Original essays by philosophers of language and philosophers of time exploring the semantics and metaphysics of tense.

Using Reichenbach's (1947) theory of tenses and temporal structures as a point of departure, McGilvray modifies it to produce a theory of his own. Analysing the difficulties Reichenbach's theory has in explaining the relationship of a speaker to a world, he introduces a new model for this relationship based on the three-interval temporal topology that Reichenbachian theory assigns to the sentences of natural languages. McGilvray explains and defends in detail Reichenbach's theory of tense and temporal structure, criticising and rejecting the major rival theory, found in tense logic. He also applies Reichenbach's nonstandard topology to English, showing that it is correct for the language. A significant aspect of McGilvray's study is the supplementing of Reichenbach's topology by including speakers, sentences, situations, and things spoken about with the temporal intervals. McGilvray relocates and reinterprets a prime source of faulty intuitions concerning time and tense -- our feeling that the past, present, and future must be thought of in terms of the settled, the immediate, and the unsettled. He uses his theory to explain the temporal and semantic structure of complex constructions in English, including propositional attitudes, modals, and conditionals. As well, he adapts the structure that Reichenbach's theory assigns to sentences to the aspects perfective (complete) and imperfective (incomplete). The novel view of temporal and semantic structure developed by McGilvray touches on virtually all the puzzles concerning the philosophy of language -- meaning and meaningfulness, the nature of reference, truth, propositions, and worldmaking. His emphasis is on how the speaker, by articulating sentences and understanding them, is both free and constrained -- free to describe something which can be located at any time and in any world, but constrained by the beliefs, evidence, information, and commitments held or made at the time of speech.

Explores the relationship between the present tense and the conceptualisation of 'presence' in Greek from a cognitive perspective.

This study presents a comparative approach to a universal theory of TENSE, ASPECT and MOOD, combining the methods of comparative and historical linguistics, fieldwork, text linguistics, and philology. The parts of the book discuss and describe (i) the concepts of TENSE, ASPECT and MOOD; (ii) the Tibetan system of RELATIVE TENSE and aspectual values, with main sections on Old and Classical Tibetan, “Lhasa” Tibetan, and East Tibetan (Amdo and Kham); and (iii) West Tibetan (Ladakhi, Purik, Balti); Part (iv) presents the comparative view. Discussing the similarities and differences of temporal and aspectual concepts, the study rejects the general claim that ASPECT is a linguistic universal. A new linguistic concept, FRAMING, is introduced in order to account for the aspect-like conceptualisations found in, e.g., English. The concept of RELATIVE TENSE or taxis, may likewise not be universal. Among the Tibetan varieties, West Tibetan is unique in having fully grammaticalized the concept of ABSOLUTE TENSE. West Tibetan is compared diachronically with Old and Classical Tibetan (documented since the mid 8th century) and synchronically with several contemporary Tibetan varieties. The grammaticalized forms of each variety are described on the basis of their employment in discourse. The underlying general function of the Tibetan verbal system is thus shown to be that of RELATIVE TENSE. Secondary aspectual functions are described for restricted contexts. A special focus on the pragmatic or metaphorical use of present tense constructions in Tibetan leads to a typology of narrative conventions. The last part also offers some suggestions for the reconstruction of the Proto-Tibetan verb system.

First published in 1991, this book looks at tense in English, one of the most controversial areas of grammar. Prior to the book’s original publication, the problems and interest in the subject had led to an impressive number of books and articles. Yet, despite the amount of work produced, nothing approaching a consensus had emerged, merely a series of conflicting theories and analyses. Here, Renaat Declerck provides a framework for a theoretical instrument which will enable the linguist to interpret the data correctly. The book is primarily theoretical in nature, but offers descriptive theory and a discussion of the various tenses which will make it a valuable tool for those teaching English. Theoretical and applied linguists will find this an important contribution to the debate on tense and a worthy starting point for future research. The book is not written from the viewpoint of any particular linguistic theory and does not presuppose any knowledge of tense theory, it is a readable and reliable guide to the area.

Bernard Comrie introduces readers to the range of variation found in tense systems across the languages of the world.

The book puts forth an exciting hypothesis for the typologist. Its major claim is that languages can generally be regarded as belonging to a tense-prominent, aspect-prominent or mood-prominent language type. This grouping can be based upon the relative prominence that languages attach to one or the other of the three verbal categories, namely tense, aspect and mood, by grammaticalizing the chosen category to a greater degree than others, and by making it more obligatory, more systematic and more pervasive than others. The grouping, however, involves a gradation, as is indeed the case with other typological groupings, with some languages manifesting the relevant characteristic more strikingly than others. There are several characteristics that can be correlated with the relative prominence that languages attach to verbal categories. For example, tense-prominent languages tend to have mostly active but not stative verbs. They also tend to keep adjectives as a distinct category, or group them with nouns but not with verbs. Verbal forms used for foregrounding generally belong to the most prominent verbal category. These and other similar correlations make this typological classification worth pursuing. The book also contains a descriptive study of the three verbal categories.

Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory.

This study offers a synchronic and diachronic account of the Biblical Hebrew verbal tense system during the Second Temple period, based on the books of Esther, Daniel, and Ezra and Nehemiah, along with the non-synoptic parts of Chronicles.

Many grammatical issues of Archaic and Medieval Chinese still lack a comprehensive analysis. The book provides the first thorough investigation of the syntactic and semantic constraints of the linguistic categories tense and aspect and their relation with the lexical aspect of the verb in Han period Chinese. The author uncovers fascinating details of a language with a highly restricted verbal morphology.