Judith Tonhauser

This talk explores crosslinguistic variation in the temporal semantics  of noun phrases. The starting point of the talk is the observation that, while  both nominal and verbal predicates are temporally interpreted, the location of the  time at which a nominal predicate (embedded in a noun phrase) is interpreted is more  variable than that of the time of a verbal predicate (that is the main  syntactic predicate of the sentence):

(1) Yesterday every fugitive was in jail.               (a version of Enc's 1981  example)

In a context that talks about a group of fugitives (e.g. from a  particular country), the times at which the nominal predicate "fugitive" and the verbal  predicate "be (in jail)" in (1) are interpreted are located at the time denoted by the temporal adverb "yesterday": the sentence expresses that the individuals were  fugitives yesterday and were in jail yesterday. In contrast, in a context where  we've been hearing about some individuals who escaped from prison last week and who had been chased across the country, (1) is taken to mean that some set  of individuals who were fugitives at a time prior to yesterday were in jail  yesterday: while the verb "be (in jail)" is still interpreted at the time denoted by  "yesterday", the time at which the nominal predicate "fugitive" is interpreted is a time prior  to yesterday.

In this talk, I propose that the temporal interpretation of noun  phrases and verb phrases is parallel (to a certain extent) in that it relies on the  same mechanism of temporal anaphora resolution (contrary to e.g. Musan 1995, 1999,  Kusumoto 2005 who assume that two distinct mechanisms are involved in the  temporal interpretation of noun phrases and verb phrases). According to my  proposal,
differences in the temporal interpretation of the two types of phrases  are attributed to differences in how noun phrases and verb phrases are interpreted in  context, and, hence, how the temporal anaphora of the two types of phrases are  resolved. Using data from Guarani, Yucatec Maya, English, and St'at'imcets, I  identify crosslinguistic predictions made by the proposal for the temporal  interpretation of noun phrases. While there is variation in the lexical and  morphological inventory of nominal temporal markers, and in how context affects noun phrase  temporal interpretation, I argue that there is currently no evidence for  nominal tense playing
a role in the temporal interpretation of noun phrases (contrary to  e.g. Lecarme 1996, Wiltschko 2003).
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References:
Enc, M. (1981). Tense without Scope. An Analysis of Nouns of  Indexicals. Ph.D. Thesis, Univesity of Wisconsin, Madison.

Kusumoto, K. (2005). On the quantification over times in natural  language. Natural Language Semantics, 13: 317-357.

Lecarme, J. (1996). Tense in the nominal system: The Somali DP. In J.  Lecarme, J. Lowenstamm and U. Shlonsky, eds. Studies in Afroasiatic Grammar,  159-178. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.

Musan, R. (1995). On the Temporal Interpretation of Noun Phrases.  Ph.D. Thesis, MIT.

Musan, R. (1999). Temporal interpretation and information-status of  noun phrases. Linguistics and Philosophy 22: 621-661.

Wiltschko, M. (2003). On the interpretability of tense on D and its  consequences for case theory. Lingua 113: 659-969.