Temporal relations in North Sámi ECM constructions

Abstract

The embedded verb in North Sámi ECM-constructions can appear in one of three different forms: past participle, progressive and infinitive. The existing descriptions of North Sámi say that the past participle places the embedded event before the higher event, that the progressive (traditionally called aktio essive) expresses temporal coincidence with the higher event, and that the infinitive normally gets a future interpretation, but it might also coincide temporally with the higher clause. This paper shows that although these generalisations are mostly correct, variation in the temporal interpretation of ECM complement clauses can be caused by a number of factors. In particular, the semantics of the matrix verb and the aspectual properties of the lower verb can influence the temporal relation between the matrix event and the embedded event. In addition, temporal adverbials can shift or fix the time of the embedded event.