The Languages We Speak Are Programming Our Minds
With every article and podcast episode, we provide comprehensive study materials: References, Executive Summary, Briefing Document, Quiz, Essay Questions, Glossary, Timeline, Cast, FAQ, Table of Contents, Index, Polls, 3k Image, and Fact Check.
The words we speak are more than just vehicles for communication — they're the hidden architecture of our thoughts.
Except most of us never realize it.
When you look at how different languages handle time, possibility, and events, you're not just studying grammar. You're examining the fundamental ways our brains process reality itself. The latest episode of Heliox dives deep into concepts like tense, aspect, and modality — terms that sound technical but actually reveal how language silently shapes our cognitive landscape.
Let's be clear: this isn't just academic word games. It's about the invisible frameworks that determine how we perceive the world.
The Matrix We Don't See
When you say "I walked to the store" versus "I was walking to the store," you're not just choosing different words — you're framing the entire event through different cognitive lenses. The first presents a completed action, the second an ongoing process. These aren't just grammatical choices; they're philosophical stances about how events unfold in time.
What's fascinating is how these systems vary radically across languages.
Take Japanese, for example. As the Heliox hosts discuss, Japanese has particles like "hazu" and "nitiganai" that simultaneously express both modal force (necessity or probability) and evidentiality (how you know what you're claiming). There's no direct equivalent in English. This means Japanese speakers are constantly encoding information about their evidence sources in a way English speakers simply don't.
Is it any wonder we have communication breakdowns across cultures?
When a Japanese speaker uses "hazu" (should) instead of "nitiganai" (must) in a statement about mathematical truth, they're introducing a subtle element of doubt. As the podcast points out, saying "two plus two should be four" in Japanese using "hazu" suggests uncertainty in a way that would seem bizarre to most English speakers. The certainty of mathematics somehow becomes contingent.
But which version is more honest? Perhaps the Japanese construction acknowledges the human element in even our most certain knowledge claims.
The Walls of Our Linguistic Prison
The podcast examines what linguists call "the Present Perfect Puzzle" — why some languages allow constructions that others strictly forbid. In German, you can say the equivalent of "I have arrived yesterday," but this same construction is grammatically impossible in English or Swedish.
Why?
The answer reveals how deeply these systems are wired into our cognition. English speakers find this construction jarring because our present perfect tense (have + past participle) creates what linguists call an "extended now" — a time span that must connect the past event to the present moment. Adding a specific past time marker like "yesterday" creates a cognitive contradiction.
German speakers face no such constraint in their mental processing. Their perfect tense operates differently at a fundamental level.
These aren't just academic curiosities. They're windows into how the languages we speak might be programming our perception of time itself.
Breaking Free Through Awareness
There's a profound revelation buried in this linguistic analysis: our languages aren't just describing reality — they're actively constructing it.
The hosts point out how even seemingly simple idioms reveal this truth. "Paint the town red" should behave grammatically like a regular accomplishment verb (with a clear beginning and endpoint), but it doesn't. Instead, it patterns like an activity that can continue indefinitely. Our brains process the idiomatic meaning, not the literal one, revealing that meaning trumps form.
This is powerful because it suggests our minds aren't slaves to linguistic structures. We can transcend them when necessary.
The research on modal subordination — how one possibility statement affects another — shows this mental flexibility in action. When we say "A wolf might come in. It would eat you first," the second sentence inherits the hypothetical context of the first. Our minds track these invisible frameworks across sentences without conscious effort.
The Real Stakes: Beyond Grammar Lessons
Why should any of this matter to people who aren't linguistics professors?
Because language isn't just a tool we use — it's the medium through which we experience reality.
The four recurring narratives the podcast mentions in its conclusion aren't random: boundary dissolution, adaptive complexity, embodied knowledge, and quantum-like uncertainty. These frameworks apply directly to how language structures our thought.
When we recognize that different languages encode time, possibility, and events differently, we're acknowledging that reality itself might look different depending on the linguistic lens we view it through. That's boundary dissolution between language and thought.
The complex adaptive systems of aspect, tense, and modality that evolve differently across languages show us that communication isn't a simple transmission of ideas but a dynamic, evolving process.
Our embodied knowledge comes through in how languages encode spatial and temporal relationships — often using physical metaphors to express abstract concepts.
And the quantum-like uncertainty appears in modality itself — the linguistic domain that deals with what's possible, necessary, or contingent rather than simply what is.
The Practical Takeaway
Understanding these linguistic dimensions isn't just intellectual gymnastics. It has practical implications for:
Cross-cultural communication: Recognizing that speakers of different languages might literally perceive time and possibility differently can help prevent misunderstandings.
Critical thinking: Becoming aware of how your native language frames reality can help you break free from unconscious constraints on your thinking.
Language learning: Rather than just memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules, understanding the conceptual frameworks behind a language can accelerate true fluency.
AI development: As we build systems that process and generate human language, understanding these deep structures becomes essential for creating AI that can truly comprehend human meaning.
The next time you speak or write, pause to consider how your language might be quietly shaping your perception. Are you seeing events as bounded or ongoing? Are you expressing certainty or possibility? Are you indicating how you know what you're claiming?
