This paper investigates the semantics of Portuguese past tenses, focusing on their indexical behavior. I show that under certain circumstances, even when they are used anaphorically and refer to a contextually salient interval, these past tense heads can denote intervals that do not precede the speech time. I argue that the best way to capture this behavior is to construe its presupposition as a shiftable indexical (Schlenker 2003; Anand 2006), with a meaning roughly paraphrasable as ‘earlier than τ(c)’, with τ(c) being set to some context (attitude-like) time, not necessarily the speech time. I also argue that non-anaphoric uses of the Portuguese verb form called Pretérito Perfeito should be analyzed as present tense + perfect aspect combinations, as was suggested in Giorgi and Pianesi (1998). In particular I show that Portuguese instantiates what is called double access readings in past under past configurations that mimic the more well known cases involving embedded present tenses in attitudinal contexts (Abusch 1997; Ogihara 1996, inter alia). keywords: double-accessibility; indexicality; past tenses; perfect; Portuguese

中文翻译：

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葡萄牙语过去时的索引性

本文研究了葡萄牙语过去时的语义，重点是它们的索引行为。我表明，在某些情况下，即使过去时使用它们并指的是上下文显着间隔，这些过去时的头也可以表示不在语音时间之前的间隔。我认为，捕获此行为的最佳方法是将其前提假设为可移动的索引（Schlenker 2003； Anand 2006），其含义可以粗略地解释为“早于τ（c）”，而τ（c）设置为一些上下文（类似态度）的时间，不一定是语音时间。我也认为，应该将葡萄牙语动词形式PretéritoPerfeito的非照应性使用作为现在时+完美方面的组合进行分析，正如Giorgi和Pianesi（1998）所建议的那样。我特别指出，葡萄牙语在过去的配置下实例化了过去所谓的“两次阅读”，该配置模仿了在情境中涉及嵌入当前时态的更为著名的案例（Abusch 1997； Ogihara 1996，等等）。关键字：双重可及性；公证性 过去词; 完善; 葡萄牙语