pirver Eng Anchoring Conditions for Tense aim of this article is to construct a theory of tense that accounts for the interpretation jenses in embedded clauses. I argue against the classical analysis of tense as a sentence erator manipulating times iri the metalanguage, an analysis that probably enjoys the jgeatest popularity in formal semantics, although the arguments extend to most Rei- . Jgenbachian analyses as well. The theory proposed here treats tenses as referential t/ Japressions. It stipulates the minimum possible in the interpretive rules, and it derives jnumber of the facts about the interpretation of tenses from their syntattic properties. | Tense as a Sentential Operator thas become customary in formal semantics to treat tense as a sentential operator, an proach linguistics has inherited from tense logic. The semantics of tense is usually Jefined in rules such as (1). (1) Where is a sentence, PAST (g) is true at time ¢ iff there is a time #’ such that 1 < rand gis true at’ lathe standard model-theoretic approach, the times in (1) are taken to be arbitrary indices lithe model. i Such treatments have the following properties: (a) Tense is a sentential operator, ft) tense manipulates the times in the metalanguage, that is, the temporal indices of the fegj Pode] in model-theoretic treatments, (c) the interpretation of tense involves an existential feantifier over times, (d) tense introduces a new time, (e) this new time stands in “J oa lerain relation (determined by the tense) to the original evaluation time, (f) the new 3 line becomes the evaluation time, and (g) the original evaluation time is lost. : The properties in (d)-(f) are, intuitively, properties of tense that must be captured lt any theory of tense. The rest, however, are particular to the analyses mentioned Htove.' In this article I will defend an analysis where tense does not have these prop- Jam grateful to [rene Heim and Richard Larson for helpful com .eats: Thave also benefited from dis- tons with Joseph Aoun, Vicki Carstens, Jim Higginbotham, Os\ Ido Jaeggli, Paula Kempchinsky, Jim Closkey, David Pesetsky, Mamoru Saito, and Tim Stowell. This work was supported in part by the USC lty Research and Innovation Fund. 4 The arguments in this article also extend to theories where tense-sxplicitly quantifies over times at some64 ae ee | MORVET EN, ic ANCHORING ConDITIONS Fok TENSE co erties. Before presenting arguments review how they work Meier ene se he form, tam Ten an et at siete comets = = | ¢ evaluation time away from the time at is * the time of ut [oa clearly has a shifted reading, as do (3) and (@), the interpretive rule in (1) makes the | The truth cond [correct prediction in these cases. les. Accordin, However, the rule is inadequate as it stands for the interpretation of the following sentences, (5) John heard that Mary was pregnant. (© You knew that I was upset about the results. is thus in () Theard that Sally was in London. Unlike (2)~(4), (5)-(7) are ambiguous. They have a shifted reading, 2s predicted. On this reading of (5), for example, John hears at a past time that Mary was pregnant at 2 time prior to that. Such readings are easily forced with temporal adverbs. But they also have ‘what I will call a simultaneous reading. On this reading of (5), John hears at a past time that Mary is pregaant at the time of the hearing. In other words, the relevant time for the complement is not prior to the time where the matrix S is evaluated but instead identical to it. Such simultaneous readings are available with stative complements, 25 in (5)-(7), but not with nonstative complements, as in (2)=(4).? ‘The simultaneous readings are problematic for the tense rule in (1), which predicts only shifted readings. A common approach to this problem is to claim that the tense n (1) is correct and that the tense in these complements is not what it seems. Note the simultaneous reading would be obtained if the complement had present tense instead of past, where the rule for present tense is as in (8). at the point where pet 2 the PAST operator has shifted the ‘ton from the original utterance time to a past time, and the denotation of a2 isthe set of individuals who arrive at that pat time. Thus, ofr arrived is tac =r Of the set of individuals who arrived at some past time. ae uate theory of tense must account for the interpretation of tenses in enba es. My chief argument against the approach oulined above wil be at spect, The problems with embedded tease have been noted f ysaw (1977) and Dowty (1982), and no satisactory solution bas beak cle I wil confine myself mainly fo the discussion of ver comple 3s, and to the semantics ofthe true tenses PAST and PRESENT, denotati (8) Where g is a sentence, PRES (¢) is true at ¢ iff there is a time ¢° such that = cand g is teat?’ look at tensed complements of verbs Basically, (8) says that present tense introduces a time that is identical to the original | evaluation time—if other words, that it does not shift. Now suppose that the simul- | taneous reading of (5) is represented as in (9). (9) PAST (John hear (PRES (Mary be pregnant]}) Mary found out that John failed the test. ae Out [PAST (5, John fail the test] The gardener said that thie roses died Sally thought that John drank the beer. Given the rules