These aren't just grammatical choices. They're windows into how your mind is constructing reality.
And maybe, just maybe, becoming conscious of these linguistic frameworks is the first step toward true intellectual freedom — the ability to think beyond the confines of any single language's view of the world.
Because we are not just speaking languages. In many ways, they're speaking us.
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STUDY MATERIALS
Briefing Document
This briefing document summarizes the main themes and important ideas presented in the provided excerpts from "Recent Advances in the Syntax and Semantics of Tense Aspect and Modality". The excerpts cover a range of topics within these linguistic domains, including the perfect aspect, adult root infinitives, modal subordination, the interaction of tense and modality (especially with epistemic modals), aspectual composition in idioms, and theoretical frameworks for understanding tense, aspect, and future time reference.
Main Themes and Important Ideas:
1. The Perfect Puzzle:
Variability and Constraints: Björn Rothstein's work addresses the "perfect puzzle," a collection of seemingly unrelated constraints on the present perfect across languages. These include variations in modification by past temporal adverbials, the incompatibility of since-adverbials with adverbs like yesterday, and the restrictions on modifying both event and reference times with positional temporal adverbials.
German vs. English/Swedish: Rothstein highlights a key difference: the German present perfect can often be used in place of a preterit, unlike in English and Swedish. His "ExtendedNow" approach argues that German has semantically dynamic boundaries for the perfect time span.
Positional-Specific Adverbials: He introduces the notion of "p(ositional)-specific" adverbials, such as yesterday, which designate a specific point on the time axis.
Syntactic Contribution: Rothstein proposes that since positional temporal adverbials occur in specTP, both the event time and reference time of a perfect cannot be specified by such adverbials simultaneously. The syntactic structure plays a crucial role in explaining the behavior of adverbials in perfect constructions.
2. Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs):
Cross-Linguistic Phenomenon: Ricardo Etxepare and Kleanthes Grohmann investigate ARIs, where the verbal predicate of a root clause appears in infinitival form, often with an overt but not Case-marked subject. This phenomenon is found in various Romance and Germanic languages. Examples include: "(1) Me go to that party?! I would never do such a thing!" (English) and "(2) Yo ir a esa fiesta?! Jamás!" (Spanish).
Connectivity with the Coda: ARIs are incomplete without a following "Coda" clause that provides the assertive force. There are syntactic "Connectivity relations" between the ARI and the Coda, such as NPI licensing.
Exclamative Operator: The authors propose that both parts (ARI and Coda) are embedded under an exclamative Operator that functions as the root and binds event variables in both conjuncts. They suggest an impoverished CP and deficient Infl (TP) layer in the structure.
Temporal and Aspectual Variation: Languages vary in the temporal modification allowed in ARIs. English does not permit modification by deictic past adverbs (e.g., "*Me go to the party yesterday?!"), while Spanish does ("Juan leer esas cosas en aquellos tiempos?!").
Verb Raising: The authors argue that differences in temporal modification and other syntactic properties (quantifier restrictions, adverb placement, infinitival position in control complements) point to variations in verb raising. "Group I" languages (like Italian and Spanish) exhibit verb raising to a high C-head (F0), while "Group II" languages (like English and German) raise the infinitive to a TP-internal position.
Periphrastic Forms: Generally, periphrastic perfects are disallowed in ARIs ("*Juan haber comprado un libro?!"). However, Galician and Portuguese allow ter-periphrastic perfects, possibly because ter functions more like a lexical verb contributing its own eventuality variable.
3. Modal Subordination:
Contextual Dependence: This phenomenon, discussed in the context of Japanese modals, refers to the interpretation of subsequent sentences in a discourse within the modal context established by a preceding sentence. Roberts (1987) described it as the second sentence being interpreted in a context "subordinated" to the first modal operator. Examples include: "(12) a. A wolf might come in. # It is hungry. b. A wolf might come in. It would eat you first."
Logical Form: Kartunnen suggests a general logical form where the first sentence acts as the restrictor of a conditional clause, with the remaining discourse as its consequent.
Japanese Modals: The paper analyzes three Japanese modal expressions: kamosirenai (might), hazu-da (must-COP), and nitigainai (must). These appear sentence-finally and differ in their morphology and semantic nuances. For instance, hazu can produce a counterfactual flavor in lawlike statements, while nitigainai does not.
Dynamic Semantics: The authors propose a dynamic DPL-style semantics to account for modal subordination, focusing on how discourse proceeds and refines epistemic possibilities. Modal might is seen as involving existential quantification over epistemic possibilities and having a "resetting" effect.
Anaphora and Discourse Connectives: In Japanese, anaphors and discourse connectives like sosite, sorede, and sorekara can pick up the content under the scope of a modal in a preceding sentence, even when they appear in a modalized sentence themselves.
Conditionals and Topics: Conditionals improve the interaction between Japanese modals and can accommodate the evidential requirements of nitigainai. The topic marker -wa also enhances the felicity of modally subordinated discourses.
Emphatic Particles: Modal subordination can even occur without an explicit modal when certain sentence-final emphatic particles like yo are used, suggesting they can also license this phenomenon.
4. Tense and Modality:
Perfect of Epistemic Modals: Ronny Boogaart examines the incompatibility of the perfect aspect with epistemic modality in languages like Dutch, where modal verbs have perfect forms ("*Hij heeft ziek moeten zijn.").
