> RF:
>
> In B. Comrie (1985) "Tense" p. 9, we find the definition of tense as
> "grammaticalized location in time". On pp. 18-19 Comrie discusses examples
> of the use of past tense that seemingly contradicts the view that in past
> tense reference time comes before the deictic center. He mentions
> counterfactuals and polite expressions. But as Comrie said, and we all know,
> there can be special uses of grammatical categories. But that does not
> invalidate the fact that tenses exist, and that they are expressed by
> particular forms.
> ...
> The fact that tenses may have special uses is of course a complicating
> factor in the analysis of a dead language.
>
I'm not sure Comrie supports your overall position on tense - or at least,
Comrie's position seems to me to be more flexible than yours. To quote him:
"The approach followed in this book does ... retain the distinction between
a context-independent meaning and interpretation fostered by specific
contexts ... However, it is acknowledged that a given grammatical category
may have *more than one meaning* (it is thus logically possible that the
auxiliary *will* in English might have both temporal and modal meanings);
that a grammatical category may have a basic meaning and a number of
peripheral meanings or uses (where these are *not predictable* from the
interaction of basic meaning and context); and that the basic meaning of a
lexical item may be definable in terms of a prototype, i.e. in terms of the
most characteristic instance, rather than in terms of
necessary-and-sufficient conditions." (p. 19, emphasis added)
Note in particular his affirmation that the peripheral meanings not be
predictable from the basic meaning + context; i.e. to use your hard-and-fast
distinction, we are talking about semantics, not simply pragmatics. So the
"special uses" you talk of cannot necessarily be palmed off as "pragmatics".
Comrie does not do so.
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