Simultaneous analyses for simultaneous present
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v20i0.2573Keywords:
tense, indexicality, shifting indexicalsAbstract
"Simultaneous" uses of the present tense pose a challenge for the position that present tense is essentially indexical. Two kinds of accounts have been given that stay close to this position: on the Tense Deletion account, present tense can get converted into a simple bound variable over times; on the Shifting Indexical account, present tense interacts with a context variable that can get bound below a character-selecting operator. We argue that in fact both of these mechanisms are needed. We specifically argue that a Shifting Indexical approach is useful in accounting for cross-linguistic variation in the use of simultaneous present; our arguments are based on a comparison of English and Romanian data. We suggest moreover that the Romanian data have important consequences for what a Shifting Indexical analysis of present tense should look like.Downloads
Published
2010-08-14
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Articles appearing in SALT are published under an author agreement with the Linguistic Society of America and are made available to readers under a Creative Commons Attribution License.