Epistemic Evaluation Time: He argues that epistemic modals require an "epistemic evaluation time." With present tense modals, this is the speech time. In embedded contexts, the matrix time may function as the epistemic evaluation time. This constraint on reference time explains the restrictions on temporal interpretations of epistemic modals in the past and perfect.
Temporal vs. Epistemic Readings of Past Modals: While it's sometimes claimed that past tense epistemic modals lack a "real" temporal past interpretation, Boogaart argues that in Dutch, kunnen ('can') can have a temporal past reading, and moeten ('must') in its epistemic reading must refer to a temporal past.
5. Aspectual Composition in Idioms:
Compositionality of Idiom Aspect: Sheila Glasbey discusses whether the aspect of idioms is derived compositionally, similar to non-idiomatic phrases.
Idiomatic vs. Literal Aspect: She challenges the assumption that if aspect were compositional in idioms, the idiomatic and literal senses of a verb phrase would necessarily have the same aspectual class. She argues that aspect can be compositional in some idioms even if the resulting aspectual class differs from the literal usage.
Lexical Storage of Idiom Meaning: For schematic idioms, the meaning must be stored in a way that allows for further composition, including with aspectual information from other parts of the sentence. Aspectual features (like those in Krifka 1992) might be needed rather than storing a fixed aspectual class.
6. Theoretical Frameworks for Tense and Aspect:
Spatiotemporal Predicates: Hamida Demirdache and Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria propose analyzing tenses, aspects, and time adverbs uniformly as "spatiotemporal predicates" that order two time intervals: the Event-Time (EV-T) and the Assertion-Time (AST-T).
Temporal Anchoring in Subordinate Clauses: They discuss how subordinate clauses are temporally anchored to matrix clauses, either deictically (anchor-time = UT-T, yielding independent construal) or anaphorically (anchor-time = matrix AST-T or EV-T, yielding dependent construal). They introduce optimality conditions governing temporal computation.
Sequence of Tense: The analysis attempts to account for tense agreement and restrictions in subordinate clauses based on the interaction of these spatiotemporal predicates and anchoring mechanisms.
7. Future Time Reference:
Modality and Commitment: Kasia Jaszczolt argues that futurity is best handled by a modal operator, as the future shares properties with epistemic and deontic modal contexts. She introduces a modal operator on events, drawing on Grice's acceptability operator, to account for varying degrees of commitment to future eventualities.
Neo-Davidsonian Logical Form: She proposes a simplified neo-Davidsonian logical form to represent future time reference, incorporating a modality operator with a degree of granularity.
Cognitive Defaults and Word Meaning: The interpretation of future expressions is influenced by cognitive defaults, word meaning, and sentence structure.
8. Polarity and Sequence of Tense:
PRES as Anti-PAST Polarity Item: Pranav Anand and Valentine Hacquard explore sequence of tense phenomena, arguing that Present tense (PRES) in certain embedded clauses (like relative clauses) acts as an anti-PAST polarity item, requiring licensing or intervention when embedded under a Past tense.
Intervention by Future woll: They propose that the future auxiliary woll can act as an intervener, neutralizing illicit scopal relations between PRES and PAST.
De Re Interpretation: They also discuss how de re interpretations of tenses and individuals can affect sequence of tense patterns.
9. Reference Time:
Relating Situations: Carlota S. Smith discusses the notion of Reference Time (RT) as a crucial element in relating situations expressed in sentences in a principled manner.
Adverbial Evidence: Adverbs like already locate situations relative to a time talked about in the sentence, providing evidence for RT.
Aspectual Viewpoint and RT: In languages like Mandarin Chinese, aspectual viewpoint morphemes code the relation between Reference Time and Situation Time.
Default Temporal Location Inference: A default inference rule can derive the temporal location (Present or Past) of a situation based on its boundedness and its relation to the Situation Time interval (SitT).
This collection of excerpts highlights the ongoing research and diverse theoretical approaches within the study of tense, aspect, and modality, demonstrating the complexity and richness of these fundamental linguistic categories across different languages.
Quiz & Answer Key
Quiz
According to Rothstein, what is the "perfect puzzle"? Briefly describe two of the seemingly unrelated questions it encompasses regarding the present perfect.
What is the key characteristic of Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs) as described by Etxepare and Grohmann, and what element obligatorily follows them?
Name the three Japanese modal expressions discussed in the text and provide a brief English gloss for each.
What is "modal subordination" as defined in the text, and how does Karttunen describe the general logical form of discourses exhibiting this phenomenon?
According to the dynamic semantics presented, what is the core function of the modal "might" in terms of epistemic possibilities?
What does the text suggest about how Japanese anaphors interact with modals in a sentence? Provide a brief example of this interaction.
According to Demirdache and Uribe-Etxebarria, how are tenses, aspects, and time adverbs uniformly analyzed? What is the role of the "anchor-time" in subordinate clauses?
In Jaszczolt's discussion of futurity, how is the degree of commitment to a future eventuality represented, and what operator is proposed to handle future time reference?
