Handout for the communication at the CRONOS 2009 Workshop in Paris, September, 2-4, 2009.

1. Tense and Temporal Relations in Italian Text/Discourse.
Tommaso Caselli
ILC-CNR, Pisa
tommaso.caselli@ilc.cnr.it
0.
Aim of the work: Revision of tense interpretation in text/discourse (tense as a discourse anaphor)
Temporal relations between eventualities in adjacent sentences
Role of the tense in recovering temporal relations
1.
Assumptions: tense semantics is analyzed in terms of a neo-reichenbachian approach
2 distinctions: BASIC TEMPORAL MEANING OF TENSE
TENSE MEANING IN TEXTUAL DOMAIN(Smith 2004)  text/discourse
• E = moment of event
• S = moment of speech (deictic centre)
• Rpt = representational device. It corresponds to the original Reichenbachian notion of
moment of reference. It is responsible for the signalling that tense IS REFERENTIAL.
Rpt is always simultaneous with E
• R = second deictic centre. Required only by some tense forms; e.g. Trapassato I (Past
Perfect); Futuro Composto (Future Perfect) ( Comrie, 1985)
Tense Forms Absolute Meaning
Present (Present) (E = S) / (Rpt = E)
Passato Semplice (Simple Past); Imperfetto (E < S) / (Rpt = E)
(Imperfait); Passato Composto (Present Perfect
+ Simple Past)
Trapassato I & II (Past Perfect) (E < R) • (R < S) / (Rpt = E)
Futuro Semplice (Future) (E > S) / (Rpt = E)
Futuro Composto (Future Perfect) (E < R) • (R > S) / (Rpt = E)
Futuro nel Passato (Future-in-the-Past) (E > R) • (R < S) / (Rpt = E)
Table 1 – Representation of the absolute tense meanings.
1.1
Temporal relations: they are INFERENTIAL PROCESSES which are activated on the basis of
semantic and pragmatic principles.
Temporal relations are the result of the combination of linguistic and contextual (extra-linguistic)
information which starts from a relevant input and contribute to determine the informational
content of an utterance or a sentence. They are explicatures and not implicatures (Sperber-Wilson,
2004).
Temporal relations cannot be considered as a by-product of the computation of discourse
structure (Lascarides-Asher, 1993).
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CHRONOS 2009 - 9th International Conference on Tense, Aspect and Modality. Paris, September 2-4 2009

2. 1.2
Tense in text/discourse: sequences of adjacent sentences.
Tense appears as the primary source of information we have at disposal when identifying the
temporal relations between two eventualities.
To account for the interpretation of tensed clauses or sentences in text/discourse we need a further
point:
• A: temporal textual anchor.
o The presence of A introduces two further relations:
(Rpt relative to A): textual interpretation of tense
(A relative to S): it expresses the relation between the specific referred time where
the eventuality occurs and the S.
Tense Forms Tense meaning in text/discourse
Present (Present) (E = S) / (Rpt = E) / (Rpt = A) /
(A = S)
Passato Semplice (Simple Past); Passato Composto (E < S) / (Rpt = E) / (Rpt < A) /
(Present Perfect + Simple Past) (A < S)
Imperfetto (Imparfait) (E < S) / (Rpt = E) / (Rpt = A) /
(A < S)
Trapassato I & II (Past Perfect) (E < R) • (R < S) / (Rpt = E) /
[(Rpt < A) / (R = A)] / (A < S)
Futuro Semplice (Future) (E > S) / (Rpt = E) / (Rpt > A) /
(A > S)
Futuro Composto (Future Perfect) (E < R) • (R > S) / (Rpt = E) /
[(Rpt < A) / (R = A)] / (A > S)
Futuro nel Passato (Future-in-the-Past) (E > R) • (R < S) / (Rpt = E) /
[(Rpt > A) / (R = A)] / (A < S)
Table 2 – Representation of tense meaning in the text/discourse dimension.
A is a PARAMETER.
a) Marco è caduto{passato composto}. Giovanni lo ha spinto{passato composto}.
Marco fell. Giovanni pushed him.
[(E1 < S) / (Rpt1 = E1 ) / (Rpt1 < A1) / (Rpt1 < S)] / [(E2 < S) / (Rpt2 = E2 ) /
(Rpt2 < A2 ) / (Rpt2 < S)]
b) Marco è caduto{passato composto}. Giovanni lo aveva spinto{trapassato I}.
Marco fell. Giovanni had pushed him.
[(E1 < S) / (Rpt1 = E1 ) / (Rpt1 < A1) / (Rpt1 < S)] / [((E2 < R2 ) • (R2 < S)) /
(Rpt2 = E2 ) / (Rpt2 < A2 ) / (R2 = A2 ) / (Rpt2 < S)]
 the setting of the A is varied and in particular: i.) the first tensed eventuality always assigns the A
the default value, i.e. S ; ii.) subsequent tensed eventualities may assign the A either the default
value (like in a)) or the moment of reference of the preceding tensed eventualities, Rpt i-1 (like in b)).
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CHRONOS 2009 - 9th International Conference on Tense, Aspect and Modality. Paris, September 2-4 2009

