu.

Paul got-PS worked up. His guests NEG came-IMP NEG. He was-PS disap-
pointed.
If negative sentences do not introduce a top-level discourse referent, they do not

move the reference time forward. Therefore, the null hypothesis predicts that the ref-
erence time in both (183) and (182b) remains at the initial event reported in the Passé
Simple. Paul’s disappointment is not naturally interpreted as anaphorically dependent
on his getting worked up, so this approach could explain the infelicitous nature of
(183). However, (182b) is perfectly coherent, and conveys that Paul got disappointed
when it was clear that his guests were definitely not coming. The null hypothesis is
unable to explain the contrast between (182b) and (183).
The discourses in (184) and (185) illustrate that we can go one step further and
construe discourses which are incoherent if we use an affirmative sentence in the Im-
parfait, but which regain their coherence with a negative sentence. This is hard to
explain under the view that the temporal structure of a negative sentence is derived
from its affirmative counterpart:
(184) a. Depuis quelque temps, Jean courait après Pauline. ??Il l’attrapait.
Since some time, Jean run-IMP after Pauline. He catch-IMP her
b. Depuis quelque temps, Jean courait après Pauline. Il ne l’attrapait pas
Since some time, Jean run-IMP after Pauline. He NEG catch-IMP NEG her
(185) a. Depuis le début de l’année, Pauline était une étudiante assidue. ??Elle man-
quait un cours.
Since the beginning of the year, Pauline be- a diligent student. She miss-IMP
a class.
b. Depuis le début de l’année, Pauline était une étudiante assidue. Elle ne man-
quait pas un cours.
Since the beginning of the year, Pauline be-IMP a diligent student. She NEG
miss-IMP NEG a class.
In the contexts of (184)–(185), there is no event sentence in the preceding dis-

