Diamonds are Forever

We defend the thesis that every necessarily true proposition is always true. Since not every proposition that is always true is necessarily true, our thesis is at odds with theories of modality and time, such as those of Kit Fine and David Kaplan, which posit a fundamental symmetry between modal and tense operators. According to such theories, just as it is a contingent matter what is true at a given time, it is likewise a temporary matter what is true at a given possible world; so a proposition that is now true at all worlds, and thus necessarily true, may yet at some past or future time be false in the actual world, and thus not always true. We reconstruct and criticize several lines of argument in favor of this picture, and then argue against the picture on the grounds that it is inconsistent with certain sorts of contingency in the structure of time

Embedded Attitudes

This paper presents a puzzle involving embedded attitude reports. We resolve the puzzle by arguing that attitude verbs take restricted readings: in some environments the denotation of attitude verbs can be restricted by a given proposition. For example, when these verbs are embedded in the consequent of a conditional, they can be restricted by the proposition expressed by the conditional’s antecedent. We formulate and motivate two conditions on the availability of verb restrictions: a constraint that ties the content of restrictions to the “dynamic effects” of sentential connectives and a constraint that limits the availability of restriction effects to present tense verbs with first-person subjects. However, we also present some cases that make trouble for these conditions, and outline some possible ways of modifying the view to account for the recalcitrant data. We conclude with a brief discussion of some of the connections between our semantics for attitude verbs and issues concerning epistemic modals and theories of knowledge

The Everett-Wheeler interpretation and the open future

I discuss the meaning of probability in the Everett-Wheeler interpretation of quantum mechanics, together with the problem of defining histories. To resolve these, I propose an understanding of probability arising from a form of temporal logic: the probability of a future-tense proposition is identified with its truth value in a many-valued and context-dependent logic. In short, probability is degree of truth. These ideas appear to be new (though I expect correction on this), but they are natural and intuitive, and relate to traditional naive ideas of time and chance. Indeed, I argue that Everettian quantum mechanics is the only form of scientific theory that truly incorporates the perception that the future is open.Comment: 11 page

The master argument and branching time

It is argued that reconstructions of the so-called ‘Master Argument’ of Dideros Cronos to the effect that possibility should be understood as present or future truth, essentially relies on two axioms: i) that every true proposition concerning the past is necessary, and ii) that it follows necessarily from a proposition being true that it always has been the case that it would be true. It is furthermore argued that these two axioms are inconsistent in the sense that any tense/modal semantics which incorporates both collapses either modally (fails to distinguish between truth simpliciter and modalised truth) or temporally (fails to offer a plausible semantical account for propositions about the future). This finding is, furthermore, taken as indicator for the more generel claim that there are principled difficulties involved in construing semantics for combined tense/modal logical systems

Tense and mood in contemporary German

After a discussion of some relevant secondary literature, a speaker-orientated model of tense and mood in contemporary German is presented. A semantic description of these categories is given. The basis for the description is the speaker's communicative intention, which is then formalized in logical terms. A sentence is assumed to have three components: speech act, modality, and propositions! content. The basic meaning of a tense is shown to be the temporal relationship between these three components; the tin® of the speech act is taken as the point of reference. It is shown that tense uses which do not correspond to the basic meaning are derived from other tenses by means of transformations, which may be caused by the speaker's wish to emphasize parts of the communicative intention, to achieve special euphonic or rhythmical effects, or to avoid redundancy or complicated morphological forms. It is also shown that a secondary function of tenses is the indication of the temporal ordering of propositional contents in a continuous text. The semantically derived tenses are shown to form the criteria for the choice of morphological tense forms in the syntactical component of the grammar. The modality component is described in terms of formal logic. It is assumed to have four basic functions: The use of Indicative signals the assertion of a proposition. The use of Subjunctive II is shown to be due to a conjoined negatively asserted proposition which is part of the sentence. The use of Subjunotive I is due to the irrelevance of the truth value of a clause to that of the sentence as a whole. The location of a proposition on the spectrum of probable truth is shown to be indicated by the modal auxiliaries

