DEICTIC PROJECTION: AN INQUIRY INTO THE FUTURE-ORIENTED PAST TENSE IN PERSIAN* Manoochehr Tavangar & Mohammad Amouzadeh Abstract. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which the Persian past tense form is projected into the future to designate events, states, and processes. While it must be admitted that the phenomenon under consideration is by no means confined to Persian, its examination in this language will reveal certain characteristics which are likely to contribute to a better understanding of how temporal deixis, together with aspectual and modal meanings, interact with contextual factors to yield socio-culturally relevant utterances. Of special theoretical interest in this respect are the semantic-pragmatic constraints levied, in varying degrees, on the projected tense in terms of negation, pronominal choice, speech act assignment, aspectual character, modal status, and pitch contour. Fundamental to the present study are three assumptions. First, the deictic projection at issue has pragmatic motivations, and, in addition, stems largely from the ontological asymmetry between pastness and futurity. Second, it has an indisputable edge over the other future-indicating devices available to Persian speakers in that it denotes factivity with respect to the occurrence of a situation. And third, it is stylistically marked as it digresses from the normal function of the past tense. ÔÔAnd of all the various aspects of time, it is its tensed aspect, the fact that we experience time in terms of a transient now, which is the most promiscuous.ÕÕ (Robin Le Poidevin, 1998:10) 1. Introduction It is generally recognized that undertaking explorations in the realm of tense could hardly be described as plain sailing. This circumstance arises, in the main, from the complex structure of tense itself, which, on the one hand, is bound up with time (a notoriously enigmatic entity), and, on the other, is indubitably tied to aspect and modality. Such a tripartite relationship becomes even more noticeable when it comes to focusing on deictic projection: a phenomenon in which the canonical sequencing of the domains of pastness, presentness and futurity is disrupted, with the result that one domain gets projected into another to produce a pragmatically justifiable configuration. This is what Declerck (1995:10) appositely refers to as Ôshift of temporal perspectiveÕ. Two examples which spring to mind in this connection are Ôhistoric presentÕ and Ôattitudinal pastÕ, both of which are attested in many languages, and * The authors would like to put on record their gratitude to the Studia Linguistica referees for their insightful comments and suggestions for the improvement of this paper. Studia Linguistica 60(1) 2006, pp. 97–120. Ó The authors 2006. Journal compilation Ó The Editorial Board of Studia Linguistica 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA