This paper provides a formal semantic analysis of past interpretation in Medumba (Grassfields Bantu), a graded tense language. Based on original fieldwork, the study explores the empirical behavior and meaning contribution of graded past morphemes in Medumba and relates these to the account of the phenomenon proposed in Cable (Nat Lang Semant 21:219–276, 2013) for Gĩkũyũ. Investigation reveals that the behavior of Medumba gradedness markers differs from that of their Gĩkũyũ counterparts in meaningful ways and, more broadly, discourages an analysis as presuppositional eventuality or reference time modifiers. Instead, the Medumba markers are most appropriately analyzed as quantificational tenses. It also turns out that Medumba, though belonging to the typological class of graded tense languages, shows intriguing similarities to genuinely tenseless languages in allowing for temporally unmarked sentences and exploiting aspectual and pragmatic cues for reference time resolution. The more general cross-linguistic implication of the study is that the set of languages often subsumed under the label “graded tense” does not in fact form a natural class and that more case-by-case research is needed to refine this category.

中文翻译：

---

Medumba的过去解释和分级时态

本文提供了一种分级时态语言Medumba（Grassfields Bantu）中过去解释的形式语义分析。在原始田野调查的基础上，本研究探索了Medumba中分级过去的语素的经验行为和意义贡献，并将其与Cable提出的Gĩkũyũ现象的解释（Nat Lang Semant 21：219–276，2013）联系起来。调查表明，Medumba梯度标记的行为在有意义的方式上不同于其Gĩkyy对应标记，并且更广泛地说，不鼓励将分析作为假设性的偶然性或参考时间修饰语。取而代之的是，Medumba标记最适合作为定量时态进行分析。事实证明，Medumba虽然属于分级时态语言的类型学类别，在允许暂时不加标记的句子以及利用方面和实用的提示进行参考时间分辨率方面，显示出与真正的时态语言的有趣相似之处。该研究的更广泛的跨语言含义是，经常被归入“渐变时态”标签下的那组语言实际上并不构成自然类别，并且需要更多个案研究来完善这一类别。