Deictic projection: An inquiry into the future‐oriented past tense in Persian*

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which the Persian past tense form is projected into the future to designate events, states, and processes. While it must be admitted that the phenomenon under consideration is by no means confined to Persian, its examination in this language will reveal certain characteristics which are likely to contribute to a better understanding of how temporal deixis, together with aspectual and modal meanings, interact with contextual factors to yield socio-culturally relevant utterances. Of special theoretical interest in this respect are the semantic-pragmatic constraints levied, in varying degrees, on the projected tense in terms of negation, pronominal choice, speech act assignment, aspectual character, modal status, and pitch contour.Fundamental to the present study are three assumptions. First, the deictic projection at issue has pragmatic motivations, and, in addition, stems largely from the ontological asymmetry between pastness and futurity. Second, it has an indisputable edge over the other future-indicating devices available to Persian speakers in that it denotes factivity with respect to the occurrence of a situation. And third, it is stylistically marked as it digresses from the normal function of the past tense.

The grammaticalization of prospective aspect in a group of Neo-Aramaic dialects

“…(Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994: 255-256) The question remains of what precisely is achieved by using a past tense in this way and why the normal strategies for the future are not used. Tavangar & Amouzadeh (2006), focusing on the Persian case, suggest the reason can be found in the assymetry of past and future time reference. Unlike the future, which is uncertain and speculative, the past is closed: "statements about the past are either true or false when uttered" (Tavangar & Amouzadeh 2006: 107).…”

“…The Persian data is from Moshiri (1988: 32-33) and Alireza Khormaei (p.c.). Cf Tavangar & Amouzadeh (2006). on this usage as well as other future-oriented uses of the past tense in Persian.38.…”