Formal properties of now revisited

The traditional view is that now a pure indexical, denoting the utterance time. Yet, despite its initial appeal, has faced criticism. A range of data reveal allows for discourse-bound (i.e., anaphoric) uses, and can occur felicitously with past tense. reaction to this typically been treat as akin true demonstrative, selecting prominent time supplied by non-linguistic context or prior discourse. We argue doubly mistaken. first mistake concerns semantic value which not time, but state --- consequent event. second indexical after all, insofar interpretation determined without recourse extra-linguistic supplementation. Specifically, we any occurrence selects most event, where event-prominence linguistically maintained through prominence-affecting updates contributed coherence relations. Our analysis accounts straightforwardly wide discourse bound uses while giving it simple meaning. EARLY ACCESS