3. Questions:
1. How to set the A in a principled way?
2. What is the role of tense for recovering temporal relations between eventualities in a
text/discourse? Is tense responsible for the ordering of the eventualities both in a) and in b)?
2.
Empirical data
2 experiments on 34 Italian subjects.
- Experiment 1: 28 subjects (none of them with knowledge in Linguistics); 52 couples of
sentences (33 automatically extracted from a corpus + 19 manually modified). Highly
controlled situation.
- Experiment 2: 6 subjects (student in Linguistics); 33 couples of sentences extracted from the
corpus – no manual modification.
Tasks:
- identify the temporal relation between two selected (verbal) eventualities; 5 temporal
relations available: BEFORE, AFTER, SIMULTANEOUS, OVERLAP; NO RELATION;
- identify the source of information which has been felt as the most salient, i.e. responsible for
the identification of the temporal relation; different granularity according to the subjects’
background (Experiment 1: TENSE, TEMPORAL EXPRESSIONS, NOT SPECIFIED;
Experiment 2: TENSE, SIGNAL, VIEWPOINT, SEMANTICS, TEMPORAL EXPRESSIONS,
NOT SPECIFIED).
2.1. Results
 the identification of a temporal relation between two consecutive eventualities IS NOT an easy
task.
Agreement of the annotators ranges between 0.49 < K < 0.581
 the agreement increases (K = 0.65) the more coarse grained is the set of temporal relations
(conceptual neighbours; Freska 1992)
Absolute Same Tense sequences: sequences of adjacent eventualities where the tenses, meaning and
superficial form, are exactly the same.
Smooth Tense Shift sequences: sequences of the kind Passato Composto – Imperfetto (Imperfait).
Same tense meaning but different surface form.
Tense Shift sequences: sequences of adjacent eventualities where the tenses, meaning and
superficial form, are different.
1
K is the symbol for the Kappa coefficient. It is considered a more robust measure than simple percent
agreement calculation since it takes into account the agreement occurring by chance.
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CHRONOS 2009 - 9th International Conference on Tense, Aspect and Modality. Paris, September 2-4 2009

4. Table 3- Results from Experiment 1 for the sources of information
Table 4 - Results from Experiment 2 for the sources of information
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CHRONOS 2009 - 9th International Conference on Tense, Aspect and Modality. Paris, September 2-4 2009

5. On the basis of the analysis of the data from the experiments we argue that:
 tense is a primary source of information for the identification of temporal relations between
adjacent eventualities BUT it is NOT the most salient
 tense is a necessary and sufficient information for ordering eventualities (identify a UNIQUE
temporal relation value) only in presence of tense shifts, i.e. different configuration of the E, R, S,
moments/points.
 shift in tense is the only “condition” which offers a principled way to set the A in subsequent
sentences, in particular:
• sequences of same tense always set A = S
• sequences with tense shift set A = Rpt i-1
thus:
a) Marco è caduto{passato composto}. Giovanni lo ha spinto{passato composto}.
Marco fell. Giovanni pushed him.
[(E1 < S) / (Rpt1 = E1 ) / (Rpt1 < S)] / [(E2 < S) / (Rpt2 = E2 ) / (Rpt2 < S) 
underspecified temporal relation
b) Marco è caduto{passato composto}. Giovanni lo aveva spinto{trapassato I}.
Marco fell. Giovanni had pushed him.
[(E1 < S) / (Rpt1 = E1 ) / (Rpt1 < S)] / [((E2 < R2 ) • (R2 < E2 ) / (Rpt2 < Rpt1 ) / (R2 =
Rpt1)]  E2 before E1
2.2.
Speculations on the Imperfetto (Imperfait)
 the analysis of the data suggests that the Imperfetto could provide a setting for the A in
sequences of the kind Passato Composto (Simple Past + Present Perfect) – Imperfetto (Imperfait),
namely: A = Rpt i-1 where (Rpt = A), although such sequences qualifies as same tense sequences as
far as the configuration of the basic moments is concerned.
 the Imperfetto (Imperfait) in its standard interpretation = constraint for the validity of this
statement
 N.B. influence of Aspect – viewpoint (see data for Smooth Tense shift in Table 4)
 the temporal relation which can be inferred in this case is not unique but it is a coarse grained
relations which can be labeled as CONTEMPORARY (it includes overlap , is_finished, is_during,
is_started, simultaneous, starts, during, is_overlap; see Freska, 1992; Allen, 1983)
3.0
Advantages with respect to previous approaches:
 the role of tense in temporal relations has been clarified;
 overcoming of the limitations of traditional temporal anaphora approaches, in particular with
respect to the role of the Rpt, R. (Hinrichs, 1986; Partee, 1984; Webber, 1988)
 sequences of Trapassato I (past perfect) are treated in an uniform way with respect to other same
tense sequences
 the presence of the A is not innovative per sé (see Bertinetto, 1986). This work has provided a
systematic method to use it and of its contribution for the computation of temporal relations
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CHRONOS 2009 - 9th International Conference on Tense, Aspect and Modality. Paris, September 2-4 2009

6.  no need to state the presence of a particular discourse mode (Smith, 2004) in order to specify the
anaphoric properties of tense
 tense is anaphoric, in particular tense is a discourse anaphor (Webber, 1988). Its anaphoric
behaviour is similar to that of definite NPs BUT a special kind, namely bridging definite NPs:
• Bridging definites have their own referential • Tense has its own referential property,
properties like a definite NP represented by the Rpt
• Bridging NPs give rise to an indirect • Sequence of tenses tend to refer indirectly
anaphoric link to a previously mentioned one to the other so that to create multiple
entity bridges. Sequences of eventualities at the
same tense, which do not allow a principled
assignment of the A parameter, identify a
general temporal focus, since all their
reference points, Rpts, are collocated in the
same temporal dimension providing a
continuation of the general temporal focus.
On the contrary, in presence of shifts in
tense, the temporal focus of the two
eventualities differs. Their Rpts are
collocated in two different dimensions
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