ABSTRACT
Time is a fundamental aspect of human experience, and this is reflected in language. Situations happen in time, and the expression of situation time is an important part of sentence meaning. In fact language is particularly crucial for conveying time notions – as you would find if you tried to convey time notions without language. Suppose you used a picture to represent meaning. You might succeed in conveying at least some aspects of a situation such as sleeping, or dropping, or breaking, or giving. But you would be hard pressed to represent its timing. Equally, if you mimed a situation, how could you show when it happened? Just imagine trying to get across the sort of time references that the most everyday sentences convey with precision:
I dropped that vase yesterday
The vase has broken
She was sleeping when the alarm went off
The librarian will give you the book later
