Temporal Reference

Abstract Temporal reference can be studied formally by introducing a time scale, a set of points of time. Various verbs can be categorized as propositional functions over the time scale. In English sentences in which those verbs are used, the time argument is sometimes made explicit by means of an adverbial of time, sometimes omitted. Certain time adverbials are close to canonical names of time points, indicating them explicitly ( on September 9, 1992, at 8.22). Certain adverbials are indexical (then, at the same time, five minutes later). Ellipsis is sometimes existential, sometimes indexical. Moreover, the time argument affects the tense of the verb, which remains as a trace left of the time argument even if it is omitted itself.