for past and present teases, (9) is true just in case John hears at a past time that Mary is pregnant at the same time 1’. This gives us the simultaneous reading of (5). Why then do the complements in (5)~(7) have past tense? hese sentences the PAST of the complement is embedded under the PAST. ix. I assume, for present purposes, that (2a) can be represented as in (2) analyses. In (2b), given the rule in (1), the matrix PAST shifts the original time of eval to a past time 1’ where the sentence in its scope, S1, is evaluated. Now this sem is true just in case Mary finds out at ¢’ what is expressed by the complet complement itself contains PAST, which further shifts the time of evaluation E59 atime prior to it, say, 7. The sentence S is evaluated wit respect to this Hig the failing Of the testis prior to Mary's finding out about it which in turn i Be clas: 12, The Sequence of Tense Rule : To account for the presence of past tense in (5)-(7), it is claimed that English has = Sequence of Tense rule, which copies the past ofthe matrix onto the complement present (see Ladusaw (1977), Comrie (1°85, 1986). This must be alate morphological rule. We 2 > this eifereace between stative} and wonsttves is explained by 2 syntactic constraint in Bap (SSS) 2 the temporal properties of will ace shown to pattern with other md'als, aber than with and will not be discussed hereon MORvET ENG ANCHORING CONDITIONS FOR TENSE nen John heard about it, The correct temporal relations can be represented as in (14), when rd . The cor ere T* represents speech time, T” represents the me of John’s hearing about Mary's wyhere T* represents ancy, and T* represents the time of Mary's pregnancy. " uy) Sy ten reading is obtained only if the semantics is entirely blind to he past ; ly tics is entirely ast and eet its PF rule, not the interpretive rule. I will argue : wontilare hee that the Seauence of Tense solution is untenable, Fist, we onder about the presence of a rule that seems unconnected to any other pr srammar and whose only function seems to be rendering meaning opaque, Secon ‘ules aurky. in that it applies only when present tense i embedded under paste e ple, when past tense is embedded under present tense. In other wor (10) does not have a reading wher Ly reading where the complement is interpreted as though it has p must have access to both ote that in order to interpret the complement correctly, we must have aces rh Ne ae yimes introduced previously. Given the ‘normal lefigth’of hultian pregnancies, sr poms Decely DESI Ue ime of Mary's pregnancy cansot encompass the two times (15) Jobin heard two years ago that Mary is pregnant. We will return later to the question of how thesé readings are to be derived. What is evant at this point is the difference in meaning between (L1) and (5), On the simsl- vescous reading of (5), the complement should be evaluated not atthe speech time but tithe past time given by Te maisix tense; jn other words, unlike what happens => tiie speech lime is irelevant forthe simultaneous reading of (5). Thus, (11) and he neous Teading of G) do not have the same interpretation. The diffe ae gapretation must Be due to the presence of past fense in (5) in contrast to (LI), since this is the only obvious difference between, the two sentences. However the correct interpretation: be assigned, the semantics must ‘‘see™” that (5) has past tense ip the complement. This is not possible in the Sequence of Tense approach where | the “complements have identical representations for the purposes of interpretation. I take ths to be conclusive evidence that any treatment of the simultaneous reading of (5) that tlaims that the pastness of the complement is a semantically irrelevant morphological property is bound to fail i we abandon the Sequence of Tense solution, we must construct a theory of tense that accounts for the simultaneous reading’ as well as the shifted readings. We must also obtain the right readings where a complement with present tense is embedded under past tense and where we seem to need access to two evaluation times. The classical analysis of tense fails on both counts. (10) John knows that Mary was pregnant. hese objection: z bjections do not provide arguments against the Sequence of Tense rule, but the o cast suspicion on it. Other evidence, however, indicates strongly that a Sequence sf Tense solution is not possible. Consider the following sentences. ‘ (11) John heard that Mary is pregnant. (12) We found out that John loves Mary. (13) Sally told me that John is very depressed. In these sentences complements with present tense are embedded under a matrix past tense. Therefore, the Sequence of Tense rule cannot be obligatory, but must be optional complement of (5) is semantically irreley ‘present tense at LP. In this case the two sentences should have identical representations St LF, and they should have identical interpretations. But this is obviously not correct since the two sentences have quite diferent meanings. Where the complements have resent tense as in (H)-(D), Trhas been claimed that the complement has present rl Vance. This is the view defended in Comrie (1985) and in Cos (1972) This notion ‘resent relevance can be made more precise, The complements in these cases seem. express propositions that must be evaluated at the original time of evaluation, thay speech time, In (11) the time of Mars pregnancy most include the speech time: Trencereiemmust also include the time at which the matrix is evaluated, that is, the 13. Relative Clause Tenses ‘Tense rules of the sort outlined above are insensitive to syntactic differences in the scope of the ense operator, and they predict only shifted readings for both ¢mplements an relative clauses. The evidence discussed in this section, however, sho\,s that the inter- pretation of tenses in relative clauses differs systematically from the-interpretation ofoNDITIONS FOR TENSE 1986). Second, treating tenses pncwonine c in Eng (1 . wating, as argued es ns between temporal expres Monver eng We have seen that whe in . 