154 2. Towards a theory of tense and time
domain is directly related to t
0
. Together, they form a set whose relations we can
represent in a diagram.
A temporal domain is typically established by an absolute tense (locating a situation
time in a particular time-zone) and is expanded by relative tenses. In Meg will buy a
bike that has loads of gears the future tense form will buy establishes a post-present
domain. The present tense form has expands that temporal domain because it relates
the situation time of the bike having loads of gears to the situation time of Meg’s
buying a bike. Specifically, it locates the having simultaneous to the buying. That is,
the present tense in this sentence is used as a relative tense Ϫ it does not relate the
situation time to t
0
but to another orientation time, in this case the situation time
located by the future tense main clause.
A temporal domain need not be expanded: it may consist just of a single situation time,
as in Meg bought a bike.
2.42.1 A
temporal domain is a set of orientation times which are temporally
related to each other by means of tenses. Since a domain is always established
by a tense form and every tense form refers to a situation time, at least one of
the orientation times in the set is a situation time. As we will see, a domain
sometimes also contains an orientation time which is not a situation time, such
as the unspecified orientation time to which the situation time of had got up
is represented as anterior in He had got up early that morning when this sen-
tence is used as the first sentence of a novel.
An absolute tense form always establishes a domain. This means that a
domain can only be expanded by relative tense forms. Thus, in
(1) John said he was tired because he had worked hard all day and that he would
go to bed early.

As is shown in Figure 2.2, English has an absolute past tense, which estab-
lishes a past domain, and a
relative past tense, which expresses T-simultane-
ity in a past domain. The semantics of the absolute past tense is: ‘The situation
time is located in the past time-sphere (defined relative to t
0
)’; the semantics of
156 2. Towards a theory of tense and time
the relative past tense is: ‘The situation time is represented as T-simultaneous
with an orientation time in a past domain’.
20
Arguments for this distinction
are adduced in 8.23Ϫ32.
2.45 Past (time-sphere) tenses
The past (time-sphere) tenses comprise (a) the absolute past tense (creating a
past domain), (b) the relative tenses expressing a single T-relation in a past
domain, viz. the past tense (T-simultaneity), the past perfect (T-anteriority),
the ‘conditional’ tense (T-posteriority), and (c) the ‘complex relative’ (see
1.18.3) tenses expressing two or more relations in a past domain at once, viz.
the ‘conditional perfect’ tense (would have V-en), as well as such (nameless)
tenses as are built with had been going to, would be going to, would have been
going to, had been going to have V-en, would be going to have V-en and would
have been going to have V-en. All these tenses have in common that they show
past tense inflectional morphology.
2.46 Present (time-sphere) tenses
These comprise the present tense, the present perfect, the future tense and
the absolute-relative tenses (see the next section). They all show present tense
inflectional morphology.
2.47 Absolute-relative tenses
An absolute-relative tense is a tense which both establishes a domain and indi-

not follow this practice. In section 1.10.4 we argued that nonfinite clauses are
untensed, i. e. that only finite verb forms are tense forms.
2.49 Temporal subordination or (temporal) binding
A relative tense, by definition, requires the presence of some other orientation time in
order to locate the time of the situation expressed by the relative-tense clause. (For
example, such an orientation time is missing in Meg had bought a bike, rendering the
clause difficult to interpret, while in Meg said that she had bought a bike we have a
clearly accessible orientation time Ϫ the time of Meg’s saying Ϫ to which the relative
tense, the past perfect, can relate its situation.) We say that the situation time located
by a relative tense is ‘temporally bound’ by (or ‘subordinated’ to) the orientation time
from which the temporal location of the situation time takes its starting point. (In the
example above, the situation time of the buying is located by starting at the time of
saying and locating the buying anterior to it.) In the same way, we talk of ‘binding
orientation times’ and ‘bound situation times’.
158 2. Towards a theory of tense and time
When a situation time is T-related to another orientation time in a domain, we
have
temporal subordination or temporal binding. Thus, in John said he
would do it, the situation time of would do is ‘temporally bound by’ (or:
‘temporally subordinated to’) the situation time of said. (We know this because
the conditional tense, in its purely temporal use, can only be used as a relative
tense representing its situation time as T-posterior to another orientation time
in a past domain. In other words, the conditional tense is the grammaticaliza-
tion of the expression of T-posteriority in a past domain.) In this case the
bound situation time is the time of the predicated situation described by [he]
would do [it], whereas the
binding orientation time is the time of the predi-
cated situation described by [John] said.
2.50 Temporal subdomain
The situation time which establishes a temporal domain is the ‘central orientation time’

press T-relations in a past subdomain are exactly the same as those used to
express T-relations in the overall past domain. Consider, for example, the fol-
lowing:
Bill said something. (Said creates a past domain which is not further expanded.)
Bill said that some day I would lose my job. (Said creates a past domain which is
further expanded: would lose expresses T-posteriority within the domain; would lose
creates a past subdomain which is not further expanded.)
Bill said that some day I would lose the job that I had had for over twenty years.
(Would lose expresses T-posteriority within the overall past domain established by
said and creates a past subdomain; had had expresses T-anteriority in the subdomain
created by would lose, thus expanding it; the new subdomain created by had had
within the subdomain created by would lose is not further expanded.)
Ryan said Sheila had told him that she would resign if she didn’t get her way. (Said
creates a past domain. Had told expresses T-anteriority in it and creates a subdo-
main. In this subdomain, would resign expresses T-posteriority and creates a new,
smaller, subdomain. Within this subdomain didn’t get expresses T-simultaneity and
in doing so creates a further subdomain.)
Figure 2.5 represents the tense structure of the last example.
2.50.2 There are some interesting theoretical conclusions to be drawn from
this. First, in section 2.14 we defined ‘orientation time’ as ‘any time capable of
functioning as the origin of a temporal relation expressed by a tense form’ and
pointed out that it follows that a situation time (ϭ the time of a predicated
situation) is always an orientation time. We can now reformulate this and say
that a situation time is always the central orientation time of a domain or
subdomain. Secondly, the tenses expanding a subdomain of a past domain are
exactly the same as those expanding the overall past domain: both past do-
mains and past subdomains use the past perfect for T-anteriority, the condi-
tional tense for T-posteriority and the past tense for T-simultaneity. This means
that we need only a very limited number of tenses to build quite complex past
domains, since the rules for expanding a past domain apply recursively to each