Abstract
Temporal questions with when and their counterparts in other languages display tense restrictions: they are incompatible with the present tense that is interpreted as 'currently ongoing', and English when-questions are incompatible with the present perfect. The existence of tense restrictions is one of the reasons why a theory of the semantics of questions should include an account of tense and aspect. I first propose an explanation of the tense restrictions based on the pragmatics of questions and partial answers. Then, I discuss how tense and aspectual operators can be added to Inquisitive Semantics (Ciardelli, Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2018).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 22-42 |
| Journal | Proceedings of SALT |
| Volume | 29 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 10 Dec 2019 |
Keywords
- temporal questions
- when
- tense
- partial answers
- Inquisitive Semantics