What are the computational and representational bases of the mental lexicon of words, and of the rules of grammar which productively combine lexical forms into larger words, phrases and sentences? ‘‘Dual-system’’ theories posit that lexical forms with non-compositional (arbitrary) sound-meaning pairings are stored in memory, whereas compositional structures are subserved by a distinct rule-proc...

Recent evidence shows tense-response compatibility effects only when the task relates to sentence tense (Ulrich & Maienborn, 2010). In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated tense-response compatibility effects. In our first experiment (E1, where sentence tense was relevant to the task) we found compatibility effects at the beginning of the sentence (e.g., Yesterday versus Tomorrow), whi...

The tense and lax vowels of German were compared, based on an analysis of the duration, amplitude and velocity characteristics of lip and tongue movement. This study examined firstly whether they show different patterns of compression over changes in speech rate, and secondly whether velocity profiles would reveal evidence of different underlying control mechanisms. CVC movements were segmented...

The first goal of this paper is to determine whether superficially ‘tenseless’ sentences like (1b) contain a covert tense morpheme; I will argue that they do. The second goal is to determine what the semantics of that tense morpheme is. I will propose that (1b) contains a phonologically null tense morpheme which is lexically underspecified with respect to whether the reference time precedes or ...

Neuropsychological dissociations between regular and irregular English past-tense morphology have been reported using a lexical decision task in which past-tense primes immediately precede present-tense targets. We present N400 event-related potential data from healthy participants using the same design. Both regular and irregular past-tense forms primed corresponding present-tense forms, but w...

Sinitic languages are very often described as tenseless, since they generally seen lacking ‘true’ grammatical markers of tense: thus, the interpretation time reference relies on other factors, such aspect, modal verbs, and use expressions. However, debate concerning tenseless nature Chinese has not been settled yet: several types items in have analyzed expressing both aspect tense, tense modali...

The Verb Group Traditionally the verb group was studied following the Latin model of analysis, that is, it was classified according to the “tense”: Present Simple, Present Progressive, Past Simple, Past Progressive, Present Perfect, Past Perfect, Future and so on. This type of classification, although familiar to the Spanish learner, is confusing in the sense that it makes each tense an isolate...

All languages have ways of expressing location in time, but they differ widely in their grammatical tense systems. At the same time, there are tense systems that recur across unrelated languages. What explains this wide but constrained variation? Taking a functionalist perspective, we propose that tense systems are shaped by the need to support efficient communication–a need that has recently b...

In this paper I discuss the properties of tense as a grammatical feature, understood as a set of values and the methods of their realization on linguistic elements. I outline the criteria for recognizing various featural dependencies: agreement, government, and different types of multirepresentation of a feature value in a domain. I examine more closely three instances of tense-aspect-mood-pola...

How is temporal information conveyed in language? In languages with tense it is direct; without tense, inference allows the receiver to arrive at an indirect temporal interpretation. I will discuss tensed and tenseless languages, proposing a unified approach that applies to both. I show that a few very general pragmatic principles account for temporal interpretation, direct and indirect. I assu...