course, so we assume that the reference point for the second sentence is the location
time of the stative first sentence (Kamp and Reyle 1993, 545). This location time t
is given by identification with the time of the adverbial phrase introduced by depuis
‘since’. Moreover, states include their reference time (Kamp and Reyle 1993, 544), so
we introduce a condition t s0 , where s0 is the state described by the second Imparfait
sentence. In (184a) and (185a) the sequence of state sentences thus triggers an inter-
pretation in terms of global overlap. This reading is pragmatically unnatural, because it
requires stretching the situation described by the achievement verb over a longer period
of time. Thus we suggest that Pauline is being caught all the time that Jean is running
after her (184a), that the memory of this horrible event is leaving Pauline all the time
while she is thinking about it (184a), or that Pauline is missing a class all the time that
she is being a serious student (185a). The oddness of these situations explains why the
Imparfait is not very felicitous in the a-versions of (184)–(185). The Imparfait attrapait
in (184a) for instance has the same feeling about it as the Progressive in (186a), rather
than the simple past in (186b):
(186) a. This morning, Jean was running after Pauline. ??He was catching her.
a. This morning, Jean was running after Pauline. He caught her.
c. This morning, Jean was running after Pauline. ??He was not catching her.
d. This morning, Jean was running after Pauline. He didn’t catch her.
(186a) describes a situation of global temporal overlap, just like (184a) above. For
(186b) we assume that the event sentence takes the location time of the progressive
sentence as its reference time. The inclusion of the event in its reference time implies
that the event of catching occurs this morning. We can add a negation and claim that
there is no event of Jean catching Pauline during the entire time of Jean’s running after
her. In English, this would be expressed by (186d), rather than (186c). The aspec-
tual difference between the two sentences can be accounted for by the null hypothesis,
as is reflected in the DRSs constructed for (186c) and (186d) in figures 3 and 4. The
observation that the Imparfait sentence in (184a) has the same feeling about it as the
Progressive sentence in (186a) is compatible with the idea that both types of sentences
are stative. According to the null hypothesis, the treatment of Imparfait sentences as
referring to states automatically leads to the introduction of state variables under nega-
tion. In other words, if we would treat the Imparfait as an aspectual operator similar to
the Progressive, we would give the discourse in (184b) the temporal structure depicted
in figure 3, and we would expect it to have the same degree of relative inacceptability
as (186c). But this is not what we find. (184b) is perfectly coherent, and its meaning
is more like the one of (186d), depicted in figure 4. Under the null hypothesis it is not
possible to derive this interpretation, for this analysis gives aspectual operators neces-
sarily narrow scope with respect to negation.
figure 3
This morning, Jean was running after Pauline. He was not catching her.
n s t t’ x y t”
tn
sÆt
this morning(t’)
t = t’
Jean(x)
Pauline(y)
s: x PROG(run) after y
t” n
s’
s’ Æ t”
: s’ Æ t
s’: x PROG(catch) y
figure 4
This morning, Jean was running after Pauline. He did not catch her.
n s t t’ x y t”
tn
st
sÆt
this morning(t’)
t = t’
Jean(x)
Pauline(y)
s: x PROG(run) after y
t” n
e
et
: e t”
e: x catch y
What these observations suggest is that the interaction between the Progressive
and negation is different from the interaction between the Imparfait and negation. It
may be true that the Progressive takes narrow scope with respect to negation, but this
is not the case for the Imparfait. In fact, we will argue that the Passé Simple and the
Imparfait always take wide scope with respect to negation. As a result, we cannot derive
the temporal structure of a negative sentence in the Passé Simple or the Imparfait from
their affirmative counterpart. Moreover, the examples discussed in this section show
that negative sentences in the Imparfait refer to states, whereas negative sentences in
the Passé Simple describe events. The difference in aspectual nature combined with the
claim that the Passé Simple and the Imparfait take wide scope with respect to negation
shows that negative sentences must refer to eventualities just like affirmative sentences.
We can combine the different parts of the picture and argue that the eventuality
variable for the negative sentence is introduced by the recursive rule for the introduc-
tion of discourse referents, and that the wide scope effects are due to the fact that the
Passé Simple and the Imparfait are analyzed as aspectually sensitive tense operators,
rather than as aspectual operators. This fits in with our claim that the PS/IMP take
wide scope with respect to aspectual adverbs introduced by in and for and quantifica-
tion (compare chapter 4, section 4.4). The data discussed here suggest that this claim is
also valid for negation. In this view, the Passé Simple and the Imparfait apply to event
and state variables respectively. According to the recursive rule for the introduction of
discourse referents (compare chapter 4), negative sentences refer to states. Building on
these two insights, we predict that the combination of negation with the Imparfait is
straightforward, whereas combination with the Passé Simple requires coercion of the
negative state. The addition of boundaries is sufficient to give the eventuality quantized
reference, and to treat it as an event in the DRS. By default, a sequence of two event
sentences relates temporal succession, whereas a sequence of an event sentence fol-
lowed by a stative sentence describes a situation of temporal overlap. The combination
of these claims accounts for the French version of the ‘smile’ examples in (??) and
(??), repeated here as (187) and (188):
(187) a. Marie regarda Paul. Il lui sourit
Marie looked-PS at Paul. He smiled-PS at her
b. Marie regarda Paul. Il lui souriait

Marie looked-PS at Paul. He smiled-IMP at her
(188) a. Marie regarda Paul. Il ne lui sourit pas

