A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense - Lear

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A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense
In these cases the embedded clause contains a subjunctive in the non-agreeing form –
namely, a present under a main past tense, and a past under a main present tense,
respectively. Both sentences are bad, with a special proviso for example (33). The
marginal status of the embedded clause in (33) can be explained by the fact that this
sentence can be, at least partially, rescued if inserted in the right context, for instance by
inserting a temporal adverb: 14
(34) Il testimone crede che ieri alle 5 l’accusato mangiasse/stesse mangiando un
panino
The witness believes that yesterday at five the accused ate(PAST SUBJ) a
sandwich
In this case, the temporal agreement relation is not instantiated with the superordinate
verb, but with the past temporal adverb. Sentence (33) could be rescued, in an
analogous way, if a past temporal topic is provided by the contexts, i.e., present in the
previous discourse.
Note that this distribution of temporal forms is precisely what goes under the name of
Sequence of Tense in traditional grammars. This kind of temporal agreement in fact is
the basic rule in the Latin language concerning the distribution of non-infinitival verbal
forms in embedded clauses.
Italian however allows the expression of anteriority in embedded clauses, with the
subjunctive as well. In order to express it, a compound form must be used:
(35) Gianni crede che Maria abbia mangiato un panino
Gianni believes that Maria has(PRES SUBJ) eaten a sandwich
(36) Gianni credeva che Maria avesse mangiato un panino
Gianni believed that Maria had(PAST SUBJ) eaten a sandwich
In these cases, the past interpretation of the embedded event with respect to the main
one is obtained derivatively, thanks to the presence of the resultant state, expressed by
means of the past participle. This is so because the state, ‘resultant’ from a necessarily
anterior event, must hold at the time identified by the computation of the temporal
14 . For a discussion see Giorgi (2008) and Costantini (2008).