This paper discusses the status of Romanian tenses with respect to the cross-linguistic typology, which distinguishes between Sequence of Tense (SOT) and non-SOT languages. The major difference between SOT languages (English) and non-SOT languages (Japanese/Russian) is that in the former, past under past yields a simultaneous reading whereas in the latter, present under past yields a simultaneous construal. On traditional tense analyses, the simultaneous construals in SOT languages arise via a “null” (past) tense, while in non-SOT languages, simultaneous construals arise via either a “null” tense (Japanese) or a “shifted indexical” present tense (Russian). I examine the distribution of Romanian past and present in subordinate contexts and show that (i) past always expresses anteriority and (ii) present is indexical under past and the realization of a “null” tense under a matrix future. I discuss the simultaneous construal of the Romanian present in complement clauses in the light of two major theories of shifting indexicals and show that neither gives a neat account of the Romanian data.
Key words:
null tense, indexical present, shifting indexical, Sequence of Tense, Romanian present
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