Tense markers are often described as “locating” a situation in time, as seen in the following widely-cited definitions of tense (9):
(9) a. “Tense is grammaticalised expression of location in time… [T]enses locate situations either at the same time as the present moment…, or prior to the present moment, or subsequent to the present moment.” (Comrie 1985: 9, 14)
b. “Tense refers to the grammatical expression of the time of the situation described in the proposition, relative to some other time.” (Bybee 1992: 144)
These definitions state that tense markers specify the time of a situation relative to some other time, generally the “present moment” (= the time of speaking). However, as Klein (1994) points out, examples like the following seem to pose a problem for the claim that tense “locates situations in time”:
(10) a. I took a cab back to the hotel. The cab driver was Latvian.7
b. They found John in the bathtub. He was dead.8
c. Tuesday morning we ate leftovers from Chili’s for breakfast and checked out of the Little America Hotel… The Grand Canyon was enormous. We walked along the rim taking pictures amazed at how beautiful and massive the canyon is.9
If the past tense in the italicized portions of these examples indicates that the described situation is located prior to the time of speaking, does that mean that the cab driver was no longer Latvian at the time of speaking, or that John was no longer dead at the time of speaking, or that the Grand Canyon was no longer enormous at the time of speaking? In light of examples like these, Klein suggests that tense actually locates or restricts the speaker’s assertion, rather than locating the situation itself. That is, tense indicates the location of the time period about which the speaker is making a claim.
Klein uses the term Topic Time to refer to the time period about which the speaker is making a claim, or in his words, “the time span to which the speaker’s claim on this occasion is confined” (1994:4). This choice of terminology builds on the widely used definition of “Topic” as “what we are talking about.” So Topic Time is the time span that we are talking about. Klein distinguishes Topic Time (TT) from the two other significant times mentioned above: TSit, the time of the event or situation which is being described; and TU, the Time of Utterance (=time of speaking).10
The Topic Time can be specified by time adverbs like yesterday or next year, or by temporal adverbial clauses as seen in example (2) above (When I got home from the hospital). It can also be determined by the context. For example, in a narrative sequence like that in (10c), the Topic Time is partly determined by the clause’s position in the sequence. Event-type verbs in the simple past tense move the Topic Time forward, whereas stative predicates in the simple past tense inherit the Topic Time from the previous main-line event. The italicized portion of that example makes an assertion only about the Topic Time at that stage of the narrative; no assertion is made about the Time of Utterance.
Klein (1994: 4) describes an imaginary mini-dialogue between a judge and a witness in a courtroom. He points out that the second sentence of the witness’s reply cannot be felicitously expressed in the present tense, even though the book in question is presumably still in Russian at the time of speaking. That is because the judge’s question establishes a specific topic time (when you looked into the room) prior to the time of the current speech event, and any felicitous reply must be relevant to the same topic time.
(11) Judge: What did you notice when you looked into the room?
Witness: There was a book on the table. It was/#is in Russian.11
Klein assumes that the values of TSit and TT are time intervals, rather than simple points in time, whereas TU can be treated as a point. Using these three concepts, Klein defines tense and aspect as follows:
(12) a. Tense indicates a temporal relation between TT and TU;
b. Aspect indicates a temporal relation between TT and TSit.
We can illustrate Klein’s definition of aspect using the examples in (2), repeated here as (13). As noted above, the temporal adverbial clause in these examples (When I got home from the hospital) specifies the location of Topic Time. The duration of Topic Time in this case seems to be somewhat vague and contextdependent, influenced partly by our knowledge of how long it takes to write a letter. The use of perfective aspect in (13a) indicates that the writing of the letter occurred completely within Topic Time. Under the most natural interpretation, the writing began after the speaker arrived home, and was completed shortly thereafter. The use of imperfective aspect in (13b) indicates that the writing of the letter extended beyond the limits of Topic Time. Under the most natural interpretation, the writing began before the speaker arrived home, and may not even be completed at the time of speaking.12
(13) a. When I got home from the hospital, my wife wrote a letter to my doctor.
b. When I got home from the hospital, my wife was writing a letter to my doctor.
We will discuss Klein’s definition of tense in Chapter 21. In the remainder of this chapter we focus on aspect.
7 Michaelis (2006).
8 Klein (1994: 22).
9 http://scottnmegan.blogspot.com/2009...na-part-2.html
10 As we will discuss in Chapter 21, Klein’s framework is based on a proposal by Reichenbach (1947: §51).
11 Klein 1994: 4.
12 The terms perfective and imperfective will be defined more carefully in §20.4 below.
