Determinación y análisis de factores resultantes

In the present section we outline a generative strategy for grammatical tense. The procedure will be largely based on the observations we made above regarding interpretational constraints on sequential organization and discourse relations. In addition, we will argue that the decision procedure for the use of compound

constructions will rely on the notion of discourse topic, of which we will argue the use of compound grammatical tenses may be indicative. One group of compound tense constructions that we have yet to

introduce arewould-constructions which, like the pluperfect, utilize a temporal reference in the past, but which, unlike the pluperfect, describe an event as occurring after the relevant reference point, though still in the past. It will be useful to have this construction at our disposal and we introduce a rule for its employment that

analogous to our rule for the pluperfect/future perfect. (Embarrassingly, we are ignorant to any other name for this construction and will resort to calling it awould-construction throughout the remainder of the manuscript.)

WOULD-TEMP: A constituentαmay be awould-construction only if

(i) α_{contains a temporal adverbial}ζ_{denoting a time}t, eαis such that eα_{\n, and e}α_{is explicitly indicated inαas being such thatt}ζ_\eα

or

(ii) αis connected to some segmentβand

[eα_\n∧eβ_{\ n] and e}β_\eα_.

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(2.64) John stood up. Bill greeted him. (2.65) Bill greeted John. John had stood up. (2.66) John had stood up. Bill greeted him. (2.67) John stood up. Bill would greet him.

We remarked above that our interpretational constraintτ_-TEMP, which was meant to capture the status of

narrationthe relation which would be inferred as a default between two constituents only did half the job, since an inference ofnarrationwould also entail the inference of a what A&L call a “common topic.” Below is a constraint which will do the other half of that job.

+-TOPIC: Where two constituentsαandβare such that…+,α,β ,

interpretα_andβ_{as having a common topic.}

It is our belief that of the discourses in (2.64) through (2.67), only one of these will be interpreted as having a common topic, namely (2.64). For we believe that, for example, a discourse like (2.67) will be interpreted as an expression in which the ‘main point’ is the standing-up event and that the greeting event described in that discourse is more or less being placed in the background (we are not using this term in the sense of a discourse relation here.) Similarly, we think that (2.65) and (2.66) both have the effect of marginalizing the standing-up event and that a speaker who uttered one of these discourses could be said to be focusing on a description of the greeting. We propose the following interpretational constraints along this line.

TOPICSHIFT: Whereαandβare constituents and…τ,α,β and eβ\eα,

interpretα_{as the discourse topic.}

TOPICMARK: Whereαandβare constituents and…τ_,α_,β and eα\eβ, then,

ifα_{uses a compound tense construction, interpret}β_{as the discourse topic.}

ifβ_{uses a compound tense construction, interpret}α_{as the discourse topic.}

Admittedly, these effects are perhaps least noticeable when one considers cases ofnarration, but we detect a strong partiality for two of the three sequences below and believe that two are optimal, while the other is suboptimal.

(2.68) John was struck by lightning. He died. (2.69) John died. He was struck by lightning. (2.70) John died. He had been struck by lightning.

We think that, if John’s death is the topic of the discourse, then (2.69) and (2.70) are preferable to (2.68). Further, we could force the generation of these two, given the complicit power of

+-TOPICand BIDIRECTon the grounds that (2.68) will be interpreted as a discourse in which there is a common

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+-TOPIC= TOPICMARK= TOPICSHIFT>> CONSISTENT>>τ-TEMP

We rank TOPICMARKand TOPICSHIFTabove CONSISTENT, as it is stipulated in the criteria forelaborationthat to

inferelaboration, one must infer that the elaborative segment is the topic of the segment it elaborates; we believe this inference may potentially be overridden.

The name of the constraint TOPICMARKis no accident for, on the generative side, following the line of

Nilsenová [Nils00], we believe that economy considerations come into play in the decision of whether or not compound tenses are used and that, in some sense, a tense like the pluperfect is rightly seen as “...a marked form of expressing past.” [Ibid. abstract] and that it is employed only at the cost of compromising speaker effort. We will present some convincing evidence for this shortly.

ECON: Do not use compound tenses

Where we writeT[AB] we take this to mean that A and B have a common topic. Where we write [TAB], we

mean that A is the discourse topic and where we write [ATB], we mean that B is the discourse topic. Below is a

tableau in which (2.67) is evaluated from an interpretational standpoint. We will omit candidates that violate hard constraints and leave out consideration of cue words for lack of space.

[John stood up Bill would greet him]

T

M

+-T

T

[greeted(j, b)

stood-up(b)

]

e

e

!

T

greeted(j, b)

stood-up(b)

e

e

!

greeted(j, b)

stood-up(b)

e

e

Given these results, we get the following outcome from a generative point of view.

greeted(j, b)eα ∧Tstood-up(b)eβ∧eα\ eβ BIDIRECT

E

[John greeted Bill Bill stood up]

!

[Bill stood up John greeted him]

!

[John had greeted Bill Bill stood up]

[Bill stood up John had greeted him]

[John greeted Bill Bill would stand up]

!

The first candidate violates BIDIRECTby virtue of the fact that the optimal interpretation for this sequence is one

which involves a common topic. The second candidate violates BIDIRECTbecause the optimal interpretation for

that discourse is one which involves a standing-up event followed by a greeting event. The final candidate violates BIDIRECT, as it will be interpreted as being such that the eventgreeted(j, b)eαis the discourse topic.

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