A Simplified Theory of Tense Representations and Constraints on their Composition

This paper proposes a set of representations for tenses and a set of constraints on how they can be combined in adjunct clauses. The semantics we propose explains the possible meanings of tenses in a variety of sentential contexts. It also supports an elegant constraint on tense combination in adjunct clauses. These semantic representations provide insights into the interpretations of tenses, and the constraints provide a source of syntactic disambiguation that has not previously been demonstrated. We demonstrate an implemented disambiguator for a certain class of three-clause sentences based on our theory.