Temporal dynamic semantics of factual counterfactuals

Abstract

This paper discusses the fake past tense morphology used for present state in Japanese (Teramura 1984; Iatridou 2000). Unlike Korean and other languages, the past tense marker "ta" can express an unexpected finding or remembrance at the time of speech (Inoue and Ubukoshi 1997). I claim that this construction corresponds to subjunctive conditionals with a covert negative antecedent, and that counterfactuality is involved in such non-past past tense, even though the proposition expressed is factual. It is comparable to the counterfactual analysis of factive emotive predicates such as "sorry"and "glad" (Heim 1992; Giorgi and Pianesi 1997). I show that non-past past construction updates the information state, and revises the context. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.