Time in Natural Language investigates the relationship between the syntactic and semantic representations of sentences within the domain of tense. Assuming that tenses are semantically composed of three distinct times, Thompson proposes that these times map onto the syntax in a regular fashion: each time is associated with a unique syntactic head. Adopting the Minimalist approach to syntactic theory, this approach makes possible insightful analyses of syntactic structures involving temporal dependency. Thompson argues that, depending on their adjunction site, temporal adverbials modify different parts of the tense structure of the clause.
The Proper Treatment of Events offers a novel approach to the semantics of tense and aspect motivated by cognitive considerations.
offers a new theory of the semantics of tense aspect and nominalizations that combines formal semantics and cognitive approaches written accessibly for students and scholars in theoretical linguists, as well as in philosophy of language, logic, cognitive science, and computer science accompanied by a website at (http://staff.science.uva.nl/~michiell/) that provides slides for instructors and background material for students. It seems fair to say that there is no definite theory of the semantics of tense and aspect yet. In their book "The Proper Treatment of Events", Michiel van Lambalgen, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, and Fritz Hamm, a linguist, propose a new theory that, as far as I can tell, does remarkably well.
Tense is one of the central issues of linguistics, and has been the focus of much attention in recent years. In this book, Declerck offers a detailed discussion of the temporal structures that are expressed by the combination of tense forms with the conjunction when. He is able to develop and test his earlier model and in doing so reveals the close relation between the semantics of when and the English tense system. Included are a detailed functional typology of English when-clauses, a model of the English tense system, an analysis of the possible tense combination - both normal and special - in head clauses and when-clauses, a discussion of the many different temporal interpretations of when-clauses, and a treatment of the special class of "narrative when-clauses". The specific focus is on how situations are located in time sentences involving both a head clause and a when-clause.
The "Practise your" is a series of workbooks designed to give intermediate students practice in particular areas of English. Each book features - contextualised practice to make it easy to see the meanings which determine the choice of a particular form, varied practice, with a mixture of exercise types focusing on both form and meaning, graded practice, from items with simple rules to more complex language uses, a pull-out answer key and material suitable for self-study or classroom use. Practise your Tenses sets out to cover the areas of the tense system which are most important for learners, briefly and simply. It takes the learner through forms expressing the present, past and future to the tense forms occurring in complex sentences. With key
The authors bridge the gap between the semantic and syntactic properties of verb tense and aspect, and suggest a unified account of tense and aspect using Chomsky's Principles and Parameters Framework. They compare tense and aspect systems in Romance languages with Germanic ones.
