A Unified Approach to Tense in Japanese

要旨

In this paper we propose a method to compositionally interpret tenses of Japanese complex sentences on the basis of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar and Discourse Representation Theory. In this approach, each of the tense-bearing forms such as main verbs and the past auxiliary is given a single temporal meaning independent of its position in the syntactic structure. The `relative tense theory' according to which a tense in a subordinate clause is interpreted in relation to a syntactically higher tense lays a foundation for this formalization.

主題