Chapter 12. Temporal marking and (in)accessibility in Capeverdean
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Fernanda Pratas
Abstract
Recent descriptions have argued that what seem to be past tense markers in Capeverdean, a Portuguese-related language spoken in Cabo Verde, are instead allomorphs of a temporal agreement morpheme (Pratas 2018a). The rationale for this goes as follows. It is true that both -ba, from the variety of Santiago, and the related (and more complex) form tava, from São Vicente, are sometimes associated with a past tense in the terms of Klein (1994): the Topic Time is located before the Time of Utterance (Pratas 2014). This is the case in (i) past progressives and past habituals. But they also appear in (ii) subordinate clauses where no past interpretation is certain, such as some conditionals and other modal contexts. Since this subordinate lexical item is often licensed in the context of past situations denoted by their respective main clauses, it seems indeed better accounted for by this recent agreement proposal. That analysis, however, still leaves open the question of what this morpheme agrees with, and this is even more intriguing when it occurs fully separated from past situations. Alternatively, the approach taken in Pratas (2021) identifies a common point between (i) and (ii): all these structures denote situations with a low degree of accessibility from the speaker’s perspective. This (in)accessibility is perceived in terms of time: in the first case, we cannot go back to the past; in the second case, external factors may (have) provide(d) an (in)accessible time location. The main goal of this paper then is to further defend this novel insight on that apparent mismatch, which can bring clues to similar problems crosslinguistically.
Abstract
Recent descriptions have argued that what seem to be past tense markers in Capeverdean, a Portuguese-related language spoken in Cabo Verde, are instead allomorphs of a temporal agreement morpheme (Pratas 2018a). The rationale for this goes as follows. It is true that both -ba, from the variety of Santiago, and the related (and more complex) form tava, from São Vicente, are sometimes associated with a past tense in the terms of Klein (1994): the Topic Time is located before the Time of Utterance (Pratas 2014). This is the case in (i) past progressives and past habituals. But they also appear in (ii) subordinate clauses where no past interpretation is certain, such as some conditionals and other modal contexts. Since this subordinate lexical item is often licensed in the context of past situations denoted by their respective main clauses, it seems indeed better accounted for by this recent agreement proposal. That analysis, however, still leaves open the question of what this morpheme agrees with, and this is even more intriguing when it occurs fully separated from past situations. Alternatively, the approach taken in Pratas (2021) identifies a common point between (i) and (ii): all these structures denote situations with a low degree of accessibility from the speaker’s perspective. This (in)accessibility is perceived in terms of time: in the first case, we cannot go back to the past; in the second case, external factors may (have) provide(d) an (in)accessible time location. The main goal of this paper then is to further defend this novel insight on that apparent mismatch, which can bring clues to similar problems crosslinguistically.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Processing clitic pronouns outside coargumenthood 11
- Chapter 2. Infinitival complement clauses 25
- Chapter 3. Focus fronting vs. wh -movement 49
- Chapter 4. The varieties of temporal anaphora and temporal coincidence 71
- Chapter 5. The structure and interpretation of ‘non-matching’ split interrogatives in Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Differential object marking and scale reversals 117
- Chapter 7. Contact phenomena 131
- Chapter 8. - ŋ plurals in North Lombard varieties 151
- Chapter 9. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages 171
- Chapter 10. Aspect in the acquisition of the Spanish locative paradigm by Italian L2 learners 191
- Chapter 11. Catalan nativization patterns in the light of weighted scalar constraints 205
- Chapter 12. Temporal marking and (in)accessibility in Capeverdean 225
- Chapter 13. Very …. extracted 249
- Chapter 14. On adverbial perfect participial clauses in Portuguese varieties and British English 263
- Chapter 15. Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony 287
- Chapter 16. Fission in Romance demonstrative-reinforcer constructions 303
- Index 317
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Processing clitic pronouns outside coargumenthood 11
- Chapter 2. Infinitival complement clauses 25
- Chapter 3. Focus fronting vs. wh -movement 49
- Chapter 4. The varieties of temporal anaphora and temporal coincidence 71
- Chapter 5. The structure and interpretation of ‘non-matching’ split interrogatives in Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Differential object marking and scale reversals 117
- Chapter 7. Contact phenomena 131
- Chapter 8. - ŋ plurals in North Lombard varieties 151
- Chapter 9. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages 171
- Chapter 10. Aspect in the acquisition of the Spanish locative paradigm by Italian L2 learners 191
- Chapter 11. Catalan nativization patterns in the light of weighted scalar constraints 205
- Chapter 12. Temporal marking and (in)accessibility in Capeverdean 225
- Chapter 13. Very …. extracted 249
- Chapter 14. On adverbial perfect participial clauses in Portuguese varieties and British English 263
- Chapter 15. Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony 287
- Chapter 16. Fission in Romance demonstrative-reinforcer constructions 303
- Index 317
