Topic 18
Topic 18
Topic 18
TEMA 18
- INGLÉS
1/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
0. INTRODUCTION
1. LOCATION IN TIME
1.1. THE CONCEPT OF TIME
1.2. TIME AND DISCOURSE
3. TIME RELATIONS
3.1. SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF TIME-POSITION EXPRESSIONS
3.2. SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS OF TIME-POSITION EXPRESSIONS
3.2.1. TIME-WHEN PREPOSITIONS: IN, ON, AT.
3.2.2. TIME-POSITION SUBJUNCTS.
3.3. RELATIONS BETWEEN DIFFERENT TIME-POSITIONS
4. FREQUENCY
4.1. SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF TIME-FREQUENCY EXPRESSIONS
4.2. SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS OF TIME-FREQUENCY EXPRESSIONS
5. CONCLUSION.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
2/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
0. INTRODUCTION
A text, as a semantic unit, needs a context. The course of the narrative
depends in fact as much on place-sequence as on time-sequences. In a narrative
text, written or spoken, time is a relevant element in the structure of the
sentence and in the general meaning. Both syntactic and semantic aspects are
expressed by means of different grammatical devices related with the notion of
time: tense, aspect and auxiliaries in the verb phrase or by adverbials such as
adverbs (‘yesterday’), prepositional phrases (‘on Saturday’), noun phrases (‘last
week’), noun phrase + ago, past, back, etc. (‘three weeks ago’), conjunctions
(‘after, since’), and adverbial clauses (‘whenever they want).
To locate something in time means to establish a time reference for an event
or an action in an utterance. Location in time and temporal relations represent
semantic notions which have a variety of realizations on the syntactic and lexical
levels in the English language. They respond to questions like "When?" and "How
often?". Answers to such questions or information referring to these notions can
be coded in English in different ways, for example by means of simple adverbs
like now or more complex expressions like after he had come. Users of English
understand such expressions not only thanks to their knowledge of linguistic
structures and vocabulary, but also thanks to their understanding of the spacio-
temporal framework in which communication take place. For this reason, the
present analysis of the ways in which English expresses temporal notions starts
by establishing how the concept of time is conceived in this language and how
these notions are present in discourse in general. Next, a variety of ways of
expressing temporal noaens is presented and discussed in detail.
1. LOCATION IN TIME
1.1. THE CONCEPT OF TIME
Time is a universal concept. It is a measured or measurable continuum that
lacks spatial dimensions (Encyclopaedia Britannia). All languages have the notion
of time and ways of distinguishing actions or ideas in the frame of present, past
and future, although not all the cultures understand these concepts in the same
way.
Some linguists see the origins of the time universals like past, present and
future in the developmental sequence of the first language. Children begin their
speech careers by talking solely about the here and now, that is to say, about
objects and events in the present moment. It takes time for them to acquire the
notion of non-present. When they do, they first seem to acquire the notion of
past, that is, of those events that they have already experienced, and the notion
of future, or those events that they have yet not experienced.
When children talk about events, they focus on what is happening, what has
just happened or what is just about to happen. When they start to talk about
events in sequence, therefore, they stick very closely to their order of
occurrence: they describe the first event first, the second event second, and so
on. This parallelism between order of occurrence and order of mention appears
both in production and in comprehension. Children find it easier to construct
linguistic productions which mirror chronological order of occurrence with order
of description, as well as to interpret that the first event mentioned was the first
to occur. E. Clark (1971) found that three-year-olds were able to act out two
3/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
Inglas, Tema 18 (Secundaria) Pag. 3
events in sequence correctly
93 percent of the time after hearing descriptions like the following:
The boy jumped the fence before he patted the dog.
After the boy jumped the fence, he patted the dog.
When given the descriptions that follow, in which the order of events does
not correspond to that of mention, the same children got the sequence of events
right only 18 percent of the time:
Before the boy patted the dog, he jumped the fence.
The boy patted the dog after he (had) jumped the fence.
The above suggests that there is an acquisition order for some grammatical
morphemes related to time in the mother tongue.
1.2. TIME AND DISCOURSE
The extra-linguistic and universal concept of time is reflected in English in
the existence of forms which make reference to the present, past and future, like
now, yesterday, next Monday. Very often, the listener or the reader cannot
correctly understand the correct or exact meaning of forms which locate events
in time without relating them to the temporal framework of the context of the
given utterance. Any use of language whose meaning depends at least in part on
the situational context is called deixis.
