scholarly journals Actionality, Aspect, Tense, and Counterfactuality in Kuban Kabardian

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-21
Author(s):  
Peter M. Arkadiev
Keyword(s):  
Romance Languages ◽  
General Distribution ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Viewpoint Aspect

This paper presents the fieldwork data on the interaction of actionality, aspect, and tense in counterfactual conditional clauses of the Kuban dialect of Kabardian, a polysynthetic Northwest Caucasian language. Kabardian shows non-trivial similarities to Romance languages in its use of the Imperfective Past suffix as a marker of counterfactuality — alone or as a part of the complex marker of the Pluperfect marker where the Imperfect attaches to the Preterite (perfective past). I show that the choice between several types of marking in counterfactual protases (the plain Imperfect, the Pluperfect, and the simple Preterite) primarily depends on actional class and viewpoint aspect: perfective counterfactuals employ either the Pluperfect or the Preterite, while imperfective counterfactuals require the Imperfect, which is in line with the more general distribution of these tense-aspect forms. Theoretical implications of the tense-aspect marking in Kuban Kabardian counterfactual conditionals are also briefly discussed.

Localizing cross-linguistic variation in Tense systems: On telicity and stativity in Swedish and English

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-70
Author(s):  
Björn Lundquist
Keyword(s):  
Romance Languages ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Reference Time ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Temporal Interpretation ◽  
Viewpoint Aspect ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Made In

It is well known that the aktionsart/lexical aspect of a predicate influences the temporal interpretation and the aspectual marking of a sentence, and also that languages differ with respect to which aktionsart properties feed into the tense-aspect system (see e.g. Bohnemeyer & Swift 2004). In this paper, I try to pin down the exact locus of variation between languages where the stative–dynamic distinction is mainly grammaticized (e.g. English, Saamáka) and languages where the telic–atelic distinction is mainly grammaticized (e.g. Swedish, Chinese and Russian). The focus will be on the differences between English and Swedish, and I will argue that these two languages crucially differ in the nature of Assertion Time (or Topic/Reference Time, Klein 1994, Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria 2000): whereas the assertion time in English is always punctual in imperfective contexts, assertion time in Swedish can extend to include minimal stages of events. The Assertion Time is introduced by a (viewpoint) aspect head that is present in both languages, but not phonologically realized. The difference can thus not be ascribed to the presence or absence of overt tense, aspect or verb morphology, or to a special tense value, as argued in one way or other by, for example, Giorgi & Pianesi (1997), Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2000) and Ramchand (2012). Once this factor (i.e. the nature of Assertion Time) has been isolated, it becomes evident that all verbs in English and Swedish, regardless of telicity or dynamicity, can be assigned either a perfective or an imperfective value. Moreover, I will argue that the English progressive–non-progressive (or ‘simple’) distinction is independent of viewpoint aspect (i.e. the perfective– imperfective distinction) made in, for example, the Romance languages.

Conditionals and Abduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-166
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Cognitive Differences ◽  
Indicative Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
The Past ◽  
Testing Of Hypotheses ◽  
New Evidence

The chapter gives a preliminary sketch of some cognitive differences between indicative conditionals and counterfactual conditionals relevant to the testing of hypotheses by experiment. They especially concern cases where the indicative conditional can be decided without new evidence while the counterfactual conditional cannot. They also show that the antecedent of a ‘counterfactual’ conditional need not be presupposed to be false. Differences connected with the past tense morphology of ‘would’ are explored. Cases are given where the morphology should be understood as expressing a ‘fake past’, modal rather than temporal.

Counterfactual conditionals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Doring
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals

‘If bats were deaf, they would hunt during the day.’ What you have just read is called a ‘counterfactual’ conditional; it is an ‘If…then…’ statement the components of which are ‘counter to fact’, in this case counter to the fact that bats hear well and sleep during the day. Among the analyses proposed for such statements, two have been especially prominent. According to the first, a counterfactual asserts that there is a sound argument from the antecedent (‘bats are deaf’) to the consequent (‘bats hunt during the day’). The argument uses certain implicit background conditions and laws of nature as additional premises. A variant of this analysis says that a counterfactual is itself a condensed version of such an argument. The analysis is called ‘metalinguistic’ because of its reference to linguistic items such as premises and arguments. The second analysis refers instead to possible worlds. (One may think of possible worlds as ways things might have gone.) This analysis says that the example is true just in case bats hunt during the day in the closest possible world(s) where they are deaf

The Logical Form of Counterfactual Conditionals

Dialogue ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-583
Author(s):  
J. A. Eisenberg
Keyword(s):  
Logical Form ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Nelson Goodman ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Made In

I shall here propose specific logical forms to express the structures of the counterfactual conditional and its cognate forms, the semifactual conditional and the undetermined conditional. Some of the proposals have been previously made in a different context by Nelson Goodman, but to my knowledge they have never been incorporated into definite, all-embracing logical schemata. Because of this failure, the astounding assertion that there is no definite logical form of the counterfactual conditional could be made.

scholarly journals Informative counterfactuals

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Snider ◽  
Adam Bjorndahl
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Update Semantics

A single counterfactual conditional can have a multitude of interpretations that differ, intuitively, in the connection between antecedent and consequent. Using structural equation models (SEMs) to represent event dependencies, we illustrate various types of explanation compatible with a given counterfactual. We then formalize in the SEM framework the notion of an acceptable explanation, identifying the class of event dependencies compatible with a given counterfactual. Finally, by incorporating SEMs into possible worlds, we provide an update semantics with the enriched structure necessary for the evaluation of counterfactual conditionals.

Phonologically conditioned allomorphy in the morphology of Surmiran (Rumantsch)

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Extended Sense ◽  
Phonological Rule

Alternations between allomorphs that are not directly related by phonological rule, but whose selection is governed by phonological properties of the environment, have attracted the sporadic attention of phonologists and morphologists. Such phenomena are commonly limited to rather small corners of a language's structure, however, and as a result have not been a major theoretical focus. This paper examines a set of alternations in Surmiran, a Swiss Rumantsch language, that have this character and that pervade the entire system of the language. It is shown that the alternations in question, best attested in the verbal system, are not conditioned by any coherent set of morphological properties (either straightforwardly or in the extended sense of ‘morphomes’ explored in other Romance languages by Maiden). These alternations are, however, straightforwardly aligned with the location of stress in words, and an analysis is proposed within the general framework of Optimality Theory to express this. The resulting system of phonologically conditioned allomorphy turns out to include the great majority of patterning which one might be tempted to treat as productive phonology, but which has been rendered opaque (and subsequently morphologized) as a result of the working of historical change.

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