The Literary Mind.pdf

150 THE LITERARY MIND
cation is optional; it is therefore optional in tense. Linguists often regard an
utterance in English that makes no use of this identification as a problem, an
exception that requires special explanation. I offer a different view. In the parabolic
view of tense, present tense arises as the counterpart of the narrative structure in
which temporal focus and temporal viewpoint belong to the same space. Only
in the default case does viewpoint also correspond to the moment of speaking.
Cases that do not fit the default scenario are not problems or exceptions. Let us
consider some examples.
I will begin with examples that make the nonidentification of viewpoint and
moment of speaking very obvious—they sound odd out of context, but people
said them.
In the first example, the setting is a veranda; an old man is sitting; his old
wife conies out, and, after a pause, sits down beside him; the silence grows more
nervous; at last, the old man says, "It was a warm night on the banks of the
intercoastal waterway. He sat alone, until she finally appeared and sat beside him.
She seemed distracted and unhappy. At last, she announced—" Here, the man
telling the story gestures to his wife to announce whatever it is she has to
announce; the man and woman in the story are the old man and old woman on
the veranda. In this example, the past tense tells us that the focus lies behind the
viewpoint. From context, we know that the focus is the moment of speaking.
The viewpoint is not the moment of speaking. Instead, the moment of speaking
precedes the viewpoint.
Consider another lively real example with similar structure. A wife and
husband are traveling in Greece; at night, they defend against mosquitos by covering
the hotel window with netting; kounoupi is Greek for "mosquito."
I am going to clean up, take a shower, lay down my naked body.
What about the kounoupi netting?
My husband took care of that while I was in the shower.
The past tense tells us the focus precedes the viewpoint: The focus is the space
in which the husband puts up the kounoupi netting; the viewpoint is sometime
after the focus; but we know from context that the moment of speaking precedes
the viewpoint (as well as the focus).
Now consider idiomatic examples that have similar structure. Two travelers
ask the train attendant to tell them the destinations of each of five trains that are
sitting at platforms; the conductor tells them; the travelers think it over, and one
of them asks, "That train, where did it go?" In this case, the focus precedes the
viewpoint but we know from context that the moment of speaking precedes both
of them. Later, one of the travelers can start to hop on the wrong train and the
other can say, "Wait! That train went to Nice!" Consider also: