Times in Tense Logic

Worlds and Times

There are many parallels between the role of possible worlds in modal logic and that of times in tense logic. But the similarities only go so far, and it is important to note where the two come apart. This paper argues that even though worlds and times play similar roles in the model theories of modal and tense logic, there is no tense analogue of the possible-worlds analysis of modal operators...

'Now' and 'Then' in Tense Logic

According to Hans Kamp and Frank Vlach, the two-dimensional tense operators “now” and “then” are ineliminable in quantified tense logic. This is often adduced as an argument against tense logic, and in favor of an extensional account that makes use of explicit quantification over times. The aim of this paper is to defend tense logic against this attack. It is shown that “now” and “then” are eli...

On the Universal Principles of Tense Embedding: The Lesson from Before

Languages that are classified as non-Sequence-of-Tense come in more than one variety (e.g., Arregui & Kusumoto 1998): some of these languages allow a past tense in beforeclauses while others do not. We propose that some languages have quantificational (existential) tenses, while others have pronominal (referential/bound) tenses. The past tense in before-clauses is ill-formed in a language that ...

Lecture 2 : Time , tense , and tense - logic ∗

The Computational Complexity of Hybrid Temporal Logics

In their simplest form, hybrid languages are propositional modal languages which can refer to states. They were introduced by Arthur Prior, the inventor of tense logic, and played an important role in his work: because they make reference to specific times possible, they remove the most serious obstacle to developing modal approaches to temporal representation and reasoning. However very little...