ABSTRACT
Banfield associates the aorist/imparfait aspectual distinction in French and the simple past/past progressive distinction in English with narration and Represented Speech and Thought (RST), respectively. This particular aspectual distinction has been reported in the discourse analysis literature to correlate with foreground and background material in narrative discourse. Reinhart employing a visual analogy has suggested that complex narrative texts may contain 'layers' of foreground in the same way that a painting can show a figure resting on a figure. Local discourse context is essential to explaining the point of view interpretation of independent sentences. Because local discourse context determines, in part, whether sentences are understood as RST or narration, it also determines, in part, whether the simple past tense/past progressive alternation correlates with foreground and background material, respectively. Reinhart argues convincingly that the foreground/background distinction is better conceived in terms of temporal/non-temporal information rather than in terms of important/unimportant information.
