~ I zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQ ELSEVIER Lingua 97 (1995) 1-36 Is there a r lative past tense in English? Renaat DeclerckzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO Universitaire Campus, K jthOlieke Universiteit Leuven, B-8500 Kortrijk, Belgium Received 0, tober 1994; revised version March 1995 Abstract I Traditional analyses of the pasf tense such as Reichenbach's (1947) and Comrie's (1985) assign a single semantic structurs to the past tense and do not distinguish between absolute and relative past tenses in EngIis,. In the present artiele it is argued that we cannot do with- out the notion of a relative past tense. Ten empirically based arguments are adduced in sup- port of this. The author also disc sses six possible tests to distinguish between absolute and relative past tenses in concrete elmPles and points out that the analysis has some important theoretical implications. He argu s that the distinction between absolute and relative tenses requires a model of the English te se system that is based on the concept of temporal domain, and that the traditional analysis ot the meaning of the past tense morpheme (viz. 'Event time anterior to speech time') stands i need of qualification. 1. Introduetion Tense is a notoriously difficult subject in linguistics. As a matter of fact, even its definition is controversial. Although most linguists hold that "tense is gram- maticalised expression of 10 ation in time" (Comrie, 1985: 9), there is also a whole tradition of people who claim that "tense and time have in principle nothing to do with each other" (Leus hner, 1977: 99) and argue that the basic distinction between past tenses and non past tenses is the distinction between 'remote' and 'non-remote' (or 'actual' versus 'non-actual') rather than the distinction between past and present time. In this Jrticle I will not pursue this question but assume that the former view is the corre9t one. (Arguments supporting this are presented in Declerck (1991).) In other w~rds, I subscribe to the view that "tense gramatical- izes the relationship between ti he time of the situation that is being described and the temporal zero-point of the1deictie context" (Lyons, 1977: 682). The question I will address in the present artiele is whether English has 'relative' as well as 'absolute' tenses. In doing so I will particularly be eoncerned with the past tense: 1 1 I wil! use the term 'past tense' in ~he sense of 'preterite' (e.g. left). This means that I wil! not apply the term to forms like had left or WOrld leave, which some people call past tense fonns because they 0024-3841/95/$09.50 © 1995 Elsevie Science B.V. AU rights reserved SSDI0024-3841(95)00019-4