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1.5.1.Tense

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This section discusses the binary tense system originally proposed by Te Winkel (1866) and briefly outlined above, which is based on three binary oppositions: present versus past, imperfect versus perfect, and non-future versus future. Te Winkel was not so much concerned with the properties ascribed to time in physics or in philosophy, which heavily influenced the currently dominant view that follows Reichenbach's (1947) seminal work, which is based on two ternary oppositions: (i) past—present—future and (ii) anterior-simultaneous-posterior. Instead, Te Winkel had a (surprisingly modern) mentalistic view on the study of language, and was mainly interested in the properties of time as encoded in the tense systems found in natural language. Verkuyl (2008:ch.1) compared the two systems and argued that Te Winkel's system is more successful in describing the universal properties of tense than the Reichenbachian systems for reasons that we will review after we have discussed the details of Te Winkel/Verkuyl's binary approach.

I. Binary tense theory: time from a linguistic perspective
II. A comparison with Reichenbachʼs approach
III. Conclusion

[+] I. Binary tense theory: time from a linguistic perspective

Verkuyl (2008) refers to Te Winkel's (1866) proposal as the binary tense system, given that the crucial distinctions proposed by Te Winkel can be expressed by means of the three binary features in (229).

229

±past: present versus past

±posterior: future versus non-future

±perfect: imperfect versus perfect

The three binary features in (229) define eight different tenses, which are illustrated in Table 9 by means of examples in the first person singular form.

Table 9: The Dutch tense system according to Verkuyl (2008)

		present	past
synchronous	imperfect	simple present Ik wandel. I walk	simple past Ik wandelde. I walked
	perfect	present perfect Ik heb gewandeld. I have walked	past perfect Ik had gewandeld. I had walked
posterior	imperfect	future Ik zal wandelen. I will walk	future in the past Ik zou wandelen. I would walk
	perfect	future perfect Ik zal hebben gewandeld. I will have walked	future perfect in the past Ik zou hebben gewandeld. I would have walked

The features in (229) are in need of some further explication, which will be given in the following subsections. For clarity of presentation, we will focus on the temporal interpretations cross-linguistically attributed to the tenses in Table 9 and postpone discussion of the more special temporal and the non-temporal aspects of their interpretations in Dutch to, respectively, Section 1.5.2 and Section 1.5.4.

[+] A. The present-tense interval

Binary Tense theory crucially differs from the Reichenbachian approaches in that it does not identify the notion of present with the notion of speech time. Keeping the notions of speech time and present strictly apart turns out to offer important advantages. For example, it allows us to treat tense as part of a developing discourse: shifting of the speech time does not necessarily lead to shifting of the present. In a binary system, the present tense can be seen as not referring to the speech time n but to some larger temporal domain i that includesn. The basic idea is that the use of the present-tense form signals that the speaker is speaking about eventualities as occurring in his or her present even though these eventualities need not occur at the point of speech itself. This can be illustrated by the fact that a speaker could utter an example such as (230a) on Tuesday to express that he is dedicating the whole week (that is, the stretch of time from Monday till Sunday) to writing the section on the tense system mentioned in (230a). It is also evident from the fact that this example can be followed in discourse by the utterances in (230b-d), which subdivide the present-tense interval evoked by the adverbial phrase deze week'this week' in (230a) into smaller subparts.

230

a.	Ik	werk	deze week	aan de paragraaf	over het tempussysteem.	present
	I	work	this week	on the section	about the tense system
	'This week, Iʼm working on the section on the tense system.'

b.	Gisteren	heb	ik	de algemene opbouw	vastgesteld.	present perfect
	yesterday	have	I	the overall organization	prt.-determined
	'Yesterday, I determined the overall organization.'

c.	Vandaag	schrijf	ik	de inleiding.	simple present
	today	write	I	the introduction
	'Today, Iʼm writing the introduction.'

d.	Daarna	zal	ik	de acht temporele vormen	beschrijven.	future
	after.that	will	I	the eight tense forms	describe
	'After that, I will describe the eight tense forms.'

e.	Ik	zal	het	zaterdag	wel	voltooid	hebben.	future perfect
	I	will	it	Saturday	prt.	completed	have
	'I probably will have finished it on Saturday.'