Marie looked-PS at Paul. He NEG smiled-PS NEG at her
b. Marie regarda Paul. Il ne lui souriait pas
Marie looked-PS at Paul. He NEG smiled-IMP NEG at her
Assuming that the Passé Simple and the Imparfait are tense operators, which take wide
scope over negation, we predict that the negative event in (188a) follows Marie’s look-
ing at Paul, whereas the negative state in (188b) includes Marie’s looking at Paul. The
fact that the Passé Simple triggers the reinterpretation of the negative state as an event
is reflected in the grammatical structures for (188a) and (b) in (189). The DRSs these
sentences give rise to are derived in a straightforward way from the results in previous
sections. They are given in figures 5 and 6:
(189) a. PS: [ Past [ Cse [ : [ Paul smile at Marie ]]]]
b. IMP: [ Past [ : [ Paul smile at Marie ]]]
figure 5
Marie regarda (PS) Paul. Il ne lui souriait (IMP) pas
n e t x y s t’
tn
et
Mary(x)
Paul(y)
e: x look at y
t’ n
s =t t’
es
Max(s)
e’
s: : e’ s
e’: y smile
figure 6
Marie regarda (PS) Paul. Il ne lui sourit (PS) pas
n e t x y e’ t’
tn
et
Mary(x)
Paul(y)
e: x look at y
t’ n
e’ t’
e e’
s t”
Max(s)
s =t t”
e’: Cse e”
s: : e” s
e”: y smile
Other French examples are analyzed along the same lines. Consider (??b), re-
peated here as (190a) with its grammatical structure in (190b):
(190) a. Jean courait après Pauline. Il ne l’attrapait pas

Jean run-IMP after Pauline. He NEG catch-IMP NEG her
b. [ Past [ : [ Jean catch Pauline ]]]
The negative sentence fulfills the aspectual requirements of the Imparfait, so figure 16
correctly describes the state of Jean not catching Pauline as including the state of Jean
running after her:
figure 7
Jean courait (IMP) après Pauline. Il ne l’attrapait (IMP) pas
n s t x y s’ t’
tn
s =t t
Jean(x)
Pauline(y)
s: x run after y
t’ n
s’ =t t’
Max(s’)
t s’
e
s’: : e s’
e: x catch y
The DRS captures the intuition that there is no event of catching during the time of the
run. Thus, this DRS resembles the one in figure 4, rather than the one in figure 3, as
desired.2
We have shown so far that the recursive rule for the introduction of discourse
referents combined with the interpretation of the Passé Simple and the Imparfait as as-
pectually sensitive tenses provides the right interpretation for all the French sentences
discussed. Given that all the components of this analysis have been independently mo-
tivated, this is an interesting result. The examples discussed so far have a relatively
simple discourse structure. They illustrate the default situation in which two event sen-
tences describe a succession of events (188a), an event sentence followed by a stative
sentence describes a structure of temporal inclusion of the event in the state (188b), and
two stative sentences describe global simultaneity of two states (190a). These temporal
2 The English examples come out slightly different in our theory than the DRSs constructed after the
null hypothesis. In particular, the negated boxes will be labelled as states. However, this does not affect the
comparison.
structures are compatible with the rules for the discourse interpretation of the Impar-
fait and the Passé Simple, so they are easy to account for. However, as we already
observed above, the default relations can be overruled. Accordingly, Lascarides and
Asher (1993) and others have argued that we need to take into account the rhetorical
structure of the discourse.
Lascarides and Asher (1993) develop a framework in which a mixture of linguistic
and non-linguistic information involving causal relations and other world knowledge
determines the temporal structure of narrative discourse. Their work on English has
been extended to French by Asher and Bras (1993) and Landeweerd (1998). With
these researchers, we assume that aspectual information constrains the set of admissible
rhetorical relations. In particular, we claim that the Passé Simple does not allow us to
go back in time, whereas the Imparfait blocks temporal discontinuity. This is reflected
in the discourse rules we formulated in the previous sections, and which are repeated
in (191):
(191) a. Discourse interpretation rule for the Passé Simple:

