Temporal Dynamic Semantics of Factual Counterfactuals

This paper discusses a subjunctive construction, namely, the past tense used for present state in Japanese (Teramura 1984). Unlike in Korean and other languages, the past tense marker “ta” can express an unexpected finding or remembrance at the speech time (Inoue and Ubukoshi 1997). I claim the existence of a covert antecedent clause in this construction, and that counterfactuality is involved in such non-past past tense, although the proposition expressed is factual. It is comparable to the counterfactual analysis of factive emotive predicates “glad” and “sorry” (Heim 1992; von Fintel 1999). I show that subjunctives update the information state, adding the belief about the falsity of the proposition. 1. Non-past Past: Unexpectancy and Remembrance Peculiarly, in Japanese, there are cases that past tense marker “ta” expresses present tense, when used mainly with stative predicates such as “aru” or “iru” (be/exist). For example, when looking for today’s newspaper, the possible utterance to find it on the kitchen table would be: (1) Koko-ni at-ta. here-Loc be-Past ‘(It) was here’ Although the speaker realizes the existence of the newspaper at the speech time, not in the past, the past tense marker is more appropriate than the present tense in this situation. The literal meaning (1) expresses is (2), not (3): (2) ∃x∃t′∃e [newspaper′(x) ∧ be-here′(x, e, t′) ∧t′⊆t] (3) ∃x∃t′∃e′ [newspaper′(x) ∧ be-here′(x, e′,t′) ∧t′<t] (where t is the speech time) Why do Japanese speakers use the past tense, instead of the present tense as in (4), although the existence of the newspaper belongs to the speech time? (4) Koko-ni aru.