German temporal connectives

Lexical entries for the German until words of Karttunen's chart (37): the durative bis, which has no punctual negative-polarity use with a phrase (his footnote records an incipient one before a clause), and erst 'only then', the positive polarity item that carries the punctual until's presupposition of lateness (his (38)). Giannakidou finds Dutch tot and pas patterning the same way.

References

• [Kar74b]
• [Gia02]

def German.TemporalConnectives.bis : Tense.Connective

bis is the durative 'until', as in die Prinzessin schlief bis 9 Uhr 'the princess slept until nine'.

Equations

• German.TemporalConnectives.bis = { form := "bis", relation := Tense.Connective.Relation.until_ }

def German.TemporalConnectives.erst : Tense.Connective

erst 'only then' is the punctual 'until' of a positive clause, as in die Prinzessin wachte erst um 9 Uhr auf 'the princess did not wake up until nine', which entails a waking at nine and does not combine with negation.

Equations

• German.TemporalConnectives.erst = { form := "erst", relation := Tense.Connective.Relation.until_ }