Zero-Tense vs. Indexical Construals of the Present in French L11

In Renate Musan & Monika Rathert (eds.), Tense Across Languages. Niemeyer. pp. 541--233 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

On the basis of an experimental investigation of the construals of present under past in child French, we argue that French children, just like Japanese adult speakers, but unlike French adult speakers, allow pure simultaneous construals of present under past, where the present denotes an interval that lies completely in the past, be it in relative or complement clauses. We conclude that French children have two presents: an indexical present and a zero present (just like Japanese adults, cf. Ogihara 1999, 2008), suggesting that French children have both the Japanese and the French setting for the Sequence of Tense parameter since they allow simultaneous construals of both present and past under past. This multiple grammar approach to tense interpretation in child French extends to child Japanese in so far as Japanese children have been argued to allow simultaneous readings of past under past, although this reading is unavailable in the target grammar (Matsuo & Hollebrandse 1999).

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-31

Downloads
20 (#656,247)

6 months
2 (#668,348)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references