The sequence of utterances in (230) thus shows that what counts as the present for the speaker/hearer constitutes a temporal domain that consists of several subdomains, each of them denoted by a temporal adverbial phrase that locates the four eventualities expressed by (230b-e) more precisely within the interval denoted by deze week'this week' in (230a). Following Verkuyl (2008) the global structure of a present domain is depicted in Figure 6, in which the dotted line represents the time line, n stands for the speech time, and i for the time interval that is construed as the present for the speaker/hearer. The role of the rightward shifting speech time n is to split the present-tense intervali into an actualized part ia (the present preceding n) and a non-actualized part i◊ (the present following n).

Figure 6: The present-tense interval i

It is important to realize that present-tense interval i is contextually determined. In the discourse chunk in (230), it may seem as if the present i is defined by the adverbial phrase deze week'this week', but (231) shows that the present-tense interval can readily be stretched by embedding (230a) in a larger story in the present tense.

231

		We werken nu al jaren aan een grammatica van het Nederlands. De eerste delen zijn al afgerond en we beginnen nu aan het deel over het werkwoord. Deze week werk ik aan de paragraaf over het temporele systeem. [continue as in (230b-d)]We werken nu al jaren aan een grammatica van het Nederlands. De eerste delen zijn al afgerond en we beginnen nu aan het deel over het werkwoord. Deze week werk ik aan de paragraaf over het temporele systeem. [continue as in (230b-d)]
		'We have been working for years on a grammar of Dutch. The first volumes are already finished and we are beginning now with the part on verbs. This week I am working on the section on the tense system. [....]'

Example (232) in fact shows that we can stretch the present-tense interval i indefinitely, given that this sentence involves an eternal or perhaps even everlasting present.

232

Sinds de oerknal

breidt

het heelal

zich

in alle richtingen

uit

waarschijnlijk

zal

dat

voortduren

tot het einde der tijden.

since the Big Bang

expands

the universe

refl

in all directions

prt.

and

probably

will

that

continue

until the end thegen times

'Since the Big Bang the universe is expanding in all directions and probably that will continue until the end of time.'

Ultimately, it is the shared extra-linguistic knowledge of the speaker and the hearer that determines what counts as the present-tense interval, and, consequently, which eventualities can be discussed by using present-tense forms. This was already pointed out by Janssen (1983) by means of examples such as (233); the extent of the presumed present-tense interval is determined (i) by the difference between the lifespan of, respectively, planets and human individuals, and (ii) by the fact that "being a stutterer" and "being ill" are normally construed as, respectively, an individual-level and a stage-level predicate.

233

a.		De aarde is rond.
		the earth is round

b.		Jan is een stotteraar.
		Jan is a stutterer

c.		Jan is ziek.
		Jan is ill

Following Verkuyl (2008), we can define Te Winkel's binary oppositions by means of the indices i and n, which were introduced previously, and the indices j and k, which pertain to the temporal location of the eventuality (state of affairs) denoted by the main verb, or, rather, the lexical projection of this verb. We have already mentioned that the defining property of the present domain is that it includes speech time n, which is expressed in (234a) by means of the connector "○". Verkuyl assumes that the present differs from the past in that past-tense interval i precedes speech time n, as indicated in (234b); we will see in Subsection C, however, that there are reasons not to follow this assumption.

234

Present: i ○ n

i includes speech time n

Past: i < n

i precedes speech time n

The index j will be taken as the temporal domain in which eventuality k is located. In other words, every eventuality k has not only its running time, but it has also its own present j, which may vary depending on the way we talk about it. In the examples in (230), for instance, the location of the present j of k is indicated by means of adverbial phrases; in example (230d), for instance, the adverbial phrase daarna restricts j to the time interval following Tuesday, and the semantic representation of (230d) is therefore as schematically indicated in Figure 7, in which the line below k indicates the actual running time of the eventuality.

Figure 7: Eventuality k and its present j

It is important to note that, due to the use of the present-tense form in (230d), the notion of future is to be reduced to the relation of posteriority within the present domain. The difference between non-future and future is that in the former case the present j of eventuality k can synchronize with any subpart of i, whereas in the latter case it cannot synchronize with any subpart of the actualized part of the present, that is, it must be situated in the non-actualized part i◊ of what counts as the present for the speaker/hearer. This is expressed in (235) by means of the connectors "≈" and "<".

