Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

To make the fuzzy theories more precise, Klein proposes a neo-Reichenbachian framework
that includes the concepts of topic time (TT: the time span referred to in the utterance,
roughly corresponding to Reichenbach’s R), time of utterance (TU: the time of the
speech act; Reichenbach’s S), and time of situation (TSit: the time for which the situation
refers to holds; Reichenbach’s S). tense depicts the relationship between TU and TT. For
example, the use of a past tense as in (2) indicates that TT, the time span to which the
speaker is referring (in this case, the time at which they found poor Xavier), is prior to TU.
aspect, in contrast, situates TT with respect to TSit. Perfective aspect involves a Topic
Time that is “partly included” in the posttime of a situation (figure 1.5); the imperfective
places TT completely within the time of the situation (figure 1.6):
– – – – – – – – – –[– – – – – ++++++]+++++++++++++
Source State=TSit: Target State:
story being written story written
Figure 1.5: Perfective: ‘Michael wrote a story’
– – – [– – – – – – –] – – – – +++++++++++++++++++
Source State=TSit: Target State:
story being written story written
Figure 1.6: Imperfective: ‘Michael was writing a story’
Klein defines four major aspectual distinctions as in table 1.1.
TT is included in TSit imperfective
TT is partly included in TSit perfective
TT is after TSit perfect
TT is before TSit prospective
Table 1.1: Aspect in Klein (1994:108)
So-called “relative tenses” such as the English Perfect can be analyzed as combinations
of tense and aspect.
Other definitions of aspect are often less precise, but share similar intuitions about event
structure interactions with aspectual marking. Comrie (1976) defines aspect as encoding
“different ways of viewing the internal constituency of a situation” (Comrie 1976:3). According
to Comrie, perfective aspect “views” a situation “as a single whole” (Comrie
1976:16), while imperfective aspect makes “explicit reference to [its] internal temporal structure”
(Comrie 1976:24).
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