According to Anand and Hacquard's analysis of sequence of tense, what is the "polarity condition" related to PRES and PAST, and how can a future tense like "woll" affect this relationship in embedded clauses?
According to Smith's perspective on reference time in tenseless languages like Mandarin and Navajo, what is the role of aspectual viewpoint morphemes in relation to Reference Time (RT) and Situation Time (SitT)?
Quiz Answer Key
The "perfect puzzle," according to Rothstein, refers to a number of seemingly unrelated questions surrounding the constraints on the present perfect. Two such questions include the variability in how the present perfect can be modified by temporal adverbials expressing past time and the apparent incompatibility of since-adverbials with adverbs like yesterday.
The key characteristic of Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs) is that the verbal predicate of an apparently independent root clause appears in infinitival form, often with an overt but not Case-marked subject. They are obligatorily followed by a Coda, which expresses the assertive force of the utterance.
The three Japanese modal expressions discussed are kamosirenai ('might'), hazu-da ('will definitely/must-COP'), and nitigainai ('will definitely/must').
Modal subordination is the phenomenon where the second sentence of a discourse is interpreted in a context "subordinated" to that introduced by the first semantic operator, allowing the operator to take scope over the second sentence. Karttunen states that such discourses have a logical form where the first sentence functions as the restrictor of a conditional clause, with the rest of the discourse as its consequent.
In the dynamic semantics presented, "might" intuitively involves an existential quantification over epistemic possibilities. Its core function includes testing the input epistemic state for possibilities that verify the proposition under its scope and then resetting the epistemic possibilities to support that proposition, thus supporting modal subordination.
The text suggests that Japanese anaphors can pick up the content under the scope of a modal even when they themselves appear in a modalized sentence. For example, in a sentence like "A wolf might come in. It might eat you," the pronoun "it" can refer back to "a wolf" even within the scope of another modal.
Demirdache and Uribe-Etxebarria analyze tenses, aspects, and time adverbs uniformly as spatiotemporal predicates that establish ordering relations between time intervals. The "anchor-time" in a subordinate clause is its external time argument, which can be either the utterance time (deictic anchoring) or a time argument in the matrix clause (anaphoric anchoring).
In Jaszczolt's discussion, the degree of commitment to a future eventuality is represented by the degree n of a modal operator Δ. She proposes using a modal operator on events, loosely modeled on Grice's acceptability operator, to handle future time reference, acknowledging varying degrees of commitment.
Anand and Hacquard's analysis proposes that PRES (present tense) is an anti-PAST (past tense) Polarity Item, meaning it cannot be c-commanded by PAST. A future tense like "woll" can act as an intervener in this polarity relation, neutralizing the illicit scopal relation between PRES and PAST in embedded clauses like relative clauses.
According to Smith, in tenseless languages, aspectual viewpoint morphemes code the relation between Reference Time (RT) and Situation Time (SitT). For instance, perfective morphemes like -le in Mandarin often convey that SitT precedes RT, while imperfectives like zai convey that SitT overlaps with RT.
Essay Questions
Discuss the concept of "epistemic evaluation time" as it relates to the interpretation of tense and modality, drawing on examples from the provided text, particularly the section on Dutch modals.
Compare and contrast the phenomenon of Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs) across the languages discussed in the text, focusing on the variations in temporal modification and the proposed syntactic structures that account for these differences.
Analyze the theoretical framework of dynamic semantics as presented in the text in relation to modal subordination. How does this framework explain the ability of certain modals to influence the interpretation of subsequent clauses in a discourse?
Evaluate the claim that tense, aspect, and time adverbs can be uniformly analyzed as spatiotemporal predicates, considering the arguments and examples provided by Demirdache and Uribe-Etxebarria.
Explore the different approaches to understanding future time reference presented in the text (e.g., as a modal operator vs. a tense), discussing the motivations and challenges associated with each perspective.
Glossary of Key Terms
Aspect: A grammatical category that expresses how an event or state unfolds in time (e.g., whether it is completed, ongoing, habitual).
Deictic: Referring to something through the context of the utterance, such as the speaker, the time of speaking, or the location.
Epistemic Modality: A type of modality that expresses the speaker's degree of certainty or belief about the truth of a proposition (e.g., might, must in their knowledge-related senses).
Event Time (ET): The time at which the event described by a verb phrase takes place.
Modal Subordination: A linguistic phenomenon where a subsequent clause in a discourse is interpreted as being within the scope of a modal operator introduced in a preceding clause.
Modality: A linguistic category that expresses possibilities, necessities, obligations, permissions, or speaker attitudes towards the truth or likelihood of a proposition.
Perfect (grammatical aspect): A grammatical aspect that typically indicates a past situation that has relevance to the present.
Reference Time (RT): A point in time relative to which the event time is located and evaluated; often linked to the topic time of a sentence.
Semantics: The study of meaning in language.
Syntax: The study of the structure of sentences and the rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences.
Tense: A grammatical category that locates a situation in time, usually relative to the moment of speaking (e.g., past, present, future).
Utterance Time (UT): The moment at which a sentence is spoken or uttered.
Timeline of Main Events
This timeline focuses on the linguistic phenomena and analyses discussed in the provided excerpts, rather than historical events.
1973: Lewis discusses partial ordering on epistemic possibilities, forming systems of spheres.