If describes an eventuality e1 and is taken as the temporal antecedent of a
sentence in the Passé Simple, which describes an event e2 , then *e2 e1 .
b. Discourse interpretation rule for the Imparfait:
If describes an eventuality e1 and is taken as the temporal antecedent of
a sentence in the Imparfait, which describes a state s2 , then *s2 _ e1 , where
_ means temporal discontinuity.
We further assume that all rhetorical relations which are compatible with the con-
straints imposed by the tense, can be established in the right context. In order to study
the discourse function of negative sentences, it is important that we remember that
negation is interpreted lower than the Passé Simple and the Imparfait. This implies that
negative sentences obey the same discourse rules as affirmative ones, so we should be
able to keep using the rules as formulated in (184) above. As a consequence, we also
expect negative sentences to allow the same rhetorical relations as affirmative sentences
in the same tense. Some examples we gave above can now be fully interpreted:
(192) a. Paul alluma la lampe. Il ne faisait pas très clair dans la pièce.
Paul turned-PS on the lamp. It NEG was-small IMP NEG very bright in the
room.
b. Il y eut une énorme explosion. Mais Jean ne paniqua pas. Au contraire, il
avait l’air tout calme.
There was-PS an enormous explosion. But Jean NEG panicked-PS NEG. On
the contrary, he seem-IMP quite calm.
c. Jean invita tous ses amis. Ils ne vinrent pas. Pourtant, ils avaient tous promis
d’être là.
John invite-PS all his friends. They NEG come NEG, although they had all
promised to be there.
d. Paul s’énerva. Ses invités ne venaient pas. D’ailleurs, ils ne vinrent pas. Il
fut déçu.
John got-PS worked up. His guests NEG came-IMP NEG. In fact, they NEG
came-PS NEG. He was-PS disappointed.
e. Paul s’énerva. Ses invités ne venaient pas. ?? Il fut deçu.
Paul invited-PS all his friends. They NEG came-IMP NEG. He was-PS disap-
pointed.
In (192a), we can either derive a relation of Explanation (the room not being very bright
causes Paul to turn on the light) or a relation of Result (Paul turned on the light, but
the room is still not very bright). Both relations are compatible with the discourse rule
for the Imparfait, so it depends on the context which interpretation is most appropri-
ate. In (192b) the last Imparfait sentence establishes a Background relation with the
preceding Passé Simple sentence. The observation that Jean was all calm is not the
Background for the explosion, but for the event of not panicking. We can easily extend
our framework to deal with discourses like (192c). When the Plus-que-Parfait is used
to shift back in time from a point in the past, it requires a relation of anteriority with
respect to some moment situated in the past. In (192c), this moment is provided by
the friends not coming, rather than by John’s invitation. The analysis also provides a
straightforward explanation of the contrast between (192d) and (192e). The negative
state of the guests not-coming reported by the Imparfait sentence in (192e) provides the
Background for and thus overlaps with the event of Paul getting worked up reported in
the Passé Simple. The unbounded nature of the negative state of affairs suggests that
Paul is still waiting. In that context, Paul’s disappointment is not naturally related to his
getting worked up or him still waiting, so the discourse is not coherent. In (192e), the
negative Imparfait sentence also establishes a Background relation, but it is followed
by another negative sentence, this time in the Passé Simple. We can establish an Occa-
sion relation between the last two Passé Simple sentences: it is the event of his friends
definitely not showing up which leads to his disappointment. The quantized nature of
the negative event closes off the period of waiting. The natural interpretation is that
Paul is disappointed as a reaction to the guests definitely not-arriving, and follows it in
time.
The analysis sketched in this section combines a theory of rhetorical structure
with a set of temporal constraints on the French past tenses to account for the temporal
structure of narrative discourses involving affirmative and negative sentences alike. We
will argue now that the English ‘smile’ examples can be interpreted in a similar way.
The main difference is that the English simple past tense is not sensitive to the aspectual
nature of the eventuality description. The means that rhetorical structure opens up more
possibilities of different temporal relations. But this makes the situation harder to deal
with in some sense. We can coerce negative states into events, just like in French, but
the result is not visible in the morphology.
5.3.2 Negative sentences in English discourse

The English ‘smile’ examples are important, because they provide an argument in favor
of Kamp and Reyle’s null hypothesis. The relevant examples are repeated as (193) and
(194):
(193) a. Mary looked at Bill. He smiled.
b. Mary looked at Bill. He was smiling.
(194) a. Mary looked at Bill. He didn’t smile.

