Article published in:
Cognitive Approaches to Tense, Aspect, and Epistemic ModalityEdited by Adeline Patard and Frank Brisard
[Human Cognitive Processing 29] 2011
► pp. 45–86
The English present
Temporal coincidence vs. epistemic immediacy
Ronald W. Langacker | University of California at San Diego
Two accounts of the English present are outlined and compared: one that treats it as tense, indicating coincidence with the time of speaking; and one that treats it as modality, indicating epistemic immediacy. Well-known problems with a time-based account are overcome in a conceptual semantic description that makes explicit the mental constructions invoked in non-present uses. With a modal account, the problem is to make the notion of epistemic immediacy sufficiently clear and precise for explicit analysis and comparison to be possible. There is no doubt that the modal account is more general, but for a wide range of central uses the two are effectively equivalent, temporal coincidence providing the basis for epistemic immediacy. The former can be seen as the category prototype, the latter as a schematic (fully general) characterization.
Published online: 28 July 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.29.06lan
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.29.06lan
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