1987: Roberts dubs the phenomenon of subsequent sentences being interpreted in a context "subordinated" to the first semantic operator as modal subordination.
1988: Abusch presents work on sequence of tense, intensionality, and scope.
1989: Roberts illustrates modal subordination with examples involving "might."
1990: Hornstein publishes "As time goes by: tense and universal grammar." Davidsen-Nielsen publishes "Tense and Mood in English: A Comparison with Danish."
1991: Smith's work on the role of viewpoint aspect in focusing a subinterval within the temporal contour of an event is mentioned.
1992: Klein's work on temporal adverbials and reference time is mentioned. Ehrlich publishes "Hier und jetzt. Studien zur lokalen und temporalen Deixis des Deutschen." Diesing's theory regarding the VP-internal nature of weak determiners is introduced.
1993: Wilson and Sperber publish "Pragmatique et Temps." Stowell's manuscript "Syntax of Tense" is mentioned.
1995: Von Stechow presents a lexical entry for the future modal "woll." Klein publishes work defining Assertion-Time (AST-T). Stowell's work on the interpretation of the English preterit past is referenced.
1996: Enç discusses the properties shared by the future and modal contexts. Krifka proposes a [+telic] feature in the discussion of telic events.
1997: Frank provides an example illustrating modal subordination with negation. Giorgi and Pianesi's claim about Portuguese "ter" being a lexical verb is mentioned. Suzuki Kose discusses the function of the emphatic particle "yo" in Japanese.
1998: Partee, Hajičová, and Sgall discuss quantificational configurations. Laenzlinger briefly discusses verb raising to a vP-external projection. Kratzer introduces Abusch's Constraint regarding the binding of the highest tense in an attitude context. Abusch's framework for deriving the Present-in-the-Past reading is further developed.
1999: Cinque publishes "Adverbs and Functional Heads: A crosslinguistic perspective," relevant to the position of adverbs in clause structure.
2001: Iatridou, Anagnostopoulou, and Izvorski publish "Observations about the form and meaning of the perfect." Schmitt discusses Portuguese "ter." Grice proposes an Equivocality Thesis, suggesting all modal expressions can be subsumed under one general category.
2002: Condoravdi publishes "Temporal Interpretation of Modals: Modals for the Present and for the Past." Jackendoff observes the prevalence of idioms. McGinnis argues that the aspect of idiomatically interpreted verb phrases is derived by aspectual composition. Szabolcsi publishes "Positive polarity – Negative polarity."
2003: Grohmann and Etxepare argue that adverbs in Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs) are acceptable under certain conditions. Smith, Perkins, and Fernald's work on Navajo temporal adverbs is mentioned (in press).
2004: Gillies defines conditionals as introducing tests on information states (Ramsey test). Rothstein publishes "Issues in adverbial syntax."
2005: Etxepare and Grohmann provide a detailed semantic account of Adult Root Infinitives. McGinnis further discusses aspectual composition in idioms. Jaszczolt's work applying Default Semantics (DS) is mentioned. Smith and Erbaugh's work including an excerpt on Mandarin Chinese and Reference Time is cited.
2006: Stowell's further work on the interpretation of the English preterit past is referenced. Jaszczolt's work on futurity is mentioned.
2007: The publication "Recent Advances in the Syntax and Semantics of Tense, Aspect and Modality," from which these excerpts are taken, is published. Björn Rothstein proposes a modified ExtendedNow analysis for the present perfect, addressing the "perfect puzzle." Ricardo Etxepare and Kleanthes Grohmann investigate temporal and aspectual variation in Adult Root Infinitives. Hamida Demirdache and Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria discuss tenses, aspects, and time adverbs as spatiotemporal predicates and economy constraints on temporal subordination. Kasia Jaszczolt explores future time reference through a modal operator in Default Semantics. Sheila Glasbey examines aspectual composition in idioms. Tim Stowell discusses the syntax of tense, including the perfect as a PAST polarity item. Pranav Anand and Valentine Hacquard analyze sequence of tense phenomena and Abusch's Constraint. Carlota S. Smith discusses the concept of Reference Time without tense, particularly in Mandarin Chinese and Navajo.
Cast of Characters
Björn Rothstein: Proposes a novel analysis of the present perfect, labeled the "perfect puzzle," focusing on the variability in modification by temporal adverbials and the semantic boundaries of the perfect time span in different languages (e.g., German vs. Swedish and English). He introduces the notion of "p(ositional)-specific" temporal expressions.
Ricardo Etxepare: Co-authors work with Kleanthes Grohmann investigating the phenomenon of Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs) across various languages, analyzing their syntactic properties, connectivity relations with the "Coda," and temporal and aspectual variations.
Kleanthes Grohmann: Co-authors work with Ricardo Etxepare on Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs), focusing on their structure, the acceptability of different types of adverbs within them, and quantificational restrictions on the subject.
Roberts (unspecified first name): Introduced the term modal subordination to describe the phenomenon where subsequent sentences in a discourse are interpreted within the modal context established by a preceding sentence.
Kartunnen (unspecified first name): Proposed that discourses exhibiting modal subordination have a logical form where the first sentence acts as the restrictor of a conditional clause.
