Loading...
The State-Before-Event Inference Emerges Across Tenses
Title / Series / Name
Open Mind
Publication Volume
9
Publication Issue
Pages
Editors
Keywords
Figure-Ground
complex event construal
dynamicity
modality
relative clause constructions
temporal anchoring
tense semantics
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Linguistics and Language
Cognitive Neuroscience
complex event construal
dynamicity
modality
relative clause constructions
temporal anchoring
tense semantics
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Linguistics and Language
Cognitive Neuroscience
Files
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/27850
Abstract
In language, comprehenders often need to infer the temporal order of events to construct a mental model of a complex situation. Dynamicity differences are a key predictor of these inferences: Non-dynamic states are reliably inferred to precede dynamic events. In two studies, we test two theoretical explanations for this phenomenon through temporal order judgments for past-under-past and future-under-future relative clauses in English: According to a tense-mediated account of temporal anchoring, people rely on the conceptual distinction between a more salient reference time—often a dynamic event—and a less salient anchored situation—often a static state. The temporal relationship between the two is determined at the linguistic level by tense meaning: For the past tense, the relationship should be one of anteriority, and for the future tense, it should be one of posteriority. However, the future tense has often been placed closer to modals than to tenses, relegating the question of temporal order to other mechanisms. Alternatively, from a purely cognitive perspective, salience differences between states and events are sufficient to infer temporal order, with states acting as temporal backgrounds for more salient events, regardless of tense. Our results support such a cognitive mechanism: In both experiments, states are backgrounded relative to events. Differences between the experiments furthermore support modal accounts of the semantics of the future.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2025-05-23
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1162/opmi_a_00207