b. Mary looked at Bill. He wasn’t smiling.
If the application of a logical operator always creates a (complex) state, we have

to explain why the negation of the event in (194a) can be interpreted as posterior to the
event described by the first sentence, whereas the negation of the state in (194b) cannot.
We have assumed that discourse structure is constrained by aspect. Accordingly, we
will argue that simple past and past progressive sentences do not enter into the same
kind of rhetorical relations.
In the discourse in (193a), the event of Mary looking at Bill ‘occasions’ the event
of Bill smiling, because the action-response structure forms a natural course of events.
States can also be responses (cf. Hinrichs 1986 for examples):
(195) a. Mary entered the room. John was happy to see her.
b. Susan told Bill the story. He was impressed.
The state is here interpreted as a reaction to the event. We can treat the examples
in (195) along the same lines as (193a) if we assume that the Occasion relation can
trigger coercion of the state into an event. This is not so strange if we realize that
similar discourses in French would require the use of the Passé Simple, rather than the
Imparfait (cf. 185b). In both languages, the coercion operator triggers an inchoative
reading for the stative sentence, which focusses on the onset of the state. The main
difference is that contextual reinterpretation can be deduced from the use of the tense in
French, but not in English. However, in both languages, the contextual reinterpretation
process leads to the inference that Bill being impressed is his reaction to Susan telling
the story, and is thus located later in time than that event.
This approach makes it possible to treat (194a) as involving coercion as well. Al-
though (194a) involves a complex, negative state, and not an atomic state, it is essen-
tially of the same type as the examples in (195). In order for the Occasion relation to
apply, the state is coerced into a bounded, quantized negative event, which makes the
not-smiling valid for a closed period of time t, the beginning point of which lies after
the looking event. The discourse does not assert Bill’s smiling or not-smiling for times
preceding or following t, because it focusses on the time t of his response to Mary.
The representation of (194a) under this analysis is strictly identical to the DRS given
for the sequence of an affirmative and a negative French Passé Simple sentence in fig-
ure 6 above. Thus English and French develop identical meanings, but on the basis of a
different syntax-semantics and semantics-pragmatics interface. In English, the hearer
gets less help from linguistic clues, and needs to rely on general cognitive principles to
determine the rhetorical structure of the discourse. But once we have determined that
the relevant discourse relation in (194a) is Occasion in both French and English, the
temporal structure we derive for discourses in the two languages is the same. Given
that it is this temporal structure, and not the syntax-semantics and semantics-pragmatic
interface it results from which is shown in the DRS, and it need not come as a surprise
that figure 6 is the appropriate representation for both (187a) and (192a). If we compare
figure 6 with Kamp and Reyle’s representation of (194a) in figure 16 of chapter 4, we
observe that the two proposals lead to different but equivalent DRSs. This confirms our
claim that an event-based semantics of negative sentences incorporates all the insights
of an analysis which treats the external referent as a time.
This still leaves the past progressive version of the smile example to be accounted
for. The introduction of rhetorical relations triggering coercion might suggest that
posteriority should be a possible interpretation in (194b) as well, but of course it is not.
We base our explanation of this fact on Asher’s (1993) observation that states are closed
under negation, but events are not. We take the fact that states are closed under negation
to mean that negation applied to states has no aspectual effects. We assume that the
negation of a state is ‘transparent’ in the sense that the negative sentence inherits its
aspectual nature from its affirmative counterpart. Given that aspect constrains the set
of admissible rhetorical relations, this means that negative sentences inherit constraints
on discourse structure from their affirmative counterparts. This is formulated in the
following inheritance principle:
(196) Negation of states
The discourse relations that a sentence describing the negation of a state enters
into constitute a (not necessarily proper) subset of the admissible rhetorical rela-
tions for its affirmative counterpart.
As Dowty (1986) points out, the Progressive tends to express overlap with the
events described in the previous discourse. He suggests that this is due to the seman-
tics of the Progressive, which abstracts away from the start and finish of the situation.
The feeling of being ‘in the middle of things’ does not easily allow an inchoative or
a bounded event reading.3 If a Progressive sentence is not easily reinterpreted as an
event, it will not normally describe a response to another event. Thus, unlike (193a),
(193b) forces temporal overlap. If it is true that stative sentences preserve aspectual
structure under negation, we expect the same relation of temporal overlap to hold for
the negative counterpart of the progressive sentences in (194b). This interpretation of
(194b) is spelled out in figure 8:
figure 8
Mary looked at Bill. He wasn’t smiling
3 One exception Dowty notes concerns the kind of example in (i). An anonymous reviewer suggests a
similar example with a negative sentence (ii):

