Nous sommes il y a cent ans. Essai de solution d’un paradoxe
Nous sommes il y a cent ans. A Possible Solution to a Paradox

Summary/Abstract: Utterances like We are now X years ago are frequent and speakers hardly pay attention to them. However, if we consider their literal meaning, they are contradictory as they seem to express that the present conveyed by now is situated X years before the coding time. The aim of this paper is to solve the paradox, by showing that the interpretation of this kind of utterances is more complex than it seems at first sight and that it is achieved in two steps: a) the phrase X years ago expresses in a metonymic way the representation (verbal or iconic) of the situation from X years ago; b) then, the non-deictic usage of this phrase is turned into an “objective” date (We are now 220 years ago → We are now in 1789) and the coding time is fictively synchronized with this phrase.

• Details
• Contents