Boethius of Dacia and Terence Parsons: Verbs and Verb Tense Then and Now

Abstract

Latin and English are good examples of languages in which temporal information is expressed to a significant extent by the tense system of verbs. Medieval speculative grammar dealt extensively with the grammar of tensed sentences and temporal adverbs. And starting in the 1960s, there was an explosion of theorizing about linguistic temporal indicators, principally tense systems and temporal adverbs, in anglophone linguistics and philosophical logic focused on semantics for natural language. I argue that despite important differences with respect to methodology and underlying assumptions, there is significant agreement about the underlying structure of constructions involving tense and the ontological commitments that follow from a semantic analysis of these constructions. I use as examples Modi Significandi by Boethius of Denmark and Events in the Semantics of English by Terrence Parsons.

Keywords

• modist grammar
• davidson
• priscian
• events
• active and passive voice