Rohrer (1982) has recently suggested that the passé anterieur should more properly be called passé postérieur; and a very similar view was expressed not long ago by Martin (1971). Although there are indeed instances in which one could be led to believe that these proposals are justified, this paper will attempt to demonstrate that the traditional view (reflected in the terminology currently used) is basically sound. More than that, the analysis developed here shows that the typical semantic information conveyed by the passé antérieur is not merely to indicate that a given event ‘precedes’ a given reference time, but (more specifically) that the event ‘IMMEDIATELY precedes’ that reference time. It will be argued that, if this point is understood, then all aspects of the behavior of this verbal tense will fall into a unitary and coherent picture. © 1987, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.
Why the ‘Passé antérieur’ should be called ‘Passé immédiatement antérieur’
BERTINETTO, Pier Marco
1987
Abstract
Rohrer (1982) has recently suggested that the passé anterieur should more properly be called passé postérieur; and a very similar view was expressed not long ago by Martin (1971). Although there are indeed instances in which one could be led to believe that these proposals are justified, this paper will attempt to demonstrate that the traditional view (reflected in the terminology currently used) is basically sound. More than that, the analysis developed here shows that the typical semantic information conveyed by the passé antérieur is not merely to indicate that a given event ‘precedes’ a given reference time, but (more specifically) that the event ‘IMMEDIATELY precedes’ that reference time. It will be argued that, if this point is understood, then all aspects of the behavior of this verbal tense will fall into a unitary and coherent picture. © 1987, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