1 @ past tense is embedded und aaner necessary nor illum for cel ‘ nls Of wat iota under another past her is to account for cert different withthe tense of iste, clauses Us OF sifted readings. The sin Sars! Leer notions of linguistic theory. 09. Wa ake eae i et pe a (17) John insulte ae ee 4 interpretation Si imes. Generally, ? ohn insulted yesterday the man who just spoke to you. exe (potentially) affects thé SO sions are interpreted relative #0 times: Creer s a ts on the assumption that all expres “ expression has an intension i is captured by stipulating that every (1974). es sible worlds (see Montague fps time-dependence i a funetions from times and possible words et a aaa other a- joa tat intensions are af is to say, every expression has a temporal argument 0 9 ce exon ee aegis does 2 vt ¢ atic ‘case with names, with logice tifiers like every. I have argued in ih the time of evaluation. ‘Thi is recognized 1 re In (16) the ti f ; Le of speaking tothe man isin the past.‘ Past, but it can be before, dur ig: the is Sui can bebe, drag o atthe speaing theese a et 85 the tense of complements, this neanece a This is obvious in (7). The sentens Toy Gotta a 0 Toe sence in underscores he fat ha gs quant {like the connectives and and or, and with eee jiduals (nouns, verbs, and mms) are sensitive to time. fos (1986) that only certain predicates of indivi - seistve adjectives, but Bot, for example, adverbs or pre ; ie view that all expréSsions Rave temporal arguments seems to miss a significant prop- ay of natural languages. It seems to be the case that an expression takes times as arguments only if it also takes individuals a3 arguments “Assuming that only predicates of individuals ara time-sensitive. the effect of the tease is vacuous for other expressions in its scope. But it would still be advisable to teat tense as a sentential operator if it affected the interpretation of, say, the NPs in ihe sentence as well as the verb. In previous work I have argued against this position {Eng (1981, 1986)). I provided evidence ind that the temporal interpretation of NPs may be independent of the tense in the sentence and that it may be determinec coatextially-I will assume, therefore, that tense affects only verb interpretations Ob- ligiogly. Given these results, there seems to be no justification for treating tense as © ‘ealential operator. . ent 1)not new. One of theS ‘The idea that tense should receive «(7 tatiest works defending this position is PaRt€€(1973)-* Parteé argues that tenses behav rather like pronouns. They can have antecedents in the discourse, as in (20), or ‘an Rave sentence-internal antecedents, as in (21). (18) We heard thatthe man was erying. In (18) the time of crying can be t a Prior or identical t the time of hearing, b be later. That is to say, (18) does not have ‘ the mane a ot have the meaning “we heard tha the man a When a relative clause has present tense, its interpre aha inn aie sits interpretation once again ders (19) John insulted the man who is walking towards us. (19) unambiguously places the time of walking atthe speech time, in contrast (1h where the relevant time of the complement encompasses both the speech time and the = Past time of the matrix. In other words, (19) does aot require itt be the case that Tobi insulted the man who was walking at the time of the insulting and who contiaued walk until the speech time These examples indicate that the tense in a relative clause can be interpreted’s though it is not embedded. Correct readings would be obtained for (16), (17), and ifthe evaluation time of the relative clause tense were the original speech time. These facts have led some linguists to elaim that all embedded tenses are independent, th (20) We went to a party. John got drunk 21) John arrived at three 1a(20) the time of getting drunk is understood asthe time of the party. In (21) the tempor adverb can be understood 2s determining the time of arriving; thatis, ican be interpret. 45 the antecedent of the tense.