Little T&A

[Paul]

For those of you interested in the theoretical ground of this discussion, I can offer only this meager fare.

Most modern theories of tense and aspect developed in response to a very small section in Hans Reichenbach's "Elements of Symbolic Logic" (1947). Reichenbach there considers, in general terms, the difference among these three sentences:

I have lost my keys.
I lost my keys.
I had lost my keys.

Each sentence describes the same PAST event. Yet each describes the event with a different tense: perfect, simple past, and pluperfect, respectively. Even if many English speakers cannot state explicitly how these tense forms differ, most will use such constructions correctly.

Specifically, then, what temporal relationships do these tense forms grammaticalize?

Reichenbach answers this question by defining three points in time: the time of speaking (tS), the time of the event (tE), and the reference time (tR). This reference point, the most controversial element in Reichenbach's theory, can be thought of as the time that is being talked about.

Reichenbach's theory permits an elegant distinction between the pluperfect and simple past. The difference between them is the location of tR in relation to tS and tE. Thus the pluperfect

I had lost my keys.

displays these relationships (earlier time is on the left):

 tE       tR      tS
---------------------->

while the simple past

I lost my keys.

displays these relationships:

 tE=tR      tS
---------------------->

In each case the event occurs before the utterance (tE < tS). What distinguishes the pluperfect from the simple past is the time that is being talked about, tR. In the pluperfect tR occurs after tE, but before tS, i.e., tE < tR < tS. The temporal relationships between tE and tR in the pluperfect can be made more explicit by adding the adverbials "already" and "then":

I had already lost my keys by then.
               tE                               tR

But in the simple past tR is identical to tE, i.e., the time being talked about is simply the time when the keys were lost.

Reichenbach is thus able to characterize the perfect tense "I have lost my keys" as

 tE      tR=tS
---------------------->

In the perfect tR is identical to tS, i.e., the time being talked about is the present moment, the time of the utterance. As I speak the sentence my keys are lost.

I hope this is at least slightly clearer than mud. If not, please ask and I will try to clarify.

Cordially,

Paul

[swiftnicholas]

Thanks Paul, this is very interesting. I especially liked the symbolic representations, I found them very helpful. I know you said that you had recently discovered this information, but it would make a great Textkit tutorial, so that it doesn't get pushed quickly out of sight. I just thought I would mention the idea, although I'm sure you're busy enough.

Thanks again,
Nick

[Paul]

Thanks Nick.

Let me think about your tutorial suggestion. It might be useful to have a more advanced version of the original "aspect" tutorial that Will and I wrote.

Cordially,

Paul

[PeterD]

Most modern theories of tense and aspect developed in response to a very small section in Hans Reichenbach's "Elements of Symbolic Logic" (1947). Reichenbach there considers, in general terms, the difference among these three sentences:

I have lost my keys.
I lost my keys.
I had lost my keys.

Each sentence describes the same PAST event. Yet each describes the event with a different tense: perfect, simple past, and pluperfect, respectively. Even if many English speakers cannot state explicitly how these tense forms differ, most will use such constructions correctly.

What I really appreciated in reading Mollin's text, An Introduction to Ancient Greek, several years ago, was not only its thoroughness in explaining the Greek verb system but also its approach---stressing the role of the grammatical aspect (progressive, aorist, and perfect) of the Greek verb rather than its tense, and tense simply meant past, present, and future, none of this "imperfect," "simple past" tense, etc. baloney that I always found to be confusing whether it was learning Greek or any other language. I thought Mollin's approach was brilliant.

~Peter

p.s. I just got around to reading Mollin's text, again, now that I finally purchased a copy.