[Sha03]: Embedded Tense and Universal Grammar

[Sha03] [Abu97] [Ogi96]

Sharvit (Linguistic Inquiry 34(4), 2003) observes a cross-linguistic correlation between (a) the obligatoriness of utterance-time reference for present-under-past sentences and (b) the availability of a "vacuous" past tense in complement clauses. She proposes the Embeddability Principle (EP): any well-formed matrix LF must be embeddable under an attitude verb. The EP excludes "type 4" languages (no SOT rule + matrix-indexical present), predicting the attested typology of SOT/non-SOT and English/Hebrew/Modern Greek.

Empirical anchors (verified vs PDF)

• (1) "A week ago, John decided that in ten days, at breakfast, he would tell his mother that he missed her." — multiply-embedded SOT, nonpast + anteriority readings.
• (2) "John believed that Mary was pregnant." — past-under-past, both readings.
• (3) "John believed that Mary is pregnant." — present-under-past, ONLY double-access reading.
• (4a)/(4b) "Two years ago, Sally found out that Mary was/is pregnant." — diagnostic asymmetry from pregnancy-duration mismatch with double access.
• (5)/(6) Hebrew non-SOT minimal pair: embedded PRES gives nonpast, embedded PAST gives only anteriority.

Scope of the Reichenbach frames below

The frames cover the embedded-present-under-future shape (close to Sharvit's (3) but with future matrix). The (R,E)-frame cannot fully capture present-under-past double-access — see the JSON's ex3 for the empirical content. The Hebrew minimal pair (Sharvit's (5)/(6)) lives entirely in the JSON; structurally the past-form and present-form would produce identical (R,E)-frames so encoding the contrast as separate Lean defs would be vacuous.

def Sharvit2003.matrixWillSay : Time.ReichenbachFrame ℤ

Matrix "John will say..." — future tense, perfective.

Equations

• Sharvit2003.matrixWillSay = { speechTime := 0, perspectiveTime := 0, referenceTime := 3, eventTime := 3 }

def Sharvit2003.embeddedPresentUnderFuture : Time.ReichenbachFrame ℤ

Embedded present under future "Mary is sick" — sickness at the future saying time, R = P relative to the shifted perspective.

Equations

• Sharvit2003.embeddedPresentUnderFuture = Tense.embeddedFrame Sharvit2003.matrixWillSay 3 3

theorem Sharvit2003.matrixWillSayIsFuture : matrixWillSay.isFuture

Matrix frame satisfies isFuture (R > P).

theorem Sharvit2003.embeddedPresentUnderFutureIsPresent : embeddedPresentUnderFuture.isPresent

Embedded present under future: R = P relative to shifted perspective.