Frank (unspecified first name): Provided an example of modal subordination involving a negated sentence.
Ken-ichiro Shirai: Provided an example of modal subordination occurring with the sentence-final emphatic particle "yo" in Japanese.
Suzuki Kose: Discussed the function of the Japanese emphatic particle "yo" as marking new or important information for the hearer.
Ronny Boogaart: Discusses the incompatibility of the perfect aspect with epistemic modality in languages like Dutch, where modal verbs can have perfect forms.
Lewis (unspecified first name): Discussed partial ordering on epistemic possibilities and the concept of de re interpretation mediated by contextual acquaintance relations.
Cinque, G.: Author of work on adverbs and functional heads, relevant to the discussion of adverb placement.
Condoravdi, C.: Author of work on the temporal interpretation of modals.
Davidsen-Nielsen, N.: Author of a comparative study of tense and mood in English and Danish.
Ehrlich, S.: Author of work on point of view in linguistic analysis.
Glasbey, Sheila: Author of the section on aspectual composition in idioms, arguing that idiom aspect can be compositional even if it differs from the literal sense.
Jackendoff (unspecified first name): Noted the significant number of idioms in language.
McGinnis (unspecified first name): Argued for aspectual composition in idiomatically interpreted verb phrases.
Krifka (unspecified first name): Proposed aspectual features and discussed telic events.
Rothstein, Björn: See above.
Ehrich, Veronika: Author of work on local and temporal deixis in German.
Hornstein, Norbert: Author of "As time goes by: tense and universal grammar."
Iatridou, Sabine, Elena Anagnostopoulou, and Roumyana Izvorski: Authors of work on the form and meaning of the perfect.
Stowell, Tim: Discusses the interpretation of tense in subordinate clauses and proposes that the English preterit past involves two distinct tenses (PAST and PRESENT). He also suggests the perfect functions as a PAST polarity item.
Abusch, Dorit: Presented work on sequence of tense and developed a system for deriving temporal readings, including Present-in-the-Past.
Kratzer (unspecified first name): Introduced Abusch's Constraint regarding the binding of tense in attitude contexts.
von Stechow, Arnim: Provided a lexical entry for the future modal "woll."
Diesing (unspecified first name): Proposed that weak determiners must be VP-internal.
Lewis (unspecified first name): Discussed de re interpretation.
Lieberman (LIEU?) (unspecified first name): Author of "A plea for Monsters."
Szabolcsi, Anna: Author of work on positive and negative polarity.
Giorgi, Alessandra and Fabio Pianesi: Claimed that Portuguese "ter" is a lexical verb.
Gonçalves (unspecified first name): Offered a different perspective on Portuguese "ter."
Schmitt (unspecified first name): Also discussed Portuguese "ter."
Demirdache, Hamida and Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria: Analyzed tenses, aspects, and time adverbs as spatiotemporal predicates and discussed economy constraints on temporal subordination, introducing concepts like Assertion-Time (AST-T) and anchor-time.
Klein (unspecified first name): Defined Assertion-Time (AST-T) and worked on temporal reference.
Smith (unspecified first name): Discussed the role of viewpoint aspect and analyzed tense and aspect in Mandarin Chinese and Navajo, introducing the concept of Reference Time (RT) and different aspectual morphemes.
Erbaugh (unspecified first name): Co-authored work with Smith on Mandarin Chinese.
Perkins (unspecified first name) and Fernald (unspecified first name): Co-authored work with Smith on Navajo.
Jaszczolt, Kasia: Explores future time reference using a modal operator within Default Semantics (DS), considering different degrees of commitment to future eventualities.
Abusch, Dorit: See above.
Carston, Robyn: Author of work on implicature, explicature, and truth-theoretic semantics.
Anand, Pranav and Valentine Hacquard: Analyzed sequence of tense, particularly the licensing of PRES under PAST, and discussed Abusch's Constraint and de re interpretations.
Partee, Barbara H., Eva Hajičová, and Petr Sgall: Authors of work on quantificational configurations.
Gillies (unspecified first name): Defined conditionals based on the Ramsey test.
Wilson, D. and D. Sperber: Authors of work on pragmatics and time.
FAQ
1. What is the "perfect puzzle" discussed in relation to the present perfect tense?
The "perfect puzzle" refers to a set of seemingly unrelated constraints and behaviors associated with the present perfect tense that are difficult to account for under a unified analysis. These issues include the variability in how the present perfect can be modified by temporal adverbs expressing past time (e.g., its compatibility with "two weeks ago" in some languages but not others), the apparent incompatibility of "since"-adverbials with adverbs like "yesterday," and the restriction that both the event time and the reference time of a perfect construction cannot typically be specified by positional time adverbials simultaneously. Björn Rothstein's work attempts to provide a unifying account for these phenomena, proposing revisions related to the dynamic boundaries of the perfect time span (ExtendedNow) and the notion of positional-specific temporal adverbials.
2. What are Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs) and what are their key characteristics?
Adult Root Infinitives (ARIs) are a phenomenon found in various languages where a verb in an apparently independent root clause appears in the infinitive form, even with an overt subject. Key characteristics of ARIs include the subject not being obviously Case-marked (e.g., accusative in English), the obligatory presence of a following "Coda" clause that expresses the exclamative or illocutionary force of the utterance, and syntactic connectivity between the ARI and the Coda, such as Negative Polarity Item (NPI) licensing. ARIs are often used to express surprise, disbelief, or strong emotion.
