A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense - Lear

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A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense
As I discussed above, a main sentence with an imperfect verbal form obligatorily
requires a temporal topic. According to the hypothesis I developed in section 4.3, this
effect stems from the anti-speaker requirement of the imperfect. The imperfect can
never be directly related to the speaker’s temporal coordinate, and when this is
unavoidable, as in a main clause such as (102), the relation must be mediated by a
temporal adverb. Note that example (102) could be acceptable as is, provided that a
temporal topic is understood, because given in the preceding discourse.
Hence, in example (101), where the temporal topic is overtly provided, the imperfect
can be temporally located with respect to it, in a way analogous to sentence (103). In
example (100) this could still be possible, if the discourse provides for such a temporal
topic, paralleling in this case the status of sentence (102).
Consider finally the future-in-the-past. An event in a complement clause, endowed with
future-in-the-past morphology, is not evaluated against the speaker’s temporal
coordinate, but only with respect to the subject’s. However, if an indexical temporal
adverb appears, then the future-in-the-past event can be located accordingly:
(104) Gianni ha detto che Maria sarebbe partita domani
Gianni said that Maria would leave tomorrow
In sentence (104) the leaving event is located by means of the indexical temporal adverb
tomorrow. In a relative clause, however, the future-in-the-past is not compatible with
future oriented indexical adverbs:
(105) Gianni ha invitato la donna che avrebbe comprato un vestito rosso *domani
Gianni invited the woman who would buy a red dress *tomorrow
The only possible temporal locutions in this case are the anaphoric ones:
(106) Gianni ha invitato la donna che avrebbe comprato un vestito rosso il giorno dopo
Gianni invited the woman who would buy a red dress the next day
I propose that this different distribution of temporal locutions with the future-in-the-past
can be explained by means of the consideration that this verbal form, contrary to the
imperfect, is not available in main assertions, independently of the temporal locution: