Ana Arregui of the University of Ottawa will be presenting Tuesday Feb. 27 at 4 pm in E420 South College. The title and abstract are below.
“Tense, Aspect, and Possibilities”
Ana Arregui (University of Ottawa)
This talk will present ongoing work on the interpretation of future morphology from a cross-linguistic perspective. The focus will be on Spanish as a case study, examining examples like (1):
(1a) Max llegará tarde.
Max arrive-FUT late
‘Max will arrive late’
(1b) Max tendrá hambre.
Max have-FUT hunger
‘Max must be hungry’
I will show that many of our current proposals for the interpretation of future morphology make incorrect predictions for contingent future statements such as (1a) and I will offer an alternative on the basis of quantification within a situations-semantics framework. The proposal for the interpretation of future morphology will be integrated within a comprehensive view of the role of tense and aspect in modal contexts. It will be argued that categories that have traditionally been considered temporal actually have a dual role, imposing temporal constraints and anchoring claims on actual world facts. The proposal for the interpretation of future morphology will be related to earlier work on the interpretation of imperfectives from a cross-linguistic perspective.