3. How do Japanese modal expressions like kamosirenai, hazu-da, and nitigainai differ from English modals in terms of tense?
Unlike English modals, which generally have a single tense marking, Japanese sentences with modals exhibit two tense positions: an internal tense within the embedded sentence and an external tense on the modal itself. This structural difference affects the possible interpretations of the modals. For instance, hazu-da can produce a counterfactual or doubting flavor when used in lawlike statements, whereas nitigainai does not. Additionally, these modals interact differently with evidential markers; for example, an evidential rasii cannot typically intervene between a subject and nitigainai.
4. What is "modal subordination" and how is it exemplified in discourse?
Modal subordination is a phenomenon where a sentence in a discourse is interpreted as being within the scope of a modal operator introduced by a preceding sentence, even though the second sentence itself may not contain an explicit modal. This is often seen in sequences where an indefinite introduces a potential entity or situation, and subsequent sentences refer back to that entity or situation as if it were under the initial modal's scope. Examples include "A wolf might come in. It would eat you first," where the second sentence's "would" is interpreted relative to the possibility introduced by "might" in the first sentence.
5. How does the paper discuss the interaction of Japanese modals with discourse connectives and topics in the context of modal subordination?
The paper highlights that in Japanese, anaphors and discourse connectives like sosite (then), sorede (and then), and sorekara (after that) can pick up the content under the scope of a modal in a preceding sentence, even when they themselves appear in a modalized sentence. This suggests that these elements can access and refer to the hypothetical or modalized information. Furthermore, the topic marker -wa in Japanese can improve the felicity of modally subordinated discourses when attached to a pronoun coreferential with the indefinite in the first sentence, indicating that topic marking plays a role in establishing the context for modal subordination.
6. What are some of the challenges in applying the perfect aspect to epistemic modals in languages like Dutch, and how does it relate to the concept of an "epistemic evaluation time"?
In languages like Dutch, unlike English, modal verbs can have perfect forms, leading to observed incompatibilities between the perfect aspect and epistemic modality. For example, while one can say "He must be ill," the perfect form "He has been forced to be ill" shifts the meaning away from a purely epistemic assessment of his current state. This is linked to the idea that epistemic modals require an "epistemic evaluation time," which is typically the moment of speech when the modal expresses a judgment about current knowledge. When a modal is in the present tense, the speech time serves as this evaluation time. The introduction of past or perfect marking on epistemic modals complicates this, as it can interfere with or shift this inherent epistemic evaluation time, leading to semantic restrictions.
7. How does the analysis of tense, aspect, and time adverbs as "spatiotemporal predicates" contribute to understanding temporal subordination in clauses?
The analysis of tense, aspect, and time adverbs as spatiotemporal predicates posits that they function similarly to prepositions, establishing ordering relations (e.g., after, within, before) between time intervals. Tenses and aspects relate the event time (EV-T) to the assertion time (AST-T) and utterance time (UT-T), while time adverbs relate the AST-T to a specific temporal DP. In subordinate clauses, the tense is anchored to a time in the matrix clause, either deictically (to UT-T) or anaphorically (to the matrix AST-T or EV-T). This framework helps explain constraints on temporal subordination by examining whether the resulting temporal relations between clauses are logically consistent and satisfy economy principles, such as avoiding the creation of uninterpretable or contradictory temporal orderings.
8. How does the concept of "commitment" and modality relate to the expression of future time in the framework of Default Semantics (DS)?
In Default Semantics (DS), the expression of future time is argued to involve a modal operator, reflecting varying degrees of "commitment" to the prospect of the stated eventuality taking place. Different grammatical forms used to express the future (e.g., regular future, futurative progressive, "tenseless future") are analyzed as carrying different degrees or granularities of this modal commitment. The framework uses a neo-Davidsonian logical form incorporating a modal operator (Δ) with a degree of commitment (n) to represent these nuances. The variation in commitment and modality associated with different future expressions is considered a key aspect of their semantic interpretation, influencing how strongly the speaker is taken to believe or assert that the future event will occur.
