Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 16.35 03/01/00 +0100, Ian Hutchesson wrote:

Referring to:

  He said he'd been drinking when the accident happened.

Rolf:
>>In contrast with Reichenbach and Comrie, who always take ST (speech time)
>>as C (the deictic point) in the simple tenses, Broman Olsen gives evidence
>>that C must be pragmatically determined, though the default is ST. In (5) I
>>would take ST as C. The main clause "He said" is simple past, and we get
>>the formula (RT>C). For the first dependent clause we get a new C connected
>>with the saying-incident. Thus ET is the drinking-incident and the accident
>>is RT. The expression "was drinking" is past progressive and this means
>>that we have an intersection of of ET with RT at the nucleus, i.e. the
>>drinking-incident held when the accident happened (the "when-clause" serves
>>just as an adverbial). The formula is (RT>C,+imperfective)

I've just reread what's below and it would seem I should have gone to bed
before writing it!

>I have the feeling that such a descriptive system needs to be mildly
>recursive, able to talk of ST1 and we get C1=RT1(=ST2)>ST1 which would be
>the equivalent of "He said," C2=RT2>ST2 (implied by the when-clause) "he'd
>had an accident", C3>RT2>ST2, "he had been drinking."

If we replace "C" with "ET" it would make a hellovalot more sense. The
recursive notion I still feel necessary.

1) ET1=RT1>ST1
   (I said) He said...

2) ET2=RT2>ST2=ET1
   (He said) when the accident happened...

3) ET3>RT2>ST2
   (when the even happened) he had been drinking

If that makes any clearer sense. The reported speech act is event 1.

Dang conflicting descriptive systems. (Always blame something else.)


Cheers,


Ian

>I'm now fading so I'll take the opportunity to hit the sack.