Deixls concerns the way in which some expressions can only be interpreted
in terms of their relationship with the speaker, from whom deixis emanates. If a
speaker were to say I'm going to ask you to help me lift this and put it here, a
listener would need to know who was speaking (to identify the referents of I, me),
to whom (to identify the referen of you), of what (to identify the referent of
this) and the place of speaking (to work out where here refers to). Expressions
like I,
we, me, you this, that, to my left, behind, here, yesterday, next year… are all
indexed to the speaker in speaking; that is, they take their current interpretation
from the speaker at the moment of speaking. It is necessary for a listener to
identify the speaker, and the time and place of utterance, in order to interpret
fully what was said and what was meant by what was said.
Deictics are expressions which explicitly refer to time or other contextual
elements (then, here, he), although time reference is also present in the case of
non-explicit references (e.g. the choice of tenses). All such categories used for
location in time are classified below and analysed in the following parts of the
topic.
The most obvious referent for time seems to be that of the moment of
speaking and it marks the present time. Examples of expressions used to refer to
the present can be the adverb now, the noun phrase this week or simply the
choice of present continuous tense in English: I am having a rest. If the deictic
reference is not explicit, like in the last example, the knowledge of contexts helps
us understand what is meant by the present time (whether right at this moment,
this week, this month or at this stage of my life, for instance). The remaining no-
tions (past time and future time) are established in relation to the present time
and forms used to locate events in time are discussed below.
Summing up, deictic categories and other expressions for time
location in English include:
4/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
5/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
6/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
On the other hand, time position adverbs can belong to one of the following
groups described by Quirk et al.:
1. Adjuncts: most of the examples above belong to this group.
2. Subjuncts Indude yet, still, already, anymore, any longer, just and ever,
which are dscussed below (3.2.2.).
3. Conjuncts of the transitional type and within it the temporal subtype: in
the meantime, meanwhile, originally, subsequently, eventually.
The position of time-when expressions in a clause varies. The position of
conjuncts is completely free, although most frequently we can find them at the
beginning of a clause: Meanwhile, I was thinking about what to do next.
The position of subjuncts depends on the meaning they have in a given
clause and it is discussed in detail below (3.2.2.). Finally, time-position adjuncts
can be in a hierarchical relationship. Their usual position is at the end of a clause
but more than one adjunct can coincide there. The order of final adjuncts
depends in part on information focus, but the tendency is for the super-ordinate
adjunct, the one denoting the more extended period, to come last, unless the
other adjunct is considerably longer in form:
I'll see you at nine on Monday . I was in New York last year before the first snow
fell
3.2.1. TIME-WHEN PREPOSITIONS: IN, ON, AT.
Apart from adverbs, prepositional phrases are to the most common
expressions used specify time position. The three prepositions which can be
used for this are:
1. In is used before periods of time:
- parts of the day: early in the morning/afternoon
- months: in July
- seasons: in (the) summer
- years: in 1997
- dates that include the year: in June 1998
- decades and centuries: in the 1990()s, in the 21st century
In can mean 'during or within a period of time': He made the flight in two hours.
In can aiso mean 'at the end of a period of time': We expect to land in one hour.
The phrase in time means 'early enough not too late for something': Just in time
to celebrate his birthday
2. On before days/dates:
- days: on Mondays
7/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
8/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
10/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
11/12
Tema 18. La localización en el tiempo: relaciones temporales. Frecuencia.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
o Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. 1975. A Communicative Grammar of English. Longman.
o Quirk, R. & Greenbaum, S. 1973. A University Grammar of English. Longman.
430-449.
o Thompson, A. & Martinet, A. 1986. A Practical English Grammar. Oxford
University Press.
o Legal References. – see Topic 1 and Dossier Legal Framework
o LOE: O.L. 2/2006 (BOE)
o LOMCE: O.L. 8/2013 (BOE)
o LEA: L. 17/2007 (BOJA)
o RD 1105/2014 (BOE)
o D. 110/2016 & D.111/2016 (BOJA)
o O. 14/07/2016 (BOJA)
12/12