Table of Contents with Timestamps
00:00 - 00:15: Introduction
Opening remarks introducing Heliox podcast and its approach to deep conversations
00:25 - 00:58: Show Opening
Hosts introduce the Deep Dive format and the episode's focus on language elements
00:58 - 01:41: Tense, Aspect, and Modality Overview
Introduction to the core linguistic concepts of tense, aspect, and modality as building blocks of language
01:42 - 02:55: Research Context
Discussion of the academic significance of these topics, referencing the Kronos Colloquium and explaining why these linguistic features matter
02:55 - 04:00: Syntax and Semantics
Explanation of how these features affect sentence structure and meaning across languages
04:00 - 06:55: Modality in Language
Deep dive into Ronnie Bugart's work on epistemic modals and past imperfect forms
06:55 - 10:42: Japanese Modal Expressions
Analysis of Japanese modal particles (hazu, nitiganei, komosirini) and their unique characteristics
10:42 - 12:22: Context and Modal Expressions
How context affects the acceptability of different modal expressions
12:22 - 16:10: Modal Subordination
Exploration of how modals depend on each other in discourse, with Japanese examples
16:10 - 17:35: The Idiom Example
Analysis of how idioms like "paint the town red" challenge conventional aspectual classification
17:35 - 23:21: The Present Perfect Puzzle
Detailed examination of the "Present Perfect Puzzle" and how it differs across languages
23:21 - 26:34: Tense in Narrative Discourse
Discussion of Ari Molendyke's work on French imperfect and English progressive tenses
26:34 - 28:29: Tim Stoll's Perspective on Tense
Exploration of tense as referential expressions related to reference time
28:29 - 28:56: Closing
Conclusion and invitation to explore other podcast episodes and related content
Index with Timestamps
accomplishment, 17:31, 17:37, 18:20
activity, 17:55, 18:46, 19:05
adjunct-based approaches, 20:56
adverbials, 17:47, 17:55, 18:04, 18:14, 19:43, 20:43, 21:17
anaphoric reference, 23:43, 23:47
Anthropic, 28:44
aspect, 00:47, 01:05, 01:08, 05:09, 05:14, 09:06, 10:20, 16:54, 17:27, 21:16, 23:57
aspectual class, 18:22, 19:05
aspectual composition, 19:13
aspectual viewpoint, 25:12
Bjorn Rothstein, 21:26
boundary dissolution, 28:34
Bugart, Ronnie, 04:30, 05:09, 07:17, 07:21
causal clauses, 11:24
counterfactual, 05:28, 12:02
discourse connectives, 16:24
durational adverbials, 21:07
Dutch, 05:08
dynamic semantic approach, 13:13
emotional, 05:28, 09:00, 09:34, 13:08, 16:33, 28:47
English, 05:08, 10:13, 13:13, 13:37, 14:01, 14:09, 19:43, 19:55, 21:55, 23:57, 24:02, 24:15, 24:26, 24:54, 25:09, 25:12, 25:45
epistemic modality, 04:35, 06:29
epistemic modals, 04:30, 04:37, 14:35
epistemic possibility, 10:03
epistemic readings, 04:58
event time, 07:55, 20:04, 20:13, 20:20, 22:04, 22:26, 22:33, 26:28, 26:34
evidential, 08:15, 11:33, 11:37, 13:03, 14:35, 15:25
existential modals, 14:00
fake object resultatives, 18:34
French, 23:29, 23:34, 23:57, 24:15, 24:34, 25:33
frequency adverbials, 21:07
German, 13:13, 19:43, 19:55, 21:42, 21:50
Heliox, 00:00, 28:40
Hypothetical, 05:28, 09:26, 16:54
idiom, 17:31, 17:40, 17:48, 18:20, 18:30
imperfect, 04:30, 05:14, 23:29, 23:57, 24:38, 25:30, 25:45
imperfective aspect, 05:20, 06:29
Japanese, 08:04, 08:14, 10:12, 10:40, 12:24, 12:55, 14:54, 15:05, 16:24
Klein's topic time, 26:27, 26:43
modal dependency, 15:15
modal logic, 08:46
modal subordination, 08:01, 10:20, 12:50, 13:07, 13:53, 14:00, 15:44, 16:55
modality, 00:47, 01:12, 01:13, 01:17, 04:03, 04:07, 05:09, 06:29, 08:04, 08:46, 13:13
modals, 04:35, 04:38, 04:45, 07:55, 09:13, 09:19, 09:54, 12:50, 13:36, 14:09
nominal expression, 10:42
P-definiteness constraint, 20:13, 20:18, 20:28
paint the town red, 17:31, 17:40, 17:47
past tense, 01:02, 07:05, 07:16, 07:36, 08:51, 23:43, 26:05, 26:50, 27:26
perfect time span, 22:04, 22:51, 23:03, 23:21
polarity marker, 27:33
positional temporal adverbials, 19:43, 20:43, 21:07
possibility, 00:57, 01:17, 07:08, 13:25, 13:45, 14:14, 15:45
pragmatics, 01:31, 03:46, 07:21, 20:28
predicate, 04:12, 10:48, 26:37
present perfect, 06:36, 19:24, 21:55, 22:01, 22:58
pronouns, 16:31, 26:12, 27:54
referential expressions, 26:08, 26:11, 27:52
research papers, 01:26
resultatives, 18:34
sequence of tense, 27:02
simple past, 23:34, 24:15, 24:18, 24:31, 25:12, 25:52, 27:33
stative verbs, 14:24
syntactic restrictions, 20:40
syntax, 01:31, 03:05, 03:20, 03:58
temporal expressions, 08:35, 09:06
tense logic, 08:46
tense, 01:02, 01:05, 07:05, 07:32, 08:35, 08:46, 09:13, 10:12, 23:29, 25:57, 26:02, 26:08, 26:11, 26:17, 26:37, 27:21, 27:27, 27:43, 27:49
tenses, 09:00, 26:08, 26:11, 26:17, 26:20, 27:33, 27:49, 27:52
Tim Stoll, 25:56
topic time, 26:27, 26:42
truth statement, 16:14
utterance time, 26:05, 26:08, 26:20
Poll
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