235

Non-future: i ≈ j

i and j synchronize

Future: ia < j

ia precedes j

The difference between imperfect and perfect tense pertains to the relation between eventuality k and its present j. In the latter case k is presented as completed within j, whereas in the former case it is left indeterminate whether or not k is completed within j. Or, to say it somewhat differently, the perfect presents k as a discrete, bounded unit, whereas the imperfect does not. This is expressed in (236) by means of the connectors "≼" and "≺".

236

imperfect: k ≼ j

k need not be completed within j

Perfect: k ≺ j

k is completed within j

[+] B. The four present tenses defined by Binary Tense Theory

The following subsections will show that the four present tenses in Table 9 in the introduction to this subsection differ with respect to (i) the location of eventuality k denoted by the lexical projection of the main verb within present-tense interval i, and (ii) whether or not it is presented as completed within its own present-tense interval j. Recall that we will focus on the temporal interpretations cross-linguistically attributed to the tenses in Table 9 and postpone the discussion of the more special temporal and the non-temporal aspects of their interpretations in Dutch to Section 1.5.4.

[+] 1. Simple present

The simple present expresses that eventuality k takes place during present-tense interval i. This can be represented by means of Figure 8, in which index j is taken to be synchronous to the present i of the speaker/hearer (j = i) by default. The continuous part of the line below k indicates that the preferred reading of an example such as Ik wandel'I am walking' is that eventuality k overlaps with the moment of speech n.

Figure 8: Simple present (Ik wandel'I am walking')

In many languages, including Dutch, the implication that k holds at the moment of speech n can readily be canceled by means of, e.g., adverbial modification: the simple present example (237) with the adverbial phrase morgen'tomorrow' can be used to refer to some future eventuality k.

237

Ik	wandel	morgen.
I	walk	tomorrow
'Iʼll walk tomorrow.'

This is, of course, to be expected on the basis of the definition of present in (234a), which states that the present-tense interval i must include speech time n, but does not impose any restrictions on j or k. Although we will briefly return to this issue in Subsection 5, we will postpone a more thorough discussion of this to Section 1.5.4, where we will show that this use of the simple present is a characteristic property of languages that do not express the future within the verbal tense system but by other means, such as adverbials.

[+] 2. Present perfect

The default reading of the present perfect is that eventuality k takes place before speech time n, that is, eventuality k is located in the actualized part of the present-tense interval ia (j = ia). In addition, the present perfect presents eventuality k as a discrete, bounded unit that is completed within time interval j that therefore cannot be continued after n; this is represented in Figure 9 by means of the short vertical line after the continuous line below k.

Figure 9: Present perfect (Ik heb gewandeld'I have walked')

A sentence like Ik heb gisteren gewandeld'I walked yesterday' can now be fully understood: since neither the definition of present in (234a) nor the definition of perfect in (236b) imposes any restriction on the location of j (or k) with respect to n, the adverb gisteren'yesterday' may be analyzed as an identifier of jon the assumption that yesterday is part of a larger present-tense interval i that includes speech time n. This explains the possibility of using the present-tense form heeft'has' together with an adverbial phrase referring to a time interval preceding n.
In many languages, including Dutch, the implication that k takes place before speech time n can readily be canceled by means of, e.g., adverbial modification: the present perfect example (238) with the adverb morgen'tomorrow' can be used to refer to some future eventuality k. Again, this is to be expected given that neither the definition of present in (234a) nor the definition of perfect in (236b) imposes any restriction on the location of j (or k) with respect to n; we will return to this issue in Section 1.5.4.

238

Ik	heb	je paper	morgen	zeker	gelezen.
I	have	your paper	tomorrow	certainly	read
'Iʼll certainly have read your paper by tomorrow.'

In the literature there is extensive discussion about whether perfect-tense constructions should be considered temporal or aspectual in nature. The position that individual linguists take often depends on the specific tense and aspectual theory they endorse. Since the characterization of the perfect tense in the binary (and the Reichenbachian) tense theory does not appeal to the internal temporal structure of the event, this allows us to adopt a non-aspectual view of the perfect tense. The non-aspectual view may also be supported by the fact that the use of the perfect tense does not affect the way in which the internal structuring of eventuality k is presented; it is rather the interaction of perfect tense and Aktionsart (inner aspect) that should be held responsible for that. This will become clear when we consider the contrast between the atelic (states and activities) and telic (accomplishments and achievements) eventualities in (239). We refer the reader to Section 1.2.3 for a discussion of the different kinds of Aktionsart.

