Questions: Temporal Semantics and Linguistic Tense

Question 1

In the sentence 'She had left when he arrived,' how does Reichenbach's S/R/E framework analyze the temporal structure?

• A. E = her leaving, S = the utterance time, R = absent — the pluperfect only uses two time points
• B. E = her leaving (before R), R = his arriving (before S), S = utterance time — E before R before S
• C. R = her leaving, E = his arriving, S = utterance time — R before E before S
• D. E and R coincide at the time of her leaving, both before S

Answer: (B)

Reichenbach's three-time framework handles the pluperfect by introducing a reference time R distinct from both the event time E and speech time S. 'She had left' places her leaving (E) before a reference point (R); 'when he arrived' establishes that reference point as his arrival; and both precede the speech time (S). The structure is E before R before S. This is what distinguishes the pluperfect from simple past ('she left') which only requires E before S, with R coinciding with E.

Question 2

Adding temporal dimensions to first-order semantics means sentences are evaluated at which combination of parameters?

• A. A world and a time — truth is relative to both
• B. A time only — tense replaces possible-worlds semantics
• C. A world, a time, and an utterance context — but the utterance context is redundant with the time
• D. A world only — times are reducible to sets of propositions true at that world

Answer: (A)

Temporal semantics extends standard possible-worlds semantics by adding time as an additional evaluation parameter. A sentence is not simply true or false at a world; it is true or false at a world-time pair (or world-time-context triple when utterance-relative expressions like 'now' or 'yesterday' are involved). This is the core move: treating times as explicit parameters rather than implicit in the description of possible worlds. The utterance context (option C) is not redundant — it provides the anchor point from which tense quantifies forward or backward.

Question 3

On a B-theory (eternalist) view of time, future-tensed sentences like 'It will rain tomorrow' can have determinate truth values now.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

B-theory (eternalism) holds that past, present, and future times all equally exist — there is no metaphysically privileged 'now,' only an indexically picked out moment. On this view, future-tensed sentences are made true or false by facts about what happens at future times, just as past-tensed sentences are made true by facts about past times. Truth is relative to a time, but both past and future times are equally real truth-makers. This contrasts with A-theory/presentism, where future times don't yet exist, creating semantic problems for future-tensed claims.

Question 4

Past tense in natural language is best analyzed as universally quantifying over most past times — 'it rained' means it rained at most of the time before the utterance.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Past tense existentially quantifies over past times, not universally. 'It rained' means there exists some time t before the utterance time such that it rained at t — not that it rained at every past time. Universal quantification ('it always rained') requires explicit marking. This matters because the existential analysis captures the ordinary meaning: 'She left' asserts the existence of a leaving-event at some past time, not that leaving occurred at all past times. The same existential structure applies to future tense: 'It will rain' quantifies over some future time, not all.

Question 5

Why does the semantics of the future tense raise metaphysical issues that the past tense does not, and how do B-theory and A-theory respond differently?

Model answer: Past-tensed sentences are uncontroversially about events that have already occurred — past times and events exist (or existed) to serve as truth-makers. Future tense is philosophically fraught because on A-theory (presentism), future events don't yet exist, so there is nothing to make a future-tensed sentence determinately true or false. B-theory avoids this problem by treating future times as equally real as past times, so 'It will rain tomorrow' is made true by what happens at the future time, just as 'It rained yesterday' is made true by the past. A-theorists typically analyze future tense differently — as expressing possibility, probability, or a default continuation — because they lack future truth-makers.

The key insight is that temporal semantics makes metaphysical commitments precise. Once you formalize tense as quantification over times, the question 'what is the domain of that quantification?' forces you to take a position on whether future times exist. The formal framework doesn't resolve the metaphysical debate, but it clarifies exactly what's at stake and makes the competing positions subject to linguistic evidence about how future-tensed sentences actually behave.