On the semantics of temporal when - clauses ∗

This paper is about non-interrogative temporal embedded clauses introduced by when (temporal when-clauses), their semantic interpretation and their syntax/semantics mapping. Our goal is to provide a fully compositional account of temporal when-clauses that accounts for their formal identity with interrogative clauses and their difference in meaning. The main idea is that temporal when-clauses are syntactically and semantically free relative clauses. Previous syntactic analyses (Grimshaw 1977, Bresnan & Grimshaw 1978, a.o.) have provided robust support to the syntactic side of this claim. On the other hand, the semantic proposals for temporal when-clauses that we are aware of (Bonomi 1997, Vikner 2004, Moens & Steedman 1988) have ignored these syntactic conclusions and have argued for analyses that are problematic for the syntactic/semantic mapping. These semantic analyses are also not fully adequate in handling the interpretative properties of temporal when-clauses. We provide evidence from the distributional and interpretive properties of when-clauses as well as from the temporal alignment of the matrix clause with the when-clause that supports our analysis.