Theories of meaning in the field : Temporal and aspectual reference

Over the past three decades, theories of meaning have increasingly become informed by empiricalgeneralizations based on data gathered in fieldwork with theoretically untrained native speakers.This paper discusses the interplay between theory and fieldwork in the study of meaning. Specif-ically, we argue that i) theory can guide fieldwork on meaning and when it does, more compre-hensive meaning descriptions result, and ii) theoretically-informed descriptions are instrumental toimproving theories of meaning, and to uncovering language universals and variation. We argue for