Aspect and temporality in the Romanian past compound

Abstract

In this paper, I analyse the Romanian past compound, from temporal and aspectual viewpoint, and I foreshadow that the rewrite condition is a must for the mentioned tense. Starting from Hornstein’s (1993) BTS (Basic Tense Structure), I believe that Romanian past compound can have multiple values, and in many situations its core value, the present perfect, must be either extended or reduced, depending on the scope of the CC (Complex Clause). I reflect about the dubitative meaning of the past compound, more precisely about its impact on perfectivity, how our mind processes time without the proper modification of the tense head. I differentiate 4 types of aspects and I add some tense values to the original classification made by Călărașu (1987); these values are based on different types of clausal arguments, for example the past perfect value of the past compound. The paper also focuses on the hidden meaning of operators, foreshadowing that at S-structure these operators might have a greater influence for TAM marking than an event variable. Many times, the perspective is based on hypothesised situations, in order to illustrate temporal and aspectual conflicts.