Time in Natural Language investigates the relationship between the syntactic and semantic representations of sentences within the Minimalist Program. Thompson proposes an analysis which brings together the semantic theory of tense developed by Reichenbach and the syntactic representation proposed in contemporary generative grammar. By introducing a novel principle for the mapping from the meaning to the structure of time, Thompson is able to account for a wide variety of constructions involving temporal expressions.

Ellen Thompsonis Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the English Department, Florida International University, Miami, USA.