Judith Tonhauser (Stanford U.)

Paraguayan Guarani is one of the few languages of the world with nominal temporal markers, i.e. nominal markers that affect the temporal interpretation of the noun phrase with which they occur (cf. also Halkomelem (Burton 1997) and Movima (Haude 2004)). In (1a), the noun phrase petei abogado 'a lawyer' co-occurs with the nominal temporal marker -kue, which asserts that the individual denoted by the noun phrase was a lawyer in the past but not anymore when the speaker saw the individual. In (1b), the nominal temporal marker -ra on the noun phrase petei abogado 'a lawyer' asserts that the individual denoted by the noun phrase was not a lawyer when the speaker saw the individual and implicates that the individual might become a lawyer in the future.

In this talk, I present results of recent fieldwork on the nominal temporal markers of Guarani. Focusing on the marker -ra, I illustrate that in addition to the temporal interpretation, it also has purposive, benefactive and modal (obligation) interpretations. I argue that the temporal meaning of -ra is basic, and that the other interpretations arise from it in particular syntactic constructions and discourse contexts.

These novel insights to temporality in the nominal domain shed light on the relation between the temporal interpretation of noun phrases and verb phrases. Contrary to previous approaches (e.g. Nordlinger and Sadler 2004), I argue that temporal interpretation in the two domains is not parallel but crucially differs because noun phrases denote individuals (excluding nominalizations) while verb phrases denote eventualities.

References

Burton, S. 1997. Past tense on nouns as death, destruction and loss. In K. Kusomoto, ed., Proceedings of the 27th North Eastern Linguistic Society. Amherst, MA: GLSA, 65-77.

Haude, K. 2004. Nominal tense marking in Movima. Linguistics in the Netherlands 21, 80-90.

Nordlinger, R. and L. Sadler. 2004. Nominal tense in cross-linguistic perspective. Language 80, 776-806.

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