Temporality Universals and Variation [Hardcover]

Temporality surveys the ways in which languages of different types refer to past, present, and future events, through an in-depth examination of four major language types: tense-based English, tense-aspect-based Polish, aspect-based Chinese, and mood-based Kalaallisut.

• Cutting-edge research on directly compositional dynamic semantics of languages with and without grammatical tense
• New in-depth analysis of temporal, aspectual, modal, as well as nominal discourse reference
• Presents a novel logical language for representing linguistic meaning (Update with Centering)
• Develops a unified theory of tense, aspect, mood, and person as different types of ‘grammatical centering systems’

List of Figures ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Glosses xv

Introduction 1

Part I Semantic Universals 13

1 Direct Semantic Composition 15

1.1 Simple Type Logic (TL0) 16

1.2 A CG.TL0 Fragment of English 17

1.3 Dynamic Type Logic (DL0) 23

1.4 A CG.DL0 Fragment of English 27

1.5 Centering: A Blind Spot of English-Based Logics 34

2 Nominal Reference with Centering 41

2.1 Center v. Periphery: Anaphora to Structured Lists 42

2.2 Kalaallisut Third Person Inflections as Top-Level Anaphora 48

2.3 Mandarin Third Person Features as Top-Level Anaphora 53

2.4 English Third Person Pronouns as Shallow Anaphora 57

2.5 Simple Update with Centering (UC0) 61

3 Tense as Temporal Centering 67

3.1 Polish Third Person Inflections as Top-Level Anals'