Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

Common Ground the set of propositions accepted by all interlocutors
Context Set (following Roberts 1998): the set of worlds in which the common ground –
the set of propositions accepted by all interlocutors – holds
D-Domain (following Botne & Kershner 2008:153): a dissociative, distant cognitive world,
marking “relations of non-inclusion” (in contrast to the p-domain)
Discourse Topic (following Roberts 1998): the set of propositions constituting the immediate
question under discussion in a discourse, aimed at answering particular
questions to reduce the context set
Dissociative Remoteness (following Botne & Kershner 2008:211): a remoteness distinction
“imbued by projecting an event into a D-domain” rather than marking fixed
temporal distinctions within a (P- or D-) domain (i.e. metrical remoteness).
Durative (following Seidel 2008): situation type category characterizing situations (both
extended and instantaneous) that do not involve a change of state
Episode A scene within a larger narrative consisting of a sequence of related events,
usually involving the same character(s). For my analysis, narratives are divided
into episodes, which are further divided into sub-parts (beginning, middle, and
end).
Event a non-stative, non-change-of-state situation; Vendler’s (1957) activities, accomplishments,
and achievements
Event Structure used to describe the possible decomposition of a situation into distinct
subparts; the decompositional possibilities are used to determine situation
type
Generic Used as a cover term for both gnomic (eternal) and habitual meanings
Grammaticalization the change, over time, of a free lexical item to a “grammatical unit” (see
Heine et al. (1991) for further discussion). In this dissertation, the main concern
with respect to grammaticalization is not lexical sources or formal changes, but
tracing possible meaning or functional shifts over time
Hesternal used to describe tenses where the Topic Time is the day prior to utterance (or
other reference) time.
Hodiernal indicates that Topic Time is at least partially included in the day of utterance.
(From Latin hodie, ‘today’.)
Immediate Question Under Discussion see discourse topic
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