(i) The president began the interview in a coldly official manner, much as Mary had expected. But the
next thing she knew, the president was offering her the ambassador post.
(ii) (. . . ). The next thing she knew, she wasn’t sitting in her chair.
Dowty argues that the perception of the event already in progress is the next salient event in the discourse.
This leads to a quasi-inchoative reading of the Progressive. Similar remarks can be made for French in
relation to certain narrative uses of the Imparfait (the so-called ‘Imparfait pittoresque’), the use of which is
severely constrained (compare Molendijk 1990 for discussion).
n e t x y s t’ u
tn
et
Mary(x)
Bill(y)
e: x look at y
t’ n
s =t t’
Max(s)
es
u=y
s’
s: : s’ s
s’: PROG(u smile)
Figure 8 is not identical to the representation of the French Imparfait in figure 6. This
reflects the fact that we treat the Imparfait and the Progressive in essentially different
ways. However, the DRSs in figures 8 and 6 both rule out an occurrence of smiling over
a period of time including the event of looking. Although they differ in grammatical
structure, the sentences can therefore be used as translational equivalents. The reason
that (194b) expresses temporal overlap, whereas (194a) does not (necessarily) is that
(194b), as the negation of a progressive sentence, does not allow any other temporal
relation than its affirmative counterpart in (193b). Kamp and Reyle’s claim that the
restrictions on the interpretation of the negative sentence in (194b) are related to its
affirmative counterpart in (193b) is thus preserved under our analysis. However, unlike
Kamp and Reyle, we allow more room for variation. Aspect constrains the set of admis-
sible rhetorical relations, but it does not usually fully determine the discourse structure.
In a particular context, this allows a negative sentence to make a different choice from
among the set of admissible discourse relations than its affirmative counterpart. This
was illustrated above in (5), repeated here as (197a and b):
(197) a. Paul switched on the light. The room was very bright.
b. Paul switched on the light. The room was not very bright.
c. Paul switched off the light. The room was very bright.
In section ?? above, we showed that the temporal structure of (197b) cannot be

derived from the actual discourse structure of (197a). If (197b) involves the relation
of Result, this triggers an interpretation in terms of succession. If we take the room
not being very bright to be the reason for Paul to switch on the light, we establish a
relation of Explanation, which locates the negative state before the event of the first
sentence. Knowledge of the world makes a relation of Explanation unlikely in the
context of (197a), but (197c) shows that it is quite plausible in other contexts. This
means that both Result and Explanation are among the possible discourse relations the
affirmative stative sentence can establish. The discourses in (197) confirm our view
that the inheritance principles needs to be defined in terms of admissible, rather than
actual rhetorical relations.
5.4 Conclusion
In this chapter, we studied the discourse semantics of a number of English and French
tenses. We started with a discussion of the importance of aspectual information, con-
tinued with the relevance of rhetorical structure, and ended with an attempt to strike
a balance between linguistic and non-linguistic information. The resulting theory was
applied to negative sentences in French and English discourse contexts. It turns out that
our general approach to interpret negation lower than the Passé Simple/Imparfait but
higher than the Progressive in combination with a discourse theory of the French and
English past tenses yielded results equivalent to or better at certain points than com-
peting theories. Our proposal can be viewed as a generalized version of the analysis of
aspect and logical operators developed by Kamp and Reyle (1993) in combination with
mixed theories of discourse structure as advocated by Lascarides and Asher (1993) and
others.
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2

