Tempus og aspekt med særligt henblik på italiensk

Abstract

This paper intends to discuss some fundamental issues regarding tense and aspect in connection with a presentation of the Italian system of morphologically marked distinctions within the categories of tense and aspect; but it is also intended as a basis for studies in the function of tense and aspect in literary narrative (a matter to which I have dedicated the studies mentioned in the list of references). However, my main view is that inscribing presumed textual functions into the general definitions of morphemes (along the lines originally indicated by Benveniste and Weinrich), does not contribute to our understanding of texts, but will rather create obstacles for it. In fact I can see no valid alternative to describing tense in terms of 'time'. As others before me, I divide tenses in two groups on the basis of the distinctive semantic feature [+/-past]; Italian has two simple tenses in each group, and – corresponding to each of the four simple tenses – compound tenses formed with an auxiliary + the perfect participle, and semantically characterized by the fact that they signify a state as a consequence of an anterior state, process or event signified as espectually perfective. Compound tenses are thus morphologically as well as semantically complex: they differ with regard only to the tense and aspect of the 'consequence level' as expressed by the form of the auxiliary. This means that each tense, even the compound ones, are defined without taking into account a 'point of reference' or similar concepts: compound tenses express in themselves temporal location thanks to their auxiliary verb. Such semantic complexity is of particular importance in the case of the present perfect and the past perfect, both of which have two typical uses according to the predominance of the consequence level signified by their auxiliary or to the state/process/event signified by their lexeme (i.e. the past participle). This view entails an almost complete symmetry between these two tenses, and seems apt to solve a series of problems, especially concerning the use of the past perfect, some of which posed by other scholars. It is also confronted with the problems of consecutio temporum. I stress the fact that the basic distinctive features belong to the semantic level, and do not necessarily correspond to extralinguistical evidence in any instance of the use of a certain form. Thus the presumed "imperfective use" of the perfects is seen as an instance of confusion between semantics and extralinguistic reality. In the final part I mention 'figurative use' as the most important factor to create deviance between the semantics of forms and particular instances of temporal reference; I propose a distinction between metonymic and metaphoric uses, corresponding to different degrees of referential deviance from the basic semantic content of the forms.