239

a.	Jan heeft	zijn hele leven	van Marie	gehouden.	state
	Jan has	always	of Marie	loved
	'Jan has loved Marie always.'

b.	Jan heeft	vanmorgen	aan zijn dissertatie	gewerkt.	activity
	Jan has	this.morning	on his dissertation	worked
	'Jan has worked on his PhD thesis all morning.'

c.	Jan is	vanmorgen	uit Amsterdam	vertrokken.	achievement
	Jan is	this.morning	from Amsterdam	left
	'Jan left Amsterdam this morning.'

d.	Jan heeft	de brief	vanmorgen	geschreven.	accomplishment
	Jan has	the letter	this.morning	written
	'Jan wrote the letter this morning.'

All examples in (239) present the eventualities as autonomous units that (under the default reading) are completed at or before speech time n. This does not imply, however, that eventualities cannot be continued or resumed after n. This is in fact quite natural in the case of atelic verbs: an example such as (239a) does not entail that Jan will not love Marie after speech time n as is clear from the fact that it can readily be followed by ... en hij zal dat wel altijd blijven doen'and he will probably continue to do so forever'. Likewise, example (239b) does not imply that Jan will not continue his work on his thesis after speech time n as is clear from the fact that (239b) can readily be followed by ... en hij zal daar vanmiddag mee doorgaan'... and he will continue doing that in the afternoon'. The telic events in (239c&d), on the other hand, do imply that the events have reached their implied endpoint and can therefore not be continued after speech time n. The examples in (239) thus show that the internal temporal structure of the eventualities is not affected by the perfect tense but determined by the Aktionsart of the verbs/verbal projections in question. From this we conclude that the perfect is not aspectual in nature but part of the tense system; see Verkuyl (2008:20-27) for a more detailed discussion.

[+] 3. Future

The future expresses that eventuality k takes place after speech time n, that is, eventuality k is located in the non-actualized part of the present-tense interval (j = i◊).

Figure 10: Future (Ik zal wandelen'I will walk')

The implication of Figure 10 is that eventuality k cannot take place during ia, but example (240) shows that this implication can be readily cancelled in languages like Dutch. In fact, this will be one of the reasons for denying that willen functions as a future auxiliary in Dutch. We will return to this in Sections 1.5.2 and 1.5.4.

240

Jan zal	je paper	lezen.	Misschien	heeft	hij	het	al	gedaan.
Jan will	your paper	read	maybe	has	he	it	already	done
'Jan will read your paper. Maybe he has already done it. '

[+] 4. Future perfect

The interpretation of the future perfect is similar to that of the future, but differs in two ways: (i) it is not necessary that the eventuality k has started after n and (ii) it is implied that the state of affairs is completed before the time span i◊has come to an end.

Figure 11: Future perfect (Ik zal hebben gewandeld 'I will have walked')

The implication of Figure 11 is again that eventuality k cannot take place during ia, but example (241) shows that this implication can be readily cancelled in languages like Dutch by means of, e.g., adverbial modification. We will put this non-future reading aside for the moment but return to it in Sections 1.5.2 and 1.5.4.

241

Jan zal	je paper	ondertussen	waarschijnlijk	wel	gelezen	hebben.
Jan will	your paper	by.now	probably	prt	read	have
'Jan will probably have read your paper by now.'

The main difference between the future and the future perfect is that in the former the focus is on the progression of the eventuality (without taking into account its completion), whereas in the latter the focus is on the completion of the eventuality k in j. This difference is often somewhat subtle in the case of states and activities but transparent in the case of telic events. Whereas the future tense in example (242a) expresses that the process of melting will start or take place after speech time n, the future perfect example in (242b) simply expresses that the completion of the melting process will take place in some j that is positioned in i◊; the future perfect leaves entirely open whether the melting process started before, after or at n.

242

a.	Het ijs	zal	vanavond	smelten.
	the ice	will	tonight	melt
	'The ice will melt tonight.'

b.	Het ijs	zal	vanavond	gesmolten	zijn.
	the ice	will	tonight	melted	be
	'The ice will have melted tonight.'