Tense and Aspect in Sentence and

Email-addresses: henriette.deswart@let.uu.nl & henk.verkuyl@let.uu.nl

2 Time, Tense and Temporal Reference 41

2.5.5 Prior (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

3 The semantics of inner aspectuality 71

4 The semantics of outer aspectuality 101

4.3.2 Logical and aspectual structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

5 Tense and aspect at the discourse level 149

 Chapter 1 contains an overview of issues relevant to a theory accounting for the

Figure 1.1: Aspectual Levels

information. This is a well-motivated choice: we are convinced of the need to stipulate

1.2 The verb as carrier of aspectual information

: : : we could say that moving from some point Pi to some point Pj ,

1.2.2 Vendler’s verb classes

States: love, know, possess, rule

Table 1.1: Vendler’s four verb classes exemplified

Table 1.2: Two criteria

or to chapter 2 of Verkuyl 1993.

(1.12) a. Ivan vypil dva piva za čas

(1.14) a. He was running, she is swimming

1.3 The VP as carrier of aspectual information

Figure 1.2: A constant value for the Verb

Phrases Analysis Yielding

Table 1.3: Possible combinations of semantic values

Figure 1.3: Relating sets to linear order

Figure 1.4: [+SQA] as part of the noun set A

1.4 The S as carrier of aspectual information

 the distinction between inner and outer aspectuality it provokes;

1.4.2 Aspectual asymmetry and inner/outer aspectuality

aspectually independent level.

1.4.3 The Plus-principle

(1.26) a. Miša kuril (sigaretu)

1.4.4 The construal of aspectual classes:

States Processes Events

Figure 1.5: Three compositionally formed aspectual categories

and the NP determine the parameters. On the basis of possible feature-combinations

[ ADDTO] + [ SQA] ) State

Table 1.4: Construal of the three classes

1.5 How terminative is perfectivity?

1.5.2 Comparing Slavic and Germanic sentences.

Figure 1.6: ASP -positions

(1.29) a. John drank two beers in an hour

(1.30) a. John was drinking/drank beer for an hour

(1.31) a. ?John was drinking/drank beer in an hour

(1.34) Przez lata nie przeczytał ani jednej ksiażki-Acc.

(1.37) a. Ivan vypil dva piva

Perf V stem V stem NP 2

Figure 1.7: Two ways of analyzing a perfective prefix

Affix V stem Affix V stem

Figure 1.8: Perf and Imp as operators

1.5.3 Thematic glue

Def (Mod) Det0

the contribution of the NP to its thematic role in the predication.

1.5.4 The Finnish case

(1.54) a. Ammu-i-n karhu-a /kah-ta karhu-a= karhu-j-a

(1.55) a. Saa-n #karhu-a /#kah-ta karhu-a= karhu-j-a

(1.56) a. Etsi-n karhu-a /kah-ta karhu-a= karhu-j-a

CaseAcc=P art PP/NP

Suppose that the case-operator CaseAcc requires that whatever is contributed as

Case Thematic role Finnish English

Table 1.5: The interaction between Case and

1.6 Plurality and aspectuality

1.6.2 Collectivity and distributivity

Chapter 1 contains an overview of issues relevant to a theory accounting for the

the distinction between inner and outer aspectuality it provokes;

Def (Mod) Det0

(a) : -injective (b) : -constant

A2 G(p q) (Gp Gq)

s- V[+ADD] NP[SQA]

Definition 3.2.1 IV := f(0; k) R jk 2 Ng

3.2.4 The participancy function : structuring S

Definition 3.2.3 : [ NP1 ] ! (I ! [ NP2 ] ) is defined as: for all (singletons)

Figure 3.6: The relation between the functions s, ` and

(3.14) For each x 2 Dom( fill ) : Ran(`x ) = Dom( pass )

(3.15) For some x 2 Dom( fill ) : Ran(`x ) Dom( pass )