Why Monday comes before Tuesday: the role of a non-deictic conceptualiser

Abstract

‘Time-Reference-Point' (time-RP) relations (Núñez & Sweetser, 2006) such as The Second World War followed the Depression do not involve a deictic ego. They do however involve a necessary defining role for a non-deictic conceptualiser that moves along the temporal pathway in a prescribed direction from earlier to later. Recognising the role of this implicit conceptualiser, which defines the directionality built into the temporal domain, allows us to unite the wide variety of particular temporal construals into a single, remarkably coherent domain. These construals reflect whether the conceptual perspective is linked to deictic ‘now' (Ego-Reference-Point relations (Ego-RP)), whether the conceptual perspective is in time or outside of time, whether an external perspective is distal enough to afford a synoptic view of the profiled times simultaneously, and whether the times are construed to be engaged in fictive motion relative to the conceptual perspective. Particular attention is paid to the use of the verb come even with time-RP relations.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2007, 25(3): 291–301