In (243), similar examples are given with the accomplishment die brief schrijven: (243a) places the entire eventuality after the time n, whereas (243b) does not seem to make any claim about the starting point of the eventuality but simply expresses that the eventuality will be completed after n (but within i◊).

243

a.	Jan zal	vanavond	die brief	schrijven.
	Jan will	tonight	that letter	write
	'Jan will write that letter tonight.'

b.	Jan zal	vanavond	die brief	geschreven	hebben.
	Jan will	tonight	that letter	written	have
	'Jan will have written that letter by tonight.'

For the moment, we will ignore the difference between future and future perfect with respect to the starting point of the state of affairs, but we will return to this in Section 1.5.2, where we will challenge the claim that zullen is a future auxiliary.

[+] 5. The need to distinguish i and j

In the tense representations given in the previous subsections, we made a distinction between the present i of the speaker/hearer, on the one hand, and the present j of eventuality k, on the other. Although the latter is always included in the former, it can readily be shown that the distinction need be made. This may not be so clear in examples such as (244a), in which j seems to synchronize with the entire present-tense interval i of the speaker/hearer. Adverbial phrases of time, however, may cause j to synchronize to a subpart of i: the adverb vandaag'today' in (244b) refers to a subpart of i that includes n, and morgen'tomorrow' in (244c) refers to a subpart of i situated ini◊.

244

a.	We	zijn	thuis.
	we	are	at.home
	'We are at home.'

b.		We	zijn	vandaag	thuis.
		we	are	today	at.home

c.		We	zijn	morgen	thuis.
		we	are	tomorrow	at.home

That it is j and not the present-tense interval i that is affected by adverbial modification is also clear from the fact that it is possible to have present-tense examples such as (245), in which the two adverbial phrases refer to two subdomains within i.

245

		We	zijn	vandaag	thuis	en morgen	in Utrecht.
		we	are	today	at.home	and tomorrow	in Utrecht

Entailments are furthermore computed on the basis of j and not the present-tense interval i. Example (244b), in which j synchronizes with a subpart of i that includes n, does not say anything about the whereabouts of the speaker yesterday or tomorrow, even when these time intervals are construed as part of present-tense interval i. That entailments are computed on the basis of j and not i is even clearer in example (244c), in which j synchronizes with (a subpart of) i◊; this example does not say anything about the whereabouts of the speaker at speech time n, which clearly shows that the state of affairs does not have to hold during the complete present-tense interval i. It is only in cases such as (244a), without a temporal modifier, that we conclude (by default) that the state of affairs holds for the complete present-tense interval i.

[+] C. The past-tense interval

The examples in (246) show that, like the present tense, the past tense involves some larger time interval, which can be divided into smaller subdomains. A speaker can utter an example such as (246a) to report on Els' activities during the past-tense interval evoked by the adverbial phrase vorige week'last week'. This utterance can be followed in discourse by the utterances in (246b-d), which subdivide this past-tense interval into smaller subparts in a fashion completely parallel to the way in which the present-tense examples in (230b-d) subdivide the present-tense interval evoked by the adverbial phrase deze week'this week' in (230a).

246

a.	Els werkte	vorige week	aan de paragraaf	over het temporele systeem.	past
	Els worked	last week	on the section	about the tense system
	'Last week, Els was working on the section on the tense system.'

b.	Op maandag	had	ze	de algemene opbouw	vastgesteld.	past perfect
	on Monday	had	she	the overall organization	prt.-determined
	'On Monday, she had determined the overall organization.'

c.	Op dinsdag	schreef	ze	de inleiding.	simple past
	on Tuesday	wrote	she	the introduction
	'On Tuesday, she wrote the introduction.'

d.	Daarna	zou	ze	de acht temporele vormen	beschrijven.	future in past
	after.that	would	she	the eight tense forms	describe
	'After that, she would describe the eight tense forms.'

e.	Ze	zou	het	zaterdag	wel	voltooid	hebben.	future perfect in past
	she	would	it	Saturday	prt	completed	have
	'She probably would have finished it on Saturday.'