* In the absence of persuasive evidence for a sententil-operator treatment of tense Fc view that all temporal expressions should be treated on a par with NPs deserve (2974) also proposes a referential analysis of tense, which i embedded ia a general theory < ‘not independent. Thus, there is a sharp contrast between the interpretation of re Glause tenses and that of complement tenses, which must be captured in an adeq theory of tense. & Tense as a Referential Expression Instead of treating tenses as operators that manipulate indices of the model, the | Fini amet intervals. * Partce (1973) has further arguments forthe parallelism between pronins and tense~"These views =: | 1am about to propose treats them as referential expressions den iis approach. First, the sentential operator treatmen ote in Panes (1984) | are two reasons for adoptinga sence t some other interval The notions of past ad prevent are relational notions) tense, for example, must denote an interval that is prior fo some other interval Jee asical approach, this is ensured by the definition of the semantics of the tense rator, where a.neW time i ae NCHORING CONDITIONS FOR TENSE s introduced into the model that stands in a certain relation “he previous evaluation time and replaces it. In the approach I am assuming, the poral coordinate of the model is construed as the speech time and is not shifted by te object language, rather than being coordinates of the model. That is to say, both cra ofthe relations “past"” and ‘present"” come from expressions that are present in ie representations of sentences. Therefore, some expression must semantically function js the specifier of the tense. Tt now remains to be determined where this (semantic) specifier of tense is located inhas often been observed that there is a close connection between Comp and Iafl (see Sowell (1981). For example, the selection of complementizers depends on whether or ot afl is tensed. It thus seems plausible to locate the specifier of tense it Comp. furthermore, this proves fruitful in the analysis of embedded tenses, as we shall see. WeWT therefore assume that Comp can optionally carry @ temporal Tadex and that shea it does, it functions as the specifier of tense, yielding an interval as its semantic vave.!* a ‘Only a local Comp can function semantically as the specifier of tense. We will assume that S’ is the maximal projection of Comp, that Sis the maximal projection of Inf, and that S is the complement of Comp. Thus, Comp governs S. Following Belletti aad Rizzi (1981), we will also assume that if A governs a maximal projection B, then A ves the head of B. Then Comp also governs the head of its complement S, Infl tence tense). Now the locality condition can be captured by stating that a Comp carrying atemporal index can function as the specifier of the tense (that is, provide the other reatum of PAST or PRESENT) if and only Wf it governs the tense.'? We will return later to the question of how the denotation of the Comp with a _ emporal index is determined in a priticipled way (Tt suffices to say at THT matrix sentences Comp denotes the speech time, S = ‘We must ngw define the denotation of te ist, a few assumptions and some ‘eiation. I assume an interval-based semantics, where intervals are defined in the usual | ‘ay from moments of time. I will use a [to represent the denotation of an expression / In the following definitions, T'is a variable over intervals, and t, rare variables over * nits —eCew=wn —— 22) Every afternoon turned out to be disastrous. 23) [hated Monday. 4) John was defensive about yesterday. ‘That the temp. gu: oral expressions every afternoon, Monday, yesterday can occur nts of verbs or prepositions indicates that they should be treated as NPs, TE ‘that such temporal expressions are NPs is defended in Larson (1985), where ‘accounts for their distribution in terms of the general principles of linguistic tit Henceforth, I will refer to such expressions asemporal NPSpad assume that th distinguished from other NPs by the feature [+TEX 2 ‘Sentences like (22)-(24) show that expressions in the object language can ref or quantify over times, This in turn requires times to-be admitted into the te discourse along with other “ordinary” individuals. The existence of temporal deictedt Ske then also supports this view. Now compare the approach to tense ia (1). Here, 3 tense manipulates times that are indices of the model. In particular, tense introduces new index into the model that serves as the temporal argument of the verb. The sumption here is that the temporal argument of the verb has a status distinct from thal of the other arguments of the verb, since it is not represented in the object language buts only in the model—that is, since it is not the value of any expression in the syntax. advantages of such an approach are hard to see. If semantically verbs select tim __ arguments, then the simplest assumption would be that this semantic argument i value of some syntactic object, as is the case with other selected arguments. We henceforth assume that p€nses denote intervals)and th {Upument of te verb - {The modals might shift the temporal cox state resulting in arbiguitis in sentences like John mash |“ Expressions such 2s on Monday and in 1981 behave lke bare NP advert .suchrasyeter 9 de @ popu re alk to the man who is ening. = Prcasvals, The prepositions here are semantically vacuous and may t required only t0 tsradon of these prepostions unclear, since they are not alowed with "Thus, tense is similar to genitive NPS ike Jo's ag © de Mondavi toery yer). igh be possible t treat these past ay NPs rater eigen f father, ‘elatonal noun fer von every Monday, *in every year). 1 Bh ness 38 a roe inthe enue aff. the semantic contrsution of Como is orobably ct restricted to denoting intervals.