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Tense and temporal reference. Hybrid temporal logic

Seminar on Language and Communication <p><em>Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009, 12:00 pm, </em></p><p><strong>María Ponte (ILCLI) </strong><br><em>

Abstract

Prior's approach on time has been neglected by semanticists for several reasons. The main one, we believe, is the impossibility of Priorean tense logic to refer to times. The second one is the impossibility to account for some important features of natural language such as temporal anaphora and the role of temporal constructions in discourse. Priorean tense logic has, however one important advantage over other accounts: the internal perspective of time (due to its modal nature). This paper examines extensions of Priorean tense logic in which reference to times is possible, focusing on the so called Hybrid temporal logic. We'll outline some of its main features (the introduction of nominals and of temporal indexicals such as today and yesterday) and analyse some of its philosophical implications.