The striking parallelism between the four present-tense forms and the four past-tense forms makes it possible to assume that the mental representations of the past tenses are similar to the ones for the present tenses except for n. To account for the striking parallelism between the four present tenses and the four past tenses, we will assume that the past tenses are defined by means of a virtual "speech-time-in-the past", which we will refer to as n'. To make this a bit more concrete, assume that the speaker of the discourse chunk in (246) is telling about a conversation he has had with Els. We may then identify n' with the moment that the conversation took place; the speaker is repeating the information provided by Els from the perspective of that specific point in time. This leads to the representation in Figure 12, in which the dotted line represents the time line, index i stands for the time interval that is construed as the past (that is, the then-present) for the speaker/hearer, ia for the actualized part of the past at n', and i◊for the non-actualized part of the past at n'.

Figure 12: The past-tense interval i

In what follows we will show that the four past tenses in Table 9 differ with respect to the way in which they locate the eventuality k in past-tense interval i. Before we start doing this, we want to point out that the present proposal diverges in one crucial respect from the proposal in Verkuyl (2008). In Figure 12, we placed speech time n external to i and Verkuyl indeed claims that this is a defining property of the past-tense interval i, as is clear from his definition of present and past tense given in Subsection A, which is repeated here as (247).

247

Present: i ○ n

i includes speech time n

Past: i < n

i precedes speech time n

The idea that the past-tense interval must precede speech time n does not seem to follow from anything in the system. There is, for example, no a priori reason for rejecting the idea that, like the present-tense interval, the past-tense interval can be stretched indefinitely, and is thus able to include speech time n. In the subsections below, we will in fact provide empirical evidence that inclusion of n is possible. For example, the future in the past and future perfect in the past examples in (248) show that eventuality k can readily be placed after speech time n.

248

a.	Marie zou	morgen	vertrekken.
	Marie would	tomorrow	leave
	'Marie would leave tomorrow.'

b.	Marie zou	oma	morgen	bezocht	hebben.
	Marie would	grandma	tomorrow	visited	have
	'Marie would have visited Grandma tomorrow.'

In order to formally account for the acceptability of examples such as (248), Broekhuis & Verkuyl (2014) adapted the definition in (247b) as in (249b). Note that the examples in (248) also have a modal meaning component; we will ignore this for the moment but return to it in Section 1.5.2.

249

Present: i ○ n

i includes speech time n

Past: i ○ n'

i includes virtual speech-time-in-the-past n'

The definitions in (249) leave the core of the binary tense system unaffected given that they maintain the asymmetry between the present and the past but now on the basis of an opposition between the now-present (characterized by the inclusion of n) and the then-present (characterized by the inclusion of n'). The now-present could be seen as the time interval that is immediately accessible to and directly relevant for the speaker/hearer-in-the-present, whereas the then-present should rather be seen as the time interval accessible to and relevant for some speaker/hearer-in-the-past; see Janssen (1983:324ff.) and Boogaart & Janssen (2007) for a review of a number of descriptions in cognitive terms of the distinction between past and present that may prove useful for sharpening the characterization of the now- and then-present proposed here. The definition of past in (249b) is also preferred to the one in (247b) for theoretical reasons: first, it formally accounts for the parallel architecture of the present and the past and, second, it solves the problem that n' did not play an explicit role in the definition of the three binary oppositions given in Subsection A, and was therefore left undefined.

[+] D. The four past tenses defined by Binary Tense Theory

The following subsections will show that the four past tenses in Table 9 in the introduction to this subsection differ with respect to (i) the location of eventuality k denoted by the lexical projection of the main verb within present-tense interval i, and (ii) whether or not it is presented as completed within its own past-tense interval j. Recall that we will focus on the temporal interpretations cross-linguistically attributed to the tenses in Table 9 and postpone the discussion of the more special temporal and the non-temporal aspects of their interpretations in Dutch to Section 1.5.4.

[+] 1. Simple past

The simple past expresses that eventuality k takes place during past-tense interval i. This can be expressed by means of Figure 13, in which the continuous line below k refers to the time interval during which the eventuality holds. The continuous line below k indicates that the default reading of an example such as Ik wandelde'I was walking' is that eventuality k takes place at n'.

Figure 13: Simple past (Ik wandelde'I was walking')

By stating that j = i, Figure 13 also expresses that the simple past does not have any implications for the time preceding or following the relevan