A compositional account of counterfactual conditional clauses in Old Japanese

The paper is concerned with tenselessness of the past tense morpheme in counterfactuals. The question is twofold.  One is why is it the past tense that marks counterfactuality (Iatridou 2000, Ogihara 2000), which indicates anteriority. Another question is why the past tense is tenseless (or “fake tense”) in the counterfactuals.  The previous theories (past tense as modal and past tense as exclusive operator) have not offered answers to these questions.  In this paper, I argue that the conditional clauses originate in temporal adverbial clauses, and therefore it is only natural for the conditionals to be represented by temporal abstracts (Stump 1985). Second, I argue that the temporal abstracts are intensionalized in conditionals and causatives.  This assumption not only provides a compositional analysis for the conditional, causal, and temporal adverbial clauses but also explains the reason why a proposition in the past tense can denote anteriority in the extensional context but counterfactuality (a temporal interval in the possible world) in the intensional context. I support my proposal by presenting data of counterfactuals from Old Japanese. The previous studies show the past tense morpheme is essential to counterfactual interpretation cross-linguistically (Karawani 2014) but I show that it is not a necessity, as counterfactual interpretation originates in the temporal abstract represented by the temporal adverbial clauses. I present four types of temporal clauses from which the counterfactual can be formed: at the time when, whenever (always when), in the circumstance/event that, and and then.  All these temporal clauses can be intensionalized to be conditional or causal clauses under a modal operator

Real tense and real aspect in mirativity

The goal of this paper is an account of the role of tense and aspect in mirative constructions in Spanish. I propose that the past tense morphology and the imperfect/perfect morphology in Spanish miratives contribute their standard meanings to the semantics of mirativity. I define mirativity as the clash between the speaker's previous beliefs and the current state of affairs asserted by the proposition. I propose a M operator that relates the speaker's beliefs and the proposition by ranking the worlds in which the proposition doesn't hold in the speaker's previous beliefs as better ones. The past tense is interpreted outside the proposition, and constitutes the time argument of the modal base (doxastic domain). Aspect gets its usual interpretation in the proposition but also in the alternative propositions that order the worlds in the modal base. This way, differences regarding the imperfect mirative and the pluperfect one are accounted for. Finally, the paper also discusses stative miratives, which apparently challenge part of the analysis. I claim that these are not counter examples, but rather confirmation of the analysis, once we account for the interaction between miratives, statives and lifetime effects

Metarepresentation, tense, aspect and narratives: the case of Behdini-Kurdish and Estonian

This paper looks at three sets of data, two from Behdini-Kurdish and one from Estonian, where a metarepresentational use analysis enhances the linguistic analysis of certain linguistic forms. The aspective marker da in Behdini is used in two ways, as a near counterfactual past and a distant habitual past: (1) ew da genim-ê çîn-in They IM wheat-OBL.M.SG grow-3PL 1. 'They set out to sow wheat (but where prevented from doing it)' 2. 'They used to grow wheat (in old times; of the people of a village)' My claim is that da encodes a procedure to embed the proposition expressed under a higher order respresentation such as 'the speaker intends the addressee to imagine a situation where P holds,' and I'll argue that the attested uses can be pragmatically explained on the basis of this semantics. Thus it appears that metarepresentations can explain some phenomena normally attributed to the category of aspect. The future marker dê in Behdini is used syntactically in a very similar way: (2) ew dê xwarin-ê çêk-in they FUT meal-OBL.F.SG prepare-3PL 'they will prepare the meal' I present arguments both from within Behdini as well as cross-linguistically that the future tense in Behdini should be analysed as procedurally encoding metarepresentational use: the proposition expressed is to be embedded under a higher-order representation of the form 'the speaker intends the addressee to imagine a situation where P holds and P has not yet occured'. This analysis raises a number of questions for the analysis of future tense markers cross-linguistically. Finally, I argue that the so-called 'quotative mood' in Estonian is better analysed as attributive interpretive use marker. One of the many advantages of this analysis is the fact that it sheds light on the use of the quotative in narratives, especially folk tales: narrative exploits metarepresentations in various ways, hence it is not surprising to find interpretive use markers used as narrative forms. This raises the question whether other so-called 'narrative verb forms' in other langauges should be re-analysed as interpretive use markers

Nominal Tense in Crosslinguistic Perspective

It is a general assumption in linguistic theory that the categories of tense, aspect, and mood (TAM) are inflectional categories of verbal classes only. In a number of languages around the world, however, nominals and other NP constituents are also inflected for these categories. In this article we provide a comprehensive survey of tense/aspect/mood marking on NP constituents across the world's languages. Two distinct types are identified: PROPOSITIONAL, NOMINAL TAM, whereby the nominal carries TAM information relevant to the whole proposition, and INDEPENDENT NOMINAL TAM, in which the TAM information encoded on the nominal is relevant only to the NP on which it is marked - independent of the TAM of the clause as a whole. We illustrate these different types and their various properties using data from a wide range of languages showing that, while certainly unusual, the phenomenon of nominal tense/aspect/mood marking is far less marginal than is standardly assumed. Nominal TAM inflection must be accepted as a real possibility in universal grammatical structure, having significant implications for many aspects of linguistic theory